TRIGGERnometry - An Unfiltered Conversation with a Right-Wing Comedian - Nicholas de Santo

Episode Date: July 30, 2023

Nicholas de Santo is an Italian/Iranian stand-up comedian based in the UK. His material is unapologetically right wing, causing him to be regarded as controversial by many in the British comedy industry. However, the crowds seem to like him! Decide for yourself what you think... https://www.youtube.com/angloitaliancomedy SPONSORED BY: EasyDNS - domain name registrar provider and web host. Use special code: TRIGGERED for 50% off when you visit https://easydns.com/triggered/ Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Locals! https://triggernometry.locals.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Music by: Music by: Xentric | [e-mail] | https://www.xentricapc.com/ YouTube:  @xentricapc   Buy Merch Here: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Join the Mailing List: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/sign-up/ Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media:  https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ About TRIGGERnometry:  Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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If we find anything suspicious, like new loans are changed. to your financial accounts, we alert you right away, all through text, phone, email, or the LifeLock app. Get the alerts that could make all the difference. Save up to 40% your first year at LifeLock.com slash special offer. Terms apply. As a teenager in Iran, I used to listen to the BBC and similar radio stations as the voice of the liberal West and as a beacon of democracy and hope and all that. And then once I got here, I thought that the BBC obviously had changed a lot. Everything is changing here, you know.

I just found myself to be working for a mouthpiece of, you know, globalist agenda. When I started doing comedy, I did one of those unleashed gigs, and it went well. The spectator ran a feature, and the article somehow made its way to my boss's desks, and there my disciplinary troubles started. So you go on any famous BBC presenters, Twitter feed, most of them, the Gary Linekers, they get a free ride. Whereas in my case, they said, no, you can't, you can do that. And ultimately, I was put on final written warning. And I thought, okay, I need to change my job.

Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kissen. And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people. Our brilliant guest today is a somewhat controversial comedian and YouTuber who we know back from our comedy circuit days. Nicholas DeSanta, welcome to Trigonometry. Hello, guys. Thanks for inviting me. It's really good to have you.

A lot of people have suggested when you just did headliners on G.B. News, people were like, it's great to see Constantine on there. Oh, I get that a lot. Yeah. But welcome to the show. Before we get into it, tell everybody who are you, how are you where you are? What has been your journey through life that leads you to be sitting here talking to us? What a wonderful question. Thanks for having me. I was telling Francis the other day that I'll make history by being the least famous guest of trigonometry ever by coming on the show.

My name is Nicholas DeSanto. I'm a comic based in North London, Italian-Iranian, originally naturalized Brit. I started pursuing my comedy career, if you will, by doing a course taught by Francis Foster, actually. So he was my first comedy instructor sitting right next to you. Yeah, and then I started gigging on the comedy circuit, ups and downs, obviously, because my material is a bit, or more than a bit, right-wing or conservative. Then COVID happened, a big blow to comedy circuit,

regardless of your angles. And then I resumed after COVID, like all of us did. And here I am. Yeah, well, you do a lot of stuff at Unleashed and your videos on the Comedy Unleashed's channel have done very well. Your own YouTube channel is growing because of it. Of course, strong independent women hate Donald Trump because his policies mean that they will ultimately have to pay for birth control.

And if there's anything a strong independent woman really hates is to pay for her own stuff. Speaking of strong women, Hillary Clinton is still promoting her latest book. It's called What Happened. In this book described by New York Times as a feminist manifesto, Hillary explains that she lost to Trump because American white women could not resist persuasion from their male family members. So they went out and voted for Trump. Don't you just hate it when a feminist candidate cannot smash the glass ceiling

because of all these millions of stupid, impressionable women standing in her way? I'm glad you got that joke. That could go either way. Formula One abolished grid girls. You know, grid girls were models wearing kind of revealing skimpy clothes on the racetrack doing promotional activities. And after Formula One abolished them, some of these girls went on Twitter, lashed out at feminist. They said, we lost our jobs because of you. But I think it's great.

It's great that Formula One did that because in this day and age, we can no longer allow the patriarchy to tell women what to do with their bodies. It is up to less attractive women. Any dual citizens in the room? Yeah? Okay. People ask me, what is the best thing about having been in solitary confinement in the Islamic Republic of Iran? You know, the silver lining and that stuff. You know, the great thing about having been interrogated by the notorious Iranian intelligence in a dark,

cold, hostile room is that this thing is no longer the scariest experience of my life. You can bet the scariest room I ever experienced it was in Camden. I did that Hillary joke

and some white women didn't get me so it got kind of nasty. Anyway, but if I've learned anything from comedy, the golden rule of comedy I'm going to share with you, never, ever blame the audience for a joke that doesn't work. Because a comedian blaming his audience

for the joke that doesn't work is like a feminist presidential candidate blaming women for not winning the elections. I don't know if this is true or something you just talked about in your comedy, but you talked about being detained in Iran or something like that.

Yeah, well, you know, they say talk about what you know or what has happened to you. And of course, it was only two weeks or something. So by Iranians... That's two weeks more than most people, to be fair. Enough to give me, you know, some legitimate, no reason to joke about it or to build material on that.

But obviously, anybody coming from that country or having lived in that country has either gone through something similar or knows people who have gone through my own uncle was a political prisoner for four or five years over there. So, yeah, it's something to talk about. Why did it happen to you? Just a demonstration. You went to a demonstration against the government?

Yeah. And you got arrested in prison for two weeks. Yeah. But because my father used to work for the government at that time, you know, they give you a hefty bail or something, or your father's job is basically the bail. So it gets out. And then you try to convince them that you were there, you know, just by accident.

And I did a good job of that. Apparently, I'm a good liar or something. Well, you are a comedian. I mean, I never thought I'd ask this question, but what's an Iranian jail like, Nicholas? You know, often you hear about solitary confinement. I wish I had solitary confinement because when you are crammed, you know, in a big cell, a big number of people. And the worst thing is that you don't know when you're going to get out. And, of course, you meet people who are there for much longer.

You meet people who potentially can be executed, potential spies, and all sorts of, you know, terrifying stories. So it's not nice and it's something, something to give you some food for thought. When you, you know, like Constantine, come from a totally different dictatorial reality to the West and you compare and contrast the two realities and people's fears, first world problems, as opposed to, you know, third world problems and gives you some perspective. I imagine it does. And what perspective does it give you? What have you found out about the West? after comparing it to your initial experiences in Iran? You know, that made me, let's say, an atypical Italian

because I was born in Italy. I was in Iran because my parents were Iranian and took me out against my will. They had that brilliant idea of giving me the opportunity to spend my teenage years in the Islamic Republic of Iran. So being an atypical Italian, I never complain about food, unlike the Italians. And Italians go all around the world.

This food is, yeah, we are not in Italy. Food is terrible outside Italy. Get over it. I never complain about food, for example. That's one thing. Okay, so you never complain about food. But look, there's a lot of things that people complain about here. Yeah.

And you must think, having spent your teenage years in the Islamic Republic of Iran, oh, come on, guys. What do we complain about here that you find ridiculous? Well, I don't know. lost baggage at the airport. Well, some of these things. Obviously, sometimes I complain about it because that was many years ago. So you acclimatized to your new environment.

But people like me who come to the West or return to the West because I was born in the West anyway. Italy. It's my first time here, so I'm not going to be too chauvinist. Yeah, that's the cradle of the West. But anyway, I think a lot of us, especially coming from the Islamic Republic, are shocked to see how Islam or Islamic views are given free reign. I joke about it. I say it was easier to criticize Islam in the Islamic Republic than in here. Probably safer too.

Yeah, yeah. Obviously, it's a joke. But the idea behind it is that all these attitudes towards diversity at any kind of. cost and all cultures being equally value, but on all world rules, and of course, we are seeing the results in France. So I think at the end of the day, the West needs to take a stance and say, look, this is the way we are and this is the reference culture or the prominent or the predominant culture. Whatever comes in has to be in line with it or compatible with it or respectful of it,

and then maybe we can go along. But dismantling the West just to be, you know, complacent towards the newcomers leads to catastrophic results, as we are seeing, not just in every Western European country, but more pronounced the situation right now in France. And these are the views that have made you so popular in the British Republic. On the London circuit, they laugh me. Yeah, yeah.

Well, you had an interesting career because you actually worked in the BBC. while you were starting your comedy career. Yeah. And that wasn't very easy for you, was it? Definitely not. You know, because I came to London to work as a journalist for BBC Persian, which is a Persian TV channel, which is part of the BBC World Service,

which broadcast in more than 30 languages. So that was my dream. And as a teenager in Iran, I used to listen to the BBC and similar radio stations as the voice of the, you know, liberal West and as a beacon of democracy and hope and all that. And then once I got here, I thought that the BBC obviously had changed a lot. Everything is changing here, you know, by even things that were acceptable five years ago are, you know, taboos today.

But, yeah, I just found myself to be working for a mouthpiece of, you know, globalist agenda on so many areas. And of course, when I started doing comedy, I did one of those unleashed gigs and it went well. The spectator ran a feature. It was 2020. It was entitled The Best Unwoke Comics to Watch in Lockdown. And I was one of the four on that article.

And the article somehow made its way to my boss's desks. And there my disciplinary troubles started. The idea was, you are jeopardizing the good impartial name of the BBC. And I wasn't even a public figure because we broadcast overseas in a non-English language. Nobody in this country knew I was working for the BBC. And I was not a public face of the BBC. But in Italy, we have a saying, we say, the law is applied to the, the enemies and interpreted for the friends.

Right? So you go on any famous BBC presenters, Twitter feed, most of them, the Gary Linekers and other ones. And you see where they are coming from. You see what their worldview is. You see what they think about immigration or Trump or Brexit and so on and so forth. But they get a free ride or a free pass, whereas in my case, they said, no, you can do that. And ultimately I was put on final written warning, suspended from work, and I thought, okay, I need to change my job. So I got out.

So was it the nature of the material? And what was it about the nature of the material? Was it the topics you were talking about? Was it the approach that you were talking about? Was it certain jokes that they found too hot to handle, shall we say? Well, there was more than one disciplinary procedures. And of course, they put the files or the complaints in front of you and say, okay, what's going on here? And these are some of the areas or some of the jokes.

So obviously the fact that they were right-wing jokes, it didn't help. But the bottom line, if they wanted to apply the letter of the law or the letter of their terms and conditions, and that's what they wanted to do to me, was that anytime you want to go do any performance anywhere, you should come and run the text. First, you need to get permission to be in that event, even if you are just a panelist, even if it's not comedy.

And secondly, you need to run your speech or your comedy routine by the bosses who need prior approval. So it's just imagine you are being heckled by somebody and you want to have a, you know, You want to have answer to somebody or you want to react to the room or something. Hang on a minute. I need to call the BBC editorial hotline to see if they are going to. Obviously, it was ridiculous.

And it was a multitude of complaints because I was also at loggerheads with them over some of our content. You know, Trump was in power at that time. The Arizona wall, there was a report. I said, this is not impartial. and they said, when you say this is not impartial, you are questioning our impartiality. You are undermining our impartiality by saying this is not impartial.

How about the guy who did an impartial report on Trump's wall in Arizona? Maybe he's undermining the impartiality. It was just ridiculous. In Italy, we say mathematics non-known opinion. Mathematics is not an opinion. I mean, it's not up for a debate. So if you have a report about Trump's wall, and in this five minutes report

you have three people of which two are against the wall this is already, you know, lopsided. Never mind that the guy who is for the wall, you've gone for a wacky guy with a gun, you're trying to depict him. And one of those two in favor of the walls is such a tender activist

who is crying by walking on these days. And never mind that your own reporter is also against the wall. We talk to those who see Donald Trump's border wall as a betrayal of American ideals. I just see this on a daily basis and it sometimes just hits you. And those for whom there's no price too high to pay to protect all they hold dear. You prepared to use that? Oh yeah, if it comes down to it, I'm coming home.

This was surreal. In this report, there's a scene in which calves, little cows, are being separated from their moms to be sold in Oklahoma, as opposed to Arizona, where they are being reared. And then the reporter compares that to separating kids from, you know, the immigrants. In what universe is that impartial? And it is sort of juxtaposition of these two things.

It takes a few hours to sort the calves for sale headed for Oklahoma. They'll never see their mothers again, but that's business. Activists say over 500 children remain separated from their families. Building a big wall was only part of the plan. Critics in Congress and human rights groups claimed migrants were being treated like cattle under Donald Trump's zero-tolerance child separation policy to deter illegal migration. Eventually, his administration was forced to change course.

Anyway, so eventually it was a Soviet-style or Islamic Republic style. where you are, you have a series of allegations, comedy being one of them, but not the only one. And you have to be defended. And I went to the guy, because I was a member of the NUJ, National Union of Journalists. And our rep said, I can't defend you because I'm a feminist. And I believe in the equality of men and women. And I thought, okay, I believe in the equality of men and women as well. But by the way, Milosevic and Saddam was saying got to have defense.

I'm paying 20 bucks per month for Christ's sake. Yeah, but Saddam didn't do your job. Yeah, sure, sure. But the fact is, I have to be. Union refused to represent you. Yeah, yeah. And I told them, you know, the central command of NUJ, and they said, you have a chapel at Persian TV,

refer to your own chapel. My chapel guy refused to defend me. I was defended by another union. And another union rep provided to me by free speech union because I was also a member of free speech union. So I told them, I wrote to them, I said, this is my situation. So they gave me a union rep. They gave me a kind of psychology coach because they thought I might, because there was lockdown time. So they thought I might, you know, harm myself or similar things because my job was on the line and it was a tough time.

So I didn't get fired on that case. It ended up in a final written warning. But I thought, look, if I want to do comedy, I need to get out of here. No, and wasn't there an instance as well where some comedians were talking about reporting you or reported you to your employer because of some of the jokes that you did? Well, the first time this happened to me, they never reveal who actually complained. But I was basically 11 gigs into my comedy career. Very early on.

And I had done a couple of... I mean, that has to be a record, being reported to your employer for jokes you do after 11 gigs. That's what happens when you do my comedy course. Well, yeah, Francis's comedy course had preferred before all eventualities. But the thing is,

I had done a couple of open mics for this guy, this promoter, and he was doing a themed night, which was politics. My good friend... Irish comic Kahal or Jordan, he told me, man, in London, when they say politics night, they mean lefty politics night. So I told the guy, look, I'm going to do some right-wing comedy. And he said, okay, it's fine.

I told him in writing on Facebook Messenger. But later he said, I thought you were kidding or you were a character act. So I go there and everybody's anti-Trump. Basically, the MC slash promoter came on stage and said, okay, let's get this out of the way. Tonight, this is post-Trump election therapy night. So who is against Trump here just to make it sure. And I was the only one who raised his hand. Really?

And basically the night turned into the roast of Nicholas DeSanto. It was no longer politics now. Every comedian went on there, roasted me fair enough. And then I did my bit. Didn't go down well with mainly the act. So the acts went to this promoter. Why did you have him on? And the promoter threw me under the bus.

And he said, and when these, some of the promoters maybe are, I still need to meet that one who is courageous and say, look, I want to cancel you because I don't agree with you. But they come up with all funny excuses. And this one was like, yeah, you were not accurate. I don't mind, but you were not accurate. Because this was the joke I used to do. I would say, you know, I'm a right-wing comedian.

and the downside of being a right-wing comedian is that there's no one else whose material I can copy, you know. And he was like, you implied that you are the only right-wing comedian in the country, but there's also Andrew Lawrence and Leo Kyrr's. So, okay, so it makes three of us. The point is still valid, isn't it? When Omid Jalili says, I'm the only Iranian comic in the world, do they ban him? Because he claims that.

Obviously, the point is bad. But anyway, so next. stay on his Facebook page of this comedy club, there was a big debate. He had a review for everybody and he gave a bad review just for me. And he was trying to be edgy but failed. And I

thought, you know, I told you I was going to do this and there's no need for you to throw me under it. So there a debate started in this public group. And then the headliner, no less, of that night, comes on. He had researched my real Iranian surname and I am my

day job, my employer. Oh, don't you work for the BBC? Aren't you supposed to be impartial? Isn't this your name? And of course, soon enough, I was I was called to my boss's office. I can't say for sure that that was actually, you know, the trigger. But yeah, he basically outed me a fellow comic. And one thing that really annoys me is that a lot of times, it's not even the audience who complain. It's fellow comics or the MC who just throw you under the bus. And why do you think that is, Nicholas? I don't know, because being illiberal,

although they call themselves liberal, maybe envy, jealousy, and also maybe viewing comedy the way they view any other activity in life. as people who see themselves the lefties, as depositories of the truth, right, like the communists. They have already seen the end of times. It's going to be like that, and Islam is the same. By the end, everybody will be Muslim or communist. So anything is legitimate to get rid of people who don't agree with you.

So it's not like, okay, I'm a comic, I have, because this is what I like about comedy. It's the most direct form of art or craft. It's not like you do a painting and say, okay, you don't like it, you don't understand. Maybe after my death, like Van Gogh, I'll be famous. I'll be appreciated. And people will say I was ahead of my time.

In comedy, in stand-up, the reaction, the judgment is immediate. So people either like you or they don't like you. And if I have bombed, if I have bombed or when I have bombed, so I have already bombed, I have already got the verdict. What is the reason for you to go and complain to the venue owner or to my day job employer or write a bad review about me? Which even, by the way, doesn't. I know I'm putting a lot of meat on the grill, like you say in Italy. But this is another thing.

I did a competition. I was in the final of Natty's New Act of the Years at Hackney Empire. It's a very prestigious competition. Yeah, thank you. To this day, it's my best result competition-wise. I was in the final. I didn't win, but I was a finalist. I have the clip, and I got two applause breaks, and an evening standard, the reviewer says, oh, yeah, people, as soon as right-wing comic, Nicholas DeSanto came on stage, people slumped back in their chairs. I have it on tape. I have two applause breaks in five minutes. So why would you lie? Anyway, you know, so to get back to your question, I think any means is, um, legitimate for them just to bring you down, which, which, um, to put it quite concisely, cancel culture. They just want to cancel you. Hey, KK, do you like trigonometry? Of course I do. Incredible interviews. Fascinating guests.

Phenomenal live shows and hilarious raw streams. In that case, you need to join our locals so you can have access to even more brilliant content. That's right. You get the chance to win. incredible prizes. Ask our phenomenal guests your questions. Access extra content. And now the only place to watch our Roars on catch-up is on locals. Our Rawls shows still go out at 7pm UK time, 2pm Eastern as normal. But if you want to watch them after this time, then you're going to need to sign up to our locals. Roars have now become too spicy to stay on YouTube, so they're only available to watch

back on our locals page. All you need to do to sign up is click on on the link below this video. And for just $7 a month, you have access to all of this brilliant content. Seven dollars a month, even for someone of my persuasion, that's a bargain. See you all on locals. And it's interesting as well because I remember following that because I knew you and I liked you and I thought you showed great promise as a comment. You were very funny. Thanks. And I remember looking at this particular Facebook group because it popped up on my feed and they were openly talking about it. Yeah. And what gave me some encouragement and some comfort was that some fellow comics and promoters who we live in London tend to be, if anything, lefties or, you know, left oriented.

Actually came out in my support, some privately, some publicly, you know, Alfie Nox is another London promoter. He's a raging, you know, lefty. But he kept giving me spots. He said, you know, I want you to come on state. You have something different to say and it's important, you know, for, you know, that's true diversity, if you like. So it wasn't all bad, thankfully, but that's the sort of circuit that we are dealing with. And I'm sure you're well aware as well. Yeah, and it's not the first time as well.

You told me about a very prestigious comedy club when you were, if you remember when we were on the phone, having a chat with each other. Talk about that because I couldn't believe this. Yeah, this one is near Crouchend. I live in North London. So I like this club, very nice venue, quite by London standards, local to me. We used to do this. Obviously, this was again my early days. And I would do this Tuesday or Thursday night, which was sort of an open mic, for which tickets were sold, but open micers wouldn't get paid because the, the premise. It's being that, okay, you are just learning the ropes and you are not maybe good enough to be paid, but we give you the opportunity. Fair enough. And I like that. I did that a couple of times. I went well. The third time I do it, I try a couple of pro-life jokes. Didn't go well. A surprise, surprise. And the owner actually was not in that night, but he records all performances. And next time I call him to get a spot, he says, no, somebody complained. He never said who complained. I suspect it was. the MC, no less, but I can be sure. Because the MC right after me went on stage and threw me over, under the bus

anyway. But I said, yeah, you, you true, you did these pro-life jokes, these anti-abortion jokes. Have you or your wife, girlfriend, had ever had abortion? No, I'm anti-abortion

what does that have to do with anything? And I said, no, I don't mind right-wing. talking about excuse it. I don't mind right wing, but you are not funny. I'm not supposed to be funny. That's why you don't pay us. It's open mic.

Was the guy talking about Trump's small hand funny? Was the guy talking about Trump's funny hair? Funny? Again, these were Trump years. So can I come back maybe in six months? No, you have, it seems to me that you have taken this path and no. So indefinitely, indefinitely banned. And he later won an award at Chortle, one of the fun, most known comedy publications in the UK for the most supportive venue or the most supportive, you know, behind the scenes promoter.

But, but yeah, that's also another episode. But it's great that you have Comedy Unleashed, which are giving you spots and the videos that they put out of you have done really, really well. Yeah. I mean, I'm very grateful. Comedy Unleash is really one of a handful of venues around London who give me or people like me a platform to perform. Of course, it's a very nice club, backyard comedy club, big room professionally, they film it. And thank God for YouTube or Rumble or alternative platforms because then you get some validation and encouragement, people all around the world see my videos.

Somebody invited me from the US to go and do a private gig for them last October. So that's been nice. I did this pro-life set in January, but I think the right sort of Americans shared it a couple of months later. And somehow the algorithm, the gods of the algorithm were kind to me and it picked up. It's been seen 700,10,000 times so far. And so I got a lot of positive feedback from people in Australia, India, mostly in America. So that's been good. Disney Corporation is paying travel expenses for its employees so they can travel to blue states and get an abortion.

I mean, Disney produces content for children. And now they're subsidizing the killing of children. I mean, it doesn't make sense. You're killing your own future customer. It's like, it's like central London declaring war on Russian oligarchs. It makes no sense. So Disney, in a statement, Disney said, we are doing this because we understand women's reproductive rights.

What we don't understand is irony. But now, in America, planned parenthood, they're coming with mobile abortion clinics. They are using these RV wagons, turning them into mobile abortion clinics, driving close to the borders of the Red States trying to lure pregnant women to these clinics. I mean, that is some serious commitment, isn't it?

These people must really, really love killing black babies. Because they're all black. Mostly, you know, every second black baby in America has aborted. Did you know that? I mean, you can try, wrong laugh. Okay. You can try not to laugh, but you cannot not learn. Yeah.

I mean, even the Nazis were not like that. They didn't come up with, you know, their iconic Volkswagen camper vans, driving close to the Swiss border with their mobile gas chambers, trying to tempt the Swiss to give up their Jews. The Nazis had principles.

We have in the principle. If we conquer the land fair and square, we exterminate. Otherwise, we don't just drive and... They didn't do that. By the way, what sort of messed up cynical name is it, planned parenthood? Because there's no planning and there's no parenthood. I'm planning to become a parent. Okay, let's start with killing your baby.

By the time you leave the clinic, there is no parenthood. It's like I am planning my visit to Australia and I start by shredding my tickets to Australia. I think it's a great development, if you like, that nowadays comics, up-and-coming comics like me, that's the term, isn't it, do not totally rely on the traditional gatekeepers of truth and funniness. big it's the TV producers or the usual comedy club promoters.

The thing is, I don't know whether this was always true, but in my time, I'm doing all the competitions and all the clubs and whatever. And I'm not speaking about myself. I never had any issue with that. But I always saw that the people they were picking were not necessarily the funniest people, but they were the people who fit whatever was the view at the time of what comedy should be. Exactly. Right.

So somebody could go on and crush, but it didn't really matter because the people who were picking the comedy winners or who gets to go on a TV show, whatever, they tended to pick who they agreed with, you know, whose comedy they thought represented the future of comedy, whatever the fuck that means. Exactly. It's something like the Oscars or Chan. Yeah, and it's self-fulfilling because they're the ones that decide what the future of comedy is by picking the people they have decided are going to be the future of comedy. So they set the taste and they said, well, they don't set the taste because the people stop watching the shows, but they set the way that that was being done. And as you say, where we are now, you know, you don't need gatekeepers. You've got your YouTube channel is growing nicely. You went from like 7,000 to 30,000 off the back of one video, the one you're talking about.

You'll get some more viewers after this, I'm sure. So this is the exciting thing that I think not enough people really. are taking advantage of, is like, there are no gaykeepers that can stop you making good content on the internet. Yeah. And then you can make whatever you want. And then, well, I mean, in Leo's case, you still can't talk because they won't give you a venue. But broadly speaking, the idea still works, which is you can create your own stuff.

Exactly. And it helps you in terms of legitimacy, in terms of validation, some sort of gratification and motivation to give you the force to go ahead because it's a big sacrifice. You know, I'm not a 20-year-old. I have a family to support. I need to get out of the house, you know, travel, take time of my family, my kids. And it has to be, obviously, content-wise, it has to be something worth it. And that's why I, with all due respect, and I respect people who do everyday mundane aspects funny.

But I don't talk about, you know, airline food or Tinder or dating or because somebody else might be doing it better than I. already. But what I think is that, again, going back to my background, maybe it wasn't a huge deal for me being cancelled from this club or that club. It was obviously very annoying

and very perplexing. No doubt about that. But for someone who has been in jail, I'll be it for two weeks and has worked with maybe an Iranian TV channels, seeing images of destruction and, you know, mass graves. because that's the news when you cover.

There's so much worse that you've seen that maybe being grasped by your fellow comic to your day job is not the most traumatic experience of your life. But similar episodes can really discourage and put off another young comic who comes on and the circuit or the competition results or judges or reviewers treat him as if his material is not worth,

and he might just, you know, give it up. Whereas if you have some alternative platforms, you think, oh, maybe I am doing something, right? Maybe I have something to say. Maybe if they say, okay, you have never been on the BBC or Comedy Center, I say, okay, no, but this is my channel, this is my, you know, followership. So it is a new source of, an alternative source of legitimacy and motivation,

which is very important. Absolutely. And also as well, what was a disadvantage to you on the comedy circuit because you had a different way of looking at the world? You joked about different subjects. All of a sudden you go online. People want that content. They're thirsty for it. Because they're not getting it elsewhere. And it's all about turning, talk about turning a disadvantage into an opportunity, right? It makes you more memorable. A lot of people, even on London comedy circles, sometimes people maybe. secretly, but after the show in the interval, they come to say, oh, thank God, I agree, but I would have never dared saying what you're saying, or you're so, this is, your comedy is so refreshing, right? And similar thing on, on YouTube or elsewhere. People are tired of same old, same old, because the comedy gatekeepers have decided that, yeah, this year, or these five years, it's all about comedians talking about their struggles with mental health. Or your show is worthy because your show is about your racist dad who eventually comes to accept that, you know, gays or non-whites are cool.

So this is your show. So they want just, they use comedy as a vehicle for carrying the specific message or agenda, which would have been fine because I do the same thing. But they are giving the airwaves and the stage time to only that sort of. of message, you know, and call it diversity at the same time. So, so, so, so yes, basically people are, are, are, are, are, are, are a thirst for this kind of content. And if they don't, I mean, we, we, we know clubs are not doing so well for, for, for variety of reasons, but this is one of them.

Obviously, COVID didn't help. Netflix, TV on demand doesn't help. Clubs are struggling. Netflix is struggling. Saturday, Saturday Night Live is struggling. So people are looking for a different message and a different kind of comedy, the way comedy was supposed to be. Yeah. And Nicholas, and why are you right-wing?

Well, I guess a lot of it has to do with my background. Again, maybe nobody is right-wing on every issue and left-wing on every issue. but mass immigration is a big problem for me. You don't want competition. Are the Iranian Italians coming over here doing your jobs? Exactly, exactly. I mean, how many do we need? I'm already here.

People say, oh, so you came here? You came here and you don't want to. Why do you think I got away from them in the first place? You know, there's some comedy vein in there. And more importantly, from Italian perspective, you know, If you drop a couple of water drops in a glass of wine, wine is still wine. But if the glass of wine becomes 20%, 30%, 40% water, it's no longer wine. So I think it is important for, as I alluded to this at the beginning,

that the identity and the demographics of these countries be protected. because anywhere else in the world, it's sacrosanct. But when it comes to white people, when it comes to Western nations, when it comes to white Europeans, it's suddenly taboo and it's racist to have this desire to preserve your brethren, to preserve your culture,

to preserve your language, your way of life, and your ideals, anywhere else in the world is acceptable, is encouraged, right? Nobody goes to Nigeria saying, why aren't you taking more? migrants or why don't you have more white people on your on your TV shows nobody goes to say the same thing to Japan or Malaysia or anywhere else so so that's that and of course I'm in favor of smaller government less intrusion from the government these are other right-being talking

points traditional values family I think traditional family is really under threat marriage so a series of a series of talking points and areas where I find myself on the conservative side. And you said, did you say family is under threat or traditional values under threat? Well, both of them. And what do you mean by that? Well, we know nowadays the definition of family has become overstretched. Marriage is no longer what it was.

We have so much divorce. We have single parenthood, single motherhood, actively encouraged. If you look at the U.S., but not just the U.S., single moms are voting Biden. So Biden is the daddy of these kids. And they call themselves independent. Which Biden? I have a bit about that.

I talked about this in Newcastle. I didn't go down so well. I'm talking about the phenomenon. If you have... Laura, who is a CEO of Trigonobachi, she's going to be livid. But anyway, you carry on. Oh, okay. I carry on at my own risk.

But, I mean, if your husband or the... your partner was a jerk and he left you or God forbid something happened to him or whatever, it's fine. But I'm talking about the phenomenon single mother by choice. They have their Facebook groups and they're going, yeah, I want to raise a child on my own independently. I don't need a dad. So maybe I just get pregnant by somebody or go to the sperm bank and I raise it independently. And you're on benefits.

In what universe is it independent? Everybody is paying for you to raise this child independently without thinking about the consequences. I believe the child ideally needs a father and a mother, not just one mother, not two mothers or two fathers. Then, of course, if it's an orphan in an orphanage, you can argue, okay, what is best to have at least one parent rather than growing up in an orphanage.

I get that. But when we see that our culture, our... mainstream media are content providers, be it maybe Hollywood, film industry, comedy, circus. They encourage women to do it on their own without a dad, but of course off the back of the taxpayer. I don't think this is the right path. I don't think the traditional family needs to be undermined

because their results will be catastrophic. And I think as our current Italian prime minister, who is a woman, by the way, and not much to the liking of feminists, she said something along these lines, that these global forces, they want to make everything relative, everything a social construct, everything arbitrarily, devoid us, we become devoid of all elements of identity, because then it's, easier to dominate us. When everybody becomes somebody who is beige, so race doesn't matter, culture doesn't matter, gender doesn't matter. Because when gender becomes arbitrary and you can change it any moment you feel like, then it's not a defining element of your identity. When you have nothing, they go after religion, they go after family, they go after nationality, nationalism,

patriotism, they go after all these things. So we all become atomized. individuals just looking to consume as much as possible and work for minimum wage or less than minimum wage because they have also removed the borders. So you can't demand rights because the guy is coming from that third world country who is happy to work for less. So ultimately it's easier for them to dominate us and to enslave us. And that's why I think the attack on family, traditional family and family values, is another step in that direction.

I respect individual choice. If you want to be single or if you want to, you know, not have children, that's fine. But when it's actively encouraged by the government with taxpayers' money to promote an agenda as an equally viable and valuable lifestyle, that is a problem. Ultimately, to preserve our identity, our nation, our population, our way of life, we need to reproduce and we need to raise kids in the best environment possible, that is a traditional

family with traditional values with respect for potentially different ways of life or potentially different choices. But when you turn on the TV or go to the comedy club or watch Hollywood or listen to the news. And it's like, yeah, love is love. Two fathers or two mothers are the same as one father, one mother, right? Don't have kids. A couple of weeks ago, I had my first appearance on GV News headliners, right? That was my TV debut.

And one of the stories was about this dating app in France, which targets the niche, probably we can't call it niche, but right-wingers or patriots, people who want traditional partners or traditionally oriented partners, women who want to have kids, raise a traditional family, and so on. And this term was actually mentioned in the article, the Great Replacement Theory. So I raised it because it was in the article. It wasn't even my personal contribution. The idea was that some of these women or men in France

who go after this, who subscribe to this dating app, they see it with a view to counter the replacement, great replacement, whereby, according to this theory, our overlords want to wipe off white European. in their own homelands by migration and replacement and so on. So instead they want to have kids as white Europeans. And I mentioned that, and then I clipped it and put it on my YouTube channel. And YouTube has come up with an impartial fact-checking Wikipedia box underneath that,

saying, oh, the great replacement theory is a conspiracy theory. And I'm thinking, is it, though? Because feminists say don't have kids, women, go and have careers. Environmentalists say because of net zero don't have kids and the government makes it damn difficult to have kids with their policies. I think the point that they're making, Nicholas, is this. I think the great conspiracy theory says that there's this overarching, the reason it's a conspiracy theory is that these people in charge

and they're the ones pulling the levers and they want white Europeans, you know, absolutely the population decimated. When I think, and you as an intelligent man would agree with me, or maybe you don't, I don't know, that actually the reality is always far more complex than that. It's never, you know, these people are in charge and they're enacting all this change. Everything is complex, obviously. I mean, I never thought that there has been a room or maybe in Davos. They get together and say, okay, now how can we wipe out white Europeans in these steps, you know,

according to this roadmap? I think the whole deep population thing, I mean, we've had people. on the show Stephen Shaw, who made a documentary about the depopulation bomb. A lot of it is driven by technology, economics and things of that nature. And actually, when, even if this idea was true, when people like me and you come to the West,

first generation, we have kids, second generation don't have kids either. So you're not long term going to replace white people because when the non-white people get here, They engage in all the same behavior because it's a cultural, economic. Well, it depends what is the number of the input? Because, yeah, in countries like Germany or maybe even Italy, I'm not sure about that, they are maybe moving towards reaching the so-called replacement rate,

the bare minimum, but it's mainly down to immigrants. Yeah. And they openly tell you, they say, okay, we. need more immigrants because women are not having enough kids. Okay, and whose fault is that? You know, you give me a five percent mortgage. It's always men. Yeah. No, it's because the government, the government can encourage repopulation. It's very hard though. I mean, if you look at all the evidence, it's very, very difficult. In Hungary, they literally threw the kitchen sink at it and they increased it by like 0.2% or something.

It's very difficult to change what are technologically and economically and culturally driven things from the government coming in and trying to encourage people. I'm all for that, by the way. I actually really think deep population is a big problem. I also think people not having children, you know this because you're a dad, people not having children preserves the state of immaturity for a lot longer. And so we live in societies that increasingly, become immature, people don't think long term, people aren't thinking, well, if we borrow

billions and trillions of dollars from the future, what's going to be the consequence of that because they're not thinking about the future. I agree with all of that. Unfortunately, it seems to be very difficult to actually change that. Yeah, it might be very difficult, but I think, again, government and culture, and a lot of our culture is government sanctions or government funding can change that. Again, to link it to our comedy environment, when you have comics who actively say, oh, yeah, I don't have children. What a great life it is.

You know, I was enjoying my pinogreejo or, you know, you have advertising all over the place. Yeah, you can buy this sweater with, on three payments. You know, if you are buying sweaters on installments, maybe you should. re-evaluate your, maybe you don't need to buy stuff that much stuff. You know, you turn on television. How many apps do we have right now, which is about people decluttering their wardrobes? How many startups? You know, maybe we should, we should not encourage this consumerism in the first place.

You see what I mean? Yeah. So the government, the same government that decides to actively change our way of life when it comes to diesel, when it comes to consumption, CO2 generation, be it based on real facts or another agenda, let's not maybe go there. But the same government who actively put us under house arrest for a year or so, the same government, are you telling me that they cannot encourage people to have children by providing them with, you know, creches, maternity leave, better maternity conditions,

more kindergartens, nurseries. Of course they can do that, because they are hell-bent on changing our way of life in other areas, aren't they? Yeah, look, they are, you can say that. They are hell-bent on changing our way of life in other ways. But I think, if I'm being honest with you, Nicholas, I think the problem is actually far more complex

than you're giving it credit for. And like Constantine said, using the example of Hungary, it is very, very difficult to do because if you look at practically every industrialized nation, not just in the West, but you look at South Korea, I think they've got a replacement rate

of between 0.8 and 0.9. So, I mean, that is dire and actually far worse than our own. And if you look at China, China, a lot of people saying, is on the precipice of almost population collapse. So what is happening is not just a Western issue, it's the issue of industrialized nations.

No, I get that and I agree. But your point, though, sorry to interrupt, your point is broadly, I understand what you're saying, because you're right, when you turn on your TV, when you go to a comedy club, when you listen to the media, the cultural message is not one of kids are gray and let's have more, right? And this is why, even though I don't like putting, and I don't put photos of my son up with his face on social media,

I am constantly pumping out like Q family things because I want people to see that you can't do this and it's great. And I want men to know that as well because I think men increasingly haven't been told that too. So I'm kind of using that to put out a different cultural message. And I think that's what you're talking about and that I completely agree with.

Yeah, just to try to show that, you know, rather than excessive consumerism. Yeah. and just concentrating on your career until you get to the age of 40 and maybe then it's a bit too late to have a child. There is an alternative, and we call it alternative, but this is a traditional way of love. It used to be like that until 25 minutes ago. So that can be encouraged as well. Now, if, again, if we had a government who was like, you know, yeah, I'm hands off, you do whatever you want, and I would have bought that.

I don't think they are doing all they can. And this is all over the West, more or less. You know, because a lot of times, oftentimes young people want to have kids, but they just say, okay, if I have a kid, then what about the housing problem? What about my income? What about the nursery situation? Yeah. So it's an economic problem largely as well.

Nicholas, we've had a very serious conversation, which may confuse some people about the fact that you are actually a very good comedian who people should check out. Tell everybody, before we go to locals and ask you some bonus questions, where can people find you online and follow your work? Okay, my YouTube channel is called Anglo-Italian Comedy. The same name for Rumble, if that's up people's alley. And on Twitter, I'm at Nico underscore DeSanto. Perfect.

And we always end up with the same question, which is what is the one thing that we're not talking about as a society that you think really should be? Well, I've already used the Great Replacement. So I think our... 9-11 wasn't real. Exactly. It's the Jews. Inside job.

Okay. I might need to do some gigs in Israel at some point. I'm not going to go there. But I think clearly not having the situation of the demographic decline that we already exhaustively covered. I think what is alarming to me

is the situation where the way family courts are biased against fathers. When you get to divorce and it happens a lot more often than we all would like to see, as you know, the system

is very much stacked up against men when it comes to custody and when it comes to recognizing their rights as a father and this is again something apparently in America for sure in the UK I know for sure probably it's a common thread along the across the Western world that's that's something that needs to be dealt with perfect Nicholas DeSanto thank you very much

follow us over to locals where we'll continue the conversation so I was on a grandma's sequence Do you want to do it? What was Constantine like as a younger brother? Ha ha.