If you are reading this, you probably didn't watch MSNBC's election night coverage of the Iowa caucus. Why would you? You being here means you value your sanity, and as I'm about to explain, you made the right decision.

The setup is the Iowa caucus being called early in the night for Donald Trump. There was a bit of justified controversy surrounding the decision of essentially every network to make that call before most people had even voted, but what's done is done, and I don't think it affected the outcome. Regardless, the panel over at MSNBC, which included Rachel Maddow, Jen Psaki, Chris Hayes, Joy Reid, and nearly every other lunatic from their primetime line-up, didn't waste any time before melting down. 

Enter actor and podcaster Russell Brand, who took the clips of Maddow explaining why her network censored Trump's victory speech and turned them into comedy gold. It's like watching a car wreck in slow motion. You can't look away.

MSNBC and CNN REFUSE to air Trump's victory speech in Iowa🇺🇸 We took a closer look and unpicked their HYSTERIA🚨 pic.twitter.com/5oFQVC5w5r

— Russell Brand (@rustyrockets) January 16, 2024

BRAND: Look, it's Donald Trump. Can you not say his name? "The projected winner, he that can not be named." He's not Voldemort. He's not a lord of darkness. But just the utterance of the word "Trump" on MSNBC, suddenly liberals are putting down their coffee cups and they're putting down their comfortable view. They're embracing the idea of emergent populism.

Let's have a look at the rest of Rachel Maddow's analysis of misinformation and disinformation, and they're peculiar refusal to show Trump's speech. It was the sweetest thing I've ever seen. 

A video of Maddow explaining to the audience why they can't play Trump's speech is then played. Brand responds with this.

BRAND: And that's because when people watch that stuff, people kind of like him, and it's very difficult when we have as our own candidate for the ongoing presidency a waxen, cadaverous zombie who looks like he's been scooped up from the tomb, shoved from the (?), and into the voting booth.

He then plays the rest of Maddow's explanation, which claims that her network simply can't abide by showing "misinformation" on-air. Brand then hit her with the receipts. 

MADDOW: The vaccines work well enough that the virus stops with every vaccinated person. A vaccinated person gets exposed to the virus, the virus does not infect them, the virus then can not use that person to go anywhere else.

BRAND: This is extraordinary. It's not an absolute of misinformation. It's a condemnation of information that may lead to you losing trust in the establishment. 

MADDOW: That is a fundamental truth of our business and who we are, and so his remarks will not air here live. We will monitor them and let you know about any news that he makes. 

BRAND: Also, they make him sound more and more powerful. "He might make some news, he might make some," look at that sort of wahhh, like he sings it into existence. Like some vibrating orb of pure consciousness, creating reality from the (?), prima-material of reality. Consciousness itself, preceding material reality, all of the objects, and apparent separation emanating from a single unitary source. "We can't show him! There's just too much truth!"

I'll stop the excerpts there because it's not easy to transcribe a fast-speaking British dude whose using words I've never heard of, but you get the idea. He goes on for several more minutes thoroughly roasting Maddow, and it's well-deserved. 

How silly do these networks look bothering to censor a presidential candidate because he mentions there's an "invasion" at the border or that he thinks the 2020 election is rigged? Who cares? Aren't voters adults? Shouldn't they have the mental fortitude to handle hearing things they may disagree with? If not, should they even be voting? 

Maddow and MSNBC are playing political incarnations of the Streisand effect. No one would have otherwise cared that much about what Trump did or didn't say in his Iowa speech. It's not like he's put a lot of new material into his public appearances over the last several years. By censoring him, though, it makes open-minded people seek out what they missed. 

In other words, it's self-defeating. No one has ever accused liberals of having critical-thinking skills, I suppose.