Joe Rogan Experience #1454 - Dan Crenshaw

Joe Rogan 0:00 Congressman, how are you, sir?

Dan Crenshaw 0:02 Hey, I'm doing well, Joe. Good to see you again.

Joe Rogan 0:04 You look official.

Dan Crenshaw 0:05 Even virtually.

Joe Rogan 0:05 Bro, you look very official. You have an American flag in the background. You got books. Have you read those books? Be honest with me.

Dan Crenshaw 0:12 Yeah. That's a good question.

Joe Rogan 0:13 (laughs)

Dan Crenshaw 0:13 Um, some of them. I mean, this one's, like, a congressional cookbook. Like, I'm not gonna read that.

Joe Rogan 0:17 (laughs)

Dan Crenshaw 0:17 So, obviously. Uh, some of these I have, or at least I dabble in books. Like, I'll- I'll- I'll look over a book mostly. I've definitely read my book. That one's up there. I've read that way too many times. I hate reading it now.

Joe Rogan 0:29 And that's the one that's out right now.

Dan Crenshaw 0:30 And I wrote it.

Joe Rogan 0:31 That's the one that's out right now that-

Dan Crenshaw 0:32 Yeah. Yeah. That come- that comes out... Yeah. That comes out, uh... I don't know when we're posting this, but Tuesday, April 7th.

Joe Rogan 0:37 That's tomorrow.

Dan Crenshaw 0:38 Um-

Joe Rogan 0:39 Uh, yeah. That's exactly when this will come out.

Dan Crenshaw 0:40 Yes.

Joe Rogan 0:40 So, perfect. Fortitude. We need that right now.

Dan Crenshaw 0:45 Yeah. And, um, we do. We do. Now the rest of this, I just kind of set up for this, uh... I found that weird-ass painting right there at some, like, flea market in San Diego back when I was stationed there. It's like a- it's like a sh- it's a bunch of ships. The cans and stuff going on.

Joe Rogan 0:59 It looks like a horrible idea for a tattoo. You know, sometimes people have those really bad old ship tattoos.

Dan Crenshaw 1:06 Yeah. Well, I- I... Yeah. I feel like there's worse tattoos you could get.

Joe Rogan 1:10 Oh, yeah. I've got them. Is there, uh... (laughs)

Dan Crenshaw 1:12 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:13 What about the typewriter? Do you use the typewriter? Is that legit?

Dan Crenshaw 1:16 Oh. That- no. That- that is a legit typewriter. That was my granddad's old typewriter.

Joe Rogan 1:21 Oh.

Dan Crenshaw 1:21 So, I- I saved that. Um, they- they kept it in pretty good shape. I didn't really have to do much restoring, but you can still buy the ink for that, actually. We would, uh... We used to have it set up in the house, so when guests came over, they could, like, type-write a message. And so it's- it's like a guest log. It's kind of a cool-

Joe Rogan 1:36 Oh. That is cool.

Dan Crenshaw 1:36 ... little thing. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:37 So, what's your take on what we're going through right now, Dan? For everybody in the future, this is, uh, day... It's basically a month into, like, extreme coronavirus lockdown for the country. It all started sort of in the beginning of March. Now, here we are in the first week of April, and, uh, everybody's stir-crazy and weirded out by this, including me.

Dan Crenshaw 2:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:01 And I'm sure you as well. What- what- what is your take on this?

Dan Crenshaw 2:05 Wow. Generally speaking, I remember- I remember the weekend where everything all of a sudden shifted. It was the March 14th weekend. I remember that weekend because it was my birthday, and I remember how everybody was basically still going out to bars and restaurants, and then all of a sudden everything changed. Like, the- the entire paradigm changed. And I could go through a long timeline of how we got there. There's a lot of finger-pointing right now, a lot of opportunism. The reality is, a lot of us didn't... Or pretty much everybody didn't know a whole lot, and then we ended up in this situation we're in now. My- my general take on it, we- we are in a, what I would call a tactical retreat. So, I'm going to use a military term there to describe what we are doing. We, all of a sudden, ran into a hail of gunfire. Okay? Like, and- and I think about this in military terms. We're on a patrol. We run into a hail of gunfire. We're not really sure what hit us. We have a basic idea. We know who they are. We know generally what the enemy is, but we weren't quite sure how to combat it, so we took a retreat, tactically speaking. That retreat looks a lot like a lockdown. Okay? Don't talk to anybody. Don't- don't touch anybody. Maintain that social distancing. Lock things down. We have to slow the spread and allow our backup, our- our public health system to catch up. At a certain point, we have to come out of that tactical pause. We have to come out of that retreat and start engaging in the enemy a little bit. Um, now we do that slowly. We do it carefully. And so I think that's the... I like to look at it that way, as a conversation about how to reopen society. At a certain point, we have to move away from risk containment and re- move into a risk mitigation strategy, and we're ramping up our production of things like ventilators, of PPE, of- of testing capability in order to do that.

Joe Rogan 3:48 Now, there's some talk of when this is going to end, and I don't know how you even make that distinction. How- how- how does one make a decision? And it seems like one of those things where once it starts, once you lock a country down and tell people, "Stay away, stay home, don't go to work, don't do anything unless it's very essential," like grocery stores, hospitals, uh, media. There's certain things that are allowed to be done right now. When does that end, and how does one decide when that ends?

Dan Crenshaw 4:22 Yeah. There's a lot of different ways to think about that. From- from the public health perspective, I hear them say certain things like, um, "After 14 days of- of a downward trend in cases, then we can start reopening." Um, "When the R is less than one, then you can start reopening." So, R being less than one means for every contagious person, they infect less than one other person. Right now, that number's around just over two. Okay? So there's- there's an obvious spread that occurs. Um, that... I have... I think those are valid assumptions. I- I definitely question using those as our standards. I would like to see us use other standards as well, such as, are we at a point where we're testing enough and we have enough ventilators and hospital bed space and PPE to actually fight the virus alongside reopening our society? Because I- I think we have to come to terms with a very certain truth, which is, we cannot indefinitely lock down. Those costs are enormous, and- and not just cost to our 401Ks and our jobs. I mean, there- there's a public health cost there, too. You know, I speak with doctors here in Houston. We don't- we don't have a huge case number in Houston. We- our- our hospitals are, like, 50% empty right now. And they can't do much needed surgeries, uh, procedures, because, you know, what's called an elective surgery is going to be kind of a gray area. So, a lot of stuff isn't getting done from a public health side. Also, there's- there's- there's, I think, the obvious public health crisis when people don't have jobs. There's divorce rates. There's suicides. We have to really take all of this into account as- as we- as we talk about when to reopen society.

Joe Rogan 6:00 Yeah, we- you and I, um, privately had this conversation through text message a- about the way reporters are using this moment to criticize Trump w- with in ridiculous ways. And one of 'em was this, uh, questioning of whether or not he should describe these drugs that have some promise, which many doctors-

Dan Crenshaw 6:24 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:24 ... are describing. Hydroxychloroquine with, uh, Z-Pak and, uh, zinc apparently is a combination that keeps getting brought up. And there's a doctor that has been using this, uh, to, uh, uh, some reported success in New York City. Um, w- but what drives me crazy is that these are rare opportunities that someone has to talk to the president, and they're using it to chastise him for bringing up drugs that do show promise and hope. He's not telling people to go take it, he's not advocating it, he's not pretending that he's some sort of medical professional, he's just talking about some things that show promise in the medical community. You know, w- what is your take-

Dan Crenshaw 7:03 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:03 ... on all this? 'Cause this is, is a w- it's, it's a weird situation that he finds himself in with the press, this very strange, uh, an- antagonistic position.

Dan Crenshaw 7:16 Yeah. You know, the press needs to figure out who they wanna be, and, uh, (laughs) it's actually, like, chapter two in my book, it's called Who is Your Hero? And that, and that conversation is about who we think we should be, like, what- what kind of people do we think we should be? What does it mean to be a good American, a good citizen? The press believes it is their duty to only be adversarial to, to politicians, mostly conservative politicians. They don't treat Democrats the same way. But... And that is their job, okay? I wish they would treat all d- all, all politicians the same, and- and to a- to an extent that is their job, to be adversarial, to question what is coming out of government. But I would argue that their main purpose is to simply educate the public, educating the public with full sets of facts, full context, uh, full understanding of what's going on. Uh, I- I think on that point they're utterly failing, um, and to- to a huge extent. I think they've been failing for a long time, but in- in a time of crisis where it's so important that they actually do that- that- that more important thing of informing the public, they're really failing. And they- they do, they- they completely waste time. I mean, how many reporters actually get access to the president? I bet there's hundreds of thousands of reporters out there, good ones, who would- who would love to be able to be in that press briefing room and actually ask legitimate questions that would inform the American public, but- but they don't, they play these gotcha games. You know, they'll ask questions like, "What do you want to say to people who are upset with you right now?"

Joe Rogan 8:44 (laughs)

Dan Crenshaw 8:44 It's like, what- how is- how is that a good question?

Joe Rogan 8:46 And how is that news?

Dan Crenshaw 8:47 And- and- who...

Joe Rogan 8:47 Right, in the middle of a pandemic.

Dan Crenshaw 8:49 I think that was Jim Acosta. I mean- I mean, it was... It's so utterly absurd and- and unnecessary. I actually have a whole list of questions. I don't know, I won't read them all. But they're- they're- they're a complete waste of time, and- and I think they're failing us miserably. And then there's the opportunism that occurs. Like, listen, there's... If you're writing an op-ed, if you're a journalist writing an op-ed, um, let's say an opinion journalist especially, I- I- I- I fully understand why you- you might- you might say- you might write in your report, "Okay, the president said this today, but three weeks ago they said this, so there's been a change." That's fine. Th- that makes total sense, and that provides context to the reader even. It might be biased and that- whatever. But- but to- but to- but to only s- do that indirect questioning with the president just to try and play this gotcha game, I... It's not helpful. It- it's not help at all and it's not informing anybody, um, in the least. You know, you mentioned the, uh, the- the president talking favorably about, um, the, uh, chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine, and you remember the- the couple that ingested that out in Arizona, um, because that- I- I... Something- something similar to- I think it's a chlor- chloroquine phosphate or s- something like that, I might be misspeaking.

Joe Rogan 10:02 It's poison.

Dan Crenshaw 10:03 But that's an ex-... Yeah, it's an-

Joe Rogan 10:04 Yeah.

Dan Crenshaw 10:04 ... ingredient on fishbowl cleaner.

Joe Rogan 10:06 Yeah.

Dan Crenshaw 10:06 Or fish tank cleaner. And so they saw it and they ingested it, which was, you know, o- obviously a terrible idea. Nobody would- nobody told them to do that. Um, and then the media- the media... Instead of saying, "Wow, this is a shame that they- (laughs) that they did this," they blame the president, and they blamed the president for talking about what- what is a- a- at least anecdotally a proven way to- to combat this disease. We- we don't know through clinical trials whether, uh, uh, en masse it'll actually work. But- but to express optimism over it, um, it doesn't seem to be a, uh, a punishable offense. But the outrage mob is- is- was- was fully invested in this kind of outrage reasoning to- to- to tear down the president over this, and it just- it just feels so unnecessary. I mean, I don't know, it's r- that's why I wrote this book. The bo- the book is about outrage culture, um, in- in our- in our, like, th- and this sort of weird new cultural need to just go after each other in the worst of ways. And, uh-

Joe Rogan 11:03 Well, there's a- there's a new ability to do that. I mean, this is what it is-

Dan Crenshaw 11:06 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:06 ... with these new tools that people have through social media and through making these viral video clips, which is what each reporter is hoping is- they're going to accomplish by being combative with the president and trying to catch him on something. They're hoping-

Dan Crenshaw 11:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:19 ... that they're gonna create this viral video that's gonna accelerate their career. It's- it's very self-aggrandizing, it's- and it's disturbing-

Dan Crenshaw 11:26 Right.

Joe Rogan 11:27 ... that there's- there's not someone who stands out that does these sort of press junkets that doesn't do that.

Dan Crenshaw 11:34 Yeah. And I actually write about that exact point in my book. Like, this- what- what- what we've begun to do is reward this sort of, I would say, overly passionate emotional behavior. So, we- we- w- we've replaced sophisticated reasoning with outrage. You know, we- we- we've started to change who we actually viewed as heroes. This is how I describe it. We all have hero archetypes, okay? And like... And- and we grew up this way, and there's- there's, like, fictional characters like the Jedi, like that's a- that's like a hero archetype, or Superman, and we kind of look up to this person.... or, or like, or like real characters, like Rosa Parks or Jesus. Like there's, there's people that we actually look up to and we identify with, and there are certain attributes that we use and we say, "I wanna be like that, and so when I act in public, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm gonna access that attribute and I'm gonna be better in according, according to that archetype." And we've sort of turned that on its head in, in our, in our current outraged pop culture. Like, we see somebody who plays the victim and we cheer them on. When in reality, what we used to do is see somebody who overcame adversity, who was a true hero, and then we cheered them on. We, we've totally reversed that.

Joe Rogan 12:45 Yeah.

Dan Crenshaw 12:45 And like, so, and so, and so you actually get more points if you're more snarky, if you're meaner. If you're, if you're, if you're playing this kinda cheap shot game. And like, i- in my book I use this example of like these, these, this group of veterans. They, they were waiting for me outside of my office one of the days I was going to vote. And, um, I knew something was off because veterans my age, they, we never wear the, like the ball cap. You know, like with the gold letters that say "veteran" on it? We never wear that, but these guys were wearing that. So that, that was, that was my first sign that something was different about these guys. But they just asked for a picture, and um, I figured that was it and that we could keep going. But uh, the second thing that was off was like, they, they weren't, um, they weren't looking at the camera. They were fiddling as, as I was like posing for this camera, th- for this photo. And I thought, oh, that was strange. And it turns out they were just getting their own video camera ready to record, and then they start following me and like just go nuts. Like they lose their minds, um, talking about Trump and, and you know, uh, uh, betraying the country and just all this nonsense. And-

Joe Rogan 13:45 So they were just trying-

Dan Crenshaw 13:46 ... and, and I thought-

Joe Rogan 13:46 ... to have a gotcha moment with you?

Dan Crenshaw 13:48 Yeah. Yeah, yeah. They, th- this is what they do. They're a, they're an activist group and they'll, they'll corner people like me and, and try and get like a viral video going. And, and then you know, it's up to me at that point to just like understand what's happening and just kind of walk silently and, and I'd kind of engage with them in some funny ways. But they were, they were becoming extremely emotional. I mean, their voices started to crack. It was, which was, you know who knows what that says about them.

Joe Rogan 14:08 And what, what, what were they saying about you or to you?

Dan Crenshaw 14:12 Oh, how, how could you, how could you let, how could you betray the country by supporting the president? I mean, things like that. Mostly sloganeering, like this wasn't a, like a deep conversation by any means. But, but that's the point. The point is, is that they're rewarded for that like overly emotional, um, in motion, like you know, filming while, while walking type-

Joe Rogan 14:32 Mm-hmm.

Dan Crenshaw 14:32 ... of, type of scenario. And then they like, and then there's this whole deal where I have to get in the elevator because that's how I get to the votes. Like I, I, I leave my, my office on the fourth floor in Cannon, I take the elevator down to the basement and I walk across. Like that, that's just my route. (laughs) And so, but what they do is as I get into the elevator, they're like, "Joe, he's hiding from us! He's running away from us!" And then Newsweek like writes up the same story. Like there's this, there's this entire culture behind this notion that y- that, that you, that you have to use as much emotion as possible and as, and express your anger in, in the most exceptional of ways. Otherwise, it's, it's not worth listening to. But we haven't stopped as a culture, and we have to stop rewarding it. That's what I talk about. We have to stop rewarding that kind of behavior so that it actually ceases to control us that way.

Joe Rogan 15:21 Well, they accomplished what they wanted to do. We're talking about them right now. Although you didn't give up their name, good for you.

Dan Crenshaw 15:27 No. I didn't.

Joe Rogan 15:27 But you, but you, you talked about them and that's what they wanted. Th- I mean, there's so many groups out there that are d- I mean, I don't even know if they have an end game. The, the end game seems to be just get attention.

Dan Crenshaw 15:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 15:38 And you know, and shine the light on these atrocities or whatever the, whatever they feel like is an atrocity.

Dan Crenshaw 15:44 Right. It, it is attention. It, it happens on both sides. I, I'm pretty careful in my book to actually, uh, criticize both sides on this one because at least I do see it in con- in the conservative circles. It's, it's different. The, the, the kind of outrage culture that happens in conservatism is, is certainly different and less widespread than, than happens on the left. Um, it, it is more about attention-seeking. And, and I always tell people that. If you're gonna, i- if your main goal is getting more followers and more clicks, then, you know, you, you have to reevaluate what your priorities are. And, and I worry about the activist community as well, um, which is... A- activists sometimes don't want to win. They don't actually want to win the argument, and that should concern us. Because at, at least politically speaking, my goal is to win the argument, and to win the argument I have to actually persuade people. And like that, that should be the goal. We, the, the, those lengthier conversations, a- again, it's, it's why these kind of podcasts are so, uh, prevalent. It's why I do my own podcast 'cause I wanted to dive deep into some of these issues, um, on a substantive level.

Joe Rogan 16:48 Well, I do appreciate your reasonable and balanced perspective 'cause you are one of the rare guys that's on the right that does criticize the right, uh, and do, and you do it fairly and objectively, which I think is very important in this day and age. You know, I, I'm on the left but I find myself more and more getting confused like a man without a country, or a man with, you know, w- without a side rather, without a team. There's, there's so many people on the left now that wanna silence people. Freedom of speech was always a, a, a core tenet of what this country is based on, the ability to express yourself. But there's so many people that want people deplatformed for having views that they disagree with or ideas that they disagree with, and y- this is an enormous problem obviously in social media.

Dan Crenshaw 17:37 Well, t- uh, to bring it back to coronavirus, there, there was, there was certain messages that were being taken down by Twitter if, if they were... And I, and I, and I think these, the kind, type of messages or articles that were being promoted along the lines of, "Hey, there's, there's too much economic cost, we need to, we need to reopen the economy and get people back to work," if it was things like that, Twitter was taking them down. I don't know if they're still doing that but I, but I heard reports of it. And, and on, on a broader scale, yeah, the, the attack against freedom of speech is, is by far one of the most concerning, um, elements, that, that concerns I think classical liberals and, uh, if that's how you would describe yourself, I don't know. (laughs) To, to all of us in the political world, Joe Rogan's political leanings are like the great mystery. And frankly, we kind of like it that way. It makes you ... It, it, it keeps you out of the fray. (laughs) In a, in a way.

Joe Rogan 18:26 It's more of a mystery now because I said that I wouldn't vote for Biden. That, that I said I would vote for Trump over Biden. All these people went crazy.

Dan Crenshaw 18:33 Yeah, everybody (laughs) went crazy.

Joe Rogan 18:34 But let me, let me be clear. You know what? I'd also vote for Whoopi Goldberg over Joe Biden. I'd, I'd vote for Mike Tyson over Joe Biden. I just don't think it's a good idea to take someone who's struggling with dementia and put him in one of the most stressful positions the world has ever known. That's what I'm saying. I mean, it's, it's not an endorsement of Trump, but it is, it is me saying, you shouldn't have a man who's clearly, clearly in the throes of dementia. I mean, there's... I'm not a doctor, but when you can't form sentences in public and you forget what you're talking about and you, you, you wander off into these conversations. If you're not smoking pot, you're, you're not high, if you're not on pills, like what's going on? Well, there's cognitive decline. He's a, an older man that has mental issues. And, you know, not to be cruel to him, he, he's, he's suffering medically. This is, this is the real issue. And the Democrats want to sweep that under the rug. And Trump is already chewing him apart. He's already dismissing him. I mean, there is a recent thing that Kyle Kulinski posted, a video on his Twitter, talking about this is what happens when you don't discuss the elephant in the room.

Dan Crenshaw 19:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 19:44 And it's Trump saying, he used to do it doing a press conference and they asked him a question about something that Biden wrote, he goes, "Biden didn't write that." He's like, he's... That's a Democratic operative. He didn't read it. He, he probably doesn't even know what's going on right now. And he's gonna, he's gonna continue to do that, and it's, it's such a vulnerable point.

Dan Crenshaw 20:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:02 And I don't know why the Democrats thought it would be a good idea to take someone who's clearly got a problem. This is... I mean, I don't want to be mean to the guy, but we've all seen it. That's not normal. It's not normal to forget, like when he's talking about the Creator and he literally loses what he's saying. He's like, "The thing..."

Dan Crenshaw 20:26 Misquoted the Declaration of Independence twice now.

Joe Rogan 20:29 Yes! I mean, that's just-

Dan Crenshaw 20:30 It's a very simple document. (laughs) I don't understand. It's frustrating.

Joe Rogan 20:33 There's a bunch of those things, like when he was talking about the cure and losing what he's saying, that you have to take care of the cure. And he, he's, he's struggling. The guy's struggling. He's tired. This is an extremely stressful process to run for president. And the idea that he's going to be able to get through this and be okay on the other side to run the country for four, potentially eight years is crazy.

Dan Crenshaw 20:57 Yeah. And on a more, from a policy perspective, if we're looking at the coronavirus in particular and the handling of it, you know, this is obviously the subject of hot debate. You know, there's, there's plenty of bad faith journalists out there who, who continue, and, and politicians, including Pelosi, who continue to repeat that Trump has the deaths of thousands on his hands. Um, I, I think that's a horrible, horrible overstatement, I mean, to say the least. It's just fundamentally not true. But we need to remember Joe Biden just recently acknowledged that he now agrees with Trump's decision to close down travel from China in January. And I go through a long... I recorded a podcast. Um, I almost have as many subscribers as you do now, I'm sure. (laughs) No, I don't. Uh, where I go through a timeline of what actually happened, right? Like, let's, let's actually look into this debate in an objective way of who knew what and when. Because you can criticize people for sure, because hindsight is 20/20. But it's important to put yourself in the moment and what we all knew at certain times when certain decisions were made. And I, and I have to point out that back when we did this travel restriction from China in late January, at that same time, the World Health Organization was saying that, was repeating Chinese claims in mid-January that this virus couldn't even be transmitted in human to human contact. You know? And Trump was ripped apart for that. Biden ripped him apart for that. Biden continued to rip him apart for that up until a couple of weeks ago. So like, you know, these decisions saved countless lives. And, and it's pretty obvious that Biden... I mean, he said it, so of course it's obvious, that he would have made a different decision. And we would be in a much different place right now. To, to put aside all of the issues that you pointed out, those are, those are certainly issues and I don't, I don't need to repeat them, I don't need to go into it. But it's, um, it's obvious.

Joe Rogan 22:47 Well, I feel like we do need to repeat them. It is obvious, but that's crazy that this is the guy that's running for president. You know, and then when people got upset at saying that, you know, me saying that I would vote, I'd probably vote for Trump before I'd vote for Biden. I'm literally saying I'd vote for anybody that can talk. I mean, anyone who's not in, in severe cognitive decline. I mean, pick a person. Shit, I'd vote for Hillary before I'd vote for him. Literally. I mean, I just, I just think the poor guy shouldn't be in the position he's in. I don't understand why they're doing that. I mean, anyone else could have been... Tulsi Gabbard, Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg. Pick a person. They all would have been a better choice. I mean, this is crazy. And I don't know what their strategy is. I don't know why they decided to do this. It makes no sense to me. It's very, very confusing.

Dan Crenshaw 23:38 Yeah, well, there was, there was a, there was a couple of days where it all happened, where behind the scenes, all of these different candidates basically, basically said, "Okay, we're all going to quit," because we, they're so afraid of Bernie winning. They don't think Bernie can win the Democratic nominee, or win the general election. Um, I tend to agree with that and I'm, I'm very much against Bernie winning the general election. But that's not the point. The point is, is that the DNC didn't want that. Um, they... And, and they made moves to make that happen. And uh, the Democratic Party as a whole is trying to find out who they are. You know, I look back in time and the Democrat Party to me seems more like a labor party.And that changed over time into a highly progressive activist party, where th- the labor side of that is, is really just an afterthought. Um, and in- in- in- in a, it has really become this sort of, well, a democratic socialist party, um, with more and more- Very recently. Um, because I, I wouldn't even describe President Obama as ... I mean, he definitely, he definitely p- paved the way for it. He's definitely way more progressive than Clinton, but it, it appears to me that it happened very recently. I'm never furious to how this happened. I, I think, I think the kind of language that is often used by, by a lot of well-meaning Democrats over time in th- in this sort of Labor Party era, let- let's call it the Bill Clinton era and before that, um, the language they used was still rather re- radical and, and revolutionary and kind of, you know, coming up from the, the children of the '60s and that, and that kind of revolutionary feel. Um, th- this, this idea that a progressive utopia can solve more and more of your problems, uh, if you just expand government control, that we put enough experts at the top, we can figure all this out and we can make your problems go away. I think for a long time though, they had the Republican Party to always just be against that and, and say, "Hold on. Wait a second. There's, there's, there's other consequences to doing that." And it was almost like there was this sort of, um, this sort of unspoken balance. Th- the thing ... And, and I'm not even sure that they believed it themselves, but over time, their young people did believe it. And so now you have AOC, who I think truly believes these things, who truly believes in the virtues of socialism. I think Bernie f- believes in the virtues of socialism. Um, I think he's dead wrong on this, but, but he believes it. And I think a new generation belie- a new generation of progressives h- are true believers in a way that I'm not so sure they were before. And they're much louder because of their platforms on social media, and they're able to change the direction of their party in a, in a much more powerful way than I think they, they had been able to in the past. And, and we see that in Congress, um, to an extraordinary degree, where, where somebody like me now views Pelosi as sort of in the middle between moderates and extremists. Uh, and, and, you know, 10 years ago, we would have, we would have described Nancy Pelosi as an extremist. But now I view her as sort of center left, and the extremists are even to her left, and she's deeply afraid of those, those ... That, that, that progressive squad because of their power on social media and media in general. Um, so it's- Do you think- ... it's an interesting battle. D- do you think that the shift is because it seems like nothing works perfectly, and this hasn't really been tried or implemented on a large scale in the United States, democratic socialism? They don't think of it as socialism, the way D- Bernie describes it. When you talk to him in person, it sounds very reasonable. He s- it sounds like he's looking out for the rights of the workers and he ... The way he described y- uh, finding this money, just taking a small tax on speculation, uh, b- gambles that Wall Street does. Do you think it's because nothing has worked ideally and that this hasn't been tried before, so they look at this as this could be the solution that solves all this for us and sort

Dan Crenshaw 27:40 of, uh, balances out the economic playing field? Yeah. Well, I mean, I would, I would, of course ... If he was making that argument and he does, I, I would simply say, "Of course it's been tried before." That's the same kind of rhetoric that was used to, to move into the socialist policies of the 20th century, uh, where tens of millions of people died. And I would also, I would also put it into th- this other way of thinking about it. Yeah. Y- you can, you can put forward these, these seemingly innocuous ideas. "Okay. We're gonna, we're gonna tax a little bit here." And on that specific policy, by the way, that, that's not what people think it is. You, you tax a little bit there, um, that has wide-ranging effects on every single transaction that you would make in the stock market. I, I think this is the Warren ... And, and I think Bernie Sanders has the same, um, policy that you're describing, but I remember l- I remember analyzing Elizabeth Warren's policy, which is, again, the same. It would have drastic effects on everybody's 401Ks, on pensions, and these are working class people that own these things. This isn't just the wealthy that they, that they describe it as. So on, on, on one hand, there's always a lot more ... There's a lot more layers to the policy that they put out than they're, than they're really letting on. And there's a lot more second, third order consequences than they're letting on. On the other hand, as far as it not being tried, um, what they're describing is a, is a fast path to the, the nationalization of production, owning the means of production, um, setting price controls. And they talk about setting price controls, okay? Setting, setting wages is price controls. Uh, setting prices w- is price controls. I mean, w- we passed a bill out of the House, HR3, which they claim lowers people's drugs pri- drug prices and, and these evil Republicans like us, we're all against it because, you know, because we just don't want people to have low drug prices. Of course, that's not true. The reality is, is that when you analyze what it means to implement price controls, you lose supply. Th- that's just Economics 101. That, that has to be true. It always is true. Th- that's why people starved in Maoist China and the Soviet Union, because they put price controls on food, um, and they did production quotas, and they believed, they truly believed that the government could figure out how much to produce and what price to sell it at, and that they would be a perfect utopia after that. Well, of course it doesn't work, even for simple as simp- something as simple as farming and, and food production. It doesn't work at all. Um, people starved as a result. And so it's even more unlikely that it would work for more complicated parts of the economy, uh, like wages and drug prices, because the reality is, and the Congressional Budget Office confirmed this, many other studies confirmed this, we would have up to 30 less new drugs over the next couple decades if you implement that kind of legislation. And so they forget to tell you that you're actually making a choice between these price controls and actually having the cure in the first place. And what I tell people is, like, uh-It, the affordability is definitely important and we should continue to tackle that problem, and, and there are ways to do that. But the thing has to exist before you can afford it. It has to actually exist. So-

Joe Rogan 30:44 Can I pause you for a second there?

Dan Crenshaw 30:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:45 How, how do you implement that without making, uh, putting a cap on the amount that a pr- a drug can cost? I mean, how do you make it more affordable?

Dan Crenshaw 30:56 Yeah. Well, so like we'll, we'll ... There's other bills that we're in favor of that do that. So one way is, is improve the way that generic drugs get to market. So ju- just like any innovation, there's a patent on it. Okay? But once that patent ends, what happens is some pharmaceutical companies do take advantage of the system and c- may- maybe they continue to put out different drugs that are slightly different than the last one. It extends their, their, um, their patent. Or they'll actually pay off generic, um, manufacturers to not produce it. So there's a lot of these little loopholes that we can actually tackle surgically to make sure that doesn't happen. We also have to remember th- that a lot of these stories are, are anecdotal. They, they, they, they are, they're about a few different drugs. And instead of, instead of wide price controls on everything that a pharmaceutical company actually creates, we should be looking at some of these life-saving drugs that we want people to have, but we also wanna, don't want to destroy the foundation of innovation and research and development that it took to make that drug in the first place. And so how do we do that? Well, I mean, there's ways. There's, there's ways to reinsure it, um, at a certain cap so w- when, when insurance companies don't want to pay the exorbitant amounts that it would cost, you know, there's, there's other options for reinsurance. Um, but it's, it's ... Y- y- you have to tackle it one at a time. Um, there's, there's more complicated ways to do it with the way that pharmacy companies do rebates with, um, the insurance companies. Uh, that gets into a really complicated discussion. But there's ways to do that for, for instance, for insulin. That was a Republican bill that we tried to pass in ENC that got shot down. But it would've, it would've driven down prices for something like insulin. Uh, because-

Joe Rogan 32:40 Was there anything else attached to that? I mean, why did it get shot down?

Dan Crenshaw 32:43 No. That was, that, that was just an amendment. Because people don't understand it. Listen, I, I, I think, I think Democrats, they, they love the idea of these very simple fixes. We want things to be cheaper, so they will just be cheaper by law. We want people to make more money, so we will just make the minimum wage $15. We'll just make it that way and everything will be fine. There'll be no consequences to that. No second and third order effects. But there are second and third order effects. And when we ignore those second and third order effects, we ignore them at our peril. And in the case of the $15 minimum wage, well, you can't ignore the fact that companies are just gonna hire less people. You know, their, their, their budget doesn't change just because you change the minimum wage. With respect to drug innovation, they're just, they just won't invest in something ... And it takes billions and billions of dollars to invest in these drugs, uh, for, for, for the massive amounts of cost that it takes to, um, to do the clinical trials that take years. Um, that I, I can't remember the average on top of my head, but it's enormous and an enormous amount of time. And so you're not gonna get somebody to take that risk if there's not any payoff at the end. And, uh, and, and I think that's, that's what we forget, and we have to balance that, uh, quite a bit. I would also remind everybody of this with respect to the drug price, um, discussion. That bill, that H.R.3 bill, it won't become law because the Senate won't take it up and the President won't sign it. But if it did, it wouldn't hurt big pharma. I think Democrats would like to believe that it would hurt big pharmaceutical companies. It wouldn't. It would put all of the smaller startup, um, biotech companies totally out of business because they're the ones who actually, they start that innovation just, just, just like happens in Silicon Valley. These startups start it, and then they get bought out by the bigger companies. That's sort of how the system works, and it's, it's a very dynamic system. It's, it's, it's why we are the, by far, the number one innovator in the world. No other country innovates like we do. They don't do the research like we do. If we implemented the price controls that are inherent in Medicare for All or H.R.3, there wouldn't be anybody else in the world doing what we do. Um, I can, I can relate that back to the coronavirus discussion too on ... Because there's the, there's like a, there's a big discussion about, you know, should we have Medicare for All. Doesn't coronavirus, uh, prove that everybody should have, uh, free healthcare? And again, what I, what I have to remind everybody is, is that if we had Medicare for All, what we're basically talking about are price controls, because Medicare already pays below average payment for, for anything, or for whatever service, or for, for whatever doctor visit. It's about 60%, 70% on the dollar. What does that mean-

Joe Rogan 35:20 And what is ... Can, can I stop you right there?

Dan Crenshaw 35:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:21 Medicare's a- av- available for who right now? What, what is the-

Dan Crenshaw 35:25 Uh, seniors.

Joe Rogan 35:26 But what-

Dan Crenshaw 35:26 Medicare is for ... is a senior program.

Joe Rogan 35:28 Well, so what it, what age is it? Does it kick in? Is it 65?

Dan Crenshaw 35:33 I believe so. Um, yeah, I don't wanna confuse you with Social Security. Um, I think-

Joe Rogan 35:37 So the idea is that for older folks, we should, uh, give them healthcare and make sure that their basic needs are covered in terms of sickness, illness, injury, and such?

Dan Crenshaw 35:51 Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the, the entire, you know ... And we, we could argue that we could, we could even debate the merits of, of Medicare on its face, um, but the entire-

Joe Rogan 35:58 But Medicare for All would be available for everybody?

Dan Crenshaw 36:01 Right.

Joe Rogan 36:01 Now, if Medicare for w- for all was available for everybody, what you're saying is it would essentially ... You, you would fix prices on, on everything in terms of medical treatments, and, and that would be-

Dan Crenshaw 36:13 Right.

Joe Rogan 36:13 ... a problem because of what?

Dan Crenshaw 36:16 Well, so okay, so o- once you fi- once you fix prices ... Um, well, imagine this. Im- imagine if, if, if the government said that your podcast could, could only take $100 per ad, and that was just the price fix from now on, what incentive would you have to really expand your audience? What expensive, what incentive would you have to keep going or expand the business? You wouldn't be able to.It's similar under any industry. You know, once you, once you fix that price, um, you're going to reduce the supply that goes into it. So-

Joe Rogan 36:46 Can I stop you on that analogy?

Dan Crenshaw 36:48 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 36:48 Here's the problem with that. The difference is if ... There would, there would have to be a reason why they would say that I could only get $100 per ad. The reason why you would say that s- things shouldn't cost too much for someone who's injured or sick, is 'cause we wanna take care of each other as a community. And the idea is that-

Dan Crenshaw 37:03 It is.

Joe Rogan 37:03 ... healthcare should be something ... Look, we, we provide so many services to people that we, we, y- we are united, right? We're u- the United States of America. We're supposed to be a gigantic community, and one of the, the great things that we could do for each other is to make sure that if someone's sick or injured and something's wrong, that we can take care of that. We would like everybody to do their share, and we would like everybody to chip in so that this is possible. But there's a big difference between that and fixing the price on an ad.

Dan Crenshaw 37:34 Yeah. Well, no, but not ... Economically, there's no difference. Morally, there is. And, and I agree with you morally. We do have the, we have the same goal of getting everybody adequate care.

Joe Rogan 37:42 Right. But I think that's-

Dan Crenshaw 37:42 But from an economic standpoint... But from an economic standpoint, my, my, my point still stands. And, and you can apply that to any industry.

Joe Rogan 37:48 I see what you're saying-

Dan Crenshaw 37:49 But morally-

Joe Rogan 37:49 ... but, uh, I think we're looking at medical care as a basic human right instead of just an economic issue.

Dan Crenshaw 37:56 The, the reason I don't describe it as a ... It's not in your right. It, it is both a moral and an economic issue. Uh, for, for, for my argument that you will reduce supply, that is fundamentally true. It, it is fundamentally true. We see it in other countries. It's why, as we compare ourselves to other countries right now, all these places with socialized medicine, it's, it's important to look at some stats. And actually, I have them here. I could take the time to, to pick them up. But I'll, but I'll, but I'll give you the bottom line upfront. We have overwhelmingly per capita more ICU beds in this country than any other Western country. Overwhelmingly per capita we have more ventilators than any of these other people. We're all, we're all freaking out right now 'cause we're worried about our ventilators and, and our ICU beds. On a per capita basis, our system has way, way more than the UK, than Italy, than Spain, than Germany. All of them. Like, like orders of magnitude more. Okay. So, okay, also we're the ones who innovate. I mean, the vast majority of research and development, new drugs that come out, that comes from this country. So, these are, these are facts that we can't escape. If we do price controls, a- and Medicare for All is fundamentally a system of price controls. If we do that, economically speaking, we absolutely will reduce supply. Now, I understand the moral argument you're making, which is, we still want to help people. Yes, we should. We should be looking for the ways to do that. But I wanna be able to do that in a way that doesn't undercut the foundations of the good parts of our healthcare system, which is quality and innovation. If we undercut those things, and we're the last country doing this, we're the last country in the world truly doing innovation. Uh, the, the, the world is left out to dry.

Joe Rogan 39:36 Can I pause you there?

Dan Crenshaw 39:37 I- again, you, you, you may-

Joe Rogan 39:37 This ... What you're saying makes a lot of sense. Is there a way to do both? Is there a way-

Dan Crenshaw 39:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:42 ... to provide healthcare to everyone, but also encourage this innovation, encourage profit, so you encourage these companies to do all these great things-

Dan Crenshaw 39:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:51 ... that you're describing and, and, and maintain this incredibly high level of healthcare that we have right now?

Dan Crenshaw 39:57 Tha- that's certainly the goal, right? And, and that, that should be the goal. And this is why I think there's, there's gotta be room for compromise on the healthcare debate, because you can't compromise with the other party if the goals aren't the same. Like, I, I've come to believe that our goals on immigration are actually not the same. Okay? So, it's hard to compromise. On healthcare they should be the same. Like, 'cause we, we, we want everybody to have access to quality healthcare. Now, they have a very different way of getting to that point. We have probably a much more complicated. We recognize how difficult it is to get to that point while also ensuring that we maintain quality and, and innovation. And so, um, what I'm working on personally is, is the primary care side of things. Okay? So, primary care doctor is your, that's your first point of contact in healthcare. And the system that I think works best for that is direct primary care. So, direct primary care basically means that you, Joe, you're a doctor. Um, you can handle about 250, 300 patients at a time. They all pay you a subscription fee of about $75 a month, and they have full access to you. So, it's like less than a cellphone bill. This already exists. This model is prevalent. It's growing. I would like to see it grow much faster. Okay? How do you do that? Well, we can subsidize lower income people in order to do that. Now, how we do that is very complicated. That's what I'm working out, um, in, within our complicated system. But that's an idea to want, make that free market model actually take off, so that people who don't need help with their healthcare costs, like, like you and me, we can still afford that, just like we afford any other monthly cost. And you have access to preventive medicine, you have access to telemedicine, you actually have a doctor-patient relationship. That makes it a lot easier to start solving the rest of the problem, um, making our insurance market more competitive, making, putting more choice in it, directly subsidizing those who need it, but in a way that looks a lot more like Medicare Advantage. So, Medicare Advantage is a part of Medicare that basically forces competition and choice between insurance, uh, companies. It came out to be a lot cheaper than we originally thought it would in the early 2000s when, when this thing was created. This was a Republican plan because th- there's certain foundations that I think we have to adhere to anytime we wanna problem solve. Choice and competition are among them. You, you can't escape those things, and I think when we talk about Medicare for All, it, it, it tries to, it tries to move past these essential foundations of whether ... of, of a free society that we have to adhere to. And, and because the, the, the other thing I, I, I push back on a little bit is, is the healthcare is a right, um, s- uh, statement. And I push back against that because what that ... Uh, when you're calling something a right, what you're effectively saying is that somebody else has a obligation to serve you.And it's hard to call something a right when that right requires the service of somebody else. And that's kind of nitpicky-

Joe Rogan 42:48 Don't we already do that? Don't we already do that with the firemen? Don't we do that with the police department? Don't we do that with public schools?

Dan Crenshaw 42:54 Not, not, not exactly. No. I mean, we, we, we have public services that, uh, I would, I would distinguish those public services from something like a, a direct qualitative care. And I would, I would distinguish them to a, to an enormous extent. Like, and, and here's why. You, you can add a few hundred thousand more people to a, you know, to, to, the, the nation's population, and it doesn't change the mission of the military. Right? Like, it doesn't, it doesn't take any way, thing away from them. But these, but because of the sort of non-rival, um, this is like an e- an, an e- an economics term, but the sort of non-rival attribute of these things, it, it is different. Right? Because there's only a select number of doctors. And we've already said that once you put price controls in, there's going to be less doctors, because doctors will be paid less, they'll get burned out more. Um, they'll ... th- then hospitals will be able to... And I actually never finished that point. Um, the reason price controls reduce supply, and the reason we see supply reductions in other countries is because, well, hospitals don't get the same amount of money. They're not gonna invest it in that extra ICU bed. They're not gonna buy those extra ventilators. They're not gonna hire those other doctors. A doctor doesn't want to be a doctor because they don't make the amount of money that they thought they would make. Um, they're doing extra work because there's more people who now have access to them, but there's less of them, so wait lines are huge and they, and they're seeing multiple more patients a day. Doctor burnout increases quite a bit. That's the quick answer as to why, why, why that happens. But ... Does that kind of answer your question?

Joe Rogan 44:22 Y-

Dan Crenshaw 44:22 It was getting really-

Joe Rogan 44:23 That does-

Dan Crenshaw 44:23 ... deep on the-

Joe Rogan 44:24 Yeah, the human right issue. Uh, uh, we, we kind of moved around with that. Th- this, the, the idea that it's different than the fire department or the police department or-

Dan Crenshaw 44:34 Yeah. Well, it's not a right either, actually. The, the fire department's not necessarily a, a right as we would-

Joe Rogan 44:39 But it's a public service-

Dan Crenshaw 44:41 ... as we would describe it.

Joe Rogan 44:41 ... that's provided to everyone.

Dan Crenshaw 44:42 Yeah. It, it is, but it, but, but, but understand, so let's call it a public service then and let's call doctor healthcare a public service as well-

Joe Rogan 44:51 Okay.

Dan Crenshaw 44:51 ... if we were to do Medicare for all.

Joe Rogan 44:52 But wouldn't the result be the same if it's provided for everyone?

Dan Crenshaw 44:56 Um, not, not from a practical standpoint, just because it's much easier ... A- again, you could add 100,000 people more to your city and the fire department would have marginally more, more work to do. You know, compared to like an, uh, a doctor, for instance. Does, does that make sense? Like, you just, it doesn't ... I think on a, on, um ... If you're, if we're trying to compare them in that sense, that, that non-rival attribute, um, matter, matters quite a bit. If I'm describing that correctly.

Joe Rogan 45:23 I see what you're ... So what you're saying is because competition is necessary with medical innovation and also, like, doctors profit off of being exceptional, so you, you ... They have incentive-

Dan Crenshaw 45:36 Oh.

Joe Rogan 45:36 ... to be ex- exceptional.

Dan Crenshaw 45:39 No, no, what I'm saying is if, if you have, if you have 10 doctors that's, that are serving a community, um, every time that doctor is serving somebody, it means somebody else can't see them.

Joe Rogan 45:49 Well, isn't that just a-

Dan Crenshaw 45:50 So that's that.

Joe Rogan 45:50 ... signal that we need more doctors and more hospitals?

Dan Crenshaw 45:53 It is.

Joe Rogan 45:53 That they're understaffed.

Dan Crenshaw 45:55 Yeah. Uh, it, it would be, yes. But I'm saying that's how it's different from a fire department, which is sort of lying in wait for a fire to occur, um, if there-

Joe Rogan 46:02 Well, if there was more fires.

Dan Crenshaw 46:05 Yeah, but, which is unlikely most of the time. And I, I'm just ... I'm, I'm trying, I'm trying to distinguish why those, why those aren't very comparable things.

Joe Rogan 46:14 Mm-hmm.

Dan Crenshaw 46:14 Like why one is more of a, a public service that, that we see to work, while, while the other wouldn't necessarily be. And for ... And, and, and you kind of just said it yourself, it would be a signal for there to be more doctors. Um, which is why the free market, um, price, price points are so important, because the only way to signal that is to actually, um, uh, uh, that demand raises prices. When the government tries to do that ... Now there's this theory as a socialist that, that they would say, "The government can just figure that out." Um, I, I would say that they've tried that in the past. It never works. It never, it just, it never ever works. The government can't possibly be so omniscient as to know every single price signal and, and anticipate every single piece of demand and production that is therefore required. And so, you know, it's not just healthcare that this is a problem, it's, it's every aspect of society.

Joe Rogan 47:07 So if I can go back to what you were saying earlier, you ... So what you're essentially saying about socialism, that socialism looks at this problem and says, "Hey, let's make the d- the government take care of everything. Let's take money from the wealthy people and pour it into the government. And that the government will then have resources to take care of these issues." And you, you're just looking at the first step of the problem. You're not looking at the secondary or tertiary, uh, uh, uh, in- instances-

Dan Crenshaw 47:33 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:33 ... or things that are gonna go sideways once you do implement that first step. Is that what you're saying?

Dan Crenshaw 47:39 That's 100% what I'm saying. Uh, uh, I would, I would add that soc- socialism leaves out some very important things, like, like human nature, uh, for instance. And, and this, th- this notion that we need incentives. Um, socialism doesn't believe in incentives, doesn't believe that we need incentive to do things. There's, there's, there's, there's this utopian belief among s- the most, the hardcore socialists that, that humans will act in this, in this kind of philanthropic manner no matter what. Like, we're going to do the most amount of work even if that reward is, is overwhelmingly taken away from us and redistributed. But of course that's not how it would actually function in reality.

Joe Rogan 48:20 Yeah, I agree.

Dan Crenshaw 48:20 You would start to ... You would, you would ... It just wouldn't, right?

Joe Rogan 48:23 Right.

Dan Crenshaw 48:23 And so you're ... And now maybe for a few people, a few altruistic people would be the ones, you know, doing all the work while everybody else is like pretending to work, which is what happened in the Soviet Union. You pretend to pay us, we'll pre- we'll pretend to work. Right?

Joe Rogan 48:35 Right.

Dan Crenshaw 48:35 Like that, that was the saying from the Soviet Union. That's ... I, I think we intuitively understand that, and, and, and when that hap- ... And, and again, the same thing with Medicare for all. If, if you're ... If you have price controls, your incentives change.And, and if we're, if we're not really serious about understanding that aspect of, of these, of these policies, then, uh, we're, we're, we're not thinking through them correctly. And I, and I understand a lot of Democrats would say, "Well, it's Medicare for all. It's not socialism." And I'm like, "Yeah, but it, but it has very socialistic tendencies and it has these qualities that I've described of, of not taking into account the second, third order effects, of removing human incentive, of, of, of, of forcing somebody's services and because you're calling it a right, which means that you now have a right to somebody else's services." Like, these are, these are things that have been proven not to work, and, and I, and I think we, and I think we have to understand that as, as we try to move towards the mutual goal of getting everybody access to healthcare. On, on the healthcare-

Joe Rogan 49:33 Well, it doesn't work with everything.

Dan Crenshaw 49:35 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:35 But it do- doesn't that work with the fire department? Isn't the fire department in a lot of ways a socialist institution?

Dan Crenshaw 49:43 No. No. Again, I, I still say, it, it is not, because it is not under any obligation to serve everybody, um, that, that demands its service, right? It's there for specific emergency service as a, as a public good. Um-

Joe Rogan 49:56 But it's there for fire. If there's a fire, they, they come in and help you.

Dan Crenshaw 50:00 So I understand that.

Joe Rogan 50:02 There's not a financial, uh, es- incentive for them to do so.

Dan Crenshaw 50:07 Right. But I mean, but, but on a practical level, on a practical level though, imagine the scaling that has to occur if you're, if you're doing that with medi- with medical care. And, and I, and I think that's, and I think that's the difference, both from an economic point and a, and a practical standpoint.

Joe Rogan 50:23 Right. But we're talking about over-

Dan Crenshaw 50:24 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:24 Well, you're talking about socialism overall, not just over-

Dan Crenshaw 50:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:27 ... um, not just involving medicine. You're talking about socialism in general, and I'm saying, "Isn't the fire department an example of socialism that works?"

Dan Crenshaw 50:36 Well, it's definitely not an example of socialism. Um, I, I think it's an example of a public good, the way the military is an example of a public good, the way the highways are examples of public goods, the way parks are examples-

Joe Rogan 50:47 Right.

Dan Crenshaw 50:47 ... of public goods.

Joe Rogan 50:47 But they're funded by the people. It's funded by people overall.

Dan Crenshaw 50:51 Right.

Joe Rogan 50:51 It doesn't cost people money to use them, and the people have these as, uh, a basic part of our, our society and our civilization.

Dan Crenshaw 51:00 No, I understand that. And, and I have nothing, no problem with that. I just, I just would not call them socialist. I, I would not call anything socialist, bro.

Joe Rogan 51:04 Well, what would you call the fire department? Wh- what, how does it get funded?

Dan Crenshaw 51:07 Uh, uh, it's a public good.

Joe Rogan 51:08 How does it get funded?

Dan Crenshaw 51:10 Uh, it- it's a public good. It's, if... It's funded by the public.

Joe Rogan 51:12 Right.

Dan Crenshaw 51:13 And it just, it's not. It's, but it, it's not relying on these sort of, it's not relying on the tenets of socialism to function. And so, so the, now we're, now we're kind of having a discussion of, of definitions and-

Joe Rogan 51:23 Right.

Dan Crenshaw 51:23 ... and this is an important discussion to have, because oftentimes even Democrats aren't really talking about socialism.

Joe Rogan 51:30 Well, even Democrat Bernie Sanders-

Dan Crenshaw 51:31 You know, when, when-

Joe Rogan 51:31 ... doesn't call it socialism. He's talking about Democratic socialism, and he makes some very clear distinctions between the two of them, which I think you could apply to things like the fire department or the police department.

Dan Crenshaw 51:42 Yeah. Um, uh, there's a lot in that. So I, I think Bernie, yes, he does say Democratic socialism. I think he does mean much, something much, much closer to socialism, and that's just me gleaning from his policies, um, because he does talk about putting, you know, government control on corporate boards. Elizabeth Warren talked about the same things. Now we really are talking about nationalizing things. Um, when you're talking about mass price controls across all industries, on wage controls, you, you really are talking about more of an actual socialism. Again, uh, going back to the whether a fire department or a park or a public highway or the military is a socialist institution, again, I would, I would, I would, I would really push back against that. That is a, that is a public good. We've never, in our culture, in, in our economics, we've never defined these things as socialist institutions. A socialist institution effectively means you're, you're n- you're, you're seizing the means of production and you're, you're forcing everybody into a centralized planning state. Um, you're, you're, you're telling people what they will earn and, and what you will pay them, how much they can sell. You know, you start to take more control over the economy. A lot of the policy set out by Bernie Sanders are movements in that direction. Uh, the fire department is, is really not. That, again, that is, that is a public service. It has a defined, you know, it has a defined budget. It has a defined role. Um, it doesn't, it doesn't meet any of those other attributes or, or elements that I, that I describe when I describe what a socialist is. And so this gets into another question, like what, well, why... Maybe Bernie just means the Nordic countries, right? And, you know, (laughs) I remember the foreign minister from Denmark came to Harvard. I think he gave a speech. This was a few years ago. And he said, "Stop calling us socialists. We're not socialists." (laughs) "We're, we're, we're probably..." A- a- and, and I would agree with him. Um, all these Nordic countries have frankly more of a free market than we do, uh, in, in many ways. When we look at their regulatory standards, they're, they're, they're quite liberal. Um, when we look at their corporate tax rates, it's very low. They don't have a minimum wage, uh, in, in many cases. And so, you know, they're not socialist countries. What they do have is a very generous welfare state, and, and that's different than... And, and even that is different than socialism. It's a giant welfare state. Now I'm still against that in many ways. I, I think there's consequences to that giant welfare state that, that they now have to suffer with, um, as a result. And, and if you've noticed too that they d- they actually used to be very socialist countries, but their economies crashed as a result, and over time they became much more free market. Um, we see the same thing out of Israel. We see the same thing out of, uh, India. Used to be much more deeply socialist countries. Um, a lot of them have just maintained their big welfare states, which they are having trouble paying for, just like we're having trouble paying for our big welfare state, which is mostly based in Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare.

Joe Rogan 54:39 Uh, w- when you say public good, right? This is what you feel that the fire department is, it's a public good, right? Would... Do you think that it's, it's possible to implement something like that wi- in regards to medical care?

Dan Crenshaw 54:52 Yeah. Yeah, I mean, so this is a discussion. If- if we get our definitions straight and we're just saying, "Okay, we just want another public good."

Joe Rogan 54:57 Yeah.

Dan Crenshaw 54:57 And it's medical care. So it's a- that's a more accurate way of describing it.

Joe Rogan 55:01 I think people don't care what-

Dan Crenshaw 55:02 Or a m-

Joe Rogan 55:03 ... it's called, right? The, we just want healthcare.

Dan Crenshaw 55:05 Well, right. But then we get back to the discussion we had before. Okay, what if we did that? Well, there's a cost to it, and it's a hell of a lot more than the fire department and police department. Um, the cost by- by most estimates is in the mid-30-something trillion dollars. Uh-

Joe Rogan 55:21 Per year?

Dan Crenshaw 55:22 That's a cost on ... now, for over 10 years.

Joe Rogan 55:24 Okay.

Dan Crenshaw 55:24 So about- about three and a half trillion per year. So that's basically doubling our budget, just every year. Um, that's in addition to what we already spend, okay? So that's additional federal spending. Some- some- some people try to massage those numbers and say, "Oh, but- but that's actually, uh, cheaper than what we have now if you add it all together." That is false. That is- that is completely false. I, again, I have a whole podcast where I actually interviewed the guy who- who made that study, uh, the economist who did that study. And that's not a controversial study. Everybody basically agrees. Elizabeth Warren's plan was 50-something trillion dollars. That's adding what we already spend to the new spending that would have to occur. So what does that mean in practice? It means doubling or tripling your taxes, unles- unless we try to deficit spend it, which I- I think would be crazy. So it means doubling or tripling your taxes. And so then, and then the question is, "Okay, fine, well I do wanna double or triple my taxes." I mean, some people will say that. I don't actually believe them. I- I bet once they got their taxes, uh, they would totally change their mind. But let's say they're totally into it, okay? Let's say they actually want to do that. Then you have the second and third order consequences, which is, okay, what are you getting for this? What is- what is this new utopia that we really live in where healthcare is free? And then I go back to, okay, in order to meet that price point of the- the- the three and a half trillion a year, that's- that's, by the way, assuming that we continue using Medicare prices, um, which is what all the plans do assume, by the way. Um, and so if we're doing that, we're drastically cutting prices that we pay doctors and hospitals. If we do that, we drastically cut our supply of doctors and hospitals, and we- and we- and we cut off and choke off the innovative capacity that we do have, so we're losing those quality, um, those quality points. And again, so how do you get people care? Well, the main problem we have with healthcare in this country is that it costs too much. That's fundamentally the problem. It is too costly. And so, from the Republican side, what we'd rather do is actually target the source of the problem, make it easier to get insurance. 'Cause right now, I mean, you know, it's for so many Americans, that insurance is just too expensive. If you have it through your employer, it's usually pretty good. People are pretty happy with that. But for the most part, it's too expensive, which is why I go back to my direct primary care idea, because once you hit, once you solve the direct primary, the primary care issue, you make solving insurance much easier. You can to- then you can still protect people with preexisting conditions. Uh, we like things like either high-risk pools at the state level or reinsurance programs. Uh, you- you can make this, uh, you- you can continue to make improvements to the system that make it affordable for people, and get people access to stuff that they need while also sorry about that.

Joe Rogan 58:09 Sorry, broke up there for a second. This whol- whole connection of doing things remotely sucks. Uh, what did you, can you say that last sen- statement again? Just the- the last few words that you said?

Dan Crenshaw 58:20 Um, I- I- I, well-

Joe Rogan 58:22 You were talking about insurance.

Dan Crenshaw 58:23 I was, I-

Joe Rogan 58:23 Here- here is my question-

Dan Crenshaw 58:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:25 ... about the whole thing. Like, insurance still has to pay for it then. It's, you're still paying-

Dan Crenshaw 58:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:29 ... someone's still paying for all this healthcare. If the insurance companies aren't making any profit 'cause they're paying for all the healthcare, then what happens then? Do we fund the insurance companies? I mean, how do- how does all this stuff get evened out?

Dan Crenshaw 58:42 Are- are you referring to cases where, you know, the- the cost of somebody's care is so astronomically expensive that even the insurance company can't afford it?

Joe Rogan 58:51 Well, look, here's the problem. Right? People can't afford healthcare, so we get them insurance. Insurance takes care of healthcare. How do the insurance companies make any money then?

Dan Crenshaw 59:02 Well, I mean, they make a profit just like- just like anybody else. But- but they're also, they're- they're- they're also, what we've found is, especially with our experience with Medicare Advantage, is when you pit insurance companies against each other in a- in a free market, um, they lower costs. You know, they- they are a natural ... There's different- there's different elements of the healthcare system. Um, on one side is driving up costs, you know, because a doctor wants to keep doing more tests or whatever it is, or- or a patient wants to do more things. The insurance company's job is to say, "Hold on a second. Why are you doing this? What- what is the reason for this? What's the outcome that we expect from this?" So that naturally drives, that's a- that's a natural, um, uh, you know, bulwark against higher costs. The government would, i- in a Medicare for all scheme, the government would simply replace that insurance company. We- we should be very careful when assuming that the government will somehow be better at that than insurance companies. I'm not saying insurance companies are great, at all. Everybody doesn't seem to like them. But I also don't want the government doing it. I don't wanna be in a case like in Great Britain where- where the government will say, "You know what? Your granddad's not on the ventilator anymore. We're done with that." Or, "Your baby can't get that care." I mean, we've all seen these stories. And we don't have that issue in America. Um-

Joe Rogan 1:00:19 But- but can I pause you? Don't we have a problem-

Dan Crenshaw 1:00:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:00:21 ... with insurance companies not want to pay for certain things?

Dan Crenshaw 1:00:25 They- they might, but they still, but the care still happens. Um, the hospital has to eat that care a lot, and there's- there's different funding mechanisms that reimburse them. You know, we- we have a really, I mean, I'm not defending our healthcare system. I want to be clear about that. It's definitely not perfect. It's a huge patchwork. But no, that doesn't, that- that- that, not the way it happens over there. Because over there, like in Great Britain, if you actually nationalize the healthcare system the way they do, it's, when they say you're not gonna be on the ventilator anymore, there's no choice. Like, that's, that- that is, that is the decision. And then that's what they have to deal with. And so-... it, it is different.

Joe Rogan 1:01:02 But don't they have some private healthcare over there as well?

Dan Crenshaw 1:01:06 I think they might have elements of it, and same with Canada, but, but, but not for basic care. Like so you can, you- for, for other kinds of healthcare that aren't necessarily-

Joe Rogan 1:01:14 Surgeries?

Dan Crenshaw 1:01:16 Yeah, like elective stuff. Um-

Joe Rogan 1:01:17 Orthopedic surgeries?

Dan Crenshaw 1:01:18 Yeah. And I, I, I'd have to really get some details for you on what each country does, but it's, it's, it's limited. They limit what they can actually do.

Joe Rogan 1:01:25 I don't wanna get bogged down too much in socialism, but one, one of the things that you said, you said socialism has been implemented before. But it, it's never really been implemented here, right?

Dan Crenshaw 1:01:36 Thank God.

Joe Rogan 1:01:36 (laughs)

Dan Crenshaw 1:01:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:36 But this is, but this is what I was saying-

Dan Crenshaw 1:01:39 (laughs) .

Joe Rogan 1:01:39 ... before that I think that when people look at it as an attractive notion, one of the things that attracts them to it is that w- our system doesn't work that great, and that maybe this would be a system that does serve people. And like there, there's a bunch of buzzwords that people use, you know, uh, wealth disparity, economically disadvantaged, you know, the working class, all these different-

Dan Crenshaw 1:02:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:00 ... this is, these are words that they use that this is maybe w- maybe socialism would benefit those people and there's more of them than there are of the elite. And d- what do you say to that?

Dan Crenshaw 1:02:12 Um, I would say that there has been times in this country where we had astronomical tax rates, um, and, uh, higher government control on some things, and we ended up with skyrocketing inflation and, uh, downward growth. So I'm talking about the '70s. And the- when, when Reagan came to power, we reversed a lot of that, and we've been in a pretty good, good trend ever since. I, I, I, I know that what, I know what people are saying, and you repeated it, which is our system doesn't work. Well, I, I wanna, I actually wanna push back against the premise that our system doesn't work. The, the evidence for that is, is not great. I mean, I, I think there's a lot more evidence to suggest that we live in the best time in modern hist- in history, in modern times. It, it, it's, it's hard, it's hard to argue otherwise.

Joe Rogan 1:03:02 I would agree.

Dan Crenshaw 1:03:02 There are certain, there's, I mean, there's certain problems that people point to, especially millennials, my people my age. Housing is, is more expensive. Um, our, our purchasing power isn't as good with, say, things like housing and healthcare. This is- these are true statements. Also depends on where you live. The, the problem, Joe, is people are identifying issues, they're not putting them into context and perspective. But even if they're right about the issues, like, "Hey, our purchasing power is lower with respect to housing and, and healthcare," two very important things, people are misunderstanding why that is. People forgot to ask the question, "Why is it? Why is it that I can't afford this?" People are instead jumping to a solution that is frankly very shallow and simple, which is make housing cheaper, make healthcare cheaper. How? Write a law, say it's cheaper. Well, no, that's not how it works. We can't just do that. We have to first ask the question, like, "Why did this happen?" So in California, let's talk about housing for a second. Cal- California and Texas don't have the same problems, and housing in Texas is much easier to come by than it is in California. Why is that? Well, as it turns out, we don't have zoning here in Houston. You can build where you wanna build. It's a much easier... I talked to developers who, who develop here and develop sometimes in California. It's like four times more expensive to develop because of all the regulations in California, which means the housing itself is gonna be more expensive. So what is it? Government, too much government control, frankly. Um, in San Francisco, you can't build anything else. They don't allow building high rises full of apartment buildings, so it's no surprise that supply is too constricted and prices have to go up for the lan- for the intense amount of demand that's out there. We don't have those same problems in Texas. Okay, so again, it's like, why is this happening? Same with healthcare. Healthcare is not a free market, hasn't been, um, in basically forever, and prices have gone up as a result. Now, healthcare is a lot more complicated than housing, and we, we've spent a lot of time talking about it already. But we really have to ask ourselves why something is, is so expensive, what we're getting from that, and, and then, and then we intelligently look at what are the solutions to, to solve it.

Joe Rogan 1:05:08 California's a mess in a lot of ways. There's, uh, a lot of problems.

Dan Crenshaw 1:05:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:05:13 But do you really feel like the, the reason why San Francisco's housing, I mean, it's gone up radically with the tech boom.

Dan Crenshaw 1:05:20 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:05:20 I mean, I think a lot of it is supply and demand. A lot of it is just-

Dan Crenshaw 1:05:24 Yeah, that's what I mean.

Joe Rogan 1:05:25 ... has people, but it's also people that just have ridiculous amounts of money. And so-

Dan Crenshaw 1:05:29 No, it-

Joe Rogan 1:05:29 ... the, the wealth in-

Dan Crenshaw 1:05:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:05:30 ... San Francisco is so off the charts that people are willing to buy a stupid house for, you know, $3 million that really should be $300,000 in taxes.

Dan Crenshaw 1:05:42 Yeah, no, it... Well, I, I agree with you. It is a supply and demand issue, and the supply hasn't caught up with the demand. That, that, that's, that, that's what I'm saying, is like the, the, the government won't allow more supply to be built.

Joe Rogan 1:05:53 Well, they're trying not to ruin the city too though.

Dan Crenshaw 1:05:55 In San Diego. Yeah, and, and that's fair. Like, but that, but that's, uh, and that's totally fair. And, and as a, as a city, people in San Francisco might just decide, "We don't want anybody else living here and we don't wanna build anything else."

Joe Rogan 1:06:05 But what's weird is-

Dan Crenshaw 1:06:06 And that's a prerogative.

Joe Rogan 1:06:06 ... they have no problem with homeless people. I mean, the homeless pe-

Dan Crenshaw 1:06:11 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:06:11 If y- How, when was the last time you've been to San Francisco?

Dan Crenshaw 1:06:15 Uh, I, it's, it's been a while, but I, but I have been there quite a number of times. And I was gonna say, like I spent 10 years in San Diego. San Diego doesn't have these problems.

Joe Rogan 1:06:23 No. Well, it's a far more conservative place.

Dan Crenshaw 1:06:26 San Diego... And they just, they let big buildings get built, you know.

Joe Rogan 1:06:28 Mm-hmm.

Dan Crenshaw 1:06:28 Like I used to live in Downtown San Diego, and when I was there, um, it was one way, and now there's like 15 more high rises. And the rent has basically stayed the same. So which is good for renters, it's bad for owners and developers, but you know. But the irony is like the populous kind of left and right, like are really mad at the owners and developers, the owners of capital, right?

Joe Rogan 1:06:53 Right.

Dan Crenshaw 1:06:53 Like, like kind of Marxists screaming and yelling is all about. But the irony is that the policies they wanna implement help those people.And if we let more deregulation occur, you're helping the renters whose rent hasn't changed in years. And, and I know this. Like, (laughs) like I follow the market in San Diego very-

Joe Rogan 1:07:11 Mm-hmm.

Dan Crenshaw 1:07:11 ... carefully, um, be- be- because we still have property there. And so, I rent out to people. I haven't been able to... I have not changed the rent in years. Years. And that's because of upward supply. And so, a- again, so I guess my... You're completely right, it's a supply-demand issue in San Francisco. I, I, the thing is, is like, you have to choose one or the other. If you want prices to go down, you have to allow more supply. If you're comfortable with prices the way they are, and you don't want more people moving into San Francisco, well then, fine, but you have to be comfortable with the prices the way they are and c- and then deal with the homeless population on top of that.

Joe Rogan 1:07:43 The homeless population's insane. I mean, you've never seen anything like it. Los Angeles as well. Go to downtown LA and drive around-

Dan Crenshaw 1:07:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:07:50 ... and it doesn't even seem like it's real. It, it does... It seems like it's a movie.

Dan Crenshaw 1:07:56 It's, it's, it's really sad, um-

Joe Rogan 1:07:58 And there's no solution.

Dan Crenshaw 1:07:59 I just, uh-

Joe Rogan 1:07:59 There's no solution that's on the table.

Dan Crenshaw 1:08:01 Well-

Joe Rogan 1:08:01 There's nothing that anybody's, like, said that, like, okay, "This is what we're gonna do and this is, this is our ten-year plan, and we're gonna clean this up, and we're gonna do X, Y, and Z, and we're gonna take care of this." Because there didn't used to be 70,000 homeless people in the city and there is now. So, obviously, something went wrong and over a period of 10 million years, or, or 10 years rather, 70 million people, or 70,000 people and... How many mill... I'm, I'm throwing out a bunch of numbers here that don't make sense. How many million people live in LA?

Dan Crenshaw 1:08:25 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:08:25 It's like 20,000,000 people, and there's 70,000 homeless people, right? Isn't it something like that?

Dan Crenshaw 1:08:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:08:30 That i- that is a crazy number. 70,000 is a sma- it's a good-sized town.

Dan Crenshaw 1:08:36 It is. And I wouldn't say there's no solutions, although there's no solutions being proposed in California. I mean, you're correct about that. They should propose solutions, and they could look to Houston, um, for some ideas.

Joe Rogan 1:08:46 But what have they done?

Dan Crenshaw 1:08:47 You... Well, we... Well, we took it seriously. (laughs) Um, y- one, one thing we do is a housing-first type of policy. So, you, you offer services, but after you've gotten them somewhere. And maybe that place is a warehouse, but you actua- you also have to have a forcing function. So, there's, there's also a degree of allowing this, what is basically a crime, to take place in California-

Joe Rogan 1:09:12 Right.

Dan Crenshaw 1:09:12 ... whereas in Texas, we don't allow it.

Joe Rogan 1:09:15 Right.

Dan Crenshaw 1:09:15 We're saying, "No, you can't do that."

Joe Rogan 1:09:16 You can't... You just camp on the street. Yeah.

Dan Crenshaw 1:09:18 Right. It's just you... So, that's the first thing. Like, you, (laughs) you have to actually make it illegal, but then put systems in place to actually help them. Um, but it ha- but it does have to go in that order. I- i- in, in California, their, their main problem is that they, um, they allow it. And, and in Austin we had this problem, because Austin is a very liberal city. And so, their instinct was to do the same thing that they're doing in San Francisco and LA. The governor stepped in and said, "Okay, you know what? No. We're actually just going to solve this. We're gonna put everybody somewhere else. We're gonna take them away from..." You know, 'cause people were camping out right outside businesses downtown.

Joe Rogan 1:09:52 Right.

Dan Crenshaw 1:09:52 You can't do that.

Joe Rogan 1:09:53 Right.

Dan Crenshaw 1:09:53 And so, we took them out, and... But, but made sure that there was some kind of access to hygiene, to Porta-Potties, and then, and then access to, you know, social services that get, you know, get people back on their feet. There's also a good private... Like, there's a real, um, like nonprofit sector in Houston that works together very well with the city, um, over time, a lot of private investors. I mean, I went and toured this, like, this shelter. It's mostly... They, they try to maintain it mostly for families. But this shelter, what looks... I s- man, you go into this thing, it looks like a, like a new college campus how nice it is. And this is 95% privately funded. They take some HUD money to, to fund some of their more longer term, like, apartments that they have there for people. Th- this is how people get access to new job training, you know. And the... So, this... There has to be a public/private relationship, and you have to have some leadership that says, "We're just gonna s- we're actually gonna try and solve this problem."

Joe Rogan 1:10:50 Is there anything on the table like that for California?

Dan Crenshaw 1:10:54 I don't know, man. I'm a, I'm a Texas guy. I-

Joe Rogan 1:10:57 (laughs)

Dan Crenshaw 1:10:57 There should be. (laughs) I- I don't know. I don't, I don't... I, I could guess but I, I'd be speaking out of turn. I really... I don't know what the, what the deal is.

Joe Rogan 1:11:06 Well-

Dan Crenshaw 1:11:06 I just know you guys are sheltered in place.

Joe Rogan 1:11:08 It's growing like barnacles here. It's really strange. I mean, I've been here since '94 and I've never seen anything like the current situation. And, like you said, it's a crime they're allowing to take place. You can't litter, so how come you can just leave your shit under the underpass? I mean, you can't walk under underpasses in a lot of Los Angeles. And I mean-

Dan Crenshaw 1:11:28 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:11:28 ... I'm not exaggerating. There's needles, and cans, and garbage, and cardboard, and tents, and bikes. It's nuts. I mean, it's really-

Dan Crenshaw 1:11:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:11:37 ... really strange. Almost every underpass in, in certain parts of LA, you'll find homeless encampments.

Dan Crenshaw 1:11:45 Yeah. I mean, it's a, it's just, it's a, it's a stain on... What are they doing right now during coronavirus lockdown?

Joe Rogan 1:11:51 That's a very good question.

Dan Crenshaw 1:11:52 How, how is that?

Joe Rogan 1:11:52 I don't know.

Dan Crenshaw 1:11:53 How is that enforced?

Joe Rogan 1:11:53 We're locked down, so I don't... I mean, I go here, I go to the grocery store, I go home. That's basically all I've been doing for a month. And it's... Most people that are following the regulations, it's all they're doing as well. So, I don't know what they're doing. I, I haven't seen any talk about it. I've seen the fact that they had to shut down beaches because people were just getting silly and they're using it like a day off, and going to the beaches and being on top of each other. So, they had to shut down parking at the beaches, and they've slowly tried to close the loopholes. The loopholes for knuckleheads, basically.

Dan Crenshaw 1:12:25 Yeah. Um, is there, is there an end date to California's lockdown?

Joe Rogan 1:12:30 I believe they're talking about having it the end of April. But, uh, I think there was some talk about it now being the end of May. I don't... Find out that out Jamie. Is there... Jamie doesn't have a lap- (laughs) a laptop in front of him 'cause we're doing this.

Dan Crenshaw 1:12:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:12:44 Um, I don't know.