EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,007 words- 0:00 – 1:25
Jon’s attic office and why he left The Daily Show
- JRJoe Rogan
And h- hi, Jon Stewart.
- JSJon Stewart
Hi, Joe Rogan.
- JRJoe Rogan
What's going on behind you? What is all that jazz?
- JSJon Stewart
Oh, it's all my ... When my kids were younger, this was their pla- ... I'm in the attic.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh. (laughs)
- JSJon Stewart
So, when they, when they were younger, came up here with their cousins and doodle, and, uh, then I got kicked up here. It's my office now, and I'm, I'm here with the bunny and the, the guinea pig and the rat.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hey, man-
- JSJon Stewart
So I've been-
- JRJoe Rogan
... I miss you. I miss you on TV right now. I really do. This is a perfect time for you. It's, uh, it's kinda crazy-
- JSJon Stewart
Uh, uh- (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... that you're not hosting that show anymore.
- JSJon Stewart
But there's so many people doing that kind of sh- ... You know, I was ... I really did burn out. Like, I, I felt like it's just redundant. You know, the nice thing for what you do is you get to curate and kind of be more active and to follow your own rhythm for it. I was really tied to that rhythm of the 24-hour news cycle.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JSJon Stewart
And how fucking redundant it is and how cyclical. And at a certain point, I was like, "I don't know what else to do with this," and so I didn't wanna stay just 'cause I could. I just done it long enough, and so I thought, "Well, let me just..." It was just time. I felt like the audience needed a fresh perspective. I needed a fresh perspective. Like, I just, I just felt done. Like, I was more, I was more mad about shit than, than inspired, you know?
- 1:25 – 3:10
Politics as pro wrestling: characters, kayfabe, and manufactured conflict
- JRJoe Rogan
I appreciate that you decided to go out at the, literally at the very top, but it seems like ex- especially, like, right now, like, uh, John Oliver's killing it and Trevor Noah's doing your show. And it's like, this is, this is the- ... Uh, th- there's so much to mock, it's almost like an overload. And doing real commentary on politics today, in my opi- ... It's almost like you're doing commentary on pro wrestling. Like, this is a rigged game-
- JSJon Stewart
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... and you're out here pretending like this shit makes sense.
- JSJon Stewart
Oh, it- yeah, it's-
- JRJoe Rogan
It really is.
- JSJon Stewart
I- I think ... You're right. Well, it's also because that's ... The economic system that's been set up around politics is the very same that Vince McMahon set up around wrestling. You create ... I mean, it is a kind of, you know, kayfabe. It's a sort of like-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JSJon Stewart
... there are characters. Y- y- you know what it's like. When you're trying to produce something every day, you're gonna go with kind of a boilerplate structure, so you're gonna say, "All right. Our show revolves around (snaps fingers) you're from the right, you're from the left. Whatever comes in, we're gonna filter it through that. We're gonna keep it producible." But it starts to, like you say, it becomes inauthentic. But the same thing would happen to me sometimes with ... Like, I'd be doing shows, and, and you would know. You weren't necessarily feeling the outrage of something or, uh, that, that the commentary was gonna be as spicy or as deep as you might want it, but you might kick it up a notch anyway 'cause it was performative.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- JSJon Stewart
And I al- ... I, I always had to fight that instinct to not, to not give into the gravity of, like, what was expected of, of me, if that makes-
- 3:10 – 7:34
Comedy vs tragedy: the burden of “say something profound”
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, it's such, it's such a tightrope to walk because you're commenting, you're doing comedy on something that's actually serious, and it's great to mock the ridiculous aspects of it. But really, like, wh- ... If you're doing the, the Daily Show right now, like, we really are in a legitimately troubled time. Like, it's not-
- JSJon Stewart
No, that-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's not like a troubled time of 10 years ago or eight years ago. Like, this is a real troubled time.
- JSJon Stewart
No, and I think as that builds up, it becomes harder and harder. But I can recall, you know, people, people will say sometimes ... And look, I, I think there's a certain nostalgia that people view my time on the show as. Um, and I'm not being self-deprecating. I just mean, you know, when you walk away from something, I think of a kind of nostalgia about how, you, you know, I took a fair amount of shit while I was there and, uh ... But, but the point is, like, Charleston happened when I was hosting that show. Ferguson happened. The Iraq War happened. 9/11 happened. Like-
- JRJoe Rogan
Jesus.
- JSJon Stewart
These types of things were always ... And, and what would happen is you started to feel like you were expected to say something profound about it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- JSJon Stewart
And you knew that you didn't really have that in you at times, or just that's a bar that was beyond ... You know, you really did just wanna help your staff get through it more than, than anything else. And so these events would come up and the weight of feeling like you had to say something meaningful in that moment for people, because that's the role that either they had, you know, let you know that you had in their lives or that the show kind of took on, you know, became kinda difficult to navigate because the shit is so cyclical. Like, man, I, I could go back and, and do you my 10 war on Christmas bits when we
- NANarrator
Hmm.
- JSJon Stewart
... year when that shit would flare up. But, like, at a certain point when things like Charleston happened or Eric Garner, like, I had nothing in the tank comedically. Like, all I could do was stare into the camera and just express sadness and help- ... It, it's like ... You know what it is? It's impotent rage at a certain point.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- JSJon Stewart
You rage against it, but over a period of 16 years, if you feel the thing you're raging against grow stronger, right? And kind of collapse on top of you and, and you not make headway. Nobody likes to piss in the ocean.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JSJon Stewart
You know? Or you like it, but at a certain point, if that's your job, uh, I- I think it ... I think people began to look at the show like it was supposed to change things, and-... and that's a hard, that's a hard place to be for, for a comedy show.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, it's because you're reasonable.
- JSJon Stewart
(coughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
And there's not a lot of that out there. I mean, like, legitimately.
- JSJon Stewart
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And, like, the people who are like, "Please, you do it." Look, people are begging for The Rock to run for president. This is how desperate we are.
- JSJon Stewart
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
People have asked me to do it. Look, I'm a fucking bonafide moron. You don't want me running anything.
- JSJon Stewart
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
You certainly don't want me running the country, and if enough people have actually asked for that, you just know there's a feeling-
- JSJon Stewart
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... of desperation in the air. And, you know, when you were running that show, and, and you were, you were doing great comedy about real shit, and as this real shit compounds and piles up, and it doesn't seem to have any effect on this real shit, all this great comedy, after a while I can understand why it would, it would start to feel like, "What am I doing here?" Like, "How long-
- JSJon Stewart
That's right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... how long..." Do you, do you know who... What is that guy's name who was doing the resistance, the guy who was in the basement of GQ? Ken Olbermann?
- NANarrator
Keith.
- JRJoe Rogan
Keith Olbermann, sorry.
- JSJon Stewart
Oh, oh, oh, oh-
- 7:34 – 9:25
From symbolic gestures to real change: channeling protest energy
- JRJoe Rogan
It seems like trying to enact change is so difficult that when actual change happens, it's one of the reasons why it happens in such a big way. It's like, there were so many people bounding at the wall and pounding at this wall, that when, boom-
- JSJon Stewart
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... when the George Floyd protests broke through-
- JSJon Stewart
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... then all of a sudden, it's, "We've got real change. Let's take down these fucking statues and light everything on fire," and there's this feeling of change and of chaos that is also representative of the fact that it takes so long to turn our cultural battleship. It's like-
- JSJon Stewart
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... to actually get a real turn is so hard. It's so... Everything stays-
- JSJon Stewart
And often-
- JRJoe Rogan
... the same no matter how mad people get.
- JSJon Stewart
That turn, even at that point, that's still the easy part.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- JSJon Stewart
The turn's the easy part. Like, this shit's not gonna get fixed by HBO Max pulling Gone with the Wind. Like-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- JSJon Stewart
... it's fine. But, like, when you pull a movie nobody was planning on watching on a streaming service nobody can find, like, w- we're still at the symbolic stage.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JSJon Stewart
We're still doing the shit that is symbolic when... And this is where leadership becomes such a crucial component. So you have this great awakening of energy, it has to be channeled into something lasting and meaningful, and we have to diagnose the real problem underlying this moment so that we don't make a mistake in just changing the window dressing and, and the gilding on the buildings.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JSJon Stewart
Like, you, this has to be, this has to be foundational in a way that will create something lasting. And that's, that's-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JSJon Stewart
... the hard part.
- JRJoe Rogan
It seems like the shift is big enough that something is gonna happen in that regard. It j- it just seems like this shift is nothing like anything we've ever seen in our lifetime. And it's worldwide-
- JSJon Stewart
Right.
- 9:25 – 15:09
COVID bailouts and the ‘essential worker’ paradox
- JRJoe Rogan
... which is really crazy. Like, the George Floyd death sparked all these protests worldwide, which has really never happened before with anything that really has taken place in America. And, uh, it- it just seems like... There was also a lot of frustration during the bailout period of, of the COVID crisis, that all these corporations-
- JSJon Stewart
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... were getting so much money. The people got one $1200 check, and then-
- JSJon Stewart
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... then there was no more talk.
- JSJon Stewart
Next.
- JRJoe Rogan
And that this-
- JSJon Stewart
You don't know where the money... You know, there's really no accountability even for where that money went.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JSJon Stewart
That's a great point, Joe, because that's... So that's what I'm talking about by structural change. Like, I feel like, in this moment, this horrible, uh, uh, crime and murder sparked something, but what's underlying that is not just the racial in- inequality and the inequities, but this whole idea of we build our society economically from the top down.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- JSJon Stewart
Like, that's the shit that's gotta change.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JSJon Stewart
We have to-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's a rigged game.
- JSJon Stewart
Well, like, wh- when you talk, when you're in a pandemic, right? And tens of thousand people are, are dying, and then we say to ourselves, "All right. Well, who are the essential workers? Who, who are the ones that are the fabric of our society and culture, that keep the, the, the wheels turning, and, uh, uh, the trains running? Like, who are those people?" Well, it turns out, they're the most poorly compensated people in our society.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JSJon Stewart
'Cause we've flipped the, the paradigm... For some reason, since the '80s, the investor class has gotten, uh, uh, the break, and the working class has gotten minimized. We- we've devalued work while over-valuing investment. And-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's such a good point.
- JSJon Stewart
... uh, it does... I don't think we can have the structural change until we flip that. Like, fuck, man. When people talk about freedom, like, and, and, and liberty, what's more, uh, for freedom and liberty than not having your health insurance tied to your job?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. Yeah.
- JSJon Stewart
What kind of freedom do you have to make decisions in your life when you fear that, "If I take a chance, if I go for something, if I try and change my lot in life, my kids will no longer be covered by, uh..."? So, like, all the things that we built up to accept, I, I think we have to turn it over, and it has to lean more... People should be able to have, like, a digni-... You, you should be able to work a job and not be poor. You should be able to work-
- JRJoe Rogan
That's right.
- JSJon Stewart
... a job and not need food stamps. Like, that's where we're fucked. We spent, what, how much in this pandemic? Like, $3 trillion?... something like that, four trillion?
- JRJoe Rogan
Something along those lines.
- JSJon Stewart
Who knows if 100 million of it went to Coca-Cola? Like, we have no idea.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JSJon Stewart
But you got 80 bus drivers in New York who are dead 'cause they had to keep going-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JSJon Stewart
... in the middle of a pandemic.
- 15:09 – 16:37
The cost to ‘buy in’ to America: college debt and generational wealth gaps
- JSJon Stewart
And what it makes you realize is how much money it takes to ante up to the American way of life. And what I mean by that is, like, if you wanna buy, if you just wanna buy in to play a hand, right? What's your ante? Well, now they say you gotta go to college. So, you're talking about a $200,000 ante.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JSJon Stewart
Just to get in the fucking game.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, to get a job when you get out where you're not gonna make a fraction of that every year, so you're gonna be behind the eight ball for the rest of your life.
- JSJon Stewart
Right. Now think about, you know, uh, Black people not being able to build equity and wealth through generations-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JSJon Stewart
... of, you know, government policy that excluded them from, you know, from whether it's the Homestead Act or the Federal Housing Administration or the GI Bill, you know, all these government interventions, socialism if you will, entitlements if you will, w- were made to help white families build equity, right? Over generations. Black people were explicitly excluded from that. So add that on top of the amount of money that you win and you start to see the hole that we've dug for people.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JSJon Stewart
And if we don't address that hole, I don't care how many fucking comedy sketches we pull and how many things go, like, we've, we're not doing anything. And-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, we haven't addressed the hole that exists from being 150 years removed from slavery, which is crazy.
- JSJon Stewart
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's not, that's a, a, a blink in time. It's nothing.
- 16:37 – 19:09
Confederate statues, ‘no but,’ and how narratives excuse injustice
- JSJon Stewart
And how crazy is it that, like, and you al- I always hear it from, like, the but people, they're like, "The George Floyd thing, yeah, that was terrible, but..." And they, as soon as they say the but, I'm like, "No, no but." No, but he wasn't an angel. No, but-
- JRJoe Rogan
Doesn't matter.
- JSJon Stewart
... he was... What doesn't matter? And when you're upset that people are pulling down Confederate statues, like, people have been begging for that since they got, th- those things got put up in the 1920s to really lock in Jim Crow. Like, those things aren't there, they're not memorials, uh, to the dead, they are hagiography to a war for slavery. Like, we shot the movie down South, man. So I, I saw these monuments, you would think they would say, like, "Here's a statue of, uh, uh, Robert E. Lee." "This motherfucker fought-"
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- JSJon Stewart
"... in a civil war to, to keep people slaves. And then we built this thing in the '20s to make Black people kind of afraid so that they knew they couldn't take it." But it doesn't say that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JSJon Stewart
It said, "This, this great man." Like, of course people are gonna pull them down because they've been begging for us to do something about it for 100 years.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's also the origins of those. A lot of those statues were actually put up during the Civil Rights Movement.
- JSJon Stewart
Of course.
- JRJoe Rogan
And they're cheaply made. They were put up as a, a middle finger to the Civil Rights Movement.
- JSJon Stewart
No, no, no question. Look-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JSJon Stewart
But, but we need something at a, like, there has to be a process. You know, I always think about, like, what South Africa did. There has to be a painful led process that allows us... 'Cause I, I still think to this day, and I don't know how, how your experience with this is, but, like-I still think there's a large swath of, you know, white people in society who feel like they blame Black people for not being able to get out of this hole that we put them in, or that the government put them in, but they think it's a problem of culture and virtue. Like, "Hey man, if they would just, uh, pull their pants up and, uh, talk different, you know, they wouldn't have such a hard time." "Hey, why don't you just work harder?" And-
- JRJoe Rogan
No, that's a... that's a-
- JSJon Stewart
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... ridiculous perspective, and it's also not based on... You don't have a... Anyone who would think like that doesn't understand how human beings develop and grow. If you have someone-
- JSJon Stewart
I don't think that's... it's widespread.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JSJon Stewart
I wouldn't say it's widespread.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Uh, it's, it's, it's a dangerous narrative whenever-
- JSJon Stewart
Yep.
- JRJoe Rogan
... you blame people for their circumstances if their circumstances are grossly out of their control and really severely limit their progress.
- JSJon Stewart
Mm-hmm.
- 19:09 – 22:42
Community vs scarcity mindset: resource guarding and fear politics
- JRJoe Rogan
And that exists also for, if you wanna talk about coal mining populations in Kentucky.
- JSJon Stewart
No blood.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's the same shit. It's people-
- JSJon Stewart
No blood.
- JRJoe Rogan
That... We don't all start out at the same starting block, so all you pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps motherfuckers, you're lucky you have arms, okay? There's people out there born with no arms. Like, we should all be thinking of ourselves in this country as a community, not as a bunch of people in competition with each other. We're all piling our money together every year. We throw our taxes into the mix to try to take care of the infrastructure and the government and the housing and all the, all the different things that get paid for by our taxes. We're a community, man, and we're not thinking like a community.
- JSJon Stewart
Yeah. Uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
We're thinking like a bunch-
- JSJon Stewart
Sorry.
- JRJoe Rogan
... of people that don't want other people to, uh, have the same shot in life.
- JSJon Stewart
That's a good... I, I think you struck on something, though, that's very important in all this, and that is a theory of limited resources. Like-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- JSJon Stewart
... a lot of the conflict between what you would consider, like, the, the, the more nativist wing of American politics and, and the more progressive side is this idea of resource guarding.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JSJon Stewart
We're gonna... They're gonna take... I work my fucking ass off, I play by the rules, and they're gonna take all my labor-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JSJon Stewart
... and they're gonna pour it into these people. And I do think we have to address that idea that, like, we're here to build equi-... Let's all get together, and the project of this next generation is to build a stronger foundation, a, a granite bearing for everyone to stand on, so that there's a few people standing on Mount Everest and everybody else is in sand and quicksand-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- JSJon Stewart
... isn't the way that we run the society. And, and think of these programs not as entitlements, but investments.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- JSJon Stewart
If we invest in dignity-of-work shit and start building that up, well, food stamps and welfare start to go away-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JSJon Stewart
... because we're building something more substantial. We built a great middle class in the '50s for white people. We have to do the same now for the country and, and for... A- and also reassure, you know, people who are resentful of that, that they're not being left behind either, that nobody is saying, "And your lives are fucking cake."
- JRJoe Rogan
And it's not like it's gonna change your life that much either, man. This, this mentality that, "Oh, Bernie San-"... Like, when I was a supporter of Bernie Sanders when he was running, I got pushback from people that were like, "Uh, so you wanna give your hard-earned money, more of it away to the government, and you think the government's gonna solve this?" Um, my, my perspective was, if you just looked at it this way. If you could give... Let's just get crazy. If you could give 25% more money to taxes-
- JSJon Stewart
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... but the world would be 50% better-
- JSJon Stewart
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... w- wouldn't you wanna invest in that? Like, I, I understand that people are check-to-check. I understand, but if, uh, uh, people like me, people that earn a, a good amount of money are the ones who are gonna be hit the hardest. If you wanted a better world, wouldn't you be willing to invest some of your money into that better world? And if that money goes to making sure that no one has to do this in the future and that we, we develop this better comm- these better communities in these places that have been fucked for decades, you w- you don't want that? You don't want a, a better world for your children? You wanna... You don't wanna save the w-... What do you wanna do, die with all this money in the bank? Like, it's crazy.
- 22:42 – 25:00
Trickle-down economics, the Fed, and why the stock market isn’t the country
- JSJon Stewart
It's also, it's a question of... You know, when you look at the greatest anti-poverty program we've ever put in place, it's Social Security. Now, the flip side of that is, what they'll say is, the, the problem with some of this is they don't trust the mechanism by which that money is going to be invested, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Of course. (laughs)
- JSJon Stewart
'Cause they've been sold, to some extent, a little bit of a lie that, that this trickle-down theory... So, every administration that comes in is gonna stimulate the economy. They all do it. We don't have a free market. The Fed right now is driving so much money into stocks. You're talking about zero interest rates, negative interest rates.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JSJon Stewart
They're driving everything away from bonds and, and savings so that the stock market, which, for some reason, we've come to look at like a pulse oximeter of the nation, which it's, it's not. It's, you know, "Oh my God, we lost 300 Dow's today." Like, we've come to look at it like it's our temperature.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JSJon Stewart
And so everybody's gonna stimulate the economy. So what did... What... Let's look at what Trump did. So $1.5 trillion tax cut, right? Overwhelmingly though, it went to people who already have a shit ton of money. And then we cut the corporate tax rate from, I don't know, I think it was 35 down to 21, right? Supposedly, they were gonna reinvest it, but they mostly did buybacks, so they're increasing their investor wealth through that as well. So you're talking about trillions of dollars of stimulus, right? That are just going to that same theory. Take those trillion dollars and let's invest. Let's stimulate the economy, but not from up there. From down here.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JSJon Stewart
Let's do interest. Let's take that...... and fucking Marshall Plan our country. And, and build it so that it's sturdy on the legs, you know? You know, you're a fighter. Sturdy on the legs. If you're not sturdy on the legs, you got nothing.
- JRJoe Rogan
My idea is we should get Dick Cheney involved, and we should hire Halliburton-
- JSJon Stewart
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... to fix up the inner cities like it did all the places we bombed in Iraq.
- JSJon Stewart
Uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
Give them some no-bid contracts, pour that money back into the community. (laughs) I mean, I'm joking-
- JSJon Stewart
But why-
- JRJoe Rogan
... about Halliburton-
- JSJon Stewart
But it's-
- JRJoe Rogan
... but it is a business. There's something there.
- 25:00 – 34:08
War’s hidden bill: burn pits, veteran illness, and paying for consequences
- JSJon Stewart
Well, I had a thing, you know, we're trying to do this thing for veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, uh, who've gotten sick from burn pits. Are you familiar at all with, with burn pits?
- JRJoe Rogan
No, what is it?
- JSJon Stewart
So, in the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War, I mean, for the ... th- this will go back generations, but in Iraq and Afghanistan, a lot of the, uh, hired contractors to dispose of the detritus of war, they would build these sometimes 10-acre, 20-acre pits. Everything would go into them from, uh, uh, mess waste, to hazardous materials, to computers-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- JSJon Stewart
... to arms, everything. They light it with jet fuel-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- JSJon Stewart
... and they burn it. So now, you got guys that are downrange that are also down ... I mean, they're living ... They're basically camping out-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JSJon Stewart
... in a toxic waste dump, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, geez.
- JSJon Stewart
In a sink- incinerator. So they come home, and you're starting to see pulmonary issues, cancer issues. These guys are, they're dying.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JSJon Stewart
And they're not be- it's not being ... They have to advocate against the government. So we're trying to put together, working with this, uh, uh, team coalition, Wounded Warrior groups and, and, and people, uh, VSOs and groups like that, to address this legislatively, similar to what was done for the, the 9/11 community, right? So I thought ... 'Cause it's always about money, you know? We always have money for war, but we almost never have money to pay for what are the absolutely could have seen coming a mile away consequences of what our veterans face when they come back, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JSJon Stewart
We don't take care of them. When they're, when they're out, when they're out of sight, they're out of mind. And so my idea was you have all these profiteers, Raytheon, Halliburton, all these groups, make them kick in 10% big, a contingency in war so that when these guys go home and the government backs away, there is money there to take care of what is the natural, uh, uh, damage that's done to these people in the name of fighting for our country. So that they don't, and their families ... I mean, these people have to become their own lawyers. They have to go in front of medical boards, and they have no support. Their families are oftentimes caring for them, whether they have health issues or traumatic brain injury or, uh, uh, you know, other kinds of invisible wounds. And they're kinda hung out to dry.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes. Not kinda, very much so. Um-
- JSJon Stewart
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know, the UFC, uh, had a program back in the day where we were, uh, w- working with the Intrepid Center for Excellence to work with, uh, traumatic brain injury patients.
- JSJon Stewart
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
And to raise money for them. And we were doing this, uh, UFC Fight For The Troops to raise money for it. And, uh, what got me sick was how, how is it that we have to do this? Like how-
- JSJon Stewart
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... is it that this isn't something that's taken care of in the budget, clearly, in advance?
- JSJon Stewart
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
You're, you're blowing people up and you're, you're, you're not preparing for people to come back injured. You're sending young-
- JSJon Stewart
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... brave women and men to die for their country or risk severe brain damage, and you don't have enough money set aside to treat them when they return? I'm like, that's insane.
- JSJon Stewart
Everybody thinks that soldiers come back and they've got healthcare for life.
- JRJoe Rogan
No.
- JSJon Stewart
They don't.
- JRJoe Rogan
No, they don't.
- 34:08 – 37:56
2008 bailouts and ‘moral hazard’: saving the top instead of the base
- JSJon Stewart
I... And that's... But that's a huge issue and that's the thing that's gotta stop. Look at even 2008, right? So we have this enormous, uh, economic collapse in 2008. The housing market sinks and these, uh, uh, derivative mortgage, uh, things go down and the world economy grinds to a halt, thousands of people lose their jobs, foreclosures all over the place. So they come in and they pump billions of dollars into the organizations that sunk the fucking ship in the first place.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JSJon Stewart
That's where the money goes. And I remember asking, uh, the Treasury Secretary at the time, you know, this is a mortgage question, right? 'Cause they... The derivatives made it, like, the geometric problem. So, if they're bundling mortgages and 8% of those mortgages go underwater, it sinks the derivatives market which is trillions of dollars as opposed to billions of dollars. So I said, "You know, with all that money, what if you just made those mortgages that were underwater whole? Because the moment you do that, doesn't that fix your derivative problem? Don't you, haven't you just made... And plus then people get to keep their houses." And what he said to me was, "You can't do that because of moral hazard."
- JRJoe Rogan
Huh?
- JSJon Stewart
So moral hazard is a theory that you can't incentivize bad behavior. So what he's saying is, "The people that took out mortgages on their homes that went underwater, that's their fault. So you can't bail them out because that would be sending a hazardous message morally about the economy." So I said, "Wh- what's the moral hazard of then g- making the people that actually blew up the economy whole again? What's that? How is that not moral hazard?" And he said, "The plane was on fire and we had to land it."
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- JSJon Stewart
But they lit the pla- that, they were the ones who lit the plane on fire! How are you, you're rewarding them for that?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JSJon Stewart
(sighs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. It's... I've, I've heard both sides of that argument. I've heard the argument that, that no- nothing's too big to fail. Let it fail. And then, I've heard the argument that if it did fail, it would be so catastrophic.
- JSJon Stewart
But I'm saying it wouldn't have failed, so it was a failure because they bundled mort-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah. They did it all to themselves.
- JSJon Stewart
But if you made the mortgages at the base of that okay, so let's say 10% of the mortgages were underwater. But, you know, so let's say you had a $200,000 mortgage and now the house is only worth $150,000. So instead of giving a million dollars to AIG at the top, give $50,000 to that mortgage, bring it into line with its value, suddenly that thing's not underwater anymore. It's like putting ballast into a ship that's sinking. Put the ballast in, the ship comes up rather than just saying, "All right, we'll buy you another fucking chip."
- JRJoe Rogan
That almost seems too logical, though.
- JSJon Stewart
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
That's ... Right? That's kinda part of what's the problem with all this.
- JSJon Stewart
But that's what I was saying, like-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JSJon Stewart
... when we used... That's moral hazard. I was just like, "I don't even know what to do with that."
- JRJoe Rogan
Incentivizing bad behavior doesn't count when you're the ones who tank the economy. I mean, it's not... It's like what you're talking-
- JSJon Stewart
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... about today, like if someone tried to say that these small businesses that are going under because of the COVID sanctions, 'cause everybody's been locked down, rather, if, if those people need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, it's a great example why that analogy sucks. 'Cause like there's nothing to do, man. You can't work. There's nothing ... You, you're like, what do you want them to do? There's no opportunity. It's, everything's shut down. If you go under at this time-
- JSJon Stewart
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... it's not your fault. It's one of the rare times.
- 37:56 – 44:57
COVID policy ideas, masks as culture war, and Twitter’s outrage machine
- JSJon Stewart
If I'm, if I'm the government right now, here's something I could do that's like, again, like it seems like a simple solution, which is like just suspend and extend.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JSJon Stewart
So the country's shut down, right? What people's oftentimes biggest worry? My rent or my mortgage.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JSJon Stewart
Suspend and extend. You know what? We're gonna do a six-month suspend. Nobody is gonna p- And if the landlords need to be helped out, that's where we'll focus. We'll make sure that the landlords don't go under from, uh, having to pay too much in taxes or having to pay too much in repairing. But attack the problem at its core, which is people's insecurity about they're unemployed, they have to still pay the rent and their mortgage or other bills, let's take a big chunk of their nut. Oftentimes for people, mortgage and rent is, is one of the biggest nuts. Just fucking say, like, 'cause you c- clearly you have the, the wherewithal and the money. We're suspending and extending. Everybody, like, give people a chance to breathe, just for a moment. And for the landlords, I'm not trying to dick them over, like give them some kind of a, a rent, uh, uh, real estate tax break or some operating expense or keep everybody ... You know what? It's almost like, like you're a patient on a ventilator. Like, let's just keep everybody a-fucking-live.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JSJon Stewart
'Til we get past this moment, 'cause they keep saying (alarm sounds) , "Well, we gotta, you know, we gotta, uh, uh reopen the economy." We are the economy.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JSJon Stewart
There is no ... Corporations may be people, but they s- corporations still can't catch COVID. We can. So I don't understand why they don't do something that seems simple and addresses, like, a real concern, grassroots, o- on the, on the floor.
- JRJoe Rogan
Again, you're speaking too logically.
- JSJon Stewart
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
I think it's, uh, it's just a ... It's such a difficult time, too, politically, because, uh, the, the ideas gets segmented into left or right, right? Like even the ideas of how to address COVID, how to address the economy, how to address all the d- everything becomes politicized. And it's-
- JSJon Stewart
How ... I mean, that's, that's-
- JRJoe Rogan
... terrible.
- JSJon Stewart
... you know, unfortunate.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JSJon Stewart
That's ... It's really unfortunate, because well, it's even ... Yeah. It's, it's ... It shouldn't be that way and I'm not sure how it started that way, and it's really unfortunate.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's gotta be more emphasis on testing and there's gotta be more emphasis on showing people how to keep their immune system healthy and then recognizing people that can't do that and doing what we can to protect them.
- JSJon Stewart
You're gonna wear a mask.
- JRJoe Rogan
And-
- JSJon Stewart
I'm Joe Rogan's fan. He's saying out loud, "I'm gonna wear a mask now." No one-
- JRJoe Rogan
I've always been ... I, I was fucking with Bill Burr to try to get him to rant.
- JSJon Stewart
How much-
- JRJoe Rogan
People think I'm really serious about that. I was like, "What? Are you gonna wear a mask?" And I, I see Bill over there steaming. I'm like, "Here he goes. Here he goes."
- JSJon Stewart
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Look, I wear a mask whenever I go out in public because it's the law. You- And I don't want anybody yelling at me. But also, though-
- JSJon Stewart
Um, on a side note. A side note. I'll fucking-
- JRJoe Rogan
... when you ... I get test ... Excuse me. I get tested all the time, too. What's, on a side note what?
- JSJon Stewart
How great is Burr?
- JRJoe Rogan
He's the best. I love him.
- 44:57 – 51:19
Craft of long-form conversation: criticism, context, and creative discipline
- JSJon Stewart
That, that's what I was about to say. Do you feel like one of the hardest thing to do is to maintain your kind of creative barometer so that you don't let those kinds of things, when you feel like they're not constructive, pull you too far to, uh, the outrage world or some other things, like, to maintain that... And that's why I think it's good, like, what, what you do in terms of conversa-... like, you basically say, you know, "I'm gonna do long form," because that, you know, feels like, a- at least from my perspective, the healthiest form-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JSJon Stewart
... is, is conversation, is-
- JRJoe Rogan
But even in that case, people will take long form, edit things-
- JSJon Stewart
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... outta context, and then it becomes the same problem that we have-
- JSJon Stewart
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... with Twitter and with everything else. You get these little sound bites or these little video clips, and you don't understand the full context of the conversation or what th- what was actually said, and then people get outraged at that. It's, you know, it's, uh-
- JSJon Stewart
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... we are living in a very strange time, and I believe it's an adolescent stage of communication. And I think it's going to give-
- JSJon Stewart
Exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
... the frustrations for this are going to give birth to a, a better form. And I think one of the things that podcasts, uh, what it, what... it's in response to and the, the popularity of the long form is in response to people being upset with, like, these traditional late night talk show things where there's a window here with one guy on the right and a window here with a guy on the left, and there's a person in the center and they're yelling at each other, and then you cut to commercial, and you don't really feel like things got resolved. So, the response to that, where people are gravitating-
- JSJon Stewart
It's theater.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's the- it's theater. Yeah. I think-
- JSJon Stewart
Do you... I'm saying, was it hard for you... You know, at... When we came up as comics, it was also at that point, like, it was sort of a gladiatorial environment, you know? And I remember, you know, the Boston scene, uh, you know, was always like, "That's a tough scene."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JSJon Stewart
And we'd come up and it was kinda gladiatorial and... but you had that audience and it... and you develop kinda that thick skin. Is it hard to then make that switch in your mind to this different form that's so much more considered, so much less about, uh, uh, conquering the stage?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JSJon Stewart
It is about being open. And is that something that, for you... What, what was the switch for you from those two forms? 'Cause that's a, that's an interesting switch.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, in the beginning, there wasn't a very good switch, you know? It's like, one of the reasons why the early episodes (laughs) sucked. It's like, I didn't know what I was doing and I didn't think anybody was listening. It was just for fun. And there was-
- JSJon Stewart
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... a lot of just hanging out with comics and just doing what comics do. If we're at a diner somewhere, just talking shit and making each other laugh, but we're doing it and videotaping it. And then along the way, I started interviewing actual interesting people and talking to them and having conversations and not... You know, I don't... You know, I... there's a place for comedy, and then I, I don't... I, I make a really big point in never trying to force comedy into places where it doesn't belong. That's the... I do that also with the UFC. When I do commentary, I'm never funny.
- JSJon Stewart
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's no reason to be. It's not what my job is, you know? And then when I'm doing a conversation with someone, I just try to talk. I don't try to be a comic. I don't try... I just... I'm a human. I want, uh, I wanna know what they're talking about, and I wanna, uh, I wanna get them to expand upon their ideas as best-
- JSJon Stewart
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... as they can. And I wanna be engaged. That's what I'm, all I'm trying to do. So, it wasn't that... it wasn't that was a big transition. It was that I had to learn how to do this thing that I didn't think-
- JSJon Stewart
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... was a skill. I thought that, like, being on the radio or podcasting, you know, was just talking.That's what I thought, it's like, you're just talking. And then I realized, no, no, no, you're talking in a way that people want to listen. You're making it entertaining, you're keeping your ego in check, you're, you're moving the conversation along while not being overbearing. You're not letting people ramble too much where it's boring you. You gotta figure out how to juice things up and push them and massage them and move them around.
- JSJon Stewart
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's a skill, and I didn't think it was a skill. And, uh, you know, and like I said, that's one of the (laughs) reasons why my early episodes suck so bad.
- 51:19 – 56:41
Comedy war stories: Boston humbling, The Comedy Store discipline, lockdown return
- JSJon Stewart
'Cause when you do that in front of an audience, even I'll give like Boston as an example. You know, when we'd be working Knicks, you'd do that, that run of Knicks's, like, the Framingham and the other ones, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- JSJon Stewart
But you used to go to the, the one in, in Central Boston first. And I can remember, I hadn't played the room before and I was, I was a young comic, and I'd just done Letterman, I think. I'd gotten a, uh, like, a big break. And so, the guys at Knicks booked me on that run to be, uh, uh, headliner, my first run on those Knicks properties. So, I came into, uh, Knicks and, uh, they were just gonna throw me up on stage. And what they did was so, such a learning experience 'cause you kinda think, like, "I'm on Letterman, I'm just gonna walk into this place. I'm coming up from New York, hotbed of comedy. I'm gonna fucking strut my stuff at Knicks." And they threw up before me, I think it was Lenny Clarke-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- JSJon Stewart
... Kenny Rogerson, and Sweeney.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- JSJon Stewart
And I, I walked in the room and it was like Dresden, like they had so blown that room out with brilliance. And then it was like, and, uh, from New York, a Letterman guy, Jon Stewart. And it was, it was like they were clubbing a baby seal. Like, I was just... (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- JSJon Stewart
I was helpless. Man.
- JRJoe Rogan
They did that to everybody.
- JSJon Stewart
It... But so, like, wonderfully humbling.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JSJon Stewart
And you... 'Cause it makes you realize in the moment, like, "Oh, right. I've got a shit ton of work to do."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes, yes.
- JSJon Stewart
Like, fucking Kenny Rogers, just murder it with brilliant shit. And it was just like, "Oh, boy."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, if you wanna be humbled, th- the, w- Boston comedy scene in the late '80s and the early '90s, that was the place to be.
- JSJon Stewart
Yep.
- JRJoe Rogan
And it was-
- JSJon Stewart
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... a great place to develop too, though, 'cause it, it l- lets you know. I mean, you never wanna be overconfident. It's one of the worst things you could be in anything. And you never want to be lazy. E- if you're... Especially when you're delivering something to people that are actually paying to see you talk, right?
- JSJon Stewart
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, man, there's such a, such a important connection that you have to those people. It, uh, it's gotta, you've gotta do the work. It's gotta be your best version. And if you're not doing that and they know you're not doing that, they get angry at you. It's like, it's... The anger that an audience has towards a comic that's bombing is very difficult to describe. (laughs)
- JSJon Stewart
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
You know? Like, they're mad. They can do that too. They can talk too. Like, "Why the fuck are you talking?" Like, it's-
- JSJon Stewart
That's right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... if you're not on, and, you know, there's real-
- JSJon Stewart
Yeah. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... valuable lessons to that as a comic coming up that you do apply to whether it's podcasting or hosting any kind of a show.
- JSJon Stewart
Yeah, no, there's a fragility to it. And if you don't stay on top of it, you know, the energy of that room, it is, it is a, a bear that will get up and walk out of the room, uh, if you're not careful. But it's interesting also, though, now, so you're known now. Standup when you're known versus standup when you're not is also a different experience. Because you walk into a room when they know you, and there is, you know... You don't have to be as sharp if you don't want to because of that. And it, that's a discipline as well-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- 56:41 – 1:19:33
Health, diet, and moral questions: from immune support to factory farming and lab meat
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, I think it's really critical to strengthen your immune system and I do a lot of things to do that, and I think that-
- JSJon Stewart
Thank you.
- JRJoe Rogan
... that's something that people need to really concentrate on, and I really wish that our elected officials were talking more about that and having speeches with doctors and, uh-
- JSJon Stewart
They're doing the opposite.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JSJon Stewart
You remember Michelle Obama tried to do, like, tried to put kale in something and everybody was like, "What the... I'm sorry."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- JSJon Stewart
"We're going, we're going back to tater tots. Fuck that. We're, we don't need that."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- JSJon Stewart
They were like, "Wait *******."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JSJon Stewart
It's the carbs."
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, just the science on vitamin supplementation and how critical it is for your immune system, particularly vitamin D. That e- that could literally save lives, and that knowledge is not secret. That knowledge is out there.
- JSJon Stewart
Well, so you did the, those, those episodes on The Game Changers, the, uh, with James Woods, and that was, it was fascinating to watch because I, I watched that movie and, you know, nutrition is also like diet, it's such an important part of what we do to ourselves that we, that we don't think. And especially in a time of COVID-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- JSJon Stewart
... where so many people, like you say, like, when you see what this does to people with Type 1 diabetes or, or, uh, with, with other kinds of, uh, you know, conditions that might be caused from either poor diet or lack of access to, uh, y- you know, healthier options and things like that, you realize like, "Shit, we've put ourselves in a very vulnerable position."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, very vulnerable.
- JSJon Stewart
With how we eat.
- JRJoe Rogan
Andrew Schulz had a really good point, he said this, this pandemic highlighted the vulnerabilities both in our economic system and in our health system, like the way we are as human beings, the, what, who, who's vulnerable? The obese people, people with diabetes, older folks. I mean, it, it, it highlights all these issues where, you know, we, we really need to concentrate on for the future. If you want more people to survive this, there is, there are strategies that can be implemented and we really, we really need to talk to people about just being... Normal stuff, being dehy- being, uh, well-hydrated, making sure you're not dehydrated, well-rested, um-
- JSJon Stewart
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... teach people meditation techniques. It's not hard to learn some breathing exercises that have been actually proven to increase your immune function. It's not hard to teach people about vitamin D and, and supplementing it if you can't go outside.
- JSJon Stewart
(laughs) So how do you get people then to, to take action? 'Cause here's the other thing you remember, like, people's lives are hard.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JSJon Stewart
You're dealing, when you're talking about, like, what we talked about earlier, like, economic inequality, you know, it's hard to go into an area where they feel like, "Shit, I don't know where my next meal's coming from," and be like, "So here's what we're gonna do. We're just gonna sit and breathe quietly for five minutes and everything's gonna-"
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- JSJon Stewart
... you know. It, it's a really difficult, it's like hierarchy of needs, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- JSJon Stewart
Uh, how do you, how do you work into the idea that those types of theories are actually important to the betterment of, like, and the stability of the larger part of their life when they're fighting so hard just to stay afloat?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, it's a, that's an interesting point and, uh, I think what you have to do is it, it has to be, first of all, told by people who are doing it successfully. So, people that are doing it, that, like, maybe were struggling with their immune system and turned it around and got healthier, like, those people are the ones that the people that are in a bad position right now, they really respond to when it comes to l- there's an emotional connection with s- If you see some guy and he's on the cover of Men's Health magazine and he's ripped and he starts talking about fitness, you're like, "Get the fuck out of here. I can't relate to you. I'm never gonna look like that." But if you see someone who is in this, sit- the situation that you're in currently-
- JSJon Stewart
How do you... You do, like-
Episode duration: 1:23:49
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Transcript of episode SXOUCRLW2UI
