Joe Rogan Experience Review podcast - 548 JRE Review of Mike Baker

Episode Date: October 13, 2026

Joe Rogan Experience Review – Mike Baker Former CIA officer and intelligence expert Mike Baker returns to the Joe Rogan Experience for another wide-ranging conversation about geopolitics, global conflicts, intelligence operations, and the ever-changing state of the world. This week, we break down Baker's appearance, discuss his perspectives on international affairs, question a few of the narratives, and offer our own takes on the issues shaping today's world. As always, we bring our usual mix of analysis, humor, and healthy skepticism to another fascinating episode of the Joe Rogan Experience. Enjoy the review! SUPPORT OUR SHOW! Head to our Patreon Check out our website at www.jrereview.com For all marketing questions and inquiries: [e-mail] Please email us here with any suggestions, comments and questions for future shows.. [e-mail]

You're listening to the Joe Rogan Experience Review. What a bizarre thing we've created. Now with your host, Adam Thorne. This might either be the worst podcast. Eight, two, one, go. Enjoy the show. Welcome back to the Joe Rogan Experience Review. We have a pretty juicy episode here.

I'm, of course, joined by Adam, and we will be covering episode 2,355. The Mike Baker appearance. he is making his, what, 500th appearance on this podcast? At the least. And there's a lot to talk about, man. And I just want to say, before we jump into this, the comments on this episode are just amazing. We got to hit the comments. We got to hit those.

All the comments are great. The top comment, almost 9,000 likes. Mike Baker once again changing the batteries for the bugs he put in Joe's studio. I think that's very accurate. especially with the context of what's in this episode. Like the contents, it's insane. The topics they cover, the responses by Mike Baker. And I just want to say this, man, it's like if I have a lot of questions about conspiracies,

about the government, I feel like the last person I'm going to ask, or the last group of people I'm going to ask are the feds, you know? And that's what this feels like. And that's what I feel like all this shit has been with Cash Patel, all these appearances. It's like it just feels like it's propaganda, some of these. And we can totally get into some of this Epstein stuff. And what he's saying with, it's like a Chinese asset and a lot of this fence sitting. And his kid, you know, of course, makes a, his kid obviously has to get a shout out.

Yes. For every episode he's on, you know, Bugsy, whatever the fuck his name is. But, but Adam, what, what are your general thoughts on this episode? Well, I mean, I have to say it's, it's Mike Baker at his usual, his best. He knows how to modulate well. I have to give him credit because, as always, he's one of the first. He's one of the kind of OG legit guess. that Rogan ever got on, especially from something like the CIA, which is amazing.

You know, so I always give him kind of the benefit of the doubt, but also he, I have to say, he's never bringing on something that is an absolute game changer. And I feel like he's in a place to do it. Maybe he doesn't know, but I would like him to speculate a little bit more. It's like the only conspiracy that he really cares about is MLK. And even that one, he's just kind of, you know, almost been backpedaling from recently. He's definitely, you know, a corporate man still. But.

And when he's backpedaling on conspiracies from like 50, whatever years ago, it's like he's obviously going to keep his shit shut for modern stuff. Oh, 100%. You know, and that's also something I want to touch upon his FBI, you know, or CIA, I mean status, where it's like former CIA. That's what everyone's saying. He's former CIA. In quotations, I would put, because I do totally believe he has connections and he's still

working with certain people. Yeah, I don't think you ever really retire from that job. And like he said, he's still going back there and, you know, he's got a show coming out about the museum that they have. I mean, he's still playing the game. I don't know if it's like, oh, they're going to cut off my retirement or, you know, I've like retired in shame or whatever. But I don't know, dude. I think he's been on Rogan enough to where he should get brave and he should start. really coming out with his own separate to the agency,

but his own feelings on this stuff and be like, you know what, this seems fucked. And I think on this podcast, since a lot of it was talking about Epstein, he could be braver because it wasn't directly about the CIA. It's mostly about the administration and the FBI. And you can only imagine

that the CIA and the FBI have a bit of a rivalry. So he may have a bit of extra rope to kind of throw some shit that way. I'm not sure. Yeah, I'm not really sure either, and it's all speculation at this point, but he definitely answered the Epstein stuff way better than Cash did, in my opinion.

But there was a lot of fence sitting. There was a lot of fence sitting with about everything brought up. Yeah. Where he's like, I see why, you know, there's some issues, but I also understand this perspective. Well, it's just bad messaging. Trump's stealing with all this stuff. But I understand this point of view, too. Like, there was really no clear, hey, this is what's up.

Right. This is what needs to be done. This is what's going on. Yeah. It's like, yeah, who, you know, who knows? Anyway, you know, Bugsie fucking got his first direction. It's like, who, like, who fucking cares, you know? wasn't that hilarious

the misdirect dude the misdirect i love it it's so true wasn't that fucking hilarious what was it um yeah i i wrote it down joe starts criticizing trump with like you know uh yeah it was supposed to be this whole no war thing and drain the swamp and then what's going and then mike baker's phone rings and then he's like yeah so bugsies you know and then they move on that was it was almost like wow the bugs are fully juiced.

Well, he even, didn't even say, my phone is definitely on vibrate. He's like, it's on. Look, I did the thing here. And it's, I don't know, dude. It's almost as bad as his cough where Joe had to be like, dude, what the fuck is going on over there? You're okay? You're fucking this up.

Yeah, the CIA's listening, it sounds like. Well, you know, he was asked by Rogan, you know, do they ever take? tell you anything about coming on and he ums and oz and oz and you know over explains which is always you know a bit of a sign of somebody being coached potentially you know i don't know for sure yeah he's like oh no they don't i mean they would never i'm like okay just say yes or no but now that you said that about the phone you're a hundred percent dude i'm completely on board with that That was suspicious and they did try some misdirect. Rogan kind of brought it back.

He was like, all right back to this. But, you know, because Rogan isn't being like a gotcha journalist, I don't want to say it's easy to misdirect, but he has to really hammer on a point, which does create some conflict. And I feel like Rogan's just at a point where he's not trying to do that. He's like, I'm bringing stuff to the audience, just like he did with Cash Patel. And he goes, let's let the mob decide.

It's kind of where I'm feeling he is. I totally know what you mean. And he mentions that in this episode specifically where he addresses the criticism he got with Cash Patel, where people are gone, why didn't you push? And he was like, well, you know, I'm just going to let the comments and the people people, you know, put two and two together because it's pretty obvious that, you know, everyone has their, their messages wrong. Everyone, you know, has their stories mixed up because he was talking about, yeah,

well, there's like three fractures in his neck or whatever, and that would be impossible by, you know, unless he was attacked or strangled or something. Because if he hung himself, it would be impossible for all those bones to break at once. But it's just a fucking mess. And then the footage, the two minutes of footage. And it's just like, I feel like Mike Baker, all he really said with all this stuff is like, yeah, it's bad messaging. You know, it's just the whole the bad messaging of the, it's like, yeah, well, like, you know, fucking no shit. And it's bad messaging because I feel like certain people don't want certain things to be public.

And, you know, not to jump the gun here with talking about the Epstein stuff in this. episode, but like he really was fence sitting so hard on the Epstein stuff. And then he kept bringing it around to it's a Chinese asset. And then

they start talking about blackmail. And he's like, no, blackmail doesn't work. Dude, you're in the CIA. Are you fucking kidding me? Blackmail doesn't work? CIA has experience with blackmail.

Are you kidding me? Yeah. But it just seems like it's such a fucking like, it's, it's such a mess. Like, no one has their stories straight. Everyone's just trying to misdirect. And then bringing it back to like foreign, you know, intelligence and oh, it's a Chinese operation or it's a Russia thing. By the way, Obama, let's Obama, you know, don't think about, yeah. He even said that the Epstein stuff is distracting. us from other things that are happening,

which was a real red flag for me. Yes. Yeah. That's when I was like, oh, he's compromised. That was the smoking gun for me. It's like, what are you trying to say is happening instead of this? Like, this is what everybody wanted to see. And we just supposed to go, all right, fine.

We trust your investigative. journalism, you know? We, like, I mean, they said that they had the list. They said that there are hundreds or if not thousands of hours of footage. We know all these people are on all these planes. And now there's nothing. I mean, at least be like, hey, yeah, it was Bill Gates. He did, he did the things.

It was him. Yeah, Tom Hanks fucked a kid. Yeah. Uninstall Microsoft now. Use Linux. You know, that's the guy. But they went from not even trickling us out some bullshit to saying there's nothing to see here. It is honestly, I feel like it's a sci-up to see how fucking gullible we are. Like, will we really stand for this? And maybe we will. Maybe a lot of us will. Maybe given, sometime like everything it just passes and then it washes away but it only encourages more of this bullshit in the future and Joe Rogan is playing this role of he wants his cake and he wants to eat it too you know where he doesn't want to question and make these people like no he wants to question and make these people like uncomfortable and get the truth out but at the same time he wants to be friends with all these people like he wants to build close connections he doesn't want to

make enemies. But at the same time, he wants the truth. It's like he can't, it's one or the other, you know, and he's playing in this, in this middle territory where it's just like, it's, it just turns the show at times into a propaganda machine. Well, it's either that he knows the best way for himself to get the information is to give the guest a good experience and then get a bit of behind the scenes that he does. doesn't air. We already know that happened with Bob Lazar. Bob Lazar, that was one of the biggest

Rogan podcast of all time, Bob said on air, I'll talk to you about this afterwards. And he talked to Rogan about some things that Rogan's never talked about. So to be fair to the ideology that Rogan created for his show, he's like, I just want to have interesting conversations. I never expected it to get popular. Therefore, and not that it's selfish, but it's about him getting the information. Now, I think he is open and would love to give us as much as he can. That's kind of like why he does the show and he gives us a lot. He gets these people in front of us. He talks to them. He gets in there. But if he's trying to get a whole of something that no one can talk about, then then kind of let him do it, I think.

I mean, it's a bummer as a viewer or a listener or a fan, but if it's, if, if the choice is this, he that doesn't get it or he does, then let him get it. Because I feel like it's going to slip out on a future podcast. And maybe when he gets real old and he has an even bigger security staff, He's just like, okay, guys, I'm going to break this down.

This is what I've learned over the years. Maybe it all comes out. I'm optimistic that that's going to happen. And just to build off of your point about the like, you know, after air conversations, one that I would kill to be a fly on the wall for is the Paul Stamitz, I believe his name is the mushroom guy. Oh, yeah. Have you seen that episode where he's like, this is an explosive area of conversation and my life is at risk.

Oh, for the, uh, talking about how, um, uh, what kind of mushroom? Yeah, it's like the everyday mushrooms that you get in the store. It's the ones with like the brown gray top, not the white ones, the other ones. Yeah. And it was like just talking about the benefits of it. I believe her or something like that. No, they were poisonous. Whoa.

Oh, really? Yeah, they were poisedness. I'll have to also look back at that, but that just, was something that reminds me of that and it's like wow, that's something I would... Portobella. Portobella. Portobella, yes.

Portobella mushrooms. Basically, they have like high levels of toxins according to him and there's big mushroom out there like big tobacco and they put pressure on him enough to scare the shit out of him

and he never went further. Dude, I'm not going to lie. I have backed off at times from buying those mushrooms just because I remember that episode. Also, it's not that effective because other times I bought them and I just eat them and they're delicious. But I don't know.

I don't feel like he's nuts, you know? I don't feel like he's just making up bullshit. There's something there. Yeah, well, that's something that's really genuine because he's not like, you know, dancing around the question. He's straight up being like, hey, like I could die. from answering this question. So I'm just not going to.

Well, and imagine if like other guests did shit like that, like Mike Baker, you know, or Cash Patel, where he's like, I just, I cannot answer that.

I'm sorry. Like, you would just, like the credibility would start to, you know, come out of these episodes and some of these answers because it's like, oh,

he's, he's genuine and he knows he can't give us things. Instead of just being like, yeah, you know, I fucking, I hunt elk. and I'm smoking a cigar.

And yeah, we're on the same page, you know, when we're, you know, discussing Cash Patel here. But yeah, like even Mike Baker when he was talking about Cash Patel, it's like, yeah, man, I don't know. It's weird. It's weird that he said that, you know, and it wasn't real, like, criticism. I don't know. It's just, it was real interesting how everyone's answering this Epstein stuff.

It's all, like, different levels of mind games. Yeah. Well, look. Where, yeah. Mike is, he's still, like, interfacing with a lot of these people that are putting him in good positions for TV shows. He's got to keep his credibility. He doesn't want to lose it. He doesn't want to be seen as, like, the Joe Rogan, you know, conspiracy guy. So he steps away from it.

To think that Cash Patel in his current position couldn't have positive influence over something that Mike's doing. I mean, hey, they're all trying. to buy their next jet skis. I get it. You know? How much of an influence do you think the CIA had on him being on the episode and like pushing certain topics or certain narratives? I don't know.

I'm inclined to believe him when he says that they don't push me to do things, you know? I think there might be like a bit of a briefing potentially. But I think it's like a post-brief. thing. I think that if he comes on an episode and pushes some boundaries, they might have a chat with him, but then it's almost kind of legit because they do have rules. And like he said, I think they do trust him to not go too far, which is a lot of what we're talking about. He doesn't. He doesn't push envelopes, you know? It's like, it's fair enough that he's on. He has the credibility. he has really interesting opinions on a lot of stuff.

You know, he knows a great deal about how the world works, you know, in the kind of like darker realm and how the cogs are turning. But at the same time, yeah, he's not willing to throw out a crazy idea at all, especially anything that pushes back against what the CIA is. Yeah, and I found a lot of his topics, like, really interesting, too. like regardless, I feel like maybe people are going into it and being like, well, he has to uncover everything, you know, I do enjoy a lot of the elements of just like two guys just shooting the shit on this.

And some of his opinions on the whole like Obama Russian thing where I do see where he's coming from where he's like, yeah, it's just not going to happen where the truth's never going to come out. There's too many layers. And like, that's so true, especially with a lot. of the things going on now. And like insight like that, I do find really interesting because it's like, fuck, like he is right. And being like a former CIA or former quotations, it makes sense.

Because unless something is just so in the open and so obviously corrupt or guilty, you know, it's not. Nothing's happening. And we see that in time and time again. But hearing him just say that and that coming out of his mouth was like just really. reassuring how fucked everything is. Yeah. I mean,

what kind of raise some eye barrels with me is a bit of a bit of gaslighting that I felt like he was doing when he was speculating that maybe the Epstein intelligence ties suggests that there may be like Russian and Chinese intelligence involved. And honestly,

that seemed like it was deflecting from possible like CIA and Mossade involvement. And I'm like, well, why? Why Chinese and Russian? Like, how does this play into this? It's always China or Russia. You know, that is the-

It's easy to blame him. Press either or button if there's a problem. And Mike doesn't care for either of them, right? Oh, yeah. Oh, for sure. Yeah. And I just feel like instead of just like lying or saying some bullshit, just don't, just like move on or just don't answer it or find some way around it.

But it's just like I really hate that shit where it's like so obvious. Like like what you're saying. We're not fucking stupid with this shit. And look at the comments, you know? All the comments. There wasn't one that was like, you know, that was a nice, fun, insightful conversation. I learned so much. All the comments were critical.

People are out for blood, baby. Out for blood. Any, any like downplaying of anything right now is just getting destroyed. And, you know, even if that's the wrong attitude or the wrong direction to take, I respect it because it reflects the frustration in front of everybody. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. And I think the Cash Patel thing was the, you know, yeah, it was like building up over time.

But that was like, that became the thing where everyone's like, all right, we need to fucking be on top of this. like people are obviously lying because that was such an obvious like wow way to just and even joe's talking about it how the guest is compromised oh yeah he doesn't like he doesn't trust cash at all yeah he won't be back on he's not coming back on it's crazy because like you know someone like that you know like f the the the status that guy has and for joe to completely like be critical about them like what a week or two later I don't think that's ever happened

on the podcast I mean other than that like someone that big no true you know I mean the the closest thing to my mind is that Egyptian pyramid guy that Joe was just like fuck that guy

but you're right yeah you're right this is like the director of the FBI right like this is this isn't a fucking like you know some guy who wrote a book thing. I feel like these guys had a good path for top podcast access for a long time. Okay. Whether it was Trump, whether it was J.D. Vance, whether it was Cash, Tulsi. And now I think that they have mostly burnt those bridges, honestly. I mean, Trump could always get on whatever he wants, but whether people are going to.

whether it's going to win favor or not, I don't know at this point. I think everyone's suspicious while they're up to. I hate to bring up Andrew Schultz, but he literally, like, the past few episodes has just been completely bashing, like, the current administration. Where before, he was a massive Trump guy at Trump on and all these people on, and now he's like, he's so against it. Dude, but that's all these people. the only one.

There's like, there's massive MAGA reporters that are like the equivalent of Fox News, but even more MAGA, immediately flipped. I mean, it's, I mean,

the fact that podcasts this would go back and forth is not that much of a surprise to me. I mean, their loyalty is the comedy and what's interesting. Right? They're called bullshit wherever they see it. You know, but when you,

You see people that their whole identity is the politics behind this, and they know the momentum that they need, meaning MAGA's in. We believe in MAGA. We got to support this. Yet also they're like, you know what? I don't like this. I don't even care. Forget it.

They suck. Get them out. And cheers the bad friends for just keeping it fucking real. Legendary. Legendary. One of my favorite podcast. Real. Yeah, same man.

Of all the time. Andrew, he said on our recent episode, he's like, we were the only fucking ones who just stay out of all this bullshit and now everyone's backpedaling. And it's like, yeah, we're just comics. We're just funny guys. We don't fucking know any of this shit. So we're just going to stay out of it.

And I had amend them for that. Yeah. You know? But the thing is with Rogan, he's always had a political podcast. There's always been a drive for conspiracy in finding the. truth. So it makes sense. It makes sense he's having all these people on. But an issue arises when it just becomes a platform for people to just kind of spew their misinformation and for him to kind of just nod along. And I think now he's kind of realizing that people are doing this and people are coming

on to his podcast just to like, you know, spread propaganda. And I don't think he's having any more of it. No, I think he's going to make people stand by their word more. And, you know, I think about how he could potentially do it. And an interesting process could be that he's like, all right, what is your platform? What are you doing? Can I have you on in six months to, like, hit those points and at least see if you stood by it? Like, he could be the sounding board of accountability and also enjoy it. You know, you know how he has a diversion anytime someone's like, hey, Joe, you should run for president.

He's like, fuck off. I'm not doing it. Like, fair play to him. No, why would he do that? However, he is going to interview him. He wants access to them, right? If he just says no to any politicians, I think that's a bad move because it's a good sounding board, you know, for them. to play out their ideas.

But if he had a process where he's like, right, I've seen this before. I've seen people say something and then flip it. And it's one thing to come on this pod and say all the right things and gain a lot of positive traction, which Trump definitely did when he came on. I mean, Trump was arguably won him the election. It was, I would say it's Trump's greatest performance. And I don't want to take anything away from him. as being a character or whatever,

but he, he did all the right things to make people believe that this is who's in front of him. And I think it's reasonable for, for Rogan to be able to be like, all right, come back on, you're the president now.

I just want to hold your feet to the fire, not to upset you, but because really no one else can. You're the most powerful politician in the world. world, arguably. And what's going on here? And yeah, is, is it, it does the list exist? Is it a Democrat hoax? Is it real? But is it like, what the fuck? Yeah. Oh, there's so many messages. There's so many people spreading all these different things, you know, even, uh, J.D. Vance and Tim D. Dylan went to dinner recently. And, and J.D. Vance is like, yeah, it's all just like commercial

pornography. And then someone's saying there's no footage. It's like, what the fuck? Dude, did you, did you see Tim's response? To, uh, to, uh, that dinner. Because there's. Yeah, yeah. He, he is not standing for it at all. He is like, that sounds like some huge bullshit.

Administration, I'm not going to name names. And so, but you nailed it when you brought up Netanyahu. So let me, if you've got time here, I have to, we have all the time. the world. I just want to add when Bondi said we have 10,000 hours of video, she said we have 10,000 hours of video. I had dinner last week with the vice president. He told me that that was commercial pornography. They do not have videos of any powerful person in a compromising position. That's the party line that they're going with. If that's the case, why would Pam Bondi call it evident? Why would she say it's evidence?

She's not an idiot. She's the attorney general. Why would she say she has files on her desk if none of these implicated anybody? It just feels like they're covering something for sure. They are covering something for sure. And you know, honestly, I love that Tim is, dare I say brave enough. You could say, oh, he's a comedian, whatever. No, he got, he was allowed to go to that dinner.

J.D. Vance is meeting up with him. He's seen as an ally. They're all playing a game. This is a big game of chess. And they are trying to persuade these podcasters, which, let's be fair, the mainstream media is always like, that's not media, that's not journalism. They're a joke. But let me tell you this.

You're not going to be able to buy one of these guys. And we already know the Wall Street Journal, the Post, any of these, you can buy them. You can just buy the whole paper if you want to. But good luck buying 10. Yeah. Yeah. And that says something. And how crazy is that?

It sure does. And how crazy is that, you know, getting dinner with J.D. Vance. And then two days later, like, doing a show with Alex Jones. It's like, what the fuck state of the world? Amazing. And his journalism in right now. It's like, what the fuck? Yeah.

It's going on. But just so entertaining. Like this is such, regardless what you think about all this bullshit, all these cover-ups, I do have to admit this is such an entertaining time in history because it's like crazy. The stakes are so fucking high. Yeah. For some, like, we can find out that the most powerful people in the world are pedophiles and contributed to a child sex trafficking islands.

Like, this is. fucking crazy that this is like a basement conspiracy theory and now it's like mainstream discussion yeah it's like dr sus has had a nightmare and started writing writing new kinds of books and you're just like wait what's going on on an island back to the island though gis lane what do you what do you make of what the charges are for this person like it makes no sense So there's nothing on the list. Nothing happened. It's a bunch of child porn on Epstein's computer.

I mean, why is she in jail for 20 years then? Yeah, that's the whole thing. That's crazy. She should be serving time. And now, you know, Trump even mentioned, yeah, I can pardon her if I want, you know. And now I believe she was moved to a prison in Texas a few days ago. Oh, she's getting, like, madden her. manicures and massages.

I heard she's doing yoga. She's at a spa. It's like what the fuck. And I read things that arguably she was more involved in the business side of all this than Jeffrey. So I don't know. I just I don't know anymore. I really have no fucking clue what's going on. But what would the business side be if there's nothing on the list, dude?

What is she? What is she ordering pizza? Yeah. Yeah, she's drinking the blood of children at this Oprah, you know, child sacrifice orgy. Who the fuck knows anymore? I have no fucking clue. But everyone gets a free card in Oprah event. So it's totally worth it. You get a pentagram. You get a panegram. You get a witch's head. I just, I don't fucking know, man. It's crazy. And like, even this shit, yeah. Like, I think it'd be cool to smoke a cigar with Mike Baker

But when he says shit like, yeah, I'm not a big conspiracy guy. I'm not really a big conspiracy guy. Dude, the CIA invented the term conspiracy. They are. Like, it's just, it's, it's a fucking, I feel like doing this, it's like...

I'm pretty sure it stands for conspiracy investigation association. Right. Like that's what people don't know. They don't know. They give it a different name. But it's just, it's insulting and it's just so entertaining.

And it feels like a lot of this shit feels like an episode of South Park, which, you know, I do just want to bring up how fucking awesome that episode was. Please God. Did you watch? Oh, my God. And they brought it up at the beginning of the episode, too. If anyone has not seen this,

stop what you're, turn this podcast off. immediately. Go watch it. I have given like five people my Paramount Plus login just because they're like, I can't watch it yet. And I'm like, forget it. Here's the login. You have to see this. Zero people have said that that wasn't one of the funniest things they've ever seen in their life. I was dying, dude. I haven't laughed that hard for so long. I think the nation needed this. I think the world needed this. I think they heroes. Both sides loved it.

Everyone did. Except Trump. Except Trump was the only guy that was like, Motherfuckus. Which was the point. But it's just so nice to like, you know, that's the whole thing with like people being like,

comedy is illegal, make comedy legal again. Where it's like this was some fucking edgy comedy. There were slurs in it. It was just fucking balls to the wall. And, Libs loved it. Republicans loved it.

It's like, this is fucking great. And it's like we finally found something to come together on. Yeah. I think honestly, the MAGA reporting side was more behind this episode than anybody. They're the most, they're the most hurt. How crazy is that? They're the most hurt. They were the most invested.

They feel shit on. And they have a huge platform. And they have gone berserk. And you are right, sir. I will say that they. The nation has come together stronger during that episode of South Park than anything else in the last, dare I say, decade? Dare I say it. I'm saying it right now on the end.

Nothing more than Trump's dick with googly eyes. That's what did it. Who knew? Who knew that would be the thing? I'll tell you. I'll tell you who knew it. Two of the greatest comedic minds of the last thousand years. I mean...

Dude, the balls. The balls. Unbelievable. You know, the, what was it? 1.5 billion? That's like, and it was a 50 episode deal, three million an episode. Wow. And they're just, and, and they're just fucking playing chicken.

And you know what? You know what? I would say, I would say, The studio got a good deal. That's how good they are. I don't even know if you can really put a price on this. What other TV series is like... Right.

And what other TV series is like when an episode drops, every single fucking news outlet is talking about a nonstop. Dude. You know. Do you think a Simpsons has ever come up in a press briefing? No. I mean... Yeah.

Yeah. Good luck, family guy. Right. And everyone tried to do Trump. Family guy tried to do Trump. Simpson's tried. This was fucking great. And all the Republicans were like, fuck it.

It's propaganda. It's bullshit. This was fucking funny. This was comedy. It was. This was true comedy. It was. It's back.

It's back, baby. You know, and they've been saying that for a long time. Like, I watched Tropic Thunder the other day, right? At the studio. It was, the wife was out of town. I had a bit of space. I just had an evening. I wanted to watch one of those classic, ridiculous.

And I mean, everyone's Entropic Thunder, dude. If you haven't watched that for a while, go back. Enjoy. Jack Black, Ben Stiller. Tom Cruise steals the show. And everyone is amazing. Robert Downey is a legend in that. But, you know, you're watching it and you're like, they can't do this today.

But who's to say when South Park just steps up and goes, oh, yeah? Hold my beer. watch this masterpiece yeah and it's like that's a great point because if they did that episode say they made something back in the day and this is like you know maybe it's not even a cartoon

but they did the same criticism with Reagan you know when that whole thing was going on and it was same context to everything people might look at that and be like you know way you can do that today you know and this with with Trump's dick and everything like and he's taking off all his clothes it's like

It's crazy. It's crazy. Unbelievable. And it's on, it's on Fox. It's on CNN. It's on MSNBC. It's on everywhere. Everywhere. Social media. Everything. Everything. And on IMDB, this is crazy. It's the, it's tied in second place for the highest rated South Park episode ever. What's, what's number one? Please tell me it's the Scientology episode. I think it's Scott Tederman. Oh, that was good.

Classic. That's classic. I was watching South Park recently because of it. Real quick, the episode where Cartman, his mom tries to like fucking make him behave. So she calls Caesar, the dog whisperer to train him. It's so good. South Park's great. It's just, what's it, season 27?

What fucking show has held up the quality? But like back to your point, it's like, They've had so many bangers, so many amazing episodes, like when he ate that ginger kid in the chili or whatever. There's like, there's so many. The Warcraft one too. Unbelievable. Warcraft was amazing. There's just so many moments that are priceless to think that in their brand new season, 27 seasons later, they immediately jumped to the number two spot.

again. I mean, their timing is, if they had done this, three weeks before, before any of the Epstein stuff, there was so much like pro-Trump, pro-Maga, like all this energy, that at best they could have won half the demographic, but not even. And there would have been a lot of hate. It's almost like they, they just have their finger on the pole so hard. There's just no mess with them. They're like, hey, pay me one and a half billion, but also we release whatever episode we want as soon as we need to. And they're just, they're sitting on like a gold mine ready to explode. Dave. Apparently, they, like the episode came out or whatever, or they started writing it like a day after the contract was signed. No doubt. And it's like so funny because it's like the White House

made a statement and they're like, yeah, no one gives a fuck about South Park. It's like, why did, you know, they get paid $1.5 billion? The record-breaking, not a bigger deal has ever been signed. Oh, yeah. In television. Because they're not- Simpsons. Simpsons aren't Disney Plus.

Did Disney Plus pay them like, what, 10 bucks to be on their service? This is 1.5 billion. What other fucking media? What was Rogan paid for Spotify? It wasn't billion, right? No. No. I mean, listen.

And that was a record-breaking deal as well. Oh, yeah. Biggest in podcasting ever. His next year supposedly was like, you know, he kept it more hidden this time. But it's like, it was twice what it was for sure. Crazy. You know, and even that $100 million deal, they think was closer to $200. But it still didn't touch, you know, listen, dude, when you get paid $1.5,000,

billion. And I don't want to sound like I work for the government, but it clearly is because they're not important and nobody finds them funny and they're irrelevant and they're just paying them to just go do something else. So I think Trump had a point and his point sucked and nobody was going to believe him. The fact that you would even throw that down. I mean, why? Listen, there's a reason he backed off from Elon when Elon just threw out on Twitter that the reason he's not releasing the files is because he's on him. And Trump really didn't say that much crazy shit towards Elon. It was surprising. Yeah. How interesting is that? He should have followed the same role with South Park, honestly. It's like there are certain forces you can't fight. You can't fight. You can't

rebuttal this. And that's what everyone's saying. It's like Trump just needs to shut the fuck up about this because there's nothing he can say. One point, it's because that's the whole thing. You're irrelevant. One point five billion, you know, you can't, you can't say anything. Just move on. Move on. Do you think that there's a path for him to regain trust? There's only one way. There's only one way. And I don't think he likes it. And it's just slap him on the table, the fucking Epstein list. As Joe said in this episode specifically, that is the line in the sand. And everyone, everyone agrees.

Everybody agrees. That's what started this whole thing against him and all these podcasters. That was the whole thing. And, you know, that was this whole selling thing, you know. I'm not sure if you've seen the videos where it's like people being like, you know, like J.D. Vans and stuff. And like, all right, who makes some noise if you want the Epstein files to be released. And everyone's going, yes. and then he's saying

you guys are still talking about Jeffrey Epstein that creep it's like it's like I thought we the whole thing was like draining the swamp you know and that is the deepest layer of it that is like the fucking core

that is the bog that is the center of the swamp yeah that should be all everyone aim you know towards that that is when that shit gets out when all these people you know, when justice gets done,

it's like people who understand. And like even Rogan's like, yeah, you know, he's talking about the whole thing with cameras. And he's like, obviously they were fucking filming everything. He was a fucking like creep and and perverted. And he was saying, yeah, you know, it makes sense because people just these high celebrity things, people just want to party with like hot chicks and stuff.

We got to remember these aren't just fucking hot chicks. They're fucking like, they're like children. year old girls. Yeah. They're children. Flown in from like Eastern Europe and Russia, dude. Right. This isn't a ditty party.

This is a fucking like child sex ring. And people that are in movies, millionaires, all this stuff are involved. This is the fucking swamp. We see the swamp. We see it. And there's the fucking thing. You just have to lift to drain the whole thing. There's the plug right there.

And you have your hand on it and you're not doing shit. Yeah. That's what it feels like. And I hate, you know, to, because, you know, to kind of point size because Trump does align. Like, Joe is, he does say he's a centrist, but I feel like he's more of a conservative. Recently. Yeah. I mean, listen, since COVID.

But try living in L.A. with Gavin Newsom during COVID. It changed a man. Dude, that would change, it changed me, you know? And I don't, I don't, I don't. I've never voted Republican. I'm not saying I'm on their side, and I certainly don't like what Trump's doing with this Epstein stuff. But I was very frustrated with what was happening in my localized state.

And it's not that localized. It's like 10 times bigger than England. And being English, I'm allowed to be like, this is a big place. And this fuck is out of control. It was enough to swing us because we love that place, dude. A lot of people did. And they went, wacky and yeah i think i think there's some PTSD you know i don't want to i don't want to upplay it

like it's not real trauma but it was it was pretty fucking upsetting for the people that live there so i i get where rogan's coming from dude did i ever tell you i was in the comedy store the day before it closed no yes so we went to stand up on the spot have you ever heard of that Jeremiah Watkins. Yeah. Yeah. So I knew that group well. And Brian got me in.

They'd sold tickets, but he was like the manager guy that, and I get in. And it was kind of beautiful, dude, because Rogan just, he just kind of stopped doing their suggestions and went into like an hour and a half of his feelings of what's happening, his thoughts on moving, where he thinks things will go. if everything continues, that he didn't know if the store was going to close down or not, that these shutdowns didn't seem helpful to what was going on, even though we were all trying to figure it out, right, and people being like mostly overly cautious and all the rest of it. I have to say, I don't know where I'd put it. It wasn't really stand up.

It wasn't really a TED talk, but it was... It sounds like a very Bill Hicks, like, rant, like, just... Just I gotta just fucking talk about this. I would say this. It's the most beautiful private Rogan podcast that only 60 people got to hear and is now in the ether and lost forever. And only for the audience members that were there. And he captured so much of what was happening. Like his, his finger is on the pulse of where it's at.

doesn't mean that he has all the answers or knows what's going on, but he's not missing a beat when it comes to this. And the fact that he made the changes he did, right after the Spotify deal, too. Moving was huge. That was like basically a big red flag at Spotify. They had to have a meeting with him. Like, what are you doing moving from L.A.? Where do you think you're going? We just signed you. He's like, I got to do it from my family. Dude, it was like bravery and just like clear-headedness. It helped me. It wasn't long after that.

I was like, you know what? Fuck, L.A. I'm out. And I love that place. They handled COVID so fucking poorly. I have a few friends out there in bands and they were saying they were doing backyard shows. Ten minutes later, a fucking chopper circle in the house. Dude, we would do it in Venice.

We would go to Venice. We had outdoor stuff. we had people, friends that would like set up a show. We would learn the rules, separate the tables. Cops would just come in and shut it down, dude. We could not do comedy. It was impossible. We were left to like Zoom.

And you could imagine how good that shit was. Dude, the Zoom shows. Kill yourself. I will never fucking miss in my life. No. Brutal. There's not. And open mics on Zoom.

That was fucking hell. Dude, there's, there's no one that exists that thought that was a good, idea after the fact. Disaster. Nobody. I love hearing about that, though,

that shit like going on now. Like, yeah, I'm doing the Zoom show. I'm like, what the, you know, you could go outside again,

right? Mm-hmm. It's like you're still doing fucking comedy on Zoom. Like, are you, like, there's nothing to gain out of that.

Dude, people have always, so crazy. They've always been going in wacky directions. I mean, that was, you know,

I had friends that went into, they were just like, actually good standups and they went fully into improv. because they dated some girl and then nobody ever heard from them again. It's like, what a slippery slope?

Where are you going? Slippery's. What are you doing? Terrible. Yeah, it was a while of time. And I think that's why a lot of the direction that he's taken. Also, he's now in Texas. So there's pressures there.

You know, he's being introduced to new things. And he's like, well, this is fun, you know. Well, he's got the pressures of being. the nucleus of a whole new comedy scene now. You know, the mothership, he's running a club, he's doing like four episodes of the fucking podcast, he's doing spots all the time, he's doing shows everywhere. It's a lot of shit he's dealing with. It really is.

And he's like, I know he says all this shit about the mainstream media and everything, but like, it's like, hey man, like, you're kind of turning into that. Like you, like, not to say, you're on the same level of like misinformation and just all this bullshit. But like people, there's people are going to you more than what we call today the mainstream media. You know, the mainstream media is taking notes from your podcast in terms of like how to gauge listeners.

Yeah. I do feel like podcasting is getting to the point in our culture where people are going going towards that more than shit like CNN, Fox News, all that other stuff, stuff we would call mainstream media. And I think that's something a lot of podcasters have to start admitting. But what would you say changes there, right? It's like, I speak to people about it. And they usually people that don't listen to a lot of Rogan.

And I suggest things. I'm like, what would you think if he had a team? of investigative journalists that could like fact check live on the air and also brought up talking points for him during the show and they're usually behind it and I'm like I sit back and think about it

and I'm like yeah it would make his show more factual it would make it less like you know throwing shit at the wall and see what seems interesting however it would also become more like CNN and Fox News. And there's a reason people are not trusting that as much.

So I really don't know what the answer is. Yeah, it seems dangerous that a dude that used to host Fear Factor is the guy that everyone's listening to and he barely gets fact-checked by Jamie live on the air. But at the same point, no one has ever been listened to like this. this in the history of the world. And maybe that is the real question. This is why I did this podcast. To find out, well, to get an idea of why so many people listen to this individual, just chat about

whatever, and it's only increased. So I haven't figured it out, Brandon. If you can, help me out. But I don't think overly producing his show is going to give us the answer. And I'm thinking about it every day, man. And to be honest, I don't have a fucking clue whatsoever. And I agree. That's the other end of it because it's like what I love about podcast is it's like you're kind of just a fly on the wall of just two people shooting the shit. Where when it becomes this like fucking big interview where you have like five people behind the scenes all looking shit. up and it's like this like political debate thing it's like no it's kind of it's everything rogan

has talked about i just like interesting people and i just like getting to know them and just shooting the shit with them it's so yeah jamy like i'll be honest jami has a lot of weight on his shoulders oh dude because he didn't know what he was getting himself in stress yeah rogan i can't imagine the stress rogan came to him and said hey i need a sound guy and uh red band getting tired, and I'll pay you this much, and you'll just edit the shows. And now, I think fair play to Jamie, he does a great job of staying out of the limelight. No interviews, no nothing, if anything, play some golf, barely post the Instagram. He's kind of off-grid.

He occasionally says something, but mostly stays out of it. It's like, I mean, he's in the middle of one of the big. biggest media storms potential of all time. And I don't know if he's ready to surf that wave. Yeah. And the like criticism, Rogan has gotten for like, you got a fact check.

You got to do this. You got to look into this. This all goes back to Jamie where like you're saying it's like he's just sitting there being like, I'm just, I'm like, what the fuck have I got myself into? Yeah.

Because that's Joe's guy too. He's not just going to be like, okay, I got to get some crack researcher on here to fact check me and stuff, then it, then it like kind of leaves the area of being like a podcast and then it starts like, you're saying, becoming like a new show, which is everything he doesn't want to be. No. And also, it's, it's weird. It's a weird situation he's in. And that's a, this is a really interesting points. Yeah. I mean, Jamie was never the investigative journalist. It was just that he was sat there, not editing sound or checking level.

So Rogan started to ask him, hey, will you Google that, Jamie? And then it just became that pull it up, Jamie thing. And that was his new role. Like, yeah, yeah, zero, zero direction with, like, how much weight that would carry. And let's be fair, he's doing his best. He's pulling it up. I blame the internet. If the answer doesn't come up that's, like, good, then can we really?

put it on Jamie? Also, do your own research. Do you know? Like look into the shit yourself. Try. If you're living your whole life based off this one talking point of Joe Rogan and, you know, Alex Jones and they're both fucked up. Like, fucking look into it a little bit.

It's like, and it makes me think like, thank God Lee Syatt isn't, you know, the producer on this and like wasn't roped into all this and became a Jamie. So true. So true, dude. I think him and Joey Diaz is a good fit. But Jamie, you know, it seems like he is also a good fit for Joe. And it did work out way better than Brian. Well, there's a reason that Jamie can take 1,000 milligram edibles

and not even feel high. You know about this, right? Jamie. Jamie is immune. Immune to edibles. He can take an almost infinite amount and function. Whereas Joey's guy, not so much. And I think whatever that is, not that it's a mindset,

maybe it's a genetic thing, but whatever that is allows Jamie to just stay weirdly functional and neutral through this like chaos that has become the power of Rogan. Which is perfect. Dude. Which is perfect. He's perfect for it. You got to have someone fucking.

sober. We're running that show, you know. I love it. I love it so much. Thanks for joining me today, Brandon. And yeah, check out Mike Baker. I mean, you'll get into all sorts. I mean, it sent us off on all sorts of tangents, but there's a lot of energy behind this. A lot of people are very frustrated about this direction and the Epstein stuff and how we're not getting good answers and nothing's closing it down. And yeah, there's a part of me that says, hold their feet to the fire. I know we've still got a country to run, but if we can't hold the politicians

responsible that say, we're going to clean the swamp, we're going to release the files, we're going to do X, Y, and Z, then I struggle to know who to trust next. Yeah, don't tell me that shit when you're sitting on like a lily pad. Yeah.

Like, just fucking do it. The drains right there, Just pull the plug. Pull it, you know. Pull it, dude. Well, until next time, appreciate you. And we will talk to you guys next time. Later.

See up.