Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - Krystal and Saagar Interview JOE ROGAN On Politics, Art Of Podcasting & More!

Episode Date: June 17, 2021

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Hello, everyone. It's Sagar and Jetty. Crystal is already on her way back to DC, but I wanted to make sure that those of you who are new here know what we are all about at Breaking Points. Our mission is to create a new media which aims to make everybody hate each other less and the corrupt ruling class more. Joe Rogan has been a formative force on both of us, and we are so lucky to have his support when we left the Hill and became 100% independent of the corporate media. Every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, Crystal and I do a show which is breaking down

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And with that, enjoy the show. All right. All right. You ready, Joe? Yes. Thank you so much for letting us turn the tables on you. My pleasure. Appreciate it.

We're here, Joe. How are you? I'm nervous. Get ready. Oh, no. So appropriate for our show, we wanted to start by asking you like, how do you think about your political philosophy and who do you consider to be some of the influences on how you think about those things? My political philosophy is very mixed, right? It's like, I, I, I like a lot of different people's ideas, but ultimately all I really want is what's better for people. You know, I don't really have a vested interest in business. I'm not looking to like protect assets or anything weird. And I want

people to have freedom. So I, in, in all ways, you know, and I think that, uh, when I look at politics, I look at like these utopian concepts about like what's possible. And then I look at what's, uh, what we have going on right now. And I, you know, I wonder. Joe, what are some of the formative political experiences of your life? Well, I mean, I remember the first time I really got interested in politics was when Ronald Reagan couldn't remember whether or not he sold arms to Iran. Iran-Contra. Yeah. I was like 21 years old, 20, 21 years old. And I remember thinking like, what is happening? Because I always thought of

presidents as you have a leader and this leader is trying to do the best for the country and we all respect the office of the president. And back then that was really the case. Like back then in the 1980s, there was way less inflammatory rhetoric. There was a lot of people that didn't like Reagan, but the level of I don't like Reagan was never like the level of I don't like Trump. Or now, currently, Obama, or Biden rather, is senile. There's a disrespect of Biden that didn't exist back then. And as a young man trying to figure out what was going on in the world, seeing that there's this guy who's clearly lying about selling weapons to someone who hates him.

There was a guy named Jimmy Tingle. He's a hilarious comedian out of Boston. And he had a great bit about this that he would do in a heavy Boston accent. He goes, Mr. President, if you ever sell arms to people who hate us in the future, jot it down. He goes, put it on a post-it note. Stick it on your refrigerator. Do you know who Jimmy Tegel is? No, I didn't know who he was. He was a great political comedian. It was him and Barry Crimmins and Jimmy Credico. There was a few of these guys that were like really politically aware comics.

Barry Crimmins in particular, who was really the head of the, like if there was a godfather of Boston comedy, it was Barry Crimmins because he was the most intelligent, he was the most intelligent. He was the most well-read, the most politically aware. And he would be involved in a lot of like political demonstrations and all these different things.

And he was kind of the guy who kept the Boston comedians honest. He kept them from being hacks. And he was just a very, very politically aware guy. And Jimmy Tingle was aligned with him. He was one of those guys as well who initially started out as just a regular comic and then became much more of a political comic and then ultimately became a guy. I don't think he does really comedy shows as much as he does like one man shows. tingles, tingles bits about it. Maybe think about it a lot. And then watching, you know, the Oliver North thing on television and,

and the Contras and the Nicaraguas and all that stuff. And then eventually when I did the podcast later, getting to interview Rick Ross, the real Rick Ross, not the rapper, the real Rick Ross, who the rapper named himself after, who is the guy who was selling coke in South Central, making millions and millions of dollars to fund the Contras. And he didn't know. He had no idea what was going on. He had no idea. He thought he was just like so slick that he could stay operated. He literally did not know that he was being, that they were allowing him to do this and so when you pulled

that thread like from that Reagan moment was that like led to more skepticism of politicians led for you to think that they're all liars or it's corrupt or sort of like where did that thread lead well I think is you know when you're a 20 year old 21 year old person your brain's not really fully formed so you think a lot of like scrambled thoughts. And I, I think I was too busy with my own life to spend too much time thinking about politics, but I was super aware that it's not what I thought it was, which was like one of the themes of my life. Like as I got older, more aware, like, Oh, everybody pretends that this makes sense. This doesn't make any sense. Like, Oh, everybody pretends that this makes sense this doesn't make any sense like oh everybody pretends that there's a system in place it's like really like uh it's it's well-meaning and it's

really fair and it's uh it's it's going to benefit everybody it's that's it took a while to slowly unpeel the onion you know and that was probably one of the first things was seeing reagan say that was reagan sort of like spoiled the illusion it was just so obviously bullshit people always ask they're like what does joe believe and i'm like look i think it's like a skepticism of power that's like the bedrock thing and so reagan was the genesis of that because if like if i were to throw a thread through all like your takes on politics it's always something along the lines of i'm not sure if i believe what that person is saying yeah like is that where it comes from he was the first guy that i realized

was the president but also full of shit i was like that's a seminal moment honestly no yeah for me i remember right yeah i remember watching there was a something on television about nixon about how you know watergate and oh my god he you know bugged the the opposition and what a terrible person and but then you know different people came along and Gerald Ford was this bumbling guy and then Jimmy Carter was like this really sweet guy but couldn't really get the job done in terms of like getting the hostages released from Iran yeah and then all of a sudden Reagan comes along and it's all you know win one for the gipper and everybody's all rah rah america and then you know this was all when i was young and as i was 2021 the whole nicaragua contra thing

and the sendinistas and watching that on television going what the hell is going on like this is the president the president he fucking remembers yeah i never think of that he fucking remembers he's lying right of that. He fucking remembers. He's lying. Right. Maybe he didn't honestly because he was getting Alzheimer's, but most likely. Yeah. No, he fucking.

He remembers. He fucking remembers. Is it uncomfortable for you how much unintentional power you have in the political sphere? Yeah, it's weird. It's totally unintentional. That's why it's weird. It was not. There's no planning of any of this. It's just talking to people. I still don't understand why it's so popular. I don't get it. I know a lot of other people do you into the game. What do you think they're doing wrong relative to you? Like, what are you doing right? Like what, what is the secret sauce of JRE? I don't know. So, well then what do you see? I don't think about

it too much. What do you see other people doing that's wrong? Cause people ask me, they're like, well, you've been on Rogan. Like he says, he just shows up and I'm like, yeah, he might say that, but it's very clear to me that you're an extremely, like a very good practitioner of conversation, knowing when to interject, knowing when to say silent, knowing when to move something forward, knowing when to bring something around, being like, oh, I'm familiar with this person. Let me interject this, this at this time. It may seem artless, but it's definitely not. So like, is that something that you learned? Is it a comedian skill? Cause I see,

I listened to some comedy podcasts and frankly, they're not as good. Um, some are decent. When I see you, I see somebody endless curiosity. Is it innate in your personality? Is it a learned phenomenon?

It's both. I've always been curious, but I've learned how to be more effectively curious as I've gotten older. This podcast has been a massive education for me, an unintended, accidental education. The fact that I've been able to talk to so many interesting and intelligent people and get their perspectives and just sit across from them uninterrupted for hours at a time and get to see how their brain works and then to consider my own brain. And then, you know, in the beginning, there was a lot of bad podcasts. They didn't go that well. I wasn't that good at it. And I didn't think, first of all, I didn't think anybody was listening. I remember the moment I realized people were listening. I was at a sold out show at the Chicago theater and I was

on stage and, uh, I was doing this bit and, uh, it was, it had something to do with the podcast. And I said, how many of you guys listen to the podcast? And the place went, yeah. What year was this? Maybe 2011. Whoa. So it was like two years in. That's wild. Because I'm thinking in the podcast, as a podcast historian or whatever,

that was like the Marc Maron era, right? Like that's when I remember Marc Maron was like a thing. And I was like, what is going on with Marc? Like Obama went on Marc Maron, which was like crazy. And I remember being like, man, there's something going on in this, this space. But then it's like, you would not only eclipsed Maron, like you became this, probably this, I would say one of the single most influential people in American life. And so like, when do you think that transition happened for you? I know you haven't changed your, your like affect or anything, but like, when do you think that was? I'm not sure. Yeah.

Does it, does it get into your, does it, you were saying like, you don't think about why it's successful. Is that sort of intentional? Yes yes because I feel like part of why what's continues to be compelling is that you don't bring to it all of this weight of like a lot of people are listening I gotta be really careful and I gotta really watch what I which can be a beautiful thing and it can also get you in trouble at times but is that sort of like lack of digging into what's made it successful and the type of impact it could have or does have is that sort of like lack of digging into what's made it successful and the type of impact it could have or does have is that an intentional strategy to keep it kind of what it is it's not an intentional strategy it's probably a survival technique because if i did stop and think it's

like if i read all my twitter mentions i'd probably go fucking crazy if i just put out one tenth and i had to stop reading because i was going fucking crazy. You can't do it. And if I if I paid attention to all of it, I wouldn't be able to do any of the things that I do because then I wouldn't be able to think about those things because I'd be thinking about my impact or my influence or what I did wrong or what I did right. Or, you know, all the people like that. I should probably lean into that. I'd be thinking about all these different things instead of my commitment is to just do the best job that I can always do my best. And if it's something that requires some sort of, um, you know, uh, research, like if I have, uh, an important subject and I don't understand it too much, I'll read someone's book or I'll, I'll watch documentaries or I'll, I'll do something to get myself prepared for it.

Or I love things like the UFO subjects because I don't have to do any preparation. I do a little bit, but it's like I know. You got that subject kind of locked down. I'm dialed into it. But I don't think it would help me if I thought about the impact of the show. And I also don't think that I could do it the way I do it. Because I think normally, if someone had reached the kind of amount of exposure that I have,

and you were really hyper aware of it, you'd start to protect what you've accumulated. You have to, right? Yeah, but when you protect it, then it stops being what it is. And I think that's one of the things that freaks people out about me is that I talk wild. I talk wild shit like a comic

that has like 10,000 people listening, but it's 10 million. Where it's, yeah, where you have nothing to lose, but you actually have everything to lose. But I kind of don't. I kind of do, but I kind of don't. Right. You know, because it's like, I'm not a bad person. So like when I'm doing this, if I say something wrong, I can always apologize. If I'm incorrect about something, I can correct it.

But my intention is always to be good. So I don't know how much I really have to lose because I'm financially independent. So like that's a big one that holds people back, right? A big one that holds people back is financial influence. You know, the influence of executives or the influence of advertisers. And I've lost advertisers because of shows. And it's like, oh, good luck. You don't care.

It doesn't hurt you. I would have considered doing the podcast for no money. I've thought about that in the future. I'm like, maybe there'll come a time where I just no longer have any ads. Because I'm like, you know, maybe that would be the ultimate way. Because if someone wants to cancel you, one of the things that they do is they contact your ad. Mass email campaigns. Right.

And it doesn't work, but it works with some. Right. But I have a backlog of people trying to be advertisers. So generally, if one drops off, there's always a bunch. Somebody in the queue. It's funny. That's part of the reason that we went subscription first is that we were like you know what you know when you're doing news and especially in the beginning they're like we need

to be able to rely on our people but something you said it was really interesting during our podcast you said you talked to enough people you can figure out whether they're telling the truth or not. Yeah. So how do you know when somebody's full of shit like you've talked thousands of people like how do you know if somebody's full of shit or not whenever you're talking to them

you don't really know. You kind of get a sense. You get a sense of whether or not a person is being genuine. And sometimes you're doing jujitsu with them. You're moving them in a certain direction, seeing how they respond. You're testing their ego. You're testing their challenging. But maybe you interrupt them on purpose.

Maybe give them a little nudge. Like if you're concerned, they're like, you try to like, see if they, they push back, like see where they're at. You get a sense of a human, you know, like you get, if you get around so many people so often and you have so many conversations, you, you recognize patterns. And I think the brain sort of picks up on them. But at the end of the day, ultimately, you don't really know if someone's lying to you. Some people are just really good at lying. Have you had a situation where you had someone on and after the fact, you were like, upon reflection, maybe that person was full of shit? Yes. Yes, definitely. Yeah, no question. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And some

of them have been full of shit. Yeah. When you say that you try, that your goal is just to do a good job, how do you define that? The smoothest conversation I can where people don't get uncomfortable listening. I was listening to a podcast recently and it was a friend of mine's podcast and he doesn't have the people wear headphones. And one of the things that I tell people when you have two or more guests, you must have headphones because then people recognize when they're

talking over each other. You're very right. Actually, it happened when we were talking. Because when you hear your voice at the same level you hear that person's voice, then it becomes painfully obvious when you guys are and it's like right we just did three and a half hours right and it's this weird dance we're doing where you know we all have something to say and it's kind of exciting right

because we're talking about all these like really intense subjects and it's really stimulating and you never know like when to jump in when and we're like letting each other we were all really good dance partners it It was really fun. Yeah. But sometimes it's not. And my friends that I was listening to was not a good. And I'm calling them afterwards. I'm going to say, hey, bro, you got to get headphones.

So what makes you walk out of this room and go, man, that was a fucking great episode. And then what makes you walk out of here and be like, ah, shit, I should have done something better. You don't have to name people necessarily. But if you wanted to name people, that would be entertaining as well. Yes. Smoothness of absorption, right? Like whether or not it's easily absorbed into your mind.

You're not uncomfortable. It doesn't feel gross. Like sometimes people say things and even if they're honest, even if it's an honest, true thing, it'll sound braggy or it'll sound hyperbolic. You know, it'll sound maybe like disingenuously. You could fake humility and people pick up on that too. They don't like that either. That's gross.

Right. Well, so this is funny though, because you're like, I don't think about it, but everything you're saying, you're the greatest audience advocate I've heard. So when people ask me about podcasting, I'm like, it's not about you. Like sometimes it is, but it's really not. And it's like, you're always having to think about the people who are listening. So like, how do you do that? Like when you're talking about, when you see somebody do something, you're like, man, people at home are going to hate this. Like, do you think about that type of stuff when you're talking to people? Sometimes I do. Like sometimes I'm in the middle of talking to somebody and they're just blurting out nonsense. I'm like, Oh God, what have I done? This one sucks.

And I've had a few of those. Like I had one, you know, not recently, but within the last few months and I walked out, I looked at Jamie and I go, that wasn't a good one. Just because sometimes people, you take a chance. Like a lot of these authors and professors, I've never spoken a word to them. Nor have I heard them speak. A lot of people, I've just read their stuff. And maybe I'll listen to an audio book where an actor was reading it. And you don't know how good they're going to be.

Sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised. And sometimes it's like, it's awkward. Yeah. I mean, we have the same experience, but generally we're doing 10 minute segments. So it's like less of a risk. You're not making an hour plus commitment to this person. You mentioned actually with us that you are very self-critical person. So do you go back? Do you rewatch the episodes? You don't do any of that. I don't need to. Do you know in your head? What are the type of thoughts that'll go through your head? Or what are the things that you're looking for thinking about or that would stick with you? Like, I should have done that different.

Giving the people enough space is big. Like letting them talk. Like, you know, there's always this urge to talk. You know, when two people are talking, you get excited. Right. These subjects are, they're, they're stimulating. Right. And you want to talk. You know, when two people are talking, you get excited. Right. And these subjects are stimulating, right? And you want to talk. So you've got to give people the – you want to sort of – first of all, you want to make them welcome and you want to kind of caress the conversation. You know, you don't want to beat on it. You want to kind of like let's figure out a way to make you the most comfortable.

Let's figure out a way to get the most out of you. And then also, you have to have, I think you have to have genuine curiosity. Because I think we can all pick up on artificial curiosity. Yeah. We can pick up on. Like, oh, that's interesting. And you're like, you don't mean that. Yeah.

That's late night TV hosts. They're the worst. Right. It's crazy. It's so clunky and fake. And it's so air quotes professional. And the thing about podcasts is you're professionally unprofessional. Yes.

Because you're really just having a conversation. So if you you're doing it well, you're making these people feel like you're just you're talking to someone who cares. You're talking to someone who cares about what, and you really, the only way to do that is to actually care. Like you really want to care about what this person is saying and thinking. So one of the, it actually reminded me, because I've always, for the years I've listened to you, it's always been very clear, like an, like an antithesis to the, you know, the corporate suit, like the development deals, the comedy.

So you're Joe Rogan, you've literally been in, you were in LA for decades, Hollywood sports comedy, basically three like Titan areas of American entertainment. What do people not know about that industry that they should know, which also caused you clearly to be like, I've generally had a bad experience. And I'm obviously not with the UFC or anything like that, but like you having been at the center of all these worlds, you're like you've seen a lot of shit, I guess. And it caused you to say, I cannot be controlled by these people. Like what were some of those experiences? And like why do you think that the industry is the way that it is today?

They don't have – I mean here's the best way to describe what's going on. This is the problem not just with Hollywood, but also with Los Angeles, because Los Angeles is inexorably connected to show business. There is no getting around that. It's the reason why a large percentage of people move there, and it also massively affects the politics of the place, and not just politics, but social discussions, the way people communicate, because it's an incredibly disingenuous way of communicating where you want to say the things that people are going to want to hear because that way they're going to cast you. So here's the thing.

You take these people and generally speaking, people come to hollywood if uh they have an acting dream that's the big reason why right that's like probably the number one there's comics they come there and they're different but not necessarily because a lot of them get into acting and they get they get like corrupted by that system too but the way this system works is you go there and then you go into a room like this one so like maybe we could be the casting directors and someone would come in and you go hey mark tell us a little bit about yourself where'd you move from and there's like a smugness to it and a weirdness to it because they have power over you and they're like well you know i'm from new jersey but uh you know i've been acting

i did a bunch of plays and blah blah blah and i'm out here trying it out. Okay, Mark, well, you're going to read for the role of Ted, and then, you know, like some fucking PA will read off a thing. Well, Ted, I don't even know if we can do this, man. It just seems like it's all wrong. You're like, come on, man, we can do it. And so you're in this. I've done this so many times. You're in this, like've done this so many times, you're in this completely non-natural environment.

It's usually a conference room in a production office. And you're in this non-natural environment with these smug people that have this massive amount of power over you. And it shapes the way people communicate. I've been in rooms where they'll discuss politics right away. And you see people bend to whichever way the wind is blowing. Like, what do I have to say? What are they wanting me to say? I think it's about time we had a woman president.

Like, they'll say shit. And I'm like, yeah. Well, yeah. Like, you see it. You see the disingen... They don't have opinions. When I say they, some of them do. But a lot of them don't.

What they have is a conglomeration of opinions that they've adopted because they think it will be beneficial for their career. Because their career is they're insecure people that go to a place where they're going to get rejected a lot. It is the worst thing ever for their mental health. I stopped dating actresses like in the 90s. It was like 94. I was like, oh, this is not good.

This doesn't work. These people are crazy. And I'm like, I know I'm crazy, oh, this is not good. This doesn't work. Like these people are crazy. And I'm like, I know I'm crazy, but I'm like comedian slash martial artist crazy. It's like a different kind of crazy. Okay. It's like a more like honest crazy. Like their crazy was I need to get cast in things. And also I got insanely lucky.

I auditioned for two television shows and the two television shows I auditioned for, I got both of them. It was nuts. Like I got the show called Hardball. That was the first thing I came out for. I got that. And then Hardball got canceled and I auditioned for news radio. And then I got that. So it was like two things in a row.

It was unheard of. So just dumb luck. I auditioned for the right things. And then so I didn't see this side of it because I was already working. The like constant rejection side. So I would go on auditions for movies and stuff that I probably didn't really want.

You did it because you were supposed to, right? You're supposed to. My agent would literally tell me, you need to go out on these so these casting directors know who you are. So they know you and they like like you even i go but i can't even do this because i'm doing this they're like just they it's better to have them want you and not be able to get you that's weird so okay so and then there was like maybe something that's going to be cast while you're on summer break okay fine so i would go on these auditions and i would see these poor fucks that were like, like lost in this world of being chosen for things.

And that's what shapes the entire mindset of that part of the country. The entire mindset of that part of the country is doing things that you think other people will like. Imagine a hellscape of a world where everyone in the business, in one business, everyone is liberal? How is that possible? How is that possible? How is it possible when the country is basically divided

50-50? So you're telling me that everyone who is creative? Is it everyone who is expressive? Is it everyone who's theatrical? Is that possible? It's not possible because it's not really opinions. They're willing to not have any opinions on anything else other than feeding narcissism, feeding this career that seems insurmountable, impossible to achieve. Because when you're thinking about someone wanting to be like an actor on a television show, you're like, what are the odds that you make it?

It's so small. Like there's so many people in Hollywood that never make it. Like I was talking to a buddy of mine the other day about his ex-girlfriend. And she was really mean to him in college and she cheated on him with his friend. And she's still trying to make it now. She's 48.

And he was talking about how he ran into her and there's this fucking weird moment. I was like, dude. Because it's crazy. A lot of them just drop off. They just quit. Because they realize they're clinging to this ship and they can't quite pull themselves up. And then they're in the middle of the ocean like, I got to drop off the ship. And then sometimes they drop off and they're 60 years old.'s nothing else never made it wow maybe they got like a bit part

on like a sitcom when they walk in with a pizza and they have one line they leave and that's on their reel forever like this is this is that industry so that industry has made a bunch of fucking insane people because they were insane going in there they needed a lot of attention already and then on top of that they get rejected over and over and over again. And I think I remember this girl that I was dating, she would come home from auditions and then she'd just be like, just devastated because the audition didn't go well. And she stumbled through things.

She's just like, you could like feel the angst, like pulsating off of their bodies. Like people were just, and you run into that more than you don't because most, and most people are bitter and most people are weirded out and they adopt these liberal sensibilities and ideologies. And they don't necessarily do it because they thought these things through. I mean, occasionally you got your Mark Ruffalo type characters really all in on a lot of things.

But most of them are not. Most of them are just nonsense people. And those nonsense people will get on stage and they'll say like at the Academy Awards or at the Grammys, they'll talk about, this is what we have to do. We have to make sure that we support this and that. Fucking horseshit. I like that Imagine video where they all

say, oh my god, it's perfect. I'm like, who asked for this? We never fucking asked you for this. Perfect. Perfect encapsulation. Do you think you're this. Perfect. Yeah, perfect encapsulation. Do you think you're actually helping anyone? No, this is so bad. That was my first favorite one. My second favorite one was after the George Floyd thing

where they all did that black and white video. I will no longer stand for it. I will no longer stand for any race. I'm like, wait, how much racism are you standing for? What were you doing before? We live in fucking Santa Monica. Everybody's super liberal out there. What are you standing for? What were you doing before? You live in fucking Santa Monica. Everybody's super liberal out there. What are you experiencing?

So that's the people that like don't make it, right? Even the people that do. We're talking about two groups of people that do. The Imagine people and the people in the other video are people that do. Do you think that fame has its own like corrosiveness and like the people who actually make it. And then you're in a different situation where you're not faced with constant rejection. Now you're faced with constant

adulation. Like what does that do to people? And what has that experience been like for you? I think you have to have something that tests your ego. And for me, it's always been martial arts and exercise and yoga. And, you know, we talked about sauna. That tests you as much as you don't think it does. You need things that test you. If you just have this smooth sailing life where you get out of the shower, you put your arm out and someone hands you a towel. And you're like, I'd like fresh fruit. And they bring you a plate of fresh fruit.

And then that's a lot of people, especially when you are on a movie set and you're a major star. I would imagine that is your reality where you're just constantly being catered to. And you start thinking that you're different and better than other people. That you deserve it. Right. It's very unhealthy. It's very sketchy. It's fucking weird.

It's fucking weird. Like when I think about it. Yeah. Psychologically, it's not where people are supposed to be. But you think about it. Like, what do they behave like well? They behave like Joffrey in fucking Game of Thrones right right they but is that his name Yeah, you got it you behave like a king you behave like a dictator

Because like all these people are like throwing roses at your feet and like the red carpet shit like I fucking never would do red Even movies that I did like i did a couple of movies with kevin james like you're like you'd walk to red carpet like fuck you i'm like i'm not i want to go in the back of the theater i'm not walking through that red carpet it's a very weird custom when you think about it joe over here over here over here and then some people are posing they're picking out their outfit i'm wearing a fucking hoodie and i'm putting it on and sneaking in the back i'm like i don't want to be a part of that but the crazy thing though is that we're describing that old Hollywood.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like everything is changing. Now it's all like the TikTok kids, like Mr. Beast. I mean, we encounter like some of this. You created this whole space, right, of the YouTube. I didn't create this whole space. Well, I think I would say that you would. It would have happened without me. I would call you the father of the space, whether you like it or not.

And like, I think we are an outgrowth of that. I think actually a lot of new comedy that I see, for example, like YouTube comedy is how I primarily engage with comedy. Like, and then, I mean, Andrew Schultz, I became friends with him because of your show. I reached out to him and then started engaging with this podcast and more like, but Hollywood didn't have anything to do with that. So I feel like everything has changed. The Logan Paul thing was kind of crazy to me. Cause I'm like, yeah, this guy who was a YouTuber and then became a boxer. And now he's just did this thing with

Floyd Mayweather where they just sold what was like a million pay-per-views. I'm like, that's fucking crazy. And so now you have YouTubers who want to be boxers and boxers who want to be YouTubers. And because of you, I've engaged slightly in UFC. All these UFC guys are becoming influencers. Like I can see them online and they've got like fucking hot sauces and stuff. And there's nothing wrong with that, but it's like this weird change that happened. So like, what do you make of, as everything goes independent, everything moves online, has it gotten worse? Has it gotten better? Like what are some of the downsides plus size or whatever as things have changed in the last, it's only been like 10 years and things are totally different. Yeah. I don't think it's

a worse or better. It's just a new world we're living in. Like is the world worse or better because of social media or worse or better because of smartphones? Well, it's better because maybe you can have an app that tells you if you're having a heart attack, you know, it's better because you can Google the answer to a question and you don't have to bullshit people anymore. You don't have to wonder. You don't have to go find an encyclopedia. It's better because we have more access to information. You can take videos of your kids and you can look at them forever. I mean, I have videos of my daughter when she was a little baby and I pull them up on my phone all the time. They're my favorites. She's 13 now, but I can see her when she was one.

That's awesome. There's something amazing about this technology. There's something amazing about all of it, but it's very challenging. You know, we're putting ourselves in an unusual position of stress where, you know, like when you see people that get in these social media squabbles. You know, you talked about Jamie Kilstein. Yeah. Well, Jamie Kilstein has a crazy story about, you know, he was like all in as a social justice warrior and he would tell me that he would attack people on Twitter and then he'd be walking down the street and he

couldn't help looking at his phone and checking the mentions. And, and then, but he, you know, he's really honest about that. It was kind of brave. He realized like for, he got canceled for, like, the most, it was, like, literally the most benign thing. Like, he was, like, trying to date someone. Right. And they were like, you're a predator. And he's like, what? Yeah. What does that mean?

And he's like, but I've been doing this, so now what do I do? Yeah, like, what is, what are you saying? Like, what does that even mean? You know, like, a man who's attempting to date a girl, like in a lot of those circles, is like problematic. But it's not even real. What it is, it's like we were talking about with Elon with money earlier. It's attack vectors.

It's finding a thing to attack you on. And when people can't, when there's nothing to attack, they attack things and then they justify that that's something that they should attack. Right. When you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And one of the things about social media is that people generally look to complain about things, whether it's to complain about people or it's a complaint about the state of politics

or the climate or whatever the fuck it is. Like you get the most juice out of complaining about things and the algorithms recognize that obviously as well, which is why the algorithms recognize that the things that people interact with most are the things that they hate. So those are the things that people go after. And they say that it's like, oh, well, they're engineering it to make us, you know, hateful and angry. But my friend Ari did an experiment, and he went on YouTube, and he only looked up puppies for months. And all YouTube suggested was puppies. They didn't suggest like KKK videos or something.

You like puppies. You're going to love killing puppies. If you look at my YouTube, my YouTube is like there's some political discussion, but it's a lot of like martial arts matches and professional pool and like mindless stuff like muscle cars and things along those lines. But it's like your social media algorithm, whether it's I don't use Facebook very much, but whatever whatever you're looking at most is what they're going to recommend to you most. So it's more of a reflection of the problem with human psychology is that we do tend to concentrate on negative things, which I think is overall very unhealthy for us because we're hardwired to deal with real problems

because we evolved trying to get away from predators and enemy tribes are coming over the hill and trying to steal our resources. And now everything's pretty fucking easy in that regard. So now we're looking for problems in our culture. We're looking for problems in the way people communicate. And we're looking, in many, many cases, we're looking to enact power over other people to avoid looking inward at our own problems and difficulties. Right. If you look at online, the people that are the most disciplined, that accomplish the most things and have the most impact spend the least amount of time complaining about other people.

Yeah. the most amount of time complaining about other people and the most time calling out people and insulting people and shaming people, they always get it back at them. Someone always comes at them because they're filled with flaws. And they're the type of person that does that all the time is the type of person that's kind of shitty, you know, and then other people are going to say, well, you've fucked over your employee or you fucked over your mom, or you did this to that person. And and look here's the thing we found you wrote four years ago on twitter you piece of shit you're an ableist or you're a this or that and it's like you're involved in this constant cycle of negativity and like

it's not healthy for anybody and the more time you can concentrate on yourself and people you care about and friendships and love and community and your actual interests, real interests. Like you should have real interests. You should have hobbies. You have things you're curious about. You should have like subjects you're fascinated with that you really like. If it's a good documentary on UFOs on YouTube or on iTunes or something, I get fucking pumped.

I'm excited. Like I'm not thinking about complaining about people. I'm not thinking about calling people out. I'm like, ooh, what's this? We got some new footage? What do they got? Is this real? I'm excited. I like positive things and I think if I can express anything that will help people,

the more you take care of your own bullshit, the less you're going to worry about other people's bullshit and the more you can enjoy things that you're actually interested in, as opposed to spending time cultivating negativity, which is so intoxicating. It's so easy for people to get caught up in this artificial drama. I wonder if you think that this is right too I think there's also like a very innate human longing to be like a hero in a way you know to do noble things and get credit for that and be recognized and I think part of the instinct also comes from that in a society that doesn't give us

a lot of opportunities to like exercise that particular muscle it's a longing for like okay I can show that I'm virtuous. I called out this person and now other people are joining and it makes you feel like you actually accomplished something. For sure. Yeah, I think definitely. I mean, that's what virtual signaling is all about, right? And there's a bunch of human reward systems that are just built into what it means to be a person, that they can get hijacked by technology and culture. And you really think you're doing a good thing. You think you're changing things, but really you're just making noise. So something I think is kind of crazy is that this podcast gets millions of viewers,

of listeners, et cetera, so JRE. And yet we live in D.C. and we've seen this with the success of listeners, etc. So JRE. And yet we live in DC and we've seen this with the success of our own show. Even though our show consistently will beat a CNN primetime hour, people in power don't seem to care. And I've considered this with your work as well because I will hear a newsworthy interview that you'll do with like Bernie Sanders or something like that, or a newsworthy interview with Tulsi or with Andrew Yang or even any general influencer. And it will not get the same level of mainstream attention as if, let's say, they sat down with the New York Times. But you have 10 times the audience of these people. Why do you think that is? I've never been able to put my

arm around it. Do you think people in power don't understand you? Actually, wait, because here's the thing. They do. By the way, you have no idea how many people are like, can you give me Joe Rogan's number? My congressman really wants it. I'd be like, literally no. He doesn't give a shit about you, and I'm not going to do that. Can you pass on this person to this?

I'm like, dude, he would hate you. Absolutely not. And in general, I'm respectful of your time. So there is this dual thing where people are aware. There are a lot of people here who are listening, but they're not yet ready to like engage with it on a mainstream level. Why do you, like, what's going on there in terms of,

I almost want to call it a lack of respect because it's like, they want to pretend that you don't exist, but they also have to reckon with it at some point. I don't know. Yeah. It's one more thing I don't think about. I guess that's just me. Yeah, no.

But it's like, okay, Prince fucking Fauci, right? Like, why is Fauci commenting on Joe Rogan? Prince Harry openly attacked you for no reason. I actually went to go listen to the episode, and I was like, what the fuck? I was like, what does this fucking guy have to say about Joe? He opened his interview with Dax Shepard attacking him. That was the first thing. He's like, did you go and see what happened with Joe Rogan? He goes, terrible responsibility platform. And I was like, what

the fuck? What is going on here? Right? Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Good luck to that guy. I think something that really frustrates me whenever people criticize you is that most of them don't actually listen to your podcast. Well, they listen to a clip. Right. Exactly. So they have somebody out there who's going to clip something to try and make you look like shit.

And then it's going to go viral. But in general, you think people in general should get vaccinated and you encourage your parents. In general, I think human beings should take every step that they think is appropriate to take care of themselves. I don't, in general, think that, I think generally a lot of people could do more to improve their health. And this is one of the things that I talk about more than anything. Yeah. That we need to improve our health.

And it's something you can do. But it's something that people, look, it's the only thing you have. Your body is the only thing you have. And most people treat it like shit. If your body dies, you cease to exist. So all the things you have, all the things you have in this life are dependent upon your body functioning correctly. And you, you have agency in this, but you can do something about your body doing, doing better. You can do something about your body doing better. You can do something about strengthening your immune system. You can do something about your health. And most people choose not to. And there's been no emphasis whatsoever on public awareness of how significant

it is to take care of your body. I heard you say something once that made me really sad. And it was that you can't save humanity at scale. I can't remember who you were talking to, but you were talking about, I think it was about diet. I think it was about ending factory farming and more. Do you actually think you can't save humanity at scale? Or are you talking in terms of your own influence that you have in terms of that message around health? There's no one human being where everyone's going to listen. There's no one positive message.

Hey, we should just love each other. Hey, we should value community and friendship, and we should take care of our bodies and be healthy. Hey, fuck you. There's no one person that can say anything where everyone's going to listen. But that is the most significant factor. The most significant factor is doing things that are positive both for your health and for your friendships and for your community. And also choosing a path in life that is actually rewarding and satisfying.

And that's hard. It's hard for a lot of us. We talked about it on our podcast. Oh, absolutely. It's a very difficult thing to do. And this idea that everybody starts at the same starting block is fucking total horseshit. And that is something that people who are doing well like to stick in the face of people that really were dealt a really bad hand of cards. So the three of us, we can't just snap our fingers. But, you know, a lot of people are going to listen to this.

If you're one of those people who have heard you talk about, I used to work one of these jobs. I was working in these soulless cubicle jobs. I had the ability, financial ability, to be like, I have to get the fuck out of here. Like Like I have to get out. But there are a lot of on your side. You had other people like myself and Kyle and all these other people that loved you and supported you that would be more than willing to help promote you. People with a lot of influence. You also had a tremendous amount of followers, both on your social media and on your show itself. You had so many things going. You have talent, you have the right morals and ethics, you have a great insight to politics and to the social issues. And yet you're still worried.

You're still scared. We were terrified. Now imagine if you're making $15 an hour and you have children to feed. And you have a dream. You have a risk. You have a thing to do and you're scared. And a lot of people would advise you to not take any risks in that situation. And that might be good advice because everybody's got a unique situation. Everybody's situation is totally, completely unique. And it's hard always. But my advice is always,

you have to think of your life in terms of, first of all, it's a temporary situation. You have a finite amount of time and it can be a good time or it can suck. And if it sucks, you, you have to fight to change it as if your life depends on it because it really does. It really does. The quality of your life depends on it. The, the, the, the quality of the experience depends on it. And you've got yourself into a bad situation. Like if you went down the wrong road, okay, if you're going, if you have a destination to go to and you're supposed to go left, but you fuck up and you go right and you go right for like a couple of miles and you realize like, oh my God, I went right.

What do you do? Do you keep going right? But do you, do you stop, get out of the car and cry? No, you realize like, oh my God, it's going to take me hours and hours and hours to go back and turn around and turn back. Yeah. That's what you got to do. You got to get better the same way you got sick. You've been living your life. And if you've

been living your life with a bad diet or with a bad mindset, or you've been living like blaming other people for your failures, you've got to recognize that those things are not serving you well. And you have to back up and you have to go left. You have to go the right way. You have to figure out a way to get on the right path. And for a lot of people, that kind of change and that kind of alteration of these comfort patterns that people fall into is extremely difficult to do, but you've got to do it. You've got to do it. It's the only way to do it. And this is, it's easier to say, it's easy for me to say, because I'm an impulsive person who's reckless and I've always just gone whatever way I want to. And people have always given me advice. Don't do that. I'm like,

fuck you. And I've always done that. Always from the time I was a child, it's because I was a lock key kid and my parents didn't really pay attention to me. And my first success in life was doing something extremely dangerous. It was doing martial arts competitions when I was a young teenager. So for me, I was like, I'm not listening to anybody now because this is the number one thing in my life ever. And it's the thing that everybody told me to never do. And then I became really good at it and it became my identity. But then I realized, okay, I can't do this anymore because this is bad for my brain. I'm getting brain damage and there's no future in this. I got to get out.

And then I started doing stand-up comedy. I'm like, I'm going to be a comedian. And the same thing. Everybody was telling me, don't do that. Was that a scary transition or you just did it? No, it was definitely scary. What was that like? Well, it's just you don't know whether or not it's going to work.

Anytime you're going down, you're taking the first couple steps on a path with no certainty whatsoever. It's terrifying. You know, you don't know. But, again, I was 21 years old. I was reckless. And I had been accustomed to doing dangerous things. So it was exciting. So I was like, well, let me just try this.

And, again, there was no future in it. I did not know whether or not it was going to work. And the odds were, when I looked at all the people around me that were falling off that didn't make it, the odds were not good, but I just did it. So then I started doing everything like that. And it kind of set a pattern in my life where I just, I follow my instincts. Does it seem like a thing to do? Like, what if I started doing the podcast? Like, my friend Ari famously, I always mock him. He says, you got to edit it. You got to edit it.

It's too long. I go, why? He goes, no one's going to listen in three hours. I go, then don't listen. And he's like, do you want people to listen to your show? Trust me. Edit it. I go, I'm not editing shit.

Fuck off. Well, that's the signature, though, is the three-hour mark. And actually, Seth, it changed, in my opinion, it changed everything about what people were willing to listen to. I think the success of our long-form show and more, a lot of it was born from that space, and that's why I think about it a lot. Was it intentional? Were you just like the original ones with Red Band, like episode one and two and more? When did the three-hour become part of the signature necessarily?

Like why did you go three hours in the first three after three hours, people have to pee. But then why are movies only an hour and a half, right? Some Tarantino movies go longer. That's true. I think, um,

honestly, it's true. I just feel like, uh, you gotta to get an idea and really, to really have a conversation with someone and get into their head and find out what makes them tick, you gotta, it takes time to cook. You know, you can't

just microwave that shit. You have to like, if you have an important complex idea and you go on CNN for five minutes and talk to Chris Cuomo about it, you're fucked. It's not getting out right. It's not. It's like, ideas are like human

beings they're like personalities and and the the history of your life it's complex there's a lot going on if you're talking about something what you know whether whatever it is whether it's uh the ancient history or cosmology or these are complex subjects you know any things that are really interesting, they require like long examinations of things. And even then you're just scratching the surface. Really, you're supposed to go to school for eight years. You know, there's a lot of benefit in long conversations.

And if I'm naturally anything, I'm naturally curious. I've always been a very curious person. And that goes back to, I moved around a lot when I was a child. My parents, we moved from New Jersey to San Francisco when I was seven. And then we lived in San Francisco till I was 11. And then we moved to Florida when I was 11 and we lived there for three years.

And then we moved to Boston. And then we lived, I guess we lived in Florida for two years till I was 13. And then we moved to Florida when I was 11 and we lived there for three years. And then we moved to Boston and then we lived, I guess we lived in Florida for two years till I was 13. And then we moved to Boston and I lived there and that's where I started doing standup. So I never had a chance to settle down in a place long enough to adopt everybody else's opinions. I had to form my own opinions on things. And I spent a lot of time by myself.

And so spending a lot of time by myself, I found things that I was interested in, things that I was genuinely curious about, and I pursued those things. And that's what gave me joy. And that's what gave me, that's what fulfilled my interests. And so that sort of just spilled out into podcasts. Like if you ask me, like, what is the difference between what other people are doing and what I'm doing? Maybe they're trying to do something that they think is going to be the thing that works. And I just did what I wanted to do. And it just got lucky that it works. Maybe a lot of people that just do what they want to do, other people wouldn't be interested in it.

Do you think if it hadn't taken off, you'd still be doing it? Like if it was still like 500 people listening, tuning in, do you think you would still do it? I don't know. It's a good question. Honestly, it's a good question. I mean, in the beginning, my wife was always like, you don't have to do it. I have to do it. You don't have to do it. I made a commitment. Well, what was the impulse? Why? Like, I think, I forget, it was already in that episode you did with the guy who inspired you. I forget his name, where he- Anthony Cumia. Anthony Cumia. From Opie and Anthony. Right, that's right. Opie and Anthony, that's what it was, is that you were inspired by going on a show. What was it about that free-flowingness that something inside you was like, I got to fucking do that? You're like, I have got to do that. Well, I always loved to go on those shows.

I always loved to go on Opie and Anthony and Howard Stern and those kind of radio shows. Like when I would say if I was going to fly into Phoenix and do stand-up for the weekend, I would do the local morning show. And I loved doing it because you would just talk. They'd go, hey, Joe Rogan's here, blah, blah, blah. How's it going? And I'd be like, oh, it's great.

And like, what have you been up to? And I'd go, dude, I've been reading this book about Zachariah Sitchin. And I wouldn't have all this stuff to talk about. It's wild stuff. And sometimes people would say, hey, you should have a radio show. And I even got offered a radio show at one point in time. And I was like, oh, I don't know about this. I'm just going to get fired.

And then I can't swear. Right. Like it's going to limit. FCC and all that shit. And they'll find the shit out of you. It's real. Like if someone says something wrong, like you can get a quarter million dollar fine or something crazy. Wow.

Like Howard Stern, that's one thing that people don't give enough credit for. They fined the fuck out of that guy. He just didn't care. He kept going. He just kept going he kept going but it's also like the company paid the fines because it was valuable it was also kind of a badge of honor that this guy is getting fined by the government and this is during the

bush days right during the bush administration they went after him because of his influence um i just it seemed like a thing to do. And then when Ustream came around where you could just have a webcam and just talk into a webcam and just fuck around, I thought it'd be fun to do. It was just a fun thing. And then it became a thing like, all right, we're going to do this every Monday. I'll see you Monday. Bye.

And we like log off and laugh and go, that was fun. But it wasn't a thing where it was ever thought about, like, this is going to be a career. So because of that, I just approached it, I just did it the way I wanted to do it. That's why, like, when Ari was giving me advice, I wasn't listening at all. Right, because you were like, I don't care.

I'm just going to do it. But if Ari was the Ari of today, which, ironically, he does three-hour podcasts. Sometimes more. But if Ari was the Ari of today, which ironically he does three hour podcasts sometimes more, but if Ari was the Ari of today and I was the me of then I maybe would listen. Cause he's got a successful podcast. I'd be like, Oh, I should edit it. Hmm. Cause no one had successful podcasts back then. I mean, Marin had a podcast and Corolla had a podcast. Maybe Corolla was number one. Cause I think Corolla was coming off of radio. And it was interesting to people that this guy who was the guy who took over in Los Angeles for Howard Stern,

when Howard Stern went to satellite, all of a sudden started a podcast. And I went to do his show before I ever did a podcast. And I remember I'm like, wow, you do like a real show. You got microphones and cameras and shit. And you had a bunch of employees like, oh, this is wild. And then I started thinking like, man, maybe I should do that. But like when we started out, it was just a laptop, but it's been a completely organic, uh, rate of progression. All of it. No, think about it. One of the things I've never done, I've never advertised it. I never paid for advertisement. I never, I just, it's all word of mouth. 100%. I never did anything to promote it. I never went on anybody else's

podcast and says, you got to watch my podcast. And so I never did like a calculated press tour. Nothing. Just kept doing it. I wonder if that's part of why people responded to it so much though, because everybody's so used to being pitched all the time in every aspect of their lives that I actually think that's one of the things that appeals probably and I think people can tell if you're genuinely interested in what you're doing and I think that comes out it does yeah if you're genuinely interested I think it's interesting people can can sniff out bullshit and fakeness better than like human beings aren't that great at statistics or math or numbers or like any of that stuff. But I do think that there's a very good instinct in general for that sort of like genuineness and authenticity.

And like I can tell this person really means what they say. It's particularly obvious in contrast. So if you took someone who's doing a late night talk show, late night, late night talk show style, and you had them try to do that on a podcast, it would, it would be a plane crash. But what it's like,

it's like the difference between Howard Stern and morning DJs. Hey, coming up right now. We've got Bob Seger. And you know, they play that's, that's what those people had and then Stern came along and he was himself

and people were like this is crazy and that was in contrast he made all those other people look foolish because they weren't themselves so we talked about on the podcast before that that guy that's the seed of all podcasts is that guy it's Howard Stern

what's funny to me, though, is that in a way Stern is responsible for Trump. Like Trump, you know, was on Stern all the time kind of being himself. And so when then I think about you and I try to think about your audience and like maybe maybe the next president is born here. I have no idea. You know, I didn't have Trump on twice. Yeah, I know. Two opportunities. I was like, uh-uh. So let's talk about that because this is, again, a message out to all the politicians who keep asking me in order to connect me with Joe Rogan. What is Joe Rogan's process in how he decides which politics? Because, look, like, what do Crenshaw, Yang, Tulsi, and Bernie have in common?

Authenticity. Not a lot. Authenticity. But then how do you define that? How do you look at somebody and say, you're not full of shit? Before you even get to meet them and say, yeah common? Authenticity. But then how do you define that? How do you look at somebody and say, you're not full of shit? Before you even get to meet them and say, yeah, I'll sit down. I heard Andrew Yang talk and I saw the things he was saying. I didn't think he was a politician.

I thought he was a businessman who had a unique idea. And Andrew's unique idea was that, first of all, I think he has good foresight to see that automation's coming and it's going to take a lot of jobs. And I think he's correct about that. And whether it's 10 years from now or 20 years from now, it's something that needs to be addressed now before it gets out of hand. And also, as we talked about on our podcast earlier, I think that there's a real benefit to something

like universal basic income in that it'll allow people to take care of their basic needs. And maybe those people can take chances and pursue a dream that they would be outside of their reach. So that was Andrew. With Tulsi, she just seems so genuine in so many different ways and so respectable, right? A person who was a congresswoman who served two tours of duty overseas in a medical union and dealt with people getting blown up and shot. And she'd seen it all and has so much integrity.

If I've, she was my number one choice. Yeah. You know, I just felt like, I felt like Bernie was more popular and had a chance at doing something different and changing things. And so I wanted to talk to him.

Um, that's, those are the type of people that I like to talk to. Crenshaw is a Navy SEAL. I have a deep respect for people that can do that. I have a deep respect for people that have served. The guy lost an eye. And even if I disagree with him on certain political opinions and positions, I have a massive amount of respect for the guy just as a human being and who he is. And I've hung out with him in real life. That's who he is all the

time. No, absolutely. What happened with the Trump? What's the backstory there? And did you consider having him on? Did you like weigh in? Did you think about it? Not really. No, they kept coming back with, they wanted me to do it at the White House. Whoa. I can't imagine that.

Oh my God. The Joe Rogan. Did you tell him? Behind the Oval Office. White House. Whoa. I can't imagine that. Oh my God. Joe Rogan. If he had been willing to come here, I don't know if you were in LA at that point, like would you have considered it more? Maybe I would have thought about it in LA, like to do like a real three hour thing. But either way, the problem is this is a, it's a real problem in that I don't want anybody to be uncomfortable. And I don't think it's my role. Like if, if I'm talking to someone like him,

there, there's some uncomfortable things that have to be addressed. I've interviewed Trump. I know exactly what you're talking about. And he actually hates to be pushed. So you'll have to be like, Mr. President.

And he's like, you know, he gets pissed whenever you'll do it. But that's why you got to do three hours too. That's true. You got to cook them. Right. Well,

but his staff will make sure that they, right? Exactly. Not only that, they'd want to edit it. Oh, of course. 15 minutes in, underneath the Resolute desk, his staff person is hitting me in the leg trying to get me to wrap it. And I was like, dude, I'm not fucking wrapping this thing. I was like, I'm wrapping whenever Trump is going to wrap it.

His staff members hitting your leg? Bill Shine, the former head of Fox News, was sitting there smacking my leg trying to get me to wrap at 15 minutes. Why? Because you were asking uncomfortable questions? Because I was asking hard questions, right? Wow. And, you know, in general, they just want you to come in, you get a little bite or whatever, and then get you out of there. He says whatever they want him to say that day, and then they want it to be done.

Because especially with him, God knows what he's going to say. The whole thing was not what I'm interested in. It's not what I do. Like the idea of going to the White House and doing a 20-minute podcast what he's going to say. The whole thing was not what I'm interested in. It's not what I do. The idea of going to the White House and doing a 20-minute podcast, it's not a podcast. I mean, I know Portnoy did it that way. He went there, but for him. He did a lot of shit for that, too.

I'm sure he did, but it's like I'm not interested in that. I don't care. I just say don't ever do things saying this is going to be a big episode. It's going to be a lot of numbers. I do things if I think someone's cool someone's i'm interested in someone or i think what their position is fascinating with him it's like i don't want to help anybody in this race i don't i certainly don't want to help him and i certainly don't want to help biden and uh did the biden people approach you no i think maybe early on i I don't remember, before I got real controversial.

Before you were tweeting from the presidential account, I remember being like, that's crazy, man. Before what? When Trump tweeted out a clip of you, I was like, that's nuts. Yeah, well, that was because I said that I think of Joe Biden as having a flashlight with a dying battery. That's right. Going for a long walk in the woods. And it turns out I'm right. Cause that motherfucker is flickering right now. We just did a whole thing on that. I mean, from, so if you're, what's your advice then

to the people who want to appeal to your demographic, this is what everybody's like. What does that mean? So for, well, that's the thing, which is that you have influence over people who are right and left. I think probably predominantly male, but people all over the spectrum, all over the income. There are Uber drivers and there are multimillionaires who listen to your show because we were reached out to by some of them after we went on your show. And I was like, this is fucking crazy in terms of the amount of people that listen to Rogan. And the game in politics right now is everybody has the hard right lockdown and everybody has the hard left lockdown in terms of the base.

But millions of people just fucking hate politics and you seem to have tapped into something there. So if you're a politician and you're listening to this, and I can guarantee you some of them will, what are they, what's your advice to them in order to try and appeal to the people who are fans of Joe Rogan? It's not my wheelhouse.

I would send them to you guys. Like, I don't know enough about the way politics works. Like, when we did the End of the World podcast with Kyle, like, to have him on during the election, it's like, this is perfect, because he expertly explained how it was going to go down and predicted incredibly accurately. He said, you're going to get these early people

that are voting for Trump because those are the people that are walking in and voting in person. The late ballots are all going to be the mail-in ballots. And those are going to be the one for Biden. So there's going to be a lot of places where people think Trump is winning and it's eventually going to shift over to, it's exactly what happened. Like that was super valuable.

So when it comes to someone who wants to do anything politically, I would refer to that. And if I did have a politician on that I thought was some sort of polarizing politician, I might bring on someone like you or you or Kyle or Jimmy Dore or someone who understands politics deeply. I do not. I'm too busy with other stuff. Right. But you also are. That's the crazy thing to me. I think all politics, culture, all culture has become politics. So you have become political in a way.

I know you don't want to be, but that's how people see you. Has that been frustrating for you as the podcast has progressed and gotten bigger? Well, the only frustrating thing is the misinterpretation of my position. Yes. And maybe not, it's more of a misrepresentation than a misinterpretation. I think they've just decided that I'm a right-wing alt-right character because I had Milo Yiannopoulos on four years ago. There's things about that, which ironically led to Milo getting canceled.

That's right. It was you. It was your show. I remember that. I was pressing him about young boys and older gay men, and he was saying that his position on it was that it was okay and that it was for him when he was young that he was the predator that's what he said that he was going after the older men you know and a lot of people that was like the straw that broke his camel's back which

but let's be honest they were looking for something like that of course people have been hunting him for years right before that happened. Yeah. And, you know, it's really weird, right? Because like. Did you think he was phony when you were interviewing him? Phony? Yeah. He's not phony. He's certainly doing a character and he's certainly polarizing and.

He's an attention seeker for sure. Yeah. For sure. Yeah, for sure. For he's he's a showman in a lot of ways in a weird way and the thing is he found this niche and in the see this is where it gets into censorship issues because it's really curious because there was a point in time where aggressive, conservative, not conservative, right? Right wingers, alt-right, whatever you want to call them. Aggressive people who opposed a lot of liberal ideology were dominating a lot of social media platforms.

And before social media came in and checked it and started deleting accounts and banning people for using Pepe the Frog and all that kind of shit, they were dominated. It was Wild West. I remember. It was Wild West. 13, 14, 2013, 2014 internet. It was fucking crazy. In the marketplace of ideas, are we supposed to let that happen?

Are we supposed to let these people just battle it out? Or are we supposed to take away people that we don't agree with? Right. And that's where it gets weird because there's a lot of like aggressively shitty left-wing people now because there's a lot of people that are behaving the exact same way or worse than Milo did, but they'll, they're doing it against right-wing people. And we find that okay. Yeah. We find that acceptable, but we found what Milo did to be completely unacceptable because the people that are in charge of tech platforms are predominantly, like overwhelmingly liberal, which is really interesting.

Well, are they liberal or are they Hollywood liberal? I think it's Hollywood liberal. I think a lot of them are woke. Let's call it woke. Ask them about like pro-union or like Medicare for all and they're going to be like, no, none of that. But they're socially very liberal, right? The social liberal aspect of it in terms of what's tolerable and not tolerable. Like when Megan Murphy got kicked off of Twitter for life for saying that she's a feminist and she got kicked off for saying that men who transitioned to women

were dominating some feminist spaces. Yeah. And she got in some sort of beef with somebody and she said, but a man is never a woman. And they just like, you're done. I think Tim Pool pressed- Jack Dorsey. Yeah, that's right. That was actually a very important moment.

And I want to be very respectful of your time. And we're nearing the end of what we have you. And I think the major question that a lot of people see, I guess, going forward is like 10 years ago, you didn't see any of this happening. But now you're dominating sports. You're dominating or look, you're top UFC commentator, right? You are the king of podcasting you sell out stadiums as a comedian is there anything next 10 years from now are you going

to be doing all three like how do you see your career progressing or not even create your life progressing i don't know very unsatisfying answer i think that's you know people think you have to have a fucking vision board. No, you just have to grind. I'm a grinder. That's what I do. I get up every morning at 7 o'clock and I do the same shit every day whether it's working out

or every night I get in the sauna. I do stand up every fucking chance I can. I grind and I find that when I'm grinding, good things happen, and then I just decide to either keep doing something

or not keep doing something. There may come a time where I decide, when it comes to UFC, for instance, maybe I'll just better off being a fan. Because one of the things that I loved more than anything was when I lived in LA,

we used to do fight companions. So we would get together and smoke pot and drink and watch the fights and just talk crazy shit. And it was so much more fun, but I also have a deep amount of respect for the athletes. And I recognize that like being there and giving words to their performances and to honor them and to make it exciting and to just give some verbal horsepower to the experience for people that are watching at home, I feel extremely honored. I also can't believe any of this is real. I can't believe that I'm doing these three things simultaneously. It doesn't even make any sense. Eric Weinstein said that he had this funny conversation with somebody where he was talking about the UFC,

and then he was talking about a podcast, and then they went, wait a minute, that's the same guy? And then I'm like, dude, I think like that all the time. I feel like that when I show up at the UFC and I walk into the arena, and I'm like, what am I doing? Is this what I do? But then I put the headphones on, and then I'm breaking down arena and I'm like, what am I doing? Is this what I do? But then I put the headphones on, then I'm breaking down techniques and going over movements and different things.

It's like I don't – maybe if I was struggling, maybe if it was the beginning of my career, I would have like an idea, like this is where I want to be in 10 years. But that's never what I've done. I've always just kind of like, just kept going. And now what I'm doing is like, people say, oh, what's your goal? And I'm like, um, I don't know. Like my goal, I like doing this. So as long as I like doing this, I'll keep doing this. That's kind of what my goal is. I want to get better at it. All the things, whether it's

better at standup, better at podcasting, better at commentary. I want to get better at it. All the things, whether it's better at standup, better at podcasting, better at commentary. I want to get better at it. I want to make less mistakes. I want to make it more enjoyable for people that like it. I want to get better at it. And, um, you know, moments where I misspeak or I have a fuck up or, you know, people get mad at me. Like, I don't like those moments. That's not what I want. What I want is for people to enjoy it. I don't want to give fuel to people that are just looking to get mad at me for something.

I'm just trying to put together something that people enjoy. That's 100% of my goal. There's no real agenda otherwise. I don't want any more attention. One of the things I was hoping about Spotify, I was like, one thing will happen is I'll be less famous. I think you got way more famous.

I'm like 90% sure you got way more famous. I thought it was going to work the other way. Well, again, I know we don't have you that long. Why do you think you got more famous because of Spotify? I feel like you became a household name after Spotify. I don't know. I think it's people realize think you got more famous because of Spotify? I feel like you became a household name after Spotify. I don't know. I think because people realize there's a lot of money in this shit.

You think that's it? Yeah, you're probably right about that. Yeah, I think that was a big factor. It was eye-opening. It was like one of those moments in a movie where the record skips. Yeah, like, wait a second. Because it was in Forbes and all this shit. That's true, right? And it was just like whoa And then the level of

Weirdness in public Ramped up considerably That's fascinating And does that bother you? Most people are nice I'm not going to say all people are nice No one's ever mean to me in public They're almost always nice

Sometimes too nice I. Sometimes people get weird, but you know, I'm, I work hard at being nice. I'm a genuinely nice person. I try to be nice all the time. So it's like most of the time it's just saying hi to people, but it's weird. You have no anonymity. There's none. That's all gone. There used to be like some anonymity. Yeah. But now it's like, oh, it died. It's all dead. Those days are gone. You know, but I mean, I think you can get that back. You just got to vanish for a while.

Maybe that'll be the next act. Would you ever go off the air for like six months? I don't know. Yeah. Maybe. That'd be crazy. I don't know. Maybe.

People would go through withdrawal. I don't know. Maybe. People would go through withdrawal. I don't know. They'll find somebody else. I think the thing about podcasting is it's not any different than anything else, whether it's music or literature or comedy. There's going to be more people. And I think one of the real problems with some people and their ego is they really do believe that they're the only one that can do it or they're the best one that can do it. But I think thinking like that and having that attitude ever at all detracts you and distracts you from the ultimate goal, which is to always do your best.

To always do your best is like, you know the four agreements, Don Miguel with the Don Miguel, I've heard stories for you. I love this book. It's like an amazing book. And, uh, one of the four agreements is always do your best. Be impeccable with your word. Don't make any assumptions. Don't take things personally. Always do your best. And it's, these are so, it's so simple right but if you can like live your life like that even if you haven't up until now even if your life's been a clusterfuck of terrible mistakes and and fibs and lies and deception and just and and hating yourself if you could just follow those four things. You could change everything. I really, really do genuinely believe that. I always just try to do my best.

And nobody hates my failures more than I do. Like nobody. I think that's one of the reasons why I can keep going. And I don't sit back on it at all. I don't like and I've, I don't sit back on it at all. I don't, um, I don't like what I do. I don't like, I'm not a fan of my own work.

You know, I'm just not interested in it. I'm, I'm, I'm interested in trying to get better at it, but it's not like I ever sit back and watch something. I go, Oh,

that's pretty fucking cool. I genuinely don't. I think that is completely, um, I don't think it does you any good It's either good or it's not If it's good congratulations keep moving That's how I look at things

And then I'm also interested in so many other things Like right now even though I've got a lot of stuff going on I'm thinking about this fucking workout I have to do tomorrow morning Like you know I'm like Because I know it's coming And then tomorrow I'm like oh Jesus But that kind of stuff Like oh, because I know it's coming. And then tomorrow I'm like, oh, Jesus. And then once it, but that kind of stuff, like having things that I know I'm committed to

that I know are brutal and you either do it or you don't do it. There's no if, ands or buts. Those things keep you grounded. Those things keep you rooted in the reality of the struggle. And I think that if you do, I just think everybody has a different personality. Everybody has a different mindset and a different perspective

on life. But from my perspective, with me as a human being, like me personally, I cannot, I cannot be happy unless I'm struggling. I have to have physical struggle. I have to have mental challenges. I have to have things that. I have to have mental challenges. I have to have things that I'm doing that I'm working on trying to be better at. And as long as I do those things, then I can appreciate all the other things better. Then I'm a more loving husband and father and friend and I'm better as a neighbor. I'm better at all those things because I take care of all my bullshit. I think that's and that's

there's a lot involved in that and health is involved in that too. I think when people don't take care of their health it's not just bad for them. It's bad for all the other people around you. It's bad for how you interact and interface with the world. You've got to do your best with your body

too. This doesn't just mean just get vaccinated. I mean, Jesus Christ, like take care of yourself. You got one meat vehicle. This is it. Very well said. Joe, thank you. Thank you, Joe.

I love you, man. Thank you. I love you guys too. Boom. Appreciate you. Thank you so much for your time. My pleasure. Seriously.

Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Helen gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Catherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murder is still out there.

Each week I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Here's the deal. We gotta set ourselves up. See, retirement is the long game. We gotta make moves and make them early. Set up goals.

Don't worry about a setback. Just save up and stack up to reach them. Let's put ourselves in the right position. Pre-game to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispreetirement.org. Brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. High Key. Looking for your next obsession? Listen to High Key. Brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. I lose my mind over all things Cowboy Carter. I know. Girl, the way she about to yank my bank account. Correct.

And one thing I really love about this is that she's celebrating her daughter. Oh, I know. Listen to High Key on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.