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Podcaster Joe Rogan blasted what he described as a “push towards communism” among young Americans as he spoke to legendary comedian Yakov Smirnoff, who grew up in the USSR.
Smirnoff, a Soviet-born comedian who became popular in the U.S. in the 1980s, described to Rogan how he and his father would secretly listen to Voice of America, a U.S. government-funded international news broadcaster, late at night, knowing that they would get in trouble if anybody knew. He also described how his mother was greatly concerned over what might happen if others found out that they were yearning for America.
Later in life, after working aboard cruise ships, he proposed that he and his family leave the USSR and apply for a visa to the U.S., and he recalled his mother warned that they might face repercussions if they did so, warning that it would be like “You’re going to go through hell.” Smirnoff then recalled, “And my dad said, ‘Yeah, we will.’ And she said, ‘Well, if you’re willing to do it, so am I.’”
Smirnoff said the process of getting a visa to America was only possible because of a deal involving the Carter administration, Soviet emigration and U.S. grain.
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Joe Rogan announces the fight during the UFC 290 event at T-Mobile Arena on July 8, 2023, in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)
“[Carter] wanted to see some human rights in the Soviet Union. And the Soviet leadership was — they were starving. They didn’t have food. So they needed food from America. So Jimmy Carter made a deal that we’re going to give you grain, and you allow people to get out, and that’s how we were kind of exchanged for some wheat, you know,” he said. “That’s how we got out.”
“Wow. Holy s—, man … you sometimes need to be reminded how fortunate you are,” Rogan said of Americans like himself. “You know, Americans in particular, we’re very, you know, it’s not our fault. You know, people become accustomed to where they live … And they think this is normal, which is one of the reasons why this push towards communism amongst young people is so infuriating to me.”
Rogan said he understood why some people might be drawn to socialism out of a sense of “empathy” and the contrast between “people that are so rich and people that are so poor.” Nonetheless, he warned, “But the solution is not to make the government decide who gets what, because they never decide the right way.”
“They do what people do,” Rogan warned of communist officials. “What people do when they have power is they enact total control over the population so that they can maintain power, and then they live in luxury, and then you wait in line for bread, and that’s how it is all over the f—ing world. And if you step out of line, they shoot you. That’s where communism goes. So what we need is like a more, a more moral and ethical version of capitalism.”
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Comedian Yakov Smirnoff attends the annual “Summer Spectacular Under The Stars” for the Brent Shapiro Foundation for alcohol and drug awareness on Sept. 13, 2014, in Beverly Hills, California. (Paul Archuleta/FilmMagic via Getty)
Elizabeth Pipko, a former RNC national spokesperson and the daughter of immigrants from the Soviet Union, spoke to Fox News Digital about the exchange and her family having escaped from the USSR themselves.
“I’m especially moved by his story because it is so incredibly similar to my own family’s,” she said. “My grandfather told me many times about the secret radio he kept hidden inside a pillowcase, where he and my young mother would listen to Voice of America. Living in the Soviet Union, they would listen and dream of a better life, never knowing that one day America would deliver on those dreams and more.”
“I hope people understand that stories like this are incredibly special, but they are not unique,” Pipko continued. “For generations, America has been a beacon of freedom and hope to people around the world, including millions who suffered under the horrors of communism. America has defeated communism before — both in reality and in spirit — and will continue to do so until the bitter end.”
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“I have the privilege of being the daughter of two immigrants, which means I learned very early on just how blessed I am to have been born in the greatest country on the face of the earth, no matter how many misinformed college students tell you otherwise,” she said.
“We have a duty to protect what so many came here searching for and to keep our country free from the ideology that they escaped,” Pipko added. “Not only for those who fought and died for this nation, but for the millions around the world who still look to America and know that, as long as she shines, anything is possible.”
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Daniel Di Martino, a Manhattan Institute fellow and economist who fled Venezuela, told Fox News Digital, “Yakov recounts what all of us who have lived under socialism go through in suffering and censorship. And Rogan perfectly describes how socialism is bad for us because it is tyrannical and impoverishing.”
“What’s most interesting to me, though, is that Rogan himself fell in the past for the allure of socialism that he criticizes by supporting Bernie Sanders in 2020, who himself praised and vacationed in the Soviet Union,” he added. “Any nation can fall for the lies of socialists and self-destroy, and we must do everything we can to prevent it.”