The Joe Rogan Experience - #2029 - Bill Maher

Episode Date: September 2, 2023

Bill Maher is a comedian, political commentator, the host of HBO's "Real Time with Maher" and his own podcast, "Club Random." Catch him in residency at the David Copperfield Theatre at MGM Grand in Las Vegas on September 15 and 16 and November 3 and 4.www.billmaher.com

The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day. Hello, Bill Maher. Hi, Joe. Good to see you. Great to be in Austin. What's happening? Look at you.

You're all comfortable and shit? I asked you before if I could put my, I don't know. Of course. We want this table as dirty as possible. It's not like I'm messing it up. No. Let's be honest. I like it lived in.

I like it stained and ashes and all that jazz. How you doing? I'm good, man. What's happening? In town to, you know, do my thing. Doing a show tonight at ACL, right? Telling jokes to strangers, what we do. Nice.

And, of course, when I got the invite, how can you turn down the king? I know you hate being called the king, but you are, Joe, so basking it a little. Thank you very much. Yeah. It's always good to see you. Yeah, you too. How are you enjoying doing your podcast? You know, I love it, especially since I've been thrown out of work by the strike, you know, so it's what I have left plus the touring. But that, you know, touring is a couple of weekends a month. Podcasting doesn't take that much time either. I don't do it every day like you, but it's nice to have an outlet.

It's also nice to be able to talk to people in a non-political way. I mean, my show is for, let's say, people who know things, my HBO show. Right. You know, you just can't really enjoy that show or watch it if you're clueless. It's like I'm speaking in Chinese. Right. So, you know, and that's okay. You know, that's a lot of the people in this country that would describe. They're not involved in politics or what goes on in the world or,

you know, don't ask them what the ACLU is or NATO. These things are just not on their radar. And that certainly also describes a lot of celebrities. You know, their intelligence is artistic intelligence, generally, I would say. You know, it's a different kind of intelligence. It's not worse or better. It's just different. So to be able to talk to a lot of people on Club Random in a setting where I can just be high as a kite and constantly blowing pot smoke in their face, first of all, it's just a joy. face, first of all, it's just a joy. It's a sign of the progress that this country has made. To think that I used to sweat bullets going through every airport in this country because I had this much little pot that I was hiding under my balls. That's really where I hid it. So that

if the dog sniffed it, you know, they'd be embarrassed, I hoped, to look there. And now I can freely smoke pot in a nationally aired program is kind of amazing. So I'm enjoying the fuck out of it. That's beautiful. Yeah. It's also nice to have like a pretty completely open format so conversations can really air out. Right. You know, you don't have to worry about running out of time. Right. You also can kind of let them breathe a little because sometimes you really want to let someone talk for a long time to try to, before you try to interject and pick apart their argument, you really want to, I want to know what you're really thinking.

I don't want to be confused. Again, that's kind of what you pioneered and we're grateful for it. And I do like that. I also find it's interesting. The setting makes a big difference as to what arouses the furies on the left. If I said so many of the things that I've said on Club Random, on a podcast, on Real Time, on HBO, they would have had my head. Yeah. But somehow when I say it in the setting of the podcast,

in my own home, blowing the pot smoke, somehow it's okay. And I find that very interesting. in my own home, blowing the pot smoke, somehow it's okay. And I find that very interesting. I think they look at you like a guy who they're worried about because you don't toe the line. They should be, exactly. You're like a 90s liberal.

You're like liberals back when they were more reasonable before they became leftists. And now every liberal kind of has to be a leftist. It's not – if you want to be on the team, you've got to subscribe to the most fringe ideas that the team is promoting. And I get in trouble with that too. It's such a – I mean there's so many – like Joe List has talked about that recently, the comic Joe List, very funny guy.

He was talking about like he was like, I'm a 90s liberal. He goes, what – I didn't change change it's like everybody else kind of changed it just got real weird like what you're allowed to disagree with and not to disagree with and you know yes it's strange i'm always trying to make the case that liberal is a different animal than woke. Because it is. And you can be woke with all the nonsense that that now implies, but don't say that somehow it's an extension of liberalism. Because it's most often actually an undoing of liberalism.

So you can have your points of view and your positions on these things, but don't try to piggyback on what I've always believed. I have always believed, as liberals do for example, in a colorblind society that the goal is to not see race at all anywhere for any reason. That's what liberals always believed all the way through Obama, going back, Kennedy, everybody, Martin Luther King. That's not what the woke believe. They believe race is first and foremost, the thing you should always see everywhere, which I find interesting because that used to be the position of the Ku Klux Klan,

that we see race first and foremost everywhere. So, again, you can have that position, but don't say that's a liberal position. You're doing something very different. I think the idea behind it, I think I understand their idea. The idea is that the society is imbalanced. And so in order to address that imbalance, you're going to prop up as many minorities as possible, make as many opportunities for minorities as possible, and get it to a position where there are – like white people are a minority. And so that's not a concern anymore. And that through that somehow or another, you'll achieve equality. I think the way to achieve equality is your way. I think the

colorblind way is the way to really truly achieve equality and to truly judge people just on their merits. But also recognize that if we don't address the problems in this country as far as like how disenfranchised some people are and how horrible some communities are that people grow up in and people find themselves stuck in with no recourse, no way out, no role models, no nothing, no financial opportunities. That's what our real problem is in this country more than it is race. It's extreme poverty, extreme poverty and extreme crime and that these things don't get addressed over and over and over again. And in fact, a lot of the policies that you see coming from places like San Francisco and Portland, they just exacerbate it.

You're just seeing stores close because like, okay, you can't just steal. You can't just have everybody just walk into Walmart and steal. I was watching a video where they were showing a Walgreens and they had everything chained up. Chained. Oh, yeah. Chains.

Even minor little things. Yeah, little things. Like frozen food dinners. Yeah yeah little things like frozen food yeah yeah they had the frozen food section chained off no again that's not liberalism was never uh shoplifting is progressive right yeah and we we weren't interested in legalizing shoplifting, or I guess we should call it justice shopping. But, you know, in Minnesota, for example, I think it was Minneapolis, after the George Floyd murder and the riots, I think there was a movement to disband a lot of the police, and they did. I think a lot of the police were

let go or somehow the police force was a lesser force than it was. And what happened was, of course, crime went up in certain areas. And a lot of the officers who had been fired or let go or quit or for whatever reason, they weren't on the force anymore, they were hired as private security. By who? The rich people who could afford to do it. So their neighborhood stayed safe. So that wasn't exactly, I thought, a victory for liberalism.

No, it's the opposite. Yeah. It's unfortunate. Austin defunded the police and then refunded it. And refunded it by far more than they defunded it. Because they just course corrected. They went, okay, this is not working. We have to do something to fix it.

Which makes me very happy. Because I was really shocked that they wanted to do that. Because there's a lot of crime. And where my club is on 6th Street, that's a wild place. 6th Street gets wild. And there's a lot of crime there. And there's a good police presence there. And we have a lot of police at the club. We hire off-duty cops to work the club. And a lot of security. We want to make it as safe as possible. But the streets in the city, like,

you know, from pandemic on, it's just, it's not good. You know, it's sketchy. And I'm glad they recognized it and did something. Well, because so many places just aren't course correcting. Chicago. Yeah. I mean, not not just the places where I mean, murders have been happening way out of control in Chicago among the African-American community for far too long and not really reported in the way that they should be. It's amazing how black lives don't seem to matter when they're taken by black lives. But, I mean, now Chicago, my friends who live there say it's not safe anywhere. Yeah, it's very sketchy, very sketchy.

And that's Chicago. Yeah, Chicago used very sketchy. Very sketchy. And that's Chicago. Yeah, Chicago used to be great. It used to be easy. It used to be a great city. I mean, it always had problems in some areas. But, I mean, even those areas. I had a conversation once with a driver who was a former cop. And what he told me is that they arrested all the key drug players.

And then there was a power struggle and things got way worse. He's like their idea was like go in, arrest the big kingpins, and then we'll clean up the city. It didn't work at all. The opposite had an effect. It was the opposite effect. There was way more crime. He said it just got way more violent. Well, I mean I think a lot of the murders that happen are over nonsense.

You know, somebody dissed you on social media or made fun of your sneakers or some shit. I mean, some of it is drug turf and that kind of stuff. Yeah. But I think some of it is just bullshit. And I don't understand why there isn't a more concerted effort to shine a spotlight on that. And where are the leaders of the community, the people who would have such cachet among those young African-American men, because that's who's killing each other, young African-American men, to say, cut it out. What the fuck are you doing killing each other?

If there was a concerted effort by people in the music industry, people in sports who they look up to, wouldn't that have an effect? I don't know. Worth a try? Worth a try, sure. Worth something. I mean, something needs to be done. I'm not the guy to figure out what needs to be done, but something needs to be done. It's been a long time ago. I don't know what that answer is, but no answer is not the answer. And continuing the same policies, the guy in the same

problems and just defunding the police officers and making things far worse and then not course correcting. That's not the answer either. Right. It's nice to talk about politics. It's great. I would hate to be one of those fucking people. To be an actual politician and be responsible for all this shit. And also to come in now, you know?

Yeah. I mean, they are the easiest people to target because, of course, they have to kowtow to what the voters want, and the voters are completely contradictory. So I do have some sympathy for politicians because if you ask the voters what they want, they will basically say they want every sort of goody that the government can provide on an Arizona tax base. They want a Swedish social net on an Arizona tax base.

And that's just not possible. And then the answer is always tax the rich, which is, well, that doesn't help incompetent government. They have more money. It doesn't help them. Well, I mean, I think that doesn't help incompetent government. They have more money. It doesn't help them. Well, I mean, I think that's why you moved here, wasn't it? No, I moved here because they were locking down the city and it didn't seem safe and it seemed very sketchy. And I just didn't agree with what they were doing. The more I talked to doctors that were experts in respiratory diseases, the more they were convinced there was no way to stop a respiratory disease. They're like, this isn't going to do anything. In fact, it's probably going to damage people's immune systems because they're not going to be around

other people. They're going to be filled with anxiety. They're going to be locked in isolation, depression. No, I was always making this case on real time. And, you know, people thought I was crazy and I'm sure they think you're crazy, but they're crazy and they don't know anything. Well, they're definitely wrong if you talk to virologists and epidemiologists that aren't captured, that don't have to deal with whatever Fauci in the NIH tells them what to say. And if you talk to those people, they're like, well, first of all, you should be telling people they have to lose weight. They have to lose weight. It was the number one comorbidity. It was a giant factor. I think something like 75% of the people who were hospitalized or died, yes, were obese. But of

course, in this country, we're so through the looking glass on the obesity issue that even mentioning it is some sort of a hate crime. I mean, it is so Orwellian. And this is, again, a topic I've covered many times. And there is nothing that garners me more hate than this. No issue. No issue. You're just not allowed to talk about this. And it's preposterous.

Because, first of all, if this is truly a life and death issue, we can't talk about the one thing that more than anything else is causing the death. But it is Orwellian terms like body positivity. There is nothing positive health wise. Now, if you think it's beautiful, great. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But science is not. No, it's not. And it's and honestly, it's not even beauty. It's people trying to help people's feelings. And honestly, it's not even beauty. It's people trying to help people's feelings. They're trying to help your feelings. There are people. We used to call them chubby chasers.

Oh, sure. There are people who actually, and I'm sure there's more than a few. And I think it's also, look, the ideals of beauty change. I mean, back in the, what was it, 17th century? I mean, you can see the paintings. Sure. Especially when people were poorer, it was a sign of status to have fat on you. Yeah.

Because you had food. Yeah. More than enough. Right. Yeah. So it does change, and it just also can be a cultural thing. It's also maybe when you grew up. I mean, when I was first

masturbating, it was the era of Twiggy, you know, the first waif model. And Thin was in. To me, like the pie wagons of the 50s, like Marilyn Monroe, those hippie girls, like the ones on Mad Men, you know, the big redhead on Mad Men. That was like, ugh, that's my father's era. That's, ugh, I couldn't raise an erection with a Derek looking at those girls. I liked the, and I kept that my whole life. You know, I liked that. I liked tight and, you know, what they called hard bodies in the 80s.

That's not in style anymore it's kardashian jennifer lopez made the big ass uh trendy and that's what they like now um so it does it does change but there's a giant difference between jennifer lopez and a fat person like to say to say that you know like things are like that's always kind of been style like big hips and large breasts. It's genetic. There's a genetic inclination like men are attracted to that because women with wide hips, they give birth easier. I'm not attracted to that. Yeah, it's not.

I mean, you know, people are attracted to different things for sure. But it's it's like there's a genetic reason for it. Sure, but it's like there's a genetic reason for it. I mean, I agree that Jennifer Lopez is a beautiful woman. Amazing how she's continued her looks into the 50s. Yeah, she's like 51. She's still hot as the sun. It's crazy. But there is no world in which I am attracted to an ass that big.

Wow. That's just not my style. I'm on the other team. I like it. Oh, team. I like it. Oh, really? I like it. Yeah, well, then you fit in more with... Good for you, Joe.

You fit in with the kids today and your big-ass loving friends. Yeah. But fat is fat. Fat is fat. And it's just not healthy. Even if you find it beautiful or sexy or whatever you want, it's just science. It's if you find it beautiful or sexy or whatever you want.

It's just science. It's bad for literally every part of your health, from how you poop to your eyesight. There's nothing that obesity doesn't affect negatively. You know who doesn't get any of that body positivity shit, though, is men. Nobody gives a fuck about men. If men are fat, you're're just fat that's like when james corden tried that shit with you yes it's such an obvious ploy oh you're hurting my feelings yes oh yes fat shaming like first of all that guy's fat from food he's not like oh my god he's

got a genetic disorder he's just that's how guys obviously not working out and living. Living a good life, eating some nice food, a little plump. Yeah. Fixable. Interesting. Well, and interesting, a year or so after he made his big crusade against me, he

signed a big contract, I think, with Weight Watchers. He turned right around. But even Weight Watchers. Ah! You know, it turned right around. But even Weight Watchers is out of style because now we've given up on the idea that obesity is something that can be

contained by exercise and diet. It's now a disease. I mean, these new drugs they have ozempic ozempic yeah i was reading about ozempic uh i didn't know this until recently they have zero clue why it works they know that it works just not not why. This would bother me. Yeah. You know.

It should. That if they're giving me something and they're like, hey, this new miracle pill, just take it. We're working on the reason why it might do this to you. But until then, just fuck it. There's no biological free lunch either. Until then, just fuck it. There's no biological free lunch either. I have friends that are on that stuff and one friend who just got off of it because he was having some serious gastrointestinal issues that are apparently one of the side effects.

There's no free lunch. If you're taking an injection that makes you less hungry, something's going on. That's probably not good. Yes. And you're also losing a lot of connective tissue bone mass and muscle mass My good friend Peter Attia did a study on his patients He's a doctor did a study on patients that took ozempic and one of the things they found is they lost weight But they gained fat they were actually had a higher percentage of body fat because they were primarily losing muscle tissue And connective tissue they were losing so much of that that even though they lost like 20 pounds,

they actually went from like 15% body fat to maybe 20% body fat or whatever the number was. But what I find the most alarming is the way in just a matter of a few years, The group think that this is a disease now that cannot be controlled by what for 50, 100, a million years before this, it was the scientific consensus that, of course, you can control it with diet and exercise. Just in a couple of years, that went out the window. And you cannot read, you cannot find an article on the front page or in the op-ed page of the New York Times in the last couple of years that has any other belief than this one. That it is a disease. It is not within a person's control. So they're all in on a Zempik or whatever else because we certainly can't leave this to people themselves to control it. That's a giant sea change

and the way they sheep-like just go right in a row. No dissent. Not one person standing up in the paper of record to say, wait a second, this can't really be the case. I mean, 50 years ago

we looked like a completely different people. Why is it in 50 years did we evolve in 50 years, human beings? Was cake not delicious in 1969? I think it was. And yet somehow people resisted it. Well, there's a lot of diet changes for sure. And I think one of the things about the narrative, there was a lot of influence by vested interests. Like, you know, I'm sure you know about the 1950s, I believe it was, where the sugar industry paid off scientists. Of course. To put the blame on saturated fat. It changed people's eating.

And corn. Yeah, corn. They changed what sugar came from because they had too much corn because they subsidized it. So let's make sugar out of corn, which is not really what you should be making. Right. I mean, cane sugar is not great for you either, but it's better than corn. You see the obesity rates go up as corn syrup, but it's still within someone's power to turn it down you're not helpless there's plenty of people out there that have done it too that you can get examples from

i mean especially in this day and age with youtube and these social media influencers that have lost a ton of weight so many of those people have gone on diets and lost 150 pounds and they'll tell you how they did it and you can get inspiration from them it's not rocket science it's doable but it's not easy and the idea of calling it a disease it's interesting because we kind of agree alcoholism is a disease but it is similar because you are addicted to food like people are absolutely addicted to food especially high fructose corn syrup products and things where there's like you're getting that big sugar rush and the insulin spikes. Well, they do this in the lab, you know.

I mean, all these food companies have labs where they go in and they test how much fat and sugar and salt we can put in this thing to make it as addictive as possible. You know, they don't want you to just eat one of that laced potato. Bet you can't. They want you to have the whole bag and then start another bag. Yeah. But again, I look when I'm I always have the most sympathy for the obese when I'm high because I get the munchies, as most of us do, not in the first hour. Like it goes to my head first, which is great. And then it goes to my stomach. And then it goes to my dick. But, yeah, when it goes to my stomach, I get it.

I get it more than I do normally because I am just ravenous to eat. But that's why I don't keep shit in the house, so that when I do get ravenous for food, there's nothing there. And the thing is, when I'm high, I'm rather satisfied with food that isn't the most delicious food in the world. Because I'm high. Everything tastes good. And I'm just looking to eat.

So if I'm going to eat like baruca nuts or something, they're not bad for me. And I can eat a million of them. And it satisfies that urge to chew and eat. But I'm not putting on weight. I mean, there are things you can do. Yeah. We're not helpless. It's also no one's telling you to do it.

It's not like, you know, the government was telling everybody to get vaccinated. They weren't telling anybody to lose weight. They weren't telling anybody to take vitamin D. Right. You know, it's the problem of media and industries and even the government itself being captured by special interests. And it's a big problem. They don't want people losing weight. They don't want people getting healthier. It's not good for business. So there's no push to do it. The push is always in what is going to make us the most money, which is why you're seeing this push for these diabetes drugs that people are taking to lose weight.

You know, it's like there's a lot of money in that. There's a lot of money in, what is it called? Wagavy and Ozempic, whatever these ones are called. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, are you kidding? Peptides. They're going to make, I'm sure they already have.

I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah. And look, if that's the only way you can lose weight and you lose weight and then that's what starts you along the way, I kind of feel like that. The same way I feel about SSRIs. I've had friends that have had disastrous situations come up because of SSRIs and I've had other people that got from being suicidal to getting their life in order and then slowly getting off of them and then saying it was overall a good thing for them. Wait, what is SSRI? Antidepressants.

Oh. Prozac. Well, Prozac's not one of them. What is SSRI? Yeah, that's what it is. Selective serotonin re-up inhibitors. Oh, wow. But I thought they recently found out that it wasn't the serotonin.

Well, what they found out is it's not a chemical imbalance in your brain. Right. The SSRIs are another one where they're not exactly sure why they work. You know, like Zoloft is a good one. They don't know. They just, you know, help some people, doesn't help other people. For a lot of people, it just makes them disconnected. Right.

And they feel like just everything is flat and dull. I took a Zoloft once. I don't know why I had a Zoloft in the house. But I thought it was. You recreationally took a Zoloft? I I don't know why I had a Zoloft in the house, but I thought it was... You recreationally took a Zoloft? I did not recreationally. I thought it was a sleeping pill. Oh. Because Z, Zol and loft. I was like, oh, this...

Must be. I don't know. This is a long time ago. And I don't know why it was in my house, but I had one pill and I remember Zoloft and I thought, oh, good, I need to sleep. And the way it made me feel, because I don't have an imbalance, was horrible. Really? Yes. Like, I know what it feels like to be doing something I don't want to do. Some people call that work, and we're lucky we like our work mostly, but there are things I don't want to do. Some people call that work and we're lucky. We like our work mostly, but there

are things I don't want to do that I do. And I know what it feels like to be doing things I do want to do. When I was on this drug, it was like neither. Like I didn't feel anything. It was, it's, it made me feel very sympathetic to the people who suffer from chemical imbalances in the brain. And mostly it is chemical imbalances. I know, I think it was Mike Wallace suffered for a long time from this. And also maybe it was Dick Cavett, somebody like that who said, you know, I was in therapy for years and years and years, and then they gave me this drug and I was all better. And it was never anything that they were going to fix in therapy.

It was just the chemical. They just poured something in the test tube and suddenly it was all good because some of it is just chemical. Yeah, I don't think they think it's a chemical imbalance anymore because i think they've measured like serotonin and dopamine levels i you know there's there's so many factors there's so many factors into why someone would be depressed yeah some of it has to be genetic um just like mental illness some of it is absolutely genetic some of it is life circumstances i mean if you have a shitty job and a shitty life and shitty friends and a shitty house and a shitty neighborhood, you probably feel like shit. I remember when I had all that.

And I was depressed. Yeah. But I felt like it was logical depression. There was a reason I was depressed. I was newly in the world as a person out of college. So I was newly in the world as a person out of college. So I was starting life. For the first time, I didn't have the protective guardianship of school. Right.

Okay. So that's scary. And I was worried, am I going to be a failure in life? Here I am trying to be a comedian. Okay. That's a risky proposition. Not many people make it. I was embarrassed to even tell people, you know,

what do you do? Oh, I'm trying to be a comedian. Okay. That's funny. Um, and I lived in a shit box and I didn't have any girlfriends and I had no money and I was depressed for very good reason. No respect. I had nothing that makes people happy. When I got more of those things, I got happier. That's normal. Okay? That's different than the person who has lots of great things. I mean, you read about this all the time among the show business community.

And people, I'm sure, all the time say that, why is this guy depressed? He must be on top of the world. Right. that why is this guy depressed? He must be on top of the world. And, you know, and no, he had to quit the tour because of mental health issues. He was depressed. People are lining up to see him in fucking arenas and he's depressed. And it's, yeah, because that doesn't solve the problem

when it's a chemical problem. Yeah, and I think also for some people, they worship this idea of success as being the thing that's going to get them out of it, that that's going to problem. Yeah. And I think also for some people, they worship this idea of success as being the thing that's going to get them out of it, that that's going to make them happy. And then they get success and then they get accustomed to that success and they're still not happy. And then they get really depressed. Like, oh my God, I'm at the top and it sucks. Right. I mean, if that still doesn't fill the hole in your heart, then where do you go? You got nothing else. Yeah, I always wonder. I mean, I think these things vary very widely.

And I think I always wonder, like, what is their life like? What are their friends like? What's their family like? What is what do they do for activities? What are they eating? Are they sleeping well? You know, are they doing anything to mitigate it, to put themselves on a path, you know path that gives them some sort of a feeling of accomplishment in life, a feeling of like – and I don't mean accomplishment in terms of material possessions, but like you're doing something. You're getting something done. A reason to get up in the morning. Yeah, something that you really enjoy and gives you joy and gives you happiness and satisfaction. There's a lot of people out there that don't have that.

You know, like you said, we're really lucky that we have jobs that we enjoy. We love what we do. We have like, I mean, there's a reason why when someone says to you, oh, you're going to be a stand-up comedian, good fucking luck. Because most people don't make it. No, they don't. I mean, do you remember the people you did open mic with? How many of them are still around?

I remember everybody. I was in the clubs where there was hundreds of guys. Yeah. Mostly guys, some women, but I mean, back in 1980. Yeah. And yes, you could name them all. Or like I always like to point out to people when they get into these discussions about the strike and show business and what kind of business this is and is it different than other businesses yes if you look at the credits of any movie uh especially ones that are a few years old 10 years old 20 years old 30 years old look at the credits as the goodbye at the end of the movie outside of the two or three stars of the movie you'll see a list of 20 or 30 people who were in that movie. All of them thought they were going to be stars.

They all had parts. Not the biggest parts in the movies, but parts. And you look at that list and you do not recognize one of those names. Yeah. They all wanted to be something that this movie that they were in was going to take them to the next level. And it did not. Yeah. It did not. Yeah.

It did not. That's just show business. I was watching an interview. Well, it wasn't really an interview. It was like they caught her at the airport with Bridget Fonda. Bridget Fonda, well. She just dropped out of show business, and they caught her walking, and they said, Do you think you'll ever do a movie again?

You were in so many iconic movies, like Single White Female and this and women. She's like, no way. She's like, nope. I like being a civilian now. It's too much fun. That's different. That's different. She had a big career and she just, you know, had enough of it. And yeah, that's okay. I mean, it's, first of all, show business, especially acting, very tough on females as they age. Sure. We just know that. Yeah. I mean, you have to be iconic to be working in your 60s like Meryl Streep.

Right. Because, you know, especially if you're the leading lady, I mean, they have no problem pairing a 60-year-old guy with a 35-year-old woman. That's just the way it is in movies, or at least it has been. So as you get into those upper ages, those parts are not going to be there. And look, that's partly what the audience wants. I mean, you can hate the studios for doing that, but studios are always just reflecting what the audience wants, including the women in the audience. Yeah. You know what's fascinating? The one group that absolutely gets discriminated in

Hollywood is gay men. Gay men never play straight men in blockbuster movies. Openly gay men are never like the romantic interest in a blockbuster movies. Openly gay men are never like the romantic interest in a blockbuster movie. You can have an openly gay woman and no one cares. Like who? Oh, you could have one. I don't think it would be a problem. Well, name somebody.

Like who's an openly gay woman? Who is one? Well, Kirsten Stewart is now an openly gay woman. Oh, she is? Kirsten Stewart? I didn't know woman. Oh, she is? Kirsten Stewart? I didn't know she was. The girl from Twilight? Yeah.

I didn't know she was openly gay. I mean, I need... Hello? No, she used to date that other guy. She used to date Robert Pattinson. I didn't know that she was gay. That was 10 years ago. I didn't...

I don't follow her romantic... You're acting like I'm not paying attention to who the president is. I'm offended, Joe. No, I mean, she's very, I mean, first of all, she just definitely is. I mean, you see pictures of her. You could tell that she's walking that side of the street now. She openly announced it on Saturday Night Live. I don't watch that show.

I don't either. But I know she did. And, of course, it was met with thunderous applause, which should tell you something about the hypocrisy of how brave it is to come out. Well, if she wanted to play a leading woman, nobody would have a problem with that. No, but just parenthetically, brave, by the way, is when you say something and people boo. Or they want to kill you. Yes. Right. Julian Assange is brave. Right. When people cheer raucously, that's somewhat less than brave. Yeah. So, I mean, I guess it does take some courage to come out. But, you know, as I always say, let's live in the year we're living in. And in the year we're living in and in the year we're living in it's like sometimes it's

preferable to come out as gay yeah it's rewarded in some circles i have friends who unfortunately are in the closet who can't come out because their family they're worried about the impact of their family like grew up in the midwest you know religious family and you know it eats them alive they're usually drunk all the time like Like those guys get, it's really rough. Yeah, I'm sure. It's rough. I mean, and I think this is why gay actors in the past did not come out. I just watched a documentary on Rock Hudson.

Did you see that? It was terrific. No, I didn't see it. Okay. Well, obviously this was a different era. You know, it was not even, it was unthinkable that Rock Hudson could come out. He started in the 50s, the 60s. We weren't even discussing homosexuality in those terms. And he was a matinee idol. He was something women were creaming their jeans over. You know, he was something women were creaming their jeans over. So, but nowadays, could a gay man be the romantic lead?

I think there are actors who are gay and are still not out for that very reason. For sure. I'm not going to name names. Yeah. We don't have to. No, we don't have to. But,'t have to but yeah they exist it's a career move for them they have to kind of keep it under wraps right yeah it's uh well well show we're selling fantasy especially in a romantic setting in a romantic movie i have had multiple

people on this podcast that do not believe that gay is just something you're born with. They believe that it's a choice. I've had conversations with people where you're like, have you met Richard Simmons? Like, like crazy. You think that's a fucking choice?

Like the idea that I had one guy who, um, he compared it to murder. Like you, you might want to kill someone, but you don't do it because it's a sin. I was like, but imagine if you were just like rabidly attracted to women and culturally things were reversed. And for some reason, like women caused reproduction and you don't want more people because we're overpopulated. And gay is the only morally right way to pursue sexual activity.

Imagine how horrible that would be. It would suck. Well, see, this is why it's so odd to me that gay and trans have wound up in the same grouping. LGBTQ, excuse me, I'm sorry, hate crime, I don't remember all of them. I think there's a two and an A in there and a plus. Okay, then that's what I just said. I don't know what the two is. That's two spirit.

Is that what it is? It could be. Who knows? Oh, my God. If that's what it is, that's amazing. But what I'm saying is true. That is what it is? It could be. Who knows? Oh, my God. If that's what it is, that's amazing. But what I'm saying is... That is what it is? It is.

Oh, Jesus. Two-spirit. Oh, my God. And I'm not sure I could even define two-spirit. Two-spirit. I didn't even know it existed until I saw Trudeau. That's hysterical. Trudeau rattled off the newest, latest list one time.

We have to protect... Unlike America, we have to protect our two-spirit people. I don't know. Let's find out what two-spirit is. What does two-spirit mean? Two-spirit, I think, I've heard AOC talk about it, too.

Oh, boy. Okay, now offensive amongst Native Americans, a person who identifies with any of a variety of gender identities identities which are not exclusively those of their biological sex. Yeah, but gender identities which are not exclusively – how many of them are there? How many gender identities – two-spirit? But in that definition, it said transgender. And why do we also need to include it if we have

transgender already because one person complained i'm guessing well i believe with native americans that's what they referred to transgender people as i think i think it's the lakota look that up i think it was a like a protected class in their community because they felt like this person understood both groups. They were biologically male, but they had so many traits of being feminine. They were probably gay men, but they were biologically male that had so many traits of femininity that they thought they were two-spirit. Like this is the type of person we can come to for guidance because they understand women and they understand men. And so it was thought of that way the same way like they had some like fascinating roles in their culture like one of

them was a heyoka which was their sacred clown they had a guy who made fun of everything and if you couldn't make fun of something it was bullshit like if you had the the greatest warrior the biggest chief the the the chief's, you can make fun of anything. If you couldn't make fun of it, it was bullshit. Like there was something, if you had, hey, don't make fun of that, everybody's like, whoa, what is this thing we can't make fun of? Like why can't we make fun of this? Is this a bullshit thing? And it's a good way to detect bullshit. What is this? It's describing what the Lakota have.

In Lakota there are no pronouns. We don't speak, we don't have she and he. In Lakota, men will speak differently than women. We know their gender based on how they are talking and what words they are using. It says that's their third gender. And who's the dude in the picture? Two-spirit people. So, yeah, it's the Lakota culture. Okay.

So that's where that term comes from. Well, enjoy it, Lakota. We don't all have to follow. No. Well, also, I don't have to remember it. It's too long. You're crazy. But what I was saying was it's odd to me that they group them together because in a fundamental way, trans and gay are almost exact opposites.

Because gay is all about I was born this way. Right. And trans is the way I'm born. Fuck that. Yeah. Jump ball. Right. Let's change that.

And that to me seems to be fundamentally different. Well, what scares me about it is what they're doing to children. You know, and I know you got the fucking joke on your show about break out the dick saw. I remember you said that. i was like i remember i remember you said that i was like jesus bill you just went hard but i'm so glad you're doing that because there's no one else on late night television that's ever gonna fucking do that no oh yeah but it's terrifying that they're that they're calling it gender affirming care when it's really childhood mutilation before you have the ability to figure out what permanent

means you're fucking seven years old you can't get your face tattooed you you can't go to war you can't get married there's reasons for all that stuff you're too young and this idea that you should be able to make life-changing choices like hormone blockers right which are a not reversible no matter what the fuck they say. They say it's reversible. No, the changes happen to your body during puberty. And if you stop those changes, that change is, you can't reverse that.

You're going to have a micropenis. You're taking estrogen while your body's developing. You're blocking your testosterone. If you're doing all that stuff, it's going to have an effect on your body. Now, if you're happy with that effect and you don't care, okay. But how many people aren't and how many people are young and how many detransitioners are there who have horrible stories? And you're a monster and a bigot if you even bring that up, which is fucking insane. I couldn't agree more.

They're so cavalier about the medical repercussions. Right. clear about the medical repercussions. Now, as with all of these things, if this country wasn't so ridiculously polarized, we could come up with some reasonable view on it, which is, is trans a real thing? Of course. Are some people born in a body that, for lack of a better term, you're born in the wrong body or your sexuality doesn't match what's in your mind gender-wise. It does happen. And some of it is trendy. Some of it is just a TikTok challenge that got out of hand.

Yeah. Kind of. Okay. It's a social contagion. me, but I'm allowed my opinion. If I was 100 billion percent convinced I was born in the wrong body, I still wouldn't do anything to my body because medical considerations come first. The idea that you can just take some sort of puberty blockers or just snap on, snap off organs without really hurting myself medically and taking years off my life is ridiculous. And so I would somehow make it work with the equipment I was born with, because we're just not that advanced medically to make it work and still be healthy. Yeah, but the woke perspective is this.

They have these terms like gender affirming care, and it sounds so wonderful. Yeah. Gender affirming care. Like body positivity. Sounds like somebody hugging you. Yes, it's Orwellian. Someone's helping you. They're gender.

They're affirming your gender. They care about you. They're hugging you. It sounds good. This is what Orwell said. When you control the language, you control the ideas. Yes. It's good. This is what Orwell said. When you control the language, you control the ideas. It's fascinating. You call it body positivity.

You call it gender affirming care. And the ideas follow or what people think are ideas. How much heat did you take for the dick saw joke? Oh, a lot. I mean that whole editorial was basically calling into question basically what you were saying. I mean, the point that I found people had a hard time arguing with was if this is all real, why is it regional? Why can you go to a dinner party in Los Angeles with like 10 people and half of them have trans kids? Right.

And that would never happen in Indiana. Now, maybe some people in Indiana are afraid to come out. That could be true too. I'm sure it is to some degree. But it's just ridiculous that it's a regional issue to this degree. So obviously, and I know people who say, oh yeah, at my school, all the kids want to be trans. It's just not cool to be straight

anymore. You know, it's like every generation has to find a way to say to their parents who gave you everything, fuck you. Whatever you do, I'm going to do different. And for a lot of kids, that now is just gender. My stupid, lame parents think that humans are male and female. Gross. I'm fluid. Okay. But like you say, you know, when you get a little older and you've mutilated your body, you, maybe that'll be a decision you're happy with and maybe it won't, but there's no going back. No going back. No going back. Yeah. It's terrifying. It's just terrifying that it's also something that people are making money of. And this is the one thing I really don't like about Biden is the way, and I know you really hate him. I don't hate him.

But the way he just goes along with shit like this. I feel like he doesn't really believe in it. He just, he's just like an old guy who doesn't quite get it. You know, the kids are doing what? But he's like the husband, you know, who doesn't really understand what the kids are into, but he doesn't want to start a big fight about it. So when the wife says, honey, the kids want to cut their dicks off and tear down a statue of Lincoln. the kids want to cut their dicks off and tear down a statue of Lincoln. He's like, yeah, oh, fine. Okay. I'm watching the game. Leave me alone. And so he just goes along with all the woke nonsense because he doesn't want to fight that wing of his party. He can't afford to have

a battle on the left. So that's my big issue with him. I know you have others. Well, my biggest issue is he lies a lot, and he's probably— Well, certainly not more than Trump. Oh, please. Come on, man. Listen, I think they both lie. I mean, I don't like that more than this guy. Because I want to just—if you want to talk about Trump, we can talk about Trump.

But if you just talk about Biden, I don't think comparing him to Trump does anybody any good. You just look at the recent situation. Well, it does because they're running against each other. Yeah, okay. So it's kind of necessary. It could if you want to talk about in terms of an election. But you talk about in terms of the guy who's in office right now. Like, why don't I like him?

Well, one of the things that I don't like has nothing to do with any of his choices is that he's mentally compromised. I think there's something wrong. And I think it's clear. As if the other guy isn't. Well, okay, he speaks much clearer. He might be crazy. He might be a sociopath. He's crazy and stupid.

Say all those things. But it still doesn't take away from the fact that there's something wrong with Biden. Like he makes up words. He stumbles through things. It seems like he doesn't know where he is half the time. He's very, very old. That's my problem with him. Okay. Well, again, we're living in a world where perfect is not on the menu. These are the choices we're going to have. This is going to be who's running next time. You're going

to have a, yes, a doddering old man. Do you definitely think that Biden's going to make it to the 2024 elections? Because I'm not convinced. Well, who knows? Yeah, he might not. And some might not Trump. Right. Both of them could die at any minute. Yeah, absolutely. When you're like 70, whatever years old, 78 years old. One is 77. One is 80. Yeah. That's the end of the line. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you're on E. I mean, right. You might make it to town, but you might might die on the side of the road. There's also blue zones where people live to 100. They don't look like those guys.

No, they look better. Yeah, they're thin and active. Well, Biden's thin. That's true. Trump is not. But he's thin like skeletal thin. He's thin like frail, where he looks like he's just going to fall down a lot. I'll give you this point.

Trump looks a lot and sounds a lot more hardy and robust and healthy. That's true. He's a city roach. The worst things he eats, the stronger he gets. You cannot kill him. No, I agree. He's also the only guy that didn't noticeably age the moment he got into the White House. No, we did.

We aged when he was in office. He was fine. You're right. He didn't noticeably age the moment he got into the White House. No, we did. We aged when he was in office. He was fine. You're right. He didn't look like he aged. He always looks the same. But he's a criminal, and he's crazy, and he's stupid. And crazy and stupid are two different things. When you say crazy, what do you basically mean?

Okay, let me give you an example. Stupid is like Frederick Douglass is alive. Or the stealth bomber is literally invisible. Right. Or nobody knew health care was hard to solve. That's just stupid. He's very stupid. Crazy is like it's important that the crowd at my inauguration was the biggest ever.

And I'm going to make an issue of this for the first two weeks of my presidency, despite photographic evidence of the contrary. Or I'm going to steal these documents that I don't even know what they are and I don't care. And I'm going to put them next to the toilet at Mar-a-Lago and then I'm going to fight you to take them back, or not conceding the election. Those things are crazy. Or thinking I can somehow charm Kim Jong-un in Korea, although that might be stupid. Sometimes it crosses the line between both. But he's both stupid and crazy, and he's a criminal. You know, he's not being charged in these trials because he's a liar. They purposely didn't do that. Apparently, it's okay. It's not illegal to lie to the American people. And, of course, he did lie and continues to lie.

He still hasn't conceded the election, which he plainly lost. He's charged with actual crimes. Criminal intent to obscure – I forget what the actual name of the law is, but criminal intent to basically steal the election or to coerce people in the states from – I forget what it is. And then there's one forgery, which has to do with the electors scheme, criminal intent for— What is the forgery? That's the slate of electors he was putting forward, the fake slate of electors. And then there was the one— Here it is. We can read it. Three counts of solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer.

So he was trying to get someone to violate their oath. Two counts of conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree. Two counts of conspiracy to commit false statements and writing. Two counts of false statements and writings. Violation of a Georgia RICO Act. Conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer. Hmm. I wonder what that is.

Conspiracy to commit filing false documents and filing false documents. And this is all based on the election results. Well, there's also felony solicitation of violation of oath. Felony solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer. That was when he was talking to Raffsenberger.

That's the, I need you to fine me 11,000 votes. There's also one. I mean, there's two cases about trying to steal the election. One, the national case that Jack Smith is prosecuting. Then there's the one in Georgia. Now, they cross paths in a lot. But basically, I mean, yes, he tried every possible way to steal this election. He tried to do it through the courts. He tried to do it through the courts.

He tried to do it through state legislatures. He tried to do it through intimidating Mike Pence. He tried to do it through the Justice Department. They talked about seizing voting machines. They talked about using the army. I mean, you can't really believe that this guy is not worse than Joe Biden. I mean, I agree. Biden is not a great president. And the Hunter Biden stuff is a stinky conspiracy, not a conspiracy, a stinky scandal

that stinks to the high heavens. If you think that that in any way compares to what Trump tried to do, you just cannot tell unlike things apart. And you're saying this just based on what happened after the election? Just that stuff? Yes. Well, that's the criminal part. Yes. Have you ever tried to steel man his position? Like, do you think he really believes they stole the election or do you think he's bullshitting?

Who gives a fuck? It doesn't matter. Who gives a fuck? Who gives a fuck if he really believes it? But I mean, if he really believes there's evidence that the election was rigged. No, I don't care. No. First of all, that was part of the January 6th committee's findings.

He has multiple people, all the people around him told him that he lost that election, including Bill Barr. Mm-hmm. And he admitted, one of his quotes was that they have on record of him saying, I don't want people to know I lost this election. That's kind of crazy. He's crazy. That's kind of crazy. I mean, it's insane that you can't let go of the idea that you can't be seen as a loser. There is a certain, there is a, I always said this in the beginning.

It all comes back to, he is a clinical case of malignant narcissism. It's not just a quirk. It's actually in the big book of crazy, you know, that. Right. I mean, it's a real thing and it affects everything he thinks and does. It's why foreign leaders were able to curry favor with him. All they had to do was kiss his ass and they got whatever they wanted. Do I really think that he wants to help Russia and Putin? I think Putin had him as soon

as he said, Trump is a brilliant man. Good. You got me. It doesn't take that much. He's a dangerous guy. The idea that he could be president again, as opposed to Joe Biden. Again, Joe Biden, not my first choice, not my hundredth choice. But the other guy is a crazy, stupid criminal. Do you like anybody on the right that's opposing? Do you like Vivek? I know you had Vivek on your podcast recently. I think it's Vivek. Vivek? I's, I mean, I heard him. I think it's probably Vivek. In his rap, he says, Vivek, it rhymes with cake. Okay, then Vivek. Well, as I said to him on the podcast, I find you both disarming and alarming. What do you find alarming? Well, he wants to abolish like half the government. Yeah. some of the government could be abolished i mean a lot of the government is a big fucking waste what do you think is a big waste um

well i'm not sure the i wouldn't abolish the department of education but considering how stupid our kids are uh there's a lot of answering to do there. I mean, I'm not sure that a national department of education has done us any good because kids have just gotten stupider and stupider and stupider. It used to be that they didn't know anything, but they could read about things if they wanted to. Now they can't even read. Now part of that was because of the horrible policies during the pandemic, yes. But also it's just been going downhill. And it starts, of course, at colleges. I mean, that's where this woke rot begins. It all seeps down. What goes on at universities, elite universities in this country is insane. Have you ever seen that Russian defector Yuri Bezmenov?

He detailed the Soviet Union's plan for the moral decay of the United States by introducing Marxists and Leninism into school. Marxism and Leninism into school. Marxism and Leninism into school. Marxist and Leninist ideas. And that these would be ingrained in younger people and then they would go into the workforce and then they would slowly but surely ruin the society through this. And it's a fascinating conversation.

Because it's in 1984 that he's talking about this. Wow. What a perfect conversation. That is. Because it's in 1984 that he's talking about this. Wow. What a perfect year to talk about it. What a perfect year to talk about it. Yeah.

I think it was 84. It was in the 80s for sure. But it's a fascinating, have you never seen it? No. You should watch it. I've never heard of this. This guy.

What's his name? Former KGB Asian named Yuri Alexandrovich Bezmenov claimed in 1984 that Russia had a long-term goal of ideologically subverting the U.S. He described the process as a great brainwashing that is four basic stages. The first stage, he said, is called demoralization, which would take about 20 years to achieve. It's really fascinating. When you hear him talk, it's fascinating because that's exactly what they did

But I don't know if they did it. I think it's definitely been done Oh, huh, but did it come from Russia and how did it come from Russia? Well, he'll explain it use example in 1960s Hippie hippies coming to the positions of power in the 1980s and government and businesses in America Besman off claimed this generation was already contaminated by Marxist-Leninist values. Of course, this claim that many baby boomers are somehow espousing KGB-tainted ideas is hard to believe, but Besmanoff's larger point addressed why people who have been gradually demoralized are unable to understand that this has happened to them.

Referring to such people, Besmanoff said, they are programmed to think and react to certain stimuli in a certain pattern. You cannot change their mind, even if you expose them to authentic information. If you prove that white is black and black is black, you still cannot change the basic perception and logic of behavior. Demoralization is a process that is irreversible. Besmanoff actually thought back in 84 that the process of demoralizing America was already completed. It would take another generation and another couple of decades, here we are, to get the people to think differently and return to their patriotic American values, claimed the agent. In what is perhaps the most striking passage in the interview, Besmanoff described the state of a demoralized person. As I mentioned before, exposure to

true information does not matter anymore. A person who is demoralized is unable to assess true information. The facts tell nothing to him. Even if I shower him with information, with authentic proof, with documents, with pictures, even if I take him by force to the Soviet Union and show him a concentration

camp, he will refuse to believe it until he has a kick in his fan bottom. When a military boot crashes his balls, then he will understand. But not before that. That's the tragedy of the situation of demoralization. I still don't understand how this got from Russia into us. He explains it in the interview. It's a long interview. Explains what they did and how they – It's certainly possible because, I mean, colleges have become so left wing. I mean, there's no diversity on college campuses.

Yeah, none. Especially the elite schools. Right. Which turn out the people who then control the media. Yeah. I mean, they're the ones who go into the places, organs of government, organs of media, that are most influential in our society.

Yeah. So it's coming from, and of course, they teach Marx. Andrew Sullivan wrote a great piece about this about six months ago. They teach, Karl Marx is one of the most taught economists in all these elite colleges. And of course, a lot of what Karl Marx was about would never pass muster with anyone who's woke. He was a horrible racist. Very few of his beliefs were something that they would countenance today. Same thing with Che Guevara. Right.

Terrible person. Well, he had the look, though. He looks great on a T-shirt. People get that Che Guevara posters and T-shirts. T-shirts. Yeah. They think these people are heroes. Yeah.

And sadly, because colleges turn out nothing but America-hating hysterics these days, ignorant, just ahistorical students who are not taught any of the things I used to be taught up in school, partly because we had the sin of learning what white people did. You know, I mean, I'm sorry, but John Stuart Mill was white. He had some good ideas. But, you know, Shakespeare, you know, it's okay to, you know, you can be anti-racist and still study some great white people. But, you know, some of that is just outre on college campuses these days. But how do you think that happened? college campuses these days. But how do you think that happened? That's a, that's a great question. And somebody, I'm sure somebody did write a book or somebody should write a book about that. I mean, obviously it's, it's slow and over time. Um, and yeah, I don't know. I don't know,

but there's a guy in 1984 that saw it coming. Yeah. Yeah. If you listen to, I'll, I don't know. I don't know. There's a guy in 1984 that saw it coming. Yeah. If you listen to it, I'll send it to you. You should listen to it. It's fascinating. Something like a third of students think, people under 25 or something, think communism might be worth another try. Because, again, if you don't learn the past, then you don't know. And if you just discount anything old people like us say, what would you know? Well, we were around when communism was around. And we know it's horrible.

There was no greater nightmare visited upon humans than communism. And by the way, the reason Russia is still such a basket case is because the legacy of communism. When you fuck with people's minds the way they did, they're like in a – Russia today is like a kid who was abused as a child. They're just not going to be whole as an adult for quite a while. Yeah, I just can't understand how the institutions of higher learning wouldn't understand the value of rigorous discourse, the value of even having conservative speakers come in where you a debate with a guy from one of those hard right America, I forget what it was called. I forget what organization he was in, but it was some sort of tea party type thing. On campus? Yeah, when I was in high school. And it was fascinating because they allowed these two people to speak.

And the America First guy or whatever he was whatever the company whatever the group he was a part of spoke and it was kind of clunky and and then barney frank was brilliant it was eloquent it was funny it was great he was awesome love him and uh you know you got a great sense of walking out of there oh his ideas make more sense his ideas were better. Right. And that is discouraged. Now you don't want to platform people with the wrong ideas, which is just like there's only one way to find out if they're the wrong ideas.

You test them. You test them against better ideas, and everybody learns that way. And when I was a kid, people understood that. It was before the age of echo chambers and social media. And, you know, people believed in freedom of speech and rigorous discourse. They believed in debates. I mean, those famous debates that were on television between Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley. Oh, yeah.

I mean, those to this day are fascinating debates. They're really interesting. And the fact that those aired on television, they got an enormous audience back then. It's a shame that today anybody who has differing opinions than you, you shun and you never platform them. And the problem is it just makes them more convinced. They're being silenced and it makes their supporters – like every time they arrest Trump, it gets more supporters. More people are more interested in it. They think, oh, they're suppressing.

People are suppressing. And that's what the danger is with all this stuff. It's a danger of censorship on social media. And there's just so much of it today. There's just so much of this echo chamber idea. And it's so stupid. It's so bad to not have discourse. It's horrible how little gets in. I mean, when I debate, you know, friendly

debate, I'm just talking with people. Sure. I'm just always amazed at what they has never gotten on their radar. Yeah. I mean, like really obvious things. And I remember the first time I had George Will on, and the first thing I said to him was, you know, reading you all these years has kept my liberalism honest because he's such a brilliant writer and thinker, and he's so precise, and he's a master of the telling detail,

and I don't think he ever wrote a column that didn't make me think you know and sometimes change my mind like because the way he puts it down it's like how can you argue with that i didn't know that and i didn't see it in that perspective maybe i don't agree with, but at least it made me examine. And people – the thing is today, people don't even want to do that. Right. They don't want that. Well, that's the weird thing about the – They only want to have it fed back to them.

The echo media – the echo – social media echo chambers, it's a real problem because it's really discouraged to go against the grain. It's very discouraged to go against ideology. Well, I mean, MSNBC, for example. Now, I always made fun of Fox News and they richly deserve it. MSNBC, I felt, used to be somewhat different. But MSNBC has become a place that I think lies by omission. I think Fox sometimes just out and out lied, but they do the same thing. They lie by omission. They always have. Like no matter what Trump did, Tucker Carlson would do a show about, you know, some crazy professor.

Right. You know, which wasn't not happening too. Right. It just wasn't the story of the day, you know. Yeah. Japan destroyed by earthquake. Well, that's topic number five. Right.

Okay. So MSNBC, I feel like, now is in that category. And I feel like the reason is their hosts know that they get ratings sometimes taken by the minute, but certainly I think by the 15-minute mark. They know exactly how much the audience is liking or not liking what they're saying. And the audience does not want to hear something that they don't think they already know and they already believe. So are they going to cover that story that might get people to question what they know? Of course not. Because because otherwise they'll get fired. Yeah. You know, they had a few people on there who weren't like fully in the tank.

Remember that guy, Ed schultz yeah gone yeah too reasonable well did you read hate ink who hate ink matt taibbi's book he's basically saying that rachel maddow has become bill o'reilly no it's it's basically the same thing he's basically saying that- But she's not even there anymore, is she? Rachel Maddow? I believe she's occasionally there. Oh.

Yeah. I mean, she just interviewed Hillary Clinton. I believe that was MSNBC, wasn't it? Oh. I think she's just got a different position now. She's probably got burnt out. Right. She's just sluing propaganda.

It's hard on the back. You always dig in and- Well, I mean, Rachel Maddow is smart. Very smart. Yeah. Okay. And again, I think it's not that they're unaware of some of these other perspectives. They just don't want to burden their audience with it.

Well, she was one of the biggest purveyors of actual real misinformation during the pandemic. Because she was one of the people telling people, if you get this shot, you will not get COVID. The virus stops with you. And we can go back to normal. They had already known. Well, everybody was saying that. Well, she was saying it, like, very openly and in ways that are absolutely incorrect. That's what Biden said.

Yeah. Get the shot and you'll be okay. Yeah. She was saying it worse than him, literally. But she's smarter and younger and also has access to the studies. One of the people in the first Pfizer study died from COVID. One of the people that got the virus died. Two people in the placebo group died.

That is literally where they came up with the term 100 effective do you know that no because two is 100 more than one i didn't believe that i i said that's bullshit and then robert kennedy jr sent me an email with like the actual studies and i read it and i was like holy shit they can do that like they can just that's just a lie that's not 100 right that's like whatever the percentage is you get 2 000 people one of them's dead that's that percentage like that's the real percentage like this is it's not 100 that's crazy i mean what about the way they demonize the ivermectin thing? I mean, it's a drug, not a politician. I mean, why that something like that would ever become politicized,

especially a drug that I believe when it first came out in 2015, was it? I think it won the Nobel prize. Okay. I think it wiped out some disease in Africa. Yellow fever. Yellow fever. It's an antiparasitic, but it stops viral replication in vitro. It does have some sort of an effect, and I'm actually going to have a debate about it with this scientist and another guy who doesn't believe in it. It's a fascinating thing because— It's like getting mad at aspirin. Right. It's like if it works for you, and it plainly works for some people and works on a lot of things.

I just don't understand that mentality. Well, you know why they did it, right? Well, I mean, it certainly was important if you wanted to create a monopoly for the vaccine. Well, not just a monopoly, but the Emergency Use Authorization Act. In order to utilize the Emergency Use Authorization, they had to have no other remedies. There was no other effective treatment. And so any effective treatment, specifically one that was, I mean, at the time, COVID or ivermectin rather had been around long enough that it was generic. So no one owned the patent on it. So anyone can manufacture it. It was like

seven cents a dose. It's nothing. It costs nothing. Well, we can't have that. We can't have that. And that's also why they tried to discourage and then eventually suppress people from getting monoclonal antibodies. They didn't want any sort of way that you could get over this without taking their medicine. I find it so curious that liberals were always, you know, so skeptical about corporate America, including the pharmaceutical industry. But this thing came along and suddenly, and it wasn't as if we didn't just have a giant example, the Sackler family of Purdue pharmaceuticals,

right? Makers of OxyContin and other fine poisons. Okay. I mean, they were fined, what was it? $8 billion, I think, for selling their hillbilly heroin to people, knowing that they were hooking people and they wound up killing hundreds of thousands of people. So it's not that we don't know that they're capable of this shit. So to throw your lot in, and then for the media to be basically the trumpet of government on this issue. So we didn't have a watchdog on government and what they were telling us. We just had somebody who amplified what they said. Right. That's extremely dangerous.

Have you read Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s book on Fauci? I read his- The real Anthony Fauci? I think – no, I read a book. I think it's the same stuff. I read it before he came on Club Random. It was like a letter to – I think it was called a letter to liberals or something where he was basically pleading his case. Listen to me. I'm not a kook.

It was all the information about how the vaccine did in other countries and stuff. Well, a lot of the book, specifically the beginning of the book, centers on the AIDS crisis. Right. And it was a horrible, horrible misuse of medicine with AZT and what they did. I mean, AZT was killing people quicker than cancer was, so they stopped using it as a chemotherapy. Yes, I know that. They've never had a chemotherapy that said that you have to stay on,

and this was the first one they did, and everybody who took it died, including people that were asymptomatic before they got on it, like Arthur Ashe. It's spooky shit, man, because if it is true, if he is accurate and he's not getting sued for it, it's fucking terrifying that they're willing to do that to make that kind of money. Yeah. I mean, I don't know about that.

I do know that he has a lot to answer for, for the Wuhan lab and the gain of function research. Yeah. And even if he was well-meaning, it was a terrible decision. Obama stopped that in 2014. You know, Obama put a halt to that in 2014. He was like, what the fuck are you guys doing? You guys are making viruses worse? Right.

And also, you don't have a fucking cure for them? If you're going to work on viruses, shouldn't it be just working on a cure? Well, I'm sure that that was their intent. Was it? I don't know. They didn't do it. I think the intent is to get research money. I think the intent is to get research money and to continue your studies. I really think that's the intent because it doesn't seem like the intent was, let's make sure that we have a cure for this stuff. Well, I would hope that would be what they were trying to do.

I would hope too. I mean – I like to hope people are good. No. I mean other than that, you're saying what they were doing was purposely creating a bioweapon. I don't say that. I don't use those terms. But I have heard other people use those terms.

I think it's a little extreme. I think what they were doing was capitalizing on the money that you get from research. And there's a lot of money that goes into research. And Fauci controlled where that money went. That's part of what was going on. I think that's a lot of it. If you're a bioengineer and this is your occupation is to genetically engineer viruses, you want to do that. That's what you do.

And you want to, you know, continue this work and continue to study whether or not it's good for the world. And that's what Obama thought it wasn't. And then Trump came along and apparently there was so much chaos that Fauci slipped it back in. And Trump disbanded the biodefense force, you know, that it was pennies to have this little small group of people over there who were watching this. And he said, oh, no, we've got to save the money. It cost us $6 trillion. Yeah. Again, stupid, stupid, crazy criminal.

Do you think that if he didn't do that, they would have had a solution to this? I don't know. But I think if we had a little team over there keeping an eye on those people, which we didn't, it would have might have gone a little better. Could be, yeah. But Joe, I gotta be on stage in one hour. Yeah, you do.

You gotta go kick some ass. I could talk to you all day. I could talk to you all day too. I love talking to you. I love listening to you. Thank you. I know you're never gonna come back to California. Well, I'd go back to visit and love listening to you. Thank you. I know you're never going to come back to California. I go back to visit and go, whoo, dodge that bullet. But if you do and you want to call me, I'll always be around. Thank you, sir.

Thanks for coming on. Appreciate you very much. Club Random. It's available on YouTube. Is it on all the other stuff too? Yeah. Everything? I only watch it on YouTube.

I'm sure it is. It's great, though. I really enjoy it. Thank you. I'm glad you're doing it. I appreciate that. I'm glad you do it, too, like the way you do it. You smoke joints, drink whiskey, have some fun.

Oh, yeah. I like it. It's just about fun. Yes. So, and again, I appreciate you paving the way. My pleasure, brother. All right. Have a good time tonight.

Thank you. I love Austin. I'm going to keep it weird. All right My pleasure, brother. Have a good time tonight. Thank you. I love Austin. I'm going to keep it weird. Bye, everybody.