The Presidential Debates Are Not Real w/Pete Dominick | Joe Rogan

I'm always amazed that you and a handful of other people can sustain a two hour conversation. I love that. Anybody can. You can do it too. I think I can, but I was never allowed to. Those rules were always like... Cut to commercial, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you had heartbreaks. I'm doing a podcast the other day and I'm like, thanks for tuning in. We're almost out of time. I'm like, you didn't tune in and we're not almost out of time. I can do whatever the hell I want. Whatever I want. I can just keep talking. We can just keep talking. Well, the worst thing is presidential debates. You're literally picking the person who's going to run the free world and you have to stop because there's a Paul Malave commercial. This Paul Malave even thing. I'm such an old man. I'm pulling out fucking Paul Malave references. I think they're usually pharmaceutical companies at this point. Pfizer. Yeah, but it's a boner pill. The irony of them talking about the pharmaceutical companies and then they advertise during the break, but you're absolutely... Yeah, it's not real. I mean, the presidential debates are so not real and all those networks, I mean, my friends produce those things and it's just like, it's a show. It's like a... Well, when you get Bernie, like when I had Bernie Sanders in here and you get to talk to him like a real human being. Yes. You go, oh, you're a human being who cares about people and you have a different perspective on what these people are saying. Your idea of democratic socialism is not this wacky socialism that people... It's not a sound bite. Yeah, and it's not this thing where people think you're just going to steal money from hardworking folks and give it to lazy people. That's the worst case... It's none of that. It's none of that. It's none of that. No, we're not going to privatize shoe stores and... He's a very thoughtful person. And I was talking to his... Because as I told you, I'm thinking very seriously now about also running for Congress. And I was talking to his, I think deputy chief of staff, a guy named Ari Ravenhoff, great guy, and I was telling him I was doing your show and he told me that after Bernie Sanders did your show, everybody was recognizing him. I'm like, really? He reached a whole different demographic talking to you than he ever had before because he's mostly on those cable news shows, he's mostly on terrestrial or radio. But when you do these... What do you even call this now? Non-traditional alternative media might as well be mainstream. But the point is, when you have a long conversation with Bernie Sanders and he's not up there, you know what we have to do? All that shit is annoying. You've heard it before. He sits down and has a real conversation with you and everybody's like, oh man, that guy's making a lot of good points. Yeah. Well, you gotta think of what is annoying to people. And one of the things that's annoying to people is that fucking rapid fire, not... Yeah, the cadence. And healthcare and Medicare and education, and people are like, hey, hey, hey, fuckface, I just got off work. Okay? Why are you yelling at him? This guy's annoying and he wants to take my money, fuck him. And you just press stop. Right. And you have to be able to change your cadence, your diction, and your commentary. And you have to be able to get questions that are more thoughtful and human. That's the thing about all these cable news interviewers and network, they always want to get some headline. And that's the other thing about corporate media too. They want you... I've been in that belly of that beast, Joe, for the last 15 years, corporate political media. And it's so manufactured. I can tell you so many stories. They call you up and they say, how do you feel about anything? We want to make sure that you're completely the opposite of the other panelists and so you have a really robust argument. And it's like, not everything is binary. Most things aren't. There's a ton of nuance, a ton of gradation. We don't have to hate each other. That's how they get ratings. That's how they sell advertising. I blame most of the problems in our country on corporate media, terrestrial radio, just doing that format all day. It works really well for conservatives, not as well for liberals, but it still works. And they sell ads and a few people make a lot of money, but the country suffers. The idea that we're so divided is such bullshit. I talk to people from all over the country, travel all over the place. I understand the issues really intimately. And I don't care what you think about anything. There's something you have to offer me. There's something you have to make my life to enrich me. I don't care what you believe on abortion or guns or certain things, because if you can teach me how to fix this engine, I'm into it. I want to learn how to do it. If you can teach me how to exercise better, but you don't like our trade policies, I don't give a shit what you think about our trade policies. Let's just not even talk about it. Let's talk about the things. And it's trying to get to the root of somebody's soul is what we should all be trying to do every day. What happened to you that made you think this way? What is the experience? What is your journey? To me, that's the fascinating shit about human beings. Well, one of the things about something like cable talk shows or new shows or any of these political arenas is that there's a lack of real interaction with the general public in terms of real conversations with people. You have a host who's wearing makeup, who's got spotlights on him, and there's a microphone in front of him, and he's talking to his other people, and his camera's pointed at them. And no one really feels like this is not a normal way of people talking. No, nobody talks like that. And rarely you see someone sit down and they like, every now and then they have those shows where it's a one-on-one, like Trump will sit across from fucking, what's his name? What's that dude's name? Which network? It's a Fox guy. Hannity? Dobbs. Dobbs, that guy. Yeah. Who's hilarious. It's funny watching the two of them together. I mean, Dobbs has lost his mind. He's just kicking that ass and going like, just... He is digging way in. He's all in. But it works. He's making... I used to be on with the guy, the most pleasant guy in the world, but what he's doing, he is... It's so much... It's a North Korean situation. Lou Dobbs, it's like state media. Every night it doesn't matter. He shall not be questioned kind of guy. Worship the president. It's like, what are you doing? That's not even... But that's the... I once got into this long drawn-out argument with Chris Cuomo, who I like a lot, but I was talking to him about, you know, listen, man. The difference between TV and radio, it's simple. And radio, you can have a long form. You can have a 20 minute to two hour conversation and it's real and you get a lot done. On TV, you can have a five minute conversation. I go, there's so many guests that you have on your show, that I have on my show. They're way more... The ability to be thoughtful and nuanced and make points. They can't do that on cable. And now, you know, he's doing a radio show. So good for him. What I was getting at is that this separation between the people and then the just unnatural environment that they're in, no one can relate to it. What they can relate to is two people just talking to each other. They can't relate to it, Joe, but they also think because they're conditioned to that if it's on a network, this person must be an authority and must be intelligent. But I'm here to tell everybody. I was talking about credit default swaps in the financial industry. I have an associate's degree and came up in the New York City comedy clubs. I really didn't have any business talking about that. But the thing is, I could sound really smart for three and a half minutes on anything. Give me a minute five, I can't go that deep on certain issues and I shouldn't be an authority on it. But just because I'm on cable news with a jacket and a shirt and I'm this guy, people are like, okay, well, I'll believe this guy. It's not real. It's not real. That's a dying medium too. I don't think 20, 30 years from now that's going to exist in the same form. Shorter than that. Yeah. And then also the interjection of commercials every seven minutes. The things that they're doing on debates, it's the same thing they're doing on these other cable talk shows where they're trying to encapsulate these things into these very quick five minute sound bites. Have you ever heard of intelligent squared debates? Yes. My friend, John Donvan, is the moderator. He should be moderating the presidential debates. He's the greatest guy. They have these really well informed panelists. They have emotion and they do like two hours and you can come in thinking so often one idea about the issue and you leave thinking something completely different because you have these very smart people debating with an excellent moderator who doesn't let any bullshit and you really learn a lot. No commercial breaks.