The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #1226 - Mike Baker

00:00:03.000 Four, three, two, one.

00:00:08.000 Mr. Baker, how are you?

00:00:09.000 Mr. Rogan, I'm doing well, thanks very much.

00:00:11.000 What's going on, man?

00:00:12.000 What are you doing in town?

00:00:13.000 I just was in town doing some work on a sizzle reel for a show, a new show.

00:00:19.000 Can you talk about it?

00:00:20.000 Can you tell people what it is?

00:00:21.000 Well, there's actually two of them.

00:00:23.000 One I can talk about.

00:00:23.000 I can tease it a little bit.

00:00:25.000 The marketing department, I guess, has to approve everything that's said.

00:00:29.000 It started out, it's going to be on the Discovery Network, I think a science channel.

00:00:33.000 And it was starting the main filming in February and should be finished by the end of March.

00:00:38.000 So, you know, stand by.

00:00:40.000 But it started with a discussion about hidden budgets in the Defense Department.

00:00:45.000 Like dark art stuff?

00:00:47.000 Yeah.

00:00:47.000 Yeah, the show's going to be called Black Files.

00:00:50.000 Like UFO-type shit. 0.98

00:00:52.000 Well, there's going to be some of that. 0.99

00:00:53.000 But from a, you know, not from a, you know, did they land, did they not?

00:00:59.000 We're really actually kind of tearing into some of the programs that were funded by, you know, hidden money in the Defense Department.

00:01:07.000 How do they do that?

00:01:09.000 Well, I mean, if you take, like, the CIA, for example.

00:01:12.000 The agency's budget is hidden inside.

00:01:15.000 It's not hidden, but it's placed inside the Defense Department.

00:01:17.000 And it's a classified piece of information, obviously.

00:01:19.000 So the Defense Department gets a certain budget, the CIA gets a piece of that, but nobody's allowed to know how much or where it's spent.

00:01:26.000 Right.

00:01:26.000 Because obviously, you know, the Russians, the Chinese, whomever would like to know how much money is sent over to the agency so that they can get a sense of size, resources, capabilities, that sort of thing.

00:01:39.000 So that's where the show concept started.

00:01:42.000 What is that money spent on, both in the old days and now?

00:01:46.000 So it kind of spans historical operations and events and activities and special units, and it comes up to the present time and says, where is money being devoted?

00:01:57.000 Now, for new technology or new programs, new operations, new intelligence gathering efforts, whatever it might be.

00:02:02.000 So it's, you know, I think it's got a lot of promise.

00:02:05.000 You know, hopefully people tune in and find it interesting.

00:02:08.000 Well, people are always curious about where the money goes.

00:02:10.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:02:11.000 And, you know, I am.

00:02:13.000 Like, who oversees it?

00:02:15.000 Who gets to decide, like, what gets spent on what and how much money goes where and who gets to know?

00:02:21.000 I do, actually.

00:02:21.000 I do.

00:02:22.000 That's my job.

00:02:24.000 It's a good question.

00:02:25.000 I think a lot of people would be surprised at the amount that we're talking about.

00:02:30.000 And it's not the intelligence community.

00:02:32.000 It's also the military, obviously.

00:02:34.000 Can you discuss the actual numbers?

00:02:35.000 Or could you discuss the numbers that they used to have?

00:02:39.000 We'll be able to discuss the numbers that went into past operations, but anything that's currently classified, obviously, we're not going to touch on.

00:02:46.000 But we've been working hard, and the producers have been working very hard to get excellent access where possible, and get cooperation where possible.

00:02:55.000 It's going to be a fairly immersive effort.

00:02:57.000 What's the benefit of the CIA even divulging any of this information?

00:03:01.000 Like, why would they cooperate? 0.99

00:03:02.000 Why wouldn't they say, hey, shut the fuck up? 0.99

00:03:04.000 Yeah, well, and frankly, they should, and they have, and they will. 0.99

00:03:09.000 Not necessarily with the agency, but with other departments, and certainly within the military.

00:03:14.000 There's some information out there that's accessible.

00:03:18.000 There's some ability to get them to cooperate on.

00:03:21.000 On certain, again, declassified operations that just haven't come to light. 0.71

00:03:25.000 Look, a lot of shit's been declassified over the years that's just never been looked at or talked about. 0.88

00:03:29.000 You know, somebody maybe gets a wild hair up their ass and they say, I'm going to look into this program, and then they start, you know, peeling it back. 0.98

00:03:34.000 It's not that it's classified. 0.95

00:03:36.000 It's just nobody's ever bothered to dig into that information once it is declassified.

00:03:40.000 So, you know, it's...

00:03:41.000 It's going to be a lot of fun, a lot of travel, some great people working on the program, but apparently I have to keep it pretty much at that until the marketing department says, okay, here's what you can say.

00:03:52.000 Right.

00:03:53.000 So eventually you'll be able to spill the beans and tell us everything that happens.

00:03:56.000 Exactly.

00:03:57.000 So if they're making something like the B-52, if they're making a stealth bomber, if they're making some spaceship-looking thing, you're talking this insane amount of money in research and development and the budget of these things, and they have to keep all that under wraps. 0.99

00:04:11.000 Yeah, shit, yeah. 0.95

00:04:12.000 I mean, look, you go back to the old days of... 1.00

00:04:15.000 Of the U-2 program.

00:04:16.000 U-2 program was developed, designed, built, maintained, flown by the CIA all those years ago, right?

00:04:23.000 Now, that was a massive effort and a lot of money.

00:04:27.000 And it was done under budget, and it was done on time, in part because I think, you know, things were a little bit easier back then, and we weren't all pissing on each other up on Capitol Hill.

00:04:37.000 But, yeah, so it's programs like that that I think will surprise people when they find out both Who was running it?

00:04:45.000 Who was responsible?

00:04:47.000 And to the degree possible, what did it cost us?

00:04:50.000 And who was involved?

00:04:52.000 And to what degree did it lead to something else that we're doing now?

00:04:55.000 So anyway, there's a lot of threads to pull on.

00:04:58.000 I think it should be a lot of fun.

00:05:00.000 So there's constantly projects that are in development that people, other than the people that need to know, The general public has no idea.

00:05:10.000 That's always the people on the outside, folks like myself.

00:05:13.000 You look at the... 1.00

00:05:14.000 You go, I wonder what kind of shit they have that they don't tell us about. 1.00

00:05:18.000 That's what you always want. 1.00

00:05:19.000 What kind of invisibility cloak? 0.91

00:05:21.000 What kind of crazy...

00:05:24.000 That would be good if we had that.

00:05:25.000 Dark matter weapons.

00:05:26.000 What are they doing?

00:05:27.000 Yeah.

00:05:28.000 And it's true. 0.56

00:05:29.000 I mean, you get these incredibly smart people, but it comes down to it's as simple as this.

00:05:35.000 Somebody gets an idea.

00:05:36.000 They're sitting around a table. 0.56

00:05:37.000 It's not unlike going out with your buddies and drinking and thinking, you know, somebody comes up with some dumbass idea, and the next thing you know, it turns into a TV show or something.

00:05:44.000 But it's not unlike that.

00:05:48.000 A lot of smart guys sitting around a table thinking, well, here's the problem.

00:05:51.000 How do we resolve it?

00:05:53.000 And the key is to do it creatively, right?

00:05:55.000 Because if you've got a bunch of engineers sitting around a table, you hope that they're not at all approaching it from the same point of view, right?

00:06:01.000 It's like with an operation.

00:06:02.000 If you've got a high-value target out there and you've got to figure out how to get access, get to them, you want ideas coming in from all directions.

00:06:09.000 You don't want to squelch creativity.

00:06:13.000 And Believe it or not, I mean, the intel community, the military, they've been enormously creative over the years in developing new technologies and developing operational ideas and methodologies.

00:06:25.000 So what we're trying to do is shed some light on that.

00:06:28.000 Well, I would imagine there's a certain amount of – I don't want to use the word fun – But that's really the right word.

00:06:34.000 Some of it's got to be fun to develop this stuff and to implement it and go out and get bad guys with it and to see your project come to fruition and actually have a positive effect on the world.

00:06:44.000 Absolutely, yeah.

00:06:45.000 I mean, if you...

00:06:47.000 It really is.

00:06:48.000 It's that simple because in operations anyway, you engage in something out there in some place around the world, wherever it may be, and you realize as you're walking away that there are not a lot of people doing this at this moment on the planet.

00:07:04.000 So the operational activity itself is enormously entertaining, as long as it goes right.

00:07:10.000 But it's also the build-up.

00:07:11.000 It's all that homework that gets you there.

00:07:13.000 It's like the takedown of Bin Laden. 0.88

00:07:15.000 We didn't just happen to get lucky and rock up on his doorstep in Abbottabad.

00:07:19.000 That was eight or nine years of... 0.99

00:07:21.000 Fucking hard work, right? 0.96

00:07:23.000 Heavy lifting, chasing down countless bad leads and doing enormous amounts of surveillance, street work, and tracking down assets and doing, I mean, just the hard, hard work that eventually allowed all those guys from the teams to land and do their job. 0.98

00:07:41.000 What's interesting to me, too, is that the guy who's writing the book about all this stuff and talking about, you know, the man who shot bin Laden, that guy's persona non grata in the community.

00:07:51.000 Like, you talk to the other SEALs, they're like, you don't do that.

00:07:56.000 You don't do that.

00:07:57.000 You don't write books about that.

00:07:59.000 You don't talk about that.

00:08:01.000 And you do it for a short-term gain.

00:08:03.000 You make some profit off of it, but you lose the brothership.

00:08:07.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:08:08.000 You're kind of on the outs in the club.

00:08:11.000 But I will say this.

00:08:12.000 The reason why I think the horse got out of the barn on that whole issue of guys writing books or getting out there and talking about specific operations...

00:08:22.000 It's because senior commanders and senior people, people that came out of the top levels of government, started writing their memoirs, started revisiting history while it was their watch, and coming up with their explanations for history. 0.90

00:08:38.000 And I think all the guys below, you know, junior ranks and street-level operators, they looked at that and thought, well, what the fuck if they can do it? 0.76

00:08:46.000 Why not me?

00:08:47.000 Because you've got to set the tone from the top, and I think that's where it got all kind of sideways.

00:08:52.000 Plus, when you have someone who has a crazy story like Marcus Luttrell and it becomes an amazing movie, it also...

00:09:00.000 It does help the community, right?

00:09:02.000 Because it gets a bunch of people that are really interested in becoming a SEAL. It gets people to appreciate the unbelievable sacrifice and hard work that's involved.

00:09:11.000 Yeah, I think that there is an upside.

00:09:14.000 There's benefits, right?

00:09:14.000 Yeah, there's an upside to it, but I think it's a fine balance, right?

00:09:17.000 At what point do you go over that line?

00:09:19.000 So you're right in the sense that – we see that with whomever, the FBI or DEA. They got out there and put their thumbprint on some TV shows, right?

00:09:28.000 Because I think it – It expanded, in part, awareness of what they do.

00:09:34.000 I'm sure it helped their recruitment.

00:09:36.000 And so the SEALs are no different, but at the same time, You sign a piece of paper at the very beginning that says you're going to keep your yap shut. 0.57

00:09:44.000 And it's one thing to come out from whatever unit or whatever team or whatever organization and say, I'm going to write, I don't know, about my time in.

00:09:55.000 And it's not a look at sources and methods, not look at operations.

00:09:59.000 It's more of, you know, this is what happened during my time.

00:10:03.000 I'm not explaining it very well, but I think there's a way you can do that without screwing the pooch.

00:10:08.000 But I think the SEALs got overexposed.

00:10:12.000 And I think a lot of the guys resent that.

00:10:16.000 But again, you're right.

00:10:18.000 There was some upside to it.

00:10:20.000 Well, there's upside to some of the stories, right?

00:10:22.000 I definitely think there's upside to Marcus Luttrell's story because it's just so incredible.

00:10:26.000 People should hear about it.

00:10:27.000 But I think that there's also...

00:10:32.000 It's important to maintain that honor.

00:10:34.000 It's important to maintain that bond of silence.

00:10:38.000 You guys, they're doing something that is probably one of the most dangerous and one of the most, in terms of special operations, one of the most significant in all of military in this country.

00:10:54.000 Yeah, I think the old school guys, the old school operators out of the teams are definitely like, just shut your pie hole.

00:11:01.000 Don't talk about this.

00:11:02.000 The newer guys, again, because they came up in a different time, right?

00:11:06.000 I mean, information flows all around.

00:11:07.000 It's much easier and quicker than it did in the 70s and 80s and early 90s.

00:11:12.000 But nowadays, people are just used to reading everything as soon as it happens.

00:11:17.000 And it creates a different mindset.

00:11:18.000 So the younger guys in there, they don't necessarily view it the same way.

00:11:23.000 I didn't even think about it until the Dick Marchenko books came out.

00:11:26.000 Those were a long time ago.

00:11:28.000 That's when I really was like, wow, they wear regular clothes?

00:11:33.000 I mean, I think I was like probably 18 or 19 when those books were out.

00:11:37.000 And I remember thinking, this is crazy.

00:11:39.000 They wear long hair and they dress like hippies.

00:11:40.000 They dress normal and go out and invade.

00:11:44.000 Invade.

00:11:46.000 Invading hippies.

00:11:47.000 But, you know, they would get, I mean, Marchenko was famous for wanting his guys to get drunk together, too, before like big things.

00:11:53.000 Yeah.

00:11:54.000 Well, it's that idea, team building, camaraderie, and however you do it.

00:11:57.000 But there was that sense that we do it and it's off the radar, and it's not talked about, and we take pride in that.

00:12:06.000 But again, I'll go back to the same thing.

00:12:09.000 Like Bob Gates.

00:12:11.000 You know, Bob Gates writes a book, you know, former director of the agency.

00:12:14.000 He's a brilliant guy, great guy.

00:12:16.000 But he writes a book and, you know, then you get somebody else.

00:12:19.000 Maybe Mike Morrell writes a book. 0.84

00:12:20.000 And so from, you know, inside the CIA, you got a lot of officers going, well, shit, maybe when I get out, I'll write a book, because what I'm doing is pretty damn interesting. 0.95

00:12:28.000 And there's no laws against that? 0.97

00:12:29.000 Well, yeah, there are.

00:12:31.000 And anybody who reveals sources and methods, anybody who breaks their agreements in terms of the proper handling, which is a lifetime agreement of classified information, there's supposed to be consequences.

00:12:44.000 And sometimes there are, and sometimes if you're senior enough, maybe there's not.

00:12:49.000 But, yeah, you sign a piece of paper at the very beginning.

00:12:52.000 I'll never forget that.

00:12:53.000 I read it, and I said, okay, good.

00:12:55.000 There was no question about that.

00:12:56.000 What does it say, basically?

00:12:57.000 It says keep your yap shut. 0.99

00:12:58.000 I mean, I don't want to oversimplify it, but it says you are being given the responsibility of handling extremely sensitive information, and information that, if released, can easily result in the loss of life.

00:13:11.000 I mean, it's as simple as that, essentially.

00:13:13.000 And your obligation is to shut your mouth and not talk about sources and methods and things that you know better not to talk about.

00:13:21.000 But I think that kind of the drip, drip, drip, right, of the books and the things that come out and the anonymous sources.

00:13:28.000 The New York Times can write an entire front page article based on nothing but anonymous sources nowadays.

00:13:33.000 It never used to happen.

00:13:36.000 Editors would sit there and go, you better get yourself some additional sources that we can discuss so people can put it in context.

00:13:43.000 Nowadays, that's not the case.

00:13:44.000 Why do you think that is?

00:13:48.000 I don't know.

00:13:50.000 Part of it is- Lower standards of journalism?

00:13:53.000 Yeah, I think lower standards.

00:13:54.000 I think competition.

00:13:56.000 I think the desire to get information out there quickly because every journalist is now playing beat the clock with everybody who's got a smartphone, right?

00:14:04.000 And who fancies themselves a blogger or- A journalist on Twitter or whatever.

00:14:08.000 So they're all doing this, and I think it's just this idea, right, that says...

00:14:14.000 It reminds me of a meeting.

00:14:16.000 I had a meeting with my company, Diligence, for all your information and security needs.

00:14:24.000 And it was with a major multinational corporation.

00:14:26.000 And I was meeting with their head of security and some other folks.

00:14:30.000 And they do a lot of work overseas in some very difficult places.

00:14:33.000 And the competition that they face in their sector is huge.

00:14:37.000 And so we went in there and we thought, this will be great.

00:14:39.000 There's a lot of things we can do for them in terms of gathering information, preventing them from making mistakes as they're going into a new market, all of these things.

00:14:46.000 And the bottom line was they said, they looked at me and they said, nah, you know what?

00:14:50.000 Competition is so fierce.

00:14:52.000 We're just going to go in.

00:14:53.000 If we make mistakes, we'll clean it up later.

00:14:55.000 And they were willing to do that.

00:14:56.000 It's like acceptable loss, credit card fraud loss, you know, for MasterCard or whomever.

00:15:00.000 They're willing to accept millions and millions and millions of dollars as an acceptable loss for the cost of doing business.

00:15:07.000 And so it's a little bit like that, I think, with journalism. 0.97

00:15:10.000 They're willing to just throw shit out there and, hey, if they have to make a retraction, fine. 0.96

00:15:14.000 But it compromises the way a person like myself views the news. 0.99

00:15:18.000 I mean, look, I hate to quote Trump, but he's like parrots that fake news term over and over again.

00:15:26.000 If you are a person or an organization that's being accused of lying...

00:15:32.000 It seems to me you should really dot your I's and cross your T's from then on out. 0.62

00:15:37.000 I mean, you're being accused of lying by the president, and I think irresponsibly accused.

00:15:42.000 I mean, the way he does it, he does it to avoid questions that make him uncomfortable.

00:15:45.000 I mean, and as the president, I just don't think you should be able to do that.

00:15:49.000 You can't point to someone from CNN and, you're fake news.

00:15:53.000 It serves no purpose, right.

00:15:55.000 It serves no purpose for the president.

00:15:56.000 I agree with you 100%.

00:15:57.000 So much of what this administration does is a self-inflicted wound.

00:16:01.000 Right? 0.99

00:16:01.000 And part of it is that they're just crap at messaging. 0.99

00:16:05.000 Part of it is this idea that, you know, he just says what's on his mind. 0.93

00:16:08.000 And he does, right?

00:16:09.000 It's almost like he's got Tourette's.

00:16:10.000 But I think he views it as a strength.

00:16:12.000 He views it as a reason why he got elected.

00:16:14.000 And a lot of people out there think, yeah, that's his base.

00:16:18.000 You know, the people that are really behind him no matter what.

00:16:20.000 I think they view it as part of his charm as well.

00:16:23.000 The problem is he does release classified information sometimes.

00:16:28.000 Yeah, we've had that problem with several administrations.

00:16:32.000 They just don't know what to not say.

00:16:34.000 Well, I think part of it again is, yeah, there's a laxness that's developed over the years, and I don't know why, right?

00:16:43.000 Because...

00:16:43.000 I mean, think about all the various security issues we face.

00:16:46.000 And look, we've been at war for, you know, 17 years, right?

00:16:48.000 Since 9-11.

00:16:49.000 And all these things that have been happening to us, you would think that we'd be pretty buttoned up.

00:16:54.000 But no, every administration has had its moment where it's let slip.

00:16:57.000 And whether it was the press secretary or whether it was somebody rushing to the podium or with somebody on Capitol Hill, I mean, they're famous for it up there, you know, congressmen and congresswomen or senators.

00:17:06.000 All in the rush to get in front of the camera to talk about something. 0.99

00:17:10.000 And then, you know, shit happens. 0.98

00:17:12.000 Things get out that they shouldn't. 0.96

00:17:13.000 So I think it all kind of contributes to this mentality that we started off talking about with the SEALs where, you know, why are we in this point where people are writing books and maybe getting outside?

00:17:25.000 The box.

00:17:26.000 And I think it's just because, yeah, it's this constant drip and lowering of standards, like you mentioned.

00:17:30.000 And I don't think we walk that dog back.

00:17:34.000 It's just the way it is.

00:17:35.000 Now, you're not in the agency anymore, but I'm sure you stay tight with people that are still there.

00:17:40.000 What is the attitude now with this administration?

00:17:44.000 Like, what they're doing with the way he attacks the FBI? It just seems so reckless.

00:17:54.000 Yeah, it's unusual.

00:17:58.000 I mean, look, here's the way I feel about it.

00:18:00.000 I didn't vote for the president.

00:18:02.000 I didn't vote for Hillary Clinton.

00:18:04.000 I didn't think either of them were the best we could do in a country of over 300 million people.

00:18:10.000 We've talked about this before, that if it was you or I that did what Hillary did, we'd be in jail.

00:18:14.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:18:15.000 But as far as what the current mood inside the agency is, I mean, if you talk to some I don't find that.

00:18:30.000 I find that, frankly, they're just more focused on operational concerns and priorities and tasking than anything else.

00:18:39.000 Everybody's got a personal opinion, right?

00:18:42.000 But I do think that the agency has proven itself over the years at being better at pushing that down and understanding, and in part because it's a smaller organization, right, than most of them.

00:18:54.000 Almost all of them.

00:18:56.000 But he doesn't go after the CIA, right?

00:18:58.000 He's only gone after the FBI. He's gone after the FBI. He's done some things in terms of questioning CIA analysis and some of the advice and guidance that they've provided.

00:19:11.000 But again, you sort of look at it and go, hey, look, we're feeding this into the NSC, the National Security Council.

00:19:16.000 You guys, you know, that's an editorial process at that point.

00:19:20.000 You guys are going to have to make your decisions.

00:19:22.000 You know, people are going to say, I'm just saying this because I'm subjective and I'm providing top cover for the agency. 0.94

00:19:27.000 But for the most part, they just focus on getting shit done. 0.88

00:19:31.000 And we also have the benefit of being focused overseas. 0.97

00:19:33.000 So we're not, like the Bureau is, you know, it's a domestic organization, right?

00:19:37.000 So they, you know, they're drawn in. 0.91

00:19:39.000 The agency's got the advantage of, look, we're having to deal with crap over there and not here. 0.97

00:19:45.000 So... 0.92

00:19:46.000 Now, what did you think when he said they were going to pull out of Syria?

00:19:51.000 Well, first of all, yeah.

00:19:55.000 We've lost some servicemen up in northern Syria today as a result of a bombing up there.

00:20:01.000 ISIS is taking credit for it.

00:20:03.000 So there was a patrol.

00:20:06.000 We've got roughly 2,000 personnel in Syria.

00:20:10.000 And for the most part, what are they doing there?

00:20:12.000 Well, they're providing guidance training.

00:20:15.000 They're assisting with targeting.

00:20:18.000 And because the air power is incredibly important over there right now.

00:20:22.000 And so we are – our personnel are very much involved in selection of identification of targets for the air campaign.

00:20:33.000 And so we have these 2,000 troops there.

00:20:37.000 The president says he's going to withdraw.

00:20:38.000 And then some of the members of the administration start walking that dog back, right, and saying, well, it may not happen right away.

00:20:45.000 But yeah, there was just a routine patrol.

00:20:48.000 There's never really such thing as a routine patrol, but there's a patrol.

00:20:52.000 And it got hit.

00:20:54.000 The military is not releasing a lot of details because they haven't finished notifying next to Ken.

00:20:59.000 But numbers so far indicate possibly four servicemen lost.

00:21:08.000 And that's going to refocus, I think, Congress and hopefully the White House on what the hell's going on.

00:21:14.000 The problem I've got with it is, in terms of withdrawing, look, we could stay there forever and not accomplish the task, right? 0.99

00:21:24.000 If the task is to finally defeat whatever that means, radical Islam, jihadists, ISIS, That shit's never going to happen. 0.99

00:21:37.000 Not in our lifetimes. 0.98

00:21:38.000 We're not going to get rid of that mentality, that ideology, sort of what seems to be sometimes a bottomless well of recruits that they can draw on, their ability to morph into something else, as Al-Qaeda did, depending on how successful we are in a campaign against them.

00:21:55.000 They're like, again, it's like you step on roaches over here and they pop up over here.

00:22:00.000 So I think...

00:22:02.000 It's – the biggest problem I've got is that if we leave, we're not – It's not like we're engaged in firefights every day with ISIS over there, right?

00:22:15.000 We've left that to our allies.

00:22:17.000 And our allies in most part up there in the north of Syria are the Kurds.

00:22:21.000 And the Kurds have been our allies in one way or another in that part of the world for a long time now and have played a very important role.

00:22:29.000 And we have not been particularly honorable over the years in terms of how sometimes we deal with them. 0.97

00:22:35.000 If we walk out, if we leave, then Erdogan, you know, the head of Turkey, I guarantee you will be in there in short order to kill as many of them as possible because that's just what the Turkish authorities are going to do.

00:22:52.000 They honestly – they couldn't be happier with the announcement that we're going to leave because that opens the door for them to then go in there and from their perspective stamp out the Kurdish alliance that have been our allies. 0.97

00:23:06.000 We're the only thing.

00:23:07.000 Our presence, that small presence, not minimizing it, but 2,000 troops, has been what's prevented them from doing that.

00:23:14.000 So that's the number one issue I've got.

00:23:17.000 The other is I have no idea why any president or vice president or anybody in the government ever, not just this administration or any administration, ever thinks it's a good idea to say, we've defeated the enemy.

00:23:32.000 When we're talking about radical Islam.

00:23:34.000 We've seen it over and over again from previous administration, from the Bush administration.

00:23:37.000 Every time they say, you know, we've done it.

00:23:39.000 Mission accomplished.

00:23:41.000 Mission accomplished.

00:23:41.000 Are we beating Al-Qaeda?

00:23:43.000 Are we beating ISIS? There's no upside to saying that. 0.88

00:23:46.000 Shut the fuck up. 1.00

00:23:47.000 Stop saying things like that. 1.00

00:23:49.000 Again, it's a self-inflicted wound because now what's happening?

00:23:52.000 The media is not focused on the fact that we've lost servicemen.

00:23:56.000 They're focused on, well, just the other day the president said we defeated ISIS and the vice president today said the same thing.

00:24:01.000 Now look what's happened.

00:24:04.000 There's no benefit to saying that and it's not going to happen anyway.

00:24:08.000 So the goal of being over there is to assist our allies, but also to make sure that these radical factions don't become more powerful and then eventually affect us and attack us.

00:24:21.000 So we can keep an eye on what they're planning, what they're doing.

00:24:24.000 Is that inaccurate?

00:24:26.000 Yeah, it is.

00:24:27.000 It's exactly it.

00:24:28.000 I mean, if you look at the reason we went into Afghanistan, right?

00:24:39.000 That was because the Taliban allowed al-Qaeda to establish a beachhead in there for training and for communications and for finance and for plotting and planning attacks outside of Afghanistan against us and our allies.

00:24:56.000 That's why we went in there, aside from just seeking revenge, obviously, was to route that out.

00:25:03.000 We then stayed.

00:25:05.000 Thinking somehow we were going to turn the tide of history and create some pseudo-federal democracy there.

00:25:10.000 So that didn't work.

00:25:12.000 But the reason now for being in Syria is, yes, we have done a very solid job of beating back ISIS, removing their territory, and degrading their ability to operate.

00:25:27.000 But we haven't stamped them out.

00:25:28.000 We haven't defeated them yet.

00:25:29.000 They're still there.

00:25:30.000 And so we've been providing the support, again, in the form of weapons, hardware, gear, resources, training, and most importantly, combat air operations, air assaults.

00:25:43.000 And that's been critically important.

00:25:48.000 If we leave, I have no doubt that ISIS will... 0.99

00:25:52.000 Find some way to rejuvenate.

00:25:54.000 Maybe not in its current form and maybe not in the same exact locations, but they'll morph because that's what they do.

00:25:59.000 They just find a way to adapt.

00:26:02.000 And we already know what's happened in the past.

00:26:04.000 When we left Iraq, we saw what happened with the rise of ISIS. So do I want to stay there forever?

00:26:11.000 Absolutely not.

00:26:12.000 But both sides can make a valid argument, one for staying, one for leaving.

00:26:17.000 I think the best argument for staying in certainly the short and midterm is to ensure that Erdogan doesn't slaughter a bunch of Kurds who have been working with us honorably.

00:26:30.000 I don't know how else to say that.

00:26:31.000 So we'll see what happens.

00:26:33.000 So the best argument to stay is to protect the people that helped us.

00:26:37.000 To protect our allies.

00:26:39.000 So it's not in our best interest, it's in the best interest of our commitment and our agreement with them.

00:26:46.000 Well, is it in our national security interest to stay in Syria, for example? 0.97

00:26:50.000 Look, there was this – there's so many levels to this thing, and I'm sure right now everybody's listening going, oh, for fuck's sake, he's not going to disappear down the rabbit hole. 0.95

00:26:58.000 But yes, I am. 0.97

00:27:01.000 For a while there, there was this idea, this ridiculous pie-in-the-sky thought that we were going to get the Russians out of Syria. 0.99

00:27:08.000 Never going to fucking happen. 0.98

00:27:10.000 The only port for their Black Sea fleet is in Syria. 0.99

00:27:15.000 They've been there for decades and decades, along with Iran.

00:27:18.000 It's not going to happen unless we want to go to war with Russia to kick them out of Syria. 0.83

00:27:22.000 That's not in our best interest.

00:27:23.000 So is it in our national security interest to keep troops there to fight and try to minimize Russian involvement in Syria?

00:27:29.000 I don't think so, because we're not going to shift them off that dime without going directly at them.

00:27:35.000 It's in their best interest to stay.

00:27:38.000 And every nation acts in its own best interest.

00:27:40.000 Are we going to shift Iran? 0.98

00:27:41.000 Are we going to keep Iran from forming too late for that? 0.97

00:27:44.000 They've already got a beachhead there that they're not going to give up.

00:27:47.000 And so You've got to set those issues aside and say, well, what the hell are we doing there?

00:27:52.000 Are we there simply because we have to finish the fight against ISIS? Well, you know, at some point you've got to say, you know, I guess.

00:28:03.000 I wouldn't say that we've defeated them, but I think we would say, yeah, we've degraded them sufficiently that we can now operate from elsewhere.

00:28:11.000 We can operate from forward bases in other locations where we're currently based.

00:28:15.000 Great.

00:28:17.000 But again, I keep coming back to the same thing, that we've worked with the Kurds.

00:28:21.000 Is this in our national security interest?

00:28:23.000 Well, no.

00:28:24.000 I guess it's not.

00:28:25.000 But there's something that tells me it's the right thing to do.

00:28:28.000 And maybe sometimes that's enough, that we should not let Erdogan have his way.

00:28:34.000 And also long term, wouldn't it be in our best interest to honor our commitment and make sure that we protect our allies so that in the future other allies would be more willing to cooperate with us because they understand that once we're committed,

00:28:49.000 we're fully committed and we stay?

00:28:51.000 Yeah, and we stand for something.

00:28:52.000 Yeah.

00:28:53.000 So what's the benefit of getting out?

00:28:55.000 Like the people that think we should get out?

00:28:57.000 Like when Trump said he wanted to pull out, like what's his thinking?

00:29:01.000 I don't think it runs particularly deep.

00:29:03.000 I think it's, you know, during the campaign he talked about, you know, stopping the endless wars.

00:29:08.000 And that's a very popular concept, right?

00:29:10.000 Again, nobody wants to, I mean, what the hell?

00:29:12.000 And so it will be interesting to see, you know, what today's sad, you know, event does up on Capitol Hill.

00:29:19.000 You know, do they rethink the withdrawal or do they accelerate it?

00:29:23.000 Like when they had the buildup in Iraq and it was highly criticized but then it was very effective.

00:29:31.000 Right.

00:29:33.000 Right.

00:29:34.000 Right.

00:29:36.000 Right.

00:29:53.000 Yeah.

00:29:53.000 Well, eventually, you can only do so much, I think, on the domestic front.

00:29:59.000 And then if they gain sufficient ability and strength, we've seen that from past attacks, I think then they'll come after you.

00:30:09.000 They'll come after us.

00:30:10.000 And that's just the way, I suppose.

00:30:13.000 That's going to work, but I don't disagree with the notion because it is hard-pressed.

00:30:18.000 Look, I wouldn't have stayed in Afghanistan, frankly.

00:30:20.000 I don't care whether they've increased their literacy rate by 2% or built another road or whatever.

00:30:25.000 It doesn't matter.

00:30:26.000 They don't know what the hell we're trying to sell them, right?

00:30:28.000 So I don't – I'm not against the notion of getting out, but this one's a tough one.

00:30:34.000 I guess that's what I'm saying is the Syria issue I'm real conflicted on because of the Kurds and what they've done on our behalf in the past and how they've suffered. 1.00

00:30:42.000 And knowing, going years and years back, you know, having dealt with that issue two and a half decades ago, a long time ago, with the Turks and the Kurds, knowing how vicious that could be. 0.99

00:30:56.000 And I don't trust Erdogan as far as I could throw him out a window.

00:30:59.000 So, you know, I think there's a problem there that we need to, we need to make sure we've talked through thoroughly before we just say, sure, let's get him out of there. 0.77

00:31:07.000 You know, what the hell?

00:31:09.000 You know, we shouldn't have him there. 0.96

00:31:10.000 We shouldn't be there.

00:31:12.000 But like everything else, it's complicated.

00:31:14.000 You would like to think that they're having conversations like this up on Capitol Hill between the parties, the Republicans and the Dems, but I don't think they are.

00:31:23.000 That's what's concerning me.

00:31:25.000 What concerns me is, especially a guy like Trump, if Trump is the guy who's decided we're going to pull out of Syria, how does he have enough time to carefully consider that as well as all the other things that are on his Yeah.

00:31:43.000 And when someone runs for president, say if someone's campaigning and they say, you know, I support a non-interventionalist foreign policy.

00:31:50.000 I'm going to get us out of these wars.

00:31:53.000 I'm going to get...

00:31:53.000 They're doing this based on a limited amount of information.

00:31:57.000 Like...

00:31:58.000 It's not like the CIA or the FBI or anybody briefs them as they're running for president.

00:32:04.000 They don't have clearance, right?

00:32:06.000 Right.

00:32:06.000 Until you become the party nominee.

00:32:08.000 Right.

00:32:09.000 So when you're the party nominee, then do you get a discussion?

00:32:12.000 You get some access, right?

00:32:14.000 Some.

00:32:14.000 You're still not the president, but you are given some ability to get more intensive briefings.

00:32:21.000 Yeah.

00:32:21.000 But it's not to the degree that the president...

00:32:24.000 So someone like Hillary, she was already Secretary of State, she already knew pretty much most things.

00:32:29.000 Yeah.

00:32:29.000 She was very switched on, very informed.

00:32:35.000 She was just an awful candidate. 1.00

00:32:38.000 Yeah.

00:32:39.000 Sorry.

00:32:40.000 So I think that...

00:32:44.000 Look, there's certain things that this administration is doing, foreign policy-wise, that I think are good and make sense.

00:32:52.000 There are other things that I think, you know, just leave you scratching your head.

00:32:57.000 But that's like every administration.

00:32:59.000 I guess my point is we've gotten away from that ability, right?

00:33:02.000 I have conversations.

00:33:02.000 I go out to dinner with folks on the hard left, and when you talk to them, They fully believe, fully believe that President Trump is a Russian puppet, a winning asset of Putin who is just doing Putin's bidding.

00:33:19.000 And they honestly, honestly believe that.

00:33:22.000 And nothing is going to shift them off that position.

00:33:25.000 When you have that sort of frame of reference, you don't have the ability to look at anything rationally and say, yeah, okay, I like this policy related to China.

00:33:35.000 It's about time we call them out and say that you obviously have not been a fair trading partner.

00:33:40.000 That's something that every administration has agreed to but has never done anything about.

00:33:43.000 So you would think that everybody would be able to say, hmm, makes sense.

00:33:46.000 Yeah, I like it.

00:33:48.000 Everybody should be able to say the immigration system here in the States is somewhat dysfunctional. 0.99

00:33:53.000 It needs fixing.

00:33:54.000 Everybody's talked about that.

00:33:55.000 And yet they can't do it because they've got this mindset that prevents them from having any sort of conversation, any sort of rational discussion that could lead to some compromise that could then advance the ball.

00:34:08.000 And make this government more functional.

00:34:11.000 So where we're at right now is today is day one of the shutdown.

00:34:16.000 26th, I think.

00:34:18.000 So 800,000 American workers that work for the government are not getting paid.

00:34:25.000 So they're a month out.

00:34:26.000 Many of these people, paycheck to paycheck.

00:34:29.000 They don't have...

00:34:31.000 They don't have medical necessities.

00:34:32.000 They don't have food.

00:34:33.000 People are having a ration off.

00:34:36.000 They're insulin if they're diabetic.

00:34:38.000 I mean, I'm hearing these horror, horror stories. 1.00

00:34:41.000 The lines at the airport are around the fucking block. 0.99

00:34:44.000 It's chaos. 0.99

00:34:45.000 And it seems like there's no end in sight.

00:34:48.000 And it seems like Trump is just content to hold his position.

00:34:52.000 Well, I think both sides are content to hold their position. 0.99

00:34:54.000 That seems fucking crazy to me. 0.99

00:34:56.000 It is crazy. 1.00

00:34:57.000 It's absolutely crazy if you think about it.

00:34:59.000 And it's not just 800,000.

00:35:00.000 I don't know the exact numbers, but think about all the contractors.

00:35:04.000 Think about all the government contractors.

00:35:07.000 If I'm not mistaken, I don't think they're getting paid.

00:35:10.000 And the administration has admitted that, look, we initially underestimated the impact of a longer-term shutdown.

00:35:19.000 And so they understand that.

00:35:20.000 And the Democrats, you know, talk about it every minute, about how this is a terrible crisis.

00:35:24.000 And so you would think that if both sides feel that way, then get something done.

00:35:30.000 Look, the Democrats, they've approved in the past, recent past, many of these Democrats voted for fencing, barriers, whatever you want to call it.

00:35:39.000 But we're lost in semantics.

00:35:41.000 And because the president's so hated by this group, that...

00:35:46.000 They've seized on this term wall.

00:35:48.000 If he had started his campaign by saying, we need to improve our border security and find fixes to an immigration system that is both fair and secure and efficient, if he had gone with that, it's a wordy bumper sticker, but if he had gone with that,

00:36:04.000 we'd have a different conversation right now.

00:36:05.000 We would, but maybe we'd have a different president as well. 0.72

00:36:10.000 Yeah, that's okay.

00:36:11.000 That's a good point.

00:36:12.000 You know, there's something about that build that wall that's like the dopes are like, yeah, wall, I get it. 1.00

00:36:18.000 Yeah, it's a wall.

00:36:18.000 Still simple.

00:36:19.000 Build a wall.

00:36:20.000 Oh, yeah, like a castle.

00:36:22.000 Yeah.

00:36:22.000 Build a wall.

00:36:23.000 Yeah.

00:36:24.000 It seems so, it's such a visual.

00:36:27.000 No, you're right.

00:36:28.000 And that's where I miss out.

00:36:30.000 I'm way off in terms of being clever about politics.

00:36:34.000 Well, how to rope in rubes. 1.00

00:36:37.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:36:38.000 I should get better at that.

00:36:40.000 But he's got that down.

00:36:42.000 Boy, I didn't even know the people that voted for him, the people that are like real MAGA supporters, I didn't even know they existed in the numbers that exist.

00:36:51.000 It's like he uncovered a rock, like he flipped a rock over and there was an ant colony of rubes in there.

00:36:57.000 And just the sheer numbers, it's like, whoa!

00:37:01.000 And it's a mixed bag, though, right?

00:37:03.000 It's a mixed bag. 1.00

00:37:04.000 You've got a lot of people very, you know, because I don't buy the idea that it's all just a bunch of, you know, crackers or a bunch of idiots. 1.00

00:37:12.000 Nope. 1.00

00:37:12.000 It's a real range of people. 1.00

00:37:15.000 There's that group of people that were just tired of being told they're idiots, right? 1.00

00:37:19.000 And they came out in force. 1.00

00:37:21.000 You can't talk down to people.

00:37:22.000 This is for the Democrats.

00:37:23.000 You can't keep talking down to people and expect at some point they're not going to punch you in the nose, right?

00:37:27.000 Well, they're still doing that now.

00:37:29.000 I mean, they're still... 0.99

00:37:31.000 There was some congressman recently that was talking about all the people that supported Trump, and he was talking about them all being losers and alcoholics and illiterate. 0.98

00:37:42.000 I'm like, man, you're talking about half the country. 0.98

00:37:46.000 And no lesson learned, right?

00:37:48.000 No.

00:37:48.000 Absolutely no self-awareness.

00:37:50.000 And that's the story of every election, I think, going forward, is...

00:37:57.000 You know, you've got the urban centers, and you've got everybody else. 0.99

00:38:02.000 And everybody else feels as if they're getting kicked in the ass. 0.99

00:38:07.000 But, yeah, at the same time, you think, look... 0.99

00:38:11.000 We should be able to do better.

00:38:14.000 We should.

00:38:15.000 I, again, certain policies that they've got, great.

00:38:18.000 But every day, another, you know, tweet that seems a little dysfunctional.

00:38:23.000 Every day, you know, some misstep.

00:38:24.000 Every day, some self-inflicted wound.

00:38:27.000 Shouldn't happen.

00:38:28.000 Not in a country this size.

00:38:29.000 Not where we've got this much talent and skill and capability. 0.95

00:38:33.000 So I don't know what 2020 is going to bring, but it's, we're in for a hell of a ride between, you know, Look at all the shit that's happening. 0.95

00:38:41.000 Yeah. 0.79

00:38:41.000 This seems like it might be one of the bigger moves on the chessboard, though, this government shutdown. 0.79

00:38:46.000 Like, how this gets resolved one way or another, and who comes out, at least the visual is, the optics are that they're the winner.

00:38:55.000 Yeah.

00:38:55.000 It seems very critical, because if the Democrats win, and somehow or another he abandons his idea for a wall, abandons the billions of dollars that he's been asking for for this wall, that gives them momentum.

00:39:07.000 We kicked his ass with that wall, and we're going to kick his ass in 2020. That's exactly what they're thinking. 1.00

00:39:13.000 That is exactly what they're discussing in the war room when Nancy Pelosi keeps them all in lockstep, and she's done a good job so far of keeping the Dems in line.

00:39:22.000 And that's why they wanted her back in.

00:39:24.000 At least the old guard wanted her back in, because that's what she does well, aside from fundraising. 0.51

00:39:29.000 So, you know, I have a feeling that, look, he's asking for whatever, $5.7 billion.

00:39:33.000 In the scheme of things, that's a drop in the bucket.

00:39:35.000 And Schumer and Pelosi and a wide variety of other people, including the previous president, have all voted in the past for additional funding for border security, including fencing and barriers.

00:39:44.000 But they are not going to budge off of this.

00:39:46.000 So what the hell does that mean?

00:39:48.000 Does that mean he's being pushed into a corner where he has no option but to declare a national emergency and use funds elsewhere so that he can say, I finally got it done and looked at Dems and didn't do anything?

00:39:58.000 Who knows?

00:39:59.000 But I think you're absolutely right.

00:40:00.000 Whoever's perceived as the winner out of this ridiculous situation, yeah, they're going to beat that drum all the way to 2020. One of the things they've been saying, too, about the wall is that they want to keep drugs from coming in, illegal drugs.

00:40:15.000 But from this El Chapo trial, we're learning how the biggest drug dealer in Mexico got his drugs in.

00:40:22.000 They didn't get it through the wall.

00:40:25.000 They brought it in through mostly boats.

00:40:27.000 Yeah.

00:40:27.000 It's usually not just mules, individuals carting it across some broken part of the border.

00:40:34.000 They brought it in through cars and hidden compartments.

00:40:36.000 They brought it in through boats.

00:40:39.000 They basically have some people spilling the beans as to how the exact operation was functional.

00:40:45.000 It didn't seem to involve people carrying it over the border on backpacks.

00:40:49.000 And now one of Guzman's, El Chapo's lieutenants, is a cooperating witness.

00:40:55.000 Yeah.

00:40:56.000 And he's now claiming that the former president in Mexico, Pignaneto, was given $100 million at the outset of his term.

00:41:06.000 I think it was 2012 when he started as president.

00:41:09.000 So when he was president-elect, he'd already won, but he was waiting to take the seat.

00:41:13.000 According to this Colombian trafficker who was working with Guzman, with Chapo, And Pignanetto reached out to him, possibly through his campaign manager or however the story goes.

00:41:23.000 My friend!

00:41:24.000 And he asked for $250 million.

00:41:26.000 And Chapo came back with a negotiated position that says $100 million, which was then, according to this, again, the guy's a Colombian trafficker, how legitimate is he?

00:41:39.000 Then the money was transferred to Pignanetto.

00:41:44.000 And You know, pionettos, people are saying that's ridiculous.

00:41:47.000 Look, we were the ones who tracked him down, you know, even though he escaped, you know, 48 times or whatever he escaped.

00:41:54.000 But there's always been this talk about how Chapo's arrests were orchestrated, right?

00:42:02.000 And that's so that the military, the police were involved somehow, that there was a coordinated effort.

00:42:08.000 And there's always been that underlying rumor.

00:42:11.000 You know, is it possible?

00:42:12.000 Yeah, anything's possible.

00:42:14.000 But if he did get $100 million, you would think El Chapo would be free.

00:42:18.000 Jesus Christ, if $100 million didn't get you free?

00:42:20.000 Right, right.

00:42:21.000 Yeah, I know.

00:42:22.000 And you would assume that, you know, what's the upside for Chapo to not talk about it now, right?

00:42:27.000 Yeah.

00:42:28.000 But, you know, who knows?

00:42:30.000 Well, the president, too.

00:42:31.000 I mean, doesn't he have tax returns they could look at?

00:42:35.000 Seems like a lot of cash.

00:42:37.000 He just moved it offshore immediately.

00:42:40.000 According to this cooperating witness, the money was delivered.

00:42:46.000 This may be the part of the story that doesn't hold up.

00:42:49.000 It was delivered to his campaign plane or something, and his campaign manager took control of it, and they whisked it away.

00:42:55.000 What, they got a hole in the ground somewhere?

00:42:57.000 Yeah.

00:42:57.000 Takes out a little at a time?

00:42:59.000 Keep everybody on the...

00:43:00.000 On the Hush Hush. 0.62

00:43:01.000 You know, I was looking at that, what's that crazy lady's name? 1.00

00:43:05.000 Laura Loomer?

00:43:06.000 The lady who jumped Nancy Pelosi's fence.

00:43:08.000 Oh yeah.

00:43:08.000 And she camped out on her yard.

00:43:11.000 You know what made me think? 0.99

00:43:13.000 How the fuck's Nancy Pelosi own that house? 1.00

00:43:16.000 Where's she getting all that cash? 1.00

00:43:18.000 Yeah, and what's her net worth now?

00:43:20.000 A couple hundred million.

00:43:21.000 Really?

00:43:22.000 I forget.

00:43:23.000 To do what?

00:43:24.000 Is she in business?

00:43:25.000 She came from a hardcore political family in Baltimore, I think. 0.90

00:43:29.000 There's so much dirty money out there.

00:43:31.000 Yeah, she's been doing...

00:43:31.000 What?

00:43:33.000 A hundred million? 1.00

00:43:34.000 Oh, shit. 1.00

00:43:34.000 I was way off. 1.00

00:43:36.000 She's worth a hundred million? 0.99

00:43:38.000 Estimated, but that's like, I don't know if it's one of those online networks.

00:43:42.000 Where does she get her money from? 1.00

00:43:46.000 Maybe she's good at just keeping her per diem. 1.00

00:43:50.000 She doesn't spend a per diem or stipend.

00:43:54.000 What's her annual salary? 0.99

00:43:57.000 Well, she just started getting it for this job.

00:44:00.000 Wouldn't it be...

00:44:01.000 450 grand.

00:44:02.000 Wow.

00:44:03.000 No, no, that's the net worth, the average net worth or median net worth of congresspersons.

00:44:07.000 Okay.

00:44:08.000 Congresspersons.

00:44:08.000 So it can't be anything higher than an SIS something.

00:44:12.000 So it's probably not more than 180 something.

00:44:15.000 It's all her good work she did with the Clinton Foundation.

00:44:18.000 Oh, Speaker of the House gets $223,000.

00:44:20.000 $200,000.

00:44:21.000 She's worth $100 million. 1.00

00:44:22.000 What in the holy fuck is that? 1.00

00:44:25.000 How's that? 1.00

00:44:26.000 And she does have a big wall around her place. 1.00

00:44:28.000 Yeah.

00:44:29.000 Not enough to keep Laura Loomer's not an athlete. 1.00

00:44:33.000 She vaulted right over that son of a bitch. 0.99

00:44:36.000 It's not like she's a parkour athlete. 1.00

00:44:39.000 How the fuck did she get over that fact? 0.99

00:44:41.000 Didn't she show up with some illegals? 1.00

00:44:43.000 Illegal immigrants or whatever?

00:44:45.000 Undocumented workers, whatever we use? 0.98

00:44:47.000 She chained herself to Twitter.

00:44:49.000 I know she did that too.

00:44:50.000 That broads.

00:44:50.000 That's right.

00:44:51.000 She's going hard for attention. 1.00

00:44:53.000 It's very interesting when these people just try so hard to make it into the news.

00:44:59.000 Yeah.

00:44:59.000 Well, they're looking for a contributor slot.

00:45:01.000 They're looking for on one network or another.

00:45:03.000 I think that's what they're doing.

00:45:04.000 You have to nowadays, I think, at least my theory is anyway, if you want to be a paid contributor for a network, it doesn't matter which network, you've got to stake out a position that involves some crazy.

00:45:17.000 You've got to be all in for President Trump, or you've got to be all out.

00:45:21.000 If you live in the center, that ain't happening. 0.99

00:45:24.000 Nobody wants to hear from anybody in the middle because that shit's not picking up the ratings at all. 0.98

00:45:29.000 No, no one wants reasonable middle right now. 0.99

00:45:33.000 The only time that I think reasonable middle would ever work out is if the two ends are so fucked up. 0.96

00:45:39.000 And they're fighting so hard on the opposite ends. 0.72

00:45:42.000 Someone's like, God, surely there's got to be a reasonable middle.

00:45:44.000 And then someone comes along.

00:45:46.000 It's almost like people have got to be screaming for it.

00:45:48.000 But right now, it doesn't seem like people are screaming for a sensible, centrist position.

00:45:52.000 It's like World War I trench warfare.

00:45:55.000 That's the way it is with the government shutdown right now.

00:45:58.000 Pelosi's sitting over here in the mud.

00:46:00.000 President Trump's sitting over here in the mud, and nobody's giving any ground, and they're just occasionally taking a shot at each other or throwing a hand grenade, and nobody is making any movement.

00:46:10.000 So again, how do they stop this shutdown?

00:46:15.000 You can't if you're not talking.

00:46:17.000 If there's no effort, it's not going to happen.

00:46:20.000 So everybody's looking at this right now and thinking, Where does it go?

00:46:25.000 It's affecting the markets. 1.00

00:46:26.000 It makes us look like morons. 1.00

00:46:29.000 I mean, not that others aren't. 1.00

00:46:30.000 I mean, look at Britain, right, with the Brexit thing.

00:46:33.000 Look at France with the yellow vests.

00:46:35.000 Look at Germany's having its issues.

00:46:38.000 Everybody's having some problems, but we didn't need to add to the noise.

00:46:43.000 John Stossel had an interesting video that he put out where he's saying what this does actually highlight is that there's a lot of things that the government does that really should probably be privatized and we wouldn't have these issues.

00:46:55.000 It kind of made sense to me, but I don't know a lot.

00:47:12.000 But otherwise, just stay out of my kitchen, right?

00:47:14.000 And that's why I've always been surprised.

00:47:18.000 The Republicans, the problem I got with them is you can't sit around and argue for small government and then try to tell people what to do with their bodies or who can get married and who can't get married. 0.99

00:47:27.000 Who the fuck cares, right? 0.98

00:47:29.000 Just don't hurt people. 0.99

00:47:30.000 Be a good person.

00:47:31.000 Get on with it.

00:47:32.000 I don't need to celebrate your lifestyle, but...

00:47:36.000 Just do it.

00:47:36.000 I really don't care.

00:47:38.000 I don't expect you to care about my lifestyle.

00:47:40.000 I don't care about yours.

00:47:41.000 But the Republicans have always stuck their nose in this, and you can't make that argument for wanting small government if you just want to step into people's bedrooms all the time.

00:47:51.000 Yeah, it doesn't make any sense.

00:47:53.000 And I think the only reason why they do it is because it gets people excited that they get to vote for them.

00:47:59.000 I think when they take these positions, it's not like these are really having an effect on their lives or it's some moral stand that they must take because God wants them to do it.

00:48:07.000 I think they do it because they think that it's going to shift the poll one way or another.

00:48:13.000 And it's going to get people excited about them possibly making some sort of a difference that they feel is going to significantly affect their position.

00:48:20.000 But do you ever get to the point, I mean, I don't know whether that's going to happen, but you would think that you've got the people on the hard right and the hard left.

00:48:28.000 They're not going to shift, right?

00:48:29.000 That's not going to happen.

00:48:30.000 You're not going to move those people.

00:48:31.000 So like everybody always talks about, decisions are made by that small group in the center. 0.99

00:48:36.000 So at what point did the group in the center finally put their hands up and go, you guys are all fucked up? 0.97

00:48:41.000 How about a third party that's legitimate? 0.97

00:48:43.000 Not a libertarian party because that hasn't been working out.

00:48:47.000 But something that creates a little bit of a different dynamic.

00:48:51.000 And we're never going to get term limits, so that's tilting the windmills.

00:48:54.000 But maybe we get that multi-party thing going that – again, okay, it's pie in the sky.

00:49:01.000 Well, the closest we ever got to was Ross Perot, right?

00:49:04.000 Yeah, pretty much, yeah.

00:49:06.000 And he was a piece of work. 0.98

00:49:09.000 But remember when he took out a whole, he took a block of time, I believe it was a half an hour on national television, he bought the time to explain how you're getting fucked. 0.96

00:49:20.000 And explain taxes, and explain all these different things. 0.86

00:49:24.000 And people were like, wait, what?

00:49:26.000 That's how it worked?

00:49:27.000 It's good TV. If you can go back and find it, Ross Perot was good TV. I'll show you what I'm doing here.

00:49:33.000 This is what we got.

00:49:34.000 See? 0.99

00:49:35.000 That's all fucked up. 1.00

00:49:37.000 And here's where you're getting fucked. 1.00

00:49:39.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:49:40.000 Oh, shit. 0.99

00:49:41.000 Hey, we talked about, remember last time we talked about Huawei? 1.00

00:49:43.000 Yes.

00:49:44.000 It hasn't gone away.

00:49:45.000 No, it hasn't gotten away.

00:49:46.000 Someone just got arrested yesterday.

00:49:48.000 Two people.

00:49:49.000 Yeah.

00:49:49.000 Two people.

00:49:51.000 So, backstory, fascinating.

00:49:55.000 This is fascinating.

00:49:56.000 This is an area I could definitely disappear down to.

00:49:58.000 Chinese espionage, right?

00:50:00.000 Yeah.

00:50:01.000 They're going on forever.

00:50:03.000 Again, I talk about there are certain things that the current administration is doing that I like.

00:50:08.000 One of them is the way that they're dealing with China right now.

00:50:10.000 And yes, the trade issue is buffeting the market somewhat and causing some instability.

00:50:15.000 But again, the previous administration, the Bush administration, Clinton administration, lots of former presidents, they all acknowledged that China privately was not a fair trading partner.

00:50:26.000 This administration is at least trying to call them out and calling them out on the cyber On their theft of intellectual property.

00:50:35.000 So anyway, Huawei, supposedly owned by the founder and however many employees.

00:50:43.000 You know, I think Huawei is, by the way, the number one telecommunications equipment manufacturer in the world.

00:50:50.000 And they're the number two seller of smartphones, right?

00:50:53.000 They're a bigger seller of smartphones than Apple.

00:50:55.000 So it's Samsung, Huawei, Apple for this.

00:51:00.000 And so supposedly the company is owned by the founder and his daughter is the chief operating officer, chief financial officer, one of those.

00:51:07.000 She was arrested up in Canada and she was arrested at the request of the US. She's up there on bail right now waiting extradition hearing.

00:51:14.000 And the reason was because supposedly she lied about Huawei's dealings with Iran and they were busting sanctions by dealing and providing certain types of equipment to Iran. 0.51

00:51:27.000 Now, this past week, we've had a Huawei employee who's now been fired by Huawei in Poland arrested for espionage.

00:51:39.000 And along with him is a member of the Polish Intelligence Service, right, who retired and was now working for a French telecommunications company.

00:51:49.000 But was arrested also for espionage related to Huawei and related to this individual who up until just recently was working for Huawei.

00:51:58.000 Huawei claims innocence and says, well, we have no idea.

00:52:01.000 And the founder just came out and gave this big speech and said, I would never let the Chinese authorities tell me what to do.

00:52:07.000 And I would certainly never spy on anybody using Huawei's capabilities and technology. 0.95

00:52:12.000 And people are probably thinking, what the fuck are you talking about this for? 0.67

00:52:16.000 Huawei embeds their telecommunications equipment throughout the world, right? 0.97

00:52:21.000 So it's in our allies' military operations, which then are connected to ours, right, in terms of communications and transfer of intelligence and information.

00:52:33.000 They're everywhere.

00:52:34.000 And they chose Poland.

00:52:36.000 They've been in Poland for about 10 years.

00:52:38.000 Poland is a very important NATO ally.

00:52:40.000 So I'm taking a long time, I realize, to explain this.

00:52:43.000 But what I'm trying to say is nothing happens by happenstance, right?

00:52:47.000 The Chinese don't operate that way.

00:52:49.000 So the Chinese authorities some time ago, years ago, looked at it and went, yeah, this makes sense, right?

00:52:56.000 We've got Huawei, which, by the way, the founder is a former military People's Liberation Army engineer.

00:53:02.000 He...

00:53:04.000 They looked at this and they thought, Poland, that would be a good beachhead for us, right? 0.99

00:53:09.000 Because they're a key element of NATO. So let's go to Poland.

00:53:13.000 So they started burrowing into Poland, striking deals. 0.90

00:53:16.000 They're basically the most important foreign relationship now, corporation inside of Poland.

00:53:23.000 And they're fully embedded.

00:53:25.000 And they've had access to, at this point, to NATO communications and now the arrest of these two individuals.

00:53:31.000 And people will still, despite this and despite their past, despite their theft of information from everybody, from U.S. Steel to Alcoa to Lockheed Martin to DuPont, all the times that they've been stealing information, people will still go,

00:53:47.000 well, I don't know.

00:53:48.000 I don't believe it.

00:53:50.000 It doesn't make any sense.

00:53:51.000 I don't see why the Chinese would act that way, and I don't see why we're being so harsh on them. 0.99

00:53:54.000 You know, this tariff thing is a bad idea.

00:53:56.000 My point being, you've got to call them out.

00:53:59.000 They're not going to necessarily change their behavior, but you've got to raise public awareness, make our allies understand, and that's what we're doing right now.

00:54:06.000 We're saying, you've got to put the brakes on this.

00:54:09.000 Build a firewall.

00:54:10.000 Use other companies' telecommunications equipment, right?

00:54:13.000 Because, you know, the fact that we're tied in with our allies, with Poland and with Canada and with us, You know, that gives them access to us.

00:54:21.000 So for someone on the outside, like myself, who's trying to look at this, and you say that Huawei is stealing stuff, like stealing stuff from U.S. Steel.

00:54:29.000 How are they doing that?

00:54:30.000 Well, they, I mean, The U.S. Steel, admittedly, that was a PLA. That was a People's Liberation Army third department operation against DuPont and also against U.S. Steel and others.

00:54:40.000 So that was a little bit different.

00:54:41.000 I conflated the two.

00:54:43.000 But Huawei, one of the things that they do is by having access and embedding their equipment in your communications infrastructure, that gives them the ability then to, in a simple way, to tap in.

00:54:58.000 Intercept packets.

00:54:59.000 Intercept information, basically.

00:55:01.000 So you have communications.

00:55:02.000 Imagine we're trading information through NATO channels.

00:55:07.000 All they need is that one in.

00:55:09.000 It's like everything else.

00:55:11.000 It's like phishing.

00:55:11.000 It's just like when hackers, just an individual hacker sitting in somebody's basement.

00:55:15.000 He just needs that one avenue.

00:55:17.000 He needs to get one.

00:55:18.000 Just click on that email.

00:55:20.000 That gives me the pathway in.

00:55:21.000 So when Huawei is able to embed their technology, Into, you know, Polish communications and we're now connected because of our NATO alliance.

00:55:32.000 That gives them access to us, to France, to Germany, whomever.

00:55:38.000 It's not as if it just happened.

00:55:39.000 It's not as if Huawei, from a business perspective, said, you know, I bet we could sell some of our equipment in Poland.

00:55:44.000 Wouldn't that be good?

00:55:45.000 The guy who was arrested, the Huawei person who was arrested, was responsible for the provision of telecommunications equipment to government facilities.

00:55:55.000 That was his job.

00:55:57.000 And the guy, the Polish guy, one of his last jobs with the intel service was communications. 0.98

00:56:05.000 So I guess what I'm saying is none of this shit happens in a bubble, and it's all very well mapped out. 0.83

00:56:11.000 The Chinese have a very long view on things, and they are very good at developing operations like this, and so they've been very successful. 0.98

00:56:21.000 So we'll see.

00:56:22.000 But it's – I'm glad that the current administration at least is calling them out.

00:56:26.000 I don't believe it's necessarily going to change their behavior.

00:56:28.000 We'll probably get some sort of deal where they'll claim to – look, just a couple of years ago, they agreed with President Obama to stop their cyber shenanigans and they didn't.

00:56:37.000 So they just changed the way that they did it.

00:56:41.000 You know, that's the world we live in, but I think it is important to make a stand, right?

00:56:45.000 Yeah, some of the tech people are saying that they think it's preposterous when they were talking about the ban on Android phones.

00:56:53.000 Some of the tech people say that doesn't make any sense, but what you're saying is it goes far beyond the actual phones itself, and it's really the mission of the actual company itself.

00:57:04.000 Yeah, I'm saying that there is no way that Huawei and other important...

00:57:11.000 Chinese companies are solely privately owned and or have the ability to tell the Chinese authorities that they will not spy on their behalf.

00:57:21.000 It's just not happening.

00:57:22.000 It's just not happening.

00:57:23.000 You have to go a long ways to come up with that sort of naive viewpoint that says that A Chinese company is going to put its foot down and tell President Xi, absolutely not.

00:57:38.000 We will not do anything to harm another nation's company. 0.98

00:57:42.000 Horseshit.

00:57:43.000 They've spent generations now, decades, jump-starting their industry and moving up the food chain on the global economy by hoovering up everything possible out there. 0.66

00:57:54.000 So if someone like a tech wizard got a hold of one of their routers...

00:57:58.000 Have they been able to detect something in there that doesn't belong or some sort of a backdoor or some sort of a way that they could tap in?

00:58:06.000 It's like if you were, you know, you were Apple and you were sending, you know, data to Raytheon or whatever and you're going back and forth, they could tap in through that?

00:58:16.000 Has it been proven that there's a device like that?

00:58:19.000 Yeah, a former NSA director, McConnell, back in...

00:58:25.000 2015, I think early 2015, came out and NSA came out with an official statement and it said every major US corporation of any consequence has been attacked and exploited by Chinese and we have never ever not found Chinese malware within their systems.

00:58:46.000 Wow.

00:58:47.000 Never.

00:58:48.000 That was four years ago.

00:58:49.000 Malware being software, right?

00:58:51.000 Right.

00:58:52.000 Is there anything in the hardware itself?

00:58:55.000 Yes, in a sense that – yes, in the sense of like – I'm trying to remember the name of it, but not doing a very good job.

00:59:09.000 If you have access to or understanding of physical hardware – Then you can affect easier, you can affect physical control of systems,

00:59:25.000 right?

00:59:25.000 So Stuxnet, I don't know if you remember, Stuxnet was an attack on Iran.

00:59:31.000 To shut down their nuclear program, right?

00:59:33.000 Right, exactly.

00:59:35.000 Essentially what it did was it took over control of some centrifuges, overspun them, they broke.

00:59:40.000 And it was a virus.

00:59:42.000 And it was a piece of software.

00:59:44.000 That was able to impact, you know, physical equipment.

00:59:50.000 It took control of those systems because, in part, whoever perpetrated it had much better understanding of that gear, right?

01:00:00.000 Or had access to that gear.

01:00:02.000 And that's an important part of this.

01:00:04.000 And it's happened several times since then.

01:00:06.000 And I'm not disclosing anything because it's been written about.

01:00:09.000 I'm sure it'll be a movie at some point.

01:00:10.000 But that's a concern.

01:00:14.000 I'm far more worried about a company like Huawei with its integration into our allies.

01:00:24.000 I'm about telecommunications systems than I am about sort of the individual sale of phones and, you know, what that means.

01:00:31.000 Look, you know, Amazon and all the others are gathering more data on the average American than, you know, U.S. government or anybody else's government is doing at this point.

01:00:40.000 Let me ask you this because this is something that just came up and we were trying to figure out if it's nonsense or not.

01:00:45.000 My friend Adam was here the other day and we were talking about Toyota trucks and he didn't Google Toyota trucks just discussing it and he said since then his mentions have been filled with these little advertisements for Toyota trucks.

01:00:59.000 How does that work?

01:01:02.000 Well, you know how you talk to Siri?

01:01:04.000 Yes.

01:01:04.000 Yeah.

01:01:06.000 It's simple voice recognition.

01:01:08.000 It's a carryover from the old days of, you know, optical readers and how, you know, we all thought it was incredible that you could take a piece of paper, put it into a system, and it would, like, take that information that was on that piece of paper, and now it was on a database that you could access and manipulate.

01:01:23.000 And so, you know, voice recognition is no different in the sense that...

01:01:26.000 If, for example, if I had this switched on and it happens to people, I'm sure all the time walking around their house, they'll say something and all of a sudden Alexa will come on and go, oh, I couldn't find a result for that, but do you want to listen to Ella Fitzgerald or whatever?

01:01:42.000 It's always on.

01:01:43.000 It's always listening.

01:01:44.000 And you can do that with anything.

01:01:46.000 Like this TV right here.

01:01:48.000 If you wanted to, if I knew that TV was going to go into the office of the Deputy Foreign Minister of a country hostile to our interests, I could turn that thing into a receiver, obviously, right?

01:02:00.000 And if I could get my hands on that before delivery, that's a wonderful thing.

01:02:05.000 Now I've got this in there, and it's like the old days when you would have to go in on an entry operation and use silent drills and put a device in the wall.

01:02:16.000 Now, you know, we've delivered a TV. Now I get a video, too.

01:02:20.000 Hey, good for me. 0.99

01:02:21.000 So, shit's always on, you know, in a sense. 0.99

01:02:26.000 So, a regular phone that you get, if you just buy an iPhone and you have Siri turned on so you can say, hey, Siri, and it turns on, that phone is always listening to you. 0.99

01:02:37.000 Well, now we're getting in over my head, but it could be.

01:02:41.000 I mean, is it possible?

01:02:42.000 Is it capable of doing that?

01:02:44.000 Yes.

01:02:44.000 Could you do that as an intentional operation?

01:02:50.000 Sure.

01:02:51.000 Is it happening because Apple wants to do it and they want to get a better understanding of consumer preferences and things?

01:02:57.000 I have no idea.

01:02:58.000 That's above my pay grade.

01:02:59.000 But I will say, from an operational perspective, sure, yeah.

01:03:02.000 From an operational perspective, right.

01:03:04.000 But, like, it would kind of be scandalous if we found out that Apple is listening to everything that you say, and then they're sending them information to these companies, and then they're trying to sell you whatever you were bringing up.

01:03:14.000 Yeah.

01:03:14.000 But it's really, if you think about it, it's only one step above what they do anyway.

01:03:17.000 Right.

01:03:18.000 Which is, I mean, if I go in here and I search Toyota, you know, I'm in the same situation.

01:03:21.000 I'm fucking inundated with Toyota mentions, right, after that.

01:03:24.000 Right, of course. 0.84

01:03:24.000 So, you know, it's like the next iteration of that. 0.84

01:03:36.000 Some folks would be outraged, but I'll bet people would just live with it. 1.00

01:03:40.000 We seem to be willing to give up a lot of shit. 1.00

01:03:43.000 As long as we don't think the government's doing it. 1.00

01:03:45.000 If it's Google and somebody, we seem to be fine with it.

01:03:50.000 But if it's that NSA, then now we're pissed!

01:03:53.000 But... 0.97

01:03:54.000 That's not who's fucking making jack off of these things, right? 0.91

01:03:58.000 Yeah, it's Amazon and Google and all these companies that are using it to sell your data to make a lot of money.

01:04:03.000 What do you got, Jamie?

01:04:05.000 Senators call for investigation of T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T for selling location data.

01:04:12.000 Phone companies know where you are.

01:04:15.000 Lawmakers want them to stop selling that information. 0.97

01:04:18.000 Until they can figure out how to tax it.

01:04:20.000 Yeah, that seems...

01:04:21.000 But what do they sell on that location data for?

01:04:24.000 They want to know how many people are in certain areas?

01:04:26.000 Is that the idea?

01:04:27.000 This is that thing I was telling you where anyone could...

01:04:28.000 You can buy that information and find anybody's location.

01:04:32.000 Or a phone's location.

01:04:34.000 But look, they do these things now where there's a billboard.

01:04:37.000 They'll put a billboard up in a square, right?

01:04:41.000 And you'll walk by.

01:04:42.000 And the billboard has the ability to see where the eyeballs are, right?

01:04:46.000 What?

01:04:46.000 So you'll look and they'll see, oh yeah, it's looking at me.

01:04:48.000 That billboard's looking at me.

01:04:50.000 So that's a success, right?

01:04:51.000 I've scored a hit or a view.

01:04:53.000 And that was the old days.

01:04:55.000 It was like, you know, how many clicks or how many views?

01:04:57.000 The billboard's got a camera?

01:04:59.000 There's an ability for that billboard to sense – and again, I go overboard if I start talking technical and someone will call me out and say, well, it's not exactly how it works. 0.96

01:05:06.000 But in simplistic terms, yeah, it's an ability to monitor pedestrian traffic to understand people's interests and to further refine so that they can sell a shit better.

01:05:21.000 Make your outdoor advertising interactive. 0.55

01:05:23.000 This is putting your phone directly up to it.

01:05:25.000 So this is like you committing that.

01:05:28.000 But there is also what he's talking about, too.

01:05:31.000 What this guy's talking about.

01:05:33.000 What's his name again?

01:05:35.000 So this, you walk up to a phone that's in the photo.

01:05:39.000 You hold your phone up to it.

01:05:41.000 It sends a signal to your phone.

01:05:43.000 It seems like it's always Samsung, though.

01:05:44.000 Is it only Samsung phones?

01:05:46.000 That's a Galaxy ad.

01:05:47.000 I have a song for you.

01:05:49.000 These are Galaxy ads.

01:05:51.000 Huh.

01:05:51.000 But if you can do a one-way transaction, that transaction can be two-way easily, obviously, right?

01:05:55.000 And it has to be to some degree because there has to be an exchange of sort of a handshake.

01:06:00.000 I didn't know that billboards are staring at you, though.

01:06:02.000 Yeah. 1.00

01:06:03.000 No, it's pretty crazy shit. 0.99

01:06:06.000 Look, I mean, you can tracking now, understanding where people are, right? 0.99

01:06:10.000 As an example, You know, it used to be putting a beacon, right?

01:06:16.000 Investigations, you know, you put a beacon on a car, right?

01:06:18.000 And it was a little clumsy, but it got better and better as you go along.

01:06:21.000 You know, now it's pretty remarkable.

01:06:24.000 But you can also, think about the electronics that exist in a current vehicle, in a new vehicle.

01:06:30.000 You can, every one of those has a unique signature.

01:06:33.000 So whether it's the tire pressure indicators, you know how you get in your car and it says your left front tire is low?

01:06:40.000 Well, that's a particular signal.

01:06:42.000 If I know that signal for that car, I'll bet I can find that car. 0.92

01:06:45.000 And it's the same with all the other electronics that exist within a vehicle or just in the shit that we carry around. 0.50

01:06:53.000 They've all got some kind of signature. 0.98

01:06:55.000 But again, I think most people are willing to give up a surprising amount of privacy for whatever reason, maybe because they're getting accustomed to it and they're not shocked by shit anymore. 0.85

01:07:05.000 Jamie, what were you saying today that somebody made a slip up about phone calls? 0.77

01:07:09.000 The thing you were saying about the different data that they've collected?

01:07:15.000 You were just telling me before the show about some investigation.

01:07:21.000 Was that the thing I was just talking about?

01:07:24.000 Where they could find anybody's phone? 0.89

01:07:25.000 No, you were saying that through the emails and phone calls, the guy had fucked up by saying phone calls. 0.99

01:07:33.000 I'm having a brain. 0.99

01:07:34.000 Oh my god.

01:07:35.000 How dare you.

01:07:35.000 You just told me before the show.

01:07:38.000 I've been thinking about a lot of stuff.

01:07:39.000 Smoking tea.

01:07:40.000 I've been thinking a lot of stuff. 0.99

01:07:41.000 I got a lot of shit on my mind right now. 1.00

01:07:42.000 You cooked your brain with that weed. 1.00

01:07:44.000 A lot of stuff. 0.98

01:07:44.000 I'm still thinking about that Huawei thing. 0.98

01:07:46.000 Yeah.

01:07:46.000 We were talking about it right before.

01:07:48.000 If you remember it, no big deal.

01:07:49.000 I think it had something to do with the mule investigation.

01:07:53.000 Yeah.

01:07:53.000 You don't remember?

01:07:54.000 Yeah.

01:07:55.000 What do you think?

01:07:55.000 When's that going to end?

01:07:56.000 Fuck! 1.00

01:07:58.000 That guy is calculated. 1.00

01:08:00.000 He would scare the shit out of me if he was looking at my life. 0.98

01:08:02.000 Because it seems like that guy takes his time.

01:08:05.000 Yeah.

01:08:05.000 About two years worth of time.

01:08:08.000 The one thing I've got...

01:08:09.000 Remember it?

01:08:09.000 It was the National Security Advisor on CNN last night.

01:08:12.000 He was talking about Bill Barr, his...

01:08:15.000 The access to information he would already have.

01:08:21.000 And also be gaining, I guess, by becoming the Attorney General.

01:08:24.000 They were discussing whether he will...

01:08:37.000 Yeah.

01:08:41.000 Yeah.

01:08:52.000 So, one of the things that everybody was scared of was that the NSA was building some gigantic place somewhere outside of Salt Lake where they would store every single phone call that you ever made, every single email.

01:09:07.000 Yeah.

01:09:10.000 There was that whole stink at one point about what they were actually holding on to, right?

01:09:15.000 The collection of information.

01:09:16.000 And there was some misreporting about how they've actually got your phone calls.

01:09:21.000 Well, what they've got is they've got number and duration of call, right?

01:09:24.000 I mean, that's the key pieces of information that they've got.

01:09:28.000 Could they, at some point, suddenly decide you're a target of interest, and so we will start collecting on your calls?

01:09:35.000 Yeah.

01:09:35.000 But was the NSA gathering everybody's phone conversations?

01:09:38.000 No.

01:09:39.000 It used to be a thing that you would have to wiretap somebody.

01:09:42.000 Like if you're going after the mob, they had to install a bug.

01:09:46.000 But they don't have to do that anymore.

01:09:48.000 No.

01:09:48.000 Oh, no, no, no, no.

01:09:49.000 I mean, technology now is – I mean, I remember the old days of operations, right?

01:09:53.000 I mean, if we wanted to – we're overseas.

01:09:55.000 It's compounded incredibly.

01:09:56.000 It's really difficult to do observation posts and listening posts and everything overseas, right, because it's not your turf. 0.66

01:10:01.000 And so you've got to come up with an airtight plan, but it was the same way.

01:10:06.000 You still had to get physical access, right? 0.96

01:10:08.000 The phone lines, you had to clip off, and then you had to figure out where am I putting the gear, where am I going to put the batteries, how am I going to store this shit, and then you've got to listen to it, right?

01:10:18.000 And what happens is it starts collecting like this, you start getting mountains of tapes, right? 0.55

01:10:22.000 And you're not getting it real-time, which is a problem.

01:10:24.000 But nowadays, no, it's entirely different.

01:10:28.000 But I think if we look at today's concerns, if we look at what are people worried about, what should they be worried about?

01:10:40.000 I know that privacy always comes up.

01:10:43.000 People always talk about it.

01:10:44.000 But I guess I keep going back to my same point, which was I – I don't see people with pitchforks and the torches going down to complain to Jeff Bezos that Amazon's collecting massive amounts of data or T-Mobile and Sprint and all these are mapping our locations as we move around.

01:11:01.000 I just don't see it.

01:11:02.000 I mean that probably raised nobody's interest for the most part, that article that you just pulled up.

01:11:07.000 And I guess in part it's because, again, we've become kind of used to it, become accustomed to it.

01:11:14.000 So fine.

01:11:16.000 What should we be worried about?

01:11:17.000 Well, I tell you what we should be worried about mostly is state-sponsored activity by countries whose interests almost never align with ours.

01:11:26.000 Now, it would include China.

01:11:27.000 It certainly includes Russia.

01:11:28.000 It includes Iran. 1.00

01:11:30.000 The shit that they're doing. 1.00

01:11:31.000 China has a policy. 1.00

01:11:35.000 Information domination, right?

01:11:37.000 Which means they've determined that the next war, the next modern large-scale war is going to be won by whoever has control over information.

01:11:47.000 So where are they putting all their resources?

01:11:50.000 China knows that they're not going to build a military that's going to be able to reach around the globe.

01:11:53.000 For the most part, although they're, you know, they're beefing up their resources.

01:11:56.000 What are they doing?

01:11:57.000 It's cyber and it's space, right? 0.95

01:11:59.000 So I know a lot of people were kicking the president in the ass and laughing about the Space Force because it is funny, right? 0.90

01:12:05.000 But the uniforms would be amazing. 0.98

01:12:07.000 But they talk about this.

01:12:10.000 But China honestly believes, and it's putting their resources into cyber and to space.

01:12:14.000 What does that mean?

01:12:15.000 Well, their anti-satellite technology that they've been developing and working on and continue to work on, the whole point of that is to take control of communications and surveillance abilities, whether it's ours or our allies, in the event of something major that happens.

01:12:29.000 So they would have the ability to shut off our satellites?

01:12:32.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:12:32.000 And if you do that, then what does that mean?

01:12:34.000 Well, it means you're blind, right?

01:12:36.000 And we're all suddenly walking around with compasses and maps, you know, trying to shoot an azimuth and figure out where the hell, you know, the target is.

01:12:42.000 So China is currently developing that, or they have developed something that disrupt satellites?

01:12:46.000 They're working on it now.

01:12:47.000 Yeah, they're working on it now.

01:12:48.000 They've developed some of it.

01:12:49.000 They're working to get the next generation.

01:12:51.000 It's like every nation that has the resources and ability understands that and is doing the same.

01:12:56.000 It's not like we're not.

01:12:57.000 Right.

01:12:57.000 What is their excuse?

01:13:00.000 They don't have an excuse.

01:13:01.000 They have the right to do it.

01:13:05.000 As long as they don't use it in an illegal way, they have the right to develop the technology.

01:13:10.000 There's no treaty that says you can't develop anti-satellite technology.

01:13:14.000 There's the START treaties, there's the nuclear conventions that we have with Russia, which is a whole other interesting topic because we're right now arguing with the Russians over the latest nuke It's coming up for renewal sometime soon,

01:13:32.000 a year or two years from now.

01:13:33.000 And the Russians have been cheating on a previous agreement, and so now they're trying to say we're cheating on the new one.

01:13:40.000 That's an interesting thing to be watching, but the point being is that there's conventions that try to control the numbers for warheads or for delivery mechanisms, missiles or submarines, whatever, bombers.

01:13:55.000 Not for this new world, cyberspace.

01:13:57.000 The Pentagon's still trying to figure out what war means in cyberspace.

01:14:03.000 How do you respond?

01:14:05.000 What's the threshold?

01:14:06.000 And then what's an appropriate response?

01:14:09.000 And so maybe we'll get there.

01:14:12.000 Maybe we'll start having these discussions and create treaties that will allow that.

01:14:15.000 But right now, from China's perspective, again, not to beat on China, but I'm much more concerned about China for our national security They're a much bigger concern than Russia is.

01:14:25.000 Russia's punching above its weight. 0.99

01:14:26.000 And Putin's a dick, no doubt about it, right? 0.99

01:14:29.000 And they're doing what they always do, which is meddle in democracy. 1.00

01:14:32.000 That's been their methodology ever since they've been around.

01:14:38.000 But that's small potatoes.

01:14:41.000 They've got the GDP of a small European country.

01:14:44.000 And when the oil prices are in the toilet, they really are sucking wind.

01:14:49.000 So, yeah, we got to be concerned with Russia and understand that their interests are never aligned with ours, you know, for the most part, maybe.

01:14:54.000 We tried to imagine they were with Syria and ISIS and everything, but Russia's only interest there was maintaining their leverage and increasing it and not losing their military foothold there.

01:15:04.000 That was their primary interest.

01:15:07.000 We mirror our values and we mirror our interests on other countries, and so we imagined that somehow we're all in this fight against ISIS together. 0.97

01:15:14.000 Eh, horseshit. 0.95

01:15:16.000 You know, so... 0.99

01:15:18.000 So yeah, China's a much bigger issue, and we should be focused on that. 0.64

01:15:22.000 And to some degree, this administration is.

01:15:24.000 So that's where I say, look, you can't just keep complaining and bitching and moaning because you don't like President Trump.

01:15:30.000 There's certain things that are going on that you should be willing to say, okay, that makes sense.

01:15:35.000 Maybe I don't like the messenger, but that part of it makes sense. 1.00

01:15:40.000 Is it because of his dealings with China from the business world that he understands it better?

01:15:46.000 That he's more concerned with the imbalance of the trade?

01:15:52.000 I think what happened was...

01:15:53.000 What do I know?

01:15:54.000 This is speculation.

01:15:55.000 But I suspect that what happened was he came into it focused on the trade imbalance.

01:16:02.000 And as he was sitting there and talking about the trade imbalance, More of the conversation from the National Security Council and from the agency and others in terms of saying, well, yeah, this is part of the reason why, and this is the long-term effects of their theft of intellectual property.

01:16:18.000 This is why, in part, they've been successful in these areas.

01:16:20.000 So I think there was probably more and more discussion talking about their economic espionage and theft of IP, and that became then an issue for him.

01:16:31.000 But I think initially, and still to this day, I think the big issue is just he wants to Try to create a win in terms of the trade imbalance.

01:17:04.000 We think about China, and even with the Huawei arrests, we're like, eh, no one seems to be concerned.

01:17:11.000 It doesn't seem to light any bulbs over here.

01:17:14.000 Yeah, no, you're right. 0.97

01:17:15.000 I don't know why that is, except, you know, Putin's more like a thug. 0.84

01:17:19.000 He's a visual.

01:17:20.000 Right, right.

01:17:21.000 And also, I mean, look, he's been very clear about, you know, wanting to try to rebuild the Soviet Union.

01:17:26.000 So whether it's Crimea and the annexation of that, or whether taking over eastern Ukraine...

01:17:31.000 You know, or maintaining a position in Georgia, whatever it is, you know, certainly, you know, his attacks or the FSB's attacks overseas against, you know, dissidents and others.

01:17:45.000 Yeah, he's just more in your face.

01:17:46.000 He's like Tony Soprano, right?

01:17:48.000 And so you can look at that.

01:17:49.000 China's always been, you know, sort of this thing, right? 0.99

01:17:52.000 And look, China's fantastic.

01:17:53.000 The history is amazing.

01:17:55.000 You know, the places are incredible.

01:17:57.000 I think it's, you know, we should be trading with China.

01:18:00.000 We should be doing a huge amount of business with China.

01:18:02.000 We should, you know, clear the decks and try to the degree we can level the playing field.

01:18:05.000 But we should also be pragmatic and realize what they do.

01:18:08.000 You know, in terms of their theft of IP. And so, you know, because that, again, that probably won't change.

01:18:14.000 But yeah, we absolutely should be dealing with China all the time. 1.00

01:18:18.000 But I think that they've always kind of been viewed more in more of a sophisticated fashion, maybe, because Putin is just sort of in your face.

01:18:26.000 And he's good at it.

01:18:28.000 He's very successful. 1.00

01:18:29.000 He's a smart son of a bitch. 0.99

01:18:31.000 But he's – I think he's pretty easy to read, right? 1.00

01:18:34.000 He's thuggish and he longs for those days of the Soviet Union. 0.98

01:18:40.000 So we should understand that everything he does is because of that.

01:18:44.000 It's because he would love to rebuild the Soviet Union.

01:18:48.000 And so we shouldn't be surprised by any sort of aggressive move that he makes against his neighbors, and we should always push back.

01:18:57.000 And to be fair, this administration, not to beat their drum, but the actions they've taken against Russia, despite the fact that you've got people calling him a puppet of Putin, are more significant than the previous administration took.

01:19:14.000 Like what has he done?

01:19:15.000 The sanctions against key individuals and companies within Russia, as an example, those are the toughest sanctions that have been placed on Russia ever.

01:19:24.000 The provision of weapons and assistance to the Ukrainians, right?

01:19:29.000 That was something the previous administration said, no, not going to do that, because we don't want any blowback.

01:19:36.000 That's a good thing, right?

01:19:38.000 That should be done.

01:19:40.000 Pushing back against them on the 2011 nuked deal, right? 0.97

01:19:45.000 Or sorry, on the previous, on the START deal, prior to the 2011 deal, and calling them out and saying, look, you're cheating on this, and you've got to be held accountable.

01:19:55.000 I mean, there's certain things there that make sense.

01:20:00.000 And that don't add up.

01:20:01.000 If you talk to somebody who says, well, he's an absolute puppet, and you say, well, okay, he's a puppet, so why is he doing certain things that seem counter to Russian interests?

01:20:09.000 And they'll say, well, because he's smart, and he's like, he doesn't want to get caught out.

01:20:14.000 See, he's playing a long game here.

01:20:18.000 And I'm thinking, okay, maybe, maybe, who knows?

01:20:22.000 But I haven't strapped on my tinfoil hat yet to get to that point.

01:20:26.000 So, I don't know.

01:20:28.000 Yeah, that seems like a complicated one if they have some compromising information about them.

01:20:33.000 That was always the fear, right?

01:20:35.000 Is that they knew something or maybe it was business dealings, maybe it was people peeing on them or something like that.

01:20:41.000 If they did, and again, in today's world, anything's possible, right?

01:20:47.000 And I wish we had somebody else in there who was more elegant and eloquent and sophisticated.

01:20:52.000 Does anybody stand out to you?

01:20:55.000 Not right now.

01:20:57.000 No.

01:20:57.000 I don't think anybody's going to challenge him from the Republican side.

01:21:00.000 And on the Democratic side, I think they're going to get 18 or 20 potential candidates and they're going to end up eating their own.

01:21:06.000 So it could be a real slugfest in there for the Democrats.

01:21:10.000 Turn on each other as they're trying to establish someone who's a viable candidate?

01:21:14.000 Kind of like what the Republicans did, right?

01:21:15.000 We ended up with President Trump.

01:21:19.000 And the Democrats, if they're not careful, you can end up with the same thing.

01:21:23.000 Look, they're talking about Joe Biden.

01:21:24.000 Joe Biden's an excellent cat.

01:21:26.000 He's 150 years old.

01:21:27.000 He's 150 years old, and he lost twice before.

01:21:29.000 Yeah.

01:21:29.000 But everybody loves the person that's on the bench, right?

01:21:31.000 Right.

01:21:31.000 Until they get in the game.

01:21:32.000 And so, you know, who knows where they're going to go with that, but, you know, could they have...

01:21:39.000 This idea that they've got compromising information on them.

01:21:43.000 Here's what I think, is that if Mueller has figured this out, right, and he's been quiet about it, and then they...

01:21:53.000 Then the most remarkable thing about this investigation will be that nobody leaked.

01:21:58.000 Because you can't keep a secret in Washington.

01:22:02.000 And so the fact that for two years now, we don't have that bullet that they think they're going to come up with at some point, my inclination is to think that Mueller's going to finish this investigation.

01:22:15.000 Issue some findings and nobody's going to be happy, right?

01:22:18.000 Because there won't be a bullet.

01:22:19.000 And so the left won't be happy. 0.97

01:22:21.000 The right won't be happy because he'll still be pointing out the fact that there was, you know, a lot of, you know, stupid moves on the campaign's part and that there was inappropriate activity by, you know, people like Manafort and others. 0.92

01:22:33.000 But do I think there's going to be some smoking gun? 0.93

01:22:36.000 I don't.

01:22:36.000 I don't think so.

01:22:37.000 Because – and my reason for saying that is because I've never known Washington not be able to keep – or to be able to keep a secret.

01:22:43.000 Right.

01:22:44.000 Has anyone like Mueller ever done one of these things before, though?

01:22:46.000 He seems uniquely calculated.

01:22:48.000 Yeah, he's done this before, and he has.

01:22:51.000 He's a very smart guy and a very seasoned operator, investigator.

01:22:55.000 He's got good people working for him, and it's absolutely correct to let him go with this and just let him finish it up, right?

01:23:02.000 Right.

01:23:03.000 But when is that going to be?

01:23:04.000 Who knows?

01:23:06.000 They've been talking about, oh, he's going to wrap it up next week.

01:23:08.000 He's going to wrap it up this week.

01:23:10.000 No, he's not.

01:23:12.000 When do you think he's going to wrap it up?

01:23:13.000 Who knows?

01:23:14.000 This literally could go into...

01:23:16.000 It's going to have to end before probably the end of this year.

01:23:19.000 I don't think even he's going to want to, for political calculations, let it go into too close to 2020 in the election.

01:23:26.000 So regardless, even though I don't think he's a particularly political individual, I think he's going to see the wisdom of wrapping it up before then.

01:23:33.000 And then letting the chips fall wherever they do.

01:23:36.000 What's astonishing to me is how anytime something does come out on Trump, it just seems to slide right off.

01:23:42.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:23:43.000 No, that is true.

01:23:44.000 That is true.

01:23:45.000 Because I think what's happening is they're just throwing everything out there every day, right?

01:23:49.000 Yeah.

01:23:49.000 And much like, you know, our willingness to give up privacy because we keep...

01:23:53.000 We're hearing about another hack or another leak or we know that Amazon's doing this or that.

01:23:58.000 I think it's that constant drumbeat and that mudsling. 1.00

01:24:01.000 And I think the Dems haven't done themselves any favors or the resistance movement or whatever we want to call it because I think people are just immune to it.

01:24:08.000 And it's hardened Trump's base to think, you know, he's under attack every minute.

01:24:14.000 So I got to support him harder.

01:24:16.000 Yeah.

01:24:17.000 Yeah, but who do you think is going to end up in the race?

01:24:21.000 I mean, who's got the best chance?

01:24:23.000 That's a good question.

01:24:24.000 I mean, on the left-hand side, my real fear is that Hillary's going to run again. 0.51

01:24:30.000 Sorry.

01:24:31.000 I almost did one of those TV spit takes.

01:24:33.000 It's possible. 0.99

01:24:35.000 That lady is crazy. 1.00

01:24:36.000 You know, one of the things that she said in one of the more recent interviews, she said, I'd like to be president. 0.99

01:24:41.000 I'd like to be president.

01:24:44.000 What do you want to put it on your resume? 0.99

01:24:46.000 What the fuck does that mean? 0.97

01:24:48.000 I think I could do a great job in turning this country around. 0.99

01:24:52.000 I have the leadership ability to really effect a change.

01:24:55.000 No, no, no.

01:24:56.000 I'd like to be president.

01:24:57.000 I'd like to be president.

01:24:58.000 Eh, I got some time.

01:24:59.000 I could do that.

01:25:00.000 I'm scared of them.

01:25:01.000 Yeah.

01:25:02.000 Well, you know what?

01:25:02.000 And you're right.

01:25:03.000 She may... 0.99

01:25:03.000 But I do think there's going to be so much pressure on her from the party to just say, no, you can't. 0.99

01:25:09.000 I think she's going to look at that and go, there's no chance I can rally the apparatus around me like I did the last time.

01:25:15.000 And because of that, because even she can't run without a machine, right?

01:25:19.000 I mean, they've got to figure that out.

01:25:22.000 So...

01:25:22.000 I just wonder if she has so many people that owe her favors and she's so deeply entrenched in the world that she could somehow or another muster up enough support to give it one more shot.

01:25:35.000 Yeah.

01:25:35.000 I mean, it's possible.

01:25:37.000 I mean, yeah.

01:25:38.000 But then you're talking about her all the way to...

01:25:41.000 To what?

01:25:42.000 To Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Tulsi Gabbard, Julian Castro.

01:25:46.000 Tulsi Gabbard is a veteran, young, makes a lot of sense, very smart and articulate.

01:25:53.000 I think she has a real legitimate chance of getting people excited about a real future. 0.90

01:25:58.000 Yeah, I would not – I think it's time.

01:26:02.000 We're certainly close.

01:26:03.000 We're getting to that point where we end up with a female president, and hey, good for us, right? 1.00

01:26:08.000 I got no problems.

01:26:10.000 I think it would actually – I think it would turn the ship in a nice direction, right, as long as the policies are good.

01:26:16.000 I don't care who it is, as long as we're not veering off into – You know, sort of socialist policy land and thinking somehow we're all going to end up with universal basic income.

01:26:28.000 I've got a guy coming on talking about that.

01:26:30.000 Andrew Yang wants to describe universal basic income and what the benefits would be.

01:26:34.000 The reason being that they're worried that automation is going to kill a gigantic percentage of jobs in...

01:26:41.000 In manufacturing, fast food, medical field, trucks, all these different things that universal basic income might actually be something that we need at a certain point in time because so many jobs will go away and go away so rapidly.

01:26:58.000 Do you think that kills motivation?

01:27:01.000 That's a good question.

01:27:02.000 What I thought was maybe, but maybe if the motivation is not just to survive, but the motivation to succeed and do well, it would get people to do what they actually want to do for a living or chase down what they actually want to do and get them motivated to have a better life,

01:27:21.000 not just motivated to live.

01:27:23.000 Follow their passion.

01:27:24.000 Yes.

01:27:26.000 It's hard because when you give people things for nothing, you generally do kill their motivation.

01:27:32.000 I mean, you look no further than trust fund kids.

01:27:37.000 Right, right.

01:27:37.000 Yeah, I think that's a great example.

01:27:39.000 Most people would go towards, you know, welfare.

01:27:41.000 But I think you're right, on the other end of the spectrum.

01:27:44.000 To me, trust fund kids, I've seen this listless way they approach life.

01:27:50.000 You know, they just laissez-faire.

01:27:53.000 I just think that it's really hard for people to want Yeah.

01:28:05.000 I don't understand the...

01:28:14.000 The logistics behind it, you know, in terms of how it gets paid for.

01:28:17.000 The actual numbers, right.

01:28:18.000 Yeah, but the part that worries me is this issue of motivation and ensuring that then, you know, everybody's willing to un-ask the SOFA and do something productive, right?

01:28:29.000 And it's not just, we can't be like a nation of People following their passion because their passion is completely unproductive.

01:28:36.000 Macrame.

01:28:36.000 Yeah.

01:28:37.000 I like making dream catchers.

01:28:38.000 Pottery.

01:28:39.000 I love pottery.

01:28:39.000 I love dream catchers, too.

01:28:40.000 I got one in my truck.

01:28:43.000 Do you really?

01:28:44.000 No, I don't.

01:28:45.000 Jesus.

01:28:48.000 What are you doing?

01:28:49.000 I got a hula girl on the dashboard of my truck, which is getting a new engine, by the way, even as we speak. 0.91

01:28:55.000 Your truck's getting a new engine?

01:28:56.000 Yeah, the Wagoneer. 0.98

01:28:57.000 It's a Grand Wagoneer, the old wood-paneled Grand Wagoneer.

01:29:00.000 You got an old one?

01:29:00.000 Yeah, the last year that they made it, 91. Do you still drive one of those things?

01:29:04.000 Oh, absolutely.

01:29:04.000 It's a great car, but I had to rebuild the engine.

01:29:09.000 Why not get something that works good, like a new one?

01:29:14.000 Because this thing is great.

01:29:15.000 Look, the kids can climb all around it.

01:29:18.000 I can drive to the drive-in theater, and they put a mattress in the back.

01:29:22.000 Drive-in theater?

01:29:22.000 What are you, live in the 50s?

01:29:23.000 Drop the hatchback, and they sit there.

01:29:26.000 I do live in the 50s, actually.

01:29:29.000 Drive-in theater with the little clip-on speaker.

01:29:32.000 Have you been to a drive-in theater?

01:29:33.000 It's fantastic.

01:29:34.000 I have.

01:29:35.000 Not in a long time, though.

01:29:36.000 Is that what you have?

01:29:36.000 You're one of those?

01:29:37.000 Yeah, I got the blue.

01:29:38.000 It's blue.

01:29:38.000 Look at that beast.

01:29:39.000 With a sand interior. 0.99

01:29:41.000 Who's the fucking wizard that decided to go with those wood panels on the side? 0.99

01:29:45.000 That's fantastic. 0.99

01:29:45.000 And then how did everybody wake up and decide that that sucks? 0.99

01:29:50.000 Yeah. 0.92

01:29:51.000 It took a while.

01:29:52.000 I tell you something, it's a great vehicle. 1.00

01:29:54.000 And it's also, nobody gets anywhere near me, because that fucker is made of all steel. 1.00

01:29:59.000 Yeah, they're heavy. 1.00

01:30:01.000 Yeah, they're heavy. 1.00

01:30:02.000 And that son of a bitch will plow through anything. 0.99

01:30:04.000 But it's just a great car, and the dog loves it, and I can fit all the... 1.00

01:30:09.000 The dog loves it.

01:30:09.000 Yeah.

01:30:10.000 91. Yeah, you put the fishing poles in there, it's all good.

01:30:13.000 That doesn't even have anti-lock brakes, does it?

01:30:16.000 No.

01:30:17.000 No.

01:30:18.000 Are you kidding?

01:30:19.000 No, I'm lucky if I have brakes.

01:30:23.000 Don't you want a car with brakes?

01:30:25.000 Eh.

01:30:27.000 It's big enough.

01:30:29.000 When you work in security for too long, you're like, there's no security. 0.99

01:30:33.000 Get the fuck out of here. 0.99

01:30:35.000 My seatbelt doesn't work. 0.99

01:30:36.000 It doesn't?

01:30:38.000 But I've been meaning to fix it.

01:30:40.000 Why don't you have a seatbelt?

01:30:41.000 The receiver is broken.

01:30:43.000 The part where it clicks in?

01:30:45.000 Yeah, exactly.

01:30:45.000 I've been meaning to get that fixed.

01:30:46.000 Those cars don't even bing when you don't have your seatbelt on.

01:30:49.000 Like, good luck.

01:30:50.000 No, it doesn't talk to me at all.

01:30:51.000 And you know what else?

01:30:52.000 Nobody can track me in that car.

01:30:55.000 Oh, that's why. 1.00

01:30:56.000 Nobody's tracking me in that son of a bitch. 1.00

01:30:58.000 So you just leave your phone at home and you're a ghost. 1.00

01:31:00.000 I'm good, man.

01:31:01.000 I'm off grid. 0.88

01:31:02.000 Pick up a boner.

01:31:03.000 Not a boner.

01:31:04.000 I meant a burner.

01:31:05.000 Hello, Freud.

01:31:07.000 A burner phone at 7-Eleven. 0.87

01:31:08.000 Well, the good thing is I can fit my boner in there, too. 0.87

01:31:10.000 That's the thing that most burner phones come with boners, right? 0.79

01:31:13.000 That's exactly right. 0.99

01:31:14.000 The reason why you're getting a burner phone is because you got a boner. 0.90

01:31:16.000 As soon as you get that burner, you get a boner, and then, yeah.

01:31:19.000 Yeah, it's a great vehicle.

01:31:22.000 Like I said, my kids love it, Muggsy and Scooter and Sluggo.

01:31:26.000 That's interesting that you got it because you can't track you with it.

01:31:29.000 And also, they can't...

01:31:30.000 Let me ask you this.

01:31:31.000 This is a tough one.

01:31:32.000 I want to ask you two conspiracy ones, but this one's a tough one.

01:31:36.000 Michael Hastings.

01:31:37.000 Do you know his case?

01:31:38.000 Do you know his story?

01:31:38.000 Yeah.

01:31:39.000 What do you think happened there?

01:31:41.000 Well, let's explain what happened.

01:31:43.000 Who he was.

01:31:44.000 He was a journalist.

01:31:45.000 He was embedded in...

01:31:47.000 Was it in Iraq?

01:31:48.000 During the war, he was writing a story for Rolling Stone.

01:31:56.000 And he was writing about...

01:31:57.000 Which general was it?

01:32:00.000 It was that...

01:32:02.000 McChrystal.

01:32:03.000 It was McChrystal.

01:32:04.000 Stanley McChrystal.

01:32:04.000 So he wrote this story, and apparently while this happened, the Iceland volcano went off, so they suspended air travel.

01:32:13.000 So he was stuck there far longer than he was supposed to be.

01:32:16.000 And people got comfortable with this guy being around.

01:32:19.000 And so they behaved the way they behaved.

01:32:21.000 They made some jokes about things.

01:32:24.000 He apparently made some jokes about Obama.

01:32:28.000 This guy put this, Michael Hastings put all this stuff in Rolling Stone.

01:32:32.000 It wound up being a huge scandal.

01:32:36.000 McChrystal had to step down and there was a lot of people that hated that guy.

01:32:42.000 And a lot of people loved McChrystal.

01:32:44.000 And he was a highly respected general.

01:32:48.000 Yeah, absolutely.

01:32:48.000 He had to step down from his position and...

01:32:52.000 Next thing you know, X amount of time later, this guy drives his car 150 miles an hour into a tree, it blows up, the engine goes flying, the whole deal.

01:33:04.000 The conspiracy theory was that there was a way, because he had a brand new Mercedes, there was a way that they could take over The controls of your vehicle, the acceleration, the braking, the steering, and they could do all this remotely.

01:33:19.000 If they put something in your car, like we were talking about, if you could get a hold of this television, you could turn that television into a receiver.

01:33:26.000 Do you think that it's possible that someone could have gotten a hold of his car and made him suicide himself?

01:33:35.000 Two parts to it.

01:33:37.000 One is, is it possible that you can take control of a vehicle?

01:33:39.000 A modern vehicle.

01:33:41.000 Yes.

01:33:41.000 Not the Woody.

01:33:44.000 Not the Woody, as we call it.

01:33:47.000 So yes, it's absolutely possible.

01:33:50.000 There's no two ways about that.

01:33:51.000 Acceleration, steering, everything.

01:33:53.000 Mm-hmm.

01:33:53.000 Yeah.

01:33:54.000 Wow.

01:33:54.000 And I mean think about – people should think about it.

01:33:58.000 Think about the OnStar or think about the ability for your car to send data to the vehicle manufacturer, right, to tell them what's going on with your vehicle.

01:34:10.000 Right.

01:34:11.000 That's a handshake operation, right?

01:34:13.000 Once you do that, that means there's an exchange of information.

01:34:16.000 What does that mean?

01:34:17.000 Well, that means you can access.

01:34:18.000 Can you access that information?

01:34:20.000 Sure, of course you can.

01:34:20.000 Does that mean you can then take physical control?

01:34:23.000 Sure.

01:34:24.000 It's just another iteration of the exchange of information, right?

01:34:29.000 Software can take control of physical systems.

01:34:32.000 So the first part is yes.

01:34:35.000 Is it possible that that car could have been taken over?

01:34:38.000 Sure.

01:34:38.000 Do I think that's what happened?

01:34:40.000 I have no idea.

01:34:41.000 I really don't.

01:34:42.000 Of course.

01:34:42.000 But it's certainly a possibility.

01:34:46.000 I mean, when I hear people talk about certain conspiracy theories, I look at it and go, there's just no fucking way that could happen. 0.93

01:34:52.000 Like what one do you say no fucking way? 0.87

01:34:56.000 Actually, now I'm having a hard time thinking of one. 0.99

01:35:00.000 I like the theory that with every burner phone you get a boner.

01:35:04.000 I can't imagine that could happen.

01:35:06.000 But it sounds good.

01:35:09.000 I think I've been misunderstood. 0.91

01:35:11.000 What I'm saying is you get the burner phone because you have a boner already. 0.99

01:35:15.000 You're trying to get rid of the boner. 0.98

01:35:18.000 Now I get it. 0.67

01:35:19.000 I got the priorities wrong.

01:35:23.000 Tell your secretary to get a burner phone too.

01:35:26.000 And you meet her at the old hotel, motel holiday.

01:35:31.000 Oh, man.

01:35:31.000 Just like Jeff Bezos.

01:35:33.000 That's $70 billion down the toilet.

01:35:36.000 Oh, yeah.

01:35:37.000 How did they get his text messages? 0.99

01:35:39.000 That's a good fucking cybersecurity thing. 0.99

01:35:42.000 They got his text messages to his mistress. 0.99

01:35:46.000 Yeah, who knows how that happens.

01:35:48.000 Maybe she, meaning Mrs. Bezos, maybe she hired some dodgy investigator to come up with that. 1.00

01:35:56.000 Well, I noticed that it was an iPhone.

01:35:58.000 Now, if it was an iPhone and he had an iPad and she had the password to the iPad, she could get all those messages.

01:36:04.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:36:06.000 But where do they live?

01:36:08.000 They live in Washington, right?

01:36:09.000 State of Washington?

01:36:10.000 Yeah, okay.

01:36:10.000 All right, so I guess that's communal.

01:36:13.000 I think.

01:36:14.000 Half and half.

01:36:15.000 Well, they started the company together.

01:36:17.000 She helped them.

01:36:18.000 So that's a wrap.

01:36:19.000 But, you know, whatever.

01:36:22.000 $70 billion.

01:36:23.000 Yeah, it's rough to give away $70 billion, but let's be completely honest.

01:36:28.000 If you have $70 billion and you notice... 1.00

01:36:32.000 Whether you have 70 or 100, you might be an asshole. 1.00

01:36:36.000 Yeah. 1.00

01:36:37.000 That's a fair thing.

01:36:38.000 How do you know the difference?

01:36:39.000 Yeah. 0.99

01:36:39.000 How the fuck do you even feel it? 0.99

01:36:41.000 If she takes 70 billion, is this a lifestyle change? 1.00

01:36:43.000 Yeah.

01:36:43.000 Does he have to get rid of one of his jets?

01:36:45.000 Like, what happens?

01:36:46.000 He's got to give up cable.

01:36:48.000 Can't afford it.

01:36:49.000 Does he have to buy a smaller ring for his mistress?

01:36:52.000 But she's not even a mistress. 0.60

01:36:53.000 Apparently they were separated.

01:36:54.000 We're not going to take that trip.

01:36:55.000 So she's his girlfriend.

01:36:55.000 Oh, jeez, really?

01:36:56.000 Yeah, okay.

01:36:57.000 Yeah, she's a girlfriend. 1.00

01:36:57.000 There you go. 1.00

01:36:58.000 Okay.

01:36:58.000 So they're saying he was cheating on his wife, but he wasn't really, because they were separated.

01:37:02.000 Yeah.

01:37:02.000 You would think that that's a fair game, but I'm sure that...

01:37:05.000 Anyway, it's going to be costly.

01:37:06.000 She's so hot, though. 1.00

01:37:07.000 Ugh.

01:37:08.000 Oh, she's so hot. 1.00

01:37:09.000 Who, Mrs. Bezos? 0.99

01:37:10.000 The new one.

01:37:11.000 Oof.

01:37:11.000 I think they're friends.

01:37:12.000 I think she and Mrs. Bezos were friends.

01:37:14.000 They're friends, yeah.

01:37:15.000 It's all going to be very amicable. 1.00

01:37:17.000 Those bitches, they fucking circle. 1.00

01:37:18.000 They know what they're doing. 1.00

01:37:19.000 Wow.

01:37:20.000 They're coyotes.

01:37:21.000 Man.

01:37:21.000 They know what they're doing.

01:37:22.000 They just take their time.

01:37:23.000 They're patient wolves.

01:37:24.000 Yeah.

01:37:25.000 I think he's...

01:37:26.000 It's interesting because I think he...

01:37:30.000 He's changed.

01:37:31.000 If you look at Bezos over the years, and you look at the way he is now, just his physical appearance, you can just tell.

01:37:39.000 Money.

01:37:40.000 Yeah, money.

01:37:40.000 Probably hired a personal trainer, too.

01:37:42.000 But he's got the money.

01:37:43.000 He's going to probably have to let him go now. 1.00

01:37:45.000 I can't afford that shit anymore. 1.00

01:37:46.000 I lost $70 billion. 1.00

01:37:48.000 Well, the smart thing would honestly be, too, for him to give away half.

01:37:52.000 Don't even duke it out with lawyers.

01:37:53.000 That'll take too long.

01:37:54.000 But he has no prenup agreement.

01:37:56.000 There's no prenuptial agreement.

01:37:58.000 It's understood that Ms. Sanchez has sent text messages to a friend showing off her new relationship with the billionaire.

01:38:04.000 And the friend sent them to the Enquirer. 1.00

01:38:06.000 What a cunt. 1.00

01:38:07.000 Oh, jeez. 1.00

01:38:08.000 You fucking dumbass. 1.00

01:38:11.000 Oh, damn. 1.00

01:38:13.000 She's hot, though. 1.00

01:38:13.000 She looks like that actress. 1.00

01:38:14.000 I can't remember her name.

01:38:16.000 Yeah, the one on Modern Family.

01:38:17.000 Yeah, that's it.

01:38:19.000 Smoking.

01:38:19.000 I can see what she sees in him.

01:38:21.000 He's a handsome man.

01:38:22.000 You know, it's the thin neck in relationship with the large head.

01:38:27.000 Chicks love that. 1.00

01:38:28.000 Jeff, you're so handsome.

01:38:29.000 They love that look.

01:38:31.000 You're such a man. 0.58

01:38:32.000 Didn't he send her, like, naked selfies, too? 0.96

01:38:34.000 Oh, no. 0.61

01:38:35.000 Not him, too.

01:38:35.000 I think he did.

01:38:36.000 I think he did.

01:38:39.000 What is that? 0.99

01:38:39.000 You know, why do dudes think that women want to look at their junk, right? 0.99

01:38:43.000 I mean, I just don't get that part of it. 0.88

01:38:46.000 I don't get what makes you think, unless you've really been drinking, that you're going to go, you know what? 0.99

01:38:51.000 I'll bet she really wants to see my balls. 1.00

01:38:53.000 Some girls do. 1.00

01:38:54.000 Some girls are crazy. 1.00

01:38:56.000 I guess. 0.98

01:38:56.000 The good ones. 0.98

01:38:57.000 Damn, she's hot. 1.00

01:38:58.000 The good ones. 0.99

01:39:00.000 Lauren Sanchez has been in a romantic relationship with Jeff Bezos.

01:39:03.000 She's hot. 1.00

01:39:04.000 Since April 2018. That's not that long, man.

01:39:06.000 So it's a long-term thing.

01:39:08.000 May, June, July.

01:39:10.000 That's enough.

01:39:10.000 He's probably shot so many loads.

01:39:12.000 Wow.

01:39:13.000 He's in love now.

01:39:14.000 Yeah.

01:39:14.000 Amazing.

01:39:15.000 Donald Trump had something to say about it?

01:39:17.000 Yeah, he called him Jeff Bozo.

01:39:18.000 What'd he say?

01:39:19.000 So sorry to hear the news about Jeff Bozo being taken down by a competitor.

01:39:24.000 Whose reporting, I understand, is far more accurate than the reporting in his lobbyist newspaper, the Amazon Washington Post.

01:39:32.000 Hopefully the paper will soon be placed in a better and more responsible hands.

01:39:36.000 He wants her to get it.

01:39:40.000 He wants Bezos to not have the Washington Post, which is highly critical of the president, while the Inquirer has been known to kill stories critical of the president.

01:39:48.000 Oh, so the Inquirer got a hold of the story.

01:39:51.000 I get it.

01:39:51.000 But you know what?

01:39:52.000 I'll bet Jeff Bezos, in the president's mind, I'll bet his opinion went up when he saw that picture of Sanchez.

01:40:00.000 Probably.

01:40:01.000 Yeah, I'll bet he was like...

01:40:02.000 But then you probably read the text messages like, oh, amateur.

01:40:05.000 Yeah, come on. 0.77

01:40:06.000 Come on, what are you telling her that for?

01:40:08.000 What are you going to do, jump right out of the frying pan, get right back into the fire? 1.00

01:40:11.000 How about you go to fucking Ibiza and dance on the beach with a hundred of those broads? 1.00

01:40:17.000 Take a little time off is what you're saying. 0.99

01:40:19.000 Jeff needs a coach.

01:40:21.000 Isn't that interesting?

01:40:23.000 I think wealthy dudes seem to do that more than others.

01:40:26.000 They seem to go straight from one relationship immediately into another one.

01:40:29.000 Whereas I think the average dude is doing what you're thinking, which is like, yeah, I'm going to take some time down.

01:40:35.000 Well, the average dude also isn't running a gigantic multinational corporation like Amazon.

01:40:40.000 The thing about that is the amount of time that that guy has to dedicate to his job has got to be just...

01:40:48.000 Unfathomable.

01:40:48.000 I mean, I can't imagine what is involved in that guy's day-to-day activity.

01:40:53.000 And he seems ruthless as fuck. 0.99

01:40:55.000 And very hands-on. 1.00

01:40:57.000 Yeah.

01:40:57.000 So, he probably doesn't have time to go to Ibiza.

01:41:00.000 If the average guy had anywhere close to $100 billion, though...

01:41:04.000 Oh, they'd just bail. 0.99

01:41:05.000 He'd be doing all sorts of shit every day. 0.99

01:41:07.000 He'd be at strip clubs. 1.00

01:41:09.000 Cash out, too.

01:41:10.000 No more showing up at the office.

01:41:11.000 Cash out.

01:41:12.000 Cash me out.

01:41:13.000 You wouldn't keep going?

01:41:14.000 Cash me out.

01:41:15.000 No?

01:41:16.000 I'd do podcasts.

01:41:18.000 I'd keep showing up.

01:41:19.000 But I wouldn't have any ads.

01:41:20.000 I'd do podcasts with no ads.

01:41:22.000 No ads at all.

01:41:22.000 I'd be like, I'm good.

01:41:24.000 That'd be nice. 1.00

01:41:24.000 I'm going to give you guys this shit for free. 1.00

01:41:26.000 I look at it. 1.00

01:41:27.000 Overhead's expensive.

01:41:29.000 It's an amazing building, by the way.

01:41:32.000 Thank you.

01:41:33.000 Have you ever displayed it?

01:41:35.000 The gym you've got is fantastic.

01:41:37.000 Yeah, I put some pictures of it up.

01:41:40.000 You know what, man? 0.91

01:41:41.000 For me, it's important because I'm not busy like Jeff Bezos, but I'm fucking busy. 0.96

01:41:46.000 I need to get all my shit done in one spot. 0.96

01:41:49.000 When I can, I come here early. 0.98

01:41:52.000 I bang out a workout in the morning. 0.99

01:41:53.000 I get my fucking sauna in, float. 0.99

01:41:57.000 I like to float at night. 1.00

01:41:57.000 You got a sauna here? 1.00

01:41:58.000 I didn't know that.

01:41:59.000 I knew you had a tank.

01:42:01.000 Yeah, I got a sauna.

01:42:03.000 For me, it's nice.

01:42:04.000 I can get everything done in one spot.

01:42:06.000 It actually saves me money just because of the amount of time that I have.

01:42:09.000 By the way, I did not say it at the outset, but I should say it.

01:42:13.000 That show you did in Boise.

01:42:15.000 Boise's in Idaho.

01:42:16.000 It's a beautiful place.

01:42:17.000 Don't tell anybody. 0.99

01:42:18.000 That was fucking brilliant. 0.96

01:42:19.000 Thank you. 0.97

01:42:19.000 That show was fantastic. 0.97

01:42:20.000 It was fun.

01:42:20.000 People were talking about that for a long time afterwards.

01:42:24.000 And it was a great crowd. 0.98

01:42:25.000 That was a giant-ass place. 0.96

01:42:26.000 Yeah, yeah. 0.95

01:42:27.000 Yeah, it was fun.

01:42:28.000 It was a really good time.

01:42:29.000 I mean, for people listening, it was a massive...

01:42:31.000 It's the Taco Bell Arena, which is the best venue in the city.

01:42:35.000 It's a big venue.

01:42:36.000 And there was lines just blocks and blocks and blocks before they opened the doors, and even after they opened doors because there were so many people.

01:42:43.000 Boise is a great town, man.

01:42:45.000 I had heard how good it was.

01:42:46.000 That was my first time ever going there, and I was blown away.

01:42:49.000 The people are super friendly.

01:42:51.000 It's gorgeous there.

01:42:52.000 Everything's clean.

01:42:54.000 I don't want to talk about it.

01:42:55.000 I don't want anybody to move in.

01:42:56.000 Oh, people are moving in.

01:42:57.000 I think we talked about that before the show started.

01:42:59.000 Wall Street Journal wrote an article saying, it is some time ago, a couple of months ago or whenever, saying it's the fastest growing city in the country.

01:43:07.000 Once you go there, you go, okay.

01:43:08.000 If you brought your wife there and you said, look, we're going to move here. 0.96

01:43:12.000 She'd be like, yeah.

01:43:13.000 We got a lot of people from California coming up there.

01:43:16.000 Of course.

01:43:16.000 I'll say that much, yeah.

01:43:17.000 And some good friends of mine who are living down on the beach right now, they're seriously looking at it.

01:43:22.000 They've been, you know, looking at property and thinking...

01:43:24.000 Do you ever see wolves?

01:43:26.000 Coyotes, yeah.

01:43:27.000 No wolves?

01:43:28.000 No.

01:43:28.000 Well, no, we haven't seen them.

01:43:29.000 We got them, but we haven't seen them.

01:43:31.000 We had a coyote in our neighborhood for quite a while.

01:43:34.000 Kind of became famous.

01:43:35.000 And they're good-looking coyotes.

01:43:36.000 You know, on the East Coast.

01:43:38.000 Yeah.

01:43:38.000 They're like skinny and frail.

01:43:39.000 They look like Wile E. Coyote.

01:43:40.000 But out here, or out west, up there, they're well-fed.

01:43:44.000 Well, you have so much wildlife.

01:43:46.000 Yeah.

01:43:46.000 You know, Idaho has an incredible mule deer population.

01:43:49.000 You have amazing elk populations.

01:43:51.000 Elk hunting is fantastic.

01:43:52.000 Yeah.

01:43:53.000 Oh, it's beautiful.

01:43:54.000 Yeah.

01:43:55.000 If I decide to go off the grid, that's one of my prime spots.

01:43:58.000 Place you go.

01:43:58.000 I'm not telling nobody.

01:43:59.000 I'll tell you.

01:44:00.000 I'm not telling anybody else.

01:44:01.000 Good.

01:44:01.000 Let me know.

01:44:02.000 I'm going to hide.

01:44:02.000 We'll pave the way.

01:44:03.000 I'm gonna hide up there. 0.96

01:44:04.000 Man, so it's a good spot, and I gotta stop talking about it, too, because I get a lot of shit for saying nice things about it, but I can't help it. 0.89

01:44:15.000 There are some unheralded spots in this country, and I think that's most certainly one of them. 0.71

01:44:20.000 There's a gang of other ones, too, though.

01:44:22.000 And it's really the West.

01:44:24.000 In the West, these areas that just don't have the gigantic populations but have everything else. 0.99

01:44:30.000 Gorgeous scenery and the mountain air and just, God damn. 0.97

01:44:34.000 Yeah, the fishing is... 0.99

01:44:35.000 That's the other thing.

01:44:36.000 The fishing is...

01:44:36.000 Oh, my God.

01:44:37.000 I'm sure.

01:44:37.000 Fly fishing.

01:44:38.000 And my oldest boy, Scooter, is...

01:44:40.000 I've really gotten into fly fishing, and he's got a great mindset for it, right?

01:44:44.000 He's one of those guys, he can be out there for a few hours, not catch anything, and still have a great time, and really love it.

01:44:50.000 And you've got other kids, like my two younger kids, they want to dynamite fish, right? 0.97

01:44:54.000 They just want to get the fucking fish and get on with it and move. 0.97

01:44:57.000 And so they're not going to fly fish anytime soon, but Scooter's all about it. 0.99

01:45:02.000 Yeah, not to bang on about that.

01:45:05.000 You guys have basically all the wildlife activities, or all the outdoor activities in Idaho.

01:45:10.000 Yeah, we got more river frontage, more river mileage than any state except for Alaska.

01:45:14.000 Really?

01:45:14.000 Yeah, we got more, and so the whitewater's fantastic.

01:45:18.000 It's great rafting up there.

01:45:20.000 The climbing's fantastic, mountain biking.

01:45:22.000 I mean, we jump on our bikes, we can be up in the foothills in literally about seven minutes, and then spend the afternoon and not see anybody.

01:45:30.000 I mean, it's crazy.

01:45:31.000 And we live right in the center of town, basically.

01:45:33.000 And it's, you know, so anyway.

01:45:35.000 Yeah.

01:45:36.000 Enough said about that.

01:45:37.000 Don't talk about that.

01:45:38.000 Don't talk about that.

01:45:39.000 Oh, I got a note from, I go from Muggsy, my youngest boy's teacher. 0.64

01:45:43.000 He's like seven years old.

01:45:44.000 And he's not like seven years old.

01:45:46.000 He is seven years old.

01:45:47.000 It's like, yeah, he's approximately seven.

01:45:49.000 Somewhere in the range, I forget.

01:45:50.000 Yeah, I try to hide his actual age for security reasons.

01:45:53.000 And so anyway, got a note from his teacher saying, hmm, he's having a little bit of trouble finishing his assignments on time.

01:46:00.000 And he just kind of wanted to check in with you to see how to motivate him.

01:46:04.000 And this was just yesterday.

01:46:05.000 And I got this message, as did my absolutely fantastic wife.

01:46:10.000 And so we had a funny conversation about, you know, well, how do we respond to that?

01:46:14.000 I mean, like he's seven years old, right?

01:46:17.000 Yeah.

01:46:17.000 Motivated?

01:46:18.000 What is he doing?

01:46:19.000 Working for a living?

01:46:20.000 Yeah, exactly.

01:46:21.000 I mean, how do you motivate him to cut and paste faster or something?

01:46:23.000 So all I could think of was food, right?

01:46:26.000 Like my retriever.

01:46:28.000 He's food motivated, my dog.

01:46:30.000 And so I'm figuring, you know, Muggsy's the same way. 1.00

01:46:33.000 You give him a cupcake and he'll finish that assignment.

01:46:38.000 I had no idea.

01:46:39.000 I was really stymied, you know, because I think, I know we all, you know, our kids are, you know, like everybody else.

01:46:45.000 You always view your kids.

01:46:46.000 They're great kids.

01:46:47.000 They're smart and everything.

01:46:47.000 But, you know, and so I give the teacher a lot of credit, you know, for being focused like that.

01:46:53.000 But at the same time, I step back and I look and I go, eh, it's okay.

01:46:56.000 If he wants to slack off a little bit.

01:46:57.000 He's seven.

01:46:58.000 He's seven.

01:46:59.000 Exactly.

01:46:59.000 Why do we have this obsession with getting kids to bust their...

01:47:02.000 I have a friend who's going to put their kid in Waldorf school.

01:47:07.000 And we were talking about that.

01:47:08.000 And I guess they don't even teach them to read until the third grade. 0.99

01:47:13.000 And my wife was like, get the fuck out of here with that. 1.00

01:47:16.000 Because my youngest daughter's in the third grade. 0.98

01:47:19.000 She reads great.

01:47:20.000 I mean, we read every night.

01:47:22.000 She reads perfectly.

01:47:23.000 I'm like, imagine if she hadn't even started learning how to read yet.

01:47:27.000 And that's what opens up everything else, right?

01:47:30.000 You can't delay that part of it.

01:47:33.000 But yeah, so I know we finish every evening where the kids have to read, right?

01:47:38.000 She likes reading, too.

01:47:40.000 That's the other thing.

01:47:41.000 I don't think it's a bad thing to have kids read, but what I do, what does...

01:47:47.000 You heard it here first, ladies and gentlemen.

01:47:49.000 Controversial.

01:47:50.000 I'm taking a controversial stand on reading.

01:47:53.000 I support it.

01:47:54.000 Right there.

01:47:55.000 But what does concern me, though, is homework.

01:47:57.000 Because, you know, my 10-year-old, sometimes she cries.

01:48:00.000 She's got so much homework.

01:48:01.000 She's like...

01:48:02.000 We're all day to school, and now I have to do two hours of home...

01:48:07.000 It's just...

01:48:07.000 It's just probably got activities, too, right?

01:48:09.000 Yes.

01:48:09.000 Sports activities, right?

01:48:10.000 Yes.

01:48:10.000 And so that consumes time.

01:48:12.000 Gymnastics and a bunch of other shit, too. 0.76

01:48:14.000 It's these kids, they want these kids to grow up, to become hugely successful, and they push them so hard, and everybody in the community is... 0.96

01:48:25.000 When you're in these...

01:48:26.000 Wealthy communities, too.

01:48:28.000 That's the other thing.

01:48:29.000 All these other people, they all...

01:48:31.000 Everybody's working so hard.

01:48:33.000 They want their kids to work so hard.

01:48:34.000 They're like, Jesus.

01:48:35.000 I'm in this weird spot where I'm an insider outsider.

01:48:40.000 It's because I'm in there and I... Kind of work hard?

01:48:44.000 No, you work hard. 1.00

01:48:45.000 Shit, what are you talking about? 1.00

01:48:46.000 You kind of work hard. 1.00

01:48:46.000 It's not really work. 1.00

01:48:48.000 None of it's... 0.98

01:48:49.000 I fucking scammed this system. 0.99

01:48:51.000 Good. 0.99

01:48:51.000 I got three fake jobs. 0.99

01:48:53.000 I got three fake jobs.

01:48:56.000 UFC, fake job. 0.98

01:48:58.000 Stand-up comedy, fake-ass job. 0.53

01:49:00.000 Podcasting, definitely a fake job. 0.89

01:49:03.000 I got three fake jobs.

01:49:05.000 Which is the toughest?

01:49:07.000 The toughest is making them all work together.

01:49:11.000 I don't know what's the toughest.

01:49:12.000 Probably stand-up.

01:49:14.000 Stand-up is the hardest to pull off.

01:49:16.000 How long did it take for the set that you did up in Boise, which was fantastic?

01:49:21.000 How long did that run?

01:49:22.000 I was laughing my ass off, so I don't...

01:49:24.000 I did an hour and 15 minutes, and that took me...

01:49:28.000 When I went up to Boise, it was a couple months before I filmed my special, so that was the end of my run.

01:49:34.000 So what I do is I develop an act for a year, I tour with it for a year, and then at the end of that tour, I film a special.

01:49:42.000 Okay.

01:49:43.000 So it takes me two years to put it together where it's, I fucking hammer that samurai sword down, polish it, and it's live performance. 0.98

01:49:51.000 You know, it's fucking weird. 0.89

01:49:52.000 Sometimes one night a bit kills, the other night it comes out a little clunky, and you're never sure how to do it. 0.97

01:49:58.000 It's a constant thing of evolving it and moving it and changing it.

01:50:03.000 Do you ever just drop something?

01:50:04.000 Yeah, all the time. 1.00

01:50:05.000 I mean, it's been working, and then you go and you think, ah, fuck it, I'm tired of that. 0.99

01:50:08.000 I don't want to do it anymore. 0.98

01:50:09.000 Yeah, you have to be enthusiastic.

01:50:11.000 Yeah.

01:50:12.000 So, like, in the beginning of stand-up, you treat your jokes like they're tools.

01:50:16.000 Like, oh, this is a Phillips head.

01:50:18.000 I need a Phillips head screwdriver.

01:50:19.000 I'll fit that in there.

01:50:20.000 And then after a while, you realize, like, okay, let me do what I like. 0.99

01:50:25.000 I'm going to talk about shit that I like. 0.95

01:50:27.000 And then you realize, well, the art form is trying to figure out how to make ideas funny. 0.98

01:50:32.000 And then it becomes, if these ideas are funny to me, I've got to figure out a way to get them funny for other people.

01:50:38.000 But if they're not funny to me, I'm not interested in it.

01:50:41.000 So what do you do?

01:50:42.000 You put something together and then you test it out on the kids at home?

01:50:46.000 No, no, I'm kidding.

01:50:47.000 But you take it to like a small place, right?

01:50:49.000 Or a club?

01:50:50.000 I take it to clubs.

01:50:51.000 I go to the Ice House and the Comedy Store and the Improv and I go to these local places in LA. And I might do, like last night I did three shows.

01:51:01.000 And I'll do that all the time.

01:51:03.000 I'll do four shows.

01:51:05.000 I'll do one show at the Improv, three at the Comedy Store.

01:51:07.000 I do that all the time.

01:51:08.000 How long are the shows?

01:51:09.000 Each?

01:51:09.000 Half hour.

01:51:11.000 Sometimes less, sometimes more.

01:51:13.000 Must be exhausting.

01:51:14.000 I mean, in a way.

01:51:14.000 You talk about how it's a fake job, but you've got to get up in front of people.

01:51:19.000 You don't know what the reaction is going to be.

01:51:21.000 That's the best job that I do, but also the most work.

01:51:25.000 But it's the best out of the fake jobs that I have.

01:51:27.000 That's the best fake job.

01:51:29.000 Because it's the most fun.

01:51:30.000 You know, the Boise thing was like 11,000 people.

01:51:33.000 If you crush in front of 11,000 people, that feeling is just...

01:51:37.000 When you hear the roar, like you hit a punchline, you hear the roar of the crowd, it's like, there's nothing like that.

01:51:43.000 There's nothing like that in the world.

01:51:45.000 That was, it was, again, anybody get a chance to go see a show, because this one was...

01:51:50.000 Or just go see my Netflix special, so you can see that thing.

01:51:53.000 Yeah, now you have to pay more for Netflix now.

01:51:55.000 Yeah, what is it, like 10 bucks?

01:51:56.000 Yeah, 17% more I think they're going to charge.

01:51:58.000 Is that really?

01:51:59.000 Yeah.

01:51:59.000 They can.

01:52:00.000 Yeah.

01:52:00.000 They're good.

01:52:01.000 They have so much good shit, though. 1.00

01:52:03.000 Like, if you want to just waste your life and sit in front of the TV, it's crazy, like... 1.00

01:52:08.000 When we were kids...

01:52:09.000 Maybe that's your passion.

01:52:10.000 So you get that universal basic income, and following my passion means I've got to sit and watch every episode of Andy Griffith.

01:52:16.000 Just fart under the sheets.

01:52:18.000 There's a lot of people doing that right now.

01:52:20.000 I don't know if that's bad.

01:52:22.000 I mean, yes it is, but then doesn't that open the door for the people that aren't going to be like that?

01:52:28.000 Like, look, less people out there really actually trying to get ahead.

01:52:31.000 I think the people that are going to try to succeed are always going to try to succeed.

01:52:35.000 I think that's true.

01:52:36.000 Maybe that's an argument against it also, which is that I don't think it's going to unlock a whole treasure trove of innovators.

01:52:44.000 If suddenly you give people money and say, okay, you don't have to go pour coffee or flip burgers or clean up that road or whatever you're going to do for a living.

01:52:56.000 You can follow your passion.

01:52:57.000 I don't think we're going to find some exponential increase in the number of people inventing the wheel.

01:53:02.000 I just think that it's just going to be a lot more people farting under the blankets or something.

01:53:06.000 I don't know.

01:53:07.000 You might be right, but the only good that I think could come out of it is that less people are in abject poverty and less people are desperate, so it might reduce crime.

01:53:17.000 You might have lazy people, but you might also have less people that are inclined to steal things or do something that's illegal because their basic needs are taken care of.

01:53:27.000 Yeah, that's a valid point.

01:53:28.000 I read something that stunned me.

01:53:30.000 I was on a plane flying to L.A., and I read an article about this strike, right?

01:53:37.000 The teacher strike, sorry, here in Los Angeles.

01:53:39.000 Big strike, Los Angeles Unified School Authority or whatever it's called.

01:53:46.000 And it was just before they went on strike, but it talked about the problems that the school district has.

01:53:53.000 And I don't know whether this statistic is right.

01:53:55.000 I read it numerous times because I was so surprised by it.

01:53:57.000 80%.

01:53:59.000 Of the families that use the Los Angeles public school system are at the poverty level or below.

01:54:09.000 And that means, of course, also that they rely on the free meal assistance that the schools provide, which is kind of what the point of the story was.

01:54:17.000 The schools are closed right now, and so kids aren't getting a chance to eat because that's their only chance to get to eat.

01:54:23.000 But that number was stunning.

01:54:25.000 That's crazy.

01:54:26.000 Right?

01:54:26.000 So I meant to look into it and do more research to see whether the article is actually correct or not, but hey, it was in the newspaper, so it must be true, right?

01:54:34.000 I don't know about that.

01:54:36.000 Anyway, yeah.

01:54:38.000 That's a disturbing number.

01:54:39.000 It's a very disturbing number, but it also talked about how 12%, I think 12% of all kids that go to high school here in Los Angeles...

01:54:48.000 Then go on to college, 12%.

01:54:50.000 And it was a similar number that never get out of high school.

01:54:55.000 And it's even worse in a place like New York City, public schools.

01:54:58.000 So I guess the point being is a public school system is... 1.00

01:55:00.000 It's dog shit. 1.00

01:55:02.000 Yeah. 1.00

01:55:02.000 And in the larger urban centers, it's got some real problems. 1.00

01:55:04.000 And I think a lot of those people that are...

01:55:06.000 The really sad thing is a lot of those people that are at the poverty line or below work hard.

01:55:11.000 It's not a lack of motivation.

01:55:13.000 It's they just don't have opportunities.

01:55:14.000 They don't know what to do.

01:55:15.000 They're not doing it the right way.

01:55:17.000 They don't have guidance.

01:55:18.000 They never learned correctly when they were young.

01:55:20.000 A single parent. 0.90

01:55:21.000 They've worked two or three jobs.

01:55:24.000 But look, California's got all sorts of interesting issues.

01:55:27.000 I mean, there's...

01:55:28.000 I was talking to some folks and they said...

01:55:32.000 A quarter of the nation's homeless people live here in California.

01:55:36.000 25% of the nation's homeless people live in California.

01:55:40.000 Smart place to live.

01:55:42.000 It's raining the last few days, but most of the time...

01:55:45.000 It's beautiful weather.

01:55:46.000 Hey, you can't complain about the weather anyway.

01:55:48.000 That's crazy.

01:55:48.000 It is crazy.

01:55:49.000 And it also talks about how a lot of those people, they work...

01:55:53.000 But they're homeless, right?

01:55:54.000 The cost of housing.

01:55:55.000 And so you've got people that have a job, but they're living in their cars, right?

01:55:59.000 Because they can't afford housing, whether it's in San Francisco or Los Angeles.

01:56:04.000 San Francisco is insanity.

01:56:05.000 That place is insanity.

01:56:07.000 So your point about the basic universal income, I take that point.

01:56:10.000 I see what that, you know, if it was possible to pay for it, and again, My concern would be people that didn't appreciate it and people that felt entitled.

01:56:33.000 Like they felt like someone owed them that money.

01:56:37.000 And you're going to have that.

01:56:38.000 I mean, this is the biggest problem that people have with socialism and socialist attitudes.

01:56:42.000 Some of these kids that are coming up right now, they look at what they call income inequality.

01:56:47.000 What they don't look at is effort inequality. 0.99

01:56:50.000 Like, some people put in more fucking work and are smarter. 0.97

01:56:55.000 They've figured their way through the game better than you have. 0.99

01:56:58.000 And they've been doing it for 50 years or whatever they've been doing it for.

01:57:01.000 Right, right.

01:57:02.000 I couldn't agree with it more in the sense that I never begrudged anybody.

01:57:08.000 I never got pissed off with a rich person because they were rich, right?

01:57:11.000 I'm thinking, hey, that's good.

01:57:13.000 I'd like to be rich, right?

01:57:14.000 So I might want to talk and find out, hey, how'd you do it or how'd you do it?

01:57:18.000 And yeah, it's a system sometimes set up so that once you have some money, you can get more money. 0.99

01:57:23.000 Well, of course the fuck it is. 1.00

01:57:24.000 Yeah? 0.99

01:57:25.000 I mean, if I have some money, I can invest that money and make more money, you know, if I'm smart about it.

01:57:29.000 If you do it right.

01:57:30.000 Yeah, if you do it right.

01:57:30.000 But absolutely, I don't begrudge the idea.

01:57:33.000 So that's part of it is also I'm fairly steeped in the idea that, you know, we're living in a very unique country, right?

01:57:41.000 And I do worry sometimes that people don't...

01:57:46.000 You know, even family, and I've got some friends and others who are just constantly pissing and moaning about this place.

01:57:52.000 And I'm thinking, I spent almost all my life over in shitholes around the world.

01:57:56.000 And there is no other place I would rather be as a country.

01:58:00.000 And I know that's jingoistic or whatever, but honest to God, I still believe. 1.00

01:58:05.000 And if you go someplace and you talk to somebody in some fifth world...

01:58:09.000 They will also, my experience has been anyway, maybe you're listening and your experience is different, but that's the way it works, is that they'll think, if I go to America, if I can get to America and I work hard, I can be successful.

01:58:23.000 And that, I think, is still true.

01:58:25.000 And that's what I worry about with entitlements and things that may kill that belief.

01:58:30.000 And you're right, income inequality.

01:58:33.000 You're right, you work harder, It doesn't always happen, but life's not supposed to be fair.

01:58:38.000 Maybe it's supposed to be fair, but it's not fair.

01:58:41.000 Life is just supposed to be life.

01:58:43.000 It's definitely not fair.

01:58:45.000 I completely see your point, and I agree with it.

01:58:50.000 I think that the real concern is that people don't appreciate already how great they have and what incredible opportunity they have.

01:58:58.000 And if we give them more benefits with less effort, then you're going to develop more of this attitude that we find disturbing, which is people that don't have an appreciation for literally the greatest experiment in self-government the world has ever known.

01:59:13.000 Yeah.

01:59:13.000 But I think also that...

01:59:16.000 There's parts of it that need to be looked at.

01:59:19.000 There's an interesting study about college and graduation rates from college for disadvantaged folks.

01:59:30.000 And that was, again, why they made it easier for tuition assistance.

01:59:35.000 So the idea was we want to expand the college ability for everybody, which is a great idea.

01:59:41.000 But what they found was they expanded the college opportunity for everybody.

01:59:46.000 But over the past decade, decade and a half, fewer people from the lower income categories have been graduating, right?

01:59:56.000 So what you've done is you said, come on in.

01:59:58.000 It's like special operators, right?

02:00:01.000 If you lower the bar, right?

02:00:05.000 And this is where I'm going to get in trouble probably.

02:00:07.000 I'll talk about the Marines and, you know, allowing women into combat elements. 0.98

02:00:11.000 I know, oh my god!

02:00:12.000 Well, what do they do?

02:00:13.000 You lower the bar.

02:00:14.000 You make it, okay, well, not enough of them could get through the course, so I'm going to change the regulations, right?

02:00:21.000 And so if you change the regulations, what they found with the college was if you increase that pool of people going, it doesn't mean that they're going to be successful, right?

02:00:30.000 And now what you've done is you've kind of saddled them with some college debt, and they didn't graduate.

02:00:35.000 So they're still earning what a high school graduate earns, and the system doesn't work.

02:00:40.000 And so I think sometimes just the idea of throwing money at the problem, it's not helpful if we don't think it through and then assess the results.

02:00:50.000 But yeah, that whole marine experiment.

02:00:52.000 I think they're catching it late in the chain.

02:00:55.000 And I think it's good to give people the opportunity to succeed and to advance themselves.

02:01:01.000 But if you really want to address it as a systemic problem, you've got to get to the root of it, which is these unbelievably horrible neighborhoods and these toxic environments that these kids are growing up and being abused and being scared and bullied and terrible piss-poor education,

02:01:18.000 you know, first through...

02:01:20.000 All the way up to high school.

02:01:22.000 That's, I mean, that's really where you have to address it.

02:01:25.000 I mean, addressing it just at the college level and giving them the opportunity to get into college and making it easier for them, it doesn't negate the terrible foundation that's been laid by their life.

02:01:36.000 Right.

02:01:36.000 Yeah, and I think that's, we had this idea that college should be for everybody, right?

02:01:41.000 And that's okay, that's great, and I think that's where the, you know, people like Cortez and Bernie Sanders and others, with their idea of free tuition, They're thinking, okay, well, look at Europe.

02:01:51.000 Some countries in Europe have free tuition, and hey, it's relatively prosperous, and there's nothing wrong with that.

02:01:57.000 But at the same time, I think we don't We don't assess the cost and the overall efficiency of an idea sometimes.

02:02:07.000 And so we just assume, you know, open it up, let everybody go, and somehow this is going to work, right, to our advantage.

02:02:14.000 And the honest-to-God answer is no.

02:02:17.000 You know, I think somebody is better off sometimes, you know, going to, you know, becoming a plumber.

02:02:24.000 It's an honorable living.

02:02:25.000 It's a great living.

02:02:26.000 Great trades.

02:02:27.000 It's a great living.

02:02:28.000 One of the happiest guys I know is my plumber in Boise.

02:02:31.000 That guy is, I mean, he's got it knocked, right?

02:02:34.000 He's always out for hunting season.

02:02:36.000 And, you know, I'll say, look, I got a leak, right?

02:02:39.000 My ceiling's about to cave in.

02:02:41.000 He goes, well, I'm going hunting.

02:02:43.000 I'm sorry.

02:02:44.000 He's just got his own schedule, right?

02:02:47.000 But he's got a great job.

02:02:48.000 And there's nothing wrong with that.

02:02:50.000 But I think we developed this idea.

02:02:52.000 Sort of like home ownership.

02:02:53.000 Everybody should own a home.

02:02:54.000 Well, we saw where that took us, right?

02:02:56.000 When you lower the requirements. 0.99

02:02:57.000 And suddenly we're all, you know, it's blowing up and we're fucked. 0.98

02:03:00.000 But anyway, what do I know? 0.99

02:03:02.000 What the hell do I know?

02:03:04.000 What do I know either?

02:03:05.000 But I see your points and I know what you're saying. 0.83

02:03:08.000 I think that one thing that disturbs the shit out of me is student loans.

02:03:13.000 I mean, one of the worst ways to prepare a kid for the future is to saddle them down with a quarter million dollars worth of debt by the time they graduate from college. 0.89

02:03:20.000 Right.

02:03:20.000 No, absolutely.

02:03:21.000 And then they get a $50,000 a year job.

02:03:23.000 And they're like, what in the...

02:03:24.000 And they're doing well with a $50,000 a year job.

02:03:27.000 That's a great job to get out of college and... 0.99

02:03:30.000 And you just look at the debt that you have, and you're like, what the fuck is this? 1.00

02:03:34.000 How am I going to pay this shit? 1.00

02:03:35.000 Yeah, no, I know. 1.00

02:03:36.000 And we have sold the students a bill of goods.

02:03:38.000 Yes.

02:03:39.000 And, you know, some of it, okay.

02:03:42.000 Some of it's on them, right?

02:03:43.000 Some of it, you know, the older students are the ones who are willing to take out this loan, and then suddenly they're using the money for something else.

02:03:48.000 Okay.

02:03:48.000 Okay, fine.

02:03:48.000 There's individual responsibility.

02:03:50.000 But, no, I agree with you.

02:03:52.000 The student loan debt is a major issue.

02:03:54.000 We occasionally, Capitol Hill talks about it, but not really.

02:03:58.000 I told my daughter, who's a fantastic person, I said, you know, the biggest gift you're getting...

02:04:03.000 is getting out of college without any any debt yeah that's you know so you know dad's not gonna buy you your own wagoneer you know you gotta get your own wagoneer yeah your tuition and that's that's that's it that's the best i can tell that's a gigantic head start for kids yeah not i mean it sounds so fucked up but it's true to not be in debt is gigantic look they're giving kids credit cards and their frontal lobes aren't even developed yet they're doing all kinds of wacky they're like well i'll figure it out You ain't figuring out shit. 0.98

02:04:32.000 You never figured out things up till now, and the idea that you're going to get magically smarter over the next six months while you owe all this money is crazy. 0.99

02:04:39.000 Right.

02:04:39.000 Do your kids, do your oldest have a phone yet for security purposes?

02:04:44.000 What is this?

02:04:45.000 What do you got here, Jeremy? 1.00

02:04:45.000 Holy shit. 1.00

02:04:46.000 Student loan clock. 1.00

02:04:48.000 Oh my God!

02:04:50.000 I can't even figure out what that is.

02:04:52.000 It's $1.6 trillion.

02:04:53.000 Oh my God, look at it go!

02:04:57.000 So what is this website that people can go to?

02:04:59.000 It's collegedebt.com.

02:05:00.000 I just typed in student loan clock. 1.00

02:05:02.000 Holy shit! 1.00

02:05:03.000 Look at that. 1.00

02:05:04.000 Look at that.

02:05:05.000 That is an insane amount of money.

02:05:07.000 $3,000 or so a second.

02:05:08.000 Something like that.

02:05:09.000 Is that what it is?

02:05:10.000 I'm just kind of guessing off of what I'm seeing.

02:05:12.000 That's an insane amount of money.

02:05:13.000 So you just made that number up.

02:05:15.000 Just off of what I'm looking at.

02:05:18.000 Look at credit cards, auto loans.

02:05:20.000 Is that credit cards and auto loans for us, all of us Americans, or students?

02:05:24.000 Yeah.

02:05:25.000 Because it's all credit card debt.

02:05:26.000 What I just looked at, too, on another page that had a clock, which is the same number, it's not including the interest on the federal loans.

02:05:34.000 Good God.

02:05:37.000 That's crazy.

02:05:38.000 So you look at that and you think, okay, no wonder it's a popular idea of saying you've got to write down student loans, you've got to get free tuition going on, and do all these things.

02:05:46.000 And again, can the country pay for it?

02:05:49.000 I don't think so.

02:05:50.000 Should we be talking about it?

02:05:51.000 Absolutely.

02:05:51.000 Should we be looking for other alternatives and other options?

02:05:53.000 Yeah, but I think it's...

02:05:57.000 We're not even willing to address the issue of Social Security and Medicare and trying to deal with entitlements as they currently exist, which we know are going to bankrupt us at some point.

02:06:08.000 We know that.

02:06:09.000 It's not a mystery.

02:06:11.000 And we can't deal with that.

02:06:12.000 So how are we going to deal with these other issues?

02:06:15.000 Well, that's the question I had about a guy like Trump, who doesn't seem to like to pay attention to things.

02:06:20.000 How the hell is one person supposed to be the director of all these various aspects of our world?

02:06:29.000 Yeah.

02:06:29.000 No, I've heard that from – what was his name?

02:06:34.000 The economist – I can't remember his name.

02:06:37.000 But anyway, very smart guy, very smart economist who was talking about this and saying, this is what we expect of a president.

02:06:43.000 Think about all these things.

02:06:44.000 The president has to be – Cognizate of and supposedly capable of digesting a lot of information and making decisions on a varied number of things.

02:06:53.000 And obviously, yeah, you delegate.

02:06:55.000 Fine.

02:06:55.000 But it is an interesting system.

02:06:58.000 And it is interesting how, you know, I mean, right now, there's a lot of people that don't have faith in the current president to make, you know, some of your basic decisions.

02:07:06.000 Previous administration, there were a lot of people that was convinced he could, you know, I mean, he was capable of all of it.

02:07:13.000 So I don't think the job itself is too big.

02:07:17.000 I just think that the way that we go through the selection process has slowly over a period of time gone downhill and has kind of resulted in what we're doing right now. 0.86

02:07:29.000 Part of it's the bullshit primary process. 0.52

02:07:32.000 You know, and the way that we do the initial selection, there's a lot of things, I suppose. 0.96

02:07:37.000 Sure, the fact you have to be registered as a Democrat or Republican to vote in the primaries and all those things.

02:07:43.000 And then, you know, it's just everything.

02:07:47.000 The whole thing's a big mess.

02:07:49.000 But on the flip side, here's what's crazy.

02:07:51.000 Trump doesn't seem to be aging.

02:07:56.000 Everybody else ages so hard.

02:07:59.000 They age so hard because they're paying attention to everything and they have real concern.

02:08:03.000 Well, yeah. 1.00

02:08:04.000 He seems to be just like a fucking water on a duck's back. 1.00

02:08:08.000 Well, you know, maybe he's going to outlive us all, maybe. 1.00

02:08:11.000 He's figured out how to avoid the stress, right?

02:08:13.000 He doesn't seem any older.

02:08:14.000 Oh, you remember what President Obama looked like when he finally walked out of office.

02:08:17.000 Or Bill Clinton.

02:08:17.000 I saw Bill Clinton not too long ago.

02:08:19.000 We were down in Little Rock.

02:08:20.000 You saw him?

02:08:21.000 Yeah, he was at an event that we were, it was a relatively small dinner. 1.00

02:08:25.000 Was he chasing pussy? 1.00

02:08:26.000 Don't lie. 1.00

02:08:27.000 Don't lie.

02:08:28.000 I'm not saying he touched me inappropriately, but, you know, I want to know where I got my burner phone.

02:08:33.000 I would love to be a fly on the wall in a room with that guy.

02:08:38.000 But I will say this much about him.

02:08:41.000 We started talking.

02:08:42.000 I thought I was just going to go up and shake his hand and say, you know, hey, Mr. President, you know, good to see you.

02:08:47.000 Because I always liked the guy, right? 0.98

02:08:49.000 And okay, aside from his obvious issue and the problem he had, in terms of his ability to govern and the fact that he's a smart son of a bitch, and I just found him capable of the job, 0.99

02:09:05.000 right? 0.98

02:09:06.000 Just like I did with President Bush, and there were good aspects of President Obama.

02:09:09.000 I don't have a dog in the hunt, right?

02:09:11.000 I mean, I'd rather...

02:09:12.000 See the results in the person.

02:09:13.000 But anyway, talking to President Clinton, we started talking, and he immediately went to an old agency operation, an old thing that had happened during his time when he was president, to talk about it.

02:09:30.000 And you could tell that he, I mean, he had retained a tremendous amount of information, right?

02:09:34.000 And we were talking, and we ended up talking for 15 minutes or so, just kind of about this particular incident, and he was kind of curious, and he wanted to, you know, he wanted to recount kind of some of the thought process that they were, you know, going through, and I found it really interesting in the sense that that was a...

02:09:49.000 It was a surprisingly deep conversation, right?

02:09:54.000 And he's curious.

02:09:56.000 And I always thought that was the most important quality for anybody who gets in that job, is they have to be curious, right?

02:10:02.000 They have to be inquisitive.

02:10:05.000 On the scale of presidents, where does the current president exist in the curiosity scale?

02:10:11.000 I don't know, but I think that's probably not his strong suit. 0.90

02:10:14.000 So maybe that's one of the reasons why he's not aging is because he's not asking that fourth or fifth question that leads you to the point where you go, oh, that's a pretty fucked up situation.

02:10:22.000 Now we've got to worry about that one. 0.71

02:10:24.000 So maybe it is water off the back and he's figured out a way to deal with stress.

02:10:30.000 Well, on the plus side, he seems to be making business owners happy.

02:10:36.000 At least ones that aren't affected by the sanctions against China.

02:10:40.000 Because there's like steel manufacturing and a lot of other companies that are very upset by it.

02:10:45.000 Yeah.

02:10:46.000 Well, I think it's the regulations that they've done that they haven't really touted in terms of deregulating some of the things.

02:10:52.000 I mean, because, look, the previous administration, you know, a lot of good points, but some bad points.

02:10:56.000 One of the bad points was sort of the hamstring of industry through overregulation on everything, right?

02:11:04.000 And so lifting some of that, you know, there's this – you can argue whether – You know, you want bigger government or less government, but you can't argue with the fact that it did unleash, you know, industry and business more than the previous administration.

02:11:18.000 So that's a good thing.

02:11:20.000 But, you know, look at all the other concerns.

02:11:22.000 I mean, now we're talking about, you know, a global slowdown, right?

02:11:25.000 Because, you know, China's numbers are looking soft.

02:11:27.000 Germany's looking soft.

02:11:28.000 What does that mean?

02:11:29.000 Everybody's worried about Brexit.

02:11:31.000 So there's a lot of things for people to be focused on, you know.

02:11:35.000 And I worry sometimes that all we do here in the States is kind of like chase the next shiny ball of tinfoil because we're all a bunch of raccoons.

02:11:42.000 We have such a short attention span for everything.

02:11:47.000 Anyway, what am I saying?

02:11:49.000 I don't know.

02:11:50.000 Sorry.

02:11:51.000 Everybody's like...

02:11:52.000 He was talking about attention span.

02:11:54.000 The last thing that I definitely want to talk to you about is one of the things that Trump brought up recently is the...

02:12:00.000 JFK case.

02:12:01.000 And releasing some of the files, and they wanted to redact the information that pertained to the people that were still alive.

02:12:11.000 Now, I want to know what...

02:12:13.000 I don't know what you can say, but what do you think about the JFK case?

02:12:19.000 Do you think that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone?

02:12:25.000 I can see... 0.89

02:12:28.000 Of all the sort of incidents – I don't mean to minimize it by calling it an incident – but of all those situations, the Kennedy assassination and Martin Luther King's assassination, those are the two that I understand more than anything else why they've lingered and why people don't believe the shit that they've seen and why they have concerns about it.

02:12:50.000 Martin Luther King more than Kennedy, I believe that – There was something there that we still don't understand in terms of who else was responsible and who organized that and who assisted in that.

02:13:01.000 I just think of those two, that's the one I've got bigger questions on.

02:13:08.000 The Kennedy assassination, I think that Oswald pulled the trigger.

02:13:16.000 I think in his mind the reason he was doing it was for the greater good of communism and to boost his image with the Soviets and with the Cuban regime.

02:13:31.000 Do I think that he had assistance?

02:13:39.000 I don't think so, but I could be swayed from that with better evidence than I've seen.

02:13:44.000 But I understand why people are so dug in on it, right?

02:13:48.000 Because, I mean, look, it was a massive event, right?

02:13:50.000 It was a massive event.

02:13:51.000 But Oswald had sufficient training.

02:13:54.000 You did not have to be a rocket scientist to figure this out.

02:13:57.000 It was a different era, and we don't understand it in today's terms.

02:14:00.000 But when you get right in that position and look out that window and look at the shot that was taken and what was involved in that, I was not a...

02:14:09.000 You've shot...

02:14:10.000 This sounds terrible, but anybody who's hunted has taken a more difficult shot than that.

02:14:17.000 So that part of it and his motivation...

02:14:21.000 And his past ties to the Soviets, do I think the Soviets were pulling the trigger on it?

02:14:26.000 Do I think the mafia were pulling the trigger?

02:14:27.000 I haven't seen anything that convinces me that that was the case.

02:14:30.000 I think that Oswald felt like he was doing it for them or he was going to prove himself in that regard.

02:14:36.000 But again, I understand why people have dug in.

02:14:39.000 The MLK one, Martin Luther King, I just – I think that – I don't think he acted alone.

02:14:49.000 What makes you think that? 0.99

02:14:53.000 I think that – look, he was a loser, a two-bit criminal who was constantly getting picked up for the shit that he was doing and ending up in jail. 1.00

02:15:02.000 He was a mess. 1.00

02:15:03.000 There was nothing clever about him.

02:15:06.000 And then leading up to the assassination – He cleaned up his act.

02:15:13.000 Suddenly he went from looking like a two-bit criminal to a college professor basically and he had cash.

02:15:20.000 He was able to purchase a vehicle and he kind of went off the grid for a while.

02:15:24.000 He went on his drive and sort of stayed off the grid and he behaved in a way that he hadn't up until months before this thing took place and then he ended up in Europe.

02:15:38.000 And I just – something tells me that he had assistance in some fashion.

02:15:47.000 I don't know who, right, or whatever, but I just – that's the one that more than any others that I've looked at makes me step back and go, no, we don't know the whole story here.

02:15:59.000 The Kennedy thing, I – Again, maybe there's something out there that we just haven't turned over.

02:16:04.000 It's always a possibility.

02:16:06.000 But yeah, MLK, I think that's the one that's most disturbing.

02:16:11.000 That's interesting.

02:16:12.000 I don't know enough about the MLK murder.

02:16:14.000 I need to go look into that now, especially if you think that something was going on.

02:16:18.000 Look at his behavior.

02:16:21.000 What the hell was his name again?

02:16:23.000 James Earl Ray. 0.92

02:16:24.000 James Earl Ray.

02:16:25.000 And I've talked to his brother.

02:16:26.000 I've interviewed his brother.

02:16:28.000 For what?

02:16:30.000 For a show.

02:16:31.000 A series where we did a kind of investigative look into this.

02:16:38.000 And...

02:16:43.000 If all you do when you're looking at this is to look at Ray's behavior in that year leading up to the assassination, So that's the interesting – for me, that's the most interesting part.

02:16:58.000 I mean you put it in context with everything he did up until that point, which is he was basically, again, just a two-bit criminal who couldn't stay out of jail.

02:17:04.000 And then you get this.

02:17:05.000 And you get this change in behavior and this change in appearance and this sudden ability to be something that he wasn't up until that point.

02:17:13.000 I guess everybody can change.

02:17:15.000 But that was the most striking part for me.

02:17:19.000 There's no obvious source of income?

02:17:21.000 No.

02:17:22.000 No, just, you know, again, just a penny any criminal, basically.

02:17:27.000 And there was plenty of information.

02:17:29.000 It wasn't like he couldn't have gathered.

02:17:31.000 If you say, well, no, he acted on his own.

02:17:33.000 Well, okay.

02:17:34.000 Yeah.

02:17:34.000 Was there information?

02:17:35.000 Yes.

02:17:36.000 Leading right up to the day before, there was talk about, you know, there were news reports showing King at the Lorraine Motel and, you know, coming in and out of the room, you know, that he was staying in.

02:17:46.000 And so...

02:17:48.000 It wasn't as if you couldn't gather that information on your own, but it was – again, it was that behavior leading up to it.

02:17:55.000 And I'm not a conspiracy guy at all, right? 0.95

02:17:57.000 I've seen too much shit to think that every conspiracy is holding water. 0.95

02:18:03.000 But this one was disturbing in that regard, for what that's worth. 0.99

02:18:08.000 Alright, I'm going to look into it now.

02:18:09.000 You should look into it, and we'll talk about it next time.

02:18:11.000 See what you think, because I'd really be interested.

02:18:13.000 I don't think we're going to...

02:18:14.000 This show that we're going to get ready to do here, start filming next month, is not going to be looking into things like that.

02:18:21.000 What is it called?

02:18:22.000 It's going to be called Black Files. 0.81

02:18:23.000 They may change the name just before we go on the air, but I really enjoyed the shows that I did in the past.

02:18:29.000 America Declassified, they're looking into conspiracies.

02:18:32.000 I really enjoyed it.

02:18:33.000 I really thought it was fascinating, and I get why people...

02:18:37.000 I feel that way.

02:18:38.000 Yeah.

02:18:39.000 Kennedy, for sure.

02:18:40.000 Especially when they're on the outside.

02:18:41.000 The Kennedy one, to me, the bullet is the most disturbing thing.

02:18:44.000 Yeah.

02:18:44.000 That bullet that just showed up on Connelly's gurney.

02:18:46.000 Oh, look what we found.

02:18:47.000 Yeah, we found this bullet, yeah.

02:18:48.000 Yeah, and it's not distorted and supposedly went through two people and shattered bone.

02:18:53.000 That magic bullet.

02:18:53.000 The magic bullet, yeah.

02:18:55.000 Yeah, it's just, I don't buy it.

02:18:56.000 I don't think that that bullet came from there.

02:18:58.000 That's probably the most, of all things, because we looked at the grassy knoll issue and the possibility of spotting other people from the other side.

02:19:04.000 Yeah. 1.00

02:19:04.000 Get the fuck out of here with that bullet. 1.00

02:19:06.000 That bullet drives me crazy. 1.00

02:19:07.000 Not only that, there's more pieces of the bullet fragments in Connelly's body.

02:19:11.000 When you look at the x-rays of Connelly's body that show bullet fragments.

02:19:15.000 There's little pieces.

02:19:16.000 They found little tiny pieces of metal in his body from the bullet fragments.

02:19:20.000 But you don't see that missing from the bullet. 1.00

02:19:22.000 It's bullshit. 1.00

02:19:23.000 Yeah, the bullet thing is... 1.00

02:19:25.000 Again, there's elements of it that you look at, but...

02:19:33.000 Collectively, just, you know.

02:19:34.000 And again, maybe there's something else out there.

02:19:36.000 Maybe there is.

02:19:37.000 And we just haven't uncovered it.

02:19:38.000 Or maybe this will, you know, prompt, you know, some additional information.

02:19:41.000 Who knows?

02:19:41.000 But, yeah.

02:19:44.000 Anyway, it's fascinating shit. 0.99

02:19:46.000 But I do get it because it was such a seminal moment, right? 0.98

02:19:50.000 And nobody wants to think that something that bad, that horrific, and that something that could sort of shatter the country in that fashion could be done by one guy like Lee Harvey Oswald.

02:19:59.000 Or John Hinckley.

02:20:01.000 Or John Hinckley, yeah.

02:20:02.000 Yeah, exactly.

02:20:03.000 Didn't they just let him out?

02:20:04.000 Yeah.

02:20:06.000 Not for good, right?

02:20:07.000 Not for good.

02:20:08.000 I think it was on a release program of some sort. 1.00

02:20:10.000 Get the fuck out of here for life. 1.00

02:20:12.000 Get the fuck out of here forever. 1.00

02:20:14.000 I don't care how well you've been behaving for 20 years while you've been locked up in a mental assignment. 1.00

02:20:20.000 You shot the president. 1.00

02:20:21.000 Get the fuck out of here. 1.00

02:20:23.000 What is wrong with people? 1.00

02:20:24.000 Yeah.

02:20:25.000 It's that old idea.

02:20:27.000 Oh, he's done his time.

02:20:27.000 He's done his time, yeah.

02:20:28.000 He's been...

02:20:29.000 Rehabilitated.

02:20:30.000 Yeah, rehabilitated.

02:20:31.000 And that's always that argument.

02:20:33.000 Is prison for incarceration or is it for rehabilitation?

02:20:36.000 It's for us.

02:20:37.000 Yeah.

02:20:37.000 It's for us.

02:20:37.000 You shot the president.

02:20:38.000 Get in the cage.

02:20:39.000 Hey, can I say one thing before?

02:20:40.000 Yes, please.

02:20:41.000 We finish up...

02:20:43.000 This is sort of a bump for a buddy of mine who's in Boise.

02:20:46.000 He just wrote his first book.

02:20:48.000 If anybody's out there and they're looking for a book to read, his name is Andrew Cousins. 1.00

02:20:55.000 And he's a former operator who knows his shit. 0.97

02:21:01.000 And it's his first attempt at a fiction novel. 1.00

02:21:05.000 It's called A Failed State.

02:21:07.000 And it's set in Afghanistan and also here in the U.S. and a couple other places, Turkey and Germany and elsewhere.

02:21:14.000 Interesting read.

02:21:14.000 A lot of technical information in there.

02:21:16.000 It's a fiction novel, but he's dumped a lot of information in there, so it's clear he knows what he's talking about.

02:21:22.000 But it's worth a peek if anybody's looking for something to read.

02:21:25.000 Looking out for a buddy.

02:21:27.000 Yeah, he's a good guy.

02:21:28.000 Well, hey, brother.

02:21:29.000 Great to see you again.

02:21:30.000 Thank you very much.

02:21:31.000 Good luck with your show.

02:21:32.000 I appreciate that, man.

02:21:33.000 And come on again after it's over.

02:21:34.000 I'll do it.

02:21:35.000 Take care.

02:21:35.000 Bye, everybody.

02:21:38.000 Thanks, man.

02:21:39.000 That was great.

The Joe Rogan Experience - January 17, 2019

Joe Rogan Experience #1226 - Mike Baker

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