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Joe Rogan Experience #1373 - Kyle Kulinski

Kyle Kulinski is a political activist, progressive talk radio host, social democratic political commentator, and the co-founder of Justice Democrats. His show “Secular Talk” is available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/SecularTalk

Joe RoganhostKyle KulinskiguestGuestguest
Oct 30, 20192h 19mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:0015:00

    Boop, here we go.…

    1. JR

      Boop, here we go. Hello, Kyle.

    2. KK

      Hey, man. What's going on?

    3. JR

      What's going on, buddy?

    4. KK

      Good to see you again.

    5. JR

      Good to see you in your wonderful pink shirt.

    6. KK

      Yeah. It's, uh, it's confident, right?

    7. JR

      Pink and gray, it's like you're, you're confident, you got a lot of shit going on.

    8. KK

      Yeah. The lowdown on this though is, uh, I was supposed to get this dry cleaned when I was in Tennessee for Politicon, which was just a few days ago, and then even when I got here. I was like, "I gotta get this dry cleaned, go on Rogan show." Of course I didn't, but it doesn't look too wrinkly.

    9. JR

      It looks good.

    10. KK

      Thanks, man.

    11. JR

      It looks very good.

    12. KK

      Appreciate it.

    13. JR

      So, tell me what you were saying right when I walked in. I said, "Hold this thought." You were, you were saying that Chelsea Manning is locked up and they're charging her $1,000 a day.

    14. KK

      Yeah. Chelsea Manning is locked up right now because they wanted her to say more stuff against Julian Assange. She's refusing to do it, and they're fining her, I think, it's over $1,000 a day. So that shows you, you know... 'Cause before that, we were talking about Snowden.

    15. JR

      Yeah.

    16. KK

      And that shows you that they do not mess around when they feel like you're uncovering their BS.

    17. JR

      Yeah. Now, what are they trying to get from Julian Assange? Like, what do they have on him?

    18. KK

      Well, Julian Assange, there's a, there's a couple reasons why they despise him. But, um, he has no political home right now, particularly because it used to be Democrats that defended him.

    19. JR

      Right.

    20. KK

      But then he pissed off the Democrats because he leaked on the DNC-

    21. JR

      Right.

    22. KK

      ... and he showed, you know, what was going on with Hillary behind the scenes-

    23. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    24. KK

      ... and how the primary was basically rigged against Bernie Sanders. So Democrats used to like him, now Democrats hate him. And Trump used to like him when he said, uh, when he was getting this information on Hillary, but they hate him as well because Trump has basically been convinced by the people around him in the White House that this guy is dangerous because this guy basically exposed US war crimes. That's why they're coming after him, because he released a video which showed that we were killing civilians and then we circled back around and did what's called a double tap where we killed the first responders. And the idea at the time was, "Oh, it's okay, we're going after Al-Qaeda." But come to find out that wasn't Al-Qaeda, they were innocent civilians, and then there were the medics that came afterwards. And so Julian Assange thought, "Hey, listen. This is not something we should be doing and the American people deserve to know about this. This shouldn't be top secret. This is a war crime." And so he released that, and then that's why they're coming after him and throwing the book at him. Because, you know, just like with, um, Mike Revell previously... Daniel Ellsberg actually is who I'm thinking of. Just like with Daniel Ellsberg when he, uh, showed the, what we were doing in Vietnam and how we were killing civilians, they do not want you to expose their war crimes. They will throw the book at you and act like you're a, a spy, you're working for a foreign country, you're a traitor. Because they wanna keep that stuff under wraps because it really embarrasses them and it really shows what US empire is doing around the world.

    25. JR

      That was that collateral murder video?

    26. KK

      Yes.

    27. JR

      Yeah.

    28. KK

      Mm-hmm.

    29. JR

      It, what's really bizarre about this is how no one speaks out against it. No one. No one on the right, no one on the left. It's just this thing now.

    30. KK

      Yeah.

  2. 15:0030:00

    Yeah. …

    1. JR

      Yeah.

    2. KK

      ... and control the region.

    3. JR

      (inhales deeply) It's so disturbing when it's that transparent.

    4. KK

      Exactly, but that's, see that's- it's interesting because-

    5. JR

      But is it better?

    6. KK

      Well, that's what I was just about to say next is that some people make the argument that, well, at least there's no tap dancing bullshit.

    7. JR

      Yeah.

    8. KK

      Whereas with all- all the other presidents, they have this- this like fake holier than thou attitude where they really can, like, put a happy face on a- a disgusting thing like empire. Where Trump is, and I think it's fair to say, he's like too stupid to really go through the tap dance. And so people are like, "Hey, there it is." It's like, "It's right in front of our face." But what's interesting about him is he says both things at the same time. Like he has the political instincts enough to know that people think war is generally bad. So he always goes out there and he talks about how he thinks war is generally bad, and "We gotta get our troops out of the Middle East. I don't know why we're there. It's so stupid to do in the first place." But when you look at what he's actually doing, it doesn't match his rhetoric. So I don't know if you remember this, but like a year or so ago he tweeted, uh, "We're getting out of Afghanistan finally after all these years. We've been there for 18 years. It was terrible. We should have never been there in the first place." And then we just didn't get out. He said that, acted like we were gonna do it, and then the generals behind the scenes were like, " (laughs) That's a good one." And we never got out. And then he just stopped talking about it. We're still there. (laughs)

    9. JR

      Yeah.

    10. KK

      But he sa- he just says it. He's like, "Oh, we're gonna get out of Iraq." Then he doesn't do it. So what happens is he gets... It's actually, politically it's- it comes across sometimes as a positive because nobody follows up with it, and the media doesn't do their job and say, "Wait, we didn't actually get out of there."

    11. JR

      Yeah.

    12. KK

      But, so it comes across as a positive politically 'cause he's still doing the head fakes towards non-intervention which people agree with, but it's business as usual behind the scenes.

    13. JR

      How much time do you think he actually spends on any of these things? And if he does spend time-

    14. KK

      (laughs) A bunch.

    15. JR

      ... how does he have the time to do these interviews? How does he have the time to tweet? How does he have the time to watch Fox News?

    16. KK

      (laughs)

    17. JR

      I mean, I really wanna know, like, how much interaction he actually has with his cabinet. Like how much interaction does he actually have with the generals? How much interaction?

    18. KK

      That's- that's the dirty little secret, Joe, is that-

    19. JR

      It can't be much.

    20. KK

      It's not, because what he really does is he watches Fox News all day and tweets out their videos.

    21. JR

      Yeah.

    22. KK

      And- and he tweets all day.

    23. JR

      Well how... Yeah, right.

    24. KK

      Right.

    25. JR

      How can he be doing that and then also doing what we think you should do? Look, I don't have any time and all I do is do podcasts.

    26. KK

      (laughs) That's right.

    27. JR

      So I watch him and I'm like, "This doesn't make any fucking sense."

    28. KK

      No. So here's the thing, and there was a story that was reported before he became president. I think it was after he got the Republican nomination. There was this interesting story that it wasn't discussed too much, but I thought it was fascinating because, uh, the Trump team apparently approached John Kasich, who's just like kind of a standard establishment Republican. He was the governor of maybe in Ohio, uh, but I'm not sure. S- it was one of those states over there, but anyway.

    29. JR

      Yeah, it was Ohio.

    30. KK

      So he approached John Kasich and basically said to him by s- behind the scenes, "Hey listen man, if I end up winning this election, I want you to kind of like be my vice president, run the day-to-day at the White House, take care, dot all the I's, cross all the T's, do all the work like that. And I want to go around the country and keep doing rallies and rile up everybody and get everybody to our side." So basically, and this shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody-

  3. 30:0045:00

    Mm-hmm. …

    1. KK

      got like millions of dollars from Israeli banks. Why? And then this is the guy who they say, "It's okay. He's gonna broker a peace deal between Israel and Palestine." One of the sides has given him millions of dollars. You think that's gonna be a fair peace deal? It's gonna be the most lopsided peace deal in history. And this is the problem is that... And again, for the Trump example, it's just that he kind of rips the mask off and shows you what everybody's doing. Um, but it's not like it didn't happen with Bill Clinton. It's not like... Like with Barack Obama, it was Wall Street appointed his entire administration. I believe he got a list from Citigroup-... to, to, you know, s- put people in his cabinet and it's like, this is the way the system functions. And my opinion is, it should... You shouldn't be taking money from foreign governments. You shouldn't be taking money from corporations because you're gonna be biased in favor of those countries and in favor... Like, look at what happened with Jamal Khashoggi and Trump.

    2. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    3. KK

      I mean, they killed a journalist. They killed a journalist and they didn't even get a slap on the wrist. It was nothing. Why? Again, because we're so intertwined with them, with, uh, business relations and he is making money from them and, and-

    4. JR

      Where is that right now? Like, where-

    5. KK

      Where's what? The Jamal Khashoggi thing?

    6. JR

      What are you- yes.

    7. KK

      As far as I know, it's dead in the water.

    8. JR

      That's crazy.

    9. KK

      But this... Again, the... Look at the difference between how they talk about stuff like this when it's a US ally versus when it's not a US ally. When it's a US ally like Saudi Arabia that does it, there's nothing to see here. But if, you know, if you got a similar story coming, coming out of Iran, for example, who's not a US ally, or they look to go after Maduro... And I'm not saying he's a good guy, but they go after Maduro because he's not a US ally. So they could harp away on all the negative things about him, but we're not having a conversation about Jamal Khashoggi. We're not having a conversation about people being beheaded in the public square for stuff like sorcery, Joe. They kill people in Saudi Arabia for sorcery and witchcraft and drug smuggling and apostasy. If you don't think God is real and you say that in Saudi Arabia, they could kill you. They could cut your head off in the public square. And we-

    10. JR

      Are they really killing people for sorcery?

    11. KK

      Yes.

    12. JR

      Really?

    13. KK

      Yes. They're killing people for sorcery (laughs) . It's crazy.

    14. JR

      The Khashoggi thing is super disturbing because it seems like everybody's like, "Well, what are you gonna do?" Uh, what are you gonna do?

    15. KK

      I know.

    16. JR

      I mean, it would've been cleaner if they just made him have some sort of heart attack or an accident or something along those lines.

    17. KK

      If there was plausible deniability in any way.

    18. JR

      Yeah. The way they did it, it's almost like this guy wanted them to do it a certain way. He wanted them to chop this guy up and put him in bags and deliver him out of the country in suitcases and shit, or whatever the fuck they did, however they got rid of him. You know, it's-

    19. KK

      Yeah.

    20. JR

      ... it's such a disturbing decision that they made.

    21. KK

      Yeah. And they know they're gonna get away with it and again, this is what happens.

    22. JR

      I mean, they have, right? It's been over a year.

    23. KK

      Th- They have. They absolutely have, and they-

    24. JR

      How lo- when was the murder? How long ago?

    25. KK

      I want... Last time I was on the podcast we spoke about it, and last time I was on the podcast was a year ago, so it was over a year ago.

    26. JR

      (sighs) And it's just, whatever.

    27. KK

      Again, if... They're our ally. That means... I mean, they really do... There's so much business that goes on between the US and Saudi Arabia, and the weapons deals and everything, that the argument Trump... Trump actually made this argument in the White House sitting next to, you know, the, the Saudi Crown Prince (laughs) . He's like, "They're b- they're buying so many weapons. It's so tremendous the weapons they're buying." And he holds up, like, the pictures of, "This from Raytheon. This is what he's getting. This is from Boeing. This is what he's getting." And it's like, oh my God. Imagine for a second it's anybody... Like, imagine it was (laughs) a deal like that with, uh, uh, Kim Jong-un. He's like, "We're selling Kim Jong-un these tremendous weapons." (laughs)

    28. JR

      Didn't he threaten us today?

    29. KK

      Who? I didn't see if Kim Jong-un did-

    30. JR

      Didn't Kim Jong-un threaten us today?

  4. 45:001:00:00

    Right. …

    1. KK

      prescription for that.

    2. JR

      Right.

    3. KK

      I'm talking about over-the-counter.

    4. JR

      Right.

    5. KK

      Okay? So, do you think that-

    6. JR

      (laughs)

    7. KK

      ... 'cause I think that would not fully eliminate the market for the much harder stuff, but it would, I think, eliminate a majority of that market because if somebody-

    8. JR

      Yes.

    9. KK

      Right. 'Cause if somebody goes and gets, you know, a more safer alternative, that might not be as strong, but you can go get a safer alternative or get a bunch of a safer alternative, um, then, yeah, why wouldn't you choose that over doing, like, uh, Krokodil, the one that-

    10. JR

      Yes.

    11. KK

      ... melts off your skin if you do it-

    12. JR

      Yeah.

    13. KK

      ... for like a year.

    14. JR

      But that's like a heroin one.

    15. KK

      That's like a heroin one, but-

    16. JR

      The speed ones are the ones that are interesting because they're productivity drugs. And that brings us to Trump.

    17. KK

      Let's do it. This is so much fun (laughs) .

    18. JR

      So, this, there's a, there's a photograph of him. It's a classic photograph because it's after-

    19. KK

      "I love Mexicans."

    20. JR

      Yeah.

    21. KK

      (laughs)

    22. JR

      And he was talking shit about, uh, you know, the wall and it's all rapists and murderers. That-

    23. KK

      And this, I think this was Cinco de Mayo, if I remember correctly.

    24. JR

      So, he's eating a taco bowl and the bowl says, I mean, he says, "I love Hispanics," I think, and I remember watching that.

    25. KK

      (laughs)

    26. JR

      And wha- looking at that photograph going, "Is this motherfucker for real? He really tweeted that? 'I love Hispanics' and he's eating a fucking taco bowl?" Well, the open desk drawer, somebody focused in on it and they realized, this is like years later, they realized that it's all filled with Sudafed. And Sudafed is again the active ingredient, the, you know, one of the, one of the ingredients in Sudafed, it's the active ingredient in meth. And so apparently people take Sudafed and if you take that stuff it gives you like a little bit of a buzz. And if you take large doses of Sudafed, it's essentially like taking, like he's microdosing.

    27. KK

      So-

    28. JR

      He's microdosing meth.

    29. KK

      It's actually a little deeper (laughs) than that which makes it even funnier. He-

    30. JR

      Deeper?

  5. 1:00:001:06:16

    Isn't it sad that…

    1. JR

      created Cuban Twitter to stir unrest and undermine government." I mean, it is ... Listen. This is ...... A tool, right? There's hundreds and hundreds of tools they use.

    2. KK

      Isn't it sad that this is what, like, unfortunately in so many ways, this is what politics has become? Because you and I can sit here and we could have a really good conversation about the minimum wage. What are the pros and cons of it? What do the polls say on the minimum wage?

    3. JR

      Yeah.

    4. KK

      You know, if we went down that path, how would it impact the broader economy? We could have a conversation about unionization. We could have a conversation about healthcare. We could have a conversation about, uh, foreign policy. And you and I can bounce ideas off each other. We could talk about market regulation, all this stuff. But like, that's just not what dominates political culture in today's America-

    5. JR

      Right.

    6. KK

      ... because you just have this dumbed-down conversation where the entire conversation is about stuff like this, or the entire conversation is about, um, the, the individual cult of personality aspect of politics.

    7. JR

      Yeah.

    8. KK

      And that's just really upsetting to a guy like me because w- if we actually have that conversation on policy, I think there's so much more agreement in this country than people realize.

    9. JR

      Yeah.

    10. KK

      You know? And oftentimes, what I say is, "I- if you and I sit here and have a conversation, we agree on something." That's, uh, you know, it's a pretty damn good bet that that's a solid position that a lot of people agree with. But if two politicians in Washington, D, DC agree on something, look out because oftentimes, not always, but oftentimes, they're agreeing to screw you.

    11. JR

      (laughs)

    12. KK

      And that's what just happened with, uh ... Uh, again, this was about a year or so ago. Uh, there was all these headlines, "Bipartisan consensus and agreement on a piece of legislation." It was all, like, flowery, happy language. They agreed to further deregulate Wall Street, which again, is the thing that led to the subprime mortgage crisis in the Great Recession. And this is what you get agreement on between Democrats and Republicans in, in Washington, DC. Every now and then, you'll get two good things like, you know, Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul coming together, or Bernie Sanders and Mike Lee to agree war is bad and we shouldn't aid a genocide in Yemen. Okay, that's wonderful. We all agree with that. But most of the time, it's like, "Let's agree to further help out Wall Street. Let's agree to further, uh, artificially prop up US institutions. Let's agree to, to Wall Street bailouts. Let's agree to more funding for the military industrial complex." And it's like, it would, we would be so much better off if ... And this is an idea that I've been pushing for a while now. Imagine we had a law where every time we had, uh, uh, to vote in a presidential election, the people got to vote directly on the top three issues impacting the country, and that became law. So, let's say in the next, uh, presidential election, one of the questions is ... So it's a national direct ballot initiative law, and th- one of the questions could be, "Should marijuana be legal, taxed, and regulated at a federal level? Yes or no?" And then the American people vote on it, and whatever we say, that becomes law. So, then it would be, you know, be like 65% in favor of it, and so we'd, we'd win on that one, and you can go down the list. And you could have the three most important issues, and that's a way, Joe, I think, to circumvent the corruption in Washington, DC. I mean, one way is you got, you can fight to get money out of politics, so there's not as much corruption. That's a, I think that's honestly a longer and harder fight. But if you do this, uh, national direct ballot initiative law, I really think that that could impact this country for the better. And it's an idea, unfortunately, nobody's really talking about it yet. It's not anything like ... Bernie's, I'm with Bernie on so much of what he's talking about, and I love the guy. But he hasn't spoken about this yet. Tulsi hasn't spoken about this yet. Andrew Yang hasn't spoken about this yet. And again, these are brilliant people who have great ideas.

    13. JR

      Have they discussed it ever publicly?

    14. KK

      They never brought it up. They've never brought it up. I actually brought it up in conversation to somebody in Bernie Sanders' campaign. I brought it up in conversation with somebody in Tulsi's campaign. Um, and I do think that ... I'm not, and I'm not saying that to go after them, because I do think that they're really smart and right on a lot of stuff, and I think that in due time, they might see this position and really like it, and maybe champion it. But it kind of in the same way that Andrew Yang is now going around, and his whole thing is universal basic income, and he's kinda putting that, uh, into the mainstream of society, and now we're seriously talking about it. He's also doing it with, uh, drug decriminalization, which I respect him for. He goes beyond everybody else in saying, "Decriminalize all drugs." So, in the same way that he's popularizing these things and shifting the Overton window, I'm really looking forward to some politician stepping up and, and popularizing this idea, because it's such a simple idea. It would be so easy to implement. And Joe, think of the positive effects of this. I mean, I remember, there was a poll, I think it's in the teens, like something like 16% of Americans still support the Iraq war, which means, like, everybody is against it. Imagine if we got to directly vote on that? We'd be out of Iraq tomorrow.

    15. JR

      But do they understand the implications of pulling out of Iraq and Better than the- Do they understand?

    16. KK

      ... shitty politicians who are corrupt and bought by Raytheon and Boeing and Halliburton.

    17. JR

      Right, right.

    18. KK

      That's what I would say.

    19. JR

      There's gotta be someone who could advise, someone who h- has, uh, an objective perspective on foreign policy, maybe someone who's in the military, who's got boots on the ground, who can tell you, "Okay, here's the problems with pulling out, and here's the pros of pulling out, and here's the cons." And get a, an objective analysis of the situation, so at least people are informed. Instead of just having them vote on it based on public perception, have them vote on it based on something.

    20. KK

      Here's what I'm afraid of. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

    21. JR

      Yes.

    22. KK

      And what history teaches us is that esp- ... And this happened endlessly in Vietnam.

    23. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    24. KK

      Presidents came and went, and they were like, "You know, I don't know. I really don't think we should be doing this." And they would be talked into staying and increasing troop levels by the generals.

    25. JR

      Right.

    26. KK

      And this is not taking a shot at the generals. This is just me saying that when that's your field of expertise, yeah, that's what you're gonna say. "Oh, just let us stay there another five months. Let us stay there another year." Joe, we're at the point now where nobody even bothers to define what victory would mean in Afghanistan, what victory would mean in Iraq.

    27. JR

      Right.

    28. KK

      The origin ... Think about it. What's the original reason we were given? "Oh, we gotta go into Afghanistan 'cause we gotta get Al-Qaeda, because Al-Qaeda attacked us." Okay, that's understandable. Osama bin Laden's dead. He's been dead for so long. There's only 100 Al-Qaeda members, according to our own intelligence agencies, still in Afghanistan. Why are we there? I think it has a lot more to do with the trillions of dollars of mineral wealth that's there. Again, I think it has a lot more to do with the geopolitical power and the, and the, and the chess board of us versus Russia. I mean, they ... You know, the Soviet Union was there, um, back in the 1980s, and like, this was ... We wanted to counter their influence in that region. And again, with Iraq, oil had a lot to do with it as well. The military-industrial complex where, you know, war is racket. As Smedley Butler said, "You can make a lot of money going down this road." So-

    29. JR

      That Smedley Butler, war is a racket.

    30. KK

      Scary.

Episode duration: 2:19:51

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