Name: Joe Rogan Experience #1668 - Krystal & Saagar
Uploaded: 2021-06-16T00:00:00.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #1668 - Krystal & Saagar' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-06-16. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #1668 - Krystal & Saagar' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-06-16. Transcript available.

Joe Rogan Experience #1668 - Krystal & Saagar

Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out.
The Joe Rogan Experience.
Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.
We're rolling.
So, guys have a new show.
Hey, Joe, what's up?
I just want to say, I told you, I knew it was going to work.
Yeah.
Never would have happened without you.
I knew it was going to work.
I was like, why are you trapped?
I mean, it really is actually true.
We've been thinking about going independent for a while because it's just more
consistent with our values.
The Hill takes money from all kinds of people that are very contrary to the
things that we've been talking about.
But, you know, it's scary to, I got kids, I got, you know, bills, health
insurance, all this stuff.
And so I think especially during COVID when we couldn't actually directly
interact with the audience in person, it's hard to know how real it is.
So when we talk to you and we're like, oh, we're thinking about it.
We're kind of nervous and you were, you weren't just like, maybe, you were like,
yes, do this.
It actually really did help us to make the move.
So thank you.
No question.
Terrible person to take advice like that from because I'm always like, jump.
Yeah.
Fucking jump.
Well, in this case, it was the right call.
So broken block or whatever.
It's really scary.
And it's one of those things where we were telling you this before, where you're
like, you don't know if you're like, am I going to miss this?
You have these guys, you have the support.
Like, I don't have to deal with all this like administrative stuff and like set
design and upload.
But honestly, we love it so much.
Like, we wrapped, I think, our second show so we could finally get it.
And I texted her.
I was like, this is amazing.
Like, we're free.
Yeah.
We do it the way that we want.
We produce it the way that we want.
And just having all the like big stuff out of your mind in terms of like the
pressures of corporate media, because to be clear, like the Hill never like
directly censored us.
Right.
But and you've talked about this.
It's about these outside interests.
Like there's interests that their company has that have nothing to do with us,
but could impact their interests based upon what I say.
And I've told this story publicly now about what happened.
But like we were doing a segment, this basic segment.
I want to be very charitable.
And once again, to be clear, the Hill never said anything.
They said, don't say this or whatever.
But we're talking about the seniority system for Democrats in Congress.
And I was like, this creates really perverse incentives because you have all
these really old people who run Congress, like Maxine Waters, who's like 80
years old.
Here's all I said.
Maxine Waters will be chairwoman of the Financial Services Committee till the
day she dies.
That's it.
So I later find out her fucking press secretary called someone at the Hill and
said, Sagar is issuing a death threat against Maxine Waters.
And what do I want to say?
I want to say, go fuck yourself.
I'd be like, literally put me on the phone with them.
Go fuck yourself.
But here's the problem.
And once again, the Hill didn't say anything.
But I have to know this in the back of my mind.
Hill reporters have to go and talk to Maxine Waters.
That's literally part of their job.
Like, she's chairman of the Financial Services Committee.
She has a lot of access.
One of the most powerful people in Washington.
She does other shit with the Hill.
And so in the back of my mind, I'm like, can I say whatever the fuck I want
about Maxine Waters?
I mean, they didn't tell me to say it.
But even if it's the back of my mind, like, I would be lying if I wasn't saying
that that wasn't with me a little bit.
Right?
Like, you're always thinking.
You're like, man.
You're a human being.
They're not going to fuck with me.
They're going to try and fuck with your boss.
But they're putting it out there in the air, though.
So they're making you think about it.
Yeah, that's the whole purpose of it.
That's exactly right.
And there were things, too, like, I didn't even want, because the whole ethos
of our show is we're independent-minded, right?
We're not carrying water for anyone.
We have our views.
We're very upfront about those views.
But we're not doing partisan cheerleading here.
We're not carrying water for any corporation or entity or anything like that.
And so even the appearance of the Hill's a corporate entity, and they're taking
money from these various places, that's their right to do.
Even the appearance that that would affect our coverage really, really bothered
me.
And so I'll give you a perfect example.
I don't know if you – do you know about this case of Stephen Donziger?
It's a crazy thing.
He's a lawyer.
He's a lawyer who won a massive lawsuit against Chevron for the horrific things
that they did in Ecuador and basically, like, destroyed the whole area.
And he wins a $9 billion, I think it was, suit against them, largest in history.
They hit him.
They're trying to fight back against him.
They hit him with a contempt of court charge, which is a misdemeanor, which is
nothing.
He's been under house arrest for now two years.
Completely unprecedented.
Show trial.
It's an insane situation.
And we were working on getting him booked to talk about this.
And meanwhile, I'm seeing tweets that are saying, Crystal and Sagar aren't
covering this because the Hill's taking money from the American Petroleum
Institute.
Now, that wasn't true at all.
Yeah, we booked it.
We booked it.
We talked to him.
We talked to other people about the case.
We covered the case.
But I hated that that was even a legitimate, by the way, question in people's
minds.
So it was things like that.
And I have to say, like Sagar, I was worried there would be things that I
really missed about having the corporate structure, like just that support
system around.
We feel so free.
Doing the show is just an absolute pleasure.
We feel unencumbered.
It's actually even more of a relief in the audience that showed up for us, even
more than we ever could have expected.
It was amazing.
I mean, I got, you know, Maxine, you can't control me now.
You got nothing on me.
The thing is, like, what they did by saying that you issued a death threat
against them is literally that is everything that's wrong with politics and
everything that's right about your show is that you guys are just present and
honest.
And you see things and you talk about those things without biases.
And you have perspectives, but you don't have biases.
And the problem with these people is it's all bullshit.
And so, like, by saying that, they know you didn't really issue a death threat.
Of course.
He knows.
He knows.
He knew when he opened his mouth.
Everyone knows.
The crazy thing is.
But they're playing a game.
This happened twice.
So this happened to another time.
So I was doing a lot of reporting around TikTok.
And I was noticing all of these former Republican lawmaker lobbyists are
working now for TikTok because I heard they were paying top dollar rates.
So I do some investigation.
This is basic Google.
I went on Google and I was looking at who TikTok has been hiring.
And one of them, I'm not kidding you, is the former head or a part of the
Department of Homeland Security Cybersecurity Division, who is now working for
TikTok, the Chinese government, okay, for a Chinese-controlled app.
All right.
So I put that on the show.
I did a whole monologue about all these people who work in Washington.
You know, I was like, you want to see the revolving door?
This is it.
These people are complete, like, murder for hires.
They're mercenaries.
They're mercenaries.
They don't give a shit about you.
They don't give a shit about America.
Any of this stuff.
The former cybersecurity lady is now working for TikTok.
All right.
And it's public.
And so I put it on the show.
What do you think happens?
TikTok calls somebody over at the Hill and says, Sagar is threatening the lives
of the people at TikTok.
And I'm like, yeah, once again, fuck you.
Sagar's a very dangerous man over here.
Yeah, I'm a dangerous man.
I'm issuing dangerous left and right.
You're very brave for inviting him in here today, Joe.
Thank you.
Thank you, Joe.
I know you're MMA trained.
I'm issuing no weapons.
Yeah, I'm issuing death threats, like, left and right.
But, again, now once I have to think about this, I'm like, this is crazy.
And here's the other problem.
The Hill was taking ad dollars at the time from Huawei.
So Huawei, which is a Chinese telecom company.
And I was thinking in the back of my mind, man, if TikTok was real smart, they'd
buy some advertising at the Hill.
Because then I'd really have to be like, no shit.
Why was the Hill taking money from what?
Was this after the ban?
I don't know.
Once again, they can do whatever they want.
But that is a weird one, right?
It's not on us.
It's not a weird one?
Everyone takes money from Huawei.
WAPO, New York Times, all of them.
Everybody takes money from whoever they can.
I mean, the media business, in some ways, it was really brought back from the
dead by Trump.
Because he increased traffic so much and subscriber numbers so much for the New
York Times and Washington.
I mean, that's the irony of his whole attack on the media was the best thing
that ever happened to the media.
But the overall model is in free fall.
And people are revolting.
I mean, that's really what, with the success of your show, with, you know, what
has happened with Breaking Points, our new show that has been totally wild, is
people don't want this spoon-fed narrative.
They don't want to have to think about, like, why is this paper covering these
politicians in this incredibly fluffy way?
Because they're more interested in maintaining their access and maintaining
their social status within that club than they are in actually getting the
facts right in a way that can be, that can require sometimes courage, that can
be uncomfortable sometimes with your social set.
And so I really do see it as kind of a watershed moment where some of the old
models are dying and people are sick and tired of having their attention monetized.
They're sick and tired of being fed whatever the, like, safe mainstream
narrative is.
And all they want is just someone who, look, may get it wrong sometimes, but is
really just trying to figure out what the truth of the matter is.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's actually a viable strategy to tell the truth now as far as, like, a
marketing strategy.
Truly.
Yeah.
Do you remember that clip of the Amy Robach and Epstein where the Disney, she
worked for, and she laid it all out there.
She didn't even know.
But this is what I'm talking about.
She was like, oh, the palace got involved.
Right.
And they started calling this.
And then Will and Kate's what?
That's it.
That's all, that little peek behind the curtain.
And it repeats itself.
Isn't it amazing that that lady, like, her doing that in front of the camera
just, like, and not knowing that they were even filming.
Exactly.
And then someone takes it and releases it.
Everybody gets a chance to see.
So what do they say not on camera?
Well, there's a few of these things that are happening, right?
Like, how about the John Cena one?
Oh, yeah.
The John Cena one was a wake-up call for America.
Because all these fucking pro wrestling fans are like, wait a minute.
He's speaking Chinese.
Like, this is real.
Yeah.
This shit is real.
Yeah.
John Cena speaking Mandarin.
He's apologizing for calling Taiwan a country.
I know.
And is he using a filter?
Because he looks slightly Asian.
Yeah.
Right?
He looks panicked.
So we later found out.
The man speaks fluent Mandarin.
Yeah.
Which kind of helps.
We figured it out.
In 2014, Vince taught him or had him take lessons to learn Mandarin so that he
could go and appeal to the Chinese market.
Yes.
What?
He's a genius.
Vince McMahon's a fucking genius.
That guy's a killer when it comes to making money.
So I get it.
Wow.
He wanted him to appeal to the Chinese market.
So he taught.
They gave him cla