Joe Rogan Experience #1763 - General H.R. McMaster

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. NANarrator0:00

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. HMH.R. McMaster0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (instrumental music plays) Ready to go?

   4. HMH.R. McMaster0:13

      Yeah, ready.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:13

      All right.

   6. HMH.R. McMaster0:13

      Ready. Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:14

      Well, thank you, sir. Very nice to meet you. Cheers.

   8. HMH.R. McMaster0:17

      Hey. Joke. Cheers, great to meet you.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:18

      Great to meet you. (glasses clink) Mm. I always wanted to smoke a cigar and have a scotch with a national security advisor.

   10. HMH.R. McMaster0:27

       (laughs)

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:27

       So here we go.

   12. HMH.R. McMaster0:29

       (laughs)

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:29

       All right. All right. I always wanted to be in one of them smoky rooms.

   14. HMH.R. McMaster0:33

       (laughs)

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:33

       Where all the, all the shit goes down.

   16. HMH.R. McMaster0:35

       (laughs)

   17. JRJoe Rogan0:36

       What... Is there a moment... 'Cause every, every person, every, you know, civilian wants to know, is there a moment when a president gets into office, where someone like you has to sit him down, they just got elected, someone like you has to sit him down and go, "All right, buddy. Here's what's going on in the world."

   18. HMH.R. McMaster0:55

       Yeah, I, I think so. I mean, I... You know, we, we were facing a number of challenges and opportunities, and a, a new president, you know, I think suddenly realizes that he's responsible for how we respond to those challenges and opportunities. So I think, you know, of course as a national security advisor, you know, that's kind of your job, right? Your job-

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:10

       Yeah.

   20. HMH.R. McMaster1:11

       You're, you're the only person in the foreign policy, national security establishment who has the president as his or her only client, right? So it's your job to help the president succeed, uh, in the area of foreign policy and national security.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:25

       And wha-... That job ve-... Y- you have to kind of be like a psychologist as well as a national security advisor, right? Because you... Especially if you're dealing with someone like Trump, who's a-

   22. HMH.R. McMaster1:35

       Right, well-

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:35

       ... big personality. So.

   24. HMH.R. McMaster1:36

       Yeah. And, and of course, you know, every, every president is different, right?

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:40

       Yeah.

   26. HMH.R. McMaster1:40

       And, and receives information differently and has a different set of priorities. And so I think it's really important to ensure that the way you interact with that president is consistent-

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:50

       Mm.

   28. HMH.R. McMaster1:50

       ... with the way that president receives information, you know, thinks all, you know, him or herself about, about the world, and help them evolve their understanding of these challenges and opportunities that we face internationally, and then give options, right? As national security advisor, like your job is not to determine foreign policy. Nobody elected you, right?

   29. JRJoe Rogan2:10

       Right.

   30. HMH.R. McMaster2:10

       Your job is to give that elected president the benefit of the best i- information, intelligence analysis available, and then to tee up options, right, and, and have forums for discussion where he can not just listen to you, 'cause you're not omniscient, right? You don't... You're not an all-knowing national security advisor. You should help convene groups that can help the president make the best decisions.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Right. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan15:00

      one from the right is gonna look at anything that Biden does and goes, "That is a great move for America. Kudos to him."

   2. HMH.R. McMaster15:06

      Right.

   3. JRJoe Rogan15:06

      It just doesn't happen anymore.

   4. HMH.R. McMaster15:08

      I know. And, and we've got to try to get back to that. And I think the only way to do it is for, like, your audience, you know, for people to demand better-

   5. JRJoe Rogan15:15

      Mm-hmm.

   6. HMH.R. McMaster15:16

      ... from those we elect and say, "Okay, hey, stop compromising our principles and our future to score partisan political points."

   7. JRJoe Rogan15:23

      Right.

   8. HMH.R. McMaster15:24

      Right? And, and, uh, and I, I think you, you see some, you see some inklings of that. I mean, there's a little bit of a consensus, I think, on, on the threat from the Chinese Communist Party, for example, and that's a big, bold shift we put in place, uh, in the early days of the Trump Administration, uh, you know, when we pulled together that principal s- small, you know, this small group, you know, framing session on China. I read an excerpt from the, the existing policy toward China and made the observation, "Hey, we're about to affect the biggest shift in US foreign policy since the end of the Cold War."

   9. JRJoe Rogan15:55

      What was the-

   10. HMH.R. McMaster15:56

       Right. Uh-

   11. JRJoe Rogan15:56

       ... what was the original poli- like, from the Obama administration? How did they approach China, and what was the difference between the way Trump approached it-

   12. HMH.R. McMaster16:03

       Well-

   13. JRJoe Rogan16:03

       ... or the Trump administration?

   14. HMH.R. McMaster16:04

       Yeah. Well, it was, it was a series of administrations, and of course, when the... there's the opening to China in, in '78, right? And, and really even before that with Kissinger's trip, right? But then the opening to China was really based on our view of China in the context of the Cold War. So, we saw China as a potential balancer against the Soviet Union. And what Kissinger and Nixon put together was this idea of triangular diplomacy. We would endeavor to have a closer relationship each with Russia, with, or Soviet Union, and with China than they had with each other, right? And, and so that was the Cold War generated policy. But then after the end of the Cold War, hey, we thought, again, great power of competition's over, right? Arc of history, guaranteed primacy of democratic governments. And, and so a series of, a, a series of administrations, you know, really took this approach to, to China that was based on a fundamentally flawed assumption. And that assumption was that China, having been welcomed into the international order, would liberalize, right? As it prospered, it would liberalize its economy and that it would liberalize its form of governance. And what we didn't consider is the degree to which emotions and ideology drive and constrain China's Communist Party leadership. We underestimated the degree to which, you know, the party is obsessed with control, maintaining its, its, its exclusive grip on power. And, and the party from the very beginning saw themselves in, you know, I mean, from the beginning of this assumption period in the '90s, in an ideological competition with us, but they were smart about it, right? They took a, a hide-and-bide approach. There's, there's a, um, there's a good book out recently by, uh, Ros D- Doshi, uh, about, about the long game, about how the party took this as a long game, and that there's a lot of continuity even between Deng Xiaoping in the '90s, right, and the opening up and Xi Jinping, although Xi is... Xi Jinping, the current chairman of the Chinese Communist Party has taken it to the, to the next level in terms of aggression against us. So, that was the, that was the, the dynamic was this assumption. President Bill Clinton, you know, advocated very hard, you know, for allowing China into the World Trade Organization, even though it was a state-directed economy that had uh, all kinds of unfair competitive advantages like state support for their main state-owned enterprises and so forth.And, uh... And- and- and when asked about, you know, "Well, what's going to happen in China?" He said, "Well, the Chinese Communist Party is gonna have to liberalize, right? Uh...

   15. JRJoe Rogan18:26

       Mm-hmm.

   16. HMH.R. McMaster18:26

       "... because of the internet and information that's available to the Chinese people." He said, "Trying to maintain control by the party in China would be like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall." Well, how's that working out?

   17. JRJoe Rogan18:37

       Th- they're pretty good at nailing Jell-O. (laughs)

   18. HMH.R. McMaster18:38

       They're pretty good... (laughs) They're pretty good at nailing Jell-O. Uh...

   19. JRJoe Rogan18:41

       Di-... Was there any anticipation at all, or- or, uh, d- did anybody predict that what China's done today is they've developed a sort of unique hybrid, uh, economy, where they're still communist...

   20. HMH.R. McMaster18:55

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan18:55

       ... they're still run by the Communist Party, but they're very much capitalist.

   22. HMH.R. McMaster18:58

       Mm-hmm.

   23. JRJoe Rogan18:58

       I mean, there's- there's billionaires in China, famously, and they walk step-in-step with the orders of the Communist Party. And that's a very unique form of government and a very unique, inexorable connection between the big businesses and the corporations and the government. They all work together. That- w- that seems, at least tactically, to be a unique advantage that they have, uh, economically and militarily over the United States. Because we- w- we- we have conflict between our business and our government. There's conflict, and there's manipulation...

   24. HMH.R. McMaster19:33

       Right.

   25. JRJoe Rogan19:33

       ... and influence, but it's not seamless. What they...

   26. HMH.R. McMaster19:37

       Right.

   27. JRJoe Rogan19:37

       ... seem to have is, like, seamless power and control over their corporations. If you are involved in any sort of large business, electronics, military, whatever, you work with the government.

   28. HMH.R. McMaster19:49

       Right.

   29. JRJoe Rogan19:49

       You work together. You follow their orders.

   30. HMH.R. McMaster19:50

       You have to, or you're better, right? Yeah.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Mm. …

   1. HMH.R. McMaster30:00

      right, that Ch- China would liberalize, it would play by the rules, we just stopped competing, right? And if you're not on the field, you know, you're gonna get your ass kicked (laughs) , right? So, a lot of what we're doing is reentering competitions that we'd s- that we'd stopped, right, under this false assumption. And so I, I think the supply chain issue is, is, is, is a big part of this and the assessment of vulnerabilities, and, you know, we're in a race 'cause it takes, you know, it takes, like, five, six years to develop a fab, you know, to generate semiconductors. There are big investments happening now in, in Phoenix. You know, for example, Phoenix is, is gonna be the site of a, of an, an, a, uh, you know, a big, a TSMC, uh, uh, big fab. TSMC is the, is the chip manufacturer that's based in Taiwan, right?

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:42

      Mm.

   3. HMH.R. McMaster30:43

      Which is, you know, a single point of failure almost, you know, for big parts of our supply chain internationally. And of course, the reason that's significant is it's in, it's in, it's in a place that's under threat by the Chinese Communist Party as well, so-

   4. JRJoe Rogan30:54

      Yeah, I think they're making a Samsung plant, a chip plant here in Texas as well.

   5. HMH.R. McMaster31:00

      They are. They are.

   6. JRJoe Rogan31:00

      Yeah.

   7. HMH.R. McMaster31:01

      Right, and in Austin. It's outside-

   8. JRJoe Rogan31:02

      Yeah.

   9. HMH.R. McMaster31:02

      ... of Austin, yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan31:03

       That's, uh ... It's just terrifying to think that we have to catch up in six years-... because six years in the world of tech is, uh, that's, uh, a hundred years, it's an eon.

   11. HMH.R. McMaster31:14

       It is. Well, there's, there's a lot you can do even before that, and I think it's starting to happen in terms of the shifting of supply chains elsewhere. You just saw Intel is gonna invest a lot in Malaysia. And you might think, "Well, why in Malaysia?" Well, I think the key is, it doesn't all have to be in the United States. It has to be in a number of places so it's resilient, right? If say, what if there's a, a natural disaster?

   12. JRJoe Rogan31:34

       Right.

   13. HMH.R. McMaster31:34

       A power at it- outage, right? You want multiple sources. And, and of course, you know, a- as you mentioned, the reason this became apparent to all of us was at the beginning of COVID.

   14. JRJoe Rogan31:42

       Yeah.

   15. HMH.R. McMaster31:42

       Right? When you couldn't get PPE and pharmaceuticals and, and so forth. So I think, you know, I think we're just waking up to this competition, and this ought to be one of those areas where we all come together, right?

   16. JRJoe Rogan31:53

       Yeah.

   17. HMH.R. McMaster31:53

       This oun- this should not be a partisan, uh, issue.

   18. JRJoe Rogan31:55

       At all.

   19. HMH.R. McMaster31:56

       At all. And it should be a multinational issue, right? The, the reason the subtitle of the book is The Fight to Defend the Free World is we need others to come with us, right?

   20. JRJoe Rogan32:04

       Yeah.

   21. HMH.R. McMaster32:04

       We need the European Union and the UK and Japan and Australia. I think that's starting to happen as well, right? Because, you know, the, you know, look at what Xi Jinping has done just since the pandemic, right? Foisted the pandemic on the world, you know, crushed anybody who was trying to ring the alarm bells about it. These are reporters and, and doctors, right? Then added insult to injury w- with this wolf warrior diplomacy, which I know you've talked about on, on the show here as well. Uh, and then, and then a range of aggressive actions, like, you know, bludgeoning Indian soldiers to death on the Himalayan frontier, right? Scores of overflights into, into Taiwanese, uh, air defense identification zone. Weaponizing islands in the South China Sea, and if they, if they succeed, there will be the largest land grab, so to speak, in history. And that's, you know, by the way, an area across which one-third of the world's surface trade flows, right? You know, the intimidation towards Japan, a massive campaign of economic coercion against Australia and now Lithuania. And so what I would often hear, you know, from friends, you know, in, in Southeast Asia and beyond, you know, these are my counterparts when, uh, who I was engaging when I was National Security Advisor, they would say, "Hey, don't, don't force us to choose," right? "Don't force us to choose between Washington and Beijing." And what I, what I would tell them is, "Hey, that's not the choice you face," right? "The choice you face is between sovereignty and servitude," right? And, you know, the, the United States is on the side of sovereignty. China wants servitude, because what Xi Jinping wants to do, and the party's clear about this, is they want to establish exclusionary areas of primacy across the Indo-Pacific region. And excluding who? Us, right? As the first step in, in really being able to rewrite some of the rules of international commerce and political discourse and, and then to isolate their, their regional rival, Japan, right? And so I, I think it's, we're at a critical moment where we have to compete effectively, and this is not, this does not mean that we have to, we're on a path to confrontation. Actually, I think, Joe, because we had vacated these competitive spaces, China became more and more emboldened, and we were actually on a path to confrontation. When now, I think this idea of transparent competition is, is the, is, is what we ought to really pursue with China.

   22. JRJoe Rogan34:17

       So do you, do you think that that makes us less likely to be in competition with China in terms, or, or less likely to be in conflict with China if we can change our whole, uh, economic profile here in terms of tech, in terms of manufacturing?

   23. HMH.R. McMaster34:32

       I, I do. I do, because I think really we have to recognize what China's trying to do, right? So we, and people, people talk about decoupling all the time, and you alluded to this a little bit, like, hey, you know, businesses have to make a decision, right? I mean, they, they've got responsibilities to their shareholders, they, you know, and, and so forth. So the whole idea of a complete decoupling, that's always been kind of like a red herring, right? That's not what we're talking about. I mean, what we ought to do is, is ask businesses, take a Hippocratic Oath, right? Don't do any hurt or harm in three areas. First of all, don't help the Chinese Communist Party gain an unfair differential advantage over us militarily or in the emerging data-driven, you know, uh, global economy. Second, right? I mean, don't help the party, you know, do, do, don't, don't help the party, uh, perfect its technologically-enabled Orwellian police state, right? Don't help them do that. Don't invest in Chinese AI companies, right, that are extinguishing human free- freedom and weaponizing peoples' social networks against them and everything. And then the third is, don't compromise the long-term viability of your company in exchange for short-term profits, right?

   24. JRJoe Rogan35:40

       Right.

   25. HMH.R. McMaster35:40

       And so many companies have been through this, right?

   26. JRJoe Rogan35:42

       Yeah.

   27. HMH.R. McMaster35:42

       I mean, and, and, uh, and, and so I, I think that's a way to think about it, and to think about it in light of what the Chinese Communist Party leadership wants, right? So what Xi Jinping talks about is a dual circulation economy, right? Where, where they get a grip on critical supply chains internationally. I mean, if you want to look at human rights abuses, look at what they're doing in, in the DRC, in the Congo, right? Uh, in terms of extracting, at a horrible humanitarian price, the, the, the rare earths that they need, uh, to continue their, their manufacturing of, of microelectronics, for example. Um, and, and, but what he wants to do is get a grip on those supply chains and then create enough domestic demand that he doesn't need anybody else, right?

   28. JRJoe Rogan36:25

       Right.

   29. HMH.R. McMaster36:25

       That he can write the terms to everybody else, that he has everybody else, you know, uh, i- in a position that, uh, of, of where he can use coercive power. And, and what, what I describe in Battlegrounds is this strategy, this, I think the, uh, the easy way to think about it is co-option, coercion, and concealment, right? Co-opt you, co-opt businesses, co-opt elites, right? With the lure of short-term profits and access to the Chinese market, right? Be it, you know, uh, uh, Chinese investment. And then once you're in, right, to use that, that influence for coercive purposes, right? Look at what they're doing to Lithuania. Look at what they're doing to Australia, right? Look at what they did to Marriott, MBA, you know, all, you know, uh, US and international companies. Um, and then, and then, and then to conceal all of this, say, "Oh, this is just normal business practices."

   30. JRJoe Rogan37:13

       Mm-hmm.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Yeah, it's ... When…

   1. HMH.R. McMaster45:00

      run out of, out of some of these, uh, embassies, right? And, and I think what is, what is most galling and what we ought to be the most upset about is how the Party is extending its repressive arm into our own country and intimidating Chinese students who are here, who are afraid to say anything in class, right? Because others might be reporting on them and reporting back to the Ministry of State Security or into this organization called the Chinese Students and Scholars Association, the CSSA, which is really a front organization for the MSS, the Ministry of State Security. And then, of course, these other, these other organizations, like Confu- Confucius Institutes, which are used as an arm of influence of the Party. I mean, tho- those ought to be shut down, you know, or marginalized. Um, and then we ought to, we ought to maybe take it on ourselves, and I think this is what every university president and provost and, should get behind, is, hey, make sure that no student, regardless of where they come from, are subjected to intelligence collection and intimidation, right? A university campus ought to be a university campus, right, that allows for the free expression of ideas. So, I think there's a lot that we can do that's not controversial at all, right, in, at, at the university level. And in this report I mentioned, uh, on, on the China Global Smart Power Initiative, we, we provide a guide for, like, "Hey, if you, if you run a research, you know, uh, activity, here are just some steps you can take, to just to do due diligence, right? Not to become an investigator, but just to make sure that you're insulating your sensitive technologies and intellectual property from industrial espionage broadly, not just from China, but especially from China, because theirs has been such a massive effort."

   2. JRJoe Rogan46:33

      Yeah, it's ... When y- I look at it personally, um, with, uh, the entrepreneur- entrepreneurial spirit of, uh, America and the freedom that America provides its citizens versus this connection that the Communist Party has with all businesses, and th- looking at it side by side, it's, it's a very unique and unprecedented competition. It's never existed like this before.

   3. HMH.R. McMaster46:58

      Yeah.

   4. JRJoe Rogan46:58

      And there's really no roadmap to follow in terms of, like, a historical l- competition that we can look at, like, "Well, this is how this has fared before, and this is where the shortcomings are." We're kind of navigating it in real time. Would you, uh, say that's accurate?

   5. HMH.R. McMaster47:12

      I think that's accurate, certainly in terms of scale. Now, there ... A- as a historian, you're not allowed to ever say anything's unprecedented, right? (laughs)

   6. JRJoe Rogan47:18

      Right.

   7. HMH.R. McMaster47:18

      So, (laughs) so I would say, I would say that when we realized the scope of the competition with the, the Soviet Union, which became the Cold War, we did have an assessment like that. You know, there's this idea today that the, the Soviet economy was completely decoupled from the West. It wasn't really, especially in the areas of energy and some other areas. So, there, there, there were some actions taken, and, and, and, um, and legislation passed and regulations put in place that were aimed at restricting the flow of, uh, of technology and competing, uh, against, uh, an authoritarian rival with a statist economy. So, I think you can learn from some of that. We have, we have systems in place, uh, like the Committee for Foreign Investment in the US, right, where, where we look at investments coming into US companies to ensure that those investments aren't, you know, a Trojan horse designed to exfiltrate sensitive technologies that are critical for defense, for example. Um, but what we need now is kind of a reverse CFIUS as well, to look at our investments going into China to make sure we're not enabling ... Or we're not underwriting our own demise, right?

   8. JRJoe Rogan48:20

      Yeah.

   9. HMH.R. McMaster48:20

      There's a, there's a quotation that is probably wrongly attributed to, to Vladimir Lenin, right, which is that, "The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them."

   10. JRJoe Rogan48:30

       Mm-hmm.

   11. HMH.R. McMaster48:31

       Well, it's actually worse in the case of China (laughs) because we're actually, you know, we're actually, you know, financing their purchase of the rope, so they can hang us.

   12. JRJoe Rogan48:40

       (laughs) Jesus, that's a crazy way to look at it, but it sounds pretty accurate. It's, uh ... It's interesting that up until the Trump administration, I think, there was a lot of the general public that wasn't even aware that there was this big economic conflict with China. And when he started this discussion of the unfair exchange and the way trade is done with China-

   13. HMH.R. McMaster49:05

       Right.

   14. JRJoe Rogan49:05

       ... and how it's unfair, there's a lot of people that were upset about that.

   15. HMH.R. McMaster49:08

       Right.

   16. JRJoe Rogan49:08

       I think. But during that negotiation or during that, the discussion of that, when it became a, a public, uh, d- point of, uh, interest-... it seemed like the fog lifted and showed the threat of China.

   17. HMH.R. McMaster49:22

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan49:22

       And I think it's only since 2016 on that most Americans are aware of how deep the rabbit hole goes with China, in terms of what you were saying earlier about like what they're, what they're doing in the Congo and other places to control and extract minerals and, and-

   19. HMH.R. McMaster49:37

       Right.

   20. JRJoe Rogan49:37

       ... resources and also to, uh, give loans out that they know can never be paid back-

   21. HMH.R. McMaster49:43

       Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan49:43

       ... so then they'll dominate these areas and, and, and control them. And strategically, they've been moving these pieces in place at a, at a kind of frightening rate.

   23. HMH.R. McMaster49:52

       Absolutely. And you know, the, the thing is with, uh, you know, I talked about, you know, co-option, coercion, concealment. I mean, the Chinese were really good at the concealment thing, right? I mean, they, they could just go, "Oh, you know, we're, we're about to liberalize. You know, it's really coming." And-

   24. JRJoe Rogan50:04

       Mm-hmm.

   25. HMH.R. McMaster50:05

       And, and I'll tell you, we, we have a short attention span, Joe. (laughs) And we don't look at history, you know?

   26. JRJoe Rogan50:09

       Yeah.

   27. HMH.R. McMaster50:09

       And I think they used, you know, personnel changes and, and administration changes to say the same thing over and over again. Look what they did on cyber espionage, right?

   28. JRJoe Rogan50:17

       Yeah.

   29. HMH.R. McMaster50:17

       Massive cyber espionage. And President Obama had that Rose Garden session with, with Xi Jinping and said, "Okay. We'll, we'll stop." Well, actually, they ramped it up. (laughs)

   30. JRJoe Rogan50:26

       Right. Yes.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:12:46

   Yeah. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:00:00

      FBI agents that... if, if the FBI agents were involved in January 6th.

   2. HMH.R. McMaster1:00:05

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:00:05

      Right.

   4. HMH.R. McMaster1:00:06

      I... That's... Joe, that doesn't sound right to me. I mean, I don't know. I didn't hear about it.

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:00:09

      What doesn't sound right? Agent provocateurs?

   6. HMH.R. McMaster1:00:11

      Yeah, agent provocateurs from the government. I mean, I can't imagine they would do that, you know.

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:00:15

      Well, why wouldn't she just say no?

   8. HMH.R. McMaster1:00:17

      Uh, I don't know. I don't-

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:00:18

      You wanna see it?

   10. HMH.R. McMaster1:00:19

       Yeah, I'll show... Yeah, I'll take a look at it.

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:00:20

       Yeah. Let's, let's, let's take a look at it, because it's... there's a... What is the guy's name? Ray Epps? The guy that everyone keeps discussing. 'Cause there's a guy who was encouraging people to go into the Capitol. He was, uh, a guy that was, uh, in multiple videos. And, you know, some people thought he was a Fed, like, immediately and other people were listening to him. But this guy was trying to encourage people to go into the Capitol Building. Here, let's, let's play this, just so you can hear Ted Cruz.

   12. NANarrator1:00:49

       I want to turn to the FBI. How many FBI agents or confidential informants actively participated in the events of January 6th? Sir, I'm sure you can appreciate that I can't go into the specifics of sources and methods. Uh- Did any FBI agents or confidential informants actively participate in the events of January 6th? Yes or no? Sir, I can't... I can't answer that. Did any FBI agents or confidential informants commit crimes of violence on January 6th? I can't answer that, sir. Did any FBI agents or FBI informants actively encourage and incite crimes of violence on January 6th? Sir, I can't answer that.

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:01:40

       Like, that's disturbing to the American people.

   14. HMH.R. McMaster1:01:42

       Yeah. Yeah. I-

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:01:42

       They see something like that, and whether it's-

   16. HMH.R. McMaster1:01:45

       I don't... I just-

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:01:45

       ... poor messaging on, on her part or whether it's...

   18. HMH.R. McMaster1:01:48

       I... just like... It's like Agent Friday, you know, "Just the facts, ma'am."

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:01:51

       Yeah. (laughs)

   20. HMH.R. McMaster1:01:51

       Which is like, "Come on, open up a little bit."

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:01:53

       Da da da da.

   22. HMH.R. McMaster1:01:53

       You know what I mean? You know, the, the analogy that comes to mind, and I... of course, you know, we'll continue to learn more about this, but... is that, you know, I'm sure there are DEA agents who participate in drug deals, you know, for example.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:02:04

       Yes. Right.

   24. HMH.R. McMaster1:02:04

       Because they're trying to, they're trying to gain visibility of an organization, for example. So I, I... My concern would be that...You know, I- I- I think, I hope that this commission takes kind of a longer view, right? And says, "Why were so many people believing," right? Believing that- that- that- that the election was invalid, and believing that their only recourse was to, you know, to assault the Capitol. And I think, Joe, if you get- if you take a long view of this, it goes back, I think, to the transition of the global economy in the '90s. You know, I think that there are large numbers of Americans who were disenfranchised, left behind by transitions in the- in the- in the economy. And then- and then, of course, after, you know, after World Trade Organization, entry of China, that accelerated, right? A loss of a lot of good manufacturing jobs. I don't know if you ever saw the, uh, there was a great documentary on Dayton, Ohio, like what happened to Dayton, Ohio, like, in this period of time. And then, you- you add on top of that, right? S- you know, you- you add, you know, the unanticipated length and difficulty of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. You lay on top of that a financial crisis, right? 2008, you know, 2009, and- and- and so many people who were affected in a profound way, you know, a- a- about- about that. Uh, and then- and then you, how about laying on an opioid e- epidemic, at the same- at the same time? And I think, you know, we, I- I think our society has received these blows, you know? And there are a large number of Americans who don't have faith in their political elites. They feel like they don't give a damn about them. They don't understand them, right? That they're, you know, that they're in this Washington bubble. And so, you know, I- I- I think that that dynamic of disenfranchisement, loss of confidence, also maybe explains some of the far left, you know, uh, you know, uh- uh, violence in- in-

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:03:42

       Yeah.

   26. HMH.R. McMaster1:03:42

       ... Portland and Seattle. So, I think what we have to do is work together, man, I mean to- to restore our confidence, right? Our confidence in who we are as Americans, our confidence in the great promise of this country. We all have to work together to help the younger generation take advantage of the great promise of this country, overcome the obstacles associated with, you know, with education, right? I mean, you know (laughs) , it shouldn't, it- it shouldn't be determined, you know, uh, you know, based on your ZIP Code how many obstacles you have to overcome before you can take advantage of the promise of this country.

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:04:15

       Sure. Yeah.

   28. HMH.R. McMaster1:04:15

       You know? So, I- I- I just hope, oh man, I just- I just hope that this- this experience that we've had, you know, in- in recent years can begin to bring us back together. 'Cause the trend has been, it's just, it's driving us even further apart, you know?

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:04:28

       Yeah, and that's, that trend is d- definitely accentuated by social media, and I'm sure by foreign actors involved in social media as well. Um, but I think when we're talking about the- the feeling of disenfranchisement, when you see something like that, and you think that maybe the FBI was involved in some agent provocateur maneuvers where they were trying to encourage people to do something violent or stupid, and, you know, a lot of those people that went to that January 6th thing, they were morons. And they were e- easily manipulated. And it's scary for people to think, like, the- the Governor Whitmer thing. I'm sure you're aware of that, that most of the people that were involved in that plot to kidnap her were feds.

   30. HMH.R. McMaster1:05:10

       Yeah.

Episode duration: 2:48:15