#2245 - Rod Blagojevich

Rod Blagojevich (0:03)

The Joe Rogan Experience. Shrink by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.

Joe Rogan (0:12)

How are you, sir?

Rod Blagojevich (0:12)

I'm good. Nice to see you. Nice to meet you.

Joe Rogan (0:15)

I really enjoyed you on Tucker Carlson's show. Shout out to Tucker. It was a very eye-opening podcast. And, you know, whenever someone is convicted of, you know, any political figure, any person of power that's convicted of corruption, you automatically assume that they're guilty. And after listening to you on Tucker's show, I was like, oh, Jesus. Like, it was such an eye-opening podcast and such a disappointing one too. It was so disturbing to hear your version of the story, which was so different than the version that was, you know, put out on the media. And it was just, oh, corrupt politician goes to jail. He went to jail, he must be guilty. And then you hear your take on it, and you're like, oh, God. It's very disturbing. And I just wanted to show you this just before we get rolling. Biden just released a bunch of people, multiple Chinese spies and an individual convicted of possessing child pornography.

I think he's released, how many people has he pardoned today? I saw a number of 1,500. He's going ham. Everybody can get their, sign your checks, send them in. Let's go.

Rod Blagojevich (1:44)

Wow.

Joe Rogan (1:44)

Wow. Possession of child pornography should be like, you shouldn't be able to pardon for stuff like that. It's like, there's certain things. It's like, come on.

Rod Blagojevich (1:53)

You know, I spent almost eight years in prison for politics, not for crimes. I'm happy to answer any questions you have about any of it, because I didn't do it. It was all politics. But the first three years, almost three years, they put me in a higher security prison, and I'm in there with Crips and Bloods and Gangster Disciples and Sinaloa Cartel drug dealers.

Joe Rogan (2:10)

Why would they do that?

Rod Blagojevich (2:11)

They were squeezing me and pressuring me because they wanted me to basically say I did something that I didn't do. They wanted me to plead guilty to non-crimes.

Joe Rogan (2:17)

So they want to scare you by putting you in with dangerous people.

Rod Blagojevich (2:21)

Yeah. And they really punished me because I fought back in a way that no one really does except for Trump. I mean, I was fighting back when they brought those charges against me everywhere, and I was calling them criminals.

Joe Rogan (2:31)

What did they expect you to do? They expect you to just take a sentence, a lower sentence, confess? What did they offer you?

Rod Blagojevich (2:39)

They tried me twice after the first trial, where they failed to convict me on their fake corruption charges. They were floating 18 months. And, you know, there were a lot of people in my team, like my lawyers, who thought that might be the prudent thing to do because you really can't beat these people. The system is rigged. And when they really want to get you, they'll just keep trying you, and they'll get their judge to work with them, and they'll ultimately convict you as they did me by using unlawful standards to criminalize things that are legal in politics and government. So the prudent thing, the safe thing, was to cut your losses and take the short period of prison time. But I felt I wasn't a businessman. I suppose if I was a businessman facing something like that, you'd make a business decision, you cut your losses, you realize they're bleeding you financially, you can't afford lawyers, this is going to be an endless thing. It was already three years at that point that we had been fighting it.

But I was the governor twice elected by the people. And these votes don't mean a lot to some people. It sounds like a bunch of bullshit to say I swore on the holy Bible as the governor to preserve, protect the rule of law, the Constitution. I just couldn't do it. And I knew it was all bullshit. It was all corrupt. They knew it was all corrupt. And it was all an effort to try to get me to admit it. And if I admitted it, then the truth would never come out. They can never be exposed for what they did. And because I wouldn't do it and I fought back because if I'm right and I know I am, and they were doing to me what they ultimately ended up doing to Trump, weaponizing their uncontrolled power and unlimited resources to criminalize political things. If the truth comes out, they're going to be facing some sort of accountability hopefully one day. And hopefully now with the new administration, they'll reform the laws.