Joe Rogan Experience #1889 - Dr. Phil

Narrator 0:00 (drumming music plays) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

Dr. Phil McGraw 0:04 The Joe Rogan Experience.

Narrator 0:06 Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music plays) All right, we're up and running.

Joe Rogan 0:16 What do you got there? Got detailed notes?

Dr. Phil McGraw 0:19 Well, I've got some statistics I might talk about, I don't know. Maybe I will, maybe I won't.

Joe Rogan 0:23 You're a voice of reason. How do we fix this world?

Dr. Phil McGraw 0:26 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:27 We're in a mess. This is, this is a weird time to be alive, isn't it?

Dr. Phil McGraw 0:31 Yeah, it's getting weirder too.

Joe Rogan 0:33 (laughs)

Dr. Phil McGraw 0:34 I mean, it is getting weirder, don't you think?

Joe Rogan 0:36 It is. Oh, certainly Well, it's, it's highlighted on your show. You know, you, you've kind of, uh, exposed a lot of it to America.

Dr. Phil McGraw 0:45 Uh, y- you know, every year, uh, in the, in the summer, we kind of work to reinvent ourselves, uh, about how we can tell our stories better and all that sort of thing. And we really focus on what our viewers are asking about and I have to tell you, this year the questions really changed-

Joe Rogan 1:04 Yeah.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:04 ... 'cause, you know, it's, we still deal with human functioning, you know, marriage and family and all that. But in addition to that, the questions we got over the summer this year started really changing like, "Are we gonna make it? Ar- are we gonna survive? W- what... Are we safe? Are our kids safe? Um, are they safe in school? What are they being taught in school? Should we be going down there and seeing what they're teaching em? Are we... What's happening a- as far as values in this country?" I mean, people started asking different questions and so I changed everything. I, you know, I used to have that studio audience out in the bleachers out there. I moved everybody on stage and we're just having a focus group every day. Like 110 people up there in a focus group and letting them talk and ask questions 'cause they're really concerned and I, I, I, I just said, "I can't take it anymore. I'm gonna start talking about the social issues along with everything else." Because if you, if you even took psychology in k- in high school, or you took Psych 101, one of the first fundamental principles you learned was you don't reward bad behavior, right?

Joe Rogan 2:25 Right.

Dr. Phil McGraw 2:25 You don't reward bad behavior. I mean, the world is a meritocracy and we've somehow lost that. We, all the sudden we're paying people not to work more than they get if they work. And then we say, "What happened to the supply chain?" Well, you s- paid everybody not to work. That's what happened to the supply chain and I, I'm stunned that we're running this country in so many areas where we're just violating the most fundamental psychological principles that you could ever imagine and I'm watching that happen and I say, "I just can't be silent about this anymore." So I'm talking about it.

Joe Rogan 3:12 What do you think is the root cause of this shift?

Dr. Phil McGraw 3:16 Uh, uh, I think it's been happening gradually but like everything, you know, it's like if you start rolling a rock downhill, it starts getting faster and faster and faster and I, I think it's happened for a lot of reasons. But I think we've got a whole generation of kids that are really smart, by the way. These kids are smart, but I think they've started living on their devices. It's kind of like along about 2007 or '08, like, e- it seems like airplanes flew over the country and just started dropping smartphones and everybody's head went from here to here. I mean, think about it. When you, when you look, go anywhere, go to the mall, go just anywhere there's a group and what do you see in their hands? You see a device. We didn't grow up with devices. When I started Dr. Phil 21 years ago, the first text hadn't been sent. There were no social media platforms. None of that stuff was going on. Technology's great. I'm not... L- listen, I love technology. Um, but we've got generations that started living virtually. They're watching people live their lives instead of living their own lives and that changed the metrics on everything. Think about that. TikTok, Instagram, all of this, you're watching other people live their lives instead of living your own and that changed everything.

Joe Rogan 4:54 That seems like one factor, but that wouldn't explain this abandonment of meritocracy.

Dr. Phil McGraw 5:01 Well, that is just one factor. That you're exactly right. But there's something else that I think has come along with it and we've got a generation of what I call concierge parents that are running interference for their kids and, look, the way you learn about yourself, the way you make attributions to yourself about yourself is the same way you make attributions about other people. You have people that you have opinions of, right? You, you know. You, you got people, friends or staff that you watch what they do and you say, "He or she is a go-to person. I know what they do. I can count on them. They're gonna be there every time. They're gonna show up on time. They're gonna get everything ready. They're gonna be buttoned up." They're like clockwork, right? And you attribute that to them because you watch what they do.If they're problem solvers, you know, hey, go get Becky in here. Go, go get Jeff in here. They are problem solvers. You know that because you've watched them do it and you make that attribution to them. That's the same way we learn about ourselves. You, you watch ourselves master certain tasks, overcome certain things, and if we're cheated out of that experience, we don't learn that about ourselves. And if you've got parents that are out there smoothing out all the bumps for you, then you don't learn that you can smooth out your own bumps. You don't learn that you can overcome obstacles. You don't learn that you can master your environment. And so as a result, you don't have the self-esteem, you don't have the self-worth, you don't make the attributions that, "Hey, I can do this shit." And when you don't believe you can do this shit, then you start saying, "Well, I, I don't want a meritocracy. I want everybody to just kind of go along the same." And so we started seeing in the universities, you start seeing kids that are complaining that something the professor said hurt their feelings, it upset them. So they start going to the dean, they start going to, uh, the department head and saying, "That professor said things that upset me." And we've had more professors disciplined, suspended, or dismissed i- in the last 10 or 15 years than we've had since McCarthyism, because kids are going in there and saying, "It, it, it hurt my feelings."

Joe Rogan 7:48 Yeah.

Dr. Phil McGraw 7:49 "He offended me and said things that were offensive." And, and so they complained about it and they get listened to, and so the professors... And, you know, some of them are assholes, I'm sure.

Joe Rogan 8:04 Sure.

Dr. Phil McGraw 8:04 Some of them are offensive by any standard. But it's out of control. And these kids are sensitive t- to the point when, when I was in college, w- when it- campuses were where you went to hear the other side, right? That's how you rounded things out. If there was a speaker coming that was totally on the other side than you were on anything, science or whatever, you went to listen to them because you thought, "I'm gonna learn how to shoot this full of holes." Now, anywhere from 15% to 30% of students think it's okay to shout down somebody you disagree with, to protest and run them off campus. You don't listen to them, you get rid of them, you don't want to hear it, you don't want to see it, you don't want to have anything to do with it. They protest and yell them down. What's that about? Th- they don't want to hear it, and, and I think that we're coddling this whole generation. And when they get out of school and get into the world where that's not gonna happen, they're gonna be competitive, uh, we're gonna have a real problem. Because in a, in a global economy, w- we're gonna fall behind, and we are behind right now. People say, "Well, we lead the world in math and science and reading." No, we don't. We don't lead it. Um, I, I wrote down where we are, uh, but we're not anywhere near the top. Um, we're 13th in reading, we're 18th in science, we're 37th in math in the world today.

Joe Rogan 10:00 Where did we use to be? At any one point in time were we number one?

Dr. Phil McGraw 10:03 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 10:04 How long ago?

Dr. Phil McGraw 10:06 It's been a generation. It's been... We've been on the slide for a good while.

Joe Rogan 10:11 Do y-

Dr. Phil McGraw 10:11 We're 37th in math.

Joe Rogan 10:15 So do you, do you think this is coming from parents coddling their children, helicopter parents, those children going off to universities, universities instilling these ideas in them that they should be able to shout down ideas that they don't agree with and that everything should be comfortable and everyone should have everything they want and desire without any work? And then they go out into the workforce and they invade corporations with these same attitudes and become activists and...

Dr. Phil McGraw 10:44 Well, you, you hear some professors that venture to say, you know, "We're not getting or turning out the best and the brightest, uh, for this whole variety of reasons." That means we're not competitive. And if we- if we're not competitive, if we're not turning out the best and the brightest because we're caving, uh, because we've got quotas to fill, or w- for whatever reason, then we're just... Where's that gonna leave us? And this wasn't caused by the pandemic, it was exacerbated by the pandemic. Um, and, you know, as I say, you're not, you're not gonna get kids that, uh, have a lot of self-confidence, that have a lot of, uh, self-worth, that have made these attributions. And right now, uh, the millennial generation is the loneliest, uh, most emotionally impacted out of all the generations right now. They are lonely. They don't have friends. Followers aren't friends. And if you haven't gotten out in the world and you don't have the confidence to get out there, you're not gonna do well.

Joe Rogan 12:11 Yeah. It's, uh, it's a strange combination of factors that... But one of the things that disturbs me the most about it is that I don't see a way to turn it around, other than some sort of a disaster, where people are forced to come together. Like, I remember the- the shift in the country after 9/11 and the only thing that I felt positive about was like, wow, all of a sudden America feels united. (laughs) Like, there were so many people driving down the street with American flags on their cars. I mean, it was almost more than there were not. In Los Angeles, which is a very liberal place. And I remember thinking, "Maybe- (clears throat) ... things like this are important just to sort of snap people back to a- a healthier baseline." To put people back into... To give 'em a perspective, like, we are really all in this together. And if something like that does happen, and it unites people, and they get together and they realize, "Hey, we're all working together towards a goal. We wanna keep our families safe, we wanna keep the world safe, we wanna be able to pursue our dreams and do what we want to do. And if something comes along that stops that, we have to kind of unite together to make sure we put everything back on track."

Dr. Phil McGraw 13:30 So you think there has to be something to get peoples' attention?

Joe Rogan 13:33 I- I worry that it has to be something big. I worry that it has to be, like, a war or a natural disaster. Something huge. Because I- I don't... I think if you... As long as you allow people to keep going, there's so much momentum in society going the direction that we're going. People that want an equality of outcome, people that want a redistribution of wealth. But some people are waking up telling me... I- I saw a quote from Bono, of all people, uh, that I read yesterday. See if you can find this, where he was talking about when he was young he thought that the world's problems could be solved by a redistribution of wealth. But now he realizes that healthy commerce is the way to a better society.

Dr. Phil McGraw 14:18 Yeah, look, socialism doesn't work. You know, there's every cliché in the world. "It works great til you run out of other peoples' money."

Joe Rogan 14:28 Yeah. (laughs)

Dr. Phil McGraw 14:28 You know? All- all of those quotes.

Joe Rogan 14:29 Yeah.

Dr. Phil McGraw 14:31 Uh, it- it- it doesn't work and I- I've- I've encountered those people, uh, in debates that think it does. Um, I've- I've had people in the focus group situation that say they shouldn't be prosecuting shoplifting because they're just going in there and taking what's rightfully theirs.

Joe Rogan 14:56 (laughs)

Dr. Phil McGraw 14:56 And I said, "What the hell are you talking about?" They said, "Well, these corporations aren't paying enough. They're not paying a living wage, so they're just going in and taking what's rightfully theirs." And I'm saying, "Well... So, (sighs) okay. If you're wanting equal outcome..." "No, no. I'm just wanting equal opco- opportunity." "No, no. You're wanting equal outcome 'cause you're- you're saying everybody should just help themselves to... So they all can live. What if one person spent 15 years going to college and working their butt off to acquire what I call consequential knowledge, and the other person was sitting home in a bean bag eating Cheetos for 15 years? You think they should have the same outcome?" "Well, yeah. That's a right. Everybody has a right to a reasonable life." "Well, go read The Little Red Hen. I mean," (sighs) "did they not go over that in grade school?"

Joe Rogan 15:53 I don't remember that one.

Dr. Phil McGraw 15:54 You don't remember that one? That's a good book. I'll get you... I'll send you a copy.

Joe Rogan 15:58 (laughs) What was the premise of The Little Red Hen?

Dr. Phil McGraw 16:01 Well, she- she was going around saying, "Hey, help me harvest the grain will you?" And- and, you know, the grasshopper said, "Oh, I'm just basking in the sun here." And then she goes to the next land animal, "Help me with this." "No, I... Hey, I'm busy right now." Then it comes winter time and they all kind of wanted to come eat the bread. And she said, "Well, you didn't help when it was time to get the grain in, but now you want to eat the bread. And so, sorry I didn't get enough in to feed you all 'cause you never helped." And so they're all out there freezing to death and it just doesn't work that way. You got to pitch in if you want to be there when it's time chow down. And people don't understand it doesn't work if you don't contribute. It- it doesn't work.

Joe Rogan 16:48 And the scary thing is this idea that people have that the government should provide for them and that they- they deserve it. It just reinforces this, and it just compounds it.

Dr. Phil McGraw 17:00 You know, even... (sighs) I- I've worked a lot in rehab.

Joe Rogan 17:04 (clears throat)

Dr. Phil McGraw 17:04 And I don't mean drug rehab. I'm talking about all, any, whatever it is. If you have a head injury, if you have someone that's, uh, injured on the job and they're having to reeducate their body. Uh, spinal injury or whatever. If you don't require that person to do everything they can do, every single time they face a task, you're cheating them because they'll never get to the next level. I mean, if a paraplegic takes 11 minutes to get across a room to flip a light switch and you don't require them to do that, then they'll never do it in 10 minutes, nine minutes, six minutes, and then where they can actually do it. Now, if they can't do it, they can't do it. But you need to require them to do everything they can do for themselves before you help them to do it. And we should always help them to do it, but you should let them do as much as they can do. And that's the same way with everybody in the world. They should do everything they're able to do.And if we have people on the government dole that aren't doing everything they can do to help themselves, whether they're among the homeless population or, uh, the drug population, or the mentally ill popul- what- whatever. It's, um, totally understanding that you help people. But you give them a hand up, not a handout. There's a big difference. And we're just not doing that. You, you've got to require people to do everything they can do to help themselves so they, again, observe themselves doing more and more and they have pride in what they achieve and what they accomplish. And we've gotten away from that. We're not doing that.

Joe Rogan 19:03 But it seems like, especially when you're talking about, like, the homeless population, you would need so many people to work with those people, because you're talking about a, a psychological shift, a, a way of viewing the world with, with discipline and accountability that you're, you're not gonna just get people to adopt on their own. I mean, very few people will. Mo- most people will do the very least that they have to do. And if there's programs and different ways that they can acquire money and food, they'll just stay in whatever state they're at. You know, I was watching this video today of a guy who's in Hollywood who built a house on the street. He built a small house. And they were talking to all the people in the neighborhood about it and they had the cops come and visit him and they offered to take him to a shelter and he's like, "No, I don't want to go." And they go, "Okay," and they just leave him there. So this guy's built a structure on wheels. It's like a small shed, but a wooden house, 'cause he said that every time he had a tent, they took the tent away.

Dr. Phil McGraw 20:06 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:06 So he just built a house.

Dr. Phil McGraw 20:08 Well, that's pretty industrious.

Joe Rogan 20:10 Yeah. But why can't he apply that to other things, right?

Dr. Phil McGraw 20:12 Exactly. And he, and he can.

Joe Rogan 20:14 But he needs coaching.

Dr. Phil McGraw 20:14 But... And, and I don't care how flat you make a pancake, it's got two sides. And the side where he says, "I don't want to go to a shelter," if you go to a shelter, what do you do with all your stuff? 'Cause there's nowhere inside that shelter to take all of your stuff. And he, and he has things. And he might have an animal. And that animal, he's attached to. And you can't take that animal in the shelter. And you can't take your things in the shelter. And if you can't take your animal and your things in the shelter, they're not gonna go. If they leave their things on the street, they'll be gone when they come out the next morning. So, a shelter's not always the answer. So, you gotta have empathy for those people. And he may be trying to do the best he can, but there h- you, you've gotta create alternatives where he says, "Okay, look." If he's industrious enough that he's built a house on wheels and they're pirating electrical, some of them from service poles-

Joe Rogan 21:09 Yeah.

Dr. Phil McGraw 21:10 ... some of them have tent man tents and they've got flower beds in front of them.

Joe Rogan 21:14 Yeah, this guy had plants hanging out in front of his house.

Dr. Phil McGraw 21:16 Yeah. That's pretty industrious. Now, if, if that guy's got that much initiative and... He could use that in other ways. Find him a place where he can do that, where he can not be obstructing traffic, not be in front of somebody's business, be in an area where he can build that house and then maybe he can inspire somebody else to do the same thing and then he can maybe... You know, it starts to snowball. You work with what you have. I'm not saying these people can start running their own business tomorrow, but build on what you have. Uh, but you don't just say, "Well..." You know, so he's what they refer to as experiencing homelessness. Find something that you can build on. These people don't want to be homeless. They want to have a better standard of living. But once they become homeless, it's like, you know, inertia is the tendency for bodies at rest to stay at rest and it's hard to get them moving. But you say there's, it would take so many, you can find leaders within those groups that can help the next level below and they can be helped by the next level above. There are ways out of that.

Joe Rogan 22:30 But it seems like one of the first things that has to happen is you can't tolerate people just camping on the streets. Just like you can't tolerate people littering. 'Cause it's, it's not much difference. You're, you're interfering with all the other people that are following society's rules. And society's rules are there to preserve everybody and keep the world cleaner and a better place. So as soon as you allow someone to violate those rules because they're down and out and then you have more and then they compound and then you have thousands of tents, now you have a problem that's almost insurmountable. And then you have a whole industry that's based around that problem because you have hundreds of people that work for the city that get paid six-figure salaries and they're not fixing anything. They get paid for the homeless cr- And some of them are making a quarter million dollars a year. We looked it up. It's wild. The budget goes up every year. The problem doesn't go away. There's no incentive to fix the problem, 'cause if the problem gets fixed, then those jobs go away.

Dr. Phil McGraw 23:30 Of course it does. The, the jobs go away. But those jobs can become different jobs if somebody holds them accountable. And, uh, so you can go in and just wipe all the tents off the street, but where are those people gonna go?

Joe Rogan 23:46 Right. Well, in Austin, they moved them into hotels. They bought hotels, they moved them into hotels, and they had it set up where you'd have to be clean to go into these places. And they offered them counseling. But Austin's a smaller place. You know, there's only a million people in this city. And, you know, I talked to the mayor about it before they fixed the problem and it was his number one initiative. He's like, he goes, "Before I leave office, I have to fix this." And he goes, "And I think we can because there's only about 2,000 homeless people." He goes, "When you get to the place where LA is, where you're dealing with, like, 100,000 homeless people, it's almost impossible." He goes, "But right now, we're, like, at the tipping point where we can fix it." But it is kind of fixed. There's still some homeless people, but if you go around Austin, you don't see the tents here that you see in LA.

Dr. Phil McGraw 24:31 Well-... is, is that out of sight, out of mind? Or is somebody going to those people in the hotels and trying to get them to be self-sufficient? I mean, y- you can hide the problem or you can fix the problem, and you gotta find a way to fix the problem. Y- you've got to get these people doing everything they can do to become self-sufficient. I mean, that's the dignity they're looking for and we're not helping them to do it- (clears throat) ... if we're just taking them out of sight.

Joe Rogan 25:01 But don't you think it's, uh, uh, there's a massive amount of energy and effort that has to be taken for each individual to change the way they view the world, to acquire discipline, to acquire initiative, to clean their act up, to stop doing meth and heroin, and, and try to get their life to a place where they're living a meaningful, rewarding life? I mean, how many people struggle with that on a daily basis? You, you need coaching and counseling and you need slow incremental steps towards acquiring a self-sufficient mentality. That's a very, very difficult thing to get people to accept en masse.

Dr. Phil McGraw 25:39 It is. And the problem that I see with the approach to it now is the exit ramps out of that life are not aggressively enough ... Th- they're not being pursued aggressively enough. It's just like, all right, what are we gonna do with these people today? Let's put them in, uh, a camping area, let's put them in a hotel, let's, you know, it's l- let's get them off the street, or let's get rid of the rules that say they can't camp. Well, okay, that's just warehousing. What are you doing to help this person become self-sufficient? Are you finding them a job? Are you creating a contingency where if they do A, they get B, if they do B, they get C? Or do you have somebody saying, "Hey, listen. Uh, housing is a human right." Well, okay. I- it ... Let's just for argument's sake say that's a human right. I'm not saying you agree with that, I'm not saying I agree with that. Let's just for argument's sake say that's right. All right. What's the contingency to then say, "Okay, now what are you going to do next? What are you going to do to get a job? What are you going to do to get off drugs? What are you gonna do ... Are you gonna go to therapy or are you gonna get job training? Are you ... What are you gonna do?" And you say you have all of ... It's gonna take a lot of manpower to do that. Well, we got a lot of manpower doing not shit now. Th- they can do that. I mean, let's make sure they're training people and hold them accountable for how many people they're getting off the street into jobs that are self-sufficient. We're not holding them accountable. They need to be held accountable for are they reducing the population or are they not?

Joe Rogan 27:25 It seems like the solution that most people have is to move out of the areas that are enforcing these ideas. That's what most people are doing.

Dr. Phil McGraw 27:31 Of course.

Joe Rogan 27:32 Yeah. They're just ... Like, people that live in Santa Monica, they're just selling their houses. They're like, "I gotta get-

Dr. Phil McGraw 27:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 27:36 ... the fuck out of here."

Dr. Phil McGraw 27:37 Yeah. That's right.

Joe Rogan 27:37 There's tents in front of my car. You know, I'm finding needles in the street.

Dr. Phil McGraw 27:42 Yeah. I- it's the not in my neighborhood thing.

Joe Rogan 27:45 Yeah, exactly.

Dr. Phil McGraw 27:46 We don't ... Do what you wanna do, just don't do it in my neighborhood.

Joe Rogan 27:48 There was a video where, um, one of these health officials was, uh, they were showing needles that they pick up from the streets in Portland. And they had giant garbage bins filled with used needles. I mean, it was wild. Just, like, a room filled with garbage bins filled with needles that they cleaned off the streets. And, like, this is the scope of the problem. This is the scale of the problem that people don't see.

Dr. Phil McGraw 28:17 Yeah. And people see pictures, they see it on TV, they see it, you know, on some site. What they don't get is the smell that these people are living in and the neighborhoods around it. Um, it's, it's really, um ... It's a terrible way to live and it's a terrible thing to ask people that have businesses where these ... Th- they're having to live adjacent to that. It's, it, it does ... It's not working for anybody. It, it's not working for those in the tents, it's not working for those adjacent to where they're doing that. Um, so the Austin mayor, h- he put a standard. You gotta be clean and you gotta keep, you know, your area clean, your room clean, all that. That's a step up, right? Uh, at least it's not rancid and horrible. He's requiring more. And if they enforce that, you know, that's a step up. Now these people will start to have a sense of, of personal pride and dignity that they may not have had if they were in one of these areas that's so terrible. Then it's a less of a leap to say let's start talking about job interviews at entry level and see if you can get them back into that. Because those people weren't born homeless. They slid down there.

Joe Rogan 29:49 Yeah.

Dr. Phil McGraw 29:50 So it's a matter of getting them back up there. And a lot of them-

Joe Rogan 29:53 It's a whole lot harder to get back up than-

Dr. Phil McGraw 29:54 It is.

Joe Rogan 29:54 ... it is to slide down.

Dr. Phil McGraw 29:55 It is. And a lot of them are mentally ill.

Joe Rogan 29:57 Yeah.

Dr. Phil McGraw 29:58 And so you've gotta help that in some way so they can actually have, um, the focus and the mindset to contribute something to an employer somewhere. Uh, and that's not easy. And, and we're not helping this right now in the school system. It's ... We've got a silent epidemic going on right now because ... And it was exacerbated by the pandemic because, uh ... It's amazing how many people in America right now ... I- I just had a woman on recently, um-... that works nationally with the education programs. And she says 130 million Americans can't read at the most basic level. And I said, "Define basic level for me." And (laughs) she said, "Basic level is they can't read a prescription label. They can't read a simple story to their children at bedtime."

Joe Rogan 31:13 130 million?

Dr. Phil McGraw 31:14 130 million can't read a-

Joe Rogan 31:16 So that's more than a third of the whole country.

Dr. Phil McGraw 31:19 ... can't read a simple story to their children.

Joe Rogan 31:23 That's insane.

Dr. Phil McGraw 31:24 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:24 It's that, it's really that many?

Dr. Phil McGraw 31:26 Yeah. Uh, that's, that's, this is, um... And further to that, 32% of fourth graders can't read at even a basic level, and 24% of eighth graders can't read at a basic level, and 19% of high school graduates, according to the Department of Education, can't read. Graduates. Now, how does that work? You're graduating high school, but you can't read at the most basic level. So, when I'm saying there's a silent epidemic, um, we've got some schools that are changing their grading standards to close the gap.

Joe Rogan 32:17 So they're making it easier.

Dr. Phil McGraw 32:18 Well, one of them that we looked at, a C is now 44 to 64%. You make 45, you got a C. You take a test, you get 45, you made a C.

Joe Rogan 32:32 Wow.

Dr. Phil McGraw 32:34 Now, was that not an F when you went to school?

Joe Rogan 32:36 That was an F. (laughs) Yeah.

Dr. Phil McGraw 32:38 That was an F.

Joe Rogan 32:38 Now, it's a C?

Dr. Phil McGraw 32:39 Yeah. Now, 44 to 64 is a C.

Joe Rogan 32:42 70 was always a C.

Dr. Phil McGraw 32:43 Right. That was a C-minus because that was the bottom of the Cs, right?

Joe Rogan 32:46 Right.

Dr. Phil McGraw 32:47 So now, 44 to 64 is a C, 64 to 84 is a B, 84 to 100 is an A. You gotta drop below 24 to get an F.

Joe Rogan 32:58 Wow, 24.

Dr. Phil McGraw 33:00 Now, that's how they're closing the gap and pushing them on to the next grade. So, if you can make a average of 30, you get a D. That's passing. You move onto the next level.

Joe Rogan 33:12 So instead of fixing things, it just made it easier for people to get through.

Dr. Phil McGraw 33:16 Yeah. And, uh, I, I don't see how that's gonna work.

Joe Rogan 33:23 No. It, it's, it's almo- Um, I mean, if you were a, a real conspiracy theorist, and you really wanted to believe that there was someone that was trying to destroy America from within, slowly, tha- this would be the way to do it. All the things we talked about, make it easy for people to be homeless, make people think that the world owes them something, equality of outcome is the desired result, everyone who's wealthy is evil. If you, uh, think there's something wrong with the world, throw soup at a painting and glue yourself to the wall. I mean, this, the stuff that we're reinforcing and the, the way that it's happening so rapidly, I mean, you, you're, you're older than me. Uh, has there ever been a time in your life where you thought that America could get to the point where it's at now?

Dr. Phil McGraw 34:13 No. Uh, I, I have to honestly say no. And, and further to that point, um, uh, I've gotta say that y- you get to a point where you start getting scared about whether or not this is something we can come back from, and I'm an incurable optimist. And I really do believe that if people will, if people will stop arguing and decide, look, I'm not here to win an argument, I'm here to solve a problem, if people will just take that attitude, we can really change some things that are going on here, 'cause I'm an, I'm an incurable optimist, and I do think we can solve this problem. And it's, we- we've got a lot of kids right now that are experiencing anxiety, depression, and homelessness at the highest levels that we've had since we started keeping records of this kind of thing, which is not that long ago. It's not like since the 1700s we've just been keeping these records for. (laughs) Um, I think they really started keeping good records in the maybe since '12, '10, '12, somewhere back in there. Um, but these are the highest levels that we've seen. And the pandemic didn't cause that, but it really spiked it because these kids were out of school and they got really scared of the pandemic, they lost loved ones, they were afraid of this invisible monster out there. Um, we're gonna have to deal with that and we're gonna have to deal with the fact that they lost a lot of time and a lot of learning that put them further behind than we already were. And we need... You said, "Something's gotta happen for people to come together." We need to come together for these kids. We need to come together and recognize that we're about to lose a generation here, and we can fix this, but we've got to stop trying to win an argument about who's got the right to talk about curriculum and who do-... We need to solve the problem.Look, I'm politically agnostic. I, you know, when I say the pandemic was mishandled, I think it was mishandled. I said it was mishandled at the beginning, publicly. And listen, this spanned the Trump administration, the Biden administration. So, this is a bipartisan problem. I'm not, I'm, I don't know enough about politics to talk politics. I don't want to know enough about it. I'm talking about the culture. And, you know, when I, when I talk to people about negotiating, which I do a lot, the first thing I always tell people is, "The first thing you should do is, let's talk about what we agree on. If we're on two sides of a table like this and we're negotiating, let's talk about what we agree on first." 'Cause you know if you really spend time to do that, you're sometimes surprised at how little you really disagree on.

Joe Rogan 37:33 Right. I find that all the time.

Dr. Phil McGraw 37:35 Yeah. If you get to left and the right and talk about what we agree on, everybody would agree we want America to be the, the number one country in the world. We want to be the leading superpower, the leading educational power, the le- leading in technology. Everything, right? Everybody would agree to that. I- if, we want to be the healthiest country, we, we want to be the, the, the best leaders, we want to be... Everybody would agree on that. Everybody would agree we want our children to have a better life than we had. Everybody would agree that we want safety for our kids. We want advances in medicine. And everybody would... There's so many things we can agree on. And then when we say, "Let's talk about what we don't agree on," the next step you say is, "How can I get the other side as much of what they want as I possibly can?" That should be the second thing you should focus on, because oftentimes, you find we have different currencies. You might value different things than I do, so I might be able to give you everything you want. That's not likely to happen, but there's a lot I can give you 'cause you value different things than I do, and I value different things than you do. We might be able to really help each other get what we want, and it narrows down to very little, sometimes, that we really disagree on and have to compromise on. But you can't do that if you're really focused on winning an argument and being a right fighter, instead of saying, "Let's solve the problem. We can't come out of this room till we solve the problem." And it's hard to do that if you're kind of agreeing just with what your side beats the drum on versus this side beats the drum on, instead of being commonsensical and saying, "How do we solve this problem?"

Joe Rogan 39:26 Yeah, I think very few people are able to argue without attaching themselves to ideas. So, if their, their idea, when they have an argument about something, if you say something that they agree with, instead of accepting that you say something they agree with, they want to fight against it, because they just want to be right. The, you know, very few people are good at ideas being discussed in arguments, 'cause the, the argument becomes very personal. Like, they think about their own self-worth, and they attach it to being the winner of the argument. They want to use ad hominem attacks, insults, and, and, and trying to figure out a way to, to verbally joust with you to the point where they're successful.

Dr. Phil McGraw 40:07 You know, when people start assassinating character, it's because their ideas won't withstand challenge. This cancel culture bullshit, cancel culture should be counsel culture. If you say something that's offensive to my values, I should counsel with you about it, not cancel you, not get everybody to hate you. You know, you see somebody that says something on Twitter or says something in an interview that is offensive to some group, and all of a sudden, you start reading the messages they get. It's like, "I hope you get ass cancer and die, you son of a bitch. I'll cut your throat. I'll come to your house and kill your children." Are you kidding me? What is, it's like, boycott this person, boycott this company, do... It, wh- where did we get to this, now they're canceling each other. It, it should be counsel culture, not cancel culture. Let's sit down and talk about, let me educate you. Maybe you don't understand. Maybe when you do, you won't agree, but l- let's talk about this.

Joe Rogan 41:16 I think it's social media. I think it's echo chambers. I think it's people having the ability to discuss things without any social interaction. They're not looking at each other. They're, they're, they're not feeling the other person's emotions and feelings, they're not looking into their eyes. It's a very inhumane way for people to communicate. It's very sterilized, and you can assassinate a person's character or attack them or say horrible, insulting, and threatening things, and you don't feel any response.

Dr. Phil McGraw 41:44 Well, how, how many things do people type that they would not say to you in an elevator?

Joe Rogan 41:50 Yeah.

Dr. Phil McGraw 41:50 You know, they had, like you said, they look you in the eye, or they, v- in an elevator. Same thing with road rage.

Joe Rogan 41:55 Yeah.

Dr. Phil McGraw 41:55 You know, people blow the horn, yell stuff. They wouldn't say that to you if you step in front of them on the escalator.

Joe Rogan 42:01 Right.

Dr. Phil McGraw 42:02 They, they wouldn't say, "You rat bastard." Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:05 Right.

Dr. Phil McGraw 42:05 But they'll say it 'cause they don't have to own it.

Joe Rogan 42:07 Right.

Dr. Phil McGraw 42:08 And so many of these people that jump on the bandwagon, they don't even know what they're talking about. They just see somebody jumping on somebody's ass, they go, "Hey, this is great. Let's, this'll be fun."

Joe Rogan 42:19 Pile on.

Dr. Phil McGraw 42:20 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:20 Yeah.

Dr. Phil McGraw 42:21 And they don't even know what they're talking about. And people's lives get ruined. And that, that's, that, that's not solving a problem. That's just being a keyboard bully. And that's a, that's a terrible misuse of social media. It's terrible misuse of the internet. And if you would counsel instead of cancel, we could really make some progress.

Joe Rogan 42:46 This is very few people capable of thinking that way. They just, uh, uh, and social media unfortunately reinforces this idea and it reinforces these tribal groups that connect to their ideology, they support these people in this little tribal group. The problem is if they step out of line at all, these people that are canceling, they run out of people to cancel and they go after each other. You know, they go af- progressives per- in particular. You're not progressive enough, they'll go after you for enabling.

Dr. Phil McGraw 43:16 Yeah. I just may write an article the other day, some site I've never even heard of, it says, "Dr. Phil's become a platform for right-wing, um, hate-mongers or something." And they listed some shows where I'd had on (clears throat) people on the right giving them a voice. They went down through like six or eight shows. And not one time did they mention that sitting right across from them was the other side. Like one of 'em, one of 'em was I, I had Lila Rose on, w- who's the Right to Life spokesperson, very smart, uh, woman, and she was arguing that. I had the President of the National Organization of Women and Ben Crump on the other, sitting right across from her. They didn't mention that they were there.

Joe Rogan 44:15 Yeah. Of course, they don't because it's not a real article. The, the article's not a real th- it's an attack, it's not-

Dr. Phil McGraw 44:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:21 ... an unbiased, objective assessment-

Dr. Phil McGraw 44:24 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:24 ... of the conversation. It's horse shit.

Dr. Phil McGraw 44:26 But they did like eight out of eight, they did not mention-

Joe Rogan 44:28 Yeah.

Dr. Phil McGraw 44:28 ... (laughs) one time that the other side was there and it's because they don't want to hear anybody's side but theirs.

Joe Rogan 44:35 Yeah.

Dr. Phil McGraw 44:36 Uh-

Joe Rogan 44:36 Yeah, that's the thing. They just-

Dr. Phil McGraw 44:37 And I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna let both sides say what they have to say and let people make up their own minds about what they want to think and what they want to feel.

Joe Rogan 44:46 Well, that's the way things are supposed to be held. That's the way things are supposed to be done. When you really want to solve a problem, you got to let both people talk and you got to figure out who's right and who's wrong. And that's why censorship is so dangerous because the, the correct answer to censorship, like this whole Kanye West thing, um, you know, Kanye West is being canceled by all these organizations and they're remove- the, the best way to handle Kanye West is the way Lex Fridman did, have a conversation with him and correct all the things that he's saying that you think are wrong or e- that you think are generalizing or you think, that you think are, uh, misrepresentative of the truth. But that's not the world we live in today. The world we live in today, we want to erase people if we don't agree with them. And then the problem with that is it scares people into communicating freely 'cause they're worried that they're going to be erased next. So they'll conform. It's you, you're, you're forcing people to conform to a very particular way of thinking and it, it reinforces these ideas that you, you know, you have to be a part of this one particular group of ideas and thoughts. And if you're not, there's consequences to that and so people self-censor.

Dr. Phil McGraw 45:59 Well, you know, I, I said I had a, um, a, a focus group, uh, every day-

Joe Rogan 46:05 Yeah.

Dr. Phil McGraw 46:05 ... uh, on the show now and, um, I'll, I'll show you. We, we did a show, um, the title of which was You Can't Say That and, uh, so I was putting up, uh, on screen, um, all the things that you now can't say. These are the words that have been, you know, people say these are offensive to, um, people's sensibilities and, um, I'll, I'll find it here and, and, and show you what it was, um, unless Jamie already has it. Um-

Joe Rogan 46:44 Here it is.

Dr. Phil McGraw 46:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:46 Mom and dad?

Dr. Phil McGraw 46:47 Yeah. There you go.

Joe Rogan 46:48 You can't say mom and dad anymore?

Dr. Phil McGraw 46:50 Yeah. You, you can't say mom and dad anymore. And so-

Joe Rogan 46:53 (laughs)

Dr. Phil McGraw 46:54 ... (laughs) and we can talk about these. But I asked the audience, at one point I said, "How many of you are reluctant to raise your hand and say anything?" 'Cause I asked the audience to participate and they do a lot. "How many of you are afraid to say anything right now because you don't want to get targeted?" And it looked like the wave.

Joe Rogan 47:13 (laughs)

Dr. Phil McGraw 47:13 Everybody said, "Oh yeah, I don't wanna s- I don't wanna say shit."

Joe Rogan 47:16 Peanut gallery?

Dr. Phil McGraw 47:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:17 You, why can't you say peanut gallery?

Dr. Phil McGraw 47:20 That one, I always thought, and look, I'm here to learn, I, I, so I ask them, "What, what, what is it?" I thought peanut gallery was at the, like the cheap seats at the baseball game.

Joe Rogan 47:32 Yeah. That's what I thought too.

Dr. Phil McGraw 47:33 Like out in the outfield-

Joe Rogan 47:34 Yeah.

Dr. Phil McGraw 47:34 ... where the kids, kids would go and get a $2 ticket or something-

Joe Rogan 47:37 Yeah.

Dr. Phil McGraw 47:37 ... and eat peanuts and have a great time.

Joe Rogan 47:39 Isn't that what it is?

Dr. Phil McGraw 47:40 Apparently not. Apparently, it has some racial, uh, overtones.

Joe Rogan 47:45 Peanut gallery does?

Dr. Phil McGraw 47:47 And the mom and dad was, um, someone said, "Well, we don't have a mom and dad in our home. We have a, a mom and mom and so, uh, it makes my child feel funny if," um...

Joe Rogan 48:04 Here it is. According to linguistics experts, the origin of this phrase derives from the late 1800s Vaudeville era, a popular style of entertainment that included jugglers, comedians, singers and more. The peanut gallery was the cheapest section of seats usually occupied by people with limited means. Yeah, the cheap seats. But how is that offensive?

Dr. Phil McGraw 48:26 Well, man, I've been in a peanut gallery a lot of my life.

Joe Rogan 48:29 Yeah.

Dr. Phil McGraw 48:31 (laughs) I gotta tell you.

Joe Rogan 48:32 Well, I guess, are, are they saying-

Dr. Phil McGraw 48:35 I don't-

Joe Rogan 48:35 Peanuts were a popular concession snack for Vaudeville shows. Unpopular performers would often find themselves pelted with the easy-to-hurl edible projectiles.

Dr. Phil McGraw 48:45 Others disagree in part with the preceding class-based rather than racial claim.

Joe Rogan 48:52 They note that in the past, cheap balcony seats were often reserved for or largely made up of African-American patrons. Thus, since the phrase implies the opinions expressed by those from the gallery were unsolicited, unwarranted, or un- and unhelpful, the phrase also connotes something negative about those giving them purported to be African-Americans. Boy, that's a stretch.

Dr. Phil McGraw 49:13 Well, you know, (sighs) you don't have to be offended every time you can-

Joe Rogan 49:18 Yeah.

Dr. Phil McGraw 49:18 ... be.

Joe Rogan 49:18 Right.

Dr. Phil McGraw 49:20 The e- right?

Joe Rogan 49:22 Yeah, but that expression doesn't have a racial connotation the m- the way most people use it.

Dr. Phil McGraw 49:27 I wouldn't think.

Joe Rogan 49:28 It's usually people in the back of the room.

Dr. Phil McGraw 49:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:30 That's just how we use it.

Dr. Phil McGraw 49:31 They said brainstorm-

Joe Rogan 49:33 What?

Dr. Phil McGraw 49:33 ... was, was offensive-

Joe Rogan 49:34 (laughs)

Dr. Phil McGraw 49:35 ... to people that had brain injuries.

Joe Rogan 49:36 Oh my God. (laughs)

Dr. Phil McGraw 49:38 That it was, that it was an ableist thing.

Joe Rogan 49:41 Oh. Well you, if you have a fucking brain if you move and walk, if you're brainstorming you're using your brain. I- is running offensive? Is it, uh, uh, offensive if people who can't run? Should- should the Olympics be canceled 'cause the Olympics are ableist? What the fuck are we talking about?

Dr. Phil McGraw 49:58 I'm, uh, you know, I, it, it seems to me, and look, I, (sighs) maybe, maybe if you're in that situation a- and I ask and blindsided, I, I'm, I asked some people that had impaired vision and they were like, "What?" They, they didn't understand-

Joe Rogan 50:28 About which phrase?

Dr. Phil McGraw 50:29 Blindsided.

Joe Rogan 50:30 (laughs)

Dr. Phil McGraw 50:31 That you can't say blindsided or blind spot in your car.

Joe Rogan 50:34 Yeah.

Dr. Phil McGraw 50:34 Like, uh, "He was in my blind spot." And they were like, "I, I don't, I don't understand why I'm offended." They, I, now that doesn't mean there aren't people that are, but I couldn't find it. And I only-

Joe Rogan 50:44 I bet it's-

Dr. Phil McGraw 50:44 ... I only talked to six or seven.

Joe Rogan 50:46 I bet it's more people that are not blind-

Dr. Phil McGraw 50:49 (sighs) .

Joe Rogan 50:50 ... that are f- looking for things to be offended with.

Dr. Phil McGraw 50:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:51 What about first world problems? How, how is that one?

Dr. Phil McGraw 50:55 Well-

Joe Rogan 50:56 How is that offensive?

Dr. Phil McGraw 50:57 (sighs) I, I think it's that third world is mostly black. I, it's what one of the audience members said, so that was racial.

Joe Rogan 51:08 Well, third world encompasses a lot of different ethnicities, doesn't it? There's a lot of Latin America, there's a lot of Asia, it's a lot of Eurasia.

Dr. Phil McGraw 51:22 That's what the audience member said. I-

Joe Rogan 51:25 Yeah.

Dr. Phil McGraw 51:27 And they didn't want it in the show. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 51:29 So were we allowed to say first world, second world, and third world? 'Cause that seems like that's offensive too then. Just even-

Dr. Phil McGraw 51:36 Well, to me that had to do with infrastructure.

Joe Rogan 51:41 Right.

Dr. Phil McGraw 51:42 Because I know like in the Congo, the entire country has the electrical infrastructure of a city the size of Austin for millions and millions of people, um, which is why they're so vulnerable to natural disaster, and they don't have dams-

Joe Rogan 52:03 Yeah.

Dr. Phil McGraw 52:03 ... and they don't have electrical pumps and I always thought of first, second, third world having to do with infrastructure and technology and support systems and all that sort of thing.

Joe Rogan 52:15 I always thought of it has to do with d- dictatorial governments and-

Dr. Phil McGraw 52:19 Yeah, like-

Joe Rogan 52:19 ... yeah.

Dr. Phil McGraw 52:19 ... yeah, you could think of-

Joe Rogan 52:20 Corruption and-

Dr. Phil McGraw 52:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:23 ... yeah. Yeah. Finding things-

Dr. Phil McGraw 52:26 (sighs) .

Joe Rogan 52:26 ... to be offensive is a, it's recreation for a lot of people.

Dr. Phil McGraw 52:29 And I think that's what we've gotten to. I, I think-

Joe Rogan 52:31 Yeah, recreational outrage.

Dr. Phil McGraw 52:33 ... I, I think that's where people have sat around, said, "What can I be offended about today?" As opposed to saying, "What can I do to contribute to unity? What can I do to come together and work things out, make things better?" And I, I, that's just not constructive to me. Now, if there's something that somebody's doing, you know, we've done shows on hate crimes. I mean, where people are attacking people purely because they're, um, Asian or Jewish or whatever in LA, and I, I get it. That's (sighs) okay, that's not where you're looking for something, that's where you're sitting in the line, um, at a fast food restaurant and somebody rear-ends your car and starts mocking you for being Asian, which is what happened. Uh, uh, this wonderful family we had on the show, they wound up in a parking lot rolling on the ground getting the shit beat out of them by some guy. Um, okay, that's not looking for something to be offended about.

Joe Rogan 53:42 Right.

Dr. Phil McGraw 53:42 It was purely because they were Asian, um, and maybe that's not the right thing to say. I, uh, I, I don't know. They were, um, from the Philippines as I recall, so Filipino I guess. Uh, I, I, I get that, they're being attacked and those attacks are on the vertical upswing. Uh, that's not looking for something to be offended about, that's traumatizing to them. But picking out words to get offended about, I mean, I don't get offended about ball jokes or somebody would say, "Well, but you've not been oppressed, you've not..." Uh, okay, I, I get it, but you don't have to be offended just because you can.

Joe Rogan 54:30 Well, that's one of the things that social media has amplified. Social media has amplified recreational outrage and virtue signaling, and the fact if you call out these things, you're somehow better than people that are ignoring them. If you call out these ableist terms like blindsided or, you know, w- whatever one you want to focus on that's ridiculous, that it makes you better than the people that don't.

Dr. Phil McGraw 54:54 Yeah. And, uh, and I, I just think that's not helping our issues. It's not helping what we're trying to do, which we're very divided right now. And I'll tell you, I, I did something that I thought was a really eye-opening experience for me. Um, you know Frank Luntz, uh, he's a pollster that, uh, has probably done 2,500 polls. He's, um... does surveys and conducts... he's conducted, uh, Republican presidential debates and stuff. Frank's kind of the, the guy for that. We did a focus group with 40 USC students, 20 were from the Republican organization at USC and 20 from the Democratic. And we brought them in, faced them, and boy they were... lot of bad blood. Been a lot of things going on on their sites, arguing back and forth, bad things being said. And at one point I just said, "All right, time out. I want all of you to stand up and I want you to pair up across from each other. And no small talk, you cannot speak. And I want you to make eye contact. And just eye contact, you can't look away, just look this person in the eye." Because we don't do that much anymore, as you were saying, particularly on the internet. "I want you to look at this person and I want you to think about what's going on in their life. Did they lose somebody to COVID? How's their day going? Um, do they have a mom? Do they have a dad? Does it hurt them when somebody says something bad to them? Uh, are they... what do they think is funny? Um, you know, just what are their challenges? What are they proud of?" All that. I, I just left them looking for way past comfortable. And then I asked them a couple of questions that they had an exchange about. And then without saying anything, I had them sit down and said, "Okay, just what's your reaction?" And absolutely to the person, they said, "I'm really shocked. I'd never re- thought about this as a human being before. But just spending that time with them, looking eye to eye, I have a completely different attitude."

Joe Rogan 57:40 They all said that?

Dr. Phil McGraw 57:41 All of them, every one of them.

Joe Rogan 57:42 They never thought about the other person with differing ideas as being a human being?

Dr. Phil McGraw 57:47 It had gotten pushed off the table. It was all about ideology. And when they looked at them and they couldn't say anything, they couldn't talk about their ideas, they just had to make eye contact at a human level, every one of them said, "It really changed my attitude."

Joe Rogan 58:07 That's pretty wild.

Dr. Phil McGraw 58:09 That's something just as simple as taking a few minutes to make eye contact.

Joe Rogan 58:13 Yeah.

Dr. Phil McGraw 58:14 Now these are young, fresh people. We actually videotaped, taped that whole thing. I'll send that exercise to you and you can look at it and hear their comments unedited. It was one of the reasons I'm pretty optimistic.

Joe Rogan 58:30 I'm optimistic. I just think the momentum and the way the country is going, and this, uh, this problem that people have with social media, 'cause people are very addicted to social media. And I think social media definitely exacerbates the problem. And some people are recognizing it and they're trying to step away from it and they're m- And even the tech companies, they're, they, they're showing you your screen time to try to let you know, give you a little indication. Like, "Hey-

Dr. Phil McGraw 58:54 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 58:54 ... maybe you're obsessing. Maybe you're, maybe you're addicted to this. Maybe take some time, go for a walk in the park, do something different." I'm optimistic because I know a lot of people that are exceptional. I know a lot of people that are inspirational. I know a lot of people that are truly extraordinary human beings who really help the world and just their, their mere presence and the way they live their life is inspiring and it, and it opens up a lot of people's eyes to possibilities. But I'm also a realist when it comes to human nature. I like to do a lot of difficult things, and one of the things that I know about difficult things is it's very hard to get people to embrace being uncomfortable and suffering and, and, and struggle. I mean, like, physical suffering and physical struggling. People s- they seek comfort and they seek to avoid these uncomfortable moments. But that's the only way you grow. You grow through being uncomfortable. You grow physically through difficult workouts. You grow mentally through psychological struggle, through intellectual struggle, through complicated things that you have to work your way through. And there's so many people out there that avoid those things, that it's easy to avoid those things, and there's a pattern of avoiding those things. A pattern of just being complacent, being lazy, you know, finding some sort of a distraction, whether it's video games or television or social media, and it's very hard for people to break out of that. I know there's a lot of people that want to, though.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:00:29 Well, y- y- you know how uncomfortable cognitive dissonance is. You, you, you're just really f- you don't want to feel that friction of this other point of view. It's uncomfortable to consider it. But here's what's happening, and y- y- you'll experience this being in Texas now, but when we were kids we used to go... Have you ever heard of Mundy, Texas?Mundy, M-U-N-D-Y? Yes. Yeah. It's where my pa- my grandparents lived in Mundy, Texas, like, 1,500 people. And I used to go there in the summers and work at my grandfather's freight warehouse. And, you know, the big 18-wheelers would come in and drop freight at his warehouse, and we would deliver it around the county. It'd be like, those big plow disk and all this stuff, and we'd put it on a flatbed and deliver it. And there ain't nothing in Mundy. It, it ain't in Mundy, it ain't headed that way. (laughs) It's just noth- nothing there. And, you know, we'd go around barefooted a lot, and sometimes, being stupid, we would start across an asphalt highway barefooted. And you get about halfway across and you go, "Holy shit." (laughs) I mean, you're, you're, you're out there and you look down and, and your feet are just melting into the pavement. All right, now what are you gonna do? You're in pain and you're gonna do one of two things. You're either gonna turn around and run back or you're gonna bolt to the other side, but you are not going to stand in the middle- (laughs) ... and just, and just melt into the pavement. You're gonna go one side or the other. And that's what people are. They... That- that's how people are. They, they get into a position of pain, they're gonna resolve one way or the other. And once you get to the side of that road, what's it gonna take to get you to go back out on that highway to go over to the other side? It's really hard. And right now, we got people on the shoulders of this hot, hot highway. And how to get them to come across to the other side or meet in the middle is very painful for people psychologically. They don't want to do that. It's painful for them to get out of their... They're in a bubble. They're talking to their own people. They're not talking to the people on the other side of the highway and it's painful to go over there. It hurts to get on that hot highway and go over there. It's psychologically painful. It hurts physically to go talk to somebody on the right if you're on the left or left if you're on the right. And that's what we're facing, is getting them on that hot highway again, because they know what's gonna happen. It's gonna hurt to do it. That's what we have to overcome. We gotta get you out on a hot highway. Mm. (laughs) And you'll see that psychologically, that's what we gotta overcome. And we've got to make it clear that those yelling the loudest don't deserve the most attention. That's the problem we got right now. We got small pockets of loud talkers and they're getting the most attention. And that's not the way it should be. And all of this majority that's being too quiet need to speak up. They don't need to start yelling, they just need to start a chorus of common sense. Common- I think people are afraid of doing that- They are. ... because they don't want to be singled out by the people- It's- ... that are extremists. But if they hang together... Look, common sense is just not common enough anymore. We've got to have a return to common sense. Just, some of the stuff we're doing right now is just, it's just, just not common sense. Mm. It's just not... (sighs) No, it's not. We, we have, we have epidemics in this country right now that people aren't paying enough attention to. Well, the fentanyl epidemic, that one scares the shit out of me. Man. That one scares the shit out of me. It really does, because people are accidentally dying of overdoses. It used to be if you died of an overdose, it's because you did a dangerous drug, you took a very risky chance to do something that you probably knew you shouldn't be doing, whether it's heroin or meth or something like that.

Joe Rogan 1:07:03 Scroll down.

Narrator 1:07:04 I was seeing if he was going to react. (laughs)

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:07:07 No, I'm not reacting. I'm not reacting, I'm looking and I... 'cause I've got something... Okay, here we go. Um, like, see these Xanax bars here?

Joe Rogan 1:07:26 Yeah.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:07:27 And, uh, maybe I can send this to Jamie. Okay, then here are the emojis that they use to advertise it with. And then here is the menu.

Joe Rogan 1:07:42 So who... Is this cartels that are putting these things up on Snapchat?

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:07:45 Okay.

Joe Rogan 1:07:45 And then you order them on the internet?

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:07:47 Yeah. He- here's the deal. Fentanyl is synthetic and it's all being, uh, generated in China. So, if you want to be a conspiracy theorist, this will get your conspiracy juices, uh, flowing. Are, are you AirDrop open over there?

Narrator 1:08:10 Yes.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:08:11 Jamie's AirBook Pro?

Narrator 1:08:12 Yes.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:08:13 Okay. I just sent you four pictures and they're gone, so now you have them. Okay, it's all being generated or synthesized in China. And then China is sending it to the Sinaloa cart- cartel. And the cartel is then turning it into these pills and then these pills are coming into America. And the DEA estimates that they are intercepting about 10%. And what they are intercepting is enough to kill every American.

Joe Rogan 1:09:04 Jesus Christ.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:09:06 The fentanyl is enough to kill-

Joe Rogan 1:09:08 So here's the menu.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:09:09 ... every American.

Joe Rogan 1:09:10 LA county delivery.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:09:12 It's like-

Joe Rogan 1:09:13 Can you make it to that little... There it goes. So LA county delivery, nationwide shipping, low cost, low stress, highest highs, Dr. Don guarantee. MrDon248.

Narrator 1:09:27 Oh, it's got my...

Joe Rogan 1:09:29 So look at all the stuff that they have here. Perks, GMO OG gas and edibles. What does that mean?

Narrator 1:09:36 Uh, that's probably weed.

Joe Rogan 1:09:38 Gas? Really?

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:09:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:09:40 THC crumble, snow, Adderall, 20 milligram scripts, 2.5 milligram hulks. What are those? What's a hulk?

Narrator 1:09:48 Hmm, it's a type of pill. Off the top of my head I wouldn't know, but I'm not... It's, uh, it's pretty sure it's a pill.

Joe Rogan 1:09:54 Pharmapram bottles, Ambien 10, 10 milligram scripts. Hydros, 10 mill... What is a hydro?

Narrator 1:10:02 Uh, like a hydrocodone maybe? I don't know.

Joe Rogan 1:10:04 Oh, okay.

Narrator 1:10:04 I think.

Joe Rogan 1:10:06 Jesus Christ.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:10:09 Yeah. Now go to the, um, go to the emojis that I sent you. It's one of the images I sent. And this is how they communicate.

Joe Rogan 1:10:27 Percocet, oxycodone. So there's... They have these different emojis-

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:10:33 Yeah, there's Xanax.

Joe Rogan 1:10:33 ... in combination-

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:10:35 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:10:35 ... mean different things. What is that little emoji next to those two pills that means Xanax? It looks like a truck. What does that mean? Delivery?

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:10:42 Yeah. I think that means they'll deliver that to your house. This is like Postmates.

Joe Rogan 1:10:47 Wow.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:10:47 You call, you, you order this and they'll deliver this to your house in less than an hour. And I, I've had, uh, different sets of parents on whose... The, these are kids that... And we do pretty good background checks on these. I'm, I'm talking about... And the title of the show we did was One Pill Kills, because these were not kids that were drug addicts. They weren't doing heroin and that sort of thing. And we, we checked because like one of the girls, we got her credit card information. We saw she ordered one pill. We went back like months, ordered one pill, and she wanted to get some sleep before finals. And we found three quarters of the pill in her top dresser drawer. Her parents found it and the police came, because she broke it in half and then broke it in half again. So she took a quarter of one pill and they found her dead in the morning, 'cause it had so much fentanyl in it that it just killed her. And this isn't an overdose, this is poisoning. You want to be...

Joe Rogan 1:11:57 Do you think this is purposeful?

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:11:59 Well, the reason they put it in there, and put this one up, and the reason they put it in there is because it's so highly addictive, but they're not smart or they don't care if they're killing a certain percentage of their customers. But here's the deal, fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is up to 50 times stronger than heroin, 100 times stronger than morphine. So if, if you bite into this, you- you're dead when you hit the ground. And so she took a quarter of it, boom, gone. And, um, their estimate is that 40% of these pills that they're getting have lethal doses of fentanyl in them. The ones that don't, have enough in it that you are addicted (snaps fingers) like that. So they come back for more and more and more and more.Um, and-

Joe Rogan 1:13:06 (exhales)

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:13:06 ... now, there are conspiracy theorists, including a former DEA guy, that believes that China is manufacturing this stuff, synthesizing this stuff, sending it to the Sinaloa co- cartel, who's flooding it into America. And they're just trying to poison or drug Americans. Um, it's just another attack. He believes it's a terrorist attack. And it, it's interesting, he, he has a, a demo that h- he does. He just takes a, uh, a little packet of sweetener and dumps it in his hand and he says, "That enough? That much fentanyl is enough to kill 500 people."

Joe Rogan 1:13:53 (exhales)

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:13:55 It, it's just, it, it's, it's, it's staggering. And we've got to get this message out to the kids, don't do it. It, it, those pills look exactly like the pills that you get at the pharmacy. And what they're doing now, Joe, is they're putting them in these pastel colors, uh, uh, I think I sent you some of those, Jamie. Uh, in the pastel colors, they're making them look like these candies that the kids get-

Joe Rogan 1:14:27 Yeah.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:14:27 ... um, and kids are gonna see these things around and pick 'em up and think they're like Sweet Tarts or, or whatever, and bite into 'em. Um, uh, I, if, if I was a parent, I would go to the store and buy every kind of candy I could find and as soon as my kids came home from trick-or-treating, I would (laughs) take their pumpkin and dump it into the trash and then fill it back up with candy I knew was good and hand it back to 'em. I wouldn't let them take a single piece of candy from trick-or-treating 'cause you don't know what's in there.

Joe Rogan 1:15:05 That was always the fear, right? When we were kids?

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:15:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:15:07 Is that someone's gonna sneak in-

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:15:08 We thought there'd be-

Joe Rogan 1:15:09 ... a razor blade-

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:15:09 ... a razor blade-

Joe Rogan 1:15:09 ... into an apple-

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:15:10 ... in an apple or something.

Joe Rogan 1:15:11 I saw this going around, but I heard a lot of people pushing back at, a couple of days after this was made, it made your headlines. 'Cause they were showing- Experts say no. Who's the expert?

Guest (Dr. Phil McGraw) 1:15:19 I don't know, I'm just, it, there was a lot of, uh, hubbub about this viral picture because this went out, the DA was talking about it, but then I read there was like no evidence that this was real.

Joe Rogan 1:15:30 Well-

Guest (Dr. Phil McGraw) 1:15:30 It was, uh, that's, that's what I read.

Joe Rogan 1:15:32 Well, let's sc- scroll down and see what they say in terms of, looks like candy, DEA, DEA administrator Allan or Anne, uh, Milgram told CBS News, "In fact some of the drug traffickers have nicknamed it Sweet Tarts, Skittles. The DEA alert didn't mention Halloween, but fears about rainbow fentanyl and the holiday went viral." D- d- d- d- d- w- DEA warning meets skepticism from drug experts. Drug policy experts contacted by NPR agree there's no new fentanyl threat this Halloween. Many are also skeptical of the DEA's original warning. They don't believe the Mexican drug cartels and street dealers have launched any new campaign targeting children. I don't see any evidence that the DEA has produced that supports that conjecture.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:16:16 I don't think they're targeting children. I think the fact that they are making these things in pastel colors-

Joe Rogan 1:16:22 Yeah.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:16:23 ... make children vulnerable to picking these things up.

Joe Rogan 1:16:26 Yeah.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:16:26 Uh, uh, uh, what, you, you wanna argue over the, the word targeting? I- if a child picks up something that loo- you know, I, I, I said that young girl that I was talking about took three quarters of a pill, or one quarter of a pill, and three quarters of it was left in her drawer.

Joe Rogan 1:16:46 Yeah.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:16:46 If she has a, a, a younger sister, um, or something that sees that, picks it up and it looks like candy and eats it, she's gone.

Joe Rogan 1:16:55 Right. Yeah, it's-

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:16:56 I'm not saying they're targeting.

Joe Rogan 1:16:57 ... it's the way it looks, you're not saying it's targeting.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:16:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:16:58 Yeah.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:16:59 I don't care if you use the word targeting or not, it's, it's, it's dangerous.

Joe Rogan 1:17:04 Yeah.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:17:04 And I'm just saying, I've, uh, y- you know my grandkids, they won't be getting any candy out of that.

Joe Rogan 1:17:14 Yeah.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:17:14 And, and it's not that anywhere they're going is gonna be-

Joe Rogan 1:17:17 Dangerous.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:17:17 ... giving out fentanyl-

Joe Rogan 1:17:18 Right.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:17:18 ... to kids, it's just they don't know where they're-

Joe Rogan 1:17:20 Right.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:17:20 ... where it's coming from.

Joe Rogan 1:17:21 Yeah, you don't, you're not getting it from a store.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:17:25 And that makes it dangerous. And I, my point is, if you're in school and you're studying for finals and you're not a drug addict, and you think, "Well, one pill's not gonna hurt," that's no longer true. You maybe think, "Ah, I'll get some Adderall, get me through my finals," that could be a fatal decision. It won't be an overdose, it'll be a poisoning. It's very dangerous.

Joe Rogan 1:17:56 And if you're getting it from someone other than a pharmacy, there's a high prob- possibility?

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:18:04 Well, the DEA's belief is that all of the pills that you're getting on social media are counterfeit. And that as much as 40% of them have fatal doses of fentanyl, lethal doses of fentanyl, because they're so unsophisticated in their mix.

Joe Rogan 1:18:26 So, it's not a matter of poisoning as much as it's a matter of they don't give a fuck and they're just, I mean, they're not like accredited labs-

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:18:34 (clears throat)

Joe Rogan 1:18:34 ... these people are just mixing shit up and-

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:18:36 They're making the stuff up in a bathtub.

Joe Rogan 1:18:38 Right.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:18:38 They're making it up in a, in a-

Joe Rogan 1:18:40 Yeah.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:18:40 ... you know, mixing it up and then they're putting it in a pill press and letting it dry and shipping it over here. They, um, uh, today on CNN, they said they s- they arrested some, uh, it was either CNN or Fox, one of the two, they arrested some 14-year-olds coming across the border and they had a couple of thousand pills on them.Um, and, uh, who knows where it came from? Who knows what else is in it?

Joe Rogan 1:19:13 Right.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:19:14 And that will find its way to the market, a fair amount of it, through street dealers and the rest of it through social media. It's dangerous. I wouldn't, I, you- you couldn't hold a gun on me and get me to take something I bought on the internet. (exhales) And I just think people need to be aware of it. And if you think that it's an overreaction, an overstatement-

Joe Rogan 1:19:39 How could it be?

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:19:40 ... then-

Joe Rogan 1:19:40 How could it be when you're talking about the number one killer of people 18 to 49?

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:19:43 Yeah. I mean, well-

Joe Rogan 1:19:45 Or 18 to 45, whatever the statistic is.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:19:47 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:19:47 It, yeah. That's, uh, that's terrifying.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:19:51 It is terrifying.

Joe Rogan 1:19:52 And this is not something that we had to think about just 10, 15 years ago.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:19:55 No. And, uh, and I-

Joe Rogan 1:19:57 And I don't know how much pre- press that's getting.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:20:01 It's not getting enough. Uh, it, it's starting to get some attention. And there's something called carfentanil, and that is more powerful than fentanyl.

Joe Rogan 1:20:12 Jesus Christ.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:20:13 And it's been around since the '50s, and they were using that on animals. Jamie will pull up carfentanil, I'm sure, in a fast hurry. Um, but, and look, I- I just, my expertise in this is that I deal with the parents when they're heartbroken over a- a dead teen. Uh, I'm not a chemist. I'm not a physician. I don't, I- I can't tell you about all that. What I can tell you is I deal with the heartbreak of the families after the fact, and so I know it's real. Um, and I, and I've deal with, uh, these guys with the DEA and law enforcement that tell me that it is a major, major problem on the street. And it's, it scares the hell out of me.

Joe Rogan 1:21:10 As it should.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:21:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:21:12 Yeah, it scares the hell out of me too. And again, it's not like these things are gonna get better. These things seem to escalate. And, you know, we're talking about all these problems that we're facing in, in the world right now that didn't exist just a couple of decades ago, and you gotta wonder, a couple of decades from now, what does this look like?

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:21:33 Yeah. It's, it- it's, it really comes down to we have big enough problems that affect all Americans that those... Y- you were saying we... Is it gonna take something major for us to say, "You know what? We're all in this together," and I think those things are here. I just don't think they're being acknowledged. Because if, if I have somebody come on the show to me, they- they come, they know I can't bring that child back. They know I can't stop their suffering. Um, they come on as a cautionary tale. They say, "I don't- I don't want my child's loss to be in vain. I- I want, I'm here to tell this story 'cause I wanna save some lives." And that's why they're there. That's why they're talking through their tears and giving a voice to their loss 'cause they don't want somebody else to be there tomorrow. And they don't care, they're not there saying, "I'm a Democrat, I'm a Republican, I'm left, I'm right." They're there saying, "I'm a parent, and I don't want anybody's child to die from this." And we have enough of those things that I think we need to pay attention to. And e- every mother, e- e- every mother bonds over that. They, they understand the- the- the pain of that. And I- I- I- I really hope people hear us talking about it. Uh-

Joe Rogan 1:23:11 Well, I'm sure people will hear it, and I- I think the message is getting out slowly. But it's just not, it's not being magnified enough. You know, I mean, the- the crisis that we faced during COVID-19 was, uh-

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:23:28 (clears throat)

Joe Rogan 1:23:28 ... magnified to the point of hysteria. To the point where they're counting people dying of all sorts of diseases and calling them COVID deaths and elevating the amount of people that died to the point where people are absolutely terrified of it. If they had applied a similar attention to this, I think we could at least put a dent in it. But in ter- terms of what the DEA is doing, in terms of what law enforcement is doing, I mean, they need more resources. They need, they need more help to try to stop this shit from coming in.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:23:59 Well, they do. And, um, are- are you familiar with, um, a guy named, um, Dimitris Christakis?

Joe Rogan 1:24:08 No.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:24:09 Um, he's a pediatric epidemiologist, and he really looks at the long run of pediatrics as they grow up and what affects them in later years, what happens early that affects them in- in later years. And he- he's a brilliant, brilliant scientist. And he says, "What's happened with..." He'd be a great, interesting guy for you to talk to. I've interviewed him three or four times. He says that, "What's happened with the handling of the pandemic is going to amount to millions of years of lives lost," with these kids that are in school now. Millions of years of lives lost.

Joe Rogan 1:25:07 How, what do you mean by that?

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:25:08 (clears throat) Well-What he's talking about is that because of the educational gap that's been created by the pandemic, because of the social developmental gap that's been created, with the competitive gap that's been created, developmental, competitive, educational, that this generation is going to lag behind. And like, for example, if you're not reading on grade level at the end of the third grade, your likelihood of dropping out is four times normal. And the reason for that is, for the first, second, and third grade, you're learning to read. From the fourth grade on, you're reading to learn. So if you haven't learned to read in those first three years, you now don't have the tool to read to learn, and so y- you, you fall, you start falling further and further behind. And so your likelihood of throwing up your hands in frustration, falling further behind each year and ultimately dropping out. And if you're low socioeconomic or a minority, uh, and your parents don't support education, et cetera, it's six times normal. But he's saying that these kids that got so little and lost so much in math, reading, and science during the pandemic with this remote learning, which was a disaster, um, that they're going to have less educational attainment, which means they're going to get lesser jobs. Lesser jobs are more dangerous jobs, because they're more manual labor, they're, you know, doing construction work, things where you can get injured. They're gonna have lesser insurance, and so you get less treatment, slower diagnosis, more injuries. And that as that, and other factors, but as that obtains, that will take years off their life at the end. They might develop cancer, but because they have poor insurance, um, it, it might be slower to get it diagnosed, lesser treatment, so it advances further and takes years off their life. They get injured, stressed, trauma, and so it may take, you know, two years, three years, four years off of each kid's life. And we've got 57 million kids in the public school system right now.

Joe Rogan 1:28:02 I read something that confused me, maybe you can help me with this. 'Cause they were saying that, they were saying about Los Angeles, people were criticizing the, the response to the pandemic in terms of, uh, remote schooling and making kids wear masks. They were saying that math scores went up, and I didn't understand how that could be possible.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:28:26 Uh...

Joe Rogan 1:28:28 I, I haven't heard anything like that about any school system. In Los Angeles, which was particularly draconian in their response, they were trying to say that math scores went up.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:28:39 Hm. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:28:41 Have you heard anything like that?

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:28:42 I have not.

Joe Rogan 1:28:43 Can you find something about that?

Narrator 1:28:46 I typed in Los Angeles math scores, and all I see is it's down.

Joe Rogan 1:28:48 Yeah, well, (sighs) are people just lying?

Narrator 1:28:50 Low math, reading test scores. But it's California, not Los Angeles specific. But it's what, it's lots of articles saying this.

Joe Rogan 1:28:58 Yeah.

Narrator 1:28:59 Steep decline, sharp drop.

Joe Rogan 1:29:00 See, that's what I thought. The people who were arguing about this on Twitter, because, uh, some pundit-

Narrator 1:29:06 Yes, yes.

Joe Rogan 1:29:06 ... was talking about the, uh, response to the pandemic and how it affected school kids, and you know, all the... Can I say peanut gallery? They were chiming in and they were saying that, uh, scores, were actually Los Angeles scores were going up.

Narrator 1:29:22 I can't see anything that says that. I even typed in-

Joe Rogan 1:29:23 "Results of California's first statewide test since COVID are..." Click on that. LAEST, right there.

Narrator 1:29:29 Oh, this one?

Joe Rogan 1:29:29 Yeah. See what it says? "Are back. Find out how your SoCal school fared." Oh, so it's just like individual schools.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:29:39 Well, I've, I've certainly not...

Joe Rogan 1:29:42 Well, that looks like a decline in every single chart.

Narrator 1:29:44 Yeah, math results specific here is down.

Joe Rogan 1:29:46 Yeah. In every, every one of them, in every county, there's a decline, a very noticeable decline from 2019 to 2022. So what the fuck are these people talking about?

Narrator 1:29:55 Uh, I'll check Twitter and see if I can find what they're talking about.

Joe Rogan 1:29:58 (sighs) It might just be fucking propaganda. It's so dangerous what, some of the gaslighting that you're seeing. I saw people gaslighting about... I'm sure you saw that debate between Dr. Oz and that guy Fetterman, uh, for the Pennsylvania Senate. And f- the, the gentleman Fetterman had a stroke five months ago, and he's clearly compromised to the point where while he's communicating, he's not just stumbling. He kind of lost in thought and can't form a coherent sentence and bounces around from idea... He looks, he looks troubled. And I was watching NB- MSNBC, and they were trying to say, "Well, I mess up sometimes when I talk and, you know, I misspeak and I, I stumble on my words." Of course you do. Everybody does. We're human. I do it all the time. But there's a big difference between the overall one-hour debate. You're looking at a guy who seems to have something really wrong with his brain. And you, for you to gaslight and pretend that's not the case just because it doesn't fit with your narrative, that's not news.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:30:58 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:30:58 That's, that's propaganda, and it's fucking dangerous.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:31:02 Yeah. Um, you know, I, I hate to see them do that. And look, I, I, I haven't done any testing on Fetterman or, uh, President Biden, but, um, I- I'm...... it, it, it seems to me that President Biden is not at his best and that Fetterman is not at his best. (laughs) Uh, and-

Joe Rogan 1:31:28 That's being very charitable.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:31:29 ... and I, I don't hold that against Fetterman. He, he had a stroke.

Joe Rogan 1:31:33 Exactly.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:31:34 But, um-

Joe Rogan 1:31:35 Seems unfair to put him in that position.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:31:37 It, it, it really does. And I'm not trying to be unkind. He had a stroke. I mean, the poor guy.

Joe Rogan 1:31:42 Yes.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:31:43 He had a stroke, and he's gonna have to rehabilitate.

Joe Rogan 1:31:46 Yes.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:31:46 And I, and I hope he's able to do that, and all.

Joe Rogan 1:31:49 But why did they think that they could put him out there on a huge stage like that and not have those... Like, there was interviews before that showed this, where he used a teleprompter during interviews, where when he was asked questions, he was allowed to look at a screen and read his responses off. And even then, he struggled. He struggled to form coherent sentences while having the responses to each individual question laid out for him in a way that he could read. And this is not against the guy. I don't know, I don't know anything about this guy.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:32:23 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:32:23 I really don't. I just know he's the Democratic candidate. But what, what you're seeing is a, a guy who's got a problem with his brain. That guy should be rehabilitating. He shouldn't be getting forced into an incredibly high-stress job in a public display where, you know, it's humiliating.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:32:40 Well, I, I, I think he shows great courage to get up there and do it. Uh-

Joe Rogan 1:32:45 Most certainly.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:32:46 But I mean, just ask yourself, let's say you were getting on an airplane and the airline pilot had, had a similar cognitive impairment.

Joe Rogan 1:33:00 Yeah.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:33:01 Would you get on?

Joe Rogan 1:33:02 No.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:33:03 Well, hell no.

Joe Rogan 1:33:04 Well, is there some sort of... What do they do? Like, is there some sort of a, a protocol that's in place if someone is the candidate and something bad happens to them like this? You don't just have no one... Like, if he, if he died from that stroke, would they have no Democratic candidate?

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:33:26 You know, I don't know what it is in Pennsylvania. Maybe they'd have a quick special election or something. I don't know what the rule is. They-

Joe Rogan 1:33:33 That seems appropriate in this case, doesn't it?

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:33:37 I, I guess, would they, would the other guy run unopposed?

Joe Rogan 1:33:42 That sounds crazy.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:33:43 That doesn't sound right.

Joe Rogan 1:33:43 But, 'cause you can't have no one from the Democrats, you know, as a candidate for Senate. You have to have someone.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:33:50 You know, I mean, would... There's gotta be a rule, right? I-

Joe Rogan 1:33:53 There should be a rule.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:33:54 I don't know what it is.

Joe Rogan 1:33:55 And this is, like, not quite that, but close to it. It's not that he died, but the man had a stroke. This, this is not debatable. He's been open about it. And to, to force him into this sort of a situation while he's rehabilitating, I, I mean, you would be able to speak to this better than me. I would think that this would be counter to any rehabilitative, you know, treatments that he can have. It's high stress, public, humiliating.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:34:24 Well, stress is the worst possible thing that you can do when you're trying to recover from some kind of brain event like this. I don't know what kind of stroke he had. I don't know what part of the brain it was in. But I can tell you, you, you want to give the brain an opportunity to recover. And I don't, I don't know what his age is, but there's something called neuroplasticity. And that doesn't go up with age, it goes down. And you need to have time, uh, to recover and let different parts of the brain take over for parts of the brain that maybe have been impaired. And I, I don't know how severe it was. I don't know what part of the brain it was in. But it can't be good to be putting him in this kind of situation. I'm, I'm talking about just being selfish on his behalf.

Joe Rogan 1:35:23 Yes.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:35:23 Don't know what his politics are. Don't-

Joe Rogan 1:35:25 Right, right. That's exactly what I'm saying. We're not talking about politics.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:35:28 And the same-

Joe Rogan 1:35:29 We're talking about a human being.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:35:30 Yeah. And they talk about President Biden all the time. I mean, he's 80. If, I... And he does make a lot of gaffes. I, I hope I'm that well at 80, but I don't know that I would want that much stress of a job at 80. At 80, I hope I'm out fishing or something.

Joe Rogan 1:35:52 Yeah.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:35:53 Um, but I, I think when I hear people spin certain things like that, from my standpoint, that does, has in the past, has in the past assessed cognitive functioning, I just shake my head and say, "What are you talking about?"

Joe Rogan 1:36:18 Right.

Dr. Phil McGraw 1:36:19 Um, but I, it was painful to watch Fetterman. I, I, I felt really bad for him.

Joe Rogan 1:36:25 Yeah, I felt bad for him too. And again, I don't know anything