Winston Marshall | Club Random

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Terms and conditions may apply. Mumford was cool with it, but son, not so much.

No, I'm joking.

Who was uncool with it?

My initial feeling was I was contrite.

I was like, maybe I've done something wrong.

Like, maybe I've got this wrong.

I don't know everything about this topic.

It's hard not to feel.

Hi, Bill. Great to meet you.
Oh, you're younger than I thought. Oh yeah? Thanks for having me here.
Oh, I can't tell you how much I've been looking forward to this. I know you've traveled to get here.
I'm most appreciative. Been looking forward to talking to you and finding out about your journey.
What's your journey going on this Wednesday afternoon? My journey's going great i mean you're the one with the big story i don't know if there's so much so much else to talk about like i don't know our journeys i feel like if your journey met my truth they'd have a great time oh yeah not that i really believe in that my truth thing. It's like, have everyone's got their truth? And then there used to be the truth.
That was a different era. Yeah, yeah.
Facts. We all have different facts now.
But I think where our journeys met is that you did a monologue about me, which included me a couple of years ago. But it was a fantastic molog.
Oh, thank you. And ridiculing woke ideology and the totalitarian nature of...
Well, tell the people. The people.
The people. I love the people.
Do you drink, Winston? I don't, but is it going to bother you if I smoke a cigar? Trust you. No, everybody should do what they want.
Thank you. If you want to smoke a cigar, spank a monkey, I don't, but is it going to bother you if I smoke a cigar? Trust you.
No, everybody should do what they want.

Thank you.

If you want to smoke a cigar, spank a monkey, I don't care.

Whatever you want to do, I'm all for that.

I think we both have a libertarian streak in us.

Yeah, exactly.

Right, okay.

So, yes, tell the people.

It was, you know, first of all, what year are we talking about?

Well, your monologue, I think, was 22 or 23?

No, I think it was a little earlier because I think it was right in the middle of wokest mania. The wokest mania was, I think, 2020.
And I'd like to know what your opinion on this is. Yeah, sure.
2020, you have COVID, so everyone's locked up. And George Floyd.
And George Floyd. Right.
And it's in the music. When they went out.
Right. When they made an exception for the plague that was going to kill everybody.
Right. I'm not saying it was a bad thing.
I'm just saying that didn't got to happen. Well, everyone went mad.
Everyone was at home. I think so.
And they got wound up. And the music industry, when BLM came along,

that was like they did Black Square Tuesday.

So everyone had to put a black square up on their social media.

If you didn't, it wasn't that you weren't involved,

but you were against it.

It was a total binary.

There was one band, I think I might get the details wrong,

but Hanson, do you remember the band Hanson? Totallyanson totally yeah they put out a black square like a day late and they got hounded for it just putting it one day late okay that is peak woke crazy that's big i remember talking about that with the black square it reminded me of uh what's the movie where we wear pink on Wednesdays? Mean Girls.

You ever saw Mean Girls?

Years ago, yeah.

You know, that's it.

We all wear pink on Wednesdays.

Yeah, exactly.

And if you don't, or if you don't put the black square,

that's just crazy.

So that year was total insanity.

And it was worse than that, really,

because even the mainstream media, it wasn't just like the music or creative industries.

Mainstream media were not reporting everything correctly

Thank you. And, you know, it was worse than that, really, because even the mainstream media, it wasn't just like the music or creative industries.
Mainstream media were not reporting everything correctly. The BLM riots, and this is, I don't think America is quite reckoned with this.
I don't think it's reckoned with COVID either. But in the first 14 days after George Floyd was killed, 19 people were killed.
By the end of October, 25 people had been killed. You're talking about in protests and across the protests billions of dollars of damage of course and it was a lot of black businesses that were damaged so in the name of black lives all of this damage was done for me that that sort of seemed to be poke peak woke and a lot of um looting I mean justice shopping.
Is that what they called it? That's what I called it. I'm mocking.
No, I mean, look, it's so complicated. But, you know, obviously, we are all products to a degree of our past.
So, too, with a nation. And our past is one of horrible racism.
So the idea that that is not going to eke into the present over and over again in ways like that because of the frustration and the hatred in the past. I mean, every action has a reaction.
It's just unrealistic. It is.
It doesn't mean you have to endorse looting. Right.
Right. You have to keep both those thoughts in your mind at the same time.
So, you know, but amid this, and again, I'm not sure what year this is, but it's- Can I take a slight detour on this? Because it seems like it's happening again with this Tesla stuff. Tesla.
They're damaging all these Tesla cars up and down the country. There was one case in Arizona where a driver pulled in front of, I think it was a cyber truck, and started beating up the person who was driving.
And this has all happened since the second inauguration of Trump. So it seems to me that there's a new coming of this anarchism in America.
And the only Democrats... Well...
No? You disagree? I do, to a degree, yes. Tell me.
Well, first of all, the Tesla thing is a response to a specific individual, Elon Musk, who I certainly have mixed feelings about, way more negative than I used to.

I mean, if you asked me a year ago, two years ago, I mean, I'm sorry, but my feelings just get worse because he just gets worse. Right.
The idea of going through the government and making it more efficient, I endorsed that when it was announced. and then the way they did it was horrendous and gleeful, gleeful in their sadism about, hey, government workers, you're fired.
Do something decent with your life. What the fuck way is this to? You don't have to be a liberal or anything to just be recoiled at that.
And that he turned into a Twitter, a place with free speech. Yes, I'm a free speech guy up and down the line.
But I didn't think that the head guy would be retweeting the worst of the tweets. That's crazy.
Yes, the Supreme Court said Nazis could march in Skokie, Illinois, a town full of Holocaust survivors. I mean, that's the bar that we have in this country for how much we love free speech.
Okay, so are there going to be some Nazis if you really have a free speech channel? Yes, there are, but you don't have to retweet them. Was he retweeting Nazis? Well, I mean, you know what? I don't read it closely, but I'm getting this from what other people say.

And I don't know if it's like specific.

Look, he did that salute, which I don't think he meant it.

I don't think he was like saying, I'm a Nazi.

It's just when you're that close to the fire, you know.

Do you think it was like a troll salute?

Or do you think it was not actually a salute? I think it was a total accident. I just think he's an excitable guy and a bit on the spectrum.
And, you know, if you get excited, you might go, oh, it might look like a, yeah, I don't think he was giving a Nazi salute any more than I think Alec Baldwin tried to murder the cinematographer. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, like that smelly one you're smoking.
Is this going to put you off? I love it. I mean, I hate it, but I love it that you love it.
I'm happy that you love it. Thank you, Bill.
So it feels like there's three things there. There's Twitter or X and what it is now before and after Elon, and then there's Doge and how that's going.
But my initial point about Tesla was these people who are driving testers and having their cars vandalized, they might have voted Democrat. These are electric vehicles.
So there's a good chance. Totally.
It's actually in Arizona, which is purplish, right? Yes, correct. Right.
So the chances that the person driving the EV is actually a Democrat is, I think there's more likely. I mean, there's no excuse for vandalism or looting.
And we can't, again, I say we can understand it because of our history and because with Elon and that stuff. Can I understand how a government worker might be so infuriated that they key a Tesla? I totally can.
I also say we have to be a nation of laws and people living by laws. So you can't sanction it.
You can understand it but not condone it either way. And the problem is that, you know, it starts with setting a Tesla on fire and then they're going to go, well, if they do that, you know, we can attack a drag queen story hour, you know, and that's how the civil war starts.
Well, I think it might even be worse than that because in America, people carry guns. So now if you drive a Tesla, if I was an American and I had a gun and driving a Tesla, I would now carry a gun because if you're going to get attacked.
So what might happen, God forbid, is that someone attacks a Tesla while someone's driving in it and they get shot and there you go. Then you've got a whole other...
I had a Tesla up until a couple of years ago. It had nothing to do with the controversy.
It was well before that. But I'm sure glad I made the switch.
The only reason I made the switch is because Mercedes made an electric car that was similar to the Tesla but twice as much money. And you could see why it was twice as much.
The Tesla is a very, very good car. I have no complaints about it.
It was nice. I mean, like, I have complaints about all cars these days because they're just all too complicated and too much of a computer.
And there's too many things that are nagging me and demanding I do this and do that and stupid shit for safety that makes it less safe. Like, you know, God forbid you turn on the GPS in this car and it's just your screen is showing you the...
Why are you showing me the intersection that is right in front of my fucking windscreen, as you British would say? Thank you. It's just crazy.
But, okay they're both very similar. But yes, the Mercedes is more luxurious.
And they just took it up a notch. And I was like, well, I'm a rich motherfucker.
What am I doing in this $80,000 Tesla when I can be in a $140,000 Mercedes-Benz? I'm not some douchebag in a million-dollar Lamborghini. It's just a good car.
But I'm glad I don't have a Tesla these days. Well, and good thing you bought the German Merc before the tariffs came in.
Yeah, and when did Germans like a Mercedes-Benz ever have anything to do with Nazis? So you can't then, you won't be able to drive a Volkswagen. You can't wear Adidas or Puma because they were...
Adidas. Yeah, Adidas, yeah.
Hugo Boss, I think, made the uniforms, and I got to give it up. They were awesome.
Not too uniforms. They're good suits.
So sharp. It's also very unfashionable to say this, and I'm sure I'll get in trouble, but Italian fascist architecture, and nothing else about the fascism, but the architecture is beautiful.
Absolutely. The train stations in Milan, some of the buildings are beautiful.
I think neither one of us has any place in our minds for people who can't see keeping two thoughts in your mind at the same time. Yes, fascism is bad and the architecture was good.
It's sad that I still feel I have to caveat, and you still feel like you have to caveat. You do, exactly.
I feel the same way. Is that a shame? And it bugs me.
It bugs me. Do you think we're coming out of that now? We are, but we'll never be fully out of it.
There will always be the people in the rear guard, just like there are people who are still wearing masks. You know? Yes.
Once you start something, you get a certain amount of of cult followers for anything and then the true believers never die i mean a lot of people would say right now the democratic party is still in that mode which is going to render them possibly an irrelevant party if they don't change what would you like to see from the democrats Democrats going forward? Much more centrism, much more get rid of the woke baggage. Old school liberal is what I usually describe myself as.
But that's very often the opposite of woke. Woke would like people to believe that there's some sort of an extension of liberalism, but they're not.
They're usually something that's quite opposite. Liberalism was we should have a colorblind society and not see race at all.
That's not what the woke believe. They're the opposite.
Let's put race at the front of everything. Yep, absolutely.
Oppressor and oppressed, make a sacred the oppressed. But I say it's kind of the difference between liberalism and progressivism.
I don't know if you would identify ever as a progressive. Well, you know, now we're talking about words that have, when everyone hears these words, they in their minds have their own definition.
That's the problem. Right, quite.
You know, woke, I talked about this with John McWhorter on my show a couple weeks ago He's a brilliant linguist, and I was saying he's got a great book now about pronouns,

because they're so in the news.

But, you know, Woke is, I was saying, language is something you cannot control.

It's a living, breathing thing.

The words change, and the meanings change, and you cannot do a thing about it. It's literally crowdsourced.
And the crowd changed the meaning of the word woke. It was originally something good, being alert to injustice.
And it still has that meaning, but I'm sorry. It became the watchword for every kind of excessive woke bullshit thing.
Like, you know, let's have penises in the women's swimming pool. Yeah, yeah.
Have penises in the women's locker room. Or let's cut off the genitalia of children.
Yes, that kind of stuff. And, you know, it's not my fault that that happened.
But woke, progressive, liberal, I don't know what, I just know what I believe. And I know that to answer your original question, is it going to go away? I don't think so.
I don't think it ever goes away fully. And if the Democrats will either make the hard edge of it.
They have so many opportunities

to sister soldier this shit

and just do something

that would make Americans go,

oh, you know what?

Good, because Trump is starting

to really make me nervous.

And it'd be nice to think

if the other party

wasn't so married

to these cultural issues. And here's the Democrats' big problem is, in their minds, these cultural issues that the right is, in their view, obsessed with, sometimes, yes, do I really care if the transgender Congress lady uses the ladies' room or men? Well, I don't give a shit where she takes a pee okay but a lot of it is like

democrats have this view like well these are not real issues well they are to a lot of people like people with kids in school and stuff who think that they they should be able to have the say above the school in the lives of their kids i mean this was not even controversial when I was a child.

Yeah, yeah, quite.

Well, protecting, that's when I got really worried, is when they're doing this to what they were doing to children, but also to women. I feel like maybe this makes me trad, but as a man, I have a duty to protect the women in my life, my mother, my sister.
It is a responsibility, and it might sound silly, but if there are men in the women's bathrooms, I can't protect them there. But maybe that's a sort of...
Boy, you must have to beat them off with a stick. You're a rock star.
You look great. By the way, I have sticks available for $29.95 and $59.95 for rock stars like you who have to beat them off with a stick.

So you're beating them off with a stick?

No, I'm just selling the sticks.

It's your collection.

I'm just selling the sticks.

I don't need the sticks.

You don't need the sticks?

No, I'm like 70.

I don't believe you.

I'm like 70.

I saw a queue as I walked in.

Isn't that what I mean?

Beautiful women.

Oh, well, you know, I mean, please.

As I said about Castro, he's a man of the people, but he is a man. I devote my life to bettering America.
I don't have time for anything social or women. Please, I'm all in for America.
You love America. I love America.
Isn't it great? And if I can flatter you on that mission. I'll finish your thought.
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Once again, that's clubrandom.com.whore. No, no, not the .whore part.
Just clubrandom.com. I think that your monologues are best in the game.
Thank you. And you actually call out the bullshit, and you don't care about calling out your own tribe.
So let's get back to that that we forgot about. So it was the middle of wokeness, and you had bought a book online.

Yeah, so I bought a book. What was the book? It was Unmasked by Andy Ngo, who's a conservative journalist whose beat is Antifa and the BLM riots.
Even if it was Mein Kampf, it's your right to buy a book. and then your band members, right, were like,

you've got to, I mean mean they used to throw the band people out of the band for like really crazy shit i mean led zeppelin i think used to fuck groupies with a fish i do i i feel like i read am i wrong again allegedly but i feel like It was a shark involved. Rather young groupies as well.
Crazy. And you just ordered a book by a conservative writer.
I mean, the fact that that was even a controversy just blows my mind. It seems absolutely ridiculous now, and it was ridiculous at the time.
But I think in the moment it didn't necessarily, or maybe it did from your point of view, but I think in the music industry, creative industries, there was that sort of tension that was building, and people lost their minds. Again, as we said earlier, it was people were locked up at home, locked up, but people were locked down at home.
And what I did say about the book was, congratulations, Mr. Andy, no.
I don't remember the exact words, but you're a very brave man, and I recommended it, which if I said that about Mein Kampf, would be a problem, I think. I think it's important.
It wouldn't for the kids at Columbia who are marching for Hamas. Yeah, quite.
Yeah, I read through the Columbia University Apartheid Divest Substack, and it's all pro-Hamas, pro-Houthis, pro-Hezbollah, pro-Nasrallah. It's unapologetically anti-Western.
And if that doesn't make my point about liberalism, it's not the same as wokeism. Exactly.
Nothing does. If you don't get that, then you don't get anything, and I'm just wasting my time talking to you.
But anyway, so I'm very curious. The other members of the band.
Yes. Mumford was cool with it, but Sun not so much.
No, I'm joking. Who was uncool with it? Well, after this, so this tweet goes out, and over the course of the weekend, it ends up trending on Twitter.
I had about 3,000 followers on Twitter. That's another crazy thing about it.
I had no followers. It ends up going up all the trending lists, both in your country and my country.
And I think, I don't remember the exact timing right now, but it ended up being a segment on The View, a segment on Tucker, and it was- My thing? Your thing. Obviously, it got on my radar.
Yeah. And so then- Well, it's because you apologized for it.
That's what I was critiquing. Yes.
Like, you know, you should stand up to these. And then to your great credit, you recanted.
Right, so that's a few months later. So in this first weekend, I put this apology out.
The band were very upset, and I wanted to, you know, make it right, and I wanted to stop the attacks on the band. I had a duty to protect them.

And in that sense, I wasn't a lone artist.

I had colleagues, so to speak.

It feels weird calling a bandmate a colleague.

And they had families, and I needed to get the heat off.

And I was also conscious that I might actually have done something wrong and this is something that i um i i briefly spoke to shane gillis the comedian about because he went for a cancellation yes he did snl and he's talked about this on on his show but he in this period he he was like questioning everything and wondering like maybe he'd done something wrong. And this is one thing that when you get criticized, my initial feeling was I was contrite.
I was like, maybe I've done something wrong. Like maybe I've got this wrong.
I don't know everything about this topic. It's hard not to feel when the whole country, I know this has happened to me a few times turns the the white hot light it's over here on these people and they're and they're in the barrel and then suddenly it's like yeah that's and it feels but also i even though i'd done media and stuff with the band before i'd never been singled out and i'd never had this kind of media so this was all new i was like what the fuck is going on right suddenly total in in the course of a day your history's greatest monster you know what as we're talking about this i'm remembering the line we did which was pretty funny which was you're going after this guy for reading a book he's a musician don worry, it won't happen again.

That's a terrible thing to say.

No, it's pretty accurate.

It's kind of funny.

Come on.

So then, so I put this apology out, and over the coming months, I really look into it.

I was like, what the hell is going on?

And I ask other journalists. I look into Andy Ngo's work, and then Andy gets attacked again.

So here we go. and I ask other journalists, I look into Andy Ngo's work, and then Andy gets attacked again.
So he'd been attacked previously. He was physically attacked.
He was physically attacked previously. As I recall, right? Twice.
Once before this moment, which is why I felt so inspired to call him brave, and then the second time in that period. And when he got attacked a second time, for me, I was like, I'm one of the bad guys now because I'm on the side that's pretending.
By this apology. Now, from the outside, you might be like, oh, no one actually cares.
But when you're inside it, it weighs heavy on your conscience. So at that point, I was really like, I was losing sleep.
I wasn't eating properly. It was driving me crazy um and i i felt like i was one of the bad guys to to was the band close at that point or were you going through i mean because mumford and sons was huge you're still big you're still you're still out the hollywood bowl like three nights in a row but there was a time when like they were like and this is a little after that but like you know winning all winning all the grammys and like there's like an it band we had a period you had you would be it band 2012 2013 that's amazing i mean most people don't ever get to that and you can't be that forever even the beatles were only that for six years, you know.
They only, yeah.

I imagine they did all that in seven years.

Yeah, but so where was the, and normally when a band is that successful, they hate each other anyway.

For all the reasons bands hate each other, which as many rock stars have explained to me, is basically two things.

One, you didn't like my song. Two, you took that girl.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha at a time. And when you're starting out as a band, we're quite literally sharing beds for months on end.
So it's a completely bizarre relationship that you have. And then your identity is tied up with the band in the public, and you're tied with each other.
So it's a completely bizarre, anomalous relationship. I don't know what the equivalent is to that sort of relationship.
I mean, as a Beatle nut, I know all the stories. And among them, that's my favorite, is they would do these gigs in the year right leading up to Beatlemania, you know, like 63.
I guess it was already happening in England. But there would be all of them in one van and no heat in the van in England in the winter.
And they'd drive up, you know, have to drive six hours to the gig. Yeah.
And they would be lying on top of each other in the back of the van for warmth. That's a tight band.
Yeah, that's a tight band. That'll get you tight with a band.
But then usually there's the usually there's the time then things get you know it's funny in those years you see pictures of them and they're always smiling and then you see the pictures of them from 68 on and it's just like yeah yeah it's it's going to sound a bit gay but i'm actually quite romantic about that period that we had in that band because this there's a you know you're traveling the world for the first time it's and you're climbing the mountain and it's going well and just for your soul for your spirit it's the greatest exactly you know um so yeah we had that in 2012 2013 and we we won the grammys around then and uh it was a completely i was a privilege to be part of it, and I'm incredibly proud of all the music we made. And also, it was going against the grain.
Like, no one would have predicted that kind of band. Well, I've got a theory about that.
Well, I think banjo's going to be the next bit. No one was saying that, so it was like a kind of a big flex.
There was a whole group of bands of sort of folk acoustic instruments that came up around that period fleet foxes um lumineers were about then back in britain it was no in the whale nor marling um yeah there's always like five uh versions of the dbr that comes out and then nobody uses betamax you know i'm I'm sorry, but that's just the way of the world. You know, there's winners and losers, okay? Well, my sort of theory about this, and it's tangential, I think, to our perhaps conversation, but is that there was a desire after the crash in 2008 for things that were authentic, and that the subconscious public the sort of collective subconscious wanted uh acoustic music at that point having had um many sort of decades of synthetic music and life was synthetic to a point oh you mean like auto-tune oh yeah auto-tune or synths or just electronic music now i like electronic music it It's not a dig against that.
You do. Very much.
But I think that that whole wave, that whole movement, was a kind of reaction to what had happened in 2008. So I sort of see it as a...
I think it was a reaction of people leaving their phone messages at the beginning of their records. Oh, yeah.
Yeah, we had about 10 years of that,'t we eminem and get me a little banjo i cannot listen to this guy talking i remember that and then they were usually like something that just okay you're the biggest baddest dude on the block i get it all the bitches want you. Yeah, quite.
And so they wanted something more helpful. It was reflected in the songwriting as well.
Yeah, I think you're right about that. Yeah.
And so even all those bands, just leaving aside what instruments they were playing, the songs were far more personal and heartfelt. And so I think there's a sort of societal desire for that.
But maybe I'm reading into it a little bit too much. But what I'm asking is like, at the time of Bookgate, with Mr.
No, and Mr. No's last name is spelled G-N-O, correct? N-G-O.
I mean N-G-O. He's Vietnamese by origin.
That's correct. Okay, okay right in case people think we're talking about dr no and try to look this up it's like where's this no guy yeah i don't know uh quite but at the time of bookgate where was the band before the day before the book thing happened were they good was it all love? We had all been on, it was pandemic, so everyone was in different places.
This is March 2021. But did you hate each other or like each other at that moment? I would say there was, if I was being honest, it's probably like a different mixture of emotions like some of us are getting on but there are always

ups and downs with that so i wouldn't say necessarily that it was it must be just like a relationship but with four people like like as as complicated as a relationship can be and then times the drummer we didn't have a drummer by the way well i'm but most bad you know what i'm saying You know, it just, it's gotta be rough, but fun.

Okay, so then the book thing happens. The book thing happens.
And then, so then after a few months, Andy gets attacked again. And then another thing that happened and- But did the band splinter on you as the issue? Like some people were, hey, we're too hard on Winston.
And some people were, no, we're not hard enough. Burn him, burn him.
I was invited to stay in the band on the condition that I- I don't read? Yeah, I don't read any more books. No, not quite.
But I put the apology out. Oh, really? By all of them? They all signed on to that? Right.
Wow. I wish I'd attacked them instead of you.
Well, we're making it right now. And I came to the conclusion that I had to withdraw.
Basically, it's the apology note that was really burdening. That was sort of under coercion.
It's a little bit of a hostage video. I will say that I chose to do it.
Of course. And so I take responsibility for that.
Of course, good for you. But it is a little bit of a hostage video.
And I did want to make it right. I wanted to make it right by that.
And no, I'll go further. I'd say that I was, like I was saying earlier, I was genuinely contrite.
And I was conscious. For what? But I didn't know if there was something about this whole story that I didn't know.
Well, you didn't. And there's not.
And you shouldn't be contrite. But, like, I would compare this to me getting the vaccine.
Like, I didn't want to do it. It was a bit of a hostage video.
But I weighed, do I want to live my life, which I couldn't have done if I didn't get it. I couldn't have been, they wouldn't let me near the building where I taped my show.
I couldn't. The vaccine in 2021, when we got it, you just had to get it.
Were you skeptical then? I didn't, I am not skeptical of vaccine. Yes, I am.
I'm skeptical of everything medical. I'm not anti-vaccine.
I'm absolutely pro-vaccines from anything. I was just reading about the shingles vaccine.
I don't think I'm going to get it because I know the bad side to it, but I don't know. There was a new report.
I'm always up for new information. Yeah.
And what's your feeling now towards your place of work, the studio where they made you do it? Did you ever confront them? If they made me get another one, I think I would stop going into that place of work. Okay.
They're quiet. Sometimes you got to like, yeah, do something you don't love to continue on with your life.
And there is nothing immoral about that. Yeah.
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I'll add to that. For a lot of people,

We're not going to I'll add to that. For a lot of people, and we're talking about cancel culture more broadly, people have careers, mortgages, families that they've got to support.
It's a big deal to walk away from your job. It's a big deal to walk away from that.
And so I don't, all the people who went along with things that they shouldn't have gone with,

I understand it's way more complicated

than we might perceive.

And certainly all the people commenting

at the time of what I was going through,

they didn't know half the stuff that was going on.

So I'm,

although I've criticized cancel culture, I understand when people are in these positions and I'm sympathetic towards it. And so in that period, the other thing, and this might sound a bit pretentious, but it's true, is that there's an essay by Alexander Solzhenitsyn that he published in 1974 when he was exiled from Moscow.
And it's called Live Not By Lies. And there's a paragraph in it about the artist and it's something a paraphrase it's something like how dare you call yourself an artist if you're not prepared to stand by the truth and this essay this like every time i read it like four or five times and it hit me but every time and i want you to finish that thought but i'm just going to put this in context.
You know, stand behind.

Yeah, we're all for that in principle. Alexander Solzhenitsyn was in the Gulag.
I know. I'm not saying.
No, no. I'm just saying, like, he has the credentials to say, you know, I was really standing behind it.
I mean, he wrote the Gulag Archipelago. Yeah.
He wrote the book for folks who were too young to know or whatever, but that really exposed the fact that the Soviet Union had a archipelago, in other words, a chain of prisons. Like Hardee's, but not nearly as nice.
But a chain, like a whole chain throughout the country, an archipelago of gulags, which are horrible prisons. Yeah, where millions went and millions were killed.
Right. And he did his time there because he was a dissident, and anybody who dared to speak out against the Soviet Union, that's where they went.
And then at a certain point, my memory is fuzzy on this. I mean, he came here.
I mean, he was a... He came to Vermont.
Vermont, exactly. I always thought, well, it's cold.
It probably reminds you of Russia. So you feel kind of at home in the winter.
It's horrible. And, you know, it's full of leftists.
A strange coincidence of life is that I became friends with the sultanates and family after this. So they still live in the house in Vermont.
And I even spent Thanksgiving with them. Really? And there's tunnels all underneath the house.
Because even when he was in Vermont, he was paranoid that the KGB were going to come and get him. Holy shit.
This barbed wire all around the house and around the property boundaries. A wonderful family.
And they take it seriously. And I think one thing I picked up from them is, yes, we don't have gulags.
But the sort of society that tells these little lies, that's the end goal that you get to. And so I wouldn't say we're there or we were there, but if you participate in the lie, that's the danger.
And so in that sense, it's relevant. What Solzhenitsyn wrote is relevant, I think.
It's also relevant that Trump right now, the Trump administration is disappearing people in the way dictatorships around the world. I think the word first came to be commonly used about Argentina in like the 70s and the 80s.
It was a junta. It was a dictatorship, you know, as most of South America was in that era.
And, you know, if you were distant, you would just, one day you're on the street and the next day you're, you know, we've all seen this scene in the movie where they put the hood over you and put you in the back seat. You know, you're just never seen again.
Who are you referring to? What incidences are you referring to under Trump? Well, he's just people who he has taken off the street claiming that they are Venezuelan gang members members and we know we know at least some of them are definitely not one guy was a i think a hairdresser he was a makeup artist i think he was a gay man he wasn't in the gang he did hair for the gang he did hair for the gang they and the story that, which I don't know the full of it,

but I think it's the one where he ended up in the Salvador prisons.

Yes, and they're sending them to, I mean,

it's just certainly something America has never done

and to my view should not be involved in doing.

Sending anyone to the Salvador.

Just like without any recourse to any trial, just taking someone off the street based on a tattoo. I mean, tattoos.
I'm so glad I have any. Watch out, baristas.
Even if they're known to be illegal immigrants? Well, if you're an illegal immigrant, I can see at most kicking you out of the country, but not kicking you out of the country into a Salvadorian prison. Or at least not without a trial, yeah.
What does Salvador and their prison system have to do with our issues here? I mean, it's just, it's very extra legal and it's very third world, what third world dictators do. And ignoring court orders to stop doing it.
You know, we all want to get rid of the gangs. I agree.
I don't want to get killed by a gang member. You know, gang members, they very often have to shoot some rando as their initiation.
Well, I don't want to be somebody's teardrop tattoo. I don't want to be that guy who was sacrificed so you could get your teardrop.

But I also don't want to live in a country where you disappear people.

So let's not become the Soviet Union.

I mean, one of the things that liberals of former age really have to answer for is they loved Stalin, a lot of them, in the 30s. And a lot of conservatives liked Hitler.
Liberals or socialists? I don't want to get into the semantics of it, but were liberals really supporting Stalin? It was the socialist left that was supporting. I think it was part—well, first of all, this is before we knew about the gulags, okay? But yes, communism, socialism, all that stuff, especially you're talking about— about i mean the depression happens in 1929

stalin was newly part he became becomes premier of russia in 20 in 1924 so they didn't know a hell of a lot about him they knew there was a revolution a communist revolution if you really want to learn about this in an entertaining way watch warren baity's brilliant movie Reds. But, you know, communism was not seen as an evil then, especially because we had a depression.
Capitalism was the bad guy. We just had this big depression.
So communism was very attractive to a lot of people. And the Communist Party ran candidates on the ballot.
It was something you could vote for. It wasn't until later, but a lot of people kind of got it that Stalin was a bad guy and a dictator from the beginning, as was Castro and Che Guevara and the asshole in Venezuela and lots of other people that liberals, including liberal friends of mine, somehow think are cool to be friends with or laud.
Che Guevara was a murderous psychopath. Yep.
He looks good on a T-shirt. That's it.
Yep. They were locking up homosexuals, and the Cubans did a lot of terrible things.
It's always strange to me to see people wearing Che Gueva T-shirts still. And we talk about the riots and BLM stuff, but the Antifa side of it, they were communists.
And we wouldn't tolerate them supporting Nazi ideology. And it's still the case today that even though we know everything we do about communism, we know well over 100 million people were killed.
It's still not seen as evil. it the kids don't know it but that's an inexcusable it's well because it's out there that information the entire educational system in this country is inexcusable but i don't expect the kids to know it because their own teachers probably don't know it i mean i, I've seen some of the TikToks of teachers.

And this is my favorite kind of information because it's direct to me.

There's no filter. I'm not reading this.
It's not somebody's opinion. It's some teacher who made a TikTok.
And she's 28, and she's talking about, you know, basically how she is indoctrinating kids

to at least consider homosexuality.

Come on, Johnny, you're six years old.

It's about time you considered whether you're homosexual.

Well, it's really not.

We were all homosexual at six, by the way,

because I didn't like girls until I was 12.

Did you? Does that make you a homosexual? Were you sexually attracted to boys when you were six? I'm not attracted, but girls had cooties. Many still do.
Many still do. They had cooties, and you couldn't admit you liked a girl.
No, you hung out with boys and did boy things. Girls sucked.
Girls were terrible. I had a button.
I bought it at Valley Fair. It said, I hate girls.
I swear to God, they made a button. Age that? How old? I feel like this was like 12 because there was that moment in adolescence when some of the boys you know are starting to defect because they're reaching puberty.
Traitors. Traitors.
Exactly. Traitors.
You like girls? What? Super gay. Super gay.
And so, yeah. I mean, so when you're young, I mean, you really, it's like prison.
It's just a bunch of guys. And that's all you want to be around.
Well, I went to a women's rights march in Dublin, and there was an anti-women's rights march, or they would probably call it like a pro-trans march. But they had placards with Lenin's face on.
Oh, sure. And so you say that the teachers, and I agree with you that it's teachers who are pro-communist, but I don't understand.
Well, not all of them. Not all of them, of course.
But there's many who are. What I'm saying is many young teachers, from what I've seen, and I'm sure most teachers are great people.
My sister's a teacher. I have the greatest admiration for teachers.
But I'm sorry. I've seen the TikToks.
There are some dumb ass teachers out there. And the idea that they're actually teaching kid shit is frightening.
And Marx is considered... Yes, and they have dumb ideas about Israel and Gaza.
I've seen polling like a third of the people under 30 think it might be worth another try, communism. In Russia? No, in here.
Yeah. Well, in Russia.
Probably Russia too. I poll recently that Stalin is still considered the greatest leader.
Absolutely. People like a strong man.
Yeah, they try. People like a strong man, they do.
I was in Iraq a couple of years ago. Really? And I was very surprised to find.
I was there visiting Yazidi camps in the north. But I went down to Baghdad and I was very surprised to find that the young generation who have lived in just, it's been conflict for 20 years more.
And they actually have a favorable opinion of Saddam Hussein at this point.

So, yeah, people, it's amazing how these people can have a resurgence.

People that we can clearly consider.

Saddam was a bad guy, but I'll say this.

When the soccer team did not do well, Uday and Hussein used to torture them.

But I'll say this about that soccer team.

They never phoned it in.

Well, I want to ask you about your cancellation because you were like OG cancellation.

Yeah, exactly.

And it's relevant to this, right?

That could be my rap name, OG cancellation.

I love it.

It was directly after 9-11.

Right after 9-11, yes.

Where were you?

How old were you?

I'll see you next time. name.
OG cancellation. I love it.
It was directly after 9-11. 9-11, yes.
Where were you? How old were you? I was at school. In 2001? 2001, I was...
You were in high school or something? Yeah, I was pointing out the guys who were trying to be friends with girls and calling them bastards. But it got on your radar or you read about it later? I read about it later.
Okay. Yeah, I mean...

Do you think that that was a cancellation in the same way we consider it now? Well, it's so interesting. The arc of my career could be like the plot of something because it's full circle in the sense of 2001, I get canceled by the right for saying something that the left loved about Islam, basically.
I was saying they're terrorists, but they're not cowards. Fast forward two years later.
It was a joke, right? Was it a gag? No, not at all. Right, okay.
And it's not a gag today. Right.
They stayed with the suicide mission. They're not cowards.
Okay. America did not want to hear that.
But then later, like, the left always wants to cancel me because I'm clear-eyed about Islam post-9-11. And before I was also.
But, I mean, it wasn't really an issue then. But, like, yeah, Sharia law, not compatible with Western civilization.
And you say that, and half the woke people just walk right out of the room that cannot even be heard, even though it's completely true. And that's called Islamophobia in their minds.
So it's exactly switched around. Now it's the left who can't take the truth about Islam.
Isn't that funny? First the right can't, now the left can't. And that fits into my theory that when historians write the history of our country in this age, they won't break it down into the factions we do.
They'll just say, as a people, they were stupid about this, this, this, this, and you can find it on both sides. Absolutely.
I mean, I would still say more on the right. They scare me more and are more often virulent about how they would carry out some of this stuff.
But it was on the right here's very. In the music industry, was it Trip Gore? Tipper Gore.
Tipper Gore. Yeah.
And the parents were wanting to censor all the rappers, was it? Totally right, yes. And that was very much coming from the conservative side.
That was a big thing in the 90s when my first show, Politically Incorrect, was on the air. That was a big issue.
Tipper Gore was Al Gore, Vice President Al Gore, Democrat. His wife was all about these rappers have got to go.
And it's not like she was completely wrong. I mean, I don't believe in censorship of any kind.
But she wasn't wrong that it was a bad influence on kids. I mean, I just feel, I always felt it was like the perfect revenge that black people got on white people.
Like, okay, you treated us so bad for a long time, and now we're going to write lyrics to songs that your white kids in the suburbs are going to listen to, and your daughter's going to want to be a hoe. And that's our revenge on you and it's just the beginning and you deserve it and I'm sure white people do.
So how did the cancellation affect you emotionally like back in 2001? I mean, it was probably the same thing I was just talking about with you. When the bright hot light turns on you, it's not a good feeling.
I mean, it's not a warm, bathed in a warm glow kind of light. It's like an interrogation lamp light times a terrible tanning bed, and you just feel singed.
Was that your first sort of controversy? No, no, but it was the one that, you you know rose to the level of getting me fired i mean all the sponsors pulled out and then it was just a matter of time i mean i never blamed the network for firing me you can't keep a show on the air if it has no sponsors you know i mean how did that affect you in your work going forward did it give you a fire in your belly? The shows we did, this happened on November, of course, September 11th. That was a Tuesday.
All the shows all across America were off the air that week. No comedy, just the news.
Okay, we get that. Then we all went back to work the next week.
So Monday after September 11th, September 17th, what I call the tragic events of 9-17. And that's a guy on the panel, a super hardcore conservative guy.
I mean, I would call him nutcase conservative. I mean, since then, he wasn't such a nutcase then, but he went, I mean, full, I don't know, past manga.
But he said, he's the one who said it. He said, the terrorists weren't cowards, they were warriors.
And I just agreed. And then he was in a cab, never asked about it again.

And then some disc jockey in Texas who, this was so instructive about it.

It's right away, nobody cared.

Because they don't really care.

But it's so easy to gin people up. And somebody did.
But it took a few days to go, hey, don't you hate this? Hey, hey, miss, don't you? Yeah, I do. I fucking hate that.
And then they were all, and so then it snowballed. And once the snowball starts, they love it.
I mean, again, this was six days after 9-11. They were looking for somebody to hate.

And, you know, I, again, did a service for my country.

I had a similar thing happen with Jordan Peterson.

And he came to the studio.

This was in 2018.

And we took a photo together.

And I think he put it on his Instagram.

How dare you?

And it took three months later, the music press, three months later.

So not immediately.

It had been in the public domain for three months.

Thank you. And it took three months later, the music press, three months later, so not immediately, three months.
It had been in the public domain for three months. And then the music press do the dog pile.
You know, Jordan Peterson is this terrible, I don't know what words they used, probably said Nazi or something like that. And they go.
You're either a hippie or a Nazi. There's no in between.
You're both. So they're kind of looking for, to take down these scalps.

Oh, scalps.

You've said the exact right word.

I always say that.

It's about scalps.

These people who consider themselves or would like to think of themselves as journalists,

especially the internet types, stop it. Just please.
You know, I get it. This is what you do.
You could in your life have chosen to do something more dignified like, I don't know, play piano in a whorehouse. But this is what you chose.
Just own it. Just admit it.
You're not a journalist. You're a scalp hunter.
It's okay. You all got to make a living.
You know, I got groundhogs in my lawn. Do I kill them? No.
I don't care if I have a lawn. Everybody's got to make a living.
I get it. You know what? So lotso, you sell heroin.
That's fine. It doesn't interfere with my business.
Every man's got to make a living. Just admit what you do.
You sell heroin. Do you think that being alone through that period, or did you feel alone? Did you feel like you had good people around you? What was it like being in the comedy industry then? Well, you know Dr.
Phil. I'm right, sorry.
Do you know who that is? Yeah, I know, yeah, yeah.

Sorry, I don't mean if we don't. No, no, no.

I don't want to do a cross-examination.

I love being.

Lie back, relax.

Tell me about your mother.

Yeah.

Let me think.

I mean, it's a great question.

I'm glad you're asking me because I haven't thought about it in such a long time.

I mean, it is 24 years ago. Wow.
Jesus Christ, time goes fast. You know, at first there was that period where we were trying to, you know, get out of it, basically.
I remember I had to talk to the first, oh, please don't sue me for this. If there's something suable here, just take it out.
I don't have the energy. But I remember talking to the head guy at FedEx.
It was like one of our big sponsors. And they were going to pull out.
And we got on the phone. And I've never met him in person, although he did lie to my face over the phone.
And I think he's ex-military. And, you know, I have no animosity toward this.
I can't remember his name. But he did tell me on that phone call where I was like, please don't pull out, like, hey, I understand exactly what you were saying, which lots of conservatives did.
Rush Limbaugh defended me. But people from both sides, and they produced articles from other people and other thinkers who had basically said the same thing.
There's not a moral dimension to being brave. You can be brave in the cause of something evil.
It's not that hard to understand yeah anyway um but that didn't work like and then you know once once one crow

turned Anyway, but that didn't work. And then once one crow turns and flies in the other direction, all the other fucking crows do it.
So that's what happened. These sheep crows all flew away.
And then there was no sponsors. But that period, so we went off the air.
We were on for another nine months after this happened.

We didn't go off the air until the end of June of the next year. I loved those shows because we were kind of freed.
You know, before that, the show was a designed train wreck where we would have, you know, Carrot Top sitting there with Bob Dole. It was meant to be stupid in a way, but also revealed...

People loved it. Carrot Top sitting there with Bob Dole.
It was meant to be stupid in a way, but also revealed...

People loved it. I loved it.

It was right for the time.

But after that, the country was in a more somber mood.

And so the shows were more gravitas.

There were more substantive people on the show.

Gone was Pauly Shore.

And In was some expert on Middle East history. Stuff like that.
And the audience never left. I never was mad at being canceled.
I was only mad that they did put out the lie at one point that we lost our audience. We didn't.
My audience never goes yeah i i don't maybe i'm not like doing taylor swift numbers but they never leave i think that's really key like the market doesn't care the media prices care but the people actually don't care best example of that is kanye west he can put out the most crazy anti-smitt i think i don't know if this was a joke or not, but I saw a post on X that his new album cover was just a swastika. And the logo for Sunday Service is the SS logo.
Well, did you see the video where he's in the black Ku Klux Klan hood? He's talking. He's doing an interview, isn't he? But he's still going to sell tickets by the bucket load.
Of course. The people do not care.
Well, do not care, and let's not even pretend that many, there are some who agree. I mean, you're English, I think.
I'm getting this by the accent. I'm English, yeah.
I'm getting this by the accent. I mean, I don't read about the guest before the job.
I have to say, there is not a name that is more non-Jewy than Winston Marshall. I'm actually, my grandmother was a Holocaust survivor.
That's ridiculous. Really, Marshall? It sounds like the Secretary of State of the 1950s.
Secretary of State Winston Marshall of the United Kingdom met today with Premier Khrushchev. The talks were considered to be frank but substantive, and Mr.
Marshall said he will meet with Secretary John Foster Dulles of America on Tuesday. In other news, the hula hoop is...
Imagine my parents' disappointment when I told them I wanted to be a banjo player. What did they say? I think initially they were like, keep your options open for other things.
But, yeah. But, okay, so first tell me about London, because I've been to London, I think, five times, something like that.
Yeah, what was your experience? Do you like it? First time I was there was 1984. It was completely white.
Not that I'm in any way saying that's a good thing. I'm just saying this is the reality.
And this is why sometimes we get frustrated with the woke. Because, like, take the V.
It's great. I agree.
It's great that we've made the world this more diverse place. But just don't pretend that, I think Andrew Sullivan wrote once, I mean, he was quoting a stat, that in the 50 years from maybe 80 to now, almost like the percentage of non-white residents of London went up like 50%.
In other words, the first time I was there, it looked crazily like England of the Middle Ages or something. And then it was like New York.
And again, that's not a lament. That's a, hey, good, we won.
We made the world this melting pot. I think the lament comes, for me, not when it comes to the ethnic racial makeup, but rather that we are people who actually no longer share a common culture.
Yeah. And because we've had mass migration, you know, net migration up to 1.2 million in our small country, that's a lot, some years.
This happened under the conservative government, I might add. But really, it started after the war, and it was turbocharged from 1997 after Tony Blair, and just went crazy after the Tories, their last tenure.
and the problem we've got now, we have terrible problems of social cohesion. There's riots all through last year.
It's that we had no longer, we can't even identify what it is to be British anymore or what it is to be English. And it's tricky because unlike America, which has, let's say, a declaration of independence, which even though it's a multicultural society, there is a meta culture that unites Americans.
I mean, I saw that Prince Charles, Prince, King Charles, was somewhere like some hallowed British place from a thousand fucking years ago. And they did the call to prayer from there.
Do you know what I'm talking about? They did it. There was at the beginning of Easter, sorry, at the beginning of Lent, they...
Or Ramadan, maybe it was. It was also the beginning of Ramadan.
Okay. And well, they hosted some sort of celebration for Ramadan at Windsor Castle.
I don't think King Charles was there. But King Charles tweeted at the beginning of Lent, nothing about Ash Wednesday.
He tweeted something about Ramadan. And he's head of the church.
The Anglican Church. He's head of the Anglican Church, yeah.
The king is the head of the Anglican. Yes.
It goes back to Henry VIII, right?

Henry VIII, yeah.

And then Elizabeth I, that sort of period, yeah.

Who did it because he wanted pussy.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Okay.

He's a shagga.

Just as long as we know where this is coming from.

He's a shagga.

He's a good lad.

Right.

But I'm saying people should know their history.

He was married.

He didn't want that girl anymore. And then so he said, well, I will switch religions to get some pussy.
Exactly right. I mean, that's it in a nutshell.
I'm just putting that out there. But look, this is why I think us atheists have it right, which is I don't want the call to prayer.
And I also don't want the call to Christian prayer. Like, no prayer.
That's what was one of the great things about America, separation of church and state. Like, it's just not part of it.
Whatever you want. You want the call to prayer? Good.
Like, I resented it when I was in Jerusalem for a week, when I was making the movie Religious. And you hear the call to prayer five times a day in

Jerusalem.

This is the Jewish capital?

And I have to hear the Muslim?

Yeah.

No.

I mean, I don't want to hear anybody's prayer.

I don't want to do something five times a day.

I would push back, which is the- Well, masturbate. That's what I do five times a day.
Hopefully not in this chair. And it reminded me.
I'd be like, oh, yeah. Go at it.
The American Declaration, there is God in it. It's, you know, you'll know the exact line, but the creator is mentioned in it.
Yeah, creator. It's vague.
So it's not an atheist. It's vague.
It's vague, but there's theism in it. There is.
Right. There definitely is.
And so then I guess the problem with a totally atheistic world is what gods replace those gods. And I think that that's what we've been seeing in the recent years.
I do think wokeism is part of that. And the environmental stuff is a similar thing.
It's a new religion. And so it turns out we actually need some sort of metaphysic to structure our moral code, I think.
That's going to be tougher now that AI and robots are coming along. I mean, I just don't see people like, people being big into God when, like, you got the robot there.
You know, I mean, they say that's, like, only maybe five years away. Just like we've seen it in a million movies.
Hello, what can I do for you? You know, people will have their, like, fucking robots around. And why would that turn them off God?

I just, I don't know.

It just seems that they can't really exist in the same universe. I mean, either man could do that, and that is God.
I mean, or there is some, it just, you know. But maybe I'm wrong.
I mean, like, certainly people have used cell phones for terrorist attacks.

Mm-hmm.

To... But maybe I'm wrong.
I mean, like, certainly people have used cell phones for terrorist attacks to enforce a 7th century view of the world. They use 21st century technology.
So you're right. People can put their mind in two different places and not be the least bothered by it.
And I think the point I'm trying to make, though, is that people still need a moral code.

Well, they need a connection and community,

and that's a very important part of the rigor of religion, I think.

But people still need to know how to act,

and I don't think robots will necessarily disrupt that.

I don't know enough about AI and robots

to sort of understand necessarily what's going on there,

but I think that we need to align ourselves somehow and in our decision making can i tell you my london story please okay so last time i was there was 2015 i was on a vacation i actually was touring europe i played five different european capitals that speak English. So in London, and I was with a brilliant recording artist who recorded that day, and the guy in the studio said, you know where you've got to have dinners? And of course, because the hip music crowd wants the place that's most outtray, it was in a neighborhood that I was way, I guess, East London,

maybe it was, whatever it was.

I remember we got there, and I was traveling.

This is 2015, right after the attack.

Bataclan?

Yes, correct.

I mean, there were two attacks in Paris.

I mean, Europe was on edge, as was I, traveling there.

So I had my security person plus two Israeli bodyguards.

Okay, so we go to this neighborhood, and we're walking around looking for this restaurant. And it's not what we call five-star.
It's like authentic, that kind of shit, which I'm too old for to begin with. And I'm looking at, like, there were some hard looks on the street, that was all I'm going to say, from people.
I mean, it was a completely seemed to be, shall we say, West Asian neighborhood. I don't know.
And I had just seen a 60 Minutes report about no-go zones, as some people call them and other people say they don't exist well they're in the 60 minutes report there are muslim men who are screaming at a woman wearing a miniskirt and she's saying this is england to your point about this so you know and but not in that neighborhood it's not yeah well and i and i I remember we were walking along, and before we ever got to the restaurant, I remember vividly one of the Israeli bodyguards saying to me the exact words, we've got to get up out of here right now. They just felt unsafe here.
And, you know, that's what we did. But I hear the food was fantastic at this place.
I mean, I don't want to shit on it. They make great food.
This is, I mean, sorry to get sort of bleak, but this is like one of the big problems facing my country right now is that, so there was a – Henry Jackson Society did a report last year. And their think tank, Henry Jackson Society.
Henry Jackson Society? Yeah. I don't know.
And they did a survey of British Muslims. Three quarters of British Muslims do not believe that Hamas committed murder or rape on October 7th.
The majority of British Muslims think Jews have too much power. So does my agent.
A third of British Muslims want Sharia law. Sharia law, that's a problem.
That's a problem and and so we've got a real problem with this these two groups mixing this is the difference between your country and mine um in my country um muslims have assimilated well you know i i don't think a third of american Muslims want Sharia law. They may have heard the word and maybe don't even know, and they would just reflexively, because this is the kind of bullshit I get for speaking honestly about this issue, they might reflexively go, yeah, Sharia law, but trust me, you want to live the American life that you're living.
All these Americans who defend them.

Yeah, you would not want to live the life that you are supposedly defending. You like it here for good reason.
That's why you or your parents or their grandparents came here because you wanted to get away from that bullshit. And Sharia law, yeah, you're not going to want to live

where homosexuality is illegal, sometimes punishable by death. You're not going to be able to wear that bikini.
I know that. And you're not going to have another religion or even be able to consider it.
That would be blasphemy. And adultery, yeah, that's a capital punishment.
You know, it's like, come on. I've got a friend from Baghdad, and he says the joke there, I'm not sure it's actually a joke, I think it's half true, is that if you want to go to the West and work, go to America.
If you want to go to the West and not work, go to Europe. So, you know, there's different people, I think, coming to America.
Oh, please. There's plenty of people here who don't work.
I promise you that there are plenty of people. You're starting to sound like a conservative.
There's a lot of people on this. Well, there are a lot of – I was, you know, asking today in a meeting about – I don't know why this came up, but somebody was telling me about like seven – something like seven million young men, like 18 to 30 maybe, I don't know, something like that million young men like 18 to 30 maybe i don't know something like that who um like pandemic okay that but like never like went back into the workforce even though there were jobs open like there's just a lot of people who like how do you live i just that's the one question i want do you live? You don't seem to have any sort of actual job.

Not just men.

Certainly women, too. Especially out here.
Like, how do you live? How do you get your money? I feel like if I had truth serum, I could get to any human being's core in three questions. But they had to take the truth, Sarah.
The Muslims in America, I believe the majority voted for Trump. So the Muslims who are here are quite conservative, I think.
Well, that's where it gets so naughty and so funny because, yes, there is that element. I mean, it works both ways.
I mean, on the the one hand you'd think they would be against the guy who put the muslim ban on but it wasn't a muslim ban it was it was it was it was something else that it was spun that way okay it was spun that way and it was sort of that way from some from certain countries I mean, it was assuming everyone in Yemen is a Houthi, you know, bent on killing us. They're not, but, you know, was it the, look, each side bends too far one way.
The Democrats bend too far in, everybody's really a good person and they deserve to live in America. And that's ridiculous.
And the conservatives go too far in the direction of, just take him off the street. I don't have any evidence he's in a gang, but you know what? You got to break a few eggs.
And like, could we ever land in the middle no that's my big issue yeah we never land in the middle yeah it just drives me insane but i feel like that's my audience that's my contingent and i feel like you're that guy too i feel like oh yeah you know you have a a big following now because there are people there there is a hunger for like a sort of a, well, these guys are not really conservatives.

I mean, look at them.

They're kind of hip.

But they just won't get on the crazy train to Woketown.

And I feel like that's your lane now too.

And you're a great voice. I still consider myself a liberal.

I'm going to say, on the crazy train to Woketown. And I feel like that's your lane now, too.
And you're a great voice. I still consider myself a liberal, although it's a weird time.
Me, too. Being liberal, you get lumped in with conservatives, although that will, I think, change quite quickly as the Trump term maybe continues.
And we'll see how it's planning panning out already the the american political space seems to be sort of tearing into different factions and and uh so uh yeah i guess i agree but but your country i mean has these kind of issues that my country just does not deal with. I mean, the one about the raping of children, I mean, like gangs, who preyed on young girls,

girls always from, like, unfortunate homes where they needed a role model they needed a father they needed money and and these were all like pakistani or indian guys and they were and these were this is like in the midlands the middle of it's actually up and down the country. So it's over 50 cities, all the way from Edinburgh down to the southern part of England, to Oxford, and a lot of it in Manchester area and Birmingham area.
And over the last few decades, tens of thousands of girls have been brutally treated by what are majority Pakistani heritage rape gangs. The girls are, most of them are, I wouldn't even say working class white girls, underclass in the way they're treated by society.
Vulnerable. Vulnerable.
And white girls, and a lot of them treated this way because they're Khauffer because they're not muslim and it's also affected hindu communities as well and it's it's playing out even even yesterday i woke up to the news that the labor government are not going to do a full inquiry into it and it's for some reason unbelievably i don't say it's even 20 years because some of the girls have been brutally murdered right and at least five or five or six of them have been brutally murdered there's one girl i think her name was charlene downs i think that was her name and she was in the court case of the prosecution of her murderers there was a audio recording played of the murderer laughing about cutting her up and putting her in the kebab meat. And horrific as all of that is, the way in which the establishment, Conservative and Labour, have everyone, the sort of Westminster Uniparty and have completely, and the media classes, they've all sort of been complicit in this, what I say is a cover-up of what's been going on.
And it's, you know, George Floyd is an inter, everyone in the world knows who George Floyd is. We should know the names of these girls.

And we don't.

What I read about it is that the press downplayed it,

as did the officials looking into it,

because they did not want to be charged with racism.

Exactly.

So in other words, in the service of not being called a racist,

you did something that was so immoral. And this went on for like 20 years, right? More, yeah.
Yeah. Political correctness literally kills.
And there's another example, the Manchester Arena attack in 2017 at the Arianna Grande concert. Oh, yeah.
One of the security guards didn't approach the, I think he's a Libyan, the killer was, the bomber was a Libyan guy, didn't approach him because he was worried that he would be called racist for doing so. And this is with the grooming, the rape is really a rape gang scandal.
That was the case at every single level from the councils to the police.

There was an example of the one girl trying to report on it, and she was arrested for being drunk and disorderly. She was trying to report on her own rape, and she was arrested for being drunk and disorderly.
And so it's the shame of Britain. And actually, it didn't...
But do you blame the media for not making this more white? I mean, here in America, this got on people's radar because Musk started tweeting about it. And in Britain, that's the thing that's so shocking.
It wasn't until January this year that it became a national story. It became the story in the country.
It took Elon Musk to do that. Now, whatever his reasons for doing that, I don't know.
But how is it that this horrific story took a guy from America tweeting about it to make it the story? That's a really big part of it. I mean, I looked into it.
It's not like the New York Times didn't cover it. But I would say this.
If the New York Times had wanted to put this on everybody's radar, they could have. They covered it.
They didn't ignore it. But to me, it was as big.
It's what do you choose to put on the front page? That's your choice. That's an editor's choice.
When it was the Catholic Church molesting boys, and I was a young Catholic boy, and I was not molested, and I'm a little insulted. No, but it's not maybe quite as widespread as that, but it's kind of on that level.
It's systemic, you know, and it has to do with the sacred cows that we dare not say the Catholic Church is actually what it is. And look, I've reported on, so I've been doing my show for a year, but I was doing media stuff for a couple years before.
And I'd been covering it, and I noticed in the comments, it's like, oh, it's a far right talking point. You just see that there's a big part of the country that really just right it off as a far right.
And so it's been the case that the people most courageous to do it have been more fringe actors, more fringe characters. So you're right.
It was covered in some mainstream media it wasn't completely like shut down they just didn't you could just tell when they don't want to make it a story because it just doesn't feed their narrative and their narrative exactly their narrative is multiculturalism their narrative and they're going to stick to this story is that cultures are different but they're all alike really no they're different and they're going to stick to this story, is that cultures are different, but they're all alike, really. No, they're different and they're sometimes not alike.
Theocracy is not just different than democracy. It's worse.
There's like, I don't know how many countries, five, 10, I don't know, with the word Islam in the title of the country. It would be like the Christian United States of America, which, look, there's people in this country who would love to see that.
And not just a few of them. And they're in Congress.
And it could happen. But it hasn't yet.
But they're there. I mean, your thing before when you said they raped and murdered these girls and pimped them out because they were, what's the word that means not Islamic? Kafar.
Kafar. Okay, for anyone who doesn't understand what this debate is really about, it was never about race, so don't call us racists.

People are religions cross-racists.

Lots of white people are Islamic.

It's not a race.

It's a religion.

It's a different thing.

And a religion is just an opinion.

And it's about ideas.

And ideas matter.

And when the idea is that, A, women are second-class citizens to begin with, and please don't even pretend to tell me that that's not a pervasive feeling throughout the Islamic world. It's explicit in the ground.
Women are not equal like they are in the West. Shut the fuck up.
And two, this thing about not Islamic, like if you're not part of Islam, are you really a human being? No, it's not like there aren't Christians who are like super. But Christianity, I'm sorry, is different.
It's more that, you know, hate the sinner, love the sinner, and like we'll convert you. And Islam is more like, no, this is the way it is this is the superior religion you either get that year or you don't i hope you get it because if you don't i have no sympathy for you you're not really part of what we're doing here on earth yeah and that's not a good attitude ideas Ideas do matter, especially in this.

I suspect that a few things need to be done with regard to not just the grooming gangs, but all these sort of issues. But I suspect that if, let's say, the Christian side or the non-Muslim side just say, enough of this and there's going to be punishment.
Instead of bowing to, if those perpetrators actually understood that there'll be repercussions, I think that would actually stop. I would hope it would massively decrease.
The answer to this is moderate Muslims, because I hear this all the time from people. Bill, the way you talk, you know they're moderate Muslims.
Yes, I do. I'm very aware.
But you know where moderate Muslims live? Here in Canada. They live in the West.
Doesn't that tell you something? You can't be a moderate Muslim in most Muslim countries in the world. That's a problem.
London has a moderate Muslim mayor. That's what we need more in the future.

Your mayor. That's what we need more in the future.
Your mayor, still the mayor, right? Yeah, Sadiq Khan. He's like, I don't want women to cover their faces.
That's the message he can only deliver to other Muslims. They have to be brought, I think, into that way of thinking.

Well, I don't know enough about Sadiq Khan and his personal faith,

but I would say that moderate Muslims like Majid Nawaz or Ed Hussein,

they have been unbelievably ostracized from their community

for speaking out on these issues.

Even ostracized from American liberals. Liberals.
Yeah. If I can make the case for the Middle East or the Muslim world, and maybe this is a white pill, I'm very encouraged by the Abraham Accords.
Me too. Trump achieved his first term.
And if you look at the signatories, most particularly the Emiratis, they are better at calling out Islamism in the West than we in the West are at doing it. Is that right? And their leadership, for me, gives me huge hope for relations between Muslim-majority countries.
This is the United Arab Emirates. Exactly.
That's Dubai. Exactly.

Abu Dhabi.

Abu Dhabi, Dubai.

Exactly.

These are the names people know

and people go to

and see Instagram pictures from.

Instagram, that will be the key.

The whole fucking Muslim world

is Instagrammable

and not just Dubai.

Morocco, Marrakesh.

Do they do that for Marrakesh?

It's a beautiful...

Can you wear a sundress?

I think, yeah, you definitely can.

The king of Marrakesh...

That's the key.

When you can wear a sundress wherever you want in the Muslim world,

I'll shut up about it.

The king of Morocco banned selling of the hijab, I believe, or the niqab. It's one of the abs.
One of those habs. But I see a lot of hope in those nations because they also want to trade with Israel.
They want relations with Israel. And so I'm not so blackpailed.
For me, that's where I have my hope. Dude, there was a woman once who sued because she wanted to have a Muslim woman in America, wanted to have her driver's license picture with the full face covering.
I fucking shit you nuts. That's a real thing.
I had an experience through the pandemic. I was working at a food bank near my house and you work at a food bank in the pandemic i did and there was rock star great looking he works at a food bank but it's a fucking lifetime movie waiting to happen but the the it's in a very muslim part of london and there was a very sweet moment when i had because it was locked down so you couldn't they couldn't inside, so they had to queue outside.
And I would get their order and then go inside and come out. And there was a line of literally five women in full niqabs.
And I took the order, went in, came back out, and they all look at me. And I'm like, I'm looking at these five women.
I'm like, I have no idea which one of you just took the order. And then they're kind of like moving.
And then one of them waves and realizes my dilemma. And then all of them lift up the niqab and show me that they're smiling.
It was like the most sweet, wonderful little exchange. Yeah, that would be sweet if we could forget that so many women in the world, if you're looking for a cause, kids, is that they can't even show themselves smiling because their face is covered.
I dated a woman once. I had one date and then the cop.
And I remember I got home, my friend said, how'd it go? One of us means so hot. He said, how'd it go? I said, she had great eyes.
I just made that up. I did not have such a date.
Don't sue me. I'm always afraid of being sued.
Isn't there a Kobe enthusiasm about a blind man dating someone in a niqab or something like that? Well, you know, Ray Charles, blind. You're familiar? Very familiar.
What do you think of Ray Charles? I love Ray Yeah, okay So good. Well, you know ray blind he would he would squeeze their wrist and He felt he could tell if she was hot by the wrist, you know like wow a thin wrist I think was like and I have to to say, I saw that in the Jamie Foxx movie from like 2005.

And ever since then, I can't get out of my mind.

And he's not wrong.

I've got to say, I have put this to the test for 20 years.

The man is not wrong.

Did you get to fill the rest of your niqab date? My what? Your niqab date. Right.
That's what I should know. We're doing the test.
So tell me about the neighborhood of London you live in because I'm fascinated by London. I've read it's the most expensive city in the world.
It's certainly, I mean, part of it is called like um what's where all the

russians live like something nice bridge or like london grad something i've heard something like that because it's a city where like people like russian oligarchs can go and live the high life and park their money and not be living in a fucking... The oligarchs can't since the Ukraine war started.
Really? They had to... But what was all the talk about so many Russians in London? Rich Russians.
We had a lot of rich Russians before then. The most famous would be Roman Abramovich, who owned Chelsea Football Club.
But yeah, they were parking a lot of their money. And they're gone now? Since the war, yeah.
Really? He had to sell Chelsea. But they kicked them out? The details, I've forgotten exactly.
But they weren't allowed to keep their assets there or something like that. They were forced to sell.
Oh, yeah, that was part of the sanctions on Russia after the Ukraine war started. Oh, okay.
So it's not so much, but it's kind of sad what's happened to London. It's so unbelievably expensive, and a lot of people have moved out.
At the same time, we've got huge masses of people moving into Britain, as I said earlier, like every year, up to net a million a year. And London is the place where they come.
And it's almost like a sort of feudal system because like a techno-feudal system, you have a class of people who are Deliveroo, Uber Eats drivers because that's the kind of work they can get. And there's no chance with the amount of money they make doing that, or Uber drivers, that they're ever going to get to the next level.
And then the middle classes are squeezed out. So a lot of people in my generation, when they want to start a family, there's no chance they can do it in London.
So they move to the countryside. It's very similar to New York.
Yeah. Of course.
It's the exact same story. You can't live in manhattan yeah it's or in la yeah people you know the cops live in simi valley it's a long way out there yeah so so where do you so you live out there i live in london like i'm for you know the band did well i'm fortunate i can afford to to live there.
And I'm a Londoner. So it is London.
You said? Yeah, I'm in the northern part of London. Is that a good part? It's a very, I'm in the most progressive borough of the country.
How far is it from Abbey Road? Oh, not that far. Probably a half an hour drive.
From Abbey Road? Yeah. Oh.
Or, yeah. Have you been to Abbey Road? No.
But I have the album. It's a great album.
It's a great album. You should visit.
You could do a little photograph doing the zebra crossing. Oh.
Like every other person. Exactly.
Join the queue. I'll do it with you.
How about that? Wonderful. I look forward to it.

We'll get two other guys.

Yeah, who can we?

I'll be Ringo.

You can be Paul.

You're the cute one.

Oh, thank you.

And we'll get some

spiritual person,

you know,

to be George.

Yeah, we need

a spiritual person.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

And then,

Russell Brand.

No.

No.

You want to talk about Russell Brand? Are you following his story? Oh, he's been here. He's out there.
How did that go? I mean, Kanye's also been there. I loved him both.
Oh, really? I loved both nights. That doesn't mean we couldn't even air the Kanye one.
Oh, no, they would have canceled me. What did he say? Well, it's usual.
I mean, I thought I could talk him out of anti-Semitism. I feel like I did, and then he would like fall back into it.
I just don't think this is a guy who, you know, he's perceiving truth on a different level. It would be the most charitable way to say it.
Yeah, yeah. And I don't want to contribute to anti-Semitism.
He just crosses a line for me. Yeah.
So do you feel a responsibility? I loved Russell Brand's brilliant conversationalist. Yeah.
Did I love the i love the episode i did once again keep two thoughts in your mind at the same time i love the episode and i don't love the accusations about him i i mean all these things i always say if you weren't there don't just just don't pretend you know you don't know no one knows unless there's a film of it, okay? I know Puff Daddy beat the shit out of Cassie because I saw it on video. Oh, yeah.
That's different than I know. You don't know shit.
But do I get the right to form an opinion about what I think is likely? Generally, I go with, you know, if 20 people say it, it's a lot of smoke for being no fire at all. You know what I'm saying? It's a lot.
Do you think with someone like Kanye, hosting hosting this show hosting your other show uh to what extent is like the you you have a feel a sort of sense of obligation to be you make editorial decisions not to have guests or because the reason i ask this is oh you're right one thing we're seeing in like the podcasting world in america is certain characters are going onto long-form podcasts and having free rides, and there's sort of, I would say, Nazi revisionism going on, and World War II revisionism, and, you know, they're going on. Is this about me saying the uniforms look good? I'm not going to recant.
Do you know the question I'm asking? It's sort of with. Yeah.
I mean, who do you platform? Yeah. Is what you're asking.
Yeah. That's a big word on the left.
Yeah, quite. Platform, which means let someone speak who you don't agree with automatically.
Because that's not what we do here at MSNBC. So yes, I'm a big platformer.

I love to rehabilitate people.

I love to have people on.

I had Armie Hammer here.

I think I helped him a lot, Kathy Griffin,

people who they've cast out from the Garden of Eden.

But I would like to say, oh, let's take a little Roseanne.

Let's take another look at this.

Yes, should we judge everyone by their worst moment

Thank you. and have eaten, but I would like to say, oh, let's take a look at this.
Yes, should we judge everyone by their worst moment? Maybe let's not. Maybe let's not do it that way.
But there are people, like I just did not want to contribute to what Kanye is putting out there. It's already way too mainstreamed.
I mean, please, he's all over the media. The fact that they report on it like he's some sort of scamp.
Oh, Kanye, you with your hated Jews, I love Hitler thing. You crazy.
Is it terrible? You're crazy. You're a crazy guy.
He's a crazy guy. He's like Charlie Sheen.
Lots of people are just crazy. And no, that's way worse than anything I've ever done, I think.

Do you think with someone like Kanye, I'm wrong when he does this stuff,

like terrible as it is, I find it funny.

And I don't feel this way about other people doing it.

But when Kanye does it.

It's performance art.

Yeah.

Is what you're saying, right?

Or it's like there's something about Kanye where it's like,

I feel he doesn't quite know what he's saying.

He doesn't.

That's totally true.

It doesn't offend me like others doing it.

No, it's sort of the way you don't hold it against a child.

No offense to you, Kanye, but Richard Pryor used to have that bit, when a kid says you're ugly, you're ugly. You know, and like, you don't hold it against a child for saying, mommy, that man's ugly.
Yeah. Because it, yeah.
I mean, that's not the greatest offense I'd like to have in my life. It's like, hey, I'm childlike.
But yeah, he's got a combination of just a screw loose plus celebrity privilege. I don't think people really understand.
What is celebrity privilege? You're a rock star. You're asking me that.
When you say it, what do you mean mean what i mean is that of all the levels of show business you know the very top of where people lose their shit is music your business sir yeah yeah it just is yeah move thank you movie stars can be close. Comedians, it's just getting sad after this.

Okay.

You know, newsmen.

I mean, you know, I once saw...

Never mind, I can't say that.

No, somebody...

Let's just say, I once saw a 60 Minutes correspondent

trying to get laid, and I've never been sadder in my life.

But okay, so musicians, like rock stars, it's just like, you know, for whatever,

we all love music more than almost anything, a lot of people.

And even if you don't have anything going else in your life,

it's great to have your music.

You know, it's just way up there.

So people, musicians, I've learned this from certainly personal experience with ones I know and just reading about them. There's just a level of being able to live in a bubble above reality that will not affect you.
Here is the world, and you're in a glass-bottom boat, and you can see the sharks and the craziness,

but it's like, oh, there's a shark.

But yeah, but it can't get you.

You're in a glass-bottom boat.

That's Kanye.

It's like, I can say I love Hitler, and yeah.

I mean, will the sharks be trying to get in?

They just can't, because I'm on this.

And music puts you on that level. it makes you uh it deifies it's strange it is right it's it's it's the same behavior this was the keith richards we celebrate him for having been a drug addict for a long time but if he was a politician it would it would be the end of it.
It's a completely different moral standard for musicians. We actually encourage them.
We'd be disappointed if Keith Richards stopped, you know, getting sober. He actually did.
That was boring. He doesn't even smoke anymore.
Oh, really? Yeah, I think that's... But anyway, every day he's playing with the house money.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I wanted to ask you as a comedian, if you're following what's going on with a show like Kill Tony.
Have you seen that show? No, what's that? It's run by Tony Hinchcliffe, and it's kind of like American Idol, but... See the Puerto Rico joke? Yes, exactly.
Okay, for those who don't remember, Trump had a rally, a campaign. He was running for president at Madison Square Garden, I think.
Exactly, yeah. A few months before the election, and all the big, as I recall, conservative stars were there.
It wasn't quite like CPAC. Do you know what CPAC is? It's like a conservative convention?

It is.

I think it's Conservative Political Action Committee.

But it's the big conservative event of the year.

Everybody, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Bulbort,

it's a virtual Woodstock for the mentally impaired.

Okay.

And they have, you know, every conservative, it's like four days, and they flesh out the conservative agenda and then break down into smaller groups to have gay sex, as I understand it. it's not quite like that what we're talking about but it was madison square garden which

now some people tried to make an issue that oh oh, there was a pro-Hitler rally in the 30s. Yeah, and a million basketball games in between, okay? You could just as well say they had it in a place where Bernard King scored 30 points a night.
Shut the fuck up with that bullshit. But, okay, so Tony Hintzliff is this guy who, like, he was the comic who opened for the whole thing.
And he did tell that joke about what's the joke about Puerto Rico? Something like... Being it's a garbage in the...
Something garbage in Puerto Rico. It was not...
It was funny, but wrong, but I don't give a fuck. Because, you know, wrong, I'm sorry.
Life's too short. Unless someone's actually literally hurt by it, I just can't.
So what about Tony Hinchcliffe? The reason I bring it up is he's got this show, and it's the biggest comedy show in America. I think it might even be in the world in terms of views.
Kill Tony. It's a weekly show.
It's out of Rogan's Club in Austin, The Mothership. Okay, sure.
And why it's so interesting to me is that it's the inversion of virtue signaling. It's vice signaling.
That's so brilliant. Yes.
Vice signaling. You've got to copyright that.
That's so exactly on the money. We've had all this political correctness killing comedy, killing the arts for a long time.
And it seems to me that it's burst out in a show. I actually think it's an old show.
I think he's doing it for over 10 years. And I think it's originally from Los Angeles.
But they make fun. They have the comics that go up to try and do their minute and try and impress the world and make it.
A lot of them are literally disabled whoever it is really they will humiliate them if it's a disabled person they humiliate them for being disabled really but it's equal opportunities kind of humiliation and whoever it is they go up there but for me it's so interesting because i really see it as a reaction to everything that's happened all this this uptightness the jokes you can't make. You know what it reminds me of is Howard Stern in the 90s.
Do you know Howard Stern? Okay. You know, the king of all media and I'm friends with him, hopefully still.
We've had ups and downs, but I do love Howard and I'm a great admirer of all his achievements and what actually actually does. And, you know, I can listen to him like I can listen to a few people just kind of on end.
He's just an interesting, charismatic guy, even if it's just his voice. But, like, oh, shoot.
But he would do crazy things, right? He would get, like, girls riding a rodeo on a dildo or something like that. No, what he would do was like what you're just saying about the disabled.
Right. Like he did crazy things.
He made me do a version of Politically Incorrect on his show. But instead of, of course, Politically Incorrect was a show with four guests, but they were purposely kind of mismatched.
The intellectual, the politician, the idiot comedian, you know, this kind of stuff. Okay.
So he made me do one once with like his version of politically incorrect, which was so much more outrageous. I could never have done it on ABC, but in his version, it was a Klansman, a retarded person.
And I can't deny the genius of them coming up with that parody of my show. It was taking my show and going to a level that, and you know, in my darkest moments, am I like, hmm, maybe I really should have done that show.
No, I would not want a Klansman and a retarded person on my real show but for his show and it sounds like that's what tony is doing and that was in the 90s right 90s yeah and so the first wave of political correctness was the end sort of mid 80s right no it goes way i mean politically incorrect that sign that giant sign behind you that is from the fact that in 1993, when that show started, the term politically correct was around, but not incorrect. Right.
It was a way of saying, here, this movement that has started of political correctness, I'm not with it. Right, okay.
I'm not with it. But that movement was in the 80s, right? Not 80s.
I would say it began in the early 90s. Early 90s.
Yes. That's when you start to see kids who get trophies just for participating.
You know, a kind of a victim culture is what you see. Like everything that used to be a sin is now a disease.
I remember having bits about that. Actually, you're right.
That was in the 80s. So it did start in the 80s.
And do you think Howard Stern's show was a reaction to that? Your show obviously was. Correct.
Yes. Yeah.
Okay. Yes.
And I've heard people talk about the success of it because when you listen to it, you were in your car on your way to work. And you were in this safe space just you in your car with the windows rolled up and you could laugh at this stuff that you couldn't and weren't allowed to at home with your wife and at the office with your co-workers but when howard said retarded and klansman and you know and what i think it was a retarded person a Klansman, a prostitute.
Wow. That's full house.
I think. I'm remembering this from years ago, but it was something like that.
And, you know, I mean, I did have to tip my hat to kind of the genius of it. At the time, did it feel great? No, but I went with it.
Oh, you weren't enjoying it? I did, because you know what? I can play that game. I love playing the straight man.
All I had to do was get out of the way, which I know how to do. I just recently did it with Dana Carvey was on my show a couple of weeks ago.
Martin Short was on my show last year doing his Jiminy Glick character. Just do your, I love doing that.
I love doing that when it's one of those crazy, out of the box, not like me, just crazy wild energy comics. That's not my game.
That's not my lane. But love to let them just do their shit and let me just enable you yeah i feel so i feel so good about that and uh so i see what's going on now is a similar sort of valve is this the way you describe it it's like it's a valve for society people secretly listening correct cars correct and so yes the the that for me tells me it's not just killtonia there's all these other comedians i mentioned, Shane Gillis, earlier.
And it's just even using words like gay and retarded again, which you could do back then. And then you couldn't use those words anymore.
And now those words have been rehabilitated. You can say gay.
You can't say like. But you couldn't say gay like gay in a kind of funny.
Right. Stop being gay.
That's so gay. Yeah, that's so gay.
Right. No.
But you could in the 90s you couldn't absolutely and now you kind of get yeah well i don't know i mean you try it and and the fact that we can't is so gay so okay you haven't seen the show but knowing it exists does that give you i'm sorry but that's another one like woke it's like crowdsourced you know what the crowd decided that gay has this other meaning yes we don't mean just strictly homosexuality yeah it just has this other meaning of like i'm sorry that it's connected to gay because it shouldn't be. But it just does.
Woke now, even though people used to call themselves woke, is now just a derogatory term. No one calls themselves woke anymore because the crowd decided it was something else.
So it's kind of... But I'm sorry, what were you going to say? You haven't seen Kill Tony, but knowing that this exists, does that give you hope for the future of like is that a good thing you think that that what gives me hope is that they never got rid of me fuck kill tony i don't know what the fuck he's doing it sounds like he's pandering to one side i'm doing something much more difficult which is not pandering to either side.

I mean, we're not going to talk about the Trump dinner, but, like, you know, I'll just tell you one thing. You'll hear Friday, but now it's already Sunday.
It's hard to keep this in my mind. But there was a moment where he said to me, a lot of people told me that they liked that we're having this dinner, but not all.

And I said to him, same.

A lot of people told me they really liked I'm doing this, but not all.

And we kind of agreed that the people who don't even want us to talk, we don't like you. Yeah.
We're going to talk. I know that bothers some people.
And I don't think those people are, like, being practical. And I don't think it's good for your psychic health.

You know?

Yeah.

So you're leading by example.

I'm just going to talk to everybody.

You know?

I just don't think there's any other alternative,

especially since the left has no power.

It's like, it's one thing to like play hardball

when you got some marbles.

You don't have anything.

You lost everything by being too woke. Sorry, but that's what it was.
And now, just fucking play the hand you're dealt. And that doesn't mean you're surrendering or anything, but I think you're on my page with that yeah well you do on your on your show on the we have a panel of everyone's represented right you try and get everyone everyone's represented and they should be because you've got to get away from the siloed absolutely media and i see more gavin newsom our governor here yeah has a.
And he said, I have Bannon on Friday. Oh, really? Yeah.
This is just coincidence. We didn't book him because this was my day back from the White House dinner.
It just happened that way. But yeah.
But Gavin Newsom, our governor, said he's already done it, started a podcast. But he said, he quoted me, said, you know, I want, or cited me, said, we want that kind of show where we talk to other people.

And I don't know whether, you know, what is your other alternative to that?

Yeah.

You know, so anyway, I'm glad your voice is out there.

And when, you get back here a lot?

I come here maybe four times a year. Call me when you do? Absolutely.
Because, you know, I love to hang out with the rock star. Yeah, poor man.
Bill, thank you so much for having me. That was so much fun.
Yeah, a real pleasure. So much fun.
Thank you so much. Thank you.
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