The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #2026 - Peter Berg

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.

00:00:13.000 Good to see you.

00:00:14.000 Good to see you, my friend.

00:00:15.000 Your show is fantastic.

00:00:16.000 It's really good, man.

00:00:18.000 Thank you.

00:00:19.000 Painkiller on Netflix.

00:00:20.000 Can't recommend it enough.

00:00:22.000 I'm only two episodes deep.

00:00:24.000 I started the third today. 0.97

00:00:25.000 It's so fucking good, dude. 0.95

00:00:27.000 And it's so disturbing because it's true. 0.96

00:00:31.000 It's an accurate account of how this all happened.

00:00:35.000 It makes you so uncomfortable to think that there's people in the world that would do what the Sackler family did.

00:00:44.000 Do you know anyone who's gone down from opioids?

00:00:48.000 Quite a few.

00:00:48.000 Quite a few people.

00:00:50.000 When they first came to me and asked me if I was interested, my buddy Eric Newman, who put the whole thing together, said, do you want to do something about the Sacklers? 0.97

00:01:02.000 Do you know who the Sacklers are?

00:01:03.000 And I did.

00:01:04.000 I knew they were the family behind OxyContin.

00:01:07.000 And he said, are you interested?

00:01:09.000 And I started thinking and I started counting the people I know who've died or whose kids have died because of Oxycontin and opioids.

00:01:18.000 And I quickly got off of both fingers.

00:01:22.000 And then I started thinking about...

00:01:25.000 Some of my heroes, my artistic heroes, Chris Cornell, Tom Petty, and one of my big heroes was Prince.

00:01:34.000 I was a huge, huge Prince fan.

00:01:35.000 I went to school in Minneapolis when he was coming up.

00:01:38.000 I was an extra in Purple Rain back in the day, you know, First Avenue in Minneapolis.

00:01:44.000 And, you know, those three guys, when Prince died, you know, Prince was, he was, had such a, he was legendary for his work ethic and his lifestyle, no alcohol, no swearing, and just incredible work ethic.

00:01:58.000 And the fact that OxyContin got him. 0.90

00:02:02.000 And that really kind of fucked with me. 0.88

00:02:05.000 So when they came to me and, you know, started talking to me about doing something about The Sacklers, I was like, yeah, I'm all in. 0.99

00:02:13.000 And the more I dug into it, the more experts and writers who have been covering this epidemic for so long, the more I learned.

00:02:23.000 I'm not necessarily the biggest conspiracy guy of all time.

00:02:28.000 If the proof's there, I'm down.

00:02:31.000 But the more I learned about the Sacklers and how they maneuvered What is essentially just heroin and like a little M&M pill, you know?

00:02:41.000 How they were so artful and so good at manipulating the system.

00:02:47.000 I was shocked and I was all in on painkiller.

00:02:51.000 Well, I'm glad you were all in because people need to know this story and a lot of people aren't going to watch a documentary.

00:02:58.000 You know, they're not going to read about it.

00:03:00.000 This is a very entertaining show that shows accurately how this went down.

00:03:05.000 And, you know, there's a moment, and I don't want to give too much away, but there's this one moment where this ethical doctor confronts this sales girl.

00:03:13.000 And that's a very, very, very powerful moment.

00:03:17.000 Because the ethical doctor who knows everything about opiates is essentially explaining to this very young girl, just a beautiful sales girl, that you're selling heroin.

00:03:28.000 This is heroin.

00:03:30.000 It's indistinguishable to the body.

00:03:32.000 It's heroin.

00:03:34.000 It's just you're calling it a different thing.

00:03:35.000 And this idea that it's only 1% Of the people have problems with it.

00:03:40.000 Those numbers are all lies.

00:03:43.000 They're always lies.

00:03:45.000 They lie about how many people died.

00:03:47.000 They lie about how many people get addicted.

00:03:49.000 It's all a lie.

00:03:50.000 And if they can keep lying and not face any repercussions, they'll keep lying.

00:03:56.000 Because they almost have an obligation to their shareholders to do that.

00:04:03.000 Yeah, and in this case, they didn't even have shareholders.

00:04:05.000 It was a private company.

00:04:08.000 Richard Sackler and his uncles were making all the money.

00:04:12.000 They completely lied.

00:04:14.000 I mean, there were doctors, and they knew how powerful the opioid dosage was.

00:04:21.000 And what else is crazy is they knew that if they just kept, they would make so much more money by what they call titrating up, right?

00:04:30.000 So, you know, we put you on 10 milligrams of OxyContin because you blew out your back in the gym.

00:04:37.000 And it works for a bit.

00:04:38.000 And then when it doesn't, we're like, oh, well, we just got to kick you up.

00:04:43.000 So let's put you on 20. And then let's put you on 40. And they got up to 85 milligram Oxycontins.

00:04:50.000 They call them Oxycoffins.

00:04:52.000 That was the word on the street.

00:04:54.000 And these reps, these cute little reps, these pretty little college graduates who are just looking to make some money, were paid bonuses based on the amount of milligrams in the pill. 0.54

00:05:09.000 So I'm trying to convince you, if I'm a rep and you're a doctor, just to kick it up, doc.

00:05:16.000 Prescribe 20 or 40 or 85 milligrams and everybody will make some more money.

00:05:22.000 And that was the game that the Sacklers were playing.

00:05:26.000 And, like, you know, I've said, like, I'm down with capitalism.

00:05:29.000 No problem.

00:05:31.000 Like, make money.

00:05:32.000 Do it.

00:05:32.000 And if you just look at the Sacklers, you know, from a capitalistic perspective and you apply, you know...

00:05:41.000 Rules of capitalism and you're on their grade.

00:05:43.000 They get an A+. They were fucking good at making money. 0.99

00:05:46.000 You put like that much morality into the equation and these are some evil human beings. 1.00

00:05:53.000 It's unquestionably evil.

00:05:55.000 And what's even more evil is they got away with it.

00:05:59.000 They paid off.

00:06:01.000 They had to give away a certain amount of money.

00:06:03.000 I think it's six billion.

00:06:05.000 See if we can find the settlement.

00:06:06.000 Around six.

00:06:07.000 And now they can't be prosecuted.

00:06:10.000 So they essentially bought their way out of going to jail for directly being responsible for the deaths of How many people?

00:06:18.000 Hundreds of thousands?

00:06:19.000 So in the most bizarre coincidence I've ever experienced in my years of being in the business, the day Painkiller came out, the Supreme Court paused that decision.

00:06:30.000 Have you heard this?

00:06:32.000 No.

00:06:32.000 It's a fascinating story.

00:06:33.000 You should read about this.

00:06:35.000 The day we came out was about 12 days ago now.

00:06:38.000 The Supreme Court said, hold up.

00:06:41.000 You cannot cut a deal.

00:06:43.000 Wow.

00:06:45.000 So, credit court blocks Purdue Pharma's $6 billion Sackler opioid settlement.

00:06:50.000 The justices will examine if bankruptcy court can force claimants to sign away their legal rights in a settlement.

00:06:56.000 So, let me break it down quick, because this is actually fascinating for anyone who's paying attention.

00:07:02.000 The deal that they cut, Purdue cut, was $6 billion.

00:07:06.000 We're going to pay $6 billion to all the victims of OxyContin, but we're going to do that over the next two decades.

00:07:13.000 We're going to parcel it out.

00:07:15.000 And Sacklers have maybe 15 bill in the bank, give or take.

00:07:18.000 So they're just counting on interest rates to pay that $6 billion.

00:07:22.000 And the deal they had cut said, we'll pay you the $6 billion, but there's no more.

00:07:28.000 And you can never come after any more of our money, and you can never come after us for any criminal charges.

00:07:34.000 So they were basically buying their way to safety for a sixth bill.

00:07:38.000 And that deal was taken, the Supreme Court just said, hold up, not so fast.

00:07:43.000 We're not going to accept that deal.

00:07:45.000 You may have to pay more and we may go after you.

00:07:48.000 So now the potential for them to face true bankruptcy and maybe more is on the table.

00:07:55.000 How accurate do we know, like some of the, I know this is a docudrama, right?

00:08:00.000 Is that how you would describe it?

00:08:01.000 Sure.

00:08:02.000 Or based on a real life, real life events.

00:08:05.000 Yes.

00:08:06.000 Some of the things that Sackler said in both the older Sackler and the younger Sackler, Richard and what was his dad's name?

00:08:14.000 Arthur.

00:08:15.000 Arthur.

00:08:16.000 His uncle.

00:08:17.000 Yeah, his uncle, sorry.

00:08:18.000 Both of those, the statements, they're so horrific.

00:08:23.000 Do we know they definitely said that?

00:08:25.000 Well, so, yes, there's so many horrific things they said.

00:08:29.000 One of the things we know that they did said, which was, like, one of the original strategies that Purdue Pharma had that they were advised to adopt by, you know, their lawyers and their advisors and their marketing guys, when they realized that people were dying,

00:08:45.000 that kids were crushing up OxyContin and snorting it and getting addicted and overdosed, and when they realized it was being misused this way.

00:08:54.000 Their strategy was, quote, hammer the abusers. 0.87

00:08:58.000 Hammer the abusers. 0.97

00:09:00.000 So your Joe, your 19-year-old daughter has just dropped out of an OxyContin overdose.

00:09:06.000 The response of Purdue basically is, well, your daughter was a drug addict.

00:09:12.000 Your daughter was a drug addict.

00:09:14.000 I'm so sorry for your loss, but your daughter was a drug addict. 0.98

00:09:17.000 Don't blame us. 0.99

00:09:18.000 Hammer the abusers. 0.97

00:09:20.000 And that was literally said out loud or written down?

00:09:23.000 That was the strategy to blame abuse on addicts.

00:09:31.000 And to say, anyone who has a problem with OxyContin, it's not our fault.

00:09:36.000 They're just drug addicts.

00:09:38.000 It's not our fault. 0.97

00:09:39.000 Yeah, we gave them heroin, but they're- Hammer on the abusers.

00:09:44.000 Mass Attorney General alleges Purdue Pharma tried to shift blame for opioid addiction.

00:09:50.000 Yeah, so think about that.

00:09:52.000 Think about you being the parent.

00:09:54.000 And if you see the show, we open each episode with a parent.

00:09:59.000 We were told right when I got ready to lock the show, I had to get on a Zoom with all the legal from Netflix and others because the Sacklers are really good at lawyers. 0.87

00:10:12.000 Giuliani was one of their main lawyers.

00:10:16.000 I don't know if you know who she is.

00:10:19.000 She's a very powerful attorney and others. 0.90

00:10:22.000 So there's a lot of fear about being sued.

00:10:27.000 I have my talking points here about what I'm not supposed to say.

00:10:33.000 Again, everything I'm saying is, you know, more or less my theory and things that have been backed up by books like Painkiller by the very talented Barry Meyer, who wrote, investigative reporter for The Times, who wrote it.

00:10:46.000 But we were told by legal that we had to put disclaimers in front of each episode.

00:10:53.000 You know, what you're about to see is based on fact, but some of the facts have been changed.

00:10:57.000 And, you know, it's not all true.

00:11:00.000 We've changed some of the facts.

00:11:02.000 And that didn't really sit right with me because, yes, we have interpreted things and changed some things, but the reality is the Sacklers did what they did.

00:11:12.000 And I thought just putting a standard disclaimer would be kind of letting them off a bit.

00:11:18.000 And I was thinking about it.

00:11:19.000 I'm like, well, what if we had a 50-year-old woman sitting, we opened the show, a 50-year-old woman staring at the camera, and she reads the disclaimer exactly as legal says.

00:11:30.000 You know, what you see is based on fact, but some of it has been fictionalized.

00:11:35.000 And then she stops and she says, but what hasn't been fictionalized is that my 22-year-old son, Tommy, and she holds up a picture, died of an Oxycontin overdose.

00:11:47.000 And that was, you know, the kind of thing that was, I think, very important to me and to all the makers of the show that if we were going to veer from the truth and we were going to potentially occur the wrath of the Purdue legal,

00:12:04.000 we did it in a way that never let them off the hook.

00:12:09.000 Yeah.

00:12:10.000 I like that.

00:12:14.000 It's...

00:12:17.000 It's so weird how many people are on it.

00:12:19.000 I had a conversation with a friend of mine about his mom.

00:12:22.000 His mom's 90. And, you know, she's had health issues.

00:12:29.000 But could you imagine when we were kids if you told me that your friend's mom was on heroin?

00:12:36.000 And that we had to get her more heroin and the doctor's not there's something wrong with her prescription So what had happened was the pharmacists the doctor had screwed up and prescribed more pills Verbally then he wrote it down on paper like he told her you have to take two a day You know and this is supposed to be good for you know,

00:12:55.000 whatever it is 30 60 days, but he wrote the wrong number and Instead of like 180, he wrote 90 or something.

00:13:03.000 I don't remember what the mistake was.

00:13:04.000 He overprescribed by accident?

00:13:05.000 He underprescribed by accident.

00:13:06.000 Oh, under.

00:13:06.000 Okay.

00:13:07.000 And so they were thinking someone was stealing her pills.

00:13:09.000 Oh.

00:13:10.000 So there was this like, she doesn't have enough.

00:13:13.000 Like it gets to the end of the month and she's out of pills and they're calling the doctor and the doctor's like, what's going on?

00:13:18.000 They're like, I don't know what's happening.

00:13:19.000 Is someone stealing her pills?

00:13:20.000 So there's this fear in the house that someone's stealing the pills.

00:13:24.000 So they figured out that's not what the case was.

00:13:27.000 The case was there was just a mistake.

00:13:28.000 The doctor inadvertently prescribed more in terms of take three a day every day or two a day every day.

00:13:34.000 But he just didn't give her enough pills to do that.

00:13:38.000 But imagine your 90-year-old mom is jonesing, because that's what's going on. 0.99

00:13:43.000 I mean, imagine you're like, I got a grandma heroin.

00:13:45.000 Hey, bro, you want to come with me?

00:13:47.000 Do you have your gun?

00:13:48.000 We're gonna go get grandma heroin. 1.00

00:13:49.000 Like, are you fucking crazy? 1.00

00:13:51.000 Imagine that thought. 1.00

00:13:53.000 No one would think that that, when we were kids, no one would think that was normal.

00:13:56.000 I gotta get my grandma heroin. 0.73

00:13:58.000 She's uncomfortable.

00:14:00.000 Well, yeah.

00:14:01.000 And, you know, one of the things that, I think, like, episode three or four, the patriarch of the Sackler family, Arthur Sackler, who started, got the whole ball rolling.

00:14:13.000 And he, you know, back in the day, they actually did prescribe heroin.

00:14:17.000 We found all these great old ads for heroin and cough syrup.

00:14:23.000 Cocaine for, you know, a fever.

00:14:28.000 Well, codeine used to be in cough syrup, right?

00:14:31.000 Yeah.

00:14:31.000 Used to be able to get, when I was a kid.

00:14:33.000 You still can get it.

00:14:34.000 Yeah.

00:14:34.000 But there were literally ads that said heroin for a cough.

00:14:38.000 And like the whole history of how medicine started being marketed.

00:14:44.000 Heroin, look at that.

00:14:47.000 Bare pharmaceutical products.

00:14:49.000 The people who brought you aspirin.

00:14:51.000 And if you look up some of the old...

00:14:54.000 See if you can find the...

00:14:57.000 Look how they describe it.

00:14:58.000 The cheapest specific for the relief of coughs.

00:15:01.000 Right.

00:15:02.000 So this was real. 1.00

00:15:03.000 This was real shit. 0.99

00:15:05.000 And this is what doctors like Arthur Sackler, who was Richard Sackler's uncle and is arguably the godfather of Oxycontin and opioids, they were sending this stuff out. 0.99

00:15:19.000 Your child's having trouble sleeping? 0.96

00:15:21.000 Put a little liquid morphine on a blanket and let him suck on it. 0.98

00:15:26.000 This was happening.

00:15:27.000 Our grandparents were around for this.

00:15:30.000 Oh my God.

00:15:30.000 Cocaine tooth drops?

00:15:31.000 You see that?

00:15:32.000 Look at that.

00:15:33.000 That's insane.

00:15:34.000 But that's real.

00:15:35.000 Oh my god.

00:15:36.000 Instantaneous cure. 0.99

00:15:37.000 You don't give a fuck about your teeth. 0.99

00:15:38.000 No, you feel good. 0.99

00:15:39.000 You're trying to start a business.

00:15:41.000 Or you're 12 and you're just being annoying because your tooth hurts so your parents just give you a bunch of blow. 0.93

00:15:47.000 Yeah, so crazy. 0.81

00:15:48.000 Stay fit and slim by taking amphetamine.

00:15:51.000 Jesus Christ!

00:15:53.000 It's so crazy how naive people were back then.

00:15:57.000 Still today, right?

00:15:59.000 Yes, still today.

00:16:00.000 So the catchphrase for OxyContin that Richard Sackler came up with was, OxyContin, the one to start with, the one to stay with.

00:16:08.000 And those were the ads.

00:16:10.000 And that's what the cute little 23-year-old graduates from Ohio State or Duke or wherever they were from, these cute girls would come into your office. 1.00

00:16:19.000 You're a doctor in some Midwestern town.

00:16:23.000 And in comes this beautiful girl with a... 1.00

00:16:27.000 Brochure that says OxyContin, the one to start with, the one to stay with, and you've never heard of it, so you just start, you know, and here's the thing about OxyContin.

00:16:35.000 Have you ever taken an OxyContin?

00:16:37.000 No.

00:16:39.000 I took it once, recreationally.

00:16:42.000 Did you do it before you started doing this?

00:16:44.000 Yes.

00:16:44.000 I did about, I don't know, eight years ago.

00:16:47.000 A friend of mine had one, and she's like, you gotta try this.

00:16:50.000 Jesus Christ!

00:16:51.000 I'm like, okay.

00:16:53.000 Try anything once, right?

00:16:55.000 Try it.

00:16:56.000 Took it.

00:16:58.000 It was fantastic.

00:17:00.000 Oh my god.

00:17:01.000 It was like being dropped in a vat of warm honey.

00:17:06.000 That's how I best describe it. 0.99

00:17:07.000 And I'm like, holy shit, get this away from me. 0.99

00:17:14.000 It works. 0.99

00:17:16.000 Heroin works.

00:17:17.000 We've talked to people who've done heroin and they describe the feeling, the actual moment of the high.

00:17:25.000 Yes, it's a powerful experience.

00:17:28.000 If you've got horrific pain and you take an Oxycontin or a Fentanyl, it's probably going to make that pain go away and you're going to feel really good for a little while, right?

00:17:40.000 For a little while and then you're not going to feel so good.

00:17:44.000 And then you're going to want it again.

00:17:45.000 And you're going to want it again and again.

00:17:47.000 And then your body becomes addicted to it.

00:17:49.000 And then it's not fun.

00:17:50.000 And I took it and recognized, okay, yeah, there's a lot of power in this little pill.

00:17:59.000 No thank you.

00:18:01.000 And I'm fortunate.

00:18:02.000 I don't have an addictive gene.

00:18:04.000 But I could easily see how...

00:18:08.000 And look, the Sacklers knew this.

00:18:10.000 They all knew how powerful that product was.

00:18:14.000 And they knew that if I put it in you...

00:18:17.000 You're gonna feel, as they say, as Richard Sackler says, life is about running away from pain towards pleasure.

00:18:24.000 If you feel pain, that's, right, the human condition is we wanna stay away from pain.

00:18:30.000 Anything to feel no pain and to feel good.

00:18:33.000 And so he knew he had this miracle because any pain, whether it's physical, emotional, you know, psychic pain that you're feeling, this little pill's gonna turn that off.

00:18:46.000 And you're going to feel like you've been dropped into a vat of warm honey for a little while.

00:18:52.000 And then that honey starts to turn into battery acid and it starts to burn.

00:18:58.000 I think it's funny that people make fun of people who believe in demons.

00:19:05.000 Because what would a demon do?

00:19:09.000 If you were a demonic entity and you wanted to steal lives and souls...

00:19:15.000 Would you just go around just pulling people out of their house with a pitchfork and being, like, obvious about it?

00:19:21.000 Or would you do it through a really evil sociopathic person who decides that they're just gonna manipulate this system and ruin countless lives?

00:19:34.000 I mean, how many people have been affected by this?

00:19:37.000 I don't know what the numbers are.

00:19:38.000 Do you?

00:19:39.000 Millions.

00:19:40.000 I mean...

00:19:41.000 How many people have died from it?

00:19:43.000 From opioids, 600,000.

00:19:47.000 But that doesn't...

00:19:49.000 It's like war numbers.

00:19:50.000 Of course.

00:19:50.000 It is a war.

00:19:52.000 You can look at opioids as an absolute war.

00:19:56.000 Much, much higher body count than Ukraine, Afghanistan, and Iraq added up.

00:20:03.000 Although I don't know what the full Ukraine body count numbers are.

00:20:07.000 When we were kids...

00:20:08.000 It was very rare that someone died of a heroin overdose, and it was always a lost soul.

00:20:12.000 It was always like some wild musician or some crazy poet.

00:20:17.000 Someone is like, God, he died of heroin?

00:20:19.000 Like, that's so crazy, right?

00:20:21.000 It's like heroin was reserved for the people that were just not coming back.

00:20:27.000 Every now and then someone would do cocaine or something like that and if you had a wild friend, he knew how to get mushrooms.

00:20:34.000 But heroin?

00:20:35.000 Nobody was like, yeah, let's go try heroin.

00:20:38.000 But now, when you look at those numbers from the introduction of OxyContin into now, how many people have died from that compound? 0.99

00:20:45.000 It's fucking... 1.00

00:20:46.000 Fucking insane. 1.00

00:20:47.000 Yeah, it is really dark. 0.98

00:20:50.000 And then, you know, something else we talk about in the show is, yes, the deaths are very high, but the amount of families that have been wrecked and destroyed and children who've lost parents and had to grow up with that kind of trauma.

00:21:06.000 You know, I have friends whose children have gotten hooked and tangled up in opioids.

00:21:12.000 And, you know, as a father, one of...

00:21:16.000 One of my biggest, biggest fears was, God forbid, my child should ever experience addiction because I've seen what that does to a parent.

00:21:26.000 To have to ride that chaotic roller coaster of childhood drug addiction and try everything you can to keep your kids safe and find that this pill has taken a hold of their soul, like you said, like a demon.

00:21:42.000 And, you know, sometimes...

00:21:44.000 Death is almost preferred.

00:21:46.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:21:47.000 That's what's so fucked up. 1.00

00:21:48.000 That's what's so fucked up. 1.00

00:21:50.000 Death brings peace. 1.00

00:21:52.000 Yeah.

00:21:52.000 That's so terrible to even think.

00:21:55.000 It's true, though, that the chaos of dealing with someone, and it's not just OxyContin, any addiction, right?

00:22:05.000 I have many friends who've struggled with alcoholism and Other addictions, just trying to love somebody who's going through that kind of beast ride is just horrific.

00:22:22.000 And to think that people like the Sacklers were in the business of monetizing such hurt and pain, that's dark.

00:22:32.000 It's very, very dark.

00:22:33.000 And kind of ironically, because of the war on drugs, because so many drugs are illegal, now people are dying from fentanyl from things that are not supposed to have opioids in them.

00:22:43.000 Yeah.

00:22:44.000 Which is even more insane because now people have this...

00:22:48.000 I don't want to say a taste for it, but it's so common.

00:22:53.000 Like opioids are so common in this country recreationally now because of OxyContin.

00:23:00.000 And then you've got like people try to buy like street Xanax and it has fentanyl in it.

00:23:05.000 Or street cocaine has fentanyl.

00:23:07.000 We lost a bunch of comics in LA recently.

00:23:10.000 Oh, I heard that.

00:23:11.000 In Venice, right?

00:23:13.000 Yeah, I don't know where it was.

00:23:14.000 Yeah, it was in Venice.

00:23:15.000 I didn't know.

00:23:15.000 They were like having a little house party and doing some coke recreationally and there was fentanyl in it and they all died.

00:23:22.000 One person survived, but the whole thing is fucking insane. 0.98

00:23:26.000 Right. 0.98

00:23:26.000 It's so insane that it's so... 0.98

00:23:29.000 It's so common.

00:23:30.000 It's so common to hear about someone overdosing from fentanyl.

00:23:34.000 You read about it in the news.

00:23:36.000 It's in the news all the time. 0.92

00:23:37.000 Athletes, singers, you know, someone fucks up and takes the wrong dose and they're dead.

00:23:42.000 And I believe what happened with Tom Petty was he got off stage and I think he had some sort of an injury and he got a pill from one of the guys that was like a sound guy.

00:23:52.000 And it had fentanyl in it.

00:23:54.000 And it had fentanyl in it.

00:23:55.000 Yeah.

00:23:55.000 So, I mean, people are so desperate.

00:23:57.000 They'll take some stuff that's not even from the pharmacy.

00:24:00.000 They just need it.

00:24:03.000 And that a family was able to make so much money.

00:24:07.000 How much money did they make in total?

00:24:09.000 I mean, if you Google their value, it's between $10 and $20 billion reported.

00:24:16.000 Nobody knows exactly how much.

00:24:17.000 They're a really secretive family.

00:24:19.000 One of the most internet-scrubbed families, and Richard Sackler in particular, people I've ever encountered.

00:24:26.000 You just can get very little information on them.

00:24:31.000 And the other, I think, big part of the story that surprised me was the FDA, right?

00:24:38.000 And the FDA's role in opioid approvals.

00:24:42.000 And in the case of OxyContin, We think about the FDA as this big, giant, bureaucratic organization.

00:24:50.000 We were talking about stem cells a little bit earlier.

00:24:53.000 If you want to get an approval for a drug, you've got to send it to the FDA. It's going to be reviewed by this massive board of scientists and experts, and they're going to make a determination after careful analysis.

00:25:09.000 That's not how it works.

00:25:10.000 In the case of OxyContin, The whole approval process came down to this one guy, this guy named Curtis Wright.

00:25:19.000 And Curtis Wright, when Purdue Pharma needed the FDA to approve, they'd spent 30 million bucks developing this drug.

00:25:29.000 The whole business of drug developing is fascinating.

00:25:31.000 But they were all in, and they needed this drug to keep the company alive.

00:25:36.000 They needed the FDA to approve it.

00:25:38.000 And this guy was like, I can't approve this.

00:25:40.000 This is heroin and a pill.

00:25:42.000 No.

00:25:43.000 And they kept trying to get him to approve it.

00:25:46.000 And they started trying to pump his ego up.

00:25:49.000 They started writing articles with him.

00:25:51.000 They started trying to schmooze him and charm him.

00:25:54.000 He wouldn't approve it.

00:25:56.000 Finally, and no one knows the facts, they took him to a hotel on the East Coast.

00:26:01.000 Purdue Pharma took Curtis Wright of the FDA, spent a couple of days in this hotel room.

00:26:07.000 They came out of the hotel room with an approval, with the language, OxyContin, quote, is believed to be non-addictive.

00:26:16.000 Is believed.

00:26:17.000 If you think about that language, it had never been used in an approval process before, ever.

00:26:22.000 Made no sense.

00:26:23.000 Is believed.

00:26:24.000 Not is not, but is believed to not be addictive.

00:26:28.000 A year later, he leaves the FDA. He's making probably 50 grand a year.

00:26:33.000 Where does he go work?

00:26:36.000 Purdue Pharma.

00:26:38.000 For 400 plus thousand dollars a year.

00:26:42.000 They bought the approval. 0.99

00:26:44.000 But the two days in the hotel, what the fuck did they do? 0.98

00:26:47.000 Nobody knows. 0.98

00:26:48.000 And who agrees to stay in a hotel for two days with those people?

00:26:51.000 So I wrote a scene in Painkiller.

00:26:54.000 We were putting it together where we imagined what happened in that hotel.

00:27:01.000 Right.

00:27:01.000 And I had, like, everything from monkeys to, like...

00:27:09.000 Kickboxing, Thai kickboxing, massage parlors, to, like, everything.

00:27:14.000 And, like, I wanted to film the most debaucherous two-day, like, anything your mind could think of.

00:27:21.000 Like, the craziest of the crazy, right?

00:27:23.000 Water sports.

00:27:24.000 All of it.

00:27:25.000 All of it.

00:27:26.000 Like, jet water sports.

00:27:29.000 Whether they spray your house down with sandblasting.

00:27:33.000 Like just the crazy...

00:27:35.000 And we wrote it like this just Faustian orgy of absolute decadence. 0.99

00:27:40.000 And the lawyers called and they're like, are you fucking kidding? 0.95

00:27:44.000 We can't do this. 0.98

00:27:46.000 So we just shut the door.

00:27:48.000 Oh, wow.

00:27:49.000 I think it's episode three that that's it.

00:27:52.000 But he took a job.

00:27:54.000 I mean, like I was saying earlier, I'm not big on...

00:27:59.000 You know, conspiracies.

00:28:00.000 Maybe, maybe not.

00:28:01.000 I heard you were talking about, you know, Kennedy being potentially killed by the CAA. I don't know.

00:28:07.000 I don't know who killed him, but I do think that it wasn't just Lee Harvey Oswald.

00:28:12.000 Well, it couldn't have been.

00:28:13.000 I think Lee Harvey Oswald was involved, too.

00:28:15.000 That's part of the problem with people's argument about this.

00:28:18.000 They're like, you know, Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

00:28:21.000 There's no evidence that he acted alone.

00:28:23.000 There's a lot of evidence that he was involved.

00:28:25.000 When I was in fifth grade, we had a social studies teacher who was absolutely, like, before Oliver Stone in the film, this teacher was obsessed with the super bullet theory, right?

00:28:40.000 The magic bullet theory that, you know, went through Connelly's shoulder, through his knee...

00:28:46.000 Bounced out of his knee, then hit Kennedy.

00:28:49.000 No, hit Kennedy first.

00:28:50.000 Hit Kennedy first, and then it was Connelly, right?

00:28:53.000 Connelly's shoulder, hand, knee.

00:28:55.000 And wrist. 0.76

00:28:56.000 Right.

00:28:57.000 And we're just fifth grade kids trying to learn about George Washington or whatever.

00:29:02.000 And she's like, do you understand the ballistics don't line up?

00:29:07.000 And it's all she would talk about.

00:29:08.000 So we'd come home, and it's all we would talk about with our parents.

00:29:11.000 And our parents would call the school and be like, is this woman... 0.99

00:29:16.000 Like, this teacher? 0.81

00:29:18.000 Is she insane? 1.00

00:29:19.000 Like, why are my kids only learning about the magic bullet?

00:29:23.000 See, the thing is, the ballistics are not the big issue.

00:29:27.000 Because what people don't understand about ballistics is not a linear line between impact and exit.

00:29:32.000 It hits things.

00:29:34.000 You hit bones and they deviate.

00:29:36.000 People shoot people and the bullet comes out the front.

00:29:40.000 It's wild things happen, especially when you're at 22. The problem with that bullet is, first of all, they found it on the gurney.

00:29:48.000 Like, how fucking convenient. 0.96

00:29:51.000 Second of all, I believe there's more fragments, metal fragments, that were in Connelly's wrist than are missing from this bullet. 0.98

00:29:58.000 And the bullet looks pristine.

00:30:00.000 It looks like a bullet that you shot through water.

00:30:02.000 Anybody that shoots things with guns knows that when bullets hit bones, they distort.

00:30:09.000 That's part of, unless it's a steel-jacketed, you know, like armor-piercing round, that's what it looked like.

00:30:16.000 I mean, that's just bonkers.

00:30:18.000 That was what it looked like after it went through Kennedy and Connolly.

00:30:22.000 It's bonkers.

00:30:23.000 It's bonkers to believe that.

00:30:25.000 The idea that Lee Harvey Oswald wasn't involved, though, I don't buy that either.

00:30:30.000 I think they set him up.

00:30:32.000 I think for sure he knew what was going on.

00:30:35.000 He seemed to have been some sort of an operative.

00:30:38.000 He went back and forth to Russia.

00:30:41.000 But that conspiracy, it's like, I don't know.

00:30:44.000 We're talking 1963. But there's conspiracies today that are real.

00:30:51.000 And this Sackler family is one of the best examples of one that was enormously successful and worked on multiple levels.

00:31:01.000 And this story about getting this regulator to approve it by putting him in a hotel for two weeks... 0.98

00:31:07.000 How the fuck is that not illegal? 0.97

00:31:10.000 Like, how is that not illegal? 0.99

00:31:12.000 I mean, they handle themselves.

00:31:15.000 He spent a year still working for the FDA before he came and worked for Purdue.

00:31:25.000 It's pretty intense.

00:31:26.000 I just saw a video that, I don't know whether it was TMZ or somebody found the guy, Curtis Wright, up in, I think he's in New Hampshire, just like two days ago, and they kind of went after him.

00:31:39.000 Oh, wow.

00:31:39.000 And I was like, they're like, what do you say?

00:31:41.000 What do you have to say about the show?

00:31:42.000 What do you think?

00:31:45.000 And he got in his car and wouldn't talk.

00:31:48.000 And then they just interviewed the local police chief for this town in New Hampshire who said, well, we had no idea that this guy's living in our town.

00:31:58.000 I want to take him on a tour of our morgue and our cemeteries and show him...

00:32:03.000 I think you'll find Curtis Wright if you look him up.

00:32:10.000 That is the definition of living in hell.

00:32:12.000 Yeah.

00:32:13.000 And that's...

00:32:15.000 You know, I think that people have asked, you know, like, what is justice?

00:32:22.000 What does justice even look like in a situation like this, right?

00:32:25.000 Like, if you're...

00:32:27.000 That's the guy?

00:32:28.000 And the red.

00:32:29.000 Yeah, so that's Noah who plays him.

00:32:31.000 And that was just...

00:32:32.000 That's the actual guy.

00:32:33.000 That's the actual gentleman who approved it.

00:32:37.000 That's the guy who was...

00:32:40.000 So he just moved to a remote town?

00:32:42.000 Yeah, moved to a remote town, and after our show came out, I think it was...

00:32:46.000 Is that a gun on his hip?

00:32:48.000 I don't think so.

00:32:49.000 What is that?

00:32:50.000 It's like a flashlight.

00:32:52.000 He's got like a rig.

00:32:54.000 He's got this phone in the front.

00:32:55.000 Yeah, he's got a whole vibe going on.

00:32:57.000 And a passport filled with trips to Thailand, probably.

00:33:03.000 But, you know, that's the face of a big part of the issue.

00:33:10.000 That, you know, this guy was a bureaucrat working for the FDA, living his life in the East Coast.

00:33:19.000 Someone came along and said, hey, you want to get out of here?

00:33:22.000 You're making 50 grand.

00:33:24.000 Just say that you believe this to be less addictive.

00:33:27.000 That'll get us the approval.

00:33:29.000 And you're good.

00:33:31.000 We're going to make you good.

00:33:33.000 And here we are.

00:33:35.000 And that revolving door still exists today.

00:33:38.000 People go from the FDA right into pharmaceutical companies today.

00:33:42.000 For sure.

00:33:43.000 And it's so weird that that's legal.

00:33:46.000 And another big part of the game are these medical journals, right?

00:33:49.000 Like there's something called the New England Journal of Medicine.

00:33:53.000 And like a big thing is for a doctor in some of these journals are owned by the pharmaceutical companies, right?

00:34:01.000 So think about it.

00:34:03.000 Purdue Pharma, you either buy or control medical journals that write favorable articles about your products, about your drugs.

00:34:12.000 So in the case of OxyContin, there was a small, like almost a letter to the editor written about OxyContin being less than 1% addictive. 0.96

00:34:24.000 In a medical journal, which sounds like official and like, okay, well, Damn, Joe was in the medical journal. 0.85

00:34:33.000 Let's go.

00:34:34.000 But these are controlled by drug companies, and they're not legit.

00:34:38.000 It's fake news.

00:34:39.000 It's real fake news, and it's all part of the ecosystem of selling drugs.

00:34:47.000 And these are the big drug dealers.

00:34:49.000 Like we talk about Chapo or Pablo Escobar, you know, Eric Newman, my buddy who was the exact producer on this, he produced Narcos.

00:34:57.000 And I went deep on Pablo Escobar and he's like, when he first said you want to do this, he's like, these are the real drug dealers.

00:35:06.000 Like, these are the drug dealers putting up the real numbers.

00:35:11.000 And they're the drug dealers who put their name on museums, like the Metropolitan, the Guggenheim, the Louvre in Paris.

00:35:18.000 These are the big-time, hard-hitting drug dealers.

00:35:23.000 They're real gangsters. 1.00

00:35:24.000 Oh, they're fucking gangsters, man. 1.00

00:35:26.000 It's such a gangster move to put your name everywhere, too. 1.00

00:35:29.000 Especially on education institutions.

00:35:33.000 Dude, have you ever been in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Temple of Dender, the giant glass?

00:35:40.000 It's the biggest exhibit in the Met in New York City.

00:35:44.000 And that was the Sackler Wing.

00:35:46.000 And I would go in there when we were making the show, and it was this giant...

00:35:52.000 It's on the north side of the Met.

00:35:56.000 It's a massive art wing.

00:35:59.000 And you go in there, it says the Sackler Wing.

00:36:01.000 And you go in there and there's parents running around with their kids.

00:36:04.000 The last time I saw a guy get on his hands and knees and propose.

00:36:07.000 And it's just this happy, joyful room built on OxyContin.

00:36:13.000 And two, three months ago, they took the name down.

00:36:17.000 They finally took the name down.

00:36:19.000 Finally?

00:36:20.000 After all these years?

00:36:21.000 Yeah, so they've taken...

00:36:22.000 And this is the thing that, like...

00:36:25.000 What Arthur Sackler cared more about than anything, which is like the same as Alfred Nobel, right?

00:36:31.000 You know that Alfred Nobel made dynamite.

00:36:33.000 That's how he made his money.

00:36:36.000 It was a fascinating story that Nobel was the inventor of dynamite.

00:36:41.000 It's almost like an Oppenheimer situation.

00:36:43.000 Wow, I didn't know that.

00:36:44.000 And the story is that someone ran a false obituary.

00:36:49.000 They thought he died and they called him a merchant of death.

00:36:52.000 The great merchant of death is gone.

00:36:54.000 This guy, Nobel, who invented dynamite. 0.98

00:36:56.000 And at that moment, he realized, fuck, this is how I'm going to be known. 0.99

00:37:00.000 This is going to be my legacy, the merchant of death. 0.99

00:37:03.000 He took a huge chunk of his fortune and started the Nobel Peace Prize.

00:37:08.000 So when you hear the name Nobel, you don't think about dynamite, right?

00:37:13.000 Wow.

00:37:13.000 He invented dynamite.

00:37:15.000 Hand grenades, and howitzer rounds, and munitions.

00:37:19.000 That was all Nobel.

00:37:21.000 Now you're just like, oh my god, Barack Obama just won.

00:37:23.000 Dalai Lama just won.

00:37:25.000 Martin Luther King won.

00:37:27.000 This guy made it off of dynamite.

00:37:29.000 That's insane.

00:37:31.000 Right?

00:37:31.000 And so the Sacklers were like the same thing.

00:37:34.000 Wait a minute.

00:37:34.000 We know what we're selling here.

00:37:36.000 We know where our money's coming from.

00:37:39.000 Look at that.

00:37:40.000 Merchant of Death to Pioneer Nobel Prize.

00:37:43.000 The Nobel Peace Prize was a big bait and switch.

00:37:47.000 So nobody thought about the fact that this dude, you know...

00:37:51.000 Look at the body count of Vietnam.

00:37:54.000 This is interesting.

00:37:56.000 He said, many saw his invention, what Alfred thought would end all wars, just like Oppenheimer, as a highly lethal product.

00:38:02.000 When Alfred's brother Ludwig died in 1888, a French newspaper accidentally published an obituary for Alfred that referred to him as the merchant of death.

00:38:10.000 Wow.

00:38:12.000 Right?

00:38:13.000 Did you know that?

00:38:14.000 I did not.

00:38:15.000 That's a mind blower. 1.00

00:38:17.000 But it makes sense because that's how evil fucks are. 0.99

00:38:21.000 They'll try to cover up what they're doing with humanitarian work. 0.99

00:38:24.000 A hundred percent.

00:38:25.000 And that's what the Sacklers did.

00:38:27.000 Like, okay, we're selling heroin and pills.

00:38:31.000 We're up to 300,000 deaths and a lot of wrecked families.

00:38:36.000 Let's buy some art.

00:38:39.000 Let's donate to multiple medical schools.

00:38:43.000 Get our names on medical schools all around the country.

00:38:46.000 Let's throw our name up on the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim, the Louvre in Paris.

00:38:55.000 They were putting their names on anything they could.

00:38:57.000 There was a bridge in London at one of the Sacklers, the Sackler Bridge.

00:39:02.000 Just anything to take your eye off the ball.

00:39:06.000 And so to me...

00:39:08.000 Whether they end up paying $6 billion or $16 billion, yeah, that's real.

00:39:15.000 That's deserved money. 1.00

00:39:16.000 But I think the bigger issue is the name.

00:39:19.000 The evisceration of the name is in deep process right now.

00:39:27.000 As it should be.

00:39:29.000 Yes.

00:39:29.000 And I just wonder how they're going to get away without paying criminal penalties.

00:39:34.000 I mean, not just criminal penalties, but going to jail.

00:39:38.000 It's hard to go to jail today if you've got a lot of money, Joe.

00:39:41.000 That's insane.

00:39:43.000 I can't imagine the Sacklers going to jail, but I think worse than jail is the fact that the name is now done.

00:39:57.000 And that hurts, because this was a family that was all about the legacy.

00:40:04.000 That's over.

00:40:06.000 This guy that approved it, what was his name again?

00:40:09.000 Curtis Wright.

00:40:11.000 Imagine being that guy.

00:40:13.000 Because you didn't even get rich.

00:40:15.000 You know, you got kind of rich.

00:40:16.000 You made a lot of money, but you didn't get like billionaire, I can just go hide on an island rich.

00:40:21.000 You're in a small town in New Hampshire, and then they find you when this series comes out.

00:40:28.000 Yeah, I don't...

00:40:29.000 I never know, like, someone's morality.

00:40:34.000 Like, I always have trouble, like, understanding how different people process morality and, like, what it would mean for...

00:40:42.000 Because you've got to assume a guy like that, after, you know, 25 years, has figured out a way of justifying to himself what he's done, right?

00:40:52.000 Like, we all do that, like...

00:40:54.000 We justify our behaviors.

00:40:56.000 We don't engage in behavior like that, but whatever we do, we justify it.

00:41:01.000 And I wonder how much it hurts.

00:41:04.000 We tried to contact Richard Sackler several times during the early—he used to live here in Austin, and we couldn't find him.

00:41:14.000 He has a house here in Austin still.

00:41:16.000 But how it feels.

00:41:20.000 You know, there's never been a moment where there's been any kind of accountability where, you know, Richard Sackler comes out and says, okay, okay, look, I am really fucking sorry.

00:41:33.000 Let's just start with that.

00:41:34.000 I am so sorry that this has happened.

00:41:38.000 I am so sorry for the pain.

00:41:40.000 And I can't undo it.

00:41:42.000 But I want to first acknowledge that I'm sorry.

00:41:45.000 I made some really bad decisions.

00:41:47.000 I thought I was helping people.

00:41:49.000 I wasn't.

00:41:51.000 There has never been...

00:41:53.000 And I think that's where the anger comes from, so much of it.

00:41:56.000 Do you think that that's because of legal advice?

00:42:00.000 I mean, even if he was...

00:42:02.000 I don't think you could admit that you're sorry in a situation as horrendous as this because I think it opens up the floodgates for further scrutiny.

00:42:10.000 I guess.

00:42:11.000 I just...

00:42:11.000 Yes, you're probably right.

00:42:13.000 But I guess I feel like you've already...

00:42:17.000 You've lost...

00:42:19.000 You've lost.

00:42:20.000 You've lost so much.

00:42:22.000 And you've lost so much money.

00:42:23.000 Your reputation is destroyed.

00:42:27.000 And if you look at, there's like a 12-hour deposition of Sackler that we recreate some of in the show. 1.00

00:42:38.000 And the guy is just a fucking ice brick. 0.99

00:42:43.000 Like he offers nothing. 1.00

00:42:45.000 There's no humanity there.

00:42:47.000 And obviously his lawyers were advising him, yes.

00:42:49.000 And he can't say a lot.

00:42:51.000 But you want to...

00:42:53.000 You want to believe that everyone's human.

00:42:55.000 Yeah, like you want to see some version of like, okay, can I understand how it happened?

00:43:02.000 Do I think they set out?

00:43:05.000 To have all this death and destruction.

00:43:07.000 I'm going to say no.

00:43:08.000 I don't know, but I have to believe that they didn't intend for that.

00:43:13.000 Then the ball got rolling.

00:43:14.000 Then the money started coming in.

00:43:16.000 Then it all got completely out of control.

00:43:19.000 And by the time they realized how bad it was, they couldn't apologize, obviously.

00:43:24.000 And they were boxed in by legal advice.

00:43:28.000 But somewhere you're looking for some indication of like, look, ma'am, I am so sorry your son died.

00:43:36.000 Not, I'm sorry your son died, but your son was a drug addict.

00:43:40.000 An instant deflection, right?

00:43:43.000 That's just, like, that's rough. 1.00

00:43:46.000 That's rough shit. 1.00

00:43:47.000 It is rough. 1.00

00:43:49.000 It's just, again, it's hard to understand the way certain people function, their morals.

00:43:55.000 Like, what are their ethics?

00:43:57.000 And are they sociopaths?

00:43:59.000 Because there's a lot of people that are genuine sociopaths.

00:44:02.000 They do not care if other people are hurt.

00:44:04.000 They do not care about people's feelings.

00:44:05.000 They only care about themselves.

00:44:07.000 There are people like that out there in the world and they're amongst us.

00:44:10.000 And I don't know what the number is.

00:44:11.000 I think it's like 1% or something like that.

00:44:14.000 Is it something like that?

00:44:15.000 Or is that schizophrenics?

00:44:16.000 I think sociopath is probably even higher than that.

00:44:19.000 And some of it has got to be because how you were treated when you were young.

00:44:23.000 Some of it has got to be nurture.

00:44:26.000 But I wonder how much of his nature.

00:44:28.000 I wonder how much of your wires are crossed wrong. 0.99

00:44:30.000 And you just don't give a fuck about other people. 0.98

00:44:33.000 It's totally possible. 0.99

00:44:34.000 I mean, you look at, like, Jeffrey Dahmer.

00:44:37.000 His parents seemed to be normal.

00:44:39.000 They didn't seem to abuse him.

00:44:40.000 He didn't have, like, some horrific childhood where he was, you know, tortured.

00:44:45.000 It's like, what makes a person like that? 0.99

00:44:47.000 I don't fucking know, man. 0.95

00:44:49.000 But when you see it, it's so confusing. 0.98

00:44:52.000 Like, that Sackler guy in your show, it's like...

00:44:55.000 When you're watching him say what he says, like, how does a person like this exist?

00:44:59.000 Right.

00:45:00.000 Right.

00:45:00.000 And, you know, like, obviously Dahmer is a fairly extreme example of...

00:45:05.000 But is it?

00:45:05.000 Because he only killed, like, six or seven people.

00:45:08.000 Right.

00:45:08.000 I just mean, but he really put his hands on those people, right?

00:45:12.000 Oh, he definitely did.

00:45:13.000 The idea of a serial killer is such an extreme, real but extreme version of that.

00:45:19.000 But how many times do you kind of come across someone who's maybe not killing people or engaged in a lethal career, but you're like, whoa, that dude doesn't seem reachable.

00:45:32.000 I don't know what's going on there.

00:45:34.000 I'm trying to have some sort of human connection, but this dude is just like...

00:45:40.000 I've met many people generally who organize their lives strictly around making money.

00:45:49.000 Money is the prize.

00:45:51.000 Money is the art.

00:45:52.000 And I'm like, hello?

00:45:56.000 Yeah.

00:45:56.000 It's a very weird, non-human pursuit.

00:46:00.000 Yeah.

00:46:01.000 It's like I'm about making money and my morality and sense of humanity is just not very readily apparent.

00:46:11.000 And I think that that's like...

00:46:14.000 On a spectrum, not necessarily that far removed from something that could turn into Jeffrey Dahmer.

00:46:23.000 Yeah, it's not that far.

00:46:25.000 I mean, do you ever, like, study Putin and try and figure out what's going on in that guy's head?

00:46:29.000 I could only imagine.

00:46:31.000 Like, I think it was Bush who said, you know, he had just come back from meeting Putin years ago, and he said, you know, I looked into his eyes and I didn't see his soul.

00:46:42.000 And I remember, like, I was younger when he said that, but it chilled me.

00:46:45.000 Like, and Bush looked, this was Bush too, and he's like, I looked into his eyes and I didn't see his soul.

00:46:52.000 Pull that quote up, because that's crazy.

00:46:55.000 I hope I said it right.

00:46:58.000 Oh, the opposite.

00:47:00.000 I looked the man in the eye.

00:47:01.000 I found it to be very straightforward and trustworthy, Bush said.

00:47:04.000 I was able to get a sense of his soul.

00:47:06.000 Yeah, well, it was either he got it or he didn't get it, right?

00:47:10.000 I'm so glad we searched that.

00:47:12.000 Yeah, I am too.

00:47:12.000 Because I was confused.

00:47:13.000 I could have swore it was the opposite.

00:47:15.000 Well, okay, I was wrong about that one.

00:47:17.000 But he said he regretted it because he was wrong.

00:47:21.000 He thought he saw his soul, but he didn't.

00:47:23.000 He said that later?

00:47:24.000 Well, that's what he said, right?

00:47:25.000 He said he regretted it.

00:47:26.000 Pull it back up.

00:47:28.000 I think he said, I thought I saw Saul.

00:47:33.000 Bush later regretted saying this.

00:47:35.000 Yes.

00:47:36.000 How about that?

00:47:37.000 Bush later regretted saying this.

00:47:39.000 So he thought he saw Saul, Joe, but he didn't.

00:47:43.000 That's what he came to believe.

00:47:44.000 What does he say later?

00:47:49.000 He just said he's regretted it, according to...

00:47:55.000 But then I was not able to get a sense of his soul.

00:47:57.000 I did not see the relentless ambition when I looked Putin in the eye 27 years ago.

00:48:03.000 But then I was not able to get a sense of his soul.

00:48:05.000 Okay.

00:48:06.000 I think that's the line that stuck with me.

00:48:08.000 I was not able to get a sense of his soul.

00:48:10.000 Well, he doesn't speak Russian either. 1.00

00:48:12.000 That's got to be fucking hard as fuck. 0.99

00:48:14.000 Just talking to someone in two different languages is extremely difficult. 0.99

00:48:17.000 Have you been to Moscow?

00:48:18.000 No, I have not.

00:48:19.000 The architecture is insane.

00:48:21.000 I loved it.

00:48:21.000 I've been there twice.

00:48:22.000 Rush is incredible.

00:48:23.000 I loved it.

00:48:24.000 And, like, one of the many things that, like, sucks about this, I think, is, like, Moscow is just out now for such a long time.

00:48:33.000 For a long time.

00:48:34.000 Yeah, and I've gone there twice for film promotions.

00:48:38.000 And the people were so nice.

00:48:42.000 The...

00:48:43.000 Food was fantastic.

00:48:45.000 The architecture, I mean, walking through Red Square, I loved it.

00:48:48.000 I loved the culture.

00:48:51.000 And it's too bad.

00:48:54.000 Yeah, it is too bad.

00:48:55.000 I would hope one day to be able to go back there.

00:48:58.000 Yeah.

00:48:59.000 I mean, it's amazing how many great chess players, how many great martial artists, how many great authors...

00:49:07.000 Russia's produced some incredible things, incredible works.

00:49:11.000 And the architecture in Russia is so different than anywhere else.

00:49:15.000 The Moscow architecture is so beautiful and so unique, uniquely Russian.

00:49:21.000 You know, it's really fantastic stuff.

00:49:23.000 I mean, but it's like the political aspect of it.

00:49:27.000 It's so terrifying, man, that we're like this close to a nuclear war. 0.99

00:49:32.000 God damn it scares the fuck out of me. 0.98

00:49:34.000 And I always wonder if the same sort of decision-making apparatus that exists in pushing through OxyContin also exists in pushing through wars. 0.99

00:49:45.000 Also exists in pushing through just things that like morally we would all say these are terrible, terrible things.

00:49:55.000 We should all agree on this.

00:49:57.000 And to be able to convince large groups of people to engage in them because you're the leader.

00:50:02.000 I mean, something that I've been looking at for a while now is trying to get into the weapons contracting business, meaning like the big ones, the McDonnell Douglas,

00:50:17.000 the Raytheons, the Boeing, the companies that Are making so much money.

00:50:25.000 I was in Pearl Harbor working on a film and they had the nuclear submarines coming in and out of the harbor.

00:50:34.000 Have you ever seen one, these Trident submarines?

00:50:36.000 No.

00:50:38.000 They're amazing.

00:50:39.000 Like, you know, it never ceases to amaze me that, like, many of our greatest creative accomplishments are these weapon systems, right?

00:50:47.000 Like, have you been on an aircraft carrier before?

00:50:49.000 Yes.

00:50:49.000 Or, you know, witnessed the awe and spectacle of those planes, right?

00:50:54.000 They're incredible.

00:50:54.000 And we were filming on a carrier in Pearl Harbor, and the subs kept coming in and out, and they're these massive, sleek, they look like, you know, sharks, and they're cruising slow, and they dock in.

00:51:06.000 Can I see one, Jamie?

00:51:08.000 You're welcome.

00:51:08.000 Thank you.

00:51:10.000 And we had handlers from Pearl Harbor there, and I'm like, you know, could I tour one?

00:51:16.000 And they went to the Admiral of the base, and the word came back, yes, you can tour one.

00:51:21.000 So they took me to a nuclear submarine that was tied up at Pearl Harbor, and they took me on it. 0.87

00:51:29.000 And I go in, I've got these, you know, public affairs people, and the captain of the sub, and they're showing me around the sub, and they're just awesome, and they're massive, and they're full of people, and And it's just all, like, the most, like, technical, high-tech shit you've ever seen in your life.

00:51:44.000 And they're like, this is the navigation room.

00:51:46.000 This is where we control the sub.

00:51:47.000 And they're showing me the equipment.

00:51:48.000 I'm like, how much does this equipment cost?

00:51:51.000 And they're like, well, we can't really tell you, but it's, you know.

00:51:55.000 50, 100...

00:51:56.000 Between 50 and 100 million dollars for this area of the sub.

00:52:00.000 And then they take me past the nuclear reactors where there's armed guys guarding the nuclear reactors because they're propelled by nukes.

00:52:07.000 And I'm like, well, how much does it...

00:52:09.000 We can't tell you.

00:52:10.000 Right?

00:52:11.000 And then they get you into the torpedo rooms where there's these massive torpedoes.

00:52:17.000 Dozens of them.

00:52:17.000 And you're like...

00:52:19.000 How much do these things cost?

00:52:21.000 We can't tell you.

00:52:22.000 We can't tell you. 0.99

00:52:23.000 Then they take you to the fucking missile room where there's 10 missiles. 0.99

00:52:30.000 Okay? 0.99

00:52:31.000 Missiles that have nuclear warheads that can go on them, right?

00:52:35.000 Sir, how much do these cost?

00:52:37.000 Well, we can't tell you that.

00:52:38.000 Then you start looking up the prices, right?

00:52:41.000 And you figure for a nuclear missile with the warhead and the guidance system and all the propulsion, you've got to be looking at least $30 million.

00:52:51.000 That's my guess.

00:52:52.000 What do you think a nuclear missile armed and loaded costs?

00:52:56.000 I have no idea.

00:52:57.000 I'm going to say 30 million, minimum.

00:52:59.000 You're just guessing?

00:53:00.000 I'm guessing.

00:53:01.000 But I think I'm under-guessing.

00:53:02.000 Probably.

00:53:03.000 And I've done some calculating.

00:53:04.000 Oh, there was a question about this recently because the missiles that they shot at the Chinese air balloon, that balloon, the spy balloon, they missed one of them.

00:53:13.000 And then there was a talk of how much that missed cost.

00:53:17.000 Right.

00:53:17.000 A miss cost a lot of money.

00:53:19.000 But I'm on this sub and I'm looking at what appears to be...

00:53:23.000 That one was 400K. That one was 400K? The ones that are out of the plane, maybe it's different.

00:53:27.000 But that wasn't a nuke.

00:53:29.000 I'm talking about a nuclear missile fired from a submarine, right?

00:53:37.000 So now I'm on this thing.

00:53:39.000 I'm counting these missiles, 10 missiles, right, that I can see.

00:53:44.000 So I'm trying to do the math.

00:53:47.000 I'd say it's $500 million worth of missiles on one sub, right?

00:53:53.000 I'm looking, I can see eight subs docked in Pearl Harbor, right?

00:53:57.000 So now I'm like, there's 10 times 8, right?

00:54:01.000 There's 80 missiles in my visual at 500 a missile.

00:54:04.000 And these are just the subs I can see, right?

00:54:07.000 So I'm thinking, well, wait a minute. 1.00

00:54:08.000 If one of these subs fires one missile, right, we're fucked. 1.00

00:54:15.000 We're done. 1.00

00:54:15.000 The world is probably over, right? 1.00

00:54:18.000 One missile goes.

00:54:19.000 We've got at least 80 of them that I can see.

00:54:23.000 How many people are making money off of this game, right?

00:54:26.000 Where's the money going?

00:54:28.000 That we have to keep putting, loading these submarines with nuclear missiles, one of which is going to get it done.

00:54:35.000 That's not then including all the missiles that are in the silos, right?

00:54:39.000 All the missiles that are flying 24-7 in planes and bombs.

00:54:44.000 Like, we are loaded up.

00:54:46.000 Good.

00:54:47.000 Right?

00:54:48.000 We got enough.

00:54:49.000 Yet we keep making more.

00:54:51.000 And this is, you know, like Purdue Pharma, these companies, and now it's all turning into, like, AI-controlled drones, right, that are going to be, like, the new forefront of the weapon systems, where all the money is going to go.

00:55:05.000 But I was thinking, like, what would happen if you took two of these subs and took them offline and built, I don't know, schools?

00:55:15.000 What would happen?

00:55:16.000 Would our national security be threatened?

00:55:21.000 I don't know.

00:55:22.000 Would our country be better off?

00:55:24.000 I don't know.

00:55:26.000 All the money, all the money is going into the military.

00:55:30.000 I support the military.

00:55:33.000 I've done multiple films about Our troops, and I understand, I've been to Iraq with the SEAL platoon.

00:55:42.000 I've had a front row seat to the reality of what these men and women are going through.

00:55:48.000 This kind of spending, it seems to me to be a bit reckless.

00:55:56.000 Well, at the very least, they're incentivized.

00:56:00.000 They're incentivized to be in conflict.

00:56:04.000 If there's that much money to be made, the same way Purdue Pharma was incentivized to pretend that it wasn't addictive, even though they knew it was, it's the same kind of thing.

00:56:16.000 Like, there's decisions that get made specifically because of money.

00:56:21.000 That's really scary for us because we want to think that if we have a leader, we trust someone to be a leader.

00:56:27.000 We have this thought in our head that this is our chief, right?

00:56:30.000 This is the best warrior.

00:56:31.000 This is the wisest person that's lived the longest and the best to govern us.

00:56:35.000 We would never want to believe that someone that he appoints and that's in that chain involved in running all these people is making decisions that will absolutely cost lives and souls.

00:56:49.000 People will be destroyed.

00:56:50.000 But they're making these decisions because of money.

00:56:53.000 Because of money.

00:56:54.000 And it's like the same thing with with some of these drugs is the same thing with some of the big weapon systems.

00:57:01.000 You know, some of like if you're if you're the if you're the president, right, if you're the next president of the US and you decide that you want to reduce spending in the military.

00:57:12.000 So say there's a jet program.

00:57:15.000 F-35 or some massive jet program that's costing a shitload of money and you want to try and slow it down.

00:57:24.000 Well, what they do is they build different parts of the aircraft in different states.

00:57:29.000 So there might be 30 states that are all contributing to making one weapon system.

00:57:35.000 So if you try and dismantle it, you've got the government, the representatives from 30 different states saying, you can't do it.

00:57:42.000 We've got a factory that's making the guidance system.

00:57:44.000 We've got a factory that's arming the ordnance on the missiles.

00:57:49.000 We're doing the landing gear.

00:57:51.000 And the weapons are now part of the economy, and they can't be divorced from it, and the spending just goes on.

00:57:58.000 Isn't there an argument on the other side, though, that we can't allow another country to achieve military superiority over us?

00:58:06.000 And if we stop innovation and stop the flow of money into developing these new jets, That we would run the risk of that happening.

00:58:13.000 For sure.

00:58:14.000 And that's what's going on with China right now, right?

00:58:18.000 That we're in an arms race with China.

00:58:21.000 A lot of AI technology involved.

00:58:24.000 We're now starting to discuss letting AI... Fly and arm and release weapons on targets that are AI-assessed and AI-authorized kills because China's doing the same thing, 0.74

00:58:41.000 and we don't want to be out-teched by China, and so we're in a never-ending arms race to have the best technology.

00:58:50.000 I get it.

00:58:51.000 Okay, fine.

00:58:52.000 Let's do it.

00:58:53.000 It's just a lot of money.

00:58:55.000 You know, and I can't help but think, like, who's making money?

00:59:01.000 Okay, it says CBO estimates that plans for US nuclear forces as described in the fiscal year 2023 budget and supporting documents would cost $756 billion over the 2023-2032 period.

00:59:18.000 Okay, nine years.

00:59:20.000 $122 billion more than CBO's 2021 estimate for the 2021-2030 period.

00:59:28.000 Sorry guys, we underestimated by 122 billion.

00:59:32.000 This is our B61 Nuke that put on a lot of planes and stuff.

00:59:37.000 Right.

00:59:37.000 Do you have a price tag on that one?

00:59:38.000 Yeah, I do.

00:59:39.000 It's roughly 28 million.

00:59:42.000 Okay.

00:59:42.000 Wow, you're dead on.

00:59:43.000 So this is what I'm saying.

00:59:45.000 We have 3,000 of them.

00:59:46.000 Jamie, how many do we have?

00:59:47.000 Somewhere in the range of 3,000 to 4,000.

00:59:49.000 So what's the total number just on that missile?

00:59:51.000 Can you do that multiplication?

00:59:53.000 30 times 3,000.

00:59:55.000 Could you imagine the horror of...

00:59:58.000 How many missiles do we have?

00:59:59.000 How many of those?

00:59:59.000 There's something in the range of...

01:00:01.000 I found something that's going to be at 3,700 nukes.

01:00:04.000 Let's round it off to 3,500.

01:00:07.000 Imagine 3,500 nuclear missiles launching through the air.

01:00:13.000 The horrors of that.

01:00:15.000 One of those is the 83 Hiroshima bombs. 0.78

01:00:17.000 Just two.

01:00:19.000 Just one of them.

01:00:20.000 It's over.

01:00:21.000 Game over.

01:00:22.000 One.

01:00:23.000 83 Hiroshima bombs.

01:00:25.000 Yes.

01:00:26.000 That's like, this is the issue.

01:00:28.000 Holy.

01:00:29.000 Yeah, even that one blew up in the sky and these can go underground and make things worse.

01:00:34.000 Oh my God.

01:00:35.000 But those are just air delivered, yes?

01:00:36.000 Can you show me that sub, that nuclear sub?

01:00:38.000 I mean, there's a few.

01:00:40.000 I don't know exactly the one he saw.

01:00:41.000 I was trying to find a good picture from Pearl Harbor of a bunch of subs. 0.97

01:00:45.000 It is pretty fucking amazing. 0.98

01:00:47.000 They're amazing. 0.98

01:00:47.000 They have a sub that runs on a nuclear reactor. 0.98

01:00:49.000 They're beautiful achievements of engineering and skill and talent.

01:00:54.000 And to be on that thing was awe-inspiring.

01:00:57.000 But my God, are they expensive.

01:01:00.000 Like, really expensive.

01:01:03.000 Yeah, it makes sense.

01:01:04.000 I mean, you can't get one that does something like that for cheap.

01:01:07.000 But it is kind of amazing that our biggest accomplishments in the world are weaponry.

01:01:12.000 In the world of weaponry.

01:01:14.000 Other than communication, like cell phones and the like, and wireless internet, this is crazy that they develop a nuclear-powered underwater weapon That is...

01:01:30.000 Designed to deliver...

01:01:32.000 Taken out a country. 1.00

01:01:32.000 Yeah, designed really only to deliver nuclear missiles. 1.00

01:01:36.000 I mean, how many does this motherfucker carry on it? 0.99

01:01:40.000 How many cities can this thing take out instantly? 0.99

01:01:43.000 And how many do we have?

01:01:45.000 Like I've seen, like I said, I saw six of them in Pearl Harbor.

01:01:49.000 Imagine being those kids.

01:01:50.000 These kids look like they're like 20 years old.

01:01:52.000 Look how young they look.

01:01:54.000 That kid looks like it could be my friend's son.

01:01:56.000 And the bottom right with the glasses?

01:01:57.000 Yeah.

01:01:58.000 That is wild.

01:02:00.000 Wild.

01:02:01.000 To be that young, you're holding a machine gun on a nuclear-powered tank.

01:02:06.000 Oh, you're that dude.

01:02:07.000 That goes in the water. 0.96

01:02:08.000 And you're the captain.

01:02:08.000 Look at this guy.

01:02:09.000 You're the Vice Admiral Bill Houston. 1.00

01:02:11.000 You run that shit. 1.00

01:02:12.000 You run that. 1.00

01:02:14.000 Like, we talk about power, like what we think of power and, you know...

01:02:18.000 That's a crazy job that guy has.

01:02:20.000 Dana White has a tough job?

01:02:22.000 That's a job!

01:02:23.000 That's a job!

01:02:24.000 This has to be so nerve-wracking for all these people on board, especially when it goes in the water, when you know you're underwater.

01:02:31.000 Like, Jesus Christ!

01:02:32.000 I know they work, but do you remember there was a Russian one that went down?

01:02:37.000 There was a nuclear sub that went down?

01:02:39.000 And that's where the term can neither confirm nor deny.

01:02:43.000 That's when it was, because they had to answer.

01:02:46.000 So they had to have an answer to like, is this going on?

01:02:48.000 Are you guys retrieving a nuclear sub from Russia?

01:02:50.000 So because they had an answer, I don't think they have to answer now, but they had to come up with a phrase.

01:02:56.000 Can either confirm or deny.

01:02:57.000 Yeah.

01:02:58.000 What was that about?

01:02:59.000 Which sub was that?

01:03:01.000 I think they allegedly recovered it, which is crazy.

01:03:05.000 So we have the ability to recover a nuclear sub at the bottom of the ocean?

01:03:10.000 What the hell, man?

01:03:12.000 I mean, the more time I've spent with the military... 0.90

01:03:20.000 When I was writing Lone Survivor, I got to go to Iraq with the SEAL team and see them operating and see the skill with which they operated.

01:03:32.000 There's no technology involved there.

01:03:36.000 SEALs don't really need this kind of stuff.

01:03:39.000 That's just more like, give me a Jeep, give me some night vision goggles, give me some good intel on where the guy is, and I'll deal with it.

01:03:48.000 That was beautiful.

01:03:50.000 That was like the most elite team training and discipline and structure I'd ever seen.

01:03:56.000 So on a human level, what I observed with a group like the SEALs was such an incredibly advanced form of team behavior.

01:04:06.000 I think?

01:04:23.000 And these 22-year-old kids are flying them.

01:04:25.000 And they've got a helmet with a mask.

01:04:28.000 And they call it slaving the ship to the goggles.

01:04:31.000 So they activate the goggles so that wherever they turn, the helicopter turns.

01:04:38.000 And they've got eye sensors.

01:04:39.000 So where their eyes go, the guns go.

01:04:43.000 Right? 1.00

01:04:43.000 So you look at it, you kill it. 1.00

01:04:45.000 And they're giving us these demonstrations.

01:04:48.000 And they're flying them all around the set.

01:04:49.000 I'm like...

01:04:51.000 Okay, I've seen the pyramids.

01:04:53.000 I've seen the Notre Dame Cathedral in France.

01:04:56.000 I've seen a lot of Van Goghs.

01:04:59.000 They're beautiful.

01:04:59.000 I saw the Mona Lisa.

01:05:00.000 That was great. 0.99

01:05:02.000 Seeing this fucking helicopter turning as the guy's head turns with the weapon systems. 1.00

01:05:07.000 I'm like, who's building cooler shit than this? 1.00

01:05:13.000 Yes! 1.00

01:05:14.000 It wins.

01:05:15.000 It is our greatest achievement.

01:05:19.000 These weapons of death, they're incredible.

01:05:22.000 Well, that's what you can make if you have an unlimited budget.

01:05:26.000 And really smart guys.

01:05:27.000 Yeah, really smart engineers.

01:05:29.000 Oppenheimer had a hell of a, like, that was a great build, right?

01:05:33.000 That was a great build. 0.99

01:05:34.000 But man, it's expensive, and it's kind of a bummer when this shit gets used. 1.00

01:05:41.000 It's really bad. 0.99

01:05:42.000 What do you think about all this UAP UFO stuff?

01:05:47.000 Have you thought about this?

01:05:48.000 Do you think that this is some sort of a government program, like they've developed these high-speed drones in secrecy?

01:05:55.000 I mean...

01:05:57.000 Because that's one prevailing theory.

01:05:59.000 I have trouble understanding...

01:06:01.000 Like, take the UFO aspect of it, right?

01:06:04.000 Right.

01:06:05.000 Like, yes, there's absolutely zero question on Earth that there's life out in the solar system.

01:06:11.000 It's an infinite solar system.

01:06:13.000 It goes on forever.

01:06:14.000 I'm sorry, infinite universe.

01:06:18.000 Smoke some 5-MeO and you'll go out there.

01:06:22.000 Yes, it's out there.

01:06:26.000 The government keeping it secret and being that capable to find it and keep it secret, I don't know.

01:06:33.000 I took mushrooms with my friend Mike Dragorio and we tried to get on Area 51 one day and we drove up there.

01:06:41.000 I just did mushrooms thing to do.

01:06:44.000 Have you ever gone up there?

01:06:47.000 No, I have not.

01:06:47.000 Because it's this road, Area 51, it's this highway, and the base is over a mountain, but the road goes on forever, and you're driving, and we're high as fuck on mushrooms, and we're not getting any closer to the mountain, and we're driving, and we're driving, and we're driving, and suddenly there's a white van behind us,

01:07:06.000 right? 0.99

01:07:06.000 With the light on, and we're like, oh, fuck. 0.99

01:07:08.000 Okay, good. 0.99

01:07:09.000 Like, this is kind of what we thought might happen, and sure enough, guys get out, military dudes with guns, and they're looking at us, they're like...

01:07:17.000 Okay, you guys are on mushrooms, right?

01:07:19.000 We've seen this.

01:07:20.000 We've seen this.

01:07:21.000 Turn around.

01:07:22.000 It's so common!

01:07:23.000 Turn around.

01:07:24.000 That's hilarious!

01:07:25.000 It's almost like the mushrooms want you to go to Area 51. You're not getting on the base.

01:07:29.000 They're like, there's a hotel called the Little Alien.

01:07:32.000 Go down there with everybody else that's on mushrooms.

01:07:34.000 And you can sit out there all night and have all your theories.

01:07:38.000 And you're turning around.

01:07:39.000 And we're like...

01:07:41.000 Roger that.

01:07:42.000 That's amazing.

01:07:44.000 That's so funny that they called it.

01:07:46.000 Yeah, they knew it.

01:07:47.000 It just must be so common.

01:07:49.000 Buddies are like, let's take some shrooms and get on Area 51. And these guys, they weren't nasty or tough, but they're like, yeah, yeah, you're going to turn around, drink some water, turn around, and go to the Little Alien Hotel. 0.98

01:08:00.000 You're allowed to get a certain distance, and then it's illegal.

01:08:03.000 And I believe they had to expand that distance.

01:08:07.000 I want to say it was during the Obama administration.

01:08:10.000 They had to acknowledge...

01:08:11.000 It might have been before that.

01:08:13.000 It might have been Clinton.

01:08:15.000 They had to acknowledge the existence...

01:08:17.000 Or it might have been Bush, rather.

01:08:18.000 They had to acknowledge the existence of Area 51 in order to expand the forbidden zone.

01:08:24.000 Because they had a forbidden zone, but they did not acknowledge...

01:08:27.000 No flyover.

01:08:28.000 No drive.

01:08:29.000 You can't hike in.

01:08:30.000 Because people were filming things, John Lear in particular, a lot of people were filming things that set up like very strong telescopes and high-speed optics and they were filming these tests of these things.

01:08:44.000 Whether or not these things were UFOs or whether it's top secret shit they're working on, obviously the stealth bomber came from that program.

01:08:50.000 The Harrier jump jet, which would like vertically lift and then take off. 0.98

01:08:54.000 They made a lot of wild shit that is absolutely from us.

01:08:58.000 But the alleged claims, and the most fascinating one is this guy Bob Lazar, who claims to have worked at S4, which is a Site 4 of Area 51, and he was on a program designed to back-engineer this recovered disc. 0.97

01:09:15.000 It's a fascinating story. 0.99

01:09:17.000 Because if he's full of shit, oh my god, what a great story. 1.00

01:09:19.000 This guy's pulled the wool over people's eyes for 30 years. 1.00

01:09:22.000 Right.

01:09:22.000 Because he told the story in like 1989 was the first time he told it.

01:09:26.000 So it's more than 30 years.

01:09:27.000 But he's also, he has like real knowledge of the area.

01:09:33.000 He has real knowledge of Los Alamos Labs where they tried to say that he never worked there, but then they found him on the employee roster from the time.

01:09:40.000 He went in there.

01:09:42.000 People knew him. 0.74

01:09:43.000 It seems like the guy really was a propulsion specialist, and they really did try to get some off-the-fucking-beaten-path scientists.

01:09:52.000 Because they have to get fresh eyes on these things, allegedly, every few years.

01:09:57.000 But everyone's sworn to secrecy, and it's very compartmentalized.

01:10:01.000 So the metallurgy guys are not allowed to talk to the propulsion guys. 0.99

01:10:04.000 No one gets together and goes, what the fuck is this? 0.95

01:10:07.000 They can't have a group of scientists. 0.99

01:10:08.000 So they exist in a team form, and it just doesn't work that way.

01:10:12.000 They need more people.

01:10:14.000 And he said no one was able to figure out anything about it, other than there's some sort of a reactor that worked on some new element.

01:10:20.000 It was theoretical back then, but now they know it's a real element.

01:10:23.000 I will believe it.

01:10:25.000 Like, I have no reason to not believe it, and to certainly not... 0.59

01:10:30.000 What I was getting at though is that like when you see an insane system like these helicopters and the goggles and then you see these insane nuclear-powered submarines and these insane aircraft carriers, like what we have built is so fucking mind-blowing.

01:10:46.000 Why wouldn't we think that we've hit some next-level propulsion system and that the reason why the Pentagon is talking about out of this world crafts, they're obscuring reality.

01:10:58.000 The reason why people are coming forward and telling you about their experience in this program, maybe that's obscuring reality. 0.97

01:11:05.000 It might be bullshit. 0.99

01:11:06.000 It might be that the government and the military and the contractors don't want any of our enemies to know that they have some fucking bonkers shit that can go literally like the speed of light. 1.00

01:11:18.000 That we have. 1.00

01:11:19.000 That we have.

01:11:22.000 So I was just working up in New Mexico and we were filming around Los Alamos.

01:11:29.000 Have you ever been to Los Alamos?

01:11:31.000 No.

01:11:33.000 It's amazing that people just haven't seen the laboratory, the current Los Alamos Research Laboratory.

01:11:40.000 Which is, you know, across the street from where Oppenheimer lived when he was doing the Manhattan Project, which was this boys school that they kicked everyone out and all the scientists moved in, which was not in the film, which is quite interesting.

01:11:54.000 Like Los Alamos, if you can ever go there and see the museums and, you know, it's just a fascinating place to see where they built that bomb.

01:12:03.000 But across the street, or actually across this river from where Oppenheimer lived, is now the current Los Alamos Research Laboratory.

01:12:11.000 Pull up a picture of that one if you want to see something mind-blowing.

01:12:15.000 It's bigger than UCLA campus.

01:12:19.000 It's this massive research facility.

01:12:24.000 In Los Alamos, which, and you can't see half of it.

01:12:29.000 It's supposedly a giant chunk of it is underground.

01:12:33.000 It's completely armed.

01:12:35.000 We would drive, there's a road, that road at the top there is this access road that we would drive every day to go up.

01:12:42.000 There's a ski mountain above it.

01:12:43.000 So for some reason they let you drive fairly close, but it's all Homeland Security protecting it.

01:12:49.000 Super fortified and armed. 0.99

01:12:52.000 And it's in the middle of fucking nowhere. 0.99

01:12:53.000 And this was birthed from... 0.99

01:12:56.000 Yeah, you can see where it is, right?

01:12:58.000 It's in the middle of nowhere.

01:13:00.000 Literally in the middle of nowhere.

01:13:01.000 We first got up there and we're like, what are they doing here?

01:13:06.000 And everyone's like, well, it's digital warfare.

01:13:11.000 It's nuclear maintenance.

01:13:15.000 It's...

01:13:17.000 Alien dissection.

01:13:20.000 Forget Area 51. This place was like...

01:13:24.000 So if we're inventing shit, this is the kind of place we're inventing it. 0.99

01:13:28.000 And we went out a couple of days to these... 0.99

01:13:31.000 There's some restaurants and bars in the town of Los Alamos.

01:13:34.000 And I'm like...

01:13:35.000 If I'm China, I'm just hiring hot girls, getting them to turn, and putting them as bartenders or cocktail waitresses because all the scientists from Los Alamos just go there after work and get drunk. 1.00

01:13:50.000 That's where everything's going down.

01:13:53.000 Wow.

01:13:54.000 Half of it's underground?

01:13:56.000 That's what they say.

01:13:57.000 We'd be up on this mountain.

01:14:00.000 There's a...

01:14:00.000 This place is...

01:14:02.000 That's what it looks like?

01:14:02.000 Wow.

01:14:03.000 It looks dope.

01:14:04.000 And it's in the middle of nowhere.

01:14:06.000 It's in the middle of nowhere.

01:14:07.000 That's so wild.

01:14:08.000 And I'm like...

01:14:08.000 I try and start conversation.

01:14:10.000 I'm like, gosh, what do you know about Los Alamos?

01:14:12.000 Jamie, what's that image to the left?

01:14:13.000 It's got all the...

01:14:14.000 I looked it up too.

01:14:15.000 What is that? 0.99

01:14:16.000 What the fuck is that? 0.98

01:14:17.000 They've got like the accelerators, you know? 0.99

01:14:19.000 Have you ever heard of like...

01:14:20.000 Particle accelerators.

01:14:22.000 I mean, I'm sure half your listeners know what this is.

01:14:24.000 But this was all started by Oppenheimer.

01:14:30.000 It used to be a log cabin.

01:14:33.000 No, that's the school.

01:14:34.000 I think that's the school that they took over.

01:14:36.000 They showed a little bit of it.

01:14:37.000 Oh, for all the scientists?

01:14:39.000 Yeah, it was such a crazy story, like how these scientists just moved into this school, kicked all the kids out under national security order, and the scientists moved in.

01:14:53.000 And to your point, no one knew what anyone else was doing when they were building the bomb.

01:14:57.000 So you're working on one part, I'm working on another.

01:15:00.000 Our wives have no idea what's going on. 1.00

01:15:03.000 We're going out and building the bomb all day and coming home and just like drinking. 0.98

01:15:08.000 They all drank and like I think there was like a lot of wife swapping and weird shit going on too. 0.99

01:15:13.000 They were just partying and building fucking nuclear bombs. 0.99

01:15:17.000 And now you go out there and see what this and it's just like I just want to know what are we doing? 0.98

01:15:24.000 How much does it cost?

01:15:26.000 And who's in charge?

01:15:28.000 And Los Alamos now, so if there is those systems, in my mind, if there was an alien ship found the government wanted, they're going to take it to Los Alamos.

01:15:38.000 That's where they're going to take it.

01:15:39.000 That's where they're going to dissect it. 0.99

01:15:41.000 And whatever's going on out there is some deep and real shit. 0.99

01:15:48.000 That's where Lazar worked. 0.98

01:15:50.000 If you go from Orville, Wilbur and Orville Wright's invention of the aircraft, how long is the time period before someone drops a nuclear bomb out of one?

01:16:02.000 How much time is between...

01:16:04.000 Was it 60 years?

01:16:05.000 Like, when was Wilbur and Orville's first flight?

01:16:09.000 That's a great question.

01:16:10.000 Because if you think of that, just think of, like, what an insane jump in technology.

01:16:15.000 From the very first airplane to dropping a nuclear bomb out of one inside of a lifetime.

01:16:22.000 Or just dropping a bomb, right?

01:16:24.000 Like, weaponizing...

01:16:25.000 Yes, air flight.

01:16:27.000 Weaponizing air flight and, like...

01:16:29.000 But a nuclear bomb.

01:16:30.000 Yeah.

01:16:31.000 Even more insane.

01:16:32.000 Because of the technology involved.

01:16:33.000 Just what a...

01:16:34.000 1902 is around when they credit them for flying.

01:16:38.000 That was Kitty Hawk.

01:16:39.000 Wow.

01:16:40.000 I'm trying to find the exact date.

01:16:40.000 I thought it was 1800s.

01:16:41.000 Yeah, I did too.

01:16:43.000 That seems late.

01:16:44.000 1902. That's crazy.

01:16:46.000 So that's 45 years?

01:16:49.000 Is that real?

01:16:50.000 Right.

01:16:50.000 About 40. Oh my god.

01:16:53.000 45 years before they dropped a nuclear bomb out of it?

01:16:55.000 That's what it is, right?

01:16:56.000 It's 47?

01:16:57.000 Yeah, I'm seeing like 1903 as the planes.

01:16:59.000 That's when I think they got the patent.

01:17:00.000 Was Kitty Hawk?

01:17:01.000 Kitty Hawk wasn't 1903, was it?

01:17:04.000 The flight?

01:17:05.000 I don't think it was.

01:17:06.000 I'll double check.

01:17:08.000 Wow.

01:17:08.000 Yeah, December 1903. Oh my god.

01:17:12.000 Well that makes sense though, because there's video of it.

01:17:15.000 There's film of it.

01:17:16.000 So it has to be, when did they invent film?

01:17:19.000 There's some stuff from the 1800s, but it's rough.

01:17:22.000 Yeah, it was bad film.

01:17:23.000 It was like jumpy, like...

01:17:25.000 Yeah.

01:17:26.000 Right, but so your point is like, how short a period of time...

01:17:29.000 What an insane jump!

01:17:30.000 And so where is it going, right?

01:17:32.000 And what do they have already?

01:17:34.000 Like, if they have programs If they have programs to do something like Area S4, if they can develop these insane machines in silence, What else do they...

01:17:49.000 AI-controlled aircraft that's going to fly.

01:17:52.000 There was just a great article in the New York Times yesterday about it.

01:17:55.000 All these companies that are now scrambling to take over the buildings, which is a threat to the established weapons manufacturers, jet builders, because the future are fighting China in a large... 0.92

01:18:10.000 Like, full-scale battle is going to be AI-controlled drone-dependent.

01:18:17.000 So rather than sending human beings in $60 million jets, they're going to send swarms of $2 or $3 million AI-controlled fighter drones.

01:18:28.000 And those are going to be self-driven, right?

01:18:32.000 Self-flown.

01:18:33.000 The way Elon's trying to get self-driving vehicles.

01:18:37.000 This is the plan.

01:18:38.000 Great article yesterday.

01:18:40.000 And that's where it's going.

01:18:43.000 And if Orville Wright could see that...

01:18:46.000 Robot Wars.

01:18:47.000 100% Robot Wars.

01:18:49.000 Robot Wars.

01:18:50.000 Like, Cameron had it right.

01:18:53.000 You know?

01:18:53.000 Terminator had it right.

01:18:55.000 Yeah.

01:18:57.000 Like, AI, dude, right?

01:19:00.000 Like, it's on.

01:19:01.000 It's crazy.

01:19:02.000 It's crazy, you know?

01:19:03.000 I mean, I think this is what—I'm not defending Ted Kaczynski—but this is what Ted Kaczynski's manifesto was about, was the construction of technology was going to replace the human race.

01:19:15.000 What is this, Jamie?

01:19:16.000 That's an AI drone.

01:19:19.000 Wow.

01:19:20.000 I mean, this is the future. 1.00

01:19:25.000 Look at this fucking thing. 0.99

01:19:27.000 My business is on strike, you know, the writers, and I support my strike, but AI is a big issue. 1.00

01:19:35.000 Everyone's worried about AI. Right.

01:19:38.000 Everybody's worried about AI, right?

01:19:40.000 AI is going to be fighting our wars.

01:19:44.000 AI is going to be writing books.

01:19:46.000 When Trump was talking about Space Force back in the day, this is Space Force. 1.00

01:19:53.000 This is real Space Force shit. 0.99

01:19:56.000 It's funny, they didn't even think of that in Star Wars. 1.00

01:20:00.000 AI? No, they didn't.

01:20:01.000 Isn't that wild?

01:20:02.000 Like in Star Wars, no one had a cell phone.

01:20:05.000 Yeah, but they had lightsabers.

01:20:06.000 They did have lightsabers.

01:20:07.000 I mean, come on.

01:20:08.000 Pretty dope.

01:20:08.000 Definitely dope.

01:20:09.000 Yeah, they had R2D2. R2 helped with some shit, but I don't know what he was really doing. 0.99

01:20:12.000 But he was so sad all the time. 0.99

01:20:13.000 He was so annoying.

01:20:15.000 But imagine that there's a giant difference between that and sending a pilotless jet to engage in combat.

01:20:23.000 It seems like that's the direction. 0.93

01:20:25.000 I get fucking so terrified when I watch those Boston Dynamic videos of those robots that they're inventing. 0.98

01:20:31.000 Yeah, it's crazy. 0.98

01:20:32.000 They're getting so good.

01:20:34.000 They're acrobats now.

01:20:35.000 I went to MIT. We filmed something at MIT and they took me into the robotics department like down in the basement and they showed me like these 10 kids did a presentation.

01:20:48.000 You ever been to campus at MIT? Yes.

01:20:50.000 Fucking cool, right? 0.98

01:20:51.000 Yeah. 0.97

01:20:53.000 We got to film on the campus.

01:20:55.000 We're the first film, Patriot's Day, because one of the MIT cops was killed by the marathon bombers.

01:21:01.000 They killed him after the bombing.

01:21:03.000 And so they wanted to honor him, and they let us film there.

01:21:05.000 And they took us down to the robotics wing and showed us a robot cheetah that they had invented that was sprinting up and down the halls and jumping over little obstacles.

01:21:18.000 And I'm like, what?

01:21:21.000 What?

01:21:21.000 Can I see that?

01:21:22.000 Show me the MIT robotic cheetah.

01:21:26.000 Those little ones that look like dogs.

01:21:29.000 Oh, like that.

01:21:30.000 But it was a cheetah. 0.94

01:21:32.000 It was different than this. 0.94

01:21:34.000 These things scare the shit out of me. 0.99

01:21:35.000 Because you could just easily see them with a gun on them. 1.00

01:21:37.000 Yeah, that's RoboCop shit. 0.99

01:21:39.000 And if you watch that Netflix show, Black Mirror, there's a great episode. 0.99

01:21:44.000 Did you ever see the heavy metal episode?

01:21:47.000 Is that about robots?

01:21:48.000 It's about one of these things chasing after this lady. 1.00

01:21:51.000 It's fucking great. 0.99

01:21:52.000 It's terrifying. 0.99

01:21:53.000 But look at how it moves and gyrates.

01:21:57.000 It's real.

01:22:00.000 So look at that and think about the progression from the Wright brothers to Hiroshima in terms of aircraft.

01:22:09.000 50 years, that technology, that was what they were doing with the Cheetah.

01:22:13.000 Oh, this one.

01:22:14.000 Is that MIT? Yeah, this was 10 years ago.

01:22:16.000 10 years ago.

01:22:17.000 Look how fast it's going.

01:22:18.000 This is what they showed me.

01:22:19.000 But they put a Cheetah skin over it. 1.00

01:22:23.000 This is 28 miles an hour.

01:22:25.000 I bet it goes 100 now.

01:22:26.000 Think about that.

01:22:27.000 It's probably electric now.

01:22:28.000 We're talking about electric engines.

01:22:30.000 Think about that with a lightsaber attached to its head, just like charging through crowd control.

01:22:36.000 Look at this thing.

01:22:37.000 That looks like a giant dog.

01:22:39.000 See the cheetah tail there?

01:22:41.000 See that cheetah tail?

01:22:42.000 That was the room we were in.

01:22:45.000 That's MIT, isn't it?

01:22:46.000 Yeah, that's the actual room we're in.

01:22:48.000 Laser distance data.

01:22:50.000 So it's figuring out distances between things.

01:22:53.000 It just got faster one year ago. 1.00

01:22:54.000 Wow, that fucker. 1.00

01:22:56.000 Like, think about the applications. 1.00

01:23:00.000 Yeah.

01:23:00.000 It's not good.

01:23:01.000 It's not going to teach people.

01:23:03.000 What's one kind, loving, positive application for that thing?

01:23:10.000 Rescue?

01:23:10.000 Pull people out of a mine?

01:23:12.000 I have a dog.

01:23:13.000 Yeah.

01:23:13.000 Oh, okay.

01:23:14.000 I may be rescued.

01:23:15.000 But they're not going to use her for that.

01:23:16.000 No, they're not, dude.

01:23:17.000 They're not.

01:23:18.000 That's coming in your door.

01:23:20.000 Yeah.

01:23:21.000 Remember when Gates was the LA chief of police who first used a tank in South Central Los Angeles?

01:23:29.000 Do you remember that story?

01:23:30.000 I don't remember that.

01:23:31.000 I think it was Gates was his name.

01:23:35.000 His strategy was, okay, if you're holed up in your house and we want to arrest you, we're going to put a battering ram on a tank.

01:23:43.000 And he drove his tank and he got in tremendous troubles.

01:23:47.000 The beginning of the LAPD being called out for Militarization.

01:23:52.000 Excessive.

01:23:53.000 Nancy Reagan raided a South Central crack house.

01:23:56.000 What?

01:23:57.000 I think this is it.

01:23:58.000 This is it?

01:23:59.000 Yeah, it was like the first designer drug raid is what someone called it.

01:24:03.000 Wow!

01:24:04.000 It says pure publicity stunt.

01:24:06.000 Nancy, look at this.

01:24:07.000 Nancy Reagan wanted to find a way to maintain her visibility as an anti-narcotics crusader, now that her husband was out of office. 1.00

01:24:16.000 Chief Gates was looking toward a possible gubernatorial run, which mercifully never came to pass.

01:24:21.000 For those arrested, it was another day in the war that American politicians and police had declared on black and brown communities.

01:24:27.000 They really rolled in with a tank.

01:24:29.000 Yeah, they did.

01:24:30.000 They put a battering ram on a tank And rolled in.

01:24:36.000 You know, that's another, you know, interesting element of painkiller that we touch upon was the parallels between Oxycontin and crack cocaine.

01:24:49.000 You know, the crack epidemic.

01:24:51.000 Oh, yeah, there it is.

01:24:52.000 Look at that.

01:24:52.000 That's LAPD, like, going after, going after, that's the war on drugs in Los Angeles.

01:25:01.000 Rescue.

01:25:02.000 We need to rescue you.

01:25:04.000 From your life.

01:25:05.000 But that was how crack was dealt with, right?

01:25:09.000 In the 80s. 0.93

01:25:10.000 And if you look at OxyContin and what the Sacklers were able to do and how they were able to basically take something much more lethal and certainly more profitable than fucking crack and get away with it. 0.95

01:25:24.000 Like, that's something that we talk about quite a bit. 0.97

01:25:28.000 It's pretty insane.

01:25:29.000 It's pretty insane that this is the reality of our current generation, that money allowed this to happen, and that influence allowed this to happen, and most people just trusted their healthcare professional, and as it said in the film,

01:25:46.000 or in your show, that guy's trusting the FDA. He's trusting that they know what they're doing.

01:25:53.000 What do you think you would do if, you know, you hurt yourself, you were training and, you know, had a really painful injury.

01:26:02.000 Say, you know, you really fucked up your shoulder and, you know, in between, the immediate pain was, you know, very high.

01:26:12.000 And a doctor was like, okay, here's the deal. 0.98

01:26:15.000 Like, this is going to really fucking hurt. 0.97

01:26:18.000 We recommend a low dose of an opioid. 0.98

01:26:21.000 How would you react to that?

01:26:24.000 Well, I've had that happen.

01:26:27.000 I have had knee surgery, and when I was in the hospital, they had like a morphine drip, and it was wonderful.

01:26:36.000 Apparently, you press the button and you get more morphine.

01:26:38.000 Sure.

01:26:39.000 I think that's how it worked.

01:26:40.000 This is 92, somewhere around there, 93. But when I got my nose fixed, I got my nose fixed a few years back and it didn't even hurt.

01:26:56.000 And the doctor prescribed medicine.

01:26:58.000 I should bring it back to the first surgery when I got the drip.

01:27:00.000 When I got the drip, he did give me Vicodin.

01:27:03.000 It was either Vicodin or Percocet.

01:27:04.000 I can't remember which one it was.

01:27:06.000 I'm pretty sure it was Vicodin though. 0.98

01:27:07.000 I only took it once and I felt so stupid. 0.98

01:27:10.000 It made me feel so dumb and just dull that it wasn't a wonderful feeling. 0.98

01:27:16.000 It wasn't OxyContin. 0.92

01:27:17.000 It wasn't a wonderful feeling at all. 0.99

01:27:18.000 It sucked.

01:27:19.000 And so I only took it once and then I just dealt with the pain.

01:27:22.000 And that was a pretty significant knee surgery because it's a patella tendon grafts.

01:27:26.000 They take a piece out of your shin bone.

01:27:28.000 Piece out of your patella tendon and a piece out of your kneecap, and they open you up like a fish and screw into your bones.

01:27:34.000 But I didn't take anything else. 0.99

01:27:36.000 I was like, I'm not taking shit. 0.99

01:27:37.000 I'm just gonna deal with pain. 0.99

01:27:38.000 And then when I got my nose fixed, the doctor fixed it, and he prescribed me two different opiates.

01:27:46.000 One of them was Oxycontin, and I forget what the other one was.

01:27:49.000 How long ago was this?

01:27:51.000 15 years ago.

01:27:52.000 And when he prescribed it to me, I'm like, but it doesn't hurt.

01:27:57.000 I'm like, it doesn't hurt.

01:27:59.000 Like, right now it doesn't hurt.

01:28:00.000 You did the operation.

01:28:01.000 It's done, right?

01:28:02.000 Like, it's not hurting. 0.96

01:28:04.000 I mean, it's uncomfortable because I've got these fucking sponge things shoved up my nostrils with little tubes in them to expand my nostrils and allow it all to heal in the right form. 0.96

01:28:14.000 Sounds horrible. 0.98

01:28:15.000 It sucked, but it's a really good move. 0.99

01:28:17.000 You have a deviated septum. 0.90

01:28:19.000 My nose, I broke my nose for the first time when I was like five, and I think I broke it who knows how many times after that.

01:28:25.000 Maybe a dozen.

01:28:26.000 It was destroyed. 0.99

01:28:27.000 The inside of my nose was all fucked up. 0.99

01:28:29.000 It was completely closed off. 0.98

01:28:31.000 So they fixed it.

01:28:32.000 The doctor was fantastic.

01:28:34.000 He fixed it, but he tried to give me two different opiates.

01:28:37.000 He's like, you're gonna need these.

01:28:38.000 And I was like, but it doesn't hurt.

01:28:40.000 Like, I don't understand what you're saying.

01:28:42.000 I'm telling you right now, I'm not in pain.

01:28:43.000 Am I going to be in more pain?

01:28:45.000 Like, how am I going to be in more pain later?

01:28:46.000 I think like right after the operation, it's the most pain.

01:28:48.000 You'd be maxing out.

01:28:49.000 And he goes, you're going to be very, very uncomfortable.

01:28:52.000 Just take this prescription.

01:28:53.000 And I took it home and I just put this prescription in the drawer.

01:28:57.000 I go, okay, if it gets crazy, if something happens and I just, I can't sleep and I'm in agony, it never hurt at all.

01:29:03.000 It was just uncomfortable.

01:29:04.000 Just a little, you know, like I got punched in the nose.

01:29:07.000 Right.

01:29:08.000 But it wasn't like, I can't sleep.

01:29:10.000 I was like, this isn't fine. 0.99

01:29:11.000 Like, what the fuck? 1.00

01:29:12.000 Are you trying to give me heroin for this? 1.00

01:29:14.000 Yes, you was.

01:29:14.000 This is crazy.

01:29:15.000 He did give you heroin.

01:29:16.000 Two different kinds.

01:29:17.000 I forget what it was, but one of them was Oxycontin.

01:29:19.000 One of them was something else.

01:29:20.000 But I'm like, you're giving me two different kinds of painkillers?

01:29:23.000 And this is when I was kind of already aware of that because I already had people in my family that had had issues with pills.

01:29:30.000 And I was like, dude, what are you giving me?

01:29:32.000 Yeah, it's really disturbing.

01:29:35.000 My son broke his collarbone playing lacrosse, and I had to take him to a hospital in Connecticut.

01:29:43.000 And the doctor was like, okay, it's a broken collarbone, there's not much we can do.

01:29:48.000 He was 16 or 17, and he wrote him a script for OxyContin. 1.00

01:29:54.000 And I'm like, are you out of your fucking mind? 0.99

01:29:58.000 And I'm like, I held up the prescription. 1.00

01:30:03.000 I'm like, are you out of your mind?

01:30:05.000 And the doctor's like, it works.

01:30:06.000 It works.

01:30:07.000 There's going to be pain.

01:30:09.000 And, you know, it's interesting because I do wonder, you know, I remember, you know, Marcus's brother, Morgan Luttrell.

01:30:20.000 Have you ever met him?

01:30:21.000 No, I haven't.

01:30:22.000 Tough dude.

01:30:22.000 And when I was getting ready to do the film...

01:30:27.000 I had heard about Morgan but I never met him and he had fallen out of a helicopter doing training and broken his back and was in Recouping in Virginia and I knew he'd been hurt and so I wanted to meet him because they're very close and I knew if I was going to make a film about Marcus I had to at least meet Morgan because Morgan's a powerful figure in Marcus's life.

01:30:49.000 So I flew out there and went to his house.

01:30:52.000 I got there late at night and there were a bunch of seals in the house and Morgan was sitting in a chair and they were watching TV and he was just sitting there and every once in a while he would tremble and he decided he wasn't going to take anything.

01:31:08.000 It would have broke him back.

01:31:09.000 I'm like, dude, you're not taking anything? 1.00

01:31:12.000 And he's like, fuck no. 0.99

01:31:14.000 I'm not taking anything. 1.00

01:31:15.000 I'm going to experience this pain.

01:31:17.000 I'm going to process this pain.

01:31:20.000 I'm going to use this pain.

01:31:22.000 And he wrote out his broken back without any pain medication.

01:31:27.000 And it did make me...

01:31:30.000 I think, and I still think, you know, how pain-adverse we all are, right?

01:31:36.000 Like, oh, it hurts.

01:31:38.000 Make it go away.

01:31:39.000 Make it go away.

01:31:40.000 Give me the quickest path to being pain-free.

01:31:44.000 Drink this.

01:31:44.000 Smoke this.

01:31:45.000 Buy this. 1.00

01:31:47.000 Fuck this. 1.00

01:31:48.000 Whatever, right? 1.00

01:31:49.000 And that we're so bad at tolerating pain, and the expectation is, oh, okay, Joe, we just worked on your nose.

01:31:57.000 You're gonna feel pain.

01:31:59.000 Take this.

01:32:00.000 You don't want that pain.

01:32:01.000 No, you don't want that pain.

01:32:02.000 You can't handle that pain. 0.98

01:32:03.000 And we're just so fucking soft when it comes to pain. 0.96

01:32:08.000 Well, it's also I think we've been programmed to think that when you're in pain, you need to take medication, regardless of the dangers of that stuff. 0.97

01:32:14.000 I remember this sad story from COVID, where this woman overdosed on Tylenol.

01:32:20.000 She died from acetaminophen poison, which is apparently Fairly common.

01:32:24.000 If you take a lot of Tylenol, your liver can't process it.

01:32:27.000 You get liver failure.

01:32:28.000 And it's just from pain.

01:32:30.000 You know, just didn't want to feel it.

01:32:32.000 I don't want to feel like this.

01:32:33.000 Give me something that makes me not feel like this.

01:32:35.000 But, I mean, I have not had back surgery, but I've had three knee surgeries.

01:32:40.000 And I told you on the one, I took the one Vicodin.

01:32:45.000 But then after that I didn't take anything. 0.99

01:32:46.000 So my right knee, when I got it done, I didn't take shit. 0.99

01:32:49.000 And I got my left knee scoped, I didn't take shit. 0.99

01:32:51.000 And then I got the nose fixed, didn't take shit. 0.99

01:32:56.000 I was like, you just deal with pain. 0.99

01:32:58.000 But back pain I think is a different animal.

01:33:00.000 Back pain is debilitating in a way that I haven't experienced. 0.98

01:33:05.000 I could walk around on crutches if my knee was fucked up. 0.97

01:33:08.000 There's a difference. 0.96

01:33:09.000 And I think you've got to be really cautious.

01:33:12.000 I don't want to make anybody feel bad because they're taking medication for back pain.

01:33:16.000 Because I think back pain is something where it just overwhelms your existence if you have a bad herniated disc.

01:33:24.000 It does.

01:33:25.000 Overwhelms.

01:33:25.000 I've had them.

01:33:26.000 I had surgery on them.

01:33:28.000 What did you get done?

01:33:29.000 Did you get it fused?

01:33:30.000 I had a discectomy.

01:33:32.000 Okay, so they took a little bit of your disc out?

01:33:34.000 Yeah, a little bit.

01:33:34.000 In the future, if you're ever going to do something like that again, like we were talking about stem cells, that's the fix.

01:33:40.000 And I avoided that kind of surgery.

01:33:43.000 You think stem cells for herniated discs?

01:33:45.000 Yes, yes.

01:33:46.000 Stem cells and traction, spinal traction.

01:33:48.000 It depends on how bad it's herniated, whether it's bulging, Or whether it's ruptured.

01:33:53.000 Whether it's ruptured.

01:33:54.000 They do have disc replacements that many people have done now.

01:33:58.000 There's titanium articulating discs.

01:34:01.000 My friend Eddie got it in his back.

01:34:03.000 Aljamain Sterling, who was the UFC Bantamweight champion, he got it in his neck.

01:34:07.000 The steel.

01:34:08.000 Yeah, it's a titanium articulating disc.

01:34:10.000 And was he able to fight after it?

01:34:12.000 He fought again and he defended the title.

01:34:13.000 He defended the title one, two, I think three times after that.

01:34:22.000 That's amazing.

01:34:22.000 It's amazing.

01:34:23.000 It's amazing.

01:34:24.000 Yeah, three times.

01:34:25.000 And he actually defended the title more than anybody ever has in that division.

01:34:28.000 Do you think his neck was stronger?

01:34:30.000 100%.

01:34:31.000 Like it was stronger than prior to the injury?

01:34:35.000 Yes.

01:34:36.000 No, no, no, no.

01:34:37.000 Not as strong as if he's not injured at all.

01:34:39.000 He wasn't like the bionic man that was rebuilt stronger and had an advantage.

01:34:42.000 I don't believe so.

01:34:43.000 But it might be the same.

01:34:45.000 It might be that his neck is the same.

01:34:47.000 Strength in your neck comes from obviously the structure, the bones, but it also comes from working your neck out.

01:34:54.000 There's a bunch of exercises that guys do to strengthen their neck, and sometimes when guys don't do that, then they run into problems like bulging discs.

01:35:01.000 But you're going to run into those anyway in combat sports.

01:35:03.000 It's inevitable.

01:35:05.000 But I know of many, many, many, many people now that have sought help, particularly overseas.

01:35:11.000 Whether it is in Peru, or Panama rather, Columbia, or Tijuana, the CPI Institute in Tijuana.

01:35:19.000 I know there's BioAccelerator in Columbia that's very good.

01:35:21.000 They've taken care of a lot of UFC athletes.

01:35:23.000 A lot of guys get stuff fixed.

01:35:25.000 Why can't this stuff be approved in the US? My suspicion is the same suspicion when you see the influence that these pharmaceutical drug companies have over the FDA. Wow.

01:35:35.000 My suspicion is that there has probably been an analysis done Of what would happen if stem cell use was ubiquitous?

01:35:44.000 What would happen if it was everywhere?

01:35:47.000 What would happen if you allowed people to use stem cells the way we allow people?

01:35:50.000 Surgeons would have trouble.

01:35:52.000 Well, maybe, but certainly more people would get healed.

01:35:57.000 More people would get fixed.

01:35:58.000 Look, I don't know of anyone who has had, and this is just my own anecdotal experience, I don't know of anyone who's had bad experiences with stem cells.

01:36:06.000 I've had people that I know that did it and it didn't help them, but upon further examination, either Their problem was too big, and it required surgery.

01:36:16.000 Or, in the most part, we're dealing with, like, fighters, and a lot of these guys just don't wait long enough before they go hard.

01:36:22.000 They go back and they train hard.

01:36:24.000 They have, like, a knee issue or a shoulder issue, and they go back and they train.

01:36:28.000 They're too savage.

01:36:29.000 They get right back into it as soon as they start feeling good.

01:36:32.000 And you really need a lot of time for it to take root in many, many months for it to really heal.

01:36:38.000 But like I've said many times on this show, and I told you earlier, I had a full-length rotator cuff tear.

01:36:43.000 My doctor assured me I was going to need surgery.

01:36:45.000 But why were you able to do it in the US? It was different.

01:36:48.000 There was different regulations when I did it.

01:36:51.000 I don't remember exactly what mesenchymal stem cells, and they used exosomes.

01:36:55.000 I don't exactly remember what it all was.

01:36:58.000 But I remember that it's all processed from umbilical cords.

01:37:02.000 So say if a young lady, I think you have to be 25 years or younger, has a baby through a C-section, then they harvest their umbilical cord, I don't know if they sell it or whatever, and then they convert that into stem cells and that is unique.

01:37:18.000 Particularly unique in its ability to help heal any kind of tissue.

01:37:22.000 But the difference between what you're allowed to do in America now is different from what it was back then.

01:37:27.000 But also the stuff they're doing in these other places overseas is much more dramatic.

01:37:32.000 Because they can use much larger doses and they keep you there for three days.

01:37:36.000 And they also combine it with hyperbaric therapy and a bunch of other different things that also accelerate your healing.

01:37:42.000 NAD, IV drips, a bunch of different things that help along the process of your healing.

01:37:46.000 And I know many people that have avoided surgery because of that, and now we're back to 100%.

01:37:52.000 But it doesn't mean you don't need surgery.

01:37:54.000 Like, there's certain disc issues that are ruptured beyond the point of repair, and you probably need something done.

01:38:00.000 And it's nice that there is all these different options.

01:38:03.000 You just, you have to be careful, you know, whenever you're getting something that's an operation.

01:38:08.000 Like, especially if you're getting a replacement, like a knee replacement or something.

01:38:11.000 All that stuff, you gotta be careful.

01:38:13.000 But you think that it's possible that the FDA is being coerced by other forces I absolutely don't know, right?

01:38:23.000 But it's possible.

01:38:24.000 I think if it's possible that a human being, a lone human being, could be taken into a hotel room for a couple of days and then comes out and he has a $400,000 a year job after he retires.

01:38:39.000 And this revolving door does exist.

01:38:41.000 We know that.

01:38:43.000 We know that exists.

01:38:44.000 Why wouldn't you protect your interests by stopping some sort of a novel, new sort of treatment that may lead to way less people on pain medication, way less people that need anti-inflammatories, way less people that need a lot of the stuff you sell?

01:39:01.000 It makes sense to me.

01:39:03.000 And then you go, oh, the dangers of stem cells.

01:39:06.000 But OxyContin is safe and effective.

01:39:08.000 Like, that's so nuts.

01:39:10.000 That's so nuts that they say that.

01:39:12.000 Because where are the bodies?

01:39:14.000 Where are the bodies?

01:39:16.000 I haven't heard about stem cell addiction.

01:39:21.000 I haven't heard of stem cell overdoses.

01:39:23.000 Yeah, where are the bodies?

01:39:25.000 We're the bodies.

01:39:26.000 I have a bunch of anecdotal stories from UFC fighters, jujitsu athletes, good friends of mine.

01:39:32.000 A lot of them.

01:39:34.000 Like dozens of guys who have gone and had massive relief from stem cells.

01:39:40.000 Yeah, I got a buddy in the UFC right now who just went down to, I think, Bogota.

01:39:45.000 Yeah.

01:39:46.000 Because I have some back issues.

01:39:49.000 Go down there.

01:39:49.000 Yeah, I will.

01:39:50.000 You should.

01:39:51.000 Or Tijuana.

01:39:52.000 Or Panama.

01:39:53.000 It just sounds so crazy.

01:39:54.000 I'm going to go to Tijuana and fix my back.

01:39:56.000 I know.

01:39:57.000 It sounds wrong, but I'm starting to believe that it's not. 0.99

01:40:01.000 I think we have a fucked up system. 0.99

01:40:03.000 I really, really do. 0.99

01:40:04.000 And the process to making that stuff legal, they're in the process of doing that.

01:40:09.000 And Dr. Neil Reardon is deeply involved in this.

01:40:11.000 He's the guy that I had on with Mel Gibson back in the day.

01:40:13.000 And Mel talked about his own injuries that he got fixed with stem cells and his dad.

01:40:17.000 He was saying his dad was in a wheelchair.

01:40:19.000 And then, you know, like a few years later, his dad's walking around.

01:40:22.000 Where did Mel go?

01:40:23.000 They went to Panama.

01:40:25.000 And Dr. Reardon, he was like the first guy that I ever talked to about this stuff and he's written many published papers and books on it and very, very, very knowledgeable guy when it comes to this and they're absolutely convinced that it's beneficial and we should be using it everywhere.

01:40:40.000 One of the things that I don't think anyone really understands that hasn't done it is like, okay, you're going to go get stem cell therapy in wherever, in Panama.

01:40:49.000 What does that mean?

01:40:50.000 Like you fly to Panama, you drive to some established-looking clinic, or is it like in the back of a strip mall?

01:41:00.000 No, no, no.

01:41:01.000 I sent my mom there.

01:41:03.000 Twice.

01:41:04.000 In Panama?

01:41:05.000 Yeah.

01:41:05.000 I sent my mom to the panel.

01:41:06.000 Well, you should lead with that.

01:41:08.000 Yeah, I should have told you that earlier.

01:41:09.000 Yeah, lead with that.

01:41:10.000 Yeah, my mom had really good success with it, with her knee. 0.75

01:41:13.000 So that means you really believe in it.

01:41:16.000 Yeah.

01:41:16.000 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:41:17.000 It's a nice area.

01:41:19.000 Where their clinic is is very nice.

01:41:21.000 It's in a beautiful office building.

01:41:23.000 They take you there for three days.

01:41:25.000 And you sleep?

01:41:26.000 You go to a hotel.

01:41:28.000 Yeah, there's a hotel there.

01:41:29.000 There's a hotel right next to it.

01:41:30.000 And the treatment is what?

01:41:32.000 It's an injection?

01:41:33.000 It's a series of injections in wherever the injury is, along with IV infusions.

01:41:38.000 They do IV stem cells as well, which helps your whole body.

01:41:42.000 Like whatever little weird aches and tears you have.

01:41:45.000 My friend Gordon Ryan, who's the best jiu-jitsu athlete of all time, he had an issue with his shoulder.

01:41:51.000 So he got injections in his shoulder and it fixed his neck.

01:41:54.000 He had a neck problem for like a year.

01:41:56.000 And just by the fact that it's in the area, it literally goes to wherever the injuries are.

01:42:02.000 And it fixed his neck.

01:42:03.000 He's like, there's no other explanation.

01:42:04.000 He's like, four weeks later, my neck was better.

01:42:07.000 I always felt that one of the greatest recoveries from an injury that I've ever witnessed.

01:42:13.000 I'm interested to hear what yours is.

01:42:15.000 I was at the fight when Silva cracked his leg.

01:42:19.000 Yes.

01:42:21.000 Chris Weidman.

01:42:22.000 Chris against Weidman.

01:42:24.000 And I was there.

01:42:25.000 I was like up front.

01:42:27.000 And I heard it, and I heard him scream, and I saw it, right?

01:42:30.000 You were there.

01:42:30.000 Yeah, I was there.

01:42:32.000 How did he recover from that in fighting it?

01:42:36.000 Well, he did, but he didn't.

01:42:38.000 In my mind, I think Anderson Silva was the greatest middleweight of all time, right up there with Adesanya. 0.96

01:42:43.000 I think Adesanya and Anderson, it's like different eras, but goddamn when they were on top. 0.99

01:42:50.000 I mean, Anderson was just... 0.97

01:42:54.000 In the Matrix.

01:42:55.000 He was so good.

01:42:57.000 He was such an assassin.

01:42:58.000 In his prime, people forgot how great he was.

01:43:02.000 Like top five of all time?

01:43:03.000 Oh, yeah.

01:43:03.000 Top three of all time?

01:43:05.000 I don't know.

01:43:05.000 I don't like a Mount Rushmore because there's only room for four heads.

01:43:08.000 I think there's a lot more because you have to have Hoist Gracie up there. 1.00

01:43:11.000 But maybe a Mount Rushmore.

01:43:12.000 Close.

01:43:12.000 He's one of the greatest of all time.

01:43:13.000 How did he recover from that?

01:43:15.000 But he didn't.

01:43:16.000 He was never the same guy.

01:43:18.000 He did.

01:43:18.000 But if you watch Anderson Silva pre-Chris Weidman, pre-leg break, and then post-leg break, it's a different athlete.

01:43:28.000 He can't kick the same way with that leg anymore.

01:43:30.000 I bet it doesn't move as well.

01:43:33.000 I bet there's issues in terms of load balance and the way it feels.

01:43:38.000 It's probably in pain all the time.

01:43:40.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:43:40.000 There's a lot of factors.

01:43:42.000 You're probably very hesitant to throw that same kick again because you just had your leg snap in half and your leg was fucked up for a good solid year and a half after that and you had to have surgery and there's plates in there and rods and shit, screws. 0.94

01:43:57.000 But did he win? 0.87

01:43:59.000 He won fights after that.

01:44:00.000 He won fights afterwards.

01:44:01.000 Not as many.

01:44:02.000 No.

01:44:03.000 I mean, what is Anderson's record?

01:44:04.000 Should we pull up Anderson's record?

01:44:06.000 And again, this is not in disrespect of Anderson.

01:44:08.000 Chris Weidman just came back from a knee break, too.

01:44:11.000 Or a leg break, as well, rather.

01:44:12.000 And it was just last weekend.

01:44:14.000 Was that the worst injury that you've ever seen in UFC Silva?

01:44:18.000 Well, I saw it with Weidman, the same exact injury.

01:44:21.000 He snapped his own leg, too.

01:44:22.000 Which is crazy that Anderson was involved.

01:44:25.000 So look at that.

01:44:27.000 Go scroll up.

01:44:28.000 Okay, so Derek Brunson was his last win, and that was in 2017. Then he lost to Israel Adesanya, Jared Kananir, and Uriah Hall.

01:44:38.000 And then there's the loss of Michael Bisbee.

01:44:40.000 So you go like from Chris Weidman.

01:44:43.000 So the Nick Diaz fight was kind of crazy.

01:44:46.000 That was July 2013. Yeah, I think that was no contest because...

01:44:50.000 So you got two years or a year and a half from the Weidman leg break till he fights Nick Diaz again.

01:44:56.000 And I think...

01:44:57.000 What is that no contest?

01:44:58.000 Because I think Silva tested positive for steroids.

01:45:01.000 They both popped.

01:45:02.000 Yeah, Silva tested positive for steroids, which makes sense because he's recovering from this horrific leg injury.

01:45:10.000 There's no way you're going to do that clean and come back in a year and a half.

01:45:13.000 You need help.

01:45:15.000 That's the legit reason for those kind of steroids. 0.99

01:45:18.000 So if you go before that, though, you go before the Weidman fight, look at these fucking wins. 0.91

01:45:25.000 I mean, Stefan Bonner, Chael Sonnen, Yushin Okami, Vitor Belfort, Chael Sonnen, Damian Maia, Forrest Griffin, Paul Slatis, Patrick Coté, James Irvin. 0.89

01:45:33.000 It's just KO, KO, KO, submission, KO. Rich Franklin, KO. Nate Marquardt, KO. Travis Luter, submission.

01:45:41.000 Rich Franklin, KO. Chris Lieben, KO. Tony Fricklin, KO. I mean, he's just dominating everyone.

01:45:48.000 And then what?

01:45:49.000 And after the leg break, look, he won one fight.

01:45:52.000 After the leg break, he's got the no contest, which was kind of a boring fight anyway, but then you got lost, loss, one win, a decision win over Derrick Brunson, lost, lost, lost.

01:46:04.000 He was never the same again.

01:46:06.000 He was never the same again.

01:46:07.000 The Anderson Silva that smoked Forrest Griffin, the Anderson Silva that destroyed Vitor Belfort, the Anderson Silva that just dominated that division, he was never really that guy again.

01:46:17.000 The Anderson Silva that beat Dan Henderson, he was never that guy again.

01:46:20.000 And I think that it's a very, very, very, very difficult injury to come back from and be 100%.

01:46:27.000 What are your thoughts on, and I've talked to Dana about it, like, What, you know, you talk about, I've done work with the NFL on brain injury and worked on changing the way football players tackle,

01:46:47.000 started a heads-up tackling program with kids, trying to get them to stop leading with their heads for brain injury and for paralysis.

01:46:57.000 I've seen both and worked in that space a bit.

01:47:00.000 And, you know, What are your thoughts on what we're going to see in the UFC with some of these fighters in five, ten years?

01:47:12.000 I work with a lot of boxers, and I've seen a lot of boxers have a rough time, obviously, as they get older and they get out of it.

01:47:22.000 What do you think the long-term ramifications for fighters and their brains are when they get out?

01:47:30.000 It is absolutely never good to get hit in the head.

01:47:34.000 We all know that.

01:47:35.000 To deny that is crazy. 0.92

01:47:38.000 But this sport is You trying to hit someone in the head and them trying to hit you in the head. 1.00

01:47:43.000 It's a fucking insane sport. 1.00

01:47:45.000 It's you trying to strangle them. 1.00

01:47:46.000 You trying to get them to not hit you. 0.82

01:47:48.000 You try to take them down.

01:47:49.000 You try to submit them.

01:47:51.000 But it's this part of the sport, a big part of the sport, is getting hit in the head. 0.54

01:47:57.000 And some of these guys are getting kicked in the head.

01:48:00.000 And if you've ever seen someone get kicked in the head, and I've seen a lot, it is a terrifying moment.

01:48:07.000 You know, when a guy like Leon Edwards in the fifth round takes out Kamaru Usman, who's like one of the greatest of all time with one kick, that's when you realize, like, oh my god.

01:48:16.000 What a ferocious weapon a shin to your neck is.

01:48:21.000 I mean, it's crazy when you watch people get hit by those things.

01:48:24.000 There's no way that's good for you.

01:48:26.000 That is definitely bad for you.

01:48:28.000 The question is how bad and how much damage have you taken?

01:48:32.000 What steps have you made in camp to mitigate the amount of damage that you take?

01:48:41.000 In camp too, right?

01:48:42.000 Like sparring?

01:48:43.000 In camp, yes.

01:48:44.000 And you have to make sure when you spar in camp...

01:48:46.000 That you are being very careful.

01:48:48.000 That you're not going to war.

01:48:50.000 There's a lot of fights where guys have gotten big concussions before they fought.

01:48:56.000 And then when they fought, the first punch that hits them, they go out.

01:48:58.000 Even punches that don't even look like a devastating punch.

01:49:03.000 But they're so damaged already going into the fight because they train too hard.

01:49:09.000 And then there's this intangible thing where sometimes guys have an iron jaw.

01:49:14.000 Literally, you can't knock them out.

01:49:16.000 And then one day, it goes.

01:49:18.000 And when it goes, it's gone forever.

01:49:20.000 When it goes, they get knocked out a bunch of times after that.

01:49:23.000 And that seems to be indicative of Something wrong.

01:49:28.000 Something seriously wrong.

01:49:30.000 What that is, I'm not a neurologist.

01:49:31.000 I'm not sure.

01:49:32.000 It's gotta be damage to your brain.

01:49:34.000 It's gotta be damage to your body.

01:49:37.000 You're not durable anymore for some reason.

01:49:40.000 And that's the tip of the iceberg.

01:49:43.000 The long-term effects are severe cognitive decline.

01:49:47.000 It's pugilistica dementia.

01:49:50.000 It's trauma-induced Parkinson's that some boxers like Freddie Roach has.

01:49:55.000 It's a reality of the sport.

01:49:59.000 And you would hope that they have friends that can have that long hard talk with them when it's over and say this is not I'm not saying this because you know For any reason other than you you literally have to be told this you got to get out now Or you're not going to be normal in ten years like I have run into old boxers and Guys that were younger than me and I ran into Terry Norris once.

01:50:28.000 I was a giant fan of Terry Norris. 0.93

01:50:31.000 He was so fucking good. 0.97

01:50:33.000 And I ran into him at a fight and he slurred his words so bad. 0.98

01:50:37.000 They did a whole news piece on him where he talked about it and his wife is helping him and he's gotten better since then. 0.93

01:50:44.000 But the struggle that you see like one of the fucking great welterweight champions ever.

01:50:49.000 And then you see how he's dealing with things now. 0.92

01:50:52.000 Was he 154?

01:50:53.000 I'm not sure.

01:50:53.000 But you see how he's dealing with things now.

01:50:56.000 It's like, God, was it worth it?

01:50:57.000 I don't know, man.

01:50:58.000 I don't know.

01:50:59.000 Yeah, I was thinking.

01:51:00.000 I saw you had Terence Crawford on the other day, who I love so much.

01:51:05.000 He's amazing.

01:51:05.000 And he just seems so sharp.

01:51:07.000 And his defensive skills are great.

01:51:10.000 But I watch it, and I'm like, man, I hope you know when to stop.

01:51:15.000 Yeah, it would be a tragedy to see a guy that sharp struggle mentally.

01:51:21.000 And I do think it's interesting.

01:51:24.000 You know, I've worked in boxing for a while.

01:51:25.000 I have a gym and I manage some fighters.

01:51:29.000 Where is it?

01:51:30.000 It's in Santa Monica, Churchill Boxing Club.

01:51:32.000 Oh, wow.

01:51:33.000 That's awesome.

01:51:34.000 It's a great gym.

01:51:35.000 We were Wild Card West.

01:51:37.000 We started as Wild Card West.

01:51:38.000 Freddie let me use his name to get the gym going.

01:51:42.000 And then we were Wild Card West forever.

01:51:45.000 We've had Alvarez did four camps at our gym.

01:51:48.000 Canelo did?

01:51:49.000 Yeah, Canelo did.

01:51:50.000 That's amazing.

01:51:51.000 Canelo used to do all...

01:51:52.000 The gym was actually...

01:51:53.000 We were about to close.

01:51:55.000 I was about to close the gym down.

01:51:57.000 And I was here.

01:51:59.000 I was in Albuquerque making Lone Survivor. 0.98

01:52:02.000 And the gym was falling apart and it's a fucking headache to have a boxing gym. 0.98

01:52:09.000 It's a real headache. 0.99

01:52:10.000 I can imagine.

01:52:12.000 And all the toilet, the pipes had blown, the toilet pipes.

01:52:16.000 So I had to fly back on a weekend and with my assistant mop it up. 0.90

01:52:20.000 And my assistant, she was a director's assistant, and she's in there cleaning shit in a boxing gym with me, and at one point she's like, I didn't sign up for this! 0.89

01:52:31.000 I'm a princess, and I'm meant to be! 0.98

01:52:33.000 And she was delusional and delirious from cleaning up shit with me in the gym, and she was like muttering about how she was a princess, and I'm like, okay, stop. 0.97

01:52:43.000 We cleaned it up, and I'm there for one more day, and I'm gonna go back to New Mexico to film, And I'm in the gym and I'm like, I gotta shut this down. 0.94

01:52:52.000 And you know, Gary Shandling was a partner of mine in the gym.

01:52:55.000 Really?

01:52:55.000 Do you know Gary loved boxing?

01:52:57.000 I met him once.

01:52:57.000 He loved boxing.

01:52:58.000 I did not know that.

01:52:59.000 And I called him and I'm like, Gary, I'm closing it down.

01:53:03.000 It's too much of a headache.

01:53:04.000 It's just nothing but a liability all the time.

01:53:06.000 And I'm in the gym by myself.

01:53:10.000 My last day there, I'm gonna go back to New Mexico.

01:53:13.000 And it's clean, and I'm kind of looking at it.

01:53:15.000 And I'd had it for like six years, and it was fun, and I love boxing.

01:53:19.000 And I'm like, yeah, I've got to shut it down.

01:53:21.000 And in the mirror, I see this little flash of red in the mirror, and I see someone's come in.

01:53:29.000 And I turn, and this guy's standing there.

01:53:32.000 He's like, are you Peter?

01:53:33.000 I'm like, yes.

01:53:34.000 He goes, Freddie Roach told me to come down.

01:53:36.000 I'm looking to train for my next camp.

01:53:39.000 My name's Saul Everaz.

01:53:41.000 I'm like, yeah, I know who you are. 0.98

01:53:43.000 Fucking Canelo in my gym, right? 0.99

01:53:45.000 Red hair. 0.99

01:53:46.000 And he's like, very polite.

01:53:48.000 He's like, could I train?

01:53:49.000 Could I do my camp?

01:53:50.000 He was fighting this kid named Lopez.

01:53:53.000 He was getting ready for his camp for Lopez.

01:53:55.000 This was before, you know, he'd really taken up, but he was emerging, right?

01:54:00.000 And I'm like, yeah, you can train here.

01:54:03.000 And I'm about to close the gym down for good.

01:54:05.000 And I show him around.

01:54:06.000 He's like, I see the gym.

01:54:07.000 I'm like, well, here's the gym.

01:54:09.000 It's not much.

01:54:09.000 It's a ring and our heavy bags, our speed bags.

01:54:12.000 Here's our sauna.

01:54:13.000 He looks around.

01:54:13.000 He goes, okay, could I train here?

01:54:15.000 I go, yeah.

01:54:16.000 He goes out.

01:54:17.000 There's two Suburbans out in the parking lot full of his camp, Eddie and Shepo, his trainers.

01:54:22.000 We're good to go.

01:54:41.000 And I've had a front row seat to boxing, and man, one of the many things that I look at is how hard it is for these guys to let go.

01:54:52.000 So you talk about Terry Norris staying a little bit too long.

01:54:57.000 Freddie Roach stayed in the ring probably a few too many fights.

01:55:00.000 Ali certainly did, right?

01:55:02.000 And watching these guys And we have a lot of UFC guys have come in and worked on their boxing in our gym and seeing the struggles that they go through.

01:55:16.000 And you hope, yeah, there's someone that's going to say, okay, enough.

01:55:20.000 It's time.

01:55:21.000 But, man, is it hard to let go of that.

01:55:24.000 It's very hard to let go.

01:55:26.000 And I think there's a bunch of factors at play.

01:55:30.000 At play in that.

01:55:31.000 One of them is their identity.

01:55:33.000 Their identity is all wrapped up in them being a fighter.

01:55:37.000 It's very hard for people to let that go.

01:55:40.000 Also, it's the only thing they've ever dedicated their time to.

01:55:43.000 A lot of these guys don't have serious other side jobs or serious other side professions.

01:55:50.000 Some of them do.

01:55:51.000 Some of the really smart ones, they kind of, they break off and they start little businesses and they do stuff so that, like Eric Anders, guy's been on the podcast before, he's invested in real estate, bought a bunch of houses.

01:56:02.000 So he's good forever.

01:56:03.000 UFC or boxing?

01:56:04.000 UFC. Yeah.

01:56:05.000 So some guys are smart like that.

01:56:07.000 You know, Conor McGregor obviously did.

01:56:08.000 He's very smart.

01:56:09.000 I mean, Conor started that whiskey company, did the Floyd Mayweather fight, he made $100 million and he starts this whiskey company, it's worth like a half a billion. 0.99

01:56:15.000 He doesn't have to do shit forever. 0.88

01:56:17.000 And he's only fighting if he fights again because he wants to. 0.98

01:56:20.000 But most of them, when it's over, they're confused.

01:56:25.000 They don't know what to do.

01:56:27.000 And the high of winning a fight...

01:56:31.000 It's like nothing else in all sports It's there's no other because you might lose and if you lose it's gonna be more Devastating than anything else in sports if you lose a basketball game. 0.95

01:56:41.000 I'm sure it sucks I'm sure you feel terrible, but you can go home You don't go to the fucking hospital with your face battered in and the whole world saw you get kicked in the face and there's memes of you getting flatlined and there's like animation of you get knocked into orbit and And you have to have all these trolls and haters talk shit about you on Twitter when you got knocked out in a world championship fight in front of the whole world.

01:57:04.000 Yeah, and if you're on a basketball team or a football team or any other sport really, at least you know, guess what? 0.98

01:57:10.000 I'm playing next Tuesday.

01:57:12.000 Exactly.

01:57:12.000 And I got a contract.

01:57:14.000 Exactly.

01:57:14.000 And I got a player's union.

01:57:16.000 Exactly.

01:57:16.000 And I got a whole bunch of stuff.

01:57:18.000 And I got a league.

01:57:19.000 Yeah, it is a lone wolf sport. 1.00

01:57:21.000 Fuck. 1.00

01:57:21.000 It's for people that don't play well with others. 1.00

01:57:24.000 Yeah.

01:57:24.000 And it's for people that also value the camaraderie of other people that are similar to them.

01:57:29.000 And like what gets me with boxing, which is like, you know, UFC, at least there's an organizing principle uniting it, right?

01:57:37.000 Like there's the UFC. There's Dana, right?

01:57:41.000 There's you as part of the face of the UFC. There's owners that have, you know, built a system, right?

01:57:48.000 I think Frank Lorenzo did a really good job of giving birth to.

01:57:53.000 But, like, boxing, it's like, do you know how many weight classes there are in boxing today?

01:57:58.000 Can you name them all?

01:57:59.000 There's a lot.

01:58:00.000 But I don't think that's a bad thing.

01:58:02.000 Oh, come on. 0.87

01:58:03.000 I don't.

01:58:03.000 And how about multiple promoters and multiple...

01:58:07.000 That's an issue.

01:58:08.000 And multiple belts.

01:58:09.000 Like, too many belts.

01:58:10.000 Yeah.

01:58:11.000 Too many promoters.

01:58:12.000 So, like, you've got 440-pound champions.

01:58:18.000 Yeah.

01:58:18.000 That are all promoted by different guys.

01:58:21.000 And then 447 pound champions.

01:58:24.000 And so there's no continuity of organization.

01:58:28.000 That is absolutely true.

01:58:30.000 When we get to a level like a guy like Terrence Crawford.

01:58:34.000 Who is the only man to ever be undisputed in two weight classes.

01:58:38.000 Which is pretty insane.

01:58:42.000 Manny Pacquiao won.

01:58:43.000 I love him so much.

01:58:44.000 He's so good man.

01:58:45.000 He's such a great guy too.

01:58:46.000 Manny Pacquiao won world titles in eight different weight classes.

01:58:51.000 I mean that's insane.

01:58:54.000 How many world titles did Manny Pacquiao win?

01:58:56.000 Let's pull that up.

01:58:57.000 Look at his body progression from when he started to when he ended.

01:59:01.000 He got saucy.

01:59:02.000 Something was going on, man.

01:59:03.000 He got saucy.

01:59:04.000 Oh my god!

01:59:06.000 Like, wow!

01:59:08.000 Yeah.

01:59:09.000 Okay.

01:59:10.000 Oh my god!

01:59:11.000 Twelve major world titles in eight different weight divisions.

01:59:15.000 That is so insane.

01:59:16.000 Those accomplishments are so insane.

01:59:19.000 But what were the weights?

01:59:21.000 What did he start?

01:59:22.000 Like 118 and went up to 147 maybe?

01:59:25.000 Yeah, something like that.

01:59:27.000 Yeah, I think his first one was...

01:59:30.000 So the first one was flyweight.

01:59:32.000 What is that?

01:59:33.000 What is it, 126?

01:59:35.000 In the UFC it's different.

01:59:37.000 I think it's lighter than...

01:59:38.000 I think it's like...

01:59:40.000 What's bantamweight?

01:59:41.000 What is bantamweight?

01:59:42.000 Well, lightweight is 135. This is my point.

01:59:46.000 There's too many weight classes.

01:59:47.000 And then super featherweight is 130. So featherweight must be 125. And then Bantamate must be 120. And Flyweight is like 118. Yeah, there's weird numbers, right?

02:00:02.000 Like welterweight is 147. You don't think there's too many weight classes?

02:00:07.000 Here's the deal.

02:00:08.000 The thing about weight cutting, weight cutting is so bad for you.

02:00:12.000 It's so bad.

02:00:14.000 But when there's only a few weight classes, there's massive advantages.

02:00:18.000 And one of the best ways to disincentivize weight cutting, which is As bad as anything else in sport.

02:00:24.000 Might be as bad as the strikes that you take.

02:00:27.000 With some guys.

02:00:28.000 I've seen guys that look like they're on death's door.

02:00:31.000 But they are.

02:00:32.000 Death's door.

02:00:33.000 They are on death's door.

02:00:34.000 And then 24 hours later they have a cage fight, which is so nuts.

02:00:38.000 But the problem is, if you're a guy, and you're 5'9", and you want to fight in the welterweight division, Can you make 55?

02:00:51.000 Because if you can make 55, dude, it would be better for you.

02:00:54.000 Because if you make 55, those guys will be your height.

02:00:57.000 You're dealing with...

02:00:58.000 You mean if you can come down to 155?

02:01:00.000 Yeah, if you make 155, then those guys will probably be your size.

02:01:04.000 Because if you just walk around like 180 pounds, you want to fight at 170, you're dealing with guys that are 200 plus.

02:01:11.000 Yeah, the rehydration is crazy.

02:01:28.000 I think there should be, at the very minimum, a weight class every 10 pounds.

02:01:33.000 And I don't think that's outrageous, and that's way less than boxing.

02:01:35.000 But you would start at 125, like there is now, and 135, which already exists.

02:01:40.000 145, already exists.

02:01:42.000 And then you go 55, which already exists.

02:01:44.000 Are you saying UFC? Yeah.

02:01:46.000 65, 75, 85, 95, 205, maybe 215, or just go right to 225, and then maybe even a 265. And then super heavyweight, which doesn't exist.

02:01:59.000 Which is really wild that the heavyweight champion of the UFC has to make weight.

02:02:03.000 The heavyweight champion of the UFC has to be 265 pounds or less.

02:02:07.000 Why?

02:02:08.000 Because there's a weight class.

02:02:10.000 There's a super heavyweight.

02:02:11.000 Oh, there's a super heavyweight.

02:02:13.000 But it's never been used.

02:02:14.000 Has there ever been a 300-pound fighter?

02:02:16.000 In the early days of the UFC, for sure.

02:02:18.000 Yeah.

02:02:18.000 Paul Varlin's, I think, was 300 pounds.

02:02:20.000 One of the really early ones when he fought Marco Huas.

02:02:22.000 What was Kerr?

02:02:25.000 Was it Mark Kerr?

02:02:26.000 Oh, geez.

02:02:26.000 He was big.

02:02:27.000 He was gigantic.

02:02:28.000 Mark Kerr.

02:02:29.000 How good was he?

02:02:30.000 Oh, he's phenomenal.

02:02:31.000 He was phenomenal.

02:02:32.000 He was an elite wrestler.

02:02:34.000 I thought that would be a good film.

02:02:35.000 Who was on all the Juicy Juice.

02:02:37.000 Yeah, I looked at doing a film about him for a minute.

02:02:39.000 There is one out.

02:02:41.000 A documentary?

02:02:42.000 Yeah, The Smashing Machine.

02:02:43.000 Have you ever seen it?

02:02:44.000 No, but I meant a scripted.

02:02:46.000 Oh, scripted.

02:02:47.000 I know Dwayne Johnson was interested in playing him for a minute.

02:02:51.000 He's the one that turned me on to him.

02:02:52.000 They call him The Smashing Machine.

02:02:54.000 Is that the best fight name ever?

02:02:56.000 Oh, so good.

02:02:57.000 I saw him submit a guy with his chin in the guy's eye socket. 1.00

02:03:01.000 Oh, fuck. 0.99

02:03:02.000 It was an early, early, early UFC. He mounted this guy, this guy Dan Bobish, and he stuck his chin in the guy's eye socket. 1.00

02:03:12.000 He just fucking drove his chin. 0.97

02:03:14.000 Is that legal? 0.99

02:03:14.000 It was then. 0.99

02:03:15.000 Is it now?

02:03:16.000 I don't know.

02:03:17.000 No one's ever done it before.

02:03:17.000 But also, no one's on the same amount of sauce as Kerr was.

02:03:22.000 He looked like a superhero.

02:03:24.000 He didn't even look like a real person.

02:03:26.000 Super nice guy, by the way.

02:03:28.000 Sweet guy. 0.98

02:03:29.000 It does not make sense when you talk to him, his personality, that he's such a murderer.

02:03:33.000 I think he had the wrong woman in his life, as I recall.

02:03:37.000 That was a part of it.

02:03:38.000 I can't believe that.

02:03:40.000 I think he's a pain guy.

02:03:43.000 I think he got hooked on pain pills.

02:03:45.000 Interesting.

02:03:46.000 It'd be an interesting film.

02:03:47.000 Well, it would be interesting because I think...

02:03:49.000 Have you seen The Smashing Machine?

02:03:50.000 I haven't.

02:03:51.000 I will.

02:03:51.000 I'll watch it.

02:03:52.000 That's why you don't know.

02:03:53.000 He was addicted to pain pills.

02:03:55.000 Yeah, I knew that.

02:03:55.000 Painkillers.

02:03:56.000 I knew that.

02:03:57.000 Yeah, and that's what happened.

02:03:58.000 So what happened to him is very related to your series.

02:04:01.000 Yeah.

02:04:01.000 I'm going to look at it because someone sent it to me.

02:04:05.000 Dwayne sent it to me.

02:04:06.000 He was obsessed with them.

02:04:07.000 It's a very interesting story because at one point in time when they were following him, they were following him because they thought they were following this unstoppable force in Pride, which was the rival organization to the UFC. Yeah, that's him in his prime.

02:04:22.000 Dude.

02:04:22.000 What a stud, huh?

02:04:24.000 He was fucking people up. 0.99

02:04:25.000 Look at him down there. 0.99

02:04:27.000 That's me interviewing him.

02:04:28.000 What?

02:04:29.000 Yeah, that's 1997. Oh shit! 1.00

02:04:33.000 Do you remember that interview? 1.00

02:04:35.000 Yeah, I do.

02:04:35.000 Where was that?

02:04:37.000 I'm not sure.

02:04:38.000 I only did, like, a few of these back then.

02:04:43.000 Isn't that wild?

02:04:43.000 I did it from, like, 97 to late into 1998, and then it became...

02:04:48.000 It wasn't cost-effective.

02:04:50.000 I was losing money, and I was like, I did it.

02:04:52.000 It was fun.

02:04:52.000 But wait, that was the UFC? Was that UFC then?

02:04:55.000 That was UFC, yeah.

02:04:55.000 I was the post-fight interviewer for the UFC from 97 to 98, and then I quit.

02:05:01.000 And then I'm doing news radio, and then I wound up doing Fear Factor, and then Dana White contacted me and was getting me tickets to the fights.

02:05:10.000 I was like, oh, this is amazing.

02:05:12.000 The fights are in Vegas now.

02:05:13.000 Because my friend Eddie and I, we'd always had this dream.

02:05:16.000 Because we always loved the sport, but we were like, you know what would be amazing? 0.98

02:05:19.000 If these fucking billionaire dudes just fell in love with the sport and dumped a bunch of money into it. 0.99

02:05:24.000 And that's exactly what happened. 1.00

02:05:25.000 That's exactly what happened.

02:05:27.000 And so when they said that they had actually done that, I was like, oh, that's fantastic.

02:05:31.000 And so I went and I did some press for them.

02:05:34.000 And then I started asking Dana about fights.

02:05:38.000 I was like, do you know about this guy?

02:05:40.000 Do you know about this guy who fights in Japan?

02:05:41.000 Do you know about this and that?

02:05:43.000 And he goes, you want to do commentary?

02:05:44.000 Did he know that you knew so much about it?

02:05:47.000 I don't know.

02:05:48.000 I don't know what he knew.

02:05:50.000 You know, he knew eventually.

02:05:51.000 Once we started talking, I was saying I trained jiu-jitsu five days a week and, you know, I'm obsessed with the sport.

02:05:57.000 But look at me with all that hair.

02:05:58.000 You look great.

02:05:59.000 You still look great, Joe.

02:06:00.000 Thank you very much.

02:06:01.000 But you look great there, too.

02:06:03.000 Different chapters.

02:06:04.000 UFC 15. UFC 15. Oh, shit.

02:06:08.000 1997. But see, that... 1.00

02:06:09.000 My theory, being, you know, a big boxing fan...

02:06:17.000 We need a couple of billionaires to buy boxing.

02:06:20.000 And like, it almost happened with DAZN. I don't know if you follow, like, this guy, Lem Blitnik, the...

02:06:27.000 I didn't follow it.

02:06:28.000 A Russian oligarch, basically, gave Eddie Hearn a shitload of money and said...

02:06:35.000 Roll up boxing.

02:06:36.000 And I always felt like one guy could have rolled up boxing because it's controlled by...

02:06:41.000 There's Al Heyman, there's Bob Arum, and there's now DAZN, Eddie Hearn.

02:06:49.000 Golden Boy.

02:06:50.000 Huh?

02:06:51.000 Golden Boy.

02:06:51.000 Yeah, and Golden Boy's lurking around.

02:06:55.000 But it's actually an asset that if you look at what it's all worth, it's conceivable that one billionaire could come in and for, I don't know what the number is, a couple of billion, buy out everyone, roll it up,

02:07:10.000 and create one international boxing league.

02:07:13.000 Kind of like what UFC's done.

02:07:15.000 It's hard, but if they did it, It's almost like boxing now.

02:07:19.000 It's like if there were four different NFL football leagues.

02:07:23.000 So there wasn't one Super Lombardi trophy.

02:07:25.000 There wasn't one UFC belt.

02:07:28.000 People don't understand that.

02:07:30.000 Oh, I'm a UFC. I'm a WBO 140 pound champion.

02:07:36.000 He's an IBF 140 pound.

02:07:39.000 What?

02:07:39.000 If one person could roll it up...

02:07:43.000 I've asked Dana several times to do it.

02:07:45.000 To roll it up.

02:07:46.000 How much would it cost?

02:07:48.000 I mean, I would think...

02:07:50.000 You're pretty good at guessing missiles.

02:07:51.000 I would say...

02:07:52.000 I would say to really roll it up.

02:07:55.000 And buy all...

02:07:57.000 IBF, WBO, WA, WBC. Buy all the belts and get Eddie to...

02:08:01.000 Because I put Eddie in charge of it.

02:08:03.000 I think he's the smartest guy in boxing.

02:08:05.000 Eddie Hearn.

02:08:06.000 The face of boxing at this point.

02:08:08.000 Bob Arum.

02:08:09.000 God love him.

02:08:10.000 He's 95. Yeah.

02:08:12.000 Whatever.

02:08:12.000 Yeah, you gotta get Eddie Hearns.

02:08:13.000 I don't know what Al Heyman's experience is, what he really...

02:08:17.000 De La Hoya, I don't...

02:08:18.000 Eddie Hearns, like, to me, the guy.

02:08:20.000 I like him.

02:08:21.000 Knows a lot about boxing.

02:08:22.000 You take Eddie and Dana, partner him up, have Ari broker the whole deal, right? 0.99

02:08:30.000 And probably 1.2 billion buys the whole thing.

02:08:35.000 And you then create a league, okay?

02:08:38.000 Mm.

02:08:39.000 Here's what I picked.

02:08:40.000 That's a good idea.

02:08:41.000 Okay, and then how about this?

02:08:42.000 What's the biggest fight you could make in UFC right now?

02:08:46.000 The biggest fight.

02:08:48.000 Or a huge fight?

02:08:51.000 The biggest...

02:08:52.000 Well, Francis Ngannou just left.

02:08:55.000 That would be the biggest fight.

02:08:56.000 If you could get Francis Ngannou versus John Jones.

02:09:00.000 John Jones and Ngannou, right?

02:09:01.000 Yeah.

02:09:02.000 I think that would be the biggest fight in history.

02:09:03.000 What's your best venue?

02:09:05.000 Is it Vegas?

02:09:06.000 Does it matter?

02:09:06.000 Madison Square Garden?

02:09:07.000 Vegas is kind of like Madison Square Garden.

02:09:10.000 You can't go wrong with Vegas or Madison Square Garden.

02:09:12.000 Okay, so let's go to Madison Square Garden just because I'm from New York.

02:09:15.000 So you have that fight, and let's think about the biggest fight in boxing right now.

02:09:22.000 Is it...

02:09:23.000 I don't know.

02:09:25.000 Terrence Crawford's talking about fighting Canelo.

02:09:27.000 Crawford-Canelo.

02:09:28.000 That would be the biggest fight.

02:09:29.000 At 100 and what?

02:09:31.000 150?

02:09:32.000 No, no.

02:09:33.000 150?

02:09:34.000 No, he's going to go up to 68. I was talking to him about him.

02:09:38.000 You're going to go up to 68. That's crazy.

02:09:41.000 Let's say that could happen.

02:09:42.000 It's hard for me to imagine that happening, right?

02:09:45.000 From 147, what did he just find out?

02:09:48.000 147?

02:09:49.000 Mm-hmm.

02:09:50.000 But he said he met Canelo.

02:09:52.000 He's like, he's kind of my height.

02:09:54.000 Canelo's, I think, shorter.

02:09:55.000 Yeah, he goes, just give me time to put on some weight.

02:09:58.000 He goes, I wouldn't do it immediately.

02:09:59.000 He goes, but how, like, six months to really put...

02:10:02.000 I don't know, man.

02:10:03.000 I mean, look, Canelo's a monster. 0.94

02:10:05.000 He's a monster, and his power...

02:10:07.000 The fact that the guy knocked out Kovalev at 175, his power's unstoppable. 0.90

02:10:12.000 But...

02:10:13.000 So let's say that fight happens.

02:10:15.000 You've got Canelo Crawford at whatever weight, and you've got Jones...

02:10:20.000 Ngannou.

02:10:21.000 Ngannou, right?

02:10:22.000 So you fill up the garden.

02:10:23.000 I don't know who goes first.

02:10:26.000 Oh my god, you have both fights in one night?

02:10:27.000 Okay, the ring is an octagon.

02:10:30.000 You have the UFC fight.

02:10:32.000 You're there.

02:10:33.000 Whole thing.

02:10:34.000 Fight ends.

02:10:35.000 The premier fight.

02:10:36.000 The ring lifts up.

02:10:38.000 The octagon lifts up.

02:10:39.000 Flips over.

02:10:40.000 Drops a boxing ring down.

02:10:43.000 Yes!

02:10:44.000 Drops a boxing ring down.

02:10:45.000 And in one night, one league, Dana owns all of it.

02:10:50.000 I pitched him this in Mexico.

02:10:52.000 How drunk are you?

02:10:55.000 I'm like, you don't understand!

02:10:57.000 And he's kind of going for it, but why not?

02:11:01.000 Combat sports, roll them up and clean it up. 1.00

02:11:06.000 Because boxing is fucked up. 1.00

02:11:09.000 Well, maybe the Saudis. 1.00

02:11:10.000 I mean, who has more money than them?

02:11:12.000 Nobody.

02:11:12.000 And they're also doing a lot of boxing events now.

02:11:15.000 Like, Tyson Fury vs.

02:11:16.000 Francis Ngannou.

02:11:17.000 Isn't that in Saudi Arabia?

02:11:18.000 Yes.

02:11:19.000 Yeah, so they've had some major fights in Saudi Arabia, and they have a lot of money.

02:11:23.000 They could do that.

02:11:25.000 Maybe someone's listening right now, and they'll go, you know what?

02:11:28.000 Hey, I like it.

02:11:29.000 Let's broker a deal.

02:11:30.000 Have you seen the line in Saudi Arabia?

02:11:33.000 Do you know what that is?

02:11:33.000 Yes, yes.

02:11:34.000 Let's pull it up, Jamie, because it's insane.

02:11:37.000 I was just in Europe, and I had lunch with this guy, Saudi guy.

02:11:42.000 He's like, what do you do?

02:11:43.000 He's like, well, I'm in charge of all the insurance.

02:11:46.000 For the line.

02:11:47.000 And I'm like...

02:11:48.000 So let's explain the line.

02:11:49.000 I'm like...

02:11:50.000 And then he started telling me, like, this...

02:11:53.000 You think, like...

02:11:54.000 We think we know what money is.

02:11:56.000 This is where the money is.

02:11:59.000 So what this is, is some mega city that's many miles long, that they're building that's all completely integrated, right?

02:12:08.000 Yeah, it's in the middle of nowhere.

02:12:10.000 So it's like one building.

02:12:11.000 No roads, look at this, read that.

02:12:13.000 No roads, cars, or emissions that will run on 100% renewable energy and 95% of the land will be preserved for nature.

02:12:20.000 People's health and well-being will be prioritized over transportation and infrastructure, unlike traditional cities.

02:12:26.000 That might be amazing to visit. 0.99

02:12:29.000 But fuck that. 0.99

02:12:31.000 Nine million people. 0.99

02:12:33.000 It's in the middle.

02:12:34.000 They're building this thing.

02:12:35.000 And it's like, I don't know.

02:12:37.000 Look how cool it looks.

02:12:38.000 Oh, it's insane.

02:12:39.000 Little pictures.

02:12:40.000 Scroll down, Jimmy.

02:12:41.000 Like, those photos.

02:12:42.000 Like, look at that.

02:12:43.000 But you can see actual construction.

02:12:44.000 They're building it now.

02:12:45.000 Like, I saw there's a whole city, you know, couple of thousand workers living out there in these little air-conditioned cubicles.

02:12:52.000 This guy was showing me.

02:12:54.000 This sort of brings us...

02:12:55.000 Look at this.

02:12:55.000 It's amazing.

02:12:56.000 That's insane.

02:12:57.000 That's so Star Wars. 1.00

02:12:58.000 They're building that shit. 1.00

02:12:59.000 That is so insane looking. 1.00

02:13:01.000 A revolution in civilization.

02:13:04.000 Nine million. 0.99

02:13:04.000 It might be dope to get a fucking spot there to visit. 0.99

02:13:07.000 It's like Dubai, right? 0.99

02:13:09.000 Remember when they were building the Palm Tree Islands and everyone thought it was crazy?

02:13:14.000 Look at what it looks like inside.

02:13:16.000 That's insane.

02:13:17.000 Autonomous services. 0.99

02:13:18.000 Look, you got drones that are fucking delivering you food. 1.00

02:13:21.000 Bro, that might be sick. 1.00

02:13:23.000 Look how high it is!

02:13:24.000 It's higher than the Empire State Building!

02:13:26.000 They're building it now.

02:13:27.000 It's 200 miles wide?

02:13:28.000 It's happening.

02:13:30.000 Oh my god.

02:13:31.000 It's on.

02:13:31.000 Mirror glass facade.

02:13:33.000 I want to see the Black Mirror episode.

02:13:34.000 Bro, this literally is science fiction.

02:13:37.000 Science fiction turned reality.

02:13:39.000 Saudi Arabia is going off.

02:13:41.000 But it's what we were talking about before. 0.89

02:13:43.000 If you have endless money, like with the nuclear submarines and the battleships, if you have endless money, you can get a lot of cool shit done. 0.83

02:13:52.000 Yeah, man.

02:13:52.000 But what's disturbing to you and I think to I as people that you like to think about everybody, like where's this money coming from?

02:14:01.000 Taxes?

02:14:02.000 Why aren't we putting an enormous amount into new schools?

02:14:07.000 Why aren't we putting an enormous amount into cleaning up communities and stopping crime?

02:14:11.000 Why aren't we putting an enormous amount into healthcare? 0.56

02:14:13.000 Because the companies that make the weapon systems are not going to let it happen.

02:14:18.000 It's just this ecosystem of money I think it was Truman.

02:14:24.000 It was either Truman or Roosevelt who said, be careful because we're going to have an economy that is forever interconnected to our military.

02:14:32.000 It was Eisenhower in his departing speech.

02:14:34.000 Eisenhower, right?

02:14:35.000 Yeah.

02:14:35.000 We have an economy that is now linked to the industrial-military industrial complex.

02:14:39.000 So you can't separate them.

02:14:41.000 You can't turn it off.

02:14:43.000 But I'm not even saying turn it off.

02:14:45.000 I'm saying if you have enough money to send how many billion dollars to Ukraine, where was that money when we needed infrastructure in cities?

02:14:53.000 Where was that money when we needed better education?

02:14:56.000 But where was it?

02:14:58.000 It's crazy that we prioritize certain things to the tune of Just insane amounts of money.

02:15:06.000 It's crazy.

02:15:06.000 No one's asking this question.

02:15:08.000 Okay, this is not even a commentary on whether or not we should be funding Ukraine.

02:15:13.000 I'm just saying, if you can do that, why haven't you looked at the state of emergency that exists in many of the cities in America? 0.99

02:15:22.000 Oh, fuck yes. 0.99

02:15:23.000 It's outrageous. 1.00

02:15:26.000 It should be a statement.

02:15:28.000 It should be on the front of everybody's lips.

02:15:31.000 It should.

02:15:32.000 If you can put... 0.99

02:15:35.000 20 nuclear missiles with warheads guidance systems propulsion systems on a billion-dollar submarine 20 missiles yeah and put them on however many subs One of which being detonated means we're done anyway Why can't we take two or three of those fucking missiles and do something? 0.97

02:15:53.000 According to what's going on in Ukraine because we we don't have to because they're doing both They're doing both. 0.87

02:16:00.000 They're funding Ukraine, and they're building these weapons systems.

02:16:03.000 I don't think it has to be an either-or, or you even have to, like, have less of them.

02:16:08.000 But it's just like, where did you guys get all this money?

02:16:10.000 And why didn't you use it for stuff that we need?

02:16:13.000 That's crazy.

02:16:15.000 I understand that it's all inflation.

02:16:17.000 I understand.

02:16:18.000 I understand what the problems that it causes, spending all this money and just printing all this money.

02:16:21.000 I get it.

02:16:22.000 But I'm saying, like, maybe there would be an overall net benefit for the country and for all the human beings involved.

02:16:28.000 How many less people would we have that were addicted to opiates if they had a better situation in their life?

02:16:35.000 And how much of that could be fixed if we invested money in it?

02:16:39.000 How many lives can we save?

02:16:40.000 How many people's lives can we enhance?

02:16:42.000 How many trajectories of their life could we completely change for the better forever? 0.78

02:16:47.000 I bet a fuckload. 0.99

02:16:49.000 I bet a fuckload. 0.99

02:16:51.000 And if they just invested in people the way they invest in other shit, I thought about that, like, if you could actually see what it was like when we started, like the literal, if you get into the weeds on how we armed Ukraine, right? 0.99

02:17:05.000 So you've got a bunch of 20-year-old Ukrainian, whatever, kids, college students, electricians, plumbers, whatever they were doing, the trucks pull up and the equipment that gets presented to them, night vision goggles, drones, 0.80

02:17:21.000 drone technology, You know, Kevlar body suits, the weapon systems and the clothes and the value of that.

02:17:29.000 And you think about we're just we're giving it.

02:17:31.000 OK, I understand why we're giving it.

02:17:33.000 But think about those trucks rolling up and the amount of money being handed through equipment to young Ukrainian men.

02:17:45.000 What comparable value or asset we're giving to young American men of the same age, it just doesn't happen.

02:17:54.000 But we can do it.

02:17:55.000 We can fly all the way over there and deliver it.

02:17:57.000 I mean, the amount of money we're putting into the hands of all these young soldier slash men from Ukraine compared to what that money could do in our cities, it's worth, I think, talking about. 1.00

02:18:12.000 It is worth talking about.

02:18:13.000 It's not some radical socialist idea that we should fix cities.

02:18:18.000 It's in everybody's best interest.

02:18:21.000 Also, just for the human race, it's in everyone's best interest.

02:18:25.000 The world would be better off if there was less people who were losing.

02:18:29.000 And what's the best way to stop that?

02:18:31.000 Give them a better start to their life.

02:18:34.000 So what's the best way to do that?

02:18:35.000 You have to improve upon community somehow.

02:18:37.000 I'm not an expert in this, but I recognize that's a giant issue.

02:18:41.000 I don't know what you would do, but I would imagine there's got to be some strategies to improve things.

02:18:45.000 Well, schools are good.

02:18:47.000 Like schools, parks, community centers, counseling, places where people can have healthy food and be safe.

02:18:55.000 Schools and teachers.

02:18:56.000 And teach them things.

02:18:57.000 Have places where people can teach them whatever it is.

02:19:03.000 Things outside of how to play music, martial arts.

02:19:08.000 The more people can learn, they have opportunities to do things, the better off everyone's going to be.

02:19:13.000 The more safe they feel.

02:19:14.000 The better off everyone's gonna be.

02:19:16.000 The more human beings that have a better shot at having an enjoyable life, the better off we'll all be.

02:19:22.000 But the fact that we don't think about it that way, everybody just goes about their business and thinks about themselves, but then complains about all these problems that are happening in our cities. 0.99

02:19:31.000 While you've got a Ukraine flag in your fucking Twitter bio. 0.99

02:19:35.000 You know, it's wild. 1.00

02:19:36.000 It's wild.

02:19:37.000 It's weird.

02:19:40.000 Yeah, and I just go back to the time in Pearl Harbor when I was getting toured around that sub and I'm just trying to do the math in my head.

02:19:52.000 Yes, it's beautiful.

02:19:55.000 Are you going to do a piece on this?

02:19:57.000 Are you going to do...

02:19:58.000 Yeah, so I want to do...

02:20:00.000 So then it starts getting, like, you go down the rabbit hole of it and you look up the ten biggest arms companies, weapons manufacturers, and you start looking up the CEO pay packages and, like, you start getting a sense of how...

02:20:16.000 Like, it gets pretty dark pretty fast.

02:20:19.000 Yeah.

02:20:20.000 Look up, like, you know, just...

02:20:22.000 Satan's real. 1.00

02:20:23.000 Yeah, fuck it. 1.00

02:20:24.000 I mean, this whole conversation started when I'm like, well, okay, I learned this about Big Pharma because, okay, I've heard conspiracy theories on Big Pharma and be careful, but until I really went deep with Purdue, I understood it intellectually, 1.00

02:20:42.000 but I never viscerally felt it like, oh shit, this is real. 0.94

02:20:46.000 This isn't some left-wing conspiracy theory that there's greedy people out there manipulating the FDA. No, this is actually fucking real. 0.99

02:20:54.000 And they got away with it. 0.99

02:20:55.000 And they got away with it.

02:20:56.000 And I'm not saying that... 0.99

02:20:59.000 I support the fuck out of our troops. 0.98

02:21:05.000 And I have. 0.97

02:21:06.000 And I do.

02:21:08.000 My father was a Marine.

02:21:10.000 The time I've spent working in that space, 100% yes, support.

02:21:16.000 However, when I see all the other people that are making money off of the backs of like, at the end of the day, what I observed when I went to Iraq was not big technology out there, you know, saving the day.

02:21:30.000 These were 25 year old men.

02:21:33.000 Like kicking in doors, fighting a war that nobody cared about back home anyway because it was over there. 0.98

02:21:39.000 So when I see like all this money and all this tech being thrown into systems that like, I don't know, are we ever going to really use this shit? 0.97

02:21:50.000 Because if we do, It's game over anyway. 0.97

02:21:55.000 I see all these people making so much money.

02:21:58.000 I'm like, this feels like we're in the same waters that we were swimming in when we were dealing with Purdue Pharma.

02:22:06.000 So yeah, I would like to do something in this space. 0.94

02:22:09.000 Well, listen, Painkiller's fucking fantastic. 0.88

02:22:12.000 It's really good. 0.99

02:22:14.000 Like everything you do. 0.98

02:22:15.000 You've done so many fucking great movies, man. 0.98

02:22:17.000 Lone Survivor's incredible. 1.00

02:22:18.000 You know, you're the shit. 1.00

02:22:20.000 So, appreciate you very much. 1.00

02:22:21.000 Thank you for being here.

02:22:22.000 And ladies and gentlemen, please watch it.

02:22:24.000 It's on Netflix. 0.99

02:22:25.000 It's fucking great. 1.00

02:22:27.000 Fuck yeah. 1.00

02:22:28.000 Thank you. 1.00

02:22:28.000 Alright, bye. 1.00

The Joe Rogan Experience - August 29, 2023

Joe Rogan Experience #2026 - Peter Berg

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript