On this episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, the guys are joined by special guest Josh Kuchar to talk about his love/hate relationship with golf and how he s trying to break out of it. Also, the boys talk about what it s like to be a professional golfer and how they re trying to figure out how to play the game they ve always wanted to play and not suck at it. And of course, they talk about how much they hate golf and why they don t want to play it anymore and how it s not so bad compared to other sports like baseball and basketball. And they also talk about why they re not playing golf anymore and what they re doing to get back into the swing of things and what s in store for the future of the game and how to get better at it and much, much more! Thanks to everyone for all your support and stay tuned for more episodes coming soon! -Joe Rogan and the Joe Rogans Experience Music: "Space Junk" by Fountains of Wayne - "Goodbye Outer Space" by The Smiths - "Outer Space Traveler" by Bumble & Feathers - "Tropical Breeze by The Weakerthans (feat. Jeff Perla - "Solo" by Pinstripe & "Incomptech - "Shooting Star" by Squeals - "Astro" by John Doe Josh Rogan (featuring Josh Kudzic - "Feat. , "Too Effing" - "Golf" by Matt Alvarez - "I Don't Know" by Josh & Matt Alvarez, "I'm Too Effing Goodbye" , "Ain't That's Too Effin'" by Josh, "The Joker" and "I Can't Do It" by Kevin Spacey, "Fucking Goodbyes" by Darnell - "It's Not That Good Enough" by Ian Pizzi, "We'll Figure It Out How To Play It's Not Good Enough," we're Too Good Enough, We'll Figure it Out How to Play It Out, We're Not Too Good by Josh's Podcast, we'll See You'll Hear It Out & We'll Talk About It, We Love You, We Don't Care About It (And We'll Get It Out And We'll See It Out and We'll Think It Out On It,"
00:00:59.000I would imagine that it's like anything else.
00:01:01.000If you don't get a coach, then you learn bad habits, and those are hard to break.
00:01:07.000Yes, but I am breaking bad habits I had started with from my whole life of everyone trying to say, like in the four or five times you play, you're doing this wrong, keep your head down, we'll watch the ball for you, all that kind of shit.
00:05:24.000Because it's a thing where it's the only game that's really connected to business.
00:05:31.000Tennis isn't necessarily connected to business.
00:05:33.000Like, you know, because golf, you don't have to be that athletic.
00:05:36.000I mean, there's a physical movement involved to it, but you don't have to be able to explode side to side like you do with tennis.
00:05:41.000See, and that's where I guess you just touched the nerve.
00:05:45.000I think that that's where my aggravation comes from with golf is I think if you got into this conversation with a golfer, they would chew you alive about, oh, really?
00:06:10.000Yeah, and you could have somebody that is really struggling with alcoholism and drug addiction be at the top of the game like that guy John Daly was, right?
00:06:19.000And I don't think that there's any sport where you could say the same thing.
00:06:42.000Look, I have extraordinary reverence for people that become skillful at anything.
00:06:49.000I'll often look around a room and be like, How the fuck did people, you know, invent light bulbs or microphones or get great at this game with this little ball?
00:07:01.000So, you know, I'll lay awake tonight regretting the fact that I was shitting on golf.
00:07:08.000And there goes my existential, you know, angst.
00:07:12.000I'm kind of with you about all these things.
00:07:14.000Like, I'm impressed when people get good at Dance Dance Revolution.
00:07:18.000Watch him do those fast footwork movements.
00:07:21.000It seems kind of useless, but probably actually for fighters, actually, if you really think about it, the ability to do that kind of footwork, to move the feet that quick, like Lomachenko, right?
00:07:33.000That's how he really got good with footwork is that Ukrainian dance.
00:07:36.000I mean, the guy can do things that, not just dancing, but, you know, you ever see what he does with a tennis ball tied to his head on a string?
00:08:45.000That motherfucker hits so hard, there's so much danger in getting close to him.
00:08:49.000And Lopez is constantly pressuring, and he's got incredible endurance for a heavy hitter.
00:08:53.000A lot of guys who hit real hard like he does, he basically doesn't throw anything half speed.
00:08:58.000I saw him in the gym when a guy that James Prince and I managed, of course, Stevenson, was in his third or fourth fight.
00:09:08.000And for a guy that hits as hard as he does, he's very—it may not seem so when you see it.
00:09:16.000But he doesn't expend a ton of energy in getting off a big power shot.
00:09:21.000And I was like, wow, this guy, he's technical in a way that doesn't seem intuitive because you're looking for the sort of hallmarks of a technical puncher.
00:09:32.000He doesn't seem that way, but boy, does he hit for his size.
00:09:35.000He hits fucking hard, and he knows how to get his knuckles on your chin.
00:09:54.000And he, like, he won the 12th round, which is like Lomachenko came back and was winning the 11th, right?
00:09:59.000That was when he was making his big push.
00:10:01.000But then Lopez came back and won the 12th, and he wins it with power because it's so dangerous getting close to him.
00:10:07.000I mean, he's obviously got great skill as a boxer, but his style is such an assaulting power style.
00:10:13.000He's just always pressuring, always pressuring, always throwing big shots.
00:10:16.000It's just the consequences of getting too close to him are so dangerous.
00:10:21.000Well, you know, you put your finger on something that I think is important, that people Even people in boxing or in MMA, any combat sport, you know it when you see it.
00:10:34.000If you see him, and you see him next to other people in his division, and you didn't know anything about the sport, and you said, that guy's the biggest puncher in his prime, people would be like, come on.
00:10:45.000The kid with the nice haircut and not overwhelming looking.
00:11:04.000He's just so good at finding openings.
00:11:08.000You know, I felt like he won the first Canelo fight, and I felt like the second fight was arguable, but, you know, could even have been a draw.
00:11:15.000But his last fight, who the fuck did he fight in his last fight?
00:13:14.000And that was a time where Cooney was trying to make a comeback, and people weren't sure whether or not George was ready for top-notch fighters.
00:13:24.000That was pre-the Tommy Morrison fight, right?
00:17:41.000You mean in terms of their performance and their ability?
00:17:43.000Yeah, just because I just feel like...
00:17:46.000And I don't want to unearth anything, but hearing guys like Stephen A. Smith or Morrow or any of these guys that are like, don't have any experience fighting, period.
00:18:13.000And even being close to it as a manager in it and representing fighters, I will never, ever, ever, even in private conversation, be like, he sucks.
00:18:28.000It's not like a guy sucking at golf, right?
00:18:30.000A guy sucks at golf, he sucks at golf, right?
00:18:32.000I feel much more comfortable saying he's got no business on the golf course than saying he's got no business in an octagon or in a bare knuckle fight or in a boxing ring.
00:19:21.000Doing that to boxing, the problem is a lot of these sports guys, and we had a problem with that early on in the UFC, is that you would get these sports guy writers who would try to write about the athletes, the fighters, in this really disrespectful AM sports guy way.
00:19:43.000It's like what they do with some of them.
00:19:46.000It's like they have this style of attacking all the different players' work ethics, and they got signed for too much, they're not worth it, fucking trade them, get rid of them.
00:19:56.000They were doing that same thing with fighters, and I'm like, hey man, this is a different thing.
00:20:01.000These guys are literally laying their health out there.
00:20:32.000I can see how they would say that, like that shit-talking and like the Conor McGregor-style shit-talking, that that kind of diminishes the culture of martial arts, too.
00:21:28.000Fucking suck, you know, take him out of the game.
00:21:31.000And I, you know, first of all, you know, not that I need to cover his ears from curse words, but, you know, he was, he asked me, so why is he so, why is he being so mean?
00:21:43.000And I said, you know what the irony is, son?
00:21:46.000He probably, you know how to stop someone dead in their tracks, dead in their tracks, and say, What level did you get to in baseball or basketball or football?
00:21:56.000You know, 99% of the time, someone yelling that shit sucked in Little League and probably never made it out of Little League.
00:22:04.000And there's something that I think is remarkably consistent with fighters, even guys like Conor McGregor, even Floyd.
00:22:14.000They will freely admit, after the battle is done, that was all in prospect of promoting the fight.
00:22:21.000And there's always this, I know I've told you, it's remarkable how these MMA fighters come together and they celebrate each other's success at the end.
00:22:31.000Very rare, it seems to me, even in boxing, that at the end...
00:22:33.000There isn't like, you know, you get knocked out.
00:22:37.000Very rare that you get like a Deontay Wilder making up these conspiracy theories about his gloves, about the opponent's gloves being loaded and something was put in my drink and it was this fault.
00:23:05.000I'm still, James Prince and I are still partners.
00:23:07.000But you still promised your wife no more boxing?
00:23:09.000No, I promise her that I won't get as emotionally caught up in it because I fall in love with fighters in a way because they're sensitive people.
00:23:18.000They have, you know, I think existential angst like me.
00:23:24.000There's something that they're struggling with that they're trying to work out a lot of the time, and I find them to be fascinating people, but I'm not the way I was when Lennox was fighting or You know, when Andre was fighting, earlier on I'd be going to all the fights.
00:23:39.000I can't because I want to be with my kids and my wife, but it'll never be gone.
00:23:44.000But yeah, we have Shakur Stevenson and some of the best, you know, this great heavyweight prospect named Jared Anderson, who I think is going to be heavyweight champion.
00:24:10.000You'll see that Tyson Fury has had him as his sparring partner and repeatedly has said, this guy's amazing.
00:24:19.000What do you think about what's going on with Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder?
00:24:23.000Do you think that Tyson knew that he was going to have to defend against Deontay and that this whole Anthony Joshua thing, because that's what Joshua thinks, that he knew the whole time that he wasn't going to be able to make that fight and they were just letting them get all hyped up about it, but knew he had to really face Deontay Wilder because of the lawsuit?
00:24:45.000And they were actively trying to, you know, and I know this on firsthand knowledge, they were actively trying to make sure that they, he was trying to get out of the third fight.
00:24:56.000He thought that he had a contractual right not to have to fight that third fight because it had to happen at a certain time.
00:25:03.000And they, I mean, the arbitration's confidential, but I know what was going on, and I know that they were actively trying to make sure that he didn't have to fight that third fight.
00:26:32.000Because if you just try to move around, then he can move forward and set his punches in and put his weight behind his punches like he did in that 12th round and dropped him.
00:26:40.000But then when Tyson got up and then had Deontay backing up, as soon as he had Deontay backing up, it's almost like he was like, oh, this is how you fight this guy.
00:26:49.000And he can't fight backing up, in my humble opinion.
00:28:09.000He's like Babe Ruth or Mickey Mantle or one of these home run hitters that right off the bat, if you watch him, he turns his back and he's like, it's over.
00:28:18.000And I think what happened with Tyson Fury is he felt the same way.
00:29:38.000And it was, you know, his balance was so bad, he could barely...
00:29:45.000He would throw a punch, and then he would be dancing all over the place.
00:29:49.000He just couldn't get his balance down, which is not uncommon for big heavyweights.
00:29:54.000Lennox was like that before he got with Emmanuel Stewart.
00:29:56.000He had a big problem with his balance.
00:29:58.000And the notion that this guy would make it as far as he's...
00:30:03.000He has this far and then developed the right hand.
00:30:07.000He knows that his balance is improved.
00:30:12.000What he had to do to improve it is widen that stance so wide that his back foot is so far behind him.
00:30:17.000He can't really do anything about that because his balance will get all fucked up again.
00:30:22.000But a guy that, you know, there's something to be said about a guy that says, all right, this is my moneymaker and I'm just going to figure out how to Dance around, stay in the fight, figure out when I can unload it.
00:30:33.000I mean, that's, to me, I marvel at that.
00:30:36.000I think it's just, it's extraordinary to see.
00:30:38.000Well, if you look at his career on paper, he's the most extraordinary knockout artist in the history of the heavyweight division.
00:30:58.000James Prince calls me one day and he's like, this guy remains Stiverne, wants us to represent him and negotiate his rematch against Wilder.
00:31:07.000And I said to Jay, you sure we want to do that?
00:31:32.000James had been involved suing Don over the years.
00:31:35.000So we had this one meeting before the fight where we're in a hotel room in Brooklyn where Don is trying to grind down Steverne's purse.
00:31:45.000We finally negotiated these terms and Don kept on bringing up, well, if he wins the fight and if he wins the fight, we were all looking at each other.
00:31:56.000And I think the three of us looked at each other and burst out laughing at the same time because we knew we were all, you know, Stavurn's a big, strong guy.
00:32:04.000He came out in the rematch and while there was like, this is the one guy that I went the distance with, he blew him out in the first round in a way that I was like, this guy is going to get hurt.
00:33:56.000I'm trying to find myself and Prince and King.
00:33:59.000We must have been on the other side of the ring in the crowd because after the second knockdown, I remember Don King turned around and looked at us and started laughing.
00:34:22.000And be like, look, we're laughing because it's, you know, we're laughing in awe of both of these guys because you have to be a badass to get knocked down like that and get up.
00:34:37.000I don't care what you're saying to the ref, shaking your head.
00:34:39.000So I will always be in love with men that are willing to risk that much.
00:34:46.000Because what's never been lost on me, not to get too introspective or poetic about it, it was always...
00:34:54.000Like, even with Bermain and Severn, it was a quick representation, but James and I got him paid.
00:35:01.000And, you know, this is a sport that plucks, you know, the most disenfranchised people most of the time out of the worst circumstances, out of the poorest neighborhoods, and it's like the fucking Wild West.
00:35:26.000You know, in boxing, you have, like, when I shut my eyes and think about it, it's like a bunch of rabid vultures that are looking to pluck flesh off of people, eat it, and throw them aside.
00:35:39.000Well, this is what's going on right now where a bunch of fighters are upset because Logan Paul and Floyd Mayweather just fought and Logan Paul made 20 million bucks and Floyd Mayweather made 100 million bucks and they're looking at this like, hey, what about me?
00:35:52.000Like, how come I'm not making that kind of money?
00:35:55.000I think what they have to understand is, whether you like it or not, even if you are an elite, the elite of the elite, a Kamaru Usman or, you know, pick any stylebender, some of the best fighters in the UFC, even the elite of the elite, the money comes from people wanting to buy your pay-per-view.
00:36:14.000It shouldn't maybe, you know, maybe in a perfect world, it's the most skillful fighter gets the most amount of money, but that's not how it works here.
00:36:21.000In the world of combat sports, professional prize fighting, it's all about how many eyes are gonna watch you.
00:36:28.000And that fucking Logan Paul kid has a lot of eyes on him.
00:36:32.000He's on a YouTube channel since he was 14 years old.
00:36:36.000He's this controversial, larger-than-life, you know, internet celebrity.
00:36:41.000People are willing to pay a lot of money to see if he can box with literally one of the greatest fighters that's ever lived in Floyd Mayweather.
00:36:52.000The best fighters and some of the best fighters to ever fight, Lennox Lewis, Andre Ward, these guys that I had the honor of representing, you never hear out of these elites that they're pissed.
00:37:33.000It reminded me of when Rocky fought Hulk Hogan in one of the Rocky movies.
00:37:39.000Well, the difference, though, is that Floyd...
00:37:42.000First of all, you've got to give credit to Floyd Mayweather for doing that because it's so crazy to fight a guy 35 pounds heavier than you.
00:42:58.000You give Tyron a pair of shoes and you just let him punch.
00:43:02.000You know, he punches really fucking hard.
00:43:04.000And when he doesn't have to worry about wrestling, he doesn't have to worry about getting as tired, and he can pick his shots, he'll be the most dangerous guy that Jake Paul's ever fought, for sure.
00:43:14.000But it doesn't necessarily mean that he wins.
00:43:18.000And I think Jake Paul can fucking box.
00:43:21.000If you look at that Nate Robinson fight, I know Nate Robinson didn't know what he was doing, but the way he landed those punches, he cracked him and knocked him out moving backwards.
00:43:29.000He can move backwards and then He doesn't have big wind-up movements.
00:44:09.000Look at him like any other guy who only has a couple of fights.
00:44:13.000If you saw a guy who was coming up and he didn't have an amateur career and he's only had a couple of fights, he'd go, man, he's got some promise.
00:44:19.000Yeah, no, but these guys aren't in it for the long haul to become boxers?
00:45:17.000He's thought about it and be like, we've talked about it recently.
00:45:21.000I texted him after he announced that he wasn't going to take the Canelo fight and retire, and I said, I admire him so much, and I admire the way he carries himself so much, and I think it's so valuable for the sport of boxing, because here's a guy who wins an Olympic gold medal, wins two world titles in two different weight classes,
00:45:37.000is undefeated, not only undefeated, but fought the majority of his career with one arm.
00:45:43.000He retires, undefeated, and then says, you know what?
00:46:11.000When you get to know him, there's a reason why you have respect for him in those ways and others, because you've gotten to know him a little bit.
00:46:20.000He is a once-in-a-lifetime streaking comet of a human being.
00:46:26.000And I say that not because of what he accomplished as a fighter, but if you look at his childhood, and he's been out there about the fact that his mother and father struggled with addictions.
00:46:41.000His father dies suddenly, and he had every reason to go in a completely opposite direction.
00:46:48.000He is like a brother to me in so many ways, but I'll spend hours on the phone with him just talking about life and existence.
00:46:58.000Everything that you've said about—he's the rare instance of a human being that what's projected about him publicly is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of how— I get emotional thinking about him because he's so important to me as a human being.
00:47:23.000And if you look at his family, he's a guy that all his dreams came true.
00:47:29.000And to one child to the next, everybody that he touches, he has that impact on.
00:47:36.000And he's a guy that when he makes mistakes, he'll admit his mistakes.
00:47:41.000And we're both stubborn and have our ups and downs.
00:47:59.000Why would he be willing to fight Jake Paul then?
00:48:02.000Because I think it's, in his mind, it's an exhibition.
00:48:06.000And I don't think that he looks at it as even a remote threat, that it could tarnish his legacy or that he would have to expend too much physically.
00:48:18.000I think that he's probably sitting back looking at this and like, you know what?
00:48:23.000I could now secure not just my children's, but my great-grandchildren's futures.
00:48:29.000I think that there's a part of Andre, if you know him well, everything that I've set aside, oh, he's got some dog up in him.
00:48:37.000If you ever watch his fights, if he gets hit, you'll see him...
00:48:56.000But do you think that Jake Paul would be willing to fight a guy like Andre Ward, Olympic gold medalist, multiple division world champion, undefeated fighter?
00:55:18.000How should we say self-assured young man?
00:55:20.000He doesn't think anyone, but he said, that's the goat right there.
00:55:24.000The guy stands in the pocket and with these little subtle dips of his shoulder or angles on his head, he just knows how to make people miss.
00:57:14.000There's 9,000 people and it's like they're right on top of the ring.
00:57:19.000And this guy, Canelo, came out in the first round, and he hit Kermit with a 1-2, and the matchmaker standing next to me goes, this guy is going to fucking put a hole into Kermit.
00:57:55.000Powerful, skillful, and just, he's got that, there's like a dominant gene in his genetic sequence where he's just like, there's just something special about him.
01:02:49.000He used to watch Roberto Duran and shit he would say, and the way it would get a rise out of people, and he would watch tapes of him and say, aha, now I see how to...
01:02:59.000Put the needle in and then maybe rub something in the wound, maybe a little salt, but then when I pull it out, let me pour alcohol in it.
01:03:21.000Apparently, you know, you ever see a documentary where Sugar Ray Leonard talks about his experience with Roberto Duran and that after their fight, they had to do some sort of press thing before their second fight, and Sugar Ray's kids were there, and he was worried about his kids being around Duran.
01:03:39.000But Duran was a total gentleman, like super sweetheart to his kids.
01:03:44.000And, like, when it wasn't, like, promoting for the fight, when it wasn't all that, like, he was, like, super calm and cool and collected.
01:03:51.000And he said it was really impressive, though he was really nice to his children.
01:03:55.000There's something about the society, too, that especially we're in this...
01:04:02.000This very digestible tidbits of things that we can pop in our mouth and then make a decision on.
01:04:08.000It's like when you know that there's...
01:04:38.000And he was a calculated showman that knew that, you know, I'm not going to cross those lines.
01:04:43.000I guess there are some people that do, but most of the time what I find, whether I'm dealing with, like, boxers or even in, like, you know, people talk about juries.
01:05:10.000I think that what you pointed out shows some smarts in my mind because it shows the self-awareness that I'm not going to be a shithead of a human being All the time.
01:05:22.000I'm going to do it when I think it might help promote my career for better or for worse.
01:05:27.000Or help get under the skin of my opponent and get him to be emotional.
01:06:15.000I would have loved to see that Sugar Ray, though, fight Duran the first time.
01:06:19.000I would have loved to see if he could do it.
01:06:21.000You know, I wonder if he would have been able to utilize that same sort of strategy against a prime Duran that was ramped up from trying to kill him, like the first fight.
01:06:31.000You know what that fight reminded me of, that second fight?
01:06:33.000If you ever played tennis, that's a sport, right?
01:06:38.000Where you know that somebody's going to gas out, so you just hit lobs to this side of the court and that side of the court.
01:06:43.000If you watch that fight, Sugar Ray would potshot him, walk around, go the other direction, get on his bike, switch directions, and he knew he could just tire him out.
01:06:52.000I think they knew Duran was fucked going into that fight.
01:06:55.000You know, you have camps that have spies in them and people tell you, you know, he's fat, he's out of shape, he's drinking, he's doing this, he's doing that, you know?
01:07:08.000They have, they fall like, you get into a camp for eight weeks and there's temptation and women and all kinds of shit around and They're not just men, rather.
01:08:17.000That's why I've stiff-armed it a little bit more when you said, are you still involved with fighters?
01:08:23.000Once you start to care about these guys in a way that they become family to you, you try to talk them out of doing anything that's going to get them exposed to being in there.
01:08:34.000That's why I thought it was so amazing what Andre did.
01:08:37.000You know, in his prime, with this big fight, you know, this big potential.
01:08:42.000This was after Canela knocked out Kovalev.
01:08:45.000That's when they offered him the fight, and he's like, nope.
01:12:31.000Because they were talking, at least I saw something.
01:12:34.000I mean, you know, the problem with the internet today is like, something shows up in your Instagram feed, you're like, is that real?
01:12:40.000And you just fucking keep, you know, somebody calls you, you go about your business, you go to try to find it again, ah, can't even find it.
01:12:46.000I don't even know whose account it was on.
01:15:50.000I realized that as you get past 40, for me it was past 40, and then you have kids, your bandwidth starts to shrink.
01:16:00.000So while I find it still entertaining and there are things about it that I love, I decided to pivot in a big way because you only have so much...
01:16:48.000I feel like I can make more of an impact.
01:16:49.000Although you can make an impact on people's lives, I guess, in boxing because you can help make sure they don't get ripped off.
01:16:56.000You can help make sure that they don't get taken advantage of I know what you're saying, though.
01:17:02.000It's a crazy, chaotic thing to get involved with.
01:17:06.000And at the end of the day, you're getting involved with this thing that's sanctioned violence.
01:17:13.000Yeah, I have a—it's interesting because we spent the last hour or so talking about it, and I feel like I'm sitting here with this shit-iddy grin on my face, and I'm like, what the fuck are you doing?
01:17:24.000Because there's a part of me that is, like, hovering outside of my body with the streaking stars on the ceiling being like, what are you doing?
01:20:00.000You gotta have something else going on in your life.
01:20:04.000And there's also an element, the thing that got me down about it always and still does, I think why I... Got away from it, aside from my wife being like, really?
01:20:15.000You're going to be fielding calls from people like, my internet doesn't work in camp, what do I do?
01:20:20.000Is like, you know, you're part of boosting up someone else where I wanted to sort of...
01:21:08.000You know, the nutritionist becomes an...
01:21:09.000A lot of people start to think that because I'm around this a lot and I see it as a fan, I think I could give him the keys to victory, which is a dangerous proposition when people are risking their lives.
01:21:23.000It's like when you're in that sort of situation, you know, you could be, like Muhammad Ali, perfect example, right?
01:21:30.000Towards the end of his life, that guy took all the really horrible beatings, like the Trevor Burbick, Larry Holmes, all those terrible beatings.
01:21:39.000He took all those beatings and all his entourage, like, they were still with him.
01:21:44.000You know, they were still riding around with him.
01:21:46.000They were still showing up and they let him.
01:21:49.000You know, I went to his 70th birthday party.
01:21:52.000At the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville.
01:22:50.000I don't want to say a wake-up call, but I was like, you know, you're constantly living.
01:22:55.000If you have warm blood pumping through your veins and you're honest with yourself, you're constantly living with a sense of guilt being involved in a combat sport, I think.
01:23:07.000I think about that when I see fighters that should have retired and are still doing it and I know they've got problems or guys have vision issues.
01:23:15.000On one hand, it's like a choice that they make and they can make a good living doing it and if they become a champion, they can make a great living doing it and they have glory forever.
01:23:38.000But the ones that don't know how to get out and don't know when to get out and make a mistake and stick around too long, you see them be a shell of what they used to be.
01:23:47.000You see them not be able to take a punch anymore.
01:23:49.000You see the slurring of the speech for all the words.
01:24:42.000You know, George, unlike Andre, has a couple of losses, but phenomenal fighter, won world titles in two different weight classes, the whole deal.
01:24:49.000And then, gentleman, great spokesman, you know, you talk to him now, he's got all his, he sounds great, he's not slurring his words, he has intelligent conversations with people.
01:25:36.000And I just, you know, again, like for me personally, it was more like I feel like I have something different to, you know, offer in terms of my energy.
01:25:47.000And I feel like it's okay at some point to say, you know what, I did this.
01:26:43.000I remember the first time I met him, I was more annoyed because I had to prepare him to testify on, I remember it was Super Bowl Sunday.
01:26:51.000And I was going to a Super Bowl party and I was more annoyed that I had to miss the Super Bowl because his trial was starting that Monday or Tuesday.
01:26:59.000And I was like, it was so fucking sad that he would meet this guy, trust him.
01:27:06.000And whether it was send money to my mom in Canada where they had to convert British pound sterling to Canadian dollars.
01:27:14.000Guy would jack up the inflation rate and keep the difference.
01:27:58.000And then you realize you've unearthed this very dark underbelly of this unsanctioned sport where people take advantage in any way they can.
01:28:12.000So that was what I was originally attracted to.
01:28:15.000And then you realize at some point that You can't cure everything.
01:28:21.000And if you could touch a few people's lives along the way and change them and educate them as to how they can take care of themselves, then you've done your job.
01:28:30.000Well, you're a guy that you relish the role of taking care of people that have been fucked over by the system.
01:28:40.000I mean, this is why you got involved with the Innocence Project and why you've done so much work with people that were unjustly accused and imprisoned for crimes and managed to get a lot of people out of jail now, which is pretty fucking amazing.
01:29:12.000That there's so much to be done in that regard.
01:29:16.000And it's almost like an addiction to me to help people.
01:29:21.000And I always feel like there's so much more to do.
01:29:24.000Just since the last time we spoke, we talked about a case last time I was on.
01:29:30.000About this guy, Albert Wilson in Kansas, who was accused of, you know, a black man, accused of an assault of a white girl, and that I felt he was unjustly accused, and we had honored some things about the alleged accuser.
01:29:46.000It's a difficult situation because I have daughters, and you know, but, you know, I was very, very solid in my belief, and since then, His conviction has been thrown out.
01:29:57.000I was able to successfully get his conviction thrown out.
01:30:00.000And the way that I end up getting involved in these cases almost feels like...
01:31:26.000She said, I was watching you in court and he needs you.
01:31:32.000Please don't turn your back on this community.
01:31:36.000And, you know, when you put it that way, I'm like, you know, Jesus, I already start to feel guilty because I'm riddled with existential guilt.
01:31:45.000So I'm like, the last place I want to come back to for a murder trial, this is a guy that was accused of this awful homicide.
01:33:02.000And it's so obvious, so obvious that the husband of this victim killed her.
01:33:11.000Her blood on his shirt, his hair in her dead hand.
01:33:16.000And I'm thinking to myself, how does this guy get charged with this?
01:33:19.000And then I'm sitting here on the plane thinking, what are the chances...
01:33:23.000That I'm going to get the mother of an accused person, a black man in Kansas, where the former prosecutors were accused of all sorts of racial insensitivity, all sorts of prosecutorial misconduct,
01:33:38.000where I'm going to get this guy This guy's mother shows me a newspaper article about the case.
01:33:44.000It's got so many stunning similarities to another case I did in Florida.
01:33:48.000A neighbor walks into a crime scene, gets accused of the murder.
01:33:51.000All the forensic evidence points to someone else.
01:33:53.000So I went home and I looked at my wife and I said, I'm sorry.
01:33:58.000I'm going to have another case in Kansas.
01:34:13.000And, you know, there's a real problem in this country.
01:34:18.000Really, really bad with our justice system and how it meets out punishment and injustice on people of color to the point where, you know, like I'm gripping the table because it angers me.
01:34:34.000And I know that if you give people that otherwise wouldn't have it resources and the same sort of attention that they would get if they were another color or in different financial circumstances, it could be the difference between saving their life or them spending the rest of their life in prison for something that they more than likely did not commit.
01:35:00.000Well, you're the man for the job because you have that conscience, because you have that thought process where it chews away at you and you have to go back.
01:35:30.000One day they're going to look back at the way people were prosecuted and the way people were tried and imprisoned, and it's going to be a dark stain in our history.
01:35:41.000When you look at the fact that what percentage of the people that are imprisoned in cages right now are for nonviolent drug offenses.
01:35:50.000What percentage of the people that are in jail are innocent?
01:35:53.000What percentage of the people that are in jail came from abusive childhoods and horrific neighborhoods and no one gives a fuck about it and nobody changes it or fixes it?
01:36:01.000They expect these people to just figure it out on their own.
01:36:04.000You know, someone who grows up in a nice middle-class suburb in Connecticut expects some kid who lives in the South Side of Chicago where gunshots are going off every day and the guy you emulate and the guy that you want to be the most, the guy you envy the most,
01:36:21.000Like, you expect that guy to live the same way you do?
01:36:24.000You expect that guy to have the same opportunities in past and behavior in life as you do?
01:36:30.000And we as a country At some point in time, someone has to step in and say, there is no way we can continue to allow these neighborhoods to be crime ridden and drug addled and filled with gangs and expect people to come out of them and behave the same way everybody who lives in nice neighborhoods does.
01:36:52.000You know, it's interesting to me because what you just articulated, I'm like furiously writing down notes, is that, and this is not meant to stroke you in any way, but you get it in a way that struck me from the first time we spoke.
01:37:05.000You just get it, and with all respect, it shouldn't be that hard to get.
01:37:10.000When you take an entire race of people, steal them from their homeland, put them in bondage, Dislocate them.
01:37:25.000Expose them and treat them as savages, as less than human.
01:37:38.000And then you say, all right, now you're free.
01:37:40.000But then in our lifetime, excuse me, in our parents' lifetimes, they couldn't urinate in the same bathroom.
01:37:48.000Couldn't drink out of the same fountains.
01:37:49.000Couldn't drink out of the same fountains.
01:37:51.000And we are the aftershock generations of this, of slavery.
01:37:56.000That should not be controversial to me.
01:37:59.000So when my accountant says to me, you can't keep giving away your money, all right?
01:38:04.000I say, I'm sorry, I'm going to keep on giving it away because I'm going to keep on pouring it into resources Because that will be lasting.
01:38:12.000And here's a good testament to how if you see past the bullshit of what divides us and labeling people this and that, you can always, because we had a lot, Jason Flom and I, you know, who's a board member at the Innocence Project, we were overwhelmed by the outreach just from being on your show and talking to people.
01:38:49.000He happens to be closest friends with Donald Trump way before he was president.
01:38:56.000I could have used that as a way to separate myself from him, to dismiss him.
01:39:03.000And I represented him, I still do, in this wild case where his DNA was stolen and he was accused of something he didn't do.
01:39:11.000And Ike Perlmutter at one point said, you're not paying enough attention to my case.
01:39:16.000And it was because I was working on an exoneration case in Florida, Clementi's case, actually.
01:39:21.000And he started following the case in the press.
01:39:25.000And this isn't a guy that was like some criminal justice reform advocate.
01:39:29.000He said it struck him that if I didn't have you and Roy Black, who's a famous criminal defense lawyer that was handling this civil case, if I didn't have you and the resources to fight this, I would have been accused of a crime I didn't commit.
01:39:44.000And it struck him that he had the resources to make a difference.
01:39:48.000So he started making gifts in my honor to the Innocence Project, substantial gifts.
01:39:54.000And I could have, everybody around me said, you're friends with this guy, you've become friends with him.
01:40:00.000And he got enlightened to the point where in December, I'm in Florida.
01:40:06.000A week before the Capitol riot, he called me and said, Josh, look, I want to help get somebody executive clemency if I can.
01:40:18.000And I want you to figure out one person that you think is, you know, the most deserving candidate for it.
01:40:25.000And let's try to get it before the president.
01:40:42.000So there's a retired judge, federal judge named John Gleason, who started this project called the Holloway Project.
01:40:49.000Where he started to realize exactly what you were talking about, people on nonviolent drug offenses, where there were just disproportionate sentences.
01:41:00.000He had a list of people where, you know, to come up with one was difficult.
01:41:04.000But I asked him, Barry Sheck, who's one of the founders of the Innocence Project, and various others, Who do you think is, if you had to give me a list of 10. So I got lists, and Judge Gleason's client was this guy named Jawad Moussa,
01:41:20.000who was in Baltimore, the worst possible circumstances.
01:41:27.000He gets arrested on this reverse dry sting, they call it, where he's asked to cobble together $20,000 and make a heroin purchase in New York.
01:42:08.000By all accounts, Judge Gleason said, look, he pointed out areas in the law that I had never considered.
01:42:14.000So I could not get this guy off my mind.
01:42:17.000So I finally put him forward as the person.
01:42:20.000So I thought that I would submit paperwork and it would go away.
01:42:26.000So, one week before the Capitol riots, Ike called me and said, you're gonna come to dinner tonight with your wife, and you're gonna present the case to various people in the White House at Mar-a-Lago.
01:42:40.000Now, there are some Democrats, left-leaning or otherwise, you're gonna go to Mar-a-Lago?
01:42:45.000And I would always say, hell yes, I'm going there.
01:43:05.000We think that this is a great candidate for executive clemency.
01:43:09.000And it was like throughout the dinner, it was on to the next person, on to the next person.
01:43:13.000So at one point, there's a table, like we're sitting at a table, and literally, the distance you and I are from each other, there's two empty seats.
01:43:23.000And it dawns on me that we're going to be having dinner with the president and his wife.
01:43:27.000So at some point, he walks out, and everybody stands at Mar-a-Lago and claps when he comes out.
01:46:39.000And his insights in the four or five months that he's been out, his insights on cases, a man that spent 30 some odd years working on it became like a jail lawyer.
01:46:54.000You realize that there are people, human beings, that have been forgotten, that have so much potential if someone just cares.
01:47:00.000So now he's, you know, it's not without problems.
01:47:04.000He's working on getting his official out-of-jail paralegal certificate.
01:47:08.000But you realize that if you just create connections and allow...
01:47:13.000I don't want to sound like some silly infomercial, but I easily could have...
01:47:17.000Found reasons why not to try to enlighten someone whose politics were different than mine, and Ike Perlmutter was the least likely person, but he's now, I've found that if you tap into it and turn his mind on to the human suffering,
01:47:33.000he now wants to start a criminal justice reform center that we're working on together.
01:47:53.000First of all, it's shocking that someone could, over a $5,000 heroin deal, wind up in jail for life where there's no heroin.
01:48:02.000I mean, if that doesn't seem like you're getting railroaded, if that doesn't seem like a setup, if that doesn't seem like, that that shouldn't be legal.
01:48:41.000Well, it seems to me that in this country, there's a real...
01:48:45.000Well, first of all, there's a real problem with the fact that the legal system is essentially a game, right?
01:48:52.000And if you are on a team, your team is trying to win the game.
01:48:56.000And if you're on a team that's trying to prosecute someone and you have the ability to figure out a way to push it through, to, you know...
01:49:09.000Show someone in a light that's not accurate, to not have certain evidence be admitted, to withhold evidence that might have exonerated that person.
01:50:21.000So let's talk about while we respect the victim.
01:50:24.000You know, it's making them understand that it's less about winning and more about let's just take an objective look at the evidence.
01:50:31.000Look, there's a DA, a new DA in this county where this Ron Torres Washington case is being tried.
01:50:38.000Now, I have now signed on I guess it was kind of predictable with the Midwest Innocence Project, which is a different Innocence Project, but it's part of the Innocence Network, and a local lawyer to represent him.
01:50:51.000The case was tried once to a hung jury, and now we're retrying it.
01:50:56.000The woman that ran for DA I ran on a platform that the Albert Wilson case, the case that we got the conviction thrown out, and the Ron Torres Washington case were problematic prosecutions, and that she was going to take a close look at them when she became DA. And at least she is giving me a forum.
01:51:17.000And saying, I will let you come in and present to me why we shouldn't go forward with this prosecution.
01:51:22.000Now, is she still, now that she's DA, is she firm in her belief that Ron Torres committed the crime?
01:51:44.000So far, I've been pleasantly surprised.
01:51:46.000But it takes, that's such a small, that's a grain of sand on a beach that stretches this whole country.
01:51:53.000And so that's where the sense of urgency comes, is that the more people we can get being focused on identifying the problem, And as you correctly put it, a lot of it is about winning and losing.
01:52:06.000I'm working on a case right now where the latent print examiner in the case was making up matches of fingerprints and palm prints.
01:52:15.000And it took a whistleblower in the latent print unit to say, if we don't agree with her, there's this process by which you verify.
01:52:24.000When a latent print examiner says that is Joe Rogan's fingerprint on the murder weapon, she then has to give it to another print examiner for what they call verification.
01:52:45.000If that person doesn't agree that that is an identifying print that can be matched to Joe Rogan, you can't call it a match.
01:52:55.000What she was doing is when she wouldn't get an agreement from one of her colleagues, she would say, fuck you, I'll go to a different one, go to a different one.
01:53:04.000And it got so bad and it got to the point where she started sending them out to a guy that retired out of the latent print unit because he had health problems so severe that he admittedly, quote, lost his eye for identification.
01:53:17.000And she'd get the verification from him.
01:54:18.000You know, the reason the conviction rate in most jurisdictions is upwards of 98% is because most people assume that if you have been accused and charged with a crime, you have done it.
01:54:51.000You know, we hear about these cases when it's frankly too late.
01:54:54.000After someone served 10, 20, 30 years in jail for a crime they didn't commit, if someone would just stop...
01:55:01.000Before decades pass and lives are ruined, and take stock in the wake of destruction that a prosecution leaves in its path and says, let's just take a deep breath at the outset.
01:55:17.000Let's put the winning and losing aside.
01:55:20.000Let's just take a real close look at the evidence.
01:55:22.000You know, there would not be as many wrongful incarcerations and wrongful convictions.
01:55:27.000And we hear about these cases where it takes, I mean, to get an exoneration is like pushing 14 boulders up a hill with your back, you know, and getting rolled down upon so many times.
01:55:41.000You hear about them after the fact and they're great stories and they sell and everybody's, but if you saw what's behind it, It's devastating.
01:55:50.000And I think that if more people paid attention and did not jump to that assumption of guilt rather than do what we like to believe we can do in this country, which is presume innocence,
01:56:07.000There would be a lot less of this because we have to be real about the fact that nobody presumes innocence.
01:56:34.000And part of it, I think, is also because of pop culture.
01:56:36.000I mean, how many fucking Law& Order episodes do we have to see?
01:56:39.000How many of these cop shows do we have to see?
01:56:41.000We're fed this narrative, right, that the cops are the good guys, they prosecute people that are guilty, they go after them, and they finally get them.
01:56:50.000We very rarely get the narrative of someone unjustly accused.
01:57:20.000I think we should do this more often, and I think we should try to figure out a way to highlight these cases because I have to think that what it looks like to you is like an ant going up against an army.
01:57:41.000Because we have said- Because you're good people.
01:57:43.000No, but we could help make a difference by giving resources and assembling teams.
01:57:49.000Outside of my affiliation with the Innocence Project, because the Innocence Project is a big organization that has, you know, I can't speak on behalf of them.
01:57:58.000I'm the ambassador to the Innocence Project, so sometimes I work on cases where they ask me to take a look.
01:58:03.000You know, and I'm an advocate for the Innocence Project, but, you know, it traditionally was an organization that just looked at cases where there's DNA. And if there's not DNA, which is evolving, they're starting to take on more cases, but take the case of Juwan Musa.
01:58:17.000You know, I mean, that's not an Innocence Project case.
01:58:21.000It's just a case where someone has to care.
01:58:22.000And I think that the more we can help promote the narrative that you need to take a deep breath, and you should not hear about wrongful accusations or wrongful convictions when it's too late.
01:58:36.000Because the reality is, Joe, is that these guys and gals — you know, Rosa Jimenez was just exonerated here in Texas — look, They're not...
01:59:49.000But these guys don't get medical care, these guys and gals, and it's just that, you know, I have clients that smoke a cigarette and stomp it out and then pick it up and put it in a baggie because they're afraid they're going to get framed again.
02:00:06.000They live under a cloud of suspicion for the rest of their lives because oftentimes what we call an exoneration, states will say, is just not enough evidence to proceed with another prosecution because they know that when they admit that they're wrong,
02:00:21.000speaking of right and wrong, they're going to get sued.
02:00:23.000So the cloud of guilt still hangs over that person's head.
02:00:27.000And especially the way the rest of the people look at it.
02:02:05.000This is devastating psychological hand-to-hand combat.
02:02:10.000When you lock someone in a room, a windowless room, deprive them of food, sleep, communication to the outside world, and say, we have your fingerprints on the murder weapon.
02:02:32.000So if you play that in court and then you say, you know, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, there was no fingerprints on the weapon.
02:02:38.000He did not have – he was lying here.
02:02:40.000Because the convention – yeah, they can do it and the convention – Okay, yeah, this is the guy.
02:02:47.000He was provided a fake bomb by the FBI agents posing as members of Al-Qaeda.
02:02:51.000He placed the device in the parking garage under the building and activated it with a cell phone.
02:02:55.000Instead of setting off a bomb, the cell phone rang a phone number at the FBI offices.
02:03:01.000Samadhi pleaded guilty to attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction.
02:03:04.000Under the terms of a plea bargain, an additional charge of bombing a public place was dropped and a sentence of not more than 30 years was recommended.
02:03:13.000On October 20th, 2010, he was sentenced to 24 years of imprisonment.
02:03:18.000He will be deported from the United States after serving a sentence.
02:04:17.000You can't play to someone's, assuming there's mental impairment or not, There's no place for law enforcement to set up a situation where they're playing to someone's mental illness or proclivity to commit crime.
02:04:30.000What the fuck are we doing as a society when we're saying to someone, here, just do it.
02:04:53.000One of the things you can do, one thing I know works is Pressure breaks pipes, okay?
02:05:02.000It's that way in sports, it's that way in, you know, reform, and it's that way in these prosecutions.
02:05:11.000The more people we can get to pay attention, right?
02:05:15.000And, you know, people feel powerless and then they default to doing nothing, right?
02:05:20.000And I think what we have an opportunity to do is once we get people interested and affected You know, you are not only interested, but you're affected.
02:05:29.000We can get people to pay attention and do things.
02:05:32.000What would be really cool is if whether it was once a quarter, biannually, we had an exoneree with us on the show or a case or cases where we can have a call to action and people can take action, we will get exonerations.
02:05:49.000If it's a reform initiative, like making sure that people don't lie to suspects in jail, you have to pressure these fucking politicians and embarrass them into doing shit sometimes.
02:06:01.000I know of no more powerful tool Than using the press so that a politician feels like, you know what?
02:06:12.000Let's play to their sense of, let me not burn my constituents.
02:06:18.000Well, if your constituents are all saying, don't do this anymore or make this practice end, whether it's lying to people or it's cash bail, where we just know that people are staying in jail because they don't have the money to get out.
02:06:31.000You know, you can make these practices end if they feel like there's a legal threat, and let me qualify that, where there's, you know, the legal threat is, the threat is, I might not get reelected.
02:06:47.000This is going to be an unpopular decision.
02:06:49.000The more we can get people interested in tapping into the sense of injustice about whatever issue it is, the more results we're going to get.
02:06:57.000Because if I can change Or be able to get to a point where, you know, the chairman of Marvel, who's a right-wing, not a right-wing, he's a Republican, who's best friends with Donald Trump, was so affected.
02:07:13.000And the guy's become one of my closest friends.
02:07:21.000He's in his 70s, an Israeli, and he doesn't have kids.
02:07:24.000We couldn't be more opposite on paper.
02:07:27.000My kids call him Uncle Ike now because they saw what he did.
02:07:31.000They saw that he took his time to help someone.
02:07:34.000If I could change the way that man thinks or open his eyes and his wife Lori to that, so much that they went to the President of the United States and said, you need to help us.
02:07:44.000And I don't care about all the other people that people say, oh, but he exonerated or he gave...
02:07:49.000Presidential pardon to this guy and that guy.
02:07:51.000Okay, but he also gave a pardon to Juwan Moussa, and he gave a pardon to other people that deserved it.
02:07:57.000I don't care if it was for his political gain or not.
02:07:59.000I think the more we can do that, the more we can make a difference.
02:08:11.000We've got this narrative in this country that there's good people and bad people.
02:08:14.000We've got this narrative that there's people that care about people, and those are the people on the left, and there's people that are evil, and those are the people on the right.
02:08:21.000And a lot of that is exacerbated by the way Donald Trump treated the press and treated people and talked about things, and it ramped up this us versus them, which was already a problem.
02:08:32.000There was already a tribal problem in this country, but Trump's method of rallying the troops Well, obviously, a lot of people felt that led to the January 6th invasion of the Capitol.
02:08:45.000All that stuff is connected together for the reason why people think about people on the right as being evil and stupid and the party that's wrong and everything that's wrong with America.
02:08:56.000But there's a lot of people that are Republican that are very good people.
02:08:59.000They just have values that are different than some of the people on the left.
02:09:02.000And there's a lot of people on the right that believe in a woman's right to choose, and they believe in civil rights, and they believe in gay rights, and trans rights, and all these things that a lot of people stand for, but they don't agree with it fiscally and economically with the people on the left.
02:09:16.000Fiscally and economically, they think that the ideas of democratic socialism are just not founded in any real basis of human nature and any real logic.
02:09:37.000We have a bad narrative in this country that if you're a person on the left you're not supposed to be talking to a person on the right.
02:09:43.000And if you do they accuse you of being a right-wing person.
02:09:47.000I get accused of being a right-wing person all the time because I've had a bunch of right-wing people on the podcast and I've had civil conversations with them.
02:09:55.000But conversely, I have a lot of left-wing people on the podcast and I have civil conversations with them.
02:10:00.000I never get accused of being some radical lefty.
02:10:03.000I don't because it's not convenient to slander someone or to put someone in that category, to mischaracterize someone.
02:10:10.000But you can mischaracterize someone as a right-wing person and it does two things.
02:10:16.000So for someone like me that interviews people and talks to people, has conversations with people, I should say, it makes you not want to have controversial figures on because then you get attacked.
02:10:27.000And then people who hear about it are like, well, I'm not that.
02:10:54.000The only way to find common ground is to have communication with people that you might have differences in philosophy or politics or whatever the fuck your difference is.
02:11:03.000But as a civil person, as a person who can have a nice civil conversation with someone.
02:11:08.000You should be able to have conversations with people that you don't agree with everything on.
02:11:11.000And maybe you could find common ground.
02:11:13.000And that's what you found with that guy.
02:12:48.000To this man could have literally cost someone his freedom.
02:12:55.000So it was such a valuable lesson to me that I feel like we should be so much better than defaulting to, fuck you, I don't like you because of the way you think.
02:13:11.000Or I'm not going to have anything to do with you.
02:16:07.000At the most critical moment of a trial, to sit and really think it through, is this the best person to be sitting in judgment of that accused person's freedom?
02:17:31.000They love when the group supports them and that they support the group.
02:17:36.000There's a lot of really ridiculous things that get pushed through based on ideology.
02:17:42.000How about this whole case of transgender women in sports?
02:17:46.000A lot of this is people supporting it because they're progressive, because they consider themselves good liberals, and they want inclusiveness, and so they say it's okay.
02:17:58.000And they're looking at someone who's a man...
02:18:04.000Who competed as a man and then switched over and became a woman and now is weightlifting and is breaking world records and they think it's good.
02:18:14.000It's like, no, this is not fair for biological women and you're not willing to look at it this way because you want to be pro-trans and you want to be pro-inclusivity and you want to be a good person.
02:18:25.000And you're afraid of the backlash, frankly.
02:18:27.000And by signaling that you're okay with all these things that are very controversial, hormone blockers for young people, there's a lot of these things that fall into this category that are super complicated.
02:18:41.000It's like they've read the peer-reviewed papers and they've got this really well-informed opinion, but they don't.
02:18:47.000They just have an opinion that supports their ideology.
02:18:50.000And a lot of the times their ideology, whether it's someone who's pro-life, Or whether it's someone who's, you know, anti-trans participation in sports or pro-trans participation in women's sports.
02:19:02.000These are complicated things a lot of times that people haven't thought out.
02:19:07.000These really controversial third-rail subjects, they exist in so many different ways.
02:19:50.000And, you know, God forbid you hit someone and killed someone, you could be one of those people.
02:19:54.000You could be one of those people, yeah.
02:19:55.000And, you know, I think that the only thing that—because sometimes I feel overwhelmed and feel like, can you ever change the conscience of an entire, you know, country?
02:22:29.000I watch my own kids and I see how they feel.
02:22:32.000It makes them feel good to help other people.
02:22:35.000And I don't think that that's a Democratic thing or a Republican thing.
02:22:40.000I don't think that that's whether you're fiscally conservative or if you believe in socialism.
02:22:46.000I just think that what is innate in us is to help each other and to do something.
02:22:52.000That is the drug that I'm addicted to now.
02:22:55.000Yeah, you know and I think that as corny as it sounds the more that we can you meet somebody that has survived a wrongful incarceration or any type of incarceration these people You know, I would be a puddle on the floor to have to endure what some of these people have gone through.
02:23:15.000And the fact that they can make it and just be functioning human beings on the other side blows my mind.
02:23:23.000And I find I learn more from people like that than I do from someone preaching to me about how my ideology is wrong because I'm a Democrat or an Independent or a Republican.
02:23:34.000And I just think that, unfortunately, we're lazy.
02:24:04.000It's very hard to be honest and to really think about how you really feel about things and why you feel about those things.
02:24:10.000And then when you're looking at something that seems so insurmountable like the legal system and someone who's stuck in the legal system unfairly, and then you think, well, how many more of these people are like this out there?
02:24:22.000How many more people are having their lives ruined because of circumstance, because of their economic status, because of their racial status, because of who they are in life and things completely outside of their control?
02:24:36.000Uncontrollable variables that have left them in this situation where their life is now going to be spent rotting away inside a cage.
02:24:43.000Yeah, and I think it's also—it requires a certain bit of understanding.
02:24:49.000You know, like, even me, I'll tell you this.
02:24:52.000I used to, in my mind, demonize bad cops or demonize cops in cases that I was involved in.
02:25:00.000And I learned a real valuable lesson from Barry Sheck, who was one of the two founders of the Innocence Project.
02:25:07.000He came to see me in court, and this was a case where my clients were framed outright.
02:25:17.000They took, the police took the hair of the victim and planted it in his van.
02:25:49.000You know, I told you about that before, so I find it like a puzzle trying to figure out, okay, well, how can I find out to sort of get in touch with this person's humanity?
02:25:58.000And if you can get in touch with it, you know, I think that you can make change happen.
02:26:04.000And when you can make change happen, and it's to help people that otherwise wouldn't have...
02:26:08.000You see, the thing that I guess is most frustrating is that it starts with recognition, which drives me absolutely fucking insane.
02:27:02.000Look, you know, so many of my clients were...
02:27:05.000Where, you know, it doesn't have to be some outward manifestation of it, like, let's get him because he's the Latin guy, or let's get him because he's the black guy.
02:27:14.000When you see that they're only investigating, you know, undocumented immigrants, and not the white girl who actually committed the crime, it's pretty obvious what's going on there, right?
02:27:24.000Any old undocumented Latin man will do, you know, or any old black guy will do.
02:27:30.000And, you know, unfortunately, that is the, you know, that's the mentality.
02:27:35.000And once you realize that it's not always a conscious decision that they're making, you know, there are ways that you can fight back against this.
02:27:43.000And if I could get the chairman of Marvel to care enough that he wants to start, you know, something at, you know, we're going to start something together at Cardozo Law School, which is where the Innocence Project was born.
02:27:54.000And it's going to be called some form of the Perlmutter Center for Criminal Justice Reform or for Legal Reform.
02:28:02.000We're going to have something called the Redemption Project where we seek to redeem people that whether it's a bad conviction based on DNA or bad forensic science or just that it's some disproportionate sentence for someone that deserves a second chance.
02:28:19.000We're going to get law students involved in it.
02:28:22.000You know, if I can do that just by making him care, he had to care in the first place, he and his wife.
02:30:54.000You never knew that I thought this, but it kind of lit a match...
02:30:58.000You know, under my body, like, look, lift people up more.
02:31:02.000Because when you lift people up, it sort of changes their perspective.
02:31:06.000And I think that it's bothersome to me that, you know, we are hardwired as human beings.
02:31:14.000You know, as the rule rather than the exception, to want to, like, sort of tear each other down in a way that's so unproductive and unhealthy that I sometimes am like, can you really make a difference on a macro level?
02:31:38.000No one has achieved this perfect state of bliss.
02:31:42.000But the insecurity involved in tearing down people just because you find them threatening because they're successful is an intolerable weakness to me.
02:32:08.000I don't care if you're a fucking painter or a singer.
02:32:10.000If you see someone who's kicking ass and someone that has some incredible level of discipline and focus, you can get something out of that, man.
02:32:21.000You certainly can get something out of people that are kicking ass.
02:32:24.000Now, if you see someone out there that's kicking ass, the idea that somehow or another that takes away from you in any way, shape, or form is crazy.
02:35:37.000I know how hard it is for someone to get really great.
02:35:40.000You know, and you can be around those people.
02:35:43.000It's one of the things about fighting in particular, when you can be around a champion and you watch what they've done and how they can improve and achieve and how they can, you know, become a guy like Canelo Alvarez or a guy like, you know, Francis Ngannou or fill in the blank, whoever it is.
02:37:26.000I mean, you could see in his face the lessons that he learned and who he became from that 14-month journey, two of those months in prison in Europe.
02:37:37.000Yeah, the part of the story where he is captured, I think it was for like the fifth or sixth time, and I think he said to you, like, I thought it was over for me then.
02:37:49.000I didn't know what they were going to do to me, something like that, but I knew it was going to be something bad.
02:37:57.000Look, those kinds of stories should be not only told but celebrated, right?
02:39:02.000Right now I think the plan is, there's not a date booked, but the plan is, I guess, for him to have a rematch with Derrick Lewis because I think Jon Jones wants more time to get to heavyweight and he wants more money.
02:39:14.000I think one of the ways he thinks he's going to get more money is if Francis beats Derrick Lewis, which is a big if because Derrick beat him the last time they fought.
02:39:23.000Then Jon Jones gets to say, hey, there's no real big money contenders out here.
02:39:42.000I'm moved that way, and I think you would be.
02:39:45.000And I guess I'm angling for it by some of these exonerees.
02:39:51.000When you hear them tell you what they had to survive, be it on death row or avoiding gang violence or sexual assault, sometimes they're not able to avoid it,
02:41:01.000Don was accused of giving a loan that was a 24-hour demand note to Terry Norris' manager, meaning that if this guy did not pay Don in 24 hours, Don King could take his property,
02:42:45.000This cop books me as Christopher Dubin because I got arrested on Christopher Street and puts me in jail.
02:42:53.000And I had the next day to be back in court for what at the time was the biggest trial I'd ever been involved in against Don King.
02:43:02.000It was being covered by ESPN. And I was petrified.
02:43:08.000And I was told, you're going to be here for three days because the judge is so backed up.
02:43:13.000I finally got a friend of mine who's a lawyer to get me out that night in night court, and they couldn't find me in the jail because they booked me as Christopher Dubin instead of Josh Dubin.
02:43:24.000And it was like that scene out of the hurricane.
02:44:14.000And all the people that are involved in trying to do this, but the system itself has got to be overhauled, and I don't know how the fuck you do that.
02:44:21.000I mean, you've got to figure out a way to find out truth, right?
02:44:26.000And truth is, is it dependent upon evidence?
02:44:37.000When you have these cases like the guy walked into the room where the woman had been killed by her husband and he gets some blood on his shoe.
02:44:44.000There should be a way to dissect that.
02:44:47.000There should be a way to figure that out.
02:45:51.000And there's so much scientific literature of how unreliable our memory is.
02:45:57.000Fingerprints, we look at as the gold standard.
02:46:00.000So if we talk about it in the context of cases, it becomes apparent how it can go wrong.
02:46:07.000And when you enlighten people, your listeners will be jurors one day.
02:46:12.000They'll be related to people that will become jurors, and they start to convey these stories so that maybe one day when they go into jury selection, we can cut the problem off at the pass, right?
02:46:21.000So instead of reading about, you know, some awful story about someone that spent all this time in jail for a crime they didn't commit, it could just be a murmur to a friend.
02:46:32.000I helped make sure someone didn't get convicted for something they didn't do.
02:46:39.000I think the more people are aware of these problems, I think people are kind of peripherally aware, but when someone like you explains the intricate details, all the important aspects and all the infuriating aspects,
02:46:57.000All the corruption and all the bullshit and the lies and the bad cops and the planting of evidence and all that stuff.
02:47:03.000And you realize, again, that could be me.
02:47:17.000And when you see when these people get out and you see a guy who's got gray hair and he's been in jail for 30 years or something he didn't do, how do you fix that?
02:48:04.000You've extended an olive branch to me.
02:48:06.000I'm going to grab every twig of it and yank on it, and you have my word that I'll help provide interesting stories that are enlightening and that we can help people know a little bit better.
02:48:20.000So let's plan on doing this again in September.
02:48:46.000Okay, and then what's the best place to...
02:48:49.000You know, innocenceproject.org is a great way to learn about the Innocence Project.
02:48:54.000And I make it a point to only really post on my Instagram about cases and causes.
02:49:01.000And, you know, a great way to learn about what we do at the Innocence Project is going to the website and our Wrongful Conviction podcast that Jason and I do.
02:49:11.000You know, my Jung Science series just got nominated for a Webby, which was pretty cool, where we go through each discipline of forensic science.
02:49:19.000And explain, you know, what is wrong with each discipline of forensic science.
02:49:23.000But you just have to be willing to invest the time and learn.
02:49:26.000And hopefully through the, you know, our future podcasts with you, we'll keep the word out.