Joe Rogan Experience #1923 - Mike Baker

Narrator 0:00 (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

0:04 The Joe Rogan Experience.

Joe Rogan 0:06 Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music) Speak up for horseshit, Jamie. You're just gonna let them ban bullshit? That could be a problem for bullshit.

Narrator 0:23 Well, some bullshit's fun.

Mike Baker 0:24 I think you abdicated your responsibility.

Narrator 0:26 Some bullshit's fun and should just be, that's the bullshit you like.

Joe Rogan 0:29 Yes, some bullshit is fun.

Narrator 0:30 Like wrestling or whatever.

Joe Rogan 0:31 (laughs) Yes. But wrestling doesn't cost people billions and billions of dollars when it doesn't go right.

Narrator 0:37 Well...

Joe Rogan 0:38 Do you think that, that fucking guy who crashed, uh, FTX, the Binance guy, do you think he had any idea that he was gonna crash his business too?

Narrator 0:47 Oh.

Joe Rogan 0:48 'Cause-

Narrator 0:48 Kinda like collateral damage? I mean-

Joe Rogan 0:50 Yeah, well he's, they're going under. He's lost like $15 billion over the last few days.

Narrator 0:56 Yeah, I, probab- I would say no, he didn't see it coming. No.

Joe Rogan 0:59 But fucking duh.

Narrator 1:01 (laughs)

Mike Baker 1:01 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:01 Fucking duh. You just, you, you basically showed everybody how vulnerable this money on a c- hard drive is. This like, weird-

Mike Baker 1:10 I'm mining. I'm mining for coin.

Joe Rogan 1:12 Are you? You're mining?

Mike Baker 1:13 No, no, no, no. I'm just kidding.

Joe Rogan 1:15 Wonderful idea.

Mike Baker 1:16 I know. It's so profitable to mine.

Joe Rogan 1:20 (laughs)

Mike Baker 1:20 It was either that or cobalt, and crypto seemed easier.

Joe Rogan 1:24 So Jamie, you were saying that people were mad... First of all, they were mad at Peter Zion, for-

Narrator 1:28 Mostly that.

Joe Rogan 1:29 ... yeah, for saying what seems to be the case, is that a lot of crypto is just horseshit.

Narrator 1:35 Well, the one comment he made that I think that just, I would go against too is that it has no intrinsic value, 'cause it seems that like, a lot of things have no intrinsic value.

Joe Rogan 1:44 Right.

Narrator 1:44 So...

Joe Rogan 1:45 Well, it doesn't have a value unless we agree it has a value, and you can buy a lot of stuff with cry- I mean, Antonopoulos, doesn't he buy everything? Like, pays his rent, everything with Bitcoin?

Narrator 1:54 There's tons, yeah, tons of stuff you could do with it, tons of stuff going on with it. It has uses.

Joe Rogan 1:58 Yeah.

Narrator 1:58 I don't know if they're all the uses everyone thought they'd be by now, or what's going on with it, 'cause there's obviously a lot of confusion.

Joe Rogan 2:03 But then people are mad at you.

Narrator 2:05 Well, just 'cause I, I, he had to leave. We had, you know, he had a flight to catch.

Joe Rogan 2:09 Right. So, they were mad that you didn't grill him about-

Narrator 2:12 Right, so just let him speak.

Joe Rogan 2:13 ... you know, stand up for bullshit.

Narrator 2:14 Let him speak, like on, on a, whatever.

Mike Baker 2:16 No, I thought they were mad 'cause you invented crypto.

Narrator 2:18 Oh.

Mike Baker 2:18 I didn't know, I wasn't sure where this was going.

Joe Rogan 2:19 He's Satos- imagine if that was Satoshi.

Mike Baker 2:21 That'll come out later.

Narrator 2:22 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 2:23 (laughs)

Mike Baker 2:23 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 2:23 He's the main guy.

Mike Baker 2:24 All this time.

Joe Rogan 2:26 All this time, he's been hiding in plain sight.

Narrator 2:28 That's a whole nother fun story too, that we'll never know, I don't think.

Joe Rogan 2:31 Yeah. That's kinda funny, right? It's like him and Banksy. They're like, the best uh, escape artists ever.

Mike Baker 2:36 Mm-hmm. And we've never seen them together. It's like Ringo Starr and Yasser Arafat, you never saw them photographed together, so...

Joe Rogan 2:42 I think they look different. I think that's just one of them fun things to say before the internet came around.

Mike Baker 2:48 Look how old you are.

Narrator 2:49 (laughs) Ringo Starr, Yasser Arafat.

Joe Rogan 2:50 I know. Everybody's like, "What the fuck is he say- Yasser Arafat?"

Mike Baker 2:55 Who is Yasser Arafat?

Joe Rogan 2:55 That guy's dead.

Mike Baker 2:56 Oh, he is dead. He's, he's, he's been dead and continues to be dead.

Joe Rogan 3:00 Ringo's still alive though, right?

Mike Baker 3:01 Yes. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 3:02 He's like, the last of The Beatles that's still alive other than Paul McCartney, right?

Mike Baker 3:04 Yeah, just the two of them. George Harrison and, God bless him, John Lennon.

Joe Rogan 3:09 Oh, well that is pretty fucking close.

Mike Baker 3:11 See? What am I talking about? Look at that.

Joe Rogan 3:12 That's not bad. Put him in the hat.

Mike Baker 3:13 I was not making that shit up.

Joe Rogan 3:15 Yeah.

Mike Baker 3:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 3:16 Damn.

Mike Baker 3:16 See? And never, ever, for that's a side-by-side comparing two photos, but they were never photographed in the same room. We still to this day don't know.

Joe Rogan 3:23 Imagine if you were a rockstar but you were also a dictator. I, I mean, has any dictator ever tried to become a- like, if anybody could pull that off, maybe the Sultan of Brunei.

Mike Baker 3:33 Or a terrorist, right?

Joe Rogan 3:34 Right.

Mike Baker 3:35 Right? That's great cover, to travel around the world as a rockstar and-

Joe Rogan 3:38 And also be a terrorist?

Mike Baker 3:39 Yeah. Or a spy.

Joe Rogan 3:41 Has there ever, isn't, isn't that a movie?

Mike Baker 3:44 There was uh, about what's his name, the catcher. Uh, not Yogi Berra, the uh, baseball guy.

Joe Rogan 3:49 No-

Mike Baker 3:49 ... who was a, traveled as a spy.

Joe Rogan 3:51 I'm thinking of that movie that was based around the guy from The-

Mike Baker 3:55 The Dictator?

Joe Rogan 3:55 No, no, no, no, no, no, the spy. The guy from The Gong Show.

Mike Baker 4:00 Oh, yeah. Chuck Berry.

Joe Rogan 4:01 Chuck Berry.

Mike Baker 4:01 Not-

Joe Rogan 4:01 Remember? That was like-

Mike Baker 4:02 Yeah, Chuck, uh, Chuck Berry or Chuck Barris?

Joe Rogan 4:04 Barris.

Mike Baker 4:05 Chuck Barris.

Joe Rogan 4:05 Barris, right. Chuck Berry is the musician.

Mike Baker 4:07 Yeah, Chuck Berry, yes.

Joe Rogan 4:07 Barris is the guy from The Gong Show. There was that movie.

Mike Baker 4:09 They did not look alike.

Narrator 4:10 Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.

Joe Rogan 4:11 Yeah, that was a fun movie, man.

Mike Baker 4:13 It was a good movie. Who played Chuck Barris?

Joe Rogan 4:16 I forget.

Mike Baker 4:17 He was great. I, I, you know, I'm old enough to remember The Gong Show.

Joe Rogan 4:20 Oh, he was so fun.

Mike Baker 4:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 4:21 The guy, it's, when someone's having fun, when someone has like, a perpetual smile, it just uh, it's an enjoyable thing to watch.

Mike Baker 4:30 Sam Rockwell.

Joe Rogan 4:30 Sam Rockwell.

Mike Baker 4:31 That's right.

Joe Rogan 4:31 Sam Rockwell's fucking great.

Mike Baker 4:32 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 4:32 That guy's great.

Mike Baker 4:33 But that show, uh, uh, you know, it was like watching a Dean Martin concert. Every time you tuned into The Gong Show, you just knew Chuck was half of the bag, right?

Joe Rogan 4:39 Yeah.

Mike Baker 4:39 And he was having a fantastic time.

Joe Rogan 4:41 (laughs)

Narrator 4:41 (laughs)

Mike Baker 4:41 Jamie Farr was gonna be one of the panelists.

Joe Rogan 4:43 Yep.

Mike Baker 4:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 4:45 Yeah. Yeah. Jamie Farr used to be my neighbor.

Mike Baker 4:47 No.

Joe Rogan 4:48 Yeah. My actual neighbor. Lived right next door to me. Super nice guy.

Mike Baker 4:53 Oh.

Joe Rogan 4:54 Yeah, he's a fucking, weirded me out. Like, that guy's famous.

Mike Baker 4:57 Besides M*A*S*H, M*A*S*H and The Gong Show, I can't name one thing that Jamie Farr was in.

Joe Rogan 5:02 I don't think he did anything else.

Mike Baker 5:03 He didn't need to.

Joe Rogan 5:03 He just played golf.

Mike Baker 5:04 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 5:05 I think he made his money off of M*A*S*H and The Gong Show and just played golf.

Narrator 5:08 Cannonball Run.

Joe Rogan 5:09 Was he in that?

Narrator 5:10 Yeah, both of them.

Joe Rogan 5:10 Wait a minute. Hmm. Interesting.

Mike Baker 5:13 Yeah.

Narrator 5:13 That's what it says here. I mean, it's got his, the poster comes up when I googled his name, so... (laughs)

Mike Baker 5:17 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 5:17 That's what it means.

Mike Baker 5:20 Uh, well happy new year.

Joe Rogan 5:21 Happy new year.

Mike Baker 5:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 5:22 So uh, I was reading Fox News today, 'cause uh, my friend Sean told me they were gonna get rid of the IRS.

Mike Baker 5:29 Ah.

Joe Rogan 5:29 I was like, "What?"

Mike Baker 5:30 No.

Joe Rogan 5:31 "What is happening?"

Mike Baker 5:32 No.

Joe Rogan 5:32 He's like, "Yeah, they're trying to get rid of the IRS." I'm like, "What?"

Mike Baker 5:34 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 5:35 So I go to Fox News and uh, they were saying that they're trying to overhaul the tax system and make it a consumption-based tax, and there's these uh, the, the answer to the squad on the right side is, what do they call themselves? The Patriot 20 or some shit?

Mike Baker 5:49 Uh, the, oh uh, the Freedom Forum.

Joe Rogan 5:51 What do they call themselves?

Mike Baker 5:51 Or the Fr- I think it's the Freedom Caucus or the Freedom Forum or something like that.

Joe Rogan 5:54 Hm.

Mike Baker 5:55 Yeah, it's gotta, it's gotta call freedom of some sort.

Joe Rogan 5:58 (laughs)

Mike Baker 5:58 (laughs) It's, that, of course. You gotta choose one from column A, and then you got like a Caucus or Forum.

Joe Rogan 6:03 Right.

Mike Baker 6:04 Uh...

Narrator 6:04 Patriot Act.

Mike Baker 6:05 Yeah. No, they're not gonna, they're not getting rid of the IRS. All those, all those folks who might've gotten excited about that, it's never gonna happen. They've uh, they've moved to defund you know, that, uh, 87,000 agents. But-

Joe Rogan 6:16 Yeah, that seemed like a problem, that hiring 87,000 new people. I don't understand, I, you know, I have an accountant that handles all my shit, I don't pay attention to that stuff. But what I do know is that there was a lot of people saying that they weren't gonna go after corporations with that. They were gonna go after like-... you know, middle class people that-

Mike Baker 6:36 Right.

Joe Rogan 6:36 ... maybe skimped a little here or there and fine 'em hard.

Mike Baker 6:39 Yeah, they're going after small to medium-sized businesses.

Joe Rogan 6:42 Yeah.

Mike Baker 6:42 I mean, that's... The, the popular narrative was, "We're gonna hire 87,000 more..." Now look, does the IRS, uh, do they need to update their computer systems, right? Well, well, yeah, sure. Yeah. It's the government, right? Every computer system of the government needs to be updated to, to protect from cybersecurity problems. But do they need 87,000 more agents? No, but the narrative was from the, from the, uh, Biden administration was, you know, "We're gonna go after the ultra-wealthy." Uh, fucking no. You know what?

Joe Rogan 7:09 Yeah, that's not what they're doing.

Mike Baker 7:09 They, it's, they, they, they've got 87,000 agents. Think about how many additional personnel that is in each state, right? In each region for the IRS. They're not gonna be occupied with, with wealthy people all over the place. Now, a wealthy audit can be complex, but they're coming after small and medium-sized businesses, and that's how they, you know, they imagined the amount of money they were gonna have on this land grab to help fund other things that they're doing, whether it's climate change or other policies that they wanna push forward, great. But the problem is Congress now under Republican control, sure, they can, they can say, "No. We're gonna stop that in its tracks." Only until they march it across to the Senate and the Senate says, "Fuck you. No." So, we're still gonna have 87,000 new agents.

Joe Rogan 7:54 Oh, really?

Mike Baker 7:54 That's not gonna change. Yeah. That's not-

Joe Rogan 7:55 It's not?

Mike Baker 7:55 'Cause you can't get that through the Senate. And, and even if they did, you know, the president would probably veto it. So we're looking, we're staring down a barrel at a couple years of, of, of that sort of activity. Where Congress will, will vote to do something, it'll be stopped in the Senate, uh, or it'll be, you know, uh, vetoed by the president's desk. And-

Joe Rogan 8:14 Fun.

Mike Baker 8:14 Yeah. It'll be fun.

Joe Rogan 8:15 Lots of fun.

Mike Baker 8:16 It's gonna be a great time.

Joe Rogan 8:17 Lots of horse shit and fun.

Mike Baker 8:18 Mm.

Joe Rogan 8:19 What did you think about, uh, Biden getting busted with, uh, classified documents?

Mike Baker 8:23 Ah, uh-

Joe Rogan 8:24 Kind of hilarious.

Mike Baker 8:25 (laughs) It is, it is one of those funny moments, right? Uh, you know, regardless of, uh, A, A, I don't think they're gonna, uh, they're not gonna knock down the doors at the University of Pennsylvania where they found these things, right? At some think-tank that they'd set up. Um, and so that's not gonna happen. But it is kind of fun to, to look at and think, "Oh, really?" But the, the truth is, it happens with every administration, right? Document control isn't that difficult, right? You should be able to know which documents are secret, put them in a box over here, top secret over here, and then special code word, put them over here. And you account for all those documents. That's the way that you do it. But it seems like every administration has this problem. Um-

Joe Rogan 9:09 What do they do at the think-tanks?

Mike Baker 9:11 Oh, they... Well, there's a lot of ruminating.

Joe Rogan 9:13 (laughs)

Mike Baker 9:13 A shit ton of ruminating. And-

Narrator 9:16 What's nearly 10 documents?

Joe Rogan 9:17 Almost 10. It's seven. (laughs)

Mike Baker 9:19 Yeah. It... One was on, incomplete.

Joe Rogan 9:22 (laughs)

Mike Baker 9:22 One they hadn't finished yet.

Joe Rogan 9:23 What does, does that mean?

Narrator 9:25 Nearly 10.

Mike Baker 9:25 Nearly 10. Oh.

Joe Rogan 9:27 Yeah.

Narrator 9:27 That's like... If you say nearly a million, I'll go, "Wow. That's, uh, pretty impressive." You say nearly 10, I'm like, "Can you count?" Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 9:34 Tell me the number, you fuck-heads.

Narrator 9:36 With their hands-

Mike Baker 9:36 It was the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. That's-

Joe Rogan 9:40 So what happens there?

Mike Baker 9:42 Hm.

Joe Rogan 9:42 What happens at one of these think-tanks? Is it just a way where people get money?

Mike Baker 9:45 Yes. Yes. People...

Joe Rogan 9:46 Oh. It's just-

Mike Baker 9:47 Yeah. People can-

Joe Rogan 9:47 ... you said yes so quick. (laughs)

Narrator 9:48 (laughs) Yeah. That's it. That's it.

Mike Baker 9:50 You know, people, people get grants, you know, or they get a position there. They get the chair to sit for a year and, and study some particular, you know, uh, esoteric aspect of whatever the hell it may be, global engagement.

Joe Rogan 10:01 How much money goes there?

Mike Baker 10:03 Well, that's... You know, some of these get a great deal of funding. And, and he... Actually, that's an interesting point because sometimes the funding comes from unusual sources, like perhaps the Chinese.

Joe Rogan 10:11 Really?

Mike Baker 10:12 Uh, yeah. That might be the soonest I've ever brought up China- (laughs)

Joe Rogan 10:15 Really?

Mike Baker 10:15 ... in one of our conversations.

Joe Rogan 10:16 So the Chinese might be funding a think-tank that has classified documents in it?

Mike Baker 10:21 Oh, sure. Yeah. I mean, I don't... I, again, I don't know.

Joe Rogan 10:23 You don't know.

Mike Baker 10:23 I don't know yet.

Joe Rogan 10:24 But it's not outside the realm of possibility.

Mike Baker 10:26 It's not outside the realm of possibility. And, and, you know, it'd be interesting to know who or where funding has come from for the Penn Biden Center.

Narrator 10:33 Mm. Um, maybe you're talking about that.

Mike Baker 10:36 Ah. Oh. Oh.

Joe Rogan 10:38 $54 million in Chinese gifts-

Mike Baker 10:41 (laughs) Gifts.

Joe Rogan 10:41 ... donated to UPenn Home of the Biden Center.

Mike Baker 10:44 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 10:44 What the fuck, man?

Mike Baker 10:47 Wow.

Joe Rogan 10:47 $54 million in gifts. There's just like, you know, yo-yos and shit.

Narrator 10:52 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 10:52 Xboxes-

Mike Baker 10:53 Beer koozies.

Joe Rogan 10:54 What the fuck are they giving them?

Mike Baker 10:56 Raked in a total of 54.6 million from 2014 through 2019.

Joe Rogan 11:00 Wow. So $10 million a year-

Mike Baker 11:02 Look at that, 20-

Joe Rogan 11:02 ... in donations.

Mike Baker 11:03 Anonymous gifts, 23 million from China.

Joe Rogan 11:05 Oh, anonymous. $23 million in anonymous gifts.

Mike Baker 11:10 See, that to me is more interesting than the fact that he had almost 10 documents there.

Joe Rogan 11:14 (laughs)

Mike Baker 11:14 Because again, every administration does it. It would've been amazing if Biden hadn't had classified documents sitting somewhere. Uh, President Obama had the same issue e- at every administration. Just because, again, it's, it's this, it's this goat rope upon, uh, exiting and, and then before the new administration comes in, right? It's just like this fun house of activity trying to box up all your shit-

Joe Rogan 11:36 Hm.

Mike Baker 11:37 ... and get it... And so that in itself is not a surprise. It's a surprise that, you know, with, with Trump, they decided to, you know, use a sledgehammer to go into Mar-a-Lago, but that's not gonna happen with Biden. Um, and it is... It's, you know, it's, it's, it's an interesting comparison, but the Republicans thought it was an aha moment. I don't think they're gonna get anywhere with that. I, uh... 'Cause I don't think people genuinely care.

Joe Rogan 11:57 But there's nearly 10 documents.

Mike Baker 11:59 There's almost 10. And, and that-

Joe Rogan 12:01 (laughs)

Mike Baker 12:01 That one that's not completed yet, I think is just missing, like, the pictures. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 12:05 (laughs)

Mike Baker 12:05 It's... Now, e- everything's been written in it.

Joe Rogan 12:07 What's crazy is the, the documents being there are the big story, not that China gave them 50 plus million dollars.

Mike Baker 12:15 That should be more of a story. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:16 That's a big goddamn story.

Mike Baker 12:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:18 And that seems to be par for the course, right?

Mike Baker 12:20 Well, yeah. Whether it's the Clinton, you know, Foundation or Initiative, or whether it's, you know, any... Really, you know, pick any think-tank. That would be a really interesting study by some intrepid curious journalist who wanted to dig into the, say the top 12 think-tanks in America and where does the money come from.

Joe Rogan 12:38 Hm.

Mike Baker 12:39 And, and then compare that to what policies are they pushing out the door.... who are they trying to influence, right? Because, uh, you know, they've, uh, every one of these has some agenda or some point of view. So, ugh, I don't know.

Joe Rogan 12:50 Think tank sounds good. I'd love to be-

Mike Baker 12:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:52 ... a part of a think tank. Doesn't that sound good? "What do you do?" "I work for a think tank." "Oh, you must be smart as fuck."

Mike Baker 12:57 Yeah, I was gonna say, it makes you sound intelligent.

Joe Rogan 12:59 Makes you-

Mike Baker 12:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:59 ... sound like you're getting shit done.

Mike Baker 13:01 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 13:01 "I'm working for a think tank."

Mike Baker 13:03 Yeah. I'm, uh, "You know what I'm doing? I'm putting out a policy paper."

Joe Rogan 13:05 Oh, ooh.

Mike Baker 13:06 Ooh, (laughs) well.

Joe Rogan 13:07 Ooh.

Mike Baker 13:08 Well, now, um-

Joe Rogan 13:09 So this, uh, Biden-penned think tank, what, what did they promote? Like, what did they d-... Let's see if we can find out what $54 million from China gets you.

Mike Baker 13:19 Yeah, maybe we can find one-

Joe Rogan 13:20 (laughs)

Mike Baker 13:20 ... one paper that they wrote. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 13:22 Yeah, there's gotta be something-

Mike Baker 13:23 Yeah, that would be-

Joe Rogan 13:23 ... you know?

Mike Baker 13:23 ... that would be good. Uh-

Joe Rogan 13:24 You know, Huawei ain't so bad. That's the name of the tit-

Mike Baker 13:27 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 13:27 That's the title of the paper. (laughs)

Mike Baker 13:30 (laughs) That's my Huawei. Yeah, uh-

Joe Rogan 13:33 What's great, I was just reading about Huawei, that even despite the US sanctions, despite the fact that Google won't let them use the Google Android system or the Google Pay store-

Mike Baker 13:44 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 13:44 ... Play Store, rather, they're still killing it. They're still-

Mike Baker 13:48 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:48 ... have an enormous market share, which leads me to believe that if this didn't happen, they'd probably be number one in the world.

Mike Baker 13:55 Yeah, I think so. I mean, it, uh, well, yeah, it, it, it's... (sighs)

Joe Rogan 13:59 Apple's got a nice walled-

Mike Baker 14:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:01 ... garden thing going on, where it's like, uh, a buddy of mine, my friend Tony, just switched over-

Mike Baker 14:05 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 14:05 ... to Apple. S- I love when I get those new blue texts from people. I'm like, "Ha ha-"

Mike Baker 14:09 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 14:09 "... you went over to the dark side, you fuck." He was one of the last holdouts of the green bubble.

Mike Baker 14:14 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 14:15 But it's, uh, they're so good at keeping you in there, because your photos all go to the iPhoto, and, you know-

Mike Baker 14:23 Yes.

Joe Rogan 14:23 ... I use Notes, you know, like, for comedy, it's, like, the best thing. But I also use Evernote, and you can switch Evernote in between platforms. But it's so easy to keep people.

Mike Baker 14:33 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:33 Because there's so-

Mike Baker 14:33 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:33 ... many benefits to iMessage, there's so many benefits to AirDrop.

Mike Baker 14:37 And we're all fairly simple, right?

Joe Rogan 14:39 Mm-hmm.

Mike Baker 14:39 We, once you get into a habit, right?

Joe Rogan 14:41 Yeah.

Mike Baker 14:41 You don't, you don't wanna change. It's like saying, "Okay, we're gonna upend our computer systems at the company and, and, and go with a new product."

Joe Rogan 14:47 Yeah.

Mike Baker 14:47 No, we're not.

Joe Rogan 14:48 No.

Mike Baker 14:48 Not if we really want to. So with the phones, I mean, shit, we got for, for Christmas, we got the two youngest ones, uh, Mugsy and Sluggo, we got, uh, iPhones for them. Um...

Joe Rogan 14:58 What if you got them Android phones? Would they freak out?

Mike Baker 14:59 (sighs)

Joe Rogan 14:59 Get mad at you?

Mike Baker 15:00 Yeah, they probably would've thrown them at us, you know? Just walked out.

Joe Rogan 15:02 What the fuck-

Mike Baker 15:03 Just stormed out of-

Joe Rogan 15:04 ... is this piece of shit?

Mike Baker 15:04 ... the living room. You know-

Joe Rogan 15:05 If you had an Android phone-

Mike Baker 15:07 ... fucking Santa.

Joe Rogan 15:07 ... like we have today, if you had one of those things 10 years ago, you were a goddamn wizard.

Mike Baker 15:12 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 15:12 Like, if you had a Samsung Galaxy phone 10 years ago, like they have today, it would be the greatest-

Mike Baker 15:19 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 15:19 ... thing ever.

Mike Baker 15:19 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 15:19 But in 10 years...

Mike Baker 15:21 No, it didn't take long, and, and then, and honestly, you know, everything moves at, at this breakneck speed in technology, obviously. But, you know, we, we, uh, we debated for a while about the youngest one getting him a phone, right? But now he's, he's old enough, right? He's 11, and he's, he's going to sports activities and practice and everything. So from a security perspective, you have to do it.

Joe Rogan 15:40 Right.

Mike Baker 15:40 But the problem is locking these things down.

Joe Rogan 15:42 Mm-hmm.

Mike Baker 15:42 Right? And trying to keep them from seeing shit. (laughs) Uh-

Joe Rogan 15:46 You can't.

Mike Baker 15:47 They just, it will, you can't.

Joe Rogan 15:48 You can't.

Mike Baker 15:48 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 15:48 They're gonna see shit.

Mike Baker 15:49 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 15:50 No, I mean, I'm amazed at the shit that I see just on Instagram, you know? On, on-

Mike Baker 15:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 15:56 ... In- just on Instagram, I see people getting murdered every day. Every day.

Mike Baker 16:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 16:01 I see shootouts every day. I see executions every day. I see people that get torn apart by animals every day.

Mike Baker 16:10 Man, you've got a hell of an Instagram feed going on there.

Joe Rogan 16:11 It's wild.

Mike Baker 16:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 16:12 My Explore page is a fucking mess.

Mike Baker 16:15 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 16:15 It really is. It's horrendous. I'm, I have problems.

Mike Baker 16:18 Yeah, but it, but with, but with kids trying to, I mean, it's like the whole TikTok debate, trying to, trying to say, "Okay, we're gonna shut down TikTok in the US," um, or, "We're going to somehow try to enact regulations to keep kids from accessing porn online," right?

Joe Rogan 16:35 Yeah.

Mike Baker 16:35 It does, uh, think okay, yeah, in theory, that's great. Shit, if you can figure it out. But it's, it's just not gonna happen, right? Because no matter what you do, once that kid leaves your house and all that technology's still out there, right? Somebody's circumventing it, right? Somebody's figured out some way. And most of these kids, it's incredible how smart these kids are nowadays.

Joe Rogan 16:55 They're wizards.

Mike Baker 16:56 Yeah. So-

Joe Rogan 16:57 Well, they just banned TikTok in India, which I thought was really fascinating. I'm like, "Wow, India's more on the ball than America."

Mike Baker 17:05 Yeah. Well, they may, I, I forget what their version of TikTok is, but that might be also sort of a nationalistic play. There may be a business element to that as well.

Joe Rogan 17:14 Oh.

Mike Baker 17:14 Where they're looking to drive more of their consumers. It's massive, obviously, a massive market. So they may be looking to drive more of their consumers to their version, right?

Joe Rogan 17:22 Hmm.

Mike Baker 17:22 It's like, it's like China. China's got its own version, uh-

Joe Rogan 17:24 ByteDance.

Mike Baker 17:25 ... yeah.

Joe Rogan 17:26 Or whatever it's called.

Mike Baker 17:27 Yeah, yeah, and, uh, you know, so-

Joe Rogan 17:29 Yeah.

Mike Baker 17:29 ... I, I, I don't, I don't, I don't know that the Indian government was just being, you know, thoughtful about its-

Joe Rogan 17:35 Interesting.

Mike Baker 17:36 ... younger folks.

Joe Rogan 17:36 Let's see what it says. We...

Narrator 17:38 I'm figuring it out. It says they actually banned it in summer of 2020 with 59 other apps originally.

Mike Baker 17:43 (snoring)

Joe Rogan 17:43 Hmm.

Narrator 17:43 And this is what happened after that. I was reading that right now to see if I could get a response from a producer.

Joe Rogan 17:46 Oh, I thought it was really recent.

Narrator 17:47 Well, no, so this article is from, like, today or whatever, just...

Joe Rogan 17:50 Why India banned TikTok and what the US can learn from it as pressure mounts for Biden to follow suit. Pressure.

Mike Baker 17:57 Oof.

Joe Rogan 17:58 I haven't even seen-

Narrator 17:58 India.

Joe Rogan 17:58 ... any of this pressure.

Narrator 17:59 This was, uh, so, like, in 2020, they originally did it.

Joe Rogan 18:02 It says, uh, after a geopolitical disput- dispute with China, India banned the app entirely, citing a law that allows the government to block websites and apps in the interest of the country's sovereignty and integrity.

Mike Baker 18:14 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 18:15 Hmm.

Narrator 18:15 But it didn't-

Mike Baker 18:15 All right.

Joe Rogan 18:16 Yeah.

Narrator 18:16 But it didn't stop the, like, short form video content. It just, they put it, the content was just going elsewhere.

Mike Baker 18:22 It just moved, yep, yep.

Joe Rogan 18:22 Yeah. Well, it goes to Snapchat, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts, which would be fine. But at least, you know, Instagram is controlled by Meta, which is a United States company, and, you know, so is YouTube.

Mike Baker 18:34 Yeah, I-

Joe Rogan 18:34 Just the creepy thing is the data. The d- the, uh, and their, their policy.

Mike Baker 18:39 Right.

Joe Rogan 18:39 When you, you agree to sign up for TikTok and you read like, the use policy, you're like, "Whoa, what am I-"

Mike Baker 18:46 Which nobody does. You didn't.

Joe Rogan 18:47 (laughs)

Mike Baker 18:47 You did that-

Joe Rogan 18:47 Yeah.

Mike Baker 18:47 You read that. And it's like, people say, "What the fuck?"

Joe Rogan 18:50 I know.

Mike Baker 18:50 "Is, it actually says that?"

Joe Rogan 18:51 Yeah.

Mike Baker 18:52 And, and I'm sure you drove a lot of people to that user agreement. It's probably the first time anybody's ever read a user agreement, right, on all of this.

Joe Rogan 18:57 I couldn't fucking believe it when I was reading it.

Mike Baker 18:59 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:59 I was like, "Is this r- You, you, wait a minute. They have access to other computers that aren't even on TikTok?" Yeah.

Mike Baker 19:04 They can share with government.

Joe Rogan 19:05 Yeah.

Mike Baker 19:06 Right? And now, and that's, and that is the thing. Look, uh, people say, "Well, fuck, you know, Google, uh, you know, all sorts of platforms gather all sorts of information," unless you opt out. And even when you opt out, you know, there's, there's still accessible information there. So, but the, but, uh, the big point here is, it's a Chinese state-sponsored entity, right?

Joe Rogan 19:27 Yeah.

Mike Baker 19:27 And if the government wants something, that company is going to provide it. And the idea that they, th- the US reps would say, "Nah, it's not the case," is just horse shit. It's, there's n- it, it, there would never be a moment where a Chinese company would refuse to share data with the Chinese regime. It's not going to happen. And so, you know, believe what you want, you know, but if, if, if you actually think that there's a firewall there, then, you know, it's, it's incredibly ignorant or naive, or both, or whatever.

Joe Rogan 19:57 I think most people aren't even aware of the fact that the Chinese government completely controls all business. There, there, you really can't have a major corporation without some sort of interaction with the Chinese government.

Mike Baker 20:09 Yeah. That's, and that's, yeah, there's, there's a couple other truths there. There's, there's no rule of law, really, to speak of in, in China. There's no recourse for companies outside of China that are operating there. And anything you take there, uh, I'll give you an example. It's actually, this is, this is very interesting (laughs) well, maybe it's not interesting to everybody, but, um, the end of this past year, so I think it was mid-November or so, uh, the Department of Justice, you know, released some information about a long, it, it'd been a fairly long-standing case that the FBI had been involved in, and DOJ and, and others, um, about a, uh, a Chinese intelligence officer. Now, the interesting thing about this case was this individual, uh, Zhu, uh, Yang, Yang Jiang Zhu, was the first, uh, Chinese intelligence officer to be, um, to be extradited to the US. And the story behind this guy is fascinating. He was, he was a fairly senior, he was like a deputy director within the Ministry of State Security there in China. So, a career intelligence officer. And he'd had about 20 years of experience. He started 10 years ago or so targeting, specifically, US, uh, aviation companies, both on the private and the defense side, and the government. And he went after, as just one example of, and he's, he, he was now sentenced to 20 years in prison, uh, just at the end of this past year. So, as an example, if you look at what he did, it's a perfect case study of how the Chinese intelligence, uh, works to gather up information, right, to steal, excuse me, economic intelligence. So, hold on there. I remember that clip where Marco Rubio reached for his water.

Joe Rogan 21:55 I don't remember that clip.

Mike Baker 21:57 (coughs) You don't remember-

Joe Rogan 21:57 I don't follow CNN or CSPAN like you follow.

Mike Baker 22:02 It was... (laughs)

Joe Rogan 22:02 (laughs)

Mike Baker 22:03 You follow like I follow UFC. I don't-

Joe Rogan 22:05 Yeah, that's it. And so when he reached for the water, "Oh."

Mike Baker 22:08 It's, it's fantastic. I know, I know.

Joe Rogan 22:09 What are you doing? Oh, I'm, I, yeah, it's okay.

Mike Baker 22:11 There he goes.

Joe Rogan 22:11 Yeah, there you go. See?

Mike Baker 22:12 Here's much...

Narrator 22:13 ... being safeguarding human rights. The world is a better place when America is the strongest nation on Earth. But we can't remain powerful if we don't have an economy that can afford it. In the short time that I've been here in Washington, nothing has frustrated me more than false choices like the one the president laid out tonight.

Joe Rogan 22:33 (laughs)

Narrator 22:34 The choice isn't just between the government...

Joe Rogan 22:35 I don't trust you.

Mike Baker 22:36 What's happening to your face? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 22:36 Whoever told him, "You should do that," don't do it. First of all, drink out of a goddamn man-sized bottle of water.

Mike Baker 22:41 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:42 What's up with that little bitch-ass sized bottle of water?

Mike Baker 22:43 That was like, it was like somebody he took off an airplane.

Joe Rogan 22:45 Yeah, that's ridiculous.

Mike Baker 22:46 Yeah. So, uh, oh, there you go.

Joe Rogan 22:47 That's from a, a little kid's little kindergarten table.

Mike Baker 22:49 And that's all that people talked about after this, uh, rebuttal.

Joe Rogan 22:51 Of course. We're petty.

Mike Baker 22:53 Yeah, I know. But anyway, uh, so he, um, he targets, uh, US aviation interests. And as an example, he was using everything. He was using aliases. He was, he was using cover businesses. Uh, he was targeting universities. He started looking at identifying targets within US aviation, um, and as an example, found a guy in, in, uh, GE Aviation. And what he would do is he would just say, "Look, you know, can you come to China and make a presentation at the university about something completely innocuous?" Right? "It's not classified by any means or whatever, but oh, you know, you're so important and you're so smart. We'd love you to come over and present to our university. Um, we'll pay your travel and a stipend." So he, so they do that. So, he starts doing this around 2013. Around 2017, they get this one GE, uh, Aviation employee to travel to China and give a presentation. And by this time, luckily, uh, the FBI had, had, uh, tweaked on this guy and figured out there was something wrong with him. So, in cooperation with the company, the FBI started posing as him, right? Because Zhu's not having face-to-face meetings with this guy. He's doing this all online. So, they start posing as this guy. After a year of just, uh, sort of random, non-threatening contact with this Aviation employee, he starts asking him for specific details, right, uh, of their engine technology, right? GE's got some incredible engine technology. And so the guy, with the cooperation of the FBI, sends a document, right? And on the document, uh, part of it, it just says, "You know, you're not allowed to disclose this outside company. It's proprietary data."And what does that do? Well, the reason why they, they released that is because they wanted to, uh, set the hook on this guy, this Chinese intel officer. And so he gets this and he goes, "Ah, it's working." Right? He thinks, "I got this guy now. I've tasked him with something that's actually interesting and important. He knows he's breaking a rule. He's given me this document." So now he accelerates the tasking a little bit, and he gets the guy to say, "Look, how about during one of your trips over to Europe, you know, we meet?" So, this is where Zhu made his mistake. He goes to Belgium and gets arrested there, right? Um, and it took a while, but he was finally extradited to the US and finally charged. But he was doing other things. He was handling... He was the handler for a kid working, uh, as a student, came over here as a student visa in Chicago. Gave him targets, said, "Here are some individuals," again, within aviation industry, said, "I want you to start looking at them, and maybe some of them are interesting and we might want to start developing some of these targets." Running this kid, you know, who's living and working and studying in Chicago. And the targets were all of Chinese or Taiwanese descent, which is typical, right? They kind of hone in on that, uh, you know. And so eventually that kid got, got wrapped up once we started to figure out what was going on with Zhu and then obviously started to unravel his network. But this kid was also doing the same thing, was targeting under the direction of Zhu and the Chinese intel. Um, other things he did to... I can't... And again, I know I disappeared down a rabbit hole here, but to the point we made earlier in terms of operating in China, he was also targeting other countries. So, he went after a French aviation company that had a facility in China. What does that mean? Well, that means that every, (laughs) every employee, every local employee is probably going to respond if Zhu knocks on the door and says, "I need your assistance. You're gonna have to be my asset." They're probably gonna say yes, right? Because they're operating there in China. Now they're working for a foreign company, but does that really matter when the Chinese regime knocks on your door? So they did. And what they did was with the cooperation of this internal asset, they were able to place malware on a visiting Frenchman's, uh, computer with the hope of taking it back to France and then, you know, uh, affecting their entire system. So anyway, long story short, I guess, the point of that exercise is, um, the aggressiveness, right? The ability. You think about the years that they spend going after targets and, and yet we want to believe somehow TikTok, you know, that they're not gonna touch that. Oh, there's a lot of data there, but we're not gonna go after TikTok data. That's just...

Joe Rogan 27:09 What kind of data do you think they're really accumulating? The thing that's disturbed me is that (clears throat) this, uh, discussion that they're getting biometric data, they're getting facial recognition data and fingerprint data from both, uh, you know, fingerprint readers, from Android phones, and biometric facial data from iPhone, you know, the face opening thing.

Mike Baker 27:31 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 27:31 What are they doing with all that shit?

Mike Baker 27:32 Well, um, some of it isn't of much use to them in the present time, right? But they don't care. So, their, their ability, because of their resources, uh, and their motivation, is to just hoover up everything. And maybe there's no use for that biometric data right now, but maybe there will be, right? So, maybe they, they're collecting all of this and they're thinking, "Okay, at some point we're gonna develop a technology whereby we can use this for a reason." You know, maybe we can remotely, you know, using facial recognition, um, unlock access to... Who knows? You know-

Joe Rogan 28:04 Mm-hmm.

Mike Baker 28:04 ... just coming up with that. But, but the, the, the point at 30,000 feet is they don't really care. They hoover it all up and then they look at it at some point and they say, "Okay, well, this can be used by Huawei," or, "This could be used over here." Or, you know, or MSS or the State Security Service could use this. They'll figure out a use for it and if it doesn't have a use, fine. It doesn't matter, right? They put it in a box and mark maybe, you know, check back later and maybe they will have a use for it. Uh, it sounds like it's, it's one... I mean, we, we tend to not think in those terms. With everything we do is... tends to be targeted, right? So we'll say, "Oh, this is our requirement. Let's go do that." You know, the Chinese are, are, are... They, they, you know, they're looking 30 years, 40 years, 50 years down the road. And so, you know, they've got a different approach to, to information collection, which is why a lot of companies get caught unawares because they think, "I'm not doing shit. You know, I'm just making a widget."

Joe Rogan 29:01 Right.

Mike Baker 29:01 Why would they be interested in me? So, you know, whatever. But I, you know, I realize people are saying, "Oh God, he's fucking banging on about China again." But, you know, if you, if you think about it, we're all occupied with Russia and Ukraine right now, but China's the bigger issue, right? In the long term. And, and we just need to... We need to be able to multitask and yeah, we got to worry about Russia-Ukraine conflict and does that get out of control or just, you know, you know, where's it going? I guess that's a bigger question.

Joe Rogan 29:31 Where do you think it's going?

Mike Baker 29:33 Yeah. Um, I don't think anybody's got a plan in Washington right now, uh, or NATO. I don't think anybody knows. I think they're all being basically reactive as opposed to, you know, what, what's the end game here? What is, what is the, the final way that we wrap this up? And I mean, look, we've spent... The US has spent, I don't know, as of the end of 2022, and that was... That's almost a full year because it started in February. So almost in a full year, the US spent about $50 billion in assistance, and about half of that is military aid, right? In a variety of forms, right? The Highmore systems all the way to protective body armor, right? So it's, it's-

Joe Rogan 30:14 Mm-hmm.

Mike Baker 30:14 It's all over the map, and training. Um, if you compare that $50 billion in aid to... And so what's that? About $25 billion in military aid. If you compare that to previous year or the year before, we were probably spending, on the Ukraine, we were probably spending $250, $270 million.... in military assistance, that's it. Right? So that ramp up is incredible. And then that doesn't include what the EU's put into it, what the UK's put into it, and everything else.

Joe Rogan 30:47 Mm-hmm.

Mike Baker 30:48 So-

Joe Rogan 30:48 Mm-hmm.

Mike Baker 30:48 ... how do you back out of that? Right? How do you say, "Okay, we're, (laughs) we're, now we're putting a Patriot missile battery in there"? Um, and, you know, France and, and we have agreed, I think we're looking towards, you know, more advanced, um, armor technology. We're gonna give them tanks that they've been hankering for. Hankering? (laughs) I said hankering. Um, and so... That might be a Ukrainian word. Um, I, I don't know. When you w- I don't... I have no idea where it's going to wrap up. Putin's not gonna give up Crimea, so what does that mean? Well, you got to create some middle ground then, where it's not gonna be a complete victory for the Ukraine, and that's gonna make a lot of people unhappy who are just standing around waving Ukraine flags. Right? And so where do you go from there? I, I don't know. You know, hopefully there's some serious negotiations happening off the radar screen, but, uh, there doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence to that effect, and Putin doesn't seem to show any interest in it. Um, and he's been able so far to tamp down on the dissidence at home. And really, much like with China, the only thing Putin would really fear is losing power, and he loses power if he loses the population, and so far, that really hasn't happened. There's been protests, uh, people unhappy with the, uh... Sorry, that was my-

Joe Rogan 32:04 I think that's your phone.

Mike Baker 32:04 That was my SportsCenter alert, I guess. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 32:07 You get a da-da-dat-da-dun?

Mike Baker 32:08 Yeah, exactly, whenever there's something big happening in the world of sports. Um, and, uh, so anyway, I, I... To answer your question in a very lengthy, rambling way, uh, who knows where it goes? But it would be nice if we had more open discussion about it, at least in Washington, and, and open with our NATO allies about what's gonna happen. We can't keep up, I don't think, this same pace of support. You know, I, it's... It seems unreasonable to think that we can. But...

Joe Rogan 32:38 Has there been any discussion, uh, as to like how long we do this for?

Mike Baker 32:43 Uh, not really. I think there's a... Oh, actually... I think there's a, there's a general sense, because everybody's got ADD, there's a general sense of fatigue to some degree, I mean, in some circles. But, um, saying you want to know where it's going isn't saying that you're in support of Putin, and that's part of the problem. In today's world, if you say, "Well, so where is this all going?" People say, "Well, fuck you." You're a-

Joe Rogan 33:06 Right.

Mike Baker 33:06 ... Putin puppet. Well, no.

Joe Rogan 33:08 Right, right, right.

Mike Baker 33:08 Fuck you, I just want to know what's happening. So...

Joe Rogan 33:11 Yeah, it's weird like that, isn't it? I mean, it's, it's so strange that you're either with them or against them, and you can't just be going-

Mike Baker 33:18 (lighthearted music)

Joe Rogan 33:18 ... "What are we doing?" What... Is it not working?

Mike Baker 33:21 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 33:21 Lift the top.

Mike Baker 33:22 Oh.

Joe Rogan 33:22 You gotta lift the top.

Mike Baker 33:24 Fucking hell.

Joe Rogan 33:24 Do you not know how to work a cigar lighter?

Mike Baker 33:26 Uh, it's hard to-

Joe Rogan 33:27 What, they teach you that in the CIA?

Mike Baker 33:28 It's technical nowadays. Look at this.

Joe Rogan 33:30 It's not really, it's really fucking easy.

Mike Baker 33:32 Oh, I look like a fucking-

Joe Rogan 33:33 Gimme, gimme that.

Mike Baker 33:33 ... monkey fucking a football here with your lighter.

Joe Rogan 33:35 Do you know how to do it?

Mike Baker 33:36 No.

Joe Rogan 33:36 Need help?

Mike Baker 33:37 No, look at this.

Joe Rogan 33:38 Lift the top.

Mike Baker 33:38 I'm trying to lift the top, but it's like a...

Joe Rogan 33:40 Give me that fucking thing.

Mike Baker 33:41 Oh, no, I'm gonna figure this out.

Joe Rogan 33:42 You're not gonna figure it out. This is embarrassment.

Mike Baker 33:43 I'm gonna spend the next two hours trying to figure this thing.

Joe Rogan 33:45 I think you're on the wrong side. Flip it over.

Mike Baker 33:47 Yeah. Oh, for fuck's sake.

Joe Rogan 33:48 Jesus Christ.

Mike Baker 33:49 There you go, look at that. I'm trying to open the bottom.

Joe Rogan 33:52 It's just a Colibri cigar lighter.

Mike Baker 33:53 I'm not paying any attention.

Joe Rogan 33:54 All right, let me stand it.

Mike Baker 33:55 And I... And besides the fact I use a Zippo.

Joe Rogan 33:58 Oh.

Mike Baker 33:58 Remember the Zippos?

Joe Rogan 33:59 Oh, the ones that leave that nice smell?

Mike Baker 34:01 Yes. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:02 That gasoline smell.

Mike Baker 34:02 And I got, and I got a couple of BIC lighters too.

Joe Rogan 34:04 Hmm.

Mike Baker 34:05 And you know the nice thing about them? I don't have to fuck with the top. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 34:08 That's true.

Mike Baker 34:08 (laughs) That's so... Right. But anyway, that, that was, uh...

Joe Rogan 34:11 There you go. I love the sound of the torch.

Mike Baker 34:12 Uh, that was mildly embarrassing, but I'm too old to be embarrassed about anything anymore.

Joe Rogan 34:18 (laughs) So, I mean, worst case scenario is this breaks out into nuclear war, right? Right?

Mike Baker 34:24 It's, uh, the top lifts up.

Joe Rogan 34:25 Yeah, right.

Mike Baker 34:25 Um, yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:26 Um, that's the worst case scenario, right?

Mike Baker 34:28 Yeah, if you look at, uh, if you, uh... I mean, maybe this is a good time to say, "Okay, 2023, here we are." (laughs) What should we pay attention to? What are we gonna look at? With Russia/Ukraine, you're right. If it, if, if suddenly Russia decides, "I'm going with an unconventional weapon," right? "It's time, it's time to break out, you know, the nuke, um, and let's see what, let's see what that does to the community of, of nations." Um, so there's that potential in terms of how does this escalate. Something happens in terms of NATO and it drags NATO into it, that's a way this thing escalates. Um, a cyber security attack in the region, maybe, maybe initially targeted at, uh, at Ukraine but then it somehow, it, you know, goes off into, uh, into NATO allies, creates a major issue, shuts down power systems in Poland and the surrounding region. So there's ways that this thing could, could, uh, escalate, get a little bit out of control. Um, maybe, as we talked about, maybe there's increasing protest movement in Russia, maybe, and that threatens Putin's regime and that makes him decide to do something a little bit more drastic.

Joe Rogan 35:37 What is the, the general consensus, uh, from the Russian people? Do they... They have a lockdown on the media in Russia, right? And, and-

Mike Baker 35:44 They do.

Joe Rogan 35:45 ... even on the internet, right?

Mike Baker 35:46 Yeah. Yeah, they do. They've got, um... And they've done, they've been very successful and, uh, you know what? It, it's not like the old days and, and during the Cold War, you know, you could put a complete blanket over it, right? And, and that was it. There was no way for them to get news. They're not completely shut off, right? So it's, uh, they, they know what the hell's going on. Russian people are, are, you know, the, the population in general, you know, they're, they're very switched on pragmatic. They suffer well, and what, that's part of the problem.

Joe Rogan 36:10 And-

Mike Baker 36:10 They suffer well.

Joe Rogan 36:11 But my friends from Russia have always told me that nobody believes the media. That, you know, it's kind of like a nod and a wink as to what, what the m- the media tells you and that people kinda know that they bullshit you.

Mike Baker 36:21 Right, so, yeah.

Joe Rogan 36:21 It's much more open, the, the reaction to the media is much more open. And in the United States, like if you're one of those-

Mike Baker 36:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 36:28 ... people that listens to MSNBC, you're all in. You know, you're all in-

Mike Baker 36:32 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 36:32 ... with Rachel Maddow. She's gone now, right? Whoever the fuck is over there now. You're all in with those people. If you're on Fox News, you're all in with those people.

Mike Baker 36:39 Right, right. Uh, no, the, the Russian general population's always had this kind of a dry, very sarcastic sense of humor towards information in general, right? And what they're being told by the authorities, and that includes the media. So...... you know, he can't control the population the way they used to, but they still, th- they, you know, it's still a dictatorship. And so he's still got a significant state control, and the state media is still very good, as is the security apparatus, at controlling the message. So they're, they're very good at that, right? And so that's kinda balanced against, and they're, they're constantly in this, this battle against, you know, increasing technology and its ability to spread information that's outside the bubble. And so, yeah, I mean, there's, there's dissent, there's a feeling of dissatisfaction. But, you know, Putin's been ... He's been very good in the past at finding the bogeyman, right? Whenever he's threatened of pointing to some outside force, you know, usually us, um, and saying, "Look what they're doing to us," and kind of rallying the troops, getting everyone to, to, yeah, you know, the motherland. So, you know, I wouldn't ... It's like hoping that the, the, the mullahs, it's like hoping the Iranian regime topples under the weight of this current protest. I wouldn't, you know, hold out a lot of hope. I wouldn't put a lot of money on it. Um-

Joe Rogan 38:02 The Orion regime, the, what they're doing scares the shit out of me.

Mike Baker 38:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:06 It's really scary. They just tortured and murdered a, a karate champion, and for protesting, and-

Mike Baker 38:12 Yeah, rappers disappeared now.

Joe Rogan 38:13 Yeah.

Mike Baker 38:13 I mean, th- they really don't care. They've, they've killed, depends on the estimates you read, but, you know, 450, 500 people on the street during protests, much less all the people who have just disappeared, right? And they're sitting, held in prison somewhere. So ...

Joe Rogan 38:26 Yeah, but e- everyone over here is so distracted by Ukraine and Russia, that, that we, we rarely talk about Iran.

Mike Baker 38:33 Well, yeah. We ... That's, yeah, that's a great (laughs) point. We, um, we're very, sort of singular in our attention, right?

Joe Rogan 38:40 Yeah.

Mike Baker 38:40 And so it's like, again, we can't multitask. So we should be worried about Iran, we should be w- ... I mean, what, really, where are the big flashpoints? Russia-Ukraine, obviously is one. Iran, 'cause what, what, what's gonna happen if Iran ... Here's a thought, right? If you, if you think about the breakout potential for Iran to develop a, a, a nuke, right? A weapon. Um, some estimates now are, are, it, about a week, one week, right? To develop enough, uh, enriched uranium. You've got to, uh, enrich it.

Joe Rogan 39:11 So a week from right now?

Mike Baker 39:12 If they s- ... Yeah, they're basically saying, look, if they make that decision, uh, they need what, 20, 25 kilograms of enriched uranium at like 90%. That's, that's weapons grade. So they could do that within a week, is, is, uh, a number of estimates, legitimate estimates. They could d- ... That's for one, you know.

Joe Rogan 39:29 Yeah.

Mike Baker 39:29 And, okay, so, you know, is there value in that? Well, from their perspective, perhaps. They could do three weapons in maybe a month's time. So that breakout that we used to talk about in terms of, you know, year, years, um, at least, at least many months (laughs) now is, is shrunk, right? And so the idea is, as a flashpoint people say, "Well, why should we still be worried about Iran?" Well, because, you know, (sighs) there's a, uh, a high likelihood that if the Israelis get, you know, the sense that that's where they're heading, that they're gonna do ... th- then they may take action, right? Kinetic action to stop it. They've done it in Iraq, they did it in Syria, gone after, you know, these, these capabilities. And that could s- obviously cause a flash there that spreads out of control, right? And draws us into it. So, you know, there's reasons why, 'cause people, you know, sometimes people say, "Why should we care? Why, why do we care about Taiwan? Why do I care about Iran? What do I ..." It's because of the potential for a problem that we can't get our hands around, that we can't control. And so with, with Iran, it's, uh, largely comes down to this issue of, you know, what is their breakout? Now, aside from just enriching uranium, they gotta come up with the weaponization of it all, right? And that could take longer, right? That could take months and months, right? But, you know, it's a heavy lift to figure out what their plans and intentions are. So ... And, and, you know, we kind of backed out of this Biden administration was clear that they wanted to get back into the nuke agreement from 2015. That was like, "Yeah, we gotta, we gotta do everything we can." And so they started those talks when they got in, and now they've kind of shut them down basically, 'cause the Iranians, you know, made some demands that weren't realistic. And also, yeah, the protests, right? And also they're selling fucking weapons to Russia, right? (laughs) So, you know, Russia's turned to Iran and North Korea to resupply their hardware and, and, and get gear that they can't get, drones in particular, from Iran. So do we really want to be talking, you know, a n- uh, a nuke deal

Mike Baker 41:30 with Iran at this moment? You know, probably not, you know, whether it's pragmatic or not, but certainly from a political perspective, I don't think the Biden administration wants that heat. So there's a, there's a lot of shit happening that's very interesting. We haven't even touched on Harry and Meghan yet. God. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 41:46 (laughs) That's the big distraction.

Mike Baker 41:49 That's the big distraction right there. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:51 There's a war room, apparently, in England where they're, they're trying to figure out what to do.

Mike Baker 41:55 Oh, really?

Joe Rogan 41:56 I heard they ... Did you hear about that?

Narrator 41:58 No.

Joe Rogan 41:59 Yes.

Narrator 42:01 How?

Joe Rogan 42:01 There's a war room.

Mike Baker 42:01 I, I think I tuned out.

Narrator 42:02 What did I hear?

Joe Rogan 42:02 The royals-

Mike Baker 42:03 War room.

Joe Rogan 42:05 ... have got ... They're, they're about to go to war.

Mike Baker 42:07 Ah. Well, the, the wanker has ... You know, he is put out this book, uh, Spare, or whatever it's called. Um, you know, I guess everybody falls down one side or the other. Do you support Harry and Meghan? Do you not? You know-

Joe Rogan 42:21 Here it is. Royals set up a war room-

Mike Baker 42:23 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 42:24 ... to discuss Prince Harry's memoir.

Mike Baker 42:26 (laughs) That's great. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 42:27 A war room.

Mike Baker 42:28 I do like that.

Joe Rogan 42:30 Yeah. What? A fucking war room?

Mike Baker 42:33 Full disclosure, I, I, I do think Harry's a wanker, but, um-

Joe Rogan 42:36 Well ...

Mike Baker 42:37 You know?

Joe Rogan 42:37 He seems to be.

Mike Baker 42:38 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 42:39 And it seems like, uh, that lady is a temptress, she's a siren, she's lured-

Mike Baker 42:45 Ooh. She's a tem-

Joe Rogan 42:45 ... him into the rocks.

Mike Baker 42:46 I haven't heard that f- term in a while.

Joe Rogan 42:48 Yes.

Mike Baker 42:48 She's a harlot almost.

Joe Rogan 42:49 She's a ... Well, harlots bad, right? She's just powerful.

Mike Baker 42:52 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 42:53 She's a-

Mike Baker 42:53 Actually, that's a good point. Harlot and temptress.

Joe Rogan 42:55 Yeah, I think harlot.

Mike Baker 42:56 It's like comparing melons to apples.

Narrator 42:58 Also separate. The definition of a harlot is a prostitute.

Joe Rogan 43:01 Oh.

Mike Baker 43:01 Yeah, that's a whole word.

Joe Rogan 43:02 I take that back.

Mike Baker 43:03 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:03 I take-

Narrator 43:04 Hoor.

Joe Rogan 43:04 It's a hoor.

Mike Baker 43:06 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 43:07 (laughs)

Mike Baker 43:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:08 I don't think she's that.

Mike Baker 43:09 No.

Joe Rogan 43:09 She's butch- butchy-

Mike Baker 43:10 No.

Joe Rogan 43:10 Wasn't there some speculation that she was on Epstein's yacht at one point in time? There was, like, photos with her and Prince Andrew way back in the day when she was, like, in her early 20s?

Mike Baker 43:20 Wow. Uh, no, I haven't heard that one. That's... No, no. Um-

Joe Rogan 43:25 That whole fucking thing.

Mike Baker 43:26 That thing. But, yeah, I, I, the war room, I guess it makes sense. Look, these people are in a, you know, under a microscope, and, you know, they gotta figure out what their messaging is from moment to moment with him. And, you know, they probably don't like the idea that this is all playing out in public and-

Joe Rogan 43:41 Well, it's-

Mike Baker 43:41 But he's just kinda fucking lost the plot, right?

Joe Rogan 43:43 Yeah.

Mike Baker 43:43 Now, he's come out... He's... I mean, the book is like he's talking about his dick and he's talking about, you know-

Joe Rogan 43:47 Is it really?

Mike Baker 43:48 ... Afghans that w- he killed while he was there on duty. And, you know, there's actually something funny. I've, uh... Somebody sent me, I don't know if it's true 'cause I haven't had time to look into it, but somebody sent me that, uh, some Taliban commander is now trolling Harry over his talk about the Afghans that he killed, and, uh, I g- I gotta look it up, but-

Joe Rogan 44:09 What has he said about the Afghans he killed? This is while he was a pilot?

Mike Baker 44:13 Yeah, this is while he was over there on duty. I don't know to what degree. I, I, I, I, again, full disclosure, haven't read the book.

Joe Rogan 44:19 Taliban leader responds to Prince Harry's reported claim in Spare that he killed 25 fighters in Afghanistan.

Mike Baker 44:25 I mean, who does that? Who talks... I mean, again-

Joe Rogan 44:27 Very strange.

Mike Baker 44:28 It's very strange.

Joe Rogan 44:29 But it's also very strange that he was, I mean, essentially, infiltrated by a very ambitious actress.

Mike Baker 44:36 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 44:36 You know, I mean, she used to be on Deal or No Deal.

Mike Baker 44:38 Was he infiltrated?

Joe Rogan 44:38 She was one of the Deal or No Deal ladies.

Mike Baker 44:40 Is that technically the way it works?

Joe Rogan 44:41 I think so.

Mike Baker 44:41 Is he infiltrated or was she infiltrated?

Joe Rogan 44:43 Well, it depends on-

Mike Baker 44:44 Yeah. ... who's getting pegged. Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 44:46 (laughs) It depends on, uh, the methods.

Mike Baker 44:49 And now, we've... And now... (laughs)

Joe Rogan 44:51 Yeah.

Mike Baker 44:51 You can't-

Joe Rogan 44:51 Yeah. Look, she was on Deal or No Deal.

Mike Baker 44:53 Yeah, that's right, yeah, with the briefcases.

Joe Rogan 44:54 She, she didn't like being objectified on Deal and... Did you think it was an executive position, ma'am?

Mike Baker 45:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:00 Like, (laughs) you're one of the hot ladies holding up a suitcase-

Mike Baker 45:03 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 45:04 ... for fucking... I mean, it's a game show.

Mike Baker 45:06 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:07 Like, how are you objectified?

Mike Baker 45:08 I forgot about that show. I-

Joe Rogan 45:09 That's literally the show.

Mike Baker 45:11 Well, um, yeah. Well, you don't get this sort of analysis just anywhere on the Harry and Meghan situation. Um, nobody's talked about pegging before as far as it goes, so.

Joe Rogan 45:22 Well, that's just pure speculation.

Mike Baker 45:24 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 45:25 I put it out there.

Mike Baker 45:25 I think it's important to note that they're speculations.

Joe Rogan 45:26 And I apologize.

Mike Baker 45:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:28 I apologize for that speculation.

Mike Baker 45:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:30 It's just a joke.

Mike Baker 45:31 But, but, I mean, who... Again, why, why did he... Well, I know why he felt the need to talk about some of this shit in his book, is because otherwise no one's paying him money for this, right?

Joe Rogan 45:38 Right.

Mike Baker 45:38 He's gotta come up with-

Joe Rogan 45:39 You gotta disclose some wild shit if you wanna sell a book.

Mike Baker 45:41 Yeah. So.

Joe Rogan 45:43 And if you wanna talk about killing 25 bad guys.

Mike Baker 45:47 Yeah, it's, it's, it's not gonna set well with the people that he, he, uh-

Joe Rogan 45:51 Served with.

Mike Baker 45:51 ... was, uh, serving with, yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:52 Yeah.

Mike Baker 45:53 Yeah, that's, that's... Uh, yeah, anyway, anyway. I guess, you know what?

Joe Rogan 45:58 Is it unusual that they let a prince, uh, c- fight in active combat?

Mike Baker 46:04 Um, yeah. I mean, you know, it, it, it is and it isn't. It used to be more common because there used to be more conflict, and, uh, it was the British Empire and, you know, off you'd go and, and they wanted to tick that box, right? They wanted to get that so they could wear the ribbons and, you know.

Joe Rogan 46:18 Mm-hmm.

Mike Baker 46:18 And they, you know, there was a sense of, um, you know, "If we're gonna be in charge, we need to show that we've actually taken part in these, these campaigns." And so, uh, no, look, God bless 'em for, for serving. I think it's great. I just, you know... I think that, that part of it, you know, you can't deny, fine and great. You know, I think that is... That's admirable. Um, it's just everything else is just kinda, you know, bizarre, and-

Joe Rogan 46:40 Mm-hmm.

Mike Baker 46:41 ... um, and I admit to being a bit of a royalist. I still have my British citizenship, and, you know, one day, we'll retire to a small Cotswolds village and solve murders for a living. Um, you know, that'll be my job. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 46:55 With a pipe.

Mike Baker 46:56 (laughs) With a pipe.

Joe Rogan 46:57 Sitting in your study.

Mike Baker 46:58 Yes. People will knock on the door. I'll bring me a new case, you know?

Joe Rogan 47:01 Like Daniel Craig in those Knives Out movies?

Mike Baker 47:04 Yeah, I think, or, or, you know, maybe, uh, maybe, like, Poirot, I'm thinking more, you know?

Joe Rogan 47:08 Who?

Mike Baker 47:08 Yeah. Herc- Hercule Poirot, you know?

Joe Rogan 47:10 Who the fuck's that?

Mike Baker 47:11 A Belgian detective.

Joe Rogan 47:12 Do you know who that is? Boy, that's obscure.

Mike Baker 47:15 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 47:16 You, you're in Marco Rubio-

Mike Baker 47:18 You've never...

Joe Rogan 47:18 ... drinking water territory now.

Mike Baker 47:18 There's all this... Like, there's only, like, three famous Belgians, and, and Poirot's definitely one of them. He was a fictitious character of Agatha Christie's.

Joe Rogan 47:25 The only Belgian that I'm aware of is the giant lady who's the Minister of Health.

Mike Baker 47:30 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 47:31 Do you know about her?

Mike Baker 47:31 Yeah. But she almost never comes up in the list of famous Belgians.

Joe Rogan 47:35 Well, she should.

Mike Baker 47:35 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:36 That lady's mo- tremendous.

Mike Baker 47:37 Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 47:38 He's a fictional character. He's a fictional Belgian detective created by British writer Agatha Christie.

Mike Baker 47:43 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 47:43 Oh, I didn't know about that. One of Christie's most famous and long-running characters appearing in 33 novels, two plays, and more than 50 short stories.

Mike Baker 47:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:51 Between 1920 and 1975. How old are you?

Mike Baker 47:55 Oh, well, I was, I was born in 1915, so this was right in my sweet spot.

Joe Rogan 47:58 Oh.

Mike Baker 47:58 Um, but that, that character, David Suchet, uh, he played the character Poirot for, like, 25 years on TV.

Joe Rogan 48:05 Really?

Mike Baker 48:05 Uh, yeah, if you w- if you-

Joe Rogan 48:06 Do you know about this?

Mike Baker 48:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:07 No, Jamey doesn't know about this.

Narrator 48:08 I've heard of some of these stories, but I've never watched them, like, uh, Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile.

Joe Rogan 48:12 I've heard of that.

Mike Baker 48:12 Yeah, there you go.

Joe Rogan 48:13 Okay.

Mike Baker 48:14 Yeah. No, it's, it's, uh, you know, anyway. But, yes, that will be one day when people say, "Whatever happened to Baker?" He'll be living in a small cottage in a small English countryside village.

Joe Rogan 48:24 How much time-

Mike Baker 48:24 You know?

Joe Rogan 48:24 ... do you think you got left?

Mike Baker 48:26 Uh, God.

Joe Rogan 48:26 Would you really wanna do that?

Mike Baker 48:27 Do you ever think about that?

Joe Rogan 48:29 Sure.

Mike Baker 48:29 I mean, do you ever do the math and you think-

Joe Rogan 48:30 Mm-hmm.

Mike Baker 48:30 ... "What have you got?"

Joe Rogan 48:31 Yeah, yeah.

Mike Baker 48:32 I think you really do it when you have kids, I think, and-

Joe Rogan 48:34 I, I just think it's a smart thing to do anyway, just to, like, think about if you enjoy what you're doing. You know?

Mike Baker 48:40 I just hope I live long enough to figure out your fucking lighter from my cigars.

Joe Rogan 48:43 (laughs)

Mike Baker 48:43 But I think it's, um... I do think about it, and I think about it because I got young kids now.

Joe Rogan 48:48 Mm-hmm.

Mike Baker 48:48 And, uh, and, you know, I wanna live... You know, I want every fucking year I can get. And I know some people say, "Well, I, I, I gotta go when I'm 80, that's fine." And I think, no, I wanna squeeze every bit of life out of this thing. And, um, but I do, I do the math all the time. When I'm however old, my k- youngest kid will be this old, and hey.

Joe Rogan 49:08 Mm-hmm.

Mike Baker 49:09 ... you know, it's-

Joe Rogan 49:09 Well, you have adult children, too.

Mike Baker 49:11 I do. I have a daughter who's-

Joe Rogan 49:12 So, you've got, like-

Mike Baker 49:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:13 ... two sort of, two groups.

Mike Baker 49:15 I, I do.

Joe Rogan 49:16 Yeah.

Mike Baker 49:16 Two, yeah, two groups. Not at the same time.

Joe Rogan 49:18 Right.

Mike Baker 49:19 I legitimately got divorced and, you know-

Joe Rogan 49:20 Yeah.

Mike Baker 49:21 ... they remarried, so it's now two families. Uh, which would be much more interesting, I suppose, at the end of the day to talk about. But, uh, yeah, my daughter's almost 30.

Joe Rogan 49:28 Talk about stress, those people.

Mike Baker 49:30 How do they do that?

Joe Rogan 49:31 Yeah. I don't think they realize they're doing it until they're doing it, and then they're just like, "Ah."

Mike Baker 49:35 Yeah. Life is complicated enough. I'm always amazed at like... 'Cause I have had a, a handful of friends who have been... what's the word I'm looking for? Fidelity is a problem for them.

Joe Rogan 49:45 Mm.

Mike Baker 49:46 And so they, they have this, they... And they... Usually they have stressful jobs. And then this, this whole other thing where they're balancing their wife and they're balancing, you know, two or three additional relationships. And I'm thinking, "How the fuck do you have time, or energy, or the ability not to..." I, you know, you just... Fuck. I don't know how people compartmentalize like that.

Joe Rogan 50:06 I think it's an-

Mike Baker 50:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:07 I think it's just a distraction. I think the people that do that, they, they generally are very stressed out, overworked. They're usually working insane long hours and they make poor choices 'cause they're, they're just looking for constant distractions.

Mike Baker 50:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:22 And also-

Mike Baker 50:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:22 ... they're probably excitement junkies.

Mike Baker 50:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:25 They're probably not getting enough through their work or their work grinds on them and they need something to jazz things up.

Mike Baker 50:30 Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, it's like when I talk to people that say, "Oh, I'm gonna take up skydiving," and I'm thinking, "Is somebody paying you to jump out of that plane?" (laughs)

Joe Rogan 50:37 Yeah.

Mike Baker 50:38 'Cause unless you're getting paid for it, I'm just like, "I don't know." I just... I... You know. It was fun, but, you know, it's time to move on.

Joe Rogan 50:46 I'm not interested in that.

Mike Baker 50:47 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:48 Yeah. I'm not interested in things that can accidentally kill you-

Mike Baker 50:50 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 50:50 ... that give you just a quick little jolt of adrenaline.

Mike Baker 50:52 Yeah. No, it's, it is true. But I, I, I take your point. Yeah. I guess that's... Part of it is that. And then... And, you know, it's just... You just look at it and you go... I knew, I knew one guy in particular years ago who just had this juggling act going on constantly.

Joe Rogan 51:05 Mm-hmm.

Mike Baker 51:06 And I'm just thinking, "What the fuck, dude?"

Joe Rogan 51:07 It's an addiction.

Mike Baker 51:08 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:08 It's an addiction like gambling, like anything else. They, they get addicted to the thrill of pulling it off.

Mike Baker 51:14 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:15 Yeah.

Mike Baker 51:15 Life's too short. You just-

Joe Rogan 51:16 Well, it'll-

Mike Baker 51:17 Keep it uncomplicated.

Joe Rogan 51:18 ... 100% interfere with whatever you're really trying to do. Whatever your actual work is, it'll 100% interfere with that and fuck it up. Y- If you... I always tell people that, you know, concentrate on stupid shit. Like if you concentrate on like people that get mad at you on social media and stuff like that, like you only have a hun-... Let's say if your mind, you, uh, let's call it units. You have 100 units of, of, uh, information, of bandwidth that you can utilize. Anytime you allocate any of those units to other things-

Mike Baker 51:48 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 51:48 ... now you have less units for the things that you care about.

Mike Baker 51:52 Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I, I, I've apparently given away most of my bandwidth to lyrics from early '80s alternative rock songs, which-

Joe Rogan 52:00 No, that's just data.

Mike Baker 52:01 Yeah. That's, th-

Joe Rogan 52:02 That's just data.

Mike Baker 52:03 Still taking up space. Uh-

Joe Rogan 52:04 It's in there.

Mike Baker 52:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:05 But it's not... I mean, I've got a lot of that. I've got a lot of stupid information-

Mike Baker 52:09 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 52:09 ... floating around my head, for sure. You know?

Mike Baker 52:11 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 52:11 I have obscure, uh, jujitsu fighter records bouncing around in my head.

Mike Baker 52:16 (laughs) I ha-... But I think that, you, you know, so many people don't think about their mind as like if it was your money. If you had a certain amount of money and this is all the money you're ever gonna have, like e-... How much money are you gonna donate to stupid shit? How much money are you gonna allocate to dumb things that don't help you at all?

Joe Rogan 52:33 Yeah.

Mike Baker 52:33 They only, only ruin your life.

Joe Rogan 52:35 Yeah. I, I guess there is, there's a sense of, um... You know, from my... I, I think from the way I think about it is, um, I, I, I just want to have a, an uncomplicated life.

Mike Baker 52:47 Mm.

Joe Rogan 52:47 Right? I'm, I've been very fortunate, um, from work. I've certainly been very fortunate in, in, uh, relationship, right? Um, you know, I'm, I'm married to the greatest person on the planet. And I just, I just want an uncompli-... That's what I want. I just want that uncomplicated life-

Mike Baker 53:03 Yeah, but you used-

Joe Rogan 53:03 ... where I don't have to-

Mike Baker 53:04 ... to work for the intelligence agencies. You used to work for the CIA. How the fuck is that uncomplicated? Well, you know-

Joe Rogan 53:09 It's one of the most complicated things a person could ever be involved in, international relations-

Mike Baker 53:14 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 53:15 ... and cyber espionage and-

Mike Baker 53:17 Oh, that was all... That was done by the smart people. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 53:20 Yeah. But it's still-

Mike Baker 53:20 I didn't do that. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 53:21 You're aware of it all. You have to process all that.

Mike Baker 53:23 Yeah. You're aware of it, but I think if you... I mean, it, it was kind of like looking at, at that world also. I was always amazed at some of the people... And again, I had a great time. It was a great organization. I, I, uh, loved the work, um, respected my colleagues. Uh-

Joe Rogan 53:36 Why'd you get out?

Mike Baker 53:38 Uh, 'cause my daughter was, uh, getting older and I needed to be home, uh, 'cause I was... Uh, at that point, it was just me and her. Um, and it was time to figure something else out. Um, and so, uh, yeah. But I, I just think there was, there was something about that job on the operations side that I found just very easy, right? To compartmentalize. Some people found it very difficult in the terms of the sort of like, I don't know, whether they were thinking of moral quandary in terms of what we were doing and, "I don't know if this is..." You know, I just never thought... You know, just, just tell me what the objective is, right?

Joe Rogan 54:11 Mm-hmm.

Mike Baker 54:11 Give that information to me. You know? Let's point ourselves in the right direction and just do it. Now let's move on to the next task. So I, I tend to be very simplistic when it comes to, uh, that. And I think that helped with the, the, the business. I never sat around, you know, staring at my fucking naval wondering, you know, where I fit in in terms of the big machine of the intelligence community.

Joe Rogan 54:31 Mm. Well, that makes for a good company man.

Mike Baker 54:33 Yeah, I think so.

Joe Rogan 54:34 A good operative.

Mike Baker 54:35 Yeah. Yeah. I think it, I think it's... If you just simplify things down that way (laughs) and, uh, no one ever accused me of being a really big, deep thinker, right? So I'm good with that. Um, but, uh, as a matter of fact, this leads us into a very interesting subject, which is-

Joe Rogan 54:50 What? How the CIA killed Kennedy? (laughs)

Mike Baker 54:54 (laughs) No, I'm about to-

Joe Rogan 54:54 (laughs)

Mike Baker 54:54 I'm about to spend 10 seconds promoting a book that's about to be released.

Joe Rogan 54:58 Oh.

Mike Baker 54:58 Oh, I know. I know this is shameful, but I thought, let, let... I'm gonna get it in here and then get out of it and we can go back to more interesting things. But on the, uh, on the 18th of January, uh, Scribd, S-C-R-I-B-D, is gonna be releasing a book called Company Rules, um-... d- it's my first venture into books. It's an audiobook, and so it's an easy listen. But the idea is ... It has nothing to do with the agency, right? It has nothing to do with-

Joe Rogan 55:22 Did you read it?

Mike Baker 55:23 I did. I narrated it.

Joe Rogan 55:24 Oh, that's good.

Mike Baker 55:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:25 That's good.

Mike Baker 55:25 Yeah. I used a fake voice. I sounded like, uh, Gru from Despicable Me.

Joe Rogan 55:29 (laughs)

Mike Baker 55:29 I just used that voice for the fuck of it. And, uh, it's, it ... So it has nothing to do with the agency. It's about business life, right? But what happened was, I got out. People were like, "Why are you leaving? And what the hell are you gonna do?" And as it turns out, over the years, it, it occurred to me that a lot of what I was doing in business were just some ideas that I had kind of settled with me from the agency days. So, that's, that's where the Company Rules comes up. But frankly, there's no, there's no book of company rules. Look at that.

Joe Rogan 55:55 Company Rules.

Mike Baker 55:57 (sighs)

Joe Rogan 55:57 New from Mike Baker.

Mike Baker 55:58 Rrrrow.

Joe Rogan 56:00 So, what's in there?

Mike Baker 56:01 (laughs) So, there's just, you know, there's basically nine rules. Don't ... I, I couldn't come up with a 10th. I wasn't smart enough to come up with a 10th. So, there's, there's nine basic rules. Everything ... You start out from, you know, um, define your mission, right? That's pretty much the first one. It's kinda like what we talked about. So, in business, you know, it's not just saying, "Okay, our mission is make money." Right? You've gotta, so you've gotta define your mission, then you've gotta clarify, you gotta sp- explain (laughs) it to your personnel. I'm a big believer in, once you do that, hire smart people, get the hell out of the way, right? And that's worked out very well. But there's other, there's other principles in there. How do you make a decision, uh, with imperfect information? That's one thing that, that the agency ... You're not really realizing it at the time. But you, you realize when you're in there, and then you leave, that, you know what the agency's very good at, is, is teaching people to just get off the ax, make a decision.

Joe Rogan 56:47 W- what do you mean by how you make a decision with imperfect information?

Mike Baker 56:50 Well-

Joe Rogan 56:50 Like, give me an example of that.

Mike Baker 56:51 Yeah. Um, if you wait around, like if you've ... (sighs) If you wait around for all the data to come in, about, before ... Let's stay with business. Before an investment, right, somebody else is gonna come in and take that opportunity, right? You've gotta be able to say ... It's not like the movies. It's not like a Tom Clancy movie, where you've got all the fucking details that you want before you go in on the target, right? You're not looking through walls, and you're ... You don't have a, an asset sitting in there telling you exactly, you know, where the target's going to be. You don't know if there's 12 people over there, and there's one person at the door. That never happens. You never know everything, right? And if you wait for everything to, to show up, it's never gonna happen. But if you wait, then something bad's gonna happen. And it's the same in, in business, which is basically ... So, these ideas, uh, that I, that I eventually ... And I, you know, again, anybody who worked for the agency, I'm sure they got their own ideas. They're gonna look and go, "Well, those aren't my ideas or my principles or my rules. I have these." But these are the ones that I took away. And I used 'em to build a business. And so, all the examples are basically business oriented, right? So, uh, you know, this is not a book about my time in the CIA and, you know, I don't think I'd ever write one of those, 'cause there's enough of that out there, and I don't think anybody needs more of that. Um, but I just found this was interesting, 'cause nobody really expected me to be able to build a business and keep it breathing for as long as I have, um, 'cause I really had no business experience. And part of it is, there's an element of luck. You know, I never worked in an operation where there wasn't some element of luck. And it's been the same with business, you know, just in terms of, you know, good fortune or whatever you wanna call it. So anyway, there's these, these, these principles and, and it comes out on the, on the 18th. And Scribd is the Netflix of books, as they say.

Joe Rogan 58:27 What made you decide to do this?

Mike Baker 58:29 Um, I had thought about it and talked about it, um, years ago, years ago. And then, like everything else, you know, you set the idea aside 'cause you get wrapped up in everything else that's going on. And I never did. And then finally, um, I work with, uh, a great guy, uh, Kenny Slotnick over at AGI Entertainment. And he's worked with me for years on TV shit and, and other things, and he's always been a great friend. But he finally said, "You know, you told me about that idea that one time. I mentioned it to Scribd and they were very interested." You know? And, and again, it's an easy thing. It's the sort of thing you can, you can dial up. It's an audiobook. You can listen to it on a two-hour road trip and Bob's your uncle. And if you take away one idea, I think that's a great thing, right? I mean, 'cause, you know, there's a lot of shit out there where you don't really learn anything. I'm just hoping people take away one thing and, and they're good.

Joe Rogan 59:18 So, did you write it because you feel like you have some unique insight? Or did you write it just purely as a financial venture? Like-

Mike Baker 59:25 Oh, no. (laughs) No. This is not ... No, there's no, you know, there's no real ... In the scheme of things, it took me a, a lot longer. All right? It's not long. It's like, uh, 15,000 words. But that was like fucking pulling teeth, right, to get to 15,000 words. And ... For me, anyway. I'm sure that, you know, other people look and go, "That's like a opening sentence." And, uh, no. So, from a financial point of view, no, I didn't do it that way. I did it because, um, I genuinely am still surprised that I've been able to keep a business moving. Right? And I've got ... Some of the people that have worked with me have been with me now for 17 years. Right? And they've had kids and they've raised their families with the company, and they've done ... And, you know, that's probably more rewarding than anything else I've done, in a sense, uh, aside from my family. Um, and so, I guess I just wanted to put it on paper. And then there's also that idea that, um ... And this sounds stupid. But it's the same reason I like to do TV shows, like the Black Files, the Classified series. It's because at some point, my kids, you know, can sit down when they're older and they can watch it, or they can read this or listen to it, and they got something. Right? You know? And, you know. Anyway, and that's, that's the-

Joe Rogan 1:00:36 Man's search for meaning.

Mike Baker 1:00:37 Man's search ... (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:00:39 Yeah.

Mike Baker 1:00:40 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:00:40 It never ends.

Mike Baker 1:00:41 It never, it never ends. Uh, anyway, that's ... Yeah. Now I've, I've gotten that out of the way. Uh, they did send, they sent, uh, to Jamie a, uh, 60-second audio excerpt, and I said, "No. I'm not gonna sit here-"

Joe Rogan 1:00:55 And listen?

Mike Baker 1:00:55 "... and listen to myself read."

Joe Rogan 1:00:57 Oh, we should definitely listen to you read.

Mike Baker 1:00:57 No. We don't wanna do that.

Joe Rogan 1:00:58 What is it about?

Mike Baker 1:00:59 No. It's, it's, it's, it's about, it's sort of the ... No. We don't wanna do that. It's, it's the opening.

Joe Rogan 1:01:03 Okay.

Mike Baker 1:01:03 And it's not ... It would just be weird to sit here and listen.

Joe Rogan 1:01:06 I would like it to get weird.

Mike Baker 1:01:07 It'd be- It'd be like, Jamie say, when we watch one of your interviews on the screen.

Joe Rogan 1:01:10 Mm.

Mike Baker 1:01:10 And we're sitting here watching, and you're watching yourself talk, you know? So. Anyway.

Joe Rogan 1:01:14 I'm used to that.

Mike Baker 1:01:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:16 I'm used to that kinda weird, though.

Mike Baker 1:01:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:19 I like how you-

Mike Baker 1:01:19 I think-

Joe Rogan 1:01:19 ... is squirming, though, a little bit.

Mike Baker 1:01:20 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:01:22 (laughs)

Mike Baker 1:01:22 (laughs) Yeah. It was an interesting experience. But, uh, anyway, it's been, it's been a good one and, and hopefully, uh, hopefully people find something entertaining in it.

Joe Rogan 1:01:31 I think the thing that people are, uh, weirded out by when it comes to intelligence agencies in this day and age is that they kind of act autonomously. They kind of act outside of what we think of as the government. We, you know, like, we think of the government as being a bunch of people that get elected, and those people do the, the rule of the people.

Mike Baker 1:01:51 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:01:51 But the, the people that are in the intelligence agencies, they, they're there forever. And that's the, the term the deep state that everybody's so concerned with.

Mike Baker 1:02:00 (sighs)

Joe Rogan 1:02:00 Right? That, that's a, a common phrase that's been brought up over the last, you know, decade or so, where people are very concerned about the deep state, that there's a government, that it has its own rules and its own ability to enact things that are outside of, uh, elected officials and, and-

Mike Baker 1:02:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:18 ... the, the will of the people.

Mike Baker 1:02:19 Yeah. And I, and I, and I can see why people think that way, um, having been behind the curtain for all that time. Um, I guess there's, there's two parts to this, is one is never say never, right? I mean, I, I, you never want to discount the idea that, that, um, the intel community or law enforcement or whatever could, you know, uh, essentially develop a mind of its own, work, uh, separate from whatever government administration the people think they've elected into office. So never, never say that couldn't happen, because you always want to be wary of that.

Joe Rogan 1:02:54 Right.

Mike Baker 1:02:54 I've, I've spent enough time overseas in, in places where that happens, right? Every ... And, and it, and, and worse than that is where, you know, a dictator comes in. He goes out, wholesale cleaning, and then he ... the new guy brings in all his people, right? And they're just basically doing the will. Now, in a way, that's more transparent, right? Because (laughs) you, you know what you're getting, right?

Joe Rogan 1:03:14 Right.

Mike Baker 1:03:14 You're getting that guy's intel service or that guy's law enforcement. Um, but having worked behind the curtain, um, at least the time that I was there, the agency was uniquely apolitical, right? I, I ... All the people that I traveled around the world with or the people that I met, worked with, in various parts, we never talked about politics. It was just not, it was not an issue. We never-

Joe Rogan 1:03:37 Do you think that changed-

Mike Baker 1:03:38 We never discussed that shit.

Joe Rogan 1:03:38 ... during Trump?

Mike Baker 1:03:39 I think, uh, I think it was probably even before Trump. I think it's just been a process where, uh ... And I, I have no idea why. Maybe in part because ... (sighs) No, I don't know. I was gonna say because it's become a little more transitory. You know, in the old days, uh, whatever the old days are, you know, through the Cold War and whatever, '70s and early '80s, people would join and, and, you know, the idea was, "I'm here for good. I'm gonna retire," you know?

Joe Rogan 1:04:04 Right.

Mike Baker 1:04:05 And, and now it's, you know, somewhat of a stepping stone to other things. And, and so it, people move through these organizations on their way to somewhere else. And, and maybe that creates, you know, um, some of this. But I don't want to say it couldn't happen. I just want to say, yeah, it, it's, it's something you have to be always aware of. I think that there have been individuals in various offices who got too close or too comfortable with political access. Um, like with the CIA, you always want your director to have a, a, a good line of communication with the president, right? It used to be more important when the agency, when the director had a, a seat at the table, right? Now they pushed below the DNI. So the DNI is the guy that talks and, and the agency director doesn't have the same access that they used to have.

Joe Rogan 1:04:54 When did that change?

Mike Baker 1:04:55 Uh, after 9/11. You know, when they re- created the, you know, the homel- Homeland Security became, uh, the buzzword and, you know, how do we reorganize because, you know, clearly it was, it was a f- fucking knee-jerk reaction to 9/11, was the idea was, "Oh, uh, f- something happened. We fucked up, so now let's reorganize the entire thing," right?

Joe Rogan 1:05:13 Mm-hmm.

Mike Baker 1:05:13 And so they tossed a baby out of the 30th floor and, and, uh, um ... It wasn't an actual baby. People are gonna be, like, making notes, you know. "We must-"

Joe Rogan 1:05:22 They get it, baby-

Mike Baker 1:05:22 Find the baby.

Joe Rogan 1:05:23 ... with the bathwater.

Mike Baker 1:05:23 Find a baby. And, uh, and so then they created this DNI position and, and they kind of subject-

Joe Rogan 1:05:29 What's DNI stand for?

Mike Baker 1:05:31 Uh, Director of National Intelligence. And so then they subjugated the, subjugated the CIA director below that. But the point being is you want that access. Well, y- you know, if it gets too cozy or if the person in charge, whether it's the agency or the FBI or whoever, becomes too much of a political animal, now you got a problem, right? And that's when bad things can happen. Um, but the, the career people that I dealt with, that I met with over the years and the people who I still know, the career people, they, you know, for the most part, they, they just want to do the job, right? And I know people are gonna say, "Well, of course that's what you're gonna say," and I say that all the time, but fuck it. It's, it's what I saw, so I gotta ... You know, I'm not, I'm not blowing smoke up anybody's ass, but ...

Joe Rogan 1:06:11 When you see shit like, uh-

Mike Baker 1:06:12 (sighs)

Joe Rogan 1:06:12 ... Tucker Carlson on Fox News saying that the CIA killed Kennedy-

Mike Baker 1:06:16 Mm.

Joe Rogan 1:06:17 ... what do you think of that?

Mike Baker 1:06:19 (sighs) Um ...

Joe Rogan 1:06:22 (sighs) What did ... How did he phrase it?

Mike Baker 1:06:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:06:24 He said something-

Mike Baker 1:06:24 Never, never say never.

Joe Rogan 1:06:24 ... someone he knew.

Mike Baker 1:06:26 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:06:26 (laughs)

Mike Baker 1:06:26 So they talked to someone who knew. Uh, I have the quote here.

Joe Rogan 1:06:30 Because they have withheld some of the files on the Kennedy assassination. I mean, does it make-

Mike Baker 1:06:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:06:34 Why would they do that?

Narrator 1:06:35 Tucker Carlson Tonight. So not long after-

Mike Baker 1:06:37 It's frightening to get in.

Narrator 1:06:38 ... Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald-

Mike Baker 1:06:40 Mm.

Narrator 1:06:40 ... on camera in the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters, a lot of Americans started to have some questions about the Kennedy assassination. It was, you'd have to admit, a pretty extraordinary sequence of events. A lone gunman murders the president of the United States, and then less than 48 hours later, that lone gunman is, himself, murdered by another lone gunman. What are the odds of that? It's one thing if you get struck by lightning. Rare but possible. But if every member of your family also gets struck by lightning, all on different days, you might begin to suspect these are not entirely natural events. But, oh, replied the US government, they are. This bizarre chain of killings was all entirely natural.So less than a year after the JFK assassination, the Johnson White House released something called the Warren Commission Report, and the report concluded that while their motives remained unclear, both Lee Oswald and Jack Ruby had acted alone. No one helped them. There was no conspiracy of any kind. Case closed, time to move on, and many, many Americans did move on. At the time, they had no idea how shoddy and corrupt the Warren Commission was. (sniffs) It would be nearly 50 years before the CIA admitted under duress that in fact it had withheld information from investigators about its relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald. But even then at the time, before that was known, the government's explanation didn't seem entirely plausible, and some people started asking obvious questions about it. It was at that point, as Americans started to doubt the official story, that the term conspiracy theory entered our lexicon. As Professor Lance de Habian Smith points out in his book on the subject, the term conspiracy theory did not exist as a phrase in everyday American conversation before 1964. In 1964, the year the Warren Commission issued its report, The New York Times published five stories in which conspiracy theory appeared. Now today, of course, the term conspiracy theory appears in pretty much every New York Times story about American politics. It's wielded, now as then, as a weapon against anyone who asks questions the government doesn't feel like answering. But despite 60 years of name-calling, those questions have not disappeared. In fact, they have multiplied with time, and here's one of them. In April of 1964, a psychiatrist called Louis Joyland West visited Jack Ruby in his isolation cell in a Dallas jail.

Mike Baker 1:09:00 MKUltra.

Narrator 1:09:01 According to West's written assessment, he found that Jack Ruby was, quote, "technically insane and in need of immediate psychiatric hospitalization." Those are conclusions that puzzlingly no one who had spoken to Jack Ruby previously had reached. Ruby had seemed perfectly sane to the people who knew him. Louis Joyland West pronounced him crazy. But what, what West did not say was that he was working for the CIA at the time. Louis Joyland West was a contract psychiatrist for the spy agency. He was also an expert on mind control and a prominent player in the now infamous MKUltra program in which the CIA gave powerful psychiatric drugs to Americans without their knowledge. So of all the psychiatrists in the world, what in the world was this guy doing in Jack Ruby's prison cell? The media did not seem interested in finding out. In fact, The New York Times, in an extensive 1999 obituary of West, never mentioned the fact that he had worked for the CIA, much less his time in Jack Ruby's cell, which seems relevant. So you can see why non-crazy people would wonder about what really happened, and of course many have wondered. In 1976, long forgotten, the House of Representatives empaneled a special committee to reinvestigate the JFK assassination. Their bipartisan conclusion? Jack Kennedy was almost certainly murdered as the result of a conspiracy. But the question is, a conspiracy by whom? Well, the obvious suspect would be the CIA. Why else would the agency withhold critical evidence from investigators? Is there a benign explanation for that, for maintaining this level of secrecy for this many years? Not that we're aware of. And it is illegal. In 1992, Congress passed the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act, and that act mandated full disclosure of all documents by 2017, 54 years after JFK was killed. The last administration promised to comply fully with that law, but under intense pressure from CIA Director Mike Pompeo, withheld in the end thousands of pages of CIA documents. Today, this afternoon, the Biden administration did exactly the same thing. That would be thousands of pages of documents after nearly 60 years, after the death of every single person involved, but we still can't see them. Clearly it's not to protect any person. They're all dead. It's to protect an institution. But why? Well, today we decided to find out. We spoke to someone who had access to these still-hidden CIA documents, a person who was deeply familiar with what they contain. We asked this person directly, "Did