Joe Rogan Experience #1373 - Kyle Kulinski

1. 0:00 – 0:27

   Intro

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:00

      Boop, here we go. Hello, Kyle.

   2. KKKyle Kulinski0:02

      Hey, man. What's going on?

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:03

      What's going on, buddy?

   4. KKKyle Kulinski0:03

      Good to see you again.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:04

      Good to see you in your wonderful pink shirt.

   6. KKKyle Kulinski0:06

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

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:08

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

   8. KKKyle Kulinski0:11

      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. JRJoe Rogan0:24

      It looks good.

   10. KKKyle Kulinski0:25

       Thanks, man.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:26

       It looks very good.

   12. KKKyle Kulinski0:26

       Appreciate it.

2. 0:27 – 2:34

   Chelsea Manning jailed, Assange targeted, and why whistleblowers have no political home

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:27

      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.

   2. KKKyle Kulinski0:35

      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.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:49

      Yeah.

   4. KKKyle Kulinski0:50

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

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:55

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

   6. KKKyle Kulinski1:00

      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.

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:11

      Right.

   8. KKKyle Kulinski1:11

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

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:14

      Right.

   10. KKKyle Kulinski1:14

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

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:17

       Mm-hmm.

   12. KKKyle Kulinski1:17

       ... 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.

   13. JRJoe Rogan2:31

       That was that collateral murder video?

   14. KKKyle Kulinski2:33

       Yes.

   15. JRJoe Rogan2:33

       Yeah.

   16. KKKyle Kulinski2:34

       Mm-hmm.

3. 2:34 – 6:07

   Drone wars, civilian casualties, and who really authorizes strikes

   1. JRJoe Rogan2:34

      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.

   2. KKKyle Kulinski2:42

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan2:42

      You know what I mean? It's like it n- it doesn't have a home.

   4. KKKyle Kulinski2:44

      Yeah. Well, unfortunately, what you see is it, it becomes very partisan. So when, uh, when Obama is doing drone strikes and killing 90% innocent people, unfortunately, partisan Democrats don't talk about it. Uh, now that Trump has increased drone strikes by 432% over Obama with still a tremendously high civilian death rate, now, uh, you know, maybe some Democrats will talk about it, but Republicans certainly don't talk about it, but-

   5. JRJoe Rogan3:08

      432% over Obama?

   6. KKKyle Kulinski3:10

      432%. That's right.

   7. JRJoe Rogan3:11

      And Obama was a radical ac- acceleration of the Bush administration's drone policy.

   8. KKKyle Kulinski3:16

      That's right. And Trump has increased it even more. And see, that's the problem, is people get mad now that, you know, Trump is at the helm of this stuff, but all of these things now, it's precedent. He's not doing anything that wasn't established beforehand. It was-

   9. JRJoe Rogan3:29

      Can I, can I ask you this though?

   10. KKKyle Kulinski3:29

       Yeah, sure.

   11. JRJoe Rogan3:29

       When you say Trump is doing it, who is ac- exactly making the call? Do they bring this call to Trump and they say, "Hey, you know, we're gonna bomb Yemen, we're gonna do this with drones." And does, does he have to sign off on each individual attack?

   12. KKKyle Kulinski3:42

       That's a great question, and the short answer is I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised if Trump was directly involved in, in some of these instances. I know that his first military raid as president that he approved ended up killing a nine-year-old American girl. Uh, it was Anwar al-Awlaki's daughter, I believe. Um, and, but I also do think that there is this, what you can call the deep state. I know people think that's, like, a conspiratorial term, but it's really not. All that's saying is that the CIA, the NSA, the FBI, these are people who are in these positions of power and they're, they're there throughout all these different administrations. Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan4:16

       Yeah. Snowden talked about that.

   14. KKKyle Kulinski4:17

       Exactly. So that's not conspiratorial.

   15. JRJoe Rogan4:19

       Yeah.

   16. KKKyle Kulinski4:19

       And so when, when you have a kill list and when you have people at the CIA and the Pentagon, by the way, uh, a lot of them are calling the shots, and maybe they just need an okay every now and then from President Trump. But yeah, I mean, uh, I think that there's... It's not just one person making all the decisions. I think that the president does play a role, but I also think it's generals, I think it's people at the CIA, and I think it's this complex web of people who are all kind of involved in this thing that ends up being drastically negative.

   17. JRJoe Rogan4:46

       Yeah. Drastically negative, to put it mildly, right? When you're talking about 90% civilian casualties with drone strikes, that's such a disturbing thing that this continues, that no one says, "Hey, this is, like, grossly ineffective and horrific in its consequences." You're-

   18. KKKyle Kulinski5:03

       Yeah. What they do is, you know, they give everybody a false choice. They make it seem like, "Hey, listen, man. If we're not doing these all-out ground invasions and we're not doing, like, war-war with boots on the ground, well, what do you want us to do? Like, there are bad people out there, we gotta go after these bad people?" So this is, like, the soft power option, if you will. And my response to that has always been, "Yeah, but you do have to follow the Constitution. And the way our system is supposed to work is you can't have the president just declare war and just go and do it. Congress has to approve war. So if you wanted to do a drone war, okay, but you gotta get a declaration of war, tell me exactly which countries you're gonna be doing the bombing in, why you're doing the bombing in, in those countries, and get an approval through Congress." So if you were to come to me and say, "Hey, man. There's an Al-Qaeda cell that's very active in Pakis- Pakistan or whatever, so we wanna approve a drone war." Have Congress vote on it, see what happens, and then move from there. But what we're doing now is it's just baked into the cake that we violate US law, we violate the Constitution, and we violate international law-... with all these bombings because as of right now, we're bombing at least eight different countries and we also have a shadow war going on in Africa. So, it- this-

4. 6:07 – 12:01

   America’s shadow wars in Africa and great-power competition with China

   1. JRJoe Rogan6:07

      We do?

   2. KKKyle Kulinski6:08

      We do, absolutely.

   3. JRJoe Rogan6:08

      What's the shadow war in Africa?

   4. KKKyle Kulinski6:09

      So The Intercept reported on this. I don't know as much, uh, uh, on this off the top of my head, but i- uh, Jamie, if you wouldn't mind please pulling up, uh, an article from The Intercept. There's a shadow war going on in Africa where we're building military bases all over Africa and the idea is, I think that we have these, uh, bases where we can... the drones fly out of and they could go to the Middle East and they can bomb there.

   5. JRJoe Rogan6:30

      Is this also in response to the fact that China is essentially moving into large parts of Africa to extract minerals and-

   6. KKKyle Kulinski6:37

      See-

   7. JRJoe Rogan6:37

      ... natural resources?

   8. KKKyle Kulinski6:38

      Yes. And this is actually super interesting because the China thing, they're doing this Belt and Road Initiative and basically, this is like their version of empire through debt, okay? So what they do is they'll go into... Like, they just made a deal with Iraq. We spent trillions of dollars in Iraq, did an illegal and offensive war. China swoops in and they go, "Hey, listen. What we wanna do is help you guys. We wanna build your infrastructure up. We wanna make your country beautiful, so if you do a deal with us, we're gonna, like, build all the infrastructure with you."

   9. JRJoe Rogan7:08

      We'll give you credit.

   10. KKKyle Kulinski7:09

       Exactly. And then what happens? They turn around and they say, "Okay, well, then you can get a certain percentage of our oil sales," or whatever it might be.

   11. JRJoe Rogan7:14

       Mm-hmm.

   12. KKKyle Kulinski7:14

       So this is... A- and it's funny because there's been this, like, evolution when it comes to, uh, empires. So it used to be, back in the day, you just kinda go up on somebody's shores and say, "Mine. I'm taking it," and you do it by force. Then the US evolved from that and what the US does is it's this cute little trick where we say, "No, no, no. We're not gonna control you directly, but what we will do is take somebody from your native land, prop them up as a dictator, and then they will allow US corporate interests to go in there and kind of exploit the natural resources." But it's intelligent because you're saying, "No, no, we're not in there ourselves," like the British did in India, for example, where they just showed up and they were like, "It's ours." You know, there was a British presence there very clearly. We have people from their native lands take control, but we exploit stuff from them and extract stuff from them. So China took that one step further where it's like, "Okay, no, we're actually gonna provide you with, uh, you know, material wellbeing. We're gonna give you a solid infrastructure," and then it's like, you look at it more like a business deal than an expansion of empire. And honestly, this is one of the weird benefits of having an authoritarian-like system like China does, is they can make a decision (snaps fingers) on a dime.

   13. JRJoe Rogan8:15

       Yeah.

   14. KKKyle Kulinski8:15

       You could just have the, the Communist Party just goes, "Yeah, we're, we'll, we'll do this because this is the best way to do it," and there can be no... nobody can fire back and say, "I don't agree with that. Let's stop it." Here, the way w- western democracies work, it's almost like you have this certain slowness that's built into the process because there's so many checks and balances. And in many ways, that's a good thing. You want a system like that. But in many ways, it provides a strategic disadvantage, at least when you're talking about imperialism.

   15. JRJoe Rogan8:38

       So here's the article from The Intercept. "US Special Operations Numbers Surge in Africa's Shadow Wars. The most dramatic growth and deployment of American elite troops of any region of the globe over the past decade, according to newly released numbers." Uh, Africa. Uh, it says, "In 2006, just 1% of commandos sent overseas were deployed in the US Africa Command area of operations. In 2016, 17.26% of all special operations forces, Navy SEALs and Green Berets among them, deployed abroad were sent to Africa." So this is something that, like, you never hear about.

   16. KKKyle Kulinski9:15

       Never hear about it, never been a vote on it. They just do it.

   17. JRJoe Rogan9:19

       Wow.

   18. KKKyle Kulinski9:20

       It's scary. It's scary the way that it works, how you really do have a deep state, if you will, kinda making decisions and the president just kinda goes along with it. And we're all sitting around here acting like, "Hey, man. Maybe instead of doing that, we could actually, I don't know, use some of our tax dollars to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure," which gets a grade of D+. I mean-

   19. JRJoe Rogan9:39

       But are they doing it because they see a threat? Like, "Exclusive: US has mo-... has more military operations in Africa than the Middle East." Whoa. Now, is this... is it possible because they see a threat?

   20. KKKyle Kulinski9:53

       I think that's the rationalization that they use, but I think it has more to do with power and control. And when you're the world's sole superpower, you don't wanna cede that ground to anybody else.

   21. JRJoe Rogan10:02

       Right.

   22. KKKyle Kulinski10:02

       And so the benefits that come along with that, in their mind, is they can rationalize jacking natural resources from all over the world by saying, "No, listen. You'd rather have us in this position than you would Russia, than you would China," so it's really like this... The idea is, in their own minds, it's like, "We're a benevolent superpower that's only doing this to keep the world order."

   23. JRJoe Rogan10:23

       Well, Mike Baker tried to explain Huawei to me. And one of the things he... Mike Baker from the CIA, one of the things that he was explaining, he said, "You have to realize that there is no such thing as industry independent of government in China." If you have something like Huawei, if you have a giant corporation, they are inexorably connected to the Chinese government and the moves they make are not necessarily designed for, you know, the infinite growth paradigm, this idea that we have in the United States with corporations are beholden to stockholders, they're just trying to make money. That's not what they're doing over there. They have a long game and the long game involves information, involves espionage, involves stealing, uh, trade secrets and, and, and patents from other companies. And so when they're selling them these modems, they've got built-in third-party options. So the third party, meaning China, can extract information. So if your... if someone has this modem and they're using this modem to send information to someone in Beirut, China can also get that information.

   24. KKKyle Kulinski11:28

       Yeah. They do a lot of cyber... I mean, that- that's been-

   25. JRJoe Rogan11:31

       Yeah.

   26. KKKyle Kulinski11:31

       ... a thing that's been known for a long time, that they're... they'll, you know, jack patents and intellectual property and they have this whole, you know, economy that's kinda thriving off technology that's made elsewhere. That's certainly an issue. Um, but also, I would argue that it's probably the case with the US too, that this kinda distinction between corporations and the state is, is largely a veneer because you have such control of our political process because of big money from corporations flowing into the system. So I think that a lot of these decisions that are made, even when it comes to foreign

5. 12:01 – 15:05

   Resource-driven conflicts: from Banana Wars to Syria’s ‘we secured the oil’ moment

   1. KKKyle Kulinski12:01

      policy, are directly in relation to how it will impact those corporations. Like, the thing that I remember was a, a light bulb moment for me back in the day when I first learned about it was, um, the Banana Wars. Have, have you ever heard about this?

   2. JRJoe Rogan12:12

      No.

   3. KKKyle Kulinski12:13

      Back in the day, I think it was in the late 1800s but don't quote me on that, um, we just went into South America and started toppling governments because we wanted to jack their bananas. And it was literally for the, I think, the Chiquita banana company (laughs) that we did that.

   4. JRJoe Rogan12:26

      Really?

   5. KKKyle Kulinski12:27

      Yeah. So when you look at that, you go-... okay, well that kinda distinction between corporation and government is not even really a- a thing here. It's like this veneer that's in between the two, but really, it- it's the powerful moneyed interests and the elites that kinda run everything, and they're- they're married at the hip, whether they're in the government or whether they're in corporations.

   6. JRJoe Rogan12:45

      What year was this?

   7. KKKyle Kulinski12:46

      I think this was the late 1890s. Again, I'm- I'm more than happy to be fact-checked on this. But, um, I remember the first time I read about this, it had to be in college, the Banana Wars. I was like, "That's insane."

   8. JRJoe Rogan12:55

      Kill people for bananas.

   9. KKKyle Kulinski12:57

      (exhales) It's crazy.

   10. JRJoe Rogan12:59

       Well, how about when you- you go throughout history and you find out that a lot of the wars were over salt?

   11. KKKyle Kulinski13:05

       I didn't even know that. I didn't know-

   12. JRJoe Rogan13:06

       Oh my God, they killed people for salt. That's very important back in the day because they didn't have refrigerators. So in order to preserve things and keep them from be- being infected by bacteria, they would pour salt all over their meat and salt all over their fish, and that's how they preserved things.

   13. KKKyle Kulinski13:21

       Right.

   14. JRJoe Rogan13:21

       You could apparently preserve things for long periods of times when you completely cover them with salt.

   15. KKKyle Kulinski13:26

       Yeah, so it's... I guess, I guess it's just always been a thing, that it's like wars over resources.

   16. JRJoe Rogan13:31

       Yes.

   17. KKKyle Kulinski13:32

       Now there's a lot about oil, but like-

   18. JRJoe Rogan13:33

       We- we- we're- we're accustomed to the oil stuff.

   19. KKKyle Kulinski13:36

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan13:36

       Yeah.

   21. KKKyle Kulinski13:37

       Mm-hmm.

   22. JRJoe Rogan13:37

       You know?

   23. KKKyle Kulinski13:37

       And we have- you're right, we have been used to that for quite a while.

   24. JRJoe Rogan13:39

       Yeah.

   25. KKKyle Kulinski13:39

       And it's interesting because what just happened with Syria and Trump, that was fascinating, is he... At first he said, "Oh, we're getting out of Syria. We're getting out of Northern Syria." Everybody went crazy and said, "Oh my God, what about the Kurds?" And then we come to find out, like three or four days later, that he's like, "Well no, we're actually taking these troops from Northern Syria, moving them over into Western Iraq, and they're gonna be doing the same thing that they've been doing from Western Iraq." And then Trump had the nerve to go out there and say, "And we've secured the oil. It's so tremendous. We've secured the oil. We're not gonna make the same mistake like we made in Iraq again." And this is something that he had been saying at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, going back for years. Every year he'd give a speech and, um, he actually said, like, "We should- we should have taken the oil. We should have taken the oil in Iraq because we didn't want ISIS to have it, and we should have it instead of ISIS." And it's like, he's- he actually rips the mask off of everything we're doing because he has no filter.

   26. JRJoe Rogan14:29

       Right.

   27. KKKyle Kulinski14:29

       And it's like, yeah, that was a big part of it. But what he's just admitting in front of the world is international law means nothing. We don't care about, uh, you know, the proper process. We don't care about... Like imagine for a second China did that to us.

   28. JRJoe Rogan14:41

       Right.

   29. KKKyle Kulinski14:41

       And they're like, "No big deal or anything, but we're just gonna go into Texas and we're just gonna jack all your oil. But don't worry because it's okay, we're allowed to do that 'cause we say we're allowed to do that." We'd be like, "What are you talking about?" But we're gonna do that to a sovereign country, Syria, as we pretend like we care so deeply about civilian, or the, uh, Syrian civilians and that's why we're there to protect them? Like, no, we're there to jack their oil. That's what we're trying to do-

   30. JRJoe Rogan15:00

       Yeah.
6. 15:05 – 20:21

   Trump’s ‘head fakes’ on war, nonstop campaigning, and the anti-establishment persona

   1. JRJoe Rogan15:05

      But is it better?

   2. KKKyle Kulinski15:06

      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.

   3. JRJoe Rogan15:12

      Yeah.

   4. KKKyle Kulinski15:12

      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)

   5. JRJoe Rogan16:14

      Yeah.

   6. KKKyle Kulinski16:14

      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."

   7. JRJoe Rogan16:27

      Yeah.

   8. KKKyle Kulinski16:27

      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.

   9. JRJoe Rogan16:35

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

   10. KKKyle Kulinski16:41

       (laughs) A bunch.

   11. JRJoe Rogan16:41

       ... 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?

   12. KKKyle Kulinski16:49

       (laughs)

   13. JRJoe Rogan16:49

       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?

   14. KKKyle Kulinski16:58

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

   15. JRJoe Rogan17:01

       It can't be much.

   16. KKKyle Kulinski17:02

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

   17. JRJoe Rogan17:07

       Yeah.

   18. KKKyle Kulinski17:07

       And- and he tweets all day.

   19. JRJoe Rogan17:08

       Well how... Yeah, right.

   20. KKKyle Kulinski17:09

       Right.

   21. JRJoe Rogan17:09

       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.

   22. KKKyle Kulinski17:17

       (laughs) That's right.

   23. JRJoe Rogan17:17

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

   24. KKKyle Kulinski17:20

       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.

   25. JRJoe Rogan17:41

       Yeah, it was Ohio.

   26. KKKyle Kulinski17:41

       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-

   27. JRJoe Rogan18:04

       Even if you won?

   28. KKKyle Kulinski18:04

       What's that?

   29. JRJoe Rogan18:04

       Why... Well, even if you win, why do you have to rile everybody up?

   30. KKKyle Kulinski18:07

       Well see, he's the first president to c- never stop campaigning. He's always campaigning. He's always doing rallies, and there's a reason why he's doing that, Joe. It's the only thing he loves on this earth. It's that and watching Fox News that he loves. So that's what he does with all of his time. And everything else, yes, he's just... See this is the thing, Joe. He took all these deeply establishment figures, Steve Mnuchin of Goldman Sachs, um-Stephen, oh, I'm forgetting his name. Cohn, something Cohn, Cohen, Cohn? Another guy from Goldman Sachs. He had all these just career insiders, brought them into his administration, whether it's with the economy or with foreign policy. John Bolton, deep neoconservative. You said he, he believed in the opposite philosophy, but then, but then he puts John Bolton in power because he wants the system to keep running as it is and run smoothly while he goes around and just, you know, makes the name for himself and, and talks about how amazing and tremendous this country is and what an a- amazing job we're doing. So, it, it's funny because he has two different personas. One of them is, "I'm gonna pretend to be the anti-establishment guy and rally people up nonstop and be a politician and be good at it." And then the other thing is, behind the scenes, he's like, "Guys, just keep everything running and, and, you know, hold it together with duct tape if you have to before I get out of here."
7. 20:21 – 24:29

   Political judo: the ‘grab ’em’ tape, Clinton accusers, and flipping every scandal

   1. KKKyle Kulinski20:21

      On this topic, I, there's an amazing story. So, during, uh, the election, remember when the, the story broke of, uh, Trump on video saying, "I grab 'em by the pussy."

   2. JRJoe Rogan20:30

      Yeah.

   3. KKKyle Kulinski20:30

      "I don't even wait."

   4. JRJoe Rogan20:31

      Sure.

   5. KKKyle Kulinski20:31

      And everybody blew up, and all of the mainstream media talking heads were like, "Oh my God, it's over."

   6. JRJoe Rogan20:35

      Right.

   7. KKKyle Kulinski20:35

      "He's, he's gonna drop out. It's over. It's done."

   8. JRJoe Rogan20:37

      Right.

   9. KKKyle Kulinski20:38

      What did Trump do at that next debate? This was actually low-key political brilliance. Instead of doing what every other politician would have done, which is basically kinda give in a little bit and be like, (growls) "You got me," what he did, he released a short apology video real quick, got it out of the way. Then the next night was a debate. At the debate, Joe, he brought like eight Bill Clinton accusers-

   10. JRJoe Rogan20:56

       Yeah.

   11. KKKyle Kulinski20:56

       ... put them in the audience-

   12. JRJoe Rogan20:57

       Yeah.

   13. KKKyle Kulinski20:58

       ... and then he goes out there on stage, and when he's asked a question, the first thing he says is, "Listen, I'm not proud of what I said. It wasn't a good thing what I said, but what I did was just words. What Bill Clinton did was actions, folks. It was actions. So, if you wanna see who the real problem is, he's sitting right there in the audience." And the brilliance of that move is this is Politics 101, never really go on defense. Your best defenses are really good offense.

   14. JRJoe Rogan21:22

       Right.

   15. KKKyle Kulinski21:22

       So, he made it a wash. All of a sudden, this issue which was supposed to be-

   16. JRJoe Rogan21:25

       Right.

   17. KKKyle Kulinski21:25

       ... "Oh my God, it's the end of Donald Trump," now the whole conversation shifted to, "I mean, damn, there are a lot of accusations against Bill, aren't there? So, maybe this is a wash, and we should just kinda move on from this topic completely." That's all he had to do.

   18. JRJoe Rogan21:36

       Yeah.

   19. KKKyle Kulinski21:36

       And you see it with every single scandal that Trump's involved in. You see how incredibly pathetic and ineffectual and weak the Democrats are at marketing and strategizing, and you see how good he is because he is... No matter what it is, he's gonna flip it. He's gonna flip it back on you. So, the new thing is the Ukraine thing. I don't know how close you've been following this. But the Ukraine thing, he basically got caught on a phone call asking for dirt on his political opponents. Joe Biden, he was talking to the president of Ukraine, and he said it in so many words. I mean, he likes to say there was no quid pro quo, but there doesn't have to be. It's implied. Everybody knows what you're asking for. You're asking for dirt on your political opponent.

   20. JRJoe Rogan22:08

       Right.

   21. KKKyle Kulinski22:08

       So, everybody's melting down and going, "Oh my God, man, you can't do that. This is violating every rule. This is violating every norm. This is not something any president should be doing, relying on a foreign power to get dirt on your political opponents." What does Trump do? Again, goes right back on the offense, and he goes out there and says, "I have every right as president to investigate corruption, and Joe Biden is incredibly corrupt, and all I'm doing is I'm, you know, trying to figure out, why was Hunter Biden getting $50,000 from an energy company? He doesn't know anything about energy. Why is he getting this?" And so now, again, the conversation isn't, "Man, he, Trump shouldn't have been doing that," the conversation is, "Okay, sure, maybe Trump shouldn't have been doing that, but goddamn, Joe Biden's son and Joe Biden's family is really corrupt, aren't they?"

   22. JRJoe Rogan22:46

       Well, how about the video where d- you, you saw the video where Trump released it, where it was Biden talking about-

   23. KKKyle Kulinski22:54

       Yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan22:55

       ... the loan?

   25. KKKyle Kulinski22:55

       Mm-hmm.

   26. JRJoe Rogan22:56

       Like, explain that.

   27. KKKyle Kulinski22:57

       Okay, so this one, I'll give you what the Democrats say, and I'll give you what the Republicans say. The Democrats say, "Hey man, that's a misleading video because yes, it's true, uh, Biden was holding a billion-dollar subsidy over the head of Ukraine to fire a prosecutor, but Biden wanted to get rid of the corrupt prosecutor and bring in a non-corrupt prosecutor. That's why he was doing what he did and holding that subsidy over their head." And they say, "The prosecutor that eventually came into place actually investigated the Biden family more." So, that's why the Democrats say there's, you know, you're, you're kinda misleading by putting this out there. The argument that Trump is making is, "Well, no, you're holding a billion-dollar subsidy over the head of a foreign government and saying, 'You have to listen to us and do X, Y and Z.'" That's problematic in and of itself.

   28. JRJoe Rogan23:41

       Yeah.

   29. KKKyle Kulinski23:41

       But furthermore, it's like, it's corruption anyway. We know that the only reason Hunter Biden was getting paid $50,000 a month, and actually now people are saying it's not $50,000, it's $83,000 a month, um, is because his last name's Biden, and so it's pay-to-play corruption.

   30. JRJoe Rogan23:53

       $83,000 a month is a lot of fucking money.
8. 24:29 – 31:05

   Impeachment focus, emoluments, and Saudi money flowing through Trump’s businesses

   1. KKKyle Kulinski24:29

      ... which is really weak. But here's the thing, and this is, again, why the Democrats drive me crazy is, like, they picked the weakest of all anti-Trump arguments. So they wanted to use this as like, "Oh, we're gonna try to impeach him over this, and this is gonna be the thing that we're gonna hang our hat on." And Nancy Pelosi even said, "We're gonna limit the scope of the impeachment investigation to only this, only the Ukraine phone call." And then somebody like me, I'm sitting there and I'm pulling my hair out because I could actually give you, like, three or four super legitimate things that are impeachment-worthy. Not that I think it strategically makes sense, and we can get into that if you want to. But, like, the one that drives me crazy is Donald Trump has a hotel in Washington, DC that he owns. Okay? He took $300,000 through that hotel from the Saudi government. So they're funneling him money through his hotel in DC. And then Donald Trump turns around and gives a multi-billion dollar weapons deal to the Saudi government as they're committing a genocide in Yemen. We know they're committing a genocide in Yemen. We know that we're arming them. And he gave them even more weapons because he got that money through his hotel. So for me, I'm looking at that and I'm going, "Oh my God, this scandal has everything." It's got personal corruption, it's got guns going to a vicious genocidal country.

   2. JRJoe Rogan25:37

      What was the money for, the money in the hotel?

   3. KKKyle Kulinski25:39

      Okay. So what they did is they had these, like, little retreats at the hotel, and Saudi Arabia would pay for US veterans to go and stay at these hotels. And they would... I don't know if it's like tours of the capital or whatever it is, but they pay for these veteran groups to go to the hotel. But then, of course, you look at it and you go, "I don't know, man, $300,000?" And the speculation is, well, of course they overpaid on purpose. But furthermore, even if they didn't, Jimmy Carter had to sell his peanut farm when he was president because the idea was, hey, we're not even saying you're doing anything corrupt, but just the fact that you have this personal private business, it is theoretically possible that foreign governments want to give you money through your peanut farm-

   4. JRJoe Rogan26:21

      Right.

   5. KKKyle Kulinski26:21

      ... so you have to sell it because just the existence of it enough i- is enough to say it violates the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, which is just a fancy way of saying that the president can't be corrupt and take money from foreign governments. And Trump is doing that. He just is.

   6. JRJoe Rogan26:35

      Right. So this $300,000 though, this is for services rendered, this is for hotel rooms. What is, what is this for?

   7. KKKyle Kulinski26:40

      Well, that's what they say is it's for, I guess, the meals and the hotel rooms and whatnot.

   8. JRJoe Rogan26:44

      I hate to say it this way, but that's not a lot of money to someone like him.

   9. KKKyle Kulinski26:48

      Well, you know, but then what I always think about when people make that point is you have to flip it. What would we be saying if it was the Clinton Foundation getting $300,000 from the Saudi government, and then Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, approving a weapons deal to Saudi Arabia? And the fact of the matter is, that actually a- is almost exactly like what happened with the Clinton Foundation-

   10. JRJoe Rogan27:05

       Yeah.

   11. KKKyle Kulinski27:05

       ... because Bill Clinton was going around and giving speeches-

   12. JRJoe Rogan27:08

       Yes.

   13. KKKyle Kulinski27:08

       ... at all these, you know, Gulf dictatorships. And then he was getting, you know, 500,000 bucks a pop or whatever it was. And then Hillary Clinton was approving weapons deals as Secretary of State, so...

   14. JRJoe Rogan27:16

       Right. But see, the- I feel like that's a little bit more egregious because these speeches are worthless. Like at least the, the s- the hotel rooms, it's like real. It's real food. He's- it's meals. Like, that actually costs money. These speeches are worthless. That's a d- in my opin- in my opinion-

   15. KKKyle Kulinski27:34

       Mm-hmm.

   16. JRJoe Rogan27:34

       ... those speeches are a transparent bribe.

   17. KKKyle Kulinski27:38

       So do you think though that a president should be able to have private businesses that foreign governments can pay him any amount of money to-

   18. JRJoe Rogan27:44

       No, I don't think so.

   19. KKKyle Kulinski27:45

       Right.

   20. JRJoe Rogan27:45

       I don't. I don't.

   21. KKKyle Kulinski27:45

       Sure.

   22. JRJoe Rogan27:46

       But I just don't think they're comparable. Like, I think with the Clinton Foundation, I think the Clinton Foundation was egregiously gross.

   23. KKKyle Kulinski27:53

       Right. Well, I think both of those things are egregiously gross.

   24. JRJoe Rogan27:55

       Yes.

   25. KKKyle Kulinski27:55

       And I do think it influences him.

   26. JRJoe Rogan27:57

       I think it sure- it sure influences him because there's a deal, right? They have a deal. Even if it's only $300,000, which I know most people hear this, they're like, "That was a lot of money." It's a lot of money to me, but is it a lot of money to a billionaire?

   27. KKKyle Kulinski28:09

       Well...

   28. JRJoe Rogan28:09

       I don't necessarily think it is. And it's- it's also a lot of money that goes through his organization and that it costs money to make that money. So how much m- profit is that? Out of $300,000, it's not that much profit. With- if $500,000 a speech, that's one talk for one hour, and it costs nothing for him.

   29. KKKyle Kulinski28:30

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan28:30

       And he's making a half a million dollars, and he did it over and over and over and over and over again. And it was all under this- the guise of, "The Clinton Foundation is doing this great charitable work all across the country and all across the world." And that to me, was more transparently disgusting.
9. 31:05 – 34:34

   Khashoggi, Saudi brutality, and how ‘allies’ escape consequences

   1. JRJoe Rogan31:05

      Where is that right now? Like, where-

   2. KKKyle Kulinski31:06

      Where's what? The Jamal Khashoggi thing?

   3. JRJoe Rogan31:08

      What are you- yes.

   4. KKKyle Kulinski31:08

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

   5. JRJoe Rogan31:10

      That's crazy.

   6. KKKyle Kulinski31:11

      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-

   7. JRJoe Rogan31:52

      Are they really killing people for sorcery?

   8. KKKyle Kulinski31:53

      Yes.

   9. JRJoe Rogan31:54

      Really?

   10. KKKyle Kulinski31:54

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

   11. JRJoe Rogan31:59

       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?

   12. KKKyle Kulinski32:06

       I know.

   13. JRJoe Rogan32:06

       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.

   14. KKKyle Kulinski32:14

       If there was plausible deniability in any way.

   15. JRJoe Rogan32:16

       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-

   16. KKKyle Kulinski32:32

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan32:32

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

   18. KKKyle Kulinski32:35

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

   19. JRJoe Rogan32:38

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

   20. KKKyle Kulinski32:39

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

   21. JRJoe Rogan32:40

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

   22. KKKyle Kulinski32:42

       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.

   23. JRJoe Rogan32:47

       (sighs) And it's just, whatever.

   24. KKKyle Kulinski32:51

       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)

   25. JRJoe Rogan33:25

       Didn't he threaten us today?

   26. KKKyle Kulinski33:26

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

   27. JRJoe Rogan33:28

       Didn't Kim Jong-un threaten us today?

   28. GUGuest33:30

       I...

   29. JRJoe Rogan33:30

       I think they-

   30. GUGuest33:31

       I was waiting to show you this.
10. 34:34 – 40:13

    Labels and ideology rabbit hole: ‘classical liberal,’ libertarianism, and regulation basics

    1. KKKyle Kulinski34:34

       It... I think both are. I think the idea-

    2. JRJoe Rogan34:35

       Yes.

    3. KKKyle Kulinski34:35

       ... like, liberal, conservative-

    4. JRJoe Rogan34:37

       Yes.

    5. KKKyle Kulinski34:38

       ... they c- cast such a wide net because-

    6. JRJoe Rogan34:39

       And then people like to get sneaky and use, "No, I'm a classic liberal."

    7. KKKyle Kulinski34:43

       Yeah, because it's-

    8. JRJoe Rogan34:44

       Oh, what is that? What is that?

    9. KKKyle Kulinski34:45

       Exactly.

    10. JRJoe Rogan34:45

        You're a fucking Republican.

    11. KKKyle Kulinski34:47

        And it's funny 'cause there's actually... When you actually look at the textbook definition of a lot of these terms, they have multiple meanings.

    12. JRJoe Rogan34:51

        Yes.

    13. KKKyle Kulinski34:52

        So classical liberal, in some instances, means just, like, libertarian-

    14. JRJoe Rogan34:56

        Yes.

    15. KKKyle Kulinski34:56

        ... 'cause that's what it used to mean back in the day. But in today's day and age, like you said, it could mean you're kinda right-leaning.

    16. JRJoe Rogan35:02

        Yeah, it's more right of center.

    17. KKKyle Kulinski35:03

        Right.

    18. JRJoe Rogan35:03

        Cl- They call it... Classical liberal is a very... It's, it's a, it's a misleading term. If, if you, if... Like, classical liberal. Classical liberal is... It's a b- it's a British term. Correct? Isn't it?

    19. KKKyle Kulinski35:15

        Well, I think it, it originally dates back to... It was a way of describing libertarianism. That was what they used 'cause I think it referred to liberalizing the markets. So like-

    20. JRJoe Rogan35:23

        Let's look at the, let's look at the-

    21. KKKyle Kulinski35:23

        ... get rid of the rules.

    22. JRJoe Rogan35:24

        ... perfect.

    23. KKKyle Kulinski35:24

        Yes. Let's-

    24. JRJoe Rogan35:25

        Let's look at the ag- exact definition.

    25. KKKyle Kulinski35:26

        Yep, go for it.

    26. JRJoe Rogan35:26

        Because that's one of those words... I hear people say that and they go, "Well, that guy's republican. Why is he calling himself a classical liberal?"

    27. KKKyle Kulinski35:33

        Yeah. It's... Yes, my point. And, and I don't like labels, period, because they're so amorphous.

    28. JRJoe Rogan35:37

        I don't either. Yes.

    29. KKKyle Kulinski35:37

        And, and people can say... You c- if you... You can ask people. Like, did you know, for example, in the Democratic primary in 2016, self-described conservative Democrats supported Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton, even though Bernie Sanders is literally further to the left than Hillary Clinton.

    30. JRJoe Rogan35:52

        Yes.
11. 40:13 – 45:29

    Drug war consequences: Mexico cartel power, legalization arguments, and unintended gray markets

    1. KKKyle Kulinski40:13

       ... we could talk about... Uh, I'm sure you saw what happened with that standoff between the Mexican military-

    2. JRJoe Rogan40:19

       Yes.

    3. KKKyle Kulinski40:19

       ... and the drug cartel.

    4. JRJoe Rogan40:20

       Yes.

    5. KKKyle Kulinski40:20

       Dude.

    6. JRJoe Rogan40:21

       Dude.

    7. KKKyle Kulinski40:21

       They beat the government-

    8. JRJoe Rogan40:22

       I know.

    9. KKKyle Kulinski40:23

       ... in a, in a standoff, in a battle.

    10. JRJoe Rogan40:25

        Yeah.

    11. KKKyle Kulinski40:25

        And they ended up freeing El Chapo's son.

    12. JRJoe Rogan40:27

        Well, d- did you see when the Sicarios showed up and just started talking to the people in the Mexican military?

    13. KKKyle Kulinski40:33

        Yes.

    14. JRJoe Rogan40:34

        And the Mexican military is like, "Hey, you know, we're just trying to stay alive here. Just what do we gotta do-"

    15. KKKyle Kulinski40:38

        (sighs)

    16. JRJoe Rogan40:38

        "... like let him go." And they're like, "Okay. Sounds good."

    17. KKKyle Kulinski40:41

        And l- listen. It's such a tough situation because the, the drug cartel was just gonna start massacring people-

    18. JRJoe Rogan40:46

        Yes.

    19. KKKyle Kulinski40:47

        ... if they didn't release him. So if you're the president of Mexico, if you're AMLO, what do you do? I mean, if I'm in his position, I go, "Hey, man. I can't have you doing a genocide in a village in Mexico."

    20. JRJoe Rogan40:55

        And they're under-resourced. There's not enough people.

    21. KKKyle Kulinski40:57

        Right.

    22. JRJoe Rogan40:57

        And the Mexican cartel has an unstoppable amount of money.

    23. KKKyle Kulinski41:01

        Joe, the only way to defeat the cartels is to legalize, tax, and regulate drugs-

    24. JRJoe Rogan41:05

        Yeah.

    25. KKKyle Kulinski41:06

        ... because that's how you put them out of business.

    26. JRJoe Rogan41:08

        Yeah.

    27. KKKyle Kulinski41:08

        They can't compete with legitimate businesses.

    28. JRJoe Rogan41:11

        Right.

    29. KKKyle Kulinski41:11

        They can't compete. Like, let's say we had all these growing operations in the US and it was legal at a federal level in the United States. What is somebody gonna wanna do? Are they gonna wanna go to a back alley with a sketchy character to get some drugs, or are they gonna wanna go to Walgreens?

    30. JRJoe Rogan41:22

        Well, I had the author of Hidden War on the podcast. His name is John Norris. And John Norris, he got a job initially as a game warden because, you know, he grew up in the outdoors and fishing and hunting and things like that. And he wanted to be a game warden. Well, along the way, they started finding these Mexican grow ops, these cartel grow ops.... um, all over California. And it got even worse, believe it or not, when they made marijuana legal because now these grow-ops are just a misdemeanor. It's no longer a felony. So, if you have 100 acres on public land that you've decided to revert this, take the water from this creek and send it down there and it kills a bunch of fish and the, they... It's just a misdemeanor for the guys growing the drugs. They-
12. 45:29 – 52:59

    Sudafed drawers, ‘upper’ energy, and the comedy of Trump as a political entertainer

    1. JRJoe Rogan45:29

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

    2. KKKyle Kulinski45:35

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

    3. JRJoe Rogan45:36

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

    4. KKKyle Kulinski45:41

       "I love Mexicans."

    5. JRJoe Rogan45:42

       Yeah.

    6. KKKyle Kulinski45:43

       (laughs)

    7. JRJoe Rogan45:43

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

    8. KKKyle Kulinski45:49

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

    9. JRJoe Rogan45:51

       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.

    10. KKKyle Kulinski45:58

        (laughs)

    11. JRJoe Rogan45:58

        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.

    12. KKKyle Kulinski46:37

        So-

    13. JRJoe Rogan46:37

        He's microdosing meth.

    14. KKKyle Kulinski46:38

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

    15. JRJoe Rogan46:41

        Deeper?

    16. KKKyle Kulinski46:42

        Yes, because there's a certain form of Sudafed that they sell in the United States and then there's a UK version of Sudafed.

    17. JRJoe Rogan46:47

        Ooh.

    18. KKKyle Kulinski46:47

        And the UK version of Sudafed has that, uh, ingredient to it which is more, more of an upper or kind of acts like an amphetamine.

    19. JRJoe Rogan46:55

        Look at this. It says, "The desk drawer full of Sudafed, including boxes in New York perk- purchased from the UK indicate-"

    20. KKKyle Kulinski47:01

        Yep, see?

    21. JRJoe Rogan47:01

        "... that the legal limits of purchase are being circumvented and that the then-candidate Trump was abusing Sudafed for its high rather than its decongestant effect."

    22. KKKyle Kulinski47:11

        Okay, so there's that.

    23. JRJoe Rogan47:13

        Wow.

    24. KKKyle Kulinski47:13

        Now, I, I, I wanna take it a step further because I don't know if you watched this video I sent you a while ago but I was absolutely floored by the contrast between the speech Trump gave at CPAC this year-

    25. JRJoe Rogan47:25

        Yeah.

    26. KKKyle Kulinski47:26

        ... and then the speech Trump gave at the UN this year. The CPAC one, Joe totally off script, bouncing off the walls, an hour and 30 minutes-

    27. JRJoe Rogan47:34

        Yeah.

    28. KKKyle Kulinski47:34

        ... hands moving all over the place.

    29. JRJoe Rogan47:35

        Yeah.

    30. KKKyle Kulinski47:35

        So active, so engaging, making jokes, all this stuff, hilarious, and then you go to the UN speech.... Joe, he's talking like this.
13. 52:59 – 1:00:09

    Online influence ops: Russian troll farms, IRA tactics, and the U.S. doing it too

    1. JRJoe Rogan52:59

       But the thing is, the, the reason why their argument holds some weight at all is because of the IRA, the Internet Research Agency, and that, the, the, the work they've done that was exposed, the Russian stuff, where they're making all of these different Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts, and they're using them to start, to start wars. Like essentially, to start arguments with people about anything and everything, to slander people, to support people. You know, to say, you know, "As uh, a Black woman, I could never support Hillary Clinton." And then they, they make these arguments and it's not really a Black woman's account. It's a Russian, and it's part of this Russian research agency that, uh, Renee DiResta exposed. Do you ever, have you ever paid attention to any of her work?

    2. KKKyle Kulinski53:42

       No, I haven't, but I'm very skeptical on this point because they always make it seem like if that didn't happen, that we'd all be hunky-dory, holding hands and getting along.

    3. JRJoe Rogan53:50

       They're not necessarily saying that.

    4. KKKyle Kulinski53:51

       Okay.

    5. JRJoe Rogan53:52

       But, but they are saying that this was effective, and there's a, a millions and millions of engagements and it flavors conversations. And for a lot of people, and this is a giant percentage of people-... they do not have time to deeply research and understand these things thoroughly. They don't. No one does. They have jobs, and they have mortgages and they have children and they have hobbies and they have friends and, and they're doing all kinds of shit on, you know, when they- w- when they have their time off. They don't have eno- enough time to truly research, like, "Was Ted Cruz involved in the Kennedy assassination?" (laughs)

    6. KKKyle Kulinski54:26

       (laughs)

    7. JRJoe Rogan54:26

       You know what I mean? Like, when you hear a rumor like that, those kind of crazy, ridiculous rumors, they just, they just spread.

    8. KKKyle Kulinski54:34

       Right. Mm-hmm.

    9. JRJoe Rogan54:35

       They just spread. And they spread primarily because ano- most people don't have the time to look into these things. So if you have something like the Internet Research Agency that's been shown to start a bunch of accounts, like they have Black Live Matters accounts, they have, um, separatist, uh, Texas separatist accounts, where they want, you know, Texas to secede for the U., from, from the union and to start their own nation. And then they have these pro-Muslim accounts, and then they have these ... All these different accounts, and they've even organized meetings, where they'll have, like, the p- the pro-Texas account meeting across the street from this Muslim meeting, and they'll do it on purpose. They'll do it just to try to get people to fight, and they have these two different Facebook pages that they're running. And they're r- running them with these m- propped up ideologies. They're pretending that they're this. They're pretending they're a Black Lives Matter organization, or they're pretending that, you know, they're, uh, Puerto Ricans for Trump. Like, it's all ... But it's madness. It's all just starting fights and causing these arguments.

    10. KKKyle Kulinski55:38

        Right.

    11. JRJoe Rogan55:38

        And they're doing this to try to ... Even if it's 1% or 10%, if they can disrupt democracy by 4%, 5% here or there, it's incredibly effective. If they can get a narrative going, and they can sustain that narrative, a bullshit narrative, just through, you know, coming up with these fake things, it has an effect. How much of an effect? I don't know, but it's an effect. If it's 1%, if it's 2%, if they can get a meme past people and you start spreading it through Facebook. And a lot of them, she said ... She looked over 100,000 memes, and she's like, "Some of them were fucking hilarious." And you're reading these, and you're laughing, and you realize, well, they're making these things to l- to make people laugh, and also to try to get a point across. And that point is to, you know, to try to paint Hillary Clinton as a this, or paint Joe Biden as a that, or paint ... You know, and what they're doing is they're starting these groups. And these groups will argue against other groups, and people just kind of go along like sheep. And they don't even know w- who's behind the whole thing.

    12. KKKyle Kulinski56:42

        Yeah.

    13. JRJoe Rogan56:42

        They really think this Black Live Matters group is like African-Americans that are, you know, tired of p- uh, police brutality, but it's not. It's these guys in Russia that are just starting shit.

    14. KKKyle Kulinski56:53

        See, but that-

    15. JRJoe Rogan56:54

        It's weird.

    16. KKKyle Kulinski56:55

        See, yeah. I hear you, but at the same time, the thing that is ... uh, has kind of shocked me is the degree to which this is relied upon and used as the scapegoat to, to not talk about, sometimes, things that are very real issues. And I know, 'cause it's been done. Like they said, with Bernie Sanders, there was this Russian troll farm meme created of Bernie Sanders that's like ... He, he's like rainbow colored, and he's doing like a, you know, a pose where he's showing his bicep to her or whatever.

    17. JRJoe Rogan57:21

        Right.

    18. KKKyle Kulinski57:21

        And like, that was then used by mainstream media to say, "Why is, why is Russia trying to prop up Bernie Sanders? Why is he trying to prop up Bernie Sanders?" So they try to make it seem like, "Oh. Bernie's like a Russian puppet and a Russian asset. And if you support him, well, you've just been duped to support him." And so it's kind of used as this like catch-all thing, where it's like, if I try to bring up a real issue, they, they ... "Well, Russia wants you to talk about that. Why are you talking about that?"

    19. JRJoe Rogan57:44

        Yeah, but this is- see, this is three-dimensional chess, though. This is part of the whole dispute. Part of the whole dispute is, you see something like that, and then people say, "Why does Russia want Bernie Sanders to be president? Why are they propping up Bernie Sanders?" And then this becomes even a more confusing argument. Like, if they do do something like that and they create these funny memes and try to prop up Bernie Sanders, and then the argument s- comes in, like. "Why does Russia want Bernie Sanders to win?" You're, you're ... Everything's getting convoluted. Everything is muddy. Nobody understands what the fuck is going on. That's the point. The point is to sow seeds of doubt and to sort of disrupt democracy. The point is to do this very cheaply and easily through internet accounts.

    20. KKKyle Kulinski58:29

        Yeah.

    21. JRJoe Rogan58:29

        And this is the idea behind it, and if you listen to Sam Harris's podcast with DiResta, or the podcast that I did with her, and sh- when she goes into depth about this, you know, understanding this, and how much time she spent researching this, uh, IRA, this Inter- Internet Research Agency in Russia, and all the work that they do. And they have people working 24 hours a day on this shit. And they're doing it specifically under the behest of the government to try to fuck with democracy.

    22. KKKyle Kulinski58:57

        I just think we have to be really careful. Point taken. I just think we have to be really careful to make sure that that doesn't distract us from focusing on issues that really do matter, because oftentimes I've seen ... That's invoked to kind of shut up the talk about real issues. And I'd also add, on top of that as well, the dirty little secret that we never talk about in this country is that we actually are doing the exact same thing.

    23. JRJoe Rogan59:19

        Oh, for sure.

    24. KKKyle Kulinski59:20

        Yeah, and-

    25. JRJoe Rogan59:21

        For sure.

    26. KKKyle Kulinski59:22

        And it, it ... I remember it. They created like a whole fake, um, website, or a whole fake app for Cuba. It was supposed to be like Cuba's version of Twitter, and it was just all US created.

    27. JRJoe Rogan59:33

        Really?

    28. KKKyle Kulinski59:33

        It was all trying to control the narrative. Yeah, I remember this story from about two years or so ago.

    29. JRJoe Rogan59:37

        (coughs) And what was it? Like, "Oh, fuck America."

    30. KKKyle Kulinski59:40

        Uh, n- no. I'm not sure if-
14. 1:00:09 – 1:19:29

    Direct democracy proposal: national ballot initiatives to bypass Washington corruption

    1. KKKyle Kulinski1:00:09

       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?

    2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:21

       Yeah.

    3. KKKyle Kulinski1:00:21

       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-

    4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:39

       Right.

    5. KKKyle Kulinski1:00:39

       ... 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.

    6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:51

       Yeah.

    7. KKKyle Kulinski1:00:51

       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.

    8. JRJoe Rogan1:01:02

       Yeah.

    9. KKKyle Kulinski1:01:02

       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.

    10. JRJoe Rogan1:01:20

        (laughs)

    11. KKKyle Kulinski1:01:20

        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.

    12. JRJoe Rogan1:03:12

        Have they discussed it ever publicly?

    13. KKKyle Kulinski1:03:13

        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.

    14. JRJoe Rogan1:04:14

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

    15. KKKyle Kulinski1:04:17

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

    16. JRJoe Rogan1:04:20

        Right, right.

    17. KKKyle Kulinski1:04:21

        That's what I would say.

    18. JRJoe Rogan1:04:22

        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.

    19. KKKyle Kulinski1:04:50

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

    20. JRJoe Rogan1:04:54

        Yes.

    21. KKKyle Kulinski1:04:54

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

    22. JRJoe Rogan1:04:59

        Mm-hmm.

    23. KKKyle Kulinski1:04:59

        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.

    24. JRJoe Rogan1:05:08

        Right.

    25. KKKyle Kulinski1:05:08

        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.

    26. JRJoe Rogan1:05:22

        Right.

    27. KKKyle Kulinski1:05:22

        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-

    28. JRJoe Rogan1:06:00

        That Smedley Butler, war is a racket.

    29. KKKyle Kulinski1:06:03

        Scary.

    30. JRJoe Rogan1:06:03

        I, I encourage anyone to read that. That was from 1933, is that what it says?

Episode duration: 2:19:51