Joe Rogan Experience #1582 - Alex Berenson

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   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. 15:00 – 30:00

   But they don't distinguish…

   1. ABAlex Berenson15:00

      and you died within a specific amount of time after having that test.

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:04

      But they don't distinguish from a violent accident?

   3. ABAlex Berenson15:06

      Not, not initially. Now, the, some of the states are trying to clear this up. But let's say you died of a heart attack, Joe. Okay? A heart attack is a potential, you know, outcome of COVID. You're always gonna be on there if you died of a heart attack.

   4. JRJoe Rogan15:18

      So, you're saying that if you have this tiny amount of COVID in your system, you never wind up getting sick, but yet you have a heart attack a couple weeks later, three or four weeks later, they will still call that a COVID death-

   5. ABAlex Berenson15:29

      100-

   6. JRJoe Rogan15:29

      ... even though you never got sick from COVID?

   7. ABAlex Berenson15:31

      100%.

   8. JRJoe Rogan15:32

      That doesn't seem smart.

   9. ABAlex Berenson15:33

      Uh, the idea is to capture deaths as broadly as possible. The idea is this is a, you know, serious illness, and we wanna know every possible person who's died from it. We don't do this with any other illness.

   10. JRJoe Rogan15:45

       Is it because they don't have the resources to differentiate between the people that have died from heart attacks, where it's clear, "Well, we looked at the person. They, they had a very small amount of the virus in their system. Four weeks later, there's no way they were sick from that." Th- but, is that-

   11. ABAlex Berenson15:59

       It, it's a function of decisions that have been made along the way. So, they could've set the PCR, uh, threshold at lower. They could've set it at 30. They were aware from almost the beginning of this issue that, uh, you know, you can find a comment from Fauci in July talking about this, okay? But, and, and certainly, and, you know, and, and certainly, they knew well before this. The idea was we wanna know, sort of as broadly as possible, how many people have this. And then secondarily, we wanna define deaths from COVID as broadly as possible.

   12. JRJoe Rogan16:28

       And what is the, what is the level set at currently?

   13. ABAlex Berenson16:31

       Um, different states have different levels, but in most places, it's 37 to 40 cycles. Which, again, means that, uh, a lot of those people at the high end are not sick. And they, they certainly had COVID at some point, but they probably don't have it anymore. Here's, here's the other reason to do this, Joe. If you, if you set it really high, you're gonna capture people on the way in, just as they're getting sick. So, if you're truly afraid of, "We wanna quarantine everybody really early," then you have to set the threshold really high. So, so that, to the extent there's a logic behind it, that's the logic behind it. But it has all these negative side effects. Um, so there was one other point I wanted to make, but I, I'll remember it in a second. But-

   14. JRJoe Rogan17:17

       So, the negative side effects would be that the, they're en- they're inflating the number of people that not just have it, but die from it, because of the fact that they're making sure that these deaths that get linked within a certain time period... What is the time period?

   15. ABAlex Berenson17:33

       So, in some states, it's 30 days. In some states, it's 60 days. I don't know if it's more than 60 anywhere. Um, but, but the states are sort of allowed to define it. Oh, here's... Okay, so there's a negative for the person who's tested positive, 'cause you then have to isolate yourself. You can't work. You know, you're scared. Um, and then there's this negative for society with the death counts later.

   16. JRJoe Rogan17:51

       Right, but isn't that negative, that you have to isolate yourself and you can't work, that seems very rational. Because if you do tests... Like, let's say you're on the way in. You catch it, you have a little tiny bit of it in your system, and they're like, "You have to isolate. You have COVID."

   17. ABAlex Berenson18:05

       Yes.

   18. JRJoe Rogan18:05

       What if that person just went out and started drinking, got run down, the COVID multiplies, and then they have a full-blown case, and then they start spreading?

   19. ABAlex Berenson18:13

       So, so that is... Look, realistically, can that happen sometimes? Yes.

   20. JRJoe Rogan18:17

       That seems like that would happen a lot.

   21. ABAlex Berenson18:18

       Well, it doesn't happen that much, because at 37, you're asymptomatic, so you're not gonna know unless you have some reason to be tested.

   22. JRJoe Rogan18:25

       But isn't there a significant amount of spread from asymptomatic people?

   23. ABAlex Berenson18:28

       So, this is another argument that we don't...... there, there's asymptomatic spread. It looks to be very rare, although, you know, now Fauci's saying it's not so rare. There's pre-symptomatic spread. Pre-symptomatic spread appears to be more real.

   24. JRJoe Rogan18:42

       We need another person other than Fauci.

   25. ABAlex Berenson18:44

       (laughs)

   26. JRJoe Rogan18:44

       That's the one guy.

   27. ABAlex Berenson18:46

       We do. (laughs)

   28. JRJoe Rogan18:46

       Like, everyone says, "Fauci says." Like, we have this guy.

   29. ABAlex Berenson18:49

       Yes. Uh, let, let me, let me say one more thing about death count.

   30. JRJoe Rogan18:52

       Yeah.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Okay, no, wouldn't that-…

   1. ABAlex Berenson30:00

      is marginal evidence, marginal evidence, that maybe it reduces some of the viral load on the way out.

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:08

      Okay, no, wouldn't that-

   3. ABAlex Berenson30:08

      No, no proof that that makes a difference.

   4. JRJoe Rogan30:10

      But that seems ... That ... It seems like that would make a difference. If you can reduce the viral load on the way out, you would reduce the amount of people that you infect.

   5. ABAlex Berenson30:20

      Okay, let me give you some-

   6. JRJoe Rogan30:20

      Or you would reduce the amount of viral load that the people that you infect take in, and that does seem to have a significant impact on whether or not you get sick, right? Like people that work in ICU wards or they're around people that have COVID, they're, they-

   7. ABAlex Berenson30:33

      They're wearing N95s.

   8. JRJoe Rogan30:34

      But if they don't, they're taking more viral load, right?

   9. ABAlex Berenson30:37

      Uh-huh.

   10. JRJoe Rogan30:38

       Rather than someone who just comes in close proximity to someone who has COVID, where you might get the tiniest amount of it and your immune system can fight it off. Th- doesn't it impact you how much you take in?

   11. ABAlex Berenson30:48

       Th- this is all ... What you're saying seems plausible, but it's theoretical. There's no real evidence that you're reducing viral load enough to matter. And, and here's the real world proof of this, okay? Look at California right now.... they are masked up, they are locked down, they are socially distanced. They are having 50,000 cases a day, okay? In the real world, whether or not you wear masks seem to make no difference to the, to the spread of this virus.

   12. JRJoe Rogan31:14

       But don't you think that one of the things that's happening with California is that people are living in close proximity to each other, and they're forced to go to work? Like, a lot of the people that are getting it are in poor neighborhoods. Um, uh, a lot of them, uh, live with multiple h- family members in the household, and they're all on top of each other. And the fact that they're stuck inside would actually kind of accentuate the spread of this disease.

   13. ABAlex Berenson31:40

       Uh-

   14. JRJoe Rogan31:40

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

   15. ABAlex Berenson31:45

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

   16. JRJoe Rogan31:48

       Okay.

   17. 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.

   18. JRJoe Rogan32:04

       And bars seem to had- have had an impact-

   19. ABAlex Berenson32:06

       Eh.

   20. JRJoe Rogan32:06

       ... because of drunk talk.

   21. ABAlex Berenson32:07

       Dr- uh, it's-

   22. JRJoe Rogan32:08

       I would imagine drunk talk.

   23. 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-

   24. JRJoe Rogan32:14

       Call Tony Hinchcliffe.

   25. ABAlex Berenson32:15

       Well-

   26. JRJoe Rogan32:15

       That's how he got it.

   27. ABAlex Berenson32:17

       That's how he thinks he got it.

   28. JRJoe Rogan32:18

       That motherfucker got it from bars.

   29. ABAlex Berenson32:20

       (laughs)

   30. JRJoe Rogan32:20

       He's in a bar every night.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   How old are you?…

   1. ABAlex Berenson45:00

      me, I- I- I don't-

   2. JRJoe Rogan45:02

      How old are you?

   3. ABAlex Berenson45:03

      I'm 47. And, you know, I'm in reasonable shape. I'm not, I'm not in great shape, but I'm in reasonable shape. I'll take my chances. I'd rather wait for a, you know, a vaccine that isn't based on this mRNA technology. And my kids, now, now my kids are under 18, so right now they're not eligible for this, but there's no way on earth they're getting this vaccine.

   4. JRJoe Rogan45:23

      Do you worry that there will be a forced compliance?

   5. ABAlex Berenson45:28

      I worry that there will be quasi-mandates. You can already see this happening, where essentially, you know what? You don't have to get vaccinated, but if you ever wanna go to a concert again, you have to get vaccinated.

   6. JRJoe Rogan45:37

      Right.

   7. ABAlex Berenson45:37

      If you ever wanna get on an airplane again, you have to get vaccinated, but you don't actually have to get vaccinated.

   8. JRJoe Rogan45:42

      Right.

   9. ABAlex Berenson45:43

      Um, I don't think that's right. I don't think, I think this should be a personal decision for people.

   10. JRJoe Rogan45:48

       Do you think that it's possible that a treatment could exist, like, you know, like if you have certain things, you get penicillin. If you have something else, you- you take this, like some pure, proven, clear treatment where we no longer have to think this way?

   11. ABAlex Berenson46:03

       I- I doubt that's gonna happen.

   12. JRJoe Rogan46:05

       No?

   13. ABAlex Berenson46:05

       That doesn't exist for the flu. Um, you know, you have these sort of antiretrovirals, but they don't work that well. Um-

   14. JRJoe Rogan46:10

       That is a thing, right? There's never been a cure for the common cold, which is-

   15. ABAlex Berenson46:13

       That's- that's right.

   16. JRJoe Rogan46:14

       Yeah.

   17. ABAlex Berenson46:14

       I mean, so-

   18. JRJoe Rogan46:15

       And the common cold is a coronavirus, correct?

   19. ABAlex Berenson46:17

       Yes.

   20. JRJoe Rogan46:17

       Yeah.

   21. ABAlex Berenson46:17

       It is. Um, so- so bacteria, um, I mean, there are other kinds of viruses that can also cause the common cold, rhinoviruses, adenoviruses, but- but the coronavirus has caused the common cold too. What- what you're talking about with penicillin is, those are bacteria.

   22. JRJoe Rogan46:30

       Right.

   23. ABAlex Berenson46:30

       So- so those are generally more susceptible to- to treatment. These viruses, we're just not that good at treating. Oh, I wanted to say one last thing about the particles and, um-

   24. JRJoe Rogan46:40

       Mm-hmm.

   25. ABAlex Berenson46:41

       ... and y- you mentioned, you know, how many particles, possibly it's more particles w- is more likely to get you sick. The size of the particles might a- also matter. So, with anthrax, famously, if an anthrax spore gets into your lungs, it's- it's terrible. I mean, you have like about an 80% lethality rate of anthrax getting into your lungs. If it gets into just your nose, it doesn't do that, okay? It has to get all the way down. So, it is possible, and I'm not saying this is true, it is possible that by filtering out larger particles as masks do, what you're left with is more dangerous particles that are more likely to get into your lungs. So, uh, again, I'm not saying that's true. What I'm saying-

   26. JRJoe Rogan47:19

       Wouldn't you get those same particles if you had no mask?

   27. ABAlex Berenson47:22

       That's a, that's actually a good point. Um, but the mix might be more both upper and lower respiratory. But again, I'm not saying that's- that's something we have to be afraid of. What I'm saying is when you're talking about plausible theories like your plausible theory, you don't know. You need experimental data, and the experimental data is not very strong for mask use. Just to go back to that.

   28. JRJoe Rogan47:42

       My, um, rationale for the way that masks work or don't work is the most crude. It's farts.

   29. ABAlex Berenson47:51

       (laughs)

   30. JRJoe Rogan47:51

       They go right through your underwear, right through your pants-
5. 1:00:00 – 1:13:54

   Coincidence. …

   1. ABAlex Berenson1:00:00

      from.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:00

      Coincidence.

   3. ABAlex Berenson1:00:00

      Coincidence.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:01

      Crazy coincidence.

   5. ABAlex Berenson1:00:02

      Yeah. But we're not allowed to talk about that.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:04

      Yeah. If you talk about it, you're a Trump supporter. Yeah. The groupthink is... It's so strange with social media because the consequences of being attacked, uh, are so real. People do get emotionally devastated by these gang attacks and they are very bullying. I mean, they really are bullying g- And people don't think of it as bullying because you're not physically in front of someone and you're not intimidating them and scaring them. But you know what you're doing.

   7. ABAlex Berenson1:00:31

      Oh, yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:00:32

      They know what they're doing.

   9. ABAlex Berenson1:00:32

      Oh, yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:00:33

       And when they go after you and they see other people going after you, they go, "Oh, it's a free shot at Alex."

   11. ABAlex Berenson1:00:37

       Yeah. It's dogpiling.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:00:38

       "Let's go after him."

   13. ABAlex Berenson1:00:38

       It's, it's, it's ugly.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:00:40

       Oh, yeah.

   15. ABAlex Berenson1:00:40

       And, and I've learned that, like, you know, there was one thing in May where I really got dogpiled and the only thing to do is not to respond, to turn the computer off for a few hours and just let it go. 'Cause the one thing about the mob is when they realize they can't touch you, when they realize that, like, they can't get you fired, that you're... you have some independence, they will generally move on. But, but, but if they can touch you, they will. So, so I got my one last book here. The reason that I am able to write about this stuff in the way that I've been is because after I left The Times in 2010, I wrote spy novels for a number of years, and I was paid pretty well.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:01:16

       Mm-hmm.

   17. ABAlex Berenson1:01:17

       I was fortunate. I had a good... This is my... this, th- this novel, believe it or not, I wrote in 2019-

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:01:22

       Okay.

   19. ABAlex Berenson1:01:23

       ... um, it's called A Power Couple. That is yours to keep.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:01:25

       Oh, boy.

   21. ABAlex Berenson1:01:26

       Um, uh, yes.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:01:27

       Did you make an audio version?

   23. ABAlex Berenson1:01:28

       Uh, there is an audio version, uh, some-

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:01:30

       The Steven-

   25. ABAlex Berenson1:01:30

       Steven Weber is the guy who did it, um.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:01:32

       Steven Weber from Wings?

   27. ABAlex Berenson1:01:33

       I think so, yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:01:34

       No kidding.

   29. ABAlex Berenson1:01:35

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:01:35

       Really? I met that guy.

Episode duration: 3:05:45