EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,261 words- 0:00 – 2:46
Health basics before politics: nutrition, exercise, and immune resilience
- NANarrator
(drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
The Joe Rogan Experience.
- JRJoe Rogan
(instrumental music plays) Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (instrumental music plays)
- ABAlex Berenson
Hello, Alex.
- JRJoe Rogan
Good to see you.
- ABAlex Berenson
Oh, it's, it's a pleasure.
- JRJoe Rogan
How are you feeling out there, you, you truth warrior?
- ABAlex Berenson
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ABAlex Berenson
Well, (laughs) I, I keep waiting to be done with this shit.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ABAlex Berenson
To be done with COVID.
- JRJoe Rogan
It'd be nice to be done, right?
- ABAlex Berenson
They will not let it go.
- JRJoe Rogan
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.
- ABAlex Berenson
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
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.
- ABAlex Berenson
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
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.
- ABAlex Berenson
E- even if you can't do those things, though, like, you can eat decently.
- JRJoe Rogan
You can eat decently.
- ABAlex Berenson
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
I get it.
- ABAlex Berenson
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
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-
- ABAlex Berenson
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
Just, just a little bit. Moderate stuff.
- ABAlex Berenson
Yep.
- JRJoe Rogan
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-
- ABAlex Berenson
(laughs)
- 2:46 – 4:40
Dopamine traps and social media: gambling, overeating, drugs, and online outrage
- ABAlex Berenson
But, but I- I do, you know, I- and I- I wrote about this on the Substack. We were d- you know, we were just talking before we started about when I s- that we didn't- I didn't see you, but when you were in Vegas in July and I was in Vegas in July for, for- I was playing poker, that, like, you know, gambling is a- and I like to gamble. Like, I, I, I don't have a moral problem with it. But gambling destroys people too. Overeating destroys people, gambling destroys people, d-
- JRJoe Rogan
Gambling destroys people.
- ABAlex Berenson
... drugs destroy people. We, we- as human beings, we've set up all these, like, modern things to take advantage of our dopamine.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlex Berenson
And we're not really built for it.
- JRJoe Rogan
We're not. And we're certainly not built for phones.
- ABAlex Berenson
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
You know, so many people are getting destroyed by social media. Like, their lives have become wrapped up in arguing with people, and I just think that's super unhealthy.
- ABAlex Berenson
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's some aspect of it that's very beneficial and positive. I think you get a lot of information that you wouldn't have gotten. I think you get to see people's perspectives that occasionally are very inspiring and very unique and interesting. I l- I love listening or reading things from other people that I think have very good perspectives and interesting perspectives. It's a rare opportunity to talk to people that you wouldn't be able to run into. If we lived in the 1970s, you'd have to cultivate these interesting people, like, in the physical person, which is probably better for you, right? But not available-
- ABAlex Berenson
Not available.
- JRJoe Rogan
... for, for most people.
- ABAlex Berenson
That's right.
- JRJoe Rogan
And we tend to imitate our atmospheres. And you see that in thought bubbles, and I think that's another problem that we have with social media. And there's these thought bubbles, and people just, you know, you just sort of gravitate towards them, you stay in them, and if you're busy, you just sort of get affirmation from that thought bubble and you never think outside the box.
- ABAlex Berenson
Yes. Uh, look, I don't know what we do about social media. I mean, obviously, my career, I wouldn't, I- well, I guess I was on with you one time before COVID, uh, you know, to talk about cannabis, but, but-
- JRJoe Rogan
Before you got kicked off.
- ABAlex Berenson
... before I got kicked off Twitter.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ABAlex Berenson
That's right. And then got put back- well-
- 4:40 – 6:34
Cannabis book context and the downside of normalization
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, let's talk about that-
- ABAlex Berenson
... yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... because you, you came on for your book that I've referenced many times and it's called Tell Your Children, and I think it's, it's- I think it's important. I think when we talk about these things that, uh, some people like to use recreationally, like, even gambling, like you talked about, we have to be aware that there's consequences to these things too. There- it's not an even ride. It's not like every person is gonna handle every situation well.
- ABAlex Berenson
That's right.
- JRJoe Rogan
And we had a, a podcast yesterday with, uh, Kurt Angle, you know, uh, Olympic gold medalist in wrestling and he was the WWE champion, amazing guy. And he had a real pill problem. And he had a pill problem 'cause he broke his neck, like, five times.
- ABAlex Berenson
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
And he had, like, cr- he wrestled in the Olympics with a broken neck.
- ABAlex Berenson
Wow.
- JRJoe Rogan
Broken vertebrae in his neck, and won.
- ABAlex Berenson
Wow. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, just a freak of freaks. Um, but-
- ABAlex Berenson
So he can do that, but, but-
- JRJoe Rogan
But he, he got hooked.
- ABAlex Berenson
He got hooked.
- JRJoe Rogan
He got hooked. I mean, this is, like, the- a man whose mind is as strong as any fucking human who's ever walked the face of the Earth.
- ABAlex Berenson
That's right.
- JRJoe Rogan
If you can win the gold medal in the Olympics in wrestling? Wrestling is one of the most competitive, grueling, insane physical contests that are in the Olympics.
- ABAlex Berenson
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's like, boxing and wrestling-
- ABAlex Berenson
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... are two of the craziest.
- ABAlex Berenson
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
Judo, judo's pretty crazy. But God, those guys are strong, mentally. And for that guy to get hooked on pills...A guy like that, imagine.
- ABAlex Berenson
Be- becau- right. Because it's not about how strong you are, it's just if you, if they, if they click with you-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- ABAlex Berenson
... in some way, you're gonna have a problem.
- JRJoe Rogan
And I, I also had Peter Berg on the podcast, who's brilliant. And Peter, who did that film for Netflix, this, this series that's out now.
- ABAlex Berenson
Oh. Yep.
- JRJoe Rogan
Painkiller. He said he tried an OxyContin once recreationally, and he was like, "Oh my God-
- ABAlex Berenson
(laughs)
- 6:34 – 9:23
Gambling everywhere: from Vegas trips to sports betting on your phone
- ABAlex Berenson
Right. Right. So, so the pro- look, there's always been this stuff. And you know, the legalizers, whether it's drug legalizers or people who, you know, want more gambling, they say, uh, they always say the same thing. "Well, you can't really stop people from doing it, and so you gotta make it safe for them."
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- ABAlex Berenson
Here, here's the problem with that. Here's the flip side of that. When you, when you legalize it or normalize it, you wind up opening it to people who otherwise wouldn't do it.
- JRJoe Rogan
True.
- ABAlex Berenson
And, and let me, let me go back to gambling, 'cause I think it's a little bit less emotionally charged for people. Once upon a time, if you wanted to gamble legally, you had to go to Las Vegas basically, or maybe Atlantic City after, you know, 1978. But basically, you had to go out to the desert and find that gambling. And yeah, maybe-
- JRJoe Rogan
And deal with the mob.
- ABAlex Berenson
And deal with the mob.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ABAlex Berenson
That's right. Or if you wanted to... No, no, if you wanted to bet football, like you could probably find a bookie. You could call-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ABAlex Berenson
... a friend who called a friend and you could... But you know, it was gonna be some guy who might break your arm if you didn't pay.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- ABAlex Berenson
Okay. So you could do it, but it was discouraged and not that easy.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- ABAlex Berenson
Now, we have gambling in like, you know, 23 states. We have lotteries on every corner. And, and just in the last five years, we have sports betting on your phone in m- in many states. So it couldn't be easier. So what does that mean? It means it's gonna wreck people who would never, it would never have been available to before. And that, that... So-
- JRJoe Rogan
That's just a function of freedom.
- ABAlex Berenson
I-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right?
- ABAlex Berenson
Well, it's a... Okay, freedom would be go to Vegas and do it and we're not gonna really judge you for it, but you gotta go get it. This is more-
- JRJoe Rogan
So make it less accessible.
- ABAlex Berenson
That's right. This is more, we're gonna promote this because, because both private interests and the state, state governments make money from it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. Well, you can see it from their perspective too, though, like, "Why, why should we give the revenue to Vegas? We can handle it here."
- ABAlex Berenson
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
"Our residents should be able to gamble here." And what do you... There's a percentage, whatever that percentage is, and I don't know if it's genetic or if it's based on personal experience in gambling that like maybe it's like OxyContin, like Peter Berg took one-
- ABAlex Berenson
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... but if you took like as many as Kurt Angle did, he would be physically hooked too.
- ABAlex Berenson
That's right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Maybe there could be just you chasing bad money a couple of times, and next thing you know, you're doing it-
- ABAlex Berenson
You...
- JRJoe Rogan
... all the time.
- 9:23 – 12:07
Does rehab work? Motivation, AA outcomes, and relapse risk after treatment
- ABAlex Berenson
I don't really think that stuff works very well. To me, I, I... Here's what I do think. I think putting it on people's phones is a mistake. (laughs) I think putting it in every-
- JRJoe Rogan
You don't think gambling rehabilitation works or any rehabilitation?
- ABAlex Berenson
I don't, I don't think rehabilitation works as a rule. I think when people wanna stop, they stop. And-
- JRJoe Rogan
S- but you don't think that support from other human beings that have also gone through it could be beneficial in making good decisions in the future?
- ABAlex Berenson
I think if... I think for people who want to stop, that can be helpful to them. I don't think anybody who goes to rehab unwillingly or even semi-willingly is gonna get much out of it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- ABAlex Berenson
And, and, and y- I know this is a controversial perspective. One of the things that w- so before COVID, just before COVID, I was working on a sort of a, a big book about, bi- bigger than the cannabis book, sort of growing out of the cannabis book, about drug legalization and, and sort of addiction in general. And the most disappointing thing that I found when I was doing this research is that when you try to do randomized trials of where you say that... You, you, you take 100 people and you say, "50 of them, you're gonna get, um, you're gonna go to AA, the other 50 are not." And you look at their outcomes a year or five years later, there's no benefit to even going to AA, which I really thought worked. The reason AA seems to work is that people who go to it and stick with it, like you say, get something out of it. But there are gonna be a bunch of people who don't get anything out of it, who are like, "I don't need, you know, I don't need to give my, uh, you know, uh, volition to God. This is a problem I'm gonna fix. I don't like the AA model. And by the way, why is, you know, why do I have to sit in this room, you know, three hours a week?" So for, for every person who gets something out of it, there's somebody who doesn't get anything out of it. The truth is people stop using drugs or stop gambling when they personally realize that, that it's become a crisis for them.
- JRJoe Rogan
Sometimes though people are motivated by other peoples' feedback. So is there a point of no return or is it... It's gotta be variable for different people. Like I think for some people, rehab is probably very beneficial, especially 'cause they get a chance to talk to someone who made it out of it.
- ABAlex Berenson
L- let me-
- JRJoe Rogan
Who was, who was telling us about this rehab guy that came in cracked out of his mind? Oh, it was Brian Simpson. (laughs)
- ABAlex Berenson
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
That guy, he was like a counselor or something like that, and then one night, he just went off the wagon-
- ABAlex Berenson
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... and came back to work in the morning and everyone's like, "Hey, are we supposed to pretend that you're not cracked"
- ABAlex Berenson
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
"out of your mind right now?"
- ABAlex Berenson
No, but l- let me give you... But you, you, you laugh, but the most dangerous time for an addict is the first two weeks after they come out of rehab, because they've stopped-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- ABAlex Berenson
... using, their tolerance is down, and if they start again, that's when people OD and die the most.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, Jesus.
- ABAlex Berenson
(exhales) It's not easy.
- 12:07 – 15:41
Opioids, Purdue, and the ‘poison tree’: corporate incentives and historical parallels
- JRJoe Rogan
So then the argument... But then the argument against legalization, here's the problem. And, you know, I've talked about this ad nauseam. If you heard this, I'm sorry. E- when I was a kid, if someone was on heroin, that was fucking super rare. It was super rare.
- ABAlex Berenson
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
You would know that guy's off the deep end. Like, Johnny's out there in the woods doing heroin. Like, whoa. Like, that guy's gone. But now, to hear, "Oh, my uncle got hooked on pills," is super normal.
- ABAlex Berenson
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's super normal.
- ABAlex Berenson
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
And now, because of these documentaries, we know, like, what was the root cause of that. But now, once it's kind of been established that this is a recreational thing for people, (exhales) so what do you do? Do you outlaw it? And then what does that do? That- that empowers the cartels because there's the demand already.
- ABAlex Berenson
Well- well, so- so- okay. So the roots of the opioid crisis are exactly, you know, Peter Berg, I mean, you know, that- that- that- that series is completely correct. It came out of Purdue Pharma, it came out of, unfortunately, some doctors, some of whom I think thought they were doing the right thing, some of whom were motivated by money. They pushed prescriptions of opioids in the US in an absolutely insane way, and we've now tried to push back, but we're still dealing with the fruits of that poison tree.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wasn't that done before in other countries to kind of ruin countries?
- ABAlex Berenson
Uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
Like introduce heroin?
- ABAlex Berenson
Yeah, the- I mean, the classic example, and- and the, you know, when people talk about how the Chinese export fentanyl to the United States-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlex Berenson
... I guarantee you there are people in China who have not forgot. The opium wars, in the 19th century, the US and Britain, and this is something we should f- be ashamed of forever, we basically forced opium on the Chinese, and we- we destroyed that society.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, you and I weren't alive.
- ABAlex Berenson
That's true.
- JRJoe Rogan
So I don't think we should be ashamed. (laughs) But I think, uh, human beings in general have done some really fucking heinous things. We just wanna pretend that they don't do them anymore.
- ABAlex Berenson
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
You know?
- ABAlex Berenson
Oh, no, they do them.
- JRJoe Rogan
But isn't it interesting? Like it's part of the pushback of all this stuff from people that are- that have no stake in the game other than they're a human being is that you're saying something that shatters their narrative. They have- they have a narrative that they've established about what's good in the world, how the world- what's the right thing to do, and the- the direction we have to go, and these people are looking out for us, and these people are Nazis. And- and when you have that and something comes along and says, "Hey, there- there might be something afoot here, you should pay attention. Like, there's some data you should look at." We have a long history of people lying about all kinds of things.
- ABAlex Berenson
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) You know, whether it's the opium war or fucking everything throughout human history.
- ABAlex Berenson
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
But for whatever it is, like now, we don't, "Hey, that's not- that's- oh, this conspiracy theorist."
- ABAlex Berenson
That's right.
- JRJoe Rogan
"Oh, this guy, this- this wacky guy with his fringe ideas, he's an alt-right hero," 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.
- ABAlex Berenson
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
But this is like... (laughs)
- ABAlex Berenson
(laughs) You got me laughing because it's such bullshit.
- 15:41 – 21:19
Power, leadership instincts, and gerontocracy: ‘chimp hierarchy’ politics
- ABAlex Berenson
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
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?
- ABAlex Berenson
Uh-huh.
- JRJoe Rogan
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.
- ABAlex Berenson
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
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-
- ABAlex Berenson
Sure, sure.
- JRJoe Rogan
... 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.
- ABAlex Berenson
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
So it's this incredible opportunity to watch their social hierarchies.
- ABAlex Berenson
Huh.
- JRJoe Rogan
And it's just like people. There's a leader. There's always a leader.
- ABAlex Berenson
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's always a leader.
- ABAlex Berenson
There's always someone in charge.
- JRJoe Rogan
And there's young people that are challenging the leader, and the leader has to beat them down.
- ABAlex Berenson
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
And it gets to a certain point in time where the leader can't do that anymore.
- ABAlex Berenson
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And he has to relinquish.
- ABAlex Berenson
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
And it's all about the relationships they develop while they're leaders. And those are the ones that can go on the longest. That's the same thing with human beings.
- ABAlex Berenson
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's like goddamn it, it's literally our programming, and we've surpassed it in our ability to communicate, in our ability to understand the variables, and the amount of variables, but we still operate on this chimp hierarchy.
- ABAlex Berenson
But we're all just a bunch of chimps. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
It's really crazy because if you watch the- that Chimp Empire show and you think of us, like you can go, "Oh my god, this is what our problem is." We always wanna have a leader. We always wanna run things. We always wanna tell other people. We- w- we get power out of telling other people what to do. Some people just get their jollies. Like you know that if you have a bad boss-
- ABAlex Berenson
Oh, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and the b- the boss like yells at all the people in the warehouse.
- ABAlex Berenson
Oh, yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like fuck.
- 21:19 – 32:20
Pharma strategy and ‘gray-area’ truth: incentives, hospital coding, and real-world corruption
- ABAlex Berenson
Well, I mean, so this is a good, I mean, it's a good segue into a lot of things, but it's also a good segue into sort of COVID and pharma and those guys because, because they are masters at going to the edge of the line, going to the gray area.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- ABAlex Berenson
They don't, they don't necessarily lie, although sometimes I think when they're forced to, they will lie. But they shade the truth. They, they run studies in a way that determines, you know, that, that gets the out- gets them to the outcome they want. They use friendly doctors to promote. You saw it, with pharma, with, with Purdue Pharma, with the, with Oxy and with the opioids, you saw this in spades, and we're seeing it again right now with the mRNA vaccines. So, these co- these companies, they know, they're very, they're very legally wise and they play games.
- JRJoe Rogan
And they're allowed to.
- ABAlex Berenson
And they're allowed to.
- JRJoe Rogan
And that's their job, right? That's what's interesting.
- ABAlex Berenson
Well, you would hope it's not their job.
- JRJoe Rogan
Their job is to sell... Well, there's one guy's job, and that guy's job is to invent medicine. I mean, not one guy.
- ABAlex Berenson
Yeah, but there are-
- JRJoe Rogan
One, one group of humans.
- ABAlex Berenson
... sure.
- JRJoe Rogan
And then the other people, th- their job is to sell it.
- ABAlex Berenson
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Their job is to get it out there, and they're very different kinds of thought processes I would imagine. And that's part of the problem with like business and medicine when they're together. It's like either we're looking out for each other or we're trying to make insane amounts of wealth from each other.
- ABAlex Berenson
That's right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Both of those things are like, that's two ways (laughs) of looking at healthcare for a country. Either we say the, the whole reason the system is in place is to make sure that everybody is healthy, and if you get injured, we can help you. If you could do it that way, that would be wonderful. The other way to do it is saying, "We gotta fucking get you on as much shit as possible, because the more stuff we sell to you, the more money we make."
- ABAlex Berenson
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
And, and, and if there's a reason to recommend it, we're gonna recommend it because you wanna make our reps happy, wanna make the hospital happy.
- ABAlex Berenson
Yep.
- JRJoe Rogan
And unfortunately, that seems to be real too.
- ABAlex Berenson
Well, it's v- it's very, (laughs) it's very real.
- JRJoe Rogan
So that's real too. So that's a real possibility in t- today's modern age. And I'm, I'm sure there are people that fall into the former. I'm sure there's a, I mean, I know doctors that are great human beings and they really enjoy being able to help people.
- ABAlex Berenson
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's not, it's just like, it's just that's how a system works. When, when a system has the opportunity to make more money by doing certain things, it's like, it's not the scientists that are doing, trying to do that. It's like-
- ABAlex Berenson
It-
- JRJoe Rogan
... there's a whole system.
- ABAlex Berenson
... it, it's, so with the drug companies, and I think this is true of Dr. Sue, it's not that they, they want people to get better. I do believe that, okay? But once you've invested a billion or two billion dollars in a drug and you've brought it to market and it's gotten FDA approval, you're gonna do whatever you can to protect it. And that means generally exaggerating its benefits and, if there are problems with it, doing everything you can to hide those problems.
- JRJoe Rogan
And that's almost like a fiscal responsibility of being a publicly traded company-
- ABAlex Berenson
To your shareholders. That's right. That's right. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... which is really crazy. That's what's really crazy. What's really crazy about it is that money and medicine are all combined. And it's not saying that doctors don't deserve money or the people that develop medicines don't deserve money. It's, they certainly do. They work really hard. But what I am saying is when you have anything that gets wrapped up in a lot of money-... people want to make more.
- 32:20 – 37:16
What actually improved longevity: sanitation, clean water, and limits of medical spending
- ABAlex Berenson
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-
- JRJoe Rogan
What's more efficient?
- ABAlex Berenson
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
Have you seen, uh, or w- excuse me, have you read Dissolving Illusions?
- ABAlex Berenson
I have not.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's a fantastic book about just that.
- ABAlex Berenson
Huh.
- JRJoe Rogan
And the beginning of it is they talk about the conditions that people lived in because you never really think about it, like, what would it be like to live in a city before there were cars? Well, guess what?
- ABAlex Berenson
Horse shit. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
But nothing gets to you.
- ABAlex Berenson
That's right.
- JRJoe Rogan
You're not getting fresh vegetables-
- ABAlex Berenson
That's right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... in the winter. You're not getting vitamins.
- ABAlex Berenson
That's right.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's massive malnutrition, starvation, extreme poverty, people living in squalor.
- ABAlex Berenson
Yup.
- JRJoe Rogan
Terrible sanitation.
- ABAlex Berenson
Yup.
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, open outhouses for entire blocks of people.
- ABAlex Berenson
Yup.
- JRJoe Rogan
And just crazy diseases.
- ABAlex Berenson
Yup.
- JRJoe Rogan
And they all lived on top of each other. And again, malnutrition, no vitamin D, no sunlight exposure in the winter.
- ABAlex Berenson
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
Et cetera, et cetera.
- ABAlex Berenson
They-
- JRJoe Rogan
And a lot of those people got horrible diseases because of that, just like they did in the olden times, like we know about-
- ABAlex Berenson
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
... when people dumped shit in the streets.
- 37:16 – 40:04
Lab-leak certainty and gain-of-function critique: ‘stop this research’
- ABAlex Berenson
No, if there's a bad flu or bad, you know, another coronavirus, you ... I can just about guarantee you, that will come out of a lab, just like this one did. Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
This is a conspiracy theory, and this is getting you kicked off YouTube. (laughs)
- ABAlex Berenson
(laughs) It's not a conspiracy theory to say, "Came-"
- JRJoe Rogan
It used to be.
- ABAlex Berenson
"... out of a lab."
- JRJoe Rogan
Isn't it funny that it used to be?
- ABAlex Berenson
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
It used to be racist to say it.
- ABAlex Berenson
That's right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Used to be something wrong with you.
- ABAlex Berenson
Not-
- JRJoe Rogan
They did an amazing job of gaslighting people.
- ABAlex Berenson
I didn't say it was made in a lab. I said it came out of a lab.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- ABAlex Berenson
And it did, okay?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ABAlex Berenson
So, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, it seems like the people in the lab were, were patients zero, right?
- ABAlex Berenson
Yeah, they were f- they were fucking around with the coronavirus. They were trying to make it more dangerous or trying to make a vaccine, a pan-coronavirus vaccine, and they didn't ... They ... You know, somebody slipped or somebody accidentally injected a ferret when they were supposed to inject a mouse, and it all started there.
- JRJoe Rogan
Most likely.
- ABAlex Berenson
Yes, most likely.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. It's just, um, that's weird how little outrage there is about that.
- ABAlex Berenson
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- ABAlex Berenson
By, by the way, if it came out of a, of a cave, it came out of a cave when some idiot who shouldn't have been in the cave was poking around, swabbing a bat's asshole to try to, like, find a virus. So either way, it's the fault of our effort.
- JRJoe Rogan
(sighs)
- ABAlex Berenson
We did this, okay?
- JRJoe Rogan
Is there any benefit from that kind of research?
- ABAlex Berenson
No.
- JRJoe Rogan
Or is it just one of those things-
- 40:04 – 41:02
Nukes, Oppenheimer, and why bio-risk is harder to govern
- ABAlex Berenson
The ... You know, it, it, it ... So have you ... Did you see Oppenheimer, the movie?
- JRJoe Rogan
I haven't seen it yet.
- ABAlex Berenson
So it's pretty great, okay?
- JRJoe Rogan
Heard it's amazing.
- ABAlex Berenson
And, and, and so I read the book it's based on, which is also pretty amazing, okay? That was a case ... You know, those guys, unbelievable. They just like ... They, they looked inside the atom with their minds, right? It's unbelievable they figured out how this works. And then they took metal and they fi- ... They made the sun, okay? They made an explosion like the sun. They figured it out in a matter of years. It was so scary to people, the threat that nuclear weapons pose, that we actually kinda got it under control. We never used them again after 1945.
- JRJoe Rogan
Which is really astonishing.
- ABAlex Berenson
It's pretty amazing. So-
- JRJoe Rogan
Really astonishing.
- ABAlex Berenson
So, so, so when, when the threat is obvious enough that, like, you can eliminate a city in seconds, our little lizard brains, we figure something out. The problem is with, with these viruses, it's a little more marginal. It's not as obvious. And so we have these people just continuing to mess around with them.
- 41:02 – 50:20
UFOs/UAPs detour: skepticism, drones, and why secrecy fuels belief
- JRJoe Rogan
I hate to take you off track, but when the nuclear bombs were first detonated, uh, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and I think with some of the tests too, right after that is when people started seeing a lot of UFOs.
- ABAlex Berenson
Huh.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's like the folklore behind UFOs. They all started coming after '47.
- ABAlex Berenson
Huh.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ABAlex Berenson
I did not know that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. So I would ask you, what the fuck is going on?
- ABAlex Berenson
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
What the fuck is going on? When you see all this UAP stuff and all these people that are whistleblowers-
- ABAlex Berenson
Uh-huh.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and they're talking about crashed retrieval programs where they can do ... recover crashed UFOs and back engineer them. Like, what's going on?
- ABAlex Berenson
So, so I'm not a believer in this. And let me tell you why, okay?
- JRJoe Rogan
Please tell me.
- ABAlex Berenson
You are an alien, okay?
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- ABAlex Berenson
You have super hyper advanced technology. You can, you can go faster than the speed of light. You can get to Earth. You can figure out that this one little planet has, uh, other human beings or has other, you know, life forms on it that you want to go see, okay?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, right.
- ABAlex Berenson
You do that. Then you crash your stupid UFO into the desert, okay?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ABAlex Berenson
And, and-
- JRJoe Rogan
I have a problem with that.
- ABAlex Berenson
One, one, one more point on this, okay? Hey, what happened with the, with the Titan submersible, okay? That thing went down and basically, they knew-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- ABAlex Berenson
... okay, within hours that it was blown up, okay?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- ABAlex Berenson
They still ... We're human beings, we try to rescue other human beings, okay? The aliens aren't gonna try to rescue other aliens if there's been a crash? They're not gonna try to come get them?
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, there-
- ABAlex Berenson
You tell me, you tell me why it's always in the desert in Arizona. They never show up at the White House. They never show up in Times Square. Why?
- JRJoe Rogan
There have been places, um, where, uh, large groups of people have seen it, and there, there was a place in, um, Brazil, uh, Varginha, Brazil. And there's a very interesting documentary about it, uh, called Moment of Contact. And there was a crash. There was a, a crazy lightning storm.... and there was a crash, and they claimed that there was actual live beings. And one of these guys took one of these beings to a hospital, they were refused, they brought it to another hospital. I think they wanted to bring it to a third hospital. The guy who was carrying this alien, supposedly, uh, but this is a fact, this guy died of some incurable bacterial disease that they had n- no hope of fixing.
- NANarrator
Hmm.
- 50:20 – 1:00:02
‘COVID is over’ but mRNA isn’t: long-term uncertainty, mandates, and the booster push
- ABAlex Berenson
That, that COVID is definitely over. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, I'm jo- ... You know what I mean? It's, it's here. Take care of yourself, and it's a cold.
- ABAlex Berenson
Uh, uh.
- JRJoe Rogan
Nobody wants to say that. It's like it's a dis- like this forbidden thing.
- ABAlex Berenson
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, come on, kids.
- ABAlex Berenson
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Let's be real about it.
- ABAlex Berenson
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Let's be real about it now.
- ABAlex Berenson
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know, and if you ... (sighs) That Kathy Hochul thing, when she was on TV saying, you know, "You have to get, uh, th- this is, this is a new vaccine. The old one's not gonna work for it." Like ... (sighs)
- ABAlex Berenson
She's, she's always saying what the CDC just said. It's crazy. Okay, so COVID is over, okay? But here's what I'm telling you, and, and, like, I guess I'm gonna be stuck beating this drum for I don't know how long. We do not know what the long-term effects of the mRNA vaccines are, and it is, it is ... I, I would go beyond borderline. I would say it is immoral and unethical to keep using those right now, okay? There are ... If you're gonna insist on giving people COVID vaccines, there are simpler, cheaper ones that don't have this question about what they do long term. The mRNAs, at this point, to me, they're a failed product, and they basically should be withdrawn. Um, it will never happen. There's far, far too much at stake for both the pharmaceutical industry and public health and the Democratic Party and the media to even consider allowing that to happen. But the promise, Joe, the promise two and a half years ago was, "These vaccines are new. They are gonna revolutionize the treatment of respiratory viruses. They're gonna eliminate COVID." Don't let them tell you that's not what they said, 'cause it is what they said. Okay? Not, "There may be some symptom reduction. It may reduce cases of serious illness." No. It was, "These are so effective. We're gonna get the herd immunity with them, and COVID is not gonna be a problem ever again." That was total horseshit, and we can't let them forget it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ABAlex Berenson
And I know, I know this is boring. I know there's only, like, a few people who care, but it's so important.
- JRJoe Rogan
No, I think a lot of people care. I don't, I don't think it's a few people. It's just uncomfortable. All these things are so uncomfortable. You know?
- ABAlex Berenson
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's just a reality that people would sell things that don't work just to make money, and they could put you at risk. But it's like, if they can, they will, and if they have it for sale, it's like, "We gotta get this stuff off the shelves."
- ABAlex Berenson
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
"Come on, we've been developing this. We developed this thing for the variants."
- ABAlex Berenson
The ... So, this is a number I'm-
- JRJoe Rogan
Didn't they just test it on 10 mice?
- ABAlex Berenson
Yes. Pfizer, literally 10 mice. Yes. Not a joke. Um, I ... There were five billion doses so far of the mRNAs made, okay? About $100 billion sold by Pfizer. Uh, no. I want a little bit more. 100 and, 110, $120 billion sold by Pfizer and Moderna combined. Okay? My best estimate, I, and I haven't been able to lock it down, 'cause the numbers are really hard to find, two billion of those five billion doses were thrown away, unused. The companies made somewhere between 40, $50 billion on vaccine that just got tossed. Thrown ... It was a pure gift to the companies. $40 billion.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- ABAlex Berenson
Now, that, that, even by, even by American pharmaceutical standards, that's a lot of money. It's a lot of money to waste.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Jeez.
- ABAlex Berenson
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
How much did they make?
- ABAlex Berenson
'Cause nobody wanted them. Uh, they made, Pfizer made 75 billion in 2021 and 2022. Moderna made close to 40. They made some more this year-
- JRJoe Rogan
Phew.
- 1:00:02 – 1:16:44
Variants, ‘leaky’ vaccines, and cost-benefit for youth boosters (myocarditis risk)
- JRJoe Rogan
Could you explain to people that don't understand how that could be possible?
- ABAlex Berenson
Sure.
- JRJoe Rogan
Or how, how does a, a vaccine promote a variant?
- ABAlex Berenson
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?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlex Berenson
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
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.
- ABAlex Berenson
No. Th-
- JRJoe Rogan
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?
- ABAlex Berenson
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
This is, he's a, an expert in, what is he? Uh, he's an epidemiologist or ... I forget what he is.
- ABAlex Berenson
Uh.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's something to do with vaccines.
- ABAlex Berenson
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
But he understands the whole pathways. He's like, "You never mass vaccinate during a pandemic."
- ABAlex Berenson
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
"Especially with something that doesn't offer ..."
- ABAlex Berenson
That's leaky, yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- ABAlex Berenson
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
Complete.
- ABAlex Berenson
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
Jeez.
- ABAlex Berenson
That was August.
- JRJoe Rogan
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?
- ABAlex Berenson
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Why are you mandating it for the people that won't be protected?
- ABAlex Berenson
That's right. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
If it does work-
- ABAlex Berenson
That's right.
Episode duration: 2:47:37
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