Nuances to the Russell Brand Story and His Defenders, with Megyn Kelly, Jim Geraghty & Maddy Kearns

Let's touch on Russell Brand because that's been the story dominating the news waves for the past four days now. These three news organizations in the UK did a years-long investigation into him, coming up with multiple women who say that he sexually assaulted them. In one case, he allegedly raped a woman. She went to a rape crisis center. She then received counseling for five months, according to the reports, at that rape crisis center. Thereafter, from the trauma, the alleged trauma, she gave over her underwear and so on to be frozen as evidence. She declined to press charges because she did not want a public battle with Russell Brand. All of this happened allegedly 10 years ago. Another, one of the accusers says, and now she's an adult, but she says she was 16 years old when he began grooming her, that they had a sexual affair. I don't even think that's the right word, but they were having sex with one another for three months and that he did ultimately finally force himself on her to the point where she cried. She had to shove him off of her, punch him in the stomach to get him off of her, and that he said something to the effect of, I only wanted to see your mascara run anyway. And there are others. There are others. Maddie, this is such an interesting case to me for many reasons. By the way, the headline today is that he's been demonetized on YouTube, which I actually have some problem with. I mean, I tend to believe there's plenty of evidence against Russell Brand, unlike some of these Me Too situations. I don't think his relationship with his audience and his ability to make money should be cut off on cases that are 10 years old that he hasn't yet thoroughly had the chance to digest or respond to. I know they gave him eight days to look at the story, but that's not enough. These are very big and they could get him in trouble criminally and civilly, and he should be given a realistic chance to address these charges one by one. But there's been a division, a real division now in response on this. And so many of my friends, people I like and really respect and admire, have gone to the, we defend Russell Brand place. Just, that's what we're doing. We're sick of Me Too. We're sick of this bullshit. We're sick of seeing men's careers completely demolished based on anonymous allegations. And these are anonymous, at least to us, though I'm sure Russell Brand knows if he slept with a 16 year old or not for three months. And I've been saying, keep an open mind. I think there's a lot of evidence in this case, unlike so many others. And we should not change believe all women, which was absurd, into believe no women, which is equally absurd. And I have had women texting me and contacting me privately now for the past three days in tears. Women who are more conservative leaning, or who are at least moderate liberals, who felt a new alignment with a lot of these guys on the right who are commenting on this, especially in the digital lane, and feel very upset and angry that there are so few voices at least saying, let's keep an open mind. They're not even saying that. The reaction has been, it's bullshit. And some people online are actually saying she was 16. Where's her responsibility in this? My God, what are you saying? The conservative movement for the past two years has been losing its mind rightfully over the fact that they're trying to trans 16 year olds. They're letting 16 year olds make decisions about cutting off their breasts or going on puberty blockers and cross sex hormones. And now we wanna pretend that they're fully capable of making decisions about having sexual relations with megastars who stop them on the street, allegedly take them home and try to woo them into the bedroom. That she completely can consent to. But no, we can't let her make a decision on a hormone. Bullshit, be consistent, right? The whole thing is upsetting me because of the players who are involved. But what do you make of it? So I agree with you that the allegations appear when you look through the Times report, it appear credible that whether they're true or not, that's something that will hopefully come to light. I mean, I don't know whether the Met police are going to prosecute these individual cases that have been reported on. I think that depends on whether the victims go to the police. They have received at least one report of sexual assault from brand. And so there will be a criminal trial, but they certainly appear credible. As you say, there's a lot of evidence there. It's also not hugely surprising. I mean, this is a guy who's launched to fame was off the back of being so promiscuous. I mean, he was celebrated as being this wildly promiscuous person who claims he's slept with like over a thousand women. How he can say with confidence what all of those sexual encounters were like, I don't know. I don't know how he can possibly remember that. You know, I don't remember. I know it's a different thing. I don't remember everybody's hand I've ever shaken and, you know, the details of it. I don't know how, if you have that many human encounters, you can you can claim to remember it, especially when drugs and alcohol are involved. And he's obviously spoken a lot in the past about his his addictions. So it seems at first glance to be to be credible with with regard to the people who are jumping to his defense prematurely. I think there's an element of correctly identifying that a lot of people who were complicit in the rise of brand maybe even covered for him when he was, you know, working for for the TV channel and so on. There's there's an element that those people are now delighting in this new information, but they were complicit in in his position of power to begin with. That's true. There's, you know, there's a double standard. There's also, you know, the element of the that the media that cried rape, you know, the boy who cried wolf, the media who cried rape. They just we've been through this so many times with me, too, that, you know, oh, here comes another. That's that's the kind of instinct. And then and then there's also just the the logic of my enemy's enemy is my friend and brand, of course, in the last few years has has established himself as an alternative media broadcaster, skeptical of mainstream media, skeptical of a lot of people that maybe Ben Shapiro and others also dislike. And so there's a kind of loyalty, a kind of bro loyalty there. But to me, one of the interesting and disturbing factors of this case is that we seem to have reached a point where the only behavior anybody cares about or is willing to call unacceptable is criminal behavior. We used to have this whole other category. It wasn't necessarily rape, but it was taking advantage. And that was when a guy used either, you know, his celebrity, his influence, maybe, you know, maybe preyed upon somebody younger or somebody who was just in love with him and he was just interested in using her for sex or or somebody who had had too much drink. They weren't necessarily unconscious and capable of verbally contending at the time, but like they they weren't in a really in a great position to make a good judgment. And he knew that. And he took advantage. Right. And that person we used to call a cad. We used to say that that person has behaved shamefully. Certainly conservatives, I would have thought, especially social conservatives, would say that person should be deeply ashamed of themselves. And one of the heartbreaking things I read, the Times report and the description of the mother of this 16 year old girl who was who was aware of what was aware that there was a relationship between her daughter and Brand, who I think at one point I could be misremembered. I think what was actually driving her. Dropped her off there and he kissed her on the mouth and she still left her 16 year old behind. Right. And she left her 16 year old there. And she said to the Times, you know, what could I do? It was legal. And you're like, this is what this is what happens when there's an emphasis on a consent only like moral framework for sexual ethics is the only thing that matters if it's legal. OK. And in the UK, a 16 year old can consent to sex and therefore it's legal and therefore it's fine. No, I'm sorry. There's even if even if the one incident in that report where he's alleged to have sexually assaulted that 16 year old, even if that particular incident didn't happen, the rest of it is still appalling. The rest of it is still completely immoral and awful. And and the fact that this was celebrated at the time, I understand why people are getting annoyed that these people who were like, oh, yeah, well, like, look at Brand. He's so funny. He gets so many girls like he I think he's awarded like shagger of the year or something. You know, the same people who are fine with that are now like, oh, you know, rapists like just we're so delighted that this right winger is a rapist. I get I get being annoyed at them, but but to me, the bigger issue is like, I'm sorry, Russell Brand, even if he's not guilty of rape, he's still not the victim here. He's I don't even think he is a right winger. I don't consume his particular brand of commentary, Jim, but I think he's more conspiratorial than anything. I heard I was very happy to hear Piers Morgan, Douglas Murray, Ian Hayworth, who's been on the show with a much more measured position on him. I just think as you know, you tell me, but as a conservative man and as somebody who's more right leaning myself, woman, we don't need him. Why? Why would anybody expend capital defending this guy? We have absolutely lovely, brilliant, honorable, thinking, polite, respectful men everywhere on this side of the aisle. And frankly, there's a lot on the other side of the aisle, too. But I'm just saying there's no need to own Russell Brand or make sure he doesn't get diminished in the face of these incredibly weighty charges. Yeah. If there's anything we've learned since, oh, say, the summer of 2015, and I am not picking that time period at random, that if you are a celebrity who is the least bit not even conservative anti-establishment, shall we say, anti-authority, skeptical of the center left authority that you get in government, in media and places like that, man, there are conservatives who will line up to defend you like it's World War One. They will go into that trench warfare. They will suit up and they will go over the top to defend the good name of Russell Brand, who's been on their side for, I believe, a whole 20 minutes or so. And so, look, one of the other things I want to emphasize that, look, these charges are serious. And whenever you hear an accusation that has a lot of specifics, a lot of details, it makes it seem more credible. It's not guaranteed. But when there's not a lot of details, then you start wondering, OK, is this person trying to hide something like this? None of us, or very few of us, I should say, actually know what happened between Russell Brand and these women. We may think we know. We may have very strong beliefs about what likely happened. And again, there are reasons we can look at the account of an accuser. Is it a specific time, specific place? Can we verify that they were in that time and place? Can we verify that the accused was in that time and place? Are there circumstantial evidence? Are there witnesses? All kinds of other things that come together. Think back to the Brett Kavanaugh hearings and the lack of corroboration of the account of his accuser. I think that's a very big deal, right? Look, there are a lot of people in this world who are absolutely convinced, I can spot a liar when I see one. Actually, you can't. And to verify it, I'd like to say, I want to check your attic to see if you have any Milli Vanilli records. I'm pretty sure a whole bunch of people are really convinced. 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