#2341 - Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sanders is the senior United States senator from Vermont. See him live on the Fighting Oligarchy tour. www.berniesanders.com Visit https://squarespace.com/ROGAN to save 10% off your first purchase of a website. Get 20% OFF Premium 100% Grass-Fed Meat Sticks https://paleovalley.com/rogan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:12Joe Rogan?

  Mr. Sanders, great to see you.

• 0:13Speaker 01

  Good to be with you, Joe.

• 0:14Joe Rogan?

  Great to be with you. You've got a bunch of notes.

• 0:17Speaker 01

  Not all that much.

• 0:18Joe Rogan?

  Have you prepared for this?

• 0:20Speaker 01

  I am all prepared.

• 0:21Joe Rogan?

  Well, it's a good time for you to be in here, because the world's gone haywire.

• 0:24Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 0:25Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. What are your thoughts on this?

• 0:27Speaker 01

  I think, I start off with Joe, trying to take a deep breath, and doing what is not often done. Where are we as a country today? What's going well, what's not going well? And I don't think, we don't have that kind of basic discussion. And to my mind, I think in America today, we are facing more serious crises than we have in the modern history of our country. This is a pivotal moment in American history, and what happens now will depend, determine the lives of our kids and future generations.

• 1:00Joe Rogan?

  What specifically concerns you?

• 1:03Speaker 01

  I'll tell you what concerns me, the issue of wealth and power. Alright, I'm kind of old fashioned, and I believe in democracy. And I believe that everybody should have a good shot at living a decent life. And what I worry about right now, and this is an issue, Joe, and it's part of the problem, that it just ain't talked about very much. And I applaud, by the way, you and the other podcasters, who give people the time to really seriously discuss things, rather than seven second soundbites, you know? But if you take a look at where we are as a nation today, the system is not working, it's broken. It ain't working for ordinary human beings. So you have an America today, where we have more income and wealth inequality than we've ever had in the history of this country.

• 1:47Speaker 01

  That's just a fact. You have, um...

• 1:53Speaker 01

  One man, Mr. Musk, owning more wealth than the bottom 52% of American families. One man, 52% of the American families. You've got the top 1% owning more wealth than the bottom 93%. You've got CEOs of large corporations making 350 times what their workers make. And meanwhile, in this richest country in the history of the world, working-class people are getting decimated. Today, and again, we don't talk about it in Congress for reasons that I hope I can get into.

• 2:26Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  We don't talk about it in the corporate media. 60%, 60% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. Now, I grew up in a family, I don't know your background, but I grew up in a family, lived paycheck to paycheck. And anyone who lives paycheck to paycheck understands that every single day is a struggle. You've got to figure out how you feed the kids. Rents cost the housing in America off the charts, healthcare off the charts. So, right now, as we talk, there are people worrying, "My landlord is going to raise my rent by 20%. What the hell do I do? Where do I go? What schools do my kid go to? How do I buy decent food for my kids? My mother is ill. How do I afford prescription drugs for my mother? My car breaks down."

• 3:12Speaker 01

  You know, if you have money, no one thinks of it. Your car breaks down, go to the mechanic, you've got to fix. You know what? A lot of people don't have $1,000 in the bank right now. If you don't have $1,000, your car breaks down, how do you get to work? If you don't get to work, you get fired. If you get fired, your whole life is disrupted. 60% of American--

• 3:29Joe Rogan?

  How much different is that than past generations?

• 3:31Speaker 01

  It's that we've always had rich and poor, no question about it. It's worse now, Joe.

• 3:37Joe Rogan?

  What do you attribute that to?

• 3:40Speaker 01

  I attribute it to--

• 3:45Speaker 01

  Decades old attacks on the working class of this country. I attributed to horrific trade agreements which have allowed corporate America to throw millions of workers out on the street and move to China, Mexico, and other low-wage countries. I attributed to a corrupt political system in which billionaires have significant control over both political parties. So that, for example, right now in Washington, the national minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. So you've got millions of workers today, you know, making 10, 12, 13 bucks an hour. You tell me, how do people survive on 13 bucks an hour? When we were kids, or at least when I was a kid, you worked for a large company.

• 4:28Speaker 01

  You had something called a defined benefit pension plan. You know, that means, that means you worked for me for 30 years. When you retire, you're going to get X hundreds of dollars a week. That's long gone. Corporations have gotten rid of that. So you've got something like half of all the workers in America have nothing in the bank when they face retirement. So I think, to answer your question, I think you've got a rigged system controlled economically and politically by very, very wealthy and powerful people who could care less for working families. Now, I don't want to romanticize the old days because that would not be true. But there used to be a kind of a culture, if I was a boss and I ran a factory, I had a little bit of concern for you, right?

• 5:07Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 5:07Speaker 01

  You know, in general, I would say, I know your wife, how's your mom doing and all that stuff? That's gone. You've got these companies that are owned by other companies, that are owned by super national. You know, we got involved in my office. We used to be the chairman of the labor committee, health, education, labor. So I got involved in a lot of stuff. And when workers were on strike, we would call up and see what was going on, see how we can help. So we'd call up to the company and we'd say, you know, why are you cutting back on health care for your workers? Well, we don't make that decision. It's owned by somebody else. Call up somebody else. Well, we're owned by somebody. You know how it is. It's just huge, these huge conglomerates own the bloody world. And these guys don't give a damn about the needs of working people. So I would say that the economy becomes less and less personal.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  I have no, you're my worker, I have no care about you because right now I'm owned by an international who doesn't know that you exist.

• 5:55Joe Rogan?

  And there's also a diffusion of responsibility.

• 5:58Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 5:58Joe Rogan?

  It's not even in your hands.

• 5:59Speaker 01

  Exactly. So the local boss might say, hey, listen, I'm really sorry, but I didn't have any decision in here.

• 6:04Joe Rogan?

  Right, right, right. There's nothing I can do.

• 6:06Speaker 01

  Nothing I can do. So I add all of that up and you have, and then just look at other things. I mean, you tell me, tell me about the healthcare system. Does anybody in America think this healthcare system is working?

• 6:19Joe Rogan?

  Well, you could tell by the assassination, when the assassination of the United Healthcare guy, when that, when that happened, there, there was people celebrating. When is there ever someone gets assassinated on the streets of New York City and people celebrate?

• 6:34Speaker 01

  Right. That's terrible. It's terrible, but it does speak to how people feel about insurance companies.

• 6:39Joe Rogan?

  Right. Well, and I think rightly so, because it's not what you're paying for. What you're paying for is you're hoping that you never get sick, but if you pay your insurance, you will be covered. What they're trying to do is make it as difficult as possible for you to get money from them.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  You got it. That's the more money, the more I can deny you, the more money I make.

• 7:00Joe Rogan?

  Right. And that's the bottom line. And when you're dealing with these enormous corporations, like we're talking about this diffusion of responsibility, the people that are doing it, it's like, this is what I have to do. This is my job. They don't even think about it.

• 7:11Speaker 01

  Right, exactly.

• 7:12Joe Rogan?

  And this all started when? Like, when, so Michael Moore had that brilliant documentary, Roger and Me.

• 7:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I know, Michael's a good friend, yeah.

• 7:21Joe Rogan?

  Uh, he's a great guy. That, that documentary is fantastic. And it, it shows the impact of a corporation taking all their factories, moving them away like that with no warning, no recourse, nothing anybody can do, decimates the, basically all of Detroit.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  That's right. People don't know this.

• 7:43Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  But if my memory is correct, Detroit used to be in the 50s.

• 7:48Joe Rogan?

  Third richest city in the world.

• 7:50Speaker 01

  You got it.

• 7:50Joe Rogan?

  Yes. Yeah. We've talked about it multiple times. It's disgusting. And especially me as someone who loves American automobiles, I'm a big fan of what Detroit made during that time. And to see what happened to Detroit now, the last time I was in Detroit, it's actually seems to be picking up. There's a lot of, uh, small businesses and a lot of artists and a lot of people that are proud to, like Shinola, companies like that, proud to be in Detroit. But- There's just so many abandoned buildings. It's insane. You could buy a house there for 500 bucks. It's really crazy. Like giant factories where every window smashed. All the pipes have been torn out and it's just this hulking.

• 8:32Speaker 01

  And it's not just.

• 8:33Joe Rogan?

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• 9:17Joe Rogan?

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• 10:00Joe Rogan?

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• 10:28Joe Rogan?

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• 11:10Joe Rogan?

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• 11:36Speaker 01

  Detroit.

• 11:37Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 11:38Speaker 01

  I mean, there are other communities, corporations say, hey. I mean, and

• 11:43Joe Rogan?

  That path is unsustainable, right?

• 11:45Speaker 01

  I think so.

• 11:45Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 11:46Speaker 01

  I mean, and look, if we are, and again, gets back to what we want as a nation, but you had corporations saying, hey, back then, not now, I could pay workers in China 25 cents an hour. Why the hell do I want to hire you for what it was then, five bucks an hour?

• 12:00Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 12:01Speaker 01

  And I'll never forget, Joe, early on when I was elected to Congress, this was when we had the NAFTA agreement. I went to the Maquiladora area, you know what that is?

• 12:13Joe Rogan?

  No.

• 12:14Speaker 01

  It's a special zone in northern Mexico, near the, near the border, where the government there, this is back decades ago, allowed American and other European corporations to settle and got tax breaks there. So it was attracted all these corporations. So I went there with a congressional delegation and this is what I saw. You saw these beautiful new factories. Now, this is 25, 30 years ago. And then we said, all right, I want to see where the workers live. I'll never forget this as long as I live.

• 12:45Speaker 01

  Do you know those large cardboard boxes that refrigerators come into and stoves us? That's where people were living. They were living literally in cardboard boxes, making, I think at that point, and this is a long time ago, 25 cents an hour. So, workers in America were thrown out on the street, and people in Mexico exploited in a horrible way in these big shiny new factories at the time. So what you got, and I believe the strong, you asked me, you know, how does it happen? Why does it happen? I think especially right now, and for many decades, you have the prevailing religion of the oligarchs and the corporate world is greed. That's all. I want it all, and I don't give a shit if I have to step all over you, throw

• 13:29Speaker 01

  you out on the street, take away your social security, I want it, and to hell with you. And that's why you end up with a situation in America where, you know, the top 1% now owns more wealth than the bottom 93%, and millions of people struggle.

• 13:43Joe Rogan?

  It's also a corporate culture of competitiveness, right? So they're competing with all the other corporations, and you have to keep up, and there's no way other than to increase your profits every quarter.

• 13:55Speaker 01

  That's right. That's right. That is exactly, you do the right thing by workers. All right, that's a perfect example. So, you know, you got Wall Street, here's a fact, when we talk about, it's not only income and wealth inequality that bothers me, it's concentration of ownership. So right now, in America, in virtually every sector of our economy, whether it's agriculture, transportation, financial services, whatever, you got a handful of giant multinationals controlling that sector. But here's another amazing fact. Who do you think owns these corporations? You know, you remember it was a day where somebody actually owned General Motors, or John Ford. They are now owned by Wall Street firms. You got three Wall Street investment firms.

• 14:40Speaker 01

  BlackRock, you're familiar with BlackRock?

• 14:42Joe Rogan?

  Vanguard and State Street.

• 14:43Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 14:44Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 14:45Speaker 01

  Check it out on Google. They are combined, the three of them combined are the major stockholders of 95% of American corporations. How's that?

• 14:53Joe Rogan?

  That's not good.

• 14:54Speaker 01

  That's power.

• 14:55Joe Rogan?

  Right. How did that start and what could have been done to stop that from happening?

• 14:59Speaker 01

  Well, I think it's, again, it's greed. These guys are smart, they're hardworking, they're motivated, they want more and more. So if I can buy this, I can buy this, I can sell this.

• 15:10Joe Rogan?

  Right, but they're all doing it within the law, right?

• 15:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 15:12Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 15:13Speaker 01

  But-

• 15:13Joe Rogan?

  Which is, is that the problem?

• 15:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. But who makes that law?

• 15:16Joe Rogan?

  They do.

• 15:17Speaker 01

  Now, I want to go to another issue.

• 15:19Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 15:19Speaker 01

  Which is very rarely discussed, all right? You ready for it?

• 15:23Joe Rogan?

  I'm ready.

• 15:23Speaker 01

  All right, hang on. There we go. And is, the problem I think that we face as a country is not just economic disparities and all the stuff that we're talking about, the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. It is political power. Right now, and I doubt that there are many Americans, whether you're a progressive as I am, or a right-wing Republican, I don't think people can disagree that we have a corrupt campaign finance system. Argue with me?

• 15:51Joe Rogan?

  No, I agree with you. Yeah.

• 15:53Speaker 01

  All right, so let me talk about what it means.

• 15:54Joe Rogan?

  Okay.

• 15:57Speaker 01

  As a result of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, I think it's 15, 16 years old, what it says is, you're a billionaire, you have now the constitutional right, because your money is your freedom of expression, right? So you don't like Bernie Sanders? You can put millions or hundreds of millions of dollars into a campaign and express your view about how terrible Bernie Sanders is.

• 16:22Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 16:23Speaker 01

  And you can buy that election, right?

• 16:24Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 16:24Speaker 01

  That's your constitutional right. I think that's probably the worst decision that the Supreme Court has ever made. So what is the result of that decision? The result of that decision, let's take us to where we are today, is that Elon Musk, and I know Elon was on your show, and he's here in Austin, huh?

• 16:41Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 16:42Speaker 01

  Okay. And I've, we could talk about Elon, but he spent $270 million to elect Trump as president. Okay. I think that's absurd, that any one person-

• 16:53Joe Rogan?

  What's the most someone donated towards the Harris campaign?

• 16:56Speaker 01

  They spent a lot of money on Harris as well.

• 16:59Joe Rogan?

  They spent 1.5 billion dollars just over the course of a couple of months.

• 17:02Speaker 01

  You got it. All right, let me talk about it. So I'm not here just to say it's a Republican, that's my point here.

• 17:06Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 17:07Speaker 01

  Okay. So Musk spends that money, and what's his reward? He becomes the most powerful person in government for three or four months. Okay, fine.

• 17:17Speaker 01

  But what you have right now, and I just saw this the other day. You are a Republican member of Congress, okay? And you say, you know, there's a reconciliation bill, which we can talk about in a minute. This is Trump's big, bad, big, beautiful bill that's coming up, literally on the floor of the Senate very shortly. So let's say you're a Republican representing a low-income district. And you say, you know, you know, I got a lot of people on Medicaid in my district, and kids can't get to college, and I worry about food programs. I don't think it's a good idea to give tax breaks to billionaires and cut back on Medicaid. You make that announcement today, what happens to you?

• 17:55Joe Rogan?

  It's over, you act.

• 17:57Speaker 01

  You're finished.

• 17:58Joe Rogan?

  The swarm comes for you.

• 17:59Speaker 01

  You got it.

• 17:59Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 18:00Speaker 01

  It's not a swarm, it's...

• 18:01Joe Rogan?

  The problem is, it's already been established, right? That these laws have been established, the power has been given to these people, the money has started flowing, and it's been flowing for a long time now. And this is the issue with starting something that you can't stop.

• 18:15Speaker 01

  Well, you can stop it.

• 18:16Joe Rogan?

  You can stop it.

• 18:17Speaker 01

  And you gotta stop it.

• 18:18Joe Rogan?

  Okay, but if you do stop it, all these people are gonna throw all their money at stopping you from stopping, correct? Right?

• 18:26Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 18:26Joe Rogan?

  They're gonna come up with the best commercials with American flags, "This country's all about competition and freedom."

• 18:33Speaker 01

  You got it.

• 18:34Joe Rogan?

  The freedom to donate to the party of your choice.

• 18:37Speaker 01

  You got it.

• 18:38Joe Rogan?

  Stop these communists.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  Hey, stop, you're riding their ass for them, they're gonna pick it up.

• 18:44Joe Rogan?

  Hey, I could ride them.

• 18:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, we could all ride. But then we gotta take a deep breath and figure out where do we go from here? Now, I've wondered, in my part, you know, as you know, I am the longest-serving independent in American history.

• 18:56Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 18:56Speaker 01

  I caucus with the Democrats, I always have, but you're not getting me defending the Democratic Party on this issue, because you're right. During the election, it wasn't just Musk and Republicans putting a lot of money into Trump. It was Democratic billionaires putting a lot of money into Kamala and into other candidates as well. And let me, I mentioned, there's a guy named, I don't know his first name, Mr. Massey, is that name?

• 19:18Joe Rogan?

  Thomas Massey.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  Thomas, from Kentucky.

• 19:20Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  And this guy, as I am, is opposed to this war in Iran. Just yesterday, Trump gave a long post about how they're going to primary this guy. And what bothers me is you would hope that there would be respect enough for members of Congress that you can vote your own conscience, you could represent your constituency. Every district is different in America. But right now, anybody stands up and say, "Well, you know, I disagree with President Trump." Bam, you are finished. We're going to primary you. We got all kinds of money, you're out of there. That happened to Massey yesterday. But let me go back to the Democrats and tell you where the problem.

• 19:57Joe Rogan?

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• 20:43Joe Rogan?

  Can I point something out? Don't you think that there's a Streisand effect to that? Don't you think that there's a blowback for that kind of thing? When people recognize that this guy should be allowed to have his own opinions and should be, and make some reasonable points, and that people are going to reject this idea?

• 21:00Speaker 01

  Maybe.

• 21:01Joe Rogan?

  And that it's not as simple as, I think the whole MAGA thing right now is very divided. Particularly because one of the things that they voted for was no war. Well, now it seems like we're in a war, right? So, and it's quick. We're six months in, and that's already popped off. And then people are very concerned with now what happens to our troops overseas that are in these bases that are in vulnerable positions? And what happens with? I mean, there's supposedly documented terror cells that got in through the open border over the last four years. So what happens now in America? What happens on American soil?

• 21:41Speaker 01

  No, I mean, I agree with those.

• 21:44Joe Rogan?

  When a guy like Thomas Massey steps up and says something, he's gonna have a lot more support as well.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  The answer is yes. And my only point is, he has a right.

• 21:55Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 21:56Speaker 01

  You know, somebody else says, hey, I think the war is a great idea. That's your view. You gotta go back to... But what bothers me is that if anybody stands up, the next day, we're gonna primary. You're outta here, man. And that's the Republicans. Let me talk about the Democrats for a moment, okay? And I don't even know your views on this, so you may disagree with me. You know, Israel was attacked by Hamas, and Hamas is a terrible terrorist organization. They killed 1,200 people, which in a small country like Israel is a lot of people. Terrible, terrible attack. It's a war crime. Israel had a right, in my view, to defend itself. But the Netanyahu government did not have a right to kill 52,000 people in Gaza, wounds over, well over 100,000.

• 22:41Speaker 01

  And right now, as we speak, children are starving to death because of Israel's...

• 22:46Joe Rogan?

  Blockades.

• 22:47Speaker 01

  Blockades, yeah.

• 22:48Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 22:49Speaker 01

  Starving to death. And I brought forth two resolutions, which basically were very simple, and said, no more US military aid to Israel under these conditions. One vote got 15 votes in the Senate, the other one got 16. Do you think that members of the Senate do not know what's going on in Gaza? The kids are starving to death, the innocent people are being shot down right and left? They know it. Why do you think I couldn't get more votes?

• 23:19Joe Rogan?

  They wouldn't vote against Israel.

• 23:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 23:23Joe Rogan?

  It's political suicide.

• 23:24Speaker 01

  Now you're talking.

• 23:25Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 23:26Speaker 01

  All right. So in the Republican side, you have moneyed interests saying, you speak up against Trump, you're outta here. And the Democratic side, you speak up against the Netanyahu government, you're outta here as well. And they have been successful. You have super PACs like AIPAC spending a fortune. You stand, and they have already knocked off a number of members of Congress, good members of Congress, and they will do it again. So all I'm saying is, you got a corrupt campaign finance system on both sides.

• 23:53Speaker 01

  Which is rejecting the will of the American people and end up supporting powerful special interests. And if we do not get a handle on that issue, I worry very much about the future of American democracy.

• 24:07Joe Rogan?

  Are you gonna run for president again?

• 24:08Speaker 01

  I am 83 years of age.

• 24:11Joe Rogan?

  That's what I'm saying.

• 24:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. I'm not sure the American people will be enthusiastic if somebody's 108.

• 24:16Joe Rogan?

  You're still very with it.

• 24:17Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 24:18Joe Rogan?

  You are.

• 24:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:20Joe Rogan?

  I mean, you're a couple of years older than Biden.

• 24:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:24Joe Rogan?

  Right? Think of that.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:27Joe Rogan?

  You could be off a lot worse.

• 24:28Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 24:29Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 24:30Speaker 01

  All right. So, we have been running around the country doing what we call the Fighting Allegory Tour, which is why I'm here in Texas. We were in Fort Worth last night, had a good turnout. And I think, interestingly enough, Joe, it's not most of the people, we know the people who come out to our rallies, you know, we have a big list of millions of people. But a lot of people are coming to our rallies that we don't know, and I think we know that some of them are Republicans and some of them are independents, many of them are independents. Because I think, across the board, there is growing dissatisfaction with the current politics in America, both parties.

• 25:11Speaker 01

  And people want a new vision for America, which is also something we don't talk a whole lot about. So, you know, the issues that we talk about is, in the richest country on earth, why don't we have the best healthcare system in the world? Why do we have 85 million people who are uninsured or uninsured? And as you were mentioning a moment ago, I mean, it deals with the insurance companies and the drug companies. And the function of the current healthcare system is to make these guys very rich, and it works. They make zillions of dollars. And every place you go, in my state, the cost of healthcare is going up this year like 10%, 15%. People can't afford it. And we lose thousands of people every year.

• 25:54Speaker 01

  People get sick, they can't afford to go to the doctor, they die. So, you know, one of the fights that I hope we can win is to have the United States join every other major country on earth and guarantee healthcare to all people as a human right.

• 26:10Joe Rogan?

  Well, we've talked about that a lot on this show, that if you view this country as a community, the most important thing is to protect the most vulnerable members of your community, period, right?

• 26:22Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 26:23Joe Rogan?

  And if we, we spend insane amounts of money on all sorts of things that people don't agree with, and I think generally, most people would agree on some sort of a national healthcare system.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  They do.

• 26:34Joe Rogan?

  Most people, like, there's, there's, there's concepts of socialism that everyone agrees with. One of them is the fire department.

• 26:41Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:42Joe Rogan?

  Right? Everyone thinks that everyone, every citizen, should have access, the same equal access to the fire department, and we all pay into that.

• 26:50Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 26:51Joe Rogan?

  And we all believe in education, we all believe that there should be free public education.

• 26:57Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 26:58Joe Rogan?

  And most people believe that the university system should also be funded. It would benefit everyone.

• 27:03Speaker 01

  You got it.

• 27:04Joe Rogan?

  It would benefit everyone to have more educated people that are doing better in the world, you'd have better GDP, you'd have more, more successful people.

• 27:11Speaker 01

  Absolutely right.

• 27:12Joe Rogan?

  If you want to make America great again, less losers. How do you make less losers? Don't stack the deck against them. You know, one of the first things that you'd have to do is figure out why these communities and these cities have been the exact same way for decade after decade. Back to Jim Crow and the red line laws and all these, why is nothing being done to fix that, or to, to correct that problem? And it becomes this political beach ball that they just bounce around the air at a concert, you know, and everybody, it's like, there's certain things that just keep coming up that make you just, just go, well, how are we still talking about gay marriage? How, how is that still coming up? And it's like, poof, throw it up in the air.

• 27:50Speaker 01

  All right, let me get back to that, but I want to say.

• 27:52Joe Rogan?

  There's a bunch of these things, right?

• 27:53Speaker 01

  All right, the first point you made, you want to make America great, right?

• 27:56Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, less losers.

• 27:57Speaker 01

  Have, have the best educated workforce in the world. How's that?

• 28:00Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 28:01Speaker 01

  Radical idea? I don't think so.

• 28:03Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 28:04Speaker 01

  Are you absolutely right?

• 28:05Joe Rogan?

  Better education.

• 28:06Speaker 01

  You live longer when you have better education, et cetera, et cetera.

• 28:07Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 28:08Speaker 01

  All right. So, what does that mean? It means, right now, you know, I talk to psychologists all the time.

• 28:15Joe Rogan?

  You do?

• 28:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I do, because I am, I was the chairman on that, what's called the ranking member of the Health Education Labor Committee. So, you know, we deal with medical people all the time.

• 28:23Joe Rogan?

  Uh huh.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  Wasn't me personally, if that, no. That I may need also, but no, I was talking to a boy general. Look, what are the most important years of human development? You're a human being. What are the most important?

• 28:37Joe Rogan?

  You're a child.

• 28:38Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 28:39Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 28:39Speaker 01

  Zero to four. How's our childcare system doing?

• 28:41Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, not so good.

• 28:42Speaker 01

  It's a disaster. So you've got a rational society says, okay, the kids are the future of America. Right? You talked about the sense of being a community.

• 28:53Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 28:53Speaker 01

  So if I love this country and I want this country to do well into the future, I have to worry about the children, correct?

• 28:58Joe Rogan?

  Right, absolutely.

• 29:01Speaker 01

  Right now, for economic reasons, when I was a kid, by the way, and this is not to shock some of your younger listeners here, there was one worker in a family could actually bring home the bacon and pay the bills.

• 29:14Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, back in the old days.

• 29:16Speaker 01

  Back in the old days, yeah, man. So I grew up in a working class family. We didn't have any money. My dad went out to work, mom stayed home, and that was it.

• 29:23Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. Made healthier people too that way.

• 29:27Speaker 01

  It did. I think in many respects, it did.

• 29:31Joe Rogan?

  Well, something happened where they sort of devalued the woman's role as a mother and by convincing them that they have to be a part of the workforce.

• 29:40Speaker 01

  I think that's part of it. I think the other half is women legitimately wanted, you know, careers as well.

• 29:45Joe Rogan?

  Sure.

• 29:46Speaker 01

  And the other thing that happened, maybe most significantly, is you need it.

• 29:50Joe Rogan?

  To stay alive.

• 29:50Speaker 01

  Two breadwinners to stay alive.

• 29:51Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, that's the problem. The real problem was financially, it just seemed so difficult for one person to pay for everything.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 29:59Joe Rogan?

  The only way to do it was to have both the parents working.

• 30:02Speaker 01

  You know, I was thinking, I grew up in Brooklyn before I moved to Vermont, and we lived in a rent-controlled apartment. And I was doing the arithmetic, my dad didn't make much money, but we didn't pay much in rent. And I couldn't quite remember, you know, what his salary was and all that. But my guess is we paid, as I recall, I'm talking to my brother about this, about 18% of my dad's salary for rent. 18%. Ain't nobody in America today who's paid 18%. You know what I mean?

• 30:31Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 30:32Speaker 01

  That's why you need two breadwinners, because you're paying 40%, 50%.

• 30:35Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 30:36Speaker 01

  You know. But getting back to this issue of education, which I think is key. If you are rationally thinking about the future of America, if you loved America, as we all do, you're going to have the best childcare system in the world, so the kids will do well in school. Right now, in childcare, you got workers out there making 15 bucks an hour.

• 30:57Speaker 01

  And you have families that cannot afford childcare. My state, I don't know, it's about twenty thousand dollars a year to send your kid to childcare. So you're making fifty thousand a year. How do you pay that? Sixty thousand?

• 31:07Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 31:08Speaker 01

  And then education. You got kids who want an education. They want to go to college. They want to go to trade school. We desperately need, here's something that really drives me a little bit nuts. In America today, Joe, not only is our healthcare system failing because it's based on greed, not on need, but we need more doctors, all right? All over the country, people have to wait, you know, sometimes months to get to a doctor's office. We have a massive nursing shortage. We need more dentists, big problem in dentistry. We need more mental health counselors. We need more pharmacists. How come in the richest country in the world, we don't have enough doctors and nurses?

• 31:51Joe Rogan?

  Because it's very difficult to do. It's very difficult to become a doctor and the bills that you have from education are overwhelming.

• 31:59Speaker 01

  All right. You want to go to, let's just say, tomorrow you announce to the world, you give it up this podcast, you want to go to medical school, all right? You got it?

• 32:07Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 32:10Speaker 01

  You know much, if you don't have any money, you know how much you're going to graduate medical school in debt?

• 32:14Joe Rogan?

  Probably quarter million dollars, easy.

• 32:16Speaker 01

  Double that.

• 32:16Joe Rogan?

  Really?

• 32:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm not, you know, obviously it varies per person, but it is not unusual for guys, you know, people, working class homes, go to medical school, amount five hundred thousand dollars in debt. Nurses, I don't know, a hundred, hundred and fifty thousand dollars a day. That is insane.

• 32:32Joe Rogan?

  It's insane.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  All right.

• 32:33Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 32:34Speaker 01

  We need more doctors. So I should, I want to encourage you. Joe, I want you to go to medical school. Hey, good news, we're paying your tuition, da, da, da, and we need you out there as soon as we can get you.

• 32:42Joe Rogan?

  Why wouldn't that be subsidized?

• 32:44Speaker 01

  Of course you should subsidize it.

• 32:45Joe Rogan?

  Right, of course, yeah. But there's, there's, there's so many different, what would you have done? Like, imagine you hadn't gotten derailed and they hadn't conspired against you and you actually became the Democratic candidate for president and you won. What would you have done differently?

• 33:05Speaker 01

  Okay. How many hours we have?

• 33:08Joe Rogan?

  We got all the time in the world, Bernie.

• 33:10Speaker 01

  I know.

• 33:13Joe Rogan?

  What would you have done first day in office?

• 33:15Speaker 01

  Well, it's not just the first day in office. I would have dealt with this campaign finance reform issue. And there are ways that you can get around that Supreme Court decision.

• 33:23Joe Rogan?

  How do you do that?

• 33:25Speaker 01

  You move toward public funding of elections, which says that, Joe, you want to run against me? That's great, but you're not going to get super PAC money. We're going to publicly fund you. You know, you get 1,500 signatures that says you're a serious candidate, you'll get a certain amount of money to run for office.

• 33:48Joe Rogan?

  So funded by the government?

• 33:50Speaker 01

  Yes, absolutely.

• 33:51Joe Rogan?

  So someone running for president funded by the current president?

• 33:57Speaker 01

  Well, not the current president.

• 33:58Joe Rogan?

  No, with the current government.

• 33:59Speaker 01

  And people say, oh, taxpayer dollars are going there. But that makes a lot more sense than having billionaires fund elections, which is what you got right now. So that's the one.

• 34:07Joe Rogan?

  So you think there should be one, you get a certain number, you just get a certain allotted amount of money that you could use for your campaign?

• 34:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:13Joe Rogan?

  And everybody gets the same amount?

• 34:14Speaker 01

  That exists in some places right now.

• 34:15Joe Rogan?

  Does it where?

• 34:16Speaker 01

  In New York City right now.

• 34:17Joe Rogan?

  Oh, in New York City.

• 34:18Speaker 01

  And other places as well. So if you agree, you know, you're going to raise, you're not going to raise private money, you go the public route, it exists in a number of communities, and I think that is...

• 34:30Joe Rogan?

  Did you watch the New York City debates? The mayor debates?

• 34:33Speaker 01

  I heard, I got involved, and I'm supporting Mr. Mendani.

• 34:38Joe Rogan?

  A lot of people are. Well, especially after that debate.

• 34:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:41Joe Rogan?

  It seems like everybody else was essentially saying, I've been to Israel more than you've been to Israel. I'm going to go to Israel before you do.

• 34:48Speaker 01

  Right. They think they're campaigning to be foreign, you know, minister for Israel or something. But talk about money in politics.

• 34:55Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 34:56Speaker 01

  Just look at New York City. Right now, there's the election tomorrow, I think, right? I think it's tomorrow, what's it, Monday? Tomorrow's Tuesday, right?

• 35:02Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 35:03Speaker 01

  That's the election.

• 35:05Speaker 01

  They're spending a huge amount of money. You know, these are Democratic or some cases.

• 35:09Joe Rogan?

  Who's in the lead right now?

• 35:11Speaker 01

  Uh, polls say Cuomo by a little bit, but I think, uh, Zoran has a lot of momentum.

• 35:18Joe Rogan?

  Polls are weird.

• 35:20Speaker 01

  In a race like that, yes.

• 35:21Joe Rogan?

  Well, they're weird in every race. They were wrong with Hillary in 2020, or in 2016, rather. They were wrong in 2024 with Harris and Trump. Like, I don't understand polls. Because I just, I don't, I have a feeling that the majority of them are inaccurate.

• 35:41Speaker 01

  Well, I think they are increasing. I, I don't know the answer to the other question. The pollsters would argue that's not the case, but I think you've got a lot of folks who are not all that enthusiastic about honestly, giving honest answers to a pollster.

• 35:54Joe Rogan?

  Absolutely. Yeah, that's true too. Yeah. That's part of the problem, right?

• 35:59Speaker 01

  All right, but you asked me on my first day as president, well, I have you drop in, say hello.

• 36:02Joe Rogan?

  Hi.

• 36:03Speaker 01

  Have a cup of coffee. All right.

• 36:04Joe Rogan?

  All right.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  Good. And, and then I, I think we'd declare something like our healthcare system as an emergency and figure out ways that we can do what every other major country in the world does, and that is guarantee healthcare to all people. So one of the things you do is say, okay, we need tens of thousands of more doctors and hundreds of thousands of more nurses and dentists and so forth and so on. And we're going to move aggressively to make sure that in America, everybody in this country has healthcare as a human right. So I think that's number one. Number two, at a time of massive income and wealth inequality, you don't give tax breaks to billionaires. You demand that they start paying

• 36:47Speaker 01

  their fair share of taxes. And one of the problems that we have, it's not just an American issue, it's a global issue. A lot of these billionaires are hiding their money in tax havens in the Cayman Islands and elsewhere. And that's an international issue. But I think we have to have a fair tax system which says that individuals and both the, and corporations that are making a whole lot of money, start paying their fair share of taxes.

• 37:09Joe Rogan?

  What is their fair share?

• 37:10Speaker 01

  I don't know. I mean, you know, on the Eisenhower, the very rich paid, at their upper levels, 90%, you know. But let me be very honest with you, Joe, on this one.

• 37:21Joe Rogan?

  90% is kind of crazy, though, right?

• 37:22Speaker 01

  No, that's not a cost. That's just for the, you know, your billionth dollar. You know what I mean? It's not your, your first dollar. It's not like.

• 37:28Joe Rogan?

  So if you make a billion, you pay 900 million?

• 37:31Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no, that's not what it means. It means on your $900 million, you're gonna pay 90%.

• 37:37Joe Rogan?

  Okay.

• 37:38Speaker 01

  All right. But, you know, the other thing that, uh, I would do, and, you know, you gotta deal with this climate change issue. And I know that, you know, there are some people who think climate change is a hoax. It ain't a hoax. Uh, I think the last 10 years have been the warmest on record. And we can create millions of good paying jobs transforming our energy system away from fossil fuel to energy efficiency, to solar, to wind, and other sustainable energies.

• 38:08Joe Rogan?

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• 38:51Joe Rogan?

  Go to paleovalley.com and use the code ROGEN to get 20% off, or find them on Amazon. I think the climate change issue is very complicated. And I think, uh, did you see the Washington Post, uh, piece that they wrote? Where they did this long-term view, first of all, the, the reality is that the Earth's temperature's never been static, right? We could both agree on that. It's always been up and down, there's been ice ages and heat waves. And then the Washington Post looked at it, what was the time period that they looked at? That, essentially, they found that we're in a cooling period. That the Earth, over the past X amount of years... And this was like a very inconvenient discovery, but they had to report the data and kudos to them for doing that.

• 39:36Joe Rogan?

  Scientists have captured the earth's climate change over the last 485 million years. Here's a surprising place we stand now. So, look at the far end of that graph and you see we're in a cooling period.

• 39:48Speaker 01

  Well, I'm not sure. I didn't read that article, but you know, the scientists who are out there, I think-

• 39:55Joe Rogan?

  I know, but there's a lot of money involved in that too Bernie. That's part of the problem. There's a lot of money involved in this, this whole climate change emergency issue and there's a lot of control and that's, that's a big part of this problem. Not only that, if we're just talking about primarily carbon and carbon footprint, what are we going to do about China? Because China-

• 40:13Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 40:14Joe Rogan?

  China is like, what percentage of-

• 40:16Speaker 01

  They are the major, they are the major polluter right now in terms of carbon. We're number two, we used to be one, they are number one right now.

• 40:24Joe Rogan?

  I think they have an enormous percent of global. I think it's-

• 40:29Speaker 01

  Well, they're number one, I don't know what the percentage is.

• 40:31Joe Rogan?

  It's very high, it's very high.

• 40:32Speaker 01

  Look, this is, it's not an American issue, it is a global issue. And all I can tell you is that we are, in my view, going to see more extreme weather disturbances in the coming years than we have ever. And we're seeing them right now.

• 40:46Joe Rogan?

  Right, but scientists don't agree. Well, this is where it gets confusing. Because scientists that are in agreement, there's all these entanglements. Whenever someone's discussing something, whether it's economics, or whether it's health issues, or pharmaceutical drugs, there's financial entanglements. I think we both agree with that, right?

• 41:06Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 41:07Joe Rogan?

  And I think this is part of the issue with this whole climate change emergency as well, because it's not just that we could all agree pollution is a major factor. It's a huge issue in the world today. We could all agree with that, right? I think one of the things that we have to recognize is that there's, whenever there's an issue that everyone can agree on, you're going to have a bunch of people that capitalize on that issue and they look to gain- More money, they have financial issues that they push forward in order to capitalize on this issue, but then also power and control. These things like they're trying to institute in the UK where they have these 15-minute

• 41:49Joe Rogan?

  cities, this concept, where you're not allowed to travel, they'll be able to look at your carbon footprint. It's, yeah, see, that's the problem. The problem is giving people that are in power, these people that we've all discussed that have so much money and so much control over our societies, multinational corporations, giving them more control over citizens. And this is a vehicle for that. And this is what's dangerous about this whole climate change emergency. Because it allows these fucking creeps that have been controlling people and controlling what you do and what you say and how you spend your money with people that already live in check to check, and you put additional constraints on them and you make them even more scared. And then you put additional measures where you can look at their carbon footprint, you

• 42:33Joe Rogan?

  go look at the amount they travel, you know, put a carbon tax on these people, let's figure out how to extract more money from them. That's what bothers me about this climate change emergency. Not that we can all agree, pollution is a terrible thing. Everyone should agree to that. The beautiful earth that sustains us and all life on this planet is being poisoned as we speak. We're killing all the fish in the ocean and sucking them out in giant numbers, 94% of all the big fish that are in the ocean are gone over the last, you know, whatever it is.

• 43:06Speaker 01

  When you go to war against nature, you lose.

• 43:08Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, because you're a part of nature.

• 43:10Speaker 01

  Exactly right.

• 43:11Joe Rogan?

  But we're worshiping the almighty dollar above the mother.

• 43:14Speaker 01

  You know, you asked me when I ran for president, one of the interests, it's something else than running for president, because you get around, you meet all kinds of people and you learn all kinds of things. And one of the things that I did, we went to a lot of, met with a lot of Native Americans. And one of the reasons is, you know, their tradition was going from way back, respect for nature, that they understood back, way back when, that you kill off all of the buffalo, you ain't gonna have nothing to eat, right?

• 43:44Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 43:44Speaker 01

  They understood that.

• 43:45Joe Rogan?

  Sure.

• 43:45Speaker 01

  And then you understand that you live in harmony with nature.

• 43:47Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 43:47Speaker 01

  Which is, I think, what you're talking about.

• 43:49Joe Rogan?

  Absolutely.

• 43:49Speaker 01

  And if you lose that harmony, I worry about the future of humanity in general.

• 43:56Joe Rogan?

  Which is the problem with financial competitiveness. When you put the almighty dollar above all else.

• 44:01Speaker 01

  You got it.

• 44:01Joe Rogan?

  That's right. Then all you think about, and you're only alive for a hundred years, so it's just hit the gas. Hit the gas for a hundred years and who gives a shit what happens after I'm gone? I'm gonna die with the most toys. Yay, I win, in the dirt.

• 44:12Speaker 01

  That's exactly right.

• 44:13Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 44:14Speaker 01

  And that is, which takes us to another issue.

• 44:16Joe Rogan?

  Okay.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  And that is artificial intelligence and robotics.

• 44:21Joe Rogan?

  Automation.

• 44:22Speaker 01

  Automation.

• 44:22Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 44:23Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 44:23Joe Rogan?

  Giant issue.

• 44:24Speaker 01

  Huge issue. All right, so let's back it up. Americans are angry, and one of the reasons they are angry is that over the last, just to give you one fact here, the last fifty-two years, you and I understand, everybody in the world understands, there's been a huge explosion in technology, correct?

• 44:49Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 44:50Speaker 01

  What we're doing today never could have happened fifty years ago. Factories far more automated, offices far more automated. I became mayor of Burlington, Vermont in nineteen eighty-one, there was not a computer in the building, okay?

• 45:04Joe Rogan?

  By the way, great town.

• 45:06Speaker 01

  It is a great town. In any case, an explosion of technology, significant increase in worker productivity, right? We're talking to millions of people now, never could have happened before, right? That's true, workers are producing a lot more. Tell me, how are real inflation accounted for wages been over the last fifty-two years? With all of that increase in worker productivity, workers doing a lot better?

• 45:30Joe Rogan?

  Not so good.

• 45:31Speaker 01

  Not so good.

• 45:31Joe Rogan?

  No.

• 45:32Speaker 01

  In fact, there are studies out there that suggest in real inflation accounted for dollars, wages are actually low and out than they were fifty-two years ago. Okay? And during that same period, there's a massive transfer of wealth from the bottom ninety percent to the top one percent. So, that's what technology has done over the last fifty years. It is not... There was a study, I don't know if you saw this, blew me away. I can't remember who did it, Kaiser? Some reputable guy, people did it. This is what they said. They do a poll to the American people and they say, "Americans, do you think you are better off today than somebody in your situation, you know, middle-class, whatever you may be, was forty years ago? Okay?

• 46:16Speaker 01

  Are you better off today than somebody in your circumstance would have been forty years ago?" What was the answer?

• 46:22Joe Rogan?

  No.

• 46:23Speaker 01

  What do you think?

• 46:24Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 46:25Speaker 01

  And what the answer was, and this is, and we've got to deal with this one. This is big. The answer was, you know, there were a number of people saying, "Hey, look, I got a cellphone, it's great, I got a big screen TV."

• 46:34Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 46:35Speaker 01

  "It's great, I can fly all over the world, it's great." I get sick, I get treatment now that I never could have had forty years ago, right?

• 46:41Joe Rogan?

  Those are facts.

• 46:42Speaker 01

  All really positive developments. But on average, most people said, "I think this situation is worse today than it was forty years ago." And that is what we've got to deal with. So you've got all the technology in the world.

• 46:55Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 46:56Speaker 01

  What the hell does it mean if your life is not improving, in fact, in many ways getting worse?

• 47:00Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. Well, again, we'll go back to polls again, because I don't necessarily believe that polls are totally accurate, but I do think that the issue with... It being virtually impossible for one person to sustain the entire family these days. One worker, the father or the mother, whoever it is, to sustain the entire. That's a, that's a giant issue. All these issues, uh, when it comes to labor, when it comes to, uh, minimum wage. I think you and I are in agreement of all the, on all these. I think, uh, the minimum wage in this country is ridiculous. I mean, to seven dollars, what?

• 47:37Speaker 01

  It's insane.

• 47:38Joe Rogan?

  It's insane. How do you live off seven dollars? You go to Jimmy John's, you get a sub. How much is a sub? How much is a sub, like a big sub at Jimmy John's? Some guy was just, uh, did a TikTok video where he's like, they're trying to say that minimum wage fifteen dollars is too much. I think he had a sub that he bought for twenty-five bucks. So imagine that's your lunch. So imagine you have to work three and a half hours just to pay for a sandwich? Imagine how insane that is.

• 48:08Speaker 01

  It's insane.

• 48:09Joe Rogan?

  That's insane. Like, how do you eat? How do you eat dinner? How do you eat lunch? How do you eat breakfast?

• 48:15Speaker 01

  I have talked to people who make ten, twelve bucks an hour trying to raise a kid.

• 48:19Joe Rogan?

  Jesus.

• 48:20Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 48:21Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. Well, the, the argument against that is, hey, these are entry level jobs that are supposed to be for kids.

• 48:26Speaker 01

  No, it's, and that's factually incorrect. Yeah, of course, that's true to some degree.

• 48:30Joe Rogan?

  To some degree, but if you have grown adults that are working those jobs, now it becomes disgusting.

• 48:35Speaker 01

  That's right. That's exactly right.

• 48:37Joe Rogan?

  Especially when you're dealing with an enormous corporation.

• 48:39Speaker 01

  You got it.

• 48:39Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 48:40Speaker 01

  So we put a lot of pressure, you know, we, you know, are trying to raise the minimum wage, federal minimum wage to seventeen bucks an hour.

• 48:46Joe Rogan?

  That's a reasonable amount of money. You know, I mean, it's still, it's not, it's going to be real difficult to live off of seventeen bucks an hour.

• 48:54Speaker 01

  But at least, that's right.

• 48:55Joe Rogan?

  At least you can get a sandwich in under two hours worth of work.

• 48:59Speaker 01

  All right, but I want to get back to this issue because it's one that we don't talk about and it gets to AI. Why do, why do we have what, you know, some of these people call an epidemic of loneliness in America? All right?

• 49:13Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 49:13Speaker 01

  All right. Why are we, mental illness rates are pretty high. Suicide rates are too high. Too much to God. Drug addiction.

• 49:21Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 49:21Speaker 01

  Horrible problem all over the country. Why?

• 49:26Joe Rogan?

  Well, there's a lot of factors. First of all, there is a, there are a lot of people that are very unhealthy, physically unhealthy. I think metabolic health is a gigantic issue in this country.

• 49:38Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 49:39Joe Rogan?

  There's a lot of people in this country that feel completely disenfranchised and so they turn inward.

• 49:44Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 49:45Joe Rogan?

  And then technology invites them to do that. You get online and you spend your time staring at a screen, having communications with people, arguing on Twitter all day, you know, changing the flag in your bio from Ukraine to Palestine and now you've got an Iranian flag. You're just like in a constant state of anxiety and chaos. You're dealing with the entire problem, the problems of the entire world. You're dealing with eight billion people's worth of problems every day. I think that's unsustainable. And then that's also a function of technology because this interaction that we have is unprecedented.

• 50:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 50:23Joe Rogan?

  The interaction with the news, with each other, all this stuff we're not designed to handle and it gives you massive anxiety, particularly for young people. Particularly Jonathan Haidt's written about this with young girls who have the biggest problem with social media, comparing themselves to other people, massive increase in self-harm, suicide, suicidal ideology, depression, anxiety, all this stuff accentuated by technology and our unchecked use of it.

• 50:50Speaker 01

  I think you hit the nail on the head. And so I think we've got to take a deep breath and understand that we've got to figure out how we make technology work to improve human life.

• 51:05Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 51:06Speaker 01

  Not to hurt.

• 51:07Joe Rogan?

  Don't you think this is the 11th hour?

• 51:08Speaker 01

  I think it is.

• 51:09Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, this is, the problem with it is like it's already the genie's out of the bottle.

• 51:14Speaker 01

  The genie's out of the box, there's no question about it. But, you know, we can't sit around and just do nothing.

• 51:17Joe Rogan?

  But when it, this is the real issue. When it becomes a problem where you have massive automation of almost all jobs, which is something that, especially when you deal with a corporation that is entirely based around making the most amount of money possible, well, what better way when you don't have to pay them anything?

• 51:36Speaker 01

  You got it.

• 51:37Joe Rogan?

  You own.

• 51:38Speaker 01

  There are slides, I don't know if you've seen them.

• 51:40Speaker 01

  Signs advertising from AI companies. What was they saying? Don't hire humans, something like that. You see, I posted it.

• 51:47Joe Rogan?

  That's adorable.

• 51:48Speaker 01

  Don't.

• 51:49Joe Rogan?

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• 52:30Joe Rogan?

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• 53:10Joe Rogan?

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• 53:26Speaker 01

  Hire humans.

• 53:27Joe Rogan?

  That's demonic.

• 53:30Speaker 01

  It is.

• 53:31Joe Rogan?

  But also, from the perspective of a corporation, where you deal with human issues, problems, mistakes, people showing up late, not doing their job correctly.

• 53:42Speaker 01

  Why do I need you when I can get a robot?

• 53:43Joe Rogan?

  Exactly.

• 53:44Speaker 01

  You're not going to get sick. You know, I can fix you a lot easier than paying for your healthcare and so forth and so on.

• 53:49Joe Rogan?

  Right, so what do you do? What do you do about that? So if you're the president, and President Sanders, we have this issue, the whole country is going to go automation. What do we do?

• 54:00Speaker 01

  All right. First of all, we make the determination.

• 54:05Speaker 01

  That we are not going to let a handful of CEOs make these decisions. They're going to be made by the American people. What does that mean? Bottom line, it means that technology is going to work to improve us, not just the people who own the technology and the CEOs of logic operations. What does that mean? All right, first thought. You are a worker. Your worker, your productivity is increasing because we give you AI, right?

• 54:33Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 54:33Speaker 01

  All right. Instead of throwing you out on the street, I'm going to reduce your work week to 32 hours. All right?

• 54:40Joe Rogan?

  That'd be nice. Four-day work week?

• 54:42Speaker 01

  Exactly. And by the way, not a radical idea.

• 54:44Joe Rogan?

  Not a radical idea at all.

• 54:45Speaker 01

  There are companies around the world that are doing it with some success. The UAW, United Automobile Workers, they had a big strike a year ago. You remember against the big three, remember that?

• 54:55Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 54:56Speaker 01

  And they won a very good contract, and I'm a big fan of the trade union movement. I think workers need that. And one of their demands, interestingly, and people thought that Sean Fain, who was the president of the union, was crazy. But Sean said, you know what? We want a 32-hour work week because our people are producing more. People thought he was crazy, but the idea is catching on. So first thing to say is, let's use technology to benefit workers. That means give you more time with your family, with your friends, you know, for education, whatever the hell you want to do. You don't have to work 40 hours a week anymore. The second thing I think we have got to do is take a look, as you just said, you said it, you know, better than I said it, is what does it mean that we have so many young kids

• 55:41Speaker 01

  living on the internet?

• 55:43Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 55:43Speaker 01

  All right. There are schools all over the country now who are getting cell phones out of schools. I talk to teachers in Vermont, and they say, you know, the kids' attention spans now have been greatly diminished.

• 55:57Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 55:57Speaker 01

  You know? How do we deal with that? This...

• 56:02Speaker 01

  In Vermont, again, there was a, somebody told me that there's a teacher now who does, he demands that the, his students write with a pen in blue books now because he doesn't trust what they're sending in, that it's not artificial intelligence. All right? So if I say to you, all right, Joe, give me, tell me what happened to the American Revolution, you go to the chat box, you give a wonderful essay that you know nothing about, right?

• 56:25Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 56:26Speaker 01

  What does that mean for your intellectual development? That all you can do is press a button and give me an answer?

• 56:32Joe Rogan?

  Right, unless you've absorbed that information.

• 56:34Speaker 01

  Right, unless you have. But many kids are not.

• 56:36Joe Rogan?

  Are not.

• 56:37Speaker 01

  And we've got to worry about that as well. So I think we have to take a deep breath on many of the things. What has been the impact of all this stuff? How do we stop the negative impacts? How do we go forward with what is positive? And it is not easy stuff, to be sure. But I just don't, what I worry about right now is I think artificial intelligence is going to displace millions and millions of workers, people are going to be thrown out on the streets. I think the corporate guys who are running these companies could care less about these workers. I think robotics is going to be running a lot of the factories in America. And I think these issues we just have got to address in a bold way.

• 57:17Joe Rogan?

  Yes, but how do you do that? And like, you're balancing it out. In one way, if you are a corporation, like imagine you're an automobile manufacturing corporation, you're Ford. What, and Ford is struggling right now. There's a giant issue with Ford, right? So what does Ford do if all of a sudden something comes along that allows them to be more productive? They, they're more profitable. These machines can work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, they don't need time off. And you're going to make a better product, you're going to make more money for your shareholders, the corporation succeeds. But you don't need X amount of workers anymore.

• 58:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 58:02Joe Rogan?

  What, how do you, how do you mitigate this?

• 58:04Speaker 01

  I mean, that's the right question.

• 58:05Joe Rogan?

  Right, what do you do?

• 58:06Speaker 01

  All right, nobody has a simple answer, let's just talk about it. Does Ford simply, does corporate America have the right to say to workers throughout this country? Hey, sorry guys, we don't need you anymore, have a nice life, you're out on the street.

• 58:18Joe Rogan?

  Instead of thinking them as workers. Should we think of them as, look, there are people that make the decisions, there's the executives, there's the corporation itself, but without the people that worked on those assembly lines, you have nothing.

• 58:34Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 58:35Joe Rogan?

  You have nothing. You couldn't have done any of the things you've done without those people. But those people are replaceable because it's skilled labor that you could teach another person to do, and they're replaceable because there's plenty of people that want those jobs, and there's a demand. So you file them in, you file them out, which is why they developed unions, right? So they developed unions to keep people from being exploited.

• 59:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 59:01Joe Rogan?

  And then, the problem becomes, the unions get exploited, and then the unions have a lot of money, and then there's a lot of influ-- and then they decide, okay, fuck these unions, let's go to Mexico. And these laws that Ross Perot famously talked about, the giant sucking sound headed south.

• 59:17Speaker 01

  I remember those.

• 59:18Joe Rogan?

  Remember that?

• 59:18Speaker 01

  Oh, I remember them well.

• 59:19Joe Rogan?

  Boy, was he right.

• 59:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:20Joe Rogan?

  Boy, was he right.

• 59:21Speaker 01

  All right, let's get back to this issue of which--

• 59:24Joe Rogan?

  What do you do, like, if you're, you're the president--

• 59:26Speaker 01

  There ain't no easy answers. Let me throw that out to you. I don't have a magical solution, I wish I did, I don't. I think the first thing, you say, all right, I'm Ford, I'm General Motors, I got all this technology, I can produce my products much more efficiently, I don't need workers anymore, right?

• 59:43Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 59:44Speaker 01

  Well, I'm sorry, Mr. GM, and I'm sorry, Mr. Ford, because this country is more than just your profits. We are human beings, and you're not going to throw people out on the street, many of whom will have a hard time getting health care, et cetera, et cetera. So let me reframe the question again, of which admittedly, it is complicated, I don't have the magic answer. How as a nation, forget Ford, forget General Motors, how as a nation do we deal with this exploding technology so that it benefits all of us, and not just Mr. Ford and Mr. General Motors? That's the question, I think. All right, and it's going to require radical solutions. So for a start, it gets back to something we talked about a little while ago.

• 1:00:27Speaker 01

  If you had, healthcare is a human right, right?

• 1:00:31Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:00:32Speaker 01

  Is people in almost every other wealthy country have. And not attached to your job, that would be a major step forward, right?

• 1:00:41Joe Rogan?

  Yes, absolutely.

• 1:00:42Speaker 01

  All right, Joe, you lost your job, but you know what? Your family still has healthcare.

• 1:00:44Joe Rogan?

  Right. Imagine if you were a diabetic and now you don't have access to insulin because now you no longer have...

• 1:00:50Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:00:50Joe Rogan?

  Right, okay.

• 1:00:50Speaker 01

  So, this is the way I frame it. We are the wealthiest country in the history of the world right now. With all of this artificial intelligence and robotics, we are going to be wealthier. Correct?

• 1:01:03Joe Rogan?

  Correct.

• 1:01:03Speaker 01

  All right. So, we're not in the 1820s where people had to work 100 hours a week to grow food to eat, right?

• 1:01:10Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:01:10Speaker 01

  You're not in the 1920s, you're in 2025. You have all of this productivity out there. How do we utilize it to create a decent standard of living for all people? Let me ask you this. With all of this technology, can we wipe out poverty in America?

• 1:01:26Joe Rogan?

  Well, we should be able to, right?

• 1:01:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, you should be able to.

• 1:01:28Joe Rogan?

  Well, we should have been able to do that a long time ago if that was something that was...

• 1:01:31Speaker 01

  Politically motivated, right?

• 1:01:32Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:32Speaker 01

  If you wanted to. But, it's easy now.

• 1:01:35Joe Rogan?

  Or profitable.

• 1:01:36Speaker 01

  Pardon me?

• 1:01:36Joe Rogan?

  If it was profitable to wipe out poverty, which it should be. Like, overall, as a community, like I said, less losers, higher GDP.

• 1:01:44Speaker 01

  If we loved the country.

• 1:01:44Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, if you really love America.

• 1:01:46Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:01:46Joe Rogan?

  You want more people to have a chance.

• 1:01:47Speaker 01

  All right, so what kind... All right, good. I mean, I... So, the... And again, please, this is a complicated issue. I surely don't have all the answers. But I think, we throw on the table, you've got all of this technology, what is our goal? So, all right. Our goal is, if we're going to create all of this wealth, that we have a healthcare system that guarantees healthcare to all people. And by the way, we have drug companies whose function is to come up with cures to diabetes and dementia and Alzheimer's and other terrible illnesses, rather than just make huge profits for themselves, all right? You have a publicly funded healthcare system guarantees healthcare to all people.

• 1:02:28Speaker 01

  Just doing that would lower the stress rate in this country enormously.

• 1:02:33Joe Rogan?

  Enormously, sure.

• 1:02:34Speaker 01

  Okay, you got that. We talked a moment about about education. I think you and I agreed.

• 1:02:38Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:02:39Speaker 01

  We want the best educational system in the world. What does it mean that all you don't have to worry. You're working dead out there. You're worried that your kid may have a lower standard of living than you. Kid can't afford to go to college. You don't want your kid leaving school fifty thousand dollars. We say education is a human right. God, you know, you mentioned public education a while ago. That didn't happen by accident. You know, back in the early 20th century, a lot of people, working class people fought and said, you know what? We don't only want, you know, the rich kids to get a decent education. We want our kids. And that's how public education began, right?

• 1:03:14Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:03:14Speaker 01

  So it said, okay, everybody in America, you know, state by state, started in Wisconsin, actually, is going to have public education from first grade, kindergarten to 12th grade. God didn't create 12th grade as the limit, right?

• 1:03:29Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:03:29Speaker 01

  All right. You go to Scandinavia. You go to Germany right now. You know how much it costs to get a higher education?

• 1:03:34Joe Rogan?

  How much?

• 1:03:35Speaker 01

  Zero.

• 1:03:35Joe Rogan?

  That's great.

• 1:03:36Speaker 01

  Of course it's great.

• 1:03:37Joe Rogan?

  That's why they make such good cars.

• 1:03:40Speaker 01

  Well, it could be. You know, they want.

• 1:03:43Joe Rogan?

  Great engineers.

• 1:03:44Speaker 01

  That's right. But the bottom line is what you said.

• 1:03:46Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:47Speaker 01

  If I want this country to be productive.

• 1:03:49Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:03:50Speaker 01

  I want the best educated workforce. That's not a debate, right?

• 1:03:52Joe Rogan?

  Unquestionably.

• 1:03:53Speaker 01

  All right.

• 1:03:53Joe Rogan?

  That's how you want your family. And if the country is a community, the country is your family.

• 1:03:58Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:03:59Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:04:00Speaker 01

  All right. So that's what we got to start thinking about. It's not just what Mr. Ford and Mr. General Motors and Mr. Apple want.

• 1:04:07Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:04:07Speaker 01

  You're right in saying they are motivated by making zillions.

• 1:04:10Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:04:10Speaker 01

  All right. Their motivation is throw the workers out on the street, bring in the technology and screw the workers. That is not what we should be doing as a nation. You got to tell them that. All right? All right. So we got to sit there and say, all right, all this technology, all right, we talk about healthcare as a human right. I think we're talking about education as a human right.

• 1:04:29Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:04:30Speaker 01

  I think we should be saying with all of this technology, we got to be thinking seriously about lowering the number of hours that people work.

• 1:04:37Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:04:38Speaker 01

  You know how many people, zillions of people in this country don't work 40 hours a week. They're working 50, 60 hours a week. That's insane. So we can say all of this increased worker productivity, guess what? Yeah, I don't know what the number is. We got to work on a 34 hour, four day work week. With no loss of pay. I introduced a bill to do that. I gotta tell you, you know, I go to airports, I go around, people came up to me. People are stressed out by the amount of hours they have to work.

• 1:05:03Joe Rogan?

  Absolutely.

• 1:05:04Speaker 01

  All right. So what I'm saying here is, let's take a hard look about how we utilize this technology to improve life for all people. Our goal should be, instead of bombing Iran, our goal should be, right now, Joe, our life expectancy in America is lower than it is in other major countries. You know that?

• 1:05:26Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:05:26Speaker 01

  It's four years younger than, four years shorter lifespans than other wealthy countries. If you're working class in America, you live seven years shorter life than the 1%, which is, to me, just outrageous. All right. So here's the, here's the thing. Instead of bombing Iran, how do we increase life expectancy so that we're living the longest lives of many people on earth? How's that for a goal?

• 1:05:49Joe Rogan?

  Well, that's a great goal. And how do you go about achieving that goal?

• 1:05:53Speaker 01

  Healthcare is one, reducing the work week is another, education is, all the things that we've talked about.

• 1:05:58Joe Rogan?

  All the things we talked about.

• 1:05:59Speaker 01

  All right.

• 1:06:00Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:06:01Speaker 01

  Will increase life expectancy. But have a goal out there.

• 1:06:03Joe Rogan?

  Also taking toxic food.

• 1:06:05Speaker 01

  Exactly. Exactly. You know, I don't, you know, I don't, I've known Bobby Kennedy for a long time, and, you know, he and I have gone in different directions politically, but here's the point about health, food?

• 1:06:22Joe Rogan?

  We spend the most and we're the sickest.

• 1:06:23Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Absolutely. And food is one of the, when I was chairman of the committee, we worked very hard to get serious labeling. You know, some kid drinks a, mom buys a bottle of Coca-Cola for the kid, there's like, what, 10 teaspoons of sugar in that, that product?

• 1:06:38Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:39Speaker 01

  You know, I don't think people know that, and we try to get labeling, maybe that will happen now.

• 1:06:43Joe Rogan?

  People also weren't aware until like the last twenty years with the consequences of that sugar is.

• 1:06:49Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:06:50Joe Rogan?

  Also because of money.

• 1:06:52Speaker 01

  You got it. I mean, you don't get me going on that one.

• 1:06:55Joe Rogan?

  Let's go. I'll get you going, come on.

• 1:06:58Speaker 01

  You would think, how hard is it to say if you have a bottle of soda or you have a food product, tell people in English what is in the damn product, right?

• 1:07:08Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:07:09Speaker 01

  Do you think anyway, right now they have any grams? Do you think anybody in America knows what the hell a gram is? I mean, it just, that's how ridiculous it is. So, I want parents to know that if the food that they're serving their kid could lead to obesity, which is an epidemic in America, could lead to diabetes, which is an epidemic, a terrible illness, costing us hundreds of billions of dollars. So you're absolutely right.

• 1:07:35Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:07:36Speaker 01

  All right? And then that ties into rebuilding family-based agriculture in America. Wouldn't it be nice?

• 1:07:41Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:07:42Speaker 01

  In my state of Vermont, all over this country, family farmers are, you know, they're just being driven off of the land. And that to me is a real tragedy because, and again, Vermont is one of the most rural states in America. Growing up, if you talk to people who grew up on farms, they say, you know Bernie, that was a pretty good way of life, and we're losing that. So how do you create an economy in which we once again put an emphasis on family-based agriculture, not corporate agriculture, family farmers who are growing good, in many cases organic food for our kids, rather than corporate?

• 1:08:16Joe Rogan?

  Regenerative, regenerative agriculture.

• 1:08:17Speaker 01

  You got it.

• 1:08:18Joe Rogan?

  Like true, like White Oaks Pastures, the way they run it, Pollyface Farms.

• 1:08:22Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Wouldn't that be great?

• 1:08:24Joe Rogan?

  Yes. Well, we'd be a lot healthier if we ate that food, that's for sure. But the problem is people are already addicted to that other food. And this is the problem with money. These corporations have engineered these products. And these are the same corporations, unfortunately, that were in charge of tobacco. You know, this is where it gets really weird. They bought out all the major processed food corporations and they make this stuff that's unbelievably addictive because it's engineered by scientists. We got the brightest and the best who figured out what's the best way to get these people totally addicted to whatever, you know, fill in the blank.

• 1:08:58Speaker 01

  How pathetic is that?

• 1:08:59Joe Rogan?

  It's pretty sick. Yeah. And they say, hey, these people, they have, they have choice. They could eat whatever they want. They want to go to the grocery store and eat tomatoes and have a nice salad, they can. But shouldn't they also be able to get Pop-Tarts?

• 1:09:14Speaker 01

  Look, your point is interesting. You remember there's a photograph, a very famous photograph. I don't know when it was done, 50s, maybe 60s, 70s, I don't know. Of the tobacco industry executives coming before Congress.

• 1:09:30Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:09:31Speaker 01

  You remember that photograph?

• 1:09:32Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:09:32Speaker 01

  And the congressman said to them, and tell me, I maybe get this a little bit wrong. Are you aware that cigarettes kill people? No, no congressman, we have no evidence to that effect, right?

• 1:09:44Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:09:45Speaker 01

  They were lying through their teeth.

• 1:09:46Joe Rogan?

  Of course.

• 1:09:46Speaker 01

  And it's exactly, your analogy is exactly right. These food manufacturers know exactly that they are causing obesity and god knows what else in kids, leading to diabetes. They know exactly what they're doing.

• 1:10:02Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:10:02Speaker 01

  And they're lying. And they're opposing all of us who are trying to, among other things, make our food supply healthier.

• 1:10:08Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, they are. And this is also a function of corporate America, right? This is a function of wanting to do better in each quarter, you know, having this endless...

• 1:10:19Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:10:20Joe Rogan?

  Endless growth cycle where they're never sat, they never say, hey, we make X amount of money every year, this is perfect.

• 1:10:27Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:10:28Joe Rogan?

  Let's concentrate on doing better for our community.

• 1:10:30Speaker 01

  And the companies don't even make that decision, the Wall Street investors make that decision.

• 1:10:33Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:10:34Speaker 01

  You gotta make, you gotta make more.

• 1:10:35Joe Rogan?

  Exactly, stockholders. Right, because the shareholders would be like, there's no fucking way, you need to make more money.

• 1:10:39Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:10:39Joe Rogan?

  Otherwise, I'm dumping your stock and your company's gonna go in the toilet.

• 1:10:42Speaker 01

  Right. So how, I mean, this is what we have got to deal with as a nation. It's not acceptable. All right, is it acceptable for food companies to poison our kids?

• 1:10:51Joe Rogan?

  No.

• 1:10:52Speaker 01

  All right, but what are you gonna do about it? I'm the senator, not you, right?

• 1:10:57Joe Rogan?

  It's a good question. Yeah, it's a solid question. And I think the things that Bobby Kennedy is proposing and implementing, I think are very valuable. First of all, getting all these poisonous dyes and all these things that have been kicked out of all these other major companies, including Canada. There's the same factories that make these food products in America, literally have to make a different version of it for Canada, and then they're complaining that they can't do it because economically it won't be profitable for them anymore. But you're already making them! You're making them and you're shipping them to Canada.

• 1:11:27Speaker 01

  My son brought me back from Canada.

• 1:11:29Joe Rogan?

  Fruit Loops?

• 1:11:30Speaker 01

  I think it was Fruit Loops, actually.

• 1:11:31Joe Rogan?

  They look kinda plain. They don't have that bright pop to them that cancer gives you.

• 1:11:36Speaker 01

  You're absolutely, I mean, so I think this is, you know, it almost gets back to the need to revitalize American democracy and say to large corporations, you know what? You can't poison our children. I don't think that's a terribly radical concept. You can make money, make money, but don't poison our children. Say to large corporations, technology is coming, that's good, but you're not going to use it just to throw workers out on the street.

• 1:12:01Joe Rogan?

  But let's go to that too, because we kind of glossed over that. We never got back to it. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. If you're thinking about building a website, you should try Squarespace. I know because I use it. That's right. JoeRogan.com is powered by Squarespace. It has all the features that you need to create a standout website like an AI-enhanced website builder, SEO optimization tools, and seamless checkouts with mobile pay links. Head to Squarespace.com/Rogan for a free trial. And when you are ready to launch, use the offer code ROGEN to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

• 1:12:43Joe Rogan?

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• 1:13:25Joe Rogan?

  Go to Chime.com/Rogan. Takes a few minutes to sign up. Chime is a fintech, not a bank, banking services and Chime card provided by Chime's bank partners. Terms and limits apply. Go to Chime.com/disclosures for more details.

• 1:13:42Joe Rogan?

  So automation comes and one of the things that Andrew Yang warned us about a long time ago. And back then, I kinda saw it in the distance. I was like, yeah, he's got a real good point about universal basic income. But the, the, the speed in which it's happening, I didn't anticipate. And when it, you know, we live in Austin and when you go around Austin, you see these Waymos everywhere.

• 1:14:06Speaker 01

  Alright, I'm gonna, I'm gonna plead ignorance. Tell me what a Waymo is.

• 1:14:10Joe Rogan?

  Waymo is a driverless automobile. So you use an app, you call a Waymo.

• 1:14:15Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:14:16Joe Rogan?

  A lot of people like it because you don't get a shifty Uber drivers trying to sell you fentanyl or whatever. Not, not saying that they do that, Uber, don't sue me. Uh, but then they, they're very, they're very good. They don't get in accidents. They're, they follow the speed limit. They're good about merging. They're good about pedestrians. They have cameras all around them spinning.

• 1:14:34Speaker 01

  I know, see them, yeah.

• 1:14:35Joe Rogan?

  They're very effective.

• 1:14:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:37Joe Rogan?

  And what was really fascinating was during these ICE riots, they were lighting those things on fire. And I was like, I disagree with that, but I also think it's directionally correct. You know, I mean, that, that's your enemy. Your enemy is automation. The enemy of the human being, the, a, a human that lives in this functional society and everybody has a task and get paid for the task. Automation's gonna take all that away. So if you do say this, okay, we're gonna lower your work week. What if there's no job left for the human being to do? If the entire assembly line, we talked about this about China and some of their coal factories.

• 1:15:19Joe Rogan?

  Um, there was this video that I watched of this coal factory in China, which is entirely automated. Every step of the way, the trucks.

• 1:15:25Speaker 01

  No human beings at all?

• 1:15:26Joe Rogan?

  No human beings at all. I mean, there's probably a few overseers that make sure that all of systems are functioning correctly. So you have software engineers and, you know, people that are, that repair people. But the trucks even park themselves next to the charging station and recharge. And then they're moving 24 hours a day, unloading, documenting where everything is. It's all in computer databases. It's wild to watch because there's no people. It's all just gzzzz, 24 hours a day, machines, gzzzz. What do you do when there's no need for these people? And what happens, even with the universal basic income, what we're talking about? I support it. I'm a big supporter of social safety nets.

• 1:16:12Joe Rogan?

  Look, when I was a kid, my family was on welfare. And we were on food stamps, too. Like, if you don't have that, people go hungry. Like, we, again, if we're gonna support the community, we want people to be able to survive and be able to work their way out of that. My family did work their way out of that. So it was cool for me, as a child, to see my parents struggling, but then succeed and get out of it.

• 1:16:42Joe Rogan?

  What worries me is that if all the jobs are gone and everything gets automated, even if people have universal basic income, they don't have meaning.

• 1:16:52Speaker 01

  Good. All right, you're touching on really deep issues.

• 1:16:55Joe Rogan?

  Right. This is the big one, because a lot of people, you know, you wanna get your car fixed, you go to KC. He's the best. He knows how to fix your car.

• 1:17:04Speaker 01

  And work gives, as you've just said, that's the word "purpose", is an enormously...

• 1:17:09Joe Rogan?

  It's huge.

• 1:17:10Speaker 01

  I don't care if you sweep the streets. People are purpose. They wanna do their job well. It's, work is an important part of our lives. Is it right?

• 1:17:18Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:17:18Speaker 01

  At the end of the day, no one...

• 1:17:19Joe Rogan?

  It's your identity, a lot of times.

• 1:17:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:17:21Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:21Speaker 01

  And you want to be a productive member of society. I'm contributing.

• 1:17:25Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:17:26Speaker 01

  All right? So you ask the right question. And I think they're, and I, you know, we can just bat around. I'm, I don't have any, you know, quick answers here. But I think the good news, you talk about this coal mining thing, and I'm not a great fan of coal, but, you know, that it's automation. People do not have to do dirty work, dangerous work. Is that good? Yeah, I guess that's good. But always, we have to be thinking how it benefits not just the bottom line of a corporation, but the happiness and well-being of human beings. So if, if what you're saying is that in years to come, a significant part of work is gonna be done by machinery or by computers, whatever...

• 1:18:11Joe Rogan?

  I think that's inevitable.

• 1:18:11Speaker 01

  Okay. Then we have to rethink our own purpose in life. All right? And it's not sitting around watching TV 24 hours a day. So I think you raised the, I would say the simple answer, and then you've got to go a lot further than that, is to say that under those circumstances of that kind of technology, everybody has at least a decent standard of living, all right? That people don't have to worry about, you know, survival, they don't have to worry about food.

• 1:18:45Joe Rogan?

  Right. Increase profitability of this corporation, provide a fund that's a universal basic income fund. If you're going to replace all these people with robots and you're going to be even more profitable, share some of that profit, then you'll be more profitable than if these people just stayed working, doing nothing, right?

• 1:19:02Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, whether you will be or not be, I think-

• 1:19:04Joe Rogan?

  But once the machines are running everything, they're going to be running 24 hours a day, and you're not going to have to pay the machines, it's going to be more profitable.

• 1:19:11Speaker 01

  Right, of course it will be. And we want to, you know, right now, in, where is it? Jeez, I think, don't quote me on this, maybe in Norway, they have a huge wealth fund which came from oil. They had publicly owned oil companies, they made a fortune, and they have like a trillion dollars in their wealth fund for a small country, you know, so, and they have free healthcare, free college education-

• 1:19:35Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:19:36Speaker 01

  -affordable housing, all that stuff.

• 1:19:37Joe Rogan?

  Here it is, Norway's growing 1.7 trillion dollar oil empire. Norge's bank, investment management, market value growth since inception, that's great.

• 1:19:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, and they use that-

• 1:19:48Joe Rogan?

  Government pension fund of Norway.

• 1:19:50Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 1:19:51Joe Rogan?

  Well, yeah.

• 1:19:52Speaker 01

  So they use that, those, that, that wealth fund to provide probably the highest standard of living in the world for people, you know, free healthcare, education, all that stuff. But that's what we've got to be talking about here. Use the profits that come, the wealth that's created by this technology to improve life for all people. But it doesn't answer the question that you raised.

• 1:20:12Joe Rogan?

  Of meaning.

• 1:20:13Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:20:14Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, so what do you do about that?

• 1:20:15Speaker 01

  Well, if somebody was a workaholic, it would be hard for me, you know, because I-

• 1:20:20Joe Rogan?

  Are you a workaholic?

• 1:20:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, well, it's the nature of the job.

• 1:20:24Joe Rogan?

  Do you have hobbies?

• 1:20:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've got seven grandchildren, that's a hobby.

• 1:20:31Speaker 01

  I used to play ball as a kid, you know, I was a good basketball player.

• 1:20:34Joe Rogan?

  Well, I think people can find other things to do with their time. Like, if I never worked again, I'd probably play pool eight hours a day. Because I really love playing pool.

• 1:20:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:44Joe Rogan?

  I'd find a thing, I'd do jujitsu. I'd find a thing that I find value in.

• 1:20:49Speaker 01

  You know, I think somebody once wrote, you know, you think about, what are the deepest things? What's the goal in life? So, somebody says, work. And I believe that. I think people, you know, one of the sad things that's happened, you know, we talked a little while ago about the decline of, you meant, we mentioned Detroit and, and other communities where people worked hard, they were proud of what they produced, right?

• 1:21:11Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:21:12Speaker 01

  They earned a decent living, maybe they had a union and so forth and so on. And that, a lot of that is, is gone. But, all right, so work, love, you know, there is a thing called love, right?

• 1:21:21Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:22Speaker 01

  At the end of the day.

• 1:21:23Joe Rogan?

  Problem is, people are trying to find that on apps too now.

• 1:21:26Speaker 01

  Well, let's get to that one in a minute.

• 1:21:27Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:28Speaker 01

  You know, to be human, nobody wants to be alone, right?

• 1:21:32Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:21:33Speaker 01

  Uh, you want to embrace other people, you know, physically, sexually, emotionally, just humanly, right?

• 1:21:39Joe Rogan?

  Have community, yeah.

• 1:21:40Speaker 01

  That's community.

• 1:21:41Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:21:41Speaker 01

  That's right. That's being human.

• 1:21:42Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:21:43Speaker 01

  All right. So, you want love and knowledge. I think you forgot the knowledge part.

• 1:21:47Joe Rogan?

  Sure.

• 1:21:48Speaker 01

  You know, you like pool, that's good. Uh, sadly enough, I have to confess that when I was in college, I spent half my life in the library. All right, you know, so.

• 1:21:56Joe Rogan?

  Why's that bad?

• 1:21:57Speaker 01

  No, I'm just kidding. But, knowledge.

• 1:22:00Joe Rogan?

  Sure.

• 1:22:00Speaker 01

  You know, just trying to understand things. And, and.

• 1:22:04Joe Rogan?

  Curiosity.

• 1:22:05Speaker 01

  Curiosity, fantastic. Travel, my god.

• 1:22:07Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:08Speaker 01

  You know.

• 1:22:08Joe Rogan?

  Absolutely.

• 1:22:08Speaker 01

  Just came back from Ireland, you know, it's fantastic to see the world. And, and, you know, when we talk about, you know, one of the things that I, you know, we didn't talk about Trump much, but it bothers me, is trying to divide us up. You know, we got to bring, for so many reasons, whether it's all of these issues that we're talking about and everything else, pandemics, you know what? We got to bring the world together.

• 1:22:31Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:22:31Speaker 01

  Okay? And not hate people because they're in Canada, or they're in China, or Iran.

• 1:22:36Joe Rogan?

  Ridiculous.

• 1:22:37Speaker 01

  All right. And that ain't easy, but we have to, when I was mayor, way back, I did this, that was when the Soviet Union still existed, let me forget this. We brought kids from a city in Russia, Yaroslav, an old city in Russia. We brought them to Vermont and they were kids, the boys and girls from Russia would play kid around with boys and girls from America. You look at these kids, they were at a great time. You know, people do not have to hate each other.

• 1:23:05Joe Rogan?

  It's stupid.

• 1:23:06Speaker 01

  It's, it's.

• 1:23:07Joe Rogan?

  You don't even know them.

• 1:23:08Speaker 01

  Exactly. That's why you hate them.

• 1:23:09Joe Rogan?

  It's the dumbest part about it. Yeah.

• 1:23:11Speaker 01

  You know why? People, hate is based on ignorance. Right?

• 1:23:15Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, and fear and, you know, there's a lot of stupidity attached to it that people exploit. They exploit that stupidity, you know, and the guy, under the guise of nationalism.

• 1:23:27Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:23:27Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:28Speaker 01

  And I hate that. I hate it. And by the way, I don't know that the planet survives if we.

• 1:23:33Joe Rogan?

  No.

• 1:23:33Speaker 01

  Continue in that way. So the goal, you know, we talk about.

• 1:23:36Joe Rogan?

  Well, it's the greatest fear. The greatest fear is thermonuclear war.

• 1:23:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:23:40Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:41Speaker 01

  Well, pandemics as well. Let me tell you, COVID was not the last one, but you know.

• 1:23:44Joe Rogan?

  Well, the pandemic, the problem with that is it's engineered. Like, people actually made that virus and Obama tried to stop that gain-of-function shit back in 2014.

• 1:23:55Speaker 01

  No, that's a long.

• 1:23:56Joe Rogan?

  That's a long conversation, but, you know, should we be funding that kind of shit?

• 1:24:00Speaker 01

  No, we should not. No, no, no, no.

• 1:24:02Joe Rogan?

  No, and yet, yet we were.

• 1:24:04Speaker 01

  But you're gonna have to bring the entire world together. You know, it is, um, but I think, you know, we have.

• 1:24:12Joe Rogan?

  Well, you have to bring the country together first.

• 1:24:14Speaker 01

  That's right. And by the way, and, you know, I've been kinda, I've been kinda negative, but take a deep breath and we have made some progress in this country in recent years. If you think about racial relations, all right, you know, it wasn't that many decades ago that some black kid couldn't go to a movie theater in Mississippi, right?

• 1:24:33Joe Rogan?

  By the way, I want to tell you that when people say like, why were you a fan of Bernie Sanders? I point to a photo of you getting arrested at a civil rights protest in, I think it was 63?

• 1:24:47Speaker 01

  Sounds right, Chicago.

• 1:24:48Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:48Speaker 01

  I remember.

• 1:24:49Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. You've always been at the forefront. You, you haven't changed, you know, and people always try to accuse you of that, especially because you've made some money off your books, but you haven't changed your positions through the entirety of your career.

• 1:25:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, true.

• 1:25:04Joe Rogan?

  I think that's very admirable because there's not a lot of people that serve in Congress for as long as you have and become, you know, a very prominent public figure that don't just cash in. You know, when you have people that are public servants that are making $170,000 a year and yet they're worth hundreds of millions of dollars through some magical way that no one can explain, and you haven't done that, and I think you should be applauded for that.

• 1:25:31Speaker 01

  Thank you very much. And I remember, I mean, it just, you know, you talk about education and so forth. I grew up in a, you know, in a white neighborhood in Brooklyn. And, you know, you go to Chicago and you see things that you didn't, didn't understand.

• 1:25:48Joe Rogan?

  There you are. Look at that.

• 1:25:49Speaker 01

  God, look, I had a hair in my head at that point, huh?

• 1:25:52Joe Rogan?

  Look how handsome.

• 1:25:53Speaker 01

  There you go. I'll tell you that funny story about that one.

• 1:25:56Joe Rogan?

  Please.

• 1:25:57Speaker 01

  All right. What does, as I recall.

• 1:25:59Joe Rogan?

  Look at the guy with the cigarette. Eh, fucking hippie. Look at his hand in his pocket.

• 1:26:05Speaker 01

  Here is the story. This is, now, back then, back then, the world has changed. There was the Chicago Police Department. And what they said is, if you go across this line, you're gonna get arrested. As I recall, that was what the thing. So I went across the line. And we were protesting segregated housing in Chicago. Okay, so I get dragged in, and they're taking me to a paddy wagon, okay?

• 1:26:30Joe Rogan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:26:31Speaker 01

  So they picked me up, and other people in it, threw me into the paddy wagon. My glasses went flying someplace. All right. And then, just as this was happening, within a few minutes of this picture, some genius on the sideline throws a brick, hits a cop on the head.

• 1:26:47Joe Rogan?

  Oh, Jesus.

• 1:26:48Speaker 01

  So here's, I'm being, I'm being thrown into the paddy wagon, and some cop is lying down on the ground. You know, it was a scary moment, okay? So, to continue the story, we're in the paddy wagon, and they're taking us someplace, and suddenly, the paddy wagon stops. You look out, it's like in the middle of nowhere. Right? This was not like in the city going to a jail. We thought we were gonna be taken to a, to jail, you know?

• 1:27:16Speaker 01

  And I said, "Oh, my God."

• 1:27:18Joe Rogan?

  They're gonna kill us.

• 1:27:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, that was the thought. We were in the middle. Why the hell are they stopping here?

• 1:27:22Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:27:23Speaker 01

  I don't know what they stopped for, whatever reason. Anyway, so we spent, you know, my big thing was I spent the night in jail, which was a weird experience, too.

• 1:27:29Joe Rogan?

  You get street cred for that.

• 1:27:31Speaker 01

  What I remember about it is, other than not sleeping very well, this is, you, you get up out of the middle of the night, and I go to the thing, I try to open the door. It didn't open. It was the weirdest thing of having a door that did not open because you were in a jail cell, you know?

• 1:27:44Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:27:45Speaker 01

  It was like a weird thing. Uh, but anyway, you know, the idea, you know, that's all. But, and we've made progress since that time. And, and in racial relations, we have a long way to go. We've made progress. Women's rights, we've made progress. Gay rights, we've made progress. So there's a lot that as a nation, we should be proud of, in progress that we've made. You know, when I was a kid growing up, I am sure there were many kids who were gay. No one ever talked about it.

• 1:28:12Joe Rogan?

  Right, right.

• 1:28:13Speaker 01

  And, you know, so there's a lot as a nation that we should be proud of in terms of the progress that we've made in terms of fighting bigotry.

• 1:28:19Joe Rogan?

  Agreed.

• 1:28:20Speaker 01

  But we've got so much more to do. We don't need to be hating people than, you could disagree with people. Christ, I mean, there's so many issues out there. Hatred should not be a value.

• 1:28:30Joe Rogan?

  It's also the political exploitation of division. The, the, the fact that you can use the division that people already have to galvanize your side. Instead of unite, instead of unite the country.

• 1:28:44Speaker 01

  I'm older than you, and I can remember, remember, you had white politicians in the South saying, "See, those black people, they want your job. Vote for me, and that's why we're gonna keep segregation or all this other stuff." All right?

• 1:28:55Joe Rogan?

  Oof.

• 1:28:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, that's true. I mean, people ran for office. It's no great secret. That's what happened. But we're making, gays are taking over the school system, blah, blah, blah, blah. So it's, you know, we've made progress. But I, you know, what we've been talking about is if you create a society where you have massive technology that can produce all of this wealth, how do we live, right? That's the question you posed. And I think one of the ways, one of the goals has got to be to bring this world together. We should not be having wars right now. Where countries have disagreements, there are bad news guys out there, no question about it. But bring them to the table, arguing it out.

• 1:29:36Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:29:37Speaker 01

  We don't have to go around killing people. Right now, what's going on in Gaza breaks my heart. Children are starving to death. You know, so we can do better as a planet.

• 1:29:45Joe Rogan?

  Unquestionably. Yeah, no, we all agree. I, I, I think this is something the entire country could agree to. The, uh, the, the, the question of meaning, like giving meaning to people, like just, and then my fear is also the same fear that I had when I'm talking about climate change, that it's going to be exploited. Once people are entirely dependent upon the state for universal basic income, then it becomes a question of like now your entire life, like all the money that you get being from the government. The problem is if you step outside the lines, if you do anything that the, the government doesn't like, if there's a

• 1:30:27Speaker 01

  They pull the plug on you.

• 1:30:28Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, they pull the plug on you. Or if a new administration comes in and says, you know what, we, this is unprofitable. These people have to figure it out for themselves. The United States is really thirty seven trillion dollars in debt. We can't sustain this. People have to do the, you know, you have to adjust, learn to code.

• 1:30:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:30:44Joe Rogan?

  Remember that?

• 1:30:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:30:45Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, that kind of shit. Well, how do you give these people meaning?

• 1:30:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:49Joe Rogan?

  What do you do with all the drivers? Like, think about how many truck drivers in this country. This is going to be the first thing that goes away.

• 1:30:55Speaker 01

  You're right. Taxi cab drivers, Uber drivers, truck drivers, gone.

• 1:30:59Joe Rogan?

  And the question about like factory workers, a lot of people say, yeah, well, those people, those jobs are terrible anyway. It'd be great if those jobs went away and people, you know, they, they're free to pursue their interests. I think, what interests?

• 1:31:09Speaker 01

  You got it.

• 1:31:09Joe Rogan?

  You're a sixty year old man. You've been working for this factory. You're looking towards your retirement and now all of a sudden the plug is pulled, all the money's gone, your 401K has been erased, your company's been bought out by another company. Now everything's automated. There's no jobs. What do you do?

• 1:31:26Speaker 01

  Well, I think that is the question.

• 1:31:28Joe Rogan?

  Right. So if you, if you have what, you know, Andrew Yang was talking about, this giant epidemic of automation in this country and the solution being universal basic income, but that's not the solution for meaning. And how do we convince all of these people?

• 1:31:46Joe Rogan?

  That it's they have to not just take this money from the government, but also take action to give themselves meaning in their life.

• 1:31:54Speaker 01

  All right. What you're talking about here, you know, is a revolution in human existence.

• 1:32:01Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:32:01Speaker 01

  So throughout history, people have worked so hard just to stay alive, right? I mean, not so many

• 1:32:09Joe Rogan?

  Sure.

• 1:32:09Speaker 01

  Hundreds of years ago. Today.

• 1:32:11Joe Rogan?

  Today.

• 1:32:11Speaker 01

  In parts of the world, people are working.

• 1:32:13Joe Rogan?

  In America.

• 1:32:14Speaker 01

  In America, right.

• 1:32:15Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:15Speaker 01

  And in the poorest countries in the world, just struggling every day to put a little bit of food on the table. So what you're saying is, what happens when that?

• 1:32:23Joe Rogan?

  That plug gets pulled.

• 1:32:24Speaker 01

  Well, what you're saying is, what happens when people no longer have to do that, right?

• 1:32:29Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:32:30Speaker 01

  Okay, so if work, we work now, everybody works, get our earned money. If if you don't need to do work, right?

• 1:32:37Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:32:37Speaker 01

  Because we're wealthy enough, what, how do you find meaning in your life?

• 1:32:41Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:32:42Speaker 01

  Is that what you're talking about?

• 1:32:42Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:44Speaker 01

  And this is absolutely.

• 1:32:46Joe Rogan?

  That's a million dollar question.

• 1:32:47Speaker 01

  That is, try the trillion dollar question. It's a, you know, it's one, but I'll tell you this. I was seeing, I don't know him, Sam Altman, do you know Sam?

• 1:32:57Joe Rogan?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:32:58Speaker 01

  I don't know. But I mean, and others, Zuckerberg, you know, talking about, well, you know, if you're lonely, we got a machine for you, right? Right? I mean, true, yes.

• 1:33:10Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:10Speaker 01

  This is what they're saying, we got a friend for you on AI.

• 1:33:13Joe Rogan?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:33:13Speaker 01

  And her name is Marion, you can chat with her 20 hours a day, and she really loves you. Man, I don't think that is.

• 1:33:20Joe Rogan?

  That's so dystopian.

• 1:33:22Speaker 01

  It is.

• 1:33:22Joe Rogan?

  It's very, yeah, and we we covered this story recently about this guy who proposed to his AI. And she said yes, and he was crying, like, oh, we're done, we're cooked.

• 1:33:36Speaker 01

  Look, I mean, at the end of the day, all we got is us.

• 1:33:41Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:33:41Speaker 01

  Is that right?

• 1:33:42Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:42Speaker 01

  We are human beings.

• 1:33:44Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:44Speaker 01

  And we're gonna have to cling to each other to get through this thing. And you're raising, again, I I'm trying to think here, and I wish I had better answers for you. You're asking, correct me if I'm wrong, I mean, the question that you're posing is if, in years to come, in the near future, technology is going to replace work, right? Human labor, correct?

• 1:34:02Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:34:03Speaker 01

  What are human beings that?

• 1:34:04Joe Rogan?

  Right, what do they do now? Yeah.

• 1:34:05Speaker 01

  All right.

• 1:34:07Speaker 01

  And, you know, there are, it's a good, because work has been so essential to human existence forever, right?

• 1:34:16Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:34:17Speaker 01

  And you're suddenly taking that away. What do people do? How do they relate to each other? All I would say at this moment is the answer is not to fall in love with your AI creature out there.

• 1:34:29Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, don't do that. But also, how do you find meaning? How do you, if, if all you're doing is just getting a check and you, you can just stay at home and stare at the TV and the money keeps coming and then you eat processed food all day and it's all subsidized, what is life? Like, what do you, how do you, how do you re-educate a giant percentage of our population to find meaning, external meaning? Find something else? Find a, a thing that you can do that not, maybe even that's profitable that these computers can't do?

• 1:35:02Speaker 01

  Look, the human brain

• 1:35:05Speaker 02

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• 1:36:02Speaker 01

  Evolves. And I think we, we, again, I mean, it's a great question, I don't have the easy answer to it. And, and

• 1:36:11Joe Rogan?

  It's the question, right?

• 1:36:12Speaker 01

  It's the ques, it's not gonna hap, well, what's gonna happen tomorrow, you just talked about these automated cars and trucks.

• 1:36:19Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:20Speaker 01

  That is gonna happen in the very near future.

• 1:36:21Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, that'll be step one.

• 1:36:22Speaker 01

  And, uh...

• 1:36:26Speaker 01

  To me, I have some answers for that one, and that is that you ain't gonna throw, you know, millions of truck drivers and taxi cab drivers and Uber drivers out, just out on the street. They need protection.

• 1:36:39Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:36:39Speaker 01

  All right. That's, that's an easy one. What you're talking about is years later.

• 1:36:43Joe Rogan?

  But it's not even an easy one.

• 1:36:44Speaker 01

  No, that's not.

• 1:36:45Joe Rogan?

  Because they're just step one. You know, the real wave is gonna be white collar workers.

• 1:36:49Speaker 01

  That's right. I know that.

• 1:36:50Joe Rogan?

  There's a lot of people that do things that they think are very valuable that are gonna be worthless, to have a human being do it.

• 1:36:58Speaker 01

  Right. I mean, that's the immediate. I think the deeper one that you're talking about is what is when virtually all workers replaced.

• 1:37:05Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:37:06Speaker 01

  All right. But right now, I mean, for a start, I think getting back to the, I think you tell those workers, you're gonna have healthcare as a human right, you're gonna have education as a human right, you're gonna have a decent income as a human right, and we're gonna lower, substantially lower, the work week. So we'll have, in this process, we're gonna have everybody working. If you're working 20 hours a week, you're working 20 hours a week. What happens later, when even more work is eliminated, and what the purpose of human life becomes, that is a very profound question.

• 1:37:39Joe Rogan?

  That's the question. What do you think happens?

• 1:37:44Speaker 01

  I think, I mean, it's hard to ima-, you know, because it's so far away

• 1:37:52Joe Rogan?

  Revolutionary.

• 1:37:52Speaker 01

  From what we have ever lived.

• 1:37:54Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:37:55Speaker 01

  I mean, for thousands of years, people have struggled to put food on the table. And you're saying, what happens when they don't have to do that? Right?

• 1:38:00Joe Rogan?

  Yeah. It's inevitable.

• 1:38:03Speaker 01

  All right. Then the answer will be that we are gonna have to find different meaning in life. We have to find it in ourselves, in ways that you don't know and I don't know, because we're not there yet. We're not living 50 years from now.

• 1:38:14Joe Rogan?

  I don't even think it's 50.

• 1:38:18Speaker 01

  No, I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, who knows? Uh, but I think human beings are capable of finding, replacing work with other emotionally satisfying things. Yeah, I think we can do it.

• 1:38:34Joe Rogan?

  We can on an individual basis. The problem is having mass groups, literally a hundred million plus people displaced. What do you do to all those people to give them some sort of a sense of meaning? You're essentially redefining life for them.

• 1:38:50Speaker 01

  That's a good point. Okay, I don't have the answer to that question.

• 1:38:54Joe Rogan?

  That's the problem. I don't think anybody does. And I think we're foot on the gas, full steam ahead with AI with no consideration of this. And then there's the same thing that you're dealing with in terms of corporations constantly trying to achieve higher and higher and higher numbers. They're just always trying to make more money. You're, you've got this exact same issue when applied to meaning for all these human beings. Like if you have a hundred million plus people, that, what do they do now? They just sit at home and become depressed. And they just make enough money to what? To just be able to get by? What about savings? What about the ability to earn more money to get ahead? What about

• 1:39:37Joe Rogan?

  the very ambitious people that are willing to put in extra hours and go to night school and do everything they have? That's all gone, right? So what do these hyper ambitious people do? What does everybody who's displaced by this very impersonal thing, this impersonal thing that you need because you can't compete with China?

• 1:39:58Speaker 01

  I agree with everything you're saying, except there is something else that's going on in this. While all this is going on, while all this technology is throwing people out on the street, something else is happening. The people who own that technology and the corporations who utilize utilize that technology are becoming phenomenally richer, right?

• 1:40:14Joe Rogan?

  Exactly.

• 1:40:15Speaker 01

  And that is, that is the issue, which gets back to things like tax reform. Like, making sure that in America, we do not have the massive levels of income and wealth inequality that we currently have.

• 1:40:27Joe Rogan?

  But the problem with that is, the taxes go to what? An incompetent, corrupt government? This is, this is the issue that people have.

• 1:40:36Speaker 01

  Good, fair enough, alright.

• 1:40:37Joe Rogan?

  It's like, yes, willing to pay our fair... Look, I'd be more than willing to pay more taxes if we lived in a better country. I'd be like, this would be great. If, if I felt like, if I pay more taxes...

• 1:40:44Speaker 01

  Then your job is...

• 1:40:45Joe Rogan?

  Everybody's surviving, everybody's doing well, that's great.

• 1:40:48Speaker 01

  Alright, then, that is the issue of how you revitalize American democracy. I'm not gonna argue with you, that the system today is pretty bad. Alright, I live it, I'm going, going there today.

• 1:40:59Joe Rogan?

  Right. And ironically, it's bad because there's no competition, right? It's corrupt, but it's also, it's not a free market. Like, the, the government itself has a monopoly on governing. And when they're completely corrupt, and when they're making insane amounts of money through taxes, and they're not accountable...

• 1:41:18Speaker 01

  Alright, no, I don't, I don't, no, this is the way I see it.

• 1:41:20Joe Rogan?

  I'm not, but, by the way, I'm not advocating for making it privatized, for making all of government privatized, I'm just talking about the realities of corruption in, in our current government system.

• 1:41:31Speaker 01

  Alright, but here's, let's talk about what we mean by corruption. I do not believe, by the way, because I know these guys, you know, some of them are corrupt.

• 1:41:37Joe Rogan?

  Okay, let's say incompetent and waste.

• 1:41:39Speaker 01

  Okay. Alright, let's, let's back it up.

• 1:41:42Joe Rogan?

  Let's take, we can take fraud out of the equation, and just talk about incompetency and waste.

• 1:41:47Speaker 01

  Is there waste? You got it. Alright, but let me, let me back it up again.

• 1:41:51Joe Rogan?

  Okay.

• 1:41:52Speaker 01

  Because I think it ties into everything else that we're talking about. You know why I believe in democracy? And why I believe, among what we didn't talk about? Is we brought in some money, to Vermont and elsewhere, I think, for helping workers own their own companies.

• 1:42:09Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:42:10Speaker 01

  Are you familiar with that concept?

• 1:42:11Joe Rogan?

  Yes, yes.

• 1:42:12Speaker 01

  And, I meet every year with, with, in Vermont, we got a, we're doing pretty well, number of, and, when workers own their own companies, you talk about a sense of purpose, they, they are more than just a cog in the machine.

• 1:42:26Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:42:27Speaker 01

  You know, they make decisions, and they feel good about it. Absenteeism is less, productivity is higher, because they have a real stake in the thing.

• 1:42:33Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:42:34Speaker 01

  Okay. So I think, as a nation, we should be talking about moving toward allowing workers more power. But getting back to government itself.

• 1:42:47Speaker 01

  The corruption is, in my view, that government is very far removed from the needs of ordinary people because it is largely controlled by billionaires in both political parties who have their agenda.

• 1:43:02Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:43:03Speaker 01

  All right. One of the things that I do, what my campaign, Sir President, were about, what I'm doing right now, what we call a fighting oligarchy tour, that's why I'm in Texas, is to try to say to people out there, who are mostly working-class people, you gotta get involved. I know it's hard, people are working long hours. You gotta get involved in the political process. You gotta make demands on government that it serves you, not just the very wealthy. So, to answer your question, I think one of the goals, not only that we've talked about how you deal with the exploding technology and how people gain purpose, the other thing is, I want people to be able to take control over their own government.

• 1:43:46Speaker 01

  We can argue what the government should or should not do, but I don't think we can allow a handful of people, handful of people, with incredible wealth to control both parties.

• 1:43:56Joe Rogan?

  Well, it's dangerous.

• 1:43:57Speaker 01

  It is.

• 1:43:58Joe Rogan?

  It's very dangerous and, I mean, no one who, the founding fathers of this country never saw that coming.

• 1:44:05Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:44:06Joe Rogan?

  You know, they made this incredible system of checks and balances.

• 1:44:08Speaker 01

  You got it.

• 1:44:09Joe Rogan?

  But who could have ever possibly saw that coming?

• 1:44:11Speaker 01

  And what I worry about Trump is, you're right, you know, I read, it is astounding, back in the 1780s, when these guys wrote the Constitution, how perceptive they were.

• 1:44:22Joe Rogan?

  Amazing.

• 1:44:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:24Joe Rogan?

  Their understanding of human desires and the power and all the corruption.

• 1:44:30Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:44:31Joe Rogan?

  Pretty amazing.

• 1:44:32Speaker 01

  And they wrote that, having just fought a war and won a war against the most powerful despot on earth, the King of England, right?

• 1:44:40Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:44:41Speaker 01

  And I think in the back of their minds, we're saying, all right, we just beat the King of England, absolute power, how do you create a new country which has checks and balances so that nobody ever has that power again?

• 1:44:53Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:44:54Speaker 01

  And I gotta say, I mean, one of the things, and there was a lot of arguments about Trump, that worries me very, very much, is this movement toward authoritarianism and going after media, suing media.

• 1:45:08Speaker 01

  Taking away the authority that Congress has.

• 1:45:12Joe Rogan?

  When you say suing media, are you talking about the CBS lawsuit?

• 1:45:15Speaker 01

  Among other things.

• 1:45:16Joe Rogan?

  But don't you think there's a real issue with what they did?

• 1:45:19Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:45:19Joe Rogan?

  You don't think that there's a real issue in editing conversations to give someone an answer that's different than what they really answered?

• 1:45:27Speaker 01

  Joe, I've been on eight zillion shows, right? In my life.

• 1:45:31Joe Rogan?

  Okay.

• 1:45:31Speaker 01

  Okay. Now, should I sue you if you ask me some stupid question that I don't like, right? You have, or that you do something. Do I, should I sue you?

• 1:45:40Joe Rogan?

  Yeah, but that's not what he's getting, he's suing them for.

• 1:45:44Speaker 01

  He has sued ABC. He has sued Meta. He is suing the Des Moines Register because of a poll that came out during the campaign that he didn't like, all right? He is suing CBS for this Kamala Harris interview. So do I think, how many, I cannot tell you the number of stories done about me that were based, that were not good stories.

• 1:46:06Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:46:06Speaker 01

  That were dishonest stories. That's what a free press is about. You don't like it, you gotta live with it, all right? You do something, I'm not gonna sue you, Joe.

• 1:46:14Joe Rogan?

  Right, but it's not that simple, right? Like, let's imagine, let's not talk about Trump, but let's talk about another candidate. Let's just imagine there's someone on the right and someone on the left, and there's a concerted effort to promote this person that's on the right. And so, the polls are rigged, or these are funded polls, that make it look like this person on the right is winning by a substantial margin, and what this does is decreases the motivation that people have to come out and vote against them.

• 1:46:47Speaker 01

  It's happening.

• 1:46:47Joe Rogan?

  So it's fake.

• 1:46:48Speaker 01

  By the way, that happens right now.

• 1:46:50Joe Rogan?

  Engineer, it is happening right now, and I think, is that part of what he's suing them about?

• 1:46:53Speaker 01

  No, but doesn't, look.

• 1:46:55Joe Rogan?

  But isn't that what he's suing them about?

• 1:46:56Speaker 01

  Well, he's suing ABC for one thing.

• 1:46:58Joe Rogan?

  But what, the Des Moines Register about the poll?

• 1:47:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, this, I know the polls were there.

• 1:47:02Joe Rogan?

  Was the poll incorrect?

• 1:47:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, the poll was wrong, so what? Guess what?

• 1:47:06Joe Rogan?

  Right, but did they know it was incorrect when they published it?

• 1:47:10Speaker 01

  No, they publish what they thought was an accurate poll. But that pollster, by the way, what's the name of it? Seltzer poll.

• 1:47:16Joe Rogan?

  I don't, I should just state for the record, I don't know this lawsuit.

• 1:47:20Speaker 01

  What it was about.

• 1:47:21Joe Rogan?

  But I am aware that in talking to people that understand polls, that some of these are politically.

• 1:47:28Speaker 01

  All right, but the answer is yes or no. There are polls right now doing exactly what you say.

• 1:47:33Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:47:34Speaker 01

  I could doctor a poll, I could talk to more conservative, more progressive people, get the results that I kind of want, right?

• 1:47:39Joe Rogan?

  And they do it to motivate people, or demotivate people to vote, and it's effective.

• 1:47:44Speaker 01

  It has an impact. All right. On the other hand, this particular pollster, it's at the Des Moines Register, not a huge newspaper, I bumped into them, because when you're running Democratic primaries, Iowa is a big deal. They are a very, very respected pollster, okay? They don't talk the polls. So they made a mistake on a poll. It turns out they had Trump doing worse than he ended up doing. Guess what? Pollsters, honest pollsters, make mistakes too.

• 1:48:07Joe Rogan?

  But what is the basis of his lawsuit? Like, what is he saying in the lawsuit?

• 1:48:11Speaker 01

  I think he is saying that that gave energy to his opponents, and that it was...

• 1:48:16Joe Rogan?

  Like we talked about.

• 1:48:17Speaker 01

  Like you talked about. But I don't believe that's the case. There are honest pollsters who make mistakes.

• 1:48:22Joe Rogan?

  But what about the other lawsuit with the conversation that they had with Kamala Harris, where they edited the answers that she had to make it look more precise?

• 1:48:34Speaker 01

  60 Minutes, they were suing 60 Minutes.

• 1:48:36Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:48:37Speaker 01

  Is, to my mind, historically, even around for a very long time, you know, they're not infallible. But I think you look at most objective people will say 60 Minutes has a sterling reputation for investigative journalism. Are they wrong?

• 1:48:53Joe Rogan?

  But that's not investigative journalism if you change someone's answers. If you ask her a question, and she comes with a rambling answer that doesn't make sense, and you edit that out, and insert another answer to a different question that seems more cogent.

• 1:49:08Speaker 01

  Joe, then you're walking down, it's a really, you're walking down a dangerous path. Suing media has the impact of intimidating media. Somebody sues you, alright, they're gonna finish, alright.

• 1:49:22Joe Rogan?

  Okay.

• 1:49:23Speaker 01

  Somebody sues you, you, you know, why not you?

• 1:49:25Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:49:25Speaker 01

  You could be sued tomorrow, right? Because you are doing this, you're, you're too sympathetic to this.

• 1:49:30Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:49:30Speaker 01

  And Joe, you did that, and they have a big law firm behind you, and you're gonna have to send zillions of dollars defending yourself. You know what? Next time you do an interview, you're saying, hmm, maybe I'm not gonna go in that area.

• 1:49:40Joe Rogan?

  No, but it's not that, it's editing things, to ma- deceptive editing. So in deceptive editing, you give people a different perception of who this candidate is than reality.

• 1:49:51Speaker 01

  But you gotta explain-

• 1:49:52Joe Rogan?

  But that's not objective journalism, that's campaigning for that person.

• 1:49:56Speaker 01

  But-

• 1:49:56Joe Rogan?

  Would you agree with that?

• 1:49:58Speaker 01

  I don't, I'm not, I don't have those details, I don't know that I agree with your analysis of it, I don't know enough.

• 1:50:04Joe Rogan?

  I think that's universally accepted, that that's what they did.

• 1:50:07Speaker 01

  Then you gotta tell me why he is suing ABC. Why he's suing Meta.

• 1:50:11Joe Rogan?

  Let's just talk about the 60 Minutes one first.

• 1:50:13Speaker 01

  But it's not just-

• 1:50:13Joe Rogan?

  We could go to ABC, but I don't, I'm not aware of that one either.

• 1:50:16Speaker 01

  Well, George Stephanopoulos said something that he didn't like. But the point is you-

• 1:50:19Joe Rogan?

  What did Stephanopoulos say?

• 1:50:20Speaker 01

  I can't remember, it was a, uh, I don't, I honestly don't remember, but-

• 1:50:24Joe Rogan?

  Well, I think what he was saying was factually incorrect about the results of one of Trump's trials.

• 1:50:31Speaker 01

  Alright, guess what? If I were to sue everybody who said things that were factually incorrect about me, I'd be suing people zillions of times.

• 1:50:41Joe Rogan?

  Right, but-

• 1:50:42Speaker 01

  But, Joe, what you're saying is, look, is, does media get it wrong sometimes? Absolutely. Should you have the most powerful person in America suing media? What is the impact of that? The impact is clearly intimidation. He wants to defund public broadcasting, NPR, why is that? Well, because they also would run critical stories of him. This is part, in my view, without getting into any one case, it's part of a pattern that says, hey, I got the power, don't you criticize me. You criticize me, I'm gonna sue you. So it's not whether this show was right or wrong, there are shows every day, they get it wrong.

• 1:51:21Speaker 01

  It's whether you, you know, you respect you and other media people to do the best that you can. And if I don't like what you're doing, I'll go someplace else. But I don't like presidents suing media, and then it's, you know, threatening to impeach judges who rule against you, really?

• 1:51:39Speaker 01

  Is that a concern? I think it's a concern.

• 1:51:41Joe Rogan?

  I agree, that's a concern. Well, my concern is when you have media organizations that are purported to be objective, and then they say things that are defamatory and factually incorrect, and they should know that before they say it. What other course does a person have other than a lawsuit? And isn't it important that you shine the light on what is a political bias from an organization that you would hope would be objective?

• 1:52:12Speaker 01

  Needless to say, I got attacked all the time by right-wing media, right? Every day.

• 1:52:17Joe Rogan?

  Needless to say.

• 1:52:17Speaker 01

  Needless to say, alright. I don't sue them. So you expose them, then he's the President of the United States.

• 1:52:23Joe Rogan?

  But do they say things factually incorrect that are defamatory and slanderous?

• 1:52:27Speaker 01

  If there's anybody in the world who knows how to use a microphone, his name is Donald Trump, and Donald Trump get up, you saw that program on CBS the other day? It was crap. It was wrong. And let me tell you why it was wrong.

• 1:52:37Joe Rogan?

  Right, but then they do it again and again and again.

• 1:52:39Speaker 01

  Then you take them on, and you keep...

• 1:52:40Joe Rogan?

  The problem is, the more people do stuff like that, if you don't have any consequences to what you're doing, you're going to continue that path. And the most, most people only see that, they're not, like, if you're a left-wing leaning media organization, and you print something that's factually incorrect, or you say something on television that's factually incorrect, your viewers who are left-leaning are most likely not going to see Trump's rebuttal in some speech that he does in the middle of Pennsylvania.

• 1:53:09Speaker 01

  But that's another problem, you know, in that is, you know, meeting, our media is becoming very divided.

• 1:53:18Joe Rogan?

  Exactly.

• 1:53:18Speaker 01

  Okay, but all I would say is...

• 1:53:20Joe Rogan?

  So you don't think that lawsuits against that are valid?

• 1:53:25Speaker 01

  I don't think that it is appropriate for the President of the United States to be, in my view, intimidating media. Again, I get attacked, I'll be attacked tomorrow for a hundred, probably things I said on the show, I'll get attacked. Then, if I want to respond, I respond. I have a, you know, not a President's bullet, I have a bullet. I say, "You see nothing on Fox? They're wrong." And I've done it. But when you, Joe, you've got to take it another way. I'll give you an example about CBS. We talk about corporate power. The owners of, CBS is owned by Paramount, big multimedia corporation, right?

• 1:54:02Joe Rogan?

  Sure.

• 1:54:04Speaker 01

  Paramount wants to sell, uh, wants to be sold to, what is it, Blue Sky? Does that ring a bell?

• 1:54:13Joe Rogan?

  Blue Sky is that social media app.

• 1:54:16Speaker 01

  No, and it's another one, I'm sorry, it's, uh, I always forget the name of it. Skydance, thanks. Uh, Skydance is a, is a large media corporation that Paramount wants to have buy.

• 1:54:27Joe Rogan?

  Okay.

• 1:54:28Speaker 01

  To get this merger, huge merger, they have to go, guess what? To the federal government. All right? So, you are the head of CBS, you want to sell the company to Skydance for many, many billions. Do you remember how much, what was the sale? I don't see. It's billions of dollars, to be sure, and you gotta go to the federal government, and the president sues you. What do you think you're gonna do? You're gonna settle the lawsuit, give him millions of dollars, and get your merger approved. All right? So, look, I-

• 1:55:02Joe Rogan?

  I see a problem in that, for sure.

• 1:55:03Speaker 01

  All right, and I see, I see where you're coming from. We want honesty in media. But, all I can tell you is that the way to respond to the lies, which take place every day, is to take them on, not to intimidate media. You know, the, we talked about the Constitution. What's the First Amendment? Is freedom of speech, right?

• 1:55:23Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:55:24Speaker 01

  You're right. You're sitting here. You disagree with me? God bless you, say what the hell you want to say.

• 1:55:28Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:55:29Speaker 01

  All right, I'll never take that away from you.

• 1:55:30Joe Rogan?

  Right.

• 1:55:31Speaker 01

  And I'm not gonna threaten you with a lawsuit. But if you start suing me, "Hey, Joe Rogan said this, no, no, no, no, Joe Rogan has this, we found that about Joe Rogan, I'm gonna sue Joe Rogan for a hundred million dollars." Joe may not talk about those issues in the future. Okay? That's what I'm saying, Joe.

• 1:55:45Joe Rogan?

  I, no, I agree with you. And listen, I'm not a fan of lawsuits either, which is why I never sued CNN.

• 1:55:51Speaker 01

  I've never done-

• 1:55:53Joe Rogan?

  CNN lied about me over and over and over again, and they said I was taking horse dewarmer, and they altered the color of my face on television-

• 1:56:00Speaker 01

  Oh, Jesus, God.

• 1:56:01Joe Rogan?

  -to make me look green.

• 1:56:02Speaker 01

  I can testify, yeah, Green.

• 1:56:04Joe Rogan?

  I didn't sue them. I'm not a fan of them. And my, my response to them was just speak out and say how ridiculous it was what they were doing.

• 1:56:12Speaker 01

  Look, Joe, in any, look, anybody in the public eye, you're in the public eye, I'm in the public eye. You're gonna get attacked every day, right?

• 1:56:17Joe Rogan?

  Yes.

• 1:56:18Speaker 01

  That's what, you're in the public eye, you don't want to be in the public eye? Put down the microphone.

• 1:56:23Joe Rogan?

  Agreed.

• 1:56:24Speaker 01

  Play fool, whatever you want.

• 1:56:25Joe Rogan?

  No, I agree with you.

• 1:56:25Speaker 01

  Alright, so, I mean, so I, I just worry.

• 1:56:28Joe Rogan?

  But I also agree that CBS shouldn't be altering a presidential candidate's interview.

• 1:56:34Speaker 01

  If that is the case, I agree to. I mean, I don't know enough about it, so I'm not gonna say what is, isn't. All I know is that 60 Minutes has, is a well-respected program. Do they make mistakes?

• 1:56:43Joe Rogan?

  But that's not a mistake.

• 1:56:45Speaker 01

  Alright, I don't know enough about it, so I can't, I can't.

• 1:56:47Joe Rogan?

  I understand.

• 1:56:48Speaker 01

  Alright, what else you got for me? I should, I should get a plane and get out of here.

• 1:56:52Joe Rogan?

  You probably should. Um, I mean, I, I appreciate your positions on all, all these different things.

• 1:56:57Speaker 01

  And I appreciate, by the way, one of the, you know, we talked about media and the bifurcation of media, you know, right-wing people talk to right-wing people, left-wing people talk to left-wing people. I happen to think that the development of podcasts is a really positive step. Cause I gotta tell you, I've been on a million TV shows, alright Bernie, literally you got seven seconds to explain the issue. Well, I can't explain it.

• 1:57:20Joe Rogan?

  It's impossible.

• 1:57:21Speaker 01

  Nobody can. And the fact that you give people a couple of hours to sit here and have a good discussion and be a good host and trade ideas, I think that improves life in America and helps people think about things. So, thank you for what you're doing.

• 1:57:33Joe Rogan?

  My pleasure. And I think that one of the things this conversation highlights is that there's a lot of issues that all Americans agree on. And this ridiculous position that we find ourselves in, where you have to be ideologically opposed to one thing because your side supports the other thing, it's just terrible for all of us. And if we looked at the issues that really face our country and our citizens and our human beings that live here as a community, we agree on almost all of them. We agree that you should have a better life, that you should have healthier people, we should have healthcare and education, we should have safer streets, we should have a, a, a, a community that lets people do what they want to do as long as they're not harming other people.

• 1:58:18Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:58:18Joe Rogan?

  And I think the, the divide that we have in this country accentuates the farthest ends of each end of the political spectrum, not recognize that most of us exist in the middle.

• 1:58:32Speaker 01

  I think we share a common humanity and I think, look, why am I, I just been in this fighting oligarchy, do you know where I was? I was to Oklahoma, one of the more conservative states in the country, I was to Louisiana, here in Texas, precisely because, I mean, I think we have so much more in common and let's focus on how we can create a better life for all of us. Absolutely. All right, Joe, you're doing a great job. Thanks, sir. Thanks very much. Great to see you again. You too. Bye, bye. Bye, everybody.

• 1:59:16Speaker 04

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