The Megyn Kelly Show - Russell Brand on Fame and Addiction, His Past Relationship with Katy Perry, His Trial Ahead, and Finding God | Ep. 1301
Episode Date: April 22, 2026Megyn Kelly is joined by Russell Brand, author, "How to Become a Christian in 7 Days," to discuss the upsides and downsides of fame and success, their connection back at NBC, the allegations against h...im as he awaits his October trial, the truth about his past sexual actions, his acknowledgement of his previous behavior and the reality of consent, the “thousands" of women he has slept with, his drug and sex addictions, finding God and what his faith means to him now, his upcoming trial over sexual allegations, the difference between immoral and criminal behavior, the way the “empire” and elites want to keep us all divided, their fear that if we unite we'll be able to acquire more power than they have, the shocking alleged connection between the Southern Poverty Law Center and Charlottesville and new DOJ indictment, how Alex Jones got some big things right, why Donald Trump rose to power, Megyn’s evolving relationship with Donald Trump over the years, the fraud of the two-party system, whether national politics even works, his marriage with Katy Perry, his thoughts on her relationship now with Justin Trudeau, the allegations against her now from Ruby Rose, his other relationships and marriage now, and more. Brand- https://store.tuckercarlson.com/ Supersure Insurance: Simplify your business insurance and get a free coverage report at https://Supersure.com/Megyn Herald Group: Learn more at https://GuardYourCard.com Joi + Blokes: Go to http://joiandblokes.com/MK and use code MK for 65% off your labs and 20% off all supplements Ethos Life Insurance: Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at: https://ethos.com/MK Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKelly Twitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShow Instagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShow Facebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at:https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show, live on SiriusXM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.
Hey, everyone, I'm Megan Kelly. Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show and what the show we have for you today.
Russell Brand is here, and this is going to be unlike anything you've ever seen here on the MK show.
We first met several years ago on my set at NBC, where he came out and at the time was full of energy and a huge star.
and even back then, I remember said something like,
you're far less polarizing than people tell me you are.
And we bond it immediately.
He's, of course, a British comedian.
He's an actor.
He's a media personality.
And he knows a thing or two about being polarizing now himself, unfortunately.
Rising to fame back in the 2000s as a stand-up comic
and landing high-profile roles in Hollywood films,
like forgetting Sarah Marshall and get him to the Greek.
not to mention the animated blockbusters,
Despicable Me, Trolls, and Minions.
He appeared on TV shows, comedy programs,
and landed on the front cover of the Rolling Stone.
How about that as an iconic image of him?
And he was further catapulted into the headlines
with his high-profile marriage to pop star Katie Perry.
Everyone wanted to know every detail about their lives.
They were one of the it couples of the decade
until the marriage ended a couple of years later in divorce.
In recent years, he's reinvented himself
as a host and a commentator amassing millions of followers and content focused on politics,
media criticism, and what he describes as threats to free speech, particularly during the COVID
pandemic where he was absolutely fearless, questioning government policies, big pharma, and
mainstream narratives in a way few were, and it was bold and it was noticed by the British government.
Brand has also spoken openly about his personal turn towards spirituality and Christianity,
saying that his faith has given him a sense of peace
after years of struggling
with various forms of addiction
about which he is very open.
But there have been some serious allegations
against Russell too,
and he is set to go on trial in the UK
later this year.
We're going to get into that as well.
Nothing's off the table today.
As the investigations and public debate
continue about him,
he remains as outspoken as ever.
And now he's out with a brand new book.
It's called How to Become a Christian in Seven Days.
may take 50 years of sin and serious fuck-ups to get started is the subtitle, which is pretty
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Brand joins me live here in the Red Studio. Great to see you. Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Thanks for coming. Okay. So it's it's been a while. What has it been? Eight years since we last saw each other.
Yes. I remember where you were in the culture then is I feel that you've previously been on Fox and then
you came onto having your own show and I feel like it was you moving from being a news-oriented person to
let's have a daytime version of you with celebrities and the culture. But I feel like there's a lot of kind of
excitement around you at that time.
And so while I was preparing, I mean sort of mentally and spiritually, to come and meet you,
I was thinking that both of us have moved through the culture in ways that are comparable
have been very close to its sort of what one might call its centre, because I was going to use
the word heart, but heart doesn't seem quite the right word for the culture, because heart
is perhaps what it's most lacking.
And it's exciting and interesting to speak with you, because I know that you will, you will
recognize themes and trends that I've experienced. Yes, very much so. I mean, watching your
evolution has been very interesting to me because I didn't know you other than as a celebrity
back then, but when you came onto the set, you had so much energy, positive energy. You were so
kind. And I was in the midst of a terrible year there because it didn't go well for me at NBC.
I wasn't liked by virtually any celebrities. And yet I found myself immersed in them.
and it was so rare to have somebody come on the set and be so nice to me and, like, so complimentary.
And I remember being like, I love Russell Brand.
And actually somebody asked me a couple years after that, who was my favorite celebrity who I met, you know, in my time at Fox and NBC?
And I said, Russell Brand, because you were so warm.
You were so nice.
You acknowledged the thing about being polarized.
And you said, you're actually quite lovely.
And I remember we had a laugh over it.
And now, you know, as I've watched you go through your, you know, past few years and, you know,
become this scourge of a certain section, I feel for you because they're doing it to you,
same stuff they've done to me, as soon as you get political, especially right-wing political,
boy, they come for you. Are you able then, I wonder, Megan, too, whilst, because I suppose
the impression I had when I made, I was wondering why I would have a prejudice before meeting you,
where would I have gotten that from? And I suppose there are some assigned cultural figures that
you're allowed to like if you're a participant in the culture. And then there are other people that are
meant to be kind of pariah or that you're not meant to approve of or like. And I reckon,
I suppose, that I came in there as part of a Hollywood liberal set. Even though like that kind of
liberalism would not be the values that I grew up with, in a way what I'm starting to feel now is a
connection to actually where I'm from and kind of who I've always been. That when you get sort of
pulled into fame, it does an interesting thing to you because any sense of deficiency
inferiority can be sort of temporarily medicated by the attention.
The soothing barms.
The soothing bums of synthetic glory, like if they will give you a kind of,
you are amazing.
Because in addition, it's not like everybody didn't like you in NBC.
You were sort of a glorious enough individual to have your own sort of show and everything.
And I said, so, you know, what I'm going through now is acknowledging and addressing
what I, how I have contributed to the conditions that I am experiencing and what,
what lessons are available.
And they're pretty obvious and pretty evident.
The complexity only being in the small portion that is framed by illegality and criminality,
there's a very small margin, almost everything else I would entirely agree with.
Oh, and you've been self-reflective on.
I want to talk to you about so much of it because my next phase of you,
while I watched you during COVID and I loved all that,
and I thought he's gotten very brave and very outspoken in a great way.
Then came all the allegations, the sexual, alleged sexual assault and rape and so blah, blah.
And it first came in this UK, quote, documentary.
They used that term very loosely there and here.
And I'll tell you up front, I was angry when I saw that because they did it in such a compelling way that, especially the stuff about the 16-year-old, that I was angry with you.
I believed what they said, or at least believed that there was enough smoke, there might be fire, and said to the,
the audience at the time, you know, the conservative movement doesn't need somebody like that.
Like, we love what he's saying about COVID, but if this is a guy who's sexually assaulting
women and taking advantage of 16-year-olds, we need to move on without him and felt that anger
for a couple of years around you. Because I just thought it was so reckless and it was so
wrong. And I knew that it might be false, but it seemed overwhelming the way that they presented
the evidence. And then the more I looked at it, the more I started to recognize, I might not know the
full story, because since then, I have seen what the British government has done, what my
own government has done to certain figures that it doesn't like. And I have an enormous amount
of open-mindedness to you are being railroaded and attacked by people for reasons having nothing
to do with actual facts, but with your right-leaning stance on certain issues.
You're growing prominence as a figure in a bunch of discussions that they find very threatening.
And honestly, I just reevaluated the whole thing and thought, I need to be open-minded to having been wrong in my initial assessments.
And I'm interested in a conversation about it all.
Thank you, Megan Kelly, for giving me the grace to address in particular your anger, which is entirely legitimate and recognizable.
And the plain fact of it is that in Europe and in the United Kingdom where I'm from, the age of consent is,
16 and I did sleep with a 16 year old when I was 30 but when I was 30 I was a very different
person I was a lot younger and I was an immature 30 year old consensual sex actually with a variety of
people when there is a strong power differential as there is when you're a famous man that has
the ability to attract women that I had at that time I think involves exploitation I think it is
exploitative, I recognised that my sexual conduct in the past was selfish and I didn't, I did not
apply enough consideration, barely any, I suppose, really, to how that sex was affecting other
people. The only matter that I would contest while acknowledging, firstly, your right to be
angry as a woman who, given what I know about you in the industry you've worked in, I'm sure that
you have personal reasons for feeling aggrieved towards powerful men, because in spite of occasionally
men coming to the forefront of the culture, whether it's the most hideous gargoyle villains, as rendered
and portrayed, or the more sort of innocuous and party boy style exploits of women, a category that I suppose I must fall into,
it's plainly something that exists within our industry, and one might say culture at large.
while I was transgressing lines of being a person that was sleeping with people because I had
availability to not only by the way waitresses and strippers and fans and people but like
powerful women as well or like powerful professional women that had gravitas and status and power
I was only really thinking of myself and obviously this is I have to be careful of contempt of
court because that's a law in my country where I can't say anything publicly that might in any way
influence a potential jury. But obviously, as soon as I've said, I'm not guilty. What I'm in effect
saying is, I had consensual sex with lots of lots of women, and you can argue that that's not
appropriate. But the age of consent is an important thing. The ability to consent is an important
thing, like i.e. drunk people can't consent, mentally ill people can't consent. Children can't
consent. Consent is what's important. And what fame gave me and what addiction fueled was
opportunity for endless consent, which led me to be a hedonist and a fool and an exploiter of women.
And that is wrong. And that is something that needs to be redeemed and addressed and atoned for.
What I'm obviously not only querying, but violently or aggressively or assertively opposing,
is the idea that this is a judicial criminal matter where consent was overridden.
actually what happened was is consent was directed. That's what being famous and being, if I may say,
forgive me, charismatic affords you is the ability to direct consent. That doesn't mean it's right.
It's actually not right. It's wrong. It's a sin. It's an expression of selfishness and false idolatry.
I provided a lot of material through my foolishness and my selfishness around women that meant that when I became not a person that was celebrated by the culture as a representative of individualism,
You're the most important thing in the world.
There's no essentially acting like, if there is a God, you're it.
That's what the culture wants you to believe.
It doesn't want you to have a higher authority to which you submit that none of us have control over.
But we don't actually, we're not the final say on what's right and wrong.
God is the final say.
Now, I have a trial.
So in that trial, I'll have the opportunity, as will people that feel wronged against,
to achieve justice.
And I have no problem in praying for absolute justice and the best possible outcome for
everyone involved. Indeed, that is my prayer, Megan, because however I look at this or carve this
up, there are people that feel hurt enough to participate in this venture. Now, as to the second
part of what you're saying, why did it happen when it happened? Because a documentary was made that
framed my very explicit public behaviour in a particular way, I believe that there is a strong
connection between when it happened and what I was doing publicly. I'd move from being
acting in movies and being on TV and writing books and essentially advocating for the kind of cultural
values that most people within the institutions of power and entertainment power endorse and
espouse to being quite critical of them, openly critical of the pharmaceutical industry,
the British government, bureaucratic agencies that have unelected power that we are often
are taxed for and are funding. And in COVID, I really started to find a voice for something
I'd long felt that real power is inaccessible to ordinary people. I'd go into a lot of controversy
and trouble in around 2015 when I was thinking of running for mayor of London, when I'd said
there's no point voting for anybody because whoever you vote for, you're going to get the same
institutions. And boy, does that seem apocite and perspicacious now when we have a very
powerful and idiosyncratic and seemingly self-empowered individual as the leader of your country,
the most powerful nation in the world, who many people believe is currently fulfilling an agenda
that is not endorsed by the American public. And many people also believe it's not even in the
best interests of the United States of America.
So if someone as powerful and magnetic and idiosyncratic as Donald Trump can be maneuvered by invisible institutions of deep state international power that are not beholden to the populations of the nations that they are elected to represent, then all of us are participating to some degree or another in sets of powers and interests that do not like to be challenged and are difficult to challenge.
Whatever one thinks about this current conflict, one thing I pretty strongly believe is if Kamala Harris had been elected, you would still have.
have this war with Iran in more or less the same way. And that's what's kind of disheartening about
it, is that power is going to do what it's going to do. In fact, when you reflect even for a minute,
it's ridiculous to think otherwise. Otherwise, true global power would have to pivot every four
years to accommodate significant variation depending on which political party got elected. The likes
of Kissinger, players on the world stage have always known you need 20 year, 30 year, 50 year,
100 year American projects. And it's very interesting to know that the project
of the next American century, included we're going to have wars with Iran, we're going to have wars
with Lebanon, Iraq, North Korea, Afghanistan. You can tick all those nations off, and most people
that have been paying attention have already conducted that exercise. Now, what the pandemic provided,
I suppose, was an interesting window where for a moment there was an attempt to assert global control,
not even national control. You remember, we all do. At the beginning of the pandemic, they said,
well, in China, of course, with their social credit scores and their centralized communist control,
they can immediately submit an entire population.
But you try that in the United Kingdom or Italy or Lord above forbid the United States of America.
Well, what happened?
They were more or less able to assert that level of control in what is superficially a very different political system, explicitly democracy.
And yet, when it was the lockdowns, when it was you can't worship, when it was take these vaccinations, people, generally speaking, obeyed.
The only problem was that with a decentralized media that's not controlled by the same resources and forces,
as customary media, there were voices like Joe Rogan, most obviously and evidently,
who, I suppose, framed and platformed significant and more importantly, authoritative voices
around the vaccine. I'm talking about McCulloch, Robert Malone, Jay Baccharia, people who,
blessedly now, one positive of the current administration, are in government under the HHS of
Secretary Robert Kennedy. Now, outspoken critics of the COVID pandemic, people that said,
how can they possibly have researched these vaccines?
How can we know what the side effects are?
Did they even test for transmission?
Once these threads start getting pulled,
we know that companies like Moderna and Pfizer
spent a good deal of money observing and doing their best
to de-amplify what they called anti-vax voices.
In my country, for example, Megan,
there's a group called the 77th Brigade.
There are SciOps organization run by a man called Mark Lancaster
who's married to Dame Caroline Dynage.
She's the one who tried to stay for you.
On the very first day,
very first day that these unsettling and disturbing allegations were made, Caroline Dynage,
whose works for the government, was ready to say, X should demonetize Russell Brand, Rumble
should demonetize him, YouTube, and the YouTube, of course, did. Now, when did Caroline Dynage
even learn the nomenclature of CPMs and programmatic ads? Well, perhaps it's possible to
imagine in a Nancy Pelosi and Paul Pelosi type way, perhaps some information crossed the marital
bed because her husband, Mark Lancaster, runs the 77th Brigade, they are, and you can look at this now
online to ensure that what I'm telling you is at least somewhat accurate. The 77th Brigade are a
Syopts organisation that operate in partnership with the military in countries like Syria and
Afghanistan when those nations are occupied and internal descent has to be quashed and
controlled. An online organisation, such as we saw in the Arab Spring, has to be managed and
manipulated. That includes deamplifying, online messaging, intercepting, controlling, shutting down,
and all sorts of things that we don't understand because we simply don't know the technology.
Normally, siops of that nature, are not able to be practiced domestically. It's illegal.
But in the same way that they found a way around surveilling citizens using the Five Eyes,
and I understand from Netanyahu, there is now a Sipthai in Israel. The Five Eyes get round that
problem, the Five Eyes being the Anglophonic Nations, Canada, United States, American, New Zealand,
Australia, the UK.
by spying on one another's citizenry and sharing information.
That way the US doesn't break any of its internal laws
about spying on its citizens and neither does the UK.
And yet the information is acquired,
the information to control people,
as Edward Snowden revealed at the time,
they have all the information they need on you.
So if in one day in the future you become an enemy of the state,
they will find something with which to criminalise you
if that should be required.
God forbid that that is ever required in anyone's life.
But if it happens, they've got the information.
So 77th Brigade were allowed to do that in the UK because COVID was treated, as some of you will remember, and it was extremely advanced in your nation as a kind of military exercise, a kind of war.
Now, I only know this because I was reading the good work of other journalists and reporters and independent media contributors at the time.
And that meant that most of us, a significant number of us,
had a very different picture of COVID in real time
than the one we were being offered
by the very institutions that you and I worked for, Megan,
where on late-night TV, you know,
the likes of Stephen Colbert were dressing up as a syringe
and dancing around,
where I remember another late-night show by my fellow Brit
and, you know, a person that I have good affection for,
James Corden, dancing in the street,
celebrating Anthony Fauci.
Who now would celebrate Anthony Fauci in the same manner?
knowing his involvement with the HIV crisis.
Trump.
Still defending him.
So I suppose that was a rather long answer,
but it was a complex question.
And I want to thank you for having me on
and give me the opportunity to address
the thing that's troubled me most about this
is I have obviously through my conduct hurt people.
It's not criminal conduct.
It's not right.
In fact, to use the phrase that they use
to censor people on X these days,
awful but lawful, I think is what I say.
It's not right to sleep around with lots of people.
I say that not only as a father of doors, but of a son.
I don't want my children growing up thinking the apex of your human power is having a lot of sex with people.
Sex is a very powerful thing.
It's a gift.
And I misused it.
And I understand now that there are consequences to that.
Can we talk about, we can circle back on the allegations, but let's just talk about how you got to be you.
Because I have.
It was a terrible mistake, Megan.
This is what's happened.
Having read.
more about your background, your whole story came into more clear focus for me. So it wasn't an ideal
childhood. Your dad wasn't really present. Your mom went through a lot while you were young and
forgive me for raising it so casually, but you also were the victim of sexual abuse, my understanding
is. So that's a lot for anybody's first 18 years. How would you describe your childhood?
Well, I suppose because I have the blessing of being in 12-step recovery now,
I encounter people on a daily basis that have suffered enormously, enormously,
and I have the privilege of very dedicated, imperfect parents.
Like my children have got very dedicated and imperfect parents.
My father, Ron Brand, he did his best, but he was on his own mission.
He lost his own father when he was a baby, when he was seven years old.
My mother, as you've alluded to, had cancer,
about five, six, seven times in a very short time frame that was in my childhood.
And you're right, I did experience some sexual abuse outside.
of the family when I was very young, when I was seven, and then again, when I was a teenager.
Now, because I'm aware that my doting, loving parents, God love him, my dad, particularly
he'll be watching this live if he knows I'm on it.
Like, I don't want to prioritize my own self-aggrandizement and my tendency to mythologize
myself and to sort of lean into this idea that I come from a humble, blue-collar background
and I overcame heroin addiction and crack addiction
and all of that.
Some of those things are true.
Because now I recognize that who I've always been and who I am now
is a broken person, who my parents are a broken people.
And I was talking to my mum on the phone here.
And she's like this, you know, my mom who loved me,
was so happy when I've got to be famous.
Because she thought, oh, look, it all makes sense now,
that weird little kid that I was raising.
Now he's famous and like, look, everyone loves him.
Or, you know, some people love him.
Yeah, so my childhood was chaotic and it was difficult.
and it was hard and I've always, always felt desperately, desperately alone and exiled here
and broken and a lot of the time very, very afraid and very, very unhappy in the world.
And frankly, when I became a drug addict, it was a tremendous relief.
And any drug addict watching this or alcoholic will recognize what I'm saying.
It was the first time life made sense was when I was able to medicate internally and chemically
the feelings of total abandon and loss here.
And that's really nobody's fault because I know people that have grown up in care
and foster homes and with unbelievable horrific suffering.
And I know people that have grown up in opulence and splendor.
When did the drugs start?
Because I know you found acting in high school?
Yes.
And when did the drug start after that?
Yeah, immediately after.
It's almost, you've recognised in your own life, Megan, two tracks running simultaneously.
One where you're being guided by sort of almost, one might say, a heavenly hand.
And the other, sort of pulling you back.
I sort of started smoking weed like any kid at 15, 16.
Then it just escalated.
I had such an appetite for it.
Every single drug, well, this is what I think might be somewhat significant, is that I treated it like worship.
Like I worshipped drugs.
I worshipped it.
I loved heroin.
I was fascinated with heroin before I ever took it.
I really thought this is going to be it.
This is going to solve everything.
I was around, the first time I took it was 19.
I was dependent on it by the time I was, I reckon 22, 23.
I got my first like real gig was I started hosting shows when I'd put around 24, 25 on MTV.
This was before I knew I was.
They were late at night.
I was in nightclubs.
And I would talk to people that it was when club culture was a big deal in Europe
and people were taking like ecstasy and MDMA.
Molly, you call it in your country, I think.
And like, people were off their faces.
And I would say like crazy stuff to them because I was high also.
But I was able to follow these very surreal and unusual rants.
What people didn't know is that while they were on ecstasy,
I was on crack and heroin.
And that was my first like little go at being famous and having money and not living on welfare.
And I exploded into that little life so quickly that I,
You know, I hit a ceiling, I hit a parameter, I crashed and burned real fast.
To the point where just, I don't know, it sounds like it was just prior to this,
but you did your first acting gig in high school,
then you went to the Royal Academy of Theatre.
What do you call it?
What's the name of it?
I think of Rado is what you're alluded to, and I still feel a pang of disappointment,
even to hear its name mentioned.
I went to a place called Drama Center, which is a very good school
where people like Pierce Brosnan and Simon, Callow,
and who are these stars nowadays?
Fast Bender, Tom Hardy, like good actors went there.
It's like a very gritty Stanavslafski,
school. I went there and they loved me. They adored me. Then I went crazy. I took too many drugs.
They threw me out. Like I get thrown out of everywhere, thrown out of the UK, thrown out of Hollywood,
thrown out of every school I was ever at. But you kept landing on your feet. So you were young,
you were in your young 20s when you found the glory of these drugs, which of course is always
followed by something, I don't know what we call it, but it's the opposite of glory. And how long
did it take you before you got clean off the drugs and sort of the sex addiction took it took their place?
Oh, well, the sex addiction, I have to say, was, you know, like, I could conquer it.
Yeah, but it gets worse without drugs, you know, because obviously there are impeding factors with, if you're dependent on heroin, without going into too much graphic detail, there are a number of obstacles to a successful sex life.
But like I stopped taking heroin when I was like 27 and stopped drinking and by God's grace became abstinent one day or time through the 12-step programs, which are really the foundation of my spiritual life, thank God, because that's where you first learn.
There's not really drugs you're addicted to.
You're addicted to yourself.
You're addicted to this particular perspective.
You're addicted to control.
You are so obsessed with who you are and what you want
that you can't really be of any use to anybody in this world.
That's what I learned anyway.
But I only learned it briefly.
And the thing is, as once I stopped taking drugs,
my life improved radically in a number of ways.
I became successful in my country.
I got a bunch of TV shows and became quite celebrated.
In fact, one might say it really took off like a rocket.
And there was a moment of real glory.
Don't you remember, Megan?
Wasn't there a bit when you first started to be successful?
It's like, oh my God, it's working.
I'm successful.
People see me.
A world that's continually saying no is now just saying yes, yes, yes.
You can host these awards.
You can have a book deal.
You can have your own shows.
It was so amazing when that happened.
But I think probably because of what I would now call a sort of false idolatry,
I easily, or cross addiction might be an easier term,
I drifted into just the worship factor,
that a tendency to worship really just.
drifted into the availability of, you know, casual encounter as well.
I mean, can you describe it? Because when you write about it in the book, you're very open
about these addictions and the sex addiction details.
By the way, we're speaking with Russell Brand and the book is How to Become a Christian in Seven Days.
You put it out there. And I, one of my questions was, like, with the number of women
who you openly talk about having interludes with at a time, in a day, several times a day,
Like, this is all before you were young, but like there was no little blue pill.
Like, how does a man even keep up at that level?
I have a real appetite for what I recognize now is God.
And that's not unique to me.
I think anyone that is an addict, and this is how the 12-step program describes it, Megan,
really they are looking for God.
We are all looking for God.
We were made for God and by God.
We were made to love God.
Now, if you live in a culture and a world that denies the existence of God,
I personally was trying to defibrillate the dead and inert world into life through chemicals at first.
And then, you know, sex is a gift.
And sex used appropriately is a marvelous and wonderful and holy experience.
But sex in the hands of an idiot is a sort of a dangerous tool.
So how I did it is I've got a lot of energy.
I've got a lot of energy.
Yes, we can see that.
And a lot of gifts.
But those gifts must always be marshaled to the service of the high.
Yes, good. And if you don't know that and you use it essentially for self-indulgence, you will get in, as it turns out, very, very serious trouble. You will get in very serious trouble and you will hurt a lot of people. Wow, just the other day in a 12-step environment, I heard someone say that when you drink a bottle of Jack Daniels, the bottle that once you put it down doesn't have any feelings about it. When you'll start to do stuff like that in other areas of behavioral addiction, obviously sex is what I'm referring to, then you're creating a lot of ill will. Have you ever tried to put a
number on the number of women who you've been with? You still got the fox skills there,
I'm curious. I'm curious. Get a number. Get a stat. Um, well, all right, let's think about this
mathematically. There was a sort of a period between, like, you know, I think I became sort of
attractive in the late 90s. And I think that that attractiveness endured till possibly in 2015,
let's say, I, Megan, we are talking very high numbers. We're talking for four figures.
And it's difficult, particularly if you want to include all of the varieties of sexual contact,
then it would be.
So thousands.
Thousands.
Thousands.
It was my main job.
I was very, very devout.
It was very foolish.
My main job.
I can even feel a little smile
curling at the corner of the earlier.
Even as a person is facing trial in October,
I still did very well.
I have learned the lesson.
I have learned the lesson, Lord.
I have learned the lesson.
Yes, well, we're talking about sex here.
We're not talking about sexual assault,
which is very different.
Well, but it's still sex is sacred.
Sex is sacred.
And pornography desacralizes sex.
promiscuity desacralizes sex, making sex the apex of your identity, whether you're a heterosexual or not,
it desacralizes sex. It's a holy power that I misused.
So you go on a deep dive on your sexual escapades in the book, and I'm just going to read a little bit from it.
Again, it's called How to Become a Christian in Seven Days with Russell Brand.
I had sex with multiple women, often at the same time, most days for years.
It was normal to have three ways and four ways, and for women who had not met prior to full,
into one flesh in my bed. It happened every day. Here are a few occasions that stand out that will
help you understand the levels of excess, the sheer abundance and implausibility, the pointlessness
of coercion, meaning you never had to nor did coerce anybody to do this with you, as well as the
hollow sadness that is an inevitable accompaniment to all forms of addiction and sin. Such an important
point, the hollow sadness. You're right. After a transatlantic flight from L.A., I invited the whole
female flight crew back to my house.
They came. They drank.
We all messed around. Some of them
were married or in relationships. I felt like
an alchemist. I could create ecstasy
out of mundanity. When I
would tell my male friends these stories, especially
older married ones, I felt so valuable
and impressive. Now I see things very differently.
After a show at the Brixton Academy,
the female cast of a popular reality
TV show, tumbled out
of the after party and poured into my hot tub
with no more fanfare or fuss
than I once would have tipped the contents
of an instant soup into a mug.
There were at least five of them,
a couple were sisters,
as if some dormant part of me
were, at least some dormant,
as if some dormant part of me alive only in Christ,
already knew the man I would become,
the challenges and trials I would face,
and the significant fact that I myself
would one day be a father to daughters,
the apparent mad and hedonic glamour
was haunted by something I couldn't understand.
So this is a fascinating picture
because this is the kind of stuff that everybody dreams a famous man, a successful actor,
host, comedian, rock star, whatever life will look like.
But they don't acknowledge that second piece of it.
That it actually is the same as doing heroin or being an alcoholic,
that there's a downside of shame, disgust, and never being able to fill the thing you're
trying to fill inside of yourself.
Yes.
If God wants you and God loves you and God does, then you will.
feel this presence, even at times where you think it unlikely. And that, I suppose, is in my book
because I recollect it so clearly that it seemed on the surface like everything you would want
in the most ridiculous male fantasy that you can be offered, multiple attractive women
simultaneously you as the adored centre and focus. And in the midst of that, I sensed something
kind of a bit icky and death-like. And obviously, in reality,
retrospect, as I've said, oh, I see what that is now. What you are creating for yourself and for other
people is suffering and you are making yourself into, this is what I understand it as now, Megan,
is making yourself a kind of God, gifted as I have been with the ability to connect. I could help a lot of
people. I could help people, but I didn't recognize that or see that. I have an opportunity to
be of real value, to live a life of actual meaning, of meaning. These things are,
man, I was once at a 12-step meeting in New Orleans, and I was famous then, I guess,
and this guy who, like, had this great beard, and he was older and kind of scruffy and dirty,
but solid, looked like a sailor or something, wearing like a sailor's hat and he was sort of big,
and it was in New Orleans.
I got arrested on that movie even, man, it's been so crazy this life.
He said, fame, celebrity, those things, those are crumbs.
I want to be at the banquet.
And just yesterday I was reading in the Gospel of Matthew, the banquet is what we've been
invited to, we are able to be participants in the glory of all creation. And our challenge is this.
All of us will be like Christ tempted by the devil. We will be offered the world. Have the world.
Be in charge. Have big contracts. Be a star. Be fantastic. Have women envy you and men want you or
whatever is correct for your gender. But if you choose that path, you will end up in a hollow,
empty barrenness and maybe even worse. Maybe you won't be blessed as I have.
have been to see the way out of there. And even with the trials and challenges ahead, what I've
been granted as a slow learner is a very clear correction and a very obvious illustration that I've
been blessed with. I've got an amazing wife that just loves me. I've got really, really beautiful
children. I've got amazing friends. Now when that voice and that appetite, that craving, that
longing, which I would see kind of as demonic now. When I feel it, I give it to the cross.
I give it to him if I'm smart enough, if I'm alert enough, if I'm awake enough to. I don't ever
want to go back there. And I am sad, but grateful to have been a participant in a culture that
amplifies and advocates for that way of life continually, because even though we've been post-Me2 now,
and we've seen lots of statues, real and figurative pulled down, I think a lot of young men that don't
even observe traditional media anymore, but like, you know, participating in online media figures
and there are a lot of them, very sort of male-oriented social media figures, will still think
that my identity is if I can sleep with lots of women, if I can have fast cars, if I can dominate
and control. But this empire of domination and control, it uses us as its fuel. For a minute,
it will tell us we're beautiful, but when it's finished with us, it will spit us out. Well,
we have the opportunity to love someone who loves us in our brokenness, in our vulnerability,
in my ineptitude, in my frailty, in my inability to continually be the man that I'd like to be.
And to not be a good enough dad, to not be a good enough husband.
Why would I not participate in that and participate along with other people in that?
Why would I follow this empire of false idolatry and lies, where every single hero that it erects
eventually inevitably tumbles and falls because that's what empires do?
when what we have access to is eternity, that which is outside of time.
We will go at best gracefully to our graves, but the grave is coming with its hungry mouth.
When we get there, let's go there hand in hand together into eternity,
not having tried to create the simulacrum of permanence here.
Permanent idols and skyscrapers and self-made icons scratched out with our own clumsy hands.
Let me ask you something that Bill Maher says about something he says on the subject.
He never married.
Yeah.
And he says it's because he didn't want to have to give up lust, that he enjoys lust too much.
As somebody who's been on both sides of this and is currently in a loving marriage,
which does, I hate to tell you, Bill, include lust.
It's not like the first day.
It's not like the first year, but it develops into something else.
What do you think he's missing?
What Bill Ma, with all due respect him, there is,
missing and living through is a self-perpetuated adolescence,
clinging to some injury or wound, I would imagine,
that occurred around the time when, you know,
I speak of someone who belatedly received these lessons.
What Bill Ma is missing is intimacy.
You can achieve through promiscuity a kind of false intimacy
that sort of feel kind of wonderful sometimes,
particularly with the charge of sexuality around it.
Especially the whole flight crew there.
Oh, man, you've got there's nuts coming at you from every direction.
Can I get you a hot house?
That's what she said.
But what you are missing out on is true intimacy.
You are eating the crumbs, that which has fallen from the table, the appearance of something, instead of the thing itself.
I actually really love Bill Ma.
I think he's a, I've been on his shows a couple of times.
And I think he's a really, really lovely person.
And I reckon that what Bill Ma, what I would pray for Bill Ma is the ability for him to love.
Like, one day we will he'll be able to hear Bill Ma say, man, I don't know what I was afraid.
of. I have a father. I have a wife that I like. This is amazing. Right. Why did I wait so long?
Yeah. I don't know if he's capable. He doesn't strike me as somebody who's capable. He's
in a very different place. You have to arrest yourself. You have to participate in your own delusion.
We all of us hold the key to the way out. I recognize that I did. I didn't have to like,
you know how all of us are men to say like, oh, I don't regret anything because I wouldn't
be the person I am. And that is one perspective that's available. But obviously for me, I'm like,
wow, I wish I hadn't hurt all of these people. Also, I knew my wife when I was, when she was 19 and
I was 30 around to like in a tumble of these things are sort of kicking off. I've got to married
her. I could have eight kids. I could have 20 years in. I could have had more time with her.
But you know that's not really true because had the you of that year married her of that year,
you wouldn't have produced the same kids. You wouldn't have been the same people. You wouldn't
have been as good parents. Like I do think that kind of stuff is meant to be when it happens.
Yeah. There's zero point in lamenting timing on things like a great relationship. It's like it came when
it came when it came because you were ready for it. You manifested it when you were ready for it.
Okay, let's talk about the young girl, because that one's just bothering me.
How is it that you had a relationship with a 16-year-old girl?
Right. I'll give you some stories because some of this stuff pertains to ongoing legal
situations out of respect for the judicial process and everybody involved.
I don't want to get you in more trouble than you're already facing with it.
Yes, I'm in enough trouble.
I want to contextualize it in this way.
The reason the age of consent exists is to protect people, children, who can't make a decision.
So if the age of consent is 18, then don't have sex with someone that's 16.
If the age of sex is 16, don't have sex with someone that's 15.
That's the law.
I'm talking about the law.
If you're a 30-year-old man and you're really famous, I now know, don't have sex with anybody at all
because you are over-endowed and empowered in ways that make the match unlikely to be fair.
What I would say is I did, I didn't have a prescient for young girls, you know.
That's not my thing.
That's not my thing.
That's just like...
It's just reading up.
on this piece of your history. It's not like, it's not a common theme that keeps coming up.
No, I really liked older women, black women, white women, thin women, fat women. It's love. It's,
it's perverted love, actually. It's like a, it's like, oh my God, you're so, and also it was sincere.
The reason that I was sleeping with lots of people, I think, is because I see beauty, I see it.
I see the beauty. I'm not like, oh, I'm just going to tell this ugly cow.
Like, you know, I'm like, I mean, I love you. I love you. It feels very, very real.
So for me, like, the age of consent would be something I'd be very alert to and would check.
And also, by the way, I'm not like, yeah, it's not a kink of mine to like, you know, if anything, it would be, oh, no, man.
You'd like the seniors?
Yeah, if anything.
Do you know what?
I didn't know that was a thing.
When I was young, when I was really little, I just grew up with my mom, huh?
Just that only, I'm my only son of a single mom.
The lady from the house opposite at Josie, who I just was on the phone with, with my mom was,
with her. They're like 80. Like my mom's 80 now. So I think Josie might be older than my mum.
And like I remembered that when I wrote my first book, I'd wrote in it, written in my book.
She would know the tenses as an author. Like Doug would never make a mistake like that.
I'd written about Josie, right? And she would have been like, you know, she was a single mom herself.
And she one time her water, her hot water weren't working at the house. And I was about seven
years old. And like I went and played with my toys in the bath. She'd said, can we use your,
kind of have a bath at your house, babbs, my mum, because the hot water's not working at mine.
and I heard that phone call
and I went and took all my toys into the bathroom
and I played in there
and when Josie came my mum went
Hey Russell get out there
Josie's having a bath and Joe's so oh he's that man he's only a little boy
And I was ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha the whole thing's a scheme
You were looking for a cougar
I found her like that
Obviously nothing happened
I sat there playing with like my farmyard animals and toys
Like any innocent normal child
But what I want to tell you is that I just had an enormous appetite
And craving for sexual income
where do you go with it?
If you're like looking for
looking for something of meaning
and feel like, look,
I started with weed,
then I end up on heroin.
I start with like sleeping
with one person at a time.
I wish I'd had the common sense
to fall in love and to be a bit more.
And by the way,
sometimes I was,
I keep telling people this,
like,
because I'm,
when I was touring
doing like crazy ass world tours
in arenas.
And like,
I'm telling you,
it's like people throwing
women throwing their underwear at me
and all that kind of stuff
and people getting wristbands
to come backstage.
It was unbelievable.
Remember,
I wouldn't like captain of the football team
school. Right. I was like a nervous, weird kid. Like, you know, like, I'm unusual. So, like,
when that happened, I was very, um, all, like you just like a, like a fish trawler or like just
some open hole. Does everything falling into this open hole? So I'm not like, you know,
hey, can I check your ID? What about you? Have you got any psychological problems? Were you
abused as a kid? Was that? Well, you know, I have that level of awareness now that I can see where
people's injury are. I really sense it now. But I wasn't, I didn't care. I'd been stupid. But I do
remember actually in Australia, like encountering a young woman and there being anatomical
evidence of her lack of experience and saying to her in that situation, oh, actually, hey,
like this probably isn't a good way for you to have sex for the first time. So I wasn't like
an inner, unalert, you know, like I'm explaining in the book, he's always there. He's watching
you. And also, I'm a 12-step person. That means, as a 12-step person, that means you do an inventory with
your sponsor where you tell them absolutely everything. If you're not entirely honest,
you do not receive the benefits. Confession, truth is the foundation of everything. I would be lying
to myself if I lied to you. I mean, we're on, you know, where it's being filmed and broadcast
and stuff like that and I'm not stupid. But what I'm saying is, but I've never done anything
where I've, I've manipulated consent. I've manipulated consent by conducting it as a kind of energy
conduction, but bypassing consent is when you make people do things they don't want to do, not make
things do make people do things they wouldn't normally do. That is too young. You shouldn't
sleep with anyone really younger than you. And if I'd had more, I mean, I wouldn't go, I don't
want to time travel back and be a more efficient womanizer. I don't think 14 years difference is in
itself scandalous. It's just given the age she was, it was. But if she were 25 and you were 39,
I don't think people would be looking at that. You know, it's, yeah, it is young, but I don't know
if you remember from your own adolescence, because I do, that there were some young women, like, you
know, girls, let's call them girls. Like there were 16 that were like kids and then there were
others. That were like women and like 25 year old guys would pull up in cars outside the school.
Like just at my normal comprehensive, that means regular state school. You know, when all the
girls in your year go out of like... Listen, you don't have to tell. I was called a pedophile
enabler because I said there's a difference between 15 year olds and five year olds when we were
talking about what Jeffrey Epstein is. And really the point I was making was that the term pedophile
only applies to somebody who likes prepubescent girls,
which is a very different thing than liking women who are in their late teens,
and then you get into 15-16 range, and it depends.
I guess the law is the law.
I'm in a legal situation.
Morally, it's course it's wrong.
But, I mean, there are 15- and 16-year-old girls
who are having sex with 18- and 17-year-old boys.
Like the age difference there does feel exploitative.
And shocking.
Yes.
Like 15 year old, 16 year olds, kids having sex with each other is none of my business.
Me as a 30-year-old, I had no business having consensual sex with women that were just past girls that were just over the age of consent.
But it wasn't really, it wasn't like my thing.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah.
This one, that one, this one, fine.
So I think her fake name is Alice.
I don't know if that's her real.
From the documentary.
From the documentary.
She went on camera.
Actually, it wasn't, they were all actors, I believe.
All of the women.
I got some more actors and some were like the adult version.
I thought that we had the actual version of Alice.
I don't know, actually, to be honest.
But did you, were you shocked to see that she was speaking out about it in a way that painted it as not consensual?
Yes, because, yes, of course, actually.
Yes, yes, absolutely.
I, if, again, with respect to ongoing judicial proceedings, this is a person that,
outside of this difficult matter, were I to encounter her, I would greet her as a person
that I held in very high regard. Did you and she, did you feel like it ended well?
Did you feel like you had a good, you know, you got out of it well and you two were in a good place?
Yes.
So you were stunned?
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Is there any way, we have to take a break in a minute here, but is there any way do you think Russell, like, out of these criminal charges?
Have you been able to speak to any of these women to try to like find out one-on-one?
I think about that sometimes and I would like to.
I would like to because there's, I would, I wish, I pray that there were a way that I could, as a man.
You get in trouble for witness tampering at this point, I guess.
Right.
It's not legally permissible.
But yeah, like I recognize that people feel that they have been wronged and I understand why they would feel like they have been wronged.
But, you know, like, it's a sort of an odd philosophical device to use your own children.
But, like, I have daughters, they're babies.
But they're presumably, I'd imagine from the way, you know, there's a potential that they will find a certain type of man appealing when they grow up based on the way that they're being raised and who their primary male role model is.
There will be a very, very strong difference in my mind were one of my beloved daughters to sleep with a charismatic wild womanizer than if they were to be.
violated by a rapist. In one case, I would be sad about it and go, well, there's the life is
full of lessons, kid. And in the other one, we've got a bit of a situation. Yeah. All right,
standby. We have to take a break. There's so much more to go over. What a man, what a life.
Russell Brand bears it all in his new book, How to Become a Christian in seven days.
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We are back now with Russell Brand.
He is the author of How to Become a Christian in Seven Days.
Asterix may take 50 years of sin
and serious fuckups to get started.
It is available now at Tucker Carlson.com,
our pal Tucker is launching an imprint, and Russell's book is the first big project within the imprint.
So we're supporting two people at once, but read the book because you're going to love it.
And Russell is unsparing of himself, which you can hear him do here on this set as well.
So I'll move on from the women thing in one minute.
But I want to ask you about one other person who was featured in the documentary,
because I think her story illustrates how this whole thing is a lot more complicated than it may look to the outside world.
Now, this woman's name is Nadia, and she's featured in this British documentary called In Plain Sight, which details an alleged rape. That's what she says. The problem for Nadia is, and in this, I'm going to play a sound by from it. Oh, wow. It's played by an actress, to your point. I see. It's not whoever Nadia actually is, this is not the actual Nadia. It's some woman claiming I have this relationship with Russell, and this is the terrible thing that happened to me. And we'll go through it in just a couple of details. But here it is, I think.
gets sat too and he's like please come just come and cuddle with me so then I gave in he comes
running out of the bedroom naked he came at me with kisses and stuff which was kind of fun and then
it wasn't that fun when I couldn't move or I knew what he wanted for me he pushed me up against
the wall I'm like no that's not happening we're not doing that and at this point
he's grabbing it my underwear, pulling it to the side.
I'm telling him to get off me and he won't get off.
And he has that glazed look in his eye again.
I was very distraught, trying to get out of the house
with him being so much taller than me,
like holding me up against the wall,
pushing himself in me.
I couldn't move.
And he finally comes and gets off of me and I push him away.
He blocks the door.
door. He's like, are you okay? I'm like, no, I'm not okay. Get away from me. And he's like, well,
let's calm down. Again, that was an actress purporting to be this woman based on this woman's
testimonial of her relationship with you. She also claims that there was a text message after the fact
between the two of you where you sent her a text message at 329 a.m. I'm sorry. That
was crazy and selfish. I hope you can forgive me. I know that you're a lovely person, X,
that you tried phoning her at 3.51 a.m., but the call went unanswered. And she says later
in that same day, she went with a friend to a rape treatment center at UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center.
She did not go to the police. And then she saw a therapist and they saw therapy notes from this
rape. It was all at the rape treatment center where she had those. So that's her story. Then you find out
A little bit more in that she says in this text to you, allegedly, this is reported leader by the mirror.
Russell, when a girl says no, it means no.
Do I have to go and get myself tested?
Last time you asked me condom or no condom.
When I say condom, that doesn't mean it's optional.
You don't have the best reputation.
And you responded saying, I pride myself in being safe, trying to make the right decisions.
Obviously, this is a bad one.
I'm so disappointed in that you wrote you don't need to get tested.
I will make this up to you somehow with love and kindness.
Not my original idea, which was more sex.
You're being funny here.
So this whole text exchange is kind of illuminating to me.
And I wonder, because this is somebody who claims she was in a relationship with you,
she had had consensual sex with you.
That particular night she did not want to have sex with you and that you forced yourself
upon her.
When you watch that and when you see that, what's your reaction to it?
Well, I must say, Megan, it makes me uncomfortable,
is totally the truth, because, as I've said,
even whilst I believe that the challenge that I face is one of the misuse
of being in a position where lots of people had sex with me,
just to even see iterated, albeit by an actor in a documentary,
which I think had an agenda,
if that's my opinion about that.
Nor is it journalistically sound
to use an actor like that,
but that's another problem.
And also to shoot an actor in silhouette as well.
If it is an actor,
if it's an actor,
you don't need to shoot them in silhouette.
That shows that there's an intention
and the type of music being used.
But I suppose, look, I'm here in, of course,
I sort of just think about,
what's my motivation even on your show?
What's my motivation?
Am I falling again into the trap
of wanting stuff, wanting to be successful,
wanting to be powerful,
wanting to have influence, wanting to get out of the consequences of my actions.
And so what I have to say is my behaviour, which my position is, was consensual and therefore
non-criminal, is definitely immoral.
And I suppose my job, as a follower of Jesus, is to focus on how I can follow him more
closely.
And I don't really, Megan, get a lot of delight out of going, that person said this, but actually
that, although those things will be very important in the trial that I'm facing, because that's
the nature of it. I'm being put into a criminal situation. You know, that's the nature of
what I'm facing. And do you know that I'm like, will be literally in like a glass box, like
Hannibal Lecter, like in the in the in the in the in the pre-trial one. So like to me it's,
I'm in a sense trying to manage this in a number of different fields in the in the judicial and
legal one, it's a matter of, of course, demonstrating that the encounters that I had were
consensual. In a public relations field, which is, I suppose, what I'm in now, I think I have to
take the opportunity to say that I'm not saying, so what? These women are lying. They wanted money.
Who cares? F, they're, I'm not like, that's not my position. My position is, yes, I recognize
that my conduct has caused harm and pain in a, in a, in a, in a, in a,
PR situation, like being on the Megan Kelly show, I think my role and my job is to make
it very clear to people that that behavior, as I describe it, was not behavior that I would
endorse. But it's not non-consensual or coercive behavior. However, people obviously plainly,
as we just saw their, albeit played by an actor, they'll hurt by the encounters by me.
And so I've obviously got some work to do somewhere.
So what level of stress are you at about this criminal trial?
All right.
So sometimes it's unbelievable.
Sometimes it's kind of unbelievable.
Sometimes I can't, sometimes I think if this can happen, then anything can happen.
If, look, when I was.
It's coming in December?
October.
I think it's October the 7th, the trial in the United Kingdom.
So it's sort of, you know, it's coming up close.
And I've got like a normal family.
I've got young children and all that kind of stuff.
So I'm living a normal life.
working and part of my job is public facing and I'm assessing that and what contribution can I
make and how has it impeded me and impaired me and slowed me down what are the positive things
that have come from it like certainly it's been very very very humbling and confront because I
already recognize that sexual addiction was wrong I've already recognized that as a married man
or anyone in a committed relationship I suppose you've got to be straight and faithful all of those
lessons I kind of learned but I believe in God so
all things are from God. This is from God. Yeah, I agree. I agree. I like it very much. I mean,
and it is extremely stressful, but because of my faith in God, when I feel frightened and I sometimes
do, what I try to do is recognize that he is a great and loving God and that he will use this
in some way. And on a slightly less mystical plane, I recognize that I have some serious amends to
make, and perhaps by God's grace, an opportunity to put right the wrongs I've done. But I have to
tell the truth. I can't put right wrongs I haven't done, only the things that I've done. And I've
been, I was clear about those things at the time because Megan, when I was doing that stuff,
if I was on a talk show or if like, you know, I'm aware of attractive women. I'm not blind.
I can see attractive. And when I was like a single person, I'm like assessment, are you
married? Yes. Okay, no problem. Unless you're married and you've got an open marriage. Right,
fair enough. What about you? Are you not married? Like some of those flight attendants.
Right. So I was an open channel, but for the wrong frequency and the wrong energy. What's it like now? It's very, very pressurizing. And as a Christian, I recognize that pressure can be very refining, very refining. So I try to keep my mind and my prayers on the people involved in this that are hurt and that need resolution and justice. I'm trying to be aware of that. I'm trying not to be selfish. I'm trying to pay attention to that everyone participating in this is doing their very
best. Does it, does it make you angry?
The anger, I've never felt, I understand the position. Look, when Me Too happened in
2015, you know, I was like, wow, I've slept with lots and lots of women. I wonder if
during this moment I'm going to face some allegations and that did not happen. Because I think
some people, it seemed to facing allegations that maybe it looked like consensual activity
reframed. Again, that's one of the things that's very, you know, suspicious.
about the allegations against you is that no one did come forward then.
It wasn't until you got very outspoken in your more right-wing views that suddenly,
Channel 4 thought it would be a great time to do a hit piece on Russell Brand and found some women.
I mean, it would be the equivalent of like going around and finding all the women who had slept with John Bon Jovi and saying,
do you ever have anything that didn't feel 100%, you know, it's just when you go to a man who's been as exposed as you have,
like a rock star, as you were describing.
If you really, really, really lift up every sheet and kick every tire, you may find some
women who are unhappy about their experiences.
I'm not diminishing them.
Maybe they're true.
Whatever, we'll find out the trial.
But maybe they're not true.
And maybe this did come up because there was a new agenda when it came to your name.
And it was much more interesting to silence you and smear you.
And honestly, Russell, like, I'm not diminishing anybody's story.
I don't know what happened.
But I can relate to this to some extent.
I've just, I, I have seen my own, myself, get attacked by different groups over the years when you fly too close to the sun or when you're over an issue that's this particular group's favorite issue and they need you to say it in a different way or feel a different way, that I now am very suspicious about like massive harms that come to people when they speak out on a particular issue or in a particular way. It happens over and over and over.
Yes, it is interesting. One of the,
Outside of my own experience, where of course, by definition, I can't be objective because I am the subject of it,
I do try to imagine that the way that power operates these days is to first decide an outcome.
This is the outcome we want. How do we get to that outcome? We need these resources. We need control of social media.
Like when there's a spate of stories, for example, saying we're really concerned that young people using their social media are getting too,
match access to pornography. Either the government and the state are really concerned about the
moral, well-being and purity of our youngsters, or they're looking for a way to legitimize
some measures and control that they'd like to assert. That's why I think the pandemic period
that many of us have sort of, you know, everyone wants to just get on with their lives and no one
wants to look back over their shoulders. It's so depressing. It's interesting. It's interesting.
But what were the results of the pandemic? I think when we look at, you know, key bono, I think is
the phrase in Latin, who benefits? When we look at what happens? When we look at what happens?
who benefited, whether it's something that's personal or whether it's something that's larger,
more macro, then it helps us to understand.
Clearly what's required, I think that the agenda right now is to create a great deal of
social unrest and cultural confusion.
People arguing and quarreling about identity and ideology, a kind of tower of Babel moment
where everybody is in a mad conflict, a cacophony of ardubony of.
argument. In this cacophony of argument, I think there will be an attempt to assert centralized
control, increasing centralized control that is not national, but international. And I think the
pandemic, whether deliberately or not, was a opportunity to pilot levels of control. What are the
problems you face if you tell people, everyone's got to get in their house? How do they respond to it?
How much trust do the media have these days? Who trusts CNN, MSNBC, Fox, whoever?
And I think they learned a great deal.
And I would be very surprised if we didn't see in the coming years attempt to shut down anybody
who has a meaningful dissenting voice.
If you have a meaningful dissenting voice, it's quite likely that you will be subject to a tax.
100%.
The money, people will look at your taxes and the way you've paid, they will look at your sexual history.
They will do whatever they can.
And, you know, if there's nothing else they can do, it seems that sometimes very convenient people are assassinated.
people that it's beneficial to not have around.
Well, you made an interesting point on Tucker.
You made it, you know, facetiously,
but, you know, there was obviously an element of,
are we on to something in the discussion about the lone gunmen?
I never heard somebody say it the way you said it.
Like, wow, it's really interesting how these lone gunmen are out there
assassinating all these really prominent, important figures.
You know, if you were a government who really wanted to get rid of a problematic person,
you'd be really smart to partner with one of these lone gunmen.
Like, this is basically how you put it.
You said it more articulately than that.
But I like that.
That was more persuasive to me than any conspiracy theory, in quotes, I've heard on any
of the assassinations.
It's like, if you are a government or a government agency or an underworld-related entity
and you want to take out somebody really famous, wouldn't it make sense to do it that
way as opposed to just sending your super secret sniper into the crowd and taking him out?
Yes.
Are you a teenager with me?
no social media imprint, who's never been on any of these sites, are you despairing and at a loss?
Then you could be a lone gunman. One and a hundred lone gunman. Maybe you could be a tool of the
state. I was just thinking then that perhaps what's important is for us to recognize that everyone is
broken. And any of us that have invested in our hope in some political figure or cultural figure,
in the end, disappointment is what's coming because they're all broken and hopeless in their own way.
And another thing that I feel might be important is to look at who we can forgive and who we can move towards in good faith, because I think we're doing their work for them. When I say they, I mean the true power, the empire. We're doing their work for them when we quarrel with one another, when the chat is full of intermittently anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, hatred, loathing. I regard it as a kind of frequency. Once you are on that frequency of hatred and condemnation,
They've already got you. You've been, as we would say in the UK, lifed off. You're partitioned. You're no good. You're useless now. When you remain in faith and in grace, open-hearted and willing to forgive and willing to love, you move into a different terrain and different territory. If we don't instantiate a different type of politics that, actually, ironically, the system that would work rather well is democracy. If we do not use the technology that we have right now that's in my country being used for facial recognition technology, that's just been, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,
litigated. They're now going to have facial recognition technology cameras all across the UK.
Many people are concerned that in the United Kingdom, you're very likely to be arrested.
We have more arrests than any other nation for social media posts.
There's an attempt to get digital ID mandated that has been temporarily rescinded because there
was so much public resistance, which optimistically suggests that if we are willing to unite
in a line, we can oppose this technological feudalism that seems to be coming down the line.
What terrifies me, Megan, is that the enemy, the empire, deal only in counterfeits.
Instead of unity, they will have totalitarianism.
Instead of intercommunication, they will have mass surveillance.
All of our communications observed and controlled, all of our information pre-chewed.
Any opinion that's not convenient to the empire or to the state passed off, ignored and censored.
I really believe that we are at a pivotal moment.
I think everybody knows that.
want to indulge that kind of Findersechla narcissism that every generation feels. We're the ones that
will experience the Armageddon. We're the ones that will experience the apocalypse. Surely we will.
But in the wake of COVID, why wouldn't we be asking those questions? I mean, we just had our
president send out a post saying, no, I think I'm willing to sacrifice my liberties, my civil liberties
in order to have the government have this control. It's fine in the context of these
FISA warrants in the FISA court. And this is something that we,
on the right cheered post 9-11, you know, these Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act,
these warrants that you can get to, you can get access to millions of people's metadata
from their phones.
And the way the government justified it was, yes, some Americans may get swept up in our
search for spy communications or terrorist communications, but we're not after them.
We're after the bad guys.
And it's not like we're pulling, you know, Megan Kelly's text and reading them.
We're basically just going to see her metadata in the field of lots of metadata.
and we accepted that post-9-11 because we were scared shitless.
It was, I mean, we really had been attacked.
Three thousand of our fellow Americans were killed in the most brutal way possible.
So we sacrificed a lot of our core beliefs back then.
But it's been 25 years since 9-11 and to pretend that we still need this tool for the terrorists.
All right.
Like, what?
To prevent that from happening is bullshit.
That's for us.
And there should be objections by the American public.
But wait, I want to circle back.
we went back to policy in our government.
And I just want to stay on something about you
because I read, I don't know where I read it,
but your wife said to you
or maybe gave you a written,
was it a Psalm, a verse from the Bible,
about when we get persecuted, we feel great joy,
something to that effect?
Yes, that's from James 1.
Now, I don't want to paint a picture of my wife
as a devout Christian.
She's very much a lapsed Catholic.
Her family, her father in particular,
is a very dedicated Catholic.
but my wife, you know, if anyone's suffering is a result of my Christianity, it's my wife.
And if anyone would know if it were a performance, it would be my wife.
But she did very beautifully, when I was going back for one of the preliminary hearings prior to my trial,
made this beautiful painting of a magnolia.
And a verse from James first in the New Testament of James' letter for the first chapter is,
we consider it great joy when we face trials of any kind.
What we're being invited.
Yes.
I love that.
So I didn't.
Do you do that?
I always, always say this.
I say it to myself.
I say it to my staff.
I stay it to young people when I speak to them on college campuses.
I confess it's a take on something.
I first heard many, many moons ago from Oprah Winfrey back when we liked her.
But it was a good piece of advice.
And it was whenever something comes your way that's hugely negative.
a massive challenge, your first response should be, thank you. Thank you. Because how do we grow?
How do we evolve as human beings? How do we become, you know, people with superhero muscles,
emotional muscles, unless that stuff does come to us. If that stuff never comes to us,
we remain boring, rather uninformed, weak, unprepared for some massive crisis that may be coming
down the line, each one of these that does get thrown to you as long as you don't even have to win.
I mean, I'm not talking about like, okay, you go to prison for 10 years.
That's not, that's tough.
But my point is, if you just keep going, if you just handle it, if you don't stay in the fetal position in your bed, it's already a win.
You've already grown.
It's huge opportunity to evolve as a human.
And the bigger the challenge, the bigger the fear, the bigger the opportunity.
Yes.
So I love what she wrote.
Yeah, that was.
She didn't write it originally, but I love what she stitched.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's incredibly encouraging and precisely the,
a wife that I'm, I deserve,
that I don't deserve,
no, you must deserve her.
Thank God I deserve her, man.
Thank God I've got her, man. Thank God I've got her.
You wouldn't, you wouldn't have her if you didn't.
You know, like, what I think, Megan,
whether it's you or me, or Tucker,
whoever, there's this sense that, in the end,
the technology that meant that you don't have to work for Fox no more,
and you know, you can work for serious if you want to,
and you can do partnerships that the...
I don't work for serious.
They license my show.
License your show.
Brokerage.
The power.
of the brokers has been diminished. That's the real trend that's significant. The information has been
decentralized. So either the political systems will have to learn to evolve and adapt and reflect
this decentralization or perversely they will constrict and try to legitimize more and more
centralization and authoritarianism and a kind of technological feudalism, a centralized control.
It's pretty clear that they've taken the latter path. I think my
those people were temporarily excited about maga nationalism,
because it seemed like in the powerful,
and as I say,
idiosyncratic figure of Donald Trump,
there was at least a kind of stumbling block
and maybe even a bulwark against advancing global imperialism,
where using the idea of care and protection,
more and more control was being asserted.
You have to sign this in order to do that.
We need you to carry this.
We're going to eventually plant a chip under your skin.
All those things that were once the preserve
of the conspiracy theorists,
advancing into everyday life. Think about what you thought about what David Ike and Alex Jones
were saying in the 90s and how you revered the New York Times and BBC. Well, which direction
is that needle moving in? Are there paedophile rings? Is there a cultist power? Can we trust
the mainstream narrative on the most important issues, whether it's wars or assassinations?
What I believe they fear most of all is that this ability to instantaneously communicate will
become politicized, that ultimately people could have decentralized communities and localized politics,
that you would have minimal government, minimal intervention, maximum ability to run your community
like the Amish, if you wanted, or like gay people if you wanted, or like Muslims, if you wanted,
that you don't need the intervention of a global bureaucracy anymore.
I wanted to read this to you because you mentioned Alex Jones.
So he and I have a very interesting history together.
But I have to tell you, even at our worst in terms of our fighting, I always said he has been right about so much.
Right.
We had our big.
What he attacked you sometimes?
Or did you attack him?
No, he never attacked me.
It was.
You're going to do an attack once in a while?
I went, I can definitely do an attack.
But I went to interview him while I was in NBC to do like an in-depth profile on him.
And it was not long after he had said that the Newtown families made up.
the murder of their children.
So, you know, he was like very, very hot potato to touch at the time, but I thought it would be
an interesting profile.
And he had moved off of that.
So I kind of thought we were just going to do a profile in Alex Jones.
And we would touch on that, but it wouldn't be the theme of the piece because he was interesting.
And he, I knew he had gotten a lot right.
Anyway, we went there and he kept doubling down on the Sandy Hook thing, which turned the whole
piece into something that did look more like a hit piece because, of course, I had
to get contentious with him because that's insane and wrong and it wasn't made up.
Those kids were killed.
So anyway, then he taped me.
He released the tape.
It just was like his crazy, crazy ass shit time in my life.
But having said all that, it's water under the bridge.
And I've been watching what Alex Jones has been doing lately and I actually really appreciate it.
I think he's been doing great shows and his messaging around the whole Israel thing has been must see.
And I mean, like I said from the beginning, he's been right about a lot.
Just today, there was a big piece of news last.
I don't know if you saw Cash Patel announced that the Southern Poverty Law Center, the SPLC,
which is supposed to be this great group that protects, you know, America from racism and all the isms.
Like, they'll be the first to call you out if you're a terrible person so that everybody knows.
Russell's terrible.
Megan's terrible.
Stay away.
They're this or that and the other thing.
And then turned into just this left-wing group that would bash anybody on the right.
That's how it's been for years.
That they have been paying, paying members of the Ku Klux Klan of the Aryan,
brotherhood to go infiltrate.
They say, oh, it's just infiltrate.
They're like inside sources.
We didn't create them to, we didn't pay them to create the event, just to infiltrate.
That's not what the indictment says.
And they've been exposed now as basically paying the very people.
They then look at their donors and say, pay me to protect you from that person I'm paying.
I'm going to use your money to pay him to cause hell, including in Charlottesville, Virginia.
at the unite the right rally that would just cause a massive headache for President Trump from the beginning of his first term where he said, because there were skinheads there, but there were also people who were just pissed off that we were pulling down statues of like Confederate generals or just even Christopher Columbus.
And Trump said, you know what?
He said not the white supremacists, but outside of them, there were very fine people on both sides.
And that quote was used against him unfairly for many, many years and still is.
Alex Jones. Okay, back in August of 2017, Charlottesville was a false flag run by Southern Poverty Law Center
operatives who hired actress deposes Nazis. Fucking, the guy, I could give you so many of these by Alex Jones.
After we did my interview with him where it did get contagious, but I spent days with him,
he said so many things out. They sounded crazy, Russell. We went back to the NBC fact.
checking machine, which is good. NBC's biased, but they're not reckless generally when it comes to
like they're reporting. Don't get me wrong. I understand what happened with Russia Gate. And I'm not talking
about MSNBC. They all came back true. Everybody's like, he's a lunatic. He says the frogs are
turning gay and they're turning transgender. We're like, he's a nutcase. True, true, true,
true. It was amazing. The Sandy Hook stuff was very, very wrong and untrue must be said again.
In any event, he's on the list, right?
Like, he's been, of course, due to his own behavior and due to just being right about a lot of the stuff that they don't want out there, they've otherized him.
They've done it to Tucker.
They're in the process of trying to do it to me.
I'm a lot harder because I don't have the conspiratorial gene that a lot of these folks have.
And their conspiracies in many places have turned out to be true.
So it's like, shame on me for not having more of one.
But I just, I'm not built like that.
I'm a lawyer, I'm a linear thinker, very, very fact-based.
You know, I don't believe anything until it's really been proven to me with, like, facts I can hold.
But they're trying, like, they're trying to do it to me right now.
And it's infuriating.
And now I'm much, much more suspicious about the narratives I've been sold about many, many other people, right?
Like, are they really crazy and conspiratorial or do they know something?
Have they hit on one of those soft spots that you're not allowed to touch?
It's very hard to stay present.
it's very hard to stay present and assess when you're being emotionally stimulated.
The whole culture is continually emotionally stimulated.
Sexual imagery.
Images of violence and fear.
These things create bewilderment and disorientation.
You shouldn't consume too much of it, if any, at all, as a matter of fact.
Over time and right now, AI and the Internet are creating something that's akin to a counterfeit consciousness.
Remember Carl Jung saying that we have a collective unconscious. It's almost as if there's a repository for all of our thoughts.
It says that we are all participants in the Holy Spirit that all of us can share in God's grace and presence right now.
The eternity is not just beyond time, but it is within and throughout time.
Now, in creating this online internet space where all consciousnesses and individuals can potentially interconnect with one another,
we've created a kind of facsimile or counterfeit of a psyche.
The psyche is generating the kind of shadow archetypes that Jung himself spoke about.
And because we live in this materialistic, secular culture,
we don't have the language or even the diagnostic tools to recognize these types.
The dark woman that will tell you truths that people don't want to hear and uncomfortable about.
The ranting preacher that might say things that are,
sometimes crazy or prophetic, have you looked at the prophetic language in the Bible,
but has a great many truths to tell us, the thoughtful Kahn, the meaty, solid warrior,
that thoughtfully pontificates and interrogates people. Our internet online new media space is like a new
consciousness inhabited with people like you and me and Tucker that have lived for a while in the
old media. And then these other creatures that came from the periphery or were born
within it. But there are great truths that are being told by you with your understanding of
litigation and systems of justice, media, you have a great deal to offer. Tucker, with his background
there that's sort of deep, deep embedded in systems of state and power and media and journalism.
Those outlier characters like Jones, you can see that guy when he's on there, 25 or 30 turning
up protesting against wars, telling us way before 9-11 that it was going to happen and who was going
to have done it. If you dismiss that.
person or if you condemn that person or if you try to control or shut down that person,
there may be reasons for it, but those reasons are not going to be for your protection.
And again, another useful paradigm for understanding this is what was the entire mentality
behind the pandemic? We have to take these medicines and we have to go into our homes
because life is sacred and we have to protect each other no matter what. We especially have
to protect the vulnerable. Well, where else do you see them operating and governing in order to
to protect the vulnerable. I don't see it. I see exploitation and I see control. Whenever they come to you
saying that they want to protect you, they actually want to control you. And you know from your own life
as a parent or someone who loves anybody. The protection control are on a spectrum. I want to protect
my children. And part of that is I have to control them. But we are children of God. We are not
children of the state. The state tells you there is no God. The empire tells you that nothing is
real if it can't be measured. And then it acts like a God. It wants to control every aspect of your life
and like God, it wants you to come innocently like little children.
It wants to determine right and wrong.
Even something like wokeism, and a couple of times you've said that I'm sort of right-wing,
and I would like to say that I don't agree with those taxonomies or labels anymore.
I'm a follower of Jesus.
And if more people follow Jesus, I believe the world will just naturally improve
because, as C.S. Lewis said, if you have lawyers that are Christian,
they'll run the law in a Christian way.
If you have media commentators that are Christian, they'll do their job.
every role could do with Christ being in charge of it.
Now what I see when you live in an anti-Christ world where you deny connection, where you deny
eternal life, where you deny the love of God, where you say you're just, you're an insignificant
set of molecules in infinite space that somehow has evolved to the point where it's even able
to make that assessment, which is one of the great paradoxes of atheism, of course, that the
instrument with which you've deduced there is no meaning is itself a result of these
meaningless procedures. How can you ever make such an assessment?
While telling us they do that, that they can do that, their rationalism always leads you to the same place, whether it's the bombast and, you know, let's face it, media brilliance of Donald Trump, or the kind of sterile charisma of Barack Obama.
It always leads to them being in control.
You needing them.
You paying too much tax.
You seeding too much control.
Police forces that are disoriented and exhausted and not respected and not living in the,
communities that they're policing. We can change all of it. We can change it with ideas that
people purportedly believe in already. We've got people in government telling us that they're
Christian. Let's see the Christianity. We've got people. Get back to that. Let's do it. And people
running every country in the world, more or less, that say they believe in democracy. Democracy
if it doesn't mean that we govern in accordance with the will of the people means nothing.
What democracy means I have been taught these days is these institutions that we can
control, constitute democracy. We're going to put them all around the world and control them there.
But we could have democracy. The technology exists. I mean, look, we thought we were getting
that when we elect Trump and we thought that. Did you? Yeah, I did. I don't know. Maybe I'm
naive. I'm old, but I'm naive. I just thought that Trump really meant it when he promised to buck
the system. He promised he couldn't be bought. He was bought. I mean, like the Miriam
Madelson, $250 million, bought him on Iran and Israel. And he's doing.
doing exactly what she wanted him to do.
He was manipulated by Netanyahu.
She's thrilled.
This is not what his base wanted.
And it's unfortunate.
I didn't think Trump could be bought.
I really believed that he couldn't.
It's hugely disappointing.
And I feel as many do, which is it's a betrayal.
A lot of my audience disagrees with me.
And I understand their POV too.
But that's how I feel on Trump.
What do you think they love about Trump still
once the migration from America first politics
becomes evident. What is it? The charisma, the figure, because what I look about him is his energy.
I was like, Trump was coming into a Senate. When I, from 2015, I was like, this guy's crazy. That's
ridiculous. It's not possible. But the second time, but I liked it, the central powers didn't get
what they wanted. I liked that. Same was with Brexit. I don't care about Brexit. EU, not
EU. I don't care about admin. But what I like is when you see the people not behave as they're
supposed to. I love that. But what is it this time? What's happened, Megan? And people that still love him,
what is it that they still love?
There's a lot.
I think his sense of humor is very endearing, is very charming.
And, you know, he can actually be very self-deprecating,
which is charming too,
especially given the amount of power that he has.
I think the amount of shit that's been thrown at him
and his unwillingness to stay down, you know,
he just gets back up no matter what people do to him.
I mean, try to put him in jail multiple times.
They tried to ruin his family.
They tried to kill him.
You know, I mean, so much is.
happened to him and he just keeps going, like you just cannot stand him down. And that's very admirable.
For most of his time in the public eye, he has had all the right enemies. You know, he stood up against
the race dogma, the trans dogma, the xenophob dogma about having a southern border in a way that was
very admirable and we needed desperately because we were losing those wars. You know, the woke thing was
taking over in every department with our children, with our lives, at our employment. And Trump
was the bulwark against it saying, hell no. And he had this sheer strength and power to turn it all
around. He really did. Like, you know, it was like the parting of the seas. Like, I will just make
this happen despite all odds with my immense power. So all of that has been, you know, just
inspirational. Inspirational. I think many of us just like Trump. You know, we like his personality.
But then the other truth of it is there are aspects of his personality, which are, you know,
obviously not good and that we've mostly just chosen to overlook. He's not a moral man. He's obviously
not the greatest husband in the world. And he's extremely petty and thin-skinned. And what we're
seeing right now is he's churning on his most loyal supporters because they don't support this war
and getting in bed with people who fucking hate him and have hated him from the beginning and were the
original never Trumpers, as though that's what MAGA is. That's what his core support should look like.
Meanwhile, there are many who are over here who have loved Trump for many, many years. We've had our
skirmishes in the past. Tucker's had skirmishes with him. I have too, but who fought harder than a lot
of others during the lawfare against him to make sure people knew that it was bullshit, stood up for
him during the actual electoral contest to make sure people understood what was at stake and why he had to be
the choice. Who he just, you know, there's no
loyalty in return ever from Trump, ever.
If you have a principal disagreement
with something he does, you're
otherwise, you're the enemy. And
at this particular moment, he's alienating
so many of his core supporters,
biggest believers,
and boosters, and running
to people who have not been
able to stand him for
10 years, like a Mark Levin
or a Ben Shapiro who actively
was against Trump. He was a total Desantis
guy. He only went on board with Trump
when DeSantis was, of course,
host and he had no choice but to save his audience and get on board with the Republican nominee,
whatever. It's, it is what it is. You know, it is what it is. But there's still in my view a lot
to like about Trump. It's just some of those darker demons are much more in the front view right now
because he's like a cornered animal. He's got no support in this Iran war. He can't bring it to an
end. These are tough motherfuckers who are not doing what we want them to and coming to the negotiating
table and giving us what we want so we can get out and just declare it a win. He's a
his poll numbers are now his latest poll approval on Iran was 30 at 30 percent. I mean,
his job approval in like the last five polls has been in the low 30s, low 30s. So his legacy is
on the line. And you can tell, he can tell. So he's acting out in a very, very bad way.
And I, my prayer every night, every night, Russell is that he will get back on track.
He will reconnect with what, you know, the agenda that we put him in office to enact. He will
extract himself from this very money-driven agenda by the Miriam Adelson's of the world.
You know, she's purchasing what she wants and Trump's being manipulated into doing it, which is infuriating.
And that the country, or at least those of us who are on what I call team sanity, can come back together and work to defeat these crazy leftists like James Carville, who wants to pack the Supreme Court and add Puerto Rico and D.C. as states, right? Like, the Republicans will never win another national election if we do that. Anyway, it's a very tumultuous time.
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It sounds deeply tumultuous.
It sounded like you points feel like personally betrayed as an advocate for Trump and at other times ideologically,
betrayed. And with this war, some of the larger points I've seen sort of play out over a long time,
because I don't have anything like the granular detail or the journalistic excellence that you've just displayed in describing that.
But from my sort of more vague and hazy perspective, like what I've seen, I've just seen people saying,
oh, well, Trump always had those views about Iran. Trump always said that Iran. That's what they say.
And Iran, if they were ever to develop a nuclear capacity. Now, for me, those arguments seem,
in one case irrelevant that he's always felt it,
and in the second instance,
very similar to the weapons of mass destruction argument
that was used to...
That's it, exactly.
So I wonder then,
what is this force, this power
that is so sufficient that it would...
See, David Summers,
with great leaders and great people,
all it is, just for a moment,
they're the temporary conductor.
You know, Churchill, very fallible,
broken, alcoholic, depressive, lunatic,
who, not necessarily lunatic, but for a moment, was able to carry world opposition against,
as best we can understand, this great force for evil.
So with Trump, what do you suppose is happening?
Do you think bought in a sort of financial and economic way?
Do you think compromised in the post-Ebstein world?
We all have to assume that it seems that people largely are?
What is this power that is so large that it can wrangle this?
gargantuan male away from what seemed to be his evident trajectory to at least continue to consolidate
a very large group of supporters. I mean, I think on Israel, in the Republican Party, there's never
been any downside to being 100% pro-Israel. From the time I started at Fox News in 2004,
until only very recently, in the Republican Party, there was no downside to saying you were 100%
on Team Israel, to promote Israel, to go visit Israel, to take money from.
From APEC, that was, no one in the Republican politics would ever second guess it or judge it.
It's only been more recent because, well, I mean, Gaza.
I mean, that's really one of the main things.
It was happening on the left prior to Gaza.
But the violence that Israel unleashed on civilians in Gaza just got to pass the point where you could overlook it as a friend who was like looking at your friend who got attacked viciously on 10-7 and trying to look the other way.
Like some of these civilian casualties are going to happen.
It's war. It happened when we did wars, too. But like, to the point where it's like,
geez, like, this is out of control. Like, it defended you a lot of times on the genocide claim,
you know, tens of thousands more and more and more. You're kind of undermining my ability to root for you,
never mind, defend you. And I think Republicans started to feel it, too, young Republicans first.
And they started to migrate away from Israel. So the stakes changed. Like this ardent support of
Israel no longer became totally acceptable within Republican politics. And the coalition that was
totally pro-Israel started to fracture. The Democrats left. The independents left. The Republicans
started to trickle away with the youth first going entirely, entirely. And now the only people who really
support Israel are senior citizen Republicans. People basically were 65 or around there or older and
Republican. Those are the ones who are still pro-Israel, which includes Trump. And he didn't get it.
Like he did not have his finger on the pulse of where the party was on Israel.
And still, I think, thought he could do something that would be great for Israel, which is start a war with Iran.
And it would go over well that his core base would applaud him for it.
And I believe him that he never wanted Iran to have a nuclear weapon.
I think those statements were sincere.
But more than that, he promised no new wars and no wars in the Middle East, which last time I checked includes Iran.
And so, but if Trump had looked at us and said, and Tulsi G.
Gabbert had looked at us and Joe Kent had looked at us and the IAEA had looked at us and said,
Iran is within a month of getting a nuclear bomb. The country would have stood behind Trump.
We would have believed them. But that's not what happened. The IAEA and Tulsi and Joe Kent,
they all said no, they're not. They don't have the capacity to get a nuclear bomb.
They're nowhere close to getting a nuclear bomb. And by the way, those strikes we did last
June were very effective in dismantling whatever nuclear program they had, whether it was civilian
or not, and they had been enriching beyond civilian needs.
So it wasn't true that they were about to get it.
If it had been, the country would have gotten behind him, and we would have looked at that
secret escape hatch from no new wars of unless Iran's about to get a nuclear weapon.
It wasn't true.
He used that excuse that he had always said they can't have a nuclear bomb to do what Netanyahu
wanted him to do, and what Netanyahu convinced Trump to do, which was to start a war with them.
And he did that because he was razzled-dazzled by Netanyahu into believing that the Ayatollah is going to be
above ground. So are his top emissaries. We can take them out. They try to kill you. Now you can get him
before he gets you. It'll be like Venezuela. You'll get in, you'll get out. You'll be a hero.
You'll change the whole world because a kinder, gentler, Jeb Bartlett type is going to take over
in Iran and be the new Ayatola, the sweet loving one who sends his cookies upon his ascension.
and Trump listened.
Netanyahu playing him like a fiddle.
He played to his hubris, which is exactly how you're supposed to manipulate Trump.
All these world leaders know it.
Look how they bend the knee at NATO now.
You know, it's ridiculous.
Oh, my daddy or daddy.
It's like, oh, my God.
That's what they do.
Look at the cabinet members at the cabinet meetings.
Oh, thanks to you, Mr. President.
It's like they all have to kiss his ass before they give their updates
because they're trying to manipulate him into keeping them in their
roles and into liking them. And that's all well and good. It never really bothered me that much.
I don't love it. But when it's working to start wars, it's deeply problematic. And it's how we got
in this mess. With people I say Thomas Massey, who would have long contested this would play out in
this manner or any average pick a random Democrat that would have said, if, well, don't you remember
what they're saying is if you vote for Trump, it's going to bring about global annihilation and all
of the, you know, what they call
Trump derangement syndrome.
Now, do you say that
your adjustment is as a result of
action and therefore legitimate and anyone,
like whether it's you or Tucker or Candace or people
whose opinions matter in this country,
you have a responsibility
to alter your perspective on the
basis of new information and
evidence, or do you
or is there a concession to
be made to those people that prior to
Trump Pointe
however you said, I think, were saying,
you can't have this guy in Charheed a narcissist,
you know, all of the stuff that they said.
Do you feel any of that?
Or is it like, because where I am, not that you've asked,
but like, you know, just to add this,
is that we all feel that politicians like Barack Obama,
Netanyahu, Tony Blair, not we all,
some people feel that those people are kind of,
whether they're the sort of compromised political class
that is epitomized by the Epstein stuff or not,
there is some way that they are controlled.
That's what people feel.
They're controlled. They're not really in charge.
There's a set of powers that are beyond and behind them.
And maybe it's a cultist, maybe not difficult to corroborate.
Who knows?
Where do you stand on that?
And do you not feel, what do you feel now?
Like, where do we go now?
Because you're not going to get another Trump.
You're not going to get another populist like that.
So, like, where do you put your political vigor and influence in light of all this?
Well, I certainly am not thinking, gee, we should have gone with
Kamala at all. I mean, because as upset as many of us are about this war, Trump closed the border,
which saved countless lives. Trump did issue a bunch of executive orders on the trans issue,
which saved a bunch of children's lives. And, you know, Trump- Kennedy, HHS, that's all good.
Huge. I mean, we can do more. I have to be honest. Like, there's more that Kennedy could do.
Stand by. Let's leave it there. I'm going to take a break, do an ad, and we're going to pick
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Hey, everyone. It's me, Megan Kelly. I've got some exciting news.
I now have my very own channel on Sirius XM.
It's called the Megan Kelly Channel,
and it is where you will hear the truth, unfiltered, with no agenda, and no apologies.
Along with the Megan Kelly show, you're going to hear from people like Mark Halperin, Link Lauren, Morin Callahan, Emily Jashinsky, Jesse Kelly,
Real Clear Politics, and many more.
It's bold, no BS news, only on the Megan Kelly channel, Sirius XM 11, and on the SiriusXM app.
We are back now with Russell Brand.
And his new book is How to Become a Christian in Seven Days. It's out now. Go get it on Tucker Carlson.com, because this is the first of the new Tucker imprints. So we were talking about Trump when we last left off, which is, that's all we've been talking about for 10 years.
Trump dominates every thought and every conversation. But what were you trying to ask me?
Well, I'm trying to ask you anything. I was successfully asking you, sorry, sorry. Where do you put your political enthusiasm if you've been disabused of them?
notion that any political leader, no matter how charismatic and demagogic, is going to achieve
anything, that they will ultimately be subsumed by some invisible interest that appear to
steer world power. What do you do now? Yeah, and you were saying, could it happen to like a Thomas
Massey? I actually don't think it could happen to a Thomas Massey. I don't think it could happen to a Rand Paul.
No, I was using Thomas Massey as an example of someone that sort of trod the line. Like that guy,
he's, no, this is my views, this is my views. They're trying to buy me. I'm not doing it.
like someone that's sort of shown kind of an integrity.
And I mean, integrity in the sense of he's remained sort of in a alignment with this.
And I think there was a red flag on Trump because what was he at heart, a dealmaker?
Right.
He's been a dealmaker his whole life.
And that should have been maybe more of a red flag that he would say.
There's no core principles in there that are driving him on most issues.
Like there were a couple.
Like I do believe he's against illegal immigration.
I do believe he saw genuine concerns around the trade war and manufacturing and what China was doing.
I think that was sincere, and we've seen him try to do something about that.
He's got sincere beliefs about doing business with other nations and how we can make America richer.
And I think like all that glad-hanging he did with his Saudi Arabia summit where he's like,
yeah, you're going to invest in America, great, we're all going to get rich.
We don't have to hate each other anymore.
I think that was sincere.
But that dealmaker thing is probably what got us into trouble on the Iran thing.
So I don't know.
I rarely put my faith in politicians.
I'm not sure I ever really totally put it in Trump.
I fell in love with Trump's professional promises to us.
Like I really believed he would close the border.
He would kick out the illegals that he would stop the trans mania.
I believe that he would crack down on crime to the extent you can at the federal level.
And I have to say he's lived up to those promises, except for the deportations.
He has closed the border. He has done a lot on trans. He has tried to do what a president can on crime. And I'm grateful for all those things. But, you know, this other stuff, Epstein, Iran, the economy have been pretty disastrous.
Okay. So it's like you are quite objective. And while I'm listening to you, I'm remembering that famous moment, I think, in the primaries where he said red eyes and red. Blood coming out of my eyes and out of my wherever.
So it's kind of like, that's kind of one of the most sort of memorable and like, whoa, Trump kind of kind of pot.
culture moments. But now, it seems from a well-versed, studied and journalistic perspective,
you're saying that Trump isn't fulfilling his pledge to his voter base. And what I'm curious about
is, the problem we have, Megan, as content creators, is that we can just live in the
mad vicissitudes of never-ending conflict and just sort of find a path through it. Someone's telling
me, a lot of people think that Tucker has become more expressive or
condemnatory of Trump and in particular regarding foreign policy in Israel, obviously,
there's a kind of a tactical move, is a strategic move, as a way of garnering audience.
And yeah, I really don't feel that either about Tucker at all or anyone, actually, or, you know,
people will be discussing.
But so, but what I'm trying to ask, and I suppose now I am trying to ask, is like,
where do you put your enthusiasm now?
Because 28, J.D. Vance, like, where do you go?
Okay, but this time, the, because.
Because me, I've reverted to where I was as a kid and a smackhead, a drug addict, saying,
you can't trust any of them because there are systems that control them.
And it doesn't matter how, as long as these systems are fundamentally controlled by the same interests,
whether they're global bureaucratic or deep state.
They call that being blackpilled.
So where do we, as if we're blackpilled then, and me as a follower of Jesus and you're Christian, hey.
Yeah.
Catholic.
Right.
So where do we go?
Where do we go when it comes to advocacy?
What are you saying?
Well, the next step is relative evils.
Oh, great.
Well, I don't like that.
I know.
It's unfortunate, but that's the next logical step because it is a binary system.
One of them is going to ascend to power.
And you have to choose the lesser of two evils.
That's really what it's always been about.
You know, I mean, even with Trump, you know, he asked me to come speak for him and, you know, go to that rally and sort of endorse him.
the night before the vote. And I did wrestle with it, but something inside of me told me,
you have to do it. Because I knew, I knew we'd be in far worse shape of Kamala Harris won.
She could not win. There was just absolutely no way we could allow that. So it wasn't like
I love and adore Trump. You know, personally, he and I have always had a friction between us.
You know, it's been very complicated between us for many, many years, which is good. I would take
complicated. I'm a journalist. You know,
I never wanted to be his bootlicker, and I never have been. He and I have had ups and downs,
and I've been critical at times and very, very promotional at other times. But I knew that he
was better than she was. And I still feel like we'll have to make that choice next time around.
But look, I have voted in nine presidential elections. Five of them, I voted Republican and four of
them I voted Democrat. And it wasn't all like the four when I was super young.
You know, like, I am a true independent.
I will make up my mind based on the person who gets the nomination and go from there.
And what does the country look like?
What are the issues that are really important right now?
But, Megan, from where we are now, what level of independence does that demonstrate really
when surely what we have agreed on is that there is no meaningful transaction taking place in the tension of a bipartisan system?
But take what I just said.
Like, if your top issue is, and my check.
My two top issues were the border and the trans thing. And Trump did a good job on those.
I'd like the deportations to happen. But like, we've made so much progress on the trans thing.
We're not, we are still cutting off the penises of little boys, but not as often as we used to.
I did one this morning.
And the whole messaging around it has changed. The Olympics changed. This is all thanks to Trump.
All these hospitals are stopping the procedures. That's thanks to Trump. So we've gotten something.
But compared to potential Armageddon and yielding to perhaps the Supreme forces that ultimately control the world, those are Pyrrhic victories indeed.
Somebody had to ascend.
So what are you going to do?
Like completely withdraw from the process altogether.
Seed the arguments.
Let the Democrats make two new states so we'll never see a Republican in national power again.
Like, no, I have to fight those battles.
What if the, can we not generate new battles by proposing?
radical systemic change and the radical decentralization of political power.
I'm asking you this because I'm curious.
You'd have to get rid of the two-party system.
Yeah, the first thing you'd have to do is get rid of the two-party primary system.
Cool, just do that.
I mean, like, you know, why are people not acknowledging that if the technology exists
for all of us to carry digital ID, essentially 70% of the global population to get vaccinated
overnight from either a made-up or potentially not as threatening as it was presented,
disease, then why don't we collectively, particularly people that have extraordinary sway,
and indeed if you are about to face extraordinary attacks, it's precisely as a result
of the influence and impact you could have.
Why, I'm curious, genuinely, it's a real question because I'm trying to understand it myself.
What if these voices in independent media became overtly and deliberately active in politics?
Doesn't that have the extraordinary salve of resolving these?
cultural issues instantly, i.e., if there is a community that wants to be run in accordance with
Sharia law within some state somewhere, then allow them to democratically do it. If there is a
community that want to have a sort of a trans utopia, allow them to do it. However, in these communities,
we want to maximally run them in accordance with these principles. In a sense, what is the point
of nations of this size and scale,
do you not consider that the rise of nationalism
was itself a response to globalism
and people beginning to sense
that there was no national sovereignty in France
or in Germany or in Sri Lanka or in the United States of America
and if you look at trends like, for example,
the rise of agricultural protest,
it's an indication that through global bureaucratic edicts,
they're trying to control food sourcing.
And indeed then, if there is a global problem,
perhaps because of the miracle of this new communication in which you are a leader,
that we could be advocating not just for a different incumbent in a corrupt system,
but a different system entirely.
And it's not that long ago, 250 years away,
it was since the establishment of your great country,
that even when the War of Independence was won against that other country,
you don't remember who lost it,
but I'm sure they had some good points and a reasonable king
who was not syphilistic, syphilitic and mad.
that many like isn't it Patrick Henry
what said we've got to go further
you're too much centralisation
empower states and then the states empower
communities and the communities empower the individual
and you have to end
the problem of donation has to end
lobbying has to end
unless you make those kind of proposals
unless you make the position of leadership
a position of service
so that you don't even attract
Or just smaller or just smaller
wherever possible
Yeah much much smaller
de-ideologize it.
Look, I love your optimism.
I guess I'm just a cynical mofo at heart where I'm like,
that's never going to happen.
You don't seem cynical?
I'm a little cynical on this front.
I just feel like there's too much money.
There are too many entrenched interests that control all of this
that I feel no cogs in the wheel are going to change it.
But maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe I should be more optimistic.
No cogs in the wheel will.
But I will say one thing to your point.
I think that this little ecosystem of independent voices
is important.
People are getting killed for it.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
People are getting shot dead in public
because of the impact.
It seems to me, people are having their reputations tarnished,
I think precisely because of that.
So what my interest is,
is why are we pretending that we are at an advantage
when you centralize power?
Of course, there are areas
where central coordination is beneficial,
but the principle ought be,
decentralization and democracy, these are not new ideas. If the technology that existed today
existed when this nation was founded, how much power would they have afforded at the local
level? They would have afforded more. Yeah, a lot. Now that technology does exist. That, of course,
was the original ideal anyway. That was the whole goal of having these little states that were
experimental and a very small national federal government that would, we'd all join and that would be
sort of, we'd have some basic ideals that would be enforced at that level. But that
But each state could have its own personality and its own laws and its own culture.
That was always the vision for America.
It's only, as the country went on, that we got a more bloated and empowered federal government,
that we then ceded a bunch of powers, you know, from the congressional branch,
which is the people's representative, to the executive branch.
It's gotten bigger and bigger under Obama, under Biden, and now under Trump.
I'd love to get back to where we have a very, very, very tiny, disempowered executive who really can't do much.
Yeah.
That'd be great.
That would be much more consistent with the way the founders wanted the country to be run.
And now with the technology that we have, that flow, that charge could be reversed.
It's absolutely possible that people could participate in democracy.
When I've had to do it, like in 12-step groups that I'm a member of, they're democratic, and it's slow and it's boring.
And it doesn't matter how well you think you talk or how character.
charismatic you think you are, you only have one vote and you only have one voice. And so if they're
going to, if they want a coffee machine, they'll get one. If they don't want a coffee machine,
they won't get one. It's humbling and it's cohesive. And he has no favour. It's our Lord. He sees us all,
you're all just my kids. I love you all. I made you perfect an individual. You're exactly as you're
meant to be. And then we won't dislocate into bizarre crazies like wokeism, the important
principle of kindness and compassion. We know that our Lord, if he were here, would love people that were
confused and broken and concerned and trying to align their inner self with an outer world that
they felt didn't understand them. We know that the broken that were lost in the fentanyl crisis
would find comfort in him. I feel that he has to have the government resting on his shoulders.
We can't let human beings run society through rationalism with the idea that human authority
and the human mind is the supreme system of judgment. And I feel like, I know what I'm asking actually,
because I don't know anything, what the last few years has taught me is how little I know about anything.
Same.
I'm wondering.
Oh my God, same.
Why not have dissolve power wherever possible, wherever possible, allow people to run their own communities locally.
Grow food locally.
Do not put poisonous substances into food or water or the air.
Do not try to control nature.
Have independence when it comes to the manufacturing of your food and utilities.
lose your obsession and fixation with gadgets and endless progress.
It's not going to answer the problem.
Even the mad and giddy progress and assent of the false gods of Neurilink et al will come tumbling down eventually.
We are made to be custodians and stewards to the land and we're here to love one another.
And these ideas are perfectly expressed and the miracle of my Christianity.
Let me for one second talk about this book and not do my trial practice,
which you have been very good at.
thank you for being a compassionate and a judicious interrogator when it's come to those complex matters.
But what I really want to say is that the reason I became Christian is because what I had learned as an addict in recovery,
that this world can never give you what you think it can give you, not through drugs, not through sex, not through fame,
not through approval, applause or anything.
Christ has it for you already, and he's waiting to give it to you.
And I thought I was so smart.
I thought I was so smart.
I'm countercultural.
all, before you were talking about red pills and blue pills, I'd already taken so many hallucinogens.
I'd seen through all of the veils and walls of your phony systems. Then I read that book,
the holy book. I read the Bible. And what does it say in there throughout the New Testament?
Be careful in this world. The devil's in control. It's fallen into the control of someone
who's going to create systems that seem like God's kingdom, but they're actually false, completely false.
Don't trust any leaders. They're all broken and fallen. Even the wisest kings we've ever had,
may fall into corruption and concubines and idiocy because of hubris, because of vanity, vanity,
all is vanity. What do I learn in there that God loves us so much that not only does he create us
to be in relationship with one another, that he is willing to absorb all of our sins and our brokenness
and the worst things you could say about yourself and think about yourself, he knows them all
and he loves you anyway. And it doesn't matter if you think you're born in the wrong body and it
doesn't matter if you think you don't fit in with this tribe or that tribe or you don't fit in or you
don't belong. He loves you. He made you to be as you are. And we can't outsource power anymore
to ideologues who don't understand the most basic principles of unison. We are all his son. He loves
all of us. He don't want us hating Muslims. He don't want us hate in gay people or trans people,
or people south of the border or north of the border. He wants us to be one family. And reason,
decoupled from the divine, leads to a kind of insanity. But reason is a perfect and beautiful tool
for organising resources if we recognise our place as his children.
But when we start to clamber above him,
which by the way was the flaw of Satan, Satan's self,
the fallen one who wants to run his own counterfeit kingdom,
who thinks there is no God, who poses as a God,
then we get into very, very deep trouble.
So I don't even really care if this book gets read or not read
or creates one Christian or no Christians or many, many Christians.
All I'm really interested in is participating in something true,
and valuable. Even when I come on your podcast, I don't want to sit here and try and persuade people
that I am something that I'm not, or that I wasn't something that other people say I am. I'm going to
die. You're going to die. We're all going to die. That's the truth of our situation. Now, while we're
here, do you want to stay in some stupid fetishized hatred, or do you want to participate in the
coming of his kingdom, which is what you are called to do? And if ideas occur to you that might bring
that about, don't be afraid to openly share them. Don't be afraid to notice that the technology that you
vote for pop idols or X factors or some dumb thing for could be used to say, I don't want to have a war
with Iran. I don't want one. I'm not sending you my taxes. I'm not doing that anymore. We're not
being radical enough. We're not being Christian enough. We've forgotten who the God is that died for us.
You have to be bold and you have to be willing to die for it. And given what you're
saying on your show right now. It seems like you're willing to die for what you believe in.
So die for something worth believing. It's a risk we're all taking every day these days.
I mean, just being bold with our opinions and saying them unapologetically, given the environment
we're in. So what about the title? Can you expand on that for the listening audience, how to become
a Christian in seven days? What is with the seven days? I liked that the world was created in seven days,
or all of reality was created in seven days. And of course, it can't have been because day is a,
you know, a rotational astrophysical phenomena.
So seven, it's the number that means completeness, become complete.
And then I like that it had that little potential for a joke,
how to become Christian in seven days.
Astros may take 50 years.
And initially it said, and false rape charges that gets tired.
But then when I was showing my daughters, the book cover,
I didn't want to have to explain to them.
So I changed it to serious F-ups.
Yeah.
And so that's what it means.
It means that, and also coming Christian, it's not like, actually you already are a Christian, you've just forgotten.
Because what it means is you're the follower of the way.
That's what it was called in the first place.
There is this way.
There is a righteous path.
You can see it as a neurological path if you want to, because such things surely exist.
MRIs reveal that.
Or you can see it as a geographical one.
Or you can see it in a whole bunch of meridian myriad, meridian ways.
But there is a path, there is a way, there is a calling, there is a real you that you've always known you were.
and you got distracted at points by glamour and the things of this world,
but there is a home calling for you.
In a way, the likes of you and me are participating in apostasy.
We are leaving a culture that told us you are the golden and blonded goddess woman
that's actually smart.
You poor, broken, silly little boy go out there and womanize.
We can leave that false priesthood.
We can leave that and we can participate in something valuable.
And all it really is is God,
incarnated, God within you. You can know God yourself. You don't need brokerage. You don't need
institutions, whether they're vast and wonderful, like the Roman Catholic Church, or disparate and
magnificent, like the evangelical movement in this country, or traditional, like the Church of England
in mind. You don't need that brokerage. He is here now with you. He died for you, and he spent
quite a lot of his time actually saying, you lot that are saying all the authorities are really
misrepresenting the message as I understand it, using the word with the Pharisees to demonstrate
to them exactly how they'd gone wrong. That there are two forces of power on this world, Babylon,
the power of empire that wants to control you militarily, and the Phariseic class that wants to
control you ideologically. And our Lord, he came to oppose both of them and to let them know that
they were both wrong and forgiven, and that we as individuals could follow him. And what we have
a chance to do. And what I'm really trying to put across in this book, actually, and I'll shut up,
is it's in the Bible. All these things I thought I'd understood. Like, I can't trust this system.
I need the mystery of God. Where is God? I feel so alone. I'm so broken. All the things I was looking
for in LSD and false intimacy. All the things that I was trying to rant about at MTV VMA Awards.
It's all in there. He's telling you. It's all explained in his own language. And I like it.
Like when he came to me, he came to me as a feeling in my abdomen, in my gut.
It came in an instant, a suicidal moment.
I knew Christ was real.
Like Jesus from school and nativity plays and boring.
Hello, Domine.
That's real.
And from that moment on, I had to read the Bible.
And I read it.
And then I learned, oh, my God, all of it.
It's all in here.
It's all real.
And it's so close to being crazy.
It's so close to being crazy.
It's so close to folklore and mythology.
But these edgeland ideas,
dialogues that we've cited already today, the Alex Jones is, who is a Christian, of course,
or David Ike, who's vehemently opposed to Christianity, tell you continually there are demonic,
difficult to detect forces that are controlling our reality supernaturally. They tell you that
institutions are controlled by occultist endeavors. They tell you that there are a paedophile cult
sacrificing children. None of that's not in the Bible. Every single thing that I've just said is in
the Bible. There are demons. There are devils. There are angels. There were giants.
To conquer those giants, you're going to have to think different.
You're going to have to think different.
Ah, the sad ingenuity of Steve Jobs wrestled towards just making gadgetry
when he understood something vital.
Connection and extension of yourself through technology
could bring about his kingdom, the merging of the kingdoms.
A new kingdom is coming.
It's changing.
It's happening now.
It's happening now through eternity in this moment now, through him.
And we can be participants in it if we're, and this is where it's wonderful, because everyone thinks,
what can I do?
Like you just said, I'm just a cog in the machine, and all of that.
Well, you're actually a pretty important cog.
You're a vital cog.
You are a perfect cog.
You're interconnecting, actually you specifically, Megan, beloved Megan Kelly, are connecting
with millions of millions of people and people actually really care about what you're saying.
And if they hear your optimism and your faith and your boldness and your bravery, which they are hearing every day,
then they will understand it.
They will know it.
The sheep will hear the shepherd's voice.
They will hear it in you.
They're hearing it now, even in someone as broken, as messed up, as selfish, as foolish as me.
And me.
We all have those foibles expressed in different sins and different mistakes, but we all have those foibles.
And speaking of Katie Perry.
Hold on.
That was pretty skillful.
Go on, man.
Go on.
Because I've met Doug now, and I like him.
Yeah.
I'm going to read them books of Doug's.
I think you'll really enjoy them.
Historical novel, plus he's double handsome.
Yeah, right?
Double Dutch handsome, you said.
He looks like the Dutch.
He looks like a Dutch.
He is Dutch.
And he looks Dutch.
He's tall.
He's got the wide set eyes.
He's got the angular face.
Touch that dutch.
Now...
But check first.
Don't put them clogs on without asking.
Don't you put that finger in that dike about asking?
Don't you spin them windmills without...
Don't you go that Anne Frank Museum?
Who talked about a finger in a dike?
That's a Dutch story.
I'm just kidding.
Sorry.
Gotta be careful these days.
I went with it.
Although look about where you're going to go and you'll see a double joke.
Because you're going to go back to your savour.
Yes, right?
And the last thing I said was thinking of that's true.
You're going to say.
Okay, so well, what does it like to have your ex-wife dating dyke, Justin Trudeau?
I've put up with a lot with that ex-wife of mine, but you took it too far, K.P.
With Orlando Bloom.
Yeah, respectable.
Legolas.
I love that guy.
Yeah, brilliant.
Fair enough.
Trudeau, though.
Potentially Fidel Castro Sporn?
No.
There we draw the line.
It's horrible.
I didn't not like that, Trudeau, because, no, he's a son of, he's a child of God, and he's beloved.
But what we'll say is I didn't like it when he was having to go out of them truckers.
I didn't like they kept blacking up inexplicably and then sort of pretend to be ultra-woke.
He does have fantastic hair.
I didn't like it when they invited, I think, an actual Nazi into the Canadian parliament.
Yes, they do.
I specifically don't like what is typified by those good-looking politicians, Obama, Macron, Blair.
They're sort of good-looking and they're charming.
But you think, who do you work for really?
Who's running this? Because it can't be you. And I don't like that sort of pose of compassion that's
absolutely undergirded by selfishness. Probably because I recognize it myself. I'm so selfish sometimes.
But I don't like that. The trucker bit is what got me. They called them Nazis.
Yeah, it was ridiculous. And they were just being sort of bold and brave and stuff. So yes,
is she still going out with him? Yeah. We checked this morning and it appears that they are still together.
Keep checking. She could come to her senses any minute.
It is disappointing, isn't it? When your ex gets together with some.
somebody who like doesn't make you look good at all.
Doesn't increase the average at all.
Look at the category I'm in now.
I mean, we're Trudeau.
It'll be a relief to be in a rape trial.
See?
Few!
Never lose your sense of humor.
Not even about the darkest things.
I can't take that away from your baby.
Do you guys keep in touch?
She said you never contacted her again after you sent her a note saying you wanted a divorce.
Look, that is true.
Wow.
Never anything, not a text?
I stay in touch with her father, Keith, and her mother, Mary, because they're good Christian folks.
And I must say I feel a good deal of sympathy with the recent allegations around Katie from 2010.
She's been accused of sexually assaulting Ruby Rose by allegedly exposing her vage to this gal's face, which she's denied.
But there's a criminal inquiry underway in Australia as a result of these allegations.
To me, that doesn't, I mean, this is probably the old school man in me.
I don't even hear the crime there
What happened?
I don't even, I can't even hear where it is
Like someone would have to poke me with a stick
There, that's the bit, there's a crime
Ah!
No 20-year-old girl
wants another woman rubbing her vaj on her face
Uninvited.
That's the crime.
There it is, Russell.
I got it.
I got you.
Are you available for the trial?
The fuck is coming.
Yes, I will come.
Thank you.
She denies, again, Katie Perry denies.
I didn't handle that marriage very well.
I can see in retrospect.
absolutely what the problem was. In fact, I explained that in the book. What it was,
well, you said you were married to celebrity itself. I worked it out. So how so?
Well, because I, you know, look, when you fall in love with someone, like, isn't it amazing to be in love?
Isn't it so amazing? Well, imagine that sort of compounded with everyone else acting like it's important.
It's like, oh my God, this is a overwhelming. Plus, she's a really lovely, you know what there is
about her? She's has an innocence. She's a very beautiful person. She's also incredibly driven and worked
really, really hard. I saw her working really, really hard. Here's me taking total responsibility
for all the mistakes I made in that marriage. I, like, wanted to grab her, like a kind of,
there, got it, you know, like I wanted, I felt like I was inadequate and not enough on my own.
So I saw this big, glorious thing, and even though I knew her as a person as well, and the person
was just a normal person. Like, everyone's a normal person. You've been around famous people.
You know, who's famous when it comes to shower time, picking your nose, scratching your ass?
Like everyone just breaks down into mundanity and flesh and falleness in the end.
But she was really, really, really lovely.
But it was my fault because I pushed to get married early because I felt inadequate and insecure.
And like I wasn't enough.
And that if I was married to her, that I would somehow be a better person and more important.
And that put her under an unnecessary amount of pressure and strain.
And then when she was unable as a very young woman, like she was 25 or 26, she was young herself there.
she couldn't fulfill those obligations
because she was quite rightly one might argue
certainly from a materialist
and humanistic and celebrity-oriented perspective
pursuing her dream of which she successfully did
of becoming the world's most famous pop star
and when she was doing that
I was in sort of a crisis of like
hold on a minute I'm lonely and this isn't working
this isn't working
why do I not feel we've married a pop star
I did it come on
why is this not working
so do you feel like if she weren't
a celebrity, it could have worked?
Probably not, because, like, I was fated to marry my incredible wife, Laura Brand,
who is sort of who I already knew and had already married.
But I didn't, you know, I didn't learn the lesson then.
I went on to go out of Jemima Khan, who was married to the now jailed,
former leader of Pakistan, who went out of a few grant, a bunch.
She was like a billionaire, and glorious and amazing hair and a 300-acre estate and riches.
And I thought, yes, yes, yes, this.
Then I will be okay.
Yes, that's it.
I got some of the details wrong.
It wasn't American pop star. It was British aristocrat.
And then, of course, once again, she's a human being.
And in my own foolish way, objectified her.
So I had to learn that lesson.
Finally, I think now I've learned,
don't try to take things from people.
Just leave people alone.
Be happy in your marriage and serve God.
As best you can.
And remember, you're going to forget that all the time,
like an idiot and go back to thinking life's about you.
But then you've now, hopefully, a part of a community,
see Jake there who's with me.
I have people around me now who are following God in their own broken way,
and I just can look at them how they're doing it, you know?
Now, as I'm listening to you talk, I have this fear in the back of my head, Russell.
Oh, no, what is it?
I'm worried about your criminal trial.
I don't think that you're going to get a fair shake in Great Britain.
Oh, no.
They love to put people in jail.
Oh, no, I don't want to go a jail.
It's my strong preference to not go to jail.
So what have you got to jail?
What kind of jail time would you be facing if the worst happened?
I don't know.
I mean, I think if you are convicted of being a rapist,
you go to jail for a very long time, which, if you are a rapist, I think, is only right and only fair.
Yes, but what if you're not and you get convicted anyway?
That's not fair.
That would be what we call injustice.
Okay, but I actually have a worry that they'll send you because maybe what if it is part of your path?
What if you're supposed to be like ministering to men in jail or changing the lives of the least fortunate among us?
And this is part of, you know, God's plan for you.
Well, if it's God's plan, then there's no point resisting it, is there?
If it's God's plan, then off I go, and I will serve him there.
If that's God's plan, I don't like that idea much,
because I'd much rather be with my little children and my wife.
Herbie is two and a half,
Mabel is nine, Peggy is seven.
They're a little, yeah, you're still in the two single digits.
But surely you can't prove beyond reasonable doubt
that someone rape someone if they've not raped someone,
or prove beyond reasonable doubt.
Jury trials? Yeah, they've not banned them yet in the UK.
They're trying, but they've not managed to yet.
That's good.
That's good.
12 human beings like me that will look and see what goes on.
But it's so hard to defend yourself against something that you may or may not have done 20 years ago.
Like that's the problem that we have with, you know, like the case against Trump,
the civil rape allegation that he faced by E. Jean Carroll, which she won.
Was that in the in the training room one?
Yes, in Bergdorf Goodman, Bergdorf Goodman, that he allegedly grabbed her and raped her.
It was 30, 35 years earlier.
It's like, how are you supposed to, after?
all that time. Or what happened to Justice Kavanaugh, our Supreme Court Justice, who got accused of sexually molesting a woman 30 years early?
Like, you have no papers to show where you actually were that day. You don't have a contemporaneous memory of,
I absolutely was not doing that with you because I was at a Starbucks and here's my receipt.
It's very, very hard to disprove. The legal standard, Megan, is beyond reasonable doubt that this person did it.
Beyond it, it'll be not reasonable to doubt it. If you're like, hmm, I doubt that happened. That's,
you know, and one might think, but 25, 30 years ago, in itself is reasonable doubt unless
you're able to, and look, the thing that I take heart from is I go in myself and I look at and I see,
I try my best to see myself as he sees me and I see what I am. Oh, you idiot, you fool,
you poor broken silly boy. I don't see, oh yeah, then there was that time, you know, like this,
and also as I was telling you before, I think, like, when you,
you do 12 steps, you have to interrogate yourself. You have to honestly say to someone,
this is what I've done. This is what I've not done. I've done these things. You have to tell
them because then they go, okay, well, you know, you've got to make amends. And the fact is
that I owe an amends to women for sure in a sort of a general way and in a specific way.
And may God grant me the opportunity to make those amends. And I guess, look, if we've got
faith in God, the faith in God has got to be, if it's not faith in God that I'm going
to get what I want, it's faith in God that he knows what I want. And I guess. And I guess,
and he knows what's best for me. Forget what I want. What I want is not even a factor anymore,
sadly. Because what I want, you know, like, listen, I tried to get what I want. What I wanted
was, I want to be really, really famous. I want to marry pop stars, be around really glamorous
and beautiful women, sleep with them, and then one's not enough. I'll have two. I'll have 20. I'll
have 500. You know, like, that's what I thought. Well, I'll do drugs. I'll do drugs all the time
then. What I want is not a metric, but I'm... Right. We've learned to reject this.
But then the problem is that we live in an idiot, giddy-donkey island. You know, we're all living on
Pinocchio Donkey Island of Pinocchio, no?
Like everyone thinks smoking cigars and like everyone's selling these ideas to one another
to a lesser or greater degree.
If you are this type of person, pursue this false idol.
If you're this type of person, pursue this fullsidal.
I really, really do not want to go jail.
But look at what happened to Julian Assange.
That dude, they never even give him a trial.
They stuck him for five years he was in that embassy.
I went and saw him there.
And I go, can't look at your bedroom.
He goes, come on, let me have some privacy.
And you were not even the most famous person who went to visit him.
Pamela Anderson was visiting him.
How, yes.
How did that pan?
I mean, imagine being Julian Assange and Pamela Anderson walks into your level.
Wait a minute.
I love my prison.
I'll wikilke that.
And when I was, you can leave your file anonymously.
I'm like, when I visited him, yeah, he's a hero that dude.
And I'm friends with his wife, Stella.
And while he was away, he would send me messages.
Once it all kicked off with me, he goes,
because that's what happened to Julian Assange's, first of all, is they accused him afraid.
Oh yeah, yeah, I remember.
And then, like, well, yeah, I've been to visited him that time.
I like that dude, but he did, after, he's a real hero, he's a genuine hero, so is Edward Snowden.
The hero means you're willing to sacrifice everything for what you believe in.
That's a hard line, man.
He then did five years in Belmarsh.
Belmarsh is no joke of a jail.
That's a cat A prison.
That's the most severe prison.
I think he did a lot of it in solitary.
Never had a troll.
And really what his crime was is he told the truth about corrupt in the,
this case, I have to say, American power. He exposed like Hillary Clinton to an enormous
degree. So the people that were disposed to support in that dude, all of the Democrat left,
they went, we don't care. And all the Warhawk Republican types, they don't care either.
Ten years of the CIA were going to kill him, weren't they? So, yeah, yeah, you're right.
I mean, justice and truth, these are ideas that presume God. In my country, the United Kingdom,
it's gone a little bit godless. You can get an abortion now, I think, even on the child's third
birthday you can still like no i've gone off it no it's annoying get it out of here and like they'll
you you can be euphonized like like if you i think you can be euphonized if you're annoying yeah oh god
no you're out and like this is britain a lot of people are annoying look at the just consider the teeth
that's probably why harry and megan left ha ha not bad thank you that thank you well listen i hope
i'm wrong i hope i'm not predicting i'm not predicting a guilty i'm just i'm worried as i'm looking at
cross on the cover of the book and I'm thinking, where does this journey go next? And I really hope,
you know, and I'm also thinking about something Erica Kirk said at Charlie's funeral, how Charlie
said, use me, you know, use me, Lord. And she was saying those are powerful words. Oh, you know,
like, I hope you don't get used in the way we don't want to see you get used. But as you point out,
if that's God's will, then it, then so it must be. And he knows better than we do. And there must be
something for you there. There must be something, some work for you there.
Man, someone said, like, why did he come when he came, the Lord?
When did he, why did he choose that moment out of all eternity?
Like, was it because of these political conditions with the Romans?
Was it because of the Phariseeat class?
Why was it he chose then?
Yeah.
And someone said, I think it was father for Mike Schmidt's actually the cafe.
Love him.
But yeah, he's fantastic.
And he said, it was just for a thief on the next cross.
That's the only time he could have got that guy.
Oh!
That's right.
That's probably spot on.
Listen, God, God bless you.
Good luck to you.
Thanks.
We'll be following very closely.
God is great.
And honestly, I'm so glad we have this conversation.
Yeah, me too. I really enjoyed it.
Yeah, it was very cathartic for me.
For all the reasons stated, I got to the place where I didn't want to talk to you,
and then I really did want to talk to you, and now I have talked to you, and I'm so grateful
that I had the opportunity that I've gotten to know you better.
Thank you.
Are you available for jury service in October and then Night King?
Don't have to be a resident.
Yes, we'll swing by.
Thank you.
I know Tucker's going. He and I will go. We'll make a day of it.
God bless. I think it's going to be out.
I'm going to go out with you, too. Nobody's going to have a glass of wine with me.
Abby, come with me.
All the best to you. Good luck. By the book.
Russell Brand, how to become a Christian in seven days.
May take 50 years of sin and series.
Fuck ups to get started.
All right. We will be back tomorrow with some of our MK. True Crime favorites.
And also...
Do you do something? We usually do something called MK Ultra.
Do you do that yet?
That's my...
That's your elite. That should be paywall.
my secret special. Yeah, exactly, behind the payroll offering. Tonight is the California
gubernatorial debate, isn't it? Yes, tonight is the debate with Steve Hilton and Katie
fucking Porter. Can't wait. So we'll have that for you tomorrow as well. Thanks for tuning in.
Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.
