Club Random with Bill Maher - Winston Marshall | Club Random

Episode Date: April 13, 2025

On this episode, Bill sits down with musician, podcaster and one-time Mumford & Sons banjoist Winston Marshall. The two reflect on Winston’s departure from the band following a social media firestorm over a controversial book endorsement, how that ordeal exposed the intense pressures of “cancel culture” within the music world and why Winston ultimately decided to speak his mind despite the fallout. They dig into England’s shifting cultural landscape, the rise of political correctness in both the UK and America, what it’s like to navigate taboo topics in today’s hyper-partisan climate, Bill’s own battle with early 2000s cancellations, the nuance of “platforming” divisive guests in media, and how comedic irreverence can serve as a release valve against excessive wokeness. They also touch on London’s changing face, the lure of extremist ideologies, the importance of honest dialogue across the political spectrum and much more. Follow Club Random on IG: @ClubRandomPodcast Follow Bill on IG: @BillMaher Go to https://www.ffrf.us/freedom or text "CLUB" to 511511 and become a member today Go to https://zbiotics.com/RANDOM and use RANDOM at checkout for 15% off any first time orders of ZBiotics probiotics. Rula patients typically pay $15 per session when using insurance. Connect with quality therapists and mental health experts who specialize in you at https://www.rula.com/random #rulapod #ad Go to https://www.skechers.com/clubrandom or use code Random for 20% off your first pair of Skechers Hands Free Slip-ins Go to https://OmahaSteaks.com to get 50% off sitewide during their Spring Savings Event. And use Promo Code BILL at checkout for an extra $30 off. Minimum purchase may apply. See site for details. A big thanks to our advertiser, Omaha Steaks! Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you're listening or by using this link: https://bit.ly/ClubRandom Watch Club Random on YouTube: https://bit.ly/ClubRandomYouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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improved mental health and overall well-being. And here's the best part. They take most major insurance plans. That means instead of paying hundreds out of pocket, you could pay as little as $15 per session. Head on over to RULA.com slash random to get started today. Go to RULA.com slash random and take the first step towards better mental health today. You deserve quality care from someone who cares. Club Random is brought to you by Skechers hands-free slip-ins.

I'm thrilled to have discovered Skechers hands-free slip-ins. I don't have to remember to tie my shoes, so don't spend your life bent over touching your shoes, straining your back. Just step in and go with Skechers hand-free slip-ins. Go to Skechers.com slash Club Random or use code RANDOM. Go to Skechers.com slash Club Random to save 20% off your first pair. Terms and conditions may apply. Mumford was cool with it, but Son, not so much. No, I'm joking.

Who was uncool with it? Club Random. 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. Club Random.

Princeton. 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 traveled to get here. I'm most appreciative.

I've been looking forward to talking to you and finding out about your journey. How'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 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 you always got their truth? And then there wasn't there. 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 monologue. And ridiculing work 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? No! Everybody should do what they want. 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. 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 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. Wokest Mania was, I think, 2020. And I wonder what, I'd like to know your opinion on this.

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 gonna kill everybody. Right. I'm not saying it was a bad thing, I'm just saying that did gotta happen. Well, everyone went mad. Everyone was at home 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? 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 peak woke crazy. I remember talking about that with the black square. It reminded me

of 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, 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?

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 sort of seemed to be peak woke. And a lot of looting. I mean, justice shopping. Yeah, is that what they called it? That's what I called it. I'm mocking. No, I mean, look, it's so complicated. But 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.

You have to keep both those thoughts in your mind at the same time. But amid this, and again, I'm not sure what year this is, but it's this- Well, can I take a slight detour on this? Yes, please. 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... 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. 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.

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 like retweeting the worst of the tweets that's crazy like 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.

OK. 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 specific.

Look, he did that salute, which I don't think he meant it. I don't think he was 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 like a troll sleut or do you think it was not actually a sleut? I think it was a total accident. Yeah, right. I just think he's a he's an excitable guy and a bit on the spectrum and you know, if you get excited you might go hell it might look like a Yeah, I don't think he was giving a Nazi salute anymore 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

Teslas and having their cars vandalize, 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. So the chances that the person driving the EV is actually a Democrat is, I think it's more likely. Oh yeah.

I mean, there's no excuse for vandalism or looting. 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 were 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. Nothing to do with the controversy, it was well before that. But I'm sure glad I made the switch. I don't, 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 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, 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 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 wind screen as you British would say. 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 $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 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 all suits. Adidas. Yeah. Hugo Boss, I think, made the uniforms and I got to give it up. They were awesome.

Not the uniforms. They had good seats. 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 The train stations in Milan. Yeah, you go that some of the buildings of beauty 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 we still I still feel I have to caveat on you still feel it. 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, once you start something, you get a certain amount 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 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 everyone 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 crowd-sourced. 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.

Penises in the women's locker room. You know. 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 gonna 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 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,, 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 sign. 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. Four 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 saw a queue as I walked in.

Beautiful women. Oh, well, you know, please. As they 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. Um. Let's face it, after a night with drinks, I don't bounce back the next day like I used to and I hate to waste a day.

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While you're there, you can catch up on all of our recent episodes and then head over to the merch store to pick up some swag and bring some random home. 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 it, the middle of wokeness and you had bought a book online. Yes, I bought a book. What was it? 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, 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 feel like I read, am I wrong? Again, allegedly, but I feel like there was a shark involved. I mean-

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 Noe. 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 a force of importance.

It wouldn't for the kids at Columbia who are marching for Hamas. Yeah, quite. at Columbia who are marching for Hamas. Quite. Yeah, I read through the Columbia University apartheid divest substack and it's all pro-Hamas, pro-Hutis, pro-Hezbollah, pro-Nazrallah. 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 Son, not so much. No, I'm joking. But who was uncool with it?

Well, after 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. Was that 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. 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 briefly spoke to Shane Gillis, the comedian, about. Because he went for a cancellation at SNL. And he's talked about this on his show, but in this period, 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 white hot light.

It's over here, these people, and they're in the barrel, and then suddenly it's like, that's, and it feels. But also, 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 you're in the course of a day, you're 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't worry. It won't happen again. Terrible thing to say. No, it's pretty accurate. It's kind of funny. Come on. 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 he'd been attacked previously. He was physically attacked. He was physically attacked previously. As I recall, right? Twice. So 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 like driving me crazy. And I felt like I was one of the bad guys to... Was the band close at that point or were you going through, I mean, cause Mumford & Sons was huge. You're still big, you still sell out the Hollywood Bowl like three nights in a row. But there was a time when they were like,

and this is a little after that, but like, you know, winning all the Grammys, and there's like an it band. We had a period. 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. 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. Yeah. Two, you didn't like my song. Yeah. Two, you took that girl. Is that wrong or right? Band dynamics are crazy. Like you're living with these people,

you're working with them, you go away for months at a time. And when you're starting out as a band, you're like, we're quite literally sharing beds for like 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 relation. I mean, as a Beatle nut, I know all the stories.

And among them, my favorite is they would do these gigs in the rear right leading up to Beatlemania, 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, and they would be lying on top of each other in the back of the van for warmth.

That's a tight band. That'll get you tight. But then 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 going to sound a bit gay but I'm actually quite romantic about that period that we had in that band because there's a, you know, you're traveling, you're sharing

the world for the first time 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 so yeah we had that in 2012 2013 and we won the Grammys around then and it was 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 is 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 bands of folk acoustic instruments that came up around that period. Fleet Foxes, Luminiers were about then, and back in Britain it was Noor and the Whale, Laura Marling. Yeah, there's always like five versions of the DVR that comes out and nobody uses Betamax. I'm sorry, but that's just the way 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, for, and that the subconscious, the sort of collective subconscious wanted acoustic music at that point, having had many sort of decades of synthetic music and life was synthetic to a point. Oh, you mean like auto-tune? Yeah, auto-tune or synths or just electronic music. Now, I like electronic music. It's not a dig against you very much

But I think that that the whole wave that whole movement was a kind of reaction to what had happened in 2008 So I sort of see it as it and and I think it was a reaction of people leaving their Phone messages at the beginning of their record messages at the beginning of their record. Oh yeah. Yeah, we had about 10 years of that, didn't we? Eminem and... Get me a little banjo. I cannot listen to this guy talking.

I remember that. 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. blah, blah, blah. Yeah, quite. And so they wanted something more helpful. I see that it was reflected in the songwriting as well.

Yeah, I think you're right about that. And so all of the, 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 the book gate, Mr. Noh, and Mr. Noh'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, 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. Quite. But at the time of Bookgate, where was the band, 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, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah. You know, it just, it's got to 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, 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 don't read, yes I don't read any more books, no not quite, but that I put the apology out. And really by all of them, they all signed on to that. Right. Wow. So I wish I'd attacked them instead of them. They all signed on to that right? Wow, so so wish I'd attacked them

Instead of you what we're making it right now and We the the I came to the conclusion that I had to withdraw basically that it's the apology note that was really Burdening like that was sort of under coercion. It's a little bit of a hostage video. I will say that I chose to do it. And so I take responsibility for that. Good for you.

But it is a little bit of a hostage video. And I did want to make it right by the... I wanted to make it right by that. And I know, I'll go further. I'd say that I was, like I was saying earlier, I was genuinely contrite and I was- 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 tape my show. I couldn't.

Really? 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. 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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So much so, they back all of their meats with an unconditional 100% money-back guarantee. Bring home the world's best steak experience with Omaha Steaks. I'll add to that. extra $30 off with promo code Bill at checkout. See site for details. I'll add to that. For a lot of people, 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 although I've criticized cancel culture, I understand when people are in these positions and I'm sympathetic towards it. 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 every time. And I want you to finish that thought, but I'm just gonna put this in context. You know, stand behind, yeah, just going to put this in context. 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, he has the credentials to say, I was really standing behind it. I mean, he wrote the Gulag Archipelago. 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 an archipelago, in other words, a chain of prisons. Yep, absolutely. You know, 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. Yep, 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, sorry. 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. But 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. 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. There's barbed wire all around the house and around the property boundaries and 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 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 the 70s and the 80s. It was a junta. It was a dictatorship, as most of South America was in that era. And if you were distant, you would just, one day you're on the street and the next day you're,

we've all seen this scene in the movie, they put the hood over you and put you in the back seat. You're just never seen again. Who are you referring to? What incidents are you referring to under Trump? He's just people who he has taken off the street claiming that they are Venezuelan gang members. And we know at least some of them are definitely not.

One guy was, 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. And that story, which I don't know the full of it But I I think it's the one where he ended up in the Salvador prisons

And yes, and they're sending them to I mean, it's it's it's just certainly something America has never done And to my view should not be involved in doing sending sending anyone to just 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. We all want to get rid of the gangs. I agree. I don't want to get killed by a gang member. Gang members, they very often have to shoot some rando as their initiation.

Well, I don't want to be somebody's teardrop. Okay? Tattoo. somebody's tear drop, okay, tattoo. I don't want to be that guy who was sacrificed so you could get your tear drop, you know? But I also don't want to live in a country where you disappear people. So, you know, let's not become the Soviet Union. I mean, one of the things that liberals of former age

Right, you know, I mean one of one of the things that liberals of a former age really have to answer for is They loved Stalin a lot of them in the 30s and And a lot of conservatives liked Hitler liberals or socialists, I don't I mean I don't get into the semantics of it, but 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're talking about, I mean, the Depression happens in 1929. Stalin was newly, he became, becomes Premier of Russia 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 Beatty's brilliant movie, Reds. learn about this in an entertaining way, watch Warren Beatty's brilliant movie Reds. But communism was not seen as an evil then,

because 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 Tragovera t-shirts still. And we talk about the riots and BLM stuff, but the Antifa side of it, they were communist. And we wouldn't tolerate them supporting Nazi ideology. 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. We know it.

The kids don't know it. But that's inexcusable. It's, well the- 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've seen some of the TikToks of teachers. These are, 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 be, 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 like I didn't like girls until I was 12. Did you? Does that make you a homosexual? Well... You were 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. Are you still, 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. Never trusted them.

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. Yeah Well, I went to a woman's rights march in Dublin and there were there was an anti woman's rights much

Or they would probably call it like a pro trans march, but they were they had placards with Lenin's face on. Oh sure and so You say that the teachers but and I agree with you that it's teachers who are pro-commons, but I don't understand. 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 dumbass teachers out there. And the idea that they're actually teaching kids 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 polled recently that Stalin is still considered the greatest leader. Absolutely, people like a strong man. Yeah, that's right.

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 even- Saddam was a bad guy, but I'll say this. When the soccer team did not do well, Uday and Husay 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. 9-11, yes. Where were you? How old were you? I was in school. In 20, 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 not? Well, it was a, 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 or no Right, okay, and I 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, you know, 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 you know, but it was on the right here in America. In the music industry, was it Tripp Gore and the sort of parents? Tipper Gore. Tipper Gore. Yeah. And the parents were wanting to censor all the, rappers was it?

And musicians. 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 of 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 is 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. But... So how did the cancellation affect you emotionally, like back in 2001? 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 a 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 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 November, September 11th to 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 917. And we, and that's a guy on the panel, a super hard 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 dysjockey in Texas who, this was so instructive about it, 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 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 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. 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 their dogpile, you know, Jordan Peterson is this terrible, I don't know what words they use, probably said Nazi or something like that. And they go- You're either a hippie or a Nazi. There's no in between. Yes. You're both. So, yeah, 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. 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? It's a lot so. 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.

You know who that is? Sorry, I don't mean if we don't want you 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, 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, was like one of our big sponsors, and they were gonna pull out. And we got on the phone, and I've never met him in person, although we did lie to my face over the phone. And I think he's ex-military. And 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. Just, you know, there's not a moral dimension to being brave. You can be brave in the cause of something evil. You know, it's not that hard to understand. Anyway, but that didn't work. Anyway, but that didn't work. And then, you know, 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, or you know, it was just, it just meant to be stupid in a way, but also revealed a lot of people loved it. I loved it. It was right for the time. But after that, the country was in a more somber moon.

So the shows were more gravitas. They were more like substantive people on the show. Gone was Paulie Shore. And In was like some expert on Middle East history, you know, stuff like that. So I, 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 anywhere. Yeah. that we lost our audience. We didn't. My audience never goes anywhere. Maybe I'm not doing Taylor Swift numbers, but they never leave. I think that's really key. The market doesn't care. The media classes care, but the people actually don't care. The best example of that is Kanye West. He can put out the most crazy anti-Smith. I think, I don't know if this was a joke or not, but someone, I saw a post on X that his new album cover was just a Swastika and that he was the logo for Sunday Service's, 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 in it. But he's still going to sell tickets by the bucket loads. 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 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 in the 19th century. 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... I 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. What's 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, like 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. 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 into Went crazy after the Tories their last tenure. And the problem we've got now, we have terrible problems of social cohesion.

This riots all through last year, it's that we had no long... 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 some Prince Charles, Prince, King Charles, was somewhere, like some hallowed British place from 1,000 fucking years ago.

And they did the call to prayer from there. Do you know what I'm talking about? There was at the beginning of Easter, sorry, at the beginning of Lent, they- 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. And so- The Anglican church. He's head of the Anglican church, yeah.

The king is the head of the Anglican church. Yes. That goes back to Henry VIII of the Anglican Church, yeah. The king is the head of the Anglican Church. Yes. That 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 was a shaggot.

Just as long as we know where this is coming from. He was a shaggot. He was 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. 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 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 feel, 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. Well, I know. I mean, I don't want to hear anybody's prayer. It's not, I'm not, I don't want to do something five times a day. I would push back, which is that... Masturbate.

That's what I do five times a day. Hopefully not in this chair. And it reminded me. I'm like, oh yeah. Then go at it. The American declaration, there is God in it. 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. 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.

A new religion. 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 being big into God when you got the robot there. I mean, they say that's only maybe five years away. Just like we've seen it in a million movies, the, hello, what can I do for you? People will have their fucking robots around. And why will 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 to enforce a seventh 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 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 gotta have dinners? And of course, because the hip music crowd wants the place that's most outre. 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. 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 like, it's not like a,

not what we call five star. You know, it's like authentic, that kind of shit, which I'm like too old for to begin with. And I'm looking at like, there was some hard looks on the street, that was all I'm gonna 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, 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, but not in that neighborhood, it's not.

And 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 they're a think tank, Henry Jackson Society. Henry Jackson Society? Yeah.

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. The- So does my agent. A third of British Muslims want Sharia law. And so the real- Sharia law, that's a problem.

That's a problem. That's a problem. And so we've got a real problem with these two groups mixing. This is the difference between your country and mine. In my country, Muslims have assimilated well. 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, 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 pun. You know, it's like, come on. Well, 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, there's different people think coming to America. Oh, please, there's plenty of people here who don't work. I promise you there are plenty of people.

You're starting to sound like a conservator. There's a lot of people on this. There are a lot of, I was 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, who, like pandemic, okay, that never went back into the workforce, even though there were jobs open.

There's just a lot of people who, like, how do you live? I just, that's the one question I want, how do you live? You don't seem to have any sort of actual job. Not just men, certainly women too, personally out here. Like how do you live? Well 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 serum. free questions, but they had to take to the truth fair. 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. It works both ways. I mean, on 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 something else that it was spun that way.

Okay. It was spun that way and it was sort of that way from some 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 good person and they deserve to live in America and that's ridiculous. And the conservatives go too far which in the direction of just take them off the street. I don't have any evidence he's in a gang but you know what? You got to a few eggs. And like, could we ever land in the middle?

No, that's my big issue. We never land in the middle. 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 you have a big following now, because 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 Woke Town. 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 now. Me too. Yeah. 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 out already. The American political space seems to be sort of tearing into different factions. So yeah, I guess I agree. 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 these were all like Pakistani or Indian guys.

And this is like in the Midlands, the middle of- It's actually up and down the country. So there'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 kuffa, because they're not Muslim. And it's also affected Hindu communities as well. And it's playing out even yesterday, I woke up to the news that the Labour government are not going to do a full inquiry into it. And it's for some reason, unbelievable. And this went on for like 20 years. Because some of the girls have been brutally murdered, right. And at least 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, the prosecution of her murderers,

there was an audio recording played of the murderer laughing about cutting her up and putting her in the kebab meat. Horrific as all of that is, the way in which the establishment, conservative and labor, the Westminster Uniparty and 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.

And it's- What I read about it is that the press downplayed it as did the officials looking into it because they did not wanna 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 then there's another example, like the Manchester Arena attack in 2017 at the Ariana Grande concert. Oh, yeah. One of the security guards didn't approach the, I think he's a Libyan, the killer was a, 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, I mean, it's really a rape gang scandal. That was the case at every, every single level from the councils to was the case at every single level, from the councils to the police. There was an example of 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... Do you blame the media for not making this more... 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 look 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... 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. And it has to do with the sacred cows that we dare not say the Catholic Church is actually what it is. Which, and you look, I look. I 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, this is a far-right talking point. You just see that there's a big part of the country that really just write 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 shut down. You can just tell when they don't want to make it a story because it just doesn't feed their narrative. And their narrative is multiculturalism. Their narrative, and they're going to stick to their story, is that cultures are different, but they're all alike, really. No, 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 religion is just an opinion. And it's about ideas. And ideas matter. And when the idea is that, 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. 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, hate the sinner, love the sinner, and like will convert you. And Islam is more like, no, this is the way it is. This is the superior religion. You either get that 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. And that's not a good

attitude. 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 will be repercussions, I think that would actually stop. I would hope it would massively decrease anyway. 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, still the mayor, right? Yes, 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 Etusain, they have been unbelievably ostracized from their community for speaking out on these issues.

Even ostracized from American liberals. Liberals. 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, what Trump achieved in 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 are in the West are at doing it. 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 D 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. And 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, this is a recommend. 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, one of the abs. One of those abs.

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 black-pilled. 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. Yeah.

Yeah. I fuck you. Shit, you're not. Yeah. That's a real thing. I had an experience through the pandemic. I was working at a food bank near my house. You work at a food bank?

In the pandemic I did. Jesus Christ, rock star, great looking, you work at a food bank. This is a fucking lifetime movie waiting to happen. But 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 they couldn't come inside, so they had to queue outside. And I would get their order and then go inside and then come out.

And there was a line of literally five women in full neck abs. And I took the order, went in, came back out, and they're all looking 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 their neck and show me that they're smiling. It was like the most sweet, wonderful little exchange. Yeah. 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? Well that must have been so hot. He said, how'd it go? I said, she had great eyes. Ah!

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 any cab or something like that? Well, Ray Charles, blind. You're familiar?

Very familiar. What do you think of Ray Charles? I love Ray Charles. Yeah, okay, so good well, you know Ray blind he would he would squeeze their wrists 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 say I Saw that in the Jamie Foxx movie

from like 2005, and ever since then, I can't get it out of my mind, and he's not wrong. I can't say I've put this to the test for 20 years. The man is not wrong. Did you get to feel the wrist of your Knick-Hab date? My what? Your Knick-Hab date? Right, that's what I should know.

What do you mean 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, what's where all the Russians live, like something. Yeah, Knightsbridge or. Like London grad.

Something like, 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 had to, they weren't, they weren't allowed to keep their assets there or something like that, they were forced to sell. Oh yeah, there 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, every year, up to a million a year. London is the place where they come. It's almost like a feudal system, 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. There's no chance with the amount of money they make doing that, or Uber 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 start 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 or in LA.

The cops live in Simi Valley. It's a long way out there. So you live out there? I live in London. The band did well. I'm fortunate I can afford to live there. I live in London. The band did well. I'm fortunate I can afford 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 mean 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. Yeah. Have drive. From Abbey Road? Yeah. Oh. Yeah. Oh, you've 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, okay. 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, uh, Russell Brand. No.

No. Do you want to talk about Russell Brand? Are you following his story? Oh, he's been here. He's out there. Oh yeah? How did that go? I mean, Kanye's also been there. I loved them both.

I loved both nights. That doesn't mean we couldn't even air the Kanye one They would have cancelled 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 and then he would like we're gonna fall back into it You know, I just don't think this is a guy who you know You know, 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. And I don't want to contribute to anti-Semitism.

He just crosses a line for me. But you know- So do you feel a responsibility? I loved Russell Brand's brilliant know brilliant conversationalist. Yeah. Did 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 accusation. 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 this show, hosting your other show, to what extent is like the, you have a sort of sense of obligation to be, you make editorial decisions not to have guests or... Yes. 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 on to 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. It's just about me saying the uniforms look good. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. I'm not gonna recant. Do you know the question I'm asking? It's sort of with...

Yeah, I mean, who do you platform? Yeah. That's what you're asking. That's a big word on the left. 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 it helped him a lot. Kathy Griffin, people who like, they've cast out from the Garden of Eden. But I would like to say, oh, let's take a look, Roseanne, let's take another 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 wanna contribute to what Kanye's 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 hate to choose I love Hitler thing. You're crazy. You're a crazy guy. He's a crazy guy. He's like Charlie Jean. 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, like, 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, he doesn't quite, I feel like he doesn't quite know what he's saying.

He doesn't. So he doesn't offend me like others doing it. No, it's sort of the way you don't hold it against the child. No offense to you, Kanye, but you know, when 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 the child for saying mommy, that man's ugly. Because it, yeah, I mean, that's not the greatest defense

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. But when you say it, what do you 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. It is, yeah. Thank you. Movie stars can be close, but not quite.

Comedians, it's just getting sad after this. Okay, you know, newsmen, I mean, you know, I once saw, nevermind, I can't say that. Okay, 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. You are, 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, they try to get in, but just can't because I'm on this, and music puts you on that level. It makes you, it deifies. It's strange. It is, right? It's the same behavior. Do you miss it? 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 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, went sober. He actually did.

Oh, that was boring. You know, he doesn't even smoke anymore. Oh, really? Yeah, I think that's... But anyway, he's every day playing with the house money. 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 Joker? 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, 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 Balbord, it's a virtual woodstock for the mentally impaired. 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 have tried to make an issue that, 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 Hinslith 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. 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 sorry life's too short Unless someone's actually literally hurt by it. I just can't so well the reason I'm not Tony Hedgewood The reason I bring 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 Killed killed Tony's a weekly show is out of Rogan's Club in Austin, the mothership. And why it's so interesting to me is that it's the inversion of virtue signaling. It's vice signaling. Correct. 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 like this. I actually think it's

an old show. It's been 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. And whoever it is, they will humiliate them. If it's a disabled person, they humiliate them for being disabled. 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 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 he actually does, and I'm a great admirer of all his achievements and what he 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 shit, but he would do crazy things right he would get like go writing a radio 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. 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.

No, 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, like 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? Yeah, it goes way, I mean, politically incorrect. 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. It was a way of saying, here, this movement that has started of political correctness, I'm not with it. I'm not with it. Right, okay. So 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 like 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, so it did start in the 80s. And do you think Howard Stern's show was a reaction to that?

Your show actually 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 so 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 coworkers. But when Howard said retarded and Klansman, and I think it was a retarded person, the Klansman, oh, prostitute. Wow, that's full house. I think, I'm remembering this from years ago, but it was something like that. And 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 there'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. I feel so good about that. So I see what's going on now as a similar sort of valve. The way you describe it there, it's like it's a valve for society, people secretly listening in their cars. And so that, for me, tells me it's not just Kiltonia, there's all these other communions I mentioned, Shane Gillis earlier, and it's not just Kilterne, there's all these other communions I mentioned,

Shane Gillis, earlier, and it's just that even using words like gay and retarded again, which you could do back then, and then you couldn't use those words anymore. Now those words have been rehabilitated. We can say gay. You can't say like... 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. So being gay. That's so gay. Yeah, that's so gay. Right, no. You could in the 90s, you couldn't in the 90s. Absolutely. And now you can again. Yeah, well, I don't know. I mean, you try it.

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 something? I'm sorry, but that's another one like woke. It's like crowd sourced. You know what? The crowd decided that gay has this other meaning. Yes, we don't mean just strictly homosexuality. 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.

And 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? What gives me hope is that they never got rid of me. Fuck Kil 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 gonna talk about the Trump dinner, but I'll just tell you one thing. You'll hear Friday, but now it's already Sunday. It's so hard to keep this in my mind. But there was a moment where he said to me, 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 gonna 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 like, 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's represented and they should be because that's a getaway from the siloed absolutely media and I see more Gavin Newsom our governor here has a new podcast. He had Bannon on. 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, he said, you know, I want, or cited me, he said, we want that kind of show where we talk to other people.

And I don't know other, 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 Thoughts made four times a year call me when you do absolutely If you know I love to hang out the rocks Formal thank you so much fun. Yeah, real pleasure much fun. Thank you. Thank you

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