Joe Rogan Experience #2037 - Alex Berenson

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. NANarrator0:00

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:06

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

   4. ABAlex Berenson0:12

      Hello, Alex.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:13

      Good to see you.

   6. ABAlex Berenson0:14

      Oh, it's, it's a pleasure.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:15

      How are you feeling out there, you, you truth warrior?

   8. ABAlex Berenson0:19

      (laughs)

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:19

      (laughs)

   10. ABAlex Berenson0:21

       Well, (laughs) I, I keep waiting to be done with this shit.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:24

       Yeah.

   12. ABAlex Berenson0:24

       To be done with COVID.

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:24

       It'd be nice to be done, right?

   14. ABAlex Berenson0:26

       They will not let it go.

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:28

       Yeah. It's strange. It's, it's strange now, because, uh, it's al- it's also strange, what, what bothers me, and I, I try to emphasize this as much as possible, and I even had to do this recently with some, uh, close family friends, you've got to take care of your health.

   16. ABAlex Berenson0:43

       Yes.

   17. JRJoe Rogan0:43

       You, you have to take vitamins. You, you have to eat right. You have to. If you don't do that, your body doesn't function well. That includes your immune system, it includes everything. It includes, you know, inflammation, it causes a host of diseases in your body.

   18. ABAlex Berenson0:55

       Yes.

   19. JRJoe Rogan0:56

       You gotta take care of yourself. And that, that to, to be, should be the most important message that everyone's putting out, not just podcasters, but the government, health officials. Everyone should be saying that. You should really supplement with vitamins. You should really, you know, get your nutrient levels checked, if you can.

   20. ABAlex Berenson1:12

       E- even if you can't do those things, though, like, you can eat decently.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:15

       You can eat decently.

   22. ABAlex Berenson1:16

       You can, you can try to exercise moderately. Look, I know a lot of people have, you know, complicated lives. They have kids, they have work, they gotta, you know, they don't have much time.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:24

       I get it.

   24. ABAlex Berenson1:25

       But, like, if you- even, even if you can work out, like, a half hour a day, three days a week and not eat too much, you're in better shape. Much better shape.

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:33

       Yeah. There's been some studies done recently that something really crazy, like, 20-hour- 20 minutes of exercise, like, twice a week improves your overall, like, all-cause mortality score, like-

   26. ABAlex Berenson1:44

       Yes.

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:46

       Just, just a little bit. Moderate stuff.

   28. ABAlex Berenson1:48

       Yep.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:48

       Like, nothing crazy. Like, do some push-ups and sit-ups and some jumping jacks and you're good to go. Just, you have to do something that gets your body moving. Or it doesn't think that it has to-

   30. ABAlex Berenson1:57

       (laughs)
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   (laughs) …

   1. JRJoe Rogan15:00

      and like, oh, okay, I get it. I get it. I wish the world was perfect too. I really do. I wish there was a guy in the White House that was this amazing human being and a shining example of what's possible from just a- a- a person, a lo- a loving person who wants to take care of a nation 'cause they really believe in them.

   2. ABAlex Berenson15:18

      (laughs)

   3. JRJoe Rogan15:18

      But this is like... (laughs)

   4. ABAlex Berenson15:20

      (laughs) You got me laughing because it's such bullshit.

   5. JRJoe Rogan15:22

      But it's- but it's what we want.

   6. ABAlex Berenson15:24

      It's what we want.

   7. JRJoe Rogan15:24

      And we never get it. We never get it. It's like fucking s- it's- it's Charlie Brown and Lucy. That football just gets yanked away every time.

   8. ABAlex Berenson15:34

      Yes.

   9. JRJoe Rogan15:34

      And we're like, "Shit."

   10. ABAlex Berenson15:36

       (laughs)

   11. JRJoe Rogan15:37

       "Shit, I thus- I thought this was gonna be the adults were in the room. Shit." You know?

   12. ABAlex Berenson15:41

       I- well, look, I mean, beware the person who, you know, who tells you what to do 'cause they know what's best for you.

   13. JRJoe Rogan15:47

       Yeah. That's a n- that's a normal thing of human nature too. It's a wei- weird thing about human nature, we're always led by someone. It's- it's very strange because it- it seems to be a part of just our programming that we have, uh, we've kept since we were primates in like the jungles. Like there was always a leader. There's a l- like if you ever watched that Chimp Nation show?

   14. ABAlex Berenson16:09

       Uh-huh.

   15. JRJoe Rogan16:09

       Amazing show on Netflix. These scientists were embedded in this chimpanzee group for 30 years. And so the chimpanzees had become totally n- comfortable with human beings as long as they were 20 yards away.

   16. ABAlex Berenson16:23

       Right.

   17. JRJoe Rogan16:24

       So they never moved any closer than 20 yards. If the chimp moves close to them, they back away, you never have food. There's a bunch of rules-

   18. ABAlex Berenson16:30

       Sure, sure.

   19. JRJoe Rogan16:30

       ... about what to do and what not to do. But if you follow those rules, these chimps behave as if they're just chimps in the jungle.

   20. ABAlex Berenson16:36

       (laughs)

   21. JRJoe Rogan16:37

       So it's this incredible opportunity to watch their social hierarchies.

   22. ABAlex Berenson16:40

       Huh.

   23. JRJoe Rogan16:40

       And it's just like people. There's a leader. There's always a leader.

   24. ABAlex Berenson16:43

       Right.

   25. JRJoe Rogan16:44

       There's always a leader.

   26. ABAlex Berenson16:44

       There's always someone in charge.

   27. JRJoe Rogan16:45

       And there's young people that are challenging the leader, and the leader has to beat them down.

   28. ABAlex Berenson16:48

       (laughs)

   29. JRJoe Rogan16:48

       And it gets to a certain point in time where the leader can't do that anymore.

   30. ABAlex Berenson16:51

       Yeah.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Right. (sighs) I don't,…

   1. ABAlex Berenson30:00

      the problem if there is one later. And so in this case, the guy actually said to me, he's like, "This is a good drug. It does work." He said, "But sometimes if we dose it too many times, we can get... there can be sort of a paradoxical effect where it stops working." If you're one of those doctors who's on the tit and getting that check every quarter or every six months or, you know, how- however frequently you get it, you're gonna... It's gonna be harder for you to see the problem because all of a sudden you have a financial incentive not to see it.

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:30

      Right. (sighs) I don't, I don't know what we do about any of this.

   3. ABAlex Berenson30:38

      ... except talk about it and make sure people know.

   4. JRJoe Rogan30:40

      Talk about it and make sure people know and, you know, you need senators to call this stuff out.

   5. ABAlex Berenson30:45

      (laughs)

   6. JRJoe Rogan30:46

      And we need, you know, we need people that run these companies to be ... just to have to have ethical boundaries, you know? Because they make great stuff. The thing about pharmaceutical drug companies is, like, I would never say we don't need them. That's crazy.

   7. ABAlex Berenson31:00

      Right.

   8. JRJoe Rogan31:00

      I mean, people they've helped?

   9. ABAlex Berenson31:01

      Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan31:02

       You know how many drugs the pharmaceutical companies that we, we currently demonize because of this thing, this, this for-profit aspect of it, but how many of them have brought drugs to the market that have fixed all sorts of problems that people have been suffering for forever?

   11. ABAlex Berenson31:17

       Yes. Yeah.

   12. JRJoe Rogan31:18

       Th- They just, they just can't go ham. (laughs) You c- You just can't, you can't go crazy and force people to take your stuff. Like, that's a bad relationship. A good relationship is a consumer and a provider, and the provider develops these drugs that are very beneficial to people, and most of them are. A lot of them are, right?

   13. ABAlex Berenson31:38

       (laughs) Some of them are.

   14. JRJoe Rogan31:38

       Some of them are. But we, they, they do have drugs that they've developed that are really beneficial for people. They really do.

   15. ABAlex Berenson31:45

       Yes. Yes.

   16. JRJoe Rogan31:45

       They're real, and we can't fucking throw out the baby with the bathwater.

   17. ABAlex Berenson31:49

       (laughs)

   18. JRJoe Rogan31:49

       I just think that it just ha- The problem is also the process, right? Because to bring a drug to market costs so much fucking money.

   19. ABAlex Berenson31:59

       Yes.

   20. JRJoe Rogan31:59

       It costs it crazy. It's so prohibitive for most ... If, if you were like some pharmacologist or some biologist and you, you guys were working together and you developed something. You had this idea about a pathway and you figured out something, and maybe this could fix it, and you really figured it out.

   21. ABAlex Berenson32:14

       Sure.

   22. JRJoe Rogan32:15

       Good fucking luck.

   23. ABAlex Berenson32:17

       Right.

   24. JRJoe Rogan32:17

       Good luck-

   25. ABAlex Berenson32:18

       Right.

   26. JRJoe Rogan32:19

       ... getting that thing approved. (laughs)

   27. ABAlex Berenson32:20

       Well, one, I mean, one of the great disappointments for me, uh, in the last 10 years is realizing that if you had to choose between a sewer system and a medical system, you'd choose the sewer system. Like, in other words, in other words-

   28. JRJoe Rogan32:33

       What's more efficient?

   29. ABAlex Berenson32:34

       What, what actually helps human health more? The great gains for human longevity in the last 200 years have been really simple things. Clean water, try to get the air clean, don't bury, you know, don't have, like, meatpacking plants in the middle of cities. Don't bu- don't have giant graveyards in the middle of cities. Like, that stuff.

   30. JRJoe Rogan32:53

       Have you seen, uh, or w- excuse me, have you read Dissolving Illusions?
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Well, okay. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan45:00

      wild shit, like go hypersonic speeds and hover st- dead still in mid-air and operated without any visible method of propulsion, I would start talking about aliens too. I'd be like, "Dude, they're here. We don't even know what they are. They're off-road vehicles." Like, or, uh, excuse me, u- off-world vehicles. So we... And then people would go, "Oh, yeah. Aliens are here." But meanwhile, what it is is we have super sophisticated tech that your tax dollars have paid for without you having any idea it exists.

   2. NANarrator45:29

      Well, okay.

   3. JRJoe Rogan45:29

      For your own protection.

   4. NANarrator45:30

      So you don't believe in aliens?

   5. JRJoe Rogan45:31

      I do and I don't. Well, I do in, you know, of course, there's the Fermi paradox, like if they're out there, where are they? Why haven't we seen them? But w- how much can we look? That's like a guy poking his head out of a tent going, "I don't see any bear."

   6. NANarrator45:44

      (laughs) That's true.

   7. JRJoe Rogan45:44

      Like bro, how fucking much do you look at?

   8. NANarrator45:46

      That's true.

   9. JRJoe Rogan45:47

      How much are you really paying attention? There's 100 billion stars in this galaxy alone. There's hundreds of billions of galaxies in the known universe. Like, what are you talking about?

   10. NANarrator45:55

       (laughs)

   11. JRJoe Rogan45:55

       Like, where have we looked?

   12. NANarrator45:56

       I'm not saying they're not out there. I'm just saying they're not interested in us. (laughs)

   13. JRJoe Rogan45:59

       Well, I most certainly think they would be interested in us. I'm most c- we, like, we-

   14. NANarrator46:03

       (laughs) Be like, "Who are these fucking idiots?"

   15. JRJoe Rogan46:05

       Right. Well, the same way we go to the Congo and film for Chimp Empire.

   16. NANarrator46:10

       (laughs)

   17. JRJoe Rogan46:10

       It's really not that much different. The same way we go to butterfly habitats and study butterflies. Like human beings are fascinated by some of the most primitive of creatures.

   18. NANarrator46:20

       Yes.

   19. JRJoe Rogan46:20

       You know, a, a long-thought instinct fox becomes a major news story, uh, amongst academics. When, when people can go and travel to exotic places, and especially biologists, and study these animals... You know, like you ever read Sapolsky's work with the baboons?

   20. NANarrator46:37

       Oh.

   21. JRJoe Rogan46:38

       Fascinating stuff. Uh, Sapolsky, who's, uh, he's from Stanford, right? Isn't he a Stanford?

   22. NANarrator46:44

       I think so.

   23. JRJoe Rogan46:44

       Uh, b- just brilliant guy who's done all this crazy work about toxoplasmosis. Are you aware of that?

   24. NANarrator46:51

       No.

   25. JRJoe Rogan46:51

       Toxoplasmosis is nuts. It's one of the reasons why they tell women not, um, to handle kitty litter. Toxoplagma- plasmosis is a cat parasite that grows in a cat's gut. And when it gets on rats, it h- rewires the rat's sexual reward system and make the rats sexually attracted to cat urine.

   26. NANarrator47:12

       (laughs) Jesus Christ.

   27. JRJoe Rogan47:13

       And it removes their fear of cats. So that the cats devour the rats because the only way that that, that parasite can reproduce is inside a cat's gut. So the para- parasite reproduces inside the cat's gut, comes out in cat shit, and then people get.

   28. NANarrator47:30

       (laughs)

   29. JRJoe Rogan47:30

       And people get it from cat shit. You might get it from an open wound, you might get it from handling it, but when people get it, it makes them more reckless. Th- he said there's a disproportionate number of motorcycle victims-

   30. NANarrator47:41

       Huh.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:13:25

   Could you explain to…

   1. ABAlex Berenson1:00:00

      So by, by July of 2021-

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:02

      Could you explain to people that don't understand how that could be possible?

   3. ABAlex Berenson1:00:05

      Sure.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:05

      Or how, how does a, a vaccine promote a variant?

   5. ABAlex Berenson1:00:08

      So, so these vaccines specifically, these mRNAs, cause a very focused immune response. And what they do is they make your body make a specific version of the spike protein, which is, uh, you know, the part of the coronavirus that attaches to your cells and gets the virus into your cells. So the idea is your body makes this spike, your body recognizes it as a, the, the spike as an invader, it makes antibodies against the spike. And then, if you actually are hit with the coronavirus, if you're infected with it, you've got this great head start where your body's antibodies can, can attack the coronavirus and keep it from infecting any of your cells. You don't get infected. You beat it, okay? That, that, that's, I mean, that's the basic theory of the vaccine, okay?

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:50

      Mm-hmm.

   7. ABAlex Berenson1:00:51

      The problem is the virus...... quote unquote "knows" what's happening. The virus, the virus is gonna mutate. There are just gonna be errors in its genome over time. These MR ... these RNA viruses are notorious for this. They, when they replicate, they're, they, they make mistakes. And some of those mistakes in the genome lead the virus to look a little bit different, lead the spike to look a little bit different, and then the antibodies can't attach as well. If you're, if you're a virus that's mutated and you have these different antibodies, you have an advantage. The advantage is suddenly you can infect people again. Guess what? That version of the virus is going to take off and accelerate. So, that's, that's a very natural process. Here's, here's one thing nobody sort of thinks about, which is we really stopped mass vaccinating people in late 2021, early 2022. The rate of variants slowed way down last year and into this year. There ... Omicron came, but since then there hasn't been another major variant class.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:01:51

      Is there any dispute in this? Because th- there was a conversation that I got in with a friend of mine at the very beginning of the pandemic, and he was trying to tell me that his doctor was telling him that it was the unvaccinated people that were causing variants.

   9. ABAlex Berenson1:02:03

      No. Th-

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:02:03

       And I sent him some YouTube videos, I'm like, "This is what I've read." And, uh, what is his name? Geert Vander Boss?

   11. ABAlex Berenson1:02:10

       Yes.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:02:10

       This is, he's a, an expert in, what is he? Uh, he's an epidemiologist or ... I forget what he is.

   13. ABAlex Berenson1:02:17

       Uh.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:02:17

       It's something to do with vaccines.

   15. ABAlex Berenson1:02:18

       Yes.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:02:18

       But he understands the whole pathways. He's like, "You never mass vaccinate during a pandemic."

   17. ABAlex Berenson1:02:23

       Yes.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:02:23

       "Especially with something that doesn't offer ..."

   19. ABAlex Berenson1:02:26

       That's leaky, yes.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:02:27

       Yeah.

   21. ABAlex Berenson1:02:27

       Yes.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:02:28

       Complete.

   23. ABAlex Berenson1:02:28

       So, so I mean, that's why you give people the flu vaccine before flu season. Ideally, you do not mass vaccinate during a pandemic. Uh, so but so, in the summer of 2021, everything went to shit from the point of view of, of the Biden administration, and to a lesser extent the vaccine companies. Okay? The vaccine companies were more aware that this was gonna happen. But remember, the Bidenites and ... You can find, I can find you a clip of Fauci in May 2021 saying, "This is over." Like, "I think we can eliminate this." He said that on the record. They were caught with their pants down, and their response was twofold. One, "We're gonna try to get everyone boosted. We're gonna try to scare people into getting boosted. Or encourage people who, to get boosted." Which, which they knew or should have known was only gonna buy them a matter of months, but they didn't care. They just wanted to do something. The other part though was even worse, and that was the mandates, okay? The mandates were unforgivable. Unforgivable constitutionally, unforgivable medically, and here, this is unfortunately what I've concluded about the mandates. You know what else was happening in August 2021? Afghanistan collapsed, okay? And I don't know if you remember, but I'm sure you can find it. The, there's a picture of Joe Biden sitting alone in the Situation Room looking at TVs, and he looks like, he looks completely lost, okay? We left Afghanistan in July. By August there were, the- the- the- the Tal- the Taliban was in Kabul and we were, you know, Marines were getting killed and Afghans were trying to get on airplanes. It was terrible, okay? Here's the thing about the mandates. Let's, let's just pretend the vaccines actually worked for a long period of time, okay? And let's pretend that 90% or, of older people hadn't been vaccinated, which they had been, okay? So, let's pretend that there was an actual justification for these mandates. What were they, Joe? They were workplace mandates. The government couldn't directly make old people get vaccinated, so they said, "We're gonna have workplace mandates." Who is in the workforce? Healthy adults under 65. So, there was no possibility that the mandates could actually affect the population most at risk from COVID and get them vaccinated. They were designed not to work but to be something that the president could say he was doing at a time when he looked completely incompetent because of what had happened in Afghanistan. That is my true belief about this. That's it. That's it. You need something that is not that picture.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:05:07

       Jeez.

   25. ABAlex Berenson1:05:08

       That was August.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:05:11

       Jeez. Um, I don't know if that's the case, but I do know that ... I mean, if you have a, a vaccine that protects the people that take it, what is, what is the point then?

   27. ABAlex Berenson1:05:27

       (laughs)

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:05:27

       Why are you mandating it for the people that won't be protected?

   29. ABAlex Berenson1:05:30

       That's right. (laughs)

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:05:30

       If it does work-

Episode duration: 2:47:37