Joe Rogan Experience #1454 - Dan Crenshaw

1. 0:00 – 1:37

   Crenshaw’s book launch and quick studio tour (flag, books, typewriter)

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:00

      Congressman, how are you, sir?

   2. DCDan Crenshaw0:02

      Hey, I'm doing well, Joe. Good to see you again.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:04

      You look official.

   4. DCDan Crenshaw0:05

      Even virtually.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:05

      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.

   6. DCDan Crenshaw0:12

      Yeah. That's a good question.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:13

      (laughs)

   8. DCDan Crenshaw0:13

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

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:17

      (laughs)

   10. DCDan Crenshaw0:17

       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.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:29

       And that's the one that's out right now.

   12. DCDan Crenshaw0:30

       And I wrote it.

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:31

       That's the one that's out right now that-

   14. DCDan Crenshaw0:32

       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.

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:37

       That's tomorrow.

   16. DCDan Crenshaw0:38

       Um-

   17. JRJoe Rogan0:39

       Uh, yeah. That's exactly when this will come out.

   18. DCDan Crenshaw0:40

       Yes.

   19. JRJoe Rogan0:40

       So, perfect. Fortitude. We need that right now.

   20. DCDan Crenshaw0:45

       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.

   21. JRJoe Rogan0:59

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

   22. DCDan Crenshaw1:06

       Yeah. Well, I- I... Yeah. I feel like there's worse tattoos you could get.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:10

       Oh, yeah. I've got them. Is there, uh... (laughs)

   24. DCDan Crenshaw1:12

       (laughs)

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:13

       What about the typewriter? Do you use the typewriter? Is that legit?

   26. DCDan Crenshaw1:16

       Oh. That- no. That- that is a legit typewriter. That was my granddad's old typewriter.

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:21

       Oh.

   28. DCDan Crenshaw1:21

       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-

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:36

       Oh. That is cool.

   30. DCDan Crenshaw1:36

       ... little thing. Yeah.

2. 1:37 – 3:48

   COVID as a “tactical retreat”: why lockdowns happened and what comes next

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:37

      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.

   2. DCDan Crenshaw2:00

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan2:01

      And I'm sure you as well. What- what- what is your take on this?

   4. DCDan Crenshaw2:05

      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.

3. 3:48 – 6:00

   When do restrictions end? Metrics, thresholds, and hidden public-health costs

   1. JRJoe Rogan3:48

      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?

   2. DCDan Crenshaw4:22

      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.

4. 6:00 – 7:16

   Press briefings, hydroxychloroquine controversy, and “gotcha” journalism

   1. JRJoe Rogan6:00

      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-

   2. DCDan Crenshaw6:24

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan6:24

      ... 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-

   4. DCDan Crenshaw7:03

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan7:03

      ... 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.

5. 7:16 – 16:48

   Outrage culture and viral ambush tactics: hero archetypes flipped upside down

   1. DCDan Crenshaw7:16

      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?"

   2. JRJoe Rogan8:44

      (laughs)

   3. DCDan Crenshaw8:44

      It's like, what- how is- how is that a good question?

   4. JRJoe Rogan8:46

      And how is that news?

   5. DCDan Crenshaw8:47

      And- and- who...

   6. JRJoe Rogan8:47

      Right, in the middle of a pandemic.

   7. DCDan Crenshaw8:49

      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.

   8. JRJoe Rogan10:02

      It's poison.

   9. DCDan Crenshaw10:03

      But that's an ex-... Yeah, it's an-

   10. JRJoe Rogan10:04

       Yeah.

   11. DCDan Crenshaw10:04

       ... ingredient on fishbowl cleaner.

   12. JRJoe Rogan10:06

       Yeah.

   13. DCDan Crenshaw10:06

       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-

   14. JRJoe Rogan11:03

       Well, there's a- there's a new ability to do that. I mean, this is what it is-

   15. DCDan Crenshaw11:06

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan11:06

       ... 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-

   17. DCDan Crenshaw11:19

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan11:19

       ... 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-

   19. DCDan Crenshaw11:26

       Right.

   20. JRJoe Rogan11:27

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

   21. DCDan Crenshaw11:34

       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.

   22. JRJoe Rogan12:45

       Yeah.

   23. DCDan Crenshaw12:45

       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-

   24. JRJoe Rogan13:45

       So they were just trying-

   25. DCDan Crenshaw13:46

       ... and, and I thought-

   26. JRJoe Rogan13:46

       ... to have a gotcha moment with you?

   27. DCDan Crenshaw13:48

       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.

   28. JRJoe Rogan14:08

       And what, what, what were they saying about you or to you?

   29. DCDan Crenshaw14:12

       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-

   30. JRJoe Rogan14:32

       Mm-hmm.
6. 16:48 – 23:38

   Speech, deplatforming, and Rogan’s “no team” politics (plus Biden concerns)

   1. JRJoe Rogan16:48

      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.

   2. DCDan Crenshaw17:37

      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.

   3. JRJoe Rogan18:26

      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.

   4. DCDan Crenshaw18:33

      Yeah, everybody (laughs) went crazy.

   5. JRJoe Rogan18:34

      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.

   6. DCDan Crenshaw19:44

      Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan19:44

      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.

   8. DCDan Crenshaw20:02

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan20:02

      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..."

   10. DCDan Crenshaw20:26

       Misquoted the Declaration of Independence twice now.

   11. JRJoe Rogan20:29

       Yes! I mean, that's just-

   12. DCDan Crenshaw20:30

       It's a very simple document. (laughs) I don't understand. It's frustrating.

   13. JRJoe Rogan20:33

       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.

   14. DCDan Crenshaw20:57

       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.

   15. JRJoe Rogan22:47

       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.

7. 23:38 – 27:40

   Why Democrats rallied behind Biden: DNC dynamics and the party’s leftward shift

   1. DCDan Crenshaw23:38

      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

8. 27:40 – 30:44

   Socialism debate through healthcare: price controls, innovation, and drug development

   1. DCDan Crenshaw27:40

      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-

9. 30:44 – 35:37

   Can we make healthcare affordable without breaking incentives? Direct Primary Care and alternatives

   1. JRJoe Rogan30:44

      Can I pause you for a second there?

   2. DCDan Crenshaw30:45

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan30:45

      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?

   4. DCDan Crenshaw30:56

      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-

   5. JRJoe Rogan32:40

      Was there anything else attached to that? I mean, why did it get shot down?

   6. DCDan Crenshaw32:43

      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-

   7. JRJoe Rogan35:20

      And what is ... Can, can I stop you right there?

   8. DCDan Crenshaw35:21

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan35:21

      Medicare's a- av- available for who right now? What, what is the-

   10. DCDan Crenshaw35:25

       Uh, seniors.

   11. JRJoe Rogan35:26

       But what-

   12. DCDan Crenshaw35:26

       Medicare is for ... is a senior program.

   13. JRJoe Rogan35:28

       Well, so what it, what age is it? Does it kick in? Is it 65?

   14. DCDan Crenshaw35:33

       I believe so. Um, yeah, I don't wanna confuse you with Social Security. Um, I think-

10. 35:37 – 1:05:08

    Is healthcare a “right”? Public goods vs. rival services and scaling constraints

    1. JRJoe Rogan35:37

       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?

    2. DCDan Crenshaw35:51

       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-

    3. JRJoe Rogan35:58

       But Medicare for All would be available for everybody?

    4. DCDan Crenshaw36:01

       Right.

    5. JRJoe Rogan36:01

       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-

    6. DCDan Crenshaw36:13

       Right.

    7. JRJoe Rogan36:13

       ... a problem because of what?

    8. DCDan Crenshaw36:16

       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-

    9. JRJoe Rogan36:46

       Can I stop you on that analogy?

    10. DCDan Crenshaw36:48

        Yeah.

    11. JRJoe Rogan36:48

        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-

    12. DCDan Crenshaw37:03

        It is.

    13. JRJoe Rogan37:03

        ... 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.

    14. DCDan Crenshaw37:34

        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.

    15. JRJoe Rogan37:42

        Right. But I think that's-

    16. DCDan Crenshaw37:42

        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.

    17. JRJoe Rogan37:48

        I see what you're saying-

    18. DCDan Crenshaw37:49

        But morally-

    19. JRJoe Rogan37:49

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

    20. DCDan Crenshaw37:56

        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.

    21. JRJoe Rogan39:36

        Can I pause you there?

    22. DCDan Crenshaw39:37

        I- again, you, you, you may-

    23. JRJoe Rogan39:37

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

    24. DCDan Crenshaw39:42

        Yeah.

    25. JRJoe Rogan39:42

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

    26. DCDan Crenshaw39:51

        Yeah.

    27. JRJoe Rogan39:51

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

    28. DCDan Crenshaw39:57

        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-

    29. JRJoe Rogan42:48

        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?

    30. DCDan Crenshaw42:54

        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?
11. 1:05:08 – 1:12:55

    California housing costs, regulation, and the homelessness explosion (Texas/Houston contrasts)

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:05:08

       California's a mess in a lot of ways. There's, uh, a lot of problems.

    2. DCDan Crenshaw1:05:13

       Yeah.

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:05:13

       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.

    4. DCDan Crenshaw1:05:20

       Mm-hmm.

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:05:20

       I mean, I think a lot of it is supply and demand. A lot of it is just-

    6. DCDan Crenshaw1:05:24

       Yeah, that's what I mean.

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:05:25

       ... has people, but it's also people that just have ridiculous amounts of money. And so-

    8. DCDan Crenshaw1:05:29

       No, it-

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:05:29

       ... the, the wealth in-

    10. DCDan Crenshaw1:05:30

        Yeah.

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:05:30

        ... 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.

    12. DCDan Crenshaw1:05:42

        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.

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:05:53

        Well, they're trying not to ruin the city too though.

    14. DCDan Crenshaw1:05:55

        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."

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:06:05

        But what's weird is-

    16. DCDan Crenshaw1:06:06

        And that's a prerogative.

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:06:06

        ... they have no problem with homeless people. I mean, the homeless pe-

    18. DCDan Crenshaw1:06:11

        Yeah. (laughs)

    19. JRJoe Rogan1:06:11

        If y- How, when was the last time you've been to San Francisco?

    20. DCDan Crenshaw1:06:15

        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.

    21. JRJoe Rogan1:06:23

        No. Well, it's a far more conservative place.

    22. DCDan Crenshaw1:06:26

        San Diego... And they just, they let big buildings get built, you know.

    23. JRJoe Rogan1:06:28

        Mm-hmm.

    24. DCDan Crenshaw1:06:28

        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?

    25. JRJoe Rogan1:06:53

        Right.

    26. DCDan Crenshaw1:06:53

        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-

    27. JRJoe Rogan1:07:11

        Mm-hmm.

    28. DCDan Crenshaw1:07:11

        ... 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.

    29. JRJoe Rogan1:07:43

        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-

    30. DCDan Crenshaw1:07:50

        Yeah.

Episode duration: 2:23:26