Joe Rogan Experience #1793 - Mike Baker

1. 0:01 – 2:08

   “Are we fucked?”—setting the tone: crisis fatigue after pandemic

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:01

      (drumming music plays) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. NANarrator0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music plays) Mike Baker-

   4. MBMike Baker0:14

      Mm-hmm.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:14

      ... are we fucked?

   6. MBMike Baker0:15

      Mr. Rogan, we are fucked. (laughs)

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:17

      (laughs) This is not good, right?

   8. MBMike Baker0:18

      (laughs)

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:19

      This is not good.

   10. MBMike Baker0:19

       How much fun is this? Every time we get together, there's some-

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:22

       It seems like it.

   12. MBMike Baker0:23

       ... bullshit happening. Yeah, yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:25

       Yeah. Some... Every time, the world is, uh, somewhat falling apart.

   14. MBMike Baker0:28

       Yeah, yeah. Well, it's good for business. Um, I didn't mean that, actually. That s- sounds-

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:33

       You shouldn't say that.

   16. MBMike Baker0:33

       ... sounds wrong. No, no.

   17. JRJoe Rogan0:34

       Yeah.

   18. MBMike Baker0:34

       That's what people expect me to say, I think, but-

   19. JRJoe Rogan0:36

       Right.

   20. MBMike Baker0:36

       ... um, yeah, yeah, I, I think, uh, (clears throat) nobody really expected, uh, the potential for t-thermonuclear war, uh, right after two years of a pandemic. I don't think anybody actually saw that coming.

   21. JRJoe Rogan0:48

       Yeah, well there was no break-

   22. MBMike Baker0:49

       Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan0:49

       ... for the weary.

   24. MBMike Baker0:50

       Yeah, exactly. Every- it comes out... I did have a thought (laughs) , which was, I talked to my, I talked to my daughter the other day. She's just turned 28. And I thought, after I hung up, (sniffs) she was talking about it, and she was kind of basically saying, "What the fuck?" Right? And so I th- people that age, if you think about those, the folks in that age group, uh, she was born, you know, she was old enough to understand 9/11, right, in a sense, from a child's perspective. And then, through the Iran, or the Iraq, A- Afghanistan, you know, bullshit, that, that whole time, with the war on terrorism. Couple of recessions, right? Global pandemic. Now, you know, approaching Cold War 2.0, getting close to thermonuclear war, (laughs) not that we are. Uh-

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:31

       And the disastrous pull out of Afghanistan.

   26. MBMike Baker1:33

       And the, and A- af- Afghanistan, uh, inflation possibly leading too.

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:37

       Yeah.

   28. MBMike Baker1:37

       Recession.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:38

       $7 a gallon gas in California.

   30. MBMike Baker1:40

       Yeah. People, people of that age, not, not able to save money for a, for a house. They must just be thinking, "What the fuck?" You know?
2. 2:08 – 5:17

   Putin, nukes, and why the invasion shouldn’t have surprised anyone

   1. JRJoe Rogan2:08

      This Putin, the Putin thing scares the shit out of me, though, because he's a, you know, when it comes to warlords, he's a legitimate warlord-

   2. MBMike Baker2:19

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan2:19

      ... who is in charge of, I didn't know that they had more nukes than us. I mean, I guess it's kind of a moot point, right, because everybody's got an-

   4. MBMike Baker2:29

      How many does he need? Yeah, how many do you need?

   5. JRJoe Rogan2:30

      Everybody's got enough to kill everybody.

   6. MBMike Baker2:32

      Right.

   7. JRJoe Rogan2:32

      How many times over?

   8. MBMike Baker2:33

      Yeah. Um-

   9. JRJoe Rogan2:33

      Isn't it something crazy like ten times over?

   10. MBMike Baker2:36

       Yeah, they did the math, and, and it was, it was in double digits. (laughs)

   11. JRJoe Rogan2:39

       It's not good.

   12. MBMike Baker2:39

       It's not, it's not good, but it's, look, if you, if you step back, everybody's, everybody's thinking, "Okay, how did this, you know, how did this fucked up situation happen?" Uh, well, it's been building, obviously, right? I mean, we have, how much news coverage do we have of, "Well, they're adding more troops to the border with Ukraine. Wonder what they're doing? Could be-

   13. JRJoe Rogan2:55

       Yeah.

   14. MBMike Baker2:55

       ... military exercises." So there was a tremendous amount of speculation leading up to, "What the fuck is going on?" Which, in a sense, points to how, uh, lacking the intelligence is on, on Putin, on plans and intentions, right? And he's, he's a, that's a heavy lift, right? To, to come up with that sort of intel, because ideally, you're gonna want a human source. Um, you know, you can get SIGINT, you can get, uh, whatev- you can, you can gather intelligence from a variety of sources. But you really want human access, people who can tell you, "You know what? I had a meeting with him, and boy, I tell you what, he was pissed off." Or, "This is what he said," or, "This is how he looked." Without that, without knowing what plans and intentions are, or, you know, being, uh, able to gather intel on, say, the command staff, um, e- everybody was kind of speculating. Will he, won't he? What's he going to do? Well, stepping back, if you look at what he's done, (laughs) he's been pretty damn consistent, right, over the years. And so, I guess, you know, in a part, a lot of it was optimistic thinking. Okay, he's, he just wants the eastern part of the country. He's just gonna go in there and take that, because, you know, maybe he's, he's already got it. He's declared those two republics legit. Maybe that's all he wants. He's already taken Crimea. And so that, I think that was optimistic thinking, hoping that, you know, the guy's not going to lose his shit and go all, all the way through the country. Well, that's what he's done. And in part, because again, if you look at what he did in Chechnya, if you look at what he did helping Assad in Syria, if you look at what he did annexing Crimea, if you look at, uh, Georgia, uh, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, every step of the way, he's been following in his mind this stated desire, that he's made very public over the years, to rebuild his sphere of influence. Right? So in, in part, you could argue we kind of missed the obvious. Right? We didn't see the obvious. In fa- it's because we were all kind of hoping and mirroring our values on, onto, onto Put- Putin, who doesn't deserve to have our values mirrored onto him, because we're thinking, "Maybe, maybe he just wants a little bit. Maybe he's just trying to make a point. Maybe he just wants them to sign a charter saying they won't be part of NATO." So anyway, uh, I, I, you know, my point being twofold, I guess. We, we missed the boat on that. We missed it in part because we, we're always trying to be optimistic and trying to think, "Okay, well, maybe they think like we do. Maybe there's a rational process there." And then part of it is, uh, intel was lacking.

3. 5:17 – 7:34

   How hard is it to get real intel on Putin? The HUMINT problem

   1. JRJoe Rogan5:17

      And when it comes to intel, when you're talking about like in-person intel, uh, how difficult is that to get on a guy like Putin?

   2. MBMike Baker5:25

      It's really tough. It's, uh, I mean, it, that, you know, look, it's a, it's a very heavy lift the higher they go up the food chain, um, because the, the smaller your pool of, of potential access points are, right? So, you know, you've got some mid-level person floating around, you know, at, uh, a government office somewhere in some target country, and, you know, maybe you've got lots of options. "Okay, who do they socialize with?" Right? "Who can I get access to? Who, who might, you know, be next to them, you know? Do they have a driver? Can I recruit the driver?" Just things like that.

   3. JRJoe Rogan5:54

      Right.

   4. MBMike Baker5:54

      Right? And sometimes it's very simple. But, uh, Putin's had a, uh, increasingly small circle.... of, of close advisors and the people that he, he counts on and trusts. And part of that may be, you know, the fact that that was accelerated through the two-year pandemic, where he decidedly was shutting himself off, uh, because he was, he was, you know, paranoid like a lot of people were about COVID.

   5. JRJoe Rogan6:17

      Do you remember when there was a, a guy who suicide drove into Putin's car and Putin wasn't in it?

   6. MBMike Baker6:25

      Yeah, that, when was that? That was, um-

   7. JRJoe Rogan6:26

      A few years back.

   8. MBMike Baker6:27

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan6:28

      Some guy, there was oncoming traffic-

   10. MBMike Baker6:30

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan6:31

       ... and he timed it right when, uh, there must have been someone communicating with him, letting him know where Putin's car is, but Putin wasn't even in it.

   12. MBMike Baker6:39

       Yeah. Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan6:39

       And turned right into oncoming traffic and used his car as a weapon and killed the both of them.

   14. MBMike Baker6:45

       Yeah. Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan6:45

       I think, I think killed the both of them.

   16. MBMike Baker6:47

       Um, yeah, I'll get, we'll get you to look up when that, when that was.

   17. JRJoe Rogan6:50

       You've seen the, you've seen the video though, right?

   18. MBMike Baker6:51

       Yeah, yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan6:51

       It's wild.

   20. MBMike Baker6:52

       It was, it was a while back, though. It was, uh-

   21. JRJoe Rogan6:54

       Four or five years maybe?

   22. MBMike Baker6:56

       Yeah. Um, but he's, you know, people have been talking about, is he, is he losing his shit? Is he, you know, is he going crazy? I, I don't think he's, I don't think it's any of that, right? He's-

   23. JRJoe Rogan7:04

       Well, he like gets on a table when he negotiates and talks to people. He's like 40 feet away from them.

   24. MBMike Baker7:09

       40, yeah, yeah. And so, he, but he, and, and that assessment was, was clear during the course of the pandemic. He was, he was isolating himself. He was being, you know, very, very cautious. But I mean, and so maybe that had something to do with it. But he, anyway, point being is, is it's tough to, when you've got a, a small potential well of targets you can go after when you're talking about recruiting somebody who's got access to a high priority target, that's, you know, that's, that's probably one of the heaviest lifts we've got.

4. 7:34 – 10:49

   Spy recruitment realities: it’s usually not honey traps and blackmail

   1. JRJoe Rogan7:34

      How do you get, like how does someone get access to like a driver? Do you use a girl?

   2. MBMike Baker7:40

      Um-

   3. JRJoe Rogan7:41

      Is that the best way to do it?

   4. MBMike Baker7:43

      No, not really. I mean, you know what? It's, because what you're looking to do, this is not to fall into like, you know-

   5. JRJoe Rogan7:49

      Spy talk.

   6. MBMike Baker7:49

      ... spy talk and recruitment 101, but, um, the movies and, and beach books and everything will have you believe that, you know, the best way to, to hook somebody, to recruit somebody is, you know, blackmail or, or a honey trap or something, you know?

   7. JRJoe Rogan8:02

      Right.

   8. MBMike Baker8:03

      Usually, you're, you're working on, on something else. You're not necessarily working on the ideology, but you don't want to start from a negative basis, right? Because r- in, even in normal terms, in the best of circumstances, when somebody's recruited to spy on their country, to spy on, on their organization, whatever it may be, there's, a clock starts ticking, you know, because, because things start to decay, right? The person starts to decay. It's very wearing on a human, right? And for a variety of reasons. Uh, and so you know that window is going to close at some point, and it may not end well. So you're trying to optimize that, and if you start from a negative perspective, right? If you, if you're, you've got someone cooperating with you because they're blackmailing, they're under the gun here, and, and, and they hate you and they hate, you know, what they're doing-

   9. JRJoe Rogan8:49

      Right.

   10. MBMike Baker8:49

       ... that's not what you're looking for. You're looking for a more... and it sounds weird, but you're looking for more positive approach.

   11. JRJoe Rogan8:53

       So how do you do that?

   12. MBMike Baker8:54

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan8:54

       Like how would you get a driver to be your buddy?

   14. MBMike Baker8:57

       Well, um, it's a, there's a recruitment process, a cycle that you go through, but, um, (laughs) I hope everyone's taking notes. Uh, but you, uh, first of all, you got to know what information you're looking for, right?

   15. JRJoe Rogan9:10

       Right.

   16. MBMike Baker9:11

       And, and so that, that tasking gets set, you know, outside the, the building. If you're talking about the agency or, or really any intel service, theoretically the administration of power is setting priority tasking. So they send over this and they say, "Hey, we need this. This is a priority target for us, this information." So you look around and you go, okay, well who's got access to the information? Um, all right. You build up that world, then you figure out who might be accessible, right? Because maybe you, you're interested in, in, you know, uh, a target here, but he never leaves the country. You know, it's a denied area. And, uh, so then you find out who's got access to information, who might be accessible. Why might they be minded to talk to you? Can you create a scenario where you can get next to them? Uh, and then you're looking for points of leverage, right? You're really looking, and that doesn't necessarily mean you're looking to find a negative, right? You're looking for something that drives them. What makes, are their kids the most important thing to them, right? Do they, do they have a kid who, you know, needs medical attention? Um, do they have a kid who they desperately want to send away to college but they don't have the money, you know? So you're looking for something like that, that may... Again, it sounds strange, but you're talking about recruiting somebody for espionage, but it, it's a positive rather than a negative. And that creates then a longer shelf life in a sense for that asset, if that makes sense.

   17. JRJoe Rogan10:29

       It does make sense, but it would, I would imagine that when you're dealing with someone like say Kim Jong-un or Putin or, you know, some dictator, like they, they have to be prepared for things like this, right? So they probably are very cautious on who gets into their inner circle.

5. 10:49 – 17:34

   Putin’s background and psychology: humiliation, distrust, and consistency

   1. MBMike Baker10:49

      Yeah, and that's, and that's a counterintelligence issue, right? So every, you know, every government out there, um, you know, they're worried about that, that very thing, right? And so... I mean, look, and Putin, he was a KGB officer for 15 years, right?

   2. JRJoe Rogan11:05

      Yeah.

   3. MBMike Baker11:06

      Now, interestingly, going back to Putin, he, he served in, uh, East Germany, I think for about half a dozen years. Uh, never really had any exposure to the West. So that's also something, when you're, when you're talking about trying to assess his mindset, understand where he's coming from, part of it is, look, if he had, if, if he had been exposed to the West in a much bigger way, maybe he served in New York, you know, or he served wherever, you know, London, someplace where he had more exposure. But you look at that guy and you go, he doesn't really understand how we think, right? And so that's an important thing. You got to tick that box and put that in there when you're doing an assessment of his personality and trying to... Because that's part of understanding why he's doing what he's doing.

   4. JRJoe Rogan11:48

      You don't think he understands how we think?

   5. MBMike Baker11:50

      Um...

   6. JRJoe Rogan11:51

      In what way do you mean?

   7. MBMike Baker11:52

      Well, fundamentally. I mean if you, look, if you live in a, in an environment, right-... if you, you know, if you go to China, you live in, you know, wherever, you know, Shenzhen or, or Shanghai, or Beijing, and you're there for a few years, you're gonna understand the culture, the mindset much better than, you know, somebody who's never lived there and is, you know, just, you know, sitting in Washington in a think-tank-

   8. JRJoe Rogan12:13

      Right.

   9. MBMike Baker12:13

      ... talking about what the Chinese regime may do next. So, it's that immersion, it's that exposure, it's dealing with those people, um, it's the contact that you have. Um, look, we, I'm, you know, I'm old enough that I remember we, um, (clears throat) when the, when the Wall started to fall, uh, when, when the Soviet Union was collapsing, from our perspective, right, as a, as a, as a government, as an intel service, right? We saw that as an opportunity. There's chaos there, right? And what did you have? You had intel officers like Putin, right, KGB, GRU officers who saw their world collapsing around them, because at the time, before the, the, the, the Soviet Union collapsed, they were living the good life, right? They were the elite in a sense, right? They were the, they were pampered. Their kids were gonna get the best education. They were set for life. Their kids were set for life. All of a sudden, the Soviet Union starts going to shit, right? And you could see it. And, you know, so what did we do? Well, we were out there busy, right? Working over whatever targets we might have access to, trying to see if maybe they think, you know, maybe there's another option here. Maybe there's an alternative. Maybe I can, uh, you know, save myself and my family, you know, perhaps put aside some money (laughs) by working for the other side, and that's a natural thing to do, right? Every service is gonna do that if there's chaos on the other side. So, I remember, you could see the confusion and the humiliation, right? And the fear in some of these guys as this was happening. And so Putin went through that same process. Again, it's one of those things that you do, you, you put all that together to try to create this profile of this, of this ind- individual, right? 'Cause I, I'm not buying the talk when, you know, people get on TV and go, "Oh, he's, he's going crazy. He's losing his mind. He's a..." Uh, uh, uh, I'm not buying that. There's a reason why he's, he's, he's dr- driving the way he is. And, and again, he's being somewhat consistent. He's never given a shit about civilian casualties, right? Never bothered him before. I mean, that, that, you know, that situation in Chechnya when they went in there, right? And I mean, that was, that was, you know, you have to argue there was, uh, uh, the other side was, you know, was, was different as well. Some of the Chechen separatists were... and some of the shit that they were pulling. Um, but at the same time, he didn't care whether he was killing civilians or, you know, separatists and, you know, uh, members of their mil- uh, militia, military. So, I, I don't know. I think it's, it's one of those things where I think with, with Putin, we've got to, uh, we gotta be really pragmatic here. We gotta understand. I don't think he's, uh, he's not crazy. He's not gonna say, "Okay, I'm in a corner. I'm gonna, I'm gonna push the button and fire off a couple of tactical nukes." Right? I think what he's gotten to the point is, is, you know, "You guys have disrespected me." This is how he thinks, right? "You've disrespected me. Fuck you all. I told you I want my sphere of in- my sphere of influence and I don't care whether I have to break it. Um, I'm gonna have it."

   10. JRJoe Rogan15:00

       When you say sphere of influence, do you mean he wants to reclaim what is the former Soviet Union?

   11. MBMike Baker15:07

       Yeah, he said that. He said, he said publicly in the past, he called, uh, the collapse of the Soviet Union, "The greatest tragedy of the 20th century." That's, and, and he's, he's, he's serious about that. He means that, right?

   12. JRJoe Rogan15:18

       Right.

   13. MBMike Baker15:19

       And, and so he's not, he's not fucking around. Um, and, and again, uh, uh, if we look at it, he's being consistent, right? He's being consistent over the years. He's, he's a, you know, he's a, he, he, he's a dictator. He's a despot. He's looking increasingly more like, you know, he's isolating himself, which, you know, that's, that's a danger, uh, uh, in a sense to, uh, all those people around him, right? He's already cut loose some of his inner circle just over the past couple of weeks, right?

   14. JRJoe Rogan15:50

       Has he?

   15. MBMike Baker15:51

       Yeah, he's gotten rid of his, his, uh, well, he put under house arrest a couple of his FSB, uh, uh, senior command. Uh-

   16. JRJoe Rogan15:58

       Why, why did he do that?

   17. MBMike Baker15:58

       ... the domestic service, because he, uh, because the intel was so bad. (laughs) 'Cause going in-

   18. JRJoe Rogan16:03

       Oh, because of Ukraine?

   19. MBMike Baker16:04

       Yeah. Because of Ukraine, yeah, sorry.

   20. JRJoe Rogan16:05

       Going in.

   21. MBMike Baker16:05

       Yeah. Because of Ukraine. So, they went in and the assumption wasn't... and now, again, this is where our intel is lacking. Was he given bad intel or was he given intel and he just chose to ignore it? But it appears as if what he believed and what the top military commanders, some of whom have also been let go, um, or possibly reassigned, I don't think that's a good thing in, in Russia. Uh, is, um, that they were gonna, they were gonna get in there maybe within 48 hours, they were gonna have control of Kiev. They would be welcomed by the population in Ukraine, uh, and they would be able to establish a puppet regime, a new government. I mean, they moved the previous president that was, uh, you know, Russian-backed, they moved him from Russia to, uh, Minsk, uh, in preparation it appeared, to move him down to take over the government, which is, in a sense, batshit crazy because he was kicked out during the, (laughs) during the last revolution, right? By the people.

   22. JRJoe Rogan17:03

       And that was 2014?

   23. MBMike Baker17:04

       Yeah, that was that Orange Revolution that they had. Um-

   24. JRJoe Rogan17:06

       Yeah. We didn't, we were blissfully unaware of that in the West because we didn't think it affected us.

   25. MBMike Baker17:11

       Right.

   26. JRJoe Rogan17:11

       I mean, you ask the average American citizen about the Ukraine revolution in 2014, like what, what are you talking about?

   27. MBMike Baker17:17

       What are you talking about, right?

   28. JRJoe Rogan17:18

       We just found out recently that a comedian is running the country, which is, uh, hilarious.

   29. MBMike Baker17:24

       (laughs) Yeah. Everything is, everything is short term here, uh, in the US and that's, and that's also, uh, uh, including with our politicians, right? And, and they want a, a, a simple story.

   30. JRJoe Rogan17:33

       Uh-huh.

6. 17:34 – 19:55

   Domestic politics, media narratives, and the Hunter Biden laptop as a trust case-study

   1. MBMike Baker17:34

      So everything's coalesced around this, this simple narrative about, you know, the... and, and we have to be... I, I, I don't know. We have to be, we have to be very careful about certain things. The, the, their emotions are running high. Um, we hear, "Oh, Russian moral, you know, troop morale is bad." Um, you know, they, they're-

   2. JRJoe Rogan17:52

      Well, we're hearing that from our media, and we know that our media is not exactly accurate.

   3. MBMike Baker17:56

      Well, they love a good story.

   4. JRJoe Rogan17:57

      They, they, they don't-

   5. MBMike Baker17:58

      Yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan17:58

      ... just love a good story.

   7. MBMike Baker17:59

      Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan17:59

      They love a narrative and they're willing to ignore facts-

   9. MBMike Baker18:01

      Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan18:01

       ... to push that narrative. That's what scares me. What scares me is, uh, I mean, I think there are objective journalists that work for the Washington Post and New York Times, and there's real solid journalists out there, but I don't necessarily know-

   11. MBMike Baker18:14

       (snorts)

   12. JRJoe Rogan18:15

       ... if you're getting all the information, I think-

   13. MBMike Baker18:18

       (laughs)

   14. JRJoe Rogan18:19

       I think it's safe to say-

   15. MBMike Baker18:20

       You're not sure.

   16. JRJoe Rogan18:21

       ... that there's some fuckery is afoot.

   17. MBMike Baker18:23

       (laughs)

   18. JRJoe Rogan18:23

       I mean, tu- The U- New York Times just now is admitting that the Hunter Biden laptop is real and, you know-

   19. MBMike Baker18:31

       Yeah. Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan18:31

       ... we remember from the debates with Trump bringing it up to Biden and Biden saying it's bullshit and these intel- I mean, it's, it was a lie.

   21. MBMike Baker18:40

       Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan18:40

       A flat out lie.

   23. MBMike Baker18:41

       Yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan18:41

       Everybody knew it was a lie. The New York Post had that story that was banned from Twitter, which was just outright crazy, that one of the oldest newspapers in the country.

   25. MBMike Baker18:53

       Yeah. And I, I don't think anybody's gonna go back and apologize to them.

   26. JRJoe Rogan18:55

       No, no one's apologizing, right?

   27. MBMike Baker18:56

       But the interest- the inter- there's a dynamic here that I, I mean, uh, I love this topic in a sense. Not, not so much because of, you know, whatever the fuck Hunter was up to, but in part because now when you look at the, at the, the, the, the liberal, uh, Dems and the Progressives, it doesn't matter to them. If you read some of the, the narrative that, uh, that is out there now, the social media in the past day or so, ever since The New York Times came out with this, they're, they're just dismissive of it, right?

   28. JRJoe Rogan19:23

       Yeah.

   29. MBMike Baker19:23

       And they don't care or they're, they're, they're willing to overlook it, which is the same thing they accuse the, the, the right of doing. Both, both sides. We've talked about this before.

   30. JRJoe Rogan19:33

       Yeah.
7. 19:55 – 29:50

   From MiGs to hypersonics: airpower, tech leadership, and China’s theft pipeline

   1. JRJoe Rogan19:55

      But, but, but from what I understand, there was a, an American billionaire, some guy who actually has a MiG. He's, uh, an astronaut and- see if you can find this story- and he was like, "MiGs are technologically inferior to what Russia currently has. And if we sent MiGs over there, they would just get shot down. It would be a massive moral victory for Russia."

   2. MBMike Baker20:16

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan20:16

      Is that true?

   4. MBMike Baker20:17

      It, um, it depends on the training, right? 'Cause so much of this depends on the, the capabilities of the pilots, uh, the ground crew and, and how well maintained the, the, the platforms are. But, um, and, eh- just from a technical perspective, yes, it's true.

   5. JRJoe Rogan20:31

      Yeah, here's, here's this guy, "American who owns a MiG-29 isn't sure the fighter jets would help Ukraine much. A billionaire astronaut who helped train US fighter pilots loves his high-performance Soviet jet, but thinks it's no match for Russia's newer planes." First of all, that's when you know you're a baller, when you got your own-

   6. MBMike Baker20:47

      Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan20:47

      ... fucking fighter jet.

   8. MBMike Baker20:48

      Yeah, right. Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan20:49

      A Russian fighter jet.

   10. MBMike Baker20:50

       Yeah, I'm just gonna- I'm gonna fly it to the Hamptons.

   11. JRJoe Rogan20:52

       Did you ever see-

   12. MBMike Baker20:52

       'Cause I'm a billionaire.

   13. JRJoe Rogan20:53

       ... Operation Odessa? Is it, it's a documentary?

   14. MBMike Baker20:57

       No, I don't think so.

   15. JRJoe Rogan20:58

       It's a fucking hilarious documentary. It's about these guys that are smuggling cocaine into, uh, America and they, they buy a, uh, a s- a submarine from the former Soviet Union. And, uh, while they're buying a submarine, the guy asks them if they want nukes to go with the submarine.

   16. MBMike Baker21:17

       (laughs)

   17. JRJoe Rogan21:17

       Just an aside.

   18. MBMike Baker21:18

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan21:19

       Operation Odessa is outstanding.

   20. MBMike Baker21:21

       Yeah, no. We worked, I tell you what, it, we could get into a whole different rabbit hole there talking about the gray arms market 'cause it is a, we worked the gray arms market-

   21. JRJoe Rogan21:28

       Yes.

   22. MBMike Baker21:28

       ... for a while. It is a fascinating place.

   23. JRJoe Rogan21:29

       I, I can't recommend this documentary-

   24. MBMike Baker21:32

       Okay.

   25. JRJoe Rogan21:32

       ... enough. It's fucking amazing.

   26. MBMike Baker21:34

       All right. Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan21:34

       And it's, it's so amazing that while you're watching, you're like, "What? This is real?"

   28. MBMike Baker21:38

       That's fantastic.

   29. JRJoe Rogan21:38

       It's really funny. I mean-

   30. MBMike Baker21:40

       Ah.
8. 29:50 – 36:12

   Elections vs continuity: ‘deep state’ as a necessary bureaucracy (and a risk)

   1. JRJoe Rogan29:50

      I was having a conversation with a friend of mine un- about this, and I was saying, "You know what's kind of fucked is that what we do in America is every four years we have an election where it's a popularity contest for the most important job in the country. And so if you got the most important job in the country, every four years someone's new at it."

   2. MBMike Baker30:11

      (laughs)

   3. JRJoe Rogan30:12

      (laughs) Which is crazy.

   4. MBMike Baker30:13

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan30:13

      Like-

   6. MBMike Baker30:13

      Yeah. Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan30:13

      ... ima- like, imagine if you had to do any other job, whether it's brain surgery or, you know, whatever the fuck it is, you know, uh, building cars, and you've never done it before. I mean, that's literally everyone-

   8. MBMike Baker30:25

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan30:25

      ... you only get to do it twice. You get eight years max, right?

   10. MBMike Baker30:28

       Yeah. Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan30:29

       Everyone-

   12. MBMike Baker30:29

       That's a, that's a good thing. (laughs) Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan30:30

       Right? I guess-

   14. MBMike Baker30:31

       Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan30:31

       ... it is a good thing.

   16. MBMike Baker30:32

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan30:32

       I guess it's a good thing. But when you look at what they're able to do in China, and th- this is not-

   18. MBMike Baker30:37

       Hmm.

   19. JRJoe Rogan30:37

       ... me advocating for-

   20. MBMike Baker30:39

       (laughs)

   21. JRJoe Rogan30:39

       ... totalitarian control by the government. But what I'm saying is-

   22. MBMike Baker30:43

       (laughs)

   23. JRJoe Rogan30:43

       ... it is a massive advantage that they have in that they don't have that restriction.

   24. MBMike Baker30:48

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan30:48

       Like, they get to be really good at their job, and they understand it deeply. So, like, one of the things that, you know, w- what the Tinfoil Hat Brigade likes to talk about is the deep state, right?

   26. MBMike Baker30:58

       Mm-hmm. Right.

   27. JRJoe Rogan30:58

       They always like to talk about the deep state.

   28. MBMike Baker30:59

       Right.

   29. JRJoe Rogan31:00

       And w- what I was saying is, like, what if we didn't have a deep state? Do you know how fucked we would be if we didn't have career politicians and career intelligence agencies and care- people who are there for long periods of time that actually do understand it?

   30. MBMike Baker31:14

       Yeah.
9. 36:12 – 40:46

   How intel gets ‘spun’: raw reporting, analysis layers, and the Washington washing machine

   1. JRJoe Rogan36:12

      But here's the... Here's the question. When a guy like Trump gets into office and then r-... like, openly disparages intelligence agencies and openly disparages the- whether it's the FBI or the CIA, or who- whoever he's in some sort of a personal feud with.

   2. MBMike Baker36:28

      Mm-hmm.

   3. JRJoe Rogan36:29

      That seems very dangerous.

   4. MBMike Baker36:32

      Well, it's, it's dangerous to- I suppose if you, if you think- if, if all you're thinking about is, okay, morale, right? I mean-

   5. JRJoe Rogan36:38

      Right.

   6. MBMike Baker36:38

      ... it, it does, it does work on a few levels. So, yeah, sure. But there was, and there was a lot of talk during, you know, Trump's, uh, time in office, uh, you know, um, that morale was sinking at the agency because he was, you know, kicking them in the ass on occasion, right?

   7. JRJoe Rogan36:53

      Right.

   8. MBMike Baker36:53

      Well, honestly, the agency's taken a beating over the years from a variety of administrations and all I can, again, speak to is my experience, which spanned a handful of administrations. You know, from a, from a collection point of view, from just getting the job done, you, you know, they don't give a shit. "Just tell us what the tasking is," right? "And we'll go out and do it." You know, the... And, and the idea was always the director was your top cover. The director served as a liaison between the, the White House and kind of pro-... you know, protected the agency, right? From, you know, all the machinations or the, the back and forth. Now, once you collect that intel, right? If you're out in the field and you, you pull in intel and you throw it into the mix, right? You send it back or whatever, and it, and it... Once it leaves that building and it gets into that washing machine of Washington where there's lots of different, you know, people editing and looking at it before it ends up in, you know, in some briefing somewhere in, in the National Security Council, yeah, there's an editing process that goes on there. That's where a lot of the, the spin, a lot of the, you know, the agenda can be built in.

   9. JRJoe Rogan37:56

      How does that work?

   10. MBMike Baker37:57

       Well, I mean, you got a lot of hands touching... You know, raw intelligence is one thing, right? You, you, you find somebody out in the field and they said, "Yeah, this is what Putin means because I was sitting in a meeting with him and, and two of the, the command staff and this is what he said." Okay, great, that's raw intelligence, right? So you report that back, word for word. You don't put your spin on it, right? As, as a, as a person that's collecting. And that goes back, but now that's going to get looked at by the, the guys writing the reports up and, and doing the analysis and assessment of, of, of this. They're putting it together with other intel maybe they're collecting from other sources, right? And then it, it... You've got... So the more hands that are touching that, you know, once it gets back to Washington, the more potential for editing, right? And for analysis and, and, and opinion, you know, might get in there. That's just a natural thing, right? That's gonna happen. But it's the raw intelligence th- that really matters. And sometimes I feel like we should have a more direct line from the actual raw intelligence, if you can protect sources and methods, direct to the end user, you know, to try to keep that editing process to a minimum.

   11. JRJoe Rogan39:01

       Otherwise, you're playing a game of telephone too, right?

   12. MBMike Baker39:04

       Mm. It's not so much telephone where you, you know, you get the... I guess we used to say Chinese whispers. I, I, I guess-

   13. JRJoe Rogan39:10

       Chinese whispers?

   14. MBMike Baker39:11

       Yeah. We can't say that anymore, can we? Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan39:12

       You're older than me, I guess.

   16. MBMike Baker39:13

       Yeah. Well, but we used to say that.

   17. JRJoe Rogan39:14

       I never heard that. I never heard Chinese whispers.

   18. MBMike Baker39:15

       Really? You never heard that? Look at this.

   19. JRJoe Rogan39:16

       Maybe it's an intelligence thing.

   20. MBMike Baker39:18

       Could be, could be.

   21. JRJoe Rogan39:18

       Yeah, maybe.

   22. MBMike Baker39:19

       But anyway, the, the idea being, it's like that party game where you whisper something to someone, they whisper it along to somebody else.

   23. JRJoe Rogan39:23

       Right.

   24. MBMike Baker39:23

       But it's not quite like that because there it's kinda... It's, it's more like, um, it gets blended in, right? And then that blending process with other sources of information and then just the natural inclination of people who are writing up reports or passing it from one, you know, uh, office to another to say, "Well, I think this is kind of what it means," and... or, "This is the most important part here." And so, you know, shit can move around. It's, it's, it's like editing a, a newspaper article, right? The more hands-

   25. JRJoe Rogan39:52

       Right.

   26. MBMike Baker39:52

       ... get on it, the stranger it's gonna look.

   27. JRJoe Rogan39:54

       Right.

   28. MBMike Baker39:54

       Um, it doesn't necessarily mean the, the facts are wrong. Maybe just the context or the priority part of this is, is, is missing or different. So I, I know I'm p- probably being-

   29. JRJoe Rogan40:05

       No, it's... No, it's good because-

   30. MBMike Baker40:07

       Probably being nuanced there, but...
10. 40:46 – 55:00

    Social media chaos, misinformation, and the free speech backlash

    1. MBMike Baker40:46

       Although, I will say this much. Can I... I'm gonna, I'm gonna veer completely in a different direction-

    2. JRJoe Rogan40:50

       Okay.

    3. MBMike Baker40:50

       ... now that you said this. Uh, one of my boys... I got three boys, right? And so, uh, Scooter, Sluggo, and Mugsy. I always talk about them. And Scooter, the, the, uh, the oldest one, came to me, he says, "I found this funny fucking thread," in some, you know, Reddit or something like that, where there's this whole bunch talking about the boys and what their names are.

    4. JRJoe Rogan41:13

       Oh, boy.

    5. MBMike Baker41:13

       Right? And so I actually wrote down some of them. Um... And they're just speculation and people are saying, "No, that's not their names." So they're taking-

    6. JRJoe Rogan41:24

       Oh, they have fake names.

    7. MBMike Baker41:25

       Well, I... Well, that's what they're saying. I mean-

    8. JRJoe Rogan41:27

       Right.

    9. MBMike Baker41:27

       ... they're saying... So instead of Scooter, Sluggo, and Mugsy, I've got Scooter, Bozo, and Fucko. That wasn't it. Somebody thought it was Pooper, Bunghole, and Skidmark. That's not it. Scooter, Bamm-Bamm, and Fuckknuckle. Definitely not it. Tweaker, Barfo, and Butto. Not it.

    10. JRJoe Rogan41:42

        You are wasting time repeating the things that-

    11. MBMike Baker41:44

        I know.

    12. JRJoe Rogan41:45

        ... someone in a cubicle who's bored out of their fucking mind-

    13. MBMike Baker41:47

        I know. I know.

    14. JRJoe Rogan41:48

        ... probably on Adderall-

    15. MBMike Baker41:49

        But my boys like this. In the last one-

    16. JRJoe Rogan41:51

        (laughs)

    17. MBMike Baker41:51

        ... the, the youngest one, Mugsy, he likes... He's adopted the new name McFuckstick because he thinks that's funnier than anything, except for Fuckknuckle. He thought that was funny too.

    18. JRJoe Rogan41:58

        Those are both pretty funny.

    19. MBMike Baker41:59

        Yeah. So anyway, uh...

    20. JRJoe Rogan42:01

        It's a good nickname.

    21. MBMike Baker42:02

        I don't read them except for that one when my boy brought it to me and said, "You got to read this."

    22. JRJoe Rogan42:05

        Yeah.

    23. MBMike Baker42:05

        So, yeah.

    24. JRJoe Rogan42:06

        Don't read the comments.

    25. MBMike Baker42:07

        Oh. No. No. But it's-

    26. JRJoe Rogan42:08

        That's my, my number one piece of advice for everybody.

    27. MBMike Baker42:10

        (laughs)

    28. JRJoe Rogan42:11

        The problem is-

    29. MBMike Baker42:11

        Do you get comments?

    30. JRJoe Rogan42:12

        I'm sure I do.
11. 55:00 – 1:04:14

    Pharma, data opacity, and ‘trust the science’ as a new kind of dogma

    1. JRJoe Rogan55:00

       Well, John Abramson is a guy that I had on the podcast that really opened my eyes to, uh, how these things work in terms of pharmaceutical companies. And one of the things that he said is that when studies are done, that the people... The, the scientists that are conducting the studies do not have access to the raw data. They have access to the interpretation of the data that's provided to them by the pharmaceutical companies.

    2. MBMike Baker55:27

       Mm-hmm.

    3. JRJoe Rogan55:27

       So it's-

    4. MBMike Baker55:27

       You know what that sounds like? Intel collection.

    5. JRJoe Rogan55:29

       It... Well, it sounds-

    6. MBMike Baker55:29

       The whole process.

    7. JRJoe Rogan55:30

       It sounds...

    8. MBMike Baker55:31

       Yeah.

    9. JRJoe Rogan55:31

       Well, also, the thing... The difference is, Intel, they, they're not personally making billions of dollars-

    10. MBMike Baker55:38

        Mm.

    11. JRJoe Rogan55:38

        ... off of that information.

    12. MBMike Baker55:39

        Yeah.

    13. JRJoe Rogan55:40

        And then they don't also-

    14. MBMike Baker55:41

        (sniffs)

    15. JRJoe Rogan55:41

        ... do something that winds up being incorrect and costs the lives of th- uh, tens of thousands of Americans by hiding information and lying. I mean, unless you wanna talk about weapons of mass destruction and things along those lines-

    16. MBMike Baker55:55

        Yeah.

    17. JRJoe Rogan55:55

        ... 'cause that is-

    18. MBMike Baker55:56

        Well, there's that.

    19. JRJoe Rogan55:57

        There's a little bit of that.

    20. MBMike Baker55:58

        Okay. Um... But-

    21. JRJoe Rogan55:59

        But y-

    22. MBMike Baker55:59

        Well, well, Pfizer came out and said, you know, "I think, uh, maybe we need a fourth booster." Uh-

    23. JRJoe Rogan56:04

        That was Moderna. Moderna came out and said that today.

    24. MBMike Baker56:05

        Was it Moderna that came out or was it Pfizer?

    25. JRJoe Rogan56:07

        Look, Moderna is trying to get, um... They're trying to get FDA... Uh, maybe Pfizer has done it as well, but f- Moderna... You know, Pfizer... You're right.

    26. MBMike Baker56:14

        I think Pfizer came out first-

    27. JRJoe Rogan56:15

        No, you're right. Pfizer did do it too.

    28. MBMike Baker56:16

        ... and said-

    29. JRJoe Rogan56:17

        Right.

    30. MBMike Baker56:17

        And, and then 'cause I remember their stock. I, I took a look at their stock to see what it was doing shortly after that statement, and it went up.
12. 1:04:14 – 1:17:58

    Oligarchs, yachts, and Putin’s inner power dynamics

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:04:14

       I was gonna talk to you about that.

    2. MBMike Baker1:04:15

       Yeah.

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:04:16

       So what is this whole deal with the oligarchs? And what do you think is the strategy behind that? Because all these guys are, like, trying to hide their yachts-

    4. MBMike Baker1:04:24

       (laughs)

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:04:24

       ... and some of them have had their yachts taken away from them. First of all, where do those yachts go? And who gets to access (claps hands) them now?

    6. MBMike Baker1:04:30

       (sighs) No, right? Right.

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:04:30

       How does that happen?

    8. MBMike Baker1:04:31

       Man.

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:04:31

       Just like-

    10. MBMike Baker1:04:31

        We, uh... I, I, yeah, in my business, there were a handful of times in the, over the past years where we were asked to go after and, and seize a- an asset like a yacht. And it's, it's good fun, (laughs) but it's, uh-

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:04:43

        (snorts)

    12. MBMike Baker1:04:43

        ... we don't get to keep them, unfortunately.

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:04:45

        But who does?

    14. MBMike Baker1:04:46

        Uh, you know, whoever-

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:04:47

        Do they auction them off?

    16. MBMike Baker1:04:47

        Yeah, I mean, whoever... It depends on why it's being seized. If it's being seized-

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:04:50

        Right.

    18. MBMike Baker1:04:50

        ... you know, for failure to pay, then, you know, it goes back to whoever's, you know, holding the, the note. But, um...

    19. JRJoe Rogan1:04:55

        But, like, now when they're, they're seizing yachts-

    20. MBMike Baker1:04:58

        Yeah.

    21. JRJoe Rogan1:04:58

        ... these Russian oligarchs-

    22. MBMike Baker1:04:58

        The government, you know, like France was involved in, in picking up a couple, uh, just recently. Uh-

    23. JRJoe Rogan1:05:04

        So they party on them now?

    24. MBMike Baker1:05:05

        Yeah. I'm, I'm thinking Macron is, is (laughs) on board-

    25. JRJoe Rogan1:05:08

        (laughs)

    26. MBMike Baker1:05:08

        ... one of those yachts having the time of his life. But, but this is... I mean, you touched on a really important part of what the hell is happening right now is because, uh... One of the reasons Putin just made these comments the other day, right? He came out and he talked about, you know, the people that aren't real Russians-

    27. JRJoe Rogan1:05:22

        Right.

    28. MBMike Baker1:05:22

        ... they're scum, they're traitors.

    29. JRJoe Rogan1:05:24

        Yeah.

    30. MBMike Baker1:05:24

        What really set him off, because sometimes it's, it's a little simpler than we imagine, kind of going back to what we talked about before, we kind of overlook the obvious in terms of the why he acts the way he does. Part of this is he... When he came into power, nobody really gave him any, any, you know, thought, right? And he'd been a, like a deputy mayor in, in Leningrad. And he showed up, he proved himself fairly capable. Um, got himself tight with, uh, Yeltsin, uh, was appointed as head of the FSB, you know, the old, uh, KGB, the domestic service. And, um-

Episode duration: 2:51:33