Viral podcaster and comedian Russell Brand clapped back at critics dog-piling on him for appearing on a number of Fox News shows, calling him a “right-wing conspiracy theorist,” reminding them that in 2014 he protested outside Fox News headquarters and was threatened with being arrested.

Brand has given interviews to Fox News’s Greg Gutfeld and Tucker Carlson recently where he blasted COVID mandates and castigated leftist networks such as MSNBC as corporate “propaganda.” His latest podcast has Brand explaining his motivation for appearing on Fox News shows. But he claims the idea that somehow he’s morphed into a “right-wing conspiracy theorist” is just nuts.

(Video Credit: Russell Brand)

“I went on Tucker Carlson and Greg Gutfeld’s Fox News shows leading the neo-liberal establishment to attack me as a right-wing conspiracy theorist,” he recounted.

Brand admits that he disagrees with conservatives on a lot of issues, especially culturally. But he’s willing to sit down and talk with those such as Carlson in order to connect on the growing skepticism of “centralized power.”

Here’s John Heilemann (@jheil) asking Russell Brand (@rustyrockets) for an example of an MSNBC host knowingly lying on air.

I ACCEPT THIS CHALLENGE!! pic.twitter.com/ugGqeZG6XM

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) March 6, 2023

“Both of us came to it knowing that both of us would presumably disagree about a lot of issues. I, broadly speaking, belong to what you might call the cultural left. He’s a conservative person, you might say. We were surprised in fact about how many things we agreed upon, I suppose because we both agree with individual and community freedom,” Brand commented.

“What I learned from my conversations with figures from the conservative right, let’s call them… is that there is a new willingness to form new alliances in order to be able to attack a centralized establishment authoritarian power, i.e., explicitly people that are conservative and right-wing are willing to have a truce with and alliances with people that are really progressive,” he pointed out during his podcast.

“They are, in fact, willing to accept that the only way forward for us is to have more democratic power and autonomy in our communities. And the price for having autonomy and authority in your own community, and I mean power that is achieved democratically, is to allow other people to have their own power and authority in their own community. However, centralized power wants of course a centralized authoritative institutionalized power to dictate what is possible and benefits from ongoing cultural conflagration,” he contended.

(Video Credit: Fox News)

Brand played a clip showing him outside the Fox News headquarters in 2014, where he tried to get inside the building to do an interview with Sean Hannity in an effort to show he hasn’t gone over to the conservative side of politics.

“Bear in mind that just a few short years ago, I did this at Fox News,” the comedian remarked.

He’s seen in the clip being asked by a security guard if he wants to get arrested after Brand refuses to leave. Brand attempted to get in the building and jokingly asked if he could just go to where they film Hannity’s show and “touch some stuff.”

“Whether the subject is Islamophobia or just the freedom to be in a lobby, Fox is a difficult organization to work with,” Brand declared at the time.

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