Joe Rogan Experience #1936 - Krystal Ball & Saagar Enjeti

1. 0:00 – 1:00

   Cold open banter: hair mishap, baldness, and why their duo works

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:00

      (drum roll) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. NANarrator0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (instrumental music)

   3. KBKrystal Ball0:12

      All right. Now, the first time we did this, my hair was fucked up the whole time.

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:15

      (laughs)

   5. KBKrystal Ball0:15

      And neither one of y'alls told me about it, so I hope we're better friends now.

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:22

      (laughs)

   7. KBKrystal Ball0:23

      (laughs)

   8. SESaagar Enjeti0:23

      You just don't say a word.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:24

      Is that recorded?

   10. SESaagar Enjeti0:25

       Has he?

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:25

       Did you record that?

   12. SESaagar Enjeti0:26

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:26

       We should leave that part in. (laughs)

   14. SESaagar Enjeti0:27

       I was just like, "You look beautiful, Krystal."

   15. KBKrystal Ball0:29

       (laughs) I know. I watched it afterwards and I was like, "What the fuck?"

   16. SESaagar Enjeti0:30

       Well, mine was fu- mine was fucked up too, you know. Look at the whole...

   17. KBKrystal Ball0:32

       Yeah, but... Okay, number one-

   18. SESaagar Enjeti0:34

       Yeah.

   19. KBKrystal Ball0:34

       ... it's different.

   20. SESaagar Enjeti0:34

       Yeah.

   21. KBKrystal Ball0:34

       Number two, I had like... This piece was like...

   22. SESaagar Enjeti0:37

       (laughs)

   23. KBKrystal Ball0:37

       ... protruding.

   24. JRJoe Rogan0:38

       I've been bald, like shaved head, for like 13 years now or something like that.

   25. SESaagar Enjeti0:42

       Yeah. (laughs)

   26. JRJoe Rogan0:42

       So I don't even think about it.

   27. KBKrystal Ball0:44

       (laughs)

   28. JRJoe Rogan0:44

       Like, your hair's fucked up. I'm like, "Who cares?"

   29. KBKrystal Ball0:47

       (laughs)

   30. JRJoe Rogan0:47

       Yeah, no. I get it though. I get it. Sorry.
2. 1:00 – 3:32

   Rejecting 'Crossfire' politics: long-form, uncensored discussion as the antidote

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:00

      You guys are a very unusual combination. It's very funny because, like, having someone who's on the right and having someone who's on the left-

   2. KBKrystal Ball1:06

      Mm-hmm.

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:06

      ... it's usually like some sort of a formulaic-

   4. SESaagar Enjeti1:09

      Ugh. It's horrible.

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:10

      ... thing. It's like-

   6. KBKrystal Ball1:10

      Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:11

      You know what I think of? Hannity and Colmes.

   8. SESaagar Enjeti1:13

      Yes.

   9. KBKrystal Ball1:13

      Yes. (laughs)

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:13

       Do you remember that?

   11. SESaagar Enjeti1:14

       Yeah.

   12. KBKrystal Ball1:14

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:15

       Oh, God.

   14. SESaagar Enjeti1:15

       Well, 'cause it was fake.

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:16

       Yes.

   16. SESaagar Enjeti1:16

       That was the thing.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:17

       Exactly.

   18. SESaagar Enjeti1:17

       It was bullshit.

   19. KBKrystal Ball1:18

       You know, it is... It's kinda hard to describe what we do, because if you say like, "You know, we're on the right, and we're on the left," it does sound like this sort of thing that like-

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:27

       << A little bit country. >>

   21. SESaagar Enjeti1:27

       Yeah.

   22. KBKrystal Ball1:27

       Yeah, or like-

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:28

       << I'm a little bit rock and roll. >>

   24. KBKrystal Ball1:29

       Right.

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:29

       Remember that? (laughs)

   26. KBKrystal Ball1:29

       Yes, or like, like that terrible CNN show, Crossfire is the other thing.

   27. SESaagar Enjeti1:35

       Oh.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:35

       Oh. Who was on that one?

   29. SESaagar Enjeti1:36

       Uh...

   30. KBKrystal Ball1:36

       Well, the original one was Tucker-
3. 3:32 – 8:02

   Building a mixed audience—and the mental trap of reading comments

   1. KBKrystal Ball3:32

      That's... That is actually the core goal of the show, because, I mean, we are living through incredibly, like, politically fraught times where-

   2. JRJoe Rogan3:41

      Yes.

   3. KBKrystal Ball3:41

      ... you have a lot of people whose whole business model is to persuade you that, like, half the country hates you and is destroying the country and it's existential-

   4. JRJoe Rogan3:49

      (sighs)

   5. KBKrystal Ball3:49

      ... and we're headed to civil war. And so I feel like if Saagar and I can, you know, agree on some things, which we do, and have debates on topics that are, you know, difficult and tense and fraught and be able to do that day after day in a way that is respectful, that's, like, not just trying to score points, but actually trying to learn from each other, you know, I hope it makes a small difference in the political atmosphere.

   6. SESaagar Enjeti4:14

      Yeah, I mean, what I'm most proud of in, like, in our analytics is, like, half the audience is genuinely right and half the audience is genuinely left. And one of the pitches that we give our people, we're like, "Hey, if you're gonna support us, like, you're not gonna agree all the time."

   7. KBKrystal Ball4:26

      Mm-hmm.

   8. SESaagar Enjeti4:26

      So you're almost conditioning people to be like-

   9. KBKrystal Ball4:28

      Yeah.

   10. SESaagar Enjeti4:28

       ... "Hey, this is a message that I'm buying into." And I think the most impactful... Like, sometimes you'll meet people or whatever and they're like, "Man, you know, I watch the show with my dad." And I'm just like, "Dad, like, Krystal is what I believe." And Dad is like, "I'm with Saagar on some things." And then we sit down and we talk about it afterwards. And like that... Building that for people, that's so important, man.

   11. KBKrystal Ball4:45

       Yeah.

   12. JRJoe Rogan4:45

       That's so important.

   13. SESaagar Enjeti4:45

       It's completely gone. Yeah.

   14. KBKrystal Ball4:47

       'Cause that is one of the dangers in independent media. There's a lot that's so exciting about independent media right now. I mean, you see the traditional media is just, like, dying. The ratings are failing. People are abandoning them in droves. Obviously, trust has completely fallen off a cliff. But there are some pitfalls in independent media too, and one of them is that you develop an audience that is one ideology that just wants to hear one thing-

   15. SESaagar Enjeti5:12

       Yeah.

   16. KBKrystal Ball5:12

       ... and is there to hear what they already think about things. And so I think, because of the fact that we have different opinions and are different, you know, political ideologies, that has sort of protected us against having an audience that is there for any one particular idea. And, you know, we'll see sometimes... Like, people go, "Oh, but you guys said this and that. We disagree with you." And it's like, you know what? If this isn't the thing for you, you owe it to yourself to go somewhere else-

   17. JRJoe Rogan5:38

       Yeah.

   18. SESaagar Enjeti5:38

       No.

   19. KBKrystal Ball5:38

       ... where you're gonna hear every day, I guess, whatever it is that you wanna be told from within your bubble.

   20. JRJoe Rogan5:42

       Well, I think you guys have reached a point where I have to give you the speech, and it's like, you gotta stop paying attention to the comments. (laughs)

   21. SESaagar Enjeti5:49

       (laughs)

   22. KBKrystal Ball5:49

       Yeah. It's so true. Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan5:51

       I mean, the thing is-

   24. SESaagar Enjeti5:51

       I've been giving you this speech for like three years.

   25. JRJoe Rogan5:52

       I've been giving you this speech.

   26. KBKrystal Ball5:53

       Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan5:53

       I'm telling you I'm right.

   28. KBKrystal Ball5:55

       Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan5:55

       I'm right on this.

   30. KBKrystal Ball5:56

       No, you... You are 100-
4. 8:02 – 9:23

   Breaking from DC and corporate media ecosystems: incentives, fear, and 'self-imposed corruption'

   1. SESaagar Enjeti8:02

      You know, the toughest thing, actually, was when we... And by doing the show, is actually by disconnecting from the broader, like... 'Cause i- in traditional media, the way it works is, like, we used to go on Fox. Uh, when you're in Fox, it's like an ecosystem. You're in the green room. There's all the other conservatives that are around you.

   2. KBKrystal Ball8:17

      Mm-hmm.

   3. SESaagar Enjeti8:17

      And then there's all these other people who work in Pr- Conservative Inc., like, conservative world, and you're n- And you can't dissent.

   4. JRJoe Rogan8:22

      Mm-hmm.

   5. SESaagar Enjeti8:23

      And actually, the best, most rewarding part of our show is we're not connected to the system anymore. I'm like, "I don't give a shit." Like, they're like, "I don't really appreciate what you say?" Trump's person or whatever, some Trump flack, he's like, "You didn't say this about President Trump." I'm like, "I don't give a fuck." I'm like, "What are you gonna do? You're gonna take me off Fox? I don't care." I don't care. I don't actually wanna be on Fox (laughs) . I'm like, "I could be on my own show." But being disconnected from, like, the broader DC machine, it totally frees you up for conversation on Stop the Steal. Anything, anything that's controversial, and I'll just be like, "I think this is bullshit."

   6. JRJoe Rogan8:50

      Yeah.

   7. SESaagar Enjeti8:50

      "I, I truly, 100%, guys, I believe this is bullshit." And I see commentators out there who I know don't believe what they're saying.

   8. KBKrystal Ball8:57

      Mm-hmm.

   9. JRJoe Rogan8:58

      Yeah.

   10. SESaagar Enjeti8:58

       And they're saying it because they have to. They have to maintain their context. They have to maintain their salary.

   11. KBKrystal Ball9:01

       100%. 100%.

   12. SESaagar Enjeti9:01

       That's the corruption.

   13. JRJoe Rogan9:02

       That's horrible.

   14. KBKrystal Ball9:02

       That is it.

   15. SESaagar Enjeti9:03

       Yeah.

   16. KBKrystal Ball9:03

       That is it.

   17. JRJoe Rogan9:04

       And that's, like, a self-imposed corruption, if you're doing that online.

   18. SESaagar Enjeti9:07

       Yes.

   19. JRJoe Rogan9:08

       And some people are doing it online.

   20. KBKrystal Ball9:09

       True.

   21. JRJoe Rogan9:10

       And you guys are not, and I really appreciate it. I know that if I'm, I'm watching you guys, I'm getting, like, real opinions. Like, I'm getting, uh, well-thought-out, informed opinions. And, you know, and you guys are gonna be cool to each other.

5. 9:23 – 15:24

   Ukraine coverage: propaganda, corruption, and the escalation ladder

   1. KBKrystal Ball9:23

      I mean, we take it... We do take it really seriously, and I think we take it, uh, this year even more so than ever. Um, you know, our biggest podcast download and our biggest YouTube numbers last year were right when Russia invaded Ukraine. And, you know, you talk about a high-stakes situation where it's very difficult to sort through all the propaganda-

   2. SESaagar Enjeti9:45

      Mm.

   3. KBKrystal Ball9:45

      ... to really figure out what's going on, and, you know, we were trying our best to do that in real time. And the fact that so many people came to us to try to understand this conflict and what the US's role in it, what it should be, that really meant a lot, number one. But it also, I think, put on both of our shoulders, like, a real sense of, "All right. (laughs) We gotta make sure we're on top of our shit. We gotta read as much as we possibly can." We need to go back and look at, like, Russian nuclear doctrine-

   4. SESaagar Enjeti10:12

      Mm-hmm.

   5. KBKrystal Ball10:12

      ... and just go as deep as we possibly, you know, are capable of on this topic, because, um, there are a lot of people who tell us we're, we're it in terms of the news that they consume. So, we have shifted to focusing... You know, we still do, like, fun and stupid and silly topics or whatever-

   6. SESaagar Enjeti10:28

      (laughs)

   7. KBKrystal Ball10:28

      ... and indulge whatever our little hobby horse interests are. But we've shifted the program somewhat to do more hard news, um, because we care about it, because it's important, because there are a lot of people who are looking to us to understand what's going on in the world. And also because ultimately, you know, if there's going to be an alternative to the, you know, liars and propagandists at places like CNN and Fox News and MSNBC and some of the mainstream print outlets as well, you're going to have to have that kind of, you know, serious coverage of hard news events, that people feel like they can trust what you're presenting them. And listen, we say all the time-

   8. SESaagar Enjeti11:05

      Mm-hmm.

   9. KBKrystal Ball11:06

      ... sometimes we're gonna fuck up. Sometimes we're gonna be wrong about something. We're gonna predict something, it doesn't happen, whatever. That is going to happen 100% of the time. But what you can count on us for is we are always going to come back. We are going to correct it. We are gonna own up to the mistakes.

   10. JRJoe Rogan11:19

       Yeah.

   11. KBKrystal Ball11:19

       And we are trying from the beginning our very best to sort through what the truth of the situation is.

   12. SESaagar Enjeti11:24

       Yeah. Every six months, I do a monologue. I'm like, "Here's everything I got wrong."

   13. KBKrystal Ball11:27

       (laughs)

   14. SESaagar Enjeti11:27

       I was, like, "Totally wrong about this."

   15. KBKrystal Ball11:28

       People love it too.

   16. SESaagar Enjeti11:28

       "Totally wrong about that."

   17. KBKrystal Ball11:30

       They love it. (laughs)

   18. SESaagar Enjeti11:30

       And I'll be like, "Here's what... Here was my thought process at the time."

   19. JRJoe Rogan11:32

       Yeah.

   20. SESaagar Enjeti11:32

       I'm like, "I didn't think this was gonna happen." But man, Ukraine has been a doozy. I'm like, we've said some controversial shit over the last couple years. I've never experienced the level of pushback than going against the Ukraine narrative. That is, like, number one, the most controversial topic I have ever seen discussed yet in c- in politics.

   21. JRJoe Rogan11:49

       That m- My favorite moment of the beginning of the Ukraine conflict was Candace Owens...... having a Twitter battle with the New York Times.

   22. SESaagar Enjeti11:59

       Oh, yes.

   23. JRJoe Rogan12:00

       Where the New York Times says to-

   24. KBKrystal Ball12:01

       Yes.

   25. JRJoe Rogan12:01

       ... Candace Owens, like, "Where are you getting your information from that r- that th- they're corrupt in Ukraine?"

   26. SESaagar Enjeti12:07

       Ukraine corruption, yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan12:07

       And she goes, "Your newspaper." And then she-

   28. KBKrystal Ball12:10

       Hmm.

   29. JRJoe Rogan12:10

       ... puts all these different links that show-

   30. KBKrystal Ball12:13

       Wow.
6. 15:24 – 30:41

   War’s reality vs. Twitter narratives: why people underestimate the horror

   1. JRJoe Rogan15:24

      And this is, this is a thing that I... There's a lot of videos out now, and I don't know if these people get these videos, but I get them. I get these videos of horrible war encounters-

   2. KBKrystal Ball15:37

      Yes.

   3. JRJoe Rogan15:37

      ... in, in, in Russia and Ukraine. It's, it's horrendous. And it brings me to this thing that I, I think about a lot, because I think about things that other people do for a living in their jobs, and I think about, like, they live in a world that I don't understand. You know, there's like-

   4. SESaagar Enjeti15:54

      Mm-hmm.

   5. JRJoe Rogan15:54

      ... the ch- like I'm fascinated by professional chess players. They live in a world that I don't understand, because I don't play chess.

   6. KBKrystal Ball15:59

      Hmm.

   7. JRJoe Rogan15:59

      I love the fact... I kind of know how the pieces move, but I've really only played, like, maybe 10 times my whole life.

   8. KBKrystal Ball16:04

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan16:05

      I l- there's a thing that people have. It's a quality of being a human being. You only know what you know, and other things become, like, these sort of, like, uh, ethereal narratives.

   10. SESaagar Enjeti16:18

       Mm-hmm.

   11. JRJoe Rogan16:18

       They're not necessarily real. And war is one of them.

   12. SESaagar Enjeti16:20

       Yes.

   13. JRJoe Rogan16:21

       War is one of them. There's a thing that people... The way my friends who've served talk about war is so titanically different-

   14. KBKrystal Ball16:31

       Mm-hmm.

   15. JRJoe Rogan16:32

       ... than the way people who ideologically support or disavow it. Like, you don't know what the fuck you're talking about if you say, "There's no need for a military." You're crazy. We are going to get subjugated. Someone will come here with men with guns. If you take away all the guns that everybody has and no more military, we're fucked. And if you don't think that, it's because you've never gone to the, the dark parts of the world, or you've never gone on Telegram. I'll send you some videos.

   16. KBKrystal Ball16:56

       (laughs)

   17. SESaagar Enjeti16:57

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan16:57

       I saw, I saw a guy get killed with a hammer yesterday.

   19. KBKrystal Ball16:59

       Jesus.

   20. SESaagar Enjeti17:00

       I, I, I... Yeah, this is-

   21. KBKrystal Ball17:01

       Jesus.

   22. SESaagar Enjeti17:01

       ... so important for people to understand, which is that we are 75 years removed from what war on the European continent actually looks like. And, you know, Joe, I'm the same way.

   23. JRJoe Rogan17:09

       One lifetime.

   24. SESaagar Enjeti17:09

       I've been on fucking LiveLeak, you know, since I was like 12-

   25. JRJoe Rogan17:11

       Yeah. (laughs)

   26. SESaagar Enjeti17:11

       ... which is probably bad for you. But, you know-

   27. JRJoe Rogan17:13

       Terrible for you.

   28. SESaagar Enjeti17:13

       Yeah, yeah. Terrible for you.

   29. KBKrystal Ball17:13

       (laughs)

   30. JRJoe Rogan17:13

       Terrible for you.
7. 30:41 – 39:49

   Russiagate postmortem and media trust collapse: 'disinformation laws' irony

   1. JRJoe Rogan30:41

      Yeah.

   2. KBKrystal Ball30:41

      Yes. But to your point about, you know, censorship and the, like, total lack of willingness to challenge your own side's narrative. Uh, did you just see this, uh, Columbia Journalism Review report that came out about Russiagate? Saagar and I were looking at it.

   3. SESaagar Enjeti30:53

      Oh, it's fantastic.

   4. KBKrystal Ball30:54

      It's really long, in-depth. I mean, it's overdue, right? It's like way after the fact. But I think this is one of the first certainly mainstream, and CJR is as mainstream as they come, mainstream attempts to actually go back through the Russiagate narrative, where it started, how it was sold to the American people, and all of the lies and especially the omissions. And they take a really hard look at The New York Times as kinda the main player in this story. There were other-

   5. SESaagar Enjeti31:22

      Mm-hmm.

   6. KBKrystal Ball31:22

      ... villains as well, but The New York Times was the main player. And they would report something that, you know, they would shade it to look as bad as possible with regards to Trump-Russia connections. They would get some other piece of information that was exculpatory, wouldn't be in the paper at all. And they got all kinds, you know, millions of new subscribers to their paper who were there to hear this, like, you know, elaborate tale of Russian conspiracy and The Manchurian Candidate and whatever. And the underlying narrative that at least I take away from the CJR report is The New York Times and MSNBC and a lot of other places. They were more interested in feeding that audience what they wanted to hear than actually looking at the facts of what was happening. And, you know, you read it. It is as damning as it could be. And listen, the way we were sold the Iraq War was bad enough. Like, that was a, a travesty. After the fact, they actually did some correctives that, "Here's what we got wrong, and we're sorry," whatever. This, they will never admit that they did anything wrong here. They just move forward and pretend like none of it ever happened, and it's, it is astonishing. And they wonder, then they turn around and wonder, like, "Why does no one trust us?"

   7. SESaagar Enjeti32:29

      Yeah.

   8. KBKrystal Ball32:29

      "We just don't get it."

   9. JRJoe Rogan32:30

      Yeah, well, we have to make laws against disinformation. That's what we have to do.

   10. KBKrystal Ball32:35

       Ugh. (laughs)

   11. JRJoe Rogan32:35

       Misinformation and mal-information, all of those are bad. And this way, we can control the narrative.

   12. KBKrystal Ball32:41

       Are you gonna, are you gonna be the one-

   13. SESaagar Enjeti32:42

       (laughs)

   14. JRJoe Rogan32:42

       (laughs)

   15. KBKrystal Ball32:42

       ... who determines what's, what's re- fact and what's fiction?

   16. SESaagar Enjeti32:45

       And actually in the piece, they were like-

   17. JRJoe Rogan32:47

       (laughs)

   18. SESaagar Enjeti32:47

       ... "The US has the lowest media trust in 42 developed nations." (laughs)

   19. KBKrystal Ball32:51

       Wow.

   20. SESaagar Enjeti32:51

       And they're like, "Yeah, how does that fucking happen?"

   21. JRJoe Rogan32:52

       I don't think that's true-

   22. SESaagar Enjeti32:53

       Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan32:53

       ... 'cause I think there's a, an insanely strong trust in independent media.

   24. SESaagar Enjeti32:57

       You are right. I'm, I'm... They're, they're pointing to the machine media.

   25. JRJoe Rogan32:59

       Matt Taibbi, you know, these, these people that are, uh, they're just who they are. You know who they are. Th- and it's possible to do now. You can be a real person. You don't have to be a propagandist or a spokesperson for the state. You can be a real person and tell people what the fuck is going on, because this is a wild game that other people are playing on our behalf with money that they've gotten from our taxes where we don't even get a say in what the fuck they spend it on. It's crazy. It's crazy, and it eff- it, it ac- it doesn't affect your daily life. You drive to the same place. You say hi to your neighbors. All of... It seems fine.

   26. KBKrystal Ball33:35

       Mm-hmm.

   27. SESaagar Enjeti33:35

       Mm-hmm.

   28. JRJoe Rogan33:35

       But you're dealing with a fucking destructive empire that has been doing things to other countries, that if you saw them, if you were boots on the ground, you would be horrified. If you watched a drone bomb a wedding party in Yemen-

   29. KBKrystal Ball33:50

       Hmm.

   30. JRJoe Rogan33:51

       ... if you were a part of something in another country that we're involved in that our tax dollars have gone to that we have just written off as being not of concern-
8. 39:49 – 1:08:24

   How money shapes speech: cable bundle economics, advertisers, and platform demonetization

   1. SESaagar Enjeti39:49

      This is the other thing, actually, I was hoping to bring up, is, I don't think people understand that cable is a fake business model. So for example, like, we talk a lot about the failing ratings. Uh, the key demo numbers on all three of these channels is a joke. Uh, I always like to j- say, like, Crystal and I would be starving in a ditch, uh, if any of these (laughs) , if we were getting the same numbers as these people. So how do they survive? It's because they're part of something called the cable bundle. And so, like, when you buy cable, like Cox Communications or whatever, they pay, or Comcast, for example, they pay CNN and MSNBC and Fox to be a part of the bundle. The vast majority of the profit of these cable channels comes from the bundle. So CNN made a billion in profit just last year, all propped up by the bundle because they're getting paid just to exist. I mean, can you imagine if we were getting paid to exist not based upon our actual numbers?

   2. JRJoe Rogan40:40

      Yeah.

   3. SESaagar Enjeti40:40

      Like, you can make, you can actually reach less people and make more money. And so it's all part of this fake system, but, I mean, the benefit is is that with the rise of independent media, more and more advertisers are waking up. The less eyeballs, the less of an incentive for the bundle to actually pay them to be a part of it. And that's why I was actually really excited by Amazon striking that deal with the NFL, 'cause I'm like, "Yes, get the rights away from these people," because that is what props up all kinds of bullshit that... We don't have, like, a small D democratic input with our eyeballs-

   4. JRJoe Rogan41:10

      Mm-hmm.

   5. SESaagar Enjeti41:10

      ... on CNN or any of these places. They can exist just fine without us. Like, to tr- really kill them, we have to get away from live news on TV. That's, that's the number one thing still propping them up today.

   6. JRJoe Rogan41:21

      Mm-hmm.

   7. KBKrystal Ball41:22

      Yeah.

   8. SESaagar Enjeti41:22

      Yeah.

   9. KBKrystal Ball41:22

      It's kind of a zombie business model. But I will tell you, I mean-I, I have a lot of, um, optimism, certainly about what we're doing, about the response to what we're doing, about the independent media ecosystem. But we were ... You and I were talking the other day, Joe, about I do think it's a dangerous moment for people. And one thing we've been covering a lot on this show is you have a kind of breakdown in previous national stories and narratives, and people are very, like, story-driven, you know? You have a breakdown in ... I'm not a religious person, so this is, like, not my bag, but you have a breakdown in religion. So some of the stories that have kind of, like, held the country together and that people helped use to make sense of their life or even the, the story about the American dream, a lot of these things are kind of breaking down. Now, that's a good thing because it creates a possibility for a new, more beneficial story. But in the meantime, it is just a, like, heyday for con artists and charlatans-

   10. JRJoe Rogan42:23

       Mm.

   11. KBKrystal Ball42:23

       ... and, you know, people who are willing to sell a narrative to, you know, a lot of folks who feel kind of lost, kind of adrift-

   12. JRJoe Rogan42:31

       Mm.

   13. KBKrystal Ball42:31

       ... and don't like existing in that chaos. So it's like, you know, whether they're being scammed by, like, SBF or this, like, congressman, George Santos (laughs) -

   14. JRJoe Rogan42:40

       (laughs)

   15. KBKrystal Ball42:40

       ... who, like, made up every aspect of his life.

   16. JRJoe Rogan42:43

       That guy is amazing.

   17. KBKrystal Ball42:44

       I am-

   18. SESaagar Enjeti42:44

       Krystal's obsessed with him. I just find him a disgrace. I can't believe-

   19. JRJoe Rogan42:46

       Did you see pictures of him-

   20. SESaagar Enjeti42:47

       Yeah.

   21. KBKrystal Ball42:48

       I am obsessed with this guy.

   22. JRJoe Rogan42:48

       ... where he's a drag queen in Brazil?

   23. SESaagar Enjeti42:49

       Of course. Katara.

   24. KBKrystal Ball42:50

       Yeah. Katara.

   25. SESaagar Enjeti42:50

       Yeah.

   26. KBKrystal Ball42:50

       Absolutely.

   27. SESaagar Enjeti42:51

       (laughs)

   28. KBKrystal Ball42:51

       Like, I think the, the-

   29. SESaagar Enjeti42:53

       Drag-ish.

   30. KBKrystal Ball42:53

       So-

Episode duration: 3:11:32