The Joe Rogan ExperienceJoe Rogan Experience #1668 - Krystal & Saagar
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,001 words- 0:00 – 1:39
Breaking Points goes independent: escaping corporate incentives
- NANarrator
(drum roll) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
- NANarrator
The Joe Rogan Experience.
- JRJoe Rogan
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (instrumental music) We're rolling. So, uh, you guys have a new show. (laughs)
- SESaagar Enjeti
(laughs)
- KBKrystal Ball
Hey, Joe. What's up?
- JRJoe Rogan
I just wanna say, I told you. I knew it was gonna work.
- KBKrystal Ball
Yeah. You were-
- SESaagar Enjeti
It never would've happened without you. I-
- JRJoe Rogan
I knew it was gonna work. I was like, "Why are you, like, trapped?" Yeah.
- KBKrystal Ball
I mean, uh, it really is actually true. We've been thinking about going independent for a while, because it's just more consistent with our values. The Hill takes money from all kinds of people-
- SESaagar Enjeti
Mm-hmm.
- KBKrystal Ball
... that are very contrary to the things that we've been talking about. But you know, it's scary to... I got kids. I got, you know, bills-
- SESaagar Enjeti
Health insurance, yeah.
- KBKrystal Ball
... to handle, the health insurance, all this stuff.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, yeah. (laughs)
- KBKrystal Ball
And so, I think especially during COVID when we couldn't actually directly interact with the audience in person, it's hard to know how real it is. So, when we talked to you and we were like, "Uh, we're thinking about it. We're kinda nervous," and you were s- you weren't just like, "Maybe," you were like, "Yes, do this," it actually really did help us to make the move. So thank you.
- SESaagar Enjeti
No, no question.
- JRJoe Rogan
I am the terrible person to take advice like that from 'cause I'm always like, "Jump!"
- SESaagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- KBKrystal Ball
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Fucking jump!
- KBKrystal Ball
Well, in this case-
- JRJoe Rogan
No, but you were right.
- KBKrystal Ball
... it was the right call, so...
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- SESaagar Enjeti
It was-
- KBKrystal Ball
... broken clock or whatever.
- SESaagar Enjeti
It's really scary. Um, and it's one of those things where, we were telling you this before, where you're like, you don't know, uh, if you're, you're like, "Am I gonna miss this?" You have these guys. You have the support. Like, I don't have to-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- SESaagar Enjeti
... deal with all this, like, administrative stuff and, like, set design and upload. But honestly, we love it so much. Like, we, we wrapped, I think, our second show, so we could finally hang out. And I w- I, I text her. I was like, "This is amazing! Like, we're free!"
- 1:39 – 6:00
Soft censorship by access: the Maxine Waters 'death threat' accusation
- SESaagar Enjeti
We do it the way that we want. We produce it the way that we want. And just having all the, like, big stuff outta your mind in terms of, like, the pressures of corporate media, because to be clear, like, The Hill never, like, directly censored us, right? But, and you've talked about this, it's about these outside interests. Like, there's interests that their company has that have nothing to do with us but could impact their interest based upon what I say. And I've told this story publicly now about what happened, but like, we were doing a segment, just a basic segment. I wanna, I wanna be very charitable. And once again, to be clear, The Hill never said anything. They said, "Don't say this," or whatever. But we're talking about the seniority system for Democrats in Congress. And I was like, this creates really perverse incentives because you have all these really old people who run Congress, like Maxine Waters, who's, like, 80 years old. Here's all I said. "Maxine Waters will be chairwoman of the Financial Services Committee till the day she dies." That's it. So, I later find out, her fucking press secretary called someone at The Hill and said, "Sagar's issuing a death threat against Maxine Waters."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- KBKrystal Ball
(laughs)
- SESaagar Enjeti
Sagar's issuing... And I, I, I...
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- KBKrystal Ball
(laughs)
- SESaagar Enjeti
And here, what do I wanna say? I wanna say, "Go fuck yourself."
- KBKrystal Ball
(laughs)
- SESaagar Enjeti
I mean, like, literally put me on the phone with them, "Go fuck yourself," but here's the problem. And once again, The Hill didn't say anything, but I have to know this in the back of my mind. Hill reporters have to go and talk to Maxine Waters. That's literally part of their job.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- SESaagar Enjeti
Like, she's chairmanwoman of the Financial Services Committee. She has a lot of access, one of the most powerful people in Washington. She does other shit with The Hill. And so, in the back of my mind, I'm like, "Can I say whatever the fuck I want about Maxine Waters?" I mean, they didn't tell me to say it, but even if it's the back of my mind, like, I would be lying if I wasn't saying that that wasn't with me a little bit, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- SESaagar Enjeti
Like, you're always thinking. You're like, "Man-"
- KBKrystal Ball
Well, you're a human being.
- SESaagar Enjeti
"... it's not... They're not gonna fuck with me. They're gonna try and fuck with your boss."
- JRJoe Rogan
But they're putting it out there in the air, though, so they're making you think about it.
- SESaagar Enjeti
Exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- KBKrystal Ball
Right. That's exactly right.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's the whole purpose of it.
- KBKrystal Ball
That's exactly right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- KBKrystal Ball
And there were things too, like, I didn't even want... Because the whole ethos of our show is we're independent minded, right? We're not carrying water for anyone. We have our views. We're very upfront about those views, but we're not doing partisan cheerleading here. We're not carrying water for any corporation or entity or anything like that. And so, even the appearance of, The Hill's a corporate entity and they're taking money from these various places, that's their right to do, the, even the appearance that that would affect our coverage really, really bothered me.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- KBKrystal Ball
And so I'll give you a perfect example. I don't know if you, do you know about this case of Steven Donziger? It's a crazy thing.
- JRJoe Rogan
What's the-
- KBKrystal Ball
He, so He's the-
- SESaagar Enjeti
He's a lawyer, yeah.
- KBKrystal Ball
He's a lawyer who won a massive lawsuit against Chevron for the horrific things that they did in Ecuador and basically, like, destroyed the whole area. And he wins a $9 billion, I think it was, suit against them, largest in history. They hit him. They're trying to fight back against him. They hit him with a contempt of court charge, which is a misdemeanor, which is nothing. He's been under house arrest for now two years, completely unprecedented. Show trial, it's, it's an insane situation. And we were working on getting him booked to talk about this, and meanwhile I'm seeing tweets that are saying, "Krystal and Sagar aren't covering this-"
- SESaagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- 6:00 – 7:46
Corporate pressure campaigns: TikTok backlash and Huawei advertising
- SESaagar Enjeti
... th- this, this happened twice. So this happened to another time. So, I was doing a lot of reporting around TikTok. And I was noticing all of these former Republican lawmaker lobbyists are working now for TikTok 'cause I heard they were paying top dollar rates. So I do some investigation. This is basic Google. I went on Google, and I was looking at who TikTok has been hiring. And one of them, and I'm not kidding you, is the former head or a part of the Department of Homeland Security Cybersecurity Division-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- SESaagar Enjeti
... who is now working for TikTok.
- KBKrystal Ball
Mm-hmm.
- SESaagar Enjeti
The Chinese government.
- KBKrystal Ball
Mm-hmm.
- SESaagar Enjeti
... okay, for a Chinese-controlled app. All right. So, I put that on the show. I did a whole monologue about all these people who work in Washington. You know, I was like, "You wanna see the revolving door? This is it." These people are complete, like, uh, like, murderer for hires, in terms-
- KBKrystal Ball
They're mercenaries.
- SESaagar Enjeti
They're mercenaries.
- KBKrystal Ball
Yeah.
- SESaagar Enjeti
They don't give a shit about you. They don't give a shit about America, any of this stuff. The former cybersecurity lady is now working for TikTok. All right. And it's public. And so I put it on the show. What do you think happens? TikTok calls somebody over at The Hill and says, "Sagar is threatening the lives of the people at TikTok."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- SESaagar Enjeti
And I'm like, "Fu-"... Yeah, once again-
- KBKrystal Ball
Sagar's-
- SESaagar Enjeti
"... Fuck you."
- KBKrystal Ball
... a very dangerous man over here.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, I'm a dangerous man. I'm an extreme dangerous-
- SESaagar Enjeti
You're a crazy person.
- JRJoe Rogan
Left and right.
- KBKrystal Ball
You're very, you're very brave for inviting him in here today, Joe. (laughs)
- SESaagar Enjeti
Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Joe. Um, I know you're MMA-trained, but apparently, I'm-
- JRJoe Rogan
But there's no weapons.
- SESaagar Enjeti
Yeah, I'm issuing, uh, I'm issuing death threats, like, left and right. But again, now once I have to think about this. I'm like, "This is crazy." And here's the other problem. The Hill was taking ad dollars at the time from Huawei. So, Huawei, which is a Chinese telecom company.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- SESaagar Enjeti
And I was thinking in the back of my mind, "Man, if TikTok was real smart, they would buy some advertising at The Hill." Because then I'd really have to be like, "Oh, shit."
- JRJoe Rogan
Why was The Hill taking money from Hua-... Was this pa-... after the ban?
- SESaagar Enjeti
I don't-
- KBKrystal Ball
Look-
- SESaagar Enjeti
Once again, they can do whatever they want. They're a media business.
- JRJoe Rogan
But that is a weird one, right?
- 7:46 – 9:44
Why audiences are abandoning legacy media: trust, narrative, and access
- KBKrystal Ball
... whoever they can. I mean, the media business in a l-... Some ways, it was really brought, you know, back from the dead by Trump because he increased traffic so much and subscriber numbers so much for The New York Times and Washington Post. I mean, that's the irony of his whole attack on the media was the best thing that ever happened to the media. But the overall model is in free fall. And people are revolting. I mean, that's really what w-... with the success of your show, with, you know, what, what has happened with Breaking Points, our new show that has been totally wild, is people don't want this spoon-fed narrative. They don't want to have to think about, like, "Why is this paper covering these politicians in this incredibly fluffy way?" Because they're more interested in maintaining their access and maintaining their social status within that club than they are in actually getting the facts right in a way that can be... that can require sometimes courage, that can be uncomfortable sometimes with your social set. And so I really do see it as kind of a, a watershed moment where some of the old models are dying and people are, are, are sick and tired of having their attention monetized. They're sick and tired of being fed whatever the, like, safe mainstream narrative is. And all they want is just someone who, look, may get it wrong sometimes, but is really just trying to figure out what the truth of, of the matter is.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- SESaagar Enjeti
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, it's, it's some... It's actually a viable strategy to tell the truth now-
- KBKrystal Ball
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... as far as, like, a marketing-
- SESaagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- KBKrystal Ball
Y-... True, yeah.
- SESaagar Enjeti
... strategy.
- KBKrystal Ball
Yes.
- SESaagar Enjeti
Do you remember that clip of the Amy Robach and Epstein, where the Disney-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- SESaagar Enjeti
She worked for E-... And that, that... She laid it all out there-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- SESaagar Enjeti
... and she didn't even know. But this is what I'm talking about. She was like, "Oh, the Palace got involved."
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- SESaagar Enjeti
"And they started calling this, and then Will and Kate's what..." That's it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- SESaagar Enjeti
That's all the... a little peak behind the curtain, and it repeats itself.
- JRJoe Rogan
Isn't that amazing that that lady, like, her doing that in front of the camera just, like... and, and not knowing that they were even filming-
- SESaagar Enjeti
Exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and then someone takes it and releases it. Everybody gets a chance to see.
- SESaagar Enjeti
So, what do they say not on camera?
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, there's a few-
- SESaagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- 9:44 – 12:41
China’s pull on American entertainment: John Cena, Fast 9, and Disney’s choices
- JRJoe Rogan
... of these things that are happening, right? Like, h- how about the John Cena one?
- SESaagar Enjeti
Oh, yeah. Yeah, the John Cena one was crazy.
- KBKrystal Ball
This was called Wild West, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
The John Cena one was a wake-up call for America.
- KBKrystal Ball
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
'Cause all these fucking pro-wrestling fans are like, "Wait a minute."
- SESaagar Enjeti
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
"He's speaking Chinese." Like, "This is real."
- SESaagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
"This shit is real."
- KBKrystal Ball
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
"John Cena's speaking Mandarin. He's apologizing for calling-"
- SESaagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
"... Taiwan a country."
- SESaagar Enjeti
Yeah. "I know." (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
"And, uh, uh, is he using a filter? 'Cause he looks slightly Asian."
- SESaagar Enjeti
(laughs)
- KBKrystal Ball
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Right?
- SESaagar Enjeti
So, we later found out-
- KBKrystal Ball
He looks panicked.
- SESaagar Enjeti
... the man speaks fluent Mandarin-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- SESaagar Enjeti
... which kind of helps.
- KBKrystal Ball
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, yeah, we, we figured it out.
- KBKrystal Ball
It's really help.
- JRJoe Rogan
In 2014-
- SESaagar Enjeti
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... Vince t- taught him or had him take lessons to learn Mandarin so that he could go and-
- 12:41 – 17:56
Woke branding vs reality: Amazon, labor exploitation, and PR narratives
- KBKrystal Ball
The country's not about anything other than money. I mean, we just abandon every value other than-... profit maximization and the bottom line and-
- JRJoe Rogan
That's what people need to understand about all this woke shit.
- SESaagar Enjeti
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's really not about changing culture.
- KBKrystal Ball
Uh, yeah, it's about money. I mean, that's, that, I was just-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. It's about power.
- KBKrystal Ball
You know, it's just, like, it's funny. There's a big, um, article in New York Times today about inside an Amazon warehouse, right? And Amazon was the first to say, "Black lives matter," and put that, uh, banner up on their page and everything. And look, I support a lot of goals of that movement, but you read through this article and you find out, first of all, the way they treat their largely Black and Brown warehouse workers, I mean, it's despicable. They intentionally make sure they cannot move up the ladder, r- that's part of their business policy is if you're an hourly worker, you're not gonna get promoted, and they try to force you out after three years because they think you're getting lazy. So, this is the company that can, on the surface level, say, "Black lives matter," because they think that's good for their profit maximization and their brand and their shareholder value. Um, at the same time, what they're actually doing in real life, wildly different than that. So, y-
- JRJoe Rogan
Are th- and they specifically target Black and Brown people in this way?
- KBKrystal Ball
Well, they target their warehouse workers who are ... So, the ... Warehouse workers are 50 some percent Black and Brown. Management is 50 some ... is overwhelmingly white and Asian.
- JRJoe Rogan
What is... I thought the whole thing about Amazon was that you could move up the ladder.
- KBKrystal Ball
Nope. Walmart, who I'm also not a fan of, they actually promote from within. So, most Walmart managers start out as hourly employees, so at least they have a track up. And again, I'm not a fan of Walmart, okay? Amazon intentionally, and this is what the New York Times revealed, they intentionally have a system because Bezos said he believes that these human beings are lazy and that after, you know, that they're gonna do the bare minimum-
- JRJoe Rogan
Was co- he was quoted saying this? Bezos was quoted saying they're lazy?
- KBKrystal Ball
I'm going ... I will, I'll find you-
- SESaagar Enjeti
Let's ... Or, or Jamie, if you can pull him-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- KBKrystal Ball
Yeah, I'll actually-
- JRJoe Rogan
I think there's a difference-
- SESaagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... between lazy and having a shitty job.
- SESaagar Enjeti
Mm-hmm.
- KBKrystal Ball
Like, exactly right.
- JRJoe Rogan
And people need to understand that.
- KBKrystal Ball
When you're abused, you're treated like a robot and a cog day in and day out. You're fired, like-
- SESaagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- KBKrystal Ball
... if you are a little bit slow on your tasks, you might get fired by a freaking app. Like, that's how dehumanizing it is.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, let's explain, let's explain to people don't understand how it works over there. Y- does anybody wanna explain?
- SESaagar Enjeti
Yeah. I mean, they work in the ware- ... Right. So, they have ph- phones that are on there. Ev- everything's tracking your movements, steps, bathroom breaks as well. So, the warehouses are also very large, so let's say you technically have a 20-minute break, it might take you 10 minutes to actually walk to the break room and back. So, you actually have what, like, a two-minute break while you're in there. And the whole thing around Amazon and why everyone should care is because Amazon under the pandemic exploded. Their stock price went up from, I think, 1,000 or so to a couple, 3,000. Bezos personally, his wealth increased by $70 billion. Amazon is now the second-largest employer in the United States. And this is incredibly important because as more Amazon market adoption happens, they are basically going to become the employer of choice. Whatever your grocery store or whatever was in your small town, these are the rural working class Americans, this is their only job. So, when you have one company which has all of this overwhelming power over rural working Americans and even suburban Americans, because this is Amazon's strategy. Dayton, Ohio is a good example. Alec MacGillis, he wrote a great book on Amazon, shout out to him, talked about how Dayton was like this Silicon Valley of America in the 1900s, and s- you know, it's manufacturing, middle-class jobs. Now, Dayton's prized economic value comes from the fact that it's one day's drive from one-third of the US population, so it's a great place for cardboard. So, everybody there is also involved in creating cardboard and other Amazon infrastructure. So, the Amazonification, so to speak, or whatever, of America makes it so that if y- let's say 30 years ago, you grew up in your town, you may have to go to Walmart, H-E-B were here, you know, I grew up here in Texas, Kroger as well, McDonald's, something like that. Now, it's basically like McDonald's, Dairy Queen, and Amazon. And when Amazon is the prime market employer, they are the sole determiner of market conditions increasingly. So, it's Walmart and Amazon, which are number two. And we're talking about millions of people who are now working at this company. So, people are like, "Why do you guys talk so much about Amazon?" Because I can see the trends. This company's not going anywhere. Look, props to them, like, they're ... I love Amazon. Like, I order a lot of stuff on Amazon. But increasingly becoming aware of the price of what it takes to do overnight delivery to your house at 4:00 AM in the morning, or increasingly becoming aware of the fact that they are basically on this mission to drive price down as much as possible and squeeze as much out of their workforce, that is where it's troubling. What was the furniture thing that we just covered?
- KBKrystal Ball
Yeah. That was-
- SESaagar Enjeti
This was crazy.
- KBKrystal Ball
Well, and did you see their delivery drivers-
- 17:56 – 22:32
Evidence and accountability: Bezos quotes, reporting standards, and union fights
- JRJoe Rogan
We- We kind of glossed over this thing-
- KBKrystal Ball
Y-
- JRJoe Rogan
... where you said that Jeff Bezos-
- SESaagar Enjeti
Oh, right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... said that people are lazy.
- KBKrystal Ball
Yeah, so I got the quote. So, here's, here's what the New York Times says. "Amazon's founder, Jeff Bezos, did not want hourly workers to stick around for long, viewing a large disgruntled workforce as a threat." Um, this other executive requi- recalled, who worked at Amazon, but then left. "Company data showed that most employers became less eager over time," he said, "and Mr. Bevo- Bezos believed people were inherently lazy. What he would say is that our nature as humans is to expend as little energy as possible to get what we want or need. That was embedded throughout the business from the ease of instant ordering to the pervasive use of data to get the most out of employees." So, guaranteed wage increases stop after three years, and Amazon provided incentives for low-skilled employees to leave. So, every year they would offer associates thousands of dollars to resign. They made sure that any position, they gave people sort of the illusion of promotions being available, but then there'd be one promotion available for hundreds of people. And they very seldom, um-... uh, higher or higher management from within their own ranks. It's like, they view a s- th- it's totally class stratified, is basically the bottom line. And of course, lower classes in America are disproportionately Black and brown. It's not like they're specifically targeting Black and brown people. But you have one class of people that they see th- as worthy of doing the grunt work and shitting in the bag, and one class of people that they think of as worthy of, like, actually having the, the more intellectual jobs and running the place. It's, you know, it's a really abhorrent way of viewing human beings, of, essentially. And so, this is part of the kind of, again, rot of America that I also think is reflective with the John Cena, thing, et cetera. It's like, you're certainly more of a capitalist than I am, but you can't have a country where the only fricking value is money.
- JRJoe Rogan
No.
- KBKrystal Ball
Like, that's, it's just, it just, you, you see the sickness of people who have all these addictions and are di-... The last year was the worst year on record for overdoses. You see the suicide rates spike. I mean, you see people who just feel like they have no meaning and no purpose and no grounding and no community. And all the life being sucked out of these human beings in these communities, it's just disgusting.
- JRJoe Rogan
The problem is money's quantifiable.
- SESaagar Enjeti
Mm-hmm.
- KBKrystal Ball
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And happiness and love and comradery-
- KBKrystal Ball
It's squishy.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and friendship is not.
- KBKrystal Ball
It's squishy.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's, it's... You can't put it on a scale. Put that quote back up again. This kind of shit drives me nuts, and I can't believe they actually report this. When it says, "It's been alleged that Bezos has barked out questions like, 'Are you lazy or just incompetent?' at employees and referred to the publishing industry as a sickly gazelle."
- SESaagar Enjeti
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, first of all-
- KBKrystal Ball
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... what is, wh- how the fuck does that get printed? "It's been alleged that he's barked out questions." Unless you have a video of him saying that, shut the fuck up.
- SESaagar Enjeti
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Because you, th- that, that kind of shit is nonsense. Like, you can't say it.
- SESaagar Enjeti
This is a problem. I actually know Brad Stone-
- KBKrystal Ball
Well, especially-
- SESaagar Enjeti
... a little bit.
- KBKrystal Ball
... especially when you have, when it's not attributed.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- KBKrystal Ball
So like, this is different. This is in The New York Times article I was referencing, where they actually, they talked to the workers. They, some of these e- ex-executives who worked with Bezos went on the record, and then you can judge, like, who's telling the truth here.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- SESaagar Enjeti
Right.
- 22:32 – 33:15
Corporate astroturf and information ops: Amazon’s Twitter bots and social manipulation
- JRJoe Rogan
Let that back go.
- SESaagar Enjeti
He's actually... I've actually heard this. Um, which is that-
- JRJoe Rogan
What is this-
- KBKrystal Ball
Oh, this is incredible.
- SESaagar Enjeti
... uh, thing?
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, yeah. This is another good one. (laughs)
- KBKrystal Ball
So, they hire, so they recruit people to be fake Amazon employees, and anytime someone tweets something like, you know, what we're talking about here, they'll come in and be like, "I'm an Amazon employee."
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- SESaagar Enjeti
Stop, stop.
- KBKrystal Ball
"Hi, I'm Bob, and I love-"
- JRJoe Rogan
This is my favorite.
- KBKrystal Ball
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- SESaagar Enjeti
Dude Perfect.
- KBKrystal Ball
"Husband, father, happy Amazon employee."
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh my God.
- SESaagar Enjeti
It's fucking Dude Perfect.
- KBKrystal Ball
It's Dude Perfect.
- SESaagar Enjeti
Yeah, like, every teenage-
- JRJoe Rogan
Is that a real person?
- SESaagar Enjeti
Dude Perfect. He's famous on YouTube.
- KBKrystal Ball
He's like one of the biggest YouTubers.
- SESaagar Enjeti
He likes to throw shit into-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, that's the-
- KBKrystal Ball
Yeah.
- SESaagar Enjeti
... like footballs and stuff.
- JRJoe Rogan
No, I know who those guys are.
- SESaagar Enjeti
Yeah. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
That's him?
- SESaagar Enjeti
Yeah, and they used his face.
- 33:15 – 43:20
COVID policy fallout and cultural war distortion: lockdowns, lab leak, and Jon Stewart’s rant
- JRJoe Rogan
This is one of the reasons why the really skeptical people, the people that are very cynical about things, think that some of the lockdown was on purpose.
- SESaagar Enjeti
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And that what people were trying to do was trying to accentuate the power that these big corporations had. It's a-
- KBKrystal Ball
See, I think it's more of a failure. I- I- I dissent in that I think we needed to make sure we got the virus under control and all those things. But at the beginning, there was a false choice that was made.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- KBKrystal Ball
There was this false choice where they said, "Well, you can either have your job or you can have lockdown." Well, we didn't have to do it that way. There was a- a possibility of just, "Hey, listen. Backstop people's payrolls, keep them attached to their jobs." We- if we had done that from the beginning-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, but this-
- KBKrystal Ball
... we would have spent so-
- SESaagar Enjeti
Oh, yeah.
- KBKrystal Ball
... much less money than we ultimately spent.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's part of the problem, but the other problem was essential businesses.
- SESaagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- KBKrystal Ball
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Deciding which businesses are essential, deciding that Walmart-
- KBKrystal Ball
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... is essential, but a small restaurant is not.
- SESaagar Enjeti
Correct.
- KBKrystal Ball
Oh, it's very-
- JRJoe Rogan
That kind of shit is crazy.
- KBKrystal Ball
... it was wildly arbitrary. It's because the Walmarts of the world have power.
- JRJoe Rogan
Exactly. That's what I'm saying.
- KBKrystal Ball
Yeah. That's what it was.
- JRJoe Rogan
And that they knew-
- KBKrystal Ball
Absolutely.
- JRJoe Rogan
... they had to know that some of this was going to result in businesses going under and that was gonna r- result in their market share growing.
- KBKrystal Ball
A- absolutely. Absolutely.
- SESaagar Enjeti
Oh, and they, and they-
- JRJoe Rogan
That's where people are cynical-
- SESaagar Enjeti
I know.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and conspiracy minded. They look at this and they say, "This is almost like a calculated attack."
- 43:20 – 58:54
Gain-of-function and the incentive structure of science funding
- SESaagar Enjeti
And it's not just China. And this is the theory about, the thing about the lab leak and why I actually wanna de-culture it. You had Josh Rogan on-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- SESaagar Enjeti
And he did some amazing job with this.
- KBKrystal Ball
He does a really good job, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
That guy's amazing.
- SESaagar Enjeti
What he, what he w- expertly shows is if this is true, the lab leak hypothesis is true, yes, the Chinese covered it up. Guess what? The Chinese are liars and they covered up SARS and they've covered up basically everything that's come out of their country for the last, like, 30 years. That's not a shocker. The shocker is Dr. Anthony Fauci, 2017, reverses the ban on gain-of-function research, directs this funding to EcoHealth Alliance, Dr. Peter Daszak, who then gives it to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for the study of novel bat coronaviruses. And then when the pandemic turns around, we take Dr. Peter Daszak as the only American to join the W- W- World Health Organization's investigation team-
- KBKrystal Ball
(laughs)
- SESaagar Enjeti
... into whether coronavirus leaked from a lab. And on 60 Minutes, I, I forget who was interviewing him, she goes, "Well, wait. So d- how did you verify it? Did you just ask them?" And he goes, "Well, what else can we do?" 'Cause he's also half British. And that's how he said, he goes, "Well, uh, what else can we do? Oh, uh, we could read emails. We could also see that D- Peter Daszak-"... as of two days ago, has been caught lying. He said there were no live bats-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- SESaagar Enjeti
... inside-
- KBKrystal Ball
Mm-hmm.
- SESaagar Enjeti
... of the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Sky News Australia just revealed 2017 video that bats were present inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and the deputy director says, "Before this, China had no experience in BSL-4 laborat-" That's the highest level of safety for a laboratory. But, "We have been here..." And I, I, don't forget, I don't wanna mis- misquote him. But he said something along the lines of creating new viruses, synthesizing new viruses. And what Fauci and Dr. Shi, who is the head of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, they're playing fucking games. Fauci and Rand Paul, when Rand Paul was pressing him, he was like, "We did not fund gain-of-function research." He's trying to define it as explicitly what he wa- what is on the record as him funding. Dr. Shi is the same thing. "We were not doing gain-of-function research-"
- KBKrystal Ball
So, this is actually-
- SESaagar Enjeti
"... here at the lab."
- KBKrystal Ball
... this is actually ... This is amazing.
- SESaagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- KBKrystal Ball
I don't know if you caught. She d- did an email interview with the New York Times-
- SESaagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- KBKrystal Ball
... which was mostly, I mean, it was just, you know-
- SESaagar Enjeti
It's bullshit, yeah.
- KBKrystal Ball
... the standard, like, state party line from China. But they asked her about gain-of-function research. And I'm sure your listeners mostly know, know that gain-of-function research is basically modifying these to see what ... How can we make these pathogens more dangerous, right? And it's very ... It's in and of itself very dangerous, because these things do leak from labs, um, relatively routinely. And she says, "We were not doing gain-of-function research, because what we were doing wasn't making it more virulent or dangerous. It was seeing if it could jump from species to species." I'm sorry. Isn't that, like, the definition of making it more dangerous for us?
- SESaagar Enjeti
(laughs)
- KBKrystal Ball
Seeing if you can make it jump into our species? Like, that seems like that's pretty dangerous. So-
- SESaagar Enjeti
So how does Fauci-
- KBKrystal Ball
... they're trying to play these games, saying it's not technically-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- SESaagar Enjeti
Yeah.
- KBKrystal Ball
... gain-of-function research.
- JRJoe Rogan
How does Fauci get away with standing there under oath and saying-
- SESaagar Enjeti
Media, right?
- 58:54 – 1:22:02
January 6th and the 'domestic extremism' pivot: surveillance state expansion risks
- SESaagar Enjeti
And we'll see... We can see exactly how this manifests itself, which is like... I was talking about the January 6th Commission because this really bothers me. And it's like I said, I was horrified by January 6th. I think what happened was terrible. I still see... If you are a journalist in Washington, I see these CNN correspondents running up and chasing down senators in the hallways being like, "Senator, what about the January 6th Commission? Senator, uh, uh, do you support or against January 6th Commission? What about, you know, subpoena power whenever it comes to January 6th Commission?" Meanwhile, and we recently covered this, there is a national reckoning around home prices in America.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay, but, but, but they're not mutually exclusive, right?
- SESaagar Enjeti
Well, but see-
- JRJoe Rogan
But the January 6th thing is important.
- SESaagar Enjeti
See, i- it is important, but is it the six months later? Is it should be the ruling number one conversation of the journalist?
- JRJoe Rogan
I think, I think it's really important. And one of the reasons why I think it's important 'cause it highlights the reasons why a guy like Donald Trump is so fucking dangerous-
- SESaagar Enjeti
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... is because a guy can incite a bunch of morons to do something really fucking stupid. And now that he's silenced off of social media, and now that, you know, that actually did happen-
- KBKrystal Ball
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... once it becomes a thing, it could be... Like mass shootings, right? They didn't exist, then they did.
- KBKrystal Ball
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Now they, now they're a thing. That could be a thing again.
- SESaagar Enjeti
If it was a real commission, I would, I would believe you, Joe. But knowing how these things work, I know that this commission would be some sort of bullshit re- like the Benghazi report before it, or many of these others. The way that the politics works around it, it will dominate the news cycle. And I... Here's the thing though. Washington actually is a zero sum game. Like, when I'm talking about mutual exclusivity, it actually is. Senate floor time is the most precious thing in DC. So, whatever the driving conversation of the DC is that day, it is actually detracting from somewhere else because these people take vacations literally every other day, their August recess is coming up, all of this. So, when we focus on... I mean, look, the presidency, like the presidency is really about 100 days. And after that you're, like, running for the midterms, and after that you're running for re-election. In terms of the last, what, I think, like, 75, 80 years of the American presidency, the vast majority of major legislation moves in the first couple of months of the administration, and then that's it. You're totally dead. And so for the fact that January 6th continues to dominate American politics, I agree with you. It's completely important. And if it was a real commission, yes, but I know that there are these titanic other issues moving within American politics and that are getting zero attention. Lab leak is actually number one. May- maybe somebody should go and ask a Democratic senator whether they believe in the lab leak theory or not. These... So this is the... Mutual exclusivity is because the CNN reporter must ask this because he needs to give his bosses something to air on the nightly news that day, which is part of the editorial agenda.
- KBKrystal Ball
Well-
- SESaagar Enjeti
The Fox News reporter-
- KBKrystal Ball
Yeah.
- SESaagar Enjeti
... has to do the same thing, and it comes together to mask all of these incredibly important issues. So it's... It really is a tragedy because it's like you said, I, I don't want to downplay January 6th. I actually think it was terrible and it does show, like, the power of, you know, of a, a demagogue, like, of a charlatan whenever you become president. But whenever we're focusing on that at the expense of everything else, and maybe we should even ask, "Why are these people all like mo-... Like, why are you willing to storm the Capitol for Trump?"
- JRJoe Rogan
I can help you out with that.
- KBKrystal Ball
For a fake, for a fake thing.
- SESaagar Enjeti
Yeah, yeah. Tell me. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
'Cause they're idiots.
- SESaagar Enjeti
Yes. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
There's a lot of idiots. It's, like, it's very easy to survive.
- KBKrystal Ball
But I think, I think... Here's the thing.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's what... But that is what it is.
- KBKrystal Ball
Here's where, here's where I really agree with you, is, um, January 6th was like a case study in all that's gone wrong in the country, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- KBKrystal Ball
And you're absolutely right. I think what you said is really profound about this is a thing that happened, and now you're very likely to see similar repeats-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- KBKrystal Ball
... similar type of... Whether it's on the right or the left or whatever, and you just know that the, the sort of partisan commission that will come out of Washington, we know what the answer will be. The answer will be, number one, Republicans are bad and Donald Trump is bad.
Episode duration: 3:28:12
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