← The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast
518. Lawyer, Physician, Anti-Vaxxer, Jan 6th “Rioter” | Dr. Simone Gold
02:02:32
Jordan Peterson sits down with physician and lawyer, Dr. Simone Gold. They discuss her personal story of becoming both a doctor and a lawyer, running an ER clinic through the Ebola scare, why she spoke out during the COVID pandemic, how the machine attempted to destroy her public image, January 6th, being raided and imprisoned by the U.S. Government, and why she will not back down. Dr. Simone Gold, MD, JD, is America’s expert voice of common sense and scientific clarity in the information war against Medical Marxism. Dr.Gold is an emergency physician, Stanford University - educated attorney, and the visionary who led the pivotal press conference event that broke the spell of the corona virus panic in 2020. Creating the most viral moment in modern media history, Dr. Gold became the founder of America’s Frontline Doctors (AFLDS), the nation’s premier medical civil liberties organization. The mission of AFLDS is to provide independent information from the world’s top experts in medi...
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- [00:00]
Jordan Peterson
It's very unlikely that you went to the University of Chicago Medical School. That's really hard. And to follow that up with Stanford Medical School, like, is there anyone else who's done that?
- [00:09]
Simone Gold
All the doctors knew hydroxychloroquine was safe until media told them otherwise. I said to the world, you need to stop living in fear. There's no reason to live in fear. I had no idea that was going to completely upend my life. The First Amendment exists not just so you can hear what I have to say, but humans have a need to speak truth.
- [00:26]
Jordan Peterson
Well, everybody who's watching and listening should pay careful attention to that.
- [00:29]
Simone Gold
Living in lies. I might as well be dead.
- [00:32]
Jordan Peterson
It's worse than death.
- [00:33]
Simone Gold
I'm in my apartment, working, scream, banging on the door, FBI, FBI, FBI. Battery ram. 20 guys in tactical gear, huge weapons pointed at me, as close as I am to you. And I remember thinking, oh.
- [01:00]
Jordan Peterson
Hello everybody. I had the opportunity today to talk to Dr. Simone Gold and she had, she had quite a story to tell. Inter weaving medicine. She's a physician, emergency room physician for 20 years, a lawyer, a graduate of Stanford Law School, and she was one of the youngest physicians who ever graduated in the United States and then also went to Stanford Law School. So those are stellar accomplishments. And I say that to establish her credentials because she has been profoundly pilloried as a quack, in her own words, because of her stance on Covid. The COVID mandates on hydroxychloroquine more particularly, but the mandates really more broadly, and has also served time in prison in consequence of her appearance on January 6th. And so what did we talk about today? Well, we talked about physician training and its positive elements and its inadequacies. We talked about the stunning lack of curiosity that Dr. Gold emerged among her colleagues when Covid made itself manifest on the public scene. We talked about her experiences, attempting to share her knowledge with regards to hydroxychloroquine and its effectiveness as a antiviral treatment, particularly with viruses of the sort that Covid was. We talked about the consequences of her training in law. We talked about January 6th and the events there and the particulars of her so called participation and then the details of the FBI's pursuit of her in the aftermath of that event. They, 20 of them, dressed in their full gear, broke down her apartment door and hauled her away and she was imprisoned for 60 days for plea bargaining down to a misdemeanor trespassing misdemeanor. And so, like any one of those stories is enough to occupy two Hours, and we managed to cover all of them. And so if you want to take a trip through the labyrinth of law and medicine and the judiciary in the United States and with a side trip into the. What would you say, the complexities of the prison system, then join us, and we'll walk through all that. So, Dr. Gold, when you trained as a physician, did you foresee in any way that you would be, like, legally entangled and politically active?
- [03:55]
Simone Gold
I did not.
- [03:56]
Jordan Peterson
Well, so let's go back to when you started your academic training. Where did you train as a physician?
- [04:02]
Simone Gold
I was very young when I went to medical school. I started medical school at 19. I was at Chicago Medical School, and I graduated when I was 23 and planned to be a physician. And I. That was my plan. My father was a doctor, and I was raised to believe being a physician was the best thing a person could do with their life. There's a law in Judaism called pekuah nefesh, which means to save a life and to save a life. Pekuah nephesh was the highest honor a person could do. Best thing you could do with your life. And that's what I thought I would be doing now.
- [04:30]
Jordan Peterson
How did you get into medical school when you were 19? That's hard. That's a good medical school or great medical school, even. So how do you manage that?
- [04:38]
Simone Gold
I finished college. I finished high school at 16, and I did college in three years. It's interesting that paperwork is so onerous these days. I don't even think it's possible to get through school early, at least in America. But back then, if you worked really, really hard and fast, you actually could go fast. It was very uncomfortable.
- [04:54]
Jordan Peterson
You took extra courses.
- [04:55]
Simone Gold
I took extra courses. And to be fair to myself, when I was the youngest person in America at that time, the day that I graduated. There are other people who have done that. There's. I understand, someone who is 22 at a later point, but it is certainly very unusual.
- [05:09]
Jordan Peterson
Right. And so you. You graduated from medical school at 23, and that's when you started your. Your internships, your residencies?
- [05:16]
Simone Gold
Yes, I did my internship. I did that in Virginia. I had planned at that time to go to law school. I was super interested in health policy and learning as much as I could, just being as academic as I could. And I moved to Virginia for a year, did my internship, and then I zigzagged and I went to Stanford Law School.
- [05:35]
Jordan Peterson
Okay, so tell me about that. You said that from a very early age, you were inclined in the medical direction. And why law and that you went to Stanford Medical. Stanford Law School. That's also very difficult.
- [05:49]
Simone Gold
Yes.
- [05:50]
Jordan Peterson
So where did you do your undergraduates?
- [05:52]
Simone Gold
So I did my undergraduate close to home. I grew up in New York, that was City College of New York. I lived at home. That was my parents preference. I was 16. Right. I could drive into the city or take the train into the city. So I was still very protected. I would say my father was Eastern European, just very protective. And I finished that by 19, started medical school, went to Chicago, finished my medical studies. But to practice medicine in America at that time you had to do an internship. So the MD is when you graduate, but the internship is you get your license.
- [06:23]
Jordan Peterson
How long was the internship?
- [06:24]
Simone Gold
One year.
- [06:25]
Jordan Peterson
One year.
- [06:26]
Simone Gold
So after that one year I zigzagged and I went to law school. The reason was I really wanted to. My vague idea was to fix the healthcare system in America.
- [06:37]
Jordan Peterson
That's a hard one.
- [06:38]
Simone Gold
I thought a lot of people suggested I should get an mph. It's very funny, we should return back to that. But it just didn't feel right to me. I said no, no, let me understand the law. Many of our founding fathers were lawyers. I just wanted to understand it. So that was what led me to Stanford Law School, which is an incredibly difficult law school to get into.
- [06:55]
Jordan Peterson
Yeah, right.
- [06:56]
Simone Gold
Very small law school, 147 people. Harvard is about three times the size. So to get into Stanford was amazing. And it was, I would say the most intellectually interesting years of my life was being at Stanford Law School.
- [07:10]
Jordan Peterson
So what was your undergraduate degree? What was your major?
- [07:14]
Simone Gold
You know, I don't even recall. It was some kind of pre med. It was.
- [07:18]
Jordan Peterson
Okay, so it was mostly scientifically oriented.
- [07:20]
Simone Gold
Yes, yes.
- [07:21]
Jordan Peterson
Like something approximating a bsc.
- [07:23]
Simone Gold
Yes, yes.
- [07:24]
Jordan Peterson
Right, yes, right. And so from there to medical school at the University of Chicago. And you did your internship. What did you specialize in your internship?
- [07:32]
Simone Gold
So I was starting on a path towards emergency medicine, which is what I eventually started finishing. I was captivated though by law school. It was just extremely interesting. Medical school and law school are very, very different. This all played into what's happened over the last few years. But medical school was a lot of memorization, a lot of learning material that was presented to you much like you would a grade school child. Here's this material. Memorize it, learn it, ask in a way, kind of approved questions. But law school was completely different. Law school was really training you to think a certain way, a very critical way of thinking, to go back and forth in different people's opinions. We would read Supreme Court opinions a lot. One justice would say this, one justice would say that. So it's very, very different. I think you don't see more doctor lawyers because they are extremely different types of intellectual abilities. Night and day. People think it's the duration of time for the schooling. Why, you know, nobody would be a doctor and a lawyer. That's too much. But in fact, there's a lot of MD PhDs, there's a fair number of MD MBAs. Right. There's very few doctor lawyers. And I think it's because you need a kind of intellectual, broad perspective to be comfortable in both.
- [08:48]
Jordan Peterson
Right.
- [08:49]
Simone Gold
Completely comfortable in both. I sometimes joke that I'm bilingual. It's just one in the same to me, one wasn't easier or better. They were completely different. And I was very comfortable in both.
- [09:00]
Jordan Peterson
So I worked with physicians on the research front. Well, and I, I taught physicians clinical psychology for a while as well. But I worked with physicians on the research front. And one of the discoveries I made was that physicians and scientists were not the same creatures. And you just made allusion to that, I think, in that when you were in medical school, you, you characterized it as an extension of grade school, essentially, that there was a lot of memorization, a lot of facts thrown at you that you needed to know and that you could ask the approved questions. Right. That's very unlike training for to be a scientist because you have to learn to think critically above all. I trained as a clinical psychologist and the model for clinical psychology was the Boulder model, Colorado Boulder, Colorado model. And that was scientist practitioner, but scientist first. And that meant critical thinking because science isn't in large part an adversarial enterprise like law in that regard. So now, so how would you characterize the difference in your experience, experience at medical school and at law school with regard to your ability to think critically? Because you didn't say anything about learning to think critically at medical school, but you definitely said, well, that adversarial training is. You're always looking for like five sides to an argument. Right. And learning how to make the case for every side simultaneously. Necessary thing if you're going to think scientifically. Right. So can you contrast that and characterize also what you think now about medical education, not only given your experience in medical school and in law school, but also given everything else that happened to you afterward.
- [10:51]
Simone Gold
Right. So I'm so glad to be able to sit here and explain this to you. They could not be more different. Medical school is a lot of work. It would be 12 hour days, 15 hour days, including classes, and you were presented with material by a teacher, you scribbled notes as fast as you could, or you type them and you would memorize them, you learn them, you'd regurgitate them, and you really were only being led to ask approved questions because you had specific material. It might be like doing a reading comprehension test. You read a paragraph, you ask the questions on that paragraph. So I would say there was no critical thinking, certainly no critical thinking in the first two years of medical school. It's not.
- [11:35]
Jordan Peterson
So the implicit presumption there is that what you're taught is correct.
- [11:39]
Simone Gold
Absolutely.
- [11:40]
Jordan Peterson
And your job is to learn it and then demonstrate that you have that knowledge.
- [11:43]
Simone Gold
Exactly right.
- [11:44]
Jordan Peterson
Right.
- [11:45]
Simone Gold
Exactly. When you got into the third year of medical school, we would do hospital rotations and you'd be at the bedside, so you were expected to read up about the disease that the patients had on your service and, and you could ask questions about that situation. But the senior physician on rounds would answer those questions. So they were still, in retrospect, in comparison to law, very circumscribed. Very circumscribed. Why this drug? Why this treatment? How long should the treatment be? How's the oxygen level? It was very. It was almost mechanical in comparison to law. It was never outside the box. It was always within the box.
- [12:21]
Jordan Peterson
If what you're being taught is correct, then learning the algorithm is the right thing. But the problem is, is that often what you're being taught is not correct, either diagnostically or with regard to treatment. And that can be a major problem.
- [12:35]
Simone Gold
That is true. But you're even being a smidge generous because it's always changing, even in medicine. It's always changing the direction of new medicines, new treatments, new tests. So it's just so different. So, for example, you would be learning if somebody came in with a heart attack or chest pain, you would do xyz, but next year there might be a different lab test and you would just add that lab test to your group of lab tests. You never actually deleted a lab test. You just kept adding and adding and adding. I mention that because our healthcare expenses are out of control. So you would never think about, well, what's the critical improvement on this test versus that test? Let's just eliminate this test. I came up with that very directly. There was a test when I was growing up, it was called the ck, the CKMB that was elevated in heart attacks. Then the troponin test came out that was much more specific, much more Sensitive. And I would say to my instructors, why are we not eliminating the CK test? It's not as specific. It's not as sensitive. Nobody knew. We just did them all. So you are not.
- [13:38]
Jordan Peterson
That means you're also multiplying the probability of false positives.
- [13:41]
Simone Gold
You multiply false positives.
- [13:42]
Jordan Peterson
That's the same problem.
- [13:42]
Simone Gold
You multiply the false positives. You chase red herrings all the time. And I think, worst of all, you are not teaching the practitioners to think and maneuver in new times. Right. Because they should be paying attention. Oh, the troponin test, it is more sensitive. It is more specific. I will eliminate this other test. We were never taught to think how to maneuver and grow. I would say we were not taught to grow. We were taught to stay here and maybe expand. Expand a little bit more testing. I'm not sure if this all makes sense.
- [14:12]
Jordan Peterson
Yeah, yeah, it's making sense. Okay. So with regards to. So most of the physicians that I interacted with were psychiatrists because there was some overlap in our research orientation. And one of the things also I saw that was that the psychiatrists who did research tended to outsource their statistics. And you can't do that. Right. Like, that's not an acceptable means of doing research, because statistics aren't algorithmic. They're an investigative tool. And unless you do your own statistics, you don't know your data and you have no idea what you've discovered. And so that was. But also, it was also the case that, like learning to analyze scientific research, that's very difficult skill to master. And I would say it's probably something more akin to law than medicine, because you have to think extraordinarily critically. And it wasn't obvious to me at all that the physicians that I interacted with had been trained in the least to really critically assess the relevant research literature. So now, is that too harsh or what do you think about that?
- [15:14]
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- [16:28]
Simone Gold
I think you're exactly right. So first of all, I was quite weak in biostatistics, for example. It was not a strong suit of mine and it never precluded me from becoming an excellent physician. Right? So we would always have classes on statistics. Nobody was very good at them. Honestly, it was something we all dreaded. We were not good at it. We are not at all trained how to recognize good research from bad research.
- [16:49]
Jordan Peterson
That's a problem because most research is bad, terrible.
- [16:52]
Simone Gold
You know, I vaguely remember, but I was coming at this from the perspective some of the headlines that NIH funded studies were so kind of foolish, I didn't even understand why we were doing these kinds of studies, funding them. But we were not really taught how to finally distinguish good from bad. And Dr. Joseph Ladapo, who I'm sure you know, about a year or two years ago, he tweeted out that one of the problems in medical training is doctors simply don't know how to analyze data critically. I would say 100%. I learned virtually nothing like that in medical school and a little bit in my residency training. And I never, I wouldn't have, I'm not even sure I got. I would deserve a C minus in my abilities.
- [17:30]
Jordan Peterson
The problem is, is it's hard to learn to be skeptical enough. I mean, psychology has gone through what the psychologists like to describe as a replication crisis, which is their discovery mostly by social psychologists who dreadfully deserved their replication crisis. That, you know, at least 50% of what's published is simply not true. Now that never shocked me because I presume fundamentally that if 5% of what we publish was actually true and original, we'd be. That's a 5% improvement in knowledge in. In the total knowledge base on the research side per year. That's a stellar accomplishment. But it's. It does mean that 95% of it's chaff and not wheat. And that's a very, very hard distinction to draw. And you can't just read the research literature and think that because it's published, it's true, because it's not true. And that's not surprising, right, because it's actually hard to discover something new. But I was struck by the fact that, that, you know, because the lay public, and this is partly why I'm pursuing this line of questioning, the lay public don't know how to distinguish between physician and scientist. And physicians also don't know that and presume that they're scientists. But generally speaking. Well, most scientists aren't scientists and damn few physicians are. And partly it's a consequence of not being able to. Not being taught to think critically. Now, you learned that in law school, and you enjoyed that, right? And. Yeah, and you enjoyed that in a way that you didn't enjoy medical school. Is that fair?
- [19:00]
Simone Gold
Yes, 100%. First of all, I didn't even understand the difference between physician and scientist, but I'm validating that. American medical schools do not teach critical reasoning skills, and they do not teach us how to analyze science. For sure. That is.
- [19:16]
Jordan Peterson
That's also a major problem on the diagnostic front, because part of being a good diagnostician really is thinking like a scientist. It's like, here's the presenting problem. Well, maybe like, have we fleshed it out enough? What are the potential contributing factors? All of them. If you go to diagnosis and then you have algorithmic treatment, well, that's fine if you got the diagnosis right, but getting the diagnosis right tends to be an extraordinarily difficult thing.
- [19:43]
Simone Gold
The diagnosis is all of it. And I'll just digress a little bit here just because I share with you some of my training. So I had a very unusual circumstance because I went to my internship, which was my first year of residency, then I went to law school, then I went back to residency training. In that three, four years, something had changed in American medical training. And it.
- [20:02]
Jordan Peterson
What years were these?
- [20:03]
Simone Gold
This was around 1990.
- [20:05]
Jordan Peterson
Yeah.
- [20:06]
Simone Gold
Okay, so what happened was. Perhaps you've heard of the Libby Zion scandal. What had happened in America was a young girl had gone to the emergency department, and she was very sick, and she was sitting in this emergency department she ends up dying. Turned out her father, I think, was a reporter for the New York Times, very well connected person. And he decided that this happened because the medical residents were so tired and sleep deprived and overworked. So in the years that I was away, I lost an arm in the years that I was away. But I'm gonna blow your mind a little bit, because in the years I was away, they changed how resident physicians were trained up until that moment. So in my internship in my first year, we routinely did 36 hour shifts. You'd start at 7 or 8 in the morning, you'd go till 7 or 8 the next night, you'd crash, you go to sleep, and then you'd have a couple more days of like, eight to six or eight to seven, and then you come back every third or fourth day do that. There's no question that it's brutal.
- [20:57]
Jordan Peterson
A friend of mine drove off the road and broke her arm as a consequence of that. In Hawaii, a physician that I know. Radiologist.
- [21:03]
Simone Gold
Yeah, for sure.
- [21:04]
Jordan Peterson
There's something bordering on sadistic about that.
- [21:07]
Simone Gold
But I'm going to show you a different side of it.
- [21:10]
Jordan Peterson
Yeah. Yeah. So.
- [21:11]
Simone Gold
Because on the surface, it took policymakers. That sounds brutal. That sounds terrible. That sounds like it contributed to Libby Zion's death or caused her death. Right. That's how it sounds to all the politicians. Okay, whoa. I did that my first year very hard. Went to law school, went back to residency, and the rules had changed. The rules had now said, no, no, residents have to get enough sleep. So the work schedule became on every fourth day, the first day was like 8 to 6. The next day was maybe 8 to 10pm Then the third night. Basically, you worked during the day and you had a night float. So you could work eight or 10 hours, then a night float would come in. This is maybe how nurses worked, which is you have shift work, graveyard shift, maybe, and then cross over. But you didn't have responsibility throughout the whole cycle. So doctors became shift workers. Now, this was a terrible decision if you want the doctor to understand disease from the bedside. If we're not scientists, right. We can't analyze the data, read the data, really understand it, then our best hope of helping patients is to really understand the disease from the bedside. Right. To be with that patient for 36 hours. What happened when I went back to my residency with the change in work hours was resident physicians, young physicians, were no longer following a disease kind of from beginning to end for the progression. They were checking at 8am, checking out at 6pm the crisis would happen at 10pm or midnight on the night float. The night float. Didn't care about the patient, didn't really know about the patient. You come back in again the next day, it became very sluggish. You didn't see the disease progress, progression from beginning to end. A person would come in with congestive heart failure and you. There was never a situation anymore where you followed the disease to see its whole natural course.
- [22:51]
Jordan Peterson
Right, right. This, it's very unlike clinical psychology practice where that wouldn't necessarily be, that wouldn't be necessary.
- [22:58]
Simone Gold
It wouldn't be necessary. But for physicians, you, it's not as much of a crisis when you are seeing a mid career physician who's 50 years old. You want them to have gone through that, that full cycle of seeing the disease at some point in their career. The only way you can have that is if you're really in for uninterrupted. When they switched it to shift work, I saw firsthand the shift in how doctors interact with patients, treated patients. No longer did you feel such ownership over the patient. This was your patient, it was like kind of your patient for eight or 10 hours, then it was somebody else's patient for eight or 10 hours. Then it was your patient again.
- [23:30]
Jordan Peterson
Diffusion of responsibility.
- [23:31]
Simone Gold
Diffusion of responsibility. Yeah, that's a.
- [23:33]
Jordan Peterson
And it's generally a bad thing.
- [23:35]
Simone Gold
And you didn't follow the disease the whole time. So in my first year, did that increase finger pointing? I think yes, but it was deeper than that. It was, nobody was really in charge, quite frankly. It was just a checkbox or template that was in charge. Before that, if my patient crashed in the middle of the night, I was there and I knew it. And so I became a better doctor through those exact experiences that was gone once the work hours changed. And I don't think policymakers had any idea that there would be a downside. Right. It sounds all positive to protect the work hours.
- [24:07]
Jordan Peterson
That's the iron law of unintended consequences.
- [24:10]
Simone Gold
I just wanted to share that.
- [24:11]
Jordan Peterson
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So let's, well, let's go back to law school. So now you really enjoyed that. And what, what would you, how would you say it shaped your thinking about medicine and also about your future as a, as a physician, lawyer, like so you had a completely different kind of training. So now you're looking at the medical profession from a different perspective. Now you go back and you do another internship. What this time is another emergency room.
- [24:39]
Simone Gold
I did my internship was one year, I was rotating internal medicine. All the diseases of the Internal organs. And then I did three years of emergency medicine. In between, I did law school. I just kept myself very focused on the law in those three years. I moonlighted as a doctor to support myself. So I was working as a doctor.
- [24:57]
Jordan Peterson
This is during law school?
- [24:58]
Simone Gold
During law school, yeah. 20 hours.
- [25:00]
Jordan Peterson
You moonlighted as a doctor?
- [25:01]
Simone Gold
Yeah.
- [25:01]
Jordan Peterson
While you were in law school? Yeah. How'd you do in law school?
- [25:05]
Simone Gold
I did very well. I only became a quack much later.
- [25:08]
Jordan Peterson
Oh, yes. Okay, well, this is. Yeah, well. Okay, well. So, yeah, that's very difficult, what you did, to go to Stanford Law School and to do well at Stanford Law School and to work simultaneously as a doctor. Yeah, that's hard. So, you know, kudos to you for what that's worth from me because I know how difficult that is. So, okay, so. But now you come out of law school, but you decide to continue as a physician.
- [25:31]
Simone Gold
Right. So I think looking back on my life, I looked at the two and I didn't have a clear path in my mind as to what a doctor lawyer would do or could do other than politics.
- [25:46]
Jordan Peterson
I didn't have to do it then. Like, if you didn't have a destination mind, and those, as you said, those are very difficult, different forms of academic pursuit. Like, what do you think it was that was driving you in both of those directions simultaneously? Now, you said something earlier about a dream, a vague dream of fixing the health care system, which is a very vague dream and also a very grand dream and ill formed. But I suspect that that ambition has something to do with what motivated you in both directions simultaneously.
- [26:17]
Simone Gold
Yes. So I did two short stints in Washington. One time I worked for the Surgeon General, and one time I worked for the Senate labor and Human Resources Committee.
- [26:25]
Jordan Peterson
When did you do that?
- [26:26]
Simone Gold
One was around 1990, another was around 1993 or 94.
- [26:30]
Jordan Peterson
Okay, place that in your academic career.
- [26:32]
Simone Gold
First was at the end of medical school. I worked for the Surgeon General.
- [26:36]
Jordan Peterson
And that was before your internship?
- [26:37]
Simone Gold
Correct.
- [26:38]
Jordan Peterson
Okay. And how long did you work for the surgeon general?
- [26:40]
Simone Gold
Just three months.
- [26:41]
Jordan Peterson
And that was in D.C. okay, so you got a taste of that. Okay.
- [26:46]
Simone Gold
When I went back to medicine, I missed the opportunity to make a change in health policy. So I went to work for the labor and Human Resources Committee, which kind of oversaw Medicare and things like that. And that was in the middle of my training as an emergency physician. I know this is hard to follow because this is a very unique path. Nobody really does this sort of thing where they zigzag back and forth.
- [27:13]
Jordan Peterson
Right. So policy, law and Medicine, fundamentally, you're intermittent. All three of those.
- [27:19]
Simone Gold
I kept looking for this, but when I went back to work for the Senate labor and Human Resources committee in Washington, D.C. i was working for Senator Jeffords, who's an independent from Vermont, and I really think the system was too dirty to. To fix the healthcare system. That was my conclusion.
- [27:35]
Jordan Peterson
How long did you work for him?
- [27:36]
Simone Gold
Also? Just three months. These were just three months.
- [27:38]
Jordan Peterson
And that was. Put that in your academic career?
- [27:41]
Simone Gold
That was during my emergency medicine training.
- [27:43]
Jordan Peterson
After law school.
- [27:44]
Simone Gold
After law school.
- [27:45]
Jordan Peterson
Okay, so you had two doses of. Of being involved in the policy world.
- [27:49]
Simone Gold
Correct.
- [27:49]
Jordan Peterson
The second time that you got involved, you. You just said that you felt it was too complex, too. You said dirty, though.
- [27:55]
Simone Gold
I. I said dirty. No, dirty, not complex. Dirty.
- [27:57]
Jordan Peterson
So, okay, yeah, those are different.
- [27:59]
Simone Gold
My. Before I worked for Senator Jeffords, I thought politicians didn't get it right because they didn't understand. They didn't know. And as soon as a smart person who's on the inside can advise them, they would be able to fix it. You know, it was very idealistic. I thought, oh, great, I will. You know, I'm a bedside physician. I could help them understand this. No, no, no. They understood the problem and they couldn't get the job done. So I was there. And. And I remember they were talking about Medicare going bankrupt. By the way, same song, different year now. And I remember talking to my senator about that. And the obvious solution was to raise the age. Because when the Medicare act was signed into law, it was, I think, 1965, and the average life expectancy, I think, was 67. Fast forward in the 90s, Medicare still. Still kicks in at age 65, but life expectancy, I think, was 76. Well, they never planned to have 11 years of Medicare coverage versus two years of Medicare coverage. People were. Anyway, when you looked at all the options, you know, overcharging, arguably, if you're.
- [29:05]
Jordan Peterson
Not a coal miner, you're not necessarily old at 65.
- [29:08]
Simone Gold
Correct. Times have changed. And also the other options of funding Medicare were worse. They were just, you know, make all rich people pay for it, which, by the way, would never have filled in the gap. Limit options like you do in Canada.
- [29:21]
Jordan Peterson
Rich people are pesky, but they're scarce.
- [29:24]
Simone Gold
But they're scarce. That's a good one. Limit options, like much like you did in Canada, where you just let people.
- [29:29]
Jordan Peterson
Die or help them.
- [29:31]
Simone Gold
But that was not with maid. Right? Yeah, that's not palatable to Americans. So we heard from all these people. Correct. Yet we heard from all these people about ways to fix it. And everyone, every single advocacy group that was presenting to us was in favor of raising the age from 65 to 67. We had Ralph Nader's group, we had the American Heart association, we had, I think the American Medical association was on board. Everyone. We heard from like 12 company organizations and over here we heard from one organization that was called the aarp, right.
- [30:06]
Jordan Peterson
American association of Retired Persons.
- [30:09]
Simone Gold
Persons. I think I was unfamiliar because I was young and that was the only organization that spoke against raising the age limit. And I remember walking with my senator and, and I said, well, you know, obviously the solution is, you know, of all the solutions, it's to raise the age limit. And he looked at me and said, Ms. Gold, do I know what the most powerful organization and lobbying organization in D.C. is? AARP.
- [30:35]
Jordan Peterson
Those people vote.
- [30:36]
Simone Gold
And my heart kind of sunk because I knew that the only solution that I could see at that time was just to raise the age limit. And nobody would have it, nobody would do it, nobody would talk about it. And I just remember feeling pretty discouraged that, well, what's the point of my.
- [30:49]
Jordan Peterson
Yeah, well, it's, this is a diagnosis problem again. You know, you think you know how a system works till you, till you try to, until you actually investigate it, try to change it, and then you find out that the problems you thought were the problems aren't the problems and the solutions that you think are solutions won't work for things for reasons you didn't know.
- [31:09]
Simone Gold
Correct.
- [31:10]
Jordan Peterson
Right. And that's actually, that's actually part and parcel of starting to think like a scientist. It's like, I read this great book years ago called Systematics, which I would highly recommend to anyone watching and listening. It's a cult classic and it consists of about a hundred axioms that you have to adopt if you're going to learn how a system works. And one of the axioms I never forgot, which I think is absolutely brilliant, is the system does not do what its name says it does. Right. And so you have to approach a complex system like you're approaching an organism that you know nothing about. And it'll have a name, but that's not what it does. You can figure out quite quickly what it actually does by looking at what it spends most of its time on or its money. So I learned this in Alberta. I worked for Alberta Social Services when I was like, I don't know, 18, something like that. I had a summer job that turned into a year long internship. That's when I got some policy experience and Alberta Social Services at that time did not have sufficient data gathering capacity to answer the question, how much of the money that we spend goes. Is spent on the end user? Well, the answer was very little, because like with most charities, almost all the money spent by social services was spent on the administrators of the social service program. And so, you know, your first pass diagnosis of a system like that is that, well, it's clearly there to employ the people on whom it spends the bulk of the money. Now, a side effect might be the delivery of some services, maybe, but if they're not even collecting data about whether those services are administered, you know exactly how low on the priority list that service actually is. And so you were, you were trying to, you were looking at a system purely from the perspective of logic, I suppose, something like that. And very uni dimensionally not understanding, for example, that the AARP is not to be messed with no matter what. Right, right. So, right. Why don't they just raise the age a month, a year? Like, would that cause too much? Is that too administratively complex?
- [33:23]
Simone Gold
No, no, no, I don't think so. I think it's just that the AARP was telling the politicians what to do and so they did it right. They weren't even messing with it. And that was a huge life lesson. And I learned for me in my life, I don't need to spend my time doing that. At least practicing medicine is honorable. And so I shifted just back to practicing medicine because at least.
- [33:46]
Jordan Peterson
Well, see, that's a problem too, isn't it?
- [33:47]
Simone Gold
Because you chase out the good people.
- [33:49]
Jordan Peterson
Well, yeah, yeah, well, and it's like to say something on the side of the pulse, politicians here, just momentarily like congressmen in the United States, they spend a tremendous amount of their time traveling back and forth between D.C. and their home constituency. They are running for election almost all the time, right? So it's like, that's hard. That's hard, right? Because what, they're on a two year cycle, I mean, they're just campaigning all the time and then they spend elections, if I remember correctly, they spend 28 hours a week fundraising. Right? And they can't do that in their offices because that's illegal. So they have these ratty, horrible offices instead with drop ceilings and fluorescent lights and they're full of mold and that doesn't help them out at all. And they're on the bloody phone for 28 hours a week, basically acting as telemarketers for the parties. Well, God, how demoralizing is that? And then, so you have that 28 hours a week. You have your travel, you have your well. And that's completely independent of the fact that you have way too much to learn about absolutely everything. So now you're entirely dependent on your staff. All of that's demoralizing. And the consequence of that demoralization is particularly because they're campaigning all the time, they can't take a long term view. And everybody who can, leaves.
- [35:13]
C
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- [36:22]
Jordan Peterson
Well, so then what the hell do you do about that? I mean, that's, that's, you can throw up your hands and leave. And you said, well, you go back to medicine because it's honorable. But you know, that's. It is a real problem when the most competent people can't involve themselves in the government because it would mean, it would mean. Looks like it's the sacrifice of something potentially more productive and useful. Okay, so, so that is what you decided. You went, you decided to go back to medicine.
- [36:49]
Simone Gold
Yeah.
- [36:49]
Jordan Peterson
Okay, so you left the policy field and what was your conclusion at that point? You were just, you were going to stay away from the political. That didn't work out, by the way.
- [36:58]
Simone Gold
You can't, you can't avoid your destiny.
- [37:00]
Jordan Peterson
Well, yeah, right.
- [37:01]
Simone Gold
You really can't. If you asked me, you can kick.
- [37:04]
Jordan Peterson
And scream about it.
- [37:05]
Simone Gold
You're going in that direction. I wanted to fix the healthcare system. I mean, that was my childhood dream.
- [37:10]
Jordan Peterson
Yeah. Why in childhood? How early?
- [37:14]
Simone Gold
I think, first of all, my dad was a doctor. I was raised to be a doctor. I always knew I would be a doctor. But the system is so dysfunctional that I think I just always wanted to make it better. Just. It was so. There are things that are wonderful. The doctor patient relationship with a caring doctor and a patient that they know with modern medicine, could be beautiful, could be amazing. You have a smart advocate who's on your side. That part's amazing. The actual practice of medicine is terrible. That's why so many good doctors go on free mission trips. They donate their time and their money to practice medicine in third world countries so they can actually do some good. I mean, it's a beautiful thing to be a doctor. That's the truth. But the practice of medicine in America, and probably Canada as well, is, you know, it's not great. So I've always known that.
- [37:59]
Jordan Peterson
Is that, is that, is that a consequence of bureaucratic complexification? I mean, what's the essential problem? You know, I mean, I love being a clinical psychologist when you could still do that and tell the truth, which wasn't that long ago. But there were no intermediaries.
- [38:14]
Simone Gold
So I'll tell you exactly the moment it started changing, because I learned this in my health policy law class from Professor Hank Greeley in health Law and policy at Stanford, Lyndon Johnson, Medicare act of 1965. The preamble paragraph says, nothing in this Medicare act should be construed to interfere with the practice of medicine. And I was sitting there as a young doctor law student, and I raised my hand and I said, every single thing Medicare has done has interfered with the practice of medicine 100%.
- [38:46]
Jordan Peterson
That's why that put that preamble there to begin.
- [38:49]
Simone Gold
Nothing in this should. Everything came from interfering with the doctor patient relationship. Everything. There's intermediaries. There is no more doctor patient relationship. For most patients, it's a big insurance company right in the middle, or a big hospital corporation right in the middle.
- [39:06]
Jordan Peterson
Or in Canada, you just can't get a physician. One in five. Now, with no physician in Canada, what's.
- [39:12]
Simone Gold
Happening in your country we could talk about for days.
- [39:16]
Jordan Peterson
Yes, it's a series of catastrophic miracles.
- [39:19]
Simone Gold
It couldn't be worse.
- [39:21]
Jordan Peterson
Yeah, well, we substitute paying. We've substituted dying for paying. Right. Which is not a great substitution.
- [39:27]
Simone Gold
We write a lot about the maid. It's horrific. Yeah, it's horrific.
- [39:31]
Jordan Peterson
Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's going to get worse before it gets better.
- [39:34]
Simone Gold
So I think I just always kind of. I think my dad was a brilliant man. He was a Holocaust survivor, comes to America, does extremely well. Smart, amazing guy, wanted to be a doctor. I was a doctor. We were all doctors, but we also saw patients in our house. That was something my dad did. He would do hospitals and nursing homes all day, and then we'd have patient hours at night. So I saw the care between a doctor and a patient. So I know what it can be. I know what it can be. And I'm holding onto that and saying, I don't understand how in modern times, why can't we also have that?
- [40:09]
Jordan Peterson
Well, yeah, right.
- [40:10]
Simone Gold
That's what you want. But you have so many.
- [40:13]
Jordan Peterson
Because it's a relationship. Right. I mean, you should have a relationship with your patients. Right.
- [40:18]
Simone Gold
Basically a doctor, like another educated consultant. When you pay a lawyer, I'm sure you have a lot of lawyers. You are. They're working for you. They're not working for the government. They're not working for a big corporation. They're working for you to serve your interest. If they're not good enough, you move on. You get a different lawyer. Right? Why do we not have that in medicine? Because the world has told us medicine is too complicated. Medicine needs an intermediary. The patient can't understand medicine. Even Trump, during COVID couldn't understand. He sort of left it to the experts. I am done with that. A person can make their own medical decisions with the advice of a smart consultant. Exactly like they do when they buy a house, when they fill out their tax forms, when they see a lawyer or an accountant. There's nothing magical and so black box that a patient can't understand. I'm an emergency physician. I could explain any disease to a person, either the 23 minute version or the 15 minute version. 100% of diseases can be explained in 3 minutes or 15 minutes.
- [41:14]
Jordan Peterson
Well, if the patient isn't in charge of their own decisions, they're not going to comply with the recommendations of the physicians anyways. I mean, compliance is a big problem, and you don't get compliance from patients unless they trust you, unless the trust is. And that's a hard thing to build, especially when people are in crisis. So I. So one of the last things I did in preparing for this discussion was read your Wikipedia page. Yeah, I know, it's really something, but this is worth highlighting because I've noticed this before, it's very easy to damage someone's reputation. It's very, very easy. And I think the reason for that is that, you know, each of us can in potential interact with a very wide range of very large number of people. And so if you ever read anything or hear anything about someone that isn't above board, the cost, the apparent cost of writing that person off is basically zero, because there's so many other people you can turn to. The downside of that is that it's unbelievably easy to destroy someone's reputation. Now when I read your Wikipedia page, it's just like a never ending stream of assaults on your character, essentially. And, and there's a reason I'm highlighting that. It's because, and it's also partly why I took the route into talking to you today the way I did. Because even though I know that people's reputations are savaged continually, I've seen that firsthand. I know dozens of people who are qualified to whom that's happened. I know that as well as anyone could know it. I would say it's still effective. It's still effective, you know, because I thought, when I read that, I thought, well, just who is this woman? And like, why are all these terrible things being written about her? And does she know what she's talking about? And so part of the reason I wanted to inquire into your academic history was to find out, well, you know, what's your base level of qualification? And so it's very interesting to note that your base level of qualification is extremely high. Right. It's very unlikely that you went to the University of Chicago Medical School. That's really hard, particularly given how young you were. And to follow that up with Stanford Medical School, like, is there anyone else who's done that? Right. But that also makes you unique in another way. Like one of the things that marks people out for peculiar destinies is that they operate at the intersection of two rare skill sets. Right. Because you're rare as a physician because there are not that many physicians. And you're rare as a lawyer because there aren't that many lawyers, but physician lawyers. It's like, how many of them are there?
- [43:46]
Simone Gold
Well, when I graduated, I actually There were about 3 to 5,000 in all of America.
- [43:51]
Jordan Peterson
Right, right, right. So that's a very rare intersection. And then you have the public policy experience as well. Right. So at some point, this is intersectionality on the academic side. You get enough intersections. So there's like one of you, Right. Then you're then you're poised, if you're competent, to make a real qualitatively distinct contribution because there isn't anyone else who knows what you know. Okay, so let's move from your background, which we've delved into, in, in some depth, to. Well, let's tell us what it. Tell us what happens next. And let's move towards Covid and everything that transpired around that. So you spent three years in an internship in emergency in emergency internal medicine.
- [44:35]
Simone Gold
A residency in emergency medicine.
- [44:37]
Jordan Peterson
Right. That was three years. Okay. Okay. And then now you're an ER physician.
- [44:41]
Simone Gold
Correct.
- [44:41]
Jordan Peterson
Okay. And so how long are you and where, where are you?
- [44:45]
Simone Gold
I moved from New York back, and then I moved to California and I spent the next 20 years working as an emergency physician full time.
- [44:51]
Jordan Peterson
Where?
- [44:52]
Simone Gold
Oh, various hospitals.
- [44:53]
Jordan Peterson
Okay, but it's all in California.
- [44:55]
Simone Gold
Correct.
- [44:56]
Jordan Peterson
Why do you made the fateful decision to move to California? Oh, you were at Stanford.
- [45:01]
Simone Gold
So you were. Yeah, I knew. I knew California. I had some family, personal reasons to be there.
- [45:05]
Jordan Peterson
Okay.
- [45:05]
Simone Gold
Yeah.
- [45:05]
Jordan Peterson
Okay. And you spent 20 years. Okay, and how does that go?
- [45:10]
Simone Gold
I had a perfect reputation.
- [45:12]
Jordan Peterson
Okay, so detail, Adam. What does that mean? So, among your patients, any complaints?
- [45:18]
Simone Gold
There were no. There has never been any complaints.
- [45:20]
Jordan Peterson
Lawsuits?
- [45:20]
Simone Gold
Nope. And by the way, to be in a practicing emergency physician and have no malpractice lawsuits, very uncommon.
- [45:26]
Jordan Peterson
Yes, that's exactly why I'm investigating that. Because the default is that you're going to get nailed by. Well, you'll come across a nice psychopath at least once during your practice who will take you to task and make your life miserable.
- [45:40]
Simone Gold
Especially in emergency medicine, because there is no deep doctor patient relationship. Patients do not have loyalty towards you.
- [45:46]
Jordan Peterson
Well, things can go very wrong.
- [45:47]
Simone Gold
Things can go very well.
- [45:48]
Jordan Peterson
No doubt. Often do, since it's an emergency and all that. 20 years.
- [45:52]
Simone Gold
20 years. And I would say I was very well respected. Many people loved working with me.
- [46:00]
Jordan Peterson
So your patients didn't complain. Your colleagues loved me, nurses loved me. That's particularly telling.
- [46:06]
Simone Gold
Right, Because. And it's a challenge as a female physician to have the nurse. Like there's a whole dynamic going on there. And I know that I was very well respected and well loved because when I was attacked, many of them stood up for me. So it's not my fantasy wish. Not only were there no complaints, there's no paper trail against me. You can't find anything negative said about me prior to 2020. Doesn't exist.
- [46:26]
Jordan Peterson
Right, right. I had the same experience in university.
- [46:29]
Simone Gold
Yeah. Right.
- [46:30]
Jordan Peterson
And so it's useful to have that kind of background, although it's not necessarily enough to defend you. But it's the start. It's a good start.
- [46:37]
Simone Gold
I remind people of that. I said, just try to find something nasty that someone said about me prior to 2020. It isn't there.
- [46:44]
Jordan Peterson
Right. Prior to 2020.
- [46:46]
Simone Gold
And none of that prior to July 27, 2020.
- [46:50]
Jordan Peterson
Right, right.
- [46:51]
Simone Gold
Okay.
- [46:52]
Jordan Peterson
Well, so let's move to July. So you have a perfectly. And are you happy? Are you. I'm happy.
- [46:57]
Simone Gold
So I got married. I had two children. I was working as an emergency physician. I'm Jewish. I was exploring Judaism more. It was great. I was living in beverage.
- [47:06]
Jordan Peterson
Doing anything with your legal training?
- [47:08]
Simone Gold
I was not. I did a little bit of writing, a little bit of policy writing for some independent people on the side. And I was always very interested. But I was. In the years of raising kids and working.
- [47:20]
Jordan Peterson
Right, right, right. Any pull toward the political during those times, apart from the policy?
- [47:25]
Simone Gold
So I'm super. Obviously, as it turns out, as a human, I'm super interested in fixing systems. I'm super interested in efficiencies, but politics? No. So I never even considered going to.
- [47:38]
Jordan Peterson
Did you do any work at the systemic level when you were an ER physician, or were you mostly concentrating on patient care?
- [47:45]
Simone Gold
Every. So thank you for the question, because everywhere I worked, I was always pulled in to do something to fix how the ER was running, for example, an efficiency that you could have in emergency rooms, where. I don't know how it is in Canada, but in America, there's long lines, it's very inefficient. And I said, well, we should put a doctor up front. Right. In triage, so. Because at least a third of our patients could go home immediately. Right, right. So if you. It's called pit physician in triage. So physician in triage is super efficient. So I was a big proponent of that, for example. And everywhere I worked would pull me into orientation, organize the systems. And that's also when I learned nothing really ever gets done. Typically, you know, I write up these big plans. I do tons of volunteer hours. I'm like, this is how you have to do it. I was like that eager beaver. Like, this is how you do. It'll be so much better, be so much more efficient. And then, you know, it would fall flat. There's.
- [48:32]
Jordan Peterson
Yeah. I don't know. So tell me if it works the same way in large hospitals. I suspect so. So when I first went to the University of Toronto, the first year I was there, the chair asked me to serve on the Psychology departments. We had a position on the planning committee for the, for the, for that faculty and they were making a five year plan and I thought they wanted to make a five year plan. So I actually worked on it a lot and I consulted with a lot of my colleagues and we came up with a list of recommendations that were appropriate and implementable and well designed. And they not only did they ignore all of them in their final report, which was quite remarkable to actually ignore all of them despite asking for input continually. Input. As soon as you hear that word you should be wary. It's like we want input. That's like content in the legacy media. And then they put forward their own plan and then the plan they implemented bore no relationship whatsoever to the plan they produce. Yes, and then. But there was more to it too because part of the reason for that was that many administrative positions change hands quickly. And so even if you have established an arrangement with someone that's genuine, the probability that it'll be implemented over say a three year period or a four year period is very low because, well, if they're competent they're going to be promoted upward and if they're incompetent, it's not going to be implemented anyways. And so you get to a point where you can't plan over more than a certain time range because the system itself is so fluid that nothing can, nothing's going to happen. And people also, this is something else I learned very painfully. It took me a long time to understand this even psychologically is the typical person is far more risk averse than opportunity hungry. And so the general attitude, especially to from for a career bureaucrat or a middle manager is not will this do any good? It's is there any way my name could be associated with this under any conditions if anything ever went wrong? Risk minimization.
- [50:48]
Simone Gold
So that is so disappointing about human nature. That took me forever to realize people didn't want to actually fix the problem. I got a tip from a colleague of mine when I was so disappointed that the plans much like you had, nobody's implementing them, nobody's doing these better plans. And a friend of mine, a colleague said, said don't you know why they have hospital committees? Why that's to delay things. He goes, I successfully delayed this policy that I didn't want to have happen for two years. And when I could delay it no longer, I quit the committee. That was advice from a colleague. So I was a little bit, well you know what? I'm not going to spend one thing I won't do is waste my time. So I was kind of done.
- [51:25]
Jordan Peterson
That was the last planning committee.
- [51:26]
Simone Gold
I said correct.
- [51:27]
Jordan Peterson
I told oh yes, okay, I see this. This was a colossal waste of time.
- [51:33]
Simone Gold
Correct.
- [51:33]
Jordan Peterson
That's not going to happen again.
- [51:35]
Simone Gold
I'm not wasting my time. My time's.
- [51:37]
Jordan Peterson
But then you can see what happens there too is the committees get occupied by people who have nothing else they would rather be doing than wasting time.
- [51:47]
Simone Gold
So that's exactly it. But I want to share with you because it's interesting and became relevant later. I always had a heart for working with minority communities, poor underserved communities. So really that's what I did all of my career. I was working in just super hardcore. You might have heard of the Boyz n the Hood. The movie took place in Inglewood. It's like super hardcore. Like I was the only white face there and I liked that kind of work. I gravitated towards that kind of work. So I was working at Centinella Hospital for a lot of years in, you know, the heart of Englewood, California happens to be about 15 minutes or so, 20 minutes from LA International Airport. Now UCLA is 5 to 10 minutes further. Cedars Sinai Medical Centers 5 to 10 minutes further. Those are both world class research institutions. 2014 rolls around and we get the Ebola scare and the powers that be decide that my hospital should be the receiving hospital for any potential Ebola patients that somehow flew from West Africa to LAX.
- [52:50]
C
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- [53:56]
Simone Gold
So they're landing here. Now, this is a foreshadow of what came during COVID This is 2014, and I'm puzzling over this thing, wondering why you would be bringing Ebola patients to this poor inner city hospital that has no resources. I'm saying that you could probably be in September, central Mexico, and it would be about the same. And I was stunned by it. Now, my peers, not thinking, thought this was sort of exciting. And I, as an ER doctor, love the excitement of emergencies, but this made no sense. So we start the Ebola training that we're going through, and they break out these hazmat suits that we were seeing to cover the blue, right? And I was like, well, this doesn't stop the Ebola virus. Like, why are we doing this? Like, why are we putting on paper, blue paper, like over our body? Like, what? And nobody was asking those foundational questions. And I was the highest ranking person at the time there. And so people listened to me. And I said, you know what I'm doing if a potential Ebola patient comes here from LAX? What are you doing, Dr. Gold? Yeah, I'm leaving. And people were so shocked to hear me say that, right? Because I'm compassionate and I'm kind. I said, no, no, no, no, no. It's not even about me. I said, who's being put at risk? My poor inner city black nurse who just shows up for work that day. She's supposed to be exposed to Ebola. I don't even know. I'm the doctor. I can, like, stand back and just be thinking, she's the one who has to draw blood. She's the one who has to get close to the patient. And you're saying because somehow the CDC is failing to capture someone 7,000 miles away. They're on a flight and they're coming to the poor inner city hospital, and they're not going to UCLA and they're not going to Cedar Signing. That's okay. I said, this is not okay. And I put my foot down and I completely refused. And it was very stunning.
- [55:34]
Jordan Peterson
This was 2014.
- [55:35]
Simone Gold
This was 2014. And people were stunned because I'd never reacted like that before. But let me tell you what the problems were. One, it was irrational. What they were trying to teach us. Blue paper, not going to stop the Ebola virus. Two, don't bring me someone who managed to fly 7,000 miles and somebody in Washington is going to say, but that's okay. We'll just bring them to this, like, poor hospital that has no resources. If she gets stuck with a needle and dies from Ebola two days later, that's no big deal. I had a huge problem with that. And he taught me that whoever's making these decisions either was totally incompetent or completely compromised. How come they weren't going to Cedarsina or ucla? Why, like, did they lobby better? Did they say, we don't want the Ebola? It made no sense. It made no sense whatsoever. I hope I'm being clear. It's just that I couldn't live with it, so I stopped that policy. And fortunately, no potential Ebola patients came. But I was horrified that my nurses were expendable. That was the only calculation that could have been. I mean, anybody with any resources didn't go to my hospital. You went to Cedars Sinai or you went to ucla. Why were they. Why. Why was the choice made in Washington, D.C. that will send them to the poorest, worst, least provided, least equipped hospital in the area?
- [56:50]
Jordan Peterson
Yeah, well, it seems kind of self evident when you put it that way.
- [56:53]
Simone Gold
Well, I was. I was on the ground.
- [56:55]
Jordan Peterson
You objected to that. And what happened as a consequence of you objecting?
- [56:58]
Simone Gold
You know, if an Ebola, a potential Ebola patient had landed, I would have walked out. Yeah, it didn't happen. I was a beloved doctor.
- [57:05]
Jordan Peterson
So did that do anything to your reputation?
- [57:08]
Simone Gold
I'm not even sure people understood what I was saying.
- [57:12]
Jordan Peterson
Yeah, okay. Okay.
- [57:13]
Simone Gold
Do you know what I'm saying? Okay. And they had a very hard time finding doctors in these poor intersections.
- [57:17]
Jordan Peterson
Okay, okay, okay. But that was foreshadowing.
- [57:20]
Simone Gold
I forgot about it until years later.
- [57:22]
Jordan Peterson
Okay, okay, well, let's Fast forward to July 27, 2020. Okay, tell us about July 27.
- [57:30]
Simone Gold
So all through 2020, as we started hearing about this China virus, which is how it was referred for five months or so until China, you know, threw a hissy fit. I was researching everything, and honestly, I was excited. I'm an ER doctor. I like emergencies. For me, this is exciting. I read every journal article that came out, and I'm talking about it with my peers, and I was discovering that my peers were completely incurious. I was shocked. I don't even know. I was devastated. I was devastated I didn't know that my peers were not curious about diseases and emergencies. I still wanted to talk about it.
- [58:10]
Jordan Peterson
How could you know that by that point, I mean, what was revealed to you with that new information that you hadn't seen before?
- [58:16]
Simone Gold
Because I think up until that point, you would talk to your peers. A person would come with a hip fracture, they come up with a pneumonia or an asthma or heart attack. And so you're all doing kind of the same thing, right? Because it's kind of the right thing to do.
- [58:26]
Jordan Peterson
It's local as well.
- [58:27]
Simone Gold
And so you just, you know, you maybe ask a question here or there, but it was never outside the box. None of us were outside the box at all. But all of a sudden, we had a brand new disease, brand new thing, and nobody knew what to do. Right. The whole world doesn't know what to do. But I was reading all the literature, and it was patently obvious that hydroxychloroquine worked. Now, it wasn't a coincidence.
- [58:47]
Jordan Peterson
Justify that, Clay.
- [58:48]
Simone Gold
The reason we knew it worked is because SARS 2 virus, which caused COVID 19, was 78% identical to SARS 1 virus. SARS 1 virus was 15 or 18 years earlier, and chloroquine fixed it. Chloroquine treated it. So very early on, scientists doing research at the bed, in the clinic, in the labs, discovered that hydroxychloroquine also stopped the SARS 2 virus. Not a surprise.
- [59:14]
Jordan Peterson
They're like, oh, draw the connection between those viruses again.
- [59:18]
Simone Gold
Okay, so COVID 19 was caused by the SARS 2 virus. Everyone kept calling this the novel coronavirus. Yeah, I have no idea to this day. Talk about misnomers, which you're an expert at.
- [59:29]
Jordan Peterson
Yeah.
- [59:30]
Simone Gold
What was novel about it? It was.
- [59:31]
Jordan Peterson
That's a good question.
- [59:32]
Simone Gold
It was 78% identical to SARS one. So there was a SARS one 18 years earlier, and it was a coronavirus.
- [59:39]
Jordan Peterson
How much overlap?
- [59:40]
Simone Gold
Between 78% identified. Yeah.
- [59:42]
Jordan Peterson
And with the typical coronavirus, because, cola.
- [59:44]
Simone Gold
I don't have a percent, but they're.
- [59:45]
Jordan Peterson
In the same cap, so they must be. They must overlap substantively.
- [59:50]
Simone Gold
So the SARS1 respiratory virus, also from Asia, chloroquine was very helpful, and it worked. And there you go. So when SARS 2 came around, scientists in China, scientist Didier Raoul in France started studying hydroxychloroquine, which, by the way, is mechanism of action, is like the same as chloroquine, but safer. So if you see a chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine study. They're all equally good. So they start studying it and lo and behold, unsurprisingly. Completely unsurprisingly. Of course, it worked against SARS 2. It worked against SARS 1. Not a shock. 78% identical. So I'm reading on this.
- [60:25]
Jordan Peterson
And this is in 2020.
- [60:26]
Simone Gold
This is in. Yes. February of 2020 was when the first studies came out, I don't think in January 2020. But this is very, very early. This is when you would start. There wasn't any coronavirus task force committee, I think, until February or March of 2020. So the studies have showed this well.
- [60:43]
Jordan Peterson
Before the lockdowns, before the.
- [60:45]
Simone Gold
Oh, absolutely.
- [60:47]
Jordan Peterson
So why are you on this so quickly?
- [60:48]
Simone Gold
I'm interested because I'm an ER doctor. So for me, this was fun. Don't mean to sound like crazy people.
- [60:54]
Jordan Peterson
Well, that's how scientists.
- [60:56]
Simone Gold
Right. It's like, oh, my God, there's an emergency. I'm an emergency doctor. This is coming to me. Let me read about it. I was so curious about the whole thing. Every free minute I was reading about it. I mean, this is. I can't even describe here, like, if you were an emergency, if you loved cars and you're a car mechanic and there's a new car that comes out, you'd be so excited to, like, check it out, right? Okay. I'm an emergency doctor. There's an emergency all across the world. Nobody knows what it is. Let me dive.
- [61:17]
Jordan Peterson
So you're getting prepared.
- [61:18]
Simone Gold
I'm getting all excited, prepared, reading. And I know that they're going to be my future patients. Like, it wasn't just my ego satisfaction. It's like, I'm going to be on the line and everybody was panicked, which I don't panic. So I was even more excited. I'm like, let me just be calm and read everything. I read everything. There were studies in China.
- [61:34]
Jordan Peterson
So is that a marked characteristic of yours, not to panic?
- [61:37]
Simone Gold
Yes.
- [61:38]
Jordan Peterson
So I'm curious about that.
- [61:41]
Simone Gold
Psychologically, like low anxiety, I'm probably a little bit neurotic.
- [61:48]
Jordan Peterson
Okay, but you don't panic.
- [61:49]
Simone Gold
I don't panic.
- [61:50]
Jordan Peterson
Why not?
- [61:51]
Simone Gold
Why not? Yeah, I just think you can figure it out.
- [61:55]
Jordan Peterson
Yeah. Okay. That's a good answer. So you think you can figure it out. That's your presumption.
- [62:00]
Simone Gold
That's my basic presumption.
- [62:01]
Jordan Peterson
Your father has something to do with that.
- [62:03]
Simone Gold
I mean, I think you grow up as a daughter of a Holocaust survivor. Maybe you're. You put things in perspective. I mean, I wouldn't panic over things. Most Americans would panic over just because I knew what my father went through.
- [62:15]
Jordan Peterson
Yeah. I'm more curious about your implicit presumption that if a problem comes your way, you can figure it out, because that's not a presumption that most people share. It's relatively rare. Now, that's a very effective presumption if you also happen to be the sort of person who can figure things out. But most people can do more of that than they think. Okay, so you're excited about this. You're on the. You're keeping up with the cutting edge research. You. You conclude, and you're not even doubtful about it, that hydroxychloroquine works. And there's reason to presume that the literature shows it. But there's also more compelling reason, which is, well, we've seen this before.
- [62:53]
Simone Gold
There have been many, many respiratory viruses and pandemics throughout human history. And also even in America, like, every year, like, all the time. So I was a little. I mean, I'm a human, too, and living in America. You were pummeled all the time with this. It became that the subject. It was the only subject people were talking about. So I would say I considered the possibility that I was wrong. So I would say for the month of March, I was cautious. Like, I would come home from the ER and I would strip my clothes off and change my clothes outside, and I'd wash up before I'd go in. So I thought, there's always possibilities. There's something I didn't know, like maybe this is the only virus in the history of the world to act a certain way. So I was humble about it. You know, I said, well, maybe there's something. But everything that people were saying was contradictory to everything. It contradicted Public Health 101. It contradicted how viruses worked. Everything was off. So in March, when our country, I don't remember exactly when Trump said, We'll do 15 days to stop the spread. It was March, I think March of 2020. And that's also when March 15th or something is when he spoke out in favor of hydroxychloroquine. And the world turned upside down for me right then. So that's a really critical moment. Up until the day Trump mentioned he.
- [64:12]
Jordan Peterson
Was pilloried for that.
- [64:14]
Simone Gold
Yes, I think it was March 17th. He said it. So on March 17th, Donald Trump spoke in favor of hydroxychloroquine. Now, I had been talking to my peers for the previous two months. What do you think about hydroxychloroquine? The response was, ah. And I said, well, aren't you going to use it when you get your first COVID patient? And people are like, yeah, probably, I guess, I don't know, incurious. Like, nobody was reading. Which I found weird. Okay, all right. March 17th, he gets pilloried for hydroxychloroquine. My next ER shift. Oh, my gosh, nobody. It was like, oh, no, I'm never going to use that. That's terrible. That's dangerous, terrible stuff. And I looked at my peers, but they're my peers still. I didn't know what was coming. I was like, huh? Why? Like what? Like last week you didn't care. Oh, no, it's very bad, very dangerous. I'm like, why is it? And they start saying whatever they heard on the news or on Facebook. That was my lesson number two. Wow. You're just incurious. You're literally like a Facebook. Like, why do people pay you as a doctor? Like, I didn't get it. Like, you were literally just saying what they said at a press conference. I thought it was weird that they went from not caring about hydroxy, no problem to saying, oh, verboten. Now a couple.
- [65:23]
Jordan Peterson
Yeah. Well, that's that sensitivity to. What would you say? Reputation savaging. It's contagious. Right. If you associate with someone whose reputation is being damaged, then it. It affects you.
- [65:36]
Simone Gold
So I hear what you're saying. That is a good point. I happened. That ER job where I do most of my work was in a politically kind of conservative area. It's where Kevin McCarthy is the congressman. So I don't. It wasn't like a hatred of Trump in that area, but the world had come down against hydroxychloroquine and my doctors.
- [65:55]
Jordan Peterson
And why was that? Why was the why. Why did the world come down against.
- [66:00]
Simone Gold
Oh, well, we know the answer now. We answer now.
- [66:02]
Jordan Peterson
Let's lay that out just briefly and then we'll return to the story.
- [66:05]
Simone Gold
Right. So it was, first of all in real time, it was bizarre. People coming out against it. It's 70 years approved by the FDA. It's completely fine across the world. It's over the counter. Oh, yeah.
- [66:14]
Jordan Peterson
So those are the reasons.
- [66:16]
Simone Gold
Well, it turns out in America to release the vaccine on an eua, an emergency use authorization schedule.
- [66:24]
Jordan Peterson
Yeah.
- [66:25]
Simone Gold
The prerequisite is that there's no other treatment available. Oh, yeah.
- [66:30]
Jordan Peterson
So that's the damning clause right there. If anything else worked, it had been pre approved.
- [66:37]
Simone Gold
You couldn't do it by law. You would not able to release the Pfizer shots.
- [66:40]
Jordan Peterson
So what's the campaign then from the pharmaceutical companies? Like what orders go out to make hydroxychloroquine verboten.
- [66:51]
Simone Gold
So everything happened to hydroxychloroquine. So starting the middle of March 2020, you were, I mean, it was like poison, you know, people were scared. People were rejected specific policies that I know you wouldn't know. Cvs, the chain pharmaceuticals were, were instructing their pharmacists not to prescribe it. Like if a patient came in, the pharmacist would get a red box flashing on their screen to double, triple, quadruple, check hydroxychloroquine safety. So pharmacists at the drugstore were being empowered to interfere with the practice of medicine, which in America is illegal. In America, pharmacists is only allowed to dispense and to clarify mistakes or dosage, some kind of error. So they clarify they're specifically by law not allowed to interfere with the doctor's decision. All day long, that's all they did. So if you found yourself a doctor who would prescribe it, the pharmacist blocked it. The hatred on hydroxychloroquine was huge. The World Health Organization came out. It was unbelievable. This is when I really learned how bad the science was. I'm sure you're familiar with the Lance article that was retracted. Or maybe not. We have different world lay it out. So Lancet is one of the three most famous medical journals in the world. And so if you say you're published in the Lancet, that is just Career.
- [68:09]
Jordan Peterson
JAMA and British Medical Journal.
- [68:10]
Simone Gold
I would say, yeah, I would say those are the exact or New England Journal of Medicine. And then maybe JAMA would be fourth. But it's like number one, number two in the world. You don't get published in JAMA by accident. It's utterly impossible. There's committees, there's layers of laws.
- [68:21]
Jordan Peterson
It's very hard.
- [68:22]
Simone Gold
It's very hard. I mean, and it takes a long time, years. And you have to be, you've coming from a prestigious university and there's a team of people. And so I just want to be crystal clear, you cannot be published by accident in the Lancet. You have a team of researchers. You have a team of researchers who are approving it. You have an editorial board that's doing it. There's.
- [68:39]
Jordan Peterson
And those are career making publications.
- [68:41]
Simone Gold
Totally. You got published in the Lancet, you could then go off and be a professor, associate professor, et cetera. So this Lancet article comes out saying that Hydroxychloroquine was unsafe and ineffective for Covid. And the headlines from this Lancet study went all around the world. Everybody who was paying attention at the time read that study and all of a sudden it was considered poison and terrible and awful. But independent researchers looked at the study and cried foul. It didn't make sense. The numbers of people they had in the study were in the tens of thousands. I think they said they had 60 or 70,000 people in the study. I'm not certain of the number. It crossed like five continents. Hundreds of hospitals, and everyone's scratching their heads and they're like, how did we not hear about this study? And how did they compile data from all over these geographic locations in different languages, in different countries, like, so rapidly and da, da. So the independent physicians who became America's frontline doctors raised their hands, published online. They said, this doesn't make sense. And they complained. And so the Lancet got a little embarrassed. The Lancet goes to the authors and they said, show us the data. Show us the proof. They could not prove it was authentic. They had no way to prove it. And the Lancet had to publish a retraction. I think it was only about three weeks. So kudos to the independent doctors who called foul. The Lancet had to retract it. I've never in my career seen that where the Lancet retracted. It never happened. Now, do you think that the headlines from its retraction made worldwide news? They did not. Let me tell you what happened from the original Lancet study. The World Health Organization and studies all across the world on hydroxychloroquine's effectiveness in Covid were halted. They said, oh, you've got to stop doing them. It's very dangerous, ineffective. It was almost impossible to restart those studies again. It interfered. And the other thing is that the damage was done. The reputational damage to hydroxychloroquine was complete forevermore. To this day, people think it's unsafe. And that was what it was. And I witnessed this in real time. I'm watching it.
- [70:42]
Jordan Peterson
So what's the effect on you?
- [70:44]
Simone Gold
Well, for I was the most. Just on a personal level, I couldn't believe that my peers, who were more than capable of learning all of this, I was no more sophisticated than they were, were not.
- [70:56]
C
Hey, everyone, real quick, before you skip.
- [70:58]
Simone Gold
I want to talk to you about.
- [70:59]
C
Something serious and important.
- [71:01]
Simone Gold
Dr. Jordan Peterson has created a new series that could be a lifeline for.
- [71:05]
C
Those battling depression and anxiety. We know how isolating and overwhelming These conditions can be. And we wanted to take a moment to reach out to those listening who may be struggling with decades of experience helping patients. Dr. Peterson offers a unique understanding of.
- [71:20]
Simone Gold
Why you might be feeling this way.
- [71:21]
C
In his new series, he provides a roadmap towards healing, showing that while the.
- [71:26]
Simone Gold
Journey isn't easy, it's absolutely possible to find your way forward. If you're suffering, please know you are not alone.
- [71:33]
C
There's hope and there's a path to feeling better. Go to Daily Wire plus now and start watching Dr. Jordan B. Peterson on depression and anxiety. Let this be the first step towards the brighter future you deserve.
- [71:49]
Simone Gold
They were not paying any attention, and they simply followed the headline du jour. That's it. Oh, today, when the EUA for hydroxy was authorized. Oh, we can use it today. And again, I said to my peers, what changed today? And they'll literally quote Facebook or a press conference. And so I learned that doctors were not curious. And I didn't understand why patients are paying most doctors, because you could get this stuff right off of Google, right off a committee hearing. And it was very demoralizing. The good part about the Internet was I found many, many other independent doctors online.
- [72:20]
Jordan Peterson
Yeah.
- [72:21]
Simone Gold
And we all came together and we said, we've gotta, like, speak up about this. This is just terrible. We didn't know how because we were very cen. Anybody who put anything about hydroxychloroquine, like, if you had the word hydroxychloroquine in a tweet, you were taken out. So you'd find creative ways of writing. You'd write initials. Like people would get it, but you couldn't do it. But one by one, we found each other. Twitter, Facebook, same problem, 100%. It was worse on Facebook than even Twitter. It was everywhere. But we all had, like, a burning passion to say the truth, the independent doctors. So we found each other. And I would say Maybe there was 100 that we found just all over, just people who just like me could not be silenced, couldn't stand it. And so I said, you know, we've got to speak to the American people. And I also know America is the world. And so I just started reaching out to people and I started doing interviews and started getting my reputation attacked. And then I decided, you know what? I'm going to do something that was just going to put doctors in front of the world. I said, let's stand in front of the Supreme Court. Because actually, it was supposed to be the Capitol, but there was. So we went in front of The Supreme Court. And I said, let me just bring YouTube influencers. That's what I called social media influencers. Said, let's bring some YouTube influencers and doctors. And we're just gonna stand there.
- [73:34]
Jordan Peterson
Who'd you bring? Who were the YouTuber influencers?
- [73:36]
Simone Gold
I randomly called people. So the biggest name was actually was Breitbart News, which wasn't an individual. And then I think everybody else was just random influencers who just showed up. You know, these are people who are upset.
- [73:49]
Jordan Peterson
Breitbart, you're gonna get the right wing tag, instant right.
- [73:52]
Simone Gold
But, you know, so we're just doing our thing. We doctors were giving education. We spoke for hours on the science. You know, it's 78% identical, and hydroxychloroquine is safe, and all these things and policy. And then we did that in a room. But then we walked over to the Supreme Court, and I remember the bright guard guy videotaping it, looked at his peer, and he said, we have 178,000 concurrent viewers. I have no idea what that means. And so I say to him, is that good? Is that bad? Like, I have no. He's like, we've never had anything, even 10% of that. I'm like, whoa, that's interesting.
- [74:27]
Jordan Peterson
Your life's over.
- [74:29]
Simone Gold
So I had no idea. We stand in front of the Supreme Court. I don't know if you ever saw it, because it was taken down very quickly. But I said to the world, stop living in fear. There's no reason to live in fear. There's early treatment available if you should want it. Masks don't stop inspiratory viruses. And, you know, this is gonna be fine. Like, let's not have lockdowns. We had about 12 doctors up there. Dr. Joseph Ladipo, our future surgeon general. We had pediatricians, we had internists, we had orthopedists. Bunch of us. White coats, all of that. I had no idea that was going to completely upend my life. We were just speaking truth. And that was July 27, 2020. And I didn't sleep again, about 36 hours or 48 hours, because the world, my world just was lit on fire after that.
- [75:17]
Jordan Peterson
Or.
- [75:18]
Simone Gold
Yes.
- [75:18]
Jordan Peterson
Yeah, okay, so I'll walk.
- [75:20]
Simone Gold
So I was a completely private citizen. I had perhaps 100 people on Twitter, friends and family. That's it. And one week Later, I had 101,000 followers on Twitter in one week. When they talk about overnight, it was literally overnight. Coincidentally, two days after the white coats, there happened, coincidentally, to be a big tech hearing in Congress. And Zuckerberg was in the hot seat. And Congressman asked Zuckerberg, why did you take down this video of doctors? And he says something like, well, it's dangerous disinformation and looking out for people. And I remember being shocked. Zuckerberg knows my name and is talking about me. It was very surreal. And everybody asked me to be in media, and I did a lot of TV shows and. And I also got fired from my jobs.
- [76:12]
Jordan Peterson
Jobs.
- [76:12]
Simone Gold
I was working two ER jobs. One was in this more conservative area. The other was. Which I don't talk about so much. I was working for Native American Hospital. I would go down once a month or once a week, and I would live on the native site and work with the native population. And I told you earlier on that that's kind of where my heart is, just to help people. They were very appreciative of people, and they both summarily fired me.
- [76:36]
Jordan Peterson
And what was the.
- [76:38]
Simone Gold
It was very clear. I got a text message from one which I still have, which says, they loved me, by the way. Loved me. And they said, I appeared in an embarrassing video, so I couldn't work there anymore. That was the exact wording. I appeared in an embarrassing video. Wow. And so, on a human level, as a psychologist, I had trained a long time to be well paid and have a job that I enjoyed.
- [77:05]
Jordan Peterson
And you had a reputation. A good reputation.
- [77:07]
Simone Gold
I had a good reputation. I started being called a quack everywhere. Everybody called me a quack. I collected 87 pages of media that had attacked me. Huffington Post was the most clever because what they did, they clearly had experience.
- [77:19]
Jordan Peterson
They still exist.
- [77:20]
Simone Gold
They do. They still have experience.
- [77:21]
Jordan Peterson
Barely.
- [77:22]
Simone Gold
Right. They must have experience with defamation lawsuits, because what they wrote was a group of people in white jackets claiming to be doctors. Oh, yeah, right. Like death by like. Right. I thought, oh, I can't really sue them.
- [77:34]
Jordan Peterson
Brutal.
- [77:34]
Simone Gold
Because that's true.
- [77:35]
Jordan Peterson
Oh, man.
- [77:36]
Simone Gold
Man, that's so psychopathic. We had cbs. We. We had cnn. Everyone defamed me.
- [77:41]
Jordan Peterson
They.
- [77:41]
Simone Gold
Everyone called me quack. Everyone. The other thing, everyone quoted each other. People didn't even look what I said. It was gone. It was off the Internet. You couldn't even find it.
- [77:49]
Jordan Peterson
Right.
- [77:50]
Simone Gold
So I.
- [77:50]
Jordan Peterson
Right. So people couldn't even refer to it. I wonder if Zuckerberg had been instructed specifically by the Biden White House to dispense with that.
- [77:57]
Simone Gold
We know that now. Oh, and we do know that.
- [77:59]
Jordan Peterson
Was that a direct order?
- [78:02]
Simone Gold
I don't have proof of that, but Fauci has been asked under oath about my organization. He said, I Don't recall what she said with everything. But later on, there was a lawsuit, Missouri versus Biden. And it came out that the Biden White House was censoring like crazy. But if you remember, this was during the Trump White House when I was getting massively censored. The media was just defaming me. So. So in that time, but just on a human level, it's a very frightening thing to be fired and also to know that I would not really be employable again as an emergency physician, which is a very high paying profession in America. But if these hospitals weren't going to have me, other hospitals were not. And I will tell you, I was scared. Now, I was always frugal, so I had enough money to live on for a while. But that was my career as an emergency physician.
- [78:55]
Jordan Peterson
Oh, you occur. And your reputation.
- [78:58]
Simone Gold
And my reputation. I think in retrospect, I was very, very hurt by the reputational damage, but I was much too busy to focus on it. Everyone told me to bring defamation lawsuits and I had a choice to make. How I'm using my time. Like I collected the data because it's evanescent, you know, it disappears.
- [79:16]
Jordan Peterson
Defamation lawsuits, they're very difficult and they take forever.
- [79:19]
Simone Gold
They take forever. So I. How am I going to spend my time? So I put it in a pile over here. But I was busy. The whole world was contacting me. So a week Later, I had 101,000 people on Twitter and I started getting so much support by the world that I realized, oh, people might want to hear what I have to say. So I just stepped into a new lane, a new role. But it was scary, especially in that week. I didn't know how I'd support myself. You can't go to work as a physician.
- [79:46]
Jordan Peterson
So how did you end it? So talk to me about that transition. So now you have 100,000 followers on Twitter. And so. And you're. You observe in that mass an opportunity. So tell me how you negotiated your way forward and how you put yourself back on, like, relatively stable financial footing. Assuming that you did, like, how did you. And how long did it take you to make the shift?
- [80:11]
Simone Gold
Yes. So when I realized that I was fired, it was scary. I didn't know how I'd support myself, but I was very busy. The whole world descended on me. Everyone in the conservative side wanted to interview, so I made a decision.
- [80:24]
Jordan Peterson
Did you think you were a conservative at that point? Well, how would have you classified yourself politically?
- [80:29]
Simone Gold
The irony is I had taken like a year before. I had taken one of Those little tests that show you where you are, political quadrants. Yeah, I was dead center.
- [80:37]
Jordan Peterson
Okay, so you're a centrist.
- [80:38]
Simone Gold
Yeah, I'm. I would say I'm a. I believe strongly in the Bill of Rights, which nowadays is being maligned as being right wing. But the Bill of Rights, I believe, is really the center between anarchy and tyranny. And I'm probably slightly towards anarchy than tyranny. And that's where I would put myself, which is I believe in free speech. I believe in the ability to defend yourself. I believe in minimal government. So these things are now considered very conservative.
- [81:03]
Jordan Peterson
And did you believe that at that point as well?
- [81:06]
Simone Gold
I did, yeah.
- [81:06]
Jordan Peterson
Okay.
- [81:07]
Simone Gold
Okay. If you asked me, I might have said libertarian. Not really fully understanding, but.
- [81:12]
Jordan Peterson
Right. But you were.
- [81:13]
Simone Gold
Had I voted Democrat much of my career, I would have said I was pro choice. I would have said, you know, my children had all their shots, I had shots. I didn't. You know, I thought the government was, you know, irresponsible a lot of the times doing dumb policies.
- [81:25]
Jordan Peterson
But, I mean, mostly you were working as an emergency.
- [81:27]
Simone Gold
Mostly I was just working.
- [81:28]
Jordan Peterson
Right.
- [81:29]
Simone Gold
I would. So am I conservative? I say the things that we now call conservative values were not solely conservative values in the past. I mean, now in America, being patriotic was considered conservative. Not wanting to kill babies, you know, like, in the sixth month of pregnancy, that's considered a hardcore conservative value. Now. I don't process it. Yeah, yeah.
- [81:53]
Jordan Peterson
No, I was thinking back then. I know things have shifted so bizarrely now that there's a challenge.
- [81:56]
Simone Gold
I would have said I was kind of centrifugal. I would have said I was kind of centrist.
- [81:59]
Jordan Peterson
Yeah.
- [82:00]
Simone Gold
Okay. Maybe a little right of center.
- [82:02]
Jordan Peterson
Maybe a little bit of center. Okay. Okay.
- [82:03]
Simone Gold
I always appreciated Dennis Prager. I liked what he had to say, but I was not particularly political. I voted Right.
- [82:12]
Jordan Peterson
Okay, so now you see an opportunity. Do you see an opportunity that quickly?
- [82:17]
Simone Gold
Well, I admit.
- [82:18]
Jordan Peterson
Was that desperation as well?
- [82:19]
Simone Gold
No, no, no. I. No, I was almost like a crazy person. I was possessed by having to spread the truth. I mean, I was possessed. Like, I couldn't. I can't stand lies. Lies are what led to my father's reality of the holidays.
- [82:32]
Jordan Peterson
Right. That's for sure.
- [82:33]
Simone Gold
I stand on truth. So I couldn't believe the doctors were lying, the media was lying, the government.
- [82:39]
Jordan Peterson
Was lying, the journals were lying.
- [82:41]
Simone Gold
Journals were lying.
- [82:42]
Jordan Peterson
That's the lying worst.
- [82:43]
Simone Gold
I think it was so painful that the journals were lying. Oh, yeah.
- [82:45]
Jordan Peterson
It's so bad.
- [82:46]
Simone Gold
And then when you start looking, you're like, oh, a lot of other people do know, like the former New England Journal of Medicine author Marcia Angell, I think, who wrote a whole book on the journals, not telling the truth. And then I start discovering that a lot of people are not telling the truth. But in my personal life, I have to get it back to you on that. What's her name? I think it's Marcia Angel. She wrote a book many years ago about how the journals are not telling the truth. And she was a former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine. So you'll be able to find it.
- [83:13]
Jordan Peterson
Yeah.
- [83:15]
Simone Gold
And I had made a decision, though, at that time to spread my message. And so I. In my mind, I said, I will speak to any large group that will have me. That was a decision. And about two weeks later, somebody called. I had many calls. I did as many as I could. Daystar called me. I don't know if you know them, but they are a Christian television network. And I said, am I free that day? Yeah, I am. I'll go. I'll go. And it turns out they would fly me down there and put me up on the hotel, in the hotel. And I was like, wow, that's so nice. You know, I wasn't even used to that. And I show up and I discover it's a very big Christian organization. They would laugh if they heard me say this, but I'm Jewish. I didn't know. I never heard of them. But I had made a decision. I'll go to anybody who'll have me if I can.
- [84:02]
Jordan Peterson
Right? I'll talk to people who will listen.
- [84:04]
Simone Gold
So I'm sitting there and I'm being interviewed by them, and in the middle of it, something, like, clicked. And the stars of Daesar, the Lambs, turned into their camera, and Marcus Lamb said, we want you to donate to Dr. Gold. Something like. She said something very nice about me and goes, and we are going to match every dollar that you donate. And I went like this. I mean, you could see on the air, I was like. I was, like, really stunned. And his wife, who's co hosting, said, no, no, he doesn't do this for everybody. Like, I had no experience. I was like, huh? And then I went about my life, and I'm doing this, that, and that talk. And about a month later, I got a check for something like $179,000. And I remember thinking, first of all, I could exhale. Probably people want to hear what I have to say, and probably I'll be able to keep saying it. So I didn't think past that. I knew I could eventually do something in life. Like I wasn't worried about me eventually, but I was worried I couldn't keep talking. And now I realize I could keep talking.
- [85:06]
Jordan Peterson
So why was that more important? You kind of alluded to it. You made some allusion to, well, your father's circumstance. And you know, you said something that we bounced over very quickly. You know, you said that you're. The catastrophe that enveloped the people around your father was a consequence of lying. See, that isn't something that everybody knows. Right? Because people think, while the really naive people think that if you see a dictatorship, you have a dictator and his henchmen and they're oppressing a whole mass of freedom loving people. And if you just take out the dictator, well, then democracy will bloom. What they don't understand is that what would you say the dictator is just the biggest devil in hell. And in a really totalitarian state, every single person is lying about absolutely everything they say and do all the time to themselves and everyone. And the totalitarian state is actually the grip of the lie. The dictator is just the what? He's the face of the lie. That's all. But every time someone in that totalitarian state lies, they're participating in their own demise. In Solzhenitsyn detailed out, I thought this was so remarkable that there were nowhere near enough committed communists to run the gulags. The prisoners had to run them. Right? Right. There's a totalitarian state for you. It's a prison. It's a. It's an inmate run prison. And the imprison is lies. Right. So why did you know that?
- [86:37]
Simone Gold
That is a great question. I couldn't. I found it more difficult to live with lies than anything else. Nothing else mattered why but speaking the truth. I think living in lies sucks your soul, sucks your energy. You're depressed, you can't wake up in the. You don't have. You wake up, but you don't really want to get out of bed. There's no reason, there's nothing to do for me living in lies. I might as well be dead.
- [87:06]
Jordan Peterson
No, it's worse. It's worse than death. That's hell, eh? Hell is worse than death, right? That's a hard thing to understand.
- [87:14]
Simone Gold
I had to.
- [87:14]
Jordan Peterson
But I'm very curious about why you knew this. It's very telling because that makes your willingness to seek opportunity and your desire to be able to keep speaking, that explains why that's paramount. Now, the reason I'm making a case of that is because Well, I don't know how many physicians leapt to your side, but I've seen how many psychologists in Canada have leapt to mine and it's basically zero, right? Zero is a very low number. And so even though what has been done to me, although not particularly successfully yet, could easily be done to psychologists and they're all being compelled to lie in Canada, as are the physicians, but people won't speak up. So now you did and you wanted to and you put that before even your concern about what you were going to do economically after your jobs disappeared. Okay, so that's, that's weird, right? And I don't, you, you tied it a bit to what had happened to your father, but I don't understand how you knew this.
- [88:18]
Simone Gold
I, I, I just can't imagine why you would want to live in a perpetual lie. I can't even think of anything harder.
- [88:28]
Jordan Peterson
Short term gain.
- [88:31]
Simone Gold
Well, I will tell, maybe this will help you as a psychologist. Once a psychologist, always a psychologist. I was never particularly interested in things that were faddish. So for example, I didn't care about fashion, which is something girls usually care deeply about because I always knew it was just a form of peer pressure. Not saying it in a negative way, I'm just saying I wasn't moved by it. It didn't, it didn't influence me. So all of those things that made me different, doctor, lawyer, holocaust daughter, curious, not susceptible to the whims of fashion, it never. And I also wasn't a person who lived very grandly. So would I be able to get by? I mean my income was really good. My plans for myself when this happened, the reason I was working 2er jobs was I was going to work really hard for two years, then I was really going to back off. I was saving a lot. It's not like I'm immune to earning money. But all of that went by the wayside. If I had to live in a lie, there's just no, it's not even a close call.
- [89:26]
Jordan Peterson
Right, right, right. No.
- [89:28]
Simone Gold
And I do, it's probably somewhat of my nature. But the nurture element, you can teach as a parent how dangerous it is to live in lies. I mean it's true my background was Jewish, but people think, you know, Hitler just happened and it just, you know, just happened. No, no, no, no, no. There were a lot of lies. Disappointed.
- [89:44]
Jordan Peterson
Yeah. Like hundreds of thousands of them.
- [89:45]
Simone Gold
Yeah. But I remember one I remember as a little girl is a lot of scientists were back in Germany were measuring Jews heads and they determined they were different Size and different shape than Aryan heads. And I remember saying to my dad, well, that's weird. Like, why didn't the scientists, they couldn't have found that because it's not true. And I remember thinking, that's so odd. I think I learned that when I was 10 years old. I'm like, well, that's so odd. Like, why didn't the scientists say anything? Were they just writing false numbers in their papers? Like, what were they doing that they allowed them to conclude that the circumference of the head was different amongst Arians and Jews. And I remember thinking, that's hell. You're right, it is hell. It's not death. It is hell to live in a world where you can't speak. You know, the First Amendment exists not just so you can hear what I have to say, but humans have a need to speak truth. They have that need inside of them.
- [90:33]
Jordan Peterson
So it's both. Yeah. If they're not. If they haven't corrupted their soul.
- [90:36]
Simone Gold
Right. But ignore a baby growing up until you've. I mean, until North Korean child learns very quickly she can't speak. But if you grow up in relative freedom, like we did in Canada and America, you have, I think, an inborn human need to speak and be heard. And all of a sudden, nobody was speaking truth. I know you didn't know hydroxychloroquine was safe, but if somebody said to water isn't wet, you would say, and that. You had to say that. You'd be like, I'm not saying that. I'm like, that's what they said when they said hydroxychloroquine wasn't safe. They were telling me to say, water's not wet. How am I supposed to say that and wake up every day?
- [91:09]
Jordan Peterson
Well, I felt the same way about Bill. C16 in Canada.
- [91:12]
Simone Gold
Exactly.
- [91:13]
Jordan Peterson
I have to call a woman a man, right? Well, maybe I would just to be polite, but I have to. No, I don't think so. What do you mean, have to? Exactly?
- [91:23]
Simone Gold
And then for me, mine was slightly different in the sense that mine was just like a specific fact that I knew that maybe not everybody knew, but all the doctors knew hydroxychloroquine was safe until media told them otherwise. So let me this nifty trick they did. They're safe and effective. So if the media and the journals had just said, oh, it's not effective.
- [91:44]
Jordan Peterson
Right, right, right.
- [91:45]
Simone Gold
Maybe I would have fallen for it. I don't think so, but maybe. But when they started saying it wasn't safe, when we've had it for 70 years, when there's a government database on, called FAERS, the FTA Adverse Events Reporting System, which keeps track of all side effects of drugs. And hydroxychloroquine is much safer than Tylenol in that database. They started saying it's not safe. I knew this is a big lie, and I just knew that it's soul crushing. I didn't want to live with a lie.
- [92:11]
Jordan Peterson
Yeah, okay, okay, okay. So now you turn your. You're. Now you're developing a career as a public speaker. Now you have a bit of, you have some financial backing.
- [92:19]
Simone Gold
Yeah.
- [92:19]
Jordan Peterson
So you're a little more solid. What happens?
- [92:21]
Simone Gold
So we, so we, we formed a formal nonprofit and people started flooding me. I couldn't keep up. I had to start hiring people, but I had not enough money to hire people. I was having tons of volunteers. And then, and this is happening over.
- [92:35]
Jordan Peterson
What span of months?
- [92:38]
Simone Gold
I'm telling you instantly, I spoke July 27, I was fired. August, I spoke at Daystar. I'm saying by November, I had that foundational check of 170, something,000 dollars. But I didn't really have enough money. I had like one person work for me, two people, and I had a bunch of volunteers. And then they started coming out with the shots. And I knew my lane, kicking and screaming, was dragged into my lane, which is my lane, was to stop mandates. I didn't even care so much about the average person who wanted to take medicine or didn't want to take medicine, or even the average person that wanted to take the shots or didn't want to take the shots. I cared about everyone being lied to, so they're making bad decisions. But I really, really cared about making sure mandates never became the law of the land. Because mandates would have survived Covid. Mandates would have become show me your passport, Jew 100%, which they kind of did in some nations. Show me your vaccine passport. They did. And if I was, I, I would go to my death stopping passport social credit score system in America or I will die trying. That was my mission. So I, and I, I say that because everyone wanted me to provide hydroxychloroquine to the world. I mean, we got thousands and thousands of emails to my nonprofit asking how they can get the medicine. So for two years, that was the question. So at that moment, around December or November 21st, I had to decide, would I go and find a way to give medicines to people because I only have 24 hours in a day, or would I work to prevent Mandates from becoming the law. And it wasn't even a question for me. This was my lane. It wasn't the medicine and the science, whatever how bad this was. This was temporary. This was permanent. Are we losing our constitutional freedoms? So I went down this road and starting in 21, I started bringing lawsuits against everybody against mandates. And that was my mission.
- [94:33]
Jordan Peterson
Explain that.
- [94:34]
Simone Gold
Yes. So they started bringing out the shots for kids. Sued to stop that. Sued who? That specific lawsuit was probably the cdc. I brought so many, it's hard to recall. That was our very first one in May of 21. Yeah.
- [94:48]
Jordan Peterson
And what possible justification?
- [94:50]
Simone Gold
There's none. That's just so bitter.
- [94:52]
Jordan Peterson
Well, well, one of the like. Part of the reason, I presume that you were so terrified of the mandates, apart from the sociological effects that you described, is that enforced medical treatment. First of all, that violates the Geneva Convention in a major way and for good reason. But it's worse than that. And we haven't seen this all play out yet. Like typical people whose eyes are open, no longer trust physicians or public health. That's a catastrophe because it means to the degree that that was a viable enterprise, which was quite substantive for quite a long time. That's all that trust has to be re established. And I suspect it probably won't be because. And so I have no idea what the consequence of that.
- [95:36]
Simone Gold
I'm so glad you mentioned that. So there's so much to say here. Public Health 101 says you don't inoculate in the middle of a respiratory pandemic. Public Health 101 never held that you inoculate everybody. It was always the high risk group and you let it kind of travel through the society and the lower risk group, like the kids kind of spread it. And then grandma, maybe you inoculate grandma, like everything was thrown out the window. And so the trust should be lost from the public health because they completely sold out the public.
- [96:04]
Jordan Peterson
Right.
- [96:04]
Simone Gold
They completely sold out the public.
- [96:05]
Jordan Peterson
Well, and we don't even know how bad yet.
- [96:06]
Simone Gold
Oh, I think trust in Doctors went from 70 or 80% to 40%. And I think that that's completely appropriate. So In May of 21, they start saying that they want to bring the shots out to the kids. Now this is horrific. Why? Because kids were not dying from SARS. In fact, by the CDC's own numbers, children.
- [96:26]
Jordan Peterson
Well, it still says in your Wikipedia page that you're spreading misinformation about the fact that children don't die from COVID And yet they don't. And that's Very well established.
- [96:35]
Simone Gold
Very well established.
- [96:36]
Jordan Peterson
What? It's just. It's as risky for a child as the typical cold, I presume.
- [96:39]
Simone Gold
It's something.
- [96:40]
Jordan Peterson
Those are basically the numbers and what. The average person who died from COVID had like five major comorbidities and was older than the average agency. Right. Jesus.
- [96:51]
Simone Gold
Right. They ate an average of 4 comorbidities and it was like 77. Age of longevity was like 76. It was criminal, and it was very criminal to do it to the kids. And we.
- [97:01]
Jordan Peterson
Yeah, that was in. That was inexpensive.
- [97:02]
Simone Gold
Why are they doing it to the kids? So that there is a whole financial motive, which is if you put it on the vaccine schedule, there's a lot of money involved, et cetera. But we fought that very hard, and I'm pretty proud because we brought that lawsuit in May of 21, and we had been told that they were probably going to release it right around May or June. So we worked really hard to get it out. And in fact, they didn't release the kids, the shots to the kids until a few months later. So I know we delayed it by a few months. Nonetheless, the moment they rolled it out, you asked why they did it. As soon as the shots were legally able to be given to kids, you then in America saw local jurisdictions that took the power from the parents and gave it to the kids. So if a kid wanted to get a shot, but the parents were awake and didn't want to get the shot, them have the shot, the kid was able to get the shot themselves. I think the age was 14 in certain local jurisdictions. That became very clear that this was Marxism, which is to take away the parental rights and give them to the state. The state was subbing in for the parents. Now, that's never happened in America before. In America, you know, the parent has a shine to watch Marxism as an.
- [98:07]
Jordan Peterson
Explanation for that, because that's a big leap. I'm not disputing.
- [98:10]
Simone Gold
It's a very big fascism. Maybe not. I think of Marxism fascism as the same. I would say that. That I was influenced a little bit by my father growing up in a communist nation. So in Russia. Yeah, okay, so in Russia, a child who went to school, they're 13 years old, might come home from school one day and tell their mom, oh, the dentist pulled two teeth today. In other words, the parent wasn't involved in the decision.
- [98:32]
Jordan Peterson
Well, and the kids there were invited to inform on their parents, too. And it's part of classic Marxist doctrine that the familial structure should be decimated and that it's fine for the Russians made heroes of children who informed on their parents. So how, but, but, but to see that playing out in, in the United States and to attribute that.
- [98:53]
Simone Gold
Well, obvious. You asked me how I thought because, because it only took two weeks. So. So in other words, the CDC said you could give it to 14 year old kids. And then two weeks later, San Francisco and I think Baltimore, but there was a few jurisdictions that allowed 14 year olds to do it. And I was like, well, isn't that nifty? Parents are not. Parents are expendable. Now that's why I said it's Marxist, because you're separating parents. That was on the ground of obviously.
- [99:17]
Jordan Peterson
Being prepared for moves like that.
- [99:19]
Simone Gold
Yeah, yeah. So I felt that. And then I kept. Even though we couldn't stop the shots, I was very hell bent on stopping mandates. So we sued the Department of Defense, we sued ucla, we sued on behalf of the COVID Recovered soldier, the COVID Recovered college kid. They were saying ludicrous things like natural immunity didn't work or Covid. So we had these like really robust arguments. That's when I learned that judges were really just also quite incurious. And judges were very afraid, I think, to even look at what we were writing. I know that because one of our best lawsuits.
- [99:55]
Jordan Peterson
Well, they're not accustomed to having to adjudicate disputes between, like profound disputes between credible physicians. Right. I mean, you can't expect judges to be able. You know what I mean? The judgments are going to stay intact as long as the physicians are basically playing a straight game. And all of a sudden now everything's thrown up in the air. You can't even trust the damn journals.
- [100:15]
Simone Gold
But from a status quo perspective, a judge's natural tendency is to keep the status quo.
- [100:20]
Jordan Peterson
Yes. Depends on the judge.
- [100:22]
Simone Gold
Well, no, but I'm saying depends on.
- [100:23]
Jordan Peterson
How progressive they are.
- [100:24]
Simone Gold
Or in medicine it's to be risk averse. Most doctors were telling no harm and they were telling pregnant women, you know, don't take a bite of sushi, don't have a smoke, don't drink a glass of wine.
- [100:36]
Jordan Peterson
Right.
- [100:36]
Simone Gold
But all of a sudden roll up your sleeves and take the new stuff. I'd never seen that in my career. You didn't have doctors saying that. It was bizarre. I thought it was like, you know, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It made no sense. It was completely the opposite of how doctors usually acted. And then when we went to judges and we said, judges, look at these. We've got these world class experts saying, whoa, halt. They were just not doing their job, in my opinion, and couldn't, said they couldn't decide, they couldn't figure it out. So they deferred to the executive branch agencies. This is all relevant to being a doctor and a lawyer because last summer the supreme court has pulled away from the executive branch agency deferrals the judges acquiesced to. There was a very important case called inloper Bright where the Supreme Court reversed 40 or 50 years of judges just deferring to the executive branch agencies. It wasn't the NIH or the cdc, but other executive branch agencies. Judges had been given permission in their mind, oh, you know, the executive branch agency unelected bureaucrat said to do this. I'm just going to do that. Well, that's what we were coming up against in Covid. We were asking the judges, in retrospect, here's these world class amazing physicians saying, whoa, halt. But over here is the NIH and the CDC saying give it. And the judges were just deferring to the agencies. Okay, but we have some hope in America because a few months ago in June of 24 in low per bright enterprises, the supreme court held that judges were giving too much deference to executive branch agencies. And that's unconstitutional. And they have to adjudicate fairly. They can't just say the unelected bureaucrats are correct. They can't pass the budget. It's a very important legal decision.
- [102:13]
Jordan Peterson
Okay. Okay.
- [102:14]
Simone Gold
Does that.
- [102:14]
Jordan Peterson
Yeah.
- [102:14]
Simone Gold
Do you think that will. I think it will change the landscape slowly going forward. I didn't understand that so much legally when I was bringing the lawsuits in 21 and 22. That part of the reason judges were so reluctant to believe independent physicians is that the judges had been trained, lulled into thinking their job was to just go with what the executive branch agency said that was written was possible. Exactly. That's not our system. The judges are supposed to be independent. So that actually it was called the Chevron doctrine and it was thrown out. And thank God it's been 50 years and it's been thrown out. So going forward, bringing lawsuits the judges can no longer hide behind. The FDA said this, or for example, the EPA said that. Right.
- [102:58]
Jordan Peterson
So that'll have effect there too.
- [103:00]
Simone Gold
Environmental protection, any agency, the judge has to adjudicate, looking at the evidence, not just give, the court said undue deference. He said they're giving undue deference.
- [103:10]
Jordan Peterson
Okay, so we're, we're, we're nearing the normal closing time, but I still want to talk to you about J6 so we'll go a little longer. And then I think on the daily wire side, for all of you who are watching and listening, I think we'll talk about your vision, your opinion of the new administration and what's going to happen when Trump takes office and what your hopes are and what should happen, what role you might play there. At least I don't know how associated you are with the new people who are coming in. So we'll do that on the daily wire side. But I would like to. Well, there's still places we haven't gone, and I'd like to hear about January 6th as well, because there's a huge story there that we haven't even delved into. So is it reasonable to leap to that?
- [103:51]
Simone Gold
Pretty much.
- [103:51]
Jordan Peterson
Okay, let's do that.
- [103:52]
Simone Gold
Yeah.
- [103:53]
Jordan Peterson
Okay.
- [103:53]
Simone Gold
In the middle of all these lawsuits, I have this burning passion for two to three years just to keep speaking publicly. And one of those days of speaking publicly happened to be January 6th in Washington, D.C. my perspective was it was another speaking engagement. I spoke January 5th in Washington, D.C. i spoke January 3rd in Florida, January 10th in Florida. But the 5th and 6th, I was scheduled in Washington, D.C. where were you supposed to speak January 5th? No problem. Freedom Plaza. January 6th. Scheduled to speak on the east side of the Capitol. With a permit. There you go.
- [104:23]
Jordan Peterson
Okay.
- [104:24]
Simone Gold
With a permit. People don't know that. So I was there to speak when I.
- [104:28]
Jordan Peterson
Who were you speaking with or to?
- [104:30]
Simone Gold
I don't know who organized it. I had a team at that point, and There were about 20 speakers, including incoming Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar, another representative. There was. It was a pretty high profile speaking opportunity. People were, of course, speaking about their concerns that the election was stolen. But my lane was to speak about medical freedom. I had a prepared medical freedom speech that I did the day before. No problem. Freedom Plaza. And I was intending to do the same thing on January 6th. The east side of the Capitol building. It's called Section 8, and it had a permit. And when we speakers presented ourselves at the location, we were told by whoever was there that we couldn't speak.
- [105:10]
Jordan Peterson
Now that you couldn't speak.
- [105:11]
Simone Gold
They wouldn't allow. There was a stage set up, but they weren't allowing anybody to speak. Everyone asks me why. I don't know. Still don't know. I think because the crowds were so large, I don't know. If you have a large crowd, it seems to me you ought to let people speak. So there's a positive energy source for the crowd to pay attention to. But for Whatever reason, they would not let the speakers speak. So I was there on the Capitol, basically ready to give a speech. So I said, well, I'm speaking. And so I scampered up to the top of the steps, and I started speaking, but I have zero microphones or anything. And of course, within a minute or two, I stop because no one can hear me. There's a lot of people. And I'm standing at the top of the Capitol steps, and people are pouring in by the second because Trump had finished speaking and everyone was walking over. And I'm telling you, every minute had another thousand people showing up there, because that was the time Trump had stopped. And so I'm just standing there, and I'm kind of smushed against the wall. And all of a sudden, the doors open from the inside, and I was swept into the building. This is all on video. I can't imagine what they would say about me if there was no video, because you can actually see on the video that I kind of tumble and I almost fall into the building because there's a surge behind me. And I find myself in the Capitol. And it's hard to remember what life was like before J6. But we have a long history in our nation of political protests. Now, when conservatives landed in the Capitol, standing there, everywhere I was was very peaceful, completely peaceful. I find myself in the Rotunda. It's beautiful. And I'm walking. I'm walking between the ropes, and I'm looking up here, because it turns out there was video everywhere. I didn't know. And you can see me walking peacefully in between the ropes, looking around, and I've got my speech in my hand. And I think to myself, it is a fine idea that I should give my speech, because this is a political day, and let's give a speech. And there's a lot of people here. So I give my speech. And that is also seen on video. And it's kind of funny when I'm thinking back on it, but that was my mission. And then a little bit later, I give my speech again. And then an officer taps me on my shoulder and says I have to move along. And I'm startled. I look at him, and then I move along, and then I exit the building. And that was my sojourn into the Capitol on January 6, 2021. And I had no idea what was being said about the day. As an eyewitness on the east side of the Capitol. No violence. Kumbaya. Literally, grandmas singing Kumbaya, moms with strollers. And that's what it was. It was very large. It seemed more like the energy of a sporting event or a concert. And that was it. And then we leave, and we got dinner, and I didn't have any news on it.
- [108:00]
Jordan Peterson
Did you think anything of it after that?
- [108:03]
Simone Gold
No. So I didn't. And I was in D.C. another day, and I'm always working, and I'm just typing away, and people are saying, it's something. And I'm like, no, no, it was nothing. And I'm just typing. And I meet friends that night for dinner, and the friends are very, very, very alarmed. When I said, we were at the Capitol, and they said, oh, my God, it was an insurrection. It was an insurrection. I'm like. And I start laughing, like, what are you talking about? Like, I just thought. I was like, no, I was there. No, what are you talking about? And they were very, very worried for me. And I'm sitting at dinner, and I get a phone, a message on my phone, and there's a picture of me on the FBI's most wanted list with my picture.
- [108:41]
Jordan Peterson
Oh. Oh, that's the problem.
- [108:43]
Simone Gold
And I look at it. Wow. And my first reaction was, well, this was Photoshopped. This is like a joke.
- [108:49]
Jordan Peterson
Right, Right, right.
- [108:50]
Simone Gold
I mean, I just. I still can't believe it. You can just. I'm like, I'm on the FBI's most wanted list. Like, wow. And so they have a picture of me. Somebody handed me a megaphone, and I was giving my speech, and that was the picture of me on the FBI's most wanted list. And I was like, no. And I just couldn't believe it. And then the next day, I started getting a little bit worried. But I went off four days later and I gave another speech in Florida. And I went back years later, and I watched that speech, and I never even mentioned January 6th. Just to give you perspective that I didn't think. And then 12 days later, I'm in my apartment working, and the most horrific, loudest. I can't do it justice. Screamed banging on the door, FBI. FBI. FBI. So loud that I immediately thought, well, I can't possibly be the FBI, because this must be a Columbia cartel coming to murder me. Of course this couldn't be the FBI. Like, I remember thinking, couldn't possibly be the FBI. Like, they would have called me, like. And they're screaming. And I'm looking, and I'm looking at the person I'm working with. I'm like, is that real? And he says, no, no, that's not real. I mean, it Just couldn't process it. About 30, 40 seconds go by, and I stand up and I. And I turn to kind of come. And they break the door down with a battering ramp.
- [110:08]
Jordan Peterson
This is at your home?
- [110:08]
Simone Gold
Yep. Two bedroom apartment and battery ram. 20 guys in tactical gear, bulletproof vests and tactical gear. Huge weapons pointed at me. The laser sight beams as close as I am to you. And I'm looking, I'm like, that's weird. And you asked me if I panic. And I remember thinking, oh. And I got really calm. And as soon as I realized that. Oh, before that, he had said to me, turn around, turn around, turn around, turn around, turn around. Like, screaming. And I was disoriented, and I took a step forward. Oh, yeah. And I thought later, oh, he definitely could have been justifiable homicide. Like I was. And then I saw the sight beams. I'm like, oh. And I got really calm and I was fine. And I put this. And they are coming to a rescue.
- [110:57]
Jordan Peterson
So the emergency room training came in handy there.
- [110:59]
Simone Gold
Oh, and you know what else kicked? So they're taking us off of handcuffs and shackles. It was crazy. And I said. I was very calm. I said, hey, you took my phone, you took computers, you took everything. Could I take some cash with me? Because at some point you're going to release me and I'm going to need a way home.
- [111:15]
Jordan Peterson
Yeah.
- [111:15]
Simone Gold
Nope, can't do that. I'm like, okay. I say that. Not incidentally. So they whisk us off, we go to jail. Perp walk in front of the neighbors.
- [111:24]
Jordan Peterson
Oh, yeah.
- [111:25]
Simone Gold
Shackles.
- [111:25]
Jordan Peterson
Oh, yeah. So that's the point of the theater.
- [111:27]
Simone Gold
Yeah, the theater is. I think the whole thing was to intimidate and scare me and others.
- [111:33]
Jordan Peterson
Did it work?
- [111:34]
Simone Gold
You know, it backfires is what it does. Oh, at the time, yes. But now I don't think there's anything I'm afraid of now. I mean, if you had said to me beforehand, would you be afraid of being in prison? Would you be afraid of being in isolation? What is worse? What is worse than that? And now I'm like, I don't like it. It's unpleasant. But okay. Like, you can't scare me with it. Like, you could probably still scare you with that. You can't scare me with that. It's terrible, granted. But okay, so, no, it totally backfires on people like me. I mean, it's literally. It's a foolish move if you're trying to silence people like me. It just backfires now. They don't know ahead of time who's strong and who's not strong, but handcuffed, shackled, walking right good in front of the neighbors, doors broken. I happened to have had a gun in the house. They asked me where it was. I told them where it was. We get taken off, et cetera. All this stuff. I mentioned just two small things because they're trying to be as dehumanizing as possible. One is when they release me, I go from being like this hardened criminal to being released in a matter of one minute. Basically, the judge is like, you can be released, and then it shackles off. And they literally kick me out on the street. Downtown Los Angeles. I have no shoes because they didn't let me take shoes. And I said, how am I going to get home? And the officer says, you should have thought of that. And I just got so snippy. I said, you know, I am an ER doctor. I know exactly what it's like to show up somewhere unprepared. And I wasn't going to. And I wanted to bring money. You didn't let me. How am I going to get home? I had no way. I had no phone, no money. It was insane.
- [113:00]
Jordan Peterson
Wow.
- [113:00]
Simone Gold
So I'm just sharing that it's done to break you. And the other thing that they did that was very effective, they took all of our computers and phones. And so my piece of advice for anyone listening is have backups and not to worry too much about what you're writing, assuming you're doing lawful activities. Just have lots of backups everywhere.
- [113:18]
Jordan Peterson
Right, Right. Okay. Now, you went to trial for this.
- [113:22]
Simone Gold
So this is very funny. You will enjoy this story. So for. There's no right to a speedy trial, even though that's in our Constitution. They delay, delayed, delayed until the government was ready to go. And then my judge couldn't have been faster, so I found out I had been charged.
- [113:35]
Jordan Peterson
And where were you tried?
- [113:37]
Simone Gold
All J6 defendants were being tried in the District of Columbia.
- [113:40]
Jordan Peterson
Oh, yeah.
- [113:41]
Simone Gold
Nobody that was intentional. And none of us are from the District of Columbia. And the District of Columbia voted 96% for Biden. And this was a political issue, so it's not. And it's a company town, the largest employer, I think 30% of people or 20 or 30% of people that live in D.C. work for the federal government. So by definition, it's a company town. Plus it's a political trial. So not moving was really unfair to J6 defendants. So I had every intention of fighting and pleading not guilty until I saw the charges. So the charges included a bizarre 1512 felony. That's 20 year felony. It's bizarre. It's an accounting kind of firm. Remember the Enron scandal? The theory was that Arthur Anderson, their accounting firm, shredded documents. So to close that loophole. It's called closing the Arthur Anderson loophole. Somebody 20 years ago came up with this 1512 C2C statute, which is witness tampering and evidence shredding. That is what they charged me and hundreds of J6ers with. You might ask why. Because it's wholly irrelevant. Has nothing to do with us. 20 years. That was why. This is how they got J Sixers to take to play.
- [114:51]
Jordan Peterson
Oh, oh, I see. So that was the biggest club they could wield.
- [114:54]
Simone Gold
And we had no. And I'm a lawyer too, and I'm looking at this. I said, what is this 1512 witness tampering and evidence shredding statute have to do with me? I was literally walking through crowds and gave a speech. I understood trespass, I understood parading. Then we could talk about selective prosecution. Like, why are you prosecuting me and not everybody from the Summer of Love.
- [115:14]
Jordan Peterson
Conservatives don't get to protest. That's really the rule.
- [115:17]
Simone Gold
But this was weird. This 20 year felony was weird. It had no relation at all to us. And I couldn't. It was 20 year penalty. So this is how they got virtually everybody to roll over. They were very, very eager for J6ers to just take a plea. So the narrative is, oh, we all pled guilty. It was just a terrible thing. So when I discovered it was a 20 year felony, I did take the plea. I couldn't afford a felony. As a doctor and a lawyer, there was no way I could keep my life. I mean, as a practical matter, I would have lost my licenses and I had an organization to run. I couldn't be put away for years. It was out of the question. And on a personal level, it's pretty scary. So for all of those reasons, I accepted the plea and I plead to a misdemeanor trespass. Now, exactly how many misdemeanors do you find going to prison? Low number. That zero number that you like?
- [116:05]
Jordan Peterson
Yeah.
- [116:06]
Simone Gold
No misdemeanors in America go to prison. So I was expecting when I showed up at trial to.
- [116:12]
Jordan Peterson
Right, and that would be an expected part of the plea too. Right. That would have been your presumption that you.
- [116:17]
Simone Gold
I mean, you have no. You go through the person's past. Does she have a violent past? Has she ever been convicted of anything? You know, is this a gang offense? Is there violence here? You know, does she have a way to employ herself? You know, there's a lot of risks that go into when you put someone into prison or not. Of course, I didn't think I was going to prison.
- [116:31]
Jordan Peterson
Yeah.
- [116:32]
Simone Gold
Now, we don't have a ton of time, but I will share with you a very cute little story, which is that my judge was a fellow named the Honorable Christopher Cooper. Now, I didn't recognize the name except when I showed up in court. That was Casey. Casey was my classmate at Stanford Law school, class of 147 of us. 147. Of course, we knew each other. We kind of lightly dated.
- [116:57]
Jordan Peterson
Wow.
- [116:57]
Simone Gold
Okay. Wow. And I thought that, if anything, he would have been nicer to me. Like, certainly we had nothing negative, really. But he should have recused himself.
- [117:11]
Jordan Peterson
Right?
- [117:11]
Simone Gold
Right. Because the standard for recusal is not just conflict, it's the appearance of impropriety. It's not the actual impropriety, it's the appearance of impropriety. I mention this little interesting aside because the District of Columbia judges, almost, to a man, are so smug that they don't even think they're going to be overruled. If you've been to school and dated a defendant, they're like, oh, no, that's no problem. And I am sad as a lawyer to know that's the standard. So the appearance of impropriety, which, of course, this is. And I bring it up because when I stood before him, I felt this heat of hatred and anger emanating from him. All the other hearings every month were on zoom, but for sentencing, I had to show up in person. And there was so much hatred from him towards me that I will never know if it was personal or. Or just his beliefs on J6, and he should never have been in that situation. That is why judges who have an appearance of impropriety are to recuse themselves. And I just want everyone to be cognizant of how the infrastructure fascism is kind of already there in America. No one's checking him. Anyone responsible would have said, you know, get off this case. It's crazy. There's other judges. He didn't. So that exists. Anyway, he sentences me to 60 days, which was insanely harsh. And then the Bureau of Prison puts their thumb on the scale, and instead of sending me to a camp.
- [118:36]
Jordan Peterson
Yeah, yeah, right.
- [118:36]
Simone Gold
They send me to a maximum.
- [118:38]
Jordan Peterson
Really?
- [118:39]
Simone Gold
Yeah. So you ask me.
- [118:41]
Jordan Peterson
So you got 60 days in prison for a misdemeanor.
- [118:44]
Simone Gold
Yeah.
- [118:44]
Jordan Peterson
Despite your record. Right. Yeah. Well, everybody who's watching and listening should pay careful attention to that.
- [118:50]
Simone Gold
It's.
- [118:51]
Jordan Peterson
Yeah. Wow.
- [118:52]
Simone Gold
It's so scary.
- [118:53]
Jordan Peterson
So, like, what was going on in your mind when you heard that? I mean, were you in a state of disbelief?
- [119:00]
Simone Gold
Again, I was utterly, utterly shocked. It's one of the few times over the past four years that when I got outside, I started to cry. I couldn't believe it. I've. In my whole life.
- [119:12]
Jordan Peterson
What was the shock? Was it the sentence or the fact that this had happened? I mean, I. Obviously both.
- [119:19]
Simone Gold
No. You have the greatest questions standing in a courtroom, and I heard them say, the United States of America versus Simone Melissa Gold. This is my country. I'm an enemy of the country. Like, it was so awful that moment, but when he sentenced me to prison, it was like I couldn't even process that. Again, I'm a person who's not prone to panic. It was such an overwhelming moment. It was such an overwhelming moment.
- [119:51]
Jordan Peterson
So you've talked about a couple of things that have happened to you that you couldn't believe. Has that left you with any post traumatic stress disorder? Do you know? Because that derealization, that sense of this can't possibly be happening. That's a good predictor of post traumatic stress. Right. Because that means you've been affected at a level that's so fundamental that it's easier to believe that things aren't real than to assume that what's happening is happening. Right.
- [120:19]
Simone Gold
Yes, I think so. It hasn't changed my actions, and it won't. But it is extremely traumatic.
- [120:27]
Jordan Peterson
Nightmares or anything like that.
- [120:28]
Simone Gold
I did not. I don't. I think I thank God. My upbringing, my personality. No. But I have become. I've become more cynical, suspicious, realistic.
- [120:44]
Jordan Peterson
Yeah. Well, it's a tough one, right?
- [120:46]
Simone Gold
To watch the judicial system do wrong.
- [120:48]
Jordan Peterson
Yeah.
- [120:48]
Simone Gold
I watch the judge not recuse himself. I watched the prosecutors lie. Remember, I read all the evidence as a lawyer. I know the prosecutors lied.
- [120:55]
Jordan Peterson
Yeah.
- [120:56]
Simone Gold
So I watched the doctors and the medical industrial complex collapse. I watched the legal system collapse. But in a paradoxical way, I think it energizes me. I think I know that there's a chance in America. I know that we're not living in China and North Korea. Yeah.
- [121:12]
Jordan Peterson
Yeah.
- [121:13]
Simone Gold
Right.
- [121:13]
Jordan Peterson
Well, we'll turn to that on the daily wire side. So one final question to close this off is like, how do you do in prison?
- [121:21]
Simone Gold
So my advice to anyone going to prison, which could be a lot of people going forward, a lot of people might know. Right. Is have a plan. That's the truth. So I said, if I'm in there for 60 days. What's my plan? Okay, I'm gonna talk to every woman who will talk to me. I'm going to interview every single woman and get their backstories. That was how I spent my time.
- [121:39]
Jordan Peterson
And so. Well, tell me about that. How'd that work for you?
- [121:42]
Simone Gold
First, they put me in isolation for eight days because that's normal. That was terrible.
- [121:47]
Jordan Peterson
And so what did isolation mean? Did that mean solitary isolation?
- [121:50]
Simone Gold
Solitary was a 6 by 10 cell with a sliver of a window and a sliver in the door where they passed you your food. Oh, yeah.
- [121:57]
Jordan Peterson
And why'd they do that?
- [121:59]
Simone Gold
No explanation. As it turns out, that was how I didn't get an explanation till after. That was what they did at this prison for women coming in for Covid. Now, this is July or August of 22. There was no Covid at all. I was in Miami. There was no Covid. So it was a pretext. So they put the women there because they didn't want to staff up and put women separate. I guess I understand prison being slow and to get with the policy, but you could have had women in a separate wing if they were incoming women. Right. And they're high risk, but that's what they did for the men, for the women, they just shoved us into isolation cells. It was insane. It was ludicrous. And I didn't know how long I'd be there. For all I knew, I'd be there all 60 days. It is the single worst thing you can do. Well, there's worse things, probably, but it's. It's.
- [122:50]
Jordan Peterson
Well, solitary is bad enough so that you can punish the most antisocial people with it. Right. I mean, that's how social human beings are, is that you can take the most antisocial people there are and punish them by isolating them. Right?
- [123:03]
Simone Gold
Yeah.
- [123:03]
Jordan Peterson
Right.
- [123:04]
Simone Gold
So it was. It was terrible.
- [123:05]
Jordan Peterson
Okay, so let's just close this with a. With an ending to the story, although we're going to continue it on the daily wire side. When did you. When were. Did you serve the full 60 days? You did. They kept you in the full 60 days. Okay. When. When were you released?
- [123:19]
Simone Gold
September 22nd.
- [123:21]
Jordan Peterson
Okay. And in a relatively brief period of time. What have you been doing since then? And what are you planning to do?
- [123:31]
Simone Gold
Right, so America's Frontline Doctors was never a Covid organization. We are medical civil liberties. So Covid mandates, you know, we were against the vaccine mandates, et cetera, but we put our eye and our attention and our expertise towards medical civil liberties issues.
- [123:45]
Jordan Peterson
How big is the organization now we.
- [123:47]
Simone Gold
Have almost a million Civilization subscribers and we probably have about 2,000 doctors or allied health professionals. It's just a volunteer, it's free, it's a charity, it's a non profit. And the donations go really towards two things. They go towards us submitting amicus briefs on important medical civil liberties cases. You might know the USA vs Skremetti case that just went to the Supreme Court. So physician licensure.
- [124:12]
Jordan Peterson
Yes, I know about that case.
- [124:13]
Simone Gold
There's the transgender is a big issue these days. And then also the other lane, I speak up a lot on America's frontline doctors is on physician licensure and making sure physicians aren't losing license for First Amendment speech violations. So I fight that heavily and I fought the California Medical Board aggressively and I won. And that was an almost three year battle. We just won at the appellate level. And there's a federal case pending that I expect we will win as well. This then becomes precedent for future physicians that hopefully the government won't be able to pull their licenses for speaking words that the government doesn't like.
- [124:43]
Jordan Peterson
How come you're not beaten down or are you like. You don't appear to be at all like, your demeanor is very positive. I don't really see any signs of anything like depression, like. Yeah, well, that's a lot, right? I mean, your life was thrown up in a variety of different ways and then you were hit hard after that. It's like my experience with people who've been hurt is the best way to hurt someone is to hurt them and then just when they're getting up, hurt them again. And then if you can do that twice, that often finishes people. But you're like, you seem to be cruising along quite so.
- [125:20]
Simone Gold
By the way, it's interesting you said that I was hit again when I got out of prison. I was immediately hit with a board member who lied about me and defamed me and said that I stole money from my organization. So as soon as I was getting out, whack. There's something inside of me that refuses to give in. And I am grateful that we still have a chance. If I lived in China or North Korea, I would have folded up shop.
- [125:44]
Jordan Peterson
Right. So your fundamental belief has remained intact. Right. At the lowest or the most profound possible level. Right. Great. Well, that's a good segue to the next part of this conversation, which will continue on the daily wire side because I'll talk to you about your, well, your future plans and your feelings about your thoughts about this new administration and what you can see and why you remain hopeful in the, in the face of that's a lot in the face of all of that. Right. So, so for everybody watching and listening, join us on the Daily Wire side. And so thank you very much for coming to Toronto and, well, telling that story, which is quite the story. Is it rare? It's a lot less rare than it was 20 years ago, unfortunately. Right, right. And, you know, maybe things will turn around and I guess we'll talk about that on the Daily Wire side. Very nice to talk.
- [126:31]
Simone Gold
Thank you so much.
- [126:32]
Jordan Peterson
Yeah, you bet. And to the film crew here in Toronto, thanks very much for arranging this and to the Daily Wire for making this possible. Well, and to all of you watching and listening for your support, it's much appreciated, your time and attention. Yep. Ciao.