Joe Rogan Experience #1793 — Mike Baker Transcript

Transcript

0:00 Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out! This is not good. No, no. That's what people expect me to say, I think. She's just turned 28. And the disastrous pullout of Afghanistan. though because he's a you know when it comes to warlords he's a legitimate I mean, how much news coverage did we have of, well, they're adding more troops to the border with Ukraine.

3:22 but you really want human access, people who can tell you, you know what, I had a meeting with him, and boy, I tell you what, he was pissed off, or this is what he said, or this is how he looked. that was optimistic thinking, hoping that, you know, the guy's not going to lose his shit and maybe they think like we do. Maybe there's a rational process there. And then part of it is intel was lacking. And when it comes to intel, when you're talking about in-person intel,

5:59 of close advisors and the people that he counts on and trusts. And part of that may be the fact Yeah. Four or five years, maybe? when you've got a small potential well of targets you can go after when you're talking about recruiting somebody who's got access to a high priority target, that's probably one of the heaviest lifts we've got. Spy talk and recruitment 101. But the movies and beach books and everything will have you believe that, you know, the best way to hook somebody to recruit somebody is, you know, blackmail or a honey trap or something.

8:31 of reasons. And so you know that window is going to close at some point. It may not end well. that task can get set, you know, outside the building. If you're talking about the agency or looking, and that doesn't necessarily mean you're looking to find a negative, right? You're looking they have to be prepared for things like this, right? So they probably are very cautious on who gets into their inner circle.

11:22 part of it is, look, if he had been exposed to the talking about what the Chinese regime may do next. So it's that immersion, it's that exposure, And, you know, so what did we do? Well, we were out there busy, right, working over whatever targets we might have access to, trying to see if maybe they think, you know, maybe there's another option here.

14:02 he's being somewhat consistent. He's never given a shit about civilian casualties. I'm going to I'm going to push the button and fire So he's not fucking around. Yeah, he's gotten rid of his, well, he put under house arrest a couple of his FSB the top military commanders, some of whom have also been let go or possibly reassigned, I don't think that's a good thing in Russia, is that they were going to get in there.

17:06 Yeah, we were blissfully unaware of that in the West because we didn't think it affected us. And they want a simple story. they love a good story I think it's safe to say that there's some fuckery afoot. But there's a dynamic here that, I mean, I love this topic in a sense, not so much because of, you know, whatever the fuck Hunter was up to, Both sides are so fucking crazy.

20:01 He's an astronaut. And see if you can find the story and he was like the American who owns a MiG-29 isn't sure the fighter jets would help Ukraine much. No, I don't think so. because it is a, that while you're watching, It's also really scary Yeah. It's on Discovery, yeah. Science Channel, Discovery Plus. But when the MiGs showed up over the skies of Korea during the Korean conflict, we had no idea what the hell we were doing. And so it literally changed. We actually had some prop fighters still up in the air flying from World War II.

23:23 You have to pull it back. That was the safety briefing. Yeah, no, you're not going to get out. And speed can defeat a lot of things, including air defense systems. right? And that's always done. And oftentimes it's done in cooperation with U.S. academic Right. China, Chinese. We send people overseas to work and maybe they're going to be someplace for two or three years.

28:01 but there is that decided difference between the services. Although, now that you say it out loud, it sounds like a good idea. university? So immediately they're flagged as a potential counterintelligence issue. terrorism fronts international international, domestic. Yeah, yeah. That's a good thing. They always like to talk about the deep state. Listen, I've disrespected Joe Biden enough.

31:48 Oh, it's so important. She's falling apart harder than him. Someone is new they start from scratch intel service, right? And I know people are going to say, well, fuck that. It's not apolitical. But Not good. How do we not get a better slate of candidates repeatedly, who wants to deal with all of the infighting and all the politics that are involved once you get

35:14 The intel community has got to be apolitical. But for the most part, again, I would say, I would argue, and people would expect that, That's a resounding but here's a question when a guy like Trump gets in the office and then Right. Well, honestly, the agency has taken a beating over the years from a variety of administrations. back or whatever, and once it leaves that building and it gets into that washing machine of Washington

38:01 You find somebody out in the field, and they said, yeah, this is what Putin Putin means because I was sitting in a meeting with him and two of the command staff, you know, might get in there. It's not so much telephone where, you know, you get the, I guess we used to say Chinese whispers. Maybe it's an intelligence thing. more hands get on it, the stranger it's going to look. It doesn't necessarily mean that the facts

40:24 And we really don't know the process I get a couple where there's this whole bunch talking about the boys and what their names are oh boy and so Scooter, Bam Bam, and Fuckknuckle. said you got to read this yeah don't read them except for that one when my boy brought it to me and said, you got to read this. You can't. So when wild shit happens, I have to sit down with them and have a conversation with them,

43:06 It's like there's a certain amount of freedom in our ability to communicate and our ability if I and people fake story and see if that Trump was on the Nelk Boys podcast, Somebody did send me, apparently not, but somebody did send me a note saying that he was going to be on your show. I don't want to be someone who's actually affecting this. Okay, Donald Trump is scheduled to go on Joe Rogan podcast.

45:56 Now, hold on a second here. I don't know who this person is. But they also put their Gmail address there. That only has 11,000 likes. always thought you you're what you were doing was having people on asking them questions having them and this is the fucking skeleton crew, and whoever the fuck else is paying their advertising to decide what can and can't be talked about

48:27 but we've gotten to the point now It's fucking madness. And that precedent is you can stifle information that And the only way to find out what's real and what's not real is to let people talk. He's like, what? That's fantastic. And Minds is a decentralized social media company that does not believe in censorship. Maybe people say, well, a couple hundred people, but all the people those folks know then,

52:32 Nazis to express themselves. The most abhorrent people in society fight for their right to that basically argued that part of the problem, on science and technology, English, math, It lets you just try to look at things critically. interesting debate during the past couple of years no the whole point of science is to how these things work in terms of pharmaceutical companies. And one of the things that he said is

55:51 I mean, unless you want to talk about weapons of mass destruction and things along those lines, because that is- But Moderna, you know, Pfizer, you're right. So they both have done it. is beneficial, then yeah, they should have blood clots and the like. What was it designed to do? I mean, there's a told that the whole chain of then the sales reps going out to the doctors, you know

58:34 some bribes being, I'm not naive, but for the most part, the way they do it is they sweet talk. prescribe your drug, they'll be more inclined to do that. It's a fucking great car, Mike. It's got 100 horsepower. You're a British guy. The original spot. anybody and you can't do it just because you think your side is correct it's not good it's not it's

1:01:06 I didn't vote for him. You know, there's so much distrust because I think people are starting to realize, right, regardless, again, where they are on the spectrum. Well, he took a break in 08. He actually, if his health stays and he's whatever, 69, 70, 69, he can be in office until 2036. I appreciate that. us are sedentary and uh are overweight we've talked about this on the podcast ad nauseum but

1:04:14 Possibly the wealthiest Russian alive, possibly, even more so than some of his buddies who have spent a number of years now making him the richest person. does uh you know auction them off yeah i mean whoever it depends on why it's being seized if What really set him off, because sometimes it's a little simpler than we imagine, one of the things the oligarchs did in exchange was, you know, help essentially hide, manage

1:07:31 together why the fuck what's because you're trying to again beaver down into say okay what are his There was some newspaper report on it. And he's also had some of the military command come out and express concern. well, it looks like they look at Russia like it's a Costco now. We can get oil and gas on the cheap That's it. You don't think Putin knows this?

1:10:43 this is a great opportunity for us right now. Now, if it gets uglier in Ukraine, if things really, really get but don't blast it all over the airwaves that this is what we're doing. would be to be providing as good Intel, The White House would make that decision. You do that. You'd be very clear with the Chinese. is Xi is doing a daily risk gain calculation in terms of their relationship with Russia.

1:14:34 it like they're heroes yeah i mean that's the same the same exact people yeah which is this is that they have a Nazi problem over there, And I don't know what's right and what's wrong Yeah. in terms of... Even so. And so we're actually, while we're doing all this, while we're calling him a war criminal, world and only do things by emotion, only do things if they're morally the high ground, right?

1:18:39 Is that what it was? I know. that are they're all fucking connected because the world is much smaller than it ever used to be. we're we're getting a better toehold into uh into saudis and capitalizing on chaos capitalizing on all, they suck up all that information and all that research and development, and then they just They're not calling it anything.

1:21:43 are going to really cripple that economy. And it's going to hurt the Russian people a great deal. But India and China And he was saying that the United States only gets 3% of its oil from Russia. at the pump, you can attribute to sort of the chaos and the instability that took place So China, as an example, look, they've locked down, right? and so or they look at um Iran deal and the Iran negotiations.

1:24:33 here, we're going to set the price of crude. But that's not how prices get set. Is that physically possible? Stopping fracking or at least minimizing it. billion in profit in 2021. Well, you know what they lost in 2020? They lost about $22.3 billion. it's not unreasonable to think we should do everything possible to achieve or get as close It's a long process. So how much have we decreased our reliance on energy that the United States produces?

1:28:45 that if they can get there, they're going to make money, right? And so it's like battery Oh, how about we cap the price of gas It's a marketplace. talking about the Green New Deal. They were talking about doing things for the environment, You've got to get that electricity from somewhere right now. subject. And so, okay, I get it. And so what's he doing? He's being called a war criminal by countries that are in a position where

1:32:47 afford to do what he's doing. When oil is down at 30, 35 bucks a barrel, he can't, because of his dependence on oil and gas, petroleum products as a revenue. When it's like that, you know, so We talk about intel and sort of lack of intel. you think about the ability for the Russians, the intel service and the military to have assets or the only person that really knows what Putin's thinking is Putin.

1:37:12 There's so much chaos in terms of like accurate information. you know, systems that are in place, and we've been providing the javelins. Javelin is probably the most effective anti-tank weapon out there at this stage anyway. really careful with the information that's coming out. And people should always say, And so people start, and to go to your point,

1:39:59 Right. The Russian military was supposedly going through a professionalism or, sorry, sort of this upgrade over the past decade and a half or so. Probably not going to get there anytime soon. And, you know, God bless those folks. And so that's, you know, and look, with Putin, he wants everyone to believe that, you know we were enticing Ukraine into democracy. Bullshit. The only thing that was a threat was a threat directly to Putin's power. That's all it was, was having a successful democracy in Ukraine and incrementally, slowly getting past the corruption issues and becoming more and more of a successful democracy.

1:44:31 It wasn't? understanding that that's not going to end well. You know, we don't want to put Ukraine in a In the previous world, before this invasion, they would have looked at that as that's too escalatory. And guess what? Here's some missile systems that we're going to place in that we know, and that's where this narrative is coming from? The hard one is the demilitarization of Ukraine, right?

1:48:49 to the table with a ceasefire, right? And so there's going to be a period of time where Russia to, they're going to have to recognize that as part of Russian territory, probably. That's going but how do they boost their morale? How do they get them excited about it? Because it seems like invaded fucking Alaska. And then, you And then the tanks start

1:52:03 look, you look at the history of these two countries. I mean, go back to, who is it? Abramovich, you know, Roman Abramovich, He's talking from a very personal place. why the country's the reason why people are doing what they're doing i just it's fascinating shit more it hurts them, the more likely they are to pressure, you know, Putin into changing

1:54:08 Look, financial sanctions have never really worked We're not. They pulled out before, you know, the White House, you know, took any action. Well, I hear people talking about a no-fly zone, that we need to enforce a no-fly zone. right? And maybe Putin, one of his calculations is, I don't know, you know what, you know, I think we do not want to engage in that game because that I don't think ends particularly well.

1:56:58 then at some point somebody gets really pissed off and then yeah and then it all falls to shit And these people were screaming and crying and the dust was in the air and they'd just clear that they're engaged in war crimes, right? So that's another part that you have to put into the mix and again, it all gets thrown in the mix when you're trying to think about

1:59:10 always say, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But we do, right? I mean, we try to, you know, a serious problem with that. But there's talk about chemical weapons and, you know, at what Do you think that time is on his side or against him in that regard? all he wants to do is break the fucker, right? And that's, again, I'm just raising the question.

2:02:49 They thought the Ukrainian people were going to support a military invasion. We'll get rid of Zelensky. in Chechnya, in Georgia? Like, why did that happen so easily? Because Crimea is, and closer to Russia. And the last president was, you said they were waiting to reinstate this guy? we don't want to return to the bread lines here. You know, we don't want to be isolated like this.

2:06:55 Yeah. I think they'd all think it's more than alleged. okay, what information is he getting? He brings in other people. I don't know. And you look at it, and if you didn't know better, it's an old Soviet-style rally, or it looks like sort of something North Korea would put on. Is there a video of this, Jamie? It says Russian state TV cuts away from Putin at pro-Russia rally.

2:09:42 Exactly. And it tells you, in a sense, again, putting all these little things into a bucket to try to assess his mindset. It tells you, why did he feel the need to do this? Is that a bunch of people that are trying to get in? Yeah, I think those are just people who have I don't know what the production values are on state TV anymore. So I think we need to one of the things that we should be doing

2:11:56 that's your story? And that, but that's what's being fed on national TV, or state-run TV. How do they get that? same sort of nonchalant attitude about our mainstream media. Right. Right. I think it's If they were independent, imagine if Brian Stelter had a podcast. bureaus and that you knew that, okay, I'm going to turn on CNN because I'm going to get the news.

2:15:10 I mean, I get calls from various outlets, network outlets, and they'll say, hey, can you do, seems to be the situation on, you know, on the ground or whatever it is. And how about that? And so And when you realize that when you're going on one of these other shows, they're so handicapped by the format that they exist in where they have an hour to do the show and in between segments you're

2:16:59 Yeah. Well, if you're talking about, I mean, Syria was a good example. They did a lot during Or what's next? But sound bites, I think they're just so inadequate I just want someone to tell me I'm right. supposed to think about that or have six people come on in different boxes on the screen and kind of yell at each other for 20 seconds each and then I'm supposed to make sense of it

2:19:20 about one of my kids. My daughter, when she was in university, she got out of university uncommon. People would just, if somebody was really strong about something or felt really strong about something, fine, just let them go. and she was like, probably a lot of people to fill that way. There's a lot of people that are in the center and then they can you can then you can start ramping up your instruction you know and and

2:22:12 They shouldn't have any say at all when you're talking to a seven-year-old kid. I mean, I feel whether it's a right-wing ideology or a left-wing ideology. And so I think it did raise this awareness level. national security infrastructure uh treaties with foreign countries uh you know try not to to fuck things up Hard enough to learn grammar and the proper use of contractions.

2:24:51 Like, all that stuff is hard enough. And so I think that's, we've, Right, right, right. They don't want the gig. Well, what the fuck is politics? Yeah. And I think that's a big problem that the president's having right now is sort of the credibility issue. A lot of these people that have great ideas, once they get into the system, they get compromised.

2:28:44 democrats club or i was head of the Young Republicans Club, and Does he have elections, allegedly? And that will have meant 37 years running that country. I don't think he's 80 yet. right? And what that's going to look like and what Putin imagines that to look like. I mean, it wasn't necessarily pro-Russian before. It's definitely not now. So what the

2:32:08 Yeah. Soviet bomber takes you know five hours to get into, you know, position for U.S. airspace. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And so now maybe there's not enough time for it. So it takes that off the the removal of that mutually assured destruction doctrine, right? And the idea that, I mean, Again, you know, people are quick to criticize whatever administration's in power, but I think

2:36:31 UN was placing it around close to a thousand, just under a thousand. And then we have to figure out what happens next. Yeah. be a lot of debate about that. And by the time we finish that debate in our democracy, If we want to have a happy ending, that we really don't have any time to retaliate, they'll hit us before we even realize it, It got you closer to the target.

2:40:02 So that's where the attack, Why is cyber warfare? We're plotting and planning. We're testing, in nations that don't have our interests at heart. long time. And yeah, our power grid goes down and it shuts everything down, fuel transport, Is that it? but real live conversations that generals had had during the Cold War about launching a first strike nuclear attack on China or Russia because they're worried about them eventually doing it to us.

2:43:40 retaliatory strike, okay, what, you know, what are acceptable casualty numbers? What are everybody anticipated, I'm going on spring break. It it's going to be great now we're going to get out of this thing and There was less road rage. So 9-11 happened and it was against us, right? We can't compare the two, I guess, but we should be smart enough. For whatever reason, human beings have, we don't have an ability to think things are real if

2:47:29 And so unless it's a direct attack on the home front, it really needs to be that. Mike, tell us about your show. We traveled all over the fucking place, and we got some great stories, a lot of good investigations. can look at these things and they go wow that's fucked up and but to see a person but to see I really do. This was by far the most terrifying experience of my life.

2:50:59 The Soviet Union created a doomsday system.