"Massive GRIFTER!" Piers Morgan Grills Russell Brand On Allegations, Prison, 'Truth' & Religion

0:00 Let's come to this.

0:01 Save your save your best lines.

0:02 Look, I know we're both English, but do you mind if I pray?

0:06 Sure.

0:06 Before

0:07 Oh, God.

0:08 Help us have a

0:09 I don't know where the truth lies.

0:11 You're going to basically go through a process which could end

0:15 up with you going to prison for a long period of time.

0:18 I did sleep with a 16-year-old [music] when I was 30.

0:22 Here in New York, it would have been a crime.

0:23 We are going to find out the truth.

0:25 And if [music] the truth is I am going to prison,

0:29 my job will be do [music] not be afraid of that truth.

0:32 This Bible actually I think was this one you took into court.

0:34 What were the relevant passages for you?

0:36 All right.

0:37 Thank you for asking.

0:41 This is the first interview done with any Brits delegations.

0:44 You are slightly hyper sensitive to anyone challenging

0:47 you cuz most of the media you do,

0:48 you don't really get challenged.

0:51 Excuse me.

0:55 Amidst the rape allegations,

0:57 the shagger of the year titles do not seem quite as valuable.

1:01 Some of the shines come off.

1:02 You only became a Christian 7 months after the allegations were made public.

1:07 You worked out that this could give you some kind of cover.

1:10 You know, there are people who think you're basically just a massive grifter.

1:13 No, that's what they say about you.

1:14 [music] Actually, here is good.

1:16 Calm down and slow down.

1:18 It's a serious question.

1:18 I want to you to calm down and slow down.

1:21 this sense that you were somehow singled out, targeted deliberately.

1:25 A lot of people think that's honestly[ __]

1:28 I can't actually find the verse that I that I had that day.

1:31 You were an atheist.

1:33 What are we going to be next?

1:34 Muslim.

1:34 That's what some people think.

1:38 Hitler.

1:38 What do you think about Hitler?

1:41 Russell Brand means many things to many people.

1:43 He's the boisterous comic with a silver tongue and a savage wit.

1:46 He's the eccentric British movie star with big words and even bigger hair.

1:50 To some, he's a fearless truth seeker, to others an oddball conspiracist.

1:54 But whether he's reviled or revered,

1:57 and it's usually one or the other, almost everybody finds him fascinating.

2:01 And in recent years,

2:03 his mutual embrace of MAGA in America has kept people guessing.

2:07 So too has the very public conversion to Christianity,

2:10 which forms the subject of his new book.

2:12 And surrounding it all, of course,

2:13 are the very grave allegations that he's now fighting.

2:17 All of which will make for, I'm sure, a very interesting, uncensored interview.

2:21 Russell Brand joins me now.

2:23 Russell, good to see you.

2:25 It's good to see you, too.

2:26 It's sort of weird to see you in this context

2:28 because I first interviewed you in 2006, 20 years ago.

2:33 We sat and did a uporious interview for GQ.

2:36 I'll come to that in a moment.

2:37 We did another big one for ITV,

2:40 for my life story show about your whole extraordinary life.

2:43 We did a big one at CNN here in New

2:46 York when your divorce from Katy Perry was just coming through.

2:51 So, I feel like I've been around your world, your orbit,

2:54 and I've seen you at lots of events and things along the way as well,

2:58 but I don't really know you.

2:59 Like, I I know a bit about you and I know you in a media context.

3:05 I don't really know you.

3:06 I wouldn't consider myself to be your friend um or somebody

3:10 that has an intimate knowledge of what you're really like.

3:13 And one of the more interesting things about you, I would say,

3:16 is that I don't know where the truth lies about these allegations.

3:24 And I don't want to try and find out whether I'm,

3:27 you know, my instincts are one way or another.

3:31 We can't talk about what's coming in October, the case, for legal reasons.

3:35 It wouldn't feel right to me anyway to talk about

3:37 it because you've got to go through the due process.

3:41 But as we sit here, you're innocent till proven guilty.

3:44 I believe fundamentally in that principle.

3:47 You're entitled to due process.

3:49 And to those who will criticize, as I'm sure some will,

3:52 the mere fact I'm giving you a platform and interviewing you,

3:55 I say that this matters.

3:57 That due process matters.

3:59 The the presumption of innocence until proven guilty matters.

4:03 And so in the context of that, I'm very happy to to talk to you.

4:08 But given I've known you so long,

4:10 my my first question is just how are you feeling about the fact

4:14 that in a few months time in a Southeast

4:19 London courtroom with 12 jurors sitting there,

4:24 you're going to basically over a period

4:26 of about two months go through a process which

4:30 could end up with you going to prison

4:33 for a long period of time if you're convicted.

4:36 It's hard to imagine on a human level a more tumultuous thing to happen to you,

4:41 not even given what you've been through in your life.

4:44 So, how are you feeling about it?

4:46 tumultuous is a perfect word because it is like a storm

4:49 and sometimes I feel like I'm comfortable in the eye

4:54 of a storm where there can be calm and um

4:58 at least the capacity to observe and at other times

5:02 it feels all consuming and frightening and pressurizing like a storm

5:12 also would be in almost every conce conceivable way is

5:18 I was just thinking as you did that introduction I

5:20 reckon you write your stuff yourself do you write the introduction

5:23 I have a right oh well when you sort of the the the sort

5:26 of variation that was introduced like he's revered or reviled and

5:33 um some I feel like I'm all those things

5:35 like a trutht teller or silver tongue comet

5:38 and wow what's so when you I think it's

5:41 a really good place to begin one you know how

5:43 are you feeling and also the prince principle

5:45 of presumed the presumption of innocence because I think we

5:50 are living in a hazy fluxy time where people

5:53 are very uncertain about truth in the broadest possible way.

5:56 People are very uncertain about information in a way that's uh feels like we're

6:00 all on a navigating a quick sand and a new territory and a new terrain.

6:05 And what I'm uh most interested in and what feels resonant to me and I

6:09 I enjoy and appreciate at least your declaration

6:12 of a kind of a lack of intimacy.

6:14 And the reason for the lack of intimacy is I

6:16 feel that in a way peers because we're both English,

6:20 we're around the same age and we've both been in and around media.

6:25 I sort of see in you this kind of don't take because

6:27 I'm going to play exactly the same thing to myself to myself.

6:30 this kind of cockroach power of like moving

6:33 through these dreadful dreadful worlds and somehow here you

6:37 still are on online with your own show

6:41 riding the wave of how media is operating now.

6:44 People don't get to do that if they're a nobody.

6:47 People don't get to do that if they

6:49 don't have I would say certainly tenacity and strength.

6:52 But when I was a kid I used to watch that show like most people

6:55 did a lot of people at least the word and I remember you being on there.

6:58 you were young man.

6:59 I bet you was 30.

6:59 I think it was even when you were still showbiz at Bazaar,

7:03 which the son there prior to being the mirror editor.

7:06 And um I remember my mate at the time,

7:09 we're like ptheads and that like saying I like him like he

7:12 was saying when we're famous cuz we weren't and he still isn't.

7:15 God love him though, but why not?

7:16 Cuz that's another thing about when you move through many worlds,

7:18 you see who are the people that make it?

7:20 Who are the ones that get churned up?

7:21 Who are the ones that get elevated?

7:22 Who are the ones that get destroyed?

7:23 Who are the ones that get investigated?

7:24 Who are the ones that don't?

7:25 Who are the ones where the presumption of innocence is retained?

7:29 Who are the ones where the presumption of innocence is stripped away?

7:32 And my mate, he went, I like that, Piers Morgan.

7:35 And I liked you too.

7:38 Like I just there's a person on the TV

7:40 on the word sat behind a panel probably judging some audacious

7:44 and absurd thing because the word was all about people

7:46 exposing their genitals and sort of the late night vulgarity.

7:50 It was also sort of a kind of TV masterpiece, wasn't it really?

7:53 Anyway, then you I would read the sun every day.

7:56 I would read the sun every day and read your shows, beers, columns.

8:00 I kind of really like that.

8:01 And then when I sort of saw how you had mo maneuvered through these worlds,

8:05 you know, becoming mirror editor as a very young man,

8:07 weren't you in your 30s and like and I

8:10 know that Robert Murdoch that Mephostoilian figure that m

8:14 that timeless man about about whom someone once told

8:17 me because I go tell me something unique about Murdoch.

8:19 Why is he the person he is?

8:21 And he goes this person goes he lives like he's never going to die

8:23 and if some decision don't go his way he's patient and he's cool.

8:27 Oh the merger's not worked out it will work out.

8:30 That's the power that a man can have to in the case of Rupert Murder one

8:34 would say influence significantly the trajectory of a nation

8:38 even in matters such as elections or wars.

8:41 And so in a sense peers of course as like Russell Brand from Grace Essics,

8:49 some bloke who was a crackhead and a heroin addict who married Katy Perry

8:53 who's now really just a married dad

8:56 of free but also deeply fascinated with truth.

9:01 I am fascinated with truth and I believe such a thing is possible.

9:06 I don't believe in the postructuralism.

9:08 I don't believe that.

9:09 No.

9:09 Well, everyone's got their own subjective truth because I believe in God.

9:12 Now, so with something like this impending trial,

9:15 which you've sort of when we were chatting

9:17 before described as the elephant in the room.

9:19 Yeah.

9:19 It's a like it's sort of awesome.

9:22 And I mean that literally.

9:24 I mean it induces a terrifying glorious awe because

9:30 like you look at the news the whole time, right?

9:32 And I'll look at a story like what's what many people would refer

9:37 to and you would refer to as a genocide in Gaza and I think

9:42 wow we consume so much information now I find it hard even to connect

9:46 with the human beings like I I can't take it when I see

9:50 and this individual father has lost

9:51 this individual child when it gets that close

9:54 you know I can't really even take it and say a story like

9:57 this one because how I have a strong instinct and a man I'd

10:01 love to have the conversation I could have with you about how media operates,

10:04 how media selects, how media deselects, how media targets,

10:08 that media is not neutral, particularly traditional conventional media.

10:13 We're doing this interview in an Associated Press studio.

10:15 The Associated Press is a sort

10:16 of a bastion of neutrality with how it's regarded.

10:19 But if you investigate the inception and funding of the Associated Press,

10:23 you will discover that it's like all media.

10:25 It has a telos, an intention, a function.

10:28 It's there for a reason.

10:30 And you and me, we've lived in that world.

10:32 We know things a lot of people don't know.

10:34 You know, stories that if they were printed would blow

10:36 some of the world's biggest stars out of the water forever.

10:40 We know that.

10:41 We live in that world.

10:42 And more and beyond celebrity gossip, even though gosh,

10:45 to this day, people are fascinated and allured by it.

10:48 Important stuff, man, about corruption and the world's most powerful people.

10:52 We know it.

10:53 And it's hard to communicate it.

10:54 Sometimes it's difficult to corroborate it.

10:56 Sometimes it's imprudent to say it because of personal reasons.

11:00 You've got to survive in this world.

11:01 you have survived in this world.

11:03 Where I am now is I feel like I've been on trial my whole life anyway.

11:05 The whole thing's been a trial.

11:06 I'm just some kid from graves.

11:08 I've been a heroin addict.

11:09 I'm only child of a single mother.

11:11 The whole thing's a trial.

11:13 I go to jail.

11:14 I The thing is I I believe in God.

11:18 I've always believed in God.

11:20 It is different to believe in Jesus.

11:21 It is different.

11:22 And I'm really aware that um some people just think it's Have you thought I mean

11:27 have you thought about the reality of losing your liberty?

11:33 Yes.

11:32 Of you know night one in a cell and that's

11:35 going to be your life for a few years.

11:36 In other words, the worst case scenario

11:39 which everybody who faces a criminal trial has to contemplate

11:42 and all of us all the time of course every day.

11:45 And have you thought about that moment if

11:46 that clanking door shuts and you lose your liberty how you would deal with that?

11:52 I will be with God wherever I am.

11:54 And of course I would prefer to be with God with my wife and my kids.

11:59 But if see this is this is what I have to do.

12:02 I'm not saying that that's not a difficult

12:04 image you know and a difficult thing to contemplate.

12:06 Of course it is.

12:07 But in fact, actually what I was trying to get to, but I recognize I you know

12:09 I piouette some when I start talking was

12:12 the hardest thing is knowing that in spite of all

12:15 the the um the potential reasons that I am

12:18 in this situation that there are people in this world

12:21 that feel so agrieved about their contact with me

12:24 that they are willing to go through this process.

12:26 That is a very difficult thing to countenance and a a real

12:31 uh challenge and something that in whatever ways are necessary

12:35 must be addressed and it is comforting to think that there

12:38 could be justice that there could be we are going to find

12:41 out the truth and we're going to deal with the truth

12:44 because actually I am not afraid of the truth and if

12:48 the truth is I am going to prison then I'm I

12:53 my job will be do not be afraid of that truth.

12:56 That is what you are going to do.

12:57 When I interviewed you for GQ, I went and found him yesterday.

13:00 Oh yeah.

13:00 Oh my word.

13:01 20 literally 20 years ago.

13:02 It was March 2006.

13:04 We met at a trendy beastro near Tottenham Court Road in London.

13:08 That was the first time I'd ever interviewed you.

13:10 You were 31 at the time.

13:14 Wow.

13:13 And I was quite gushing.

13:14 I said I assumed I'd find Brand irritating, pointless, and easy target.

13:18 But I was wrong.

13:19 He was charming, articulate, outrageous, and very, very funny.

13:22 We roamed through two hours through his extraordinary life.

13:25 a non-stop orgy of comedy, drugs, bulimia, hookers,

13:28 for inner bed romps, and celebrity bed notches.

13:32 Uh, and then for some reason I asked you halfway through,

13:35 are you a more successful sexual predator now that you don't drink?

13:39 And you replied, yes, but I resent the word predator.

13:43 I like to think of myself as a conduit of natural forces.

13:46 After all, the most natural thing in the world

13:49 for people to do is[ __] isn't it?

13:51 And people want to do it.

13:52 So all you have to do is remove all the reasons

13:54 why women don't actually go through with it like pride and reputation.

13:58 You just have to unpick the condition

14:00 stopping women going straight to bed with you.

14:04 That sounds like um charm, seduction, game.

14:06 Do you remember the the era immediately prior to this one?

14:09 And one would have to accept that me too red addressed

14:15 in 2015 when that happened a dreadful imbalance in male female power dynamics.

14:21 that it's good that there's a an ongoing

14:23 conversation and that some of the corruption

14:25 and exploitation in that is being exposed and explored and what that was there

14:30 at 31 man that was I forget because become being famous has been for me

14:34 it sounds like you enjoy it more than I do but for me it's been like

14:37 there's a double-edged sword for everyone

14:38 I don't know like I mean there's bits I really liked and what that I

14:41 can hear in that lovely piece of writing is that I was into it

14:46 and I forget that now like even talking to you about football can be hard

14:49 cuz I really love West Ham That's my like when I was a little boy,

14:52 I went there as a teenager and then suddenly I'm

14:54 in the with Cameron Brady and I'm with the the Sullivan, you know,

14:59 and but now because like I have a different view of the culture now,

15:04 peers and I'm afraid like I regard it as evil in in a way.

15:08 I think fame can be one of the most insidious drugs of all.

15:12 Certainly it is.

15:12 And but what is it?

15:13 the craving that people have for it and then actually the cold hard reality

15:19 of how it warps a lot of people's values, a lot of the way that they behave.

15:25 Yes.

15:25 All those things I see it all the time.

15:27 Yes.

15:27 What does it do to I mean and also what it's like any drug.

15:30 I think it's like any drug.

15:31 It's like cocaine.

15:32 It's like all these things.

15:33 It is a drug that people crave it and they want more and more

15:37 of it and then there's usually at some

15:39 stage unless they're incredibly strong, mentally strong.

15:43 There's normally a tipping point where the reality

15:46 of big fame hits hard and you know the show

15:50 business is littered with the professional carcasses of people

15:54 that then couldn't deal with the downside of it.

15:56 Maybe if we replace the word drug with stimulant,

15:59 it becomes clearer to understand that you are stimulated by your own fame,

16:03 by your own reputation.

16:04 Now, even a person that's not famous, and obviously most people aren't,

16:07 except for Warho's pre perspeacious and proverbial 15 minutes,

16:12 which of course has happened now.

16:15 All of us have the idea that pe there's an object

16:18 of ourselves that people are commenting on, a facade, a mask.

16:22 Obviously, the word hypocrite comes from mask wearer.

16:25 Now, you have an identity in public.

16:28 I have an identity in public.

16:29 And what I can hear there, man, and it it warms me is I was being 100% honest.

16:35 And I'm being 100% honest now.

16:37 I'm not afraid of the truth.

16:38 So, if justice is real, if telling the truth is how a person's meant to operate.

16:42 I was telling the truth then, and I I can sort of I can feel that.

16:45 I mean, 31, you know, it's that sounds like a 19-year-old really,

16:49 but I was stunted in many ways like a lot of crackheads and smackheads.

16:53 you kind of formaldi formaldahhide yourself

16:56 in addiction somewhat and that's like

16:58 someone that's I I I remember the rush of first becoming famous

17:03 of the glory of it not only the superficial glory of like going

17:07 from being poor to not being poor and going to like oh it's embarrassing

17:12 and difficult to chop women to oh my god look at this like

17:15 the but also the sense that a world that had been saying no

17:18 no no you can't no you can't suddenly were saying yes like yes

17:21 yes you can have a TV show yes you can be on the radio.

17:23 Yes, you can have a book.

17:24 Yes, you can.

17:24 Yes.

17:25 Like, it was sort of beautiful.

17:26 There was something about it was amazing.

17:27 I mean, creatively, I mean, like that to be able to do, you know,

17:30 to have an interview with you and to opine

17:32 and for someone to care when you've felt very small all

17:35 your life like I think a lot of people probably

17:37 do because I think this world makes you feel small.

17:40 Indeed, makes you feel irrelevant.

17:41 just like like if I'm not famous, if I'm not import,

17:44 if I'm not sleeping around or driving this car,

17:46 look at I'm sort of really curious about like say the the thing

17:50 with you and the lad HS tick-talkie and and Andrew Tate,

17:54 these sort of new the new stars that are post the era that you and I are from.

17:59 I sometimes I really highly regard their boldness

18:03 in both even in both of the instances just cited.

18:05 They're bold men.

18:07 I like that.

18:08 But they are still advocating for a set of values

18:10 that clearly I advocated for in a somewhat more

18:12 camp way even then that if you aren't sleeping

18:15 around with a bunch of women you ain't worth much.

18:17 And oh I really if I can get one thing across to you

18:20 today I want it to be that being in Christ and like

18:24 being in God it gives me the strength to recognize oh yeah

18:29 you might have to go to jail but people go to jail.

18:31 That's the thing that happens to people in the world

18:33 and people go to jail that shouldn't have gone to jail.

18:35 What what's what I find most sort of interesting when I read that GQ thing,

18:41 it was like all the things I said,

18:43 it was highly entertaining, made me laugh out loud.

18:45 It did again when I read it the other day,

18:47 but obviously you read it with a slightly

18:48 different context given what's happened to you.

18:51 You're very like honest, open, brazen, some might say.

18:56 You admitted you slept with thousands of women,

18:59 sometimes two at a time, three at a time.

19:02 You were very like, "This is all a bit of a laugh.

19:05 and you were taking a lot of drugs through the late 90s, early 2000s.

19:10 And my question for you is that obviously you're facing these serious charges.

19:14 Obviously, you've been emphatic and consistently emphatic in your denials

19:19 that you've done anything criminal and that anything was non was non-consensual,

19:23 which will be the key determinant of your of your liberty actually,

19:27 whether a jury agrees that this was all consensual.

19:33 you know putting aside the morality aspect and we'll

19:35 come to that which is an interesting different discussion

19:37 but it's not about crime morality it's a it's

19:41 called a public opinion perhaps but it's a different thing

19:44 but my question I think looking back on it and the lifestyle that you've

19:48 talked about very openly now looking back on that and saying look I was out

19:52 of control taking all these drugs sleeping with all these whatever is how can

19:56 you be sure that your own memory is good is sound is reliable is truthful.

20:04 Most people who slept with thousands of women and taken

20:08 barrel loads of drugs and led this incredibly hedonistic lifestyle,

20:13 I would think if I interviewed them and asked

20:14 them to name even what year it was, would struggle to remember.

20:19 Can you be certain if you're honest

20:21 that your memory is completely sound, accurate?

20:26 Do you remember half this stuff?

20:29 Well, yes, I can be honest.

20:30 It's a relevant question, isn't it?

20:31 Of course it is.

20:32 Yes, I can be honest and I am honest and I think what's

20:37 an important distinction is that I was a drug addict prior to becoming famous.

20:42 So that was a very different rhythm and time and I

20:45 think your question was has it made you a more successful predator

20:47 and even then I objected to the idea of predation as persecuto

20:52 but predation as simply an amplification

20:54 of looking for something with intention.

20:57 And the reason I wasn't famous when I was still

21:00 using drugs pers is because when I was a drug addict,

21:02 I was an unviable economic proposition for potential media partners.

21:08 The reason that I was I'm able to remember is something that I think

21:12 is sort of quite essential is that I'm telling the truth in that GQ

21:16 article amidst the sort of flamboyance and the evident hydonic is a person

21:24 that was looking for a lot of attention and approval and love and connection.

21:29 Now, that doesn't mean that there weren't

21:32 clumsiness and that there wasn't selfishness and uh

21:37 objectification and lots of things that to your point

21:39 about there being a moral distinction.

21:41 Flat out wrong.

21:44 But it's very different term than a kind of a baldy

21:48 um overbearing oppressive controlling like you know obviously I'm aware

21:53 of the sort of claims that were made publicly

21:54 in the documentary and I'm not sure to which degree what makes

21:57 part of this so complicated is this all happened subsequent

22:01 to a documentary and you know as a journalist that journalists

22:05 are not held to the same level of um um I

22:10 want to say integrity as an investigator of a legal matter.

22:14 uh that if you're a journalist talking to someone like even

22:16 you now you know how to navigate me into certain positions.

22:20 If you were talking to someone or a hundred someone's or 500 people saying

22:25 look you slept with Russell Brand what happened well someone else has told me

22:29 this like you know like it's it's quite easy in a non-legal and non-judicial

22:35 setting to induce encourage and direct people

22:38 to look at things in a particular way.

22:40 And I think once that artifact has been made,

22:42 I'm certainly not making claims about the criminal judicial system,

22:45 which I like you believe will provide a a just outcome,

22:49 a just outcome because ultimately, you know, I think whatever outcome occurs,

22:53 like as you say, I have to I have to live with that and will do

22:59 obviously.

22:59 Um, but how does one remember?

23:01 Yes, it is a long time ago.

23:02 But firstly, I was never drinking or taking drugs.

23:04 I think people conflate because some of the films I played,

23:06 I played drug addicts and drug users and stuff.

23:08 Frankly, all of the films I made,

23:10 there wasn't an enormous range um at hand there in that film career there.

23:15 But the reason I remember is because I remember because I was there

23:18 because I'm present and because the whole thing was very live and alive.

23:21 I I have a I have a good I have a good memory

23:24 and particularly obviously this is something I've had to reflect on and go

23:28 you you were clean from 2002.

23:31 December the 13th, 2002 is the date I got

23:34 some of the [clears throat] allegations go back to 99.

23:36 So there must have been some crossover.

23:38 Well, without wanting to get into the specificity of the criminal matter,

23:44 um that's not generally the complexion.

23:49 And um in the variation from that generality,

23:56 there are other indicators that make it clear that my memory is reliable.

24:04 The interesting thing I was listening to Megan

24:07 your Megan Kelly interview yesterday and it's blown up.

24:09 We're both in New York and you know it's blown up big in America today.

24:13 Um a lot of people commenting about this.

24:15 Let's play the clip for those who haven't heard it.

24:19 In Europe and in the United Kingdom where I'm from, the age of consent is 16.

24:23 And I did sleep with a 16year-old when I was 30.

24:28 But when I was 30, I was a very different person.

24:31 I was a lot younger and I was an immature 30-year-old.

24:35 Consensual sex actually with a variety of people when there

24:39 is a strong power differential as there is when you're

24:42 a famous man that has the ability to attract women

24:44 that I had at that time I think involves exploitation.

24:53 Now what's been interesting is the way that's played

24:55 out because you were right in what you said.

24:58 It was perfectly legal for you to have sex with a 16y old girl in the UK.

25:03 That's the law in America.

25:06 In here in New York, for example, the age of consent is 17.

25:10 So here it would have been a crime had you done that here.

25:14 But I looked at every state in America because I thought it

25:17 was an interesting I saw some people commenting on this on social media.

25:21 In about 30 states in America, the age of consent is 16, the same as UK.

25:25 I'm not even sure most Americans are aware of that.

25:28 About another dozen states, it's 17.

25:30 Another dozen or so, it's it's 18.

25:33 So there's no uniformity around America,

25:35 but actually in the majority of states in America,

25:38 it's the same as the United Kingdom and therefore would not be a crime.

25:41 Now again, people can take a moral view about it.

25:45 I think you took a moral view about what you were doing then.

25:48 Interestingly, the GQ interview happened when you were about that age.

25:51 Yeah.

25:51 So it was going on then.

25:53 And you use the word exploitative.

25:56 Some people I've seen latch on to this and say, "Well,

26:00 yeah, so he's, you know, he knows what he's doing is wrong.

26:03 He knows that that was wrong." What is that line for you between exploiting

26:10 as a 30-year-old man a 16year-old girl

26:14 to the point where it becomes criminal potentially?

26:17 What is that line for you?

26:20 I suppose it's consent, peers, right?

26:22 that the age of consent means in varying ways in different

26:28 places people have a understanding which

26:32 probably isn't wholly accurate and reliable

26:35 that at a certain age a person is able to make

26:39 a consensual decision to smoke a cigarette or vote or have

26:43 sex or gamble and these things vary according to jurisdiction

26:47 and type of law and in the place where I was both

26:51 emotionally and spiritually and geographically that was a legal thing

26:55 to be doing but not a morally sound thing to be doing.

27:00 I've been struck by a lot of people on the conservative

27:03 right in America are furious about your what they

27:07 perceive to be a revelation wasn't a revelation to me

27:09 because you've it's been talked about before and reported widely.

27:13 Um, are you taken aback because you've moved here, you live in Florida,

27:18 you've sort of embraced the MAGA movement to a degree,

27:22 not completely, but to a degree.

27:24 Um, you've written a book, How to Become a Christian in Seven Days.

27:28 Um, and you obviously are a different person now.

27:30 There's no question of that.

27:32 But are you taken aback by the reaction to what you said to Megan Kelly,

27:36 the the fury from a lot of people on the conservative Christian right here?

27:41 I'm often I'm surprised all the time by stuff,

27:46 but I if people think it's wrong for I mean

27:50 like I'm a Christian and I'm I'm serious about it.

27:53 I think that the only safe place to have sex is within marriage.

27:57 So I agree with them.

27:59 I agree with them.

28:00 It's it's very difficult to you asked at the beginning of our conversation,

28:05 what are the challenges?

28:06 The challenges are a criminal judicial proceeding that's about law and consent.

28:11 Uh PR situation that's about people's

28:13 feelings and sentiments that often cross over.

28:17 What the compromises and flaws are in a media, judicial,

28:22 and legal system that are plainly somewhat symbiotic and porous.

28:27 There's a lot of different things happening.

28:29 But I think the sort of probably the simplest thing

28:32 for me to focus on is should I have been doing that?

28:36 And the answer is in retrospect, no.

28:38 And like what's a bit difficult is how we all and I presume

28:43 you're the same feel like well whatever we did in the past it's

28:47 made us the person that we are today and it's difficult to make

28:50 that claim when you have to acknowledge that your actions have caused distress.

28:55 the the girl concerned in that story.

28:57 We can discuss that because it was from the documentary

28:59 and it's not part of your legal case,

29:02 but she dated you for three months when she was 16.

29:06 Um, she described you referring to her as the child,

29:08 sending cars to collector from school,

29:11 coaching her on what to tell her parents, uh,

29:14 made allegations about the sexual interactions you had,

29:18 suggesting that, you know,

29:19 you forced yourself in certain ways and so

29:21 on, but she's not part of the legal case.

29:24 And let's be clear about that.

29:26 So there's no suggestion on of criminality.

29:29 It's been leveled at you legally.

29:31 But when you hear that account,

29:34 what do you feel about the fact you were nearly twice her age?

29:38 She was only 16 and you're picking her up from school.

29:41 All that kind of thing.

29:42 What do you feel about that?

29:43 Well, I think some of those details are pretty important and relevant.

29:46 And how I feel about it is, as I've said,

29:50 it's not nice to know that my actions have contributed to a person's

29:55 suffering and there should be some uh there must be justice for that.

30:00 Um the context in which those consensual encounters

30:04 were happening was a sort of merry deluge

30:09 of constant consensual activity that was very very difficult

30:14 to sometimes um believe was happening but you know

30:18 one adjusts to those kind of conditions and I

30:21 would say peers on a personal level yes

30:25 of course that's wrong it's morally and spiritually

30:27 wrong it's it's legal It's not a legal issue.

30:31 Um, but you know, I I don't want to try to minimize my actions in any way.

30:38 I'm fully fully culpable and absolutely happy, not happy, but willing,

30:42 of course, to deal with the consequences of my actions.

30:45 Not so willing to deal with consequences of actions that were not undertaken.

30:49 I think that's a really important distinction

30:50 to uh remind you and your audience of.

30:55 Um, and also I suppose it seems like

30:58 a deliberate removal of context not to continually

31:04 cement that famous men that are single

31:10 have always and typically behaved in this manner.

31:13 One praise consensually, but one also suspects that there's a responsibility

31:19 incumbent on people that have that power.

31:21 or whether that power is magnetism or whether that power is

31:24 fame or whether that power is money or whatever that power is.

31:26 It's not very easy to live a moral

31:29 life in a culture that really openly rewarded.

31:32 Were you still at the sun when I was being shagger of the year?

31:34 This when I was being I was literally being given awards for it.

31:36 I know.

31:36 I mean I I the So of course it's really terrible.

31:39 I'd actually left the sun but the sun had an award called shagger

31:41 of the year and you won it a couple of times I think.

31:43 Three times and it was Yeah.

31:44 Some of the gloryy's faded, right?

31:46 But it was

31:47 amidst the rape allegations,

31:48 the Shagger of the Year titles do not seem quite as valuable,

31:52 I'll have to confess.

31:53 Right.

31:54 But some of the shines come off.

31:56 Well, the point I would make is at the time,

31:58 everyone embraced it as a good as good fun.

32:00 You were seen as this big shagger and it was all very funny

32:05 and entertaining and nobody at the time was coming forward to say this was rape,

32:11 sexual assault or anything else.

32:13 And that was the context of that time.

32:17 Yes.

32:16 Now it obviously has a very different uh thing about it.

32:20 Well, I ask you something as a journalist also during me too.

32:24 No one came forward.

32:25 In fact, people came forward subsequent to a very

32:27 deliberate documentary and I feel that therefore it's difficult

32:30 to remove the documentary [clears throat] from the chronology

32:34 because it's sort of an important artifact in there.

32:37 And I'll just we'll point that out

32:39 and how difficult that makes it even our conversation

32:41 the idea of a fair trial an ongoing

32:45 conversation because I would say literally precisely the same

32:48 behavior that was lorded consensual excessive sex was

32:52 reframed when it became convenient appropriate and useful

32:55 as nonconsentual and now we have a method

32:59 and means for dealing with a potentially difficult situation.

33:04 I wouldn't be so um grandiose as to suggest that I am the situation.

33:09 The situation is something that you do know a lot about.

33:11 Media has changed from centralized media with s

33:14 a degree of centralized control with rare anomalies.

33:17 But let's take the COVID example as primary.

33:20 If you were working in mainstream media during COVID,

33:24 you would have a pretty prescriptive approach.

33:26 Indeed, you had that approach.

33:27 Subsequent to COVID and amidst the pandemic period,

33:31 inquiries and questions were made in real time.

33:33 In fact, I participated significantly in that and it's

33:36 a matter of public record that logically AI who worked

33:39 for Madna FISA and the British government dealt

33:42 with my content deamplifying commenting on and indeed the 77th brigade

33:47 a scops organization that primarily works in foreign territories

33:50 with the British military during the COVID period worked

33:53 in the UK to and this is a direct quote

33:55 from I think the times take down social media influencers.

33:59 Now there's a obvious clear distinction between

34:01 my reckless lascivious conduct about which I was open

34:04 and honest indeed your own words demonstrate that contemporaneously

34:08 and the obvious retrospective damage that's now done.

34:11 It's difficult not to imagine that a documentary

34:15 made in the midst of my own conflict

34:18 ongoing conflict with mainstream media which to be

34:20 plain and frank I regard as akin to evil.

34:24 What I mean by that is I think it primarily exists not to give people true

34:28 information but to maximize people's vulnerability and the ability

34:33 of powerful interests to exploit and control people.

34:35 Can I can I just on that point?

34:37 Yes, you can.

34:38 But remember be careful because of the legal situation.

34:40 I just want to land fully that when a a country and a country's

34:44 media treat its own population as a [clears

34:47 throat] kind of invaded and occupied territory,

34:50 we should pay attention to that that there

34:51 was a military operation took place in this country,

34:53 the United States, and in our beloved country, the United Kingdom.

34:56 And there's a reason now, peers,

34:58 that people from farmers to the white working class.

35:02 It's almost every aspect of British public

35:04 life is alive and febral with hostility, anger, and confusion.

35:09 The systems are breaking down.

35:11 The systems are breaking down because of the technology.

35:13 When Breitbart said brilliantly that politics is downstream of culture,

35:17 perhaps we could have included that technology

35:20 is very near the top of that stream,

35:21 not the absolute source, but technology is changing everything.

35:24 No, I agree with that, but let me ask you why would why would the state,

35:29 the establishment, why would they come after you particularly?

35:32 I mean, you were doing a YouTube channel, you were doing your thing,

35:36 you were having opinions, but a gazillion people were doing that.

35:40 This sense that you were somehow singled out,

35:42 targeted deliberately, that all these allegations are only because you,

35:47 Russell Brown, was saying stuff about a COVID pandemic or whatever.

35:51 A lot of people think that's honestly[ __] I was like,

35:54 come on, Russell, it's not that.

35:56 And when they hear you be not I wouldn't say you're dismissing it but when you

36:00 say no no no but when you say absolutely but when people when people say also

36:04 I think that's quite reductive if I may say

36:06 the way that you've sort of framed it because

36:08 it is not just me at the you know I mean the idea that there is not a set

36:14 of powers that manipulate the public conversation in the wake

36:18 of Charlie Kirk's murder the annihilation or near annihilation

36:22 which you obviously survived of Joe Rogan the vilification

36:28 of admittedly controversial figures like Tommy Robinson or Andrew Tate.

36:32 I'm not trying to set myself up in a rogues gallery here, but you know, peers,

36:36 you've operated in media for long enough and with enough depth and understanding

36:41 to recognize that there are flavors

36:44 and ways of handling obstreporous public figures.

36:49 And I I don't think of myself as particularly important.

36:52 I know that I'm my point.

36:55 That's really my point.

36:56 My point is I just don't think that you were a sing I mean I don't mean

37:00 this to be remotely derogatory because you had a very

37:03 popular channel and lots of people were watching it.

37:05 It's not that.

37:06 It's just I don't think that your influence in any of those debates

37:10 would have warranted the establishment going

37:13 right we've got to silence Russell Brand.

37:15 Yes.

37:15 I think you're right and I think it's that kind of reductivism

37:18 that stops people having a clear view of how these systems work.

37:21 And sometimes it's good to take recourse

37:23 to some of the great American comedians.

37:24 As Carlin says, where interests converge, no conspiracy is necessary.

37:30 You know that deep state organizations are nebulous as as well as nefarious.

37:34 That they operate in ways that are difficult

37:36 to understand that there is a kind of overall intention.

37:41 You know that there was a point where

37:43 mainstream media recognized we're gonna have to pivot radically.

37:46 We're not selling newspapers anymore.

37:48 People are getting their news from different sources.

37:49 people having different conversations.

37:51 People are starting to not trust on mass.

37:53 Like think about this as a good metric if you'll indulge me.

38:00 Say like um if like 20 30 years ago

38:03 when people talk about someone like Alex Jones and yeah,

38:05 let's not talk about me.

38:05 Let's just go with you know that I've got

38:07 a criminal trial and quite right and by God's

38:09 grace the right outcome will will will prevail

38:12 and whatever that is then that's God's will.

38:15 Um but on the but on the matter of is there such a thing as controlling

38:20 the media and are and is there

38:21 collateral damage in when you're controlling a narrative?

38:25 Did people want a particular style of reporting

38:28 and particular information to be prevalent during the pandemic period?

38:32 Yes.

38:33 Were voices shut down?

38:34 Was information controlled?

38:35 Do people get deamplified?

38:37 Do people get kicked off X?

38:38 The whole But I would argue a but I would

38:40 argue a public health crisis of that magnitude globally.

38:44 You did argue it peers and one of the main

38:46 reasons that you remain contentious is because you advocated

38:49 you you shamed people into getting vaccines and we now

38:51 know those vaccines have killed more people than they say.

38:54 I'm not no because no I'll tell you why because unlike most people

38:59 you've repeatedly apologized.

39:00 Yes.

39:00 And I've said you know what I believed now hang on you've raised it so let me

39:04 let me address it because I've heard what

39:06 you said about this and I don't blame you.

39:08 I I mistakenly with hindsight accepted

39:14 the real time scientific advice which often changed often changed

39:18 and in particular when they said if you have the vaccine

39:22 for against COVID you cannot transmit the virus I thought that was

39:26 an incredibly powerful thing which which meant that you know some old

39:30 person walking around might be infected by some reckless young guy who

39:35 doesn't want to have the simple jab and he may kill that person.

39:38 It turned out that was not true.

39:40 So what are you and I be and I became I wait let me finish.

39:43 I became [clears throat] incredibly sensorious of people

39:46 who wouldn't have the jab for a period of a few months and then and then when

39:50 they changed the advice I felt I had actually

39:54 in the initial moment abregated my journalistic duty.

39:58 What I should have done was be more skeptical,

40:00 be more challenging and certainly be less sensorious and judgmental.

40:04 Good.

40:05 Accepting that in a fastmoving health emergency, the advice is likely to change.

40:09 Of course,

40:10 so I accept all that.

40:11 No, you don't actually because where we're different is this.

40:14 I still believe that the vaccine saved millions of lives.

40:18 Yes.

40:18 A lot of people don't.

40:19 No, I don't.

40:19 You don't.

40:20 I But I do.

40:21 Good.

40:21 Okay, that's good.

40:22 That will be something you'll potentially be adjusting in the future, peers.

40:25 And when you do, you may have another MIA culpa to offer to your audience

40:28 because it seems significant to me

40:30 that that crisis benefited some very powerful interests,

40:34 granted further governmental powers,

40:35 instantiate the ability to govern at a global level,

40:39 revealed just how willing people would be to take a medicine,

40:43 a concoction, let's call it a little more accurately,

40:46 that's it seems like it might be extremely delotterious,

40:49 causing infertility, miscarriage, myocarditis,

40:53 and that that was something that was

40:54 undertaken with a degree of complicity at least.

40:56 Do you believe in vaccines generally?

40:58 I have the kind of questions that anyone that's paying attention

41:00 there was a measles little outbreak of measles recently.

41:03 Even RFK was giving evidence yesterday and said he

41:07 absolutely believes in the me in the measles vaccine.

41:10 In fact, he said I'm not antivax at all.

41:12 In fact, he said I support most vaccines.

41:14 He had legitimate questions about the COVID vaccine

41:17 because the speed at which that was designed.

41:20 In your case, are you anti all vaccines?

41:22 I don't Which vaccines do you accept are good?

41:26 Calm down and slow down.

41:27 It's a serious question.

41:28 I understand it's a serious question.

41:30 Of course it is.

41:31 But I want to you to calm down and slow down.

41:33 Very calm

41:34 because well then in which case um unyoke yourself

41:38 from the conditioning of the world you've found yourself in.

41:43 See when Chsky, and there's a guy whose reputation has changed,

41:47 said to Andrew Mah in response to Andrew Mah's, "Well,

41:51 I've not been conditioned by the BBC,

41:54 they've not told me what questions I can ask and what

41:56 my perspective should be." And Trumpsky said to Andrew Mah,

41:59 "No, what I'm telling you is that if you

42:01 didn't have the right opinions and the right perspectives,

42:03 you wouldn't be sitting in that chair." Now,

42:04 you and I have moved between many chairs.

42:07 We've seen what goes on at the Daily Mirror.

42:10 We know what happens.

42:11 We know how people get information and I

42:14 know your position on the most public things

42:16 and I'm want I want to talk to you just as a person that survived in this

42:20 but on vac on vaccines.

42:21 No, look vaccines.

42:22 I'm not an expert on vaccines.

42:23 I don't know anything about vac are there

42:25 any vaccines that you that you think are good.

42:27 It's not something I'm interested in.

42:28 I don't think

42:28 but you're very interested in it.

42:29 You talked about it a lot.

42:30 No, I'm interested in truth and where truth and vaccines intersect.

42:34 I'm interested in that piece.

42:35 So, so let me I

42:37 like hold on.

42:38 With all of this going on, with all the upcoming trial,

42:42 with the complexity of contemporary media, with a country in tumult,

42:46 with crisis and protest and war,

42:48 you care what the guy from Sarah Marshall and GQ thinks about vaccines.

42:53 Well, maybe then my opinion is worth paying attention.

42:55 That's my point.

42:56 And particularly if you have either either

42:58 you think it is important or you don't.

43:00 What I think is important in is is being able

43:02 to tell the truth and being able to control information.

43:05 [clears throat] Now, when you worked at the Sun and the Mirror,

43:08 you'd have had certain obligations and restrictions.

43:10 There's certain stories that get published and don't get published.

43:12 Certain celebrities that get taken down and others that don't.

43:15 And now you work in this world and you I what my prayer is

43:19 for you peers is that you recognize and I don't mean this in an insincere way

43:24 because I think that mutually we have an opportunity to participate

43:27 in something a little grander than standing on the sidelines with our faces

43:32 in the trough of media money participating in in the exacerbating

43:36 ignorance of people in the UK and the United States of America.

43:39 The reason I think you've had all these controversies is because

43:41 you are bullish and you are willing to have a conversation.

43:43 you're willing to have a go and that's a real great

43:45 I'm also I'm also willing to admit when I'm wrong

43:47 that's a lovely quality also I think everyone should have that

43:50 but it's good because yes in response to new

43:53 information we should be able to reassess our opinion indeed

43:55 I didn't used to be a Christian I'm a Christian

43:56 now and sometimes astonished that other people aren't Christian

43:58 and then I remember you didn't used to be

44:00 Christian you didn't know that God is real you didn't

44:03 know that it says in the Bible be careful

44:05 the institutions of power have been captured by dark forces and

44:10 what I'd like to say is Hey, 30 years ago, Alex Jones,

44:15 David Ike looked at crackpots and wackos and and in many corners of our culture,

44:20 they're still regarded with that level of derision.

44:24 And they're on a spectrum.

44:25 And let's say they're the extreme end of that spectrum.

44:27 And at the other end, BBC, New York Times, 20 years,

44:31 30 years down the line, where do you think the needle is moving?

44:35 Indeed, where are you moving?

44:37 You've moved from where David Ike and Alex Jones like well did you

44:41 report on a recent story that suggests

44:43 that there might be global pedophile rings.

44:45 Have you heard the rumors that many people believe that that pandemic had

44:49 cooperation and planning and even intersects

44:51 with Bill Gates and Epstein and those rumors?

44:53 Now conspiracy theories are by their nature difficult to corroborate

44:57 because of the ability of real power to mask itself.

45:00 The necessity of real power to mask itself.

45:02 And while we sort of sit around in a punch

45:04 and duty show of advocating for Trump or condemning Trump or laughing

45:07 at Kier Starmmer's voice or his former actions when he was

45:11 at the CPS and what he didn't do about Julian Assange and what

45:14 he didn't do about other famous and awful cases in our country

45:17 and how he sped up the courses dur the courts during

45:20 those riots while that's all taking place we've not got our eye

45:23 on what's truly happening that power is migrating across our entire culture.

45:28 People are caught up in many needless conflicts.

45:31 Indeed, your show is does a brilliant job of hosting conflicting views where

45:35 it's really great orators like Dave Smith and and and the great stories.

45:39 I think it's really important to bring people together.

45:40 It's nice, mate.

45:41 But it's a little bit of a circus and and re we've got

45:43 to find some consiliation because I believe this I believe that we are,

45:46 you know, and it's hard for me to talk about this because yeah,

45:48 I've got enough on my plate, man.

45:49 I've got enough on my plate with my own personal life like most people do,

45:52 like most people do in their own way.

45:54 But I sense we are at a time of real crisis in the UK.

45:59 I sense that that crisis is not going to be resolved by any

46:02 reshuffleling of the existing participants in our parliamentary dance and a lot

46:07 of people feel that way and that's why there's dispondency and despair and what

46:10 the pandemic was it what was important about the pandemic I believe peers

46:13 was not the um how well you can undergard the science behind the vaccines

46:19 and obviously that don't look good at all in hindsight but the way

46:22 that the media complied and supported that messaging of course with you know

46:27 it's a medical crisis we have to protect But this is my point.

46:30 It's like in a medical crisis.

46:31 No, one second.

46:34 One second.

46:34 In a of course I we're all looking forward to it enormously.

46:37 We we should all have a little go.

46:38 Let it run long.

46:39 Like in a medical how much of a medical crisis was it indeed?

46:43 And what was the role in media?

46:45 If we step back for a moment and watch what happened during

46:47 many millions of people died,

46:49 who was vilified?

46:49 Who was condemned?

46:50 What are the excess deaths now?

46:52 Who's controlling these statistics that everywhere you look?

46:54 Pers there's such astonishing anomalies.

46:55 Well, you accept many millions of people die from CO, do you?

46:58 I'm so uncertain about what happened at that time that I believe that I use it

47:03 mostly now as a kind of lens to look at how disgusting our culture has become,

47:08 how appalling, how condemnatory.

47:10 But why are you avoiding my question?

47:11 I'm because of the because I have a better one.

47:13 Because I have a better one.

47:14 What's the better one?

47:16 Who believes even for an instant that the function of government

47:20 and media is to protect us and take care of us anymore?

47:23 who believes that they would put you in your homes

47:25 and make you take a medication to preserve human life.

47:27 I'm not talking about the wonderful staff at NHS

47:30 hospitals or brilliant doctors or even magnificent scientists.

47:33 I'm talking about this set

47:35 of interconnected interests that are sometimes difficult

47:38 to describe visible in silhouette evident in the Epstein files obvious when

47:42 wars happen that you don't anticipate happening but somehow seemed inevitable

47:47 and clear during the period had you been prime minister I get it.

47:51 I get it.

47:51 How do you know had you been prime minister when the COVID pandemic broke out?

47:54 What would you have done?

47:56 All right, this is what I would do is I would immediately

48:00 just to put in context, you're seeing in Italy in Lombardi,

48:03 you're seeing thousands of people a day.

48:05 I know.

48:06 I remember that time because they lived in big family groups and houses

48:09 and it was ripping through them as it did through our care homes for example.

48:12 I'd pay attention to them hazmat suits in China that suddenly disappeared

48:15 and those stories of people dying in the street that sort of disappear.

48:18 The origin of it is one issue,

48:19 but but once it's broken out and it's clearly killing a lot

48:23 of people very quickly and is clearly going to come to our doorstep.

48:26 You have an answer.

48:27 You as the prime minister, what would you do?

48:29 Firstly, this the very office of prime

48:32 minister and executive power to that degree

48:35 is absurd and corruptible and it's one

48:37 of the primary problems that must be addressed.

48:39 forms of technocracy and that means government by some expert that's

48:43 what that means could be really really helpful in a true

48:47 democracy what I believe should have happened or could have happened

48:50 because that's really what you're asking me about the pandemic period is

48:53 that we should have remained open to a ve a variety

48:57 of views including the views that were deliberately shut down and censored

49:01 from the get-go from prominent and valid experts like eg Peter

49:06 McCullik Robert Malone J Bacharia experts out of institutions of great worth.

49:12 Listen to what they were suggesting like in the what was

49:16 it called the Baracluff agreement

49:17 the Baracluff declaration right at the beginning.

49:19 How would you have known which ones to believe?

49:21 Well the the fact is is that I wouldn't place

49:23 so much certainty in my own perspective and opinion because

49:27 firstly I believe in God and so I truly do

49:30 believe in the values of protecting as many people as possible.

49:32 I do believe in public good.

49:34 I would have listened to the valid experts.

49:37 I would have investigated

49:39 but there were many valid experts as you know saying saying different things

49:42 do you know another thing to look at who's

49:44 getting paid by whom who's worked for Madna who's worked

49:47 for FISA who's worked for logically AI who's got

49:49 these kind of who has connections to certain financial institutions

49:52 would you have tried to make a vaccine

49:55 what I don't know mate because we're again we're

49:57 venturing right into sort of territory that don't ask me

50:00 you have a killer virus that's coming it's

50:02 killing obviously a lot of people very quickly

50:04 you have an ability through your own to create

50:08 something that may be an antidote to it.

50:10 It might not be perfect and there might be a lot

50:12 of side effects as there have been with every vaccine in history.

50:16 Would you as the leader of the country have done anything to protect

50:19 the people from the virus or would you have just let it do its thing?

50:21 In a sense, I have to reject this hypothesis and this condition

50:25 because it brings to the forefront so many things I disagree with.

50:28 But but by answering the question in the way that I

50:30 want to, I can I think tell you a lot.

50:33 I'm not saying educate you.

50:34 I'd never be so bold.

50:35 very happy to be educated,

50:37 but I I that's not like my intention and that's not what I believe is happening.

50:40 I'd like I would like you to educate me.

50:42 This is what I think.

50:42 I believe in maximum personal sovereignty and freedom.

50:45 I believe that if you empower individual individuals

50:48 and individual communities to the maximum that you will get,

50:52 if not better results, at least fair.

50:56 Well, the I as it turns out there wasn't one.

50:59 Well, of course there was.

51:01 Okay, I would say this is what I would do.

51:03 Our best evidence suggests currently that this virus

51:07 is pretty significant and some people are

51:09 five people personally who died from it.

51:11 Yeah.

51:11 Well, check out the statistics around people dying from vaccines,

51:14 peers, because that's much much much more important and significant.

51:17 Not least because the people that died from the vaccines

51:19 were doing what the government told them to do.

51:21 Can you think of any Can you think of any

51:22 vaccine in history where people haven't died from side effects?

51:26 Look, peers, do you know any do I'm curious?

51:30 I'm not saying there weren't legitimate questions.

51:31 I'm curious about about people having side effects,

51:35 myocarditis, other things happened.

51:36 No question.

51:38 But I'm also aware that in every vaccine in history,

51:41 you have had side effects that have killed people.

51:44 For some reason, the COVID vaccine

51:46 has inspired this incredible antivaxer movement.

51:49 And that's why I asked you the question,

51:51 do you believe in the efficacy of any vaccines?

51:54 Because RFK, who I really like and I've interviewed him many times,

51:58 who has a reputation as an antivaxer,

52:01 made it crystal clear in his testimony this week

52:04 that actually he's not antivaccine,

52:06 that he's been driving the measles vaccine here.

52:10 He thinks very successfully and and so my question for you is,

52:14 is there any vaccine that you think is a good thing?

52:17 I

52:17 I'm a little frustrated.

52:18 Or are you antivaccine?

52:20 I'm a little frustrated because what I sense is

52:23 is that I don't think you do it on purpose,

52:25 but I think there are moments where you're doing your job where you

52:29 get kind of caught up in the way that the material will be received.

52:32 And in a way that's responsible journalism because you

52:34 have to be effective and you have to be successful.

52:36 But my position is obviously people should

52:38 go to their own nominated authorities when it

52:43 comes to dealing with medical matters or legal

52:45 matters or any matters where expertise is available.

52:48 But I think peers if we get mired

52:50 in a conversation about my personal understanding of vaccines,

52:53 we'll miss the opportunity to sketch out together the problem.

52:57 The problem is new technology means a true potential for decentralized power.

53:04 Information has been decentralized.

53:06 It led to the it led to Napster.

53:07 It led to Occupy.

53:08 It led to the Arab Spring.

53:10 It will lead to more and more

53:11 freedom unless it's radically overhauled by authoritarianism.

53:15 We're in the process of seeing that happening.

53:17 They can't just, and by they, I mean empire interests.

53:20 Most people know what people mean by they these days.

53:24 Of course, there's the possibility of just

53:28 yielding to the ongoing centralization of authority,

53:30 of just accepting what seems to be coming down the pipe,

53:33 a dreadful AI future, low horizons for everyone.

53:37 But there is also the possibility that people could have a version of democracy

53:41 now where the way that currency

53:43 has changed because of decentralization of blockchain

53:45 the way that information has changed because of independent

53:48 media in which you are now a participant.

53:49 So you should understand more than anybody

53:52 politics itself could change.

53:54 So for me when you ask me a question what would you do if

53:56 you're prime minister or what vaccines like in a way who knows who cares.

53:59 What I believe in is that the systems themselves,

54:02 if not radically re-evaluated urgently,

54:04 immediately to be in alignment with some true values,

54:06 and I mean the values of God, however you understand God, and you know how I do,

54:10 if that doesn't take place pretty soon,

54:12 we're going to be living in hell or something akin to it.

54:14 And many people already are.

54:15 The creeping shores of hell are all around us everywhere.

54:18 And so, why would you spend this time sort of pressing me

54:22 on how much I know about vaccines or this vaccine or that?

54:24 Well, only because you talked about it so much.

54:26 And it's a simple question.

54:27 You either you're either someone who believes

54:29 in vaccines as a concept or you don't.

54:31 It's not a difficult question.

54:33 You've just chosen to take 20 minutes to avoid answering it.

54:37 I've not chosen to.

54:37 I've like pointed out that by sort of focusing on it,

54:40 it it reveals a sort of um modality of not

54:46 trying to detect what someone's actually attempting to say.

54:50 And you know and like with a vaccine or an illness the simple answer

54:55 is I would look at the risks versus benefits and get the best advice

54:58 I could and make a decision based on that and would suggest everyone does

55:01 that and I don't think medical matters should be a enforced global legal issue

55:07 un when one is I think of interest you don't

55:10 have to answer this question if you think it's too personal

55:11 I know that no one has to answer any question

55:13 I know but you've got three young children do are they've been vaccinated at all

55:17 I feel like you're just sort of sniffing around

55:18 for headlines and I just It's not worth it.

55:21 I'm really not.

55:22 I'm really not.

55:22 So, what do you want?

55:23 You took me on over vaccines.

55:25 Fair enough.

55:25 And I've had to admit I was wrong about a key part of the program.

55:29 But what's interesting, I'm only asking you simple question like,

55:32 do you would you have you vaccinated your own kids?

55:35 Do you think that in the situation I'm in with my wife and my family

55:39 that I want to generate any more unnecessary

55:42 contention when I could be here with you?

55:45 A man who in some way must be brilliant.

55:48 and you are and have a conversation about what's taking place in our culture

55:52 with regard to power and media in the last 20 and 30.

55:55 By the way, you say a lot of things that I agree with.

55:57 Right.

55:57 So why don't we not I'm not saying don't push back cuz a bit

56:00 of conflict is good and it's good television and it's what you do or in media.

56:03 I actually think it's a very interesting conversation.

56:04 So do I.

56:05 But like it's not interesting I think to get

56:06 mired in something where my contributions are of not

56:09 of sufficient value to warrant this attention when I believe

56:12 when it comes to the matter of the ideological crisis.

56:15 Can I put a spanner in the works with your argument?

56:17 No, I'm not interested.

56:18 [laughter] An ideological you have to let me.

56:21 No, we're in a serious ideological.

56:23 Let me just put one push back on what you just said,

56:25 which is this, which is you are a very eloquent individual.

56:29 Yes.

56:29 Right.

56:29 You you told me many years ago that you

56:31 used to study dictionaries to learn long words.

56:33 I would Yes, I did do that.

56:35 Okay.

56:35 So, you're very eloquent and you have a lot of good linguistic

56:38 skills and you're a very good debate and a very good arguer.

56:41 But some viewers might watch this.

56:43 Fans of yours won't.

56:44 They'll think, "Go get him,

56:46 Russell." But some people will be watching this and going,

56:49 you're very very very good at avoiding

56:52 ask answering questions that you've in your head

56:55 thought he just wants that for clickbait and I don't want that for clickbait.

57:00 I am actually just asking you questions I wanted to ask.

57:03 I'd love to talk to those that you

57:04 know hypothetical but very real audience member right now.

57:08 We're on Piers Morgan's show, right?

57:10 Piers is a really talented man in lots of ways.

57:14 He's been inside the system.

57:15 This is a person that knows Rupert Murdoch,

57:17 that's been in rooms with some of the most powerful people in the world,

57:20 including Donald Trump.

57:21 He won the Celebrity Apprentice.

57:22 He's seen things.

57:23 He knows things that are powerful and profound and probably

57:26 dark and probably heavy to carry in some ways.

57:28 He's been in a system that many of us think

57:31 is on the precipice of implosion or terrifying and mad expansion.

57:36 It seems to be doing that primarily by increasing cultural fear,

57:40 increasing division and dread, and then providing us with solutions,

57:45 but always at a cost.

57:46 You will yield a little bit more of your personal power.

57:49 You'll find yourself hating people you don't know,

57:51 caring about some abstract faraway issue.

57:54 And look at your own life, your London,

57:56 your town, your world, your city, your family, your dog.

57:58 Isn't it all deteriorating just a little bit?

58:01 And what are we doing for you, the media, the independent media?

58:04 Are we participating in serious conversations that are going to empower

58:07 you to live your life to confront real power where it matters?

58:11 To focus and to sort of manage the complexity of a migration crisis,

58:15 but knowing that migrations by definition don't have any power.

58:18 Where is the real power?

58:20 Who is controlling this?

58:21 These are complex, nebulous matters.

58:24 And I believe that with you, Piers Morgan,

58:26 I could have a conversation that spans

58:28 tabloid journalism into centrally owned media.

58:32 your kind of refugee escape out of it and into, oh,

58:35 that talk TV thing's not working.

58:37 I'm going to run this thing myself.

58:38 The programmatic ads earn you how much.

58:40 I'd have this much independence.

58:41 I could be hosting these debates, having people enter entering their spleens

58:44 on these tragic genocides and awful situations.

58:47 And me just I'm just another fellow occupant of this mad, giddy,

58:51 sometimes disgusting culture that's right now

58:54 in a kind of comparable position to you.

58:57 But I believe with one important, well,

58:59 I don't know if there's an important difference.

59:01 What I want from you and what I expect

59:03 from you and what I'd like to demand from you

59:06 is that and from all of us actually is

59:08 that when we're in this position when we have

59:09 these platforms that we don't take our hearts

59:12 and our minds away from the people that could be positively

59:14 impacted and I don't think that oh Russell Brand

59:17 vaccines is vaccinates or doesn't vaccinate is not a value.

59:19 You know why I'm asking the only reason I asked

59:21 was there's been a rising uh antivax sentiment particularly in America.

59:26 It's cynicism skepticism.

59:28 It's not antiax.

59:29 It's we don't trust anyone.

59:30 The reason I don't trust anyone is because no one's telling them the truth.

59:33 Let me finish my point.

59:34 So that to the extent that even MMR,

59:36 which is one that is recommended

59:38 by almost every legitimate scientist in the world,

59:40 a lot of people are beginning to resist giving that to their children

59:43 because they bought into the notion that all vaccines are dangerous.

59:47 I think that's an incredibly dangerous development out of the COVID pandemic.

59:51 If we cease to believe in vaccines which have been for many

59:55 decades established as stopping measles epidemics and MS and so on.

1:00:00 I get it.

1:00:01 I know this bit.

1:00:02 Yeah.

1:00:02 But that's a legitimate concern, isn't it?

1:00:04 When you lie, I'm talking about you personally,

1:00:06 but when you as a representative and conduit of truth, i.e.

1:00:10 media, the interstitial material between the people that have

1:00:13 power or information and the people that receive it,

1:00:15 when those people lie, people stop trusting them.

1:00:18 And then you have to yourself kind of madly aggregate,

1:00:22 would I be better off to take a position

1:00:24 where if I'm told something by the media,

1:00:26 I just flat out don't believe it cuz it's probably a lie.

1:00:30 I've seen it so many times, weapons of mass destruction,

1:00:33 that geyser gets shot in the woods,

1:00:35 take this thing, take that thing, eat this food, drive this car.

1:00:38 And so many times it's turned out to be a lie.

1:00:40 And also even more important than that, even more

1:00:43 important than that, if such a thing were possible,

1:00:44 people in power being honest to the people they govern

1:00:47 is the technology now exists for it to become irrelevant.

1:00:50 That there there's no need.

1:00:52 Okay, look, here's my problem with this.

1:00:53 You give me an actual

1:00:55 You cited two people where you think the pendulum is swinging the right way.

1:00:59 Alex Jones and David Ike.

1:01:01 Alex Jones had a billion dollar.

1:01:04 Hang on.

1:01:04 No, because you're already misrepresenting my view once again.

1:01:08 You're doing it live.

1:01:09 What I'm saying is Alex Jones sh I'm using

1:01:10 them deliberately to demonstrate the idea of an extreme

1:01:14 and over time the tendency of more people having

1:01:17 access to information is we're moving closer to that.

1:01:19 I'm not saying even though you know dear old David Ike would back

1:01:23 this up to his death that the queen's actually a lizard or whatever.

1:01:26 But he was sure right about them pedophiles.

1:01:28 Of course it's wrong that Alex Jones said that thing about Sandy Hook.

1:01:31 That's terrible and those parents must have grieved

1:01:33 all the harder for that the terrible insensitivity.

1:01:35 But let's not forget that he somehow knew that them Twin Towers were going down.

1:01:39 Let's pay attention to where he's correct.

1:01:41 And in fact, why don't we do it?

1:01:42 He knew the Twin Towers are going down.

1:01:44 Oh my god, there's video footage of him in 1997.

1:01:46 There's a guy.

1:01:46 He's going to blow up the twin tower.

1:01:48 Everyone's seen it.

1:01:48 The relevant audience know now where you

1:01:50 are and we're looking through complete nonsense.

1:01:52 No, it's not.

1:01:52 There's Osama bin Laden tried to blow up the World Trade Center.

1:01:57 Yeah, but the the genesis of that whole story is that whatever he said,

1:02:01 he had no intimate knowledge of any al-Qaeda plot to take down the Twin Towers.

1:02:05 What had happened is several years before

1:02:07 Bin Laden had attacked the World Trade Center.

1:02:10 Right in this moment, advocating for the worst impulses in humanity.

1:02:14 Oh, you are.

1:02:16 No, you're trying to make me think that Alex

1:02:16 Jones knew that the 9/11 was going to happen.

1:02:19 He knew it as a fact.

1:02:20 He had been given information that meant al-Qaeda were going to take it down.

1:02:25 __] Are you not aware?

1:02:26 Oh, he did know.

1:02:27 Why didn't he go and tell [laughter] the president?

1:02:29 Why weren't you?

1:02:30 Well, do you not recall the president's gratitude

1:02:34 citing Alex Jones having prior knowledge of the Twin Towers attack?

1:02:37 Come on.

1:02:38 Come on, Russell.

1:02:39 It sounds ridiculous.

1:02:40 What I'm saying to you is that many many times

1:02:42 people that were marginalized and condemned and criticized and called

1:02:45 wackos and crack jobs as as we get more

1:02:48 and more access to information that is not uh filtered.

1:02:52 Even though I recognize we get a lot of untrue and unhelpful information,

1:02:55 I'm really trying my best not to contribute to that even by being boring.

1:02:58 the needle of public opinion and I think in this instance correctly

1:03:02 is becoming deeply skeptical and cynical about what we're told by the BBC,

1:03:06 what we're told by the New York Times,

1:03:07 what we're being told even by prominent influencers like you and in some cases

1:03:11 it's driven a lot by social media.

1:03:12 I think indeed of course it is and and the very interests that are able

1:03:17 to control mainstream media then migrate

1:03:19 to social media and attempt to control that.

1:03:21 And what I am proposing is instead of using this time and these resources

1:03:26 to create endless conflict whether that's between me

1:03:28 and you or everyone in our beloved conflict.

1:03:31 I say I know that.

1:03:32 Yeah.

1:03:32 So do I.

1:03:32 I'm just playing along.

1:03:33 I see.

1:03:34 It's a conversation.

1:03:35 I don't I like debate.

1:03:36 So do I.

1:03:36 Even with people if you say things I don't agree with fine.

1:03:39 All right.

1:03:39 Well then if it's a democracy.

1:03:40 All right.

1:03:41 Let's have a debate.

1:03:41 But if we are going to have a debate,

1:03:42 can we do something where I would really benefit from your skillshare?

1:03:44 Let's do that.

1:03:45 But I want But let me just finish this point.

1:03:47 The technology exists now for this constant babble of conflict to be

1:03:51 resolved because people could have more control over their own communities

1:03:55 just with the following of a few basic principles that food should

1:03:59 be grown as locally as possible to where it will be consumed.

1:04:02 People in a community should have

1:04:03 the maximum control possible over decisions that affect

1:04:05 them whether that's migration or whether or not there's a hostel in Eping.

1:04:09 And when it comes to the major decisions there a referenda continually too.

1:04:13 The technology exists.

1:04:14 The reason we're not having this discussion,

1:04:16 the reason dear old peers is shuffling

1:04:17 his papers is because politics should be boring.

1:04:21 It should just be about the management of resources.

1:04:23 It shouldn't be about mad ideologues misusing us

1:04:25 and controlling us for their own curious ends.

1:04:27 Now, where I would benefit from your tenacity and ability to push back.

1:04:33 Yes.

1:04:34 Is in the event

1:04:35 I'm I'm trying to find a specific thing while I'm talking to you, but go on.

1:04:37 Well, how can you possibly pay attention while ruffling through your eyelids?

1:04:40 I can hear I can hear everything.

1:04:41 Look at that.

1:04:41 You're possessive about that.

1:04:44 uncensored.

1:04:45 NOTHING TO BE SCARED OF.

1:04:47 [laughter] HELLO, THESE ARE MY my interview notes.

1:04:49 Have the book.

1:04:50 Promote the book.

1:04:50 And if you promote that one, promote this one in the I got to talk about your

1:04:54 might be.

1:04:55 There's hope for all of us.

1:04:56 What is the Oh, here we are.

1:04:57 Look.

1:04:58 So, this is um No.

1:04:59 Yes.

1:05:00 No.

1:05:00 No.

1:05:00 No.

1:05:00 Yes.

1:05:01 Tried my best.

1:05:02 Do you accept you've been a bit of a chameleon when it comes to your position

1:05:06 from Piers Morgan?

1:05:09 Yeah.

1:05:08 From Israel Palestine.

1:05:09 Piers Morgan.

1:05:10 From Co.

1:05:11 Piers Morgan.

1:05:12 No, I've been I've been trying to like you actually because I don't I

1:05:16 want to love you and like actually I don't have [clears throat] to love

1:05:19 actually I don't even find it that difficult

1:05:21 because I tell you something that's sincere

1:05:22 when I look in your eyes and you tell me about that hip and the tibia

1:05:26 I can feel I feel sadness in you.

1:05:28 I know you're brash and I know you're strong.

1:05:29 I'm not sad about it.

1:05:31 I'm bored.

1:05:32 Bored with hob.

1:05:33 What do you think bored means?

1:05:34 Really?

1:05:35 Let me ask you when people say all right see

1:05:36 I my theory about you is you have an addictive personality.

1:05:40 There's no doubt.

1:05:41 But hold on, I'm going to stop you even there because addict Oh yeah,

1:05:44 Bear Grills told me to be slow and calm.

1:05:46 Right.

1:05:46 So [laughter] be slow and calm.

1:05:47 But addictive doesn't Let me give you Let me ask you then.

1:05:50 So So take vegetarianism, right?

1:05:52 You became a vegetarian at age 14 after

1:05:55 you're influenced by the Smith's album Meat is Murder.

1:05:57 Man, this is government water.

1:05:59 Can I have some non-government water, please, out of a bottle?

1:06:01 Because you know, like I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist.

1:06:04 Not Pierers Morgan where everything's underlined with absolute truth.

1:06:07 the efficacy of those vaccines.

1:06:09 Could I get B water?

1:06:10 That's not directly from the not to be difficult.

1:06:12 Someone um

1:06:14 eat you now eat meat, right?

1:06:17 Yes.

1:06:17 So, what happened there?

1:06:19 What happened there was that my veganism was

1:06:23 really motivated by not wanting to see animals.

1:06:26 Um I I really don't like the idea of animals suffering.

1:06:30 And I think when everything changed in my life

1:06:33 with my boy and the allegations of rape and stuff.

1:06:35 Here's a bottle with you, mate.

1:06:37 I think Oh, someone get one.

1:06:40 Love it.

1:06:41 Thank you.

1:06:42 Thank you.

1:06:42 Um when my boy was ill and the allegations happened like

1:06:46 everything felt everything sort of changed very very quickly and I

1:06:49 was confronted with something like you know you know because you

1:06:52 was in the news so it was very sort of confrontational.

1:06:54 The significant thing is is that I was

1:06:56 brought to Christ in an an involuntary instant.

1:07:00 Coming to Christ was not um it was not a a process of in a philosophical debate.

1:07:06 It was like being sort of smashed.

1:07:08 My wife's always eating meat, you know.

1:07:09 She's a my wife, she's a unbelievable, stable, beautiful, incredible person.

1:07:14 She was going to come.

1:07:15 She went to say hello to you.

1:07:15 I wish you had in a way cuz it would have anchored us.

1:07:17 And instead we was filming and you got HS ticky trauma out of it, didn't you?

1:07:22 But we're not like film.

1:07:23 I'm not trying to gotcha no one.

1:07:24 I don't need anything.

1:07:26 I've got everything I need.

1:07:27 Anyway, so like when I come um the I come

1:07:29 to the Lord like the Lord came to me a recognition

1:07:33 in an instant that instead of all these sort

1:07:35 of diffuse and um sometimes contradictory and difficult to hold ideas

1:07:38 some of which I still you know as you can

1:07:41 tell deal it deal with and deal in that the Christian

1:07:45 story this that God came to earth in human form

1:07:49 that died somehow taking our sin upon himself and was resurrected

1:07:53 was true and like I felt it not rationally or logically I felt

1:07:56 it in my belly And then from that minute I was reading about it.

1:07:58 Now I suppose what happened after that is I

1:08:00 didn't feel the need to have a self- selected

1:08:02 arbitrary system of righteousness or morality like wokeism

1:08:05 or or veganism which has a good intention as does wokeness.

1:08:08 I think compassion kindness these are really

1:08:11 lovely lovely ideas but it just didn't anymore.

1:08:15 My wife was eating a lamb shop and and I

1:08:17 remember the smell of lamb in my nan in Dagenham.

1:08:19 I remember just the smell of it and I ate it and I felt like one

1:08:22 of my friends who's always been a meat eater

1:08:25 said it's them or you Russell it's them or you.

1:08:28 You got to start eating meat to survive out there.

1:08:30 Okay.

1:08:30 So then this brings me to your your political evolution.

1:08:36 Uh in 2014 you said Fox

1:08:37 News was a fanatical terrorist propagandist organization.

1:08:41 By 2023 you're popping up on Fox News quite happily.

1:08:44 What happened there?

1:08:46 Well, I certainly I wouldn't uh I wouldn't describe it

1:08:49 as anything other than what do I think about Fox News?

1:08:52 What do I think about Fox News when I went on there with Tucker or Hannity?

1:08:55 The point I said when I was on Bill Maher that time and they were like,

1:08:58 "Oh, MSNBC like Fox is evil but MSNBC is great." The this is what it was.

1:09:04 This is what it was.

1:09:05 But get ready to listen.

1:09:06 Like where if you come from a normal

1:09:08 working-class background and you sort of encounter the normal

1:09:11 kind of tropes then you get involved

1:09:12 in the entertainment industry there's a sort of eliding

1:09:15 into champagne socialism like that somehow your views

1:09:20 of equality and fairness can fit in the opulence

1:09:22 of Hollywood everyone does it they're all doing

1:09:24 it every day that's the norm isn't it

1:09:26 right and as I sort of started to experience

1:09:29 the difference between not being being poor and not being

1:09:31 poor I like I started to have a slightly

1:09:33 different perspective and as I looked at an institution Fox,

1:09:36 it was easy to vilify and make content out of because you had Bill O'Reilly,

1:09:40 you had obviously sort of um deliberate and misleading reporting.

1:09:45 So, it was very easy to make jokes about it.

1:09:47 But as the world got more complex, as the left sort of went a bit kind of crazy,

1:09:51 I think, Pers, because I was online and reading this stuff,

1:09:55 I understood that there was a a different way of operating in those worlds.

1:09:59 I still recognize who owns Fox and what Fox's

1:10:01 primary intentions are and where Fox's funding comes from.

1:10:05 But I feel like most people that with that ultimate

1:10:08 epitomizing object of the of cultural controversy,

1:10:11 Trump, it was kind of, oh wow, this guy is going to somehow detonate.

1:10:16 You were friends with him.

1:10:17 You were a person that was affiliated with him.

1:10:19 Yeah.

1:10:20 You you I remember when I had some spat with him

1:10:22 years ago and he said some rude stuff about me.

1:10:24 Then I had the view that people from that culture group had of Trump.

1:10:27 Oh, I don't like this guy.

1:10:28 Then I sort of saw his ability to kind

1:10:30 of be searingly honest and funny and authentic.

1:10:33 And now what I think about him is

1:10:34 he's a person that's incapable of masking himself.

1:10:37 So I generally speaking lost the comfort of categories of like left good,

1:10:43 right, liberal good, libertarian bad?

1:10:46 Climate change.

1:10:49 Don't just shout.

1:10:50 Is that what we is this what we're reduced to?

1:10:52 What's happened?

1:10:52 Have you disengaged?

1:10:53 No.

1:10:53 No.

1:10:54 Just in your book uh 2014 book revolution you called

1:10:57 for a revolution in big corporations existing political and economic systems.

1:11:01 You collaborated with Naomi Klein saying ditch capitalism and save

1:11:04 the planet or ditch the planet and save capitalism.

1:11:07 Um and you wanted people to take down

1:11:10 massive corporations like Exxon to save the planet.

1:11:13 But since 2023 you've shifted it appears to be

1:11:17 more towards climate change being a lot of nonsense.

1:11:22 What do you feel?

1:11:26 I no longer believe that the state in any form is capable

1:11:32 of meaningfully and in good grace representing the will of the people.

1:11:36 So any edict that comes out of there be very skeptical

1:11:41 and in fact always investigate what the conclusions they draw are.

1:11:46 For example, climate change is the example you've selected.

1:11:51 just interrogate what their proposals are.

1:11:54 look at the proposals coldly and then consider do you think this is

1:11:59 because of climate change or is it because they want to climate change ideas

1:12:04 I actually so similar to vaccines I'm not trying to sit on the fence here I I

1:12:08 would say like I don't know because I

1:12:09 don't think it's possible no I've heard that there

1:12:10 are intergalactic influences on what's that brilliant man's

1:12:15 name um Randall Carlson says like even sort

1:12:19 of there can be influence in our environment

1:12:22 that goes way beyond ond human uh human causes.

1:12:26 But in a way, what's important here is you can negate

1:12:29 that entirely by saying we should love and revere the planet.

1:12:31 It was Earth Day here in New York and I participated.

1:12:34 They obviously they may have recognized me,

1:12:36 but they didn't certainly didn't recognize where

1:12:38 I am now because they had me participate in this uh Earth Day stuff because I

1:12:42 just happened to be walking through Time Square.

1:12:45 And I got no problem saying we should revere and respect the earth.

1:12:49 And if the way that our ecological policies

1:12:52 is determined is to maximize profit for powerful organizations,

1:12:56 that's plainly wrong.

1:12:56 All of us on an individual level should be

1:12:58 doing everything we can to respect and rever the earth.

1:13:00 And certainly at a global and corporate level.

1:13:02 How are those solutions going to be brought about by an alliance between

1:13:05 the very interest that got us in this mess in the first place?

1:13:07 I wouldn't.

1:13:08 But I can see I can find a lot you

1:13:10 say about corporate power and political power and media power.

1:13:14 I can find myself nodding along thinking, yeah, you're making good points.

1:13:17 It's inarguable that there has been abuse and corruption

1:13:22 and unfair influence and bias in all of those things, right?

1:13:26 But but here's my problem if I may put it to you with where I think you you sit.

1:13:30 You talked about sitting on the fence and it's a little

1:13:32 bit I would I mean some would describe it as a grift.

1:13:35 They'd say come on Russell,

1:13:37 you change your mind about stuff and a six bits, right?

1:13:40 And that's what they say about you actually.

1:13:43 Well, sure, but I'm interviewing you, [laughter] right?

1:13:46 So my point is, so you think, well, that that you can command.

1:13:48 I'm not saying I'm not saying I believe this.

1:13:50 I'm saying, you know,

1:13:51 there are people who think you're basically just a massive grifter,

1:13:54 that you're very smart, you're very eloquent,

1:13:57 you can be very persuasive with the power of your words,

1:14:00 but that actually when it comes to any of these issues,

1:14:02 you don't really have a personal principle.

1:14:05 I do.

1:14:05 I do.

1:14:06 And it's really Your view is that all people in power are terrible.

1:14:09 But when I ask you, when I've challenged you to say,

1:14:11 well, what would you actually do?

1:14:12 You go on a 20-minute eloquent spiel which doesn't answer the question.

1:14:16 Oh my god, it actually does answer the question.

1:14:18 Let me try and do it again.

1:14:19 Firstly, find faith and integrity in yourself.

1:14:22 Do whatever you can.

1:14:23 Pray.

1:14:24 Find God.

1:14:25 Secondly, we cannot have systems that prioritize the centralization of power.

1:14:29 Whether that's representative democracy or this global commercialism,

1:14:33 what would you do?

1:14:35 Use the technology that we currently have.

1:14:37 All right.

1:14:38 Oh, good.

1:14:38 This is the bit I wanted to get to.

1:14:39 Can I have a glass of water?

1:14:40 I mean is Associated Press news.

1:14:42 Well, they're not under any obligation to give us bonds.

1:14:44 I see.

1:14:44 Well, actually, this guy, my mate J,

1:14:46 we are trying to find they're not our servants.

1:14:48 No, absolutely.

1:14:49 Hold on a minute.

1:14:49 I'm not declaring these.

1:14:50 They don't all work for us.

1:14:51 We're just hiring their studios.

1:14:52 No, I know that.

1:14:53 And I, you know, I've I think I've

1:14:55 established quite we should be cognizant they're not working.

1:14:58 No, with my mate Jake though who's over there who actually is working for me.

1:15:02 Well, Jake get directing [clears throat] who I'm directing it to.

1:15:04 And also, there was one or two other people.

1:15:06 So, it's not just to be clear.

1:15:07 I'm not sort of like going, "All right, get me some water, man."

1:15:10 Directed the AP that they should they should get you a nice bottle of water.

1:15:13 Well, I just thought that the facility

1:15:14 itself might have amidst its many benefits, water.

1:15:20 Thank you so much.

1:15:21 That's so kind.

1:15:22 Was the obligation crossing camera crossing the floor?

1:15:25 See, thank you very much.

1:15:26 I really do appreciate that glass of water.

1:15:28 Would you like some?

1:15:29 Don't be proud.

1:15:30 I'm good, man.

1:15:30 I like the tap.

1:15:31 You like the government water?

1:15:32 Love it.

1:15:32 Yeah, no problem.

1:15:33 Even if it kills me, I can't keep drinking the government water.

1:15:36 [clears throat] is I can't keep taking the gun.

1:15:38 Actually, the water is some of the cleanest in the world, but you know that.

1:15:43 Look, you're you're a very argumentative and obstreporous individual.

1:15:46 Not at all.

1:15:47 I just like to challenge.

1:15:48 You even argued with that.

1:15:49 I like to challenge people.

1:15:50 Go on.

1:15:50 So, go on.

1:15:51 You we were talking about Oh, yeah.

1:15:54 This is what I wanted to say.

1:15:55 You say that I'm like um I'm a grifter and actually to tell it.

1:15:58 I say other people have said that it's all a grift

1:16:02 and they would actually include and I you know this is for you

1:16:04 to to actually in the end only you know but you've got this new

1:16:09 book how to become a Christian in seven days people say look you

1:16:12 only became a Christian seven months after the allegations were made public

1:16:17 and that this is part of your thing that you've worked out

1:16:20 that this could give you some kind of cover you're a born again

1:16:23 Christian that this is you know you've heard the you've heard people say this

1:16:27 but what do you of other people take you

1:16:29 very sincerely and believe absolutely in your commitment to this.

1:16:32 I know.

1:16:32 I hear you, mate.

1:16:33 I hear I was I was with a mutual friend of yours,

1:16:35 bumped into him bear grills the other day.

1:16:37 He was a great guy who was there at your baptism.

1:16:40 We famously saw the video and so on.

1:16:41 He absolutely believes that it's sincere

1:16:43 and genuine and I completely respect that.

1:16:46 I don't know.

1:16:46 Right.

1:16:47 In the same way that I don't know

1:16:49 where the truth lies about the allegations you face

1:16:52 or COVID or Israel or Palestine terrifying.

1:16:57 Sure.

1:16:57 You can only profer an opinion.

1:17:00 I'm not afraid to change my opinion.

1:17:03 Good.

1:17:02 Right.

1:17:02 My question for you is, do you have genuinely principled opinions?

1:17:06 Do you think?

1:17:07 Yeah.

1:17:07 Because I think if you don't have Yeah, I do.

1:17:10 And but obviously I asked myself the same question.

1:17:14 Why go to the aggravation of going on Piers Morgan?

1:17:18 Like because I tell you like with everything that's been shown to me,

1:17:22 with everything I've learned, the

1:17:25 idea of maybe selling some books is it's a professional obligation in some ways,

1:17:30 but it sort of doesn't weigh that heavily on me in the scheme

1:17:34 of things just because everything else is so sort of varied,

1:17:37 luminous, brilliant, beautiful, awful trial, magnificent trial,

1:17:40 best of times, worst of times,

1:17:42 revelation of real truth, exposure to the fallibility and facitiousness of fame.

1:17:49 you like I in a sense peers like you I don't have the kind

1:17:52 of thick skin you have cuz I some think you genuinely don't care that if

1:17:57 people think you're a grifter I don't think that I think you are a creature

1:18:00 of our time in a way I think that's what is always brought forward

1:18:03 I think in the end only I know and only you know right

1:18:06 maybe not even maybe not even because why would you make yourself the highest

1:18:10 authority you can sort of understand your intentions but there is a thing

1:18:13 in psychology called the unconscious there is

1:18:16 a thing in Christianity called the spirit And both of these things indicate

1:18:19 that your personhood is not absolute authority.

1:18:22 And in your sort of continued stance,

1:18:24 which is somewhat legitimate as a journalist of neutrality,

1:18:27 what's kind of masked in that is that Christianity

1:18:30 demands of you that you make a choice.

1:18:31 But I'm not I'm not neutral.

1:18:33 I have no You kept saying I've got like I, you know,

1:18:35 I'm profering an opinion, but I don't care about co I don't know.

1:18:38 I could be wrong.

1:18:39 I get people on from all sides to debate you.

1:18:41 I personally have a lot of opinions, a lot of strong opinions.

1:18:44 I'm not afraid to express them.

1:18:45 If you asked me about do I believe in vaccines, absolutely is my answer.

1:18:49 Your answer was a long spiel of not answering.

1:18:52 It's like I'd be really careful about it.

1:18:54 I'd be right careful.

1:18:55 I'd read Gavin Debeca's book um face facing the facts.

1:18:59 That's what Forbidden Facts Forbidden Facts by Gavin Debeca.

1:19:01 That's what I'd read on that.

1:19:02 And I'd read The Real Anthony Fouchy by Robert Kennedy and then make a decision.

1:19:07 And also tell me what books are good to demonstrate the alternative.

1:19:10 Tell me this what what kind of Christian are you?

1:19:12 I'm like a like a kind of Christian that has to hang

1:19:16 by a thin thread of faith knowing that I am broken that you are broken.

1:19:21 Do you have a denomination or not?

1:19:22 I Why was asking?

1:19:25 No, I'm very an allegation.

1:19:27 [laughter] I'm just asking everything is another I know you do.

1:19:30 You if you don't mind me saying you're

1:19:31 Was everything okay in that interview we did in 2006?

1:19:34 Yes, but it's you know you are slightly hyper sensitive to that kind of thing.

1:19:38 I think because you don't really do many interview if I'm honest you don't do

1:19:42 this is the first interview you've done

1:19:43 with any Brit for example since the allegations

1:19:45 and I'm I'm grateful to you for doing it but you are slightly hyper sensitive

1:19:49 to anyone challenging you because most of the media

1:19:52 you do you don't really get challenged

1:19:54 I don't mind being challenged and I want to be challenged actually

1:19:56 and I like being challenged and like I didn't go well Piers Morgan right

1:20:00 this is what he's like he's [laughter] he's going to be stroking my thigh for

1:20:04 I I've I've conversation we've had people will watch it,

1:20:09 they'll take a view, they'll agree with you or me about this, that, whatever.

1:20:12 I think what you're But this should be how conversations are had.

1:20:15 I don't think it is actually,

1:20:16 but like what you're interpreting as um sensitivity, it might be sensitivity.

1:20:21 It's a form of intelligence or a form of awareness.

1:20:23 So maybe that's the right word, but it's also a kind of frustration.

1:20:26 And the frustration is the sort of feeling that we could that we're supposed

1:20:31 to be saying something that could be valuable and we're not quite getting to it.

1:20:34 And I think the reason we're not quite getting to it is because

1:20:36 you're like you're so sort of expertly

1:20:38 schooled in a particular type of discovery.

1:20:41 And I felt that when I made an incorrect assessment of Trump on the one

1:20:44 time I met him in like I know 2006 or something like that of like,

1:20:47 oh, he's a person that has a sort of a genius but in a very narrow line.

1:20:51 I I said to myself, it's almost as if hung

1:20:53 being good at the game Hungry Hippos is the most

1:20:56 important thing in the world and this person's a master

1:20:57 of it and he's become elevated with a very unique skill.

1:21:01 The same could be said of LeBron or of Beckham or of anyone like

1:21:04 a skill that has is prized in a particular culture at a particular time.

1:21:08 And well, what I'm thinking with you is you're so good at sort of generating

1:21:13 uh sort of conflict and sort of a kind of a needling energy and I am

1:21:17 easily needle because I think that there's

1:21:19 purpose and meaning in life and I believe

1:21:21 in new systems of leadership and new systems

1:21:24 of government and I believe in real change.

1:21:26 In fact, even the very idea of government could

1:21:28 become a position of service that I believe there are

1:21:31 people of valor that are just waiting that even

1:21:33 in the fraudness that one might get if you talk one

1:21:36 minute to Tommy Robinson and the next minute to George

1:21:38 Galloway and you're aware of Jeremy Corbyn and you're

1:21:41 aware of Janice Verafaris you think well there actually are

1:21:45 sort of great minds that could participate in a way

1:21:48 of actually improving people's lives and in Christ there is

1:21:52 the potential that you yourself can live with the odd

1:21:54 paradox of your brokenness ness and the sort

1:21:57 of failings of your life and the mistakes you've made

1:21:59 and the errors but also becoming whole in that whole

1:22:02 in that for there even to be justice or innocence

1:22:05 these concepts and words we're banding about there has

1:22:08 to be a god or you can't have those concept

1:22:10 you took probably this Bible actually but I think

1:22:12 it was this one you took into court wasn't it

1:22:14 some I also think you're not listening like that's why like

1:22:16 that's what I did you're literally talking about

1:22:18 but like but what I mean by that is is that the that you're

1:22:21 the this might sound a bit I don't know woo woo hippie

1:22:25 that the sort of the energy is a kind of like you talk

1:22:27 this Bible into court and I feel like I already know where that thread's going.

1:22:30 I it's going to go well like holding in there.

1:22:32 What did you think that was going to be a retrieved by that?

1:22:34 And it's not like it's cynicism.

1:22:37 That's what it is.

1:22:37 It's cynicism.

1:22:38 I think you're cynical about what?

1:22:40 I'm not preempting your question.

1:22:41 I'm pre I'm preempting your essence.

1:22:43 I think you're cynical about human beings.

1:22:45 I think you're cynical about yourself.

1:22:47 Not at all.

1:22:47 I think you're cynical about yourself.

1:22:49 I'm one of the most positive people you ever

1:22:50 I don't think you believe that you're capable of greatness.

1:22:53 I don't think you're I've already achieved greatness.

1:22:54 Oh god, darling.

1:22:55 I don't think you think you're capable

1:22:57 of participating in meaningful change or even meaningful conversations.

1:23:00 I think you think the best that Piers Morgan can do

1:23:02 for himself is to host hideous spectacles of conflict about real serious,

1:23:09 awful, dreadful stuff.

1:23:10 Why are you here then?

1:23:11 Well, I'm here actually because I don't mind

1:23:14 trying to learn a little bit from you.

1:23:16 You prepared to come on something you categorize as a hideous spectacle?

1:23:19 No, I think it's a hideous spectacle.

1:23:21 say for example the stuff where there's multi- panels and people

1:23:24 are like really screeching each other maybe about trans issues or whatever

1:23:26 and I don't know maybe there's something cathartic in it maybe

1:23:30 but I don't and also I don't want to like lay all

1:23:32 that on your shoulders I'm just saying I don't think that's

1:23:34 the right way for us to be stewarding the culture and I think

1:23:37 we could do better and I suppose if to really go into it

1:23:40 what I'm I think is this is a person I could probably

1:23:43 learn from and benefit from but it would there'd

1:23:46 have to be trust and it's hard to it's hard

1:23:49 to trust because I sometimes think you're too caught

1:23:51 in the world that you used to be in and it

1:23:53 Can I go back to asking a question about your Bible?

1:23:56 Yes, if you want to.

1:23:57 Thank you.

1:23:57 That was that the one you took into court?

1:23:59 You're the very one.

1:24:01 Okay.

1:24:01 What was your thinking of taking it into court

1:24:03 and what you were seeing looking at some passages?

1:24:06 What were the relevant passages for you?

1:24:07 All right.

1:24:08 Thank you for asking me.

1:24:09 Thank you.

1:24:10 I didn't know, did I?

1:24:12 A little bit.

1:24:16 Um, it was this from Isaiah.

1:24:20 You're right.

1:24:20 Bear did say, you know, be chilled.

1:24:23 Sometimes I lose the chill, man.

1:24:26 It's pretty is this.

1:24:40 They don't like that, do they?

1:24:41 In the old gallery.

1:24:42 But remember, you just said it's a hired spot.

1:24:46 This is from Isaiah.

1:24:56 Excuse me.

1:25:17 It says here The word that the verse

1:25:32 that I was looking at that day was not this.

1:25:38 I can't actually I can't actually find the verse that I that I had that day,

1:25:43 but this is good enough.

1:25:45 This is from Isaiah 12.

1:25:49 I will praise you, Lord.

1:25:50 Although you were angry with me,

1:25:51 your anger has turned away and you have comforted me.

1:25:55 Surely God is my salvation.

1:25:57 I will trust and not be afraid.

1:26:00 The Lord, the Lord himself is my strength and my defense.

1:26:05 What I was looking at before is that there's a bit where he says, "See,

1:26:08 I'm doing a new thing." Isaiah says like springs in the desert that like

1:26:13 in the desert of your life when

1:26:14 your life becomes barren and difficult that a new

1:26:17 resource with God will appear and in a situation

1:26:20 that obviously feels quite pressurized and condensed

1:26:24 and in all those preliminary appearings that I've

1:26:27 attended there's the presence of something very

1:26:30 beautiful grace it would be called in one of the moments I think it was

1:26:36 the first hearing although I've had several

1:26:38 People that patted me down for secur Russell

1:26:42 Gizer just 50 years old just some normal

1:26:44 geyser patted me down and that for weapons

1:26:47 or I know sharps and uh I'm going to have to touch your hair now.

1:26:51 You're not going to like this.

1:26:53 And he went the whole country's behind you mate.

1:26:56 Whole country is behind you.

1:26:58 And I felt very very encouraged.

1:27:01 I felt very encouraged that these institutions with their emblems,

1:27:04 unicorns and lions are not all there is to our country.

1:27:09 And um the [clears throat] reason I take it

1:27:11 here is to sort of remember that's the point

1:27:14 I think of becoming a Christian is to remember

1:27:16 to put back together again who you are.

1:27:19 That we're not you're not and I'm not our identity in the world.

1:27:22 Like the identity of I have to do this to get

1:27:25 money or get whatever it is that we think we're getting.

1:27:28 And it actually is real into so much as to say Christ is real

1:27:34 that even in the transition from my and you know you had the ppicacity

1:27:39 and the um insight to diagnose it even in my agitation at being in an unfamiliar

1:27:44 situation even with someone I've known interially

1:27:47 as you correctly assessed at the beginning

1:27:50 you know I'm my whole life is a trial and and it's not culminating because

1:27:54 there will be a life after it whether it's in jail or But in that trial,

1:27:59 in the hardest times, I found him.

1:28:01 And it's not like a sort of a paleotative.

1:28:04 And I suppose the reason I feel difficult around

1:28:06 you is cuz I feel like there's um a cynicism

1:28:09 that if I talk about something that is very

1:28:11 beautiful and certainly robust enough to withstand any of us.

1:28:13 I'm not questioning your faith.

1:28:15 I'm not saying that you are.

1:28:16 I'm not saying that you are.

1:28:19 that it's I think it's so important not because

1:28:23 of me obviously because who are any one of us?

1:28:27 He has no favorites.

1:28:29 But I feel like you know yeah hopefully this isn't a grift.

1:28:33 Hopefully all of our lives aren't just some

1:28:35 stupid attempt to garner material things in this temporary

1:28:38 place to create the appearance of permanence

1:28:40 as we just pass through time to death.

1:28:43 In this horror of this time where the worst things

1:28:46 that could be said about a man were said about me.

1:28:49 And while my son was, you know, having surgery,

1:28:52 as you already know, because you've heard me say it elsewhere,

1:28:54 the most graceful and beautiful things happened in my life,

1:28:57 I felt whole and I felt loved and I felt everything's going to be all right.

1:29:01 And also, what's been surprising about it is all the things that I kind

1:29:04 of knew just as a kid and going through life as a countercultural person,

1:29:09 I mean, not trusting authority is what I mean by that.

1:29:12 It's all been underwritten by scripture.

1:29:15 It is explained and foretold.

1:29:17 You're fallen peers.

1:29:19 I'm fallen.

1:29:20 We will participate in this world in a fallen way.

1:29:22 And I reckon the reason me and you both love um Bear Erills

1:29:28 in spite of Val sort of I don't know whatever this chemistry is

1:29:31 is because he is sincere and he demonstrates Christ and it I do

1:29:36 have a tendency to as a rack on tour and as an entertainer

1:29:39 or whatever try to present stuff and I do have a a tendency

1:29:44 I think as a person that's felt even prior to all this happening

1:29:48 um feel like I'm being under attack my whole life anyway and that if

1:29:51 I wasn't famous and if I wasn't wasn't sleeping with loads of women,

1:29:54 that I wasn't worth knowing or even worth anything or even worth being alive.

1:29:58 And even though of course it's the worst thing that's

1:30:01 ever happened in my life to be accused of these things,

1:30:04 but God provided because that was happening

1:30:06 with my boy Herby who's doing real well,

1:30:08 it sort of showed me it was all[ __] man.

1:30:11 You know who you are.

1:30:12 You know what you've done.

1:30:13 You know what you've not done.

1:30:14 You know your behavior.

1:30:15 How How has Laura, your wife, dealt with this?

1:30:17 She's like um uh she's well I'm in a real marriage mate

1:30:25 and I suppose you are are you?

1:30:27 So what it's like being in a real marriage is like it's someone

1:30:33 who actually knows me and who's known me for a very long time

1:30:37 and knows like see when even in the introduction he's some people

1:30:41 he's a silver tongue devil and other people he's an[ __] Well, yeah.

1:30:44 But yes, and yeah, silver tongue devil[ __] but she

1:30:48 knows me and she loves the reality of who I am.

1:30:52 And she's like a cradle Catholic, but she like you, I figure sort of, you know,

1:30:59 it's hard to live your life like Christ is real because the world

1:31:01 is telling you in a million different ways that he is not, that God isn't real.

1:31:04 Is she a believer as well?

1:31:06 She is committed as you.

1:31:07 She and I, me and my wife Laura,

1:31:09 we've like her her beliefs are very different from mine in a way.

1:31:13 like I suppose it would be because it's hitting a very different prism in her

1:31:17 but we're certainly got a real alliance and neither

1:31:19 of us have got any like even I suppose why I

1:31:21 got wrangled even at the asking about the denomination is

1:31:24 because it's so beautiful in its purity and its formlessness

1:31:28 but most Christians have no problem saying what denomination they

1:31:31 I've got a problem with it I've got this challenge

1:31:33 and I'm a Catholic I have no problem telling you

1:31:35 know but you're very different you're very different

1:31:37 but why why is it so difficult to answer it's not difficult to answer like

1:31:41 I'm really interested in Catholicism really interesting.

1:31:43 You were an atheist.

1:31:44 You then were a Buddhist.

1:31:46 See, that's like that.

1:31:47 That's antagonistic.

1:31:49 No, it's not.

1:31:49 It's factual.

1:31:51 You were an atheist.

1:31:52 You were going to be next.

1:31:53 You were a Muslim.

1:31:54 That's what some That's what some people think.

1:31:58 Hitler, what do you think about Hitler?

1:31:59 That's what some people That's what some people think.

1:32:01 Should we get the jab?

1:32:02 Have you vaccinated your own children?

1:32:03 Take Bear's advice and calm down.

1:32:05 No, you take Bear's advice and be a good man.

1:32:07 Be a good man.

1:32:09 And it cost you to be a good man.

1:32:11 It might cost you everything.

1:32:12 might not like it might cost you everything to become one.

1:32:15 But you can do it might not do it.

1:32:17 These are basic facts.

1:32:19 You were an atheist.

1:32:20 You then became a Buddhist.

1:32:21 No.

1:32:22 Now you're a Christian.

1:32:23 Good.

1:32:23 They're not basic facts.

1:32:24 They're information being tailored and collated.

1:32:27 Yeah.

1:32:28 You are creating attempting to create using a collage of language.

1:32:32 You're the ONE WHO TOLD US that you were.

1:32:35 You told us you were an Israel's got the right to protect itself.

1:32:39 Yeah.

1:32:38 THIS IS A GENOCIDE.

1:32:40 DON'T TAKE THAT CO SHOT.

1:32:41 TAKE THE COVID SHOT.

1:32:44 LISTEN, but I'm happy to talk about that.

1:32:45 You're not.

1:32:45 I'm happy to talk about anything, but I would prefer to talk about

1:32:48 I only know you're an atheist because you

1:32:49 prefer to talk about something, peers, something.

1:32:53 We're talking about your profound belief in God.

1:32:55 And I as a Christian, no, we're not talking about my profound belief in God.

1:32:58 We're talking about the actuality of God.

1:32:59 And we're talking about the fact that you

1:33:00 have been doing water carrying for Satan.

1:33:03 That's what we're talking about, peers.

1:33:05 Water carrying the fallenness in this world.

1:33:08 The fallenness.

1:33:09 Who's I've been carrying water for?

1:33:11 Sat Satan.

1:33:11 Satan is the epitomizing object of the realness of evil.

1:33:16 That evil is not some abstract moral idea.

1:33:18 Who's the Satan carrying water for?

1:33:21 I suppose it's a and I'm trying not I don't mean to be mean.

1:33:25 The you like I don't care.

1:33:27 It's the institutions of media power

1:33:30 and how they interact and operate with government.

1:33:33 You I suppose one could argue your initial position in COVID.

1:33:36 One could argue what went on with the mirror stuff.

1:33:39 One could argue what went on say with this contentiousness

1:33:43 around the terrifying and awful conflicts in the Middle East.

1:33:47 And but more importantly more importantly right now right now

1:33:51 that there's a chance for us to even when like

1:33:54 I sort of take my own advice and more importantly

1:33:56 be grills advice and think right just sit and chill

1:33:59 that you sort of revert to a kind of he was an atheist

1:34:02 he was a Buddhist and I can't see that as a good faith inquiry.

1:34:05 I see it as an attempt to generate an outcome

1:34:08 and and to create a sort of a kind of hysteria whether that's

1:34:11 in this room with me or sort of more broadly among

1:34:13 people like Piers Morgan uncensored could be an opportunity to house frame

1:34:19 and present in a kind of graceful way important opinions and I'm

1:34:22 not suggesting that I've got any of them but I'm happen

1:34:26 to be in a sort of a really weird situation

1:34:28 in a in a way that's deeply similar and comparable to your own.

1:34:32 You've sort of gone down the weird gushing

1:34:34 shoot of fame in a million different ways.

1:34:36 Been close to dark actual dark nasty power.

1:34:39 Come out the other side.

1:34:41 And what I suppose I'm saying is look, you know, yeah,

1:34:43 I'm happy to have it's cuz nothing means anything to you.

1:34:45 It's like that's what it feels like a bit.

1:34:46 Like what means something to you?

1:34:48 Like you love your wife, you love your kids,

1:34:49 you're willing to die for your country where

1:34:51 the UK is about to march teenagers into war.

1:34:53 The United States is about to do it.

1:34:54 And me and you, like, you know, me as well,

1:34:56 maybe we are a couple of grifters, a couple of worthless,

1:34:59 lousy grifters that will say whatever we have to say to stay

1:35:01 on the internet and make a few quid and fogg A BOOK AND OH,

1:35:04 MEGAN MARKLE, she's a[ __] Is that all right?

1:35:06 Is that a[ __] ISRAEL.

1:35:07 YEAH,[ __] IT.

1:35:08 YOU KNOW, maybe that's all we are.

1:35:10 But through him, not through you or me, we can be something great.

1:35:14 And when I sit here with answering questions

1:35:16 about whether or not I vaccinate my kids, think, "Ah, no, not this.

1:35:19 This isn't it.

1:35:20 This isn't it." And there's a hair that has been bothering me for a long time.

1:35:24 Thankfully, it wasn't attached.

1:35:24 Otherwise, that would have been grooming.

1:35:26 And what would that be in the ape world?

1:35:27 What I want to say to you is that I want to be better.

1:35:30 I want to be better.

1:35:32 And for me, the cost of that, who knows what that's going to be.

1:35:34 You you've alluded to it already.

1:35:36 I want you to do it as well.

1:35:37 I know you can do it.

1:35:38 I want you to be a meaningful participant.

1:35:40 I feel that there's some reason that you're in this world and it's not

1:35:43 to generate conflict and it's not to generate

1:35:46 it's to participate in the creation of truth.

1:35:48 That was always your destiny and I want you to do it.

1:35:51 Is your is your book going to generate profit?

1:35:54 Actually, I've already decided and believe me, I don't want to do this, but no.

1:36:00 But if it does make any money and the chances

1:36:02 of that are slim in this crazy world, that I will find a way.

1:36:05 In fact, me and you, if you [clears throat] I mean, like,

1:36:07 you know, I want to give it to something that means something.

1:36:10 I've seen it all.

1:36:11 I've not seen it all, but I've seen enough.

1:36:12 I've seen a lot.

1:36:13 Tucker Carlson's company's doing it, right?

1:36:15 Tucker Carlson books.com.

1:36:16 Tucker Carlson books.com is an imprint of the company Skyhorse

1:36:20 which are a company that will publish stuff of cancel people.

1:36:23 Yeah.

1:36:23 How to become a Christian in seven days is on sale.

1:36:25 Tucker [laughter] Carlson books.com.

1:36:27 No, I don't think it's good to be all sort of passive like that, you know,

1:36:30 like sort of like in sort of say neutrality.

1:36:31 Yeah.

1:36:32 I'm just It's my job to be a journalist.

1:36:33 It's good in a way.

1:36:34 You claim to be neutral.

1:36:35 I don't know what you're talking about.

1:36:35 Where have you got that from?

1:36:36 I'm probably the least neutral person on the airways in the world.

1:36:40 Well, I suppose by literally my whole reputation is of being highly opinionated.

1:36:43 Where have you got this idea that I want to be neutral?

1:36:46 I reckon it's from like such totally bizarre misreading.

1:36:49 Lack of conviction.

1:36:51 Really?

1:36:51 That's what I feel.

1:36:52 Yeah.

1:36:52 You don't think I have any convictions?

1:36:54 That's what I'm feeling.

1:36:55 I feel like you're a beautiful person and like

1:36:58 I want to be in a position where look man, think of the wonders of this.

1:37:00 I've done I've done Paxman.

1:37:01 I've done that other little one with the earring.

1:37:03 I've done all I've been around all these people, mate.

1:37:06 And like and I I all I want is to feel

1:37:08 like in the midst of some terrible madness in my own life

1:37:12 which definitely needs to be resolved and I pray to God

1:37:15 that there is a resolution of this that we can look at.

1:37:17 Oh my god, that's miraculous that that happened.

1:37:19 What if you get convicted and you go to prison and it's not very nice.

1:37:24 No, not that.

1:37:26 You'll have to choose again.

1:37:27 There'll be the white supremacist, the Muslims.

1:37:29 All you do join the white supremacist on one day

1:37:31 and then grift for cigarettes WITH THE MUSLIMS ON THE next day.

1:37:34 How will you deal with the fact that in that moment

1:37:36 God has felt that's the right thing to happen to you then?

1:37:39 Like, you know, drink the cup, man.

1:37:42 Drink the cup.

1:37:43 That's the That's the deal we've got.

1:37:45 That's the deal we've got, peers.

1:37:47 And how will you feel on your judgment day?

1:37:50 How will you feel on your judgment day?

1:37:53 Because it's outside of time.

1:37:55 It's here now.

1:37:56 And it's forever.

1:37:57 Meaning that all of us have a calling to be wonderful.

1:38:00 It's bigger than even important serious things where evidently people have

1:38:03 been hurt and big trials and big consequences for you know

1:38:06 have you have you been surpris I mean I've been through a few ups and downs

1:38:09 as you as you [laughter] pointed out it's also like also it's a bit like a kind

1:38:12 of a dementia like you know have you ever

1:38:14 spoke to someone with Alzheimer's and they've just suddenly

1:38:16 sort of the way that they talk is kind

1:38:18 of like I've been through some ups and downs.

1:38:19 Well, no.

1:38:20 There's a reason I'm asking the question.

1:38:22 When people go through ups and downs, I've in my experiences, surprising people

1:38:28 reach out to support you.

1:38:30 That body language and other people that you would have expected to don't.

1:38:33 Have you had that?

1:38:36 Oh man.

1:38:36 Yeah.

1:38:37 It's unbelievable.

1:38:38 It's sort of an unbelievable kind of churn and change of your life.

1:38:43 That's sort of well,

1:38:44 it's a bit like you saying if you're convicted and you're going to jail,

1:38:47 knowing in your heart of hearts that you're not a rapist,

1:38:50 how will you deal with that God wanted that for you?

1:38:53 And it's like, wow, this is reality.

1:38:55 I'm not scared of the truth.

1:38:57 I love it.

1:38:58 It's all that's real by definition.

1:39:00 So, what is it like when um you know,

1:39:02 you lose touch with that person, that person steps up.

1:39:05 It's like, oh, that was always true.

1:39:08 Who's who's disappointed you?

1:39:09 Give us the top fives.

1:39:11 Top fives.

1:39:12 Who's been most disappointing to you?

1:39:14 No one disappoints me.

1:39:16 Come on.

1:39:16 I'm not like I'm not doing your mad little game

1:39:18 of reducing everything to trivia and titt because some things,

1:39:22 believe it or not, pe are not trivia and tattle.

1:39:25 In fact, there's an argument for the direct contrary

1:39:26 that none of it is trivia and till tattle.

1:39:29 That you're continually in the moment interfacing

1:39:31 with a really beautiful reality that has a veil

1:39:34 laying across it and all of us are

1:39:36 sort of tangled and interacting with the veil.

1:39:38 Oh man, I just sort of thought Terry Wogan and David Ike 1987 vibes.

1:39:42 I [laughter] don't I don't want to do that stuff.

1:39:44 I'm I don't think that I'm It's especially

1:39:46 important although I have any unique or novel insights.

1:39:48 I've just had a really unusual life and I've written this book.

1:39:51 And the key thing about this book

1:39:53 is becoming Christian is a consolidation of all

1:39:57 the mad musings of a a mind that was embedded in and wedded to the culture.

1:40:01 I thought, wouldn't it be great to be famous?

1:40:03 Wouldn't it be great to marry a pop star?

1:40:04 Wouldn't it be great if you could

1:40:05 sleep with endless women whenever you wanted to?

1:40:08 Consensually, one might say, given the nature of this current appearance.

1:40:13 But at the end of it all, even though obviously you have to find God to get any

1:40:16 of you that are clean and sober from drugs and alcohol,

1:40:18 and you have to get clean, you have to find God,

1:40:20 some kind of God to even cope with life

1:40:21 without your former God that was drugs and alcohol.

1:40:24 Coming to Christ is like you're exposed

1:40:26 to a deep reality that is beautiful and available.

1:40:30 And so it's not like always good because sometimes still

1:40:32 like this morning I was worried about coming on Persan.

1:40:34 I'm even a bit worried now I'm doing this on Pier Morgan.

1:40:36 Will they use it?

1:40:36 It's uncensored.

1:40:37 So I suppose every word we've said will appear.

1:40:40 Even the sort of the long pause on a trip that up.

1:40:43 No no everything will appear exactly.

1:40:46 That's my promise to you now.

1:40:48 There will not be a single second cut out.

1:40:50 What do you think your duty is here?

1:40:52 Not with me as a me just to ask you questions.

1:40:54 No, not with me as a guest.

1:40:55 That's sort of largely irrelevant.

1:40:57 I mean you as Pier Piers Morgan

1:40:59 I think I have a platform that is now pretty big pretty global

1:41:02 and my job is to take complex

1:41:04 issues get people with strong opinions and hopefully

1:41:06 some brain power who have strong opinions that don't agree with each other

1:41:10 to debate these things or to have

1:41:12 one-on-one interviews with people like you where I

1:41:14 try and just be I said to you before we came in here

1:41:16 you asked me you know what what what do you want to get out

1:41:18 of this I said I just want to be fair to you right I don't

1:41:21 think I've been unfair what I've been what I've been struck by is that you've

1:41:26 I think underneath the calm exterior you've

1:41:29 tried to exude quite understandably I think inside

1:41:33 you there's a lot of tension a lot of stress you know how big this moment

1:41:38 is coming in October I've known you 20 years like I said we're not like

1:41:41 friends but I've known you and I've always got on well with you make no

1:41:45 I'm not one of these people that suddenly pretends I always knew you and always

1:41:49 hated you I don't know right I don't know I don't look at you and think

1:41:53 you are this or you are that I would prefer to let a jury work

1:41:58 that out based on the evidence and you to be judged fairly by the evidence.

1:42:02 That is what should happen to anyone.

1:42:03 That's irrelevant individual.

1:42:05 I absolutely believe in that.

1:42:06 Of course.

1:42:07 Of course.

1:42:07 I I know that you do.

1:42:09 I don't think you're I'm really not trying to trap you at all.

1:42:11 I do.

1:42:12 I don't feel that.

1:42:12 I don't feel like you're trying.

1:42:13 Promise when people watch this, I doubt anyone thinking,

1:42:15 "God, Morgan's trying to trap him." I'm not.

1:42:17 I'm just asking you basic questions which often you

1:42:20 react like Vufi is to which I find weird.

1:42:23 The only reason, for example, for example,

1:42:25 the only reason I know that you were an atheist

1:42:27 and a Buddhist is because you proudly told everybody.

1:42:30 No, that you I want to try and explain

1:42:32 it because it might be maybe it'll be valuable.

1:42:37 I took drugs real young.

1:42:38 So, I knew that there was a God.

1:42:40 I rejected the idea of a Christian church for all the reasons anybody would.

1:42:45 Then I got involved in trying to understand

1:42:47 because I knew there was something else.

1:42:49 And indeed what's amazing about coming to Christ is finding it's there already.

1:42:54 And there's something so analogous to the just anyone's personal journey.

1:42:58 The thing that you're looking for, it's already here.

1:43:00 He's waiting for you.

1:43:01 In fact, he's running towards you.

1:43:02 And it's such a sort of an obvious and traditional and wellsighted story,

1:43:07 the story of the prodigal son that it feels hacky to say it.

1:43:10 And and it's not that I feel that you're trying to trap me.

1:43:12 I feel that you you remain an avatar of something mcurial and untrustworthy

1:43:18 in the media space that by making claims like I'm you know

1:43:24 housing debate or challenging or whatever the tendency and trend is generally

1:43:30 towards the interests of sets of power that benefit from having you there.

1:43:34 In the same way that Rupert Murdoch is not

1:43:37 going to advocate for someone that's like going to go,

1:43:39 "Hey, these media monopolies should have as much influence.

1:43:41 They're messing with the miners or they're putting factor in power.

1:43:45 Oddly, oddly, Fox News, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, of course,

1:43:49 regularly has had you on as a guest, right?

1:43:51 So, I'm not listen.

1:43:52 And and I would ask you a difficult question

1:43:54 is if you feel that way about Rupert Murdoch,

1:43:56 who I personally have enormous time and respect for and a lot

1:44:00 of gratitude for what he's done for my career,

1:44:01 and I think he's a great great media tycoon.

1:44:05 But regardless of that, if you have such strong views about his terrible

1:44:08 power and so on, why do you go on his network, Fox News?

1:44:12 Well, it's not like I'm always

1:44:14 you're helping him, you're helping him get ratings and advertising.

1:44:17 Some people would say, Russell, it's it's hypocrisy that you do that.

1:44:21 But people, the more principal stance would be, I'm not going to do Fox.

1:44:25 What am I trying to say?

1:44:26 What am I trying to say?

1:44:27 It's like your um MMO is to be able to desecrate and denigrate kind of anything.

1:44:36 I want to want to ask you what do you think is pure?

1:44:40 What do you think is beautiful?

1:44:42 Who do you think you can rely on?

1:44:44 How are we going to resolve this endless knotted

1:44:48 tangled conflict that's unfolding both

1:44:50 geopolitically and domestically almost everywhere?

1:44:53 What do you feel your contribution could be

1:44:56 to be at the center of global debate about it and hopefully get

1:44:59 to the truth and hopefully concentrate

1:45:01 people's minds on making the right decisions.

1:45:03 Concentrate their minds on making the right decision.

1:45:05 That's really good.

1:45:06 Yeah.

1:45:06 Challenging authority.

1:45:07 Challenging authority.

1:45:08 Like for example, I've been friends with Donald Trump 20 years,

1:45:11 but I've been very challenging and critical about the Iran war, for example.

1:45:16 Right.

1:45:16 As as an example, I see that as my role as a journalist.

1:45:19 Notwithstanding, we've been friends a long time.

1:45:21 When I see him do things I don't agree with or don't understand,

1:45:24 I call him out on it.

1:45:26 More journalists should be fair-minded,

1:45:27 but I also praise Trump when he does things I agree with.

1:45:30 I'm willing to be both things.

1:45:32 There are very few people out in my world in the media who are prepared to be,

1:45:36 in my view, intellectually honest.

1:45:39 What do you mean by that?

1:45:40 And why would that be?

1:45:42 For example, I don't think anyone who is intellectually honest can say

1:45:46 they know what's happening in the Iran war right now with any confidence.

1:45:49 People who talk with absolute certainty and confidence about it,

1:45:52 they're not being intellectually honest because clearly it's extremely chaotic.

1:45:56 Yes.

1:45:56 And unpredictable.

1:45:57 Yes.

1:45:57 And no one can speak with any confidence about what's going to happen.

1:46:00 That's the intellectually honest position.

1:46:02 All right.

1:46:03 I got it.

1:46:03 Do you would you apply that to various

1:46:06 areas of complexity even if they're not the

1:46:10 you you keep mentioning Israel guards is somehow I

1:46:12 should be embarrassed about my evolution on that story.

1:46:15 But my position was very clear.

1:46:17 After the appalling terror attack by Hamas

1:46:19 on October the 7th where 1,200 Israelis were killed, 7,000 more were wounded.

1:46:25 Absolutely.

1:46:26 Israel didn't just have a right to defend its people,

1:46:28 but to had a moral duty to do it.

1:46:31 And then as it went on, I felt

1:46:33 the scale of their response became utterly disproportionate.

1:46:37 And I feel that very strongly now.

1:46:39 That's my position.

1:46:40 By the way, a lot of people agree with me.

1:46:43 So I don't think it's an unusual evolution on that story.

1:46:49 Yes.

1:46:48 But if I asked you for example, are Hamas a terrorist organization and was what

1:46:53 they did that day an act of terrorism?

1:46:55 What would you say?

1:46:56 This is where we get I think to an important point.

1:46:58 What would you say is that what I would say is peers are

1:47:01 you do you not recognize perhaps because of your stated

1:47:05 aim to be at the heart of global debate

1:47:07 that actually it's a conflict generating dynamic and whilst

1:47:13 well we're talking about a conflict literally where people are dying

1:47:16 of course of naturally but we're also talking about a more diffuse

1:47:21 conflict that's around it that's also very heated and very very charged

1:47:26 and I wonder If we as people

1:47:29 with a degree of eloquence and access to an audience

1:47:34 instead of being participants in what one would

1:47:36 have to call the problem and therefore compounding it

1:47:40 might begin to talk about solutions whether those are spiritual

1:47:44 you have to deal with reality when you see it what happened

1:47:47 on October the 7th was an act of grotes terrorism but do you agree

1:47:51 I have such do you know I saw Ben Shapiro do something rather wonderful

1:47:55 was it an act of terrorism

1:47:57 what Shapiro did that was very smart was he said I'm a orthodox Jew.

1:48:01 I wear the hat and everything.

1:48:02 So do I agree with gay marriage as an orthodox Jew or you know conventional Jew

1:48:06 whatever type of Jew Ben Shapiro is um he said no like this is my belief.

1:48:11 This is my belief.

1:48:12 Right.

1:48:13 So like while dear old Russell Brand might be a vegan one

1:48:16 minute and a carnivore the next and a Christian one minute a

1:48:20 we've got a wrap by the way.

1:48:21 So still support the house.

1:48:22 We're running out of time.

1:48:23 But what is your point?

1:48:23 My point is that my sense of what is right and wrong is taken

1:48:30 from scripture and my sense of how we should treat one another as individuals

1:48:33 is guided by that and my sense of what should happen on a global

1:48:36 stage is completely guided by that and it's one of submission and surrender

1:48:42 I really well is it that think of the questions you could ask about that

1:48:46 I'm just asking a basic question about it's not a basic question that day

1:48:49 do you know what we've learned there

1:48:50 are no basic questions anymore there are that's

1:48:52 the problem about being intellectually dishonest is that when

1:48:55 you have an act of obvious grotesque terrorism, you just say what it is.

1:48:59 You don't you don't think how's that going to play

1:49:02 to my audience or how's that going to spin out on social media.

1:49:05 You just say when,200 people are massacred like

1:49:08 that then it's a grotesque act of terrorism.

1:49:10 When babies are kidnapped, when Holocaust,

1:49:13 you look at how actism the potential alternative narratives

1:49:18 and you try to say you've answered it by not answering.

1:49:20 No, I Well, I you have, haven't you?

1:49:25 It's wrong to kill people.

1:49:27 Okay, thou shalt not kill.

1:49:28 Let's end on that.

1:49:29 That's in the Old Testament.

1:49:30 Uh Russell Brian, how to become a Christian in seven days.

1:49:33 May take 50 years of sin and serious fuckups.

1:49:36 Uh just to get started.

1:49:38 Yeah.

1:49:39 Thank you for your time.

1:49:40 I appreciate it.

1:49:41 Yeah, I I do [music] as well.

1:49:42 I do as well.

1:49:46 Persson is proudly independent.

1:49:47 The only boss around here is me.

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1:50:03 And we'll do it all for free.

1:50:05 Independent uncensored media has never been more critical,

1:50:08 and we couldn't do it without you.