Joe Rogan Experience #1693 - Evan Hafer

Evan Hafer 0:00 (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.

Joe Rogan 0:06 Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (instrumental music plays) Hello, Evan.

Evan Hafer 0:13 Hey, it's Joe, my friend.

Joe Rogan 0:14 Good to see you. How are you? Cheers.

Evan Hafer 0:14 Great to see you, buddy.

Joe Rogan 0:15 Was, was that coffee? Or-

Evan Hafer 0:16 It is coffee, but I- I just grabbed it-

Joe Rogan 0:18 But both?

Evan Hafer 0:18 ... 'cause it was here.

Joe Rogan 0:19 You gotta, you gotta cheers.

Evan Hafer 0:19 There we go.

Joe Rogan 0:19 Cheers.

Evan Hafer 0:19 Cheers.

Joe Rogan 0:20 Booze to booze.

Evan Hafer 0:21 Booze to booze.

Joe Rogan 0:21 Booze to coffee seems odd. Mm-hmm.

Evan Hafer 0:22 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 0:24 So it's good seeing you, man.

Evan Hafer 0:24 Oh, that's good.

Joe Rogan 0:26 Yeah, so-

Evan Hafer 0:26 God, it's great to see you, man.

Joe Rogan 0:27 Good to see you. Still Austin. Shout out to Still Austin.

Evan Hafer 0:29 God, that is good.

Joe Rogan 0:30 It is good stuff. Made here, I think. I don't know. Maybe just, it's just the name. Uh, I really have no idea.

Evan Hafer 0:36 So I, I feel like you're-

Joe Rogan 0:37 It's good shit, though.

Evan Hafer 0:38 ... like wining and dining me. I got cigars and whiskey.

Joe Rogan 0:41 (laughs)

Evan Hafer 0:41 This is gonna be a great episode, I hope.

Joe Rogan 0:43 Yeah, man. Come on.

Evan Hafer 0:43 I can't wait to see what happens after.

Joe Rogan 0:45 Well, when people were attacking you, I got butt hurt.

Evan Hafer 0:47 Ah, dude.

Joe Rogan 0:47 I was like, "Come on, Evan?"

Evan Hafer 0:49 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:50 "Get the fuck outta here." I was like, "I gotta have you in." It just, it d- it was so weird to see cancel culture come from the right.

Evan Hafer 0:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:58 I was like, "I didn't know it worked that way. I didn't know you fucking idiots would do the same shit." Like, what, what, what is going on?

Evan Hafer 1:04 (sighs)

Joe Rogan 1:05 It didn't make sense. It made no sense. It was the weirdest dog pile I've ever watched.

Evan Hafer 1:10 I, you know, I've tried to figure it out. I, and I haven't really spent a ton of time on it.

Joe Rogan 1:16 (laughs)

Evan Hafer 1:16 Other than ... Because, honestly, I got better shit to do with my life than figure out, like, what anonymous accounts in Twitters are s- you know-

Joe Rogan 1:24 Right.

Evan Hafer 1:24 ... in Twitter is saying, what about me. Uh, but I think, I think there's just such a mistrust with mainstream media. And that's bred this, uh, hyper divisive gaslighting on both sides. And I think conservatives at times are also looking for the conspiracy inside the party.

Joe Rogan 1:45 Mm.

Evan Hafer 1:45 So they kind of spin themselves up a little bit. Uh, but it was such a strange scenario for me to be in because I think I've been so open for seven years, as like who we are, what we do. Uh, I, I haven't really held anything back. So I think it's, it's a combination of things going on. Like, people are super pissed off. Like, the pandemic has been a complete shitshow. You got a mistrust in the government, you got a mistrust in mainstream media. And you're looking for the bogeyman. And I mean, uh, it, it's, it's crazy to see misinformation being put out about yourself.

Joe Rogan 2:19 Did it start with the New York Times article?

Evan Hafer 2:21 Yeah. (laughs) I-

Joe Rogan 2:22 So what was the ... The New York Times article was like, "Black Rifle Coffee is the Starbucks of the right." Is that how they described it?

Evan Hafer 2:29 Can they be.

Joe Rogan 2:30 Oh, can they be the Starbucks-

Evan Hafer 2:31 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:32 ... of the right? And where were, what was the negative part of that? Did you read the article?

Evan Hafer 2:35 I, I did only because I was really interested to see how they're gonna represent the company. And, uh, we didn't ... So to rewind, we knew this story was going down months before. So I was down in Florida. I was bass fishing with, uh, Johnny Morris, who owns Bass Pro Shops.

Joe Rogan 2:55 Oh.

Evan Hafer 2:55 And, uh, Cabela's.

Joe Rogan 2:56 Must be nice.

Evan Hafer 2:57 (laughs) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:58 (laughs)

Evan Hafer 2:58 He's a great guy. He's, he's awesome.

Joe Rogan 3:00 Sure. If he owns those spots.

Evan Hafer 3:02 Uh, and so ... Yeah, he knows exactly where the great bass are-

Joe Rogan 3:04 Sure.

Evan Hafer 3:04 ... believe it or not. Uh, so we were bass fishing. It was me, my business partner, Matt. And we get a call, "Hey, The Times is doing an article on you guys. Do you guys wanna sit for the interview?" And we're like, "Fuck you. No." Right? But then we started thinking about it. And I kind of debated it internally for a while. And I looked at other articles they had done on guys like Dave Portnoy. Th- I think you had had one, or at least in the past. And, you know, Don Junior, who is also a friend of mine. I'm like, "Hey man, I think if they're gonna do the story, I'll at least give them the opportunity to be objective and then really take a look at the company from the inside." I had no illusions as to what type of position they might take or how they would might misrepresent the company. It was at least I'll give them the opportunity. So it's kind of a fool me once type scenario where it's like, "Hey man, fool me once, sure. Not gonna get-

Joe Rogan 4:06 Right.

Evan Hafer 4:06 ... the second time." Um, so we debated it. And I was like, "I'll come," or, "Come on out and I'll take you to an, a veteran adaptive athlete shoot that we do. And you can talk to 30 plus wounded veterans and Black Rifle Coffee employees. And maybe you'll get a true feeling as to what this company does and what it means." Uh, that never pulled through the article, which I thought was a little bit disappointing. Uh-

Joe Rogan 4:39 That wasn't in the article at all?

Evan Hafer 4:41 There was a quick blurb about it. And it was representing kind of veterans as, you know, they were talking about the, the shirt that he was wearing. And you know, you're talking about somebody that lost their legs in combat. Uh, who gives a shit about what shirt they're wearing?

Joe Rogan 4:56 Yeah.

Evan Hafer 4:56 Uh, so ... But what I, the, the justification was I feel like I have an ethical responsibility to represent the veteran community and really use what I call earned media to shed light on what I think are the most important issues of the post 9/11 veteran community. So I'm fine with advertising my brand and, and marketing my brand outside of that. But if we have an opportunity with somebody like The Times to talk about what's happening in our peer group, like, what's happening along the lines of the psychological and physical issues with all the veterans that we hire, uh, 220 plus veterans that work inside the company, um, I felt it would be, uh, the ethically correct thing for me to do for the company and for the people there to tell their side of the story. Uh, I didn't have any illusions as to whether or not they were gonna paint the company in a certain light.... but I did feel it was really important to do that. Um, I don't think that that pulled through. There's a lot of things that didn't pull through in the article that I would have loved to have had in the article, but they didn't. I'm not writing it, right? Uh, that's the way the journalist views the world. So, I was- I was surprised to see all the kickback from, I think, conservatives, because now, all of a sudden, conservatives are reading and believing The New York Times. Like- (laughs)

Joe Rogan 6:27 So what was the- what was The Times' take on the company?

Evan Hafer 6:31 Um, well, I think the first piece that I- I really wouldn't agree with is the tonality. And I know that's a general term, but their perspective on it was that I'm just a lucky guy. I got lucky and I met, you know, Matt Best, and Matt Best was lucky in the fact that he was making, uh, viewed or watched viral videos, and he and I just kinda linked up and we got lucky, and that it felt really exploitive in the first part. Um... Man, I'll tell you, this- i- it's not been lucky. Uh, you know, I think luck is what you capitalize on after you put in a fuckton of hard work.

Joe Rogan 7:12 Well, I've known you guys for years.

Evan Hafer 7:14 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:14 And I knew you guys when the company wasn't nearly as big.

Evan Hafer 7:17 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 7:17 So I've seen the progress, and I've seen the work. I've seen your factory.

Evan Hafer 7:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:22 I've gone to the- the S- the place in Salt Lake where you showed me-

Evan Hafer 7:26 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 7:26 ... the- the fucking- the coffee roaster-

Evan Hafer 7:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:28 ... that you guys fabricated together and told me the story about it, and it's not luck.

Evan Hafer 7:33 No.

Joe Rogan 7:33 Like, anybody who says it's luck doesn't know you or is willfully misrepresenting the truth in order to paint a narrative that they already had established before they started the article.

Evan Hafer 7:43 Bingo. They already had a narrative. Uh, they already had a narrative based on their readership that- and the way that they view the world, that this is the way they wanted to view the company.

Joe Rogan 7:53 Yeah.

Evan Hafer 7:53 And, you know-

Joe Rogan 7:55 (sighs)

Evan Hafer 7:56 ... what it doesn't tell you is, uh, and I- I've kind of put this into light for a lot of people. You know- you know my past. Like, I was a Green Beret, I worked for the CIA for a number of years. Uh, I have seven and a half years deployed in combat zones between Iraq and Afghanistan. And starting this business and running this business for seven years is the single hardest thing I've ever done. Uh, the first two years of the business, I had a Therm-a-Rest below my desk where I was only sleeping four, four and a half hours a night, to the point where, uh, my doctor was like, "Dude, you're gonna kill yourself. If you don't start sleeping, you're going to die." And you always hear this in our subculture, which is, you know, "Well, sleep when your dad," you know, "Toughen up." You know, w- there's- there's this drumbeat through the community at all times, which is, "You just gotta suck it up." And, uh, I live and breathe that. Just suck it up, you know? Do what it takes to complete the mission. Maintain maniacal focus on your goals, your objectives, and you do not finish until it's mission complete. That's the way I live my life. I'm a very serious character when it comes to the majority of what I do. Uh, the first few years of this business were so challenging because I was carrying a rifle in Afghanistan for a living. That's how, you know, I put a roof over my head. This is what I was doing for not only the best interest of, you know, my professional endeavors, but also the strategic interests of the United States. So the first few years of this were brutal. And when you distill it down to luck, it's- it's disingenuous and it takes away all the hard work and the- the sacrifice that you- that I had to make.

Joe Rogan 9:46 Did you explain this to The Times? Did you explain?

Evan Hafer 9:47 Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. We, you know, I talked a lot about, like, I had sold everything I owned. So, uh, probably year two, two and a half, uh, I hadn't taken any money out of the company because I am a capitalist at the end of the day, but capital means you're reinvesting the money that you make into the company to grow it. Um, and I think that's a clear differentiation, which is individual wealth and capital are two totally different things, but we can unpack that later. Um, but I sold everything. So I had a couple different homes, uh, every gun that I had, every- everything that was not bolted down was out the door and sold. I was running the company specifically on my personal credit cards, just trying to get this thing off the ground to the point where my wife didn't know why we were missing rent payments. You know, I'm coming home looking at my- you know, my kids, thinking, "There's not only no money in the bank, but we have $36,000 of credit card debt (laughs) and there's nothing left to sell." And I think that's the mentality that, one, you have to have in order to succeed, which is if you believe in yourself, you have to invest in yourself and you gotta take risks and you gotta push. I knew that we were gonna succeed. I knew it was going to take time, and I knew it was gonna be challenging. But until you're there, it's a lot different when you're risking the lives- when I say the life and comfort of your family than it is your life, limb, and your eyesight of the individual. The amount of stress and anxiety that that takes over years of compounding interest of investing in yourself, that's where the article missed it. Uh, and not only to be that economically challenged for those many years, I've always been able to give back to veteran nonprofits every year. So I didn't take any money out of the company for- for two years, but I was able to give back over- I think over the first couple years, like, 37, $38,000 back to veteran nonprofits because I'm... that's my commitment. And when I tell people that it's- I'm a capitalist that concentrates, uh, what I like to do with philanthropy back to my peer group. I think a lot of people don't necessarily understand it and they don't get it.... and there's no way for people to get a small snapshot in time, and to really kind of comprehend what we're doing on a daily basis, and why we're doing it.

Joe Rogan 12:24 So when the article comes out, and you read their take on it-

Evan Hafer 12:28 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 12:29 ... did you anticipate that there was gonna be blowback?

Evan Hafer 12:31 No.

Joe Rogan 12:32 Y- you just thought like, "Okay, it's just another hit piece."

Evan Hafer 12:35 (sighs)

Joe Rogan 12:35 Was it all negative?

Evan Hafer 12:37 No.

Joe Rogan 12:37 Was there anything positive in it?

Evan Hafer 12:38 No. I, I didn't even see it initially as a, as a hit piece. I didn't see it... I just saw it as a list of factual, semi-factual, and non-factual information, which-

Joe Rogan 12:48 So they're trying to portray you in a certain light, but-

Evan Hafer 12:50 Y- which al- it wasn't all that negative.

Joe Rogan 12:52 ... right.

Evan Hafer 12:53 It, it really wasn't. It was, it ... and it was as objective as he could be. I truly think that it was, uh, as objective as that guy can be, because that's the way he views the world.

Joe Rogan 13:04 It's not just that.

Evan Hafer 13:05 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 13:05 There's also editors.

Evan Hafer 13:06 Correct.

Joe Rogan 13:06 You know?

Evan Hafer 13:06 Yeah, there's editors.

Joe Rogan 13:06 I have a good friend of mine who used to be a writer over there.

Evan Hafer 13:08 Right.

Joe Rogan 13:08 And she was explaining to me what it's like to write there-

Evan Hafer 13:11 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 13:12 ... and what it's like when you turn a story in, and how they change wor- uh, she was explaining words that they changed, and phrases that they changed, and things that she was trying to depict, they wouldn't let her.

Evan Hafer 13:22 (smacks lips) Yeah, it ... and I think the first cut that I, I, I ran through it, um, you know, read it, I was like, "Oh, okay. Like, that's not as bad as I thought it was gonna be. Okay." I mean, I- (laughs)

Joe Rogan 13:34 (laughs)

Evan Hafer 13:34 I was, I was fully expecting something just like, uh, you know, uh, totally misrepresenting the company and its values.

Joe Rogan 13:42 Right.

Evan Hafer 13:42 Uh, but I was like, "Oh, they actually got a few things right." You know, I, I do have a lot of dedication to the veteran community. Um, you know, they're my family. They're the people, uh, that outside of my wife and my children, the company, the, the post-9/11 GWOT community, that's, that's my family. Um, I think some of that might have pulled through, but, uh, obviously I live it, so it's, it, it's something I feel every day of my life, so I don't expect that to, to be captured within three days, and it's ... I think it's misrepresentative to who I am.

Joe Rogan 14:16 So I found out about this because I follow all kinds of people-

Evan Hafer 14:20 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 14:21 ... on Twitter. I follow, uh, right-wing, left-wing, I follow all kinds of people, and I started seeing some weird shit from right-wing plee- people that were saying Black Rifle Coffee is shitting on their fans, and throwing their, their business away, and I was like, "What?"

Evan Hafer 14:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:41 "What is this, and how, uh, where is this coming from?"

Evan Hafer 14:44 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 14:45 I, I was interested, b- not enough to read the article.

Evan Hafer 14:48 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 14:48 I was like, I ... it's like, I don't ... I'm not that interested, but I was like, "This is a, this is a very weird take." And then you and I talked on the phone about it.

Evan Hafer 14:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:58 And I was like, "What ... you know, someone needs to just sit down with you, and, uh, who better than me?"

Evan Hafer 15:04 (laughs) Yeah. Well, I appreciate it. Uh, honestly, I think most of my friends that either read the article or know me were like, "This is complete bullshit. What, what is this, and how are people pulling this out of this article?" And I think the way that they tied in, uh, a couple of the last paragraphs, uh, which was they were ... what I was referring to in the last paragraph specifically was ... the conversation that's being referenced is... the writer and I are discussing, uh, racial hostility in America. And last year, the company was the recipient of, uh, an online attack from, uh, racist and antisemite, uh, antisemites, and because of my last name, because, uh, my last name is Jewish, uh, they were targeting us for a combination of reasons. And I was referring to that specific, or those two specific people, which was, "I don't want racists or antisemites buying my coffee," which I thought was ... like, n- nobody likes those people. I don't even think they like themselves-

Joe Rogan 16:11 (laughs)

Evan Hafer 16:11 ... to be honest with you, right? Like-

Joe Rogan 16:12 Yeah.

Evan Hafer 16:13 Nobody likes them.

Joe Rogan 16:14 Right.

Evan Hafer 16:14 Which I didn't think was very controversial. Uh, but what a lot of the bloggers picked up was that, uh, the portrayal that I was referring to my customers in that way, which like, I wasn't. I was directly referring to only racists and antisemites, and I said-

Joe Rogan 16:31 And specifically the ones that attacked you guys.

Evan Hafer 16:32 Correct, yeah, specifically those.

Joe Rogan 16:34 And this was after that kid ... what, what is his name again? The, the kid who was wearing the Black Rifle Coffee shirt.

Evan Hafer 16:40 Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Kyle Rittenhouse, yeah.

Joe Rogan 16:41 Kyle Rittenhouse, yeah. When he was standing in the kitchen with Ricky Schroder after he got released, he was wearing a Black Rifle Coffee shirt.

Evan Hafer 16:48 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 16:48 Which is like standard tactical bro outfit. Black Rifle-

Evan Hafer 16:53 Sure.

Joe Rogan 16:53 ... Coffee shirt, you know, a G-Shock watch, you know-

Evan Hafer 16:57 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 16:57 ... what I mean? It's, it's like ... and he ... you know, this is the kid that showed up at a rally with, uh, th- what did he have, an AR?

Evan Hafer 17:06 Yeah, and I think, you know, that's been unpacked so many times.

Joe Rogan 17:10 Yeah.

Evan Hafer 17:11 And it's, you know, it's one of those things that people are debating, uh, across the internet, you know, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And what had happened was that NPR and a few other, like, mainstream media sources had reported that we had somehow sponsored him.

Joe Rogan 17:28 Sponsored him. Right, right, right.

Evan Hafer 17:28 And I had to clear it because-

Joe Rogan 17:30 Right.

Evan Hafer 17:31 ... listen, we weren't sponsoring him. Uh, but I wasn't making or weighing in on whether or not, uh, he was legal or ethical in his actions. I was just saying, "Hey, we didn't sponsor him." Uh, because that we had a, a lot of people that were, were flooding into the inboxes saying, you know, "How dare you?" and then the other side going, "Right on," and I was like, "One, I don't think it's ethically appropriate to profit from this event in any way."

Joe Rogan 17:57 Right.

Evan Hafer 17:57 Uh, I'm not weighing in and saying whether or not it was legal or justifiable. I'm just saying I don't think that we need to profit from this event, and it's just factual that we were not sponsoring him.

Joe Rogan 18:08 We weren't sponsoring, right.

Evan Hafer 18:08 That was it.

Joe Rogan 18:09 Right.

Evan Hafer 18:09 Uh, what a portion of the internet decided to say was we had, uh, somehow disavowed him by literally stating a fact.... which was, we hadn't sponsored him. Um, there's no coming back from some of this in the context of, y- you can't explain yourself in 240 characters or less because nuance is ultimately dead. People have already made a decision. So by, by just coming out and saying this, and trying to correct the record multiple times, you, you end up just digging in deeper on some of this.

Joe Rogan 18:47 Yeah, because it's, no one is gonna listen past the first take.

Evan Hafer 18:51 No.

Joe Rogan 18:51 The first take is, "Black Rifle Coffee shits on their fans." (yells)

Evan Hafer 18:56 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:56 And then people start barking. They're not looking into it.

Evan Hafer 18:59 No.

Joe Rogan 18:59 The information that people get, the overwhelming amount of information that people get on a daily basis almost, like, stops them from looking into anything deep.

Evan Hafer 19:09 Right.

Joe Rogan 19:10 You, you look, you get the surface, you get the headline. "Oh, Evan Hafer-"

Evan Hafer 19:14 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 19:14 "... hates his fans." And then next thing you know, it's, that's, that's the narrative.

Evan Hafer 19:19 That's the narrative, and, and then it's shared.

Joe Rogan 19:22 Yes.

Evan Hafer 19:22 And then it's not only shared-

Joe Rogan 19:24 Distorted, right.

Evan Hafer 19:24 ... but then it's picked up by the, you know, we'll call mainstream Twitter influencers, is fact. There's, nobody's, nobody's checking to look and whether or not that's actually what I said. They're just sharing the material, and then people are getting their news from memes, which is also a problem, right?

Joe Rogan 19:43 (laughs)

Evan Hafer 19:43 So if you're getting your news from memes, you have a fucking big problem. Um, but there's just not a chance in hell I want to shit on my customers. There's not a chance in hell I would do that, and the other thing is, is I'm a conservative. I'm not self-loathing.

Joe Rogan 19:56 Right, right.

Evan Hafer 19:57 (laughs) I identify as that guy, so I was purely stating within, you know, that entire conversation that probably lasted 20 minutes, like, "Hey, there's no room for racists or anti-Semites in my customer base."

Joe Rogan 20:09 Right.

Evan Hafer 20:10 "I'll pay them to leave if they exist." That's what I said.

Joe Rogan 20:13 Yeah.

Evan Hafer 20:13 And I stand by those words today. I don't like them. There's no room for them. There's no justifiable room for racists or anti-Semites specifically, I think, within-

Joe Rogan 20:21 And if you care about conservatism, if you care about it succeeding, you want to eliminate all the problematic ideas that are associated with it.

Evan Hafer 20:29 Correct.

Joe Rogan 20:30 That's one that's associated with it.

Evan Hafer 20:31 Correct.

Joe Rogan 20:31 Racism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia, all those things are associated with it. I should just tell people, when I went to visit you in Salt Lake years ago, you have a ton of folks you brought over from Afghanistan-

Evan Hafer 20:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:46 ... working at your factory when you saved their lives and brought them over to America when they were in trouble, when they were being chased down because they worked with US troops over there.

Evan Hafer 20:58 Well, yeah, and who you're talking about is Wali Taslim-

Joe Rogan 21:01 Mm-hmm.

Evan Hafer 21:01 ... and, uh, the other guys that, that are working specifically in our print and our facility in Salt Lake. Uh, Wali Taslim was an Afghan commando. He joined the army right after, and when I say the, the Afghan army, right after our invasion in, I believe it was, like, uh, October or November 2001, like, right after. So right when, uh, the CIA and Special Forces invaded Afghanistan, Wali Taslim, uh, was one of the guys that joined up right away. So he went from a 16-year-old kid to, he was, by the time that he left, I believe that was, uh, 2014 or '15. So he had been directly involved in, uh, direct action missions across Afghanistan for over 11 years. He- and he went from a private to a commander. Uh, his story is incredible, and so when we talk about where the, the Times might have missed some incredible, like, enlightening stories, talk about the Afghan refugees that used to be commandos that fought for us for over a decade. Wali Taslim has over 1500 direct action missions. The guy has breached more doors for the United States than most of the special operations guys that I know. He not only did that, but he had to move about every six months for the last two years that he was in Afghanistan, because he was getting, uh... He had been in multiple ambushes with his wife and family in his car. He had to hide his identity. He was running from the Taliban basically full time. Then he sought and received refugee status. He came to the United States. Back in 2016, we thought Wali had been killed. So my business partner and I, uh, we kept in contact with a lot of the Afghans, and we heard that he had been killed in an ambush. One day, this guy pings us on Facebook and says, "Hey guys, it's Wali. (laughs) I'm, I'm in Baltimore." And we're like, "Whatever. Are you serious?" Instantly, we're like, "Get on a plane. Get to Salt Lake." So we got him a house. We brought him and his family out here, uh, gave him a job. It's like, "You have a job. Get out of Baltimore." What was happening in Baltimore is he was living in public housing, and he was being discriminated against in public housing in Baltimore. He was being called a terrorist. His kids were being called a terrorist. They were being picked on. So we jumped on a plane, and we're like, "Get out. Let's go. You're coming with us." Not only that, but, "Tell me where the other guys are. Where are they?" He's like, "I got a few guys in San Francisco. I got a few guys here." "Okay, offer them all jobs right now. Like, they're all coming here." Uh, so it's, it's, it's extremely offensive for a combination of reasons, right? Which is, I have no place for, uh, in my company, or even in my own life, for, like, discriminatory behavior in that regard, right? These are the guys that have been fighting to the left and to the right with us for over 20 years in these countries that we've been directly involved in clandestine and overt warfare. They've risked their lives, their limbs, their eyesight, which means the same as mine, and we owe them an incredible amount of gratitude. Uh, and it would be directly misrepresented if I placated in any regard that type of behavior in the company, because it's not who we are. Uh...And Wally is just one of a handful of guys that we continue to not only hire, but bring in, and then we hire them a, a English tutor. We're putting them through the process of becoming a, a US citizen, so we hire the attorneys that is required for that to walk them through the process. They've got to test and evaluate. Uh, it's something that we're, we're really proud of, and not only are we really proud of, it's a really rich and incredible story about how these guys have come to the United States and been successful within a veteran owned and operated company that we were fighting together 10 years ago, and now we're roasting coffee in the United States together now, which is fucking nuts, dude. It's so... Like, that kind of stuff makes me so happy, and it fires me up that, you know, Brown Water can do that?

Joe Rogan 25:23 (laughs) Yeah.

Evan Hafer 25:24 Like, it's fucking incredible, man.

Joe Rogan 25:27 It i- it is incredible, and I think stories like that, the only way to tell a story like that is to just tell it. I don't think someone writing it is ever going to capture all of the fascinating aspects of it, all of the inspirational aspects of it, the human aspects of it. You know, it, it's, this is what I know about you guys, so when-

Evan Hafer 25:52 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 25:53 ... I, when I see th- first of all, we're friends-

Evan Hafer 25:55 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 25:57 ... but also, like, when I see someone misrepresenting a company that I think is one of the most noble companies that I- I- I've ever come across, that the amount of time that you guys spent, um, trying to, to help first responders, military, police, I know what you guys do. So when I see you misrepresented by conservatives, and I'm not even conservative-

Evan Hafer 26:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 26:19 So I see that shit, and I'm like, "Well, you fucking idiots."

Evan Hafer 26:22 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 26:22 Like, what are you doing? You're doing the same thing that you accuse the people on the left of doing, and it's all, it's all nuts.

Evan Hafer 26:28 It's, it's wild, man. I, it is, and, uh, uh, you know, as, as I kind of evolve in the last seven years, you know, I've, I've looked at the, especially the social media landscape and how hostile-

Joe Rogan 26:44 Yeah.

Evan Hafer 26:44 ... it's become. It's a really toxic environment. Uh-

Joe Rogan 26:48 It's wild. (laughs)

Evan Hafer 26:50 It, it's, it's, like, so incredible on one end-

Joe Rogan 26:52 Yeah.

Evan Hafer 26:52 ... and then it's like, it's like the Wild West for trolls on the other end, right? They're, like, getting their gloves on and rolling out their keyboards, and they're getting ready to, to, to hit it hard. Uh, and I think that most of this doesn't really impact me unless it's a customer that's emailing me, uh, which, to be fair, we, we really haven't had a lot of the customers even directly email us, uh, directly associated with this. Most of our customers are based on a direct interaction with our media that we put out on a regular basis, and they kind of know the company. Um, it is strange for a certain percentage of the conservatives to jump on a bandwagon like that and ultimately label, you know, me or the company as, uh, anti-American, which is-

Joe Rogan 27:43 It's hilarious.

Evan Hafer 27:44 ... nuts. It's hilarious.

Joe Rogan 27:44 It's hilarious for-

Evan Hafer 27:45 If it wasn't so ridiculous. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 27:46 Yeah.

Evan Hafer 27:46 Like, if it wasn't... And it, you, the only thing you can do is kind of laugh at it and go, "Dudes, are you kidding me?" Like...

Joe Rogan 27:52 But it shows you how easy someone can get smeared. Even s- a company that's as impeccable, uh, has such an impeccable reputation as yours can get smeared online in this weird climate. And part of me is like, well, what... There's... And I would like to think there's some grand conspiracy involved, right?

Evan Hafer 28:09 Right.

Joe Rogan 28:09 But I think it's more that the way people communicate on social media is so ineffective and shitty. It's such a bad way to disseminate ideas.

Evan Hafer 28:22 It is.

Joe Rogan 28:22 It's not a bad way to get headlines out there, like, you know, "Bombs dropped on Syria."

Evan Hafer 28:28 Right.

Joe Rogan 28:28 Okay. That's, like, show some footage. Okay, here it is. But, like, even, like, video clips. Uh, have you bi- been paying attention to... There was a, uh, cop that was frisking a guy, uh, pulled, uh, an empty baggie out of his pocket, and threw it in the backseat of a, of a car.

Evan Hafer 28:47 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 28:47 Just pulled the baggie out and chucked it in the car while he's frisking this guy, and it's like, "You just planted evidence in the car." And if you... And then the e- the cop explains it, "No, I didn't. First of all, the bag is empty. Second of all, he had it in his pocket," and you see his camera-

Evan Hafer 29:02 Right.

Joe Rogan 29:02 ... the cop's camera pull this bag outta this guy's pocket and drop in the backseat of the car. They took the clip of the cop throwing the baggie in the car and the other guy saying, "You just planted evidence." And then all throughout the internet, like, "Look at this evidence-"

Evan Hafer 29:19 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 29:19 "... of this cop planting this fucking baggie in this guy's car. Oh my god, these cops are pieces of shit. They, they were, they were trying to set this guy up." And everybody started attacking the police. Everybody started attacking the, "This is why people don't trust the police." And I saw it just shared thousands of times.

Evan Hafer 29:35 Right.

Joe Rogan 29:35 And then the full video came out, and in the full video, you actually see the police officer explain it. You see exactly what happened. And you're like, "Fuck, this is social media in a nutshell."

Evan Hafer 29:45 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 29:45 "This is the, the, the madness of how people exchange information online." It's a bad way to communicate. It's a bad way to go back and forth. It's not designed for human beings.

Evan Hafer 29:56 No.

Joe Rogan 29:56 It's like human beings trying to interface with something that's devoid of emotion, and it's devoid of context. It's devoid of, uh, social cues and the, the normal interactions between two human beings.

Evan Hafer 30:09 Yeah, and I think... I, I was thinking about this the other day, that there's a lot of people that are... Like, fear is a driving factor right now, right? You have a lot of fear that's floating around the United States internationally because of, I think, the way the media portrays a lot of different events. You know, every year there's been some type of-... catastrophic thing that the media's been able to pick up and really escalate. Uh, but then you have these devices, right? Where people are seeking emotion. They want a connection with people. And they can't get it from this.

Joe Rogan 30:44 Right.

Evan Hafer 30:45 But when your default emotion is anger, because it's a really easy emotion to default to, you can't get a connection of love or, uh, you know, a, a meaningful emotion out of it. But it's really easy to make a connection with somebody online and default to anger, kind of get explosive and connected. Uh, I think there's a lot of people that are really just disconnected, and they're searching for some type of human interaction, and they're never gonna get it from an electronic device.

Joe Rogan 31:20 Right.

Evan Hafer 31:21 And so I don't blame that. I think that right now, we're in this really strange predicament as a country, where people are feeling isolated and alone, and they're connected to their electronic devices more than they ever have been. But it's, it's a toxic environment if you're trying to connect with people in a, uh, when I say a negative way, and then band together and then enhance that emotion once again. Uh, I know that's probably an oversimplification, but you're not gonna be able to c- c- connect with a technology device. It's just never gonna happen.

Joe Rogan 31:53 No. In this past year and a half, unfortunately because of the pandemic, there's much more distance between people-

Evan Hafer 32:00 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 32:00 ... in terms of like, people aren't getting together as, as ... Well, at least they weren't for a long time. They're kind of doing it now. But they, they were not getting together and talking. People were sharing things through phones, and most of the communication was through text. They're not even calling each other, right?

Evan Hafer 32:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:17 And then Zoom, like, people are having Zoom meetings and shit. So it's like, the disconnect ... I was, like, thinking about it, like if there was a ... If, if you had an artificial intelligence that was trying to get human beings to abandon everything that makes you human, like what better way than a virus that makes you scared of other people?

Evan Hafer 32:38 Right.

Joe Rogan 32:38 What better way than forcing people into their homes, making other people actually dangerous to be around?

Evan Hafer 32:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:44 An invisible thing. It's not like even a person has a weapon on them, right? It's an invisible thing that they might have, like a demon that leaps from their body and could kill your grandma, right?

Evan Hafer 32:55 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 32:55 So you, you're literally scared of people, so you put masks on, you can't see people's facial expressions. People are wearing gloves, they're hiding, they're socially distancing. You're keeping as far away from each other as you can. It's almost like it was ... I know it wasn't, but it's almost like, like if you had, like, a super intelligent robot that was like, "We gotta figure out a way to get people to be at each other's necks even more."

Evan Hafer 33:19 (laughs) Right.

Joe Rogan 33:19 "This is the way to do it. Make a disease that's invisible, that transmits through the air, and, and people have to stay away from each other, and there's no cure, and everybody's panicking. And then spread a bunch of misinformation about how it spreads. It spreads on surfaces, and it'll last up to two weeks. Ah!"

Evan Hafer 33:37 (laughs) Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 33:38 And you spray everything down with Lysol, and everybody's in a panic. And then because people are scared, so many people ju- ju- ... There's a, a giant percentage of our population out there that has never experienced any adversity.

Evan Hafer 33:50 Right. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 33:50 They do not know how to handle stress. They don't know how to handle being uncomfortable. They don't know how to ... So as soon as anything that comes their way that they can bark at, anything, they're, they're in this state, this constant state of being perturbed, and then anything that comes their way, "Well, fuck Black Rifle Coffee!"

Evan Hafer 34:08 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 34:08 You know? "Fuck Joe Rogan. Fuck this guy, and fuck that guy." And that's what everybody does.

Evan Hafer 34:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:13 And then, and then people pile on. People with also limited information, they all chime in, and then they ... You know, you're writing in a tweet. You're using a, you know, a, a fucking 100 characters.

Evan Hafer 34:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:22 And you're, you're, you're barking at each other. And, and you're pretending that this is normal communication? It's like the worst way to communicate ever.

Evan Hafer 34:30 It's like the worst and the counterproductive, uh, way to communicate ever. You can't explain things on Twitter.

Joe Rogan 34:37 Yeah.

Evan Hafer 34:37 You're not going to be able to pass a, a sophisticated, philosophical message on Twitter.

Joe Rogan 34:43 No.

Evan Hafer 34:43 You know what you're gonna do? You're gonna, you're, you're, you're gonna hand the equivalent of an internet dick pic via words-

Joe Rogan 34:48 Right.

Evan Hafer 34:48 ... on Twitter. You're not gonna pass off and pontificate or opine about something so significant that's gonna change society. But I think there's a lot of people that every time they log into Twitter, they're like, "You know what? This is gonna change the world."

Joe Rogan 35:02 (laughs)

Evan Hafer 35:02 "This one's gonna work." (laughs) I don't even have Twitter.

Joe Rogan 35:06 I don't even think-

Evan Hafer 35:06 That's the fucked up thing.

Joe Rogan 35:06 I don't even think they believe that.

Evan Hafer 35:08 They don't.

Joe Rogan 35:08 I think they, they want people to like, put a like next to their, their comment. I stopped using Twitter during the pandemic. I don't use it.

Evan Hafer 35:16 So did I.

Joe Rogan 35:16 I occasionally will retweet something I find interesting. I never post anything. I rarely post anything. One time I posted over the whole pandemic. It was when Bill de Blasio, the, this fucking dipshit mayor of New York City.

Evan Hafer 35:29 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 35:29 He made this video about bringing the arts back to New York City, that this is how we're gonna revitalize the city. This is a city that has been economically crippled by his policies.

Evan Hafer 35:40 Right.

Joe Rogan 35:40 Right? Defund the police, crime is at an all-time high, people are looting and smashing stores on 5th Avenue. He's like, "Let them do it. Let them get it out of their system." Literally creating a, a p- total climate of lawlessness, and then the way he's gonna revitalize this city is he puts out this video about bringing back the arts. I don't know if you've ever seen it.

Evan Hafer 36:00 No.

Joe Rogan 36:00 It's amazing. And it's a video where it's like, the most uncoordinated dancing-

Evan Hafer 36:06 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 36:07 ... with the worst music you've ever heard. And he's standing there, talking about, "We gotta bring back the arts, and it starts here. We're gonna have street performances." And these people are dancing. And it's, it's so ... I, and I just wrote, "How the fuck is this real?"

Evan Hafer 36:19 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 36:19 That's all I posted. 'Cause it came across my face, and I was like, "I gotta, I just, I'm gonna post this." That was the only thing I posted, other than like, reposting interesting articles. See if you can find it, because it's ...... so, it's so dumb.

Evan Hafer 36:33 That's-

Joe Rogan 36:34 It's-

Evan Hafer 36:34 I think that's the great thing about, uh, uh, not the great thing about the pandemic, don't get me wrong. I'm, I'm saying the one silver lining that we should all be taking from this, is we get to see how fucking stupid politicians are.

Joe Rogan 36:46 Yes. Yes.

Evan Hafer 36:47 This is like, this has pulled the curtain back and-

Joe Rogan 36:50 Yes.

Evan Hafer 36:50 ... we get to see just how ridiculous they are. And that's where I start to look and think about individual liberty. And I start to think, why would you ever want to forfeit your freedom to one of these idiots-

Joe Rogan 37:05 Yes.

Evan Hafer 37:05 ... that has control over what you or your family or your business does? Because if we've learned anything in the last year and a half, is that these people can't be trusted with, uh, a squeezy bottle.

Joe Rogan 37:18 Right.

Evan Hafer 37:18 Like, we-

Joe Rogan 37:19 With anything.

Evan Hafer 37:19 ... we can't trust them with the keys to the car.

Joe Rogan 37:21 No.

Evan Hafer 37:21 I wouldn't give them a '98 Cutlass with 180,000 miles to watch.

Joe Rogan 37:26 (laughs)

Evan Hafer 37:26 Most of them are so fucking incompetent-

Joe Rogan 37:28 Yeah.

Evan Hafer 37:29 ... that I wouldn't trust them to wash a dish.

Joe Rogan 37:32 Right.

Evan Hafer 37:33 And it amazes me when I look around, I'm like, "Why are you guys so interested?"

Joe Rogan 37:37 You need to watch this.

Evan Hafer 37:38 Oh.

Joe Rogan 37:38 Pull it back from the beginning. Do it from the beginning. Give me some volume.

Evan Hafer 37:43 (laughs)

Narrator 37:44 (upbeat music) We need a recovery that brings back the life and the heart and the energy of this city, and that everyone gets to be a part of. And if we're going to do that, we're going to really bring back the heart and soul of New York City. We need our arts and culture back, and we need people to see it and feel it, to participate in it.

Evan Hafer 38:00 (laughs) Yeah. Hell yeah.

Narrator 38:00 To know that that essence of New York City-

Evan Hafer 38:03 Look at how bad this dancing is. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 38:05 Yeah.

Evan Hafer 38:05 And they're wearing masks outside.

Narrator 38:07 ... but will come back strong in 2021.

Evan Hafer 38:08 Yeah.

Narrator 38:09 Month after month in 2021, as you see this city come back to life, culture will lead the way.

38:14 Open culture is another step towards a recovery for our city. We're launching with 115 street locations in all five boroughs, and it brings stages to our neighborhoods and culture to the heart of our neighbors, and give artists, cultural institutions, and creatives a place to showcase their talents as they recover from the pandemic.

38:32 Our cultural communities are conscious-

Evan Hafer 38:34 (laughs)

Narrator 38:34 ... our cultural communities are hope-

Joe Rogan 38:35 Look how bad this is. This is a Coen brothers movie.

Evan Hafer 38:38 This is not... I mean-

Joe Rogan 38:39 This is literally, like, right out of The Big Lebowski.

Evan Hafer 38:42 Yeah, it is. Like, this is straight out.

Joe Rogan 38:44 And this is the same guy that just passed this fucking law in New York City where you have to have a vaccine passport to go everywhere. You have to have a vaccine to go to a restaurant, to a gym, to, uh, any place where people gather. It is crazy. And meanwhile, the vast perce- the, the, the biggest percentage of people that don't have vaccines or haven't been vaccinated are people of color. So, this guy... People of color and immigrants, th- this is what... He's always supposed to be-

Evan Hafer 39:14 Right.

Joe Rogan 39:15 ... pro, you know, pro people of color, pro diversity, pro immigration. Those are the people that don't have vaccines, and now you're precluding them from going to gyms and restaurants. And what about the people working in the restaurants?

Evan Hafer 39:26 Right.

Joe Rogan 39:26 What about all these... It's fucking madness. And then you have a bunch of people that are supporting it, like, "Yay, finally."

Evan Hafer 39:33 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 39:34 Meanwhile, you have sciences coming out. There's legitimate articles. Jamie, I'll send this to you now. There's legitimate art-... Because doctors have been sending me these things, and, you know, this is neither pro nor con-vaccine. I'm not... This is not a judgment statement. But imperfect vaccination can enhance the transmission of highly virulent pathogens.

Evan Hafer 39:55 Right.

Joe Rogan 39:55 So, this is a scientific paper, um, from 2015 that shows that if... Here's it sa- here's, here's one important quote. "Vaccines that keep the host alive but still allow transmission-

Evan Hafer 40:16 Oh.

Joe Rogan 40:16 ... can thus allow virulent strains to circulate in a population." So, vaccines that don't kill the virus, vaccines that allow people... Like, this is one of the things we're finding out about what they're calling breakthrough cases.

Evan Hafer 40:31 Right.

Joe Rogan 40:31 So, people who are vaccinated can still get COVID, and they can still transmit COVID.

Evan Hafer 40:36 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 40:37 This recently happened at The Comedy Store. A vaccinated comedian gave COVID to, like, 12 different fucking people at The Comedy Store. Some of them vaccinated, some of them not. That situation where the vaccine just kind of protects you from serious damage-

Evan Hafer 40:53 Right.

Joe Rogan 40:54 ... but d- it protects you from really being, like, badly hospitalized or death, but doesn't stop you from getting the virus, can possibly lead to more potent viruses. So, these people that are saying, "Oh, it's these unvaccinated people that are responsible for the variants," well, there's actually scientific papers that point to the very sort of environment that we're creating by having so many people vaccinated with a vaccine that doesn't kill off-

Evan Hafer 41:28 Right.

Joe Rogan 41:28 ... the virus. It actually can lead to more potent viruses. Try finding that story anywhere. Other than doctors, I'm, I'm getting-

Evan Hafer 41:38 We got PhDs sending me these things, guys who won't speak about it publicly, 'cause they're worried about- Right.

Joe Rogan 41:43 ... the blowback. People who are physicians, people who are even, even epidemiologists, even people that deal with diseases and viruses, they're concerned, and they, they don't want to talk about it publicly, because people call them anti-vaxxers.

Evan Hafer 41:57 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:58 It's really wild out there.

Evan Hafer 42:00 Well, it's wild because they've somehow managed, and when I say they, meaning the political elite, and then I think their established media representatives, have somehow managed to turn this into a political issue, right?

Joe Rogan 42:15 Mm-hmm.

Evan Hafer 42:15 And that's dangerous, right? It, it's dangerous for any politician to play in that game where they're using something as meaningful and quite possibly dangerous for the country as political posturing or virtue signaling, right? And you see it all the time, because you see these guys that are wearing their masks for the camera, but then they take them off, or-

Joe Rogan 42:36 AOC just got busted doing that yesterday. You see the video?

Evan Hafer 42:39 Yeah, of course.

Joe Rogan 42:40 She was, had no mask on-

Evan Hafer 42:41 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:41 ... hanging out with her buddy, and then they go to take a picture-

Evan Hafer 42:43 Put it on. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:43 ... she puts the mask on, and then takes it off after the picture's done.

Evan Hafer 42:47 Yeah, or-... they can have parties, you know, what is it, uh, you know-

Joe Rogan 42:50 How about Obama?

Evan Hafer 42:51 Yeah. Obama's having that 700-guest party or whatever it is.

Joe Rogan 42:54 I heard he's gonna tone it down to 600.

Evan Hafer 42:56 (laughs) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:57 Because of, because of the pandemic.

Evan Hafer 42:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:58 He's gonna make it a little lighter.

Evan Hafer 43:00 But you can't go to a gym in New York.

Joe Rogan 43:04 Right.

Evan Hafer 43:04 Y- unless you have a vaccination card.

Joe Rogan 43:06 Right.

Evan Hafer 43:06 Or you can't go out to eat. Uh, we're gonna shut down small businesses.

Joe Rogan 43:09 Or you can't go to a comedy club.

Evan Hafer 43:11 You can't go to a comedy club. Uh, and I think it's, it's rules for thee and not for me scenario. And people read right through that shit, because-

Joe Rogan 43:19 Some people.

Evan Hafer 43:20 Some people. I think even-

Joe Rogan 43:20 Some people are applauding it, which is fucking terrifying. I know smart people that are applauding it. It's, it's so strange. And the th- the problem with applauding vaccine passports ... This is, this is part of the problem: they are not gonna give that power up.

Evan Hafer 43:35 No.

Joe Rogan 43:35 They're not going to.

Evan Hafer 43:36 No.

Joe Rogan 43:36 They're gonna find a reason to continue to use that. If they can figure out a way to force you into carrying papers, into carrying something that lets you enter businesses or lets you do this or lets businesses open-

Evan Hafer 43:49 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 43:50 ... as soon as you give politicians power, and an- any kind of power that didn't exist previously, historically, they don't relinquish that power. They find new reasons to use it.

Evan Hafer 44:01 Well, I, I think that's the history of lawmaking and political power in the United States, uh, and I think that's why I ha- I tend to be bucketed in conservatives, because it means smaller government to me, right? There's, there's multiple reasons why people classify themselves as that. Uh, but I look at things and I look at the preservation of individual liberty. You know, how do I preserve more of my freedom? Because I feel like I'm a responsible adult, and I feel like I'm going to raise responsible adults, and I feel like I spend most of my time around responsible adults. Uh, I don't... It, it's such a, a disconnect in, um, individual philosophy when I find people that, that are actively looking for ways that they can forfeit their individual liberty and hand it over to somebody where they feel like they have a better interest in running their life than they do.

Joe Rogan 45:00 Right.

Evan Hafer 45:00 And I, I understand the balance between, uh, you know, we, we have to have certain laws and regulations that, that protect people against, you know, overt dangers. But I also understand your statement where I think politicians and, I would say, lawmakers and, uh, government bureaucrats have a really hard time relinquishing control once they have it because it feels good.

Joe Rogan 45:25 It makes their job easier.

Evan Hafer 45:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:26 It makes their job easier. They can just tell you to shut the fuck up-

Evan Hafer 45:28 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 45:28 ... do what I say, and you have to. You know, "You can't work anymore unless you do what I say." That's essentially what a vaccine passport is.

Evan Hafer 45:36 Right.

Joe Rogan 45:36 "You can't do what you want to do unless you do what I want you to do." I mean, Don Lemon was talking about that openly on CNN.

Evan Hafer 45:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:45 "Don't have a vaccine? Can't go to the supermarket. Don't have a vaccine? Can't go to work." Like...

Evan Hafer 45:51 It's so strange that people want to say things like that. Like, that's the thing that blows me away. Why do you, why do people want to, uh-

Joe Rogan 45:58 Because they're dumb.

Evan Hafer 45:59 They're dumb. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 45:59 They're dumb. They don't understand history.

Evan Hafer 46:01 Right.

Joe Rogan 46:01 They don't understand human beings.

Evan Hafer 46:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:02 They don't understand human nature. They don't understand the history of every single country that's ever existed-

Evan Hafer 46:09 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 46:09 ... other than the United States. Up until 1776, every fucking country that has ever existed was run by dictators.

Evan Hafer 46:19 Right.

Joe Rogan 46:19 All of them. This is the first one where you had elected officials. This is the first experiment in self-government that actually worked, and it created the greatest superpower the world's ever known. It created the greatest cultural machine, the greatest machine of art and creativity and innovation right fucking here. And how did it do that? It did it through freedom, because when you give people freedom, you let people do whatever the fuck they want to do, they actually find ways to succeed and grow and thrive. But as soon as you put the boots to them, as soon as you tell them, "You have to do this or you can't do that. You have to listen to me," now you have a mini-dictator.

Evan Hafer 46:56 Right.

Joe Rogan 46:56 You have one step away from a king. You have a- one step closer. You're moving one step closer to dictatorship. That's what the fuck is happening. That's what's gonna happen with a vaccine passport. That's what's gonna happen if they close borders. "You can't enter New York City unless you have your papers. You can't go to here unless you have that. You can't get on a plane unless you do what I say." And people say, "Whoa, it's all about protecting people from the-"

Evan Hafer 47:19 Mm-mm.

Joe Rogan 47:19 No, it's not. It's not, because we've shown... This is a fact. I- just a couple of months ago, the idea of a breakthrough case was unheard of. Nobody heard of anybody catching COVID that had a vaccine, right?

Evan Hafer 47:32 Right.

Joe Rogan 47:32 That was the whole idea. You get a vaccine, you don't have to worry about it. Now we know, not only do you get it, but you can spread it. And some people have died. Apparently, it's a small number. I don't know what the numbers are, but I know that most people who get vaccinated, when they do have the disease, they have a better time of it-

Evan Hafer 47:49 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 47:49 ... than the people who are unvaccinated. But where are the people out there calling for people to get healthy? Where are the people out there calling for people to lose weight? 78% of the people in the ICU for COVID are obese. 78%. Wh- where is that information being shared? Where's someone who's a leader who gets on TV and says, "Ladies and gentlemen, we've got to decrease our body mass. We've got to decrease our fat. We've got to make sure that people aren't overweight. We've got to make sure that people are healthy."? Walk around your block. You don't have to do something complicated. Start drinking more water. Stop eating sugar. Start taking vitamins. You can increase the strength of your immune system. We can fight things off better. We can be a healthier civilization. Better for everybody, right?

Evan Hafer 48:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:30 You don't hear a peep. All you hear is, "Take this vaccine that doesn't even prevent you from getting the disease, or you can't go to the s- to the sauna."

Evan Hafer 48:39 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 48:40 Wherever the fuck you want to go. You can't go to the Broadway show. It's madness.

Evan Hafer 48:44 It's madness. I-

Joe Rogan 48:45 It really is madness, because if it was a vaccine that re- it was like a ... Like here's a ve- Like, it's more of a treatment than it is a vaccine, really, if you look at it, because you're saying you need a booster now every six months. Look, if you get vaccinated for polio, you get vaccinated for the measles, you don't have to worry about it anymore.

Evan Hafer 49:02 Right.

Joe Rogan 49:02 You're good.This is not that. This is a totally different kind of thing, and it's a completely new kind of vaccine. The idea that people shouldn't be skeptical or nervous about that is kind of hilarious.

Evan Hafer 49:15 Well, it's kind of hilarious that people won't try on skepticism in general. Like, they need to be more skeptical. They need to push people in authority and power and hold them accountable for their words and their actions. And there's this reluctancy, I think across the board, to question power either on both sides, right? So it's like the blue likes to question red, red likes to question blue.

Joe Rogan 49:42 Right.

Evan Hafer 49:42 But now you'll follow lockstep in party line if one is saying something or the other.

Joe Rogan 49:49 Yes.

Evan Hafer 49:49 That's a fucking problem. To, to your point, I was reading, uh, I was reading the, the History of the Nez Perce Indian Tribe, and I've read a few books on this just recently. I'm from northern Idaho where, where the Nez Perce Indian Tribe-

Joe Rogan 50:01 Ferocious people.

Evan Hafer 50:02 Amazing.

Joe Rogan 50:03 Yeah.

Evan Hafer 50:03 Like amazing warriors.

Joe Rogan 50:04 Amazing.

Evan Hafer 50:04 Chief Joseph was an incredible leader, uh, incredible history. But it struck me, there, there's a, there's one chapter in the books that I was reading about how the US, uh, cavalry, they were putting the Native Americans on reservations for their protection. And I'm not trying to equate this-

Joe Rogan 50:24 Hmm.

Evan Hafer 50:24 ... in, in direct correlation, but this was part of the narrative.

Joe Rogan 50:28 I understand, yeah.

Evan Hafer 50:28 Because they were saying, "We want to put you guys on reservations to protect you from the saddlers and from, uh, retaliation. So we want to put you guys on this, you know, 400 square reservation, 400-mile square reservation for your protection." And they're like, "Dude, we want to be free." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 50:47 Yeah.

Evan Hafer 50:47 "I don't know what you're talking about." And, uh, they go in and, and they trace the over 1,000 miles that Chief Joseph led his, his, uh, his tribe through Idaho and Montana and then up close to the, uh, the Canadian border. But I couldn't help but think about there's one sliver of history in the late 1800s, which in 1873 I believe it was, which was also connected to the, the son of, uh, Meriwether Lewis was also part of the, the Nez Perce Indian Tribe because he had a son there. But I thought about how us not, us as a country, how we need to be pushed to ask more questions and we deserve more answers, and we have to hold skepticism, I think, in a very high regard, and we can't beat it down. I think any time that you question authority, it's a good thing, especially as a society, because it also says that you have a healthy society. If you have this complex narrative, you know, moving up from underneath, I, I think the, the groundswell of information from people, you can have these complex discussions, but you also have to have very good answers to what's going on. I think you've got conflicting information that's being politicized and it's being gaslit by both sides of the media. Which I don't blame people for being pissed off and confused, because, man, I'm confused.

Joe Rogan 52:15 Yeah.

Evan Hafer 52:16 Like, this is confusing as shit. The CDC releases something, the president will say something else, some random governor somewhere that I've never heard of will say something else, and you're like, "What the hell is going on?"

Joe Rogan 52:26 What is going on? Yeah.

Evan Hafer 52:27 Yeah, that's, that's why I listen to, uh, Kristelle and Saagar, because they-

Joe Rogan 52:30 Yeah.

Evan Hafer 52:30 ... they typically know what, what's going on.

Joe Rogan 52:31 Well, they typically know what's going on, and they're, they're a great example because that show Breaking Points, you got Saagar, who's on the right, and Kristelle, who's on the left, but they're good friends.

Evan Hafer 52:41 They're good.

Joe Rogan 52:41 They get along well, and they're both super honest and objective, rational and intelligent, and they can discuss all the finer points of these issues honestly, openly.

Evan Hafer 52:53 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 52:53 And it's, that's why they're thriving.

Evan Hafer 52:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:56 It's why CNN, like some of their shows, they're-

Evan Hafer 52:59 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 52:59 ... some of their shows are, they get 100,000 views in the key demographic, less than 100,000 even. That's crazy. Since Trump is out of office-

Evan Hafer 53:07 Oh, yeah, they got nothing.

Joe Rogan 53:08 ... and they don't have a boogeyman-

Evan Hafer 53:09 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:09 ... their boogeyman is unvaccinated-

Evan Hafer 53:11 Right.

Joe Rogan 53:11 ... people. That's what they're doing.

Evan Hafer 53:12 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 53:12 Their boogeyman is different, different things they can attack.

Evan Hafer 53:15 Well, did you hear, um, Brennan, the former, I think he's a former, uh, head of Clandestine Service, uh, National Security Agency? Uh, he was on, uh, CNN, and, and this is a, a horrible reference because I'm, I'm messing it up, but he came out and he said, "These are the extremist groups in America," right? And he was talking about how the people that are pro-2A and libertarians and anti-vaxxers and all these other people have banded together, and he was labeling literally people that are exercising their constitutional rights in a legitimate political party in the United States as an extremist. He said it on, uh, CNBC in a morning show. So it was the quiet part out loud where some of these people actually think this way, where you can have a, a, a, your constitutional rights to own a firearm, but there's a portion of the United States that sees you as some-

Joe Rogan 54:17 Radical.

Evan Hafer 54:17 ... crazy person.

Joe Rogan 54:18 Yeah.

Evan Hafer 54:18 Like a radical. Or if you belong to... If you're a libertarian, they see you as a radical because you're like, "Oh, we, we want less government." Well, of course bureaucrats will hate that idea, right? (laughs) If you're-

Joe Rogan 54:30 Yeah.

Evan Hafer 54:30 ... if you're trying to fight against bureaucracy, they're going to be like, "Dude, we, we want more. We want more of your tax dollars. We want more of, uh, the responsibility for you, your business, and your family and your community. We want more of that because you can trust us." That's basically the narrative that I find across the board to a lot of people that are, uh, professional politicians and pro- professional bureaucrats. I think they're teaming up. And then now you have media as well. And to your point, you've got these dying outlets because there isn't the big bad guy anymore to drive ratings. So now they have to invent and sensationalize a bunch of horseshit in order to try to get eyeballs-

Joe Rogan 55:11 Yeah.

Evan Hafer 55:11 ... which, man, it's almost like it's-It's even progressing in, in a, in a worse, if that's a way to describe that. It's progressing in an even more negative way for people to monetize, which is, is a different conversation, but that's their entire monetization strategy.

Joe Rogan 55:31 I have a thought, and I think that news should be free.

Evan Hafer 55:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:35 I think not only should it be free, I think, uh, it should be subsidized by the people so that the salaries of all the people that are working in these news organizations, there's, there's no incentive whatsoever to sensationalize stories. And that there should almost be, like, some sort of overview. Some ... But then how would you do that?

Evan Hafer 55:58 Right.

Joe Rogan 55:58 Like, how would you ... y- some citizens overview where they make sure that people don't sensationalize things in order to get people hyped up so they click on ... You know, if it bleeds, it leads has always been the thing with the news. But if they could figure out a way to distribute the news completely objectively with no commercials, with no m- no financial incentive, just give people information. Let them know what the fuck. There's a real problem when information in terms of, like, what's going on in the world, it can be distorted and it could be magnified or it could be obfuscated. They could do ... They could figure out-

Evan Hafer 56:33 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 56:33 ... a way to paint it in a way, or to, to portray it in a way that's going to get more people to pay attention to it. And if they can get more people to pay attention to it, then they profit more.

Evan Hafer 56:42 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 56:42 That's what they did with Trump. And these fucking dummies got Trump elected. That's what's crazy.

Evan Hafer 56:47 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 56:47 Like, every time he would say crazy shit, like, they would like, put him, "Can you believe this man thinks he's going to be president?" And then people are like, "Ah, I like his style." (laughs) And there's so many people out there that love when he would say shit, you know, like w-

Evan Hafer 56:59 (laughs) Horse face, you're right. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 57:01 Yeah. Oh my God, he ... Th- but that was when he was president.

Evan Hafer 57:04 I know. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 57:04 When he was president, he called a lady he had sex with horse face.

Evan Hafer 57:08 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 57:08 Like, oh my God.

Evan Hafer 57:10 I, I mean it-

Joe Rogan 57:10 He's a wild dude.

Evan Hafer 57:11 It's a wild ... He's wild. Like-

Joe Rogan 57:12 Yeah, he's a wild guy.

Evan Hafer 57:13 He's wild.

Joe Rogan 57:14 Well, he's a billionaire. That's the thing. It's like-

Evan Hafer 57:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 57:16 ... you can't control him the way you can control normal politicians. And that's-

Evan Hafer 57:20 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 57:20 ... one of the things that frustrated them. Also, it's like the way he communicates-

Evan Hafer 57:24 Right.

Joe Rogan 57:24 (sighs) It's not good because it does, it does, does cause conflict. It's not-

Evan Hafer 57:29 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 57:29 ... a uniting voice, right? And it's like-

Evan Hafer 57:32 No.

Joe Rogan 57:32 ... it's ... He's always going to have, like, massive support of his base because, like, he's kind of, like, got them all frothy at the mouth, like-

Evan Hafer 57:40 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 57:40 ... they're on the team. Like everyone's a ... Like a ... We fucking need you. And that's one of the arguments for the January 6th, uh, invasion of the Capitol. Like, that whole thing, because he was like, "You need to make a strong statement and go up there and show these people ..." A lot of people are like, "Well, you, you know you have these people eating out of the palm of your hands, and you kind of asked them to go do something wild."

Evan Hafer 58:04 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 58:04 And, and then it happened. And then people are like, "Well, this is one of the reasons why you can't have a guy talking like that who wants to be a leader."

Evan Hafer 58:11 (smacks lips) Yeah, I think leadership comes with, uh, with a profound amount of responsibility, right?

Joe Rogan 58:17 Yes.

Evan Hafer 58:18 And, uh, I, I also think that you can't take responsibility for everyone's actions, right? So it's one of those things where there has to be a clear delineation between what's reasonable and what's a realistic expectation, which is-

Joe Rogan 58:32 Right. Mm-hmm.

Evan Hafer 58:32 ... no reasonable, law-abiding citizen thinks it's okay to penetrate a federal building, for instance.

Joe Rogan 58:38 Right.

Evan Hafer 58:38 Uh, and that's happened both on the left and the right. Uh, we saw-

Joe Rogan 58:41 Where does it happen on the left?

Evan Hafer 58:42 Well, I think in Portland is when he tried-

Joe Rogan 58:44 Oh, okay.

Evan Hafer 58:44 ... where they're trying to-

Joe Rogan 58:45 Yeah.

Evan Hafer 58:45 ... burn the building down and do this-

Joe Rogan 58:46 That's barely America.

Evan Hafer 58:48 Barely, yeah. It's like-

Joe Rogan 58:49 Port- Portland is like some crazy socialist fucking island that-

Evan Hafer 58:52 It's like the Soviet Republic of Oregon, whatever it might be.

Joe Rogan 58:54 (laughs) They're trying, they're trying to fuck that city up so bad. Ugh.

Evan Hafer 58:57 Well, but that's the thing, I think, when you also see this, because people saw this lawlessness happening-

Joe Rogan 59:03 Yes.

Evan Hafer 59:03 ... throughout the entire year. And I also think that the media directly contributes to gaslighting and then pulling people up in this, in this context of spinning them up on both sides. So now they're really pissed off.

Joe Rogan 59:16 Right. Or diminishing the, the seriousness of these acts. Like-

Evan Hafer 59:20 They are.

Joe Rogan 59:21 ... there, there was a photo on CNN where they were talking about mostly peaceful protests-

Evan Hafer 59:25 Mostly peaceful.

Joe Rogan 59:25 ... and behind them is a burning building.

Evan Hafer 59:27 Yeah. Right.

Joe Rogan 59:27 There's nothing peaceful about fire.

Evan Hafer 59:30 There's nothing peaceful. I think-

Joe Rogan 59:31 Nothing, unless it's a campfire.

Evan Hafer 59:33 ... and, and that's the other issue that I think directly contributed to it, which is people saw nothing happening for a year.

Joe Rogan 59:40 Right.

Evan Hafer 59:40 So then there's an expectation that this is okay, or there's somehow this is permissible, which I think every logical person in ... Well, we had that conversation about logic, is that that's not okay.

Joe Rogan 59:54 Right.

Evan Hafer 59:54 It's not okay to burn down buildings.

Joe Rogan 59:56 Right.

Evan Hafer 59:56 It's not okay to go in and, you know, intimidate people in federal facilities. It's not okay to, you know, spit and cuss at the police for something. It's just not okay. I have zero issue with people, uh, and their right to protest peacefully. Like, zero. I think it's awesome.

Joe Rogan 1:00:12 Yeah.

Evan Hafer 1:00:12 I love seeing it.

Joe Rogan 1:00:13 Part of being American.

Evan Hafer 1:00:14 Yeah, that's like-

Joe Rogan 1:00:15 Yeah.

Evan Hafer 1:00:15 ... exercise-

Joe Rogan 1:00:15 Yeah.

Evan Hafer 1:00:16 ... your constitutional rights. Like-

Joe Rogan 1:00:17 100%.

Evan Hafer 1:00:17 That's awesome.

Joe Rogan 1:00:18 Mm-hmm.

Evan Hafer 1:00:19 And so when I see it, regardless of where it's at, I'm like, "That's cool." But when you take the step to start throwing Molotov cocktails or penetrating federal buildings-

Joe Rogan 1:00:28 Yeah.

Evan Hafer 1:00:28 ... you lost me, bro.

Joe Rogan 1:00:29 Yeah, you lost me.

Evan Hafer 1:00:29 I ... You lost me.

Joe Rogan 1:00:30 Yeah. And the, the people that think that you need violence in order to get your point across, you don't, you don't even know what the fuck violence is. You, you think-

Evan Hafer 1:00:38 No.

Joe Rogan 1:00:38 ... violence is hitting someone in the head with a skateboard? That's not violence, you fucking dummy.

Evan Hafer 1:00:42 No.

Joe Rogan 1:00:42 Like, real violence is coming your way. If you really want to th- You really think you're going to take over the government with skateboards, bonking people over the head and throwing Molotov cocktails? And I've said this before and I'll say it again, it's one of the things that's happening in this country that these people don't understand what they're doing when they think they're going to, like, cause some sort of chaos to the point where they're going to overthrow the government, they're going to overthrow this country and burn it to the ground. I mean, this is a narrative-

Evan Hafer 1:01:07 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:07 ... that gets expressed over and over again by the more r- radical people amongst us, that the United States is unfixable and we need to burn it to the ground and start-

Evan Hafer 1:01:16 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:01:16 ... from scratch.Boy, I- I- it's fucking crazy.

Evan Hafer 1:01:20 It's fucking crazy and it's a really, uh-

Joe Rogan 1:01:23 Irresponsible.

Evan Hafer 1:01:24 It's irresponsible. It's irresponsible of people that continue to propagate that narrative too, uh, 'cause I've definitely seen it, uh, in different, you know, YouTube forums or channels or whatever it might be. It's irresponsible. It's irrational. Uh, and from both sides, when you think about how far this country has come, and, you know, if I go on my, my pro-America rant here for a second, which is, we built something so incredible, it- that we should be so proud of everything that we've done in the last couple of hundred years and that we're continuing to evolve the system and make the country better. But when I look at the country, I'm like, "This place is fucking incredible." It's crazy. It's- it's a little bit insane. It's a little bit, like, wild and a little bit extreme. And you got, like, mountains and deserts and you've got, you know, cowboys in Texas and dudes toting guns out in the middle of the West. And, like, you got big skyscrapers and jazz and rock and roll. This place is fucking rad.

Joe Rogan 1:02:26 It's awesome.

Evan Hafer 1:02:27 It's awesome. And I've spent the majority of my adult life outside of this country, by the way, like in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. And it's nothing against those countries, but I love this one. It's so fucking beautiful and amazing that we should be like high-fiving each other going, "Guys, this is free."

Joe Rogan 1:02:47 Yeah.

Evan Hafer 1:02:47 We've done a pretty good job. And I'm not saying it's not- it's not perfect, right? But just the fact that we can go out and protest and say a bunch of crazy-ass shit together and people don't, like, stuff us in a closet in the middle of nowhere for just expressing our- our ideas. That's an incredible, uh, evolution of- of any country to be able to do that. Uh, now when you look at 50 states varying in the way that they- they look at their population and the way that we've got different cities in these different states, they've got different laws. You've got all these combined United States that are so fucking weird that we should be so happy and appreciative of where we live, and that's where I am, because I think of this place every day where I'm so fortunate. I'm so proud to live here. And I don't look at it as a negative in any regard. And I think there's a section of our country that looks at it where they're like- where that narrative of the flag, right? And you've heard this, where the- the flag is seen as negative by a certain portion of the United States. And I'm like, "That flag is something that we should be- all be really fucking proud of, man." We've been able to evolve our circumstance as a nation and build this big, crazy, beautiful place that's so fucking cool that we should be celebrating that flag on a regular basis. We should be celebrating the people that serve our country on a regular basis. Uh, so it wears me out with this narrative, and I get, like, really pissed off and a little bit angry when I hear people trashing, especially United States citizens, when they start trashing the United States. But as I just said earlier, we should be skeptical and question power, but we should also be really fucking proud of where we're at as a- as a country. I think we should be celebrating it.

Joe Rogan 1:04:40 The reason why they can say the things they're saying about the United States being this horrible institution that needs to be burned to the ground is the ve- one of the very beautiful things about the United States, that you have the freedom to do that.

Evan Hafer 1:04:53 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:53 You have the freedom to express opinions. And do you know how many people are contrarians? Do you know how many people that are never happy? How many people-

Evan Hafer 1:05:01 Never.

Joe Rogan 1:05:01 ... everything, every time something is awesome, they want to shit on it? That's just how people are. There's a lot of people that see things that are amazing and they're like, "Fuck Jimi Hendrix," and you're like, "What?"

Evan Hafer 1:05:11 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:05:11 "What did you just say?"

Evan Hafer 1:05:12 (laughs) Right?

Joe Rogan 1:05:13 You know what I mean? Like, there's- there's people who will say, "Jimi Hendrix sucks," and you just go, "Okay, you have the freedom to do that because we live in this amazing place."

Evan Hafer 1:05:21 (laughs) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:05:21 That's- that's like my line in the sand, is Jimi Hendrix. It's like, "What are you saying?"

Evan Hafer 1:05:26 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:05:26 "What are you saying?" You're- you're- it's like-

Evan Hafer 1:05:28 It's like, "Fuck the Grand Canyon. That place looks stupid."

Joe Rogan 1:05:30 Exactly.

Evan Hafer 1:05:30 "It's a big hole in the ground."

Joe Rogan 1:05:32 But there are people who it's- I actually had a bit about that.

Evan Hafer 1:05:34 Did you really?

Joe Rogan 1:05:35 Yeah, I had a bit about people go, "You gotta see the Grand Canyon. It's a must-see." And I would go, "Look up." I go, "That's- you're looking at a ditch. Like, literally-"

Evan Hafer 1:05:43 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:05:43 "... we are flying through the universe." It's an infinite number of stars. They're above our heads. There's giant fireballs with planets circling around them. There's more stars than there are grains of sand, and you're staring at a ditch. I'm like, "You can see the bottom." I'm like, "Why is that even interesting?" A bit about the Grand Canyon, about people saying that you have to see it. But it was just joke. Obviously, the Grand Canyon's awesome. But the- the idea is that there's always going to be- no one is going to universally love everything. There's always gonna be people that find things that everybody loves or that a- a giant percentage of people love and they think it sucks. And that's their prerogative. It's one of the beautiful things about this country is that you have the freedom to express yourself, and there's a lot of people that think things suck, and then as they get older, they realize why they thought those things suck and they change their opinion.

Evan Hafer 1:06:34 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:06:35 They change their point of view. They change their perspective. The ability to evolve your opinions is one of the beautiful things about a free country. The ability to express yourself, even if what you're saying is preposterous.

Evan Hafer 1:06:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:06:46 The problem is when people want to organize and use violence to overthrow a thing that they see as, uh, opposite of what their beliefs are. And th- that's- that's one of the problems you're seeing today in this world where people think that you can use violence to overthrow-

Evan Hafer 1:07:05 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:07:06 ... things. And- and again, it's mostly people, like if you look at these Antifa protests, it's people that have no business-

Evan Hafer 1:07:12 ... no.

Joe Rogan 1:07:12 ... talking about violence. You don't even know what violence is.

Evan Hafer 1:07:15 No.

Joe Rogan 1:07:15 And my take on it has always been, like, there's millions of veterans in this country. And if you really get to a point where you start calling for a civil war-

Evan Hafer 1:07:24 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:07:24 ... and you think, (laughs) you think that-

Evan Hafer 1:07:26 Dude.

Joe Rogan 1:07:26 ... you think that you're gonna fucking overthrow this country-

Evan Hafer 1:07:29 Dude.

Joe Rogan 1:07:29 ... the veterans are gonna come out and you're gonna, you're gonna have a real fucking problem.

Evan Hafer 1:07:34 Dude.

Joe Rogan 1:07:34 You're gonna have a real f- and it's gonna be quick, quick and ugly, and horrific.

Evan Hafer 1:07:39 (sighs) Well, I, uh, man, I, you know, how do I, how do I step into this one? This one's pretty fu- this one'll be funny. But, uh, I was thinking about this the other, like over the last couple months with these guys, the, especially the Antifa characters, right? Where they're like-

Joe Rogan 1:07:52 Hilarious.

Evan Hafer 1:07:52 ... "Okay, we're, we're really tough," and you're like, "Dude-" It- (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:07:59 ... if you want to know what tough is, like, you, you guys are headed on a one-way road to, uh, being classified as a, as a terrorist organization. Once you do that, you're gonna meet tough. You're gonna meet it about 2:00 in the morning and a flashlight while you're in your parents' basement with a muzzle at the end of it. And that's not... You're, you're gonna pee your pants. You're gonna, you know, meet a person that is actually really tough. They've been trained for decades to do things that are very hazardous. And I, I just kinda laugh at the narrative because, uh, I think about my buddies and I over the last, like, couple decades. And, and, uh, and I think about how we were just kind of like bumbling idiots at times. But we're... But I knew some bad motherfuckers. Like, straight up some of the hardest dudes you'll ever meet, like, and you've had a couple of them on the show, like, Dakota Meyer- Yeah.

Evan Hafer 1:08:52 ... and Marcus Luttrell, and these guys, right?

Joe Rogan 1:08:54 Jocko.

Evan Hafer 1:08:54 Jocko, like, like, bad mofos. And I was, I was talking to somebody, it was, like, my previous profession. Uh, I was like, if anybody were to step into my life, just get a snapshot, like if we were to switch brains for, or bodies for like five minutes, just a normal day at the office for me, they would go into fucking cardiac arrest.

Joe Rogan 1:09:18 (laughs) Yes.

Evan Hafer 1:09:19 They, they, they'd be like-

Joe Rogan 1:09:20 Yes. Yeah.

Evan Hafer 1:09:21 ... "Oh, oh, they..."

Joe Rogan 1:09:21 Exactly.

Evan Hafer 1:09:22 Because I, I would, I would... Like, a normal day at the office is like me going through Mosul, Iraq which is basically like Mad Max, wearing a burqa, in the backseat of a l- you know, a thin-skinned vehicle with a belt-fed machine gun trying to hide from ISIS so I don't get, you know, my head cut off, with a couple other guys as we're trying to sneak around and look for ISIS, right? We're just playing cat and mouse. And I'm like, dude, at any point in time, my job was, like, looking like a- an Arabic woman in the back of a, you know, an old Corolla with a belt-fed machine gun, with a bunch of people that wanted to kill me every second of every day. And then you got a bunch of dudes that are like, "Oh my God, we're so tough." I'm like, "Man, you couldn't handle five seconds in my life on a normal day where my, where my, you know, beats per minute weren't f- weren't going ab- above 56."

Joe Rogan 1:10:15 And what's amazing is it's because of people like you that people like that get to express themselves in these ridiculous ways.

Evan Hafer 1:10:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:10:22 They don't understand that you have given them the freedom because of your dedication and sacrifice. You've given them the freedom to exist in this land and be ridiculous.

Evan Hafer 1:10:32 And I love it.

Joe Rogan 1:10:33 (laughs)

Evan Hafer 1:10:34 I do, man. I love it.

Joe Rogan 1:10:35 It's part of the gig.

Evan Hafer 1:10:36 It's part of the gig. It's like, like freedom's like a big buffet, right?

Joe Rogan 1:10:40 Yeah.

Evan Hafer 1:10:40 You don't have to take everything.

Joe Rogan 1:10:41 Right.

Evan Hafer 1:10:42 But it's all there.

Joe Rogan 1:10:42 You don't have to eat the tomatoes.

Evan Hafer 1:10:43 Yeah. It's like, "Ah."

Joe Rogan 1:10:44 (laughs)

Evan Hafer 1:10:44 "I'm gonna pass on that. That doesn't look too cool."

Joe Rogan 1:10:46 Yeah.

Evan Hafer 1:10:46 "That cheese looks old."

Joe Rogan 1:10:48 Right. Exactly.

Evan Hafer 1:10:49 But you don't have to take it all.

Joe Rogan 1:10:50 And some people, they feel disenfranchised, and they want to go right to the old cheese 'cause they're like-

Evan Hafer 1:10:55 (laughs) They're like-

Joe Rogan 1:10:55 They're like, "Gimme the fucking old cheese just like me."

Evan Hafer 1:10:57 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:10:57 "I want blue hair and old cheese and shitty music, and I'm wear- wearing Doc Martens-"

Evan Hafer 1:11:02 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:11:02 "... and I wanna fucking burn it all down." I mean-

Evan Hafer 1:11:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:11:05 ... that, that is what it is when people are rebels.

Evan Hafer 1:11:07 It's-

Joe Rogan 1:11:07 It's like-

Evan Hafer 1:11:07 Socialism, right?

Joe Rogan 1:11:08 ... they don't, they don't feel like they're, they're accepted in any other way, you know? I mean, that's a lot of what's going on today-

Evan Hafer 1:11:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:11:16 ... is there's a lot of people that are disenfranchised. They don't feel accepted by the modern mainstream world. And so they're filled with pain, and they're filled with heartache, and they're hurting, and they wanna burn it all down-

Evan Hafer 1:11:27 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:11:27 ... because they think that's the solution.

Evan Hafer 1:11:30 Well, I think a lot of it is just because they're not, they're not living up to their full potential, right? And, and, like when you're pushing the machine, and I, I like to tell people this. It's like, I'm pushing machine, my machine at 150%. Like, I can't get any more out of this brain or this body. Like, uh, I, I'm, I'm redlining basically 24 hours a day because I've gotta get it all, right? I'm, I'm gonna wring the sponge on this fucking thing, and I'm gonna get every ounce out of it.

Joe Rogan 1:11:58 Yeah.

Evan Hafer 1:12:00 And I think a lot of people, they're trying to stay in, in the confines of safety, and they're really trying to just, like, play it safe and not push it to the fucking max.

Joe Rogan 1:12:10 They wanna be body positive.

Evan Hafer 1:12:11 Yeah. Like-

Joe Rogan 1:12:14 Plus-size models.

Evan Hafer 1:12:14 (laughs) Yeah, plus size.

Joe Rogan 1:12:16 That's what it is.

Evan Hafer 1:12:17 I know.

Joe Rogan 1:12:18 Look, you know, if it was easy to do, just be enormous and obese and everybody would love you-

Evan Hafer 1:12:24 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:12:24 Well, that's what's going on now. You could just literally put in no effort whatsoever to take care of your machine and people go, "You go, boy."

Evan Hafer 1:12:33 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:12:33 "You go."

Evan Hafer 1:12:33 Hey, way to be lazy. Way to get everything-

Joe Rogan 1:12:36 Yeah.

Evan Hafer 1:12:36 ... you're, you're born into literally the, the, the life lottery in this, (clears throat) in this, in this country.

Joe Rogan 1:12:44 Yeah.

Evan Hafer 1:12:46 And way to get everything out of it by being a lazy piece of shit.

Joe Rogan 1:12:49 (laughs)

Evan Hafer 1:12:50 Like, go, you go.

Joe Rogan 1:12:51 Yeah.

Evan Hafer 1:12:51 Hit it. I, I was, I was talking to one of my buddies and he was telling me, he's like, "Well, what..." You know, he's asking me, I was telling him I was going on, on your show. He's like, "Well, what are you guys gonna talk about?" I'm like, "I don't fucking know. Like, we're gonna talk, just talk shit basically." And, uh, I, I was, I was, I was, it was talking to him about, like, this story about how I was like, "Man, maybe I'll tell him this story about how I took fan boats out into the middle of this f-... like, out in the middle of the jungle in the Philippines, trying to get into a gunfight.

Joe Rogan 1:13:20 Tell me that story.

Evan Hafer 1:13:21 Oh, y- uh, so, here's, here's a great story, right?

Joe Rogan 1:13:23 Okay.

Evan Hafer 1:13:23 Uh, now that I did the tee-up for it, but, uh-

Joe Rogan 1:13:27 (laughs)

Evan Hafer 1:13:27 So, I'd be- I'd been working in Afghanistan and Iraq for several years, and, um, I'm pretty comfortable with just trying to pick a gunfight. Like, I'm okay with it. Like, I'll go out and pick a gunfight. Fuck 'em. I'm gonna go, like, wreck some people. Like, I, I don't give a shit. And at that point in my life, I really didn't give a shit. Didn't have any kids. I was single. Like, "Let's, let's just go out and try to pick a gunfight." So I went out and looked at the, uh, maps as to all the ambushes the Filipino army had been in on, in a, in this specific area of the Philippines, and I was like, "Oh, okay, let's go do medical capabilities," um, which is where we go out and we bring in people from the tribe and we, uh, assess them for medical conditions. But really, all I was doing is just, like, taking these fan boats up this river into the middle of nowhere and then performing, um, a big show of force on every one of these ambush sites, trying to pick fights with the, the, um, the Filipino terrorist cells that are at the Abu Sayyaf. And, uh, at the same time, in the evenings when we'd come back, I would be singing karaoke with the Filipinos on these, like, dirt floor, uh, m- like, you know, thatch huts till, like, 3:00 in the morning, drinking, like, Kool-Aid and, uh, rice wine, just getting blind drunk, like, no shit, blind drunk every night. And then, we'd take fan boats into the middle of places trying to get in gunfights every morning. It was one of the coolest trips I've ever done, uh, in the army because we were completely unrestricted. All we were doing is trying to get in a gunfight. We never did. But when I think about how fucking cool that was, that the American taxpayer paid for me to go to the Philippines to try to get in a gunfight with a bunch of terrorists while I was singing karaoke till, like, 3:00 in the fucking morning- (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:15:17 (laughs)

Evan Hafer 1:15:17 ... taking fan boats into the middle of nowhere, I'm like, "You guys are awesome." And I can't thank everybody enough for that because not only, as you said it, you're like, "Hey, thank you for doing that," dude, it was so much fun. Like, the years that I was doing it, I always try to tell people, I'm like, "I should be thanking you because I had so much fucking fun throughout those years doing incredible things that people would say were a little bit dangerous and-"

Joe Rogan 1:15:45 A little bit?

Evan Hafer 1:15:46 Yeah, yeah, a little bit dangerous.

Joe Rogan 1:15:47 Little bit?

Evan Hafer 1:15:48 Uh, a lot dangerous, depending-

Joe Rogan 1:15:49 Really?

Evan Hafer 1:15:49 ... on the circumstance.

Joe Rogan 1:15:50 Really fucking dangerous?

Evan Hafer 1:15:51 (laughs) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:15:52 (laughs)

Evan Hafer 1:15:52 But I had a blast, man. And-

Joe Rogan 1:15:54 But y- but it takes a special type of person to enjoy that.

Evan Hafer 1:15:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:15:58 There's a lot of different people in this world. There's people in this world that should be tattoo artists. There's people in this world that should make balloon animals. And there's people in this world who should take fan boats and look for gunfights.

Evan Hafer 1:16:10 That was me.

Joe Rogan 1:16:11 Yeah.

Evan Hafer 1:16:11 Like that-

Joe Rogan 1:16:11 And you need everybody.

Evan Hafer 1:16:13 You need 'em all.

Joe Rogan 1:16:13 We need all of 'em.

Evan Hafer 1:16:14 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:16:14 We need guitarists.

Evan Hafer 1:16:16 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:16:16 We need painters. We need construction workers and carpenters and, and, uh, we need surgeons. We need everybody. There's a, it's a beautiful machine. It requires all sorts of things. It requires all sorts of different personalities and different... But the fact that we have the freedom for you to choose what you want to do, like, you're not being drafted.

Evan Hafer 1:16:36 No.

Joe Rogan 1:16:36 You enlisted.

Evan Hafer 1:16:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:16:37 You, you, you had the choice to do this. You sought out adventure. You sought out your life's purpose, whatever calling you had-

Evan Hafer 1:16:45 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:16:45 ... to join the military. And the fact that we live in this amazing experiment in self-government, that you have the freedom to do that. We have to protect those freedoms at all cost. Whether you agree with them or not, whether you agree with people's choices or not, you have to protect their ability to make those choices because it is the foundation that this country was founded on, freedom. That concept, this, uh, this idea of freedom, there's so many people that think it's frivolous, it's not important, it's not, it's not the, the, the main thing that we should be focused on. But it is the thing, it's the, the, the literal structure that allows this country to be so fucking amazing-

Evan Hafer 1:17:29 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:17:29 ... is that you can choose what you want to do. You can find the thing that... Everyone's different. You're different than me. I'm different than Jamie. We're all different. There's people next door that are totally different than us. It's find your thing. And this country allows people to find their thing. But you got to allow everybody to find their thing, as long as they're not fucking with your thing.

Evan Hafer 1:17:49 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:17:50 As long as someone's not interfering in a, in a malicious way with other people's, uh, happiness and, and, and ability to live, uh, a purposeful life. That is what we should be concentrating on, giving people as much freedom as they can to discuss things, to participate, to, to choose their path in life. And as soon as you see something, anything that comes along and inhibits your freedom, you should be very, very wary and very cautious of that thing. You should be very suspicious because anything that comes along that can inhibit your freedom is in, by definition, it's anti-American.

Evan Hafer 1:18:29 Mm-hmm. So I got a question for you, then. Because of this, do you think that your political or individual ideology, do you think that you fit into a political party in America today?

Joe Rogan 1:18:44 Definitely not.

Evan Hafer 1:18:45 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:18:45 No, I'm, I am such a fucking homeless person when it comes-

Evan Hafer 1:18:49 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:18:49 ... to politics. I am liberal in every social way. First of all, when I was a kid, my family, my parents were hippies. Um, we were on welfare. We, y- had food stamps. Like, that was what kept my family alive when I was a small boy. I remember it