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May 8, 2024 - The Joe Rogan Experience
02:54:37
Joe Rogan Experience #2147 - Mike Baker
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joe rogan
01:00:47
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mike baker
01:46:58
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jamie vernon
02:56
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unidentified
Joe Rogan podcast, check it out The Joe Rogan experience Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day Mike Baker, it's very important that I ask you about this What's that?
joe rogan
Because I know you're an expert on conflict.
How do you feel about the Kendrick Lamar and Drake beef?
mike baker
Man, I am so glad you asked me about this.
Because my boys, you know, I got three boys, and all three of them have mentioned this in the past few days, right?
And they want to talk about it, right?
So Scooter will say, God, did you hear what he said?
And I was like, honestly, no, I haven't.
But they've all brought this up.
I am completely unfamiliar with the, although it sounds like the old days, East versus West, right?
In the old rap battle.
joe rogan
I think it's a personality thing, because one of them is Toronto, so it's actually America versus Canada.
Oh, well, that's right.
There's a real conflict there.
mike baker
And which one is the little guy?
joe rogan
Kendrick Lamar.
mike baker
Kendrick Lamar, that's right.
That's what my middle boy Sluggo said.
I think he's like five foot one or something.
joe rogan
He's not a big fella.
Him and Drake have been going at it now four songs apiece.
So, eight songs dedicated to beef.
mike baker
I think that's fantastic.
I think we need more of that, right?
It's better than the Hamas conflict.
joe rogan
Security guard injured and shooting outside Drake's home in Toronto.
Oh, Jesus Christ.
mike baker
God damn it.
joe rogan
Was it drive-by?
jamie vernon
Yeah, and the security guard was outside.
Said he was shot, I think, unconsciously taken to the hospital.
joe rogan
Oh, my God.
jamie vernon
Don't think he died.
mike baker
See, it was...
joe rogan
Do not know whether the shooting was related.
Well, take a fucking guess.
mike baker
You think it was or wasn't?
unidentified
What do you think?
joe rogan
A drive-by might be related?
Well, that's when shit gets scary, when people start shooting at each other.
unidentified
Yeah.
mike baker
No, when it was just...
Because I think it was Slugger who told me that one of them...
I think it must have been Drake who was talking about his...
He dissed him by talking about his size 7 feet or something, right?
And that's fine.
I think it's great.
If everybody would just like...
If the Israelis and Hamas would go after each other in song...
joe rogan
Battle rap.
mike baker
Yeah, battle raps.
Yeah, why not?
Yeah, dance-off.
joe rogan
That's how they should do it.
Yeah.
It's hilarious, but everybody's invested in this beef.
My oldest daughter and my wife were in the car this morning, and they were having a conversation.
These two grown-ass women having a conversation about who's the superior rapper.
And it felt that Kendrick is a better lyricist, although Drake has more hits.
mike baker
Drake has more hits.
joe rogan
Started from the bottom, now we're here.
I mean, look, he's got some bangers.
They both have bangers.
I love Kendrick Lamar.
I just wish these two would hug it out.
mike baker
Yeah, well, now it's moved on to the firefight stage of the battle.
joe rogan
Yeah, well, now they're shooting.
What did you say, Jamie?
jamie vernon
Kendrick's first big point was that it's 20 versus 1 because Drake has all those ghost riders helping to make all these hits.
joe rogan
So that's an allegation in the rap community, apparently, that Drake hires ghost riders.
I don't know how I feel about that.
So I feel like the same way I feel like if I find out there's a banging song, like Beyonce has a song out.
I don't get upset if she didn't write it.
Do you get upset?
jamie vernon
It's mostly only in rap that people are like, you didn't write that.
joe rogan
Like comedy.
Like comedy.
Like the same thing with comedy.
jamie vernon
Country song, they don't care.
joe rogan
Country, they do care.
jamie vernon
Not really.
joe rogan
I was going to say, guys like Zach Bryan shine through because they write their own shit.
jamie vernon
But it's very collaborative.
The country is hugely collaborative.
Sure.
mike baker
Tennessee Whiskey, right?
Tennessee Whiskey was a song.
joe rogan
Oh, Chris Stapleton.
mike baker
Yeah, but he didn't write it and it came out.
joe rogan
I thought he did write it.
mike baker
No, it came out.
jamie vernon
I think he performed it and someone else wrote it.
mike baker
It came out years before.
joe rogan
He wrote a lot for other people though, correct?
jamie vernon
Yeah.
But yeah, I don't even think, there's tons of songs like that.
joe rogan
They write for each other.
jamie vernon
Yeah, exactly.
joe rogan
Yeah, there's a lot of those guys that, like, Chris Stapleton made a living for a long time as a writer.
mike baker
Yeah.
joe rogan
Because people looked at him like, come on, man, you ain't sexy.
Meanwhile, they were wrong.
mike baker
And it's a very, it's a smaller community, right?
You know, the country music community, and it does tend to get more crossover between musicians and writers, right?
I mean, a lot of them will start out, like you said, as writers.
jamie vernon
There you go.
joe rogan
Tennessee whiskey, a country song, written by Dean Dillon and Linda Hargrove, who was originally recorded by artist David Allen Coe for his album, The Same Name, peaking at number 77 in the Billboard Hot Country singles in 1981. Wow!
George Jones, 1983 version of the song, was included on his album Shine On and reached number two on the Hot Country Singles chart.
mike baker
What great artist, George Jones.
joe rogan
Did you hear that Randy Travis is using AI now to make new songs because he was paralyzed by a stroke, but because they could take his voice, which is an iconic voice, Randy Travis has it.
Incredible voice.
But because of AI, they can get recordings of him singing, and he could plug it into AI, and he can still make songs.
mike baker
And you know how much of a recording they need nowadays to actually mimic the entire range of a person's voice?
joe rogan
It's 30 seconds.
mike baker
Less than that now.
Not that long ago it was 30 seconds.
Now you need a snippet, and by a snippet I mean seconds.
And you can then mimic that voice through a range of emotions and scenarios.
It's stunning what they can do.
joe rogan
There was a guy who just got fired because he made a fake AI recording of a guy he worked for saying a bunch of racist things.
And the guy, like, everybody was attacking him and got in trouble, and then they somehow or another did an analysis on it.
jamie vernon
The direct director did it to, like, the principal of the high school.
joe rogan
Right.
jamie vernon
He's about to get fired, so he's like, instead of me getting fired, watch this.
joe rogan
Right.
He thought he was being slick.
jamie vernon
Yeah.
joe rogan
But he's a dummy, and he didn't know that they can tell.
They can analyze audio recordings and tell whether or not they're real.
How do they do that?
How can they tell?
jamie vernon
Well, that one specifically, I think someone else was, like, it was a conversation between two people, and they both were like, I didn't hear that, and I didn't say that.
unidentified
So they were like, all right, well, what could have happened?
jamie vernon
I think they got the guy's computer to find out what he did.
joe rogan
So he must have had a secret recording, and then in that secret recording, he took it and then threw it through AI and had him say a bunch of N-words in there.
jamie vernon
Yeah.
mike baker
There's two aspects to this whole thing, right?
There's the detection portion of it, right?
Can you detect something like this as fake?
Whether it's audio, whether it's video, a combination of both.
And then there's the other side of it, which is trying to stay up with the capabilities of those that are trying to do these identity thefts or whatever you want to call it.
And that's sort of the proactive effort to lock down recordings, right?
And there's some interesting work being done in that space where if you film something, say you go to a campaign rally and you film that campaign rally, there are a handful of companies out there figuring out that you can essentially watermark it.
unidentified
Right?
mike baker
So that it cannot be fucked with, right?
And that you can determine if it's an actual recording or not.
And that's really, I mean, you think about, you know, how much disinformation is roiling around out there now.
joe rogan
Yeah.
mike baker
Right?
So, but detection, it's important, but it's not enough anymore.
So where the focus has to be is on ensuring that anything that's being recorded, whether it's a body cam for a police officer, whether it's maybe someone's at a protest, right?
And they're a protester or they're on the other side, whatever.
To be able to film something and then ensure that it's accurate and true going forward, right?
And that's a really important part because you can't, the detection side of it's important, but it can't stay up with the developments of all the folks out there, all the criminal gangs, criminal elements, and whether it's state-sponsored or not that's out there, you know, with this disinformation effort.
It's a fascinating problem.
People are getting duped constantly.
joe rogan
It's a fascinating problem that is only going to get worse.
As these new versions of AI get rolled out, it's going to be more and more difficult to detect what's true and what's fake.
And people can do it on their computer so easy now.
This one of Biden, he's walking, and he pauses to talk to people, and they CGI'd shit like that he's pooping himself.
mike baker
I saw that.
The one where he kind of stops, and he's into that weird pause.
unidentified
He's got a fart, and he's just seeing him poop himself.
mike baker
And people are out there saying, look, that's a mid-stage dementia stance, right?
That's what they're saying now.
They're talking about that.
I don't know about that, but...
joe rogan
Well, something's going on.
mike baker
There are if you talk about Just what do they call a face swap, right?
So they can take a photo of somebody now they can take a little snippet of somebody talking now and There are over a hundred apps out there readily available to anybody right that can Basically do this FAPES face swap technology and put somebody else in there and the criminal elements are doing it all the time Yeah, so if I'm a fraudster And I send a note, say, to somebody in procurement.
I say, hey, you need to send a check for $100,000 to our vendor, right?
Here's the details.
Well, they might have protocols in place at the company.
He says, okay, well, first, this is a large transaction.
I better call the finance director, right, or whomever.
They've got a way that they can figure out how to spoof all of that, right?
So you could be talking to whom you think is the finance director, but they'll actually, with the face swap technology that's available out there, right?
It's somebody having a conversation.
joe rogan
You think it's the finance director, but they're talking to you and- Completely different person, their voice gets changed, their face gets changed, they look exactly like you, so I could use face swap technology that exists today, and with all the recordings that we have of you from this show, 100%, we could have you saying a bunch of shit that you never really said.
mike baker
And some shit that I probably did say over the years.
joe rogan
We've said a lot of shit.
mike baker
Yeah, there's some shit.
joe rogan
Let me ask you this.
When they're doing all this face swap technology and all this different stuff, What what can be done to try to keep ahead of it to make sure like from a national security perspective like how do you?
Yeah, how do you keep?
How do you know right?
mike baker
Yeah, there's a couple parts to that one Netanyahu all of a sudden has some crazy speech right and says some wild shit and like we're going to war like hey Yeah, is that real well what they I mean again part of it is like this there's a handful of companies out there and They're able to, again, record, and instantly as it does it, it embeds information, right?
It embeds specific time, location, you know, your coordinates.
joe rogan
And it'll all be in the recording.
mike baker
And it's in there, right?
And then it's sort of a blockchain system where then on the other side, the person can look and go, yeah, this is accurate.
This is correct, right?
But people have to be able to take that, and that's, I guess, where I'm going with this.
People have to be able to To take that step, to ensure that what they're watching is accurate.
So, when people say, well, how do you prevent this?
How do you keep this from happening?
The unsatisfactory answer, to a large degree, is it comes down to individual people, right?
Everybody has a big fucking responsibility now, more so than before, to understand what they're looking at, listening to, watching, right?
joe rogan
Well, we're fucked.
mike baker
We're fucked.
Now we're really fucked.
I don't want to sound cynical.
joe rogan
Because there's just too many people that are concerned about Drake and Kendrick Lamar and don't even know what's going on in Gaza.
They're much more concerned with that.
We have a lot of 84 IQers out there bouncing around, walking into traffic.
mike baker
Yeah, 84, what, is that average nowadays?
Or is that, I don't even know.
joe rogan
I think it's 15% of the population is 84 and below, right?
Is that what it is?
15%?
jamie vernon
That would also mean 15% is whatever, 100 plus and above.
joe rogan
What's the actual numbers?
Let's get a pie chart of IQs.
jamie vernon
It's a standard deviation thing for...
mike baker
See, already I know that you're above 84, just because you said that.
joe rogan
Yeah, you said standard deviation.
unidentified
Wow.
joe rogan
And he Googles with one hand.
mike baker
That's because Carl's being petted.
jamie vernon
Almost no matter what thing you're trying to average out, they almost always end up looking this way, and 15% will always be on that side of it.
joe rogan
What percentage?
0.1% are 55 and below?
Fuck.
2% of the population is 70. Jesus.
Between 55 and 70, 2% of the population.
And then 14% of the population is 85. Yeah, but 34% is below 100. So most people are between 85 and 115, and me, I'm in that sweet zone.
Between 115 and 130. Oh, yeah.
mike baker
Really?
That's impressive.
I suspect I'm to the left of that somewhere.
Yeah.
I've never taken an IQ test.
joe rogan
I took one at 2 o'clock in the morning, and I wasn't even awake.
I wanted to see, and I said, I should probably take some Alpha Brain, take this bitch again, and get fired up.
But I didn't.
I'm happy with my score.
mike baker
Yeah.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
I just wanted to know I wasn't really stupid.
mike baker
Okay, that's interesting.
So, you know, a lot of people hanging out in the 85 to 115. I don't think...
joe rogan
The real issue with all this stuff, though, is emotional intelligence and social intelligence.
And there's people that are very brilliant people that I know that suck at those other things, and that's held them back in life.
So are you smart?
Are you really smart if your emotional intelligence sucks so hard?
Your ability to read social cues, your ability to form meaningful friendships sucks so hard that you're isolated and nobody likes to be around you, but you have a high IQ. So I'm supposed to think that's good?
That seems dumb.
mike baker
I mean, it works for some people, I suppose.
joe rogan
It doesn't, though.
That's a recipe for an unhappy life.
That's stupid.
mike baker
Yeah, well, I mean, you never know.
You get somebody who, you know, they're a brilliant scientist, and they just have very little social life.
Maybe they're happy in the science lab.
I don't know.
joe rogan
That's true.
mike baker
But I agree.
Empathy is, I mean, we try to work with our kids all the time on that, right?
I mean, you want a well-rounded kid.
Our job is to raise not average children, but you want them to be well-rounded.
And empathy, being able to read social cues, read a room, that is super important.
joe rogan
My kids are all very kind, and I love that.
It makes me very, very happy.
They're very kind.
They're kind to people.
They're kind to their friends.
They're kind to people.
They feel bad when someone's not doing well.
They're kind.
That means a lot.
I'm very happy they got that from us.
mike baker
Did they get that from you?
joe rogan
Probably more from Mrs. Rogan.
I'm nice, though.
And I work real hard at it, too, because I don't have instincts to be nice.
My instincts are not to be very nice.
My instincts are survival of the fittest.
It's very hard to put that aside and just be kind sometimes.
But it always feels better when I do.
mike baker
It is.
You know what?
And that's how kids learn to do it, right?
I mean, people always ask with parenting, Kids are watching from the time they're nuggets, right?
And they absorb shit, and if you want your kid to be empathetic, you've got to demonstrate that.
You've got to demonstrate kindness.
You've got to demonstrate consideration.
My daughter's great at it.
My daughter is very good, and our boys are boys.
They're aggressive and competitive and all that.
But I think ours probably follow the traditional sort of multi-kid path, right?
So like the oldest boy, Is empathetic, right?
And kind and considerate.
joe rogan
Youngest boy is probably a savage.
mike baker
Youngest boy, he's like the fucking mayor of party town.
That's what I'm saying.
joe rogan
Because he's got to deal with the older brothers.
He had to grow up quicker.
mike baker
Yeah.
And the middle boy, he's usually better at things, too.
Yeah, actually, you know what?
He's, as my wife says, who's the greatest person I know, she calls him the sleeper, right?
Because he kind of comes in on the radar.
You don't expect him to be great at something, and then he is, right?
Because he's been watching, and he's pissed off, and he wants to be better than his brothers, right?
And then the middle boy is just like, he's just like, fuck you, get out of my way.
You know, he's the basketball player.
He's...
He's in his own way.
He's into his own thing.
And he's a great kid, but he's just like, this is what I'm going to do.
I don't know what you're doing or what you're doing, but here's me.
joe rogan
He's got to focus.
That's because there's a lot of people around who realize you can't concentrate on other people being happy.
Got to do what he wants to be.
mike baker
That's right.
joe rogan
Interesting dynamic, right?
mike baker
It is.
And you think about it, and you think about they all grow up, and people talk about this all the time, so it's nothing new, but, you know, kids grow up in the same environment, right?
And then they end up being so uniquely different in ways.
unidentified
So different.
joe rogan
They're different out of the box.
And boy, genetics plays a factor.
My God plays a factor.
And you realize that when you see your kids grow up and you see traits that, like, there is no fucking way this is getting to you any way other than genetics.
There's no way.
mike baker
Yeah.
Because, I mean, at a certain point, yeah, they start to take some influence from their friends.
Oh, yeah.
But by then, hopefully, you've kind of already set their, whatever, their moral compass, right?
And they know what they're supposed to do.
Maybe they stray off that path occasionally, right?
But for the most part, no.
I think you've got to set...
The parameters, you've got to set the course.
Little kids want to know what the hell is expected of them.
joe rogan
I'll tell you one thing.
Reports from the front lines of kids in high school today, that woke shit's out the window.
That word retard comes flying in these kids' mouths.
They're bringing that back strong.
They are bringing that back strong.
I'll tell you, that woke thing, it got into college, and then the high school kids, the ones coming up now, they are rejecting it.
mike baker
I 100% agree with you, and I know that because Our youngest Muggsy is like what 12 years old now and So he's in seventh grade and he it was in the complete blast zone of woke, right?
Because and and like the oldest one who's you know 16 He kind of had some of it the middle one again didn't care.
He was like, you know fuck you you don't play ball, so I'm not paying attention to you and But the youngest one was in a complete firing, you know fire zone of this this is this wool culture and And you'll never meet a more conservative, sexist kid in your life.
Because he's just like...
He'll come back and he'll tell us some stories from his school, which is a great school, but it's pretty woke.
It's pretty liberal, right?
You got kids walking around as furries.
You got a lot of multicolored hair.
You got all sorts of things going on there.
And he'll come back and tell us stories.
And he's just like, I just don't understand what the hell's happened.
joe rogan
Because he works harder to sport.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
That's what you get from a lot of people that work hard at sports.
People that value hard work.
People that value hard work tend to be more conservative.
And more or less inclined to indulge people on their mental illness.
You know, oh, you're a cat?
No, you're not.
You have cat ears on.
They don't even look like a cat.
You don't even have a good costume on.
Like, you're not tricking people in the dark.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Okay?
Shut the fuck up.
mike baker
You're not a cat.
joe rogan
You're just 12 and really confused and I get it.
mike baker
He came home one day and he said some girl turned around, dressed as a cat, and kicked him because she thought he had pulled her tail.
And then apparently she hissed at him and walked away.
And he was like, I didn't fucking pull her down.
I don't want anything to do with her.
joe rogan
She hissed at him.
Jesus Christ, this is so indulgent.
That's so crazy.
You know what's interesting is like, Tucker Carlson had a very good point when he talked about the difference between different dysphoria's.
Like body dysphoria for like anorexia versus gender dysphoria.
And he said when a child has body dysphoria and they think they're fat, you don't tell them, oh yeah, you are fat.
No, you help them.
You say, no, you're not fat.
This is just a mental disorder.
But when someone says, I'm a boy, You say, oh, you are a boy.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
You don't say, oh, sweetie, your name is Dorothy.
mike baker
Yeah.
Shall we go shopping for dresses?
jamie vernon
Dorothy.
mike baker
Why did I come up with Dorothy?
Dorothy.
joe rogan
Are people still naming their kid Dorothy?
mike baker
I don't think.
I hope they are.
No.
joe rogan
Bring it back.
mike baker
It's a beautiful name.
I think Dorothy, Carol.
Nobody names their kids Carol.
joe rogan
It's a beautiful name.
Those are beautiful names.
unidentified
Dot.
mike baker
There's nothing wrong with Dorothy.
That was the nickname for Dorothy.
It was Dot.
I know that because I know a Dorothy.
unidentified
That's right.
mike baker
She goes by Dot.
joe rogan
That's right.
Yeah.
mike baker
People are like, what the fuck are they talking about?
How bizarre.
Dot.
unidentified
God.
joe rogan
How bizarre.
mike baker
Yeah.
joe rogan
That's a weird one.
mike baker
But you're right.
It's the indulgence.
And again, look, everybody, fine.
Do what you want to do.
I don't need to go along with it.
I don't need to celebrate it.
I don't need to...
But that's what's expected.
It went past, like, maybe I'm a little bit different.
I'm going to go through a phase in life.
Now it's like, I'm going through a phase, and you better fucking well accept it.
Celebrate it.
joe rogan
There's like a value, a social value to having anxiety.
There's a social value to what you would call childhood trauma, you know, or social value to like everybody has PTSD from like...
It could be from like high school.
It could be like from minor stuff, but it's looked at as, oh, we have to be...
We have to be considerate of someone's past.
Everybody's got trauma.
That's a part of life.
But the answer is not to overindulge every single aspect of everyone's ideas so that you do let a kid wear a fucking tail and ears and run around the high school and be a freak.
Because that's not good either.
That's not healthy.
mike baker
This is crazy.
It's not healthy and it's confusing for those kids too, right?
For everybody.
I honestly believe if you address it properly, right, and you deal with it, it's long-term better health for that individual, right?
Which is what you want, right?
unidentified
Oh, I never said.
mike baker
Everybody wants that.
But we've got...
I don't understand it.
joe rogan
Once you're a grown adult and you've got your own job and you pay for your own apartment, you want to go to a furry convention, God bless you.
God bless you.
I just don't think you should be able to wear a fucking tail in school and hiss at people.
That just seems...
That seems silly.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
It seems silly.
Also, my friend's son goes to a school where you can't wear hats.
So you can't wear hats in class, but kids can wear like fucking duck ears or...
mike baker
Yeah.
joe rogan
Ducks don't have ears.
unidentified
Like...
mike baker
Don't they?
How do they hear?
joe rogan
They have...
They don't stick out, though.
unidentified
Oh, okay.
joe rogan
I was coming up with a stupid animal.
For some reason, duck.
That's how you know I'm not invested in this idea.
mike baker
I think a duck without ears would be a good-looking duck.
joe rogan
You get fucking dog ears or cat ears or whatever the fuck you think you are.
A raccoon.
mike baker
Stop.
Our boys' schools, we can't wear hats either, our boys' schools.
joe rogan
Yeah, they can't wear hats, but they can wear these stupid fucking ears is my point.
mike baker
Yeah.
joe rogan
Because it's like a headband, I guess.
mike baker
This time of year is a great time of year.
And it's a great time of year because, speaking of hats and everything, is that...
This time of year is crew cut, flat top season.
So the youngest one, Muggsy, went ahead the other day and got himself a buzz cut.
unidentified
Nice.
mike baker
It's nice.
We used to go, all my brothers and I, we knew summer was approaching when my dad would say, okay, there we go.
And we had a home clipper kit, right?
And there was something great about...
That flat top, that crew cut, right?
And so, anyway, he's got his crew cut going on, and I suspect he's the only one in this entire school that's got this, and it's a good look for him, right?
And it also, you know, again, I think there's so much happening in the school in terms of...
The way kids are, what's the word I'm looking for?
Coddled.
I feel proud about Muggsy because he comes walking into school and there's no mistaking.
This kid is not angsty.
He's not worried about anything.
He's got the crew cut going on.
joe rogan
This is a very unique challenge for these kids to get through this bullshit and come out on the other end.
Understanding that no one's coming to save you, you're responsible for yourself and life, and you gotta get after it.
You gotta actually do something.
If you want a successful, happy life, you have to be engaged in some sort of a pursuit, something that you enjoy, whatever the fuck it is, find it, go for it.
Hard work is important.
The world really does operate on a meritocracy except in corrupt situations.
mike baker
But it's also a battlefield, right, for these kids.
A minefield is probably a better way to put it.
So you've got the kids.
You want them to do all those things, right?
Play sports.
Be involved in hobbies, activities, whatever it is.
Stay busy.
Focus on your grades.
Be balanced.
Be nice to people.
But they're walking through this minefield.
Every day there's a potential for them, right, to upset somebody who's looking to be upset.
And I'm talking about 12, 13, 14, 15 year old kids, right, who are looking to be insulted, right?
And very quickly, Use the system that's been put in place, which caters to them.
And so it is, and my boys have run afoul of that system a couple of times for maybe speaking their mind.
joe rogan
Maybe not calling someone a them, addressing someone as a plural.
One of my kids went with a they-them, went to school with a they-them, and this girl wore fucking makeup.
She wore makeup and dresses, but she said she was non-binary, and she would get upset if someone didn't call her a they or a them.
mike baker
How old at the time?
joe rogan
11?
12?
12?
12, I guess.
Yeah.
What the fuck, man?
mike baker
Were you worried about that sort of thing when you were 11 years old?
joe rogan
I didn't even know it was a thing.
I don't think I realized it was a thing until I was 50. Yeah.
I never heard a non-binary.
I mean, I would imagine that there are people that are asexual.
They're not interested in physical affection.
They're probably on the spectrum.
God bless you.
mike baker
But is that what non-binary means?
joe rogan
No, but that's like asexual.
Asexual, I get.
But when you say you're not a boy or a girl, okay, if you were a puppy...
And I wanted a boy puppy or a girl puppy, which one would you be?
I know you're not a puppy.
mike baker
Yeah.
joe rogan
You know, like, this is the thing with the Supreme Court Justice, with Ketanji Brown Jackson, who said she's not a biologist.
They asked her, what is a woman?
She said, I'm not a biologist.
Right.
But you're a woman, so how about take a shot at it?
mike baker
Yeah.
joe rogan
Like, if I brought you a puppy, how do you know if it's a boy dog or a girl dog?
Can we use that same judgment for humans?
Is that possible?
Isn't it true in the majority of cases that a woman has ovaries and a vagina and they can have babies for the most part?
mike baker
Yeah.
Yeah, for the most part, yeah.
Well, just try to watch people, like, just lose their minds, try asking somebody like that, you know, is there a difference between a man and a woman?
joe rogan
Imagine asking that to a Supreme Court Justice 20 years ago.
Imagine if Ruth Bader Ginsburg 20 years ago, somebody asked her, she would go, shut the fuck up with these stupid questions.
I'm here on the goddamn Supreme Court to get shit done, okay?
I'm not here to hear, what did you ask me?
What a woman is.
Why don't you ask me what paint is?
Now ask me what tires are.
How about a bunch of other shit?
What's a pencil?
Shut the fuck up.
mike baker
What are we doing?
But it's university administrators.
It's anybody in a position of leadership who's afraid of getting bullied, right?
And so nobody wants to state the obvious.
We went through the whole pandemic with one side screaming, believe the science, right?
And now they're like, well, no, you know, it depends on the context of whether a man and a woman are different.
You're thinking, look, you can, again, do whatever you want to do, but if you're a girl, but you identify as a boy, then you're a girl identifying as a boy, and vice versa, right?
That doesn't seem complicated to me.
joe rogan
Also, if you want us to trust the science, you've got to make the science trustworthy.
You can't leave the science in the hand of corporations that stand a profit if the science reflects one thing or the other.
You can't do that.
Because they do it.
They've done it forever.
They've been fined for it.
You know they do it.
You know it's standard practice.
You know that they run multiple tests and multiple studies and they'll throw out the ones that don't show any positive results and they finagle the studies to show some Kind of fugazi, positive thing, and then they'll start prescribing it to people.
And they do it for money.
You know they do it for money.
Everybody knows they do it for money.
So shut the fuck up about this science thing until you can sort the science out.
Unless you have a third party, non-biased, where there's not a revolving door between the government organization and the pharmaceutical drug companies, which we know there is.
And we know that they know there is, so we know that they know where the fucking bread is buttered, and they know how to get things through, and then looky-do!
He works for Moderna now.
Looky-do!
mike baker
Eli Lilly!
Oh my god, look!
joe rogan
Looky-do!
GlaxoSmithKline just hired him.
You know, I mean, look, everybody should make money.
I'm glad pharmaceutical drug companies exist.
They make awesome stuff.
mike baker
Right.
joe rogan
But you've got to be honest, and don't hit me with that trust of science shit if you haven't made the science trustworthy.
Stop!
mike baker
Yeah, and it also can't be a moving line, right?
Either you do or you don't, right?
And it can't be based on where you fall politically, right?
Which seems to be how it works, right?
joe rogan
100%.
mike baker
Whenever it's, yeah.
joe rogan
We trust some science, just not chromosomes.
Chromosome stuff is fascist.
mike baker
Yeah, it's very subjective.
It's very fascist.
joe rogan
I wanted to ask you this before I forget.
When you were working for the agency, did you guys...
I know that there is a program where they use special effects makeup to change someone's appearance.
Have you ever seen that in person?
mike baker
Oh, yes.
joe rogan
How does it look?
mike baker
Well, it gets better all the time, right?
joe rogan
So if I go to a concert, could I sneak into a concert with a rubber nose?
mike baker
Yeah.
joe rogan
Get me a nice blonde wig.
mike baker
Yeah, that's what we used to do.
We'd hand out rubber noses and googly eyes.
Then nobody would see us coming.
joe rogan
Like Clark Kent.
mike baker
Yeah.
No, we have a disguise unit at the agency, and I'm super proud of them.
Was the benefit of their expertise on numerous occasions, because you might guess, I mean, I'd spent almost all my time with the agency overseas in operations, and there's some places where I don't blend, right?
Crazy!
I know!
joe rogan
So they blended you just like on Team America World Police?
unidentified
Remember?
mike baker
Yes!
joe rogan
What a picture of that guy!
Hans Breaks!
mike baker
Hans Breaks!
joe rogan
How good is that movie?
mike baker
It's the greatest movie ever.
joe rogan
They're the best.
Trey Parker and Matt Stone are the fucking best.
mike baker
Oh my god.
When they did the puppet sex...
joe rogan
Or Matt Stone and Trey Parker.
Did I switch their names?
mike baker
Yeah.
The puppet sex scene when they thought, okay, a few minutes of this, it's making people uncomfortable.
Let's keep going with it.
joe rogan
Well, you know the original is far longer.
The original, she poops on his chest or he poops on her chest and she pees on him or he pees on her.
mike baker
God, they're brilliant.
joe rogan
Look at this in disguise.
unidentified
Oh, shit.
Come on, Gary.
Act.
Act.
You have the power.
Fuck.
Dirk Dirk Allah.
Durka Durka, Muhammad Jihad.
Hakka Sherpa Sherpa, Bakala.
mike baker
Man, this takes me back.
joe rogan
He's an actor, bro.
mike baker
God, it's so good.
joe rogan
He saved them.
He saved them being an actor.
mike baker
One of the greatest, yeah.
That really takes me back to the operational days, too.
joe rogan
Such an amazing movie.
mike baker
Yeah, the disguise unit is fantastic.
Okay, so here's the video.
Oh, it's John Mendes, yeah.
joe rogan
So this is from the disguise unit?
mike baker
Yeah, she was there.
She was, you know, senior officer there.
joe rogan
Were you ever talking to someone?
You know, I think this motherfucker's wearing a disguise.
mike baker
No, but I've talked to people wearing disguises.
I've had the full overhead masks.
joe rogan
Look how good that is with sunglasses on.
With sunglasses on, that's crazy.
mike baker
I never did wear the monkey outfit.
We didn't do that one.
joe rogan
But look how good that looks.
mike baker
Yeah.
joe rogan
That's insane.
mike baker
And here's the thing about this.
Because what they did was they went to Hollywood and there's been this liaison for years, years and years, between the agency and Hollywood when it comes to special effects, when it comes to makeup.
And again, and it's horses for courses.
So sometimes you need a light disguise, right?
I'm not giving away any secrets.
This stuff is all out there.
And so, you know, you get a light disguise.
It's for a brief, you know, cover for action.
You know, there's not, you're not going to be engaged in it.
joe rogan
So what would be a light disguise?
mike baker
You know, like a rubber nose.
Yeah, it could be like a wig, it could be, you know, facial hair, change of glasses, could be just a change of hair color.
In reality, if you're out on the street, I know I'll probably disappear down a rabbit hole and people will be like, oh, this is fucking boring.
But if you're out on the street and you're just, you're in a surveillance exercise, say, right, and you're covering a target.
Then all you got to do is you're just talking about switching up your look a little bit.
It could be a hat, right?
It could be a coat, it could be a backpack, whatever you're doing.
So it doesn't have to be much.
And then you got the full other side of the spectrum, which could be a full overhead mask, right?
Which is, that's a process, right?
I mean, it's just like with Hollywood.
I mean, there's no difference.
And the key is, when you're out on the street and you're in disguise, Nobody is thinking that person's in disguise, right?
So it's dependent upon your bearing.
I've seen people in disguise who don't pull it off well, right?
Because they're worried, like, oh, I'm in disguise.
People are thinking I'm in disguise.
Nobody gives a shit.
Everybody's worried about their own little bubble out there.
joe rogan
So it's your body movements and your body language.
Right.
mike baker
It's your bearing.
How do you comport yourself?
How do you carry yourself?
Are you confident in it?
And also, do you understand that the vast majority of people out there, no matter where you are, right, a fourth world country, U.S., wherever, they're not thinking about it, right?
And I've had extended conversations with people in disguise Where, you know, they don't give a fuck.
They don't know.
And it is remarkable how good they are at this.
But that unit is fantastic.
joe rogan
Did it give you like a rubber muscle suit ever?
mike baker
No, I never got a fat suit, no.
joe rogan
A muscle suit?
mike baker
But I know one of the guys I worked with, he got a fat suit.
joe rogan
Really?
mike baker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Changes weight, because that's also one of those things where, you know, you're looking to, right?
I mean, you're just looking to alter your profile.
And weight is a big part of it.
joe rogan
And what does the fat suit entail?
Is it like a skin one where it looks real?
mike baker
Well, no, mostly it's under your clothes, right?
And so it's padding, basically.
But it's quick.
You have to be able to do this quickly.
Look, I've been on the streets of, you know, capital cities around the world where I'm on a motorcycle and, you know, I've got a helmet on.
That's a pretty good disguise.
But you've got to get off that motorcycle at some point and walk the streets or go somewhere, whatever.
And so you've got to be able to do these things quickly, right?
So, again, not giving away any sources or methods, but I will say the disguise unit and Mrs. Mendez there, who they just showed briefly, she ran that operation to a great person and a great part of the agency.
But it is acting.
There's no difference.
joe rogan
So this is what I was going to get to.
Did they teach you how to walk casual?
Did they teach you what to see in someone that's tense?
mike baker
Well, yeah.
I mean, you spend a lot of time...
Yeah, you do.
That's a good way to put it, I guess.
You spend a lot of time observing people, right?
And understanding...
And part of that is you're trying to get a sense of...
If you're trying to get a sense of whether they're lying, you're watching for certain things.
You're watching for their body movement and the way they're behaving and the things that they're saying.
A lot of times they're just...
They're not consistent with what they're saying.
So that's not necessarily watching their movements.
But...
A lot of times, if you're trying to get on side with somebody, right?
So if I'm trying to develop a relationship with the deputy foreign minister of whatever from some country, right, because they've got inside information on their NUC program, then I'll spend a lot of time Thinking about and watching and observing that person, and eventually I'm mirroring that person's activities, right?
So, you know, if you're sitting across from somebody and they lean on the desk, right, and they start talking to you, they move in a little bit closer, well, I'm going to do the same thing.
I'm going to come in.
They don't know it, they don't understand it, but it makes them more comfortable, right?
So if you start mirroring their actions, their activities, That's just one of those things.
It's a small part of it, but it's one of them.
joe rogan
My buddy told me that when you see people like leaning against a wall, that we see people in foreign countries leaning against a wall, nine times out of ten they're American.
Like with leaning like one shoulder against a wall.
He said it's a very American thing to do.
Like lean against doorways with one shoulder or lean against a wall with one shoulder.
mike baker
Yeah, I wouldn't make a lot of book on that.
I mean, because, you know, it's a Western thing more than just an American thing.
I've spent a long time in Europe and, you know, Italians will lean against the wall.
Spaniards will lean against the wall.
But it is a Western thing.
So, you know, if you're walking the streets of Vladivostok or wherever, then you have to be aware of it.
Also, little things like how you eat, right?
How you hold your fork and knife.
I mean, it could be anything that could, you know, show out as a certain cultural...
joe rogan
What is the way that different people hold their fork?
mike baker
Well, you know, if you hold your knife here and you hold your fork here, right, and you just keep eating with this hand, you don't switch the fork over to your dominant hand, right?
That's an interesting take, and I mean, like, if you're over in the UK, you see it all the time, right?
People just kind of eating like this, right?
Just pushing their food onto their fork.
jamie vernon
There's 15 things that stand out.
joe rogan
Americans are known for leaning on things while standing still.
Aha!
unidentified
Aha!
joe rogan
This is a habit the CIA even trains.
unidentified
Aha!
joe rogan
If CIA trains Americans to unlearn when trained to be a spy, don't worry, we can still stand out on our own two feet.
Americans are always eating on the go.
One person living in Europe was asked if they were American because they were eating a bagel while walking.
Hey, we gotta fuel up for all that small talk.
Americans are known for being loud and friendly, and our accents are a dead giveaway.
mike baker
Well, yes, that's duh.
joe rogan
Americans love small talk and are super friendly, okay.
Americans are known for wanting ice in their water, a habit that might seem as strange in countries where ice is not commonly consumed.
Americans often greet people with, hey, how are you?
The greeting may be seen as too friendly or even mocking in some cultures.
Americans are known for leaving tips.
mike baker
Are they?
Okay, yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah, that's true.
Americans have a reputation for being confident.
Okay.
Even if you're walking in the wrong direction.
Americans are known for enjoying sweet treats for breakfast, a habit that may be seen as strange in other cultures where breakfast is typically a savory meal.
Americans are often seen as being obsessed with their appearance and constantly checking their appearance in mirrors.
It's because we're the shit.
Americans are known for wearing tactical sunglasses.
A style that we've seen as unusual in other countries.
Okay.
Americans are known for saying y'all.
Americans are known for the love of baseball caps, especially when worn backwards.
Americans are in love for the love of saying the U.S. or America when asked if they're from, even though these terms refer to the entire country.
Americans are known for their friendly grins and making eye taunt.
Basically just a leaning against the wall thing that seems odd.
mike baker
Yeah, that's interesting, but I've seen a lot of leaners in my time.
But yeah, all those things, it's good to be aware of, but...
joe rogan
You were saying with the fork and knife thing that the Europeans keep a fork in one hand and a knife in the other, and they don't switch hands.
What people switch hands?
mike baker
I've seen that a lot here in the States, where people, like, they'll eat, you'll cut, you'll put down, you'll eat, and maybe it's just because I hang around with a lot of posh people, I don't know.
joe rogan
Yeah, they seem like bitches.
They'll sound like, that's a bitch move.
mike baker
I'm not saying they're not.
joe rogan
Your left hand sucks so hard that you have to swap out.
mike baker
Swap out, yeah.
joe rogan
You're scared of the fork beating your left side.
mike baker
I think it's considered very etiquette.
joe rogan
Also, you're a bitch for not being able to cut your food with your left hand, too.
mike baker
I know.
joe rogan
Both those things make you a bitch.
mike baker
And it's just a lot easier, also, if you're pushing around right there.
But then again, you can do it.
joe rogan
If you want to eat quick, you've got a two-hand thing.
jamie vernon
There's a gentleman's magazine here that says that's an American style, apparently, to hold the fork in your dominant hand and switch.
joe rogan
That's the bitches of America.
mike baker
So let's say for a steak, for instance.
Oh, look, there's even pictures.
There's pictures to explain this to us.
jamie vernon
How you cut, too, is a zigzag style or something.
joe rogan
So the fork goes back and forth.
Now let's take a close look at the details.
unidentified
This is ridiculous that people are still looking at it.
mike baker
Actually, that guy holding it like a dagger looks like my boy's eating.
joe rogan
I bet that dude's very boring in real life.
mike baker
Or a serial killer.
Yeah, or an etiquette teacher.
joe rogan
Yeah, either one.
mike baker
So, but the disguise thing is fascinating.
And I've been, like I said, I mean, sometimes it can be very simple.
You slap on, I know it sounds silly, but you slap on a fake mustache.
But you're just changing your profile quickly.
Right, right.
And so it doesn't.
I will say, there were times when you'd get a disguise kit, and it would have a baseball cap in it.
And you'd go...
I don't think so.
I think because we're overseas and probably not a baseball cap.
joe rogan
So who's putting together these disguise kits for you?
mike baker
I mean, the outfit.
Again, it's the disguise unit.
joe rogan
And the disguise unit isn't aware of cultural differences?
mike baker
Oh, no, they are.
But I'm just saying, in the old days, because I'm fairly old, but in the old days they'd throw in a ball cap and you think, like, okay, well...
joe rogan
You're giving it up here, kids.
mike baker
Yeah.
But, yeah.
Hey, what do I know?
joe rogan
So is there any video of people wearing these disguises where we could see what they look like?
jamie vernon
I found another video.
joe rogan
I want to see what it looks like.
mike baker
Yeah.
joe rogan
Because I saw one on Instagram, but I don't know if it's real.
jamie vernon
Video on Wired.
Same lady.
I think here she transforms probably like the reporter.
mike baker
Yeah.
Just imagine, again, and what are you doing?
joe rogan
So here's this lady.
They gave her a mustache.
They gave her some wacky hair.
unidentified
Wow.
joe rogan
Wow.
That's incredible.
I don't know if she'd trick me.
No.
mike baker
What's going on?
That one's not the best one.
jamie vernon
Yeah, it's not the best, but then they brought up the fork and knife in the video.
mike baker
Which was interesting.
Boy, they love that fork and knife thing.
jamie vernon
Holding a cigarette comes up in the video.
joe rogan
How you hold a cigarette?
jamie vernon
Yeah, it's very quick here.
They just show like the way you either between the fingers forward like that.
joe rogan
Is that American?
jamie vernon
Pinching it.
joe rogan
And who pinches it?
jamie vernon
I don't know.
I've seen people here pinch it, so I don't know.
mike baker
Yeah.
jamie vernon
Then it shows a guy doing a very quick thing.
joe rogan
People that pinch it here, they probably like European music.
jamie vernon
This guy goes from a suit to just taking it off, putting on a hat, and now he's in disguise.
mike baker
See, and it can be that simple, right?
And particularly if you're in surveillance or if you're doing counter-surveillance, you've got to be aware of these things.
joe rogan
Did you see that I had a guest on the podcast that came with my friend Josh Dubin who works with criminal reform and getting innocent people out of jail?
So we had this guest that came on and then after he was on the show wound up killing somebody?
Cut some dude's head off.
Yes.
And the unfortunate surveillance footage where he tried to wear a blonde wig and walk around.
mike baker
Yeah.
joe rogan
But I think he didn't realize how good modern surveillance cameras are.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
It was crystal clear that this dude was wearing a fucking wig.
unidentified
God.
mike baker
Yeah, that's a hell of a story.
unidentified
Crazy story.
joe rogan
I was trying to explain that to my daughter last night.
This is what happened.
mike baker
That's interesting, you know, that video that you just showed, because there's been some talk about the protests on campus, right, and the fact that all these...
All these outside agitators, activists, and then the students, the actual students, the ones that are actually affiliated with the university, most of them are wearing masks, right?
jamie vernon
Right.
mike baker
And, you know, part of it is, I don't know.
joe rogan
They're mentally ill.
mike baker
Yeah, they're mentally ill.
joe rogan
I photograph people every time I see them.
I photograph one today.
mike baker
Yeah.
joe rogan
Saw somebody walking outside with a mask on.
The dumb kind, too.
The surgical blue stupid one.
unidentified
Yeah.
mike baker
Oh, yeah.
joe rogan
That doesn't do a goddamn thing.
mike baker
But this was, I think, was a solidarity thing.
They're all wearing masks.
And part of it was also, I think, they were thinking they couldn't be identified.
Yeah.
There's a lot of talk about retinal scanning, right?
So how much of the face do you need in order to identify people, right?
And it's not much.
joe rogan
Not much.
mike baker
Right?
Retinal scanning, it's not 100% accurate.
So there's other things you have to do.
joe rogan
So would you be able to retinal scan that lady with that crazy outfit on?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
It's just retinal scanner, and then none of that shit would work.
The mustache.
mike baker
Which is, and that's, yeah, that's a great point.
joe rogan
Now you've got glue on your face for nothing.
mike baker
That shit is tough to take off, too.
It's not good.
So, yeah, and that's a really good point because now it's made the life of somebody who's working in operations a lot tougher, right?
Because of the ability of...
And it's got to be a country where you're operating where they've got the resources and the technology, but it makes it a shit ton tougher to get away with things, right?
And as does the ability for communications intercepts and tracking of phones and all the other things.
So...
You know, while, you know, it's always the same story, right?
Technology's got an upside and a downside.
But the face recognition, the retinal scanning, it's creating all sorts of problems from an operational perspective overseas.
And here, of course, the problem is, you know, people are talking about civil liberties and, you know, invasion of privacy.
And, you know, so you've got some students out there and they're covered.
And next thing you know, they're identified, right?
Now they're suspended.
And You know I fine you you know you some of them aren't getting to graduate There's one girl I was watching this video with they were they just told her she couldn't graduate she got arrested well You know what you what do they say you play stupid games?
joe rogan
Yeah, you win stupid prizes.
Yeah, so they all think they're doing something great They think they're gonna fix it.
It's it's you know a lot of misplaced energy with tents and With tents.
mike baker
And with matching tents.
And that's the part, look, again, you know, hey, God bless the actual students who are out there feeling like they're being a part of something.
I get that.
They're young people.
Most of them are gormless, right?
They're just saying, whatever, right?
This is, you know, this is their moment to shine.
So they're excited.
So they don't, and then, you know, most of them couldn't find Gaza on a map of Gaza.
So I think that...
You know, that's one side of it, right?
And I can't, you know, whatever.
But it's the coordination of it all by the various outside groups and the activists and the funding of it, right?
And the potential for that funding and the coordination to tie back to groups like Hamas or Hezbollah, which basically means you're tying back to the Iranian regime, right?
Because that's the only reason those groups exist.
But nobody seems curious about that because a lot of the media wanted to portray this as just like kids being kids.
Oh, look, this is their moment to shine as student activists.
And isn't it wonderful?
And it's their Vietnam protests and bullshit.
Some of it, okay, fine.
So it's layered, right?
So some of that's true.
You got those kids that are just doing that.
There's the incuriosity of the media to say, well, what the hell's behind this, right?
And what groups?
Is it, you know, Students for Justice in Palestine?
Is it, you know, U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, Samidun, right, which has connections back to Hamas?
There's education for whatever, just peace in the Middle East.
There's groups that have been actively engaging in this, and that's why you get the coordination of all of this, right?
But nobody asks, okay, what's behind it?
Ah, just students active.
No, it's not.
It's a coordinated effort.
And then you look at those groups who are always active.
In this realm, right?
And always looking to have organizations disinvest from Israel or to, you know, promote causes that are anti-Israeli, right?
And then you say, okay, well, who's funding it, right?
So you look at these groups and you say, okay, where's the money coming from?
And the money's always coming from the same places, right?
The Tide Center, right, which is part of the Tide's network, which gets significant funding.
No surprise, Soros' Open Society Foundation.
You get Westchester People's Action Coalition.
So you get these groups and you get the legal support.
So all these people, the activists who are getting arrested, they can turn to Palestine Legal, which provides legal support to the activists and the NGOs that are engaged in all this.
Again, they're getting their money from charities.
A lot of times the charities don't know they're putting money into these groups, right?
It goes into the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, right?
And the Rockefeller Brothers Fund provides money to these NGOs, you know, like Justice for Palestine or whatever.
And then...
And Rockefeller Brothers gets funding from Soros Open Society Foundation as well.
That guy seems to be a bit of a problem.
And now his kid is even more of an activist than George is.
Of course.
joe rogan
Kid inherited it.
mike baker
Kid inherited it.
joe rogan
Make up for the fact that he inherited it by being extra woke.
mike baker
And he is.
joe rogan
And extra guilty for having all those billions.
You should feel guilty, you little fuck.
mike baker
Yeah, exactly.
How can you live with yourself, young Soros?
joe rogan
What you're talking about, though, is a very important point, that this is not organic.
Exactly.
This is what I was going to get to earlier when I was talking about social media.
How much do you think foreign governments have an influence on certain trends and certain things that people are talking and promoting and pushing and being a part of on social media?
Because I think it's a big factor.
I think it's a big factor with a lot of things, and I think it's a big factor with all the most insane woke shit.
I think they push it as far as they can.
So that the stuff that's not as insane that was insane just a couple of years ago seems less insane now.
It seems more palatable.
And then they just keep moving the goalposts.
I think you can do that through social media with kids.
You can kind of engineer what kids accept.
mike baker
Oh, 100%.
And the answer is, how much do they do?
They do a tremendous amount, right?
The Iranian regime, nobody's happier with these protests on campuses than the Iranian regime, right?
And they've even come out.
The Foreign Minister Khamenei himself, right, the Ayatollah, came out on his official X page, you know, who knew, and praises the protesters.
And they talk about the oppression and the violent tactics of the police, right, and suppressing protests.
Which is crazy when you think about what the Iranian regime has done to anybody who dares protest inside Iran.
joe rogan
Yeah, they executed a world champion wrestler over that.
mike baker
Constantly, right?
And they're trampling of all rights, not just women's rights, everybody's rights, right?
So it's bullshit, but people...
I don't know.
People buy it.
joe rogan
They don't have a peripheral understanding of the workings, the inner workings of all this stuff.
mike baker
But then the Russians and the Chinese, they're all taking advantage of this as well, right?
Chinese bots have been out there trolling around and promoting the chaos.
If you were to switch on television in Moscow or in Tehran or in Beijing, you'll get a lot of coverage of these campus protests.
This is ideal for them.
It's exactly what they want.
And it feeds into their larger narrative of trying to discredit democracy and say what a losing system it is, capitalism.
But again, people are incurious, they're busy, they're trying to just do their lives, whatever.
They're not taking the time to sit and think, where am I getting my information from?
What's the validity of this information?
And if they don't do that, then to your earlier point, yeah, we're fucked.
Because it comes down to individual responsibility.
You've got to focus on where your information is coming from.
And, you know, right now...
You know, you could argue, I mean, whether it's the face-swapping techniques, whether it's AI that can mimic, and whether it's for criminal purposes or whether it's for state-sponsored efforts to try to put the knife into the American system or the West.
It's democratized misinformation, right?
It's made it so that everybody can engage in it, not just state sponsors, but everybody, because all those apps are out there, all the abilities out there, and you've got an incurious public, for the most part, that doesn't take the time.
joe rogan
And an uninformed public.
Most of them are not even aware that there's foreign elements that have an influence on our culture.
mike baker
Yeah, which is shocking if you think about it.
joe rogan
It's shocking, but so few people are aware of anything other than what's going on in their own life and what's going on at work.
mike baker
Well, life is messy, and it's tough, and you're trying to raise kids, and you're trying to put food on the table.
You don't have time.
joe rogan
I talk to some of my friends about this stuff, and their eyes glaze over.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
They don't even want to know.
I'm busy, bro.
mike baker
Yeah, but you know what it does?
I mean, look at the state of—look at how dysfunctional we are right now, right?
I mean, this is remarkable.
And again, everybody wants to think it's always the worst time, right?
It's not the worst time.
We've had worse times.
Civil War, I think, was pretty bad.
You know, so we've had more dysfunction, I suppose, at times, but the technology speeds it along, right?
And, you know, we just have more people, so the potential for more of a shit show is there.
That is, ultimately, when people always talk about, well, how do you...
You can't just use detection.
You can't be on the defensive all the time trying to identify, okay, that's fake, that's fake, that's fake, right?
You've got to rely on people, right, to say, you know what, I'm not going to buy everything I read, right?
I'm going to pay attention and I'm going to think about it a little bit and I'm going to chill the fuck out and...
But it's not in human nature, apparently, right now.
So, yeah, we've got a problem.
And those nations, particularly Iran, China, and Russia, are having a field day right now.
We are making it very easy for them.
And think about it.
We've got the fucking election coming up in November.
joe rogan
Yeah.
mike baker
So think about what that means in terms of disinformation.
And it's remarkable.
We live in a very interesting time.
I think we're going to be fine.
It's a very resilient environment, I suppose.
So I try to be positive.
joe rogan
It's fraught with peril.
mike baker
Yeah.
joe rogan
Well, let me ask you this from a perspective of someone who kind of understands all these different influences and all the things that are happening in these universities.
What can be done to sort of like unwind some of this fuckery, if anything at this point?
I mean, are we just going to operate from here on out with this understanding that our kids get indoctrinated to this preposterous, ridiculous way of thinking where they're taught these Marxist, Leninist ideas as if they make any fucking sense and that they've ever worked anywhere and if they don't always lead to totalitarian,
authoritative governments that Take over and enforce all these socialist policies, which is a fucking nightmare that happens in every single regime when they go socialism.
So what can be done to sort of unwind some of this bullshit in colleges and balance it out a little bit?
There's nothing wrong with having ridiculous ideas, as long as those ridiculous ideas can be challenged.
But if you're the only one that gets to talk, and you just indoctrinate these kids, and no one comes along and says, You've never even functioned in the fucking real world.
Like, this shit that you're teaching these kids, unless they go into academia, they're fucked.
Or you're gonna ruin corporations with this ideology, because it doesn't jive with capitalism.
It doesn't jive with, and oh yeah, we're gonna tear capitalism down.
Okay, well then what, you fucking idiots?
Then no one has any incentive to get anything done?
Well, that's great for you, because you've never done anything.
So you think all these people that did things, even if you don't agree with them, even if it's Bill Gates, He still built that fucking company.
That's his.
He did it.
Do you want to be that guy?
Then go do what he did.
If you don't like what he did...
Then, you know, you can talk about it, you can protest about the idea that you should, everyone should have to give all their money away, and there should be no billionaires, and there should be no capitalism, and all the money goes into, and then who's in charge?
And who gets to tell you what you can do and not do?
Who gets to tell you you can't have your money anymore?
Who gets to take your house away because it's too big?
Shut the fuck up!
This is like so short-sighted and so stupid that it's so hard for me to believe that it's being taught in universities.
mike baker
Right, or the idea now of what they're saying is like, you got a big house, you got a couple extra rooms, you know what you should do?
joe rogan
Yeah, taking these fucking migrants that might be murderers.
mike baker
Yeah, that we haven't bothered to vet.
joe rogan
Yeah, that guy with a 13-tap dude on his forehead, bring him in.
He's fine.
He's a nice guy.
He's trying to clean his life up.
That's why he walked here.
mike baker
Yeah, and the border's fine.
Don't worry about it.
It's all good.
joe rogan
It's fine.
It's only like 20% Chinese nationals that are of military age.
mike baker
No, the staggering number of Chinese have come across the border in the past six months.
joe rogan
It's wild!
mike baker
Yeah, it is fascinating because you think, what accounts for that increase?
joe rogan
They want to learn MMA. Yeah.
mike baker
Yeah.
joe rogan
These are the best gyms.
A lot of even the Chinese champions that come over here to train.
mike baker
Really?
Yeah, sure.
So maybe that accounts for, what, 20,000 of these?
No.
26,000?
joe rogan
30 of them.
Yeah.
30 of those guys are future MMA stars, future UFC stars.
mike baker
But, I mean, you look at the universities and think, yeah, university's supposed to be a place where you exchange ideas.
So that's great.
You want to talk about it.
You want to have classes in Marxism or whatever.
That's great.
But you're right.
You need to have that discourse.
You need to be...
Again, I keep reverting back to examples of the real world and from my own experience.
My daughter went to undergrad and grad school, and she kept her mouth shut for most of that time, six years, because she always knew, as she said, there was no upside to her arguing in class.
She's a centrist, but that's not popular either.
You can't be a centrist on campus.
You can't say there's good ideas on both sides.
joe rogan
What did you just say?
mike baker
Fuck that day or not.
Terrible person.
So yeah, so she went through school and that's a terrible thought.
unidentified
Particularly when you're paying for it.
mike baker
But she worked out fine.
She's great.
And she understood the joke, right?
She got the joke.
But it shouldn't be there.
joe rogan
Right.
You shouldn't have to decipher that for four years.
You shouldn't have to go, let me put this through the bullshit filter.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
Okay, let me just get through this class and figure out what's applicable and what I need for my degree.
mike baker
Yeah, but unless, you know, I do think there's some bounce back on the corporate side with DEI, for example, right?
I think there are a number of companies out there, just as with the sort of the climate.
You know, change.
You know, I've watched oil companies, like, do this complete left turn saying, we're gonna, you know, we're gonna make over half of our revenues from green energy in the future, near future, like a couple of years from now, and you think, like, it's not gonna happen.
But they have to play that game for a while.
And then they come back and go, it's not gonna happen.
So you know what we're doing?
We're investing in all of this shit, including fossil fuels.
So I think whether it's that or whether it's kind of the pushback on DEI from corporations that are saying, you know, maybe it is a grift, right?
Maybe you've got all these DEI grifters out there, and they got it.
It's a cottage industry.
They can make a lot of money off of this bullshit.
Get a lot of government grants and all those things.
But I think there's some pushback.
Universities, I think, are a tougher issue.
Yeah.
I don't think, unless...
Unless parents and kids just say, I'm not going to that bullshit.
I mean, look, have you seen some of these kids at these supposedly elite universities talk?
How the fuck did they get into these universities?
Because they must have passed the application process.
joe rogan
Well, some kids are just really bad at talking.
They're good at schoolwork.
mike baker
So you think that's what it is?
unidentified
Yeah, yeah.
mike baker
Could be.
joe rogan
Well, I think, you know, you basically have to just memorize what they're teaching you.
That doesn't require a lot of critical thinking.
And then when you have to think on your own and say, what does from the river to the sea mean?
mike baker
What river are we talking about?
joe rogan
What does that mean?
mike baker
What sea are we talking about?
joe rogan
And what does that mean?
What happens to the Jews that live there?
Where do they go?
They go back to Germany?
Like, what are you saying?
mike baker
That's an interesting...
It's an interesting phrase.
I will say that, you know...
You talk about Hamas and the Israeli conflict now.
I mean, there's a minefield here.
Actually, one of my managing directors for my company, Portman Square Group, for all your information and security needs.
Thank you.
One of the managing directors knew that I was going to sit back down with you.
And they said, look, I know you're probably going to want to talk about Hamas.
Is there any way you can do it without pissing off people?
joe rogan
That's cute.
mike baker
Yeah, that's what I thought.
So you want me to talk about the Israeli-Palestinian issue without upsetting somebody?
Yeah.
And she's a brilliant person, but I don't think that's going to happen.
But I will say it is...
Obviously, it's complex, but it's complex in part because it's not absolute, right?
And everybody talks in absolutes when it comes to this, right?
Hamas is a terrorist organization, so fuck them.
But it's a Palestinian problem, or it's the Israeli problem.
You know what?
If you look at their history, right?
There's problems on both sides, right?
And yet, we talk about it like it's black and white, one or the other, right?
And we're never going to...
This problem's never probably going to get solved in our lifetimes anyway, but it is disturbing when you hear some of the Kids, the actual students, I mean, try to explain what this is, right, and what this problem is, and talk to me about the river to the sea, which, again, you can say that phrase, you know, in 10 different circumstances, it's going to mean 10 different things to 10 different people, right?
And that's legitimate.
You have to understand that that's, okay, I get it.
The Israelis view that as, like, you're talking for a destruction, genocide of Israelis, right?
Because that's a destruction of a group, right?
Not a war crime or something, not a crime against humanity.
Genocide is, your intent is to destroy the group, right?
So they'll see that.
Palestinians, some Palestinians, not Hamas.
Hamas has it in their charter.
They know what river to the sea means, right?
It's taking over that entire territory and, you know, fuck Israelis.
But Palestinians can say it and it means something else.
It's a yearning for whatever, freedom, for a homeland.
So there are variances in it.
But that never gets discussed sometimes because people are just screaming at each other like every other fucking subject out there.
joe rogan
Right.
And that is the issue, right?
mike baker
Yeah.
joe rogan
And then, of course, when you are on a college campus and all this is being encouraged by these groups that are funded, Yes.
Then you seem like if you want to be a good person, you have to be a part of this group.
You have to go there and be a part of this protest, and we see a lot of that.
mike baker
Yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
They're just there because they think they're supposed to be a good person to be there, and they want to make all their friends think they're a good person.
They're carrying around signs and yelling out these things.
mike baker
Got the keffion, and they're like, hey, look at me.
I'm in the encampment.
I don't know what the fuck I'm doing here.
joe rogan
Meanwhile, it is a fascinating time if they allowed debates, because if you could see a pro-Israeli and a pro-Palestinian debate, like a real, legitimate, honest, intellectual debate in discussing all the various issues, like from the beginning of the formation of Israel to back in the history of the land,
And then what's going on today, all the treaties, all the different things that have happened, all the different peace talks, that would be a fascinating opportunity for people to hear both sides of this conflict and try to get a better understanding of it instead of just running out there with signs and camping on the lawn.
Universities and these places of higher education are supposed to be where these difficult conversations get sorted out.
unidentified
Exactly.
joe rogan
Because you're supposed to have the smartest minds and to bring in the smartest minds from either side.
There's brilliant people that are pro-Israeli and brilliant people that are pro-Palestine.
They're brilliant.
And if you can get them together and have them sort out your details, all the people in the audience can get a better, more informed understanding of how complex this conflict is.
And that is supposed to be what universities are for.
That's what it should be.
It should be a place where people can sit down and learn something about something very difficult, which is international conflict.
These crazy moments in history where we get entwined with military conflicts that are happening all over the world and it's nowhere near you and it's complicated shit, man.
And to just run out there with a sign because these fuckers are organizing this on campus, it messes everything up.
It messes up everybody and to have like only one side's perspective heard messes up everybody.
The whole thing's a mess, man.
mike baker
Well, I think that the students for the most part, again, the actual students who have an affiliation with the universities, look, you know, the pro-Hamas groups, the pro-Palestinian activists, they tend to view the students, I believe, as essentially useful idiots, right?
Window dressing.
And it gives it a sort of a veneer of, as you pointed out before, sort of this organic grassroots movement that's sweeping the nation when in fact there's this underlying infrastructure that's always out there trying to take advantage of opportunities like this in the chaos.
And then aside from that, then you've got this other 30,000-foot problem where you've got the Iranian regime and others who are promoting this and pushing for it.
Look, you know, Hezbollah, Hamas, they've got a lot of money, right?
They have, again, not to disappear out of rabbit hole, but the leaders of Hamas are extremely wealthy, right?
You know, Ishmael Hanyay and Marzouk and Mashal and the other CACs, you know, They have billions of dollars, right?
Because for years, people say, well, how could that be possible?
Well, for years and years now, they have been receiving a great deal of money.
Conservative estimates from Iranian regime, Hamas gets maybe a quarter billion a year, right?
It appears gives them even more than that.
There have been years when they've given about 400 million dollars to Hamas for a variety of reasons, right?
Ostensibly.
And part of that money coming from Qatar is by agreement with Israel, right?
Because part of it is for over the years the idea that you're buying quiet, buying peace, right?
And so, yes.
And so there was a process in place to try to track that money, right, that came in.
Just same with the Palestinian Authority from over in the West Bank.
But that's a lot of money, right?
Not to mention even the money going to UNRWA. Right, and this is sort of the same situation with Ukraine, too, right?
joe rogan
We don't really know where it all goes, and some of it definitely goes...
mike baker
Into pockets.
joe rogan
Yeah, absolutely.
There was a guy, did you see that guy?
I forget what his position is in Ukraine, but he's driving around in a Rolls Royce.
This fucking $600,000, he's driving around in a house.
He's driving around in a house.
He's got a fucking Rolls Royce, and he's got the only Rolls Royce in Ukraine.
This one, whatever it is.
Is it a Spectre?
Is that what it is?
Is it a Phantom?
Maybe it's a Phantom.
It's a fucking dope car, though.
mike baker
But isn't that crazy?
joe rogan
It's like the scene in Goodfellas, where the guy has the Cadillac.
He goes, what the fuck are you doing?
mike baker
What are you doing with this?
Didn't I tell you?
I fucking told you.
It was a great scene.
joe rogan
What a great scene.
mike baker
God.
Yeah, it's...
joe rogan
You got a video of that dude driving around in his Rolls Royce?
unidentified
Before I fall too far, is it that car?
joe rogan
I don't know.
jamie vernon
I was saying this is false.
joe rogan
False.
jamie vernon
But this is also from a year ago.
joe rogan
No, no, this is a real recent one.
He's driving around.
But it might be fake, too.
mike baker
Central Bank Governor.
joe rogan
That might be fake, too.
It all might be fake.
Yeah.
Ukraine politician Rolls-Royce.
Write that.
Write in Google.
Politician.
mike baker
Ukraine.
Rolls-Royce.
Politician.
joe rogan
Because this...
Videos.
Go to videos.
jamie vernon
Oh, news, fake BBC news clip, Ukraine's ex-army chief.
joe rogan
That's from a month ago?
jamie vernon
Yeah.
joe rogan
Ex-army chief paid to leave Ukraine?
No, that's not it.
That's a different clip.
mike baker
But this is a good example, right?
I mean, you really gotta dig.
joe rogan
Ukraine protesters discover luxury cars.
allegedly belonging to 2014 when the fucking coup happened well ukraine has always had problems corruption corruption yeah yeah but I forget what this guy's position was but he was driving around and It's not Russell Brand.
mike baker
I had no idea Russell Brand was Ukrainian.
joe rogan
Is this it?
Rolls Royce Spector, that's it.
mike baker
Where 600,000 of Ukrainian politicians paid with US and EU money.
joe rogan
Look at his fucking car!
Look at that car!
Sweet.
Look at that car!
That's it.
That's the video.
Bro, that's a house.
That guy's driving around a house.
mike baker
God damn it.
Is he driving it himself, I wonder?
joe rogan
Of course he is.
mike baker
That's a bold move right there.
joe rogan
Of course he is.
It's a beautiful car.
You're not gonna let a fucking idiot drive that car.
You stole that money.
unidentified
God.
mike baker
Hard work.
Well, and that's, again, yeah, when you talk about, like, whether we're talking about money that goes to the Palestinian cause and gets filtered through Hamas, and they've been able to carve off billions of dollars for themselves.
They're living big lives in Qatar and Turkey.
But Part of the problem with Ukraine has been, you know, in terms of, well, they've got big issues, right?
One of them has been explaining why it's important to the American people, right?
The administration hasn't really accomplished that Yet, right?
And trying to say, why are we doing this, right?
They should have been doing it from the very start.
joe rogan
Didn't you see them wave their flags in Congress?
mike baker
Yeah, well, yeah.
joe rogan
They waved the Ukrainian flags.
I don't know what you're saying.
They explained it.
mike baker
They explained it.
Here we go.
Just wave the flag.
Yeah, but you remember at the very beginning, everybody had a Ukrainian flag on their front of their house and everything.
joe rogan
To see it in Congress when they're passing that aid bill.
unidentified
Oh, yeah.
joe rogan
Who handed those out?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Where'd you get those?
mike baker
Exactly.
joe rogan
Did you guys get those from home?
mike baker
Yeah.
joe rogan
Who's telling you to waive those?
mike baker
Got them from Amazon.
joe rogan
This whole thing seems coordinated.
You want to tell me about how this happened?
mike baker
Plus also, where's the money go?
That's the other big issue is the transparency and how are we spending this money?
How are we spending your money, the taxpayers' money?
And look, I fall down on the side of, I don't want to see Putin win.
And he will win, you know, without significant support that gets to the point where he feels so much pain, he actually negotiates a settlement, right?
We're not going to get to a victory in this war.
That's bullshit.
The idea that Ukraine is going to win the war and claim all their territory, bullshit.
It's not going to happen.
You think they're going to reclaim Crimea?
Putin's going to give that up, right?
He'll probably go to tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield before he does that.
Right and so you've got you've got to get but you've got a you got to hurt him enough So that he says oh fuck it.
Okay, because if he's hurt enough that means at home He's facing some dissent right and that's the big thing for him.
joe rogan
He doesn't you know He just wants to hold on to power right here two versions of what's going on I hear the war has already been won by Russia and Ukraine is down to like a minimum amount of soldiers They've lost half a million people rough estimates like no one really knows the real estimates Yeah.
And then I've heard other stories where Ukraine is actually doing much better than people think, and Russia has hemorrhaged people because they're essentially just sending people into the front line.
They're sending prisoners, and they're just using bodies to win this.
mike baker
Well, both sides are accurate.
Both sides are true, right?
So, yeah, Ukraine has been hurting.
Russia's got a three to one manpower advantage in terms of population right what they can what they can do to recruit and put more people on the battlefield and Russia has a no problem with sort of a meat grinder strategy I just throw bodies at it right just and the stats on Fatalities on casualties on both sides are completely bullshit.
There's no transparency really and it's kind of understandable why you don't want to tell the other side how many soldiers you've lost or injured and Zelensky came out a while back and said, you know, we've suffered 31,000, you know, fatalities on the battlefield.
It's higher than that.
And it's higher on the Russian side, right, because of their strategy and the way they just, you know, Putin doesn't really care.
So he throws bodies at it.
The Russians are making headway on the east, right?
And they are making an effort to push through those frontline defenses that Ukraine has up on the eastern side of Ukraine.
And the lack of armaments, the lack of munitions, while Congress and the US couldn't figure out what they wanted to do, that was a decided problem for Ukraine, right?
If that continued, then yeah, Russia will win.
They will push through and they will eventually end up in Kyiv.
And look, Putin's already engaged in shenanigans in Moldova, in Georgia, right?
They're working very hard behind the scenes in Georgia, right, to split Georgia away from the EU, right?
And that's because they're worried that Georgia could eventually, you know, be part of the European Union and They don't want that.
And so they're engaged in all sorts of activity there.
Off the radar, which they do very well, right?
joe rogan
What does that mean?
mike baker
Well, disinformation and political influence campaigns, instilling personnel that are, there's a party there in Georgia, the Georgian Dream Party or something, that's pro-Kremlin.
And they're pushing very hard on a variety of fronts, right?
They're pushing a bill that's sort of like a foreign agent bill, which is a Russian tactic, right, to basically You know, single out anybody who's got foreign influence or foreign involvement.
And that could be NGOs, it could be media, independent media.
And the Russians have used that foreign agent bill very successfully.
So, but my point is that...
It depends on your thought process.
If you think that, okay, Putin takes Ukraine, who gives a fuck, right?
That's all.
That's all that's going to happen.
He's not going to try to reconstitute the former Soviet Union in some fashion by going after a couple other states, right?
He wants a buffer zone with the West, which is what the Soviet Union was, right?
He wants to rebuild that in some fashion.
Not the same, right, but in some fashion.
So, my experiences and other people's are different, so that's why you end up with differing opinions, and, you know, God bless.
But, you know, mine is that he's not gonna stop there.
So, my belief is you gotta hurt him enough, get him to the table, and call it good.
And that good may look a lot like the way things were, you know, in 2022 when they started the invasion.
And that's gonna be unsatisfying to a lot of people, but at least you end the fucking conflict, right?
And fine.
But I think that's where this goes.
The idea that, you know, the only outright winner will be Putin if we back off and say, we're not going to provide you with certain armaments, certain weapons to allow you to inflict enough pain to stop this.
And this is an incredibly complex and dynamic environment because the U.S. The White House, the Biden administration, is pushing very hard on Zelensky to not attack any targets inside of Russia, right?
The Ukrainian military is like, well, fuck it.
Why aren't we attacking Russian oil refineries, right?
And energy infrastructure, like the Russians are doing inside Ukraine.
That's been a tactic of the Russian military for quite some time now, right?
Because it impacts morale of the population, it demoralizes people.
So the Ukrainian military is saying, do that.
The White House is saying, no, we don't want to escalate, so don't do that, right?
Now, the other side of that coin is, if you fuck over the Russian energy infrastructure, what does that do to oil prices around the world, and what does it do to gas prices at the pump when you're in an election year?
I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist.
But then you've got the Europeans, and, you know, Macron is over there saying, well, you know, if Kiev asks, I can see putting French troops on the ground in Ukraine.
joe rogan
He's trying to distract from the fact that his wife's a man, right?
mike baker
Yeah.
unidentified
I like that.
joe rogan
That is the wildest one I have ever heard.
The fact that Candace Owen is like, I stake my reputation on this.
Are you fucking sure?
mike baker
Is this where you want to go?
Is this how you want to be known?
joe rogan
I'm so confused by that one.
I've tried.
I've tried to look into that one.
I really have.
To my own embarrassment, I've looked into it.
My point is like...
This person, this woman that he's married to, even, even, even, even if it's a man, the real problem is they had a relationship when McCrone was 15 and she was 39. That, by itself, is wild.
mike baker
Yeah.
joe rogan
Because if it was the opposite, if it was a 39-year-old man who was a teacher and a 15-year-old girl who was a student, this would be horrific.
Everybody would be up in arms.
mike baker
Well, the greatest line about that is, what was his name?
Berlusconi, right?
The old Italian prime minister or Someone asked him what he thought of Macron's wife, and he says, well, he's got a good-looking mom, doesn't he?
So, anyway.
joe rogan
Was this the guy?
jamie vernon
No, so I did a little research on this.
Ukrainian MP? This is the story that came out was this.
This guy bought this super dope electric car.
joe rogan
He looks like a dude who'd be driving around in Rolls Royce.
mike baker
Look at him.
jamie vernon
The story is he's a super rich guy, has a bunch of dope cars, but I found a post on, what, 9gag?
joe rogan
Oh, you have many dope cars.
jamie vernon
They found the VIN number, and the VIN number is to a car from last year.
So, I don't know that it makes...
Maybe that makes sense that...
joe rogan
What do you mean?
jamie vernon
This is the plate numbers to a car from last year, and the story was saying that it's for a brand new car.
joe rogan
Yeah, but those are hard to get.
jamie vernon
The first electric Spectre.
joe rogan
Yeah, but those are hard to get.
There's 20 23s that are for sale right now.
If you go looking for one, like I got a Nissan, a GT-R, I had to get a 2023. 2024s weren't available when I got it.
mike baker
So that could be, yeah.
joe rogan
You get a Nismo.
If you get one of those Rolls-Royce Spectrums, those are fucking hard to get, dude.
And a brand new one that's a 2023 with zero miles on it could be what you're buying new.
mike baker
And I'll tell you one thing.
This guy could have carved this money out corruptly from a variety of This is a lot of ways to make money.
joe rogan
Bottom line is, I get bitches with me car.
Look at this car.
mike baker
That's a really good accent.
joe rogan
This is basically your house.
This is multiple of your house.
mike baker
With the right disguise, you could walk the streets of Ukraine.
joe rogan
I can be a Ukrainian wrestler.
Give me a cauliflower ear.
I walk around like I'm in a hunch, like I'm ready to shoot a double.
mike baker
Like you're in a hunch?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
I think that there's definitely a lot of corruption over there.
And to deny that, I'm sure you saw that one thing where Candace Owen was going back and forth with the New York Times when they were saying, what evidence do you have of Ukraine being corrupt?
She's like, oh, you mean your fucking newspaper, stupid?
She said these different articles about the rampant corruption in Ukraine.
mike baker
It's decades, right?
It's always existed.
And we've known that.
But anywhere you've got vast sums of money coming in for a variety of reasons, which is, again, I'm always astounded when people say, oh, there's no way that the three top leaders of Hamas are worth $11 billion collectively.
I thought, okay, well, even if...
Take a tenth of that.
And you think about these guys running Hamas, which supposedly, I mean, they've been governing since, what, 2007, 2006, supposedly for the benefit of the Palestinian people.
And they're sitting on billions of dollars, and you think, and so that's why, you know, fuck Hamas.
And I understand the Israeli perspective, which is, we can't allow them to retain control.
I get that, right?
I understand that operational perspective, right?
The problem is...
That, you know, you're not going to win the narrative.
You're not going to win what's happening on the international stage.
And sometimes, you know, sometimes the Israeli government can act like they don't understand how public relations plays out, right?
Right.
Like, look at the past couple of days, what's happened.
Hamas wasn't going to accept a ceasefire.
Hamas has turned down opportunities for a ceasefire, right?
And then they say, okay, the other day, 48 hours ago, whatever, they said, we're going to walk away from the negotiating table.
Fuck that, right?
Knowing that Israel is ready to do some, you know, limited operations in Rafa.
So, because they're not stupid.
They've got a very good intelligence network, right?
And they've got a lot of...
And so they understand what Israel's about to do, right?
They say, we're walking away from the negotiating table.
Israel says, okay, fine.
Everybody, you know, evacuate Eastern Rafa.
You know, we're going to engage in some targeted strikes against Hamas targets that we've identified.
Hamas turns around shortly thereafter and says, ah, we accept a peace proposal, a ceasefire proposal from Egypt and Qatar, right?
So look at us, we're accepting a ceasefire proposal, and Israel's moving on Rafah, right?
That's a, you know, on one hand, that's a brilliant communication strategy, right?
Now you've won the day on the international stage, and exactly what they knew would happen, just like what they knew would happen after the seven October strikes, they knew What was going to happen?
They knew that civilians were going to die, right?
They understood that.
And again, everybody's got their own opinion.
Minus Hamas doesn't give a shit about dead Palestinians.
In fact, that's their currency.
That's how they work the game.
And so they understood what was going to happen.
Israel was in a bind.
They gotta respond.
They're in an urban environment.
It is fucked up, right?
And too many people have died, right?
I don't necessarily believe the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry in terms of their statistics, and also they don't separate out how many combatants were killed, right?
They're just like, oh, 34,000 people have died.
So people imagine, oh my god, 34,000 civilians.
Well, thousands and thousands of those people are fighters.
They're Hamas fighters, right?
Again, it's horrible.
I'm not saying it's not.
It's awful, right?
And both sides are problematic here.
But what I am saying is Hamas has a much better communications public relations operation.
So they knew what Israel was about to do.
They claim, oh, we accept the ceasefire.
The ceasefire was completely different from what had been presented, you know, by Israel and to Israel, right, just during the past 48 hours.
They say, no, this thing is not what we've been talking about.
We don't accept it.
So now they've moved in on Rafa, and they've lost, yet again, the narrative on the world stage.
So now they're the ones who are causing problems.
Anyway, so it's kind of fucked.
But again, the point is, it's also, when all that money's sloshing around, of course you're going to have people who are benefiting from it.
And in this case, it's people like, you know, Hanye, who can sit in Qatar with all that money, and What are they worried about?
They're worried about losing the revenue stream, right?
They know that if Hamas is destroyed, you think Iran's gonna continue giving them a quarter billion dollars a year, or Qatar's gonna allow them to live this lavish lifestyle and give them money, or they're gonna continue to be able to, you know, extract taxes from money coming in, or from goods coming into Gaza, you know, or put tariffs on things coming in, you know, to the tunnels, the contraband?
No!
So, in part, it's this It never changes, right?
Where there's situations like this, whether it's there, whether it's Ukraine or wherever, yeah, you're gonna get this, right?
You're gonna get this level of corruption.
And so I'm not surprised at all when people are worried about or concerned about what's going on with Ukraine and we give them another $61 billion and how much is that is ending up in pockets.
But I'd argue that that's part of the problem that the government, the US government has faced.
They haven't done their job.
They haven't provided As much transparency as possible and accountability to the American public, and so you lose the support of the American public, who had been just two years ago waving their fucking flags and putting Ukrainian flags on their Twitter sites and all the rest of that bullshit.
joe rogan
Yeah.
mike baker
Anyway.
joe rogan
What do you think happens to Gaza, if you had a guess?
mike baker
Look, this...
You can go back to the Romans, right?
Putting down, you know, a Jewish uprising in Judea, which is essentially Jerusalem area, right?
West Bank, you know, they call it the West Bank now, and, you know, Israelis still call it Judea.
Do I think the problem's going to be solved?
No.
In the short term, will the conflict end?
Yes.
joe rogan
But then what happens to all that area that's been destroyed?
mike baker
They got to rebuild it, right?
joe rogan
And who rebuilds?
mike baker
Well, they've been trying to put together an Arab states coalition, right, of countries that would then be responsible for a couple of things.
The rebuilding of the infrastructure and also security, right?
Again, no ceasefire, no permanent ceasefire is going to be accepted that allows Hamas to be the governing authority there, right?
So the U.S. has been pushing very hard to have the Palestinian Authority, right, run by Mahmoud Abbas, who's been in charge of the Palestinian Authority for, God, 20 years now.
And he's not popular in Gaza, right?
They were kicked out.
I mean, they were...
Well, there's been a rift with the Palestinian groups, factions, for some time.
You go back to...
When was the PLO? PLO was started in, like, the early 70s, right?
Yasser Arafat, remember him?
Looked a lot like Ringo Starr, and they were never photographed together, so...
I still think there's something there.
I was going to investigate that on the next season of Black Files.
joe rogan
Maybe just a little bit of a small mustache?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
His costume, rubber nose.
mike baker
They looked a lot alike.
joe rogan
It looked similar.
mike baker
Yeah, it looked similar.
joe rogan
I would be able to tell if they were in a room together.
mike baker
Yeah, but they never were, is my point.
joe rogan
Well, why would he be?
What the fuck are you doing hanging out with Yasser Arafat?
mike baker
Well, Arafat, he loved music.
Who doesn't?
Who doesn't?
God, the Beatles were great.
They were great.
But anyway, so...
Yasser Arafat, PLO, gets put together.
See what I'm talking about?
joe rogan
Look at this.
Yeah, but his nose.
Ringo's nose is clear.
He's more Arab.
He looks more like Yasser Arafat than Yasser Arafat does.
Doesn't he?
Doesn't he?
mike baker
Maybe we're onto something here.
joe rogan
I mean, come on, dog.
mike baker
But you see what I'm talking about?
Look, look.
joe rogan
Pretty fucking similar.
mike baker
You changed the sunglasses.
joe rogan
Yeah, just nice little CIA disguise.
mike baker
But Yasser could not play the drums the way Ringo plays the drums.
joe rogan
Maybe he played dumb.
Maybe he didn't want to throw everybody off.
mike baker
Two of my boys, the oldest Scooter and the youngest Muggsy, they play drums.
They played drums for a long time.
They're very good, both of them.
Muggsy in particular loves the Beatles.
And he'll tell you, he said, Ringo is completely underrated as a drummer.
Not in the drumming world.
They all know he's great.
joe rogan
In the music world, he's kind of underrated periodist, an important part of the Beatles.
I never understood why they decided, that guy sucks.
mike baker
Yeah, yeah.
He's one of the Beatles!
unidentified
Come on!
joe rogan
What the fuck's wrong with you?
mike baker
He married Barbara Bach.
What do you want?
joe rogan
Yeah, he did well.
mike baker
Yeah, he did well.
joe rogan
She's not related to Katherine Bach, is she?
mike baker
Do I sound like an idiot if I say who's Katherine Bach?
joe rogan
From the Dukes of Hazzard.
Daisy Duke, dude.
mike baker
That was Catherine Bach?
unidentified
Yeah.
Bro, she was fucking hot as the sun, son.
mike baker
What was the other guy?
What was it?
There was like Cooter and Skeeter.
joe rogan
There was Bo and Luke Duke.
And then there was Roscoe P. Coltrane.
He was the sheriff.
mike baker
Yeah, I remember him.
joe rogan
Yeah, Roscoe P. Coltrane.
And then there was Cooter, who were in the garage.
mike baker
I knew it, dammit.
I knew there was a Cooter in there.
joe rogan
And then there was Boss Hogg.
unidentified
That's right.
joe rogan
Boss Hogg was the man.
mike baker
They don't make TV like that anymore.
No.
joe rogan
You can't even show that show anymore because of the Confederate flag on the roof of the General Lee.
They have to blur that out.
unidentified
Oh, that's right.
joe rogan
Yeah, they blur it out now.
mike baker
Yeah, no, you're right.
joe rogan
Do they handle that?
Do they CGI that now so you can still watch that show?
You've got to be kidding me.
mike baker
Is that what they do?
joe rogan
Yeah, I think so.
Because there's car shows where you can't go if you've got a General Lee.
Because if you have a real, like, they used to do the 01 on the side.
Yeah, see?
mike baker
Okay.
joe rogan
That's what it used to look like.
mike baker
Yeah, that's right.
joe rogan
Amazon considers pulling Dukes of Hazzard from video because of the Confederate flag.
But didn't they CGI out the Confederate flag for the show?
CGI out Confederate flag.
unidentified
Wow.
mike baker
Yeah, remove flag.
joe rogan
Yeah, Google remove flag.
Remove flag.
Consumer products divisions decided to cease licensing replicas of Dukes of Hazzard, generally.
Okay, that makes sense.
mike baker
Yeah.
joe rogan
Remove the flag.
Warner Brothers announces removal of the Confederate flag from the Dukes of Hazzard.
Okay.
They've been removing it.
mike baker
Oh, from all merchandise.
joe rogan
From all merchandise.
mike baker
Okay.
Not on the show.
Not on the old video.
unidentified
They sold, up until eight years ago, they sold Confederate flags.
mike baker
You know what they could do?
If they want to renew the license on that thing, they just put an LGBTQ plus whatever flag on top of there.
joe rogan
TV Land pulls Dukes of Hazzard amid the Confederate flag.
I heard that they were going to put it back up and CGI the flag off.
mike baker
I like that people apparently have enough time on their hands to worry about this shit.
And they go like, you know what offends me?
That's fucking generally...
joe rogan
It's kind of bizarre how they didn't think that was offensive in the 80s.
mike baker
Right, right.
There's a lot of shows you couldn't...
Remember Starsky and Hutch?
Remember Huggy Bear?
I think he was a pimp on Starsky and Hutch.
You couldn't get away with that shit anymore.
unidentified
Oh, that's right.
mike baker
Huggy Bear.
I forgot about Huggy Bear.
unidentified
So, anyway...
mike baker
Moving back to the PLO, so back then, part of the rift between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas is Hamas came out of the first intifada in like 80-whatever, 87. But they took exception with Yasser Arafat because he basically denounced violence, right, as a way to attain, you know, the Palestinian objectives and goals and everything.
He was like, okay, and he, you know, remember, he was involved in signing some peace accords in Madrid and Oslo accords and everything.
So Hamas, you know, in their charter basically is like, no, jihad is the way to go.
Violence is the way that we're going to You know, it's liberation, not negotiation.
They have all these sayings in their charter, right, about this.
And so, anyway, so there's, but there have been problems, and eventually, they had an election in, in, what the hell, what year was it, 2006, I think, in Gaza, right, and Fatah, Yasser Arafat's party, the PLO party, Was up and was expected to win.
Didn't win.
Hamas won.
And during the course of the next year, they actually got into a war, right?
Between Hamas and PLO or Palestinian Authority.
Hamas booted them out.
So they govern.
So when you think about Palestine or the Palestinian state or whatever it is, you've actually got two completely separate entities.
You've got Gaza run by Hamas and you've got the West Bank run by Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority.
joe rogan
And is the Palestinian Authority and the West Bank, are they popular there?
mike baker
Yeah, they're popular enough.
Yeah, they're popular.
They continue to govern, right?
They continue to be in charge.
joe rogan
And so is the Israeli objective that the Palestinian Authority control all of Palestine?
mike baker
No, they don't.
See, that's where it comes in.
The U.S., Secretary Blanket and others have been pushing this idea that somehow the Palestinian Authority will be the governing body in Gaza.
And, you know, Gazans, look, they don't necessarily, you know, they don't want that.
He's actually less popular.
Mahmoud Abbas is less popular now than he was even before the 7 October attacks.
And Israel is saying, no.
Look, you know, Abbas and the Palestinian Authority, they haven't even denounced the attacks of 7 October, right?
We don't want them.
It's like, in their mind, it's almost like just trading one for the other, right, if they're the governing authority.
So I think when you say what it's going to look like, you know, it's probably going to be...
And Israel said, we don't want to occupy this shit.
They stopped occupying Gaza in 2005, right?
They were like...
You know, done.
Now, they still controlled the border and they controlled the coastline, right?
And the one crossing, there's basically two crossings there.
Karem Shalom crossing with Israel and Gaza.
Then there's a Rafa crossing.
But, you know, they're saying, no, we don't want them governing.
So it could end up looking like some type of UN-Arab states type of coalition that then is there and they're responsible for security of Gaza and they're responsible for the rebuilding effort.
But he has a long ways to go to get there.
joe rogan
So Israel is not trying to take over Gaza.
They don't want it.
mike baker
Yeah, look, you have to go by.
joe rogan
They kind of leveled it?
mike baker
They kind of leveled it, yeah.
I mean, look, and people cry genocide, you know, they're saying genocide.
You can debate the meaning of genocide, but typically in terms of academia, you know, and people that talk about these things.
You know, you've got war crimes, you've got crimes against humanity, you've got genocide, and they all mean different things, right?
Israel wants to destroy Hamas, right?
You have to ask yourself, is their intent to destroy all Palestinian people as a group, to just get rid of them?
Is it like what they tried to do with the Armenians all those years ago?
You know, the German effort against the Jews?
I mean, is that what they intend?
To make this group disappear?
Or is there intent to destroy Hamas, a terrorist organization, that has been attacking them and continues to attack them?
And it's in their charter because it's in the Iranian regime's objective and in their mind is to remove Israel.
You could argue what Iranian regime wants to do is genocide, right?
They want to remove Israel, right?
That's pretty much the definition of genocide.
So, again, it depends on how you phrase it.
joe rogan
But there's obviously a disproportionate amount of military power.
mike baker
Well, yes.
Again, Between the two, of course, yeah.
But you have to say, okay, are we lumping Hamas into the Iranian proxy network?
They built a belt of terrorist organizations, right?
Whether it's Islamic Jihad, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or Hamas, or the Houthis, or the Hezbollah of North, they've created this network of proxies.
Designed with the objective of removing Israel at some point, right?
Because that's the stated purpose of the Iranian regime.
They, you know, they want the destruction of Israel.
So, you know, you could argue, well, look, all of that together, that's the military power, or is it just this one group?
Now, you know, in a confined sense, yes, of course, Israel's got far more military power than Hamas as an organization, right?
And again, it doesn't...
You know, it's not one thing or the other.
It's horrible what the Palestinian civilians go through and have been going through.
You could also argue that Hamas knows exactly what they were going to go through when they instigated the attacks.
They did get support and training from the Iranian regime, so the Iranian regime knew what was going to happen, right?
joe rogan
So what is the purpose of the attacks?
The attacks are not just to kill those 1,200 people.
mike baker
No, it's not.
No, you're absolutely right.
Part of it is tied to the desire to scuttle the Abraham Accords and the potential normalization of relations between Saudis and Israel.
Really worries them, right?
And Ismail Hanyeh, right, came out, head of the political wing of Hamas, came out after the attacks and talked about this and glorified the attacks and also said that, look, this, you know, people, our Arab brothers, our Arab states, Should realize that Israel is not, you know, you will have no peace, basically, with negotiations and with relationships.
So he was clear in the way that he put it that, you know, he was sending a message to the Arab states about this idea of normalizing relations with Israel.
So that was part of it.
Part of the desire was to tank those discussions, which were pretty well underway, right?
And now we're back again, right?
They kind of took them off the table for a while.
But the Saudis and the US have been having some pretty good discussions recently over the normalization of all of this, right?
And I think it's in the Arab states, you know, look, Bahrain and Morocco and others, All understand, too, that long-term stability down the road is going to come from normalization of relationships and some long-term ability to have peace, which is part of the problem.
Look, they don't want—that's why they don't take Palestinian—they're worried about the Palestinian refugees, right?
You say, well, why doesn't Egypt open up the crossing and set up a refugee camp across the way from the Rafah crossing?
Well, in part because they're worried about their own security.
Egypt's been building a big wall.
They've been adding to their wall down along their border with Gaza Strip.
So, you know, look, they formed the PLO. Egypt was in charge of the PLO all those years ago, back in the early 70s, right?
You know, they were essentially the leaders they put in place in the PLO all those years ago were basically just puppets for Egypt, right?
And part of the reason why they were putting those people in place was because they wanted to minimize sort of the radical Islamic extremist actions, right?
And the acts that they took against Israel because they wanted stability.
The families down there, right?
Whether it's Qatar or the Saudis or the Egyptians or whatever...
They're just as worried about radical Islam, right, and the potential for them to lose control and to lose power as are the Israelis and others in a sense, right?
Not necessarily from the physical sense, but they've attacked, you know, Arab families, Arab leaders before.
So it's a complex problem.
I guess what I'm saying is there's a lot of moving parts here, and sometimes it all just gets...
You know, thrown into one simple-minded argument.
It's good or it's bad.
Israel's committing genocide.
You know, Palestinian people are terrible.
No, there's so much fucking more to this.
So, again, you know, I don't know that there's any solution that will be long, long-term committed peace in the region in our lifetime.
But in the short term, I think, you know, the conflict, when it's wrapped up, I don't see how it ends with Hamas still being in control of Gaza.
I think that's a red line for the Israeli government.
Now, maybe Netanyahu doesn't last as the leader of the government, and somebody like Benny Gantz takes over, and they're more inclined to say, now, you know what, just for the sake of some peace right now, you know, let's just call it quits.
joe rogan
Do you think that's possible?
mike baker
Yeah, it could happen.
Netanyahu's got a lot of internal issues, political issues, right?
But I think...
joe rogan
Well, that's something that we talked about before, the people protesting on the street for months, hundreds of thousands of people protesting on the streets about Netanyahu expanding power with their courts.
mike baker
Yeah, and I think that if there's...
Look, if there's a change in government, fine, they do what they're going to do.
I just think that, you know, from an operational perspective, and this is just operational, I'm not talking about the moral, the ethics of the whole thing, of people dying on this.
I'm just saying from an operational perspective, leaving Hamas in place isn't going to create any even midterm peace.
joe rogan
Is it possible for them to get Hamas out?
mike baker
It is possible to...
joe rogan
They have to keep doing what they're doing, just bomb the shit out of everything?
mike baker
Well, they do a lot of targeted strikes.
They do a lot of...
Yeah, there's...
Look, it's fucking ugly, right?
You can't sugarcoat any of this and say, well, they're just...
So when I say targeted strikes, I'm not saying it's all very surgical and people aren't getting...
And, of course, people are dying.
And you're not going to remove them.
You can't get down to zero sum here.
It's like counter-terrorism.
You never reduce the risk down to zero.
So when you're talking about Hamas, you can't destroy them in the concept of saying, you know, they're all dead, right?
Because the leaders, like I said, they're fat and happy sitting in Qatar and Turkey and elsewhere.
joe rogan
That's where they're hiding?
mike baker
They're not even hiding, right?
They're guests.
This is how fucked up some of these Middle East problems are.
They're guests at the Qatari government, right?
And we know they're there.
joe rogan
And so did they go there when the conflict started?
mike baker
No.
Oh, no, no, no.
These guys have been, you know, living abroad for years, right?
They've been living abroad for years.
And in part because, look, Hamas runs a network of businesses and charitable organizations, just like Hezbollah does.
Hezbollah's got a global presence, right?
They're sitting over there in a country that is also one of our key non-NATO allies, right?
So we have our largest Middle East base there, you know, in Qatar.
And, you know, so it's only just recently, and recently is like the past week or so, where the U.S. has broached the idea of saying, look, if Hamas doesn't accept a ceasefire, right, then the Qatari government needs to move these people out.
They need to expel them, right?
And whether the Qatari government would do that or not, because they're playing all sides, right?
The Qatari government does, you know, they've hosted the Taliban, they've hosted ISIS leaders.
joe rogan
Nice parties.
mike baker
Nice parties, they're great parties.
joe rogan
What a great party to host.
mike baker
The canopies are delicious.
It's a lovely time in the conversation.
And so, you know, so it is...
I'm just trying to paint the picture that it's more complicated than somebody sitting on a campus at UCLA might imagine.
And to your point, it deserves more debate.
It deserves more intellectual, open conversation.
Not necessarily when you talk about who's right and who's wrong.
How about focus on how do we fucking solve the problem, right?
And the problem is maybe intractable.
If the problem is a two-state solution, then maybe, you know, this thing is just never going to work because, you know, maybe a two-state solution is the best idea, but if one side or the other is not going to accept it and both sides have pushed back against it at various times, Then, you know, what do you got?
Where's it going?
joe rogan
The thing is, most people never get to hear this wide-ranging perspective like you just laid out with all the different factors.
I'm sure there's more factors, but all the different significant pieces that are in play here.
mike baker
Yeah, and I think that's...
But the same thing happens with every major issue, right?
Because, again, if you turn on the news, you get a three-minute piece of news about a major crisis happening, right?
Like the Ukraine conflict or whatever.
So...
And, you know, not everybody wants to sit and listen, you know, to details about Israel and Hamas or Ukraine or, you know, what Iran's doing with their nuclear weapons program or whatever.
But, you know, we tend to have ADHD, right, as a nation, I think.
And so, again, people are busy.
People are just focused on other things.
But it deserves more conversation.
It deserves more detail and not the bullshit that gets thrown out there from one side or the other, right?
Sort of the hard edges.
Or the shit that comes in from outside elements like the Chinese, the Russians, the Iranians who don't have our best interests at heart.
And, you know, so again, we keep going back to the same thing.
If people aren't curious, And they don't take the fucking responsibility upon themselves to understand what it is that they're listening to.
Is it verifiable?
Is it credible?
Whatever.
Get a balance of news.
Don't just sit and get in a silo and listen to shit because you agree with it.
Have a conversation with somebody who disagrees with you.
That's very interesting.
Yeah, it is.
joe rogan
It's very valuable, too.
If you have the ability to just let someone talk.
And engage in them and not get upset and angry.
Why do you think that?
What do you think about this?
I mean, that used to be an admirable trait.
mike baker
Well, I think that's why, and I'm blowing smoke up your ass, but that's why I think your show works, right?
It's because you have conversations.
Now you piss people off.
Because I think sometimes people have a hard time putting you in a box, right?
And that makes people uncomfortable.
If they think, you know, okay, I know where he's coming from, and then you have a conversation where you're listening to something completely on the other side, right?
And you're not just saying, well, fuck you, that's wrong.
You're saying, well, why is that, right?
And you're having people explain things.
That can piss people off, right?
Because everybody wants to identify, make a quick judgment and say, move on.
And judging is a lot easier than thinking.
joe rogan
It is a lot easier.
It's super simple.
Yeah, it's very fucking simple.
Thinking is fucking complicated, especially when you're dealing with layers upon layers, decades and generations of conflict, like you are in Gaza and Palestine and Israel.
It's nuts.
mike baker
Yeah, I don't know where it's gonna...
I mean, again, I think...
I think...
The U.S. is in an interesting position.
They're not the key mediator here, right?
They can exert pressure on Israel to some degree.
But Israel's been very clear and said, look, this is existential for us.
If the shoe was on the other foot, if it was the U.S. that was facing this sort of threat.
joe rogan
Right, if we were attacked by Mexico.
mike baker
Or Canada.
Canada's a threat.
joe rogan
But Canada's too close.
At least Mexicans speak Spanish.
It's easier to...
mike baker
That makes us uniquely different.
unidentified
Meanwhile, there's way more Mexicans over here than there are Canadians.
mike baker
I don't know.
I don't know if I trust the Canadians.
I think they're coming across the border at night when we don't see them.
joe rogan
I think they're in a cult.
That fucking Trudeau has got them in a cult.
The fact that they voted that guy in again is mind-blowing.
Are you fucking paying attention?
Your country's literally falling apart, and you guys are so wrapped up in one ideology or another, you don't course correct.
mike baker
Yeah.
joe rogan
You know, it's like if Newsom was the governor.
mike baker
God.
joe rogan
Not just the governor of California, but if he was the president, and he was running the same policies on our country.
mike baker
I don't know.
He was thrown out there.
They were trying.
Yeah, they moved off of Pete Buttigieg and some others, but now Newsom is still there.
joe rogan
He's unwinnable.
Buttigieg is incompetent.
He's unwinnable.
mike baker
Well, you could argue that Newsom also is incompetent.
joe rogan
A hundred percent.
But that slick fucker.
You know, I think they were trying him for a little while, but then they decided to just run it with Biden again, which is just absolutely wild.
Absolutely wild.
I was pretty convinced that this was going to be the month they were going to remove Biden.
Really?
Yeah, I was like, I think May.
I talked to Tim Dillon about it.
He put that idea in my head.
And I think I was like, you know what?
That totally makes sense.
May seems like it makes sense.
Because if you're going to really get a new guy in place, if Biden is like, you guys, I got a problem.
There's a thing.
I'm going to be here on the sidelines.
I'm going to work really close with Governor Newsom.
mike baker
Four more years.
joe rogan
Pause.
unidentified
Pause.
mike baker
That was actually brilliant.
joe rogan
It's fucking crazy.
It's fucking crazy that these people are gaslighting us.
mike baker
But they can't move him out.
If they move him out, they've got to move Kamala Harris out.
Or they've got to elevate her to the top of the ticket.
joe rogan
Which is nuts.
That's not going to happen.
You have to be the nuttiest fucking Democrat.
And I know a few.
I know this one nutty Democrat that I'm...
I guess I'm kind of friends.
If I see him, I'll say hi.
But this motherfucker is a Kamala Harris fan.
Thank you, Madam Vice President.
He's one of those.
mike baker
How do you get to that point?
You're retarded.
joe rogan
You just completely give in.
There's no critical thinking at all.
And you're just fucking blue no matter who.
You ride or die.
mike baker
Well, I assume that they've looked at the scenarios and they thought to themselves, we can't have Biden step down and put somebody else at the top of the ticket.
So we've got to clear the ticket entirely, right?
Because we can't run Kamala Harris as the presidential candidate.
And we certainly can't bring in Newsom, a white dude, to run the top of the ticket and keep her in place, right?
That's not an optic they're willing to put up with.
joe rogan
Also, she's just not valuable.
In that spot.
She doesn't gain confidence that we'll have a great vice president if he kicks the bucket.
And, bro, how are they keeping him alive?
mike baker
Yeah.
joe rogan
What are they giving him?
And where do I get it?
mike baker
Well, she'll be president.
joe rogan
Where do I get when he's on?
mike baker
Yeah.
unidentified
I want to try.
joe rogan
As an able-bodied man.
Of complete control of my cognitive functions.
I'd like to know what that fucking cocktail's like.
mike baker
I was gonna say, the cocktail that they gave him before the State of the Union address?
unidentified
Yeah.
mike baker
Whatever they gave him then?
unidentified
Yeah.
mike baker
Right?
That fired him up just long enough to make it through?
joe rogan
Just long enough.
Boy, he must have slept for a week after that.
I bet it's some high-dose stuff, whatever it is, and I bet it feels great.
mike baker
Yeah, in the moment.
And then I think there's probably a come-down.
Oh, boy.
Yeah.
So, yeah, she'll be president.
This is my theory.
unidentified
That's crazy.
mike baker
I know I've lost a bet with you before on Trump, but I worry that...
Look, I think the Republicans can't really go after Biden's age completely only because Trump is, what, 78?
joe rogan
Right, but he's not as compromised.
mike baker
No, absolutely not.
Right.
And that's absolutely true.
But I just...
I think that what's going to happen is that...
You have to have a perfect storm for Trump to win in terms of the independents, right, and suburban moms, and you have to have enough people come back into the tent, right, to vote for him.
And...
I just, I don't know that I have enough confidence that that's going to happen.
So we end up with President Biden and Harris again, which means we will have President Harris.
I hate to say that, right?
You wish well on everybody, right?
Good health and all that.
joe rogan
Yeah, but come on.
unidentified
Come on.
joe rogan
Yeah, please.
mike baker
Are you kidding me?
joe rogan
Come on.
mike baker
Two years into this next tenure, she's president.
joe rogan
But isn't Trump ahead in a lot of polls?
mike baker
He is.
He is, but again, I don't know that I'd make bank on polls nowadays.
This is going to sound like I'm going off topic, but after the 7th October attacks in Gaza, I think that the survey was done In maybe January and February timeframe.
They released it in March.
So a Palestinian research center based in Ramallah, I think, in Gaza.
I forget where it was.
But anyway, they ran a survey.
And according to this poll that they did of residents of Gaza, over 70% supported Hamas's 7 October attacks.
joe rogan
70%.
mike baker
Over 70% supported Hamas's attacks.
It was a minuscule amount that thought that Hamas was responsible for their troubles, right?
It's like less than 10%, I think, that thought that Hamas was responsible for all the chaos now happening, right?
Despite the fact of what they did, but they supported what they did, according to the poll.
Now, you peel that back and you think to yourself, okay, well, first of all, The survey was done in Gaza.
So somebody knocks on your door and says, do you support Hamas's actions on 7 October?
What the fuck do you think I'm going to say?
joe rogan
Right.
mike baker
Of course I'm going to say yes.
It's kind of like if you walk up to somebody in San Francisco on a crowded street and say, do you support President Trump?
No.
So I don't know that people are particularly honest at times in surveys and polls.
joe rogan
Especially in these circumstances.
mike baker
In these circumstances.
But you're right.
Most surveys, most polls show some points ahead.
And don't get me wrong.
I'd love to see less regulation.
We've got all sorts of problems on the economic front.
You know, one thing we could be doing as a government is peeling back some of the regulatory environment that's fucking us over, right?
In a lot of ways, not just the economy, but it impacts our national security down the road, right?
joe rogan
How much...
When you hear about shenanigans when it comes to voting, when you hear about particularly corruption involved with mail-in ballots, it seems to be a sticking issue with people.
How much of a security issue is that, like the mail-in ballots thing?
mike baker
Yeah.
Look, if there's an opportunity for fraud or chaos, some people somewhere Whether Democrats or Republicans or whatever.
If there's a fraud opportunity, there will be an element that will try to play off of that.
joe rogan
Especially if they think that it's imperative that this happen for this future of democracy.
mike baker
Future of democracy.
It's, oh my god, I'm saving the country, despite what I'm doing.
joe rogan
Despite what you're doing being very un-American.
mike baker
Right, exactly.
joe rogan
You're engaging in voter corruption.
mike baker
So I don't have any insight or inside information about, you know, to what degree there's a problem with mail-in ballots and voter fraud, but to me, I tend to be a little more simplistic.
I remember a lot of elections where you just show up, you show your ID, you fill out the form, and then by that evening, You found out who won.
It didn't seem to be that complicated.
And nobody seemed really disenfranchised.
So I would like to see us just go back to the normal way of voting.
joe rogan
Do we vote on it?
How do people decide whether or not mail-in ballots are appropriate?
Because the reason why they were there in the first place was COVID. But now that it's there and it's set up, Yeah.
Now there's this resistance to get rid of mail-in ballots.
But if that is the thing that keeps us closer to corruption, and it seems to be, that's the thing that's an element that you can fuck with.
unidentified
Right.
mike baker
And you do this all the time in the business environment or whatever.
You look at your protocols in place.
You remove lack of controls where fraud could seep in.
It's a common thing.
It shouldn't be difficult.
So then you have to look at it with some skepticism.
Are you genuinely concerned that somehow there were vast swaths of the population that were disenfranchised and not able to vote, or just can't get themselves an ID, which I think is an insulting stance to take for a lot of people.
I'm sorry, you're not smart enough to get yourself an ID. But you need one if you have a vaccine.
Yeah, but you need one if you have a vaccine.
joe rogan
If you want to work.
mike baker
Yeah, or from Sam's Club.
joe rogan
You want to feed yourself.
You need one.
But you don't need one to vote, because that's racist.
mike baker
Yeah, exactly.
joe rogan
Or something.
mike baker
So I think, to me, it just seems like we should look at it from...
From a perspective of the way that you would do it if you were running a business, which is, I want to minimize the potential opportunities for fraud.
How do I do that?
It's very fucking simple.
joe rogan
Seems fucking simple.
You can phrase it that way.
mike baker
But that's not how they're doing it right now.
joe rogan
Is that something that can be voted on?
That's the question.
I have no idea.
mike baker
Leave it up to the people, you mean?
joe rogan
Who decides that mail-in ballots are still legitimate?
mike baker
Well, I guess, was that a federal or a state decision?
I don't know.
That's a very good question.
Yeah, who knows?
joe rogan
Because I have friends that believe there was no voter fraud at all, and I have friends that believe that 100% Trump won.
mike baker
Yeah, I'm the same way.
I've got both sides, and you think, okay, well, look.
joe rogan
Someone's got to be wrong.
mike baker
Well, and usually, the answer is somewhere...
In that range, in the middle.
There's some fraud.
Was it enough to fuck things over?
Who knows?
I don't know.
But again, I keep going back to the operational concerns, which is just minimize the potential for fraud.
Mail-in ballots have always been a thing, right?
You're serving overseas or whatever.
But there was a protocol for it, and it was very straightforward and very clear.
And now, you know, the concern over ballot harvesting and mail-in ballots and having, you know, months to get your...
Having, you know, weeks pass before you know who won, right?
unidentified
Crazy.
mike baker
Yeah.
Talk about instilling, you know, skepticism over the credibility of your voting system.
joe rogan
Yeah.
mike baker
Take weeks to figure out who won a fucking election.
joe rogan
Is there a real danger that Trump could win...
But lose.
Meaning that he could win the election but lose his court case?
mike baker
Oh.
joe rogan
And literally have to go to jail while he's the president?
I mean, this was the topic of discussion at the Rogan House today.
mike baker
Was it?
unidentified
Well...
joe rogan
We were trying to figure out, like...
mike baker
Yeah, he could...
There's nothing that says he can't...
joe rogan
Govern from jail.
But is it possible that they really might put him in jail?
Is he in danger of actually being put in a jail for these crimes of...
What did he do exactly?
He paid a lady off, and I guess he did it in a secretive way?
mike baker
Well, he did it in the same way that Arnold Schwarzenegger did it.
He did it in the same way that a variety of people who are trying to suppress a bad PR story do it, right?
I think the trial that's going on right now involving Stormy Daniels in New York was the least favorite trial of the Democrats who are the most keen to see him put in prison.
joe rogan
Right.
mike baker
They all felt as if this is probably not the one to start with, but they started with it because Alvin Bragg was dead set on doing it, right?
He just like, I'm going to throw this out there.
And, you know, a variety of other entities had looked at that case and said, we're not going to push it forward.
And so they've put this forward.
I don't think that there's anybody other than the hardcore never-Trumpers, the people that are just desperate to see him in a jumpsuit, who believe that there's any merit to it.
The analysts that you watch across the board, even the hard left ones, they tend to speak in caveats, right?
Like, you know, they're not completely convinced that this was the way to go.
So, I don't know.
But, having said that, if he gets convicted, and if there's like some, you gotta go to prison, sounds so fucking bizarre.
How did we get to this point?
Then, I don't know of anything that says he can't continue to run or be elected.
joe rogan
What he's being accused of, is this generally a crime that people actually have to go to jail for?
mike baker
No.
unidentified
No.
mike baker
No, they're trying to tie this in to sort of the campaign issue of campaign funds influencing of the campaign.
They're trying to tie it into, well of course he's trying to suppress a story that he thought would be bad or that they thought, his team thought would be bad for a campaign.
But that in and of itself...
So they've got to tie it into how the funds were expended.
They've tried this in the past.
And again, it's not like there haven't been countless dudes who, you know, did the mess around and then had to pay to get the story suppressed, right?
I mean, there are PR firms that specialize in that sort of thing.
So...
I don't know.
I don't see that this is going to tank him, right?
There's probably other cases out there.
joe rogan
Is it a case where, yeah, there's probably more cases, right, waiting?
They're going to keep throwing it at them.
mike baker
Yeah, they've got a timeline of cases.
And look, the Democratic strategists have been, you know, they stick to a message.
They're very smart and they're very disciplined.
But they all sat in a room somewhere and they looked at these various things.
They looked at the election calendar and they looked at, you know, where the primaries are and they looked at when they could maybe get these trials going.
And the idea being, let's just keep this thing rolling.
Keep him in the news as being in a court, right?
It's so crazy, though.
Look, the idea that he's got to sit there and can't leave, you don't see that, you know, that's not a typical move, right?
But now he's locked into that court on whatever, Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday and Friday or whatever.
So with the idea being he's not out on the campaign trail.
joe rogan
Right.
But he's also in the news and his supporters think that he's being unduly prosecuted or unfairly prosecuted.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
And that it's a political prosecution.
And that all they're trying to do, which is essentially un-American, is suppress their political rival.
mike baker
Right.
And that is a large number of people in the country.
joe rogan
A larger number every day, I think, as this goes on.
They gain more of an understanding of this case.
Like, the problem is, if you're a Democrat and you support this, If he does get in power, now he has this ability.
You have to understand there's a precedent that's been set.
And if you don't think that Biden has a shitload of things...
So let's say Biden loses, okay?
Let's get really crazy.
Let's get really, really crazy.
Biden loses, they inject him with stem cells for three years, and then they roll him out.
In 2027, like, let's do it again.
mike baker
Let's do it again.
joe rogan
Trump won the second term.
We saw disasters persist.
unidentified
That was.
joe rogan
And they say, you know what?
He's been sharper than ever.
And you get these New York liberals who just gaslight the shit out of you.
I saw that video and I'll tell you, I'm pumped.
He's as sharp as a tack.
He's never been better.
Sure, he's old, but that's his superpower.
mike baker
They tried that for a while.
His work ethic looks fantastic.
joe rogan
He is so kind.
He's such a good man.
He's the father of our country.
We're so lucky.
mike baker
I read an ex post by, admittedly, a guy that works for a consulting firm in D.C., right?
He's a Democratic strategist.
But he wrote this glowing thing about how Biden's had this great couple of weeks.
Man, has he had a good couple of weeks.
joe rogan
He's on fire.
mike baker
Yeah, he's on fire.
Look at what he's done in the Middle East, right?
joe rogan
Four more years.
mike baker
Well, you could argue that part of our problem was we coddled the Iranian regime for three years, and that's how things got to this stage.
And now what?
Suddenly he's had a good couple of weeks.
They're not leading the charge on any ceasefire negotiations, right?
In fact, you could argue that they're making national security decisions related to Israel based on domestic policy concerns or political concerns, right?
You don't want to lose the youth vote.
You don't want to lose the Arab American vote by being overly supportive of Israel.
So there is some concern here.
joe rogan
But isn't that losing the Jewish vote then?
We talked about this yesterday, that 70% of Jewish people identify or vote as Democrats.
mike baker
Yeah, I know.
And what's that all about?
I've never been quite clear on how that number worked.
It's interesting.
Yeah, it is interesting.
But anyway, I don't want to say that they're making too many decisions based on domestic political concerns, but I think that they are.
That's just the nature of the game.
And so I don't think I'm being overly cynical.
joe rogan
What I was getting to was that if Biden did, if we went crazy in 2027, they get him on stem cells, and they put him in a hyperbaric chamber every day for four hours, and he's sharp as a tacker.
unidentified
Look at him!
joe rogan
Knife!
mike baker
He's sharper than his Uncle Bozy was.
joe rogan
Imagine if Trump goes after him, because there's a lot to go after.
If they started uncovering the emails and the Burisma stuff and the fact that he said he never talked to any of his son's business partners, but Hunter Biden's former partner said they had at least 20 phone calls, the fact that he allegedly used a pseudonym when he was exchanging emails, all that's nuts.
All that is nuts.
If that was the case, if now Trump gets to go after him, Now we're dealing with insanity.
Now we're dealing with every time someone is president, they have the power to prosecute their political rivals for unnecessary means.
mike baker
Which is the whole argument of immunity, right?
joe rogan
This is not a thing that should be a thing that decides whether or not a guy gets to run for president.
mike baker
No, that's a very fourth world thing, right?
And I probably get in trouble for saying fourth world.
People go, oh my god, how can you denigrate the fourth world?
Is that us?
joe rogan
Are we fourth world?
mike baker
We're heading in that direction.
I don't know if we're first world anymore.
Where are we right now?
I'm not sure where we stand.
Who's first world if we're not?
joe rogan
That's what's scary.
mike baker
Let's recalibrate.
Maybe there are no first worlds anymore, but...
joe rogan
When you find out, when we found out that the 1% of the world is $34,000 a year, when you hear that, you go, oh, that's why they're walking over here.
That's why this is all chaos.
That's why this is all nuts.
mike baker
Yeah.
joe rogan
Like, yeah.
Like, this is first world.
As crazy as it is, this really is first world.
mike baker
Yeah.
Well, look, I know I spent most of my life overseas, and I met a lot of people in some very bizarre environments and some sort of remote areas, and they all had this idea, you know, get to America, work hard, and you could do who knows what.
joe rogan
Right.
mike baker
So it's still, and it still continues to be, a very dynamic and, you know, driving element of, you know, of people overseas.
I think we forget that sometimes, right?
And certainly, you know, you could look at the campus protests and go to, well, okay, maybe, you know, the youth of today, but that's not true either, right?
Because we can fall into that trap and say, well, the fucking youth of today don't understand how, you know, great they have it and everything like that.
Every generation has said that about their kids.
joe rogan
Well, not only that.
Every generation has said that about their kids, for sure.
But if you looked at this population of college kids, and you could remove these kids from their friends, and with total immunity and total anonymity, Get their real opinions on all this stuff.
I guarantee you there's a lot of kids.
They say some of this is so crazy and you can't have opposing opinions and we just sort of accept it and we move on and it's what percentage of the kids are out there in tents?
What percentage of the kids are out there blocking the roads and protesting?
I bet it's a small percentage.
mike baker
It's a very small percentage.
joe rogan
It's a lot of people, and then there's a lot of people that go there that probably don't even go to that school, right?
unidentified
Right.
mike baker
Well, I mean, if you look at the arrest statistics so far, right, you know, say it's not a completely accurate number, but about 2,400 arrests, right, campuses across the country.
And the statistics are starting to show that, you know, upwards of half of those arrests Those people have no affiliation with the university.
They're not college students, right?
They're outside either agitators, activists, however you want to refer to them, right?
So, yeah, I agree with it.
We're not talking about a lot.
And again, I would argue that, you know, from the outside activist perspective, again, whether it's, you know, Students for Justice in Palestine or, you know, the other groups that are involved...
They look at the students themselves as just window dressing.
And again, sort of useful idiots.
But I will tell you one thing is you can get cynical sometimes about the state of the youth, however you want to call it, the youths.
But then I took my oldest boy, Scooter, for his candidate visit at the U.S. Naval Academy a couple weeks ago.
That is a way to strengthen or reaffirm your belief in where we are as a country, right?
When you see the kids that are there, holy fuck, right?
And I probably shouldn't say that when I'm describing all the kids there, but what great kids, right?
joe rogan
They're still out there.
mike baker
They're still out there.
And that's the point.
There's a lot of them.
There's a lot of them.
joe rogan
What we were saying earlier, like, you know, oh, the generation before, I think this is the best generation.
It's just there's so many morons.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
But in terms of just the sheer number of people that aren't, it'll surprise you.
There's a lot of great people in this country.
We have our problems, and we're going to always have problems, but one of the ways we find solutions is by having problems.
And that's one of the ways we've come to understandings.
And the people that are trying to stop you from discussing this, that's the real problem.
The problem is not disagreement, folks.
The problem is people trying to stop people from discussing very important subjects.
And that is, look, Fucking all hail Elon Musk cuz that motherfucker stepped in spent 44 billion dollars and shifted the entire The whole like the environment of social media is very different because X is the Wild West Yeah,
it's very different everywhere Everything has to kind of relax just to kind of keep up with it because the the whole power dynamic the whole bell curve has shifted and And now you've got this one dude who's like, I don't give a fuck.
I'm going to post ridiculous memes.
I'm going to talk shit.
I'm going to say funny things.
mike baker
And remember, he was a darling of the left for quite a while.
joe rogan
Oh my God, now he's a Nazi.
mike baker
It's crazy.
He's the worst.
joe rogan
Having one of his cars was like a virtue badge.
Like, my friend made fun of me because I had a Tesla.
And I was like, dude, I don't give a fuck what you say.
If you get in this car, it'll change your mind.
mike baker
Remember that South Park episode with the Prius?
I don't.
joe rogan
I didn't see that one.
mike baker
Thank you.
There was a whole episode about people of South Park buying Priuses and feeling incredibly super self-righteous.
It was fantastic.
It was almost as good as they're smacking it in San Diego.
joe rogan
Bro, it is a thing in California.
It is a real thing that some of my liberal friends...
I know what you're doing, you fucks.
You're waving a flag.
That's not even a good car.
You don't even like the way it looks.
mike baker
What are you doing?
unidentified
Yeah.
mike baker
Yeah.
joe rogan
Get out of here with that fucking stupid thing.
mike baker
Yeah, you're right.
Now he's a Nazi.
joe rogan
See, but the Tesla thing made sense to me.
I'm like, okay.
When you drive one of those things, you get both things.
You get to feel like you're better because I'm out here doing something amazing for the environment.
And then also, you get a fucking time machine.
That thing moves like a time machine.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
It doesn't even seem real how fast those things are.
mike baker
Did I tell you when I ended up with a Tesla?
I don't know if I told you about that.
When I show up at a rental car place, and I forget even what town I was in, and I hadn't asked for an EV, right?
But I guess now they're kind of like, they're pushing them out there.
unidentified
Trying to push them.
mike baker
Yeah.
So the guy says, oh, we got a Tesla for you.
I said, okay, fine.
So he hands me the card, right?
That little card.
So I'm like, all right.
So he's out there in whatever, space 428. So I wander out there, and I stand, and it's locked, right?
So now I'm standing there thinking, well, I don't have a fucking key.
I don't have a clue how to open this thing, right?
So a guy walks by, and he goes, oh, you just tapped the card on the car.
So I'm out there, like, tapping.
Tapping the fucking car.
joe rogan
You had to tap it on the door handle?
mike baker
I'm tapping it all over.
No, he didn't tell me the little panel right there.
Tapping on that.
So I'm tapping the fucking car.
I look like a monkey fucking a football.
And I'm just like, what the hell?
unidentified
And so finally, the guy walks over and he goes, what are you doing?
mike baker
I said, I'm trying to open the car.
So he goes, oh, it's this.
He taps it.
Car opens.
I go in.
He goes, hey, thanks very much, man.
And he walks away.
joe rogan
Do you know how he did it?
Did you pay attention?
mike baker
Well, I watched him and he just hit that one spot on the little panel there by the door.
And so I was like, okay, got it.
So I sat down in the car.
Now I don't have a clue how to start the fucker.
And so I had to Google.
I'm not going to walk back all the way over there and say, look, I'm such an idiot.
So I sat there and I Googled, how do you start a Tesla?
And I had to sit and watch this stupid video.
And it was fine.
And then I will say, I was very impressed.
I loved it.
It was a great experience.
I had never done that before.
unidentified
Bizarre, right?
Yeah, right.
mike baker
They're bizarre how fast they are.
It was crazy, right?
joe rogan
They're bizarre.
mike baker
And then, you know, then you've got to figure out how to charge it, and that was a whole other, you know, go road.
joe rogan
Oh, yeah, and then you've got to make sure that there's chargers available.
mike baker
Right.
joe rogan
In some places, there's a fucking line.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
You've got to wait an hour to get on that goddamn thing.
mike baker
Right.
joe rogan
And then you've got to sit in there for an hour.
mike baker
And we're all going to drive electric vehicles when we don't have the capacity yet.
Right.
joe rogan
We don't have the grids not ready for it yet.
mike baker
No, no.
joe rogan
Not only that, the fucking source of the minerals is a horror story.
mike baker
Yeah.
I meant to tell you, there's a great story in Wall Street Journal today.
And I love when they have stories like this, because I'm thinking, no shit, Sherlock.
It's about...
It's about access for the defense industry to magnets, rare earth magnets, which you need for everything.
Submarines, F-35s, whatever.
Think about what you need it for.
I mean, magnets are also obviously for a variety of everything else, household appliances and shit.
92% of rare earth magnets are controlled by China right now, right?
Materials and manufacturing.
And so now the US is suddenly realizing that they've got an issue because a while back, a handful of years ago, they put in place a law that will actually come into effect in 27 in a big way, which says, you know, no magnets, you know, from China where the materials or the processing or manufacturers in China.
So, we don't have the capacity.
joe rogan
Why can't we get them after 2027 from China?
mike baker
Well, that's kind of when they said, that's it, because we want to be in control of something this critical to a variety of things, right?
Do we have the capability?
Well, yeah, I mean, we do.
Look, rare earth, it's interesting, rare earth minerals are not called that because of their rareness, right?
They're actually, you know, you could argue critical minerals are more difficult to get your hands on.
But it's the refining process that kind of makes them difficult.
We can get them.
We could have this capacity.
We could have had the capacity for years and years and years, but it's the regulatory policies, right?
So it's like the mining industry in the States is moribund, right?
It's almost dead because, you know, we've put in place so many regulations that say you can't...
No, I can't do that.
It's bad for the environment.
Well, you know what's worse for the environment is the way they fucking mine these things overseas, right?
Whether it's in China or Africa or wherever else.
And so we've kind of shot ourselves in the foot with this, but they're now starting to catch...
Anyway, it's a good article, Wall Street Journal.
joe rogan
If they're going to catch on, where do they get these?
Is there a place where they can do it, where they don't ruin everything?
jamie vernon
There's another article I found right below.
It's talking about Mountain Pass, which used to be a huge place.
If it was oil, it would be considered Saudi Arabia.
joe rogan
Is that where the Donner Party died?
jamie vernon
Yeah, maybe in between California and Nevada.
It says right here.
joe rogan
Is that where they died?
mike baker
I don't know.
jamie vernon
The world's number one source of rare earths.
joe rogan
Bro.
jamie vernon
Started in a gold rush and then production changed and things changed.
joe rogan
Is it still the number one source?
Mountain Pass is arguably the best rare earth asset in the world.
unidentified
Whoa.
joe rogan
If it were oil, it would be Saudi Arabia.
Well, let's start digging, bitches!
jamie vernon
He was talking about the refining of it, and that's what I think this article starts talking about.
joe rogan
So we don't have the refineries available?
mike baker
Yeah, and so they're starting to put money into, whether it's us or the Australians or the Germans or whomever, they're starting to realize.
But good news is they've figured this out, but while we were paying attention to whatever we were focused on, China was dominating above 90% and knowing, strategically thinking ahead years ago, thinking what's going to be important.
And they're not playing the same game in terms of regulations and environmental concerns and practices.
And that's a good thing.
We should have environmental concerns.
I'm not saying that.
joe rogan
No, we certainly should, but China's not having these concerns.
mike baker
No, they don't have it.
joe rogan
One of the wildest things that these social media bots Who knows what countries are using these, but there's a lot of them that are being run by foreign countries.
And they'll, a lot of times, be real inflammatory about climate change.
And if they're funded by China, while China is building coal plants all the time, don't they have hundreds of new coal plants that they're building?
mike baker
Yeah, opening up, I forget what it was, two a week or so, new coal plants.
Crazy!
And the EPA just crushed the coal industry here over the past week and a half or so with some new regulations that are going forward in terms of, you know, what you have to reduce your emissions by.
joe rogan
Isn't the solution nuclear?
Isn't that the solution?
mike baker
I would say the solution is all of the above, right?
It's everything, right?
And yes, eventually work towards something that makes sense on the green energy front.
But yeah, nuclear is certainly a big part of it.
But...
We get in this mindset.
It's like everything else.
It's got to be all this or it's got to be all that.
It's like the way that we have arguments.
But yeah, you're right.
People should look at, like if you have an environmental activist group, right?
A lot of times they'll want to shut down a mining operation here in the States, right?
And it looks like it's a grassroots, it's like the campus protest.
It looks like it's a grassroots thing.
Oh, it's just a neighborhood organization that's against this idea.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
Right.
mike baker
You got to dig into it a little bit.
And then next thing you know, you find that there's outside elements involved because it's in their best interests.
And China's figured this out.
We've talked about this before.
They figured out that the way to impact the U.S. for their own good was to impact local and state regulations and regulatory policies towards things like mining, right?
Because it helps them in their cause to dominate the industry or to dominate whatever that market is that we're talking about.
So...
You know, again, it's just a matter of, you know, peel back the layers, pay attention, think about what you're doing.
I did want to, oh.
jamie vernon
This article talks about the overbuilding of plants, but they're going to run less frequently to keep their capacity high, and then it's asked, like, why, and that they might just be doing it just in case?
joe rogan
In case what?
Well, maybe that's their preparing for their electric cars.
By the way, China has the most advanced electric car suspension that I've ever even heard of.
It's so good that you could drive over speed bumps and you could have glasses balance on the hood.
mike baker
Well, it sounds like that old Saturday Night Live skit where they said the ride was so smooth in the Lincoln you could conduct a circumcision in the back.
So they had a rabbi in the back of a Lincoln doing a circumcision to show how smooth the suspension was.
joe rogan
Well, this makes that look like a motorbike, like a motocross bike.
jamie vernon
Holy shit.
joe rogan
These things go over everything and they stay flat.
They don't feel anything.
The car just stays flat as it's riding over all these bumps.
It's nuts.
And if you see how it works, like all the different things that are moving around inside of it, all the machinery that they've developed to have this insane suspension, it's crazy.
mike baker
Wow.
joe rogan
China is, like, really innovating right now in the field of electric cars.
In the field of cars, period.
But their electric cars have made massive leaps.
Because just a few years ago, I think, Elon dismissed a lot of their electric cars.
But now he's like, no, no, no.
These are, like, really legitimate.
And they've got their version of a Rolls-Royce that's, like, a million dollars, and you can't even get it.
Have you seen these Chinese Rolls Royces?
They're insane.
mike baker
And part of that is because they've been strategic about locking up critical minerals overseas in terms of getting in there, working with countries to lock up that market and also to dominate completely the refining side of things.
joe rogan
Right.
mike baker
They've got the confidence in knowing, you know, where they can take this.
And so this is like, okay, we can dominate the EV market, you know, because we've done the hard work ahead of time.
joe rogan
Look at this thing.
unidentified
Wow.
joe rogan
This is their Chinese version of a Rolls Royce, and it's supposed to be sick.
Like, you get inside of you like, oh my god, this car's incredible.
But you can't even get them in America.
mike baker
Yeah.
I like my Jeep Grand Wagoneer better.
joe rogan
Jeep Grand Wagoneers are great, but I would drive this dope-ass Chinese luxury sled.
This thing looks insane.
mike baker
Hey, you know that thing you sent me about the Manta?
joe rogan
Yes.
unidentified
Do you remember that?
joe rogan
Yes, yes.
That Seab ship.
mike baker
Yeah.
That looks like a UFO. It's fantastic.
It's that U underwater unmanned vehicle.
That's it right there.
joe rogan
Yeah, that sounds sick.
mike baker
Yeah.
joe rogan
That's what I hope America's making without me knowing with my tax dollars.
mike baker
And we are.
joe rogan
I hope they're making shit like this.
Look at that thing, man.
That is so cool.
If you imagined what was going to be the kind of technology that was in 2024 in 1967, that would be right up there.
Like a spaceship that they use in the ocean.
mike baker
Yeah.
And it's fantastic because you can manufacture thousands of them, right?
And they're for very specific purposes.
They're long-duration unmanned vehicles underwater.
Low power, right?
So interesting, they're doing that thing called energy harvesting, but they're getting it from the gradient salinity in the water.
Can you explain that?
joe rogan
How do they do that?
mike baker
No.
I'd like to say that I'm a gradient salinity aficionado, but I'm not.
But this is interesting because we're behind the curve In developing, particularly from a naval perspective, these new capabilities.
And we're seeing how the drones and the unmanned vehicles from a naval perspective have impacted Ukraine, right?
And their ability to attack the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
We're seeing what the Houthis are doing with them, right?
And we've been a little slow to the game.
And so...
It's interesting to watch now that they're developing things like this, which you can take apart and then ship someplace, right?
It doesn't need to travel underwater to get to where it's going, right?
You just ship it off, you put it together, you assemble it, you put it in, and it's got a variety of uses and it can carry payloads, but it is fascinating.
But there's also, we talked about AI, and there's something else that DARPA's been doing, because this is a DARPA-related project as well, is something called ACE. And they've just finished an AI and machine learning dogfight.
They've created like X-something, X-62, which isn't...
Yeah, so autonomous.
Now, you put two guys in there.
There's still pilots in this thing.
It's a modified F-16, essentially.
You've got two guys in there, but they're not flying it.
So they've conducted actual dogfight scenarios against a human crew, an F-16, right?
And it's remarkable.
This plane is using AI and machine learning to dogfight, basically.
joe rogan
And is it winning against people?
mike baker
Yes, yeah.
unidentified
Oh!
mike baker
And, you know, so you still have a couple of guys in there, but they're just there like an autonomous truck, right?
They're just there in case things go wrong, right?
They can take control.
But it's unbelievable.
And in the sensor test, yeah.
unidentified
That is insane.
joe rogan
What is the range?
mike baker
Well, in the virtual test, well, it would be the range of an F-16, right?
I mean, you've got...
joe rogan
So everything that's computing, that's all happening in the computer on the plane?
mike baker
And it's making decisions faster than the human pilot can do it.
joe rogan
It's not connected to the internet at all with Skynet or whatever the fuck that is.
unidentified
Skynet.
mike baker
What is it called?
Oh, Starlink.
joe rogan
Starlink.
Skynet, bro.
unidentified
Starlink.
Yeah.
mike baker
But I wanted to bring that up because that is, to me, that's Remarkable.
joe rogan
It's insane.
That's insane that it's doing it in real time with a jet.
mike baker
It's crazy.
joe rogan
But it makes sense.
There's no margin for error.
It would get it perfect.
mike baker
And the virtual tests that they did, the virtual tests, they were undefeated against humans.
unidentified
Oh, fuck.
mike baker
So yeah, you think about what that means down the road.
joe rogan
Okay, so what do you think these drones are that people keep seeing?
Or these UAPs, I should say.
Some of them they think are drones.
They're like hovering over ships.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
Do you think these are foreign governments?
If China can make electric cars that advanced, and we can make drones that are pretty fucking advanced, what kind of shit do they have?
mike baker
Well, I think most of that UIP sightings, and I think it's important for them, I'm glad the government and the Defense Department has finally at least come forward to some degree to say, look, we've got an interest in this, we want to investigate, we want to know what these things are, these sightings that we can't readily identify off the bat.
Look, we were tricked out in the Korean War.
The Russians, you know, designed the MiG, whatever it was, the MiG-15 maybe, and we had no idea, right?
So they'd come out, they'd roll out the MiG-15 against, we were still using, you know, old rotor aircraft from, propeller aircraft from World War II. In Korea at the outset, and we didn't know that the Russians had advanced material science to the point that they had so that they could build something like this.
So it would be insane for us to think somehow that the Chinese, you know, who have proven themselves to be brilliant at reverse engineering other people's technology, haven't figured out something else.
So, yeah, there's always this game of trying to understand how advanced they are, and I suspect some of the UAP sightings are definitely, probably Chinese, I don't think the Russians necessarily, but...
Not that they wouldn't try or not trying but I suspect the Chinese are further advanced on this and they've stolen a lot of technology from us over the years and we've talked about that but I think a number of the UIP sightings that get listed are just that but that's why they do it that's why they have a An office now that they've admitted to that investigates because it's a national security issue.
You've got to know if a hostile state has created something that we are not aware of, right?
Propulsion or material science or whatever it may be.
joe rogan
How much of that stuff could be kept secret and for how long do you think?
Like, is it equivalent in terms of, like, the physicists that are working on this in China versus the ones that are working on it over here?
Like, is it possible that somebody made some sort of a propulsion breakthrough?
mike baker
Well, yeah, anti-gravity or something.
joe rogan
Yeah, well, that was the thing.
We had this lady that went missing.
Do you know that story?
mike baker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
But she was working on an anti-gravity device.
And she went back to China for a little bit and then came back here.
mike baker
There's been some talk about various people, Salvatore Pais and some others, who have been working on supposedly on things similar, various propulsion systems, anti-gravity.
How do you change the laws of physics?
And I don't know that if...
I don't know how long that could be kept secret for, right?
joe rogan
Could you keep it secret for a little bit, though?
mike baker
Yeah, yeah, you could.
But at some point, you know, it's going to get rolled out and, you know, someone's going to get wind of something.
It's human nature.
And we're always trying, we're always working just like the Chinese are always working against us.
We're always working to understand what they got.
And so, you know, I'm not a big believer that, you know, you keep secrets of an immense nature like that for a long period of time.
joe rogan
Well, if they did keep it a secret, if that's what the Tic Tac thing was, that was 2004. It's hard to imagine them having that complex propulsion system that's so alien from what we currently know, and have that 20 years ago and no one hears about it?
mike baker
That's a long time.
I've been in conversations with some folks who want to do a new series on UAPs.
I keep coming back to that incident and Fravor and the folks that were involved in those sightings as one of those things.
A lot of things can be explained away.
That one still is a tough one.
joe rogan
That's a tough one.
mike baker
There were a lot of eyes on target.
Radars and the wingmen.
There was a lot of things here that Just the physical movement of it.
joe rogan
If all the machinery works, if all the sensors work, if all the detection equipment, if all that stuff is accurate, that thing's doing something that no one's ever even seen before.
mike baker
Oh, no, absolutely.
No sign of propulsion system, speed of movement, change of direction.
Everything was so bizarre.
But that's, again, what we're looking for.
And we're moving, and eventually we get in that direction, right?
Eventually you have an explainable technology that could create something like that.
Right.
No, maybe.
joe rogan
That's 2004 is so long ago in terms of technology.
mike baker
Yeah, I know, right?
joe rogan
It sounds crazy, but 20 years ago, it was a fucking totally different world.
mike baker
Well, there's that exponential advancement of technology as you go along and as you create things.
joe rogan
Which is really crazy if that was ours.
So if we had something like that in 2004, who, where, what, how, how much Where'd you get the smart guys?
mike baker
I don't think that would have been the case because I think that we wouldn't have heard about it because I think they would have had a classified briefing with Fravor and say, you saw nothing.
Don't worry about it.
You know, it's all done.
joe rogan
Do you think that's the case or do you think they allow some talk about it because a lot of the talk is nutty anyway?
A lot of these people that believe in UFOs, I am open-minded about the idea, to a certain extent, but a lot of these people, they could be telling you Bigfoot stories.
It's like the same kind of folks.
There's people that just see shit, and it makes their life way more interesting, and then there's people that have really seen those things.
I have good friends that have seen things, that have seen bizarre things.
mike baker
How did that move that fast?
joe rogan
We've talked about that, yeah.
mike baker
And I agree.
I've talked to a couple of pilots that were out in Iraq, and they said, we were flying nighttime, saw shit that we couldn't explain.
We had no idea what the fuck it was over the skies of Iraq while we were on a sortie.
And so, yeah, I'm- Well, then it gets to, like, Tucker Carlson territory.
joe rogan
He believes they're like spiritual beings.
mike baker
Yeah, I'm not sure.
joe rogan
He thinks they're like interdimensional travelers or something.
mike baker
Skinwalker Ranch.
joe rogan
If that's true, then the world just got so much weirder.
Imagine us trying to deny that this whole time, but that's really what was going on.
mike baker
Yeah.
Although, you know what?
It would help to explain a lot of things, maybe.
At least it wouldn't seem like we're...
I don't know.
You know me.
I'm not a conspiracy theorist.
I don't believe that people can keep secrets for a long period of time.
joe rogan
But what about the Kennedy papers?
mike baker
Well, there is that.
Okay.
All right.
Or the one that we talked about this before, Martin Luther King.
Yeah.
joe rogan
That's another one.
mike baker
That's the one that if you're going to really dig in, you're never going to shift me off the position that there were state, local officials, federal, whatever, involved in that.
It just doesn't make sense still.
joe rogan
Some conspiracies are real.
mike baker
Exactly, yeah.
joe rogan
Some of them are real.
Oh, yeah.
mike baker
Yeah, and you go back to the UIP thing, it'd be insane to say that there's no such thing.
joe rogan
My favorite one is the Roswell one, because if that one's real, the Roswell crash of 47. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
mike baker
I don't know.
That one, I'm not, yeah, I don't know.
I don't know.
Seriously, I don't know.
You're looking at me like, you know.
joe rogan
It's an interesting one.
mike baker
You just looked at me like, you know.
Come on, bro.
joe rogan
If you know, you wouldn't tell us.
That's the problem.
Or would I? No, you wouldn't.
You wouldn't be able to.
But maybe if you wanted to give me more disinformation, you could give me some nonsense on it.
mike baker
There's a whole segment of society out there that believes that I'm just here to push disinformation.
That's my job.
joe rogan
Well, you're here because you're a nice guy and you're a smart guy and you actually know what you're talking about.
And so I don't.
I know what I read and I go, oh my god, what does that mean?
And so I can have you in here and you can explain things from a guy who actually understands the conflict.
You had the best explanation of what's going on in the Middle East I've heard yet.
mike baker
Well, thank you.
Do you mind if I do, now on the heels of that, do you mind if I do a little shameless marketing?
joe rogan
Oh, do some shameless marketing.
mike baker
Okay, so you know, we've got the President's Daily Brief, the podcast.
And that started up in September.
It's done remarkably well, despite me being the host.
So it's every morning, every afternoon, we touch on, we hit the top issues, critical issues of the day, international stories, conflicts, whatever.
And because it's done well, that's the weekdays, that they're going to launch a weekend version, extended weekend version, on our YouTube channel.
So we're going to video.
So, starting Saturday, May 18th, we're going to take the PDB. It's going to still be during the weekdays on Spotify and all your other podcast platforms.
But then on Saturday, May 18th, we start with this, the Situation Report.
It'll be an extended version on YouTube with video.
We're going to have guests, which leads me to my question of, how do you interview guests?
But it's going to be great.
News, commentary.
We're going to have some very interesting people.
Same idea.
Touching on critical issues and stories.
We're going to just stick with the facts.
We're going to stay away from opinion, which I think is one of the reasons why the PDB has done well, is that it's 20 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes in the afternoon.
We hit the facts.
Try to stay away from opinion.
Occasionally, I might make some stupid remark.
But for the most part, it's just a little bit of context.
And then you get on your way.
Bob's your uncle.
joe rogan
A little bit of personality flavored in with...
mike baker
A little personality.
Yeah, I try not to inject too much because nobody wants that.
But yeah, it's good.
joe rogan
People need to hear these kind of balanced perspectives on things.
I think it's very important that you provide it because you're actually a person who really understands these conflicts.
Because most of us, the whole idea behind it is so alien.
Like, what the hell's going on over there?
It takes so long to try to penetrate.
Who's funding that?
And then Iran is doing what?
So why do they want that?
Oh, there's accords?
What do the accords mean?
And what happens?
Oh, okay.
All that stuff is fucking complicated.
It's hard to find a singular source where you can just sit down and read it all.
And have it all make sense to you.
mike baker
Well, and I think that was the reason why we talked about that.
That was the reason why I said, okay, I agreed to do it, was because they said, look, we want to stick with the news, right?
We want to try to get back to the old days.
Here's the news.
And again, there's going to be a little context or analysis in there.
But for the most part, just give people what's happening.
Tell them what's happening.
Don't tell them how to think about it, necessarily.
Just tell them what's happening.
And the President's Daily Brief's got a great staff.
You know, it's not like I'm doing everything.
I'm just sort of like the monkey crashing the cymbals together.
joe rogan
There's a very unfortunate sort of combining of the people that give you the news with people that think they're activists.
You know, or people that think that it's very important that you stick to a very specific narrative and ignore information that's contrary to what your belief system says.
mike baker
Well, if all you do is just say, here's what's happening, right?
Here's what we know is happening, right?
And you don't try to, again, you don't try to tell people what to think, and you don't try to say, okay, we're going to approach it from a particular point of view and leave out half of what's happening, right?
joe rogan
Right.
mike baker
Yeah, so just, and it's like that old thing, you know, there's still some news outlets out there that do a good job of just presenting facts, but most of them, you know, like you pointed, most of them are opinion-based.
Right.
You know, if you look at...
If you sort of look at the...
There's a survey that regularly looks at the news in terms of objectivity, right?
And it changes somewhat.
And interestingly, your show doesn't change much, right?
It's always kind of...
It's right up there in terms of...
Because you're not...
You know, other news outlets disappear off of there, or they change position in terms of relative objectivity, right?
But yours has been very consistent.
But you've got outfits like Fox News or CNN, and they'll drop off the radar, right?
Because they become nothing but opinion, right, for a period of time.
Then maybe they self-correct, and they realize we need more news, we need more facts.
So they'll come back on the survey and come up higher in terms of relative credibility of actual news.
So anyway, it goes back to our original story.
Everybody's got to be a little bit more careful because it's getting more dangerous out there in terms of disinformation.
joe rogan
It's getting weird.
It's getting weird when, you know, we've talked about this before, but it's an important number.
This guy who used to work for the FBI who analyzed Twitter and said he believed that it was as much as 80% of them were bots.
mike baker
Seriously?
joe rogan
Yeah.
mike baker
I did not see that.
joe rogan
Pull that up, Jamie.
It's crazy, because he might be right, man.
Like, there's really sophisticated ones.
mike baker
Oh, yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
You know, and then there's ones that are very crude.
There's ones that are just like a bunch of letters and a bunch of numbers.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
And it's someone just retweeting like patriotic things.
And you know, okay, I know what that is.
Top cybersecurity expert claims that more than 80% of Twitter accounts are probably bots.
This is 2022. So this was in the process of Elon buying this.
All this stuff was going on.
mike baker
So that's interesting.
joe rogan
Yeah, they were looking at this and they were saying, like, when did he buy it?
jamie vernon
I think that's part of the catalyst, I thought, because he wanted to find out how many were bots.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
But they told him it was 5%, I think.
mike baker
Is that right?
You mean old Jack?
What's his name?
The guy that ran Twitter.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
But I think Elon felt like they didn't base it on enough of an analysis.
They based it on a small number of accounts.
mike baker
I can't imagine it's 80%, right?
I can't imagine it's...
joe rogan
That sounds crazy.
mike baker
Yeah, it does sound insane.
I'm sure it's higher than 5%.
jamie vernon
It sure sounds insane.
joe rogan
Sure sounds higher than 5%, tweeted Musk, along with the tag in the news article.
Okay.
So Dan Woods, global head of intelligence and cybersecurity company F5, who spent more than 20 years at the U.S. federal law enforcement and intelligence organizations, told The Australian that more than 80% Of Twitter accounts are probably bots.
That's so nuts.
Yeah, it's somewhere between 5 and 80. Even if he's halfway right, even if it's 50%, let's just say 50, 40. Let's even say 40% is crazy.
40% of our bots?
mike baker
And then, but that is, that's probably, you're probably getting to accurate because just the Chinese alone, right, and the Russians, they invest an enormous amount of resource into this because they know it's effective, right, and they know how damaging it can be, and why wouldn't you, right?
joe rogan
Why wouldn't you?
And this cyber era, you know, it's a way to influence people's opinions.
It really is.
It's crazy how well it works.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
And if you can just get, like, arguments going on Twitter, you know, people get engaged in those, and you need to, like, start a fire and run away from it.
mike baker
Yeah, yeah.
Can I ask you one more question?
Yeah.
What would be your best advice for interviewing people?
Because, like I said, we're starting this show, and it's going to have guests on it.
Do you have one thing that you've learned over the years in terms of talking to people and getting the best out of what they say?
joe rogan
I think it's just a numbers thing.
I don't think it's one thing.
I think it's like everything else.
You realize when you're being clunky.
I do it all the time.
I'm like, yeah, I interrupted too quick.
I didn't know when to step in, when not to.
It happens all the time.
And so you always got to try to get the most out of your guest.
My idea when I go into a conversation is, I want to talk to, and we're going to talk to each other, but I'm just trying to get the most out of you.
I'm trying to encourage what you're saying, just ask more questions.
I'm trying to just genuinely engage with what you're saying and get the most out of you.
The problem with a lot of people when they host things is generally you want to talk, and so if you want to talk, you start talking.
And then sometimes you talk too much, and then the guest doesn't talk enough, and it's a balancing act.
But I always go into it with the intention of whatever this person's doing, help them make it the best version of this discussion that I can provide.
mike baker
Yeah.
No, I know what you mean about the...
Because, like, you go on a news show, and the question is five minutes, you know, and you think, okay, well, that question includes a lot of the talking points that you producers asked me to send to you.
unidentified
So...
mike baker
So, alright then.
Okay, that makes sense.
joe rogan
Those shows are so limited, man.
It's a real problem.
Because if this is how most people consume complex information, it's too limited.
Just your explanation of all the shit that's going on with Gaza and Israel, just that alone, that had to take 15 minutes, right?
mike baker
Yeah.
joe rogan
And you're making these summaries that are easily digestible.
mike baker
And they'll say, okay, we've got 30 seconds left.
How are they going to solve the problem in Gaza?
unidentified
Jesus Christ!
joe rogan
So crazy!
It's just like that format of a limited amount of time to talk about complex things.
In this day and age, it just doesn't really make sense anymore.
mike baker
But it's how people, I mean, whether it's that or whether it's the, you know, I get my news from TikTok, I get my news from X. No, that's the way to get it.
joe rogan
TikTok's the way to get it.
They're going to be the most honest.
When you find out the difference between American TikTok and Chinese TikTok, Chinese TikTok's doing it right.
It's all like science achievements, athletic performances, martial arts.
mike baker
There's no way that the Xi regime would never let their youth get on American TikTok.
joe rogan
You think you could be a dude giving makeup tutorials on Chinese TikTok?
They'll fucking find you.
They'll find you.
mike baker
No, it's true.
And so that's always a thing when I talk to my kids about it.
I always tell them, don't use TikTok.
Don't get on TikTok.
joe rogan
They're gonna do it.
mike baker
They're gonna do it.
joe rogan
Their friends are on it.
Everybody's on it.
It's crack.
mike baker
Yeah, it is.
joe rogan
Those kids are cracked out.
mike baker
It's an incredible time suck, which again, they know.
The Chinese regime knows.
They understand this.
But think about TikTok in terms of its disinformation capabilities going into an election.
And the White House has a problem, right?
Because the Biden campaign team has been using TikTok.
And at the same time, they're trying to say, we shouldn't use TikTok.
I think it's a danger.
It's a national security issue.
But we found it very effective for reaching the young market, right?
And so they have no grounds to stand on when they talk about a national security issue.
They got a problem.
They got to figure that one out.
Again, not to get overly political, but...
joe rogan
They're dancing with the devil.
mike baker
Yeah, you made a deal with Xi.
Xi, sorry.
joe rogan
That's the thing, is if there's this little dance, they can make you more effective and make your opponents less effective.
That's a crazy manipulation of the way people think about things.
You don't think that that's true, but it's just like, what...
What percentage of what side are you getting?
If you're getting like 80% of your information that's very specific to one ideology, that's not good for anybody.
mike baker
And kids aren't thinking about that.
It's been a progression, right?
It used to be from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
That's where young people were getting their news, right?
Now they've aged out, and now young people are turning to TikTok, and they're getting their news.
And they're not thinking, okay, of course they're not thinking about it.
They're not thinking, I wonder if the Chinese regime is constructing this in a certain way.
But of course they are.
And of course they understand.
And that's really the danger.
People talk about the danger of TikTok as their ability to harvest personal information.
And that's a problem to some degree.
But the bigger problem is 170 million American users of TikTok...
Being vulnerable and reachable by a Chinese regime that does not have our best interests at heart, by any means, right?
So that's the bigger issue, I think, rather than the harvesting of personal data, which Amazon and Google and everybody else, how it has it, right?
They got all that shit.
So it's not, you know, yes, it's a hostile regime, and yes, they're harvesting your data, but, you know, I think it's more of the disinformation campaign and the potential for that that is the problem with TikTok.
joe rogan
Because if you can't control...
Like if rather if you can control if you can control exactly what percentage of stuff gets out like if someone if you can limit someone's reach Like if someone posts something and it's some right-wing philosophy And they post that and they immediately tag it as such and limit its reach.
But then you take the other one and you expand its reach, whatever the contrary position is, and you promote it and you push it out everywhere.
How much of an effect does that have on young people?
mike baker
And that's the whole point of the game anyway, is, you know, you're suppressing and you're promoting, and again, you're doing it to an audience for the most part that is very vulnerable.
And so, yeah, again, I don't know that they're going to ban TikTok.
Somebody's going to come in and view that as an opportunity buy, right?
And I think, so, they will be able to sell it, even though right now ByteDance is saying, absolutely not, we're not going to sell it, you know?
I think they probably will, right?
I don't see them banning it from app stores.
So, I mean, think about the angst that would create amongst the tweens and the teens.
joe rogan
Well, I think the fear is the language that's being used here, though, too, right?
That this could be interpreted as the ability to censor other social media sites.
mike baker
Sure, sure.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
And that you really can't give the government that power, especially based on what they saw in the Twitter files.
mike baker
Yeah.
joe rogan
You can't just suppress.
If you're looking to suppress accurate information because you don't like what you think that's going to do for an election, that doesn't seem like you should be able to do that.
This seems like that's not good.
Don't do that.
If you develop an organization that is allowed to do that to all of social media by law, You're in territory that's real slippery now because it's just so ripe for corruption.
mike baker
Right.
And it always goes back to this, which you talked about before, which is this idea that, well, okay, if one president can do this to another former president, then the next one goes, the next one goes, and it's the same problem, right?
Hey, it maybe sounds good to us right now to censor something or to suppress something.
But we're not going to be in charge forever, unless they've figured that out, how they can be in charge forever.
joe rogan
It's so dangerous.
It's so dangerous that it's so ubiquitous.
It's so everywhere.
And you don't know how much of what people are seeing is being manipulated.
Right.
mike baker
Right.
Well, again, not to beat a dead horse, but if people could take away one idea, it's incumbent upon you, whether it's for you or whether it's for the sake of your kids, to be curious and to actually make the fucking effort.
To understand what it is that you're seeing and reading and hearing.
And, yes, it takes time and, you know, maybe it sounds daunting and you'd rather have the government do it, right?
But that's not a good idea, right?
I think it comes down to individual responsibility, like a lot of things in life.
And I don't know that I'm optimistic about that as being the solution.
I don't see another way around it, right?
I mean you we can detect we can we can create apps to Protect and be proactive you can do all those things which are incredibly important But ultimately it comes down to the individual and if they don't take it upon themselves Yeah to go back to our earlier point then you know fucked yeah well I have hope Look at you!
Look at you!
Glass half full.
joe rogan
I'm a half full kind of guy these days.
I feel like...
mike baker
That's because you got kids.
joe rogan
It's also because I know that most people are good people.
And that I think people get swept up in madness.
And I think they get swept up in tribalism.
And that's a real problem with someone that's as polarizing as Trump.
Right?
mike baker
Yeah.
joe rogan
And it's a real problem because you have to accept the nonsense that Biden is okay.
If you're on the left, like both of them are like, they lock up like the fucking Dolphins versus the Raiders.
And then people get on teams, man.
They're like, fuck the Dolphins!
That's what it is.
It's just people get super fucking tribal.
It's in our nature.
We have to fight to avoid it.
mike baker
Yeah, and the more extreme that you get on one side, the more extreme the other side gets.
Because they think, look, and again, you get this notion that I'm saving the country, one side or the other, right?
Both sides.
The hard edges of both sides feel like they're the ones that are trying to save the country.
joe rogan
Yeah, and they have to win, just like they want the Yankees to win!
It's really like that.
It becomes the number one team.
It's the biggest sport.
And, you know, that's why it's important to have a big personality.
It's part of the whole stupidity of it all.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
And AI is going to save us from that.
mike baker
You think that?
joe rogan
Yeah.
mike baker
You don't believe that.
joe rogan
AI is going to take over.
mike baker
It's going to be a much better government.
joe rogan
It's going to be a much better government.
It won't even be controlled at all by people.
It runs on its own algorithm that it created after it realized the flaws.
The way human beings are processing reality.
mike baker
Do you know what the US government's trying to do right now?
They're trying to get China and Russia to sign up to an agreement, essentially an international treaty, that would ensure that AI does not alone run nuclear weapons systems, right?
And there's no treaty that prevents that right now.
There's no treaty that prevents Taking the humans out of that decision-making process.
joe rogan
Oh my god.
mike baker
So, I mean the Russians did during the Soviet Union days.
joe rogan
So they're gonna be playing like some kind of crazy World War chess game.
mike baker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
With supercomputers.
mike baker
Yeah, but right now, the U.S. is committed to this idea that we're not going to take the human out, but the Russians and Chinese have not.
joe rogan
No one's going to commit to that.
Why would you commit to the best weapon of all time?
We already said that these fighter pilots can't compete with these things that are AI controlled.
That's nuts.
mike baker
Yeah.
It's a problem.
I was about to say that.
There's a statement of the obvious.
joe rogan
Top Gun 3 is fucked.
What are they going to do?
What is Top Gun 3 going to do?
mike baker
I didn't see Top Gun 2. Well, you're un-American, sir.
Did you watch it?
joe rogan
I watched a little bit of it.
It was fun.
unidentified
It was fun.
I wasn't in the mood to lock in that vibration.
mike baker
I know.
joe rogan
It's a fun kind of movie, though.
mike baker
It was a one-time.
For me, Top Gun was kind of a one-time...
joe rogan
TopCon was fucking great.
mike baker
It was a great movie.
joe rogan
It was great.
mike baker
Goose, God.
joe rogan
Yeah.
mike baker
And I will say, I'm very impressed with Carl.
I haven't heard him snore this entire show.
joe rogan
He's kept it together today.
mike baker
God, he's a cute dog.
joe rogan
He's the cutest.
mike baker
Yeah.
unidentified
All right.
joe rogan
Mike, anything else?
mike baker
No, man.
joe rogan
He sufficiently scared the shit out of us.
mike baker
I'm sorry about that, man.
joe rogan
Like you always do.
But again, we have hope.
mike baker
This is always a pleasure, man.
I love this, and I've said it before, but...
You know, the time flies by.
You sit down and you think, I don't know.
I don't know if I've got enough to say in the time here.
And you always, you know, yeah, you always take it someplace.
Like the Kendrick Lamar thing.
I'm still fucking worried about that.
joe rogan
Yeah, I hope they hug it out.
mike baker
All right.
joe rogan
Thank you, Mike.
I appreciate you people.
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