3-26-26 Afternoon Rush - Candace Owens v Brigitte Macron UPDATES & The Lion King Lawsuit Explained!

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Welcome to The Rush Hour, your daily dose of pop culture for your rush hour ride.

Buckle up and enjoy the drive with your host, stand up comedian Dave Neal.

Good afternoon, everybody.

On this Thursday, March 26, 2026, I have all of your news for your rush hour ride home.

We've got an update on Candace Owens vs Brigitte McCrone, Brigitte McCrone suing Candace Owens

for defamation.

We have a whole other conversation about defamation as a comedian is being sued by the composer

of the Lion King for millions of dollars for misrepresenting in a joke what the lyrics

of the circle of life actually are, the language from South Africa, the Zulu language where

they sing that chant.

It's a wild story.

I mean, this is absolutely unreal, then we'll have updates on the war and everything else

going in our world, all of this and more starts right now on the rush.

All right, so I don't have trial updates from Candace vs Brigitte, but I do have Candace

clapping back on Brigitte as Brigitte meets with Melania Trump, a reals who, who of the

first wives of the world, right?

So Melania and Brigitte meeting in the White House and Brigitte actually saying that

First Amendment should have some restrictions.

Well, isn't that the whole idea behind the First Amendment in that there are no restrictions?

You have the right to say something as long as it doesn't harm somebody else.

So defamation, you can't just defame people and you also can't say anything that would

provoke violence on somebody else, but everything else is pretty much up in the air of what

you can say and whether you like it or not, it should be protected.

That's what we should want in our country.

It's what makes our country great, or at least, the idea of that is we're seeing a lot

of restrictions come in as people are targeted for blogs, they wrote, not being on the same

side of history as somebody else.

It's a whole mess, but we'll get into it.

And the reason I speak about the First Amendment is I'm a stand-up comedian.

We have to hold our ground when it comes to what is allowed and is protected to be said.

Now, if you want to listen to what I said in the New York Comedy Club, I've made this

set available to my Patreon community, a 35-minute or so long set that I did this past Thursday.

I did this set hours after the Bachelorette was canceled, so I talk about it a little

bit.

You can go to patreon.com slash Dave Neal if you want to watch the full thing.

All right, so let's dive into it.

Here's Brigitte McCrone.

She is translated here, and the translation, not my doing, is a man, a man's translating.

We can have a cross-gender translations.

That's totally fine.

What makes it interesting to people is that there's a giant conspiracy theory that she

was born a man.

Do I believe the conspiracy?

No, I don't.

I have not been presented with enough evidence to believe that Brigitte McCrone was born

a man.

With that said, Brigitte McCrone is suing Candace Owens for defamation because Candace Owens

claims that Brigitte McCrone was born a man.

Because of that lawsuit, the onus is on Brigitte McCrone to prove she was born a woman.

Now, if someone wanted to claim I was born a woman, first of all, I wouldn't care.

That's where I get my nice dance moves from.

I don't know.

My nice wavy hair.

I don't know.

It wouldn't bother me.

To eat their own, I would march down to the hospital and get my burst of difficulty.

Again, as a millennial who had a single mom, I don't have many baby photos of myself.

This whole idea, well, you should have a ton of photos.

I couldn't produce a baby photo of myself to be quite honest with you without doing

a lot of digging.

Either way, that's neither here nor there with this story.

Here is Brigitte McCrone, through a translator, talking about the First Amendment.

Have a listen.

I do know that I am denoted States, a country that I love very much.

And here we are the country of free speech.

But I think that liberty does have some rules.

We have to be free, but adapt to certain codes.

So I believe in these codes, too many young people are suffering.

And they do not tell us, but they send signals, very strong signals from young people and

teenagers.

So it's up to us to answer them.

Let's answer them all together.

Thank you very much.

Now look, OK, I love the idea of protecting kids.

The argument people have against Brigitte McCrone is that she groomed her now husband,

the president of France, because she was the teacher when he was a teenager, right?

So that's a whole different conversation.

But if you want to have the conversation about social media, Australia is now banning social

media for children.

Should children and teens have the same rights as adults?

It's a fair question to ask.

Because I've got a young boy who I don't let on the phone, are you kidding me?

I don't let him scroll a phone.

You know, he gets a little miss Rachel here and there.

We've always been OK with certain types of screens, because screens are different.

But social media, that's where the bully is.

That's where the danger is, right?

Do I think you should ban it?

I don't, I honestly don't know.

Do I think that we should protect our kids at all costs and they aren't allowed to have

any interaction online?

I think it's a parent's issue, really.

That's what I think right now.

I would love to live in a community where none of the kids have social media.

I think it would be a far better community.

I don't think I'll allow my child to have much screen time when he is of the age to have

it in the first place.

I think social media should have guardrails.

One of the guardrails I think they should have is, I don't think it should be mandatory

for people to have to verify their identity to be online.

I'll put that out there.

But I would like if there was a toggle on Facebook, which made it so that I couldn't read

people's comments if they haven't verified their identity.

Does that make sense?

I don't want the government to control this, but I would love it if the platforms gave

us the ability to get rid of all of the bots.

I think that's a great idea, but again, I'm not going to say the government should enforce

it.

With regards to the liberties that Brzee Mikroen speaks of.

Again, she's allowed to have her opinion, but when it comes to the United States of America,

we have one of the most robust, we have one of the most robust freedom of speech laws

out there.

You're seeing in other countries, people getting arrested for mean things that they said

on Facebook.

I think that's insane.

But we are starting to see people here get the door knocked because of their anti-war.

We've literally seen this play out where strong opinions are getting doors knocked on, which

is also insane that we're sort of moving into that world.

When it comes to having guardrails on speech, the problem is that bad actors might use those

guardrails to control speech they don't like.

Here's what Candace Owens had to say about this meeting.

This is an unbelievably sick world.

The Trumps have made their allegiances increasingly clear.

Beyond anything else, they're platforming a man who statutorily are worded a child

and is currently attempting to bankrupt an American citizen for telling the world the

truth about it.

Now I don't know if there's evidence that this per that Brzee statutorily are worded

in manual Macron.

I don't know that.

Maybe there is.

But the wild claims that Candace Owens has doubled down on, listen, it's going to go

to trial.

Either Brzee Macron proves she was born a woman or she doesn't.

And if she proves she was born a woman, she's also going to have to prove that Candace Owens

knowingly lied.

That's what defamation is.

Not that so in lie, but that they knowingly lied.

We'll have to see how this plays out.

It's going to play out in the United States courts, right?

And it's hard.

It's hard to win a defamation case in the United States.

So we will see.

What I wanted to share is this absolutely wild story, Lion King lyrics lawsuit.

A comedian has been sued for $27 million over a viral translation.

So here on the left is the composer who wrote the circle of life for the Lion King.

You know, it's the initial verses sang in Zulu, a South African language, and no one

really knows what the words mean.

No English speaking person knows what the words mean.

And here we have a comedian on the right who said what the words mean in a joking way.

And now he's being sued for it.

So here he is on a podcast joking around about what those lyrics actually mean.

Have a listen.

What does it mean?

It means look.

There's a lion.

Oh my God.

That's it.

You're joking.

That's it.

That's it.

That's it.

That's it.

That's it.

That's it.

That's it.

That's it.

That's it.

That's it.

What's going on here.

Now, What you're referring to is the opening lyrics of it.

Forgive me.

And.

So it says here comes a Lion Father.

Oh, yes, it's a lion.

And so what he's alleging is that that's actually not what the words are.

It's this defamatory.

It means look.

There's a lion.

Oh my God.

Look is a lion.

I'm I can.

And again, where's the harm in that?

He's misrepresenting the lyrics, but he's a comedian.

He should be protected.

And as Bruce and my comment section said here on Patreon, as we're going over this,

that comedians have misrepresented lyrics all the time.

There's so much fodder in humor from dissecting lyrics and hearing them wrong and whatnot.

So it's absolutely wild.

Here's the moment on stage where the Zimbabwean comedian, Learn More Genesee, was served

with a lawsuit while performing.

That's less fortunate.

What is this?

What is this?

Service.

Oh, just got served.

Oh, shit.

Now, I thought this was a bit, to be honest, I thought this was a fun bit.

I was like, oh, he's not actually getting served for this.

But it went super viral.

He got served.

And I'll share what Lebo M had to say, the South African composer who's suing him.

But Lebo M had some very choice words to say.

So here's the response by Learn More, the Stand Up comedian.

Hello, everybody.

It's Learn More Genesee here.

So I didn't think I was going to make this video.

But because things are getting out of hand,

I just had to come here and give you context on what happened.

And my reasoning on why I chose to dismiss the composer of the Lion King chant,

Lebo M, when this man first approached me, he approached me with the attitude of saying

that I am, you know, disrespecting his work, right?

And I was like, no, no, actually, I'm a big fan of yours.

I actually love the song.

And this is what's ridiculous, right?

It's like, to have your ego so fragile, to think that a comedian making fun of your

lyrics is dissing it, like making fun of something in so many ways,

is like, respect, it's an homage paid for by the comedian, the jester, in the room.

So in the podcast, you've got God, I believe it's God-free, right?

The comedian here, you have an American comedian talking to us in Bobway and comedian,

saying, hey, do you know what this means?

Like, you know, trying to like, you know, have a cross-cultural conversation.

This is a good thing.

This is a great use of podcasting that people can come from different cultures and come together

and discuss a song we all know, even though we don't know the lyrics to it.

So it's absolutely wild to even think that a defamation lawsuit would even make

its way past the judge on this one.

You know, and therefore, this was just a joke.

And comedy always had a way of studying a conversation.

Like, I told him this.

I was like, this is now your chance to actually educate people,

because now people are listening, you know?

And people can just look Google it for themselves, right?

But I tell you what, he's got such a strong, dry ability here.

So look at his face after he delivers the joke.

Straight ahead.

Yeah, what does it mean?

It means, Luke, there's a lion.

Oh, my God.

So they die laughing and joking.

And then he has this, like, this solid mug.

I mean, it's such a strong, hilarious, comedic moment.

Of course, that's why it went viral.

And then people can Google for themselves.

It's like the stri-sian effect, but for a good reason.

You can look it up and see that it's not too bad.

So apparently, Lebo has responded to this.

And boy, what?

I mean, this looks horrible for him.

Hi, wow.

I'm Lebo.

First, let me start by saying, if I'm a friend at anyone,

oh boy, by using the word,

I used describing this young man.

I apologize.

All right, terrible opening 15 seconds.

If I've offended anyone, I apologize.

And by the way, maybe this is why Lebo

isn't a fight with his ex-wife, okay?

He's reportedly suing her because she took the piano

in their divorce.

So he seems a little bit litigious if you ask me.

So then he goes on and does a six-minute video

about why he felt so disrespected.

Which honestly, it's like, maybe there's something lost

in translation here.

Maybe he needs to go to a comedy club and laugh a little bit.

The idea that this thing is going on for so long

because someone just refuses to apologize if they did wrong.

Then when I'm upset and I respond and call you a idiot,

you actually continue the promise you made

that you will not respect my work.

You will not respect my culture.

You will not not respect the hard work put into this work

well over 30 years around the world,

inspiring people positively.

Okay, I feel bad for this guy.

I truly do.

And I know you're thinking, why do I need to hear

about the opinion of a white guy from Rhode Island?

I'm just, I am who I am.

I can't change my skin color to offer an opinion here.

I just think there's clearly some boundaries on,

like, I don't know, maybe he doesn't know comedy

or he's deeply offended and not right in his head.

But suing a comedian from Zimbabwe

who's just like lovingly speaking out

and then expecting an apology

because you feel disrespected, that just ain't it.

The fact that our work, whether it's an animation or not,

an animation is well respected form of entertainment around the world.

You seek to continue the likes and the viral and all that

ignite suspense.

No, it's not at your expense.

It's not regarding you because it's humor.

And humor has to live outside of your feelings.

I'm sorry, humor has to live outside of your feelings.

So learn more over here.

He's got to go fund me.

I have no idea what it's up to.

We'll check in on it.

And he's going to fight this thing.

And he's going to have all of the comedians

around the world come together and say,

look, you can't sue a guy

because he's misrepresenting song lyrics in a jokingly way.

Humor is protected, at least where I come from.

So here he is.

Oh, let's give him a follow right here.

So here he is.

And again, well, let's check out his go fund me.

So here it is.

The go fund me for learn more is up to almost $12,000.

And again, if I'm a lawyer, I take this thing on for free,

just because it's going to be,

I mean, it's like a global story now.

Everybody knows the Lion King.

So either way, if there's more to this story, I'll cover it.

But I am all over this Lion King defamation lawsuit.

All right, coming up next, we have more with regards to the war in Iran,

with the president saying and how Christians can,

maybe learn to take a stance and stick up for all of the victims

of so much tragedy that's happening right now.

Stick around.

We'll love this and more coming up next on the rush.

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So here's Donald Trump claiming

that Iran wants him to be the supreme leader.

Well, somebody get their grandpa plays.

Baron, all right, I guess Baron, this is Baron's father.

Who's, what's one of the grandkids name?

Get your grandpa, please.

Anything like we're doing in the Middle East with Iran.

And they are negotiating, by the way,

and they want to make a deal so badly,

but they're afraid to say it.

Because they figure they'll be killed by their own people.

They're also afraid they'll be killed by us.

There's never been a head of a country

that wanted that job less than being the head of Iran.

I don't want it.

Well, listen to some of the things they say,

we are very clearly.

They say, I don't want it.

I'd like to make you the next supreme leader.

No, thank you.

I don't want it.

But I want to express my gratitude to the tremendous leadership.

All right, can somebody, Kai, get your grandfather,

get him away from the microphone, he's sundowning.

And speaking about kin, here is Rex Jones, Alex Jones's son.

He has choice words for Donald Trump.

Now, I'm going to do my best Alex Jones impression.

The globalist Democrats are coming with the blood-sucking lizard eyes.

The globalist elite in the United Bank,

so the world are coming to steal the, you know, whatever.

So anyway, here's Rex Jones, son of Alex Jones,

speaking of defamation, Alex Jones was sued for hundreds of millions of dollars

by Sandy Hook victims.

I don't believe he's paid a penny as far as I know.

But either way, here's Rex Jones with his thoughts on our president.

He didn't do anything.

He says the exact opposite.

The exact opposite, everything he promised to do.

And then they're like, good boy, you take it,

mage of voter or American voter.

You're pulling that lever again in the midterms in in 2028.

And it's just an outright rejection.

I just want to say this very quickly.

Fuck Donald Trump.

Fuck that orange motherfucker.

I supported you for 10 years.

I watched you on that debate stage the first time.

You lied to me.

You lied to us all.

You promised no foreign entanglements.

You promised no foreign wars.

You promised to put the American people first.

And what are we dealing with right now, then?

Putting it as a force, you agree.

That's fucking you, Trump.

Yeah, it's ridiculous.

Complete betrayal.

Complete betrayal.

What were you doing, Trump?

Let's do a conversation.

There it is.

FU Trump complete betrayal.

What took 10 years?

Well, you know what I mean?

When Trump rolled out and said he had concepts of a health care plan

after serving four years as president and did nothing about it,

I thought that would be enough.

But here we are.

So, hey, better late than never.

The son of Alex Jones saying, FU Trump.

And here's Tucker Carlson.

Again, just having the conversation

talking to Christians here, right?

We claim to be a country that we know our country

as a majority of Christians,

which is why I think there's a lot of Christians

who get their Christian panties in a bunch

when I criticize what's going on.

But you have to remember whether I practice Christianity or not,

I am more of a Christian than anyone who supports

unnecessary war.

You're supporting bloodshed, genocide.

You're supporting a blockade of resources to Cuba

as kids and grandparents are dying in hospitals.

You are not acting as a Christian

if you're supporting this president right now.

Hard stop.

Maybe you voted pro life because it felt good to do,

but do you care about the life of any child once they've been born?

Do you care enough to want to protect all of the food stamps

and Medicare that were cut?

So, billionaires can save a few bucks on their taxes.

Where are you on all of these issues

that a Christian should be up in arms over?

About the religious leaders,

the American evangelical leader,

not rank and file evangelicals,

who, if they knew, would be horrified.

But the people who run the biggest evangelical

associations in the United States,

the people are in Liberty University, for example,

or Franklin Graham.

These are household names.

Have they said anything about the destruction of churches

and ancient Christian villages in a country

in the Middle East with a Christian president?

You know, I've said this, right?

We've got ICE agents shooting pepper balls on priest's heads.

We've got

the Israel forces bombing,

literally, I think,

near a Catholic church in Gaza.

We've got our Pope speaking out against the war,

wanting a ceasefire,

but everyone goes,

oh, walk, Pope, doesn't matter.

And now we've got like ancient,

like very old Christian churches being bombed in Lebanon,

including, I believe, a priest that was killed.

And where are you all?

And a lot of people say, well, the Armageddon,

this is in the end times,

we need this for the rapture.

Shot the fuck up, Jesus Christ, you're wrong.

Do they even know Lebanon had a Christian president?

Who knows?

They even said, word one about it.

Why?

Well, that's a good question.

That was the question that a lot of people asked the Reich Church

after the Second World War ended in Germany.

How could you go along with that?

Wow, making a comparison to the Nazis.

You know, if you did this last year,

and we go, oh, you're going to compare Trump to Hitler.

But this is the comparison to be made.

Now, Tucker's asking a question that probably only an expert

in the brain could answer.

But I believe when you dive into cults,

worship a leader, and when you worship the leader

over the rules of the religion that you come from,

then the leader trumps the rules.

No pun intended there.

The leader trumps the rules.

And something happens in your brain

when you feel like it's us versus them, right?

It's a fight or flight response,

which shuts down your critical thinking.

And then you just assume you're getting the right

storing everybody else's in.

I've said this over and over.

It's easier to fool someone

than convince them they've been fooled.

But that's where they stand.

That's why there are so many Christians in our country.

And around the world, right now,

that seem to be okay with this war.

They'd rather support this war

because they feel like they're on the right side of it,

not having the context that they're actually part

of a murderous regime.

And there was not a good answer other than,

I don't know, didn't want to offend the powerful.

There is going to be a consequence to this.

And one of them is very easy to predict.

Big evangelical institutions,

which have done good things, by the way,

if you're for the family and your pro-life,

you're grateful for what they've done for their pro-life for who?

Pro-life for the black single mother who needs food stamps

or for my own mother who needs food stamps.

Pro-life for someone living in an urban city

where they don't know, you know,

it's a food desert and they can't get good nutrition

and they can't get health care.

Pro-life for who?

Fuck off with this pro-life bullshit.

Fuck off with it.

Because it's a moot point.

If you're not supporting the social welfare programs

that help those that are in need,

the programs Jesus Christ would have supported.

You're no Christian if you check off the pro-life box

and it ends on abortion.

I'm sorry, that ain't it.

You're losing that battle.

Personal decency of the people in the pews

ought to really decent people.

But the leaders of American evangelical Christianity,

not all but some,

will have no legitimacy at all when this is over.

Yeah, of course.

And then Erica Kirk, of course,

we've spoken about yesterday,

was asked a question about one of her turning point USA chapters.

You know, do you support this war?

Would a Charlie Kirk support this war?

And she goes, well, we don't know if you would.

Like, we have to trust in God and blah, blah, blah.

And it's like, take a fucking side on it.

What are we talking about?

Here's Pete Hagueceth,

uh, Department of War,

hopefully, hopefully charge a war crimes

when it's all said and done.

Here he is, I guess, reading a quote from the Bible

about why it's okay to kill people.

Almighty God, who trains our hands for war

and our fingers for battle.

You who stirred the nations from the north against Babylon of old.

And by the way, my God doesn't train our hands for a war.

My God trains our hands to do art,

to share love, to hug our neighbors,

to hug our enemies.

That's what my God uses his hands to do.

His God uses his hands to learn Jiu Jitsu,

making her land a desolation where none dwell.

Behold now the wicked who rise against your justice

and the peace of the righteous.

Snap the rod of the oppressor,

frustrate the wicked plans and break the teeth of the ungodly.

All right, break the teeth of the ungodly.

And then he goes on to say,

and also bomb those girls from that school.

They were so violently studying that we deserved to kill them

with our taxpayer money.

It's ridiculous.

And here's Trump, you know,

initially said no boots on the ground, no new wars.

Now we're taking a little detour.

The most investment of any country in history

has been put into our country in the last year.

And again, we had to take a little detour.

Won't be long.

Gonna answer.

We had to take a little detour.

Go to a rent and we had to put out a fire.

Very dangerous fire that could have blown up.

Big portions of the world, if not the whole thing.

And by put out a fire, he means

bomb and oil depot that's leading to

Gulf War syndrome.

Thousands will get cancer because there's

literal acid rain.

There's oil dripping down from the skies

because of the environmental damage we have done.

So talk about a detour.

Two billion dollars a day detour.

And we can't even vote for universal health care.

Here's James Tallerico.

If there's ever a resurrection of Jesus Christ,

I would believe it looks like Bernie Sanders.

First of all, a Jewish man from Brooklyn.

But if there's another resurrection,

it might be James Tallerico.

Every dollar we are spending bombing people in the Middle East

is a dollar that we are not spending

in our communities in this country.

And Tim, we're always told

that there's not enough money for schools,

not enough money for health care,

not enough money for veterans,

but there always seems to be enough money

to bomb people on the other side of the world.

And so I think it is possible to support

the democracy movement in Iran.

It is possible to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon

without this kind of reckless military intervention.

There it is folks. James Tallerico running for Senate

in the great state of Texas.

And we'll have to see how that goes.

But there's a groundswell of support for him to the point

that you have pastors calling for his murder.

What a world we live in.

Isn't it pretty wild to be out there?

Well, you guys stay safe. You found a home here.

We're here to be part of the resistance.

I'm sure I'm on a watch list.

I'm getting notifications from people saying,

get offline. Don't say anything.

They're spying on all of us.

Welcome. How are you?

Come for me, bro.

I'll be here defending the comedians

that want to talk shit about the Lion King

and our freedom of speech until it exists no longer.

We'll see you tomorrow morning.

We're here twice a day every day.

Don't forget you can join the Patreon.

If you want to support put a little bread in the tip jar.

Go to patreon.com slash Dave Neal

for the private membership community.

You can catch my standup show, which I just shared.

And we'll see you in the morning.

Until then, I'm Dave and this is The Rush.