The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #2395 - Mariana van Zeller

00:00:03.000 The Joe Rogan experience.

00:00:09.000 All day.

00:00:13.000 That glass of wine is so good.

00:00:15.000 Well, one glass of wine I do not think is bad for you.

00:00:19.000 Great for you.

00:00:20.000 But a glass of wine relaxes you, and there's probably benefit in being relaxed.

00:00:20.000 Right.

00:00:24.000 Yeah.

00:00:25.000 I agree.

00:00:25.000 Yeah.

00:00:26.000 But the problem was I own a nightclub and I'm there all the time.

00:00:29.000 Yeah, so you're drinking within a glass.

00:00:31.000 Out with the fellas, and then I'd maybe have a couple glasses of whiskey on a podcast with some guys.

00:00:36.000 And then when I stopped, I was like, oh my God, I feel so much better.

00:00:40.000 Like, why was that poisoning myself?

00:00:42.000 You did feel much better?

00:00:42.000 Really?

00:00:43.000 Immediately you felt it?

00:00:44.000 Yeah, because when you think about it, we roll in.

00:00:48.000 So when I stopped drinking, uh I was probably having like two or three glasses of some kind of alcohol a night, two or three nights a week.

00:00:59.000 And then I'd go out to dinner with my wife and have like a glass or two of wine.

00:01:03.000 That's a lot of drinks over the week.

00:01:05.000 And you don't think it's much because you're not drunk.

00:01:08.000 But the next day I'd be like, ugh, you're a little draggy.

00:01:11.000 Like when I go to the gym, and that's gone.

00:01:14.000 That's great.

00:01:15.000 Yeah.

00:01:16.000 I wish I had that astronaut.

00:01:18.000 Ha ha it's not even straight.

00:01:19.000 It was easy to do.

00:01:21.000 I don't know.

00:01:23.000 You know, I I had uh I haven't had a glass of anything for a week.

00:01:26.000 Now I had surgery exactly a week ago.

00:01:28.000 Would you have done?

00:01:29.000 And a pendectomy.

00:01:30.000 Oh.

00:01:31.000 I was uh it was exactly last Thursday, which is why I have these uh books on my arms.

00:01:31.000 Yeah.

00:01:37.000 Um day, and then my husband forced me because I had stomach pain and I just thought I had food poisoning or something, so I kept on going to the toilet.

00:01:46.000 Those are scary.

00:01:47.000 Nothing was happening.

00:01:48.000 Yeah.

00:01:48.000 Yeah, I didn't burst.

00:01:49.000 But uh my husband forced me to go to the hospital and I got there, and yeah, it was an uh appendicitis and we had emergency appendectomy the next morning.

00:01:57.000 Um but so uh which recovery has been t totally fine, but I haven't wanted to drink because I want to make sure I was gonna be able to come here today.

00:02:08.000 And uh I wanted to recover faster.

00:02:10.000 So um yeah, so I think that's the longest I've ever been drinking.

00:02:15.000 Well you have a very stressful job.

00:02:19.000 It's insanely stressful.

00:02:21.000 You are one of the most boots on the ground journalists I've ever met.

00:02:25.000 You go to some really dangerous and terrifying places.

00:02:30.000 Like I still get nightmares uh from that video where you showed me where you went to the the jungle where they process cocaine.

00:02:37.000 Yeah.

00:02:37.000 And then walked out with them, hiked out with them through the I mean that was just nuts.

00:02:43.000 Yeah, don't don't mean to cause you nightmares, but uh I love doing what I do.

00:02:47.000 You know, we've done five seasons of traffic.

00:02:49.000 The last season just premiered a couple of months ago.

00:02:52.000 Um it's available now on Hulu.

00:02:55.000 And uh unfortunately it's the last season of traffic.

00:02:58.000 Um Why is that?

00:03:00.000 I think a few reasons.

00:03:01.000 I think it's you know, it's uh a risky show to put together, right?

00:03:04.000 It's a costly show.

00:03:06.000 It's um n Disney decided that Nigerios should be doing more natural history and animal programming.

00:03:14.000 And uh yeah, I think traffic is just a difficult show.

00:03:17.000 It is a really challenging show to put together.

00:03:19.000 But I'm incredibly proud of the work we've done and this last season, the fifth season has some of my favorite stories we've done, and um I'm now starting a podcast.

00:03:28.000 Oh, you know, I launched it yesterday.

00:03:30.000 So now I'm in competition.

00:03:32.000 That's right.

00:03:34.000 Um someone will do your show again somewhere else, though.

00:03:37.000 It's too good.

00:03:38.000 This is what I'm hoping is with the podcast.

00:03:40.000 It's on YouTube and I'm growing it into something bigger.

00:03:43.000 So it starts with interviews.

00:03:44.000 The podcast's called the hidden third.

00:03:46.000 Uh because an estimated at 35% of the global economy are these black and gray markets, which is what I've reported on. 0.53

00:03:51.000 Whoa, wait a minute.

00:03:52.000 It's crazy number, right?

00:03:53.000 Mm-hmm.

00:03:54.000 35% of the economy.

00:03:55.000 Estimated 35%, which is what economists call the hidden third.

00:03:58.000 So we're not just talking about illegal activities and goods like drugs and scams and whatnot and guns.

00:04:04.000 We're also talking about un so the gray that's the black market, and then there's the gray market, which are the is the irregular unregulated part of the economy.

00:04:12.000 So untaxed work, untaxed goods, everything from like the man selling fruit on the corner, um, you know, to um other other jobs and and goods that are in tax.

00:04:24.000 But this actually has an effect on all of us because it's less money that comes in for schools and infrastructure and hospitals And all the stuff we need.

00:04:31.000 And then apart from all that we know, which is the black market and how that affects us all, which is, you know, whether you talk about guns or drugs or immigration, I mean it all has a direct impact on our lives. 0.89

00:04:42.000 So with this podcast, what I really wanted to do is after reporting on these black markets for twenty years, is I wanted to have a place like this where I can have intimate, raw, you know, sometimes difficult conversations with people who have lived or are living on the other side of the law and um who uh you know I wanted to figure out why somebody decides to become a smuggler, a trafficker, a scammer, uh a bookie, uh, you know, all these crazy lives that people lead.

00:05:12.000 Uh see how it affects us all, understand why that what they do affects us all.

00:05:17.000 And also I think the most important part for me, which has always been, and I I've talked about this with you, which is trying to understand if um the circumstances were different, if it could have been you and me doing that, you know?

00:05:29.000 I think most certainly that that's the case.

00:05:31.000 Yeah.

00:05:32.000 Most certainly is the case geographically.

00:05:32.000 Yeah.

00:05:34.000 Aaron Powell Oh, uh a hundred percent geographically.

00:05:37.000 If you have no options and you're stuck in a third world country, guess what?

00:05:41.000 You know, you do what you gotta do.

00:05:41.000 Yeah.

00:05:42.000 Yeah.

00:05:43.000 It was that story that we did in uh uh the same episode you mentioned the cocaine trafficking, which I will never forget, which was the kid who was carrying in his backpack, right?

00:05:51.000 He was sixteen, seventeen-year-old kid carrying cocaine, twenty kilos of cocaine on his back for days on end on the in the jungles, seen so many of his friends being killed in front of him by rebel gangs, rival gangs.

00:06:04.000 And uh when he um you know, when I asked him, why are you doing what you do?

00:06:07.000 He says, because I've always wanted to be a dentist.

00:06:10.000 I want to go to school and be a dentist, but my family's too poor and they can't afford my education, and the only job that I have available for me now is uh is doing this cocaine trafficking or you know, carrying cocaine on my back.

00:06:22.000 And these are stories I hear all the time.

00:06:25.000 So the the idea of being able to place ourselves in people's shoes and understand that yes, even the people that we consider the bad guys could be me and you, as as you know, has always been very important for me.

00:06:34.000 So the podcast allows me to do that.

00:06:36.000 Aaron Ross Powell Well that's great.

00:06:37.000 When when you say that like it's one third, how much of it is stuff that's not dangerous, like selling fruit on the side of the road and tax labor.

00:06:47.000 It's difficult to have exact numbers, but the estimate is that about fifteen percent, fifteen to twenty percent are black markets, and the rest are gray markets.

00:06:57.000 So the totality is around thirty-five percent, an estimate.

00:07:01.000 Um but I mean a half.

00:07:01.000 Okay.

00:07:03.000 Yeah, more or less.

00:07:04.000 Half dangerous stuff.

00:07:05.000 Yeah, half people.

00:07:07.000 Untaxed, unregulated stuff.

00:07:09.000 But I mean they also mixed, right?

00:07:09.000 Yeah.

00:07:11.000 Because um, you know, a lot of times what happens in one side affects the other, you know.

00:07:17.000 Um one of the really interest the the things that I think we've talked about a lot is uh I think this number shocks a lot of people, but if you think of the drug trade alone, six hundred billion dollars, that's the estimate, anywhere between three hundred and six hundred billion dollars every year just from the drug trade alone.

00:07:38.000 Um, you know, these these are crazy numbers.

00:07:42.000 And so it's it's not so out of the box to think that yeah, this is a hard lar large percentage of our economy.

00:07:50.000 Is it difficult to get people to come and sit with you on a podcast and talk about illegal activities?

00:07:56.000 Yes, but it's it was also on the show.

00:07:59.000 I think the harder part is that on the show we figured out a way of how to make them comfortable because I would go to them, right?

00:08:06.000 On the podcast, it's harder to convince an active trafficker or smuggler to come and sit down in my office.

00:08:13.000 Right, I would think it's a setup.

00:08:15.000 So yeah.

00:08:16.000 So uh, you know, a lot of times the meetings that we had on the show happened in undisclosed locations in vans, for example, or in places that they felt comfortable with.

00:08:25.000 Their, you know, drug labs or their drug houses or their homes sometimes.

00:08:29.000 So this has been a little bit harder, but we're we're making it we're making it work.

00:08:33.000 We're having we're hoping that it grows so then we actually have money to start traveling more and going to some of these places.

00:08:40.000 Is this something that you always wanted to do, like do a podcast, or is it something that was a necessity when the show was canceled, or did you just think maybe I should branch out?

00:08:51.000 I've always wanted to do it, and I tried uh we had done an iteration of it a couple of years ago, but I just didn't have the time because I was traveling, you know, half the year or more for traffic, so it was really hard to do a weekly podcast.

00:09:06.000 It was almost impossible.

00:09:07.000 But I spent so much time talking to people uh who have really interesting backgrounds.

00:09:12.000 And then we use only five minutes of their interview if if that.

00:09:16.000 And these are fascinating people that again have Do you have access to that footage?

00:09:22.000 The footage The footage that you edited out yes.

00:09:26.000 I mean yes.

00:09:27.000 But do you have access to it?

00:09:28.000 Like are you allowed to be a little bit more or is it if it's owned by by National Geographic, it's owned by National Geographic.

00:09:32.000 Trevor Burrus Wonder if they would sign off on letting you put that on your podcast.

00:09:36.000 Because that would be fascinating as well because I I bet there's a lot that was missed on the editing floor.

00:09:41.000 Yeah absolutely help.

00:09:48.000 But I have all the contacts.

00:09:49.000 So as long as soon as I start brand as this starts building up the podcast, the hope is that I'll build it myself from the ground up because all the contacts are mine, you know all the expertise you have contacts with like assassins and drug dealers.

00:10:03.000 Text each other, hey what's up?

00:10:05.000 Send emojis I mean yeah.

00:10:08.000 I mean these are people.

00:10:09.000 I mean the assassins less so but the traffickers and the smugglers and the scammers absolutely I'm still in touch with a lot of people do you have like a file or you like the like yeah.

00:10:22.000 But do you have them like labeled like super shady less than just unfortunate circumstances.

00:10:30.000 Cold blooded killers.

00:10:33.000 It's all under my encrypted messaging apps.

00:10:37.000 No you know it's really crazy because of the success of traffic the amount of messages I still get on Instagram and social media on a weekly basis from people who want to be on the show.

00:10:49.000 Now with the podcast as well I'm hoping that it will grow into that but people just showing me their drugs and their guns they show me photos of the stuff that they are doing and they they because these people feel like they're gonna die anyway like they're gonna probably get killed a lot of them are you know afraid one of the most interesting people we filmed for this last season of traffic was a guy that we called El Gringo.

00:11:09.000 So it was the premier episode of this season.

00:11:11.000 It was about cartel it was called cartel USA it's about the cartel presence in the United States.

00:11:16.000 I've reported extensively on cartels in Mexico, right?

00:11:19.000 And in Colombia and in other parts but I haven't actually spent a lot of time with the cartel here or seen what kind of influence they have in the US.

00:11:28.000 And uh so I had this idea okay let's try to figure out how massive their presence is is here, how they make the money, how do they they distribute the drugs, and what impact is it having on um on in America and what I found was uh um several very surprising facts.

00:11:46.000 Um the story actually starts in Sinaloa because I had to go there to get access to the people in the US.

00:11:52.000 So I had to go to the top bosses to be able to to get the green light to then film their operations here.

00:11:57.000 What is that like Sinaloa, I mean it's the place in the world that I've reported most more from apart from the United States.

00:12:05.000 I've reported more from Sinaloa than anywhere else.

00:12:07.000 Uh I have good contacts there.

00:12:09.000 I have an incredible local journalist call called Miguel Angel Vega who's called he's uh Il fixer he's the guy that any journalist in the world who wants to get access to the cartel will contact him and then he has his own contacts he's uh just incredibly brave journalist with his own contacts and then he um basically contacts his people and then they decide if they want to talk or not and uh a lot of times they don't and a lot sometimes I've done this so many times that that by now they trust me.

00:12:38.000 They know that I'm not law enforcement and so they allow me to film their operation.

00:12:43.000 So we've I filmed super meth labs, uh super labs of meth there.

00:12:47.000 I filmed uh Fentanyl lab, I filmed a guy cooking fentanyl we were all full you know masked up and I filmed the whole operation um I mean uh I filmed uh sicarios I've uh I yeah I I filmed more from Sinaloa than anywhere else in the world but it's gotta be very scary to go there and hang out with those people.

00:13:12.000 Do they put boundaries on topics?

00:13:14.000 Aaron Ross Powell I'm not on top yes for example I'm not even though I'm in Sinaloa I'm not supposed to ask which cartel people work for where it's obvious that when you're in Sinaloa everyone works for the Sinolo cartel or I mean everybody that's involved in the cartel works for the Sinolo cartel.

00:13:28.000 Um they are the cartels trying To make um in headway in the in that region, but usually it's all Sinaloa.

00:13:36.000 Um so you're not supposed to ask uh who exactly they work for and um and yeah, there are some questions about money, for example, how much money they make, people don't like to a be asked that.

00:13:46.000 But I always ask all those questions anyway.

00:13:49.000 And I I you know you get a sense whether you're pushing it too far.

00:13:52.000 Right.

00:13:53.000 Have you ever had a moment when you're doing that where you're like, I think I crossed the line?

00:13:58.000 Um we had a mo I had a moment where we stayed too long.

00:14:02.000 So it was a day we were doing a story, it was for season one was about guns and how about American guns, the flow of American guns to Mexico.

00:14:10.000 That was when you got the police people that were selling drugs illegally.

00:14:15.000 So for people that didn't see that episode, it's quite fascinating.

00:14:18.000 Police in Los Angeles, dirty cops were loading up their trunks with guns that they've confiscated and then selling them across the border in Mexico.

00:14:28.000 Aaron Ross Powell So they were selling it to gang members or affiliate of cartel members in LA who would then ship it.

00:14:35.000 Yeah, they would cross the border and ship it to LA.

00:14:38.000 Yeah, we visit it was crazy.

00:14:39.000 It was a scene, yeah.

00:14:40.000 It started with a scene in that episode started with a scene in LA where we interviewed a guy who goes by the name of T and uh he had a room packed with rifles, and when I started asking him where they were from, he was like, Oh, this one was confiscated.

00:14:53.000 I we have an LAPD contact that you know sells us a lot of our drugs.

00:14:58.000 Well, I just don't understand what benefit to them.

00:15:02.000 To the police?

00:15:03.000 Yeah, for them no uh but for that no but for them to talk to you.

00:15:07.000 Which which one?

00:15:08.000 Any of them.

00:15:10.000 Like the especially the cops.

00:15:12.000 So I it's uh the question that I get the m the cops didn't talk, we didn't get the topics.

00:15:18.000 We got it from the gang member that the cops sold the guns to.

00:15:22.000 So I've spoken spoken to cops who are doing amazing work here in the US in combating drug trafficking and and gun trafficking, and in Mexico as well.

00:15:30.000 Um but um but these we're talking about corrupt cops.

00:15:34.000 So we yeah, that was not the case.

00:15:36.000 Uh this was a gang member telling me how he had acquired those guns from LAPD, confiscated guns that he had acquired from the like what would be the benefit to him to talk to you.

00:15:46.000 I think for so in that case, it went back to my contacts in Sinaloa.

00:15:50.000 And I think it's three reasons why people talk to us.

00:15:53.000 I think the first one is ego, people want to boast.

00:15:56.000 And if you're part of the Sinaloa cartel, or even if you're a boss in the Sinaloa cartel, and you're there's an ongoing war between you, a turf war between you and another gang, like the CNJNG, uh which is a cartel jalisco, um they're you they're fighting for power, right?

00:16:13.000 So here's an opportunity to show how powerful you were.

00:16:17.000 So it's ego, right?

00:16:18.000 And a lot of these people that talk to me, I don't, you know, very often or more often than not, it's not the bosses or the kingpins that I'm talking to, right?

00:16:26.000 It's the sicarios, it's the middle and low-level people. 0.98

00:16:29.000 It's the traffickers, it's the chemists, the smugglers, it's not the kingpins.

00:16:33.000 And for them, they spend their whole lives doing something that sometimes their own families don't know they're they do.

00:16:40.000 Like I remember uh an episode we did about counterfeit money, people who make fake US uh dollars and euros in Peru in Lima.

00:16:49.000 And this guy, like shiny eyes, so excited showing me how he finishes these bills to make it look and feel and smell exactly like a hundred dollar bill.

00:17:00.000 And when I asked him, and he's a taxi driver by day and he does this by night, and and uh and I was asking him, but so why did you accept talking to us?

00:17:08.000 He says, Look, my wife doesn't even know how good I am. 1.00

00:17:12.000 I am the best of the best of doing this.

00:17:14.000 Like nobody in the whole world can make this as well as I do.

00:17:18.000 And I always wanted to be able to talk to somebody and show off how good my skills are.

00:17:23.000 And you're giving me an opportunity to do this.

00:17:26.000 That's crazy.

00:17:27.000 So I think ego plays a huge role.

00:17:29.000 And then impunity, like in places like Mexico, so much corruption, like what's the downside to talking to this woman who comes and asks funny questions, right? 0.97

00:17:37.000 Right.

00:17:38.000 And then and then I think it's the wanting to be understood.

00:17:41.000 I think everybody wants to be understood.

00:17:44.000 And they know they're considered the bad guys.

00:17:46.000 They know that you know um, you know, there's so much stigma around what they do.

00:17:51.000 And I tell everybody I'm here to try to understand what you do.

00:17:54.000 I'm not here to judge you because I think it's much more important to understand why you do what you do.

00:17:59.000 Aaron Powell The guy who makes counterfeit bills, what's his process?

00:18:01.000 Aaron Ross Powell Oh, it's freaking fascinating.

00:18:03.000 Trevor Burrus Because it does he replicate a a dollar bill with all like the little things inside of it.

00:18:09.000 Everything it was incredible.

00:18:10.000 So there's different there's the graphics person, there's the printer, and then he is he does the finishing job.

00:18:15.000 He's the finisher.

00:18:17.000 And uh he said he was the best finisher in the job, and I said he's I I started calling him Cristiano Ronaldo, the Portuguese football player, because he's the finisher in soccer.

00:18:25.000 So I called him Ronaldo, okay, you're Ronaldo.

00:18:28.000 And he uses he uses a a um it's kind of like a porridge that I used to eat when I was a kid in in Portugal.

00:18:35.000 It's called like uh it's a type of like a Cere Lac. 0.80

00:18:38.000 You don't you guys don't have it here, but it's like a a meal, um what do you call that?

00:18:41.000 Like cornmeal like a cornmeal.

00:18:43.000 Um and he uses that, and I saw him using it.

00:18:47.000 Uh um it's not Cedilac, actually, it's Maizena, which is another brand.

00:18:50.000 But it he uses this sort of corn meal to finish these bills to make it the consistency when you touch it feel exactly like the real stuff.

00:18:59.000 Is it made with the same paper?

00:19:01.000 Uh no, it's a different paper.

00:19:02.000 The paper is the hardest part to get because the paper you can only get um in the US Federal Reserves or wherever the paper comes from.

00:19:11.000 Like an easy thing to duplicate.

00:19:13.000 Yeah, it's not very hard, and particularly if you put the you know, all the little creases and curves and what you're doing.

00:19:21.000 What about those little things that you can only see with like a flashlight and stuff like that?

00:19:24.000 They have ways around that too.

00:19:26.000 It was incredible.

00:19:27.000 We brought some home.

00:19:28.000 Haven't used it, it's at my office.

00:19:30.000 But it is and it gets.

00:19:33.000 Okay.

00:19:34.000 So we actually didn't bring the actual we we brought the cutouts, so I we wouldn't be able to use it.

00:19:39.000 But it's not it's in the background of my podcast.

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00:20:54.000 You can see the cutout.

00:20:55.000 And it's really it's phenomenal.

00:20:57.000 It's crazy.

00:20:58.000 What how many bills that are counterfeit make it their way into our current is this it right here?

00:21:04.000 Yeah, this is it.

00:21:05.000 This is the finisher.

00:21:06.000 Yeah.

00:21:08.000 He is.

00:21:08.000 And you see, he's teaching, he's showing me.

00:21:10.000 And there's a glue too, yeah.

00:21:13.000 And so he's making it seem more weathered, more worn.

00:21:16.000 And they make it seem weathered and worn.

00:21:21.000 It's it's it's so crazy.

00:21:23.000 And how m how money is.

00:21:27.000 So he scrubs it down a little bit.

00:21:27.000 Yeah.

00:21:29.000 Yeah.

00:21:30.000 With a toothbrush.

00:21:31.000 All stuff that he bought at the store, like next door.

00:21:33.000 That that's the you know.

00:21:35.000 How much currency goes through this guy's production?

00:21:40.000 I cannot remember.

00:21:41.000 This was five years ago, season one, but it was a lot.

00:21:44.000 And it's the U.S. Secret Services that are in charge of uh going after these guys.

00:21:49.000 So we actually saw the real money being made when we came back to the US.

00:21:53.000 And um but I can't remember, but it was millions of dollars.

00:21:55.000 I mean, there was a there were it was like five or six families in Peru in Lima, they're the center of all this that were make that were in charge uh that were the best of the best at making these.

00:22:06.000 And we got inside one of these.

00:22:08.000 And how does that stuff get into US distribution?

00:22:11.000 Uh usually in bags, um commercial airlines, just like drugs.

00:22:15.000 A lot of drugs make it in commercial airlines, same thing, commercial airlines, bags, people would carry.

00:22:20.000 Uh the money mules would carry it, actual carrying money. 0.98

00:22:23.000 And then when it gets to America, what do they do with it?

00:22:26.000 Aaron Ross Powell They distribute it.

00:22:27.000 So it's funny, it's interesting.

00:22:28.000 They actually start uh they go to small towns and they distribute it in grocery stores and they don't go to like a Walmart or a big superstore.

00:22:36.000 They go to small first.

00:22:37.000 And that's how it gets in the general that's how that's a very good thing.

00:22:40.000 So they just buy things with it?

00:22:41.000 They buy things and uh I wish I remember this was five years ago.

00:22:47.000 Um they buy things, but they also have people that exchange that for m less cash, yeah, that's what it was.

00:22:53.000 I think they get end up getting people.

00:22:55.000 So people that know.

00:22:56.000 Yeah, that know, and they end up getting like seventy percent of what I think of something like seventy percent of the actual cost for real bills.

00:23:03.000 So they get real money in exchange for getting 70 percent of what a real bill.

00:23:08.000 I mean, the whole operation I think was.

00:23:10.000 So if you have a twenty dollar bill, you get seventy percent of that back in profit?

00:23:14.000 Like a fake bill.

00:23:16.000 Back in profit, yeah.

00:23:17.000 The the head of the group that then sells the bills on their maid.

00:23:20.000 Oh, I thought it would be way less than that for someone to be willing to exchange you real money for fake money.

00:23:26.000 Yeah, I have to I have to verify again.

00:23:28.000 This is five years ago.

00:23:29.000 But we've done fifty episodes, but I think it was something like that, if I remember.

00:23:33.000 That's crazy though that it just gets distributed by small businesses.

00:23:37.000 Yeah.

00:23:37.000 And and so one of the things we started was we reported on a lot of these small businesses that found out that they were having massive amounts of loss every year from fake bills.

00:23:48.000 And uh and I remember it was in in Oregon.

00:23:51.000 Um we did a few stories there where a lot of people were complaining about this small business.

00:23:56.000 How does it get how do they get discovered that they have fake bills?

00:23:58.000 I think they go to the bank and try to.

00:24:00.000 Oh, the bank knows.

00:24:02.000 So try to both deposit it.

00:24:04.000 Do they like look at every number on the bills?

00:24:06.000 Like how do they find out that they're fake?

00:24:08.000 I think the bank is able to find out just by looking at it.

00:24:10.000 Uh okay.

00:24:12.000 Because I think it it it you know it would fool us, but it doesn't fool somebody who's trained to look at these bills.

00:24:18.000 the bank when you bring money to the bank they look at every bill and make sure it's legit I know that that's how they figured out that they had given account you gotta go to a lazy bank you gotta go to a bank where people are just phoning in partying all night Yeah, there's they just assume that it's real.

00:24:32.000 They don't care.

00:24:34.000 Yeah.

00:24:34.000 That's crazy though.

00:24:35.000 So like what is like for the overall United States, like how much money comes in every year that's fake.

00:24:40.000 Oh, it was I cannot remember at all the statistics, but it was uh it was a lot.

00:24:44.000 It was like in the millions of dollars that people were making down there.

00:24:47.000 Wow.

00:24:47.000 It was crazy.

00:24:48.000 Yeah.

00:24:49.000 But this all back to the story of why I talked about this guy about why people talk to us.

00:24:54.000 And oh, and back to the cartel USA story, um which uh started in Sinaloa.

00:25:00.000 There was a point to this you were asking me about how it ended up in the US.

00:25:04.000 Oh, that what I discovered with cartel's operations in the United States.

00:25:08.000 Um so one of the people we interviewed, which was really fascinating, um, and it was somebody who had this carried this load on his back and why he taught decided to talk to us was this guy called El Gringo, or we called him El Gringo.

00:25:21.000 And El Gringo is an American citizen who doesn't speak a word of Spanish and who's sort of the wholesale buyer of drugs from the cartel, and then is in charge of distributing the drugs here in the US.

00:25:32.000 He distributes most of his drugs uh through commercial airlines, usually Delta, because they have a really good baggage fees.

00:25:39.000 They 70 pounds, uh two bags, 70 pounds if you fly business.

00:25:43.000 And so a lot of times it was strippers who would carry the drugs from the west coast to the east coast. 0.93

00:25:49.000 And he one of the things I'll never forget, he says, if you're taking a Delta flight from the West Coast to the East Coast, I guarantee that there's a very high chance that somebody is carrying drugs on one of those flights.

00:25:59.000 Wow.

00:26:00.000 You said strippers? 0.92

00:26:01.000 Strippers, yeah. 1.00

00:26:02.000 Why do they use strippers? 1.00

00:26:03.000 Aaron Ross Powell Because uh they are uh because people don't suspect it's a woman, so people are less suspicious of women.

00:26:10.000 Uh and there's a h higher chance that they'll make it and they are more likely to take the money to do this in this case to do this job.

00:26:19.000 Or they I mean at least those are the people that he found would agree to do this.

00:26:23.000 I mean, I don't want to say anything bad about street person.

00:26:25.000 You get busted doing that though.

00:26:27.000 That is a big penalty.

00:26:27.000 Yeah.

00:26:29.000 You go into jail for a long time.

00:26:29.000 Yeah.

00:26:31.000 It's obviously a terrible idea.

00:26:33.000 Yeah.

00:26:33.000 Such a risk.

00:26:34.000 So this guy, Il Gringo, decided to talk to me.

00:26:37.000 Um and he was the one who contacted me.

00:26:39.000 He contacted me initially.

00:26:42.000 And when uh telling me that he had a story he wanted to share, that he was uh involved with the cartel.

00:26:48.000 And then so when we started doing the story about the cartel, I reached back out to him and said, actually I'm doing a story about cartel presence here.

00:26:53.000 Would you want to come you know be on the show?

00:26:56.000 And um and he agreed and he uh traveled out to me And we met and he said, Look, I've been dying to tell this story because if I get whacked, uh which he thought he might, he wanted his story to be out there.

00:27:09.000 He wanted somebody to have heard his whole story.

00:27:11.000 Wow.

00:27:12.000 Yeah.

00:27:13.000 And he'd been threatened by the cartel.

00:27:14.000 They'd been sent him photos of his house and where they knew exactly where he lived and where his family was.

00:27:20.000 Yeah, crazy story.

00:27:22.000 Jeez.

00:27:23.000 So it's a crazy story.

00:27:25.000 When you go over and you have these conversations with the cartels, like w what is that like?

00:27:30.000 Do they blindfold you and drive you out there?

00:27:33.000 Do they take your phone away?

00:27:34.000 Yeah.

00:27:35.000 Um they ask for our phones to be off.

00:27:37.000 Um that's not good enough.

00:27:39.000 Don't they know that's not good enough?

00:27:41.000 Uh we where we go in Sinaloa is areas that are operated and uh controlled by the cartel.

00:27:50.000 It's not as if law enforcement doesn't know exactly where they are.

00:27:53.000 They do.

00:27:54.000 You know.

00:27:54.000 Oh.

00:27:56.000 They just don't want you recording.

00:27:56.000 Okay.

00:27:57.000 They just don't want us recording and they they are afraid that if we by any chance are being followed by American law enforcement, they're uh way more scared of the American law enforcement than they are of Mexican law enforcement.

00:28:09.000 Aaron Powell Because Mexican law enforcement's probably because there's a lot of corruption, yes. 1.00

00:28:12.000 A lot of corruption.

00:28:13.000 Um I mean I've been in situations where, you know, there were police officers in the room.

00:28:19.000 Um Corrupt cops.

00:28:23.000 Corrupt cops, yeah.

00:28:25.000 Wow.

00:28:26.000 Just in uniform?

00:28:28.000 Uh sometimes in uniform, sometimes just hanging out.

00:28:30.000 Yeah.

00:28:31.000 They're corrupt cops who work many times for the cartel, right?

00:28:34.000 And that happens all over.

00:28:35.000 I mean, that's not just in Mexico that uh it's happened.

00:28:37.000 I've seen it in Colombia.

00:28:39.000 Uh we've seen it in Brazil.

00:28:41.000 We did a story about militias um where I filmed a militia in Brazil with cops around.

00:28:46.000 So yeah, that happens unfortunately everywhere.

00:28:49.000 Um but so when it's not as if they don't know where these people are.

00:28:53.000 They are just afraid that maybe the DEA knowing that I'm a journalist and I go and do the this stuff that they might be following me.

00:28:58.000 So sometimes they ask for our phones to stay behind, but a lot of times they just want our phones off so that we don't transmit any signals.

00:29:06.000 Um but once we're in their territory, it takes months to get them to say yes.

00:29:12.000 And there's all these ground rules, right?

00:29:14.000 We can't disclose locations or people, we have to make sure we always bring masks and t-shirts, long-sleeve t-shirts and hoodies and everything with us because if they have tattoos and we want to make sure that they we don't show who they are.

00:29:27.000 Because that can create a problem for them, but it can also create a problem for us, and it can create a problem to the local journalists that help us because they're gonna be the first targets.

00:29:36.000 If I was this finisher guy, I would say you gotta put sunglasses on me because I have very recognizable eyes.

00:29:41.000 You know, it's interesting.

00:29:42.000 Most people don't want to wear sunglasses.

00:29:44.000 We always travel with sunglasses and we ask people to put on sunglasses, and people sometimes don't.

00:29:48.000 They say we don't care.

00:29:50.000 His eyes are very recognizable, very unusual coloring under the eyes.

00:29:54.000 Aaron Powell I have not met or I haven't heard of a single person yet who has been caught um from our show.

00:30:00.000 And I'm in touch with a lot of things.

00:30:01.000 Well that's great.

00:30:02.000 It's been it's been good.

00:30:03.000 It might just be because they're not trying.

00:30:06.000 I I really realistically don't think it's bec it's not because they don't know that these who they are or where they are.

00:30:12.000 It's not that law enforcement is blind to this.

00:30:14.000 Right.

00:30:15.000 Um I think it's it's uh unwillingness sometimes to go after this.

00:30:21.000 It's realizing that actually these are the low-level guys and what they really want is to get at the big guys, the kingpins.

00:30:26.000 Right.

00:30:27.000 Which is a better strategy anyway.

00:30:28.000 But isn't that sometimes how they do it?

00:30:30.000 They get a low-level guy and get him to turn.

00:30:32.000 Yeah.

00:30:33.000 Yeah, absolutely.

00:30:34.000 Um what a terrifying world that only exists because of an illegal market that the United States fuels.

00:30:42.000 Yeah, the biggest drug consumers in the world.

00:30:45.000 We're number one.

00:30:46.000 Largest, number one.

00:30:47.000 Number one.

00:30:48.000 I mean, number one in incarcerations, number one, it's 150 billion dollars in drugs that we spend every year.

00:30:55.000 That's so crazy.

00:30:56.000 Crazy.

00:30:57.000 And you know, we share this border with Mexico, which is fortunate and very unfortunate for them.

00:31:03.000 Right.

00:31:03.000 They they blame us for creating the consumer market.

00:31:06.000 We blame th them for creating the the drugs that feed this consumer market.

00:31:10.000 And there is there anyone that has a realistic solution to how to at least mitigate some of that?

00:31:17.000 We've talked about this.

00:31:18.000 Uh we uh we had a a little bit of a debate about this last time because I keep giving the example of Portugal.

00:31:24.000 And you said which has decriminalized drugs, right?

00:31:27.000 And I know Portugal is not the United States.

00:31:30.000 We're 10 million people.

00:31:31.000 We're a small country.

00:31:32.000 But it whatever we i it worked there.

00:31:36.000 Uh drug abuse went down, incarceration went down, a HIV went down, levels of HIV went down.

00:31:43.000 So it worked there.

00:31:44.000 They tried it in Oregon, right?

00:31:45.000 It went terribly.

00:31:46.000 Yeah, but Oregon is a bad place to try it.

00:31:46.000 Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.

00:31:49.000 Because Oregon was already so lawless that going to Oregon, it like allowed people to like ramp it up.

00:31:56.000 And so because you could get anything and everything was decriminalized, they just went ham.

00:32:00.000 And also they didn't have the system in place for people who actually wanted rehab.

00:32:00.000 Yeah.

00:32:05.000 Right.

00:32:05.000 And so when you don't, what are people going to do?

00:32:07.000 They're going to go back to the street.

00:32:09.000 Even then, rehab is very ineffective, like percentage-wise.

00:32:14.000 That's was another episode we did this season that you should watch is about.

00:32:14.000 It is.

00:32:17.000 It's called the rehab scam.

00:32:18.000 It's the Great American Rehab Scam.

00:32:20.000 And it's about how in California, we did we filmed in Arizona and California.

00:32:20.000 Yes.

00:32:26.000 In California alone, we had an insurance, the head of the insurance investigations in California, an insurance fraud investigator in California told us that in his estimates, but he said they're probably very low.

00:32:40.000 10% of the thousands of rehab facilities out there are probably a fraud in a scam.

00:32:45.000 And which they did 10%, which is a crazy number.

00:32:49.000 But he thinks it's a low number, that it's probably much higher than that.

00:32:52.000 So we what we our story was all about body brokering and rehab scams.

00:32:56.000 And body brokering.

00:32:58.000 Body brokering, yeah.

00:32:59.000 It's a it's an it's a term applied that applies to uh rehab scams.

00:33:04.000 So rehab scams is basically the the uh buying and selling of addicts uh in this billion dollar market, right?

00:33:12.000 So it's uh these they create these fake uh rehab centers that bill insurance for treatments that they are not actually giving people.

00:33:25.000 Um so uh for example, it's a huge problem in Arizona, and that's why we started and in California, but we started in Arizona.

00:33:33.000 Native Americans have really easy access to um health insurance through the the Indian American health plan that they created.

00:33:42.000 And it started as a good thing because there's it it was difficult, a lot of people lived in reservations far away, a lot of people, you know, because of generational trauma and alcohol abuse and drug abuse, there's a real need for health insurance and for them to have access to health insurance.

00:33:58.000 So you have these ho huge communities that when COVID happened, uh the state made it even easier for them to get the help that they needed through health insurance.

00:34:07.000 But all these bad actors realized, oh, this is great.

00:34:10.000 We're just gonna build these fake rehab centers, go around in white vans, literally.

00:34:15.000 There's like thousands of people still missing in Arizona, most of them uh Native Americans.

00:34:21.000 And they go out in white vans to these reservations in Arizona and New Mexico, and they bring people, people who, you know, um have problems with drug and alcohol, and they bring people to these centers, and then they start building insurance, they get you on an insurance plan, and they start building insurance crazy amounts of money.

00:34:40.000 Like we spoke, we were investigating this one facility that they were making eight hundred and something um million dollars sorry, eight hundred and something thousand uh eight hundred and seventy thousand dollars a week, a week from you know, dozens of people that they were housing.

00:34:58.000 And not actually providing them the treatment that they so desperately needed.

00:35:01.000 Aaron Powell So it just housed them.

00:35:03.000 So which is also illegal.

00:35:04.000 You can't house some you can't offer somebody free housing and then tell them that you will only get the free housing if you go and do our treatment.

00:35:14.000 That's illegal.

00:35:14.000 It's an illegal kickback.

00:35:16.000 But so they were doing this out in the open.

00:35:18.000 And some of these business operators were actually not even Americans.

00:35:21.000 They were Nigerians.

00:35:22.000 I found out that there were some Nigerians that owned own some of these rehab facilities.

00:35:26.000 Nigerians are so good at scam. 1.00

00:35:27.000 It's so ingenious.

00:35:27.000 Oh my God.

00:35:30.000 Yeah.

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00:36:43.000 But Americans too.

00:36:44.000 I mean, there were a lot of them that were Americans.

00:36:46.000 So these guys are like driving around in Ferraris and you know, people are living in these fake centers.

00:36:52.000 I spoke to people who the therapy that they were they were billing like $2,500 for a therapy session, na one hour therapy session.

00:37:00.000 That was a Zoom meeting, a Zoom call with 600 people on the call.

00:37:04.000 And that's the therapy session.

00:37:07.000 It's bananas.

00:37:08.000 Or people who weren't even there and they bill for insurance and the people with the Trevor Burrus.

00:37:12.000 So six hundred people were they were collecting two thousand dollars from six hundred people for one hour.

00:37:18.000 Wow.

00:37:20.000 It is insane.

00:37:21.000 Well I could see why they would do that.

00:37:23.000 If that's a possibility to make money.

00:37:26.000 Yeah, if you open the door to criminals, and the thing about rehabilitation centers is a lot of people that get go to rehab or get involved in rehab, they've also had shady pasts.

00:37:36.000 Right.

00:37:37.000 They've been involved with criminals and then they go, listen, man, I think there's money to be made here.

00:37:41.000 Like this ain't fixing nobody.

00:37:43.000 This is court ordered rehabilitation.

00:37:46.000 I had to go in here.

00:37:47.000 Right.

00:37:48.000 Right.

00:37:48.000 Let's make some money.

00:37:49.000 Start our own place.

00:37:50.000 What is what's the like what what's the steps that one has to take if one was to open up?

00:37:55.000 Not that I'm thinking about doing it.

00:37:57.000 Not a thing about doing it.

00:37:59.000 If someone was a scumbag.

00:38:03.000 But if someone was a terrible person, like what would someone do?

00:38:05.000 Uh what uh like what are the parameters?

00:38:08.000 Like what do you have to do to open up a rebound?

00:38:09.000 But you need a license, probably a state license, but in some cases it was just really easy to get a state license.

00:38:14.000 There was in Florida it became a huge problem.

00:38:16.000 It was called the Florida shuffle, which was this you were going back and forth between you know detox and rehabs and uh outpatient treatment centers, and they were all owned by the same sort of uh you know well-known frosters. 0.61

00:38:30.000 So you have to get a uh a license, but there's not much more, and that was the problem is that anyone could get a license and anyone can operate one of these.

00:38:37.000 I was reading about a judge that recently got busted because this judge was sentencing people to the rehab that they owned.

00:38:45.000 Yeah, that is.

00:38:46.000 And so taking like like v dangerous violent criminals and not incarcerating them, but instead sending them to these rehabilitation centers that they owned.

00:38:54.000 And just collecting.

00:38:54.000 Wow.

00:38:54.000 Yeah.

00:38:56.000 Yeah.

00:38:57.000 It is it's so sad.

00:38:58.000 It's it's really um, you know, as somebody who's reported on the opiate crisis for so long, just that is the only hope, right?

00:39:06.000 Let's figure out a way.

00:39:08.000 This is we we have been trying to arrest ourselves and militarize uh ourselves out of this problem.

00:39:15.000 It doesn't work.

00:39:16.000 It's a public health crisis.

00:39:16.000 It doesn't work.

00:39:18.000 100%.

00:39:19.000 One of the other stories we did this season was about tank dope.

00:39:22.000 Do you know what trank dope is?

00:39:23.000 Trank dope?

00:39:24.000 No.

00:39:24.000 Yeah.

00:39:25.000 It's fentanyl now is being mixed with a thing called xylozine, which is an animal tranquilizer.

00:39:30.000 Uh so fun.

00:39:30.000 Oh, fun.

00:39:31.000 Uh it's horrible.

00:39:32.000 Um 90% of the fentanyl that is now being that's coming out of Philadelphia, you know, Kensington.

00:39:40.000 Oh, I have seen trend where those people like fall over.

00:39:40.000 You've seen the zombie.

00:39:43.000 Yeah, like zombies.

00:39:45.000 They're walking down.

00:39:46.000 They're doing crazy yoga.

00:39:47.000 Yeah, in Kensington.

00:39:48.000 It's the saddest thing.

00:39:49.000 So we spent time in Kensington filming.

00:39:51.000 What is it about that stuff?

00:39:52.000 Is it the tranquilizer that makes them just fall over like that standing up?

00:39:56.000 Yeah, it's part of it.

00:39:57.000 So it's it's a really interesting, you know, as we all know, it all started with Huxicottin.

00:40:03.000 And then it went to heroin, and heroin was a great high for people who are addicted to opiates because it was a powerful high and it would keep keep you high for a long time.

00:40:11.000 And then came fentanyl.

00:40:13.000 And Sentinel gives you an even more powerful high, but it's fast acting, so you get out of it fast.

00:40:18.000 So somebody realized if we mix Trank um animal tranquilizer with this, you will you will still have the big high, but it will extend the time that You have that high.

00:40:31.000 And what is happening to, you know, thousands of people across the U.S. is that they are taking these drugs, getting the high that they want.

00:40:42.000 Oh my God, it's horrible.

00:40:43.000 No, they're shooting it up.

00:40:44.000 And this is what we shot in Kensington.

00:40:45.000 Intervenously.

00:40:46.000 Yeah.

00:40:46.000 They shoot it up.

00:40:46.000 Yeah.

00:40:47.000 And what we shot in Kensington.

00:40:49.000 Well, this is it.

00:40:50.000 And where is this?

00:40:51.000 This is Philly.

00:40:52.000 Philly outside affiliates in Kansas.

00:40:53.000 It's a big problem in Philadelphia.

00:40:55.000 For some reason.

00:40:56.000 But this is if you find and this might be too disturbing, Jamie.

00:40:59.000 I'm just trying to find something that just to show what you've asked about.

00:41:01.000 What's too disturbing?

00:41:02.000 It's what we filmed in our show, which was the wounds that come.

00:41:08.000 It's like it looks like leprosy.

00:41:10.000 And it's people being amputated because the title of this is losing arms and legs.

00:41:15.000 Yeah.

00:41:16.000 Oh my god, that guy's got an old because of it.

00:41:19.000 Oh God.

00:41:20.000 Yeah.

00:41:21.000 That guy is missing an arm.

00:41:22.000 But the gangrene and the open wounds.

00:41:24.000 And we filmed somebody being treated, and this woman's arm was like all gone.

00:41:30.000 It was just one of the most painful things to to watch.

00:41:33.000 And this you know, you can imagine the smell and I know a comedian who went to the hospital for gangrene because of heroin.

00:41:39.000 Almost lost his leg.

00:41:40.000 He wound up dying eventually.

00:41:42.000 But yeah.

00:41:44.000 Yeah.

00:41:44.000 I mean, and now with Trank, it's just gotten and yeah, I don't think any of these people want to be doing this, right?

00:41:51.000 Nobody wants to be living out on look.

00:41:53.000 No boy.

00:41:55.000 And this is not I mean the one we have to do.

00:41:57.000 Yeah, this is just a film is even worse than that.

00:42:00.000 There's a ton of videos about it.

00:42:01.000 So if anyone's curious, just go on YouTube.

00:42:03.000 That's good comparatively.

00:42:04.000 Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Yeah, there's some people in this country that have no hope.

00:42:07.000 And they're they're just c they're the addiction just has got them and there's no help for them.

00:42:14.000 And if you get sent to a phony rehab while you're in that state, that's that is really evil.

00:42:21.000 That's really easy.

00:42:22.000 Isn't it?

00:42:22.000 I think it's really evil too.

00:42:24.000 But I I think, yeah, in many ways, people sometimes think, oh, these they're junkies, they're they're out there, they just want this life, and they have failed society.

00:42:34.000 I quite frankly think we have failed them.

00:42:37.000 Well, not you and me, but the structure of society.

00:42:40.000 Yeah, still them.

00:42:41.000 Are you aware of Ibogain?

00:42:43.000 Yes.

00:42:44.000 I I listened to the interview you did with Rick Perry, governor, former governor of Texas.

00:42:48.000 Yeah, that was fascinating.

00:42:49.000 Yeah.

00:42:50.000 That is insanely effective.

00:42:52.000 And um readily available in Mexico.

00:42:54.000 And now fortunately, because of former governor Rick Perry, it's available in Texas.

00:42:59.000 So they're doing it now in Texas with uh soldiers with PTSD, people coming back from the war with great efficacy and people that that have also been hooked on substances because of some of the things that they've seen.

00:43:12.000 So I think that's a great doorway into the right.

00:43:17.000 Because the right has always viewed these things, like particularly a psychedelic, which I will gain is, I guess.

00:43:27.000 Category one, right?

00:43:28.000 It's Schedule One.

00:43:29.000 I don't know.

00:43:30.000 I think it's schedule one.

00:43:31.000 So I've again schedule one.

00:43:32.000 Um but it's certainly illegal in America and it's thought of as I don't know how you could ever consider it recreational because it's uh apparently a very brutal experience and very introspective, and most people say I did not enjoy that at all.

00:43:47.000 I hated it.

00:43:48.000 Uh I had Dakota Meyer on the podcast and he talked about it, and he's like, I wanted to punch the guy, gave it to me.

00:43:53.000 He's like, it's fucking terrible.

00:43:54.000 For like one whole day.

00:43:56.000 You're going over over every horrible aspect of your life, and it finds like the pathways in your brain that created behavior afterwards.

00:44:04.000 And it like gives you this like insanely introspective slideshow of your life and sort of lays out this is why you're an addict.

00:44:11.000 This is why you're a gambling addict.

00:44:14.000 This is why you're addicted to ruining your life.

00:44:16.000 Like these are the things that happened to you when you're young, and these are the things that you did when you were adult that you had shame over, and all these different things.

00:44:23.000 These are the things that you've seen that are horrific that have scarred you.

00:44:27.000 And it has like an 80% effective rate for people getting off drugs with one session.

00:44:35.000 And it's in the nineties with two sessions.

00:44:37.000 Wow, that is crazy high.

00:44:39.000 Exactly.

00:44:40.000 And it's illegal here, yeah.

00:44:42.000 Well, it is now legal in Texas.

00:44:44.000 Well, I don't know what the regulations are or how they're doing it, but at least they're they're giving it to some people in Texas.

00:44:51.000 And I think like I was saying, this is a doorway for the right to understand.

00:44:55.000 And I think this is a lot of the case with a lot of these um special Forces guys, a lot of SEALs and Green Berets, they come back from combat and they're all fucked up, and some of their friends take them on ayahuasca journeys.

00:45:08.000 And that helps them a lot.

00:45:09.000 So that's another like doorway into the right, because people on the right have always thought of psychedelics as being for losers and hippies and people just trying to escape life, but just the sheer horror of combat experience has forced a lot of people to reconsider this position,

00:45:27.000 and then they've had so many family members that are veterans and that are, you know, especially guys that are like in the heart of combat, and then they come back and they they're just fucked up and no one wants to help them.

00:45:41.000 Nobody can just talk you through it.

00:45:43.000 And the one thing that I don't want to say universally, but v uh a high percentage have had great success with is psychedelics.

00:45:52.000 So I think it's uh another massive disservice that those are lumped in in the same illegal category as fentanyl.

00:46:00.000 I know, or or meth.

00:46:01.000 I know.

00:46:02.000 Or meth, yeah.

00:46:02.000 I agree.

00:46:03.000 But do you think that the pathway is legalization?

00:46:07.000 Because like even decriminalization, where are you gonna get it?

00:46:11.000 You're gonna get see, here's the problem with decriminalization.

00:46:15.000 In California, um my friend John Norris, he was a game warden.

00:46:21.000 And do you know the story?

00:46:22.000 Yeah.

00:46:22.000 Okay.

00:46:23.000 So John, for people who don't know, oh, he's great.

00:46:26.000 So John was a game warden, right?

00:46:28.000 Loved the outdoors, became a game warden.

00:46:30.000 He really wanted to like check people's fishing licenses and hunting licenses and making sure the the land was taken care of and making sure people aren't littering or doing anything stupid.

00:46:38.000 So he gets this call that the stream is blocked up.

00:46:41.000 It's like the stream stopped running and they can't figure out why.

00:46:44.000 Maybe a farmer diverted water.

00:46:45.000 They follow the stream, they find these PVC pipes that are rerouting it to this massive marijuana farm that the cartel owns.

00:46:53.000 So when California made marijuana legal in the state, what they also did is make it a misdemeanor to grow c grow marijuana illegally.

00:47:03.000 So the cartels are like fucking great.

00:47:05.000 Let's just start growing.

00:47:07.000 So they're bringing AKs and assault rifles out into the woods, setting up camps, super toxic pesticides, super toxic, like shit that's totally illegal in modern farming in America, like way worse than glyphosate.

00:47:23.000 And that's somewhere in the neighborhood of eighty plus percent of all the marijuana that gets sold in the places where marijuana is illegal, it's all getting sold from these grow-ups in California.

00:47:36.000 It's by the cartels.

00:47:37.000 I've I filmed some of them.

00:47:38.000 I've been there.

00:47:39.000 I've been in those mountains in California.

00:47:41.000 It's so crazy.

00:47:43.000 It's so crazy.

00:47:44.000 Like, it's also a side effect of like what Colorado did.

00:47:47.000 Colorado made it legal, great.

00:47:49.000 But then they also taxed it like 39%.

00:47:51.000 Yeah.

00:47:52.000 And so most people are like, look, it's still cheap, I'll pay 2 39%.

00:47:56.000 The state gets the money, it's a net benefit for everybody.

00:47:59.000 But there's a lot of people that are like, Oz grow weed illegally and sell that since it's legal in the state.

00:48:04.000 Right.

00:48:05.000 And because it's it's impossible to get a license in California when they legalized it initially.

00:48:09.000 It was they made it so hard for people to actually get their licenses and doing and do it legally that the actual black black market increased when they legalized it.

00:48:18.000 California's brilliant with that.

00:48:19.000 That's why they still haven't rebuilt a single house in the Pacific Palisades that burnt down.

00:48:24.000 Not a single house nine months later with some of the richest people in California.

00:48:29.000 Because nobody can get a nobody can get permits.

00:48:29.000 Yeah.

00:48:32.000 They're trying to make it easier to build.

00:48:34.000 Allegedly.

00:48:36.000 If you would have done it.

00:48:37.000 Have you had Gavin Islam when you're No, he's been he's been taunting me, trying to get me to have a more why? 1.00

00:48:43.000 I don't know, because he's interesting.

00:48:45.000 You think he's interesting?

00:48:48.000 He's interesting as like a sociology experiment.

00:48:50.000 Like if you're if you're a psychologist, you're not sure.

00:48:54.000 You know who I really love that you interviewed recently?

00:48:56.000 James Tellerica.

00:48:56.000 Who?

00:48:57.000 He's great.

00:48:58.000 Yeah.

00:48:59.000 He's great.

00:48:59.000 He had great insight as to uh what's going on in Texas too, where these Christian fundamentalists who are very, very wealthy are trying to turn Texas into a theocracy.

00:49:09.000 Like these guys sound like full-on nutters.

00:49:12.000 And this is something that people have to be really careful of when you become aligned with one party or another party.

00:49:20.000 If you become a aligned with the left, like Jimmy Kimmel was like ignoring he was like mocking the president for saying that Antifa, like Antifa's not real.

00:49:20.000 Right?

00:49:31.000 That's so crazy to say.

00:49:32.000 I know it's a Democrat talking point currently, but it's dangerous for you and for everybody else to say.

00:49:39.000 Because they are real, they're real, and they're anarchists who are committed to overthrowing capitalism.

00:49:46.000 They want to destroy the Western government.

00:49:46.000 Yeah.

00:49:50.000 Like it's and a lot of them are retards. 1.00

00:49:52.000 A lot of them are just like goofy kids that got lost in the system and then they found like a gang, like a lot of gang members.

00:49:59.000 Like that's the same kind of thing.

00:50:00.000 They get you find a community and all of a sudden these people are yours and they're real and the and also they're willing to fight for something.

00:50:07.000 And there's like a lot of passion involved in it.

00:50:09.000 So it's kind of exciting.

00:50:10.000 And then you also realize, like, yeah, corporate society is fucked up.

00:50:15.000 Yeah.

00:50:15.000 United health care, that is kind of crazy that you spend all that money on health care and you get fucking nothing, and then when you do have something, they deny your claim.

00:50:23.000 Like what is going on?

00:50:25.000 And is is fucked.

00:50:26.000 And so they don't know where to turn, and so they they get involved with a bunch of people that are doing stupid shit and they light Starbucks on fire.

00:50:33.000 Right.

00:50:33.000 Or they, you know, and but a lot of it's funded too.

00:50:36.000 That's the other thing.

00:50:37.000 The reality is a lot of these uh you know.

00:50:40.000 I don't know about the funding part of it.

00:50:41.000 So I've I've organized I've spoken to Antifa.

00:50:44.000 We did I've done stories on uh on militias, was one of the stories we did this last season.

00:50:50.000 And it was important for me when we did that story.

00:50:52.000 I've been wanting to do there's uh rising militias, uh rising threat of militias everywhere in the world, but uh particularly here in the United States, and we also filmed in Brazil because it's a real problem uh there.

00:51:04.000 And we uh I knew from the start that I didn't want to just do right wing militias, that it was important to also do left wing militia.

00:51:10.000 So we spent time with a group that operates on the border, a right wing militia that operates on the border, and was basically trying to catch uh illegal immigrants.

00:51:20.000 And then we also spend time at uh you know, just a few miles away from the that group, there was another group called the black cat rifle group that is a left-wing militia.

00:51:32.000 And it is to me, what was so scary was that they existed because of the other side.

00:51:38.000 Like they're of course they existed because the other side exists, right?

00:51:42.000 And none of them understood that you know that that one would become stronger, the stronger the other would become.

00:51:52.000 And that this was all going to end not well for any of us.

00:51:56.000 And when I was asking the Black Cat Rifle Group, you know, when I was asking why they have a militia and why are they training?

00:52:03.000 I mean, they were training with with guns and and you know, they look if you look at these guys, they actually look I mean, sp especially the guys at the border, uh which were the right-wing militia groups.

00:52:14.000 If if I was an immigrant crossing the country illegally and I saw one of these guys, a hundred percent would think that this is the U.S. Army or border patrol and and I would be terrified, or I'd hand myself in and then but it's it's they're which by the way is not what that's the part that's not legal.

00:52:32.000 You're not you you can train with your buddies, you can do all that, but you can't pretend to be and you can't look like you're part of the the military or law enforcement when you're not.

00:52:44.000 And and these guys a hundred percent look like they were.

00:52:47.000 Um I know I'm gonna get a lot of flack for this because every time we talk about I talk about militias, um I get flack for it.

00:52:52.000 But why?

00:52:53.000 Uh because uh we are we're living in the most divided uh era of our time.

00:52:59.000 And there's a lot of people who you know believe that militias are important and think that it's important that they exist.

00:53:07.000 I I I find them incredibly dangerous, the existence of militias outside or on the periphery of the of the law.

00:53:12.000 I find it incredibly dangerous.

00:53:14.000 And so when I was talking to the right wing group, they said something when I started talking to left-wing group, they were giving me the exact same reasons.

00:53:21.000 Yeah.

00:53:21.000 I mean, it was the exact same conversation, but seen from the other side, right?

00:53:25.000 Yeah.

00:53:26.000 Do you not this is exactly the same thing that the other guy said.

00:53:29.000 And they were like, yeah, we're we're here, we think in their com their uh point was that and they don't call themselves militias, by the way, the the left-wing group.

00:53:37.000 But they and they didn't like the fact that I call them militias.

00:53:39.000 But they were saying was that but this is basically a group who trains for what they think is go going to be an incoming possible civil war.

00:53:47.000 We talked about civil war with them.

00:53:49.000 I know.

00:53:50.000 And they said, look, uh minorities in this country are under attack a lot of times by these right wing militias, uh whether they are part of the LGBTQ community or they're um, You know, um black or Hispanic, they're under attack, and it's our job to train to make sure that we protect these people that are the most vulnerable in our society.

00:54:10.000 And we have to arm up and train and be ready to fight and go after the other people if we have to.

00:54:18.000 They said they only protect themselves.

00:54:20.000 Um they only defend themselves, right?

00:54:22.000 But that's the exact same thing that I think.

00:54:24.000 It is the exact same thing.

00:54:25.000 That was my point was that um like people like Jimmy Kimmel talking about Antifa not existing, like that's not good for anybody.

00:54:31.000 No, they are they are real and they are violent.

00:54:34.000 And then people on the right that want to ignore these people that are trying to turn Texas into theocracy and put the Ten Commandments in every school.

00:54:43.000 The great thing about Tallerico is that he went to seminary school.

00:54:47.000 He's in seminary right now.

00:54:49.000 So he's a very religious person, and he does not want them to have the Ten Commandments in schools.

00:54:54.000 He's like, you should not this is gonna create less Christians, it's gonna have more resistance to Christianity.

00:55:00.000 And really, religion has no place in government.

00:55:03.000 And also, why would you have that up but you don't have something from Hinduism, something from Buddhism, something from Is Islam, something from uh Judaism.

00:55:14.000 Like you should it should be all religions. 0.93

00:55:16.000 If you're gonna have a religious class, that's a different thing.

00:55:18.000 But if you're gonna have a thing on the wall that everybody pays attention to that you have to look at every day because it's through your commandments and it's Christianity.

00:55:26.000 Well then you're forcing Christianity on people, and that's very un-American. 1.00

00:55:30.000 And I find I think he's really right.

00:55:31.000 And I think that's the thing about being on a fucking team is that you feel like you have to defend your team and ignore the horrible thing that your team does and then only pay attention to the bad things the other team does.

00:55:44.000 That's crazy.

00:55:45.000 Now you're doing the man's work for the man and you get no benefit.

00:55:49.000 Not only do you get no benefit, but you actually help society erode and become more fractured.

00:55:49.000 Right.

00:55:54.000 Yeah, and get to the place.

00:55:55.000 Yeah, it's horrible.

00:55:55.000 Yeah.

00:55:56.000 It's horrible.

00:55:57.000 We need another Martin Luther King.

00:55:58.000 You know, we need someone who's like an adamant expressor of nonviolence as the only option.

00:56:05.000 And then we all need to embrace that because there's too many punch of Nazi people out there. 0.79

00:56:10.000 There's too many people out there that think you could just go out and do violence.

00:56:13.000 And I get it, that sounds exciting.

00:56:14.000 I'm a revolutionary.

00:56:16.000 It's exciting.

00:56:16.000 Yeah, I get it.

00:56:17.000 It's the wrong way for human beings.

00:56:19.000 We're supp this is supposed to be 2025, right?

00:56:23.000 We're supposed to have evolved to a point where we recognize that violence is one of the worst things that we ever have in our community in any way, shape, or form.

00:56:33.000 Whether it's police violence or whether it's gang violence, any kind of violence is the worst thing that we can do to each other.

00:56:41.000 We're supposed to be living together in harmony.

00:56:43.000 There's a way at least to minimize that violence by never having violent rhetoric, by never encouraging violence.

00:56:51.000 And we seem to have lost that somewhere along the line.

00:56:54.000 I agree.

00:56:55.000 I mean, violence and hate, you know, so much hate and talk about hate and hating the other side and hating anyone that doesn't stand by what I stand or what I believe in.

00:57:04.000 It's just well look what happened when Charlie Kirk got murdered.

00:57:06.000 People were literally cheering.

00:57:08.000 And we found out about it.

00:57:09.000 I was doing a podcast with Charlie Sheen.

00:57:11.000 And we went to the restroom, and when we're going to the restroom, Jamie told us that Charlie Kirk got shot and he's dead.

00:57:18.000 And we came back and did the podcast, and I was like people are going to celebrate this.

00:57:24.000 And this is what's is terrifying to me.

00:57:26.000 And I got a message from a a friend of mine who was like, Man, I think you're wrong.

00:57:30.000 I think it's a bunch of bot counts that are gonna uh it's just to rile people up.

00:57:34.000 But it wasn't.

00:57:35.000 I I watched it, I watched a lot of it online.

00:57:37.000 I watched it through famous people and prominent people that were just condoning his assassination, if not celebrating it, by saying, you know, that he put hateful rhetoric out there in the world.

00:57:50.000 The way they'll counter hateful rhetoric is love.

00:57:53.000 You like you have to you you you you have to recognize that these people are wrong.

00:57:58.000 They're coming from a wrong position and eloquently state the right position, which is what Martin Luther King Jr. did which is not what President Trump said at uh the memorial of Charlie Kirk.

00:58:08.000 What did he say?

00:58:10.000 Oh I hate my enemies, he loved his enemies.

00:58:12.000 I don't agree with any of that.

00:58:12.000 Yeah.

00:58:14.000 I don't agree with any.

00:58:15.000 I mean, particularly if you're the president of the United States, you're not you're not.

00:58:18.000 Well, he's you know, he's a nut.

00:58:20.000 But it it's also the only way that that guy survived what he did, what he went through, what they tried to put him through.

00:58:25.000 You have to be a kind of a nut.

00:58:26.000 They tried to put him in jail, they try to make a fake Russia collusion thing they did for three years, a concerted effort that was paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign that funded the Steel Dossier.

00:58:37.000 Nutty stuff.

00:58:38.000 Like try to uh put him he got convicted for thirty-four counts of felony that none of them were a felony.

00:58:45.000 Uh It was misdemeanor booking bookkeeping errors because he was paying off a lady he had sex with you gotta be a nut to get through that and not have any feeling about it at all and just brush it off your shoulder.

00:58:58.000 So yeah he's he's fucking crazy.

00:59:00.000 Trevor Burrus I don't think that's because he's crazy that's not why he's crazy.

00:59:03.000 I think he's no no no no no no no no I'm saying he is crazy period.

00:59:08.000 And that's how he got through all that's the only per kind of person that gets through that and gets to where he is today.

00:59:13.000 You have to be kind of crazy.

00:59:15.000 I don't agree with any of that like hating my enemies and going after my enemies I know you don't agree with the immigration raids either which I've heard you talk about in this podcast on the I am so hap f happy that you do talk about it because I do think it's an incredibly important issue.

00:59:29.000 I mean I think it's one of those right-left things too right where people on the right are like focus on the moment I have no idea every time I post it about this and I get so much hate also like I get immediately people saying horrible things about immigrants and saying horrible things about me and I I get unfollowed immediately like people don't like it.

00:59:47.000 The thing is they like do it the right way.

00:59:48.000 They like do it the right way.

00:59:49.000 Here's the problem with that you can't do it the right way.

00:59:52.000 If you live in Mexico or you've in Guatemala and you're walking here and you're getting across the Rio Gran River and here's the other thing for the last four years during the Biden administration it was well known throughout the world that the borders were wide open.

01:00:06.000 So an estimated who knows what is the total number put this into perplexity that's our sponsor perplexity how many people do they estimate came in illegally over the past four years during the Biden administration.

01:00:23.000 But it's millions and millions of people right?

01:00:25.000 So people knew that they can come across now they're here because somebody invited them right and then they were bust to these places and flown to these places and they were given EBD cards and some of them were given cell phones and now you can arrest them?

01:00:39.000 Now you're gonna like swoop in and handcuff them fuck like this is crazy.

01:00:43.000 You asked me to be here they don't know it's the same goddamn okay I have spent time on uh the trail of immigrants I was in the dare in the Southern Darien Gap where a lot of the immigrants were coming and I spoke to dozens of people who were doing the journey and um maybe I just got lucky or unlucky that I spoke to the majority of the people that I spoke to had, you know, a lot of them were from Haiti, from Venezuela, places that are completely torn off.

01:01:08.000 Yes.

01:01:08.000 No economic opportunities whatever whatsoever violence, extreme violence these are the stories that I know are happening.

01:01:16.000 And I I have a good friend his name's Jacob Soboroff he's a reporter for MSNBC and he's been covering immigration raids from the beginning.

01:01:24.000 And one of the stories he did and it's like I I love that I'm talking about this because this has become really important for me.

01:01:31.000 Because I'm I live in LA and I I'm affected by this on many levels.

01:01:36.000 Also you have an accent I'm I'm an immigrant so I might get great I know they might pull you over ask for your papers.

01:01:46.000 But uh this the one of the stories he covered and I think exemplifies what's happening to me right now is the Estella and Nori this is a mother and a daughter from Guatemala.

01:01:57.000 The daughter was born in Guatemala with her mother and her mother was gang raped in the small town she's from a small impoverished town in rural Guatemala she was gang raped and the next day and her daughter watched her being gang raped and she was fuel violently beaten up she had blood all over her face they broke her bones it was horrible with her daughter who was young at the time watching and the next day she decided she had family members in U.S. and she decided this is it.

01:02:22.000 I can't live here and I have to take my daughter to a place that's safer.

01:02:26.000 Her daughter was traumatized by the way by now took bro they came they came to the U.S. Um they immediately went and asked for asylum which by the way most people don't know this but it is completely legal to become to come to the United States whatever way you enter, even if you enter illegally it is legal to come to the US and ask for asylum.

01:02:45.000 That is not coming to the U.S. entering without papers and then asking for asylum is legal.

01:02:52.000 So even when people say yes but do it le y you can't do it illegally you're wrong.

01:02:56.000 It is legal to do so coming in with no papers and the requirements to uh require to repeat persecution you have to you have to be a victim of persecution whether it's you know uh cartels yeah violence uh rape uh uh political what what are the five things.

01:03:15.000 It's like Jamie, can you look this up?

01:03:17.000 It's political, uh religious, um political, religious.

01:03:22.000 There's like five reasons why people can be persecuted.

01:03:27.000 And um so they came to the US, they immediately started applying for asylum, and there's eleven million cases backlogged right now of people asking for asylum.

01:03:40.000 Race, religion, race, religion, nationality, political opinion, membership in a particular social group.

01:03:48.000 So just those five things.

01:03:48.000 Yeah.

01:03:50.000 Yeah.

01:03:51.000 Interesting.

01:03:52.000 So political persecution also involves imprisonment, torture, or threats of violence.

01:03:58.000 Huh?

01:04:00.000 Yeah, how m what's the numbers?

01:04:02.000 Uh ten point eight million.

01:04:04.000 This is encounter it says encounters though where they crossed them or stop.

01:04:09.000 But it's also goes on.

01:04:11.000 According to the Trump administration's well, let me say this.

01:04:14.000 According to someone I spoke to at the Trump administration, they said they they believe it's 20 million over four years.

01:04:20.000 Oh, I don't think that's done.

01:04:21.000 I think that number is highly exaggerated.

01:04:24.000 Well, this says um in addition to these uh apprehens apprehensions and encounters, officials reported an estimated two million gataways, individuals who are detected crossing the border illegally but evaded capture.

01:04:37.000 Combining these figures suggest roughly twelve point eight million total unauthorized border crossings or attempts during the Biden administration.

01:04:45.000 So not 20, but 12.8.

01:04:49.000 Here's another thing that people keep talking about is how many people um Obama deported.

01:04:54.000 But I think that's not I think they're saying it incorrectly.

01:04:58.000 Because I think when they say that Obama deported three million people, they always use this like as an as an aha against Trump deportations.

01:05:06.000 I believe Obama's deportation numbers count turn aways.

01:05:11.000 Like when someone makes it to the border and then you send them back.

01:05:15.000 Very different.

01:05:16.000 Yeah, I mean he was nicknamed.

01:05:17.000 Running into home depot.

01:05:19.000 And grabbing people like with a mask over your face.

01:05:23.000 Like what we're seeing with ice.

01:05:24.000 Oh, worse than that.

01:05:24.000 Right.

01:05:25.000 I even worse than going to the Home Depot is the case of Histella and Nori, where they were going to check in on their procedures at the courthouse.

01:05:33.000 And when they went to check on how their asylum case was going, they were detained.

01:05:37.000 They had been living here for several years.

01:05:40.000 The daughter is now is a star athlete, uh amazing student.

01:05:45.000 But wait, even worse.

01:05:47.000 So they are deported back to Guatemala, taken, like their family didn't even know they were where they were.

01:05:51.000 They were taken.

01:05:52.000 They took away her medication.

01:05:53.000 She had high blood pressure, the the mother, high blood pressure. 0.98

01:05:57.000 They got to Guatemala.

01:05:58.000 They don't know, they haven't lived there in decades, they have no idea where what to do.

01:06:02.000 They have no money in their pocket, they can't they don't have access to the medication.

01:06:06.000 So the mother dies.

01:06:08.000 And the daughter is stays in Guatemala and there's footage of her holding the coffin until it's buried and her wanting to be with her mother.

01:06:15.000 And these are the stories.

01:06:16.000 I mean, even if this just happened with one person, we should be asking if this is the right thing to do.

01:06:21.000 But this is happening to you know, hundreds, if not thousands of people all across the country.

01:06:27.000 And this is not all right.

01:06:28.000 I mean, this is not all right.

01:06:30.000 We should not be doing this.

01:06:31.000 Yeah, especially if someone's already been granted asylum.

01:06:34.000 Like there should be So their asylum procedure was ongoing.

01:06:38.000 They hadn't been granted yet.

01:06:39.000 But that is ongoing procedure, asylum procedure.

01:06:45.000 And plus that's not meaning she was trying to do it the right way.

01:06:48.000 Yes, absolutely.

01:06:49.000 And and that's not what we were sold, right?

01:06:51.000 Right.

01:06:51.000 A lot of people voted for Trump because they thought that he was going to go after the criminals.

01:06:56.000 Well, I think very unfortunately a lot of this stuff is political.

01:07:00.000 And um and the fear is the both sides fear, right?

01:07:05.000 So I don't know if you know this, but Minnesota governor Tim Wals, who was running for vice president.

01:07:10.000 He just passed uh You also had him on, right?

01:07:13.000 No, no, I did not.

01:07:14.000 Uh I he they just passed something in Minnesota where illegal immigrants are allowed to have driver's licenses and vote.

01:07:25.000 Which is kind of crazy.

01:07:26.000 Um because Are you sure?

01:07:28.000 Yes.

01:07:29.000 Yes, that they're allowed to vote.

01:07:30.000 Yes, just yesterday.

01:07:34.000 As in the case, they don't even have a green card.

01:07:38.000 And they're allowed to vote.

01:07:42.000 Let's find out.

01:07:43.000 Though This is the story that I read.

01:07:45.000 Jamie, find out.

01:07:46.000 I read this story and he was proudly talking about.

01:07:49.000 Sounds crazy, right?

01:07:49.000 I know.

01:07:50.000 It sounds crazy, yeah.

01:07:51.000 Because I became a citizen so I could vote, and it took me a long time to get them to say.

01:07:54.000 Oh, yeah.

01:07:55.000 No, I know a lot of friends who became American citizens, and it's it was a long, grueling process, and they had to prove that they were exceptional.

01:08:02.000 That there was a reason for them to be here.

01:08:04.000 A lot of them were comedians and entertainers.

01:08:07.000 I'm not saying what is it?

01:08:09.000 I don't know.

01:08:09.000 What are the facts of the case?

01:08:11.000 I think that laws passed illegal immigrant vote and it's a very good thing. 1.00

01:08:14.000 It was all over Twitter to the case not passed a bill.

01:08:18.000 Okay.

01:08:19.000 Um driver's licenses.

01:08:22.000 That was something that happened in 2023, it said.

01:08:25.000 Yeah, but there was something that just happened a couple of days ago.

01:08:31.000 Find it.

01:08:32.000 Yeah, I'll find it.

01:08:32.000 Find it.

01:08:37.000 I'll check on Twitter.

01:08:40.000 Illegal.

01:08:41.000 I I I have to say I find it very hard to believe that they're not.

01:08:44.000 Me too.

01:08:45.000 But not because I think that what I was getting at is a lot of the reason for wanting an open border is congressional seats.

01:08:54.000 Because one of the things about when you do a census, it doesn't count how many people are citizens, it counts how many people.

01:09:00.000 And so you can get extra congressional seats if you have more illegal immigrants in your city.

01:09:04.000 And you have much more political power that way.

01:09:07.000 But why do you get more seats if you can they can't vote?

01:09:09.000 It's just how it works.

01:09:10.000 It's just how the setup it's the the way our census is set up.

01:09:13.000 So the way a census is set up, it's just counting people.

01:09:16.000 It's not counting people that are legally.

01:09:20.000 So the census is how they dictate the amount of congressional seats.

01:09:23.000 Here's what was going around Twitter.

01:09:25.000 Okay.

01:09:25.000 Minnesota elections confirms non-citizens can vote with driver's licenses.

01:09:30.000 October 14, 25, this is it.

01:09:32.000 Uh state hearing Minnesota director, elections, Paul Linnell testify that non citizens holding driver's licenses under the 2023 driver's licenses for all law can register to vote and cast ballots by affirming eligibility as the ID verifies identity but not citizenship.

01:09:50.000 Secretary of State Steve Simon noted that such voting is illegal and rare, with post-election adults identifying discrepancies for prosecution, including 59, just 59 potential cases in 2024 that they, um.

01:10:08.000 The testimony has prompted Republican demands for voter role audits and reforms concite uh coinciding with federal lawsuit against Minnesota for incomplete registration data.

01:10:19.000 So at the very least, this is opening up the door for people that are non-citizens to vote. 0.83

01:10:24.000 And it seems like they're confirming that non-citizens with this driver's license can vote. 0.58

01:10:31.000 That that it can be that it can be consequence of it.

01:10:34.000 It's not that's not the goal of that.

01:10:36.000 But but it's also it's a consequence that can happen.

01:10:39.000 It is a consequence of it.

01:10:41.000 But I don't think it's purposely done.

01:10:42.000 I mean, I think that it's trying to make it easier for people to vote, and unfortunately, it's a little bit like the rehab scam, right?

01:10:49.000 You're trying to make it easier for Native Americans to get health insurance, but guess guess what? 0.97

01:10:54.000 Then there's people who are going to abuse that that that opportunity or that that's most certainly.

01:10:59.000 And that's what's happening.

01:11:00.000 That seems like what's happening here.

01:11:02.000 That's a very charitable way of looking at it.

01:11:03.000 Maybe, but I...

01:11:04.000 What are you trying to say, Jay?

01:11:05.000 I don't understand.

01:11:05.000 It says that they can register to vote, but the next line says that the voting is illegal.

01:11:10.000 Yeah, it's illegal, but they can register.

01:11:12.000 But they they could do it if they wanted to.

01:11:15.000 I think what is happening is that immigrants are being used as political pawns, right?

01:11:20.000 As we know.

01:11:21.000 That's true.

01:11:21.000 Both sides.

01:11:22.000 100%.

01:11:23.000 And we both agree with that.

01:11:24.000 And these are human beings.

01:11:26.000 Like the mother and like so many of these stories, like the father of the three military American so m guys went and served for our country and the father was deported.

01:11:35.000 These are, you know, horrible stories of human beings.

01:11:38.000 And a lot of times the people that are traumatized are American citizens.

01:11:41.000 They are the kids, they're pulling away their family members, their mothers, their fathers, and it's American kids who are being traumatized.

01:11:47.000 It's also heartless.

01:11:47.000 Trevor Burrus, Jr.

01:11:49.000 And you're showing to the world that you don't care, that you just want to achieve a result and you want to achieve result that is gonna leave a a terrible feeling for anybody with a heart that that looks at that store in that case, and then they're gonna associate the United States government more and more with tyranny, more and more with fascism, more and more with you know what you're you think you're just enforcing a law because these people broke a law.

01:12:15.000 But that there's uh there's still human beings that have been a part of these communities.

01:12:19.000 The law is just some shit people wrote down.

01:12:21.000 It should make sense.

01:12:23.000 And there should be exemptions or at least some sort of amnesty which is been here.

01:12:28.000 Oh, that too.

01:12:29.000 But that's a pathway.

01:12:30.000 Yeah, and a pathway.

01:12:31.000 And right now there isn't.

01:12:32.000 There's because these people are probably not paying taxes.

01:12:35.000 And if you could make them citizens, more money you would make.

01:12:38.000 Right.

01:12:39.000 But they do pay taxes, you know.

01:12:40.000 Sure.

01:12:41.000 For buying things, for property taxes.

01:12:43.000 Or for income taxes.

01:12:45.000 They actually pay income taxes.

01:12:46.000 Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.

01:12:46.000 Right.

01:12:47.000 Do they file for income taxes or they get income taxes removed from their paycheck?

01:12:50.000 Can you check that out, Jamie?

01:12:50.000 Trevor Burrus, Jr.

01:12:52.000 I read about this recently because it's something that so many people it's you often used by the right, how these people are here and they don't pay taxes.

01:12:58.000 That is actually not it's millions of dollars a year that undocumented immigrants pay.

01:13:02.000 Oh, I'm most sure I'm sure.

01:13:04.000 Not only in sales but also in income taxes.

01:13:07.000 And both with the fake social security numbers that you get, but also I think there's something that I think.

01:13:13.000 Well, you probably have to have that for certain jobs.

01:13:15.000 Right.

01:13:15.000 Fake social security numbers.

01:13:17.000 But I think there's a way also that they figured out that people are here while they're going through asylum procedures or trying to get their green card that they can't.

01:13:24.000 But there's still a lot of people that are from 2016 says 11.6 billion.

01:13:27.000 Trevor Burrus, Jr.

01:13:27.000 Billion dollars in state oven stuff.

01:13:29.000 Collectively.

01:13:30.000 Undocumented interview scheme.

01:13:32.000 So I I would imagine though that that's like at the very least less than there would be if everybody was co totally above board.

01:13:42.000 You know what I mean?

01:13:43.000 Oh yeah.

01:13:43.000 I'm a hundred percent.

01:13:44.000 We could be making so much more money.

01:13:46.000 And I mean they're the bat let's not who are we kidding?

01:13:46.000 Exactly.

01:13:49.000 I mean, they are the backbone of our economy, particularly in California where I live.

01:13:53.000 There would be no construction, there would be no agriculture.

01:13:56.000 There would be no, you know, uh uh um kitchens and and restaurants and hospitality services without these immigrants. 1.00

01:14:04.000 Undocumented immigrants paid nearly ninety-seven billion in federal, state, and local taxes in twenty twenty two.

01:14:11.000 So the idea that they don't pay taxes is bullshit.

01:14:13.000 It's a lot of money.

01:14:13.000 Trevor Burrus, Jr.

01:14:14.000 Um that's money that now you have to account for because those people are gonna get kicked out.

01:14:18.000 Right?

01:14:18.000 Yeah.

01:14:19.000 And and but meanwhile, if they had figured out a pathway to citizenship, I bet that number would increase.

01:14:19.000 Yeah.

01:14:25.000 You know, and also they could get different jobs.

01:14:28.000 You know, they wouldn't be stuck economically because that's the the weird thing about people that sneak abo. 1.00

01:14:34.000 Like when these farms get raided and they bust all these people, the farm doesn't get busted.

01:14:38.000 Like, hey.

01:14:38.000 I know.

01:14:39.000 What will you do?

01:14:41.000 And how much will you pay in them?

01:14:42.000 Like are you should you go to jail for paying them less than you're supposed to pay people?

01:14:46.000 Yeah.

01:14:47.000 Because that's the reason why you hire people that don't have any paperwork.

01:14:50.000 Yeah, because you want to pay them less.

01:14:51.000 Trevor Burrus, Jr.

01:14:51.000 One guy is a horrible person.

01:14:53.000 I heard the the he did a job and then when the job is over, he called ice on the people so he didn't have to pay them.

01:14:59.000 It might not be real, though.

01:15:00.000 It might be a TikTok.

01:15:04.000 You wouldn't surprise the people.

01:15:08.000 Because that's a lot that's going on too.

01:15:10.000 But yeah, it's it's heartless.

01:15:11.000 And that's that's uh and if you're supposed to be a Christian nation, right, which is like with the hardline right people want.

01:15:19.000 Well, that's not a very Christian ideal.

01:15:21.000 Well, they broke the law.

01:15:22.000 Right.

01:15:22.000 I get it.

01:15:23.000 They're families, right?

01:15:24.000 You would you would have broke the law too.

01:15:26.000 But um, by the way, most of those people are deeply religious.

01:15:29.000 A lot of those people that are coming from South America, deeply religious, from Central America, deeply religious people.

01:15:34.000 Deeply religious people.

01:15:35.000 They're they'd be on your side if they had a chance.

01:15:38.000 You know, those are like hardworking family people.

01:15:41.000 They'd be the kind of people you want in your community for the most part.

01:15:45.000 But there have to be a way to sift out.

01:15:49.000 You have to figure out, okay, who's the cartel members?

01:15:51.000 Who's who's a terrorist?

01:15:53.000 100%.

01:15:54.000 I don't believe in an open border.

01:15:56.000 But I do believe that once people are here and they've completely integrated into society, it seems pretty foolish to just snatch them up and send them to countries that they don't even know anymore.

01:16:07.000 How about this guy in Maryland that this uh a Brago Garcia guy that they keep they're trying to send them to Africa?

01:16:14.000 Oh my god, it's insane.

01:16:16.000 Three countries in Africa said no.

01:16:18.000 But one said yes, right?

01:16:20.000 Oh, I don't know.

01:16:21.000 Have they?

01:16:22.000 Are they gonna send them to Africa? 0.97

01:16:26.000 Oh, they failed.

01:16:27.000 Okay, good.

01:16:28.000 Why are they sending them to Africa?

01:16:29.000 He's not from Africa.

01:16:31.000 It's like guys.

01:16:32.000 I know.

01:16:33.000 That's crazy.

01:16:34.000 Yeah.

01:16:34.000 I I'm happy you use your platform to talk about this.

01:16:38.000 Because I I rarely do I get an issue that I'm like this passionate about and that I see so much injustice that I feel like I need I need to talk about this.

01:16:46.000 There's no heart to you have to have a heart.

01:16:49.000 You have to.

01:16:51.000 The law should be to serve and protect, right?

01:16:54.000 This is this is the whole reason why we should have law enforcement, right?

01:16:58.000 So in this situation, what are you protecting?

01:17:02.000 Are you protecting American jobs?

01:17:03.000 Do you want to go pick strawberries?

01:17:05.000 Like these people are like c coming here because this is a way better option than where they live. 1.00

01:17:11.000 Wouldn't it be better if those people were doing that work and making a livable wage? 0.99

01:17:16.000 And wouldn't it be better if these greedy corporations weren't just able to hire illegal people and pay them under the table a tiny amount of what they really should be getting as a normal human being. 0.96

01:17:26.000 Absolutely for all of us.

01:17:27.000 It'd be better for all of us.

01:17:28.000 You're taking advantage of these people.

01:17:31.000 And once they're here, look, if you're here and you've been robbing people, it's like, yeah, fuck that guy.

01:17:36.000 Get rid of him.

01:17:37.000 Like get rid of all the parasites and all the criminals and all the predators that are destroying people's lives, all the people robbing people.

01:17:44.000 Yeah, get rid of them.

01:17:45.000 Everybody wants that.

01:17:46.000 But after that, you gotta figure out a way to like otherwise we're just gonna have this stupid divided country with left and right.

01:17:54.000 And these people will never vote Republican again.

01:17:57.000 Any this which is really interesting because a lot of Hispanics and a lot of like Latino people are religious.

01:18:05.000 And there's a lot of the things that the Republicans talk about that they would align with.

01:18:09.000 Like Cubans, for example. 0.99

01:18:11.000 Cubans are hardliner right wing people.

01:18:14.000 They don't fuck around, they're very disciplined, they know what communism looks like.

01:18:18.000 They they're not they don't tolerate no nonsense in Miami.

01:18:18.000 Fuck you.

01:18:23.000 You know, it's like and that could have been the Republicans could have captured a lot of those people that are deeply religious.

01:18:29.000 Like that's one of your core values is you think it's a Christian nation.

01:18:33.000 Right.

01:18:34.000 It's just you gotta figure out how to do it with a heart.

01:18:37.000 You can't just snatch a hardworking father away from his children that he brought over here from another country just because he wants them to be able to live and not get killed in the streets.

01:18:37.000 I know.

01:18:47.000 Right.

01:18:48.000 He wants to be able to make a living.

01:18:49.000 And this guy probably works 14 hours a fucking day, sees them, kisses them on the head before he goes to sleep, crashes, gets up in the morning and does it again.

01:18:57.000 That's right.

01:18:58.000 That's what you want in this country.

01:18:59.000 Right.

01:19:00.000 Of course.

01:19:00.000 It's like you gotta you gotta find the pathway for good people.

01:19:04.000 And like you can't tell me you don't want we don't have enough resources for that.

01:19:07.000 Because you see about the amount of money that goes through USA or went through USA, the amount of money that goes to fucking weapons manufacturers.

01:19:15.000 You you we don't have enough money to sort out who's a good person and who's a bad person and find some sort of a pathway.

01:19:23.000 I'm not saying keep the border open, but the people that are here, let's root out the fucking terrorists, let's figure out who's the bad people.

01:19:31.000 Some definitely bad people got through.

01:19:34.000 After that, let's you know, it's fucking break bread.

01:19:38.000 Let's break bread.

01:19:39.000 I agree with you, a hundred percent.

01:19:41.000 Let's we're supposed to be a community.

01:19:43.000 Yeah.

01:19:44.000 If you come over here and you bust ass for twenty-five fucking years and you're a part of a uh the American community, and then all of a sudden you don't have the right paperwork, so they're gonna send you a country that you don't even remember.

01:19:57.000 Because you know, you came over here when you're fifteen, like you barely know how to speak Spanish anymore.

01:20:01.000 Like what?

01:20:02.000 Yeah, I know.

01:20:03.000 It's absolutely I mean it's yeah, it's I've I've been reporting on these issues for so long.

01:20:07.000 It's it's truly I mean, it's why I came to America, why so many people come to America.

01:20:12.000 It's because this is what this country stands for.

01:20:14.000 It's like it's welcoming to immigrants, and that's immigrants make America great.

01:20:18.000 I mean, Ed Caldron was telling us a story about a young man who came over here when he was a baby.

01:20:24.000 His family brought him over here when he was a baby.

01:20:26.000 So he doesn't have any paperwork.

01:20:27.000 And uh he was in his twenties.

01:20:29.000 They snatched him up and sent him to Mexico and he doesn't even speak Spanish.

01:20:34.000 And yeah.

01:20:35.000 And it's like, fuck you, you're not American. 0.86

01:20:37.000 now you're over there.

01:20:38.000 They just ice-frapped them.

01:20:38.000 And why do they snatch them?

01:20:41.000 Was it during these raids right now?

01:20:42.000 Yeah, during some sort of an ice raid.

01:20:43.000 They grabbed him and sent him to Tijuana.

01:20:46.000 Right.

01:20:47.000 Right.

01:20:48.000 It's he doesn't even speak Spanish.

01:20:49.000 It's insane.

01:20:50.000 It's absolutely just with bad paperwork.

01:20:53.000 Yeah.

01:20:54.000 It's crazy.

01:20:54.000 It's the only difference between him and me is that I, you know, my parents were born here.

01:20:59.000 Yeah.

01:21:00.000 I happen to be born here.

01:21:01.000 I got lucky.

01:21:02.000 It's like I'm not saying you should have the border open, because you shouldn't.

01:21:06.000 Every country should be checked because there's threats in the world.

01:21:09.000 And also a lot of people mad at us because we've done some fucked up things all over the world.

01:21:13.000 And that's the dark part of all this mass migration in both Europe and in America.

01:21:18.000 It's like why are these people fleeing where they were?

01:21:21.000 Well, because they're all the fuck out of it.

01:21:26.000 We destabilized their government.

01:21:28.000 Yeah.

01:21:29.000 Absolutely.

01:21:30.000 I mean, not all.

01:21:30.000 It's not all that.

01:21:34.000 The money that we're using in trying in these raids, like let's figure out how to stem the the immigration. 0.98

01:21:40.000 Let's try to figure out how to, you know, stop the consumption of drugs so that there's less violence in those countries.

01:21:45.000 Stop the flow of guns so there's less killings and gangs.

01:21:49.000 You know, it's it's like it's a a cycle of destruction that we're enabling them and and then we go and catch them and we're all really started with moving manufacturing overseas as well.

01:22:00.000 Once we took all the manufacturing out of America and then we moved manufacturing overseas or over to other countries across national lines.

01:22:07.000 Now all of a sudden you can get things made way cheaper.

01:22:10.000 But then you create all this poverty, and then what happens with poverty?

01:22:13.000 People fall into drugs because they have massive despair.

01:22:16.000 You know, and then the pharmacy of drugs.

01:22:17.000 Well, you brilliantly documented with that with the Oxycontin Express that that piece was how I found out about you, but also how I found out about that problem, which was so insane, where you could tell people if they're not aware of how it all started.

01:22:34.000 Trevor Burrus, Jr.

01:22:34.000 Yeah, it's interesting because I just had the FBI and um agent that investigated that case on my podcast.

01:22:41.000 Which was fascinating.

01:22:43.000 Okay.

01:22:44.000 So I found out that uh reading the newspaper, my husband and I were working together at the time, and we found out that there were all these people who were going to Florida just to buy pills.

01:22:54.000 So there was these pain clinics, these pill mills as they were called.

01:22:58.000 Um they were distributing it but the the numbers were crazy.

01:23:02.000 Ninety of the top 100 uh doctors prescribed prescribing oxycotton were in Flor Florida.

01:23:09.000 Ninety of the 100.

01:23:11.000 It's insane.

01:23:12.000 What are the odd statistics?

01:23:16.000 It's insane.

01:23:16.000 I know.

01:23:17.000 And this is a sad part.

01:23:19.000 It's not as if these pharmaceutical companies or the distribution companies didn't know this was happening.

01:23:24.000 They did.

01:23:25.000 They just pretended that they didn't because it was jig it was hi huge business and it was great.

01:23:29.000 And why Florida?

01:23:30.000 Because they had really lax regulation.

01:23:33.000 So you could go doctor shopping.

01:23:34.000 You could go, I went undercover.

01:23:36.000 So that was part of the story that we did, Oxycotton Express, where I went undercover into one of these pain clinics, and I asked the receptionist.

01:23:43.000 Um I said, I have a little bit of a back pain.

01:23:46.000 Uh, what do I need to do if I want to get some bills?

01:23:48.000 And she said, Oh, what would you like?

01:23:50.000 And uh, we can give you oxycotton, we can give you some benzos, we can give you what's called the South Florida cocktail, which raised essentially muscle relaxants, benzos, and oxycotton.

01:24:00.000 That's how she was describing it.

01:24:02.000 She didn't say it, but that's what it became known as is the South Florida cocktail.

01:24:05.000 But she said we can give you this, this, and this.

01:24:06.000 It's the holy trinity trin trinity, right? 0.95

01:24:09.000 And all you need to do is you go to the back of the clinic and there's a place there where you can get an MRI.

01:24:14.000 And then you come back to us, and an MRI is a ridiculous thing because you can read anything into Namurai.

01:24:20.000 Like any all of us have backs have a spine and whatever comes out results in the memorial that you could the doctor can pretend to look at it and say, Oh, yeah, yeah, I can see why you're having back pain or neck pain, and I'm gonna give you this.

01:24:34.000 But the problem is that the doctors weren't even looking at the MRIs.

01:24:36.000 That was just fake.

01:24:37.000 There was just, you know, in case somebody ever came after them, they could say that they had MRIs.

01:24:42.000 They were seeing people in less than three minutes and saying they were doing all these less than three minutes.

01:24:48.000 So you'd have a patient come in, and then these amazing entrepreneurial twin brothers called the George brothers, uh, built this business.

01:24:57.000 It was called American Pain.

01:24:58.000 They basically built a business out of two or three payments.

01:25:01.000 It sounds like a movie.

01:25:02.000 American Pain.

01:25:03.000 So my husband did a documentary about it about the rise and fall of these twin brothers.

01:25:07.000 They started by stelling steroids, and then somebody told him, like, dude, why are you doing what are you doing stelling selling steroids or you could make making so much more money selling oxy cotton?

01:25:16.000 It's called American Pain.

01:25:17.000 You should watch it.

01:25:18.000 It's on HBO.

01:25:19.000 It's so good.

01:25:20.000 I think actually I've heard of it now.

01:25:22.000 Now that you mentioned it.

01:25:22.000 Yeah.

01:25:23.000 It's really good.

01:25:24.000 So we we reported Oxycontin together.

01:25:27.000 And because we were chased down I-95 by these goons, By these two brothers by these twins.

01:25:33.000 Um Darren became obsessed with them and then contacted them in prison.

01:25:37.000 Okay, so it's a really funny story.

01:25:38.000 I'm gonna tell the story.

01:25:39.000 So we find out that these were the biggest operators.

01:25:42.000 Five of the top twenty prescribers in the whole country were doctors working for the George brothers.

01:25:49.000 They were it was millions of pills.

01:25:51.000 They were not only prescribing but selling out of their pain clinics.

01:25:54.000 They were making millions of dollars.

01:25:56.000 I mean, so much so that they were stashing it in bags and putting it in the attic, their mother's house's attic and stuff.

01:26:02.000 There was like insane amounts of money.

01:26:04.000 And people would come in from all over the country, mainly from Appalachia, and they would come in, drive down, and they would get to these clinics and they would say, I want, you know, see a doctor for less than three minutes.

01:26:14.000 The doctor had a rubber stamp to stamp the prescription to make it fast.

01:26:18.000 So they'd see you three minutes, okay, next one, and stamp it.

01:26:21.000 There were people passing out in these pain clinics on the in the lobby.

01:26:25.000 People passing out outside.

01:26:26.000 So when I went inside the the the talked to the receptionist, and then I went outside and I bummed a cigarette out of somebody and I explained, hey, I s pretended I had secret cameras, they didn't know I was filming, and I started saying, What do you what are you doing here?

01:26:38.000 And he's like, Oh yeah, I came from Kentucky and uh I this is one of the best clinics.

01:26:42.000 I can get all my pills here, and then I go back and you know, we sell them and we can still use the pills we want.

01:26:48.000 It's feeding our addiction, and we go out and we sell them for ten times what we're paying here.

01:26:52.000 Wow.

01:26:52.000 And so it was a big business.

01:26:54.000 And and so and then no database, right?

01:26:56.000 So you can't do that.

01:26:57.000 And no database, yeah.

01:26:57.000 So you could go to several different doctors, doctor shopping.

01:27:00.000 So we're outside this this American pain pain clinic, which we knew at the time.

01:27:05.000 They had security guards outside, surveillance cameras.

01:27:07.000 So we knew they were like shady.

01:27:09.000 Uh and but we also knew that they were the biggest operators in town.

01:27:12.000 So we wanted to film outside.

01:27:14.000 And it was our last day in Florida.

01:27:16.000 We'd kept it to the last day for safety reasons.

01:27:19.000 And we're outside, and it's me and my husband, he's filming it, and suddenly, within minutes, a car comes across and these two guy big guys start yelling at us and threatening us.

01:27:32.000 So we get back in the car and we're saying, no, we're just filming this is public property, we can film.

01:27:36.000 It's like, get the fuck out of here, where you guys filming.

01:27:39.000 Ta-da-da. 0.50

01:27:40.000 We get in the car, we leave, they start chasing us down 985.

01:27:45.000 And I am running out of gas.

01:27:47.000 And I stop at a gas station, and the night before I'd watched the Sopranos, which was the wrong thing to do.

01:27:53.000 So the whole time I'm imagining it's straight a scene out of the Sopranos, right?

01:27:56.000 They stop right behind us as we stopped for gas and they come out of the car again.

01:28:00.000 I was like, holy shit.

01:28:01.000 Get back in the car, drive out, they continue chasing us, and then we ran out of gas.

01:28:07.000 Right out on the highway.

01:28:09.000 And we stop the car and decide, I'm calling 911, by the way.

01:28:13.000 And uh I called an F uh uh a sheriff's department person I interviewed the day before, and I told her what was happening, and she said, call 911 immediately.

01:28:21.000 These are not people you want to be messing with.

01:28:23.000 So I call 911, and eventually I stop on the side of the road, they stop next to us because they're dumbfounded.

01:28:29.000 They're like, what the fuck?

01:28:30.000 Why did they stop?

01:28:31.000 They have no idea that we ran out of gas.

01:28:33.000 And then the police comes up and they ask them some questions and they came up with this silly excuse and they let them go.

01:28:40.000 And a few months later, they were taken down by this massive FBI investigation that was happening at the same time.

01:28:45.000 So I interview the guy, Kurt McKenzie, who was the investigator that knew of us at the time.

01:28:51.000 They re he realized, oh my god, there's like these crazy journalists that are doing this story and at the same time as they were.

01:28:58.000 And we were actively trying to get them to talk to us, the FBI, and they couldn't because they had an ac active investigation.

01:29:04.000 Um but uh they actually tapped in, and American Pain, my husband's still knows all about that.

01:29:09.000 They tapped, they did taps, riots, on all of these guys.

01:29:13.000 So they know everything how they were how they how they knew there were people dying.

01:29:17.000 People ODing just outside their clinic and how they were just kept going.

01:29:22.000 And the doctors themselves as well.

01:29:23.000 They were dirty, dirty, horrible doctors that knew they were people dying, and they couldn't give a shit because they were making millions of dollars.

01:29:30.000 They also I think something happens when you see a bunch of people die.

01:29:33.000 There's a lot of doctors that are I think uh they get very calloused to the idea of death.

01:29:40.000 And especially if it's the idea not not good doctors.

01:29:43.000 There's great doctors out there, obviously, but there's sociopaths that become doctors and become even more sociopathic once they realize they can make money off of it.

01:29:52.000 And that that whole Florida pain pill scene was a classic example of that, because there's only one way you would have a system like this.

01:30:02.000 You'd have a system like this if you want it to be corrupt.

01:30:05.000 I mean, it's just designed to be corrupt.

01:30:07.000 Designed to be corrupt.

01:30:08.000 I mean, how is it possible that you can go?

01:30:10.000 I remember I'll never forget interviewing the mother of a kid who had just died, and then a few months later her other kid died.

01:30:15.000 So she had two sons and she lost both of them to this.

01:30:18.000 And it was all because of the pain clinics.

01:30:20.000 And she was showing me the pain bott kill the uh painkiller bottles, the prescription bottles that the kid got.

01:30:26.000 It was in it was like hundreds and hundreds of pain pills that the kid got from just doctor shopping.

01:30:32.000 They were just selling them.

01:30:33.000 And the fact that you could doctor shop.

01:30:34.000 The only reason why you would have that, like it's not difficult to have a database.

01:30:38.000 I mean, this was like 2000 and what when this was going on.

01:30:41.000 What year were you?

01:30:41.000 2008, 2009, that's when we did our story.

01:30:44.000 Plenty of computers.

01:30:45.000 The internet was around.

01:30:46.000 Like this could all be prevented.

01:30:48.000 I know, but everybody was just making so much money.

01:30:50.000 The doctors, the pain clinics, the distributors, the pharmaceutical companies.

01:30:53.000 I mean, the Sackler family.

01:30:54.000 The Sackler family.

01:30:55.000 Yeah, I know that after Peter Berg's Netflix series, painkiller came out, that they put a halt on because they were supposed to pay an enormous settlement, like six billion.

01:31:06.000 Not really enormous compared to their profit.

01:31:08.000 I was about to say that.

01:31:08.000 Exactly.

01:31:09.000 But they was going to supposedly keep them out of jail.

01:31:11.000 And I think there was a judge that put a halt on that and they started another investigation.

01:31:15.000 Trevor Burrus, Jr.

01:31:16.000 What happened was that they the settlement uh they had agreed to s to to settle as long as they were never found.

01:31:22.000 The family itself was never found liable again.

01:31:24.000 Right.

01:31:25.000 Which is up.

01:31:26.000 Yeah, you can't do that.

01:31:27.000 You're literally buying your way out of jail when you might be responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of people.

01:31:34.000 And I mean it's been it's been a million people who have died in the past uh twenty something years from the opiate crisis.

01:31:43.000 It's crazy.

01:31:44.000 I don't think people realize.

01:31:45.000 And this family thinks they're gonna be able to buy their way out of being responsible for maybe a million people dead.

01:31:51.000 With a drop in the bucket.

01:31:52.000 I mean, they're not directly uh uh you know guilty of all those deaths, but they created the problem of the opiate crisis, the biggest drug epidemic in America's history.

01:32:01.000 And they're paying buying their way out with a you know a profit of the uh drop in the bucket of the process of the case.

01:32:06.000 Compared to what they have.

01:32:07.000 Yeah, they're not even gonna feel it.

01:32:08.000 It's six billion dollars.

01:32:10.000 It's crazy.

01:32:10.000 Oh it's so evil.

01:32:13.000 Yeah.

01:32:13.000 It's just so evil.

01:32:15.000 They tracked down the guy who approved it for the FDA.

01:32:15.000 Yeah.

01:32:19.000 No.

01:32:19.000 Do you know that?

01:32:20.000 He was living in a small town in New Hampshire.

01:32:22.000 And uh apparently they had taken the this guy would not approve it, and then they got him in a hotel for a weekend and the pharmaceutical drug companies.

01:32:32.000 And no one knows what happened in the hotel, no one knows what they did what kind of deal they made or what happened, but when they got out, he approved it.

01:32:41.000 He approved what?

01:32:42.000 He approved oxycontin.

01:32:44.000 From just doing the original.

01:32:47.000 But he was do you think he was bribed to do that?

01:32:50.000 I don't think he did it because he's a nice guy.

01:32:53.000 I mean, I don't know what oxycottin has its place, like for terminally ill cancer patients for people dealing with a lot of pain.

01:33:00.000 There's a reason why people that it should be available for those in need.

01:33:04.000 Aaron Powell Right, but that's not how they were selling.

01:33:06.000 No, they were not.

01:33:06.000 Trevor Burrus, Jr.

01:33:07.000 In fact, the ads at the time from Purdue Pharma was that less than one percent of people would become addicted from this.

01:33:12.000 That literally that was the number they gave.

01:33:12.000 Yes.

01:33:14.000 Less than one percent of addiction rate from the Trevor Burrus, you know what we found out the other day?

01:33:17.000 Heroin was created uh to help people who had morphine addiction.

01:33:22.000 Huh.

01:33:23.000 To try to wean them out.

01:33:27.000 To morphine.

01:33:29.000 Wow.

01:33:29.000 I didn't know that.

01:33:30.000 Yeah, I didn't know that either.

01:33:31.000 That cookie?

01:33:32.000 It's crazy.

01:33:33.000 So it's like we've been doing that forever.

01:33:36.000 Well, I've got something better for you.

01:33:38.000 It's called oxycotton.

01:33:39.000 By the way, only one percent of the people got addicted to it.

01:33:42.000 And then it was fentanyl too.

01:33:43.000 Yeah.

01:33:44.000 You know, we've we when we investigated fentanyl, they started it started as a drug for termile cancer patients.

01:33:50.000 And we went after this one company called Subsys, where the guy, the the the head of that company called John Kapoor, was the first, and I believe only until this day, head of a pharmaceutical company to be charged and go to jail.

01:34:03.000 And we had a whistleblower in our investigation, this was before he was arrested and found out and charged.

01:34:08.000 We had a whistleblower telling us that s the company in cis pharmaceuticals, subsist was the thing.

01:34:13.000 Incis pharmaceutical was the name of the company, that they were doing exactly the same that Purdue Pharma did back in the day, which was they in their case they were actually bribing doctors, they were taking these doctors all to like travel experiences around the world and paying them to prescribe their medication.

01:34:29.000 So you'd call and and you'd go to the doctor and say I have a headache, oh, you should be taking sepsis.

01:34:34.000 It's a great fentanyl to fentanyl, it's going to cure your your your headache.

01:34:38.000 Imagine.

01:34:39.000 And then the people at the company hired by INSES, they had their insurance department would call insurance and say, Oh, this person um you need to approve this medication for this person because they have cancer.

01:34:53.000 They were lying to insurance because it was only approved insurance would only pay, and these were very expensive drugs if it was for cancer patients.

01:35:00.000 So they would lie.

01:35:01.000 And this so this whistleblower basically opened up the Pandora's box and told us all about this.

01:35:07.000 And then there was a big investigation into it, and it was the first and only, I believe, pharmaceutical company owner that ever went to the prison for it.

01:35:14.000 Wow.

01:35:14.000 But it was the same playbook.

01:35:16.000 It's crazy.

01:35:17.000 So it's like it keeps repeating itself.

01:35:18.000 Aaron Ross Powell Well, it's just evil, right?

01:35:20.000 It's just evil finds a way to manifest itself through any business if you got people that are incentivized by money rather than doing the right thing.

01:35:30.000 And evil finds a way to go, listen, we can just uh fudge the books.

01:35:34.000 Yeah.

01:35:34.000 Listen, we can form a study and make this study seem as if it's a victim by the time they get it.

01:35:41.000 By the time they figured out, we made a lot of money.

01:35:43.000 Right.

01:35:43.000 And that's the playbook.

01:35:44.000 I mean, that's how they got VIOX through.

01:35:46.000 It's like clear uh email evidence that they knew it was going to cause serious health problems with people that took it.

01:35:53.000 But the the I believe the exact quote was but we believe we will do very well with this.

01:36:00.000 It's fucking crazy.

01:36:01.000 It's it's evil.

01:36:02.000 It's evil.

01:36:03.000 And they're detached from it because they're not like seeing the pe purple person die in front of them. 1.00

01:36:08.000 They're not seeing some child trying to wake their father up and realize their father is cold and dead because he had an overdose in the middle of the night and no one's taking them to school because their dad's dead.

01:36:18.000 You know, like they don't they don't see any of that.

01:36:20.000 They're they're, you know, sipping scotch in some fucking country club somewhere and driving around in a Mercedes and they're just looking at the amount of numbers that they made from that.

01:36:28.000 Right.

01:36:28.000 Yeah.

01:36:29.000 Trevor Burrus, it's evil.

01:36:29.000 It's evil.

01:36:30.000 I remember interviewing a woman, we did a story about fake pharmaceuticals and why I think it's 20 million Americans that can't afford their pharmaceuticals, so they go to places like Mexico and online to Indian pharmaceutical companies or fake and buy medication that sometimes works, but a lot of times is counterfeit and is bad and actually can kill you.

01:36:48.000 And I remember interviewing the sort of the head of this big lobby, one of the biggest DC lobby groups for pharmaceutical companies, and asking her, and she was very happy to be on the show because we were talking about counterfeit, right?

01:37:00.000 And she thought she was going to be able to just talk about how bad for counterfeit medications are and how important it is it to buy the real medications from real pharmacies.

01:37:09.000 And I was asking her, but y but what does it say about the pharmaceutical companies and the healthcare system in this country when 20 million Americans can't afford their life-saving medications?

01:37:19.000 What do you think that says?

01:37:20.000 And she says, Oh, I don't, you know, I'd uh the med medications that these they're too expensive.

01:37:26.000 We have to figure out a way to bring prices down.

01:37:29.000 And you know, they always say that it's not for profit, it's for research and development, which is bullshit.

01:37:35.000 Because a lot of it there is is used for marketing and a lot of you it is is used for it's profit, right?

01:37:40.000 It's they're making a fucking ton of money out of it.

01:37:41.000 They make so much money.

01:37:43.000 And and I and I answered, have you ever actually spent time with anyone who's struggling to buy their medications?

01:37:48.000 As the head of this pharmaceutical lobby, have you spent time with any of these people?

01:37:53.000 She was like, no.

01:37:54.000 Like straight out, no.

01:37:56.000 It's like how can you how can you represent the pharmaceutical companies?

01:38:00.000 Know that one of the biggest problems we have in this country is that people cannot afford these medications and not have spent one single minute with a person who has a hard time affording these medications, right?

01:38:12.000 That sounds able to.

01:38:14.000 It's that but it's that disconnect that you're talking about, right?

01:38:17.000 It's not actually understanding the problem or wanting to know the people that are being affected by these problems.

01:38:22.000 Yeah, and they're the medications are so expensive.

01:38:25.000 Some medications are so ridiculously expensive.

01:38:29.000 And you realize like they're not they don't have to be that expensive.

01:38:32.000 This is just a a company making massive amounts of profit.

01:38:38.000 They could stop a lot of that if they cut that revolving door bullshit out.

01:38:42.000 If they made it so that if you work for the FDA, you can't just hop over to Eli Lilly like right away after you leave.

01:38:49.000 Like you have to wait ten years.

01:38:50.000 Yeah.

01:38:51.000 Like, okay, you want a career some way.

01:38:51.000 Say that.

01:38:54.000 You could not profit at all from the pharmaceutical drug industry for ten years after you're done being a regulator.

01:39:00.000 Trevor Burrus, Jr.: I I agree with you and I know that it's a huge conflict of interest, and we've seen how bad that can be and prejudicial how bad it could be.

01:39:08.000 But I also um I try to put myself if that I've spent my whole whole entire career, um, you know, with ambition and trying to do good, and then I end up at the FDA and I have a chance to do something good, and then I yeah, whatever happens, I lose my job, or right?

01:39:23.000 You're in the vampire machine.

01:39:24.000 Then what you realize like, oh, this whole system's fucked.

01:39:27.000 Let me just hop on over to Galaxo Smith Crowd.

01:39:30.000 I'm just trying to figure out like what's I want to get a house in the suburbs.

01:39:34.000 I know, I know, but I I try to see with it see look at it through other eyes and see like, okay, we have to figure out what these people are going to do because what do you do after if you can't work for ten years?

01:39:44.000 This is what they've lived all their lives working in, right?

01:39:46.000 Sort of, but I think it's incentivized.

01:39:48.000 I think that they're they are making laws and pushing things specifically at the behest of the pharmaceutical drug industry, knowing that there's a golden parachute awaiting them.

01:39:58.000 Right.

01:39:59.000 But I don't think all of them.

01:39:59.000 I think a lot of people, and I've interviewed the head of the the uh the uh CDC the it was a a while back we did a story about um anyway, I've interviewed some of these government officials uh that work at the FDA and um I don't think all of them work are there with better.

01:40:20.000 No, no, no, no.

01:40:21.000 But a lot of the ones that do know it's available and the shocking number of people that leave those positions of being a regulator and go over to work for the pharmaceutical drug.

01:40:31.000 I mean, that's a kind of crazy conflict of interest.

01:40:34.000 Yeah.

01:40:34.000 It is a huge, huge problem.

01:40:35.000 If you've been passing laws and winking at people and shaking hands and playing golf with them, and then you make it easy for them, and then all of a sudden you work for them?

01:40:44.000 And you're making a million and a half a year.

01:40:46.000 Woo.

01:40:47.000 Yeah, of course it is.

01:40:48.000 A lot of people like that.

01:40:49.000 Yeah.

01:40:50.000 And that's why it's a dirty ass business.

01:40:52.000 And then you got a dirty ass business because they sponsor all the news.

01:40:57.000 Like brought to you by Pfizer, Anderson Cooper brought to you by Pfizer.

01:41:04.000 It only exists in America, you know.

01:41:04.000 It's so crazy.

01:41:05.000 I think that's a good idea.

01:41:06.000 Callie Means was talking about this and said the issue is not that this way more people will buy their drugs.

01:41:14.000 The issue is now the media won't criticize their drugs.

01:41:17.000 Uh because they need it.

01:41:18.000 Oh my god.

01:41:19.000 Yeah.

01:41:20.000 They've financially invested in these companies.

01:41:22.000 They're partners basically.

01:41:23.000 Right.

01:41:24.000 Without the pharmaceutical drug companies, I think cable news would be in deep shit.

01:41:28.000 Well, as a member of the media, I've never had that problem.

01:41:31.000 I have never had and I have investigated as you know, pharmaceutical companies before.

01:41:35.000 But I've never had my boss tell me I can't.

01:41:37.000 Of course.

01:41:38.000 But you look at the kind of stuff you do, you know.

01:41:40.000 You're you're you're doing the real stuff.

01:41:43.000 Like you're boots on the ground in the scariest parts of the world.

01:41:46.000 You're doing a different thing.

01:41:47.000 You're a real journalist, and I really appreciate that.

01:41:50.000 Thank you.

01:41:51.000 And um that's you know you're not getting that on TV on for the most part.

01:41:55.000 You know, it's only it has to be on a show like yours, but like on TV news, you're you're not getting that kind of I mean not that kind of investigative journalism that you do as applied to everything.

01:42:05.000 But there's a lot of conflicts of interest.

01:42:07.000 So a lot of people that don't want you investigating certain things, you know, don't want you investigate waste and fraud in government and that's the role of journalism, yeah.

01:42:07.000 Yeah.

01:42:15.000 I mean, people in power have a hard time with the truth.

01:42:17.000 Exactly.

01:42:18.000 And their job is to go out and w which I know, but which is why, you know, it's so troublesome that we live at a time where people don't believe in journalists and think that all journalists are either fake or they're lying, and that's a real problem because it's a real problem for all of us.

01:42:33.000 Trevor Burrus, Jr.

01:42:34.000 I think it is.

01:42:35.000 But the one solution to that um I think is a mainstream journalism has to change its way.

01:42:41.000 They you can't just be working as a propaganda arm for the Republican or the Democratic Party, which is what Fox News does and which is what you know, MSNBC does.

01:42:53.000 They they were they're st they stick within the lines, right?

01:42:56.000 And you also it opens the door for independent journalists, which I think is the most promising part of it.

01:43:03.000 The people that come through that you know you can count on because they always tell the truth about stuff.

01:43:07.000 And then they develop a reputation like guys like Gren Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibee, those type of Michael Shellenberger, those type of people that work for mainstream organizations and then realize these are this I'm being constrained and this is not real journalism, this is not what I signed up for.

01:43:22.000 Like Matt Taibi, I trust that guy just with everything.

01:43:26.000 He doesn't lie.

01:43:27.000 And he's gonna tell you what he knows about this and why he thinks it's this way and what's going on.

01:43:32.000 Regardless of party lines, regardless.

01:43:34.000 Have you ever read Hate Inc.

01:43:36.000 No, his book?

01:43:37.000 Really fucking good.

01:43:39.000 He makes the case that Rachel Maddow is Bill O'Reilly on the left.

01:43:42.000 It's like basically the same thing.

01:43:44.000 And he's just talking about this whole industry that's sort of set up with media to keep everybody at each other's throats.

01:43:56.000 And that's what they're selling.

01:43:58.000 They're selling hate and outrage every day.

01:44:00.000 And your dad gets home, oh, these motherfuckers and he's yelling at the TV.

01:44:04.000 Like that's what that is.

01:44:05.000 It's like everybody's being played.

01:44:06.000 But in your real life, what how are you encountering most of this?

01:44:11.000 Most of this you're not encountering.

01:44:12.000 Like you you don't need to be this elevated and agitated.

01:44:15.000 But then you're online on your Twitter feed arguing with people and it's like, ah.

01:44:20.000 Everybody's going crazy.

01:44:21.000 It's the attention economy, right?

01:44:21.000 Yeah.

01:44:23.000 That's what we're doing.

01:44:24.000 We need a Martin Luther King.

01:44:25.000 We need someone who has a very compelling voice that preaches nonviolence and someone who resonates with people because he's a powerful speaker, or she's a powerful speaker who has this message.

01:44:38.000 Maybe it's James Talarico.

01:44:38.000 Yeah.

01:44:40.000 Yeah.

01:44:40.000 Maybe.

01:44:41.000 Like he's he's a good man.

01:44:43.000 Like he's a genuinely good man.

01:44:45.000 And uh but that was the point was like if you're a right winger and you go, fuck those Antifa people, you gotta realize like stop.

01:44:52.000 Stop being on a team.

01:44:53.000 Because these kooky theocrats, they're on this side too.

01:44:57.000 They want to turn this entire state into theocracy.

01:45:01.000 Like there's a lot of nutty people on the right too.

01:45:03.000 The right wing militias, they're fucking insane too.

01:45:06.000 Don't ignore them.

01:45:07.000 And on the left, hey, don't ignore Antifa.

01:45:10.000 Hey, don't like the Capitol building on fire.

01:45:12.000 Hey, don't take over giant chunks of Seattle and and change the name of it.

01:45:17.000 Remember that when they did that?

01:45:19.000 Do you remember the what did they call it?

01:45:22.000 Remember that?

01:45:22.000 Chaz.

01:45:23.000 Where they took over and the the mayor said maybe it's the summer of love.

01:45:26.000 They took over blocks of Seattle.

01:45:29.000 Wait, this was we're talking about Antifa.

01:45:31.000 Yeah.

01:45:32.000 Well, I mean, what is Antifa, right?

01:45:34.000 It's just a lot of people.

01:45:34.000 But that's the thing.

01:45:35.000 I think maybe that's what Jimmy Kimmel meant when when he was I d I didn't see the case.

01:45:39.000 They have a handbook, they have a flag.

01:45:41.000 Like Antifa has a lot of people.

01:45:42.000 Yeah, but it's several different groups, right?

01:45:44.000 It's not there's not one group.

01:45:45.000 It's not like, you know, some of these right wing groups that are.

01:45:48.000 Right, but you can say Islamic terrorism.

01:45:50.000 Are you talking about Hamas?

01:45:51.000 Are you talking about Hezbollah?

01:45:53.000 There's a lot of different factions, but the reality is there is Islamic terrorism and there is antifa.

01:45:59.000 Absolutely.

01:46:00.000 I mean, I like I said, I have reported on them.

01:46:02.000 I'm not denying that they exist.

01:46:03.000 The thing is the people on the left don't know.

01:46:05.000 It's more decentralized, is what I mean.

01:46:07.000 They want to ignore it because they're the tough guys of the left.

01:46:09.000 They're the people that are gonna go out and do the dirty work that needs to be done.

01:46:12.000 The same way that people would look at like some right-wing militias if they're a right wing, uh a few extremists, but hey, they keep those left-wing people on their toes.

01:46:20.000 Like Yeah, we need we need more independent journalists, I think you're right, going back to the independent journalist.

01:46:28.000 It's it's partly why I've uh now started this podcast on YouTube, is because I know it's a place that I can keep doing if it grows, and I hope it will, doing the kind of reporting that I do that I don't have to depend on a Disney or uh as much as I thank Disney and National Notre Graphic for having me all these years, it is really important to be able to do independent journalism and not be uh limited and st and and and be told what you can and cannot do.

01:46:54.000 It is crucial for the health and and survival of our democracy.

01:46:54.000 Of course.

01:46:59.000 So YouTube is actually an amazing platform for that.

01:47:02.000 It really is.

01:47:03.000 Unfortunately, because of social media, you can kind of suss out who's legit and who's just a propagandist.

01:47:09.000 You know, it's a really interesting I agree.

01:47:11.000 Yeah, because now like if you're a person who's uh an independent journalist, but it seems fishy that you always talk about one issue all the time and then all of a sudden someone finds out, oh look, this guy gets funding from this organization.

01:47:25.000 And this organization is run by this guy, and this guy supports, you know, he's from Russia or whatever it is.

01:47:31.000 Or just by perpetrating perpetuating these lies, I will keep my fan base, even if I know that is a lie.

01:47:38.000 It's not I don't even think it's like they're being paid to say this.

01:47:41.000 I think that they get they get their audience and their followers and paid that way.

01:47:46.000 They're also probably not the most nuanced thinkers.

01:47:49.000 Oh, they're definitely not the most nuanced thing.

01:47:51.000 But yeah, but it makes them money to not be.

01:47:51.000 Or willing to be able to do it.

01:47:54.000 I had a friend who briefly worked on a right wing show, and one of the things that the host told him was, hey man, you gotta stay and defend the party.

01:48:04.000 Like whatever the party says, like whatever you gotta go with that and get them on your side.

01:48:09.000 That's how you build an audience.

01:48:10.000 And he was like, Right.

01:48:11.000 but that's exactly it.

01:48:12.000 Well my friend was like I'm out.

01:48:14.000 No I'm not doing that.

01:48:14.000 I'm done.

01:48:15.000 Like I'm gonna tell you my opinions on things.

01:48:18.000 And some of my opinions are very left wing.

01:48:20.000 So I'm not doing that.

01:48:21.000 So he left.

01:48:22.000 Good kudos to him.

01:48:22.000 But this is the world that we're living in now.

01:48:25.000 Where it's like people decide that they're gonna only adhere to one ideology and you don't realize how malleable humans are.

01:48:32.000 It's so easy to form a group and have everybody like get a part of it and have an ideology and it could be positive or it could be negative.

01:48:41.000 And if it's negative and everybody's on board with it, then you got Hamas. 0.85

01:48:46.000 Or then you've got, you know, whatever.

01:48:48.000 Whatever organization it is you've got the you know fill it out.

01:48:53.000 I think it's a comfortable it's a much more comfortable way of living to believe that there's bad people and then you're the good part.

01:49:01.000 And there's that other side and you're on this side.

01:49:03.000 You're on the good side, right?

01:49:04.000 You just gotta never be willing to do evil because you think you're doing it against evil people.

01:49:10.000 Right.

01:49:11.000 You can't do that.

01:49:12.000 Because then you're evil.

01:49:13.000 Like you're the thing that you're trying to which is interesting we we did a story about assassins and uh we interviewed an assassin in America and an assassin in uh South Africa which has the highest rates of assassins and that is exactly what they said when they justified what they do.

01:49:28.000 Which is the worst of the worst crime, right?

01:49:30.000 You're taking away somebody's life but that is their justification was that they were killing bad people.

01:49:34.000 And so they're you know God was on their side and they were killing bad people.

01:49:34.000 Yeah.

01:49:38.000 But it's it's it's a little bit not on assassin level but it's a little bit that that idea.

01:49:42.000 Like I I'm that's a crazy rationalization.

01:49:45.000 You know that's what Genghis Khan used to say.

01:49:48.000 That he was killing his Khan you must have done something horrible for God to bring me Oh my God. 1.00

01:49:54.000 Yeah.

01:49:55.000 Then I'm your punishment of God.

01:49:58.000 That was his quote is the craziest quote from a guy that killed fifty million people in his lifetime or responsible at least indirectly to fifty plus million people dying.

01:50:08.000 Yeah.

01:50:08.000 That's insane.

01:50:09.000 But imagine that I'm on you know God must have sent me you must be terrible if God sent me I mean when you bring God to the equation right but that's how crazy people could rationalize evil that like I'm working for God to just destroy this whole village.

01:50:26.000 I'm gonna kill a million people in this village and stack their bodies up in the center. 1.00

01:50:30.000 That's what Genghis Khan did he said well God must have uh really hated you.

01:50:30.000 Yeah.

01:50:35.000 Right.

01:50:35.000 He sent me right.

01:50:37.000 Yeah.

01:50:39.000 Well people could do that with anything and this is the problem with tribalism.

01:50:43.000 This is the problem with being on a team because if you're on the left you hate the people on the right.

01:50:48.000 If you're on the right you hate the people on the left.

01:50:50.000 Yeah.

01:50:51.000 And you know you you wear your outfits like maybe you have blue hair, you got an American flag t shirt you know and everybody hates everybody.

01:50:57.000 It's like for what?

01:50:58.000 Right and then they're on social media talking about stuff with so many opinions with with no actual knowledge.

01:51:04.000 Like not once having spent time actually on the ground looking at any of these issues, right?

01:51:09.000 They talk about these immigrant raid immigration raids or drugs coming across but not one not one single one of these people that have all these opinions have actually spent a fucking day reporting on it on the I saw one of the um conversations with Tom Holman where they were saying that seventy percent of the people that they catch coming across let me say this seventy percent of the people that they catch and send back are criminals.

01:51:09.000 Right.

01:51:35.000 Bullshit even if it was true why don't you get that down to a hundred percent like why don't you like figure out who's not a criminal and then you'll have everybody on your side like if you're only deporting gang members no one would be complaining.

01:51:50.000 If you're only going after known gang members and getting them only going after known scammers, criminals whatever anybody's doing then you'd have everybody on your side.

01:52:02.000 Like thirty percent is crazy.

01:52:04.000 Imagine if that applied to most things like if most people who are accused of a crime 30% of them were in the 70% were guilty the thirty percent were innocent three out of ten and everyone's getting fucking snatched up and mass.

01:52:17.000 But you know that that number is not correct.

01:52:19.000 It's actually forty percent that have some sort of uh criminal history criminal history but a lot of times nonviolent it can be a misdemeanor it can be actually a prop parking ticket.

01:52:28.000 And only seven percent of the people being Deported have been are have have criminal uh have c have been charged with criminal violence.

01:52:36.000 So it the numbers are insane.

01:52:38.000 I wonder if they could mitigate some of this shit if they just change the way the census works.

01:52:42.000 But I don't think they can.

01:52:44.000 I think it's a constitutional thing.

01:52:46.000 I think it's the way the Constitution is written.

01:52:49.000 I think it has something to do with just the way it says it, it doesn't say lawful citizens.

01:52:54.000 I think it says people living.

01:52:56.000 People living.

01:52:57.000 Which is, you know, kind of you know, they're people.

01:53:02.000 They're just people.

01:53:03.000 Like people with paperwork and people not paperwork.

01:53:05.000 We just gotta figure out who's a fucking criminal.

01:53:07.000 That's it.

01:53:08.000 Yeah.

01:53:08.000 That should be the only thing that everybody agrees on.

01:53:10.000 Which take money, which takes money and resources, right?

01:53:12.000 It's a lot harder.

01:53:14.000 They think that they were moving people into this country politically to get these people eventually a pathway to citizenship, and then they would have lifelong voters.

01:53:22.000 And this is what this is the allegations of why they were moving people to luxury hotels in New York City and paying them and and doing it in Chicago as well, where the people that were poor that were living in Chicago were like, hey, we're not getting these resources.

01:53:36.000 Like why are you giving these resources to people that just came here from another country?

01:53:40.000 This is obviously before all the ice raids, which have completely changed public opinion.

01:53:45.000 So that's where it gets really fucked up because there's people that probably would have been willing to vote Republican again because they didn't like what the Democrats were doing because essentially they had a dead man who was pretending to be president and then they just had some people running the government from behind the scenes, we're not really sure who that was, and that doesn't seem right.

01:54:02.000 So I voted Republican.

01:54:03.000 There's a lot of people that feel that way.

01:54:04.000 But then they see this and they're like, I can't support that.

01:54:08.000 I can't support this heartless shit.

01:54:11.000 Exactly.

01:54:11.000 I agree.

01:54:12.000 100%.

01:54:13.000 And I'm sure I catch shit for it online, but lucky I don't read it.

01:54:18.000 You never read it, right?

01:54:19.000 You don't read the online stories.

01:54:20.000 You gotta if you have to.

01:54:22.000 If you're in a position like I'm in, you have to stay sane.

01:54:24.000 Right.

01:54:24.000 And the only way to stay sane is to say as conflict free as possible.

01:54:29.000 So even though I talk a lot of shit, I don't read anything anybody says back.

01:54:33.000 Like say it all.

01:54:34.000 You're allowed to.

01:54:35.000 You should be.

01:54:37.000 I mean, I don't read what people are posting about, but I read all the messages I get sent and everything.

01:54:41.000 And I reply and everything.

01:54:42.000 That's very nice of you.

01:54:43.000 It's just it's not tenable at my Oh, of course not.

01:54:47.000 But it it it it would be nice if I knew they were gonna be nice.

01:54:50.000 You know like people that I meet are almost all nice.

01:54:53.000 Yeah, I mean it's almost universally nice people.

01:54:56.000 It's so much easier to be mean online than it is face to face, right?

01:54:59.000 Even people that I know don't like me.

01:55:01.000 Like I you know, there's certain people like I could sell say what I mean.

01:55:04.000 I say hi and they're like hi.

01:55:05.000 And like they don't like me because I represent something, but they're not mean to me.

01:55:10.000 You know, whereas in the privacy of their own home or sitting on the toilet, they could say the most awful shit on Twitter.

01:55:15.000 I don't need to read that.

01:55:16.000 And I would probably say it if I was them too.

01:55:19.000 That's the thing.

01:55:19.000 If you're you feel powerless and voiceless and you see someone doing something that you don't agree with, and then you have this Twitter account and you just like fuck that guy.

01:55:28.000 Right.

01:55:29.000 You I get it.

01:55:30.000 I understand it, but I I can't read it.

01:55:32.000 Right.

01:55:32.000 No, I don't think you should.

01:55:37.000 Well, I never drank for that reason.

01:55:39.000 I always drank for fun.

01:55:40.000 Uh I just you know, I think uh social media for the most part is uh net positive.

01:55:48.000 I think um You think so?

01:55:50.000 Yes.

01:55:51.000 I do.

01:55:52.000 I mean, I I love it and I use it and I use it as a tool from the work that I do 100%.

01:55:57.000 But uh but I I I I've you I'm a very optimistic person, and I always thought, you know, there's there's a reason you know, there's great ways of using social media like you do.

01:56:08.000 But uh with with young people nowadays and young people it's very challenging.

01:56:13.000 But this is what I think.

01:56:14.000 Information is almost always good.

01:56:16.000 And then the understanding that some of the information is bad is good because then you realize like, oh, don't trust everything.

01:56:23.000 Like figure out what's right and what's wrong, and then finding verifiable, like accurate sources of information is good.

01:56:30.000 Yeah.

01:56:30.000 Like all the things that are.

01:56:30.000 That's what I think is harder and harder to do, right?

01:56:32.000 Yeah, but you can do it.

01:56:33.000 But the point is at least more information is available now than ever before, which just makes it very difficult for governments to pull off stuff that they were trying to pull off before.

01:56:43.000 It makes it very difficult for people to get get scammed, like they were getting scammed in the past.

01:56:51.000 It's just it's it's just there's gonna be a bunch of people that get duped, no matter what.

01:56:56.000 And there's gonna be a bunch of people that get kidnapped by social media, meaning that their attention span and their focus, their life becomes a part of that thing.

01:57:06.000 But I think this is a new and emerging aspect of society that we will navigate and that we will learn from the failures.

01:57:15.000 And it will cost a lot of people their happiness and prosperity.

01:57:18.000 A lot of people will get wrapped up in that shit and it will fuck them up and that's net negative, right?

01:57:23.000 But I think we'll learn from it like you don't want to get bit by the rattlesnake.

01:57:27.000 Get the fuck out of there.

01:57:27.000 You hear that rattle?

01:57:28.000 Well we'll realize through all these other people's mistakes where the pitfalls are so we'll have to develop more robust ways of thinking about things and more resilience.

01:57:40.000 More resiliency.

01:57:41.000 And I think that's the net positive.

01:57:44.000 And then this communication with people all over the world net positive, I think, ultimately.

01:57:50.000 The real problem is the real the challenging aspect of it is a lot of people you're communicating with aren't real.

01:57:55.000 And that's that's a giant problem now.

01:57:57.000 China was busted using Chat GPT to promulgate they're using it to um they were going into Reddit forums and uh they're using it on social media and they they're pr they were pretending to be people and they were arguing about stuff.

01:58:12.000 And you know you could just give it a prompt like from the position of a white supremacist, say why all Mexicans should be to create division.

01:58:18.000 Uh-huh to create division I know in this country.

01:58:20.000 I know and so that's a giant percentage of all social media discourse.

01:58:24.000 So I don't necessarily think you should be going back and forth with people.

01:58:28.000 But I think as a source of information and news and alternative perspectives and boots on the ground people like hey I'm reporting live from Gaza look what they just did to this Air Party. 0.57

01:58:37.000 And it was what we thought was going to happen when the Arab Spring happened you know because everybody has a phone and finally we were able to film these amazing magnetic revolutions but I think that promise is sort of waited a little bit I I have to point out one thing you said how scams are not as prevalent these days.

01:58:53.000 I shouldn't have said that that's not what I meant really I meant um the government that it's very it's more difficult for government government in the golden age of scams.

01:59:08.000 I get like 30 texts a day.

01:59:11.000 The dude that owned my phone number before me this dude Raymond was a moron and Raymond Raymond you fucking idiot did you sign up for everything pitch? 0.93

01:59:20.000 Because this guy like every day like hey Raymond your loan's been approved.

01:59:27.000 So really fun I'm going to come on your podcast next year once I'm done with this project but I'm working on a really fun project for National Geographic which is where I say yes to every single scam that comes my way.

01:59:38.000 Oh boy and it's been the craziest wildest journey of the thing I I just can tell you that I've been I have romantic relationships with people.

01:59:50.000 Ah damn I spend a lot of time on my burner phone with people love bombing me.

01:59:57.000 But it's not it's a fake persona like I I put a wig and glasses and you use your own picture.

01:59:57.000 Really?

02:00:03.000 You don't even use AI?

02:00:04.000 I know I don't use AI.

02:00:05.000 We actually sort of modified we put a fake nose on me and a wig and glasses but uh people say it doesn't look at all like me.

02:00:12.000 I I can see it's me.

02:00:13.000 But um but I will talk it's it's really fascinating.

02:00:17.000 But also to talk about scams which I can talk about a lot is uh we are living in the golden age of scams.

02:00:24.000 Uh I think it was Baron Buffett that said fraud and scams are the number one industry growth industry of our time.

02:00:31.000 And one of the stories we did which is so sad and I hate to bring it down back to a b uh sad topic but is that we I didn't know this before starting to report on it which a lot of times you think you know these scammers, these guys that are texting and emailing you and calling you that these are you know people in West Africa or you know wherever but like loan operators.

02:00:53.000 Well we did a story about these scam factories.

02:00:56.000 Have you heard of these?

02:00:57.000 No.

02:00:58.000 It's these compounds in places like Cambodia and Myanmar in Asia where they are it's basically factories with sometimes with thousands and thousands of people forced labor.

02:01:09.000 So these are mostly people from India, sometimes Brazil, other Asian countries, the Philippines is a big place, where they respond to ads to work in what they think are legitimate businesses, to work in online companies and whatnot.

02:01:23.000 And they are they pay for their expenses to travel to these places to Cambodia and Myanmar.

02:01:28.000 In Myanmar, they're operating out of this area that's that's an ongoing civil war and is ruled by these militias and they get in there and they as soon as they get in, they take away their passports and they're trapped and they're forced to scam.

02:01:41.000 So they spend 24-7 scamming Americans and European people. 0.96

02:01:46.000 Wow.

02:01:47.000 And it is an industry where they're making billions of dollars.

02:01:50.000 The US government just recently seized uh fifteen billion dollars from one company from one group of people alone in crypto.

02:01:59.000 It's the craziest thing.

02:02:00.000 So these people are being tortured and and um you know beaten, sometimes killed and forced to to scam.

02:02:08.000 So we went actually to Myanmar we were smuggled into the border into Myanmar into the country illegally.

02:02:14.000 Whoa.

02:02:15.000 Um across the river um and uh spent time in this town that was basically built by these this Chinese gang that was all with the money of scamming Americans and uh they were trying to build like a mini Macau and the guy that ran the the the company is called Yatai International and he took us on a tour of this mini Macau and it was so surreal. 0.98

02:02:39.000 It was like these aquaparks with no one in the aquapark and these luxury casinos.

02:02:44.000 We ended the night so crazy in uh we were trying this guy said he would give us an interview but first we had to do the tour.

02:02:52.000 So and the interview would happen the next day.

02:02:54.000 So we ended a night this was actually not filmed in a karaoke that was a massive room where every single the whole every wall and the ceiling was all a screen it was like the future.

02:03:07.000 And this is in a war torn area of a country that's incredibly poor and they've built this place with millions and billions of dollars from from profits of scamming.

02:03:17.000 And we ended the night with this guy who's basically the head of this criminal Chinese gang running these scams in this karaoke singing Celine Dion and Whitney Houston and being poured whiskey and whatever high-end uh uh brand we wanted you were getting drunk with them? 0.99

02:03:36.000 Oh my God, yes.

02:03:37.000 I was singing my heart out.

02:03:39.000 I spent the whole night singing Whitney Houston the videos are so embarrassing because I cannot sing to my life.

02:03:47.000 But I was like we need to get this guy on tape so I'm just gonna do whatever.

02:03:53.000 And then the next day we interviewed him and uh and it was just fucking crazy. 0.57

02:03:57.000 And we ended our last day I mean we interviewed a Chinese dude so sad like 21 year old who was caught trying to escape and was chased out of the building he ran out of a third floor broke both his legs one at the hip practically died was actually saved by an onlooker who took him to the hospital and then moved to Thailand where I met him he was in a wheelchair told us about beatings.

02:04:24.000 We spoke to another Indian kid also who was for like they had a water hose on his body for he was forced to stand for 24 hours um and then electrocuted and I mean the videos out of these places were insane like people with uh horrific wounds and people c dying and killed and yeah and just forced to be forced and I'm to scam forced to fucking scam into scamming.

02:04:47.000 Yeah, forced into scamming.

02:04:48.000 And then we interviewed a girl called Angel who was raped repeatedly by her bosses and she's sort of the face model.

02:04:56.000 So a lot of times after speaking to these what they think are romantic relationships for a long time, they want to see people's faces.

02:05:02.000 So this is the girl that then they put a fake of AI face on top of her but it has to be a girl because of the manurisms and the voice and they have this girl who actually speaks English and she would talk to victims of scams and pretend that she was the wonderful woman that they'd been dating for months and and convince them to put their money into this crypto business that was fake and uh and take millions out of these victims. 0.50

02:05:29.000 So this woman starts crying and telling me how she knows she's doing something awful but and how she's raped and how she doesn't want to be doing and uh at the end she says I just want your I said yes to doing this even though it's incredibly dangerous but I accepted doing this because I just want a message for the victims in America the people that I've spoken to that I don't that I'm sorry.

02:05:51.000 I just want to apologize for all the harm that I've caused and she's like in two years but I have no way out I mean these are heart wrenching heart wrenching stories.

02:06:00.000 And the last day we were there to um there's this amazing organization called Acts of Mercy, religious based organization that is working to try to get these people out.

02:06:12.000 And a lot of these bosses actually if you can pay for ransom, you can pay $10,000 to save a person from there.

02:06:19.000 So because if you're a bad scammer, if you're there and you're horrible and you're you know, if you're sad and depressed and you're not doing your job, it's better for these bosses if you just get paid $10,000 to let this person go.

02:06:32.000 So there was this case of this the Filipino woman who uh the boss had agreed to twelve thousand dollar uh payment to release her. 0.99

02:06:41.000 But it's really dangerous for there's this negotiator that goes and sort of tries to get her out of this compound.

02:06:48.000 But he has to come with the money and he has to be able to pay the crime boss, but he also has to pay the militias to get him in.

02:06:53.000 So it was like a whole process.

02:06:55.000 And we were with this group, Acts of Mercy, and another guy, filming them as they're on the phone negotiating her release and they're on the phone with her.

02:07:04.000 She's inside the scam center, and she's like, Where do I go?

02:07:08.000 This scam center is massive.

02:07:09.000 She had no idea where to go.

02:07:10.000 And they're saying, go to the West Gate and the guy is there waiting for you.

02:07:14.000 She's like, I don't know where to go.

02:07:16.000 And she's crying.

02:07:17.000 If they see me with a phone, because it's a confiscated phone, they're gonna beat me and they're gonna put me in the dark room where I'm beaten and you know tortured for for days.

02:07:26.000 And the and and uh Amy, the woman on this side is telling her, Believe us, there's somebody waiting for you.

02:07:33.000 Do not be afraid, bring your phone.

02:07:35.000 We need to be telling you how to get there.

02:07:37.000 It's just whole it was a sole ordeal.

02:07:38.000 It was like fucking insane.

02:07:40.000 It was out of a movie.

02:07:41.000 And in the end, they didn't manage to get her out.

02:07:45.000 Um but she was not that day, but she was released a month later.

02:07:48.000 Um and she made it to safety.

02:07:50.000 But so this just to show how dangerous and difficult it is, even when they agree to let them go.

02:07:57.000 So what are most of the scams?

02:07:58.000 Are most of the scams from the case?

02:07:59.000 Crypto scams.

02:08:00.000 They're called pig butchering scams. 0.59

02:08:02.000 Um because it's an express Chinese expression.

02:08:06.000 It started in China.

02:08:07.000 It started as a domestic scam in China actually.

02:08:10.000 And the uh pig butchering because the idea is that you fatten the pig, which is your victim, and then you kill them at the end, right?

02:08:17.000 And and uh which that's why it's called pig butchering. 1.00

02:08:21.000 But the idea is that you meet somebody online and it's usually a beautiful girl or man, and um and you create you start a relationship with that person.

02:08:30.000 You start starting to do it.

02:08:32.000 How do they meet them?

02:08:33.000 You know those texts that you get a lot of times like, hey, I haven't talked to you in a while.

02:08:36.000 Yes.

02:08:37.000 A lot of those are pig butchering scams.

02:08:38.000 A lot of messages you get on Instagram from these beautiful girls or like stepping it up because I got a few eye messages like that. 1.00

02:08:45.000 Like, whoa.

02:08:45.000 Yeah, me too.

02:08:46.000 Me too.

02:08:46.000 Not even just a r green text bubble anymore.

02:08:48.000 They got iPhones now.

02:08:50.000 And then they tell you, you know, follow me on Instagram and then you go, let's go on WhatsApp.

02:08:54.000 And then they are sending you photos of them in their private jets and living this wonderful life.

02:08:59.000 Is that what they're doing with you?

02:09:01.000 Yes.

02:09:01.000 With your new ways.

02:09:03.000 So these scams that you're gonna do.

02:09:05.000 One of the one we're trying to get is that we're getting several different kinds of scams, like Indian call centers and all all of the different schemes. 1.00

02:09:12.000 But eventually they start saying, Look, we are leave living, and so you're curious, like, how do you like how are you making so much money?

02:09:18.000 It's like, oh yeah, I've been investing in crypto and you know, I can't really tell you much about it now.

02:09:23.000 So they they c last it can last months.

02:09:25.000 And at some point they're like, okay, I've built a relationship.

02:09:28.000 Yeah.

02:09:29.000 I'm gonna tell you how I do it.

02:09:31.000 You've got five thousand dollars right now, and then you put the five thousand dollars, and then they show profit on these fake websites.

02:09:37.000 It looks completely legitimate.

02:09:38.000 And you're saying, Oh my god, I put five thousand and now I have ten.

02:09:42.000 How much more can I put in?

02:09:44.000 So people are going all in.

02:09:46.000 And they're like everything they have.

02:09:47.000 401Ks, they're remortgaging their houses, everything.

02:09:51.000 And then w did you hear the case of about the guy in Kansas?

02:09:55.000 No.

02:09:55.000 The bank guy, the guy that was the head of this bank in Kansas.

02:09:58.000 Jamie, did you hear about this?

02:10:00.000 It's a fucking fascinating story.

02:10:01.000 It was a story in the New York Times and then it got reported everywhere.

02:10:04.000 I was trying to get this guy to talk to me because the story is fascinating.

02:10:07.000 So this guy, amazing member of the community, small town in Kansas, the local bank that was started by the farmers decades a decades ago, it's where all the farm community was put would put their money, would trust this bank.

02:10:22.000 Well, it turns out that this guy, the head of this bank that everybody trusted, outstanding member of the community, was stole uh millions of dollars from the bank and the bank went bankrupt.

02:10:34.000 And he was stealing the money because he was being scammed by a pig butchering scam.

02:10:39.000 And it started with him putting his own money.

02:10:42.000 And then they kept on saying that in order to release the funds and all the mil millions that he'd made from his initial investment, he would put in more and more money.

02:10:50.000 I think he ended up putting in what something like that.

02:10:54.000 Forty-seven million from from the customer accounts to scammers depleting the bank's holdings.

02:10:59.000 When a state banking regulator uncovered this fraud, it closed the bank and called the FBI.

02:11:04.000 Whoa.

02:11:05.000 He started slow investing a few thousand dollars in twenty twenty-two to buy what he thought was cryptocurrency.

02:11:12.000 Oh my goodness.

02:11:14.000 How sad is that?

02:11:15.000 Wow.

02:11:16.000 I mean, awful, obviously he was stealing from his customers.

02:11:18.000 Wow.

02:11:19.000 But I find it so he actually traveled to Australia at one point thinking he was going to meet these the the people that owed him money.

02:11:27.000 I mean, he actually was completely scammed.

02:11:29.000 And this is like the head of a bank.

02:11:31.000 Yeah.

02:11:32.000 The head of a fucking bank.

02:11:33.000 Wow.

02:11:34.000 It's fucking crazy.

02:11:35.000 These guys are so good.

02:11:38.000 That's crazy.

02:11:39.000 They get a a banker.

02:11:41.000 But it's a banker in Kansas, though, you know what I'm saying?

02:11:44.000 Come on.

02:11:49.000 Sorry, Kansas.

02:11:50.000 But you know what I'm saying.

02:11:52.000 Well, he's in prison now.

02:11:53.000 Oh, well, he should be.

02:11:54.000 He stole 47 million dollars.

02:11:56.000 But he's also a dumbass.

02:11:58.000 And the crazy thing is that you could be a dumbass and be a smart person if greed gets involved.

02:12:04.000 Greed is like for greed I think greed for shady people it's almost it's kind of fascinating Because it you gotta know at one point in time this is not smart.

02:12:22.000 But the greed is like, but what if it is?

02:12:24.000 But i I think more than greed.

02:12:26.000 I think it's the acceptance that you have lost all that money.

02:12:31.000 And that must weigh so heavily on you.

02:12:34.000 If you have you know, if you're about to foreclose your home, if you'd sent all the money from your kids' college funds, if you're yeah, but even the banker.

02:12:45.000 I mean, but even the banker, he sent all his initially it was a big thing.

02:12:49.000 That's all greed.

02:12:50.000 I I I don't think I think he got to a point that he was swindled and made to believe that if you give more money, he would can't he would get the money that he initially invested back.

02:13:04.000 And he would be able to put back the 45 million that he gave he stole from his customers.

02:13:10.000 I think the realization, and this is something that I know from talking to so many scammed scamming victims, the it's not so much about wanting to make that money, it's the realization that you've been talking to somebody that's not real and that you have been so swindled and you know I don't want to use the word dumb because I think all of us can fall victims to these scams.

02:13:34.000 But that the the acceptance of that is really difficult.

02:13:37.000 So you just want to keep on believing it.

02:13:39.000 You just pay whatever you need to pay so the dream stays alive.

02:13:43.000 There's a Carl Sagan quote about that, that it's easier to convince a person.

02:13:43.000 Aaron Ross Powell Yeah.

02:13:48.000 Like it's harder to like once a person has been swindled, it's much more difficult to convince them of the swindle.

02:13:56.000 They'll they'll find ways to justify that it must be true.

02:13:59.000 100 percent.

02:14:00.000 I I feel that with this experiment I'm doing right now.

02:14:03.000 I mean, even though I know I'm being swindled, but there's something about once you're deep in that relationship, it's it's yeah, it's it it does something funny to you.

02:14:11.000 Trevor Burrus, Jr.

02:14:11.000 It's also exciting.

02:14:13.000 Right?

02:14:13.000 And that's the problem is that most of life is boring.

02:14:16.000 Yeah.

02:14:16.000 You know?

02:14:16.000 And if you you're involved in something that may or may not yield money or may or may not yield some sort of romantic relationship or may or may not yield 100% a drug deal.

02:14:25.000 Or a celebrity scam, which is huge these days.

02:14:28.000 If you're talking if you think you're talking to, you know, Brad Pitt.

02:14:31.000 Yeah.

02:14:31.000 Like you give up, maybe maybe your life has a meaning, right?

02:14:35.000 There's a reason why you're here.

02:14:36.000 There's something exciting happening.

02:14:37.000 Aaron Powell Especially if you have like a 65 IQ.

02:14:39.000 Right.

02:14:40.000 That's the problem.

02:14:41.000 There's a lot of dumbasses out there. 1.00

02:14:42.000 And it's not fair to scam those people.

02:14:47.000 Some scams like we tolerate, like televists.

02:14:52.000 We feel uh we're we're like, look, if you really believe that guy with the private jet and the Bentley, that guy, you need send him money because God wants you to send him money, you're on your own.

02:15:04.000 You know, it's such a dumb scam.

02:15:06.000 It's so out in the open.

02:15:08.000 You know.

02:15:09.000 Astrology is another one I've been looking into.

02:15:11.000 I don't know if astrology is a hundred percent bullshit.

02:15:14.000 This is my take on astrology.

02:15:16.000 I think at one point in time, they had some knowledge about astrology that may or may not be lost.

02:15:24.000 Maybe some people understand it.

02:15:25.000 I I'm I'm a believer like you.

02:15:27.000 There's thousands of books that are like ancient books, I don't know, thousands, but a lot, written about the very specific details of astrology.

02:15:38.000 Like in terms of like where the constellations are, what time of the day it is, where you know where the earth is in relationship to Mars.

02:15:46.000 It's very weird stuff.

02:15:48.000 Because I want to know like what the fuck was the origin of all this.

02:15:51.000 I meant psychic scammers, sorry, non-astrology.

02:15:51.000 Absolutely.

02:15:51.000 Right.

02:15:54.000 I meant psychic scammer.

02:15:55.000 Oh, psychic scammers.

02:15:56.000 Yes.

02:15:57.000 I'm a believer in astrology as well as I think there's something to real astrology.

02:16:02.000 I need to get a real astrologer on.

02:16:04.000 I've tried to find one that I think is legit.

02:16:06.000 What sign are you, by the way?

02:16:08.000 I am a Leo.

02:16:09.000 Oh, of course you were.

02:16:10.000 Of course.

02:16:11.000 That's ridiculous.

02:16:14.000 So is my son, so is my dad.

02:16:16.000 It's uh one of my favorite signs.

02:16:17.000 I'm a Taurus.

02:16:18.000 Oh, okay.

02:16:19.000 Um I don't know I th I think that like newspaper astrology is bullshit.

02:16:24.000 Yeah, of course it's a good thing.

02:16:25.000 But I don't know that real astrology is not nonsense.

02:16:30.000 Wait, do you get do you get that a lot that when you say you're a Leoli, they say, yeah, of course you are.

02:16:33.000 I've heard it before.

02:16:34.000 Yeah.

02:16:35.000 Why?

02:16:35.000 I don't know.

02:16:36.000 Oh, because you like the the spotlight, right?

02:16:39.000 Which is my son and my dad as well.

02:16:41.000 Is that what it is?

02:16:42.000 Yeah, Leo Leos like to what is it?

02:16:45.000 It's uh like attention, yeah.

02:16:47.000 I'm I think I'm a little Leo as well.

02:16:50.000 But I'm a I'm a Taurus, I'm still like bullheaded, I've heard, you know, strong willed.

02:16:56.000 That's tort that's a Leo's tourist as well.

02:16:58.000 Yeah.

02:16:59.000 Taurus as well.

02:16:59.000 Yeah.

02:17:00.000 Right, the bull.

02:17:00.000 Yeah, the bull.

02:17:01.000 Yeah.

02:17:02.000 Um but I don't what I'm talking about is like the super specific stuff.

02:17:08.000 Like you were born at 3 a.m.

02:17:11.000 You were conceived nine months before that.

02:17:14.000 When were you conceived?

02:17:15.000 What was going on?

02:17:16.000 They like how does you know where where what in the procession of the equinoxes, where's this the position of the earth?

02:17:22.000 You know, there's a lot of weird stuff they take into consideration.

02:17:26.000 I'm like, wow, look I'd l really like to learn about it.

02:17:30.000 Right.

02:17:30.000 Like from someone I'm gonna have someone on that really understand that I just have to have someone on who's not a kook.

02:17:35.000 And that's the problem, is it's like one of those disciplines that's littered with kooks.

02:17:40.000 Right.

02:17:41.000 I find it fascinating too.

02:17:41.000 Yeah.

02:17:42.000 And I'm a non-believer in everything.

02:17:44.000 I'm very skeptical about everything, but astrology I've always kind of believed into.

02:17:48.000 I mean, it's it's the idea that you know, where the sun and the stars they have an effect on on tides and currents and why wouldn't that all have an effect?

02:17:57.000 I mean, I know nothing about it, but why wouldn't it have an effect of on you when you're born and when and where and the time.

02:18:03.000 Right, and it's probably a part of nature's natural order too, to create a bunch of different kinds of people.

02:18:09.000 Yeah, maybe.

02:18:10.000 Because I mean what makes you who you are.

02:18:12.000 There's a lot of factors, right?

02:18:13.000 There's environment, there's genetics, and then there's probably some celestial shit going on.

02:18:21.000 Maybe.

02:18:22.000 I'm not you know, I don't know enough about it to but um I'm open to it because I think there's a lot of information that was lost.

02:18:30.000 I think there's a lot of information that we would dismiss, you know, from ancient civilizations that we dismiss that I think I think the problem is that these ancient civilizations collapsed and like with the burning of the library of Alexandria, you're left with very little.

02:18:47.000 Like you a lot a lot of like very important information is missing.

02:18:51.000 And so then you gotta kind of like go, well, that seems like bullshit.

02:18:55.000 That seems like old folksy stuff.

02:18:56.000 Like maybe.

02:18:57.000 Or maybe there was like maybe they had figured something out over a long period of time and there was a science to it.

02:19:03.000 You should have an astrologist on.

02:19:03.000 Yeah.

02:19:03.000 Right.

02:19:05.000 That would be super interesting.

02:19:06.000 What is not crazy?

02:19:07.000 Yeah.

02:19:08.000 You know?

02:19:09.000 Like a psychic.

02:19:10.000 Like get a psychic on it's not crazy.

02:19:12.000 I've had people on that were remote viewers.

02:19:14.000 That's another weird one.

02:19:15.000 Yeah.

02:19:15.000 You have?

02:19:16.000 Hal put off.

02:19:17.000 Hal Putoff, who's um he was uh running uh some various programs for the United States government.

02:19:24.000 Uh specifically I had him on though to not talk about remote viewing to talk about UFOs.

02:19:29.000 And uh he was actually brought on board during um Herbert Walker Bush's administration.

02:19:35.000 They um well well he was working for the government at the time, but they brought him on as one of the scientists that they they'd got a group of people from various disciplines and they said we're gonna compile a list of pros and cons in terms of the impact of society of disclosure of alien life.

02:19:56.000 And this is what they were telling him.

02:19:58.000 We have recovered crashed UFOs and we are doing back engineering programs on them.

02:20:03.000 We have for years.

02:20:04.000 We also have recovered biological entities.

02:20:07.000 We are thinking about disclosing this information to the American public.

02:20:11.000 I want you to compile a list on the positive aspects of disclosure, how it'll affect society and give a numerical value to these things.

02:20:18.000 And then negative.

02:20:20.000 And all these scientists came up with a much higher negative than positive.

02:20:25.000 So they didn't disclose.

02:20:27.000 And what do you know what the list was?

02:20:28.000 What were the negative?

02:20:29.000 Yeah, it was religion, government, um, the economy.

02:20:34.000 Um negative.

02:20:36.000 Those were all negative.

02:20:37.000 It could affect religion, it could affect the economy.

02:20:40.000 It would affect government and the fact that no one would ever listen to the president because he's just a bitch. 1.00

02:20:44.000 The fucking aliens are hovering over our head, abducting people every day.

02:20:47.000 Trevor Burrus, Jr.

02:20:48.000 So this is where I think it would be interesting.

02:20:50.000 I actually think that there's a positive if it were to happen right now because it sure as hell would bring us all together.

02:20:56.000 Well, that was Reagan said that.

02:20:56.000 Yes.

02:20:57.000 You ever did you ever see that speech?

02:20:58.000 No.

02:20:59.000 It was a famous speech that he gave at the in front of the United Nations.

02:21:03.000 And I think he gave this speech at a time where, you know, this is like Gorbachev tear down that wall.

02:21:09.000 It was that kind of speech.

02:21:10.000 Where there's like trying to unite us all together, and his speech was imagine if we were all faced with an alien threat from another world, how quickly we would unite together.

02:21:20.000 Yeah.

02:21:21.000 So that's good part.

02:21:22.000 I mean, we need it now more than ever.

02:21:23.000 So if they're out there, I know, but is that the only way we can unite we have to be threatened by another enemy?

02:21:29.000 Like God, we're so fucking warlike.

02:21:31.000 We're so warlike, we need a an interstellar war to unite America and the rest of the world.

02:21:36.000 It's so sad because it didn't used to be like that, right?

02:21:38.000 A politics wasn't something that people talked about all day long all the time.

02:21:42.000 Like it was That's the negative aspect of social media.

02:21:45.000 Yeah.

02:21:46.000 Because this is all people talk about.

02:21:47.000 Like even us, like you know, there's so much interesting stuff to talk about, and yet we've spent time talking about politics because we're talking about the fascinating aspects of c politics as it affects human civilization and discourse.

02:22:01.000 Yes, but we also like the division and the right and the left and being careful with what you say because what if the other side did this and that?

02:22:09.000 It it's it's now in every single home in every single conversation people have, and it it's just it didn't used to be like that.

02:22:18.000 It it just didn't.

02:22:19.000 Like government was there, it existed, it's supposed to work well.

02:22:23.000 If it's not, hopefully there are good journalists out there exposing what's not working out well, but it should not be the discourse all the time about whether you're right wing, you're left wing, whether you're with us or or not or against us.

02:22:36.000 And and it it it it just taints everything and and takes too much space.

02:22:43.000 I think for c other conversations with much more important that we should be having, whether it's about AI, whether it's about social media, whether it's about aliens, they're much bigger problems that are coming in our future, and we shouldn't be so sort of tunnel focused on whether we're you know, whether what we're saying is approved by the right or the left or whether this or that.

02:23:05.000 It's just an amazing waste of mental resources.

02:23:08.000 And it's also a way for very uninteresting people to attach themselves to a worthy cause.

02:23:14.000 Yeah.

02:23:14.000 People that have nothing else going on in their life and all of a sudden it's this whatever issue it is, whatever it issue it is, that's their whole identity.

02:23:21.000 Yeah.

02:23:22.000 And they go all in.

02:23:23.000 And it's generally a distraction for a failed life.

02:23:26.000 I think so too.

02:23:27.000 That's a lot of it.

02:23:28.000 It's not doing what you really want to do, not having the relationships you really want to have, the friendships you really and instead you're involved in this fucking stupid cause.

02:23:37.000 You know.

02:23:38.000 I know.

02:23:38.000 Yeah.

02:23:39.000 That's so dumb.

02:23:40.000 But you're right.

02:23:41.000 If the aliens showed up, we'd probably all unite together.

02:23:43.000 But unfortunately, like I feel like the most united moment that I could remember in my adult life was right after September 11.

02:23:50.000 Yeah, same.

02:23:51.000 Were you in America?

02:23:52.000 I was in New York.

02:23:53.000 You were in New York.

02:23:54.000 Yeah.

02:23:54.000 I was...

02:23:55.000 How different was the feeling?

02:23:56.000 Where everybody was like smiling to each other and saying hi on the street afterwards?

02:24:00.000 The elevators.

02:24:01.000 I mean, I did the initial reporting for Portugal, for Portuguese television that day.

02:24:06.000 Um I was at Columbia University's journalism school.

02:24:09.000 I just moved to New York a month before.

02:24:12.000 Oh wow.

02:24:12.000 Yeah.

02:24:13.000 And I think it's where were you living?

02:24:15.000 I was living on uh seventy-second on Broadway.

02:24:18.000 So you're Upper West.

02:24:18.000 Okay.

02:24:20.000 Pretty far away from the actual.

02:24:23.000 Did you go down?

02:24:24.000 Yes, so I didn't go to ground zero, but I went to midtown to the rooftop of this building where everybody was doing sort of the s satellite life feed, so you had journalists from all over the world.

02:24:34.000 Meanwhile, I was 24, 25 years old.

02:24:37.000 I'm like zero experience doing a live feed.

02:24:39.000 I was just I just moved to the United States.

02:24:42.000 It's actually it's an interesting story how I even got to the US because you know I applied for Columbia University three times.

02:24:48.000 The first time I was not accepted, the second time I was put in a wait list and didn't get accepted.

02:24:52.000 The third time I flew to New York and I knocked on the dean's door.

02:24:56.000 And I explained, I'm Portuguese.

02:24:57.000 I really want to come to this university.

02:24:58.000 I want to be a journalist in America.

02:25:00.000 And he sat me down, we spoke for uh an hour, and that year I was accepted.

02:25:05.000 That's amazing.

02:25:06.000 That's amazing that you could do that.

02:25:07.000 Trevor Burrus, Jr.

02:25:08.000 And it taught me my first big important lesson in journalism, which is persistence.

02:25:14.000 Don't be afraid to get no's because I mean what's the worst that can happen, right?

02:25:17.000 Yeah.

02:25:18.000 And uh but uh a month after this, I'm in New York, I'm sleeping in the morning, and I start getting phone calls.

02:25:25.000 And I was sleeping that late because I'd been studying until really n late that night the night before.

02:25:30.000 And the first phone I pick up uh was um my television station that I'd worked for in Portugal.

02:25:36.000 I'd done an internship there and worked there.

02:25:38.000 And they called me and said, Hey, turn on your television.

02:25:41.000 And uh it was when the second uh the f the first tower had collapsed, and they said, turn on a television and see what's happening.

02:25:47.000 I had no idea this was happening.

02:25:49.000 And they said, we need you to go to Midtown and do the we have no Portuguese journalists in Manhattan.

02:25:54.000 They're all our journalists are in DC or they are outside of Manhattan, Manhattan had been locked down.

02:25:58.000 You need to go down and do the live reporting for us of what's happening.

02:26:02.000 And on and suddenly my cell phone started ringing, and it was my mother who was crying and begging me not to leave the house.

02:26:09.000 And uh and I was I had to explain to her mom, this is like my dream is to become a journalist as part of my job, and I I have to go.

02:26:16.000 Anyway, an hour later, I was at the rooftop of this building surrounded by all these journalist heroes of mine that I grew up watching on live television and shaking, I was so so nervous.

02:26:26.000 Um I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to put to words together.

02:26:30.000 So nervous.

02:26:31.000 And uh I ended up doing my live report and it all went well and I was ecstatic.

02:26:36.000 I was like, oh my god, I did it, I did it.

02:26:36.000 I was so happy.

02:26:38.000 I have a future in this profession that I really want to be a journalist, and this is great.

02:26:42.000 And then I will never forget, and I get emotional every time I talk about this.

02:26:45.000 But I will never forget.

02:26:47.000 We're just walking down to the streets and uh it's every time I talk about this, but and seeing the first um people looking for their loved ones, right?

02:26:58.000 And it's like the posters with the faces of the husbands and the children and not knowing where they were.

02:27:05.000 And that moment totally changed my life because it was okay.

02:27:11.000 It was a moment that I yeah, first of all, realization like what the fuck?

02:27:16.000 This is not about you, and this is about something so much bigger that's happening where so many people are affected by this.

02:27:24.000 And it was a moment also that I realized that the kind of journalism that I wanted to do was um try to understand why this sort of evil happens in the world and how do things like this exist.

02:27:37.000 And uh a year after I graduated from Columbia, I moved to the Middle East and I enrolled in the University of Damascus in Syria to learn Arabic and to try to um do my I did my first story as a freelance journalist about the jihadis who were crossing to Iraq to fight against the Americans.

02:27:53.000 That was the first story I ever did as a freelance journalist.

02:27:56.000 And uh and so yeah, so I was I was there on 9-11 and uh um remember after reporting and going, you know, to school and going up to my building and meeting strangers on the streets and everybody was just like looking at each other and hugging each other.

02:28:15.000 And there was like so much love and support.

02:28:18.000 Um, it lasted for months.

02:28:19.000 And it lasted for months.

02:28:20.000 And it was really beautiful, and everybody came together and it was a beautiful, beautiful thing.

02:28:24.000 And everybody went right back to being a free.

02:28:26.000 And everybody went back to this.

02:28:27.000 Yeah.

02:28:28.000 Which is yeah, which is me against you, you know, which is so sad.

02:28:32.000 Well, for just that one brief moment I realized like for that during that time when everybody had that American flag on their car and they were driving around with it.

02:28:40.000 In LA.

02:28:41.000 Yeah.

02:28:41.000 Which is like one of the most unpatriotic places in the country.

02:28:44.000 They all had American flags in their car.

02:28:46.000 It was it was a crazy moment, and I realized like, oh, this is possible to unite us.

02:28:52.000 Like we don't have to be in this stupid mindset.

02:28:55.000 But why does it take something terrible?

02:28:56.000 Why does it take a tragedy for us to be united?

02:28:59.000 Aaron Powell And and the you know what's so sad is that 3,000 people died on that day, right?

02:29:03.000 Um I'm gonna bring it back to drug and alcohol addiction.

02:29:06.000 3,000 people die every single week in America from addiction, from drug and alcohol addiction.

02:29:11.000 These crises are happening every day.

02:29:13.000 And like, yes, let's actually unite to do some good and to try to solve problems instead of, you know, dividing to try to figure out, you know, how to hate more another person.

02:29:26.000 Yeah.

02:29:27.000 And how to separate us all.

02:29:29.000 Yeah.

02:29:30.000 Yeah, I mean you know that and I know that, and we both live that way.

02:29:34.000 Like we're gonna talk in circles about this.

02:29:36.000 What's going on?

02:29:37.000 Why can't the We can get the rest of the world on board? 0.94

02:29:40.000 We need to get people to stop paying attention to all this shit.

02:29:43.000 And just learn how to be nicer.

02:29:43.000 Right.

02:29:45.000 Trevor Burrus, Jr.

02:29:46.000 I agree.

02:29:46.000 Right.

02:29:47.000 I mean you don't have much time in this life.

02:29:51.000 Doesn't last as long as you think it does.

02:29:53.000 No.

02:29:53.000 Trevor Burrus, Jr.

02:29:54.000 And just have empathy.

02:29:55.000 It's my main message all this.

02:29:56.000 It's just like try to place yourself in somebody else's shoes.

02:29:59.000 Don't be quick to judge.

02:30:01.000 Like actually try to understand why these migrants are coming to this country, why these you know people are carrying drugs on their backs and excruciating difficult work and dangerous work. 1.00

02:30:10.000 Why are they doing it?

02:30:12.000 Instead, and why are people scamming?

02:30:13.000 Right.

02:30:14.000 You know, try to understand why they're doing what they do.

02:30:16.000 And once you understand the root causes, then you can actually make a difference and try to change that and actually have an impact.

02:30:23.000 Absolutely.

02:30:24.000 Which is much harder.

02:30:25.000 Much harder to try to solve it that way.

02:30:25.000 Right.

02:30:27.000 Trevor Burrus, Jr.

02:30:28.000 Yeah, much harder.

02:30:29.000 Well, it's it's hard for people to have empathy too.

02:30:31.000 Some people, especially as they're just tired all the time and exhausted and they're unhealthy and their life sucks, and they just want other people like fuck and they don't see those people.

02:30:40.000 They don't feel it.

02:30:42.000 They need a Martin Luther King.

02:30:43.000 Yeah.

02:30:43.000 They need a James Telarico.

02:30:45.000 Trevor Burrus, Jr.

02:30:45.000 Well, we need someone like that for sure.

02:30:47.000 We need someone who's got uh someone who is a powerful speaker too.

02:30:52.000 Like they have to be charismatic that has uh a message of nonviolence and love.

02:30:58.000 Because it's really the only way.

02:31:00.000 You uh you you don't get anything from violence other than more violence.

02:31:04.000 You know.

02:31:05.000 Unless you're the the biggest, baddest bully, and then you squash everything around you and great now you're a dictator.

02:31:10.000 Right.

02:31:10.000 It's not good for any of us.

02:31:12.000 Not no, it doesn't.

02:31:13.000 It's contrary to what we're supposed to be about in the first place.

02:31:16.000 This is supposed to be the united states of America.

02:31:19.000 We're supposed to be a community.

02:31:21.000 I don't think that LA is the most unpat un patriotic.

02:31:23.000 I know you don't like LA.

02:31:24.000 I still live there.

02:31:25.000 And I know you don't like it, but I disagree that it's unpatriotic.

02:31:29.000 What do you think it is?

02:31:30.000 Why would you say it's unpatriotic?

02:31:32.000 California is an incredible state.

02:31:34.000 If you have a r of American flag uh in front of your house, people will call you racist.

02:31:39.000 That's a fact.

02:31:44.000 Uh there's there's a lot of indoctrinated young kids.

02:31:47.000 And th those people are assholes and not they're they're as full as hate as the other thing.

02:31:47.000 Perhaps.

02:31:52.000 You don't get that in Texas.

02:31:54.000 Right.

02:31:54.000 But you you also have places in America where if you have an LGBTQ flag on the front of your door, you're called thoughts of other things.

02:32:00.000 Right.

02:32:00.000 Yeah.

02:32:00.000 Sure.

02:32:01.000 So that goes both ways.

02:32:02.000 Well, that's not necessarily patriotism.

02:32:05.000 That's just being an intolerant asshole.

02:32:07.000 But I think that the real problem with Los Angeles is the government and the fact that they want to ignore the rampant fraud and the fact that everything is so overregulated, it's impossible to get permits for things, so industry's leaving.

02:32:21.000 The over taxing.

02:32:24.000 Have you read Ezra Klein's book about the No I have not.

02:32:27.000 I haven't read the book yet, but I've heard him giving a bunch of interviews about about it.

02:32:31.000 Um he's getting attacked for it now.

02:32:33.000 People are saying he's leaning right, which is hilarious.

02:32:36.000 Trevor Burrus, Jr.

02:32:36.000 But it's about how if you're he's a Democrat, as you know.

02:32:40.000 Um but how Democrats have to figure out how to make the system work or and and and and how to build things and how to and not do what you were saying, create all these limits and these problems for like building houses in the palisades and also the problem is that Democrats are the Democrats of 2025, not the Democrats of 1994.

02:33:00.000 If you go back to the Democrats and Bill Clinton was president, it was a totally different thing.

02:33:05.000 Like Bill Clinton's if you hear him talk, he sounds like a populist that is uh like going after criminals.

02:33:13.000 Pre-pro America.

02:33:14.000 Like it's so it's like that's what everybody can get aboard with.

02:33:16.000 It's like that's the the real problem is these ideologies shift with special interests and money and funding and propaganda and then they become something unrecognizable.

02:33:27.000 They become something that supports war. 0.73

02:33:29.000 That becomes something that suppresses free speech.

02:33:32.000 They become something that was like entirely in direct opposition to what it would have been in nineteen eighty five.

02:33:38.000 It's like of course not all but this is the same problem because it's like if you decide I'm a right winger, you're supposed to take in all of that.

02:33:50.000 You're supposed to like like w that guy said to my friend like you gotta support the party.

02:33:54.000 Right.

02:33:55.000 There's the only way you gotta get them on your side.

02:33:57.000 And like what even if I don't agree at all with what they say I have to bite my tongue because I'm a part of a gang now?

02:34:04.000 Fuck off.

02:34:04.000 Right.

02:34:05.000 And that's the problem is that we only have two stupid parties.

02:34:09.000 And huge problem.

02:34:10.000 Yeah.

02:34:10.000 I mean you do have liberty I've voted libertarian twice.

02:34:13.000 But y uh it's kind of like fuck these people I'm gonna vote for nothing.

02:34:19.000 Right.

02:34:19.000 You know that it's never going to win.

02:34:21.000 Right.

02:34:21.000 Which is crazy to say but that is kind of what it is.

02:34:25.000 Right.

02:34:26.000 You know and then you see other countries that have like six, seven the majority of European countries.

02:34:32.000 The Netherlands that have multiple parties and you know obviously there's division but there's nothing like the division that exists in the US right now.

02:34:42.000 It's well that's the negative aspect of social media I believe.

02:34:46.000 I believe it's ramping up people and it's it's pushing the divide even further.

02:34:51.000 But what I'm hoping is that this is a growing pain and that we'll sort through this and and under but we need nonviolent leaders that are very intelligent that also make sense to both people which I do think is possible.

02:35:06.000 Both groups both ideologically captured sides which I do think is possible. 0.66

02:35:11.000 Because in the middle is where we all live in the middle is where I live we all want safety we all want education we all want fairness we all want to make sure that no one's polluting and good access to resources and a chance to make a life for yourself and pursue your dreams.

02:35:29.000 That's what we all want all that other stuff is just dividing points.

02:35:33.000 One of the things I had Rep Luna on the podcast we were talking about something and she said they don't want to fix this issue because they can fund their campaign with it.

02:35:43.000 Aaron Ross Powell of course I mean that's immigration to what isn't that crazy that politicians will fail to resolve an issue on purpose because they want to raise funds by campaigning on this issue.

02:35:56.000 It is disgusting yeah but it's so gross that is un American that's that's truly evil truly evil yeah and when she said I was like oh I didn't think of that. 0.62

02:36:06.000 But I kind of did but I didn't want to believe it.

02:36:08.000 And then coming out of someone's mouth who works in government I'm like oh fuck.

02:36:12.000 Right.

02:36:13.000 If you stand for a cause right and that and and you're seen as the person that can potentially solve that problem.

02:36:19.000 Yeah.

02:36:19.000 And then that problem goes away then you don't have a platform to stand on.

02:36:23.000 So a lot of times you don't want to solve that problem.

02:36:27.000 And I think in many ways that's what immigration has been because it is not possible that we have the broken immigration system that we have we have the backlog of people trying to become to get papers like who can't we don't have a a a way for people want to come to this country legally to come to this country legally it's you know and and and it's been decades and decades of this and we haven't been able to figure out how to solve this problem it has to be because it benefits all politicians.

02:36:54.000 That this is hasn't been solved, right?

02:36:56.000 Well another very high level politician told me once I can't remember if he said on the podcast I don't want to say his name but that he had a conversation with a man who is a CEO of a large corporation and said he was very opposed to um tightening up the border because he needs the illegal immigrants for the workforce.

02:37:16.000 Like yo like so that's part of it too.

02:37:19.000 They want cheap labor.

02:37:20.000 Right.

02:37:20.000 Yeah because it helps their bottom line which is like oh God.

02:37:25.000 Yeah.

02:37:26.000 Oh God.

02:37:27.000 And as long as those people don't have paperwork, they have to shut the fuck up they can't demand better work rights. 1.00

02:37:32.000 They can't Yeah.

02:37:34.000 Which is a problem also now with the raids is that a lot of violence is happening, you know.

02:37:38.000 Even if it's rapes or domestic abuse and people are just even if they're going through this, they're not gonna call the police because they're afraid of being deported.

02:37:45.000 They're scared of gonna get deported.

02:37:47.000 Yeah.

02:37:48.000 I know.

02:37:49.000 It's like boy.

02:37:51.000 It's an overcorrection after overcorrection.

02:37:54.000 You know without actually fixing the fucking thing.

02:37:56.000 Left and right and left and right.

02:37:58.000 And that's where you get real cynical.

02:38:00.000 You're like, I think these people like it like this.

02:38:02.000 Yeah.

02:38:03.000 I think they like all this crazy shit.

02:38:04.000 Yeah.

02:38:05.000 It's difficult not to get cynical, right?

02:38:06.000 And I I actually it's to me it's always heartbreaking when you hear people saying that they don't vote or they don't really like they're not into politics.

02:38:13.000 They don't they don't care about what's happening because politicians are all the same and they don't they're completely disengaged, and to me that's heartbreaking.

02:38:20.000 It is heartbreaking.

02:38:21.000 Yeah, that's taking the pa power away from people, right. 0.99

02:38:24.000 The other thing you think uh the about these d dark times is they call for people to rise up.

02:38:30.000 Like not I mean like rise up against the machine and rebel.

02:38:33.000 I mean like they call for a hero.

02:38:35.000 And that's what we always h hope for.

02:38:37.000 We're like, maybe there's one person's gonna figure this out.

02:38:39.000 Maybe there's gonna be this person that emerges, this real leader.

02:38:43.000 And they're looking at the Democratic Party and they're like No.

02:38:43.000 Right.

02:38:48.000 There's someone there.

02:38:49.000 Well, who's it gonna be?

02:38:50.000 I don't think Taller Rico's trying to run for president.

02:38:53.000 So outside of him, who who really makes sense?

02:38:55.000 Well you got a bunch of people that are just politicians, politics as usual.

02:39:00.000 And then once they get inside, you have a bunch of cowards on the Republican side that even when they're seeing this stuff happening, even though we know that they don't agree with it.

02:39:10.000 They aren't they're too afraid to t to speak out.

02:39:13.000 And they're all inside of trading.

02:39:15.000 Yeah.

02:39:16.000 All of them on top of that.

02:39:17.000 They're all making it's crazy.

02:39:18.000 You see, they're making 170,000 a year.

02:39:21.000 They get into office within a couple of years they're worth 10 million.

02:39:24.000 They're worth 15 million.

02:39:25.000 And you look at it, it's all stock trades.

02:39:26.000 Like, this is bananas.

02:39:29.000 That this is legal.

02:39:31.000 You motherfuckers put Martha Quinn in jail. 1.00

02:39:34.000 Put Martha Quinn in jail. 0.72

02:39:38.000 Martha Stewart, you mean Oh, they say Martha Quinn?

02:39:41.000 That's the MTV VJ.

02:39:42.000 Martha Stewart.

02:39:42.000 Sorry, Martha.

02:39:43.000 I love Martha Stewart's.

02:39:44.000 Martha Stewart.

02:39:45.000 I feel like I'm not sure.

02:39:45.000 That's so funny.

02:39:46.000 I really want to have her on my podcast.

02:39:47.000 Oh yeah.

02:39:48.000 She's a badass lady. 1.00

02:39:49.000 Um but they put her in jail. 1.00

02:39:51.000 They put Martha Stewart in jail. 0.56

02:39:53.000 I know beloved by her.

02:39:55.000 Have you watched the doc?

02:39:56.000 No.

02:39:57.000 No, she's quite a lot. 0.99

02:40:00.000 But you also have to be quite a lot to become that person.

02:40:02.000 You know, that's how it's how you become that person.

02:40:04.000 She's a proud bitch and I love her. 1.00

02:40:06.000 Yeah, I mean that's it's kind of funny.

02:40:08.000 You know.

02:40:08.000 But that's you could say the same thing about a lot of people that are very famous.

02:40:12.000 Um listen, it's always great to talk to you.

02:40:16.000 I really appreciate you coming here and you do amazing work.

02:40:18.000 You really do.

02:40:19.000 It's so courageous and so necessary.

02:40:23.000 And I think you provide a window into various aspects of of life on this planet that otherwise people would not have access to.

02:40:31.000 Thank you.

02:40:32.000 And I hope the podcast will be the continuation of that.

02:40:34.000 I'm sure it will be.

02:40:35.000 I'm sure it will be.

02:40:36.000 So um the hidden third.

02:40:39.000 Thanks for the case.

02:40:40.000 And uh it is available on YouTube.

02:40:42.000 Is it available everywhere?

02:40:43.000 Everywhere.

02:40:44.000 Everywhere.

02:40:45.000 Who's this first guy you have here?

02:40:47.000 Fabian Alamar is an amazing guy.

02:40:49.000 That's the retired FBI agent that I spoke with.

02:40:52.000 You should listen to that.

02:40:53.000 What is it about he's the guy who went after the pill mills in Florida who was doing his investigation at the same time as I was doing.

02:40:58.000 And then Fabian Alamar is a great guy.

02:41:00.000 And he he's a for Oh, this is a former skater, did nine years in prison.

02:41:04.000 Uh two he he was sentenced to seven years in prison for kidnapping and beating the shit out of this guy who supposedly he was on math high very high on crack, actually, very high on crack.

02:41:14.000 Anyway, he beat the shit out of this guy who supposedly allegedly had raped his sister, but beat the shit kept him in a trunk, beat the shit out of him, was arrested for seven years and then did two more years because he c he almost killed a child molester in prison.

02:41:27.000 But basically did a whole 180.

02:41:29.000 Um is now an actor on the Mayans, has an incredible life story.

02:41:33.000 He was brought up by gangs, his family member were all gang members, they're all their time in prison, but has done an whole one eighty is now involved in an until it was that show with the guy the bikers.

02:41:44.000 Oh, it's a biker gangster. 0.99

02:41:45.000 He also did that show that uh uh with uh evil on Goria, the hot chili, what was it called?

02:41:51.000 That flaming hot movie in that movie.

02:41:54.000 Anyway, he's become an actor, but also very involved, a pro skater and also very involved in anti recidivism.

02:41:59.000 And then another guy we had on was Mike Boyer.

02:42:01.000 Do you you know Matt Boyer?

02:42:03.000 He was uh you should have him on.

02:42:04.000 He's in prison right now.

02:42:05.000 We interviewed him a week before he went to prison, actually.

02:42:08.000 He's a guy in the Otani scandal.

02:42:10.000 Baseball, the baseball, the Altani scandal.

02:42:12.000 I don't know that scandal.

02:42:13.000 Do you know it, Jamie?

02:42:14.000 Yeah.

02:42:14.000 What happened?

02:42:15.000 So you know Otani?

02:42:16.000 Yeah.

02:42:17.000 Beg biggest, most well-known, most successful, I don't know term I don't know.

02:42:23.000 Baseball.

02:42:24.000 Sports talk about the best player, baseball player ever, apparently.

02:42:29.000 Uh he's in the Dodgers.

02:42:31.000 He was signed up for the Dodgers.

02:42:33.000 It turns out that his translator, who is also his best friend, because Otani is Japanese and doesn't speak fluent or doesn't speak English.

02:42:40.000 So he has a translator who's also his best friend in the US, was with him 24-7, had a gambling problem.

02:42:46.000 And the bookie in this gambling problem was a guy called Matt Boyer, fascinating guy.

02:42:50.000 Grew up in Orange County and built it.

02:42:53.000 And and by I mean, making millions of dollars as a b as an illegal bookie, flying private jets, like betting insane amounts of money himself.

02:43:02.000 He's also an a uh gambling addict, but was like had high, you know, athletes from all over and important and celebrities, basically placing bets with him instead of placing them online, they placed them with him.

02:43:15.000 Um but all illegal.

02:43:17.000 And it was found out just before he was about to sign for the Dodgers, the Otani, that while they were investigating a casino in Vegas, they came across this bookie, and with through this bookie they found out that Otani's translator and possibly they thought initially maybe Otani was illegally betting.

02:43:38.000 This is a guy that stands to make millions for the Dodgers for all the companies that he sponsors.

02:43:43.000 So this was a fucking massive deal.

02:43:45.000 And uh it turns out that Otani was not the one betting, that it was his translator.

02:43:51.000 Matt Boyer, who's at the center of the scandal, believes that Otani knew that he had a that his friend and translator had a betting sc uh gambling problem.

02:44:02.000 Um but um he came out and said he had no idea.

02:44:06.000 And uh, you know, nobody wanted this problem on their hands for the amount of money that you you could lose.

02:44:12.000 And uh and so they basically the guy came out saying initially he said that Otani knew, the translator said Otani knew, and then he came out and said actually Yotani had no idea and I lied, and now he's also in prison.

02:44:25.000 But Matt Boyer is now serving uh I believe it's uh seven or something months in prison.

02:44:30.000 And uh illegal gambling.

02:44:33.000 For illegal for being a bookie, yeah, for money laundering and he was I think it was something like forty million dollars.

02:44:42.000 Yeah, okay, yeah, much more.

02:44:43.000 His losses were around.

02:44:45.000 19,000 bets boy, that guy was hooked between September twenty-one and January twenty twenty four.

02:44:51.000 His winnings amassed to be over a hundred and forty-two million.

02:44:54.000 Whoa.

02:44:55.000 He won over 142 million, which he kept for himself.

02:44:58.000 His losses were around 183 million.

02:45:00.000 Oh he lost 40 million million dollars that he still ow owes Matt Boyer, by the way.

02:45:06.000 He only he only g I mean his main bookie was this guy.

02:45:10.000 Oh my god, he must have been gambling so high.

02:45:12.000 It's insane.

02:45:13.000 That's the thing.

02:45:15.000 And he couldn't stop.

02:45:16.000 And Matt talks about like this guy, I would text said he would like he'd be down on a place and he says, let's double that, let's triple that.

02:45:23.000 He was always sort of chasing that dopamine hype.

02:45:26.000 It is a crazy addiction.

02:45:27.000 It's the secret, it's the hidden addiction as they call it.

02:45:30.000 Because you can be a completely you can have a job.

02:45:33.000 You can be a working addict, and nobody will ever know that you have a massive gambling problem.

02:45:38.000 And until it all comes from the same thing.

02:45:42.000 It is a crazy one.

02:45:44.000 Yeah, because you because the dopamine, it's really interesting because you get the hit of dopamine whether you lose or win.

02:45:50.000 So you're always getting that dopamine hit.

02:45:52.000 Did you see uncut gems?

02:45:53.000 Uh I did uh yes, I didn't think.

02:45:56.000 The best representation of a gambling addict I've ever seen in a film.

02:45:59.000 Like watching that film gave me anxiety.

02:46:01.000 I was like, oh my god, don't do it.

02:46:02.000 Don't do that.

02:46:03.000 Don't do that.

02:46:04.000 I know.

02:46:05.000 It's so anathema to who I am too that I always get so nervous, like, don't find people do this.

02:46:10.000 I know.

02:46:11.000 It's but I I've been around a lot of those people.

02:46:13.000 You know, um when I was in my early 20s, I spent a lot of time in pool halls.

02:46:17.000 And I was around a lot of gambling addicts, and I was just fascinated by it.

02:46:20.000 People that would go from the track to the pool hall.

02:46:23.000 So they would go to the racetrack all day, gamble on the races, and then go to you know, maybe off-track betting, Bet there, and then they go to the pool hall, bet there, try to get a poker game, bet there, try to go to Atlantic City on the weekend, bet there, yeah.

02:46:38.000 Just full-on gambling junkies, their whole life revolved around gambling.

02:46:43.000 They didn't care about anything else.

02:46:48.000 They were like a full-on meth head that was just chasing the high.

02:46:51.000 I mean, there was no thought of, hey, I don't have any money and I'm 40.

02:46:55.000 There was nothing like that.

02:46:56.000 It was just there was no it was just I'm in this and this is what I'm doing.

02:47:00.000 I need to I need to win.

02:47:02.000 Right.

02:47:03.000 Yeah, it's crazy.

02:47:04.000 Yeah.

02:47:06.000 It's terrifying.

02:47:06.000 It's really, really terrifying.

02:47:10.000 And unlike other addictions, there's no government program out there to help you.

02:47:14.000 And now we're making betting legal.

02:47:16.000 Sports betting is now legal in the majority of states.

02:47:19.000 So it's like we're and you know, we've got ESPN and all these big companies making money from it.

02:47:25.000 I know, but I'm not opposed to that.

02:47:27.000 Here's the th because I don't have a gambling problem.

02:47:29.000 So if like I I agree that you the problem is not that you're making money from the betting, but then knowing that gambling is a problem and that there is addiction, then you should be able, you have to, it is your responsibility to set aside some money to try to figure out how to address the problem of addiction and gambling.

02:47:46.000 Yeah, but I don't think there has been an established solution for gambling addiction.

02:47:51.000 I think some people are gonna fall by the wayside and they've always been that way.

02:47:56.000 It's like I'm not a gambling addict, but like say if there's a boxing match and like it's Terrence Crawford versus Canelo Alvarez, I'm like, I think Terrence Crawford's gonna beat the odds.

02:48:04.000 I think he's gonna be them.

02:48:06.000 That's what I was saying before the fight.

02:48:07.000 But if I did, I would have bet but I would have bet a couple hundred bucks or something, maybe a thousand.

02:48:07.000 No, I didn't.

02:48:12.000 Right.

02:48:13.000 You know?

02:48:13.000 Yeah.

02:48:14.000 Um and I think the odds are I mean it might have been like two to one for Canelo.

02:48:19.000 So you would have made uh two thousand bucks on a thousand.

02:48:23.000 Right.

02:48:23.000 Uh but I don't have a problem with gambling.

02:48:28.000 You know, so it's not I think it should be legal, just like I think alcohol should be legal.

02:48:33.000 I think you should be able to go to a store and buy alcohol.

02:48:35.000 You know, I think most drugs should be legal.

02:48:38.000 I think the real problem is the fact that they're illegal, which means you're getting them from cartels, you know.

02:48:43.000 And but then there's a dilemma of how do you change that?

02:48:47.000 Like would you just rip off the band-aid and make everything legal and then you become Portland for a few years, the whole country's fucked, and how many people die of overdoses because of that?

02:48:56.000 Like that's an unfortunate.

02:49:01.000 They were also super kooky.

02:49:02.000 It's a super kooky place to live anyway.

02:49:05.000 Keep Portland weird.

02:49:06.000 Well, Mariana, I appreciate you very much.

02:49:08.000 And uh when you're done with the scammer thing, come back.

02:49:11.000 Well, please.

02:49:12.000 I need to hear everything.

02:49:13.000 Okay.

02:49:14.000 All right.

02:49:15.000 One more time, the show is called The Hidden Third.

02:49:19.000 The Hidden Third.

02:49:20.000 It's on YouTube on uh youtube.com slash Mariana Van Zeller, and we've got two episodes already that premiere this week, and it's a weekly podcast.

02:49:27.000 So new episodes all the time.

02:49:29.000 And you can also get it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

02:49:34.000 All right.

02:49:34.000 Good luck with that.

02:49:35.000 Thank you.

02:49:35.000 Thanks for being here.

The Joe Rogan Experience - October 17, 2025

Joe Rogan Experience #2395 - Mariana van Zeller

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