Back in September, media outlets around the world, almost all of them here in the West and English speaking in the world,

ran headlines that shocked a lot of readers and viewers. Russell Brand, the movie star, the comedian, now the podcaster, was a sex criminal, a bad man, a sex criminal.

Now none of the outlets ran the names of the accusers, who had been sexually abused by Russell Brand, that was

conspicuously absent, but the judgment was overwhelming. This is a very bad man and

it needs to be taken out of public view for the sake of the rest of us.

What was interesting about this is that in fact it was the final scene in a long movie that had been playing out for the preceding couple of years

outside of public view. This was an attempt to make Russell Brand shut up.

Russell Brand has views that diverge from those of most Western governments on big issues, not small things, big issues, questions of economic policy and war and peace.

And they decided we have to make this man be quiet. Why Russell Brand? Well because in

contrast to a lot of us who give our opinions for a living, Russell Brand had the

capacity to win people over from the other side. He hadn't spent a life identified with the far right, just the opposite.

Russell Brand was a man of the left and to most people a cultural figure.

Everyone knows who Russell Brand is. And so he had the power, the capacity, to persuade, and that was the threat.

So we thought it would be interesting to go through in some detail what happened to Russell Brandt. None of this has ever been

aired before. The censorship campaign against him began with governments, not

private organizations, but governments, their intel services, and their policy makers.

And as we said, it played out outside public view.

And we thought it would be very interesting and important

for people to know what exactly happened.

And so to find out, we are now joined by Russell Brand

himself and we're grateful to be. Russell Brand thank you so much.

Tucker, thanks for having me here. So I didn't know any, I just want to say I didn't

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