The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #1793 - Mike Baker

00:00:01.000 Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out!

00:00:04.000 The Joe Rogan Experience.

00:00:05.000 Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.

00:00:12.000 Mike Baker. 1.00

00:00:13.000 Are we fucked? 1.00

00:00:15.000 Mr. Rogan, we are fucked. 1.00

00:00:17.000 This is not good, right? 1.00

00:00:18.000 This is not good.

00:00:19.000 How much fun is this?

00:00:20.000 Every time we get together, there's some...

00:00:22.000 It seems like. 1.00

00:00:23.000 ...bullshit happening. 1.00

00:00:24.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:00:25.000 Every time, the world is somewhat falling apart.

00:00:28.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:00:28.000 Well, it's good for business.

00:00:31.000 I didn't mean that, actually.

00:00:32.000 That's going to sound wrong.

00:00:34.000 You shouldn't say that.

00:00:34.000 No, no.

00:00:34.000 That's what people expect me to say, I think.

00:00:36.000 Right.

00:00:37.000 Yeah, I think nobody really expected the potential for thermonuclear war right after two years of a pandemic.

00:00:46.000 I don't think anybody actually saw that coming.

00:00:48.000 Yeah, there was no break for the weary.

00:00:50.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:00:51.000 I did have a thought, which was, I talked to my daughter the other day.

00:00:55.000 She's just turned... 0.99

00:00:57.000 28. And I thought, after I hung up, she was talking about it, and she was kind of basically saying, what the fuck, right? 0.99

00:01:03.000 And so people that age, if you think about those, the folks in that age group, she was born, you know, she was old enough to understand 9-11, right, in a sense, from a child's perspective. 0.99

00:01:13.000 And then through the Iraq or Afghanistan, you know, bullshit, that whole time with the war on terrorism, a couple of recessions, right? 0.91

00:01:23.000 Global pandemic. 0.98

00:01:25.000 Now, you know, approaching Cold War 2.0, getting close to thermonuclear war.

00:01:30.000 Not that we are.

00:01:31.000 And the disastrous pullout of Afghanistan.

00:01:33.000 And Afghanistan, inflation possibly leading to recession.

00:01:38.000 $7 a gallon gas in California. 1.00

00:01:41.000 People of that age, not able to save money for a house, they must just be thinking, what the fuck? 1.00

00:01:47.000 Where's our... 0.99

00:01:48.000 You know, big build-up.

00:01:50.000 Where's our, like, the 50s or the 80s?

00:01:52.000 Well, it just seems so supremely incompetent. 0.96

00:01:55.000 Everything seems like whoever the grown-ups are that are running the show have fucked up so many different things. 0.98

00:02:02.000 Yeah, yeah. 0.75

00:02:05.000 Yeah, there's a lot to unpack there, isn't there, in that statement.

00:02:08.000 The Putin thing scares the shit out of me, though, because he's, you know, when it comes to warlords, he's a legitimate warlord who is in charge of...

00:02:21.000 I didn't know that they had more nukes than us.

00:02:24.000 I mean, I guess it's kind of a moot point, right?

00:02:27.000 Because everybody's got enough to kill everybody.

00:02:32.000 How many times over? 0.53

00:02:33.000 Yeah.

00:02:33.000 Isn't it something crazy like 10 times over?

00:02:36.000 Yeah, they did the math and it was in double digits.

00:02:38.000 It's not good.

00:02:39.000 It's not good, but it's... 0.90

00:02:41.000 Look, if you step back, everybody's thinking, okay, how did this fucked up situation happen? 0.71

00:02:48.000 Well, it's been building, obviously, right? 0.90

00:02:49.000 I mean, how much news coverage did we have of, well, they're adding more troops to the border with Ukraine.

00:02:54.000 I wonder what they're doing.

00:02:55.000 Could it be military exercises? 0.99

00:02:57.000 So there was a tremendous amount of speculation leading up to, what the fuck is going on? 0.96

00:03:02.000 Which, in a sense, points to how lacking the intelligence is on Putin, on plans and intentions, right? 0.73

00:03:09.000 And that's a heavy lift, right, to come up with that sort of intel, because ideally you're going to want a human source.

00:03:17.000 You know, you can gather intelligence from a variety of sources, but you really want human access, people who can tell you, you know what, I had a meeting with him, and boy, I tell you what, he was pissed off, or this is what he said, or this is how he looked.

00:03:33.000 Without that, without knowing what plans and intentions are, or being able to gather intel on, say, the command staff, Everybody was kind of speculating.

00:03:43.000 Will he?

00:03:44.000 Won't he?

00:03:44.000 What's he going to do?

00:03:46.000 Well, stepping back, if you look at what he's done, he's been pretty damn consistent, right, over the years.

00:03:53.000 And so I guess, you know, in a part, a lot of it was optimistic thinking.

00:03:57.000 Okay, he just wants the eastern part of the country.

00:03:59.000 He's just going to go in there and take that because, you know, maybe he's already got it.

00:04:03.000 He's declared those two republics legit.

00:04:05.000 Maybe that's all he wants.

00:04:06.000 He's already taken Crimea. 0.99

00:04:08.000 And so I think that was optimistic thinking, hoping that, you know, the guy's not going to lose his shit and go all the way through the country. 0.99

00:04:15.000 Well, that's what he's done. 0.98

00:04:15.000 And in part, because again, if you look at what he did in Chechnya, if you look at what he did helping Assad in Syria, if you look at what he did annexing Crimea, if you look at Georgia, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, every step of the way, he's been following in his mind this stated desire that he's made very public over the years. 0.98

00:04:36.000 To rebuild his sphere of influence, right?

00:04:38.000 So, in part, you could argue we kind of missed the obvious, right?

00:04:43.000 We didn't see the obvious in front of us because we were all kind of hoping and mirroring our values onto Putin, who doesn't deserve to have our values mirrored onto him, because we're thinking maybe he just wants a little bit.

00:04:55.000 Maybe he's just trying to make a point.

00:04:57.000 Maybe he just wants them to sign a charter saying they won't be part of NATO. So anyway, my point being twofold, I guess.

00:05:05.000 We missed the boat on that.

00:05:06.000 We missed it in part because we're always trying to be optimistic and trying to think, okay, well, maybe they think like we do.

00:05:12.000 Maybe there's a rational process there.

00:05:14.000 And then part of it is intel was lacking.

00:05:17.000 And when it comes to intel, when you're talking about in-person intel, how difficult is that to get on a guy like Putin?

00:05:25.000 It's really tough.

00:05:26.000 I mean, you know, look, it's a very heavy lift.

00:05:29.000 The higher they go up the food chain, because the smaller your pool of potential access points are, right?

00:05:36.000 So, you know, you've got some mid-level person floating around, you Right.

00:05:51.000 Right.

00:05:52.000 Right.

00:05:53.000 Right.

00:05:58.000 Increasingly small circle of close advisors and of people that he counts on and trusts.

00:06:05.000 And part of that may be, you know, the fact that that was accelerated through the two-year pandemic where he decidedly was shutting himself off because he was, you know, paranoid like a lot of people were about COVID. Do you remember when there was a guy who suicide drove into Putin's car and Putin wasn't in it?

00:06:25.000 Yeah.

00:06:25.000 When was that?

00:06:26.000 A few years back?

00:06:27.000 Yeah.

00:06:28.000 Some guy, there was oncoming traffic and he timed it right when...

00:06:33.000 There must have been someone communicating with him, letting him know where Putin's car is.

00:06:37.000 But Putin wasn't even in it.

00:06:39.000 Yeah.

00:06:39.000 And turned right into oncoming traffic and used his car as a weapon and killed the both of them.

00:06:45.000 Yeah.

00:06:45.000 I think killed the both of them.

00:06:47.000 Yeah.

00:06:48.000 We'll get you to look up when that was.

00:06:50.000 You've seen the video though, right?

00:06:51.000 Yeah.

00:06:51.000 It was a while back though.

00:06:53.000 It was...

00:06:54.000 Four or five years, maybe?

00:06:56.000 But he's... 1.00

00:06:57.000 You know, people have been talking about, is he losing his shit? 1.00

00:07:00.000 Is he going crazy? 1.00

00:07:02.000 I don't think it's any of that, right?

00:07:04.000 Well, he gets on a table when he negotiates and talks to people.

00:07:07.000 He's like 40 feet away from them.

00:07:09.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:07:10.000 And that assessment was clear during the course of the pandemic.

00:07:14.000 He was isolating himself.

00:07:15.000 He was being very, very cautious.

00:07:18.000 And so maybe that had something to do with it.

00:07:19.000 But anyway, point being is it's tough to...

00:07:23.000 When you've got a small potential well of targets you can go after, when you're talking about recruiting somebody who's got access to a high-priority target, that's probably one of the heaviest lifts we've got.

00:07:35.000 How does someone get access to a driver?

00:07:38.000 Do you use a girl? 1.00

00:07:40.000 Is that the best way to do it?

00:07:42.000 No, not really.

00:07:45.000 Because what you're looking to do, this is not to fall into...

00:07:48.000 Spy talk.

00:07:49.000 Spy talk and recruitment 101, but...

00:07:53.000 The movies and beach books and everything will have you believe that the best way to hook somebody to recruit somebody is blackmail or a honey trap or something.

00:08:03.000 Usually, you're working on something else.

00:08:06.000 You're not necessarily working on the ideology, but you don't want to start from a negative basis, right?

00:08:11.000 Because even in normal terms, in the best of circumstances, when somebody's recruited to spy on their country, to spy on their organization, whatever it may be, A clock starts ticking, you know, because things start to decay,

00:08:27.000 right?

00:08:27.000 The person starts to decay.

00:08:28.000 It's very wearing on a human, right?

00:08:30.000 And for a variety of reasons.

00:08:33.000 And so you know that window is going to close at some point.

00:08:35.000 It may not end well.

00:08:38.000 So you're trying to optimize that.

00:08:40.000 And if you start from a negative perspective, if you've got someone cooperating with you because they're blackmailing, they're under the gun here, and they hate you and they hate what they're doing, that's not what you're looking for.

00:08:50.000 You're looking for a more, and it sounds weird, but you're looking for a more positive approach.

00:08:53.000 So how do you do that?

00:08:54.000 How would you get a driver to be your buddy?

00:08:57.000 Well, there's a recruitment process, a cycle that you go through, but I hope everyone's taking notes.

00:09:08.000 First of all, you got to know what information you're looking for, right?

00:09:11.000 And so that tasking gets set outside the building.

00:09:15.000 If you're talking about the agency or really any intel service, theoretically, the administration of power is setting priority tasking.

00:09:21.000 So they send over this and they say, hey, we need this.

00:09:23.000 This is a priority target for us, this information.

00:09:25.000 So you look around and you go, okay, well, who's got access to the information?

00:09:30.000 All right.

00:09:30.000 You build up that world.

00:09:31.000 Then you figure out who might be accessible, right?

00:09:34.000 Because maybe you...

00:09:35.000 You're interested in a target here, but he never leaves that country.

00:09:40.000 It's a denied area.

00:09:43.000 So then you find out who's got access to the information, who might be accessible, why might they be minded to talk to you, can you create a scenario where you can get next to them, and then you're looking for points of leverage.

00:09:56.000 That doesn't necessarily mean you're looking to find a negative.

00:09:59.000 You're looking for something that drives them.

00:10:02.000 Are their kids the most important thing to them, right?

00:10:05.000 Do they have a kid who, you know, needs medical attention?

00:10:08.000 Do they have a kid who they desperately want to send away to college, but they don't have the money?

00:10:13.000 You know, so you're looking for something like that, that may, again, it sounds strange because you're talking about recruiting somebody for espionage, but it's a positive rather than a negative.

00:10:23.000 And that creates then a longer shelf life in a sense for that asset, if that makes sense.

00:10:29.000 It does make sense, but I would imagine that when you're dealing with someone like, say, Kim Jong-un or Putin or some dictator, they have to be prepared for things like this, right?

00:10:43.000 So they probably are very cautious on who gets into their inner circle.

00:10:48.000 Yeah, and that's a counterintelligence issue, right?

00:10:51.000 So every government out there, they're worried about that very thing, right?

00:10:58.000 And so, I mean, look, Putin, he was a KGB officer for 15 years, right?

00:11:05.000 Yeah.

00:11:06.000 Now, interestingly, going back to Putin, he served in East Germany, I think, for about half a dozen years.

00:11:14.000 Never really had any exposure to the West.

00:11:16.000 So that's also something, when you're talking about trying to assess his mindset, understand where he's coming from, part of it is, look, if he had been exposed to the West in a much bigger way, maybe he served in New York, you know, or he served in wherever, you know, London,

00:11:32.000 someplace where he had more exposure.

00:11:34.000 But you look at that guy and you go, he doesn't really understand how we think, right?

00:11:40.000 And so that's an important thing.

00:11:41.000 You got to tick that box and put that in there when you're doing an assessment of his personality and trying to – because that's part of understanding why he's doing what he's doing.

00:11:48.000 You don't think he understands how we think?

00:11:50.000 In what way?

00:11:52.000 Well, fundamentally, I mean, look, if you live in an environment, right?

00:11:58.000 If you go to China, you live in wherever, Shenzhen or Shanghai or Beijing, and you're there for a few years, you're going to understand the culture, the mindset much better than somebody who's never lived there and is just sitting in Washington in a think tank talking about what the Chinese regime may do next.

00:12:17.000 So it's that immersion.

00:12:18.000 It's that exposure.

00:12:19.000 It's dealing with those people.

00:12:22.000 It's the contact that you have.

00:12:25.000 Look, I'm old enough that I remember when the wall started to fall, when the Soviet Union was collapsing.

00:12:35.000 From our perspective, as a government, as an intel service, we saw that as an opportunity.

00:12:41.000 There's chaos there, right?

00:12:42.000 And what did you have?

00:12:44.000 You had intel officers like Putin, KGB, GRU officers who saw their world collapsing around them because At the time, before the Soviet Union collapsed, they were living the good life, right?

00:12:57.000 They were the elite in a sense, right?

00:12:59.000 They were pampered.

00:13:00.000 Their kids were going to get the best education.

00:13:02.000 They were set for life.

00:13:03.000 Their kids were set for life. 1.00

00:13:05.000 All of a sudden, the Soviet Union starts going to shit, right? 1.00

00:13:08.000 And you could see it. 0.99

00:13:09.000 And, you know, so what did we do?

00:13:12.000 Well, we were out there busy, right, working over whatever targets we might have access to, trying to see if Maybe they think, you know, maybe there's another option here.

00:13:21.000 Maybe there's an alternative.

00:13:22.000 Maybe I can, you know, save myself and my family, you know, perhaps put aside some money by working for the other side. 0.77

00:13:29.000 And that's a natural thing to do, right?

00:13:31.000 Every service is going to do that if there's chaos on the other side.

00:13:34.000 So, I remember you could see the confusion and the humiliation, right, and the fear in some of these guys.

00:13:41.000 As this was happening.

00:13:43.000 And so Putin went through that same process.

00:13:45.000 Again, it's one of those things that you do.

00:13:46.000 You put all that together to try to create this profile of this individual, right?

00:13:51.000 Because I'm not buying the talk when people get on TV and go, oh, he's going crazy.

00:13:55.000 He's losing his mind.

00:13:57.000 I'm not buying that.

00:13:58.000 There's a reason why he's driving the way he is.

00:14:02.000 And again, he's being somewhat consistent. 0.99

00:14:03.000 He's never given a shit about civilian casualties, right? 0.98

00:14:06.000 Never bothered him before. 0.98

00:14:07.000 I mean, that situation in Chechnya, when they went in there, right?

00:14:11.000 And I mean, that was, yeah, I have to argue, the other side was different as well. 0.99

00:14:17.000 Some of the Chechen separatists were, and some of the shit that they were pulling. 0.98

00:14:21.000 But at the same time, he didn't care whether he was killing civilians or, you know, separatists and, you know, members of their militia and military. 0.98

00:14:29.000 So, I don't know.

00:14:31.000 I think it's one of those things where I think with Putin, we've got to...

00:14:36.000 We've got to be really pragmatic here.

00:14:38.000 We've got to understand.

00:14:39.000 He's not crazy.

00:14:40.000 He's not going to say, okay, I'm in a corner.

00:14:42.000 I'm going to push the button and fire off a couple of tactical nukes.

00:14:47.000 I think what he's gotten to the point is, you guys have disrespected me.

00:14:51.000 This is how he thinks.

00:14:52.000 You've disrespected me. 1.00

00:14:53.000 Fuck you all. 1.00

00:14:54.000 I told you I want my sphere of influence, and I don't care whether I have to break it. 1.00

00:14:59.000 I'm going to have it.

00:15:00.000 When you say sphere of influence, do you mean he wants to reclaim what is the former Soviet Union?

00:15:07.000 Yeah.

00:15:07.000 He said that.

00:15:08.000 He said publicly in the past.

00:15:11.000 He called the collapse of the Soviet Union the greatest tragedy of the 20th century.

00:15:15.000 And he's serious about that.

00:15:17.000 He means that. 0.98

00:15:18.000 So he's not fucking around. 0.99

00:15:22.000 And again, if we look at it, he's being consistent. 0.99

00:15:26.000 He's being consistent over the years.

00:15:28.000 He's a dictator. 0.97

00:15:32.000 He's a despot.

00:15:33.000 He's looking increasingly more like he's isolating himself, which...

00:15:38.000 You know, that's a danger in a sense to all those people around him, right?

00:15:46.000 He's already cut loose some of his inner circle just over the past couple of weeks, right?

00:15:50.000 Has he?

00:15:51.000 Yeah, he's gotten rid of his – well, he put under house arrest a couple of his FSB senior command.

00:15:57.000 Why do you do that?

00:15:58.000 The domestic service, because the intel was so bad.

00:16:03.000 Oh, because of Ukraine?

00:16:04.000 Yeah, because of Ukraine.

00:16:05.000 Yeah, because of Ukraine.

00:16:06.000 So they went in and the assumption was, and now again, this is where our intel is lacking, was he given bad intel or was he given intel and he just chose to ignore it?

00:16:17.000 But it appears as if what he believed and what the top military commanders, some of whom have also been let go, Or possibly reassigned.

00:16:28.000 I don't think that's a good thing in Russia.

00:16:30.000 Is that they were going to get in there, maybe within 48 hours.

00:16:36.000 They were going to have control of Kyiv.

00:16:37.000 They would be welcomed by the population in Ukraine.

00:16:41.000 And they would be able to establish a puppet regime, a new government.

00:16:46.000 I mean, they moved the previous president that was Russian-backed.

00:16:49.000 They moved him from Russia to Minsk.

00:16:53.000 In preparation, it appeared, to move him down to take over the government, which is, in a sense, batshit crazy because he was kicked out during the last revolution by the people.

00:17:03.000 That was 2014?

00:17:03.000 Yeah, that was that orange revolution that they had.

00:17:06.000 Yeah, we were blissfully unaware of that in the West because we didn't think it affected us.

00:17:11.000 I mean, you ask the average American citizen about the Ukraine revolution in 2014, like, what are you talking about?

00:17:17.000 What are you talking about?

00:17:18.000 We just found out recently that a comedian is running the country.

00:17:22.000 Which is hilarious.

00:17:24.000 Yeah.

00:17:25.000 Everything is short-term here in the U.S. And that's also including with our politicians, right?

00:17:31.000 And they want a simple story.

00:17:33.000 So everything's coalesced around this simple narrative about – and we have to be – I don't know.

00:17:41.000 We have to be very careful about certain things.

00:17:45.000 The emotions are running high.

00:17:47.000 We hear, oh, Russian troop morale is bad.

00:17:51.000 We're hearing that from our media, and we know that our media is not exactly accurate.

00:17:56.000 They love a good story.

00:17:57.000 They don't just love a good story.

00:17:58.000 They love a narrative.

00:17:59.000 And they're willing to ignore facts to push that narrative.

00:18:03.000 That's what scares me.

00:18:04.000 What scares me is, I mean, I think there are objective journalists that work for the Washington Post and the New York Times, and there's real solid journalists out there.

00:18:12.000 But I don't necessarily know if you're getting all the information.

00:18:17.000 I think... 0.96

00:18:18.000 I think it's safe to say that some fuckery is afoot. 0.96

00:18:23.000 I mean, the New York Times just now is admitting that the Hunter Biden laptop is real. 1.00

00:18:30.000 And, you know, we remember from the debates with Trump bringing it up to Biden and Biden saying it's bullshit and it's a lie. 0.99

00:18:39.000 A flat-out lie. 1.00

00:18:41.000 Everybody knew it was a lie.

00:18:44.000 The New York Post had that story that was banned from Twitter, which was just outright crazy, that one of the oldest newspapers in the country Yeah, I don't think anybody's going to go back and apologize to them.

00:18:55.000 No, no one's apologizing, right?

00:18:57.000 But there's a dynamic here that, I mean, I love this topic in a sense, not so much because of, you know, whatever the fuck Hunter was up to, but in part because now when you look at the liberal Dems and the progressives, it doesn't matter to them.

00:19:13.000 If you read some of the narrative that is out there now, the social media in the past day or so, ever since the New York Times came out with this, They're just dismissive of it.

00:19:23.000 And they don't care or they're willing to overlook it, which is the same thing they accuse the right of doing. 0.99

00:19:31.000 Both sides, we've talked about this before, but both sides are just so fucked up. 1.00

00:19:35.000 Both sides are so fucking crazy. 1.00

00:19:36.000 They're both so crazy. 1.00

00:19:39.000 Which does leave you with the question of, well, where do we go with that? 0.65

00:19:43.000 But the Russia-Ukraine situation has created an interesting dynamic in D.C. where you've got sort of this weird bipartisan support for, you know, let's give them the MIGs, you know, let's push back, and you think... 0.81

00:19:55.000 But from what I understand, there was an American billionaire, some guy who actually has a MiG.

00:20:01.000 He's an astronaut, and see if we can find the story.

00:20:04.000 And he was like, MIGs are technologically inferior to what Russia currently has. 1.00

00:20:10.000 And if we sent MIGs over there, they would just get shot down.

00:20:13.000 It would be a massive moral victory for Russia. 0.98

00:20:16.000 Yeah.

00:20:16.000 Is that true?

00:20:19.000 It depends on the training, right?

00:20:20.000 Because so much of this depends on the capabilities of the pilots, the ground crew, and how well maintained the platforms are.

00:20:27.000 But just from a technical perspective, yes, it's true.

00:20:31.000 Here's this guy.

00:20:32.000 An American who owns a MiG-29 isn't sure the fighter jets would help Ukraine much.

00:20:36.000 A billionaire astronaut who helped train US fighter pilots loves his high-performance Soviet jet but thinks it's no match for Russia's newer planes. 0.99

00:20:44.000 First of all, that's when you know you're a baller, when you've got your own fucking fighter jet. 0.99

00:20:48.000 Yeah, right. 1.00

00:20:48.000 A Russian fighter jet. 1.00

00:20:50.000 I'm just gonna fly it to the Hamptons because I'm a billionaire.

00:20:52.000 Did you ever see Operation Odessa?

00:20:56.000 It's a documentary?

00:20:57.000 No, I don't think so. 0.99

00:20:58.000 It's a fucking hilarious documentary. 0.98

00:21:00.000 It's about these guys that are smuggling cocaine into America, and they buy a submarine from the former Soviet Union. 0.98

00:21:10.000 And while they're buying a submarine, the guy asks them if they want nukes to go with the submarine.

00:21:17.000 Just an aside, Operation Odessa is outstanding.

00:21:21.000 I tell you what, we could get into a whole different rabbit hole there talking about the Grey Arms Market, because we worked at Grey Arms Market for a while.

00:21:28.000 It is a fascinating place.

00:21:29.000 I can't recommend this documentary enough. 0.98

00:21:32.000 It's fucking amazing. 0.99

00:21:34.000 It's so amazing that while you're watching, you're like, what? 0.99

00:21:37.000 This is real?

00:21:38.000 It's really funny.

00:21:40.000 It's also really scary, because it's true.

00:21:43.000 Well, yeah.

00:21:44.000 If you think about it.

00:21:45.000 But see, that's something else.

00:21:47.000 I mean, well, there's a lot there. 0.84

00:21:49.000 No, I flew in a MiG, a MiG-15, which was, you know, that was built in, shit, they were built in 1954. Really? 0.89

00:21:59.000 Yeah.

00:22:00.000 And MiGs, I mean, MiGs changed the world, right, in terms of aviation, right?

00:22:05.000 We had never seen that design.

00:22:06.000 We didn't think the Soviets could build that, right, when it came out. 0.94

00:22:10.000 I know some of this shit because we do a whole thing on it in Black Files Declassified, which the second season just started last week. 0.97

00:22:18.000 That's on Discovery, right? 0.99

00:22:20.000 It's on Discovery, yeah.

00:22:21.000 Science Channel, Discovery Plus.

00:22:23.000 But when the MiGs showed up over the skies of Korea during the Korean conflict, we had no idea what the hell we were doing, right?

00:22:33.000 It literally changed.

00:22:35.000 We actually had some prop fighters still up in the air flying from World War II. Propeller fighters in the 50s?

00:22:41.000 Yes, we were still fighting.

00:22:42.000 That's where we were at that point.

00:22:45.000 So the MiG shows up.

00:22:46.000 I guess the point being is that for a long time it was...

00:22:49.000 And one of the things they were able to do was produce them rapidly.

00:22:53.000 It's basically a couple of tiny wings and a big rocket.

00:22:57.000 And the funny thing is there's no safety protocols, right?

00:23:02.000 I mean, it's not like they were concerned about their pilots.

00:23:05.000 And so there's no ejection seats.

00:23:07.000 In fact, when we strapped in and were taxiing, I was talking to the pilot and he says, yeah, he says, okay, so if things go sideways here and we're up there, what you have to do is you have to You have to use both hands to pull your canopy back.

00:23:22.000 It's a mechanical canopy.

00:23:23.000 You have to pull it back.

00:23:24.000 He says it's tight.

00:23:26.000 So you have to force this thing back.

00:23:28.000 You have to undo your seat harness. 0.99

00:23:31.000 And don't get fucked up and undo your parachute, which you're sitting on. 0.99

00:23:34.000 And then he's got to get that thing over. 0.99

00:23:36.000 He's got to turn it over so you can tumble out.

00:23:38.000 Oh my god.

00:23:40.000 That was the safety briefing.

00:23:41.000 I mean, no, it was more than that, but that's how you get out.

00:23:44.000 And hope you don't get burned alive by the jet engine.

00:23:47.000 Basically, yeah.

00:23:49.000 Or that you can come out, because there's no space in there, so you're going to be stuck anyway, no matter how successful he is at rolling that thing.

00:23:55.000 If you don't turn it upside down, you can't get out.

00:23:56.000 No, you're not going to get out.

00:23:58.000 Think about that thing, how fast it moves.

00:24:01.000 You're going to be trying to climb out of that canopy.

00:24:03.000 It was one of those things where I thought to myself, if something had gone wrong, basically my insurance policy would have been not valid.

00:24:12.000 Who has the most advanced fighter jets today?

00:24:19.000 People are going to say, well, of course you're going to say it's the US. I think they, in terms of technology, it's moving very quickly because what's developing fast is material science, right?

00:24:29.000 And so material science has been developing because the holy grail of all of this is speed, right?

00:24:36.000 And speed can defeat a lot of things, including air defense systems.

00:24:40.000 So, you know, I would argue, from everything I've seen, the U.S., I mean, China is right there, in part because they're very good at stealing whatever we're developing. 0.95

00:24:51.000 I had to get that in.

00:24:53.000 But in terms of development of new materials, and that's going to allow for that breakthrough eventually, probably not in our lifetime, but of manned hypersonic flight, which is going to be insane.

00:25:04.000 It's going to be crazy.

00:25:05.000 How does China steal technology like that?

00:25:08.000 Do they find someone who's working on the technology and bribe them?

00:25:13.000 Yes, they go through a variety of ways.

00:25:15.000 So one way that seems very unobtrusive and logical is they have people out attending all the various academic events, conferences, and so they do that.

00:25:29.000 They'll hoover up whatever they can in that regard.

00:25:31.000 That's very low-key, right?

00:25:32.000 And that's always done, and oftentimes it's done in cooperation with U.S. academic institutions, right?

00:25:37.000 They love that cooperation.

00:25:38.000 They also love the money.

00:25:40.000 That comes into their institutions here in the U.S. from China.

00:25:43.000 One way they do it is they put students here, right?

00:25:47.000 And, you know, people are going to say, oh, my God, that sounds xenophobic or whatever.

00:25:51.000 No, but a portion of students, you know, come to the States are cooperative assets or working on behalf of, because sometimes, you know, that's just what they're going to have to do with the PLA. Well, if they want to go back to China, right?

00:26:02.000 Right.

00:26:03.000 That is the deal.

00:26:04.000 Right.

00:26:04.000 And so they work and they, I mean...

00:26:07.000 You know, you can have someone show up here, go to undergrad, go to grad, end up working in Raytheon or wherever over a period of 30, 40 years, right, essentially as an asset of Chinese intel, gathering information all along the way,

00:26:24.000 answering specific questions.

00:26:25.000 Sometimes it's...

00:26:27.000 It's straight up appealing to the homeland, basically.

00:26:31.000 And they're very successful at targeting people who could be second, third generation even, China, Chinese.

00:26:39.000 And that's an appeal that they'll work on constantly because they believe it works, and at times it has worked.

00:26:45.000 They're very adept at...

00:26:50.000 Just identifying potential targets who may eventually be in a position of access and they're willing over years and years to work on that.

00:26:59.000 We have a much shorter time frame, right?

00:27:00.000 So we look at an asset, you know, in a very short period of time, right?

00:27:06.000 And in part it's, I don't know what it is, but it's the nature of kind of our intel collection operations, right?

00:27:14.000 We send people overseas to work and You know, maybe they're going to be someplace for two or three years.

00:27:20.000 And so they know, if I'm going to get promoted, I got to recruit.

00:27:24.000 I got to get some recruits.

00:27:25.000 I got to do that.

00:27:26.000 So there's this, whereas sometimes China is much more patient in that regard, right?

00:27:32.000 They don't think about it that way.

00:27:33.000 They're not going to base it on, okay, did you get two recruits?

00:27:37.000 They're going to base it on, did you develop somebody?

00:27:39.000 Did you push them a little further down the path?

00:27:41.000 That's a good thing if you did, because maybe that path is going to take another five years, six, ten years, twenty years.

00:27:47.000 They don't care.

00:27:48.000 They're willing to invest the time where sometimes we get very impatient, because in part, you know, I don't know why.

00:27:55.000 We're Americans.

00:27:57.000 We have a short attention span.

00:27:58.000 So, I mean, I don't mean that in a glib way, but there is that decided difference between the services.

00:28:04.000 Do we do the same thing?

00:28:05.000 Do we have people over in Chinese universities that are working with the United States government?

00:28:10.000 Can you say that?

00:28:13.000 No, we would never do that, Joe.

00:28:15.000 No, we would never do that, Joe.

00:28:16.000 Come on. 1.00

00:28:17.000 What the fuck? 1.00

00:28:18.000 Although, now that you say it out loud, it sounds like a good idea. 1.00

00:28:21.000 I think you have to, right?

00:28:23.000 I mean, if this is the game you're playing, right?

00:28:25.000 If the game you're playing is everybody's cheating, it seems like it's part of the strategy that you have to employ if you want to be successful.

00:28:34.000 Yeah, I would say it's much more difficult for us.

00:28:38.000 We have an open society.

00:28:40.000 They don't.

00:28:41.000 So if you think about it, our ability to have, say, a student, if we're going to go that route, apply to a university in China, that's a much more rigorous process,

00:28:57.000 right?

00:28:59.000 They start from the perspective of, there's something wrong here.

00:29:03.000 Why is this person applying to our university?

00:29:05.000 So immediately they're flagged as a potential counterintelligence issue.

00:29:09.000 Whereas we have, I don't even know at this point, maybe 300,000 more Chinese students here in various academic institutions going to school, probably more than that.

00:29:18.000 And how many are monitored?

00:29:20.000 Like when you have 300,000, do we have enough federal agents to go, hey, let's make sure this guy isn't stealing information and sending it back to the CCP? No, but every day, literally every day, the FBI, as an example, is opening up a new case on a Chinese intelligence issue here in the States.

00:29:37.000 Every day.

00:29:38.000 Every day.

00:29:38.000 So they're stretched thin on a lot of fronts, including terrorism fronts, international and domestic.

00:29:45.000 But the Chinese issue in counterintelligence, every single day they're opening up a new case, at least one.

00:29:50.000 I was having a conversation with a friend of mine about this.

00:29:53.000 I was saying, you know, what's kind of fucked is that what we do in America is every four years we have an election where it's a popularity contest for the most important job in the country.

00:30:05.000 And so if you got the most important job in the country, every four years someone's new at it. 0.91

00:30:12.000 It's crazy.

00:30:13.000 Imagine if you had to do any other job, whether it's brain surgery or whatever the fuck it is, building cars, and you've never done it before. 0.84

00:30:23.000 I mean, that's literally everyone.

00:30:25.000 You only get to do it twice.

00:30:26.000 You get eight years max, right?

00:30:28.000 Yeah.

00:30:28.000 Yeah, that's a good thing.

00:30:30.000 I guess it is a good thing, but when you look at what they're able to do in China, and this is not me advocating for totalitarian control by the government, but what I'm saying is it is a massive advantage that they have in that they don't have that restriction.

00:30:48.000 They get to be really good at their job and they understand it deeply.

00:30:52.000 So, like, one of the things that, you know, the tinfoil hat brigade likes to talk about is the deep state, right?

00:30:57.000 They always like to talk about the deep state.

00:30:59.000 Right.

00:31:00.000 And what I was saying is, like, what if we didn't have a deep state? 0.94

00:31:04.000 Do you know how fucked we would be if we didn't have career politicians and career intelligence agencies and people who are there for long periods of time that actually do understand it? 0.95

00:31:14.000 Yeah. 0.99

00:31:16.000 Every time?

00:31:17.000 Yeah.

00:31:18.000 Listen, I've disrespected Joe Biden enough.

00:31:20.000 I don't think I should do it anymore. 0.99

00:31:22.000 I think I've said enough about him being mentally incompetent. 0.94

00:31:28.000 I mean, he's just compromised. 0.98

00:31:29.000 He's an old guy. 0.92

00:31:31.000 We know.

00:31:32.000 We know, right?

00:31:32.000 Everyone knows.

00:31:33.000 The guy's falling apart.

00:31:35.000 But imagine if he really was the only say in how things run and how things go.

00:31:40.000 If he really was a dictator. 0.99

00:31:43.000 We would be beyond fucked. 0.99

00:31:45.000 Yeah, luckily we got the 81-year-old Nancy Pelosi to back him up. 0.99

00:31:48.000 Oh, it's so important.

00:31:49.000 She's falling apart harder than him.

00:31:50.000 Wow.

00:31:52.000 I don't know if that's true.

00:31:54.000 It's close.

00:31:55.000 But it's a massive disadvantage, isn't it, though?

00:32:00.000 This is not me saying this like advocating for any different system.

00:32:04.000 But what I'm saying is that if you just look at the structure of our government, the way we do elect a new leader every four years, every four years someone is new.

00:32:15.000 They start from scratch, which is crazy.

00:32:18.000 Yeah, I think what saves the system is what you...

00:32:22.000 Point it out, which is you've got career personnel, right?

00:32:27.000 And they really do run the country, basically.

00:32:29.000 They have to.

00:32:30.000 The folks that are there, the civil service group, the folks who...

00:32:33.000 Now, if government gets too large, which you could argue it already has, then you got a problem.

00:32:38.000 You got entrenched folks who maybe...

00:32:41.000 I don't know.

00:32:43.000 So I'm a little conflicted on that, but certainly for the intel service, right? 1.00

00:32:47.000 And I know people are going to say, well, fuck that. 0.99

00:32:49.000 It's not apolitical. 1.00

00:32:50.000 But you know what?

00:32:51.000 It's...

00:32:53.000 You can only speak from your experience.

00:32:55.000 Mine was that the agency is essentially apolitical.

00:33:00.000 You know, occasionally you get someone like, you know, John Brennan, who, you know, has a very close relationship with the president.

00:33:06.000 He's been dinged for it in terms of, you know, he got all political, just like the FBI, you know, has obviously taken heat in the past.

00:33:15.000 But you want those institutions to be Okay, let's say as apolitical as possible, and not rotating out.

00:33:25.000 And I've been to countries where there's a change in government, there's a wholesale change in the intel service.

00:33:30.000 Not good.

00:33:30.000 It's not good.

00:33:32.000 They're completely beholden to whoever's in charge.

00:33:34.000 You don't want that.

00:33:37.000 We've talked about it before.

00:33:40.000 I'm a huge believer in term limits, and it's never going to happen, but I'm a big believer in it.

00:33:47.000 And it's just that you look at the current leadership— I don't know.

00:33:54.000 I mean, how do you look at Schumer, at Mitch McConnell, at Pelosi, at President Biden, and you think, we got octogenarians running our country.

00:34:05.000 And I don't understand.

00:34:08.000 We got 330 million people in there.

00:34:10.000 How do we not get...

00:34:11.000 A better slate of candidates, you know, repeatedly, since it is an every four-year process.

00:34:16.000 Or, you know, good God, Congress, it's every two years.

00:34:18.000 Look at some of the people we got in Congress now. 1.00

00:34:20.000 It's fucked up. 0.97

00:34:22.000 Well, it seems like a lot of our best and brightest don't want that gig. 0.99

00:34:28.000 I think that's exactly it.

00:34:29.000 I mean, who wants to put themselves through that?

00:34:31.000 Yeah, who wants to put themselves through that?

00:34:32.000 And then on top of that, who wants to deal with all of the infighting and all the politics that are involved once you get into a position?

00:34:42.000 What scares me is the idea that intelligence agencies would side with one party or one candidate or the other and not side with the greater good of the United States.

00:34:54.000 Because then there could be a situation where information is withheld or information is not necessarily distributed evenly to Republicans or Democrats, depending upon what the party favors or what the agency favors.

00:35:11.000 That sounds crazy to me.

00:35:13.000 No, you cannot have that.

00:35:14.000 The intel community has got to be apolitical, and you've got to work at it, right?

00:35:21.000 I mean, you've got to be very careful.

00:35:24.000 And now, look, the director is appointed, right?

00:35:28.000 And then approved through Congress, and...

00:35:33.000 You know, so you have to—there's a process in place.

00:35:35.000 You've got to be able to evaluate, look at people, and make a decision, okay, are they—you know, but for the most part, again, I would say—I would argue, and people would expect that, but I would argue that, you know, for the most part, the agency has done a— Good job of being apolitical through the years.

00:35:52.000 Now, that doesn't mean mistakes haven't been made through the years.

00:35:56.000 That's not what I'm saying.

00:35:56.000 I'm saying that they've done a good job of, for the most part, being apolitical.

00:36:00.000 And I'm basing that on seeing other intel services around the world and knowing how fucked up they can be. 0.97

00:36:06.000 So we're not the worst. 0.98

00:36:09.000 We're not the worst.

00:36:11.000 That's a resounding...

00:36:12.000 Here's a question.

00:36:13.000 When a guy like Trump gets into office and then openly disparages intelligence agencies and openly disparages whether it's the FBI or the CIA or whoever he's in some sort of a personal feud with,

00:36:28.000 that seems very dangerous.

00:36:32.000 Well, it's dangerous, I suppose, if you think...

00:36:35.000 If all you're thinking about is, okay, morale, right?

00:36:37.000 I mean, this will work on a few levels.

00:36:39.000 So, yeah, sure. 0.99

00:36:40.000 And there was a lot of talk during, you know, Trump's time in office, you know, that morale was sinking at the agency because he was, you know, kicking him in the ass on occasion, right? 0.99

00:36:53.000 Right. 0.98

00:36:53.000 Well, honestly, the agency's taken a beating over the years from a variety of administrations. 0.98

00:36:58.000 And all I can, again, speak to is my experience, which spanned a handful of administrations. 0.99

00:37:05.000 You know, from a collection point of view, from just getting the job done, you don't give a shit. 0.98

00:37:11.000 Just tell us what the tasking is, right? 0.98

00:37:13.000 And we'll go out and do it.

00:37:14.000 And the idea was always the director was your top cover.

00:37:18.000 The director served as a liaison between the White House and kind of protected the agency.

00:37:26.000 Right?

00:37:26.000 From, you know, all the machinations or the back and forth.

00:37:30.000 Now, once you collect that intel, right?

00:37:32.000 If you're out in the field and you pull that intel and you throw it into the mix, right?

00:37:36.000 You send it back or whatever, and once it leaves that building and it gets into that washing machine of Washington where there's lots of different, you know, people editing and looking at it before it ends up in, you know, in some briefing somewhere in the National Security Council, yeah, there's an editing process that goes on there.

00:37:51.000 That's where a lot of the spin, a lot of the, you know, the agenda can be built in.

00:37:55.000 How does that work?

00:37:57.000 Well, I mean, you've got a lot of hands touching, you know, raw intelligence is one thing, right?

00:38:01.000 You find somebody out in the field and they said, yeah, this is what Putin means because I was sitting in a meeting with him and two of the command staff and this is what he said.

00:38:10.000 Okay, great.

00:38:10.000 That's raw intelligence, right?

00:38:12.000 So you report that back.

00:38:13.000 Word for word.

00:38:13.000 You don't put your spin on it, right, as a person that's collecting.

00:38:17.000 And that goes back, but now that's going to get looked at by the guys writing the reports up and doing the analysis and assessment of this.

00:38:26.000 They're putting it together with other intel, maybe they're collecting from other sources, right?

00:38:32.000 Then, you've got, so the more hands that are touching that, you know, once it gets back to Washington, the more potential for editing, right?

00:38:41.000 And for analysis and opinion, you know, might get in there.

00:38:45.000 That's just a natural thing, right?

00:38:46.000 That's going to happen.

00:38:47.000 But it's the raw intelligence that really matters.

00:38:50.000 And Sometimes I feel like we should have a more direct line from the actual raw intelligence, if you can protect sources and methods, direct to the end user, you know, to try to keep that editing process to a minimum.

00:39:01.000 Otherwise, you're playing a game of telephone, too, right?

00:39:05.000 It's not so much telephone where, you know, you get the...

00:39:07.000 I guess we used to say Chinese whispers.

00:39:10.000 Chinese whispers?

00:39:11.000 Yeah, we can't say that anymore, can we?

00:39:12.000 You're older than me, I guess.

00:39:13.000 Yeah, we used to say that.

00:39:14.000 I never heard that.

00:39:15.000 Really?

00:39:15.000 You never heard that?

00:39:16.000 Maybe it's an intelligence thing.

00:39:17.000 Could be.

00:39:18.000 Could be.

00:39:18.000 But anyway, the idea of being, it's like that party game where you whisper something to someone, they whisper it along to someone.

00:39:23.000 It's not quite like that because they're kind of, it's more like it gets blended in, right?

00:39:30.000 And then that blending process with other sources of information and then just the natural inclination of people who are writing up reports or passing it from one office to another is To say, well, I think this is kind of what it means, or this is the most important part here. 0.97

00:39:47.000 And so, shit can move around. 0.94

00:39:49.000 It's like editing a newspaper article, right? 0.99

00:39:52.000 The more hands that get on it, the stranger it's going to look.

00:39:55.000 It doesn't necessarily mean that the facts are wrong, maybe just The context or the priority part of this is missing or different.

00:40:03.000 So I know I'm probably being nuanced there.

00:40:07.000 No, it's important to be nuanced, I guess, because someone like me doesn't really understand how the process works.

00:40:12.000 And I think most people don't.

00:40:13.000 Most people, you know, they just know that we find out certain things about a certain terrorist cell or, you know, what have you is happening in other parts of the world.

00:40:23.000 And we really don't know the process of how the intelligence gets to the people that make the decisions.

00:40:28.000 I think what would surprise people, too, is how imperfect that intelligence can be sometimes.

00:40:32.000 Right.

00:40:33.000 And, you know, that's one of the... 1.00

00:40:36.000 Again, you know, every time I say something positive about the agency, I get, you know, a couple thousand notes going, ah, fucking idiot. 1.00

00:40:43.000 Don't read that shit. 1.00

00:40:44.000 No, I don't. 1.00

00:40:46.000 Although I will say this much.

00:40:47.000 I'm going to veer completely in a different direction now that you said this.

00:40:51.000 One of my boys, I got three boys, right?

00:40:53.000 And so Scooter, Sluggo, and Muxy. 0.97

00:40:55.000 I always talk about them. 0.55

00:40:57.000 And Scooter, the oldest one, came to me and says, I found this funny fucking thread in some, you know, Reddit or something like that, where there's this whole bunch talking about the boys and what their names are.

00:41:13.000 And so, I actually wrote down some of them.

00:41:20.000 And they're just speculation.

00:41:21.000 And people are saying, no, that's not their names.

00:41:23.000 Oh, they have fake names.

00:41:25.000 Well, that's what they're saying. 0.96

00:41:27.000 So instead of Scooter, Sluggo, and Muggsy, I've got Scooter, Bozo, and Fucko.

00:41:32.000 That wasn't it.

00:41:33.000 Somebody thought it was Pooper, Bunghole, and Skidmark?

00:41:35.000 That's not it.

00:41:37.000 Scooter, Bam Bam, and Fuckknuckle? 1.00

00:41:39.000 Definitely not it.

00:41:40.000 Tweaker, Barfo, and Butzo?

00:41:42.000 Not it. 1.00

00:41:42.000 You are wasting time repeating the things that someone in a cubicle who's bored out of their fucking mind. 1.00

00:41:47.000 I know. 1.00

00:41:48.000 Probably on Adderall.

00:41:49.000 But my boys like this. 0.95

00:41:50.000 And the last one, the youngest one, Muggsy, he's adopted the new name McFuckstick because he thinks that's funnier than anything except for Fuckknuckle. 0.94

00:41:57.000 He thought that was funny too.

00:41:58.000 Those are both pretty funny.

00:41:59.000 Yeah.

00:42:00.000 So anyway, I don't read them, except for that one when my boy brought it to me and said, you got to read this.

00:42:05.000 Yeah.

00:42:05.000 Don't read the comments.

00:42:07.000 Oh, no.

00:42:08.000 That's my number one piece of advice for everybody.

00:42:11.000 Do you get comments?

00:42:12.000 I'm sure I do.

00:42:13.000 I'm sure there's a few out there.

00:42:14.000 You can't.

00:42:15.000 You'll go crazy.

00:42:16.000 It's the only way to stay sane.

00:42:18.000 And the more controversy comes my way, the more I'm solidified in my position.

00:42:23.000 Let me ask you this.

00:42:23.000 Do your kids read the comments?

00:42:26.000 My kids are very healthy.

00:42:27.000 They know what's going on.

00:42:29.000 They understand that their dad has a very weird job, but they know me.

00:42:34.000 I have a very good relationship with them.

00:42:36.000 I communicate with them. 0.97

00:42:36.000 So when wild shit happens, I have to sit down with them and have a conversation with them, but they don't get concerned. 0.97

00:42:44.000 They're reasonably adjusted to this very strange position that I'm in. 0.99

00:42:49.000 So they don't dive in on their own into comments and read about, okay, that's very healthy.

00:42:54.000 I've educated them to that.

00:42:57.000 We live in a strange time of information and the ability to communicate.

00:43:02.000 And I think there's a lot good in that.

00:43:04.000 But you have to navigate it correctly.

00:43:06.000 It's like there's a certain amount of freedom in our ability to communicate and our ability to express ourselves.

00:43:13.000 And I think that's ultimately good.

00:43:15.000 I am of the opinion that people should be able to express themselves. 1.00

00:43:19.000 But you gotta realize, like, if you gave me a Twitter account when I was 15 years old, and you let me tweet at Mike Baker, I'm gonna say some fucking horrible shit to you, dude. 0.99

00:43:29.000 If I was, like, a 15-year-old kid, and they let them have their fucking phones in class, right? 0.99

00:43:37.000 So if the teacher's not paying attention, and I'm bored out of my mind, because I don't give a shit about math, And I'm sitting there in my class, I'm going to just tweet at Mike Baker. 1.00

00:43:44.000 And if Mike Baker bites, and people do bite, you know, they bite, oh, what did you say, you son of a bitch? 1.00

00:43:52.000 And then, you know, you got fun. 1.00

00:43:54.000 You got fun on your hands.

00:43:55.000 You're tweeting at people.

00:43:55.000 You got something on the line.

00:43:56.000 You got a trout on the line right there.

00:43:59.000 Yeah, well, people love to just make up a completely fake story and see if that makes it into the news.

00:44:06.000 There's been a whole thing where A hundred people, at least, have texted me and sent me emails and contacted friends because they heard Trump was coming on my podcast.

00:44:18.000 And the source of it is a fake Trump account on Twitter that said, it's Trump's face and it's a fake account that said, I'm going on the Joe Rogan podcast soon.

00:44:29.000 And I think it came out of the fact that Trump was on the Nelk Boys podcast and then YouTube removed that podcast and They pulled the podcast, which is one of the craziest things you could do because then everyone's going to talk about how YouTube removed that podcast.

00:44:48.000 You can't even have Trump talk.

00:44:50.000 Former president of the United States, you can't let him talk?

00:44:53.000 Somebody did send me, apparently not, but somebody did send me a note saying that he was going to be on your show.

00:45:00.000 Yeah, it's crazy.

00:45:00.000 And I thought, I'm not really sure if that's the case.

00:45:04.000 Somebody, it's not the case.

00:45:06.000 Yeah, I know.

00:45:06.000 I'll send you the, look, I have decided that I am very apolitical when it comes to the future and like in political candidates.

00:45:19.000 I don't want to have that kind of an influence, and I don't want to be someone who can watch and observe.

00:45:27.000 I don't want to be someone who's actually affecting this.

00:45:30.000 There's a certain amount I'm affecting no matter what I do. 0.99

00:45:34.000 I'm trying to find this fucking Trump thing. 0.98

00:45:36.000 Do you know where it is, Jamie? 0.99

00:45:38.000 Yeah, so it's a fake tweet.

00:45:40.000 We can just – here it is.

00:45:41.000 This is the fake tweet.

00:45:42.000 Ah.

00:45:43.000 Okay.

00:45:43.000 Donald Trump is scheduled to go on Joe Rogan Podcast.

00:45:46.000 Who said this?

00:45:46.000 Well, he got it from somewhere else, though.

00:45:48.000 He got it from this fake one that I got.

00:45:51.000 This was the first one that I saw.

00:45:52.000 It has 115,000 likes on it.

00:45:55.000 Yeah, I got the original one, though.

00:45:56.000 Hold on a second.

00:45:57.000 Here, I'll text it to you.

00:45:58.000 This is the original one.

00:46:01.000 This is the one that somebody sent me.

00:46:04.000 This is not real.

00:46:04.000 I don't know who this person is.

00:46:06.000 But who is this person?

00:46:07.000 It's a fake Barron Trump account.

00:46:10.000 Who gets a mustache?

00:46:11.000 Barron Trump has a mustache?

00:46:12.000 You don't think that's really him?

00:46:14.000 I mean, it could be.

00:46:15.000 It'd be very clever.

00:46:18.000 But they also put their Gmail address.

00:46:20.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:46:21.000 Well, send that guy a lot of dick pics because he's just making shit up. 0.99

00:46:25.000 So I sent Jamie the original one. 0.99

00:46:27.000 And this is the original one that got sent out.

00:46:30.000 And, you know, look.

00:46:32.000 This got put up because of the other one, though.

00:46:34.000 To the normies and the casuals, This guy put up first?

00:46:37.000 Yeah, the other one was put up three hours before this one was.

00:46:39.000 Oh, really?

00:46:40.000 Other Trump accounts started tweeting it to give it more validity because it looked like a Trump account was tweeting it.

00:46:47.000 Well, yeah, you're right.

00:46:47.000 That only has 11,000 likes.

00:46:49.000 It was 1230, and the other one was like 930. Yeah, you know, as a...

00:46:56.000 What I'm actually interested in is talking to people.

00:46:59.000 I'm not nearly as interested in affecting things. 0.99

00:47:04.000 And unfortunately, so many fucking people paying attention. 0.91

00:47:08.000 I'm doing it the same way I've always done it, but now there's more people paying attention. 0.98

00:47:12.000 Well, I'll be honest with you.

00:47:12.000 I never thought you were trying to affect anything.

00:47:14.000 I always thought what you were doing was having people on, asking them questions, having them talk, asking them more questions.

00:47:22.000 And so regardless of where they are on whatever spectrum you're talking about, it seems like a pretty straightforward formula.

00:47:28.000 Yeah, but it doesn't matter to people because of the numbers, the sheer numbers of people that are paying attention, you know?

00:47:34.000 And also, it's independent. 0.90

00:47:37.000 The fact that it's this big and, you know, this is the fucking skeleton crew and millions of people are paying attention. 0.98

00:47:44.000 It's a good crew. 0.99

00:47:45.000 It's a skeleton crew, but it's a good crew.

00:47:47.000 Solid crew.

00:47:47.000 Jamie's the best.

00:47:48.000 But it's just the idea that one person can have that much influence is disturbing to a lot of folks who would like these giant corporations that are controlled by the pharmaceutical companies and whoever the fuck else is paying their advertising to decide what can and can be talked about and not be said or not discussed and what's misinformation and what's real information.

00:48:11.000 Well, you know what it is?

00:48:13.000 We are living soft lives now.

00:48:16.000 This is one of my favorite topics.

00:48:18.000 We all have the time on our hands to be offended by everything.

00:48:21.000 Before, we were out there trying to collect some food and some clean water.

00:48:26.000 I'm not saying we were trying to do that 10 years ago, but we've gotten to the point now where... 0.98

00:48:30.000 You know, we can all be just offended as fuck over anything. 0.94

00:48:33.000 There was a free speech conversation, debate, held at Yale. 0.98

00:48:39.000 Just may have been this past week.

00:48:42.000 And it was interrupted by a large protest from a bunch of the law students there who...

00:48:48.000 Objected to the fact that there was a free speech debate. 1.00

00:48:50.000 That is fucking madness. 1.00

00:48:53.000 It's fucking madness, and it's dangerous. 1.00

00:48:55.000 And these fucking kids, they don't realize how goddamn dangerous it is. 1.00

00:49:00.000 When you stifle debate, then who decides what can and can't be talked about? 1.00

00:49:05.000 It's not going to be you.

00:49:06.000 I got news for you.

00:49:08.000 And these woke kids who think because they scream the loudest and they pull fire alarms and they stop discussions and they stifle debates, they think that they have more control than they really do.

00:49:21.000 What they do in that is they set a precedent, and that precedent is you can stifle information that makes you uncomfortable.

00:49:27.000 You can stifle discussions where people have points of view that you don't agree with.

00:49:32.000 And you think you're right, so you think you should be able to stop those points of view.

00:49:37.000 That is not the way to do it.

00:49:38.000 It's just not.

00:49:39.000 It's never been the way to do it.

00:49:41.000 It's a dangerous precedent to set because then when more power is acquired by whoever, whether it's social media companies or the government or whoever the fuck it is, they get to establish a narrative and that narrative might not be honest.

00:49:59.000 And that's a real problem.

00:50:01.000 And the only way to find out what's real and what's not real is to let people talk.

00:50:05.000 You know, I had on Darrell Davis.

00:50:09.000 I don't know if you know who he is, but he's a musician who personally himself has He's taken more than 200 Klansmen and neo-Nazis and got them to completely abandon their ideology and hand him their robes.

00:50:28.000 He's this really interesting guy because he's He's a brilliant musician, but through his music and doing these concerts and shows he's done, he ran into a Klansman back in the day and had a conversation with this guy,

00:50:44.000 and he's black.

00:50:45.000 And the guy was like, I've never talked to a black guy. 0.97

00:50:48.000 I've never had a drink with a black guy before.

00:50:49.000 He's like, what? 0.88

00:50:50.000 He goes, yeah, I'm in the Klan.

00:50:51.000 He thought the guy was joking.

00:50:53.000 He goes, the guy shows him his Klan ID card.

00:50:56.000 I guess they have ID cards.

00:50:59.000 I guess.

00:50:59.000 That's fantastic.

00:51:00.000 Who knew?

00:51:01.000 I guess.

00:51:02.000 They don't trust that you're really in the clan.

00:51:04.000 Until you see what the ID card and the decoder ring.

00:51:07.000 This is Daryl.

00:51:08.000 That's Daryl there.

00:51:08.000 Wow.

00:51:09.000 He was on last week and he was on with Bill Ottman who is the CEO of Minds.

00:51:15.000 Minds is a decentralized social media company that does not believe in censorship.

00:51:21.000 They stop threats and doxing and things along those lines, but they believe that the only way to really sort out what's right and what's wrong is to let people communicate. 0.96

00:51:33.000 And Daryl has the fucking patience of a saint. 0.97

00:51:36.000 I mean, the man is a saint. 0.99

00:51:37.000 What he's done is...

00:51:40.000 Extraordinary.

00:51:40.000 He's affected people personally through his own intelligence and his own ability to stay calm and communicate with people who have ridiculous ideas and give them better ideas.

00:51:50.000 And through these conversations, he's got them to change their minds.

00:51:54.000 Well, and then think about the multiplying effect of that, right?

00:51:56.000 Maybe, you know, people say, wow, a couple hundred people.

00:51:58.000 All the people those folks know then, right?

00:52:00.000 They can impact their families, their behavior, their actions, and impact their friends.

00:52:05.000 Then come on here and then establish that and have these conversations on here which reach millions and millions of people and they hear about it.

00:52:13.000 And then they find out these conversations that this guy's had with these people and it makes them think.

00:52:18.000 You can't just stifle communication and think that...

00:52:23.000 There's dangerous thoughts out there and we have to stop them.

00:52:25.000 The ACLU used to fight for the right.

00:52:29.000 Jewish lawyers used to fight for the rights of Nazis to express themselves.

00:52:34.000 The most abhorrent people in society fight for their right to express themselves because the opposite of that is more dangerous.

00:52:44.000 Stifling speech is more dangerous.

00:52:46.000 Well, I'm not sure how we walk the dog back from where we are right now.

00:52:51.000 I did see an article—I don't remember where the hell it was, and it was just the other day—that was written, I think it was an op-ed piece, that basically argued that part of the problem— It started out by saying, why are our young folks so susceptible to disinformation?

00:53:08.000 Well, the problem was what they were saying was they're susceptible to disinformation from one side, right?

00:53:14.000 Right.

00:53:14.000 Exactly.

00:53:15.000 It was written by a progressive author, and as it turns out, their argument was, we spent too much time on STEM, on science and technology, English, math, and not enough on...

00:53:25.000 Philosophy and critical thinking in teaching kids that so that we should be teaching more of that and the problem with stem is that it teaches you know finite answers or definitive answers and Doesn't teach critical thinking.

00:53:38.000 I read the whole thing and I was critical theory not critical thinking yeah, yes critical thinking allows you to look at all sorts of different subjects and different you know Different facts and and what's what are the variables and what are the influences and what's going on here?

00:53:55.000 It lets you just try to look at things critically.

00:53:58.000 Critical theory, a lot of it is like progressive ideology.

00:54:04.000 They have a dogma, and when you have a dogma, it's not much different than religion in a lot of ways, where you don't want anybody to have an opposing perspective that challenges the dogma.

00:54:17.000 And that's not good.

00:54:18.000 If your ideology doesn't stand up to scrutiny, it's not a good ideology.

00:54:22.000 And the only way to find that out is to apply it to scrutiny, or apply scrutiny to it.

00:54:28.000 Or just test it.

00:54:28.000 That was the idea, right?

00:54:29.000 Test it, yes.

00:54:30.000 Yeah, I mean, that's the whole concept.

00:54:32.000 And that's why, I mean, science, that was always an interesting debate during the past couple of years.

00:54:35.000 No, the whole point of science is to constantly question it, right?

00:54:38.000 And to test your theories. 0.94

00:54:40.000 But any time you'd say anything during the course of the past two years, it was like, well, you've got to fucking believe the science. 0.94

00:54:46.000 That doesn't mean you just take the word of somebody in a public health position. 0.75

00:54:49.000 That means you listen to it, take it on board, and then compare it and test it and ask other questions, right?

00:54:56.000 But you're right.

00:54:57.000 I mean, we've gotten to this point where it became a religion almost.

00:55:00.000 Well, John Abramson is a guy that I had on the podcast that really opened my eyes to how these things work in terms of pharmaceutical companies.

00:55:10.000 And one of the things that he said is that when studies are done, that the scientists that are conducting the studies do not have access to the raw data.

00:55:20.000 They have access to the interpretation of the data that's provided to them by the pharmaceutical companies.

00:55:27.000 You know what that sounds like?

00:55:28.000 Intel collection.

00:55:29.000 That whole process.

00:55:30.000 Well, also, the thing, the difference is, Intel, they're not personally making billions of dollars off of that information.

00:55:39.000 And then they don't also do something that winds up being incorrect and costs the lives of...

00:55:47.000 Tens of thousands of Americans by hiding information and lying.

00:55:51.000 I mean, unless you want to talk about weapons of mass destruction and things along those lines.

00:55:56.000 Well, there's that.

00:55:57.000 There's a little bit of that.

00:55:57.000 Okay.

00:55:59.000 Well, Pfizer came out and said, you know, I think maybe we need a fourth booster.

00:56:04.000 That's Moderna. 0.63

00:56:05.000 Was it Moderna that came out, or was it Pfizer?

00:56:07.000 Moderna's trying to get, they're trying to get FDA, maybe Pfizer's done it as well, but Moderna, you know, Pfizer, you're right.

00:56:14.000 I think Pfizer came out first.

00:56:15.000 Pfizer did do it too.

00:56:17.000 And then, because I remember their stock, I took a look at their stock to see what it was doing shortly after that statement, and it went up.

00:56:22.000 Right, it was both of them.

00:56:24.000 Yeah, so they both have done it, yeah.

00:56:25.000 So they seek authorization for boosters for older Americans. 0.94

00:56:29.000 Well, look, if the fucking data is real, but you've got to have access to the real data. 0.82

00:56:34.000 I mean, if the data shows that another booster for older Americans is beneficial, then yeah, they should have access to it. 0.95

00:56:42.000 But what Abramson is saying, you don't get access to the raw data.

00:56:46.000 You get access to the pharmaceutical company's interpretation of the data.

00:56:50.000 And they oftentimes skew that in a way that would be more profitable for them.

00:56:56.000 And so he talked about there's a product that was on the market called Vioxx.

00:57:02.000 And I have a friend who took this stuff and had a stroke because of it.

00:57:07.000 This stuff they knew was going to cause all sorts of cardiovascular issues with people and blood clots and the like.

00:57:14.000 What was it designed to do?

00:57:15.000 It's an anti-inflammation drug that wasn't any better than non-steroidal anti-inflammatories like Advil and ibuprofen.

00:57:23.000 And Abramson was part of the team that was prosecuting this.

00:57:29.000 It was part of the team that was in court about this.

00:57:31.000 And they showed that they knew that this was going to cause these events.

00:57:36.000 And somewhere in the neighborhood of 50,000 to 60,000 Americans died because of their interpretation of what this stuff was versus the reality of what this stuff was. 0.96

00:57:48.000 And one of them was a buddy of mine who got a fucking stroke because he had knee problems. 0.87

00:57:53.000 When you think about the pharmaceutical industry, they go out. 0.98

00:57:55.000 I mean, there's a whole chain of then the sales reps going out to the doctors, you know, and introducing these new therapeutics and saying, here, this is a great opportunity, you know.

00:58:05.000 And, yeah, I don't profess to understand that...

00:58:08.000 Well, my wife's mom's a nurse, and so I found out about this years ago where she was explaining how the doctors would, the pharmaceutical reps, rather, would take the doctors and the nurses out for these expensive dinners.

00:58:20.000 And they're not allowed to bribe you, but they get real close.

00:58:23.000 So it's like what you were talking about with what you do to an asset.

00:58:30.000 That's how they treat it.

00:58:32.000 And I'm sure there are some bribes being, I'm not naive, But for the most part, the way they do it is they sweet talk.

00:58:40.000 And I have a friend who's a good friend who actually owns a pharmacy.

00:58:45.000 And he explained to me that before that, he was a pharmaceutical representative.

00:58:49.000 And he used to do that. 1.00

00:58:50.000 And he was told, listen, I want you to know their fucking kids' names. 0.99

00:58:53.000 You're going to show up at the baseball games. 1.00

00:58:55.000 You're going to cheer them on.

00:58:57.000 You're going to give them gifts. 0.97

00:58:58.000 You're going to do whatever the fuck you can do to get close to these people so that when... 0.99

00:59:03.000 Something comes up, and maybe they could prescribe your drug. 0.99

00:59:06.000 They'll be more inclined to do that, and that is the way you sell more drugs.

00:59:09.000 It's a product.

00:59:10.000 Yeah, it's a product.

00:59:10.000 It's like you're pushing tin or anything else.

00:59:12.000 You're selling Corvettes.

00:59:13.000 Yeah.

00:59:13.000 You're developing relationships.

00:59:14.000 It's a fucking great car, Mike. 1.00

00:59:15.000 You look good in that car. 1.00

00:59:16.000 That car looks good on you.

00:59:17.000 Not as good as my 1965 MGB looks. 1.00

00:59:21.000 That fucking car is great. 0.99

00:59:23.000 I know. 1.00

00:59:23.000 You were making fun of it the last time I was here. 1.00

00:59:25.000 It's a whole piece of shit. 1.00

00:59:25.000 It's got 100 horsepower. 1.00

00:59:26.000 Oh, my God.

00:59:27.000 It's a great car, though.

00:59:27.000 Does it even have 100?

00:59:29.000 It's got like 72. A fucking goddamn American Corvette. 1.00

00:59:32.000 How dare you compare the two? 1.00

00:59:33.000 Oh, I'm not comparing the two.

00:59:34.000 You're a British guy.

00:59:36.000 I keep forgetting.

00:59:36.000 You're not really American.

00:59:38.000 God, I don't say that out loud.

00:59:40.000 You weren't born here, right?

00:59:42.000 No, I was born over just outside of London.

00:59:44.000 The original spot.

00:59:46.000 That mother country.

00:59:49.000 God bless the queen! 0.99

00:59:51.000 The only way we find out all these things, whether it's information about pharmaceutical drug companies or information about the influence of foreign bodies on students, you have to fucking talk about things. 0.92

01:00:06.000 You have to have open communication. 0.99

01:00:08.000 And the only way you find out if someone's full of shit or if someone's lying or someone's withholding information is to let people talk and let people sort things through. 0.98

01:00:16.000 The truth is messy. 0.99

01:00:19.000 There's a lot going on in the world.

01:00:21.000 And you can't stifle information and debate.

01:00:24.000 It's not healthy for anybody.

01:00:25.000 And you can't do it just because you think your side is correct.

01:00:28.000 It's not good.

01:00:29.000 It's not what's...

01:00:32.000 Amazing about a free society and you can't decide that there's certain ugly aspects of this society that you think should be suppressed because when you do that then people can decide your aspect of society is ugly, your perspective is ugly. 0.64

01:00:47.000 If we get a fucking hardcore Putin type leader running this country and they start cracking down on legitimate journalists that are exposing corruption Then you get into dangerous circumstances.

01:00:57.000 And this is the problem that I had with the New York Post article on the Hunter Biden laptop being suppressed. 0.98

01:01:04.000 It's not that I'm a Trump supporter.

01:01:06.000 I didn't vote for him.

01:01:07.000 I didn't vote for any Republican ever in my life.

01:01:10.000 But you're looking at something that's real information and you're hiding it from people because you don't like the result that you think is going to come out of that information.

01:01:18.000 That's not how we're supposed to be doing things.

01:01:22.000 Well, I think that's...

01:01:23.000 And it's all part and parcel.

01:01:24.000 I think it's why there's so much dissatisfaction.

01:01:27.000 You know, there's so much distrust because I think people are starting to realize, right?

01:01:32.000 Regardless, again, where they are in the spectrum, both sides have an equal ability to think, I don't think I'm seeing or hearing or being told accurate information here.

01:01:41.000 And you're right. 0.95

01:01:43.000 I mean, Putin, look, shit, if you talk about Biden and his age or you talk about any presidential term and the fact that we roll it over, you look at the opposite side of it, Putin got into power and 99, right? 0.99

01:01:58.000 So Yeltsin... 1.00

01:01:59.000 That's crazy.

01:01:59.000 Yeah, Yeltsin nominated or made him acting president in 99. So 23 fucking years of running that country.

01:02:07.000 Yeah. 0.99

01:02:08.000 Well, he took a break in 08. He was the prime minister.

01:02:12.000 Not really a break.

01:02:13.000 And for four years.

01:02:15.000 And now he's been in office running that country, literally, since 99. And they've changed the rules of the game.

01:02:25.000 He actually, if his health stays and he's, whatever, 69, 70, 69, he can be in office until 2036. Well, he has access to the cutting-edge technology and science and medical advances.

01:02:42.000 That guy can be healthy as fuck for a long time. 0.96

01:02:46.000 We live in a different world now, you know? 0.99

01:02:49.000 And I can say this from personal experience, being a 54-year-old guy.

01:02:52.000 When I was a kid, 54-year-old men were dead.

01:02:55.000 Yeah.

01:02:55.000 You don't look a day over, like, 53. Thank you.

01:02:58.000 I appreciate that.

01:02:59.000 You're welcome.

01:02:59.000 But what you can do with your body is so different if you have access to hyperbaric chambers and human growth hormone and testosterone replacement and NMN and NAD and all these different things that lengthen telomeres and improve your biological age.

01:03:17.000 I mean there's a whole science behind this now.

01:03:19.000 What's the lifespan now in America, US male?

01:03:23.000 Well, it still sucks because we drink too much and we smoke too much as I put down my straw. 0.71

01:03:27.000 And we eat garbage food and there's a vast majority of us are sedentary and are overweight. 0.82

01:03:35.000 We've talked about this on the podcast ad nauseam, but it's a real problem.

01:03:42.000 The metabolic health of the average American is piss poor, and it's because most people, first of all, they're stressed out, they work too much, they don't have a lot of time, and they also haven't made it a priority to take care of their physical health.

01:03:55.000 But if you were a guy like Putin, and you had boundless resources, I mean, by all accounts, that guy is worth an astounding amount of money.

01:04:05.000 Possibly the wealthiest Russian alive, possibly, even more so than Than some of his buddies who have spent a number of years now making him the richest person.

01:04:14.000 I was going to talk to you about that.

01:04:16.000 So what is this whole deal with the oligarchs?

01:04:19.000 And what do you think is the strategy behind that?

01:04:21.000 Because all these guys are trying to hide their yachts and some of them have had their yachts taken away from them.

01:04:27.000 First of all, where do those yachts go and who gets access to them now?

01:04:30.000 How does that happen?

01:04:33.000 There were a handful of times over the past years where we were asked to go after and seize an asset like a yacht.

01:04:41.000 And it's good fun.

01:04:42.000 But we don't get to keep them, unfortunately.

01:04:45.000 But who does?

01:04:46.000 Do they auction them off?

01:04:47.000 Yeah, I mean, whoever.

01:04:48.000 It depends on why it's being seized.

01:04:49.000 If it's being seized for failure to pay, then it goes back to whoever's holding the note.

01:04:55.000 But like now, when they're seizing yachts and it's rushing all the guards.

01:04:59.000 You know, like France was involved in picking up a couple just recently.

01:05:03.000 Somebody party on them now?

01:05:05.000 Yeah, I'm thinking Macron is on board, one of those yachts, having a time of his life.

01:05:10.000 But this is, I mean, you touched on a really important part of what the hell is happening right now is because one of the reasons, Putin just made these comments the other day, right? 0.99

01:05:19.000 He came out and he talked about, you know, the people that aren't real Russians, they're scum, they're traitors. 0.97

01:05:24.000 What really set him off, because sometimes it's a little simpler than we imagine, kind of going back to what we talked about before, we kind of overlook the obvious in terms of why he acts the way he does. 0.99

01:05:34.000 Part of this is, when he came into power, nobody really gave him any thought, right?

01:05:41.000 And he'd been like a deputy mayor in Leningrad, and he showed up, he proved himself fairly capable, got himself tight with Yeltsin, I was appointed as head of the FSB, you know, the old KGB, the Domestic Service.

01:05:56.000 FSB is the new version of the KGB? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:05:59.000 And so he sort of found himself in this position, rising to the top.

01:06:05.000 And one of the first things he did, which surprised a lot of people, was he reigned in the oligarchs, supposedly, right? 1.00

01:06:11.000 He called them all together and he says, you know, fuck you. 0.99

01:06:13.000 He took over media companies. 1.00

01:06:15.000 He understood the importance of shutting down media that was possibly in opposition to him as he grew in strength.

01:06:22.000 Reign them in.

01:06:24.000 And, you know, there's really been, other than Hortokovsky, there's been really nobody that's gotten out of line over all these years.

01:06:31.000 Now, one of the things the oligarchs didn't exchange was, you know, help essentially hide, manage money on his behalf.

01:06:38.000 And now what's happened recently since the Ukrainian invasion...

01:06:42.000 An invasion of Ukraine is that some of these guys, Mikhail Friedman, Avin, who else, Abramovich, they've come out and they haven't criticized Putin directly,

01:06:58.000 but they've criticized the war, said, no, we shouldn't be doing this.

01:07:01.000 We've got to stop this.

01:07:02.000 You know, we've got to stop the bloodshed, stop this.

01:07:04.000 We shouldn't be fighting the Ukrainians.

01:07:08.000 That, as an example, it really sets Putin off, right? 1.00

01:07:12.000 Because he's like, fuck you. 1.00

01:07:14.000 I made you. 1.00

01:07:15.000 In his mind, he made them. 1.00

01:07:16.000 In their minds, they're thinking, no, fuck nut. 1.00

01:07:20.000 We, you know, fuck knuckle, to use a name. 1.00

01:07:23.000 They made him, or they made him the wealthiest guy. 0.99

01:07:26.000 Right.

01:07:27.000 So there's this other element. 0.99

01:07:29.000 And again, you're always trying to piece together why the fuck? 0.97

01:07:32.000 Because you're trying to, again, beaver down into saying, okay, what are his plans and intentions? 0.99

01:07:36.000 What's he going to do next?

01:07:37.000 To know that, you've got to get inside his head.

01:07:39.000 And so part of this is understanding why he's doing things and why he's thinking. 1.00

01:07:43.000 So anyway, then he comes out and he says, fuck you and your villas. 1.00

01:07:46.000 I don't mind you having villas. 1.00

01:07:47.000 Well, of course not, because he's got some really nice places spread around.

01:07:52.000 Doesn't he have some gigantic billion-dollar castle that he's sort of denied owning, but they do believe that he has it?

01:08:01.000 Oh, yeah.

01:08:02.000 There was some, like, newspaper report on it.

01:08:04.000 It's this massive compound.

01:08:06.000 His assets are remarkable, right?

01:08:10.000 And a lot of them are very well hidden.

01:08:14.000 In part because he's used these smart guys who spend a lot of time hiding their own money.

01:08:19.000 And so anyway, this point is Putin just kind of went off.

01:08:25.000 So that's what he's going off about.

01:08:26.000 He's going off about these oligarchs.

01:08:28.000 In part.

01:08:28.000 And he's also had some of the military command come out and We're good to go.

01:08:57.000 We shouldn't have done this.

01:08:58.000 This is the wrong tact.

01:08:59.000 Where is this going?

01:09:00.000 It's impacting the Russian people in a big way. 0.99

01:09:03.000 He's fucking over the Russian population. 0.95

01:09:05.000 He's creating this situation where he's isolating the country and he's really putting them as sort of the He's almost creating a situation, and I'm going off on a bit of a tangent here, with China, 0.99

01:09:20.000 where China's going to start looking at Russia the same way they look at North Korea, which is, oh, for fuck's sake, we've got to take care of these people now, right? 0.91

01:09:27.000 We're going to be the ones supplying. 0.92

01:09:29.000 Now, China looks at this and goes, yeah, fine. 0.87

01:09:31.000 And for the time being, while it looks like a...

01:09:34.000 They look at Russia like it's a Costco now.

01:09:37.000 We can get oil and gas on the cheap because the price is discounted now because there's not a lot of buyers or there's fewer buyers.

01:09:46.000 Agricultural products, minerals.

01:09:49.000 So China's looking at it like a place where they can go. 0.60

01:09:51.000 They don't look at Russia as an equal.

01:09:53.000 They don't look and think, oh, we got to rise to the top and one of the things we have to do is get past Russia. 0.72

01:09:58.000 They've already done that.

01:10:01.000 But I think Putin is strategically overreached here and he also doesn't understand how that relationship works, right?

01:10:08.000 He's imagining somehow that he's on par with China and that they're going to have this relationship. 0.64

01:10:13.000 Xi is only going to work with Russia and maintain relatively close ties for as long as it's in China's interest.

01:10:21.000 That's it.

01:10:22.000 You don't think Putin knows this?

01:10:25.000 He seems to have been mistaken on a number of things when it comes to assessment of the situation with Ukraine.

01:10:31.000 So you gotta wonder, how good is the information reaching him?

01:10:34.000 How isolated is he?

01:10:36.000 And so this understanding of the relationship between he and Xi, I think Xi's looking at this and going, this is a great opportunity for us right now.

01:10:45.000 Now, if it gets uglier in Ukraine, If things really, really get ugly, then I think you're going to see some daylight between Xi's going to look and go, okay, politically, economically, it's now in our interests to create some space there.

01:11:00.000 They're not going to change their situation with Russia because we threaten them with sanctions.

01:11:06.000 This whole thing that the Biden administration is doing right now where they're talking about, well, we've threatened them with secondary sanctions if they supply military hardware to Russia.

01:11:18.000 I think that's a complete misread of how you should be dealing with Xi and the regime right now.

01:11:22.000 You don't threaten them publicly.

01:11:23.000 Maybe you talk to them privately in conversation, but don't blast it all over the airwaves that this is what we're doing.

01:11:28.000 I think they're doing it.

01:11:29.000 I don't know why.

01:11:29.000 Maybe just they look tough.

01:11:31.000 Do you think that that is...

01:11:33.000 What's that a function of?

01:11:35.000 Who's pulling those strings? 0.60

01:11:36.000 Is that the intelligence agencies?

01:11:40.000 Is that Biden's administration themselves?

01:11:43.000 Who's making those decisions?

01:11:46.000 The intel service's job would be to be providing as good intel, as well-sourced intel as possible on what the Chinese regime's thinking, right?

01:11:58.000 And then they would use that the administration would factor that in when they're thinking about a strategy and how to deal with Xi.

01:12:05.000 So who ultimately would make those decisions, though?

01:12:07.000 So the intel agencies provide...

01:12:09.000 The White House would make that.

01:12:10.000 The White House.

01:12:10.000 The White House would make the decision, and then it would be...

01:12:12.000 Typically, when we're talking about China, you would see it mostly through Antony Blinken and the State Department, right?

01:12:20.000 But, you know, Blinken's getting out there and publicly berating China and threatening sanctions.

01:12:25.000 Again, I'm not saying we don't talk to them privately and explain how, you know, our view is and what we want them to understand from our perspective.

01:12:33.000 You do that.

01:12:34.000 You'd be very clear with the Chinese.

01:12:35.000 But you can't have Biden do that, right?

01:12:39.000 Well, he's starting to do it.

01:12:41.000 But, yeah, the problem with President Biden is, you know, I don't know that when he says something, It never really seems to be said with much conviction, right?

01:12:54.000 And so, and his actions in the past, I mean, look, you know, if we're talking just about Putin here, Putin knows Biden's team, you know, to some degree, because he's seen Biden, he's seen some of these cats on Biden's team during the Obama administration,

01:13:11.000 right?

01:13:11.000 And so if you think about when Putin's been really aggressive, it was During the Obama administration and now.

01:13:17.000 So he feels he knows what he's dealing with.

01:13:20.000 And you have to assume the Chinese do the same assessment.

01:13:23.000 But I guess my point being is that Xi is doing a daily risk gain calculation in terms of their relationship with Russia.

01:13:32.000 And they're saying, okay, is it still in our best interest?

01:13:35.000 And as soon as it's not, from Xi's perspective, in China's self-interest to maintain You know, sort of this notion of closer ties with Russia, then he'll back off.

01:13:46.000 And, you know, again, I think he views it right now as an opportunity.

01:13:51.000 And always, if it's an opportunity to kind of poke at us, he'll take it.

01:13:56.000 I have this screenshot that someone sent me of the way the people on the left were talking about the Ukraine situation before the war.

01:14:12.000 I'm going to send this to you, Jamie.

01:14:14.000 Sorry.

01:14:16.000 But this is one of the things that's so weird, is that they were very disparaging Of Ukraine, and they were talking about the massive corruption of Ukraine and how horrible it was over there.

01:14:31.000 And now, all of a sudden, they're looking at it like they're heroes.

01:14:36.000 Yeah, I mean, that's...

01:14:38.000 These are the same exact people.

01:14:39.000 Yeah.

01:14:39.000 Which is, this is what's confusing.

01:14:42.000 This is how the West was covering Ukraine before the war.

01:14:45.000 It's welcome to Ukraine, the most corrupt nation in Europe. 1.00

01:14:47.000 That's Vox. 0.91

01:14:48.000 A new Europe Ukrainian president rule becomes increasingly corrupt and authoritarian.

01:14:53.000 Ukrainian President Zelenskyy deepens alliance with the far right.

01:14:57.000 And this is one of the things that we're hearing from people on both sides, that they have a Nazi problem over there, that there's a lot of Nazis involved in Ukraine.

01:15:06.000 And there was something that I saw on Facebook, where Facebook allowed...

01:15:10.000 I don't know who the...

01:15:12.000 This is what's so confusing about what they call the fog of war.

01:15:15.000 It's not necessarily really the fog of war.

01:15:18.000 It's the fog of the distribution of information.

01:15:20.000 Is that we're supposed to just completely take a hard right turn or a veer away, a hard angle away from the narrative that was being pushed just a couple of years ago.

01:15:32.000 And we're supposed to ignore all this stuff now.

01:15:34.000 And I don't know what's right and what's wrong.

01:15:37.000 Because there was something about Facebook.

01:15:39.000 Allowing likes.

01:15:41.000 Yeah, Facebook allows war posts urging violence against Russian invaders.

01:15:46.000 Like, what?

01:15:47.000 Yeah, I know.

01:15:47.000 I saw that.

01:15:49.000 What the fuck is that? 1.00

01:15:50.000 What is that? 0.99

01:15:51.000 I mean, both things can be true, right?

01:15:54.000 Right.

01:15:55.000 You know, the Ukraine's had a serious, significant corruption problem over the years.

01:16:00.000 They got a really interesting history.

01:16:02.000 People should spend time reading the history of Ukraine and understanding what the troubles have been just recently even with corruption, trying to get that under control.

01:16:12.000 And it can also be true that, all right, in terms of- Even so.

01:16:17.000 Yeah, even so.

01:16:18.000 Right.

01:16:19.000 What Putin's done is reprehensible and needs to be properly dealt with.

01:16:26.000 So it's a good example of working in the real world.

01:16:31.000 The Saudi relationship is a good example also.

01:16:34.000 I was going to bring that up next.

01:16:35.000 U.S. activity with the Saudis.

01:16:39.000 Or another good example is the fact that we're working with Putin's government in our ongoing negotiations with Iran, because the current administration, the Biden administration, is so keen to rejuvenate that 2015 Iran deal.

01:16:55.000 And so we're actually, while we're doing all this, while we're calling him a war criminal, And we're providing, you know, we just provide another aid package full of AT4s and javelins and stingers and helmets.

01:17:07.000 Helmet's always a good thing.

01:17:10.000 We're also working with them to try to negotiate this deal.

01:17:15.000 So we're using...

01:17:18.000 what we're referring to now as a war criminal as our liaison with the Iranians to try to strike a deal with the Iranians or to get them back on board and into this deal and people look at that and rightly so are thinking what the fuck but it's it's how it's always worked right you you know it's it's a very pragmatic approach i suppose in one in one sense and you know you can't you can't say okay i'm going to be I'm going to be the leader of the free world and only do things

01:17:48.000 by emotion.

01:17:49.000 Only do things if they're morally the high ground.

01:17:52.000 I'm never going to deal with people who are reprehensible at times.

01:17:59.000 One of the things that's happening now is because of social media and because there's so much access to information is that all this stuff is brutally transparent.

01:18:10.000 That, like, the United States is contacting Saudi Arabia and trying to broker some sort of a deal.

01:18:18.000 Now we're hearing that Saudi Arabia is considering using the Chinese currency instead of American dollars for their oil, which scares the shit out of people.

01:18:29.000 And the fact that, I mean, I don't know if it's true, but that Saudi Arabia is not taking Biden's calls.

01:18:36.000 No, that was one of those things that flew out there.

01:18:39.000 Is that what it was?

01:18:40.000 Yeah, I don't think there's any basis to that.

01:18:42.000 There was some talk about, oh my god, the UAE and Saudis are saying, we're not taking your calls anymore.

01:18:46.000 Yeah, I saw it because there was a Trevor Noah sketch, or a little monologue thing where he was doing, where he was saying that this would never happen if Trump was the president, they would take his calls.

01:18:59.000 Like, you can't just not take his calls.

01:19:01.000 I know, who's there?

01:19:02.000 It's President Biden.

01:19:03.000 I'm busy.

01:19:04.000 Yeah, yeah, but this idea that all of a sudden now we want to do a deal with Saudi Arabia and Saudi Arabia's like, you know what? 1.00

01:19:12.000 How about fuck you? 1.00

01:19:14.000 We're gonna do a deal with China and that this is... 1.00

01:19:17.000 Well, you're pointing to it.

01:19:18.000 I mean, that's a...

01:19:20.000 God, there's so many things that are, you know, going on in the world that are... 0.77

01:19:23.000 They're all fucking connected because the world is much smaller than it ever used to be, but the Saudis... 1.00

01:19:29.000 Have been working with the Chinese. 0.97

01:19:30.000 The Chinese regime has been providing the Saudis with missile technology assistance, right, in developing their capabilities.

01:19:38.000 And they've been increasing their economic cooperation. 0.98

01:19:41.000 At the same time, and this is another example of this, you know, what the fuck, people are, you know, it seems like a strange board game. 0.91

01:19:48.000 The Chinese are also increasing significantly their economic cooperation with Iran. 0.97

01:19:53.000 Right?

01:19:54.000 So from Chinese perspective, hey, and from the regime, from Xi's perspective, that makes perfect sense.

01:20:00.000 It's in China's self-interest, right? 0.95

01:20:02.000 Yay! 0.99

01:20:03.000 We're selling missile technology and we're getting a better toehold into Saudis.

01:20:09.000 Capitalizing on chaos.

01:20:10.000 Capitalizing on chaos.

01:20:11.000 And at the same time, we're dealing with the Iranians. 1.00

01:20:14.000 They don't see any conflict there because, again, it's all in their self-interest.

01:20:20.000 It's a very simple calculation from their perspective.

01:20:22.000 When it's not, they won't do it.

01:20:24.000 When it is, they'll do it.

01:20:27.000 But there's so much to unpack there because they're selling technology to the Saudis that they originally got from the Russians, right?

01:20:34.000 So the weapons technology transfer over the years has always been essentially from Russia to China.

01:20:43.000 Now China, they advance the ball, right? 0.99

01:20:46.000 So they're better at it than the Russians are, you know, because they do what they always do. 1.00

01:20:50.000 They suck up all that information and all that research and development, and then they just expand it.

01:20:56.000 And they got far more resource than Russia.

01:20:58.000 And so now they're much better.

01:21:00.000 Now Russia turns to China and says, we could sure use some assistance, right? 0.99

01:21:04.000 There's a lot of shit going on out there just beyond the... 0.98

01:21:08.000 Sort of the horrible conflict that's taking place in the Ukraine right now. 0.99

01:21:11.000 There's all these things taking place on the world stage.

01:21:13.000 Look at India. 0.95

01:21:15.000 India is, you know, India and China have refused to say anything bad about the invasion, right?

01:21:22.000 They're not calling it a war.

01:21:24.000 They're not calling it an invasion by Putin.

01:21:25.000 They're not calling it anything.

01:21:27.000 They're trying to stay well out of it.

01:21:29.000 And India's got a long relationship, obviously, in history with Russia.

01:21:33.000 You know, we imagine somehow that, okay, these sanctions are going to destroy Russia.

01:21:40.000 And over a long period of time, the sanctions we put in place are going to really cripple that economy.

01:21:45.000 And it's going to hurt the Russian people a great deal.

01:21:48.000 But India and China look at it and go...

01:21:52.000 It gives us an opportunity.

01:21:53.000 You think India's going to stop supporting?

01:21:55.000 Most of the Indian population, you know, strongly supports Putin and Russia because they've had this relationship.

01:22:02.000 And Russia has provided India with all sorts of military technology and capability.

01:22:08.000 And so it's, I guess, and also India looks at it and goes, hey, now we get oil and gas at a discount.

01:22:13.000 Keep buying it.

01:22:14.000 Why is our gas so high?

01:22:16.000 Because one of the things that I was seeing was that Putin was mocking the idea that the gas prices in America have anything to do with the crisis in Ukraine.

01:22:28.000 And he was saying that the United States only gets 3% of its oil from Russia.

01:22:34.000 And the idea that we're responsible, he was saying Russia, that this was responsible for the increase in the price of gas and the destabilization of inflation.

01:22:48.000 It's nonsense.

01:22:52.000 Is that true?

01:22:53.000 In part, no, I mean, recent price increases or fluctuation in both the price of oil and what you're paying at the pump, you can attribute to sort of the chaos and the instability that took place once the invasion started, right?

01:23:05.000 Once it became clear that this was about to kick off ever since.

01:23:11.000 How does that raise prices?

01:23:12.000 How does that work?

01:23:13.000 Well, it's a world market, right?

01:23:15.000 So traders are out there.

01:23:17.000 They're looking at everything that goes on in the world.

01:23:21.000 So China, as an example, look, they've locked down, right?

01:23:25.000 They're starting to open up Shenzhen in a little bit, but they got millions of people now under new lockdowns because of COVID. It's the Omicron, Omicron, Omicron.

01:23:37.000 And so that can impact, because now suddenly what happens?

01:23:40.000 The people are looking to go, the Chinese economy is going to slow down, and in fact it has. 1.00

01:23:43.000 They came out and said, you know, our numbers, our expected growth is actually going to be slower than it's been in decades.

01:23:52.000 So I think they'll look at that and go, okay, that's got to be factored into how we're going to price, you know, crude or petroleum products.

01:24:00.000 And so Or they look at the Iran deal, the Iran negotiations, and they think, oh, you know, price came down below $100 a barrel in part because it looked like people were making noises like we're going to get a deal with Iran, that was going to open up the spigot,

01:24:15.000 and so we're going to be able to replace the amount of oil that's going to be missing from the market because of the sanctions on Russia.

01:24:21.000 So the traders globally look at everything that's taking place in the world, and they set the prices, right?

01:24:30.000 It's not the oil companies thinking, here, we're going to set the price of crude.

01:24:36.000 That's why it's such a fallacy when somebody in Washington, D.C. comes out and goes, they're profiteering.

01:24:44.000 Now, I'm not naive.

01:24:45.000 Could profiteering maybe be taking place in the oil business and elsewhere?

01:24:49.000 Well, sure, there's a possibility, and you want to be aware of it and be focused on that, but that's not how prices get set.

01:24:57.000 It's one of those simplistic ideas.

01:24:59.000 We're going to stick it to the man.

01:25:01.000 It's got to be the oil company's fault that I'm paying $7, $8, $9 a gallon now.

01:25:08.000 But the gas was going up ever since Biden came into office.

01:25:13.000 I think, again, I hate to disappear down rabbit holes, but ever since President Biden came into office.

01:25:18.000 Their initial plan was to end the fossil fuel business, and they were very clear about that, right?

01:25:25.000 They made it very known.

01:25:27.000 We're going to wrap up our dependence on fossil fuels.

01:25:31.000 Is that physically possible?

01:25:33.000 Not in any short or midterm.

01:25:35.000 No, it's not.

01:25:36.000 And so, not unless you want to...

01:25:39.000 Well, no, it's not.

01:25:40.000 We can't replace it.

01:25:40.000 What are we going to replace it with at this stage?

01:25:42.000 We don't have...

01:25:43.000 People think, well, solar and wind.

01:25:44.000 Yeah.

01:25:45.000 No.

01:25:45.000 The capacity is not there yet.

01:25:47.000 When they say that, it's also not just that.

01:25:51.000 It's stopping production and stopping pumping of American oil, right?

01:25:58.000 Well, what that does is...

01:26:00.000 Or at least minimizing it.

01:26:01.000 Well, yeah, I mean, they layered on regulatory, you know, concerns onto the industry after they got in office, right?

01:26:08.000 Because what does that do?

01:26:10.000 That tells oil companies out there, we don't have a future in five or ten year investments, right?

01:26:16.000 If you're going to kill this industry...

01:26:18.000 What's our incentive to invest a lot of money?

01:26:21.000 Look, they're talking about ExxonMobil.

01:26:23.000 Oh, ExxonMobil made like $23 billion in profit in 2021. Well, you know what they lost in 2020?

01:26:30.000 They lost about $22.3 billion.

01:26:34.000 That was their loss.

01:26:36.000 So they've got to invest in the future.

01:26:39.000 I'm not here to show for oil companies, but I'm just saying this is how it works.

01:26:42.000 And so if they're told There's no future in long-term investment.

01:26:47.000 Well, guess what?

01:26:48.000 You know, okay, they're going to start shutting production down.

01:26:50.000 They're not going to invest in new opportunities.

01:26:53.000 And so, yeah, that's going to have an impact.

01:26:56.000 And I think what the Biden administration did that was incorrect was the simple Thought that energy in today's world equals national security.

01:27:07.000 It is a top national security priority, right?

01:27:10.000 There's no doubt about it.

01:27:12.000 And so therefore, if you think energy is a critical national security concern in this world, therefore, it's not unreasonable to think we should do everything possible to achieve or get as close as possible to achieve energy independence.

01:27:26.000 That should be our plan.

01:27:28.000 You can still, at the same fucking time, you can invest in alternative forms of energy. 0.97

01:27:33.000 You can do both at the same time. 0.97

01:27:35.000 But there seems to be this thought with some folks that, no, no, you can't do that. 0.99

01:27:39.000 You got to throw all in on alternative energy sources and just, and fuck the fossil fuels. 0.86

01:27:44.000 Well, you can do both, and eventually, yeah, hopefully one day we get there, you know, to, you know, yay, green energy. 0.98

01:27:51.000 But...

01:27:52.000 It's not going to happen in our lifetimes.

01:27:55.000 It's a long process.

01:27:56.000 So how much have we decreased our reliance on energy that the United States produces?

01:28:04.000 I don't know the exact numbers, but look, we've been pulling in on a daily basis from Russia, as an example, 670,000 barrels a day, right?

01:28:15.000 I mean, if you think about...

01:28:18.000 You know, our concern is how do we make that up?

01:28:21.000 Could we make that up by not having put our boot on the neck of the energy business here?

01:28:30.000 Again, not saying we shouldn't be pursuing other.

01:28:33.000 Good God.

01:28:34.000 I mean, I keep going back to this.

01:28:36.000 We can multitask.

01:28:37.000 We have that ability.

01:28:38.000 In fact, oil companies spend a great deal of money researching alternative fuels because it's a capitalist motive.

01:28:44.000 They understand that if they can get there, they're going to make money.

01:28:47.000 Right?

01:28:47.000 Right.

01:28:48.000 And so it's like battery development.

01:28:50.000 Whoever develops the next best, smallest battery is going to win. 0.97

01:28:53.000 So, you know, it shouldn't be that hard to assume, but the problem is we send people to Washington who then just throw shit on the wall, right, because it seems like a popular thing to say, right? 0.93

01:29:06.000 And so next thing you know, we're talking about, yeah, let's do a windfall tax. 0.97

01:29:09.000 Maybe.

01:29:10.000 And now there's some talk about we should price cap.

01:29:12.000 Oh, how about we cap the price of gas so that we're going to set price controls and so you can't charge any more than this.

01:29:20.000 And we tried that, right?

01:29:22.000 And the problem is some of these people that are up in Washington, D.C. aren't old enough to remember.

01:29:25.000 But in the 70s, right, they had price controls on gas.

01:29:30.000 Which we also had long lines for gas and we had all sorts of problems in terms of gas and the resulting, it didn't do any good in terms of lowering prices long term.

01:29:40.000 And then they finally released that and they finally said, okay, take all the price controls off and prices started to come down because, again, it's a supply-demand, it's a marketplace.

01:29:49.000 And so...

01:29:51.000 Again, it doesn't mean you're against eventually figuring out how to get rid of fossil fuels.

01:29:56.000 I think everybody who's reasonable can say, yeah, that's a good, worthy goal. 0.99

01:30:00.000 It's how you do it so that you don't fuck over your own country. 0.98

01:30:04.000 So what are the factors? 0.99

01:30:07.000 Like one of them was the Keystone Pipeline, right?

01:30:10.000 Well, yeah, there's some argument over that because...

01:30:13.000 The worry is the environment.

01:30:16.000 I mean, that was one of the things that when the Biden administration came in, a lot of people that are environmentally conscious were very happy because they were talking about the Green New Deal, they were talking about doing things for the environment, preparing for the future of this country, for the future of the children,

01:30:32.000 and not leaving a poisoned, polluted world because a bunch of people were greedy.

01:30:36.000 Right.

01:30:37.000 But what you're saying is that, correct me if I'm wrong, it's much more complicated than that in that our reliance on oil is kind of absolute.

01:30:48.000 We have a certain amount of reliance on oil.

01:30:50.000 You can't just erase that immediately.

01:30:53.000 And natural gas.

01:30:55.000 I mean, people imagine they're going to plug their electric car in.

01:30:58.000 You got to get that electricity from somewhere right now.

01:31:01.000 Right.

01:31:03.000 What about nuclear?

01:31:04.000 Well, that also, you know, causes some heads to explode, right?

01:31:09.000 Because, you know, God forbid we should think about nuclear energy.

01:31:12.000 We're much more capable now than we were 20 years ago of producing safe systems, you know, to produce nuclear energy.

01:31:19.000 But that's, again, very emotive, right?

01:31:22.000 It's a super emotive subject.

01:31:24.000 And so, okay, I get it.

01:31:25.000 But we should be looking at all these things.

01:31:27.000 We can have this, you know, sort of balanced energy approach We're the goal, eventually, of getting rid of fossil fuels.

01:31:36.000 You can do that, but it's sort of that all-or-nothing, simplistic mentality that seems to be in a lot of other areas, not just energy.

01:31:45.000 But anyway, it is interesting, but I think we look at...

01:31:51.000 You look at what Europe did and Europe's reliance on Russia for energy.

01:31:57.000 And if you don't think that Putin knew what he was doing in terms of driving, you know, this...

01:32:07.000 European dependence on Russian oil and gas, he knew exactly what he was doing.

01:32:12.000 He's considered energy as a weapon for a long time at this point.

01:32:16.000 And so what's he doing?

01:32:19.000 He's being called a war criminal by countries that are in a position where they don't have an option.

01:32:25.000 They got to keep paying him, right?

01:32:26.000 They got to keep putting money in his coffers.

01:32:29.000 If oil is up where it is now, it's over $100 a barrel again, it was up to, what, $139 at one point?

01:32:37.000 He can afford this military adventurism, right?

01:32:39.000 He can afford to do what he's doing.

01:32:41.000 When oil is down at 30, 35 bucks a barrel, because of his dependence on oil and gas, petroleum products as a revenue, when it's like that, you know, so in our minds, we should have been thinking,

01:32:56.000 okay, again, from a geopolitical standpoint, What do we have to do to ensure our national security, the security of our allies, everything else?

01:33:05.000 That's a part of it.

01:33:06.000 That's a factor that we should be thinking about.

01:33:08.000 But, man, we didn't. 1.00

01:33:09.000 So, fuck it. 1.00

01:33:11.000 So, boy, fuck it. 1.00

01:33:14.000 How does this end? 1.00

01:33:16.000 This is what's disturbing to someone like me who doesn't know shit. 0.95

01:33:19.000 When I'm looking at this, I'm going, how does this guy get out of this? 0.98

01:33:24.000 If he really did make a massive miscalculation, he thought that Ukraine would fall quickly.

01:33:30.000 And there's talk of, I don't know how many Russian troops have been killed.

01:33:35.000 That's a good point.

01:33:37.000 We talked about intel and sort of lack of intel.

01:33:40.000 Intel estimates are anywhere from Yeah, a couple thousand to 10,000, right?

01:33:46.000 Which that gap, anytime you look at a gap like that in intel assessments, whether it's that or whether it's how far are the Iranians away from breakout in terms of creating a weapon, you know, and it says, well, a month away or 12 months away.

01:33:59.000 What that tells you is that...

01:34:01.000 Your intel sources, really solid intel, are lacking, and you need to tighten that up.

01:34:07.000 Russian troops killed, some estimates are hovering around 7,000 or so, but you've got to take that with a grain of salt because the intel's not really there.

01:34:19.000 That's a lot, though.

01:34:20.000 It's a lot.

01:34:22.000 Think about it.

01:34:23.000 He committed about 200,000 troops to this invasion.

01:34:29.000 And if he's lost 7,000 to 10,000 already, including a handful of top commanders, right?

01:34:37.000 So he's had generals killed in the field, right?

01:34:40.000 I mean, that's an astounding thing if you think just about that alone.

01:34:43.000 He's had, I think, at this point, four commanding officers, general staff, killed in the field.

01:34:51.000 And what that would imply is that they're putting themselves into positions where they can get, you know, whacked out in the field Because things aren't working properly, right?

01:35:02.000 They shouldn't be out, you know, at the front of some convoy where some sniper is going to be able to take them out.

01:35:06.000 They should have much better command and control systems in place.

01:35:10.000 The communication should be better.

01:35:11.000 But clearly, they've had all sorts of problems here.

01:35:13.000 And that's just one, again, one of those small indications of some of the difficulties that they've been experiencing.

01:35:20.000 Is this because people aren't willing to be straight with Putin because they fear the consequences?

01:35:28.000 Or is this just that they didn't know how fiercely the Ukrainian people would fight?

01:35:37.000 Yeah, I think at the 30,000 foot level, their risk threat assessments were way off.

01:35:46.000 Which is astounding because you think about the ability for the Russians The intel service and the military to have assets or information on, you know, what's going on in Ukraine.

01:35:58.000 I mean, it's the long history, the ties between the two, and their ability to place assets in there over the years and to understand, you know, what's going on.

01:36:06.000 And you would have assumed that they would have had recon.

01:36:12.000 In Ukraine, you know, for months leading up to this, telling them about defensive strategies about, you know, the buildup in the Ukraine, what are they going to be facing?

01:36:23.000 What's it going to look like?

01:36:25.000 And so, yeah, I think it's, I think he's, he, he's He was given bad intel or he ignored it.

01:36:32.000 I suspect it was more along the lines of given bad intel, in part because I think he's distrustful, perhaps.

01:36:40.000 He doesn't...

01:36:42.000 I don't know.

01:36:44.000 Again, it's speculation because the only person that really knows what Putin's thinking is Putin.

01:36:51.000 So when you see these videos, and I've seen quite a few of them, it's hard to know what's real because there was one video that was being touted as evidence that turned out to be footage from a video game.

01:37:02.000 Did you see that?

01:37:03.000 There was like some dogfight scenario that turned out to actually be footage from a video game.

01:37:08.000 Yeah.

01:37:08.000 I mean, this is a problem with the world we're living in today, right?

01:37:12.000 There's so much chaos in terms of like accurate information.

01:37:17.000 But there's these videos of Russian convoys, and there's these essentially—they're using guerrilla tactics.

01:37:24.000 They're hiding behind buildings and shooting these grenade launchers and missiles at these tanks as they roll by and blowing them up and killing these Russians.

01:37:35.000 Is all that stuff real?

01:37:36.000 Yeah, that's real.

01:37:37.000 One of the things that has emerged from this, if you're just looking at the battle spaces— You know, tanks may not be a thing anymore, right?

01:37:46.000 Tanks were critical.

01:37:48.000 You know, in World War I they showed up.

01:37:50.000 And, you know, thank you Winston Churchill for, you know, pushing that along.

01:37:58.000 Now, with the available systems that are in place, and we've been providing the javelins.

01:38:04.000 Javelin is probably the most effective anti-tank weapon out there, at this stage, anyway.

01:38:09.000 And it's proven it's mobile, right?

01:38:12.000 It's guided.

01:38:13.000 It's extremely effective.

01:38:14.000 And so that has definitely changed the calculation, right?

01:38:19.000 And I don't think they were anticipating that.

01:38:20.000 They probably weren't anticipating...

01:38:22.000 Although they should have.

01:38:23.000 How could they not anticipate the effectiveness of the Stingers, right?

01:38:26.000 They faced that in Afghanistan.

01:38:27.000 That's what one of the key elements that got them out of Afghanistan was, you know, the ability for the Mujahideen to shoot their, you know, platforms out of the sky. 0.90

01:38:38.000 And so they certainly should have understood what that meant.

01:38:41.000 But...

01:38:42.000 But you're right also in the sense that you got to be really careful with the information that's coming out.

01:38:48.000 And people should always say, okay, let me just understand what this source is that I'm looking at.

01:38:54.000 I'm looking at this video or I'm hearing this report.

01:38:57.000 You know, is it accurate?

01:38:58.000 Where's it coming from?

01:38:59.000 And that can be tough, right?

01:39:00.000 Trying to trace it back to, is it a legitimate source?

01:39:04.000 But yeah, it's a bizarre world.

01:39:08.000 I mean, we kind of went through watching war On TV, right, during the Iraq 2003 and on, and even before then, the first Gulf War.

01:39:24.000 So we kind of got used to it a little bit, but this is really playing out in social media, and it's really playing out.

01:39:30.000 And it creates emotions, right?

01:39:32.000 And so people start, and that, to go to your point, you know, we were covering it two years ago, or Ukraine was covered in an entirely different way.

01:39:39.000 But now, because of the way that people get their information, the speed, and that creates this emotion. 0.98

01:39:45.000 And so it is a strange fucking world. 0.98

01:39:48.000 What do you think Putin thought was going to happen? 0.99

01:39:50.000 I mean, when you're driving these tanks down many, many miles on a straight road where everybody knows where they're coming from, everybody knows where they're going.

01:40:00.000 Why do these generals or whoever's in charge of making these military plans, why do they think that that was a viable option to just drive these convoys of military vehicles and personnel carriers And fuel tanks,

01:40:18.000 or tankers.

01:40:21.000 Well, I'm sure that's the same question Putin probably asked his generals before he let them go.

01:40:27.000 Is he letting them go, or is he putting them in the same place where they put Jack Ma for a few months?

01:40:32.000 Yeah, exactly.

01:40:33.000 I think he's putting someone under house arrest.

01:40:39.000 It's a very good question.

01:40:41.000 The Russian military was supposedly going through a professionalism, sorry, sort of this upgrade over the past decade and a half or so.

01:40:48.000 It doesn't appear to have worked very well.

01:40:50.000 He's got a lot of apparent issues with the training, certainly experience, right?

01:40:57.000 They got a lot of young people who, you know, got in the military.

01:40:59.000 They haven't been in combat. 0.98

01:41:01.000 They certainly haven't been in urban combat, which is the most fucked up, you know, situation. 0.93

01:41:07.000 He's dealing with a lot of issues. 0.93

01:41:11.000 But you're right.

01:41:12.000 You would have imagined that the planning, and I think that's one of the reasons why you're starting to see, again, if we can believe a lot of the anecdotal evidence, why you're seeing this starting to bubble up a little bit through the command structure and through the elite.

01:41:26.000 And we have to hope that continues, because ultimately, you know, what's going to get them to back off is...

01:41:32.000 Unless there's some miraculous peace deal because he finally says, fuck it, we're not going to win, is sort of the Russian population, the elites, and the military command basically finally just saying, enough's enough. 1.00

01:41:47.000 This is too fucked up. 1.00

01:41:49.000 We can't back this horse anymore. 1.00

01:41:52.000 Maybe we get there.

01:41:53.000 Probably not going to get there anytime soon, but one of the things we should be doing is just driving information into the Russian population, giving them the visuals, not propaganda.

01:42:04.000 All we got to do is show them what's happening.

01:42:07.000 What do they have access to now?

01:42:08.000 State-run media.

01:42:10.000 Yeah, state-run media.

01:42:11.000 They shut down, really, access to media.

01:42:13.000 I mean, so they're getting...

01:42:30.000 You know, continues.

01:42:31.000 And look, supposedly they've arrested up to 15,000 protesters, right?

01:42:35.000 And, you know, God bless those folks.

01:42:39.000 Did you see that video of this woman who is standing in the middle of the square and she holds up this small sign and then immediately the cops grab her and shove her into a van?

01:42:49.000 Yeah, there's a number of incidents like that.

01:42:52.000 It's remarkable in terms of the speed with which they show up on scene and they know they're going to get arrested.

01:42:57.000 Yeah.

01:43:00.000 That's what Putin, just like with Xi, what's Xi most worried about?

01:43:03.000 He's worried about public unrest. 0.99

01:43:05.000 He's worried about that massive population thinking, oh, fuck this. 0.99

01:43:11.000 With Putin, he wants everyone to believe that he's doing this because he's trying to protect the Russian people and he's trying to protect Russian sovereignty. 0.99

01:43:21.000 And so there was this thought, well, oh my god, we did this.

01:43:24.000 We created this problem because we were enticing Ukraine into, you know, democracy. 1.00

01:43:31.000 Bullshit. 0.99

01:43:31.000 The only thing that was a threat was a threat directly to Putin's power. 0.99

01:43:35.000 That's all it was, was having a successful democracy in Ukraine, you know, and incrementally, slowly getting past the corruption issues and becoming more and more of a successful democracy.

01:43:46.000 That poses a threat to Putin's control, his own control in the situation.

01:43:51.000 And he doesn't, that's, you know, so when he talks about a sphere of influence, it's in part, you know, yes, in his mind, he's thinking about the Soviet Union, and I'm keeping NATO at bay. 0.93

01:44:00.000 But really, what he's thinking about is I don't want fucking successful democracies on my on my Western flank.

01:44:05.000 Is it that but it is is it also that if Ukraine joins NATO, then NATO can park their weapons in Ukraine? 0.94

01:44:11.000 Well, this is the bizarre part, too.

01:44:14.000 Nobody was going to invite Ukraine to join NATO. No.

01:44:18.000 And so, which is why it's an easy ask, right?

01:44:23.000 Which is why Zelensky's now said, well, you know, we just have to realize that the door's not open to join NATO. I mean...

01:44:30.000 That wasn't going to happen anyway.

01:44:31.000 It wasn't?

01:44:32.000 No, no.

01:44:32.000 Because that's all we keep hearing.

01:44:34.000 Yeah, but underneath the whatever public discourse may have been taking place and the idea that Ukraine was becoming more of a democracy and they were tamping down to corruption and maybe eventually they get to...

01:44:46.000 NATO countries, you know, being very pragmatic, we're looking at it and going, yeah, Ukraine is different.

01:44:52.000 Ukraine's different than Poland. 0.50

01:44:53.000 Ukraine's different than, you know, the Czech Republic.

01:44:59.000 On that border, right?

01:45:00.000 Because the history of Ukraine with Russia. 0.85

01:45:03.000 And so there's a tacit understanding that that's not going to end well.

01:45:07.000 You know, we don't want to put Ukraine in a position to bring them into NATO. So again, you know, who am I? I'm not running the world, but I would argue that that wasn't going to happen. 0.68

01:45:16.000 And, you know, but, you know, again, I think with Putin, it was simply, this presents a challenge to my authority. 0.99

01:45:28.000 And fuck it, I want to be president until 2036. So you think it's just entirely because if Ukraine succeeds as a democracy and if it becomes less and less corrupt and the democracy becomes more and more established, that somehow or another could trickle into Russia? 0.94

01:45:44.000 Yeah, and there was also little to zero chance that we were going to place key strategic weaponry inside Ukraine.

01:45:54.000 That idea is also because People look at it from a certain perspective, which is, yeah, that might be a bridge too far.

01:46:04.000 In the previous world, before this invasion, they would have looked at that as, that's too escalatory.

01:46:09.000 That's taking things a bridge too far.

01:46:12.000 So we want to maintain a balance.

01:46:14.000 We understand that would send Putin over.

01:46:16.000 So we're not going to do that either.

01:46:18.000 So I think there was this pragmatic understanding of where Ukraine was going to be.

01:46:23.000 They were perfectly happy to keep pushing them and trying to get them to be more and more aligned with the West.

01:46:30.000 But I think there would have never been that moment where they said, okay, and now you can join NATO. And guess what?

01:46:35.000 Here's some missile systems that we're going to place in that we know for a fact will be a provocation to Putin.

01:46:44.000 Why do that?

01:46:45.000 So one of the things that I read recently was that Putin had established a certain amount of parameters that need to be in place for them to pull out of Ukraine.

01:46:58.000 One of them was that they agreed to not join NATO. That was something that had been expressed.

01:47:05.000 Do you think that's because now that he's invaded Ukraine that the NATO countries might look at it as an opportunity to try to have Ukraine join NATO now and that's where this narrative is coming from?

01:47:19.000 No, I think it's just he wants it in writing, for whatever that's worth, I guess, nowadays.

01:47:24.000 But I think he wants it, because look, it's in their constitution about the opportunity to join NATO. He wants that removed, and he wants it clear in any potential agreement that they're not going to.

01:47:35.000 I think that's the easiest ask that you can put on the table for Zelensky, right?

01:47:40.000 The hard one is the demilitarization of Ukraine, right?

01:47:44.000 Yeah, and I think that can be met by agreeing not to deploy certain weapon systems into Ukraine, right?

01:47:54.000 It's not going to mean that dismantling of Ukrainian army, I don't think that they would ever get to that point.

01:47:58.000 I don't think that's going to be...

01:47:59.000 Possible as an agreement.

01:48:02.000 So there is a way this could work, but both sides are going to have to give up something, right?

01:48:08.000 There's no way otherwise we're going to get any sort of ceasefire and peace deal here.

01:48:13.000 And the idea should be we're looking to de-escalate, right?

01:48:15.000 Nobody wants, as people always say now, nobody wants a shooting war with Russia, right?

01:48:20.000 That makes perfect sense.

01:48:22.000 But I think we have to be Realistic about this.

01:48:28.000 And so, as distasteful as it is, Zelensky's going to have to give up certain things.

01:48:34.000 Putin's certainly, you know, going to have to be willing to figure out, okay, I got to figure out how to draw a line here and then, you know, get out.

01:48:41.000 But that's a big lift now because he's upset a lot of people.

01:48:45.000 He's created these sanctions.

01:48:46.000 It's not like we can just lift all these sanctions as soon as they come to the table with a ceasefire, right?

01:48:52.000 And so there's going to be a period of time where Russia is going to basically be a pariah out there in the global community.

01:48:59.000 And we got to be careful and pragmatic in how we deal with Putin in that regard.

01:49:06.000 Because again, we got to think about what's in our best national security interest.

01:49:09.000 What's in the best national security interest of Europe?

01:49:11.000 And there's always a tendency, sort of like the Versailles Treaty, to really fuck over the offending party.

01:49:18.000 And I think the reality is we're going to have to be saying, okay, well, it doesn't seem right, but okay, Putin officially gets Crimea and maybe officially gets the Donbass region.

01:49:30.000 You know, he's had troops and proxy troops in there for a long time now.

01:49:33.000 So is he going to give up Crimea?

01:49:36.000 No.

01:49:36.000 You know, so Zelensky is going to have to recognize that as part of Russian territory.

01:49:40.000 Probably that's going to be part of the deal.

01:49:42.000 It's going to be distasteful, but they got to figure out a way to, you know, unwind this. 0.99

01:49:49.000 Otherwise, I think Putin's attitude is going to be, I don't give a fuck anymore. 0.99

01:49:53.000 I'm just going to break it. 0.99

01:49:54.000 I don't care if we end up with a broken Ukraine. 1.00

01:49:57.000 I've proven a point.

01:49:58.000 We don't want him to get to that point.

01:50:00.000 Now, the motivation of the Russian troops, one of the things that's got to be very strange for them is that just a few decades ago, Ukraine was a part of the Soviet Union, and now they're going to war with an urban area where it used to be their countrymen.

01:50:21.000 So when they see the losses, we don't know what the losses are in the Russian army, but how do they boost their morale?

01:50:31.000 How do they get them excited about it?

01:50:33.000 Because it seems like if we were going to go to war with Canada, right, and we decided we're going to invade Toronto and- We should invade Montreal first.

01:50:44.000 It's a much nicer city.

01:50:45.000 I like both places.

01:50:46.000 They're both nice.

01:50:47.000 I shouldn't say anything about that.

01:50:49.000 I'm a big fan of both places.

01:50:50.000 Maybe that's bad because Montreal was never a part of America, right? 0.99

01:50:54.000 Maybe like if we invaded fucking Alaska, whatever. 0.99

01:50:59.000 You know what I mean? 0.99

01:50:59.000 Something along those lines, something crazy where there, just a few decades ago, were our countrymen. 0.99

01:51:05.000 That's got to be a very strange ask for these Russian soldiers.

01:51:11.000 And there's a lot of stories that have come out about, you know, statements from some of the captured Russian soldiers talking about how they didn't even realize they were doing anything other than a training exercise, a long-term training exercise on the border, and then, you know, the tanks start rolling in.

01:51:26.000 So, yeah, again, it's one of those things in terms of intel.

01:51:31.000 How bad is the morale?

01:51:32.000 Well, we don't really know.

01:51:34.000 We have to piece together everything we can and make a determination about that.

01:51:37.000 There's a lot of talk right now because it's a good narrative to say that the Russian military is collapsing because these soldiers, they're young, they're disheartened, they're walking away.

01:51:46.000 But that may be true.

01:51:48.000 But it doesn't take into account what they're still willing to do, right?

01:51:53.000 And what they're willing to put up with and what the command staff is willing to do and instruct them to do.

01:51:58.000 So, you know, everything has to be taken with a bit of a grain of salt.

01:52:01.000 But yeah, it's...

01:52:02.000 Look, you look at the history of these two countries.

01:52:07.000 I mean, go back to, who is it?

01:52:09.000 Abramovich, you know, Roman Abramovich who owns Chelsea Football Club.

01:52:13.000 He's handed over control of it now because I think he reads some of the writing on the wall in terms of his assets.

01:52:18.000 But I think his parents, if I'm not mistaken, I think Abramovich's parents still live in Ukraine.

01:52:23.000 Jeez.

01:52:24.000 Right.

01:52:25.000 So he comes out and says, this is not a good idea.

01:52:27.000 We shouldn't be doing this.

01:52:30.000 He's talking from a very personal place. 1.00

01:52:33.000 Putin looks at that and goes, fuck you, buddy. 1.00

01:52:35.000 So you can see why there'd be anger there. 1.00

01:52:37.000 So it is.

01:52:39.000 It's fascinating.

01:52:40.000 It's always more complex than what we hear.

01:52:42.000 It's always more complex than the headlines or the stories. 0.97

01:52:47.000 And it's all this interconnectivity and the reason why the countries, the reason why people are doing what they're doing, it's fascinating shit. 0.94

01:52:56.000 It is fascinating shit, but one of the things that fascinates me about the oligarchs is why are they going after those guys? 0.91

01:53:07.000 Are they going after those guys because they have influence over Putin and that the more those guys get their money taken away and their assets taken away and get their bank accounts seized, That this will somehow or another make these incredibly wealthy people less supportive of Putin? 0.98

01:53:26.000 Yeah.

01:53:26.000 Because he needs them in order to...

01:53:29.000 Is that what's going on?

01:53:29.000 Well, it's the idea being that the more uncomfortable they are, the more it hurts them, the more likely they are to pressure Putin into changing his strategy, his thought process, coming to the table, doing some sort of ceasefire.

01:53:45.000 So I think that is a big part of it, right?

01:53:47.000 Do they have influence over him?

01:53:49.000 Well, there are indications that it's less than it certainly was, right?

01:53:53.000 And it's decreasing the more that they come out and say something, not again, negative directly against Putin, but against this invasion. 0.99

01:54:02.000 So you'd have to argue that Putin at a certain point is going to think, yeah, fuck you, I don't mind the sanctions on you. 0.96

01:54:07.000 Look, financial sanctions have never really worked on Putin anyway. 0.99

01:54:13.000 It's one of the few things we can actually do.

01:54:15.000 It's the leverage that we've got.

01:54:16.000 And so I think it's important to do it.

01:54:20.000 And a lot of corporations have been taking it upon themselves to pull out or to not do business. 0.99

01:54:26.000 The oil companies are saying, fuck it. 0.99

01:54:27.000 They pulled out before the White House took any action. 1.00

01:54:34.000 It has a cumulative effect, but not in the short term.

01:54:38.000 This is a process, and so it's dissatisfying to a lot of people who say, we should be doing more.

01:54:43.000 There is a fair amount of aid being provided to them, but in typical Washington fashion, everybody focuses then on the MIGs.

01:54:50.000 It becomes the narrative, it becomes the story.

01:54:52.000 If we could just get them the MIGs, we'd solve this problem. 1.00

01:54:56.000 I hear people talking about a no-fly zone, that we need to enforce a no-fly zone.

01:55:01.000 And then I've heard other people going, you don't know what you're asking for, because you're literally asking to enforce that.

01:55:08.000 Which means if America enforces a no-fly zone, that means America is going to shoot down jets that violate the no-fly zone.

01:55:15.000 That's war. 0.51

01:55:16.000 Right.

01:55:17.000 And I'm on board with that.

01:55:19.000 It's one of those, even doing it for humanitarian corridors, right?

01:55:23.000 People imagine somehow that it's a tidy process.

01:55:26.000 And it's not.

01:55:27.000 I mean, you pointed out it's a major goat rope, right, if we do something along those lines. 0.99

01:55:31.000 And the chance for direct conflict is massively increased. 0.52

01:55:36.000 And Even if it's just, you know, it doesn't matter whether it's NATO or whether it's us, we're all in the same, you know, shitstorm then at that point, theoretically, right?

01:55:46.000 And maybe Putin, one of his calculations is, I don't know, you know what, you know, is NATO really going to push?

01:55:51.000 You know, it's 30 countries.

01:55:52.000 I think one of the things he was looking to do was try to identify if there are any cracks in NATO as well.

01:55:58.000 So, you know, they're staring at everything that NATO and the U.S. does and saying, You know, where's the weakness here?

01:56:03.000 Do we have some weak links?

01:56:04.000 Do we have some countries?

01:56:05.000 And there are a handful of countries now calling for a no-fly zone from NATO, right?

01:56:11.000 I think Lithuania, yeah, the Baltic states, basically.

01:56:15.000 Because why?

01:56:16.000 They feel the most threatened, basically.

01:56:18.000 And so, yeah, I think it's...

01:56:22.000 You talk about what's a bridge too far.

01:56:24.000 I think that's a bridge too far.

01:56:25.000 I think we do not want to engage in that game because that I don't think ends particularly well.

01:56:35.000 No.

01:56:36.000 No, that sounds terrifying.

01:56:37.000 Well, that's one of the crazy things about Mutually Assured Destruction, right?

01:56:40.000 That all war is sort of like a slap fight.

01:56:45.000 You know what I mean?

01:56:46.000 Like, you don't necessarily throw leg kicks and head kicks and pick each other up and dump each other on your head.

01:56:55.000 You're agreeing to just slap for a little bit.

01:56:57.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 1.00

01:56:58.000 And then at some point, somebody gets really pissed off, and then it all falls to shit. 0.96

01:57:02.000 And then they tighten up a fist, and the next thing you know, it's take downs. 0.97

01:57:06.000 Yeah, I mean, it seems like with mutually assured destruction because of the nuclear power, Yeah.

01:57:14.000 It seems like, how do you negotiate your way around that?

01:57:18.000 How do you get out of that while you're actually killing people?

01:57:21.000 Because they're actually shooting missiles into apartment buildings.

01:57:24.000 We're seeing the destruction.

01:57:26.000 We're seeing the real consequences of war.

01:57:28.000 I mean, I watched a video.

01:57:29.000 It was horrible.

01:57:30.000 It looked like old ladies, like a house coat. 0.97

01:57:35.000 That were outside this apartment building that were blown apart, and these people were screaming and crying, and the dust was in the air, and they'd just been hit by missiles.

01:57:44.000 They've literally rebelized Mariupol, which is strategically as important from the Russian military's perspective.

01:57:56.000 You hear the politicians talking, well, is it a war crime?

01:58:00.000 I don't know.

01:58:01.000 Is it a war crime? 0.65

01:58:02.000 We're going to have to gather evidence and we're going to have to take it to the international court and we're going to have to decide when everybody can see it, like you just said.

01:58:09.000 Everybody can see it now.

01:58:11.000 It's a video.

01:58:11.000 Cell phone video.

01:58:13.000 They don't rely on news reports anymore.

01:58:15.000 People who pull out their phones are filming this stuff.

01:58:18.000 Right.

01:58:18.000 And so it's clear that they're engaged in war crimes, right?

01:58:22.000 So that's another part that you have to put into the mix when you're trying to determine what Putin's plans and intentions are, right?

01:58:28.000 He's gone this far, right?

01:58:30.000 And he's gone that far before.

01:58:31.000 Look, he helped Assad in Syria.

01:58:33.000 They didn't have a problem with chemical weapons at that point.

01:58:35.000 Didn't bother him.

01:58:38.000 And so, yeah, you have to...

01:58:40.000 And again, it all gets thrown in the mix when you're trying to think about what the hell is his mindset?

01:58:44.000 What is he going to do next?

01:58:45.000 What is he thinking?

01:58:46.000 And so if you look at that and you go, okay, he's clearly doing the same thing he's engaged in in the past, right?

01:58:52.000 And they, you know, Chechnya is another good example, but...

01:58:57.000 It doesn't...

01:58:58.000 So we sometimes process things the way that we do, right?

01:59:02.000 We process things through our lens and as, you know, okay, here in America, it's Americans and through our values and, you know, people always say, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:59:11.000 But we do, right?

01:59:12.000 I mean, we try to, you know, okay, this...

01:59:15.000 And we mirror those values in on whoever our opponent is.

01:59:18.000 And we can't do that with Putin.

01:59:19.000 We can't do it with Xi.

01:59:20.000 We have to be, you know, we have to be smarter than that.

01:59:23.000 But anyway, yeah, I'm not...

01:59:27.000 I'm not particularly optimistic that Putin's going to look at all this and go, okay, I'm going to back off.

01:59:32.000 I do worry that what his thought is at this stage of the game is I've gone this far.

01:59:37.000 It doesn't mean he's going to use tactical nukes or he's going to, you know, thermobaric weapons or, you know, which, again, he's used and, you know, I don't think he's going to have a serious problem with that.

01:59:47.000 But there's talk about chemical weapons and...

01:59:52.000 At what point do we if he goes that far?

01:59:58.000 I mean, imagine him using chemical weapons on the people of Kyiv because he just can't break that nut.

02:00:05.000 What are we going to do?

02:00:07.000 Does he think NATO at that point is going to step in?

02:00:10.000 Well, are you going to get 30 countries all in agreement to use military force at that point in defense of people who aren't in a NATO country?

02:00:19.000 So again, that's why I think one of Putin's efforts here has been to try to identify weaknesses within that alliance and see if he can play on that as well.

02:00:26.000 Do you think the time is on his side or against him in that regard?

02:00:36.000 It depends on the Russian people.

02:00:40.000 I hate to say it, but I think this is my opinion.

02:00:44.000 Time is...

02:00:46.000 From just a crushing the country and breaking it militarily, time is on his side, right?

02:00:55.000 If we kind of have drawn the line where we're willing to provide assistance and we say, okay, this is it.

02:01:00.000 We'll continue to provide aid packages of some military assistance and maybe we'll ratchet up.

02:01:04.000 There's not much else we could do on the sanctions side, but we ratchet up some more sanctions. 0.99

02:01:09.000 I think time is on his side if just all he wants to do is break the fucker, right? 0.98

02:01:15.000 But he knows, look, the Ukrainian people have overthrown, what, two Russian-backed governments already? 0.99

02:01:22.000 He knows a long-term occupation isn't in the cards, right?

02:01:26.000 And he's also destroying a lot of the infrastructure that he would need to have a successful long-term occupation.

02:01:33.000 And so that can't be an upside from his perspective.

02:01:38.000 He's got to figure, okay, I put a puppet regime in, I've done that before, and it hasn't worked.

02:01:42.000 And it's certainly not going to work now, because now I got a nation that hates me a lot more than they did a month ago.

02:01:49.000 And so then, what is he looking to accomplish?

02:01:54.000 And again, I'm just raising the question, I don't have an answer, but that's the big question.

02:01:58.000 What the hell is his endgame?

02:01:59.000 I was reading this thing where they were making an assessment of what would be required to occupy Ukraine.

02:02:07.000 And they said it would be a minimum of 500,000 Russians.

02:02:12.000 I think it would be more than that. 0.84

02:02:13.000 It's a big-ass place.

02:02:15.000 And then they would have to run everything.

02:02:18.000 Yeah.

02:02:18.000 They would have to take over the government.

02:02:20.000 They would have to take over the utilities.

02:02:22.000 They would have to take over the grid, the internet.

02:02:24.000 Yeah.

02:02:25.000 And that's why I say, you know, does he realistically, does his command staff, do they realistically believe that – and going back to your question before and your point before, which is, okay, so what was he thinking?

02:02:39.000 What did he think was going to happen?

02:02:41.000 Again, I think the assessments were so far off base, but they honestly believed they were going to get much more support from the Ukrainian people than they imagined.

02:02:49.000 They thought the Ukrainian people were going to support a military invasion.

02:02:52.000 Why?

02:02:52.000 I think that was an assessment.

02:02:54.000 I mean, again, in part because they thought, well, they'll be far more docile than they are because there is some history there, obviously, and there's a lot of mix, right?

02:03:03.000 A lot of family with family in Russia, a lot of Russians with family in Ukraine.

02:03:09.000 I think they just imagined somehow that it was going to blend.

02:03:12.000 And that's just a failure of intelligence gathering and understanding, you know, risk versus gain.

02:03:18.000 And I think, so that was a real problem.

02:03:21.000 And they assumed that, you know, okay, we'll be into Kyiv.

02:03:25.000 We'll get rid of Zelensky. 1.00

02:03:26.000 We'll have a puppet, you know, regime in place probably within the first week.

02:03:32.000 And Bob's your uncle.

02:03:33.000 No one's going to do anything about it because nobody did anything about Crimea.

02:03:36.000 Nobody did anything about Georgia.

02:03:38.000 The world pretty much left them alone in Chechnya.

02:03:42.000 So, you know, they were basing it to some degree on past actions.

02:03:47.000 Why do you think it's so different?

02:03:49.000 Why do you think they were so successful in Crimea and Chechnya and Georgia?

02:03:54.000 Why did that happen so easily?

02:03:57.000 Because Crimea is very important in access for oil and natural gas.

02:04:03.000 Yeah, Black Sea port.

02:04:04.000 Yeah.

02:04:06.000 You know, that's a great question.

02:04:09.000 You know, to be honest, I don't have a real good answer for what has changed.

02:04:13.000 What was the difference?

02:04:15.000 In part, it was the size of the operation, right?

02:04:20.000 They're calling it a military operation.

02:04:22.000 I can't believe I just said operation.

02:04:23.000 The size of the invasion.

02:04:26.000 And I think there was a sense with Zelensky that, look, it wasn't going to happen Because there wasn't a Russian-backed sort of puppet regime or a regime in place that was supportive of Russia.

02:04:44.000 And so that had a lot to do with it as well.

02:04:46.000 The current government under Zelensky is not inclined and hasn't been inclined.

02:04:51.000 And they don't view themselves as controlled by the Russians.

02:04:54.000 In fact, Zelensky was put in place because for the very reason that they were going to...

02:04:58.000 You know, advance the ball with the West and, you know, create more of a relationship there.

02:05:03.000 That's what the people wanted.

02:05:04.000 That's why they threw out the last president.

02:05:05.000 Because they didn't like the fact that they were getting closer and closer to Russia.

02:05:09.000 And the last president was, you said they were waiting to reinstate this guy?

02:05:15.000 Well, that was a possibility because there was, you know, intel that he'd moved to Minsk, right?

02:05:20.000 So he was going to be sitting in Belarus waiting.

02:05:22.000 And then once they got to Kiev, they just, you know, he shows up.

02:05:27.000 And somehow, you know, if that was the case, and that was who they were going to pick, I mean, it does seem insane that you're going to install the previous guy who was thrown out.

02:05:36.000 But, you know, again, if you think that their assessments were so bad, maybe that was the case.

02:05:41.000 So in 2014, what went down?

02:05:44.000 Like, what was the rebellion?

02:05:48.000 It literally was a massive Uprising from people.

02:05:54.000 It started as street protests over a handful of things.

02:05:59.000 Corruption, ties to Russia, increasing ties to Russia.

02:06:06.000 Efforts by that regime at the time to back away from the West.

02:06:14.000 It was kind of a remarkable series of events, but it was a popular uprising, which is remarkable, right, in a sense.

02:06:22.000 And that's what you would like to think possibly could happen in Russia, where people are saying, you know what, we don't want to return to the breadlines here.

02:06:30.000 We don't want to be isolated like this.

02:06:32.000 We went through that long enough.

02:06:34.000 You know, we didn't think that's the way Russia was going.

02:06:36.000 But Ukraine didn't have an established ruler like Putin, who's been in there since 99. Like, how would anyone, outside of an assassination, how would anyone take over?

02:06:49.000 I mean, so he must be terrified of assassinations, or extremely paranoid at this point.

02:06:54.000 Putin.

02:06:55.000 Yeah.

02:06:55.000 Because he's done it.

02:06:56.000 Yeah.

02:06:57.000 Oh, he's done it.

02:06:59.000 Yeah, again, yeah, you think about it.

02:07:00.000 Allegedly.

02:07:03.000 I think Sergei Skripal, I think Litvinenko, I think Navalny, I think they'd all think it's more than alleged, but they, yeah, he's never had a problem with reaching out and terminating political opponents wherever they happen to be, right?

02:07:17.000 And the favored method has always been poison, right?

02:07:22.000 And so Polonium 210 with Litvinenko.

02:07:26.000 And so I think...

02:07:28.000 Yeah, I think he's increasingly isolated, which causes problems for us because you do have to then figure out, okay, you know, what information is he getting?

02:07:37.000 How good is the information he's getting?

02:07:38.000 And is he making decisions based on sound intelligence and information?

02:07:42.000 Is he getting, you know, somewhat paranoid? 0.99

02:07:45.000 And there's been some reporting that, you know, he's fired a lot of his staff and brought in— Who the fuck does he bring in? 0.99

02:07:52.000 He brings in other people. 0.99

02:07:54.000 I have no idea.

02:07:56.000 His cousins.

02:07:57.000 Jesus Christ.

02:07:57.000 His kids.

02:07:59.000 I mean, that's what Trump did, right?

02:08:02.000 His kids working for him.

02:08:04.000 Did Trump have food tasters?

02:08:06.000 I don't know.

02:08:06.000 Maybe he did.

02:08:08.000 Supposedly, according to some reports.

02:08:10.000 He's got people tasting his food now before he eats it.

02:08:13.000 So that kind of gives you an indication.

02:08:15.000 But you look at this rally he just held.

02:08:16.000 It was one of the largest football stadium they've got.

02:08:19.000 And you look at it, and if you didn't know better, it's an old Soviet-style rally, or it looks like sort of something North Korea would put on.

02:08:28.000 I haven't seen it.

02:08:28.000 Can you pull that up?

02:08:30.000 The stadium's just full of people.

02:08:31.000 Supposedly it's a pro-war protest, you know, because those are really popular.

02:08:35.000 You know, let's have a big rally to celebrate the war.

02:08:39.000 And so he's got this stadium filled and they're all waving flags and he's out there talking and it's crazy.

02:08:46.000 Is there a video of this, Jamie?

02:08:47.000 Oh my God, look how many people there are.

02:08:48.000 Yeah.

02:08:49.000 So these people are all waving, rushing.

02:08:50.000 Is it possible that there's that much support for the war over there?

02:08:56.000 I think there is support for it from folks who are staring at state-run TV or older folks who appreciate the fact that- What is this?

02:09:07.000 It says Russian state TV cuts away from Putin at pro-Russia rally?

02:09:12.000 Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke to defend what he called the Special Operation in Ukraine.

02:09:18.000 It's so happening in the beginning of the operation.

02:09:21.000 So he's...

02:09:21.000 I mean, it's crazy.

02:09:23.000 And this took place, I think it was close to Iran, the eight-year anniversary of the annexation of Crimea.

02:09:33.000 Look, but this does look, it looks exactly like what you would expect Soviet propaganda to look like, you know, or again, something coming out with Kim Jong-un in North Korea.

02:09:42.000 Exactly.

02:09:43.000 And, you know, bring out the bands, maybe Pussy Riot will play. 0.90

02:09:46.000 What is this guy saying? 0.81

02:09:47.000 Maybe they won't.

02:09:49.000 Oh, boy.

02:09:50.000 So, it's very bizarre.

02:09:53.000 It's a very bizarre thing to see.

02:09:55.000 And it tells you, in a sense, again, putting all these little things into a bucket to try to assess his mindset, it tells you, why did he feel the need to do this?

02:10:04.000 Well, you know.

02:10:05.000 And how many of these people are actually out there To support it, how many were instructed in their apartment block, you know what, you're going to show up at the stadium, we're going to have a rally, we expect you to be there.

02:10:17.000 Yeah, like, what do you say when they say that?

02:10:19.000 Well, they already know, I mean, most people there, because word does get around, I think they're aware that thousands of protesters have been arrested and aren't doing well just yet, but I think they understand that.

02:10:30.000 So that was inside, so is this picture of the stadium the outside?

02:10:35.000 Is that a bunch of people that are trying to get in?

02:10:38.000 Yeah, I think those are just people who have gathered or have been invited to also attend.

02:10:45.000 It says they cut away from him mid-sentence.

02:10:49.000 And they went to some nationalistic songs.

02:10:52.000 That's got to be disrespectful, though, isn't it?

02:10:54.000 To cut away from his speech?

02:10:57.000 Yeah, I don't know what the production values are on state TV anymore.

02:11:00.000 I don't know.

02:11:01.000 It may not be quite as good as the NCAAs or something like that.

02:11:05.000 I think it's probably lacking.

02:11:07.000 But it's just a bizarre indication of the situation over there right now.

02:11:15.000 It's hard to read, right?

02:11:17.000 We'd like to imagine, because we imagine what we would do, we'd like to imagine, or would hopefully do, we imagine that the Russian people will get out there and say, no, this isn't right, but there's a lack of information.

02:11:28.000 So I think we need to, one of the things that we should be doing, hopefully we are, is trying to pump accurate information into the Russian population.

02:11:35.000 They might not have access to this.

02:11:37.000 They might not be even understanding what's going on in the rest of the world.

02:11:41.000 There's a lot of folks and there's, again, it's, you know, stories of, you know, you talk to people in the Ukraine and they've got relatives in Russia and the relatives in Russia are going, well, we're just, we're trying to beat back the neo-Nazis who are killing Russians in the eastern part of the country.

02:11:54.000 You think, oh, okay, that's your story?

02:11:57.000 But that's what's being fed on national TV or a state-run TV. And so in the old Cold War days, we had Voice of America, right?

02:12:04.000 I think we need sort of a Voice of America on steroids delivered very quickly so that we're getting accurate information so that they can kind of see what...

02:12:14.000 Again, we don't need to do propaganda. 0.84

02:12:16.000 All you got to do is show what the fuck's happening and what they're doing and at least give them that opportunity to see what is going on. 0.92

02:12:24.000 You know, easier said than done, but it's an important part of this exercise. 0.98

02:12:28.000 It's a traditional covert action campaign, right?

02:12:31.000 Just like we tried to do in the Cold War, you know, to let them know what the hell is happening in the rest of the world.

02:12:38.000 How do they get that?

02:12:39.000 I mean, if the internet is down and all they have access to is state-run television, they've got to be suspicious if the internet is down, right?

02:12:46.000 I mean, that's one of the things that I've heard from friends that are Russian, is that Russians don't trust anything the politicians say or anything the news media says anyway.

02:12:56.000 They have a dismissal of anything that's like the standard narrative.

02:13:01.000 They're worried about happening in America.

02:13:04.000 It's one of the things that...

02:13:05.000 People say when they talk about the misinformation that like when CNN lies about stuff and when they withhold information, they worry that we're going to eventually develop this same sort of nonchalant attitude about our mainstream media.

02:13:20.000 Right, right.

02:13:20.000 I think it's already happening.

02:13:21.000 We talked about that.

02:13:23.000 I think it's...

02:13:25.000 Yeah, and that's the danger.

02:13:27.000 And then you have the media here saying, well, it doesn't make sense.

02:13:30.000 Why do they distrust us?

02:13:31.000 You know, why isn't it?

02:13:33.000 And in part, it's because, you know, every outlet now spends more time on opinion pieces and opinion, you know, journalism than just reporting the facts, right?

02:13:42.000 Just, you know, someone should dump some money into a network that does nothing but, like the old CNN. They're doing that, supposedly.

02:13:51.000 Yeah, CNN got bought out.

02:13:53.000 And so the new owners of CNN apparently want to re-establish objective journalism on CNN, which is wise, because first of all, there's a market for it.

02:14:03.000 Yeah, exactly.

02:14:03.000 And second of all, the people that they have giving out opinions, they wouldn't survive if they were on their own.

02:14:11.000 If they were independent, imagine if Brian Stelter had a podcast. 0.98

02:14:15.000 How many fucking people are listening to that thing? 0.99

02:14:16.000 You know what I'm saying? 1.00

02:14:18.000 This is exactly the problem.

02:14:21.000 It's like the people that you can get to do that job are not the people that people want to listen to.

02:14:26.000 Right.

02:14:27.000 And that would be a great thing if that's the case and CNN is actually able to do that.

02:14:31.000 I mean, you remember when they spent a lot of money on field bureaus and you knew that, okay, I'm going to turn on CNN because I'm going to get the news.

02:14:39.000 This was a long time ago, it seems.

02:14:40.000 Yeah.

02:14:41.000 That's what you did.

02:14:41.000 And I agree with that.

02:14:42.000 I think there's a market for it. 0.98

02:14:43.000 I think people, you know, if you just tell them what the fuck's going on and you don't try to tell them how to think about it. 0.96

02:14:49.000 Exactly. 0.94

02:14:49.000 It's not a bad thing. 0.94

02:14:50.000 People have a hunger for that.

02:14:51.000 And that's one of the reasons why independent news is thriving now.

02:14:55.000 And they're trying to stifle that.

02:14:57.000 It's one of the things that people have a problem with also with social media is that independent news sources are being stifled while these corporate news sources are being promoted.

02:15:09.000 Yeah.

02:15:10.000 I mean I get calls from various outlets, network outlets, and they'll say, hey, can you do – because you come on like Wednesday or whatever time.

02:15:21.000 And for some of them, yeah, fine.

02:15:22.000 Okay, you want to talk about X. But there are a number of them that will say, okay, so what are your thoughts on this?

02:15:29.000 Can we get your talking points on this?

02:15:32.000 Because we're going to have somebody from... 0.99

02:15:35.000 Whatever your opinion is, we're going to have somebody from the other side.

02:15:39.000 And you're going to yell at each other for five minutes.

02:15:40.000 Yeah.

02:15:41.000 I don't have an opinion.

02:15:42.000 I'm just going to say what seems to be the situation on the ground or whatever it is.

02:15:47.000 And...

02:15:48.000 You know, how about that?

02:15:50.000 And so there's a number of times now where you just have to say, no, I can't do it.

02:15:53.000 I'm not available because it's not advancing the ball.

02:15:57.000 And it's kind of, in fact, it's feeding the beast here, right?

02:15:59.000 It's just like, all I'm going to do is sit there and listen to somebody yell at me and then I'm supposed to yell at them and nobody learns, you know, anything.

02:16:06.000 Well here we are, we're two hours plus into this, and there's been no commercials, right?

02:16:12.000 So we're just talking.

02:16:13.000 And when you realize that, when you're going on one of these other shows, they're so handicapped by the format that they exist in, where they have an hour to do the show, and in between segments you're gonna have to pause your commercial, You have to interrupt the conversation.

02:16:30.000 You have to come back and pick up and usually you've got a whole new subject when you come back.

02:16:34.000 So you get a cursory examination of each individual topic and it's all based on having people argue.

02:16:41.000 So you got three heads.

02:16:44.000 Sometimes more than that.

02:16:45.000 I love when they have the Brady Bunch thing where they got like four or five or six people up there and you each get 10 seconds.

02:16:50.000 Whose idea is that? 0.99

02:16:51.000 It's so stupid, especially when you're dealing with something that's as complex as any sort of international action like what we're handling now. 0.99

02:16:59.000 Yeah, well, if you're talking about, I mean, Syria was a good example. 1.00

02:17:02.000 They did a lot during when ISIS was raging and rampaging. 0.59

02:17:06.000 And so they say, okay, we've got about three and a half minutes.

02:17:09.000 Okay, so you've got about three and a half minutes to talk about a very complex situation.

02:17:13.000 And then you figure you've really only got about a minute and 20 seconds because you know the anchor.

02:17:19.000 Their question is going to last a minute.

02:17:22.000 It's never just, well, why is that?

02:17:24.000 Or what happened there?

02:17:26.000 Or what's next?

02:17:27.000 Or who is responsible?

02:17:29.000 There's never a short one-sentence question.

02:17:32.000 I feel like there's going to come a time in the future where those shows just don't exist anymore.

02:17:37.000 Because they're so limited in the way they can cover complex subjects.

02:17:43.000 If people want to get information, I mean, if you want to get sound bites, that's one thing.

02:17:47.000 But sound bites, I think they're just so inadequate when it comes to something complex.

02:17:52.000 Well, it works in part because, I mean, again, this is not rocket science, but I think it works in part because people love to have their opinions affirmed or reaffirmed. 0.99

02:18:05.000 If I can tune into a station and I think a certain way, I don't really want to know what the fuck's going on. 0.62

02:18:11.000 I just want someone to tell me I'm right. 0.69

02:18:13.000 So that's where, and again, it doesn't matter whether you're right or left.

02:18:16.000 The left will say, oh, that's Fox.

02:18:18.000 And Fox would say, well, that's MSNBC. And in reality, it's both sides.

02:18:24.000 It's part of its human nature.

02:18:26.000 But if you had that outlet that just said, all right, here's what's going on right now.

02:18:31.000 Here's the footage.

02:18:32.000 Here's what's happening.

02:18:35.000 And then, yeah, I don't need to dive into, well, okay, well, you tell me how I'm supposed to think about that, or have six people come on in different boxes on the screen and kind of yell at each other for 20 seconds each, and then I'm supposed to make sense of it. 0.99

02:18:49.000 No wonder we're kind of fucked. 0.98

02:18:51.000 And there's short attention span, and you try to talk to kids. 0.99

02:18:55.000 I mean, I try to talk to the boys all the time about what's going on now, as an example, in Russia, because I want them to understand, right?

02:19:01.000 And I just want them to understand how complex things are, you know, and not to just go to school, and they'll hear some kid parrot something that their parents said, And they'll come back and they'll repeat it and I'll say, well, why do you think that is?

02:19:13.000 So, I don't know.

02:19:16.000 I worry that, again, here I go again.

02:19:19.000 I'm going to talk about one of my kids.

02:19:20.000 My daughter, when she was in university, she got out of university and we were talking about it shortly after her graduation and one of the things she talked about was...

02:19:28.000 You know, I spent like, you know, four years, thank God it was only four years, four years not really saying anything in classes where there would be, you know, a conversation because she's sort of a centrist, right?

02:19:42.000 So she's not hard left and, I mean, she's kind of, she's nicely balanced, right?

02:19:47.000 I mean, I think she's turned out to be a real smart person, but she just wouldn't open her mouth in conversations in the classroom Because if she had a dissenting opinion, she didn't want to get into it.

02:19:59.000 And so she just never argued.

02:20:02.000 And she said that was not uncommon.

02:20:04.000 If somebody was really strong about something or felt really strong about something, fine, just let them go and don't debate it.

02:20:13.000 People talk about it, and so I'm not raising anything new.

02:20:17.000 It hits home when it's your kid and you've spent all that money on their university education.

02:20:21.000 Well, I think that's a giant chunk of our country when it comes to ideology.

02:20:26.000 Most people are in the center. 1.00

02:20:27.000 I had a conversation with someone the other day and she was like, I would be down with Republicans if they would just drop all the gay shit. 1.00

02:20:36.000 She was like, all that gay stuff, leave those fucking gay people alone. 1.00

02:20:41.000 It's one of the dumbest aspects of hardcore conservatives that they deny gay rights. 1.00

02:20:50.000 And I go, I think you're probably not alone. 0.98

02:20:53.000 I think there's probably a lot of people that feel that way.

02:20:55.000 There's a lot of people that are In the center, whether it's from left-wing issues or right-wing issues.

02:21:02.000 With left-wing issues, maybe it's trans women in sports, or maybe it's gender confirmation. 1.00

02:21:08.000 Like this don't-say-gay thing in Florida.

02:21:11.000 When I heard that, I was like, what?

02:21:13.000 What are they saying?

02:21:13.000 You can't say gay?

02:21:14.000 Is that really what's going on?

02:21:16.000 It turns out that's not what it is.

02:21:17.000 It's not what it is at all.

02:21:19.000 What it is is ages, it's first through third grade, they're saying you're not supposed to talk about sexual orientation, Gender orientation or sexual proclivity or what you're interested in.

02:21:33.000 They said you should just teach math and science and history to little kids.

02:21:37.000 Yeah, just let the toddlers be toddlers and then you can start ramping up your instruction.

02:21:43.000 And people are opposed to that. 0.99

02:21:45.000 But it's like, listen, your teachers are not supposed to be the people that explain gender to a fucking seven-year-old. 0.99

02:21:54.000 Yeah. 0.98

02:21:55.000 It's just, who are these teachers?

02:21:57.000 And do you know what their perspective is?

02:22:00.000 Are they intelligent about it?

02:22:02.000 Are they trying to indoctrinate the child to any particular point of view, whether it's pro-transgender or anti-transgender or anti-gay or pro-gay?

02:22:11.000 They shouldn't have any say at all when you're talking to a seven-year-old kid.

02:22:18.000 I mean, I feel like that is the job of the parents.

02:22:21.000 That's the job.

02:22:22.000 And you hope the parents are doing it.

02:22:24.000 When kids get older and they develop feelings for either the same sex or opposite sex or they feel like they're in the wrong body, then these conversations should be had by qualified people that can discuss this from a nuanced perspective and understand what the psychology of a young person who's trying to figure out who they are in the world is.

02:22:46.000 But the idea that this is, don't say gay, because you're saying that ages, first grade to third grade, that you shouldn't be bringing up these subjects to them.

02:22:57.000 I think a lot of people are saying, no, I just don't want you grooming my kids for whatever your ideology is, whether it's a right-wing ideology or a left-wing ideology. 0.99

02:23:06.000 I want you to teach them fucking science. 0.99

02:23:08.000 Teach them math. 1.00

02:23:09.000 There's a responsibility here.

02:23:10.000 Just teach the kids the coursework.

02:23:14.000 Yeah.

02:23:14.000 That we, as parents, I think, you know, that's what you expected, right?

02:23:17.000 I think one of the things the pandemic did was it kind of showed, because you had to homeschool all of a sudden, we had a nation full of homeschoolers working with their schools, local schools, then they started to realize, wait a minute, their assignment is what?

02:23:29.000 They got to do what?

02:23:30.000 And so I think it did raise this awareness level.

02:23:33.000 I mean, I agree.

02:23:34.000 Look, I agree.

02:23:36.000 One of the funny things about, you know, conservatives I've always found is that, you know, they talk about freedom and, you know, small government.

02:23:42.000 A lot of times, you know, government just got to get out of the way.

02:23:44.000 And then at the same time, they want to, like, you know, orchestrate what goes on in the bedroom. 1.00

02:23:48.000 And you think, how about you just stay out of all that shit? 1.00

02:23:51.000 Stay out of all the social shit. 1.00

02:23:52.000 Everybody just do that. 1.00

02:23:53.000 Democrats, Republicans, stay out of all that bullshit. 0.99

02:23:56.000 As a government, just focus on the things you're supposed to focus on. 0.99

02:23:59.000 National security, infrastructure, treaties with foreign countries.

02:24:04.000 Try not to fuck things up, but otherwise, stay out.

02:24:09.000 It's always one of those things where...

02:24:11.000 I can see why it drives the left crazy with Republicans where they just can't help themselves.

02:24:18.000 They keep diving back into abortion.

02:24:20.000 They keep diving back into the gender, the gay issue, whatever it is.

02:24:24.000 I just think, no, how about you just stay out of the kitchen and focus on the big things?

02:24:30.000 Look, it's hard enough to learn history.

02:24:34.000 It's hard enough.

02:24:35.000 Hard enough to learn grammar and the proper use of contractions.

02:24:40.000 Like, Jesus Christ.

02:24:42.000 Proper use of contractions.

02:24:44.000 No, it's true.

02:24:44.000 That's a tough one.

02:24:45.000 All this is like you're teaching fucking seven-year-olds. 0.99

02:24:49.000 All that stuff is hard enough. 0.99

02:24:51.000 But first of all, it's not your business to indoctrinate a child into your ideology.

02:24:57.000 And I think there's many teachers that feel like that is their business and that part of their job is not just to teach a child about important things, about science and math, but they feel like it's to prepare a child for what they think is a better world,

02:25:15.000 whether it's a more conservative world or it's a more progressive world.

02:25:19.000 I think there's a lot of people that have a real issue with that.

02:25:21.000 Well, it's the difference between teaching a kid how to think and what to think.

02:25:26.000 And so I think there is that divide.

02:25:29.000 And over the years, we've had some outstanding teachers for our kids.

02:25:35.000 And then every now and then you'll get a teacher who seems like they're just kind of...

02:25:41.000 They're not focused, right?

02:25:43.000 And it's more about, I'm going to teach your kid what to think, as opposed to how to think.

02:25:48.000 Right, right, right.

02:25:49.000 Yeah, it's interesting, but I don't know.

02:25:53.000 Again, you raise all these issues, and then you think, well, how do we walk it back?

02:25:57.000 How do we change that?

02:25:59.000 And that's always where you kind of run up against, you know, you've got to get smarter people in office.

02:26:06.000 You know, it's a problem.

02:26:09.000 But I do think, going back to kind of where we are in the world today, I worry that You know, collectively, NATO, the U.S., maybe we're suffering as a result of not consistently sending our best and brightest into leadership positions.

02:26:30.000 They don't want the gig.

02:26:32.000 They don't want the gig.

02:26:33.000 You see the way people get attacked and brutalized on the campaign trail.

02:26:38.000 It's like, Jesus Christ, who wants to subject themselves to that?

02:26:41.000 Not only that, but there's also such a disingenuous quality to it. 0.99

02:26:44.000 The very people that are attacking you and calling you the worst piece of shit that's ever lived, then they'll join up with you and be your vice president and go, hey, it was just politics. 0.99

02:26:55.000 It was just politics. 1.00

02:26:56.000 Well, what the fuck is politics? 1.00

02:26:58.000 Are you guys liars? 1.00

02:26:59.000 Yeah, sorry about that time I called you a racist. 0.97

02:27:01.000 I'm happy to accept the offer to be the vice president. 0.99

02:27:04.000 Sorry I said you were a rapist. 0.98

02:27:05.000 I didn't really mean it. 1.00

02:27:07.000 I just wanted to fuck you over because I wanted to be the president. 1.00

02:27:09.000 So now I got second position. 1.00

02:27:11.000 I'm willing to support you.

02:27:12.000 I mean, it's like madness.

02:27:15.000 And also, it kills people's trust in what these people have to say because I can't believe you now because you already admitted that you lie.

02:27:24.000 Yeah, and I think that's a big problem that the president's having right now is sort of the credibility issue.

02:27:28.000 And I mean, who knows where this is going to go?

02:27:29.000 I don't want to dive into politics necessarily, but you look at the midterms coming up, and you look at the presidential election in 2024, and I'm not particularly optimistic regardless of where it goes, how it turns out,

02:27:45.000 right?

02:27:45.000 Because We got the same cast of characters for the most part, and we just keep shuffling them around until they get old enough to pass away.

02:27:54.000 There's a few bright lights.

02:27:56.000 Not much.

02:27:57.000 A lot of it is business as usual.

02:27:59.000 And I think a lot of these people that have great ideas, once they get into the system, they get compromised. 0.98

02:28:04.000 And then they realize, once they're in the system, like, oh my god, like, this is, what a fucking mess this is. 0.96

02:28:10.000 Well, think about being a congressperson, right? 0.97

02:28:11.000 It's a member of congress, and every two years, right?

02:28:14.000 So, you get in, and six months into it, you're being asked to raise money for some of your fellow congressmen, congresswomen, congresspeople. 0.98

02:28:21.000 And then you gotta worry about your own coffers to get yourself re-elected every two fucking years. 0.97

02:28:26.000 But it's a constant cycle. 0.99

02:28:28.000 It never really...

02:28:29.000 It's not like you wait two years and then you start up again.

02:28:31.000 You're doing it all the time.

02:28:32.000 You're always raising money. 1.00

02:28:33.000 And it just seems like a shit job. 0.99

02:28:37.000 And so anyway... 0.99

02:28:39.000 Some people enjoy it.

02:28:40.000 They seem to love it.

02:28:41.000 Yeah, and you do get a lot of people who are like, I was head of the Young Democrats Club, or I was head of the Young Republicans Club, and now I'm going to be a state legislator, and then I'm going to run for Congress, and it becomes this career thing that goes on, which, again, coming back to term limits, but then it comes back to what you said, which is,

02:28:57.000 well, if you keep rotating this, you know, and you've only got people in office for a certain period of time, yeah, it's...

02:29:04.000 Yeah, but then what's the alternative to that?

02:29:06.000 Someone like Nancy Pelosi?

02:29:07.000 Well, Putin, yeah.

02:29:08.000 You get a Putin in there, and he'll be in office for that. 0.93

02:29:11.000 I can't do the math on that, but if he's in office till 2036, say, He's never getting out, right?

02:29:17.000 I mean, he doesn't have to leave.

02:29:18.000 Not unless he's driven out.

02:29:21.000 Does he have elections?

02:29:23.000 Allegedly?

02:29:24.000 No.

02:29:24.000 Well, they changed it from four-year terms to six-year terms, and now it's written basically so that he literally can stay until 2036. So that's, again, new math, but I should have spent more time on STEM. So another 14 years, and he'll be 75,

02:29:41.000 no, 73 years old?

02:29:43.000 He's 69?

02:29:44.000 Yeah, 69. What the hell is that?

02:29:46.000 That's 83. And that will have meant 37 years running that country.

02:29:52.000 So he's 69 now.

02:29:54.000 So if he's 83, he'll be just older than Biden.

02:29:58.000 Okay, that's a good point.

02:29:59.000 I hadn't thought about it that way.

02:30:00.000 Just older.

02:30:01.000 I mean, because Biden's like 80, right?

02:30:03.000 Isn't he 80?

02:30:05.000 I don't think he's 80 yet.

02:30:07.000 Whatever he is.

02:30:07.000 Yeah.

02:30:08.000 I mean, it's not a good...

02:30:09.000 It's not good.

02:30:11.000 Yeah.

02:30:11.000 It's an old, late 70s.

02:30:15.000 He's not going to just release the power, right?

02:30:18.000 So how does this end well?

02:30:19.000 How does this Russia thing end well?

02:30:22.000 Is there a way that it ends well?

02:30:26.000 Well, the way that ends well is if both sides give up enough, right?

02:30:32.000 And Putin, now think about this, Putin then has to essentially retreat, move all his personnel, all that hard work, out of the country.

02:30:44.000 You gotta think about what a process that is, right?

02:30:47.000 And what that's gonna look like and what Putin imagines that to look like.

02:30:50.000 So he's gonna have to gain some real concessions here from Zelensky in order to, in his mind, I suspect, justify that withdrawal.

02:30:58.000 But I don't think Again, of course, I always be wrong, but I don't think that he sees a long-term occupation of Ukraine as an endgame here, because it just appears that he's just hell-bent on busting it,

02:31:16.000 and maybe he thinks at that point, if he breaks the will so badly, that he'll walk away We're good to go.

02:31:46.000 Yeah, and there is that talk that says, well, if he feels backed into a corner, then he'll launch the tactical nukes, or he'll use chemical weapons, and then the question becomes, what do we do?

02:31:58.000 What do they do?

02:31:59.000 Let's imagine he launches a nuke and kills 100,000 people. 0.99

02:32:07.000 Flattens the city. 0.98

02:32:08.000 Yeah.

02:32:09.000 Then you say to yourself, okay, what are we going to do in response?

02:32:11.000 What are we going to do?

02:32:15.000 Take troops, go into that country and fight on the ground against, or we're going to launch our own nuke in response when we haven't been attacked.

02:32:26.000 And then he nukes Chicago or Seattle or Jesus Christ.

02:32:29.000 I mean, look, the response time nowadays, I mean, in the old days it was, I don't want to say it was easier, but it was in a sense.

02:32:35.000 The attack time, Calculation was a lot different.

02:32:39.000 In the old days, the Cold War, beginning of the Cold War, whatever, a Soviet bomber takes, you know, five hours to get into, you know, position for U.S. airspace.

02:32:50.000 And that's five hours.

02:32:52.000 And then with missile technology, it eventually made its way down to about 15 minutes less with a sub-launched missile.

02:33:01.000 And So suddenly your attack time, you know, to consider a response, a retaliatory response was down to, you know, minutes rather than hours and hours.

02:33:10.000 And now with the development of hypersonics, right, you're talking about no time whatsoever.

02:33:16.000 You're talking about weapons that can completely evade current existing air defense systems.

02:33:24.000 Mutual assured destruction was in part based on this idea of a retaliatory response.

02:33:30.000 So I can go in and I'll have time to respond to your attack.

02:33:35.000 Now, it changes the calculus.

02:33:38.000 It's like a sucker punch.

02:33:40.000 Yeah.

02:33:40.000 Yeah, exactly.

02:33:41.000 And so now maybe there's not enough time for it.

02:33:43.000 So it takes that off the table, which is a frightening thought, which is why the development of hypersonics is so important, and we talked about that before.

02:33:54.000 It's part of the new theater of war.

02:33:57.000 And that also includes everything, including cyberspace.

02:34:00.000 And Russia has not really, Putin has not launched the sort of cyber attacks, I think, that people were imagining would take place, right?

02:34:07.000 And there was some talk here in the States saying, oh, my God, we got to be, well, we do have to be prepared.

02:34:12.000 There was this thought process that he was going to attack the US in a sort of significant way through cyberspace.

02:34:18.000 But that is a definite scenario that can't be ignored at all.

02:34:24.000 And we still haven't done enough to protect our systems, both commercial and government.

02:34:29.000 And then also, you know, space and the weaponization of space.

02:34:32.000 So all these new theaters of war, but part of it is also the removal of that mutually assured destruction doctrine, right?

02:34:40.000 And the idea that...

02:34:40.000 I mean, look at the Soviet thinking, right?

02:34:43.000 The Soviet thinking back in... 0.83

02:34:45.000 In the 80s, late 70s, 80s, they established a weapons system that didn't need any humans, right, to launch the nuclear missiles because they thought to themselves, all right, response time is getting to be a problem.

02:34:57.000 What if we lose all our leadership?

02:34:59.000 So they developed a weapons system that if the Soviet leadership is wiped out...

02:35:07.000 The system will essentially go out there, look for that leadership.

02:35:10.000 If it's not there, it will, on its own, send signals to launch the remaining available surviving missiles that are out there.

02:35:20.000 And so it was called the dead hand system, perimeter or whatever.

02:35:25.000 But again, that's another important thing to think about when you're talking about Putin's mindset and where he comes from and sort of the development of military strategy and how you act.

02:35:37.000 So, yeah, and that's one of the reasons why the Biden administration, rightly so, is so concerned about escalating to a point where we're getting dangerously close to something that we thought was pretty much off the table for all these decades, right?

02:35:51.000 Nuclear war, you know?

02:35:53.000 And so, rightly so, you have to be careful.

02:35:56.000 Again, people are quick to criticize whatever administration's in power, but I think you have to It has to be more of a conversation than that.

02:36:03.000 You can't just say, I disagree with them because they're in the other party or whatever.

02:36:06.000 And the question is, if someone's willing to kill a few thousand people, I mean, how many people have died in Ukraine?

02:36:11.000 How many civilians have died so far?

02:36:13.000 Do we have an estimate of that?

02:36:16.000 It's in the...

02:36:17.000 I think they were looking at, in terms of the soldiers, military losses for the Ukraine side, it was in the 1500 range or thereabouts.

02:36:26.000 And civilians, I think we're talking in the...

02:36:28.000 It's hard to get an accurate estimate, but I think UN was placing it around close to a thousand, just under a thousand.

02:36:35.000 So a couple thousand people dead.

02:36:39.000 How do you...

02:36:41.000 Not to mention his own personnel.

02:36:44.000 If he decides that a tactical nuke, one individual tactical nuke to send a message, Kills 100,000 people.

02:36:54.000 They've already killed a few thousand people.

02:36:56.000 And he's lost a few thousand people.

02:36:58.000 He thinks the way to stop the bleeding and keep this from escalating to a point where he loses 100,000 troops is to just drop a nuke.

02:37:06.000 And then we have to figure out what happens next.

02:37:11.000 Like, imagine a world in 2022, which is so nuts to think that a nuclear bomb could be detonated By a superpower like Russia just to say, hey, I'll do this. 0.83

02:37:25.000 And what do we then negotiate?

02:37:28.000 What do they do?

02:37:29.000 Well, again, that's the unknown, right?

02:37:32.000 It's like cyber warfare.

02:37:33.000 We don't know because it's unknown, right?

02:37:36.000 We always had a strategy for nuclear warfare.

02:37:38.000 We always thought we did, right?

02:37:40.000 Because we always kind of placed it on, okay, rational actors out there.

02:37:43.000 I mean, there's always the outlier, okay, what a rogue state gets it or a terrorist group gets one.

02:37:47.000 But we always had it in the back of our minds that it was rational actors and so therefore this is how it won't play out because people will be rational.

02:37:56.000 Yeah, and now we're faced with this question again and the question is, you know, if that happens, if he fires a tactical nuke, Because he's decided, again, he's just going to break it.

02:38:09.000 He's having a hard time encircling Kyiv.

02:38:12.000 He's not, you know, making the headway he wants to.

02:38:15.000 He feels as if he either wins or he's out of power and he does this.

02:38:21.000 It's, you know, it's the unknown.

02:38:23.000 What are we going to do?

02:38:25.000 Do we think that?

02:38:25.000 It's like with China.

02:38:27.000 If China goes after Taiwan, says we're taking Taiwan, Do we think that the US is going to get into a shooting match with China to save Taiwan?

02:38:37.000 You know, I'm not in charge, but...

02:38:40.000 I suspect there's going to be a lot of debate about that.

02:38:43.000 And by the time we finish that debate in our democracy, maybe it's too late.

02:38:47.000 So, I don't know.

02:38:49.000 I mean, I don't mean to bum you out.

02:38:51.000 Oh, too late.

02:38:51.000 Hey, I'm just here to...

02:38:53.000 Jamie's got that...

02:38:53.000 You know what?

02:38:54.000 If we want to have a happy ending, then we've got that 30-second trailer for Black Files to classify it on Discovery.

02:39:00.000 Maybe we should end with that because I'm so bummed out right now.

02:39:02.000 Don't be bummed out.

02:39:03.000 I'm not bummed out about your show, but I'm terrified that this is a real scenario.

02:39:08.000 When you're talking about these...

02:39:10.000 Supersonic weapons that go faster than the speed of sound that we really don't have any time to retaliate.

02:39:15.000 They'll hit us before we even realize it.

02:39:17.000 Especially if it's coming from a submarine, right?

02:39:19.000 Yeah.

02:39:20.000 Can they shoot something supersonic from a submarine?

02:39:25.000 Yeah, there's been all sorts of developments in terms of...

02:39:28.000 Because you want to be able to...

02:39:30.000 Hypersonics, you want to be able to...

02:39:33.000 Use a variety of platforms.

02:39:35.000 Now, the thing about it, the thing with submarine-launched attacks was it got you closer, right?

02:39:41.000 It got you closer to the target.

02:39:43.000 With hypersonics, it doesn't really matter because of the speed with which they're moving and the ability to evade air defense systems because they're moving in an unpredictable pattern.

02:39:53.000 Ballistic missiles kind of go up, they come down, you can plot the trajectory and you know how to intercept.

02:39:59.000 Hypersonics don't move that way.

02:40:00.000 They don't move at those predictable speeds.

02:40:02.000 So, you know, that's where the attack time is completely, reaction is completely recalculated.

02:40:09.000 And that's where the problem is.

02:40:11.000 And again, we've talked about it before, but that's why it's so important, I think, for people to pay attention to, you know, who's doing what?

02:40:18.000 Where are these developments coming from?

02:40:20.000 Where are people spending their money on weapon systems? 0.59

02:40:22.000 Why is that important?

02:40:24.000 Why is weaponization of space important?

02:40:27.000 Why is, you know, cyber warfare?

02:40:29.000 What are the rules in cyber warfare?

02:40:31.000 We don't have any because it's unknown turf and we don't know how bad it could get, how quickly it could go south.

02:40:37.000 And so people are very reluctant to talk about major cyber warfare scenarios.

02:40:43.000 Yeah, it's terrifying.

02:40:44.000 The destruction of the grid is terrifying.

02:40:46.000 The idea that it's not that hard to take out our entire power grid.

02:40:51.000 Not at all.

02:40:52.000 Not at all.

02:40:53.000 No.

02:40:55.000 And those grids are being tested all the time, right?

02:40:59.000 Okay, fine.

02:41:00.000 People say, well, we do the same thing.

02:41:01.000 Well, yeah, we do.

02:41:02.000 We're plotting and planning.

02:41:03.000 We're testing infrastructure and nations that don't have our interests at heart. 0.87

02:41:07.000 But China, Russia, Iran...

02:41:09.000 Any nation that's got the ability, they every day are testing our systems and they've been drawing up maps and understanding the weaknesses and the access points and they've been doing it for years and they've got playbooks in place already.

02:41:21.000 So if it were to head south that way and suddenly we're in this goat rope, then they just turn to their playbook, they open up to page one and they've already got it mapped out because that's what they've been doing. 0.75

02:41:32.000 They've been testing our systems for a long time.

02:41:35.000 And, yeah, our power grid goes down and it shuts everything down, you know, fuel, transport, access to cash, food, health care.

02:41:45.000 It's a, yeah, I mean, you can imagine the message.

02:41:48.000 I mean, people are inconvenienced when, you know, a winter storm causes a power outage for two days, right?

02:41:53.000 It's like, oh my God, are we going to survive?

02:41:55.000 So, anyhow.

02:41:57.000 There's an article I read yesterday about Oliver Stone sitting down with Putin and watching Dr. Strangelove.

02:42:07.000 And it's all about, I mean, I don't think Putin had ever seen the film, and that film is all about a bunch of generals who think it's a good idea, and they talk about it, these very preposterous ways of starting these nuclear bombs.

02:42:26.000 Whoa, what's that?

02:42:27.000 Is that it?

02:42:28.000 It's a video of them watching it.

02:42:29.000 Oh, excellent.

02:42:30.000 And by the way, Oliver Stone, when he was on, was saying that this film, Dr. Strangelove, was based on real live conversations, exaggerated, but real live conversations that generals had had during the Cold War about launching a first strike nuclear attack on China or Russia because they're worried about them eventually doing it to us.

02:42:56.000 And Putin says it indeed makes us think, despite the fact that everything you see on screen is make-believe, he foresaw some issues even from a technical point of view.

02:43:05.000 I mean, things that make me think about real threats that exist.

02:43:10.000 This is Putin watching Dr. Strangelove talking to Oliver Stone About, you know, this satirical movie from, I suppose, like 1960-something, right?

02:43:23.000 Yeah, no, it's old Slim Pickens riding the bomb down, yeah, at the end.

02:43:27.000 And, yeah, it is.

02:43:29.000 It was based on, there were, I mean, the conversations that took place seem surreal when they start talking about accepted casualty numbers during the Cold War.

02:43:37.000 They're talking about, you know, if you have to launch a retaliatory strike, okay, what, you know...

02:43:42.000 What are acceptable casualty numbers?

02:43:44.000 What are anticipated casualty numbers?

02:43:46.000 What does the president do in times?

02:43:47.000 I mean, they have presidential executive action documents that were created in case of an attack, right?

02:43:54.000 And what the authorities that would be given to the president to make, you know, unique individual decisions, right?

02:44:01.000 In a situation like that.

02:44:04.000 It's a remarkable period of time.

02:44:06.000 And now, bizarrely, We seem to be back in the Cold War.

02:44:11.000 This was inconceivable just six months ago.

02:44:13.000 Yeah.

02:44:14.000 No, it was certainly in people's minds, right?

02:44:15.000 I mean, we were worried about a mask. 1.00

02:44:17.000 A fucking mask. 1.00

02:44:18.000 And the pandemic, everybody was just tired of it. 1.00

02:44:23.000 And everybody anticipated, I'm going on spring break.

02:44:25.000 It's going to be great now.

02:44:26.000 We're going to get out of this thing.

02:44:28.000 And now you've got to deal with this.

02:44:31.000 I don't even think this is going to be a wake-up call if we get through this.

02:44:36.000 My fear is that people will just move on to the next thing to be outraged about.

02:44:41.000 I'm really concerned because I feel like unless things physically change...

02:44:49.000 With our society and our life, unless there's some sort of physical action like a 9-11.

02:44:55.000 One thing after 9-11 is the amount of people that drove around with American flags in their car was insane.

02:45:03.000 There was a feeling of patriotism.

02:45:06.000 You felt united.

02:45:07.000 There was less road rage.

02:45:09.000 People were kinder.

02:45:10.000 It was different.

02:45:11.000 It was like we felt like we were all in it together.

02:45:15.000 And we don't feel like that right now.

02:45:18.000 Now we're separated by ideology and left versus right and blue versus red and who controls this and the midterms are coming up and we have to drop some restrictions and people are going to vote the wrong way and all this craziness that has us divided.

02:45:34.000 Well, because it's not...

02:45:35.000 I mean, it was obviously on a home turf, right?

02:45:38.000 So 9-11 happened, and it was against us, right?

02:45:41.000 And so that allowed us to come together because, okay, now what?

02:45:45.000 We got this shared enemy.

02:45:47.000 We got this common point that we can...

02:45:49.000 And so you're right.

02:45:50.000 It was remarkable, right?

02:45:52.000 But with this, with what's happening, yeah, I mean, look, this is a serious...

02:45:58.000 Threat to our national security and to the safety and security of us and our allies.

02:46:03.000 To life on Earth.

02:46:04.000 Yeah, exactly.

02:46:06.000 But we don't feel it quite that way, right?

02:46:10.000 And so it's not that same thing.

02:46:13.000 We can't compare the two, I guess, but we should be...

02:46:17.000 We should be smart enough.

02:46:18.000 And that's why, for a brief moment, it was like, oh, we're all Americans.

02:46:22.000 We all have to support the government and make sure that we're doing the right thing in terms of Russia and Ukraine.

02:46:27.000 And that only lasted for a couple of days.

02:46:29.000 And then it's all like, ah, you know, Biden screwed up, or, you know, they're not doing their part.

02:46:34.000 So the Republican, you know, they talked a good game up in Washington, D.C. for a couple of days about how, well, we are all coming together, and this is something that we all have to be worried about.

02:46:43.000 It's national security.

02:46:44.000 And then they couldn't help themselves.

02:46:46.000 And so now we're back to partisan politics over something as important as what we're currently facing.

02:46:52.000 For whatever reason, human beings have, we don't have an ability to think things are real if they're not affecting us right now.

02:47:02.000 We know that they're a real threat and we'll argue about it on Twitter, but it doesn't change.

02:47:07.000 It's not like a near-death experience.

02:47:10.000 It's not like something that really makes you reassess how you behave and how you think and life in general.

02:47:17.000 And I mean, okay, part of it is...

02:47:20.000 I was going to say part of it is understandable in the sense that everybody's putting food on the table.

02:47:25.000 They're worried about their kids.

02:47:26.000 They're worried about getting to work in the morning or finding a job or whatever.

02:47:29.000 And so unless it's a direct attack on the home front, it really needs to be that.

02:47:35.000 It needs to be a punch in the face that you actually feel as opposed to...

02:47:40.000 Something like this, which for a lot of folks, I think, seems like a theoretical exercise.

02:47:44.000 You hear a lot of people saying, well, why should we be concerned?

02:47:46.000 Why are we getting wrapped into this?

02:47:49.000 And rightly so.

02:47:51.000 Again, we don't want a nuclear war with Russia, but we do need to be aware of what it means.

02:47:56.000 What are the long-term ramifications if Putin is successful and just we accept the fact that he now holds Ukraine and then he decides...

02:48:05.000 Okay, well, maybe Moldova's next, because I'm kind of pissed off about Moldova, and they're making noises now about possibly, and he's already got a sort of a Russian-backed part of Moldova, right?

02:48:17.000 So you could see him securing Ukraine, and then looking at Moldova and saying, well, half the population's already in my camp.

02:48:26.000 I'll get that.

02:48:27.000 Then I'll expand my sphere of influence.

02:48:30.000 Yeah, I know, right?

02:48:31.000 That's why.

02:48:32.000 Mike, tell us about your show.

02:48:35.000 Well, here it is.

02:48:36.000 Look at this.

02:48:38.000 Tell people when it is.

02:48:40.000 Wednesdays.

02:48:40.000 Wednesdays, 9 p.m., Science Channel, and it's on Discovery+.

02:48:45.000 Yeah, Black Files Declassified.

02:48:47.000 It's season two. 0.99

02:48:48.000 We traveled all over the fucking place. 0.98

02:48:51.000 And we got some great, great stories, a lot of good investigations. 0.98

02:48:54.000 We could spend a whole hour talking about MKUltra again that we looked at.

02:49:00.000 I did an interview with...

02:49:02.000 I might have mentioned this to you last time, but with a woman whose sister was one of the subjects up in Canada of a doctor who was being funded through MKUltra and what she went through, completely broke her as a person, ruined the family,

02:49:17.000 you can imagine, over a period of time.

02:49:20.000 And it never got over it.

02:49:22.000 This poor woman was in an institution being essentially experimented on by, you know, what was essentially supposedly Canada's leading, you know, psychiatrist.

02:49:32.000 And some of their funding was coming from the MKUltra project all those years ago.

02:49:38.000 And sitting down with this woman, who is this lady's younger sister, and she's now obviously much older and It was just heartbreaking because it really brought it home. 0.98

02:49:49.000 I mean, sometimes you can look at these things and they go, wow, that's fucked up. 0.77

02:49:53.000 But to see a person that actually was affected by it. 0.97

02:49:55.000 Yeah, it was crazy.

02:49:56.000 All right, Mike, we'll end the show with this.

02:49:59.000 Thank you very much.

02:50:00.000 Oh, thank you, man.

02:50:00.000 MB Company Man on Twitter.

02:50:03.000 You're on the Instagram, right?

02:50:05.000 I guess I am on the Instagram.

02:50:07.000 I don't really know.

02:50:09.000 I don't use Instagram much.

02:50:11.000 But yeah, MP Company, man, on Twitter.

02:50:14.000 And yeah, I appreciate it, Joe.

02:50:16.000 I appreciate you coming down here, man.

02:50:17.000 Love the conversation.

02:50:17.000 I really do.

02:50:18.000 I do as well.

02:50:18.000 Thank you.

02:50:19.000 Bye, everybody.

02:50:20.000 Why was our government investigating the paranormal?

02:50:24.000 That information is still all classified to this day.

02:50:27.000 Whatever was being done was done for mind control.

02:50:32.000 You fully immerse yourself in the enemy.

02:50:37.000 This was by far the most terrifying experience of my life.

02:50:40.000 Banner syndrome.

02:50:42.000 It might be something right here.

02:50:47.000 It seems like an effort to keep the public in the dark.

02:50:50.000 That's exactly how psychological operations work.

02:50:52.000 I wouldn't call this a treatment.

02:50:56.000 I would call it torture.

02:50:58.000 The Soviet Union created a doomsday system. 0.90

02:51:01.000 These systems are always learning, they're always developing.

02:51:04.000 Is that an existential threat to mankind?

02:51:07.000 The Navy's already looking at how to use aerial drones to attack an objective.

02:51:11.000 Whoever can master those techniques will rule the world.

The Joe Rogan Experience - March 19, 2022

Joe Rogan Experience #1793 - Mike Baker

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