EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,093 words- 0:00 – 0:36
NYC migrant surge: why Adams says the city “can’t handle this”
- NANarrator
(drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
The Joe Rogan Experience.
- JRJoe Rogan
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night! All day! (instrumental music) What's up? Good to see you, man. What's cracking?
- CHColeman Hughes
Yeah, you too. I'm good. I can't complain.
- JRJoe Rogan
We were just talking about, uh, you live in New York City.
- CHColeman Hughes
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
And whether or not the migrant crisis is a, a real thing.
- CHColeman Hughes
It's a real thing.
- JRJoe Rogan
That you notice it.
- CHColeman Hughes
It's a real thing. You notice it, uh, uh, in Port Authority. And, uh, I think when Eric Adams gets in front of the country and says, "I can't handle this," I think he's telling the truth.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- 0:36 – 4:11
The legal backstory: New York’s ‘right to shelter’ and unintended consequences
- CHColeman Hughes
Right? Uh, and some people have accused him of racism, bizarrely, but I don't think it comes from that. I looked into this, and, you know, the part people don't know about this story is, is really the full unfolding of it goes back to the 1930s. New York State made a constitutional amendment to the state constitution which provi- w- which required the state to provide housing for, for the homeless, essentially, and it was sort of vaguely worded. So, in the '80s and '90s, the, the courts in New York began interpreting that more and more strictly. Almost no other state... I'm not sure if any other state actually has something in its state constitution, uh, requiring that, that kind of a thing. So, basically, what happened is, is the judges ended up interpreting this more strictly. Obviously, the original purpose of this is for New Yorkers that are homeless to be housed. But they ended up interpreting it so strictly that when the Republican governors in Texas and Florida began sending a few thousand migrants up to New York City as kind of an F you to the liberal cities that have declared themselves sanctuary cities without actually having to deal with the kind of border crisis that Texas does, a few... The first few thousand found that, legally, New York had to house them. And then word got down to Mexico that if you make it to New York City, you will not be turned away. Legally, you don't even have to be a ci- a citizen for the state amendment to apply to you. So, what began as a few, let's say, the first 10 or 15,000 were sent by the Republican governors as a kind of political tactic, has now become tens and tens and tens and tens of thousand coming of their own volition to New York City, and it's the only state in the country where th- uh, Mayor Adams has no legal recourse to send people elsewhere. He, he actually cannot do it. He's tried to do executive orders, but he legally can't because it's in the state constitution. It's above his, it's above his power.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- CHColeman Hughes
And now, it's its own... It's, it's, it's, uh, it's taken on a life of its own way over and above what the Republican governors started. So, it's, uh... This is why he's going to the national media and literally saying, "I can't do anything about this. I'm trying to do something about this, but I can't, and we're putting people up in Airbnbs for, you know, $100 a, a, a night, and the city will be bankrupt in X number of years if we don't find a solution to this."
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, my God (laughs) .
- CHColeman Hughes
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
I was looking at a video of the Roosevelt Hotel, which is no longer a hotel.
- CHColeman Hughes
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Th- they've essentially said this is now, uh, a center for housing migrants.
- CHColeman Hughes
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
And they, they've said the restaurant is no longer a restaurant, and sorry, that's just how it is now.
- CHColeman Hughes
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, what do you do if you own the Roosevelt Hotel and you just wanted it to be a hotel, and now-
- CHColeman Hughes
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... the state just says, "Nope"?
- CHColeman Hughes
Yeah. I mean, look, I, I don't blame any of these people. If you (laughs) -
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- CHColeman Hughes
... if I was born in Mexico-
- JRJoe Rogan
100%.
- CHColeman Hughes
... we'd all be doing the same thing.
- JRJoe Rogan
100%.
- CHColeman Hughes
It's just, it's the smart thing to do from their perspective. But that doesn't mean from our perspective that we should just put out the bat signal to the whole world and say, "You can come to New York City, and we have no legal recourse to move you anywhere else."
- 4:11 – 6:15
Compassion vs. incentives: asylum abuse, demographics, and the ‘trade-offs’ frame
- JRJoe Rogan
But it's just, it's not just New York City. It's other parts of the world. It's strange that recently it's become this crisis where migrants are coming en masse to these places and just flooding them. Like, is this orchestrated? Is this just a fact that they found out that they can do it and it's better than where they are, and if they go there, these places that are, you know, essentially, uh, you know, they're charitably minded, and they, you know, they would like to house people-
- CHColeman Hughes
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... that are down on their luck, but now people are t- sort of taking advantage of that loophole and just swarming?
- CHColeman Hughes
I think that's what it is. I think the whole Western world has become much more open to immigration recently. Obviously, America was open to immigration in the 19th century, but we were the outlier.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- CHColeman Hughes
All the other countries of the world, the default was closed borders-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- CHColeman Hughes
... essentially. So, I think the whole world has, out of empathy for the, the poor and struggling, has wanted to have more permissive immigration, but that sends an incentive to people of the world that, that they can now come. They can, you know, abuse asylum laws. And again, I, I don't even blame people for doing this 'cause it's exactly-
- JRJoe Rogan
No.
- CHColeman Hughes
... what I would do-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes, absolutely.
- CHColeman Hughes
... if I were born in Guatemala or Syria. I would say, "Hey, I'm, I, I'm, I'm, I'm a refugee. Uh, this is my story." And I would probably lie about it in order to get a better life than the one life that I had. But the, this is just a true side effect of those compassionate laws is that people abuse them. You get r- you know, i- immigration pools that are vastly proportionately male, which is how you know that they're not refugees, because where, where are the women, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- CHColeman Hughes
Um, and, uh, it's just, it's, it's a side effect of, of the intended compassionate immigration policy that's, this is how this works, right? This... Thomas Sowell's great quote, "There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs."
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- CHColeman Hughes
This policy has a trade-off. It's more compassionate, but it also leads to, in the case of New York, what could be a serial- a, a serious fiscal crisis.
- 6:15 – 9:32
Deporting Venezuelans and the politics of voter ID
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.I was... Someone told me this. I- I- I was looking to check into this, but I figured I'd wait until the podcast. Um, someone was telling me that the Biden administration is talking about sending people back to Venezuela-
- CHColeman Hughes
Oh, I hadn't heard about this.
- JRJoe Rogan
... to deport Venezuelans. See if you can find anything about this.
- CHColeman Hughes
Why- why Venezuela specifically?
- JRJoe Rogan
Because Venezuela is dealing with a communist socialist government-
- CHColeman Hughes
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and they wouldn't vote for that in America.
- CHColeman Hughes
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Now, one of the things that's weird about this crisis is it comes at the same time as people trying to say that you should have no voter ID-
- CHColeman Hughes
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and they've openly spoken about it in New York that people who are illegal immigrants should be allowed to vote.
- CHColeman Hughes
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's-
- JRJoe Rogan
Which is really... Look, I cannot talk shit-
- CHColeman Hughes
They- they- they've been push- pushing for that for years. Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
I cannot talk shit because I am the product of immigration. My parents-
- CHColeman Hughes
Yeah, as am I.
- JRJoe Rogan
My grandparents came over here in the 1920s, and that is just, you know... Okay.
- CHColeman Hughes
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, that's why I'm here, so-
- CHColeman Hughes
Where'd they come from?
- JRJoe Rogan
They came from Italy-
- CHColeman Hughes
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and Ireland.
- CHColeman Hughes
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And that's just why I'm here.
- CHColeman Hughes
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know, so they came over when they knew that they could have a better life in America, and these people are doing the same thing, and I understand it. But the-
- CHColeman Hughes
So do you-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's just wild that there's no requirements.
- CHColeman Hughes
Mm-hmm.
- 9:32 – 11:59
COVID-era contradictions: IDs for voting vs. IDs for vax mandates
- CHColeman Hughes
Speaking of the- the voter ID thing, though, this is one thing that, uh, really made me crazy during COVID. For years, people on the left have been saying that voter ID laws are racist. I don't know if you've paid attention to this-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- CHColeman Hughes
... at all, but the argument is that Black people, and especially poor Black people, struggle to get IDs. It's never made much sense because you need an ID to buy a six-pack. You need an ID to open a bank account. You need an ID... It's just that all these, you know, normal things that people of all classes and races have to do. And then when, uh, in- in New York City, during COVID, they implemented the policy that to get into any restaurant, any gym, anywhere in the city, you needed vax card plus ID. So me paying attention to the discourse for the past few years, I thought to myself, "Where is everyone on the left that said Black people don't have IDs?" Shouldn't they be calling this policy racist and saying that we are excluding all of the restaurants and gyms and so forth, uh, to Black people because you need vax card plus ID and Black people can't get IDs? I'm doing the math here. I didn't hear a single peep from anyone of the usual suspects. And I said, "This is how you know it's a fake belief."
- JRJoe Rogan
Let's-
- CHColeman Hughes
They never really believed that Black people can't get IDs.
- JRJoe Rogan
No, it's- it's- it's not just a fake belief. It's... If you wanted to say something's racist, you could make a much better argument that vaccine mandates are racist, because the majority, uh, at- at least in the beginning of the COVID v- vaccine rollout, the majority of the people that were refusing it were African Americans-
- CHColeman Hughes
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and, uh, Latinos.
- CHColeman Hughes
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
They were like, "We don't buy this."
- CHColeman Hughes
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Especially when you deal with the Tuskegee crisis. When you- when you hear about the times in the past where medical interventions are specifically targeted or there's been, like- like, evil shit that they've done specifically-
- CHColeman Hughes
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... to Black Americans-
- CHColeman Hughes
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and they- they're suspicious.
- CHColeman Hughes
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right?
- CHColeman Hughes
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And so...
- CHColeman Hughes
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, um, definitely, I- so I- I was always curious, was it... I think in the Black community, in general, people are just more suspicious of the government, in general.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- CHColeman Hughes
Just in every possible way, from dealing with the police to dealing with just-
- JRJoe Rogan
Court systems.
- CHColeman Hughes
... in- in- in any domain, and-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- 11:59 – 18:42
Media incentives, ‘racism stories,’ and missing public-health nuance
- CHColeman Hughes
... they did make the argument that COVID itself was systemically racist because it was, at least in the beginning, it was disproportionately killing Black people. Uh, I thought this was... Again, this is a very simplistic way of thinking.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- CHColeman Hughes
I don't equate disparities with racism.But I noticed The Washington Post ran a story a few years later that maybe by 2022, COVID was disproportionately killing white people, right? Because the situations change and i- it's just very complicated, right? Very few things fall equally along every population-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- CHColeman Hughes
... in life. And I asked the question, "Okay, is, did systemic racism change its direction? Is, is COVID now anti-white?" Well, no. The truth is that, you know, every disease has a different racial profile in terms of who, who it affects. Hispanics, for whatever reason, no one understands it, Hispanics have the lowest maternal mortality rates, lower than white people. Nobody gets it. I- it could be any number of things. There are many cancers that, uh, preferentially, some kill Black people more often, some kill white people more often. If you look at the CDC charts, you'll just find every disease has its own profile. And rather than say, "Okay, this d- this disease is racist because it has a disproportion," we should all back off the R word a little bit and realize that, you know, these things are very complicated, multifactorial, and to reduce it all to racism is, is just very... You know, it, we've gotten into this thing where we all, all, we have a hammer and everything looks like a nail, and the media knows that racism stories get clicks, so everything becomes about that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, it becomes a failure of mainstream media and that, that therein what you're talking about, about the need for clicks, that's a huge part of this failure-
- CHColeman Hughes
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... is that they rely on people paying attention. So, to pay attention to a story, like, or in order to be incentivized, it has to be something that outrages you or infuri- or s- scares you.
- CHColeman Hughes
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And so those are the things that they lead with. And it's, it's good and it's bad. The good part is it's given rise in a major way to independent journalism.
- CHColeman Hughes
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Th- so many people have lost faith in what they deem to be corrupt, very biased, and obviously corporate-influenced mainstream media, 'cause they, they'll hide certain narratives. They'll, you know, if it's Fox News, they, they will never criticize the right. Everything is about the left. If it's CNN, everything is about the right being fools and the, the left being, like, the ones that are on the right side of history. It's just, it's just shitty journalism. And-
- CHColeman Hughes
You know that, um, that, you know comedian Ryan Long, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- CHColeman Hughes
You, you've probably seen his skit where he takes footage of the BLM protests and the, the, uh, police brutality videos and he says, "You know, I, I give half of them to CNN and half of them to Fox."
- JRJoe Rogan
No, how, what, what does, what do you mean?
- CHColeman Hughes
I mean, he has this hilarious skit where he's, he, he, he's like to cameramen essentially, to media organizations, like, "What do you do with that other half of the footage?" Right? "You shouldn't just waste it. You should give it to the other side." Right? "So give the videos of, of, of police officers beating up protestors, you give that to CNN, and you give the videos of rioters burning down mom and pop shops to, uh, give that to Fox." Right? And he, he, it's, it's almost like an infomercial for how he doesn't waste any bit of the animal when he cooks the food, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- CHColeman Hughes
It, it's, it's very funny.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's just, it's a failure. I mean, uh, actual journalism should be unbiased, objective people discussing what is actually going on. And that, that is definitely not the case, and that's part of what we're running into. And, you know, when it comes to the, the COVID deaths, (sighs) I mean, so many factors were never discussed. And one of the big ones that seems to affect the African American community more than other people is vitamin D deficiencies.
- CHColeman Hughes
Mm.
- JRJoe Rogan
The reason why there's so much melanin in African American skin is 'cause people in Africa deal with very hot climates and direct contact to sunlight.
- CHColeman Hughes
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And so they have protection from that. The reason why people became white is 'cause they moved to areas that are covered with clouds-
- CHColeman Hughes
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... like England. And the, it's not a fucking coincidence that people there is pale, are pale as paper.
- CHColeman Hughes
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's because they're, they're basically a solar panel for vitamin D.
- CHColeman Hughes
Mm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Their body's trying to produce more vitamin D, and the way to do that is to produce less melanin.
- 18:42 – 27:27
RFK Jr., taboos, and why ‘bad-faith framing’ breaks trust
- CHColeman Hughes
So, I watched your RFK Jr. episode and, you know, I watched the whole thing very carefully. I read his books and checked the footnotes and, you know, all of the people that are, you know, my friends that are very smart people, um, really disagreed with the fact that I liked him. So, I had to do a lot of soul-searching about what it is that resonated with me, but not with all of my, you know, intellectual and journalist colleagues that I tend to agree with about 90% of stuff. I really had to do some soul-searching and, you know, what I came out feeling was that... It wasn't that I agreed with RFK about every claim that he made. In fact, there are certain claims that he made that I double-checked that were flat-out wrong. It's that I felt the version of RFK portrayed in the mainstream media was a totally different person from the real RFK.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- CHColeman Hughes
And that there was a, a framing put around him that was so obviously, uh, uncharitable and bad-faith. So for example, if I told you... If, if I'm one of those people that was obsessed with getting fluoride out of the water, right? And that was my cause in life. As a journalist, what would you label me?
- JRJoe Rogan
Well-
- CHColeman Hughes
Coleman Hughes, the...
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. The conspiracy theorist or, or-
- CHColeman Hughes
Or even more neutrally-
- JRJoe Rogan
... the fluoride denier, or-
- CHColeman Hughes
... anti-fluoride activist or something, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, yeah.
- CHColeman Hughes
Now, would you call me an anti-water activist?
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- CHColeman Hughes
Of course not.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- CHColeman Hughes
That wouldn't make any sense, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- CHColeman Hughes
If I was someone that wanted to take, like, my mother's whole thing, um, was she wanted to take high fructose corn syrup out of food. She was very... This was a big issue for her. Would you call her an anti-high fructose corn syrup addict as a journalist or an anti-food activist? Well, no. So RFK Jr., uh, you know, and, and I don't think he's right about this, but just as a matter of journalistic accuracy, his whole project with vaccines has been to take stuff out of the vaccines that he thinks is toxic. Right? His, his most anti-vax, quote-unquote, book is Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak. He's, he, he's trying to take the thimerosal out of vaccines. Now, if I were describing this guy, even if I disagreed with every, every word he said as a journalist, I would call him an anti-thimerosal activist, not an anti-vaccine activist.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- CHColeman Hughes
Because, why would you advocate taking A out of B if you thought B was also poison? What's the point of taking poison out of poison, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- CHColeman Hughes
So, the framing of him in the mainstream media as an anti-vaccine activist, to me, seemed already like, uh, uh... Not at all the framing an objective journalist would put on the issue, even if he's wrong about, about the facts. And that, you know, that clear bias in the, in the treatment of him, rather than treating him like a normal politician and, you know, you know, putting your perspective on it, putting this c- framing on him as a crazy guy, as a crackpot.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- CHColeman Hughes
That seemed to me... That, I think that is really what rubbed me the, uh, the, the wrong way about how so many people were, were treating him.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, also they don't understand his work before he became this vaccine skeptic or this person who discussed the, the, the apparent connection between some adverse events and some adverse effects in some vaccines.
- CHColeman Hughes
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
He started off as an environmental lawyer and his work helped clean up the Hudson River and there, there's a... You could research it. It's like, he did amazing work and he held corporations responsible that were polluting and because of his work, the Hudson River made a remarkable comeback. And then these women came to him and they said, "You are researching all these toxins and pollutants that get released in the water. I want you to do this with vaccines."
- CHColeman Hughes
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And they started talking to him and they, this woman came to his door and she said, "I'm not leaving until you look at this," and she gave him a stack of files and documents and he started looking at it. He started looking at the difference between ethyl mercury and mercury, uh, or methyl mercury and ethyl mercury, what's the difference and which ones are toxic and why are they in the vaccines in the first place and, like, why are the manufacturers that make vaccines not liable at all for adverse effects and... So he starts doing a deep dive in this and he finds out that it's all forbidden, right? This is all forbidden subject. If you talk about it, you'll, you'll be labeled a, a vaccine denier or an anti-vaccine person, which is, like, the worst anti-science pejorative that someone can label on someone who wants to be taken seriously.
- CHColeman Hughes
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And he realizes that he has to go down this road and I can't believe... He's like, "I can't believe I have to go down this road, but I have to go down this road." And he starts researching it, then he starts talking about it openly and, frankly, courageously.
- 27:27 – 54:46
Regulatory capture: FDA/pharma revolving door and historical examples
- JRJoe Rogan
Unquestionably. Yeah, that's a very good point. And then there's also the revolving door-
- CHColeman Hughes
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... between the FDA and pharmaceutical companies.
- CHColeman Hughes
Which no one denies that.
- JRJoe Rogan
No one denies. You cannot.
- CHColeman Hughes
No.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's, it's... There's clear incentives that are in place just based on the past, just based on the fact that people have been able to parlay these jobs-
- CHColeman Hughes
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... go from being a part of the FDA to being a part of Pfizer-
- CHColeman Hughes
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and being a part of all these other pharmaceutical drug companies.
- CHColeman Hughes
So, I don't know if he know, if he mentioned this specifically on your podcast, but I looked into this, uh, because of his book and talked about it on some other podcasts. He, uh, you know, the... Around 2000, the RotaShield, the rotavirus vaccine, seven of the 13 people responsible for, uh, approving that vaccine at the CDC and the FDA. Seven of 13, so a majority were... Had direct financial ties to companies that were producing that exact kind of vaccine right at the time.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- CHColeman Hughes
So, you have to think to yourself, common sense. This... That's insane. That can't be how the system should work.
- JRJoe Rogan
Without doubt.
- CHColeman Hughes
Congress looked into it, and they reported on this. They said, "This is a... This is a disaster." They had to recall the vaccine, by the way, uh, because it was causing intussusception in, in, uh, infants. And we've sort of been assured that they've cleaned up their act since then. And that seems to be the narrative that they've cleaned up their act. And I'm sure there was some panic and ch-... There was changing of policies, right? But as a journalist, uh, our job is not to trust the government. Our job is to verify. And the status quo, I looked into it recently, is that the CDC and the FDA, they're still allowed to appoint members of those panels who have conflicts of interest, so long as they're below a certain bar of conflict of interest. Now, who determines where the bar is? They determine where the bar is, and they're not required by law at all to report their deliberations publicly. So, as an objective outsider, I would like to believe... I would like to believe that CDC and the FDA... I don't think they're evil people. I don't think they're lizard people. I think they're whatever. I would like to believe that they're making good decisions. But as a journalist, you have to be able to verify it, or else, why should I trust?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- CHColeman Hughes
So, if they're self-policing and not required to report, I think people should be... This is my problem. When Rand Paul is aggressively pressing Fauci about conflicts of interest in Congress, journalists should be like, "This guy's doing our job. We're supposed to be doing this." Instead, they label him...... as, as some kind of bad person. Journalists are supposed to aggressively police the government. And when you don't do that, you end up getting, uh, yeah, you get- get- getting people doing the job for you, and they may not do it perfectly and they may overstep, but shouldn't the- shouldn't the response be, "How come mainstream journalism isn't pressing Fauci like that?" We should have done it and we should have done it 10 times harder and more precisely than Rand Paul did it. Right? That- that should be the response, not-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- CHColeman Hughes
... Rand Paul is a conspiracy theorist.
- JRJoe Rogan
But the problem is money. The problem is when you look at the incredible amount of money that the pharmaceutical drug companies spend on advertising, they essentially have control of the narrative. Whether people are directly told not to discuss these things, it is most certainly on the table, that they know that there'll be repercussions.
- CHColeman Hughes
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And so they don't- they don't report on them. Look, if you look at the Purdue Pharma crisis, have you seen the, uh, Netflix documentary, uh, Painkiller?
- CHColeman Hughes
I saw the- I s-
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, it's, uh, not documentary. It's like a docudrama series.
- CHColeman Hughes
I saw the Hulu version.
- JRJoe Rogan
I ha- I didn't see that one.
- CHColeman Hughes
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's Dopesick, right?
- CHColeman Hughes
Yeah. Yeah.
- 54:46 – 1:06:44
Israel–Hamas: how October 7 happened and Israel’s internal political storm
- JRJoe Rogan
that anymore. They don't do that anymore. They don't do that anymore. That's like people have figured that out. Mm-hmm. They don't... So have you been paying attention to Israel? I've been paying attention, yeah. Yeah, I have too. How could you not be? Yeah. Yeah. It's terrifying. Yeah. It's very terrifying. It's very, very scary stuff. What is your view on it?I wish I knew... Well, first of all, I wish I knew how they didn't know that those people are gonna do that.
- CHColeman Hughes
Okay, so-
- JRJoe Rogan
'Cause I don't wanna talk about intelligence, because I, I don't know what I'm talking about. So if I start saying that the, you know, the government... Like, uh, uh, that they would have had the capability to make sure none of those things took place, and that they had infiltrated these organizations, and they did get accurate information from that, and they were aw-... I don't, I have z- That would just be complete armchair speculation from someone who's not qualified.
- CHColeman Hughes
So I can, I can give you what the leading theory is of how the hell this happened.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay, please do.
- CHColeman Hughes
Right now, uh, the, the belief is that... And I think we'll know more about this in a few years, that a few things happened all at the same time. It was a perfect storm. First, Hamas has been planning this attack for two years. And, uh, one of the leaders of Hamas actually said that they've been strategically lulling Israel to sleep by making it seem like they're no longer interested in a conflict the past two years. And Israel, even just a week before the attack, allowed more, uh, Gazans to come over the border and work in Israel as basically a reward for good behavior, right? They thought H- Hamas has gone into this mode where they're more concerned about the economics of the Gaza Strip than about attacking Israel. So Israel was asleep at the wheel. Israel also had transferred a lot of IDF that would normally be at the Gaza border to the West Bank. It was also the Sabbath. It was also a major holiday. It was, it's also, they've, they've had the biggest protests in, in a generation, almost the same way America was during 2020. Israel has been for the past several months over their judicial reform. So you put it all together-
- JRJoe Rogan
Can you, can you go into that a little bit, please?
- CHColeman Hughes
Yeah, so basically, the judicial reform in Israel... Israel is not like the United States. They don't have a constitution. They don't have this kind of really beautiful genius system of checks and balances that we have where, you know, the president can veto, the Congress and the Supreme Court has a check on everyone, right? And everyone keeps each other in check. Israel just has a single parliament they call the Knesset, a prime minister that has a lot of control over that parliament, because he leads the majority coalition. So basically, in Israel, the president and their congress have a lot more power than in America, historically. The Supreme Court doesn't have the power to say no to them. But over the past 30 years, the Supreme Court has been basically grabbing more power for, for itself under the, these things called basic laws, where they can now say to the Knesset, "No, you cannot, uh, implement that policy in the West Bank. It violates human rights." They can, they can be... They have more powers to check the majority party, and that's come to a head now, because the Supreme Court is perceived as left-wing and sympathetic to the Palestinians. Just like in America right now, the pre- Supreme Court is perceived as right-wing. And the, uh, Be- Benjamin Netanyahu is obviously Likud. He's the right-wing party, and he's gone into coalition with these ultra kind of right-wing religious... Um, and, and so it's come to a head where basically the right in Israel feels the Supreme Court is just expanding its own power and is anti-democratic, and now they want to... Judicial reform is basically stripping the Supreme Court of the power it's grabbed for itself over the past 30 years. Now, the left in Israel views the Supreme Court as the only protection against human rights violations and violations of minority rights. So the left is, feels the Supreme Court is a great defender of Israeli human rights, and the right feels that the Supreme Court is an undemocratic institution that's been expanding its own power for 30 years and now needs to be reined in so that the majority can govern. That's torn apart the country. It, it's absolutely the number one issue every day, protests all over Israel. So you put all this together with Hamas ba- uh, backed by Iran, and you, and you, you also throw in the fact that Israel and Saudi Arabia are on the verge of a peace deal, which is huge. It, it would be the biggest news in, in the Middle East in a, in a very long time if Israel and Saudi Arabia made peace. It would basically put, um, kind of the, the death nail in the coffin for, for Hamas, because Saudi Arabia is the biggest holdout now in terms of who has not made peace with Israel. So Hamas, from the point of view of, of Hamas and Iran, they think this is a, this is a last chance, kind of. "We have to attack now, kill this deal, or, uh, we're dead forever." And they planned this thing meticulously for, for two years, intentionally lulling the Israelis to sleep, and, um, they, they have brilliant success, much more success than they expected to. Now some people have said it's an inside job. I don't believe it is. I think if it is, we'll know that from reporting, um, that comes out in the next two years. But at this point, I believe the theory that it was an incredibly successful attack by Hamas and a perfect storm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, that all connects and makes sense, if that's the case. What's terrifying is there doesn't seem... What, what's always terrified me about the Middle East is that there doesn't seem to be a clear way to resolve this. I mean, if Saudi Arabia and Iran or, or, or rather, uh, Israel came to some sort of an agreement and made peace and, uh, and were able to establish that long term, that'd be a great step in the right direction. But other than that...Like, when you look at what's happened now, oh my God, the rhetoric from both sides, it's- it's just... Didn't we learn anything from World War II? Didn't we learn anything from the Holocaust? Didn't we learn anything from human beings' ability to other human beings, to just turn them into a thing that's not them-
- CHColeman Hughes
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... dehumanize them? And that there's this impulse to do so that existed forever. Because when we were tribal people that probably barely had a language, you had to be absolutely terrified of r- marauding male tribes that came over your border and wanted to kill you and take your resources and steal your women, 'cause that's what they did. And so, we have this ability to look at other human beings as an other and get v- ruthless and horrifyingly violent, because that was the only way for us to survive for thousands of years. So, it's ingrained in our system. But it's- it's... Now, it exists in the context of global war, and it- and it exists-
- CHColeman Hughes
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... in a time where you can manipulate media and spread false narratives, and governments are allowed to use propaganda. They're allowed to lie to people if t- if it's for the overall better good of the nation. It's wild. A- And that's the root of the issue. The root of the issue is how every human being sort of reluctantly admits that there's almost no way to stop all wars. Right now, if you- if you had a magic solution to stop all wars in the world, what would it be? It doesn't exist. That's terrifying, 'cause the thing that we are scared of the most is global thermonuclear war, the thing that everybody should be the most terrified of, that we get so stupid that we wipe every human being off the face of the planet. And we're more than capable of doing it some insane number of times over.
- CHColeman Hughes
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And that they're playing with the very first steps of that game. They've moved the first pawn out onto the chessboard of the global thermonuclear war chess game. That is-
- CHColeman Hughes
Who?
- JRJoe Rogan
... fucking the world.
- CHColeman Hughes
Who is that? Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Everybody. Every single nation-
- CHColeman Hughes
Okay, so...
- JRJoe Rogan
... that's involved in any, every conflict and ev- all these people controlling resources over a group of gigantic people with their-
- CHColeman Hughes
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... their representative, and they're saying, "These people are the bad people," and they're saying, "You're the bad people," that's- it's just like human beings have always done. It's p- like, literally a part of our system.
- CHColeman Hughes
So, I- I agree with you that we are built and hardwired for deep levels of violence. We- we- s-... Those of us that have been lucky enough to live in safety and security, we may not realize the violence we're capable of because we've never had to survive it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- CHColeman Hughes
Right? But I do believe that there is a difference. You mentioned the lessons of World War II, right? We were capable of violence. Hitler was capable of violence. But we were not the same as Hitler.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- CHColeman Hughes
There was, uh, an imperative for us to defeat him at almost any cost, and we did horrible things in that war. But people understand that there was a good side and there was an evil side.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- CHColeman Hughes
Now, I don't know if you or most of your listeners feel this way about Israel, but I do. I think that in this situation, Israel is the good guy and Hamas is the evil guy. I think some people feel Hamas is just, um, acting like anyone would if you had taken their land and they're- they're freedom fighters that go a little bit overboard. I don't think that's what they are. I think they are a death cult that really believes what they write in their charter in the late '80s, that they want to annihilate every single Jew in Israel and replace it with an Islamic state, and eventually have a state like ISIS. And that what they did on October 7th with the, you know, the- the barbaric slaughter, that- that's the point for them. That is what they want to do to all of Israel. And the difference is that Israel, uh, though- though like the American army, it's just like there's been many excesses, uh, much to criticize. If Israel wanted to annihilate Hamas and the Palestinians the same way Hamas wanted- wants to annihilate Israel, Hamas would be gone and there would be no Palestinians in Gaza. We know that Israel could obliterate them overnight. Why don't they? Well, for mixed reasons, but because they don't want to. They want to live in peace fundamentally. And so, I don't think the two sides are equivalent here, though they're both capable of that- that universal among humans, which is cruelty. I don't think these two sides are the same. I really think this is a situation where there is a good guy and a bad guy.
- 1:06:44 – 1:12:11
Hospital blast misinformation and the speed (and failure) of modern narratives
- JRJoe Rogan
The- so we're terrified of both. And then there's this narrative that... What was the thing with the hospital?
- CHColeman Hughes
Oh, yeah. So, this has been going on the past 48 hours. Basically, what happened- (laughs) what happened is the entire media, the- the Gaza Health Ministry, which is run by Hamas, said that Israel just bombed a hospital and killed 500 people.... the entire media ran with the story. New York Times, BBC, everyone said, "500 Killed in Israeli Air Strike on Hospital." And obviously, this is monstrous if so, right? This is, why would Israel bomb a hospital? Israel is known to have at least a policy of not bombing hospitals because Israel feels that it wants to generally respect what a war crime is, right? That's the policy at least. So, this, this went viral. Uh, then it turned out, actually most likely i- it actually turned out 100% the hospital wasn't bombed. It was the parking lot next to the hospital. So, that was the first ina- inaccuracy in the story. Then it turned out, it's very, very unlikely to be an Israeli air strike and was almost certainly not a Hamas rocket, but a Palestinian Islamic Jihad, this is the other Palestinian terror group in Gaza. They launched a bunch of rockets. One of them was a dud and landed in the hospital parking lot. And, uh, and this, this is on video. Al Jazeera showed the video by accident, uh, and, and that's how it, that's how it's, part of how it's been confirmed.
- JRJoe Rogan
What do you mean by accident?
- CHColeman Hughes
So, they were, they were showing this in real time, I think it happened at s- like, 6:59 exactly. It was either 6:49 or 6:59. They were showing live footage of, uh, or, or footage they had, they had just taken of hom- of a bunch of rockets leaving the Gaza Strip to go to Israel. And one of the rockets you could see, it was, it was screwy. It kind of blew up and then you see a big explosion in Gaza.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- CHColeman Hughes
Right at that time. Turns out, that's the exact time the hospital allegedly blew up. So, that's how they knew it was a rocket from inside, an accidental rocket from inside Gaza, rather than the Israelis air striking it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- CHColeman Hughes
So then, all the New York Times, BBC, they all started slowly changing their headlines to, from 500 killed in Israeli air strike to 500 killed in blast to, you know, at, at this point, they may be saying parking lot next to hospital killed only 50 to 100 people. This is still an evolving story and we're, we're talking on, on Thursday. So, by the time this episode-
- JRJoe Rogan
So, it didn't actually hit the hospital itself? It hit the parking lot next to the hospital-
- CHColeman Hughes
That's-
- JRJoe Rogan
... and did damage to the hospital?
- CHColeman Hughes
The latest is that it, the hospital's still standing and it was only the parking lot next to the hospital that all, a bunch of cars may have exploded as well.
- JRJoe Rogan
So ...
- CHColeman Hughes
That's the latest.
- JRJoe Rogan
How-
- CHColeman Hughes
'Ca- 'cause they have pictures now. The next day, they took pictures and the hospital's there.
- JRJoe Rogan
I thought they had photos of the hospital that was bombed out.
- CHColeman Hughes
The New York Times, when they reported it first, they showed a picture of a different place in Gaza that was destroyed-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh my God.
- CHColeman Hughes
... by an Israeli air strike, not the hospital.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh my God.
- CHColeman Hughes
Yeah. So, this is, uh, this is n- now, you know, I think there's a emerging consensus that it was a parking lot, probably not 500 people. Probably more like 50 or 100, which is, again, tragic. Every life is tragic. But that basically, the legacy media took Hamas's word as, as fact and then has had to backpedal.
- JRJoe Rogan
Did you see the Babylon Bee's, uh, uh, joke about that?
- CHColeman Hughes
What did they say?
- JRJoe Rogan
See, see if you can find it. Babylon Bee's ... I can't, still can't say X. X page.
- CHColeman Hughes
Yeah, I know.
- JRJoe Rogan
Still Twitter.
- CHColeman Hughes
I'm, I'm right at that point where I'm transitioning to saying X without saying former Twitter.
- JRJoe Rogan
I just keep saying Twitter. It's Twitter, you know? Sorry, Elon.
- CHColeman Hughes
(laughs) He really has an obsession with X, doesn't he?
- 1:12:11 – 1:33:20
War, true believers, and free speech vs. professional consequences
- CHColeman Hughes
But you asked, you asked earlier, what is the solution to this?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- CHColeman Hughes
Look, I mean, we're not gonna solve the Middle East here, but if, if I'm Israel right now, I, I'm not, I'm, I'm thinking we have to destroy Hamas. The same way when we were bo- bombed during Pearl Harbor, nobody thought, "Well, what's the diplomatic solution to Japan?" We thought, "These people want to destroy us. We have to destroy them." Right? There, there are some situations that can be resolved at the negotiating table, but there are others that have to be resolved through war because one side is committed to the destruction of the other. And it can only, you can only get to the negotiating table when you, when you have, uh, when you've retaliated militarily, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. That's terrifying. That's a terrifying thought. Um, what do you think of all, like, what was the latest pro-Hamas or pro-Palestine protest? There's been so many of them.
- CHColeman Hughes
Yeah, they're-
- JRJoe Rogan
That are-
- CHColeman Hughes
... all over. They had to shut down Columbia University.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- CHColeman Hughes
My alma mater. Um-... there, there's been a lot of them, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And what is their w- what are they saying? Like, what is their main perspective on this?
- CHColeman Hughes
Their main perspective is that Israelis are colonizers in the Middle East, uh, that th- that Israelis are not the indigenous people, it's settler colonia- colonialism, and that resistance is justified, and that we ought to side with the resistance, we ought to side with the resistance even when they go overboard. That's their basic perspective in a nutshell.
- JRJoe Rogan
Going overboard? That is a crazy way to justify-
- CHColeman Hughes
Shooting-
- JRJoe Rogan
... paratrooping into-
- CHColeman Hughes
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... a rave and just murdering people.
- CHColeman Hughes
Yeah. Execution style and-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's, and rape and murder and torture and killing kids and-
- CHColeman Hughes
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... explosions. And I was reading about these parents who were trying to find their son, they were hoping their son was still alive but that he had gotten his arm shot off by a machine gun. He was in a, a, a bunker and then he was captured. He was in some sort of a bomb shelter.
- CHColeman Hughes
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And they captured him, and they have no idea where he is and they hope he's okay.
- CHColeman Hughes
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, this, j- just the horrific idea that some peaceful civilian could just be targeted like l- you know, like you would shoot a monster. You know, not, not even, not even an animal. You know, you shoot an animal-
- CHColeman Hughes
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... they eat it.
- CHColeman Hughes
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's like a monster. Like, just gun that monster down, leave it where it is. It's so scary that people are still willing to do things like that. But it is real. That's what's, we have to all understand, like, you can have these utopian perspectives of how you think the world should be, and I, I side with a lot of what they think about the inequality of the world. I just have different solutions than them. And my solution is not redistribution of wealth. My solution is figure out what's wrong with communities and rebuild them. The fact that we have these impoverished communities and that we've never spent any, like, real engineering and money to try to solve these crisises that have led to so many people coming out of these places and just being fucked from the jump, and having no examples of people living good lives, no examples of people that aren't involved in crime, and just being swarmed by negativity and-
- CHColeman Hughes
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... bad influences constantly, and the fact that we expect these people to rise past that is complete and total insanity.
Episode duration: 3:42:38
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Transcript of episode AODTaG6-uGY
