Joe Rogan Experience #1582 - Alex Berenson

1. 0:02 – 1:51

   Cannabis legalization, harms, and honest messaging

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:02

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. NANarrator0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. ABAlex Berenson0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (instrumental music plays) Andrew Rogan.

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:14

      What's up, man? How are you? Good to see you.

   5. ABAlex Berenson0:16

      Um, it's good to see you again, Joe.

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:17

      Good to see you again, uh, under less hostile circumstances.

   7. ABAlex Berenson0:19

      (laughs)

   8. JRJoe Rogan0:20

      I don't think the last one was hostile. Um, I think maybe m- more people expected it to be hostile because you were, uh, not... I wanna n- I wanna say you're anti-cannabis, but I do think that you had a realistic perspective on cannabis. And we've talked about this before-

   9. ABAlex Berenson0:35

      Mm-hmm. Yes.

   10. JRJoe Rogan0:35

       ... outside, but I think a lot of people that are pro-cannabis, like myself, um, they don't wanna look at the negative aspects of it because they think that it'll harm the chances of it being legalized.

   11. ABAlex Berenson0:44

       Yep.

   12. JRJoe Rogan0:45

       And I think that's irresponsible, and I think it's n- it's not honest.

   13. ABAlex Berenson0:48

       Uh, I mean, I think that's, that's true. And now that it does look, let's be honest, like it's gonna be legal, uh, you know, certainly, you know, every state or, you know, the major states that voted to legalize, like New Jersey and Arizona in the last election, and nationally it looks like it's gonna be legal, it's time for people in the industry, I think, to start being more honest about who this product is for and, you know, and some of the downsides. I hope they do that. I do-

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:10

       They have to be.

   15. ABAlex Berenson1:10

       I do-

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:10

       I think they have to be.

   17. ABAlex Berenson1:11

       I brought you the paperback-

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:13

       Oh.

   19. ABAlex Berenson1:13

       ... of Tell Your Children.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:14

       Yes, excellent.

   21. ABAlex Berenson1:15

       Um-

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:15

       Well, you should, you really should tell your children, you know? Look, and again, this is from, coming from someone who enjoys pot. I like it. I'm a fan.

   23. ABAlex Berenson1:22

       (laughs)

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:23

       But I do know it's not for everybody, and I do know people that have gone crazy.

   25. ABAlex Berenson1:26

       Yes.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:27

       Like legitimately gone schizophrenic from marijuana, or maybe had a tendency towards schizophrenia and then smoked a lot of pot or ate a lot of pot and then (finger snaps) the switch went off and they were gone. And I think there's a direct correlation.

   27. ABAlex Berenson1:40

       Yes.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:41

       So I was glad to have that conversation with you, even though a lot of people are, "What? What? You're supporting him?"

   29. ABAlex Berenson1:45

       (laughs)

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:45

       "How are you on his side?" I'm like, "Because it's true."
2. 1:51 – 3:55

   Berenson’s COVID stance: real virus, wrong response

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:51

      Well, let's, let's, uh, establish your position, Alex, on, on, on COVID. What is your position on this?

   2. ABAlex Berenson1:57

      Sure. So people accuse me of being a COVID denialist or I, you know, I don't think it's real, I don't think anyone dies from it. That's, that's all nonsense, Joe.

   3. JRJoe Rogan2:05

      Yeah.

   4. ABAlex Berenson2:05

      COVID is real. It, uh, you know, it emerged from... We can talk about where it might have emerged from, uh, earlier this year, maybe in late 2019. It's killed a lot of people. Um, it's contagious and, uh, and, and, you know, it's been a problem this year. It's been a significant problem.

   5. JRJoe Rogan2:22

      Yeah.

   6. ABAlex Berenson2:22

      It is not worthy of the response that we have had to it. I believe lockdowns have been a mistake, and we can go into all of it, but, but we have overreacted in an extremely dangerous way this year.

   7. JRJoe Rogan2:35

      I believe we've overreacted as well, and I, I think that in particular one of the things that disturbs me the most is that there's been no accounting for the damage that has been done by forcing people to shut down their businesses. And their only, the only thought has been making sure that the ICU beds are open and that, you know, somehow or another people are able to get treatment for this. There's been... I've openly criticized the fact there's been no discussion whatsoever about getting healthy. Like, there's none. No one's en- encouraging you because they're worried about being called a fat shamer or some other nonsensical term.

   8. ABAlex Berenson3:14

      Well, I, I mean, I think it's much worse than that because if, if you remember, back in May, or M- back in March, we were told 15 days, 15 days to slow the spread.

   9. JRJoe Rogan3:23

      Mm-hmm.

   10. ABAlex Berenson3:23

       Let's not have the hospitals be overrun. And at some point, maybe it was in April, maybe it was in May, somehow this became no one can ever get sick and die from COVID. It is wrong that this disease exists, and we have to do everything to stop it, no matter what the consequences. And you mentioned businesses. Businesses are important, but to me what's even more important is what we're doing to our kids.

   11. JRJoe Rogan3:44

       Yeah.

   12. ABAlex Berenson3:44

       What we've done with school closures, what we've done with normalizing the idea that being outside with your friends is dangerous. We are, we are, we are screwing over our kids in the worst possible way.

3. 3:55 – 7:58

   Age-stratified risk and early misconceptions

   1. JRJoe Rogan3:55

      Well, I think we had an idea of what COVID was going to be. I, I, I don't know, I certainly did for the first few weeks. I was like, "This is gonna kill everybody."

   2. ABAlex Berenson4:03

      (laughs) Yeah, yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan4:03

      I thought it was gonna kill 10% of the population.

   4. ABAlex Berenson4:05

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan4:05

      I was really worried about it.

   6. ABAlex Berenson4:06

      Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan4:07

      I remember being in the supermarket stocking up and thinking, "Jesus Christ. Like, this, this feels so crazy." But I also remember thinking it was gonna last two weeks.

   8. ABAlex Berenson4:15

      Yep.

   9. JRJoe Rogan4:16

      And now here we are, still reacting this way. We're now deep into January, or deep into December, almost into January.

   10. ABAlex Berenson4:23

       Yep.

   11. JRJoe Rogan4:23

       Um, a lot of my friends were caught it, including young Jaime over here.

   12. ABAlex Berenson4:27

       (laughs)

   13. JRJoe Rogan4:27

       Uh, Jaime beat it in a day. Uh, Tony Hinchcliffe has it now. He was sick yesterday and today he feels good. I mean, this is the case with so many people.

   14. ABAlex Berenson4:36

       Yes.

   15. JRJoe Rogan4:36

       Whereas if they got the flu, I knew, I know a lot of the same people that have got the flu, they were knocked down into the dirt for three or four days.

   16. ABAlex Berenson4:44

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan4:44

       Maybe a week, maybe two weeks. Um, it's different than we thought it was gonna be, but we're still reacting like it was the same thing. And then there's this, this fear porn that everybody likes to peddle. It's this weird thing where everybody wants to think that, you know, if you catch it, you've a 10% chance of dying or the sky is falling and... It's just, it's weird how, uh, people want to pretend that it's still what it used to be. And they wanna say, you know, "You should think about this 'cause 300,000 Americans have died," and you wanna go, "Stop." No. 300,000 Americans have died from COVID that also had a lot of other stuff. How many people have died just from COVID? And it's a relatively small number in comparison.

   18. ABAlex Berenson5:31

       It's, it's a-

   19. JRJoe Rogan5:31

       It's like a bad flu year, right?

   20. ABAlex Berenson5:33

       Um, so it's complicated. Here's, here's the thing. And, and, um, and I don't know if you, if you... And, you know, this is, as I said, I got all this stuff for you, but the, the booklets, I... Especially the first one which is about h- uh, death counting, how we go, how we count a COVID death go, I go into this in detail.

   21. JRJoe Rogan5:51

       Okay, well, let's talk about that right away.

   22. ABAlex Berenson5:52

       So, so okay. There's... Here's the most fundamental fact about COVID that the media doesn't report accurately.... how stratified the risk is by age. So you mentioned, you mentioned, you know, people who are, who are, might be overweight or have diabetes. All that stuff does add to your risk. What really adds to your risk is age. And people, and people don't really, I, I think this is true of almost everybody, people don't really have a good idea of what, what risk is, right? So if I say, you know, like, "It's riskier to be old and have COVID than to be young." You might think, "Okay, it's like 2:1 or 3:1 or 5:1." It's kind of like normal risks, like what are the odds that the Jets are gonna beat the Rams? Like one in 10, you know, last week. And that happened, the Jets beat the Rams. Um, this risk is not like that. It's like somewhere between 100 and 10,000 times the risk. Of an older-

   23. JRJoe Rogan6:47

       Of what age?

   24. ABAlex Berenson6:47

       Uh, so maybe 75 versus 25, 80 versus 25. If you look at who dies from this, it is overwhelmingly people over 65, 75, 85. Okay? The, uh, the median age of death in, in European countries or, you know, which, which are a little bit healthier than the US, is in the low 80s. But that doesn't really tell you the real risk, because what you need to understand is that only 2 or 3% of the population is over 82 or 83.

   25. JRJoe Rogan7:17

       Now what about people like, there was that guy who was a Broadway actor who was a f- a young, healthy-looking guy who got sick and wound up dying from it.

   26. ABAlex Berenson7:25

       So, so there, that's going to happen. So there's two issues. First of all, that happens to people with the flu. I can point you to stories from 2018 wh- you know, young, healthy teacher dies of the flu. It just was never reported nationally this way.

   27. JRJoe Rogan7:36

       Right.

   28. ABAlex Berenson7:37

       That's A. B is if you look at those cases, oftentimes there's weird idiosyncratic stuff happening, of which the number one thing is a lot of those people are put on ventilators very early.

   29. JRJoe Rogan7:47

       Yeah.

   30. ABAlex Berenson7:47

       They were put on ventilators and they never came off. We're not having that as much anymore. And if you look, the average age of death is actually creeping up now, it looks like. And okay, so that's one, is that risk is-

4. 7:58 – 10:57

   Ventilators: why early intubation may have worsened outcomes

   1. JRJoe Rogan7:58

      Well, can we talk about that?

   2. ABAlex Berenson7:59

      Sorry. Yes.

   3. JRJoe Rogan8:00

      The ventilators?

   4. ABAlex Berenson8:00

      Yes.

   5. JRJoe Rogan8:01

      So what happened?

   6. ABAlex Berenson8:02

      So what happened was in March especially, back when everybody was terrified, there's, there, there's, there's something called a nebulizing procedure. So there are procedures that r- that where you're, where you're inserting tubes into people and it releases a lot of, um, you know, aerosols from them. And the fear was this is gonna get aerosolized and the nurses and the doctors are all gonna get sick and die and we're gonna have no medical staff. Ventilator avoids that problem. Okay? So the f- the feeling was let's ventilate very early. This is a really serious disease. Let's get everybody we can on ventilators. That's when ... Remember when we needed 100,000 ventilators, 200,000 ventilators? That was the idea. Okay? We're gonna ventilate really early. Turns out that was a terrible idea. It turns out that as, as Elon Musk likes to say, you know, your lungs, if you f- (laughs) if you ventilate too early, it's just like a meat bellows and you can blow out people's lungs if you over-ventilate. And it looks like that happened. I will tell you, not that we're n- not that we don't use ventilators for COVID, but right now in the United States, I believe there are about 8,000 people on ventilators. Well, nationally.

   7. JRJoe Rogan9:05

      Can I, can I stop you for a second?

   8. ABAlex Berenson9:06

      Yes.

   9. JRJoe Rogan9:06

      Wait, like meat bellows, so like bellows like a fireplace bellows, right?

   10. ABAlex Berenson9:09

       Yes. Yes.

   11. JRJoe Rogan9:09

       So you're just- So what if-

   12. ABAlex Berenson9:10

       Pushing this air in and you're, and, like, if you push it in at pressure that's too high, you can just blow out people's lungs.

   13. JRJoe Rogan9:16

       So you r- literally destroy their lungs?

   14. ABAlex Berenson9:18

       Yes. Yes. We did that with people. And, and, and it became clear. It became pretty clear pretty early on and, and they s- and they tried to stop doing it, and they have stopped doing it. You know, nurs-

   15. JRJoe Rogan9:26

       So that's why they were saying that 80% of the people they put on ventilators wound up dying. It's not just that they were so sick by the time they got to ventilators they were dying?

   16. ABAlex Berenson9:34

       That's right. They-

   17. JRJoe Rogan9:34

       And they, they couldn't save them.

   18. ABAlex Berenson9:36

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan9:36

       It was j- that the, the ventilators themselves-

   20. ABAlex Berenson9:39

       Did damage. That's correct.

   21. JRJoe Rogan9:40

       Wow.

   22. ABAlex Berenson9:40

       And that, that ... And I don't think that actually too many people would argue that even in hospitals. I can point you to stories that have been written about this and I can point you to sort of in-hospital discussion of this. Um, again, there is a role for ventilators for people who really cannot breathe on their own. But this early ventilation that we, that we used back in March and April killed people. And some of the people it killed are people who were younger who probably would have survived.

   23. JRJoe Rogan10:04

       My friend, Michael Yeo, was young when he got it and he was really beaten down. He did a lot of traveling. He flew to New York. He did morning radio, the whole deal, flew back, drove to Vegas, visited his family and then drove home that night, and then did a bunch of auditions in LA and then got sick, real sick. His doctor didn't put him on a ventilator 'cause he said, "If I put you on a ventilator, your lung's gonna stop working."

   24. ABAlex Berenson10:26

       Yep.

   25. JRJoe Rogan10:26

       "And you're gonna die." And he's okay today because of that.

   26. ABAlex Berenson10:29

       Yup.

   27. JRJoe Rogan10:30

       But he's a young, healthy, robust guy and he got it and almost died. I mean, he was really, really sick for about two weeks.

   28. ABAlex Berenson10:38

       So, so, but he recovered, right?

   29. JRJoe Rogan10:40

       Yes. He did.

   30. ABAlex Berenson10:40

       So, so again, we're not saying this disease isn't real and we're not saying that some people unfortunately aren't gonna have these bad reactions to it. But, but, you know, back in March, maybe he gets put on a ventilator and maybe he dies.
5. 10:57 – 21:48

   Counting COVID deaths: comorbidities, PCR thresholds, and misclassification

   1. ABAlex Berenson10:57

      Um, okay. So that's one issue with the death counting, is that so many of the people ... So, so let's say you're ... And, and I urge people, one of the things that I've done a couple times on Twitter that always gets an interesting response is you can go look at coroner's reports, especially in Milwaukee where they put them all online, of people who've died. So you can actually see the people who have died of COVID and you'll see how sick they are for the most part. I'm talking about people in their 80s and 90s who have multiple severe comorbidities.

   2. JRJoe Rogan11:23

      Yeah.

   3. ABAlex Berenson11:24

      So in that case, it's really hard to tell. Did this person die with COVID or from COVID? You know, if my heart is failing and my kidneys are failing and I get this thing and I die the next day, okay, I died. Did I die, did I die with COVID or did I die two weeks before I would have died anyway and we're counting that as from COVID?

   4. JRJoe Rogan11:43

      Or maybe even a year-

   5. ABAlex Berenson11:44

      Or-

   6. JRJoe Rogan11:44

      ... before you would have died anyway.

   7. ABAlex Berenson11:45

      Yes.

   8. JRJoe Rogan11:45

      But the 2.6 comorbidity factors, that's the average, right?

   9. ABAlex Berenson11:50

      That's-

   10. JRJoe Rogan11:50

       For people that died of COVID.

   11. ABAlex Berenson11:51

       That's correct. That-

   12. JRJoe Rogan11:52

       Died with COVID.

   13. ABAlex Berenson11:53

       D- Well, it's-

   14. JRJoe Rogan11:53

       That's a good way of saying it.

   15. ABAlex Berenson11:55

       Again, it's very, very hard to distinguish with and from in these-

   16. JRJoe Rogan11:58

       Right.

   17. ABAlex Berenson11:58

       ... cases of people who are really sick. Now sometimes it's not that way. Sometimes you can say, again, a 50-year-old who is relatively healthy gets COVID, they died, they died from COVID. Okay?

   18. JRJoe Rogan12:06

       Yeah.

   19. ABAlex Berenson12:07

       COVID killed them. We can agree about that. But at the h- uh, many of the cases are hard to, hard to understand. Or not hard to understand, but hard to distinguish. And I'll make one more point about deaths. Very, very, very important point.... PCR testing, you, you, you know, you-- I know, I know, you know, you know what this is.

   20. JRJoe Rogan12:25

       Yes.

   21. ABAlex Berenson12:26

       But you, you know, you, you look for a sample of the virus in, you know, usually it's in, uh, in the nose. You multiply it, uh, and you run a cycle where it doubles over and over and over again. And when it gets to a certain point, uh, they, they actually... It's, it's actually incredible technology. It's sort of, it's sort of magical, but, uh, they add a fluorescent marker to it, and at some point, if you can see the fluorescents, it's considered a positive sample. Okay. Here's the thing. A 40-cycle PCR test means that you are multiplying the original, any original viral material in that sample by one trillion times. Okay? So, a single viral particle that you pick up becomes one trillion particles. It is very, very easy to find virus in people when you're running a PCR cycle at that, at that level. Okay? It does not mean necessarily that they were very sick at the time. It doesn't even mean that they have active virus in their bodies at the time. They could have a piece of virus that, uh, that, that the, that the original sample's picking up and multiplying by 40X. Okay? It's clear, by the way, when people have a low threshold, let's say 20 times... Let's say it only takes 20 cycles. That's a million multiplications. If you're positive at 20 cycles, you're pretty sick. If you're positive at 25 cycles, you're probably pretty sick. If you're positive at 30 cycles? Maybe not. 40 cycles? It doesn't really mean anything. It means that you have, uh, you know, you have this one bit of virus in you that they've managed to find.

   22. JRJoe Rogan14:01

       Does it mean you're contagious?

   23. ABAlex Berenson14:02

       It probably doesn't mean you're contagious. But-

   24. JRJoe Rogan14:04

       I don't like that word.

   25. ABAlex Berenson14:05

       What?

   26. JRJoe Rogan14:06

       I don't like that word probably.

   27. ABAlex Berenson14:07

       (sighs) Well, I try-

   28. JRJoe Rogan14:08

       From around grandma.

   29. ABAlex Berenson14:09

       I, I don't like to say never unless I'm sure. Okay?

   30. JRJoe Rogan14:14

       Right.
6. 21:48 – 24:38

   Hospital incentives and the missing flu season puzzle

   1. JRJoe Rogan21:48

      I understand that people wanna be cautious, right? And that's one of the reasons why they've classified things the way they have. But is there a financial incentive for hospitals to classify deaths as COVID? I have a friend, uh, uh, people love to make fun of me because I say these things.

   2. ABAlex Berenson22:09

      (laughs)

   3. JRJoe Rogan22:09

      Like, I have a friend and this is what happened. But I, I have a friend, his grandfather died and, uh, they never tested his grandfather, but they listed his death as COVID. And she, he was very old and he was in nursing, in a nursing home. But they never tested him for COVID.

   4. ABAlex Berenson22:21

      So, so the, the short answer to that is it doesn't seem, uh, and I, you know, I've done a fair bit of work on this. It doesn't seem like there's a financial incentive to classify deaths as COVID or non-COVID. There's a financial incentive for hospitals to classify cases as COVID.

   5. JRJoe Rogan22:34

      Okay.

   6. ABAlex Berenson22:34

      Uh, because you get... And this is known. This is not a secret. You get a 20% bump in your reimbursements if you classify a case as COVID. Now, they're not gonna lie, okay? That doesn't mean they're gonna say, you know, "Joe went in for, you know, whatever surgery on his hand and he has COVID." What it means is they're gonna test you for COVID.

   7. JRJoe Rogan22:51

      Where are they getting this bump from?

   8. ABAlex Berenson22:53

      Uh, Medicare.

   9. JRJoe Rogan22:53

      Medicare?

   10. ABAlex Berenson22:54

       Uh, yes.

   11. JRJoe Rogan22:54

       So-

   12. ABAlex Berenson22:54

       And the insurers typically follow Medicare.

   13. JRJoe Rogan22:56

       So, if you get sick and you go to a hospital, is it possible that an unscrupulous hospital would say you have COVID even if you do not and you're sick?

   14. ABAlex Berenson23:06

       No, no.

   15. JRJoe Rogan23:06

       Not possible?

   16. ABAlex Berenson23:07

       What, what they'll do is test you for it.

   17. JRJoe Rogan23:08

       Test you for it.

   18. ABAlex Berenson23:09

       And even if you're totally asymptomatic, you're a COVID case. You get the bump.

   19. JRJoe Rogan23:13

       Got it. So-

   20. ABAlex Berenson23:14

       That, that's not, that's legal.

   21. JRJoe Rogan23:15

       So, that conspiracy we can eliminate.

   22. ABAlex Berenson23:17

       That-

   23. JRJoe Rogan23:18

       This conspiracy that the hospitals are incentivized to say that there's COVID cases that aren't.

   24. ABAlex Berenson23:23

       Correct.

   25. JRJoe Rogan23:23

       Okay.

   26. ABAlex Berenson23:23

       But that's different from they're incentivized to say there are COVID cases that there are.

   27. JRJoe Rogan23:28

       But what about COVID deaths? So, if someone dies and there's no... Like, are they incentivized to say that that was a COVID death even if it wasn't a COVID death?

   28. ABAlex Berenson23:38

       No, but because they know you're COVID positive, if you then die in the hospital, it's gonna be classified as a COVID death.

   29. JRJoe Rogan23:44

       It has to be.

   30. ABAlex Berenson23:45

       Right.
7. 24:38 – 31:40

   Masks debate: claims of limited utility, evidence standards, and social costs

   1. ABAlex Berenson24:38

      Um, but, but masks are, uh...... are probably essentially useless. Social distancing-

   2. JRJoe Rogan24:44

      What?

   3. ABAlex Berenson24:44

      Yes. This is-

   4. JRJoe Rogan24:45

      Masks are useless?

   5. ABAlex Berenson24:47

      Useless. Not N95s, not respirators. I'm talking about surgical and cloth masks. Probably useless.

   6. JRJoe Rogan24:52

      Really?

   7. ABAlex Berenson24:52

      Yes, really.

   8. JRJoe Rogan24:54

      My friend, Reggie, uh, th- Reggie Watts has ... Have you seen Reggie's mask that he's ... You gotta see this. He's out of his mind.

   9. ABAlex Berenson25:04

      (laughs)

   10. JRJoe Rogan25:04

       He's wearing a space helmet.

   11. ABAlex Berenson25:05

       (laughs) That, you know, that might not be useless, but-

   12. JRJoe Rogan25:07

       Reggie's, Reggie's a trip anyway. But what he's doing is he bought this thing and he's gonna come to visit me with this thing on.

   13. ABAlex Berenson25:15

       (laughs)

   14. JRJoe Rogan25:15

       Play this. He's the shit. I love this dude. We'll play this. Look at it. Just play a little bit of it.

   15. ABAlex Berenson25:24

       Uh.

   16. NANarrator25:24

       Hi, guys. How you doing?

   17. JRJoe Rogan25:26

       (laughs)

   18. NANarrator25:26

       I'm, uh-

   19. JRJoe Rogan25:28

       Oh, Jesus. (clapping)

   20. NANarrator25:29

       ... just, uh, trying out the new, uh, helmet. Let me know if you can hear me.

   21. JRJoe Rogan25:33

       (laughs)

   22. ABAlex Berenson25:34

       (laughs)

   23. JRJoe Rogan25:34

       So this has an eight-hour charge.

   24. NANarrator25:38

       Um, hi. I pan out.

   25. JRJoe Rogan25:38

       And he's, uh, he's gonna fly here-

   26. ABAlex Berenson25:40

       Oh.

   27. JRJoe Rogan25:41

       ... uh, uh- Wow. ... next month to visit with a fucking helmet on. (laughs)

   28. ABAlex Berenson25:44

       Does, does he have an immune system, Joe?

   29. JRJoe Rogan25:46

       Oh, he does. He's healthy as fuck.

   30. ABAlex Berenson25:48

       Okay.
8. 31:40 – 40:50

   Outdoor vs indoor transmission and the case against lockdowns

   1. ABAlex Berenson31:40

      Uh-

   2. JRJoe Rogan31:40

      But they're catching it because they have to go to work. Is that, is that accurate?

   3. ABAlex Berenson31:45

      S- it's not clear. So what... The first part of what you said is accurate.

   4. JRJoe Rogan31:48

      Okay.

   5. ABAlex Berenson31:48

      The m- the virus definitely spreads inside very aggressively. Um, and, uh, you know, the, the two places where it spreads the most are, you know, in sort of these congregate settings like hospitals and nursing homes, and then when people are stuck indoors with each other for a long time.

   6. JRJoe Rogan32:04

      And bars seem to had- have had an impact-

   7. ABAlex Berenson32:06

      Eh.

   8. JRJoe Rogan32:06

      ... because of drunk talk.

   9. ABAlex Berenson32:07

      Dr- uh, it's-

   10. JRJoe Rogan32:08

       I would imagine drunk talk.

   11. ABAlex Berenson32:09

       When you actually try to find community spread at a bar, it's hard to find in the real world. It's like maybe, dep- depending on-

   12. JRJoe Rogan32:14

       Call Tony Hinchcliffe.

   13. ABAlex Berenson32:15

       Well-

   14. JRJoe Rogan32:15

       That's how he got it.

   15. ABAlex Berenson32:17

       That's how he thinks he got it.

   16. JRJoe Rogan32:18

       That motherfucker got it from bars.

   17. ABAlex Berenson32:20

       (laughs)

   18. JRJoe Rogan32:20

       He's in a bar every night.

   19. ABAlex Berenson32:21

       (laughs)

   20. JRJoe Rogan32:21

       He goes to bars every night and he got it.

   21. ABAlex Berenson32:23

       That's anecdotal, Joe.

   22. JRJoe Rogan32:24

       I guarantee you.

   23. ABAlex Berenson32:25

       It's anecdotal.

   24. JRJoe Rogan32:25

       I understand. I understand, but no-

   25. ABAlex Berenson32:27

       But by the way, can I, can I say something?

   26. JRJoe Rogan32:28

       Please do.

   27. ABAlex Berenson32:29

       Back in April, I was screaming, and you can go find on my Twitter feed, "Don't tell fucking..." I shouldn't curse. "Don't tell people-"

   28. JRJoe Rogan32:36

       You can curse.

   29. ABAlex Berenson32:37

       I know.

   30. JRJoe Rogan32:37

       On the internet.
9. 40:50 – 52:47

   Vaccines: mRNA concerns, side effects, and age-based tradeoffs

   1. ABAlex Berenson40:50

      Just like there's gonna be immense public pressure to take the vaccine.

   2. JRJoe Rogan40:53

      Yes. Are you gonna take the vaccine?

   3. ABAlex Berenson40:55

      I'm not taking the M- NRA ones.

   4. JRJoe Rogan40:56

      Why is that?

   5. ABAlex Berenson40:57

      Uh, uh, because- because they didn't exist 10 months ago, because this virus is not particularly dangerous to me or you or my kids or my wife, and- and I'd rather just get it and be done with it than take a vaccine who- that's shown to have 17% serious side effects after the second dose in people who take it.

   6. JRJoe Rogan41:18

      17%?

   7. ABAlex Berenson41:18

      Yes. One in six people has a fever of 102 or higher, or chills, uh, like severe chills that when... So, this is called a grade three or grade four adverse event. Grade three means that you basically aren't able to function for, you know, some period of time. Like, you're not able to eat or go to the bathroom. Grade four means usually that you're hospitalized. Grade five means you die. That's the five stages, and grade one is mild, grade two is moderate. When I say 17% of people have had serious events after taking the vaccine, I'm defining it the way the clinical trialists define it.

   8. JRJoe Rogan41:52

      So, you're defining it by grade three or four?

   9. ABAlex Berenson41:54

      Yes. Most- mostly grade three, not four.

   10. JRJoe Rogan41:57

       But some have been hospitalized?

   11. ABAlex Berenson41:58

       Yes. Yes. One in 1,000 people who got the Moderna vaccine, after the second dose had a fever of 104 degrees or higher, and that's- most of those people were taking Tylenol or Advil or other stuff to bring down the fever. Let me tell you, if you call your doctor and tell him you have 104, he's gonna tell you if it doesn't go down pretty soon, you should go to the ER.

   12. JRJoe Rogan42:15

       So, um, one in how many again?

   13. ABAlex Berenson42:17

       One in 1,000.

   14. JRJoe Rogan42:18

       One in 1,000?

   15. ABAlex Berenson42:19

       So- but- but, so that's a grade four. Grade three is, uh, you know, was much, much higher.

   16. JRJoe Rogan42:24

       What is the numbers for grade three?

   17. ABAlex Berenson42:26

       Uh, so for- for fever, off the top... I wanna say it was about 1.6%. Um-

   18. JRJoe Rogan42:32

       Okay.

   19. ABAlex Berenson42:33

       It's- it's a- so one in-

   20. JRJoe Rogan42:34

       Somewhere in the neighborhood of-

   21. ABAlex Berenson42:35

       One in- one- .6.

   22. JRJoe Rogan42:38

       ... 1.6 for 100?

   23. ABAlex Berenson42:39

       Uh, w- right. Correct.

   24. JRJoe Rogan42:40

       Okay.

   25. ABAlex Berenson42:41

       One in 60 people. But- but then you look at these other adverse conditio- or other adverse effect- uh, again, chills, nausea, vomiting, uh-

   26. JRJoe Rogan42:48

       And how long do these usually last?

   27. ABAlex Berenson42:50

       You know, mostly one to three days.

   28. JRJoe Rogan42:52

       And then on the other end of it, you have an immunity to the disease?

   29. ABAlex Berenson42:57

       Yes.

   30. JRJoe Rogan42:57

       Right.
10. 52:47 – 1:09:11

    Politics, media groupthink, and the lab-leak taboo

    1. ABAlex Berenson52:47

       But here, here's what I'll say, okay? This is why Tell Your Children actually matters in this debate, okay (slaps table) ?

    2. JRJoe Rogan52:53

       Okay.

    3. ABAlex Berenson52:54

       I wrote this book, and you can, and you can say-

    4. JRJoe Rogan52:57

       That's the pot book for folks.

    5. ABAlex Berenson52:58

       For the k- the, the, yeah. You can say, like, "This guy," like, "he doesn't understand. A lot of people just like to get high and they can handle it. It shouldn't be criminal. Um, and you know, minorities bear the burden here. It's wrong. Let's legalize." Okay. Totally reasonable. And by the way, alcohol kills a whole lotta people. It's legal. It's advertised on TV. It's legal. Th- the rules should be the same. I totally get that, okay? If you read the book, it's about something else. It's about this is psychiatrically harmful to a lotta people and we're not talking about it.

    6. JRJoe Rogan53:31

       Yes.

    7. ABAlex Berenson53:31

       And by the way, there's a downstream violence that comes from that sometimes that we're not talking about either.

    8. JRJoe Rogan53:36

       Yes.

    9. ABAlex Berenson53:36

       Okay? To me, those things, if you read the book with an open mind, are pretty factual and inarguable. It doesn't mean, by the way, that you can't then say, "Cannabis should still be legal." You can read the book and agree with it and say, "But you know what? Should still be legal for those other reasons." Fine. That is not the way the book was treated last year. Okay? It was, "You hate Black people. You don't understand science. You're cherry-picking. Go to hell." Okay? So when I saw this happening this year with COVID, and I saw The New York Times , where I used to work, and you know what? People can yell at me for saying I used to work there, but I worked there for 10 years, and I was a really good reporter there, and I'm not gonna back down from my credentials 'cause I am a good reporter. You can say, you can say, "You know what?" Like, "Lockdowns are necessary and we need to protect these old people, and you know what? We can't let the hospitals get overrun." But if I present evidence to you that's contrary, don't just shout at me that I'm an idiot and don't know what I'm talking about. Okay? It's not gonna work. It didn't work with Tell Your Children, and it's not gonna work this time. Okay? So, and what I recognized was that unfortunately, and in sort of the elite levels of the media, you know, The Times, The Washington Post, NPR, CNN, the groupthink is overwhelming.

    10. JRJoe Rogan54:57

        Yes.

    11. ABAlex Berenson54:57

        It's overwhelming on cannabis, and it's overwhelming on all these woke progressive issues, and it's gotten much, much worse since I left The Times 10 years ago. And I don't know what's gonna turn it around. Okay? And, and, and it has terrible effects. Let me give you one example. Okay? We should all wanna know where this virus came from.... I don't care whether you're a Republican or Democrat, liberal, conservative. I don't care what country you live in. You should want to know if this is the result of a Chinese lab accident. And there's some evidence that we can talk about that later. Okay? And you should at least want to know that there's been a complete independent investigation into this. Okay. This thing has messed up the world m- in a mammoth way this year. Okay. And at the least, we should want to know where it came from, if it did come from some kind of accident. I'm not saying the Chinese released it intentionally. I'm saying there might be evidence that there was an accident because if that happened, we better make sure it never, ever, ever happens again. Not-

    12. JRJoe Rogan55:49

        It's a very strange thing to me that people don't want to even investigate it.

    13. ABAlex Berenson55:52

        That, that-

    14. JRJoe Rogan55:52

        They don't want to look at it. And they're, they're... I think they're afraid of racism or something. There seems to be some sort of indication that there's a victim blaming thing. There's a...

    15. ABAlex Berenson56:02

        I- i- it's, it-

    16. JRJoe Rogan56:02

        There's an aspect to it that also is anti-Trump.

    17. ABAlex Berenson56:05

        That's it.

    18. JRJoe Rogan56:06

        Yeah.

    19. ABAlex Berenson56:06

        It's anti-Trump. Okay.

    20. JRJoe Rogan56:07

        Yeah.

    21. ABAlex Berenson56:07

        What happened in March was the progressive meeting. First of all, they were terrified 'cause of what was happening in New York, what seemed to be happening in New York, and they all thought they were gonna die. And then once they realized they weren't all gonna die, they realized that they could beat Donald Trump over the head with this and he would lose the election. And they did, and he did. And look, I, I'm neither a Republican nor a Democrat.

    22. JRJoe Rogan56:27

        What are you?

    23. ABAlex Berenson56:27

        I'm an independent. Basically, I... Basically, as I've said, my politics are that it's impossible to be too cynical, just like you said with the, with the bill that they just passed.

    24. JRJoe Rogan56:36

        Mm-hmm.

    25. ABAlex Berenson56:36

        It's impossible to be too cynical about the way these people behave. They behave, they be- behave terribly. Okay. But so why is it that the New York Times won't even write stories about the fact that there's real questions about where this virus came from? Forget the ventilators, forget the US response, forget, you know, Donald Trump. We should be asking that question. The groupthink is so serious that basic questions don't get asked right now.

    26. JRJoe Rogan56:59

        Well, we were criticized on the podcast because I had Bret Weinstein, who's a evolutionary biologist, who discussed all the reasons, scientific reasons why it, it's... There's, there's evidence that indicates that this is not a virus that naturally occurs.

    27. ABAlex Berenson57:12

        That's right.

    28. JRJoe Rogan57:13

        And also, just by coincidence, there happens to be a level four lab-

    29. ABAlex Berenson57:18

        (laughs) That's right. That's right.

    30. JRJoe Rogan57:20

        ... in Wuhan. What are the odds?
11. 1:09:11 – 1:37:02

    Lockdowns, schools, and the human costs (kids, overdoses, nursing homes)

    1. ABAlex Berenson1:09:11

       ... in, in my state of New York, they're talking about a complete lockdown again. Y- it's, it's as if we've learned nothing in the last few months. And, and as, as, you know, as you and I were sort of starting to say a few day, a few minutes ago, there's actually evidence that lockdowns are counterproductive because they force people into their homes-

    2. JRJoe Rogan1:09:27

       Right.

    3. ABAlex Berenson1:09:27

       ... and most transmission happens inside, not outside.

    4. JRJoe Rogan1:09:31

       So, what do you think would be the best strategy to try to mitigate the amount of people that get sick?

    5. ABAlex Berenson1:09:36

       So, so th-

    6. JRJoe Rogan1:09:36

       If it's not lockdowns.

    7. ABAlex Berenson1:09:37

       Th- th- there's not th- th- the truth is people don't like hearing this, okay? There's not that much you can do once this becomes endemic, okay? So if you're not New Zealand, okay, if you, if you can't sort of close your borders and quarantine everybody for 14 days and be some island in the Pacific with five million people, basically there's a, there's a few things you have to do, right? You have to stand up the hospitals and make sure they have adequate equipment and that, and that, you know, if, if there's a regional real crisis, that you get some extra nurses and doctors in there. Um, you need to, you know, encourage people who are sick to stay home, you know, if you're ... I mean, that's, that's been good advice forever. If you're sick, stay home. If you have to go out, wear a mask if you're sick, okay? If you're sick, not everybody, if you're sick.

    8. JRJoe Rogan1:10:23

       This is the problem with people that work by the hour and don't get paid if they're sick.

    9. ABAlex Berenson1:10:27

       That it's hard for them, yes.

    10. JRJoe Rogan1:10:28

        Gig workers, right?

    11. ABAlex Berenson1:10:29

        So, so yeah. So should we help those people? Yeah, I think we should. D- y- you know, the simplest thing is called respiratory etiquette. What that means is sneeze into your nose, okay? If you're out and you're sick, sneeze into your nose.

    12. JRJoe Rogan1:10:41

        Sneeze into your nose?

    13. ABAlex Berenson1:10:42

        Or I'm sorry, sneeze into your elbow.

    14. JRJoe Rogan1:10:43

        Oh.

    15. ABAlex Berenson1:10:43

        Like this. (laughs) Sneeze into your elbow. (laughs)

    16. JRJoe Rogan1:10:45

        It's like how the fuck are you sneezing?

    17. ABAlex Berenson1:10:46

        If you can do that, you're impressive.

    18. JRJoe Rogan1:10:48

        (laughs)

    19. ABAlex Berenson1:10:48

        Wash your hands. There's not-

    20. JRJoe Rogan1:10:50

        Mm-hmm.

    21. ABAlex Berenson1:10:50

        ... there's not actually great evidence that handwashing does anything, but we should all be washing our hands. It's a good idea. Um, and, and you know, i- in moments when you're, there's a big surge, would it make sense to sort of shut down, uh, you know, let's say arenas. I mean, those are all shut down already, but like I'm talking about if we had a more normal response to this. So you say, "We'll postpone a concert."

    22. JRJoe Rogan1:11:12

        Right.

    23. ABAlex Berenson1:11:12

        Maybe we'll close bars, okay? That's about it, Joe. The problem is that doesn't get Tony Fauci on TV every day. That doesn't get Governor Cuomo a, you know, a book deal and on TV. When you say to people, "You know what? We're gonna get through this. We're gonna function as a society." This is, this is, you know ... Oh, and, and look, if there's a way to protect nursing homes, 'cause half the people, almost half the people who are dying from this are dying in nursing homes or congregate care settings. So, so those people are the people who are vulnerable. Maybe, you know, is there a way to sort of like try to install better ventilation in those nursing homes? Is there a way where staff should be tested every day, and if you're, if you're, you know, if you have a positive case in a nursing home, that person gets moved? Yes. Maybe there are things we could do. Unfortunately, the idea of closing off nursing homes is not a great idea, and here's why. Look, those are not great jobs. Those are tough jobs for people, and one of the ways that, that, that you can be sort of sure that people are actually being taken care of, the residents in the homes, and they're not being neglected, is having family members come in, right? So the person who, you know, is demented and, and is, you know, shitting themselves is getting cleaned up and not getting bedsores. Having family members keep an eye on nursing homes is unfortunately kind of necessary. And w- and, and by the way, even if that's not happening, w- these people with Alzheimer's or dementia, when they don't have families, y- you know, th- they just sail off into space if people are not visiting them and talking to them and trying to keep them there. And there, and it's pretty clear that, that deaths of people with Alzheimer's and dementia are up this year, independent of COVID, again, and that's because they're being neglected in these nursing homes. So shutting off nursing homes from society, even though it sounds like a good idea, we gotta protect these people, isn't necessarily a great idea. In general, the, the idea should've been, "We're going to do the minimum to sort of make things work and we're gonna manage through this." Once we realized it wasn't the plague, once we realized that 10% of people weren't gonna die, that, you know, somewhere between 997 and 999 out of 1,000 people who get this will survive, it still means that people are gonna die and it still means, you know, it's a big country. It's a big world. The numbers can look kind of ugly. We should have said...... where the idea is going to be not to screw up society. We're gonna s-... And by the way, here's the one thing, Joe, and I will, I will go to my grave being furious about this. The schools should have stayed open, and they should have... And to the extent they closed, they should have reopened within weeks. Okay? That's what they did in Europe. That's what they... And they continued to leave them open, even now, even when they had this second wave. It is, it-

Episode duration: 3:05:45