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Joe Rogan Experience #1617 - Mike Baker

Mike Baker is a former CIA covert operations officer. He is now the president and cofounder of Diligence LLC, a global intelligence and security firm. Mike is also the host of "Black Files Declassified" now available on Discovery+.

Joe RoganhostMike Bakerguest
Jun 27, 20242h 59mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:0015:00

    (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast,…

    1. JR

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

    2. NA

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

    3. JR

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (instrumental music plays) That sound is the sweet and sultry sound of Mike Baker lighting a cigar.

    4. MB

      (laughs) Hey, now.

    5. JR

      Good to see you, buddy. What's happening?

    6. MB

      Good to be seen. Good to be seen. Uh, you know, not much going on in these times of ours. (laughs)

    7. JR

      I'm very excited to talk to you because I had a guy on, uh, Jamie Metzl yesterday, a scientist who scared the shit out of me, talking about China. He was ta-

    8. MB

      (sighs)

    9. JR

      ... talking about China. We were talking about China amassing n- naval power-

    10. MB

      Oh.

    11. JR

      ... China's taking over of tech companies-

    12. MB

      Yep.

    13. JR

      ... and how, how huge they're getting and how much influence they have-

    14. MB

      (sniffs)

    15. JR

      ... over their people, as opposed to the way we do it. It's-

    16. MB

      Well, he's not wrong.

    17. JR

      No.

    18. MB

      He's not... Yeah, I can't spot the lie in, in what, what you just said. But, uh, I mean, look, he- th- I mean, there's so much we c- we can, we can talk about. But (sighs) if you think about it, just in the past handful of months, um, there was this SolarWinds hack, right, by the Russians. So, the Russians go in. They hack into a company called SolarWinds, that is an IT management software company, that happens to be, um, fairly deep into government organizations, agencies, treasury, and, and a variety of others throughout the US government. And they're also into parts of the intel community, defense department, uh, and a lot of commercial sectors. So, anyway, the Russians figure this out. Now, around about December or January, um, Microsoft, you know, identified this as a problem and, and I think it was, uh, the head of Microsoft said, "This looks like the most sophisticated attack we've ever seen." So, this is December, January timeframe. And they're still trying to figure out the depth of this hack by Russians. At the same time, and going back months and months and months before, the Chinese (laughs) had been engaged in a more sophisticated attack that while everyone is focused on what's going on, and so fully aware that we got problems, right, from, from nation-states out there who don't like us, everybody's talking about SolarWinds. And now, it's, you know, they've just now released information about the Chinese attack against, uh, Microsoft Exchange servers, uh, running the Exchange email systems. And this thing is, uh, enormous. And so the Chinese... Yeah, I mean, we have been so focused for four years on the Russians, you know? And they're, you know, they- they're out there to cause us all sorts of problems, so we should be focused on them. But, but it's China that's the biggest problem. And so this guy is absolutely right, Jamie's right.

    19. JR

      It was terrifying.

    20. MB

      Yeah.

    21. JR

      Listen to what he was talking about, the way he was explaining how they, you know, they have this plan. What? I think he said 2049, to be the, the global superpower of the world-

    22. MB

      Mm-hmm.

    23. JR

      ... and essentially be take the place of what America used to be-

    24. MB

      Yeah, they would-

    25. JR

      ... do it their way.

    26. MB

      And do it their way, which means, "We're gonna bypass all the costs and the heavy lift of research and development over the years, and we're just (laughs) gonna steal everything."

    27. JR

      Yeah.

    28. MB

      And they've been doing it for decades. So, people think, "Oh, China, it's a problem. It's a pro-" Uh, we've talked about this before-

    29. JR

      Yeah.

    30. MB

      ... that, you know, this idea that perhaps this is just something relatively new or it's popped up during the previous administration of Trump. And honest to God's truth is, it's been going on for decades and they decided that that's how they're going to get to the top of the food chain, is by stealing shit, because it's a lot easier to hoover up everything and then reverse engineer it. Um, and the technology has made it even easier, right? It used to be old school. They'd go out and recruit somebody. They'd find some Chinese-American working for a company here in the States. They'd appeal to sort of, you know, you got to help the motherland and, and they would. And that was the old school way of doing it. But, you know, cyber theft is, it's, it's incredible what they're able to do. And this latest attack, well, they, they're still trying to sort out the mess, right?

  2. 15:0030:00

    Not good. …

    1. MB

      but, uh, so yeah, the, the Chinese is, is, is-

    2. JR

      Not good.

    3. MB

      I, I hate to, you know, I hate to, I, I, I think sometimes, uh, people say, "Ah, quit kicking the Chinese in the ass." But the regime really does, uh, have a plan, as you pointed out. Uh, they would like to accelerate that plan to before 2049 and it's everything. It's, it's the aggression in the s- in, in the South Pacific seas, it's- it's- it's their build-up of their military, particularly their navy, um, it's- it's primarily, the part that is most frustrating is the theft of intellectual property. And (sighs) I mean, look, this- this- this hack that I just talked about earlier with- with Microsoft, with the exchange, we're getting screwed, right? So they're, they're out there. We don't, we don't know the extent. We know it's huge. We don't know the extent yet of this attack. But do you think that's gonna stop? Is Microsoft gonna stop doing business in China?

    4. JR

      No.

    5. MB

      Absolutely not.

    6. JR

      No.

    7. MB

      Right?

    8. JR

      No.

    9. MB

      And then what do the three... Facebook is banned, you know?

    10. JR

      Yeah.

    11. MB

      Um, you know what's not banned? Um, Microsoft, right? LinkedIn, right?

    12. JR

      Yeah.

    13. MB

      Uh, Bing, right? So-

    14. JR

      Who the fuck uses Bing?

    15. MB

      I know, Bing. I know. I didn't even know-

    16. JR

      I mean-

    17. MB

      ... it was still in existence.

    18. JR

      I have a Windows laptop-

    19. MB

      (laughs)

    20. JR

      ... and it, it wants to pull up Bing sometimes. I'm like, "What are you doing?"

    21. MB

      I know.

    22. JR

      "Please get out of here."

    23. MB

      Bing. Um, but it's, at that point, Bing isn't-

    24. JR

      How bad is Bing? Is it bad? Is it... It's not bad.

    25. MB

      Bada Bing?

    26. JR

      It's just no one's using it, right? I've used DuckDuckGo, that's what I like, 'cause DuckDuckGo gives me uncurated information, where it's like-

    27. MB

      That's good.

    28. JR

      ... you know? And it, it doesn't, DuckDuckGo doesn't save your information, it's not, it's not trying to, like, use your data and it just gives you a search. Do you know what it is? Are you aware of it?

    29. MB

      Shit, no.

    30. JR

      No?

  3. 30:0045:00

    Well, I will say,…

    1. JR

      with each other and talking with each other. There's too many, there's too many filters.

    2. MB

      Well, I will say, don't, don't ... Nobody should underestimate w- uh, that point that you just made earlier, which is that there is a very active, um, covert action, uh, wing within the Russian government, within Chinese intel, within ... And their whole point sometimes is not to do anything other than just to sow distrust-

    3. JR

      Yes.

    4. MB

      ... and instability and chaos. People say, "Well, why would they do that?" Well, they do it because it's in their best interest. Again, going back to that same thought. So, is it in the, the, you know, say the, the Russian best interest to kind of seed the idea of, "Man, you know what? Domestic terrorism and racism, that's your top priority in the States."

    5. JR

      Yeah.

    6. MB

      Well, of course it is. And so we feed into that, right?

    7. JR

      Right.

    8. MB

      And we do our own part too, right? We ... There's, there's this, this desire to slice and dice the demographic, right? For political purposes, right? "If I can control this block-"... or if I can control that block, then I could win the election. Right?

    9. JR

      Yeah.

    10. MB

      Well, that's fucked up. Right?

    11. JR

      It's fucked up.

    12. MB

      And I, uh, you know, I'm old enough to, to, you know, remember the, the, the riots, uh... Bear- I mean, okay, I was watching TV and as a kid, but the riots of the '60s and, and that, that whole civil rights process and the... And I'll be honest with you, you know, up until a, a handful of years ago, I really thought we'd moved on. I thought, you know, it was all about who you are as a person, right? Your character, as Martin Luther King used to talk about. Right? I think he would be disgusted by this idea that it's all about your, your, uh, the color of your skin.

    13. JR

      Yeah.

    14. MB

      That's bullshit.

    15. JR

      It is bullshit.

    16. MB

      Uh, and it's also the, the, the sexual orientation. I don't give a fuck what your sexual orientation is. I don't need to celebrate it.

    17. JR

      I don't give a fuck either.

    18. MB

      But I don't care.

    19. JR

      Yeah, I don't care.

    20. MB

      Yeah.

    21. JR

      I, I think it's, it's... These are, these are attack vectors. They're- they're-

    22. MB

      Yes. That's a good way to put it. Yeah.

    23. JR

      They're, they're ways that people can figure out a way to, to sow the seeds of dis- dissent and, and discontent. And I think that, you know, one of the things that happened that was really, uh... We, we talked about the, uh, whole situation with, um, the power grid here. It was really sad to me to watch people on the left saying, (paper rustles) "Hey," you know, "hey, Texas," you know? "You still want your independence now?"

    24. MB

      Yes. Yeah.

    25. JR

      Like, "Look what happened." Like, man, you got babies freezing to death, you know? You got people without clean water. Like, is, is, is that who you are? 'Cause as an American, I don't give a fuck if you're a Republican or a Democrat. I share ideas from both sides.

    26. MB

      Yeah.

    27. JR

      I'm a-

    28. MB

      Yeah.

    29. JR

      I'm kind of a hybrid in a lot of ways.

    30. MB

      Yeah.

  4. 45:001:00:00

    Well, look, there's no…

    1. JR

      would have a completely different take on it.

    2. MB

      Well, look, there's no science... This- as an example, guy- I'm focused because I got the- these- I got these three knuckleheads at home, right? So I'm focused on, like, the, the, the education side of things as well.

    3. JR

      Yeah.

    4. MB

      And so... As, as, as are you, but they- it's... There's no science. People believe science. Well, of course believe science. That, that, that's one of the funniest narratives. "Believe science." Well, who the fuck doesn't believe? I mean, that's fine, but it's a political issue, right? So... But I think that, uh, there's no science that shows that, that, you know, a six-foot distance in public schools for kids, right? Is, i- is, is, uh, is essential to their health. So, in fact, the science shows three foot. That's fine. And what that does, though, the importance of that is logistics, right? Because it allows for you to get the schools open again. People will talk about, "The six-foot distance. We can't get these kids back into their classrooms with six-foot distances. We can't get enough of them in there." It's the little things, it's the logistics of it saying, well, get it down to three foot, which is what the science supports, and then you can get these schools, you can start opening these places back up in a responsible manner. Honest to God, we're going to look at this thing in, in a year or two. Maybe we won't, because we're not going to be honest with ourselves. But we're g- if we actually did an honest hotwash of this, uh, reaction to the pandemic, our reaction has been pathetic, right? Over, over this past year. I-

    5. JR

      I think-

    6. MB

      This has not been a shining moment for us.

    7. JR

      Don't you think part of the problem is we started out with a different idea what the virus is? We started out thinking that it was going to be, like, the next Spanish flu, and that it was going to kill... I mean, everyone was terrified, and me included. I was scared of it.

    8. MB

      Yeah.

    9. JR

      In the beginning, I thought that it was going to be something that kills 10% of the population, you know?

    10. MB

      (laughs) No.

    11. JR

      And it didn't turn out to be that way, but we never made an adjustment.

    12. MB

      Yeah. No, I... Uh, yes, I think that's true, and I think also part of it is, is you can't negate the, uh, or minimize the political reaction, right? If, if, if Joe Biden had been president when this thing broke, I guarantee you the reaction would have been somewhat different. The fact that Trump was in there-

    13. JR

      Yeah.

    14. MB

      ... and created so much emotion, um, and there was such animosity, uh-

    15. JR

      Thank God Trump-

    16. MB

      Yeah.

    17. JR

      ... wasn't pro-vaccine. We would be fucked.

    18. MB

      (laughs)

    19. JR

      Because, you know, he was pro so many other therapeutics, and they're like, "Hydroxychloroquine is racist."

    20. MB

      (laughs)

    21. JR

      You know, like-

    22. MB

      Yeah.

    23. JR

      Thank God he didn't say anything about ivermectin or-

    24. MB

      No.

    25. JR

      ... you know, vitamin D or quercetin or any of the other things that we've been... Or zinc.

    26. MB

      Yeah, but I do think that was... You know, that was a big issue, was, was like, "Ah."

    27. JR

      Yeah.

    28. MB

      "You see?"

    29. JR

      He was so polarizing.

    30. MB

      Yeah. And we can't, and we can't trust the, the, the vaccines because, you know, they were developed under Trump.

  5. 1:00:001:07:54

    Yeah. …

    1. MB

      be told by the federal government to do the right thing.

    2. JR

      Yeah.

    3. MB

      They're just doing it because what the fuck? You know, it's...

    4. JR

      But isn't... There's, there's this thing going on where there's all these different arguments, and there's all these different narratives, and all these different people that are arguing their points. And no one knows exactly what the motives are, exactly who's doing what or why. And, you know, you're worried about the far left if you're in the far right, and you're worried about the r- the, the left. You know, everybody's, everybody in the right is worried about the left. Everybody in the left is worried about the right. And everybody in the center is trying to figure out-

    5. MB

      (laughs)

    6. JR

      ... where the fuck the rational people are. One of the things that I'm worried about, and this is gonna sound really weird, but I'm worried that what this is really gonna... What, what, what all of this dissent and, and confusion is going to bring about is the rise of some sort of technological symbiosis where, where we can read each other's minds, where we can understand each other better, and it's gonna make us less human than we are currently. I'm really worried about that, and I'm...

    7. MB

      Um-

    8. JR

      I'm wor- I'm worried about these weird interfaces, like, you know, Elon Musk is, uh, trying to do this, uh, Neurolink thing.

    9. MB

      Yeah.

    10. JR

      And I think he's doing it because he wants to acc- he, he wants to increase the bandwidth between human beings and information, which is a very, uh, it's a noble concept.

    11. MB

      Yeah.

    12. JR

      You're gonna make people smarter, more access to information. One of the things he said to me, "You're gonna be able to talk without words."

    13. MB

      You know, I, I think... I don't know necessarily-

    14. JR

      I think we're gonna read each other's minds.

    15. MB

      I don't know if there's this... I don't know that there's a correlation between access to more information and getting smarter. Right?

    16. JR

      But this is what I think.

    17. MB

      So, yeah.

    18. JR

      I think ultimately there's going to be some sort of technology that literally allows people to understand people's intent and to read their thoughts and ideas. And I think it's not that far away. It might be 50 years, whatever it is, but we're moving in this direction where we're gonna be less human. And that might be... Because of all the bullshit that's been created by social media and by these conversations, by these algorithms that encourage people to be upset about things, that they, they encourage outrage. That we're, we're gonna move into some weird place where we're gonna have to change who we are in order to recognize what are the motives behind these, these different-... programs and campaigns that are, uh, m- forcing people into these situations where they hate each other.

    19. MB

      Yeah. Yeah, I, as somebody who's taken the polygraph, I, m- I don't know-

    20. JR

      Hook me up with all this stuff.

    21. MB

      ... four, four dozen, four dozen times-

    22. JR

      I wanna see if I can lie.

    23. MB

      Uh, yeah, well, what I was gonna say was, I mean, we used to say when, in the, with the polygraph that, "Oh, my God, can't you just put, like, a, like, a colander on our head and just read our, our thoughts? Because that would be a lot more pleasant and easier," right?

    24. JR

      Have you ever, uh, uh, you beaten a polygraph? Have you ever lied?

    25. MB

      Uh, no. I've had-

    26. JR

      You can be lied, though, right?

    27. MB

      ... I've had a lot of inconclusive. (laughs)

    28. JR

      Yeah?

    29. MB

      Because the polygraph, the thing about the polygraph is, A, it's, uh, it's all p- physiological ac- activity, right? It's-

    30. JR

      Right.

Episode duration: 2:59:08

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