EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,004 words- 0:00 – 1:25
Twitter Files: a reporter’s dream dataset and what felt “surreal”
- JRJoe Rogan
(drum roll) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
- NANarrator
The Joe Rogan Experience.
- JRJoe Rogan
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (instrumental music) Hello, Matt Taibbi.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Hey, Joe. How's it going?
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- MTMatt Taibbi
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Good to see you. It's always so hard to get rolling after you've been talking.
- MTMatt Taibbi
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, so I'm always excited to see you so we're just blabbing.
- MTMatt Taibbi
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
And now we're rolling. So what's cracking?
- MTMatt Taibbi
Uh, a lot. A lot. It's been, uh, it's been a crazy, uh, couple of months, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
I have enjoyed your work with the Twitter file. I enjoy all your work, but I really have enjoyed the Twitter files. That has been some really fascinating views behind the curtain.
- MTMatt Taibbi
It- it- it's, uh, it- it's been one of the weirder, more surreal experiences of my life because m- you know, as- as a reporter, you- you're always, um, kind of, uh, banging away to try to get one little piece of reality, right? Like, you'll- you might make 30 or 40 phone calls to get one sentence. Uh, the Twitter files is, oh, by the way, here, you know, uh, take a laptop and look at 50,000 emails, you know, full of all kinds of stuff. And so it's, you know, for- for somebody like me, it's like a dream come true. We get to see all kinds of things, get the answers to questions that, uh, we've had for years. And it's- it's been really incredible.
- 1:25 – 2:20
Government-platform coordination: from “advisory” to a formal censorship bureaucracy
- JRJoe Rogan
Has anything been surprising to you?
- MTMatt Taibbi
Um, a- a- a little bit. I- I- I think going into it, I- I thought that the, um, that the relationship between the security agencies like the- the FBI and the DHS and companies like Twitter and Facebook, I thought it was a little bit less formal. Like I th- I thought maybe they had kind of an advisory role. And what we find is that it's not that. It's- it's very formalized. They have, um, a really intense structure, uh, that they've worked out over a period of years where they have regular meetings, um, they have a system where the DHS handles, um, you know, censorship requests that come up from the s- the states and the FBI handles the international ones, and they all float all these companies. And, um, it's a big bureaucracy and we- I don't think we expected to see that.
- 2:20 – 4:49
Blunt censorship requests and sloppy tradecraft: Schiff staffer email and “Secret Phone Numbers”
- JRJoe Rogan
It's very bizarre to me that they o- that they would just openly call for censorship in emails and these p- private transmissions, but ones that are easily duplicated, you could send them to other people, it could g- it can easily get out. Like that they're so comfortable with the idea that the government should be involved in this censorship of what turns out to be true information, especially when it- in regards to the Hunter Biden laptop, that they would be so comfortable that they would just send it in emails.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Yeah. Yeah. Well that- I think that shows you the mentality, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Like that they- they really genuinely felt that they were impregnable, that they don't have anybody to answer to. Um, a- I mean a normal person doesn't put incriminating things in emails because w- we all have the expectation that someday it might come- come out.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MTMatt Taibbi
You know? Uh, but these folks didn't act that way. I mean, they- y- you see... I was- I was especially shocked by, uh, an email from, uh, a- a staffer for Adam Schiff, the congressperson, the California congressman, and they're just outright saying, "We would like you to suspend the accounts of this journalist and anybody who retweets information about this committee." (laughs) You know? I mean, this is-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MTMatt Taibbi
... this is a congre- this is a member of Congress.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Right? Most of these people have legal backgrounds. They're- they've- they've got lawyers in the office for sure. Um, and this is the H- this is the House Intelligence Committee. Uh, you would think they would have better, uh, operational security. Another moment that was shocking to me, there was a, um... there's an email from an FBI agent, uh, named Elvis Chan, in San Francisco to Twitter and they're setting up this signal group, uh, which is gonna include all the top sort of censorship executives at all the big companies. And it's a Word document that has all the phone numbers of all these important executives. And the email just, uh- uh, the subject line reads, "Phone Numbers." Uh, right? And then the Word doc is just called Secret Phone Numbers.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- MTMatt Taibbi
Right? (laughs) And I'm thinking, this is how they taught you to do it at Quantico?
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- MTMatt Taibbi
Really? You know? I mean, like, I mean, e- even a journalist can't miss that. You know what I'm saying? Like, like... (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- MTMatt Taibbi
Call it something else, you know? I do- I don't know. Tha- tha- that part of it was amazing.
- 4:49 – 8:32
Why Musk bought Twitter (and why the backlash machine turns fast)
- JRJoe Rogan
So strange. It's so strange to get such a peek 'cause I don't think anybody ever anticipated that something like this would happen where Twitter would get sold to an eccentric billionaire who's intent on letting all the information get released.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Yeah, I mean, I- I think Elon Musk essentially... he- he- he spent $44 billion to become a whistleblower of his own company.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Uh, and I mean, I- I don't really fully know his motives in- in doing that. Um, I think he's got a pretty, a- a developed sense of humor though.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Uh, and that comes through. I think he- he gets a kick out of seeing all this stuff come out on Twitter, which used to be the kind of the private stomping ground of all these whiny journalists. And now here are- here is all this information that is just horrifying to all of them. Um, I mean, that's a... $44 billion is a lot to spend on that thrill, but, uh, I'm glad he did.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, he truly believes that censored social media is a threat to democracy. He really believes that.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Absolutely. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. And I believe it too.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
I just don't have $44 billion.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
And even if I did, I'd be like, "Uh- uh, I don't want that heat." (laughs)
- MTMatt Taibbi
Right. Right. Yeah. I- I- I don't- I don't think that's what I would spend it on, but, uh, no, he- he- he believes that. I think he also...Um, I think he also believes that the credibility of these companies, um, uh, can only be restored by telling people what, what they talk about in private, or what they have been talking about, you know, with the government and that sort of thing.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MTMatt Taibbi
So, um, he might be right about that, you know? Um, we'll see, I guess.
- JRJoe Rogan
I, I think he is. I mean, it's gonna be interesting. It's gonna be interesting to see how this plays out. There's an am- amazing amount of resistance against him and, you know, there's the, just the publicity campaign against him has been fascinating to watch. People go from thinking that Elon Musk is the savior that's bringing us these amazing electric cars and engineering new reusable rockets, to he's an alt-right piece of shit who wants Donald Trump back in the office. And it's like, it's very wild.
- MTMatt Taibbi
It, it, uh, the, the speed with which they can sort of shuffle somebody into the Hitler of the Month club-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. (laughs)
- MTMatt Taibbi
... uh, routine, right? Like, you know, it, it, we- we've always done this with foreigners, you know? Whether it's Noriega or Saddam Hussein or Milosevic or Assad or whatever it is. What, like, we have a playbook for cranking out negative information about, um, you know, foreigners who get in our way for whatever reason. But now, we- we've de- we've kind of, uh, refined that technique for domestic people who are inconvenient, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MTMatt Taibbi
I think they did it with Trump, obviously. Um, you know, they tried to do it with T- Tucker Carlson, with you. Uh, you know? I mean, you, you got a taste of that for a few, a few times. Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, it's interesting.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Right? Uh, and then, you know, with, with E- with Elon, yeah, they, he went from being the guy who made electric cars sexy to, like, you know, uh, something to the right of Viktor Orban in, in, like-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- MTMatt Taibbi
... ten seconds. It's, it's amazing.
- JRJoe Rogan
It is amazing. And the narrative has spread through progressive people. "Well, they'll just say it now." It's like they've reached the memo, the memo's got to them, and then they just... I hear people in LA, I hear people that I know, like, "Oh, Elon's just so crazy." It's like, w- something happened to him. He went nuts and he's a right-winger now. Like, how? What are you saying? Like, what, what examples do you have? Like, they don't have an example. They just have this narrative that reached them as signal. Like, "Elon bad now."
- MTMatt Taibbi
Right.
- 8:32 – 15:47
Trump’s return, “public interest” rationale, and the birth of broader enforcement theories
- JRJoe Rogan
"Oh, Elon bad now. Elon bad now. Elon bad now." And they just start saying it. And you go, like, "What, what examples are you using of, like, his behavior?" "Well, he let Trump back on the platform." Okay, well, the Taliban's there.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Right, yeah. Exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
You didn't have a problem with the Taliban? The Taliban just bought blue check marks. Did you know that?
- MTMatt Taibbi
Did, did they really?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- MTMatt Taibbi
I- yes. Didn't know that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, they're buying blue check marks-
- MTMatt Taibbi
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... so they could be verified. Um, the, the real terrorist. The fucking Taliban is on-
- MTMatt Taibbi
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and no one has a problem with it. The CCP's on Twitter.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
No one has a problem with it.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Right. But Trump-
- JRJoe Rogan
But they say, like, Trump, "They let Trump back on."
- MTMatt Taibbi
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Look, Trump is hilarious. He's a ridiculous person. But don't you think it's better that his tweets get out there and then a bunch of people get to attack him in the tweets? And if those tweets that people attack him with are good, if people are saying good things, then those things get retweeted and liked and then they rise up to the top of the algorithm. It's all good. Like, you need a voice against someone like that. You can't have that guy howling into the wind on some QAnon forum and all those wackos just are, they're only talking to each other with no pushback at all. If you really don't like Trump, you want him on Twitter.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Yeah, absolutely.
- JRJoe Rogan
You want that guy to have some pushback. You want people to be talking against what he's saying. You want Twitter, the real Twitter now, which will actually fact-check everybody. They fact-check Biden, right? They'll, they'll fact-check him. So if he says something stupid, they'll go, "No, that's not what's true. Here's what's true."
- MTMatt Taibbi
Right. And, and, and-
- JRJoe Rogan
That would be good.
- MTMatt Taibbi
And that was actually, for a while, Twitter's official policy. They had something called the Public Interest Policy, which specifically laid out exactly what you said. Like when, when a n- uh, uh, a world leader, uh, no matter who it is, says anything, we want it to be out there because we want it to be debated.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- MTMatt Taibbi
We want people to see it, we want people to talk about it, we want people to reach conclusions about it. And, uh, one of the things that we found in the Twitter files was after January 6th, they, there was this intense debate within the company where, uh, they were basically saying, "Oh, thank God we're gonna repeal the Public Interest Policy," or, "We're gonna poke a hole in it," right? Um, and no longer have that belief system that just because somebody is a world leader, we need to hear what they have to say. So they invented a new, um, a, a, a new policy called Glorification of Violence, or they, they called it that. And essentially what they said was you, you had to look at Trump not in terms of each individual tweet, uh, but in, in terms of, uh, what they called the context surrounding. His whole career. Uh, all of the people who followed him. Whether or not they were violent, whether or not they said things that were offensive. It's like the speech version of stochastic terrorism. I don't know if you've ever heard that, that term.
- JRJoe Rogan
No.
- MTMatt Taibbi
It's, uh, uh, stochastic terrorism is this idea that, um, you, you can incite people to violence by saying things that aren't specifically inciting, but are statistically likely to, uh, create a, a, you know, somebody who will do something violent, even if you, it's not individually predictable. Um, and that's what they did with Trump. They basically invented this concept that, yes, he may not have actually incited violence, but his whole, the whole totality of his persona is, is inciting. So we're gonna strike him.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- MTMatt Taibbi
And so they, so they sort of massively expanded the, the purview of what, of things they can censor, just in that one moment. Uh, and it was, it's, you know, you can see it in these dialogues, how, how they came to that decision, which is just fascinating.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's just such an extraordinary amount of power to give people, the ability to censor people on the biggest public forum in the world.It's so extraordinary in the fact that they can come up with these justifications for why this is a good idea without anyone pushing back, without anyone saying, "Do you, do you understand where this goes to?" This, this eventually leads to government control of all thought and speech. This is where you're going. You're allowing the government to influence you based on one specific problematic individual and that could spread out into every one of us.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Right.
- 15:47 – 21:19
Free speech boundaries, hate speech definitions, and why courts avoid the grey zone
- JRJoe Rogan
Does context matter?
- MTMatt Taibbi
Right. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And how do you decide? And obviously when you're looking at things over text, context gets very blurry. You don't know if someone's joking around. Like, there's so many pages that I get sent that are satire. I've got a hilarious one, there's a new one, Rick Rubin sent me this, this one, and he's like, "This has gotta be satire, right?" And it's brilliant, brilliant satire, but there's, uh, this per- person who has, like, the best version of, uh, super liberal, uh, like, "My children will never eat food from a gas stove," like, like (laughs) , that kind of shit.
- MTMatt Taibbi
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
And there's so many of these, like, y- it's hard to tell who's, who's what and what's real and it's, it's just one of those things, where you're, you're, it's, it's, it's hard when you're looking things through text. 'Cause people are sneaky. They're really good at it. And people are so ridiculous in real life that a really subtle parody is very hard to discern. So, is that hate speech? If someone's doing it as a parody, is that hate speech?
- MTMatt Taibbi
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, when do you decide that something is hateful?
- MTMatt Taibbi
A- and that's exactly why traditionally in this country w- w- judges have always said, well, they haven't always said it, but they've, they eventually came around to the idea that we can't involve ourselves in these questions. They're t- they're, they're too difficult and it's not our job. Um, we're gonna step in in only the most extreme cases, right? So, the, the current standard is, you know, uh, the Supreme Court case, Brandon... Brandenburg v. Ohio, which outlaws imminent, uh, uh, incitement to imminent lawless action, right? So, you have to be basically saying, you know, "Let's go get them."
- JRJoe Rogan
"Go, go get them. Let's," you know-
- MTMatt Taibbi
"Break into the White House." "Shoot, shoot that person." Like-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MTMatt Taibbi
That's illegal speech, right? Anything short of that, we're gonna stay out of it, 'cause it's just too c- it's too confusing, it's too complicated.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Right? Like, if you start getting into what's satire, what isn't, what's incitement, what isn't, like y- as we see at companies like Twitter, y- you know, y- you can spend e- endless amounts of time building sandcastles trying to figure out what is what.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MTMatt Taibbi
And, and, and it will always end in, in a place where the government use- you know, uh, interprets it to its greatest advantage.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MTMatt Taibbi
And, and that's why we, you know, we don't want it (laughs) , you know? I mean, it, it, ultimately it's not a good thing for, uh, for most people, but...
- JRJoe Rogan
It's just very hard for people to realize even though this thing that you're talking about wielding, this weapon, will work against your enemies, it can ultimately also be used against you.That was the thing with the Patriot Act, when the, uh, you know, indefinite detention, when they were, they were talking about just being able to detain people, and Obama was like, "Don't worry, well, I would never do that." But: w- you're not gonna be in, the president forever. Like, someone else is going to come along. And perfect example, that next person was Trump.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, what if someone's crazier than him? Like, what if something happens? What if there's a, some sort of a, a nuke goes off somewhere, and then everybody gets way more radicalized, and then you can get a really fucking insane, like, uh, Stephen King character? What was that movie, where the, the, the one evil guy becomes the president and...
- MTMatt Taibbi
Oh, God. The Greg s- Greg, uh, Stilson. Uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Yeah, uh, uh, Dead Zone.
- JRJoe Rogan
Dead Zone. Thank you.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Right, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, we're, we're not far removed from that-
- MTMatt Taibbi
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... in terms of plausible plots that this wacky country can fall into. And i- that's the same thing with censorship. Like, y- y- they can use it against you. So like, if you're, you think you're using this to push back against right-wing extremism, they can use that to push back against progressive ideas that would generally benefit, genuinely benefit good people.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Right.
- 21:19 – 24:34
From Church Committee to “pre-crime”: post‑9/11 changes and informant-heavy operations
- JRJoe Rogan
It's, it's a very interesting and very nuanced conversation as to what should be allowed and what should not be allowed and why. And I think it's complex and it's ever-changing and it depends upon the tools that are involved and it depends upon what's the, what are you talking about? And then it also depends upon, like... Here's, here's a big one that drives me nuts about this January 6th. Why is it okay for the FBI to have agents that incite people to go into the Capitol? Why is that okay? What benefit is that for society? Like, uh, how much, how much influence did they have? How much rabble-rousing influence did they have? How much coercion? I mean, what-
- MTMatt Taibbi
Well-
- JRJoe Rogan
... why is that okay?
- MTMatt Taibbi
So thi- so this is another topic that, uh, is fascinating because it hasn't gotten a ton of press. But, uh, if you go back all the way to the early '70s, the, the CIA and the FBI got in a lot of trouble, um, for various things. The CIA for assassination schemes involving people like Castro, the FBI for, um, you know, uh, COINTELPRO and other programs, domestic surveillance. And they made changes after congressional hearings, the Church Committee, uh, that basically said, "The FBI, from now on, you have to have some kind of reason to be following somebody or investigating somebody. You have to have some kinda criminal predicate." And, "We want you mainly to be in- investigating cases." But after 9/11, they, they peeled all this back. There was a series of attorney general memos, uh, that essentially refashioned what the FBI does. And now they don't have to be doing crime-fighting all the time. Now they can be doing, uh, basically 100% intelligence-gathering all the time. They can be infiltrating groups for no reason at all. Not to build cases, but just to get information. Um, and so that's, that's why, that's why they're there. They're like, they're, they're in these groups, they're, they're posted up outsi- outside of the homes of, of people they, who they find suspicious, but they're not building cases. Uh, they're not, they're not investigating crimes. It's sort of like Minority Report, the-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Pre-crime.
- MTMatt Taibbi
It's pre- it's pre-crime.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MTMatt Taibbi
And, and the public has accepted this, you know, w- without much trouble, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, there's a little bit of pushback from people online, then it goes away, where there's no real repercussions. Like the Governor Whitmer case-
- MTMatt Taibbi
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... where there's 14 people involved in kidnapping her, and 12 of them are FBI informants.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Which is fucking bonkers. And then the two guys who are doing hard time, they're like, "We thought it was fantasy." Like, "We're, we're idiots. We didn't know." Like, one of the guys literally said, "I never planned on doing anything. To me, it was just, just fantasy."
- MTMatt Taibbi
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, well, I mean-
- JRJoe Rogan
They're morons who get talked into this. And imagine you're getting talked into this by 12 people who turn out to be informants.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's wild.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Yeah. Yeah. And why are there so many informants-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MTMatt Taibbi
... you know, give, like, hanging around with this-
- 24:34 – 30:31
Proud Boys: informant revelations and how fringe groups become political symbols
- JRJoe Rogan
Fucking head of the Proud Boys.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
The head of the Proud Boys was an informant.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Is, is that true? I didn't know that. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
You didn't know that?
- MTMatt Taibbi
No.
- JRJoe Rogan
What's his name? Enrique Tarrio? Yeah, pull that up. He was a fucking informant. So this guy who was at the head of the Proud Boys, the guy who's organizing the things and get ... He was an FBI informant.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Wow.
- JRJoe Rogan
The whole-
- MTMatt Taibbi
Amazing.
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you know the story of the Proud Boys, the, the real origin story?
- MTMatt Taibbi
No, I don't, actually.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, my God. The origin story is amazing. The origin story ... Here we go. Proud Boys' leader was prolific informer for (laughs) law enforcement. Enrique Tarrio, leader of the Proud Boys extremist group, o- has a past as an informer for federal and local law enforcement, repeatedly working undercover for investigators after he was arrested in 2012, according to a former prosecutor in a transcript of a 2014 federal court proceeding obtained by Reuters.
- MTMatt Taibbi
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
So the Proud Boys started off as a joke on Anthony Cumia's radio show, where Gavin McInnes, who was a regular guest, they made a joke about one of the guys who was an intern. And he was, uh ... They were d- doing a joke about him being in a musical, and the musical, like, Proud of My Boy. And they were singing a song, like, "We're the Proud Boys, proud of my boy." And they're like, "We're gonna put together a group called the Proud Boys." And so they decided to have, like, this fake group of people. And to get into this group, you had to ... They had to punch you in the arm, and you have to read off or, like, remember different breakfast cereals.
- MTMatt Taibbi
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, it's all, like, really hilarious stupid shit. But then Gavin ... You know, Gavin's one of those guys that just, like ... He's a, a legitimate maniac, which was great when he was running Vice and not so great when he gets involved in (laughs) extremist groups.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
And so his idea was like, "Fuck these, these crazy Antifa people. We're gonna develop our own group. We're gonna go after them. We're gonna fight them when we go to these ..." 'Cause they would show up at any time he had to do speeches, and they would, they would protest him. He's like, "We're gonna bring ... The Proud Boys are gonna show, and we're gonna fight 'em." And I'm like, "Hey, hey, hey." Like, that doesn't end well.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
And, and obviously it ended terribly. And that's where the Proud Boys origin story come from.
- MTMatt Taibbi
That's amazing.
- JRJoe Rogan
It came from the Anthony Cumia radio show.
- MTMatt Taibbi
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
From Opie and Anthony.
- MTMatt Taibbi
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Anthony from Opie and Anthony.
- MTMatt Taibbi
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Dude, as a joke. Like, he's ... A- Anthony came on the podcast and told the origin story of it. It ... There's a famous clip that's on YouTube, and it's hilarious.
- MTMatt Taibbi
And then it ends up being, like, uh, uh, uh, y- you know, a central issue in, like, the presidential campaign.
- 30:31 – 1:18:22
Corporate media’s credibility crisis and the rise of independent journalism
- MTMatt Taibbi
Right, and, and complete capture of the media-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MTMatt Taibbi
... and, and all of that, you know. And that's, that's, you know, that's kind of what we're trying to, to fight against. And it's, uh, you know, the, the, the one heartening thing is that, is that the, the, uh, the, quote-unquote, "mainstream press" is now, uh, really, it's in free fall now, right? Uh, the, uh, uh, its, its influences is more and more limited every day. Um, you know, the problem is that, uh, something needs to step up in its place. And, and, uh, you know, but, but th- they're just, uh, they don't have any authority at all, uh, outside their own little bubble anymore.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Propaganda's a scary thing. And when you have, uh, mainstream news organizations going along with what appears to be propaganda with no pushback at all, like where, where is journalism? Like journalism is such an important part of, uh, any sort of functioning culture where people need to find out what, what is the real information. And there's people that have a responsibility to try to find that information and then give it to people, so they can make informed decisions. And they can know w- what, what is the workings behind the machine? What's the wiring? What's happening? How are, how are these decisions getting made? When the corporate media doesn't do that anymore, we're fucked. And you, in your time, have seen that.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
You've seen this transition-
- MTMatt Taibbi
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... into, like, the media becoming an arm of propaganda as opposed to what it was in the '70s or what it was in the '60s where it was the news. This is what's happening. This is what we've uncovered. This is our undercover investigation. These are our, our facts. Our informant has told us this. Now, we know that. Nixon did this. Kennedy was aware of that. We know these things now because of real journalism.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
And it seems like, for whatever reason, there's two branches going on with journalism. There's people like you and Bari Weiss and Glenn Greenwald and the Substack people that are like, "Hey. Hey, hey, hey. This is not what I fucking signed up for."
- MTMatt Taibbi
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
"I'm here to do actual real journalism. And you people in these gigantic mainstream organizations are losing your fucking minds. You're crazy. And you're doing it in, w- with, so, for so many reasons, because, uh, because Trump sucks, because you're pushing a woke agenda, because, you know, you want..." Uh, w- w- whatever the reason is. Like you've decided to become a part of a propaganda machine, and it's not journalism anymore.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Right. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
You're ignoring really important stories that are inconvenient to the narrative that you feel like it's your obligation to push.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Yeah. Uh, m- remember when Trump became president, and he was making noise about not letting certain people have credentials to get into the White House?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MTMatt Taibbi
And there was this big hue and cry, like, "Oh my God, he's not gonna let us into the White House." And my first reaction to that was, "Who fucking cares if, you know, if you're not let into the White House?" You, you, you have an adversarial relationship already. You're supposed to with government.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Right? If they, if they don't let you in, just report on it anyway, you know? Like g- it's not a big deal. But, uh, f- for, uh, the new generation of, of journalists who, who've come in, they imagine themselves, b- because they're socially the same people that they're reporting on, they hang out in the same circles, they go to the same parties, the idea of not being let behind the rope line, um, is an atrocity to them. They, they, they don't understand it. And they see their role as helping explain the point of view of power. I mean, it's just what we were talking with Brian Stelter before.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Like, like, "My job here is to, is to kind of sell this to the population."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Whereas, the old school journalists were not like that. Like, the, the, the, uh, they saw their role as, "Yeah, you know, we're, we're patriotic, you know, and like, we, we lo- we love our country. And if it does the right thing, we'll, we'll, you know, we'll report that. But if it fucks up, we gotta report that too." Like, "You know, we, our job is to ask difficult questions. And if we have difficult truths, we gotta report those things. And so we're not really on your side." Like, "You, you, we're not your friends, you know. Um, you can hang out with us. Uh, we can hang out with you, uh, at a campaign stop. But there's supposed to be tension there." And there's always supposed to be tension there. And, uh, what you see now is that there's no tension at all, right? Like, the, there's just this sort of seamless community of people who all think the same way, um, uh, you know, whether it's, you know, Rachel Maddow or, or, you know, Don Lemon or who- whoever it is and, you know, the, some Biden administration official. Like, uh, they're all kind of on the same page. They see themselves as part of the same group. They see themselves as having the same mission. Um, but the press, the press has to have its own mission-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MTMatt Taibbi
... or else it's not legitimate.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, I don't think they're journalists.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, they're really just television propagandists. That's what they are. And they're, they're working for these enormous corporations, and it benefits those corporations to have a narrative. And so you have a spokesperson for the narrative. They're not, there's n- no way Don Lemon is a journalist.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like there's no way Brian Stelter is a journalist. There's just not.
- 1:18:22 – 1:34:47
WEF, “Great Reset,” and agenda-setting: skepticism, optics, and global coordination fears
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, how does the World Economic Forum actually wield influence? Like what, what works there? How does it work? You know, one thing we know about this, this year's event is, uh, we know two things. One, that hookers are going there in droves. There was an article about the increase in the, uh, population of prostitutes. Which makes sense.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Yeah, it makes absolute sense.
- JRJoe Rogan
The other, uh, cat when, when the boys are away. And then the other, uh, thing was that Klaus Schwab and George Soros decided to op out this year.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Hm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Which is interesting.
- MTMatt Taibbi
That is interesting.
- JRJoe Rogan
Maybe it's getting too hot. Because it used to be a thing that really didn't get much public attention. They could go there and they could all have these meetings and decide the fate of the world and try-
- MTMatt Taibbi
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... to sort of move the world in general directions. And then there was also, uh, Michael Shellenberger released a bunch of stuff this week showing that they lie about things that they've said that have become very problematic. One of them was, "You will own nothing. You'll be happy." And they said, "Nope."... that was, uh, that was all, uh, b- just internet conspiracy theories, it's not true. But it is true.
- MTMatt Taibbi
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And then there was websites, they, they had a whole advertising campaign based on this, they did that, they said that, they absolutely put it up. They really did.
Episode duration: 2:46:37
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