Ben Fordham blasts sovereign citizen for ‘lying’ about coming on the radio show

Ben Fordham has blasted a sovereign citizen who incited his followers to harass the radio station for not letting him on the show.

Two supporters of the Australian sovereign citizen movement have live streamed themselves bombarding staff at 2GB with phone calls after claiming they were snubbed by radio host Ben Fordham for a spot on the show.

A man named Dave, who also refers to himself as Guru, says he has been left upset after claiming he had scored an interview with Fordham this morning.

Fordham says this was not the case.

Dave told his followers on the weekend that he was going to “red pill” people through the “main stream media”.

The sovereign citizen movement is made up of individuals who believe that they, not judges, juries, law enforcement, or elected officials, should decide which laws to obey and which to ignore.

Sovereign citizens also typically do not believe they should have to pay taxes or fines.

The movement has had a resurgence in Australia in the wake of the pandemic and the lockdowns and restrictions that came along with it, with anti-lockdown and sovereign citizen groups merging together.

Dave, also known as ‘Guru’, claimed he was going to appear on 2GB on Monday morning. Picture: Ken_Behren/Twitter

It is not uncommon for members of these groups to hold radical views and believe in a number of conspiracy theories.

On Sunday, Dave claimed he would be having a conversation with Fordham on air at 5.45am on Monday, claiming “as long as we get on air, I am handle whatever he throws at me”, before branding the supposed interview “our big break”.

In the event that Fordham “pulls out”, the man directed his followers to bombard 2GB with emails and phone calls and demand for him to be on the air.

The only issue was, it seems there was never a planned interview in the first place, prompting a furious response from Dave and his followers.

‘Their brains are cooked’

These people became even more enraged after learning that, not only were they not going to be on the show, Fordham had interviewed a ‘sovereign citizens’ critic who warned about the dangers presented by these groups.

The woman, who was not named, runs a social media page called ‘Cooker Watch’, which she uses to expose the wild theories and beliefs held by these so-called sovereign citizens.

Speaking to 2GB, she explained that many refer to these people as “cookers” because they cook up conspiracy theories”.

She explained that this movement gained a lot more followers at the height of the lockdown protests and what we see now is the left overs from that morphing together into one group.

She noted that many of the followers of these movements appear to be people over the age of 50, with some younger males as the “thought leaders" and frontmen”.

22GB radio host Ben Fordham. Picture: John Feder/The Australian.

“We quite regularly log into zoom meetings where the people charge money to tell people how they can get out of paying their mortgages, how they can get out of paying their fines, the council rates, all sorts of things,” she explained.

“These people charge money to pay people to attend the Zooms or to attend the courses and it never worked. The paperwork never get delivered and basically they can stop the people coming onto their zooms once they’ve wrecked their life.”

Live streaming on Facebook on Monday morning, Dave and a woman named Mel filmed themselves repeatedly calling 2GB for almost three hours asking to speak to the radio host.

A clip of part of the stream shows a clearly frustrated Mel claiming the woman on the phone had not answered her question.

“Ben stated, we sent him an email, and he said he would get Dave on to give both sides of the story,” she says.

The woman then claims because he had the critic on the show, he needed to have Dave on “to have the other side of the story to make him fair”.

“Oh we have gone back on hold again,” she says, before claiming the woman on the phone was “trying to make me very angry”.

Guru & Mel talking to the 2GB switch. No scheduled interview as predicted. His minions are now ringing the 2GB switchboard, sending emails and hitting his Facebook page with comments. Right on cue! pic.twitter.com/GsJaiOfXgX

— Ken_Behren (@KenBerhan) January 29, 2023

Fordham blasts sovereign citizen

The live stream continued throughout the entirety of Fordham’s radio show, with Mel harassing the woman at 2GB by continually calling, with their followers watching the stream doing the exact same thing.

After a few hours of this back and forth, Dave and Mel began hearing Fordham speaking through the phone line, with the pair excitedly claiming they were about to be interviewed.

However, their hopes were once again shot down, when Fordham said Dave had not been promised a spot on his show and jokingly suggested he “change his medication”.

The radio host claimed that some members of the sovereign citizen movement were upset with him because “apparently I have been making fun of them”.

He said that some of these people believed he would support the movement because he pushed back against lockdowns and vaccine mandates during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Dave was clearly stunned by Fordham’s words. Picture: Twitter

“Well I’m happy to give them some assistance in finding a good therapist,” Fordham said this morning.

“There is a bloke who’s been claiming that he was going to be on our show this morning.

“It turns out he called into Chris O’Keefe on Friday afternoon to talk about another topic the beer economy and he claims that he was told by a producer to send an email … and be ready for an interview on Monday morning.”

“This bloke calls himself Guru. Forget the red pills Guru, you need to change your medication mate.”

Fordham stated he would be “reaching for the headache tablets” if he were to have this man on the show, before playing a clip from a speech he once gave outside Parliament House.

In the clip, a man who Fordham claims is Dave, says that if he had his way he would “bring in the bombers” and make Parliament House a “9/11 monument”.

“And this guy wants to come on air,” Fordham said.

“They need a check-up from the neck up. Their brains are fried. So to any of these people who are listening this morning, stop listening to lunatics who are feeding you false information.”

Gurus face at the end - he’s horrified pic.twitter.com/aHletZozca

— SOS (@SOS149) January 29, 2023

This lashing from Fordham prompted Dave to put another call out to his followers, encouraging them to ramp up the calls to the station.

He claimed they were now in a “psychological battle” with 2GB.

At this point, it was clear the 2GB worker who was having to answer all these calls was well and truly fed up, with the woman having to explain to Mel that every time she called she returned to the bottom of the queue.

“I will keep ringing,” she replied.

“When you keep ringing, you go right back down to the bottom of the queue,” the woman explained again.

Mel then stated she was just going to “keep annoying them”, before the woman informed her she would no longer be answering her calls.

“Mel you and I are friends now- just don’t call back. Do me a favour and just don’t call back.

I certainly won’t be taking your call after this. I am going to hang up after every call,” she said.

“I am just going to keep ringing darling. This is not very good freedom of speech,” Mel replied.

The woman noted that Mel was making her job very difficult by repeatedly calling the line.

“Mel you are not even having fun with me anymore,” she said, before questioning whether they were streaming this online.

Mel ignored this question, asking if Fordham, was “afraid” of putting them on the air.

“He must be afraid of coming up against us,” she said.

Dave then claimed that he and his followers were going to be calling the radio station all week until they were let on the air.

Originally published as Ben Fordham blasts sovereign citizen for ‘lying’ about coming on the radio show