EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,361 words- 0:00 – 15:00
(drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast,…
- NANarrator
(drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.
- JRJoe Rogan
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music)
- MBMike Baker
That's a fine cigar.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's not bad, right?
- MBMike Baker
Yeah, it's really nice.
- JRJoe Rogan
Foundation Cigars, shout on to them.
- MBMike Baker
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
What's up, Mike Baker? How are you?
- MBMike Baker
(inhales deeply) I'm doing well, thank you.
- JRJoe Rogan
What do you got in those pa- pieces of paper to scare the shit out of me with?
- MBMike Baker
Yeah, you know what?
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- MBMike Baker
This. I've got-
- JRJoe Rogan
You've got notes. (laughs)
- MBMike Baker
I, I got notes, 'cause you know why? 'Cause I, I'm always being accused of, uh, of, of wandering, uh, not being as organized as I should be, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
That's just this podcast does that to people.
- MBMike Baker
Yeah. Maybe so, but I, I said to myself, "Fuck it. I'm gonna, I'm gonna write some things down."
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- MBMike Baker
Because so much has happened since the last time we sat down.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MBMike Baker
And so and, and I made a list. I'm gonna, uh, I'm gonna run through that if you don't mind. Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- MBMike Baker
Since the last show, see I even headlined it. Uh, Chinese spy balloon, failed mutiny in Russia, four indictments of Trump. No, last night was the fourth. Um, bank account records showing the Biden family took over $20 million. Um, Pee-wee Herman died.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- MBMike Baker
Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) Glad you've got that in your notes.
- MBMike Baker
I've got that ... I, I actually have, yeah, I've got it.
- JRJoe Rogan
(sniffs)
- MBMike Baker
It's right there, and it's right before, um, the two-year anniversary of the Afghan withdrawal. I probably should've put that above Pee-wee Herman.
- JRJoe Rogan
W- why did you put Pee-wee Herman in there?
- 15:00 – 30:00
Mm-hmm. …
- MBMike Baker
right?I mean, you know that there would be a massive, uh, debrief on this whole situation if it happened in the US or the UK or, you know, started in Australia, wherever, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- MBMike Baker
The rest of the world wouldn't let it go. But there's just some- there's something about it. We just ... we never push the Chinese regime to the degree that we need to to get an answer. And- and- and so s- and s- so the point being it's the same with the damn balloon.
- JRJoe Rogan
Is it because we don't think we'll ever get an answer and it's kind of a waste of time?
- MBMike Baker
That's p- (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
'Cause it's not like they're transparent.
- MBMike Baker
That's part of it. Yeah, yeah. I think that's it.
- JRJoe Rogan
They would just not tell us the truth.
- MBMike Baker
Yeah, I think that's- that's part of it. It's like doing business in China. Um, if you're investing in- in- in a pseudo state-owned enterprise or whatever, you always know there's going to be three or four or five sets of books, right? It's always ... there's ... they're just very good at obfuscating, and they also think they don't need to answer. We don't care. They d- they don't care. And Xi believes that they are still on, despite some problems in their economy, they're still on the slow march to the top of the food chain. So he- he certainly doesn't care. Um, anyway.
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you think anything would be different if someone else was in office?
- MBMike Baker
Um, no, I- I don't think so. I don't think so. I'm not- I'm not gonna say that. I'm not gonna say if we got, you know, if Trump or, you know, a Republican was in office that we'd get a different result. I don't think so. We've- we've had s- sort of a unsatisfactory relationship related to China for decades, right? We just ... uh, we haven't ... uh, no administration has really pushed back appropriately against their theft of economic intelligence or research and development or whatever. S- so all those things keep happening and we never make the effort, right? I mean, look at the ... some of the things they're doing now. I've gotten bizarrely focused on the issue of- of, uh, we've talked about this before, critical minerals, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- MBMike Baker
Because one of the things that I find really interesting is this push towards, uh, uh, net zero, you know, carbon production and getting rid of fossil fuels, stopping fossil fuels. Well, you can't stop fossil fuels, um, and, uh, regulate mining out of existence at the same time. You've gotta- you've gotta do one or the other to, um, to fuel, you know, production, to fuel manufacturing, to heat people's homes, to produce whatever you're gonna produce. And so if we want to get rid of fossil fuels, by definition you have to increase mining of critical minerals, right? There's just no way a- no way around it. You ... if you do both, which the Biden administration is basically trying to do, they're ... I think they're placating their- their base by, yeah, we're gonna get rid of fossil fuels, and they're also making, um, decisions that are overregulating the permitting process for mining. And we have a lot of critical minerals available in this country, right? We got, you know, lithium, phosphate, which should be on the critical minerals list. We got all these things that- that we- we need if we're gonna continue to march away from fossil fuels. But the current administration just keeps, uh ... under this theory of keep it in the ground, right? And so ... and that's a big push by environmentalists, right? Keep it all in the ground, right? Lock it up.
- JRJoe Rogan
But how do they ... the only way to do that is to keep allowing what's essentially slave labor.... to extract cobalt and, and things from the Congo.
- MBMike Baker
Right. And you, you've talked about this and it absolutely-
- JRJoe Rogan
So, Siddarth Kara's book is insane.
- MBMike Baker
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And the videos that he got when he was ... you know, he risked his life to get footage of this stuff in the Congo. It's-
- MBMike Baker
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's horrendous. And anybody thinks that, in any way, that that's a good solution to our problems is, is fucking insane.
- MBMike Baker
Well, but that's where, that's where this is going. If, if the US continues and, and this is where I'll, I'll bring China in. And by the way, China, uh, they own or operate, I think it's like 15 of the 19 cobalt mines in, in, uh, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. So, it doesn't matter whether they're leading the way. And China controls 30 of the 50 critical minerals anyway, they produce more than anybody else, and they certainly control the refining process for most of the critical minerals. But it doesn't matter whether they're mining it in their own country, they've also been busy locking up opportunities elsewhere, right? To, to control these things. And so, you know, there's, there's very little pushback but if you, if you look at, at, uh ... if you look at one case, 'cause we've talked about cobalt, we've talked about lithium, which is here, we could be mining, but, you know, the government's, you know, shutting down opportunities to do that. Either by declaring things off-limits in terms of the land area or just making the permitting process so damn difficult. Um, but, uh, you know, phosphate, I mentioned that as an example, I got, I disappeared down some rabbit hole looking at all of this, it's not on the critical minerals list. Right? And there's 50 critical minerals. Now, phosphate, along with two other things, uh, nitrogen and pot- ... uh, potassium, are the key nutrients that you use for fertilizers, right? To feed the world, not just the US, right? You c- y- you can't do mass farming, right? And everybody wants to grow local but the reality is, is, it's a lot of people, right? And if you want, you know, the, the, the least privileged people around the globe to eat, you gotta do large-scale farming. You can't do that without phosphate. Right? And so, China is the number one producer of phosphate in the world. And r- I think Russia is fourth. And they produce like five times more combined, five times more than we do in the US. And yet, there is significant pushback here in the US, in part because it fits a Chinese narrative, and the Chinese have decided, the regime has, again, not the people, the Chinese regime has decided that one of the best ways to get what they want, in terms of US behavior, is not to try to influence, you know, the White House, but it's to reach out to local and state officials. So, here's where I'm going with this. When you look at, at decisions made at state level or local level, the Chinese regime and, and the, the, uh, ODNI, the Director of National Intelligence released a report, and they talked about this. They said that, that the Chinese are d- doubling down on their efforts to exert influence through a variety of means, um, environmental groups, um, encouraging litigation, right? Against mining operations or whatever it may be. Um, social influencers, to try to get a message out, right? That influences local and state regulators to do things such as saying, "No, gotta keep it in the ground." You know? "No, we don't want phosphate mining," as an example. Um, and that serves the purpose. Whether, whether an environmental group or whether a, uh, a group, um, that's out there that, that focuses on these things and, and files lawsuits constantly for environmental purposes, and then by the way, those, those lawyers, y- you know, usually recoup their funds from (laughs) , you know, what is called an Endangered Species Act that allows them to get their money back. So, you think, "Oh, wow, these lawyers are fighting and it's pro bono." No, it's not. They're getting paid. So ... but they're doing it whether they do it knowingly or whether they do it, uh, unwittingly, it still serves the purpose of the Chinese regime which is looking to say, "Keep it in the ground 'cause we wanna control all of this." And again, whether it's cobalt, whether it's lithium, whether it's phosphate, whatever it may be, it's, it's, it's a fascinating thing. But the, the point being that we can't pursue a green future and at the same time over-regulate, uh, the mining process. And, uh, it just doesn't work.
- JRJoe Rogan
China has so much influence on America, it's, it's, it's crazy how different the playing field is between like what we're allowed to do. Like, Americans can't own businesses in China, they can't own land in China, they can't buy property, but China can do all those things here. And they can influence our universities, they b- bring their students over here, their students siphon up data and information and oftentimes get caught. I mean, it's-
- MBMike Baker
(laughs) Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's kind of crazy.
- MBMike Baker
Yeah, possibly. Yeah. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. They get caught, right?
- MBMike Baker
Right. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's been quite a few of those cases.
- MBMike Baker
There have been.
- JRJoe Rogan
The, the di-
- 30:00 – 45:00
Mm-hmm. Well- …
- MBMike Baker
around. You said, "Well, why don't we push back?" Or how we ... you know, there's, uh, we, we don't have that much leverage right now. So, I think that's part of the answer.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm. Well-
- MBMike Baker
Well.
- JRJoe Rogan
... there's also, we need a push for nuclear. Where-
- MBMike Baker
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... legitimate new nuclear power plants in this country, which is, uh, it's so hard for people to wrap their heads around because of Three Mile Island and Fukushima, but that is the safest, cleanest-... electricity that we can generate in this country.
- MBMike Baker
Well, you would think that that would be a logical... It's, it's not a big leap, right? But you're right, there, you get, oh, it, people are so emotive, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MBMike Baker
And they stole... You could say Three Mile Island and they'd... E- everybody knows, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MBMike Baker
I mean, and most people can't retain a lot of information about historical facts.
- JRJoe Rogan
Chernobyls, Fukushima.
- MBMike Baker
Chernobyl, yeah. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MBMike Baker
Yeah. And so... And we've gotten better at safety systems and redundancies, right? So, absolutely. But (sighs) you know, it's... People talk about, "Well, we gotta expand, uh, nuclear energy." And, and you're right.
- JRJoe Rogan
When you look at the deaths from nuclear, they're so small just in comparison to the chronic illness that comes from coal.
- MBMike Baker
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, th- we watched this documentary on this, uh, one town. Was it... Is it Indian- Indiana, Jamie, that one town? Yeah. Where there's multiple coal plants near the area, and these people have like a fine dusting of particulate in their cars every day. So they're breathing this air-
- MBMike Baker
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... that has this coal particulate that's in- And there's a host of chronic illnesses that are coming with this.
- MBMike Baker
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
So many people have respiratory conditions.
- MBMike Baker
Y- And... Yeah, but... And, and w- and we have been, we've been busy trying to shut down, you know, use of coal. And, and, and fine, but you gotta replace it with something that's, that's, that's pragmatic, right? And right now, solar and wind i- isn't gonna cut it, right? And we're gonna... Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
You see these people exaggerate about the efficiency and efficacy of solar and wind. They really do love to sort of exaggerate how m- how effective it is.
- MBMike Baker
(sniffs) Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And also, how much energy i- it takes to generate a windmill, just to build one and maintain it.
- MBMike Baker
Right. And I, and also, what going green is going to mean to the grid system, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MBMike Baker
And the demand for electricity. And-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, all the cars.
- 45:00 – 1:00:00
Have you looked at…
- MBMike Baker
on the part of the, the various DAs, and, and that's another thing. Like, the, the DA down in, in Georgia is, is, uh, j- that's an elected position, and she's running for office again, and she's campaigning based on getting Trump, right? And she's raising money off, off of, uh, "This is what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna get Trump," right? Uh, uh, that seems a little odd too, right? I mean, I, I don't know. There's y- i- i- it's no surprise that people are losing (laughs) confidence in, uh, in the government. And-
- JRJoe Rogan
Have you looked at any of the evidence of, uh, election manipulation?
- MBMike Baker
Um, some, but I'll be honest with you, I haven't disappeared f- fully down that rabbit hole yet. Uh, I don't, I, you know, I, I'm-
- JRJoe Rogan
Seems like it'd really suck you in.
- MBMike Baker
Yeah. It w- I think it would, and there's, uh, you know, there's a lot of communities I'd, uh, the times that I have looked, there's a lotta, there's a lot of shit out there. Um, and trying to, uh, trying to decipher what is just crazy ass bullshit from what is legitimate and deserves investigation, right? Um, uh, I'll be honest with you, I just, like, I, I run out of time.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- MBMike Baker
Uh, and I'm just like, "I'm sorry, I gotta go, you know, watch one of the kids' games." Um ...
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MBMike Baker
So ... which by the way, one of my kids, the middle boy, Sluggo, is, uh, heading to Florida to go to boarding school at the end of the month. He's-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, boy.
- MBMike Baker
Yeah. He's gonna go play basketball at IMG, um, which is an amazing, uh, academy, amazing, amazing place.
- JRJoe Rogan
Is that gonna be hard for you, having him go to boarding school?
- MBMike Baker
Um ... eh, we couldn't wait to get him out of the house. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- MBMike Baker
No, he's a gr- oh my God, he's a great kid. He's ... all, all the, all the boys are fantastic. But, but he's very focused, he's very competitive, he's been ... this is all he wants to do, is ... and, and, um, he's been down there before, and they're, they do a great job, um, academically and sports-wise. It's, it's very much a sports-focused program.
- JRJoe Rogan
Does he want to play professionally?
- MBMike Baker
Uh, w- uh, y- yeah. I guess any kid that, you know, is, is serious about what they do at the time-
- JRJoe Rogan
How tall is he?
- MBMike Baker
Oh, he's about three foot two. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- MBMike Baker
He's a white kid from Idaho.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- MBMike Baker
I think he's got a big future. Um, no, he's, uh, he's, he's growing. He's making his way towards, you know, he's, he's just turned, just turned, uh, whatever, 14, and, and he's making his way towards six foot. And he'll, he'll get, he'll get h- as tall as he needs to be for a point guard, but he's a, he's a focused, uh, he's a focused kid.
- JRJoe Rogan
People are doing all kinds of shit to their kids now.
- MBMike Baker
Yeah. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
They're juicing 'em up with human growth hormone to get them to grow.
- MBMike Baker
It's crazy, and they're-
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- MBMike Baker
You know, they're reclassing them f- three or four times, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- 1:00:00 – 1:15:00
Really? …
- MBMike Baker
um... Uh, obviously we have- we don't give that much money to anybody, by far, right? And the last time that, uh, last time a, a European was country, uh, was at the top of, of, of the, of the aid list was, you know, the Marshall Plan, maybe. Um, uh, the Truman, uh, Administration. So it's pretty significant. But the Afghanistan thing, um, two years after the withdrawal, we've spent since then, since, since the withdrawal, we've spent, or the US government's allocated about $8 billion. Now the interesting point there is, who's been in control there in Afghanistan since, you know, the withdrawal? It's the Taliban. So we have allocated $8 billion to various humanitarian groups, charities into Afghanistan and no real, no real controls over whether the vast majority of that money-... or half of that money, or whatever, is going to the Taliban. And we can-
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- MBMike Baker
Yeah. And you can guarantee that it's being siphoned off. I mean-
- JRJoe Rogan
How does that work?
- MBMike Baker
Well, um, I'm glad you asked that. Um, it wasn't that long ago, there was a ... 'cause there, there is an inspector general. They call him the Sp- uh, C- the Special In- uh, the Special Inspector General for Afghan-Afghanistan Reconstruction, SIGAR. Um, and he, uh, testified before Congress, uh, I think, uh, much earlier this year, it might have been the, the, the, uh, January, February timeframe, about Afghanistan. And, um, he said, "I cannot sit here and tell the Sub- the, the Committee or the American taxpayer that w- we are not funding the Taliban through th- this money that is being allocated for Afghanistan."
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa.
- MBMike Baker
Oh.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- MBMike Baker
There you go.
- JRJoe Rogan
"Unfortunately, as I sit here today, I cannot assure this committee that the American taxpayer, uh, or the American taxpayer that we are not currently funding the Taliban," he continued, "nor can I assure you that the Taliban are not diverting the money we are sending to the intended recipients, which are the poor Afghan people." Wow.
- MBMike Baker
Yeah. So think about that. 20 years in Afghanistan, (laughs) we leave in a, in a fucking mess of a withdrawal, right, which never should have taken place the way it did, and we've still got ... there's maybe a h- 150, 155,000, uh, special immigrant visa applicants trapped in Afghanistan waiting to get out. We don't kn- we have no idea how many, um, of our former Afghan allies, right, whomever it may be, uh, w- are still there trapped, trying to get out. Right?
- JRJoe Rogan
And how many have been killed?
- MBMike Baker
And how many have b- exactly. How many have been killed? And in the meantime, w- now, now again, you know, the idea at the top level, you know the theory, we wanna help the Afghan people. We can't just abandon all those poor people, so we're gonna use the money to give it to humanitarian groups, and they're gonna try to feed them and everything. And yet there's no control over this, this fucking thing. And- and so that's, that's a problem that, again, should be talked about. But we don't, w- you know, we get lost in these, in these issues of the day that, that aren't, you know, really impactful I guess at the end of the day. Maybe they're impactful to people's, you know, individual lives. I get it, whatever. What, what the hell? But it is stunning that then the inspector general will come out and say he can't get, um, sufficient, uh, information from State Department and from USAID that's responsible in part for allocating these funds. Um, and in pure typical Washington DC, uh, bullshit, uh, the reason is because the State Department says, "Well, you know, we withdrew from Afghanistan, so therefore the, the, the inspector general, you know, doesn't have the same job. We're not reconstructing Afghanistan anymore, so we don't have to respond to his request for information." So (laughs) which is, you know, it's this, it's like this bizarre ... but we're gonna continue to give him money out. And meanwhile the Taliban's just shitting all over the people, right? Um, if y- forget about women's rights anymore. They've shut down secondary schools. They've shut down ... there's certainly no universities. They've done ... they, they've, they've restricted them basically to, you know, uh, women to, and girls to sitting at home. Um, they, they, uh, very restricted movement outside. They have to be fully covered obviously. Um, recently they just, they just shut down all beauty salons, right, which was one of the few places women could work and only women could go into. Uh, women can't go into parks, right? They can't g- it's, it's, it's insane when you think about it that way and you think about (laughs) y- but we're giving them money. Again, not for a bad reason, right? I mean, w- we wanna help, um, the, the, the, the people that are suffering most-
- JRJoe Rogan
How does that money-
- MBMike Baker
... but we have no control.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. What, what happens to that money? Like, how does, how could that money possibly get to the Taliban? Like, what's going on?
- MBMike Baker
Well, it has to go through, um, it has to go through humanitarian groups, NGOs, um, charities, and at some point the idea is it, it's either funds or, or goods, right, that have to be in the country, that have to get to the country to be dispersed, and the Taliban controls everything, right? Now, by the way, we also allocated-
- JRJoe Rogan
(sniffs)
- MBMike Baker
... uh, a handful of billions of dollars to recapitalize the Central Bank there in Afghanistan. Well, that would seem to be, maybe I'm wrong, but that would seem to be (laughs) basically putting money directly into the hands of the Taliban. Um, and so it's, it's a problem. You know, they're looking into it. But, uh, I mean, there's, there's so many weird ... uh, if y- if you spend too much time looking at the way the government sometimes operates and going f- switching back to Ukraine and saying, "Okay, um, w- (laughs) as, as an example, one of the things we're not doing is we're not fully sanctioning Russian oil, because why? It's a political reason. We don't want the Russian oil taken off the market and driving gas prices up, which is bad for politics, right?" So meanwhile, w- one of the few real, you know, significant sources of revenue for the Russians is oil. That allows them to keep going. So we're spending, what, $80 billion on Ukraine? At the same time, we're not doing everything we can to shut down the ability of the Russian, uh, government to make money by sanctioning oil the way we should, and therefore, um, (laughs) they continue marching on. It's ... I don't know. I, I just find it all, you know, going back to that original thought, you know, it's like we're gonna stop fossil fuels but we're also gonna keep all the minerals in the ground. How about that?
- JRJoe Rogan
But the, the Russia thing seems to be ... the Russia-Ukraine thing, thing seems to be even crazier than the Afghanistan thing in terms of long-term cost-... and in terms of not having any solution of how this could ever possibly end.
- MBMike Baker
Yeah. No, I- I- yeah, 100% I agree with that. It's- we don't have a- we don't have a, whatever they want to call it, an exit ramp, an, uh, end game. Um, there is talk about a peace settlement, primarily from Zelenskyy, right? He's been, he's been making a real effort. He's been going out and trying to garner support from a variety of countries for his, uh, or for the Ukraine government's peace plan, which basically calls for return of all their lands, including Crimea, and obviously the exit of all Russian forces. And so, he's out there talking and saying, "This is what needs to happen. This- we need to gather, uh, international support for this peace plan if it's going to work." Which is not incorrect, right? Meanwhile, you know, the Chinese are- are trying to, you know, play top dog in the world stage by proposing their own peace plan. Um, you know, Saudis are making an effort. So, but there is no- there's no exit strategy, really, to speak of.
- JRJoe Rogan
But hasn't Zelenskyy openly stated that he wants Putin to step down?
- MBMike Baker
Well, um, yeah. I mean, he's- he's expressed that desire, but you also think about they've declared him a war criminal, so what's- what's Putin's, you know, what- what- what's Putin's, uh, motivation for- for stopping if he reaches a peace settlement and then is basically, "That's it. Okay, we're done. Uh, there's peace. We've given back all the land, and I'm a war criminal, and now at some point, if I step outside the country, I'll be arrested and..." But I mean, that's- that- that's a thought process. So, um, I don't think, uh, unless Zelenskyy budges a little bit, right? Um, which, you know, again, from an emotive standpoint, why should he, right? But unless he budges to some degree, uh, I don't see that they're going to get, uh, a settlement where the two sides agree. Because Putin, I don't- I don't, still, I've said this before, but I don't imagine the- the Russian government giving back Crimea, right? It's-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MBMike Baker
It's, you know, too important from their perspective, from a military perspective.
- JRJoe Rogan
And when did they take over Crimea? What year was that?
- MBMike Baker
Uh, it was- wasn't that '14? 2014, I think. Yeah. Maybe- maybe '08? Maybe 2014. I don't know. It's- it's ancient history now, and nobody cared back then, right? Really. Really. There was- there was some angry memos written, um, Obama talked about it at the time and said... But nobody did anything. Just like when the troops moved into eastern Ukraine, nobody really cared, nobody did anything, nobody was out there planting flags in their gardens and saying, "We stand with Ukraine." And in fact, Ukraine was viewed as a highly corrupt place. You know, um, where, you know, a Ukrainian energy company would hire the son of the vice president. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MBMike Baker
Oh. Um, but at the same time, you can't, you know, you c- we- we can't allow Putin's, uh, adventurism, right, to stand. You've got to... So, I do believe we- we- we have to support, and without our support, without our NATO allies' support and others, they wouldn't have been able to accomplish what they've done, right? And now whether they can make a counteroffensive, um, a significant victory or not still remains to be seen, 'cause the Russians, you know, they used the opportunity during the lull to really dig in, right? They've created almost their own Maginot Line, although it's more effective than the old Maginot Line. So they- they've created that along their- their- their, uh, perimeter, and it's been a real tough slog. You know, the Ukrainian counteroffensive has gone much slower than people thought, and everybody was all very emotive. "Oh, it's going to be a counteroffensive. They're going to sweep through. It's gonna be done here soon." And I don't think people still have their heads around the fact that this is- there's- there's no exit out there, right, yet. So what are we going to do? Are we gonna continue to just allocate every- every couple of months we'll say, "Well, we're putting another $800 million in there."? Um, you know, we've already, you know, approved F-16s, Abrams tanks, Patriot missile systems. I mean, HIMARS. We're doing everything possible. Intelligence support, satellite support, um, and again, rightly so. You know, Putin needs to be driven out of there if possible. But at the same time, they need a logical thought process about how you have a settlement, if there's going to be one. And-
- JRJoe Rogan
And what are your feelings about NATO's encroaching on Russian territory, like getting closer and closer? Like the treaty at the- the end of the Soviet Union stated that- that NATO would not move any closer to Russia, but yet they have.
- 1:15:00 – 1:16:33
Section 6
- MBMike Baker
went on for several years, produced, uh, massive amounts of fraud. Uh, created all sorts of bullshit 8A companies, right? Everybody suddenly ... everybody was looking for women-owned or, uh, Native American-owned or Eskimo-owned (laughs) companies that they could set up so that would allow them to get those government contracts to go in and do some piece of reconstruction, whether they had experience to do it or not. And there were the ... my God, the amount of energy that was involved in DC at the time of- of companies just sh- sh- shooting up out of nowhere, right? I remember people walking through the door. We'd had an office in DC, uh, for the business, and- and- and people walking through the door with, you know, uh, looking for security, right? And saying, "Well, we're gonna start this, uh, company. We're gonna go out there." And I was like, "Well, how much experience do you have?" "Uh, well, we don't have any." You know, they didn't care. So we're ge- I- I- I sense that same level of excitement, eh, um, in the idea of the Ukraine reconstruction. Um, because that's gonna be ... I talk about the next sinkhole of ... I- again, I- I ... You gotta support them, right? So I ... maybe I'm using the wrong terminology, but the next black hole of cost, of- of money spent will be on the reconstruction effort. And if we think that it's currently expensive, wait till that hits, right? It's gonna make this $80 billion so far look like nothing, I think. That's just my opinion. But ... So I- I don't know. I- there's no ... you know, you keep talk- I keep talking in- in circles about this because I don't see any- any way out of it, right? It's, um, uh, both sides are- are not gonna budge, uh, at least in the short term, mid-term on what they want.
Episode duration: 2:43:39
Install uListen for AI-powered chat & search across the full episode — Get Full Transcript
Transcript of episode 5HRznpUe01g
Get more out of YouTube videos.
High quality summaries for YouTube videos. Accurate transcripts to search & find moments. Powered by ChatGPT & Claude AI.
Add to Chrome