The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #1889 - Dr. Phil

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

00:00:04.000 The Joe Rogan Experience.

00:00:06.000 Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.

00:00:16.000 What do you got there?

00:00:17.000 Got detailed notes?

00:00:19.000 Well, I got some statistics I might talk about.

00:00:21.000 I don't know.

00:00:22.000 Maybe I will, maybe I won't.

00:00:23.000 You're a voice of reason.

00:00:24.000 How do we fix this world?

00:00:26.000 We're in a mess.

00:00:28.000 This is a weird time to be alive, isn't it?

00:00:31.000 Yeah, it's getting weirder, too.

00:00:34.000 I mean, it is getting weirder, don't you think?

00:00:36.000 It is.

00:00:36.000 Certainly.

00:00:37.000 Well, it's highlighted on your show.

00:00:39.000 You know, you've kind of exposed a lot of it to America.

00:00:45.000 You know, every year in the summer, we kind of work to reinvent ourselves about how we can tell our stories better and all that sort of thing.

00:00:55.000 And we really focus on what our viewers are asking about.

00:01:00.000 And I have to tell you, this year the questions really changed.

00:01:03.000 You know, we still deal with human functioning, you know, marriage and family and all that.

00:01:09.000 But in addition to that, the questions we got over the summer this year started really changing.

00:01:15.000 Like, are we going to make it?

00:01:17.000 Are we going to survive?

00:01:20.000 Are we safe?

00:01:21.000 Are our kids safe?

00:01:24.000 Are they safe in school?

00:01:25.000 What are they being taught in school?

00:01:28.000 Should we be going down there and seeing what they're teaching them?

00:01:34.000 What's happening as far as values in this country?

00:01:38.000 I mean, people started asking different questions, and so I changed everything.

00:01:43.000 I used to have that studio audience out in the bleachers out there.

00:01:47.000 I moved everybody on stage and we're just having a focus group every day.

00:01:52.000 I got like 110 people up there in a focus group and letting them talk and ask questions because they're really concerned.

00:01:59.000 And I just said, I can't take it anymore.

00:02:03.000 I'm going to start talking about the social issues along with everything else because if you even took psychology in high school or you took Psych 101, One of the first fundamental principles you learned was you don't reward bad behavior.

00:02:24.000 Right?

00:02:25.000 Right.

00:02:25.000 You don't reward bad behavior.

00:02:27.000 I mean, the world is a meritocracy.

00:02:30.000 And we've somehow lost that.

00:02:33.000 All of a sudden, we're paying people not to work more than they get if they work.

00:02:41.000 And then we say...

00:02:44.000 What happened to the supply chain?

00:02:46.000 Well, you paid everybody not to work.

00:02:49.000 That's what happened to the supply chain.

00:02:51.000 And I'm stunned that we're running this country In so many areas where we're just violating the most fundamental psychological principles that you could ever imagine.

00:03:07.000 And I'm watching that happen and I say, I just can't be silent about this anymore.

00:03:11.000 So I'm talking about it.

00:03:12.000 What do you think is the root cause of this shift?

00:03:16.000 I think it's been happening gradually, but like everything, you know, it's like if you start rolling a rock downhill, it starts getting faster and faster and faster.

00:03:26.000 And I think it's happened for a lot of reasons, but I think we've got a whole generation of kids that are really smart, by the way.

00:03:37.000 These kids are smart.

00:03:39.000 But I think they've started living on their devices.

00:03:42.000 It's kind of like along about 2007 or 8, it seems like airplanes flew over the country and just started dropping smartphones, and everybody's head went from here to here.

00:03:58.000 I mean, think about it.

00:04:00.000 When you look Go anywhere.

00:04:04.000 Go to the mall.

00:04:05.000 Go just anywhere there's a group.

00:04:08.000 And what do you see in their hands?

00:04:10.000 You see a device.

00:04:11.000 We didn't grow up with devices.

00:04:13.000 When I started Dr. Phil 21 years ago, the first text hadn't been sent.

00:04:19.000 There were no social media platforms.

00:04:21.000 None of that stuff was going on.

00:04:22.000 Technology's great.

00:04:23.000 Listen, I love technology.

00:04:27.000 But we've got generations that started Living virtually.

00:04:33.000 They're watching people live their lives instead of living their own lives.

00:04:39.000 And that changed the metrics on everything.

00:04:42.000 Think about that.

00:04:43.000 TikTok, Instagram, all of this.

00:04:46.000 You're watching other people live their lives instead of living your own.

00:04:51.000 And that changed everything.

00:04:53.000 That seems like one factor, but that wouldn't explain this abandonment of meritocracy.

00:05:01.000 Well, that is just one factor.

00:05:03.000 You're exactly right.

00:05:05.000 But there's something else that I think has come along with it, and we've got a generation of what I call concierge parents that are running interference for their kids.

00:05:20.000 And look, the way you learn about yourself, the way you make attributions To yourself, about yourself is the same way you make attributions about other people.

00:05:36.000 You have people that you have opinions of, right?

00:05:38.000 You know, you got people, friends or staff, that you watch what they do and you say, he or she is a go-to person.

00:05:50.000 I know what they do.

00:05:51.000 I can count on them.

00:05:51.000 They're gonna be there every time.

00:05:53.000 They're gonna show up on time.

00:05:54.000 They're gonna get everything ready.

00:05:55.000 They're gonna be buttoned up.

00:05:57.000 They're like clockwork, right?

00:05:59.000 And you attribute that to them because you watch what they do.

00:06:03.000 If they're problem solvers, you know, hey, go get Becky in here. 1.00

00:06:07.000 Go get Jeff in here. 1.00

00:06:08.000 They are problem solvers.

00:06:10.000 You know that because you've watched them do it and you make that attribution to them.

00:06:15.000 That's the same way we learn about ourselves.

00:06:18.000 You watch ourselves master certain tasks, overcome certain things.

00:06:24.000 And if we're cheated out of that experience, we don't learn that about ourselves.

00:06:30.000 And if you've got parents that are out there smoothing out all the bumps for you, then you don't learn that you can smooth out your own bumps.

00:06:38.000 You don't learn that you can overcome obstacles.

00:06:40.000 You don't learn that you can master your environment.

00:06:43.000 And so as a result, you don't have the self-esteem.

00:06:47.000 You don't have the self-worth. 0.99

00:06:48.000 You don't make the attributions that, hey, I can do this shit. 1.00

00:06:53.000 And when you don't believe you can do this shit, then you start saying, well, I don't want a meritocracy. 0.99

00:07:00.000 I want everybody to just kind of go along the same. 0.99

00:07:03.000 And so we started seeing in the universities You start seeing kids that are complaining that something the professor said hurt their feelings.

00:07:17.000 It upset them.

00:07:19.000 So they start going to the dean.

00:07:21.000 They start going to the department head and saying, that professor said things that upset me.

00:07:29.000 And we've had more professors disciplined, suspended, or dismissed In the last 10 or 15 years than we've had since McCarthyism.

00:07:44.000 Because kids are going in there and saying, that hurt my feelings.

00:07:48.000 He offended me and said things that were offensive.

00:07:54.000 And so they complain about it and they get listened to. 1.00

00:07:59.000 And so the professors, and some of them are assholes, I'm sure. 0.99

00:08:04.000 Some of them are offensive by any standard. 1.00

00:08:08.000 But it's out of control.

00:08:11.000 And these kids are sensitive to the point when I was in college, when campuses were where you went to hear the other side, right?

00:08:26.000 That's how you rounded things out.

00:08:28.000 There was a speaker coming that was totally on the other side than you were on anything, science or whatever.

00:08:35.000 You went to listen to them because you thought, I'm going to learn how to shoot this full of holes.

00:08:41.000 Now anywhere from 15 to 30 percent of students think it's okay to shout down somebody you disagree with.

00:08:50.000 To protest and run them off campus.

00:08:52.000 You don't listen to them. 0.70

00:08:52.000 You get rid of them. 0.70

00:08:53.000 You don't want to hear it.

00:08:54.000 You don't want to see it.

00:08:55.000 You don't want to have anything to do with it.

00:08:56.000 They protest and yell them down.

00:08:59.000 What's that about?

00:09:02.000 They don't want to hear it.

00:09:03.000 And I think that we're coddling this whole generation, and when they get out of school and get into the world, Where that's not going to happen, they're going to be competitive, we're going to have a real problem.

00:09:23.000 Because in a global economy, we're going to fall behind.

00:09:27.000 And we are behind right now.

00:09:30.000 People say, well, we lead the world in math and Science and reading.

00:09:37.000 No, we don't.

00:09:38.000 We don't lead it.

00:09:42.000 I wrote down where we are, but we're not anywhere near the top.

00:09:51.000 We're 13th in reading, we're 18th in science, we're 37th in math in the world today.

00:10:00.000 Where do we used to be?

00:10:01.000 At any one point in time when we were number one?

00:10:03.000 Yeah.

00:10:04.000 How long ago?

00:10:05.000 It's been a generation.

00:10:07.000 We've been on the slide for a good while.

00:10:11.000 We're 37th in math.

00:10:14.000 So do you think this is coming from parents coddling their children, helicopter parents, those children going off to universities, universities instilling these ideas in them that they should be able to shout down ideas that they don't agree with and that everything should be comfortable and everyone should have everything they want and desire without any work.

00:10:35.000 And then they go out into the workforce and they invade corporations with these same attitudes and become activists and...

00:10:44.000 Well, you hear some professors that venture to say, you know, we're not getting or turning out the best and the brightest for this whole variety of reasons.

00:10:55.000 That means we're not competitive.

00:10:59.000 And if we're not competitive, If we're not turning out the best and the brightest because we're caving, because we've got quotas to fill, or for whatever reason,

00:11:15.000 then we're just, where's that going to leave us?

00:11:19.000 And this wasn't caused by the pandemic.

00:11:23.000 It was exacerbated by the pandemic and you know as I say you're not you're not going to get kids that have a lot of self-confidence that have a lot of self-worth that have made these attributions and right now the millennial generation is the loneliest Most emotionally impacted out

00:11:54.000 of all the generations right now.

00:11:57.000 They are lonely.

00:11:58.000 They don't have friends.

00:12:00.000 Followers aren't friends.

00:12:02.000 And if you haven't gotten out in the world and you don't have the confidence to get out there, you're not going to do well.

00:12:11.000 Yeah.

00:12:12.000 It's a strange combination of factors.

00:12:18.000 One of the things that disturbs me the most about it is that I don't see a way to turn it around, other than some sort of a disaster where people are forced to come together.

00:12:28.000 Like, I remember the shift in the country after 9-11, and the only thing that I felt positive about was like, wow, all of a sudden America feels united.

00:12:41.000 Like, there were so many people driving down the street with American flags on their cars.

00:12:46.000 I mean, it was almost more than there were not in Los Angeles, which is a very liberal place.

00:12:53.000 And I remember thinking, maybe things like this are important just to sort of snap people back To a healthier baseline.

00:13:05.000 To put people back and to give them a perspective.

00:13:08.000 Like, we are really all in this together.

00:13:11.000 And if something like that does happen and it unites people and they get together and they realize, hey, we're all working together towards a goal.

00:13:18.000 We want to keep our families safe.

00:13:20.000 We want to keep the world safe.

00:13:21.000 We want to be able to pursue our dreams and do what we want to do.

00:13:24.000 And if something comes along that stops that, we have to kind of unite together to make sure we put everything back on track.

00:13:30.000 So you think there has to be something to get people's attention?

00:13:33.000 I worry that it has to be something big.

00:13:36.000 I worry that it has to be like a war or a natural disaster, something huge.

00:13:41.000 Because I think as long as you allow people to keep going, there's so much momentum in society going in the direction that we're going.

00:13:51.000 People that want an equality of outcome.

00:13:54.000 People that want a redistribution of wealth.

00:13:56.000 But some people are waking up telling me...

00:13:58.000 I saw a quote from Bono, of all people, that I read yesterday.

00:14:04.000 See if you can find this, where he was talking about it when he was young.

00:14:06.000 He thought that the world's problems could be solved by a redistribution of wealth, but now he realizes that healthy commerce is the way to a better society.

00:14:18.000 Yeah, look, socialism doesn't work.

00:14:23.000 You know, there's every cliche in the world, it works great till you run out of other people's money, you know, all of those quotes.

00:14:30.000 It doesn't work, and I've encountered those people in debates that think it does.

00:14:41.000 I've had people in the focus group situation that say, They shouldn't be prosecuting shoplifting because they're just going in there and taking what's rightfully theirs.

00:14:56.000 What the hell are you talking about?

00:14:58.000 They said, well, these corporations aren't paying enough, they're not paying a living wage, so they're just going in and taking what's rightfully theirs.

00:15:08.000 And I'm saying, well, so, okay, if You're wanting equal outcome.

00:15:16.000 No, no, I'm just wanting equal opportunity.

00:15:18.000 No, no, you're wanting equal outcome because you're saying everybody should just help themselves so they all can live.

00:15:27.000 What if one person spent 15 years going to college and working their butt off To acquire what I call consequential knowledge.

00:15:36.000 And the other person was sitting home in a beanbag eating Cheetos for 15 years. 0.95

00:15:42.000 You think they should have the same outcome.

00:15:43.000 Well, yeah, that's a right.

00:15:45.000 Everybody has a right to a reasonable life.

00:15:48.000 Well, go read The Little Red Hen.

00:15:50.000 I mean, did they not go over that in grade school?

00:15:53.000 I don't remember that one.

00:15:54.000 You don't remember that one.

00:15:55.000 That's a good book.

00:15:56.000 I'll send you a copy.

00:15:59.000 What was the premise of the little red hen?

00:16:01.000 Well, she was going around saying, hey, help me harvest the grain, will you?

00:16:05.000 And, you know, the grasshopper said, I'm just basking in the sun here.

00:16:10.000 And she goes to the next little animal, help me with this.

00:16:13.000 No, hey, I'm busy right now.

00:16:15.000 Then it comes wintertime, and they all kind of wanted to come eat the bread.

00:16:19.000 And she said, well...

00:16:40.000 And the scary thing is this idea That people have that the government should provide for them and that they deserve it.

00:16:55.000 It just reinforces this and it just compounds it.

00:17:01.000 I've worked a lot in rehab, and I don't mean drug rehab.

00:17:06.000 I'm talking about whatever it is.

00:17:08.000 If you have a head injury, if you have someone that's injured on the job and they're having to re-educate their body, spinal injury or whatever, If you don't require that person to do everything they can do every single time they face a task,

00:17:32.000 you're cheating them because they'll never get to the next level.

00:17:37.000 I mean, if a paraplegic takes 11 minutes to get across a room to flip a light switch and you don't require them to do that, Then they'll never do it in 10 minutes, 9 minutes, 6 minutes, and then where they can actually do it.

00:17:53.000 Now if they can't do it, they can't do it.

00:17:56.000 But you need to require them to do everything they can do for themselves before you help them to do it.

00:18:04.000 And we should always help them to do it, but you should let them do as much as they can do.

00:18:10.000 And that's the same way with everybody in the world.

00:18:13.000 They should do everything they're able to do.

00:18:17.000 And if we have people on the government dole That aren't doing everything they can do to help themselves, whether they're among the homeless population or the drug population or the mentally ill population,

00:18:36.000 whatever.

00:18:40.000 I'm totally understanding that you help people, but you give them a hand up, not a hand out.

00:18:46.000 There's a big difference.

00:18:48.000 And we're just not doing that.

00:18:51.000 You've got to require people to do everything they can do to help themselves.

00:18:54.000 So they, again, observe themselves doing more and more.

00:18:58.000 And they have pride in what they achieve and what they accomplish.

00:19:01.000 And we've gotten away from that.

00:19:03.000 We're not doing that.

00:19:03.000 But it seems like, especially when you're talking about, like, the homeless population, you would need so many people to work with those people because you're talking about a psychological shift, a way of viewing the world with discipline and accountability.

00:19:19.000 That you're not going to just get people to adopt on their own.

00:19:23.000 Very few people will.

00:19:24.000 Most people will do the very least that they have to do.

00:19:28.000 And if there's programs and different ways they can acquire money and food, they'll just stay in whatever state they're at.

00:19:36.000 I was watching this video today of a guy who's in Hollywood who built a house on the street.

00:19:43.000 He built a small house, and they were talking to all the people in the neighborhood about it, and they had the cops come and visit him, and they offered to take him to a shelter, and he's like, no, I don't want to go.

00:19:54.000 And they go, okay, and they just leave him there.

00:19:56.000 So this guy's built a structure.

00:19:58.000 On wheels.

00:19:59.000 It's like a small shed, but a wooden house.

00:20:03.000 Because he said that every time he had a tent, they took the tent away.

00:20:06.000 So he just built a house.

00:20:08.000 Well, that's pretty industrious.

00:20:10.000 Yeah, but why can't he apply that to other things, right?

00:20:12.000 Exactly.

00:20:12.000 And he can.

00:20:13.000 But he needs coaching.

00:20:15.000 And I don't care how flat you make a pancake, it's got two sides.

00:20:19.000 And the side where he says, I don't want to go to a shelter.

00:20:23.000 If you go to a shelter, what do you do with all your stuff?

00:20:27.000 Because there's nowhere inside that shelter to take all of your stuff.

00:20:30.000 And he has things.

00:20:32.000 And he might have an animal.

00:20:35.000 And that animal he's attached to.

00:20:38.000 And you can't take that animal in the shelter.

00:20:39.000 And you can't take your things in the shelter.

00:20:41.000 And if you can't take your animal and your things in the shelter, they're not going to go.

00:20:45.000 If they leave their things on the street, they'll be gone when they come out the next morning.

00:20:49.000 So a shelter's not always the answer.

00:20:51.000 So you've got to have empathy for those people.

00:20:54.000 And he may be trying to do the best he can, but you've got to create alternatives where he says, okay, look, if he's industrial enough that he's built a house on wheels and they're pirating electrical, some of them from service poles, some of them have 10-man tents,

00:21:12.000 and they've got flower beds in front of them.

00:21:14.000 Yeah, this guy had plants hanging out in front of his house.

00:21:16.000 Yeah.

00:21:16.000 That's pretty industrious.

00:21:19.000 Now, if that guy's got that much initiative, and he could use that in other ways, find him a place where he can do that, where he can not be obstructing traffic, not be in front of somebody's business, be in an area where he can build that house,

00:21:37.000 and then maybe he can inspire somebody else to do the same thing, and then maybe it starts to snowball.

00:21:43.000 You work with what you have.

00:21:44.000 I'm not saying these people can start running their own business tomorrow.

00:21:49.000 But build on what you have.

00:21:51.000 But you don't just say, well, so he's what they refer to as experiencing homelessness.

00:22:00.000 Find something that you can build on.

00:22:03.000 I think?

00:22:11.000 I think?

00:22:20.000 You can find leaders within those groups that can help the next level below and they can be helped by the next level above.

00:22:28.000 There are ways out of that.

00:22:30.000 But it seems like one of the first things that has to happen is you can't tolerate people just camping on the streets.

00:22:35.000 Just like you can't tolerate people littering.

00:22:38.000 Because it's not much difference.

00:22:40.000 You're interfering with all the other people that are following society's rules.

00:22:45.000 And society's rules are there to preserve everybody and keep the world cleaner and a better place.

00:22:51.000 So as soon as you allow someone to violate those rules because they're down and out, and then you have more, and then they compound, and then you have thousands of tents.

00:23:01.000 Now you have a problem that's almost insurmountable.

00:23:04.000 And then you have a whole industry that's based around that problem because you have hundreds of people that work for the city that get paid six-figure salaries and they're not fixing anything.

00:23:14.000 They get paid for the homeless, and some of them are making a quarter million dollars a year.

00:23:18.000 We looked it up.

00:23:20.000 It's wild.

00:23:21.000 The budget goes up every year.

00:23:23.000 The problem doesn't go away.

00:23:24.000 There's no incentive to fix the problem because if the problem gets fixed, then those jobs go away.

00:23:30.000 Of course it does.

00:23:31.000 The jobs go away.

00:23:33.000 But those jobs can become different jobs if somebody holds them accountable.

00:23:38.000 And so you can go in and just wipe all the tents off the street.

00:23:45.000 But where are those people going to go?

00:23:46.000 Right.

00:23:47.000 Well, in Austin, they moved them into hotels.

00:23:50.000 They bought hotels.

00:23:52.000 They moved them into hotels.

00:23:53.000 And they had it set up where you have to be clean to go into these places.

00:23:57.000 And they offered them counseling.

00:23:58.000 But Austin's a smaller place.

00:24:00.000 You know, there's only a million people in this city.

00:24:02.000 And, you know, I talked to the mayor about it before they fixed the problem.

00:24:06.000 And it was his number one initiative.

00:24:07.000 He's like, he goes, before I leave office, I have to fix this.

00:24:10.000 And he goes, and I think we can because there's only about 2,000 homeless people.

00:24:14.000 He goes, when you get to the place where LA is, where you're dealing with like 100,000 homeless people, it's almost impossible.

00:24:20.000 He goes, but right now we're like at the tipping point and we can fix it.

00:24:23.000 But it is kind of fixed.

00:24:25.000 There's still some homeless people, but if you go around Austin, you don't see the tents here that you see in LA. Well, is that out of sight, out of mind?

00:24:34.000 Or is somebody going to those people in the hotels and trying to get them to be self-sufficient?

00:24:41.000 I mean, you can hide the problem or you can fix the problem, and you've got to find a way to fix the problem.

00:24:46.000 You've got to get these people doing everything they can do to become self-sufficient.

00:24:52.000 I mean, that's the dignity they're looking for, and we're not helping them to do it if we're just taking them out of sight.

00:25:01.000 But don't you think there's a massive amount Of energy and effort that has to be taken for each individual to change the way they view the world, to acquire discipline, to acquire initiative, to clean their act up, to stop doing meth and heroin,

00:25:16.000 and try to get their life to a place where they're living a meaningful, rewarding life.

00:25:23.000 I mean, how many people struggle with that on a daily basis?

00:25:26.000 You need coaching and counseling, and you need slow, incremental steps towards acquiring a self-sufficient mentality.

00:25:34.000 That's a very, very difficult thing to get people to accept en masse.

00:25:39.000 It is.

00:25:42.000 The problem that I see with the approach to it now is the exit ramps out of that life are not aggressively enough.

00:25:51.000 They're not being pursued aggressively enough.

00:25:54.000 It's just like, what are we going to do with these people today?

00:25:57.000 Let's put them in a camping area, let's put them in a hotel, let's get them off the street, or let's get rid of the rules that say they can't camp. 0.98

00:26:11.000 Well, okay, that's just warehousing.

00:26:13.000 What are you doing to help this person become self-sufficient?

00:26:19.000 Are you finding them a job?

00:26:20.000 Are you creating a contingency where if they do A, they get B, if they do B, they get C? Or do you have somebody saying, hey, listen, housing is a human right.

00:26:31.000 Well, okay.

00:26:33.000 Let's just, for argument's sake, say that's a human right.

00:26:36.000 I'm not saying you agree with that.

00:26:37.000 I'm not saying I agree with that.

00:26:38.000 Let's just, for argument's sake, say that's right.

00:26:40.000 All right.

00:26:41.000 What's the contingency to then say, okay, now what are you going to do next?

00:26:48.000 What are you going to do to get a job?

00:26:50.000 What are you going to do to get off drugs?

00:26:51.000 What are you going to do?

00:26:52.000 Are you going to go to therapy?

00:26:54.000 Are you going to get job training?

00:26:55.000 What are you going to do?

00:26:57.000 And you say it's going to take a lot of manpower to do that? 0.98

00:27:01.000 Well, we got a lot of manpower doing not shit now. 0.98

00:27:06.000 They can do that. 0.93

00:27:07.000 I mean, let's make sure they're training people and hold them accountable for how many people they're getting off the street into jobs that are self-sufficient.

00:27:18.000 We're not holding them accountable.

00:27:20.000 They need to be held accountable for are they reducing the population or are they not?

00:27:25.000 It seems like the solution that most people have is to move out of the areas that are enforcing these ideas.

00:27:30.000 That's what most people are doing.

00:27:31.000 Of course.

00:27:32.000 Yeah, they're just like people that live in Santa Monica, they're just selling their houses. 0.99

00:27:35.000 They're like, I gotta get the fuck out of here. 0.84

00:27:37.000 There's tents in front of my car. 0.81

00:27:39.000 I'm finding needles in the street.

00:27:41.000 Yeah, it's the not in my neighborhood thing.

00:27:45.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:27:46.000 Do what you want to do, just don't do it in my neighborhood.

00:27:48.000 There was a video where one of these health officials was, they were showing needles that they pick up from the streets in Portland.

00:27:56.000 And they had giant garbage bins filled with used needles.

00:28:03.000 I mean, it was wild!

00:28:06.000 Just like a room filled with garbage bins filled with needles that they cleaned off the streets.

00:28:11.000 And, like, this is the scope of the problem.

00:28:14.000 This is the scale of the problem that people don't see.

00:28:17.000 Yeah, and people see pictures.

00:28:19.000 They see it on TV. They see it, you know, on some site.

00:28:27.000 What they don't get is the smell that these people are living in and the neighborhoods around it.

00:28:36.000 It's really...

00:28:40.000 It's a terrible way to live, and it's a terrible thing to ask people that have businesses where they're having to live adjacent to that.

00:28:51.000 It's not working for anybody.

00:28:52.000 It's not working for those in the tents.

00:28:55.000 It's not working for those adjacent to where they're doing that.

00:29:00.000 So the Austin mayor He put a standard.

00:29:04.000 You've got to be clean, and you've got to keep your area clean, your room clean, all that.

00:29:09.000 That's a step up, right?

00:29:12.000 At least it's not rancid and horrible.

00:29:16.000 He's requiring more, and if they enforce that, that's a step up.

00:29:20.000 Now these people will start to have a sense of A personal pride and dignity that they may not have had if they were in one of these areas that's so terrible, then it's less of a leap to say,

00:29:36.000 let's start talking about job interviews at entry level and see if you can get them back into that.

00:29:44.000 Because those people weren't born homeless.

00:29:48.000 They slid down there.

00:29:49.000 So it's a matter of getting them back up there.

00:29:52.000 It's a whole lot harder to get back up than just slide down.

00:29:55.000 It is. 1.00

00:29:56.000 And a lot of them are mentally ill. 0.94

00:29:58.000 And so you've got to help that in some way so they can actually have the focus and the mindset to contribute something to an employer somewhere. 0.77

00:30:10.000 And that's not easy.

00:30:12.000 And we're not helping this Right now in the school system, we've got a silent epidemic going on right now, and it was exacerbated by the pandemic because It's amazing how many people in America right now.

00:30:34.000 I just had a woman on recently that works nationally with the education programs. 0.98

00:30:43.000 And she says 130 million Americans can't read at the most basic level.

00:30:52.000 And I said define basic level for me.

00:30:55.000 And she said basic level is they can't read A prescription label.

00:31:07.000 They can't read a simple story to their children at bedtime.

00:31:13.000 130 million?

00:31:14.000 130 million.

00:31:16.000 So that's more than a third of the whole country.

00:31:19.000 Can't read a simple story to their children.

00:31:23.000 That's insane.

00:31:24.000 It's really that many?

00:31:26.000 Yeah.

00:31:32.000 And further to that, 32% of 4th graders can't read at even a basic level.

00:31:41.000 And 24% of 8th graders can't read at a basic level.

00:31:47.000 And 19% of high school graduates, according to the Department of Education, can't read.

00:31:54.000 Graduates.

00:31:56.000 Now, how does that work?

00:32:01.000 You're graduating high school, but you can't read at the most basic level.

00:32:04.000 So, when I'm saying there's a silent epidemic, we've got some schools that are changing their grading standards to close the gap.

00:32:16.000 So they're making it easier.

00:32:18.000 Well, one of them that we looked at, a C is now 44 to 64 percent.

00:32:27.000 You make 45, you got a C. You take a test, get 45, you made a C. Wow!

00:32:34.000 Now, was that not an F when you went to school?

00:32:36.000 That was an F, yeah.

00:32:38.000 That was an F. Now it's a C? Yeah, now 44 to 64 is a C. 70 was always a C. Right.

00:32:43.000 That was a C minus, because that was the bottom of the C's, right?

00:32:46.000 Right.

00:32:46.000 So now, 44 to 64 is a C. 64 to 84 is a B. 84 to 100 is an A. You've got to drop below 24 to get an F. Now that's how they're closing the gap and pushing them on to the next grade.

00:33:04.000 So if you can make an average of 30, you get a D, that's passing, you move on to the next level.

00:33:11.000 So instead of fixing things, it just made it easier for people to get through.

00:33:16.000 Yeah.

00:33:21.000 I don't see how that's gonna work.

00:33:23.000 No.

00:33:24.000 I mean, if you were a real conspiracy theorist, and you really wanted to believe that there was someone that was trying to destroy America from within, slowly, This would be the way to do it.

00:33:39.000 All the things we talked about.

00:33:41.000 Make it easy for people to be homeless.

00:33:43.000 Make people think that the world owes them something.

00:33:46.000 The quality of outcome is the desired result.

00:33:49.000 Everyone who's wealthy is evil.

00:33:52.000 If you think there's something wrong with the world, throw soup at a painting and glue yourself to the wall.

00:33:58.000 I mean, the stuff that we're reinforcing and the way that it's happening so rapidly I mean, you're older than me.

00:34:07.000 Has there ever been a time in your life where you thought that America could get to the point where it's at now?

00:34:13.000 No, I have to honestly say no.

00:34:18.000 And further to that point, I've got to say that you get to a point where you start getting scared about whether or not this is something we can come back from.

00:34:32.000 And I'm an incurable optimist.

00:34:35.000 And I really do believe that if people will stop arguing And decide, look, I'm not here to win an argument.

00:34:49.000 I'm here to solve a problem.

00:34:51.000 If people will just take that attitude, we can really change some things that are going on here.

00:34:58.000 Because I'm an incurable optimist, and I do think we can solve this problem.

00:35:03.000 And we've got a lot of Kids right now that are experiencing anxiety, depression, and homelessness at the highest levels that we've had since we started keeping records of this kind of thing,

00:35:19.000 which is not that long ago.

00:35:20.000 It's not like since the 1700s we've just been keeping these records.

00:35:26.000 I think they really started keeping good records in the Maybe since 12, 10, 12, somewhere back in there.

00:35:37.000 But these are the highest levels that we've seen.

00:35:41.000 And the pandemic didn't cause that.

00:35:47.000 But it really spiked it because these kids were out of school and they got really scared of the pandemic.

00:35:54.000 They lost loved ones.

00:35:56.000 They were afraid of this invisible monster out there.

00:36:02.000 We're gonna have to deal with that.

00:36:04.000 And we're gonna have to deal with the fact that they lost a lot of time and a lot of learning that put them further behind.

00:36:19.000 We need to stop trying to win an argument about who's got the right to talk about curriculum.

00:36:38.000 We need to solve the problem.

00:36:40.000 Look, I'm politically agnostic.

00:36:42.000 You know, I say the pandemic was mishandled.

00:36:45.000 I think it was mishandled.

00:36:46.000 I said it was mishandled at the beginning, publicly.

00:36:50.000 And listen, this spanned the Trump administration, the Biden administration.

00:36:55.000 So this is a bipartisan problem.

00:36:58.000 I'm not...

00:36:59.000 I don't know enough about politics to talk politics.

00:37:02.000 I don't want to know enough about it.

00:37:04.000 I'm talking about the culture.

00:37:07.000 And when I talk to people about negotiating, which I do a lot, the first thing I always tell people is, the first thing you should do is, let's talk about what we agree on.

00:37:21.000 If we're on two sides of a table like this and we're negotiating, let's talk about what we agree on first.

00:37:26.000 Because, you know, if you really spend time to do that, you're sometimes surprised at how little you really disagree on.

00:37:33.000 Right.

00:37:33.000 I find that all the time.

00:37:35.000 Yeah.

00:37:35.000 If you get the left and the right and talk about what we agree on, everybody would agree we want America to be the number one country in the world.

00:37:42.000 We want to be the leading superpower, the leading educational power, the leading in technology, everything, right?

00:37:49.000 Everybody would agree to that.

00:37:52.000 We want to be the healthiest country.

00:37:54.000 We want to be the best leaders.

00:37:59.000 Everybody would agree on that.

00:38:00.000 Everybody would agree we want our children to have a better life than we have.

00:38:03.000 Everybody would agree that we want safety for our kids.

00:38:10.000 Advances in medicine.

00:38:13.000 There's so many things we can agree on.

00:38:16.000 And then when we say, let's talk about what we don't agree on, the next step you'd say is, how can I get the other side as much of what they want as I possibly can?

00:38:28.000 That should be the second thing you should focus on because oftentimes you find we have different currencies.

00:38:34.000 You might value different things than I do, so I might be able to give you everything you want.

00:38:40.000 It's not likely to happen, but there's a lot I can give you because you value different things than I do, and I value different things than you do.

00:38:47.000 We might be able to really help each other get what we want.

00:38:51.000 And it narrows down to very little sometimes that we really disagree on and have to compromise on.

00:38:56.000 But you can't do that if you're really focused on winning an argument and being a right fighter instead of saying, let's solve the problem.

00:39:06.000 We can't come out of this room until we solve the problem.

00:39:09.000 And it's hard to do that if you're...

00:39:14.000 Kind of agreeing just with what your side beats the drum on versus this side beats the drum on instead of being commonsensical and saying, how do we solve this problem?

00:39:26.000 Yeah, I think very few people are able to argue without attaching themselves to ideas.

00:39:32.000 So if their idea, when they have an argument about something, if you say something that they agree with, instead of accepting that you say something they agree with, they want to fight against it because they just want to be right.

00:39:45.000 You know, very few people are good at ideas Being discussed in arguments.

00:39:50.000 Because the argument becomes very personal.

00:39:53.000 Like, they think about their own self-worth and they attach it to being the winner of the argument.

00:39:57.000 They want to use ad hominem attacks, insults, and trying to figure out a way to verbally joust with you to the point where they're successful.

00:40:07.000 When people start assassinating character, it's because their ideas won't withstand challenge. 0.97

00:40:14.000 This cancel culture bullshit, cancel culture should be council culture. 0.91

00:40:21.000 If you say something that's offensive to my values, I should counsel with you about it, not cancel you, not get everybody to hate you. 0.97

00:40:30.000 You know, you see somebody that says something on Twitter or says something in an interview that is offensive to some group, and all of a sudden you start reading the messages they get. 1.00

00:40:43.000 It's like, I hope you get ass cancer and die, you son of a bitch. 1.00

00:40:47.000 I'll cut your throat. 1.00

00:40:48.000 I'll come to your house and kill your children. 1.00

00:40:51.000 Are you kidding me? 1.00

00:40:55.000 It's like, boycott this person, boycott this company.

00:41:01.000 Where did we get to this?

00:41:03.000 Now they're canceling each other.

00:41:05.000 It should be council culture, not cancel culture.

00:41:08.000 Let's sit down and talk about it.

00:41:10.000 Let me educate you.

00:41:10.000 Maybe you don't understand.

00:41:12.000 Maybe when you do, you won't agree, but let's talk about this.

00:41:16.000 I think it's social media.

00:41:17.000 I think it's echo chambers.

00:41:18.000 I think it's people having the ability to discuss things without any social interaction.

00:41:23.000 They're not looking at each other.

00:41:25.000 They're not feeling the other person's emotions and feelings.

00:41:29.000 They're not looking into their eyes.

00:41:30.000 It's a very inhumane way for people to communicate.

00:41:33.000 It's very sterilized and you can assassinate a person's character or attack them or say horrible, insulting and threatening things and you don't feel any response.

00:41:44.000 Well, how many things do people type that they would not say to you in an elevator?

00:41:49.000 Yeah.

00:41:50.000 You know, like you said, they look you in the eye or they were in an elevator.

00:41:54.000 Same thing with road rage.

00:41:56.000 People blow the horn, yell stuff.

00:41:58.000 They wouldn't say it to you if you step in front of an escalator.

00:42:01.000 Right. 1.00

00:42:02.000 They wouldn't say, you rat bastard. 1.00

00:42:04.000 Right. 1.00

00:42:05.000 But they'll say it because they don't have to own it.

00:42:07.000 Right.

00:42:08.000 And so many of these people that jump on the bandwagon...

00:42:12.000 They don't even know what they're talking about. 0.99

00:42:14.000 They just see somebody jumping on somebody's ass and go, hey, this is great. 0.99

00:42:18.000 This will be fun. 1.00

00:42:19.000 Pile on.

00:42:20.000 Yeah.

00:42:20.000 And they don't even know what they're talking about.

00:42:23.000 And people's lives get ruined.

00:42:26.000 And that's not solving a problem.

00:42:30.000 That's just being a keyboard bully.

00:42:33.000 And that's a terrible misuse.

00:42:36.000 Of social media.

00:42:37.000 It's terrible misuse of the internet.

00:42:40.000 And if you would cancel instead of cancel, we could really make some progress.

00:42:46.000 There's just very few people capable of thinking that way.

00:42:50.000 And social media, unfortunately, reinforces this idea and it reinforces these tribal groups that connect to their ideology.

00:42:57.000 They support these people in this little tribal group.

00:43:00.000 The problem is that they step out of line at all.

00:43:02.000 These people that are canceling, they run out of people that cancel and they go after each other.

00:43:07.000 Progressives in particular, you're not progressive enough.

00:43:10.000 They'll go after you for enabling Yeah, somebody wrote an article the other day, some site I've never even heard of.

00:43:23.000 It says, Dr. Phil's become a platform for right-wing hate mongers or something.

00:43:35.000 And they listed some shows where I'd had on People on the right giving them a voice.

00:43:43.000 They went down through like six or eight shows.

00:43:47.000 And not one time did they mention that sitting right across from them Was the other side.

00:43:55.000 One of them was I had Lila Rose on, who's the Right to Life spokesperson.

00:44:02.000 Very smart woman, and she was arguing that.

00:44:07.000 I had the president of the National Organization of Women and Ben Crump sitting right across from her.

00:44:13.000 They didn't mention that they were there.

00:44:15.000 Yeah, of course they don't because it's not a real article.

00:44:17.000 The article's not a real thought.

00:44:19.000 It's an attack.

00:44:20.000 It's not an unbiased, objective assessment of the conversation. 0.99

00:44:25.000 It's horseshit. 0.64

00:44:26.000 But they did like eight out of eight. 0.98

00:44:27.000 They did not mention one time that the other side was there.

00:44:31.000 And it's because they don't want to hear anybody's side but theirs.

00:44:35.000 Yeah, that's the thing.

00:44:37.000 And I'm not going to do that.

00:44:38.000 I'm going to let both sides say what they have to say and let people make up their own minds about what they want to think and what they want to feel.

00:44:46.000 Well, that's the way things are supposed to be held.

00:44:48.000 That's the way things are supposed to be done.

00:44:50.000 When you really want to solve a problem, you got to let both people talk and you got to figure out who's right and who's wrong.

00:44:55.000 And that's why censorship is so dangerous.

00:44:58.000 Because the correct answer to censorship, like this whole Kanye West thing.

00:45:02.000 You know, Kanye West is being canceled by all these organizations and they're removed.

00:45:07.000 The best way to handle Kanye West is the way Lex Friedman did.

00:45:10.000 Have a conversation with him and correct all the things that he's saying that you think are wrong or that you think are generalizing or you think that you think are misrepresentative of the truth.

00:45:23.000 But that's not the world we live in today.

00:45:25.000 The world we live in today, we want to erase people if we don't agree with them.

00:45:28.000 And then the problem with that is it scares people into communicating freely because they're worried that they're going to be erased next.

00:45:35.000 So they'll conform.

00:45:38.000 You're forcing people to conform to a very particular way of thinking.

00:45:44.000 It reinforces these ideas that you, you know, you have to be a part of this one particular group of ideas and thoughts.

00:45:53.000 And if you're not, there's consequences to that.

00:45:56.000 And so people self-censor.

00:45:59.000 Well, I said I had a focus group every day on the show now, and I'll show you.

00:46:08.000 We did a show, the title of which was, You Can't Say That.

00:46:14.000 And so I was putting up on screen...

00:46:20.000 All the things that you now can't say.

00:46:25.000 These are the words that have been, you know, people say these are offensive to people's sensibilities.

00:46:34.000 And I'll find it here and show you what it was unless Jamie already has it.

00:46:44.000 Here it is.

00:46:46.000 Mom and Dad?

00:46:47.000 Yeah, there you go.

00:46:48.000 You can't say Mom and Dad anymore?

00:46:50.000 Yeah, you can't say Mom and Dad anymore.

00:46:52.000 And so, we can talk about these, but I asked the audience at one point, I said, how many of you are reluctant to raise your hand and say anything?

00:47:02.000 Because I asked the audience to participate, and they do a lot.

00:47:04.000 How many of you are...

00:47:05.000 Afraid to say anything right now because you don't want to get targeted.

00:47:11.000 And it looked like the wave. 0.99

00:47:13.000 Everybody said, oh yeah, I don't want to say shit. 0.99

00:47:16.000 Peanut gallery? 1.00

00:47:16.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:47:17.000 Why can't you say peanut gallery?

00:47:20.000 That one, I always thought, and look, I'm here to learn, so I ask them, what is it?

00:47:28.000 I thought peanut gallery was at the, like the cheap seats at the baseball game?

00:47:32.000 Yeah, that's what I thought too.

00:47:33.000 Like out in the outfield where the kids would go and get a $2 ticket or something and eat peanuts and have a great time?

00:47:39.000 Isn't that what it is?

00:47:40.000 Apparently not.

00:47:41.000 Apparently it has some racial overtones.

00:47:45.000 Peanut Gallery does?

00:47:47.000 And the mom and dad was...

00:47:50.000 Someone said, well, we don't have a mom and dad in our home.

00:47:55.000 We have a mom and mom.

00:47:58.000 And so it makes my child feel funny if...

00:48:04.000 Here it is.

00:48:05.000 According to linguistist experts, the origin of this phrase derives from the late 1800s vaudeville era, a popular style of entertainment that included jugglers, comedians, singers, and more.

00:48:14.000 The peanut gallery was the cheapest section of seats, usually occupied by people with limited means.

00:48:20.000 Yeah, the cheap seats.

00:48:23.000 How is that offensive?

00:48:26.000 Well, man, I've been in the peanut gallery a lot of my life.

00:48:29.000 Yeah.

00:48:31.000 I've got to tell you.

00:48:32.000 Well, I guess, are they saying...

00:48:34.000 Peanuts were a popular concession snack for vaudeville shows.

00:48:38.000 Unpopular performers would often find themselves pelted with the easy-to-hurl edible projectiles.

00:48:45.000 Others disagree in part with the preceding class-based rather than racial claim.

00:48:52.000 They note that in the past, cheap balcony seats were often reserved for or largely made up of African American patrons.

00:48:58.000 Thus, since the phrase implies the opinions expressed by those from the gallery were unsolicited, unwarranted, and unhelpful, the phrase also co-notes something negative about those giving them purported to be African Americans.

00:49:12.000 Boy, that's a stretch.

00:49:13.000 Well, you know, you don't have to be offended every time you can be.

00:49:18.000 Right.

00:49:21.000 Right.

00:49:22.000 But that expression doesn't have a racial connotation the way most people use it.

00:49:27.000 I wouldn't think.

00:49:28.000 It's usually people in the back of the room.

00:49:29.000 That's just how we use it.

00:49:31.000 They said brainstorm.

00:49:32.000 What?

00:49:33.000 Was offensive to people that had brain injuries.

00:49:36.000 Oh my god!

00:49:38.000 That it was an ableist thing.

00:49:41.000 Oh! 1.00

00:49:42.000 Well, if you have a fucking brain, if you move and walk, if you're brainstorming, you're using your brain. 1.00

00:49:47.000 Is running offensive? 1.00

00:49:49.000 Is it offensive to people who can't run?

00:49:52.000 Should the Olympics be canceled?

00:49:53.000 Because the Olympics are ableist? 1.00

00:49:55.000 What the fuck are we talking about? 1.00

00:49:59.000 You know, it seems to me... 0.99

00:50:02.000 And, look, maybe...

00:50:07.000 Maybe if you're in that situation, and I ask, blindsided, I ask some people that had impaired vision, and they were like,

00:50:24.000 what?

00:50:26.000 They didn't understand.

00:50:28.000 About which phrase?

00:50:29.000 Blindsided.

00:50:30.000 But you can't say blindsided or blind spot in your car.

00:50:34.000 Like, it was in my blind spot.

00:50:36.000 And they were like, I don't understand why I'm offended.

00:50:41.000 Now, that doesn't mean there aren't people that are, but I couldn't find it.

00:50:44.000 And I only talked to six or seven.

00:50:46.000 I bet it's more people that are not blind, that are looking for things to be offended with.

00:50:51.000 What about first world problems?

00:50:53.000 How is that one?

00:50:55.000 Well...

00:50:55.000 How's that offensive?

00:50:56.000 I think it's that Third World is mostly black, is what one of the audience members said.

00:51:05.000 So that was racial.

00:51:07.000 Well, Third World encompasses a lot of different ethnicities, doesn't it?

00:51:13.000 There's a lot of Latin America.

00:51:15.000 There's a lot of Asia.

00:51:17.000 It's a lot of Eurasia.

00:51:22.000 That's what the audience member said.

00:51:25.000 Yeah.

00:51:27.000 And they didn't want it in the show.

00:51:29.000 So were we allowed to say first world, second world, and third world?

00:51:32.000 Because that seems like that's offensive too then.

00:51:35.000 To me that had to do with infrastructure.

00:51:40.000 Right.

00:51:42.000 Because I know like in the Congo, the entire country has the electrical infrastructure of a city the size of Austin for millions and millions of people, which is why they're so vulnerable to natural disaster and they don't have dams and they don't have electrical pumps and I always thought of first,

00:52:07.000 second, third world having to do with infrastructure and technology and support systems and all that sort of thing.

00:52:15.000 I always thought of it as to do with dictatorial governments and corruption.

00:52:25.000 Finding things to be offensive, it's recreation for a lot of people.

00:52:29.000 I think that's what we've gotten to.

00:52:31.000 Yeah, recreational outrage.

00:52:33.000 I think that's where people have sat around and said, what can I be offended about today?

00:52:39.000 As opposed to saying, what can I do to contribute to unity?

00:52:44.000 What can I do to come together and work things out, make things better?

00:52:51.000 That's just not constructive to me.

00:52:55.000 Now, if there's something that somebody's doing, you know, we've done shows on hate crimes.

00:53:01.000 I mean, where people are attacking people purely because they're Asian or Jewish or whatever in L.A. and I get it. 1.00

00:53:16.000 That's okay.

00:53:18.000 That's not where you're looking for something.

00:53:20.000 It's where you're sitting in the line at a fast food restaurant and somebody rear ends your car and starts mocking you for being Asian, which is what happened. 0.98

00:53:30.000 This wonderful family we had on the show, they wound up in a parking lot rolling on the ground getting the shit beat out of them by some guy. 0.96

00:53:39.000 Okay, that's not looking for something to be offended about. 0.99

00:53:42.000 It was purely because they were Asian. 1.00

00:53:46.000 And maybe that's not the right I don't know.

00:53:52.000 They were from the Philippines, as I recall.

00:53:57.000 So Filipino, I guess.

00:54:01.000 I get that.

00:54:02.000 They're being attacked, and those attacks are on the vertical upswing.

00:54:08.000 That's not looking for something to be offended about.

00:54:11.000 That's traumatizing to them.

00:54:13.000 But picking out words to get offended about, I mean, I'm not going to get offended about ball jokes or somebody, but say, well, but you've not been oppressed.

00:54:24.000 You've not, okay, I get it, but you don't have to be offended just because you can.

00:54:29.000 Well, that's one of the things that social media has amplified.

00:54:33.000 Social media has amplified recreational outrage and virtue signaling.

00:54:38.000 And the fact that if you call out these things, you're somehow better than people that are ignoring them.

00:54:43.000 If you call out these ableist terms like blindsided or whatever one you want to focus on that's ridiculous, it makes you better than the people that don't.

00:54:54.000 And I just think that's not helping our issues.

00:54:59.000 It's not helping what we're trying to do, which we're very divided right now.

00:55:03.000 And I tell you, I did something that I thought was a really eye-opening experience for me.

00:55:11.000 You know Frank Luntz.

00:55:14.000 He's a pollster that has probably done 2,500 interviews.

00:55:19.000 He does surveys and he's conducted Republican presidential debates and stuff.

00:55:31.000 Frank's kind of the guy for that.

00:55:34.000 We did a focus group with 40 USC students.

00:55:40.000 20 were from the Republican organization at USC and 20 from the Democratic organization.

00:55:48.000 And we brought them in, faced them, and boy, they were a lot of bad blood.

00:55:57.000 Been a lot of things going on on their sites, arguing back and forth, bad things being said.

00:56:02.000 And at one point, I just said, all right, time out.

00:56:06.000 I want all of you to stand up, and I want you to pair up across from each other.

00:56:13.000 And no small talk, you cannot speak.

00:56:18.000 And I want you to make eye contact.

00:56:21.000 And just eye contact.

00:56:23.000 You can't look away.

00:56:25.000 Just look this person in the eye.

00:56:28.000 Because we don't do that much anymore.

00:56:29.000 As you were saying, particularly on the internet.

00:56:33.000 I want you to look at this person.

00:56:35.000 I want you to think about...

00:56:37.000 What's going on in their life?

00:56:39.000 Did they lose somebody to COVID? How's their day gone?

00:56:43.000 Do they have a mom? 0.61

00:56:44.000 Do they have a dad?

00:56:46.000 Does it hurt them when somebody says something bad to them?

00:56:51.000 What do they think is funny?

00:56:57.000 What are their challenges?

00:56:58.000 What are they proud of?

00:57:00.000 All that.

00:57:01.000 I just left them looking for way past comfortable.

00:57:07.000 And then I asked him a couple of questions that they had exchanged about.

00:57:11.000 And then without saying anything, I had him sit down and say, okay, just what's your reaction?

00:57:21.000 And absolutely to the person.

00:57:26.000 They said, I'm really shocked.

00:57:29.000 I had never thought about this as a human being before.

00:57:34.000 But just spending that time with them, looking eye to eye, I have a completely different attitude.

00:57:40.000 They all said that?

00:57:41.000 All of them.

00:57:42.000 Every one of them.

00:57:42.000 They never thought about the other person with differing ideas as being a human being.

00:57:47.000 It had gotten pushed off the table.

00:57:49.000 It was all about ideology.

00:57:52.000 And when they looked at them and they couldn't say anything, they couldn't talk about their ideas, they just had to make eye contact at a human level.

00:58:01.000 Every one of them said, it really changed my attitude.

00:58:06.000 That's pretty wild.

00:58:09.000 That's something just as simple as taking a few minutes to make eye contact.

00:58:14.000 Now these are young, fresh people.

00:58:17.000 We actually videotaped that whole thing.

00:58:20.000 I'll send that exercise to you and you can look at it and hear their comments unedited.

00:58:25.000 It was one of the reasons I'm pretty optimistic.

00:58:29.000 I'm optimistic.

00:58:31.000 I just think the momentum and the way the country's going and this problem that people have with social media, because people are very addicted to social media, and I think social media definitely exacerbates the problem.

00:58:43.000 And some people are recognizing it and they're trying to step away from it.

00:58:47.000 And even the tech companies, they're showing you your screen time to try to let you know, give you a little indication, like, hey, maybe you're obsessing, maybe you're addicted to this, maybe take some time, go for a walk in the park, do something different.

00:59:00.000 I'm optimistic.

00:59:02.000 Because I know a lot of people that are exceptional.

00:59:04.000 I know a lot of people that are inspirational.

00:59:07.000 I know a lot of people that are truly extraordinary human beings who really help the world and just their mere presence and the way they live their life is inspiring and it opens up a lot of people's eyes to possibilities.

00:59:18.000 But I'm also a realist when it comes to human nature.

00:59:23.000 I like to do a lot of difficult things and one of the things that I know about difficult things is it's very hard to get people to embrace being uncomfortable and suffering and struggle.

00:59:37.000 I mean like physical suffering and physical struggling.

00:59:39.000 People, they seek comfort and they seek to avoid these uncomfortable moments, but That's the only way you grow.

00:59:48.000 You grow through being uncomfortable.

00:59:50.000 You grow physically through difficult workouts.

00:59:54.000 You grow mentally through psychological struggle, through intellectual struggle, through complicated things that you have to work your way through.

01:00:05.000 And there's so many people out there that avoid those things.

01:00:08.000 It's easy to avoid those things.

01:00:10.000 And there's a pattern of avoiding those things.

01:00:12.000 A pattern of just being complacent, being lazy, You know, finding some sort of a distraction, whether it's video games or television or social media.

01:00:24.000 And it's very hard for people to break out of that.

01:00:27.000 I know there's a lot of people that want to, though.

01:00:29.000 Well, you know how uncomfortable cognitive dissonance is.

01:00:37.000 You just really...

01:00:38.000 You don't want to feel...

01:00:42.000 That friction of this other point of view.

01:00:46.000 It's uncomfortable to consider it.

01:00:48.000 But here's what's happening, and you'll experience this being in Texas now, but when we were kids, we used to go...

01:00:58.000 Have you ever heard of Monday, Texas?

01:01:01.000 Mundy.

01:01:02.000 M-U-N-D-Y? Yes. 0.99

01:01:04.000 Yeah.

01:01:04.000 It's where my grandparents lived in Mundy, Texas, like 1,500 people.

01:01:08.000 And I used to go there in the summers and work at my grandfather's freight warehouse.

01:01:15.000 And, you know, the big 18-wheelers would come in and drop freight at his warehouse, and we would deliver it around the county.

01:01:21.000 It'd be like those big plow discs and all this stuff, and we'd put it on a flatbed and deliver it.

01:01:29.000 There ain't nothing in Monday.

01:01:30.000 It ain't in Monday.

01:01:32.000 It ain't headed that way.

01:01:33.000 It's just nothing there.

01:01:36.000 And, you know, we'd go around barefooted a lot. 0.97

01:01:38.000 And sometimes, being stupid, we would start across an asphalt highway barefooted. 1.00

01:01:44.000 And you get about halfway across, and you go, holy shit! 1.00

01:01:50.000 I mean, you're out there and you look down and your feet are just melting into the pavement. 0.98

01:01:56.000 All right, now what are you going to do?

01:01:57.000 You're in pain and you're going to do one of two things.

01:02:01.000 You're either going to turn around and run back or you're going to bolt to the other side.

01:02:05.000 But you are not going to stand in the middle and just melt into the pavement.

01:02:11.000 You're going to go one side or the other.

01:02:13.000 And that's what people are.

01:02:16.000 We're good to go.

01:02:31.000 It's really hard.

01:02:32.000 And right now, we got people on the shoulders of this hot highway.

01:02:37.000 And how to get them to come across to the other side or meet in the middle is very painful for people psychologically.

01:02:46.000 They don't want to do that.

01:02:47.000 It's painful for them to get out of there.

01:02:50.000 They're in a bubble.

01:02:52.000 They're talking to their own people.

01:02:54.000 They're not talking to the people on the other side of the highway.

01:02:56.000 And it's painful to go over there.

01:02:59.000 It hurts to get on that hot highway and go over there.

01:03:02.000 It's psychologically painful.

01:03:05.000 It hurts physically to go talk to somebody on the right if you're on the left or left if you're on the right.

01:03:11.000 And that's what we're facing is getting them on that hot highway again because they know what's going to happen.

01:03:17.000 It's going to hurt to do it.

01:03:19.000 That's what we have to overcome.

01:03:23.000 We got to get you out on a hot highway.

01:03:25.000 And you'll see, psychologically, that's what we got to overcome.

01:03:29.000 And we've got to make it clear that those yelling the loudest don't deserve the most attention.

01:03:35.000 That's the problem we got right now.

01:03:36.000 We got small pockets of loud talkers, and they're getting the most attention.

01:03:43.000 And that's not the way it should be.

01:03:44.000 And all of this majority that's being too quiet need to speak up.

01:03:47.000 They don't need to start yelling.

01:03:49.000 They just need to start a chorus of common sense.

01:03:52.000 I think people are afraid of doing that.

01:03:54.000 They are.

01:03:54.000 They don't want to be singled out by the people that are extremists.

01:03:57.000 But if they hang together...

01:03:59.000 Look, common sense is not common enough anymore.

01:04:01.000 We've got to have a return to common sense.

01:04:05.000 Some of the stuff we're doing right now is just not common sense.

01:04:11.000 It's just not...

01:04:12.000 No, it's not.

01:04:14.000 We have epidemics in this country right now that people aren't paying enough attention to.

01:04:20.000 Well, the fentanyl epidemic. 0.77

01:04:21.000 That one scares the shit out of me. 0.87

01:04:23.000 Man. 0.95

01:04:24.000 That one scares the shit out of me.

01:04:26.000 It really does because people are accidentally dying of overdoses.

01:04:29.000 It used to be if you died of an overdose, it's because you did a dangerous drug.

01:04:33.000 You took a very risky chance to do something that you probably knew you shouldn't be doing.

01:04:39.000 Whether it's heroin or meth or something like that.

01:04:43.000 But now people are doing things they think are fairly innocuous.

01:04:46.000 And it's laced with fentanyl and they're dying.

01:04:49.000 Well, just across the border, just south of San Diego in October of 21, they busted a drug lab That was turning out 70 million counterfeit pills a month.

01:05:15.000 One lab.

01:05:17.000 70 million counterfeit pills a month.

01:05:21.000 Now, we don't know that they were all going to come to America, but we know a shitload of them were going to come to America. 0.98

01:05:31.000 And the DEA's estimate is that 40% of them Are laced with lethal levels of fentanyl.

01:05:43.000 Forty percent.

01:05:45.000 Forty percent are laced with lethal doses of fentanyl.

01:05:53.000 That poisoning, fentanyl poisoning, is the number one cause of death for people 18 to 49 in this country.

01:05:59.000 Yeah.

01:06:00.000 And think about that.

01:06:03.000 And what these kids need to understand, and I want people to understand this, and I don't care if you stop listening to Joe and I talk right now and go call your kid or go call your grandkids or your friend's kids.

01:06:21.000 The chance of them, first off, all these pills you're buying on Snapchat, 100% of them are counterfeit.

01:06:28.000 They're buying pills on Snapchat?

01:06:30.000 Oh.

01:06:31.000 They're buying...

01:06:32.000 How does that work?

01:06:35.000 You can buy a pill on Snapchat, and I'll show you here.

01:06:40.000 Let me pull this up.

01:06:41.000 I know Jamie can't beat me to this.

01:06:45.000 If you do, I'm going to really be impressed.

01:06:50.000 He's got it.

01:06:51.000 No, he doesn't either. 1.00

01:06:52.000 Bullshit. 1.00

01:06:53.000 I'm going to... 1.00

01:06:55.000 Snapchat drug dealers.

01:06:56.000 How illegal drugs are being dangled at kids on Snapchat, Instagram, and other platforms.

01:07:03.000 Scroll down.

01:07:04.000 I'll see if he was going to react.

01:07:06.000 No, I'm not reacting.

01:07:08.000 I'm not reacting.

01:07:09.000 I'm looking because I've got something.

01:07:12.000 Okay, here we go.

01:07:22.000 See these Xanax bars here?

01:07:26.000 Yeah.

01:07:27.000 And maybe I can send this to Jamie.

01:07:30.000 Okay, then here are the emojis that they use to advertise it with.

01:07:37.000 And then here is the menu.

01:07:41.000 So is this cartels that are putting these things up on Snapchat and then you order them on the internet?

01:07:47.000 Yeah.

01:07:48.000 Here's the deal.

01:07:50.000 Fentanyl is synthetic and it's all being generated in China. 0.99

01:07:59.000 So if you want to be a conspiracy theorist, this will get your conspiracy juices flowing.

01:08:07.000 Are you airdrop open over there?

01:08:10.000 Yes.

01:08:10.000 Jamie's Airbook Pro?

01:08:12.000 Yes.

01:08:13.000 Okay.

01:08:14.000 I just sent you four pictures and they're gone.

01:08:17.000 So now you have them.

01:08:20.000 Okay, it's all being generated or synthesized in China.

01:08:24.000 And then China is sending it to the Sinaloa Cartel.

01:08:30.000 And the cartel is then turning it into these pills.

01:08:39.000 And then these pills are coming into America.

01:08:44.000 And the DEA estimates that they are intercepting about 10%.

01:08:51.000 And what they are intercepting is enough to kill every American.

01:09:04.000 Jesus Christ. 0.99

01:09:05.000 The fentanyl is enough to kill...

01:09:07.000 So here's the menu.

01:09:09.000 Every American.

01:09:10.000 L.A. County Delivery.

01:09:12.000 Can you make it to that little...

01:09:14.000 There it goes.

01:09:15.000 So L.A. County Delivery, nationwide shipping, low cost, low stress, highest highs, Dr. Don Guarantee, Mr. Don 248...

01:09:28.000 So, look at all the stuff that they have here.

01:09:31.000 Perks, GMO, OG, gas, and edibles.

01:09:35.000 What does that mean?

01:09:36.000 That's probably weed.

01:09:38.000 Gas?

01:09:38.000 Really?

01:09:39.000 Yeah.

01:09:40.000 THC, crumble, snow, Adderall, 20mg scripts, 2.5mg hulks.

01:09:46.000 What are those?

01:09:47.000 What's a hulk?

01:09:49.000 It's a type of pill off the top of my head.

01:09:51.000 I wouldn't know, but I'm not...

01:09:54.000 Pharmapram bottles, Ambien 10 milligram scripts, hydros?

01:10:00.000 What is a hydro?

01:10:02.000 Like a hydrocodone, maybe?

01:10:04.000 I don't know.

01:10:04.000 I think.

01:10:06.000 Jesus Christ.

01:10:09.000 Yeah, now go to the emojis that I sent you.

01:10:18.000 It's one of the images I sent.

01:10:22.000 And this is how they communicate.

01:10:27.000 Percocet, oxycodone.

01:10:29.000 So they have these different emojis in combination.

01:10:34.000 Yeah.

01:10:35.000 Mean different things.

01:10:36.000 What is that little emoji next to those two pills that mean Zamax?

01:10:39.000 It looks like a truck.

01:10:40.000 What does that mean?

01:10:41.000 Delivery?

01:10:41.000 Yeah.

01:10:43.000 I think that means they'll deliver that to your house.

01:10:45.000 This is like Postmates.

01:10:47.000 Wow.

01:10:47.000 You order this, and they'll deliver this to your house in less than an hour.

01:10:54.000 And I've had different sets of parents on whose...

01:10:59.000 These are kids that...

01:11:02.000 And we do pretty good background checks on these.

01:11:05.000 I'm talking about...

01:11:06.000 The title of the show we did was One Pill Kills.

01:11:10.000 Because these were not kids that were drug addicts.

01:11:13.000 They weren't doing heroin and that sort of thing.

01:11:16.000 And we checked because like one of the girls, we got her credit card information.

01:11:23.000 We saw she ordered one pill.

01:11:24.000 We went back like months, ordered one pill.

01:11:28.000 And she wanted to get some sleep before finals.

01:11:32.000 And we found three quarters of the pill in her top dresser drawer.

01:11:37.000 Her parents found it and the police came.

01:11:41.000 She broke it in half and then broke it in half again. 0.91

01:11:44.000 So she took a quarter of one pill and they found her dead in the morning because it had so much fentanyl in it that it just killed her.

01:11:53.000 And this isn't an overdose.

01:11:54.000 This is poisoning.

01:11:56.000 Do you think this is purposeful?

01:11:59.000 Well, the reason they put it in there and...

01:12:06.000 Put this one up, and the reason they put it in there is because it's so highly addictive.

01:12:11.000 But they're not smart, or they don't care if they're killing a certain percentage of their customers.

01:12:18.000 But here's the deal.

01:12:20.000 Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is up to 50 times stronger than heroin, 100 times stronger than morphine.

01:12:27.000 So if you bite into this, you're dead when you hit the ground.

01:12:35.000 And so she took a quarter of it.

01:12:38.000 Boom.

01:12:40.000 Gone.

01:12:42.000 And their estimate is that 40% of these pills that they're getting have lethal doses of fentanyl.

01:12:55.000 And the ones that don't, Have enough in it that you are addicted like that.

01:13:00.000 So they come back for more and more and more and more.

01:13:05.000 And now there are conspiracy theorists, including a former DEA guy, that believes that China He is manufacturing this stuff, synthesizing this stuff, sending it to the Sinaloa Cartel,

01:13:20.000 who's flooding it into America, and they're just trying to poison or drug Americans. 0.76

01:13:27.000 It's just another attack.

01:13:29.000 He believes it's a terrorist attack.

01:13:33.000 And it's interesting.

01:13:35.000 He has a demo that he does.

01:13:40.000 He just takes a...

01:13:42.000 A little packet of sweetener and dumps it in his hand.

01:13:48.000 And he says, that much fentanyl is enough to kill 500 people.

01:13:55.000 It's just staggering.

01:13:59.000 And we've got to get this message out to the kids.

01:14:04.000 Don't do it.

01:14:07.000 Those pills look exactly like the pills that you get at the pharmacy.

01:14:11.000 And what they're doing now, Joe, is they're putting them in these pastel colors.

01:14:18.000 I think I sent you some of those, Jamie, in the pastel colors.

01:14:22.000 They're making them look like These candies that the kids get.

01:14:28.000 And kids are gonna see these things around and pick them up and think they're like sweet tarts or whatever and bite into them.

01:14:40.000 If I was a parent I would go to the store and buy every kind of candy I could find, and as soon as my kids came home from trick-or-treating, I would take their pumpkin and dump it into the trash and then fill it back up with candy I knew was good and hand it back to them.

01:14:58.000 I wouldn't let them take a single piece of candy from trick-or-treating because you don't know what's in there.

01:15:04.000 That was always the fear, right, when we were kids?

01:15:07.000 Someone's going to sneak in a razor blade to an apple or something.

01:15:10.000 I saw this going around, but I heard a lot of people pushing back a couple days after this was made, major headlines.

01:15:17.000 Experts say no.

01:15:18.000 Who's the expert?

01:15:19.000 I don't know.

01:15:19.000 I'm just...

01:15:20.000 There was a lot of...

01:15:23.000 Hubbub about this viral picture because this went out the DEA was talking about it, but then I read there was like no evidence that this was real.

01:15:30.000 That's what I read.

01:15:32.000 Well, let's scroll down and see what they say in terms of...

01:15:36.000 It looks like Candy, DEA Administrator Ann Milgram told CBS News, in fact, some of the drug traffickers have nicknamed it sweet tarts, skittles.

01:15:45.000 The DEA alert didn't mention Halloween, but fears about rainbow fentanyl and the holiday went viral.

01:15:53.000 DEA warning meets skepticism from drug experts.

01:15:56.000 Drug policy experts contacted by NPR agree there's no new fentanyl threat this Halloween.

01:16:02.000 Many are also skeptical of the DEA's original warning.

01:16:05.000 They don't believe that Mexican drug cartels and street dealers have launched any new campaign targeting children.

01:16:10.000 I don't see any evidence that the DEA has produced that supports that conjecture.

01:16:16.000 I don't think they're targeting children.

01:16:18.000 I think the fact that they are making these things in pastel colors make children vulnerable to picking these things up.

01:16:26.000 You want to argue over the word targeting?

01:16:30.000 If a child picks up something that, you know, I said that young girl that I was talking about took three quarters of a pill, or one quarter of a pill, And three-quarters of it was left in her drawer.

01:16:46.000 If she has a younger sister or something that sees that, picks it up, and it looks like candy and eats it, she's gone.

01:16:56.000 I'm not saying they're targeting.

01:16:58.000 I don't care if you use the word targeting or not.

01:17:01.000 It's dangerous.

01:17:04.000 And I'm just saying, you know my grandkids.

01:17:10.000 They won't be getting any candy out of that And it's not that anywhere they're going is going to be giving out fentanyl to kids.

01:17:18.000 It's just they don't know where it's coming from.

01:17:21.000 Yeah, you're not getting it from a store.

01:17:25.000 And that makes it dangerous.

01:17:28.000 My point is, if you're in school and you're studying for finals and you're not a drug addict and you think, well, one pill's not going to hurt, that's no longer true.

01:17:43.000 You may be thinking, I'll get some Adderall, get me through my finals.

01:17:48.000 That could be a fatal decision.

01:17:50.000 It won't be an overdose, it'll be a poisoning.

01:17:53.000 It's very dangerous.

01:17:56.000 And if you're getting it from someone other than a pharmacy, there's a high possibility.

01:18:04.000 Well, the DEA's belief is that all of the pills that you're getting on social media are counterfeit.

01:18:13.000 And that as much as 40% of them have Fatal doses of fentanyl, lethal doses of fentanyl because they're so unsophisticated in their mix. 0.98

01:18:26.000 So it's not a matter of poisoning as much as it's a matter of they don't give a fuck and they're just... 0.97

01:18:32.000 I mean, they're not like accredited labs. 0.99

01:18:34.000 These people are just mixing shit up and... 0.99

01:18:36.000 They're making this stuff up in a bathtub. 1.00

01:18:38.000 They're making it up in a...

01:18:40.000 You know, mixing it up and then they're putting it in a pill press and letting it dry and shipping it over here.

01:18:47.000 They...

01:18:50.000 Today on CNN, they said they arrested some, it was either CNN or Fox, one of the two, they arrested some 14-year-olds coming across the border and they had a couple of thousand pills on them.

01:19:09.000 And who knows where it came from?

01:19:11.000 Who knows what else is in it?

01:19:13.000 And that will find its way to the market, a fair amount of it, through street dealers and the rest of it through social media.

01:19:22.000 It's dangerous.

01:19:23.000 You couldn't hold a gun on me and get me to take something I bought on the internet.

01:19:33.000 And I just think people need to be aware of it.

01:19:35.000 And if you think that it's an overreaction, an overstatement...

01:19:39.000 How could it be?

01:19:40.000 How could it be when you're talking about the number one killer of people 18 to 49?

01:19:44.000 Or 18 to 45, whatever the statistic is.

01:19:47.000 Yeah, that's terrifying.

01:19:51.000 It is terrifying.

01:19:52.000 And this is not something that we had to think about just 10, 15 years ago.

01:19:55.000 No, and...

01:19:57.000 And I don't know how much press that's getting.

01:20:00.000 It's not getting enough.

01:20:03.000 It's starting to get some attention, and there's something called carfentanil.

01:20:09.000 And that is more powerful than fentanyl.

01:20:12.000 Jesus Christ.

01:20:13.000 And it's been around since the 50s, and they were using that on animals.

01:20:18.000 Jamie will pull up carfentanil, I'm sure, in a fast hurry.

01:20:23.000 But...

01:20:25.000 And look, I just...

01:20:27.000 My expertise in this is that I deal with the parents when they're heartbroken over a dead teen.

01:20:37.000 I'm not a chemist.

01:20:38.000 I'm not a physician.

01:20:40.000 I don't...

01:20:40.000 I can't tell you about all that.

01:20:43.000 What I can tell you is I deal with the heartbreak of the families after the fact.

01:20:46.000 And so I know it's real.

01:20:50.000 And I deal with these...

01:20:55.000 Guys with the DEA and law enforcement that tell me that it is a major, major problem on the street.

01:21:06.000 And it scares the hell out of me.

01:21:10.000 As it should.

01:21:12.000 Yeah.

01:21:12.000 Yeah, it scares the hell out of me too.

01:21:15.000 And again, it's not like these things are going to get better.

01:21:18.000 These things seem to escalate.

01:21:20.000 And, you know, we're talking about all these problems that we're facing in the world right now that didn't exist just a couple of decades ago.

01:21:27.000 And you got to wonder a couple of decades from now, what does this look like?

01:21:35.000 Yeah, it really comes down to we have big enough problems that affect all Americans that those, you were saying, is it going to take something major for us to say,

01:21:51.000 you know what, we're all in this together, and I think those things are here, I just don't think they're being acknowledged.

01:22:00.000 Because if I have somebody come on the show to me, they know I can't bring that child back.

01:22:08.000 They know I can't stop their suffering.

01:22:13.000 They come on as a cautionary tale.

01:22:17.000 They say, I don't want my child's loss to be in vain.

01:22:22.000 I'm here to tell this story because I want to save some lives.

01:22:29.000 That's why they're there.

01:22:30.000 That's why they're talking through their tears and giving a voice to their loss because they don't want somebody else to be there tomorrow.

01:22:38.000 And they don't care.

01:22:41.000 They're not there saying...

01:22:43.000 I'm a Democrat, I'm a Republican, I'm left, I'm right.

01:22:46.000 They're there saying, I'm a parent and I don't want anybody's child to die from this.

01:22:52.000 And we have enough of those things that I think we need to pay attention to and every mother Every mother bonds over that.

01:23:02.000 They understand the pain of that.

01:23:06.000 And I really hope people hear us talking about it.

01:23:10.000 Well, I'm sure people will hear it, and I think the message is getting out slowly, but it's just not being magnified enough.

01:23:20.000 I mean, the crisis that we faced during COVID-19 was magnified to the point of hysteria.

01:23:31.000 To the point where they're counting people dying of all sorts of diseases and calling them COVID deaths and elevating the amount of people that died to the point where people are absolutely terrified of it.

01:23:40.000 If they had applied a similar attention to this, I think we could at least put a dent in it.

01:23:47.000 But in terms of what the DEA is doing, in terms of what law enforcement's doing, I mean, they need more resources. 0.99

01:23:54.000 They need more help to try to stop this shit from coming in. 0.99

01:23:59.000 Well, they do. 0.99

01:24:01.000 And are you familiar with a guy named Dimitri Christakis?

01:24:08.000 No.

01:24:09.000 He's a pediatric epidemiologist.

01:24:12.000 And he really looks at the long...

01:24:17.000 Run of pediatrics as they grow up and what affects them in later years, what happens early that affects them in later years.

01:24:29.000 And he's a brilliant, brilliant scientist.

01:24:34.000 And he says what's happened with He'd be a great, interesting guy for you to talk to.

01:24:45.000 I've interviewed him three or four times.

01:24:50.000 He says that what's happened with the handling of the pandemic is going to amount to millions of years of lives lost with these kids that are in school now.

01:25:04.000 Millions of years of lives lost.

01:25:07.000 What do you mean by that?

01:25:08.000 Well, what he's talking about is that because of the educational gap That's been created by the pandemic because of the social developmental gap that's been created with the competitive gap that's been created,

01:25:29.000 developmental, competitive, educational, that this generation is going to lag behind.

01:25:35.000 And like, for example, if you're not reading on grade level at the end of the third grade, your likelihood of dropping out is four times normal.

01:25:49.000 And the reason for that is, for the first, second, and third grade, you're learning to read.

01:25:55.000 From the fourth grade on, you're reading to learn.

01:25:59.000 So, if you haven't learned to read in those first three years, you now don't have the tool to read to learn and so you start falling further and further behind and so your likelihood of throwing up your hands in frustration falling further behind each year and ultimately dropping out and if you're low socioeconomic It's

01:26:32.000 six times normal.

01:26:34.000 But he's saying that these kids that got so little And lost so much in math, reading, and science during the pandemic with this remote learning, which was a disaster, that they're going to have less educational attainment,

01:26:53.000 which means they're going to get lesser jobs.

01:26:59.000 Lesser jobs are more dangerous jobs because they're more manual labor.

01:27:05.000 They're doing construction work, things where you can get injured.

01:27:10.000 They're going to have lesser insurance.

01:27:14.000 And so you get less treatment, slower diagnosis, more injuries, and other factors, but as that obtains, that will take years off their life at the end.

01:27:31.000 They might develop cancer, but because they have poor insurance, it might be slower to get it diagnosed, lesser treatment, so it advances further and takes years off their life.

01:27:46.000 They get injured, stressed, trauma, and so it may take You know, two years, three years, four years off of each kid's life.

01:27:58.000 And we've got 57 million kids in the public school system right now.

01:28:02.000 I read something that confused me.

01:28:05.000 Maybe you can help me with this.

01:28:06.000 Because they were saying about Los Angeles, people were criticizing the response to the pandemic in terms of remote schooling and making kids wear masks.

01:28:18.000 They were saying that math scores went up.

01:28:22.000 And I didn't understand how that could be possible.

01:28:27.000 I haven't heard anything like that about any school system in Los Angeles, which was particularly draconian in their response.

01:28:35.000 They were trying to say that math scores went up.

01:28:40.000 Have you heard anything like that?

01:28:42.000 I have not.

01:28:43.000 Can you find something about that?

01:28:45.000 I just typed in Los Angeles math scores and all I see is it's down.

01:28:48.000 Yeah, well, are people just lying?

01:28:50.000 Low math, reading test scores, but it's California, not Los Angeles specific, but it's lots of articles saying this.

01:28:58.000 Yeah.

01:28:59.000 Steep decline, sharp drop.

01:29:01.000 That's what I thought.

01:29:01.000 People were arguing about this on Twitter because some pundit was talking about the response to the pandemic and how it affected school kids and, you know, all the...

01:29:14.000 Can I say peanut gallery?

01:29:15.000 They were chiming in, and they were saying that scores were actually, Los Angeles scores were going up.

01:29:22.000 I can't see anything that says that.

01:29:23.000 Results of California's first statewide test since COVID are, click on that, LAist right there, yeah.

01:29:31.000 See what it says?

01:29:32.000 Are back.

01:29:33.000 Find out how your SoCal school fared.

01:29:35.000 Oh, so it's just like individual schools.

01:29:39.000 Well, I've certainly not.

01:29:42.000 Well, that looks like a decline in every single chart.

01:29:44.000 Yeah, math results specific here is down.

01:29:46.000 Yeah, in every one of them, in every county, there's a decline, a very noticeable decline from 2019 to 2022. So what the fuck are these people talking about? 0.98

01:29:55.000 I'll check Twitter and see if I can find what they're talking about. 1.00

01:29:58.000 It might just be fucking propaganda. 0.98

01:30:00.000 It's so dangerous, some of the gaslighting that you're seeing. 0.99

01:30:04.000 I saw people gaslighting about...

01:30:05.000 I'm sure you saw that debate between Dr. Oz and that guy Fetterman for the Pennsylvania Senate.

01:30:11.000 And the gentleman Fetterman had a stroke five months ago.

01:30:15.000 And he's clearly compromised to the point where while he's communicating...

01:30:21.000 He's not just stumbling.

01:30:23.000 He's kind of lost in thought and can't form a coherent sentence and bounces around from my...

01:30:29.000 He looks troubled.

01:30:31.000 And I was watching MSNBC and they were trying to say, well, I mess up sometimes when I talk and, you know, I misspeak and I stumble on my words.

01:30:41.000 Of course you do.

01:30:41.000 Everybody does.

01:30:42.000 We're human.

01:30:42.000 I do it all the time.

01:30:43.000 But there's a big difference between the overall one-hour debate.

01:30:47.000 You're looking at a guy Who seems to have something really wrong with his brain?

01:30:52.000 And for you to gaslight and pretend that's not the case just because it doesn't fit with your narrative, that's not news. 0.99

01:30:59.000 That's propaganda, and it's fucking dangerous. 0.95

01:31:02.000 Yeah, I hate to see them do that. 0.97

01:31:08.000 I haven't done any testing on Fetterman or President Biden, but it seems to me that President Biden is not at his best and that Federman is not at his best.

01:31:28.000 That's being very charitable.

01:31:29.000 And I don't hold that against Federman.

01:31:31.000 He had a stroke.

01:31:33.000 Exactly.

01:31:34.000 Seems unfair to put him in that position.

01:31:37.000 It really does.

01:31:38.000 And I'm not...

01:31:39.000 Trying to be unkind.

01:31:40.000 He had a stroke.

01:31:41.000 I mean, the poor guy, he had a stroke and he's going to have to rehabilitate.

01:31:46.000 And I hope he's able to do that.

01:31:49.000 But why did they think that they could put him out there on a huge stage like that?

01:31:55.000 There's interviews before that showed this, where he used a teleprompter during interviews, where when he was asked questions, he was allowed to look at a screen and read his responses off, and even then he struggled.

01:32:10.000 He struggled to form coherent sentences while having the responses to each individual question laid out for him in a way that he could read.

01:32:18.000 And this is not against the guy.

01:32:20.000 I don't know anything about this guy.

01:32:22.000 I really don't.

01:32:23.000 I just know he's the Democrat candidate. 0.99

01:32:25.000 But what you're seeing is a guy who's got a problem with his brain.

01:32:29.000 That guy should be rehabilitating.

01:32:31.000 He shouldn't be getting forced into an incredibly high-stress job in a public display where, you know, it's humiliating.

01:32:40.000 Well, I think he shows great courage to get up there and do it.

01:32:45.000 Most certainly.

01:32:46.000 But, I mean, just ask yourself, let's say you were getting on an airplane and the airline pilot had a similar cognitive impairment.

01:33:00.000 Would you get on?

01:33:02.000 No.

01:33:02.000 Well, hell no.

01:33:03.000 Is there some sort of...

01:33:06.000 What do they do?

01:33:08.000 Like, is there some sort of a protocol that's in place if someone is the candidate and something bad happens to them like this?

01:33:17.000 You don't just have no one.

01:33:20.000 Like, if he died from that stroke, would they have no Democratic candidate?

01:33:26.000 I don't know what it is in Pennsylvania.

01:33:28.000 Maybe they'd have a quick special election or something.

01:33:31.000 I don't know what the rule is.

01:33:32.000 That seems appropriate in this case.

01:33:35.000 Doesn't it?

01:33:36.000 I guess...

01:33:38.000 Would the other guy run unopposed?

01:33:41.000 That sounds crazy.

01:33:43.000 That doesn't sound right.

01:33:43.000 Because you can't have no one from the Democrats...

01:33:48.000 As a candidate for Senate, you have to have someone.

01:33:52.000 There's got to be a rule, right?

01:33:53.000 There should be a rule.

01:33:54.000 I don't know what it is.

01:33:55.000 This is not quite that, but close to it.

01:33:58.000 It's not that he died, but the man had a stroke.

01:34:02.000 This is not debatable.

01:34:04.000 He's been open about it.

01:34:05.000 And to force him into this sort of a situation while he's rehabilitating, I mean, you would be able to speak to this better than me.

01:34:12.000 I would think that this would be counter to any rehabilitative...

01:34:17.000 You know, treatments that he can have.

01:34:19.000 It's high stress, public, humiliating.

01:34:24.000 Well, stress is the worst possible thing that you can do when you're trying to recover from some kind of brain event like this.

01:34:37.000 I don't know what kind of stroke he had.

01:34:39.000 I don't know what part of the brain it was in.

01:34:41.000 But I can tell you, you want to give the brain an opportunity to recover and And I don't know what his age is, but there's something called neuroplasticity.

01:34:54.000 And that doesn't go up with age, it goes down.

01:34:57.000 And you need to have time to recover and let different parts of the brain take over for parts of the brain that maybe have been impaired.

01:35:07.000 And I don't know how severe it was.

01:35:10.000 I don't know what part of the brain it was in.

01:35:13.000 But it can't be good to be putting him in this kind of situation.

01:35:19.000 I'm talking about just being...

01:35:22.000 Selfish on his behalf.

01:35:23.000 Don't know what his politics are.

01:35:25.000 Right, right.

01:35:26.000 That's exactly what I'm saying.

01:35:27.000 We're not talking about politics.

01:35:28.000 We're talking about a human being.

01:35:30.000 Yeah.

01:35:30.000 And they talk about President Biden all the time.

01:35:33.000 I mean, he's 80. And he does make a lot of gaffes.

01:35:41.000 I hope I'm that well at 80. But I don't know that I would...

01:35:48.000 I don't want that much stress of a job at 80. At 80 I hope I'm out fishing or something.

01:35:54.000 But I think when I hear people spin certain things like that from my standpoint that has in the past assessed cognitive functioning I just shake my head and say What are you talking about?

01:36:18.000 Right.

01:36:19.000 But it was painful to watch Fetterman.

01:36:23.000 I felt really bad for him.

01:36:25.000 Yeah, I felt bad for him too.

01:36:27.000 And again, I don't know anything about the guy.

01:36:28.000 I don't know anything about his politics.

01:36:30.000 He may be a great guy for Pennsylvania or what?

01:36:33.000 I have no idea what his...

01:36:35.000 I think it's a little hokey that they keep trotting him out with a hoodie on.

01:36:39.000 Wears like a Carhartt hoodie.

01:36:40.000 Like, I'm a man of the people.

01:36:42.000 Come on.

01:36:43.000 Wear a suit, buddy.

01:36:46.000 How Los Angeles beat the national odds to overcome school shutdowns and make academic gains during the pandemic. 0.98

01:36:52.000 Well, that's not according to that fucking chart we just looked at. 0.95

01:36:54.000 It said it was down across the board, but they had the most gains or something. 1.00

01:36:58.000 Oh, shit. 1.00

01:37:01.000 Oh, they're using horseshit fucking reasoning. 1.00

01:37:04.000 It's compared to others. 1.00

01:37:06.000 Well, you can't fall off the floor.

01:37:08.000 It was terrible nationally.

01:37:11.000 The losses in all of those areas...

01:37:20.000 But among the 50 states and 26 large city districts, it was the only place to post such gains on the exams, according to a federal analysis.

01:37:27.000 The data was so good, the Los Angeles Superintendent Alberto Cavallo referring to his district results.

01:37:34.000 It bodes very well for our LA and is really a testament to our strategy. 1.00

01:37:40.000 The fuck? 0.99

01:37:42.000 Combination of makeup classes and high attendance rates for online lessons contributed to the resilience of his district. 1.00

01:37:50.000 Boy, that's a fucking... 0.99

01:37:53.000 Which commands a budget of nearly 20 billion dollars. 1.00

01:37:58.000 Holy shit. 0.99

01:38:00.000 Yeah, we're amazing. 0.99

01:38:02.000 Los Angeles also fared relatively well with remote learning.

01:38:05.000 Relatively well is hilarious.

01:38:08.000 Mr. Cavallo said, due to a program that gave internet hotspots to families who needed them during school shutdowns.

01:38:14.000 This sounds like a rose-colored glasses view of the world.

01:38:18.000 I don't want to be one of those people that criticizes and doesn't offer a solution.

01:38:27.000 That's what I do.

01:38:28.000 I'm not a professional educator, but I do have an opinion and people can shoot it full of holes if they want to.

01:38:40.000 We've got a gap.

01:38:41.000 I don't think anybody would disagree that we have a gap.

01:38:44.000 And the only way to close that gap is to put in the extra work.

01:38:50.000 And the only way to put in the extra work is to put in the time.

01:38:56.000 And what's going to have to happen is we're going to have to change the school calendar.

01:39:01.000 And the kids are going to have to go to school during the summer, and they're going to have to have very concentrated focus protocol on reading and math and science.

01:39:12.000 And if I was a kid, I would hate to hear what I'm saying because I lived for summer, waited to get out of there so we could go do nothing.

01:39:21.000 Yeah.

01:39:22.000 But I also remember after three or four weeks we were kind of bored to death.

01:39:27.000 But they're going to have to just put in the time.

01:39:30.000 And there's a big problem right now because there's a huge shortage of teachers.

01:39:35.000 And they're dropping out.

01:39:39.000 Teachers aren't continuing to teach as long as they have in the past.

01:39:43.000 We don't pay them enough.

01:39:46.000 To teach, and it's hard to recruit teachers.

01:39:50.000 There are fewer teachers enrolling in education when they go in for their bachelor's degrees.

01:39:56.000 Some states, like Arizona, are doing these stopgap measures where you don't have to have a teaching credential to go in and teach.

01:40:06.000 You can just go in and teach.

01:40:08.000 They're just getting anybody, not just anybody, but they're getting people in there.

01:40:13.000 Their theory is they're bringing in experts from computer technology and bringing in people from Microsoft and different areas to teach with their special knowledge.

01:40:25.000 But I have a hard time thinking that somebody making seven figures at Microsoft is going to stop that and come teach for An average of four or five dollars an hour when you compute a teacher's time in the classroom.

01:40:40.000 The theory doesn't bode well for what you find online. 0.77

01:40:43.000 I'm sure you saw that teacher in the shop class in Washington State that had the giant rubber boobs. 1.00

01:40:54.000 Yeah. 0.94

01:40:55.000 That's what I'm talking about, common sense.

01:40:58.000 First of all, you can't even wear a scarf if you're teaching woodworking.

01:41:04.000 Yeah, you're going to get in a circle saw. 0.56

01:41:07.000 Yeah, you're going to either get strangled to death or get your face dragged into a saw.

01:41:13.000 They always said we couldn't wear this or wear that because it was a distraction or whatever, but that's okay? 0.99

01:41:19.000 That's insane.

01:41:20.000 That's insane if it was actual breasts that were that large. 1.00

01:41:25.000 Like, how did that happen?

01:41:27.000 But if that's rubber prosthetic breasts that a biological male is strapping on like a Halloween costume and going in and teaching kids while wearing a mask, that's crazy.

01:41:40.000 And then the school is defending it.

01:41:43.000 Well, they're defending it because they're afraid not to.

01:41:47.000 Yeah, which is – I mean, what has to happen?

01:41:51.000 Do they have to be afraid to defend it?

01:41:53.000 Does it have to be something where there's consequences to defend it, where people start pulling their kids out of classes and defunding the school?

01:42:00.000 Like, what has to happen to let people know that, hey, you've gone way too far into crazy town?

01:42:07.000 Well, what happens is phobic has become a suffix.

01:42:16.000 And so you say, okay, if you don't defend that, you are transphobic. 0.91

01:42:22.000 You are homophobic. 0.98

01:42:24.000 You are this phobic, just blank phobic. 0.99

01:42:28.000 And then you become...

01:42:31.000 A target for the cancel culture. 0.80

01:42:35.000 And I think that does not make common sense.

01:42:40.000 I think you've got the tail wagging the dog and you're putting an individual's interest ahead of the group of children.

01:42:48.000 What's fascinating, too, is that it's a small percentage of the population that's engaging in this sort of activity, and they're shifting culture because people have this fear of going against them.

01:42:59.000 It's not the majority of people think that this makes sense.

01:43:06.000 I can't believe that person, whoever that person is, thinks it makes common sense.

01:43:13.000 They're making a statement.

01:43:14.000 I think what I read, and I don't know if this is true, but that person is kind of trolling.

01:43:21.000 And I think that person, what I read, was almost trying to get fired.

01:43:27.000 And did you read about that, Jamie?

01:43:30.000 I'm reading an update right now from a week ago.

01:43:32.000 It said before they went into this, Kayla Lemieux is the name they're going by now.

01:43:38.000 They had been on leave, and they showed up at a different school in this outfit.

01:43:44.000 And so I'm reading through right now what's going on with that.

01:43:47.000 So they had been on leave like they had been told to not come back?

01:43:53.000 General leave during winter-spring semester of this year and was the last time he was seen by the Hamilton board.

01:44:00.000 Did you say he?

01:44:01.000 I'm reading what this says.

01:44:03.000 I'm reading what this says.

01:44:03.000 I'm just reading what it says in the article.

01:44:05.000 Be careful.

01:44:06.000 I'm quoting.

01:44:07.000 It's a quote.

01:44:09.000 Life quote.

01:44:09.000 One of the girls who threw the soup at the Van Gogh the other day, Patrick Bette David interviewed her, and he goes, may I ask your pronouns?

01:44:18.000 And she said, she, he, they.

01:44:27.000 Was she trolling? 0.99

01:44:29.000 No, she was fucking serious. 0.98

01:44:30.000 The other one was they, them, and this one girl was she, he, they. 0.98

01:44:40.000 This is the kind of logic that a person would throw soup on an incredibly valuable piece of art and then glue themselves to a wall to make a statement.

01:44:52.000 You could be everything you want to be, kids.

01:44:53.000 You could be a she, he, they. 1.00

01:44:56.000 Well, my question, I guess, for anyone that would be watching this is, is there a point That would be too far.

01:45:10.000 Is there a point where the transgender community or the school or anybody would agree that something has gone too far, that now the children's interest has been violated,

01:45:26.000 that it doesn't make common sense?

01:45:28.000 If this is not it, what's too far?

01:45:31.000 Right.

01:45:33.000 What is too far?

01:45:35.000 Has anybody asked that question?

01:45:36.000 I don't think they do.

01:45:38.000 I think the people want to be able to choose how they want to be represented, how they identify, and they should have full freedom to do that in any way, shape, or form.

01:45:49.000 Non-binary, he, she, they, they, them, all norms should be cast out. 1.00

01:46:00.000 Well, I would just ask that question in that situation, because I think, does that not disrupt the learning process?

01:46:10.000 It does because it gives people extraordinary amounts of attention for something very simple.

01:46:14.000 You just decide you want to be recognized as this, and you make everybody else change the way they view you and communicate with you.

01:46:22.000 You are now a they-them, which is plural. 0.96

01:46:25.000 It doesn't even make sense.

01:46:27.000 Like, if you can say that you're a girl, you're a boy, but you identify as a girl, yeah, gender dysphoria is a real thing, you know?

01:46:37.000 We probably shouldn't have a problem with that.

01:46:39.000 You want to change your name?

01:46:40.000 Probably shouldn't have a problem with that.

01:46:41.000 If you want to be representative as a plural, that's very weird. 0.95

01:46:46.000 Like, now you're fucking with the meaning of language.

01:46:51.000 Well, is that person still employed? 0.98

01:46:53.000 I think so.

01:46:55.000 Really?

01:46:56.000 They're still going to... 0.97

01:46:57.000 I don't know if they still have the big rubber boobs, but... 1.00

01:46:59.000 I hadn't followed it, so I didn't know.

01:47:01.000 I don't know.

01:47:03.000 But the school district, or the school was, at least initially, was supporting they.

01:47:11.000 Them.

01:47:18.000 Where's this go, Dr. Phil?

01:47:20.000 This is the question.

01:47:21.000 How do we turn this ship around or right it?

01:47:26.000 The thing is like the pendulum effect.

01:47:28.000 Things go too far one way and then they come back and it kind of makes sense in the middle somewhere.

01:47:32.000 So how do we do that?

01:47:34.000 How do we get more inclusive, open-minded society but also not completely tank civilization because of overindulgence?

01:47:43.000 Well, you know what?

01:47:45.000 I believe that There have to be people on both sides of that issue who would say, is this in the best interest of this segment of the population?

01:48:01.000 That can't be good We're good to go.

01:48:07.000 We're good to go.

01:48:16.000 We're good to go.

01:48:19.000 Respected and have their rights protected and to fit into the mainstream and flow with what's going on and to do something like this kind of example.

01:48:39.000 I can't believe that there aren't people on both sides of that issue would say, this isn't helping the discourse.

01:48:50.000 That this is turning it into a...

01:48:56.000 It's making it about this one person and detracts from the dialogue about saying is there some common ground here that everybody can live with, be who they want to be, and move on.

01:49:09.000 That just doesn't make sense.

01:49:12.000 And that's what I worry sometimes about taking such a militant approach of trying to win an argument instead of solve a problem.

01:49:21.000 Yeah.

01:49:23.000 And it doesn't make sense to me if anybody would go to a marketing company or a PR firm and say,

01:49:39.000 what's your objective?

01:49:41.000 What do you want?

01:49:43.000 Let's figure out how to get you what you want.

01:49:45.000 I don't think this would be on the short list of approaches.

01:49:49.000 No, I don't.

01:49:50.000 But I think it's just individuals who are very self-indulgent who want to stand out.

01:49:58.000 And I don't think they're thinking about the greater good of any cause.

01:50:01.000 Well, that's what I mean.

01:50:02.000 It becomes about that person.

01:50:04.000 And I think there have to be those in the transgender community that would say, I don't think you're helping this here.

01:50:11.000 Well, I think there most certainly are.

01:50:13.000 But I think they fear standing out, too, and stepping out of line and criticizing this.

01:50:21.000 I think it's important that you consistently test the rationality of your thoughts all the time.

01:50:28.000 And there's four simple ways to do that.

01:50:29.000 Is this in my best interest?

01:50:31.000 Is it based on fact?

01:50:32.000 Does it get me what I want?

01:50:33.000 Does it prolong my life?

01:50:35.000 You have to test your thoughts all the time for rationality.

01:50:39.000 And I say that to people.

01:50:42.000 If people would do that, I don't think they would be so prone to...

01:50:47.000 Self-harm, suicide.

01:50:51.000 We're not teaching these things in school.

01:50:54.000 We're not teaching much in school, it seems like right now.

01:50:57.000 We've got so many kids that can't read and other things.

01:51:01.000 But you've got to teach people how to think sometimes.

01:51:04.000 We're not telling you what to think, we're teaching you how to think.

01:51:08.000 Test your thoughts.

01:51:09.000 Is this rational?

01:51:11.000 Is it in my best interest? 1.00

01:51:13.000 I'm thinking here about going and telling my teacher to jump up my ass. 0.99

01:51:16.000 Is that in your best interest? 0.99

01:51:18.000 Does it get you what you want?

01:51:20.000 Does it protect and prolong your life?

01:51:22.000 I don't think people think like that.

01:51:23.000 But we need to teach them to do that.

01:51:25.000 That's especially exacerbated by social media, I think.

01:51:29.000 This world that we live in now is about getting attention.

01:51:32.000 It's about doing TikTok stunts and pranks and finding a way to get likes and clicks.

01:51:41.000 We've got too many people being quiet so other people can be comfortable.

01:51:46.000 That's a great statement.

01:51:47.000 We really do.

01:51:48.000 That's a great statement.

01:51:51.000 Just look around.

01:51:52.000 We've got too many people being quiet so other people can be comfortable.

01:51:55.000 That doesn't work for the big population. 0.55

01:52:03.000 They're just caving.

01:52:04.000 And it doesn't seem like this is...

01:52:07.000 A real leadership in this country where someone stands out and says things like that and then offers up logical, rational solutions that maybe can affect and change the way people view these things.

01:52:20.000 We don't have anybody like that.

01:52:22.000 It's certainly not Biden.

01:52:25.000 And it's certainly not Kamala Harris or anyone else that's running the government currently.

01:52:30.000 And it's not Trump either. 0.60

01:52:31.000 I don't know who the hell it is.

01:52:33.000 But we don't have We don't just not have a good leader in terms of economic policy and energy policy.

01:52:43.000 We don't have a good leader in terms of the tone of the nation.

01:52:47.000 One of the things that I loved about Obama was when that guy talked, you go, well, that's a statesman.

01:52:53.000 That's a...

01:52:55.000 A brilliant, articulate man who represents the best qualities of what we'd expect from the United States.

01:53:03.000 Like, that guy's measured, and he's very calm, and when he talks, you go, well, that's a great president.

01:53:11.000 He seems like what a president should be.

01:53:13.000 Yeah, he was very presidential.

01:53:15.000 Yes.

01:53:15.000 We don't have that.

01:53:16.000 We don't have someone who can speak logically to people and inspire them to sort of like reassess the way they're addressing things.

01:53:23.000 Yeah.

01:53:26.000 It all starts with listening to other people.

01:53:32.000 It's interesting.

01:53:33.000 If you listen to the FBI and you listen to their negotiators, if somebody's taken hostages, they will tell you That the number one predictor of whether somebody is going to release their hostages or not is if they believe that you have heard and understood why they took those hostages to begin with.

01:54:00.000 Particularly if it's for political, ideological reasons or whatever.

01:54:07.000 You can come in there and what do you want?

01:54:09.000 But until they believe that you actually understand Why they took them to begin with.

01:54:19.000 They want to be heard.

01:54:20.000 They want to be seen.

01:54:22.000 They want to be understood.

01:54:22.000 And once they believe you get it, your chances of ever getting them out of there alive go way, way up.

01:54:29.000 That makes sense.

01:54:30.000 And they'll tell you that.

01:54:31.000 And that's what I've been saying is...

01:54:35.000 We've got to get people on both sides of this division to really listen and understand why the other side feels the way they do. 0.98

01:54:46.000 Not just, you know, you're crazy, you're this, you're that.

01:54:49.000 Just, why do they feel that way so strongly? 0.95

01:54:53.000 Right.

01:54:54.000 And if you understand why they feel that way so strongly, then maybe there's another way to get them what they want.

01:55:02.000 But we're not doing that.

01:55:04.000 It's spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin.

01:55:07.000 That never closes the gap.

01:55:12.000 Nobody's listening to each other.

01:55:15.000 If that changes, then we got a chance of closing the gap.

01:55:20.000 But until we do, that's not going to happen.

01:55:25.000 That's a great perspective.

01:55:26.000 That's a great thought to put out there.

01:55:30.000 And that's something that very few people, even when they're saying things to people, they don't think about how the other person is receiving that. 1.00

01:55:39.000 One of the things that people love to say to people, they love to say, shut the fuck up. 0.99

01:55:43.000 No one hears shut the fuck up and wants to shut the fuck up. 0.99

01:55:48.000 But if you tell someone, the way you're talking to me right now makes me not want to listen to you because you're being insulting and you're expressing something in a way that makes me think that you don't care about me, so why should I care about you? 0.99

01:56:01.000 That makes people pause.

01:56:04.000 And if they're rational, maybe they'll say, okay, you tell me what you think and I'll tell you what I think.

01:56:10.000 And let's try to find some sort of comfortable middle ground.

01:56:13.000 Let's try to find things that we do agree on.

01:56:17.000 And we have to teach people to think and talk like that.

01:56:19.000 Well, the biggest giveaway is if they start talking the second you stop, because that means they weren't listening to you while you were talking.

01:56:27.000 They were thinking of what they were going to say when you quit.

01:56:29.000 Yeah.

01:56:30.000 And nobody's that smart.

01:56:34.000 Nobody's that smart.

01:56:35.000 They need to hear what you had to say.

01:56:37.000 Right.

01:56:38.000 And they got to weigh that.

01:56:41.000 Say, okay, now, here's what I have to say about what you just said.

01:56:45.000 Yeah.

01:56:46.000 But if they're, the second you finish talking, they say, but, no, you weren't, you were forming what you were going to say while I was talking.

01:56:54.000 You weren't listening to what I was saying.

01:56:56.000 Right.

01:56:57.000 But people kind of do both, don't they?

01:56:59.000 You kind of also form what you're going to say at the same time as you listen.

01:57:05.000 Only if you're on script.

01:57:09.000 If you've got six or seven talking points and you're going to spit them out no matter what the hell they say, yeah, you can come back right quick.

01:57:15.000 But if you're going to really listen to what they have to say and weigh it, take it apart, unpack that, and then respond, you've got to hear what they had to say.

01:57:24.000 And you've got to do it with minimal ego, which is very difficult for people.

01:57:28.000 Because as we were saying before, people attach themselves to winning an argument.

01:57:31.000 And whatever their position is, they identify with that.

01:57:35.000 That's a part of them.

01:57:36.000 And if you pick apart their argument, you're actually picking apart a part of their being.

01:57:41.000 And that's how they defend it.

01:57:43.000 They defend it as if almost like their life depends on it.

01:57:46.000 You can't be married to an idea.

01:57:48.000 It can't be a thing that you can't let go of.

01:57:51.000 It has to be just an idea.

01:57:53.000 You might agree with that idea and believe in that idea, or you might be educated by someone's perspective that's counter to that idea that makes you reassess.

01:58:05.000 You've got to be open to that, just as a human being.

01:58:10.000 You said something really smart in there, because I was listening.

01:58:14.000 You said something really smart in there, and it goes even beyond what you said.

01:58:18.000 You said you can't be married to an idea.

01:58:21.000 You sure as hell can't be married to an idea or a group who has ideas, some of which you may like and some of which you don't like, because you've got to be willing to say, you know what?

01:58:39.000 You have some really good points here, and I can agree with those, and we can move a little closer together here.

01:58:52.000 And I hate it when people say, but, because but means, forget everything I just said, I'm going to now tell you what I really think.

01:58:58.000 Like, hey, that was a great point, but...

01:59:02.000 But means that wasn't really a great point.

01:59:04.000 Now I'm going to tell you what I really think about what you said.

01:59:08.000 If people will really decide, look, I have some things that if we can agree with what each other is saying,

01:59:24.000 independent of everything that's behind it, And just talk about right now, what's between us right now, then we could maybe come up with a whole new point of view that doesn't have anything to do with your party, your party,

01:59:40.000 anybody's party.

01:59:42.000 People are going to listen to what you and I have been talking about today.

01:59:46.000 And some people are going to listen to it and say, hey, you know, these are two friends talking and they've kind of gone through some stuff and And then there are going to be people that are going to sit down, and they're going to transcribe this, and they're going to try to find ways to pick at it,

02:00:03.000 attack it, and then there will be headlines tomorrow.

02:00:07.000 Dr. Phil says this.

02:00:08.000 Joe says this.

02:00:12.000 What good does that do?

02:00:15.000 It does good for them because it gets them to, you know, there's a lot of people listening, right?

02:00:19.000 And a lot of people that are listening, they disagree and they don't have a voice.

02:00:24.000 That's why I understand those articles.

02:00:25.000 What I don't understand is when people take things out of context or they abbreviate, they chop it up and take a slice of it and misrepresent the entirety.

02:00:37.000 of the conversation, where you're trying to find solutions and you're trying to work through things and look at it from all sorts of different sides and say, what do we do?

02:00:45.000 How do we do this?

02:00:46.000 What's the problem?

02:00:47.000 These are problems.

02:00:48.000 What causes these problems?

02:00:49.000 And some people have differing opinions on that and they don't have a voice right now.

02:00:53.000 And the problem with Writing something is that it's a very singular voice, and you get to write only the things that you think are going to be suitable to this argument that you're trying to make.

02:01:05.000 Yeah, they ride coattails. 0.99

02:01:07.000 Yes.

02:01:08.000 We do have audiences, so if they can get us in a headline, then they get to be heard.

02:01:12.000 Yes.

02:01:12.000 You know where I think people make big mistakes is, and not just us, on anybody.

02:01:19.000 They will alienate people over one statement that That actually might be basically an advocate.

02:01:28.000 Yes.

02:01:29.000 There might be somebody that might be an advocate.

02:01:33.000 And sometimes it isn't what they say.

02:01:35.000 It may be what they don't say.

02:01:37.000 Like, you might have said something about the big boob thing.

02:01:44.000 And somebody will say, well, when he said that, Dr. Phil didn't say A, B, or C. And so he's blah, blah.

02:01:57.000 So they may dog on you or dog on me when, in fact, they're alienating or running off somebody that's not their enemy at all.

02:02:09.000 I see them do that all the time.

02:02:13.000 I've seen them do it in the homeless situation with people I've had on the show that I happen to know Are very compassionate about those experiencing homelessness, very compassionate about trying to find answers here in Austin. 0.99

02:02:32.000 And they pick one sentence they said and just tear their ass up.

02:02:36.000 And they just really alienate a big ally that could help them a lot. 0.97

02:02:40.000 Why?

02:02:42.000 You need all the help you can get.

02:02:44.000 You do need all the help you can get.

02:02:45.000 But again, I think part of the problem is that those people, they want to get eyes on the article, and it's a good way to do it.

02:02:52.000 Make it click-baity. 0.79

02:02:54.000 But also, again, like I said, they don't have...

02:02:57.000 They're not here.

02:02:58.000 They can't contribute.

02:03:00.000 They can't jump in with their opinion.

02:03:03.000 So this is the only way they can do it.

02:03:05.000 They have to write something after the fact.

02:03:07.000 And I understand that.

02:03:09.000 And I get it if you have a very rigid ideology and these thoughts and our opinions, they oppose that ideology.

02:03:20.000 Listen, I'm never going to get, I hope, I'm never going to get too old to learn. 0.99

02:03:26.000 I learn shit every day. 0.99

02:03:29.000 That's healthy. 1.00

02:03:30.000 Somebody come educate me about something, tell me about something.

02:03:36.000 I'm all ears.

02:03:38.000 I'm all ears.

02:03:39.000 And there are some people...

02:03:41.000 That absolutely are not that way.

02:03:43.000 And I give myself credit for that.

02:03:46.000 Somebody wants to come teach me something I don't know, I'm all ears.

02:03:50.000 Come tell me.

02:03:51.000 But you better have your ducks in a row, and you better have empirical science to support it. 0.98

02:03:55.000 Don't just come give me some self-manufactured bullshit, because I'm going to want to know what the science is. 0.98

02:04:02.000 Yeah. 0.99

02:04:02.000 Because that's all I know. 0.99

02:04:04.000 I need to see the signs.

02:04:06.000 Like if you tell me that LA's school district just knocked it out of the park, you better have some numbers to support that if you expect me to stand up and salute it.

02:04:16.000 That seems like a self-serving narrative to me.

02:04:18.000 While looking at those charts, that steep downward decline from 2019 to 2021, it seems like the pandemic in terms of the educational system in particular was mishandled by everybody.

02:04:30.000 And if you're saying that L.A. did a good job in bumping it up past what other people have done since then, that's okay, but that doesn't mean that they haven't mishandled the pandemic as well.

02:04:39.000 You can't change what you don't acknowledge.

02:04:41.000 And if they're telling themselves that all of those kids in the L.A. school district are right there where they need to be, that's just not telling themselves the truth.

02:04:55.000 And it's also not serving the best interest of the students, which is to try to, like, a good narrative would be, we've made some progress, but clearly there's been a sharp decline in averages of scores, and we need to do something to bring it back to baseline and elevate it past where it was in particular,

02:05:14.000 because it wasn't substantial already.

02:05:17.000 You were talking about the decline in scores over the past decade or so already.

02:05:22.000 It was already on the downward slide.

02:05:25.000 And look, remote learning, come on.

02:05:28.000 Did you sit in on any of that stuff?

02:05:31.000 Yeah.

02:05:32.000 I sat in on some of it with my daughter.

02:05:35.000 I sat in the room and listened to this disinterested teacher trying to run this thing.

02:05:41.000 And it was...

02:05:43.000 I felt bad for her.

02:05:45.000 I felt bad for the kids that are there because...

02:05:48.000 That is not how kids engage with ideas and thoughts.

02:05:51.000 And it's like this lady was just doing the thing that she was supposed to do because that was her job and just barely engaged in it. 1.00

02:06:00.000 Well, they're not trained in that.

02:06:04.000 They're not trained in how to engage those kids remotely.

02:06:08.000 The kids don't know how to learn remotely and think about where you've got three or four kids in a one bedroom apartment in Philadelphia or Chicago or Dallas or somewhere and they've got a Right.

02:06:43.000 The Wi-Fi is freezing and going off and there's big gaps.

02:06:48.000 It's just terrible.

02:06:49.000 And also kids get so easily distracted.

02:06:53.000 It's so hard to get them engaged already when you're making them sit in the classroom.

02:06:57.000 When they're sitting alone in their room and they're bored and lonely and they just want to go play with their friends and they're not even allowed to do that.

02:07:05.000 Yeah, and they got a little Xbox over here on the side as they were playing.

02:07:10.000 I mean, it was a terrible situation.

02:07:14.000 And, you know, I think people did the best they could with what they had, but it just didn't work.

02:07:19.000 We need to acknowledge it didn't work, and we need to get back in the classrooms, and we need to close the gap.

02:07:24.000 And if we don't, these kids...

02:07:27.000 And look, this isn't speculation.

02:07:29.000 This has happened in other countries before and they've seen what the results were.

02:07:34.000 And we know it doesn't work.

02:07:36.000 We've got to close the gap.

02:07:38.000 It's going to cost a lot of money and it's going to take extra time and it's going to take extra teachers and we don't have them.

02:07:43.000 What country, what cities rather, or what states did the best in education during the pandemic?

02:07:50.000 Is there any data on that?

02:07:52.000 Did anybody handle it the best?

02:07:55.000 Was there any examples of students that didn't decline or didn't decline as much as others?

02:08:05.000 Is there anybody that they're pointing to?

02:08:07.000 I haven't heard anyone's argument on the right or the left that we did it right.

02:08:11.000 Whether it's Florida or Texas or New York or anywhere.

02:08:15.000 I haven't heard anyone say this was the correct response to doing that.

02:08:20.000 I've heard economically.

02:08:22.000 Right.

02:08:23.000 Economically, Florida and some of the states that let things open, they had substantially lower rates of attrition in terms of people moving out of the states, in terms of businesses closing.

02:08:36.000 There's definitely states that handled that better, and those are the states that people are moving to.

02:08:41.000 But in terms of education, I haven't heard any examples of someone who did it in a way that people are applauding or pointing to an example of how this is how we should handle this in the future because this state did it the right way.

02:08:54.000 Have you seen anything, Jamie?

02:08:57.000 This is just looking at test scores and this is specifically about Los Angeles and trying to find out what they use for this data is not easy.

02:09:10.000 I clicked on the link for the original article and it took me to buying a paywall so I'm trying to find another way.

02:09:15.000 Is there any articles that say that there's a state or a city that did it better than anybody else?

02:09:22.000 Well the end of this article is bringing up Florida and I'm trying to read why.

02:09:26.000 That Florida did it better?

02:09:28.000 Yeah, I don't know why Florida was used as an example because it's not talking about any other state in this article.

02:09:33.000 It's right at the bottom.

02:09:34.000 It just starts talking about Florida.

02:09:35.000 They reached out to someone in Florida.

02:09:36.000 But as I'm reading it, I see that it says eighth grade scores fell.

02:09:41.000 Students scored an average of 241 out of possible 500 in fourth grade math.

02:09:49.000 They earned higher scores this year in NAEP tests than those in Los Angeles, but saw more declines.

02:09:57.000 Across Florida, 8th grade scores fell, but students scored an average of 241 out of a possible 500 in 4th grade math above the national public school average of 235, and an average of 225 in 4th grade reading above the national average of 216. Mr. Diaz said,

02:10:14.000 maintaining the optimum of in-person learning contributed to the proficiency levels in Florida, especially for lower performing students, and enabled the state to close achievement gaps between subgroups and students.

02:10:26.000 You'd have seen tremendous differences in those categories for our students had there been another governor and other lockdown policies put in place.

02:10:34.000 So they're using that data to point that in-school learning in Florida showed less of a decline.

02:10:41.000 That's probably one of the only places that had it, right?

02:10:44.000 Yeah.

02:10:44.000 It says Florida Commissioner of Education Manny Diaz Jr. said the decision in his state to open districts for in-person instruction in the fall of 2020 was enthusiastically received by families at the time.

02:10:57.000 Yeah.

02:10:59.000 It said students in Miami-Dade and Hillsborough County schools earned higher scores on this year's NAEP test than those in Los Angeles.

02:11:08.000 But also saw declines.

02:11:09.000 I mean, I think just everybody's struggling during the pandemic.

02:11:12.000 There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it. 0.98

02:11:14.000 It was a fucked up moment for the whole country. 0.93

02:11:16.000 Yeah, and even before that, and this is Ingrid Haines Taylor, the director of National Literacy Institute. 0.95

02:11:24.000 That's where I gave you those numbers before.

02:11:27.000 She said, literacy data and impact on national economy.

02:11:30.000 That's where the number came from.

02:11:31.000 130 million adults are unable to read a simple story to their children.

02:11:36.000 21% of adults are illiterate in 2022. 45 million are functionally illiterate and read below the 5th grade level.

02:11:48.000 And 44% of adults don't read a book per year.

02:11:54.000 3 out of 4 people on welfare can't read.

02:11:58.000 Low levels of literacy cost the US up to $2.2 trillion per year.

02:12:07.000 And 50% of unemployed between 16 and 21 can't read well enough to be considered functionally literate.

02:12:16.000 That's crazy.

02:12:17.000 What is it in other countries?

02:12:19.000 I mean, that's gotta be very high globally, right?

02:12:23.000 It's gotta be.

02:12:25.000 Especially in developed countries.

02:12:29.000 So what do we do?

02:12:33.000 Well, we've got to close the gap for these that are there now because they're already behind.

02:12:37.000 Yeah.

02:12:38.000 You see, they're already behind.

02:12:39.000 And then the pandemic just blocked them even further.

02:12:42.000 And then there's also the problem with, you know, people saying, well, you should move to a place where, you know, they're handling this better.

02:12:48.000 But there's a lot of people out there that don't have the means.

02:12:51.000 They can't move.

02:12:53.000 Maybe it's the job that the parents have, whether it's families that they're connected to that can't leave.

02:13:00.000 It's not simple.

02:13:02.000 I said that we got a lot of different questions over the summer.

02:13:08.000 It was about this kind of thing.

02:13:10.000 We're struggling out here.

02:13:12.000 How do we deal with this kind of thing?

02:13:15.000 And the kids get more and more into the internet and it's kind of taken over life.

02:13:22.000 So we've done shows on bullied to death and that sort of stuff because they get on there and they get bullied.

02:13:31.000 You used to get bullied at school and you go home you were at least away from it.

02:13:35.000 Now it follows you home.

02:13:37.000 Kids can't get away from it.

02:13:39.000 It's cyber bullying.

02:13:39.000 That's what's scary.

02:13:40.000 And they're so connected to social media.

02:13:43.000 It's not like an adult that can just ignore it and walk away.

02:13:46.000 They also don't have the coping mechanisms that an adult who's been through a lot of adversity has acquired.

02:13:52.000 These are young, developing people.

02:13:55.000 And they're not developing thick skins like I was talking about.

02:14:00.000 They're just hypersensitive to this.

02:14:03.000 And you've got to let your kids.

02:14:06.000 Your kid needs to go through getting teased some, getting excluded some, breaking up and all of that.

02:14:15.000 So they learn, hey, I came back from that.

02:14:17.000 It's okay.

02:14:18.000 I was able to get through it.

02:14:19.000 It's a part of the development process, but some kids don't come back from it.

02:14:26.000 And it's terrible.

02:14:28.000 Parents, they ask me a lot, how do I know if my kid's getting bullied?

02:14:33.000 Well, you need to ask yourself two questions.

02:14:35.000 How do you know if your kid's getting bullied?

02:14:37.000 And how do you know if your kid's a bully?

02:14:40.000 Because kids are bullying kids, so some parent needs to know that their kid's doing the bullying.

02:14:47.000 You've got to ask those two things.

02:14:48.000 And the answer to that question, how do you know if your kid's getting bullied?

02:14:53.000 Every parent has a baseline for their child, right?

02:14:56.000 You know how your child behaves.

02:14:59.000 Their certain level of interaction, participation, certain moods, certain verbalizations, certain interest in activities.

02:15:08.000 You got to watch that baseline and if they depart from that baseline, That's when you need to pay attention.

02:15:15.000 Now, kids are up and down, so I'm not talking about if they're a little moody on Tuesday versus Monday.

02:15:20.000 But if they start not wanting to go to school, they start withdrawing from everything, they start regressing in their behavior, things they used to be competent at, all of a sudden they're not competent anymore, they get clingy, whiny.

02:15:36.000 Lots of stomach aches.

02:15:39.000 Don't want to go to school.

02:15:40.000 They just start really falling off that baseline across time.

02:15:47.000 That's when you want to really pay attention because they very well may be getting bullied.

02:15:54.000 And if your child, you start hearing them make jokes at other people's expense, somebody that was around is all of a sudden excluded, they start showing up with things you didn't buy them, you know,

02:16:09.000 book bags or any paraphernalia from school or whatever, your child might be bullying somebody.

02:16:17.000 And you need to find out on either end because I did a show just last week.

02:16:25.000 A girl was a terrific young woman involved in elite hockey, girls hockey.

02:16:32.000 I mean national ranked team elite hockey.

02:16:36.000 And the bullying started on day one.

02:16:40.000 She killed herself on day five.

02:16:43.000 It went that fast.

02:16:45.000 And this was not an unstable girl.

02:16:47.000 She was a rock star athlete, and they all turned on her. 0.67

02:16:52.000 For what?

02:16:54.000 Well, it appears that she dated one of the other's ex-boyfriends.

02:17:04.000 And that girl allegedly got offended and they started and started calling her names and excluding her and blah blah blah blah blah. 0.92

02:17:17.000 And she just panicked and thought there was just no future.

02:17:21.000 Everybody hated her and thought she was no good and disrepute and she took her own life. 1.00

02:17:36.000 God.

02:17:37.000 It's so horrible when you're an adult and you've been through stuff and you know that this will pass.

02:17:45.000 But kids don't feel that.

02:17:46.000 They don't know that.

02:17:47.000 It's the worst thing that's ever happened to them.

02:17:49.000 Just four days.

02:17:50.000 I mean, on the fifth day, she took her life.

02:17:52.000 That's so crazy.

02:17:53.000 And she wiped her phone clean.

02:17:56.000 She said, look, I know you're going to blame yourself.

02:18:00.000 Don't do it.

02:18:01.000 This was me.

02:18:02.000 I'm sorry.

02:18:02.000 I'm gone.

02:18:03.000 Bye.

02:18:05.000 And her parents were just heartbroken.

02:18:10.000 Did they talk to any of the children that were involved in the bullying?

02:18:14.000 They dug into it and as soon as it happened, some of the other members on the team, because all the messages had been erased, but as it was happening, some of the other members on the team We screenshotted those and kept them and sent them to the parents and said,

02:18:37.000 here's what happened.

02:18:38.000 And they have them.

02:18:40.000 And so a lot of those girls have now been suspended from the leagues and all this league play and everything because they were a nationally ranked team. 0.79

02:18:49.000 And they would have never known if those girls hadn't screenshotted those messages that they were sending around to everybody and send them to the parents. 1.00

02:18:59.000 They'd have never known.

02:19:02.000 But those girls came forward and said, here's what happened. 1.00

02:19:05.000 Kids can be so fucking cruel, too. 0.99

02:19:07.000 Oh, it's amazing. 0.98

02:19:09.000 There was an instance in one of my daughters when she was 10 where one of the friends of her friend was getting bullied by this one girl, and they got copies of the text messages and gave it to the mom, and the mom didn't want to believe it.

02:19:25.000 And they had to say to the mom, like, look, here's real clear evidence of horrible things your kid is saying to this other kid.

02:19:34.000 And this mother was sort of delusional and just didn't want to think that her kid was capable of this. 0.67

02:19:40.000 But they had it right there.

02:19:41.000 They're like, look, this is how this girl behaves. 1.00

02:19:44.000 Then the kids sort of ostracized her.

02:19:48.000 I mean, she was 10 at the time, and I think she's kind of come around.

02:19:51.000 But there's...

02:19:55.000 People like getting an effect from other people.

02:19:58.000 And when people are angry at people, especially young kids, they'll formulate sentences in a way that can have the most impact and be the most mean possible.

02:20:08.000 Especially if they see that kind of talk in their house.

02:20:10.000 Like maybe if the parents are insulting and scream at each other and say horrible things to each other.

02:20:17.000 That's how they learn.

02:20:19.000 Yeah, and listen, you can't be in denial about your own kid.

02:20:24.000 You know, I said a few minutes ago, I take pride in the fact that I'm willing to learn.

02:20:31.000 I want to learn, but you better bring facts.

02:20:34.000 Because people say, well, I think, I think, I don't really care what people think.

02:20:39.000 I barely care what I think.

02:20:42.000 I want to know what the facts are.

02:20:45.000 We need to get back to the facts in this country.

02:20:49.000 Is there anywhere to get news?

02:20:53.000 It's all...

02:20:55.000 Propaganda.

02:20:56.000 It's all propaganda.

02:20:58.000 And parents, I don't care how much you think your child's a little princess, deal with the facts.

02:21:05.000 As parents, we need to deal with the facts.

02:21:07.000 As voters, we need to deal with facts.

02:21:08.000 I'm watching all this right now.

02:21:11.000 Both parties are saying, hey, get out and vote.

02:21:13.000 All we care is that you get out and vote.

02:21:16.000 No, that's not right.

02:21:17.000 That's not what they really mean.

02:21:20.000 What they really mean is, we want you to get out and vote without thinking about what's been going on.

02:21:27.000 What I say to people is, I don't want you to just get out and vote.

02:21:29.000 I want you to do some homework and get out and vote.

02:21:33.000 Ask yourself, and people should vote.

02:21:37.000 I hate that people go in and vote, like, for the top of the ticket.

02:21:42.000 Like, we're in midterms, so there's like senators and governors.

02:21:45.000 That's where all the money's been spent.

02:21:47.000 So they get in and check senator or governor, and they check one of those boxes, and then they just kind of go down the ticket.

02:21:54.000 That's not what you should do.

02:21:56.000 Your quality of your life is impacted a lot by your local races. 1.00

02:22:03.000 Like dog catcher.

02:22:05.000 I don't even know where you have dog catcher anymore.

02:22:06.000 What are they called?

02:22:07.000 Animal control?

02:22:09.000 If you've got people in your neighborhood getting mauled by pit bulls or something, where's the dog catcher?

02:22:18.000 Why are these pit bulls? 1.00

02:22:19.000 If you've got somebody local that's not doing their job, you should find that out and vote their dead ass out of office. 1.00

02:22:28.000 If you've got a judge who's not putting violent criminals behind bars, vote their ass off the bench. 0.98

02:22:36.000 If you've got a water commissioner that's not cleaning the water, if you've got county commissioners that aren't doing their job, find out and vote them in or out. 0.87

02:22:49.000 They work for you.

02:22:52.000 If you had an employee you would do a performance review before you decided to give them a raise or not, that's what people should do.

02:23:00.000 These parties are saying, all we care is that you vote.

02:23:04.000 Yeah, that's right.

02:23:05.000 They just don't want you to check before you vote.

02:23:07.000 You need to check and see if they've done what they said they would do and if they're doing what you value.

02:23:13.000 And it matters these local positions that you don't take seriously.

02:23:18.000 That's what affects your quality of life.

02:23:21.000 That's where it starts.

02:23:22.000 Then vote for the governor doesn't affect your life much.

02:23:26.000 You need to find out locally who's doing their job.

02:23:30.000 That's where you need to start.

02:23:31.000 If you want to have an impact, it starts there.

02:23:34.000 I think so many people are so committed to their party, so committed to their ideology that all they want, they think, well, maybe this part, they're not good at this, but at least they're on my side.

02:23:48.000 Yeah.

02:23:50.000 If they're doing their job, vote for them.

02:23:53.000 If they're not, don't.

02:23:54.000 People have been so brainwashed, though, to pick teams.

02:23:58.000 And the way this two-party system in this country is set up, it reinforces that idea.

02:24:03.000 Of course it does.

02:24:05.000 That's what they want.

02:24:06.000 Yeah.

02:24:08.000 That's what they want.

02:24:09.000 But, I mean, hell, are they doing their job.

02:24:11.000 Yeah.

02:24:12.000 If they're not.

02:24:15.000 Even Obama says the same thing.

02:24:18.000 He'll tell you, pay attention all the way down the ballot.

02:24:23.000 He'll tell you the same thing.

02:24:25.000 Pay attention all the way down the ballot.

02:24:28.000 I think it's important.

02:24:30.000 I don't know why I got off on that.

02:24:32.000 No, it is important.

02:24:34.000 How frustrating is it for you, because you have this show that's based around having discussions, common sense, and sort of getting to the bottom of things, and you're very good at it, but it seems like the wheels are off the wagon,

02:24:52.000 and it's just, it doesn't, do you feel like, do you feel frustrated at times?

02:24:58.000 Do you feel like it's not having an effect?

02:25:01.000 Sometimes.

02:25:02.000 Yeah, sometimes I do.

02:25:05.000 But that just makes me feel like I need to do a better job.

02:25:13.000 And I read these letters and it said, you're my last hope. 0.95

02:25:17.000 I'm like, well, shit, why didn't you call me first? 0.98

02:25:21.000 Why didn't you call me the first time you saw something wrong? 0.99

02:25:25.000 Why not then?

02:25:26.000 But, you know, I have a friend that Has a problem with a daughter that was in college up north, and they tried to get some help, and they went and sat for five hours at the hospital, waited, and nobody came.

02:25:44.000 Went the next day, waited six hours, social worker came in, filled out a few little forms, and then said to be back, came back.

02:25:53.000 Nothing.

02:25:55.000 And didn't want to bother me, but then Colin said, hey, I hate to bother you, but I'm really worried.

02:26:03.000 And so I said, well, you know, come out here and let's get this done.

02:26:07.000 And, you know, I got DNA tests and brain scans and all kinds of stuff and found out what was going on.

02:26:13.000 You know, we got a plan and a program and everything's underway at this point.

02:26:19.000 Most people, this is a very affluent guy and a very intelligent daughter.

02:26:26.000 It's hard for people out there to know, what are you going to, just go on the internet and look up mental health and find a psychologist or whatever?

02:26:38.000 They don't know.

02:26:40.000 What to do and it's hard sometimes to find your way through the maze and so I do think over the last 20 years I've been delivering common sense usable information to people's house houses every day for free that gives them kind of a road map through this stuff and I think it has had an impact on a lot of people and I think it's lessened some of the stigma About mental health.

02:27:09.000 I don't think I've revolutionized the country on mental health, but I think it's made a dent, maybe, in that it's okay to talk about some of this stuff.

02:27:22.000 I taught them some of the questions to ask when I get in front of somebody.

02:27:27.000 But yeah, sometimes I really get frustrated because it kind of goes in one ear and out the other.

02:27:37.000 But I just resolve to keep charging at Machine Gun Nest.

02:27:44.000 Do you still enjoy what you do?

02:27:45.000 I do.

02:27:51.000 We're still dealing with the same family and dynamics and all.

02:27:57.000 And this year, because some of the questions have changed, they're dealing with some of these issues like school shooters, school curriculums, internet bullying, things like that.

02:28:10.000 There are different challenges and that's revitalized me.

02:28:20.000 And I was very excited to start this season because I think we've lost our way as a society.

02:28:32.000 I think we've lost our way.

02:28:35.000 But I don't think people say, oh, it's the worst it's ever been.

02:28:38.000 Well, did you forget about the Civil War? 0.99

02:28:41.000 I mean, shit, it's been worse than this. 0.99

02:28:44.000 We killed a couple hundred thousand of each other in the Civil War. 1.00

02:28:48.000 This has been a lot worse than this.

02:28:49.000 We can fix this.

02:28:51.000 We can fix this, and I don't care what people say.

02:28:56.000 I'm bringing both sides of these issues, and I'm telling the stories through families and its impact, and I think it's working.

02:29:05.000 I feel good about it, and our audience feels good about it, so I like what I'm doing.

02:29:09.000 I like what we're doing this season, and we're still dealing with the same family values that we've always dealt with.

02:29:15.000 I like the fact that you are adjusting things, too.

02:29:18.000 Like you said, well, let's change this into sort of a town hall type deal, a focus group, and let's reach out and talk to people and try to get more opinions.

02:29:29.000 Yeah, and they go back and forth and I try to show them how to find some common ground and that models it for the rest of the people.

02:29:40.000 I hope it's going to have an impact because I'm going to keep swinging.

02:29:47.000 It certainly has an impact.

02:29:49.000 Did you ever imagine you'd be doing it as long as you're doing it?

02:29:52.000 No.

02:29:53.000 What did you think when you first started doing it?

02:29:55.000 Because Oprah talked into doing this, right?

02:29:57.000 Yeah.

02:29:57.000 I never thought I'd do it to begin with.

02:29:59.000 You know, I was in the litigation arena and all those years I never gave one word of interview.

02:30:07.000 You know, being a big case, people would say, why are you at the council table and what are you doing?

02:30:13.000 Who are you?

02:30:14.000 I said, I'm not even here.

02:30:15.000 Goodbye.

02:30:16.000 I never gave a word of interview.

02:30:19.000 I had no desire to be on television at all.

02:30:23.000 And so I never had any designs on it, never any idea of doing it.

02:30:30.000 But then I started doing Oprah and did it every Tuesday for like five years and then started doing this and now we're in our 21st season.

02:30:40.000 I think we're the longest running show on Paramount lot.

02:30:45.000 Been in the same stage for all that time.

02:30:50.000 But no, I had no idea how long it would go or how long I would do it.

02:30:57.000 But I enjoy it.

02:31:00.000 You know, not every day.

02:31:02.000 You know, some days you don't feel like doing anything.

02:31:05.000 But I've got a great team.

02:31:09.000 I really have a great team.

02:31:11.000 I've got the same executive producer, Carla Pennington, that's been there since day one.

02:31:18.000 Same supervisors.

02:31:19.000 I've got the same seven cameramen I started with 20 years ago.

02:31:22.000 Wow.

02:31:22.000 Same director, same everybody.

02:31:25.000 They've all been there from the beginning.

02:31:28.000 That's pretty incredible.

02:31:29.000 So, yeah.

02:31:30.000 Hell, I got the same secretary for 45 years.

02:31:32.000 You can't call them secretaries anymore.

02:31:34.000 I've got the same office manager.

02:31:37.000 Is that one of those words they put up, secretary?

02:31:39.000 Yes, I think so.

02:31:41.000 You're not allowed to say that anymore?

02:31:43.000 No, she doesn't mind, but I think whatever.

02:31:46.000 I got the same office manager for 45 years.

02:31:51.000 So it's...

02:31:53.000 Yeah, we got a good team.

02:31:55.000 And it makes it really enjoyable.

02:31:57.000 The cameramen know where I'm gonna move or go or say before I even start.

02:32:02.000 I mean, how do you know I was getting ready to go over there?

02:32:04.000 I've been here 20 years.

02:32:06.000 I know what you're gonna do.

02:32:08.000 It makes it easy.

02:32:09.000 It makes it a lot better.

02:32:12.000 During all this time, what do you think has caused the biggest change in culture?

02:32:17.000 Because you've had a window into society in a way where you're examining problems and you're examining relationships and lives.

02:32:27.000 It's clearly technology.

02:32:29.000 It's clearly the internet.

02:32:31.000 It's good and bad.

02:32:34.000 What's the good?

02:32:37.000 Information access.

02:32:40.000 These kids that I'm saying are Going to college and complaining about professors and all.

02:32:48.000 These kids are brilliant.

02:32:51.000 These college kids today, and a lot of them follow me on the internet, and I've got Billions and billions of views on the internet.

02:33:03.000 And so I interact with those kids a lot.

02:33:05.000 They're smart.

02:33:07.000 They're not lazy.

02:33:09.000 They're smart.

02:33:10.000 They just need some other experiences.

02:33:13.000 But they're really...

02:33:16.000 The stuff they can do in their heads is just...

02:33:20.000 I mean, it's astounding.

02:33:25.000 So their information access is like, you know, we're talking about stuff.

02:33:29.000 He's pulling it up before we're at the end of the sentence.

02:33:32.000 And he's throwing it up over here.

02:33:35.000 You and I couldn't do that 20 years ago.

02:33:37.000 Right.

02:33:38.000 And we're at the end of the sentence and he's got an article up and graphs and everything like that.

02:33:46.000 It's amazing, their ability to go down the rabbit hole and find stuff and put it in context in a meaningful way.

02:33:56.000 We used to have to go to the library.

02:33:59.000 And for some of you young people listening, that's a big building with books in it.

02:34:04.000 They don't have to do that.

02:34:07.000 So that's a game changer.

02:34:09.000 There's more power in this laptop than they had for the moonshot.

02:34:16.000 Yeah, a lot more.

02:34:18.000 Which is giant rooms of computers back then.

02:34:22.000 But can you imagine doing a moonshot with this?

02:34:25.000 The power we have in our hands is astounding.

02:34:30.000 You can be anywhere and punch in an address and it tells you where to go and where the traffic is.

02:34:37.000 Go left.

02:34:39.000 This chip transmits an internet's worth of data every second. 1.00

02:34:43.000 Holy shit! 0.98

02:34:45.000 This laser-powered chip could mean faster broadband speeds for consumers and an internet that requires less electricity to run. 0.99

02:34:53.000 Whoa! 0.71

02:34:53.000 An internet's worth of data every second. 0.71

02:34:59.000 I was...

02:35:02.000 I was at dinner with these friends in Dallas last night, Jamie Ribbon and his wife Darcy, and he was telling me that, was it Moore's Law, that everything compresses and doubles up and everything.

02:35:17.000 And he was talking recently about how long it would take to fill up Lake Michigan if it was empty.

02:35:24.000 If you started with like a half an ounce of water or something like that, then how long do you think it would be?

02:35:32.000 And I said, well, never.

02:35:39.000 And the answer was like 85 years.

02:35:43.000 So that's like take a cup and then take two cups, then two to four, four to eight?

02:35:48.000 Yeah.

02:35:48.000 And it goes on.

02:35:49.000 It was like at 10 years it would like be damp a little maybe.

02:35:55.000 And at like 40 years there'd be some puddles.

02:35:59.000 And at 60 years, there would be like four feet of water.

02:36:03.000 And at 70 years, all of the gain is in the last five years.

02:36:10.000 And then it would be full.

02:36:12.000 And that's what's happening right now.

02:36:15.000 We have so much information that it's doubling up so fast.

02:36:21.000 God only knows when your daughter and Jay's daughter are...

02:36:31.000 21, what in the world is going to be going on?

02:36:36.000 Because if you take everything we know now and double it up four times between now and then, we won't even recognize the world.

02:36:47.000 And so that's the positive, the ability to—and it's going to be in medicine and diagnostics and all that sort of stuff.

02:36:59.000 Now, how we're going to pay for all these people that live to 150, I don't know.

02:37:04.000 But that's the positive, and the negative is what we've talked about.

02:37:08.000 Bullied to death, and the predators on the internet, and the scams, and all that kind of stuff.

02:37:15.000 Predators used to be the guy in the raincoat standing by the schoolyard.

02:37:19.000 Hey, little kid, you want some candy?

02:37:21.000 Now, they're in the chat rooms.

02:37:25.000 We don't even know what they call those anymore.

02:37:27.000 They're wherever the kids go, and they've learned their patterns, and they know what their favorite What songs are, what their favorite interests are, what their jargon is.

02:37:40.000 They can mimic a 14-year-old just as well as anything and they prey upon them.

02:37:48.000 That's the downside.

02:37:50.000 And the fact that they post pictures and stuff that are there forever.

02:37:56.000 And you tell them and tell them and tell them and they still You know, that predator will steal a picture off the dark net of some 14-year-old guy and send it to the girl,

02:38:12.000 and the girl reciprocates.

02:38:13.000 Now he's got that, and now they do sextortion and say, you do more, or I'll show this to all your family.

02:38:21.000 The downside is horrific.

02:38:25.000 So that's the biggest—technology and the Internet's the biggest change.

02:38:32.000 What do you think about Elon Musk buying Twitter?

02:38:35.000 Well, it looks like he's going to do it.

02:38:37.000 Yeah.

02:38:37.000 It's happened.

02:38:38.000 Yeah.

02:38:39.000 I mean, it goes down tomorrow.

02:38:40.000 Yeah.

02:38:41.000 He showed up today with a kitchen sink or something.

02:38:43.000 Yeah, I'm not sure exactly what that means.

02:38:45.000 He said, let that sink in.

02:38:48.000 Is that what it was?

02:38:50.000 Yeah.

02:38:50.000 I didn't know if he was saying, I'm going to throw the kitchen sink at you or let that sink in.

02:38:54.000 I don't know exactly what he's saying.

02:38:55.000 But he showed up at the headquarters carrying a sink.

02:38:59.000 Okay.

02:38:59.000 Well, he's unpredictable.

02:39:01.000 He said he's going to make it a friendlier place.

02:39:05.000 Yeah, for all sorts of ideas.

02:39:06.000 Yeah.

02:39:08.000 So look at him there.

02:39:10.000 He's such a character.

02:39:11.000 It doesn't look like a kitchen sink.

02:39:13.000 That's a kitchen sink. 0.96

02:39:14.000 It must be sink in.

02:39:16.000 No, it does.

02:39:17.000 Well, it's a sink.

02:39:19.000 Yeah, it's a sink.

02:39:20.000 Not necessarily a kitchen sink.

02:39:22.000 Yeah.

02:39:23.000 Yeah.

02:39:26.000 Just what a funny gimmick.

02:39:31.000 Yeah.

02:39:32.000 Well, I guess if you're the richest man in the world, you can pull pranks and you don't care where they work or not.

02:39:38.000 Well, he doesn't care.

02:39:39.000 I mean, he is a very unique individual for a guy that's that wealthy.

02:39:45.000 You know, when he put a photo of Bill Gates up next to the pregnant man emoji and he said, if you want to lose a boner real quick...

02:39:56.000 What billionaires dunk on other billionaires?

02:40:00.000 Especially, I mean, a guy who's a super genius tech billionaire.

02:40:04.000 It's really funny.

02:40:06.000 It'll be interesting to see what he does with the platform.

02:40:08.000 Yeah, very interesting.

02:40:09.000 I would hope he does something constructive with it.

02:40:11.000 Well, hopefully to encourage people to do what we're talking about here and actually communicate and exchange ideas and not just insult each other and keyboard bully.

02:40:24.000 You know, I just hope people take away from what we're talking about what you said in the beginning without having to have some catastrophic nuclear strike or something.

02:40:37.000 We are all in this together.

02:40:39.000 And we need to remember that.

02:40:42.000 And I remember I was born and raised a Baptist and then I switched later in life to a different religion.

02:40:55.000 But this pastor used to talk about How, you know, God talks to him and all that stuff.

02:41:04.000 And I remember I was like 12 years old and I said, oh, he never talked to me.

02:41:12.000 And he said, well, you better listen really hard or he might do something to get your attention. 0.99

02:41:21.000 And I thought, oh, shit. 0.99

02:41:23.000 I want to really start listening so he doesn't have to do something dramatic to get my attention. 0.99

02:41:29.000 I really hope we wake up before something happens to really get our attention to remind us that we are all Americans.

02:41:39.000 Do we need to get shock therapy or can we all just say, you know what, enough's enough and too much is too much.

02:41:49.000 We're all Americans.

02:41:51.000 And even if we're not, we're all human beings.

02:41:53.000 Yeah.

02:41:54.000 I have no idea what your political leanings are.

02:41:58.000 You have no idea.

02:41:59.000 I could care less.

02:42:02.000 You're reasonable.

02:42:03.000 You're commonsensical.

02:42:05.000 And I hope I am.

02:42:08.000 And it doesn't matter.

02:42:10.000 We're in this together.

02:42:13.000 I think you want everybody to be healthy and happy and prosperous.

02:42:16.000 I want everybody to be happy and healthy and prosperous.

02:42:19.000 Every time a new show launches in my space I send them flowers and wish them well.

02:42:24.000 That's beautiful.

02:42:25.000 Come on in, the water's fine.

02:42:27.000 That's great.

02:42:28.000 That's a great attitude.

02:42:30.000 It is.

02:42:30.000 Come on.

02:42:34.000 Not everybody's going to watch me.

02:42:36.000 There's plenty for everybody.

02:42:38.000 I do.

02:42:38.000 I send them all.

02:42:40.000 I completely agree with that sort of thinking.

02:42:42.000 Yeah.

02:42:43.000 Good luck.

02:42:43.000 Yeah.

02:42:44.000 You know, it's a rising tide, right?

02:42:46.000 Yes.

02:42:47.000 It's all boats.

02:42:49.000 I wish everybody success.

02:42:52.000 As do I. And I find it very disappointing when someone doesn't think that way, when they have that famine mentality.

02:42:58.000 Yeah, it really shocked me when I got into this business and everybody was like, oh, here comes the enemy.

02:43:06.000 Are you kidding me?

02:43:09.000 I go, they ask me to come on the show, sure.

02:43:11.000 I'll go on the show, I'll go talk to them, come on my show, I don't care.

02:43:15.000 We do stuff together.

02:43:18.000 Steve Harvey and I used to split, we'd do a half hour on his show and a half hour on my show.

02:43:23.000 That's great.

02:43:23.000 Yeah.

02:43:25.000 We'd have competitions and stuff and do half on his show and half on my show and stuff.

02:43:31.000 We were on different networks and competing shows.

02:43:33.000 We didn't care.

02:43:35.000 And got to be really good friends over the years.

02:43:40.000 He's a lot funnier than I am.

02:43:45.000 He better be.

02:43:46.000 He's professional.

02:43:47.000 Exactly.

02:43:48.000 Well, listen, Dr. Phil, it's always a pleasure to sit down and talk to you.

02:43:52.000 I appreciate you very much.

02:43:53.000 You're a very rational, logical thinker, and I think the world needs more of that, and I'm glad you're out there.

02:43:59.000 I'm glad you're still swinging.

02:44:01.000 Yeah, I'm going to keep swinging.

02:44:03.000 I'll go down swinging.

02:44:04.000 They'll never take me alive.

02:44:08.000 Joe, thanks for having me.

02:44:09.000 Let's do it again sometime.

02:44:10.000 Absolutely.

02:44:11.000 All right.

02:44:12.000 Bye, everybody.

The Joe Rogan Experience - October 28, 2022

Joe Rogan Experience #1889 - Dr. Phil

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript