Joe Rogan Experience #1833 - Tim Kennedy

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumming) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. TKTim Kennedy0:00

      (drumming) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. NANarrator0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. TKTim Kennedy0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music) Your comedy, your, uh, standup was the first time that I... First one I've been to in probably 10 years.

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:17

      Oh, at the, uh, Vulcan?

   5. TKTim Kennedy0:19

      Yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:19

      Yeah. That's a great place, isn't it?

   7. TKTim Kennedy0:20

      It was rad.

   8. JRJoe Rogan0:21

      Yeah, it's a fun little spot.

   9. TKTim Kennedy0:22

      Yeah. The, uh, everybody was cool. It, it's weird that it's on 6th Street, but.

   10. JRJoe Rogan0:27

       Yeah. Yeah, my place is too. We up?

   11. TKTim Kennedy0:31

       Yeah.

   12. JRJoe Rogan0:31

       Um, yeah. It's, uh, 6th Street is a unique spot.

   13. TKTim Kennedy0:34

       Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan0:35

       It's, uh, they're gett- they're doing some stuff to try to, you know, clean it up a little bit. And they, they got rid of that homeless situation. There was like a crazy homeless encampment that was really close to that.

   15. TKTim Kennedy0:45

       Yeah. (laughs)

   16. JRJoe Rogan0:45

       They got rid of that, so. Austin's a unique place.

   17. TKTim Kennedy0:49

       It is.

   18. JRJoe Rogan0:49

       There's a lot of, a lot of wild shit in this town.

   19. TKTim Kennedy0:52

       Yeah. Amazing stuff and really weird stuff.

   20. JRJoe Rogan0:54

       Yeah.

   21. TKTim Kennedy0:55

       Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan0:55

       It's a great combination though, and it's a great size. You know, you were one of the people that early on got me thinking about Austin, because you were always ranting about it.

   23. TKTim Kennedy1:03

       Yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:03

       About how great it is here.

   25. TKTim Kennedy1:04

       I should've kept my mouth closed.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:05

       Should've kept your mouth shut.

   27. TKTim Kennedy1:06

       (laughs)

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:06

       'Cause I w-

   29. TKTim Kennedy1:06

       When you came here, everybody I just... They're like, "Ah, where's Joe at?" "Oh, he just moved to, to Austin." I was like, "You shut your mouth."

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:13

       (laughs)
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   I hate the term…

   1. TKTim Kennedy15:00

      and practicing is that cathartic process, like really scratches that itch of wanting to drill and train. What I experienced was afterwards, I actually had more like pent-up energy. You know, because I'm doing like these, all these intense things, but it's this artificial experience that... I mean, like jerking off compared to going with your partner and having an amazing intimate experience, two totally different things, you know?

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:27

      I hate the term partner. It's just-

   3. TKTim Kennedy15:29

      (laughs) Thank you.

   4. JRJoe Rogan15:30

      I know. We've talked about this.

   5. TKTim Kennedy15:30

      Yeah, I just-

   6. JRJoe Rogan15:31

      It's not a partner.

   7. TKTim Kennedy15:32

      I was done.

   8. JRJoe Rogan15:33

      Yeah. Tell the story. (laughs)

   9. TKTim Kennedy15:34

      Oh, man. So I'm in New York last week on book tour. I walk into a coffee shop and, and we're like right off Times Square. And, um, I walk in and I ask the barista for an oat milk cappuccino, which is my favorite beverage. And my wife, I ask if she can have a café au lait with oat milk. And the barista... And I, I say it just like that, "I'll, uh, I'll ha- I'll have a, uh, oat milk cappuccino, please, and my wife would like a café au lait." And, uh, my wife is really shy and, and doesn't even like to talk to people she doesn't know, to include, you know, people at a restaurant. So she oftentimes will be like, "Can we order for me?"

   10. JRJoe Rogan16:10

       (laughs)

   11. TKTim Kennedy16:10

       So I got... I wasn't man answering for her-

   12. JRJoe Rogan16:11

       I get it. She's, she requested.

   13. TKTim Kennedy16:12

       ... as, as a feminist. Yeah, she did.

   14. JRJoe Rogan16:14

       Yeah.

   15. TKTim Kennedy16:14

       And, uh, the lady corrected me calling her my wife and said, "You mean partner?" I'm, "No, no, this is my wife. This is my wife."

   16. JRJoe Rogan16:24

       (laughs)

   17. TKTim Kennedy16:24

       "And uh, she would like a café au lait, please." Just bonkers.

   18. JRJoe Rogan16:27

       Imagine how crazy you have to be to talk to a grown man and tell him to not call your wife, your wife.

   19. TKTim Kennedy16:33

       Ugh.

   20. JRJoe Rogan16:34

       That there is a correct way to announce her.

   21. TKTim Kennedy16:37

       (laughs)

   22. JRJoe Rogan16:37

       It is partner.

   23. TKTim Kennedy16:38

       I don't, I didn't know what to do.

   24. JRJoe Rogan16:39

       I think it's partner, so you should do that too, Tim.

   25. TKTim Kennedy16:41

       Yeah, I know. Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan16:42

       That's so, that's young people today. They're out of their fucking mind. The, that's what I'm worried about. These poor fucks that are stuck in the fog of woke, that are just trapped in these universities and then they get out and they exist in these weird bubbles, like LA or New York in particular. And-

   27. TKTim Kennedy16:57

       They're dangerous.

   28. JRJoe Rogan16:58

       Well, they're just nuts. They just, they think that that's how you're supposed to be. Ima- I mean, imagine correcting someone if they said, "My partner." Like imagine if you say, "I'll have, uh, a cappuccino and my partner would like a tall black coffee." "Oh, you mean your wife?"

   29. TKTim Kennedy17:13

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan17:14

       Now the f- that's my fucking... I said partner.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   What's an NGO? …

   1. TKTim Kennedy30:00

      and his children in front of him before they kill him. And, um, and then, like, Aziz's friends start being murdered. And, uh, so Chad calls me and says, "Hey, man, I'm gonna go get Aziz. Can you help me?" And I said, "Yes. I'm on my way." At the same moment, next to me, Nick is talking to a young woman named Sarah Verardo. Sarah is this, like, powerhouse. Um, she runs the Independence Fund, which is a vet, uh, a military veteran nonpar- profit that takes care of severely wounded, uh, veterans and give them chairs, like, track, automatic track chairs. Her husband is one of the worst... Uh, this is a weird title to hold, but he is one of the worst wounded veterans, veterans from the Afghan War. That's her husband, and she's the- the provider, and care, and sole care provider. I don't know what the right word is. She takes care of him.... and, uh, he was wounded in Afghanistan, so her heart is, like, just... But she has lots of friends in the government. So, in this moment, we have the right kind of two people. I have a good mission. I h- I know what I'm gonna do. It's morally right and somebody has to do it or, or Aziz and my f- my friend's friend is gonna be murdered. And I have a method. Sarah can get us routes and approval from the government. So, the four of us started this NGO called Save Our Allies. And that, literally, that phone call was the beginning of what is now, you know, what was the most successful NGO movement.

   2. JRJoe Rogan31:27

      What's an NGO?

   3. TKTim Kennedy31:28

      A non-government organization. A nonprofit. So, Save Our Allies, like that call initiated it. Nick and I were on a plane into the Middle East the next day, and we flew into the UAE. The Crown Prince was, like, the most generous host that you could imagine. Uh, one of our friends used to ride motorcycles with the Crown Prince and he said, "I will give you a C-17 plane. If you can land it, fill it up with a perfect manifest of people, th- and get it out, I'll give you another plane." And that was th- that was the initial promise. And 10 days later, we moved 12,000 people out of Afghanistan. 11% of everybody that left the country during the evacuation, me and three of my friends on the ground, and 12 of us total in the Middle East moved. Um, and, and everybody remembers, you know, people hanging onto the landing gear of aircraft and falling to their death. Like, that, that was peak Afghanistan withdrawal. And that is, uh, that is when we got there. Yeah. It was terrible.

   4. JRJoe Rogan32:39

      So, when you say that it was like nothing you had seen in 20 years of being deployed-

   5. TKTim Kennedy32:46

      Yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan32:47

      ... in what, in what way?

   7. TKTim Kennedy32:49

      I mean, Taliban's gonna Taliban. So, they are definitely doing their thing, but it was, it was the, the desperation of the people trying to find a way to live. So, at each of these gates, a NEO operation... It's a non-combat- noncombatant evacuation operation. It's a g- it's a military operation if a NEO takes place. They keep calling it a NEO, but that's if the military ran it. And if the military ran it, you would see, you know, a special forces unit with a big, like the Ranger regiment or 82nd Airborne that come in, that build this huge exterior perimeter, that control the ground strategically. Then it would be like the clockwork of a military operation as planes are coming in and planes are coming out and we're building manifests, we're confirming that everybody that goes on the plane are the right people. This was not a NEO. This was run by the State Department. So, instead of that thi- uh, big strategic military operation, instead thi- the airport became an embassy. And like in the movies, we were running to the embassy and if you get in, you know, like, you're safe and then they'll get you out. That's how they started treating HKIA, the, um, the airport in Kabul, as an embassy. So, the military just secured the perimeter of the embassy, the airport, and anybody that got on the airport was able to get out. Except the military wasn't allowed to go outside of the airport, so all the people in the city of Kabul were stuck. That's where we had to come in. So, we had to go out into Kabul and grab the people and then smuggle them past the Taliban to get them onto planes. And, uh, to answer your question, the... That perimeter of the base where the gates... There's tens of thousands of people that were lining up here and they maybe walked f- a few days. So, by the time they get there, they're dehydrated, they have nothing there. There's no food, there's no water. The Taliban, if there's too many people, they'll just take a, take a magazine and just dump it into the crowd to move them back or to, like, crowd control them. They'll just dump a magazine into a crowd of people. The women, they would, they would float babies like you're at a baseball game with a beach ball. They would float the baby bo- baby towards the g- the gate and then hope, in the hopes that a marine or a soldier would reach down and grab the baby and bring it into safety. And when that didn't work, the moms would take the babies and they'd try to throw them over the walls.

   8. JRJoe Rogan35:21

      (exhales)

   9. TKTim Kennedy35:21

      Well, guess what's on either side of the wall? Constantina wire. There's fucking constantina wire on both sides of this wall.

   10. JRJoe Rogan35:28

       Oh, Jesus Christ.

   11. TKTim Kennedy35:28

       So, these babies would land in the, in, in the wire-

   12. JRJoe Rogan35:31

       Ugh.

   13. TKTim Kennedy35:32

       ... and we're in the middle of moving, you know, hundreds of people at a time, like smuggling them past the Taliban, and I'm stepping over a baby in water or there's, like, a small body that's on fire that was burnt alive by the Taliban. You know, one of the teams is there... They went out into Kabul and they, they, they just missed it by seconds. They were gonna go pick up this woman that was a journalist for, um, the, the Afghan, uh, one of the Afghan news organizations, but the Taliban got to her first. They pull up. The Taliban see these guys in the car. They dro- drop her on the hood of the car and they execute her on the car as they just look at the dudes in the car. There's nothing that they can do. Just execute her.

   14. JRJoe Rogan36:15

       (exhales)

   15. TKTim Kennedy36:15

       This was every day. So, when I said a level of desperation I've never seen before, this is... I mean, this is like hu- no American, no, no American can imagine that type of desperation. And that was everywhere you looked.

   16. JRJoe Rogan36:33

       And how long were you there for while this was happening?

   17. TKTim Kennedy36:35

       The... Our ground team, there's myself and three other, um, like personnel recovery experts. Uh, we're there total for 10 days.

   18. JRJoe Rogan36:48

       And did it dissipate somewhat? Did the f-

   19. TKTim Kennedy36:52

       No.

   20. JRJoe Rogan36:53

       No.

   21. TKTim Kennedy36:53

       No, it just got more desperate.So, everybody that was watching on television, they saw curated, controlled, um, information. I- it was way worse on the ground. So, what looked like this, a semblance of an assembly line of planes taking off and planes coming in, um, well that is inside a controlled environment, you know. That was in, on the base. Outside, if you, if you know, if you, if you go f- 1,000 meters outside of the wire, it is just chaos, anarchy, apocalyptic-level madness. You know, like, really, really, really total Taliban, uh, experience out there. (exhales)

   22. JRJoe Rogan37:44

       Man. And so, when you're leaving 10 days later, what- what are you, how are you feeling?

   23. TKTim Kennedy37:54

       One, one of our, one of the guys with us, his- his code name is Sea Spray, he didn't eat in those 10 days. He lost 20-something pounds in- in the 10 days that he was there. And, um, you know, he could like nibble on a cracker and drink water just 'cause he didn't have any enzymes left in his stomach to break- break anything down. You know, when you're running out the wire to grab a family and come ac- come back in, you don't really have time to think about what you're stepping over, but you still see it. And that was, that's the thing that tortures my mind is I still saw it all, but I didn't have the time to address it emotionally, think about this dead body I'm stepping over, 'cause I'm really busy trying to get to this family. And then I get to this family and I confirm... We had to be really judicious in how we confirmed who the people were. You know, if I bring b- if I brought back one person that wasn't the right person to bring back, I- I would consider myself a failure in the whole entire mission, um, if I bring back one radical terrorist that's not escaping, but trying to get to the United States, and everything would be for naught. So, we had a really deliberate Department of State, Department of Defense approved manifest that would go officially through the government. They would submit all of their paperwork. They would have, you know, digital versions of it. So, I would then give them a location on the ground where they would have to meet me, and then once I met up with them, they would have a far recognition signal that would be, uh, not to like give up the trade craft, but they'd- they'd have a way to let me know that that is the right person. And that then would come face to face, and then they'd have another thing, like a secret word that they had to sneak into a sentence, and that's a near recognition signal. And then they have to give me their documents, and the documents have to be real and it has to be the right person, and the same ones that were submitted. "So cool, I got the right person. So come on, I got your family. Why are these other 40 people with you?" They're like, "Oh, it's- it's like, it's my cousin and, you know, and- and her family and it's, um, you know, my brother and his family." And it's like, "They gotta stay."

   24. JRJoe Rogan40:03

       Oof.

   25. TKTim Kennedy40:04

       Like, "You're coming with me (laughs) and they're staying. Sorry. You can get in the car or you can't. You have five seconds." Then, uh, by that time, usually the Taliban have spotted us and it's a foot race to make it back into the wire before they catch us.

   26. JRJoe Rogan40:22

       And what happens to the people that get left behind?

   27. TKTim Kennedy40:24

       They're murdered or used. You know, there's pilots and there are doctors and there are engineers and they run the sewage system, they run j- the electrical plant. So they're trying to get out, but the Taliban want them to stay because all the infrastructure that's built there are operated by people that were friendly to the Americans. So they want, like if they want their power plant to work, they have to have all of the engineers that ran it. So they don't want them to leave. They don't want the pilots to leave 'cause their airport won't work. They don't, they don't have anybody to run their air traffic control. They don't have anybody to, you know, make sure the water purification system works properly. So they're trying to keep all those people there, but all those people know that they'll then be slaves to the Taliban, so they're trying to get out. And that's- that's the, that's the tough catch-22 position that we were in.

   28. JRJoe Rogan41:11

       (exhales) I- I can only imagine the frustration that so many people like yourself who've been over there must have to how this was all handled.

   29. TKTim Kennedy41:25

       (sighs) Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan41:25

       That they should have been, they should have known what was gonna happen if you just decided to pull out the way they did.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   How many people got…

   1. TKTim Kennedy45:00

      just was gonna get locked down. And that's, that, that was starting to hurt. That's when I realized... So our list kept growing, right? I said we moved 12,000 people in 10 days. Like, think, think about twelve thou- you've, you've been to arenas with 12,000 people. In 10 days, we put them... We confirmed who they were, which is a m- miracle in itself. Thank you, Sarah Verardo. So, Save Our Allies found these people, confirmed who they were, got them approved from the government, and then put them on a plane and flew them out in 10 days. But after the bomb happens and we are limited in our ability to be effective, and this list is growing and growing and growing, this, that is when, like, my soul just starts dropping out the bottom 'cause the list grows and my, and we're not bringing anybody else in. So Sean G., our ground force commander, (sighs) you know, listening to him tell Sarah, she's like, "Well, what's the point of us still building, being, making this list?" He's like, "So we know who we left behind." And, uh, and I was just like, "Pfft, man, (laughs) this is dumb. Like, this is, this is really bad."

   2. JRJoe Rogan46:11

      How many people got left behind?

   3. TKTim Kennedy46:13

      40,000 on our list, I think.

   4. JRJoe Rogan46:16

      (exhales) Do we have any idea what happened to them?

   5. TKTim Kennedy46:21

      Um, um, we left back Americans, like... Th- they, they are in the control of the Taliban if they're alive. So, we're, we're still actively working. Like, we, we have been... So, we have now moved 17,000 people total out of Afghanistan, so we've moved another 5,000 people since Afghanistan became fully under control of the Taliban. And, um, we-

   6. JRJoe Rogan46:48

      H- how do you get 'em out while it's in control of the Taliban?

   7. TKTim Kennedy46:51

      We're very sneaky.

   8. JRJoe Rogan46:53

      So, it's 5,000 people covertly?

   9. TKTim Kennedy46:55

      Yeah. And we have, um... So we, like, lily pad. We, once you get them out, you take them to a place, you know, Qatar, uh, UAE, um, Pakistan, uh, and you stage them there as you work through the Department of State immigration process. And immigration right now is a pretty tough thing to work through. (laughs) Um, Gordan Ryan, you know, i- is a great example. His amazing and wonderful wife, you know, he's trying to get her processed through legally. My best friend, Nick Palmisciano, who wrote that book with me, his wife, it took her two and a half years, and she did everything perfect, two and a half years with a green card to become an American citizen. You know, so we have 5,000 people that are stuck in this process.

   10. JRJoe Rogan47:45

       (exhales)

   11. TKTim Kennedy47:45

       A little shout-out to some of the senators that are pushing to extend the SIV, uh, application. So, that's the special immigration visa. It's a special visa f- for people coming from war-torn countries. It was gonna end where we, that SIV visa wouldn't, wouldn't be applicable. And, uh, the, some, you know, Mi- Mike Waltz and, um, Senator Tillis and the guys like that are stepping up, being like, "No, no, no." Like, "We have a bunch of allies still that are stuck. Let's, let's figure out how to, what to do with them first."

   12. JRJoe Rogan48:18

       How was that not taken into consideration before we pulled out? I just don't understand how anyone in good conscience could've handled it the way they did. And why did they handle it the way they did? Was there a reason?

   13. TKTim Kennedy48:33

       Um, there was a, there was a date that was set on the campaign trail that we would be pulling out after 20 years. And, uh, so on S- you know, September 11th, 2021, we, when I say we, America said that we were gonna be leaving Afghanistan, and, uh, to stay true to those campaign promises and, um... You know, we're... And I'm, I'm not, like, against leaving Afghanistan.... you know, I didn't wanna fight in Afghanistan anymore. I don't think anybody else did. And th- the having been there for 20 years, like whether it was a good war, a futile war, um, that, that's for strategic level people to, to argue about. But the way that we left, that, that was really problematic, obviously. Um, (sighs) I don't know.

   14. JRJoe Rogan49:29

       Have we ever done anything like this before?

   15. TKTim Kennedy49:31

       Yeah. I mean, it happened in Saigon, uh, at the end of the Vietnam War. You know, we have, uh... I mean, I mean, you go all the way back to Sun Tzu. He tells you how to, to, to retreat. Um, you know, if, uh... You, you can see other instances where we did it poorly, like Dunkirk. Like, had th- the, the Englishmen not stood up and hopped on private-owned boats and crossed the channel, you know, there's a good chance that all of Great Britain would've fallen to the Nazis. You know, that, that was a bad plan.

   16. JRJoe Rogan50:03

       Mm-hmm.

   17. TKTim Kennedy50:04

       Um, so yeah, it, it's happened multiple times. But, uh, I don't know why we just don't seem to learn from history, and, uh, then we just bury history intentionally. It's bonkers.

   18. JRJoe Rogan50:15

       Yeah, it is bonkers. It, it's gotta be a strange feeling to be you, to have experienced so many of the things you've experienced and then to come back here and see all these people that are just blissfully ignorant-

   19. TKTim Kennedy50:35

       (sighs)

   20. JRJoe Rogan50:35

       ... of what's going on in the world while they're stuffing their face with Krispy Kreme donuts.

   21. TKTim Kennedy50:39

       (laughs) Yeah. It's kind of, uh, insulting a little bit. You know, Memorial Day just happened, and, uh, and I, I think about all of, all of the amazing men and women that have fought so bravely for this country, and I'm like, "Ah, so what are we doing to make sure their sacrifice was worth it?" Right? Are, are we really moving forward the ideals that it is to be an American? And I think being an American is a beautiful thing, and the ideals that this country were founded on are beautiful, powerful things. And, uh... But then it, uh, it's not appreciated and totally taken for, taken for granted.

   22. JRJoe Rogan51:20

       Yeah, completely. And I don't think there's any way to really educate people on what's happening. Uh, uh, unless you physically expose them to it or unless they make a concerted effort to educate themselves. I don't... So many people just, they don't... Now, like, we pulled out of Afghanistan. There was some noise in the media for, like, a few weeks.

   23. TKTim Kennedy51:41

       It was like 45 days.

   24. JRJoe Rogan51:42

       Yeah, and then (snaps fingers) gone.

   25. TKTim Kennedy51:44

       Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan51:44

       And then it, it drifted off, and I w- I was well aware that there were still people left behind there. And I'm like, "Well, what happens to those people?" And it's just the discussion just ended. And then, you know, they're mad at somebody for doing something on TV-

   27. TKTim Kennedy51:56

       (laughs)

   28. JRJoe Rogan51:56

       ... or somebody did something here or some-

   29. TKTim Kennedy51:58

       Jo- Johnny Depp and Amber Heard are getting a divorce.

   30. JRJoe Rogan52:00

       Yeah, something. There's something. There's always some distraction. Will Smith slaps Chris Rock-
5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   Like, what are we?…

   1. TKTim Kennedy1:00:00

      a-

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:00

      Like, what are we?

   3. TKTim Kennedy1:00:01

      I, I, I think Afghanistan was a contributor to, um, Putin's enthusiasm to go into Ukraine. He's like, "What are they gonna do? They're not gonna do anything." Um, in one of the military bases, the, the two kind of big ones were, were Kandahar and Bagram. I think it was Bagram. The general, the Afghan general that ran Bagram Base, American forces in the dead of night loaded all of their people and the stuff that they could carry into the planes that they had, left the base. He woke up to an empty base with Taliban just driving onto the most strategic piece of land in the whole entire country. And the Taliban are just, like, walking to the arms room, open the door and start grabbing ARs off the, off the racks-

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:51

      (sighs)

   5. TKTim Kennedy1:00:51

      ... that the military just left there.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:53

      Fuck.

   7. TKTim Kennedy1:00:53

      Night vision PVS-31s. You know? (laughs) Taliban's like woo.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:00:59

      Jesus Christ.

   9. TKTim Kennedy1:01:00

      Yeah. Infuriating.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:01:02

       Yeah. Like, what was the price tag on the amount of stuff that was left behind? It's some preposterous number.

   11. TKTim Kennedy1:01:09

       It's like 40, 70 billion. I don't know. That, it, that is a really Googleable number. Is that a verb now?

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:01:15

       ... Googleable? Should be.

   13. TKTim Kennedy1:01:16

       Yeah, Googleable.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:01:17

       Should be.

   15. TKTim Kennedy1:01:17

       I think it is.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:01:18

       Yeah.

   17. TKTim Kennedy1:01:18

       Uh-

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:01:19

       If you Google, that's a verb, right?

   19. TKTim Kennedy1:01:20

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:01:21

       I Googled it.

   21. TKTim Kennedy1:01:21

       I googled it.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:01:22

       Yeah.

   23. TKTim Kennedy1:01:25

       Tens of billions of dollars. I don't remember the exact number, but it's wild.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:01:29

       (sighs) And is anyone accountable for this? Does anybody ch- does anybody apologize? Like, how does this work?

   25. TKTim Kennedy1:01:36

       (sighs) I mean, uh-

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:01:37

       Does anybody say, "We fucked up. We could have done this better."

   27. TKTim Kennedy1:01:39

       I mean, that's, that's all on the public relations department of, of the m- of the government to do. On, um, on the voter side, like, the only way that you affect change is by voting. So, the consequence to bad policy is the people choosing people that enact different policies.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:02:01

       The problem is we're so tribalized, we're so polarized in this country, that there's pre- people that will vote Democrat no matter what.

   29. TKTim Kennedy1:02:10

       That's wild to me. So, I, I am a radical centrist. You know, like I, I look at these two fringe sides and I, like, "Bro, you're crazy," on the far right, right? Then I look on the far left. I'm like, "Ooh, bro, you're crazy." And I'm, I'm just, like, in the middle being like, "Oh, who here thinks that Afghanistan was a wreck?" Bunch of people raise their hands up. "Okay, c- cool. Who thinks that we should enact legislation to protect schools and spend money to be able to harden our schools and address mental health?" And like, everybody raises their hand. Not a single hand is stayed down, right? And then you're like, um, "Who, who, who thinks that it's a great plan for Russia to be able to take, uh, land that leads up to NATO countries?" You know, loving NATO or l- like, like Ukraine, don't like Ukr- Ukraine, think that they're corrupt, any of it. Like, everybody is gonna be like, "Yeah, I don't want communism at my door." And then you go, "Well, who thinks there's a problem with immigration right now?" And, uh, es- I mean, obviously in Texas, every Texan is gonna be like, "Bro, there's a crazy problem." But, like, everybody generally is like, "Yeah, I think the immigration system's broken. Let's figure out how to fix it." R- even if you're like, "No, build the wall," or, "No, let them all in," everybody still agrees that there's a problem with immigration and we have to fix it. So, in the middle here are just a bunch of people with a lot of issues that we all agree need to be fixed, and then I guess we can't have a conversation because we are so divided about what the best solution is.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:03:35

       I think there's a giant percentage of us that are in the middle. But there's enough people that are so crazy on either side that you choose to say, "That crazy, I just can't tolerate, so I'm gonna join in with this crazy."
6. 1:15:00 – 1:17:40

   In, in that confirmation…

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:15:00

      Like, what the fuck is going on?

   2. TKTim Kennedy1:15:02

      In, in that confirmation bias, where you have this, this kind of preconceived notion, and then you go out and look for any, anything that supports your wild ideas. You know, if, if I think the, the number 17 is my magical number, I can go out and I can find the number 17 on a freeway sign. "Man, I knew it. You know, I knew that's my magic number," right? And then I'm driving down the road, I turn left into a residential area, and I look down at my speedometer, "Oh, oh, I'm at 17." And so, like, you start getting this-

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:15:33

      Mm-hmm.

   4. TKTim Kennedy1:15:34

      ... this belief, and it is the most dangerous thing in confirmation bias, especially when it has crazy ideas, um, like anti-freedom ideas or, like, hi-, uh, hating a specific person, and you're looking for reasons not to like them. And it is dangerous. For investigators on, on the law enforcement side, like, they spec- we have specific measures for detectives to prevent them from using confirmation bias, you know, where I think, "I think you're guilty, so I'm gonna start looking for evidence that supports my belief that you are guilty." That's-

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:16:06

      Did you ever see the Amanda Knox trial that, on Netflix?

   6. TKTim Kennedy1:16:09

      No.

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:16:09

      There's a documentary on Amanda Knox and what happened to her in Italy. It's exactly that.

   8. TKTim Kennedy1:16:13

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:16:13

      I had her on the podcast. She's an amazing person. She's so articulate and so smart and so resilient, and what's fascinating is one of the subjects we got into was I said, "D- do you think you would..." I would never wish this on anyone 'cause it happened to her when she was 20 years old. She was falsely accused of murder. There's plenty of evidence that there was this, uh, this guy from Africa. They know who he is. His DNA is all over the house. His blood's in the house. Like, he wa- w- he came into the house, and he pr- said he was in the house and said he got there when the guy was killing her and he ran away. Like, it ... The fucking story is so bad, it's so bad, and they still tried to pin it on her because that's who they initially supposed was doing it, that, that had killed ... There's n- zero evidence.

   10. TKTim Kennedy1:16:57

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:16:57

       But they pro- they tried her twice, twice for this. But it's that kind of shitty detective work-

   12. TKTim Kennedy1:17:05

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:17:05

       ... that you're talking about avoiding because people are human, and humans have egos. And e- egos lead you to make decisions that aren't rational or justifiable, but they support your initial assertion, which, if you say, "Uh, turns out I was wrong," now, all the sudden, people go, "Well, you don't know what the fuck you're doing." And nobody wants to do that.

   14. TKTim Kennedy1:17:24

       Yeah. Uh, h- heaven forbreakance somebody have enough inner development or inner personal skills to acknowledge, uh, uh, that they're f- wrong.

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:17:33

       Right.

   16. TKTim Kennedy1:17:34

       Like, that doesn't happen anymore.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:17:35

       Well, it's like the checks and balances just weren't in place for him to accuse her in the first place, the prosecutor-

Episode duration: 2:42:04