(PHONE RINGS)
(PHONE RINGS)
- Hey, Thomas.
- Hey. What's up?
Are you watching the news?
(CHANTING)
These f*cking g*ons sacking
the Capitol.
Police circle.
Breached the line. We need backup.
Unprecedented in American history.
This dude in the buffalo helmet.
He's standing in the Senate.
This is wild sh*t.
Proud Boys, stand back,
and stand by.
You know there's going to be
Proud Boys there.
These are his guys. America knows
who Gavin McInnes is now.
Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes.
- Gavin McInnes.
- Gavin McInnes.
We are called the Proud Boys.
One of the most dangerous
extremist organisations in America.
How does he end up here?
I am a proud Western chauvinist.
I go from the guy
who put Vice Magazine on the map...
The coolest dude in New York media.
He hired me.
And he was basically my mentor
for the first few years
I was writing.
How the f*ck did this guy,
lined up, you know,
sort of like right-wing guru.
I don't remember
being punched in the face.
I wasn't drunk,
this was in the daytime.
- Mexico sucks because of Mexicans.
- (HOST SCOFFS)
What have they contributed
to society in the past 100 years?
Tacos.
Russia sucks. China sucks.
The Middle East is not
my cup of tea.
Everybody who knew him
has different theories about
what happened,
why he went the direction he did.
I would say that's
a compelling sort of subject.
Getting to
the bottom of this
would be a good use of our time.
(THEME MUSIC)
(THEME MUSIC CONTINUES)
(THEME MUSIC)
(THEME MUSIC CONTINUES)
(AIRPORT HUBBUB)
Check your forward journey.
(DIAL TONE)
So my bio right now sucks.
I'm Thomas Morton.
I used to work at Vice.
That's kind of it.
Everything's in the past tense,
right?
Like, like... I wrote and edited
for a magazine,
helped edit a magazine,
and then made some TV.
Two years ago, I retired,
and it's been...
I've been living the fine life.
I was in college in New York City.
I'd been reading the magazine
for like two years, and I loved it.
I thought it was the best,
like the best magazine anybody
was making at the time.
That's why I started
working at Vice,
because I was fascinated by them
and who they were.
This is the first issue
where I was working when I got paid,
and I had to buy this heroin to take
to MIT for an article
about testing street drugs
to see how pure they were.
Yeah, that was my first assignment.
I went out to the car.
I arranged the buy.
I got nervous because I'd never been
in a drug car before.
When we got back into the office,
there was like two guys
in the front office
who were recovered
heroin addicts, right?
And Gavin took one of the bags.
He told me he's like,
"Come here, this is gonna be funny."
And we went over to them.
He was like, "Guys", he's like,
"Does this look right to you?"
"Like, is this supposed to...
"We didn't get ripped off,
did we?"
And he got it right under
their heads.
And they kind of, like, looked down.
So, like, everybody was circled
around this bag of heroin.
And he just popped it.
So this huge cloud.
(WILD GUITAR SOLO)
(LAUGHTER)
And I stood there laughing like
an arsehole because,
frankly, it was funny.
And it all went in.
As high as f*cking sh*t, dude.
I just did an entire bag of heroin,
and I had no tolerance.
Yeah, um. And I didn't know it.
(FRIEND LAUGHS)
Yeah, I sat down and I was kinda,
I was like,
I was like, "ah..." I was like,
"Maybe I got a fever coming on."
- "Like, I feel weird."
- So I think, what...
But then I had to go buy crack
while I was on the heroin,
because it was the last drug
we needed for the drugs issue.
Anyway, long story. Um. What up?
Gavin made every room
he was in The Gavin Show.
He was so fun. He was so talented.
He was so good at
the things he did
that like, leading this, like,
completely anti-punk,
like skinhead cosplay movement
is wild.
He's a mysterious figure. He's like..
There's a great tragic arc
to his life so far.
Everybody I've known
who knows him
has a different theory
about what happened to him,
why he got radicalised.
Did he get radicalised?
Is this all just
like some f*cking practical
joke that's gone too far,
or hasn't gone far enough
for there to be a punchline yet?
Gavin's life has
the craziest cast of characters.
It's like a Tolstoy level of people
in it.
We have to meet everybody.
Uh, how far did she say?
Motherfuck!
OK. There she goes.
Come on in, old friend.
Hello. Hi. How are you?
Hey, man, it's good to see you.
Alright, dude, hook you up.
Well, my name is Santiago Stelly.
Worked at Vice
for almost seven years.
So, do you know.
if you're chatting with
Gavin yet?
Or, no, you don't...?
No, I've been...
I've been emailing with him,
and it has been a little contentious.
He's a little suspicious
about this being a...
.. you know, a hit piece on him.
"I'm not sure about this.
And I'm pretty suspicious of you."
And I've been like, "I get it."
There's, you know, no easy way.
I was like, "If I do it,
if I lean too hard in one way,
"like I'm too soft on Gavin,
then the f*cking...
"Then I'll get cancelled by
the cancelled kids."
- Yeah. "And if I'm too hard on
Gavin, then I'll get f*cking,
"like, g*ng stalked by
the goon squad.
"Um, but if I do this just right,
I can piss off both of them."
Audrey, can we see
the second look, please?
Hey, we just
arrived in Saint Martin,
and we're gonna go get high.
Watch my confidence skyrocket
after this.
You know, even back in the '90s,
Gavin directed his provocative
efforts to no small degree
towards
the sort of political left.
What was called at the time,
'political correctness'.
It was like really
underground political correctness.
He was rebelling against that.
And that's what his,
the voice of Vice became,
this crazy, irreverent,
controversial, shocking stuff.
(SNIFFS)
(COUGHS VIOLENTLY)
Gavin was the heart and soul
of Vice Magazine.
He was Vice.
- The Vice Guide to...
- Eating p*ssy.
(GIGGLES) Yeah, well,
because there was that.
And then there was
The Vice Guide to Oral Sex on Guys.
And I remember reading
that and it was written by Gavin.
And I was like, "This is hilarious.
This is good advice."
- Right? - And I just had
never seen anything like this.
One night I was at Passer By,
this bar.
Jesse Pearson came rolling up
with Gavin.
Jesse said, "Amy,
this is Gavin from Vice."
And I said, "Oh, my God, hi,
I love Vice."
And he like, he took like the
side of the sweatpants shorts,
and like pulled it over
to show me his p*nis.
And he said, "Hi, nice to meet you."
And I was like,
"There's my new best friend."
(LAUGHTER)
So again, this is 2000. Now it is...
What is it, 2023?
- Yeah. - Now, some would say
if you meet someone
and they immediately
whip out their d*ck,
that's not... that's not...
- Not allowed to that anymore.
- That... that's frowned upon.
- Yeah. - But when we were
20-year-old maniacs...
- Yeah.
- It was delightful.
The first time I met him,
he was Sieg Heiling the mailman.
And I was like... and I was like...
And I laughed
because it was f*cking funny.
But it was funny
because he wasn't a n*zi.
It was like... it was
an insanely outlandish thing
for someone like a dude
in a Fred Perry shirt in like,
Williamsburg to be doing.
But now, anytime, you know,
anytime I mention that, it's like,
it's like, "Ooh, the red flags".
- You know? - Now, he says things
that I don't agree with.
Like, strongly don't agree with.
And, um...
I don't know how to...
You know, what do I do
with these two different things?
It's like Gavin's kind
of responsible for my like,
he hired me
and was my earliest mentor, and then,
you know, wasn't there forever...
But I was like,
"I can't burn my youth."
He was really nice to me, like,
as a young man.
And he was, you know,
really encouraging of,
like, my writing
and things like that.
There's a dimension to that.
Anyway, I don't know. I don't know
if he's gonna see this
as some sort of, like,
weird betrayal because he's...
This is a man who values
insane loyalty among friends.
I don't know
if he's going to feel betrayed
or if he's just going to come out,
you know, with the knives.
- Yell at me for getting divorced.
- Yeah.
Since agreeing with myself
that I'm going to do this because,
you know, suddenly, like, at night,
instead of waking up and being like,
"Oh, what have I done with my life?"
I'll wake up and be like,
"Oh, what does Gavin think
I've done with my life?"
You know?
I don't know. We'll find out.
He grew up in Ottawa.
His parents are Scottish.
So this is where we go to start.
What up?
(GROANS COMEDICALLY)
Man, that was f*cking Timo's
was popping.
I can't imagine working there,
on a morning shift.
They should have a tip jar.
Ready?
Gavin was famously
a Women's Studies major.
Classic '90s Liberal Arts thing.
It's pretty hard
to get further left than that,
you know?
(CAMERA CLICKS)
So one of my favourite stories
about Gavin, you know,
given everything that's happened...
He's sitting in the university.
It's a Women's Studies class.
And a teacher is like,
"Hey, women
have to take their place in the world
"and be independent
and not be looking for husbands."
You know, some girl puts
up her hands and says,
"You know, but it's so hard
because if we are like that,
"then guys won't want to date us."
And the teacher points to Gavin
and says, "Well, that's not true."
"What about a guy like Gavin?"
And the girl goes,
"No, I'm talking about real guys."
(BUZZER SOUNDS)
And Gavin told me that story.
It had to be like ten years
after it happened,
and he was still upset about it.
So, I mean, yeah, maybe there's
a seed there.
Maybe that girl planted the seeds
of everything that followed.
I can't do anything. Let's sh**t.
Well?
My name is Steve Durand.
I'm a free spirit who's done
a bunch of crazy sh*t.
Gavin,
I went to high school with him.
I met him
when I was like probably 16 or 17.
He was a leader, for better
or for worse.
People followed him just
because they wanted to see
what f*cking insane disaster
or hilarity would follow him around.
Almost like I saw Gavin commit
to bets at the office,
just for a couple of years
that I was around, you know,
two to three-month jokes.
Like whenever I'd be using
the scanning computer next to me,
he'd come over like he was
grooming me.
He'd be like, "You know, there's...
"Have you ever heard
of these websites
"where you can see men kissing?"
It's like, you know,
it's like that's OK,
if you like looking at that,
you know?
- And it would just go on, you know?
- Yeah.
Taking on a character and going
deep, deep, deep,
into that character.
- Never leaving it.
- Becoming it.
And like, yeah.
Method acting basically with no...
.. you know, no stage or no camera.
And you told me
about your guest Thespian Nights.
- I was like, "Oh, Christ."
- Right.
- Yeah.
- This has been...
This has been his bread and butter.
He and Steve had this thing called
Thespian Nights
where they were like,
"Oh, yeah, one of us would call
the other and we'd be like,
'Yo, thespian night tonight.'"
And they'd be like,
"Yeah, let's do it."
I was a special needs kid
with a bad leg,
and he was my counsellor
or my big brother.
Like a social worker that, you know,
would take me on weekends and like,
we'd spend, like,
a whole 24-hour period
in those characters.
- 24?
- Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Like, we'd go to sleep, like.
"OK. Good night, Jimmy."
And like, wake up in those
characters, like,
really, really go deep.
Um...
I mean, he made up most of the sh*t
because he was just a crazy,
crazy dude.
I'd have to say.
I mean, it's fun.
It's just make-believe. Right?
It's just like playing,
playing dress up. Right?
One of the grand theories about
why Gavin went the way he did is,
it was basically a joke,
that he's taken way too far,
without the punchline or pay-off
or anything like that.
And I think when people
who didn't know him,
normal people hear that,
they think they're just like,
"Oh, you're just... that's an
excuse."
Like, of course it's not a joke.
He's been doing it
for like f*cking 14 years.
But for those who knew Gavin,
it's like that is 100% plausible.
He could be in a character,
you know, even still.
Let me interrupt that
to, uh... There's an email here.
I'm reaching out
because I'm doing
a research for a CBC doc
on a topic you know well.
'Gavin McInnes'.
(OWN ACCENT) Spelled
wrong, of course.
This pertains to
that whole notion of,
like, how I'm the guru of
the evil alt right.
And I think that's
what the documentary is going
to be about.
(DIAL TONE)
(DIAL TONE)
(PLAYS FLUTE)
Now, Montreal
is a very unique town.
It's irreverent, it's stupid,
it's fun.
There's something sort of
lackadaisical about Montreal
that I think is a big part of
the magazine.
Vice was very DIY at the start.
Three genuine friends
that kind of grew up
with punk-rock ethics
and DIY ethics.
Suroosh Alvi
is kind of the brains
of the whole initial thing, right?
They've told the story,
those guys for a long time.
They're on the dole,
they got some money,
and they just start this thing.
They start making the Voice.
The Voice of Montreal was an idea
that I started in 1992.
Saying that they started it.
Saying that they created it...
It's a false... It's not true.
In 1996, they came to me and said,
"Oh, we want to start
our own magazine."
I said, "OK, good.
"If you want to take the magazine,
you can start your own magazine,
"but you cannot use 'Voice'.
But in the first issue that
they published, they said,
"Voice is dead and we changed
the name for Vice."
Any advertisers,
I would call them and say,
"Well, no, this is the same mag."
It was too late.
It was too late.
Oh, they did the Vice logo,
but it looks exactly the same.
It looks like
if you just took this out...
Remove the letter 'O'
and you've got 'Vice', and,
well, Vice is everything naughty
and irresponsible
one can do in life,
that's going
to get people's attention.
I'm kind of the resident goof,
though.
- Why? - Well, I'm sort of
the maniac, you know?
The madman in a cage,
I'd like to see myself as.
There is no question in my mind
that the most interesting
and engaging
and provocative part of Vice
was whatever was produced
by Gavin.
All the Vice magazine was
Gavin McInnes.
Gavin wrote the stories.
He oversaw every single thing
that kind of was in the magazine.
It's always a lot
of uncredited stuff
would just be Gavin.
So the whole magazine, each time,
was really like a slice of Gavin.
He was definitely like
the main guy.
His, like, writing voice was
the voice of the company.
He did... The most popular thing was
the do's and don'ts,
like by a wide margin.
It was pictures of people
on the street
with captions either praising
or making fun of
what they were wearing.
Like, if you're going to f*ck
with somebody,
if you're going to make fun of them,
why just go right here?
Why not take it this f*cking high,
you know?
And Gavin did that.
He was really good at it.
You know,
I remember there was this
do and don't - a toddler.
She had like,
these like, purple pants on.
The 'don't' was, "Nice purple pants,
You stupid b*tch!"
You just had to admit
that it was funny.
It sucked that it was funny
but it was funny.
And, like,
he was just really good at that.
And he wanted people to laugh
in the most painful way
they possibly could.
Gavin was, um,
I would say, having fun.
I didn't feel that it was
a very serious person at the time.
I didn't know him to be
a very violent person,
having a violent, uh,
language toward diversity,
because we were a group of ethnic,
diverse background.
So, it was not that at the time.
Vice was certainly important
in Montreal.
You know, everybody wanted to pick
up a copy.
They probably always hoped
that this thing would grow.
And opportunities arose and they
were very quick to take them.
So I'm here at Lookout
Point in Montreal.
Saying goodbye to the city.
For the last time forever.
We're going down to New York
in about an hour.
And, uh,
just looking at this sad sh*thole.
Soon that bridge will be
the Brooklyn Bridge.
And, uh, I'll be living on the other
side of it.
From one island to another.
Bye.
Oh, my!
Oh, f*ck.
That's my f*cking exit over here.
Holy sh*t.
When I first showed up at Vice,
it had left a blast radius
in Montreal and Toronto.
Everyone knew about it.
The Vice guys had gone to New York
was the story.
We're Vice Magazine
and we're moving to New York City.
They were homies
who got to do it together,
and it was really f*cking cool.
This is insane.
Not exactly a shitty office.
When Vice moved to New York,
it was a huge deal.
It was like everyone sort of
felt like they had made it.
I got it.
They were the envy of
a lot of people.
At the time Williamsburg was,
I want to call it lovingly,
call it a sh*thole.
Um, the cops were too busy
in the other side of Brooklyn,
so it was a f*cking playground.
Well, we're on our way to go see
Jesse Pearson,
who was the editor of the magazine
when I started.
He and Gavin basically just made
the whole magazine.
This is some real weird kind
of Freudian sh*t, but I was like,
it was kind of like having...
I never had a big brother. Right?
I'm the oldest, oldest kid
in my family.
And it was like having
the two coolest big brothers ever.
It was great. It was fun.
One time, Gavin was
so hungover at work,
but then he went into the bathroom,
you know,
kind of in a hurry, right?
And when he came out,
he had taken off his pants and
underwear and balled them up.
He was still wearing his socks
and shoes and his shirt,
just he had his d*ck hanging out.
And he walked over,
and there's a big trash can
next to Jessie's desk.
And he went, "Well, sh*t my pants!"
And he threw the pants
into the trash can,
and the smell
kind of erupted from it.
And Jesse, like,
I remember Jesse falling out
of his chair, gagging,
and like, screaming slightly,
and then getting away from it.
And then Gavin just spent
the rest of the day
nude from the waist down,
d*ck's just flapping.
And then that just became him
for the rest of the day.
He'd like walk over,
and he'd be like,
"What are you guys thinking of
for lunch today?
"You guys want to go to Teddy's?"
- Time for a comeback for that.
- We going inside?
- A few minutes.
- Yeah, OK.
When Gavin and I were
in the office together,
we did a lot of stuff
that would have been H-horrible,
cancellable,
in terms of, like,
drugs in the office,
or, like, saying outlandish sh*t.
But when we were really close,
I would say that I saw him
as somebody
who really valued his friendships.
I'm the same kind of person.
And especially if you're
a person who's like that,
and you're a writer or an editor,
um,
a friendship is like a romance.
You can't help but like,
want to spread the word about
what your friends are like,
and like,
tell everybody how great they are.
Maybe by embodying some of
what they're like.
When I was working
at Vice, I was sober.
But sometimes I would know somebody
that started working there
and they were like, cool and normal.
And then a little bit later...
.. their personality sort of like...
.. morphed into
a sort of Vice personality.
There's this like sometimes
with Vice, there's like this...
Like slimy undertone.
Darla.
Hello.
And then, um, I think that you also,
Thomas,
I worry about you
because you went straight
from school to Vice.
- Yeah.
- For 15 years.
- Yeah. - It's like you've been
raised by wolves.
And I worry...
- (SHE CHUCKLES)
- Worry...
Worry I'm too cool
for this square world?
I worry because at Vice,
it was like...
It was insane.
Like, it was not professional.
Which was great. We didn't want...
Like, I laughed so hard
when I heard Vice got
an HR department or an HR person.
- I was like, "What?"
- Yeah.
Like, Gavin was naked a lot
in the office.
- Yeah, yeah.
- It was chaos.
- Yeah.
- Like, it was chaos.
And, um, that's not how any of
the rest of the world is.
No.
I enjoyed the sh*t out of that time.
Yeah.
I miss being
in the same city as everybody.
We're all scattered to the wind now
in that part, you know?
I mean, that's just growing up,
like it happens.
I miss... I miss all my friends
from high school and stuff, too.
And, you know, I should get
in a f*cking car and go visit them,
and things of this nature,
and it's...
But, um, yeah, it was
rad, f*cking ruled.
Saying I miss it, it's
the wrong thing, you know.
The world's not worse.
The world sucked back then.
We were the good part, you know.
I was lucky I found...
I found the cool kids.
Posted on the website.
I just told Shane that, um...
a**l.fist is the address.
Yeah, because I sent all those dildos
back when they came.
They were black.
You ordered white ones?
Yeah, well,
I wanted black with the pink tips.
Most of what Gavin did and said
wasn't all that controversial,
but that would only be
to his disappointment.
I think, uh, that at every available
opportunity to go "too far"
to cross a line,
he would jump at that opportunity.
- Well, Jesus is g*y.
- What?
Jesus was g*y. You saw him.
What?
You talk... Why? 'Cause he hung out
with the Apostles?
That's a known fact.
At that point in time,
Gavin was just a comedian
who wanted to push it too far.
He just, like, every time he caught
a hold of something that caused
a reaction,
he felt unable to restrain himself
from continuing to get
that reaction.
Like, almost, like, pathologically,
like, drawn.
Just, like, I'm just gonna
take this one step further
and one step further.
First of all, he wasn't.
I'm just saying
it's open to debate.
Back then, h*m*...
Oh, a second ago
it was a known fact.
I think Gavin turned 180 degrees
on a variety of things.
As to whether or not he actually
has a true belief,
sometimes I don't know, you know.
In fact, I presume he doesn't.
And now we can segue into
the downside of Gavin.
I mean, aside from the whole, like...
- Right.
- Whatever.
Aside from everything
that everyone knows in the news,
um, he was funny, he was nice.
We enjoyed hanging out.
But Gavin had a lot of rules
about how one should be,
especially women.
And I was not those...
I did not follow those rules.
Just a lot of rules for,
especially as a woman,
what you're supposed to be.
And at some point he was like,
"This is really important.
"Labias have
to be perfectly symmetrical."
I just had had it.
As if that's
a fashion rule, yeah.
It was a rule.
It was a biological rule.
And just enough. I don't know.
I do think that the lingering
idea of rules just unfortunately
wormed its way into my brain
and made me feel very insecure.
I mean, I guess it's on me.
Like, I was young, I came from
a very insular community.
I didn't know how to be
in the world.
And so you have this guy come along,
who's Mr Do-or-Don't Rules,
And I thought he was funny and smart,
and I didn't take his nonsense shock
value stuff seriously at that point.
And so I believed a lot of
what he said.
And it has come up
with my therapist.
Wow. But who cares what he says, too?
Exactly.
- I got infected by his rules, too.
- We got infected.
We're a little bit, like, um,
recovering cult members.
Yeah, well, some of us
are recovering.
I do think he had a power.
I understand how
the Proud Boys, like, followed him.
The charisma, yeah.
Because he does have
the charisma of a cult leader.
But, yeah, it just...it got old
and it got more extreme.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it didn't seem like
a joke anymore.
Yeah.
Vice is a youth culture magazine
that f*ck sh*t up.
Like, I think
we're really passionate about hate.
I think hate is great.
It's super.
Gavin out in the world was so crazy.
He would just say the craziest
f*cking things to people, right?
But he was able to get away with it
in a way that most of us can't.
I mean, it's still unclear to me,
even though I've thought about it
a lot, as much as anyone, probably,
was it a game for him?
Was it again him just trying
to shock people?
I was being sarcastic.
Gavin just started slipping off
the slope where it just became
what he thought was funny
was to be a r*cist.
So, on the Gavin side of things,
when I think about, like,
or at least my first glimpse
of there being, you know,
like, talking about race stuff
or race and right-wing stuff
in a weird way,
kind of came immediately
after the Hate Issue.
It's because Goad came around,
I'm sorry. That's exactly it.
I mean, I'm not sure how much I want
to talk about this too, but...
So, like, what's the question?
How did Goad come into the picture?
Were you a fan of Jim Goad
and Answer Me!?
I was a fan of Answer Me!,
Jim Goad's zine.
Which was very hateful
and hilarious.
And then there was a book
that Jim Goad wrote
called The Redneck Manifesto.
The reason I liked
The Redneck Manifesto was
because I grew up as
a poor white person,
White Tr*sh basically, you know?
And the book was in large part
about how so-called White Tr*sh
was, like, the last undefended,
or indefensible, minority in a way.
But I think...I'm pretty
sure I told Gavin,
"Check out The Redneck Manifesto."
And then he, um,
he somehow found Goad
and got in touch with him.
I didn't know Goad.
Jim Goad, he's a kind of a weirdo
American fringe right-wing character.
I remember meeting him
with Gavin one time,
and I was just like,
"Yeah, I don't need this."
When I saw it kind of like coming to
a boil in the office was
when he let Goad write this article
that was, like, six pages long,
which was, like, long for Vice,
called...I think it was called
Ten Dumb Myths And Five...
I should just f*cking look it up.
And it was all about how,
"Oh, man, they've taught you...
"Everything they've taught you
about American sl*very is wrong.
"It actually wasn't that bad.
"And, oh, my God,
Brazil did it worse."
And, you know,
"Oh, you know, America,
"did you know that white people
ended sl*very?"
And duh-duh-duh.
Um, it f*cking sucked.
It was a very, like, "sl*very
wasn't so bad" kind of thing,
you know, with the caveat that,
like, somewhere he wrote
that it, like...
..he was like, "Well,
I'm actually not saying that."
But, you know, we're all...
we're all smart people.
Like, we could tell exactly
what was going on with that.
Even then, because I'd, like,
you know,
I'd known him before this chapter...
..I was like, is he trying to make
some extremely radical statement?
Like, it wasn't hope,
but it was, like,
is he trying to make some
extremely radical remark
about how important free speech is,
and this is just the most
attention-getting way of doing it?
Uh, I mean, I asked...I asked Thomas,
I remember I went
and I asked Thomas, I said...
.."Is he a r*cist?"
I mean, I'm kind of curious
just, like, what...
How Gavin fell away.
Like, why he got f*cking...
What happened?
Like, did he...
What happened? What do you mean?
Like, how did he end up out of Vice?
Um, you know, I don't remember the
details of how he was bought out,
he was chased out, he was fired,
he quit, but Gavin left.
Did you feel in the middle of
that, having been Gavin's friend?
Definitely. Yeah, for sure.
How did it play out between you guys?
- Who, me and Gavin?
- Yeah.
- k*lled our friendship.
- Yeah.
One thing I remember
about Gavin was,
like, the hard exing of friends.
Which seemed kind of like...it
seemed really cavalier to me.
The ex list, yeah.
- What's the question?
- Well, what IS the question?
Um, do you feel like
that's part and parcel
with how he approached friendship,
and how you feel about it, yeah?
The exing, the exing of people.
No, I don't...I don't know.
I mean, I mean...
I don't know, man.
I don't want to talk about Gavin.
- Oh, I'm sorry. No. OK, well...
- I told you this from day one.
I meant this, you know,
and I meant this with you, too,
is, like, do ex people?
No. No, no, I don't.
- Anything? No. OK, thank you.
- OK. Thank you, guys.
Oh, wait. Do the...
Well, I'll do the clap.
- I got it.
- He did it, OK.
- Thanks, y'all.
- f*ck, man. Alright.
- Was that OK with you?
- Huh?
Yeah. I mean, I feel bad 'cause
my memory's not so good,
and because I won't talk about Gavin
the way you want me to.
Well, I don't want you to
talk about Gavin a certain way.
Like, I want you to...
I want to ask you.
Like, I'm curious what you felt about
that and thought and stuff.
- Gotcha.
- Yeah.
Right, I don't know.
That sounds like...
Well...
Hope I didn't just burn
that friendship with Jesse.
I took my good, sweet time to do so.
I'll worry about it a little bit.
Everybody was my mentor there.
Like, I wanted, you know...
It's, like, in the back of my mind,
but I'll be, like, hope Jesse
thinks it's a good sentence.
Like, hope Amy likes this joke.
Like, I'm still the intern, you know?
Like, I'm still some 22-year-old
looking for validation
and, like, trying to help out.
I'm nervous about doing
them justice.
I'm getting a lot of these folks on
camera by virtue of being like,
"Well, I'll do it for you,"
and I'm like, "Ah!"
"'Cause, like, I trust you
not to f*ck things up,"
and I'm like, "I'll f*ck things up
nice and good, you know?"
Um, and so I hope I don't
f*ck things up, but...
There's a lot of ways this could go,
and it's, like, you know,
my own fault for not
coming into this with,
like, a thesis I want to prove,
but to be like, "Let's go talk
and see what...
You know, "Let's see
what the story is."
Fred's a little more nuanced
to a person who, like,
kind of, like, lives as
a character in public.
Fills out an understanding of
a person, right?
He got forced out of the thing
that he created.
That must have been really, uh,
really super hard to see
why he was outed and,
uh, and where they went.
He was out before they even got
started with their riches.
There had to be some moments
where it was just like,
"Dude, f*ck did I do?"
Because when he left,
I guess it was around 2007 or 2008,
you know, the company
wasn't worth sh*t.
You know, that had to sting.
I'd be like, "Oh, that's so sad,
he got pushed out of Vice,"
but he got, like, paid out.
He got... Like, it was
a forced buyout.
Because I remember, he had
an apartment in Williamsburg
that I think he bought with the money
that they...
This is, like, a three-bedroom house
with, like, a roof deck.
And then when I went to his house,
he had a boat,
and he said he'd take
the boat to Long Island.
And I was like, "Man."
Someone said once, like,
"Yeah, they're f*cking me over,
but they're using a lot of lube."
Gavin Ain't Havin' It.
Uh, the move to, uh, Fox News
and other more just flat-out
right-wing platforms by Gavin,
uh, didn't really surprise me
that much.
That was always kind of lurking
under the surface of his sort of
casual provocation.
For the most part, in a free market,
if you're lazy and fat,
it's because you're lazy and fat.
Uh, sorry, poor people,
but you screwed up.
It was clear that he was just
a run-of-the-mill right-winger.
He wasn't funny by
that point at all.
Women do earn less in America,
because they choose to.
They would rather go to their
daughter's piano recital
than stay all night at work.
Women should be at home with the
kids. They're happier there.
I hope that your viewers do not
take you, sir, seriously.
Dude, you might want to think
about recalibrating here.
Because if you go off
the cliff too far, too conservative,
that Fox News won't hire you,
I don't know who's going
to hire you.
You could be the most highest-paid
person on Fox News
and you're going to f*ck it up.
You're literally going
to f*ck it up.
I can see it happening. I don't know
why you're gonna f*ck it up.
Your wife doesn't want you
to f*ck it up,
your kids don't want you to f*ck it.
I don't think even you
should want to f*ck it up.
But you're gonna f*ck it up,
aren't you?
That he just kept getting
fired over his politics.
Something that Gavin wrote
that I thought
was needlessly provocative
was his article...
..that he published
in Thought Catalog -
Transphobia Is Perfectly Natural.
"You don't need to change
who you are.
"In fact, doing so is sexist,
misandrist, h*m*,
"and further damages
the life of the mentally ill."
And it's funny to be like,
"If you're born that way, you don't
need to change who you are,"
literally, like, a year
before he writes...
..as the closing credo of his own
f*cking life up until age 40...
- His book.
- Yeah, this is his book.
Um...
"If the reader has anything to glean
from this book,
"I hope it's trust your gut.
"If you're an Amish sailor,
but you are meant to be
"a straight drag queen
who trains dancing dogs,
"you're going to have to bid adieu
to your bearded friends
"and be the Lasandra the great
you were always meant to be.
"That's not just something
that would make you feel better,
"it's the very
definition of happiness."
So he literally goes
from being like,
"Be who you are, do whatever it takes
to achieve who you need to be,"
or, like, a, you know, great movie
that I know he was a fan of
when I knew him,
um, Rocky Horror Picture Show,
"Don't dream it, be it."
This is m*therf*cking 2012,
and this is 2014.
I remember the trans thing being
one of the first things I saw
where it was like, "Oh, God, man,
like, what are you doing?
"Like, don't.
It just felt gross
and wrong and hateful,
and, uh, and then it was
everything else.
I see why people call you a r*cist.
I'm funny.
Look, if you had
the opportunity
to just make people
lose their minds just by saying,
I don't know, "Abracadabra,"
wouldn't you say it?
I mean, some people wouldn't,
but not Gavin, you know.
Go ahead. That's me.
He'd probably be pissed off
at calling it alt-right,
but, yeah, he's doing commentary.
He's doing a f*cking talk show
every day.
He's basically doing
what I remember as talk radio,
but the f*cking internet version.
He has all these different
f*cking shows
on his channel, Censored.TV, right?
Like, there's tons.
Get Off My Lawn is the f*cking
podcast that has a video component.
Anyway,
there's tons of f*cking sh*t.
And, so, when we were working out
a date, he was like,
"Great, do the 21st. We do this show
Cops And Robber after that."
And he was like, "Yeah, it's me,
two cops and a felon
"talking about police videos."
I was like, "What kind of felon?
He was like...
I'll just quote him.
And so I wrote:
Anyway, sorted out the time.
And at the end of it,
I just said, uh:
Or maybe not. Who knows?
Mysterious figure.
Cannot f*cking figure out
if he's on the defensive or not.
We'll just, you know...
walking in blind.
It didn't seem even
that political, right?
It seemed more of just, like,
a boys' club, a drinking club,
a fratty thing.
There is this whole group
of disaffected young males.
He tapped into that
and he built something around it.
But the first time he calls me
and he says,
"Hey, do you want to come drink
some beer with me
"and my new g*ng of
Western chauvinists?"
And I was like, "What?"
I am a proud Western chauvinist
who refuses to apologise
for creating the modern world!
Whoo!
# I'll make you proud of your boy. #
So, you know, when you're doing
the same thing every week,
or in this case, it was every night,
and you start just, like,
the hipsters, with Vice,
you start developing a sort of
a culture,
and a culture needs a name.
So I think it was May of 2015,
I said, "Uh, OK, we got a name.
We're the Proud Boys."
And then looks-wise,
I've always been into the mods
and I've always admired the,
uh, the mods and the rockers
in Brighton Beach,
so that's where Fred Perrys.
And I remember speaking to some men
who I knew in Toronto
who were...it was at, like,
a c*ck party at,
like, some person's house
that was, like, totally, like,
liberal-leaning group.
And they just said,
"I'm so into this.
"I've listened to what he has to say,
and I believe that men's voices are
"being subverted,
and someone has to, like,
"stick up for nationalism."
And I was like, "Huh?
"This highly educated,
professional real estate guy
"in Toronto is, like, joining
a Proud Boys chapter."
Like, it felt like there were
these cells that were forming.
How'd you meet the Proud Boys?
I was, uh, staying in New York,
and, you know, when you're
really in New York,
I really didn't have any
group of guys or friends.
You know, when you're an adult...
It's easy when you're a kid,
you're like, "Hey, my name's John.
"Want to be friends?"
And then that's how
you make lifelong friends.
In terms of whenever
I wanted to go out
and hang out with the guys,
it would mostly be among coworkers.
Coworkers come and they go,
and you're not really building much
of a relationship with people.
My wife pointed out...she found
the Proud Boys
on the, um, on the internet,
she found them.
It was presented in that fashion.
You know, it was, like,
a group of guys,
we all wear matching shirts,
go out to the bar, have some drinks,
you know, and it's once a month
with the guys.
You know, have shared values.
We are unified by the 12 tenets -
maximum freedom, minimum government,
pro First Amendment,
pro Second Amendment,
uh, venerate the housewife,
glorify the entrepreneur.
We have a set of values
that unifies us.
And, uh, you know, there
was a vetting process.
Go to the bar, meet some of
the guys, they talk to you,
interview you,
find out what's going on,
why you want to join,
how did you find us,
blah-blah-blah-blah-blah.
Well, uh, they found that
I was Proud Boy material.
- Hey.
- So...
The Proud Boys have this weird
and childish-like act of hazing
to, like, initiate a new member.
USA! USA! USA!
There's the first degree,
you need to proudly state,
"I am a proud Western chauvinist
who refuses to apologise
"for creating the modern world."
I am a Western chauvinist.
I'm a Western chauvinist.
And I refuse to apologise.
And I refuse to apologise.
- For creating the modern world.
- For creating the modern world.
Cheerios! Frosted Flakes!
Cocoa Puffs!
Then when you get your
second degree,
that is when you are surrounded by
a minimum of five Proud Boys
who proceed to punch you until you
can name five breakfast cereals.
Cheerios! Frosted Flakes!
Cocoa Puffs!
Froot Loops!
Cocoa Puffs!
Cocoa Krispies!
And I remember screaming in.
It was a great time, it was.
I was sore the next day. I mean,
these are big guys punching you.
But it was a blast.
I really did have a great time.
And when you get the third degree,
you get the tattoo.
It doesn't have to be on your arm,
you've just got to have
the Proud Boy tattoo.
That's your third degree.
He started a goofy club,
and he gave it
a bunch of rules to make it fun,
and then it got out of hand,
you know.
Ladies and gentlemen,
I am officially running...
..for president of the United States.
And we are going to make
our country great again.
Trump won,
and that changed everything.
And we went from a fun club to
perceived as
this evil, violent n*zi g*ng,
because the left is determined
to find white supremacy.
The Proud Boys goes from
a drinking club to brawling.
You know, obviously he's
like fully on board with
the Trump campaign and all that
sh*t with the Proud Boys,
hiring out the Proud Boys as,
like, a bodyguard service.
And he enters Roger Stone's orbit.
Mr Stone, is there something that
you want to tell the Proud Boys?
Yeah, absolutely.
Keep the faith.
Don't let them wear you down,
the globalists,
the two-party duopoly.
"A man is not finished
when he is defeated,
"he is only finished when he quits."
- Richard Nixon. God bless you.
- Hooroo.
That didn't even sound like...
Is that a Nixon quote?
I don't think anybody
who casually joined
this organisation thought
of themselves as any kind of outlaw.
I think what they wanted
to know is, "Where's the beer?"
They become a target
for obvious reasons,
but we can spend too much time
talking about them, in all honesty.
Can I throw one follow-up question?
You said that the Proud Boys
were pilloried for obvious reasons.
What are the obvious reasons?
Because they're pro-Trump.
Anybody who's associated with
Donald Trump will be crucified.
Any guy that can do a body slam,
he's my kind of...
- f*ck Antifa.
- f*ck Antifa.
- f*ck Antifa.
- f*ck Antifa.
Authorities there are warning of
a potential possibility of violence
as far-right groups like the Proud
Boys hold a rally in the city.
USA! USA! USA! USA!
USA! USA! USA!
USA! USA!
I'm not condoning violence,
but I am condoning justified
violence in self-defence.
First degree, you declare
yourself a Proud Boy.
Second degree, we beat the sh*t
out of you until you can
name five breakfast cereals.
And you have to give up masturbating.
And then third degree, you still
have to give up masturbating,
but you have to get a tattoo.
And then fourth degree
you get arrested
or in a serious violent fight
for the cause.
- Really?
- Yes.
You get arrested?
So, once they start getting
in fights with people,
a fourth degree was, you know,
created.
Anybody who fought with
the Proud Boys, right,
got to be a fourth-degree
Proud Boy, or whatever.
Which is where...
which is where he goofed, right?
He sent me a video of
a hockey fight.
Like, as in, like, "Why is it wrong
when my guys do it,
"but people like it in hockey,
or whatever?"
And I wrote:
So I wrote:
I was told about a speech
that Gavin McInnes was giving
at the Metropolitan Republican Club,
and there...
You know how that went.
This is what actually happened.
Gavin McInnes was going to give
a speech, and of course,
I put on the Fred Perry shirt
and got my Make America
Great Again hat,
and got ready to go out, because I
wasn't going to miss this, you know.
And so I went to the speech
with some of the other guys.
I think it was a Friday night.
I got into the event.
I saw the Gavin McInnes speech.
We exited.
Guys, keep going, keep going.
Keep walking.
Let's go. Let's go.
Well, some people protesting us,
they sent a little attack party
around the block.
Oh. Go, go, go!
Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
So, that's where I did what I feel
the vast majority of people
in my situation would do -
I run towards the scene.
They see two of their friends
just getting overwhelmed
by about four to six people,
you know.
And so I singled one out,
ran into him,
knocked him over, and, um,
got on top of him,
punched him, started kicking him
until he went into
the full foetal position,
which communicated to me that he
didn't want to fight no more.
- Right.
- There. I won the fight.
The videos that were taken
went viral.
After a speech McInnes gave at
the Metropolitan Republican Club,
this violent confrontation
broke out.
The Proud Boys claim they were
attacked by
the anti-fascist group Antifa.
But now ten Proud Boys
are facing criminal charges,
some of them possible jail time.
I got sentenced to four years,
and since I didn't
cause any trouble,
I got out in three and a half.
Good behaviour.
I'm officially disassociating
myself from the Proud Boys
in all capacities forever.
I quit.
I'm told by my legal team
and law enforcement
that this gesture could help
alleviate their sentencing.
We are not an extremist group
and we do not have ties
with white nationalists.
Meantime, McInnes's account was
suspended from Twitter in August,
banned from Facebook in October,
and yesterday terminated
from YouTube.
You have a large megaphone
and a large platform,
do you bear any responsibility?
Yes, I do bear any responsibility.
I mean, I'm not guilt-free in this.
There's culpability there.
I shouldn't have said, you know,
"Violence solves everything,"
or something like that
without making the context clear.
Um, and I regret saying
things like that.
- Are you apologising?
- No.
Would you take any of it back?
Uh, that's a good question.
Yes. I guess... Well, I don't know.
Nah.
That ship has sailed.
He defied the claim that there's
no such thing as bad publicity.
The adulation shifted to hate.
You know, like, active hatred.
Not like, "We hate this guy this
week, but we'll forget about it
"because he's going to do
some hilarious sh*t,
"uh, two months later that we're
going to cover and approve of."
He got some life-cancelling
bad publicity then.
But are you willing, tonight,
to condemn white supremacists
and militia groups and to say
that they need to stand down
and not add to the violence
in a number of these cities?
What do you want to call them?
Give me a name. Give me a name.
- White supremacists and...
- Who would you like me to condemn?
- White supremacists and right...
- Proud Boys.
The Proud Boys,
stand back and stand by.
It was funny because
I was actually in prison.
I was in the TV room
and there was a bunch of
other inmates there watching.
And, so, when Biden said Proud Boys,
everyone just turned around,
looked at me.
I was like, "Hey, we're big-time.
Look at me, Ma."
You know, it was funny.
They was laughing, they were
cheering. They're like, "Go on, John.
"You're big-time now."
Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.
Did he just say, "Proud Boys,
stand down and stand back."
He did a general command.
- He's the general of the...
- I control the Proud Boys, Donald.
What Donald Trump said appeared
to energise the Proud Boys.
"Stand back and stand by"
was adapted into its logo
and shared online.
Would you say that Proud Boys
numbers increased
after the "stand back, stand by"
comment?
Exponentially.
I'd say tripled, probably.
We can now project the winner
of the presidential race.
Above all, it's time
for America to get back up.
The country is so ready.
We're going to be protesting
the heist of the 2020 election.
All of us here today do not want
to see our election victory stolen
by emboldened
radical-left Democrats,
which is what they're doing,
and stolen by the fake news media.
That's what they've done
and what they're doing.
The very next day,
the Proud Boys got to work.
The Proud Boys launched
an encrypted chat
called the Ministry
of Self-Defence.
The committee obtained hundreds
of these messages,
which show strategic
and tactical planning
about January the 6th,
including maps of Washington, DC,
that pinpoint
the location of police.
We need backup!
Got up, ran over to the TV room,
and guys are over there
jumping up and down.
"Oh, John, John, Proud Boys
are storming the Capitol."
I was like, "What? What?!"
"There you are, John.
Now we know what you're about."
Holy smokes, this is crazy.
"Here's your boys.
Proud of your boy."
We have a breach of the Capitol!
Breach of the Capitol!
Additional resources on
the east side,
as they've broken that window
and they're trying to kick it in.
We need an area
for the House members.
They're all walking over now
through the tunnels.
We're trying to hold the upper deck!
We are trying to hold
the upper deck now!
We need to hold the doors
of the Capitol!
I was just like, "Man, this is so far
away from the do's and don'ts."
Like, what on earth
has happened here?
Two members of the far-right
Proud Boys group
are learning their fate today
for the roles they played
in the deadly January 6th riot
on the US Capitol.
One was handed a ten-year sentence
this morning,
the other could get up to 27 years.
Gavin said specifically,
"Don't go to January 6th."
When you create something that huge,
you have to take responsibility.
You're the person
who is responsible.
Even if he started hiding himself,
he was not there.
But all the ideas,
all they've done came from him.
Totally.
The Proud Boys, are they
a domestic t*rror1st group?
Uh, well, I don't think we have
treated the Proud Boys itself
as a domestic terrorism group,
but we certainly have individuals...
What does it take to make the list?
Well, there is, uh,
as you may know, Senator,
uh, under federal law, under US law,
there is no, uh, list of domestic
terrorism organisations
the same way there is for
foreign t*rror1st organisations.
Well, I don't know
if we should have one or not,
but I think it's time to
think about it.
Do you believe the violence
on January 6th was justified?
On the advice of counsel,
I respectfully decline
to answer your question on
the basis of the Fifth Amendment.
"A man is not finished
when he is defeated,
"he is only finished when he quits."
Richard Nixon. God bless you.
Hooroo.
Yeah. What about it?
That video doesn't prove
criminality,
it doesn't prove that I know anything
about the events of January 6th.
That's guilt by association.
But the people who say that
I'm a Proud Boy,
those people are communists.
Whoo!
A little bit to unpack there, right?
But, yeah, he basically, uh,
decried any involvement
with the Proud Boys, which
I don't think's the case.
But, you know, here we are.
Over here.
Oh, right. I think he responded
while we were out talking.
He wants to do one.
OK, so, one instead of noon,
and he sent an address.
Look at this sh*t.
Look where he wants us to go.
A police station in the suburbs.
f*ck.
You know, I'll follow his lead.
Here's the thing, him with more than
anybody I've ever interviewed,
I don't know how this will go.
We are going to be at his mercy.
He is really f*cking good at this
and very practised,
and I am a lunatic who hasn't
appeared on camera in four years.
# Doodly-doo, doodly-doo,
doodly-doo. #
Yeah, so, I thought what I'd do,
I would have these theories
that I would try on him
and I would see which suits him.
And I got the idea,
and this is unfortunate,
from a book called Explaining Hitler
by journalist Ron Rosenbaum,
where he went through all the
different weird theories
about Hitler.
"You know, he only had one testicle,"
and like, "Oh, he hates the Jews
"because a Jewish doctor k*lled
his mother," and stuff like that.
And, like, can Hitler be explained,
and should we attempt
to explain Hitler, you know?
The only thing I promised to him
was that I'll try to be fair.
And it's like, can you
tell this whole story
without taking a side
and without sacrificing candour?
I mean, the thing is, you never get
a straight answer out of him.
That's why it's so hard,
like, what question
are you going to get the most
truth out of, because, like...
I mean, I've seen
the guy naked a lot in my life,
and there's a lot of things
that I don't know.
You know, starting with
"bonked on the head."
"Bonked on the head"
was Steve Durand's theory,
that Gavin's entire
political change occurred
when he got a concussion during a
boxing match he filmed for YouTube.
I got that.
'Traumarama', after
the quintessential
Seventeen Magazine column.
He's acting out from
having been hurt and betrayed
so many different times in his life.
As a guy who deeply values classic
masculinity and not crying,
not apologising
and things of this nature,
he has no outlet for this stuff,
and so it simmers and becomes rage.
Hurt people hurt people.
"Stuck in '91" is...
m*therf*cker.
This is kind of more...it's similar
to "permanent nostalgic",
but it's more, like,
about his politics.
"Convert zeal."
And this is just that he,
in coming to America
and falling in love with America,
he has become
the worst type of American.
Was it always real,
the right-wing tendencies?
Was it ever a joke?
Did you become who you are?
Were you always who you are?
You know, would you ask
that of anyone?
Like, who's gonna be able
to answer that?
And this one I just want to
put down at the end.
There is "no punchline",
or "waiting on the punchline",
or "we're the punchline".
- You know what I believe?
- Yeah.
I believe it all.
This is the soup that
makes up Gavin McInnes.
# Chunk-a-chunk. # How's this?
I think it's really good
for tomorrow.
I mean, is it... I don't know, man.
Do I look like a kid pretending
to be a f*cking reporter?
That's my deepest fear.
- Hi. Bon matin.
- Bon matin.
- Big day.
- Big day. Ready to go.
Whoa! f*cking sunlight.
What's it saying? 12:43? Oh, OK.
Alright, cool.
What if he just walks up
and punches me?
What if that's the end of
this whole f*cking thing?
f*ck.
Alright.
Alright, act cool, guys.
Oh, there he is.
- Hello.
- Hi.
Yeah!
The bushes, no! Oh, f*ck.
- f*ck, I'm sorry.
- Oh, Jesus.
- I'm so sorry about that.
- It's OK.
- I know it would be...
- That's so embarrassing.
You got it... Yeah, it's the weather.
The wind up here kind of throws you.
I hadn't seen you in so long,
I got enthusiastic.
I like your tie.
I brought ties, so....
- Oh, good.
- I'm not dressed down under this.
- I got a couple of options.
- OK, great.
- Hi.
- Dressed down, look at this.
Well, you just threw me in a bush.
This button. You look like
a homeless man.
Well...
You look like Neil Hamburger
since I last saw you.
Ouch.
f*ck, man.
Alright, shall we go to
the secret location?
Oh, yeah, the secret. OK, yes.
I was gonna say...
That's when I meet people here, and
then we shuttle to the secret spot
because I can't have people
know the address.
Understood. OK, yeah.
Do we need to get, like,
black-bagged and put in a van, or...
Yeah, basically.
Well, we'd have to cut.
You ready?
It's the big time.
I like your curtain.
This is it.
Uh, welcome to the studio.
This is my office.
Thank you.
Could I, uh,
could I get you a sweater?
- A little steam?
- Yeah.
This is just driving me crazy,
these zigzags.
Oh. Yeah, well...
Thanks.
- Neil Hamburger?
- Yeah.
I don't even find that insulting
or anything, it's a fact.
You got dandruff all over your coat.
You're like a Marxist.
- You dress like a Marxist professor.
- Sorry.
- Well, that's how it goes.
- How old are you now?
- 40.
- Holy sh*t.
- Yeah, I know.
- Are you married?
No. Just got left by what would
have been wife number three.
What?!
Like, two weeks ago, yeah.
So, what is your deal?
- You got your mic all tangled up.
- A big, old f*ck-up.
Oh, right.
The microphone was on here.
I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I worked for Project Veritas,
and they used, um,
they used button mics.
- Yeah.
- Sorry, button cameras.
And this black dude, uh,
he had a T-shirt on,
and you could see a button and then
a line, and it was a tight T-shirt.
And I just...we had a big meeting
and I just f*cking lost it.
I go, "James, this incompetent clown
is blowing up his own spot."
And he was all hurt,
and he was like,
"It's very hard to find shirts
in my size, Gavin,"
because he was fat.
- He's got a point.
- There we go, look at that.
Well, thank you.
That does look good. Alright.
So, you say you
steamed it last night?
Yeah, I did, yeah.
And then what happened?
- You threw me into a f*cking bush!
- There's no way...
- Do you want to start the interview?
- Sure.
Um, let's talk about...
Can we talk about you first?
Go for it.
So, you're a nebbish little intern,
uh, much like you are now.
Uh, you haven't really changed.
You said that based on the three
minutes, or 15, generously...
Well, I can tell you're not
in a biker g*ng.
That's the...
So, what do you want to talk about?
You want to talk about you?
We could do a little of that.
I want to mostly talk about you.
But I thought your whole thing
was your quest
to reconcile my Hitler ways
with the hipster that hired you.
Yeah, exactly.
So, that's a little bit of us both,
but mostly you.
OK.
And I brought...
Let's talk to you first,
I brought a bunch of theories.
That are based on everybody
I've been talking to.
I told you, you know, you know this.
Everybody has different theories
and sh*t like that,
and I was going to present them
to you and see if you thought any
of them were not bullshit.
Well, the problem with
these theories is,
the supposition is that there's
been a drastic change.
And, so, you're trying to
explain the change,
but the hypothesis is wrong.
- Right. What's your hyp...
- There is no change.
People always go, "Oh, if, you
know, if you still were at Vice,
"you'd have hundreds of
millions of dollars."
But if it wasn't
that particular conflict
or whatever was the catalyst,
it would have been
something next week.
You know, I've been through, like,
a hundred Vice-ending controversies
since I left.
So when the culture changes
and you refuse to change with it
and acquiesce,
then it's just a matter of time
before you're incompatible
with your surroundings.
Anyway, I was going to say
there's, like,
there's a mystery here
in your life because,
you know, I worked for you,
and then I kind of kept up with
what you were doing after Vice,
and then it fell away.
And when, you know, caught up when
the Proud Boys were in the news.
I think you have some misconceptions
about this with Proud Boys,
where you see them
as this violent group,
and violence is seen
as the worst thing.
And, "Oh, they're violent.
They're violent."
They don't understand it was
a reaction to violence
that was already prevalent.
Yeah, but you guys took to it
really f*cking well.
You guys were like hooligans.
Hooligans seek it out, right?
You know, "We're just mucking about
and these guys snuck up on us.
"They f*cking sucker punched us.
But we gave it to them."
That's the way it always struck me,
you know?
Yeah. What's the matter with that?
So, you shouldn't enjoy it,
is that what you're saying?
You can do that,
but it's hooliganism.
Like, you guys are... It was like,
oh, this was my feelings when...
Hooliganism is standing
up for yourself.
It's also a very white liberal thing
where you're supposed to just take it
on the chin and suffer, you know?
No, but if you turn into
a hooligan club, it's like,
yeah, you're gonna get
in trouble a bunch.
I think it's all hooliganism.
That was my sense,
watching it the whole time.
Yeah, but they don't come to
our things.
We don't go to their things,
they come to our things.
You don't think that there's a part
in which you guys play into that?
What do you mean?
That in reaction to
your reaction to them,
there's not there's not, like,
a feedback loop?
The whole night was a comedy night.
We were celebrating Otoya Yamaguchi
k*lling the head of
the Japanese Socialist Party.
That's why you had the sword.
This is the night with the sword.
I was dressed as Otoya Yamaguchi.
I had ch*nk glasses and
a Japanese school uniform.
Why would you say ch*nk
about a Japanese person?
- This is how you get in trouble.
- That's the beauty of racism.
- They call Indians Pakis.
- Yeah.
It's not accurate, clearly.
- Right.
- Yeah.
Gooks.
They call the Vietnamese Gooks
from the Korean w*r.
Yeah.
You don't like those words, do you?
n*gg*r.
n*gg*r.
I've had this discussion a few times,
and it's usually
with mainstream media.
And they're like, "Well, you know,
"you shouldn't talk like
that if there's
"a risk of someone
vilifying you for it."
And it's like, no, I'm not going
to be tiptoeing around the tulips
when no-one else is.
But then you have to, like,
lean into that and, like,
own up to it and be like, yeah,
they're gonna come for you.
Yeah.
You're gonna constantly
be on people's list.
Put these in stink piles.
Uh, stinks.
Uh, good.
Uh, good.
Good.
Stinks.
Uh, "convert zeal",
is that being a new immigrant?
Super American? Oh, yeah, and that.
Yeah. Stuck in anyone. g*y.
Uh, "bonked on the head"
is a doozy.
"Permanent nostalgic"? Nah.
No. OK.
Um, this is to explain
why I'm a n*zi?
- Yeah.
- OK.
Also, I just got to the one
that I was like, "Well,
"he's not gonna like this one
because it's part of a series.
- "Gavin is r*cist."
- OK.
Is my Native American wife
part of my racism,
or why am I absolved of racism
when it comes to my wife and kids?
Well, that ties into tokenism,
right?
- Tokenism?
- Right, yeah.
Oh, so I married a Native American
as a token.
- So I don't truly love her?
- Right.
- She's just a symbol. Every day...
- Which is worse, right?
Every day, I sit with this woman
and have breakfast with contempt.
That's how r*cist you are.
The narrative of r*cist white guy is
so important to the American left.
And ironically, straight
white male conservatives are
the least r*cist people
in this country, in the world.
When we say "Make America
Great Again,"
we're not talking about
f*cking sl*very.
We want it to go back to 1983.
We want jet skis and mullets
and cocaine and capitalism
and ugly sports cars and
Beavis And Butt-Head audacity.
That's what we're going for.
A much better time.
We might be past
the point of no return.
I'll probably eat tremendous sh*t
for not, like,
holding his feet to the flames
for every single f*cked-up tweet
he has made, and/or
video he has made, but...
..you know...it's tricky.
These are people.
He went too far to the point
where, like, it's no... Yeah.
He, like, wore out the joke.
Um, and this is before...
I would argue that that occurs long
before he even starts
the Proud Boys, yeah.
Um...
Yeah, his whole deal
is going too far,
and now he's facing
the consequences for that.
It's full of strange contradictions.
To try and put anyone into
too neat a little box,
uh, you risk making
a fool of yourself to do that.
So it's not ever
quite so neat and easy.
Why?
Why, why?
Why did he do all that?
To be in this position where he's
at now, is he is he proud of it?
It's with disbelief
that I've seen him draw out some of
the worst instincts in humanity.
Uh...
There's part of it
that's sort of like,
not that I'm one to be
doing any forgiving,
but feels a little unforgivable.
I think everything he's
kind of touched
has gotten out of control
in certain ways.
And I think we meet him
at this weird breaking point
where the consequences...
Like, where previously
his provocations, um...
..all came back to him
as kind of like media
or career consequences,
that it bled out into the world.
He started this group of kids
who met in real life
and went and got in f*cking fights.
And there's kids in jail because of
the actions they took as part of
the group that he started.
It's, like, one of his big things
is, like, "Look,
just we're not r*cist,
but it's like...
"We're not r*cist,
we're certainly not Nazis.
"Like, we're not n*zi skinheads.
"Like, that's absolutely
not what we are."
But he's with these group of kids
that kind of have to be
reminded of this.
If you've got to tell people
every day that you're not a n*zi,
there might be something
else you're doing wrong, right?
It might not be 100%
everybody else's fault, you know?
And I feel like, in general,
as people age,
they typically just become a more
cartoonish version of themselves.
And, so, I think Gavin has become,
you know,
a more Gavin version of himself.
Yeah, of course. I was f*cking 20.
It was a little kid, yeah.
Now I'm just, like, this dumber
40-year-old version of a little kid
who can't....
Yeah, he's just, like, rehashing his
past, which is only ten years old,
yeah.
Again, if you don't change when
the whole world around you changes,
like, to what degree
is that a virtue?
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