The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #1582 - Alex Berenson

00:00:03.000 The Joe Rogan Experience.

00:00:06.000 Train by day.

00:00:07.000 Joe Rogan Podcast by night.

00:00:08.000 All day.

00:00:15.000 How are you?

00:00:15.000 Good to see you.

00:00:16.000 It's good to see you again.

00:00:17.000 Under less hostile circumstances.

00:00:19.000 I don't think the last one was hostile.

00:00:21.000 I think maybe more people expected it to be hostile because you were not...

00:00:26.000 I want to say you're anti-cannabis, but I do think that you had a realistic perspective on cannabis.

00:00:33.000 And we've talked about this before outside that I think a lot of people that are pro-cannabis, like myself, They don't want to look at the negative aspects of it because they think it'll harm the chances of it being legalized.

00:00:45.000 And I think that's irresponsible and I think it's not honest.

00:00:48.000 I mean, I think that's true.

00:00:49.000 And now that it does look, let's be honest, like it's going to be legal.

00:00:53.000 You know, certainly, you know, every state or, you know, there are major states that voted to legalize like New Jersey and Arizona in the last election.

00:01:00.000 And nationally, it looks like it's going to be legal.

00:01:01.000 It's time for people in the industry, I think, to start being more honest about who this product is for and, you know, and some of the downsides.

00:01:08.000 I hope they do that.

00:01:09.000 They have to be.

00:01:10.000 I think they have to be.

00:01:11.000 I brought you the paperback of Tell Your Children.

00:01:14.000 Yes.

00:01:15.000 Excellent.

00:01:15.000 Well, you really should tell your children.

00:01:18.000 And again, this is coming from someone who enjoys pot.

00:01:21.000 I like it.

00:01:21.000 I'm a fan.

00:01:22.000 But I do know it's not for everybody.

00:01:24.000 And I do know people that have gone crazy.

00:01:27.000 Legitimately gone schizophrenic for marijuana.

00:01:30.000 Or maybe had a tendency towards schizophrenia and then smoked a lot of pot or ate a lot of pot and then...

00:01:37.000 The switch went off, and they were gone, and I think there's a direct correlation.

00:01:40.000 Yes.

00:01:41.000 So I was glad to have that conversation with you, even though a lot of people are like, what?

00:01:44.000 You're supporting him?

00:01:45.000 How are you on his side?

00:01:47.000 I'm like, because it's true.

00:01:48.000 Just wait until you get the blowback you get for today, man.

00:01:51.000 Well, let's establish your position, Alex, on COVID. What is your position on this?

00:01:57.000 Sure.

00:01:57.000 So people accuse me of being a COVID denialist, or I don't think it's real, I don't think anyone dies from it.

00:02:03.000 That's all nonsense, Joe.

00:02:04.000 COVID is real.

00:02:06.000 It emerged from, we can talk about where it might have emerged from earlier this year, maybe in late 2019. It's killed a lot of people.

00:02:16.000 It's contagious, and it's been a problem this year.

00:02:21.000 It's been a significant problem.

00:02:22.000 It is not...

00:02:24.000 Worthy of the response that we have had to it.

00:02:27.000 I believe lockdowns have been a mistake, and we can go into all of it, but we have overreacted in an extremely dangerous way this year.

00:02:34.000 I believe we've overreacted as well.

00:02:37.000 And I think that in particular, one of the things that disturbs me the most is that there has been no accounting for the damage that has been done by forcing people to shut down their businesses.

00:02:48.000 And the only thought has been making sure that the ICU beds are open and that somehow or another people are able to get treatment for this.

00:03:01.000 There's been...

00:03:03.000 Openly criticize the fact there's been no discussion whatsoever about getting healthy.

00:03:08.000 No one's encouraging you because they're worried about being called a fat shamer or some other nonsensical term.

00:03:14.000 I think it's much worse than that because if you remember back in March, we were told 15 days to slow the spread.

00:03:22.000 Let's not have the hospitals be overrun.

00:03:26.000 We're good to go.

00:03:55.000 I think we had an idea of what COVID was going to be.

00:03:59.000 I know.

00:03:59.000 I certainly did for the first few weeks.

00:04:01.000 I was like, this is going to kill everybody. 0.69

00:04:03.000 I thought I was going to kill 10% of the population. 0.80

00:04:05.000 I was really worried about it.

00:04:06.000 I remember being in the supermarket stocking up and thinking, Jesus Christ, this feels so crazy.

00:04:13.000 But I also remember thinking it was going to last two weeks.

00:04:15.000 And now here we are, still reacting this way.

00:04:19.000 We're now deep into December, almost into January.

00:04:25.000 Yeah.

00:04:46.000 It's different than we thought it was going to be, but we're still reacting like it was the same thing.

00:04:52.000 And then there's this fear porn that everybody likes to peddle.

00:04:57.000 It's this weird thing where everybody wants to think that if you catch it, you have a 10% chance of dying or the sky is falling.

00:05:05.000 It's just...

00:05:07.000 It's weird how people want to pretend that it's still what it used to be.

00:05:13.000 And they want to say, you know, you should think about this because 300,000 Americans have died.

00:05:17.000 You want to go, stop!

00:05:18.000 Stop! 1.00

00:05:18.000 No. 1.00

00:05:19.000 300,000 Americans have died from COVID that also had a lot of other stuff.

00:05:25.000 How many people have died just from COVID? And it's a relatively small number in comparison.

00:05:31.000 It's like a bad flu year, right?

00:05:33.000 So it's complicated.

00:05:34.000 Here's the thing, and I don't know if you...

00:05:38.000 As I said, I've got all this stuff for you, but...

00:05:42.000 The booklets, especially the first one, which is about death counting, how we count a COVID death, I go into this in detail.

00:05:50.000 Okay, well let's talk about that right away.

00:05:54.000 Here's the most fundamental fact about COVID that the media doesn't report accurately.

00:06:15.000 I think this is true of almost everybody.

00:06:16.000 People don't really have a good idea of what What risk is, right?

00:06:20.000 So if I say, you know, like it's riskier to be old and have COVID than to be young, you might think, okay, it's like two to one or three to one or five to one.

00:06:29.000 It's kind of like normal risks.

00:06:30.000 Like what are the odds that the Jets are going to beat the Rams?

00:06:33.000 Like one in 10, you know, last week.

00:06:35.000 And that happened.

00:06:36.000 The Jets beat the Rams.

00:06:38.000 This risk is not like that.

00:06:41.000 It's like somewhere between 100 and 10,000 times the risk.

00:06:46.000 At what age?

00:06:48.000 So maybe 75 versus 25, 80 versus 25. If you look at who dies from this, it is overwhelmingly people over...

00:07:03.000 We're good to go.

00:07:15.000 Is over 82 or 83. Now what about people like, there was that guy who was a Broadway actor, who was a young, healthy-looking guy who got sick and wound up dying from it.

00:07:25.000 So that's going to happen.

00:07:27.000 So there's two issues.

00:07:28.000 First of all, that happens to people with the flu.

00:07:29.000 I can point you to stories from 2018, you know, young, healthy teacher dies of the flu.

00:07:34.000 It just was never reported nationally this way.

00:07:36.000 That's A. B is, if you look at those cases, oftentimes there's weird idiosyncratic stuff happening, of which the number one thing is a lot of those people were put on ventilators very early.

00:07:47.000 They were put on ventilators and they never came off.

00:07:49.000 We're not having that as much anymore.

00:07:51.000 And if you look, the average age of death is actually creeping up now, it looks like.

00:07:56.000 Okay, so that's one.

00:07:58.000 Can we talk about that?

00:07:59.000 Yes.

00:08:00.000 The ventilators?

00:08:00.000 Yes.

00:08:00.000 So what happened?

00:08:02.000 So what happened was, in March especially, back when everybody was terrified, there's something called a nebulizing procedure.

00:08:09.000 So there are procedures where you're inserting tubes into people and it releases a lot of aerosols from them.

00:08:17.000 And the fear was, this is going to get aerosolized and the nurses and the doctors are all going to get sick and die and we're going to have no medical staff.

00:08:25.000 Ventilator avoids that problem.

00:08:27.000 So the feeling was, let's ventilate very early.

00:08:31.000 This is a really serious disease.

00:08:33.000 Let's get everybody we can on ventilators.

00:08:36.000 Remember when we needed 100,000 ventilators, 200,000 ventilators?

00:08:39.000 That was the idea.

00:08:41.000 We're going to ventilate really early.

00:08:43.000 Turns out that was a terrible idea.

00:08:45.000 It turns out that, as Elon Musk likes to say, your lungs, if you ventilate too early, it's just like a meat bellows, and you can blow out people's lungs if you overventilate.

00:08:55.000 And it looks like that happened.

00:08:57.000 I will tell you, not that we don't use ventilators for COVID, but right now in the United States, I believe there are about 8,000 people on ventilators.

00:09:05.000 Can I stop you for a second?

00:09:06.000 Meat bellows, like a fireplace bellows, right?

00:09:09.000 So you're just pushing this air in, and if you push it in at pressure that's too high, you can just blow out people's lungs.

00:09:15.000 So you literally destroy their lungs.

00:09:18.000 Yes, yes.

00:09:18.000 We did that with people.

00:09:19.000 And it became clear.

00:09:21.000 It became pretty clear pretty early on.

00:09:23.000 And they tried to stop doing it.

00:09:25.000 And they have stopped doing it.

00:09:26.000 So that's why they were saying that 80% of the people they put on ventilators wound up dying.

00:09:30.000 It's not just that they were so sick by the time they got to ventilators they were dying.

00:09:34.000 That's right.

00:09:34.000 And they couldn't save them.

00:09:36.000 It was that the ventilators themselves did damage.

00:09:40.000 Wow.

00:09:41.000 And I don't think that actually too many people would argue that, even in hospitals.

00:09:45.000 I can point you to stories that have been written about this, and I can point you to sort of in-hospital discussion of this.

00:09:51.000 Again, there is a role for ventilators for people who really cannot breathe on their own.

00:09:55.000 But this early ventilation that we used back in March and April killed people.

00:10:00.000 And some of the people it killed are people who were younger who probably would have survived.

00:10:04.000 My friend Michael Yeo was young when he got it, and he was really beaten down.

00:10:08.000 He did a lot of traveling.

00:10:09.000 He flew to New York.

00:10:11.000 He did morning radio, the whole deal.

00:10:12.000 Flew back, drove to Vegas, visited his family, and then drove home that night, and then did a bunch of auditions in LA, and then got sick.

00:10:20.000 Real sick.

00:10:21.000 His doctor didn't put him on a ventilator, because he said, if I put you on a ventilator, your lung's going to stop working, and you're going to die.

00:10:27.000 And he's okay today because of that.

00:10:29.000 Yep.

00:10:29.000 But he's a young, healthy, robust guy, and he got it and almost died.

00:10:35.000 I mean, he was really, really sick for about two weeks.

00:10:38.000 But he recovered, right?

00:10:40.000 Yes, he did.

00:10:40.000 So again, we're not saying this disease isn't real, and we're not saying that some people, unfortunately, aren't going to have these bad reactions to it.

00:10:47.000 But back in March, maybe he gets put on a ventilator, and maybe he dies.

00:10:52.000 Well, he got it very early.

00:10:54.000 So he was fortunate.

00:10:55.000 He had a doctor who was smart.

00:10:57.000 Okay, so that's one issue with the death counting, is that so many of the people—so let's say you're—and I urge people—one of the things that I've done a couple times on Twitter that always gets an interesting response is you can go look at coroner's reports, especially in Milwaukee where they put them all online, of people who've died.

00:11:12.000 So you can actually see the people who have died of COVID and you'll see how sick they are for the most part.

00:11:19.000 I'm talking about people in their 80s and 90s who have multiple severe comorbidities.

00:11:23.000 So in that case, it's really hard to tell.

00:11:26.000 Did this person die with COVID or from COVID? You know, if my heart is failing and my kidneys are failing and I get this thing and I die the next day...

00:11:35.000 Okay, I died.

00:11:37.000 Did I die?

00:11:38.000 Did I die with COVID? Or did I die two weeks before I would have died anyway?

00:11:42.000 And we're counting that as from COVID. Or maybe even a year before you would have died anyway.

00:11:46.000 But the 2.6 comorbidity factors, that's the average, right?

00:11:50.000 For people that died of COVID. That's correct.

00:11:52.000 Died with COVID. That's a good way of saying it.

00:11:55.000 Again, it's very, very hard to distinguish with and from in these cases of people who are really sick.

00:11:59.000 Now, sometimes it's not that way.

00:12:00.000 Sometimes you can say, again, a 50-year-old who is relatively healthy gets COVID. They died.

00:12:05.000 They died from COVID. COVID killed them.

00:12:07.000 We can agree about that.

00:12:08.000 But many of the cases are hard to understand.

00:12:13.000 Or not hard to understand, but hard to distinguish.

00:12:15.000 And I'll make one more point about deaths.

00:12:16.000 Very, very, very important point.

00:12:20.000 PCR testing.

00:12:22.000 I know you know what this is, but you look for a sample of the virus.

00:12:30.000 Usually it's in the nose.

00:12:32.000 You multiply it, and you run a cycle where it doubles over and over and over again.

00:12:39.000 And when it gets to a certain point...

00:12:42.000 It's actually incredible technology.

00:12:44.000 It's sort of magical.

00:12:46.000 But they add a fluorescent marker to it, and at some point, if you can see the fluorescence, it's considered a positive sample.

00:12:53.000 Okay.

00:12:54.000 Here's the thing.

00:12:56.000 A 40-cycle PCR test means that you are multiplying any original viral material in that sample by 1 trillion times.

00:13:05.000 Okay?

00:13:06.000 So a single viral particle that you pick up becomes 1 trillion particles.

00:13:13.000 It is very, very easy to find virus in people when you're running a PCR cycle at that level.

00:13:22.000 It does not mean necessarily that they're very sick at the time.

00:13:25.000 It doesn't even mean that they have active virus in their bodies at the time.

00:13:28.000 They could have a piece of virus that the original sample is picking up and multiplying by 40x.

00:13:35.000 Okay?

00:13:36.000 It's clear, by the way, when people have a low threshold, let's say 20 times, let's say it only takes 20 cycles, that's a million multiplications.

00:13:43.000 If you're positive at 20 cycles, you're pretty sick.

00:13:46.000 If you're positive at 25 cycles, you're probably pretty sick.

00:13:50.000 If you're positive at 30 cycles, maybe not.

00:13:53.000 40 cycles, it doesn't really mean anything.

00:13:56.000 It means that you have...

00:13:57.000 You know, you have this one bit of virus in you that they've managed to find.

00:14:01.000 Does it mean you're contagious?

00:14:02.000 It probably doesn't mean you're contagious.

00:14:04.000 I don't like that word.

00:14:05.000 I don't like that word probably.

00:14:07.000 I'm around grandma.

00:14:10.000 I don't like to say never unless I'm sure, okay?

00:14:14.000 So when I say probably, it usually means never, but I just don't like saying it.

00:14:19.000 I understand.

00:14:20.000 Okay.

00:14:22.000 When we count deaths, the states have a procedure, most states.

00:14:27.000 They look at positive tests and they match them with death certificates.

00:14:32.000 So let's say you had a positive test tomorrow.

00:14:38.000 And let's say it was 38 cycles.

00:14:40.000 They're not going to tell you that, but it was 38 cycles.

00:14:42.000 You are not very sick at all with COVID. But you're in a registry somewhere.

00:14:48.000 Your name's in a registry.

00:14:49.000 A month and a half later, you die.

00:14:52.000 Let's say you get hit by a car.

00:14:54.000 That will still initially come up as a positive COVID death because you had a positive test and you died within a specific amount of time after having that test.

00:15:04.000 But they don't distinguish from a violent accident?

00:15:06.000 Not initially.

00:15:07.000 Now, some of the states are trying to clear this up.

00:15:09.000 But let's say you died of a heart attack, Joe.

00:15:11.000 Okay, a heart attack is a potential, you know, outcome of COVID. You're always going to be on there if you died of a heart attack.

00:15:18.000 So you're saying that if you have this tiny amount of COVID in your system, you never wind up getting sick, but yet you have a heart attack a couple weeks later, three, four weeks later, they will still call that a COVID death, even though you never got sick from COVID. 100%.

00:15:31.000 That doesn't seem smart.

00:15:34.000 The idea is to capture deaths as broadly as possible.

00:15:38.000 The idea is this is a serious illness, and we want to know every possible person who's died from it.

00:15:43.000 We don't do this with any other illness.

00:15:45.000 Is it because they don't have the resources to differentiate between the people that have died from heart attacks where it's clear, oh, we looked at the person, they had a very small amount of the virus in their system.

00:15:54.000 Four weeks later, there's no way they were sick from that.

00:15:58.000 It's a function of decisions that have been made along the way.

00:16:02.000 So they could have set the PCR threshold at lower.

00:16:05.000 They could have set it at 30. They were aware from almost the beginning of this issue that you can find a comment from Fauci in July talking about this.

00:16:14.000 And certainly they knew well before this.

00:16:18.000 The idea was we want to know So as broadly as possible, how many people have this?

00:16:24.000 And then secondarily, we wanted to find deaths from COVID as broadly as possible.

00:16:28.000 And what is the level set at currently?

00:16:31.000 Different states have different levels, but in most places it's 37 to 40 cycles.

00:16:36.000 Which again, means that a lot of those people at the high end are not sick, and they certainly had COVID at some point, but they probably don't have it anymore.

00:16:48.000 Here's the other reason to do this show.

00:16:52.000 If you set it really high, you're going to capture people on the way in, just as they're getting sick.

00:16:58.000 So if you're truly afraid of, we want to quarantine everybody really early, then you have to set the threshold really high.

00:17:05.000 So that, to the extent there's a logic behind it, that's the logic behind it.

00:17:09.000 But it has all these negative side effects.

00:17:12.000 So there was one other point I wanted to make, but I'll remember it in a second.

00:17:17.000 So the negative side effects would be that they're inflating the number of people that not just have it but die from it because of the fact that they're making sure that these deaths that get linked within a certain time period.

00:17:32.000 What is the time period?

00:17:33.000 So in some states it's 30 days.

00:17:34.000 In some states it's 60 days.

00:17:36.000 I don't know if it's more than 60 anywhere.

00:17:38.000 But the states are sort of allowed to define it.

00:17:40.000 Oh, here's, okay, so there's a negative for the person who's tested positive, because you then have to isolate yourself, you can't work, you know, you're scared.

00:17:48.000 And then there's this negative for society with the death counts later.

00:17:51.000 Right, but isn't that negative, that you have to isolate yourself and you can't work?

00:17:55.000 That seems very rational.

00:17:57.000 Because if you do test, like, let's say you're on the way in.

00:18:00.000 I think?

00:18:16.000 Yes.

00:18:17.000 That seems like that would happen a lot.

00:18:18.000 Well, it doesn't happen that much because at 37 you're asymptomatic, so you're not going to know unless you have some reason to be tested.

00:18:25.000 But isn't there a significant amount of spread from asymptomatic people?

00:18:28.000 So this is another argument that we don't have.

00:18:33.000 There's asymptomatic spread.

00:18:34.000 It looks to be very rare, although now Fauci is saying it's not so rare.

00:18:39.000 There's pre-symptomatic spread.

00:18:40.000 Pre-symptomatic spread appears to be more real.

00:18:42.000 We need another person other than Fauci.

00:18:44.000 That's the one guy.

00:18:46.000 We do.

00:18:46.000 Everyone says Fauci says.

00:18:48.000 We have this guy.

00:18:49.000 Yes.

00:18:50.000 Let me say one more thing about death count.

00:18:52.000 Yeah.

00:18:53.000 Back in March and April, people said, COVID deaths are being undercounted.

00:18:58.000 We're not doing enough testing.

00:19:00.000 There's all these people dying.

00:19:01.000 They're being called pneumonia deaths.

00:19:02.000 It's probably COVID. That was probably true at the time, especially in New York and New Jersey.

00:19:07.000 You can look and you can see the number of what are called excess deaths, more people dying than you would expect in a normal year, was higher than the number of COVID deaths.

00:19:16.000 And a lot of those deaths were in people who had pneumonia.

00:19:20.000 Okay, so that looks like, hey, we didn't even, you know, this is even worse than we thought.

00:19:25.000 We're capturing, we're not even capturing everybody who died.

00:19:28.000 Okay, but that was March and April.

00:19:30.000 Let's talk about what's happening now.

00:19:32.000 We know the PCR tests are going to capture a lot of people who aren't sick anymore and who maybe never were sick.

00:19:40.000 We know that some of those people are going to be classified as COVID deaths.

00:19:45.000 Again, I'm 88. I somehow was asymptomatic a month ago, but I got a positive PCR test.

00:19:52.000 Now I die because I'm 88. That's a COVID death, okay?

00:19:58.000 What we're seeing now in the United States, and certainly in Europe, we don't have data as good in the U.S. from the last couple weeks, but we have some pretty good data from Europe and the U.K., is that the number of COVID deaths We're good to go.

00:20:25.000 There were more people dying than you would have thought based on the number of COVID deaths.

00:20:29.000 Now there are fewer people overall dying than you would think based on the number of COVID deaths.

00:20:34.000 And I've got to add one more thing.

00:20:35.000 I know this gets complicated, but it's worth thinking about.

00:20:39.000 We also know that a significant number of people are dying from lockdown.

00:20:43.000 And the number one way you can look at that is overdose.

00:20:48.000 Overdose deaths in this country have been terrible for years.

00:20:51.000 This year it looks like they're off the charts.

00:20:54.000 So if 20 or 30,000 people, and that's probably a reasonable estimate, 20 or 30,000 extra people are dying this year from overdose alone, That should push up the number of overall deaths.

00:21:09.000 And then if you'd add the COVID deaths, it should be even higher.

00:21:13.000 When you put these three things together, right now you're getting fewer deaths than you would expect.

00:21:18.000 Again, what I'm trying to say is, I know this math can sort of seem complicated and the stacking can seem complicated, but right now it looks like a significant number of deaths that are being classified as COVID would have occurred anyway.

00:21:31.000 And are just sort of being shifted into the COVID pile.

00:21:34.000 And that was not so true a few months ago.

00:21:36.000 So when you see 3000 people died today of COVID, Until we get the true mortality figures for this year, for November and December, we're not going to know if that's really true.

00:21:47.000 I understand that people want to be cautious, right?

00:21:50.000 And that's one of the reasons why they've classified things the way they have.

00:21:54.000 But is there a financial incentive for hospitals to classify deaths as COVID? I have a friend, people love to make fun of me because I say these things, like I have a friend and this is what happened,

00:22:11.000 but I have a friend, his grandfather died and they never tested his grandfather, but they listed his death as COVID and he was very old and he was in a nursing home, but they never tested him for COVID. So the short answer to that is it doesn't seem, and I've done a fair bit of work on this,

00:22:26.000 it doesn't seem like there's a financial incentive to classify deaths as COVID or non-COVID. There's a financial incentive for hospitals to classify cases as COVID. Okay.

00:22:34.000 Because you get, and this is known, this is not a secret, you get a 20% bump in your reimbursements if you classify cases COVID. Now, they're not going to lie, okay?

00:22:43.000 That doesn't mean they're going to say, you know, Joe went in for, you know, whatever, surgery on his hand and he has COVID. What it means is they're going to test you for COVID. Where are they getting this bump from?

00:22:53.000 Medicare.

00:22:54.000 Yes, and the insurers typically follow Medicare.

00:22:56.000 So if you get sick and you go to a hospital...

00:22:59.000 Is it possible that an unscrupulous hospital would say you have COVID even if you do not and you're sick?

00:23:06.000 No, no.

00:23:06.000 Not possible.

00:23:07.000 What they'll do is test you for it.

00:23:08.000 Test you for it.

00:23:09.000 And even if you're totally asymptomatic, you're a COVID case, you get the bump.

00:23:13.000 Got it.

00:23:14.000 That's legal.

00:23:15.000 So that conspiracy we can eliminate?

00:23:17.000 This conspiracy that the hospitals are incentivized to say that there's COVID cases that aren't?

00:23:22.000 Correct.

00:23:23.000 But that's different from they're incentivized to say there are COVID cases that there are.

00:23:28.000 But what about COVID deaths?

00:23:29.000 So if someone dies, are they incentivized to say that that was a COVID death, even if it wasn't a COVID death?

00:23:38.000 No, but because they know you're COVID positive, if you then die in the hospital, it's going to be classified as a COVID. It has to be, right.

00:23:45.000 By our rules, yes.

00:23:47.000 And do we know, have the numbers of pneumonia, death from flu, all those things, are they different this year?

00:23:54.000 Are they lower or higher?

00:23:56.000 So again, if you look back in March and April, pneumonia deaths were higher.

00:24:00.000 And that's a good reason to think that we were actually undercounting COVID back then.

00:24:04.000 Now, it looks like, first of all, there doesn't seem to be any flu right now, which is very weird.

00:24:10.000 Either COVID has sort of pushed it aside because COVID is more effective, or we're just not testing for it.

00:24:16.000 But is it also possible that wearing the masks and this practice of socially distancing and that people being paranoid and washing their hands and all that stuff has reduced the number of flu cases?

00:24:27.000 Maybe marginally.

00:24:28.000 Maybe marginally.

00:24:29.000 Social distancing probably more than masks.

00:24:32.000 Yeah.

00:24:33.000 I don't have book three.

00:24:35.000 I'm such a genius.

00:24:35.000 I didn't bring you the third one, which is all about masks.

00:24:38.000 How dare you?

00:24:39.000 But masks are probably essentially useless.

00:24:43.000 Social distancing?

00:24:44.000 Yes. 0.83

00:24:45.000 Masks are useless.

00:24:47.000 Not N95s. 1.00

00:24:48.000 Not respirators.

00:24:49.000 I'm talking about surgical and cloth masks. 0.96

00:24:51.000 Probably useless.

00:24:52.000 Really? 0.93

00:24:52.000 Yes, really. 0.93

00:24:54.000 My friend Reggie, Reggie Watts has, have you seen Reggie's mask?

00:25:01.000 You gotta see this.

00:25:02.000 He's out of his mind.

00:25:03.000 He's wearing a space helmet.

00:25:05.000 That, you know, that might not be useless.

00:25:07.000 Reggie's a trip anyway, but what he's doing is he bought this thing and he's gonna come to visit me with this thing.

00:25:14.000 Play this. 1.00

00:25:15.000 He's the shit. 1.00

00:25:16.000 I love this dude. 1.00

00:25:17.000 But play this.

00:25:21.000 Look at it.

00:25:22.000 Just play a little bit of it.

00:25:24.000 Hi guys.

00:25:25.000 How you doing?

00:25:26.000 I'm just trying out the new helmet.

00:25:31.000 Let me know if you can hear me. 0.99

00:25:34.000 So this has an 8-hour charge, and he's gonna fly here next month to visit with a fucking helmet on. 0.99

00:25:44.000 Does he have an immune system, Joe? 0.99

00:25:46.000 Oh, he does! 1.00

00:25:46.000 He's healthy as fuck! 1.00

00:25:48.000 Listen, Reggie would wear that just because it's cool. 0.99

00:25:51.000 Is it cool?

00:25:53.000 He's a trip.

00:25:54.000 Reggie's a trip.

00:25:55.000 He's very technologically interested.

00:26:00.000 So he's very curious.

00:26:02.000 So this is the thing.

00:26:04.000 Air.

00:26:04.000 HEPA filters.

00:26:05.000 Eight hour usage.

00:26:06.000 Fan ventilation.

00:26:07.000 Can you go back to that other list of the stuff that it does?

00:26:11.000 Neck seal.

00:26:12.000 Which I need.

00:26:13.000 Everyone needs a neck seal.

00:26:15.000 Impermeable fabric.

00:26:16.000 I also need that.

00:26:17.000 And then full expression.

00:26:19.000 I don't know what that means. 0.99

00:26:20.000 That sounds like it makes you cum. 0.99

00:26:22.000 Ah! 0.98

00:26:23.000 This is the thing.

00:26:25.000 Microclimate.

00:26:26.000 I mean, look at that dude. 1.00

00:26:27.000 He's got his fucking glasses on. 1.00

00:26:28.000 He's from the future. 1.00

00:26:29.000 This motherfucker's in a Tom Cruise movie. 1.00

00:26:32.000 It's the Traveler's Air Mask. 0.99

00:26:34.000 I'm going to get one for my mom and she'll visit me now.

00:26:37.000 This is terrible.

00:26:37.000 My mom is so scared.

00:26:39.000 This is a terrible thing we're doing.

00:26:40.000 No joke.

00:26:41.000 Full face and fog-free acrylic.

00:26:43.000 But this will keep you from getting sick.

00:26:45.000 Yeah, great. 1.00

00:26:46.000 I'll fucking visit anybody with that bitch on. 1.00

00:26:47.000 You can cough in my face. 1.00

00:26:49.000 Yeah.

00:26:49.000 Great.

00:26:50.000 Are you scared?

00:26:51.000 Wearing that?

00:26:52.000 Yes, I'm scared that people would wear this.

00:26:54.000 I'm buying it right now.

00:26:55.000 You probably sold about a million of these right now.

00:26:58.000 Good, good.

00:26:59.000 As long as more people go visit people, I would like to visit people, man.

00:27:02.000 This is not visiting people wearing that thing.

00:27:05.000 Listen, what's happening to that lady's face? 1.00

00:27:08.000 That's not good.

00:27:09.000 This looks like infrared protection.

00:27:12.000 What is going on with her face?

00:27:13.000 Seems like she was just in a dust factory.

00:27:15.000 So that does nothing.

00:27:17.000 That does nothing?

00:27:17.000 Nothing.

00:27:18.000 Really?

00:27:18.000 Yeah, nothing.

00:27:19.000 How does it do nothing?

00:27:20.000 Because the virus...

00:27:22.000 Okay.

00:27:23.000 You may have seen this meme of the mosquito and the chain link fence.

00:27:27.000 Like, I built a chain link fence to keep out the mosquitoes?

00:27:30.000 No.

00:27:30.000 Okay, well that's...

00:27:31.000 The idea is that the viral particle is so much smaller than the effective ability of a standard cloth or surgical mask.

00:27:37.000 This is so rude.

00:27:38.000 But doesn't it...

00:27:39.000 This is crazy.

00:27:40.000 Don't...

00:27:40.000 Yeah, we get it.

00:27:41.000 You don't fucking cake these people up with powder. 0.99

00:27:44.000 The people that are just listening, they're throwing this colored powder on these folks' faces. 0.99

00:27:49.000 I don't know why they're doing that.

00:27:51.000 Because they want to sell some masks.

00:27:52.000 They sold me one.

00:27:53.000 I'm buying one right now.

00:27:54.000 Look!

00:27:55.000 See?

00:27:57.000 They're correct, okay?

00:27:58.000 The mask doesn't prevent you.

00:28:01.000 Okay, but look, her mouth has less. 1.00

00:28:03.000 Doesn't it reduce the amount of viral load that you get?

00:28:05.000 I love that word, viral load.

00:28:07.000 Well, just as it only takes one sperm to get you pregnant, it doesn't take a full, like, my coughing in your mouth to get you... 1.00

00:28:17.000 Okay, but let me play a devil's advocate then.

00:28:19.000 If a little bit is in the air, and then that mask stops some of it, couldn't it possibly stop you from spreading?

00:28:26.000 Possibly.

00:28:27.000 Well, that seems like that would be a reasonable thing to do.

00:28:30.000 No.

00:28:30.000 Okay.

00:28:30.000 No.

00:28:31.000 No.

00:28:32.000 Masks are not cost-free.

00:28:33.000 Okay?

00:28:33.000 They're not societally cost-free.

00:28:35.000 They're not actually cost-free.

00:28:36.000 But why are we talking about costs?

00:28:38.000 Let's break...

00:28:39.000 We can get to costs, but let's talk about effectiveness first.

00:28:42.000 Okay.

00:28:42.000 So, okay.

00:28:43.000 Here's the fact.

00:28:44.000 Okay.

00:28:46.000 People talk about a droplet.

00:28:47.000 When you hear the word droplet, you know, you're not a scientist.

00:28:50.000 You think, oh, that's like a spit globule or something, right?

00:28:53.000 No.

00:28:53.000 All of this stuff is happening at sizes that are far, far too small for people to see, okay?

00:28:59.000 The virus itself is about 60 nanometers, okay?

00:29:04.000 A nanometer is one one billionth of a meter, okay?

00:29:07.000 Too small for you to even imagine seeing, okay?

00:29:12.000 Most of the virus, when you exhale, it looks like, is in droplets that are smaller than 5 microns.

00:29:18.000 A micron is one millionth of a meter.

00:29:20.000 5 microns is one five thousandth of an inch.

00:29:23.000 If you're wearing a bandana, or you're wearing a cloth mask, or you're wearing a standard surgical mask, Even if it's fitted right and people don't wear them right, okay, they wear them off their noses, they wear them around, it's not stopping enough of the virus to matter.

00:29:36.000 If you're wearing an N95, okay, if you're actually a doctor or you care enough to put on an N95 and wear it even though it's uncomfortable and it's fitted properly, you might actually have a chance to stop some of the virus on both the way out and the way in.

00:29:50.000 If you're wearing one of these regular masks, it does nothing for you to protect you.

00:29:54.000 And the best you can say about this idea of my mask protects you is that there is marginal evidence, marginal evidence, that maybe it reduces some of the viral load on the way out.

00:30:08.000 No proof that that makes a difference.

00:30:10.000 But that seems that...

00:30:12.000 It seems like that would make a difference.

00:30:14.000 If you can reduce the viral load on the way out, you would reduce the amount of people that you infect.

00:30:20.000 Or you would reduce the amount of viral load that the people that you infect take in.

00:30:25.000 And that does seem to have a significant impact on whether or not you get sick, right?

00:30:29.000 Like people that work in ICU wards or they're around people that have COVID. They're wearing M95s.

00:30:34.000 But if they don't, they're taking in more viral load, right?

00:30:37.000 Rather than someone who just comes in close proximity to someone who has COVID. Well, you might get the tiniest amount of it, and your immune system can fight it off.

00:30:45.000 Doesn't it impact you, how much you take in?

00:30:48.000 What you're saying seems plausible, but it's theoretical.

00:30:52.000 There's no real evidence that you're reducing viral load enough to matter.

00:30:57.000 And here's the real-world proof of this, okay?

00:30:59.000 Look at California right now.

00:31:00.000 They are masked up.

00:31:02.000 They are locked down.

00:31:03.000 They are socially distanced.

00:31:04.000 They are having 50,000 cases a day.

00:31:07.000 Okay?

00:31:08.000 In the real world, whether or not you wear masks seems to make no difference to the spread of this virus.

00:31:14.000 But don't you think that one of the things that's happening with California is that people are living in close proximity to each other and they're forced to go to work.

00:31:23.000 Like, a lot of the people that are getting it are in poor neighborhoods.

00:31:26.000 A lot of them live with multiple family members in the household and they're all on top of each other.

00:31:33.000 And The fact that they're stuck inside would actually kind of accentuate the spread of this disease.

00:31:40.000 But they're catching it because they have to go to work.

00:31:43.000 Is that accurate?

00:31:45.000 It's not clear.

00:31:46.000 So the first part of what you said is accurate.

00:31:48.000 The virus definitely spreads inside very aggressively.

00:31:52.000 And the two places where it spreads the most are in sort of these congregate settings like hospitals and nursing homes.

00:32:01.000 And then when people are stuck indoors with each other for a long time.

00:32:04.000 Bars seem to have had an impact because of drunk talk. 0.99

00:32:07.000 I would imagine drunk talk.

00:32:09.000 When you actually try to find community spread out of bars, it's hard to find in the real world.

00:32:14.000 Call Tony Hinchcliffe.

00:32:15.000 That's how he got it.

00:32:16.000 That's how he thinks he got it. 1.00

00:32:18.000 That motherfucker got it from bars. 1.00

00:32:19.000 He's in a bar every night. 1.00

00:32:21.000 He goes to bars every night and he got it.

00:32:23.000 That's anecdotal, Joe.

00:32:25.000 It's anecdotal.

00:32:26.000 I understand.

00:32:26.000 By the way, can I say something?

00:32:28.000 Please do.

00:32:28.000 Back in April...

00:32:30.000 I was screaming, and you can go find on my Twitter feed, don't tell fucking... 0.99

00:32:35.000 I shouldn't curse. 0.99

00:32:36.000 Don't tell people...

00:32:36.000 You can curse on the internet.

00:32:37.000 I know, but you don't care, but I want to be taken seriously.

00:32:40.000 I don't want to curse.

00:32:41.000 You don't think that cursing...

00:32:46.000 Don't tell people to stay inside.

00:32:48.000 Tell them to be outside.

00:32:50.000 This thing spreads inside.

00:32:51.000 It spreads open.

00:32:53.000 You know the number one thing you could do to stop this?

00:32:55.000 Open the windows.

00:32:57.000 Okay?

00:32:57.000 Open the windows and let fresh air in.

00:33:00.000 It doesn't spread outside at all, basically.

00:33:03.000 When the Chinese, months ago, looked at transmission, all the cases they could find, I think they found two cases where there was outdoor spread.

00:33:12.000 But I was reading something that was talking about the impact of the protests and that there was an uptick in the virus from the protests.

00:33:21.000 Maybe, maybe not.

00:33:21.000 It's really hard to see.

00:33:23.000 Just like Sturgis, it's really hard to see.

00:33:25.000 You are correct.

00:33:26.000 When people have to move inside, whether it's the upper Midwest in October or Arizona in July, you see rapid spread.

00:33:37.000 Okay.

00:33:38.000 Okay.

00:33:39.000 That doesn't prove anything either way about masks.

00:33:42.000 What it tells you is the virus is airborne and can ride around, especially in enclosed ventilated systems.

00:33:49.000 Well, if we look at Asian countries, and they have been wearing masks for a long time out of respect, right? 1.00

00:33:55.000 The idea is that if you feel sick or there's something wrong, you wear a mask and it keeps you from getting other people sick.

00:34:01.000 Is that not accurate?

00:34:03.000 Why are they doing that?

00:34:04.000 So that's a really good question.

00:34:05.000 Asian countries have had a better experience with the coronavirus, much better.

00:34:09.000 We don't know exactly why.

00:34:10.000 Masks are one theory.

00:34:12.000 But when you look at flu in Asian countries, you know, they have bad flu outbreaks on an almost annual basis, even though they wear masks.

00:34:19.000 Here's what I'll say about the mask.

00:34:20.000 If the idea of the mask is it's a signal, I'm feeling ill, stay away from me, That makes sense, okay?

00:34:27.000 That's like, hey, one person in this room is wearing a mask.

00:34:30.000 He doesn't feel well.

00:34:32.000 Let's give him some space.

00:34:33.000 When you make everybody in the room wear the mask, the signaling is useless.

00:34:37.000 The mask does have an impact on whether or not I pay attention to you on Twitter. 0.99

00:34:41.000 If you have a mask in your profile picture, generally, I stay away from you because I think, oof, this poor bastard. 0.97

00:34:47.000 What if you're wearing your mask around the chin like I am? 0.97

00:34:50.000 On your profile picture?

00:34:51.000 Is that what you do?

00:34:52.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:34:52.000 Well, then you're an asshole. 1.00

00:34:53.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:34:55.000 You joined the consensus, Joe!

00:34:57.000 You're almost better off not wearing a mask.

00:34:59.000 Is there any evidence?

00:35:00.000 Are there papers that have been published that show the efficacy of masks?

00:35:05.000 Yes, there are.

00:35:07.000 And you dispute them?

00:35:08.000 Well, I think, okay, define...

00:35:11.000 I'm not going to say define paper.

00:35:13.000 Here's the best evidence.

00:35:14.000 Okay.

00:35:15.000 The best evidence is you give a bunch of people a mask, and you tell a bunch of people, don't wear a mask, and you see who gets sick.

00:35:22.000 That study was done.

00:35:23.000 That doesn't necessarily mean they're all being in contact with the same human beings or experiencing the same amount of cases.

00:35:28.000 That's correct.

00:35:29.000 That's correct.

00:35:30.000 Yeah.

00:35:30.000 Nonetheless, that study was done.

00:35:32.000 It showed masks did not protect the wear.

00:35:34.000 The kind of study you're talking about, where you would do a cluster trial where you'd give sort of two cities and have one of them wear masks everybody and one of them not wear masks, has never been done, is basically impossible.

00:35:46.000 Also, just because there's two cities, Austin has way less cases than another city.

00:35:54.000 Ideally, you'd try to find two cities that were basically at the same place on the curve, and you'd say, hey, City A, Des Moines versus Omaha, or whatever.

00:36:03.000 And you could surmise from the results.

00:36:05.000 Right.

00:36:05.000 But that's impossible, okay?

00:36:07.000 First of all, you'd have to make everybody in the one city wear a mess and make everybody in the other city not wear a mess, and that would be unethical.

00:36:14.000 People have to agree to do this.

00:36:15.000 And second of all, it's just impractical.

00:36:18.000 So what we're left with, what the pro-mask people are left with when they talk about papers is there's really three kinds of papers.

00:36:25.000 One is the kind that talk about the theory that you've had, which is, yay, it looks like this might reduce the viral load.

00:36:33.000 Wouldn't that be a good thing?

00:36:34.000 Okay, that's one kind.

00:36:35.000 The second kind is what are essentially lab trials where you put a mask on a mannequin or you put it on a human volunteer and you see how many particles come in and out.

00:36:46.000 The third kind is we're going to look at how things changed after a mask mandate was imposed.

00:36:53.000 And so there are papers in all of those categories that show that masks seem to work.

00:37:01.000 But they're not very good science.

00:37:04.000 The good science would be the kind that I'm telling you about, and we've never done that.

00:37:08.000 And the only time we've done it with trying to see if masks protect the wearer, in general, those papers, including the most recent one, this big Danish mask study, show that masks don't protect the wearer.

00:37:19.000 And I'd say that most serious people don't disagree with that.

00:37:23.000 The only argument is, does my mask protect you?

00:37:27.000 And what I'm telling you is, yes, you can build a case for that.

00:37:30.000 And it can even sound kinda plausible, but when you look at the evidence, it's not really there.

00:37:38.000 But we do agree that the larger the viral load you take in, the more likely you are to catch the disease.

00:37:46.000 We don't agree about that.

00:37:47.000 That has not been proven.

00:37:50.000 Does it impact the level of the disease?

00:37:54.000 It might, but let's say my immune system is terrible.

00:37:57.000 Maybe I only need one virion to become sick.

00:38:02.000 If your immune system is good, you can fight off a thousand.

00:38:05.000 Right, but what if your immune system is terrible and someone doesn't have a mask on and you take in more, would you not get sicker?

00:38:16.000 So we are at sort of a level of immunology and virology that is kind of at the limit of my understanding.

00:38:22.000 So I don't want to make a definitive statement about that.

00:38:26.000 But from what I've read, it is not...

00:38:29.000 You'd think that that was the case, right?

00:38:31.000 Yes.

00:38:31.000 But it's not clear.

00:38:32.000 And let me give you a different...

00:38:33.000 But if it's not clear, wouldn't it be prudent to use it as a prophylactic?

00:38:39.000 If there's no cost to it.

00:38:41.000 So what is the cost?

00:38:43.000 Well, the costs are both societal in that they tell everybody that this is something to be really scared of.

00:38:48.000 And if you're developmentally disabled, masks can actually be frightening to you.

00:38:53.000 If you're a small child, masks can be frightening to you. 0.73

00:38:56.000 There's a physical cost to having all these masks on the ground, and they're gross, and they're trash, and they have people spit on them.

00:39:04.000 Somebody has to clean those up.

00:39:05.000 I mean it!

00:39:06.000 Nothing is cost-free in the world.

00:39:08.000 That's part of the problem with this.

00:39:10.000 Right, but if it saves lives, this is the idea.

00:39:12.000 If it saves lives!

00:39:13.000 There's no evidence it saves lives.

00:39:15.000 Have you debated anyone on this that is pro-mask?

00:39:18.000 I mean, I talk to people on Twitter about it all the time.

00:39:21.000 That is not a good debate.

00:39:22.000 I agree.

00:39:23.000 That's not a good forum for human contact.

00:39:26.000 We agree about that.

00:39:27.000 But you're asking me what the cost is.

00:39:28.000 I'm telling you there's a real cost to it.

00:39:30.000 By the way, masks...

00:39:33.000 I kind of hate having to talk about masks because masks are the thing that make me sound sort of the most like conspiracy and kind of out there because I know most people support mask wearing.

00:39:42.000 I'd rather talk about things like school closing and lockdowns.

00:39:45.000 We could definitely talk about that, but I'm talking about masks because it's such a polarizing aspect of this pandemic.

00:39:52.000 And the reason I feel I have to talk about it is because the people who are pro-mask are relying on pseudoscience.

00:39:59.000 And pseudoscience has driven so much of our response to this pandemic, and so I feel I have to push back on this.

00:40:05.000 Okay, well, whether they're relying on pseudoscience or not, there's a bunch of things that they're signaling.

00:40:11.000 One, they're signaling that they're compliant and that they're polite.

00:40:15.000 So they're being polite to the people around them.

00:40:17.000 They don't want other people to panic because people are panicking if you don't have a mask on.

00:40:21.000 Unfortunately, that's just how it is now.

00:40:23.000 It's weird that a year ago that was not an issue at all, ever.

00:40:27.000 And now it's a giant issue one year later.

00:40:29.000 There's never been a thing like that in our society where you're having almost universal compliance amongst everybody in the entire country.

00:40:37.000 And this is...

00:40:39.000 This is something that people will argue to death over.

00:40:41.000 They'll scream at you if you don't have a mask on. 1.00

00:40:43.000 That alone, it seems like it's just easier to not be an asshole and wear a mask. 1.00

00:40:49.000 That's the public pressure. 0.99

00:40:50.000 Just like there's going to be immense public pressure to take the vaccine.

00:40:53.000 Yes.

00:40:53.000 Are you going to take the vaccine?

00:40:54.000 I'm not taking the NRA ones.

00:40:56.000 Why is that?

00:40:57.000 Because they didn't exist 10 months ago because this virus is not particularly dangerous to me or you or my kids or my wife.

00:41:06.000 And I'd rather just get it and be done with it than take a vaccine that's shown to have 17% serious side effects after the second dose in people who take it.

00:41:18.000 17%.

00:41:18.000 Yes, one in six people has a fever of 102 or higher, or chills, like severe chills.

00:41:26.000 So this is called a grade three or grade four adverse event.

00:41:30.000 Grade three means that you basically aren't able to function for some period of time, like you're not able to eat or go to the bathroom.

00:41:38.000 Grade four means usually that you're hospitalized.

00:41:40.000 Grade five means you die.

00:41:42.000 That's the five stages.

00:41:43.000 Grade one is mild, grade two is moderate.

00:41:45.000 When I say 17% of people have had serious events after taking the vaccine, I'm defining it the way the clinical trialists define it.

00:41:52.000 So you're defining it by grade 3 or 4?

00:41:54.000 Yes.

00:41:55.000 Mostly grade 3, not 4. But some have been hospitalized.

00:41:58.000 Yes.

00:41:59.000 One in 1,000 people who got the Moderna vaccine after the second dose had a fever of 104 degrees or higher.

00:42:05.000 And most of those people were taking Tylenol or Advil or other stuff to bring down the fever.

00:42:10.000 Let me tell you, if you call your doctor and tell him you have 104, he's going to tell you if it doesn't go down pretty soon, you should go to the ER. So one in how many again?

00:42:17.000 One in 1,000.

00:42:18.000 One in 1,000.

00:42:19.000 So that's a grade four.

00:42:21.000 Grade three was much, much higher.

00:42:24.000 What is the numbers for grade three?

00:42:26.000 So for fever, I want to say it was about 1.6%.

00:42:32.000 Okay, so somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.6 for 100%.

00:42:39.000 Right, correct.

00:42:41.000 One in 60 people.

00:42:41.000 But then you look at these other adverse conditions, again, chills, nausea, vomiting.

00:42:47.000 And how long do these usually last?

00:42:49.000 You know, mostly one to three days.

00:42:51.000 And then on the other end of it, you have an immunity to the disease.

00:42:56.000 Yes.

00:42:57.000 Right.

00:42:58.000 Which may or may not be as lasting as natural immunity.

00:43:01.000 We don't know.

00:43:02.000 Trials haven't been going on that long.

00:43:04.000 Right.

00:43:05.000 There's some evidence that for the Moderna vaccine specifically, so everybody develops antibodies, but T-cell immunity is more lasting, and it's not clear that the Moderna vaccine produces complete T-cell immunity.

00:43:17.000 So T-cell immunity is produced by people that have had the disease and beat it, like young Jamie.

00:43:22.000 Right.

00:43:22.000 Yes.

00:43:23.000 Yes.

00:43:23.000 Then you have, then your T cells are, you know, if this thing comes back in your body, they're going to recognize it and they're going to ramp up your immune response.

00:43:32.000 By the way, sorry.

00:43:33.000 Go ahead.

00:43:33.000 Please don't.

00:43:34.000 Go ahead.

00:43:35.000 So people, look, I'm not an anti-vaxxer.

00:43:37.000 I was vaccinated.

00:43:38.000 My kids have all had the normal vaccine schedule.

00:43:40.000 This is different to me for a couple of reasons, okay?

00:43:44.000 This technology is very new.

00:43:46.000 These have not been in humans before, okay?

00:43:48.000 This is not, you know, this is not something that we've been working on for 50 years.

00:43:53.000 And the virus itself, unfortunately, what it looks like is, you know, the virus itself is quite dangerous to people, again, in their 80s, their 70s, you know, 75 and over, you could say is the breakpoint.

00:44:06.000 The adverse responses go the other way.

00:44:09.000 It looks like the younger you are, the more serious they are.

00:44:12.000 So what I tell my mom, if she says to me, you know what, I think I should get this.

00:44:15.000 You know what, mom?

00:44:16.000 You're 76. Your lung function is not great.

00:44:19.000 Go ahead.

00:44:20.000 So the younger people who get the vaccine are having more adverse side effects?

00:44:23.000 Yes, that's correct.

00:44:24.000 That's quite clear.

00:44:25.000 Is this because of a cascade immune system?

00:44:30.000 Their immune systems are more robust, likely is the reason.

00:44:33.000 But it's not clear yet.

00:44:36.000 There's a reason, Joe, that drugs usually take 5, 8, 10, sometimes 15 years to go from idea to human.

00:44:44.000 We did this in 10 months.

00:44:46.000 There's a lot we don't understand about this.

00:44:49.000 So, my mother, go ahead, get the vaccine. 1.00

00:44:52.000 Certainly if you're 80 and you're in a nursing home, get the vaccine, okay? 0.99

00:44:56.000 It can't be worse than dying from COVID. But, me...

00:45:02.000 How old are you?

00:45:03.000 I'm 47. And, you know, I'm in reasonable shape.

00:45:05.000 I'm not in great shape, but I'm in reasonable shape.

00:45:07.000 I'll take my chances.

00:45:09.000 I'd rather wait for, you know, a vaccine that isn't based on this mRNA technology.

00:45:14.000 And my kids, now my kids are under 18, so right now they're not eligible for this.

00:45:19.000 But there's no way on earth they're getting this vaccine.

00:45:23.000 Do you worry that there will be a forced compliance?

00:45:28.000 I worry that there will be quasi-mandates.

00:45:30.000 You can already see this happening, where essentially, you know what?

00:45:33.000 You don't have to get vaccinated, but if you ever want to go to a concert again, you have to get vaccinated.

00:45:37.000 If you ever want to get on an airplane again, you have to get vaccinated, but you don't actually have to get vaccinated.

00:45:43.000 I don't think that's right.

00:45:44.000 I think this should be a personal decision for people.

00:45:47.000 Do you think that it's possible that a treatment could exist?

00:45:52.000 Like if you have certain things, you get penicillin.

00:45:55.000 If you have something else, you take some proven, clear treatment where we no longer have to think this way.

00:46:03.000 I doubt that's going to happen.

00:46:05.000 That doesn't exist for the flu.

00:46:06.000 You know, you have these sort of antiretrovirals, but they don't work that well.

00:46:10.000 That is a thing where there's never been a cure for the common cold.

00:46:13.000 That's right.

00:46:14.000 And the common cold is a coronavirus, correct?

00:46:17.000 Yes, it is.

00:46:18.000 So bacteria, I mean, there are other kinds of viruses that can also cause the common cold.

00:46:23.000 Rhinoviruses, adenoviruses, but the coronaviruses cause the common cold too.

00:46:27.000 What you're talking about with penicillin is those are bacteria.

00:46:30.000 So those are generally more susceptible to treatment.

00:46:35.000 These viruses were just not that good at treating.

00:46:37.000 Oh, I wanted to say one last thing about the particles, and you mentioned how many particles, possibly it's more particles, is more likely to get you sick.

00:46:47.000 The size of the particles might also matter.

00:46:49.000 So with anthrax, famously, If an anthrax spore gets into your lungs, it's terrible.

00:46:57.000 I mean, you have about an 80% lethality rate of anthrax getting into your lungs.

00:47:01.000 If it gets into just your nose, it doesn't do that.

00:47:04.000 It has to get all the way down.

00:47:06.000 So it is possible, and I'm not saying this is true, it is possible that by filtering out larger particles, as masks do, what you're left with is more dangerous particles that are more likely to get into your lungs.

00:47:17.000 So again, I'm not saying that's true.

00:47:19.000 Wouldn't you get those same particles if you had no mask?

00:47:22.000 No.

00:47:22.000 That's actually a good point.

00:47:24.000 But the mix might be more both upper and lower respiratory.

00:47:28.000 But again, I'm not saying that's something we have to be afraid of.

00:47:32.000 What I'm saying is when you're talking about plausible theories like your plausible theory, you don't know.

00:47:37.000 You need experimental data.

00:47:38.000 And the experimental data is not very strong for mask use.

00:47:41.000 Just to go back to that.

00:47:42.000 My...

00:47:44.000 The rationale for the way that masks work or don't work is the most crude.

00:47:50.000 It's farts. 1.00

00:47:51.000 They go right through your underwear, right through your pants, and they'll go right through your fucking mask. 1.00

00:47:57.000 So, like, are we saying that COVID is not as dense as farts? 1.00

00:48:02.000 Well, I mean, methane is smaller than the COVID. Is it?

00:48:06.000 Yeah, methane is very CH3. It's CH4, I guess.

00:48:10.000 No, it's small.

00:48:11.000 Okay.

00:48:12.000 So maybe Reggie has a point with that if he's going to fly.

00:48:16.000 If he's going to fart, too.

00:48:17.000 The worst things that happens on a plane is people farting in that tube.

00:48:22.000 When I was flying down last night, yesterday somebody was farting up a storm.

00:48:25.000 That's how it goes. 1.00

00:48:26.000 People are fucking nasty. 1.00

00:48:28.000 They eat bad food or they just don't care that people are around them. 1.00

00:48:33.000 What do you think has been the best argument for masks?

00:48:38.000 You said you've been debating people or going back and forth with people on Twitter.

00:48:42.000 What's been the best argument for masks?

00:48:44.000 Has anybody made a rational... 0.99

00:48:45.000 Yeah, I mean, not to, you know, back to the fart thing, not to kiss your ass, but it's the one that you make. 0.96

00:48:50.000 It's that this could lower the viral load and possibly lead to some, maybe some people who would have been infected don't get infected. 0.99

00:48:58.000 Maybe some people who would have been seriously infected don't get as seriously infected.

00:49:01.000 I don't think the logic is particularly strong, but I think that's a case you can make.

00:49:05.000 The idea that my mask protects me, you just can't make a case for it.

00:49:10.000 But it would protect you if we're talking about a distribution of the viral load, then it's got to be protecting you in the same fashion that it's protecting other people from you.

00:49:22.000 Well, no.

00:49:22.000 If it's reducing the amount of viral load, it's got to be reducing it intake as well as outtake, no?

00:49:27.000 No, because what's airborne, right, what's around after a few minutes is all tiny.

00:49:32.000 So maybe it protects, it catches these droplets on the way out, but once they, it's very clear, they evaporate almost immediately.

00:49:40.000 And you can find, they've done really interesting, I mean, there's been so much fascinating science around this.

00:49:45.000 They've plucked essentially floating virus out of the air in hospital rooms.

00:49:49.000 It is airborne, there's no question about that.

00:49:51.000 Now, who are the people that you've been going back and forth with?

00:49:58.000 You don't have to name them on Twitter, but have these been doctors, virologists?

00:50:02.000 Have these been biologists?

00:50:05.000 All of the above.

00:50:07.000 And what has their take been? 1.00

00:50:10.000 That I'm an asshole. 1.00

00:50:11.000 You're an asshole. 1.00

00:50:12.000 That doesn't care if people get sick and die and doesn't understand the science and lies. 1.00

00:50:18.000 One of them called me a liar a bunch and then I said I might sue her, which anything's possible.

00:50:23.000 And she sort of stopped calling me a liar.

00:50:26.000 She also later admitted basically that masks don't work to protect the wearer, which was really interesting after she'd been criticizing me.

00:50:33.000 But yes, they don't like me.

00:50:35.000 They say I'm cavalier about this, that I'm cruel to older people.

00:50:40.000 And that I'm selfish.

00:50:45.000 There's a virtue signaling thing going on as well that is unfortunately just a general part of communication through social media today.

00:50:53.000 That if you're not in compliance, if you're a rebel, if you go outside the lines and you say something, hey, I don't think this is the right way to do it, people get very angry.

00:51:02.000 People were very angry at people saying that maybe these lockdowns were a bad idea eight months ago.

00:51:09.000 Yes.

00:51:09.000 That now it's the general consensus that the lockdowns are terrible.

00:51:14.000 The only people that seem to like the lockdowns are people that are independently wealthy or really crazy progressive people that think the government should pay for everything and that we should siphon off the money from the wealthy people to pay people's mortgages and rents.

00:51:29.000 And there's a lot of that discussion, which is...

00:51:34.000 There's some logic to it.

00:51:36.000 Like, why should corporations be getting bailed out?

00:51:39.000 And why shouldn't people that need their rent and their mortgage pay get bailed out?

00:51:44.000 Like, this doesn't make any sense. 0.98

00:51:45.000 And if you look at the bill that was passed, I mean, I went over it last night, and it's There's a lot of weird shit in there. 0.97

00:51:51.000 Why are we giving all this aid to foreign countries in this bill? 0.94

00:51:54.000 Why is there a part of this aid bill that makes it a felony to illegally stream? 1.00

00:52:02.000 They sneak things into these fucking bills. 1.00

00:52:06.000 These people are monsters. 1.00

00:52:08.000 They really are. 0.99

00:52:08.000 This should have been a real clear-cut thing. 0.99

00:52:10.000 Aid to people that have lost all their income because of this and they need a stimulus.

00:52:14.000 The fact that they added in a felony provision for people who stream movies and profit from them. 0.98

00:52:23.000 Like, what the fuck is going on? 0.96

00:52:25.000 Like, how is... 0.99

00:52:25.000 You're not going to hear me disagree. 0.99

00:52:27.000 Look...

00:52:28.000 Why is Pakistan getting money?

00:52:30.000 Why is Israel getting... 0.83

00:52:31.000 Did you see it, Jamie?

00:52:32.000 It's bizarre.

00:52:34.000 I don't understand the logic behind it.

00:52:36.000 I don't understand how this got agreed to.

00:52:38.000 Well, what happens is the idea is this thing's going to pass anyway, so you help out your favorite lobbyist, whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, you sneak something in.

00:52:45.000 Is that what it is?

00:52:45.000 Yeah, that's clearly how it's good.

00:52:47.000 I mean...

00:52:48.000 Here's what I'll say.

00:52:49.000 This is why Tell Your Children actually matters in this debate.

00:52:54.000 I wrote this book and you can say...

00:52:57.000 That's the pot book for folks.

00:52:59.000 You can say this guy, he doesn't understand.

00:53:03.000 A lot of people just like to get high and they can handle it.

00:53:05.000 It shouldn't be criminal.

00:53:09.000 Minorities bear the burden here. 0.99

00:53:11.000 It's wrong.

00:53:11.000 Let's legalize.

00:53:12.000 Okay, totally reasonable.

00:53:14.000 And by the way, alcohol kills a whole lot of people.

00:53:16.000 It's legal.

00:53:17.000 It's advertised on TV. It's legal.

00:53:19.000 The rules should be the same.

00:53:20.000 I totally get that, okay?

00:53:23.000 If you read the book, it's about something else.

00:53:26.000 It's about this is psychiatrically harmful to a lot of people and we're not talking about it.

00:53:31.000 And by the way, there's a downstream violence that comes from that sometimes that we're not talking about either.

00:53:36.000 To me, those things, if you read the book with an open mind, are pretty factual and inarguable.

00:53:42.000 It doesn't mean, by the way, that you can't then say cannabis should still be legal.

00:53:46.000 You can read the book and agree with it and say, but you know what?

00:53:48.000 It should still be legal for those other reasons.

00:53:50.000 Fine.

00:53:51.000 That is not the way the book was treated last year.

00:53:53.000 Okay? 1.00

00:53:54.000 It was, you hate black people, you don't understand science, you're cherry picking, go to hell. 1.00

00:54:02.000 Okay? 1.00

00:54:02.000 So when I saw this happening this year with COVID, and I saw the New York Times where I used to work, and you know what? 1.00

00:54:10.000 People can yell at me for saying I used to work there, but I worked there for 10 years and I was a really good reporter there, and I'm not going to back down from my credentials because I am a good reporter.

00:54:20.000 You can say...

00:54:22.000 You can say, you know what?

00:54:24.000 Like, lockdowns are necessary, and we need to protect these old people, and you know what? 1.00

00:54:29.000 We can't let the hospitals get overrun. 0.99

00:54:31.000 But if I present evidence to you that's contrary, don't just shout at me that I'm an idiot and don't know what I'm talking about, okay? 0.99

00:54:39.000 It's not going to work. 0.97

00:54:40.000 It didn't work with Tell Your Children, and it's not going to work this time, okay?

00:54:45.000 And what I recognized was that, unfortunately, And in sort of the elite levels of the media, you know, The Times, The Washington Post, NPR, CNN, the groupthink is overwhelming.

00:54:57.000 Yes.

00:54:57.000 It's overwhelming on cannabis and it's overwhelming on all these woke progressive issues and it's gotten much, much worse since I left The Times 10 years ago.

00:55:04.000 And I don't know what's going to turn it around, okay?

00:55:07.000 And it has terrible effects.

00:55:09.000 Let me give you one example, okay?

00:55:11.000 We should all want to know where this virus came from.

00:55:13.000 I don't care whether you're a Republican or a Democrat, liberal, conservative.

00:55:17.000 I don't care what country you live in.

00:55:18.000 You should want to know if this is the result of a Chinese lab accident. 0.52

00:55:21.000 And there's some evidence of that.

00:55:23.000 We can talk about that later, okay?

00:55:24.000 And you should at least want to know that there's been a complete independent investigation into this, okay?

00:55:30.000 This thing has messed up the world in a mammoth way this year.

00:55:34.000 And at the least, we should want to know where it came from if it did come from some kind of accident.

00:55:38.000 I'm not saying the Chinese released it intentionally.

00:55:40.000 I'm saying there might be evidence that there was an accident.

00:55:43.000 Because if that happened, we better make sure it never, ever, ever happens again.

00:55:49.000 It's a very strange thing to me that people don't want to even investigate.

00:55:52.000 They don't want to look at it.

00:55:54.000 And I think they're afraid of racism or something.

00:55:57.000 There seems to be some sort of indication that there's a victim-blaming thing.

00:56:02.000 There's an aspect to it that also is anti-Trump.

00:56:05.000 That's it.

00:56:05.000 It's anti-Trump.

00:56:07.000 What happened in March was the progressive media...

00:56:10.000 First of all, they were terrified because of what was happening in New York, what seemed to be happening in New York, and they all thought they were going to die.

00:56:16.000 And then once they realized they weren't all gonna die, they realized that they could beat Donald Trump over the head with this, and he would lose the election.

00:56:22.000 And they did, and he did.

00:56:23.000 And look, I'm neither a Republican nor a Democrat.

00:56:26.000 What are you?

00:56:27.000 I'm an independent.

00:56:28.000 Basically, as I've said, my politics are that it's impossible to be too cynical.

00:56:33.000 Just like you said with the bill that they just passed.

00:56:36.000 It's impossible to be too cynical about the way these people behave.

00:56:39.000 They behave terribly.

00:56:41.000 OK, but so why is it that the New York Times won't even write stories about the fact that there's real questions about where this virus came from?

00:56:49.000 Forget the ventilators, forget the U.S. response, forget, you know, Donald Trump.

00:56:53.000 We should be asking that question.

00:56:55.000 The group think is so serious that basic questions don't get asked right now.

00:56:59.000 Well, we were criticized on the podcast because I had Brett Weinstein, who's an evolutionary biologist, who discussed all the reasons, scientific reasons, why there's evidence that indicates that this is not a virus that naturally occurred.

00:57:12.000 That's right.

00:57:13.000 And also, just by coincidence, there happens to be a Level 4 lab in Wuhan.

00:57:19.000 That's right.

00:57:19.000 What are the odds?

00:57:20.000 You would think that people would want to put those two together, but It was something from the beginning that this groupthink was established that you are not to question that.

00:57:29.000 And there was a whole article written about promoting this dangerous conspiracy theory that this came from a lab that's been disproven.

00:57:37.000 But it hasn't been disproven.

00:57:38.000 It has not been disproven at all.

00:57:39.000 No, it hasn't been disproven.

00:57:41.000 There's never been a real solid proof of where this has come from.

00:57:45.000 That's right.

00:57:45.000 Here nor there.

00:57:46.000 That's right.

00:57:47.000 And actually, you'd say the evidence is sort of going the other way.

00:57:51.000 I mean, in favor of this.

00:57:53.000 And here's why.

00:57:54.000 If this thing originally came from some animal, right?

00:57:58.000 We know that there was a virus that was 96% similar to it that they had at that lab, okay?

00:58:05.000 But we've never found the virus that's 99% similar in an animal, which is what we would expect to find, okay?

00:58:11.000 That there'd be something really close that then made the jump from whether it's a civet cat or a bat or a mink or whatever to a human.

00:58:19.000 They've never been able to find that.

00:58:20.000 Why was the connection with pangolins?

00:58:23.000 So the virus is 96% bat, it looks like. 1.00

00:58:29.000 Very, very similar.

00:58:29.000 And then...

00:58:30.000 Near the most important part of it, the part of it that binds to this receptor on your cells that enables it to get in, it's called the receptor binding domain, is pangolin.

00:58:40.000 Okay?

00:58:41.000 So it just happens that it's a perfect cut We're good to go.

00:59:08.000 Somehow, this virus just happens to be mostly bat, a little bit pangolin, and we can't find any evidence of a virus that's like that to a 99 percentile in the wild.

00:59:21.000 And believe me, don't you think the Chinese have looked in the last year? 1.00

00:59:26.000 Or wouldn't they have looked if they thought they could find something?

00:59:29.000 When SARS came, the original SARS, not SARS-CoV-2, they had found the viral host within a matter of months.

00:59:36.000 I mean, the zoonotic one, the animal viral host, in a matter of months.

00:59:41.000 And they published a paper on it.

00:59:43.000 There's been nothing like that.

00:59:44.000 Now, you can choose to believe that's because, you know what, it's just in some cave in China that they haven't found the real thing yet.

00:59:50.000 Or you can choose to question, as you said, there's this level 4 BSL lab in Wuhan where this thing happens to seemingly have emerged from.

01:00:00.000 Coincidence.

01:00:01.000 Crazy coincidence.

01:00:02.000 But we're not allowed to talk about that.

01:00:04.000 Yeah, if you talk about it, you're a Trump supporter.

01:00:07.000 Yeah, the group thing is, it's so strange with social media because the consequences of being attacked are so real.

01:00:14.000 People do get emotionally devastated by these gang attacks, and they are very bullying.

01:00:22.000 I mean, they really are bullying.

01:00:24.000 And people don't think of it as bullying because you're not physically in front of someone and you're not intimidating them and scaring them, but you know what you're doing.

01:00:31.000 Oh, yeah.

01:00:32.000 They know what they're doing.

01:00:32.000 Oh, yeah.

01:00:33.000 And when they go after you and they see other people going after you, they go, oh, it's a free shot at Alex.

01:00:37.000 Yeah, it's dogpiling.

01:00:38.000 Let's go after him.

01:00:38.000 It's ugly.

01:00:40.000 And I've learned that there was one thing in May where I really got dogpiled.

01:00:45.000 And the only thing to do is not to respond, to turn the computer off for a few hours and just let it go.

01:00:50.000 Because the one thing about the mob is when they realize they can't touch you, when they realize that they can't get you fired, that you have some independence, they will generally move on.

01:01:01.000 But if they can touch you, they will.

01:01:04.000 So I got my one last book here.

01:01:06.000 The reason that I am able to write about this stuff in the way that I've been is because after I left The Times in 2010, I wrote spy novels for a number of years.

01:01:15.000 And I was paid pretty well.

01:01:16.000 I was fortunate.

01:01:18.000 This novel, believe it or not, I wrote in 2019. It's called The Power Couple.

01:01:24.000 That is yours to keep.

01:01:25.000 Oh boy.

01:01:27.000 Did you make an audio version?

01:01:28.000 There is an audio version.

01:01:30.000 Steven Weber is the guy who did it.

01:01:32.000 Steven Weber from Wings?

01:01:33.000 I think so, yeah.

01:01:34.000 No kidding.

01:01:35.000 Really?

01:01:36.000 I met that guy.

01:01:37.000 Back in the day, we were both on NBC together.

01:01:39.000 Nice guy.

01:01:41.000 He said he liked the book, by the way.

01:01:43.000 He talked it up.

01:01:43.000 Oh, that's cool.

01:01:45.000 I'm fortunate.

01:01:47.000 I wrote these John Wells novels for a number of years, and I wrote this book, which I finished, again, fortunately, before all this happened.

01:01:56.000 As long as people are willing to buy my fiction...

01:01:58.000 I can tell the truth in my nonfiction.

01:02:01.000 I'm not owned by The Times or anybody else.

01:02:04.000 And I'm lucky.

01:02:05.000 I wake up every day thinking how lucky I am to be in that position.

01:02:08.000 That's the only reason why I can do this podcast.

01:02:11.000 The reason why I can do this podcast is I don't have a boss.

01:02:13.000 If I had a boss or...

01:02:15.000 And your audience trusts you!

01:02:17.000 Well, I appreciate that.

01:02:19.000 I'm glad they do.

01:02:22.000 I'm honest.

01:02:23.000 I do my best.

01:02:24.000 I'm wrong often.

01:02:25.000 But if I'm wrong, I'll tell you.

01:02:26.000 But I don't think any of this would be possible if I worked for some large corporation that had to give in to the mob.

01:02:35.000 You know, I just don't think...

01:02:37.000 I don't think I'd be able to have you on.

01:02:39.000 I don't think I'd be able to...

01:02:40.000 There's a lot of topics.

01:02:41.000 I mean, they came after you with the trans stuff, right? 0.94

01:02:44.000 Yeah.

01:02:44.000 Well, Abigail Schreier's book.

01:02:47.000 Yeah.

01:02:49.000 And also with the trans athletes thing.

01:02:52.000 It's just...

01:02:55.000 It's these concentrated attacks and this distortion of who you are.

01:03:01.000 I don't mind if you're upset at who I actually am, but when you distort who I am and what my positions are on things, just because you want people to attack me...

01:03:13.000 Well, then people are not going to trust you now.

01:03:15.000 And that's one of the things that's happened to the people that know me from this podcast.

01:03:19.000 They know me from 1,500-plus episodes that are more than three hours long.

01:03:24.000 Often, they know who I am.

01:03:26.000 So if you say that I'm this hateful person who just wants to attack trans people, no, I'm not.

01:03:32.000 Look, I love everybody.

01:03:33.000 Eddie Izzard's one of my favorite guests ever.

01:03:35.000 He's great.

01:03:37.000 It's a she now. 1.00

01:03:37.000 She's she now. 1.00

01:03:38.000 She's decided to...

01:03:40.000 She used to go back and forth, right? 0.97

01:03:42.000 Now she's decided that she is in girl mode all the time. 0.96

01:03:45.000 All the time.

01:03:45.000 I love that person.

01:03:47.000 Whatever they choose to be.

01:03:48.000 Girl, boy.

01:03:50.000 She's still calling herself Eddie.

01:03:51.000 It's like, great.

01:03:53.000 I remember an off-Broadway thing with, I guess I should say her, maybe 20 years ago.

01:03:58.000 It was one of the funniest things I'd ever seen.

01:04:01.000 Awesome human being and one of my favorite guests ever.

01:04:03.000 My position was about an MMA fighter that wasn't telling people that they were male for 30 years, were only female for two, and then were fighting unbeknownst females, you know, and beating the fuck up.

01:04:17.000 And I was like, this is crazy. 0.90

01:04:19.000 And the only reason why...

01:04:21.000 I jumped in.

01:04:22.000 It's because you've entered into my world now.

01:04:23.000 Now you're into the world of fighting.

01:04:25.000 Like, I'm a martial arts expert.

01:04:27.000 You can't tell me there's no difference between male and female frames.

01:04:30.000 Male and female power. 0.74

01:04:32.000 There's a lot of variables.

01:04:35.000 And you can't deny those variables just because you want to be woke.

01:04:39.000 And then people...

01:04:40.000 The response to that is disturbing, but...

01:04:44.000 Ultimately, it will do them in, because people know what it is, and the reaction to it has been less and less effective.

01:04:53.000 People realize it's more and more thought of as being hysterical and not based in reality.

01:05:02.000 But it's a dangerous time, Joe, because, you know, so Trump, look, Trump lost, there's lots to dislike about Donald Trump, and You know, who I voted for doesn't matter, but it's disturbing that in anonymous polls before the election,

01:05:19.000 basically one in ten Trump supporters wouldn't tell pollsters that they were going to vote for him, right?

01:05:25.000 I mean, the fact that they're that afraid of, you know, that people believe that the consequences of them may be so severe that they're not even allowed to talk anonymously about who they're going to vote for, that is not a healthy sign for our democracy or anything else.

01:05:40.000 Yeah, it's not a healthy sign for communication, but it's also like he's such a polarizing guy.

01:05:46.000 It's just he's the wrong guy for that.

01:05:48.000 I think he's the right guy for people to understand that It is possible for someone who's outside of the system, who understands the system, to win and become president.

01:05:58.000 He's the wrong guy to unite America. 0.97

01:06:00.000 He's so fucking polarizing. 0.99

01:06:03.000 And he's so personally difficult to like. 0.99

01:06:06.000 Yeah, exactly. 1.00

01:06:07.000 But he's the king of the assholes. 1.00

01:06:10.000 This is what I said. 1.00

01:06:11.000 I was like, the assholes have a king. 1.00

01:06:13.000 Like, they never had a king before. 1.00

01:06:14.000 Like, no politician was an open, unapologetic asshole. 1.00

01:06:19.000 He's the first one. 1.00

01:06:20.000 And they're like, yes, that's my fucking god! 0.99

01:06:23.000 And so they felt like they... 0.99

01:06:25.000 I mean, you look at some of the behavior of some of the Trump supporters.

01:06:27.000 It's empowered by him.

01:06:30.000 People do need a leader that represents...

01:06:34.000 Yes.

01:06:35.000 And that's what I think one of the best things about Obama is that he represented composure, intelligence, articulation.

01:06:44.000 And the composure's huge, man.

01:06:46.000 Because under pressure, he was never like yelling at reporters.

01:06:50.000 He was always like, well, calm down.

01:06:52.000 Let's handle this.

01:06:53.000 Let's discuss this.

01:06:54.000 It was all measured.

01:06:56.000 And it made you feel like, that guy's better than me.

01:06:58.000 Smarter than me.

01:06:59.000 He should be president. 0.99

01:07:01.000 With Trump, you're like, shut him the fuck up. 0.98

01:07:03.000 Like, why is he yelling at me? 0.99

01:07:04.000 He's lying about this.

01:07:06.000 He's lying about the number of people at his inauguration.

01:07:10.000 And this is just like what has made him, oh no, how dare you.

01:07:14.000 This made him an extremely popular television host. 1.00

01:07:19.000 This braggadocious behavior, this fact that he was like, you know, you're fired, fuck you, I'm the king. 1.00

01:07:25.000 You know, that kind of shit. 1.00

01:07:26.000 Yes, but on the flip side, he did something terrible to the media. 1.00

01:07:30.000 He drove them crazy.

01:07:31.000 Yes.

01:07:32.000 He drove them so crazy that they would essentially said, you know what?

01:07:35.000 Anything goes to get this guy out.

01:07:36.000 Yes.

01:07:37.000 And if we have to lie about it, he's lying, so F him.

01:07:40.000 We're going to lie too.

01:07:41.000 It's dangerous.

01:07:42.000 It's dangerous.

01:07:42.000 Then there could be someone who's maybe not nearly as offensive, but not the person they want into office, and they might use the same strategy and tactics because they've already been sanctioned.

01:07:53.000 Yes.

01:07:54.000 And that is what's happened with COVID. Our response to COVID is dangerous in and of itself, but it is even more dangerous as a signal of both legacy and tech censorship of ideas that don't fit the sort of Silicon Valley,

01:08:11.000 D.C., New York norm.

01:08:14.000 And that is a bad place to be.

01:08:18.000 Yeah, I agree. 0.94

01:08:20.000 And I also think there's a thing that's going on where people had locked into a mindset that they had at the beginning of the pandemic where this is going to devastate the population and kill a bunch of people, or a large percentage, I should say, of the people, 10% or whatever the fuck that get it.

01:08:35.000 And that didn't turn out to be the case.

01:08:37.000 But we're still locked into that same mindset.

01:08:39.000 Yeah.

01:08:39.000 Yeah, and it's funny.

01:08:40.000 You said a few minutes ago, you said, well, lockdowns don't work.

01:08:43.000 Everybody agreed on that.

01:08:45.000 You may think everyone agrees on that, but look at what's happening.

01:08:48.000 I think there's a lot more people that are not in support of lockdowns, particularly people that are in danger or have already lost their business.

01:08:57.000 Restaurants.

01:08:58.000 And the fact that why is it okay to go to Walgreens, but it's not okay to dine outside in California?

01:09:03.000 That's right.

01:09:04.000 Why is it okay to go to Walmart, but not to go to a church, right?

01:09:07.000 But yet it's still happening.

01:09:10.000 You know, in my state in New York, they're talking about a complete lockdown again.

01:09:14.000 It's as if we've learned nothing in the last few months.

01:09:17.000 And as you and I were sort of starting to say a few minutes ago...

01:09:23.000 There's actually evidence that lockdowns are counterproductive because they force people into their homes and most transmission happens inside, not outside.

01:09:31.000 So what do you think would be the best strategy to try to mitigate the amount of people that get sick if it's not lockdowns?

01:09:37.000 There's not...

01:09:38.000 The truth is people don't like hearing this.

01:09:41.000 There's not that much you can do once this becomes endemic.

01:09:45.000 So if you're not New Zealand, if you can't sort of close your borders and quarantine everybody for 14 days and be some island in the Pacific with 5 million people, Basically, there's a few things you have to do, right?

01:09:58.000 You have to stand up the hospitals and make sure they have adequate equipment and that if there's a regional real crisis that you get some extra nurses and doctors in there.

01:10:09.000 You need to encourage people who are sick to stay home.

01:10:13.000 I mean, that's been good advice forever.

01:10:15.000 If you're sick, stay home.

01:10:17.000 If you have to go out, wear a mask if you're sick, okay?

01:10:21.000 If you're sick, okay?

01:10:22.000 Not everybody, if you're sick.

01:10:23.000 This is the problem with people that work by the hour and don't get paid if they're sick.

01:10:27.000 That's hard for them, yes.

01:10:28.000 Gig workers, right? 1.00

01:10:29.000 So, yeah, so should we help those people?

01:10:32.000 Yeah, I think we should.

01:10:34.000 You know, the simplest thing is called respiratory etiquette.

01:10:37.000 What that means is sneeze into your nose, okay?

01:10:39.000 If you're out and you're sick, sneeze into your nose.

01:10:41.000 Sneeze into your nose?

01:10:42.000 I'm sorry, sneeze into your elbow.

01:10:43.000 Oh.

01:10:44.000 Sneeze into your nose. 0.99

01:10:44.000 It's like, how the fuck are you sneezing? 0.99

01:10:46.000 If you can do that, you're impressed. 0.99

01:10:48.000 Wash your hands. 0.95

01:10:49.000 There's not actually great evidence that hand washing does anything, but we should all be washing our hands.

01:10:53.000 It's a good idea.

01:10:55.000 And, you know...

01:10:59.000 In moments when there's a big surge, would it make sense to sort of shut down, let's say, arenas?

01:11:06.000 I mean, those are all shut down already, but I'm talking about if we had a more normal response to this.

01:11:10.000 So you say, we'll postpone a concert.

01:11:12.000 Maybe we'll close bars.

01:11:14.000 That's about it, Joe.

01:11:15.000 The problem is, that doesn't get Tony Fauci on TV every day.

01:11:20.000 That doesn't get Governor Cuomo a book deal and on TV. When you say to people, you know what, we're going to get through this...

01:11:28.000 We're going to function as a society.

01:11:31.000 Oh, and look, if there's a way to protect nursing homes, because half the people, almost half the people who are dying from this are dying in nursing homes or congregate care settings.

01:11:41.000 So those people are the people who are vulnerable.

01:11:44.000 Maybe, you know, is there a way to sort of like try to install better ventilation in those nursing homes?

01:11:49.000 Is there a way where staff should be tested every day?

01:11:52.000 And if you have a positive case in a nursing home, that person gets moved.

01:11:57.000 Yes, maybe there are things we could do.

01:11:59.000 Unfortunately, the idea of closing off nursing homes is not a great idea, and here's why.

01:12:06.000 Look, those are not great jobs.

01:12:07.000 Those are tough jobs for people.

01:12:09.000 And one of the ways that you can be sort of sure that people are actually being taken care of, the residents in the homes, and they're not being neglected, is having family members come in, right?

01:12:19.000 So the person who is demented and is shitting themselves is getting cleaned up and not getting bed sores.

01:12:28.000 Having family members keep an eye on nursing homes is unfortunately kind of necessary.

01:12:34.000 And by the way, even if that's not happening, these people with Alzheimer's or dementia, when they don't have families, they just sail off into space if people are not visiting them and talking to them and trying to keep them there.

01:12:47.000 And it's pretty clear that deaths of people with Alzheimer's and dementia are up this year, independent of COVID, again.

01:12:54.000 And that's because they're being neglected in these nursing homes. 0.99

01:12:57.000 So shutting off nursing homes from society, even though it sounds like a good idea, we've got to protect these people, isn't necessarily a great idea.

01:13:04.000 In general, the idea should have been, we're going to do the minimum to sort of make things work, and we're going to manage through this.

01:13:14.000 Once we realized it wasn't the plague, once we realized that 10% of people weren't going to die, that somewhere between 997 and 999 out of 1,000 people who get this will survive, It still means that people are going to die, and it still means, you know, it's a big country, it's a big world.

01:13:29.000 The numbers can look kind of ugly.

01:13:31.000 We should have said, the idea is going to be not to screw up society.

01:13:36.000 And by the way, here's the one thing, Joe, and I will go to my grave being furious about this.

01:13:41.000 The schools should have stayed open, and to the extent they closed, they should have reopened within weeks, okay?

01:13:47.000 That's what they did in Europe, and they continue to leave them open, even now, even when they had this second wave.

01:13:54.000 More about the children transmitting it to the parents and the grandparents.

01:13:57.000 It's almost always the other way.

01:13:58.000 Kids don't get very sick from this, and they clear it very quickly.

01:14:02.000 When you look at transmission, when they've really researched it, they find it tends to go the other way.

01:14:06.000 But the children that live in a household with multiple family members, including multiple generations...

01:14:11.000 They don't get very sick.

01:14:13.000 It goes the other way.

01:14:14.000 What do you mean?

01:14:15.000 In other words, with the flu, children are big vectors.

01:14:18.000 Children, they spread the flu around.

01:14:20.000 Right.

01:14:21.000 With COVID, it doesn't seem to happen.

01:14:23.000 It doesn't seem to happen.

01:14:24.000 Is it because the schools are shut down?

01:14:25.000 No, no.

01:14:26.000 When they've traced...

01:14:27.000 But don't you think that that's a significant factor?

01:14:29.000 No.

01:14:30.000 But hold on.

01:14:30.000 If all the schools are shut down, and you're saying that there's no factor with the children getting it in school and transmitting it to their parents or their grandparents...

01:14:40.000 How do we know if the schools are shut down?

01:14:42.000 Because they've contact traced in places where the schools are open.

01:14:45.000 And they found that they don't usually...

01:14:48.000 Again, I say usually.

01:14:49.000 You can pick on me and say it's not always.

01:14:51.000 In general, the transmission is adult to child.

01:14:55.000 Right.

01:14:55.000 The thing is, though, we're trying to stop the spread as much as possible.

01:14:59.000 So this is where the masks...

01:15:01.000 It could possibly get some people sick.

01:15:04.000 Those people get sick and spread to other people.

01:15:06.000 This is a cascade effect, right?

01:15:08.000 It's not as simple as, like, the children don't usually give it to the grandparents.

01:15:12.000 Well, they might give it to the grandparents.

01:15:14.000 The grandparents might give it to the parents.

01:15:15.000 They might give it to their friends.

01:15:16.000 They might give it to more people.

01:15:18.000 And then it spreads.

01:15:19.000 Sure.

01:15:19.000 And I might get hit by lightning when I go outside.

01:15:21.000 No, no, no, no.

01:15:22.000 It is that simple with schools.

01:15:23.000 Because it's not raining outside.

01:15:24.000 You're not going to get hit by lightning.

01:15:25.000 Okay, but the schools, closing schools, all the stuff you said might, might, might, Closing schools is real and enormous and negative.

01:15:32.000 No argument.

01:15:34.000 No, it has a massive impact on kids.

01:15:37.000 And on adults!

01:15:38.000 And on adults.

01:15:39.000 I've seen it on my own kids.

01:15:40.000 I've seen it.

01:15:41.000 And I know there's people also that are single parents that don't have someone to watch their children and they don't know what to do.

01:15:46.000 And then...

01:15:47.000 It's horrible.

01:15:48.000 There's a lot of factors here that we have to take into consideration.

01:15:51.000 I don't agree with this one.

01:15:53.000 I think there's one factor, and it's that the children are at very low risk from this.

01:15:57.000 Most teachers are at very low risk.

01:16:00.000 The average teacher in the United States is 42 years old.

01:16:02.000 42 year olds, I'm not going to say never die from this, but they're not at high risk from this.

01:16:06.000 The schools should be open.

01:16:08.000 And they should have stayed open.

01:16:10.000 And yes, there's this theory, you know, if grandma's living at home, you know, can a child get it and spread it?

01:16:20.000 I'm not going to say that's never happened, but when you look at the contact tracing that's been done, it's very, very rare.

01:16:26.000 I know of a college kid who gave it to his dad, and his dad went to the hospital.

01:16:29.000 Okay.

01:16:30.000 He got it out partying and lived with his parents.

01:16:34.000 I think he's...

01:16:35.000 20, 21, somewhere in that range, gave it to his dad, and his dad wound up in the ICU. Okay.

01:16:41.000 So it does happen.

01:16:43.000 But by the way, 20 is not...

01:16:44.000 That's different.

01:16:46.000 So college, the risk is somewhat...

01:16:49.000 I'm talking about with elementary school kids and even high school.

01:16:52.000 Right.

01:16:52.000 So first of all, again, it looks like the risk on this, if you're sort of under 15 for you, is close to zero.

01:16:58.000 Right.

01:16:58.000 Well, once it was established that the risk for the actual children themselves is extremely low, my question when they were like, we've got to protect these children, this was the talk of my kids old school.

01:17:11.000 I was like, well, what do you do when it's the flu?

01:17:13.000 That's right. 0.99

01:17:13.000 You don't do shit. 0.99

01:17:14.000 That's right. 1.00

01:17:15.000 And those kids could die of the flu.

01:17:16.000 That's right.

01:17:17.000 The flu actually kills kids.

01:17:18.000 It kills thousands of kids a year.

01:17:21.000 It kills kids. 0.97

01:17:23.000 A good flu year will kill 100,000 people, correct?

01:17:28.000 Like a bad year?

01:17:30.000 The worst year we've had recently, the initial estimate was 80,000.

01:17:34.000 They revised that down to 60. That was 2017, 2018. Well, let's say 60. You don't think that 1,000 of those are kids?

01:17:40.000 No.

01:17:40.000 I think the worst year for that, actually, and we could check this, so I shouldn't say no definitively.

01:17:47.000 Okay, we'll say hundreds.

01:17:49.000 Yes, hundreds.

01:17:49.000 In 2009, the swine flu, for some reason, was very dangerous to kids relatively, and more than 1,000 kids died.

01:17:57.000 So that's a rare one, where more than 1,000 kids died.

01:18:00.000 It says the high year is 188 reported kids.

01:18:04.000 What is the number for kids dying of COVID? There's a problem with that too, man, because they want to...

01:18:10.000 I saw this one, I think they said, otherwise healthy kid dies from COVID, and then I looked, he was 400 pounds, and he had diabetes.

01:18:22.000 It's just the table from the CDC, so it's...

01:18:24.000 Okay, get to 1 to 4, 18 kids.

01:18:28.000 So under 15, there's been fewer than 100 children.

01:18:32.000 There's about 60 million people in that age range, and fewer than 100 have died this year of COVID. And a lot of those deaths are overcounted.

01:18:38.000 It is interesting when you look, when it gets 15 to 24, it goes way up.

01:18:42.000 458. It goes up by 10. Yeah.

01:18:45.000 Tenfold.

01:18:46.000 Look at that.

01:18:46.000 That's interesting.

01:18:47.000 Yes.

01:18:47.000 No, you can see it.

01:18:48.000 5 to 14, 47. But 14 to 24, it goes up to 458. You know what that's from?

01:18:54.000 Partying and fucking. 1.00

01:18:55.000 You dirty little kids. 1.00

01:18:57.000 Stay home. 1.00

01:18:57.000 You're all drinking and not getting any sleep. 1.00

01:19:00.000 Take a look how parabolic it is.

01:19:01.000 It doubles in every one of those brackets.

01:19:04.000 More than doubles.

01:19:05.000 Yeah.

01:19:06.000 Look, it keeps going up and up and up.

01:19:08.000 Yep.

01:19:08.000 Yeah.

01:19:09.000 That is interesting.

01:19:11.000 55 to 64 goes up to 33,000.

01:19:14.000 And then 65 to 74 goes up to almost 60,000.

01:19:18.000 Right.

01:19:18.000 This is what I'm telling you.

01:19:19.000 People don't understand how skewed it is.

01:19:21.000 And 85 and over, that's 87,000.

01:19:22.000 But there aren't the same number of people in that bracket.

01:19:25.000 Right.

01:19:26.000 Right.

01:19:26.000 And those people are already on death's door.

01:19:28.000 Yes.

01:19:29.000 Respectfully.

01:19:29.000 That's just how it is.

01:19:31.000 No, look.

01:19:31.000 Here.

01:19:31.000 85 years old.

01:19:34.000 So there are 6 million of those people, and 830,000 have died this year anyway.

01:19:40.000 Being 85, you don't have that much candle left.

01:19:43.000 Right, there's not much left.

01:19:44.000 And the flu could also do you in.

01:19:49.000 It's such a polarizing subject, you're not allowed to look at it.

01:19:53.000 You're only supposed to go with whatever the orthodoxy is.

01:19:57.000 There's a dogma that you have to stick to.

01:20:00.000 It's almost religious.

01:20:02.000 It's real weird with this.

01:20:03.000 You can't question or talk about it or people start attacking you.

01:20:06.000 So if you think back to HIV, it's actually very interesting.

01:20:09.000 So HIV in the 80s, by 85, 86, I think the virologists were aware how it was spread.

01:20:15.000 It was spread through blood. 0.62

01:20:16.000 It was spread through sex, especially anal sex. 0.98

01:20:19.000 And they were aware of who was at risk. 0.97

01:20:21.000 And they kind of made a decision at first.

01:20:23.000 We're not going to tell the truth about that.

01:20:25.000 We're going to try to scare everybody.

01:20:26.000 Because if we focus on- Dude, I remember.

01:20:28.000 Remember?

01:20:29.000 Oh my God.

01:20:29.000 I remember.

01:20:30.000 I was in my car.

01:20:31.000 I lived in Revere, Massachusetts.

01:20:33.000 And I found out that Magic Johnson got AIDS. That's right.

01:20:36.000 That's what we heard.

01:20:37.000 HIV. Nobody got AIDS. But I was in my car and I was like, oh my God.

01:20:41.000 It was like a scene in a movie.

01:20:42.000 Yep.

01:20:42.000 Where the zombie apocalypse.

01:20:43.000 Yep.

01:20:44.000 We're all going to die.

01:20:45.000 The scene in 28 Days Later where they let the chimp out and he attacks the lady and she gets the rage. 0.63

01:20:48.000 Yep. 1.00

01:20:48.000 I was like, fuck, we're doomed. 1.00

01:20:50.000 We're all gonna die. 1.00

01:20:51.000 It turned out it wasn't true at all.

01:20:52.000 But here's the problem, okay?

01:20:54.000 So the people who did this did it with the intention of we don't want to marginalize gay people or, you know, IV drug users.

01:21:01.000 The problem was they didn't focus prevention On those people.

01:21:06.000 And so those people, to some extent, didn't realize how much risk they had.

01:21:11.000 And finally, what happened was gay groups especially said, like, we're at risk here.

01:21:16.000 You know, like, we know it.

01:21:17.000 We need to focus.

01:21:18.000 You need to focus the efforts on us so that we will, like, you know, actually reduce our risk.

01:21:24.000 Right.

01:21:24.000 And once they did that, once the government stopped sort of, you know, lying about who was most at risk by far, Behavior did start to change and eventually things got better.

01:21:36.000 So that's sort of happening with this in a hundredfold.

01:21:42.000 We're not being honest.

01:21:44.000 So a lot of people who are very low risk are terrified, right?

01:21:48.000 A lot of these middle-aged people and young people, young millennials, they're scared to death of this thing for no reason.

01:21:54.000 Yeah.

01:21:54.000 And our societal response has been completely screwed up.

01:21:57.000 The AIDS one is so strange because I was, I mean, I remember being convinced that we were going to lose a giant percentage of the population. 0.96

01:22:06.000 And it wasn't just going to be gay people.

01:22:07.000 It was going to be everybody.

01:22:08.000 I remember when I got my first HIV test for health insurance.

01:22:11.000 I was terrified.

01:22:13.000 Terrified.

01:22:13.000 I think I was, I may have been 22 or something like that at the time.

01:22:17.000 I don't remember how old I was.

01:22:18.000 I was like, just thinking of all the terrible decisions I've made.

01:22:21.000 Just running them through my head.

01:22:22.000 All the awesome, terrible decisions you've made. 1.00

01:22:24.000 And I'm like, fuck! 1.00

01:22:25.000 But it didn't turn out to really have a large impact on the heterosexual community. 1.00

01:22:32.000 No!

01:22:32.000 It didn't, which is weird.

01:22:34.000 It's not weird.

01:22:35.000 It's a function of the virus, okay?

01:22:37.000 I know, but it's still weird that it didn't...

01:22:40.000 Just like everything that's happened with this virus is a function of the virus.

01:22:44.000 Yes, I know, but I'm not saying that it's not logical.

01:22:47.000 It's clearly logical, right?

01:22:49.000 But I'm saying these things that you think are going to be the end of the world and aren't, we never seem to...

01:23:18.000 I don't know if he ever I'm just making that up.

01:23:20.000 Hyperbole for sure.

01:23:21.000 But he did say, I believe it was in 1983, that he thought casual household transmission was a possibility with HIV. There's a paper that he wrote.

01:23:30.000 Casual?

01:23:30.000 Yep.

01:23:31.000 We can find it.

01:23:32.000 It's not worth finding, but we can find it.

01:23:34.000 Well, he was also a guy that told you not to wear masks.

01:23:36.000 That's true.

01:23:37.000 That was weird.

01:23:37.000 That was when they were telling the truth about masks, Joe.

01:23:39.000 They stopped telling the truth about masks.

01:23:41.000 Well, he said the only reason why he did it was because he didn't want people to go out and buy masks and then healthcare workers and first responders weren't able to get them. 1.00

01:23:50.000 Bullshit. 1.00

01:23:51.000 You think it's bullshit? 1.00

01:23:52.000 Yeah, because N95s actually work, okay? 1.00

01:23:55.000 He didn't say don't wear an N95. He said surgical masks don't really work.

01:23:59.000 They had enough surgical masks.

01:24:01.000 They never ran out of surgical masks.

01:24:02.000 There was a chance of a run on N95s.

01:24:04.000 Right, but wasn't that his logic, though?

01:24:07.000 Well, then he should have said don't buy N95s.

01:24:10.000 Yeah, but if you say don't buy N95s because they work...

01:24:14.000 Everyone's going to go buy M95s.

01:24:17.000 I mean, yeah.

01:24:17.000 I think his logic holds true.

01:24:20.000 The problem is, once you say that, and then you say, hey, I was lying.

01:24:24.000 I didn't want you to buy a mask.

01:24:26.000 Well, now you've already opened the door to the fact that you might lie to us.

01:24:30.000 That's right.

01:24:31.000 That's a problem.

01:24:31.000 I agree.

01:24:32.000 Wait for the vaccine.

01:24:34.000 There's downplaying of the side effects.

01:24:36.000 It's crazy for them to do that.

01:24:37.000 They're much too widespread to hide the side effects, especially the second dose.

01:24:41.000 Mm-hmm.

01:24:42.000 I've had a lot of people...

01:24:43.000 I've had people on this podcast, even, that are just so gung-ho about the possibility of getting this vaccine.

01:24:51.000 They want to do it.

01:24:52.000 And then I brought up the side effects.

01:24:54.000 They start debating.

01:24:55.000 Like, they know for a fact that it's not true or you're not going to...

01:24:58.000 And so then I played...

01:24:59.000 I had this one going on.

01:25:00.000 I played the video of Bill Gates talking about how 80% of the people who got the second dose got really sick.

01:25:07.000 We can look it up.

01:25:08.000 You know, the Moderna trial data.

01:25:10.000 Look...

01:25:11.000 I'm not running around saying I've got a source inside the CDC or like some guy slipped me a thumb drive with secrets.

01:25:20.000 My sources are public.

01:25:22.000 And that's one of the things about the booklets, okay?

01:25:24.000 Everything I put in there that's important, you can go check the original.

01:25:28.000 The hyperlinks are on the e-books.

01:25:31.000 They're all in here.

01:25:32.000 You can check it for yourself and see if what I'm saying is correct and true to the source.

01:25:36.000 Do you think it's possible that...

01:25:39.000 If people survive the vaccine, I think there's going to be a very small amount of people that are going to hit level 4. Sure.

01:25:49.000 Would you say stage 4?

01:25:51.000 So in the case of fever, it's more than 104 degrees.

01:25:54.000 It's stuff that requires hospitalization.

01:25:55.000 Stage 4. So there's going to be a very small number of people.

01:25:59.000 Grade 4. It's grade 4. Very small number of people that hit grade 4. Yes.

01:26:03.000 Is it possible that people could die from it?

01:26:06.000 Yes.

01:26:07.000 Yeah.

01:26:08.000 I mean, there's a certain number of people who get 104 degree fever who are going to die.

01:26:11.000 I mean, I don't know what the percentage is.

01:26:13.000 I'm sure we could, you know, look in the journal of fevers.

01:26:15.000 But would you agree that it's probably lower than the number of people that are going to die from COVID-19?

01:26:20.000 Overall, yes.

01:26:22.000 But here's where the age thing matters.

01:26:23.000 Remember, the curve is this for the risks of COVID by age, and it's this for the risks of vaccine by age.

01:26:31.000 What you're doing is making a V. You're going up, down, and down.

01:26:36.000 For audio people only.

01:26:38.000 It's a lot of people that just listen. 0.99

01:26:40.000 And they're going, what the fuck is this and this? 0.99

01:26:43.000 What is he talking about? 0.99

01:26:45.000 So the risk of the vaccine increases as you are younger.

01:26:50.000 It looks like.

01:26:51.000 Why is that?

01:26:52.000 Again, probably because you have a stronger immune response when you're younger. 0.97

01:26:56.000 The dumbest thing was that one lady who's a nurse who apparently she just faints whenever she feels pain and they decided, let's use her. 0.99

01:27:04.000 Like, what the... 0.99

01:27:05.000 Why didn't she tell people, hey, occasionally when I get shots, I black out?

01:27:10.000 Because everybody's like, oh my god, look what happened to that lady when she got the vaccine. 1.00

01:27:14.000 I'm like, turns out that lady, if you gave her an Indian burn, she would black out. 1.00

01:27:18.000 She just blacks out. 1.00

01:27:20.000 She stubs her toe.

01:27:21.000 She just falls down.

01:27:22.000 It makes you wonder what kind of nurse she is. 1.00

01:27:24.000 It's crazy.

01:27:26.000 I used to did a girl and her dad was a dentist. 0.99

01:27:28.000 And he would faint if he saw anything fucked up. 0.98

01:27:31.000 Like one of their kids got... 0.99

01:27:33.000 Her brother got like bad sunburn, like blisters. 0.99

01:27:36.000 And the dad just fucking fainted. 0.98

01:27:38.000 That's not what you want in your medical... 0.99

01:27:39.000 It was genetic though.

01:27:42.000 Because she would faint if she saw someone getting a needle in a movie.

01:27:46.000 We went to the movies and someone was shooting up.

01:27:49.000 And I go, whoa! 1.00

01:27:50.000 What the fuck is going on? 1.00

01:27:51.000 She sounds like a good time. 1.00

01:27:54.000 She's not the one you were worried about getting HIV from, it sounds like.

01:27:57.000 Well, she just had a thing for fainting. 1.00

01:27:59.000 I don't know what it was.

01:28:01.000 I don't understand fainting.

01:28:03.000 I've never fainted, but I've seen it.

01:28:05.000 It's weird.

01:28:06.000 Especially if it's like you see something, just seeing something, and you can't take it.

01:28:11.000 That's evolution telling you, you're not supposed to be around.

01:28:13.000 You're not supposed to be spreading them genes.

01:28:16.000 You know, when the war happens, you're supposed to just fall down and people just stomp you to death while you're out cold. 0.98

01:28:23.000 I mean, I don't fucking get it. 0.95

01:28:25.000 But that lady should have told everybody. 1.00

01:28:27.000 Jesus Christ.

01:28:28.000 She should have.

01:28:29.000 Because if you gave that to Jamie, if you shot him with it, he'd just sit there and go, yeah, that hurts.

01:28:34.000 You know?

01:28:34.000 And everybody would go, well, the vaccine seems okay.

01:28:37.000 Look at Jamie.

01:28:38.000 He's got a smile on his face. 1.00

01:28:39.000 He doesn't give a fuck. 0.99

01:28:41.000 Is there a problem with people who have, like Jamie, Jamie's had COVID and beat it. 0.99

01:28:46.000 Is there a problem with them getting the vaccine?

01:28:49.000 It doesn't look like it, but the question we should be asking is why would these people get the vaccine at all?

01:28:54.000 You have antibodies, you beat it.

01:28:57.000 What about a year from now?

01:28:59.000 Two years from now?

01:29:00.000 Okay, so naturally generated immunity in general, and again, I don't want to talk like a virologist.

01:29:06.000 I'm not a virologist.

01:29:07.000 My understanding of this is that naturally generated immunity, in other words, you get the actual illness and you beat it, is stronger in general than vaccine-generated immunity.

01:29:17.000 Right.

01:29:17.000 So why are we encouraging people who have naturally generated immunity to bother with the vaccine, which at best will give them the antibodies they already have, and at worst, they'll have some kind of, you know, anaphylaxis.

01:29:33.000 They'll have some kind of shock reaction to it.

01:29:35.000 I think the reason being is that we can't prove that a person has had it and beat it.

01:29:40.000 You can prove you have antibodies.

01:29:42.000 But what if you don't have the antibodies visually anymore?

01:29:44.000 Like Jamie barely has them.

01:29:46.000 Okay, but he has them.

01:29:47.000 You thought you might have had it, right?

01:29:48.000 You didn't have any antibodies.

01:29:50.000 That's right.

01:29:50.000 So I can't prove that I had it.

01:29:51.000 Or it didn't show in the test.

01:29:52.000 It didn't show in the test.

01:29:53.000 That's right.

01:29:54.000 And when I had the original test a few months ago, it didn't show.

01:29:56.000 So I can't prove that I had it.

01:29:58.000 And I may not have had it.

01:29:59.000 So maybe I should get a vaccine at some point.

01:30:03.000 Even if it's not the mRNA vaccine, maybe I should get a vaccine.

01:30:06.000 That's my choice.

01:30:08.000 And it can be informed by whether or not I have antibodies.

01:30:12.000 But the idea that we're encouraging people willy-nilly to get this thing, even if they have beaten it, makes no sense.

01:30:19.000 I think it's, again, because it's not documented.

01:30:21.000 Because there's not a documented registry...

01:30:26.000 I think in this case, you're...

01:30:43.000 So you think the lockdowns are right now just to get people vaccinated?

01:30:47.000 No, not just to get people vaccinated.

01:30:49.000 It's a stick, right?

01:30:51.000 It's like, we got to get out of this.

01:30:53.000 The way we're going to get out of this is by getting everybody vaccinated.

01:30:56.000 But why would they do that?

01:30:57.000 Why would they risk these small businesses?

01:30:59.000 Why would they risk suicide, drug addiction, overdoses?

01:31:01.000 Have you noticed our political leaders factoring any of those things into their considerations in the last 10 months?

01:31:07.000 Especially the Blue State ones?

01:31:08.000 But don't they get some sort of encouragement or advice from the medical community?

01:31:14.000 Yes, they do.

01:31:16.000 But they're basing this on the amount of ICU beds that are available, right?

01:31:24.000 They're basing it.

01:31:25.000 That's what King Gavin, the king of California says.

01:31:27.000 That's right.

01:31:28.000 That's right.

01:31:29.000 He is.

01:31:29.000 Or that's what he says.

01:31:31.000 It's a nation state.

01:31:32.000 It's a nation state.

01:31:33.000 That's what he calls it.

01:31:34.000 And guess what?

01:31:35.000 Every place where there's a surge goes through, except New York in the spring where it looked somewhat worse.

01:31:41.000 Every place goes through the same panic, the same media and public health fed panic.

01:31:45.000 We're out of ICU beds when they're not actually out of ICU beds.

01:31:49.000 So you don't think California is really out of ICU beds?

01:31:51.000 No.

01:31:51.000 First of all, They can add more beds, okay?

01:31:56.000 That's a good question, right?

01:31:57.000 Why didn't they do that?

01:31:58.000 They had eight months to do that.

01:31:59.000 Right, because in places where they've added beds, like even in New York, even in April, the field hospitals were empty, essentially.

01:32:07.000 The hospital ships were empty, and those are incredibly expensive to run.

01:32:11.000 So despite all this theater, okay, ICUs are supposed to be almost full.

01:32:17.000 They're supposed to run 80% to 90% full.

01:32:19.000 They're incredibly expensive.

01:32:21.000 They're like...

01:32:22.000 They're like, you know, very skilled doctors and nurses and expensive machines sitting around.

01:32:28.000 You think you want them to be empty all the time?

01:32:29.000 You don't want a lot of extra ICU capacity.

01:32:32.000 You want some, but you don't want a lot, okay?

01:32:35.000 So they're supposed to be mostly full.

01:32:37.000 And guess what?

01:32:38.000 I can find you pictures, they're easy to find, of field tents being set up outside hospitals in 2018 in California for the flu.

01:32:47.000 California, unlike actually Florida, California runs a little bit tighter.

01:32:51.000 You can look at the number of hospital beds per person in California.

01:32:55.000 It's fewer, okay?

01:32:56.000 So, is California tight right now?

01:32:59.000 If you're a nurse in California, are you working long hours? 0.92

01:33:02.000 Yeah, does it probably suck for you? 0.59

01:33:04.000 Yes, it does. 0.97

01:33:06.000 Do you have my respect?

01:33:07.000 Yes, you do.

01:33:09.000 And if you're a doctor, and if you're a janitor, these people are working hard.

01:33:13.000 They deserve our respect.

01:33:14.000 That does not mean the medical system is near collapse.

01:33:19.000 So what is the incentive?

01:33:21.000 So, if the incentive is to get people vaccinated, and this is the reason why they're locking down, where is the directive coming from?

01:33:31.000 Like, who is benefiting from this?

01:33:33.000 Or who, I should say, who is pushing this idea that the way to move forward is to vaccinate everybody, and one of the ways we're going to be able to vaccinate everybody is to force a lockdown?

01:33:46.000 It seems like a grand conspiracy theory.

01:33:48.000 So, it's not...

01:33:49.000 It does.

01:33:50.000 I've got to say, if you wanted to go deep, Alex Jones, you would say the reason why they're doing the lockdown is because they want people to take the vaccine, and this is why they're setting this up.

01:34:05.000 I'm pushing the limits of what I think.

01:34:07.000 That's not exactly what I think.

01:34:08.000 I don't believe in conspiracy.

01:34:09.000 I believe in confluence.

01:34:11.000 Okay?

01:34:11.000 Okay.

01:34:12.000 I like seeing that.

01:34:13.000 So you are a public health expert.

01:34:16.000 Okay?

01:34:17.000 You want people to get vaccinated.

01:34:19.000 You think that this is the way out of this.

01:34:21.000 Okay?

01:34:21.000 Your only focus is on beating COVID. Right.

01:34:25.000 Okay?

01:34:25.000 It's not on stopping suicides or, you know, that stuff means something to you.

01:34:30.000 But it's not your job.

01:34:31.000 That's right.

01:34:31.000 Your job is to beat COVID. Okay?

01:34:32.000 Okay.

01:34:33.000 You think the best way to beat COVID is to get everybody vaccinated.

01:34:37.000 And yeah, there's going to be some adverse events, but you know what?

01:34:39.000 Most people who get it, the vaccine will be fine.

01:34:42.000 Nearly everybody, okay?

01:34:44.000 And maybe they'll have a couple days of fever, and maybe that fever will be bad, but they'll be fine, okay? 0.78

01:34:49.000 COVID kills people.

01:34:51.000 And you sort of ignore the fact that mainly, you know, 90% of the people it kills are over 70, or, you know, whatever the numbers exactly are, but it kills people.

01:34:59.000 You want that to stop.

01:35:00.000 Okay.

01:35:02.000 You know the vaccine is controversial and unpleasant to a lot of people, and we've never really forced adults to take a vaccine before.

01:35:10.000 Okay.

01:35:14.000 Lockdowns are also unpleasant, and you think they're useful.

01:35:17.000 You think they're going to slow the spread.

01:35:19.000 What is the disincentive for you to recommend lockdowns to Gavin Newsom or anybody else?

01:35:25.000 Okay?

01:35:26.000 You think they're good in and of themselves because they slow the spread, and you're aware that they are going to...

01:35:32.000 We're good to go.

01:35:55.000 When you look at the fact that Los Angeles has had the longest lockdown and some of the most stringent lockdowns, but yet has the highest number of cases, what has been the explanation for that?

01:36:05.000 Cuomo had the worst reaction.

01:36:07.000 He was like, you know, you didn't want to get fat.

01:36:11.000 You shouldn't eat the cheesecake.

01:36:12.000 You didn't wear your mask. 1.00

01:36:14.000 He had the dumbest fucking down-home, dumbest Dopey logic for why people were sick. 1.00

01:36:22.000 He was literally blaming the people who were sick and blaming the imminent lockdown on people being assholes. 1.00

01:36:31.000 Right. 0.99

01:36:32.000 So, I mean, my response when you say that to me is it's obvious.

01:36:36.000 Lockdowns do not work.

01:36:37.000 The public health establishment response is we didn't lockdown hard enough.

01:36:41.000 Yeah.

01:36:41.000 It's the Cuomo.

01:36:43.000 We told you to stay inside.

01:36:45.000 We told you to not see your family for Thanksgiving or Christmas, even though it's been the worst year of your lives and half of you are semi-suicidally depressed.

01:36:54.000 Too bad.

01:36:55.000 This is going to go on and on and on.

01:36:57.000 To me, that is completely inhumane, and it ignores the fact that lockdowns don't work!

01:37:02.000 Yeah, it doesn't seem to work, but it did work in Australia.

01:37:07.000 Melbourne had a bit of a resurge, but didn't Sydney do a really good job of the lockdown?

01:37:12.000 Didn't some parts of Australia?

01:37:14.000 So, fair point.

01:37:15.000 Okay, if you lock down for a really long time, not weeks, months, okay, and you're in a place where the spread is not endemic, So Australia, you know, it's not New Zealand, okay?

01:37:26.000 It's a lot bigger than New Zealand, but it's still its own continent.

01:37:30.000 It's still less than the people in California, and it's the contiguous size of the contiguous United States.

01:37:35.000 And they can control entry and exit completely.

01:37:39.000 Right.

01:37:39.000 Okay?

01:37:40.000 So...

01:37:42.000 They locked down Melbourne in an incredibly strict way.

01:37:46.000 I mean, and they were serious about it.

01:37:47.000 They had drones patrolling, and they were tracking license plates, and they were arresting people, and they were literally breaking into people's homes who were, you know, pushing back against the lockdown.

01:37:56.000 The police weren't making arrests.

01:37:57.000 There's videos of this stuff you can see.

01:37:59.000 It's not a conspiracy theory.

01:38:00.000 You can see it.

01:38:02.000 Eventually, you are able to burn the virus out after a matter of months in that region.

01:38:09.000 It looks like.

01:38:10.000 It also helps if the weather helps.

01:38:12.000 Remember, it's the Southern Hemisphere.

01:38:13.000 They were going into the summer, okay?

01:38:15.000 The virus doesn't do as well in the summer in temperate areas.

01:38:19.000 It's because it dies in the light, right?

01:38:21.000 It dies in sunlight.

01:38:22.000 There's also an issue with humidity.

01:38:24.000 It appears to be...

01:38:25.000 Heavy humidity is not great for the virus, it looks like.

01:38:31.000 That's getting the sauna.

01:38:32.000 That's getting the sauna.

01:38:34.000 But you can't because the saunas are closed.

01:38:38.000 Catch-22.

01:38:39.000 But just to go back to Australia.

01:38:41.000 Okay, so now what do you get?

01:38:43.000 You get to live in fear that this thing, that 99.7% to 99.9% of people survive, is going to come back.

01:38:52.000 So if there's another case or another 15 cases, you lock down again.

01:38:56.000 Who wants to live this way? 0.78

01:38:58.000 Who wants to pretend?

01:38:59.000 Again, if it's anthrax, if it's the plague, okay, we're going to have to totally remake society.

01:39:05.000 What do you think should be done?

01:39:06.000 I told you.

01:39:07.000 Right now.

01:39:08.000 You're the king of the world.

01:39:09.000 Open the schools.

01:39:10.000 Start with that.

01:39:11.000 Open the schools.

01:39:12.000 Open any places of worship that people want to go to.

01:39:16.000 Restore people's lives to normality.

01:39:20.000 I have an issue with...

01:39:23.000 I shouldn't say I have an issue.

01:39:24.000 I have a concern with just the distribution of power.

01:39:28.000 And this is not a conspiracy.

01:39:32.000 This is a normal reaction to human beings when you all of a sudden give them the ability to control people's work.

01:39:40.000 You give people the kind of power that Gavin Newsom has claimed in California and people are pushing back against.

01:39:46.000 People don't want to give that up.

01:39:48.000 They don't ever want to go, okay, we're back to normal again.

01:39:51.000 I can't tell you what to do.

01:39:53.000 Yeah, I mean, it doesn't seem logical to me.

01:39:55.000 How are you such a powerful person if you're telling me I have to stay home?

01:40:00.000 But I guess people like it.

01:40:02.000 No, they don't like it.

01:40:03.000 They don't like it anymore.

01:40:05.000 People like the power.

01:40:07.000 Those are the kind of people that want to be a governor or a mayor in the first place.

01:40:10.000 I guess that's right. 1.00

01:40:11.000 They're fucking weirdos. 1.00

01:40:13.000 And now they feel like this power is theirs to wield. 1.00

01:40:19.000 Right.

01:40:20.000 I know what's best for you.

01:40:21.000 Yeah, and the court has actually stepped in and kept him from making new laws that doesn't get passed by the legislature.

01:40:28.000 We're going to look back on this with such embarrassment and humiliation for the way we gave up our civil liberties so cavalierly. 0.97

01:40:36.000 Well, especially when you see how hypocritical these politicians are. 0.90

01:40:39.000 The mayor of Austin, Texas got caught telling people now is not the time to relax while he was in Cabo. 0.96

01:40:49.000 Yes.

01:40:50.000 Which is like, good lord, man.

01:40:52.000 That's the place where you go to relax.

01:40:54.000 That's it. 1.00

01:40:54.000 It's the craziest fucking thing to say. 1.00

01:40:56.000 Flew in a private jet with eight other people to Cabo and then sanctimoniously told people now is not the time to relax. 0.99

01:41:06.000 No.

01:41:06.000 And what about Burks?

01:41:08.000 Did you see what she did last week?

01:41:09.000 What did she do? 0.80

01:41:10.000 Okay.

01:41:10.000 She got caught.

01:41:11.000 By the way, I'd like to be a fly on the wall at her next family reunion because I think it was her daughter's sister-in-law who narked on her. 0.92

01:41:19.000 She went to Thanksgiving...

01:41:22.000 Essentially, the day after Thanksgiving, she and a bunch of family members went to her vacation home in Delaware.

01:41:27.000 Okay?

01:41:28.000 She's telling people, you can't see family, one household, you need to stay at home.

01:41:33.000 She goes to this vacation home.

01:41:35.000 And what's her excuse, Joe?

01:41:37.000 This is the best.

01:41:39.000 Oh, it wasn't actually a Thanksgiving gathering.

01:41:41.000 I was winterizing my house and I needed my family members there.

01:41:46.000 Oh, well the virus doesn't spread that way.

01:41:48.000 Yeah, of course.

01:41:49.000 During winterization, the virus has been shown to be 100% ineffective.

01:41:52.000 Dr. Burke says she will retire.

01:41:55.000 Oh, this is new!

01:41:56.000 After overwhelming holiday travel scandal.

01:41:58.000 Oh, couldn't have happened to a nicer lady. 1.00

01:42:00.000 Wow. 1.00

01:42:01.000 My joke was she slipped and fell and landed on Thanksgiving's dick. 1.00

01:42:04.000 L-O-L. There was a time, though, that I felt bad for her when she was sitting next to Trump and Trump was talking about, we could just inject them with disinfectants. 1.00

01:42:15.000 That would work.

01:42:15.000 Perhaps get the light inside their bodies.

01:42:19.000 And she's just sitting there going, oh no, oh no. 0.84

01:42:23.000 Yes. 1.00

01:42:23.000 Yeah, they're hypocrites. 1.00

01:42:24.000 I mean, Gavin Newsom getting busted at that restaurant, eating indoors, saying he was outdoors. 1.00

01:42:29.000 It's a fucking chandelier above you, bro. 0.99

01:42:31.000 You got pictures of it. 1.00

01:42:32.000 You're not wearing a mask.

01:42:33.000 You're sitting right next to people.

01:42:35.000 This is a guy telling people to wear a mask in between bites of food.

01:42:37.000 I know.

01:42:38.000 Telling you how to eat.

01:42:39.000 Which made less sense.

01:42:41.000 And sending his kids to school.

01:42:43.000 Yes.

01:42:44.000 Yeah, where they sat indoors.

01:42:45.000 That's right.

01:42:46.000 Yeah, safety precautions were put in place because he has money.

01:42:50.000 It's not good.

01:42:51.000 It's not good.

01:42:52.000 None of it's good.

01:42:53.000 But it is good that people get exposed to the fact that these people, they're not these just beautiful people that only care about you.

01:43:02.000 Did we think that?

01:43:03.000 Some people do.

01:43:04.000 Some people love to believe that. 1.00

01:43:07.000 Some people believe that about fucking Joe Biden. 1.00

01:43:10.000 Yeah. 0.99

01:43:10.000 Because he was the alternative to Trump. 0.99

01:43:12.000 They're like, he's our savior.

01:43:13.000 Joe's amazing.

01:43:14.000 We're going to get him in office.

01:43:15.000 It's going to fix everything. 0.97

01:43:16.000 Hey, the guy that wrote the 1994 crime bill that put more people of color in jail for the rest of their fucking lives for nonviolent drug offenses than anybody ever. 0.94

01:43:24.000 Yeah, that guy? 0.95

01:43:25.000 Oh yeah, he's going to fix it all.

01:43:27.000 Yeah.

01:43:28.000 It's crazy how we look to these people like daddy.

01:43:32.000 Like daddy's going to come swoop in and fix everything.

01:43:34.000 They're career politicians.

01:43:36.000 They've been corrupted from the jump, from the moment they got into office.

01:43:40.000 Yeah, and that was Trump's value proposition, right?

01:43:42.000 Like, I'm not one of those guys. 1.00

01:43:44.000 Yeah, I'm an asshole. 1.00

01:43:45.000 I'm the king of the assholes, but I'm not pretending to be anything else. 1.00

01:43:47.000 Yeah, well, that's exactly what they were selling. 1.00

01:43:49.000 You know, that's exactly what his people were selling. 0.99

01:43:52.000 I think we need someone who's not an asshole and is also not one of them. 0.99

01:43:56.000 I mean, that's maybe our next hope. 0.99

01:43:59.000 Are you running, Joe? 1.00

01:44:00.000 No, fuck no, dude. 1.00

01:44:02.000 Listen, all you people just know. 1.00

01:44:06.000 No, don't. 1.00

01:44:07.000 I'm dumb. 0.99

01:44:08.000 I'm not that person. 0.99

01:44:10.000 I'm a cage-fighting commentator and a stand-up comedian.

01:44:13.000 I have no desire to run anything or have any power over anybody.

01:44:17.000 Definitely no run for office. 0.95

01:44:20.000 But I do have an interest in someone who's smart, who does not like the way things go and has that calling, is not a part of this system.

01:44:27.000 The problem is this system is so entrenched in And its own corruption, its own influence, and all of the lobbyists and special interests are so much that's like tangled in so many vines and the people that rise to these positions of senators and congressmen and mayors and they're so deeply infected by this fucked up system that we need someone that's outside of it or someone who is just of superior character.

01:44:56.000 Well, let me pivot to the vaccine again for a second, because you got me thinking about the vaccine when we were talking about this.

01:45:03.000 Here's what we've forgotten or not thinking about about the vaccine.

01:45:07.000 Vaccines are commercial products.

01:45:09.000 They're made by for-profit companies that have done exceptionally well this year.

01:45:14.000 The top executive at both BioNTech, which is the German company that makes the Pfizer vaccine, And Moderna have made billions of dollars in stock gains this year.

01:45:25.000 Billions.

01:45:26.000 Okay?

01:45:27.000 Generational wealth.

01:45:29.000 Now, I covered the drug industry for The Times for a number of years.

01:45:33.000 Okay?

01:45:34.000 It's not that the companies want to kill people.

01:45:36.000 They don't.

01:45:37.000 And sometimes they do really good things.

01:45:38.000 You know, like they created HIV medicines.

01:45:41.000 And Viagra.

01:45:42.000 And Viagra.

01:45:43.000 Woo! 0.99

01:45:45.000 And statins, okay?

01:45:46.000 Yes.

01:45:47.000 And they do good things.

01:45:47.000 Sure, they've helped a lot of people.

01:45:48.000 Okay.

01:45:50.000 When they are moving towards commercialization, when they have put significant money into a product that they believe is effective or that looks to be effective, what's the biggest problem with these products usually?

01:46:01.000 It's not lack of effectiveness, although it can be.

01:46:03.000 It's side effects.

01:46:06.000 So they, in general, will not be honest about side effects.

01:46:11.000 And that is what's happening.

01:46:13.000 And I saw with drugs from major companies that I covered for The Times, the leading companies in the industry, including Merck, which everyone said was the best one, okay, in the whole industry.

01:46:26.000 They won't tell the truth about side effects.

01:46:28.000 Can I push back on that?

01:46:29.000 Sure.

01:46:30.000 Why do we know about all of the negative consequences of the vaccine then?

01:46:35.000 Okay, so the stuff is in clinical trial data.

01:46:38.000 And in some cases, you have to actually sue the companies and get corporate records.

01:46:43.000 Well, that's another problem.

01:46:44.000 We can't sue these guys.

01:46:45.000 That's right.

01:46:46.000 And that's a very serious problem because if you're Pfizer or whatever, the last check on you is, are we betting the company here if something goes wrong?

01:46:54.000 In this case, if it all goes tits up with the vaccine, I'm not saying it will, it probably won't, they're going to say...

01:47:02.000 Hey guys, we did what the FDA told us to do.

01:47:05.000 You wanted this fast and the White House.

01:47:07.000 We did what you told us.

01:47:08.000 You know who has total immunization?

01:47:11.000 You know who's vaccinated?

01:47:13.000 The companies are vaccinated from liability.

01:47:15.000 You cannot sue them.

01:47:17.000 That is a new thing, right?

01:47:19.000 That has never existed before.

01:47:20.000 It's been a fight actually about vaccines for a while.

01:47:23.000 Vaccines, you know, you get compensated by the government.

01:47:25.000 There's been an issue around vaccines.

01:47:26.000 There's a vaccine court.

01:47:27.000 That's correct.

01:47:28.000 Which is separate from every other court.

01:47:31.000 I'm sorry.

01:47:32.000 I don't want to interrupt you.

01:47:34.000 No, no, no.

01:47:34.000 Go.

01:47:35.000 Does that exist because of the biological variabilities of people that some people, for whatever reason, have adverse reactions?

01:47:44.000 I think it basically exists because the company said, look, you know what?

01:47:47.000 If there's a one in a million chance that a healthy kid dies after our vaccine, or even one in 10 million, we're going to pay a billion dollars for that.

01:47:55.000 A trial lawyer is going to kill us for that, so you have to protect us.

01:47:58.000 The anti-vax community, there's a whole community of people that attribute a series of ailments, including autism, obviously that, to vaccines.

01:48:07.000 That is like the most maligned and marginalized of all the conspiracy groups.

01:48:15.000 Because the thought is that you're not just pushing flat earth theories, you're actually harming people because kids are getting measles now that weren't getting it before and there's a consequence.

01:48:25.000 Of like a real direct transmission of these diseases that we were protected against just a decade or so ago.

01:48:31.000 You're screwing over your own kids.

01:48:32.000 And honestly, I've never looked into sort of the anti-vaccine arguments.

01:48:37.000 I've always thought of them as being generally...

01:48:41.000 Flat earther, I would say, and conspiratorial.

01:48:44.000 With this vaccine, I know it's different because the technology is new, because they want every healthy adult to take it.

01:48:53.000 It feels different to me.

01:48:55.000 It feels more like a pharmaceutical product, and that's something that I know about.

01:48:58.000 But just to go back, okay, so you asked me, where do we know about this stuff?

01:49:03.000 Well, the companies, they will...

01:49:05.000 Look, there was a phenomenon for a long time.

01:49:07.000 It was called the file drawer clinical trial.

01:49:11.000 So you'd run a trial, and if the results were negative, you never published it.

01:49:15.000 Okay?

01:49:16.000 Or if it showed a lot of side effects, you never published it.

01:49:18.000 The FDA got the data.

01:49:20.000 But, you know, the FDA has a lot to do, and if the drug was already approved, they might never do anything with it.

01:49:25.000 So the companies, like, accumulated bad data from time to time that no one ever saw, except people in the FDA who often didn't do anything about it.

01:49:34.000 And it only came out during lawsuits.

01:49:37.000 Okay.

01:49:38.000 But the bigger problem is this.

01:49:40.000 It's that, yes, the companies will disclose the data, you know, sort of the pre-approval data, but And then they'll do what they can to downplay.

01:49:50.000 So if you're the CEO of Moderna or the CEO of Pfizer and you have a commercial product that you're getting paid for that's going into people's arms right now, do you want a discussion that says, hey, maybe only people over 75 should really take this right now?

01:50:05.000 By the way, the market size on that is 1 20th Of the adult population, and we should make sure everybody else who's taking it is well aware of these potentially, you know, painful side effects? 0.99

01:50:16.000 Or do you want the conversation around this to be, screw you, we're all getting it, and you're a real jerk if you even argue about it? 0.96

01:50:24.000 Well, so, do they have any obligation to publish the potential side effects? 0.99

01:50:33.000 I mean, well, at this point, they don't have a legal obligation, although they might face criminal liability, I guess.

01:50:39.000 But I'm not saying that they haven't published it.

01:50:41.000 What I said to you is I got the data from their publishing it.

01:50:45.000 What I'm saying is the conversation is we're not having an honest conversation about it, and the companies have every financial incentive to keep the conversation dishonest.

01:50:55.000 Right.

01:50:56.000 Keeping the conversation dishonest, though, but not – But there's a difference between keeping the conversation dishonest and not publishing the results.

01:51:04.000 But you could keep the conversation dishonest, but yet still have that information available.

01:51:09.000 That's correct.

01:51:11.000 So if they had no concern whatsoever about profit, and they were just interested in transparency, and they came out and said...

01:51:20.000 Folks, this is the virus.

01:51:24.000 It's killing X amount of people.

01:51:26.000 This is the vaccine.

01:51:28.000 The vaccine is going to affect people in different ways, and a certain number of people are going to have a severe reaction that could potentially cause them to be hospitalized.

01:51:40.000 You would be okay with that then?

01:51:41.000 Yeah, that would be much more honest.

01:51:43.000 Absolutely.

01:51:43.000 What is their stance?

01:51:45.000 Are they just not mentioning this?

01:51:47.000 It's funny.

01:51:49.000 You've got to kind of dig for it, right?

01:51:51.000 And they, because they have so much momentum and they sort of have the entire public health community on their side, they don't actually have to say that much right now.

01:51:58.000 I mean, there's been sort of positive stories written about Pfizer and Moderna.

01:52:03.000 They don't have to market this as much because everyone's marketing for them.

01:52:07.000 But let me give you another sort of on-point example of this.

01:52:11.000 So the Pfizer vaccine, there were 40,000 people in that clinical trial.

01:52:16.000 They enrolled 40,000.

01:52:17.000 They gave 18,000 or 19,000 the drug and 18,000 or 19,000 placebo.

01:52:21.000 Wow.

01:52:22.000 We looked at the data about who dies, right?

01:52:24.000 It's mainly people over 65, especially 75, 85. How many of those 18,000 people who got the vaccine do you think were over 75?

01:52:34.000 How many?

01:52:35.000 Fewer than 1,000.

01:52:37.000 800. Fewer than 5%.

01:52:39.000 Okay?

01:52:40.000 If they'd wanted to run a good clinical trial, a really good clinical trial, they should have gone to every nursing home in the country. 0.80

01:52:46.000 Not everyone, but they should have gotten a few thousand people who were actually at high risk from this into the trial.

01:52:53.000 Okay?

01:52:54.000 You know why they didn't?

01:52:55.000 A, it probably would have slowed things down, and this was a commercial race.

01:52:59.000 As well as, you know, they were told to go as fast as possible.

01:53:02.000 B, it might have been expensive.

01:53:04.000 And C, that would have shown everybody where the risk is.

01:53:09.000 And then maybe the discussion would have been around immunizing those people.

01:53:14.000 Commercially, you want the trial set that's big and includes people in their 20s, even if they're not at high risk.

01:53:22.000 Medically, you want the trial set that includes the people who are at risk.

01:53:26.000 They didn't do that.

01:53:28.000 I mean, did they exclude those people?

01:53:30.000 No, but they didn't try to enroll them specifically, and they didn't get that many of them.

01:53:34.000 There was a really weird...

01:53:37.000 There was one thing that was published online that I was reading where they were discussing who was going to get the vaccine first.

01:53:44.000 And they were advocating against getting it to older people because they were white.

01:53:51.000 Did you see that?

01:53:52.000 Yes.

01:53:53.000 Generally tend to be white and it was about evening things out.

01:53:57.000 It was in the New York Times.

01:54:01.000 Who advocated that?

01:54:02.000 A guy named Harold Schmidt, who's a bioethics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said openly that it was not fair to give this to older people.

01:54:12.000 By the way, there's a lot of older people who are black and Hispanic too, but that you should give it to essential workers first because so many of those people are black and Hispanic and older people are white.

01:54:22.000 But isn't there an argument to give it to essential workers first because it slows the curve?

01:54:27.000 So I wouldn't give...

01:54:28.000 No, because, again, those people...

01:54:30.000 Slows the spread, right?

01:54:31.000 Those people...

01:54:33.000 Because those are the people that are more likely to catch it, right?

01:54:35.000 If you actually look at that, there's not that much evidence that essential workers catch it at higher rates.

01:54:40.000 Because, again, it's everywhere.

01:54:43.000 Everybody's out.

01:54:44.000 I mean, except the Karens who never leave their homes. 1.00

01:54:46.000 Everybody's out.

01:54:47.000 Everybody's kind of passing it around.

01:54:49.000 And here's the other thing I'd say.

01:54:50.000 And this is the true nightmare scenario.

01:54:52.000 It's very, very unlikely.

01:54:54.000 Suppose there's something really wrong with the vaccine.

01:54:55.000 Well, who have we been giving it to the last week?

01:54:58.000 We're going to get to doctors and nurses.

01:54:59.000 We've totally screwed ourselves if there's a real problem.

01:55:02.000 Right.

01:55:02.000 Which, again, that's unlikely.

01:55:04.000 So this guy, he's a bioethics professor?

01:55:08.000 What is his logic behind that, like saying?

01:55:12.000 White people have all the advantages in society, and they don't deserve this one, too. 0.98

01:55:17.000 And he's a white guy? 0.98

01:55:18.000 He's a white guy, yes.

01:55:19.000 Harold Schmidt, H-A-R-A-L-D, you could definitely find it.

01:55:24.000 It seems strange that you would openly advocate for singling out people based entirely on the fact that they're of a particular ethnicity or race.

01:55:37.000 I agree.

01:55:39.000 Yeah.

01:55:40.000 But to make this distinction, is he advising this?

01:55:45.000 Is that what he was saying?

01:55:46.000 Was this his personal opinion?

01:55:48.000 Well, it was his opinion as a bioethicist and public policy expert.

01:55:52.000 But does he have any input whatsoever on how things get administered?

01:55:57.000 So I... I mean, does he have input?

01:56:00.000 I don't think he's, like, on any committees.

01:56:01.000 I believe the state of Minnesota, someone sent me this, and I have to be honest, I didn't check it, I should have checked it before I came on with you, actually overtly followed this, essentially this pattern in their first recommendation round.

01:56:14.000 But there have been people, including...

01:56:16.000 Didn't Nicholas Christakis recommend that it would be given to first responders?

01:56:23.000 Jamie, didn't he say that during the podcast?

01:56:25.000 I believe that was something that he said about slowing the spread, because there are people that are most likely in contact with it.

01:56:31.000 He didn't look at it from a racial perspective at all.

01:56:33.000 I mean, I think that's a bad idea, because I think, again, when you look at who's really at risk, it should be people over 75 who get it first. 1.00

01:56:40.000 But...

01:56:41.000 But I agree.

01:56:42.000 Like, that's a case.

01:56:43.000 You can make that case.

01:56:44.000 Once you introduce race into it, you've polluted everything. 1.00

01:56:46.000 Well, what has been the reaction to this guy?

01:56:48.000 I've seen...

01:56:49.000 That article, on that part where his quote is right here.

01:56:52.000 Oh, there it is.

01:56:53.000 It links to a study from 2012 in Princeton, just to...

01:56:58.000 This is a study.

01:56:59.000 Study reveals impact of socioeconomic factors and the racial gap in life expectancy.

01:57:03.000 Right, but he's still advocating for balancing it out.

01:57:09.000 Harold Schmidt, an expert in ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania, said that it is reasonable to put essential workers ahead of older adults, given the risks, and that they are disproportionately minorities.

01:57:38.000 Wow.

01:57:40.000 Yeah.

01:57:43.000 This is not some random guy at the corner store.

01:57:46.000 That's a crazy thing to say.

01:57:47.000 It's crazy.

01:57:48.000 Level the playing field a bit.

01:57:50.000 What you're saying is allowing more vulnerable people to die so that we can change the racial structure of the people that are alive. 0.59

01:57:57.000 That's literally what he's saying, right?

01:58:00.000 I mean, if more white people die, then there's more people of color than there are white people. 0.78

01:58:06.000 He's making this weird distinction. 0.89

01:58:09.000 But they're more likely to die, too, if they catch the disease. 1.00

01:58:13.000 Look, it's stupid on many levels. 1.00

01:58:16.000 What has been the reaction to this? 1.00

01:58:17.000 Do you know?

01:58:18.000 There's been pushback.

01:58:19.000 But not as much as you might think.

01:58:21.000 But also support, right?

01:58:22.000 Yeah.

01:58:24.000 You know, I don't want to speak, like, from what I've seen on Twitter, there's been pushback.

01:58:28.000 Even among woke types.

01:58:30.000 Even woke types.

01:58:31.000 Yeah, well, people go too far, and then they've got to bring it back a little bit.

01:58:34.000 Not yet, not yet.

01:58:35.000 Wait a few years.

01:58:36.000 That's right.

01:58:37.000 It's just a crazy thing to say.

01:58:39.000 It's crazy when people openly advocate for doing things based on race.

01:58:43.000 Yes.

01:58:44.000 It's like, okay.

01:58:46.000 Because society's unbalanced.

01:58:47.000 Jesus Christ, we're talking about life and death of old people. 1.00

01:58:50.000 Someone's Nana. 0.98

01:58:51.000 Sorry, Nana, you're white. 1.00

01:58:53.000 We're trying to balance it out a little bit.

01:58:57.000 You know, I think there's been some really interesting cultural...

01:59:02.000 Moments with this.

01:59:04.000 And, I mean, you know, it's interesting that the people who are most afraid seem to be, or at least who are the loudest about being afraid, are women, oftentimes in 20s, 30s, and 40s, middle class, upper middle class, you know, the stereotypical Karen, right?

01:59:19.000 Although they're not all white, but a lot of white.

01:59:22.000 I feel bad for Karens that are nice. 0.86

01:59:23.000 I really do.

01:59:24.000 I think we should stop saying that. 0.98

01:59:27.000 Silly. 0.96

01:59:28.000 I mean, I'm a Joe, right? 0.99

01:59:30.000 So average Joe.

01:59:31.000 I'm cool with that.

01:59:32.000 It's fine.

01:59:33.000 It doesn't bother.

01:59:34.000 There's going to be nobody named Karen.

01:59:36.000 But my question, Joe, is why?

01:59:40.000 Why are these people who are at so little risk panicking the way they are?

01:59:44.000 And in some cases, they're not just harming themselves.

01:59:46.000 They're harming their children.

01:59:47.000 I'll tell you why.

01:59:48.000 First of all, they feel vulnerable physically.

01:59:51.000 Second of all, they maybe have not dived into this or dove into this as deeply as you have.

01:59:57.000 So they're not aware of the real risks and real consequences.

02:00:00.000 And they're listening to all the fear porn.

02:00:02.000 That's spewed out all over CNN and all over these newspapers, and they're affected by it.

02:00:08.000 And once people establish an initial reaction to a pandemic or an emergency response, that's very difficult for them to readjust. 0.95

02:00:15.000 I have friends that are nice people that are fucking terrified that are women that are in their 40s. 0.53

02:00:22.000 You know, like moms of some of my kids' friends. 0.83

02:00:24.000 So can you talk to them about it?

02:00:26.000 They don't want to listen to me. 1.00

02:00:27.000 I'm fucking crazy. 1.00

02:00:29.000 They're not listening to this pot-smoking, cage-fighting commentators telling them not to worry about shit. 1.00

02:00:33.000 I'm covered in tattoos. 1.00

02:00:35.000 I'm not the guy.

02:00:37.000 I'm a little too risky.

02:00:39.000 But they are...

02:00:42.000 They have an initial response that they got from the beginning.

02:00:46.000 I was scared at first. 0.99

02:00:48.000 I was like, fuck, this is bad. 0.99

02:00:50.000 We've got to lock down. 1.00

02:00:50.000 We've got to stay away from people. 1.00

02:00:52.000 I'm thinking about, I've got water treatment shit. 0.99

02:00:54.000 I'm like, we've got to make sure I have plenty of bullets. 0.99

02:00:57.000 In February, I was scared too.

02:00:58.000 I had friends that have never thought about having guns.

02:01:02.000 They were telling me they want to get a gun.

02:01:04.000 How do I get a gun?

02:01:04.000 Can I borrow one of your guns?

02:01:06.000 They were saying a bunch of crazy shit. 0.99

02:01:08.000 And the gun ownership, you know, skyrocketed. 1.00

02:01:11.000 That, to me, shows the paranoia. 1.00

02:01:13.000 When liberals start waiting in line for hours to get a fucking rifle. 1.00

02:01:18.000 This is what we saw. 1.00

02:01:19.000 So these women who are particularly vulnerable in that group, right?

02:01:24.000 Because they're physically vulnerable. 1.00

02:01:26.000 And maybe their husbands are pussies. 0.99

02:01:27.000 And then they're there and they're stuck. 1.00

02:01:29.000 And they're like, no one's going to protect me.

02:01:31.000 No one's going to protect my children.

02:01:32.000 I'm scared.

02:01:33.000 And then they're addicted to social media.

02:01:36.000 And they're on Twitter all day because they don't have a job anymore because they lost their job and now they're economically terrified. 0.96

02:01:41.000 So they're online just hanging out with Alyssa Milano and tweeting up a fucking storm and they're all scared. 0.81

02:01:47.000 So I've answered it for you. 0.96

02:01:49.000 I think that's what it is.

02:01:50.000 They're physically vulnerable and then on top of that, they might not have the ability to objectively go into this stuff with an open mind and look at the variables and say, what is actually happening versus what is the media saying and why is the media saying it this way?

02:02:09.000 Well, one of the reasons why, unfortunately, is fear sells.

02:02:14.000 Yeah. 0.60

02:02:32.000 Scare the fuck out of people. 0.95

02:02:34.000 And they scared the fuck out of people. 0.99

02:02:36.000 It's something that's guaranteed to kill 20% of the people. 0.99

02:02:41.000 We're all going to die.

02:02:42.000 There was all these numbers that were being thrown around in the beginning of the pandemic.

02:02:46.000 And these people never let that initial fear go.

02:02:49.000 And if you look at surveys, a lot of people think it's far, far more dangerous than it is.

02:02:54.000 And they think far, far more people have died.

02:02:56.000 I mean, you know, it's...

02:02:59.000 I guess people get locked in and it's very hard for them to change their minds.

02:03:03.000 Well, even intelligent people.

02:03:05.000 I have a friend who was saying that he thought that Donald Trump still had a possibility of dying when he was on a steroid-fueled tweet storm.

02:03:13.000 He was screaming, you know, make America great again. 1.00

02:03:15.000 He was all this crazy shit. 1.00

02:03:16.000 I'm like, the guy's fine. 1.00

02:03:17.000 He's 74 and fat. 1.00

02:03:19.000 He eats nothing but burgers and fucking Kentucky Fried Chicken. 1.00

02:03:23.000 He just kicked this shit. 1.00

02:03:24.000 It's true. 1.00

02:03:25.000 No, I mean, you know, a couple interesting things.

02:03:27.000 You could see, even into June and July, I don't think you see it as much anymore, people talking about how they hadn't left their apartments, you know, in New York. 0.57

02:03:34.000 And these are people who are in shitty, small apartments.

02:03:38.000 Sometimes they have kids, and they're like, day 106, I'm beating this thing. 1.00

02:03:43.000 I'm like, the only thing you're beating is your own fucking sanity. 0.99

02:03:46.000 And your immune system, too, by the way. 1.00

02:03:47.000 And your immune system!

02:03:48.000 Because you're not in contact with anything else.

02:03:50.000 That's the ironic part about it, is the isolation is actually terrible for your immune system.

02:03:54.000 Yes.

02:03:54.000 Your immune system thrives on being in contact with other people.

02:03:58.000 That's right.

02:03:59.000 I mean, you know, it's like with kids and allergies, right?

02:04:01.000 We've raised a whole bunch of kids.

02:04:03.000 We don't challenge them to be in dirt or anything, and they have these terrible allergies.

02:04:07.000 And, you know, it's also interesting sort of culturally.

02:04:09.000 So at the beginning of this...

02:04:11.000 You might remember there was Chris Cuomo on CNN. He got it.

02:04:15.000 Is he going to survive?

02:04:16.000 Is he going to make it?

02:04:17.000 He seemed fine.

02:04:18.000 Yeah!

02:04:18.000 You remember?

02:04:18.000 He chipped his tooth.

02:04:20.000 How did he chip his tooth?

02:04:22.000 Because he was shivering so hard, he said.

02:04:24.000 I guess for him, that's a war wound.

02:04:25.000 Do you believe that?

02:04:27.000 No.

02:04:28.000 You might...

02:04:29.000 I mean, who knows?

02:04:31.000 He chipped his veneer, okay?

02:04:32.000 He's clearly at least been deceptive on some issues.

02:04:38.000 One of them was coming out of the basement, right?

02:04:39.000 Yes!

02:04:40.000 This is the first time emerging.

02:04:41.000 Here I am emerging.

02:04:42.000 I credited that to a producer because I know how Hollywood works.

02:04:46.000 I've been involved in shows where people fudge things and you've got to go with it because you want to keep your job.

02:04:52.000 And that was like, Chris, we're going to get you.

02:04:54.000 We're going to get you coming out of the basement.

02:04:55.000 It's going to be a great shot.

02:04:57.000 That makes sense.

02:04:58.000 But then he also got into a fight with the guy outside his house when he was still symptomatic.

02:05:03.000 So here's what's really interesting.

02:05:05.000 Back in the day, back in April and May, you saw a lot of these first-person narratives.

02:05:10.000 And they were all kind of the same.

02:05:12.000 They're like, I got sick.

02:05:13.000 I was so scared.

02:05:15.000 I had a fever of 102 for a night.

02:05:18.000 And then I was fine.

02:05:19.000 And so I think the media sort of realized that those were not quite landing...

02:05:25.000 With the way that they wanted them to land?

02:05:27.000 Well, he was on TV the whole time he was sick.

02:05:29.000 I guess!

02:05:29.000 That's how sick he was.

02:05:30.000 Which is crazy.

02:05:30.000 He wasn't even coughing.

02:05:31.000 He was wearing a suit.

02:05:32.000 That's right.

02:05:33.000 He was just in the basement.

02:05:34.000 What the media figured out in about May was that the only thing that they needed to pick on to scare people was the top-line death count.

02:05:42.000 So that's all you hear.

02:05:44.000 Today, 3,000 people died.

02:05:46.000 Now, 300,000 people have died.

02:05:48.000 But the only way that works is if you don't tell people the truth about who's actually dying.

02:05:53.000 So that's what they've done.

02:05:55.000 And it's been incredibly effective.

02:05:57.000 And it's horrible.

02:05:59.000 It's led to horrible public policy decisions.

02:06:02.000 And it's also a short-term gain for long-term disastrous results.

02:06:07.000 The short-term gain of getting these ratings and getting all these people to pay attention and getting people locked into this concept of fear.

02:06:14.000 And then also it's supported by a lot of these people in the community.

02:06:17.000 But a lot of these people in these media communities, they're not robust folks.

02:06:22.000 I hate to say that, but they're not.

02:06:25.000 There's an issue with people that don't exercise, don't take care of themselves, aren't eating well, aren't taking vitamins, and don't do a deep dive into how to optimize your immune system and your health.

02:06:38.000 And these are the people that are telling you about what you're doing and who you're putting at risk when you want to have a birthday party for your kid.

02:06:47.000 Yes.

02:06:48.000 And, I mean, I would say the groupthink is deeper than that, right?

02:06:53.000 It's just...

02:06:53.000 And I will say, I think in New York in March, people were scared.

02:06:59.000 For sure.

02:06:59.000 You know, the hospitals really...

02:07:01.000 They got as full as they've gotten...

02:07:02.000 And then there was the respirator thing where all these people were dying.

02:07:06.000 So yeah, we put all these people on ventilators. 0.76

02:07:09.000 We killed a bunch of them.

02:07:10.000 So people were scared. 0.68

02:07:11.000 And I get that.

02:07:13.000 But at some point, don't you have to say the sky didn't fall and we need to stop scaring people?

02:07:18.000 I'll tell you that one of the things that makes me the angriest about the times, in May...

02:07:23.000 They ran story after story about what was called pediatric inflammatory syndrome.

02:07:29.000 This idea that post-COVID, there were kids who were going to get inflammatory syndrome and die.

02:07:36.000 Because kids were not dying from COVID itself, or very, very rarely.

02:07:40.000 And so the idea was this post-COVID syndrome was really dangerous and terrible for kids.

02:07:45.000 And it turned out basically to be a lie.

02:07:48.000 Well, where did it come from?

02:07:50.000 The story?

02:07:51.000 The lie.

02:07:52.000 Well, so there were a handful of case reports, okay?

02:07:55.000 It turned out this is really manageable.

02:07:56.000 You give kids steroids.

02:07:58.000 First of all, it can happen with the flu, too, right?

02:08:00.000 It's like myocarditis, right?

02:08:01.000 This idea, sometimes you can have an inflammation or an infection of the heart muscle with COVID. That's true of the flu, too.

02:08:09.000 A lot of this stuff is true with a lot of, you know, sort of standard viruses.

02:08:13.000 So there were case reports, but instead of saying...

02:08:17.000 And there's something called Kawasaki Syndrome, which affects kids, which is known.

02:08:21.000 This predates COVID, okay?

02:08:22.000 And occasionally kids can get really sick.

02:08:24.000 So this fit in these paradigms.

02:08:27.000 This was just a very rare condition that unfortunately a very few kids were going to get sick from after COVID, okay?

02:08:36.000 The media went crazy with it.

02:08:39.000 And that's one reason why the schools have stayed closed for so long. 0.98

02:08:42.000 And basically, by July, I mean, to a lot of people, it was pretty clear it was bullshit from the beginning. 0.98

02:08:47.000 But by July, even the people who had initially talked about it were essentially acknowledging it was bullshit. 0.97

02:08:52.000 The Times, they never went back. 0.96

02:08:54.000 They never said, hey, this doesn't look very serious.

02:08:58.000 Kids are not just not at risk from COVID. They're really not at risk from this pediatric syndrome we've been trying to scare you about.

02:09:04.000 They go chicken little over and over and over again.

02:09:09.000 And when it turns out they're wrong, and the hospitals don't collapse, and we don't need 100,000 ventilators, and a million people don't die, and the death rate is not 10%, and people are not dropping dead in the streets.

02:09:22.000 You can remember hearing.

02:09:23.000 It's not 10 years ago.

02:09:25.000 It was 10 months ago.

02:09:26.000 They just move on to the next thing.

02:09:28.000 I can't stand this.

02:09:30.000 With no consequence.

02:09:32.000 What about long haulers?

02:09:33.000 Ah, yes.

02:09:35.000 Long haul.

02:09:36.000 There's no evidence long haul is real.

02:09:38.000 Well, what about people that have had COVID? Like, here's an example.

02:09:42.000 There's a guy named Cody Garbrandt.

02:09:43.000 He's a former UFC Bantamweight champion, stud athlete, got COVID, and it significantly affected him for a long period of time, and it kept him from fighting in a title fight.

02:09:54.000 He was supposed to fight for the flyweight title just last month and wasn't able to do it, or earlier this month, rather.

02:10:01.000 So let me be clear about this, right?

02:10:03.000 If you get COVID and you have a bad case and you're in the ICU or you're on a ventilator...

02:10:07.000 He wasn't.

02:10:08.000 Okay.

02:10:09.000 In those cases, though, it's going to take you some time to recover, right?

02:10:13.000 If you get sick with this, really sick with it, it's like anything else.

02:10:16.000 It's going to take you some time, right?

02:10:18.000 The question about long haul isn't those people, right?

02:10:21.000 It's whether or not...

02:10:23.000 Some 40-year-old who doesn't even know when she got it, and in some cases doesn't have either a PCR or an antibody test to show that she got it, is now complaining, I have fatigue, and I have pain, and I have brain fog,

02:10:38.000 and I can't get out of bed.

02:10:41.000 There's no evidence for that as a real condition.

02:10:44.000 I don't know about your friend.

02:10:45.000 That's a different issue.

02:10:46.000 But anecdotally, if these people do have, like my friend Michael Yeo, who I talked to you about, he's in his 40s.

02:10:51.000 He's a healthy, robust guy.

02:10:53.000 Months later, he's still fatigued.

02:10:56.000 He's still at a hard time.

02:10:57.000 I mean, there are people that have lung scarring, correct?

02:10:59.000 Yes.

02:11:00.000 Yes, that's okay.

02:11:01.000 So again, he was sick with COVID at the time, right?

02:11:05.000 He actually had an active infection that was pretty damaging to him for a number of weeks, right?

02:11:11.000 Right.

02:11:12.000 Recovered from it, but months later was still recovering.

02:11:15.000 Okay, so those cases to me...

02:11:19.000 There's more evidence that that's a real thing, and that's something that we should look at and researchers should look at.

02:11:26.000 But remember, most people who get sick with COVID who are under 70 don't get particularly sick.

02:11:31.000 So people like your friend are not It's worth looking at them.

02:11:36.000 Cody Garbrandt was suffering from blood clots.

02:11:39.000 He'd gone to the doctor and he found out that quite a bit after the initial infection, he was still fatigued and he was suffering from blood clots.

02:11:47.000 So you can have blood clots if you essentially are immobile.

02:11:49.000 So was he in bed for weeks or months?

02:11:52.000 So we don't know.

02:11:53.000 So we're kind of speculating.

02:11:54.000 What I'm talking about is this much greater population of people who never really got very sick and now say they have long COVID. And that...

02:12:02.000 That seems to have a lot more in common with sort of fibromyalgia or restless leg syndrome or a lot of these quasi-somatic illnesses that unfortunately a lot of the population or gluten intolerance.

02:12:15.000 I'm not talking about celiac disease, okay?

02:12:16.000 Celiac disease is real.

02:12:18.000 Gluten intolerance is...

02:12:20.000 I fart a lot when I eat too much bread.

02:12:23.000 But it causes inflammation.

02:12:25.000 If you talk to people that understand...

02:12:26.000 Again, with celiac, you can find that, right?

02:12:29.000 Yes.

02:12:29.000 But that's more than inflammation with celiac disease.

02:12:32.000 You're really ill.

02:12:34.000 So what I'm saying is, with long COVID, it fits into this group of illnesses that are not well defined, that sufferers are pretty organized and loud about their symptoms.

02:12:45.000 And again, I'm not talking about your friends.

02:12:47.000 I'm talking about what you see online.

02:12:48.000 And unfortunately, Where there appears to be a significant, not always, but a significant somatic component.

02:12:56.000 See, the thing about the blood clots, though, I think this has been pretty established in people that have died from COVID. Yes, that's correct.

02:13:02.000 The blood clot issue.

02:13:04.000 What is the blood clot issue?

02:13:06.000 So you have an inflammatory response, and you can have blood clots.

02:13:11.000 You can die.

02:13:11.000 I mean, COVID kills, right?

02:13:12.000 It kills people.

02:13:13.000 And one of the ways it kills people, I believe, is through clotting and strokes.

02:13:16.000 Not...

02:13:17.000 But when you get a guy who's in his 30s, who's a stud athlete like Cody Garbrandt and is suffering from blood clots quite a while after the infection, I don't remember the exact time period, but that's unusual for any other kind of disease, right?

02:13:31.000 I don't know if it's unusual for any other kind of disease.

02:13:35.000 I don't want to sound like I'm minimizing this.

02:13:39.000 But I've never heard that attributed to the flu.

02:13:42.000 Right.

02:13:46.000 So, again, could we go find a case report from the flu and blood clots?

02:13:51.000 Probably.

02:13:51.000 Would you find multiple case reports every year where it's become a part of the narrative?

02:13:56.000 Right.

02:13:56.000 I don't know.

02:13:57.000 Probably not, but I don't know.

02:14:00.000 You know, I'm a little bit glib when I say long haul doesn't exist, okay?

02:14:03.000 And I shouldn't be that glib because, again, if you got really sick with COVID, you're going to have consequences, okay?

02:14:10.000 Certainly if you're hospitalized, okay?

02:14:11.000 Right.

02:14:11.000 What I'm talking about, again, is this much larger group of people who didn't get very sick and who are claiming long-term consequences.

02:14:20.000 So what do you think is happening with them?

02:14:21.000 You think it's psychosomatic?

02:14:22.000 Yes, I think it's mostly psychosomatic.

02:14:24.000 I think that it's pretty indistinguishable from depression and anxiety in a lot of people.

02:14:30.000 Oh, okay.

02:14:30.000 And also this coincides with the lockdown.

02:14:34.000 Losing your job.

02:14:35.000 Your kid sucks now. 1.00

02:14:37.000 You're fighting with your husband constantly. 1.00

02:14:39.000 Of course you don't want to get out of bed.

02:14:41.000 Yeah.

02:14:41.000 I mean, I hate to be that blunt about it, but that's...

02:14:47.000 It's indistinguishable from depression.

02:14:51.000 My heart is racing.

02:14:52.000 Yeah, anxiety can make your heart race.

02:14:54.000 Yeah, got it.

02:14:56.000 So, there's no evidence that there's some sort of a reaction to this disease that is very unusual that's causing these blood clots?

02:15:07.000 Again, I don't want to talk about blood clots specifically.

02:15:09.000 But the blood clots is a big one, right?

02:15:10.000 Well, is it a big one in what sense?

02:15:13.000 Is it something that I think is common?

02:15:14.000 I don't think it's common.

02:15:16.000 With COVID patients?

02:15:18.000 Again, we're talking about post-infection, months later.

02:15:23.000 If that's come up a lot, that's not something I've read about.

02:15:26.000 I thought it was one of the things that's common in autopsies with COVID patients.

02:15:29.000 Right, right.

02:15:29.000 But those are people who've died, right?

02:15:31.000 So you've died from COVID, right?

02:15:32.000 You're dying for one reason or another.

02:15:34.000 But I think one of the reasons why you're dying is the blood clots.

02:15:37.000 So it's not just this respiratory ailment, but it's also causing this...

02:15:42.000 Yes, this thrombotic condition.

02:15:43.000 Yes.

02:15:44.000 Yeah, that seems to be...

02:15:46.000 And in fact, they tried to treat it with anticoagulants and anti-inflammatories that prevent clotting, and I think the response was not actually that strong, for whatever reason.

02:15:58.000 But this is sort of like, again, we talk about things that I don't like to talk about because it's a level of medical precision that I don't want to pretend to, and that sort of...

02:16:08.000 Do you think, though, that the people—hasn't there been evidence, though, that the people that even didn't suffer from severe symptoms had some lung scarring?

02:16:18.000 Okay, so— Is that true?

02:16:20.000 So, there have been, like—this is sort of like the myocarditis issue.

02:16:26.000 This is about the, like, heart function issues.

02:16:28.000 There have been these small, open-label studies where, essentially, the researchers know that the people had COVID— And they've said, yeah, we see abnormalities here on scans, okay?

02:16:38.000 There's a couple things about that.

02:16:40.000 They're uncontrolled again, so you're not looking.

02:16:43.000 The right way to do this would be to take 100 people, 50 of whom had had COVID and 50 of whom had not.

02:16:49.000 The researchers don't know who's who.

02:16:52.000 Scan them all and see if you can find anything different.

02:16:56.000 When you're looking at people you know are sick and you're looking for abnormalities, sometimes you're more predisposed to find them.

02:17:03.000 That's why clinical trials are run the way they are.

02:17:05.000 The second thing is when these findings are announced, the media jumps them.

02:17:10.000 So you may remember in the summer, there was this issue of myocarditis.

02:17:16.000 It was healthy young people are getting, you know, inflammation of the heart and infections in the heart.

02:17:22.000 I do remember that.

02:17:22.000 Yes.

02:17:22.000 And we can't have football because of it because they're all going to drop dead.

02:17:26.000 The Big Ten got scared.

02:17:27.000 And it was based on this one German study.

02:17:29.000 Okay.

02:17:30.000 So first of all, the flu can cause myocarditis.

02:17:33.000 It's a common reaction to respiratory viruses.

02:17:37.000 Second of all, when you actually looked at this study—and again, this is something that I have to read about because I'm not qualified to judge the data myself— The data was much weaker than it appeared to be on first glance.

02:17:52.000 And in fact, the researchers basically walked back their conclusions.

02:17:55.000 None of that stopped the media from panicking.

02:17:58.000 So that's what happens.

02:18:00.000 And with long haul, it's an even bigger problem.

02:18:03.000 And here's why.

02:18:04.000 There's money at stake, again.

02:18:06.000 There's money at stake for people who want disability, and there's even more money at stake for doctors.

02:18:14.000 Okay?

02:18:14.000 Who want to treat these people and who want insurers to cover it.

02:18:18.000 My joke about this, which is not really a joke, is wait till you see ketamine for long-haul COVID. Okay?

02:18:25.000 There are going to be very expensive treatments that are offered for this that are going to have nothing to do with it.

02:18:30.000 Well, they're using ketamine for depression.

02:18:32.000 Yes!

02:18:32.000 That's right.

02:18:33.000 Yeah.

02:18:34.000 Yeah.

02:18:34.000 Apparently it works.

02:18:36.000 Well, it certainly works temporarily.

02:18:39.000 Yeah.

02:18:40.000 I've had people encourage me to try it just recreationally.

02:18:42.000 I'm like...

02:18:43.000 No.

02:18:45.000 No.

02:18:46.000 No Whitney Cummings.

02:18:47.000 Not trying your ketamine.

02:18:52.000 She loves it.

02:18:53.000 She's got the mist.

02:18:54.000 Oh, jeez.

02:18:56.000 Do you think that...

02:18:59.000 This is just a consequence of any time there is any sort of a public illness.

02:19:07.000 There's going to be people that overreact, there's going to be people that dismiss it, and we've got to kind of figure out what's correct.

02:19:16.000 Unfortunately, no.

02:19:17.000 I think two really big things have happened in the last, one in the last 10 years, one in the last 40 years.

02:19:22.000 And they mean that this is more likely to happen again in the future, unfortunately.

02:19:27.000 In a way, we're lucky with COVID because COVID is so non-threatening to most, you know, sort of healthy adults that this one's been a trial run, okay?

02:19:36.000 Because imagine if COVID actually did kill 1%, much less 5% of the people who got it, we'd be in lockdown forever.

02:19:42.000 So here's the two things that have clearly happened.

02:19:45.000 First of all, the medical, what I call the medical industrial complex is bigger than it's ever been, both worldwide and in the U.S. In 1960, the U.S. spent about $27 billion on health care.

02:20:01.000 Now, adjusted for inflation, that was about $250 billion.

02:20:04.000 This year, or last year, let's say pre-COVID, we spent $4 trillion.

02:20:10.000 One in $5 we spend is on health care.

02:20:14.000 It's practically the biggest sector.

02:20:19.000 Look, I'm not saying doctors aren't good people.

02:20:21.000 I'm not saying nurses aren't good people. 0.86

02:20:23.000 Even in the drug companies, there are good people.

02:20:26.000 They care about human health.

02:20:27.000 But you need inputs.

02:20:29.000 Patients are inputs.

02:20:31.000 And this disease created a lot of inputs.

02:20:34.000 There's a lot of incentive to push.

02:20:37.000 And that, unfortunately, is not going away.

02:20:39.000 Healthcare is only becoming more powerful.

02:20:41.000 And not just in the US, but worldwide, but especially in the US. But the second factor is even more important.

02:20:48.000 The second factor is tech.

02:20:51.000 We couldn't have done this 10 years ago.

02:20:54.000 We certainly couldn't have done it 20 years ago because we couldn't have shut all the offices in the country.

02:20:58.000 All the nice white-collar people who are in charge had to go in.

02:21:02.000 They don't have to go in anymore.

02:21:03.000 If you work at Walmart, you got to go in.

02:21:05.000 But if you're a lawyer, you can do it all on Zoom.

02:21:08.000 Okay?

02:21:09.000 You don't even have to wear pants. 0.99

02:21:10.000 And if you're Jeffrey Toobin, apparently you can jerk off while you're doing it. 0.97

02:21:13.000 That poor guy's been hit on every podcast this week. 0.99

02:21:18.000 Sorry, Jeffrey.

02:21:19.000 Sorry, Jeffrey. 0.98

02:21:20.000 I jerk off too, Jeffrey. 0.96

02:21:21.000 I do too, but I try not to do it on Zoom calls. 0.98

02:21:25.000 I think he tried too.

02:21:27.000 He said he muted the video.

02:21:29.000 Yeah, you don't mute video, buddy.

02:21:32.000 Yeah, that was your mistake right there.

02:21:34.000 So, okay, we couldn't have done this.

02:21:37.000 No joke.

02:21:38.000 Now we can.

02:21:39.000 We have the bandwidth for a lot of the country to work virtually.

02:21:43.000 And guess what?

02:21:44.000 A lot of the country, especially adults who don't remember what it's like to be 12 years old and want to be outside and seeing your friends, kind of like working virtually.

02:21:53.000 They don't have to commute.

02:21:56.000 There are some benefits to it.

02:21:59.000 Yes.

02:21:59.000 In the short term, anyway, certainly.

02:22:02.000 At the same time, guess who's done the best this year?

02:22:07.000 Amazon, Google, Facebook, those companies are, they've made more money than they've ever made.

02:22:15.000 Their stocks are higher than they've ever been.

02:22:18.000 They benefit from this.

02:22:20.000 They provide the technology and they benefit financially.

02:22:24.000 And you think it's an accident that Amazon and Google are doing everything they can to suppress people like me?

02:22:29.000 Are you kidding?

02:22:30.000 I mean...

02:22:31.000 How so?

02:22:32.000 How are they trying to suppress it?

02:22:33.000 Well, Amazon wouldn't publish these booklets.

02:22:35.000 Now, these booklets...

02:22:36.000 Let me see these.

02:22:38.000 I made them.

02:22:40.000 I mean, I forced them to back down, basically, with the help of Elon.

02:22:44.000 So, Amazon is selling them.

02:22:46.000 Now they're selling them, yes.

02:22:47.000 They tried to censor them.

02:22:48.000 They've censored every booklet or every self-published work about COVID is censored by Amazon, except this.

02:22:54.000 Why?

02:22:55.000 Because I made enough of a stink.

02:22:57.000 You made enough of a stink and you have enough credentials.

02:22:59.000 Yes.

02:23:00.000 Oh.

02:23:00.000 What was their rationalization?

02:23:02.000 Do they tell you why?

02:23:18.000 Some conspiracy theories or some untruths that are going to cause real problems and cause people to make mistakes and spread the disease.

02:23:30.000 They would say the latter.

02:23:30.000 And I would say, I don't care.

02:23:32.000 You publish Mein Kampf.

02:23:34.000 You can buy Mein Kampf on Amazon.

02:23:36.000 Yeah, absolutely.

02:23:37.000 You can look it up.

02:23:38.000 You can buy it right now.

02:23:39.000 They should be in the business.

02:23:40.000 I don't want to look it up. 0.99

02:23:41.000 I don't want that shit to be on my search. 0.98

02:23:44.000 They should be in the business of allowing ideas to flourish and free debate to flourish. 0.99

02:23:50.000 Now, again, am I saying that there's somebody that Jeff Bezos says, hey, I know we made a lot of money this year.

02:23:55.000 Screw this Barron's about you.

02:23:56.000 No.

02:23:57.000 You do recognize, hold on, Mein Kampf.

02:23:59.000 Jesus Christ.

02:24:00.000 It's Kindle Unlimited.

02:24:01.000 You can get it for free and enjoy access to one million more titles.

02:24:04.000 Don't click on it, Jamie.

02:24:06.000 Look at all the reviews.

02:24:08.000 Four and a half stars.

02:24:09.000 Jesus Christ. 1.00

02:24:09.000 What the fuck? 1.00

02:24:10.000 A thousand ratings. 0.99

02:24:11.000 Don't click on that either.

02:24:14.000 Jesus.

02:24:16.000 Proceeds to Jewish charities and organizations.

02:24:17.000 Well, that's good.

02:24:18.000 Okay, that's good.

02:24:19.000 That's nice.

02:24:21.000 But you do...

02:24:23.000 Admit that there have been a lot of videos that have been released that give deceptive information and inaccurate information.

02:24:32.000 A lot of crazy people have made videos that people sent this to me.

02:24:36.000 Hey, what do you think about this?

02:24:38.000 Yeah, 5G causes this.

02:24:39.000 Yeah, 5G. A friend of mine sent me...

02:24:41.000 A friend of mine is not a dumb person.

02:24:43.000 He's a successful person. 0.79

02:24:45.000 Sent me this thing asking me if I think this is all a radiation disease.

02:24:50.000 Yeah.

02:24:50.000 Yep.

02:24:51.000 The vaccine causes infertility and it's going to, there's microchip, and yeah, there's crazy shit out there. 1.00

02:24:56.000 Microchips. 0.99

02:24:56.000 Yeah, microchips. 0.99

02:24:57.000 That's Bill Gates.

02:24:58.000 Bill Gates wants to depopulate the planet, apparently.

02:25:00.000 Yes, yes.

02:25:01.000 So, look, you've heard me, the audience has heard me for a while now.

02:25:07.000 That's not where I'm coming from.

02:25:08.000 My view on this, by the way, is basically it should all be allowed to be out there.

02:25:13.000 I agree.

02:25:14.000 But don't you understand, though, that this is one of the reasons why long-form conversations are so valuable.

02:25:18.000 You and I have talked right now for two and a half hours.

02:25:21.000 Jesus.

02:25:21.000 Yeah.

02:25:22.000 So this...

02:25:22.000 You've established your position.

02:25:25.000 Most people are not going to listen to this.

02:25:27.000 I hope they do.

02:25:28.000 Well, a lot of people will.

02:25:29.000 I guarantee you millions will.

02:25:31.000 But...

02:25:32.000 There's 330 million people or whatever it is in the country.

02:25:36.000 Most people are not going to listen to this.

02:25:39.000 And when Amazon gets a wind of the fact that you have a booklet like this, I don't think they're hiring a bunch of people to fact check with them.

02:25:46.000 No, no, it's automated.

02:25:47.000 It's just automated for them.

02:25:48.000 So because of all these documentaries, these plandemics and all these different things that have already been suppressed, there seems to be like an inclination to the first move is to suppress. 0.98

02:26:01.000 Yes.

02:26:02.000 So, okay, it's counterproductive on three levels.

02:26:04.000 First of all, in general, the antidote to speech is more speech.

02:26:08.000 So they shouldn't...

02:26:09.000 Second of all, okay, second of all, suppressing people like me drives people, drives readers and ordinary people looking for information to crazier theories, right?

02:26:20.000 If Berenson is being suppressed, then it must...

02:26:24.000 You know what?

02:26:24.000 Maybe the pandemic thing is true, okay?

02:26:27.000 And the third thing is...

02:26:29.000 What I said to you about the companies having a financial incentive for this to go on, unfortunately, is true.

02:26:35.000 And I'm not saying that's driving their decision making.

02:26:37.000 It's confluence again.

02:26:39.000 Not conspiracy, confluence.

02:26:42.000 If you're Amazon or YouTube, you should be bending over backwards to allow dissent because of your financial incentives.

02:26:50.000 You should show people that that's not driving your decision making.

02:26:54.000 I just don't imagine that that's really driving their decision making.

02:26:57.000 I think the real consequences they're worried about is the pushback from people that are angry that you've been published.

02:27:05.000 That's probably true.

02:27:07.000 That's probably their first choice.

02:27:09.000 Because you've been attacked and you've got to imagine that the same people who attacked you will probably attack the people that are willing to distribute your work even harder than they've attacked you because they can't really do anything to you.

02:27:22.000 But they can do something to Amazon. 0.98

02:27:23.000 They can do something to someone who's distributing what you're producing.

02:27:27.000 Right.

02:27:27.000 You've given this guy a platform you should be boycotting to.

02:27:30.000 Yeah, I guess there's...

02:27:31.000 But...

02:27:33.000 Look...

02:27:35.000 So big tech, though, these forces that are making tech even more and more central in our lives and making it possible for us to live virtually more and more, and making tech more important and profitable, those forces are not going away.

02:27:51.000 So the medicalization of society not going away.

02:27:55.000 And the techization of society not going away. 0.93

02:28:02.000 We would not have responded to this kind of shitty, dismal little virus this way 20 years ago. 0.84

02:28:09.000 And the same number of people would have died. 0.97

02:28:13.000 And of course, someone would jump in and go, it's not a shitty, dismal little virus that's killed almost 300,000 people. 0.88

02:28:18.000 That's right. 0.51

02:28:19.000 That's right.

02:28:19.000 And it's killed 1.6.

02:28:22.000 If you believe, let's say that all the PCR tests are right.

02:28:25.000 Let's say there's no over-counting.

02:28:26.000 There's clearly over-counting right now.

02:28:27.000 It's killed 1.6 million people this year.

02:28:30.000 60 million people have died worldwide this year.

02:28:35.000 Less than 3% died from this.

02:28:38.000 And they're mostly extremely old people. 0.98

02:28:41.000 That's the truth.

02:28:42.000 You don't have to like it. 0.97

02:28:43.000 You can say I'm a shitty person for saying it. 0.95

02:28:45.000 It's the truth. 0.99

02:28:47.000 Is there less danger of a virus that kills old people?

02:28:54.000 Are old people less valuable?

02:28:56.000 If there's a way to protect old people, shouldn't we do that?

02:29:00.000 Of course, if there's a way to protect old people, we should do that.

02:29:03.000 But by dismissing it in that regard, I understand that you're being pragmatic, and this is honest, that old people are essentially... 1.00

02:29:10.000 Look, we have lifespans, right?

02:29:12.000 When you get to 85, 90 years old, the general consensus is you're at the end of the line.

02:29:17.000 You are at the end of the line.

02:29:18.000 Yeah.

02:29:20.000 Joe, ask it the other way.

02:29:22.000 If you have to sacrifice a 10-year-old or an 80-year-old, if you have to make that decision, who on earth...

02:29:27.000 Depends on the 10-year-old. 1.00

02:29:29.000 A lot of those little kids are assholes. 1.00

02:29:30.000 No, of course. 1.00

02:29:32.000 Right?

02:29:32.000 Yes, yes.

02:29:33.000 I mean, if you'd be an asshole if you were an 80-year-old and you wanted a 10-year-old to die so you could live. 1.00

02:29:38.000 That's right. 1.00

02:29:38.000 Yes. 1.00

02:29:39.000 Why on earth is it not okay to say that?

02:29:42.000 Well, because there's always a person who's looking to criticize you in any way, shape, or form, period.

02:29:47.000 Especially if you're a line stepper like you are.

02:29:50.000 If you're a dissenter.

02:29:51.000 If you're a person who goes away from the orthodoxy and not just publishes one, but three different booklets about this.

02:29:58.000 What are the titles?

02:30:00.000 Unreported truths of the COVID-19 and lockdowns.

02:30:03.000 So part one is the death counts and estimates.

02:30:06.000 Part two is called...

02:30:08.000 Part two is a terrible title.

02:30:09.000 Update and examination of lockdowns as a strategy.

02:30:12.000 And part three is masks.

02:30:14.000 And people want me to do one on the PCR testing issue, which I might, but I feel like I need to do one on vaccines.

02:30:21.000 How have these been reviewed, rather?

02:30:25.000 Well, they've barely been reviewed.

02:30:27.000 I mean, essentially, the media has ignored them.

02:30:29.000 And one of the things, by the way, that was so disappointing to me, Love that guy.

02:30:47.000 Love that guy. 1.00

02:30:53.000 Why does he think you're an asshole? 1.00

02:30:55.000 You know, he didn't agree that we should lock down. 1.00

02:30:56.000 Whatever.

02:30:57.000 He had the sort of consensus smart person position.

02:31:00.000 Well, his husband got it from wearing a mask.

02:31:03.000 His husband was protesting wearing a mask in Brazil and got it and was really sick.

02:31:08.000 And his husband's very robust and a young guy. 0.99

02:31:12.000 And he was saying, like, hey, this is a fucked up virus. 0.99

02:31:14.000 Right. 0.99

02:31:15.000 Yeah.

02:31:15.000 So anyway, so Greenwald said, don't censor this guy.

02:31:19.000 But the people at the Times didn't speak out for me at all.

02:31:23.000 Okay, so what's happened in the months since?

02:31:26.000 Well, you can look at the reviews.

02:31:28.000 First of all, these three things have sold like a quarter million copies combined.

02:31:33.000 And the reviews, they've gotten like 10,000 reviews on Amazon, which are basically almost five stars all.

02:31:39.000 And they've been ignored by the media.

02:31:42.000 Just like I've been now, you know, the Times, they wrote a hit piece on me back in July.

02:31:47.000 About this?

02:31:48.000 No, no, just sort of about me and how I'd become this anti-lockdown person.

02:31:52.000 Hit piece is a little strong, but it was negative.

02:31:56.000 Vanity Fair wrote two real hit pieces on me in April.

02:31:59.000 Since then...

02:32:00.000 And it's all about the lockdowns.

02:32:02.000 Think about me and how I don't know what I'm talking about and scientists hate me, blah, blah, blah.

02:32:08.000 Two hit pieces.

02:32:09.000 Yes.

02:32:09.000 The first one must have been very successful.

02:32:11.000 The first one was sort of a slap and then they tried again with the second one.

02:32:16.000 Since the Times kind of swiped at me and didn't really draw blood, the media's position has basically been to ignore me.

02:32:24.000 So I go on Fox.

02:32:26.000 I bond with Tucker, Laura, Fairmount.

02:32:30.000 That's the move.

02:32:32.000 But no!

02:32:33.000 I mean, the problem is that I need to be honest.

02:32:36.000 I understand.

02:32:36.000 Listen, Glenn Greenwald goes on them all the time.

02:32:39.000 I like them.

02:32:40.000 They're smart.

02:32:41.000 They ask good questions.

02:32:42.000 But I should be...

02:32:44.000 Rachel Maddow, you know what?

02:32:46.000 As I've said, have me on live.

02:32:48.000 You can ask me anything. 0.99

02:32:50.000 As long as it's live so you don't get to edit, you know, make me look like an asshole. 0.99

02:32:53.000 Well, they're worried about the blowback. 0.95

02:32:54.000 They're worried about the blowback like, you know, we're talking about that I had from the Abigail Schreier podcast or any of the other podcasts that are controversial.

02:33:02.000 They're worried about blowback.

02:33:03.000 Pretending that you don't exist or that I don't exist is not helping these people.

02:33:08.000 Your audience is huge.

02:33:09.000 My audience is not as huge as, you know, it's not even a fraction as huge as yours, but it's real.

02:33:15.000 Well, they still think of themselves as the mainstream, and it's not really the case anymore.

02:33:21.000 You're one of the mainstream.

02:33:24.000 When there's other people that you don't consider mainstream, and they have hundreds of millions of views, you say that's not mainstream. 0.98

02:33:33.000 Well, what the fuck is mainstream then? 0.95

02:33:36.000 What do you consider? 0.99

02:33:37.000 Does it have to be sanctioned by a corporation that has a...

02:33:40.000 Not just a clear mandate, but that you get direction as to what you can and can't say and who you can and can't have on.

02:33:50.000 These gatekeepers of information and the idea that these gatekeepers should be influenced and also not just influenced but directed by financial decisions.

02:34:02.000 Yeah.

02:34:23.000 There's a little bit of that.

02:34:24.000 But there's also a legitimate worry that some of these people...

02:34:28.000 When you don't have any gatekeepers, right?

02:34:30.000 And it's open information.

02:34:31.000 There's some people that are going to say things that aren't accurate.

02:34:35.000 And those things are going to become spread and retweeted.

02:34:40.000 And then these conspiracies are going to become something that people actually believe in when they're not accurate.

02:34:45.000 What they would like is there to be some sort of... 0.96

02:34:50.000 Some sort of gatekeeper or some sort of fil- but the problem is they've been so fucking shitty at it that no one trusts them anymore. 1.00

02:34:58.000 You guys lie about so much and you distort so much and you have this obvious political ideology that you're relying on and you filter everything through. 0.97

02:35:10.000 That's right.

02:35:11.000 There's not a real, clear, objective news source that will say, we're wrong about this, or we've been wrong about that.

02:35:18.000 Like you were talking about with the various things, especially with the child disease, that they never pushed back against.

02:35:26.000 They never went back and corrected it.

02:35:28.000 They should have an equal response to the fact that they found out that they were in error.

02:35:33.000 Yes, they should.

02:35:35.000 If they want to be trusted.

02:35:36.000 Instead, they try to smear me and smear you like I'm a QAnon.

02:35:41.000 Does anything I say sound QAnon to you?

02:35:44.000 A little bit.

02:35:45.000 Really?

02:35:46.000 No, just kidding.

02:35:47.000 I don't know what QAnon sounds like.

02:35:49.000 I have friends who believe in that QAnon stuff.

02:35:52.000 It gets weird.

02:35:53.000 I've had people tell me it's real.

02:35:55.000 I'm like, what?

02:35:56.000 What's real?

02:35:57.000 What's real?

02:35:58.000 What are we saying here?

02:36:00.000 It's It's a weird time, man.

02:36:03.000 It's a weird time for information.

02:36:04.000 I think we're in this sort of transitionary period between these media giants that have failed their audience in many respects.

02:36:13.000 Because if you ask people, do you believe the story, it was on CNN, and you said that 10 years ago, I think most people would say yes.

02:36:24.000 Most people.

02:36:36.000 Yeah, right.

02:36:45.000 Is this a political thing?

02:36:46.000 Have they made a decision to not be honest because they think it best serves the interests of the United States if they're not honest?

02:36:52.000 All these considerations were never a factor before, and they are now.

02:36:56.000 Yes.

02:36:56.000 So when I worked at the Times, people would accuse the Times of being biased and liberal, and I would tell them what I thought was the truth, which I really think was the truth at the time.

02:37:06.000 Look, there is some bias in terms of story selection.

02:37:09.000 In other words, you know...

02:37:11.000 Things they cover.

02:37:12.000 Yeah, like, obviously, it was easier to write stories about, you know, police brutality than how great the police were or something like that, right?

02:37:21.000 But once you got past that idea, okay...

02:37:25.000 You were supposed to report the facts.

02:37:27.000 You were supposed to give people who you were, let's say it was a negative story, a chance to comment and report their answers honestly, not snarkily.

02:37:36.000 Give them the space that they deserved because they have a point of view too.

02:37:41.000 And you weren't supposed to lie in a meaningful way.

02:37:45.000 In other words, what the story was was supposed to be an accurate representation of reality.

02:37:51.000 And I don't think you can say those things about the New York Times anymore.

02:37:55.000 When did it shift?

02:37:56.000 Well, it shifted with Trump, and it shifted with this sort of new generation of journalists they hired, some of whom were not really journalists.

02:38:04.000 They were sort of like new media people who were camera, they were videographers, or they were web designers.

02:38:12.000 They didn't come out of the idea that We're journalists first, and our first goal is to try to reflect reality as well as any human being can.

02:38:23.000 Obviously, we all live in the cave.

02:38:25.000 We don't really know what reality is, but we're going to try.

02:38:28.000 There's an objective truth out there that we're going to try to get to. 1.00

02:38:31.000 With Trump, it became the United States is filled with a bunch of fucking racist morons. 1.00

02:38:36.000 You did it. 1.00

02:38:38.000 A bunch of racist morons, and we're going to show them the way, the truth, and the light. 1.00

02:38:43.000 And that has been the last five years. 1.00

02:38:45.000 And it's been devastating to journalism.

02:38:47.000 It's the indoctrination, too, from the universities.

02:38:49.000 This woke ideology is thought to be the way.

02:38:52.000 And in many ways, it's a new religion.

02:38:55.000 It's like the religion of woke is more important than the objective dissemination of reality.

02:39:02.000 And if I were in that camp, I'd really be saying to myself, Why the hell is it that Donald Trump won more African-American and other minority votes than Mitt Romney? 0.99

02:39:12.000 I mean, the guy's a racist. 1.00

02:39:14.000 So many of his supporters are racist. 0.99

02:39:15.000 And yet somehow we've failed so badly.

02:39:19.000 We are so over the top in our woke ideology.

02:39:23.000 That we've lost support among these groups.

02:39:26.000 You know, we call people, you know, Latinx.

02:39:28.000 They don't like that.

02:39:33.000 No!

02:39:33.000 Yeah, they don't like that.

02:39:35.000 It's a joke what's happening.

02:39:37.000 I've seen Latino people get angry at that distinction.

02:39:43.000 It's strange to me, and I wonder what saves journalism, because I wish there was a place that I could go to that I knew there was not going to be any bias whatsoever, that I knew these are the facts as we know them, as it stands now, and it used to be The Times.

02:39:58.000 I used to think The Times was that place.

02:39:59.000 I still think The Times is better than most, but the problem is with these kids coming out of these universities, they feel like they have this There's an obligation to push some sort of social justice along with the news.

02:40:17.000 And that just wasn't the case before.

02:40:20.000 They might have had their own political leanings, but the news...

02:40:26.000 Right.

02:40:44.000 Right.

02:40:45.000 Right.

02:40:49.000 Well, there was a thought that covering any of the Hillary Clinton email scandals was one of the reasons why Donald Trump got elected. 0.99

02:40:58.000 And so that they had fucked up and they had failed. 0.96

02:41:01.000 And then, and guess what? 0.99

02:41:02.000 They did their best to hide the Hunter Biden Yes.

02:41:05.000 And that was real.

02:41:06.000 Don't tell me it wasn't real.

02:41:07.000 The computer was real.

02:41:09.000 It's all real.

02:41:10.000 I mean, so, you know, it's funny you say like a centrist, you know, some kind of organization.

02:41:16.000 Elon and I actually briefly talked about this back in the spring.

02:41:19.000 And, you know, he has a few other things to do.

02:41:21.000 And I got, you know, kind of busy with COVID. And we didn't even talk about should it be nonprofit?

02:41:27.000 Should it be for profit?

02:41:28.000 What would it look like?

02:41:30.000 Is there a place for that news organization out there?

02:41:33.000 And what would it cover?

02:41:35.000 What would it be?

02:41:36.000 It's going to have to come from a place like that, where it starts from the beginning with that in mind, and with that as the core tenets of objective reality.

02:41:49.000 And the obligation is to disseminate this objective reality.

02:41:53.000 And not social justice, not right-wing ideology, no biases.

02:42:00.000 And that's not really what we expect from mainstream television news.

02:42:08.000 But in the interim, something is happening. 0.98

02:42:11.000 And you're actually, again, I don't want to sound like I'm kissing your ass, but look at the size of your audience. 0.98

02:42:15.000 You are sort of the leader of it. 0.99

02:42:17.000 That's terrifying.

02:42:19.000 But no, it's true.

02:42:20.000 It's a citizen journalism.

02:42:22.000 But you're doing it in the most organic possible way.

02:42:26.000 You have people on, you think you have something to say, and you ask them questions.

02:42:30.000 That's what being a reporter is supposed to be.

02:42:33.000 And there's other people out there who are pushing, but it's a slow process.

02:42:42.000 Well, it is a slow process, but I think that there's a hunger for it.

02:42:47.000 And I think, unfortunately, I'm in this weird position where I have this weird obligation that I didn't expect.

02:42:57.000 I just wanted to smoke pot and talk to my friends.

02:43:00.000 And now I have to interview people. 1.00

02:43:04.000 I have to be a fucking... 1.00

02:43:05.000 Some weirdo de facto journalist. 0.99

02:43:07.000 Based on that Spotify contract, I wouldn't complain too much.

02:43:10.000 No, I'm not complaining, but...

02:43:14.000 I don't need a lot of money.

02:43:16.000 I'm not that person.

02:43:17.000 But I do need some protection from what I think is the overreach of tech censorship.

02:43:25.000 And I've had a great time with YouTube.

02:43:27.000 They really haven't done... 0.79

02:43:29.000 They've really been very good, and I know they take a lot of shit, but in terms of how bad it could have gone, and I know that there's been a lot of censorship that does exist with YouTube and some other places, I have no problems with them.

02:43:45.000 With iTunes, same thing. 0.94

02:43:46.000 I have no problems with them.

02:43:47.000 Yeah, Apple's been great for me, too.

02:43:49.000 But I don't trust that it's going to stay that way.

02:43:53.000 I don't.

02:43:54.000 I just see too much.

02:43:56.000 I see, you know, Brett Weinstein's organization.

02:44:01.000 He had this Unity 2020 Twitter account where the idea was to take people from the left and people from the right that are reasonable, educated, intelligent people and great leaders and create a third sort of option for people.

02:44:15.000 Their Twitter account got shut down.

02:44:17.000 Did it really?

02:44:18.000 Yes, it got shut down.

02:44:19.000 Yes. 0.98

02:44:20.000 There's violated terms of service or whatever the fuck it is. 0.84

02:44:24.000 It made no sense. 0.99

02:44:26.000 Crazy. 0.99

02:44:27.000 Just absolute fucking lunacy that just discussing the option of a third party by a public intellectual who's a scholar was thought to be so dangerous that they had to shut it down. 0.99

02:44:42.000 I can't complain about Twitter. 0.98

02:44:43.000 I guess we've all had different experiences with different platforms.

02:44:46.000 Twitter's been pretty fair to me, I feel like.

02:44:48.000 They do a lot of things that I don't agree with at all. 0.98

02:44:51.000 There's a lot of crazy shit that they ban people from for, and that's one of them. 0.98

02:44:56.000 That's just one of them. 0.98

02:44:57.000 But I don't know who's doing that.

02:44:59.000 Here's the thing.

02:45:00.000 When you have an enormous group...

02:45:01.000 Of human beings working together at Twitter.

02:45:04.000 How much editorial control do individuals have?

02:45:08.000 Like, is this stuff going through an algorithm?

02:45:10.000 Or is there a person...

02:45:12.000 You know, they have this trust and safety council that's filled with social justice weirdos.

02:45:17.000 How Orwellian is that? 0.99

02:45:19.000 Fucking weird. 0.98

02:45:20.000 I'm reading 1984 again. 0.99

02:45:21.000 I just started reading it again.

02:45:22.000 And it's bizarre.

02:45:24.000 That's a book you have to read now.

02:45:26.000 Another book you have to read now is Illness is Metaphor.

02:45:29.000 If you're thinking about long COVID, that's Susan Sontag writing about being ill and what it means.

02:45:34.000 Because COVID has definitely taken on this metaphor.

02:45:38.000 I mean, my joke was long-haul COVID is metaphor as illness.

02:45:42.000 Yeah.

02:45:45.000 The idea of you're in the kingdom of the sick or the kingdom of the well.

02:45:49.000 We're in the kingdom of the sick right now.

02:45:50.000 Right.

02:45:51.000 But for most of human history, we've wanted to be well.

02:45:54.000 We've wanted to be in the kingdom of the well.

02:45:56.000 And now it's like there's so many people who want to be sick, it feels like.

02:46:00.000 Well, they're just scared.

02:46:01.000 And there's also...

02:46:03.000 The worst thing that's ever happened to you is the worst thing that's ever happened to you.

02:46:08.000 And if being afraid of catching a disease that 99-point-whatever people survive from is the worst thing that happened to you, it's still the worst thing that happened to you.

02:46:18.000 You haven't gone through World War I. You haven't seen your grandparents starve.

02:46:23.000 You haven't had these horrific, violent encounters on a daily basis.

02:46:28.000 How do you argue with someone out of fear?

02:46:30.000 Right.

02:46:30.000 This thing still is the worst thing you've encountered because so many people, they inflate their adversity.

02:46:39.000 They make it seem like this unbelievable barrier that they've had such great difficulty overcoming because there's social value, there's social cred, and there's social currency.

02:46:52.000 In suffering and in being a victim.

02:46:55.000 And so there's so many people that love to talk about it, you know, and make this big horrific deal about it.

02:47:02.000 I hate to say it, but yeah.

02:47:04.000 I mean, this is part of the problem with human beings is that we have this understanding of what real struggle is based on our own personal experience.

02:47:12.000 And I think a lot of these people that are freaking out, they've really, they've had soft lives.

02:47:19.000 It's part of the problem. 0.97

02:47:20.000 You talk to people that are tough, that have had hard lives, that have like, you know, fucking struggled and come here from other countries and like really, really, really seen some horrific shit, really seen crime and violence on a high level. 0.96

02:47:34.000 They're not nearly as scared of this stuff. 0.95

02:47:36.000 No, and I mean, I'll never forget being in Baghdad in the summer of 2004 and walking through the central morgue and I mean, you know, there were a lot of dead bodies in that morgue.

02:47:48.000 2004?

02:47:49.000 You were in Baghdad?

02:47:50.000 Yeah, I was working for the Times.

02:47:52.000 Jesus.

02:47:53.000 What was that like?

02:47:54.000 It wasn't great.

02:47:58.000 I don't talk about it that much.

02:47:59.000 It wasn't great.

02:48:00.000 Why are you laughing?

02:48:01.000 I'm just thinking about something.

02:48:02.000 What are you thinking about?

02:48:04.000 Doesn't matter.

02:48:05.000 It must.

02:48:07.000 Doesn't matter.

02:48:08.000 Can't talk about it?

02:48:08.000 Yeah.

02:48:09.000 Okay, I understand.

02:48:10.000 But obviously people are going to go, you're laughing about a morgue?

02:48:15.000 But that to you is, you've seen one of the worst things that human beings experience.

02:48:22.000 War.

02:48:22.000 Yeah.

02:48:23.000 And you've seen the consequences of war.

02:48:25.000 Yes.

02:48:26.000 Yeah.

02:48:26.000 Not just visit a base, but go through the morgue.

02:48:29.000 No.

02:48:30.000 People die.

02:48:32.000 Yeah.

02:48:33.000 And sometimes they die pretty horrifically.

02:48:35.000 Yeah.

02:48:35.000 Horrifically in large scale.

02:48:37.000 Yeah.

02:48:38.000 And something that seems very senseless.

02:48:40.000 Yes.

02:48:41.000 I don't know how we come out of this, Alex.

02:48:44.000 And this is what I'm really worried about.

02:48:45.000 I'm worried about the tone of the country has shifted in this.

02:48:52.000 People are looking to attack people that haven't really necessarily done anything.

02:48:57.000 People are looking to attack people with differing ideas or people that question things.

02:49:02.000 People willing to attack people that don't follow the orthodoxy or follow this dogma that seems to be laid out.

02:49:10.000 And they're looking for targets.

02:49:12.000 You know, someone said to me, I can't believe someone was mad at me.

02:49:19.000 A person was saying about themselves, I can't believe someone's mad at me for saying this.

02:49:23.000 And I said, I don't really think they're mad at you.

02:49:25.000 I think they look at you and that's a target.

02:49:27.000 They go, oh, there's one.

02:49:29.000 It's like whack-a-mole.

02:49:29.000 There he is.

02:49:30.000 Get him. 0.98

02:49:31.000 They're on Twitter all day, freaking out, and they're nuts.

02:49:35.000 The problem with social media is, first of all, it's addictive.

02:49:38.000 It's not regular human interaction.

02:49:41.000 It lacks all social cues.

02:49:43.000 It lacks all empathy.

02:49:44.000 You're not seeing the person.

02:49:46.000 You're saying mean things to them.

02:49:47.000 You don't feel any consequences of it whatsoever.

02:49:50.000 It's something that has replaced...

02:50:07.000 Good for you.

02:50:11.000 And I did.

02:50:12.000 And I read like, you know, I read half of this very good book.

02:50:15.000 And I was like, God, you know, I mean, look, Twitter has been very, you know, important to me this year.

02:50:21.000 I've gotten a lot of followers.

02:50:22.000 I've gotten my message out.

02:50:23.000 And the internet has been very important to me.

02:50:25.000 I've gotten a lot of data.

02:50:26.000 People contact me.

02:50:27.000 They email me.

02:50:28.000 They show me stuff.

02:50:28.000 But it's devastating.

02:50:30.000 For all the reasons you said.

02:50:31.000 And it's devastating the way you think.

02:50:33.000 These sort of bite-sized dopamine hits that you get when you're surfing around.

02:50:36.000 It's not good.

02:50:38.000 Let me give you an example of something that is sort of explicitly non-political.

02:50:42.000 So earlier, I think it was Sunday, Elle magazine published this article about this woman who'd been a reporter for Bloomberg.

02:50:50.000 And she'd covered a guy named Martin Shkreli.

02:50:54.000 Yeah, Pharma Bro.

02:50:55.000 Yeah, Pharma Bro.

02:50:56.000 Exactly.

02:50:57.000 And she basically, long story short, she fell in love with him.

02:50:59.000 Oh, Jesus.

02:51:00.000 No, she did.

02:51:01.000 What's her name?

02:51:02.000 Her name is Christine.

02:51:04.000 Jesus, Christine.

02:51:05.000 Or Christy, I should say.

02:51:06.000 Oh, Christy.

02:51:07.000 No, no, no, no, no.

02:51:08.000 Find yourself a real man.

02:51:09.000 You're going to feel bad about this when I tell you where this is going.

02:51:12.000 So she falls in love.

02:51:14.000 She's married.

02:51:15.000 Oh no, double no. 0.78

02:51:17.000 She basically quits Bloomberg because she doesn't have sex with him. 1.00

02:51:21.000 I don't even think she ever had any much physical contact with him, but she falls in love with him.

02:51:26.000 She quits Bloomberg in 2018 when they find out or when she discloses it.

02:51:30.000 She just has a relationship with him.

02:51:33.000 But is it in jail?

02:51:35.000 Is he in jail at the time?

02:51:36.000 He's in jail now.

02:51:36.000 So she's not even intimate.

02:51:38.000 Well, it was before he went to jail and then she sort of slowly fell in love with him.

02:51:41.000 Okay.

02:51:43.000 She's writing letters on his behalf.

02:51:46.000 He goes to jail.

02:51:47.000 She leaves her husband.

02:51:49.000 Jesus.

02:51:50.000 She's waiting for him.

02:51:51.000 Imagine being the husband? 1.00

02:51:52.000 Imagine being that you were getting left for this piece of crap. 1.00

02:51:55.000 I take it out with crap. 1.00

02:51:57.000 You were thinking about saying shit, I saw it. 0.99

02:51:59.000 Sorry. 1.00

02:52:00.000 She leaves the husband.

02:52:06.000 She's waiting for him.

02:52:07.000 She's trying to get him out because of COVID. That's such high risk from COVID. Okay.

02:52:12.000 Turns out at the end of the article, she basically hasn't talked to Skreli almost this whole year.

02:52:20.000 And the reporter asked him for a statement, okay?

02:52:24.000 And his statement was something like, I wish her the best of luck on her future endeavors.

02:52:29.000 Basically like what you say to an employee you've just fired.

02:52:32.000 So it turns out, it turns out this is not a story of like, Oh, wow.

02:52:55.000 Have some sympathy.

02:52:56.000 Whatever happened to her, wherever she is right now, even if she doesn't know it and she doesn't know it because she's on Twitter and she's arguing with people, she needs to be left alone and she needs some help.

02:53:07.000 Mental help.

02:53:09.000 But she becomes an object of derision in the media community. 1.00

02:53:15.000 This is unfortunate what social media does to people.

02:53:18.000 It is part of the plan, you know?

02:53:21.000 I mean, that's part of how it lays out when you stay online all day.

02:53:26.000 And again, look for targets.

02:53:27.000 You find someone like that, that's a soft target.

02:53:30.000 It's a very easy target.

02:53:31.000 That's right.

02:53:32.000 You're in love with the farmer, bro, and he doesn't even...

02:53:35.000 No, you exist!

02:53:36.000 I mean, but it's not a joke!

02:53:38.000 Yeah, that's crazy.

02:53:39.000 I mean...

02:53:41.000 There's an update today from the Los Angeles Times here at the end of the thing.

02:53:46.000 It says that when they found, or of course that pops up now, when he found out that wasn't going to be published, he cut off all communication and previously was referred to, or by his lawyers, referred to her as his fiancée.

02:53:59.000 Oh my god.

02:54:00.000 So he was basically...

02:54:02.000 Just baiting her and using her.

02:54:04.000 Oh my god.

02:54:05.000 What does she look like? 0.94

02:54:06.000 Don't show a picture of her, but show it to me.

02:54:09.000 Don't show it online, but show it to me.

02:54:12.000 Whoa.

02:54:13.000 She's pretty. 0.99

02:54:14.000 Yeah.

02:54:15.000 Well, sometimes people are crazy.

02:54:17.000 You know, and sometimes people have these romantic ideas about a person, particularly a person that's very vulnerable and dependent upon them, right?

02:54:24.000 Like, maybe her husband wasn't really that into her, and maybe she looked at this guy who was locked up. 0.99

02:54:31.000 Like, women fall in love with fucking serial killers. 1.00

02:54:32.000 That's right, they do. 1.00

02:54:33.000 But I think that's like a danger thing.

02:54:36.000 I actually talked to a psychologist about that.

02:54:39.000 And he was saying that there's something about very dangerous, murderous people.

02:54:45.000 There's a certain small subset of women that are attracted to that. 0.99

02:54:49.000 Well, it's like this Chris Watts guy, right, who gets panties sent to him all the time.

02:54:53.000 He's the one from Colorado who killed his wife, and he killed the kids, and he put them in the oil tank. 0.78

02:54:58.000 It was a terrible case.

02:55:00.000 He gets panties sent to him?

02:55:01.000 I mean, he's a good-looking guy, and it's crazy.

02:55:05.000 What do you think you're getting out of that if he gets out of jail?

02:55:08.000 I think we'd all like to assume that most people are rational.

02:55:13.000 I think there's a lot of people out there with 9-volt brains.

02:55:17.000 And they just can't connect all the dots.

02:55:20.000 And they just see, oh, he pretty.

02:55:22.000 I like his cheekbones.

02:55:24.000 He make baby with me.

02:55:27.000 And I don't even think they talk that way.

02:55:29.000 I just think there's people that are just dull-minded people.

02:55:32.000 People.

02:55:32.000 Well, as somebody said, this year has been an IQ test for a lot of society.

02:55:36.000 Unfortunately, we failed it.

02:55:38.000 Not just an IQ, but an emotional intelligence test.

02:55:42.000 Yes.

02:55:42.000 And there's a lot of people that really fail with that.

02:55:45.000 I've seen so many people arguing with people that they were friends with on Twitter about fucking everything and anything. 0.98

02:55:51.000 Yes. 0.98

02:55:52.000 You know?

02:55:53.000 Being unafraid might be more important than being smart.

02:55:58.000 Mm.

02:55:58.000 I think.

02:55:59.000 Which is something that you don't realize, I think, until you're older.

02:56:02.000 Right, because if you're smart and terrified, you don't do anything.

02:56:04.000 Yep.

02:56:05.000 Yeah.

02:56:07.000 You've got to be willing to make mistakes.

02:56:09.000 And if we're not willing to allow people to make mistakes, it's just like the tone of people's communication should be shunned. 0.96

02:56:17.000 This nasty, shitty, sniping tone should be really shunned.

02:56:23.000 Because it's one of the most detrimental things to our society and our culture in terms of establishing community and friendships and And just spreading love. 0.99

02:56:32.000 It's very bad.

02:56:33.000 And yet I would push back on you on that a little bit. 0.99

02:56:35.000 With somebody like Burks, when she's a hypocrite the way she is, you have to say something about it. 0.99

02:56:40.000 I prefer to mock her. 0.99

02:56:41.000 Well, yes.

02:56:42.000 Just but in a funny way.

02:56:43.000 Like, LOL, lady. 1.00

02:56:44.000 I agree. 0.98

02:56:45.000 Well, I'm a little bit hypocritical as well because I've been shitting all over Gavin Newsom because I think he's... 0.99

02:56:52.000 We're good to go. 0.99

02:57:11.000 Archetype of what we despise about a person who's a hypocritical politician who is using their position to gain very considerable wealth. 0.52

02:57:22.000 Is he smart?

02:57:23.000 Do you have any idea?

02:57:24.000 Well, I saw a debate with him and Adam Carolla and Adam Carolla just ran over him.

02:57:31.000 Wow.

02:57:31.000 Yeah.

02:57:32.000 Well, Adam's pretty smart.

02:57:33.000 He is pretty smart, but it was also the way he was attacking them.

02:57:37.000 It was an uncomfortable debate because it was about some very sensitive subjects, like about minorities and bank accounts and stuff like that.

02:57:47.000 But it was just sometimes people, even though they might have a functional mind, they might be intelligent, If they're running for office or if they are holding an office, they're locked into a way of communicating where they can't stray outside the lines.

02:58:03.000 So even if they're intelligent, they can't concede points.

02:58:10.000 They're trying to win a conversation.

02:58:15.000 We're good to go.

02:58:29.000 Oh, yeah, that's true.

02:58:31.000 That makes sense.

02:58:31.000 You should.

02:58:32.000 And if you don't, people aren't going to trust you.

02:58:35.000 And politicians don't do that. 1.00

02:58:36.000 They just fucking don't do that. 0.98

02:58:38.000 And if they know they're wrong, they try to weasel their way around it or worm their way. 0.99

02:58:44.000 And pundits do it, too.

02:58:45.000 And a lot of journalists do it, unfortunately, too.

02:58:49.000 And what people want to know is that they can trust you with basic reality.

02:58:57.000 Yep.

02:58:57.000 And I don't think most people trust politicians with basic reality.

02:59:02.000 So we're left with the people that make the most critical decisions in terms of how our society is going to move forward, what our response is going to be to disasters like this pandemic.

02:59:12.000 And we're leaving it with people that don't tell the truth.

02:59:14.000 Because they're not allowed to.

02:59:17.000 They're not allowed to be honest about things that do stray outside the lines.

02:59:21.000 They have to stick.

02:59:22.000 Inside this pre-arranged or pre-organized pattern of thinking.

02:59:29.000 But I would say, I think it's a little more than that, too.

02:59:32.000 I think a lot of people are afraid of science and scientists.

02:59:36.000 Even intelligent people, even politicians.

02:59:39.000 How so?

02:59:41.000 This mantra this year of trust the science.

02:59:44.000 So, science isn't a thing.

02:59:48.000 It's a process.

02:59:50.000 I have an idea.

02:59:51.000 I'm going to try to figure out how to test that idea.

02:59:53.000 I'm going to see what the real world says about my idea.

02:59:57.000 And then I'm going to go back and iterate it again.

03:00:00.000 It's also an appeal to authority, right?

03:00:03.000 Trust the science.

03:00:04.000 Right!

03:00:04.000 That's what it shouldn't be at all.

03:00:07.000 But people are afraid of science.

03:00:09.000 And there's something else that's happened.

03:00:11.000 Unfortunately, and this is just a function of science and its own complexity, with something like the mRNA vaccine, okay?

03:00:19.000 How many people are there in the world who truly understand it?

03:00:24.000 And how many of those people are not working for one of the companies?

03:00:27.000 So to some extent...

03:00:30.000 I'm not saying who can't kind of understand it.

03:00:33.000 You know, you can be a smart person and read, but I'm saying like who've spent their lives actually looking at this and can tell you the real risks in a meaningful way.

03:00:43.000 The number is very small, okay?

03:00:47.000 Think of it the same as quantum computing.

03:00:49.000 How many people understand that?

03:00:50.000 Very few, and most of them are working on it.

03:00:53.000 And once you start working on something, no matter who you are and how honest you are, you have an incentive to want it.

03:00:59.000 To want it to work, to want it to succeed, in general.

03:01:03.000 That's just human nature.

03:01:04.000 So to some extent, we are dependent on these scientists, on these engineers, on these highly trained people who spent their lives on one particular question.

03:01:16.000 But what we shouldn't do, and this is where journalists have failed so completely, When you're dependent on them, the answer is not, I'm going to take what you say as gospel because I'm afraid to ask.

03:01:28.000 It's, I'm going to keep asking you until you can explain this to me and to the world in a way that I can understand.

03:01:37.000 And I want you to help me understand the risks, okay?

03:01:40.000 We didn't let Oppenheimer decide whether to drop the bomb.

03:01:43.000 Truman decided, okay?

03:01:46.000 Ultimately, the public health people, they are technicians.

03:01:51.000 Their job is to lay out different courses of action with pros and cons.

03:01:55.000 And it is the job of the politician, the lawmaker, the person who's been elected to make the decision, to make the decision.

03:02:02.000 And that was Trump's ultimate failing, okay?

03:02:04.000 That he failed to say, I'm in charge here.

03:02:07.000 I'm making it.

03:02:08.000 Whatever it is, right or wrong, it's my decision.

03:02:11.000 I'm not going to be afraid of you.

03:02:12.000 Because he is a germaphobe, and he isn't that smart, and he is afraid of scientists, okay?

03:02:17.000 But journalists, whose job it is to question all authority, And to make sure that people's statements line up.

03:02:24.000 Over time, if you have one job as a journalist, it's to make sure that what people are saying, you don't let them change their facts two days later, okay?

03:02:33.000 Or change their facts with what's published somewhere else.

03:02:36.000 That you question them on that discrepancy.

03:02:38.000 There are many jobs as journalists, but that's the most basic one.

03:02:41.000 These people failed.

03:02:43.000 They got intimidated by the word science.

03:02:46.000 And it's a signal failure.

03:02:50.000 In closing, do you think...

03:02:53.000 That maybe it's wise to support the distribution of the vaccine because the potential downsides of the vaccine are less than the potential downsides of catching the disease and getting really sick from it.

03:03:09.000 That's by age.

03:03:11.000 If you're 85, yeah.

03:03:12.000 If you're 75, yeah.

03:03:13.000 If you're 65, I don't know.

03:03:15.000 Under 50, definitely not.

03:03:17.000 This has been the lie all along.

03:03:21.000 And it's a double lie now because, again, I keep repeating it, not only are the risks higher if you're older from COVID, but the vaccine side effects are lower.

03:03:29.000 So those people got to take it or should be encouraged to take it.

03:03:33.000 But if you are under 50 and you do get the vaccine and then you are immune to the disease, you could potentially spread it less.

03:03:40.000 You know how else you get immune to the disease?

03:03:43.000 By getting it and recovering from it.

03:03:44.000 Right, but you also can transmit it when you get it.

03:03:48.000 If you're symptomatic, if you happen to be in a nursing home...

03:03:52.000 I understand.

03:03:52.000 I'm just playing devil's advocate.

03:03:54.000 I'm just looking at the pros and cons of supporting the idea of getting vaccinated.

03:03:59.000 So that is the best reason to encourage younger people to do it.

03:04:02.000 You know what?

03:04:03.000 During that period when you might be symptomatic...

03:04:06.000 Or pre-symptomatic, you're not going to be transmitting it.

03:04:09.000 Good for you.

03:04:10.000 You got the vaccine.

03:04:11.000 You tolerated the side effects.

03:04:13.000 You tolerated the questions.

03:04:15.000 You did it for somebody else.

03:04:17.000 You did it for older people. 0.95

03:04:19.000 You want to sell it to people that way?

03:04:21.000 No problem.

03:04:22.000 I think that is the best way to sell it to people.

03:04:25.000 That's not the way it's being sold to people. 0.99

03:04:27.000 It's get the damn vaccine or you're not going to be able to go anywhere. 0.98

03:04:29.000 Well, forced compliance seems to be like, it's just people want to tell other people to comply because they want to comply and they want to know that everyone else is complying as well. 0.99

03:04:39.000 They want to know that we're all involved in groupthink.

03:04:42.000 That's right.

03:04:43.000 And it's involuntary for everybody.

03:04:45.000 This is what I want to do and I know it's uncomfortable for me, so you got to do it too.

03:04:51.000 Well, listen, man, stay off Twitter for a few days after tomorrow.

03:04:54.000 I don't want you to experience too much blowback.

03:04:57.000 I'm going to stay off Twitter as well.

03:04:59.000 You think it's going to be that bad?

03:05:00.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

03:05:01.000 I think it's going to be disingenuous.

03:05:03.000 I think they're going to probably distort your perceptions on this.

03:05:05.000 And I don't think they're going to listen to, which is what happens most of the time.

03:05:08.000 Like, we're right now three hours and 15 minutes in or something like that.

03:05:12.000 They're not going to listen.

03:05:13.000 Three hours and 15 minutes.

03:05:14.000 They'll just find one line where I misspoke.

03:05:16.000 Yeah, well, they're going to try to find something that they can take out of context where you're saying, don't get the vaccine.

03:05:21.000 You know, or whatever it is.

03:05:23.000 Whatever it is.

03:05:24.000 Yeah, whatever it is.

03:05:24.000 You know what?

03:05:25.000 It'll be fun.

03:05:26.000 Okay.

03:05:27.000 Well, thank you, Alex.

03:05:28.000 Joe, thanks for having me.

03:05:29.000 My pleasure.

03:05:30.000 Goodbye, ladies and gentlemen and non-binary folks. 1.00

The Joe Rogan Experience - December 23, 2020

Joe Rogan Experience #1582 - Alex Berenson

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