The Young Turks - Dr. Joe Rogan

Episode Date: September 8, 2021

Heather Bresch, the former CEO of the drugmaker Mylan and U.S. Senator Joe Manchin's daughter, reportedly worked directly with the CEO of Pfizer to keep the price of the company’s EpiPen product artificially high. Jason Miller got detained in Brazil just hours after bragging about how free and open the country is. LAPD officers were told to collect social media data on every civilian they stop. Joe Rogan went after Jim Acosta and CNN for claiming that Ivermectin, a controversial anti-parasite drug the podcaster used to treat Covid-19, is a “horse dewormer.” Greg Abbott's plan to make sure women who are raped won't have to be forced to have their rapist's baby is to “eliminate all rapists.” Hosts: Ana Kasparian Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Right Wingers, looking for their safe space, Matt Walsh actually demanding it, that's later on in the show. Hello, you're watching The Young Turks. I'm Anna Kasparian. In hour two today, John Iderola will join me to talk about the show, the story that I just teased, in addition to the insane bikini police in the state of Colorado, who consists of the bikini police squad? Well, we've got one brave soldier among them when we'll give

you the details on his bikini policing at a beach in Colorado. It's insane. We'll also talk about Joe Rogan, proving me wrong yet again. He's actually dumber than I think. thought. So we'll discuss that and more. And look, as always, I love doing the show with you guys. I love your comments, your questions, your super chat. So keep them flowing, keep them coming in. I always have a good time with them. I'll make sure to read and respond to them during our social breaks. But for those of you who might not want to share your comments or whatever, it's okay. You can go ahead and like and share the street. So go ahead and do that now. great way of helping us get more eyeballs on the show. It helps to get our message out,

and we always appreciate it. Now, I want to start off with a story proving that capitalism in America is working just the way it's supposed to work. Let's go. Let's talk about the epipen and some new details about Manson's daughter. Senator Joe Manchin's daughter, who used to be the CEO of Milan Pharmaceuticals was actually a key player in a plot to monopolize the market for the severe allergy medication known as EpiPen. Now this is something that most people suspected, but thanks to new reporting by Ryan Grimm over at the Intercept, we now have some documents in the form of email exchanges making it abundantly clear that Milan Pharmaceuticals under her leadership very intentionally made sure that there was no competition in the market

for the EpiPen. Now let me give you the details of what we've learned through this reporting. In a January 2011 email on behalf of Heather Bresh, that's the former CEO of Mylan, and also of course Senator Manchin's daughter, to her counterpart at Pfizer, to then CEO Ian Reed, Bresch confirms a previous discussion with Reed in which she says that the two agreed that as part of a deal, Pfizer, a competing pharmaceutical company, would disinvest from its EpiPen competitor, Adrenoclick. Eliminating its main competitor would then allow Mylan to continue raising its prices. Now understand something. It's not just the executives over at Mylan that very clearly did something wrong here. They essentially collaborated with the executives

over at Pfizer to ensure that there was a monopoly essentially. And then what they would do is share the profits. So Bresh's assistant wrote in an email to executives at Pfizer, quote, I'm sending you this email as a reminder that you were to send me confirmation relative to our discussion regarding EpiPen. In that discussion, you indicated that you would be divesting your adrenna-click product from Pfizer-slash-king deal closes, once the Pfizer-slash-King deal closes. I understand your tender offer is closing today, so I would appreciate receiving your response as soon as possible. Now, how do we have these email exchanges? How do we have these documents? Well, Mylan is currently undergoing an

antitrust investigation. They're dealing with a pretty serious lawsuit, and as a By result, a judge recently decided to basically allow for these documents to be made public. And so Ryan Grimm obtained them, he reported on them, and now it's really abundantly clear that there was essentially collusion between Mylan and Pfizer in order to do what they ended up doing with the EpiPen. And the price of EpiPens went from about $100 to more than $600. Now for those who might have decent insurance, the insurance companies would cover most of the costs for the EpiPen. For people who don't have insurance, they're basically screwed, right?

But understand that even with insurance companies covering part of the cost for EpiPens, what ends up happening is the inflated cost or the inflated price leads to higher premiums for all of us. That's how the system works. Now, how did they, exactly monopolize the market. Well, by divesting from adrenaline click and continuing to allow Mylan to sell the EpiPen at inflated prices, both firms would split the profits from the more expensive version, allowing Pfizer to earn more than it would if it had driven down prices with its cheaper generic version. That's

what Pfizer was originally planning to do, but executives based on these documents hit up Pfizer and we're like bro look how about don't release your whole generic version. Milin will inflate the prices of the drug and we'll share the profits. Now it gets a little more detailed because how how did this all go down because Pfizer initially did pose a threat to myelin pharmaceuticals. So in 2007 for instance, Milan acquired rights to market the drug from Merck, the deal or the result of the deal with Merck was that Mylan manufactured part of the EpiPen delivery system, but not the medication itself while owning the brand name and the right to distribute the whole product. The drug itself was produced by King Pharmaceuticals,

which manufactured it exclusively for Milan. Now in comes Pfizer. Pfizer buys King, the very group or the very company that's actually manufacturing the drug, right? So King in 2010 announced that it would be purchased by Pfizer, which was licensed to sell Adrenoclic, an EpiPen competitor the previous year. The deal between Pfizer and Mylan led Pfizer to withdraw its competitor from the market and partner with Mylan on EpiPen locking down a monopoly. So you as a patient, your family members as potential patients, they don't have a choice.

There is no competition to the EpiPen. There's no generic version because once there was some possibility of a generic version, you have the executives over at Mylan hitting up the executives over at Pfizer, and essentially both agreeing that there would be no generic version, Milan would inflate the price of the EpiPen, and then they would share the profits. So it gets even worse. Following the deal with Pfizer, Milan, as I mentioned, drove the price above $600 within five years. And look, once they corner the market that way, once Mylan knows that they have no competitors,

they can do whatever they want. They can price gouge patients. They could price gouge insurers, which is exactly what they did. But Senator Joe Manchin's daughter, who, again, was the CEO of Milan Pharmaceuticals at the time, went even further. She's like, she's got a little taste, want a little more. So what did she do? According to Ryan Grimm's reporting, the documents also show Bresh approving a scheme to force customers captured by the company's monopoly to purchase two EpiPens at once, regardless

of medical need. The monopoly had created space for the new scheme. And the new scheme created extra revenue at Mylan, split with Pfizer, thus entrenching the the monopoly and warding off generics and also set aside to dole out as rebates to third parties who might complain according to internal correspondence. So I want to take you to this video featuring Heather Bresh, who was being questioned by members of Congress, this was a congressional hearing on the price gouging that was taking place. This is a video from 2016.

And she very clearly lies in this exchange. Let's take a look. Did you plan on increasing the price in 2017? No, sir, we did not. Okay, but you did have a plan then to raise it every year for five or six years? And if you look at what we received out of that money. Not and, I just asked you a question. Did you have a plan to raise the price every year for six years?

We have raised the price. we have raised the price and I think managing to what we received that 274 out of the 608 is what we were managing. You're obviously proud of your company. You think that was fair than to raise the price each year to that point, even though you got a drug at $100, which was probably too much for the drug considering what the cost is. I know you made a fancy clicker because I had one of your reps come by my office back in 2009 or 10 and show me how to use it. So I know that costs a little bit of money. But generally when a drug goes to generic, doesn't the price go down? Which is why we dropped it to $300. Only after you jacked it up to $600.

It's like if I go buy this tie and they say it's $600, but we're going to sell to me for $300. That doesn't make it worth $300. You fixed the price on the drug. Now, she's clearly lying. I mean, the question was clear. Did you intend on inflating the price of this drug? And she pretended as if she didn't. When in reality, these email exchanges make it abundantly clear that,

that they very intentionally created a monopoly for the drug with the very intention of inflating the prices to price gouge patients and insurers. I bring you to yet another email exchange. This is with Milan C.O. Lloyd Sanders at the time. He wrote to Heather Bresh, Harry, Ron, Joe, Mike, and I are recommending a price increase now for EpiPen.

The original plan was to increase in December or January assuming there was no backlash from Project X2 at payers. X2 is where they forced patients to buy two EpiPens at once. Now he continues to write, Project X2 implementation has been without any issues. Last price increase was May of 2011. No pushback on that either, Sanders wrote. The incremental sales would be $5.5 million to $6 million, and it all drops to the bottom line. You see what they're doing there? I mean, very intentional, very clear what they were doing, what the plan was. It's not like they're like, oh, wait, we didn't see this coming. Like, of course they knew what they were doing.

But now it's very clear that they intentionally created a monopoly, which is great evidence in this antitrust lawsuit that Mylan is currently dealing with. Now when Heather Bresh received some backlash on this issue, she was like, look, look, I get it. I'm a good person. I don't want people to be price gouged. The system is broken. That's the problem. Now, does she actually want to do what's necessary to fix the broken system? Of course not. You think she's going to go after her own profit motives? You think she's going to do something that's going to hurt her ability to earn more money, earn more money, to essentially rob people so she could make more money. That's a better way of putting it. I take you to our final video on this, gives you a sense of who Heather Bresh is, and keep this in mind as you hear from Senator Joe Manchin, who does not want to pass the budget reconciliation bill, which includes an expansion of Medicare and also includes a provision that would allow for Medicare to negotiate drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies.

He doesn't like that. You know why? Because it's gonna hurt his daughter's bottom line. She don't like that either. She makes it clear in this video. Just cancel the price increase. Why can't you do that? I have to play, the reality is in the brand pharmaceutical market,

this isn't an epipen issue, this isn't a myelin issue, this is a healthcare issue. So you would support the change in the law that would allow the US government to negotiate drug prices for Medicare and Medicaid. No, I don't know that that's the answer. Bresch calls the health care system broken with too many middlemen demanding a cut. So she throws Pfizer under the, too many middlemen demanding a cut.

That's the problem. We have to inflate our prices because remember, we essentially cut a deal with Pfizer to monopolize this market. So we got to pay Pfizer their cut. we want to make money too, so we're going to inflate the price. That's the, if you're to decode what she's saying, that's what it's really about. Okay, that's what she means when she's talking about the middlemen. But the middlemen are there because she intentionally created a situation where the middlemen are there. I mean, this was all a way of creating a monopoly and ensuring that there is no competitor to the EpiPen.

And some might say, well, I mean, this is wrong. I mean, this is crony capitalism, this is corruption, whatever you want. No, but this is how capitalism works. That's why you need the federal government. You need an actual antitrust division within the federal government to rein in capitalism. But understand that this is how the system works. And even when it comes to the issue of competition, you know, we hear all the rosy stories about, who capitalism's competitive edge and how it's so great.

But understand that that competition also leads corporations to offshore jobs to ensure that they can maximize profits and make more in revenue and profits compared to their competitors. So there are two sides to competition, which is that one side we don't hear much about in our corporate media or in any of this analysis regarding the economy. Finally, one more element to the story that shouldn't really blow your mind at this point, because it seems like everyone in the Mansion family is looking for a grift, because Mansion's wife was very much involved in this too. Gail Mansion, Bresh's mother, lobbied states to require schools to stock the EpiPen as the head of the National Association

of State Boards of Education. Gail Mansion was recently confirmed to serve as the co-chair of the the Federal Appalachian Regional Commission, a government agency tasked with promoting economic development across the region's 13 states. Fantastic, what a great choice. Now Biden certainly is trying to appeal to Joe Manchin with some carrots. You know, his wife got that sweet, sweet gig. But it's time for Biden to use the sticks. Because if there's any chance of the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill passing, he needs

to ensure that Joe Manchin, who's pushing back against that very legislation, bends to his will. The question is, does Biden really want it? And we're gonna have to wait and see. But we do know what the influencing factors are for someone like Senator Manchin. It's not that he's a Democratic senator from a red state. It's not that he's trying to appeal to conservative. It's not that he values bipartisanship. He has his corporate donors to worry about, But more importantly, his own family's profits, that's what he's worried about. That's what motivates him. And that's what media never talks about, with the exception of a few independent outlets.

We got to take a break. And when we come back, we'll do a little bit of international news. We'll take a trip to Brazil and give you a sense of the constitutional crisis that's taking place there as we speak. We'll be right back. Welcome back to TYT. I'm Anna Kasparian. Thanks for watching. As always, you can like and share the stream if you're looking to find a quick and easy way to support the show, and we greatly appreciate it. All right, let's take a trip to Brazil where there is a bit of a crisis as Jair Bolsonaro, its far right leader, is taking a page out of Donald Trump's book. Right wingers like Stephen Miller recently took a trip to Brazil, which was hosting its own version of a CPAC conference, and he got arrested. Well, he didn't get arrested. He got detained. That's a better way of putting it. He got detained for several hours and was questioned about why he was there.

Now, that sounds pretty scary. It sounds authoritarian, especially when you consider that Jaire Bolsonaro is the president of Brazil, and he conducted a soft coup and prevented Lula de Silva from winning the presidential election. But what really happened here was apparently there were, there was a Supreme Court justice who ordered the detention of Stephen Miller and the questioning of Stephen Miller. And I'll give you those details in just a second. Now how do we learn about this? A report in Brazilian media says Trump advisor and dead beat debt. Oh my gosh, I keep saying Stephen Miller, I mean Jason Miller, my bad.

So, all right, so what happened with Jason Miller? Why did he get arrested? Well, we learned about Jason Miller getting arrested through reports coming out of Brazil. A report in Brazilian media says that Trump advisor and deadbeat dad, Jason Miller, was detained in Brazil this morning by federal police before boarding a private jet back to the United States as part of an investigation into anti-democratic acts. Now what does that mean? Well, in a statement, Miller said that he and other members of his traveling party were questioned for three hours at the airport in Brazil after having attended this week's CPAC Brazil conference before eventually being released to fly back to the United States.

Miller also tried to downplay what happened. He said we were not accused of any wrongdoing and told only that they wanted to talk. We informed them that we had nothing to say and were eventually released to fly back to the United States. Our goal of sharing free speech around the world continues. Now, Miller is the founder, CEO of Gitter, right-wing social media platform. He claims to be some warrior for free speech. But as we know, conservatives usually have no interest in free speech, especially when it comes to speech that they personally dislike. But this story about him being detained and questioned is a perfect opportunity to talk about what's

happening in Brazil under the leadership of Jaya Bolsonaro, who's in a lot of hot water right now. His approval rating, not great. Lula de Silva, who hasn't officially announced that he's going to run in the next election, is already leading him in the polls by quite a bit. And the handling of the coronavirus pandemic by Jaya Bolsonaro has been a complete and utter disaster. The economy has been flailing in the country. And that's after Lula de Silva, by the way. lifted 20 million people out of poverty under his leadership. So as you can imagine, Bolsonaro is terrified about losing the upcoming election. It'll take place in about 13 months. And he's looking for ways to stay in power because he's also concerned that should he

fail to get reelected, he's going to face prosecution. And again, it sounds very similar to what we experienced with Donald Trump. So let's talk about that. a little bit. Sources tell the Washington Post that the questioning of Miller was ordered by a Supreme Court justice in Brazil. But at the same time, the reason the Supreme Court justices are kind of on guard is because Bolsonaro has consistently threatened to fire, like do away with the Supreme Court justices, essentially paving the way to maintain.

his power in the country, even if he lacks the popularity to be able to do so. Bolsonaro has described the investigation, several of which are targeting his own family members as an unfair infringement of his national authority as president. He has accused the Supreme Court of exceeding its constitutional power, and last month submitted a request to impeach the Supreme Court justice who ordered the detention of Miller. The Senate quickly tossed it out as baseless. So again, he's in hot water over his handling of COVID, over the economy, and let's keep it real, Bolsonaro who openly fantasizes about the military coup, the military dictatorship in Brazil that no longer exists. He wants it back, also use the courts to turn his political opponent into a political prisoner, essentially conducting a soft coup. So for him to say, oh, these Supreme court justices, you know, they're going too far. These are infringements on my rights.

It's rich. It's rich to hear that from him. And it's especially rich when he is already claiming that there's widespread voter fraud, the same thing that we experienced with Donald Trump in the lead up to the 2020 general election. He is essentially threatening to dismantle the Constitution of Brazil. In fact, why don't we go to this report from France 24, which gives us more details about what Bolsonaro has been up to. Openly nostalgic of Brazil's military dictatorship, President Bolsonaro has also, of late, reminded the country of his ties to the military, hosting an unprecedented procession of tanks on August 10th. A flexing of military might, a show of Visavid fan base, Bolsonaro has

launched an offensive. For polls show that 60% of voters would, under no circumstance, vote for him again in next year's elections. And his presidency has been hit hard by a raft of judicial investigations, including Supreme Court probes, ones that the far-right leader shot back against last week, calling for his supporters to rally and to issue what he calls an ultimatum to the Supreme Court. After September the 7th, those one or two who dare to defy us defy the Constitution, disrespect the Brazilian people.

They will know how to return to their place. Bolsonaro's critics say they're fearful that the president is encouraging an attack on the courts in the vein of Trump fans charging the U.S. Capitol. In an open letter, some 150 left-leaning international political figures said that they were gravely concerned about the imminent threat to Brazil's democratic institutions. A likely challenger in next year's elections,

former president, Lula de Silva, also commented on social media, saying Bolsonaro was sowing hatred, division, and violence rather than providing solutions. Now, the individuals who signed that letter indicating that they're concerned about the dismantling of the democratic system in Brazil certainly have a cause for worry. I mean, they've had a cause for worry because had Lula de Silva been allowed to run in the election, had he not been imprisoned as a political prisoner, it's very likely that he would have won the election in 2018. But Jair Bolsonaro conspired with a judge by the name of Sergio Morrow to ensure that Lula de Silva would be imprisoned. He saw what the polls said.

Lud de Silva was definitely leading in the polls by quite a bit, and Bolsonaro decided, well, let's throw him in prison. Let's make him part of this Lavajato investigation into corruption. By the way, all of those convictions have been overturned by the courts in Brazil this year. So it was very clearly a political effort to imprison Bolsonaro's political opponent. And so Bolsonaro said last month, he only sees three possible futures for himself. And I think that this is telling. Imprisonment, death, or victory. He is repeatedly flirted with the idea of a constitutional rapture without specifying what that would be.

And much like Donald Trump inciting the riots that took place in the Capitol on January 6th, if you go to Brazil, there's a very similar type of push by Bolsonaro, encouraging individuals to break through police barriers in the Capitol. In fact, the violence toward journalists is pretty clear in videos that are posted all over the internet. Look, the United States, unfortunately, is exporting some of the worst elements of our political discourse. And it's happening with organizations like CPAC holding conferences in Brazil. Why? You think conservatives in America care about what's going down in Brazil?

I mean, they do if it threatens their business interests. And so preventing the election of Lula de Silva is incredibly important to them. They don't want leftists leading in countries like Brazil. By the way, Louis de Silva did incredible things for the economy in Brazil. Not only did he improve the economy, he lifted 20 million people out of poverty in the country. But that comes at a cost for international business interests. So that's why you have CPAC holding a conference there. That's why you have clowns like Jason Miller showing up.

That's why you have this cycle of disinformation regarding the election and how there's allegedly fraud. Why do you think, why do you think Bolsonaro was talking about election fraud? It's the same reason why Trump was talking about election fraud. He can see the polls, he can see what's going down, he can see that Lula del Silva is leading in the polls as we speak. So the first thing that people with dictatorial tendencies will do is make the people of whatever country they're leading, question the institutions, question the electoral system. And if the results turn out to be something you dislike, something you don't agree with, well, then don't accept them.

That's exactly what's going down in Brazil right now. And again, Bolsonaro is just taking a page out of Donald Trump's book. on how to attempt to steal an election. He's getting his ducks in a row and he's got all the American-based right-wingers helping him out. It's pretty disgusting, but just know what's happening. This isn't just about the United States. It's about the type of authoritarian nonsense, undemocratic behavior, that we're exporting out of our country into places like Brazil. All right, we've got five minutes in this segment, and I'm probably gonna make

Brett very mad by doing one more story before we go to break. Let's talk about surveillance. Well, some throughout the United States are concerned about the tyrannical nature of mask mandates. It is pretty fascinating that they seem to be asleep at the wheel when it comes to government surveillance and surveillance by local police departments. Case in point, you have the Los Angeles Police Department, which the Guardian just found, has been doing additional surveillance of innocent people who haven't committed any crimes, but maybe had been interviewed by cops for any given reason. So what's going down? What is this expanded surveillance? Well, we're learning that the Los Angeles Police Department has directed its officers to collect the social media

information of every civilian they interview, including individuals who are not arrested or are of a crime. Copies of the field interview cards that police complete when they question civilians reveal that LAPD officers are instructed to record a civilians Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other social media accounts alongside basic biographical information. Now why would they want this information? Why would they want this data? Well, there are multiple reasons. One of the reasons that we've talked about on the show before, and I want to keep reminding you all about, is this notion of predictive policing, this idea that if you collect enough data on the people you're policing, and you input that data into some sort of algorithm, well, that technology can predict that someone is going to commit a crime before they commit the crime. I mean, how insane and dystopian is that idea? And it's already being used in Los Angeles and other parts of the country, which we'll get to in just a second.

But more details on what's happening with this data collection. An internal memo further shows that the police chief, Michael Moore, told employees that it was critical, critical to collect data for use in investigations, arrests, and prosecutions, and warned that supervisors would review cards to ensure they were. complete. So here's what the cards look like. And it might be a little difficult to see on your screen, but if you look in the middle of this image, you'll see that it asks for additional info, including booking number, narrative, email, social media accounts, and gives the example of Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. So that's pretty new. The interview cards didn't initially include that type of ask for social media data. And also, there is a space there asking for the social security number of the individual

who's being interviewed. But let me be clear, the LAPD or the law enforcement does not have the right to ask you for your social security number. But I'm sure that some people will feel, you know, intimidated by the situation, will give it to them anyway. But again, they're collecting this data for a very real purpose, regardless of whether you've committed a crime or not. So I bring you to a program that was launched by the LAPD that has to do with predictive policing. And hopefully this video will give you a sense of just how disastrous

this idea is. And of course, because of the bias involved, because of the longstanding bias in policing in regard to race, this is overwhelmingly going to impact people of color and the poor. Let's watch. Say you're living in Los Angeles and you just got out of prison. The LAPD could be keeping tabs on you through a program known as Operation Laser. It uses crime, arrest, and field data to determine where violent crimes are likely to take place and who will perpetrate them. Laser predicts who will commit a crime before a crime actually happens. The laser program tries to predict who might commit violent crime using a point system.

For example, if you're on probation, that's five points on your record. If you're in a gang, that's another five. A stop by police can get you another point. The people with the highest scores in each of LA's 21 divisions are placed on a list called the Chronic Offender Bulletin. You tally up all those numbers. Some folks end up with two points. Some folks end up with 40 points.

Those that end up with the highest number of points, we'll take a look and see where are they now. I mean, law enforcement watches minority, report and they're like, oh, is this an instruction manual? It's insane. It's absolutely insane. So when we're having a discussion about a contagious virus and the current pandemic that we're still struggling with, not just in this country, but throughout the globe, and there's a suggestion that, hey, maybe we need to mandate masks to stop people from getting sick and dying, I don't No, I call me crazy, but I don't consider that tyrannical.

I consider that common sense. But I don't see people taking to the streets or going to their local police department to protest the collection of this data and the use of predictive policing or the fact that people are just indiscriminately being surveilled. There's no problem with that apparently, that's not tyrannical at all. That type of government surveillance is totally fine, but wearing a mask is tyrannical. I just don't get it. I want someone to explain it to me, because there are so many ways in which our civil liberties

get violated on a regular basis, certainly the whole process of violating those civil liberties was accelerated after 9-11, but right now as we speak, you have local police departments engaging in this type of data collection and surveillance, but no one tends to think that that's a little problematic. No one's worried about abuses in that system. But wearing a mask is somehow tyrannical? Okay, all right. When police obtain social media usernames, it also opens the door, by the way, for officers to monitor an individual's connections and friends online, so you don't even have to be interviewed by the cops. If someone you know from your friends list on a social media platform is interviewed by the cops, they might be keeping tabs

on you too. It allows for a huge expansion of network surveillance, said the Brennan Center's Rachel Levinson Waldman, noting how police and prosecutors have previously used Facebook photos and likes to make dubious or false allegations of criminal gang activity. I mean, predictive policing, am I right? It's great. Just make predictions about whether someone's going to commit a crime. I mean, we're supposed to have a justice system that assumes innocence until someone is proven guilty. But this type of policing flips that on its head.

We're going to predict you're guilty before you've even committed the crime. And we're going to collect all sorts of data about you from your social media, regardless of regardless of whether or not there's probable cause, regardless of whether or not you've been interviewed because there's any suspicion of wrongdoing, regardless of whether you're innocent or not. Like we're just going to collect that information and use that data to predict whether or not you're going to commit a crime in the future. That's what's really going on here.

That type of authoritarianism should be protested, but it's not. In fact, when you do have people taking to the street. to protest these types of abuses, what happens? They get smeared. They're looters, they're rioters, how dare they? These are domestic terrorists. No, these are people who actually have the guts to question authority when it matters the most.

These are actually the people who don't get manipulated by clowns like Ben Shapiro or whatever right-wing dork. right wing dork is getting paid to spread disinformation about COVID. Okay, these are people who fearlessly take to the streets to demand that local police actually serve and protect, protect and serve. But they'll get smeared time and time again, as we're all experiencing abuse by local police departments and even the federal government. In the case of NSA spying, as we learned through Edward Snowden and his leaks, we were all being indiscriminately spied on.

I didn't see people take to the streets on that either. Instead, the conversation was in regard to whether Snowden committed treason or not. So that's where we're at. We'll get distracted by mask mandates, when in reality, there are real abuses taking place right now with people in positions of power. just keep that in mind next time you see an idiot at a school board meeting whining and crying about a mask mandate we'll be right back what's up everyone welcome back to t yt anna casparian with you let's get to our next story this is the this is the grand conspiracy right the grand conspiracy is the pharmaceutical companies are all in cahoots to try to make anybody who takes this stuff look crazy. But what's crazy is, look how better I got. I got better pretty quick, bitch. Joe Rogan unfortunately decided to double down on his use of ivermectin to treat coronavirus,

even though there is no evidence that suggests that ivermectin, a treatment for parasitic infections is in fact a effective treatment, an effective treatment for COVID-19. Now, this is really disastrous because, to be quite honest with you, I think I might have overestimated Joe Rogan's intelligence, and that's really embarrassing on my part. Now, if you're asking why, you'll understand in this video where he says that Ivermectin did in fact help him, but he's wrong about that, and I'll prove it. in just a second. Let's watch. But what they didn't highlight is that I got better. Yeah, you got better quickly. They tried to make it seem as if I'm doing some wacky that's completely

ineffective. Right. CNN was saying that I'm a distributor of misinformation. So he also said, in the context of that conversation, that he should maybe sue CNN. But if he's going to sue them specifically for alleging that he is spreading misinformation, he wouldn't have a case because he is, I think, unintentionally spreading misinformation. So I don't think that there's any malice in what he's doing. I think he genuinely believes that Ivermectin somehow helped him, somehow made him better after he tested positive for coronavirus. But here's the thing. If you decide to take Ivermectin, And that is the only drug you are taking to treat your coronavirus issue, then maybe you can make a case, right? But it's not like he did some sort of controlled experiment.

In fact, he was very transparent about throwing the kitchen sink at this COVID diagnosis. Let's watch. Got tested and turns out I got COVID. So we immediately threw the kitchen sink out of all kinds of meds. Monoclonal antibodies, Ivermectin, Z-Pack, prednisone, everything. So monoclonal antibodies, pregnosone, which is a steroid, Z-Pak, which is the, I believe, flu medication. He's taken a bunch of things in addition to Ivermectin, and he is arguing that Ivermectin is what helped him feel better. I thought he was smarter than that. I thought he would be able to, you know,

realize that if you're taking monoclonal antibodies, which by the way isn't widely available to everyone, that's what Trump was treated with, okay? Some people have access to it. A lot of people don't have access to it. But I would venture to say that the monoclonal antibodies probably had some impact on helping him feel better. I'm not 100% sure, but it's certainly not Ivermectin because there's no scientific data indicating that Ivermectin, which treats parasitic infections, works for COVID-19. There's no data, there's no data, there's no data. In fact, the one meta-analysis that everyone keeps pointing to was withdrawn. How does he not know this? How does he not know this. In fact, I know I'm repetitive. I know I've talked about this a billion times.

But look, I don't care about Joe Rogan. I care about the people who are watching his show or listening to his show who might not know better. Okay, I'm worried about them. Joe Rogan's got all the resources in the world to not be an idiot. But he has chosen to be an idiot. So whatever, he could do whatever he wants. But the fact that he's pushing a drug that is not effective for COVID-19 is dangerous to his listeners. So let's go. back to that meta analysis that was withdrawn. Why was it withdrawn? Well, why don't we go to Dr. Andrew Hill, who was one of the co-authors for that meta analysis. What did he say? Our meta analysis of survival for Ivermectin had to be retracted after one of the main studies

was suspected of medical fraud. With the revised version, there is no statistically significant survival benefit for Ivermectin. So the original version should not be quoted, but it keeps getting quoted by some people who apparently could be bad actors, maybe decided not to really read up or follow up on what's going on with Ivermectin. But nonetheless, there is no scientific evidence indicating that Ivermectin, which is a treatment for parasitic infections, works as either a prophylactic or a treatment for COVID-19. But there is a grift involved when we're We're talking about the doctors pushing for the use of Ivermectin, which again, has been reported repeatedly, and I've talked about repeatedly, but I'll get into that again. Before I do, though, I just want to show you what a genius Joe Rogan is as he's talking about this topic.

I had this guy on Dr. Pierre Corey, and he is, what is the organization, he's from frontline COVID critical care workers? he's well-established doctors treated thousands of people with COVID and they've early on the pandemic they found some good efficacy

with with Ivermectin Frontline 19 critical care alliance Okay Yeah So I had him on

And you know He had talked to me about He's not the only doctor that told me to take it. Multiple doctors told me to take it. It's supposed to have... What is the exact thing it's supposed to do? There's something that I highlighted. And this is, obviously, I'm not a doctor.

It says, Ivorymectin was found to be a blocker of viral replicase, R-E-P-L-I-C-A-P-A-P-A-P-A-P-A-P-R-T-A-E-R-S-2. I don't know. Oh, that sounded super persuasive, yeah. I mean, if I read that, I would totally take Ivermectin for COVID. What? By the way, Z-PAC is an antibiotic. It's not for the flu.

Just wanted to clarify that. I mixed up my drugs. But the point in mentioning that is that he was taking a bunch of different things, right? So to boil it down to Ivermectin makes me feel better, just doesn't make any sense. But he mentions in the last clip that I showed you that, you know, this doctor is the one who's been pushing it. He's with this organization and, oh, why don't we look into the organization that he's talking about? Because the organization he's talking about is connected to a pill mill that runs out of a strip mall in America somewhere, I forget the exact state.

And there's certainly a profit motive involved here, right? So on one hand, you have a free vaccine that Americans can get pretty much anywhere. There's like a CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreens. There have been some issues getting to rural parts of the country. but Biden certainly improved that, right? So why would people go out of their way to take a drug that they would have to pay for when there's a free vaccine?

And as I talked about on the show earlier, there is a profit motive behind slang in this stuff. So let's talk about America's frontline workers for what, like the billionth time. So how do they make money, right, this organization? On its website, people looking for COVID-19 medicine are told to click on a button labeled contact a physician and pay $90 for a consultation.

The link then takes customers to another website, speak with an MD, where they're asked to submit payment information and told that one of the frontline doctors will call them within a few days, with sick patients being prioritized. The group describes speak with an MD as a telemedicine service with hundreds of America's frontline doctors trained physicians.

Hmm, interesting. Now, people could just go straight to that website, speak with an MD, and they won't be charged $90 for a consultation. They'll be charged $30 less. The service is marketed on AFLD's site for $90, while a direct telemedicine consultation through speak with an MD is listed at just $59.99 a $30 difference. So already, just by referring people to America's frontline doctors, that group of cooks, including the sperm demon doctor, by the way. Okay, the sperm demon doctor is part of this group. So, I mean, this is really persuasive stuff, definitely. Yeah, I'm going to definitely take the, you know, parasitic infection drug for COVID-19. That sperm demon doctor totally knows what's up. They're already making

money off of just referring people to a telemedicine website. But it gets worse than that. They find other ways to make money. So the founder of America's frontline doctors is a woman named Simone Gold. She was arrested for participating in the January 6th riots in the capital. But they sent emails to supporters requesting their urgent and generous donations to withstand such aggressive assaults from the ruthless enemies of free speech. And they raised $400,000 for Gold's legal defense. America's frontline doctors built a slick website whose domain was bought by Tea Party Patriots and an email list of loyal followers whom they urge to make donations. And Gold herself, by the way, sells tickets where people can meet her. She does these RV

tours. In the spring of 2021, the group announced a national RV tour, which sold VIP tickets for a meet and greet with gold for $1,000. No, but look, to be fair, Rogan makes a super persuasive case for taking the parasitic medication for COVID. But throw the kitchen sink at it, okay? You know, you might not have access to monoclonal antibodies or that treatment, but whatever, doesn't matter. Don't get the vaccine apparently. And instead, risk getting sick and hospitalized with COVID, which wouldn't be much of a

problem for Joe Rogan. Because if the hospital bills him $38,000, he's going to be fine. But let's keep it real. The average cost of a hospital stay for a COVID-19 patient is more than $38,000. So there's the cost component of it, but even worse, there's the death component of it. If someone is unfortunately misled into taking a drug for parasitic infections instead of getting the vaccine. But whatever, at this point, it's your choice. just super devastating that Joe Rogan is honestly delusional enough to think that Ivermectin

is what helped him feel better. Okay, have it your way. Let's take a break when we come back. John Iderola will join me to talk about how Governor Greg Abbott of Texas is going to eliminate rape. That's what he thinks, magical thinking in Texas when we come back. Listen ad-free, access members, only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.