Joe Rogan Experience #2113 - Christopher Rufo

1. 0:00 – 1:44

   Oregon reverses drug decriminalization amid public disorder

   1. CRChristopher Rufo0:00

      (drumming music plays) Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out.

   2. NANarrator0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. CRChristopher Rufo0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music plays)

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:13

      Yo. You were just telling me that, uh, Washington State, uh, recriminalized, or is it Oregon? Recriminalized drugs?

   5. CRChristopher Rufo0:20

      Yeah, that's right. Um, this just came out the last week, but, um, Washington State, uh, rather Oregon State, had pursued the defund the police policy, the-

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:29

      Yeah.

   7. CRChristopher Rufo0:30

      ... decriminalize drugs policy, and there's now this dramatic reversal, because guess what? When you let people shoot up heroin on the side of the road, snort meth, uh, in tents, uh, downtown Portland, um, it actually is not good for society. And there's such this dramatic pushback, and I was actually shocked to see it, that Oregon lawmakers, all Democrats of course, um, said, "You know what? We've gone too far. Let's bring it back to the center." And I think that's something that's very good.

   8. JRJoe Rogan0:58

      It's definitely very good. It is a little shocking that they figured it out. It just doesn't seem like... Like when you go and drive through Oakland, for example, it doesn't seem like anybody's trying to put a cork on that. They're just, like, letting it be insanely chaotic, like the areas where they have the shantytown set up and people have tents everywhere in these makeshift structures. How? At what point in time do you stop letting these open air drug dens exist where people are just cooking meth in front of everybody? That just seems so insane. So it's nice to see that Oregon's like, "Hey, let's hit the brakes."

   9. CRChristopher Rufo1:35

      Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:36

       Is it all drugs now? Did they just put everything in the same category? Which is also quite insane.

   11. CRChristopher Rufo1:41

       Yeah, I mean, no, it's not all drugs obviously.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:43

       It just says it right here.

   13. CRChristopher Rufo1:44

       Yeah.

2. 1:44 – 6:14

   Why societies need limits: drugs, parenting, and guardrails

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:44

      It says, "The measure makes the possession of a small amount of drugs such as heroin or methamphetamine a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail and enables police to confiscate the drugs and crack down on their use on sidewalks and in parks." But what about... What are the other... See, the thing is, it, it basically, what Oregon did is decriminalize almost everything. The weird thing about drugs is you throw them all under one blanket. You know, you throw, you cover them all with one blanket. Drugs. Because caffeine's a drug, alcohol is a drug, there's a lot of drugs that we're accustomed to, to using. And I'm not necessarily in favor of those being illegal. And when you, um, you add in heroin and methamphetamine to something that we're already accustomed to, like alcohol or caffeine, it's like what, what are we, you know? Why are these the same things? Like why not just individually say-

   2. CRChristopher Rufo2:40

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan2:40

      ... fentanyl is unbelievably bad for you. Marijuana not so much. Let's like figure out which ones are okay and which ones are not instead of just saying drugs.

   4. CRChristopher Rufo2:51

      100%. I mean, you just have to do a really simple calculation. You say, is this drug correlated with extreme social pathology? Does it obliterate the individual? Does it cause social problems, social chaos? Um, and then you could categorize them very simply, yes and no. Okay, you have alcohol, caffeine, marijuana. You can have a functioning society where those are used.

   5. JRJoe Rogan3:15

      Yeah.

   6. CRChristopher Rufo3:16

      But you can't have a functioning society where people are foiling fentanyl. Um, and especially if you look at the, the, the cities, it's wrecked these cities. The big problem, though, is that the political left in the United States has lost the, a willingness and the capacity to say no. Um, this is something we've all seen. You know, we're raised, uh, a generation of kids where, like, saying no and imposing limits is something that you can't do. It's this idea of liberating ourselves from all limits. But, you know, some limits are necessary, some limits are important. And so I think we're starting to finally see the consequences of obliterating limits and then now we're starting to say, "You know, in a reasonable way, we should start reimposing some guardrails."

   7. JRJoe Rogan4:03

      Well, that's one of the things you find out when you're a parent that seems counterintuitive, but one of the things you find out is that children are happier when you impose limitations on them. Which sounds so crazy, but they are happier and they have less anxiety apparently, obviously I'm not a doctor, because they're, by having structure to life, it doesn't seem like everything is... Like if they're in charge, like, oh my God, I'm fucking 12 and I'm in charge. I have no idea what's going on and I get to stay out late all night. The world's chaos. Which it kind of is in some ways, but by imposing structure on them, it gives them comfort. And I find that's the case with human beings. I find that the people that I know, even artists, even comedians and wild folks, the, the, the people that have structure in their life, like have families and children and have, like, workout routines or things that they enjoy doing on a regular basis that they're very dedicated to, those are the happiest people. They're the healthiest people. They're the people that seem to feel like there's a purpose to life. The purpose is your loved ones, your family, your community, the people you hang out with, the stuff you like to do, whatever it is, pickleball, whatever it is. That gives people, like, happiness and structure. And this idea that having no, uh, no limitations and complete freedom and, you know, you want to be just, just able to, like, fly away on a whim, like that doesn't promote happiness. Like what are you trying to get out of this life? Don't you want it to be as enjoyable as possible? We've all had bad times. They suck. We try to avoid those. We try to have the good times. But that can be applied to a society as well. The way you raise children can be applied to a society. Like you need structure. You need rules. You need love and compassion. You need examples of good behavior. You need all of those things.And when you let people fucking cook meth in the middle of the street, that all goes out the window. Imagine being 12, dr- driving by a fucking drug den every day on your way to school. You're like, "Oh, my God. What do I have to look forward to?"

3. 6:14 – 8:01

   Rufo’s Seattle exit: homelessness, needles near schools, and 'compassion' rhetoric

   1. CRChristopher Rufo6:14

      Yeah. I mean, th- that was m- my life, and my experience and observation. We moved out of Seattle in 2020, my wife, at that time, two kids, um, because of this precise phenomenon. The politics had gone totally sideways-

   2. JRJoe Rogan6:28

      Well, s- Seattle in 2020 was particularly insane.

   3. CRChristopher Rufo6:31

      It ... particularly insane. That is-

   4. JRJoe Rogan6:33

      What was the, the, the, the area? What was it called?

   5. CRChristopher Rufo6:35

      The glory of the Chaz.

   6. JRJoe Rogan6:36

      Chaz, that's right. (laughs)

   7. CRChristopher Rufo6:37

      Yeah. The Chaz.

   8. JRJoe Rogan6:39

      Oh. (laughs)

   9. CRChristopher Rufo6:39

      But, I remember, um, our oldest son, uh, was in kindergarten, first grade at the time. And, uh, we would be walking to school a few blocks up, and we'd have to be avoiding schizophrenics, avoiding tents, avoiding people shooting up, avoiding people just shitting in the street.

   10. JRJoe Rogan6:54

       Walking?

   11. CRChristopher Rufo6:55

       Walking.

   12. JRJoe Rogan6:55

       Just walking?

   13. CRChristopher Rufo6:56

       Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan6:56

       It's so sketchy.

   15. CRChristopher Rufo6:56

       Just walking. And so, you know, you're trying to, to kind of navigate your kids around there was a, a, a homeless encampment about 100 yards away from the school with probably 40 or 50 guys cooking drugs, stealing property, causing trouble. And then, you talk to the administrators at the time, say, "Hey, this is a problem. I don't accept this. I don't like this."

   16. JRJoe Rogan7:16

       Yeah.

   17. CRChristopher Rufo7:16

       And they say, "Oh, well, you know, we have to be compassionate to our houseless neighbors." It's like, "N- no, we don't. This is a danger to kids." And it got so bad that they were teaching the kids what to do when they found hypodermic needles in the playground.

   18. JRJoe Rogan7:30

       Oh, my God.

   19. CRChristopher Rufo7:31

       This is a problem. I don't want this as a parent. I want you to prevent them having to, to pick up hypodermic needles and, you know ... An- and- and it's like a group of people that are so ... It- it- it's like compassion also has to be limited.

   20. JRJoe Rogan7:45

       Yeah.

   21. CRChristopher Rufo7:45

       You have to have compassion within reasonable limits. And for us-

   22. JRJoe Rogan7:49

       But you're also ... You're dealing with people that'll just burn it all down. If you just l- allow ... If you say arson is no longer punishable, they'll burn all the houses down.

   23. CRChristopher Rufo7:56

       Yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan7:56

       These are insane people. They don't have anything. Why wouldn't they just burn it all down just for funs?

   25. CRChristopher Rufo8:00

       Yeah.

4. 8:01 – 12:45

   Euphemisms, stigma, and the kids-and-sex culture fight (Drag Queen Story Hour, 'MAPs')

   1. JRJoe Rogan8:01

      Yeah. It's ... I- i- i- it's so hard to understand how it got this far. You know, I ... And I love when they use terms like the houseless. Like, you already have a word for it.

   2. CRChristopher Rufo8:11

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan8:12

      Like, stop trying to dress it up with a new word. You already have a word for it. The word like ... This one's been driving me fucking crazy lately, minor-attracted persons.

   4. CRChristopher Rufo8:22

      (laughs) Yes.

   5. JRJoe Rogan8:23

      Um, I saw two politicians in two different speeches talk about protecting minor-attracted persons. You're talking about pedophiles.

   6. CRChristopher Rufo8:33

      That's what we're talking about.

   7. JRJoe Rogan8:35

      It must be that these people have no children. It must be. I don't know. If they do, they're monsters. This idea that you are going to minimize the harm caused by evil criminals who steal children's lives, ruin their lives forever, and you're just gonna call them a minor-attracted person and try to say that it's an identity? To what ... For what reason? To what end?

   8. CRChristopher Rufo9:04

      I mean-

   9. JRJoe Rogan9:04

      Like, why would you want to do that?

   10. CRChristopher Rufo9:06

       I mean, th- the end is, uh, it's not polite to say, but it's quite clear. You look at even something that has been propagandized at length, Drag Queen Story Hour-

   11. JRJoe Rogan9:16

       Yeah.

   12. CRChristopher Rufo9:16

       ... you say, "Wait a minute. Let's just break it down to the basic facts." These are adult men dressing up in women's clothing-

   13. JRJoe Rogan9:22

       Yeah.

   14. CRChristopher Rufo9:23

       ... dancing and performing for other people's children. That's like ... Should be a red flag for people. But, you ... They've couched it in this language, like you're talking about euphemisms, uh, very, very soft sounding words, tolerance, inclusion. But, you're concealing from people the fact that it's like, "Ah, actually, no, this is kind of uncomfortable," um, and, like, "I wouldn't want to do that."

   15. JRJoe Rogan9:49

       Well, not only that-

   16. CRChristopher Rufo9:49

       And do you want to talk about sex with other people's young children?

   17. JRJoe Rogan9:52

       No.

   18. CRChristopher Rufo9:53

       No.

   19. JRJoe Rogan9:54

       Not in a million years. You should never-

   20. CRChristopher Rufo9:54

       That's like, that's like the thing you'd wanna avoid, like most in life, you know?

   21. JRJoe Rogan9:57

       There's no reason to talk to them about that.

   22. CRChristopher Rufo9:59

       Exactly.

   23. JRJoe Rogan9:59

       There's no reason.

   24. CRChristopher Rufo10:00

       Exactly.

   25. JRJoe Rogan10:01

       They're not interested in it. They're little kids. And, and also-

   26. CRChristopher Rufo10:04

       They're, they're not interested. It's the adults that are interested.

   27. JRJoe Rogan10:07

       Yes.

   28. CRChristopher Rufo10:07

       So, the question is, why? Why are adults so interested in this? What is the ideological goal, the personal goal? Um-

   29. JRJoe Rogan10:13

       It's influence.

   30. CRChristopher Rufo10:14

       And I find it, uh-
5. 12:45 – 20:16

   Marxism analogies and institutional capture: from 60s radicals to modern DEI

   1. JRJoe Rogan12:45

      Well, you are really good at explaining everything that's happening, and, uh, really good at, like, laying it out in a very easy to understand pattern. Like, where it first was introduced into the education system, the blind spots that people have towards how Marxism works, even, e- especially, like, during the time of the 1960s and '70s when a lot of this stuff was gaining mo- momentum in the United States because of the anti-war movement, they were completely ignoring what happened in the gulags. They're completely ignoring what happened in Cuba. They had this very rosy perception of communism, which always leads to military dictatorship, always. There's no evidence of it ever not leading to that. It's the, it's like the idea of, like, "You know, I know everybody dies of rabies, but I don't think I'm gonna die of rabies."

   2. CRChristopher Rufo13:36

      (laughs) Yeah, exactly.

   3. JRJoe Rogan13:36

      "I'm just gonna get bit by..." Fucking rabies kills everybody.

   4. CRChristopher Rufo13:39

      (laughs) Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan13:40

      (laughs) There's, there's, like, one lady who didn't die of rabies 'cause of a very novel treatment where they have to put her into a medically induced coma, 'cause rabies is such an old disease, and it's such an aggressive disease that your immune system can fight it off, but it can't keep up with it, and eventually the rabies wins, and it always wins. So by putting her in a medically induced coma, I don't know what about the, the biological process of it, but it somehow or another shorted out her body to the point where it had the resources to effectively battle the rabies, because she was just completely-

   6. CRChristopher Rufo14:14

      Wow.

   7. JRJoe Rogan14:14

      ... immobile and in a medically induced coma. So, she actually was one of the very few people ever in history to survive rabies.

   8. CRChristopher Rufo14:22

      Oh, uh, the analogy is perfect, the analogy is perfect.

   9. JRJoe Rogan14:24

      So we can supply this Marxism. (laughs)

   10. CRChristopher Rufo14:25

       I, I mean, Marxism-

   11. JRJoe Rogan14:25

       Like, we can do it. (laughs)

   12. CRChristopher Rufo14:26

       Marxism will put your whole society, at best, in a medically induced coma, and at worst you get starvation-

   13. JRJoe Rogan14:33

       Right.

   14. CRChristopher Rufo14:33

       ... gulags, uh, mass suppression, and so-

   15. JRJoe Rogan14:35

       Well, it kills the society-

   16. CRChristopher Rufo14:37

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan14:37

       ... is what the point is. The point is the best case scenario is that you somehow, through a medically induced coma, fucking survive it.

   18. CRChristopher Rufo14:43

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan14:44

       There's no improvement.

   20. CRChristopher Rufo14:45

       No.

   21. JRJoe Rogan14:45

       You're probably wrecked for the rest of your life. I mean, it's probably such a horrific disease that everything's compromised after that.

   22. CRChristopher Rufo14:52

       Wh- when I was in my 20s, I traveled through a lot of the former Soviet Union, uh, socialist republics, so Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia, and M- Mongolia and other, and other countries that had been ruled by the Soviets, and what happened, and I think there is, uh, of course, with caveats, uh, in a much lighter way here, is you have an ideology that seeks conquest, it generates failure, and then it seeks more conquest. And so when you travel through those countries, it is the most depressing, gray, dismal, haunted kind of places you can be. It's these Soviet bloc housing. It has enormous rates of alcoholism. You see people strewn on the road, freezing to death in the winters. There's no economic productivity. There's no culture. The Soviets had e- evaporated their religions and all of their old customs. And so you have human beings that have been totally, um, e- extracted from any of their cultural traditions. They've been totally, um, uh, uh, uh, an- annihilated as far as their economic possibilities, but you still have, you know, three, four, five million people, and it's, it's what happens when your society is devoured by ideology. And so the ideology that we're seeing in American institutions is, of course, different. We're blessed with this country to have a much more robust system and history, but it's f- it's functionally the same. And, and t- to your point, in the late '80s, or late '60s and early '70s, you had true Marxist-Leninist radicals, the Black Panther Party, the Communist Party USA, the Weather Underground. And if you look at their literature, their propaganda materials from that time, and you compare it to what's happening in, let's say, Buffalo public schools, their BLM curriculum, I actually did this. I looked at the Black Panther Party pamphlets that they were selling to foment revolution in the Buffalo, uh, public schools curriculum. You know, i- it's, like, pretty close. The ideas are the same. Of course, they're softened. They use the nice language about DEI or, or what have you, but, um, y- you know, we should take ideas seriously, and bad ideas have bad consequences for societies.

   23. JRJoe Rogan16:56

       And it's a small amount of people that are having an enormous influence on indoctrinating kids, and that's why you're seeing kids today that grow up with this version of the society and reality that we live in that so doesn't jive with people that are older than them, where, who didn't grow up in that system, who are like, "What are you talking about?" Like, "It's not that bad." Like, "The things you're saying are insane. You're freaking out over almost nothing and not paying attention to the important things." There's important things going on in this world, but it's not microaggressions.

   24. CRChristopher Rufo17:29

       (laughs) Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan17:29

       It's, it's not, uh, w- that Google shouldn't show images of white men-

   26. CRChristopher Rufo17:35

       (laughs)

   27. JRJoe Rogan17:35

       ... when you p- pump in the AI and ask who the Founding Fathers are. It's, they wouldn't even s- they, they, did you see what they did with Nazis?

   28. CRChristopher Rufo17:42

       Did they make multiracial Nazis?

   29. JRJoe Rogan17:43

       Multiracial Nazis. They had an Asian woman Nazi.

   30. CRChristopher Rufo17:46

       That's inclusive. Yeah, I gotta say (laughs) .
6. 20:16 – 25:14

   Crime policy backlash: progressive DAs, under-policing, and El Salvador’s crackdown

   1. JRJoe Rogan20:16

      And it seems like it's, it's willing participation by the masses as well, because they feel like they're a part of change. They feel like they're a part of imposing these ideas on the rest of the world, and the rest of the world is going to have to catch up. And they will be the ones that were correct, because they were on the right side all along. And it's very strange to watch it play out, because it kinda seems unstoppable at this point. It's, it's very disheartening. Like, you see it with DAs, like, there's an issue going on right now in Austin where they, they have this progressive, Soros-funded DA who's just letting everybody out of jail.

   2. CRChristopher Rufo20:56

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan20:56

      Like, w- what'd you do? Rape people? Let them out of jail. Murder someone? Let them out of jail. It's fucking bananas-

   4. CRChristopher Rufo21:02

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan21:02

      ... this idea that someone-

   6. CRChristopher Rufo21:03

      Microaggression? Straight to prison. (laughs)

   7. JRJoe Rogan21:05

      And they're talking about a drop in crime, but it's because crime's not reported in a lot of places now, because the, the crime went up so high and they defunded the police. There's like, in Austin they need ... their 500 cops down, and the morale is down because of the defund the police and because, you know, cops ... Like, there was, I think there w- I believe there's 21 cops that were brought up on aggression charges during the Black Lives Matter protest.

   8. CRChristopher Rufo21:27

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan21:27

      17 of those cases I think have been dropped. I don't know, I'm not sure if that ... Find what at the ... Here, I'll send you an article. You could tell me if that ... It's, uh, in Bari Weiss's, uh, Substack today, or her, uh, her newspaper.

   10. CRChristopher Rufo21:39

       Sure.

   11. JRJoe Rogan21:40

       But this is a k- a real problem where you see the results playing out, you see that they're negative. And I mean, kudos to Oregon for, you know, correcting course, but you see it playing out in, with crime and with prisons. A- and here's my nu- number one beef with this, w- all this effort to do that, all this effort to let people out of jail, no cash bail. What about reform? What about putting all that effort into reforming people? How come that doesn't exist? What about funding reform inside the prisons? What about going to all these impoverished, drug-ridden, gang-ridden communities and doing some good? How come there's no effort there? If you're a real progressive, you want fucking progress, you don't want people who are already fucked up by the system and violent criminals, habitual criminals, and just let them loose to victimize everybody else, raise everyone's anxiety, create more crime and violence, and, and have no solution to it whatsoever. That's not the solution. It's very unfortunate those people are in that situation where they are habitual criminals. And I'm sure a variety of factors beyond their control contributed to that, without doubt. Right?

   12. CRChristopher Rufo22:50

       Sure.

   13. JRJoe Rogan22:51

       But that's ... The solution's not let them out. The solution is stop that from happening in the future, and there's no effort whatsoever put on that. There's no conscious thought of, like, "How do we get at the beginning of this?"

   14. CRChristopher Rufo23:05

       Yeah. I- i- i- it, and that's a- a almost impossible question to answer because it is so complex, there are so many contributing factors, but I actually don't think it's totally necessary to do that. You actually can just say, "Here are the behaviors that we tolerate, here are the ones that we don't tolerate," and then you lay out a series of simple consequences. And so what we're seeing in El Salvador, which of course is ongoing, it's fraught with potential problems, but what they did is essentially lock up the 1% of the El Salvadorian population that were the violent, committed gang members and, and drug runners, and they reduced the murder rate by more than 90%. It used to be the most dangerous country in the world, highest murder rate. Now it's per capita, you know, depending on how you measure it, one of the safest countries in the hemisphere. The lesson is that, that it is actually a vanishingly small number of people that commit th- the, the large plurality or majority of crimes. And so, it's not that you have to have, um, a, a, a kind of soul-searching, an endless, uh, kind of navel-gazing and, and philosophizing. It's simply to say, you know, people who are a direct threat to others that commit violent crimes that maybe have 20, 30, 40, 100, uh, convictions in their criminal history, um ...... you know, cannot participate in society without limits. And it's a, it's something that people have been, um, scared to talk about. Uh, but I think that that is ending because when people start to feel a sense of danger in their daily lives, they're gonna start to break through some of those taboos and to say, "Hey, wait a minute. Yeah, they're letting people out of jail, uh, who are violent criminals. Doesn't seem to be working."

   15. JRJoe Rogan24:46

       Yeah.

   16. CRChristopher Rufo24:46

       And, and, and I, and I think we're there. Even in Seattle, they elected a Republican city attorney. They elected a moderate city council, a moderate mayor. Um, and, and the big cities, especially the West Coast cities, are, are, are waking up to this citizen rage. These are the most prosperous cities in the history of the world, but they can't keep the streets clean? They can't keep people safe?

   17. JRJoe Rogan25:10

       Well, they can-

   18. CRChristopher Rufo25:11

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan25:11

       ... when Xi Jingping comes to town.

   20. CRChristopher Rufo25:12

       (laughs) That's right. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

7. 25:14 – 36:18

   Newsom, Panera, and distrust in media 'fact-checking' ecosystems

   1. JRJoe Rogan25:14

      How wild is that one? That dude is so wild.

   2. CRChristopher Rufo25:16

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan25:17

      Because what he does is so blatant.

   4. CRChristopher Rufo25:19

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan25:20

      Like the Panera Bread thing.

   6. CRChristopher Rufo25:21

      The Panera Bread thing.

   7. JRJoe Rogan25:22

      The Panera Bread thing is amazing.

   8. CRChristopher Rufo25:24

      You almost have to respect it.

   9. JRJoe Rogan25:25

      You almost have to respect it.

   10. CRChristopher Rufo25:26

       It's so brazen.

   11. JRJoe Rogan25:28

       (laughs)

   12. CRChristopher Rufo25:28

       It's like-

   13. JRJoe Rogan25:29

       Explain it to people.

   14. CRChristopher Rufo25:30

       Wait, hold on.

   15. JRJoe Rogan25:31

       They don't-

   16. CRChristopher Rufo25:31

       Yeah, the Panera Bread. So it's like you're gonna, uh, raise the minimum wage for all fast food restaurants to $20 an hour, except for Panera Bread.

   17. JRJoe Rogan25:39

       (laughs)

   18. CRChristopher Rufo25:39

       Uh, because the Panera Bread guy is his friend-

   19. JRJoe Rogan25:41

       I think it's separate.

   20. CRChristopher Rufo25:42

       ... and, and donor. Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan25:42

       But the way around that to make it don't look that obvious is places with bakeries.

   22. CRChristopher Rufo25:46

       But the, what i- that, that's not... What is the... I mean-

   23. JRJoe Rogan25:49

       Why? Why a specific way of cooking?

   24. CRChristopher Rufo25:52

       There is no-

   25. JRJoe Rogan25:52

       The Subway bakery?

   26. CRChristopher Rufo25:53

       ... rational justification. There's no rational justification for it. Uh, and, and, and so it's almost like-

   27. JRJoe Rogan25:58

       Oh, but it says Panera is not exempted from California's fast food minimum wage law after all. On February 28th, Bloomberg reported that bakery chain Panera would be exempt from California's AB 1228 law, a law that raises minimum wage for fast food workers from $16 to $20 an hour starting in '81. So why, um, is that?

   28. CRChristopher Rufo26:17

       I don't know.

   29. JRJoe Rogan26:17

       How is it not exempt if it's-

   30. CRChristopher Rufo26:18

       That's a hell of a fact check. I didn't know that. Yeah.
8. 36:18 – 41:04

   Harvard’s DEI vs. truth dilemma: 10/7 fallout and the plagiarism scandal

   1. CRChristopher Rufo36:18

      But the, the Harvard story is this exact-

   2. JRJoe Rogan36:20

      Yes.

   3. CRChristopher Rufo36:20

      ... phenomenon. And, um, you know, after the 10/7 attack, Harvard kind of reveals the ideology in the institution. And then, um, uh, a- another reporter and I obtained the plagiarism documents. We were the ones who broke the plagiarism story.

   4. JRJoe Rogan36:34

      Let's... Just for people that aren't aware, for maybe... So, this can be standalone. Uh, what Christopher is referring to is that Harvard, uh-... the, the s-... The president of Harvard and, and the president of MIT and Penn-

   5. CRChristopher Rufo36:48

      Mm-hmm.

   6. JRJoe Rogan36:48

      ... they all had this meeting where they were grilled by... Who, which was the con-

   7. CRChristopher Rufo36:55

      Stefanik.

   8. JRJoe Rogan36:56

      Yes. Who grilled them about using anti-Jewish hate, and is that hate speech to say, "Death to the Jews"? And their answer was essentially, "If it's actionable-

   9. CRChristopher Rufo37:08

      Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan37:09

       ... then it's hate." It was the most bonkers-

   11. CRChristopher Rufo37:12

       Yeah.

   12. JRJoe Rogan37:12

       ... bizarre mental gymnastics, and also with that one woman from Penn, done in the most condescending way.

   13. CRChristopher Rufo37:18

       Oh, yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan37:18

       It's like she is so accustomed to being the boss, so accustomed to people, like, accepting her word and not dealing with the outside world, that she doesn't realize how fucking insane what she's saying is.

   15. CRChristopher Rufo37:31

       Yeah. I, uh... The question was, if, if students were, uh, calling for the genocide of Jews, would that violate Harvard's policy?

   16. JRJoe Rogan37:41

       Yes.

   17. CRChristopher Rufo37:41

       And the answer from Claudine Gay, the former president, was, "It depends on the context."

   18. JRJoe Rogan37:46

       (gasps)

   19. CRChristopher Rufo37:47

       It's like, I mean, o... You know. And so, that is a moment where things that had been, uh, obscure, especially for people on the center-left-

   20. JRJoe Rogan37:57

       Yes.

   21. CRChristopher Rufo37:57

       ... suddenly became clear.

   22. JRJoe Rogan37:59

       Yes.

   23. CRChristopher Rufo38:00

       Um, and so this caused all sorts of chaos, predictably. Um, you have donors dropping out. You have, uh, alumni furious. And then, uh, a, a little birdie sent, uh, a- another reporter and, and me a document showing that actually, Claudine Gay, you know, great scholar of Harvard, had plagiarized dozens of passages in her PhD thesis. And so, in this context of this big fight, you know, you get a document like this, and you say, "This actually reveals the heart of this conflict." And so, published it. Obviously it causes a huge firestorm. But the question is the same. It's to say, to Harvard, "Okay. DEI is the de facto highest principle of the university now. That's clear. But your motto for the last, you know, three, 400 years has been veritas, truth." And, and we put them in a dilemma where they had to choose one. You either choose DEI or you choose truth. Which one are you gonna sacrifice? And I think as a country, the reason that story drove so much attention, is because that's where we are politically, that's where we are on policy, that's where companies find themselves. Where are we going? What are our values? And we have this competing set of values. And for me, as someone who... Look, I'm, I'm, I'm unabashed. I'm a, a, a, I'm a political person. I try to drive political change. Um, I think framing the question clearly, so that people really understand what's at stake, um, is just the beginning part of the process of getting sanity back.

   24. JRJoe Rogan39:35

       Yeah, and I think people are wake up... Jamie, why don't you shut your mic off? Because Carl is snoring up a storm over there. (laughs)

   25. CRChristopher Rufo39:42

       Carl.

   26. JRJoe Rogan39:43

       (laughs) While you were talking, I was hear... (snores)

   27. CRChristopher Rufo39:44

       (laughs) Yeah, yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan39:46

       ... Geez, Carl, is that boring?

   29. CRChristopher Rufo39:48

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan39:48

       Carl gets bored quick.
9. 41:04 – 44:49

   New College of Florida takeover: abolishing DEI and the ze/zir civil rights complaint

   1. CRChristopher Rufo41:04

      Dude, I, I... So, one of the things that I do, I'm a trustee at a public university in Florida, New College of Florida. Governor DeSantis appointed me and a number of other reformers to take over this university, uh, replace all of the leadership, and then turn it into a classical liberal arts university. It's in Sarasota. It's a beautiful campus. The tuition is less than $7,000, and we want to turn it into a place where, uh, you know, conservative families can send their kids and feel like they're getting a good education. Um, but when we did this, what we did is, we, we came in, we replaced the leadership, we abolished the DEI department, we terminated the gender studies program, uh, and then we said, "You know, we're not gonna comply with these ridiculous pronoun rules." And so the old DEI director, uh, and then her allies at the ACLU and elsewhere, um, actually filed a federal civil rights complaint against me, so I'm currently under investigation by the fe- by federal civil rights bureaucrats for refusing to call this woman by ze/zir pronouns.

   2. JRJoe Rogan42:05

      (laughs)

   3. CRChristopher Rufo42:05

      Ze/zir. Not, you know... Okay, trans, okay, man, woman, okay, whatever.

   4. JRJoe Rogan42:10

      Oh.

   5. CRChristopher Rufo42:10

      Ze/zir. And it's like, look-

   6. JRJoe Rogan42:11

      Either way, federal indictment, imagine, imagine, for even just refusing to call this person he/him.

   7. CRChristopher Rufo42:17

      Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan42:17

      People are, have always been rude.

   9. CRChristopher Rufo42:19

      Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan42:19

       Are we gonna, like, legislate against rudeness? Are we gonna say that, like, if someone decides to call me Mrs. Rogan, uh, I... Can I, can I get them arrested and locked in a cage 'cause they're being rude to me, 'cause they're calling me a girl?

   11. CRChristopher Rufo42:31

       If you are a member of a protected class, yes, that's where it's going, that's where they'd like it to go. And look, I have to spin up lawyers. Thankfully, the university is handling it. But I mean-

   12. JRJoe Rogan42:41

       (laughs)

   13. CRChristopher Rufo42:41

       ... this is not trivial. And the, the, the, what Peterson, you know... Jordan Peterson, great. What he brought up, um, illustrates this point.... if they can get you to lie about something trivial, they can get you to lie about anything.

   14. JRJoe Rogan42:55

       Mm-hmm.

   15. CRChristopher Rufo42:55

       It's a simple sales technique. You get people in the door, you get them to buy some small item, you get them to kind of cash up, and then you work them up the chain to a bigger purchase or a bigger commitment or a bigger ideology. It's how cults work.

   16. JRJoe Rogan43:08

       Yeah.

   17. CRChristopher Rufo43:09

       Um, and so, like, I, I learned this as a kid. My, my father's Italian, from Italy, and we went to Rome, uh, and to, to the Vatican. This, this sales guy, it's like everything about sales and persuasion I learned at, like, 10 years old, um, watching this guy. He came up, he said, "Oh, you know, sir, uh, it's a beautiful day. I had a new grandchild that was born. Let me give you, uh, this beautiful St. Christopher medal," or St., St. Joseph medal, um, uh, "to celebrate this." And as soon as you take it, you know you're hooked, because he's gonna sell you the commemorative Vatican coins for a hundred bucks or whatever.

   18. JRJoe Rogan43:40

       Mm.

   19. CRChristopher Rufo43:41

       And so this is the ante, you know? Once you put in the ante, you're playing the hand. And so this stuff is like, it's rage bait for the right. It drives headlines, it drives outrage, it drives, you know, some, some kind of momentum.

   20. JRJoe Rogan43:53

       Ratings.

   21. CRChristopher Rufo43:54

       Ratings. But what it's not driving, unfortunately, is a substantive pushback, legal, administrative, policy, and, and, and as far as, uh, uh, kind of deeper cultural changes. But I, I, I'm very concerned, because these are just these gambits where they make, and once they stick, then you're in. It's very hard to roll back. Look at the military. You have-

   22. JRJoe Rogan44:16

       Right.

   23. CRChristopher Rufo44:16

       ... all of these, uh, you know, men masquerading as women that are now suddenly elevated in the military hierarchy. This is not trivial. We're the most powerful military in the world. We maintain, uh, you know, kind of international peace.

   24. JRJoe Rogan44:30

       Yeah.

   25. CRChristopher Rufo44:30

       And it's like now the highest concern is trans? Mm, no. Not n- I don't think that this is, uh, how we should be making decisions, and I don't think that we should be submitting to the original lie. You should never submit to the original lie, because if you do, you can never successfully push back again.

10. 44:49 – 1:16:02

    Social credit fears, China comparisons, and propaganda enforced by the state

    1. JRJoe Rogan44:49

       It's, it's certainly odd that they're pushing that. It, it, you know, this is where I get so confused, because if I really wanna go full tinfoil hat conspiracy, I would say, "Well, if I was a foreign country, uh, I would be promoting this as much as possible in any way I could. I would be funding organizations to do things that would, uh, destroy cities. I would be funding, uh, universities to continue insane policies. I'd be teaching them the kinda things that they taught people," where that woman ... Do you remember, you saw that woman who, uh, talked to Josh Hawley? And, uh, h- he was asking, I think it was like, "Can men get their periods?" And, uh, and she is actually laughing while she ... I just wanna point out-

    2. CRChristopher Rufo45:43

       Oh. (laughs)

    3. JRJoe Rogan45:43

       Yeah. I just wanna point out, what you're saying is transphobic.

    4. CRChristopher Rufo45:47

       (laughs)

    5. JRJoe Rogan45:47

       And opens up trans people to violence. Like, what?

    6. CRChristopher Rufo45:50

       I think she was a Stanford law professor.

    7. JRJoe Rogan45:53

       Uh, she was some- somewhere.

    8. CRChristopher Rufo45:55

       Yeah.

    9. JRJoe Rogan45:56

       Might've been Berkeley.

    10. CRChristopher Rufo45:57

        Yeah.

    11. JRJoe Rogan45:57

        But it was, whatever it was, it was like, "What did you just say? What did you just say, and why did you say it that way?" You think... You're so accustomed to being in your bubble that you don't recognize how gross it is when you giggle before you say something.

    12. CRChristopher Rufo46:13

        Yeah.

    13. JRJoe Rogan46:13

        "I just wanna point out, what you're saying is transphobic and opens up trans people to violence." Like some, some w- men can have periods.

    14. CRChristopher Rufo46:22

        B- but this is, this is the dominant culture in HR departments, K through 12 schools, universities, government bureaucracies.

    15. JRJoe Rogan46:30

        Yeah.

    16. CRChristopher Rufo46:30

        That is the, the social game that has been established. And so, you know, when we took over at New College of Florida, it was the most left-leaning university. It's basically the evergreen, it was the evergreen state of Florida. It was, the, the, the student population was more than 50% trans, queer, and nonbinary.

    17. JRJoe Rogan46:48

        More than 50%.

    18. CRChristopher Rufo46:49

        More than 50%.

    19. JRJoe Rogan46:50

        What is the odds of that?

    20. CRChristopher Rufo46:51

        Uh-

    21. JRJoe Rogan46:51

        In terms of, like, the normal account when they do... If you get a random group of 100 human beings in the country.

    22. CRChristopher Rufo46:56

        There's a bit of a disparity there.

    23. JRJoe Rogan46:58

        (laughs)

    24. CRChristopher Rufo46:58

        Uh, you know, especially 'cause, like, nonbinary is fake. It's not a thing.

    25. JRJoe Rogan47:02

        Right.

    26. CRChristopher Rufo47:02

        It, it's, it, it just doesn't exist. It's a-

    27. JRJoe Rogan47:04

        You could be nonbinary.

    28. CRChristopher Rufo47:05

        I, I mean, maybe I am.

    29. JRJoe Rogan47:06

        You can be. You just-

    30. CRChristopher Rufo47:06

        Yeah.
11. 1:16:02 – 1:37:21

    Trump prosecutions and bureaucratic power: who governs—voters or the administrative state?

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:16:02

       Ugh. Um, when you look at the current political landscape, um, particularly, um, these, uh, these trials, how disturbed are you by what seems to be this acceptance that people have for prosecuting political opponents? 'Cause to me, regardless of what you think about Donald Trump as a human being, and the, the polarizing figure that he is, setting the precedent of trying your political opponents to somehow or another either put them in jail or make them seem like complete, total criminals in a way that would, for the casual, for the person who's not reading deep into the headlines, for the, the casual Democrat that sees this Trump real estate thing that just happened where he got fined $365 million, y- the casuals, I've, I've seen people argue, you know, that, you know, fraud is fraud, and this, that, and he's a fucking fraud. And, and then I saw Kevin O'Leary explain it, uh, from Shark Tank, he was saying, "This is what every real estate developer does. They say my building's worth $400 million, and then someone comes along from the bank and they say, 'No, it's worth $300 million. We'll give you a loan on $300 million.'" Or whatever it is, whatever the number-

    2. CRChristopher Rufo1:17:23

       It's negotiation.

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:17:24

       But also, real estate pricing in general is a strange thing to, to say that's fraud, because people overvalue their property all the time. I mean, it's a standard thing that people do. When someone has a house and it's worth $700,000, they start, decide to list it as $900,000, and the, the real estate person says, "Well, you know, it's, it's really, it's, it's really pushing it." And the guy's like, "That's what I want. I think it's worth $900,000." Like, people have always done weird shit like that.

    4. CRChristopher Rufo1:17:55

       For sure.

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:17:55

       And then when you have this leftist judge that says that Mar-a-Lago is worth $18 million-

    6. CRChristopher Rufo1:18:00

       Abroad.

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:18:01

       ... like then you just showed all your silly hands. You showed, you showed your hand, 'cause this is, that's a crazy thing to say in a place that is the most expensive real estate on earth.

    8. CRChristopher Rufo1:18:11

       Yeah. (laughs) And I, I, yeah, and the Mar-a-Lago property is, is not worth $18 million. I mean, that's absurd.

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:18:16

       Isn't it like 18 acres?

    10. CRChristopher Rufo1:18:17

        Yeah, it's huge. It covers both sides of, of the little, you know, key, or whatever you call it, the little island. But, the, the bigger question is, the, the question that was first raised by the presidency of Richard Nixon that is now coming to fruition with the, with the presidency and the kind of ex-presidency of Donald Trump, we have a democratic system that favors Trump, uh, in the sense that he won in 2016, he's winning the primary right now for Republicans in, in 2024. Um, but you have a bureaucracy that is dead set against him, and the rhetoric amounts to a, a very odd claim. They, they essentially say, "We want to keep him off the ballot, we want to put him in prison, we want to bankrupt him so he can't become the president, even if the people support him. We want to deprive the people of making the decision." So you want to take it out of the realm of politics and into the realm of administrative justice, or the criminal justice system.

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:19:14

        Right.

    12. CRChristopher Rufo1:19:14

        And adjudicate it in that way, on bogus pretexts. I mean, the, the cases are bogus. Um-And so, what you're, the question that we're raising is, who actually rules in this country? Is it the American people who get to decide by their vote who represents them in the government, or is it the permanent bureaucracy that has accumulated so much power? What they can say even to Donald ... I mean, Donald Trump has been one of the most famous people in the world for decades. He's e- enormously wealthy. He's already been the President of the United States, a powerful person. And the message is, "We can take out anyone that is a threat to the interest of the system that we've built up." And so, as someone who ... I didn't vote for Trump in 2016. I did vote for him for 2020. I'll absolutely vote for him now in 2024. Um, um, it is a contest of how we think of our democratic system, and I'm of the mind that the people should decide, not the bureaucracy. Um, and this is a contest where Democrats are saying essentially, "We have to destroy democracy in order to save democracy." Democracy has very different meanings in the two usages, usages in the, in that sentence. We have to destroy democracy as we've traditionally known it, electing a president through a vote of the people, in order to save democracy which is ruled by expert opinion, ruled by the bureaucracy, and essentially left-wing hegemony, left-wing domination over institutions. And, as someone who tries to maximize whatever I can do to push forward on these issues politically, it's not lost on me that if they can wipe out someone like Donald Trump, you know, we're, we're all table stakes, relatively.

Episode duration: 2:23:07