Joe Rogan Experience #1657 - Mayor Steve Adler

1. 0:00 – 1:25

   Taking on the Austin mayor’s job: motivation, rewards, and frustration

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:00

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. SASteve Adler0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (instrumental music plays) Thanks for doing this, man. Appreciate it.

   4. SASteve Adler0:16

      No, I appreciate being invited.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:17

      What was it like being the mayor of Austin?

   6. SASteve Adler0:19

      You know, it's a- it's a- it's a real trip.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:22

      (laughs)

   8. SASteve Adler0:22

      Uh. (laughs)

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:22

      If you could go back and do it again, would you?

   10. SASteve Adler0:25

       I, uh, I keep, I keep reminding Dianne that we volunteered to do this.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:28

       (laughs)

   12. SASteve Adler0:29

       Yeah. I mean, 'cause there's so many things about it that are, that are spectacular. Um, but it is also the most frustrating thing I've ever done.

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:37

       Have you ever done anything in public service before this?

   14. SASteve Adler0:40

       Not in any kind of elected office.

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:42

       What m- what, what gave you the motivation to do it?

   16. SASteve Adler0:45

       You know, I was in and around politics, uh, but, um, you know, I've worked on some campaigns. I had a friend who became a state senator and I took some time off helping him set up his office. I think, you know, really it was, uh, you know, literally the- the city had been real good to me. Uh, you know, I came here as a pretty poor student passing through town, never left. Stayed here for the music and the breakfast tacos.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:11

       (laughs)

   18. SASteve Adler1:12

       And, you know, 40 years later it's, uh, yeah, I've achieved so many things that I didn't even know existed, and it was a chance to, to give back. This is the classic case of no good deed goes unpunished.

2. 1:25 – 2:38

   A cascade of crises before COVID: storms, boil-water notices, and emergency leadership

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:25

      (laughs) Well, and then, you know, uh, the way it stands now... It's such a strange time, right? Like, everything was fine. W- I mean, so many mayors across the country had, m- you know, you have your standard mayor problems. But then COVID hits and you have everything is exacerbated. And like, what- what- what kind of, like, massive change has this been for you?

   2. SASteve Adler1:48

      You know, it actually starts before that. You know, you, let's go back. We've had, we've had three 100-year storms in my seven years where people have died. We had a, um, a bridge wash out way north of here sending silt downstream and we ended up having to do a water boil in Austin. Uh, and this was at a time-

   3. JRJoe Rogan2:10

      Water boil mean people had to boil their tap water?

   4. SASteve Adler2:12

      Had... Yeah. You, you-

   5. JRJoe Rogan2:12

      So the processing wasn't working?

   6. SASteve Adler2:13

      In a city of a million people you couldn't drink the water. I mean, that never happens. But yet in my time as mayor in seven years it's happened twice. (laughs)

   7. JRJoe Rogan2:22

      (laughs)

   8. SASteve Adler2:22

      We had a, we had a bomber that was-

   9. JRJoe Rogan2:25

      Oh, yeah.

   10. SASteve Adler2:25

       ... putting bombs on people's porches. Mailing people and people were, were dying. Uh, you know, we had 1,000 law enforcement agents here in the city.

   11. JRJoe Rogan2:35

       What... We were talking about that. What-

   12. SASteve Adler2:36

       And then COVID. I mean-

   13. JRJoe Rogan2:37

       Yeah.

   14. SASteve Adler2:38

       It's-

3. 2:38 – 4:56

   The Austin bomber: fear, public messaging, and the FBI investigation

   1. JRJoe Rogan2:38

      Wh- what was the bomb about? Like, what was that about?

   2. SASteve Adler2:41

      It was, uh, no motive. I mean, it was just a, a, a, a kid who's obviously, uh, had significant problems. I mean, he, he was e- you know, evil. He was s- he was just randomly sending bombs. And of course when it started we didn't know that it was random. So everybody was trying to figure out who's next and what the plan is and, uh, it was fascinating to watch the, the FBI and then Austin Police Department work on that. Um...

   3. JRJoe Rogan3:09

      How long did it take to catch him?

   4. SASteve Adler3:11

      You know, it was, it was over in a matter of just a few weeks. Uh, and I don't even remember now. I mean, it could be even shorter than that. It could be two weeks. I, I remember it being a really long period of time, because every day lasted forever. Uh, but it was relatively, relatively quick.

   5. JRJoe Rogan3:29

      What is it like being the mayor while something like that is going on? While you're trying to sleep and you're thinking, like, "When's the next one going to blow?" And, "How do we, how do we catch this guy?" Like, what was that feeling like?

   6. SASteve Adler3:40

      It's, it's hard. You know? Because you, you, you have, you, you know your community is scared. And, and you know that the community is looking to you to try and gauge how scared it is that they, that they need to be. Uh, you know, we had the FBI and APD, we had other law enforcement that was working on it. I was kind of like the translator. You know, they, they would listen to the official reports by law enforcement and then they would look at me and say, "So how are we supposed to be feeling for this? What's our swing thought? I mean, what are we supposed to be thinking about right now?" And, um, I... You, you read, you start reading, you know, about other situations, other mayors that have gone through some similar kind of thing looking back in time. And, and so many of these things end where it just stops. They don't catch anybody. There's no finality to it. So there's this lingering unsettled place where you just never know when it's going to come back again. It was, it was a scary, frightening time, except for watching those guys work. Because you watch those guys work. And I knew that it... I got to the place where I knew that if that guy kept sending off bombs they were going to catch him.

4. 4:56 – 6:43

   How investigators caught the bomber: tracing packages, video, and camera networks

   1. JRJoe Rogan4:56

      And how did they wind up catching him?

   2. SASteve Adler4:58

      Uh, you know, they, they, they ended up tracing the, the, the packages that were, that were coming in. They ended up getting a video at a, I think it was, like, a FedEx place. Uh, you know, they, they knew that, uh, bombs had been, been mailed out of different locations. And they have pretty sophisticated equipment to be able to determine in two completely different places what cars happen to be in the same... In those two spots over a defined period of time. So they were doing that. Uh, they were, um, checking the, the, kind of the ring cameras on, on-

   3. JRJoe Rogan5:36

      Mm-hmm.

   4. SASteve Adler5:36

      ... places where they knew somebody had probably driven by. I mean, it was just a lot of, a lot of police work.

   5. JRJoe Rogan5:42

      (smacks lips) (sighs) Yeah, that's the thing, right? If you, you have someone doing something like that in your city and there's really no way to figure out why and wh- there's no way to understand and it's random. He's sending them out to random people.

   6. SASteve Adler5:58

      A- and when it started off you didn't know that it was random. Right? So, so some of the first, um-

   7. JRJoe Rogan6:03

      How many bombs went off?

   8. SASteve Adler6:06

      You know, in my ... I, I am not sure. My recollection's probably about four, five, maybe. Uh, but the first couple, um, uh, hit, uh, children of some pretty prominent, uh, Black families in the city. So, it initially looked like there may be a link between, uh, who was getting bombed and this might actually be something that was, that was race-driven or ... 'Cause you just don't know when you only have two or three data points. Um, it could be anything, and everybody imagines each one of those scenarios.

5. 6:43 – 9:25

   Drought, wildfire, and the ice storm: community resilience vs. government limits

   1. JRJoe Rogan6:43

      So, you've had that, you've had the storm which washed out the bridge, and then this crazy ice storm.

   2. SASteve Adler6:49

      Bastrop nearly, uh, burned up, you know, a city just east of here. Wildfire came. You know, when I came into office, we were in the middle of a historic drought.

   3. JRJoe Rogan6:59

      Right.

   4. SASteve Adler7:00

      Um, uh ...

   5. JRJoe Rogan7:01

      That was when Lake Travis had shrunk, right?

   6. SASteve Adler7:03

      It did.

   7. JRJoe Rogan7:03

      It was crazy.

   8. SASteve Adler7:04

      Crazy.

   9. JRJoe Rogan7:05

      Some pictures of friends that I know that live out here sent me pictures. I was in California at the time, but I was like, "That is nuts." It was like hundreds of yards between their dock and where the actual water was.

   10. SASteve Adler7:15

       We were down to like, uh, 25, 30%, and, and-

   11. JRJoe Rogan7:18

       Wow.

   12. SASteve Adler7:18

       ... I was beginning to get shopped, you know, these multi-billion dollar proposals to pipe in water from aquifers from, from east of here. One of the best things I did as mayor soon after I was elected is I, I made it rain and Lake Travis filled-

   13. JRJoe Rogan7:35

       (laughs)

   14. SASteve Adler7:36

       (laughs) Filled, filled right up.

   15. JRJoe Rogan7:37

       Didn't it fill up in like a day?

   16. SASteve Adler7:39

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan7:39

       That's crazy.

   18. SASteve Adler7:40

       That's all it takes. That's all it takes.

   19. JRJoe Rogan7:41

       Wow. Yeah. It's, uh ... The, the ice storm out here was pretty bananas. The frozen snow, ice storm that, that lasted a week. It was very strange. And that, that's also a 100-year sort of event, right?

   20. SASteve Adler7:58

       Uh, uh, almost in recorded history. I mean-

   21. JRJoe Rogan8:01

       Yeah.

   22. SASteve Adler8:01

       ... it was, it was, it was the most ... And to have that happen at a time when you're in the middle of a pandemic, right? So, all the things that you would have done now gets limited. You know, you're trying to get people off the street and put them into some kind of congregate warming station. It impacts that. It, it impacts everything that you want to do to have that happen in the middle of a pandemic. And then we lost power in the city.

   23. JRJoe Rogan8:24

       Yeah.

   24. SASteve Adler8:25

       Uh, so no one had water, no one had electricity. Um ...

   25. JRJoe Rogan8:31

       It was pretty interesting. One thing I did find, though, when you went to the supermarkets that people were kind of like bound together with a sense of community. It was, uh ... People were almost ... Every ... People were very friendly here, period. It's a very friendly city. But they were even more. It was like, it seemed like instead of just flat-out panic, people were talking to each other more, people were offering up possible solutions to different people's problems and how to handle things. It was ... It felt good.

   26. SASteve Adler8:59

       And you live here now. I mean, I, I really do think this is kind of a magical place, and I think that is one of the elements. I mean, there were ... Not only in the grocery store, but there were people all over the city that didn't have food and didn't have water. And, you know, frankly, when something like that happens, it's like way too big for government relief efforts to be able to get to people.

   27. JRJoe Rogan9:18

       Yeah.

   28. SASteve Adler9:18

       You need neighbors that are, that are stepping up to help other neighbors. And that was happening all over the city.

6. 9:25 – 16:08

   What a mayor can (and can’t) do in Austin: ‘weak mayor’ structure and open-meeting rules

   1. JRJoe Rogan9:25

      When you first became mayor, or when you were running for office, did you have certain objectives that you wanted to fulfill? And when you got into office, what was the difference between your ideas of what you could do and the reality of doing them once you got in there?

   2. SASteve Adler9:41

      Well, you know, when I ran, the, the highest priority, if you polled people was, do something about transportation. Uh, a lot of people moving into the city. Everybody's, you know, looking at that congestion issues that they'd never seen before. Do something about transportation. We have no real mass public transit. We have an I-35 here, one single high state going through ... Uh, interstate going through the city. Uh, one of the most congested in the, in the, in the country. So, transportation, I knew I had to focus on. But-

   3. JRJoe Rogan10:10

      I nee- ... I need you guys to stop talking about your traffic, because it's a joke.

   4. SASteve Adler10:13

      Right. (laughs)

   5. JRJoe Rogan10:14

      Traffic here is literally a joke. My friend Tony calls it adorable. It is adorable, right?

   6. SASteve Adler10:19

      (laughs)

   7. JRJoe Rogan10:20

      Jamie's from out of town. We're from LA.

   8. SASteve Adler10:22

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan10:22

      Traffic here is a joke. It's hilarious. People are like, "This traffic is crazy. Took me an extra five minutes to get somewhere." You guys don't have traffic.

   10. SASteve Adler10:30

       I know.

   11. JRJoe Rogan10:31

       If that's your biggest problem, you literally live in Narnia. This is a utopian village. There's-

   12. SASteve Adler10:36

       And, and-

   13. JRJoe Rogan10:36

       There's no traffic.

   14. SASteve Adler10:37

       And we- ... And we've been accused of that.

   15. JRJoe Rogan10:38

       (laughs)

   16. SASteve Adler10:39

       It's true. (laughs) On lots and lots of occasions. But, but coming in, there were two things that I hadn't anticipated. Uh, the, the first one was the, uh, the level of incoming volume was something that I hadn't anticipated. I ...

   17. JRJoe Rogan10:52

       When did it start? When did the, it like ramp up, the people moving here? Because it wasn't just the pandemic, right?

   18. SASteve Adler10:57

       I'm just talking about people reaching out to me.

   19. JRJoe Rogan10:59

       Oh, okay.

   20. SASteve Adler10:59

       I mean, in the job. I mean, the ... You could spend your entire time not doing anything but responding to constituents.

   21. JRJoe Rogan11:05

       Oh, okay.

   22. SASteve Adler11:05

       Or you could spend all your time doing nothing but trying to mediate the zoning cases that show up every week. I mean, you could spend your whole time never doing anything that's actually big picture and affirmative in a city. And I used to blame city councils before me that they would never actually get in to deal with the really big issues. Well, it was real apparent to me three weeks into this why it is that that happens. And it's really hard to do a ... To do that. The second thing was that, uh, government is hard in Austin. One, you know, your mayor, you're not a ... You're not a strong mayor like in Houston or New York. Uh, so the city manager has significant administrative and executive powers in the city (inaudible) .

   23. JRJoe Rogan11:50

       When you say, "Not a strong mayor," could you explain that to people? The difference between the way, uh, government works here versus the way it would work in, say, like Chicago or somewhere like that?

   24. SASteve Adler11:58

       Right. So, the mayor in a lot of cities, uh, is, is the CEO of the city. Uh, sometimes they don't serve on the city council, and the city council's kind of like the Congress or the legislature. Uh, in a lot of cities, it's the, the mayor that appoints the police chief and the executives and the head of the departments. Uh, that system is in a lot of cities. There's also a lot of cities in the country, uh, where the city manager, appointed by the city council, is really the chief operating officer of the city, and really makes all the appointments in the city. The city council operates almost like a, like a-... a, a board for a, for a company and deals with policy-related issues, not the, the management or the executive issues. And that's what we have in Austin. So I'm on the city council. I'm, I have no greater vote or power than any of my peers on the city council. So it makes it difficult to come into a city and lead when the other 10 people on your council have identical powers that you have, with this exception of I have a, probably a better ability to be able to convene people, 'cause I'm the mayor, and I have better access to the bully pulpit, uh, than, than they do. So you learn an entirely different way to lead than I was used to in my companies, in my law firm, because there I was the, the, the executive.

   25. JRJoe Rogan13:25

       So the difference between the way it seemed the job was versus the actual abil- your actual ability once you got in was pretty stark.

   26. SASteve Adler13:35

       Yes.

   27. JRJoe Rogan13:36

       (laughs)

   28. SASteve Adler13:36

       Yes.

   29. JRJoe Rogan13:36

       So this is why things don't get done.

   30. SASteve Adler13:39

       It makes it hard. I mean-
7. 16:08 – 20:55

   Housing affordability and the land development code fight: density, neighborhood character, and courts

   1. SASteve Adler16:08

      You know, I wanted to, uh, get a land development code rewrite in the city. O- one of the, you know, there are so many things that are going right about this city. Uh, you know, we have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country, an economy that's on fire. We are one of the safest big cities in the country from a public safety standpoint. Um, we're the fastest growing large metropolitan area and have been, I think, for, like, each of the last nine years. There are so many things that are happening right. But one of the things that, that follows from that is housing prices are just off the charts. Now, for somebody who's just coming here from California or from, from New York, it looks like deals. If you're living here, kinda like traffic. (laughs)

   2. JRJoe Rogan16:50

      Mm-hmm.

   3. SASteve Adler16:51

      You get used to being able to get anywhere in 15 minutes. But housing prices in Austin is appreciating more rapidly, I think, in Austin right now than any other city in the country, which means we have to increase the housing supply in the city. But when you start talking about increasing the housing supply in the city, you immediately run into the culture wars on real estate development that you see in these neighborhoods. Uh, how do you increase density? How do you increase the number of units? How do you increase height? How do you increase the change, uh, so that you can increase housing supply? We were, that was, like, a big battle for years. Uh, we inherited that battle and the process. We were about seven days away, uh, from adopting a new land development code, and then the court stopped us. Uh, before-

   4. JRJoe Rogan17:40

      And what was the goal of this new land development code? Was the goal to increase density?

   5. SASteve Adler17:44

      It was to increase more housing supply in the city of all different kinds.

   6. JRJoe Rogan17:48

      Do you, do you get resistance from the residents, the current residents that don't want you to overbuild? They w- they don't want the neighborhood to change? Is that the idea?

   7. SASteve Adler17:54

      Y- you get resistance from neighbor- neighborhoods that are trying to preserve a certain quality of life or neighborhood character-

   8. JRJoe Rogan18:03

      Yeah.

   9. SASteve Adler18:03

      ... uh, that, that is, that's important to them.

   10. JRJoe Rogan18:06

       And is there a common ground or a middle ground rather? Like-

   11. SASteve Adler18:09

       I think so and, and, and before I leave my office, I hope, this summer, uh, uh, we're gonna be able to, to join with people that were on opposite sides, uh, a year and a half ago and say, "Okay, what is, what is it that is achievable? How much of what we need to do can we get done and get the, the votes for?" What the court said was in order for us to pass what we were doing, we needed a super majority to get it done. So on my, uh, our 11-person council, we needed nine votes as opposed to seven votes.

   12. JRJoe Rogan18:43

       Hm.

   13. SASteve Adler18:43

       There weren't nine votes.

   14. JRJoe Rogan18:45

       Now this is to increase, like, what, what is the actual, what, what, what is, what are you trying to achieve? Like, what is the actual stated goal?

   15. SASteve Adler18:54

       S- it's to increase the, the, the number of-... units of housing units that can build under our land development code.

   16. JRJoe Rogan19:03

       So for particular ... like, per acre?

   17. SASteve Adler19:05

       So it's like- Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan19:07

       So a certain amount of houses per acre?

   19. SASteve Adler19:09

       It depends on the area. Each area has its own rules.

   20. JRJoe Rogan19:12

       Mm-hmm.

   21. SASteve Adler19:12

       It begins with saying, "On commercial corridors where our zoning says you can just build commercially, we're gonna let people build residences there, too."

   22. JRJoe Rogan19:20

       Mm.

   23. SASteve Adler19:20

       So if you wanna put on a floor above the commercial use that's residential use, we're gonna do that. So we're gonna enlarge what you can build in a commercial area.

   24. JRJoe Rogan19:29

       So you could add condos to the top of an office building, perhaps?

   25. SASteve Adler19:32

       Right.

   26. JRJoe Rogan19:32

       Something like that.

   27. SASteve Adler19:32

       And then maybe it's letting more people build auxiliary dwelling units or apartments, uh, in the backyard.

   28. JRJoe Rogan19:37

       Hm.

   29. SASteve Adler19:37

       Maybe it's going to people and saying, "If you preserve the house that's on the lot, we'll let you build two other houses on the back of the lot instead of one house on the back of the lot." So it's increasing the, the number of units perhaps. It's increasing the, the, the square footage that you can put, uh, o- on a lot relative to the total area. Maybe it's increasing the height that you can put, uh, in a particular zoned property. So if you can ... you could go from only three stories to four stories if you build a certain amount of residential along with that, or affordable residential.

   30. JRJoe Rogan20:14

       And is there any consideration to the idea that maybe the city shouldn't grow?
8. 20:55 – 25:04

   ‘Keep Austin Weird’ and the city’s creative gravity: startups, risk tolerance, and comedy’s rise

   1. JRJoe Rogan20:55

      It's really ... I mean, I hate to keep saying this 'cause I've said it too many times on the air and I think I've fucked it up. It's too good here. It's such a good city. It really is. There's so many good things about it. Like, you think you know what ... You think you know what city life is. You think you know what it's like living in a city. Ah, there's a certain amount of crime, certain amount of this, certain amount of that. And then you come here and you're like, "Oh, no. This is like most of the good stuff and very little of the bad stuff." It's an unusual combination of things. It's not too big, it's not too small. What does Matthew McConaughey say? He goes, "This is a place where everybody's good enough and no one's too good." No, I fucked it up. "Everyone's too good." No. "No one's too good-

   2. SASteve Adler21:34

      Totally.

   3. JRJoe Rogan21:34

      ... and everyone's good enough." That's what he says. Yeah. Which is a great way to say it. But I think he's, I think he's onto something. It's like y- ... It's a utopian-sized city with great values and really friendly people and amazing restaurants and a great art scene and a great music scene, and now a great comedy scene. Well, it had a good comedy scene before, but since the pandemic when a lotta places were shut down, there's been three new comedy clubs, four new comedy clubs that have opened up here just within the last year, which is crazy.

   4. SASteve Adler22:03

      No, and I love ... You, you started describing, you know, kind of what this vision is of future, of, of Austin as a kind of a center for this.

   5. JRJoe Rogan22:10

      Yeah.

   6. SASteve Adler22:11

      And I just ... And I love that.

   7. JRJoe Rogan22:11

      Yeah. I think Austin easily could be the center for comedy because it's ... Comedy doesn't need, um, show business. But we've always been connected to show business because comedians have gotten jobs on sitcoms and gotten jobs on television shows and movies. But the reality is over the last few years that's all shifted anyway to the internet. And now comedians have found it's much more profitable and more fun to be independent and there's more freedom. Because being independent and being able to say whatever you want and do whatever you want, then, then the audience finds you and y- they know what you really are. They don't ... It's not you from The Tonight Show or you from this show where you gotta kinda pretend to be something that fits some sort of a corporate mold of what th- they would like a host to be. You can be yourself. And comedians now have found this sort of community thing going on where we support each other and we get on each other's podcasts and we put ... put each other on each other's comedy shows and it's just ... We don't need show business anymore in that sense, like the Hollywood show business. And we'd be better off if we were independent. So, so many of us are moving here and I've had ... Ten friends have moved here within the last year and it's continuing to pile up. And as more comics hear about the great Austin scene, more will move here.

   8. SASteve Adler23:30

      And, and, uh, you des- ... You described something that is cultural, I think, to the city. I mean, that ability to be able to come here and be who you are-

   9. JRJoe Rogan23:38

      Yeah.

   10. SASteve Adler23:38

       ... and to be able to think outside the box and set up different kinds of systems. You know, the watchword in Austin, uh, and I think we've talked about this in the past, is, is "Keep Austin Weird." You can, like, buy it on a coffee mug or a T-shirt.

   11. JRJoe Rogan23:50

       They've ruined that, that saying though, with those shirts.

   12. SASteve Adler23:52

       (laughs)

   13. JRJoe Rogan23:52

       My daughter has one of those. I'm like, "Take that off."

   14. SASteve Adler23:54

       Really?

   15. JRJoe Rogan23:55

       "That's ridiculous. Get rid of that shirt." (laughs)

   16. SASteve Adler23:56

       You know, but what does that mean, you know?

   17. JRJoe Rogan23:57

       What does it mean? (laughs)

   18. SASteve Adler23:58

       That it's okay to be weird? I think everybody probably has their own answer but-

   19. JRJoe Rogan24:00

       They have them in Portland too. You don't wanna be weird like Portland.

   20. SASteve Adler24:02

       You don't.

   21. JRJoe Rogan24:03

       (laughs)

   22. SASteve Adler24:03

       You only wanna be weird like Austin. But I'll tell you what I think it means in Austin. I th- ... In, in Austin, I think what it means is it's okay to be different.

   23. JRJoe Rogan24:10

       Yes.

   24. SASteve Adler24:10

       It's okay to take risks. And one of the neat things about this city is that there's a higher risk tolerance than any other city in the world that I've ever been in. It's okay to, to try stuff. Uh, and, and if you don't succeed, you don't get punished the way you do in many other cities. I mean, you're expected to, like, learn from that and, and try again fast. It, it's that, that, that culture of try something, learn, try something, learn, which is behind startups which is why there are more startups per capita here in this city than anywhere else. It's a city of early adopters. It's a, it's a, it's a city where, you know, a mayoral candidate a few years back who finished second in the race was a guy who drove through town on a thong on his bicycle and he just-

   25. JRJoe Rogan24:54

       (laughs)

   26. SASteve Adler24:55

       ... finished second. Really.

   27. JRJoe Rogan24:57

       I like how you said he finished second. Imagine if you lost to that guy?

   28. SASteve Adler25:00

       Really.

   29. JRJoe Rogan25:00

       You'd be like, "Oh my goodness, I gotta go back to the public-

   30. SASteve Adler25:03

       Yeah.

9. 25:04 – 37:30

   Homelessness becomes the defining controversy: encampments, neighborhood anger, and decriminalization

   1. JRJoe Rogan25:04

      ... or private sector." Um, the biggest issue by far...... over this past year, has been the homeless crisis, right? That's the biggest thing, is the increase in the tents and the chaos. And, you know, when, uh, Dave Chappelle and I were doing Stubs, we'd go down Eighth Street and there's that underpass, and it was just like a village down there. It was crazy. Um, what happened? How did that all get going? Like, what, what was the motivation for allowing people to camp in public places?

   2. SASteve Adler25:34

      Well, that's a cou- that's the action the council took two years ago. But so let's go-

   3. JRJoe Rogan25:37

      Okay.

   4. SASteve Adler25:38

      ... back before two years ago. You know, when I came into office, we had, uh, an outdoor area that kind of looked like, you know, what you have downtown in, in Skid Row in LA, but ours was just in a, in a, in a block area. Uh, but that's what everybody talked about. And you... A lot of people-

   5. JRJoe Rogan25:55

      And where was that area?

   6. SASteve Adler25:56

      It was, um, over toward I-35, uh, toward the highway. Um, it was at the, the ARCH, which was a shelter. Uh, but most of the people there never went inside. They kind of gathered outside. It was an open-air market of all kinds of, of, of horrible things. And, uh, people wanted that to disappear. The problem with making that disappear is that you... This challenge is not one you can just make go away. You can move it, but, but if you close it down anywhere, it's going... The people don't disappear, so they'll come back. But that was a challenge coming into office. Uh, but in my second, third, and fourth years in office, I started going to neighborhood association meetings. Uh, and whereas in the past, people wouldn't want to talk about zoning or flooding, now all they wanted to talk about was this homeless encampment that was near them somewhere. In the woods, in the streams, somewhere nearby. Uh, they were blaming the, um, the, the, the petty crime happening in, in the neighborhood on them. Every one of them had a wife or a daughter that had a horrible experience related to them. And I was going to these neighborhood association meetings and people were as angry as I have ever seen at a public meeting, demanding that something be done. Uh, I had one of them, uh, here, a neighborhood. A guy came up to me after it was over and he said, "You're mayor, fix this. And if you don't, I have a gun and I will fix this myself."

   7. JRJoe Rogan27:28

      Jesus.

   8. SASteve Adler27:29

      And, and I don't know that he actually meant that, but, but there was... That was the fervor and the feel. And I had, as, as a member of the city council, nothing to offer that neighborhood association. They were complaining about people that were under an overpass at, uh, the, the, the highway not t- too far away from them. Uh, and I knew that if we fenced in that overpass, which of course we couldn't do because it's not city property, it's state property, but if the state fenced it in so that those people weren't there anymore, uh, they don't disappear. So all they're going to do is, is move up the highway or down the highway or somewhere else. And I was going to more and more neighborhood associations that were complaining more and more about encampments, and, and I had no solution to that. And what hurt was, is we knew what worked. So in that same period of time, we said, "Let's house every vet in our city that's experiencing homelessness." You know, there was a national program doing it. A lot of cities participated. Austin was one of a handful of cities to successfully get that done. The community came together. We, we, we... When you take someone who's experiencing homelessness and you put them into a home and get them wraparound services, there's like a 90, 95% success rate that that person will either reintegrate back into society or will sustain themselves in a, in a positive way, wherever it is. 90, 95%.

   9. JRJoe Rogan29:03

      And it seems like Austin, being-

   10. SASteve Adler29:05

       (laughs)

   11. JRJoe Rogan29:05

       ... a fairly small city, you're dealing with much smaller... Even though it's a large number of people per se, it's, it's, it's, it's almost a manageable number. Like, you might be able to do that with all these homeless people. Whereas if you're in a place like Los Angeles, you're dealing with 100,000 people. Like, what's the number of homeless people in Austin?

   12. SASteve Adler29:23

       Right. You are... You're, you're dead on. And, and quite frankly, that's the, the, the gamble or the, the... What the city council was trying to do two years ago. So on our streets, on any given night, there's about 3,000 people that are experiencing homelessness. LA City, almost 50,000. LA County-

   13. JRJoe Rogan29:43

       It's... I think it's more than that.

   14. SASteve Adler29:44

       70 some-odd thousand. The... My, my numbers could be off.

   15. JRJoe Rogan29:47

       I don't even think they know, you know?

   16. SASteve Adler29:48

       S-

   17. JRJoe Rogan29:48

       But it's, it's, it's increased to the point wh- I... It's hard to say whether or not it's increased or its exposure has increased because they've all moved to, like, Venice Beach where there's just thousands of tents.

   18. SASteve Adler29:59

       The num- the numbers are going up.

   19. JRJoe Rogan30:00

       Yeah.

   20. SASteve Adler30:00

       You know? And in Seattle, San Francisco, smaller cities than Austin have three to six times as many people experiencing homelessness. You know, I was with the mayor in LA, uh, and I, and I said to him, I said, "God, I don't even know what you do. I mean, the scale of your challenge is so great. The cost to actually turn this around," I said, "I, I, I don't know what you do." And I said, "So I'm not here asking you what you do. But I'm asking you, what do you wish you had done eight years ago, 10 years ago, to prevent being where you are today?"

   21. JRJoe Rogan30:34

       What did he say?

   22. SASteve Adler30:34

       He gave me the same answer that the experts gave me in San Francisco and Portland and Seattle. They all said, "If you hide this challenge, it's going to continue to grow until it is so big you can't hide it anymore. But at that point, it's going to be too big for you to actually meaningfully deal with it." They said it's... It is like the political issue right now in, in LA and in San Francisco. It's like-

   23. JRJoe Rogan30:59

       Yeah.

   24. SASteve Adler30:59

       ... important. The p- they said, "I wish that we were as resolved to fix it-"... eight, 10 years ago as we are today, because we would have been able to set up the systems so that we could have reached equilibrium. And now, we wouldn't be here.

   25. JRJoe Rogan31:14

       You've got places like San Francisco-

   26. SASteve Adler31:16

       (clears throat)

   27. JRJoe Rogan31:16

       ... that have such tolerant policies towards homeless people that people gravitate to San Francisco to be homeless, which is really kind of crazy but true. People have actually moved there with the intention of, like, taking advantage of all their services, taking advantage of food and shelter, and the ability to do whatever you want. And, you know, you could actually get money for, for certain services in, in San Francisco. There's, like, a fine line between helping and encouraging people to continue a lifestyle. And, you know, for some people, the freedom of just being able to camp and do whatever you want, like, they're, they're checked out, right, for whatever reason, whether it's mental illness, whether it's just they pre- prefer this sort of vagabond lifestyle. I don't know whatev- what it is. But is there a l- like, is there a line that you have to make sure you don't cross over, where you don't make it easier for them to be homeless? You want to encourage them to take advantage of these things that you were trying to set up, where you're talking about providing them with wraparound services, where you can actually reintegrate them to society. Like, how do you make that distinction?

   28. SASteve Adler32:25

       Well, you know, so much of the debate and the discussion around homelessness has turned so political, like so many other kinds of discussions, but, but homelessness is, is one of the big ones. So, I have continued to ask the people that are working daily with the universe of people experiencing homelessness in our city, about 10,000 people in any given year intersect with our homelessness system, about 3,000 people on any given day in our city experiencing homelessness. And I've asked that question, "Are we pulling people in?" And what they tell me consistently, for the last six years, seven years, is that you can find anecdotally where that has happened. But generally speaking, the overwhelming number of people experiencing homelessness in our city are people who fell into homelessness here. The people that are coming into our city, most of them are coming from the areas immediately around us. I had one of them tell me once that there's not a, a, a Fodor's Guide to, to cities for people experiencing homelessness. And Austin would be in danger of going from two stars to three stars and people would start coming. We have enough challenge getting people experiencing homelessness to go from one side of the city to the other side of the city once they have a, have, have a place. Um, so where I'm looking at here, and I know that, that the governor, you know, Gavin Newsom in, in California, um, uh, told people that, uh, that Austin and Texas were giving people tickets and sending people to, to, to California.

   29. JRJoe Rogan34:03

       Did he say that?

   30. SASteve Adler34:04

       He said that. Not true-
10. 37:30 – 42:56

    Scaling what worked: the veterans housing model, risk funds for landlords, and the new unified plan

    1. JRJoe Rogan37:30

       So if you could go back and do it all over again, from the moment you got into office, what would you have done differently?

    2. SASteve Adler37:38

       Well, uh, w- what we did initially, uh, in terms of the veterans was real successful. I would do that again. It proves up the model. And it sh-

    3. JRJoe Rogan37:46

       Can you explain how, how that works? Like, uh, what, what, what, what did you do exactly for the veterans?

    4. SASteve Adler37:51

       Well, veterans are a little bit easier because they come with resources. So they come with what are called VASH vouchers from the federal government, which is support to, to help do rent supplements. Uh, but then it was reaching out to everybody in the city, uh, that had apartment buildings, big managers of apartment buildings with these vouchers, and we would say, "Would you take in these vets?" And, and, and people were willing to do that. Um, we had some landlords that were suspicious of it and say, "I'm not gonna do this 'cause if I take someone like this, they're gonna trash out the place and we're gonna need-

    5. JRJoe Rogan38:22

       Right.

    6. SASteve Adler38:22

       ... it'll take me six months to evict them." So I got together with some private, uh, businesses in the lake. We created a risk fund outside of city government, and we put it into the community foundation, and we said, "If you take a tenant and they trash out your place or create a problem, you call in the morning, you get a check in the afternoon."

    7. JRJoe Rogan38:41

       Mm-hmm.

    8. SASteve Adler38:41

       All the landlords said they don't believe me 'cause it's city. It's gonna take you five months. I said, "It's not in the city. It's privately funded. We're doing it outside the city." Uh-

    9. JRJoe Rogan38:50

       That's a great solution.

    10. SASteve Adler38:51

        It was great. And, and it, it took trusting the landlords that they weren't gonna be making claims unless they actually had problems.

    11. JRJoe Rogan38:58

        So, you, you start with this.

    12. SASteve Adler39:00

        It worked.

    13. JRJoe Rogan39:00

        You d- take the veterans. You have this, uh, these vouchers. You bring them into apartment buildings. You get them places. That's step one. So now they have a roof over their head, but how do you help them clean up?

    14. SASteve Adler39:12

        The, the service providers in the city-

    15. JRJoe Rogan39:14

        Mm-hmm.

    16. SASteve Adler39:14

        ... all said... 'Cause we all got everybody together and we said, "Let's, let's, let's get to equilibrium with veterans." Which means that... I mean, you can never end homelessness, but what you can do is get to a place where the rate at which you house people and they come out of housing back to life is the same rate at which they show up experiencing homelessness. I said, "Let's do that with veterans." It was part, again, of a federal program.

    17. JRJoe Rogan39:38

        What percentage of the homeless folks are veterans?

    18. SASteve Adler39:40

        You know, I think it's probably right now about 6%, something like that. I think the number was higher back then 'cause we had more veterans on the, on the, on the streets. But the service providers all came in and said, "Okay, if you can house vets, if you can find places for them, we'll start prioritizing them for giving them services."

    19. JRJoe Rogan39:58

        So how do you let these vets know about this and how do you locate the vets?

    20. SASteve Adler40:01

        Well, the, the, the people are on the streets right now. I mean, the, the service workers, the, the, the mental health interventionists.

    21. JRJoe Rogan40:08

        And they basically go tent to tent and they ask folks, "Are you a veteran?" If, if you are, there's-

    22. SASteve Adler40:12

        And then there's special programs.

    23. JRJoe Rogan40:14

        ... programs.

    24. SASteve Adler40:14

        Special, special programs. What I had thought was, is that once we were successful there, we would be able to scale it up to everybody.

    25. JRJoe Rogan40:20

        Mm-hmm.

    26. SASteve Adler40:21

        But much to my distress, I learned that a lot of people were involved not because they wanted to help people experiencing homelessness, they wanted to help vets. And I understand that. But when we moved out of vets, I had trouble getting the commitment to raise the resources to be able to do it for everybody. And that's... And so, so for, for two years, we were really unable to get the resources necessary to do it. The reason that I feel optimistic right now on homelessness and, and, and I do, more than I have in the last 10 years in this city, is because in our city right now, because it's become a political issue, because of the vote we just took, um, because of everybody getting so engaged-

    27. JRJoe Rogan41:04

        We should explain to people the vote. The vote is that now it's illegal to camp on the city-

    28. SASteve Adler41:09

        The s- yeah.

    29. JRJoe Rogan41:09

        ... in the city streets.

    30. SASteve Adler41:10

        Yeah. There was a, there was a referendum, and, and the community said, "We don't like tents. Get rid of the tents that we're seeing." Uh, let's criminalize it again. Um, you know, as a practical matter, criminalizing it isn't ultimately going to help. We have to enforce the new law, so, so the manager and the police chief are charged with doing that. But what we need to do is scale up the same thing we did with veterans. And for the very first time, we have our Chamber of Commerce, business organization, Downtown Austin Alliance business organization locked arm in arm with the Austin Justice Coalition and our homelessness leftist advocates all s- all agreeing on what it is that is the plan. And for the very first time, we have, I think, the access to the resources using, uh, the 1.9, our share of the $1.9 trillion coming out of DC. And what several of us on the council, and I think a majority of us on the council, have said is, rather than taking that dollars f- from the federal government and splitting it up 50 different ways and sending it out to people, what if we actually took those dollars and put them toward the homelessness challenge in our city? Let's take the lion's share of that money, put it to one challenge. Let's get the county to do it, then let's go to the foundations in the community and say, "We're gonna take this challenge off the table in our city." This is the moment because it's only 3,000 people on any given night, going back to what you said earlier.
11. 42:56 – 1:06:02

    What success looks like: hotels/motels, wraparound services, workforce pipelines, and the ‘frequent flyer’ cost

    1. JRJoe Rogan42:56

       If there was no fiscal considerations, if someone could come to you and said, "Steve, you got an open check," and they're like, "Tell me what you need to do. What do you, what do you want to do?" How would you handle it?Wow.

    2. SASteve Adler43:06

       If there was no worries whatsoever about money, if you could just build structures and house the homeless and then it's not just about getting them housed and cleaned up and fed, it's also about figuring out drug programs, it's figuring out mental health programs, it's figuring out how to get them gainfully employed, how to get them counseling. Maybe there's some serious psychological issues that are leading to them being on the street. Everyone's different. You've got a wide spectrum of problems and issues. And what would you do? You would, you would, you would ... We know that there are a lot of people that need services. But we also know if you try to give those services to people while they're in tents or while they're in congregate living situations, the success rate is down, like, at 20%.

    3. JRJoe Rogan43:54

       Why is that?

    4. SASteve Adler43:55

       Because you can't always find them because they'll move in and out of those places. So it's hard to actually know where they are to focus. Makes it harder for them to get a job when their address is in a congregate shelter somewhere. Um, they lose their papers. It just ... Life is that much harder if every moment of every day you're trying to survive to the next moment. Get somebody into a home, then they can work with their social worker and actually begin to pull things together. So if you get them into the home, much more successful, those services. So we have to get places for people to be, plus those wraparound services. Most of the people that is experiencing homelessness are not people that have mental health challenges or substance abuse challenges. Most people are the victims of the perfect storm. I mean, they are literally people, married, family, uh, and then there's this, like, huge medical bill and they can't pay it. And it starts causing problems between them and their spouse. They have a, a, a c- bill collector that's now calling them all the time. So they start paying that bill sometimes and then not their car bill all the time, and then they lose their car. That causes friction in the, in the household. Things are getting, like, really ugly at this point. They don't have the car and one of them loses their job and then the next thing you know, spouse leaves with the kids, car's gone, uh, medi- the bill collector's still coming and then, and then person loses their apartment and they end up on the streets. And they raise their hand and they say, "I need help. I don't know who to call." 'Cause they literally have no one to call. And they say, "If you can just help me, help me for a month or two or three, I can right this ship and get back." If you can get them off the street and into a home with a job training program or even just stabilize them, get them what they need, real good chance they can get back into life. But if you ... The longer you leave them on the street, the longer they're there, the harder it's going to be for them to be able to pull back. The wait list right now in Austin for somebody in that situation who raises their hand is y- is, is like a year, year and a half to get to the living-

    5. JRJoe Rogan46:04

       Jesus.

    6. SASteve Adler46:04

       So we're creating a lot of the challenge that we, that, that we're dealing with 'cause we don't have the capacity. Uh, and, and that's been the frustration. But for the very, very first time, we actually have the agreement on the plan, the way we measure it over time, exactly what it's going to cost. We have the b- we have the resources from the federal government. I think we're having foundations now that are, uh, in discussions willing to, to, to, to step up and take a, a big piece of this. Before I leave office here in the next year and a half, my number one priority is to track this issue.

    7. JRJoe Rogan46:42

       Now, if you could, what would you do? Would you build large apartment structures? And e- when you do that, how do you connect that to, to guidance? Like, how do you connect that to counseling? How do you connect that to, you know, f- uh, healthy meals for these folks? How do you connect that to m- y- you know, someone who's going to give them counsel? Someone who's going to tell them, like, "Here's the steps that you need to take to get back on track. Let's work on this together. Here's your project. This is what you have to do today and this is what I'm going to do to help you."

    8. SASteve Adler47:16

       Ah, you don't, you don't create any living situation without already having those support services part of it. You don't do-

    9. JRJoe Rogan47:24

       So you don't just put them up in a hotel?

    10. SASteve Adler47:26

        No.

    11. JRJoe Rogan47:26

        No.

    12. SASteve Adler47:26

        It wouldn't w- it wouldn't work.

    13. JRJoe Rogan47:28

        Right. Right.

    14. SASteve Adler47:29

        And there are lots of different models about what that could w- look like. So we're, we're buying now some motels, hotels, uh, because it's, it's, it's cheaper and better for taxpayers to do that, uh, than it is to, to build something new. We're working with developers in the city that have a track record of success. We have people like, uh, Mobile Loaves & Fishes and Alan Graham that have built small kind of communities of, of mini homes. I mean, there are lots of different ways and, and the people that are doing this, again, are like 90, 95% successful. I don't know what you do, Joe, about, about, about poverty. I don't know what you do about racial dispar- I mean, uh, uh, uh, wealth disparities among ... on racial lines. I mean, there are some issues that are societal issues that are so big, I don't know what you do with. But homelessness, we know exactly what works and it's purely a question of, is a community serious enough about putting the resources against it to fix it?

    15. JRJoe Rogan48:30

        Has any community brought homelessness back from, like, uh, uh, uh, a very high level to a much more manageable level? Has anyone been successful?

    16. SASteve Adler48:41

        Houston, just down the street-

    17. JRJoe Rogan48:43

        Houston.

    18. SASteve Adler48:43

        ... is real successful. So but, but Houston did, is they started doing this 20 years ago.

    19. JRJoe Rogan48:47

        Mm-hmm.

    20. SASteve Adler48:48

        So 20 years ago, they went to HUD in DC and they said, "We want to start building and buying places for people to go. We're gonna give them services 'cause we think this will work." And HUD supported them, like, as a pilot program and it was successful. So every year they've gotten more and more-

    21. JRJoe Rogan49:04

        What does HUD stand for?

    22. SASteve Adler49:05

        Housing and Urban Development. It's one of the cabinet offices in DC. So they, they, they, uh, um, got funding. They were successful. So every year, they've gotten more and more funding. So every year, I think this past year recently, they got over $40 million. I think Dallas was, like, at 11 and Austin was, like, at three.What we need to do in Austin is what Houston did over the last 20 years. We need to do it over the next three years. I mean, it works. But it's going to be more expensive for us in the next three, uh, years or so-

    23. JRJoe Rogan49:37

        Yeah.

    24. SASteve Adler49:38

        ... than it is in Houston. But once you get there, once you set up a system, because people move in... You know, o- one, you divert as many people as you can before they get to that place. Once they... if they get past the diversion you didn't diversion, then you get them into some kind of rapid re-housing, emergency housing, exiting them to permanent supportive housing, hopefully exiting them back, um, to, to, to, to society. And then you keep filling, backfilling those spots. Then, uh, if... once you reach equilibrium in that system, then, then, then it, then it doesn't cost. L.A. budget this year, did you see that? The L.A. line item for homelessness this year in their budget, a billion dollars.

    25. JRJoe Rogan50:19

        (laughs)

    26. SASteve Adler50:20

        A billion dollars. I don't even know what you do. I mean, it's crazy.

    27. JRJoe Rogan50:25

        And guess what? It's not gonna do anything.

    28. SASteve Adler50:27

        It... And it won't.

    29. JRJoe Rogan50:28

        It won't.

    30. SASteve Adler50:29

        Their numbers are so big that it won't set up their systems.
12. 1:06:02 – 1:17:45

    COVID governance in Austin: canceling SXSW, balancing health vs. economy, and the mayor’s travel backlash

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:06:02

       Different plans for the people that just are unfortunate. This last year, um, I would imagine as a mayor of a city had to be insanely challenging with all the issues regarding whether or not to open or not to be open. And this is the only time in our lifetimes where the government has actually stepped in and said, "Hey, we have to shut down businesses and we have to deem certain businesses essential." What was that like?

    2. SASteve Adler1:06:31

       Horrible. And, and especially horrible here in Austin, uh, because we had SXSW, which is a huge festival, you know, brings in 250, 300,000 people from all over the world coming into our city the second week in March. And we're looking at this, this, this virus that is like moving across the, the world and, and people are dying. Seeing it now hit in California and, and Seattle and we're just about to bring 5,000 people from Seattle into our city. You know, we could be bringing in 10, 15, 20,000 people from Asia, uh, into our city. Um, so the very first thing that, that, that I had to do was working with the SX folks who were incredible and the doctors and the data was to say, "We're gonna pull down this event." Uh, and it was hard-

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:07:27

       How much resistance did you get for that?

    4. SASteve Adler1:07:30

       Uh, there was a lot of resistance. Uh, there was also a lot of support.... uh, because people were seeing what was happening. You know, within 10 days, it wasn't an outlier anymore. I mean, everybody was pulling down big events in cities across the country. And it all happened within 7 to 10 days. Uh, but that first one, uh, was, was, was hard. I mean, it was hard all year long with businesses 'cause you wanna keep things open. Uh, you know, Austin has, has done as well so far. The, the mortality rate in Austin is half of the state average. The mortality rate in Austin is less than half of the, of the national average.

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:08:10

       It doesn't... Don't you think that has to do with a lot of the active people here though, too?

    6. SASteve Adler1:08:13

       It has.

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:08:14

       Yes.

    8. SASteve Adler1:08:14

       It does. I mean, uh, we're a younger population-

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:08:17

       Yeah.

    10. SASteve Adler1:08:17

        ... healthier population. But it's also true about cases.

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:08:19

        Mm-hmm.

    12. SASteve Adler1:08:20

        And it doesn't explain the number in, in, in cases, uh, you know, as the same way it does death or, or hospitalizations. Uh, you know, this... Uh, and a lot... And, you know, as I was ex- uh, as I've said to my community from the very beginning, this is not about laws or ordinances 'cause ultimately, you can't enforce these things anyhow.

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:08:40

        Right.

    14. SASteve Adler1:08:40

        It's trying to get the information out to people as best you can, and then the community makes a decision about what it's going to do culturally, uh, in, in its communities and in the city, the people needing to do it.

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:08:52

        What was it like watching different cities all across the country have different responses? Different states have different responses. And to try to figure out who's doing this the right way, what is the right path today? Is the path to give people personal responsibility? Is the path to insist on very strict government-inspired lockdowns? Like, how did you sort of navigate that?

    16. SASteve Adler1:09:16

        You know, we, we had a, an incredible team of people. We had the University of Texas, um, uh, you know, the, the physicians at the Dell Medical School, but also the, the, the statisticians and the, and the modelers. Uh, modeling out all kinds of different scenarios and then the data getting better and better for the models, uh, as, as each week passed. We had a really good, uh, uh, health authority, uh, here in, in, in Dr. Escott, uh, you know, uh, Director of the, of the Public Health Department, um, uh, Hayden Howard. Um, we just had... We had good people, uh, and we got positive results from some of the early steps we, we took. Uh, but I watched what was happening in the country. It was hard for everybody, you know, around the country 'cause no one knew what to believe.

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:10:13

        But I do... I have to say, you guys handled it so much better here than so many other places. So many other places, they, they put these very draconian methods into place and it just ruined the economies of these places. You guys didn't do that here, you know?

    18. SASteve Adler1:10:28

        Well, right now, you know, we, we have not only a mortality rate that's less than half of what it is in the state... If our state mortality rate was the same as in Austin, there'd be over 25,000 Texans still alive today. But we also have one of the lowest unemployment rates of any city in the country.

    19. JRJoe Rogan1:10:46

        That's pretty amazing. Um, I think, uh, unfortunately, obesity is a factor in Texas. I mean, the food here is just too damn good. (laughs)

    20. SASteve Adler1:10:55

        (laughs) Breakfast tacos.

    21. JRJoe Rogan1:10:55

        It's a real issue. Well-

    22. SASteve Adler1:10:57

        It's a lot of tacos.

    23. JRJoe Rogan1:10:57

        ... it's a lot of tacos. Barbecue. Barbecue. But that seems to be a gigant-... I mean, 78% of the people that are in the ICU for... with COVID are obese, you know? It's, uh, it's a real issue. And so fortunately, Austin is an incredibly active city, you know? You go down on the lake and you see all these people running around, and it's like... It's a very, very active city. And, uh, there's a lot of, uh, people that engage in all sorts of different outdoor activities and, you know, all those things are conducive to good health and healthy immune systems, and I think that's one of the good things about this city.

    24. SASteve Adler1:11:31

        Magical place.

    25. JRJoe Rogan1:11:32

        Yeah.

    26. SASteve Adler1:11:33

        Wel- wel- welcome home.

    27. JRJoe Rogan1:11:34

        It's pretty fucking awesome, man. Um, you had a little problem during the pandemic with that one thing you did when you, you kind of told people to stay home when you weren't staying home. (laughs)

    28. SASteve Adler1:11:46

        I was already gone.

    29. JRJoe Rogan1:11:47

        (laughs) What was that, what was that about? What was that storm like when, uh, people got upset at you?

    30. SASteve Adler1:11:52

        You know, it was a, it was a mistake on so many different levels. You know, I went on a trip at a time when it was okay to take a trip, I got information while I was on the trip. I should never have, have warned people back home with that information.

Episode duration: 1:18:28