Conspiracy theories and coverups with Comedian Jimmy Dore

Join Ericka Redic at MindsFest for an enlightening sit-down with the equally talented and humorous, Mr. Jimmy Dore. Jimmy is not just known for his any-spot-on-the-floor YouTube and online shows —he is also a prolific stand-up comedian in his own right. With over 30 years of on-stage hilarity, a handful of Comedy Central and Hulu specials under his belt, and his most recent one titled "COVID Lies Are Funny", Jimmy Dore undoubtedly gives you a rollercoaster of laughs.

Explore the roots of Jimmy's comedic journey, where he discloses his early non-political performances upto his passionate discovery of political commentary embedded in humor at the UCB Theater. This was around the time of the Iraq war and endless hours in front of TV news triggered this career defining shift. Consequently, Jimmy puts a spotlight on today's media driving the political narrative and questions the form of comedy dominating the scene during the covid period.

Delve deeper into Jimmy's critique of comedians who became propagandists during these trying times. It's an unexpected shift in perspective for the comedian who recounts it not only as shocking but also heartbreaking, despite the wealth of comedic material the situation presented.

Setting aside their usual political disagreements, Jimmy and host Ericka come to an agreement on his interview with Tucker Carlson. Reflecting on a time their conversation revealed a majority of their concerns were common, and their different conclusions were merely a matter of policy perspectives.

The conversation rounds up with a vibrant discussion on media censorship, highlighting cases where individuals were penalized for speaking the truth rather than propagating falsehoods. Jimmy underlines this with examples such as Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Tucker Carlson, and Jesse Ventura who he believes were victims to this silencing.

Wrap up this episode with Jimmy Dore's promise to return to the entertaining city of Austin and explore more of Texas charm on his comedic journey. San Antonio, you're next on his list!

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hey, everybody, Eric Reddick here at MindsFest, and I am the most excited to come to you with Mr.
Jimmy Dore. Thank you, sir, for joining me this evening. My pleasure.
Thanks for having me. Fantastic stand-up show.
For people who don't know, for people who are just familiar with your show,
like on YouTube and online, you're actually a very, very talented stand-up comedian, too.

(00:22):
Well, I've been a comedian for at least 30 years and had a couple of stand-up
specials on Comedy Central, one on Hulu.
And my most recent one is COVID Lies Are Funny, which is at JimmyDore.com. Super good.
Super good. OK, now you started out as a comedian. Yeah.
And but you didn't do political stuff at first. Right. No, I got into it.

(00:44):
Let's see. How did that happen? Well, there's a place called the UCB Theater
in Los Angeles, and they asked me to do a show that wasn't stand up.
So I had to come up with something.
And at the time I was watching a lot lot of TV news. It was right after the Iraq war.
And so I just couldn't get over how the news was bullshit.
And so I just started using clips from the news. And of course,

(01:04):
that's just a lot of politics.
And that's and the next thing I know, I got a special on Comedy Central called
Citizen Jimmy, which was all politics.
And and then I got a radio show on public radio in Los Angeles.
And then I started working with the Young Turks. Yeah. And then that was the rest is history. Yes.
And that's one of the things that I'm trying to do with Generally Irritable

(01:26):
is create comedic content,
whether it's funny songs or comedic shorts, because I feel like comedy is the
best way to communicate.
Art is really the best way to communicate anything. But generally speaking,
you know, comedians, you mentioned in your in your show tonight.
Yeah. You guys are supposed to be the truth tellers. You guys are the ones who

(01:49):
are supposed to be out there. They became propagandists during covid.
That's crazy. That's they shame people for questioning authority.
It's the opposite of comedy. It was very crazy. Very. It was a very tough time for me.
That's I think a lot of people lost friends, lost their support system in that.
Did you ever, when you started comedy 30 years ago, I think you just said. Yeah, that's right.

(02:13):
Would you have ever in a million years thought that your cohorts would have
been kowtowing the government? No, that's, I'm telling you, it was a shocker.
That's why I talk about it in my act.
It was a heartbreaker, it was a shocker, and at least I get to make fun of it. That's right.
And you get to make some great content out of it. So if you could,
oh, this was the one thing I wanted to tell you.

(02:34):
One of the things that I respect you the absolute most for,
It changed my perspective on
politics and it changed the way I looked at people that I disagree with.
Your interview with Tucker Carlson two years, I think it was like two years
ago, the first one you did where you were on his show.
OK, maybe a year or two years ago. And I watched you guys talk for that hour or however long it was.

(02:57):
And you agreed on like 90 percent of what is wrong, what the problem is, whatever. Whatever.
And you did. It seemed like it was like a policy disagreement. Who is responsible?
It was like nitpicking what you guys disagreed on. Yeah.
I mean, Tucker, one of the best thing that ever happened is they took away Tucker's advertisers.

(03:20):
Like that's how they tried to get rid of them. The people who don't like them.
They did that with Glenn Beck and it worked, but it didn't work with Tucker
because his program was so popular that the cable stations have to the cable
providers have to pay Fox News to carry. their shows.
And so many people watched Tucker that they made enough money off that that it was worth keeping.

(03:41):
And so he did. So when they took away his advertisers, he was freed up to start
telling the truth about war and Syria and covid.
And the last truth he talked about, he brought on Bobby Kennedy to tell truth
about big pharma and vaccines.
And that's when they fired him. So don't forget, you don't get you don't get
in trouble for lying in corporate news. You get promoted.
You get in trouble for telling the truth. That's why Julian Assange is in prison.

(04:05):
That's why Edward Snowden is in Russia.
That's why Tucker Carlson got fired. That's why Jesse Ventura,
they never gave him his show on MSNBC because he was going to tell the truth about the Iraq war.
Ashley Banfield, Phil Donahue, he got fired because he was telling the truth
about the Iraq war. So you don't get in trouble for lying.
You get in trouble for telling the truth. And that's exact. Zach,
that's also true on YouTube.

(04:26):
Yeah, isn't that the truth? Yeah. Well, Jimmy, Dore, thank you again.
Welcome to Texas, first of all. Oh, it's a blast. I always love coming here.
I was in El Paso last night. I'll be in San Antonio tomorrow.
Austin's always fun. I'll be back. All right, you guys, San Antonio tomorrow.
Go check it out. Jimmy, Dore, thank you so much. Have a great night. My pleasure. Oh, here.
My pleasure. Okay. Thank you. Goodbye. Good luck. Thank you. I appreciate it.

(04:50):
Music.