Latest / The Joe Rogan Recap / Bert Kreischer (2026) - Fame, Mouth Taping and The Helen Keller Fraud

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Bert Kreischer (2026) - Fame, Mouth Taping and The Helen Keller Fraud · The Joe Rogan Recap

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Joe Rogan Recap and before we get going, please
• 0:03
  follow us right here on Spotify to make sure you get sight of
• 0:06
  our latest episodes in your feed.
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  Today we are diving into a massive 3 hour collision of
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  worlds on the Joe Rogan Experience episode Hashtag 2445,
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  featuring his longtime friend, the comedian Bert Kreischer.
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  You know, usually when comedians get together on a podcast, you
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  expect 3 hours of just inside baseball, right?
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  About clubs, Rd. gigs, cancel culture.
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  And we do get some of that. But this conversation, it felt
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  different. It felt like a perfect snapshot
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  of what I'm calling the Gen. X paradox.
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  I like that the Gen. X paradox.
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  OK, break that down for me. We'll just picture this on one
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  side. You have these two guys, they're
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  in their 50s and they are acting like absolute bio hackers,
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  right? I mean they're treating
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  protocols on blood clots and sleep apnea and red light
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  therapy like they're training for the Olympics.
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  They're obsessed with longevity. They're optimizing every little
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  thing, trying to survive. Exactly.
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  But then, you know, the very next breath, they just, they
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  flip back into being these wild, rebellious teenagers who
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  question everything. They go from vitamin absorption
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  to debating whether Helen Keller was a total fraud and if Richard
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  Nixon was framed by the Deep State.
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  It is a fascinating whiplash. It's like aging gracefully,
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  colliding head on with staying absolutely wild.
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  It is. So I think our mission for this
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  deep dive has to be bridging that gap.
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  We need to pull out the specific health protocols Joe's actually
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  using because he makes some huge claims here.
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  And then we have to go down those rabbit holes.
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  We have to understand why they don't trust the official story
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  on well, on anything from Watergate to medical science.
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  Let's start with the physical stuff, because they opened with
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  something that sounded frankly like science fiction, but
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  apparently it's just sitting in their houses.
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  Red light therapy. And we're not talking about one
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  of those little wands you, you know, wave over your face.
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  No, we're talking full body beds.
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  Like tanning beds basically, but instead of UV rays they're
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  blasting you with specific wavelengths of light.
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  Red and near infrared light, yeah.
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  Bart told the story that I think anyone over 40 is going to feel
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  this in their soul. He said his vision had gotten so
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  bad he couldn't read the shampoo bottles in the shower.
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  Oh, that's. The worst Who's playing a
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  guessing game? Conditioner Body wash.
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  It was just a blur. Which is, I mean, that's just a
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  classic sign of presbyopia, the lens in your eye getting older.
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  And that's usually a one way St., you know, you get reading
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  glasses, you move on. That's what I thought, but Bert
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  claims he started using this high-powered red light bed and
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  all of a sudden he's reading the fine print again.
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  No readers. And he was completely blown away
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  by it. Totally.
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  And Joe backed him up immediately.
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  He said he uses his bed every single day.
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  No, they didn't get too bogged down in the clinical studies,
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  but for you listening, the mechanism they're banking on
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  here, it's all about the mitochondria.
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  The powerhouse of this cell. I remember that from high school
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  biology. Exactly.
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  But as we age, those little powerhouses, they get kind of
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  sluggish. The theory is that these
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  wavelengths of red light, they penetrate your tissue and they
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  stimulate the mitochondria to make more ATP.
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  Cellular energy. Cellular energy and when you do
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  that in your retina, you're essentially helping the cells
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  repair themselves and reduce inflammation.
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  Joe sees it as non negotiable for his recovery.
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  It's so interesting how they see technology as the solution to
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  aging. Not just acceptance, but the
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  health hack. That really grabbed my attention
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  and it sounded the most uncomfortable, honestly.
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  We're talking about the mouth taping.
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  I am. We've heard about this trend,
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  but Joe takes it to a whole other level.
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  He's not just using a piece of tape, he's using a brand called
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  Hostage Tape. Which is an intense name.
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  Right. And he combines that with a
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  literal mouthpiece. It sounds claustrophobic, but
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  there's a really specific reason he does this.
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  Joe explained that he's got a large tongue and a thick.
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  Neck, OH. And those are classic risk
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  factors for sleep apnea, because when you relax, all that tissue
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  can fall back and block your airway.
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  So the mouthpiece holds the tongue in place.
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  Correct. It's like a little scaffold to
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  keep the airway open and then the tape.
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  The tape forces you to breathe through your nose and that's the
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  crucial part people miss. It's not just about keeping your
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  mouth shut. No, it's about forcing the air
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  through the nose, because when you breathe through your nose,
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  your sinuses produce nitric oxide.
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  OK. And why does that matter so
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  much? I mean, air is air, right?
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  Not to your body. Nitric oxide is a vasodilator.
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  It widens your blood vessels, improves oxygen uptake.
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  It also filters out pathogens. If you're a mouth breather,
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  you're just bypassing that whole system.
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  You're getting dirty air. You're getting dirty air that
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  isn't prepped for your lungs. OK, that makes sense.
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  But the claim Joe made about the results, yeah, it was
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  staggering, he said. Five hours of sleep with the
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  tape feels better than 8 hours without it.
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  That is a massive efficiency claim.
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  It really suggests that the quality of your sleep, you know
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  the depth and the oxygenation, it matters way more than just
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  the duration. Yeah, if you're choking all
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  night, you're not recovering, you're just unconscious.
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  It's compelling enough. I might actually try it.
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  But Speaking of Wake Up Falls, we have to talk about Bert
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  because while Joe is optimizing, Bert is in full on recovery
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  mode. Yeah, Bert Kreischer's brand is
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  the machine. He's the party animal.
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  He's the guy who, you know, drinks a gallon of kool-aid and
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  vodka. But he revealed he just, he hit
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  a wall. He had a blood clot.
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  Which is terrifying. And he linked it directly to his
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  lifestyle. The dehydration, the constant
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  flying, just sitting still for hours and of course the alcohol.
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  It scared him straight. He said he's been sober for five
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  months and 18 days. He's aiming for a full 6 months.
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  But what I found so insightful was how he reframed it.
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  He didn't just say I have to get healthy.
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  He said he realized his behavior was disrespectful.
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  That word really stood out to me too, Yeah.
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  He looked at his own body, the fact that he can run marathons
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  with no training and party all night, and he realized he was
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  just wasting this gift. He saw his durability as a
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  blessing that he was actively trashing.
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  It's an ethical shift, almost. It is.
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  It's the maturation of the machine.
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  And naturally that led them right into a deep dive on immune
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  systems. And this is where we get the
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  Rogan stack. So what is he actually taking to
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  stay bulletproof? He was super specific.
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  The core is vitamin D3. But he made a point to correct
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  the word. He kept saying D3 is really a
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  hormone, not just a simple vitamin.
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  And you can't just pop AD 3 pill and call it a day, right?
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  There's a combination. Right, it has to be D3 paired
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  with vitamin K2 and magnesium. They all work together
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  synergistically. OK, so break that down.
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  Why do you need all three? Think of it like a construction
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  crew. D3 helps you absorb calcium.
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  That's your material. But K2 is the traffic director.
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  It sends that calcium to your bones and teeth, not your
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  arteries. Which is obviously about.
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  A very bad thing and magnesium. That's the energy that activates
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  the D3 in the 1st place. You can actually deplete your
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  magnesium if you take D3. Alone, it's a delicate balance.
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  He also mentioned zinc, but with a partner.
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  Zinc with quercetin This is the lock and key.
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  Zinc is great for stopping viruses from replicating, but it
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  struggles to get inside the cell.
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  Quercetin is well, it's like a doorman.
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  It opens the door in the cell wall so the zinc can get in and
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  do its job. And this is where the
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  conversation shifted from biology to, let's call it,
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  narrative frustration. Joe got pretty fired up talking
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  about this in the context of his COVID experience.
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  He did, and this is so key to understanding his world view
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  now. He is still deeply frustrated by
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  how the media covered his recovery.
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  He used this protocol plus monoclonal antibodies and
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  ivermectin and he got better fast.
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  But the headlines, especially from CNN, just said he was
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  taking horse dewitter. Horse paced.
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  He called it. You could hear the raw
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  irritation in his voice. His point wasn't just about the
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  medicine, it was about the honesty of the reporting.
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  His argument is I'm a 50 something guy who got better in
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  a few days. Why didn't anyone ask how?
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  Exactly why was the immediate reaction to just smear the
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  protocol? He feels like there's a
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  corporate approved way to get sick and get better, and if you
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  step outside that you're an enemy.
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  And that distrust of the corporate narrative bleeds
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  perfectly into the next big theme, the business of fame.
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  Yeah, the idea that there's real life, what the audience wants,
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  and then there's corporate fiction, what the industry
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  wants, and nothing showed this better than the Golden Globes
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  story. This was just classic Rogan.
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  People were asking why his podcast wasn't nominated and the
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  answer wasn't a snub. Not at all.
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  It was a refusal by Joe. He refused to pay the submission
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  fee. $500. Which, you know, he can
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  obviously afford. It wasn't about the cash.
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  No, it was the principal. He looked at it and said, I've
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  been #1 for six years. The audience has already voted.
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  Why do I need to pay Committee 500?
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  Brooks, give me a piece of metal that confirms what the numbers
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  already say. It completely devalues the award
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  for him. He just sees it as an arbitrary
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  corporate pat on the back. And Bert backed this up with his
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  new Netflix show. He said he pitched it based on
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  that British spy thriller Slow Horses.
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  Which is a fantastic show by the way.
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  Watch. Incredible show, but Bert was
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  honest, he said. I don't want to make slow
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  horses. I don't want to show critics,
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  write essays about. I want binge ability.
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  He wants that can't stop watching factor.
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  Yes, and his validation didn't come from a review, he came from
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  his phone. He got texts from Luke Combs and
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  Chris Desdefano saying they watched the whole season in one
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  sitting. And to Bert, that's the only
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  trophy that matters, that peer recognition.
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  It's a direct to consumer mindset.
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  But then they touched on the darker side of this, the whole
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  cancel culture thing, using the comedian Whitney Cummings as an
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  example. That was a rough story.
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  Whitney made a joke about Miss Rachel.
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  And for anyone who doesn't know this, Rachel is a massive
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  YouTube educator for toddlers. Like billions of views.
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  She's basically the Mr. Rogers of the iPad generation, and
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  Whitney made a joke, clearly not knowing how revered she is.
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  And the Internet mob just descended.
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  And Joe and Bert's analysis was so interesting.
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  They said the mob doesn't want an apology, no.
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  They want destruction. Joe's advice is don't engage,
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  don't apologize and do not read the comments, he says.
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  Our brains are wired to stand for threats in a small tribe.
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  Right. If one person in 50 hates you,
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  that's a survival problem. But on Twitter the tribe is
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  millions of people so you can have 1000 great comments but
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  your brain will chemically fixate on the one that calls you
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  a fucking. Bitch, it's a fight or flight
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  response we just aren't built to handle, right?
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  But Speaking of reputations, yeah, this is where the episode
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  took a sharp turn. Joe dropped a theory about Chevy
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  Chase. This.
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  CTE theory. Yeah, I mean, Chevy Chase is
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  legendary for being difficult, right?
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  A jerk on set, But Joe argues maybe he's just brain damaged.
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  It's a compelling argument. If you think back to early SNL,
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  his comedy was so physical. He was doing pratfalls, he was
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  throwing himself off stages, falling off ladders.
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  Over and over, take after take. Exactly.
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  Joe compared it to a football player that's sustained sub
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  concussive trauma. He suggested Chevy might be
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  living with CTE and chronic pain, which we know causes
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  irritability and aggression. It's a really compassionate take
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  on someone who's usually just villainized.
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  But compassion wasn't exactly the theme when they started
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  rewriting political history. No, this is where we leave
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  health and Wellness and enter the conspiracy rabbit hole.
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  Let's talk about Watergate, because I went to school.
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  I learned the story. Nixon's a crook.
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  Woodward and Bernstein are heroes.
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  The end. Joe says not so fast.
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  Joe is pushing a theory referencing Tucker Carlson that
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  Nixon was framed framed by the Deep State, the CIA and the FBI.
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  And the key of this whole theory is Bob Woodward.
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  Right. The argument is that Woodward
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  wasn't just some rookie reporter who got lucky.
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  The claim is that he was Naval Intelligence.
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  And it makes no sense for a rookie to get the biggest story
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  in history. Unless he was an asset, being
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  fed information to take down a president and the motive, the
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  theory is that Nixon was secretly investigating the JFK
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  assassination, poking around where he shouldn't have been.
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  So the intelligence community took him out.
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  Wow. And they backed this up with the
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  most random Bill Murray anecdote.
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  This was great. Murray read the book Wired,
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  which Bob Woodward wrote about John Belushi, and Murray, who
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  knew Belushi better than anyone, said the book was total fiction.
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  And that sparked A realization for him.
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  Yeah, Murray's logic was if Woodward lied about Belushi, who
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  I know, he probably lied about Nixon, who I don't know.
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  If the source is tainted, the whole narrative crumbles.
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  OK, questioning Nixon is one thing, but questioning Helen
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  Keller? I honestly thought they were
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  joking at first. The Helen Keller was a fraud
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  theory. It's a huge trend on TikTok
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  right now and they just dove right in.
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  The premise is basically, how could someone who was fully deaf
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  and blind from 19 months old learn to communicate so well?
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  Write books. Start universities.
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  They just find the logistics of it impossible.
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  They cited some alleged medical archives from around 19 O2 that
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  claims she actually responded to light and sound.
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  So they think it was a grift and that Anne Sullivan, her handler,
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  was the puppet master. That's the theory that Sullivan
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  was writing the books, giving the speeches, and using Helen as
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  a prop for fame and money. They even mentioned analysis
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  that shows Helen's writing errors matched and Sullivan's
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  writing errors perfectly. Wow.
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  They even debated whether she flew a plane.
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  Yes, which Joe clarified was probably for a newsreel where
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  she just held the yoke for a second.
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  But the fact that they even had to debate it shows how skeptical
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  they are. And once you start questioning
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  famous people's disabilities, you can't stop.
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  They immediately went to Stevie Wonder.
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  Stevie Truthers, an Internet classic.
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  Shaq's story is the best. He gets on an elevator, doesn't
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  say a word. Stevie Wonder is there.
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  The doors close and Stevie says what up Diesel and hits the
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  right floor button. It's an amazing story and Joe
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  added that Stevie Facetimes people constantly, Snoop Dogg,
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  Kevin Hart, which is just a funny image for a blind man.
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  But Bird, of all people, played the voice of reason on this one.
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  He did. He said.
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  He sat next to Stevie at a concert and the whole crowd
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  stood up to cheer, but Stevie stayed seated.
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  Burt's logic was you only stand up if you can see that everyone
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  else is standing up. It's a fairpoint, yeah, But for
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  them, I think the fun is just in the questioning.
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  It's the exercise of saying, are we being lied to?
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  Exactly. It's about maintaining a
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  flexible reality. And Speaking of flexible
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  realities, we have to talk about Joe's dream, because it wasn't
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  just a dream it sounded. Like a horror movie, he
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  described encountering 4 entities, tall, thin, non human,
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  wearing what he called rash guard suits.
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  Tight, functional suits, no muscle tone, big heads.
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  But the scary part wasn't the look, it was the communication.
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  They were telepathic. And they're kind of joking with
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  him, trying to get him comfortable.
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  But the message he got from them was terrifying, he said.
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  He felt this profound knowledge that the barrier between our
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  safe, normal reality and horrific danger is caper thin.
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  Like they were showing him how easily they could just breach
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  our world. It shook him so badly he
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  couldn't go back to sleep. He was at the gym at 4:00 AM
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  just trying to process it. And then, because we can't stay
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  serious for too long, they pivoted from alien dreams to
• 15:15
  Rasputin's genitals. You can't skip Rasputin.
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  Joe had listened to a podcast about the Mad Monk and described
• 15:21
  his preserved anatomy, which is supposedly in a jar somewhere,
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  as a pickled axe handle. It's a.
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  Humorous detour, sure, but notice how it circles back to
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  the main theme. Why did Rasputin have power?
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  Because he could heal the Tsar's son when the official doctors
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  couldn't. The doctors were giving the kid
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  aspirin, which is a blood thinner.
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  They were making him worse. Exactly.
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  The establishment was wrong. The Mad monk outsider had the
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  cure. It's the same narrative Joe
• 15:49
  applies to everything. The experts are wrong.
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  The weirdos are right. So when we step back and look at
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  this whole 3 hour marathon, what's the big take away?
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  I think this episode is a perfect capsule of the current
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  cultural moment for a lot of people.
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  You have this extreme ownership of your own biology.
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  The vitamins, the cold plunges, the mouth taping.
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  Because there's a total collapse of trust in external systems.
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  Precisely. If you can't trust the history
• 16:12
  books and you can't trust the news, you might as well trust
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  your mitochondria. It's about conquering what Joe
• 16:18
  calls the inner bitch. Explain that philosophy for us.
• 16:22
  Joe's view is that modern life is too easy, so if you don't
• 16:26
  manufacture struggle for yourself at the gym, in the
• 16:29
  sauna, with your diet, your mind will manufacture struggle for
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  you. It'll create anxiety and fear.
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  You have to choose your hard path or a hard path will be
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  chosen for you. That's it.
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  So the prescription is tape your mouth shut, take your vitamin D,
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  ignore the comments section, and maybe, just maybe, question
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  everything you learned in fifth grade history class.
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  And maybe don't pay 500 bucks for a trophy you don't need.
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  Solid advice. So here's a final thought to
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  chew on if Joe and Bert are right and history is written by
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  the winners or the profit makers, and we look at the Helen
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  Keller or Nixon stories through the lens of who profited from
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  this narrative. It raises that uncomfortable
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  question, what settled science or headline news story from
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  today is actually just corporate sponsored fiction that we won't
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  see through for another 50 years?
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  A little paranoia to keep you warm.
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  Thanks for listening to the deep dive.
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  Catch you next time.