Joe Rogan Experience #1745 - Matt Taibbi

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumming) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. NANarrator0:00

      (drumming) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.

   2. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music)

   3. MTMatt Taibbi0:12

      So you like it down here better?

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:13

      I love it.

   5. MTMatt Taibbi0:14

      Yeah?

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:14

      I love it. Yeah. People are so nice. There's less of them, so they're not a burden. Oh, yeah.

   7. MTMatt Taibbi0:20

      (laughs)

   8. JRJoe Rogan0:20

      Yeah, you know, I think big cities, you just... People just become in your, they get in your way.

   9. MTMatt Taibbi0:26

      Right.

   10. JRJoe Rogan0:26

       And no one's in your way here. Everyone's friendly.

   11. MTMatt Taibbi0:28

       Yeah.

   12. JRJoe Rogan0:28

       It's like normal.

   13. MTMatt Taibbi0:29

       That's great.

   14. JRJoe Rogan0:29

       They're normal people. Plus, it's not tainted by show business. As much as people try to pretend that Hollywood, uh, you know, doesn't have an effect on their lives, "I'm in real estate." Get the fuck out of here. Like everyone is tainted by that, the weirdness of that city.

   15. MTMatt Taibbi0:43

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan0:43

       'Cause it's a city that's predicated on being full of shit. Like you have to-

   17. MTMatt Taibbi0:46

       I was gonna say.

   18. JRJoe Rogan0:47

       ... pretend or something.

   19. MTMatt Taibbi0:48

       Yeah, like everybody, as soon as they're talking, they're, they're, they start lying basically.

   20. JRJoe Rogan0:52

       (laughs)

   21. MTMatt Taibbi0:52

       Right?

   22. JRJoe Rogan0:53

       Well, they, they-

   23. MTMatt Taibbi0:53

       It's like an angle they play.

   24. JRJoe Rogan0:54

       For sure, like, p- it's they're selling themselves.

   25. MTMatt Taibbi0:58

       Right.

   26. JRJoe Rogan0:59

       And promoting an angle. And out here, no one's doing that.

   27. MTMatt Taibbi1:01

       Right.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:02

       It's so refreshing.

   29. MTMatt Taibbi1:03

       (laughs)

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:03

       It's like, "This is Mike. He does, he makes barbecue." "Oh, oh, hi Mike."
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Mm-hmm. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan15:00

      because of you two."

   2. MTMatt Taibbi15:01

      Mm-hmm.

   3. JRJoe Rogan15:01

      "It has nothing to do with being attached to any other organization that's gonna siphon money off of you."

   4. MTMatt Taibbi15:06

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan15:07

      And so look at them. They're n- they, they were number one almost instantly-

   6. MTMatt Taibbi15:10

      Right.

   7. JRJoe Rogan15:10

      ... and they've maintained that position the entire time, and they're bigger than ever now.

   8. MTMatt Taibbi15:13

      Right, yeah. And they were raised... They had that hesitation because we're raised in, in media, in, in professional corporate media to be terrified of leaving the fold.

   9. JRJoe Rogan15:25

      Yes.

   10. MTMatt Taibbi15:25

       Now, I actually came up through alternative media, so I wasn't afraid of, of leaving it. I had my own newspapers when I lived overseas. Um, th- the idea of being out in the wilderness didn't frighten me so much. So when I moved to Substack, I, I just thought, "This is probably gonna be cool. It's probably gonna work," right?

   11. JRJoe Rogan15:41

       That's cool.

   12. MTMatt Taibbi15:41

       But a lot of people who came up, who came up-

   13. JRJoe Rogan15:44

       Yeah.

   14. MTMatt Taibbi15:44

       ... you know, they... You, you do think, "Wow, I'm never gonna, I'm never gonna get back in to the club. And if I, if I don't make enough money, that's it. You know, that's it for me," which is why they're staying. But you're... Look, look at, look at how much success they've had. The audience out there is huge.

   15. JRJoe Rogan15:59

       Yeah.

   16. MTMatt Taibbi15:59

       They're probably making more money than they ever dreamed that they, they would, they would make. And, um, you know, there's opportunities to do all kinds of amazing things now because of that.

   17. JRJoe Rogan16:07

       Yeah, there really is. And, um, you know, I was really fortunate that I had other jobs when I first started doing this podcast, and the podcast was never... When the... The beginning of it a- at first was never for money, it was just for fun.

   18. MTMatt Taibbi16:20

       Mm-hmm.

   19. JRJoe Rogan16:20

       I never thought of it as a job at all. And so when I'd gotten it to the point where it started to become valuable, there were a bunch of vultures that tried to buy half of it or take over. Like, o- one... There was one, like, podcast network that literally wanted to take 50% of the show just to be on the network.

   20. MTMatt Taibbi16:39

       (laughs)

   21. JRJoe Rogan16:40

       And I was like, "What are you talking about?" Like, "This is-"

   22. MTMatt Taibbi16:42

       Why would I do that? (laughs)

   23. JRJoe Rogan16:42

       They, they go, "Well, well, well, you'll have more ad revenue 'cause you'll be connected to our, um, whatever, our network." I go, "What fucking network?"

   24. MTMatt Taibbi16:50

       Right.

   25. JRJoe Rogan16:50

       Like, the... Like, this is a podcast, man. This is a different... Like, they didn't even understand. They're... Th- and this was quite a few years ago before I did... gotten big. But, but the point is I know friends that took that deal.

   26. MTMatt Taibbi17:02

       Mm-hmm.

   27. JRJoe Rogan17:03

       That gave their podcast over to this network and became a part of it, and now they're probably kicking themselves.

   28. MTMatt Taibbi17:08

       Right.

   29. JRJoe Rogan17:09

       'Cause, like, I'm sure it's, like, a permanent deal. Like, I'm sure they own 50% of it forever or whatever percentage they... I mean, maybe they started with 50 and negotiated down. I don't know. But the point is there's so many people that when given the opportunity to have, like, some real security, like, this is gonna... You're gonna be connected to this network, they're gonna protect you, they're gonna bring in the ads, you don't have to do anything, and they just take a percentage of it, but you will always have income 'cause you'll be connected to us and we are a big corporation and you're like, "Oh, just like when I was on NBC."

   30. MTMatt Taibbi17:42

       Right.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Right, yeah. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan30:00

      think, like, "Which guy is writing it and how accurate is his reporting? How full of shit is he? How- did- you know, does sh- is she a hardcore lefty or is she, like, a centrist?" Like, what- what did- what do we- what am I getting here?

   2. MTMatt Taibbi30:12

      Right, yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan30:12

      It used to be I could just read the New York Times and this is the story. Hey, Jamie, I made a little sp-

   4. MTMatt Taibbi30:18

      Want something?

   5. JRJoe Rogan30:18

      Chuck me something over there.

   6. MTMatt Taibbi30:21

      Thank you.

   7. JRJoe Rogan30:23

      This stuff, I'm, um, um, subconsciously trying to pour it out 'cause I know-

   8. MTMatt Taibbi30:27

      (laughs)

   9. JRJoe Rogan30:27

      ... I'll drink the whole goddamn thing.

   10. MTMatt Taibbi30:29

       (laughs)

   11. JRJoe Rogan30:29

       This is this black rifle coffee sugary-

   12. MTMatt Taibbi30:32

       It's- it's actually-

   13. JRJoe Rogan30:34

       Too good.

   14. MTMatt Taibbi30:34

       ... it's really good, yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan30:35

       It's too good.

   16. MTMatt Taibbi30:35

       Yeah, this is gonna become a new problem, by the way.

   17. JRJoe Rogan30:37

       It's got 300 fucking m- milligrams or grams of, uh, what, yeah, milligrams of, uh, caffeine. That's a lot.

   18. MTMatt Taibbi30:43

       That's awesome.

   19. JRJoe Rogan30:45

       Yeah, so I spilled it. Um, yeah, it's- it's strange but I think this is just what happens when something new comes around. It's always what happens. There's always, like, this attack against it, the denial that there's anything wrong with the original product and... I saw it in martial arts. I mean, I was a part of martial arts when, you know, I was a child, and then when the UFC came around- aro- along there was all of this, uh, rejection of the idea behind it, it was barbaric, it was, you know, you only need this and you don't need to learn how, all this other stuff and- and then eventually everybody gave up.

   20. MTMatt Taibbi31:18

       Right.

   21. JRJoe Rogan31:18

       And now it's clearly established, like, that is th- uh, 100% the best form of martial art for an actual physical confrontation, is a combination of all the things.

   22. MTMatt Taibbi31:27

       Mm-hmm.

   23. JRJoe Rogan31:27

       But you s- it's like with everything, when something new comes along that's superior, there's a rejection of it, there's a- an attack against it, and then...Eventually, the dust settles and people realize, like, "Oh, this is what's going on."

   24. MTMatt Taibbi31:40

       Yeah. No, there's, there's a, there's a total blindness within the, within the media business to, uh, th- they just can't see how audiences perceive them. Um, you know, o- once upon a time, I think the, the idea within the news business was pretty simple. Like, reporters were raised, basically, "We'll get all the facts, we'll work really hard on getting it right. We'll give it to you, and then you do what you want with it." It's, it's, (clears throat) it's not our job to tell you what decisions to make. It's our, just our job to get it correct. Right? And then that's the news. After that, you know, it's up to you to make your own political decisions. Um, but that's why political affiliation didn't necessarily mean so much back in the day. It wa- it was always true that basically all reporters were Democrats, but it didn't show so much in the news media once upon a time because we had a professional ethos that just said, "We're not supposed to care." Right?

   25. JRJoe Rogan32:36

       Right.

   26. MTMatt Taibbi32:37

       We go into, we, we go into cover whatever. We're just gonna collect all the facts, get all the quotes, put it out there, make sure everything's been checked, and then it's your, it's your deal. Now, there's this new ethos that, that, what, uh, Wesley Lowery, the reporter, calls the view from nowhere journalism, which is what I just described. Um, but that's not good enough that we, uh, they have to compensate for inequities in the system by basically trying to impact how people behave, uh, through coverage. And this is what they do all the time, and they're, they're trying to get you to, to make political decisions by how they cover things. And I saw this early on as a, as a campaign reporter, uh, once when I was much younger, you know, in 2004 and 2008. I would sit in the bus with the reporters, and they would be discussing which candidates they were going to describe as fringe, which ones they were gonna, were going to be described as electable, which ones would be serious. Right? Because they want ... They, they enjoyed having the power of deciding for people, you know, who got to be taken seriously and who, who didn't. Um, and I- I think that, that urge to mold how people act is just ingrained in the business, and it's so off-putting. You know? I think-

   27. JRJoe Rogan33:58

       It is.

   28. MTMatt Taibbi33:59

       What people, and especially w- with something like the pandemic, people are desperate. They really, really need just to get the basic information. And instead, you know, when the pandemic happened, we were in the middle of this super intense culture war that was revolved around Trump. So everything was viewed through that lens, you know? Like hydroxychloroquine, Trump liked it, or Tr- Trump said he was taking it, therefore it must be bad. Therefore, you know, it must not work. But that's not how it worked. Th- th- it's not the drug's fault that Don-

   29. JRJoe Rogan34:30

       Yeah.

   30. MTMatt Taibbi34:30

       ... that Donald Trump took it, you know?
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   It is. But I…

   1. MTMatt Taibbi45:00

      let, uh, politicians write our material for us? I mean, it's, it's, it's just... it's shameful.

   2. JRJoe Rogan45:07

      It is. But I think it's just the last d- death twitches of that business. I, I just think this is a sign of the times in that if you think about it, uh, uh, a decentralized source of news is really the only way we're gonna trust it today, something that is completely independent of a large corporation where they have a lot of vested interesteds... a lot of vested interests in pushing a certain narrative. Those thing... they're never gonna be pure, not anymore. I mean, whatever, whatever the fuck they did when they allowed pharmaceutical drug companies to advertise on television. And we're onl- one of only two countries on planet Earth that allows that. They allowed the deepest roots of corruption and of influence to ge- get in the way of all narratives, of everything-

   3. MTMatt Taibbi46:00

      Mm-hmm.

   4. JRJoe Rogan46:02

      ... we say and do.

   5. MTMatt Taibbi46:02

      Mm-hmm.

   6. JRJoe Rogan46:02

      And the, the, the fucking sheer amount of money that's being generated by that is almost unstoppable. You could never cut all those roots. There's no way. And at-

   7. MTMatt Taibbi46:12

      And it's-

   8. JRJoe Rogan46:12

      ... this point?

   9. MTMatt Taibbi46:13

      Yeah. It's, it's... and that amount of money is nothing to them. I mean-

   10. JRJoe Rogan46:16

       Nothing.

   11. MTMatt Taibbi46:17

       ... loo- look, look at the amount of, uh, the profits that companies like, you know, Moderna and-

   12. JRJoe Rogan46:21

       Yeah.

   13. MTMatt Taibbi46:22

       ... Pfizer are making right now. And, you know, like, um... The, the, for... to buy the ascent of basically all the networks, all, all you have to do is, you know, send a tiny percentage of your quarterly profits to, uh, a handful of news networks. And to them, it's like manna from heaven. I mean, again, the, the news business is so starved for revenue, um, that they'll, they'll, you know, they'll bend to anybody basically.

   14. JRJoe Rogan46:46

       Did you see that... um, I mean, I know Jimmy Dore covered it, but quite, quite a few other people have realized it now. The amount of money the... that Bill Gates has spent on, uh, influencing media.

   15. MTMatt Taibbi46:59

       No. I, I, I didn't know-

   16. JRJoe Rogan47:01

       It's somewhere in the neighborhood of $300 million-

   17. MTMatt Taibbi47:03

       Geez.

   18. JRJoe Rogan47:04

       ... he's donated to of... these various media organizations-

   19. MTMatt Taibbi47:08

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   20. JRJoe Rogan47:09

       ... which for sure has some sort of an impact on how they cover him.

   21. MTMatt Taibbi47:14

       Right. Well, of course. Yeah. And, and, uh, look, the... once upon a time, we were, uh... I have to say that many times, we were trained to, to know, uh, that, for instance, think tanks, right? Like, uh, who they w-... who w- was funding them because think tanks are who get quoted, uh, in, in The New York Times and The Washington Post, right? So, uh, they're generating research that goes to journalists and, and, and, like, sort of surreptitiously, that then ends up becoming what's covered. And so that's how, like, the Gates Foundation, for instance, will work its way into coverage. Uh, you know, it will sponsor research in an area like education. That's one of the things I'm covering now. Um, and its research becomes, you know, uh... i- it gets, it gets into the news that way. Um, but we were supposed to once have, uh, uh, you know, our ears up and, and be conscious of who was paying for all this, this research. Where was that information coming from? And, you know, people don't really even think about it now.

   22. JRJoe Rogan48:14

       See if you can find that story, Jimmy.

   23. NANarrator48:16

       I'm looking. I'm looking right now. I'm reading a article about someone, uh... last year, actually. I was looking into it. Uh, here, I'll show you. Journalism's Gateskeepers is what it's called.

   24. JRJoe Rogan48:28

       Mm-hmm.

   25. MTMatt Taibbi48:29

       This is-

   26. JRJoe Rogan48:29

       Columbia Journalism Review.

   27. MTMatt Taibbi48:31

       CJR.

   28. JRJoe Rogan48:31

       Is that a res- respected publication?

   29. MTMatt Taibbi48:34

       Yeah. No, I mean, look, they've had their issues but they're... that's the top media criticism outlet, right?

   30. JRJoe Rogan48:42

       Okay. So this is last year. It says, "A recently examined nearly 20,000 charitable grants the Gates Foundation made through the end of June and found that more than 250 million going towards journalism."
5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   That's terrifying. …

   1. MTMatt Taibbi1:00:00

      The, the, th- the ... There's, there's only a couple of problems. The pro- ... One is that there aren't that many people who know how to do the job that well left. Like, uh-

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:10

      That's terrifying.

   3. MTMatt Taibbi1:00:11

      Yeah. No, it is. It's, it's, it's pretty scary. I mean, I think, um, uh, you could've found, uh, a, a fair number of reporters who, who, who knew how to do hardcore investigative journalism, you know, 10 years ago or 15 years ago. But, uh, uh, the current generation has been raised on a different model that's based on being quick, uh, you know, getting a couple of quotes, putting something up fast that ... And it's brief, and it's more of a take than it is a dig. Uh, and so that mentality is, is ... Of just investigative, uh, work is, is, is disappearing. So you'd have the problem of finding people who can do it. The other problem is audiences don't necessarily love what we, we, we call, like, e- eat-your-vegetables journalism.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:59

      (laughs)

   5. MTMatt Taibbi1:00:59

      Right? Like, there, there's, there's some of it out there. There's plenty of ... Th- th- there are people who do good work, but they have difficulty getting people to, um, to follow it because people do love the, the shit that's out there, right?

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:01:11

      Yeah.

   7. MTMatt Taibbi1:01:11

      They, they, they, they eat up the culture war stuff.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:01:14

      Yeah.

   9. MTMatt Taibbi1:01:14

      Um, so those are, those are two problems. I think y- uh, I've always approached it that part of the job is, is a sales job. Like, you, you have to get people interested in stuff that's important. You have to find a way to do it, whether y- you're using humor, whether, you know, you're using illustrations. It doesn't matter whether you use fiction-writing narrative techniques to get people hooked on something. Um, you know, that's, that's part of the job, I think. Uh, and, and you have to do the investigative stuff. So it's, it's, it's a tough thing. It takes a while to develop all those skills, and they're not teaching, um, kids in journalism to do that as much anymore.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:01:55

       Do you think that with the rise of independent journalists, do you think that it's possible that that might open up and people might look at that as a viable career path, and they might say, "Hey, this is actually ... It's actually coming back"?

   11. MTMatt Taibbi1:02:10

       I would hope so. I mean, if, if the money's there, it's the greatest job in the world. I mean, like, you know, this, this job has taken me all over the planet. I've gotten to meet every conceivable kind of person o- on Earth, everyone from presidential candidates to professional athletes, to people in prison, to, you know, e- everywhere. And you can go anywhere doing journalism. Um, and y- you, you get to play detective sometimes, right? Which it's, it's a really cool thing. You gotta, you gotta do the work of, you know, coming to a situation and figuring out who did what, and that's mentally and intellectually stimulating. It's, it's a, it's a great, great job. Um-... but people have been, um, I think they've been, uh, turned off to it because this new version of, of the job is much more like professional flattery. It's much more political. Uh, they're, they're, they're training kids to be like courtiers basically, and they, the people who come out of pr- journalism schools now, they, they want to be close to power. Like, they, they, that, that's the attraction for them is, is the, the idea of being the person who gets to sit next to a Hillary Clinton aide at a bar, um, you know, at the end of a day and, you know, "Oh, I know this person." Or, "I hang out at a party with this person." Like-

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:03:29

       Yeah.

   13. MTMatt Taibbi1:03:29

       ... that, instead of, you know, going around the world or breaking a big story, like, that, that, that's what it is. And, uh, uh, I, I think it's unfortunate because it's a cool job.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:03:39

       I- it is a c- it's not just a cool job. It's a cool job with romantic roots.

   15. MTMatt Taibbi1:03:43

       Absolutely.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:03:44

       You know? Yeah. I mean, think about how many incredible stories have been broken and, you know, Woodward and Bernstein, how many, ho- how people look at these people, you know?

   17. MTMatt Taibbi1:03:53

       Yeah. Think, think of the people who, who've been journalists-

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:03:56

       Yeah.

   19. MTMatt Taibbi1:03:56

       ... who, who've done such incredible things, you know, everybody from, like, Ida Tarbell to Mark Twain to, um-

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:04:02

       To Hunter Thompson.

   21. MTMatt Taibbi1:04:03

       ... H- Hunter Thompson, E- Evelyn Waugh. Like, you know?

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:04:05

       Yeah.

   23. MTMatt Taibbi1:04:06

       It, it's, it's a great place for, for, uh, if you, if you want to be a writer. I mean, that, that, that's how I got into it 'cause I, I, I, I wanted to be a writer. Um, but if you wanted to, if you want to be a great investigator, uh, you know, you can do, uh, that's a way into it too. Um, you know, the, th- there's the whole tradition of what we, uh, what we call participatory journalism where you do something and then you, and then you write about it.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:04:30

       Mm-hmm.

   25. MTMatt Taibbi1:04:31

       Um, you know, the, George Plimpton was famous, right, for, for, you know, uh, playing professional football, uh, the Paper Lion story. Uh, but, you know, I, I've done some of that, you know, like doing w- you know, work in Russia or, uh, you know, going undercover. I lived in a church in Texas, uh, for a wh- uh-

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:04:49

       Did you really?

   27. MTMatt Taibbi1:04:50

       Yeah, yeah. Actually the, the John Hagee, uh, uh, church in San Antonio. Um, I sort of joined that church and wrote a r- r- wrote a, uh, w- about my experiences there.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:05:00

       What were you doing there?

   29. MTMatt Taibbi1:05:01

       Um, so it was like an apocalyptic church. It was one of those-

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:05:04

       (laughs)
6. 1:15:00 – 1:16:37

   Oh, okay. So, well,…

   1. MTMatt Taibbi1:15:00

      The, the whole idea that you... The... Something like that is determined by biology runs a little bit counter to, to current thinking.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:15:11

      Oh, okay. So, well, trans-

   3. MTMatt Taibbi1:15:12

      Gender fluidity.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:15:13

      ... is very different though, right?

   5. MTMatt Taibbi1:15:14

      Yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:15:15

      The, the reason why tran- trans is different, because there are trans people, right, that start off as biological males, and they identify with being a female. But they've had children with females, and they've had relationships with females. And then, as they transition, they remain attracted to females.

   7. MTMatt Taibbi1:15:37

      Right.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:15:37

      This is very common.

   9. MTMatt Taibbi1:15:39

      Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:15:39

       So, I don't think it's quite the same as gay. It's, it's very different in that it's... Whatever it is in the human mind that makes you identify with another gender, it seems to have nothing to do with your sexual preference.

   11. MTMatt Taibbi1:15:54

       Hmm. Okay.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:15:56

       Yeah.

   13. MTMatt Taibbi1:15:57

       I know absolutely nothing about it, so I- I- I shouldn't opine.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:16:00

       I know enough about it. Well, I, I knew almost nothing about it until I got, like, a- attacked for attacking a, um, uh, female MMA fighter who used to be male for 30 years and then wasn't telling anybody that she used to be male and transitioned. And fought two different times against females that thought she was a biological female, and beat the fuck out of them.

   15. MTMatt Taibbi1:16:24

       Right.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:16:24

       I mean, like, horrendous beatings. Broke this lady's skull. Like, literally fractured her face. It was scary stuff. And th- when you watch the fights, it, the fights looked like a guy beating up a woman.

Episode duration: 3:21:01