John Reeves
Appearances
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
old school brazilian jiu-jitsu where we're gonna shrimp across the mat we do fucking all this i don't give a fuck if you lose in jiu-jitsu today but you're gonna be tough right so it's that kind of shit and that's how carlson gracie's was yeah yeah before you even got to the class you were fucking exhausted yeah the class hasn't started yet right so i'm out on the mat i'm breathing hard i'm just kind of doing my thing and uh roosevelt the big tall black belt comes over and he was like
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
man, he's like, you are my inspiration. I'm like, I am coach. I'm your inspiration. He's like, yes. He's like, you are out here. You are doing this, man. He was like, you are everyone's inspiration. And I'm looking around and like, everyone's rolling. Like, and then, and then like everyone stops. Cause like, he's talking to me, you know what I mean?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Well, I mean, think about America. Like, prior to Mike Tyson, boxing was kind of like Americans. If they would have seen, like, Hicks and Gracie, you know, if Hicks and Gracie would have been popular in, like, the 70s or 60s, people would have been like... Well, that's not civilized fighting. You know what I mean? Right, right. Get your dukes up. This has got to be fair. You know what I mean?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And like, now everyone's looking at me and I'm like, what in the fuck is going on? Right. So he was like, you are here, you are doing this, you are old, you are my inspiration. And I'm like, thanks coach. I was like, and then like, I didn't need a break, but I was like, fuck after that talk, maybe I do need a break. So I was like, maybe I do need a break coach. And he was like, okay, fix your gi.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
So I fixed my gi, I tie my belt. He's like, run laps around the practice until you're ready to practice again. It was like, man, that's fucking worse. I wasn't, I didn't even need the fucking break. And he gave me the old speech. So I agreed. And then like, and then I had to run. I thought that was more embarrassing running laps around everybody. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
But like, like when he said he wanted to give me a break, like the fucking break, It was like screech to a halt. Everybody was like, did he just say, wait, does that guy, why the fuck does that guy get a break? You know what I mean?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. And then Cyberg came up to me and they didn't, I didn't have a gi yet. I hadn't bought a gi and I hadn't found a gi that fit me. So. I had I just bought a gi, but I only had a white belt. Right. I got the gi at Gracie Raleigh, my home dojo. Right. And then they only had a white belt. So I had a white belt. So I was white belt in it. But really, I was a blue belt.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
So and when it came to Roland, Cyborg is like, who are you, man? I'm like, coach. And he's like, who are you, man? Who are you?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. He's like, why are you here? And I'm like, I just, I just, well, my brother lives here, coach. And I called ahead of time and I asked if I could come do jujitsu. I'm just trying to get a couple days while I'm on the road. He's like, man, you are no white belt. Who are you? What are you doing here? And I was like, well, I'm actually a blue belt coach. And he was like, why didn't you?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And then they got a wall of like old belts, which is like the coolest thing I ever fucking seen. Like I'm...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
just a hundred just old different all kinds of belts it's fucking cool as fuck my opinion but he was like why didn't you get one off the extra belt and i was like well you didn't have one coach and he he thinks for a second he was like you are right there's not one your size on the wall and i was like holy fuck there's a ton of belts there for him to even know that like wow
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Cause I went through all of them and couldn't fit one, you know? And, uh, he was like, okay.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I don't know. Yeah. And then, but they were great with me. Like shout out to Cyborg and Roosevelt. Um, hard dudes. Yeah. They're fucking, they're hard down there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I'm all in man. I'm in, I'm in all the time. And then like, so one of the things is like, I can only go to Hickson to get promoted because I'm never in one doll dojo long enough to like earn a stripe or earn a, so I think it's like a, I don't know. I feel like I'm fortunate of where I am. Um, you know what I mean? And then honestly, the reason I went to Hickson is cause I could. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And I figured if, if I need to be tested for a belt, uh,
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Americans have a very fair sense of what fighting should be like. Americans hate like dirty fighting. And but, you know, all the all Muay Thai and Kali and all that, that was all seen. You know, those guys would come from Asia, fight around the states here, fucking kick everyone's ass. And people still weren't attracted to it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah, I love it. I call it, like, I call it fat guy jiu-jitsu, and I think people are shocked when I say that term. But really, it's like the, I don't know, the Danaher ageless stuff. There's stuff that bigger guys, less athletic... are going to have to do because they can't do a flying whatever. You know what I mean? And I love his smash game. So I went to the Machado camp.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
It was him, Roger, Carlos, and John. John Machado. I love that guy too. You know John? Sure. He carries condom holsters. Nice. Yeah, he's great, man. But I went to their summer camp and I was like, hey, can I get a picture? And he was sitting on the couch and Carlos is like... you know, typical bigger brother shit. Get the fuck up. You're lazy. Kind of dogging him.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
So I was like, I was like, you don't have to get up coach. So I sat on his lap.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
book that's hilarious but yeah uh i went to a machado camp this year i spent a lot of time with rafael levato i love that dude that guy's a fucking legend yeah he is like he is i i got invited to felipe costa's kind of an affiliate training with rafael like shout out to rafael he's a fucking amazing every one of his black belts gave me time like uh and then felipe costa like
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
just fucking next level man and look it gives me hope as an old guy like i know i'm 55 and i know i want to win the fucking 55 year old bracket but why the fuck do i need to be in the 55 year old bracket you know what i mean if my jujitsu is good enough i should be able to fight anyone right and that's what gives me hope of fucking carrying on that one day like because i know all i do is fight these young guys and yeah sure they beat me right now but like
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
You know, how many times did Helio get crushed? Right. You know what I'm saying? So like it's the beauty of jujitsu is the age should be fucking the least in this equation. You know what I mean? So that's kind of where I stand. And I'll tell you, man, anytime someone can fucking put it to me where I'm about to go down, I couldn't be fucking happier, man. I had this black belt the other day.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
out of nowhere just fucking smash me and like and then he lets i tap he lets me up and i just got the biggest smile on my face and he was like looking at me and i was like that was fucking amazing coach i was like you ain't never smashed me like that right and he he just kind of looking at me and just fucking tackled him again you know what i mean fucking went right back to smashing me you know what i mean like
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
There's no better. Well, as a human being, I need to learn something every day. I think you're the same way in a lot of ways. I don't care what it is.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I think it keeps Alzheimer, fucking all that bullshit away.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
So, okay. I'm going to get some rounds in the future when you're healthy?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
All right. I'd love to do that. I'd love to get some rounds with you. Yeah, for sure. I definitely want to come back. I killed Tony last night. Fucking amazing. It's like bucket list for me.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Man, I couldn't thank you enough. Like, I know I came here yesterday. Not a big deal to me, right? Because, like, yo, I got killed Tony out of this deal. Like, last night was fucking funny, man. This guy told a joke last night. The funniest fucking joke I think I ever heard in my life. I don't know if I could say it or not. Who was it? I don't know.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
There was a guy, just kind of shorter guy, white guy, beard, and he just read jokes. He just said, like, random jokes.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah, as a bucket pull guy. Oh, okay, cool. And then, like, he said this joke. You want to hear it? Sure. Okay. This is the fucking funniest thing I heard in a long time. Why don't police have turtles as pets?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Because you can't kneel on their neck. I was like, oh my fucking God.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah, Sheriff of Baghdad, SOB Tactical, either one will get you to me. You type in Sheriff of Baghdad and a ton of shit of me pops up.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. Well, I think it works like this. I never heard it as an extra gear, but here's the way I always equated it. You know you're going to get a beating, and it's coming at 5 o'clock. You know after dinner they're going to be hammered, and this is another argument and fight, and it's a pattern, right? And you know this as a kid, right?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. I love it. I love all of it. Yeah. I'll tell you that leg kick is my go to in Iraq and Afghanistan. You know what I mean? Like. I get about this far from you. This is good distance for me. You can't grab my weapons, but what I would do is I'd throw the tie leg kick, but I wouldn't aim for the middle of the thigh. I don't care about your pain.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I'd hit your knee and either it's going to break your knee or it's going to knock you out of your little fucking slippers. And then I just stand on your neck.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And what happens is you've got to take that beating and then put your church clothes on. We're going to church. You know what I mean? Yeah. And the truth is, is like a mom. Uh, I think my, my brother more than me, but, uh, I think my mom actually had him convinced that we were super bad kids.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I don't know. You know, I see this, you know, I shoot every day. I teach people to shoot all over the country all the time, right? And it's kind of interesting to me that... I don't think it works like that. You know what I mean?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Like, you would think people would have been doing this right the whole time, but there's, like, a lot of myth involved, and it gets watered down over time, I think, a lot of times. Even in shooting, yeah. Like, what are the myths in shooting? Oh, so fucking many, man. Really? Like, do we got the time? We got time. I'll fucking shred this shit. That's right. I speak at the NRA shows, like...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
The NRA hires me. I speak at all, uh, the NRA show this year. I actually got roofied in fucking Dallas at the NRA show. Yeah. No shit.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Uh, so is fucking, this is crazy, right? But, uh, okay. I have an assistant, right? Um, I don't know. She's like 30 blonde girl, pretty girl. Her and her husband are are with me. And I'm with like the surefire representative like, yo, sorry, we got you roofied, by the way. And then like some other guys. Right. And we get done with the show and we just go have a drink or two.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And we're going into like the hotel restaurant to eat a nice steak dinner. You know what I mean? So we get around to drinks and it was like, well, old fashions is what it was. Well, old fashions. And my assistant's like, I sit next to her. She's like, I just can't drink anymore. You know what I mean? Like, these are horrible fashions. I just can't, I just can't drink these anymore.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And it was like, Hey, we'll be at dinner in a minute. They got good booze at the good restaurant. We'll get anything you want. Right. So anyway, She's like, OK. So I was like, here, I'll take it. So I held my cup up and then I kind of held my cup up. The surefire guy, her husband, and she kind of fills us all up equally. And so. So somebody was trying to roofie her. Her. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
So, yeah, this is in Dallas. Right. So, OK. So. We go to dinner. I don't know. I get this Wagyu burger. It's fucking delicious. I'm kind of buzzed. I'm drinking good whiskey. You know what I mean? We're having a good time, right? I love good food, right? So I'm having a great time.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Her husband's at the end of the table and all of a sudden, and this is like within 45 minutes of that drink, which I also didn't know, right? So his head hits the table, boom. And I look at him and I'm like, like,
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And like, you know, we were, I don't know, a couple of years ago I was like, you know, like you ever met an actual bad, like four or six or eight year old.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
like is he okay and then like uh hey you know how like uh you know them blow up pools where you pull down the side and the water just kind of yeah glides over the top you know his mouth opens and it was just like whoa across the table You know what I mean? And I was like, I pushed it away from the table so it didn't leak on me. And I was like, we got to go. You know what I mean?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
It's time to leave. You know what I mean? I'll get the check by the front door or something. You know what I mean? But definitely it's time for us to leave. And you weren't feeling it yet? No. I didn't feel anything yet, right? So, OK, so it was like I've never seen this happen to this guy ever. Right. So he this isn't him. Like, so it's kind of weird. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
So my assistant's like, hey, I'll take him up to the room. I was like, OK, well, we're going to go have a few more drinks at the bar. Right. So me and the other guy go to the bar. She goes up to her room, right? I don't know any of this is happening, but as soon as they get to the room, the head of security's knocking on the door. So my assistant answers.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And I guess the guy was like, is there a guy that threw up in the restaurant here? And she's like, he's in the bathtub naked right now. And then the head of security, like, hey, we watched the tapes. Ton of info comes out, right? So I don't know who did it. I think so. But like, and then did it tell you? No. No, no, they talk to my assistant and then her husband, right?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
So I go down to the bar, right? I put my credit card on the bar and I fucking party till all hours of the night. Yo, what did I learn? If you roofie me, you're going to wait six hours to get that booty because once you give me drugs, I want to party, baby. You know what I mean? So I'm out. I don't know what the fuck. The surefire guy fucking peters out on me.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Right. And then it was kind of like, yeah, I think it was an eye opener for him, but like it was always our fault.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I'm probably just in the lobby alone like, it's fucked up. I don't know what the fuck.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I don't know what it was. So the next day we check out, right? Show's over. We check out. So... My assistant's knocking on my door. Right. And I'm a get up early guy. I do my cardio, you know. So I'm normally up early and she's knocking on my door. Right. So I answer my door and I'm like thinking, the fuck is she doing here so early? Right. Both of her and her husband.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And she's like, you know, I'm glad you're OK. And I'm like, what? You know what I mean? And she's like, what? What? She looks she's looking at me. She's like. not you too. And I'm like, me too. What? You know what I mean? I'm kind of foggy, right? Uh, it was like fucking, it was checkout is after checkout time. I slept till like fucking one in the afternoon.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
The next day I had the worst fucking hangover ever. Like if that was roofies do the hangover, I understand why people don't do them recreationally. You know what I mean? Like the worst fucking hangover.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Mm. Mm. No, they had to fly home that afternoon. They got me in my Sprinter van. I had to go do a class somewhere else. I was on the fucking road. So they drove me to breakfast, got me something to eat, kind of sobered me up a little bit, right? And then they went to the airport, dropped me off, and I drove somewhere else in Texas. I was working here.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And then the head of security talked to her and her husband, called them a couple days later, check on them, make sure they were okay, but... Long story short is we had a round of drinks that none of us ordered come to our table. And they came to our table from the same waitress that we had. You know what I mean? So somehow we got a round of drinks and we even paid for them.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And when I got the bill, like, I don't know, we had two drinks and we were getting ready to go. And then a third one came and I just figured someone, one of these, someone ordered it. You know what I mean? It'll be fine. And then I just paid for it all. Didn't not even think of it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I think so. And they didn't tell you? I think they told my assistant. And you didn't ask her? No. I didn't care. Oh, I'd want to know. I think it was like a targeted thing where they just fucking rob you. Oh, you know what I'm saying? I like I don't think I mean, all right. First and foremost, I think everyone's trying to burgle booty holes this day and age and you got to keep your safe.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
So there's that. Right. But I also think like I think it was like. They know all these people are in for these conventions, so they try to drug somebody and just rob them. You could have just took my, I'd have handed you my wallet. You know what I mean? Fuck it. It's not a crime.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
If you're going to rob me, I just want to say this to the world. If you're going to fucking rob me, give me the non-hangover shit. You're getting my shit anyway.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Fuck. I don't know. Whatever that shit is. You know more about drugs than me. I was in the army my whole life.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I had a buddy, he doesn't even drink. Like someone convinced him to have like a glass of wine, small town, North Carolina. And like the cops pulled him over like, you know, not far down the road. And he was like, I don't know what's going on, but I can't feel my hands. You know what I mean? And he's like, he's just a regular guy, you know.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Thanks, man. Yeah, Sean is... He's the man. He's awesome. I love Sean.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And they brought him back to the station and someone had put, I think it was a little bit of fentanyl or some shit in the wine. Jesus Christ. Like, he left, and he said he felt fine, and he was driving. He said, like, I don't feel right, even though, like, he doesn't really... He had one glass of wine. Like, he might... He doesn't even drink. You know, I don't even know why he had a glass of wine.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Someone probably talked him into it. You know what I mean? He probably didn't even finish it, but... He's like, you know, he said he was lucky. He felt lucky.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I'm telling you, that's one of the things I wanted to talk about today is like, there's fucking real evil in the world. And in Iraq, Afghanistan, you go into these fucked up places where they've been like, I don't know, fucking raping, beheading people, fucking tribal shit forever. Forever. Like there was buildings I didn't even want to fucking go in. Like you'd go and you'd be like,
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Every fucking hair on my body just be standing up. And I mean, at the doorway, I'd be like, I don't even want to clear this fucking building. You know what I mean? And I don't know fucking why, but I know there's fucking old evil in this world. Evil's real. It's fucking real.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
You can feel it like... When I'm around real evil shit, only two places I felt real evil shit in my life is Gettysburg and fucking in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yeah, I felt that. Because I felt evil before and it makes me want to throw up, it hurts my stomach.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I was almost going to, me and my son were out there ghost hunting, right? And we were both going to throw up. And I didn't tell him, but like I had felt that feeling before.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Well, I think it's energy and I don't think it can be created or fucking, you've talked to science guys, right?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. Well, I'll tell you, that was the army for me. Like the first time I ever felt like. like I fit in or I was with people like me was when I was in Ranger Battalion.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I grew up in old houses in the Chicago area. You know what I mean? And like some of them houses were creepy for no reason. And some weren't. You know what I'm saying? Like, yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
But I was I was in Iraq and I was in one of them like, you know, Uday and Kusei like fucking raped people. Them guys were evil.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
All of them. I carried their bodies off an airplane and had to guard them until they got cleaned up by the morgue and DNA tested. But Them fucking guys, them palaces, like they would pick up like fucking 12 year olds off the street. They didn't give a fuck. The lions, we found them fucking.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
So Uday had lions and the lions were, it's not funny, but I mean, it's kind of humorous, but I think it's funny.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
uh the lions were like on the the army side the big army side and they were inside this fence right and then the lions were like just lazy as fuck didn't care about no army guys and then one day i seen a lady and kids walk by and they're just behind chain link and them fucking lions went nuts and i knew like only feeding them that fuck yeah Fuck yeah. They were fucking evil.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. Or the fucking carp outside the palaces. You know them big lakes full of these giant carps that just are going to eat bodies like you read about. Yeah, but so I was down in one of those one night just because like I could be and I had my flashlight. Always been fascinated by ghost hunting, by the way. So I'm down there by myself just exploring, you know what I mean?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And like fucking door slammed on me, you know what I mean? I was freaked the fuck out. I'm the only one down there, you know what I mean? Like... Freaked me the fuck out, man. And the energy down in those fucking rape rooms or whatever. I don't know what the fuck you call it. They did fucking bad shit there. It's just like, I don't know. You ever ride a roller coaster and it turns your stomach?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. That's how it feels to me in them rooms. I don't know what that is, but it makes me almost want to throw up. And the stronger it is, the more I feel like I'm going to throw up.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. Yeah, I got to be honest. If I could clone myself and I'd had like a mini me right now, I would abuse them. just to make sure he grows up right. I would raise him right. You know what I mean? Like, uh, I don't, and I, when I say abuse him, I mean like force him to work hard. Yeah. Fucking earn his shit his whole fucking life.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I mean like, yeah, I had a guy like I had a, uh, I don't know what he was. I was in the Middle East somewhere and I, uh, one of the guys asked me like, are American babies stupid? And I'm like, what? And he's like, are American babies stupid? And I'm like, why? And he's like, well, in America, like there would be a fence at the edge of the cliff. So the baby can't go over in my country.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Well, I tell people all the time, jujitsu is my sanity.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Stay away from the drunks. Because you hear about the kid that gets hit.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. I tell you, I got my first key. I was six. I fucking lost it like the same day. my mom's yelling at me and she's like, you know, what do you got to say for yourself? I was like, I still remember, it's like one of my oldest memories. It's like, I'm six? Yeah. And she was just kind of like. Yeah. I'm six. Like I had it one fucking day. Like I never carried a key in my life.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Like, of course I'm going to fuck this up. You know? And she was like, we can't afford all these keys. You know what I mean? Right. Uh, but at the same time, like I'm fucking six, you know? So we ended up having to hide it somewhere. And then, you know, cause my brother wasn't good at fucking keys either. Like,
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I don't... A lot of unit or special forces or ranger guys, like... I used to call it the fatherless. You know what I mean? And it works kind of two ways. Either you had a dad, but he worked and he came home and he passed out and he woke up and he was gone before you got up. And when you got home, he was asleep on the couch or already out for the night because he fucking works fucking up.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
lot of hours or you kind of just didn't have a dad you know what i mean right those people make special forces soldiers just like you know dad issues for a chick or put her on a pole those same issues and a dude puts them in special forces yeah and i'll take the fatherless all day long
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Well, you wouldn't have that kind of focus without that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I would say like, and I don't know what the ratio is, but I would say like one out of every fucking 100 or 300 is like the fucking high school quarterback who married the fucking prom king. Very rare. Yeah. Very rare. I think I only knew one of those guys.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Well, I mean, think about this. If you had to fight your bigger brother off your whole life, you would be good at jitsu. Why? Because you understand leverage. You understand patience. Wait for the move. Take some punishment. Move later. You know the deal.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Right. I love when I'm, I don't even care if I get or see an elk today. The places I go to get these elk, I could just sit there all day anyway. I know. You know what I mean? The fact that like one of these majestic beasts is going to walk 20 yards from me, fucking bonus. You know what I mean? I just, you know what I'm saying?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. He had it all, I think. Way before people knew. Way before. Like – He knew the winning mindset and how to keep that mental edge with all the other things. And the fighting was just something that he grew up to do, I think, in my opinion. You know what I mean?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah, I'm telling you, I think he, like, I talk to a lot of people. I know some legendary guys from the Army, right? When he talks, it's like this weird time vortex, right? You ever talk to him?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. Well, when Hoyce used to come to us, he would tell us straight up, I'm not the family fighter. Yeah. You know, and I think what he told us back then was like, I don't know, Hickson was pride contracts. UFC was different. Couldn't figure it out. That's why Hoyce even fought. Right. I thought that was kind of the deal back then, but that was a long time ago.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Like, and I feel the same about jujitsu, you know, like I, I always like in jujitsu when someone does like what you call high level jujitsu to me as it's happening, like couldn't, I don't care if you're smashing my fucking face. That was amazing. Are you kidding me? Like, let's take a moment here.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I used to love all those. The Valley Tudor's pride. I thought that was the best.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I feel like back in the day, we'd be talking about fighting, and it'd be like, man, I wonder if anyone's ever done this from the mount. Fedor won six fights like that. And then like, I wonder if anyone's ever done something like this. And like, well, Fedor won his last fight just like that. And you're just like, fucking this guy. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
It's like no one's home in there. You know what I mean?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah, yeah. I loved him. I like when he... I seen an interview one time. Remember his brother Alexander? Sure. He was like, Alexander is better than me if he just wouldn't party so much. Yeah, he was an animal. And I was just thinking... Fucking Fedor saying his brother's better than him. You know what I mean?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah, yeah. You had Vanderlei, the axe murderer. Oh, man.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I think that's what people want now. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I don't think the fans give a fuck about drug testing. No. You know, I don't think... Look, and I think this is for all... Like, the Olympics, I get it. But the NFL? Like, seriously? Why even fucking... Why?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Think about how much more money that bring those organizations.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
You've never even heard of that? You've never heard of that? No, I haven't heard of that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I think that's all sports. Jump as high as you can. Take your fucking gear. Jump high. Run far. Smash each other. Let's go. Well, that's the enhanced games.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
You know what I mean? The Enhanced League or whatever it's called. That sounds to me like the NFL is going away. Yeah. I know. I want to see the mountain hit another mountain. You know what I mean?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Fuck. Those guys are already freaks. They're already doing it. Probably. You know what I mean? I mean, I only imagine. I don't know. But my two cents is like, you're doing it anyway. Just fucking go with it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Why even waste the fucking money? You know what I mean? Like phone it in. Let's just phone that in. You know what I mean? Like, yo, I took that drug test. Okay, click. Save some money for everybody. The drug test should be multiple choice. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. The drug test should be, we're just kind of curious if you've had any success and we want to know what works so we can recommend better stuff to people.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I mean, there's inherent nature is a danger there. Concussions, knees, shoulders, right?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah, fucking juice it up, boys. Let's go. Get that gear. You know what I mean? Hey, let's take those piss cups and turn them into fucking drink cups and serve them some whiskey in the locker room. Let's get this shit going. And I want more fighting in my sports. You know what I mean?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I live in North Carolina and there's a, there's like a little local hockey team at Bragg and like every, I go to a lot of hockey games cause it's like, it was like seven bucks for like a long time. You know what I mean? Uh, and they'll fucking blood on the ice on the Thanksgiving day.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And you know, they'll throw like a, they'll, they'll have like a non league team come in and it's fucking blood on the ice, man. These like the Southern provisional hockey league. Like I love this.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. Well, then you got soccer where like, you know, you rubbed elbows with the guy and he falls over. And you're like, what the fuck? You're faking it. Like, I have children. I know the faker. Like, what the fuck?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. Yeah. It's fucking crazy, man. I used to, when I was 38, I was a sergeant major in the Army. And like, I don't know, hand-to-hand jiu-jitsu kind of got boring for me. So like I was looking for other hobbies. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
i was at the px and i seen like the fort bragg rugby team practices like tuesday at six or something so i just went out there for something to do man and i'm gonna tell you you think fucking jujitsu fucks people up fucking go play fucking rugby matter of fact stay the fuck away from rugby like it's fucking brutal no helmets No, nothing, man.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And, like, when I was a kid, I don't know if I can say this, but we played Smear the Queer all the time. Like, I don't know what you call that, but that's what it was just called when we were kids. I'd come home, my shirt would be ripped. I'd get another beating because, like, you ripped another shirt. These are expensive. You know what I mean? But, like, it's my brother's anyway, right?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Like, not like he bought me a shirt. But, man, it was, like, crazy. My first practice, like, the ball's sitting there, and one of the coaches is like, grab the ball and run. So I just fucking grabbed a ball and just ran every one of these little motherfuckers over. And then guys were like, man, what college did you play in? I was like, none. And I never played rugby a day in my life.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
My first game was like fucking in my third practice. You know what I mean? That's crazy. But in doing jujitsu and fighting people in Iraq every night, like I thought rugby was kind of easy. The guy's running at me and I just got to take him down. Fucking double legs. And then I started getting more tackles than anyone in my coach.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
You know, they keep stats and be like, you had like 80 tackles a game. How do you do that? And it's like... Double, double, double leg takedown. Single leg. Maybe a trip. Yeah. You know what I mean? And but and then like one of the times, you know, one of the coaches was like, hey, will you teach us how, you know, how would you how do you normally tackle?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I bet the pro-level fuckers are doing that shit. They have to. Like, have to. Yeah. I mean, because think about this. Like, I know a lot of linemen do, like, cali for hand speed and stuff like that. You know what I mean? Right? Because they got to win the hand fight. Right. So I know there's a lot of sports that use a lot of discipline. So I would imagine they would have to be...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Fucking having, you know, wrestling practice or takedown tackle practice. Right. I would imagine they're doing same shit as everyone else.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Right. Yeah. Right. Well, there's no pads. So, you know, you can't come 30 miles an hour into this tackle. You might have to come in at 10 miles an hour. You know what I mean? Because you got no pads.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. The Army team has a lot of Tongans. There's a Fort Bragg. Tongans are paratroopers as people. I don't know how that works, but they are, man. They all play rugby. A buddy of mine was like, I was like, you know, you, how, you know, when, when you start playing rugby, he was like, I was like three, you know, huge guy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Like I knew, I knew I was doing pretty good at rugby when the Tongans were like, we'd pick, they'd pick teams and all the Tongans would be like, we want big John. You can have the rest. And I'd be like, yeah, me and the Tongans will get some, right? We'll fucking crush the people. But like they start playing with like a coconut.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Imagine holding a coconut and just going down ribs on a coconut. And I'm like, why would you play with a coconut? And he was like, well, there was only one rugby ball on the island and the bigger boys had it. Jesus. Okay. Yeah. But yeah, I played rugby for a while and I stopped doing MMA to play rugby. But what I realized is rugby is way more injury prone and dangerous.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. I agree, man. It's a hard fucking sport. I know. Rugby's awesome, man.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I think the only reason it's not popular is because of the time. It's like soccer. Once it starts, it doesn't stop. Americans want to go take a piss and get another beer and come back. And you have to have commercials. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Well, you ever see the apps that just show you the plays of football? The whole game's like 12 minutes of actual work. You know what I mean? 10 minutes.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Well, it's kind of crazy. Here's what we're saying is rugby starts and stops without a time. That's the same thing we want, you just said, for MMA.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah, I agree. I agree. I'll tell you... I met Hoist like we, you know, in the early days we'd bring Hoist and Horian was actually the first Gracie I met before Hoist, right? But we'd bring Hoist in and like watching these guys like, you know, we'd get like 60 guys up on the mat. And this is hard to do. And this is a lot of guys because it's Hoist, you know, and he would...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
How are you going to get the next fight at midnight or 10 o'clock?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. I think that happens with soldiers, too. I've seen a lot of guys who are like, we got mortared or rocketed and then... Next deployment guy. You know what I mean? Yeah. I think there's a, there's a time where everybody says enough's enough, right? Like whether you want to or not.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And then once you reach that point, like coming back from that point to become that mental champion again, it's fucking long road.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
That's a great question. Define bring them back. Define what's wrong with them.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. I used to teach tandem jumping and bundle jumping in the military. And I don't know if you ever see my social media, but like I'm in the sky flying and there's a huge barrel under me. I used to teach that. And what would happen is if you had a bad jump, you know, bundle jump. You would have to cut away. And we called it the nightmare, right? And you got to end the nightmare.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And this thing starts spinning you out of control. It'll be so many Gs that you'll pass out. The parachute will open later, right? You'll be fine. But... We used to tell guys, right, like fucking end that nightmare. Make sense? Now, you're the captain of the ship, so a guy would have to end this nightmare however he ended the nightmare, right?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And then what would happen is afterwards we'd review the video and I'd have to show a guy, right? And then we'd leave him in the classroom for a minute and we'd tell him, hey, gather your emotions. whatever you need to do, and then get on the next plane.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
run through every dude. Yeah. Every dude. And it was like, not like, not like it was a close match. It was like, whatever dude from the defo stepped in front of him was the 12 year old child against the fucking an adult. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like he just fucking handled everybody.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
You know what I mean? And guys would do that. You know what I mean? A lot more SEALs needed that time than, like, unit guys, because unit guys, like... Yo, I'll fly this motherfucker up your ass. We ain't going to have no problems today, son. You know what I mean? What's the difference? I don't know. I think the difference is that the unit is always more mature than SEALs. It's an older culture.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
It's older guys. uh, more experienced guys, more methodical guys, more planned out. Um, so like in a, a lot of times, like, you know, younger guys, normally the seals, they'll have their jump numbers, but they're like their core, their, what makes you, you confidence, dexterity, strength, fucking health, um, It ain't there yet. And they kind of freak out once in a while. Younger guys.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
It's a maturity thing, I think. Normally happens at the SEALs. Most unit guys are pretty mature and have been through so much shit by the time they get to the unit that you're probably unshakable by then.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. That's when the bad decisions will start. You know what I mean? And the reality is you got to snap your fucking self out of that. You got to fucking put your parachute back on and get the fuck back on that airplane. I had plenty of those jumps. I've cut away more. Fuck, I had a cutaway training for D-Day last year. Fucking put my cutaway.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
You can see how fucking low I am and everything. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I have procedures. I have another parachute. Like, we're all going to die. Am I going to let it ruin my day kind of thing? Like, let's fucking move on. You know what I mean?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I think that comes with what I just said is the core of a person. And I think this is what the Army is really good at is developing this core, right? In this core, right? How do I develop your confidence? Well, I don't fucking know. I couldn't even define fucking confidence because I went to the Chicago public fucking school system. But I could tell you this.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
If I taught you to rally race car drive... And you got pretty fucking good at it. If I taught you jujitsu, eventually you're pretty fucking good at it. I show you skydiving. Eventually you're pretty fucking good at it. Right. Why is because every one of these things I showed you world class level and we brought world champions in to show you. Right. Eventually you're going to gain confidence.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
It's the taking your daughter to karate or little kids, the jujitsu. They have confidence that other kids don't have. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
that's what you got to build so it takes a lot of different skills and getting guys good at a lot of different skills to build that fucking unshakable core you know what i'm saying yeah yeah and it's it's a matter of when do you introduce them to like extreme adversity do you build them up slowly right right and it has to be built slowly right and then we used to say this like um
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
aircraft training right let's say you got a breaching airplane right and you got to climb a fucking 20 foot ladder because these motherfuckers ain't low to the ground right and you're hanging on a ladder and you weigh fucking 280 pounds in your shit but you're on these fucking ladders with fucking six other guys who all weigh the same as you or more and
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And I remember one of those times he just fucking, I did something and he cinched down on me like a spider and I couldn't fucking move. And he goes, yes, I did not think of this. This is good move. And I was like, I don't even know what the fuck I'm doing. Like, you know what I mean? I wasn't even a white belt yet. It was just, he was just fucking me up, you know?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
You got to crack the door, get the fuck in this airplane, right? Now, let's just say this is your first time and you crack that door the first time. And as an instructor, I know you're cracking the door. And as soon as you crack that door, I fucking shoot you in the face. You know what I mean? Yeah. And with the training round, right? How fucking embarrassing, right?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And then the reality is, yo, you just ruined this motherfucker forever.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Sometimes we open doors. Sometimes we blow doors. It depends. So which one you want to know about?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah, most doors have a lever on the outside that can be activated. And most doors, there's a certain way they open, right? My team, I was always kind of like a primary door guy. And then there's a certain way doors open. There's latches. So all airplane doors open from the outside.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
So what you have to do is breach as many doors as possible and get as many people in as possible as quick as possible. And everyone goes to positions. Right. You got cover guys. You got runners. You got searchers. It's a lot of shit that needs to go on on these fucking aircraft. Same with a fucking big cruise liner. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
So everybody's going to once the door is open, everyone's going to flood in and kind of like go to their places. You know what I'm saying?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Not even once. Not even once. Fuck no, man. You know what I mean?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I know. But back to the point is, if a guy cracks that door, any door, let's say it's your first time. I'm showing you like, all right, Joe, I'm going to show you some close quarter battle. I'm going to show you how to clear a door. And then just joking around like you're about to go through a door and I shot you in the fucking forehead. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
you would mentally never want to go through that door again, right? So I have to build you up to where, well, the first time you come through the door, why don't I just let you come through the door? Right. And then it builds from there. Got it. And then there's a point where it's like, whoa, this motherfucker's shooting through the crack of the airplane. Wait till I'm in this fucking bitch.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
But I knew like right then and there I was fucking helpless.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I got two pistols on me. This motherfucker's going down. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So as you're... As your confidence, your core, that core of a human being, like that core of an operator, right? As that like becomes fucking concrete, a guy's just unshakable. Like, let's go. I don't give a fuck what this position. I don't care. Like, I don't care if I fucking die. Let's do this, you know?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Oh, man. Are you kidding me? First off, I work in a lot of police departments. I love police. I support police all the time. It's a fucking thankless job. I'll say that. Yeah. But I would say, like, think about this, Joe. If you trained police better. Right. Right. I work at a lot of police academies. I've helped a lot of police academies. They don't fail people anymore. I show them what I do.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And like, yo, unacceptable. You know what I mean? Unacceptable. Yeah, right? Unacceptable. That's the right word, yeah. Like, you got to learn this. You got to know some of it. You know what I mean? And even back then, like, we would all tell hoists, you know, because we were more Muay Thai. We would train a lot of Muay Thai, boxing, right? Wrestling, a lot of wrestling.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I train them to do what I do. They have great success with it. I would say this in a police academy, let's say it's six months long, whatever they do. I don't fucking know. Probably about four months of that is fucking paperwork. And then, you know, you get a little hand to hand, you get a little driving, you get a little shooting and And then you learn what? Yeah. But I'm going to tell you this.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
As a cop, you got the rest of your life to do that paperwork. Right. And when you're in training, right, as soon as you, like, get your first arrest, your training officer is going to be like, don't write it that way. Hold on. Let me see your paperwork. Like this. Uh-huh. The paperwork could be OJT, and they could spend them time, right, training these guys. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Now, I'd also say this is if police were trained better and truly uniformed officers are probably the only guys like stopping crime as it happens. If we train those guys better, why would we need SWAT teams?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Everyone could be SWAT. And if we got 10 of us come together, we're our own SWAT team. And then we could operate independently. We could operate one or two. I think police don't do the force multiplier thing. Each guy is his own fucking bastion of the law. You know what I mean? I just think they kind of share... Injuries, they don't do hand-to-hand, right? Shooting could be dangerous, right?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And then most shooting is, you know, the instructor is God and you are fucking stupid. That's how most training is. It's like basic training. And, like, no one learns well like that either. You know what I mean?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Shit, I just baseball collar the back of their fucking collar, their shirt. Where the fuck are you going? You know what I mean? It's crazy. Yeah, look. Okay, first off. I think also police should have different jobs like the army. So, OK, if you were 400 pounds, maybe you're the computer guy at the police force or a desk guy or you know what I mean? Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I don't think everyone needs to be the fittest human being ever. However, if you're on patrol. Get the young six foot kids in there, man. You know what I mean? They can handle themselves. They're young. They're bigger than normal. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
you know, before the Jets, and, like, we would tell Hoist back then, as soon as you learn to punch, you are super dangerous, which is, I think, where it is now.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
This is why a lot of troopers, state troopers used to have like a six foot six one six two height requirement because a six foot two man can generally handle most people. Right. You know what I mean?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. So I think the fit guys need to be on the force. I think there's room for everybody. But I think with police is you're a police officer or you're a detective and then that's it. But really you're always a cop versus like, well, the army, right? Okay. There's drone pilots. There's all these army jobs that kick the infantry kids out the door. Right. Why don't police kind of organize like that?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And that way like- The guys that are going to run people down can run.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Oh, that's the worst. The worst. I think the worst is when like the mayor or the police fucking chief is like not supportive of all of the fucking guys. And it's like, you think the guys have bad intent? You know what I mean? I get it. There might be bad apples or whatever. Everyone's got 10 percent. Say what you want. But like how about Kamala Harris when she was running for president?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I don't know how that sells with anybody in the country.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah, yeah. I mean, if we defunded the police, we'd be Mexico quicker than we thought. Yeah, right, right. Because the cartels would just drive over the border. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
First and foremost, like if you were like, yo, we're going to wipe out a cartel tonight, I'd have been like, I'll load my frags extra careful. Like, let's go. Right. But the reality is, is like. I know all my buddies are like, yeah, we'll fuck them up in a night. We'll fucking, yo, yo, fucking let's back up a fucking second here. The cartels have fucking men. They own the ground.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
They have fucking technicals. They have machine guns. They have fucking everything an army has. Right? And they've had decades to train waiting for this. Number two. And number three, our government's fucking compromised. So if you think they ain't going to know you're coming... You know what I mean? I think you're fucking high. Jesus Christ, that's a terrifying thought.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Well, how are we going to... Look, we're not good at being fucking sneaky. We're not the Israelis doing that fucking pager shit. You know what I'm saying? That pager shit was wild. Yo, that needs to be the model for every fucking thing we do in the future.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Which tells me America should go back to making its own fucking cell phones and its own... We shouldn't have our fucking comms made overseas at all in any way, shape, or form, in my opinion.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Well, this is why we got to go back to making America like it used to be. We made our own shit. We use our own shit. We wouldn't have to worry about none of this.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
They'll never let an American. No, they don't want a Chinese would never buy communication devices from America.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I know and then like well I think it's this Joe I think people don't realize how fucking dangerous the rest of the world is and how like people are like plotting against us and it's fucking real out there the world is a crazy place I say this like you don't know how fucking safe you got it here and how fucking great we got it here you know what I mean like people don't know that because they don't never leave here so they're stuck in their own fucking bad attitude of like their own grind or whatever the fuck they do and
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
and like look i'm telling you the world is fucking evil people will fucking rape you kill you no one gives a fuck like protect yourself all the time well you've been to parts of the world where you've seen this firsthand and i think it's one of those things where if you don't see it you don't believe it yeah i'll tell you one of the i think the biggest thing i saw in iraq
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I think in maybe 2009-ish, there was like the most fucking U.S. soldiers ever been in Iraq, right? Like whatever the numbers are, I don't fucking know, right? But when Iraq had the most fucking soldiers it has ever had in Iraq is when Iraq was the safest.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
think about it you know what i mean all we had to do was flood put a fucking tank under every fucking overpass in every fucking neighborhood there's a machine gun and fucking 50 cal humvee right like who's fucking around they're everywhere and that's the safest iraq ever was i'm telling you we have that here and people don't understand that in general so if you want to defund the police fuck man we're fucked you know what i mean yeah like it's it's a crazy but
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
The number nine boy. What's that? That's what the Egyptian Special Forces called him, the number nine boy. He's the boy that gets fucked. Why number nine? I don't know. That's what the Egyptian Special Forces called him. But every Afghanistan village had a fucking, what do they call it, the chogie boy or fucking something like that. Yeah, something like that, yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah, this happened to me on my – so I did a solo mission in Afghanistan, the book Kill Bin Laden. You ever hear of it? Yeah. I brought a hardback for you. Oh, nice. I'll sign it for you if you want. Sure. But it's hard to get a hardback. It's like it's got library shit in it. I had to buy it because people always ask me to sign it. I didn't write the book. I'm just in it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And people always ask me for a signature on it, right? So I bought like, I don't know, family or friends, someone wanted one. I bought like a lot from a library. They didn't use them no more because they don't sell the hardbacks no more. But I went out on a mission alone in Afghanistan. I was gone 10 days. First, I think, first successful mission of the war. My opinion, I don't know.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I don't know if there's other missions that were more successful than mine. So I went out alone and then... I do the recon. I have the footage I need. I have every fucking thing I need to launch a raid. We—I'm alone. We stop. I'm in a fucking jingly truck, right? Like, I fucking just—I'm in this truck. I hitchhiked, basically, from Jalalabad into the Tora Bora Mountains.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
You know, where they, like—it's like a fucking, like, a six-wheel, like, dump truck. But, like, they hang the chains and bells, and they paint it, like, 17 different bright colors, and they—
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
you never seen a jing yeah fucking jingly truck because it fucking jingles man yeah yeah the fuck is that yeah so i'm in one of these motherfuckers with this motherfucker right uh he's like a logger he's he runs the valley he's always in the area um but like i don't know any of this fucking i can't even talk to the guy i don't fucking speak shit you know what i mean
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Um, and then like, it's fucking dangerous. I had to go through checkpoints. I had to act like a retard, uh, to get through a fucking checkpoint. What did you do? Man, I was at a fucking checkpoint and the dude was like, there's this fucking, the checkpoints in Afghanistan are fucking sketch. Uh, you know, they got like one piece of yarn across the road. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
You better fucking stop or you'll be shot. They don't give a fuck about you. And like, so the car in front of us, I think the fucking like this dude like stole bread from a little kid. You know what I mean? Little kid was eating a piece of bread. We just snatched it out of the fucking car, yelled at the people.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I thought he was going to schwack him because I didn't have anything to give him that he wanted. So, I'm in this jingly truck, comes next, fucking AK in the chest. Fuck, I don't know what the fuck he's saying, right? But I know if I speak English, I'm dead. So, not an option. So, he's like yelling at me, right? And then finally, I just figured...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I'm going to do like volume level 12 and just fucking yell in his face, right? So I just get super close to his face, which he didn't like. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. And the guy's like, what the fuck? And then like backed up and then motion like.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
motion like get the fuck through here with ak wow yeah so what you just on the spot yeah another one i had a i picked up like a dirty towel or blanket off the floor and they took that right but what i learned being out alone one of the things i learned is you know you like you watch the movies and like they pull out a wad of cash and they're like i wink get me across the border there friend you know these motherfuckers that just shoot you in the face and take everything you got
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Don't whip that shit out. You're going to get murdered. They're just going to take it all. I mean, they'll steal bread from a fucking kid. You think they give a fuck about your life?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
you know what i mean and they just fucking throw you on the side of the road and let you rot like they don't even care about the smell like so like uh yeah i had to act like a retard through this one man they don't give a fuck man they don't give a fuck you just figured that out on the spot on the spot yeah so uh we get i get in the truck we do the recon i like had a literally i had a cigarette bag i think it's like kent or some shit i don't fucking smoke but like kent cigarettes
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I had a plastic bag with my fucking sat phone. Anyway, I had to get a camera out, get it under my arm, and I kind of filmed the house, right? US eyes on. And then I had to get the footage back. So we get to the end of the valley. It's fucking dark. There's no way we can get out of the valley before light. So we stop at this house and the driver's like, you know, motion us in. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
It's the Muslim right of they can't turn you away. Right. So we go to this house. We're in the room. Bunch of old fucking grumpy men. They don't fucking like me at all. And the driver and the driver, I guess, goes there and crashes all the time when he's in the valley. Right. So this is normal for him to be here.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And then so in that room, they had like this boy and they fucking drug him into another room and you could hear yelling and shit. And I was just like, what the fuck do you do? I have everything I need to pull off the first successful mission in Afghanistan for the American government. Okay. Do I save this kid and compromise my mission or do I just get the fuck out of here?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
and pull this motherfucker off. And the reality is I had to look the other way and I didn't like it. But so, uh, I took my speed, you know, they give you speed. I took my speed, stayed up. Everyone went to bed. They fed me dark opium tea. They tried to put me down. That's why I drank the tea anyway, knowing it was spiked. Uh, and then I took my speed to kind of counteract it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And then everyone went to bed. I laid there just wide awake and laid there wide awake. Like I fucking shut an eye. These motherfuckers are going to cut my dick off and stick it in my mouth. Cause that seems like what they like to do. Uh, and then, uh, finally the middle of the night, I fucking, fucking got my AK. I stuck it in the driver's face.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I drug them out to the truck, like right before sunup and we fucking left the Valley. But like, you know, compromise the mission or save the kid. What do you want? What's it going to be, man? And then, like, you just see this all over the place.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
good luck you know what i mean i don't know like what do you think what do they say to you uh well back then it was that guy dalton fury right the guy who wrote kill bin laden was my commander and uh okay it's a long story i wrote i'm writing a book it's finished maybe someone would want to publish it but it's called the singleton and it's about my going out alone um but
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I was at my base, I was in a soda bad, and we were just getting rocketed and mortared every day. It's kind of like mortar bait, whatever. And then we had like fucking zero lickies and chewies, no fucking candy, no beef jerky, no fucking Pop-Tarts, no fucking nothing, right? And we're just sucking it up. And like, I got to eat fucking these Afghan motherfuckers cook us food.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And like, I'm eating vegetables. I don't even know what the fuck that vegetable was. I don't even recognize it as a vegetable. You know what I mean? Yeah. I know that's fucking goat. Cause it tastes horrible, but I don't know what the fucking, I don't even know what the fuck they cook me. You know what I mean? It's like, anyway, so I go to my boss and I'm like, yo, Hey,
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I want to fucking go to the main base, right, and steal pokey from the fucking chow hall. What's pokey? Pokey bait is a term for like beef jerky, snacks, candy, cookies, like any kind of like snack food, right? So... And my boss is like, yeah, if you schedule the airplanes, you make all the coordinations, you can go. I was like, fucking bet, man. I fucking scheduled the helicopter.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Like, motherfuckers, you don't know how resourceful I can be. You know what I mean? So I scheduled everything for the next night. And then I had a red Toyota truck. I drove my Toyota truck in the back of the Chinook, right? So tight in there, you can't even get out. You got to just sit there, hope you ain't got to piss. They fly me to the main base, fucking land, driving the main base.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I used to wrestle, and it's like the cradle for the pin versus an armbar, right? Sure. In my opinion.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Like by this time, like the army's like taken over where like, you gotta like fucking salute on fucking the army base in Afghanistan. Like two weeks ago, like a fucking SAS guy lost a leg in a landmine, you know? But, um, so I go to the base and then the, the commander sees me and, and he's with his sergeant major, another guy. And they're like, this is our fucking guy right here.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
So they're like, hey, what are you doing? And I'm like, about to raid the chow hall. Like, what the fuck does it look like I'm doing? You know what I mean? Like, if it's one thing, I'm honest, right? So I was like, yeah, I'm getting pokey for the fucking, for our base. Like, what's up? And they're like, hey, we got a mission for you. And I told them, hey, I'll do it, right?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
But you just got to ask my boss if it's all right, because I didn't work for these guys. And they're like, okay, cool. They're in my squadron, but like not my direct boss, right? So they call my boss. My boss says, fine. And like they sit me in this room and they're like, hey, we want you to go out alone. And I'm like, OK. And they're like, explain everything to me. We want you to go out alone.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Like, do you have any questions? And I was like, Mike, my only question was and it wasn't a question. I looked the commander in the eye and I said, tell me you're going to cover my ass if something goes wrong. And he was like, oh, yeah, we'll cover you. Like, yo, you could have gave a fucking better man up with that answer. You know what I mean? Like, you know what I mean?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
He gives this like weak answer. And I'm just thinking, well, fuck, man. You know what I mean? Now.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Go out alone, US eyes on, get footage of this guy at his house so we could launch, right? Because the generals back then weren't in line with Bush's dead or alive. And they were, I believe the Pentagon was a bigger hindrance in the beginning of the war than they were worth. How so?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Well, the general at the time that was in charge of us, our task force, right, and we're talking about tier one, like the guy in charge then had like two rules. Number one, you can leave the wire if you get USIs on a target. Okay?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And number two, no one leaves the wire. Well, how the fuck are we going to do number one if we can't leave? Figure it out. So the commander, I was, because I was. When you say leave the wire, what do you mean exactly? Like go out hunting for bad guys. Leave your base. You know what I'm saying? Go out in combat.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
But you can leave the base. But you got to get these eyes on to launch a target. So you got to get your recon guys out there doing reconnaissance because we need these reconnaissance and US eyes on to hit these targets. Okay. We want to launch reconnaissance. Yeah. No one leaves a wire. That's kind of how it worked, man. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
So the reason they use me is according to the army, the army at every level is great at accountability, right? A hundred percent. We need to know where everyone is at all times. Right. So when I flew to the other base, I was in transit. Right. So they left me in transit for a week. So instead of saying I left the wire, I was just in transit because I was in transit anyway to go get Pop-Tarts.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
so they lied to everybody left me my stat and i didn't know this at the time i like like this could have mattered less to me i learned later you know but uh they paperwork nutshell the general and sent out reconnaissance and that was me wow and then they came back with the eyes on and the general agreed to launch the mission and it was a success and no one asked how the fuck did someone leave the wire because no one cared because we were successful you know what i mean
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Fuck. Figure it the fuck out. I don't fucking know. I'm not trying to have anything in my head right now.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I don't know. I wouldn't say vulnerable, Joe, but I do think this is like there's guys that like fucking make it happen. You probably got guys like this. Any task you give a guy is just like, wait, you're done with that already?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And then I'm one of those guys. That's like one of my better qualities, make it happen. So like fucking go make it happen, motherfucker.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Hey, man, do what you got to do, baby. Like fucking survival of the fittest.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Loved it. He loved being alone, man. I love it. Fuck that. Okay. Think about this, Joe. And you do jujitsu and you fight, right? You want to depend on yourself or you want to depend on yourself and people you don't know what the fuck they're made of. Who the fuck are you going to trust?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Right? So it wasn't really a big stretch for me to be alone. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I do.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah, maybe. I don't know. And then my other mindset is like, no matter where I am, no matter what I do, everyone in a 25-yard radius is going to fucking die. Just so I can make it home. And if I had to kill everyone in the whole village, goddamn right, everyone in that fucking village would be dead for me to come home. So I just figured, yo, fucking be ready to fight at all times.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I learned a hundred to one lessons learned, leadership lessons, a hundred to one being alone versus being a pack of 30 motherfuckers. Like, yo, let us come ram this down your fucking throat and we'll call it Tuesday. You know what I mean? Where when I was alone, like, you got to make better decisions. You're a fucking coyote. You're a ghost. You know, you got to make ghost decisions.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
The fucking, you know, the bravado, like we're going to kill everybody. The fuck we are. We're not going to fire a shot. Why? Because like you, you fire one shot as a singleton, you better be ready to kill everybody because gunshots is a fucking dinner bell for psychos. You know what I mean? So are you ready? You know what I mean?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And the reality is, is like, I had to think of other shit, do other shit, how to act like a retard, you know? And then I had to get along with people. I had a, had to do so much shit that is out of like even the commando norm as a singleton, you know?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Well, we used to tell guys, and I used to tell my guys all the time, and this is a unit thing, but like, I could train a monkey to shoot. I'm training you to think. I don't care about the shooting. Cause if you're thinking right, the shooting will be easy. You know what I'm saying?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Um, but yeah, man, uh, I'll tell you, I thought about writing a leadership book, calling it the singleton and just kind of the lessons I learned, you know, like so few guys have done that. You know, like I see all these, like, you know, I don't know. I don't look at the internet. I don't watch the news. Uh, I don't do any of that. I don't do social media. I have it. I don't fucking look at it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I don't have it on my phone. It's not worth my sanity. Um, Um, so I'm like a fucking time capsule for fucking the two thousands. You know what I mean? And like, uh, I never understood some of these other like veteran stories. You know, I never, I never kind of look at the lone survivor. I never understood the full story cause I went out alone all the time. That shit didn't happen to me.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Motherfucking seven Taliban on my ass. You want to see seven fucking bodies super quick. You know what I'm saying? Bring them boys up here, you know? So, um, I never really fucking understood some of these other stories because I had such a different experience. I can't fathom if I was with five, you know, the times I was with five guys. You know how many people I was with? Three guys.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
You know how many people we killed in the Battle of Tora Bora? Fucking hundreds. I just stopped counting on my first day like. So having said that, like, I don't understand some of these stories because I had the experience I had. You know what I'm saying?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Fuck, I don't know any. You don't know any? I mean, a couple of my buddies, but like not like me. Wow. Yeah. And then once I did it, it was kind of my lot in life.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Uh, I don't know, like fucking 20 chapters. I wrote a big book.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. So I can't wait to read that book. Shameless plug. If you know anybody who buys books.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I'll text it to you today. For real. I'll text it to you. I'm done with it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I think it's as good as I could get it. And I'm just a regular, I'm in Chicago public school system. Fuck. I didn't even take a book home because if the school loses the books, they can't teach. So it was like half, half of my class was in the book and the other half was homework and he left the books in class. So like, I didn't have homework.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. No bullshit. But which leads me to Iraq where I did hundreds of solo missions. I was a taxi driver. I had like, I don't know, fucking 30, 50 vehicles in Iraq.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I completely agree with that. And I always feel like that it just fucks shit up. Yeah. You know what I mean? And then, you know, this doing jujitsu is like seconds matter. And this fight could turn around in seconds. But those seconds can't happen if we stop this early. A hundred percent. Yeah. I agree with that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. Well, no, it's just kind of my thing. You don't have to call me. Just tell me what you need.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I don't know. I hate to say this, but like guys like me are generally fucking assholes. Like you've met a few guys like me and they're like, yeah, I was afraid someone would get away. Like, shut the fuck up, man. God damn it. You know what I mean? Like, so not really a fan of a lot of like alpha males. They can be dicks at times.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
So like, uh, yeah, it kind of set me down my, down my path is I just stayed away from the dicks and did my own thing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And I didn't have to fuck with no one else. It's on my timeline fucking. And I will make this happen. Like I will make shit happen that other people can't. I don't know how. I don't know why, but I just will.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. So having said that, we're talking about Iraq. I brought some show and tell items. What'd you bring? I brought something I have never fucking shown before. What do you got? And I believe it's fucking evil. You want to see it?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. Jesus. It's the one where he shoots the Mauser in the air at the fucking parade grounds. I was given that to buy his tailor. Wow. Yeah, that one. The liner fell out. The liner's in here. Look. You can see what kind of hat it is. The glue fell out of the liner, but look. Whoa.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I rolled up his tailor. And all his butlers. Anybody who touched his ass fed him or touched his dick. I fucking rolled them motherfuckers up. Wow. Saddam was captured nine days after I left. I had to leave for Christmas.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. Yeah. But it's a Piccadilly fox fur hat. I also have a sweater. I took a... I had all his clothes, like... Man, fuck, I had everything that guy had. But, yeah, his tailor. Okay, so Saddam's inner circle, right? When I was working Saddam, we were working a Saddam piece, right? Some fucking legendary hits that no one's ever fucking talked about. Like...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
we did the cleverest shit fucking during saddam and i will tell you this is i learned on my fucking singleton mission in afghanistan the first one we need to be a lot fucking smarter if we want to crush these motherfuckers and i'm not talking like we captured two bad guys i'm talking we go in kill everyone needs to be killed capture everyone that needs to be captured and fucking do this right right so um yeah with the saddam piece right um
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
That's what I watched. The early days is my heyday. Like I could not get enough. I was, you know, a fight dummy for hoists. Sakuraba... Who else? Oh, Hoyce. Okay, I'll tell you a quick story about Hoyce. He comes out. We're doing Jits with him. And... I'm a new guy. So I'm like, hey, you could share my wall locker. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
His tailor and his butlers and Saddam's inner circle was all Christians. Fucking every one of them was a Christian. And Saddam believed... That Christians, if they martyr themselves, go to hell. Muslims martyr themselves, you go to heaven. So he surrounded himself with fucking Christians.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
So his tailor, his butlers, his Jawalas, all those guys, they're fucking washing his ass, feeding this motherfucker. We're all Christians.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
and it's why christians flourished in iraq which they're you know like i i'd like to i'd hope all these guys are still alive but the reality is is like isis probably fucking got rid of them after saddam was gone you know yeah isis killed so many fucking christians you know what i'm saying yeah uh but they were all christians and uh so his uh
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
It started with the ex-ambassador, excuse me, to the U.S. And then I met the tailor and started talking to the tailor. And then one day he brought this hat and he brought some clothes. And I was like, what was this? And he was like... You know, he told me this is the one where he shot the Mauser. And he had some clothes. I grabbed a sweater. I wear this sweater on Christmas Eve.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And then when I was fatter, it's like a fucking halter top. My belly fat's hanging out. You know, my family's like, I don't know. They think I'm nuts. But I normally wear that sweater on Christmas. I forgot to bring it around. I brought it. Wow. Yeah, now that I lost weight, I think I'm actually Saddam's size. You know what I'm saying? It's spooky. You know what I'm saying?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I could have wore all those clothes, you know what I mean?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
But yeah, they were Christians, right? And we rolled up the tailor. The tailor gave up a butler. Me and another guy were at the tailor's house, right? And we were going to snatch this guy, right? This butler. And the butler is the guy who used to wash Saddam. Like he bathed Saddam every fucking day. So Saddam had someone bathe him. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
No. Crazy, right? Yeah. Weird. But he had a lot of a lot of but they were all Christians and they were all honestly, they were all fucking nice people, to be fair. Like all the Christians were great people. Anyway. Yeah. So I'm in the house with another guy and the guy's early. So we fucking shoot up on the roof. The guy comes. I call my guys. They're they're not really in place yet. So he comes.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
He leaves. He only stays a minute and he's gone. You know what I mean? And these I think all these inner circle Saddam folks know they were valuable to us. And and like they realized they were going to get snatched at some time. So he was like he was out. Right. I called my guys, right? And then literally my guys were like two blocks away. As he was leaving, he ran into their Humvee.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
He ran into my guys. And they're like, hey, this guy just ran into us in this vehicle. I'm like, that's the dude.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah, he ran into our guys in a Humvee. He was trying to drive away and crashed into the guys that were going to snatch him. Wow. Yeah. I'll tell you another Saddam story. This is this is my one of my favorites. Saddam had like regular pieces of ass and like his favorite piece of ass was this butterface lady. I don't know what she did for him, but she wasn't a looker. You know what I mean?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And you got a wall locker and you got like your towel because the showers down the hallway. You know what I mean? Like I have my clothes. Right. And then so Hoist put his family pictures and I didn't notice this, but they slowly did this. Him and my team re-tagged everything with like my last name and team numbers with Hoist. Right. So they re-tagged all my gear as Hoist.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
So, like, look and feel are different things. Saddam knew what felt right to him, obviously. And she was married, and we wanted to get to her. I mean, maybe Saddam's favorite sex partner wouldn't know where he is, right? Right. So... We have the tailor. The tailor knows who he is. So we have the tailor kind of invite him to the tailor stop shop. This tailor had a store in downtown Baghdad.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
So he comes in the store and, uh, I told my guys, if he doesn't come out quick to, uh, I had a couple, um, I don't know what they're called now. Mohawks, I think is what they call the Iraqi counter-terror guys. Oh, before they were even established, like the guys were with us, you know? So we had a couple of those guys. Um, and, uh, I have them start fighting in front of the store. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
So literally everyone piles on in the street to see these guys fighting, right? Like everyone piles out of all the shops, stores, and everyone's watching these two guys fight. literally the guy we're looking for, like walks up to see the fight and his back is to the van door of the guys that are going to snatch him. Wow. So I call him like, yo, you see that tall guy? That's our guy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Fucking snatch him. And no shit. Van door, van door, fucking open. nobody even knew where the fucking guy went. The tailor later was like, where did he go? Did you take, who took him? Where did this guy go? Where does this man at? You know what I mean? Like no one even seen him get snatched. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And then later my boss was like, who are those guys fighting? I was like, that's our boys. And he was like, wait, did you do that? And I was like, I didn't want to be there for like six hours. Like, you know what I mean? Like, how do we speed this up? We got shit to do today. Like, you know what I mean? That's my efficiency is my thing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. That's one of the, and we did so much. Hey, all right. I'll tell you another one. My first Saddam hit, uh, I worked a lot of intel side for Saddam, me and a couple other guys. So we worked somewhere not with our squadron, and we worked with another government agency. Make sense? Yeah. We get the call, the squadron's doing a hit. There's a Saddam sighting, right?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
So this is like the beginning, like 2003 Iraq. We were fucking Ken blocking it with fucking maps, like hit the third traffic circle, go out on the nine o'clock. Like literally I get us to fucking Ken blocking, fucking navigating through a fucking shitty Baghdad fucking street map. I get us to the fucking target, right? Humvees are already there. The rest of the guys are already there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Rangers got the blocking positions all set up. so we get there we raid the house right we get all these guys and then finally there was like no fucking shit y'all there was like i don't know 15 motherfuckers it was like a saddam look-alike fucking contest they all had the mustache there's like short fat saddams there's like tall skinny saddams so it's like body doubles
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Well, I don't know if it was body doubles. They just all looked like them. Yeah, because the Saddam look was popular. The mustache. I mean, not that they all look the same, but they kind of all look the same from my perspective at the time. So it was like, well, no wonder someone called this in. It's fucking like they all look like Saddam. You know what I mean? And then on the outside, like...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
fuck man the rangers shot up these vehicles at the blocking position i have my squad my my sergeant major was like hey go fucking clean up the bodies and i'm like why the fuck am i on brains detail i didn't fucking shoot nobody today and he's like you're the only one with a regular pickup truck that could haul the bodies and i'm like fucker already thought it through this is why this guy's the boss you know what i mean like and then uh
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Hoist put his kids' pictures up over mine. One day I'm in my locker like, is this my locker? What the fuck is going on? And I'm like, whose kids are these? And then Hoist is like, yes, you like my kids? And I'm like, oh, those are your kids? No, that's cool, right? Years later I'm in Iraq and I'm like, I got to go for like one of these surges into Fallujah with another squadron.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
lesson learned that day is you know like in iraq you just drink water out of bottles and then throw them in your truck man we were loading bodies and there's fucking 100 water bottles in the back of the bed someone just come by the bed of the truck and throw an empty water bottle in like at the house or whatever right and like i'm throwing bodies and fucking shit in the back of my truck and there's like bloody water bottles squirting everywhere it's a fucking mess man so
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Uh, I learned that day, like my vehicles are always clean, always fucking clean from that day on. But like, it's a fucking mess. And then, man, they shot up this fucking, this old man, this old lady, like they ran the checkpoint. They were about, they're about to hit the Humvee with the Rangers.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
So the kid shot at the driver, but like the kids didn't, the Rangers back then didn't know as much as Rangers know now, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Uh, and the kid like shot the warning shots at the driver, but he hit the brakes and the fucking vehicle will never stop.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
If you shoot the brakes, if I don't know if you know that, but, uh, and it fucking hit the Humvee at like fucking 40 miles an hour, broke the transmission and I had to clean up the bodies, uh, I had to set up an HLZ, take them later to the HLZ. You know what I mean? And then it was like my is my first Saddam raid in Iraq. And it was my first experience in Iraq with the Rangers.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And like that day I was fucking fed up with them. You know, like there's some young fucking 18 year old kid medic in the back of the truck. And like I'm like, hey, fucking give these people morphine. He's like, I'm not supposed to give the enemy morphine, Sergeant. You know what I mean? I'm like, yo, does anyone look like a fucking enemy to you here? Anyone fighting you in the back of the truck?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Then there is no fucking enemies here, bud. Fucking give these people some drugs so at least we ain't got to fucking hear them moan and shit. You know what I mean? And the kid, I had to force him to fucking be humane. You know what I mean? Wow. Because he was just trying to follow orders. Later, they'd be so much better, right? But...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
beginning of the war like my first that was my first saddam hit you know what i mean and i was just thinking fucking this is gonna be awesome man that kid was shooting down the street with the 50 cal like imagine just the fucking city street in austin right and you're parked in the middle of the road and you just shoot with a 50 cal off the top of a humvee you know like eight feet off the ground through those tracer rounds would skip down the road it was breaking glass fucking going through cars fucking you know 500 yards down the
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
road like people scattered like it's amazing you know 50 cows amazing you know what I mean and then I had a fucking pickup guts but well this is the fucked up thing about it is like you you went through all this chaos
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Love chaos is my jam, man. As soon as this gets confusing, yo, I got this. You know what I mean? But why is that? I don't fucking know. It seems to be what I do best. Yeah, I think so.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah, like, think about it. When I was a kid, the house was chaotic.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. Yeah. I guess so. I don't know. I think I'm a normal guy, but like people tell me I'm not. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. I mean, like, look, I just feel like, OK, we're all going to die. I'm not going to let it ruin my day. I've been through bad shit. I'm not the fucking victim. I've done bad shit. I'm not the fucking bad guy. You know what I'm saying? Like and then having said that, it's like, I don't know, man, I think it affects everybody differently. But I think, you know, before I retired.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I was burned out. I didn't know I was burned out. I was an asshole every day. Fucking, I was, you know, I mean, I just, fucking guys would come into my office. What do you want? Yeah, too slow. Get the fuck out. When you know what you want, come back. The guy would be like, okay, sorry, major.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
always always yeah and then I learned man like I was having a lot I fucking hated my life I was miserable I hated being a sergeant major I hated being army management is what I called it I'm not a leader I'm not a follower I'm not a soldier I'm fucking army management and that shit is fucking dry fucking toast you know what I'm saying and I just got out of fucking Baghdad in 06 fucking killing people like 06 was a great year you know and then I gotta sit on the fucking staff and do this shit like
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And like their ops are major calling me by name. And it's like, I've been in Iraq like 30 seconds. These guys are calling me by name. Like what the fuck, you know? And then he was like, we're getting your stuff. It's on a, it's on a helicopter. You need to get on this little bird. We're leaving like 20 minutes. And literally I got on a little bird and, They bring my kid over.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
It's just fucking killing me, Joe. And then, so like, I wasn't a very good star major. So I realized one day, like, man, I think I used to be funny. Like, you know, like when I was a kid, like I'd catch that beating. If I could say that one fucking smart ass comment to you, I might get beat more. But I fucking said my piece. You know what I mean?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Even as a little kid, I'll take the beating to fucking call you an asshole. Right. So like I kind of maybe had that mindset going into it or something. You know what I mean? Yeah. But yeah, man, I just think like I think a lot of it just goes back to my childhood and being able to manage the chaos. One minute we're fighting the next minute, you know, someone's at the front door. Let's go answer.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
that's like try recreating that in a lab fuck you know i'm saying no how do you how do you make that you can't i don't know i've only seen like i don't know in my experience of all the guys i know and all the combat i've seen i'd say there's like just i mean you know we're not we're not the common guys you know i mean maybe a dozen in my life you guys on a group chat fuck no Fuck.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Now you don't talk to nobody. You know what I mean? You'll never know who they are. They ain't fucking talking to you, me, fucking nobody. You know what I mean? And some, you know, of the, you know, I maybe know a dozen of those guys, eight probably still work for the dark side of the government as old men, wherever that is.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And the other guys are like raising families and don't want you fucking with them.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Thank you. I still think I'm normal, Joe. I think I'm a regular guy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I get my shit on, right? And they're like, yo, whose shit is it? Hey, Royce? Is there a Royce? Royce? You know what I mean? And then my bag is fucking still tagged with Royce's name. That's hilarious.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
But yeah, man. And look, I got some more items. You want to see something else I've never shown off? So I talk about stories in some of my videos about being a taxi driver. I also had another vehicle that was an Ude Kuse secret police vehicle. So when I drive this vehicle downtown, like the fucking sea would part. The road could be packed. And I'm driving my vehicle and people just move.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
What kind of vehicle was it? It was like a Maxima, a Nissan Maxima. But it's what the Ude secret police drove. You know what I'm saying? And then they carried these. And I'll show you. Check this out.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
So the lion is the Babylon lion, and that's the symbol of the Republican Guard. But I used to carry that as a taxi driver. And when I get out of the taxi, people would see that fucking gun and just fucking walk away. Wow. And that's what the Republican Guard rocked, those silver guns. I say it's a pearl handle, but it's like plastic.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
There's only so many guys that'll do AKs. You know what I mean? You want like a silver AK? What are you, the cartel? No, get the fuck out of here. You're not serious about guns. You know how many fucking no's I had to collect up? Anyway, that's my Republican guard. That's my taxi driver gun, man.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
No, I captured that on the battlefield and carried it in Iraq.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Because, well, because. OK, so if you bring one home, you get fired. But what I did, what I did is I took the handguard and the pistol grip and then I had a guy make a copy of what I had. Yeah. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Right, but that's exactly what the original gun looked like. Look, when you're in the Defo, you want to get fired for bringing back an AK? Right. You know what I mean? Dumb. You know what I mean? It's not worth the risk, right? But it's like, hey, can I bring this handguard back? The fuck you want that garbage for? That's a yes. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And then it took me a while to get, but yeah, that guy built it for me. Wow. Just got it. Kind of matches the hat. Everybody I know likes to take a picture with that and the hat. So it's kind of popular. Wow. Yeah, the hat's been in Texas here for a very long time. Been stored in Texas. Got it documented about as much as possible as I can.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I don't know. Hey, you know anybody that might want it?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I don't want it. Yeah, I don't want to keep that in my house. No, fuck no, Joe. Why do you think I keep it in a black fucking box, man? Yeah. Yeah, I don't want it. But I know there is people out there that would treat it better than me. Like, I crammed it in a box. Yeah, well. And the guy that stored it for me put it in glass. You know what I mean? Like, he kind of knew what he was doing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
zach bagan's haunted museum in vegas have you ever been to zach no i hear that place is fucking creepy my brother said it was fucking creepy and my brother likes creepy shit and he was freaked out oh he's got everything in that place he's got uh kvorkian's van where he killed all those people he's got the camaro from fucking the waco what's koresh does he and like the cereal i don't think so
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I thought he bought the Camaro from Koresh. You were going to buy it? Wasn't the serial number like I am God or something?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. So in training, when you kind of make it to the unit, there's a hand to hand program. A lot of the hand to hand program is like traditionally like you got to cuff people. You know what I mean? Like which is all Japanese wrist locks, which is a foundation for a lot of shit. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
You don't want that. I had a 67 Camaro when I was a kid.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Jesus Christ. Does the serial number say I am God or something?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I feel like, but I'm not the only one. You know what I mean? I feel like where I was in the Army is full of guys just like that. A hundred percent. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
But, you know, you learn that stuff, like how if you have a weapon, how to like approach somebody, if they grab your weapon, what to do. So it was all like a weapon focused, like more like self-defense. But I think back then in my day, right, in the 90s, it was still, bro, come at me like this. You know what I mean? And you're like, why the fuck would I stand like this ever?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I know, yeah. I mean, the raid kind of, like, we got the briefings back in the day. Like, you know, the raid was a couple years old, but. Yeah. Yeah, I know about the raid.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. Yeah. Like, well, we didn't know it would burn. Well, it is made of wood. Yeah, but I mean.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
It's crazy. All right. You ready? I got some other stuff. What else you got? What else you got? So check this out. I got a swag bag for you. Okay. I got a bunch of stuff I make that I do, right? So I just kind of want to... I like to do this, right? Look, I got you... The SOB hat. This is the best hat we sell right here. I wear this on the range every day. Okay.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Do you really? Oh, wait. Oh, no. This is the wrong one. I got a shirt. I sell these shirts. They're called slaughter things, and it's all I wear in Elk Camp. You know what I mean? But look, we got your shut-up hippie shirt. I sell a ton of these. I wear these normally. What are they?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Like, what the fuck was I doing that got me here? You know what I mean? Like, so it was always some back then there was a lot of hocus pocus. So we kind of had our own training program. And then as my years, the training program got better because we started getting hoist. We started ground fighting, you know, I think the premise for everything they taught in my day when I was a student was,
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
They're bullets. Bullets. Bullets. Got your shut-up hippie shirt. When I go to California and teach California classes, I wear a shut-up hippie shirt all the time. And then tons of guys buy them. I had a guy he comes to my classes. He's a younger kid He's tall got a young family, right?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
They go to I think Asheville, North Carolina and they're eating it like some destination like you got to go eat here and it's a bus and So he's a big guy, right? And he's in this like school bus and that's where you got to order is in this old school bus. So he said like my shoulders almost touching the ceiling and he had to put his head down and he had a shut up hippie shirt on behind him.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And some hippie behind him was like, better be careful wearing that shirt. You'll get your ass kicked around here, right? And he says he looks back and he pulled up his shirt and he said, better make it a gunfight. And they shut the fuck up.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah, thank you for that. You know what I mean? Okay, I got you a condom holster. I make these 365. It's your EDC.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. Nice. It's all I use. It's all I wear. It is the most comfortable holster. Here, and that's all this stuff for you. Oh, thank you. I'll give you the bag, too. Oh, look.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
okay so check this out here's another thing i use all the time the cooling schmog so basically i saw this too you know what the you know the schmogs right yeah basically i made a cooling towel the size of a schmog okay so like when i'm on the range literally i just dump a bottle of water in my neck the fucking thing absorbs it what's it made out of
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
It's the cooling material, you know, like the cooling towel material, right? But the problem with most cooling towels is they're not big enough. So it's like one layer on your neck and it dries in like two minutes. This you could kind of get, double it up, pour water on it. It'll stay cool for a long time.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I don't know. I think it's like the way it's woven to where when the water drains out of it, it cools quicker. And it's materials that cool, clicker, or feel cool to the touch kind of deal without knowing what it is.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I would wear t-shirts on the range made of that shit every fucking day I'm outside. Yeah? Yeah, fuck yeah. Especially in the heat. You know what I mean? Okay. So check it out. I got you a couple slings. I don't know if you have rifles, but 100% made in America. Everything on the sling is made. There's a QD on there. I make traditionally QDs in the gun world.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
That's right. Okay. Here's another thing I got you. Punchers. Punch daggers. Oh, okay. So it's G10. I got a few of them here.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
That's right. A, there's no metal in the sheath. It's all plastic screws. A, cleans up easy. No DNA. You can clean it in diesel fuel. It'll wash all the DNA off. Diesel fuel? You can wash it in anything. Is that the move? Alcohol, yeah. Diesel fuel is the move? I think so.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
You could do fucking dish soap, but you can't permeate the plastic. It'll come clean. And I sharpen them with... I sharpen them normally with like 400 grit sandpaper. Do you really? I just resharpen it with sandpaper. But the reason I made it is I always wanted something where like I was always wearing my body armor, right? And I wanted to just put the punch dagger right in the center.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Was like, you know, weapons retention, Japanese wrist lock to get someone cuffed, you know, two man cuffing procedures, searching and then like how to defend yourself if someone grabbed your weapon or if you went to the ground. Right. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
That way if something happened, I could get it. Right. Boom. And just start fucking punching. I mean, the whole problem with knives is you got to learn how to use a knife. But with a punch dagger, if you could throw a punch. Right. You could bury that thing in someone's neck. You know what I mean? Which is what I would tell anyone.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah, hey. It'll clean the DNA off, sand it down, a little alcohol. Okay, another thing I made, and this is super important. I call these combat bands. It's a high-temperature silicone, but it's a rubber band. The so what here is when I carry this rifle, I put a sling on it, but if I'm in and out of vehicles, the sling is always just hanging somewhere, right? So I put the rubber band on the gun.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And then I just weave the sling underneath the rubber band.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Right, right. And then back in the day, I had to use actual rubber bands for parachutes. And it fucking lasts a day. Like in the heat in Texas, a rubber band will last one day in a car. Well, that's only one day. I got to go out every day in my car, right? So when I retired, it's one of the things I wanted the most. So I made them the...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Guys use them to put suppressor covers, hold them on their suppressors.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
It's all I did, Joe. Look, I'm a simple guy. Let me just show you how I did this. Maybe you come up with a better way. I don't know. But I think this is the difference between the Army and the unit. In the Army, they're like, here's a gun, kid. Go use it. In the unit, they're like, let me show you to the nth degree how to use that rifle. So when something happens, guess what?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
You know what I'm saying? So it's the difference between showing someone something and teaching someone something. And I think those are different. And I think that's what the unit was good at. Here's some of my favorite things. The boot kits. Solomon boots made for the military. I've been wearing Solomon boots. You'll see a set of Solomon boots in the Saddam picture.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah, yeah. It's all I wear are Solomons, right? Well, if you got the quests, you know how the laces kind of come? Yep. Like the running shoes, too. Yeah, yeah. So I turn them into like the running shoes. Nice.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Cut it off. Oh, you just cut it off. I loosen the boot where I get my foot out, and I cut the excess off and put the end on. So I don't have like three feet of laces. I only have like eight or ten inches. You know what I mean? Six inches, whatever it is. Okay. Smart. These are some of my best things. This is a, I would call it a scribe tool, right? In the fact that it's a carpenter pencil.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Makes sense. You know a carpenter pencil? But the middle is G10. Same thing as the punch knife. So it's for stabbing. A lot of guys carry them, go through metal detectors. A lot of guys carry them airports, like these things. I get pictures of these things everywhere. Yeah. I made it fist size so you could punch with it or kind of get a good stab with it if you wanted. You know what I mean?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
No, no. It's like, you know, you're in you're in the gym. They roll out the wrestling mat and it's like, OK, come at the guy like with your rifle. You know, a bunch of fucking white belts basically like out there fucking around basically.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yep, yep. Okay, so check this out. Here's a bunch of stickers we make. Some of the things that happen on the range. Blind guys, I always tell them they can't see shit. You know how when you shoot and guys really push their butt backwards? I call that the prison wallet. You know what I mean? And be like, are you showing me your prison wallet? You know what I mean?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
So there's a lot of stickers that are like funny shit. I tell guys all the time, like, a guy will be shooting good all day long and at the end of the day he'll fuck something up and I'll just come up. All I gotta do is whisper to a guy and be like, sucks to suck, don't it? And the guy will be
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
like shut the fuck up you know what i mean so uh all the stickers are just funny shit that happens on the range right and then look this is the premise of the nra show we talked about earlier is i made a little card um the gun world is sketchy information at best generally speaking of where your bullets go and why like it's fucking magic This is about eye dominance. One side's eye dominance.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
The other one is how to fix yourself, where the bullets go and why. Makes sense?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. So look, this edge is- Tension on the left hand. Yep. And then you use this edge. So if your group is generally tall- right you got stance issues and then as you see your group whatever angle it's on the arrows point to it and tell you how to fix it interesting now backside eye dominance this is where the gun world fucks up And I'll tell you this.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
The gun world talks about two things for eyes. Primary hand, primary eye. Right-handed, right-eye dominant.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
They talk about being cross-eye dominant. Right-handed, left-eye dominant. Right? Right. Okay. Here's how division, I think, really works. Okay. Um, being primary hand, primary eye is the guy who makes all the rules in shooting. You should open your eyes. You should do this, right? He makes all the rules. But the reality is, is his vision is his right eye on a scale of one to 10.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
He'll tell you borderline 11 cause it's that fucking good. You know what I mean? Borderline 11 in the good eye, ask him the vision in his other eye and he's going to tell you hard eight. It's not really so good. Mm-hmm.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
This guy will always be able to keep the other eye open Yeah, okay now These are the same thing it whether your primary hand primary eye or cross-eyed dominant It's the same thing you have a strong eye and a weak eye and the strong eye takes over Doesn't fucking matter strong eye takes over right fucking easy for you. Okay? This is one out of ten The other nine are what I call eye neutral, right?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. Well, that's because you're what I would call eye neutral.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah, there was a system back then. And the system was really, I think, kind of four things without really knowing what they did back then. I went through the training, but I don't really know what the... Hand to hand was back then until later when I was like in the hand to hand program or fighting with guys. You know what I mean? But I would say this back then. I'd say it was wrestling.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
See what I'm saying? And then I would also say this, if you have a gray hair on your head, you're closer to being eye neutral than any eye dominant any fucking thing because of life, right? And the reason I would tell you that is because the part of the brain that works the eyes is like the part of the brain that works the ears. It's the part of the brain that works the legs and the arms, right?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
They work, all these things on your subconscious I think work better together and are stronger together. What do I mean by that? You know, when it comes to leg days, dudes are like, dude, man, bro, on a squat 500 on leg day. Okay, does that mean you can do 250 pounds with one leg? No, you can't probably, right? Because the legs are stronger together than they are independently. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And this is a function of the deep part of your brain, the fast part of your brain, right? So having said that, you can't choose an ear, can you? Right. The only way you can choose an eye is the eyelid, which has nothing to do with vision or dominance. See what I'm saying?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. So if you look at the card, right, if you're like right-handed, right eye dominant, you should be hitting in the middle of the circle there, right? But if your left eye takes over, look where the rounds will go. And it'll always be, look, it'll always be eye distance apart on your target. So people that have eye issues, they don't shoot one group.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
They shoot two groups, one for each eye, and the gun goes left eye, right eye, left eye, right eye.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yes, I do. And I'll tell you why. Before I retired from the Army, I tore my bicep out of my left arm. I'm left-handed. So I went and turned in all my left-handed holsters and got right-handed holsters. And I was like, I'm going to train myself to be right-handed from here forward because the VA said I'd never use my left hand again. So I was like, okay, fuck you guys. I'll be a righty.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
You can't slow me down. You know what I mean? And then I started training as a righty. Took me about two weeks. I was fucked up. It was tough. You know what I mean? I had to stick with it. Fucking a lot of frustrating days. And after about two weeks, my brain just transferred all that skill to the right hand. And I just fucking rocked it from then on out.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Well, think about this. If you actually knew perfect practice, you could switch that to the other hand. Right. But if you never knew perfect practice, the other hand would get the same garbage.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Well, you should, but the guy who made that rule has a strong eye and a weak eye, and he can do that. Your brain, when I say someone is eye neutral, your brain treats your eyes as equal. What does that mean? Your vision could be shit. It could be great, but the brain says, I got two windows. I look out of this one. Let me look out of that one. And you're going back and forth.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
You'll see the gun move. You'll see the head move. And then most of the time, it's just like it's no good. You're just not seeing it good. Make sense?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I am not a red dot guy. I'm an iron sight guy. However, let me explain myself. The internet knows me as a red dot hater. But I'm taking that video and I'm going to draw one line through that red dot back to your face. And if it don't point exactly to your eye, you're shooting and not seeing shit. And every time I show this to somebody, they're like, so you're against red dots.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
No, you're never going to catch the red dock unless you get better technique.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
It was Muay Thai. Right. It was a little bit of Japanese wrist locks and some Filipino martial arts.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Well, no, you can have good technique with a red dot. Also, if you had fucking good technique and someone showed it to you, but no one shows it to you. Right. The next thing with the red dot is the red dot is great for guys who don't see well. Because what happens is the red dot becomes in between you, your eye, and the target. Make sense, essentially? Right? So you'll be able to see that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
But what no one tells you is it's harder to learn, harder to master. So you need it, but you need to train with it properly or it's not doing you any good.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Few reasons. If you look at pro shooters, high-level pro shooters, guys that are fucking insanely fast, winning national IPSC champs, Rob Latham, Dave Savigny, you look at these guys, what you'll see is like... They're so much more efficient than anyone else, right? And they'll use a way bigger sight.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Like I think the winningest sight of all time in like gun games is, it's like the Seymour STS, but it's like more of the size of a beer can than it is the little tactical sight. So now when you shrink that thing down to a postage stamp, They put a coating on it so it doesn't fucking reflect or whatever, but you can't see through it well.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And they curve the glass, which anyone who shoots rifle scopes will tell you fisheye is a fucking real thing. But this red dot has all these things going on and it's supposed to be better for a guy who don't see shit.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And it just becomes harder to do. And then once you show them how to get it right, like they'll never have problems again.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Right, right. And then no one talks about that because they're stuck on you can't use the right eye or they never get past that point.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Kali. Yeah. We had guys that would do the sticks. I know a little bit of the sticks, you know, like first time I got smacked 37 fucking times around the head. It was another guy with his sticks. It was like, what the fuck was that? Like, how do these sticks move so fucking fast?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Man. Everyone has a preconceived notion of what they think they should do, whether you've shot before or not. And I'm going to have to unfuck that no matter what, no matter what. So it's like, you know, it's like, uh, kind of like in the dojo where it's like, okay, uh, I want you to do like 20 good 20 shitty arm bars and then we'll, we'll get the hips better on the next 20.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
We'll tweak the hand on the next 20. We'll do it. You know what I mean? Like get some of them bulk movements down first. Right. And then we keep fine tuning. Right. Fine tuning. Yeah. So it doesn't matter if, I mean, look, even if, even if you learned how to punch from John Jones on your first day, you wouldn't go out and win a match that night.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
You know what I mean? So I think it's like, I always, I tell people this all the time, 1% better a day, just 1%. That's what I'm looking for today. If I can be 1% better today than I was yesterday, well, that's 365% by the end of the year. And I didn't do much every day. You know what I mean? So I always tell people like shooting or a skill like this is a marathon, not a sprint.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I think so too. And I tell you, like, you know, if you think you're going to have to pull a gun and save your family one day, you should be practicing a few times a week.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
You know, and it doesn't have to be much, but you should be practicing a little bit.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Getting this gun out shouldn't be a shock to you when the time comes because it's not going to come to you then.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Do you enjoy teaching? I fucking love teaching. I love helping people. Now that I'm doing jits again, a lot of people want me to show them fucking cars and guns and jits and guns. I don't know if I'm ready to take my sanity past time and turn it into work. You know what I'm saying? So I play with guns now.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And a lot of guys have told me I need to be like, you know, like the car bailouts, like all this shit like I do. I'm afraid to ruin jujitsu as work. So I've been reluctant. And I always tell people I'll never teach jiu-jitsu. But, like, I'll fucking teach anyone everything. I mean, if we can get better today, let's talk about it. Let's fucking try it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Well. Okay, you know this. You're a black belt, right? Every day you went to a dojo, you were trying to hand that black belt his ass. And then you get your black belt, and now everyone every day the rest of your life is trying to hand you your ass. You know what I mean? It's a fucking thankless job.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. Super impressed. So I think that was really the foundation. Like, and, you know, maybe like some, I don't know, like dirty boxing, I would kind of imagine, you know what I mean? Yeah. Clinching, punching, stuff like that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I love it when someone forces me into like real survival mode. No, I'm not talking about like, you know, you got a triangle and I'm just going to ride this. I'm talking like someone like, I'm like, fucking, I got to do something now. I fucking love that, man.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Um, okay. So, uh, first and foremost, uh, I started out, I don't even take Motrin. I try to take no drugs after I got off the pills from the VA and started getting active. And, you know, I try not to take any medicines at all. I went to master worlds and motherfuckers are yoked up fucking at the gear is out. You know what I mean?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Like these motherfuckers are working out since last year, just a fucking stroke of motherfucker today. Right. So like, uh, I was a little unprepared this year for Worlds in that aspect, but I'm all for the peptides. I'm all for the TRT. I'm not against any of it per se, and I think that's a – I did the peptides. I just – I don't like shots. Right, right. and I won't give myself a shot.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
You don't like the idea of something piercing your skin. Yeah, like, I don't like that. I don't know why. That's so weird. I know. It's so weird.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I mean, just give it. It doesn't hurt. Like, I'm not a sissy about it, but it's like... Peptides are so easy, though. I know. Well, I took the pills. Oh, okay. I took the pill ones. PPC-157? Yeah. Yeah. And I'll tell you, like... Super legit. Was it Gary Brekka, that guy? Yeah. He talks about redheaded people. I'm a redheaded people. I got pale skin.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
My whole life, I've taken drugs differently. I don't get Percocet. I get Dilaudid.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah, but... Yes, it depends on the individual. But I will tell you this. It healed my stomach, and my healing went from like a week or two to like...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
four days bbc 157 is very legit yeah and then um so anyway uh i want to do more in the future uh i'd like to uh i kind of want to do it all like i mean i'm fucking i'm 54 man yeah that's why i was asking you like what are you doing what are you doing to avoid injuries okay so besides that i do cardio uh a couple years ago my first elk hunt my first elk bow hunt and
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
You know, we ride up to like 9,000 feet and then like walked up three miles from there. Like, yo, I was 280 at one time. That was a fucking hell of a walk for a big fat motherfucker up that fucking mountain. And then I hunt with these old guys. And then the two guys I was with, like two of the guys have hearing aids and the other guns, right?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Uh, I don't know. They're just older or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. They're hunters. Right. Yeah. So both of them got hearing aids and the front one looks back to the second one, both good friends of mine, like, and was like, turn your hearing aids down. So you ain't got to hear him breathe so fucking loud. And I'm like, I heard you mother fuck you. Like,
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. Kind of odd, right? But I love all that, the stick fighting, what do they call it, pontukin or whatever, the dirty boxing they do. All very make your opponent off balance at the same time you can strike. Or if they are trying to strike you, knock them off balance.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
So I told myself like I was going to start walking 30 minutes a day and that was fucking hard. And then now I do like an hour of cardio. I could run, but I don't. But I started again. I need to be running a little bit for cardio. I treat strength as two different things. I spent about a year, uh, with 15 pound dumbbells, just like rehabbing motion movement joints.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And it was a lot of fucking pain. And then, you know, now I'm, I'm getting stronger every day. I've been, you know, power athlete, big John, but I kind of look at strength two different ways. I try to do strength days where it's like the traditional squats, deads, like all the big ones, push pulls, all of it covered all. And then I see it as a conditioning as something separate. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And conditioning would be lighter weight, like CrossFit, like round without, without knowing how to say it better. So, uh, but the steps fucking, I'm going to tell you this. I'll tell anybody this. You want to fucking start losing weight. It starts at 10,000 fucking steps a day. Get your ass out there. Start fucking walking.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And then the next thing I did is I went to a competition class by Sean's in Tennessee. And I got a diet. I got workouts. I got an app. I tracked my diet. I did right before Worlds I was at 170 grams of protein, 1,800 calories a day.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah, and I shredded weight. I cut down. I was probably 240. I cut down to 222.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
as the smallest human being in the fucking 222 because everyone's yoked up like fucking madmen well my coaches were like you know and i can't believe i even listen to this but they're like man it's the 55 bracket like it's guys like you this is their pastime you know what i mean today is not the same yo these motherfuckers will cut this is fucking killer season out at this bitch you
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
know what i mean like i was unprepared for man i had this big mongolian motherfucker uh you know edwin nedwin jammy you know edwin edwin uh gracie barra tarzana uh california right edwin's like a who's your coach i don't fucking have a coach it's me my backpack and a gi let's fucking get this fight going bitch and he's like well i'll coach you and i'm like okay you know what i mean i don't got a coach
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And then, like, right before we walk out on the mat, he's like, yo, ref, are they the same weight class? And I'm like, yo, my man, this is my coach right here, my man. Like, you know what I mean? But, like, this dude was fucking huge. And he was one of them Mongolian jacket wrestlers. You done this?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I couldn't get the takedown. And then we went down on the ground. He hit me with, like, a fucking paper cutter, popped my head out, tried to choke me again.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
fucking got out of it but as i was getting up i knew i needed to keep this guy in the ground but guess what man when you get in trouble guess what you do you stand the fuck up and this dude stand up and i knew i wasn't getting my two points back and then i was just fucking exhausted like i was fucking so you decided to ramp up their conditioning Yeah, fuck yeah, man.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
This year I'm fucking winning. I'm fucking world champion, Joe. I'm the toughest old motherfucker I fucking know. You know, God damn it. Let's fucking go. I'm going to figure this shit out. But I will tell you, I think what I didn't know is you got to train to compete to compete well.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And I fucking fight and I want to fight and I want to get smashed and I want to fucking, I want to almost lose this fight 10 fucking times to finally get that fucking submission on you. And that's a great fight to me. And like, yo, yeah, yeah. You just lost 13 points on that. And then if you don't get the submission, you just lost 13 points on that. You know what I mean?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And I'll tell you this is like I probably could have changed the match if I would have pulled guard around three minutes in. I ain't never pulled guard in my fucking life. Like what kind of fucking asshole pulls fucking guard? Well, I figured it out. I'll tell you what kind of asshole when you can't take a bigger motherfucker down.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
This is maybe what pulling guards for or in the real world. Walk the fuck away.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Before you fucking just get fucking smashed out here. You know what I mean? Thinking you're something you ain't.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Fucking get my neck. Let's go. You can't take, I will give you my back just to fucking get out. I don't give a fuck, man. That's great. That's great. I always like, honestly, when I, when I'm like, when I'm just at the dojo, like girls or smaller people, right. I try not to smash them. Right. And I'll tell them like, Hey, if I get on top, just fucking sweep me. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Stay on top of me the whole time. And I just fucking let them go at me. Yeah, I would just pretend that I'm weak.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Hey, your Hickson is great, by the way. You've seen Choke?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I have not seen Choke, but I just finished his new book, the dark one. Dark? Hickson came out with a new book. I just audio-booked it the other day.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah, but he's got the Breathe book, but he just came out with a new one. I just listened to it last week. You know what I mean?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I know. I've heard that. For a martial artist? I've heard that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. When he was testing me for my purple belt, he was like, Yes. Yes. Yeah. When I lay on the ground, I am flat. He's like, when you lay on the ground, you are not flat. You should roll more. I'm like, I know you know enough English just to call me fucking fat. You know what I mean? But God damn it. You should roll more. Yeah, I should roll, yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And he's showing me like rolls from side control, getting out of stuff because I am more round than I am flat. And it's kind of like, you know, fat guys should roll more. It's hard to stop, you know what I mean? Right. So he had, there's some real fucking wisdom in there. You know what I mean?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
But it's like, I always like how like they know enough English to assault you, but they'll say it like their way. You know what I mean? Yes.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. No, it's just real talk. And that's what he does.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I am the only person. So, okay. I had to do the paperwork. You know, there's other like big time Hickson black belts out there that kind of police up all everybody. So when you go to worlds or you fight, you know, like these guys and they told me they would, they'd get me under their paperwork. But literally I did the paperwork with IBJJF and I sent it to Hickson and he filled out the paperwork.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
But like, I didn't know I sent him the paperwork and it's like one of them forms where you just sign it with your finger on your phone like super easy I sent it to Hicks and I was like hey coach we got a form we got a sign and he's not he's not a member of any of these organizations anymore so like I didn't know how this would go. And they're like, sent me a fucking paper copy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And they're like, have Mr. Gracie sign this signature. Right. So I, I text it to Hicks and I'm like, Hey coach, can you sign my paperwork for worlds real quick? And he texted me right back. And he's like, Hey champ, I'm looking for a printer. Now, as soon as I find one, I'll sign this. And I was just thinking, Fuck, I don't even know who's got a printer.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I don't even have a printer in my fucking house. Like, if Hickson's looking for a printer, I think he just told me no. You know what I mean? Right, right, right. Like, fuck. And then, like, a couple days later, he sent it back to me signed, right? I think probably his wife was like, oh, Hickson, yeah, look. You know what I mean? I just didn't think – I think he kind of didn't know.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
But he got back to me and then they sent me – I had to do this a few times. And then I was the only guy – I'm the only belted guy fighting under Hickson in Masters right now. Wow. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
Yeah. And then I would say this for jiu-jitsu for me is like – I'm so glad it is where it is these days because back in the day, I mean, think about this. Back in the day, I travel all the time. I'm in a different dojo fucking weekly. You know, I might be here for four days. I try to get three days of jits. I'm in fucking Waco. I'm going to fucking places.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
I've been in 26 different dojos this year like doing jits. Back in the day, that was fucking criante. You know what I mean? Fucking monsters in Portuguese. Right. Right. Because you don't have no loyalty. You don't have no fucking. And the reality is like, yeah, I'm just never home. Right. I don't want to be unloyal to anybody. I'm loyal to everybody, but I just want to get rounds.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And I'm so glad the jujitsu world is so fucking welcoming these days. Meaning like, like I don't have to show up and fight. Right. Much more open minded.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
The only, the only, the only person that was like, Why Are You Here was Cyborg at Fight Sports. Oh, really? Yeah, you know Cyborg? Yeah, sure. He's great. And you know Roosevelt? He's a fine savage. You know Roosevelt, the tall guy that hangs out with him? I don't. Tallest black belt I ever seen. Tallest Brazilian I ever seen, right? So he's one of the black belts down there with Cyborg.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2238 - John McPhee
And I'm out there and I'm like, at the time I was blue belt, you know what I mean? And I was probably, I don't know, 250. I was kind of fat. And like Fight Sports is like,
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
My daughter's Elora, who's married to Drew out there. She makes the jewelry. The last time we talked, I said she was Saks Fifth Avenue. She's gone beyond Saks Fifth Avenue. Drew and I are still muddling around in the Dollar General with what we do. We're just making a lot of stuff that people like, like the guitar picks and the ball markers and the pendants.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
But she takes gold nuggets that she finds and uses ivory that she finds and puts it all together in some beautiful jewelry. And I'm plugging her. It's my daughter, Laura Longley Design.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
The shine on that wood, you put that on there, and you can shine it to a mirror finish. You can see your face in it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
It does because of the stink. Ooh. The stink is incredible.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
We go in in the morning, there might be a wolf or a couple coyotes or a lynx or two just kind of rooting around in there going,
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yeah, they're looking for it. And they find it. And they find bones. They'll come up to our pallets and take bones right off of them. Wow. And they'll chew them. Like, they'll chew chunks out of them. It's incredible. It's incredible. You know, the stink is unreal.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yeah. Off a blue babe, which was 38 – the other bison I'd said was 38,000 years old.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yeah. Well, you know, we all eat that shit. He had a stew made out of it. What was it like? I talked to him out at the boneyard. He came out there. He's up in years now. But Dale Guthrie, I believe his name is, and he wrote a book on it, on Ice Age stuff.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
He made a big old casting of a woolly mammoth that I bought, not from him, but he sold it to somebody who sold it to another guy I knew who had it for sale.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yeah, they found the whole bison, a mummified bison. If you saw that little, there it is.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I think it's 38,000, but that's all right. Wow. Dale Guthrie is the guy's name.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
How do you not take pictures of your food? I told you the story of the guy that found that. Wow. It wasn't a good look. Yeah. But they closed his mine down. They had to take that out. They were supposed to get it out in a day, and it took them all summer. The miner got shut down.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
He went over to a different creek. I think I told you this. It's called No Gold Creek. I don't think there's any gold on No Gold Creek. Didn't have a good winter.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
That was the only other ground he had. They tied up the whole thing. I mean, you're done. And then when they were done, he went back in.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yeah, it was patented land that he had. It was my company land. He was on my ground.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
He was a nice guy. Oh, he let them do it? We're going to get in here. It will take us a day to get it out. He said, go ahead. I see. And then they said, we can't do this, the whole thing. And then they could never get him out of there. They took it out, took him all summer to get it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yeah, you only get 100 days to mine where the water turns to ice.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
If you're not mining then, you're done. So every day is a 1% day. Oh, that's terrible. Or 10%. You know, it's like every day.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Oh, yeah, it was horrible. He had nothing but pork and beans all winter. He's the one that found the woolly mammoth.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
If you rely on somebody telling you, look, we'll get back in here. You can be back here day after tomorrow. Anybody, any miner that I know would say, okay, come do it. I know I'm going to lose a day, but we'll work on equipment that day. But if you come back in the day after tomorrow and they say, sorry, we're going to be here for a few months. What would you do?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
You know, I can't even. It's not like I'm keeping this discovery a secret. People tell me. How many Instagram follows you have? 500 and over 500,000.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Well, I appreciate you doing this because this gives us an ability to get the word out. Yes. And it's important to get the word out to get the other things to fall in place.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
And I appreciate the fact that you enjoy the shit out of this prehistory stuff, dude.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
It's not even that complicated a puzzle. The puzzling part is, what the fuck is AM&H doing? They've had those bones in their basement for 100 fucking years. They were required in the original deal to do a report on every bone they took. And they were only supposed to take bones of scientific value. This bone has no scientific value to them. They took it. This bone has no scientific value to them.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
They took it. None of the bones they took have scientific value, primarily because they don't know where they found them. I have all that information in my files. I have all the stratigraphic information of everything they found. Don't you guys think you ought to weld it to me and we'll say, well, this bone came out of 35 feet on Woodchopper Creek.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Coldstream Creek, Miller Creek, whatever creek it came off.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
The experts would come in. After I built the facility where they study them, I understand they're not going to – we have a lab in San Francisco. We're going to send the bones to San Francisco.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Uh-uh. We'll have a lab here. I'll build the motherfucker. I've already offered this up to them, and they still don't jump on a chance. How many dumb shits are around like me?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yeah, that was a movie. By the way, I love that movie. It's a good movie. But I've learned my lesson on if you build it, they will come.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Because we just built one. They didn't show up. So we use it for our own purposes.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
They just can't take the bones out of Alaska. And they got to be like no bullshit researchers, scientists, people that know what they're talking about because I don't.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
If I go to AMNH, let's say every day for, once a week for 52 weeks. It's the same displays every week. So all the stuff they collect doesn't go on display. It goes down in the storage or it goes out in the East River. The deal with my company, the nozzle men they called them, there were 200 guys working giants.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
And the giant guys, the nozzle guys, part of the perks of working for that company was if you find a tusk, you can have it. They could take the tusks home with them. Really? Yeah, and the skulls and whatever else they found. No one cared back then. Nobody cared. The company didn't care. Take them.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
And then these guys from New York, the swift-talking city dudes, they come in and go, oh, we want them. So they made it so the men couldn't take them. And they took them all. Scientific value, nothing. They took them all. Well, let's just imagine you're the grandson of one of the old-style nozzlemen who's now dead, but he passed that tusk along to his kid, and now it's yours.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
That tusk could be worth $200,000. That could come in handy to that family. Maybe they could have used that money along the way instead of not having it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
And the letter that is on there talks about hundreds, hundreds of tusks that were shipped there. I've seen them. It's not like I'm making this shit up. I was down there. I took pictures of them.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
In the basement. It's incredible. These big crates haven't been opened ever. And they're just filled with tusks. Well, the tusks are on these big shelves like you see at Costco. They go way up high. Yeah. Just shelves of tusks. Shelves and bison heads and stuff. And then the crates are the bones, leg bones, teeth.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Nobody gave a shit. My company didn't care until, you know, they didn't envision a guy like me come along and own in this company. When I bought the company, I started going through the files going, let's see what I bought. Oh, look at that. I got a lease with the government. Oh, here's another one. I got another lease with the government. Yeah, I got a piece over here a guy offered to buy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Now I don't want to sell it. So I go through all these things, and I find the deal with the bones. And I went to the museum. I said, I bought Alaska Gold Company. I want to go get the bones. He goes, I was wondering when you're going to show up. Off to New York we go. Got bullshitted. Oh, yeah, we're going to return them after we take care of the asbestos abatement problem down there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Anyway, I told you all this. They have yet to get a hold of us. It's gone to our state legislature to see if they can help. It's coming back to Alaska. Those are my bones. And if they're afraid that it's going to go, well, Reeves, you know, they're worth a lot of money. You know, he could sell them. Look, just send them back. And if I want to sell them, I'll sell them. They're my bones.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
It doesn't even make any sense. It's a fucking hobby. You know, we're all queer for something. You know, some people collect stamps. Some people collect coins. My mom used to collect napkins, you know, quilts and stuff like that. I collect bones in historic sites. I got a degree in history. He probably didn't know that. Historic preservation. I like to fix up old shit.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Talking to a guy about Nenana, where the Golden Spike was driven by Harding. That just went up for auction on Christie's.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
A Golden Spike, railroad spike, that Warren Harding came up and drove in the railroad back in the 20s when they completed the Alaska Railroad from Anchorage up to Nenana.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Well, they didn't leave it in there long. Oh. They drove it in. They took the photo op. They did all that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Pulled it out. Then somebody bought it and somebody else bought it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yeah. And I know the guys that bought it. I was on the auction. I had the guy on the phone. It didn't take long for it to go past, and I ain't buying it. I don't want it. And it kept going and kept going and kept going.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I was going to stop at around $70,000. It kept going. It kept going. It kept going.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Oh, they gave money, but it wasn't sold. It was like a donation. I'm a benefactor. Here's for the new wing. Right. What do you got? You got any of that Egyptian stuff laying around? Yeah. I want a sarcophagus. What do you say, boys?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Well, you can. They're always getting arrested for stealing shit. Mostly they're museum employees. If you ever Google, it's amazing what these guys steal from the. Oh, yeah. Museums aren't money makers. You're gonna make money, you're not gonna go own a museum. You're gonna go do whatever you do to make money.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
But museums don't make money, so the guys that work there, they go out in the field, and some guy says, well, look what I found. Well, that's very interesting. That looks like a saber-toothed, I mean, that looks like just a cow head. Well, can you find out for me? Sure, I'll take it off your hands.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Well, we got a site in Florida that we've allowed the University of North Florida to dig on for decades. It's on an Indian mountain there right on the St. Johns River. And every year I allow them to come out and dig. And they found, so far they've found hundreds of thousands of artifacts. We're talking about archaeological stuff.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
You know, arrowheads, shark's teeth with drilled holes through them, jewelry, beads, you name it. Whatever they made out of fish bones and animal bones.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
My parents bought this property when I was a young guy. But I spent a lot of time as a 9, 10, 11, 12, 13-year-old kid just digging. I like digging in the dirt. And the Alaska stuff was about gold, but it didn't take long to find the bones. And the bones, to me, they're more fun. They're more fun. They're not worth anything to me because I don't sell them.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
They were obviously doing some stuff. They're not the only ones doing this. Smithsonian is doing this stuff, too. I'm sure. Yeah. There's not much I can do about it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
And I've offered to make this happen. Let's get it back here. It's an endless tilt in the windmill and all that stuff. But I never met you before a few years ago. And prior to that, I would just say, the only guy I'll talk to is Joe Rogan about this. Because if I'm going to talk to anybody, I'm going to talk to the most influential man on earth. And you weren't supposed to call me.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Because I didn't want to tell this story. I just wanted to keep boning. And now that it's going, everybody wants me to do all this fucking work. I'm not a research scientist. I don't have all these machines. I can't do all this stuff. What are you asking me for? Go to AM and H. That's their job. That's what they got paid to do. What are you chewing my ass for?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yeah. And we have some knowledge at the end of the day that we don't have now and we won't get if we don't do something like this because all my bones come from one little two-acre spot. And you talk about in situ, you know, in place. It's right there. Yeah. You can't find a bone here and find one nine miles away and somehow say they're from the same area.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
But you can sure find them there, and you can find out where they exactly came from. You can figure out what that piece you're holding. You can tell how many times it had sex, male or female, what its diet was, where it traveled to. There's things that you can find out in a collagen that you could never find out 20, 30 years ago. So it's kind of cool. That's very cool.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I just got to wait for these other guys to come along. I talked to Max out there. He's my other son-in-law with Drew and married to my penultimate daughter, Jordan. And he's a really good lawyer. And his interest is in NIL. Have you heard of that?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
NIL is name, image, likeness for the kids coming out of high school, college and stuff for the pro sports.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
And he played football for Oregon. He was a center. I watched him play in the Rose Bowl. Good guy. And we were talking a little bit about the legalities of stuff like this. And he's pretty good on contracts, and he's read this stuff and said, ah, you got him by the balls, man, because he got the receipts. I guarantee you those guys don't have the receipts. They probably trashed them years ago.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I got every one of them. I got all the letters. I got the communications.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
It's been a pleasure. It's always a pleasure seeing you and Jamie.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
It's such a simple solution. Just do the right thing. Just do the right thing. And just call me up and say, okay, come get them. I'll have tractor trailers parked out there in 24 hours. Let's load them up, boys. They're going north. Put them on the rail out in Seattle. Send them farther north. We've got warehouses full of this stuff.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I'm at the point now where I'm going, maybe I should just concentrate on what we do for a living instead of the hobby. I can keep digging them up, but what good is it? We're not going to study them. I'm going to leave that area alone. It's got good gold. I don't need to dig the gold out of there. The gold's beneath the bones. And we got to get to the gold. You got to go through the bones.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
And we'll get the gold someday. But we found a spot out north of town where we couldn't get drilled to bedrock. It's 450 feet deep. The old timers tried to drill it. They couldn't go deep. They couldn't get to the bottom of it. And I think that's where the fucking hot stuff hit. Really? 25 miles north of town. I think that's where the hot stuff hit. 450 feet and you don't hit bedrock?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Unfortunately, I don't own that claim, but I know who does. I'm not telling them where it's at. Yeah. But I have the records that show what happened there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Fuck yeah, it would be. There's a lot of answers in these bones that we don't know what the questions are yet. So it's nice that you enabled me to come in.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I'll set you up if you got any other players you want. All right. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Bye, everybody. Bye, everybody.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Well, the money we send to Ukraine and they can't find $100 billion of it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
And we got a president now that's a business guy. Yes. I don't wake up every morning to see what the fuck he's done. I know that the business is in good hands and he'll take care of it. Because when you drive through it and you see what we got going, you realize, man, there's people trying to make it right. And most of the people in America are good people. It's not racists. They're not sexists.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
They're not bad people. Most people that you see every day are just good people.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
And the ones that want to shut the mining industry down, I'll use gold as an example. By the way, gold's gone up 1,000 an ounce since I saw you last.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
They're talking about backing a crypto coin with gold. It's better than money.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yeah? Gold's where you find it. That's the bottom line, Joe. Right. But once you make a discovery, let's use load gold, which is still in the rock. Plaster gold, what we do, has been eroded out of the rock and is in the concentrates on bedrock. And you've got to wash it and sift it and sluice it. But load gold, you've got to crush to get the gold out of the rock.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
He says, but the good news is you don't have bronchitis. I said, okay.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
And so from the moment of discovery until you produce it out of that gold mine, it takes average 29 years. Whoa. 29 years to go from finding it to having an operating gold mine or copper mine or lead mine or silver mine or zinc mine. Wow.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
And that was about the time I was supposed to be in the studio with you, just a couple days before that. And I'm going, wow, this kind of screwed up my plans. As you know, best made plans and all that. Listen, the plans are all bullshit.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I know a couple of guys you couldn't tell they could rub two sticks together. Good friend of mine bought a bank because the bank had a big vault. He had three tons of gold that he was like a collector, a hoarder. Jesus Christ. He'd been mining for 40 years.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Well, I mean. Three tons of gold. Got to remember there's a difference between a, if I was to ask you what weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of gold, what would you tell me?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
You'd be wrong because there's 16 ounces in a pound of feathers and there's 12 ounces, different ounces in a pound of gold. How come? Just the way it is.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
It's plaster gold. It's the kind that we have. He was on my ground. And he would melt it and refine it if you wanted to get 24 karat. It generally runs about 85% pure in its form on my creeks. So if you find a one-ounce nugget, 85% of that's probably 24 karat.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
It looks like a whale, actually. How big is it? Like in your hand. I got a picture of it on my page. My daughter's holding it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Seven-eighths. Really? Yeah. Damn. If you hold it one way, it looks like a whale. You flip it over, it looks like a dolphin.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Well, because it looks like something. It's called character. Oh. So if you have a nugget that looks like a whale or a dolphin, it generally goes for four or five times world market. Really? So if gold is $3,000 an ounce, that would be $12,000 to $15,000 for that character that you're buying. If you find a nugget that looks like a heart, no limit. Really?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Bunch of suckers out there. What about one that looks like a demon? That's big money. If you find one that looks like a pile of dog shit, you're going to get spot market.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
But every little nugget has some kind of, or bigger nugget has some kind of character that you keep looking for. Like, what's this look like?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I've been gold mining, and I knew how to do it. I wasn't worth a shit, but I'm getting better at it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
De Beers. But you bring up an interesting point. The history of gold mining. Yeah. People don't even know how entrenched in our everyday lingo gold mining terms are. I'll give you an example. Struck it rich? Struck it rich. You hit the mother load. Right. Guy's into, he doesn't know the difference between shit and shinola. Oh, what's that? Shit and shinola is gold. Really?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
You can't tell the difference between shit and shinola. I thought it was like poop versus shoe polish. Shinola is gold. Isn't shinola shoe polish? I don't know. I never had a pair of shoes that had shinola.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yeah, he says, you need to quit smoking. I did. I went to the hospital. I was in there for almost five days. I haven't been in a hospital in a while, but they have it. St. Vincent's did a great job. The nurses have their little...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Probably. I mean, it's those kind of things that are in our language, like pay dirt.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
You hit gold in the dirt. The way I've heard shit in Shinola was shits, shits, shits. Bedrock Schist. Sorry. Oh, I see. Schist and Shinola.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I actually had to wear them in high school. My parents put me in a reform school.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
You look pretty sharp, and I saw what you were wearing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yeah, it's hard for me. I shop at the same place Fetterman shops.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I did. I did. What'd you get? I can officially announce that the end of 2024 is right now.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
machines they wheel around and they come into your room every it seemed like quite often to check your vitals to do this to do intravenous to do that yeah so i'm sitting in there and couldn't sleep so i'm one of those guys if you walk by the door and you see an old guy sitting on a bed looking out the door that's me so i maybe got an hour two hours of sleep at night
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
That's because it's gotten so bad now that the only reason to run for politics used to be to make the money, not just get reelected. And it's the first thing they try to do when they get elected is start getting reelected.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
That's the only reason I can think of that people would want to get into that game.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yeah, he doesn't need the money. He's not doing it for the money.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I did. I've smoked for over 50 years. And I know it's bad for me, and I've never been an anti-smoking crusader. But if anything good comes of my appearance with you today, it was that this Dr. F. Shari, total stranger, guy I never met before in my life, happened to tell me at the right exact time, you need to quit. And I've been thinking I need to quit for a long time.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yeah, well, AOC is the one that says he's the most unintelligent person she's ever met. Did she really say that? She really said that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Well, I wonder what she's worth. And Nancy Pelosi, I think, is way up there in the multiple, multiple million.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
My son, Kenzie, works for Palo Alto. He's got a master's degree in cybersecurity. He's working on another one, a master's in AI. Oh, wow. And after talking to him and seeing what he's doing, he did his master's thesis on hacking satellites. And when I heard that, I thought, you know, that puts a whole new light on Bitcoin for me.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I'm going, I like gold. It's in your hand. You can see it. You can hold it. You can feel it. But here I brought you some Bitcoins. Catch. I just threw you 20 of them.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
See, I just don't understand it. I mean, for two years, Bitcoin went after the gold miners. Well, that's dumb. Why would you invest in gold when you can invest in Bitcoin? So I don't have a problem with Bitcoin. I mean, the guys that are making money on it are making bank. They're doing great.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
My loved ones told me that, my wife, my kids. And I never, okay, yeah, that's a good idea.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
One penny weight coins. There's 20 penny weights in an ounce. And there's an opening right now because Trump just banned the penny. It's about time. Each one of those pennies is worth about six cents. Two cents.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yeah, but the copper itself. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. You got to mine it. Really? So each penny is worth six cents? I'm going to say five cents.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
What's the price of copper these days? And you can figure out how many pennies makes a pound.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yeah, but that's today's penny. From 1982, they were made in 95% copper.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I see you guys do it all the time. I don't know how to do it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
You go through a drive-thru to get food and you see the guy in front of you aiming his phone at somebody inside. Right. You don't see any cash flying around.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I'm old enough to know and remember, if you were in a bank and a guy walks in wearing a fucking mask, usually you had to hit the floor. Right. There's a bank I go to in Jacksonville. We walk in the bank and the tellers are wearing masks. I'm going, this ain't right. What are you wearing a mask for?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
This one bank I went to, teller's wearing a mask. The next teller over is not wearing a mask.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
And you see them driving around with a mask on in the car. That's my favorite.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
And we're out on the field. We're out mining. We've got a lot of dust flying around. We have masks on.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Well, we made a bunch of masks with my logo on it. So, you know, you're wearing one of these logos on your face.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Well, you know, I don't want to put a mask on because I'm pretty good looking and shit.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Well, the doctor told me we had lunch with him about a week ago. He says, the one that told me quit smoking. He goes, when I first saw you, I was wondering, what the hell am I going to do here? Because I'm sitting in there and he has no idea what my ailment is.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yeah, well, since I quit, I don't cough anymore. Isn't that crazy? It's crazy. I can breathe better, and I'm still getting better from the pneumonia. I'm sure. Because it takes a while to get over that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
And so I am a big guy. And the one benefit that came from this is I don't smoke. And I still do the CrossFit, even though you look at me and you can't tell. But I've been doing it for a while. Well, that's great.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
My trainer, Megan, was telling me that there's a difference between sick care and health care. And I said, what is it? She goes, well, sick care is when you're sick, you go to the doctor. Health care is your exercise, all the things you do to keep yourself healthy. You don't want to be sick. Right. And we're not paying attention to the health care part.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
It was a couple days. Jesus Christ. When we had stuff we didn't want to put on the airlines. Got it. Wink. Government. I'm just teasing. We wanted a road trip. We wanted a little adventure. You know, you fly over this country at 45,000 feet and you're looking out the window. It's a big country.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
There's some big farms on the way over that we saw coming across. There's a lot of people eating.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
That's right. And people say, oh, there's a revolution coming. It's here. I mean, the revolution is here. What we're seeing right now is history being made. Because the people that have been taken advantage of forever, in my opinion, are the people that are out there producing. The farmers, the miners. Oh, for sure. And the guys that I think...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
really control, have their hand on the throttle of this country if they ever decide to take their hand off the throttle is the truckers. Without the truckers, nobody eats. You're right. Nobody. You get nothing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
That's right. And you're looking out and suddenly you see a little dot and see some houses. I wonder what those people do down there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I don't know. It's going to have to be an awful big truck to handle all the copper.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
That's what I don't get about the blues and the reds. Yeah. There's got to be some people on the blue side to go, it's a good idea that we're doing this.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
What he's doing is a good idea because we're squandering a lot of money.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I don't know if you noticed, but after the election, at least in my opinion for myself, I had the right to make an opinion again. I can have an opinion. Yes. I can have an opinion. Finally, I can have an opinion after four fucking years.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I put in one post, I put, I have an opinion. I'm going to use it again. I think we should sink every commercial whaling ship in the ocean. Send them to Davy Jones' locker.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Well, I thought I had bronchitis. Everybody in the house had it. We go to CrossFit, and they all had it. I go to CrossFit Jackson. My trainer's Megan Russell there, and she's going, ah, you might want to take it easy a little bit. Of course, I'm smoking cigarettes, and I got bronchitis. I go to a clinic. They give me some drugs. Yeah, you got bronchitis. Go home.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Well, that's, anymore you can't hardly tell what's true. I mean, the rumors that are floating around are, is it AI? Is it true? What am I looking at?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
And the rumors, we were talking about rumors on the drive, and I'm going, sometimes you just can't do anything about them. You just got to let them run. And if you can improve them, if you're involved in it, improve it somehow to make it a better rumor.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
One of the most recent rumors, and I was talking to Drew this morning, the rumor that Elon Musk was going to put four commercials on the Super Bowl about Doge and all the fine things they're doing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yeah, supposedly he was going to spend $40 million on it or something like that. Yeah, but that's just the internet. I know. It's crazy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Well, I was thinking at least there's going to be one a quarter. Didn't see one in the first quarter, and the second quarter is a half. And by then the game was kind of over.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Max and Drew out there are saying it's because 75% of the people were Phillies fans in that stadium. I don't know. Could be fake news. The dude tweeted, I hate Taylor Swift.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Exactly. And by traveling, you have a chance at having an adventure. Yeah. Something cool could happen.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I saw a clip this morning with George Lucas was saying that he filmed the moon landing. Oh, you mean Stanley Kubrick? I'm sorry.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
What about Buzz Aldrin? I think he came out and said, no, I would know.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Take that rumor and twist it around however you want. Make it something you can deal with.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
You don't know what to believe. I mean, I just saw a clip yesterday with my voice again. What were you selling? I sent you something. I sent you one of them. Oh, yeah. No, it has you and me talking like this. And we're talking about some space enterprise with starships and shit. And I'm going, how do they do this?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
And that will be used in the clip that we're going to see within a week. Probably. Your voice.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
You know, as I get older, you know, I forget shit. And I think it's true. I think that's a defense mechanism.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
So I don't want to remember that one. I'll forget about that one. But, you know, we both made it around one more time around the sun.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
And it's been an unbelievable year, you know, what we've both seen in the last year.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yep. Yeah. Like filled with turmoil. I think it's also because it's so quick. The information that you can get is coming at you from every direction. Yeah. Instantly. Instantly. But in 1920, that wasn't happening. No. It wasn't happening in 1880. No. It was like you didn't know like when Seward bought Alaska. You didn't know why he did that. Everybody said Seward's folly.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yeah. How much? $7 million for Alaska. That's so funny. Two cents an acre. Now, let me tell you something. A guy named Klaus Naske, who was a doctor of history at the University of Alaska, I used to teach his kid how to swim. Him and I were at a social function someplace, and we were talking. And we were talking about the purchase of Alaska. And he goes, you know why we did that, right?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I said, well, yeah, Seward wanted to buy it and $7 million. He goes, yeah, we gave $7 million to Russia. I said, okay, yeah, they sold it to us. He goes, why do you think they did that? I said, I don't know. They said it was because the seals were gone. You know, they had gotten all the seals trade done. He goes, that's not why.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
During the Civil War, Russia blockaded Charleston Harbor with their warships. And it helped the North win the Civil War. And a bill for that was $7 million. And they knew they couldn't just go out to America and say, yeah, the Russians helped us win the Civil War. Really? This is what he told me. Doctor of history. And I said the same thing. He goes, yeah. He goes, nobody talks about it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Nobody even mentions it. But Russia took the $7 million and they gave us Alaska. That'll justify this $7 million. Whoa.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Well, it makes Alaska the third largest fucking state. First, we got to get Greenland. Let's get Greenland so we got them surrounded, kind of.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Well, I think Drew was talking about this the other day. Canada's got seven – I'm not sure how many provinces, but they're different. And so what they might want to do is make seven new states because the people in Alberta do different stuff than the people in – You can't just have the state of Canada. No, because it would be like L.A. and New York calling the elections.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
It's ridiculous. People forget what it's like to expand America. The last time we did it was Alaska.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
It's gotten—well, I know a few Canadians. They don't like Trudeau. They don't like what he's done to the country.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Well, the farmers don't like him, I don't think. The miners don't like him.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Anyways, Alaska, I think, coming from the guy that told me that, he's dead now, but I believe it. But back then there was no fact checkers. There was no way to tell people what was going on. So let's just tell them we bought it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I was talking to my accountant this morning. I think Greenland, if it became a state, it would be the largest state in the country.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
And then Alaska would be second. But Texas is always going to be screwed. No matter how many more states we get, Texas is always going to go down the list. Yep.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Greenland, then Canada, Alaska, America. I kind of like Mexico, too. Might as well take all of it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Well, what I don't get, Joe, we got a pretty good Navy. We got a pretty good Air Force. We got a pretty good military base. What the fuck are we doing not sending A-10s down there into Mexico and taking those fentanyl labs out? What are you going to do, Mexico? You don't like us doing that? We just said they're terrorists. We're going to blow up their fucking buildings.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Well, tell them we're coming. But we're going to blow the fuck out of that stuff. They're going to have no infrastructure left. What are you going to do? No more avocados? Give me a fucking break. Send some A-10s. I've had A-10s on my ground. They've been buzzing my ground for years. They practice on my ground. Well, they're awesome. Those pilots are good. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
A couple little warthogs in there to take care of business.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Gangster. They knocked the shit out of the SEAL population. Oh, I'm sure. Oh, yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Like, what's the... I don't really know because we don't have any in our area, but I have a friend that's a mechanic who's telling me he had a... lady come into his auto shop and said something's wrong with her engine. And so he went out and told her, he said, it looks like you blew a seal. And she said, no, I had tuna fish for lunch.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
When we got to, I forget, Texas, there was a place called Bucky's.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Well, this guy's like Dr. Emeritus in history. I mean, he knows his shit. The problem is then you have to trust those guys.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
That slings me up there in Nome. He sees a lot of that kind of stuff. Otters? All the sea life up there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yeah, they're way out in the middle of the freaking ocean there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
You get it from Slingsby. Yeah. Big crabs. You know, he goes out, drills through the ice, and brings them up. Through the ice? Oh, yeah. He gets them in the wintertime. Really? Yeah. So it's ocean ice. It's right offshore, right there in Nome.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
First time you go there, you're like, what the hell is this place? 200 gas pumps. Yeah. I'm like, what are you doing? We paid $1.47 a gallon. That's three times less than what I pay in Alaska. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
They have a gold mining show that they film off the coast of Nome where they cut through the ice and they send divers down with suction dredges. Whoa. It's on Discovery Channel.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Some of them stay down there all day, eight hours. They'll do a whole shift.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
They have suits on and they have warm water pumped into your wetsuit or your dry suit.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Is this the show? Yeah. I've met her before. She's a nice lady.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
He's getting ready to go down. Yeah, that's Sean Pomerecki.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Well, they probably make more off Discovery Channel than they do gold mining. Really? Yeah, I think.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I know a few of these guys. They don't get much gold. But they're willing to do that. Oh, yeah. For not much gold. Yeah, but they get a pretty good paycheck. You got to remember something. You know this. There's nothing real about reality TV. That's true.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
We did a stint with Discovery Channel. I'm sorry, National Geographic. No more.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Well, yeah. I mean, they want to make drama. They want to pit the kids against each other.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
It runs right through my property. I helped build that sumbitch. Anyways, I've never understood the economics of how that works.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Oh, cool. No, I was talking to the doctor. He says, you might go through some nicotine withdrawals. And I said, no, I won't. I quit. I'm done. He says, it's not the nicotine that's hurting you. It's the smoking that's hurting you. The carcinogenics going in your lungs and all the chemicals and all that bullshit. He says, nicotine's as good as caffeine. It's just straight up nicotine's fine.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
In my case, I got to the point in my life where I'm going – I've done it for so long, something's going to get me.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
But now I realize, hey, it won't be that. It won't be smoking. It might be a bear coming up on me without me seeing it. It might drive a cat over the edge. I don't know what will happen. But I honestly never thought I'd get past 50 when I was growing up.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I thought I'd be dead by 45. Why? Why? Child of the 70s, man. It's all fucked up back then.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
You know, there's a former governor of Alaska named Walter Hickel that Richard Nixon appointed to be Secretary of the Interior in 1970. So he went and did that and went into Nixon one day and says, look, the Vietnam War is wrong. Nixon goes, you're fired. Get out of here. So he went back to Alaska. He became a governor, a great governor, probably one of the best governors we ever had.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
And at some point, he was a Republican, but the Republicans already had a candidate. The Democrats had a candidate. So he ran as an Alaskan for Independence candidate. Their party platform was to secede from the United States. And I used to be the treasurer for that group. I'm going, I like this guy. That sounds like fun. Let's do that. That guy got elected. Wow.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
And Jack Coghill was his lieutenant governor. I knew him quite well.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
This was all when Biden was there. I'm thinking worst case scenario, we're going to get the girl that didn't want to be on your show. If we get her, I want Alaska to become its own country. We just got to get away from this. It's a train wreck. But since Trump got in and he's doing the things that he said he was going to do, hey, I like the idea. You want to expand America? Expand America.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
It's a good idea. It's been done before. So you're willing to keep Alaska as part of America?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
People come up and go, give me some something. This is an issue. And I'm thinking, why is it an issue? I don't give a shit about that. That's not a good politician.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
A politician I knew that I talked to one day was a state senator. He goes, here's a trick. All you do when they say that, you go, I see.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Well, President Trump just announced recently that he wants to get a gas line built through Alaska. And talking about governors, Governor Palin appointed me to be the gas line project coordinator for DOT back when she was governor. And there was another guy that worked for DOT named Frank Richards.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
And so I went to work to get a gas line permit written and worked with a guy named Harry Noah, who was a commissioner under DNR's – I'm sorry, under Governor Hickel. He was a commissioner of DNR. So him and I worked on this permit to get a pipeline built through Alaska. It took us three years. I'm the guy that wrote it. I'm the guy that signed it along with Harry.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
So when President Trump was doing an interview three days after he got elected, he goes, and we have a fully permitted pipeline in Alaska to go ahead and build a gas line through Alaska. I go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop the TV and back it up a little bit. I wrote the fucking permit. I signed the fucking permit. He's talking about some work that I did. That's all right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
So Frank Richards now is the president of the Alaska Gas Line project. And they just inked a deal with Japan who came in and said, yeah, we want to buy into this. It's a $44 billion project.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
There's a thing called ANWR, the Arctic National Wildlife Range. I think it's, yeah, something like that. And when the president renamed, well, ANWR, you're not allowed to drill in ANWR. You can't drill for oil in ANWR. There's a lot of oil there, but the feds said you can't drill for oil there. You can't produce oil out of there. But that was for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
But if you change it to the America National Wildlife Refuge, kind of like the Gulf of America, you might be able to drill in there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
You get a little plastic bottle of water, right, 12 ounces. Yeah. You look at that bottle, you'll pay $2 for it in a 7-Eleven, you know, for that little bottle of water. Four of those bottles of water make a gallon. You're paying $8 a gallon for water. Water is the most abundant thing on the planet. It's everywhere. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
He did it. He signed it yesterday on the way across the Gulf of America. I was on the way over in Louisiana having dinner. I asked the waitress, I said, how far away are we from the Gulf of America?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Not yet. You can see videos where they stick sticks in the water and the sheen comes right out.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Except in some parts of California, apparently, they didn't want to have the reservoirs filled up. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Well, we did eight years with that guy, right? Yeah. We got out of a long relationship.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
We've got a pretty good group of legislators in Alaska.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yeah. For the most part, they're all... They're going to have their squabbles and stuff, but pretty much everybody on the same page.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yeah, it actually does. The people are generally nice to each other and considerate.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Remember we talked about that 60-foot diameter water line coming down from southeast Alaska to California? Yeah. That would have been helpful.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I used to always think that if I go bear hunting, I'm going to go with somebody who I can outrun. But now I get a lot of people asking me if I want to go bear hunting. No.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I have a grizzly bear hide I got from Slingsby up in Nome. And it's on that 1885 pool table that I told you. Oh, yeah. I'm not going to play on that pool table until you show up. Oh, Jesus. It covers that pool table. I'm sure. Got two of those now.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Not grizzly bears. I've seen polar bears and stuff like that. You've seen polar bears up there? Well, not in Fairbanks. I've seen north of Nome.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yeah. They have them up there. I mean, they had one polar bear, apparently, I don't know if it's true or not, that walked into the interior of Alaska. I mean, it just went traveling. Really? Going to have me a little cross-country jaunt.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
because they're afraid there'd be a water leak in the Pacific Ocean. You can't have water leaks.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Well, they eat nothing but meat. Yeah. They're badass motherfuckers.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Oh, so anyway, so you're looking at $8 a gallon for water. Yeah. But oil, first of all, you've got to go find it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Last time you and I were talking, you said you had a friend that makes pool cues. Yeah. Here's a chunk of mammoth ivory for him.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
The exterior on that, the blue color, is called Vivianite. It comes from mineralization on frozen artifacts like that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Then you've got to do all kinds of seismic work. Then you've got to drill. And then you've got to discover it. And then you've got to build a well. And then you've got to build feeder lines. Then you've got to get it to a pump station. Then you've got to get it somewhere in a pipeline. Then you've got to ship it 4,000 miles.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
That's the mineralization you see on that. We find it's actually easy to find bones sometimes because they're colored blue.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
The one that was found over the hill from us, 38,000 years old. Wow. I haven't tested any of my step bisons. Wow. It's 400 bucks a pop, but I would bet that one's at least 20,000, 30,000 years old.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
A couple days later, I'm sleeping in my chair, and my wife has one of those little oxygen modern things that you put on your finger. She wakes me up and goes, all right, let's go. What do you mean, let's go? Oxygen levels. You're going to the hospital. What? I'm sitting here taking a nap. No, you're going to the hospital. So I said, okay. So it's late at night. We go to St.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Burt Benrock, Burt gravel, you know, deep, deep, 50 feet down. And since we talked last, I think I kind of figured some things out. Yeah. All that material that has ended up where we're at came in, I think we talked about it, came in some kind of water event. Some flood. Yeah. And that's called the back channel to the pay, what we're digging up pay out of.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
So there's a back channel that goes through that valley that's pretty decent in gold. I mean, pretty rich. And the miners used to drift mine that because they couldn't bucket line dredge it. And so it goes around where we're at and it keeps going downstream. So when we moved from where we were at down to, let's go find the back channel. And we set up over here where we started on the left limit.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
We started going back up and we found some drift mines up there. And this bone here, I think it was from an old drift mine a couple hundred years ago, you know. that before the discoveries were even made. Some guys were out there digging around and had an old drift mine going.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Step bison. Wow. Either step bison or could be bear. I'm not sure.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
And you're paying $1.47 a gallon. How's this working, boys?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
They haven't told me, but there is, I mentioned last time, a research vessel that was out there. And in this business, if someone makes a discovery on my property that's significant, they don't talk about it. They don't want anybody to know about it. But there was a discovery made, not by Dirty Water Don or Dan Don. He's still out there, and he's found all kinds of stuff.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yep. And – I posted a letter or part of that report that I was hoping that if somebody, I like people to think, here's where it's located, okay? Here's where it was dumped. And it said at the same point where they dumped it, where AMNH dumped it, is where the New York City Hospital dumped their stuff.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
How hard would it be to go to the hospital and go, look at your records and tell me where you used to dump stuff in the 1940s? Just find out. Just ask them. AMNH ain't going to tell us.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I think he's found mammoth and bison and a jawbone. It could be a horse. I haven't seen any of it with my own eyes.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
And here's what I was going to tell you. Someone with a research vessel with side scanning, sonar, and all that stuff apparently found something. I found a mound in the river. It's like 100 feet long, 40 feet high, 60 feet wide. Now, that wouldn't be 50 tons, but it could be a whole bunch of other stuff. And that's why the report said, this will be a significant challenge to future archaeologists.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
This was written in 49. To future archaeologists. And I'm going, wait, archaeologists are human things. We're talking about paleontology, which is bone things. But AMNH is the one that called it archaeological explorations.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Why don't they come clean with the saber-toothed tigers?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Well, the experts out there will tell you that saber-toothed tigers weren't found in Alaska. But you have found saber-toothed tiger skulls. Well, so are they. I have a correspondence posted recently, two pages. It's filled with unbelievable things that... Yeah, that's one right there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
They say that, well, the letter says we have yet to find any human remains, but we found spear tips. Well, we found mammoth bones with spear tips in them, and we found that stuff.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yeah, my daughter's holding up a big mammoth hip bone, and it's got a spear. Where's that? Bone Rush, Alaska. I mean, our...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Spear tip's out, but we have the bone. We have a couple bones like that, Joe.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
In fact, I posted a picture of 12, or I think it was around 12 spear points that were sent to AMNH that disappeared. Shit disappeared.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I have a letter I just posted here just in case we wanted to talk about it from Childs Frick, who was head of AM&H back when this was all going on. His dad was Henry Frick. His dad was the most hated man in America for a while for killing his people. He was a steel guy, a steel industry founder.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yeah, they wanted overtime pay and they didn't want to work so hard. He brought in the gang, those hired thugs, the Pinkertons or whoever it was.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I don't know how many they killed of his guys. He was ruthless. Henry Frick was ruthless. And his kid Childs was the one that set this deal up, this tripartite agreement, which is also included in this letter, about AMNH's responsibility with these bones was to just take those of scientific value and do a report on every one they took. They took over 40 years.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
They took tons and tons and tons of them. Did no reporting, nothing. Dump 50 tons in the river because they didn't have a place to store them, apparently. They didn't care. That's crazy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Well, you find a bone with a spear tip in it or a bone that obviously had a spear tip in it because of the way it's broken. I mean, I have a baby mammoth hip bone that is like that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Well, our state legislature, I told you last time I was going to go political on this. I've got no desire to litigate this thing. Litigation just takes a long time. Politically... I told you last time we're going to go this route. And I have a letter I just posted from the Alaska State Legislature to AMNH to return the bones from the Senate majority.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
The guy that wrote that is a fellow by the name of Click Bishop. And the Senate president signed it with him. But Click is a good, honest, decent gold mining legislator. He was termed out this time and decided not to run again because I suspect he'll run for governor here, and he'll probably win in a couple years. And Click is one of those guys that wants the bone back.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
We met with him and his chief of staff, the president of the university, and the museum guys and some other state legislators. And we want him back.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yeah. Yeah. Bring them home. Bring them home. Well, I made the offer to... Build the research facility. Store everything. We'll bring them all back here. The scientists can have access to them. But the bones are not leaving Alaska. They're not leaving Alaska.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Why would you? Why would I? Why would you? I don't. You shouldn't. And I get a lot of people, oh, I need a mammoth bone for our studies. You're just trying to collect something.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I'll never get it back. Come on up and find it. Yeah. Come find them. They're all over the place.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yeah, downstream makes this one look like a piker. How big is that area? It's a mile long.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yeah, it was incredible. So when we started back down at the mouth and headed up the left limit, we hit some fairly modern day drift mines on that side until we got farther up. And we went all the way up to where we had been set up before and we crossed back over tracing this back channel because that's where the gold was.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
We didn't get maybe 50 feet, and we were finding these steel tubes sticking out of the ground. Well, that's how they used to melt permafrost, but this was virgin ground. It had never been mined. So we kept going, and we found some pretty significant things over there. And we're on the hunt.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Well, we can't seem to find anybody that's willing to come up there and study it. You know, I've made all these offers, generous offers.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Because they're scared that you're going to own everything and you're going to... Well, two of the employees at AM&H happened to have a conversation with somebody that Is related to the state of Alaska or employed by the state of Alaska where they said, we don't want the bones to get into Reeves's hands because they'll lose. The scientific community will no longer have access to them.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
and they're real valuable, and we think he's going to sell them. Now, the people that he said that to was with some legislatures, university employees. Where we were at, you couldn't even count the fucking number of tusks.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
We're not there to sell tusks. I want to figure out I'm goofball this way. What the fuck happened? Why did 80, 65% of the world's megaphone or North America, why'd it go all extinct all at once? Yeah. What the fuck? Yeah. And they have in that collection that they didn't dump in the river in my collection was, let's say it's a 2000 square foot or 2000 piece jigsaw puzzle.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I got 42 pieces over here. They got the rest. I'm not going to solve anything with 42 pieces. I want it all. Put it all back in Alaska. Let the state of Alaska study the fuck out of it. And we will tell you how the extinction event happened. It's been, paleontologists know that. But they don't have money. They don't really want to put up with the shit they have to do to get it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yeah, but I'm not digging it. I'm thawing it. Right. Take a scalp. You know how the paleontologists, you see them on TV with the little scalpel and, you know, toothbrush and shit. That don't fly around there. You got to melt it and get it the hell out of there. That's people that criticize for how we do it. But if we don't do it, we don't get it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
And we're not going to use mechanical equipment on it because I don't want to destroy it. I could strip that old 2.1 acres in two shifts. And I'd lose every fucking bone. It'd be smashed.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
You run a detent across that stuff, they ain't going to survive, man.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
They're all connected that way, and they don't want to piss off a human age because we can't hire. This guy needs our grant money to do what he does, or he needs to be our employee. Hey, here's one for Elon Musk and his Doge guys. Go check into those guys and see where their money goes, the AMNH. See where their money goes, the federal grants they get. See where that stuff goes.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
You know, might as well, because that's the only way you're going to bring them in to heal. These guys have been running unfettered forever. Nobody checks on it. The management's horrible. Nobody comes in and says, what did you spend that $2 million on? No. I don't know. Look at that funny-looking bird over there, Hunter. It's out of control.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I'm basing it on my interactions with them. But I will tell you this. One of the main people that people say, you need to litigate this. You need to sue their ass. I'm pretty good at that. I've been involved in two of the longest lawsuits in state history. And I've won both of them. I'm betting like Hall of Fame kind of stuff. But the guy that made the deal with me is, I can't depose him.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
You can't depose them. It's like be deposing a cabbage in the head of lettuce. What do you mean? He's like Biden. Oh, he's gone? That's what I hear. Oh. But he's still employed. He's still pulling in a pretty good paycheck. To me, that, you know, maybe you do that in the private sector.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Maybe you do it, and I don't know how much money that AM&H gets from the feds, but we looked into it a little bit. They get some. If they don't want to give Alaska, the state of Alaska, if you look at who wrote that letter, it's not John Reeves now. It's the state of fucking Alaska. And I told you, it's the only way to get them back.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
We got to get our politicians up there going, no, no, no, no, no. And are they willing to do this? They just wrote a letter saying that's what you're supposed to do. So what's the next step? I don't know. We haven't gotten a response from that fucking letter.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
And I said, I know. You know, if you have the politics lined up right and you see the right people where they should be and you got people that want to just do the right thing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yeah. Drew and I, my wife and Laura went to New York to meet with AM and H, and they had to stand in the rain for four hours and then wouldn't meet with us.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
They discover why all this megafauna, what happened? Why did the sea levels rise 400 feet all at once? What went on here? There's animals that we found they said didn't exist there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
They're doing a little backpedaling now, but... What they need to do is put all the pieces of the puzzle on the table and start putting it together.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I told you elk last time. You pointed out there's an island that has some elk on it. But they were planted there. They're not. Oh, they were?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
And moose came in later, but they didn't even know moose was up there in that time. We found four of them. So moose were up there. And there was a transition from. From grasslands, which is good for the mammoth and the bison and the horses and the caribou, to the woodlands where browsers could feed the mastodons, the mammoths, or not the mammoths, the other animals that ate that kind of stuff.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
And the carnivores were having a field day. They didn't care.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I have a little video of it. Where? It's on my phone someplace.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I have another picture up there if you want to pull that bison head up. The spear point in it, still in it. Really? Right here.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Not that one. That was fairly recently, Jamie. Oh, really? That I posted it, yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Here's Click Bishop. He's the senator that sent the letter. Keep going.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Was it months ago or was it recently? Probably in the last week or two. Oh. Oh, I'm sorry. I gave you the wrong direction. See it anywhere?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Right by the arrow. Right by the arrow. Yep, go up right there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Well, we live in the ice age. We go to work in the morning. We're in the ice age.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
It's a different way to think. You see something, you go, okay, what the fuck? What is this? You find something, you go, that's not human. I mean, that tool was made by a human.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Well, we found that one tool that was obviously... shaped by humans, carbon dated 25,000 years old. Wow. And it looks like it was sawed. And it looks just like if I was to take this cup, you know, you hold it in your hand, just like something to mash anything with.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
If you look closely, you can see there's some kind of organic material in some of those cracks and crevices. And you see some Schrager lines in there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
That's a line in the mammoth ivory that's different than elephant ivory. Oh. You can tell the difference.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Without any prompting, Joe, I've given that thing to other people to hold. It sits like that. They pick it up. It's the first thing they fucking do.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Well, the other thing is, I said this last time, I'll say it again. We've lived with woolly mammoths for tens of thousands of years. We know what that thing, what that tool is. It's in our DNA. First thing we do when we pick it up, boom, boom, boom. We don't feel like that about rats. People go, ugh.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
woolly mammoth little kids love them parents love them everybody likes woolly mammoths you think it's our dna because we used to hunt them no we live with them i think we domesticated them what i think we've lived side by side with them really i really do why do you think they domesticated them what makes you think that okay you got a big hairy animal right Boy, they got some, like, muskox.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
You hunt them with a spear. I mean, you can knock one over if it's dead or you stick a spear in it, cripple.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yeah, they didn't. It's like that polar bear you saw walk up that guy's truck.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
And one man would go, what the fuck? You can do it to me. Right. Well, if you want to kill half your tribe, go try to stick a spear in that guy. Right. He's got 10-foot tusks.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
With a spear that you're throwing. And people go, well, they had atlatl. Okay. Where are you going to build an atlatl on a grassland? Right. Where there's no sticks.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
That's what I'm saying. They had spears. If they had wood big enough for a spear, but atlatls are not spear size.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
But if you had a spear that you crafted, we have a picture of spear tips that were sent to New York. And that other document in there talks about finding them in association with the bones. They weren't studying this stuff. They just wanted, AM&H just wanted the booty. That guy Charles Frick wanted these things back in New York City.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
It's all artist's renditions. All of the stuff that we've been taught is based on what somebody painted or drew or sketched.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Or even some of the cave drawings that shows people sitting on woolly mammoths.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yeah, I've seen them before online. If you believe everything you see.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yeah, and it takes a while back then to get the word out. Yeah. I mean, people had to travel to spread the word. They didn't, I don't think they had smoke signals that they could explain it in the sky. I don't think you'd be able to explain a bow and arrow in the sky with smoke signals. I'm willing to go out on a limb on that. When we come up with the expression the cloud, we use a cloud now.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yeah, and the way we collect, we don't get all the small stuff, but we bail all the small stuff out of the drainage and we stack it so it can be gotten later. We don't lose any of it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I bet we have millions of what I call microfossils. Millions. Really? And the stuff that we bale with the equipment and just stack it up.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I found one in 1974. That was the first one? Yeah, but I was mining up north.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Did it have the teeth in it and everything, or was it just... It had one full tooth and one broken half. Really? And I think I told you... The British Museum visited. Yeah. Got to take it back and clean it and restore it and send it back to me. Never saw it again. Of course.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
By the way, I want to thank you for your podcast and the one with President Trump.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
The Smithsonian. AM&H got in trouble for grave robbing. Most museums have done that. They've taken artifacts from cultures and they just keep them.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Look at that one. That's a cave lion skull that we found.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
That's the best one ever found in Alaska. Wow. My son Kinsey and I found that together.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I thought that was great. And I made the mistake of complimenting you on that page. I said, I really enjoyed the podcast between you and President Trump. Jesus Christ. 8,000 people coming at me. I'm stopping to follow you. You're a nasty person. I hate you. This is on your page? On my page.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Right. And AMNH says they don't have one, but we were going through the shipping records and we can see where they were shipped one. The correspondence that I just posted talks about them getting them and camels and other, you know, other things that were sent somehow disappeared.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
They got a bunch of mint La Brea tar pits. I mean a bunch.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Wow. Wow. When you come up, give me enough of an advance notice and maybe send Jamie up in advance and we'll put a little... Jamie never leaves his apartment.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Carl will get along just fine with our dogs. He'll run off. We'll put up a putting green for him. He'll attack your dogs. He's a little torpedo. You need to start coming up there in the summer and we'll do some podcasts. Podcasts from Fairbanks, the Bone Crew. Bring your friends with you. It'd be like protect our parks only different.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
At least half a dozen. Wow. At least. I mean, it's just, I don't know because we have 300,000 fossils. And you haven't examined all? Oh, fuck no. No. We only have time to pick them up. And maybe I'll take a picture. Or maybe Drew will or one of my guys, my kids, my wife, somebody might take a picture of it. Or we'll take a picture of them holding it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
The bones ain't going anywhere. Right. If the timing ain't right, the timing ain't right. If the politics aren't right, I'm not going to litigate this. It's not worth my time.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I know. A great man once told me that. The problem is I don't take advice and I don't give advice. I'm trying.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I don't want to. If they're not going to play fair, I don't want to play with them.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Well, that pneumonia has a certain amount of recovery time. I'm sure. How long is it? Three months, maybe. Really? God damn. It took 50 years for me to fuck up my lungs. But I'm cleaning them up now.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Well, we were talking about the gas line. Right. Got that going.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
There always is. You're going to have people sue people. We don't want this. We, Alaska's.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yeah, but that oil pipeline has been running for a long time. Provides 12% of our country's gas, oil. No problems. Well, we had a problem at, you know, Bly Reef. What was that? Exxon Valdez.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Well, I brought you some goodies. What'd you bring? Well, some things that you can remind you of the boneyard. Oh, okay. We make a little bag here for you too, Jimmy. What do you got here, buddy?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Some little pendants. You can give them to your kids or whoever to put on a necklace. Those are pieces of mammoth ivory.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
That's a pennant. That's probably 30,000, 40,000 years old. Isn't that nuts? Drew and I make those.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
We just use broken stuff. Yeah. We have tons of broken tusks. They can't be restored. Complete tusks, we just restore them and then move on to the next one.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Vincent's Clinic, go in. It's late. And sitting there waiting for the doctor, Arian F. Sherry, great guy, it turns out. He comes in and looking at me. He's young enough to be one of my kids. He goes, stethoscope, listening to my lungs. He goes, do you smoke? I said, yeah. He says, you need to quit. I said, I just did. He goes, what? I said, I just did. I'm done. Now what do we do?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I don't tell them that. I just say, hey, go fuck yourself. Got an image show.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
No, I just don't sell tusks. I don't sell any bones. Not even a... I can give the stuff away because I own it. I can give it away. But I don't sell it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
There has been expressions of interest, but they want to come up and They have no place to study stuff. They want to send it all outside to their house and wherever, their university, wherever. And you don't want that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Now, you recall last time I was here, I gave you some gun grips from the guy that makes those Burkett Customs. Well, since then, he got into making firearms.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
So he made it, Drew and I, a couple 1911s. I posted those. Real nice that he's getting into that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yeah, that's a section of a mammoth tooth that's been cut. Wow. And the one on the bottom is mammoth tusk.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
No, I think he might have put a little coloring in it. Oh, wow, that's beautiful. In the epoxy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
That is beautiful. And he got our name on the guns, too. Wow. And the logo. Now we can say we were insured by Burkett. Don't rob a bank with that gun because they're going to know who you are. Yeah. They got cameras that'll tell them. That's pretty dope. Anyway, so he did that. And then the other guy who you both have carvings from, Chuck Leak is his name.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
And you know that one thing that you have, the pipe with the tusks? Right. I don't think you've ever used it. No. No. That's his kind of stuff. Oh, I see. So he knew I was coming on your show, and he goes, can I make you and Joe a special carving? Can you give Joe his when you see him? I said, yeah. I'll give it to him when I go down there. So I brought it to you. It's here in this box.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yeah. All right. His name's Chuck Leak, probably the best ivory carver on the planet. There's a picture of him carving a, he carved a letter opener for the Pope. There's a piece of tape there in the middle, Joe, on the front, right where your hand is.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I've had him make me one for every animal that we've found. He's got them with horses.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
No. Anyways, Chuck has made, for every animal that we've found out there, he's taken a mammoth tooth and carved the animal inside it just like that mammoth.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Well, I want to get the saber-toothed tiger back right now. I can't seem to find it. One museum stole one, and I think the other museum stole one, too. So one museum stole one? The British Museum stole one. And AM&H says they never got one. But the correspondence that's listing there talks about them being shipped to New York. Talks about the agreement we had with AM&H.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Sorry. Sorry. Otto Geist was a scumbag that collected for him. He was a railroad field hand. Now he ended up with a doctorate in anthropology from the University of Alaska who was in on this whole deal.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Well, maybe they can rebuild it after they rebuild Hawaii and North Carolina and take care of some of those guys.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I have a letter posted of what I consider a pretty... Interesting way to offer a bribe back in the day. Really? Yeah, it's posted. How did they do the bribe? It was a letter from Charles Frick to the president of the University of Alaska. And the sentence that got my attention was, well, first of all, you invited him to join him and his wife in New York City for a night at the mansion.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
And then the last sentence was, and we can discuss things that man always needs more of.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Back in the day, it was a king's English. They talked proper and all that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
Yep. We saw a lot of it in Georgia when we went through.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
And we all collect stuff. What do you collect? What's your favorite thing to collect? Pool cues. Pool cues. There you go.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2271 - John Reeves
I got more if he needs more. I don't know what size he needs or how thick it should be. I don't know either.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
And I just don't want to disappoint you or disappoint the people that follow you or listen to these stories because, frankly, some of them might not be interested in it. A lot of them are.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
And don't forget what I told you about there's other people out in the river. Yeah. We're talking if I have a guy come up and go, hey, I want to go prospect this creek. And I say, okay, go ahead and prospect it. And they go prospect it and it comes in really hot. It's good. But somebody else comes along, I'm not going to send them to that creek. The other guy's already there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
So there are things happening in the East River that spread all over the place. This guy might find this. This guy might find that. These other guys might find that. I'm not going to tell any of them anything. Go about your business. I'm not going to divulge any confidential information to anybody. Keep looking. I don't envy them for it. We don't have to look. We go get coffee. We drive out there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
We pick up a tusk. Coffee's still too hot to drink. These guys got to get on a boat, go out in the East fucking river, put on scuba gear, go down there with zero visibility. That ain't easy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
My daughter out there, Lauren, she went on the boat with them, I think, last year. She was in New York, and she went along for the ride. And that ain't easy work. No. But I hope they find them. I hope they do, too. I hope they hit the mother load. Me, too. And I will tell you this. The mother load is still out there. I know that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Yes, sir. You're the man. You're the man. You're the man.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
My kids like to look for bones, and I take them out in the woods, and we look for stuff. I just wanted to come by and introduce myself. And the excitement in is just him talking to me. I said, well, follow me over. I'll go show it to you right now. So we went over to the boneyard. He got out and he looked around. He just couldn't believe it. He picked up some bone parts.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
I said, well, now you're a boner. You just got to find one. And we bullshit a little bit. He goes, do you mind if I bring my kids out sometime? I said, bring them out this weekend. We'll fire the pumps up. I'll turn you guys loose, and then we'll come check on you once in a while. And they found a pallor too full of bones. Little fragments of leg bones. And then they came back the next weekend.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
They found a mammoth tusk. And they found these sawed bones, a few of them. We got 15 of them now that they found. And so I told everybody those bones are now called the spitzer, the spitzer vines. Two little young daughters found them. Sometimes it just takes a new set of eyes. I don't know how many of those we've picked up in the past, but we never looked at it that way.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
So I brought one with me. This is the one that I carbon dated. And so this is the one that's 200 plus years old. You see that notch right there? That's what I cut out to send in to get carbon dated.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Don't know how many, but I know there's others out there that are making finds. So are they using spotlights?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
The lady, Jeanette Rimes, a Dakota huntress, she thinks it's a moose leg bone. But set it on its end there, other end.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Now, 200 years ago, what kind of utility would that have to do that?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
The people that did that. Why would they have a bone like that?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Yeah, but then what? You eat it. Maybe a candle? Maybe some marrow?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
But I think there's some utility to that bone is what I'm saying. Yeah. Just the way it sits. It could have put fire embers in it to keep, you know, overnight. Because this was 200 years ago.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
This was 100 years before Fairbanks was discovered. This is even more of a mystery to me.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
It's obviously owned by Russia. It's about the same time frame, yeah. Russians owned Alaska. And, you know, it wouldn't surprise me if they didn't go up. They founded Anchorage in the late 1700s.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
No. No? No, I agree with you. I don't know. Yeah. That's the whole thing. None of us know.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Well, those two lilies you just showed, they looked like cups to me.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
No. No. Hmm. Hmm. That's right. Because up till now, the dating sequences have been 3,000 before present to now it's 40,000 years before present. That puts it up to 200 years before present. Which is interesting. It is interesting.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Yeah, I'm in the gold mining industry, and we have a code that we don't talk about.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
I have no idea. Does anybody have a theory? There's probably a lot of theories. But that's the whole point about all this stuff. Nobody knows.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Which is I was hoping that was going to be the case. Yeah, that would have been wild. And when I got the carbon dates, I went, ah, damn it. But thinking about it, though, it's even more of an interesting thing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
I believe so. I have never seen it. But I know he found that was one of the first things he found. He found some mammoth ivory.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Well, we did find a skinning rock across the valley on top of a hill that still don't know how old that is or where that's from. A skinning rock? A skinning rock. It's posted there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Yeah, there's even a little indent on the side for your finger as you flesh something out. And what is it made out of? Stone from Eastern Europe. Remember, we talked a little. Oh, that's right. That's right. And it wasn't local. Right. So there was a lot of traveling, migrating, going on across that Bering land bridge because it was ice free corridor. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
And it went all the way into the lower 48. So there's a lot of stuff that we find, as I said last time, that they say didn't live there, but it sure died there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Dire wolves being one of them. Sabertooth being another one. I found one and my company found one before I was around. Sent them to New York City. I asked to see them, but they didn't have them available. And let's see what else we got. Badgers, elk.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
They didn't find the bones. But they literally didn't think that saber-toothed tigers lived in that area. They didn't think that. In fact, in that film, that documentary film, Pat Druckenmiller, who's the curator now and the director of the museum, says to their knowledge, none of them have ever been found there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
But to my knowledge, they have been because on a shipping manifest to AMNH that one was sent to them. The one I found was stolen by the British Museum, never returned. So I'm on kind of a little bit of a rampage these days about the museums and what they're doing with these collections. It's kind of a one-man thing. It's a cause. I think it's important.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
No. And the AMNH is a private institution, but the Smithsonian is a public entity. It's owned by us. So they answered a different set of rules. The Smithsonian has to respond to a FOIA request. AMNH says, what are you going to do? Sue us. We'll stump break you.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
With money, with lawyers, with all that litigation costs.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Well, because I have another plan. This plan's going to work.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
I have people in our state legislature working on this right now. There's a senator named Click Bishop who's on the finance committee. He's on the resources committee. He's the majority whip, and he's making efforts to get the bones back to Alaska from the state of Alaska. Okay. Now, M&H might be able to take on John Reeves. This don't break me. But they can't do it to the state of Alaska.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
The state of Alaska will go toe-to-toe with them some bitches. Now, after we get that through the House and state legislature, the Senate and the House, we'll go to the congressional delegation. You've heard what an act of Congress is, don't you? You know what that is.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
M&H, give them their goddamn bones back. AM and H is going to see the light. This is a political solution to this. Not lawyers, not all that stuff. I got nothing to gain from this. You know, I'm just trying to get them back in Alaska so we have that thousand piece puzzle to put together. They were supposed to be studied and researched and the answers to the extinction event are within the bones.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
It's impossible for them to come up with any scientific research because they don't have the stratigraphic information. They don't even know where it was found. Right. But I do. Let's put it all together, boys, and then we'll study it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
And that's why that cut bone, by the way, I noticed you don't have a spitzer bone out there in your lobby.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
That's what we call the spitzer bones. Oh, yeah. You ain't got one of those in your lobby. No, I don't. I'm going to fix that shit.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
I've got people going, oh, he needs to get a Cadillac and mount it on the hood. Well, that's not a bad idea. As long as you don't drive it around.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
It needs to be preserved. The Blue Bay bison was 38,000 years old. And they could have known each other back in the day. Well, it looks old as fuck. It is old as fuck.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
I do when I have people like Eric Spitzer and his daughter show up and they're just the happiness. They're just so gleeful. Yeah. And sometimes I need to see that to remember that what we're doing is kind of worthwhile.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
It means that people enjoy it and they like seeing it and they like doing it. We just haven't figured out a way to let everybody do it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
And it's partially my fault because I tell everybody, look, Until we get our bones back from the bowels of the AM and H, nothing's going to get studied. If they want to do this and continue doing this, they can deal with Drew out there because we're not going to just say, okay, we'll study 20 pieces of the 1,000-piece puzzle. We're just two guys with one giant.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
My company had 200 giants running at the same time for over 40 years. recovered tens of thousands and thousands of bones, all of which were taken to New York, 50 tons of which were dumped at least one time in the East River and maybe more than that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
They won't talk to me. Why won't they talk to you? Well, when Drew and Elora and I and my wife went to New York a few years ago, they were supposed to meet with us, and they decided to have us stand out in the rain for four hours.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
They had so many of them, and they said, ah, nobody's going to give us any money for this. I have an idea that's a good cover story for making sure your wealthy donors get a little something-something and getting them off the books.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Museums aren't money-making institutions. Right. And so I think a lot of the times they get something donated, especially when there's no control at all. There was no control on what was going on.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
$100 billion to Ukraine. We could have built a gas line from the North Slope to the lower 48 and a water line from Southeast Alaska to Northern California and took care of the people in Maui. Yeah. And still have some change left over.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Thank you, sir. Cheers, sir. Good to see you again. Good to be seen.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Yeah, they are. And seemingly they don't care what we think. No.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Well, I think, you know, I'm in business, you're in business. We have a divided Congress. We got half, a little bit more than half, that think this president we got should be impeached. We got the other lower, a little bit less than half. Not one of them think he should be impeached. So my belief as a business guy is as long as they're fucking with each other, they're not fucking with me.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
They're leaving us alone. Right. And that's kind of what's going on right now.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
No. So you went all the way to New York to meet with them? Well, I went there to the Explorers Club to show the documentary. There was a screening of the documentary on the Boneyard. And what, did they just decide that you're too problematic? I think so, yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
That's the best case scenario. They stay busy with themselves and do what we want.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
But if the other part is I don't want to let my bones leave Alaska. Right, of course. They never seem to come back.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
In that case, I think the guy never even got back to the museum. I think he just took it home. He was working for them, but they're a bunch of—it's like we don't sell bones from the boneyard. We don't sell bones. We've given some bones away. That's because I own them. I can give them away. They didn't own them. You know, museums don't own them.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Well, La Brea, there's a lot of them at La Brea Tar Pits, I believe. Alaska's a, you know, you keep it in perspective. I'm down here in your neck of the woods. There's probably 200,000 or 300,000 more people live in this city of Austin than live in the entire state of Alaska. The whole state.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Yesterday, Drew and I were going, hey, let's drive out and look at the farms in the countryside. We drove for two hours. We couldn't get out of town. We ended up at the airport every time. But there's a lot of, boy, there's a lot of building going on over last year. Yeah. Seems like there's a whole lot. Yeah, it is.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Not anymore. No. It's blown up. When are you guys going to get a football team?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Because I don't think they ever envisioned somebody like me owning this company.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
So we looked around, looked around, and said, well, let's just look around a little bit more. Saw parts of Austin that probably are not on the beaten track. But, hey, I thought, well, let's drive down to the border and see if we get kicked out of Mexico. Yeah. He goes, it's 485 miles. I said, we ain't going. Yeah, it's a haul.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Well, I don't blame the people for wanting to come here.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Yeah. It's just it doesn't seem to be any management of what's going on.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
To some degree. I'm a gold miner after all. Yeah. You know, Mark Twain said a miner is a liar standing next to a hole in the ground. Oh, that's funny.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
You know, you talked about AI. Well, someday, and probably not too far in the future, you'll be able to do your podcast without even being here. AI will have you sitting there, have me sitting here, and it will be guessing what we're going to talk about.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
And the other thing is you don't know if what you just saw is real. Right. That's a real problem now. That is a real problem because – Right now, the stuff you say, it can't be real.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
You know, I've been thinking, you know, the speed of light was always the standard growing up. Nothing faster than the speed of light. Then I thought, there is something faster than that. It's the speed of thought. We can think faster than that light can travel. I'll give you an example of that. I saw it online. It has to be true. There's 200 billion trillion stars in a known galaxy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
That's not just some guy making that shit up. That's a real smart person that's done the studies on this universe. 200 billion trillion galaxies. Or stars. How many planets would that be if they averaged five apiece? Yeah. That's a bunch. That's a bunch. That's such a massive thing to think about. There's no point in even thinking about it. You know, it's by me.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
And time, and I've heard you say this, is something we made up. Right. There's no such thing as time. Right. This is the only time right now. Yeah. It's gone already. Yep. It was here. It's gone. Right. Now, you talk about be nice.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Maybe the whole thing. Maybe those people, aliens, whatever you want to call it, visited Earth about 65, 75 million years ago and they said, hey, no life like us can live here with these dinosaurs running around. Yeah. Let's burn this son of a bitch down.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Well, I think the pandemic brought on a whole series of mental disorders in this country. Oh, yeah. In this world. We're getting set up for it again probably. Yeah. And you were talking once about quiet desperation.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
There's a lot of people that were worried. I was worried. You know, I have a family. When all that started going on, going, oh, no. Yeah. I want to protect my family if I can. I can't. Nobody can. Not when they're making viruses in labs. For what reason? Right. Why would you make that virus? Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
You know, just make them go nuts. Kind of like what's going on. Right. We got shit going on. You know, talking about planet killers. We can kill this planet right now if we want. If all those triggers get pulled and all the... Oh, yeah. Many times over. Yep. That's where we're at. It's unfortunate that we have to live like that and think about that. We shouldn't be thinking about that. No.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Oh, yeah. This is just the stuff they threw in the river is not even the good stuff. I don't know if you saw that little video I posted of their collecting techniques where they threw them in a big pile. No idea where they came from. Wow. It's on my Instagram.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
I thought I was protecting the world. You know, you get so many years, and we've made it both around one more trip around the sun since I saw you last time. Yeah. And Willie Mammoth's had a built-in escape. You get six sets of teeth. When the last set is gone, you starve to death.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
And our ancestors that were living with us, and I'll say this because I know, they were living with us back in the Ice Age. They weren't working against us, and we weren't working against them. All that we wanted to do was survive from one day to the next.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
And that's all they wanted to do. I went off on this a little bit recently about the way we portray mammoths being the extinction caused by humans. I'm going, no, you got it all wrong. We live with them side by side for tens of thousands of years. What if we kind of lived together? What if we went out and collected their wool and made clothing? What if we didn't run them off cliffs?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
I've seen the spear tips. You're not going to stick that through five inches of fur, three inches of skin, leather, to hit a vital organ in a woolly mammoth thrown by a guy from me to Jamie. First of all, you're not going to get that close. It'll stomp the shit out of you. Wooly mammoths have 10, 12-foot tusks. They just don't stand there going, oh, stick a spear in me.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
They're swinging their head, and they're cleaning stuff out. The short-faced bears knew better. Short-faced bear will go after a baby mammoth, but not a big wooly mammoth. I think they were kind of like domesticated to some degree. Same thing with Musk Oxen. I talked to Matt Slingsby up there in Nome about this. He spends a lot of time out there with the Musk Oxen.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
He sees how they protect their young. I can see kind of us living with those guys, domesticating them to some degree. Hey, you leave us alone, we'll leave you alone, but let's work together. We didn't always stick spears in them. You know, all the paintings you see now, even prints online shows this caveman sticking a spear in a mammoth. I call bullshit on that. And you know why I can do that?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Because nobody can say you're full of shit. Because they don't know either.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Everybody's encouraged me to litigate this. I've been involved in litigation before and I have a pretty good track record because I protect my property rights. I don't care if it's real property or intellectual property.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
There were very few people in the Ice Age anyways. Very few. They didn't travel in groups of 100 or 200, I don't think. We'd have found evidence of that. But if your choice is to go, let's go knock over that caribou over there, or let's go over there to that woolly mammoth and half of us get killed. What do you say, boys?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Well, first of all, you can go kill that caribou, skin it, gut it, and eat it for a few days. Meat won't go bad. Right. You knock over a woolly mammoth with 2,500 pounds of meat, you ain't going to eat very much before it all goes bad.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
And, you know, we have a woolly mammoth brain in one of our permafrost tunnels. Oh, really? Yeah. We're way ahead on this frozen DNA stuff. We formed a little. We have permafrost tunnels. They stay frozen year-round. There's no electricity. There's no cost to it. It just stays frozen. And that's what you have to do with DNA material, keep it frozen.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
So you find something substantial, you put it in one of the tunnels. We'll come back to that later. We'll get that later.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
No, it's outside the skull. Really? Yeah, it was found frozen. And we've had paleontologists.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Probably the woolly mammoth got ripped apart and the brain got frozen into the gravel and the muck. How intact is it? Half of it's there. Wow. And the paleontologists.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
I don't know if I posted one or not. I'll have to look. That's pretty intense. It is. I think I got one. If not, I'll ask you if he's got one.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Those guys were all up in Fairbanks, the ones you're talking about. Brought them out to the boneyard and showed them some of the stuff we got. I'll go out on a limb here. This ain't about cloning woolly mammoths. It's about cloning humans.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
I think they're already doing the humans. We just don't know about it because of the ethical issues it brings up.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
By the time they tell us... All I know is that some of my DNA material is in that permafrost tunnel.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
And with instructions, if down the road somebody in the family wants to bring the old man back, I'm your huckleberry.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Get your horse cloned. Yeah. Race horses. Ooh. Dolly, sheep. Yeah. I think Dolly was the first one.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Yeah. That looks like a guy I saw just outside the hotel last night.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Oh, yeah. And they denied it for – check this out. So it says I – How?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Our site is called Clone Fathers. And we haven't done a lot with it because it's emerging technology, let's say. But can you imagine raising your own clone? Imagine raising a little you? Uh-uh. I'd have to put it in a bag and throw it into the river.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Yeah, your folks were telling you don't do that, and you did it anyway. They weren't telling me shit, which is why I did it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Well, you've done quite well. And congratulations on being the most widely watched podcast on the face of this planet.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
No, you're bringing a lot of needed information to the world. You really are.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
That's it. Kind of what Drew and I are like. We're just two guys in a truck. Yeah. We leave the house in the morning and the phone rings.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
And I think what resonates with people about our boneyard is that it's real time. This shit's going on real time. Real time. I'm not hiding anything. I'm not going, oh, well, that bone there is only 190 years old, so I better put it away so nobody knows. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
And then boom. No, it's 190 years. Okay, now we got a real problem. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
It is. Yeah. And like I said, we don't sell them. How could you put a price on that?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Anyways, that's their collecting techniques, and they sent everything. They weren't supposed to take all that stuff. They were only supposed to take bones of scientific value, and they were supposed to research every one they took. And they were supposed to, under the agreement I had with them, or my company— do a report annually on everything they took.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Yeah, that's what I took. I was a little aggressive on that because I wanted to make sure they had enough material.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
It could have been a whipsaw. Who knows? It could have been a little handheld.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
No. I mean, they had pens back in the day with feathers. Maybe a good asterisk. They wrote a constitution with that shit.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
There you go. We have some that aren't empty of the marrow, but we only sampled one so far. We might have to sample one or two more.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Of the 300,000 we found, that's the only one I ever carbon dated. We've had maybe 10 others carbon dated by other people.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
40,000. That's off the most latest one. It probably goes back farther than that. But 50,000 is about as reliable as you can get on carbon-14. And what animal is it that was 40,000 years old? Woolly mammoth. It was mammoth ivory. So it went from 40,000 to our next oldest was 22,000. There's a lot of thousands in between them. What happened then? Yeah. We're the people. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
And I posted that, Joe, and about half the comments were, Jesus Christ, learn how to take a picture, would you? Yeah, right? The only thing in focus is the bed of your pickup truck. That's true. But that's the problem with iPhones, right?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
You see what I did to the one I gave you? A lot of people go, you need to carbon date all your fossils.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
And it was a tripartite agreement with the University of Alaska, AMNH, and my company, Fairbanks Exploration. And they didn't do any of it. And when I bought the company, I went to the University Museum, and the curator there, I said, I bet you know why I'm here. He goes, I think I do. I said, I want the bones back. He goes, let's go to New York City. Let's go get them.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
okay that 400 bucks a pop and i got 300 000 that's 1.2 million i'm sorry 120 million you want me to spend well also with that maybe it's an old bone that someone carved thousands of years later that's possible it was on top of a tail and by one at the boneyard yeah we have gravel and gravel pits and mines everywhere how could paleontologists with a straight face say that's natural
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
No. I have my friends at AMNH. They said with witnesses, unfortunately for them, two of the uppity ups there said the reason they don't want to give the bones back to me is they think I'm going to sell them. Now, let's think about that for a second.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
And I met with the University of Alaska State Senate recently. Drew and I met with them. And we said, we had this deal lined out 22 years ago. They were supposed to return everything in the basement to Alaska. We agreed to it. I funded it. I put money in the account to make that happen. Time goes by, well, we can't because there's asbestos in the ceiling. Blah, blah, blah. It has to be abated.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Okay, abate it. Let me know when you're done. I'll come get them. Well, we got sidetracked 15 years at the Boneyard, 16 years. I said, nah, that's unfinished business. I need to go get those. In the meantime, they said, fuck this guy. Fuck this dirt tramp. We're going to keep him. He's just going to sell him.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Yeah, that was something that I saw online after I came out and I said that We domesticated the woolly mammoth somebody sent me that picture. It's a guy on top of a mammoth. Yeah a guy on top of a mammoth whoa And you know how your kids, you got a golden retriever. You know how your kids take a brush and that dog just lays there and they comb the hair out of it?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Why wouldn't we do that with the woolly mammoths? Well, listen, we know people ride elephants.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Well, we don't know yet. Does it look like a rat or a shrew? When Dick Maul was up there doing his research for that film, you know, Dick Maul?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
I'm just waiting for you to say what an unfortunate name. Yeah, it is an unfortunate name. He said, keep your eyes out for arctic ground squirrel. And that's been a few years ago. This year, we just found that this year. We've never found one before. And it was still frozen. So that looks like it could be a ground squirrel. Could be.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
So we all went to New York City to get them. And they gave me a nice tour downstairs of the basement and showed me the tons and tons they had down there, hundreds and hundreds of mammoth tusks.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
And I've got other pictures of it where you can actually see the ribs. I mean, it's really unbelievable. Well preserved. I gave it to the museum up there. I said, here, you guys, this is out of my league. You guys do the research. And they took it and they're still studying it. But they've had it since July.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
That's a mammoth tooth that my buddy that carved those pipes.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Yeah. Wow, that's cool. A couple of faces. By the way, this is a good time for me to give you something that I got from him.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Well, I can't believe Joe Rubin put a walrus dick in his mouth.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
They get wild. Yeah. You never know what happens. Ooh, sick.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
In those crates, the wooden crates and everything else.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Anyways, he carved that up. And I said, well, I'm going to give it to Joe. It's a good conversation starter.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
How do you remove a raccoon baculum? Is that what I just read? Yeah, how do you remove it? From where? Raccoons. Yeah. Carefully? I guess. Here's a little bag for it. Thank you very much. Yes, sir. Pretty cool. Yeah. But we've just been doing what we did when we saw you last time. Just continuing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Nothing. They're supposed to do reports and research on them. They haven't done anything in 100 years.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
I told you that, hey, man, I don't have a whole lot new to report on all the new bones we found because we're finding so many different kind of things we've never found before. But when we moved the whole operation down to where we started, bought a new pump, started up that left limit, we're starting to find all kinds of shit. We're just trying to find. That's what's still in the basement.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
You know, when that guy wasn't looking, I grabbed a sample of that. asbestos-containing material where the lights are.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
What's funny about that is, so what? It's my stuff. Right. It came off patented ground. I can sell it if I want to. Yeah. But I don't need to and I don't want to. I want to study it. I want to find out what happened. Why did all the animals go extinct? Right. 65% of the megafauna at the same time. Right. Something big going on. Something big.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
And Pat Druckenmiller says the secrets are in the bones. They have diagnostic tools now. They can tell what the animal was eating, how many times it had sex, how far it traveled, how long it lived, things that we don't even know what the questions are yet. We just need the puzzle pieces back so it can be studied.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Well, they don't have the stratigraphic information about where that stuff comes from.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Hypothetically, let's say you found a dude. Right. And hypothetically, let's say the university did come look at it. And hypothetically, they said, okay, you need to go turn yourself in to the troopers. Why? Because those are human remains. So if somebody did find that, they'd have to go to the troopers and fill out a report. So we found a dead body. You'd have to say we found human remains.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Right. And let's say the person taking the report said, let me get a homicide team out here to talk to you. And you hypothetically said that bone is older than everybody in this building, all their ancestors combined and going back 100 generations. Well, we're not interested in that then. Get out of here. Well, get out of here after the report's written. Hypothetically. Hypothetically. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
I have all of that. Yeah. And one of the authors of that report I read last year, uh was trying to get us together so we could make some sense out of this collection and like drew and i were talking earlier it's like a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle i only got 20 pieces i want the whole thing on the table and we'll research all of it because the secrets to the extinction event are in those bones
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Hypothetically, let's say it was 10 feet away from a woolly mammoth skull. Hypothetically. Hypothetically.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
That would be very interesting. It would be very interesting. That's a really interesting hypothesis.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Yep. Woo, wild stuff. We have no idea the range that we find. Yeah. Because we've only sampled a few of them.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
We don't know how far it goes. We just know it's there. We know that in front of it, downstream of it, is decomposed bedrock. And decomposed bedrock in that area has gold in it, but it's very hard to recover the gold from because it's a clay and you can't wash it very good. But underneath that's another layer of bedrock. Did something come in hot? Something came in hot.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Something caused a lot of water to melt real quick. Sea levels rose 400 feet worldwide. 400 feet. We came from Jacksonville yesterday. The east coast from Jacksonville was 85 miles farther east. That was all dry land. Holy shit. And now it's – worldwide this happened. Yeah. Talk about climate change. You know, climate change is climate change. It's always going to be a climate changing. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
And – I'm comfortable with that. You know, we say, oh, we're melting the climate. We're melting the world. We're doing all this shit. Don't worry about the world. The world will take care of itself. You know, we don't have to be assholes. We don't have to pollute it. But we should take some care of it. But now let's go electric vehicles all the time.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Well, people who are saying that don't realize how much more copper has to be mined, how much more lead has to be mined. You're using fossil fuels for all that. You're not going to get a D-11 dozer on batteries. You're just not. You've got to use fossil fuels.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
You know, nowadays people want to get something done. They always put in the effects on the climate will benefit us from this study. You know, if we do this study, it's good for climate change. I know the guys that are cloning the woolly mammoths are saying, you know, they want to bring them back and put them in Siberia to keep the permafrost from melting and the methane gas from escaping.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
But for some reason, I have an idea that as soon as they get one out there on the steps, somebody's going to come along and go, hmm, I'm going to shoot me a woolly mammoth.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
There's never enough. Never enough. No. I mean, you know, we're involved in the fossilized ivory market a little bit because we find broken tusks and we make stuff out of it. And there's very few American craftspeople that use woolly mammoth ivory to manufacture stuff. And I know last time we talked about it, you're going, ah, it might be kind of, but that's what we do. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Like I said, this is an adorable little hobby. That's what my wife calls it. But when I go to pay $400 for a carbon-14 sample, that means that's 100 gallons of fuel I didn't buy. So I kind of go like this. I just assume buy the fuel because this little hobby pays for itself. You guys buy this, and I'll buy fuel, put it in the pump, and I'll go find more. And we'll just do that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
We'll make real nice things out of it. And this is a good time to give you this.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Oh, yeah. Spoiling me, buddy. My daughter, Laura, Drew's wife out there, Laura Longley. Last time I was here, I told you she's Saks Fifth Avenue. She's beyond Saks Fifth Avenue. She wanted to give you that. Oh.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
She didn't know if you wear jewelry or not, but I said I'll give it to him.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
And she also said, you know, Joe gets all the stuff. I want to give something to his wife. So, this is for your wife. Okay. Elora made that, too.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Yep. Wow. Little gold. There's a little tiny gold in the top.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Like I said last time, she was Saks Fifth Avenue, but she's putting those guys to shame with this stuff. She finds the ivory. She finds the gold. She makes the stuff.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
I bet that other one I sent you hasn't ever seen a match either.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
If I was an astronaut, I wouldn't. Even if I didn't go into space, I'd do it. Now, the other thing is... I had a guy call me. He goes, I love that Joe Rogan podcast. I want to make him some pistol grips for a 1911. I said, I don't know if he's got a 1911. He says, well, give me his address and I'll mail it to him. I said, I ain't going to do that. I'm going to see him.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
If you want me to give them to him, I'll give them to him. But I'm not giving out his address. He says, okay. So he sent me these. Burkett Customs is the name of his operation.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Only Mammoth. There's a little wrench in there for you to attach it to your 1911.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
It all starts with a broken, for us a broken tooth or a broken piece of ivory.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Yeah. They're little ivory shards. You give them a piece of sandpaper, and you sand it to a mirror finish. That's what you make stuff like what we make out of. Those are raw shards. Okay.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Well, you don't have to steal the ball marker from you. But I made you a ball marker. Awesome. Thank you. You're welcome. And Joe, too. And there's a guitar pick in each one of those, too.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Like I told you, Drew and I are – We're the dollar general. I told you that last year. But I think we got a meeting with Family Dollar coming up next week. Yeah? No, I'm just bullshitting you. We just enjoy working with it. It's a really cool material to work with. Because you take a piece, Joe, and you look at it and go, what can I make out of that? It might take a week or two to figure it out.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
We've had people contact us about that, and I'm going, hey, man, I don't know how to do it. I can't make pool cue stuff, but I have the raw ivory if you need a little bit to do it. You can do it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Yeah. No, it's... Something happened. Something big time.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
I think so. And if I can get the other stuff back... Well, you saw the video. All that stuff probably got dumped in the East River. You know, it's a mammoth-like bum, but it's broken at the end, and we don't want it. It's not museum quality. Throw it away. Right. And so a lot of that, they say in a report, mistakes made in the field. Well, those are your people.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Those are your employees that made those mistakes. Don't blame it on my company, guys.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
It means they didn't document where they came from. Oh, I see. And the paleontologists, if they don't know exactly what level of soil, where it came from, they want all that stuff. And if they don't know that stuff, it's got no scientific value, none. And so the stuff they sent back, none of it, maybe a couple pieces, have scientific value. They weren't supposed to take that. And they know it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
And that's why they don't want to return it, because... It's quite valuable.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
You saw that film, 12 tons in one year. Yeah. They did it for 1928 to 1958. That's nuts. That's a lot of tusks. And they talk about hundreds and hundreds of them shipped there. I've seen them. I mean, I saw them. And when I met with the head guy, I said, I want them all back. I want all the bones back. And he said to himself, who is this fucking guy? Get him out of my office.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Next time he shows up, make him stand in the rain. Which we did. It's not like I'm afraid of getting wet or dirty.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
You know the picture you pulled up with the guy riding the mammoth? Mm-hmm. There's a picture right next to it showing it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Oh, the short-faced bear, that jawbone you just saw. No, those are badass. They're extinct.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
And we have those up north. We found one. Really? We found more than one. The American lion. Really? Oh, yeah. The skull that you see sticking out of the muck bench, that's what Dick Moe calls the American lion. Wow. And when we were going through just some bones I had on a pallet, and he goes, oh, do you know what that is? I said, no, it's a lion scapula. I told him, we got a bunch of those.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
The skull I have, they say, is the best one of the four that have been found. Wow. And some guy offered me 85 grand for it, and I said, ah, there's the door.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
The problem is it scares them. It's a scary sight because we're not talking about dirt and rocks. We're talking about melting ice. You get over next to that muck bench and you look up 60 feet and up there's trees and there's not boulders but big chunks of ice that can fall. And so we're real careful with our guys. Don't go under there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Oh, yeah. We had a piece of ice we knew was going to collapse, and we kept working on it to make it happen quicker by undercutting it with a giant.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Right. It collapsed two days after we shut the pumps off. We knew it was going to go. We said, okay, stay out. That was five stories tall, the piece that broke off. Wow. It took us a whole summer to get rid of it with the giant. But within that thing was about half a dozen tusks. Wow. So we just sprayed it and sprayed it and come back and get a tusk. We restore the tusks.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
If they're not broken, we fix them. We got a bunch of them restored. A bunch.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
And I think I mentioned to you it goes all the way – it goes downstream where there is a creek that's a mile long. And that creek is going to – if we ever get to it, someday somebody will get to it. Maybe Drew and Allura or my other kids might get to it, my grandkids.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Sometimes we'll hang out. If we see something coming up, we'll aim it. But a lot of times that one's an automatic giant. It'll sweep by itself. You turn the pumps on and it just goes back and forth.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Expedition. It's going to take massive amounts of money, and I'm not opposed to having them do that. But generally speaking, what I get is some guy goes, hey, I'd like a man with tusks.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
But the stuff, the little things on the side, the micros, we spend a lot of time looking for tips, spear tips.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
We found one mammoth hip bone with a spear tip still sticking in it. Really? And I've got that one posted, a little video thing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Got to be tens of thousands. There's got to be some people in there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Yeah. Now they're going to tell me that tip went through the fur and the hide and hit a vital organ in a mammoth.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
But remember, the steppe had no trees, no wood. It's all grasslands. And so the browsers, you know, the woolly mammoth, the caribou, the steppe bisons, they eat grass. And the moose came in later, the browsers. And there was no wood to fashion a spear out of, really, to speak of. It was all grass. So I'm thinking they kind of might have moved through a little bit, got a little bit farther south.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Maybe they went somewhere else that was on the limits, that was emerging into uplands.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
The carnivores had a field day up there because the short-faced bears, the cave lions, they had all kinds of stuff to eat. Cave bears. Oh, yeah. Yeah. They were eating good. And that was for thousands of years they did that. They got along. You know, that balance is there. We have them right now with wolves. You know, you'll have a year with a lot of wolves, and then you'll have –
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
You know, they'll kill everything, all the moose. And you'll have a few years where the wolves disappear because there's nothing to eat. And then the moose come back. And then the wolves come back. I mean, it's just time. Constant cycle. Constant cycle. Yeah. I've got a creek now with two packs of wolves on it that when I invited you to go hunting on.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
There won't be a moose left on that creek, I don't think, this summer.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
I don't think the people in Colorado understand what just happened.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
I have that video of a little young wolf that's right by our road. You know, we're driving down to look at a cut. And he's just sitting there looking at us like, hey, what's up? Then he's howling, and you can hear another one in the background howling. They show up at the boneyard going, time to eat. Oh, right. Oh, yeah, they smell that rotten flesh. I'm sure, right?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Oh, the stench of that, you can't avoid it. How bad does it smell when you start excavating? It's the kind of stench that you'll never forget, but you'll never smell it anywhere else. So the invite is still open for you to come up there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Do it. Yeah. But here's the other caveat to that. We built our new building. We put two 1885 Brunswick pool tables in there. Got them restored. I saw. And I told Drew, I said, you're welcome to play on it, but I ain't playing until Joe Rogan plays on it with me. And as soon as you cue it up and rack it, I'm going to run out the door and leave. Okay. I'm not a very good pool player.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
I know what it takes. I know you're a good pool player.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
We're trying to figure out a way to do it while we don't have to be there. Put the auto giant up there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
In one day. A whole woolly mammoth. And a half. And a half. And we got the other half the next day.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
The museum I saw in the Yukon, they use a metal frame. And they attach it somehow to that. But I've seen these woolly mammoth replicas that they have of the skeletons. And you see the tusks going out. And I'm looking. And there's nothing supporting those tusks. Those are made out of foam. You can't hold a 250-pound tusk in a skull without it just breaking.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
You've got to have something underneath it to support it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Yeah. We have all the bones. We have whole herds of those things. Wow. And just a matter of that thing that we invented called time. Yeah. My time is better spent collecting it than it is trying to put it together.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Well, I told you last time that that guy Chuck says there's 10,000 of those dead animals on my property.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Yeah. He's the carver. And he's dealt more woolly mammoth bones and tusks than anybody I know. Probably in the world.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
And all at once might have spent 500 years. Right. Might have been 1,000 years. Right. But faster than they could, you know, adapt to it. Yeah. So. And, you know, all the silt and all the shit that covers the ground there, that's left over from the melting glaciers. The glaciers melted and the wind came in and blew all that stuff, deposited itself on the gravels and the.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
That's why in gold mining you've got to strip that shit off to get down to the gravel and the bedrock. That's all covering it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
And that was told to me by one of the guys that wrote that report. That I read on your show.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
But I think there's another one in there earlier. I bet. By about 20,000 years maybe.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Well, like I told you last time, I think it's all secondary deposition from water because there's such a wide spectrum of them and very few mummified remains, although we found some this summer. And I think I told you last year that the oldest sample we took was 22,000 years old. And some people, you know, I have that Ice Age Fossil Works, buy little shards of ivory.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
And I've heard you talk about the pyramids and the engineering that went into it. How do you move a block like that 500 miles?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
So well intricately cut. You can't even put a razor blade between the fits. Yeah, amazing. You can't do that now.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
I got to think Elon Musk has come back. He might have been there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
We can't even tell what happened in the case of that spitzer there, what happened 200 years ago. Right. Who were those folks? Who the fuck did that? Right. And why? Why?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
And I told the one guy, I said, why don't you carbon date it if you want to know the story. So he sent it off to a lab and had it carbon dated, 40,000 years old. Wow. So there might be enough in there for two dryness events.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Nobody thinks nothing about nothing because Fairbanks wasn't there. Fairbanks wasn't discovered until 1902. So they have no idea. Eight or 12% of the carbon dating, you know, they say that. They spread out a long timeline. 12%, I think, came in around 1600, late 1600s for that. Then it's under the 1700s, there's more than the early 1800s.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
And then pretty soon they have a, okay, 95% certainty that it's 190 years old or something like that. But we can't even tell why, who, what, where, when. Right. 200 years ago. Give me 2,000. Well, we got Jesus over there with the shroud. Somebody 500 years ago said, I'm going to make some money on this. I'm going to get me some tourism business.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Then go 20,000 years before that. Might as well really get going here.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Yeah. Look at Austin. Tell me that's not going to happen here in 1,500 years. Right. Or any city in the country.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
You know, it's – but we're only here for like maybe 100 if we're lucky.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
I'm thinking 100 and you may not be that lucky. Maybe 80 is better.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
You know, if I could tell, Drew. Drew, I'm going to run it over the 966. I'm going to scamper on up the ladder, and then I'm going to run that son of a bitch. But we translate it into that, Drew, I'm going to shuffle over to that machine over there. Can you lift me up with the loader to get inside it?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
You know, it's just I had one shoulder out last year. I couldn't pull myself up a ladder. And I go, rotator cuff gone. Got to get you some stem cells. I just need a new me.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
They took, you got to remember there's 200 nozzles running. They took them all. They took hundreds and hundreds of thousands of bones to New York City. Hundreds of thousands. I've only got a couple hundred thousand. They took millions. And they got them all. They got them, every one of them. And the guy that was their collector, he was just a field hand on the Alaska Railroad.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
And they said, hey, you want to collect bones for us? He said, sure.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
So he ended up, when it was all said and done, with an honorary doctorate from the University of Alaska, who was in on it, by the way, on this tripartite agreement, and probably influenced by, you know, Charles Frick, the son of the industrialists that used to shoot his laborers because they wanted more money in the steel industry. Yeah, Henry Frick was a prick.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
He had a gang of gunmen come in when they were striking to make better wages. And yet he was killing them. This is in our steel industry.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
It was on the Men Who Built America. It was on that show. Ah. He was the old man, so it was back when the steel industry was just getting going with Carnegie and those guys. Childs was his kid.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Wow. That's what he did, too. Oh, man. And the guy, so the guy that his kid, Childs, is the one that was head of AMNH. And he hired this guy Geist to go out and collect fossils in Alaska, and he just didn't. He just didn't limit himself to here. He went out to the West Coast.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Otto Geist went out to Nome and St. Lawrence Islands, dig up babies out of the permafrost because they wouldn't decompose. He put them in pickle jars, sent them back to Henry or Charles Frick and AMNH. I've seen these jars of pickled babies. And now they're being repatriated. And 60 Minutes just had a big thing on Cambodia and all the things they stole out of there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
AMNH and Smithsonian and all those guys are in on it. They just don't want to return them.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
That was a good segment on 60 Minutes. I quit kind of watching them a long time ago, but this kind of piqued my interest because it's all about what they're doing. They're doing it right now. It's not like this has just happened in the past. These guys are like real-life Indiana Jones. Let's go out and plunder and bring it back home. Some of it gets to the museum. Some of it goes home.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
I've heard people that say they've been in Autoguide's house in Europe. He's got all kinds of stuff in his house that came out of our boneyard area. Really? Out of Fairbanks. Yeah, skulls, short-faced bears, saber-toothed. Anyways, he ended up with a doctorate and the streets named after him up in Fairbanks. You find a guy that's willing to do anything for anything. That's what they found.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
They found him. And Charles Frick had no problem. Look at his dad was a prick. That's dad.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
So you ask what I want to do. I want to make things right, at least on the bones that came out of Fairbanks. I want the proof that men and animals lived together. It's there. Whether they haven't studied those bones in 100 years, I don't know.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
And I've posted that picture before of the burnt bedrock and the gravel above it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
If they do, they don't talk about it. Well, of course, they're not talking to me. Right. They might talk to our legislature, though.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Well, there's a whole bunch of spear points they found out in Esther, which is one of my areas. This disappeared between Esther, Alaska, and New York City. Just disappeared for 15 fucking years. They found them in North Dakota because some guy was trying to track them down. And they got some of them back. But I've asked for reports on those. They haven't done any. Wait a minute.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
You guys were supposed to report on everything you took. You haven't done any of it. And that's my leg that I'm standing on. I could litigate this if I want to. I'm not afraid of that. But I wanted this to be a good story when I started off. We're bringing the bones back. We're going to make things right. We're going to study it. We're going to solve some issues.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
We're going to solve some historical questions. Let's all get together and do it the right way. Let's do the right thing for once. No. Do you have the signed contract with notarized copies from 1928? That's not how business worked back then. You had the Boston men who financed it through the United States Smelting and Refining Mining Company. Went to AM&H. AM&H.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Yeah, we'd love to get those bones. We'll go get them. But here's what you got to do. They didn't do it. So I'm saying give them back. That's why the University of Alaska went with me to New York City and said, we want them back. But they know. They're in the business of fucking longevity, Jew. They know how long people live. This outlasts us some, bitch. We're an institution. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
And the problem with this deposit, now, I've got to be careful what I say after last time.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
We don't ever die. Right. People come in. They raise hell. Then they go away. Well, that's probably true in my case. But Jew out there, go ahead and deal with him. He plays hardball.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Exactly. People want, oh, send me these bones so I can carbon date them for you. Carbon date them up here. Get your ass in Alaska and set up a research. I already built it for you, for Christ's sake. I spent a million dollars doing it. It's done. I built it last year. I'm anticipating they're all coming back. I might not know how it's going to go, but I know how this is going to end.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
We're going to get the bones back in Alaska. So just stop doing this bullshit. Let's just do the right thing here, boys.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
When I was here with you last time. Did you get crazy? What did you say? I'm afraid I bullshitted you a little bit.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
The problem is in organizations like that, the younger scientists don't want to ruffle feathers because that's a career ender for those guys. Oh, he raised hell with the uppity ups at Smithsonian or whatever museum. Stay away from this guy. And they all want to be successful in their careers, and I get it. Right. But maybe somebody out there goes, you know what?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
And there's a few of them out there. I've talked to a few of them. They can't go public. Right. And I don't blame them. They've got to put beans on the table, too. Right. But some of the plunderings that have gone on, Mongolia, that area, that's been plundered for their cultural artifacts.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
And the people that know about it are at the Museum of Natural History, and they can't say anything about it because they don't want to lose their job.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Because when I got back to Fairbanks, my surveyor comes up to me. His name's Albert. He says, you got a lot of nerve bullshitting them like that. I said, what are you talking about? He said, you told him the site that you dug all these up is five acres. I said, yeah. He goes, it's 2.1 acres. Wow. Okay, I'm going to tell him I'm sorry. I apologize.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
What's the coin of the realm? It's gold, right? Yeah. It's been the coin of the realm since the beginning of time. What's the oldest profession?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
That's right. You got the prostitution, you got the gold, and you got people that are willing to die for one or both of those things. And so it's been the basis of conflict forever. You can melt all the gold down that's ever been mined on the planet. It's still here. It hasn't gone anywhere. You can't get rid of gold. You can't vaporize it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
You can melt it, but it would fit in an Olympic-sized pool. That'd be all of it that's ever been mined.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Yeah. And if you've been watching the price of gold in the last year, it's up 12% since you and I met last time. And it'll probably keep going because people are, they buy it to hedge against inflation. You know, Costco started selling gold bars. Really? Costco. You can buy gold bars from Costco? Gold bars from Costco. And they sell out as soon as they put them up for sale.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
They sold $100 million worth of them in the first quarter.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
I don't know. You don't know? I think Dirty Water Don and those guys found three so far.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Dudes like this in the USA, man. You think so? Oh. Well, this guy. Yeah, at least one.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
That hammer's for splitting a skull open. I'm sure. It's not for making a house. 2,000 human bones.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Well, there was just a story out recently where they have like 12,000 human bones they got to return to someplace.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
I think there's a bigger system of water in play that we don't really understand yet. When we started going up the gulch, it's what it is, the gulch. And it's about... Not the way I can describe it. It sure is narrow, but it sure is long. So this year we decided, let's go back to the beginning. And we moved the pump and everything back down to where we started 15, 16 years ago.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Well, the bone rush you started. You started it. No, you started it. I couldn't do it without you. Hey, you know what? We're tied inextricably at the hip about this. I've had ample opportunity to be interviewed. I don't do it. I'm here with the greatest communicator on the face of the planet. And I don't know if I mentioned this last time, but I got an MS and BS. So you put me in here with you.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
If I don't know it, I'll make some shit up. But for the most part, I'm not kidding. Your ability to communicate is letting people throughout. your listening world, that there's something wrong here. These people need to step up. After our broadcast, after our podcast last time, within two days, AMNH put out a press release denying this ever happened.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Well, that seems silly if you've actually visited the bones themselves. Yeah, they denied the existence of that report that I read from. So I posted that cover today in case Jamie wanted to look at it. That report was written, co-written, by one of their own employees at AM&H. Now, come on, boys. You can bullshit everybody. You can't bullshit everybody.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Yeah, look at that. That says early man. Robert L. Evander. So let's read. Yeah. They wrote the report I read.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Thinking, okay, let's see how wide this is. As soon as we started doing it, we started finding more tusks, more animal parts, more of everything. And we found those crazy sawed bones.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Because I think it gets back to the whack-a-mole game. You know, some guy steps up and goes, I'll do it. And they go, well, you're not going to have work in the industry anymore. Right. Yeah, we're going to blackball you. They're afraid to. It goes against the grain. They don't want to stick up for some dirt tramp in Alaska saying, come on, let's study this stuff.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
I already built a building for you. I did it already. That is what's really crazy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
You saw the pictures of it. Yeah. I got all the receipts in there. I mean, I got everything they need. Just bring the bones back and I'll build another building just like it. You know, What do you want me to do? People go, well, have you carbon dated all your? No, it's not my job. Well, have you done this and have you done that? What are you asking me for? Why don't you call AMNH and ask them?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
They're the ones that are supposed to do this shit, not me. I don't have the skill set. I'm not a paleontologist. I'm just a simple fucking boner making my way through life. Well, super boner, actually, Joe.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
You're going to be a boner. I need to be. You need to come up, bring your friends with you. Yeah. We'll go out there and have a boner party.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
It'll put you on the manual giant. It'll work out there. Is it hard to hold on to? Not really. No? You can make it look like it is. You know, just move it around a little bit. Mm-hmm. My kids do it. I mean, my kids are a great support. My wife. We're all in on this.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Well, I'm glad you did. And I told you last time it took me three years of saying I only talked to Joe Rogan about it. knowing that's not ever going to happen because I didn't want to talk to nobody about it. But when we talked about it, I got to tell you that my Instagram blew up and went from like 40-something thousand people following my page. I think it's at 370,000 now.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
We'll see what happens by this time next year when you come back again. Sweet Jesus, I might build a political base. I might have enough people that can contact their legislators.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
You're not going to believe this because we got all excited when we found them. Yeah. Plus or minus 200 years. They're 190 years.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
And they're – They're not doing themselves a service doing this. This is a big disservice. And did you just invite me back for next year? Yes. Let's do it again.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
There is a mystery, and it's being played out. Not only on my Instagram page, where it's the only place, but with you. If you want to know about it, you've got to come here. You've got to listen to the Joe Rogan experience. Because I ain't talking to the so-called mainstream media.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
I'm not interested in being a story one night by some guy sitting in a studio that's never even gotten dirt under his fingernails. You come out here, you walk around in this shit, motherfucker, and you listen and you smell what we're dealing with here. This is the Ice Age, baby. We live in the Ice Age. People say, think outside the box. We live outside that sumbitch.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
If you're in the Ice Age all day, it changes you. Maybe it makes you fucking crazy. I don't know. I think you might have been a little crazy to start with.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
I really do. Either that or the universe says we need some prick out there. Yeah, that's our guy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
This is a story about how these were found. I got a call one day. I was out there at the Boneyard. My daughters have a tourist business around the corner a little bit called Gold Daughters. And Elora called me up and goes, Dad, there's a state trooper over here wanting to talk to you. And I look around my truck to see what I got in it. I said, okay, I'll be right over. I go over.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
You know, this is, like I said, this is my cause. Last year I said, okay, everybody, it takes a family 21 seconds to take a leak. That was a great contribution to mankind's knowledge because I got a lot of people going, you're right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
And somebody else said, hey, I pissed for 55 seconds. If guys would drink beer, I guarantee you they could. But see, I like to think that people can still think. So I also like to think that there's a certain degree of what you do goes into the presentation of what you do. It's in the presentation. Can I give you an example? Sure. Three guys go fishing in Valdez. They leave Fairbanks.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
So each guy pulls out $10 out of his wallet and gives it to him. Gives him the key, and they go to their room. The night clerk comes in a little bit later, the night manager. He says, hey, boss, we rented that last room out. He says, all right, what did you get for it? He goes, $30. He goes, you overcharged them by $5.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
He kept two bucks, right? Right. 27 plus two is 29. Where the fuck did that other dollar go? I don't know.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
It's the presentation. Where did it go? They paid 30. They got a dollar back and the clerk kept two. Where I'm going is it's the presentation. It's the story. It's the way you tell it. 29 bucks is not 30 bucks. They spent 30 when they walked in.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Where I'm going with it is I'm throwing this out there for the people that listen to this show going, that don't make sense. Right. It doesn't make sense, Joe. They go, what the fuck? Maybe you're thinking that right now. What the fuck? Where'd that dollar go?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
I'm not going anywhere. I'm talking about the presentation. I understand. You know, and sometimes things get lost in the presentation. Mm-hmm. You know, AMNH can say, well, we did this, we did that, we did the other thing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Nothing happened. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter where that other dollar went.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
No, it's not. And like I said, it's the— It's the way it's laid out. I'm laying it out as clearly as I can to these guys. You have the opportunity to do the right thing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
And we had some stuff going on at the time. I didn't think there was any reports filed any place. But I go over there and introduce myself to this guy, and his name is Eric Spitzer. He's the head state trooper in Fairbanks. He says, I was just out in the neighborhood. I wanted to come by and introduce myself. I saw you on Joe Rogan's podcast. I love fossils. I love what this is all about.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
We have 20 pieces of the puzzle. It's the thousand pieces I want. I won't get them all because I know a bunch of them were stolen.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2080 - John Reeves
Yeah, and when I got a hold of you and I said, I don't know if I have anything, you know, I was trying to give you an out, like, just in case he's got nothing for me. I was trying to manage expectations is what I was trying to do. I just, a lot of people liked my podcast with you last time.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And that's – we had to run up to the 15th of August to decide if we're going to stay in that because there's a lot riding on that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
At least a little shading. No, it necessarily was the, yeah. I think, you know, we were talking about captioning earlier right now, and I think we're having an issue with some of the captioning right now here.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And I think that's a more authentic kind of way that I live. And I don't judge anybody on how they dress or those things. I just dress this way. And there's also practical issues as well, too. Like I have I have chopstick legs and I have no ass and I can't keep pants on. And, and, and hoodies and hoodies. It's like, I don't have to iron that shit, you know? So it's just like easy. It's comfort.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Yeah, well, Dr. Oz, yeah, I think from a technology – I think we have to address the – Oh, is it messing up right now? Yeah, I think the captioning. The captioning is running a little bit behind on here. Okay. So can we make some technological – Stop and have her fix it. Sure. Yeah. Okay.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Yeah, I think we're good to go. We put this on the Wi-Fi, and it's working great.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Weird guy. Yeah, and he used to be—people used to thought he was really brilliant. I mean, he was like— He was an amazing kind of surgeon, celebrity. And then he turned his career into like on TV. And then he started to pitch more kinds of questionable kinds of things and kind of bullshit kind of stuff. And I don't understand why somebody would would change his reputation.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
I mean, he was really revered in that. And I was I wouldn't even be I would have been comfortable to him operate on me. But but he kind of lost that. And what was also pretty funny is that he clearly he lived in New Jersey. And so we were like, hey, we need to use that and point out that. So we just we decided early on that we're going to just like, hey, you know, it matters.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
It's like, I mean, there's nothing wrong with living on New Jersey, but there probably is an issue if you're running for for the Senate. And I really have like an ethos is that I'm not ever going to be mean and I'm not going to be personal about that. So we tried to have a lot of fun with the fact that he lives in New Jersey. And we just really just kept hitting him, hitting him.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And we had Snooki. Did like a cameo saying, gee, Mehmet, good luck. You know, I know things are going rough now, but you're going to be able to come back to New Jersey. And that got viral. And we did a lot of those viral kinds of moments. And, you know, they have this thing where they have what's really penetrated.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And, you know, they have circles on things like what's really part of like people asking about Dr. Oz. And one of the zeros, the O's was he's weird. But the biggest one, New Jersey. I mean, literally, New Jersey was. That was the biggest one?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Well, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, even though they're neighbors, they do have a bit of a rivalry. Yeah, well, of course. And people have to understand that it's like that funny thing. And, I mean, it borders with Pennsylvania. And it really matters. It matters to that. And, of course, Dr. Oz, he was strange in some sense. And we always try to have fun with making fun of him. Are you a fan?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Are you a fan of The Simpsons? Yeah. Yeah. But we matched up perfectly with Dr. Nick. You know, Dr. Nick, Dr. Oz. And we found all the weird shit that Dr. Nick would say. And then they have a clip of Dr. Oz saying those kinds of things. And then that's where it was. And we had a lot of fun with that. And things... We all figured out, well...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
We have, we essentially, we chose to kind of empty the clip metaphorically and really start hitting him. You know, we went up on TV throughout the summer and he was really put on his back and he was essentially thinking he could kind of take the summer off. And then our polling, we got up about 10, 11 points and things.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
You know, if anyone's listening ever heard of the 538, you know, they track on those races. And the highest percentage we had to win was, I think, about 84%. And things kept winning great, really, really great. And then I had to decide on my birthday on August 15th. And things were going so well. And I thought things, I'm like, okay. And then we decided to stay on that race.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And that's what we did. And then... Post-Labor Day, oh my gosh, we just got nuked in a way that it's never been experienced that before. How so? What do you mean? Oh, $100 million of paid media to destroy you. I mean, just tear you apart. Every aspect of your life. $100 million they spent? $100 million.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And it's like, I just feel like that's, I mean, and if somebody judged me and people have said that, uh, but it's like, I'd rather have somebody know. And I, I promise you a lot of people and dudes, especially in Western Pennsylvania, love to wear suits all year. I mean, uh, excuse me, shorts all year, uh, and dress like that. But to me, it's about comfort and practicality.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Oh, it came from PACS, from Dr. Us. Dr. Us put in, I think, $28 million.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
You know, pay being a senator? Yeah. It's $174,000. Can I talk about this? Yeah, please. I don't understand why some incredibly wealthy dudes will spend tens and tens of millions of dollars just to take that. And I try to tell people there's no glamour here. I just talked about that in an interview.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
I guess everybody wants the Iron Throne, but it's really not. But it also, it's a different kinds of skills. And it really doesn't transfer over very well on that. But right now in Pennsylvania, right now, David McCormick, a Connecticut man, Connecticut man, he's running in Pennsylvania. And he lives in Connecticut. And he's incredibly wealthy. I think he's worth $300 or $400 million.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And he's spending the same race in Wisconsin. They're dropping crazy numbers. And really, that's an important conversation that the real problem in American politics for me is Citizens United and unlimited money. when they decided that money is speech. And now that turns the whole thing in an incredibly damaging.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Right now, there's been at least more than half a billion dollars, half a billion dollars on the table in Pennsylvania just for president, not just the Senate races and other House states. And I was the most, at least at that point, was the most expensive Senate race in history. And it was over 300, $330 million for that one seat.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And all of those dollars, they're spent to destroy and tear you apart. And then Fox News, I was their top target for four months. And social media, and I stayed out of that. I didn't enjoy it. But social media, all the conservative influencers, everything. And it just tore me apart. And at that point, at the end of September, It was, I mean, I couldn't get away from it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And it really, it's like, until you've had $100 million to destroy you, it's a next level kind of thing. And then everyone was, they were saying, well, he's a vegetable, you know, he's a retard, or he's lost his brain and all kinds of things. And then that wasn't true. But but the kinds of terrible things and those kinds of very personal things. And it just got incredibly ugly in a way.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Oh, hey man. It's awesome to be here, man. I gotta say hi to my son. He's just so thrilled. He's 15 and he literally freaked out. He's like, oh my god, and all of his friends are gonna definitely be watching too. What's his name?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Yeah. The Senate, the whole Senate. Yeah. The whole Senate was. In fact, we actually we flipped that seat. And that's the first time I think in the 40s or 50s that we've had two Democratic senators in Pennsylvania. Usually it's been a Dem and a Republican. And now because we flipped that seat, that's it's mathematically it's possible to retain the majority in the Senate.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
But it's going to be still fairly difficult because we have Montana represented. Very, very red state, obviously. And that's really what the Republicans have put a significant bet to make sure that they can flip Montana. And then if Montana falls, then they're going to get the majority unless there's like a really surprise one. But that may be more kind of difficult. Do you think that money is...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Yeah. I mean, just imagine if you were a movie studio and you're putting out a, you're going to put out a movie and a rival studio has a hundred million dollars to tell America that movie sucks, you know, that's shit. And it's crazy. And it's, it's, it's just, there's always going to be unlimited money because it's all about the control of the Senate or the house or the presidency. And,
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And when money is speech, it's going to be unlimited. And what happens? It's like, well, that's TV and on social. And it's going to be how can I destroy and break this individual? And that's where it is. And it gets incredibly personal. And it has an impact. I mean, certainly it has for me. And until we have unlimited money, it's going to get more and more mean, personal, and expensive.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And if you look at the billions of dollars that's spent, how what we could have done for our society, the kinds of reels that we could build and other things, if we didn't spend all those money to tear each other apart.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Yeah, you have, you know, you take any—a quote— Take it out of context. Click that shit. Put $10 million behind that. And that's in front of millions of eyeballs right there spontaneously on that. And it's directly right at you. And it's unlimited money. I mean, when you look back on this race, it's like you are going to be stunned. Just how much money is put in that, how crazy those ads are.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And just you can't get away from it. Like Montana. Montana has, I think, six or seven hundred thousand voters and they've dropped a quarter of a billion dollars. I don't know how you could even spend a quarter of a billion dollars in Montana. It's like if you have $100,000 in cash, you have to pay that in going to a McDonald's.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
I don't know how they do that, but I promise you everybody in Pennsylvania or in any of these kinds of contested states, they just can't get away from that shit. And at this point, they just stop paying attention to it. It's just, it's like, it's noise. It's toxic kinds of noise. And it does, it sets a tone for the whole country that we're willing to engage in this way. Oh, yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
No, it's like, that's the thing. It turns everything into a night vice or worse. Yeah. And it is about trying to destroy that person and to convince other people that you are the worst thing in the world. You're you're a Marxist, you're a communist or you're just all kinds of things. And it's the lowest, lowest denominator.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And if you really want to fix American politics, I mean, there's there are issues. But I promise you, if you removed that. That would be a dramatic kinds of thing. And we all have to play that game. Some of us, like myself, I got a lot more of my money from small dollar donations, like Bernie. Bernie, I know he's been on the show. Bernie.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Well, no, I can hear just perfectly right now. And but there's just the one kind of a lingering issue. There's a lingering issue. And sometimes I lose just a couple of steps on time. And then now after that, that's the only thing. And thankfully, the stroke never touched my intellect. Thanks. But the stroke nearly killed me. And again, I don't.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
But then other ones, it's like everyone chases the bigger checks. It's undeniable there, too. And it's so disingenuous and there's PACs and there's other kinds of organizations. One way or another, it's just the way to funnel tens of million dollars to just tear someone apart. What was your background before you got into politics? I was a social worker.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And I came to a very deeply broken and fractured community. And I actually started helping young men and women get their GEDs and just kind of getting their lives back on track in that sense. And then that's why I did that for several years. And then I decided I wanted to run for mayor and mayor of a small town.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And we had problems with inequality in a community that 90 percent of the population abandoned the community and left. And if anyone's aware of the U.S. Steel, I mean, I live right now across the street from that iconic steel mill. I mean, that's really that that used to be America's Silicon Valley, like about half of the world's steel used to be manufactured there. but now so much has changed.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And then I ran for mayor and a small town mayor. And then that turned into, well, I decided the kinds of issues that were meaningful to me and the personal kinds of experiences, I just thought, hey, I want to project my kinds of experiences and my values. And I ran for the first time in 2016. I ran for the Senate. I mean, it's pretty kind of strange that
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
You have a small town mayor running for the United States Senate. And but I mean, we had no money. I mean, zero, zero money on that. But we just we'd had a really like grassroots kind of a thing. And we got out across. Pennsylvania. And we came up a little short, but we pulled in 20% of the votes, which people thought that was pretty remarkable.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And I carried my home county, which is Allegheny, that's the second largest. And that really kind of set the stage to run for Lieutenant Governor a couple years later after 2016. But 2016, though, that was where America met Donald Trump. And I was early, you know, turning the alarm off saying, hey, we have to be concerned here.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Like, you know, Trump has connected with people in ways that it's like we have to be concerned. And I'll never forget. It was June in 2016. And I was a I was a I was a surrogate for for Clinton. And and Trump announced, hey, I'm showing up in a town called Manessen, Manessen, which is a small town. steel town in the valley down from Mars.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And I'm like, why is he showing up in, I mean, that's not, so either he's crazy or they've plugged into something. And like, I have to see that. So I tried to get into that just to kind of see what was going on. But they recognized me and they said, yeah, get the fuck out. Well, you're hard to hide. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
But they figured out that they have to connect and to make that kind of an argument to go to these kind of places. And it did. It resonated. And you started to see a lot of the signs and a lot of the energy. And it's like, hey, there's a problem. And the Clinton campaign, everybody assumed that she was going to run away with it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And they made they made the mistake of just showing up in Philadelphia, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, and assume that they were going to be OK. But but a lot had slipped. And now the margins Trump created margins that were unheard. Like, you know, we referred to them as Romney margins.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
So, in other words, you have red counties and Romney would they would cover those by about 60 to 65 percent. And Trump did. He created 80s, 80s. We were losing 80-20, 80-20. And like, well, yeah, that's a small county. But yeah, you multiply that by 57, 57 other counties. And that's how they scale up. And that's how he won. And he won by 45,000 votes. And that's why he captured the blue wall.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
But I use captioning in situations just like this, in interviews. So that's why I can really make sure exactly what's being said. And then I can just participate. If somebody wears the glasses, it doesn't mean that they're illiterate. It just means that's a tool that allows them to participate or drive or those things. And it's that same thing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And that made him president. And here we are right now. The blue wall is they're both fighting on the blue wall. And the blue wall is... Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Well, I just think it was just different. I'm like, hey, I was running for about Forgotten Places. People where America has turned their backs on them and talking about those kinds of important issues like living wage, abandoning the industrial parts of America. Some people watching what things have been left behind in places like Braddock. It's like – it's astonishing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Ninety percent of people left and 90 percent of the buildings are gone. And that whole region has just been just – thrown away. There was a path. I mean, there were two other people in the primary. And I thought I could maybe split. I could split the other two and just sneak by and get 33% plus one extra vote.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
But I came up a little short because I had no money because it's always going to be about money. And then Katie McGinty, she won, but she lost. And then that was that same cycle and then the same year that Trump won.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Well, again, you're a freshman. And, you know, my colleague and one that was just here, Senator Vance. I mean, we were both in the same cycle. We both ran in 22. So we both there for less than two years. And it's really based on seniority. And it's just kind of like, hey, get on the end of that line. So you are a freshman and your influences, at least in the institution, are limited in some sense.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
But if you have a bigger platform, and I did, and I try to have those kinds of impacts and having those conversations, But my first half of that first year, that took a different detour because I was dealing with depression. I was in depression, and I realized that I was in a bad place.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
So having to make those kind of choices, and I signed myself in to Walter Reed to get help because of the depression. And so I think... It's an important conversation. And I knew I thought at that time it could be politically could be difficult, but I thought it was important. And now if that costs me something politically, I'm OK. So that's why I'm continuing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And a lot of people across America use captioning to watch movies and TV. And that's really no different than that. Yeah. So it doesn't affect your intellect, but it does affect your hearing? Is that what's going on? No. I can hear and I can listen to music. The difference with music, for example, is that as long as there's muscle memory, I can remember all those kinds of music things.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
So how the impact I've had, I never fully expected that that voice would would break through. And I'm in contact with people constantly saying, thank you for talking about this. I chose to get help or I chose not to follow that path on self-harm. And so I've had active conversations with member of Congress or fathers with younger kids. And they're like, hey, can you please talk? And I do that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
I'm happy to talk to anybody. And so that's a way I've had an impact through all of that and also my voice through after what happened on 10-7, October 7. And I've decided I was going to be a very consistent voice for Israel through that. So that's why kind of like the platform.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
But in terms of if anyone's being honest, whether it was Senator Vance or any kinds of freshman senators, it's very limited because otherwise there's people that have been there for 25, 30 years. They're the ones that are going to be the chairman. And if you're a minority party, you have incredibly limited kinds of ability to move an agenda forward.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
I think it's really important. I'm really glad you did it. Well, thank you, but I don't think it was really courage. It's like I only had a choice.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Well, originally I was just going to talk about depression. And there's a paradox. You might be a place in your life that you've actually kind of won, but depression lies to you and it convinces you that you've lost. And my depression got far more worse after I won. And then it was a downward spiral. And then if you don't check your depression, then you go down a dangerous slope about self-harm.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And I started to have – I got to – to occupy that kind of a dark place. And that's when I realized that I have a choice. It's like, if I don't address this, then I had an emergency break. It's like, I have to stop, I have to stop. And that was my kids. I'm like, I cannot be, I can't be the example.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And when you're gonna get older in life and you're gonna have those kinds of challenge, well, hey, dad decided to leave. Oh, that must be the right thing. And I'm like, I cannot allow myself to be the example for that. So I stayed in the game and I was able to get help and I got much better.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
So like for me, it's like I originally didn't want to talk about self-harm because that's definitely not a great political winner. Right. But I was like, I have to be honored about that and honest. And people, that really resonated with people. I was, I think the first person, I was the first politician, especially at that level, talking about self-harm.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And, you know, if people that are suffering, people that, I mean, you have a huge audience. I'm willing to bet plenty of them are suffering from that or looking through those kinds of issues. No doubt. No doubt. Yeah. And, you know, I promise people, whatever your path, whatever your path is for recovery,
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
But it seems unlikely at this point that there are not going to be any kind of new favorites emerging like that. So you essentially only can listen to the same old music forever? Yeah. Yeah, no, it's, yeah, it's, yeah, I mean, all of the classics, like, you know, Metallica, Motorhead, The Cult, all those kinds of things. Like, I haven't lost any of, you know, Def Lepp and those things.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And I'm not an expert, but if you promise yourself to stay in that game, stay in that game, that you are ready, you know, you're almost guaranteed to get better because I promise you it will get better. And I was at the point where I was really, you know, in a very dark place. And I stayed in that game and I am staying in front of you right now and having this conversation today.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And so that's what I try to tell everybody, whether they're listening today or in other times when I've had that. It's an honest conversation, but it is a red and blue conversation. And it's a rural and urban or suburban conversation. It's men or women talking. Or even younger kids. I've had conversations with teenagers, you know, with their parents, and they've even tried to take their lives.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And I can't think of anything much more tragic than especially a young person taking their lives over some of the things that – and I never thought that voice would penetrate, but it did. And that's why I'm willing to have that conversation. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Well, I'm sure it must have been a factor. I discovered that I had two friends. They're roughly my age, and they had young kids, and they took their lives. And they were both in the media, and both one worked for an incredibly elite organization, and another one had a really strong position. One had a heart attack and the other one had a stroke years earlier.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And I found out and I wish I could have talked to them. And I did talk to them. But it doesn't mean they were weak or that they gave up. It's just I got lucky and I found my emergency break and And if you have any kinds of study on people and self-harm, there was an individual, he jumped off the Golden Gate and he survived.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And immediately after he says, as he crossed over the rail and he, I want to live, I want to live. What have I done? It's like I've made a terrible mistake. And you hit the water going 75 miles an hour and it's very against chance of surviving, but he did. And now he became obsessed with this idea, and he looked out for everyone that survived.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And about 45 people out of 1,800 people that have jumped over, they survived. And it was unanimously people immediately like, oh, my God, I want to live. I want to live. I want to live. And not one single person thought, well, I wish I was more successful. So I try to put that forward. And I can't imagine how difficult because –
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
They had children the same age mine and trying to explain to a 10-year-old son, like, why did daddy leave? And those are dark conversations. And so it's not about weakness. It's about trying to get away from that. People that are suffering from depression, if anyone's been there, it's like your mind is on fire. And you just want to get away from that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Well, and I saw the record of Whitesnake, but all those things. Yeah, no, I mean, I think we're both in the 50s, right? And, you know, we grew up with the crew. Yeah. And all those kinds of things. So some people might judge me based on my taste on music. But, I mean, that's kind of where it's at.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Just please, I need relief from that kind of a thing. And every now and then you have kind of like the eye of the hurricane where you finally thought maybe things could get better. But it roars back in and it's like you get back to that very dark place. And I just tell everybody, I'm begging you, stay in that game. I promise you it can get better. And the depression is lying to you.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
It is absolutely lying to you. But don't make the kind of choice that you can't come back from.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
I think they reference over 1,800 people. And a small, small tiny survived. And really –
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Carl with a K. And I met a Carl in the lobby, but it's a C. That's not a human, a non-human Carl.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
being faced that idea that you're not going to come back it's it's like spontaneously curative like oh my god i want to live i want to live i want to live like it's it's it was unanimous about uh and that's such an important kinds of research that that that he did um and it it's like and and again like that's my message it has to be very simple stay in that game It's like you you can't do this.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
You can't do this. And you need support. Yeah. Yeah. You need support, whatever that is. And some people have different kinds of resources. I mean, I would want that for everybody. The resources that I had. That's not fair. It's not fair. And I got lucky. It's not because I'm like I was so much stronger or better. It's like, no, no, I just got lucky on that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And I promise you, you're not going to regret staying in the game. And you can get better. And that is probably, I think, in my opinion, that's about 75% of getting back better.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
My my family, that that's that's really what I like. Every every person needs to have like that emerge. I call that like an emergency break. It's like, you know, you are you're out of control. You know, you're having that the darkest conversation you'll have with yourself and you have to have something to stop that. Otherwise, it's you're going to go over the edge.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And everyone needs to have that, whatever that is, whether it's your family, whether it's your wife or your husband, or whether it is, or this, that there has to be some, it has to get better. It's going to get better. You know, that's why I say stay on the game. And I'm not an expert. I'm not trained in that. But when people reach out to me and say, well, I feel like this.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And I'm like, hey, it's like, you know, help works. I promise you it will get better. And I can't guarantee what your path will be. But what I can say is that stay in that game and you are going to find your way on that path and you're never going to regret. It's like, oh, you know, it's just the finality, the finality of that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
You can make a bad choice and that might set you back in life but that's the one choice you can't come back from and you will leave people in your life that they'll never understand or you wish you could reach back and you could let them know and stay away from that kind of blackness because I promise you, you would regret And if you can't, come back.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
The election and everything, I was convinced that I've lost everything. And I had – it was difficult to fully speak. And my kids, they got pulled into the social media kinds of invective. And – It's like, I've destroyed my health. Against odds, I won. Now, am I going to be able to do this job? Would I have been better off if I didn't survive? And I got to that kind of a dark place.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
But and then I just had this like that spontaneous where it's like my kids. It's like, no, I love you. Like, oh, my gosh. It's like like when they were visiting. I didn't want them to visit me at Walter Reed. I was like, why would they want to be around this? Right. But they did. And. It was like this kind of spontaneous kinds of love. And it just was like a shot.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And it's just like, I can come back. I can come back. I thought it's like, well, why would they want this mess back? And then, you know, just working through a lot of those things and other kinds of techniques and things. It was like, but that was probably the single most transformative event where it's like I realized that I can come back to my life.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Otherwise, it's like I thought I've lost everything. Would I be able to even do my job? And it's like, do I even have a career? I mean, I'm talking about like that was a significant national story when after I signed myself in and that pulled my kids in through that. I mean, this idea. And after we announced that we're signing in and there were news trucks outside their house and.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And they had the trauma of thinking that dad could have lost after the stroke. And now he is – it's just – it's put them through so much. And that's why I was convinced that they probably don't want me around. And then I made the stupid mistake of – I went on social media and things. I'm like – and just, I read some of that shit.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
I mean, it's just, it's just, oh my God, millions and millions of views in videos. And it's just like, you know, going after my family and saying, you know, uh, you know, Hey, he's a vegetable. He's, you know, he's a retard and, uh, you know, sling, uh, sling blade and all kinds of things. And it wasn't, It wasn't the individual kinds of insults. It was the volume and just how widespread it was.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Yeah, I wouldn't say it's necessarily disconnect. It's just about being precise on that just to make sure that. So, you know, like for an interview, just to make sure of those things. So it's really just about captioning. Really, it's just a tool, no difference. I mean, this is like my eyes in the sense for glasses. Right, I understand.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And I'm like, who jumps online to go after a stranger that's never really done anything to you personally?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Yeah, well, I mean, it's like if I have a hundred if I have a hundred million dollars to convince you that you're a terrible person and you're the worst thing ever. And that that that inspires a lot of people and they hey, that's the mission. It's like he clearly he must be those things. And, you know, we're now there is no there's no tap out. There is no tap out.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
It's like even after we won, after I won, in some sense, it actually accelerated.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
No. Oh, no, no. And the second the second you step into that kind of arena on the federal level for for like a Senate seat, if it's like a purple state like Pennsylvania. You know, I promise you there will be tens and tens of millions of dollars and their mission is to turn you into the worst thing in the world. And whoever survives, that's the one that's going to be in that seat.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And I still will never understand why someone, you know, independently wealthy kinds of people will spend, you know,
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
incredible amounts of money and i try people i'm like there's no glamour here wow like i like i'm in a 500 square foot apartment and i'm like here with my phone i'm like hey grubhub what's it tonight and then it's like i'm like i watch you know tv on netflix and things and i i ask i ask uh my colleagues i'm like hey is there kind of secret society like
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Like crazy parties or sitting around with cigars and all this. And they're like, well, no. I kind of have the same version of that. That's the perception, though, right? The perception is you get invited into a club. Now you control the world. Yeah, that we all have witty kinds of dialogue on West Wing. Like talking like all these kinds of turn –
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And really, it's just like, and I describe that as a lot of it's just bad performance art. Yeah, thanks. That's usually what it is. It's just bad performance art. And some people, like if you're in a safe environment, in a safe state or a safe seat. You, and especially if you have the resources and they're incredibly wealthy people, they buy a house and they move their life there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
So you're able to kind of things. But like I don't have those resources and I'm in a very, very, the ultimate purple. And so I spend more than 50% of my time away and I miss my kids. It's rough. for that. I mean, I signed up for that, but I promise you there's no glamour in that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Well, yeah, of course. I mean, I don't own any of those stocks or anything. And definitely, if you have any kinds of impact or you know that there's something coming, I mean, yeah. How is that legal?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
It's well, no, we should have the kind of legislation to make sure that you're not like if you are on Congress, you shouldn't have any kinds of stocks because you are going to be passing kinds of laws, et cetera, et cetera, that, you know, you have to separate that. They really shouldn't be a part of that kinds of a thing. And I mean, I'm all out. I'm open.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
All of us, we have to have our wealth and our, you know, all that there. And if I'm not the poorest, I have probably the bottom five. And, you know, other people there are worth hundreds of millions of dollars. So, you know, we can't have that situation where, you know, if you're going to be involved on those kinds of legislation that you can't be enriched by
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
those kinds of, and there has to be some kind of influence. That seems simple. That seems like logical. Like most people would agree to that. Yeah. There's a lot of, there's a lot of inertia. It's the same thing. I think if any one of us were being honest, money is destroying our democracy. And that's that some people that might sound trite or it's a cliche, but it's a hundred percent though.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
I think most people who are objective would agree with you. I promise you, it is absolute. It is a scourge of American democracy. And money is king. And what's that money for? That money is for tearing you apart. And that creates more and more and more kinds of incivility and cruelty. And then now, when I was in graduate school for that stuff, I mean, there was no social media. And there wasn't
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
There wasn't podcasts. There wasn't all kinds of things. So that made it more difficult. But now there's all of those things. And social media is an accelerant and just unlimited money. And that has what, you know, like I'm sure you're an athlete. And if you've heard that NFL players, it's like, wait, would you want your son to play? And sometimes say, well, no, I wouldn't want that for my son.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Yeah, I don't recommend that. I don't recommend that. Because you seem to have recovered quite a bit since then. Oh, yeah. No. But during that time, you were really struggling. Oh, sure. Absolutely. It was a rough conversation after that. They brought me into the hospital, and then I went under, and then I woke up. uh, and they said, they, uh, they said, Hey, we got it. We got it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And and it's like I'm relieved that my oldest is like he has no interest in being in politics. And so it's I can't imagine it's going to get better until, you know, we address this idea that unlimited money is unlimited wealth.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And it's unlimited cruelty and hyperbole and just all kinds of poisoning the will that, you know, half of us are going to hate your guts and the other half, hey, that's my team.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
People hook themselves up. It's like you self-select your cocoon. Yes. You know, and like I'm a big fan of Apple News and it's like 13 bucks a month. And but I read everything across the spectrum, you know, very, very left and very, very right in between. And I think it's really I think that's your responsibility, especially if you're an elected leader to to.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
be challenged, to challenge yourself on the ideas. And it's like clearly one side doesn't have all the answers and the other side can't be 100% wrong. And it's just like being challenging and living or taking in other kinds of perspectives. I think that's a responsibility because otherwise if you only just cocoon yourself into And it's just it turns into one gigantic circle jerk.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And and that's why it just turns people to just kind of dig in. And it's like, hey, you know, the problem is them. And we. Yes.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
It's possible. But to be honest, that election wasn't turned on, I think, Russian interference. No. What happened in 2016 was Trump – he plugged into like kinds of a – of an energy or, you know, like it was just like kind of looking to make that kind of a connection there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And it further cemented... I never bought into some of that kind of a stuff. Because if anyone that spent any time on the ground... in one of those states. It's like it's very clear. That wasn't because of some small kinds of tweets and things like whatever. It's undeniable. And also, remember, like he was, you know, the Republican Party was like, hey, this is a joke. And I remember Jeb Bush.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
You know, and he he had like 100 or 200 million dollars. And and he just went by. He ticked him off. And and even then people thought he was going to win. But he did. But but remember, though, overall, though, that was 75000 votes. That's a mathematical like, you know, I mean, think of that. One hundred one hundred sixty million votes.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Seventy five thousand spread across three large states, including my own. That transformed American politics and in the world as well. And it just came down to 75,000 voters in those three states. And that's kind of where that's where we're at.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Well, I reference a movie, like Bullworth. I remember that movie. Bullworth. And it was Warren Beatty, and he was a senator. And he kind of had like a breakdown, and he started saying provocative things. He used to get up in front of his audience and kind of like the gaffe of accidentally telling the truth. Yeah. And it was kind of like it was an absurd.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
We got the clot, the clot that, that essentially just, but killed me. And I'm like, Oh, that's good. Uh, and then just kind of went back under. And, uh, at that point I had no idea where we were at on those things. Uh, and then I had, um, the next morning I woke up and then they, uh, a doctor came on and he had kind of a, a grim kind of a look on his face and things.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
I mean, when I was in grad school, that was like put up as like, well, I mean, people enjoyed that. And now that became a term in politics saying, oh, we affect even President Obama's like, hey, we all want to secretly go full Bullworth, full Bullworth.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
But that's what really he channeled in where he would say – it's kind of like he projects kind of like, well, I don't give a fuck and just say all those kinds of a thing. And people have responded to those kinds of things. And a lot of people – that's the bug. But you have to understand that for enough people, that's the feature. And that's kind of what they want.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And whatever that is, it describes – uh a brand that you know it's it's not I don't admire that but you still have to kind of uh marvel at at the level to say crazy kinds of things that that it you I'm oh well I guess maybe we're both old enough to remember when uh George in the George Bush uh Al Gore he is like oh And that moved the polls.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
People were like he rolled his eyes at Bush, you know, like things and like, you know, like it used to be much more stayed. And now think of what's been said now and all of the stuff. And and I don't think people aren't paying attention. Some of the whatever the latest outrage is.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
I wish I was more handsome. I don't think that's good. No, no, no. I'm honest. I'm honest. I think I'm in touch with what I'm limited. I wasn't blessed with model looks.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Yeah, no, it's that scar face. It's like, you know, word and balls. Yeah, yeah. You know, and you're losing politically if you're telling people to not believe what their eyes are seeing. you know, like these kinds of issues.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And, and it's like, I'm not going to lie or I'm not going to toe a line that if I don't, if I don't believe, if I don't believe in that, that, uh, so, um, but in terms of, of the conversation, um, I, I think it's like, it's, it's all I've got. And, uh, and it's not because I don't care. It's actually, I'm very committed and I really do care, but
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
But I think people are like I think authenticity, that's the that's the last that's really that's one of the last meaningful currency in this shitty business.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Yeah, well, I mean, honestly, I would like to remind everybody – and it's not like a talking point. It's actually – it's in a fact that voter fraud is incredibly, incredibly rare. It's really hard to get away with that successfully. And in 2020 – At scale, you mean? Yeah, it's not scalable. Yeah, it's like – I mean –
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And my dad was there sitting next to me at the bed. And I was like, well, Hey doc, I mean, what's, uh, what things, what do you think? What do you like? Uh, and he's like, well, um, you know, you're, Your heart is functioning at an incredibly low kinds of percentage. And I'm like, well, what do you think? And he was like, well, you know, I mean, there's some issues.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And usually it's kind of local kinds of communities and people that either know that person or it's not. It's never going to be organized in a point where you can pack a box or you can't determine that kind of a thing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
It's just that, you know, after election, election, election, it's just never been, you know, in 2020 out of over millions of votes in 2020 in Pennsylvania, there were five or six votes. And what happened is that they turned out to be the Republicans and they used their deceased, their dead moms, you know, to vote for Trump through that. And that was documented. And they were all caught.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
They were charged. They were convicted. And all those votes, that would have been six votes out of all of it. Do you think that that's the only voter fraud that exists? No. Well, people also – we need to remind that the voter database, there are cross-checks against deaths and who's moved or what's their status are. Like all that's cross-checked back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
So it's a living kinds of thing where it's continually updated and all of those kinds of things. And it self-checks. And remember also – In 2020, you know, Trump, there was like, there's cheating, all these things are happening. And remember, there's probably 57, 58 red counties. And all of those commissioners that are in charge of that, they were like, hey, no, there was none. There was none.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And even in Georgia, even in Georgia. Governor Kemp. Governor Kemp. Like, hey, you know, Georgia, you know, it was very close, but it was honest. There was no kinds of fraud in that. And that's a Republican.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
It's not a hill that I'm saying we have to die on that, too, again. But it's a vulnerability, clearly, right? Well, it's also – some people may not believe that in a lot of these kinds of communities, ones that I live in, for some people, they're not going to – they don't have an ID necessarily or they've lost it or whatever.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
They don't have – Yeah, they would have to get an I.D. or it costs X amount of dollars or those kinds of a thing. It's a barrier and it usually tends to skew more towards people that are coming from those kinds of communities. And the Republicans understand that they're usually going to they're going to skew towards Democratic voters through that. And so that's kind of the argument there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
on that and there's never been any evidence that there is widespread kinds of of voter fraud and that's but we really didn't have widespread mail-in ballots to the extent that it was done in 2020 we really didn't have all those were all of those were any of those five or six you know dead moms that were voting uh those were all those were all uh well actually one one guy
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
One guy went in, he voted, you know, and then he went up to his car and he put on sunglasses and a bob cap and he walked in. He's like, hi, hello, I'm here to vote. And the guy's like, you were just here. What are you doing? And then they called the police. And then it's like, yeah, he was trying to double vote.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Well, everybody knows who's voting and who's not voting on that. What do you mean by that? What do you mean by everybody knows? Well, and remember also, too, Dominion. People on the Trump side, they all said that Dominion was corrupt. And that cost Fox $800 million. They had to pay $800 million about defamation for saying that it was rigged or if it's not. And there was no evidence whatsoever.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And they had to just acknowledge that this was the honest thing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Yeah, that was a system that mostly – and often it was red states that were using those.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Again, there's always going to be people that are going to try to have an influence on that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
I'm not accusing. I've never accused the Republicans. Like, well, in 2016. No, I'm not saying he did.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Yeah, well, I mean, I think we can all agree that we need to have a just like our border. We need a secure border and we need an absolutely secure voting voting system as well, too. I mean, that should never be considered controversial. Right. And in 2016. a lot of Democrats were outraged that we lost.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
But I never claimed that there was, you know, the Republicans cheated or do all those kinds of things. And it's like, you know, the problem, the problem for accusing that there was voter fraud is that if you don't like the outcomes, Right. You know, so and I have never witnessed an election if they've won that they claimed, well, there might be, you know, we might have cheated.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Yeah, no, we're not cheating. So that's right. So I think that's that's kind of that's I think that's kind of the underlying truth about that. And of course. You know, I think I was the first Democrat saying, hey, though, we need a secure border. We know it's a significant issue.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And if I thought there was any kinds of issues and I've been very vigilant throughout, I've been actively involved in those kinds of things. And I've never witnessed those kinds of a thing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Well, there's not that level of kinds. I don't think there's that level of kinds of organization.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Well, you know, immigration is always going to be a tough issue in our nation. You know, I had as a professor in grad school, Alan Simpson, Alan Simpson. And he was he was a United States senator. He was Wyoming. And he was he was he was actually a pro-choice Republican. I mean, how rare that would be. Well, it doesn't exist now.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And he said, you are never going to have any meaningful immigration kinds of He's like, because both side, that's useful for them. And it's going to be back and forth, back and forth. And he said that 25 years ago.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
It's useful for one side or the other. It's useful. He said they were never going to be. And he said that in 1999. And I was I voted for for the border deal. And that and that went down. And and that's I mean, he said that 25 years ago. And that was absolutely true now that that that they had an opportunity to do a comprehensive border bipartisan.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And that went down because Trump, he declared that that that's that's a bad deal after it was negotiated with with the other side.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Well, I'm not I'm not really sure if that's that's what's what's in play. I think it's really like it's important that we have to have an honest conversation.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Undeniably, immigration is changing our nation. I mean, I haven't spent a lot of time in Texas, but it's very clear that immigration has remade Texas. And I think it's generally it's for a good thing. And like my wife, my wife's Brazilian. And her family was undocumented. And she was seven years old when she was brought here. And I'm the big pro-pro-immigration guy that there was.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
You know, maybe a year, a year kind of thing. And I'm like, and I'm like, and this is all while you were running for Senate. Yeah, yeah. This was three days before the primary. Oh, my God. Yeah, I was on my way to an event. And my wife, Giselle, she's like, you're having a stroke because they had that classic kinds of where, you know, half of my face.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
But it also has to be true that we need a secure border. And we have to work this out because we are pretending that you have millions and millions of people living in the shadow. And they are here. And we have to work together and figure out a way to get forward because they're here. And it seems incredibly a difficult kind of logistics thing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And I think it's also un-American to round everybody up and who the vast majority of them are just living legal lives and doing a lot of the jobs that other people here would never do. I think we can agree on that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Well, I'm not aware. I mean, minimum wage really, I think it's most incredibly difficult and violent kind of jobs. Like, you know, like, and that's like, that's, you know, meat. Jobs that a lot of people don't want to work. A lot of those, those are kind of really rough.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Yeah. And it's like it's again and like the the Haitians, the Haitians, you know, that they're referencing in Ohio and Springfield. I mean, they're not eating dogs. They're not eating pets and those kinds of things. Now, it's reasonable. I mean, I've said the same thing that we have to have a secure border, but it didn't even apply to that situation. That was all a legal situation.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
That was enmity, amnesty, excuse me. And that's because Haiti was – it was a terrible situation. Terrible situation. And to me, they were doing those jobs. And Republicans, even the Republican governor was saying like these are good workers and this is not the problem. They aren't eating geese. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And it's just like you can be very pro pro border like I am, or you can be very strict on immigration, but you don't have to demonize or try to turn a group of people in that they're eating your dog.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
According to the president, Mario Boatlift, you know, the whole right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Yeah. And that's why we need a secure border. And there's also in it that all of this is about a truth is that America is a beacon for to the world. Millions of people. The demand to become a citizen here or to participate in our amazing society, the demand outstrips the space. And we're already the very pro-immigration.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
We allow more kinds of a path, more than any other nations in the world on that. And people are willing to die and they put themselves at risk just to kind of get here, to be able to live here. So America isn't the problem. America is... America is one of the great hopes in the world. And that's why so many people want to come be a part of that. And that's why it has to have an effective border.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
I didn't know that, but it kind of just, you know, just... Yeah. And and and then they hotline me over to the hospital and I wouldn't I wouldn't have survived if we were in a different. I mean, there's parts of Pennsylvania and that's it. That's part of the tragic that if I wasn't close to the kinds of hospital that I was, it's 100 percent that I wouldn't have survived that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And it's like if we had a real issue here and we wanted to address that. And that's why my former professor said that you're never going to have the kind of a deal because it is useful for both sides to weaponize that and to demonize one side or turn the other thing in there because it's a serious, important issue. It's a political talking point that they're always going to use.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
That's what you're saying. Yeah. It's useful. I mean it's weaponized. And that's why you have to have an honest conversation. Right. I think I've always – I was reaching out saying that was referred to HR1 and that was like kind of like the dream kind of immigration law coming out of the house.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And I was like, hey, if that border deal goes down, then it's like, hey, we should continue to have that conversation. Right. It's like they're parts of – They're parts.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Yeah, we have to figure out what's the way to do all that. Well, that's kind of crazy, though, isn't it? But the fact is we have an issue. We have millions of people here, and the vast majority of them are living legal kinds of lives.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Again, having that I would have the same conversation to the Congress and to American people like I'm having right now as well, too. Like, you know, I think it's two things can be true at the same time. You can be very pro immigration. I wouldn't have the beautiful family that I have if it wasn't for, you know, challenges and issues with immigration.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
But then we have to figure out a way that we can marry, a successful way that we can combine. I think – personally, I do think immigration is really one of our secret weapons. I think that's what makes America so strong. I agree with you. Yeah, I do. That's made it –
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Do you see people trying to live illegally in India or Russia? You don't see people trying to make it into nations like that. I mean, in some sense, it's in a weird way. It's a significant but a good problem to have because we're such an amazing nation. Yes. Agreed. Yeah. But if I'm if I'm President Fetterman, I'm like, hey, we got to figure this out. We got to figure this out.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
I'm not going to demonize. I'm not going to demonize the Republicans and say that you're a xenophobic. I mean, the second you start calling somebody, oh, you're a xenophobic. You're it's like, well, then the conversation is going to shut down. Right. Right. And I'm saying I have.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
It's like a serious conversation requires serious people and the second – and that's when you talk about unlimited money and it's like suddenly you're like – I mean I had gigantic billboards saying Fetterman equals open borders and Fetterman – it's just like I get turned into – A Marxist. Yeah. Yeah. Just that's all these kinds of things. And it's just like and of course, that was never true.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And it got me there in enough time and they were able to, there was an expert there. And I actually had, I met that doctor that literally saved my life. And I'm like, oh my God. And he usually wasn't based in that hospital. He was usually out of Delaware, but he happened to be there. And he was here to give me an award for being that kind of an advocate for those things. I'm like, no, the
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And then when I had the opportunity, because, you know, as I'm a senator and we have that kinds of legislation in front of me, I'm like, yes, we need to have a serious ones. And now people are like, we're shocked. They're like, oh, wait a minute. I thought they told us that he was all like border and open up. and whatever.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
But it's rare for politicians. I'm eager to talk to anyone. And it's like, I mean, I was thrilled to be here. And I've been a long time
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
fan of yours and thank you and it's like these are the kinds of um you know like we parts of times we become too fragile you know like oh they're not allowed to talk about those things you're not allowed to have these kinds of conversation i never understood why that uh that that's that's really a problem but
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Oh, OK. Yeah, no. Well, I know it might it seems strange, but it's like I mean, I'm a I'm a I'm a bigger guy. And I don't really can't afford custom anyway. And I hate, I'm claustrophobic and I hate them being in that kind of shit. And I've always dressed like shit. And I know, and then that whole thing kind of got away. of Huss, people assumed that there was a dress code issue there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
But it's like when people discover, it's like, well, hey, he seems to be kind of reasonable or me. I disagree with some things, but he's not what $100 million, you know, trained me to think that that's what's true. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Yeah. For me, I would have started with the HR2. And there are elements that are just not palatable. There are members of my colleagues that they come from more deep blue states. And it's not palatable to some people. How do you secure the border? How would that be done? Well, I mean, it's it's it just it's got to have it, you know, the best border deal is is the is the only one that can pass.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And and, you know, to, you know, H.R. to H.R. to was described as like kind of like, you know, I joke I call that the the only fans list of what Republicans went for for immigration. The OnlyFans wishlist. They're kind of like, this is what we all want. It's like the OnlyFans, this is what we want. How is it like OnlyFans? What do you mean by that? That was never going to pass.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
That was never going to pass. That was like what every Republicans on the House, you know, the hard liners, that's what it was. And they passed it because in this cycle, the Republicans have the majority in the House. And now they put that up. And that's never going to pass in the Senate because we have control. And then that kind of got...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And then when everything kind of came together and that was the aid deal that was for Ukraine, for Israel and for China. A lot of other stuff in there. And then the Republicans tied the border to passing that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Well, I thought it was reasonable. I thought it was reasonable to have that conversation. I'm like, yeah, let's have that conversation. I mean, because for me, it was about security. And for that aid, that aid bill, that was for me. And I think that was that was our global war on democracy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
You know, whether it's Ukraine or whether it's in Israel and China and clearly what their intent for China is on Taiwan and all that's coming. And that's really what's under assault. It's undeniable that democracy is under under attack. And that's why I'm like, hey, we got to stand and we got to push back against that. And now now and like, hey. And we need to have a secure border.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
So let's put everything together. And we reached that. We actually reached that. And it took months. It literally took months.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
You deserve the award on that. That's incredibly lucky. Yeah. And then I asked, really looking for like a countdown of like, well, what's the prognosis? And I really, there wasn't much there on that. And I had to like, was I going to survive for long or what's that going to look? And then, of course, the entire majority on the Senate really was on the middle of that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
It's only going to have to be a negotiating way that's palatable to both sides.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Well, again, I think eventually if you are living your best lives and you're following the law and you're you know, and you really just showed up because, hey, I have no path for for for a life that I would want for my kids. You know, it's like and that's to me, that's very American. And remember what's in this.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
in the what's inside the the statue of liberty it's like send us you know our our tired huddled masses too they it wasn't just hey send in the phds and the right you know and those kinds of things i mean that's what really made our nation and you know the steel industry the steel industry you know in my part of the state that came from it was european it was all kinds of immigrants they all came in they couldn't build the houses fast enough and that was all
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
foreign labor. And a lot of them were sacrificed because it was an incredibly dangerous business in the steel industry. And that built our nation and that became part of our society. And that's really every kinds of wave in that. And to me, America has to be open and a path for anyone that's playing by the rules because the group that you're from or that you're part of
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
You all started the same kind of a process. It's inevitable. That's the enduring truth. And that's what made America special and that made us strong.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Yeah. Well, again, because it's like that becomes like a third rail. We can't talk about this.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
It's like I would want to make sure that we first we have to acknowledge the truth. It's like immigration has been an issue because America is an amazing country and they're coming from broken countries where they've all recognized that there's not a meaningful path for them to have a quality of life. And they're willing to risk their lives. And sometimes they even drown.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And it's like I can't imagine turning back. Turning could you imagine turning your children over to a coyote and, you know, they're going to, you know, go like like if you're trying to leave. Imagine I like, hey, in Pennsylvania, it's like walking to North Carolina with your kids on your back. I mean, it's like these are desperate kinds of situations. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And acknowledging where that's at. And it needs to have a path. Otherwise, you're going to have to round up. And that's not realistic. And there's not the resources. And that's going to be incredibly disruptive. And it's going to be damaging economically as well, too. So how do you provide a pathway while also security? In my respect.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Well, to me, I think we can, you know, chew gum and walk at the same time on this. And it's not going to be perfect. It's going to be messy and it's not going to be. Right. But what would that look like? Whether there's actually a barrier or, you know, hiring, you know, thousands and thousands of more agents and whatever that it takes on that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And it's like the best border deal in that situation is the best one that can be that can pass. Because otherwise, like, boy, if I could wake up with a perfect head of hair or I could – it's like – but it's like practicing the possible. And we were as close as we've ever gained in years and years. And that never came into –
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Yeah, and we have to weed them out. And we have to deport them. Absolutely.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And that's a big responsibility after that. And then so the primary, it happened. And I actually had a really strong win. And I won all of 67 counties. Pennsylvania has 67 counties. And we carried every county, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and all across Pennsylvania. But at that point, I had a responsibility. It's like, am I able to recover? Am I going to be OK?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Well, again, that's just like taking taking some kind of an inventory of like who's actually here on this. And we have to figure out who's actually here on those kinds of a thing. And and there are going to be, you know, statistically, that's a fact that out of X million people, for example, you know, it's it's a fact that statistically that some that thinks terrible things are going to be.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
perpetrated by those things. And, you know, statistically, in some sense, that Native Americans, you know, like not the American citizens, you know, and the criminality, if anything, the criminality is slightly higher, you know, in immigration communities as well. And some of the most pro-pro-American kinds of views, that's projected in those kinds of communities.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
I mean, just like the community that brought my wife and their family to this country. And that's kind of where we're at. And I think what we're seeing now in this cycle, there are more and more Latinos that are changing their views on some of those. They're like, hey, we do need... We do need a secure border on that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
It's not necessarily assumed that because you are a member of a demographic that it has to – it's not necessarily consistent that it's going to be strong blue kinds of – But we all want safety, right?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Of course. And a secure border with more and more resources put on that. And that makes it's but it's impossible to make sure that, of course, you're going to have members of the immigration community that are going to commit kinds of terrible kinds of crimes. And you're going to see and those are going to be talked about in the popular media as well. It's undeniable that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And I mean, they're incredibly tragic. And it's a fact. And that's actually the truth of the American story. Immigration made our nation.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And there were hard truths and we have a hard truth right now and we need to have a secure border and we have to find a way to celebrate our immigrations and the kinds of what immigrations and the contributions that they made to this nation and also to weed out or to minimize the kinds of negative kinds of things and those kinds of resources because we can't possibly support
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
an unchecked kinds of a situation that we had. And I described that if you had 300,000 people showing up at the border, well, that's the side of Pittsburgh, you know, in a month, like where are they going to go? You know, how are we going to give them an American dream already? Cause they're all going to need to certain kinds of resources.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And that should never be controversial to say it's like we can't – that's not sustainable. And it's like if we want for every immigrant their American dream, it's impossible if it's unchecked like that. And it shouldn't be controversial to anyone politically.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Well, I think it's undeniable, too. And, you know, I'm certainly not going to discount some of the experience of some people that have been hit by eggs or other things or, you know, inflation. But right now, our economy right now, it's really it's the world's envy throughout all those things.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
By any metric, it's our unemployment, the stock market, and, you know, the hundreds of thousands of new jobs that are being created throughout all those things. And our inflation now has been kind of eased back into check. But it's undeniable that there was an incredible growth. inflation that hit certain kinds of families hard through those things.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And I think that the next kinds of wave, whether it's AI or those other kinds of innovations, whether that it's green energy or those kinds of a thing, that's going to continue to juice our economy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
That is a challenge. On my walk here, well, I didn't walk here, but I saw a Waymo. A Waymo drove by me and I'm like, wait a minute, there's no one in there. No one in there. There was no one in that car. Did you see the traffic jam? Yeah, that's the first time I've ever seen... a car and had literally no human was in that vehicle. And I was like, wow.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Yeah. Like a lot of that came from Pittsburgh, too. And you would see those kinds of cars, but it always had a human in there. But that was the first time I saw like a robot car driving around in Austin. And yes, that creates there's a lot of dislocation that's possible.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And I wouldn't recommend being in that in that situation. But I made a commitment more than anything. I was more worried about being being around to be a dad. I mean, I have three I have three young kids and my wife, you know, she lived through all of this. So at that at that point, it started. I was in the hospital for about 10 days. And I start to get better and better.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Yeah, well, I mean, universal guaranteed income, I'm not sure. I don't know, because you're going to have to have a lot of resources to provide a lot of that. And that creates all kinds of other issues and dynamic. But I'm not afraid of technology. But it's also acknowledging that there are going to be kinds of changes in those things.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And I'm a big believer in technology takes us into a more productive kinds of economy. And they're going to help solve some of the challenges that we have in our society for those kinds of things. But I think we have to find the perfect balance that we don't stifle innovation. But we also have to remember that there are going to be people that might be left behind or they're going to struggle.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
I mean, hey, I was mayor for 13 days and I live in a community that was left behind by some of those things. And now the steel workers, the steel workers. I live across the street from the steel mill. And then it was announced that Nippon was buying U.S. steel. And basically all those steel workers, they were done.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
You know, they used euphemisms saying, well, we're going to honor current labor deals. But that's a euphemism saying as soon as that's up, you're done. Right. And then that's going to be, you know. And if you think it's going to be easy for those men and women to pull down six figures or those kinds of an income, it's like how insensitive to say, well, hey, learn coding or whatever.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Yeah, exactly. That's how quickly things change. It's basically kind of like a fuck you, like good luck kind of thing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Yeah, well, but they never even told us that they were going to sell that. And then a staffer sent me a picture on CNN saying that they're selling UST. I'm like, fuck that. And so I just went up on my roof and I had a video saying, hey, I promise I'm going to do anything I can to jam that up. And it's like, that's what we did. And we worked with the White House.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And then suddenly all of that got jammed up. And suddenly, I'm so surprised, wink on wink, but Nippon found... extra billions of dollars to make the kinds of upgrades to secure a future for those facilities in the Mon Valley. And to me, it's about following the union way of life. You know, to me, steel is national security. And to me,
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
If you turn your back on the working union families, I mean, it's like those are really hard to replace those things. And so for me, two things are true at the same time. You know, our economy has evolved. But when we have an opportunity to stand for the union way of life and we can't ever just – outsource our steel industry like that. I refuse to do that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And that's why we're in that situation right now, that it's like, hey, it's like that's what's true about some of these industries.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
The strength started to come back a little bit, but it was still rough. And it was very, very clear, though, that I had a capacity to It's been impaired on hearing and those kinds of interaction and those things. But that's the thing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
I agree. And that's why Congress came together and President Biden led the whole chips legislation. And it's like we've got to make shit in America. And it's like, of course, the future is in those kinds of industries and those things. So we have to protect the American economy for that thing. And that's why that's a bipartisan kinds of a push for that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And COVID, that relieved a lot of vulnerabilities. It's like where a lot of these things come from. But going forward on that, it's like we can never just surrender that American manufacturing. We can't assume and we can't allow that to turn completely outsourced.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Yeah, well, I mean, let's also talk about rare earth stuff. The Chinese have strategically just snapped up that market. I mean, that's really – that's a significant security issue. We're going to have to – We're going to have to address that. And thankfully, we have identified some large deposits. I think it was Nevada.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
But rare earth kinds of minerals, I mean, that's a serious security issue because the new economy and a lot of the new technology is going to depend on those kinds of incredibly – I think a lot of kinds of minerals that some people have never even heard in their life have no idea what that even – why that's important. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
But I had to decide by August 15th, and that's my birthday, ironically, that if I step down by then or before, then they're going to have to find somebody to replace me on the primary. And that was going to be my dropout day on that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
That's what's also true is especially what happened after after Russia invaded. And it was very clear that Europe had have Russians kind of by the short hairs that a lot of their Europe was they were dependent on some of the Russian gas. That's a fact, too. And, you know, it's also it's also what's true is that fossil fuels are part of our energy stack. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Our energy has to evolve, whether that's hydrogen or nuclear. Now, even nuclear, that conversation is reemerging. I grew up in South Pennsylvania. Maybe you've heard of Three Island. Sure, Three Mile Island. I had to evacuate when that happened. Did you really? Yeah, I had to evacuate. Wow. Because they could have turned – we could have never returned there. I mean, that was really tense.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Now they're reopening that because Microsoft is going to buy the electricity because now that's going to be nuclear to run the data centers and those things. It's an important conversation. So if you are committed, and I think it's, you know, I do believe that you really have to make sure that nuclear is part of that conversation, too, because, you know, zero kinds of emissions.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And that's dependable kinds of energy that doesn't depend on the wind or the sun. But ironically, some people pretend that you have to have a conversation. But for the foreseeable future, fossil fuels are part of our stack. And for me, energy security is very important. You know, national security.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
I mean, like if we can't if we can't power our economy, then it's going to it's a significant risk for our economy and our American way. And and now we I think we're a net exporter of energy there. So I think that's a good thing. I think that's a great way to be. And it's being honest about that and the path forward.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And I think everything has to be on the table because we have to have a portfolio that produces the kinds of energy that we're going to need to power our economy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
How did they do it? How did they remove the clot? Well, it's – I mean I had to originally – I had to go back to – I have to learn how to talk and speak. I went to a speech therapist and have interaction and those kinds of things. And my hearing and those kinds of things were still impacted by that. And they had to monitor my heart because it was – it effectively stopped.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Well, of course. I mean, I'm a free speech kind of person. And I think social media, it's kind of difficult to control. There's a difference between misinformation or just outright lying, or it's an agenda of a foreign nation that's trying to sow all these kinds of sentiments and those kinds of things. And
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And it's kind of difficult to police all those things, and it's an ongoing kind of a situation. But I'm always going to try to err on the side of free speech. And then there's incredibly more and more kinds of platforms, just like one I'm on right now, talking about these kinds of things.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And I'm not clutching my pearls if there's having conversations that I may or may not agree or disagree on what's being talked about those things. But I think people are also there's also a level of responsibility to be to discern what you're hearing. It's like I think that's true or I think that's trash or it's like those kinds of thing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And just because always asking myself and what I'm read, is that just true or is there a perspective? Where is it coming from? Who's behind those kinds of a thing? So, I mean, it's a difficult kind of what's the appropriate kind of balance, but it's absolutely, it's also a fact that there are bad actors behind some of those kinds of conversations or some of those kinds of conversations.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
misinformation as well too and absolutely incitement incitement is not free speech you know and encouraging people uh for for um violence or those kinds of a thing i uh i mean it's it's it's it's dangerous yeah
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Yeah. Well, but the other thing that had a significant impact was in 2020, I forget his name, but he had to investigate, you know, Clinton's about the call me. Yeah. Like, you know, two weeks out. That was like the ultimate October surprise. Right. And that undeniable that had a significant impact.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
It absolutely it absolutely did as well, too. So, I mean, that's why there's both sides and they have agendas to suppress some kinds of a thing or to bring something to the front. And it's undeniable that it can have an impact on that as well, too. I never went down either of those rabbit holes, whether it was the Clinton emails or if it was the Hunter Biden's kind of laptop.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
But it hasn't really changed overall the dynamic that in our cycles, the last three cycles, it's really – it's about – For me, it's about a referendum on what we want, a vision for America. Is it a Trump kinds of a vision or do we have an alternative? And I've always been very clear it's going to be incredibly close and it's going to be incredibly at times very divisive.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And here we are now, and it's still back to a coin toss. And I've always predicted that it would be even back to 2016 because we're really going to have a lot settled out before this election. It's going to take America in a very two stark and distinctive kinds of directions.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Well, hey, I flagged when Musk got involved. I flagged that. Anyone can look online. I can say that. It's like, well, you know, endorsements and surrogacy doesn't really amount for much. It doesn't count for much and sometimes. But, I mean, that was a significant thing. and he's getting involved, and he's showing up at those kinds of events.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
I mean, in some sense, I've said this publicly, that he's even a bigger kinds of star than Trump can be. And for some people in Pennsylvania, like that's Tony Stark. He's involved in undeniably kinds of important things like SpaceX, or he was one of the original charter, he was on the charter of Open IA. He was involved in that, too. So, I mean, that's significant.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And I don't agree with some of his views on politics, but it's undeniable that he can move the needle in some sense of convince some people that it's like, hey, if he says that he's the right choice for president, that's going to resonate in some circles in Pennsylvania. And I've warned that. And acknowledging it, it's just like that. That's it's just like, hey, I know people and they admire him.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And you may not agree with his politics, but you really it's impossible to ignore that he is going to have a level of of impact on that. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
I found out after the fact that it actually stopped. and then my heart had to recover, so there was two kinds of things working there, you know, my heart. And then right before the primary, they walked in and they said, well, here, here's what I suggest. Here's what I suggest. Now, we are going to put a pacemaker. We're going to put in a pacemaker.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And of course, I'm open to any kinds of ideas and all those kinds of a thing on all of that. One side doesn't have a monopoly on good ideas or important kinds of issues that are matter to them. So and it's like. The choices and the kinds of things and how he's chosen to participate, especially and very personally in Pennsylvania. I'm like, hey, here's where we are. That's part of the dynamic here.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
You know, calling it out and acknowledging that I'm not moving against that. I'm not criticizing whatever. It's just like, hey, it's happening. So and that I think that's part of why things continue to get tighter. And that that's that's kind of here we where we are.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
I agree. Go to McDonald's in the U.K. The French fries has three ingredients, potatoes, salt, and I think maybe oil. And look at what's in America's side on that. It's much different. I support that. But if anything, more of – and I know your city that we're in now, Austin, has an amazing food kind of scene.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And again, if anything, more of the crunchy, more liberal side, we're on part of the whole organic kinds of a thing and more impurity and things. I don't think that's an issue. And honestly, I don't think that that's going to be the kind of mantle that somebody like RFK Jr. – that's not his –
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
So I think having a more pure and safe and abundant kinds of food in our country, I absolutely support that. And, you know, I'm selective what I feed my children. I mean, when we were, you know, when I was a kid, it was like Velveeta, you know, like, hey, now we have real cheese.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Or did you ever have like Ecto Cooler, like that green, like antifreeze kind of color of high C and some of the kinds of foods that we had when I was a kid. That would be unthinkable kinds of now. And I think I think the quality of our food and and kinds of more impure. I think that's that's been an ongoing conversation. And organic can't become elitist. It can't be it can't be too expensive.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And I fully support making it more and more. more pure and more safe on that. And more available. I would celebrate if I could buy the same french fries that you get in the UK. You don't need more than three ingredients.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And and we're like, hey, that's that's the best thing. So they put that device right here. And for anyone, if you're not really what that is, a pacemaker. But that that that manages your heart, you know, because I had a significant issue with AFib. And that's really what what did that to my heart. And they put that in. And then that was that was that was right before the primary.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Well, you know, a lot of the grass-fed beef in our nation are coming from Australia. Which is crazy. Yeah, that's a fact. And I'm very pro-pro-American rancher.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Yeah, I mean, grass-fed beef. I mean, I think that's very, in some sense, I mean, that absolutely supports better health. I mean, I followed, before you even appeared on your podcast, Sean Baker. Yeah. You know, like a carnivore. And, you know, even those kinds of insights helped me personally and allowed me to kind of drop some weight through all those things.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And, you know, it's like that's an important conversation, too. But Democrats, some people think that we're declared a war on hamburgers and beef. But we're definitely going to lose that. They're going to lose that if that really becomes part of that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
I said it pains me to agree with DeSantis because they passed the ban in that in Florida. It pains me to agree with him. But it's like – I mean I would never feed that slop to my kids. When you can buy quality American grass-fed American beef, like I mean that's what I purchased. I used that at Costco. I buy the three pack of it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And and and I my my oldest son, he knows how to to prepare like his own ribeye. And and he's, you know, makes that a part of like a I think it's like a healthy kinds of a diet. Yeah, for sure.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Oh, before you wrap up, well, I think we have a situation, whether it's the situation on Israel or there's a lot happening about the election right now. But it's really a strange place in our nation right now. But I promise you it's going to be, depending on whenever people hear this conversation, our world's going to be about to change or maybe has changed.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And so I just hope, though, I just hope, though, that we're going to be able to respond in a way for an order kinds of transfer of power. And we are going to be heading into a more peaceful and a more productive and collaborative kind of direction throughout that. But we're in an incredibly divisible place right now.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And I just want to be part of a conversation to make sure that we can be more constructive. But it's right now we're kind of it's a difficult place right now. And we're coming down to a coin toss election.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Hey, well, hey, thank you for having me. As a fan, it's great to kind of visit, and so thanks for having me.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Not with clotting, not with clotting. You know, I have, for good things and for bad things, my heart was just like my father's. You know, and he had an issue with AFib, and he was in the hospital. So it's a genetic. Yeah, a genetic issue. And but I didn't. It was never an idea. It was never an idea that I was going to even having a stroke. That wasn't part of the at least my thinking.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
I knew that I was in distress. You know, I could tell that my heart was was broken. was in problem. And I was just going to get through this primary. I mean, there's a lot running on that. And then it didn't work out because the stroke hit three days before. And then that forced me. And that put me on an incredibly different kind of a path after that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
They went up in your vein, in your leg. And they went up in. And it's a remarkable technology. Through your leg? Yeah. All the way up to your brain. And they just sucked it out. Wow. And they actually had an x-ray or whatever. And you could see, like, hey, we got it out. And I actually got to see, although I really was still kind of out of it. But that was the clot that all but took my life.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And I'm like, no, I wasn't behind that, behind that. But of course, everybody pointed at the dude that dresses like a slob. And then the whole nation just had like a meltdown, like, oh my God, the Senate's on fire because I dress like a slob. But my life is just much better in DC that unless that I'm going to be on the floor, that I'm not going to be, you're never going to see me in a suit.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
And so... I mean, there were a lot of things there. You know, suddenly your mortality was kind of like put right there in front of it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Yeah, well, it's, I mean, I had, for the first time in my life, and I hope it's the last time that I'm confronted by this idea that the doctors weren't able to provide any kinds of certainty or it's like, oh, yeah, man, you're going to be OK or things are going to be OK. That wasn't. So they don't know what caused it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Well, I mean, it was a fib and and and my heart weakened and the stress of the of the primary and on the ongoing kinds of issues. It was already weakened about that issue earlier. And everything kind of came together, and I guess my heart deteriorated to the point where that caused the clot. And then the clot, that's what nearly took my life.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2222 - John Fetterman
Yeah. It's... I think... I had a significant responsibility to stay in that and winning through all of those things. And that was difficult enough. It was an important conversation. And we had to run a campaign. We had to run a campaign. When I was – it was difficult and I wasn't working at the kind of capacity that was necessary.