Dave Smith
Appearances
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
I've never seen it with Ratsport, but I found out what it was after. But the first time New York thing happening was I was just outside smoking a cigarette on my stoop when I was in East Village. And all of a sudden I was like, hmm, that's weird. Three roaches walking by in the daylight for like, that's kind of weird. You don't see that a lot.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Just like, you know, it's like three different times, three different roaches. I'm like, that's pretty strange. And then several more. And then I'm telling you, and I'm telling you, you meet within five minutes.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
falling off the buildings Our superintendent came out and he was like what's going on and then we saw make landing on his show He was freaking out and then we went inside came out a couple hours later And there was thousands of them dead on the street, and I go what happened he goes Oh, that's what they do in New York whenever they
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
like bomb a building for uh like roaches it just shoots them to other buildings they just come out so that's what it was just he goes oh one building there's they're probably trying to sell a building so they bombed it for uh roaches and it just sends tens of thousands of them out onto the street oh probably millions i mean i'm talking when i was saying like it wasn't you couldn't take a step and not be stepping on like the carcasses of like 50 of them but they just
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Black Lives Matter, riots. The bugs? Yeah. Oh, they're still there. Lantern flies. They're back this year. Lantern flies. Oh, yeah, yeah, the lantern flies. They're invasive.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
They're being funded by the UN. I'll tell you that much. They were brought over. They were doing work on the High Line.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
They're almost kind of pretty looking until there's a bunch of them, and they kind of fly I thought they were like beautiful little butterflies, and I was like oh They're nice, and then I heard that they were a problem, and then they skeeved me out like they fuck up plants But they came over The High Line in New York was doing something they brought in plants from China, and they came in you is that why yeah?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
So they came in all through the docks and these plants from China, and now it's just they are there and it's it's crazy It's about a month month and a half They are a, like the roof of my building. You could probably pull that up, Jamie, like New York City lantern flies. You can't go on the roof of my building. There's the same thing, like tens of thousands of them all over there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
There was a lady up there one time. I walked up there, covered in them like fucking Candyman. It was crazy. They were coming out of her mouth?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
But they're evolving, too, in the fact that the first year that I was aware of them, the first year I was aware of them, you could step on them and they didn't really do much. Now they fly and they run around. Yeah, they'll be in like doorways all over the place. If you have no screen on your window, if you open a window, there will be a hundred of them in a room.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
No. No, and these things are... What did that lady say? They're killing all plants and stuff, too. So it's really bad, but they're like... If you read one article, it's like, here's New York's five-year plan to get rid of the lantern flies. And the next article's like, no, they're just here. Like, this is going to be a month every year. And they came from where? China.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Yeah, I think. It was in plants that they were bringing, decorative plants. I'm pretty sure Fauci made them. Wow. Stamp it out.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Anything icky is not my thing. So I went home with a girl years ago from a diner. Turns out she was a tarantula. She was a tarantula. No, it was weird pets and the final straw where I left. We didn't hook up because when she was like, oh, you got to let my albino rat crawl on you. And I was like, I'm just going to go. This is not worth it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Yeah, the girl I lost my virginity to had an iguana that I hated.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
You said you watched that Chim Crazy thing. It's lonely old women who can throw heartfelt emotion into anything in the world.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
The documentary's not about that lady, but they talk about that situation.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
The mind-blowing thing was that... Is that part of why he, like... Oh, yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
He, uh, that chimp crazy thing, it's... I was blown away, actually, by how much stuff... I mean, like, she made them weirdly self-sufficient on some thing. When she threw them...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Mcnuggets mm-hmm it wasn't he opened the McNuggets then they throw him she goes oh and here's your sauce like a sweet like a Sweet and sour sauce and the monkey knows how to go like like rip the lid off and like think yeah, no Weren't dipping it though.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
They crack sodas and drink them. Yep. They don't just, like, bite the top off of a soda thing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
When someone has to scream, though, like the name they give chimpanzees and stuff, like, Mr. Mintz! Praise God!
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
If you see a bear cub, you're dead already. Tiger cubs look cute. It's nature's dirty trick. It is the awful thing of it. That's the problem with like, they said about like having chimpanzees as pets is like for a while, it's totally fine. And then one day it's just not. And that one that ripped the lady's face off, did you see like that video? They show a video of like
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
They should have known this was kind of going to happen because a kid one time picked up a shoe off the floor that, like, the monkey wanted. And then he goes over and he's coming after him. It looks a little aggressive, but it's still, like, he's not that big, so it doesn't look that scary.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
But then when he just makes a move, like, to grab at the shirt and whatever, and you see the kid, like, almost falls over. He's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And they have to, like, all kind of... Jump in front of the monkey, like, over something he's unaware. The guy doesn't even know what he did wrong.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
He just grabbed the shoe off the floor, and the monkey wanted that shoe and didn't know how to tell him how to take it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
And no animals have, there's not a lot of emotion in the faces of those, too, especially lizards. So, like, they eat a whole goat and then they're just, like, on the next thing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
A lot of mountains, that's why. People forget about the, was it Ramapo Mountains? It gets rural as shit.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Have you ever seen the movie Out of the Furnace? Explores that whole thing. It was Christian Bale, Casey Affleck, Willem Dafoe.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
And Woody Harrelson played the character of those mountain people, just meth trade, cousin fucking. It's really like they make it a weird place. Was that in Pennsylvania or in Jersey? No, it's Jersey side. It's actually... On the border of Maramupo Mountains, I think, yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
It's me with a dad that stuck around and really told me how the world worked.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
He doesn't stop. I'm going to go smoke a cigarette. My eyes are going to pop out.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
I think religion is always the funniest to dial back to, though, because all the organized stuff, you were doing the Joe Smith story, finds the tablets or the plates and everything. Could that be more of a religion that was like pitched by a dude to a bunch of dudes?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
I was the one flight that was able to get out one time to go to Dallas For a gig and they had like it was three inches of snow But the whole place shuts down and the thank God because the car that picked me up to drive me to the hotel that night If there was other cars in the road, dude, it would have been ping-pong Every time he stopped the car would like turn sideways complete because there's nobody else in the road So it didn't really matter
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
They're like no No, they're racist when your women are bearded you ever see sister wives. It's not like you're stoked to have three of them
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Well, why is no one considering that that long ago people wrote fiction?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
But you know what I'm saying? Also, years ago, no one considers the idea of works of fiction.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Everything then was just written from the thing versus someone making entertainment.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
And it's like, I don't know, a beast got a hold of him? It can't be all Colosseum, man.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
He goes, I got the good idea! I'm starting with, like, I don't know, a magical school!
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Do you think the pendulum's gonna swing back to, like, there was a time... Naming kids Jesus? No, but naming kids, like, when there was no actual, like, lines drawn on naming years and years ago as far as, like, race goes, so... My grandmother's boyfriend, when she died, his still name was Jerome. Look at this. There's old white Tyrones. Wait, dude.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
That just stopped one day, and those became black names.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Oh, yeah, de-icer. De-icer on the wings. Oh, yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Those are the best. There's so many rapper kids. There's so many rapper kids. Kids you've read named Prince. Yeah, that's fine. Prince is fine.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
But isn't Elon Musk's kid's name like the sounds AOL used to make?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Arnold Schwarzenegger had a son that was a schlub, and then the one he didn't know he had looked just like him and was shredded and working out constantly. Yeah, it's hilarious. I think the other son's jacked too now. Oh, is he? He had to catch up to him because he was a schlubby kid.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Tom Hanks has a son that became another Tom Hanks person, tucking in his polo shirts on a Sunday, and then one went full wigger.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Yeah, you've never met awesome Chaz. Chaz Palminteri is the exception to the rule. That's not what you picture when you picture a Chaz.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Well, I believe all the bullshit I read right away where they're like, Michael Keaton's only in it for 10 minutes. Well, that was the point.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
I just don't want to know anything. I'm like, they got to back up for that. That's my thing. I always remember talking to, I think it was Ben Bailey years ago, and I was like, you know, it's so funny. The more I fly, the more I'm afraid of flying somehow. I go, but I have to just assume. Planes are designed that, like, if all fails, like, they're designed to kind of be able to be glided to safety.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Yeah, that's really the thing. What's the worst thing you got caught stealing? Mine was stuffing porn magazines down the front of my pants and putting my shirt over it. And I mean, the guy at the farm... Oh, my God, try reselling that now. The guy at the drugstore... The guy at the drugstore was baiting me to do it. Like, he couldn't wait... He was baiting you? Like, he was leaving porn out?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
No, no, no, no. The porn section was in this magazine.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
No, no, no, he didn't trick me. He just... A porno mag, and then he's got, like, a fishing rod.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
It was intrepid. Yeah, no, baiting is the wrong word for him. He knew I was getting ready. He felt that I was waiting to find my moment. He could have stopped you before you did the climb? He could have stopped me before I did it and said, hey, you can't be in here unless you're going to blah, blah, blah. I kind of made notice. He laid back, and I was kind of like, he knows? I'm like, I guess not.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
He's just sitting there. And then an old man spinning you around and lifting your shirt to show the half a porn magazine sticking up.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
My biggest steal wasn't even for money or anything. I was staying at my grandmother's friend's house. My aunt and he and Uncle Herb. And Uncle Herb had a nice stack of porn magazines that I found. There's a pattern. There's a pattern. No, this is funny. Well, this is one I thought I'd get away with for no reason. I took a few.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
This is proverbially that because I took a few of his giant stack being like, he'll never miss these. And if he does, he's not going to think it was me. And if he does think it's me, we're going to have this quiet code of like, what are you going to tell my mom? I took your porn. It's like so many people have to find out about your porn magazines now. That's exactly what he did.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
He didn't give a shit. He was like, I want my porn magazines back. And then went down the channels from my grandmom to my mom. And I was like, oh, did I grab these? Oh, shit.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Oh, dude, that's such an embarrassing to get a phone call. Your Uncle Herb wants his.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
You should look into that. And he was like, no, if you lose all the engines, he goes, no, if you lose all the engines, it nosedives directly to the ground.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Yeah, of course. You just hope that it was wet for the right reasons.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
You can't let them have you. The first time you see someone with authority in your life or something... have to realize like a can't win situation is awkward. Do you know what I mean? Like seeing a cop have to like kind of surrender or have to give up. My step-pop when we were younger, we were driving back. My step-pop was like a power lifter always.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Like a big, like a tough guy to me, I always thought. And we were driving back from the Philadelphia Zoo one day through Fairmount Park, and they had shut it down for what's called the Greek Picnic, which is all the black fraternities party in this big, giant park.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
I love the argument he's not a hero. I love the argument that he's not. It always makes me laugh. They're like, he did his job. He goes... Sure.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
but they my step see my step these guys were coming and they were just walking all through the street all these like black frat dudes and like it was a traffic jam because they're in the middle of the street and sitting like on the hood of our car and stuff like that oh no and my step pop just being like I just see him just kind of sitting there kind of eating it and like realizing and I was like
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
It was almost like that, Joe, why aren't you going to? You know what? You're right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
I was telling these guys yesterday, I saw a video where it's a guy, I don't know if people are filming anything now, it's a guy in Times Square who films himself going up and just talk robbing a guy. Like, just talk. He just goes, hey man, come here, come here. He goes, you're doing a new documentary called I Just Got Robbed. He's like, what? He goes, I'm going to need your wallet. Don't run.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Don't be weird. He's just like, intimidate. The guy's name is Rob. He's clever. The kid's so... Happy that he's not getting beat up and just nervous in the world that he's not getting beat up like he Pleasantly like gives him everything and it's kind of like now go over there He's like all right, man. Be easy man. Be easy and the guys like all right, man.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Cool He just gives him his stuff and walks away. It's it gives him his stuff back. No It's pretty nuts it's real It seems very, very real.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
No, I think this happens all the time. People get arrested, actually, for it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
There's people who film somebody holding their guns and say, I'm about to go kill so-and-so.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Oh, my God. Jesus. Yeah. I stopped paying attention when you said they may have been black or Puerto Rican, and you said selling candy for their football team or whatever. I'm like, it definitely was black or Puerto Rican. No, no, no.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Never had a white kid try to run the old buy some M&Ms from me scam.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
On coke. I also wish there was like a drag queen that would do something heroic so everyone's got to like praise the things of like, you know, like cunt lips, thunder tits. They always got stupid names.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
But does that guy, does the guy, the idiot who keeps jumping over the car and lighting the fire in the middle, does he look back like, is he 55 one day going like, oh yeah, I was a little... Do you think he lives to be 55? No, probably not. He probably dies under a donut of a fucking souped up SUV.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
No, maybe, but I'm saying, but there's just those guys, like, I don't know how you, like, grow up out of that that's going to be something that really nails it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
They would drag race though in Philly. They would like stop, block off streets and like drag race.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Oh, it comes from a Bay Area rapper, Richie Rich's sideshow. Damn Bancroft to the light. Let me warm it up. I hit a donut tight. Rap sucks. I hit a donut type Chevy on my side, window straight tinted. He got hype when he saw me spinning. I'm, yeah. Who likes this?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
I know. I love tons of rap. Whatever that was was terrible.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
You're trying to lower the level. We have to rap battle this Friday Although I have a feeling it's gonna be better than what I did, but if we find the song sideways or whatever I bet that guy doesn't kill it It's all that because that has to come from the air. What's the 90s? I guess so so it might not be mumble rap, right?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Well, that was the worst rap beef ending ever. It was like NWA split up from Ice Cube, and then Dr. Dre left, and him and his E went and did their own thing, and then that beef ended in an AIDS death. You don't see those ones happen anymore.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Uber dropped us off at the completely right spot in his mind.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
You know what kids are lacking these days? The most aggressive gays yelling at them.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Well, they did the song Jackin' for Beats, and that's when he made the song It's Everybody Else's. It keeps changing to all the most popular beats, and he just does rap. Oh, it's great.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
We got to play it. Can I tell you that one of my favorite lyrics that never stood out to me when I was younger but always makes me laugh and my mind's playing tricks on me is when Bushwick Bill, you know, he's a midget, and then he sings a song. He goes, this wasn't no ordinary dude. He stood about six or seven feet.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
When Bill Maher said the N-word on his show, and then the next week had to give his apology to Ice Cube was the funniest thing in the world. What a weird person to have to do it. And then he just goes, I'm really sorry, Ice Cube. And Ice Cube's like, well, Bill Maher. This is a good moment to teach you something.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Did you ever hear Everclear, when he tells the whole story of making his girlfriend shoot him in the eye?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
I know, but the flow of it doesn't seem anymore. Yeah. It seems bubbly.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Can you imagine being a woman being abused by a black midget and he makes you shoot him in the eye?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, also what's strange is, again, seeing, we'll never know what, how corny or not an old Biggie or Tupac would have been. Oh, yeah. So it's funny seeing like, it's not that he's corny, but he's just an older guy. You know what I mean? This guy doesn't live any kind of gangster life.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
No, no, no. What are you saying? I'm saying that you get to see how people would become. No, it's not corny at all, but it's much softer energy than you ever thought of Scarface in the 80s and 90s.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
If you told me this was a guy who was in the roots or something, you'd be like, yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes sense.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
He was one of the people performing. It's so funny. seeing the people who get what's happening there versus the performers who don't because He was up there. He knows but he's been with that audience. I think tech nine also does that so he Does all the family chants and stuff?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
DJ Paul and he just gets that crowd gets him going but they throw shit constantly and do all kinds of crazy shit Rock him went up there And if I rock him back the third song and like, you know, they were throwing shit to stay, but they're into it, the audience. And then he just kind of stops the song. He goes, Hey, I ain't about that fuck shit throwing stuff, man.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
So you could throw shit and we could leave or we could do some rap music. And the crowd was just kind of like,
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
No, no, no. I think they were a little more like, oh, this is our thing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Yeah, Upchuck the Clown. His name's Joel. He's a comic from Michigan. He still runs it. He just doesn't do it anymore.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
No, Lewis had on, he put on the gas mask weed thing. You couldn't even talk through that weed. That was my closer. Of course. And then Mike Vecchione went out, and I was the only one that was booked on it. I was just like, they want me to do a show, so if they were with me on another gig, I'm like, come and we'll do this one. And you guys go on.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
So Mike Vecchione goes on, and they're not paying attention to him and yelling at him. And I remember he kind of looked at me off the side of the stage, and I was like, you can wrap it up. Like, I'll go eat the rest of this shit. I remember one of his premises, though. No, I remember the premise, because he goes... I said, you know that feeling when it's going rough and you see the light?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Somehow you even have another five-minute burst in you because you know you are done. So let me see what I can do now. It's almost like that freeing thing. So I gave Vecchio and that kind of like, you can wrap it up, dude. And he goes, and I almost saw his energy change. And he just goes, he's going to do his last big joke or whatever. And he goes, so hey, guys, I had a dream last night.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
And I don't think he finished a bit. And then he brought me up. And then I was supposed to do like 45, of which I did 20 maybe, because I remember saying, where they got mad at me, I asked them why there's, to rap festival with no black people. And then a black guy stood up and he was like, how about me? And I went, one jug of bro. And then they just booed and someone yelled, they all bleed clown.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
You shouldn't have porn stars reading books to kids either.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
It's just about clowns killing people Great beat it's horror rap I am thoroughly I said that festivals pretty amazing I'm thoroughly so just always impressive the music is subjective to anybody, but I'm like what they've done. I think's amazing I mean they are world famous known. They just did the VMAs.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
On that, too, is to kind of keep ourselves a little safe from...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
There's a few other ones, but nobody... Well, they do it, but some say no one catches on.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
I told you yesterday, right, the guy's name I asked you about because I just found him yesterday was Kirk. Charlie Kirk? Charlie Kirk.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
I watch him and Ben Shapiro yell at college kids. That's the video.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
One girl was getting dominated on the thing, and I was going to say that, like, she even says it where I do. Like, even though I'm kind of like, lady, you sound dumb, I felt genuinely bad for her when she goes... He gave her like some kind of smarmy like, you know, and she just kind of goes, she's like, well, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm nervous. Like, I don't talk on microphone a lot.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Like, I think you do. So like, I'm sorry. And I was almost like, yeah, dude, like you're good.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
You're like housing her. And when no one, she says something and everyone's around starts booing and she starts kind of like smiling, but it's not a smile of like, bring it on. She's doing the smile of like, I don't know what to do. Like, she's like scary. I've just been frozen before a lot. It makes me feel bad.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Oh, that's what it does. That's one of making someone famous on America's Got Talent, something like that. And you're like, what are you doing?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
That will... He did Robin Hood Men in Tights when he was 19, I believe.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Couldn't read, so that's how Eddie Murphy got the gig.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
That's why he lost the gig because he couldn't read the scripts. Yeah, he was pretty popular. Charlie Barnett was in DC Cab, right? A couple things.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
He was popping, and then yeah, he couldn't read the cue cards, so they had to hire Eddie Murphy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
I said I watched it because I'm very lazy. No, I watched Patrice. It's a complete mimic of Patrice's things. It was watching him go from standing to sitting and seeing that the crowd... Some of the people that took him in is very like he's like looming over them and saying he's like crazy things like being like turned off by that to seeing when he was laying back and letting them come into him.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
He could say like much more people like embrace that they were leaning into him.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
And when you're a big guy, so that's why I felt like I was a big presence. I was like, I'm going to say all this kind of crazy shit, like, when I'm over them, it looks like I'm, like, pointing down at them.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Instead of letting them kind of, like, come into the stage.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
When I started in the black comedy clubs, man, I was doing a straight Chris Rock pace nonstop. A lot of...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
The guy right before me just got booed. I couldn't even hear what he got booed for. I just know he followed a handicapped guy who gave a sweet emotional speech about being handicapable, and then he walked off. And I said, the other guy just got out there, and they were like, Fuck this biped, piece of shit.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
What was funny was when we were at about, I don't know, three quarters into our... three-quarter mile walk here you sent somebody over to come get us and he pulled up in a car uh and he goes he goes you guys for joe right and he said yeah and he goes follow me and then just drove away in the car you know what you were too sweaty yeah that's what it was
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Generally speaking, it's not likely. Schumer had a thing one time. She said, I saw her on stage at the Cellar once, and it was about her and her boyfriend meeting Kate Upton. And she walked away to go get something to drink or whatever. When he came back, he was like, her husband said to Amy, he was like, she's great, man. She said the funniest story. I was like, fuck you, dude.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
People are like, dude, George Clooney, that prankster, he's the best. That guy is the funniest dude. He's fine at best, I'm sure. Relax.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
I would also stay home with $30 million in the bank. Imagine twirling a Tom Collins with your finger on a raft.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Yeah, by the time you got your horse to the next place with the information, more people have died.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
I think that always when I watch Tombstone and stuff, and Kurt Russell and a girl went off into the woods to go kiss, I'm like, I bet her armpits smell like shit. She has gum disease.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
I'll tell you who is right now nodding their head. He goes, yeah, that's why I'm the guy who invented that bag that goes behind the horse's asses.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
It's reading time with Deshaun. I don't know, dude.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Well, my grandmother, it was funny, the neighborhood I grew up in was Jewish and black, and then down the next neighborhood was Italian. Yeah. Everyone started, but it became predominantly black by the time I moved out. My grandmother, until like two years before she died, was in a nursing home, stayed in that house, and did not scare the old people at all.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
It didn't, like, as it changed around them, it didn't scare. There would be literally people, like, on her front step, like her neighbors, like a bunch of teenagers, like rapping with a loud stereo, and she would just be like, oh, they're nice. At least they're not trans. They call me Miss Jeanette, and so whatever. My grandma was delightfully racist. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
It's not my fault. Yeah, that's what the original Good Will Hunting was.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Not you. I just go hug black people in Good Will Hunting. That's what I call it. It's not your fault. It's not my fault. It's not your fault. Not you, Jay.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
I watched the trailer today. What's it out on there? It's really funny. I've heard great things about it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Well, the trailer says it's a comedy. Yeah. It calls it a comedy. It is a comedy. I don't think the other one really was pushed as that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
The trans woman he asked outside was the best because he was like, well, what is a woman? And she goes, I think I want to go.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
It's a thing that happened in Canada. In Canada, a guy got sent to jail for mischief. He wouldn't agree to call his son a daughter or vice versa. I mean, how many people are actually legitimately trans?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Most ironically, if you were Asian, you would have been better at both things.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
If I became a woman, though, I already know what I'm fucking.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
What's to be said for feeling how you feel and also just not giving a shit? Do you know what I'm saying? I feel like, as I said before, I think they should not give hormones or any kind of operations to... children to, you know, change their gender.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
But also, if they're like, they're not making it illegal, they're doing it, I'm like, well, now I want to see a five-year-old with tits. Like, now I want to see it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
I just want to go, they already did it, so I'm going to go, let me see.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
But wouldn't you be weirded out if your kids had like a face tattoo teacher at all?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Especially when we came out of the water, our dicks were so small.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
I don't want people to see this I hope we don't find out our Sebastian's not gonna be talking about
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
By the way, that's the only one that's uncircumcised of all these.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
No, no, absolutely. But also, I just mean, also just for the idea that, like, even though I said post, I don't think a teacher with face tattoos might be the best teacher, like, in the world. I just think it's like, as a parent, you'd walk in and be like, who's this motherfucker?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
It's soft for that guy's body. Yeah, but everybody can't stay fucking boned up while they're posing for the fucking statue.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Yeah, it looks like sometimes he just fucked. Sometimes he just got out of the shower.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
I don't like it at all. And taking a little bouncy dick walk to a shower. Nuts. My little bird. Yeah. Now fuck that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
I think it's just a locker. She's going to a woman's locker room in general.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
I've gotten real good at calling people the gender they want. If they... Like, I still will fuck it up, but I find I'm pretty good at it. If they look like a girl, if it's a guy transitioning to a girl, and they look like a girl, I say, I'm pretty good at all this she, but if I fuck it up, look at yourself. That means that you...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
You're not shaving enough, or you haven't done whatever it is to make me call you, because I'm pretty good at calling trans girls girls.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Now it is a sign of cool. If you see someone with a button-down shirt and this part of the arm you see is completely done, you're like, all right, quite cool guy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
You would get beat up in the West Village by a trans... Well, what's the one that's why I loved that was the GameStop video, right? Yeah, the famous one right was like it's ma'am That's not how ma'am GameStop and they're just going like okay, sir They start kicking over PlayStation.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
It was one of the very few points that I've had seeing the other side of it that I didn't for a long time. Until kind of recently. It's like the argument in sports is almost like, oh, they're going to dominate and kick ass. And it's basically a guy beating up a girl in this fight and all those things. But then it was the scholarship thing. I don't know why that never dawned on me before.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
It's like, no, these girls are like, I was going to be the number one recruit out of my school. For sure. And then this girl came in and made me look like I'm terrible because she's 6'5 and 35 pounds more than me.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Is there no rational sect of the trans community? I don't know if I've ever heard someone in the trans community come out and agree with that sentiment. It's like, oh yes, no, we shouldn't be.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Let's go, champ. That's our generation. Let's go, champ. I'm judging the town for letting the girl play T-ball. Yeah, that's crazy. Ah! It is. It's dangerous.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
I'll tell you what. I have a feeling he was like, I don't want to do this. But then you can really get out of it by making a nice speech like that. It's pretty great.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
When someone you're afraid to fight says they're going to fight you after school and you go... It just what's that when we break the cycle of violence?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
But isn't that essentially what someone gets the surgery is doing?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
You're never going to hear a thing where someone goes, you cut your dick off? Best thing I ever did.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
How can these ladies not tell that they're at the end of the dick when they're jumping up so high?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
They're having a good time. But you know we're walking on, I know, I know when we're on the tightrope. When we're walking that tightrope, the come-ups are coming up too high on her.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Guys, while we have a lull, can I talk to you about my new propulsion system? Jamie, the PowerPoint presentation, please. It is so funny coming into this room and thinking of all the things I've watched that are made such like, whether it be the Cat Williams thing or fucking, I mean, that was wild. The one I just said, Terrence Howard.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Well, I like when he was doing a he goes well then Joe you have to understand because the um the um Fon to Julie's there were it was like words that I don't think what they were things Maybe they were I think some of them were things but others they're things that he invented like he knew whatever you want.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
I was in Utah where it was like 50 degrees, and then I came right here to Austin It was like 98 when I got out of the car like I forgot yeah Doesn't end in Texas it lasts a long time, but it does get winter here and
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Including me, I agree. Dave speaking at the thing was the funniest when he goes, Donald Trump's going to come up here. And we're going to show him that we know how to act and behave. And because we are the right party.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
His voice is too cool to be a nerd. That's what I think the problem, the disconnect I have is. He's like, come on, Joe. It's simple. Too cool, too handsome. Hydrogen plus nitrogen makes everything fly.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Well, I don't have any money for Terrence Howard and his projects. I gave it all to Eddie Winslow from Family Matters to clean up the ocean machine he's building.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
I know. People also make things that young and get this kind of thing. I feel like their later-in-life lash out is what ends up being crazy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Yeah, they gave up all their fun stuff, so then it's just too wild afterwards.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Oh, yeah. Once you shave those bitches down, there's usually something hot under there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Is 3D printing better for the environment? And he becomes a cokehead partier a little bit later, or he dies like a whale ate him while he was helping clean up the thing. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Can sanitation be one of the last mafia-run businesses?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Which wasn't, like, much thought put into, like, the down-the-road times. Now it's just weird.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
There's plastic bags everywhere. And then one time they'll tell you, it goes, no, they're completely illegal now. And then a month later, there is plastic bags.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
I said to my girlfriend a bunch at the store when she's been like, oh, let's go. Well, wait, I'm going to run back to the apartment. I forgot to get the bags. I'm like, we're going to buy new.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
That was always like a heppy thing, like if you could find even clothes legal. Woody Harrelson was real big on hemp for a long time.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Here we go. So, you know, like- You know, we yelled at Kurt about this. He came in and he goes, P. Diddy definitely fucked everybody and did this and raped everyone. And then we're like, well, how do you know? He's like, I read. He doesn't really mean anything. You're always reading somebody else's numbers.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
That's crazy. Lewis, I'm going to buy you a silk shirt and shoot you with an arrow.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
All people like that always have weird facial hair.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Bring up a thing that tells me I was wrong from front to back.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Well, I know, but if I went to this, I would go home and I'd go, I can't believe there's only 45 people in this thing. This is the coolest thing I've ever seen in my life. Do you ever have a giant turkey leg and a giant goblet? Guys, they got everything. Rams, that's fair. They got the dart game where you can win the animal.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
I went to one of these parties, and man, P. Diddy was like, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go fuck Meek Mill in the butt. But that's never going to happen. No one comes out and says that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
I'd rather do that than slapbox with an MMA person.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Lewis, let's me and you play this game with spears. Let's go, dude.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Yeah, the sound like seizing up and shit like I was listening to Howard Stern the other day It was an old one where they were talking the people that were good old days the Pia the people that were trying to get on Like that the one-way trip to Mars they were gonna try to do it was from years like 2012 and they said it wasn't gonna go until 2020 some which I don't think ever end up happening, but like like there was they said it was thousands of people
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Were trying to get on that mission one-way trip to die on Mars. Yeah thousands Yeah, that I said it had to be whittled down by the way. It's being whittled down to like 16 people so it was not a lot of people but they was like oh yeah you had to go through and it's like How many doctors and all guys pretty crazy like how much people are willing to do some nutty people, bro?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
There's a lot of people out there that want to end it They said for sure you they said without for sure, but they said odds are you definitely will never make it to Mars and And if you get there, it's everything just kind of like you're probably going to die en route. You're always going to have people that want to sign up for that kind of stuff.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
And they don't touch the... See if you can find the image.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
There hasn't been one person who can climb it who can, like... No. No, they're saying one person that can climb it that's done, like, something shitty to the stuff up there. Yeah, make him suck his own dick. Like, kick the head off.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
I can't believe how many people agree to do death sentences. But then there's something like the submersible thing that was just like, everyone was like cheersing champagne, like this is the best. And then it just ends immediately.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
We're an acoustic guitar song up there. It's pretty gay.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
What happened to your dad? His shoe didn't open. Motorbike riding. Yeah, exactly. Motorcycle. It was raining and he turned on his motorcycle a little too fast.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
He's doing all right. I'll give him some notes, but... Man, I'll tell you what, though, his... His on-air stuff, his accoutrement to the table is very different than ours. It's cooler than ours. We just have a racist bear. We have a racist bear.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
We are. But no one's ever made his art out of drums or stuff like that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Oh, isn't this like a Tyrannosaurus windpipe or something? I don't even think I'm wrong about that. I think it's something like that. Jamie, is that what we're looking at?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Everybody take a little thing. Dave, take a commemorative coin. I'm gonna take Dice's cigarette. Nah, I don't need to steal anything. I'll be back. Maybe we should leave something.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Oh, we're having fun, boys. I don't think so. Jamie was telling us about this unfrozen walrus dick or something.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
That's why they're always hailing Hitler. Big fancy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Don't they all have bones? Isn't the Loch Ness Monster actually like a whale flipping upside down and his cock coming out of the water?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
But they said it's actually, if you see a whale flipping over on its back and its dick comes out, it's what it looks like. They said it probably much could have been that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
The cool ones? It says gorilla and chimpanzees. The baculum of the dog's penis. Did you watch that thing yet? The lady who, the chimp crazy on HBO? I loved it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Constantly jerking off and throwing shit at each other.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
A wolf dick would rule. Yeah. A bear dick. With a nice open shirt.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Viagra tries to stop bulletproof skin because this thing goes all the way up the ladder. You've got to follow the money.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Bro. Is this the skull of a Wendigo, an evil mythical forest creature?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Wasn't that L. Ron Hubbard, though? L. Ron Hubbard was like, hey, this will be funny. I'll start this and go into this, start a religion. And then, like, years later, he said when his friends he told that to hit him up, like, this is crazy, dude. You did it. He's like, you know, you ran that scam. And he's like, scam? You better get your thetan levels checked. He just started eating his own shit.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Oh, is it the guy that was, he's riding like the fan boat through it and then all of a sudden like the ground is more...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Dude, kill on sight is a funny thing. If you're unarmed, you just see what's out there, they go, wow. Government said, I gotta kill this thing on sight. Like, let's go, motherfucker.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
You don't know that, Joe. I might be able to tickle a fucking alligator.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Not for the migrants, dude. They just grab them, break their neck, and cook them up. That's the better way to do it, really. Yeah, no buckshot needed. No buckshot needed.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
They don't know any better yet. Just, oh, yeah. I assume you can't just eat, like, lake duck. You could. Can you? Yeah, you could. I mean, I'm sure you could eat, but I'm saying, is that, like, is there any kind of good? It doesn't taste good.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Do you remember the Dianetics commercials? Do you remember the commercials with the volcano, like the lava was going off, and it just gave you like... like the most generalized things anyone feels. He goes, are you sometimes tired and sometimes awake?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
It's pretty wacky. We went fishing on a perch tour this summer, and they caught a fish. I thought he was going to gut the fish right there on the boat, but what he was doing was when you pull them up very fast, they get the bends. So it looks so violent, but they're actually saving the fish. They're going to throw them back, and they just like...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
It looks like a wacky, like a card you'd get at Spencer's.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Well, we've never really gone. That's what Total Recall said happens on Mars.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
800 pounds. Oh yeah, a Jew fish eating your baby? Let's spread that rumor.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Yeah, it was great Oh, yeah, they I get like sent to like a bucket. Yes Crazy that was a little that is a little easy. It's New York right yeah, oh His system of mice and rats, and it just catches them and puts them in the buckets to drown. And then at the end of the month, he just has like a bucket of mice, and it's so crazy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
I measure people in rats. Do you know that rats eat cockroaches and cockroaches eat rat shit?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
Although we do have a rat czar now, so maybe she's doing her shit.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
What's going to be not safe for work? A girl saying it with her pussy?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2205 - Legion of Skanks
I didn't realize until I lived in the city what a problem that is. Rats will go inside you. If you leave your car, like, sitting for days at a time, rats will get inside and, like, chew, like, wires and fucking, like, fuck your car. It's crazy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Okay. Just imagine a lecture that reaches a million people.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
rock solid and logical and that these are the smartest people in the world that's how they've risen to this position and now they they're there to provide this you know like if you have a knee injury you want to go to an orthopedic surgeon because he is an expert in knee injuries and he's going to tell you what's wrong with your knee and what can be done and you know that's a real expert and we thought we think of politicians and we think of the media as being real experts
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Right. And you should never be scared of discussions. Yeah. Especially if you're an educational institution. you should never be scared of discussions. Like it's one of the most important innovation. Yes.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Yes, it's nuts. And it never existed before. And there's a lot of resistance because there's been gatekeepers to information that have existed for the longest time. And it made the distribution of propaganda much more easy, much, much easier and much more effective. Yeah. And now that doesn't work anymore because these things like this is bigger than all those things. Why?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Because it's not full of shit. It's that simple. Interesting conversations from people that aren't full of shit. Turns out that's what people actually want. They've just been dumped on with nonsense for so long that people have got accustomed to thinking, no, that's what you're supposed to get. You're supposed to get a late-night talk show host version of what's happening in politics.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
I thought about it. I thought about, I'm just sitting around like, how do I do? Sure. That's just tough. I didn't know. There's a concept in jujitsu that the Gracies came up with about cooking someone. And the idea is like someone can spaz out in the beginning. They can be real strong and pull out of submissions. But eventually I'm going to cook them.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
eventually I'm going to keep hitting my moves until I'm going to get to a dominant position. They're going to get tired, and I'm going to cook them, and then I'm going to submit them. And you need time to do that. If Hoist Gracie had a jiu-jitsu match with a giant bodybuilder and the match was only 10 seconds long, he might not be able to get the guy in 10 seconds. He doesn't have enough time.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
But if you give Hoist Gracie an hour, that guy's going to get cooked. Right. And the thing about a conversation like with the Kamala Harris thing was like I genuinely just wanted to talk to her. I thought I could like have a real conversation. I've seen her be really funny. This is like really funny video of her meeting her mother-in-law and father-in-law for the first time.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And that the woman grabs her face. She's, oh, look at you. Like Doug Emhoff's mom grabs her face. Like it was really funny. Like she's laughing hard, but she's laughing like it's authentic. It's a really fun. See if you can find it. It's very funny. And I was like, that person's in there. And that person. is dealing with incredible pressure of being in front of millions of people.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
They're all scrutinizing every word she says, and that pressure causes people to bumble their words and say things in cycles because they're trying to dismount and they don't know how to. Maybe they're not the best public speaker. Maybe they're not the most articulate at forming sentences, but they have good ideas, and you've got to get those people comfortable.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
You've got to find out what is in there. And so my thought was there was a few things they didn't want to talk about. They initially didn't want to talk about internet censorship, but then they changed their mind and did want to talk about it, which I thought was interesting. Maybe they had a solution. They said, if he throws this at you, you're going to say this. Okay, we got it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Okay, let's talk about it. Tell him we want to talk about internet censorship. They didn't want to talk about the legalization of marijuana, but that was probably because of her prosecutorial record. She prosecuted a lot of people for marijuana crimes. So I was like, okay, we don't have to talk about those things. I'll talk about whatever you want to talk about. I don't care.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
I just want to get to you and you give me three hours. I'll find out who you are. We could talk about nature. We could talk about the environment. We could talk about space. We could talk about, do you believe in reincarnation? Like I'll get to who you are. I want to get to who you are. I got to cook you. Why wouldn't she do that? Because she didn't want to get cooked. Because it's scary.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Because you could fucking bumble it. You could fuck up. Or you could be Trump. Where he comes in, he doesn't give a fuck. There's no discussion whatsoever about topics. He'll talk about anything. And just talk. And that guy would talk for three fucking hours, no problem at all. No problems, didn't ask to edit it. They wanted to know whether they had editing control.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
They wanted to be able to edit things out. Like if she did Bumble, which is Trump's big lawsuit with CBS because of 60 Minutes. Because they edited her answers that made her seem like she had a more intelligent answer, which is essentially election interference. In the debate? Yeah. No, an interview. So there was a Kamala Harris interview and Trump sued.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Well, it turns out, no. It turns out I'm not even a little bit. They're terrible at it. They're not just not good at it. They're really bad at it. They're really bad at it, and they lie a lot.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And there's a lawsuit that's still going on right now. It is CBS, correct? What were his grounds? Because they changed her answer. So someone fucked up and released like a teaser of the conversation. And in the teaser, she was bumbling and fumbling to answer this question.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And in the actual show on CBS, they had edited that and put in a completely different answer to something else as the answer to this question that seemed more logical and made more sense. It was much more succinct and short. And he was saying, like, you fucking idiots. Like, you did this. You released it on video on the internet first, and then you had a different version on CBS.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Do you think people don't remember something that was just released – Like two days ago as like a preview to this thing. But in between the time that the video – this is Trump's argument.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
In between the time the video was released on the internet and the response that it got, all the negativity and all the criticism that it got and all the backlash to how she responded to that question, they edited it and changed the response. And so he's suing. And he's got a point.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
He's got a real point because you shouldn't allow them to edit it and make it look like it was better than it really was. I mean, this is not just a conversation where someone fucked up about, they made a flub and they said, oh, can you take that out? No, this is like a response to critical policy issues that are going to affect the entire country if you run into president.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
If you become president, do you know how to address a situation? Do you have a plan? Do you know what this problem is? And do you have an actual solution? And if you don't and if you're kind of bumbling around your words, people should be able to see that because that's one of the things that we're deciding this election on.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
So for someone like her that's had those kind of experiences where she said the wrong thing and done the – And it said things like, God, I wish I had a chance to reconsider that. I would have said it differently.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Because that thing that you say, even if it's under a high-pressure situation like an interview on CBS, that high-pressure situation that caused you to fumble, now people are going to say that is your opinion, period. This is your perspective, period.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Meanwhile, if she had time to consider that question and come up with a logical answer and then rehearse that logical answer and been ready, she might have done a much better job. That's the fear of not having any power over editing because in a three-hour conversation, you can't really prepare. I think they did think they had a preparation.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
The only thing that makes sense to me is why they would just change their tune on internet censorship, that they wanted to talk about that. They must have had some sort of logical reason why a certain amount of censorship is important because you want to protect against misinformation, disinformation and hate speech.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And so this was something that Tim Walz was saying openly when he was on the campaign trail is that free speech does not include hate speech. But it does.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Exactly. Exactly. Because your definition of hate speech might just be misgendering Caitlyn Jenner. That might be hate speech. So if you're talking about Bruce Jenner winning the decathlon, what are we saying if you can't say Bruce Jenner? Because if you want to look at the reality of this biological male who wins the Olympics as a male and then transitions to becoming a woman...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
If you're telling me that I can no longer discuss the fact that this was a biological male with a different name and it's hate speech, well, you've essentially put the handcuffs on reality.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
No. What's important is that what it is, is that this is a resistance to thinking. I mean, it's really what it is.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Well, listen, man, I really enjoyed talking to you. I really enjoy what you're doing. I appreciate you, and thank you for being here. Tell everybody again, it's Secret Scholar Society.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
On YouTube? On YouTube. And that's the only thing you're using currently?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Secret Scholars is the handle on YouTube. And on Patreon, you have a Secret Scholars thing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Perfect. Love Patreon. I love what they do. Thank you very much.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
When you were in school, so you at the beginning, everybody's thinking there's no way Trump can win. You know, these experts, I think on the day of the election, I think they had some crazy odds of Hillary winning. It was like in the 90 percent. And we watched it from the comedy store. We did a podcast from the comedy store called End of the World Podcast.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And we did this live stream while the election was going on, and we just kept bringing in different comedians. We had a whole conference table, and it was fun. We did it in front of a live audience, and then we updated the crowd. And then when marijuana became legal, Burt Kreischer takes his shirt off and runs around the stage. It was really funny. It was fun. It was a fun time.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
But what was most fascinating was the podcast was over, and then we all went to the bar. The comic store has this private bar in the back, and on the television, Jake Tapper was just seriously bummed out, talking about Trump winning all these different states. And then we watched a little bit of The Young Turks, and Cenk Uygur was freaking out.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
In the beginning, they were so cocky and so confident, and by the end, they were just freaking out. They couldn't understand how everybody got it wrong. And it I think for a lot of people, that was the end of trust in mainstream media. That was the first nail in the coffin. Those to be like, you guys didn't you were so wrong. You were so wrong.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Yeah. And it was just fascinating to watch what's supposed to be the news. Right. So it's supposed the news is supposed to be. at its best, an objective analysis of what's going on, giving you the facts, but they were so clearly upset.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
It's a resistance to questioning why people have certain deeply ingrained thought processes that are a part of an ideology. And I think what you were doing was really pretty brilliant. It was awesome. And I love the way you were handling it. It was very...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And, you know, there's a lot of editorializing on how bad this is and what this means to the world and what does this say about us that this guy who said grab him by the pussy is now the commander-in-chief of the greatest army the world has ever known. It was just... For us, as comedians, we're like, this is gonna be fun.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
It was just like they opened up the door to the candy store and said, go crazy, have fun. This is all free. But it was a real wake-up call for a lot of people that this system is not really as well managed as we'd like to believe it is. But also... need to find them, like yesterday. If you're an employer struggling to find that perfect fit, I've got one word for you, ZipRecruiter.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
They work fast to find you great talent. Try it for free at ziprecruiter.com slash rogan. They're so fast, four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter find a quality candidate within the first day. That might be why hiring site employers prefer ZipRecruiter the most based on G2 ratings. They get the work done without wasting your time or money.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
So relax and let ZipRecruiter speed up your hiring. See for yourself. Just go to ZipRecruiter.com slash Rogan to try it right now for free. That's the same price as a genuine smile from a stranger, a picture-perfect sunset, or a cute dog running up to you and licking your hand. Again, that's ZipRecruiter.com slash Rogan. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
This episode is brought to you by visible. all powered by Verizon's 5G network. Plus, they're an all-digital wireless service, so you can easily switch within a matter of minutes from your phone, either in their app or online. Ready to switch? Get the Visible Plan, one line with unlimited everything, for just $25 a month.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
How are you? Pleasure to meet you. Thank you for having me. My pleasure. I wound up seeing you, as many people did, on those videos that you were making where you were talking to students about You know, just kind of like exploring critical thinking and asking students questions and why they're upset about certain things and getting to the bottom. And I'm like, wow, this guy is like he's young.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Every month, taxes and fees included, so you know exactly what you're paying every single month. Didn't think wireless could be so transparent, so visible? Well, now you know. Switch today at visible.com slash rogan. Terms apply. See visible.com for network management details.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
calm and rational and just having discussions with students and you kind of see like a lot of their flailing and trying to rationalize while they have these sort of incoherent beliefs.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Fuck is going on here. Why was that? What was the reason given for that?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And then why did they feel so threatened? Did they articulate that?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
She was like, what? The fried chicken one is so crazy. Fried chicken and watermelon. Those are the two things that are associated with racism for as far as foods, which are universally loved. Like fried chicken is delicious. Watermelon is delicious. Like how could that possibly be a negative that certain people like delicious food? To this day, it's one of those things. It's so bizarre.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
You could bring up all kinds of different delicious foods. But if you bring up fried chicken, which everybody eats, everybody who eats meat and loves delicious food loves a good fried chicken. Have you tried Gus's in town? Is that where you get the slabs of meat? No, no, that's Terry Black's. But Gus's fried chicken is in Austin. Fantastic.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Some of the best fried chicken you're ever going to have in your life. But if you brought that up to a Black friend, they might look at you sadly. What the fuck are you trying to say? Food's good.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Well, the problem with that kind of arguing is that it's a total cop-out. Like, if there is any sort of debate, and there clearly is when it comes to trans issues, if there's any sort of debate, you have to be able to discuss things. And as soon as you say, if you want to debate, we're done. If you want to have a discussion, we can't. You don't see it? Well, we're done.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Well, what you're essentially conceding is you don't have...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
logical ability to shut this down because if you did you would just do it you would have a rational conversation that person and you would say clearly look this is why this is racist this is why this is transphobic this is why this is sexist like whatever the whatever the argument is and you would lay it out and as soon as you say if you don't believe that then we're done talking mm-hmm
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Well, they can't have the debate because they're not equipped for it. That's all it is. They don't have any weapons, right? If you're going to go to battle, you have to have some sort of resources. There's nothing there. And when there's nothing there and you just say...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
I can't instead of saying like is there a logical argument that there are men who are manipulating this in order to control women spaces and like it used to be that we protected women against men and protected particularly we protected women against predatory men right like perverts or sex offenders for example.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
But somewhere along the line with this woke ideology, we completely eliminated the even possibility that a man in a dress that wants to go into the woman's room could be a pervert, which to me was the most insane thing. It's like you've just given a hall pass to the grossest members of society that we've always...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
We've always feared people that would try to take advantage of women and do so in a weird way where you claim to be one, but you have a penis. You're walking around with an erection in a locker room and anybody who calls it out is transphobic. Right. It got real weird.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
But they're just scared. They're scared of thinking logically because if you do, you will be cast out of this group. You'll be ostracized. Like there's very specific rules and they're very much like a cult. Like you have this very cult-like thinking. And if you deviate from that at all...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
You run into the possibility of social ostracization, and that's what happens to a lot of people, and they're scared of that. So to defend against that possibly happening to them, they attack things without any logic at all. They just say, you don't think, you don't know, I'm done talking to you.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
It's like a get-out-of-jail-free pass, and you can just get away from the conversation, and you don't have to confront the logical fallacies. You don't have to confront all the problems with what you're saying.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
No, I believe that too. If it's done logically and you can have reasonable discussions. But even in the opposition to that, right, you have people on the right who adhere to a right-wing cult-like thinking, right? And they'll push back against it in a way that's also not logical. And so they dig their heels in on their ideology. The left digs their heels in.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And, you know, you have things like people say people on the left don't get it. People on the left this. Like, no, there's a giant spectrum of people on the left and a giant spectrum of people on the right. I don't like any of those labels. Exactly. And I really don't like it because of me. Like, I don't fit in there. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. I've been... Playoffs. We're talking about playoffs?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
You bet we are. Get in on the action with DraftKings Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NFL. Scoring touchdowns is key to winning the playoffs, and you can score big by betting on them at DraftKings, the number one place to bet touchdowns. Ready to place your bet? Try betting on something simple like a player to score six. Go to DraftKings Sportsbook app and make your pick.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
New DraftKings customers can bet $5 to get $200 in bonus bets instantly. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app and use the code ROGAN. That's code ROGAN for new customers to get $200 in bonus bets instantly when you bet just $5. Only on DraftKings Sportsbook, the crown is yours.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
They're blue no matter who. They're just locked in. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
It doesn't make sense at all. Even for someone like me, like, you know, who... I went to the inauguration. How was that? Bizarre. But I don't consider myself a Republican. I don't consider myself a Democrat either. I consider myself an American. I'm a human being. And there's a lot of things that the Democrats believe that I believe too.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
There's a lot of things that they say that I say that makes a lot of sense to me. And there's a lot of things that the Republicans say that makes a lot of sense to me too. And the idea that I have to ignore things that make sense to me because it's coming from the wrong team is just stupid.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
These are bad faith arguments where you have to have a conversation with someone and pretend that what they're saying is not logical because they're supposed to be your opponent. That to me is just dumb. That doesn't benefit me at all. It doesn't benefit anybody listening at all. It's just stupid. It's a stupid way to think.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
It's so limiting and it's so bad for you cognitively because I think when you put up those blinders, like you ever talk to a person that's a liar, especially like when you're younger, you meet people that are liars and they lie all the time about all kinds of things. One of the things about liars is they can't really recognize how other people see their lies because they're living a lie.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Like they're lying so often they don't realize the language of truth and honesty. And so when they're talking to people, they don't even realize that people know they're full of shit. Because they've lost their ability to sort of discern what natural conversations are about. Where it's really – it's not about you being. Bullshitting me to try to get me to believe something. That's not true.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
It's about you just expressing yourself So they stopped doing that they stopped just genuinely expressing themselves and then they just live with these blinders on and so everything Exists and the only way they can find someone who will buy into their bullshit is if someone is like so bad at thinking and reasoning that they don't have the tools to discern when someone's full of shit and
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And this happens with ideologies. This happens with religion and it clearly happens with politics. It's like you get locked into these blinders and you're incapable of looking at any sort of positive aspects of someone who is on a team that you believe is the opposition.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Yeah, I think we're entering a unique moment in history where a lot of those narratives are just dissolving. And a lot of that very tribal thinking is being critically analyzed and it's found to be lacking. And people are abandoning it left and right. And you're seeing sort of the consequences of...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
a lot of this ideology affecting people's day-to-day lives, and that's causing people to abandon it. I was watching this left-wing podcast where they were discussing being gaslit about the problems with violence and crime rising in New York City, and that you're being told that it's not. But if you live day-to-day life, you're like, no, this is real.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
You guys have let in a bunch of Venezuelan gang members, and you have a sanctuary city, and now it's kind of chaotic. and you're seeing like the woman who got lit on fire on the subway and like that kind of shit. You're seeing this with ever-increasing frequency.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
You're also seeing the way they lie about crime statistics because they'll tell you that crime is down, but what they don't tell you is crime is severely underreported and that people are being released for even violent crimes very quickly, which has direct consequences because then there's no incentive whatsoever to not commit crime if you're going to be right back out on the street.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
So he says the colleagues told him, don't publish this, warning you'll ruin your career. Right. For releasing findings that contradict popular left wing narratives on policing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And so that was problematic for a lot of people. They didn't want to hear that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Right. Is it unwarranted bias, meaning are more black people causing them to get pulled over? Like the default rate.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Right. Should you give loans to people that are more likely to default just because of their ethnicity?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Right. Which is the argument for equity. Right. Over equality. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Well, I think most kids are aware that you're being forced to think a certain way or at least to talk about things a certain way. Most people are – they don't like being told what to do. People don't enjoy that. And when they feel like there's like a lot of social pressure to adhere to a very specific ideology – I think people don't like it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Yeah, I've seen that argument that like not everybody starts at the same spot So you have to raise up people who've started a different spot, which is to me a band-aid on the real problem. I The real problem is that we have crime infested areas that we've done nothing to fix. That's the real problem.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
The real problem is we have parts of our society that have been, you know, because of Jim Crow laws and red line laws. There's a long history of them being riddled with crime and gangs and it could be fixed. There's been no effort. There's been no real national effort to take impoverished, gang-ridden, crime-ridden neighborhoods and rehabilitate them.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
The more you do that, if you did that, you would have less losers. If you have less losers, you have a better country. And that's including like... The Appalachias, like areas of West Virginia that are filled with people that are addicted to pills and committing crime because they're drug addicts that are all poor white people, coal mining people, those folks. It's everybody.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
It's just crime and poverty. And crime and poverty causes people. You imitate your environment. You imitate your atmosphere. If you grow up in a crime-ridden, gang-ridden neighborhood, the chances of you getting involved in gang activities and crime are much higher than if you don't grow up in an environment like that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
It's rough out there, which people don't believe. Asheville, like mountains, beautiful.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
You're never going to stop racism. You're never going to stop ignorant thinking. I mean unless there's some sort of groundbreaking human neural interface that completely changes our cognitive function and dissolves all boundaries. You're not going to stop people from – there's people that don't like people from other cities because they play sports against them. I hate people from Philly.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
There's always going to be people that discriminate against other people because there's always going to be ignorant people. And it's easier to do that. It's easier to decide this person is my enemy. These people are on my side. It's easy to be tribal. It's much simpler. You don't have to think as much.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Well, that's the type of bias that is kind of logical. Like if you see a guy and he's covered in his own shit and he's lighting notebooks on fire, that guy might be out of his fucking mind. You should probably go around him. And if you run into a bunch of them and they're camping out right in front of your house, you should act accordingly.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And so when you see debates where people have differing opinions and they have these sort of logical, objective ways of describing why they think about things a certain way, it gets people like, okay, was there another way to think? Like how is this guy doing this? Like what does this mean? Like why do we have to say – what is wrong with what JK Rowling said? And it's exciting to people.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
You shouldn't treat them the same the way you treat your neighbor who's just walking his dog waving to you. It's a different kind of human being you're encountering. There are certain people that you should be wary about.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And if you are severely mentally ill and addicted to drugs and you live in a tent in front of someone's house and you're cooking meth, like you're in the backyard barbecuing and you smell someone cooking meth in your front yard, that's a problem. Yeah, that's a problem. That's a problem. And if you pretend it's not a problem because –
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Oh, you have to be sensitive to people's socioeconomic needs and it's a housing crisis and it's this and it's that. No, no. There's people that are really fucked up because being a person is hard. It's difficult. It's complicated.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And if you grow up with abusive parents who are drug addicts themselves and in and out of jail and you've been psychologically scarred since you were a baby because they beat you and You've encountered a lot of domestic violence. You're going to be more fucked up than the average person.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
This is just the development cycle of you as an entity, as a human being that is a product of your accumulated experiences, your genetics, your biology, your environment. There's just a lot of factors. And to pretend that those factors don't exist and that if you do – You recognize them that somehow or another you're racist or you're sexist or you're ableist or you're this or you're that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
You're the problem. No, the problem is we've got a bunch of people that are really fucked up, you know, and we have to figure out a way to have less people that are fucked up. Here's going to have a certain percentage. But is there something that can be done? that would mitigate the number of people that are growing up really fucked up and becoming problems. Start at the root. Get to the root.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
What's the root? Crime-infested, gang-infested neighborhoods, abusive family life, abusive neighborhoods. That's the root. It's the root of all of our problems.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep. Let's talk about a game changer in the world of sleep technology. Eight Sleep and their revolutionary Pod 4 Ultra. The Pod is a high-tech mattress cover that easily adds to your existing bed easily. and is clinically proven to improve sleep by up to one hour per night.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
The pod regulates sleep cycles with precision and automatic temperature control for each side of the bed, so you and your partner can have your ideal sleep temperature. It also learns your sleep patterns and detects snoring, adjusting the bed's position to stop it. Plus, it attracts sleep stages, heart rate variability, and respiratory rate without wearable devices.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
So if you're ready to take your sleep and recovery to the next level, head over to 8sleep.com slash Rogan and use the code Rogan to get $350 off your very own Pod 4 Ultra. And you get 30 days to try it at home and return it if you don't like it. I have it, I use it, and I love it. Your body will thank you for this investment in Better Sleep, shipping to many countries worldwide now.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
See details at 8sleep.com slash rogan. This episode is brought to you by Tocovas. If you know one thing that's a must for me, ladies and gentlemen, it's a pair of boots that won't let me down no matter what. I only have one pair of cowboy boots. They are Tocovas. Every pair of Tecova's boots is handcrafted with over 200 meticulous steps for broken-in comfort right out of the box.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
So whether it's a long day or a big night, your Tecova's are built to last and impress. And right now, you can get 10% off at tecovas.com slash rogan when you sign up for email and text. That's 10% off at tecovas.com slash rogan. But even personal responsibility for a person that has no – there's no examples of someone taking personal responsibility.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And the videos were exciting, and there was a tremendous amount of response to them. I know you're aware of that. I mean, there was so many comments and so many people were interested in them. They got very popular. And then when I heard you were fired, I was like, oh, of course. It was too good because it gave me hope.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Everyone around you is doing something fucked up or most people around you are doing something fucked up. And there's nowhere you can turn or you can relate to someone who can give you tools and objective reasoning and an understanding of how you got to the situation and what are the steps you can take to get out of that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Right. Or finding something that you can do that elevates you. Finding something you can do that gives you a very clear example that hard work and dedication can lead to success and then you can kind of get addicted to this positive feeling that you're getting from seeing yourself progress and get locked into that and it can elevate you out of certain situations. You see that happen with sports.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
You see that happen with art. You know, sports and art are probably the two best ways that people can escape impoverished childhoods and bad neighborhoods.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
I was like, more people should be doing this at schools, and it would help a lot because a lot of this – There's really sort of polarized positions that people are taking one side or the other. They just want to win and they dig their heels in and they don't exactly even know why they have this particular opinion that they're defending. They just know that they're supposed to.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Well, it brings you back to like what is school supposed to be for? It's supposed to be preparing you for independence out in the world. And it's supposed to be preparing you to eventually have a career. Well, there's real careers in art. It's a viable pathway. Yeah. And the idea that this guy is extremely talented and that's not accentuated.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
That was my problem as an artist. When when I was young, I wanted to be a comic book illustrator. That's what I wanted to do. And all I could. That's the only art that I was interested in. I read a lot of comic books and I was like really into like Frank Frazetta. And yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
I was really into like Jack Kirby and all these different artists that would draw for comic books and fantasy novels and that kind of stuff. That's what I was interested in. That was the only thing I was interested in. And my art teacher was an asshole. He was such an asshole.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Shout out to my friend John DeVore because I communicate online with a buddy of mine in high school who was also in that art class who was the most talented guy in the class. It was me, John, and our friend Kevin. And we were like the three most talented people. I was like third. It's like John was number one, Kevin was number two, and then there was me.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
He's obviously an academic, but super reasonable and like really level headed. I'm like, we need more of this. This is really interesting. And then I found out you got fired for doing that. It's like if this isn't an encapsulation of all that is wrong with our current higher education system, then I don't know what is.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
But we were all like much more talented than everyone else. And all we wanted to do was like comic book art. And John was so good. And he told me that that teacher gave him an F in his final year. Because he's just an asshole. He would never look at your art and say it was good. He would look at your art and say, you're not going to be able to do that for a living.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
You're going to have to draw diaper commercials. You're going to have to do this. You're going to have to do things you don't want to do. I hate that shit. He was a bitter guy with a pot belly who looked depressed. A lot of teachers are. Yeah, and he didn't want you to have hope because he didn't have any hope. And he didn't like teaching. He wanted to be an artist.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And when he would draw, he would draw in the class. We would do projects. And his stuff was unexceptional. It just wasn't that good. And it just, they wanted you to fail.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
That's like you should be fired for being incompetent. Not just incompetent, but you're counter to what's true. Like you're saying things that are objectively untrue. You can't make money on YouTube. That is – you could pull up statistics instantaneously.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
But that's not why you got lucky. You got lucky because you put out good content, and it's a merit-based thing. It really is. It doesn't necessarily have to be good, right? There's content that's just – it's inflammatory and that people –
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And so they just kind of bite down and dig in and you get these shouty sort of polarizing arguments.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
people gravitate to that because they like controversy people like just people squabbling and yelling at each other like shitty content or someone who's saying like awful things so people can you believe this person's saying these awful things and they get a lot of attention for saying awful things yeah and so you know and then youtube has ways to sort of manage that which are you know a little orwellian right like they demonetize people for talking about specific things and
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
It should scare you because a lot of times they're demonetizing things that are absolutely accurate, and that's where it gets really weird. This is what we faced during the COVID crisis. If you said that you think this disease came from a lab leak, you would get demonetized on YouTube. Well, that's proven to be true now. So what happens?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Does YouTube owe you money from all those videos that you put out that they should have monetized? No. I can't even think about it. It's crazy. You're saying accurate things, but these accurate things were being suppressed by our own federal government, which is really weird. We're in cahoots with these corporations that were making these medications.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And so it got real fucking weird, like real weird. And unfortunately, a lot of those laws still stand. We had an instance where there was a video that we put out during the pandemic where when we were only on Spotify. So when we were only on Spotify, all of our videos, all of our episodes got released only on Spotify.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
But we banked them all to eventually, you know, just like we'd have them if we ever wanted to put them up on YouTube. Well, then in 2024, I signed this new deal. And in the new deal, what I want to do is put it everywhere. I was like, we'll be Spotify, but let's put it on. And Spotify wanted to do this as well. It was actually, they were very supportive of this. Put it everywhere.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Put it on YouTube. Put it on Apple. But it's a Spotify exclusive, and we work out this deal that way. So when we took these videos that were available on Spotify, in order to put them on YouTube, even though they're factually correct, they have a strike against them because it's still adhering to their old laws that were applicable at the time that we made the video.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
You know where you were saying that there was a video that we were going to put up, but it had a strike, and you were going to have to do training? Remember that?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Oh, it was a clip that was the problem? Yeah, pretty sure. Right, but it was the full episode, wasn't it? Right. And then when we uploaded the full episode, then it applied to that, right?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
No, I'm not doing shit. Yeah, but here's the problem. That clip was accurate. The problem is the things that they were saying were accurate.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Yeah, it was always accurate. It's just the news started reporting it accurately. And because initially the government narrative was that it was incorrect. So we're in the situation where you're getting educated about something that's absolutely true, and you have to sort of pretend that you did a bad thing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Here's an interesting statistic about YouTube. This shows you. Like this is probably one of the best examples of bias that you're ever going to see. During the time where I released the podcast with Trump, it was getting – what was the most it was getting an hour? Was it 1.2 million views?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
As much as 1.5 million, I think, at one point in time. An hour. Never trending.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Never trending. Never trending. What's trending then? Tell me what trending is. If something gets 50 million views in a couple of days and that's not trending, what's trending? What do you call trending? What does that mean then? Are you curating your trending thing? Why would you do that?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
I don't know. That's a good question. Well, it didn't get any views. No, it didn't get much views. I mean, what did Kamala Harris on Call Her Daddy get?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
But that doesn't make any sense. I don't think it might be wrong about that. Well, it wasn't extraordinary. It wasn't interesting enough. That's, you know, it's merit based, essentially.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Yeah, okay. YouTube's trending page is controlled by an algorithm that's trained by human engineers. There's no employees who manually curate the trending page. How the algorithm works. The algorithm considers many factors to determine which videos are trending, including view count, view velocity, and video age.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
The algorithm considers where views are coming from and how the video performs compared to other recent uploads from the same channel. The algorithm aims to create a list of trending content that's relevant and representative across the platform. The algorithm refreshes every 15 minutes to stay current.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Filters the algorithm applies strict content filters to keep the trending list family-friendly These filters ensure that videos don't contain excessive profanity Well that gets me out Mature content violence or disparaging others in the community. Okay, so just that line alone disparaging others in the community.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
We need views. Well, not only that, if you put it in trending, you'll get more views, so you get more advertising revenue.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
But yeah, they were worried about it promoting Donald Trump and him winding up being president because of that. But then it got to a point where you couldn't find it. So that was real weird. Like if you Googled Trump Rogan podcast, you would not find that podcast at all. You would find clips of people discussing it. You would not find the actual podcast.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
bizarre didn't you tweet like we had to release it at the same time on multiple platforms sorry for the glitch wasn't there there was a glitch because the way um we upload generally uh jamie you can speak to this we upload with a timer right like it's going to upload it usually is like at noon and this time we were doing it at night and
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
We just said, let's just release it now. But it took a while to get up. That was just an issue with... just how the upload system works. It's like it's more effective to upload on a timer, apparently. But that had nothing to do with YouTube.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
That was just a thing about, and then when it was being suppressed, and I knew it was being suppressed, I talked to Spotify and talked to Elon and said, let's just put it on X. And so we put it on X as well. And then Elon put it on X and it wound up getting across all platforms, somewhere in the neighborhood of like 250 million views
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
fucking insanity but a lot of it was x like a lot of people on independent pages they just took it when it was a problem finding it and they just uploaded it to their own channel on x a lot of people did that and then you know i uploaded it elon elon's alone got like 65 million views and i got like 25 million views it was just nuts It's like people wanted it. It's the Streisand effect.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
As soon as you try to suppress something, I just don't buy into the idea that there was some sort of manipulation behind the scenes. It just doesn't make any sense. Whether it was rogue employees or whether it was someone who was gaming the reporting system, like reporting something. Maybe that could be it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
If you get enough people that report that a video is a problem, maybe that could throw it off. I don't know. You know, I don't even I don't want to ask because I don't think I'm going to get an honest answer.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
I kind of have, but I don't talk to them. You know, I don't I don't have like a direct channel where I talk to them. I don't want one. I was just like, eh. Let me just put it, you know, like, if there's a situation like that, I'll talk about that. And that's my way of responding to that. Like, make it make sense to me. Like, why can't you find it?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Why can't you find a video that has 65 million views? Why can't you find that? That doesn't make any sense.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
That's nuts. Like, what's wrong with your search system? And then eventually, because of me talking about it, it went back. And then you could find it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
We were clearly being manipulated. We were clearly being gaslit and being told that this guy's Hitler. Even though he was already the president for four years. And he didn't act like a dictator. Like, we know what it's like when he's running things. We had experienced it for four years.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And they were telling us that this was the end of civilization, that trans people were going to be rounded up and fucking nets thrown on them. It was really wild that people weren't going to be safe. It was really wild. It was really wild. And they...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Yeah, they just demonized and they gaslit people to the point where when you actually do have the guy in and talk to him and say like, no, he's not mentally compromised. He's not incoherent. He's very coherent. He's got an amazing amount of energy. Guy sat here for three hours and we could have done another three hours easy. He can go on and on and on. And he's fine.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And he had some really good points. First of all, the point about the California wildfires where he's discussing their water issues, that it could all be fixed. And then he gave them a plan to fix it. And then they rejected it. And he's like, you could have all the fucking water you need. And you should be doing things to make sure that these fires don't happen again.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
There's ways to clean up the brush. There's ways to do this. There's ways to do that. You stop the fuel. You know, you develop better systems for water distribution, sprinkler systems. Like there's ways to do this. And he talked about those ways on the podcast. And it's like, you know, eerily accurate when you see what happened to the Pacific Palisades. This episode is brought to you by Oracle.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Even if you think it's a bit overhyped, AI is suddenly everywhere from self-driving cars to molecular medicine to business efficiency. If it's not in your industry yet, it's coming fast. But AI needs a lot of speed and computing power. So how do you compete without costs spiraling out of control? Time to upgrade to the next generation of the cloud. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, or OCI.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
We've all been there. You're hungover, thinking about all the dumb stuff you did last night and wondering if anybody remembers. Unfortunately, someone does remember everything you do online and they've got receipts. I'm talking about your internet provider and data brokers and every shady marketing company that gets their greedy hands on your private activity.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
OCI is a blazing fast and secure platform for your infrastructure, database application development, plus all of your AI and machine learning workloads. OCI costs 50% less for compute and 80% less for networking. So you're saving a pile of money. Thousands of businesses have already upgraded to OCI, including Vodafone, Thomson Reuters, and Suno AI.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Right now, Oracle is offering to cut your current cloud bill in half if you move to OCI for new U.S. customers with minimum financial commitment. Offer ends March 31st. See if your company qualifies for the special offer at Oracle.com slash Rogan. That's Oracle.com slash Rogan.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Yeah. See, here's the thing, this climate change narrative. This is a really goofy thing that people on the left are talking about. This is because of climate change. This is climate change causes fire. L.A. has had essentially the same weather pattern since the 1800s. since they started noticing them. There's a great video. Here, I'll send it to you, Jamie.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
There's a great video of the Topanga fires. You might be able to find it before I can pull it up. The Topanga fires from 1961, I believe. There was a huge fire that raged through the Hollywood Hills pre-climate change. 1961. LA has always been dry as fuck.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
That's why the movie industry is there. Because you could film outside and you don't ever have to worry about it raining on you. That's literally why they came there. Because it's the perfect climate. It's amazing. I was just there last weekend. The weather's incredible. But the city, because of their ridiculous policies, is just a fucking disaster. A dangerous, creepy, weird disaster of a city.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
I mean, that's just what happens, man. So the situation that I encountered was from 2000. I was filming Fear Factor, so it had to be before 2007. So it was really before a lot of this. I mean, you know, you had the Inconvenient Truth documentary, but you didn't have the type of climate change discussions that you have today. So you think it was more... It's just L.A.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
But this year is going to be different. Give your online privacy a fresh start with ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN is an easy-to-use app that encrypts your online activity and reroutes it through secure servers, keeping your browsing history private from third parties. And it hides your IP address, making it impossible for data brokers to use it to track you.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Yeah, that is a black and white one. The one that I had was color footage. I know I have it. Just give me a second. I will find it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Here, I'm just going through my – Whitney Cummings sent it to me. So I'm going through my videos with her. I'll find it in a second. But the point is it's like when I experienced that, this was not when everybody was chiming in about climate change being – here it is. I found it. 1960s, it was in the canyon. Here it is. I'll send it to you, Jamie. Okay.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And it's one of those guys talking like this because that's how they talked in the news back then. So it's a 1961 documentary about the fires. And so when I was talking to this fireman, I think it was 2003, if I'm correct. I think it was 2003. And we were experiencing a fire and he told me – because where I lived, I had been evacuated three times. I've been evacuated in the early 2000s.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
So give me some volume on this so you can hear the way this guy talks.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
So that has always been a problem. So they had the same issue back then. The 100% same issue. So this idea that these left-wing people, particularly media people, they want to use this binary thing, you know, This is what I saw. Oh, Trump said drill, baby, drill right after we're dealing with this climate change fueled emergency in the Pacific Palisades and climate.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
That is not it's not climate change. It is the climate of Los Angeles. It's a fucking desert. They put a city in the fucking desert because they wanted to film movies there. And it's also windy in the winter because you get the Santa Ana winds, which is what just occurred. We get these 100 mile. They're historic. They've always happened. Every year we get the Santa.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
There's fire season for a fucking reason. There's Los Angeles has fire season where I used to live. It was fire season. And every time the winter would come and everything was dry and all the vegetation was brown and the wind was whipping around, everybody would get nervous. Because you get, you know, there's a bunch of different reasons.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
The one big one from 2018, they found out that it was like some part that had failed that initially caused the fire that was a $1 part. The park cost $1. This $1 piece that they failed to replace caused the sparks that led to the initial fire that was the 2018 fire where you saw, if you go down the 405 in Hollywood, like half of the side of the highway was completely engulfed in flames.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
It looked apocalyptic. It was bananas. Driving down the highway and the whole left side of the highway is completely on fire. Giant hills of raging fires that they couldn't put out. It's always been like this. It's Los Angeles. It's Los Angeles. Why didn't they adapt?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
You don't have to be a tech genius to use ExpressVPN. No matter what device you're using, phone, tablet, laptop, or smart TV, just tap one button to make everything you do online private. It's incredibly fast, it doesn't slow down your streaming or downloading, and it lets you connect instantly to secure servers in 105 countries around the world. So forget dry January.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
It's possible. And the problem with this past fire, and here's another thing that's a lot of weird pushback against, that it was arson caused. Hey, some of it was arson caused. Fact. They've arrested people. They arrested people for starting fires. They've arrested multiple people for starting fires. My friend Andrew Huberman filmed people starting fires.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
They were starting fires in the middle of this fire disaster. Because it doesn't mean it's the cause of it. It means along the way, there was a lot of arson. Like some people were saying that, you know, oh, there's this false narrative that it was the homeless people. Right. OK, whether they had a house or whether they didn't have a house, some people started fucking fires.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
There's video footage of the three fires that are started semi simultaneously that are near the Palisades. And on one of the video footage, it's very clear that there's a human being is like from the sky where they're filming this. There's a human being that's near the fire. Most likely the cause of the fire was a person who either accidentally did this or did it on purpose, lit a fire.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
So the problem is not fucking climate change. The problem is L.A. is extremely vulnerable when it comes to fires and always has been. And they've done very little to mitigate this yearly disaster problem that they have. That's the facts. That's the reality of it. That's indisputable.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
I would like to think that people would wise up. I mean there's been a trend in California to vote in the opposite direction. If you look at the map of 2020 versus the map of 2024, the counties that went red, like a significant number. But the high population centers are in the trance. San Francisco, Los Angeles, very difficult to get those people to vote anything other than blue.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And so if the people that are Democrat are giving them the exact same solutions, the exact same gaslighting, and they keep buying it over and over again and they still win elections, then there's no incentive for them to correct course. So this is why. California has been essentially blue since – except for the time where Arnold won, which is weird, right?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Because he was kind of like a moderate Republican and also famous and that probably led to him winning. But other than that, since Reagan, he – what did he – he did something where he allowed people that came here – what was the issue that Reagan did? There was some sort of a voting issue. where he allowed people from, I think it was people that had emigrated here illegally from Mexico.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
There's coffee and water, whatever you'd like. There's water in that glass right there. But California is basically locked blue, and the only thing that's going to change it is things like these specific Palisades fires where people realize we have incompetent government.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And if we have competent government that is right-wing, and as long as they don't infringe on civil rights and human rights and all the things that we're terrified of from right-wing extremists, as long as they don't do that, you'll probably be better off leaning in that direction. If someone's going to take a pragmatic solution, a pragmatic –
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
a view of what these problems are and make meaningful change like you've got to you've got to figure out what what is first of all with the fires it's like this all could be prevented what's causing the fire well all this brush they had record rainfall record rainfall means record growth so you have record growth of all these grasses and brush and all this stuff so it's all green and lush until la runs out of water
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
This year, you're doing private January with ExpressVPN. Podcast listeners can get four extra months of ExpressVPN for free at expressvpn.com slash rogan or by tapping the banner. And if you're watching on YouTube, you can get your four free months by scanning the QR code on screen or by clicking the link in the description. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Because it stops raining for a long time and then everything turns brown. And then it's a tender. It's just fire tender. It's just... It's a tinderbox.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
There was one guy who put lawn sprinklers on his roof.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
They do. But I mean, the firefighters are saying once the fire is raging, even if they had 100 trucks, you're dealing with 100 mile an hour winds and you've got this enormous like who if someone did start these fires, if they were started by arson, the way they did it was very strategic because they essentially did it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
upwind they did it like right where the wind was going to blow the fire into the city like if you started that fire at the outskirts of the city it would just burn to an area that's not populated they started it right where all the brush was right where all the woods were where the wind was at its back and then they started it in multiple areas so that it would come and spread out in a in this way that was like impossible to stop
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
So once it gets big, like to this day, like what is the fire? Yesterday I read that it was 60, I think it was 65% contained. This is like we're in weeks, right? Weeks into this. At one point in time, it was 0% contained. It was just burning through. And if you haven't seen, there's a great video. I'll send you this, Jamie, of an overhead view of what it looks like now. And it's 68%.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
68% contained today. I'm going to send you this, Jamie, because it's a helicopter that is flying over the Palisades and you get to see like the extent of the devastation. And until you see it like with your own eyes from the air, it's hard to understand how big the destruction is, how enormous the amount of land that was destroyed, the amount of homes that were destroyed and not just destroyed.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Here is like you could see this here. I mean, this is crazy. This is absolutely crazy. And the video is larger, Jamie, if you could shrink it a little so that way you can see the top. So there's words at the top that block off some of it, but it goes on way above that. See that? This is an enormous piece of land covered with homes that's gone. All that's gone? Not just gone, but now poisoned.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
So now not only are these homes burnt, but everything that was in the homes, all the plastics, all the chemicals, all the batteries, Teslas, all these different electric cars, all the electronics, all the toxic chemicals that come from the building materials, all that is now seeped into the ground and will eventually seep into the water. It's going to get into the water supply.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
It's probably going to get into the ocean. It's going to wash into the ocean.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Not just that. It's in the air. So they can say the weather quality or the air quality is good in California based on how much smog there is. But what's in the fucking smog now? Because this is not just automobile smog. This is not just dry dirt kicked up by the wind, which they've always had. The smog in Los Angeles existed before there were cars.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Because there was always this problem with the way the valley is shaped. The valley just contains all this air in there and you would get dust pollution. Even back before there were fucking cars. Or if there was anybody that was burning coal or you had fireplaces or that kind of shit. You're getting all that smoke that was always contained in that area. It's just a bad place for air. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
No, we talk about it all the time that it's a great sort of postmark for culture. Like if you go back and watch movies from the 50s and then the 60s and the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, the 2000s and then today, you can see how different the narratives are.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And so then on top of that, you've got all these homes that were burnt and all this toxic waste, all this burning plastic and burning chemicals. Now that's all in the air and no one's discussing that. Like it has to be bad for you if you live near that. All those firemen that are breathing that shit in, that's going to have long-term health consequences for those guys. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
For all those people that are dealing with all that shit, all those people that are anywhere near it, your air is air of like – do you know the story of the toxic burn pits from Iraq in Afghanistan? So during the war, when troops were on a base – Overseas, they would take all their garbage and burn it. So they burned it in these waste pits.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And so the wind would shift and blow through the camp and all these people are breathing toxic air, extremely toxic. In fact, Biden's son died. died from a brain cancer that they connect to his exposure in the military to toxic burn pits. So there's a whole swarm of health consequences that veterans have faced because of these toxic burn pits.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
So the dumbest fucking way to deal with garbage of all time, make the troops breathe it in as you burn it. It's the same kind of thing that's happening in LA. It's the same shit. You're breathing burnt garbage, burnt refuge, burnt buildings, burnt cars, burnt tires. All that stuff you're breathing in.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Like, you don't even want to shower. You just want to close your fucking eyes. I can't imagine. You've been working 28 hours. You get a couple hours to sleep before you get back out there again. It's fucking insane. And still, 68% contained. Today. What's today's date? The 23rd? 22nd?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Right. That is a weird thing, right? We want to put numbers on stuff. Like today, we're like, is it 65% or is it 68% contained? Like, what? It's a fire. Fire's still up. There's still a fire right now. January 22nd, there's still fire in Los Angeles. It's been going on for weeks. When did it start? What was the date the fire started?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
how different the way the films are made, the way people communicate, the subjects that are covered, the quality of the acting and filmmaking, the quality of the cinematography. It really just shows. If you really think about it, human civilization and human history, modern society is so recent. The Industrial Revolution and giant cities and... and transportation and all. It's so recent.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Yeah, that doesn't really make sense. Also, it doesn't make sense if you think about how windy it was and the fact that everything's dry.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Okay, maybe. It can. Maybe, but five days later it starts up again as a raging inferno? Perhaps. Perhaps, but there is also evidence that people lit fires. There's also people who got arrested for lighting fires.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
This episode is brought to you by SimpliSafe. If you're anything like me, you do what you can to take care of yourself. You eat right, you work out, you learn new things to keep the brain sharp and relax when you can. But there's one big thing you might not think about when it comes to self care, your safety. What are you doing to keep you and everything you care about safe?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Because if you don't have SimpliSafe, you're not doing enough. SimpliSafe is one of the top dogs when it comes to home security systems. Unlike other traditional systems, they work to stop crime before it happens using a combination of AI powered cameras and live monitoring agents. They can monitor your property. scare off suspicious lurkers, contact the police, and more.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
SimpliSafe is a great choice because they don't rope you into any long-term contracts. Plus, they have some affordable options with plans that start at around a dollar a day. Try it out and see for yourself why I and so many others like them. There's a reason that SimpliSafe was named Best Home Security Systems by U.S. News & World Report for the fifth year in a row.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Get 50% off your new SimpliSafe system with professional monitoring and get your first month free at simplisafe.com slash rogan. That's simplisafe.com slash rogan for 50% off and your first month free. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. Bye. Bye. Bye. like their contoured pouch and ball caddy. It helps you look and feel amazing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And like all of their other clothing, it's made with their signature fabric that's breathable, stretchy, and comfortable. If that's not your thing, MeUndies also has plenty of other options for you to choose from, including loungewear. And everything else comes in a range of sizes, colors, and prints. There's even some fun Valentine's Day prints and styles like electric hearts or lovebirds.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
You and your partner can get a matching set to make the night extra special. Try them for yourself. If your first pair of underwear isn't a match made in heaven, it's on MeUndies. This Valentine's Day, good things come in big packages at MeUndies. Score huge site-wide savings at MeUndies.com slash Rogan. And enter the code ROGAN. That's MeUndies.com slash ROGAN.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Enter promo code ROGAN for huge site-wide savings. MeUndies. Comfort from the outside in. Yeah. Well, there's disturbed individuals in our society. That's why we have school shooters, right? That's why we have a lot of things that people do that's horrible, that are horrible. And one of the things that people do is they start fires. You know, it's a known thing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And to pretend that it's not possible because it doesn't. It doesn't appeal to your narrative. It doesn't fit with your narrative of the homeless thing that we just have to be compassionate because these are people and there's a housing shortage and it's just housing, housing, housing. No, you have open air drug markets and mentally ill people and fire.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And it's possible that that's what's caused it. LA wildfires rekindle eco-terror arson suspect manhunt after fake firefighters arrested. Yeah, that's the thing. There were fake firefighters that were arrested and there was also fake cops.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
But I think that was, if I had to guess, it was more about stealing than anything because there was organized looting where they were breaking into homes in areas where there were people going to be abandoned.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Oh, yeah. There you go. One of them has a criminal history of arson. Gee, what's the odds? Well, he definitely didn't do it again. He learned his lesson, Jamie. A fake fire truck? A pair of fake firefighters from Oregon.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
It's a couple hundred years maximum. You know, you go from trains and horses to cars and cities, and then you have Morse code to all of a sudden now you have digital communication that's instantaneous worldwide. I mean, it's a rapid change in humanity, and a lot of it is the artifact, as you said, is really our media. Like, what have we created?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Yeah, he's like dedicated. He's like the Michael Jordan of fake firefighters.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
He got a used one. Did you see the thing in L.A. where they had the lot where they showed all of the fire trucks that were out of service? No. Hundreds. Oh, they're bringing them back in service? No, no, no. They were broken down. They hadn't bothered fixing them. So a journalist got to the lot and was filming from the outside. I think Schellenberger had it on his Twitter page.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
But a journalist got to this lot where these fire trucks were, where they were supposed to be repaired. There was hundreds that weren't repaired. Like just a fucking huge parking lot. Jeez. 75 Los Angeles fire trucks wait for repairs as wildfires rage while city spends 1.13 billion on the homeless. This is New York Post. I heard it was more than 75.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
This guy had a film of it and showed, and it looked like a shit ton of trucks that weren't fixed. You should have fixed those. You would have had more trucks.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
God. I mean, maybe that could work where there's very few fires and it's just essentially home fires. We're fine where we are. Yeah, but it rains where you are too. California, it does not fucking rain for long stretches of time. I think California had gone eight months without rain when these fires started. This is common. This is why this climate change, it's climate change.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
This is not a change in the climate. This is the climate of California. You see it from that 1961 video. You see it from when I was evacuated. Three times I was evacuated. The houses in front of my old house burnt to the ground in 2018. Both of them.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Yes. It's going. This firefighter told me that when we were filming Fear Factor. He freaked me out. He said, it's just going to take the right wind. He goes, we just get lucky.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Yeah, you got to get rid of all the brush. Number one, you got to get rid of all the stuff that starts fire. That's possible to do. That's not impossible. That's not like putting a person on Venus. This is like something that could be done. Like if you have enough money for all that, you haven't spent $24 billion on the homeless crisis, didn't put a dent in it. You could have fixed the brush.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
You could have fixed that reservoir that was empty. giant 11 million gallon reservoir of water completely dry you could have fixed that you could have saved homes maybe you wouldn't have saved all of them you could have saved a lot you could have saved people's lives and they didn't and it was incompetent and it was poor planning and it was you know they had a lot of
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
ideas that weren't good they had a lot of things that they paid attention to and things they focused on that weren't important what was really important is preventing these kind of reoccurring disasters continuously reoccurring disasters I've seen a bunch of them.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Like I said, I was evacuated multiple times, but I've seen multiple other fires that I wasn't evacuated from that were huge in all sorts of areas around LA. It's dry as fuck. One of the big ones that we experienced was... It was like we were out filming in like out in the Tachipi area. Like we're near Tohon Ranch. We're filming this thing at this ranch. And we had to cut filming short.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And when we were driving home, the entire right side of the highway for like... Almost an hour was on fire as I was driving home. So you're driving. Ash is falling from the sky like snow. And the whole time you're driving, it's apocalyptic. The whole right side of the highway is in flames.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
So this has always been a problem with L.A. So these climate change kooks, these left-wing kooks that want to put everything into these very binary categories, like this is because the Republicans refuse to agree to climate change and call climate change a hoax. No, this is L.A. This is the climate of L.A. Is this the fire trucks?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
You know, we were talking the other day about the limitations of mainstream television and how mainstream television, you know, they're trying to kind of like adapt more towards what is going on on the Internet. But they're so hampered by their format.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Oh, he probably posted it too. Quite a few people on Twitter posted it, but there was all these fire trucks that were in this lot. This isn't the video that I saw. I think multiple people posted them, but they're all out of commission. They're all just sitting there. Obviously, they could have used them, but that's only part of the problem. Part of the problem is planning correctly.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Part of the problem is there wasn't enough water for the fire hydrants, so the fire hydrants went dry. The whole thing's nuts. And when Trump talked about it on the podcast, he was eerily accurate. He was eerily accurate as to what the problem was. And he offered a solution. And to save the smelt, they didn't want to do the solution.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Well, you can't do everything with states, right? Because states have states' rights. One of the things, they arrest this one guy for arson, and they couldn't necessarily prove that he was an arsonist. One guy they found with an actual blowtorch. They couldn't prove that he lit the fires with the blowtorch.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
But this guy had been arrested multiple times, including for vandalism and all sorts of other things. And I believe assault. And ICE wanted to deport him. But the California sanctuary state law, the way it's set up, they weren't allowed to deport this guy. So they're just going to let him go. He had been arrested eight times, this person, in like a short amount of time.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
So it's like a real problem person. And they were like, hey, maybe this guy shouldn't be in the fucking country lighting things on fire. And they're like, no, we have sanctuary. He's still here? I don't know. I don't know what the latest is. I try not to pay too much attention or I'll go crazy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
But California is deep in the trance, deep. And I think the only thing that's going to snap people out of it is something like this, where they realize like, oh my God, these people are completely incompetent. It used to be the homeless situation was a little bit of a wake-up call. This is like next level. This is like next level incompetence wake-up call.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And so I'm hoping that someone can come along that's a reasonable conservative person that can shift things in California, like appeal to people's concerns when it comes to social issues, you know, women's rights, gay rights, the things that people are terrified of when it comes to right wing, you know, when you think about like far right fascist governments that are going to clamp down on people's rights, like
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
What we're really worried about is disenfranchised people and marginalized groups and people that are more maligned. So if someone can just appeal to that. So we have no desire to stop gay marriage. We have no desire to limit women's reproductive rights.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
The censorship, the format, and the fact that they're sponsored by a bunch of different enormous corporations that they can't really critically talk about. So there's a bunch of things they can never actually say. So there's news that they can't cover.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
But what we do want to do is make a more fiscally sound city and have more conservative policies in terms of what are we spending our money on and what are the results. You can't just say, oh, we work for a homeless initiative. And so, oh, well, you got a blank check. Do whatever you want to do. It should be like, what have you done? How have you solved the problem?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Hey, look, we spent $24 billion and homelessness went up. by a significant amount, tens of thousands of new homeless people while we spent $24 billion. This is not effective. So whatever you guys are doing, you're shitty at it. So we don't want you doing it anymore. We're going to bring in someone who has some more progress. Something that's going to progress the idea better.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Someone who's going to fix this problem better. Someone who's got a more pragmatic solution. If they could do that, but they have to appeal to people that are deep blue. They're deep blue. They're blue no matter who. And the problem with California is very unique and more unique than New York in that California, the entire city, is established around the entertainment industry.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And it's established around the dream. If you go to Los Angeles, you can make it. Well, in order to go to Los Angeles and make it, if you're an actor, you have to audition. And when you're auditioning, you're auditioning to people that almost universally have a very specific political ideology. You can't be a part of the group.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
You can't be a part of the team if you're a right-wing Christian Republican and you're making films. That doesn't exist. You got like Mel Gibson and a few outliers. That's it. Clint Eastwood, a few outliers. For the most part, if you are an actor and you want to work in Hollywood – and by the way, Mel Gibson and all those guys will hire left-wing people –
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
These people will not hire right wing people. So you see everyone sort of morph their personality and morph their political ideology and their social ideology around what's going to get them picked. Because when you're an actor, you have to get picked.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
So if like you and I go for a part and there's a bunch of other people going for a part and we're all like similarly qualified in terms of like the look that this part is looking for.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
There's like significant health problems that have probably been a direct result of medication that they literally can't cover because they're being sponsored by these companies. So they're so hampered. And if you go back and watch the early broadcast from 1945, people had like this way of communicating. It's changed. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Yes, it's a rigged game. They can shut you out. And so this is the underlying philosophy of the entire city. So even though there's only a certain amount of people that are actors in LA, there's a lot of people that wanted to be actors. And there's a lot of people that want to be famous. And so they get their fame from their small social media.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
They get like a little adrenaline and dopamine drip off of like social media likes. And like maybe my TikTok can go viral. And then they get a little fame from that. There's a bunch of fame seekers. All those people are locked in to this cult-like thinking. So it's very difficult to get them out of that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Let's hear what she says. Let's rewind that shit. Let's hear what she has to say. Just a little bit.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
It's not the way – like if you were having dinner with someone and they were saying, tell me, Warren, where did you grow up? You'd be like, oh, this is not a real person. This is bizarre.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
I'm not hearing this. So what I'm not hearing is, like, what caused...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
You go Marlon Brando. It's like Marlon Brando is probably like the first example of someone – Yeah, who's like, sounds like a real person. Like, this is what I really expect a person to be behaving like on the waterfront, like under duress. Like, this is a real human being.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
It's hard when someone is a part of a channel and then their show blows up and they realize like, oh, I could have done this on my own. Which is the reality. The reality is being a part of a channel, it doesn't really get you much, obviously, because the new show only has 40,000 views, right?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Yeah, but from what shows? Not the shows that are successful. The shows that are successful are successful like that you lose. That's the problem. That's like the record business version of Arithmetic you can't buy the elusive intangible.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Yeah, they're they're a record business is notoriously horrible with that So they they have a model where when they sign an artist the artist gets an advance right and then the advance You're responsible for so much. You're responsible for advertising. They take into account a bunch of artists they spend money on that doesn't create money. So they have all this Hollywood math that they apply.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And at the end of it, they make more than you and you make almost nothing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And they throw as much shit against the wall as possible. Think of a record company. They might fund a bunch of different artists.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Yeah, and then only one or two of them take off, but those one or two of them, that's Prince, and he's getting fucked. And meanwhile, he's a giant superstar. Prince had to change his name. He was like, okay, well, you own Prince? You guys own, okay, I'm this now. I'm a fucking squiggly line. That's what he did. So it was the artist formerly known as Prince. Do you know that?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Prince for a while when he was in, was it Warner Brothers? whoever he was in dispute with, he changed his name to a symbol. And that was how he could still perform.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
But, you know, that's what you get if you want the shortcut, right? The shortcut is being a part of a channel. You know, I'm going to connect myself to a channel and, you know, I'm going to agree to give them X amount percentage of what I do. It's really not a smart way to do it today and it's not necessary because today all you have to do is have a camera and a backdrop and just start recording.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And organically, if your content is good, your thing can grow and then it's yours. It's all yours. And then getting advertising is not hard. If you're successful, you get an agent. You get an advertising agent and they bring you MeUndies ads and – All kinds of shit. Next thing you know, you're making money. You're making money off your channel. And then your channel grows organically.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And then you don't have to deal with executives telling you what kind of guests you should have on or what topics you should avoid or what things you should accentuate. We would like you to talk about this today. All that stuff is, you know, and then as you get more and more famous from your work, you realize, no, the people like me, like this is the reason why this show is going on.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And I've got to pay these assholes 60% of everything I'm making. And this is dumb. If I was on YouTube independently, I would be rich right now. I'd be making good money. I'd have a nice car. And instead, I'm getting a salary. And my salary is not really representative of how much income I'm bringing into the company.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
But I bet he got a better deal. First of all, is Jordan Peterson. He's already famous, you know, and like they would throw money at him. You know, like there's that famous thing with Stephen Crowder where Stephen Crowder. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Yeah. And the Crowder thing was kind of weird because he recorded a conversation, a private conversation that he had. But the whole thing behind it is like you're getting money to agree to be a part of a company. And the only reason why they would be willing to give you that money is if they're going to make money. They're taking a chance.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
I went through a similar thing with Spotify, but Spotify was great. There was no issues at all. It was like, we think this show is really valuable. We're going to give you a lot of money to be exclusive on Spotify. And just, that's it. Pretty simple. No input at all in terms of who I should have on or what I should talk about. There was nothing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
There was a few hiccups during the COVID days where they were experiencing so many attacks. They were getting strong pressure to try to remove the podcast. And they didn't buckle. They hung in there. Good for them. Yeah, good for them. I'm very loyal to them because of that. Because what they did was pretty extraordinary. A lot of people would have caved. And they did not cave.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Well, I hope it's good. Me too. The thing is like who's writing it? How good are the people that are writing it? How good is the story?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Yeah. It's all about the story. It's all about how good is it because it's – I was thinking about that on the airplane.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Yeah. Well, it's also people like really resistant to that now. They're getting so upset about it. They don't want you to force feed them some sort of activist version of a story. They just want stories. They want the thing where, you know, you're saying like you get it, like, oh, we found it. This is the hook. This is the meat of the story. This is the exciting.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
This is the thing that resonates with people. That's why it's so frustrating when you go to a movie and that never happens. You never get hooked in.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
hour of air the three stories converge there's a mathematical formula to why it's not a coincidence and that was what separates him so there's a math math he seems uniquely uninfluenced by pop culture too true he's i think he famously doesn't have email he's one of those guys who doesn't have a phone doesn't have email and obviously incredibly brilliant person so he's obviously aware of email.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
He's aware of phones, but I think he's probably one of those guys who goes, you know what? The more that's coming in, that's influencing me is it's going to fuck with my ability to have a vision, a unique personal vision based on what I know resonates with people and what I know resonates with me and how to make a story that really works.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
It's a fascinating medium, right? Because now it's also being challenged by these shows that are essentially long movies, like Ozark. Ozark's a long movie. And you can get so much on The Sopranos. You get so much more into depth with the characters and the interactions and everything that's below the boat. There's so much more when you have six seasons or something.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Yeah. Well, he was talking, he disparagingly talked about Yellowstone being a soap opera. But he also talked about Homeland. About Homeland was an exception to that because it was essentially this amazing moment at the end of the first season.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Where the show is like, Homeland first season was incredible. And it is like a movie. It's really good. It's really well made. And at the end of it, you're like, wow, this is a fucking incredible piece of just artwork.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
I haven't. I watched one episode. I haven't seen it all yet.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
I was a little thrown off by the lady who's playing his daughter because she's clearly like 30 years old. And I'm like, how are you telling me she's 17? This is crazy. It gets worse with that. But that's crazy. Like that girl looks like she's got to be 25 years old at least.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
19, so then you can get around the labor laws. Okay, even 18, 19. At least she looks like she could be 17.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
All right, you nailed it. Beautiful lady, but looks like a lady.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Looks like a beautiful woman. Does not look like a high school kid. Good point. And so when you're seeing that, it throws you off immediately. Like, what are you doing here? Touche. This is nuts.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
It just doesn't make any sense. I'm not saying she looks bad at all. She looks great. But she looks like a mature woman. She doesn't look like a young child. So when he's got this dynamic where he's dealing with this wild, rebellious teenage daughter, and they're like, hey, bro, she's lying. When was the last time you saw her? That might not be the same person.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
He's a phenomenal actor. Well, that's the other thing about climate change. Like, listen, if you really think that it's oil is the problem with climate change, well, you better change your whole fucking life. Everything in your goddamn, is that what he says? Everything in your goddamn life is made with oil.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Everything in your hair, everything in your car, everything in your phone, everything in your fucking life is made with oil.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
I don't know. It may work, but you're still dealing with some kind of pollution from brake dust. You're dealing with – we actually pulled this up recently. We were talking about it was an enormous percent of more pollutants are released into the atmosphere because of electric cars than combustion engines because of brake dust. So electric cars.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
The one thing good about electric cars is specifically Teslas. Teslas have regenerative braking. So when I drive my Tesla, oftentimes I don't even have to hit the brakes because I just let off the gas when I'm getting close to an intersection. I gently tap the brakes when I get close to the line where the red light is. But when you're driving normally, it's like one foot driving.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
The brakes work, but you don't have to use them because when you let off the brakes or let off the gas, rather, the car slows itself and it slows. It doesn't coast like you can't just hit 60 miles an hour and then let your foot off the gas and it'll just kind of cruise along. It doesn't do that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
It slows down considerably because it's regenerating electricity through this regenerative braking aspect of it. So that probably has less brake dust than other electric cars. But, you know, there's electric cars that you'll drive. Like if you drive like the Porsche Taycan, it's an amazing electric car. It doesn't have that regenerative braking thing, or at least maybe it's a setting.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
You know, the car that I was in didn't have it turned on. But when you let off the gas, it just coasts like a regular car. So those cars are much heavier than regular cars, much heavier. And there's a problem with guardrails because of that. So guardrails are designed for a car that's a specific weight. And most cars weigh somewhere in the neighborhood of 4,000, 5,000 pounds.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
But when you add batteries, so if you have a car that's filled with enormous amounts of batteries, that car is a lot heavier than a regular car. And some of those cars just go right through those guardrails. Whee! Because there's just too much mass. Yeah, so you have more brake dust that gets into the air because you have to slow down this much larger, heavier vehicle or much more mass.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And when you're doing that, you're generating more brake dust. And the only solution to that, we talked about it, like carbon fiber brakes, which are expensive and mostly in high-performance cars, they have much less brake dust.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
So, like, you know when you clean your car and if you're washing your car, you go to the wheels, there's all that dust that's around, the dark dust that's around the wheel that you have to clean. That's all brake dust. So that's getting into the air. So if you live in a place that has high traffic and, like, stop-and-go traffic, you get brake dust everywhere.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Okay, so it says, Founder Nick Molden said that its measurements show that particulate emissions can be 1,850 times more than those from modern car exhausts, which have become cleaner because of regulations. But the headline finding needs some context. The tests have not been peer-reviewed by scientists, and the industry disputes the findings. That doesn't mean anything.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
What they just said doesn't mean anything. Just because they haven't been peer-reviewed and that the industry disputes it, that doesn't mean that it's not true.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Right. What we just talked about. But regenerative braking, again, I don't think is in all electric cars. I know it's standard on Teslas. Crucially, all cars produce those pollutants. That's true. Not just electric versions. That's true. But that's not true. What they're saying is not true either because these heavier cars produce more. That's just what they're saying.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Measuring tiny particle particulates is very difficult. There are relatively few comparative studies so far. That means there's still uncertainty over whether the extra weight of EV batteries will result in worse particulate pollution. But it makes sense. It's logical. So if they're showing this, if he's done a study and it's showing this in a study, this is a logical conclusion.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Is that an electric Range Rover? Yeah. I don't even know that they existed. Was that a new thing?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
There's a lot now. It says, calculate that EVs are 400 kilograms heavier on average because of the bulky batteries. Yeah. So just because it hasn't been peer reviewed doesn't mean it's true. And the reason why they're saying this is because they're trying to put it into context.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Yes, electric vehicles are generally better for the environment, particularly if you have regenerative braking, but there's also an added element. What the solution might be is to make carbon fiber brakes standard. It's carbon ceramic brakes standard that you need them just like you need catalytic converters. It would be more expensive, though.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Yeah, so most brakes have steel rotors. You know, steel hits this carbon, and it just releases more brake dust. Or steel hits the pads, releases more brake dust.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Yeah, well, those are really good on gas. I mean, something that's good on gas is going to be better, for sure. Something that's bad on gas is going to burn more. But the bottom line is there's problems with all technologies in terms of whether or not they go into a landfill. Like, this is a giant problem with windmills. Windmills aren't efficient. They're gross-looking.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
They pollute the landscape in terms of the way it looks. You just see these fucking windmills everywhere. And those things have to go in a landfill. So you have these enormous fiberglass propellers that now have to be buried in the ground.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
I don't remember what it was, but he rips them apart. Yeah, they're not effective. They're not good enough for what they do to the environment. You know, they kill whales. That's the other thing. You know, Trump talked about that, too, that these things, when they set these things up, you know, near the ocean, like the sound is fucking with these whales.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Yeah. It's not good. It's not the way to go. Maybe solar's better. But, you know, if you have, like, enormous areas of land that are covered in solar panels, that looks gross, too.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
But if we could just have, like, one designated area in the center, like, take, you know, a state and fucking make that state just a battery, maybe that would work. Yeah, maybe L.A. Maybe when L.A. burns to the ground, like, look, it's already toxic. Let's just turn the policies into a battery.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Well, it's also the fire insurance problem that a lot of insurance companies pulled their fire coverage because they're like, look, nothing's being done to stop these fires. We know the fires are coming. We're going to lose all of our money. We're just going to pull out. And they did that. And so now a lot of these people that lost their homes were not insured. So now they're really fucked.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And then you got Gavin Newsom on TV talking about speculators come in, land speculators, doing his little fucking dance. And you're like, what are you guys doing over there? This is horrible. This is horrible. And what solutions are on the table? I'll tell you, it's not as simple as don't drill for oil. You know, like, God damn it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
this she doesn't seem like she should make it through no she was you see like some sort of a radical communist activist when she was younger too i don't know yeah that clip of her in the airport really yeah you're not not good that's not responding at all you look shell-shocked and then smiling when she's on tv we're gonna rebuild with a bunch of construction workers behind her it's like look we're rebuilding everyone's just smiling we're gonna read we're gonna get to work like
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
You're not going to get to work. You're not going to get to work. These people aren't going to have the money to rebuild. Where's the money going to come from? Are you going to give them the money for those homes? You're talking now about $300 billion worth of damage and counting. Are you going to shell out $300 billion to give those people their homes back?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Yeah, no, it's very interesting. So when you were doing these videos, when you initially did it, did you have any idea of the impact that it was going to have? I mean, did you think, like, wow, this is actually, like, really unique and interesting and I think people are going to really enjoy this? Or were you, like, really shocked?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
When someone has an $82 million home, are you going to give them that $82 million rather than pay teachers more money?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
No, they're not. They're not even getting attention anymore. These people are waiting in line for fuel. They're waiting in line for propane fuel so they don't freeze to death.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Well, everything's gone there. It was a crazy disaster. But again, you could say that's climate change. But the problem with that statement is that the climate has never been static. There has never been a moment in human history where the climate was absolutely predictable to the degree every year. It's just not the case. Climate varies. It has always varied.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
The real question should be how much of an impact are we having on it and how much of an impact are we having on pollution? The pollution in particular, that's a real issue. That's a real issue. And if other countries aren't addressing that – I read something. Find out if this is true.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
that China right now is responsible for more pollutants in the atmosphere, more carbon in the atmosphere than all the other countries combined. I wouldn't doubt it at all.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
The majority of the pollutants in the atmosphere are coming from there, and they're not going to change. So you switching to an electric car or you stop using a gas stove or whatever you're doing, it's not going to have an impact if CO2 is entirely what's going on. And even if we got down to climate neutral, that doesn't stop global warming.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
It doesn't stop a shift in the change that has always gone up and down throughout recorded history. When we do ice samples, when they do core samples and they go back 10, 15, 20,000, 50,000 years, there's always been enormous shifts in the temperature. Half of North America was covered in a mile-high sheet of ice up until 12,000 years ago. So miles in some places, more than a mile.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
So there's always been shifts in the climate. Long before there was any industrial revolution, long before there was any gas-powered cars, China emissions accede all developed nations combined. Combined. And they're not going to change. They're not going to shift that. That's what they do.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Yeah, we're in a very strange time of narratives and truth, where narratives, to many people, are more important than objective truth. And that's never good for anybody. It's never good for anybody to ignore the reality of what's going on.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
it's that doesn't mean that there's not everything's not just a social construct it doesn't mean that there's not an ideal to strive for yeah and the the problem with people that talk about climate change is they never talk about china emissions they talk about america they trump wants to pull us out of the paris accord they want to do this they want to do that like
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Look at what's going on in the world. You're not going to stop China from producing more CO2 and more emissions than all the other developed nations combined. And you're not even talking about it. If you really wanted to address the problem, it would be that. That's the problem. That's the biggest part of the problem. What's the biggest offender? It's China.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And they don't talk about that at all because they don't want to be racist. So it's like they just want to concentrate on people that, you know, live in America.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
One thing that my friend Chris DiStefano brought up on the podcast that blew me away was Operation Unthinkable.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
That was a proposal from Winston Churchill at the end of World War II to go to war with Russia, that the Soviet Union was getting too big and powerful and they would take the Nazis, that they would take the German soldiers and then go invade Russia. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
You know what I found out last night? My friend Kurt Metzger told me this. We were talking about the Elon gaffe, where he's like, my heart goes out to you.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
But that... is how the Nazis did it. But this is the thing. This is what I found out last night. That's also how they used to do the Pledge of Allegiance. The Pledge of Allegiance used to be done like this until the Nazis came along. And then we switched it to this, your hand over your heart. So we cut out that part. There's going to be a screen grab of you doing it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Well, there's already a screen grab. This is what's funny. CNN, during the COVID times in particular, whenever I get in trouble, the photo they would use of me was me at the UFC weigh-ins. So when I do the weigh-ins, I announce the weigh-ins, I say, welcome to the weigh-ins, everybody.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
That's what they did. So they would use this photo of me to try to make it look like I was some sort of a Nazi.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Because I'm waving to the crowd and they take a freeze frame of it. I'm like, welcome to the weigh-ins, everybody. I put my hands out to the crowd. I'm saying hi to everybody. I'll show you this, Jamie. You probably could find it if you look for it, but I'm going to show you what it looked like in the old days. I'm looking at it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Well, yeah, that's it. That's how they did the Pledge of Allegiance. Oh, interesting. How crazy is that?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
That's in 1942. Yep. So this is, you know, and then we realize, oh, we can't do that anymore. That's how the Nazis do it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Pledge of Allegiance would be your right hand up in the air.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
It's like they're so funny because because of this, there's all these photos of AOC with her arm out like this and Michelle Obama. It's like everybody's a Nazi. It's so dumb.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Yeah. If you move your arms at all. You try to catch a ball. You know, anything you're doing with your arms up in the air, now you're a Nazi. Like, oh my God. How about that Hindu guy that kept his arm up in the air for like 60 years? Not familiar. You ever seen that? We talked about him the other day. Who brought him up? I did. Jamie brought him up.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
So this is this guy who has not put his arm down in some insane amount. His arm is shriveled. It's useless.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
It's a devotion to Lord Shiva. So to show his devotion, he decided, I'm going to keep my arm up forever. And now his arm's frozen in place. And now he's like a really old man. That's what he looks like.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
He has a useless right arm now. Look at his fingers are all twisted up and fucked up. His nails are all fucked up. His right arm is essentially completely useless. It just stays like that. It doesn't move anymore. Power of stories. Nuts. Yeah. 1973, decided to raise his right arm 90 degrees to the air. His fingers have withered to the palm of his hand.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
His knuckles are white with rot and his nails have grown long and twisted. Well, he's a Nazi.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
2016. So was this what time? So this is like September of 2016, August of 2016? Beginning of the academic year. So this is like when the elections are kind of heating up and people didn't think that Trump was going to win yet.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
That's how dedicated he is to being a Nazi. He won't even put the hand down. He's all in, all in forever until he dies. They're going to have to get him in a super long coffin. How's Elon handling this whole?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Yeah, he was definitely what the fuck, and he was happy that the ADL of all people defended him. Yeah, that was good. Yeah, well, it's obvious. But all these people on Twitter are just chiming in saying it's clearly a Nazi salute. He's doing a Nazi salute. Yeah. No. No. So dumb. It's so dumb. It's not clearly. Yeah. It's great. The whole thing's crazy. But that's a sign of the times.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And they couldn't help it. They saw a thing and they're like, this is we're going to run with it. He's clearly showing he's a Nazi. You know, the Trump's in office and he's a Nazi. And this is what fascism is real, folks. Here it is. This my heart goes out to you. It's just weird.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
It's illogical and weird, but it's a sign of this thing that is a real problem in today where people will pretend something is something other than what it is if it suits their narrative. And that's what this is.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Yeah, the power of story. That really truly is a great example of the power of story. Because the story that everyone's afraid of is that this right-wing dictator has gotten into power and he's brought with him this billionaire oligarch who happens to be one of the richest men, if not the richest person on the planet Earth. And this guy is secretly a Nazi.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And he's been hiding it all these days until Trump got it off.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Well, it's fascinating but it also – what it does is it opens a door for people like yourself. It opens a door for reasonable, logical people who can talk about things in an objective, critical way and just like analyze. Well, what is this? Why do we think this? What is the cause of this?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And that's really how you got on the map by just being a voice of reason and in a time where there's very little reason – Anybody that steps up and says something that resonates with people to the point where they're like, yes, more of this guy, more people like that. I like how this guy thinks. I like how this guy talks. And that's what I got out of it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Well, you shouldn't think about it. Yeah, you can't think about it. Well, then you get audience capture.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Same kind of thing. To make the kind of films that he makes.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
No, I haven't. I don't even know if he does any interviews. I don't know.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
I would love to have him on, though. I'm a huge fan of his work. I think he's brilliant.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Obviously. Not just brilliant, like amazing, like unusual.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
So did Kubrick. There's a lot of parallels there, right?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Yeah. Kubrick in his spare time would do complex math.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Yeah. So his films were all... Kubrick's films all had encoded things in them.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Roger Avery and Tarantino. And so Roger Avery was discussing how there was supposed to be a narrator through Eyes Wide Shut. And they changed that. And after... He died when Kubrick died before they made a different cut of the film. And he firmly believes that it should be like recut and it should be done with a narrator.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And in AI, you could actually probably do Kubrick narrating it if you wanted to. You could get samples of his voice and he could narrate it. But that would – you would also like – how would you know how he would cut it? He'd kind of be fucking around. But apparently there's many scenes that never made it into it that Kubrick wanted in. And then in the final cut, they changed.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
The shining is filled with them. It's filled with, like, there's all the moon landing conspiracies have all clung on to it. Because the room number, like the haunted room, I think it's 237. Is that the room? Whatever the number is, is the amount of miles in hundreds of thousands between Earth and the moon. The little boy, when he's in the hallway, is wearing the Apollo 11 T-shirt.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
He's got a sweater that has the Apollo rocket on it. There's, like, all sorts of weird shit there. That these people cling to. I love stuff like that. Oh, it's fascinating. There's a whole documentary on it. The subtext behind The Shining. The Shining is a fucking incredible movie. Which, by the way, which is really interesting, Stephen King didn't even like.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
didn't like that movie which is so crazy because it was different than his novel so in his novel the jack nicholson character forget the name the jack nicholson character starts off normal and becomes crazier and crazier and what he didn't like is that jack nicholson is pretty on tilt right away and seems off from the very beginning and then just descent into madness accelerates very quickly
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And then Stephen King did his own version of The Shining as a television miniseries. Did he? Yeah. Yeah, but it wasn't very good. It wasn't effective. There you go. There was something about it. It just didn't work the same way.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Yeah, it's all about telling the story, right? And some people... What's going on?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
It's hard to say, though, because someone saying that is their personal assistant. They're not speaking for Kubrick.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Oh, the documentary. Right. But Stephen King also didn't like The Shining. You know, these are like people's personal opinions on things. It doesn't mean it's not true. And it's also like Kubrick in many of his films did have like hidden subtext and a lot. He was a fascinating guy, like all like 2001. 2001 is a fascinating movie.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
You miss a lot of it when you you have to like rewatch it over and over again to get what he was trying to say. What was he doing in that film? There's many, many layers to his films. He had his own way of doing it. He might not have done it mathematically with the score the way Christopher Nolan did, but there was something to it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
That said, what Stephen King said and what Kubrick's assistant said
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
also rings true because people try to find patterns in everything even patterns that don't exist yeah people they always try to find conspiracies that don't exist and patterns that don't exist there's like a natural inclination that people have to like uncover secrets like what's the secret behind this what is he really saying yeah yeah what's he really doing yeah
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Are you still going to make films? Are you more committed? Do you feel like this thing that you're doing... What is your... Secret Scholar, what is your YouTube page?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Why did you decide to call it that? That story I was telling you. That was from that, yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
I mean, I do look at it that way because any kind of really intelligent discourse where you get to watch it and observe people talking about things and you've done a lot of really good stuff where you're breaking down interviews and breaking down congressional testimonies and things like that and the way people are reacting to things and how people are laying stuff out.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
All that stuff is very educational. And for young people in particular, maybe people that found you through those initial videos, then they'll be able to see how you sort of break down all of these interactions. And they'll be able to sort of think that way themselves. Like, oh, why does a person say things that way? What are they trying to do? Why are they appealing to authority?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Why is it important to recognize that this is a pattern to shut down criticism? And then why is it that this is not necessarily the truth?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Yeah. It is an art too though because when someone does it really well, it's kind of beautiful. Critical thinking when you watch like a conversation between two people and they break – there's an igniting of your mind that is kind of beautiful. It's artistic. It's artistic.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
No, I think I think you do get there. You get there for sure. You've gotten there with me. I think there's a lot of people that do that. And it's that that kind of critical thinking people, they gravitate towards it because there's not a lot of it in the world.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And especially if you live in if you exist day to day in a corporate culture where you're sort of locked into whatever ideology your company is and you're trying to make your way up the company ladder. So there's like office politics and there's a You know, a certain sort of mentality and narrative that's been distributed through the company and you're connected to it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Like you're very suppressed and your thinking is very boxed in and, you know, you're forced to put those blinders on that we talked about earlier. You have to put those on if you want to move in the company. If you want to exist, like if you're in an environment that requires you to behave and think a certain way. in order to succeed. Well, you want to succeed.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
So what are the rules of this game I'm playing? Okay. You know, if you're playing poker, you have rules, right? If you're playing chess, you have rules and you can't succeed without following the rules. And that's the case in everything. But oftentimes in society when you exist in a corporate environment or any kind of – especially an educational environment, right?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
If you exist in an academic environment, it has very clear rules. And if you do not follow those rules, you will not succeed. If you go against the people that are in charge, you're going to – like what happened with you? You're going to get fired. You're going to get removed. You have to follow the rules if you want to succeed. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And people feel very suppressed by that because they know that these rules aren't necessarily just. They're not necessarily accurate. They're not objective. They're not reasonable. They're not logical. They're just the rules. People hate the rules when they're just the rules.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Yeah, especially young people, man. Yeah, and they can sniff that out so fast. And now there's examples of the rules being bullshit. Now because of your show and a bunch of your Jordan Peterson, a bunch of different things that are available now for young people to consume. They can realize like, no, these people that are making these rules are idiots. They're assholes.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Yeah, I think we like to adhere to certain narratives about the world. And we will want to think the big thing is we want to think that there's a central there's some sort of competent control, some sort of competent leadership that exists and that the structure of government and the structure of media is established
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And they might be intelligent. They might have a good education. They might have a lot of information that they can spit out that makes them seem logical. But they're not looking at things correctly. They're captured by a narrative.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
That's what's going to be really interesting about him becoming a part of the Department of Government Efficiency.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Yeah. But you're also going against a culture that has operated with impunity for so long and has grown exponentially. Like there's more government agencies than there have been years of the government, which is crazy. They just keep making new government agencies. And the way to combat that, make another one.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
It's going to be, to me, the Department of Government Efficiency and then Make America Healthy Again movement. Those are the two most fascinating things that are going on simultaneously with the Trump administration. Because I'm so curious because there's so many hurdles. with whatever Bobby Kennedy is going to have to jump through to make real change.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
And you're seeing the response to that, like red dye number three getting pulled by the Biden administration. Like, hey, motherfuckers, you could have done that a long time ago. You knew that stuff shouldn't have been in food. It's not in food in Canada. You knew that shit had been in food. You waited until right before Bobby Kennedy got in where you know he's going to make it outlawed.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
You know he's going to get rid of all that. And you see the resistance to it. You're seeing this resistance to fluoride being removed from the drinking water. Everybody's saying, oh, no, we need fluoride for teeth. Like, brush your fucking teeth, bitch. Let's not put neurotoxic chemicals in everybody's water. The way I describe it, I said it's like people are dying of skin cancer.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
Let's put sunscreen in the apples. Like, no, no. Put sunscreen on, motherfucker. Or don't. It's probably bad for you, too. There's a lot of evidence that that's not good for you, that really, like, progressive sun exposure is the way to do it. And the real problem is that no one gets sun exposure, and then you get too much all at once, and that's how you get sunburn.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
You're still young. I'm 57. I'm old. I'm allowed to call – you're just a kid. I wish. But, you know, it's like – It's an important service. It really is. And there's more people like that now in the public eye than I think has ever been because of YouTube, especially in terms of the impact. What's the most watched video that you have? How many views does it have?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
That's really, really tough, dude. It's really tough to find. There's still people out there who will find a way to try to justify it. But it's tough. It's it's much tougher.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
I was just watching this interview. I'm blanking on the doctor's name, but it was Dave DeCamp was interviewing him, who's, by the way, phenomenal, one of the best reporters in the country. DeCamp, Dave, D-E-C-A-M-P, Dave is his Twitter handle. He's phenomenal. I'll follow him right now. He's great, dude. He's great. He's over at antiwar.com. He's like Scott Horton's guy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
By the way, my guy Scott Horton just gave you and Jamie a copy of the book. Unprovoked is going to be out I think in the next week or so. I'm sorry, provoked. I didn't mean to say unprovoked. It's provokedbook.com, the best book written on the history of the Ukraine-Russia conflict. How America just blew it at every single opportunity.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Anyway, so Dave DeCamp is interviewing this guy who's a doctor. He's an American who went over to Gaza and was a doctor. And there was a big piece in the New York Times written about this where he said that every day that he was there, every single day, they'd treat toddlers with bullets to the head. that they were just constantly seeing this.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And then he says that he also talked to a whole bunch of other, so his working theory on this was, when he first started seeing this, so he's in this one area in Gaza, and he was embedded there for a few months working at a hospital, and he figured there was like some lone sadistic sniper out there You know what I mean? Like these things happen in war.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
But then he started talking to doctors from all other points of Gaza who were there at all different times who all said the same thing, that they're getting toddlers with bullet wounds. And then when the New York Times published this, a bunch of people who were defending Israel started being like, this isn't true, blah, blah, blah, the Israeli most moral fighting force in the world.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And that's what you ran on and won on. I want Lindsey Graham to start a podcast.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
So he published the x-rays. He's like, okay, I'm a doctor. I have the x-rays right here. They published them. It just 100% is happening. So what is happening? I mean, Israel's been on a mass slaughter campaign of a captive people for over a year now, you know? And they're shooting babies. Evidently. I mean, there's a doctor who's he's an American. He's claiming it happened and he has x-rays.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
So, yeah, it seems like that's what's going on there. And I mean, look, it's it's.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
obviously just so horrific man the whole thing so it's it's really amazing to me the way to watch the way people will rationalize and justify what israel is doing it takes so much mental gymnastics and it's always got to like rely on you know it just it lets you know it's like oh so i get it you see it's like oh how human beings through all of human history have had slavery and
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
and genocides and ethnic cleansing campaigns. And at every step, there's someone there who's willing to justify it and explain why we have to do this because this is the only way. And really, we're acting in defense. That's what they all claim. It's what the Nazis claim. It's what they all claim. They're really acting in defense.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
How were you allowed to just like – and it's amazing the way people can compartmentalize it too. You know what I mean? Like it could just be like, hey, there's somebody who could be a totally loving dad and a good husband and all like that but then can go to war and commit like – unspeakable horrors on other people. It's just like they put that over here, you know?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
It's very hard to think about that or understand it, but it is- Unless you talk to someone who's done it and they- Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
You can't do it. You wouldn't be able to consume it. Impossible.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And it's been demonstrated to really help, at least a lot.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
It was amazing. Dude, I don't even like. Maybe I should. No, he deserves it. But did you ever see the thing when he was running for president? Wait, he ran for president? Lindsey Graham ran for president. That's amazing. In 2016. Imagine the hubris. I think Trump gave his phone number out.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Think about the irony. Like the deep, deep irony that they made this stuff illegal because they thought if it was out there, they wouldn't be able to get their wars. So they make it illegal and they get their wars. And then it turns out that this is the thing that helps the people that are traumatized coming back from war. But you can't have it because it's illegal.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Well, it's the clearest shift in culture. Is that irony? It's something like that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
I know my buddy Michael Heiss, he just started a media company called Dissident Media. He's been big on this. He's like an activist who's been working on the decriminalization of psilocybin for years. And that's one of the major reasons because it helps these soldiers so much. We need to be kinder.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
You don't remember that it was like because he was like attacking Donald Trump for probably not being an awful war hawk or something like that and Donald Trump like said something about how he used to call him and ask for money You know when he was running for a campaign that he just gave his phone number He made a senator change his phone number That's like a chill sun and move.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
No one's making a good car on cocaine. You need the psychedelics to make a cool car.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah, and if you've ever done psychedelics, you listen to that music and you're like, oh, I know what inspired this. This is pretty easy to tell.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah. And look, man, I mean that, I think that's a great message to get to Trump. Like let these guys, like they were, they were like the bravest amongst us who got totally tricked and bribed and propagandized into going to these wars. And then they come back and they're blowing their brains out by the tens of thousands. And there's just something that might help.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
That is very low risk of, of, uh, Almost no risk of actually hurting, and it really might help. No risk of addiction. But even better than that, man, would just be keep us out of these wars.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Let's just not fight them, man. And look, I will say, this is one of the things that I'm really optimistic about, is that of that team that we were talking about earlier, that Donald Trump's got around him, all those people like Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy and J.D. Vance and Tucker Carlson and all these guys, David Sachs, David Sachs is probably the best. They're so good on Ukraine.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Every one of them. Like they're all just like, yeah, no, this makes no sense. This is such a clear cut situation where you could easily make a deal. Vladimir Putin. And I know I've talked about this on past shows and anybody go listen to those and go read Scott Horton's amazing book provoked. But just to just very quickly. It is all but accepted at this point. Nobody's even debated.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
When I first came on, the first podcast that we talked about Ukraine, a few years ago now, when I said, oh, there was a peace deal that was agreed to in principle by Ukraine and Russia, and then Boris Johnson came in on behalf of the U.S. to make sure they didn't negotiate a peace and kept the war going, there were a bunch of people who were like, oh, that's not true, and blah, blah, blah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And now it's just been totally like, 100% I was right about that. They had a peace deal worked out.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And then since then, the guy whose name I always butcher, but it's Norwegian, so I don't know how to, Strasselberger, the head of NATO, he came out and said, and he was bragging, but he goes, you know, Vladimir Putin, before he invaded Ukraine, told us that if we just put it in writing that we would not bring Ukraine into NATO, that he wouldn't invade.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And we told him, no, because we won't be bullied by you. So he's like bragging about how they had an opportunity. All they had to do was say, we will not bring your biggest neighbor into our military alliance, which is very clearly against you. The most reasonable demand. Now, I'm not saying it's reasonable that he invaded. That's not reasonable. But it is a totally reasonable demand if the U.S.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
was to say, now Mexico can't be a part of China's military alliance. Seems super reasonable. So he's got so many great people around him on that. But... I don't, it's not exactly the same with the Israel-Gaza war, where it seems like a lot of the people around him are not so great on that. Some of them are. Some of them are really good on that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Amazing. But he said Lindsey Graham was asked about being the first single president. Yeah, never married, no kids. And he goes, there might be a bunch of different first ladies if I was in their life.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Listen, I voted for him. I've been supporting him and stuff. Yeah. But, you know, I think I would love to do that. But I just, whether it's me or not, I just hope that he gets the message through somehow. And I know it's a complicated thing to navigate because Israel has a lot of influence. on our government.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And he's got people like Vivek Ramaswamy and Tucker Carlson who really are non-interventionists and don't want to see American taxpayer dollars being used to fund wars around the world, no matter who it's for. It's like, hey, we're broke. We got our own problems here and we can't afford to do this. But then he also has...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Miriam Adelson, who cut him $100 million and is probably going to give another $100 or $200 million to congressional candidates in the next midterm election and all of this. And she is singularly focused on one issue. And that issue is that we always unconditionally and unwaveringly support Israel, no matter what they're doing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Well, thank you. And that means a lot to me, particularly just because it's coming from you, dude. And I'm like, dude, I've been so goddamn impressed with you since well before I ever knew you. And I'll tell you, after the last couple weeks, dude, I'm like, I just can't even believe it. I can't even believe it's real, dude. But thank you. Thank you for having me again.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
I typically wouldn't go after someone for that. But when you're a war hawk, all is fair. But he's got to keep those people away from a man. And that really was his failure in his first term. And look, I do understand him saying, I don't know. He was an outsider. He had never lived in Washington, D.C. He didn't know all these people. But he's had a lot of time. This is eight years later.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And he's got a great core of people around him. And those are the people to take advice from. It's like Mr. President. Well, they're on it. If you're listening. They're on it right now. Talk to Rand Paul. Rand Paul will tell you who to put in those positions. Talk to Thomas Massey. I just saw he floated out Thomas Massey for, I can't remember what position it was. That's great.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Put those guys in there. These are the America first guys, okay? And it's not Mike Pompeo. It's not the war machine, dude. And also... You know, look, his rhetoric was so great on Ukraine through the election. And when he had the courage to just say, like, no, I want the dying to stop. That was one of the best moments of the entire campaign. But his rhetoric on Israel has been very bad.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
He was like, they charge 500 grand for, yeah. He's right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And the other thing that you can't get around is that, like, listen, you can love Israel all you want to, and you can pledge to help defend them or whatever. But, no, I'm okay. But, uh... But Netanyahu is John McCain.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And I couldn't, even after we got off the phone last night, I was like, I'm going to go to bed. And then I just had to watch clips.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
I mean, he's Mike Pompeo. He's Liz Cheney or Nikki Haley. He's the guy who came over and testified in 2002 before a congressional hearing and advocated that we overthrow Saddam Hussein and also advocated that we go have a regime change war in Iran, which he still wants to this day. He advocated we had the regime change in Libya, in Syria. I mean, he's John McCain. That's not America first.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
That's not, you know what I mean? That's not this, we're not fighting stupid wars anymore. So love Israel all you want to, but we're not with Bibi Netanyahu. That's something else. That's the opposite of America first.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
I think there's real possibilities for it. And I think that that's a huge component of it, the team that he's got around him. And I would also put, I would put Tucker Carlson in that camp too, because I think he is very influential on his thinking. I think in many ways he's kind of- Although he does think demons made nuclear bombs. And look, 50-50 shot he's right about that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
I'm not saying he's, but when it comes to policy, I'm saying he's very spot on on that. I love the guy. Don't get me wrong. No, me too. And who knows?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah. Scratched him up. I did see that. And I wasn't sure. When I was watching it, I was like, is this like a Halloween thing that he's doing?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
They bar you for a little bit. They freak you out. Do you think demons are bummed about that? They're like, did you kill anyone today? And they're like, we can only really scratch people. Tucker thinks aliens are demons.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah, I'm not convinced of that, but I do think he's really, I think he's great on war and immigration. He is. He's a brilliant guy. But I do think another huge component of why Trump's got such an opportunity right now is because you see it where, like I was saying, the protesters aren't there anymore. There's a whole lot of really interesting reasons, I think, for why that is.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
But also, and I was getting in an argument on Twitter the other day with Michael Tracy, who I do like and respect very much. But I was basically saying that I think this is going to be a death blow for the corporate media if Donald Trump wins again. And this is almost the best thing about him winning again. And he was saying, which is a reasonable argument, but I disagree with him.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
But he was saying, well, no, Dave. I mean, look, last time he was in for four years, that was the best thing that ever happened to CNN and MSNBC. And they got a big ratings boost when he was in. But I don't think that's going to work again.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Well, the thing is that so much of that ratings boost was completely driven by the Russiagate nonsense. And what they were telling you at the time was that they had the biggest scandal in the history of the United States of America. You can't overstate how big that story is. If it was true. Yeah. Right. If it wasn't all completely made up.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
But they're reporting that a foreign hostile foreign power has overturned our election. And the sitting president of the United States of America is in on it. He is involved in a conspiracy with a hostile foreign government. Like that's the biggest scandal in the history of America. And they for for anybody who wasn't aware at the time of how fake and evil the entire system is.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
They were like, well, look, they got a special prosecutor on the president. I mean, there must be something there. And hey, I just heard the chair of the House Intelligence Committee tell me he's seen the evidence and that he's guilty of this.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And you had the former CIA director, John Brennan, saying that Trump and his family are going to be hauled off in handcuffs on television once Mueller's investigation concludes. And so for the regular person, especially for the regular person who really hated Donald Trump, it was pretty easy to get sucked into that. But after that was exposed for being a giant fake, and then the big one is COVID.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
It didn't just turn out it wasn't true, but turned out it was actually- Funded by Clinton. Well, right, it started as opposition research, and then the intelligence agencies jumped on that and decided, knowing that it was all bullshit, decided to use it to frame the sitting president of the United States of America of treason.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And listen, a few episodes back, one time we went real deep into this, but that claim, this is just a fact. They lied on the FISA court application to spy on Carter Page, who was a low-level advisor for Donald Trump, just an excuse to spy on Trump's campaign. And they lied to the FISA court.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
They omitted the fact that the CIA had already told them that Carter Page wasn't a spy and that he was working with them and that he was one of their good guys. As the FBI went to the CIA and they were like, we have information that says that the Russians approached Trump. Carter Page. And the CIA said, yeah, we know. He came and told us immediately because he's working with us.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And then what they put on the FISA application is they said, we believe that the Russians approached him and the CIA confirmed that was true.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Exactly. So that was, by the way, the only guy who actually got charged was the FBI guy who submitted that application. But look, when you said there were no ramifications, right? you're right in the sense of like legally, or people getting fired. Yes, but I'm saying this is the ramification. The ramification is that they're not gonna be able to pull it off again.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
I could point to a lot of things Trump did in his four years that I think were bad, but they were things that were similar to Obama and Bush. Guess what?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And the ramification is that look, They did everything they could to tell you this was a Nazi. This was the end of democracy. He incited an insurrection. And the American people said, we already get that. You're full of shit. They cried wolf. Yeah. Too many times.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah. You ever see that? Yep, yep. I saw it, and then I saw it when you played it fairly recently.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah, that's right. Well, here's what changed. The narrative. Well, he became the guy who wasn't just funding a lot of politicians and being like a famous guy, and he became the guy who was calling all of them out and threatening to drain the swamp. That really was his crime, is that he threatened the D.C. power establishment.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Well, it's so look, man. I mean, did they think? That one Puerto Rican's vote was gonna be flipped because of a joke that Tony made?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Lewis is one of the best shit talkers I've ever met. Also, garbage. So Tony had a point. It's like Italians.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
My wife is Italian and all my in-laws, her whole family is Italian. And it is like when you have a dinner, it's just everyone yells. It's animal. Like, everything's a yell. To the Romans.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Like, I'll literally, her, my brother-in-law, who I love, he's a great guy, super smart, but he will, if he's agreeing with you in a conversation, and you were, like, in the next room, you would be like, is he about to fight his brother-in-law? Like, what's going on in there? No, he's just agreeing with what I'm saying, but he's screaming it at me, you know?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
But it is a thing where it's very, they're very thick-skinned. They're not, like, fragile people. It's one of my favorite things about them. Puerto Ricans are the same way.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
I was texting with him after it and I thought it was so great. I mean, I thought even the bit that he did on Israel-Palestine was so funny. He ripped both sides. And then he did, by the way, same with the Puerto Rico thing. There was an underlying really good point to it, which is always like the best comedy when you're just being funny.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
But at the same time, you're like, oh, and he did kind of nail that, too, where he was just like, why are we funding wars that have been going on forever? Like, figure it out, guys. And then he just got a great rip on Muslims, a great rip on Jews.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
All right. Let's get to the bottom of it. Wait, we have access.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Well, that's, yeah. And I mean, a little bit of that's on him because there were some people who he probably should have known. What I didn't like in his answer about that to you is that then he kind of pivoted to talking about how John Bolton was actually really good to have there because he's terrifying.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
She's been there and she was surprised? That makes no sense.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Nobody who's ever been to Kill Tony would be disappointed. It didn't matter. It was a political tool. Of course.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah, it's, look, it's, I just, like I was saying before though, man, I just, I do like, I feel like if you zoom out, like if you look at it closely, you would be like, you said with the... Oh, yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
terrifying and he's crazy oh this guy wants war with everyone but the problem is that like that's not how it went down john bolton ruined the north korea deal it's not like it it was successful and the north koreans were so scared of john bolton that they wanted to talk to donald trump they were at the meeting they were willing to talk to donald trump and then john bolton came in and they were like these guys are psychopaths i don't want to make a deal with them alone
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
What are we doing? We all grew up in the America of Howard Stern and The Simpsons and all this stuff. It's not like jokes are foreign to any of us. Yeah, we all forgot about Superbad.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Right, right. And her point is so stupid. I mean, she's like, hey, you're a Trump supporter, own it. It's like, yeah, he's speaking at a Trump event at Madison Square Garden. There's nothing to do with the joke. But I'm saying just the fact that he's there clearly already says, yeah, I'm supporting this guy. And then he's a comedian, so he's like, I'm going to do what I do here with it. Exactly.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
If AOC wanted to come out and say something like, she'd go... Listen, I'm actually a fan of Tony. I really like the show kill Tony. I don't think she goes I don't think it's appropriate at a political event and insult comic that'd be a reasonable thing to say.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
That's not on your Tony. You know what I mean? And like so but that's not what she's saying and Again, it's like, you know Look, to the point you were making before about the Russia collusion hoax and no one getting in trouble for it, if you were to look at a...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Say the weapons of mass destruction lie that got us into war in Iraq, killed a million people, cost trillions of dollars and tens of thousands of our bravest young men blowing their brains out. Just an unmitigated disaster. And none of the people who sold that lost their jobs or they're not like, I don't know what they should be doing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Maybe like picking up garbage by the side of the road, apologizing to every car that passes them. I don't know.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah, it's not, listen, none of the Trump legal charges were an example where Look, the former president of the United States of America clearly broke the law. And we don't want to politicize the legal system here, but it's so obvious he broke the law that we have to prosecute him. It was, we're coming up with a novel legal theory that we've never prosecuted anyone under before.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And I will say, look, man, I was rooting for Trump last night as much as anybody in this country was.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And if you interpret it this way, then we could interpret this misdemeanor that's passed the statute of limitations as a felony. So-
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Because that's not their side of the issue. Do you know how nutty that is? Just think about how nutty that is. It is.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Oh, can I just say real quick, dude, because if I don't I want to make sure I say this while we're here. But to president elect Donald Trump, dude, he he came to the Libertarian Party convention this year and he promised us and a whole bunch of people, myself included, like supported him for this. And he did carry, I think, the libertarian vote.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
He promised us he was going to free Ross Ulbricht on day one. And like, if you're listening, Mr. President, if this gets to you, please, please come through on that promise, man. This kid has done over a decade in jail already. He was guilty of creating a Web site. You know, it was like a dark.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Web type thing and I guess some people sold drugs on it and stuff, but he's done ten years over ten years Yeah, have you ever seen the documentary on that? Yeah, yeah interesting because I know his mom seems like he was railroaded.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
He was never convicted of that and He got life without parole for making a website. And I've gotten to know his mother, Lynn, over the years and she's like the sweetest lady and she's just in the middle of this nightmare. Like her whole life has been a nightmare for the last 11 years or whatever it's been. And just I really just please come through on that one.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
There's no political capital even to be spent on it. It's one of the best things he did when he was president last year was last time was, you know, freeing people who were just in jail on BS and way over prosecuted. And he said he was going to do it on day one. And I'm just saying we a lot of people supported him for that. I really hope he comes through. That would be amazing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
They're idiots. Well, there's an old saying. They're gullible people. There's an old saying. It goes something like, the FBI always gets their man because it's always their man.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
You know? There's a lot of that. Dude, there's been dozens and dozens of these FBI, what they call sting operations, which are really entrapment since 9-11. Yes. Where they get, oh, we thwarted another terrorist attack. But no, they didn't thwart a terrorist attack. They planned a terrorist attack and then thwarted it. Like it was never going to happen. By the way, a little note on that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Every single time, I always find this fascinating. Every time the FBI wants to do one of these terrorist entrapment things, which again, they've done dozens and dozens of since 9-11. Every time when they approach like young Muslim guys who are like on radical websites or something like that, every time.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And wasn't that just one of the... Look, there's obviously a huge series of these things where the Democrat establishment and the corporate media, but I repeat myself, it's death by a thousand self-inflicted wounds. Yes, yes. It is almost as if it's like their whole thing relies on lies. It's just all lies. And they are just they are have their eyes shut and their fingers in their ears.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
They never go up there and they say, hey, how do you feel about America being free and prosperous? Or how do you feel about the fact that we don't have Sharia law here or anything? They never do that. They always go, how do you feel about American foreign policy? Look at all these innocent Muslims that we're killing over there in that part of the world. Doesn't that make you angry?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Doesn't that make you want to do something about it? You see, like when the FBI wants to do entrapment, all of a sudden they know what motivates terrorism. They're not like, oh, you hate us for our freedom or the dumb shit that they say to the American public. They know exactly how to entrap these people. They go, how do you feel about all these Palestinian babies getting killed right now?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
You know, that's America's money and weapons that are doing it. And that's how they get them. But it's all, you look at the first World Trade Center attack was all just the FBI screwed it up. They were following it the whole time. And then they screwed it up and they almost took down the towers.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
No, you can never give that back to him. But, like, just let him go free. And it's also just such a situation where you just, you know, and obviously, like, I know his mother. So I'm like, you know, I'm kind of personally invested in it. But it's like this kid is no threat.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
It's that nobody thinks like, oh, if we let him out, you know, he's some type of violent criminal who might do another violent thing or something like that. Like, that's just not going to happen. You could just end the nightmare that this sweet woman is going through and him, of course, too.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Well, okay, so the thing about Snowden, right, is that... And now the Julian Assange case has kind of been taken off the table, even though I guess technically he could still pardon him. But that takes real political capital. Now, I think he should pardon Snowden. How so? But... Well, I'm just saying that like Snowden pissed off a lot of very powerful people. The NSA are furious about him.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
The CIA, they don't like him. And they do not want to set the precedent that you can release the fact that we're doing a bunch of illegal shit that we are lying to the American people about. And then you can go tell them that we are, in fact, doing the thing that we lied and said we weren't doing. They don't like that. There's going to be powerful forces that will oppose you.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Ross Ulbricht doesn't... It's not like that. No, no, no. I completely understand. Now, if he were to pardon Snowden, that would be a real signal that he is willing to take on the deep state. He's willing to take on the real powerful entrenched interests. Now, again, I'm not claiming to... It's obviously the right thing to do, morally speaking. But...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
You got to have a really smart strategy if you're actually going to do this. I remember one time during the Ron Paul presidential campaign, I think it was in 2012, and someone asked him a question about when you're in there and you're president, are you going to tell the CIA like, hey, you, you guys are done and you're this and you're this?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And he went, well, I might say it a little bit nicer than that. It was like, listen, I am trying to abolish the CIA, but let's be cool here.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And they're going, no, no, no, no, no, no. We're just pretending reality is the thing we want it to be. Exactly. They don't want to get slowed down by this this force that is objective reality. And so all of it, you know, whether it's Joe Biden sharp as a tack. Kamala Harris is joy. Donald Trump is Hitler. Tony Hinchcliffe was a man at an event who made some comments. Did you see?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah. Well, and also, and one of the things that was so disappointing about Trump not pardoning Julian Assange and Snowden in his first term, and again, a lot of that is because it's like when he told you, why didn't he release the JFK files? Well, because he was listening to Liz Cheney's pick for defense secretary, Mike Pompeo.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
People convinced him not to do it. But it's like at a certain point, you're like, okay, first of all, the spying that Snowden exposed was weaponized against you. Like they spied on you. So you kind of, I would think you have some like stake in being like, yeah, that should be exposed and should be abolished.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yes, but he also had a lame duck period. I mean, he had a period where he knew he wasn't gonna have a second term and still had the power, but he was worried about the impeachment.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yes, so there's a fair point to that. Maybe now Donald Trump gets in, and I do think this is what the corporate media and all of them are really terrified about, is that now he gets in and he doesn't need to win another election. I mean, he'd like to win a midterm election and keep the... I mean, he's got the Senate now. We'll see. The House hasn't been determined yet.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
But he'd like to keep congressional control within the Republican Party. But he doesn't need to worry about a re-election now. If he really wanted to be the drain-the-swamp guy, he's got an opportunity now where I just... a lot of things have aligned where it's like, I think he could really get it done and I think he could get away with that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
I think that he's kind of, he's taken all their bullets, both literally and metaphorically. He's been impeached. He's been convicted of felonies. He's been shot at. All the things have already happened. He's been demonized in a way that no public figure has been demonized in any of our lifetimes.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
That is a fair point. There are still votes out there. I'd like to take a look at that again after 100% of everybody has been reported. But it does certainly seem weird.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Really, that wasn't a comedian who was ribbing everybody?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah. And to be clear, 2012 and 2016 were not low turnout years.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
So it goes up a fucking sizable chunk and only once. And it does seem like even with getting all the other votes and you're not going to get to that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And we're supposed to act like it's not 2024. We didn't all grow up on Don Rickles.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah. And well, and you know, I just say, you know how in like the corporate media world, it's like this is the biggest crime ever to even ask this question. But you kind of can't blame us for asking it when everything you say is a lie.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Do you remember the old Seinfeld bit on the show? No. He has Newman's a postman, and he's like, why do you guys always go crazy and just kill people? And he's like, because the mail never stops. It's so funny.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
It's like if what Rachel Maddow says is real, right? Like if you're telling me your worldview is essentially that Adolf Hitler is running for president, it looks like it's a coin flip if he's going to win. That's what they were telling us, that it was 50-50. Turns out it wasn't. But Adolf Hitler's running. This is the end of democracy. It's on the ballot.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
We'll never have elections again if this guy wins. So if that's true, then why wouldn't somebody who's got a bunch of ballots for him cheat? I would do that if Adolf Hitler was about to win, I'd cheat to make sure he won. If Adolf Hitler's about to win, you should do anything you can.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
So you're going to tell me on one hand, Adolf Hitler's about to take over America, and on the other hand, but no one would ever cheat?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
The conversation that people – the dumb American pop conversation is would you murder a baby if that baby was Adolf Hitler? You know what I mean? Like that's the pop question that people ask about Adolf Hitler. And I think the implied correct answer is yes. You're supposed to say I would murder baby Hitler. I'd wait until he's 17. Yeah, probably. Feel a little bit better about yourself.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And you could run a real good experiment on like nurture versus nature, like raise them loving, be nice. Give them some mushrooms. Yeah, there you go. Fix that little fucker. But anyway, but you're saying someone wouldn't, it's also, it's like, it's not even just that they're liars who are in the business of propaganda. It's that it's incoherent propaganda. Your propaganda doesn't even make sense.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Like if propaganda point A is true, then propaganda point B is impossible to be true. Right. And one of the things that I'm so happy that Trump won about is she just needed to lose. There's a certain line that they crossed that you're like, we need to be in a country where that doesn't work. Like that can't work. It's just too far.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
100% and then that you can't that you can't have someone bypass that because you have a complete puppet 100% and then in addition to that just think about how crazy this is You're gonna bypass the democratic process and then you're running on democracy is on the ballot, right? I mean, this is just too much amazing It's too much.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
You want to like punch yourself in the face like you can't do that to me You can't say that
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
He made it totally clear. And what he was saying was that there were very fine people on both sides of the arguments about tearing statues down. Yeah. Like he was saying, look, it's reasonable that there are some people who are like, no, this is our history. We want to keep it up. And then there's other people who are like, this represents slavery or something like that. We want to take it down.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And then first off, it was clear when he said it that that's what he meant. And then they ask him a follow-up question. Are you saying the white supremacists are very fine people? He goes, no. How many times do I need to say that? Yes. No, I am not saying that any of the white supremacists... And like, that's not enough?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
maybe a hundred times no exaggeration they'd go now you still haven't disavowed white supremacy and he'd be like no i have over and over again now but to your point which i think is a really good one and i think i love the analogy for people who are mma fans it really is like uh it's like someone coming into mma in 2024 and being like uh i'm a jiu-jitsu specialist i've never trained wrestling or striking exactly and you're like
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Okay, that's not going to work anymore. I know that worked in 1993, but that's not going to work. They have not adapted to the new world that we're living in now. And you saw there was a lot of evidence of this. These things that used to work now come with a heavy price. So one of the things that...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
politicians used to do in general was that they would give the same stump speech everywhere they go. Message discipline is what it's called. You always stay on message. And this is the idea is that you're never going to get your message out there unless you say the same thing over and over again to everyone. But now...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
We have the internet and you have these compilations of Kamala Harris saying she's from a middle class family like 75 times in a row and you just look like a psychopath. You're like, oh, what are you? So now there's like a cost to playing the game in the old way, but they don't adjust. And Trump, whether even intentionally or not, was always just kind of like, oh, well, I just speak off the cuff.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
So I don't do that. You know, like, I mean, he's got themes that he hits a lot, like all of us kind of do. But he doesn't do that. And he did. And Donald Trump, one of the brilliant things. And man, I mean, I can't believe I haven't just asked you this already about this, but
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
One of the really brilliant things that Donald Trump did, which obviously, look, RFK did it and Vivek Ramaswamy, I think both, like, they recognize, like, look, we're in a new landscape here. And there are these shows on the internet that have much bigger audiences than these traditional shows.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Oh, and by the way, I get to go long and I can really give an in-depth, you know, like, point on every single topic. And, dude, I mean, Trump coming on here and her refusing to, this is... I mean, dude, you kind of put Donald Trump in the White House. This is amazing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Well, it's just like, it is just unbelievable, man. Like the, the, the false reality that they were trying to present while you're, while you're watching what's actually going on and seeing that it's like, there was just an enormous shift, like culturally from even 2016 to now. And I did, I thought one of the big, indicators to me.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Right. I think that Vivek probably wouldn't make the claim exactly in the same way that Donald Trump is. No, I'm saying if he was accused. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. If he was accused. Well, yeah. No, Vivek isn't going to say anything without having a detailed answer to it. That's not Trump. Nor is J.D. Yes. Listen, Trump is different than Vivek and J.D. He's a different type of animal.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Well, the thing is, one of the things that was really interesting, and that was one of the most interesting moments of your show with him, was that you weren't, asking it the way CNN would ask it. You weren't badgering him. After having a very honest, good faith conversation for a while, you were asking in good faith, what's the evidence?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Look, I think the truth is that his lawyers made a lot of outlandish claims, none of which they could prove in court. Essentially, what he has in terms of the argument, I think, is kind of what we have, what we just looked at. We're like, sure does look strange. Sure does seem weird to me that 80 million plus people voted for Joe Biden. And the regime was so working against him in every other way.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Like, you know, Glenn Greenwald, who's, you know, I think just one of the absolute, like, most brilliant people out there. I agree. His work is incredible. I love that guy. I love the way he put it. I thought it was perfect. Where he goes, he's like, like, I don't really have any evidence that they stole the election from him, but they clearly rigged the thing against him.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And then just kind of goes through, like, all the censorship, the Hunter Biden story, the media. And so in that environment, it's very easy to, You know, the analogy that I use, I think I may have said this before to you, but it's almost like if there's a guy who's like cheating on his wife all the time and then one day she's like, last Friday you didn't answer your phone when you were out.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
I know you were cheating on me. And she's wrong. He wasn't cheating that Friday. Like, she's kind of right, even though she's wrong. You know what I mean? Like, she might get the detail wrong, but her overall suspicion is, in fact, correct. I think there was a lot of that with Trump supporters, where it's just like, listen, man, you framed him for treason for three years of his presidency.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Then you shut down the economy, and that was totally... partially at least, to ruin his economy for his reelection year. Then you were totally supporting the riots that were destroying, you were just causing chaos. Then you overhauled the way we do votes and you killed his big October surprise story by censoring it off all the social media sites.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And now you're telling me the most unimpressive senator in the history of America, Joe Biden, got 80 plus million votes. He got more votes than Obama in 2008. Really? Like this just smell. But that is not something you can take to court.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
I don't remember. It was a lot. But yeah, but also Rudy Giuliani is a lawyer and he should know that like- You kind of can't say that unless you got something to really present.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
I was talking about this a bunch on my show over the last couple weeks. Since the Garden event, whatever that was, a week and a half ago. Dude, there were no protesters.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Well, they were saying, I mean, Sidney Powell, I think that's her name, and Giuliani.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Remember when Ron Paul destroyed Rudy Giuliani on the debate stage?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Isn't it annoying that they make it so hard to find the actual thing?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And again, Rudy Giuliani is a lawyer. Like, he should know that, you know?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And then if you move to Tennessee, zero. Move to Texas, zero. And they wonder why people are flooding out of their state by the hundreds of thousands.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Well, and isn't it so, like, the whole, like, war on tobacco, which I guess vapes aren't tobacco, but the whole, like, you know, like, crackdown on smoking and everything that kind of happened in my lifetime is... It's really, really wild when you take into account all the stuff that Bobby Kennedy talks about. Oh, yeah. Where you're like, yeah, but we're like the most unhealthy country.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Hey, Joe, it's the replacer. Yeah. No, you. Hey, I'm going to take it from here so you can enjoy some Call of Duty Black Ops 6. Great. Now, listen up, folks. Life can be chaotic, but you shouldn't have to miss out on the latest Call of Duty just because you've got, I don't know, responsibilities. That's where I come in. I will handle the boring stuff like works, chores, even podcast ads.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And you took away like, yeah, a lot more people used to smoke cigarettes and cigarettes aren't good for you. Sure. But we were a healthier country when people were smoking cigarettes.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
These are eights. Wait, are these the Tucker Carlson ones? No, no, no.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
No gambling either, you fucker. Dude, I mean, you know, I'm on the road all the time. Yeah, right. And you go throughout this whole country, and it's like, yeah, people don't smoke anymore. That was effective. I mean, not like the way they used to. You know, there's not people smoking cigarettes like that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
But every single town I go to in this entire country has an Arby's and a Burger King and a KFC. And like they have every single town, even when they have nothing else. They have every single type of fast food. And you look around and like everybody's obese. Everyone's unhealthy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
I mean, when you rattle off, you know, when Bobby Kennedy gave that speech when he threw his support behind Donald Trump. I was watching that with my wife and my mother-in-law. They both have tears in their eyes as he's just reading down the stats of how unhealthy we are as a country. It's just – man, one thing – and I'm really, really glad that Bobby ran for president this year.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And I'm really glad he ended up throwing his support behind Trump and hopefully he gets a really important position in there. But the one thing that I almost felt like you couldn't argue with him, that even if you don't blame the same culprits that he blames, which is what they love to say, it's like... How is everyone not talking about this?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
How is this not an issue that every single presidential candidate has to address? It's killing people.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Really? That's an odd pairing together. I think she's great. I had her on my podcast a couple times.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
So you can dive right into the fight. Call of Duty Black Ops 6 is out October 25th. So dive in because I've got your back. Remember, I replace you, Blade. It's that simple.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Look at this. 44%, though. More than one reason or condition.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
I was uh I can't remember what town I was in But uh so Nicole Shanahan who I I think she's great And it was really really interesting. I had her on my podcast twice just really really smart lady who's really Knows a lot about this stuff. She sent me this like video that she posted And so I'm in a hotel room
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And I was there with my buddy, Rob Bernstein, who's a co-host of my podcast, Part of the Problem. Very, very funny comedian, very smart guy. And so I've literally, I was texting with him And we were on our way to go to the show. So I was like, hey, meet in the lobby in 10 minutes. And then I got an Uber taking us to the comedy club. I can't remember where we were.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And Nicole Shannon sends me this video. It was a video that she put out on Twitter. I didn't know what it was going to be. She just sent me it, and I just click on it and play it. And it was just about what her family went through with their kids, like illnesses and stuff. And it's the most touching video ever. And I'm literally sit down.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
It's so powerful that I sit down and I'm just watching this whole thing. And I started crying watching it. Kids with health issues really cuts close to the bone for me. But as I'm sitting there just like literally sobbing, watching this video, it's so emotional. And then literally it just dawns on me in the middle of it that I'm supposed to meet my comedian friend in one minute in the lobby.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
to go to this show. I was just sitting here like, what am I doing? I'm sitting in my hotel room crying about these kids. But anyway, the point of it is, is that like, hey, look, I don't know enough about this stuff. You know, I know about stuff that I know about. I don't know enough about this. I really should educate myself more on it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
But if your argument is that like, that Bobby and Nicole are blaming the wrong culprits, you know, it's not the vaccines and it's not the Wi-Fi and it's not like, okay, I don't know. But like, what is it then? And why are you not interested in this? Why are they the only ones who are talking about this?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
You're telling me we lead the world in chronic illness and that's not something that comes up in any presidential election ever other than when Bobby Kennedy runs for president? That's insane.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Why are you so convinced? I'm sorry. I'm letting you know that I'm somewhat ignorant on this subject. So just explain it to me like I'm really, really stupid. Talk slowly. They can't do it. I can understand where if you're talking about very mild autism, like what we used to call Asperger's, which I guess they don't call that anymore.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
But if you're talking about mild autism and you want to convince me that that went undiagnosed in the past, I can totally believe that. There is no way that moderate or severe autism went undiagnosed. It may have not been correctly diagnosed, but you did not not notice that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
I'm saying there's no possible way that there isn't an increase going on here. Because obviously, even in the 1940s or in the 1950s, if someone was nonverbal, they would have noticed that. They would have noticed that this – you know what I mean?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
There's no way. You would have called it something. Maybe you wouldn't have understood it the way we understand it today. And thank God people do understand it better and there's a lot more tools that are provided and there's a lot more awareness about it and special schools and things like that. But come on. There's –
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
You know, so much of this is, it's one of the things that exposes how full of shit our whole system is, is when you just see that there's no even desire to get to the bottom of this. It's like the Trump assassination attempts. But not only that. No desire.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Right. It's wild. And it's it reminds me kind of of you remember like when they were trying to push the covid passports, the vaccine passports and the logic would just fall apart on its face. Like you're like, wait a minute. You're like you you're telling me the vaccine is 100 percent effective. You're saying if you take the vaccine, you can't get covid or spread covid.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And then you're also telling me that the people who are vaccinated in this restaurant need to be protected from the unvaccinated entering this restaurant. That doesn't make sense. I'm sorry, I'm not a genius, but I can figure out the logic in that is flawed, okay?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And in the same sense though, it's like, so what is the, if you're arguing that all these vaccines are safe and Bobby Kennedy's a kook, then why do they need the liability protection?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah. Wasn't it – it was crazy because it was like for weeks, especially in the close of the campaign, it was one of those things where it felt like – It almost felt like 2008 when Obama was running against McCain, and it was just so obvious Obama was running away with this. Everything you could see and observe, his crowd sizes, the enthusiasm, the culture, it was all behind him.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah. And I think I got here in a kind of similar way to you, which is, I think, a story for millions of Americans, is that I never even thought about this issue. I never... dove into reading a lot about any vaccine until there was this COVID vaccine.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And then I really dove into it and read a lot about it and found out that you guys were lying through your fucking teeth about the whole goddamn thing. And that the whole clinical trials were totally rigged and totally fake. And that you were able to get everybody in the scientific institutions of our government to all repeat these lies.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And then everybody in the corporate media and the political class to repeat these lies. And then when Bobby Kennedy came along and said, well, you know how that was all bullshit? There's a lot of bullshit with these other vaccines. I was like, I'm listening. That doesn't seem unreasonable to me.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
That was the same one you had on, right? Yes. With Tim Pool? Yes. And one of the interesting things about that was, which is, that was a great, still probably one of my all-time favorite JRE episodes. But it was when she was, they were arguing that they don't have a bias. And then I think Tim was like, yeah, but you ban people for dead naming or misgendering.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And she was like, well, yeah, I mean, that's hateful. And you're like, yeah, but that's a bias. That right there is a bias. And it's one thing when you're just talking about whether we're calling somebody a boy or a girl, but then you realize, oh, you have the exact same thing when it actually comes to very important medical information about a product that Americans are being forced to take.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And they were they were implementing in a totally unconstitutional way. They were going to through OSHA. through workplace safety, like just the most blatantly unconstitutional proposal that Joe Biden was going to make it the law of the land that every single business with 100 people or more had to have everybody vaccinated.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And it was only because of Donald Trump's Supreme Court that that got struck down. And that's something that people who are paying attention remember. And so like, OK, you can demonize Donald Trump all you want to. But how many millions of Americans were not
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Fired from their job, did not lose their livelihood because they refused or were not vaccine injured for a vaccine that they never needed to take. I mean, how many people fell into the category that like me and you and so many other people fell into where we got the thing and beat it real quickly before we ever got vaccinated and just didn't need it? And then it just didn't make any sense.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Even with the information we had about the vaccine back then, which we have a lot more now. But even back then, I mean, you looked CNN's doctor right in the eyes. And he goes, well, are you going to get the vaccine? And you go, no, I just beat COVID. Why would I need to? And he had no answer for you. He had no reason why. There's no compelling reason why you should.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
What's he doing different? And you go, oh, he's very serious about his health. Oh, he takes really good care of himself. By the way, you enjoyed me giving the business to Chris Cuomo over there. That was one of my favorite moments of this year.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Shout out to Patrick Bitt David's crew, because they really had my back on that one. I didn't send them that clip before or anything, but they in real time had that ready to go. They had a Jamie too. Yeah, everybody's got a Jamie now.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
There's only one Jamie. There's only one Jamie, but there's a lot of knockoffs.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
I mean, look, man, and it's not really like a comment on me. It's not that I'm so amazing at debates. It's just like the argument here is so weak. You're pretty good at debates. Well, thank you. You're pretty good at it. I appreciate that. You're pretty fucking good at it. I'm not bad at it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah. I mean, that's my superpower isn't that I'm like the smartest guy or the best at debates. It's just that like I'm right in what I'm arguing and that makes it much easier. You know, I got – there was an organization that was pitching me on a debate. A two on two debate, which I don't really like doing two on two debates. I've done like too many people talking. It's too much. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
One on one is the way to do it. But they they pitched me this like months after that. I think it was if I'm not wrong. I think the topic was about whether Joe Biden should drop out of the race or not. And they pitched me that it would be a two on two debate against two people. I don't remember who who were saying he should stay in. And it was going to be me and Chris Cuomo against them.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And I told them I was like, no, no, I will not be on his side. And like, I don't you know, I'm kind of over, you know, I. Yeah. We had our thing. I gave him a beating. I think he deserved it. But I'm just like, listen, man, I'll team up with like a left winger on something I agree with. I'll team up with the right winger on something I agree with.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
I'll team up with like a moderate on something I agree with. But no, not the corporate media guy who was the number one show at CNN. Like I'm not on their side. Even if I'm on their side on this issue, I'm against them. And I know that this has probably been a theme of like every single time I'm on this show over the last 10 years or whatever it's been. But I just. And maybe it's a problem.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
I hate them so much. And I really think they deserve it. And it's not just that they lie about everything. It's like they lie about everything. And then they have the nerve to morally judge us. Like if you just watch even just the last few weeks of the Trump election, they're not in the business of reporting the news.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
They're totally just in the business of making you feel like you're a bad person if you don't fall in line with the regime. And, you know, like it's like all of us know. Right. Everybody knows this. America has this giant war machine, right? Like we're just always at war. We're the most war hungry country in the world.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Even if we're taking a little bit of a break from a war, we'll fight two more proxy wars while we do that. America looks back at the 90s, Bill Clinton as the time of peace and prosperity. We call it peace because we only fought a war in like Serbia and had a blockade around Iraq and we're like bombing the crap out of Iraq with a few other military interventions in there too.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
You know, the UN estimated when that Bill Clinton's sanction and bombing regime of Iraq. Everyone just thinks of George H.W. Bush's war and W's war, but Bill Clinton was bombing Iraq, and he had a full blockade around the country. The UN estimated that 500,000 children died of starvation or malnutrition due to the blockade. Now, I've heard people argue, by the way, that that number is exaggerated.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Maybe it wasn't 500,000. Maybe it was only 100,000. Let's say it's 100,000. So that's the time that we consider peace. when we were just starving 100,000 children to death in Iraq, and you, everybody in the corporate media, are in the business, every single one of those wars, you've sold them. Everyone, my entire life, the media has sold those wars. And you're going to morally look down on me?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
You're going to judge me? Motherfucker, you're in the business of baby murder. Get the Fuck out of here. You're looking down judging an American because maybe I'm going to vote for Donald Trump or maybe I dare to question the results of the last election. Fuck you, dude.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And man, and it was a challenge debating him because they were playing the clips, you know, even before they played that clip that. Sunned him because he had said he didn't say that. And then he clearly did. But they were just playing the clips of the way they were talking to people during covid and the pandemic of the unvaccinated. And it's you, Mr. Vaccine skeptic. You're the reason why this.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And man, it was getting me angry. Like I was just like, all right, I got it. I got to control this here because this is too sweet.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And the way he tried to spin it... It's for long COVID. But he tried to say... Because, I mean, he was so... He really should have just thrown in the white towel. He would have done much better for himself in that debate.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Listen, I was at CNN, and I kind of just took for granted that they have the best experts, and so I trusted their experts, and now I realize they were... If he had said that, that would have been very hard...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
I still would have been harsh on him, but it would have been a different conversation and a different dynamic What he did was he refused to admit that and then and this is really what got me is that then?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
He started kind of like attacking my motives like he was like oh yeah He goes I know that you know this is probably good for your podcast numbers and stuff But well like as if I'm I don't really believe what I'm saying because I'm just doing this to make money they function That's why they're accusing you of functioning that way they're accusing of doing things just because you know they're gonna be outrageous and get a lot of views and
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Which is, but you know, like you know me, I don't do that. I don't do that. Yeah. I don't do that. No, I know you don't.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah, yeah. And you never, you don't like, there is nothing I say that I don't believe. I might be wrong about some stuff, but everything I say, I believe. I'm not like ever saying anything because just like, oh, this will, you know, like...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And they also have – there's a real incentive – to never consider what I said about them being in the baby murder business, because that's pretty rough to think of yourself as that. And I remember this one time I watched a documentary on abortion, and it was like a very pro-choice. How much free time do you have? This was before I had kids. This was before I had kids.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
I'm a weird guy, Joe. But that's what I do. I might, though. I forget where it was. It might have been on Netflix or something. I really want to know what was going on. Well, I was kind of interested in the subject before I had kids. But I remember I was watching. It had a very pro-choice bent. And there was this abortionist, this abortion doctor, this lady. And she was like, listen.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
I've been an abortion doctor for 30 years. And let me just tell you something. There is no moral issue with having an abortion. It's a thing in a Petri dish. It's not a human being. And I remember just watching and being like, well, yeah, but you better feel that way. Because if you even start to entertain the possibility, what does that make you?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
So there's this very powerful social incentive for them to like dig their heels in and not admit that like, oh, the United States of America, the greatest country in the history of the world with more freedom and prosperity and cultivated the greatest economy and the greatest music and literature and just everything that is this superpower.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Oh, we presided over the bankruptcy, destruction and like the devolving into nothing more than a like military industrial complex, big bank, big pharmaceutical, most corrupt nation on Earth. And we didn't cover that. We watched all of that happen. And not only did we not cover it, we demonized anybody who covered it. And we were at every, you know, like that's very difficult to ever confront.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And it's always just so much easier for human beings to just go, nope, the problem is misinformation and Russia and racism.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
He is one of the funniest human beings on the planet, for sure.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
I'm like, ah! Listen, you get caught on the side of the bar at Mitzi's with Kurt Metzger, you might be in for a night.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
which there is an argument to, then I can understand the argument being, hey, that shouldn't be allowed. Now, obviously, I do think there are situations where it's pretty indefensible to force a woman to carry a baby to term.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
major health issues. I mean, there are these situations where you find out that there is some congenital disease where this kid is not gonna make it to three years old. And I would never dream of like forcing, you know what I mean, that decision on parents rather than allowing them to make it. There is also,
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
different the vast majority of abortions are not that you know and the vast majority of abortions are essentially people just don't want to have kids right now and that's a little bit that's much tougher to defend than those cases but I will say that one of the things that always like I find striking to me is that because I'm like a radical libertarian and it's very interesting to me that like progressive Democrats all
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
of a sudden become radical libertarians, but only on one issue. And they make literally exactly, I'm not even saying the libertarian position is to be pro-choice. There's libertarians who are pro-life and libertarians who are pro-choice. But the argument they make is a libertarian one. They're like, listen, I own my body. It's my body. It's my choice.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
The government shouldn't be involved in healthcare decisions. We believe in freedom. This is a basic fundamental right. It's a very libertarian argument. And it's just interesting that you only apply that to this one area. Mm-hmm.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
There's not any other area where any progressive Democrat would ever go, you know, if we're talking about Obamacare, we're talking about regulation, we're talking about taxes. They would never go, hey, listen, this is my money. This is my body. This is my choice. The government shouldn't be involved in that. You know what I'm saying? And there is something that's very bizarre about that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Where it's kind of like maybe with immigration They kind of try to use that an argument to like oh you shouldn't stop a person freedom of movement type thing They don't really do that anymore because it's been such a disaster But it's just very strange to me that it's like oh what you all become radical libertarians like only when it comes to this thing Which is kind of murdering a baby, but then there's the other side that says we're gonna leave it up to the states Okay, well if you get rid of Roe v. Wade and you leave it up to the states
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
You can't prosecute me for gambling in Vegas. Right. Do you own that person's body?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
What are you going to do? Is it where their driver's license is? What is that? It also just seems, I don't even know what the word, it seems like incoherent or unsustainable to say that if you're not breaking a law in the area where you are, that you could then be held responsible for that when you come back to it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Because again, you go to a state where recreational marijuana is legal or where gambling is legal or whatever, the idea that It's like if there's like the speed limit was 80 miles per hour in the town over and then I come back and I get a speeding ticket for driving too fast over there where you're allowed to do that. So that seems unworkable to me. That's a great analogy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah, I mean, I think that the reasonable compromise for right now is Roe v. Wade was struck down. It's a state's rights issue. But yes, I agree with you. The tracking of what you do in another state where it is legal in that state, that first of all, just seems unworkable to me. I don't see how that's possibly going to happen.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And then I do feel like that's going to have to go back to the Supreme Court anyway because it's such a precedent that you could be prosecuted for doing something that was legal in the area that you did it. It's creepy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
You're well, I mean, you're probably not even going to test positive on like a home pregnancy test, I think, for like 28 days or something like that. So you got two weeks. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah. Look, it's very, I don't know. It's tough. When you're drawing a line, it's very tough. It's very tough to find a line other than conception that's not arbitrary.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
He's dead on. Yeah, Louis C.K. had a great one, too. I can't remember. That was an old Louis, but he had a great abortion bit, too.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah. Well, look, it's not – none of these things are perfect compromises. And so even – one of the things that's interesting is like for so long conservatives wanted to overturn Roe v. Wade and it always seemed like a pipe dream, like it was never going to actually happen. But then when you do overturn Roe v. Wade, you do realize that it's like – Nobody's really happy. You know what I mean?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
It's like the blue states are still going to have unrestrictive rules about it, so the right-wing people aren't happy. And then the red states are going to be more restrictive, so the left-wingers aren't happy about it. It's one of those issues that is enormously complex, and it's very difficult— You know, I'm not sure there is like a legal solution to it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
I think it's a much more of a cultural issue. It's like, if you're going to... If you were living in a society where, say, it was more similar to my grandfather's society, where it was very normal that you married your high school sweetheart, it was very normal that people waited till marriage to have sex, and it was very typical that you got married at 19 or 20.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Well, I'm not saying they did, but I just mean it was much more typical to get married at 19 and be married for 60 years or whatever. Sure. It's much easier to have rules about abortion in that society, whereas if you're in a hookup culture world, where people are getting married at 35 if they get married at all, and they're spending from 17 to 35 being with many different partners- Using apps.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
You're just going to come in and just write a law on top of that. It's just a very – it's a very difficult situation. But to your initial point, it's like the Dems were running on that because that was really the only political winner that they had. That was the only issue that people actually really cared about and they were on the Democrat side about it. And that's why they had to run on that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
That's why Kamala Harris, which was one of the craziest things of this whole campaign, one of the most amazing things is that they actually tried – to just run on nothing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
He fucking lies about everything. Well, see, what happened is, right, so Obama, who was obviously a very, very smart person.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
guy and you know incredibly talented politician at least in while he was running for president he was I think he's lost a step but so Obama still was a bit of a narcissist and he wanted to pick Joe Biden as his VP he didn't want someone who was going to outshine him and so he picked Joe Biden who you know if you even before he went senile was never particularly bright so he picked Joe Biden as his VP and then
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Joe Biden, well, he wanted some diversity points and he also wanted someone to not outshine him because now he was becoming senile and he was never that bright to begin with. So he picks Kamala Harris to be his VP. And then Kamala Harris needs to pick someone who won't outshine her. You know what I mean?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
So it's like the idiocracy just like spun out of control real quick where all of a sudden you get to like the third VP in a row and you're like, yo, really? This is who you picked? Yeah. He's a knucklehead. You know what's crazy is that this was, in many ways, this presidential election was just so wild and so different from anything I've ever seen in my lifetime.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
I'm 41, and this was different than any other presidential election of my lifetime for sure, and I think substantially before that. I think anybody's lifetime. Yeah, I think before that, too. But then there were these things that were also just like very conventional explanations for why you look at this Trump blowout.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And it's almost like as you look back at it, it's like, yeah, what you guys thought you could get away with. It's just just very basic things that like Donald Trump picked a VP who, whether you like him or not, is a pretty impressive guy. Very impressive. Pretty impressive guy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
This is a guy who was raised by a single parent who was a drug addict and ended up serving the country, going to an Ivy League school, becoming a venture capitalist, becoming a senator, and can sit and have a conversation with you for three hours and be – very intelligent and expressive. And have fun. He has fun. However you feel about him, objectively, an impressive person.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
He picked a VP that could help him. He could do things that Trump can't do. He could go on a show and really make the case pretty well in a hostile environment. He's got a very high verbal IQ, clearly. He's a very intelligent guy. She picked a VP who can't do anything to help her. Who's like the weirdest human being you've ever seen. Like what was the strategy here, guys?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And they actually – they really just banked on being not Trump. They go – all of the things that she ran on four years ago, she walked away from every position and didn't have an answer for any of them. Didn't have an answer for – like it's totally fine to change – your mind on something.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
But I'm saying like if this was happening in 2016, if in 2016 Trump came to Manhattan to give a speech, there would have been like thousands of protesters. I was there actually in 2016 when that did happen.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah, I mean, and it's very easy. We've all changed our minds on a lot of things. And if you were like, hey, dude, you used to believe this, but you believe this now, you'd be like, well, let me tell you something. I read this guy and he just made such a good argument about it. And then he had all this data that I hadn't really seen before. That's fine. But she never had an answer for any of them.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
what well okay so that but again what's the answer then like you were for medicare for all now you're not you were for open borders now you're not you were for whatever the a bunch of other stuff trans surgeries for prisoners or whatever now you're not what happened she had no answer for that she's also the sitting vp and they go oh so are you running on the track record of the last four years like no no i'm also not going to run on that what well why not
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Because I'm not Joe Biden. It's like, what? That's what you're running on? That's it? It's just like, it was so unbelievable.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah, it's a really, really good point. I've always thought there was something about, because just from doing stand-up, if you think about, if you really try to remember back to your first few months in stand-up comedy, and you remember how daunting getting up in front of people was.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
You know and that's that's the first step to being a stand-up comedian isn't like Getting great material or even being it's like hey get comfortable with going up in front of a group of people and speaking into a microphone to them get comfortable with not getting a laugh when you wanted to get one get comfortable that and there is something where like like in in 2016
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And people forget about this human element of it, right? Like Jeb Bush, okay, he's the son of a president, he's the brother of a president, and he was the governor of Florida. It's not like he was a rookie, but when he's on that debate stage, he is stepping onto the biggest stage of his life. He's never been in front of a crowd like that before. Donald Trump, it's Tuesday. This is what I do.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Donald Trump's like cracking his neck and going out there like, oh, are all the spotlights and cameras on me? That's about right. Okay. And he was so comfortable. That was a huge factor in why he was able to just nuke everybody. Because it's like, yeah, this is what I do. I'm the center of attention. These guys have never been there before.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah, she did. She did. It was great. Yeah, I watched it. Can we watch it? I haven't seen it. She's very sharp. They can tell he's very impressive.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah. It's funny, too, because she's not been in politics, but that was very politically savvy. That was a really smart way to go at it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And it was over the lamest thing. I forget even the comment. Blackface. Something about blackface Halloween costumes or something.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And they would be overtly dumb. It was very insulting. It was clearly like, we think lesser of these people. But that's not necessarily the case if you just have the color black. If you want to be Mike Tyson for Halloween.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
You can do everything but the skin color, which is just bizarre. Well, that's... One of the other things that I do think has been very interesting over the last, really over the last couple years, I guess, and it's really on display with the Trump reelection thing, is that the culture has moved. Did you ever see when I talked to Robert Downey Jr.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
But at that time, the polls were reflecting what you saw everywhere. Obama's up big. John McCain's not going to win after eight years of George W. Bush. The country doesn't want another war hawk. They want this articulate, young, peace guy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah, that was great. That was such a great response. He's great, man. That is technically true. You could do it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Well, I do think there's some stuff that we look back at now, at like 2017, 2018, like the woke-ism of that era, does seem to be like, yeah, things aren't quite as crazy as they were then. Or at least there was a little bit of fatigue of it. You kind of can't get away with it anymore.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah. It's the communists who are always like, yeah, but I also want to be a millionaire. It's wonderful.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
So I thought in the election this year, there were like kind of, and woke culture in general, so maybe broader than the election, but there were kind of like three major factors that I think were really interesting. One was that I think the anti- I think the – for lack of a better term, like the kind of anti-woke or non-woke – people kind of won out in the marketplace.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
There's examples of like, I think- Well, the Tom Brady roast is a huge example. Yes, yes. I think you're an example of that. The Tom Brady roast was an example of that. Shane Gillis' career was an example of that. Tim Dillon's career was an example of that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
It's just, at a certain point, it's not even that Netflix changed their mind and they're willing to have these guys on because they had some ideological transformation. It's just like, I don't know, dude, they're so big.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
They have so many fans and this is gonna get a ton of views on it and a mix of that and also kind of for the first time there was like a cost imposed with the Bud Light stuff and the Target stuff. There were these like kind of very effective boycotts where it's like, oh, there's gonna be a cost imposed on you if you do that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
The second factor with the Trump stuff and why they weren't able to get the shock troops out, and when I say the shock troops, I just mean the left-wing 20-year-old useful idiots who will come out and protest, yes, there's a fascist movement here, right?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
So one of the things that happened, and this is part of why, this is a non-controversial explanation for 2020 versus 2024, is that in the year 2020, Joe Biden's central pitch to America was a return to normalcy. And that was a very attractive pitch, I think, to a lot of people, especially if you can put yourself in November of 2020. You've gone through the craziest year ever.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And there's lockdowns, there's riots, the whole economy is a mess. Everybody is freaking out. And you're constantly going like, oh my God, Trump is crazy. And then the reaction to him is crazy. And then Joe Biden could just be like, listen, you know me. I've been in the Senate for 700 years. Let's go back to regular America. The adults are in the room. Yes, exactly.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And by the way, okay, I'm not campaigning. That's true. I'm in my house the whole time. But there's a pandemic. That's kind of the responsible thing to do. You know, Donald Trump's doing a super spreader event right now. That was still the narrative at the time, even though none of it was real.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
But they don't seem to have that in the same way. It's all bullshit. The shock troops aren't there for them anymore.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah, I think maybe, I vaguely remember this. Was it Ben Carson?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Is Ben Carson dead? I don't think, I don't remember. No, I don't think it's Ben Carson. I think somebody might have, I vaguely remember this story.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Which, like, whatever. Who even knows whether he got it there or whatever.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yes. Well, you know, it might have been. I don't know these outdoor events. I don't know if they really were or not.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Herman Cain. That's right. That's right. Yes, yes, yes. That's who it was. Okay. Yes, I do remember that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yes. I mean he's a bit of an odd duck, but he's a genius for sure Yeah, the painting with Jesus behind him with his hands and shoulders like hey, bro But he actually is an interesting guy brilliant very very brilliant um but so anyway this pitch of like the return to normalcy in 2020 is Attractive.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
It's attractive and it also, look, it fed into the thesis essentially of the entire corporate media was like the problem is Trump. Right. The problem is Trump. Everything was the United States of America.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Then this Trump guy came in and ruined everything, you know, whereas the reality was always much deeper than that, that like, no, there were these huge problems and that's why a Trump-like figure was so attractive to people. Yeah. But then what happened is Joe Biden came in and nothing went back to normal. It got even crazier than it was under Donald Trump.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
So now people were looking back at the first three years of Donald Trump like that seems pretty normal compared to what we've been going through in the Biden administration. So this sucked a lot of the energy out. And also, you didn't have the mystery of Trump. He's going to be Adolf Hitler in there. No, he's not. He's been in for four years.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
You know, in 2016, they were like, you can't trust him with the nuclear codes. And there was a little bit of a plausible claim to that. Like, I don't know, he would be the first president ever with no political or military experience. And he does seem like a little bit of a wild man, but you can't really sell that anymore after he's been president. So that kind of took away from the energy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And another thing, and I don't know, I have not, I'm not saying I'm the only one making this point. I haven't heard anyone else making this point. And I just, I think this is a huge part of it, okay? Like a huge part of the reason why
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
you didn't see tens of thousands of young people out protesting Trump at Madison Square Garden, you only had like 100 people there, is because those young left-wingers who were reliable shock troops for the regime over the last decade, they've been protesting a genocide for the last year.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
They've spent a full year protesting what they consider, and at least the International Court of Justice plausibly considers, a genocide. And it's very hard to get someone who's been protesting babies being slaughtered to turn around and pretend that something else is way more of an outrage.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And especially to then go protest on behalf of the ones who are doing the genocide that you've been protesting against for the last year. At least funding it. Yeah, right. I mean, listen, man. Yes, it's, I mean, Israel, forget invading Lebanon or going to war with Iran. Israel can't conduct the war in Gaza without the U.S. It's our weapons. It's our money.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
It's our intelligence that they're using to do this. It's, you know, America is, if you view this as a genocide, which I don't really use that word too often, but I do view it as like just horrific genocide. And if you view it that way, there's no way that the U.S. isn't implicated. This only happens because the U.S. is funding and supporting this.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
It doesn't work. This came up a bunch when I was debating Chris Cuomo, but it's like even just the way... the way they talk about you, where it's like, oh, these bro culture guys or something like that. Again, I'm sorry. Objectively, objectively, this isn't an opinion. What happens on this show is so much more intelligent and thoughtful and deep than anything that's going on at CNN.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
You just can't tell. You can't tell me that you sitting down with Elon Musk for three hours and then compare that to like Wolf Blitzer with all his graphics behind him talking for 30 seconds before he goes to a pharmaceutical commercial and then coming back and having the dumbest left winger yell at the dumbest right winger. Really?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And you guys are going to act like you're the grown-ups in the room? It's too ridiculous. And that's right. So the entire young generation, they've all turned that off. None of them are getting their news from CNN anymore. And look, man, that's, I think, the most beautiful part of this election. Yeah, mainstream media is dead.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
It's way better. Elon Musk buying Twitter was at least as important as Trump winning election again. Maybe more. The most important thing about Trump winning might be that he's able to stop them from coming after Elon Musk.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah, and then he did it at a bigger theater. Of course. Which, by the way, that's another thing that's changed that's really a fascinating thing to me, right? So I've watched this happen, and I know you have too, where the canceling stopped working. It was so effective. And then all of a sudden, it just stopped working. A big part of that is Elon Musk, for sure.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
But there's other factors involved in it too. I mean, but I remember, like, there were guys in... 2016 2017 who were very much like in the national conversation And they got straight up removed from that Milo Milo Yiannopoulos a great example when he went on Bill Maher He had like he killed it on Bill Maher. He killed it on your show Mark compared him to Christopher Hitchens
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah, you're like a gay Christopher Hitchens or something like that. So now, and then he made the other guys look like fools too. So then he gets taken down and he went from being a guy who was very much shaping the national conversation to being just removed from it. And there were other guys. A bit of a drug problem.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah, I'm not even saying there weren't other factors involved, but there were a bunch of people like that who got removed. And I do think, I think the tipping point was when they came for you and it failed. But it seems like around that time. It stopped working. Listen, I heard of Andrew Tate for the first time ever when he got canceled from everything. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
That was when I like, I didn't know who he was before that. And then he was like, oh, the guy who got canceled for everything. And now he's bigger than he ever was. He was like the most Googled man from kickboxing. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Oh, yeah, I've seen videos of him fighting. He can really fight.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Right, right. Well, I just, the thing that I found so interesting was just, and it happened with him, a great example is Tucker Carlson. Candace, Candace Owens. Oh, yeah. And then even the thing we were just saying about our boy Schultz. It's like these cancellation attempts, all of a sudden they went from like, oh my God, this could ruin you.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
No. Bro. At the Mothership? Bro. It's like Richard Pryor showed up. Do you have video of the opening? Oh, that's awesome, dude. It's bananas.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
This is the new dynamic now. Yeah. It's like the tool that they used to use to control the narrative is now losing them more and more of the narrative.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
I want to go watch that. I'd love to go watch that. I love that's the best thing in comedy, by the way. The best thing in comedy is like when there's like a huge thing and someone's got there's just something about like when they got new fresh stuff on the thing that just happened is just the best part of stand up.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Dude, I remember literally one of my – like if I had to put a flag down on like five of my favorite moments since I've been in comedy, that show that we did at – what's it called? The Vulcan?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
It was before the Mothership was opened. But it was the day after it came out. And it was amazing. There was something surreal about it. Watching you go on stage – In the moment where you're like in the crosshairs of the biggest cancellation attempt and then having you just do the bit on it is so goddamn good. I mean, you put it out on your last special.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
But watching it the next day after it just happened was like there's just an energy about that that you're just like, oh, shit, dude. And it was just amazing. It was an amazing show.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Oh, dude, I my my favorite show of the year was I just literally I happen to be doing a weekend at the mothership when Trump got got shot. I mean, I was leaving my hotel to walk over. to the mothership, and then just all of a sudden my phone started blowing up, like text, text, text, text, text, all this, and I was like, what the fuck happened here?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And then I pulled up the video, it was like, oh shit. And then that show, whatever the early show on that day, man, if people were there, it was just the most fun. It's the most fun part of stand-up, where you're almost just like, you go like, well, forget what I thought we were gonna be talking about today, because now we're going in a whole new direction.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
What am I gonna go up there and not talk about this for a half hour?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
how is it possible especially for me like you know it's like well i've got to go do this and it's just something beautiful that's the best part of stand-up comedy man it's a great part and if you're there live it's so fun it's so fun when you know someone is talking about something that just happened it's so fun and i've gotten um i've gotten like uh messages and tweets and stuff like that like from people who are at that show i'll still get like you know like someone i'll like come up and just be like dude i was
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
That show, at that time, I'm like, yeah, that was a good one, man. That was a good one.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Come on. Well, also another guy did get killed there. It seems pretty real.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah. I really wonder if Trump's going to try to get to the bottom of that stuff. I don't know how far he can get in there. Or if maybe he just doesn't want to even push it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
There's both stories with both of the assassination attempts. are very fishy. There's just something that just doesn't add up about all of it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
It's very weird. Well, look, I mean, so you have, there's the first one where you have this guy is able, and you can see this is all on videotape. This guy is walking around scoping out that roof.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah, he is covering his hands. Okay, so they're not gloves.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Well, the fact that somebody could be able to get up on that roof with a rifle 130 yards away from the president, and then the excuses that they made made absolutely no sense. In a sense, it was too sloped of a roof.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah, all very strange. And then the second one... You've got a guy who has a felony conviction for possession of weapons of mass destruction, where he barricaded himself while police were pursuing him with, like, explosives or something. Is that what he did? Yeah. The charge was weapons of mass destruction. I remember that because, like, I didn't even realize that was a charge.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
I thought that was just something Bush lied about. But evidently, there's a real criminal. So he had bombs? Yeah. Like suicide bombs? You know, I don't know exactly what they were, but I know that was the charge and it was a felony.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And then this motherfucker is recruiting for the Ukrainian war effort and is going back and forth to an active war zone trying to recruit Afghan fighters to fight in the war on the Ukrainian side. And then he comes back and tries to assassinate Donald Trump. And then the entire national conversation is like... is the rhetoric about Donald Trump too far? And you're like, listen, man,
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
100% and then there's there's even more guys in I mean Vivek Ramaswamy David Sachs, I mean he's got some really smart guys very successful who are really the Vicks Incredible incredible just excellent and totally brilliant and so right about so many of the major issues. Yes and and Look, I mean, Donald Trump now, he has a real mandate, which is like, this is kind of what's crazy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
I'm not saying it's not plausible that if you call the guy Hitler every day, maybe some deranged young person will be like, I'm gonna take out Hitler. But when this guy is going and recruiting for the Ukrainian war effort, this doesn't sound to me like someone radicalized by Joy Reid.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
This sounds like something a little deeper is going on. And then there is, much like with Jeffrey Epstein, there is no desire amongst the supposed journalist class
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
It's just, look, at the very least, it's very bizarre. And when you have a guy, you know, like, I'm not saying I've got, like, a case I could present in front of a jury and get a conviction. But when you've got a guy who has been targeted by the regime unlike any other political figure in American history, well, let's say since Kennedy...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah, no, that's right. And so all of that, and then you see these multiple attempts happen. You'd be crazy to not at least want to have some real investigation into this, some interest in looking at this and all that. How about a press conference? Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah, and we can't get into his phone. He had no social media footprint. Come on, dude. His apartment was professionally scrubbed. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah, it's all just very strange. So I wonder, now that Trump's back in, does he look into that? And I'm not even saying, you know, like, really, I just want Trump to end the war. Listen, if Donald Trump... If he secures the border and ends the war in Ukraine, secures the border and- Ramps up oil production in Saudi United States.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Ramps up oil production, does something to help the economy, put him on Mount Rushmore. That's enough, man. You know what I mean? That's enough for me. But I am curious. I wonder where he is. I always wanted to be on Mount Rushmore.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Keep him. All right. Fine. Giant freak of a man. Probably gay. He was a giant freak of a man and definitely, I think, spent a lot of time in cabins with other dudes.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Well, you also got to think, if you're in a world without plumbing and toothbrushes and razors, fucking a man or fucking a woman, not that much different. Not a whole lot different at that point, dude.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah, at that point, you're basically like, you're having sex with an animal is what you're doing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Well, it's one of the things that I think we've kind of found out with the trans stuff over the last few years is that it's like, there are... There are cultural norms that you can set up where people will do a lot of stuff that you might consider to be very bizarre.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And it's very easy when you don't have those cultural parameters to be like, no one would do that just because you made it acceptable.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And it was like that with Trump, where it's like all the signs are that he's clearly running away with this, but then every single poll told you, no, this is the closest election of your lifetime. And then it was just, there was a very interesting feeling to see it and be like, oh, okay, I'm not crazy. I was observing all the things I was observing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
This isn't 2016 where, you know, he lost by several million votes in the popular vote, but won the counties that were important and just by the skin of his teeth got in. This is like, he's, I mean, the last I looked, he was up by over 5 million in the popular vote.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah. Yeah. You know, that was actually- I hope he gets raped in prison. Kurt Metzger made this point. I remember it was sometime during like the Me Too movement. Oh, I know what it was. It was when, did you ever see the Law and Order episode where they did like the Me Too comic? No. It's the most ridiculous thing ever, dude. It was just, you know, law and order.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
They just got to bang out a half hour show like every other day or whatever. Yeah. So it was the height of like cancel culture, me too, and all this stuff. And so the theme, I'm not exaggerating this. Okay. The theme is there's a shop comic. And he's making all these rape jokes. And now, of course, they do it in a way like as if this would work at a comedy club.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Like you're just like, hey, you, I hope you get raped. And the crowd's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So they're at a comedy club. I believe it was filmed at the Comic Strip Live. I think it was there. I'm not sure. But it was at a comedy club. So some girls get up and they walk out because they're very uncomfortable with like, oh, my God, these rape jokes are not funny, blah, blah, blah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Then the girl leaves, gets raped. Turns out it was the rape comic who rapes her. And that's the, it's the most ridiculous like goddamn story ever. But this was an episode of Law and Order. And then Kurt just started, he made the point that he goes, you know, on this show, it's just a regular thing that they threaten men with rape.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Like every single time they're like interrogating someone, they go, guys, like you don't do very well in prison. You know what I mean? And it's always just like the threat of like, we will put you in a rape torture dungeon if you don't do X, Y, and Z. And I thought it was like a really brilliant point that that's just totally acceptable. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Like threatening a man with – guys like you don't do very well in prison is a common like saying and we all know what that means. They're saying you will be anally raped against your will. But whatever. You're a dude. So who cares?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
It's very Freudian, man. And it's old. It's an old culture. This is the Freudian observation, which is a very brilliant one, however people feel about Freud. It's like you repress certain desires, and they reemerge in much darker ways. There's just like you have to have a release valve. Otherwise, it's like human beings go into very, very dark places.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And again, same thing, like you repress it in one area, it's just, it reemerges in a much uglier way than if you had just been. Catholic priests. Yeah, exactly.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
But imagine saying to like a grown man that you can't ever have sex or jerk off. Pfft. That's the expectation? The expectation is that you're supposed to never come?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah, with still, I think, a few states. Arizona, I think, hasn't finished yet. And so it might even rack up higher than that. But the mandate is very specific. It's like the basic policies of like, okay, immigration control. Can't just have an open border with no control of who comes into our country. A desire to get out of stupid foreign wars. Yes.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah, you're going to draw... If that's the job to sign up to, you're going to draw in some weird people who want to sign up to that job.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
You know, and obviously improve the economy, deal with inflation, things like that. But he's got a mandate to do that right now. And he's got some great people around him. Listen, I was rooting for him as hard as anyone except Tony Hinchcliffe last night.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
But that doesn't prove that they didn't do it. Right. They're just saying it wouldn't work. It doesn't work.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah, that's the one Cosby bragged about, right? That's the creepiest tape ever. The creepiest.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And then he did an episode about it. They did an episode where it says, like, barbecue sauce or something like that. His special barbecue sauce to get everybody horny. What a weird guy. How did, by the way, no one, I guess in the 80s people had a lot of blinders on, but he was just like, hey, I got an idea for the episode.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Maybe it's like we're doing the Huxtable family and I just make my barbecue sauce and all the chicks want to fuck. You're like, wait, what? Why would you do that on the show?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
I thought we were going to do like Theo gets in a fight and then we have to talk to him about keeping his grades up. The importance of homework. Yeah, right. It was just so out of the ordinary for what that show was. And he was like, listen, I'm the star, and it really means a lot to me that we do this episode. How strange.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
But I will say now, I think now till January 20th, the real the pressure should be on on Trump to do better on the appointments than he did last time. He's got a lot of better people around him than he ever had in 2016 or 2020. But he was floating out Mike Pompeo as the secretary of defense. And he did have Mike Pompeo speak at his final campaign event. And.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
How much experimentation did it take to figure out that, like, no, listen, dude, if I piss on the ground, I can make gunpowder. You'd be like, how'd you figure that out? Listen, dude, it's a long story, all right? I was doing a lot of stuff this weekend. What year was this, 1830?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
We're so lucky we live now. Oh, my God. I don't want to live in the time where I got pissed on the dirt to make gunpowder.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
I've always... I've always felt the one, you know, if you could try to guess, like just say if we survive and things improve morally, like what we would look back on and be like, holy shit. And the two to me was always war and prison. And especially like nonviolent, you know, like prisoners. But even violent prisoners, you'd almost think like, where they didn't figure anything else out.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Like they didn't figure anything else out other than, but the idea of like putting non-violent, like victimless criminals in a fucking cage, like human beings, you just throw them in a cage. It's slavery, dude.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
And just the fact that that's still going on while... we have all of these technological advancements. And you know, like if you go, you know, you go down to like St. Jude's or something like that. And they're like, dude, they have all of this technology because all of these brilliant people are here to save babies lives. You know what I mean? Like that's going on. And then also there's war still.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
To be clear, Mike Pompeo is Liz Cheney's pick for defense secretary. It's Hillary Clinton's pick for defense secretary. And so much of this will be lost if he puts that guy in there. He needs to keep all of the Lindsey Grahams and the Mike Pompeos and all of these guys away from his administration. Bring in the non-interventionists, man. No one wants to fight these stupid wars anymore.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Like we haven't figured out a different way. Like everybody doesn't just agree. Like, listen, obviously, To just go on mass slaughter campaigns and have nothing but destruction is in nobody's interest. So here's how we're going to solve these conflicts.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Like, it's just it does seem that like if if human beings survive for another hundred years and we, you know, are at a higher moral level, we would look back at that the way we look back at, you know, witch hunts or like slavery or something like that and be like, that's insane. that people were so evil, you know, that they would, like, they could do such evil stuff.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Like, very hard. And maybe we are, like, moving in that direction where, you know, it does seem, for sure, I think that... The fact that the war in Gaza has had more images come out of it than any other conflict, that's a huge part of the reason why there's so much protest against it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
Very hard. Very hard. I think me and you might have talked about that last time I was on, right? But it's like. Even the war in Iraq, which is not ancient history, you know, it was still going on. I mean, secondly, we still got troops there now.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2225 - Dave Smith
But like the video footage that would come out would be like, you know, it almost looked like a firework, like kind of exploding, which is that's easy to see and root for. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, good guys kicking ass. But when you're seeing a baby being pulled out of rubble who is just suffocated to death. Oh, that's tough.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
He has a point. And, and what the American people were told, I remember when I was 18 was they hate us for our freedom. And like, that was the, that was all you were allowed to think of Al Qaeda right after nine 11 was like, they did this cause they hate freedom. They hate every, they hate your mom. They hate everything about our life. They hate everything. That's good.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
is that people started kind of reassess that and be like, well, look, we're not in a situation right now where Europe is destroyed. And you know what I mean? Like where the, like the only ones unscathed by this war, Europe is rich. They're fine. A lot of these other countries are like in they're stable. And we're $36 trillion in debt. Our dollar is getting weaker.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Our culture is like totally pitted against each other. Things feel like they're kind of falling apart here. And so it's just – it's a different proposition to go like, hey, you know – My family is taken care of and doing really good and I'm going to help out this other family who's like friends of ours.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
That's a totally different proposition than like when my family is falling apart and are broke and hungry helping out somebody else. Like that's like – that's just a different thing. And so I do think like there should – it's healthy and normal and natural that there should be a movement in America that's concerned with America.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Yeah, well, like if Loving America is right-wing and Free Speech is right-wing and – And working out is right wing. So shouldn't we all be right wing then?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Well, look, I mean the libertarian idea with all of this stuff is to like actually get the government out of the way and let there be a real market. I mean so much of the problem in healthcare in general is that it's just – it's not a real market like any other market. The prices – good luck even finding out what the prices are.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
It's the only business you could walk into where no one in the room knows what the price is. And it's not – and because like I remember – There was one time that my – it was like years ago. It was I think before we got married. But my wife was like – she had a month where she had a lapse in her insurance. And so she had like one month without insurance before she got on mine or something.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
They hate that we have, you know, whatever, whatever, that were Christian, whatever it is.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And she had blood work done the month that she didn't have insurance. So we get some bill.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Oh, okay. Yeah, like taking her blood. And so we get a bill for like $1,400. Okay. And my wife calls them and she's like, oh, yeah, I think what happened was she she went to the doctor when she still had the insurance. But then they sent it to the lab after her insurance expired before the new one kicked in. So she's stuck with this bill or whatever.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And she goes, she goes, oh, so this like fell like in my lap. So like I don't have insurance. And they go, oh, you're uninsured. And she was like, yeah. And they go, oh, we'll knock 70 percent off.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Just like that. Now, party. I remember in the moment being kind of like this many years ago and I was I'm doing better now than I was then. But at the time I was like, oh, sweet. We just knock 70 percent off. But then as soon as I'm like, sweet, I'm like, wait a minute. That's all. The prices are inflated by 70 percent for everybody else who has who has insurance. It's like this.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And it's all because of these crowds. crazy over-regulation, over-government involvement. It's just literally things work better when you have a free market and there's real competition. So that's the libertarian answer to almost everything is like deregulate it, let there be real competition, let it be privatized. But if these private companies fail, let them go out of business.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Don't come in and bail them out. Let them actually have to compete for who can provide a better service to their customers. That's when we get good things.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
You had to listen to Dick Cheney, have a conversation with some news lady on CNN or something like that. But what's interesting, I think for a lot of these young people is when you read Osama bin Laden, you realize that. And I don't think the conclusion should be that he was right. Obviously you're never right when you're killing civilians. Right. Um, but note to Israel, uh, but, uh,
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Oh, yeah. And then you like I mean, it's insane. And then when you if you think about how much money is actually taxed, I mean, like it's not just like that you pay taxes on. But then if you go and buy something from someone else, then they got to pay taxes on the money that you already paid taxes. I just it's nutty. But the Federal Reserve is the central bank.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
That's so it's all kind of confusing because they call it like the Federal Reserve. And so you kind of get this impression that it like, well, it's part of the federal government where they keep reserves of some money or something like that. But that's not what it is at all. It's technically not even a part of the government anymore. It is.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
It's the worst of the government and the worst of not the government, right? So it was created by an act of Congress in 1913. It's the head of the Federal Reserve is appointed by the president. So it's, in that sense, very much a part of the government. However, it gets to maintain its status as a private independent company. They print the money and then lend it to us.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
So they charge us for using dollars, right? They make money off the fact that we use our own currency, that they're just given the right to print out of thin air. So they're a bank. In effect, print out of thin air. I mean, most of it's done on computers these days. But so what they do is it was created by a bunch of powerful bankers.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
There's a great book on this called The Creature from Jekyll Island that really goes through the whole history of it.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I highly recommend everyone read it. Also, Ron Paul and the Fed is another great book on the Federal Reserve also. But so they are – so essentially they print the money and then lend it out. Now, they lend it out to what are called their member banks, meaning all the big banks. So JPMorgan Chase, Schwab, Bank of America, all these guys. Wells Fargo. Yes. So they lend it out to them.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And then those banks lend money to the rest of us at a much higher interest rate than they got it for. So all of the banks now are in the business essentially of getting free money. They just get the money at low interest and lend it out to us at higher interest. So they all get rich off of this.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
It allows the government to spend as much money as they want to because they can print as much money as they want to. while it destroys the currency of the rest of us. And the worst thing about the Federal Reserve from my perspective is that it lets the government get away with just really evil things that they would never be able to get away with if they couldn't print all the money.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
So you could do lockdowns And then just hand out checks because you can print the money. But if you couldn't hand out the checks, you probably wouldn't be able to get away with lockdowns. You could fight a war in Afghanistan for 20 years. Now, if you had to tax people for that war, if you had to say, OK, listen, we want to fight a war in Afghanistan.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
So every quarter, we're going to come to you for another 10% of your income. There'd be massive pressure from people to end the war. But since they just print the money, they're able to keep it going for 20 years. Wow. And it also does a lot to distort markets and just mess everything up because they pump money into markets where there's no real demand for there to be growth there.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
It's a huge scheme. It's privately owned. We don't even have real information on it. There's never been a full audit of the Federal Reserve. Ron Paul was the only one in Congress who was really pushing for an audit. Mm-hmm. I think Thomas Massey also was, but never got it done.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
he had legitimate grievances and a bunch of those grievances are things that know that they never wanted the American people to know about, because then you might have a slightly different feeling about the war. I think the same thing is true with the war in Ukraine too. It's like why they never want you to hear what Putin's issue actually is. Why did he invade this country?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Yeah, but the thing is that their books have never been opened and audited, so we don't really know exactly what's going on. Are we based on gold or not? No, we haven't been on gold for many years. It was in 1973 or 71, was it? Nixon suspended the gold standard, and we've never been back on it since then. 71, sorry. I should have had that one. Why did they suspend the gold standard?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
The idea was that you could – for every dollar you printed, you had to put away a certain amount of gold. So, OK, so what I was talking about before after World War II – Europe is destroyed. America is still left stable. This is when America – they created what was known as the Bretton Wood Agreement. So essentially America was like the dominant power in the world.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
We had the huge portion of the world's gold at this point. And so the deal that we came up with was essentially that other countries would peg their currency to the dollar. and we would peg the dollar to gold. So you were kind of on a gold standard if you went on a dollar standard. And we set the price at $35 an ounce. So for every $35 we printed, we had to put away an ounce of gold.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
OK, so this was the deal. Yeah, I think that's where it was supposed to be. Also has not been audited. But I think that's where it was. I'm sure that it's, I think, long gone. But so, OK, so then you have. So this starts in the late 40s. Bretton Woods started. I want to say 40.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
That's right. So we had gotten off of it and then gotten back onto it. But so what happened is when we're on the Bretton Woods standard, we go onto it in the late 40s. So through the 50s and into the 60s.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
So they're holding dollars, but the dollars are redeemable in gold. That's the idea that you could trade them in for gold anytime you want to.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
It's why they all flipped out when Tucker went and interviewed him. Cause you're like, Oh shit, you get to hear his perspective now. And it's not that necessarily the correct position is to side with Putin. It's not, or to side with Osama. It's not, but it's, it's, It's not wrong to recognize that, like, OK, he's got a point about this. He's got a point about that.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
There was a checks and balances. Right. Except that they we started cheating and we started cheating really blatantly. And so in the 1960s, if you could think about it right, America is doing a lot in the 1960s. Yeah, we have the Great Society. We created Medicare and Medicaid. We put a man on the moon. We fought the war in Vietnam. America is just spending a ton of money.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And so what happened is that a lot of people were holding dollars. Right. And they're holding dollars that they're promised are good, are convertible to gold. And I believe it was mostly led by France. But I think England was involved in this, too. But they essentially called America's bluff. And they went, you know, you guys are spending a whole lot of money. I'm thinking we'll take our gold.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Like we got all these dollars. We'd like to convert them into gold. So they called America's bluff. And Richard Nixon was like, nah. And so the way he spun it, it was just a giant default. Slick Rick. It was just a huge default to the world. Like we're just not, no. But the way he spun it, which is actually pretty laughable.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
He was like, you know, the French are trying to destabilize the dollar and we will not let this attack stand. So I have to temporarily – those are his words – temporarily suspend the convertibility from dollars into gold. So he basically told them, go fuck yourself. We don't have gold, but we do have a much bigger military than you, so you will take this. And then –
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Throughout the years, I mean, America just came to continue to dominate the world, so there was no real option for France to do nothing. But ever since then, we have not been on a gold standard or any standard whatsoever.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I mean, I think they would say they still have it. But again, it's like much like the Federal Reserve. I believe I don't think Fort Knox has been audited in all of this time. So I don't think we really know.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Yeah. Just because I got invited and it's just kind of like how could you not go? I mean it's just – it's like it's American history. And it's also – this was such a big election too. It feels like such a seismic shift. And I got invited and I'm just like, come on. I mean I don't know. I can't – I'm too much of a history nerd to not be like there for that.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Osama, aside from being an Islamist, which we all know he was. And what does Islamist mean? Well, meaning like a fundamentalist, you know, not just a Muslim, but like a believer in like the most fundamentalist doctrine of Islam. OK. He was that. But then he's got all these grievances listed in his declaration of war against America and his open letter to America. What were some of them?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Well, I try to be I try to be attached to principles, you know, and not be attached to politicians. So, you know, it's like I supported Trump in this last election just because I thought Kamala Harris was I thought she was such an insult to all of us. You know, like it was like, come on, you can't actually do this.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And to not have a primary and then just hand select her and then all the all the lying about Biden, all the going around with the lying about Biden was crazy. I just couldn't stand that. So I supported Trump. But as soon as Trump starts doing something I think is wrong, I'll be the first one to be like, yeah, dude, this is – he's fucking up. Oh, yeah. I think that's the way everyone should be.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I think people are way, way, way – I hate – I'm also glad for that that election season is over. I hate when people get so like dug in. Me too. you're not even really being a person. You're not even really having a conversation anymore. You're kind of getting into this. Like once you pick a side and you're like, I've decided my side is the good side. They're the evil side.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Now you're in a like ends justify the means. Now you're trying to make the world fit that. Yeah. And it's also just a thing where it's like, you would see this all the time. Yeah. especially during the election.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I mean, I remember being on a couple of these shows that I do where I think I said to Pierce Morgan at one point, like I was just like, I was like, maybe everyone will be willing to have a conversation in a couple of weeks once this election's over. But right now everyone's just in their dumb, like, cause you're, you get to a point where you're like, I got to just win. My side has to win.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And it doesn't matter about like telling the truth. It doesn't matter about actually grappling with what the other person said. So I try my best to, to stay away from that.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And it's one of these weird things, right? Because it's like someone will... You know, it's like someone online who you don't even know. You could see a video and someone's saying something really compelling and you're like, oh, that's interesting. And then you're like, oh yeah, but people are liars. So like this guy might be lying to me or the guy he's talking to about might be lying to me.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And, you know, there are things like this all. It's like, you know, there's, you know, part of the thing when the people on CNN or whatever, they'll be like, there's misinformation on the internet. Like they are right. There isn't misinformation on the internet. I thought, did you see the thing with the Hollywood, uh, sign on fire. It was burning? It was going super viral.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Everyone thought, oh, the Hollywood sign. No, it was just a doctored AI image or whatever. Yeah, I heard it burned up. There are people who will lie to you, but then at the same time, the person on CNN who's like, oh, all these guys are lying to you, you're like, yeah, but you're lying to me too, man. So that's the weird thing navigating this world.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
There's just like all this information and so much of it's bullshit.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Oh, I'll be on. I'm on the road like all year. Comic Dave Smith dot com. Yeah, I got I've got a bunch of ticket links and dates that are up there already. And there should be more on the website in the next week or so. But you're going to Bozeman. Oh, yeah. For the first time ever. I've never been to Montana.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I'm really excited to go out there in a few days. And then Louisville, Fort Wayne, Key West.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
No, no. I mean it's not even that complicated. I mean the major ones were – the number one was that we have military bases in their holy land in Saudi Arabia. They hate this. They find this to be like a total – and I'm no like expert on Islam. But from their perspective, this is blasphemy.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Just staying in a hotel every night, basically. Yeah, I guess if you do that for a year, you could rack up a lot of money. Down in the Florida.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Well, that is. It's true. And that's how our Federal Reserve operates. You could have done that for 50 grand on my grandpa's dollar, but there you go. Yeah, you can't stay at a resort for a year and a half, man. That's going to be a really big bill.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
There's, I definitely know people who did worse during the pandemic than that. So that's not bad.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Oh, by the way, while I'm plugging things, I should mention this one to make my friends happy. But we are a dude, man, you got to come. But we're doing a skank fest in New Orleans. No way.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
During the Super Bowl? Where? Huh? When is it? I believe it's in November. But it is, if you haven't been to Skank Fest, it's the best comedy festival in the world. And we've done it in Vegas for the last few years, but we're moving it to New Orleans this year. Very excited for that. I've never done comedy in New Orleans before.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
They run the whole festival. They do a phenomenal job. Shout out to Christine and Rebecca. Rebecca owns the Creek in the Cave in Austin. Great comedy club out there.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Every time I go there, dude, it's just like, I felt, and even before Rogan opened the mothership, obviously like more so now, but even before then it was just kind of like, oh, there's like an energy here. It's like fun to do spots and hang out.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And there's like, it's, I feel like in New York, like even, which is where I'm from, where I started, even when I go back there, like, I don't, I like feel like I don't know anyone anymore. But like in Austin, be like, oh, all my friends are hanging out. You know what I mean?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Like it reminds me of what it used to be like in New York when it always every night would be all my friends are hanging out. Now you get there. I'm like, I don't know who half of these people are.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
No, I was waiting for you to go further. Further about what? You disappointed me. I did? I'm just kidding. Oh, no. I was waiting for you to really tear into the Jews. No, no, no. No, you didn't offend me at all. Okay. I think you made perfect sense.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
No, it's a real – it's a skill set. It's a real skill set. And there's a difference also between just like – there's like – Just like doing your own thing, like just ranting is a whole different skill set than like talking to somebody. You know what I mean? And I do think that like I think there's nothing wrong with like being like, hey, all right, hold on.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Let me think about that for a little bit. In fact, I think not nearly enough people do that. Yeah. Conversations. You're like, huh, you just said something. Let me like actually think about that for a second. Rather than just give you like my first – the first thought that comes to my mind. Let me actually give you like what my genuine thought is.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I, I appreciate that. And I do, that's always what I admire in other people. So that's kind of like what I always try to do. Like I, I'm sure I'm wrong about a lot of stuff, but I'm not lying about anything. And I'm not, uh, like I believe everything I'm saying.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And then that's my – on Twitter, that's my handle too, ComicDaveSmith.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Oh, dude. But also, like, I mean, look, if we even if just you looked at it from a not religious point of view. I mean, if there was like Chinese or Russian military bases in our country and we knew that like they're the real boss here. You know what I mean? Like it's not – let's get real. America is not like on par with the Saudi government.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
We're the world empire and they're our little satellite over there. That would make people infuriated. I mean people over here, liberals over here got infuriated about Trump being connected to Russia and that wasn't even true. So like imagine it was true and there were Russian bases like all over the place. People would lose their minds.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
We wouldn't stand for it. That was a major – that was the major one. But it's – the military bases, it was us, our support for Israel and what they do to the Palestinians. And then – He mentioned that? Oh, yeah. Yeah. This was the major, major part. Wow. I didn't know that. Yes. So they were furious about that because Israel is not too kind to their Palestinian neighbors.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And so that was a big part of it. Yeah, it's heartbreaking over there. Oh, yeah. And, you know, this has been the worst thing that Israel's ever done to the Palestinians over the last year plus. But it's not like this is where it started.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Number three. So there what he what he was specifically talking about.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
So what it says here is I'm not sure what we're reading, but accusations of U.S. exploitation of the region's natural resources. And what he's talking about there is us insisting that they keep oil artificially low. the price of oil artificially low, which is true.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I mean, you know, even just when I remember a couple years ago when inflation was at its worst, the Biden administration just asked the Saudis to lower the price of oil because, you know, then, well, that'll make prices cheaper here, help face less political pressure of people being mad about gas being so expensive.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
But when you really think about what the ask is there, the ask is, hey, make your people poorer, so that our people can be richer. And so this was a big beef they had too. But- By lowering the value of it, basically.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Right, by selling it for less. We get cheaper energy, but your people get less money. So that was one of their major beefs. And then at the time, you got to remember, because this was in the 90s, or actually, I'm not sure, the Letter to America- Might have been later. But his declaration of war against America was like in 96.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
But so the big thing at the time was the Clinton's bombing campaign of Iraq and his blockade of Iraq. So there's like – it's debated how many people died from it. The UN estimated at one point that 500,000 children had died from starvation and malnutrition. So that was – so it's like he had all these grievances and a lot of them involved – the U S either directly or indirectly killing Muslim kids.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Yeah. And you know, I mean, look, I, I, obviously you're, he's wrong for doing terrorism, but I think most of us could admit that like, yeah, if anyone, you know, if, if any of us like children that we care about were being slaughtered, we might be ready to do some violent stuff on behalf of that too.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Yeah, no, I mean, look, and that's... You know what I'm saying? Does that make any sense to you a little bit? Yeah, well, I think according to the British Empire, our founding fathers were a bunch of terrorists probably, right?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Now, the cover story, the reason they claimed at first that they were trying to ban it was because of China. But it really wasn't until the war broke out in Gaza that this pressure kind of started mounting. But the China thing, I mean, I don't know.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
You know, I remember like Tucker did a whole thing on this back when he still had the show on Fox News and he was showing the thing where like, I don't know, have you ever seen like the way the algorithm on TikTok works in China compared to the way it works in America?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
The number one trending video for 17 year olds in China is like a kid playing the violin or something. And then ours is just some chick twerking, you know, like on a sports car or something like that. And then they were like kind of saying like, oh, see, it's China's poisoning our kids' minds. But I always thought
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I mean I don't know what the answer is, but like isn't it possible that our kids are just – Poisoning our own minds. Yeah, like their algorithm is just showing them this garbage and their algorithm is showing them this.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Because like if I go – if I just made a conscious effort to go on Twitter every day and only look up like violin lessons, I'm sure that's what the algorithm would start sending me after a while. So I've always like been suspicious that it's like I think our culture is just messed up and that.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Like, so, um, you know, I, I was wondering, I remember asking a friend about this, like this was a while ago, but it was, uh,
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
10 years ago or something like that but it was like when I started noticing that I was like what's up with all the porn categories of like family swap and this and that and a buddy of mine said this to me and I thought oh man that kind of makes sense but he was like oh you know what it is is he goes nowadays like families are so broken up and mish-mashed and everyone's from divorces and everything that so many people grew up with like a stepmom and step-siblings and
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
So you'd just be a kid. And then all of a sudden you got like these new girls who aren't your mother and sister. You know what I mean? Like living in your house. And so like that's what led to that, which I don't know if that theory is correct or not. It sounds like that, dude. I was like, yeah, either he's a really sick person or you're onto something.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I'm so glad you asked. I've been dying to talk to someone about this.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Yeah. Like they're... And what difference does it make? I mean, I just... You know, I know people were giving me shit because I said something about this on Pierce Morgan's show the other day. But, you know, they were trying to make it out like... It was... The topic was about how Mark Zuckerberg just announced that he's going to let people talk on Facebook again or whatever. And...
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
You know, someone was arguing with me that like, well, the government, the U.S. government has to like have these conversations with Facebook because all of these foreign governments are trying to propagandize us. And I'm just like – I don't know. After the last few years, how are you going to tell me that D.C. should get in charge because other people are trying to lie to us?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Like all of the most blatant, most consequential lies have come from my own government. So like I just don't get worked up over this like Iran is trying to propaganda.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
OK, so like tell me, when was the last time Iran had like an effective propaganda campaign that actually, you know, like like led to something in America? OK, well, my own government had this country like literally had people like cutting family members out of their lives because they didn't take a vaccine. Yeah. And the Russiagate hoax. Yeah, the Russiagate. You literally sat here all you guys.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
For four years. And literally told us that what if true would have been the biggest story in the history of the United States of America.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
But imagine if it were true, like you were making the claim that the sitting president of the United States of America is involved in a conspiracy with a hostile foreign power. It was all bullshit. And all you guys still have your jobs. All the people who sold that are still the ones complaining on the news today that no one trusts them without even thinking about that.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Well, also just that it's Donald Trump. I mean, like say whatever you want about Donald Trump. He was a known commodity. He's like the most American thing. He's the most famous rich guy of all time. Like you're telling me he was a Russian spy. It just made no sense. And then they had nothing. They had no evidence to support it at all.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I mean, what he's doing to these people is like it's the most inexcusable, just horrific thing in the world. And the fact that, you know, like I said this on Rogan's podcast and I. I got shit for it, but I stand by this, but it's just like, you know, it's just like throughout all the history, there's just all this horrible shit.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
It's just slavery and wars and genocides and ethnic cleansing campaigns and all this. And every single point in history, there was someone there who would justify it and be like, no, we have to, we have to. And for, we have reasons why it's okay to do this. And they bend over backward and twist themselves into pretzels to explain why they're the real victims.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And they really have to do this to these people. Cause if they don't, then they do it to them. But it's all indefensible. You're like, you just defend an evil shit. And I feel the same way about Israel, man. It's just to defend what they're doing to a group of people who are captive, who they've been occupying since 1967. You know, you've been occupying. They don't have a military.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
They don't have a government. They don't have an air force. They don't have it. They have no means of defending themselves. And you are just destroying the place.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Well, they always do. The only thing that's different is that now it's actually a challenge for them to do that. But every war relies on lies and every war relies on totally dehumanizing the enemy. Because if you can't do that, you're in a lot of trouble. If you leave just a little inch of humanity for those people, then immediately you're going to go, oh, my God, what are we doing?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Because if that was your brother's kid or your nephew, your son, you'd lose your mind about someone doing that to them.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I mean the estimates I think are – have been so far like undercounted. I think a lot more people than we initially thought are dying. But it was – I think I saw it. The estimate was that two-thirds of the dead were women and children. So I don't know what – you know, exactly the breakup between the women and children is.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I feel, is there a gym there? I feel like you'd feel really good about yourself in the gym. Like, if you were just like, you know what I mean?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And I don't know if there are good numbers on that, but Gaza is 50% children. Like that's one of the major things that makes it such a humanitarian. It sounds like such a fun place to kids.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I mean, I don't know if you have no choice, but there, but there's definitely like there's this human impulse and it's, this is always what's going on with all these wars on both sides. Right. I get in trouble for talking about this. Do you think? Yeah, probably. I don't know if, I don't know. But yeah, maybe I can't really get in any more trouble. Have you been in a lot of trouble?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Well, I've been talking about it so much for the last year and I don't know what trouble even means anymore. I mean, I'm fine. So like some people seem mad at me on the Internet, but I don't care. And so it's I. It seems OK. But, you know, of course, like you, I could totally imagine that if you were like, let's say one of your family members was killed by Hamas militants on October 7th.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I could understand where you'd have the attitude. You'd be like, man, let's go fucking fuck this. Oh, I turn into William Wallace, you know.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
But that's but that also is the same thing that's going on with the Palestinians. Right. And so a whole bunch of them, in fact, a lot more of them have seen their family members killed and stuff. And so they're ready to go, you know, like slaughter as many people as they can in the same sense that like right after 9-11 Americans were like, hey. Let's go. Let's go blow some shit up.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I mean, I don't know. You tell us who did this and let's go blow them up. And then like, even if it's not exactly the people who did it, you know, okay. I mean, when we fought the war in Afghanistan, even forget Iraq, that just had nothing to do with it. But in Afghanistan, it's like, It wasn't Afghans who attacked us. It was some Arabs who were- Saudi Arabians. Yeah, right.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
It was Saudis and Egyptians, right, who were hanging out in Afghanistan. And then with the special ops missions, we drove them all out and destroyed all their bases. And then it was like, okay, we got this Taliban here. Well, they're not exactly guilty of it, but, well, something's got to be blown up, and so we're going to go fight those guys. But then the thing is that
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
The thing with Osama bin Laden's letter is that you're like, oh, but that's kind of their motivation too. Like they're also a bunch of people going, hey, we just saw a bunch of our people get killed. We're going to come fuck some of you guys up. And so that's kind of the attitude everybody has.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
to affect harm on new america well i mean there's this is why we had to deal with that insurgency over there that took us so many years to ultimately lose to um you know there's people people don't like when you invade their country and destroy and destroy their homes and kill their relatives and stuff like that and yeah imagine if you think about that first nobody in iraq had anything to do
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
with 9-11. I mean, there were some Al-Qaeda members who came into Iraq to fight as part of the insurgency after we invaded. But when we invaded, there was no one in Iraq who had anything to do with 9-11. And- They must have been like, what the fuck? Well, imagine, particularly if you're like, Saddam Hussein was their problem. Not ours.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Like Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator, but he wasn't our brutal dictator. He was – they were the ones who had to live under Saddam Hussein. So now they're living under this brutal dictator and then they got the most powerful military in the history of the world invading and just wrecking the country all because – well, we can get into that. But largely because Netanyahu wanted us to do it.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Did he really? Netanyahu is a huge, huge part of the war in Iraq. Why do we keep supporting him? There's an interesting dynamic. I mean there's a lot of things going on. So part of it is that there's – well, there were the neoconservatives who were really big in the George W. Bush years and they were –
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
all of them fanatically pro-israel um there is there's apec and there's the adl and southern poverty law center and there are these organizations in the country that will they it is their business to ruin your life if you're against israel particularly if you're in politics and you're against israel i mean they just poured insane amounts of money uh they lost but they tried to get thomas massey
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
primaried out of his Congress seat. He's the guy that doesn't want to have an AIPAC guy, right? Yeah, he's the only one who doesn't, according to him, the only one who doesn't have an AIPAC guy. So they do not like him. But there's lots of other factors involved in this. There's also things like blackmail operations. There's like Epstein, stuff like that. And then there's also –
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
evangelical Christians in this country fanatically support Israel as well. So there's like a whole bunch of forces that Israel has a, let's say a very outsized influence on us policy.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
You probably can't stand up. To that battlefront, yeah. But that's like, there's got to be something... It's probably a real compliment to a chick if you're like, I'm risking it all. I'm risking it all just to try to fuck you right now. That's the ultimate, like nothing could be any better.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Well, that's been – that was the thinking for a long time. Right. And that if we had – there was a big concern for a lot of people in the American security apparatus back in the day that the Soviet Union was going to take control of the Middle East. And if they really controlled that oil supply, then they would be too strong and we'd have a real problem on our hands there.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
This is why Jimmy Carter who just died, he in 1980 declared the – what's known as the Carter Doctrine where he was like, listen, we are treating the Persian Gulf like it's America. Essentially saying to the USSR, they had already invaded Afghanistan and it was like if you invade Iran, we are going to fight Iran. We're going to fight with the US military because we won't let you have all of this.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
So that's always been a concern and I do think that Israel being kind of like our buddy there felt like, OK, this will be a good way that we can control the region. But then this is – yeah, this was at his State of the Union in early 1980.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
By the way, there's just – it's interesting here, right? So this is – he's saying this in January of 1980. It was in 1979 was when the Ayatollahs had the revolution in Iran. So this is – the government that's in Iran today, our mortal enemy, they had just come into power – So what Jimmy Carter is talking about doing here is defending Iran against the Soviet Union.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Like this country now that is the one that they all want war with. Back then he was like, but if – you know what I mean? If Gorbachev or whoever was Gorbachev in there yet by 80 – yeah, I think so. Be like if he goes and moves on Iran – Then we're going to come to the defense militarily of Iran, which is just kind of weird to think about now.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Yeah, and they had just – well, they had just – they had just – them into the war in Afghanistan, which was also their plan. And this guy, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who you see down there, he's the national security advisor. He had been the one who really pushed this policy of luring the Soviets into Afghanistan to give them their own Vietnam was the idea.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
My grandfather lived in like a, I don't know what, nursing home type deal for like a couple years before he died. He was really, the people who work there, it was just such a funny dynamic. It was like all, it was like all black people people from like the inner city and then like old Jews. And all the black people who worked there are just rolling their eyes at these old people the whole time.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And a lot of people credit that as one of the major factors that brought the Soviet Union down. And So we had lured them into a war in Afghanistan, but then they got real concerned that like while they're here, they might also just go take a round. So we better send them a message like if you do that, you're going to have problems. So that was the idea was to keep them out of there.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
That's exactly right. And it's that if you're coming from, if you're in a situation where you're, look, when it comes to Israel and Palestine, it's not, there's no parity between the two of them. It's not like, oh, these are two nation states around the same strength. Like Palestine isn't a nation state. They don't have a government.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Halfway house of Arabs. Yes, exactly. And so there's when Israel has all the power, all the leverage, all the chips. And if you're in a situation where everybody's saying, hey, you guys have been like at war for so long and we want peace. Well, who's supposed to make the first concession when one side has all the chips?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Good for you, dude. I mean, I guess we were you like smoking or vaping or just doing the pouches? Oh, I would do.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
So I know I'm I vape all the time. I'm totally embarrassed by it. I wish I was a man and I just smoked. But I don't know.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And no one will feel bad for you. Everyone will side with that guy. They'll be like, free the slaves!
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
He seems like he's not exactly clear what – and it's weird because the talk was – initially the talk was like that it was a China thing and Trump always tried to be the most hawkish on China. But even he does seem like he's not – doesn't really seem like he's got strong convictions about getting rid of it. My guess is that TikTok survives. I don't know if I'm right or wrong about that.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Frank McCourt and someone else is going to be buying TikTok, they said. So I think the thing is that if they sell, then they escape the legislation because basically it was saying it's because it's owned – their parent company is owned by the CCP or whatever. So I have a feeling – I think that – There's been there was a real move to really censor the Internet over the last few years.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
My grandfather, every time I went to see him, he accused them of stealing from him. None of these people were ever stealing from him. None of them. It was just pure racism. And it was like things that like, he'd be like, they took the art off the wall. And I'd be like, there was no art on this wall. This is all in your mind. He's like, this is not now. He made me... He made me move a dresser.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
It seems to me like it's failed and that they're just they've accepted they're not going to be able to do it.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
It's a weird thing how the internet has kind of like very organically grown into almost – it's almost like long form or seven seconds. Yeah. Like there's no like middle ground anymore. It's always like, OK, we want to hear a four-hour conversation or give me six seconds of whatever you got and then we'll do 100,000 of those. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
So the way I look at it is kind of like, it's like if you had like, say like a buddy of yours or something was in like just an awful relationship, you know, like just like the chick he's with is like the worst. Oh, it's like you hate her and she's shitty to him and she's so mean to him. She cheats on him. She's just the worst.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And then like if he breaks up with her and he's like, I'm just dating, I'm dating a bunch. And you're like, great. Thank God. You're like back out there. Go find someone else. That chick was a nightmare, you know? And they'd be like, well, I'm meeting some nice girls, but I'm meeting some real awful girls, too. It's like, OK, well, whatever. Just get out there.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And that's kind of how I feel about like I'm just happy that the young generation isn't consuming the corporate media. And like I'm sure on TikTok, they get some bad stuff and then they get some good stuff. But at least you're out there like shopping around and you're not just listening to like CNN tell you that a racket. has weapons of mass destruction and we need to go fight this war with them.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Or just listening to MSNBC tell you that Trump's a Russian spy or whatever. It's like, all right, yeah, get out there. Mingle a little bit. See what kind of crazy person's on TikTok. I don't know. One of them might be like, oh, it's, you know, one of them's like, it's the Jews. And then someone else is like, you know, whatever. The gays or whatever. Okay.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Maybe some of them are wrong, but at least you got a shot of meeting someone who might have something interesting to say to you.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I was like 12. And he made me move this big dresser to check if there was change behind it. Oh, yeah. And then there was nothing. And I was like, there's no change behind it. And he was like, they stole it. And I was like, wait, there was supposed to be change behind it? Like you were keeping your change behind the dresser? That's the old Jewish change behind the dresser trick, I think, isn't it?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Look, 100%, I completely agree. And then also, it's just like, I think... Like I was saying before, I don't trust any of you motherfuckers to be the arbiter of what is true and what isn't true. So forget anyone having this control over getting to decide what's misinformation or what's disinformation. Because it's the old – it's like the old Lord Atkin quote about like – The Atkin's Diet?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
He's the original. No, it was before that. He didn't figure that out. But he's the guy who said – Lord Atkin or Atkin? Atkin. Man, am I messing? Atkin, I believe. He's the one who said the quote about power corrupt. Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
But it's like as soon as you have the power to determine what the truth is, then you're corrupted already just by like having that power.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Now you need three more generations of Vons before you're like a real rich prick who just thinks they're better, like an old money.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
It's constant. I've clicked on his thing before and been like, Jesus. How do we see how many?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Wait, so hold on. 66.5 thousand posts. I want to like. I thought that's what it said. Can you find out how do you.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Do you see how many I have? I'm curious. How many tweets have I ever sent? Like I want to compare this to. Are you big on there, Davey? I mean, I use it pretty often. Yeah. 22,000. All right, I'm falling behind.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I've spent too much time on Twitter. 2012, it says there. How long have you been on?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I think it was, I think a lot of his have come recently, you know, like, yeah, he's real. And it'll be like late at night too. And there'll be like, just like a bunch of them. All hours. Some of it's like a Barbados accent too. He does. He seems like boss. He's enjoying kind of bureaucracy.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Um, I, it seems to me it's definitely changing. I mean, really drastically. And it's, uh, it's not gone. Like there are still people who are getting censored and there are still, there was a thing like a couple of weeks ago where I guess a group of people who let's say the people who, um, liberals would call anti-Semitic.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
It's just like, you know, Judaism, it's a weird thing because it's like a religion, but then it's also kind of a race, and then it's kind of a nationality with Israel. So basically, a bunch of Jews went and started their own country in Israel in the 40s. But these were Jews from Europe.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And I think, you know, like people who talk a lot about the Jews, whatever the, I'm not like trying to add my own value judgment into this, but whatever you think you would call it, a lot of them lost their blue check marks and like stuff like that. What they were accusing people of doing anti-Semitic. Yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Yeah, so there have been – like there are – but I mean to compare it to like – I mean during like 2020, 2021, 2022, I mean you couldn't – if you said anything about like the vaccine or whatever, I mean I know you felt it with – you had the thing when Dana White was on. You were talking about sponsors giving you a hard time and stuff.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
There was a total – not just on social media but in general, there was a total like feeling that like you weren't even allowed to say – anything that went against the regime. The regime is this.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And if you are against what they're doing right now, and I mean, there's always pressure. There's always like, you'll get called names or something if you do that. But for a while there, it was straight up like, you would lose your accounts. And for a lot of people, like for me, that was a scary prospect for a long time.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Cause it was kind of like we had, at least in the comedy world that I'm in and in the political shit talking world that I'm in, it's, I kind of long ago accepted like, okay, I'm not going to get like a corporate job. Like no big corporation is going to hire me at this point, which is fine. But then you're like, oh, there's this internet thing. So you can have your show on the internet.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
You can have your own fans. But then when – You can have your own voice. Yeah, but then you're like, oh, they might come and take that away. It's not just that you can't get Saturday Night Live or something on Comedy Central or something like that. But it's like, oh, they could come and like –
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
You know, if you could have your podcast, but if you can't have – if you can't be on iTunes or YouTube or Facebook or Twitter or whatever, you're kind of screwed in this world. And so I am very happy that at least now – it at least kind of feels like the dominant culture seems to more be like, no, we should be able to say what we want to say right now. I think that's a very positive change.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Are you thinking you're going to take me down for talking about you at Yahoo? No, I think you're going to be OK on this one. But I don't know. I mean, you know, I would hate to say that. And then like next week, you just show up at my house and you're just like, hey, man, can I crash for a while? Because you you ruined me. So that's like, all right.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And it's oh, it's so ridiculous. The idea of like in the same way, if you were like, well, I don't like Joe Biden very much. And you'd be like, so does that mean you hate Americans? You're like, what? No. I just don't like this guy. And you could hate the whole government and not hate the people.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And then – and it's only with Israel and they intentionally do this where they conflate this thing where it's like, oh, if I have the – like if I was like – if I came and told you like the government of France just did this thing, I think it's terrible what they did. And there's lots of terrible things that the government of France has done. So I could pick some.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
who went to, you know, now, according to the Bible or whatever, thousands of years ago, we were all from there, but the Jews from Europe went and started there, but lots of other Jews just didn't leave Europe or didn't leave America, and so they never had anything to do with Israel. Oh, okay. But they still play on kind of like your, you know,
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
That doesn't mean I'm not going to cheer for Cyril Ghosn when he fights.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And you were like, you're an anti-Frankite. You hate all the French people. You'd be like, that doesn't even make sense as a response to I have a problem with the government. But they tried it. They use that with Israel where it's like, oh, if you criticize them, you hate Jewish people. That's stupid.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And it's not even clear sometimes. Like, what do you even mean by that? Like, what are you even? And also, I do think just like the whole woke ism stuff has been so rejected, especially recently that you're like people are kind of sick of just like like accusations of bigotry aren't actually a response. To someone, you know? Yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
If you're like – if I say I think what Israel is doing is wrong and your response is, well, you're a bigot, it's like – your response should be, oh, I don't think what they're doing is wrong and here's why. And then we could actually talk about it. But just to call someone like, oh, you're a Jew hater, you're racist, you're homophobic, it's just played out and tired.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Yeah. It's a very like convenient retelling of history for Zuckerberg to go. So the government was saying, we have to censor these things that are true. And we were like, no, we're not going to do that. OK, what really happened is the government said you're going to censor these things that are true. And he said, yes, sir, and did it for eight fucking years.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
come on, you got to support us because we're for you, this is the Jewish state, this is what protects Jewish people. So a lot of Jews do feel sympathy to Israel, even the ones who don't have any connection, even ones who have never been there.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
OK, and then at the end of these eight years, when Trump wins a dominant victory and now the guy who you kicked off of Facebook is now president again. And now the whole culture is turned against you and he's threatening to like, you know, like look into you. He's coming. And there's a lot of like pressure. pretty quasi-illegal stuff that was done.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
So now you said, okay, we're not going to do this again. While Joe Biden is literally on his hands and knees pooping his pants on the way out with terrible numbers and Donald Trump's coming in popular again. So, okay, yes. So for him to spin that as the government said we should do this thing and we said, no, that's ridiculous. Okay, that's not exactly what happened.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Yeah, I agree. Now there's – and this is why Joe remains like the biggest show is because he just gets these moments. But if you – the last time he was on Rogan's podcast was one of the most interesting admissions and it was before he had done this 180 and turned around. But when Joe asked him about the Hunter Biden thing –
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And he goes, so like the story with the Hunter Biden laptop, how did you guys handle that? And Zuckerberg said, the FBI came to us and told us there's about to be a big Russian dump. So they must have known that this laptop was about to come out. And they went to Facebook, told them preemptively, it's Russian disinformation. And that's why they censored the whole thing.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And that is like, that admission is like blatant election interference by the FBI against the sitting president, which makes it that even that much worse. Cause like in some, on some level, like if the FBI or the CIA or someone like that was like interfering in an election, you'd already be like, okay, that's crazy, illegal, unethical, you know, unconstitutional.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Like we don't have a democracy if we have three letter agencies interfering in elections. Right. However, You'd assume at least they were doing it on the side of the president who they work for, not against the president who they work for. Now we're in a level of like treason, like you're working against the commander in chief who you're supposed to say, sir. Yes, sir. To and follow his rules.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Yeah, because sometimes I wonder like – yeah, because I start hearing about like Jewish, then I hear Zionist, and Zionist means – Zionist means – I think technically speaking, Zionist means you believe that Jews should have a homeland in what is now called Israel. So that's more like the belief that Jews should have this country over there. And then –
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
You know, I mean, OK, you if you're the FBI, you're in the under the Justice Department. But still, like the president is that this was in this was in Trump was in office. Yeah, this is the one I'm referring to. Yes, this one. This is when or I don't know when the podcast was, but he's talking about the Hunter Biden story, which was October of 2020.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
So right before the election, when Trump is still in office.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Yeah, well, he goes on to say that it was a meaningful – impact that turning down the signal had on it. But what's interesting is that he blatantly says that it was the FBI who came to them and told them that this very true story, which was a real scandal that was an October surprise that very clearly could have moved the needle in the election. They suppressed that for one reason only.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And that's because they wanted Biden to win and not Trump to win. And Zuckerberg played a big role in that. Not as big, I guess, as Twitter at the old. Oh, yeah. Dorsey admitted it. Yeah. Yeah. And I look, I do think to some degree. These guys are under duress from the government. I mean, they're threatened and all types of pressure is put on them to go along with the censorship stuff.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Yeah. Well, and if you think about like even just the – if you think about the – how much government cares about controlling the narrative, one of the things that's really interesting from the more recent clip that – the one we played first here, he says that they were really upset about a meme.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
A Leonardo DiCaprio meme. They were really upset about that. Which literally, isn't that fascinating in a way that they are so threatened by you making a joke about their bullshit? But if you zoom out and think about it, it's like governments always insist on controlling monopolizing information. You know, controlling the narrative is the most important thing to them.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
That's more important than controlling the money or the banks or the laws or anything. It's like controlling the narrative, controlling how people think, what the kind of like the range, the Overton window of allowable opinion or what, you know, and that's, and you see it all the time. You see they spaz out when people are just outside of the realm of allowable opinion.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And even if you think about like the way think about the way our government's set up. We're like, okay, the government, there's like a group of services that the government has a monopoly on. And they had a monopoly on the schools,
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Now, then there's like kind of a separation between that and someone could theoretically be a Zionist, but also be like the way they're doing it over there is all wrong.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
uh, the post office, you know, like even, it's like wherever the information is coming from, the media, the universities, you know, these are always the things that governments get involved in. And then all of a sudden there's a revolution. And now the, um, you know, the, the public square, uh, is Facebook and Twitter and these social media.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
So now these people are in control for the first time of this. So of course, and what really happened was after Donald Trump won in 2016, they really started cracking down on them. Because they realized the guy who wasn't supposed to win won, and he did it by utilizing social media and going around
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
the the corporate media and going around the political machine just to talk right to voters that really shook them up and so yeah they hauled zuckerberg and and dorsey and all of them before congress they threatened the shit out of them i'm sure he's right that they were on the phone cursing and screaming at him and putting all types of pressure so fine if zuckerberg i would be much more sympathetic if zuckerberg had come out on rogan's podcast this time and been like listen i just i've under the weight of this pressure i gave in right and i became like a a
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
tool for the regime to censor people, but I don't want to do that anymore. And so now I'm committing to this. I'd be like, yes, he's a hero. But the way he kind of like yada yadas over like, anyway, the government wanted to do this stuff. I was like, nah, man, I'm not going to do that. I'm cool. Right, Rogan?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
So you don't have to like support the government. But Zionist typically means that. But now it's just kind of become it's become shorthand for someone who supports Israel. OK.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Yeah, listen, to apologize, I don't even exactly understand what they were like. They're... I think a lot of kids who got trafficked or something like that. And I'll have to look into that. Yeah. But that also shouldn't be done. Like an apology like that shouldn't be done with reporters. I agree. All this. I also cannot stand.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I'm sorry, but I just hate the grandstanding of politicians in Congress. Like like I think Zuckerberg's like response to that should have been like. you preside over the biggest war machine in the history of the world.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
So if you want to talk about apologizing to innocent people who have got, you got your work cut out for you, you focus on your apologies, but I would love to invite like any of these parents if they want to sit down in a private room after that, we can have a long conversation about this.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And then like give a real moment or like, you know, you can't, if someone like loses their kid or their kid's raped or tortured or something, it can't just be like a, I'm sorry that happened and we are working hard to make sure it doesn't happen in the future. You want to sit down and be like, hey, tell me your story. Don't even hear from me. Let me hear from you.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
You tell me your story, and then I'll try to empathize with what you've gone through.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
They're looking for a political stunt to be like, I got Zuckerberg to admit that he was wrong. And the families always get wheeled out for that kind of stuff. And I also don't like that the air is always like – it's always a question of what you should be censoring. And like – listen, I'm sure we would probably agree, right?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Like if there are people trying to traffic kids or something like that, like yes, OK, you'd want to kick those accounts off or report them to the police or whatever. But it's always Congress like talking about – how dangerous the freedom that people have is on your site. Oh, it's so dangerous that people can communicate and people, you got to clamp down on this.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And it's like, personally, I'm much, what is it? The old, I think it's a Thomas Jefferson quote, or maybe I'm getting that wrong. Actually, it's not Jefferson, but whatever the quote was like, it might've been Hamilton, but it was like, I'd rather deal with the inconveniences of too much liberty than those associated with too little of it.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
You know, it's like I'd rather it's always like they're always warning you about the problems of too much freedom. Oh, everyone can communicate. That means people are going to come get your kids. I'm like, I'm sure that is there is that concern. And like, you know, I got little kids. I'm concerned about that stuff. But I also kind of feel like,
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
okay, I'll handle making sure my kids don't, you know what I mean, get taken advantage of on the internet. And how about the government get the hell out of the way so we can tell the truth? It was Thomas Jefferson.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
That's a whole other thing. Those guys – I grew up in New York City and they would always be out like in midtown Manhattan and there was no – let me tell you something. Theo, I mean I've come up around some incredibly talented comedians. I've seen some of the best in the world. There is no better comedy show. than being like 15 and just sitting there and watching these guys.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
But someone's job is actually to watch a child being molested and then be like, nope, that video can't go up on Facebook. This is bad.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Well, and I know that, um, you know, it was, I think when, when the, um, I think it was the Egyptian revolution, which, you know, didn't last that long, but they, what they, when they, a real, I believe, um, And forgive me because I haven't – like I'm not the expert on this at all. I haven't read that much about it.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
But like when they overthrew Mubarak, I think that was like a real genuine revolution where like the people really did agree like we want this dictator gone. But I remember that they were – this was – what year was Mubarak overthrown? I want to say it was like 2010. Yeah. 2010, 2011? That was in Kenya? No, this is in Egypt.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
They'd scream at people. And then people would get furious back at them. I've watched like, because their thing is that they're the real Jews. And then they get like little old Jewish men will start yelling at them. No, you're not the real Jew. I'm the real Jew. And we would just be like stone teenagers just watching, just loving it.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
But I do remember that that was one of the things that people were making a big deal of was that there were these giant protests that ultimately ended up bringing down the government. And it was all organized on social media. Everybody's like, oh, we'll meet up here. The protest starts here. And then it was almost like the first time that they were like, whoa, there's real power in these things.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And if you could – 2011. Yeah. So like – Oh, the power of social media. Yeah, it's just like – I mean you're going to get – if you could overthrow governments with these things, you're going to get a lot of attention from governments who are going to be very concerned about what's going on on these sites.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Well, right, and then on top of that, you had, say, someone like Donald Trump. Look, the first time Donald Trump ran, all of the political class, all of the media, all of Hollywood, they all said, this guy is unacceptable. You cannot support this guy.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
He still won, but he also won on a razor-thin margin, lost the popular vote, and just happened to win the right swing states against Hillary, so there was a little bit of a caveat there. But then after January 6th, with how much they pumped into, like, this is the worst thing ever, and look at this horrible guy. You could never support him. Then they go after him with the legal cases.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Then he almost gets his brains blown out on national television. And then after all of that, all the years of he's a Nazi, democracy's over, he's Hitler, the American people go, well, we like him even more now. Like, that's just so crazy. It's so crazy that there's just trust in every American institution has evaporated. They have nothing.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I mean, it's unbelievable that the most famous Hollywood celebrities can't move the needle at all. The entire.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
If they get the second one of them is involved, I'm fucking out. Well, that's right. It almost like, well, that is. And I mean, look, even me, I will admit I'm guilty of it too, that I, I right away, you know, you see another celebrity, they'll be endorsing Kamala Harris tonight. And I'm like, what did you do at the Diddy party? What do they got on you? You know, what are you like?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
It's just, there's so much mistrust of the whole thing. And it's, you know, the, the thing about it is, is a lot of us, like I said, this in our conversation already today, at one point, I don't even remember if it was about Russiagate or COVID or what, but I said, all those people still have their jobs or whatever.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
You know, if you if you look at the New York Times or you look at CNN or all these places, they still got people there who sold us the war in Iraq and they still have their jobs. You know, like they didn't get fired. These people make great money. They're still at the end. Nothing. But it's like it's something almost like spiritual.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
There's always a price, even if you think there was no consequence. Oh, there is a consequence. And so like. You just think for so many years they lied us into wars, into financial recessions. They lied about everything about COVID. They lied about Russiagate. They lied about all this shit. They lied about Joe Biden not being senile. They lied about Kamala Harris not being retarded.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
They lied about everything they could think of. And there is a price for that. And the price is that no one believes you anymore. Yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And there's so many people like that. So like, could there be a revolution? I mean, you know, there's the American government is still so powerful. It's not like they're getting overthrown anytime soon, but, and we're not saying that government. No, if the, if the government is listening, I've, I've highly recommend everybody follow the law. Um, but yeah,
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
There is – there's been a revolution in communication already. There's been a revolution in the media. I mean they all – this happened a while ago. But after this election, they all kind of admit it. They all kind of admit that like – look, like Donald Trump did like – your show and, and Schultz.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And this was a huge factor for him, you know, and this was, and I, I will say, I think particularly yours was, I mean, obviously Rogan's was, was humongous, but particularly the interview with you saw like a much different side of Donald Trump than I'd ever seen before. And I, That's crazy. It's crazy that there's been this revolution.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I don't know what their whole claim is. I don't know. But they say they're the real Jews and the Jews are just pretending to be the Jews, but they're really the white devils or something.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
They called it fly over country. Yeah. That's what they call fly over country. And what is fly over country? Everything except New York and LA, right? The whole rest of this annoying country that you got to fly over on your way from New York to LA. If you think about like when we grew up, me and you grew up in the era of the TV. We didn't watch shit on YouTube and stuff.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
You know, this didn't exist. We watched what was on TV. And TV was made in New York and L.A. That's where it was made. And every show, whether it was Seinfeld or Friends or whatever, it was all TV. these shows were about living in a city on the coast and they were about people who live there. And then just think about how bizarre that is.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
You have this giant country that occupies the middle part of North America called the United States of America. It's this huge country and you, only have representation from these two coastal cities. And this has now been totally blown open where it's like, yeah, I think for the first time, people in the middle of the country, in the south of the country, can actually have a voice.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And why shouldn't they? When there's tens of millions of people who like... fall into those categories. Look, it's crazy to me, being in stand-up comedy, it's been a total revolution since when I started. The path for how you become successful is so different. Podcasts weren't a thing when I first started.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And so having a revolution in government, that still seems like we're not there, but there has been a huge cultural revolution over the last 15 years that are- Communication? Or in, what is it called?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Has he picked all of them yet or not? Yeah, I think he's picked all. I mean, there might be some more like smaller positions that he still gets to pick, like judges and stuff like that. But he's picked, I think he's picked his cabinet.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Remember he was with the Wizards, dude? Wait, are you talking about Jordan's coach, Doug Collins? Or is this someone else? No, that's a different Doug Collins. Oh, damn. Who's that guy? Doug Collins got the Bulls right there. And then Phil Jackson came in and took all the glory.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I love – OK. Well, the best ones to me by far were Bobby Kennedy for health department was just amazing. I think that's really going to shake things up. Is he one of the first doctors that's never been in –
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
That's a good question. I don't know. No, I think, no, I think the guy who's in the head of it now was a lawyer too. So I'm not sure, but he is the first like real outsider and real critic of the American like health department. And so that's really interesting. He also put, which I'm sure has a lot to do with Bobby being at HHS, but he put Jay Bhattacharya as the new head of the- Draft Kings?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Jay Bhattacharya? Yeah, he sounds like a bookie. Oh, dude. Yeah, well, he's got a, I think he's Indian. I don't know.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I might be wrong about that. If I'm wrong, I apologize. But he was one of the signatories on the Great Barrington Declaration. He was amazing during COVID. He's like a brilliant, you know, he's got a degree, I think, in economics and in science.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
He was phenomenal during COVID. Really? Like a goddamn hero. Just calling out all the bullshit. I would love to interview him. Dude, that would be great. A super, super smart scientist who's like really understood why lockdowns were terrible and why the vaccine mandates were insane and all of that stuff. So he got Fauci's old job. Really, which is going to be real interesting. Yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Head of the NIH. Heck, yeah, that's cool. Now, all these guys got to be confirmed by the Senate still. So that's not done. But the other great pick was Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence. I Macari.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Yeah, definitely that. Yeah. I love, I, I'm obsessed with politics and I talk a lot of shit about it. So yeah, I guess whatever you want to call that, but yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Um, uh, uh, cash Patel, uh, who's took over the FBI, uh,
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
FBI director who is – he was a huge critic of like Russiagate and a lot of the crazy stuff that – a lot of the election interference that the FBI has been doing. Again, we're going to see – there were reports out. I'm not sure if this is true or not, but that Tulsi Gabbard was saying she's changed her mind on government surveillance and now she's OK with the intelligence agencies spying on us.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
DC has a way of poisoning people. But how does that happen? You can't do that. Also, I'm not throwing her under the bus or nothing like that. I think maybe she's saying what she needs to say to get confirmed, and then she'll do some really great stuff once she's there. Could that be something that happens? Quite possibly. It's hard to say.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
But it is like there's all types of pressure, and then there's probably pressures that I don't know about at all that when you're actually on the inside, there's probably all types of threats and things like that that you've got to deal with. So I think these picks were all very, very good. He had a bunch of really bad picks that I did not like.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Do you think they just say, you're going to have to do what we want or we're going to kill you? You think that's what it is? It's possible. I mean, I wouldn't put it past some of these people. There are a lot of killers in our government, you know. I also think that sometimes it's just the way the machine works.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And it's like, well, you're never going to be able to do anything unless you do this or unless you do that. You know, it was real interesting the way the way that Obama got rolled.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
When he first came in and he had a lot of these plans like we were going to end these wars and we're going to do all these things and we're going to – and he just immediately ran up against the machine and it was like you have no idea how to actually control this thing. And I got to say I think that happened a lot to Trump too when he first came in.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Trump had a lot of plans and I think that – I think Donald Trump looked at it like – Hey, I've been the CEO of this big company. I've been the boss before. I'll go be the boss again. But it's like, that's not how this one works. This is a whole different thing. It's not like when you're really the boss and you dictate orders and everyone follows them. And he, you know, Donald Trump.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
He ran in 2016 on what was such a great idea at the time was – and he used to say this on the campaign all the time in 2016 because back then the war in Syria was still going – well, it was like raging. And he would go, why are we even in Syria? I don't care about overthrowing Bashar al-Assad. He goes, Russia said they're only in Syria to kill ISIS.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I was like, okay, well, we want to kill ISIS too. We're against the terrorists. He goes, so why don't we stop trying to overthrow regimes in the Middle East, work with Russia to take out all the terrorists, and then we could just leave the Middle East. And then we could all be friends. We could be friends with Russia. And he openly ran on that. I was like, yeah, that's a great idea.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Except then you get in there and the media is saying you're a Russian spy every single day, all day long. So now how are you going to make a deal with Russia? Right. When everyone's saying you're a Russian spy. Oh, they trick you then because. If you make a deal with Russia, that'll just be proof that you're a Russian spy. And so then Donald Trump went, no, I'll be hawkish toward Russia.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And so he went out of his way to prove what a Russian spy he wasn't, which is like, oh, so they got you. So you couldn't do what you wanted to do.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
But this time they may not have the value of the media.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
No, I don't know. I've always, I've always felt like I float, I fly at a nice, you know, I'm far enough from the sun that I'm, I'm okay.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Well, right. So I'm not, and also I just, I do think like there's too many of us and there's too, I think like the toothpaste is out of the tube on this.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And I don't think, I think even they've finally realized that like, even if, you know, it was funny when they were coming after Rogan a couple of years ago, when there was that major push and the artists were, you know, Neil Young was saying, I'll take my music off Spotify or whatever. I remember talking about it then. And you're like, so what do you guys even think happens?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Like let's say hypothetically you could take Joe Rogan out, right? What do you think? His audience goes back to CNN? You think everyone who was listening to that is going to go, okay, I guess we plug back into the Matrix now. They're just going to find somebody else. They're going to find someone else, probably more radical. You know what I mean? Probably not less.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
To me, it's basically just – it's the belief in like –
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And so I think they even kind of know they can't really – but I do think – I think the two things that make it – that make the dynamic very different this time for Trump. Well, like you said, it's that the corporate media has been destroyed. But the two things that really destroyed them since the first Trump presidency to this one is Russiagate and COVID.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
They were such big stories and they got them so wrong. And everyone kind of knows it now. Like nobody, you know, nobody believes in Russiagate anymore. Nobody is sitting on, no one on television is going, a Russian spy is about to retake the White House. None of them are saying that. None of them are saying, hey, we were wrong about all of that.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
in in self-ownership in non-aggression and private property basically the idea of libertarianism is that like you own your body you own your life you ought to be free so long as you're not impeding on the rights of other people you ought to be able to do whatever you want to do okay um and so a belief in free market capitalism peace non-intervention and just basically the idea of what
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
But if they weren't wrong, why wouldn't they still be freaked out about it?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Listen, man, I mean they hate – they fucking hate this country and they hate the people of the country. And I don't like just say that to be like – to make a sensational claim. But it's like if you – if my kids were hungry and I was feeding other kids – Like, what conclusion could you draw from that other than, like, you don't love your children. You hate your own children.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Because that's, like, your number one responsibility. What do you mean you're feeding other kids while your kids are going hungry? It's just too evil to even wrap your head around. And that's literally what our government does. That's literally what they do. Is they feed other countries that don't need it, by the way. You know, not just the ones who maybe do. But ones who don't.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And I think they did know, and they knew that, like, big windstorms were coming, and they knew that, like, this is a danger, you know, with wildfires and stuff. So it's just, you would expect you'd be around there.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
The idea of what most people think of Americanism as, that like, oh yeah, you have freedom of speech, you have the right to own a gun, you have the right to own some property, you have the right to live your life the way you see best. And do libertarians believe in government? No. Well, there's a range of different thoughts within libertarians.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Well, I mean I do think perhaps it's kind of like what you said earlier. Like part of this is that we have just like – acquired such a level of wealth and power as a country that it's almost like, you know, the politicians who now control the tax base of the American people, they feel like gods where they're like, we can do all of this stuff. I mean, I remember when and I think this was sincere.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I think Joe Biden actually heard and understood this question and had a moment of of
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
being lucid but it was when the war in in Gaza first broke out and some reporter asked him and was like They were like well, you know, you're all in on this war in Ukraine You've already given them hundreds of billions of dollars and now you're saying you're gonna support Israel Like are you sure America can take on another war that we have to foot the bill for now and he goes This is the United States of America
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And I'm sure in some way Joe Biden like believes that, you know, like Joe Biden is a child of the unipolar moment after the Soviet Union collapsed and America is dominant. We can do it. We could do anything. This is America. We could do whatever we want to. It's like you just haven't updated this script because it's 30 years later now. And no, we can't just do whatever you want to.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And we just found out through this. It's like, OK, yeah, we could do whatever we want to. But we can't tax people enough to raise the money. And we can't borrow enough to get it. So we have to print the money. And then we deal with this price inflation we've been dealing with for the last few years. It just destroys working class people. And it's like, yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I guess if you don't care about that, we can do it. But if you do care about that, then actually, no, we can't. We don't have limitless funds. And I'll just say with this, right, look, you think about the United States of America, the federal government, it's the biggest, most powerful government in the history of the world by far, by any metric.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And yet as we're doing everything, as we're backing the war in Israel – as we're backing Israel's war, we're backing Ukraine in this war. We're overthrowing regimes all around the world. We're talking about what the – they have a summit where they talk about what the temperature is going to be in 100 years. The government is trying to manage everything.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And yet the most basic functions of government have all gone to shit. We can't win our wars. We can't balance our budgets. We can't protect our borders.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
postal system in a nutshell. And California is a little microcosm of this, right? It's the biggest state government, has the biggest budget of any state government. And they're trying to turn our whole country into that. They're trying to do everything. They're trying to say, oh, we're going to have electric cars and we're going to have a new power grid and we're going to have all of this.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Meanwhile, the most basic service, like make sure your fire department has enough water in the area that is known for wildfires spreading. The most basic thing you fail miserably at. And then you're going to talk about all these pie-in-the-sky visions of how you're going to run the world and do all this shit. And it's like, no, you're not good at this. You're not doing anything right.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And there is something interesting about that where it's like when you try to take on way too much, you end up failing at the most basic responsibility that you have.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
To the extent that libertarians believe in government, we believe like the role of government is to protect people's liberty. The government shouldn't be doing anything more than that. Like if they're doing anything more than that, then they've become tyrannical, which I think is true. I think it's just objectively true. Like no matter what – if government is doing anything –
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Yeah. Oh, I think that's true. That's true like internally in America and throughout the world. But even like you see like – you see like in America like the rise of the welfare state. It was really in the 60s and 70s when welfare became huge, and then churches get diminished.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
It's like, oh, because that used to be what people would do if they needed help, is they'd go to the local church and kind of ask them to help. So it's like, oh, as you try to take care of everything, you end up killing and boxing out this other more organic thing where the people themselves would actually figure out who in the community needs help. You know what I mean?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I saw a lot of people got fucked up out there. Now I saw Whitney's video. I felt awful. Yeah. Whitney's had a lot of videos. Well, I met the one where she was crying and stuff.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
that is more than just protecting property or protecting people, then it's always at the expense of someone. Even if they're giving somebody something, they're taking it from someone else, because they don't actually have anything themselves. Right, so what would an example of that be? I mean, anything.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Yeah, look, man, I mean, my default on this is to go, I probably think that's not true. Like, I don't know, but I also do, I don't know a lot about like medicine and the health stuff, but I will say my eyes were definitely opened over COVID to like how corrupt the whole thing is. And so it is almost like now when people say stuff like that, I'm a lot more be like, all right, I'm listening. Yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Like maybe. Yeah, over 12 ounces. Give me 12 ounces of methylene blues. You know, I'll try it. I don't know. I mean, like if I had to give me a chaser, if I had stage four cancer and like they were like, there's nothing we can do. I'd be like, hey, Joe, can you get me Mel Gibson's number? I want to talk to him and his buddies about what they did. I don't know. Why not?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
There's still normal shit happening in the middle of all of this, yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Even if you just took it down to if the government is cutting a check to one person, well, how do they get that check? It's not like – you know what I mean? Like they didn't pool their money together. People did. They took it from someone. They taxed one group of people to give it to another. Got it. So any service falls within that. Got it. Understood.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Well, it's one of the things about cities that are real strange, like these modern cities where there's millions of people. And I saw this a lot during COVID, particularly in New York and L.A., where it's like it's almost like there's nothing that people won't just adjust to because they're kind of trapped there. You can't really get out. You can't.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
You know, and so it's almost like, all right, well, they're doing this now. All right. I guess we got to live that, you know, in New York, it's just like, all right, there's homeless people all over the subways. That guy's jerking off. I guess I got to just like walk around and get to my work because I got it. What else am I going to do?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
It's just... I mean, that's... There's something very bizarre about the juxtaposition of just going about your daily life while this craziness is happening right there.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Yeah, like someone right now in that car, like someone's wife calls their cell and they're just like, would you mind stopping at the store on your way home? Like, we're out of milk or whatever. And they go, okay, fine, I'll stop by there. And then just look out their window and they're like, oh, God's angry. All right. Yeah, gosh.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Marco Rubio at the State Department, I hate. And what does the State Department do? Well, I mean, it's a pretty big responsibility. I mean, the State Department basically interacts with the rest of the world on behalf of the United States of America. And in recent years, I mean, the State Department is involved –
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
In a lot of war making, even as much as the Defense Department is, and I mean the – two examples I could think of like right off the top of my head were the war in Libya overthrowing Gaddafi was enormously led by the State Department under Hillary Clinton. And in 2014, the backing the Maidan revolution that overthrew Yanukovych in Ukraine was – mostly done by the State Department.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And so Marco Rubio is like a real neocon war hawk and has been for many years.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Well, neocon at this point has kind of – like I'm using it in kind of the informal sense. It's basically just come to mean like the war hawks who push for war after war after war.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Always more regime change wars, always the next target, always the next thing. Marco Rubio is not a self-described neoconservative. The people who actually called themselves neoconservatives was actually like a small group of people. The Wikipedia probably has some good information on it here. But these were guys who really – they really took power under George W. Bush.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
A lot of them were in Reagan's government and in George H.W. Bush's government, but they really took over when George W. Bush was in power. But yes, Dick Cheney, Richard Perle, Douglas Fein, all these guys, Paul Wolfowitz.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Well, it's a fact that a lot of them work at think tanks that – are funded by weapons companies. It's a fact that Dick Cheney was the CEO of Halliburton. I mean, like these things are true. So they are connected to interests that make lots of money off the wars. But so there, a lot of them basically were, they were not all, but a lot of them were Jewish.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Um, and a lot of them, they were leftists who came over and kind of became conservatives and in the second half of the 20th century. And they were, so they, in the 90s, there were these, there was one major think tank that was called the Project for a New American Century. And they basically wrote out all their plans of like what they wanted to do.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Back in the 90s, and the major thing was that they wanted, the Project for a New American Century, the idea of it was that, right, so it was a neoconservative think tank in D.C., And a lot of these same people, I mean, Robert Kagan and William Crystal were the guys who founded it.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
But if you look through the name of signatures, you'll see Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, a lot of these guys. Now, they basically – this was, if you could imagine, in the 90s. This is right after the Soviet Union collapses. This is what Charles Krauthenheimer, who's another neoconservative who's dead now, he called the unipolar moment.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And what that meant was that – it was like, hey, for the first time in the world – for the first time in the history of the world – There is one global superpower that is more powerful than any other country that's ever existed. Now that the Soviet Union is gone, it's ours. So what do you want to do? Now, there was this big divide amongst conservatives.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
A lot of conservatives, what are called the paleo-conservatives, it was like Pat Buchanan and guys like that. They were like, well, now that the Cold War is over, we can come home. We were fighting this war because it was the Cold War because it was the Soviet Union. But now that the Soviet Union is gone, we can disband NATO.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
That's right. Close all the bases. Bring everyone home. We could go back to being a normal country was the idea. We don't have to rule the world. We were never supposed to rule the world. In Pat Buchanan's idea, they were only doing this because the Soviet Union existed. But then there were these neoconservatives and they went, no, no, no, no, no.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Now that we control the world, we have to come up with a project for the new American century. We want another century. The 20th century was dominated by America and we want to make sure the 21st century is dominated by America. And this is – I'm not exaggerating. You can go read these papers. You can go Google project for a new American century and you can find all this stuff.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
If you go to the calls for regime change in Iraq, they might have a good link there that would be like the document. I'm just blanking on the name of some of the documents that they put out. But they basically said no one can mess with us. And so what we need to do right now is we need to have multiple wars in the Middle East.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
We need to have regime changes and get rid of all of the old allies of the Soviet Union, put in our people who we like.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Well, listen, you got to understand a lot of this stuff was written. This is in the 90s. This is before the September 11th attacks that they were talking about getting rid of Saddam Hussein. They actually say there's one paper and this is what the 9-11 truthers, they would love to hang on to this. So they said they did 9-11 because they wanted this to happen. Well, there's one thing.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
It was in the 90s. I can't remember what year it was, but you could find this. But they say basically they go through this whole thing of how we really want to overthrow Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and then we want to fight multiple wars in the Middle East and have multiple regime changes.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And they actually said in the paper, they go, but it would be very challenging to get enough popular support to do something like this short of another Pearl Harbor-style attack. So they literally say – We really kind of need an attack on America in order to work up enough support to go fight these wars.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I'm very unsure about the second question. I really don't know. It'll be interesting. I don't use TikTok. And so I don't really have a connection to like – but the people who love TikTok, I've seen this too. They're losing their minds. Like they're like – I think they are some type of addicted to it. What's behind it is really interesting. And I think that that's like –
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Now, that isn't proof that they did 9-11, but it does certainly indicate that- That they know the recipe. Well, at the very least, when 9-11 happened, they went, yes, now we got our- So this is one of the worst- The worst thing that ended up happening was that when 9-11 happens, George W. Bush is president and all these motherfuckers are in power. So they got their opportunity.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And right away after 9-11, and we know this because the four-star general Wesley Clark himself said that he was out of power at the time. But he went to the Pentagon and he said that he saw plans late 2001 already drawn up for the invasion of Iraq. So like as soon as 9-11 happened, they were like, OK, we're going to use this to go overthrow Saddam Hussein.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
All right, if I could pull it back – so a few years before 9-11.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
So that's, I mean, this was their words. And that's all the PNAC or whatever? Yes. This is PNAC, the Project for a New American Century. Okay. Now, a lot of these same people involved here, but there was a letter. Okay. There was a letter written. Dark artists, huh?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
So check this one out. In 1996, so just four years before this report, there's a letter that was written by Richard Pearl and it was not Douglas Spife. It was Richard Pearl and Wormser and David Wormser was the other guy who wrote it. And so two of these neoconservatives and they wrote this letter. The letter is called A Clean Break, A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And it's written to Benjamin Netanyahu, who in 1996 was the first year that he became prime minister. OK. And in this basically what this was all about is that they were the neoconservatives were saying, hey, here's the new strategy. And the new strategy is in the early 90s, you had had these Oslo Accords, which were the – what was known as the peace process.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Yes. So Bill Clinton famously was a big deal when I was a kid. It was Bill Clinton had Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin, the leader of the PLO and the prime minister of Israel, here together to work out, we're going to do a two-state solution, and we're going to make this deal. They brought them together, shook hands.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I mean, after years and years, decades of bloody fighting, this seemed like an amazing step forward. And Israel committed to what they call a peace process. So eventually – essentially they committed that they're like, you know this land that we know is not ours that we've been occupying since 1967? We do have to give this back to you.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Like we have to give this to you and we have to have a two-state solution of some sense. We will do that, but there has to be a process that we go through. So – You know, better than nothing at least, right? So this is what started.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Now, then Yitzhak Rabin, the prime minister of Israel, was assassinated by a right-wing Israeli by – yeah, by a Netanyahu supporter, assassinated him for betraying his own country and talking – but Israel was still on the hook for promising to eventually give the Palestinians their own state. And the clean break memo – and it's a little bit coded, but it's basically like, listen –
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
we got to get away from that. We got to get away from this peace process. And the idea of like giving the Palestinians their land, this threatens Israel's stability. Now for years, okay. I could see them thinking that though, for sure. Sure, sure.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
It's kind of a – it's a microcosm of like kind of what's going on in general. But TikTok very quietly to people who are not like on it and not using it. But it became like the main like news source for young people. Yeah. And like in a crazy way that for people our age, if you even think back to like when we were little kids, it's so like – It's hard to even imagine that it's real.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Now, for many years, the thinking which culminated in the Oslo Accords, right, the reason why there was this peace process is that the thinking, the Yitzhak Rabin thinking was that, listen, you have the Arab world who hates Israel's guts over their treatment of the Palestinian people.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And so you have to make peace with the Palestinians so that you can be friendly with the surrounding Arab world so that – They don't all hate you and you can coexist and you can be prosperous, right? Now, the clean break is essentially a break from that line of thinking. And they go, no, no, no, no. You don't need to make peace with the Palestinians so that you can then –
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
make peace with the broader Arab world. What you need to do is overthrow the regimes in the broader Arab world that are pissed off at you. And that way, you won't have to ever make peace with the Palestinians. You'll never have to give them land if we could just overthrow Saddam Hussein and then overthrow the mullahs in Iran and then overthrow Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And so they lay out this strategy. And this is the clean break. The clean break, excuse me. And these are our top neoconservatives who end up in the George W. Bush administration explicitly saying that the reason they want to overthrow Saddam Hussein is because he's a problem for Israel.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And when – a few years later when four-star general Wesley Clark, who by the way recently in a debate with my friend Scott Horton – admitted that these plans went all the way back to 96 and not just 2001, which he had said before. But this was the famous, I don't know if you've ever seen it before, but the seven countries in five years. So this is Wesley Clark.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
You can pull up this video if you want to. It's pretty interesting and has a lot. Are we really down a rabbit hole right now?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Well, this is when Rogan told you, if you want to talk about Syria, I'll take you down a rabbit hole. So here's the rabbit hole.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
So that's essentially the part to show. And is he joking around, you think, or is he being serious? Oh, he's being serious. He was just asked about it recently, and he was like, oh, yeah, no, this happened. And he actually said in this more recent – he had a one-on-one debate against Scott Horton, and he – when Scott brought this up, he goes, you know, it actually went back further than that.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
It's like, oh, they – now these young people are connected to information in a way that totally like goes around older people at all. They have nothing to do with it. You know what I mean? Like Nancy Pelosi is sitting there just furious. Like what is this? They don't care about – like they don't even know the people on TV news. Yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I had seen those plans back in 96. It was the neoconservatives, right? And so the neoconservatives, the ones who were in charge of the W. Bush administration – or were at very high posts in that administration. This was their plan.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And as they had mentioned in the clean break explicitly for Israel, like it was to change the dynamics so that Israel, we would take out all of their enemies and put them in a situation where they never had to come through on the peace process. And so that's why, or at least a huge part of the reason why we fought a war in Iraq and
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
In Libya, in Syria, in why we've backed Israel through all of these proxy wars. It's all about that. And it's – this is what – even more so than their treatment of the Palestinians. This is the thing that I'm furious at Israel about. It's like what is with this like pressure of like lying my country's people into war after war after war that does nothing but create disasters for us? Yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
So just to be clear because, again, they're saying these in kind of like – and this is how they talk about it, right? So it's all coded a little bit. But abandoning Oslo means the peace process. The concept of land for peace meaning like this concept that the Palestinians deserve their land. Get rid of that weird concept. And then number two, think about how creepy that is.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Reestablishing the principle of preemptive rather than retaliation. So in other words, we don't wait for you to attack us. We just start attacking you right away because we know you're going to. So essentially giving up on the idea of a just war, like giving up on the idea of like, oh, we were attacked and therefore we go to war.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And instead, we'll just keep attacking you because we've decided you're going to attack us in the future.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
If might makes right and the only thing that matters are the laws of conquest and who's winning is winning, then okay. Sure. You got to give it to them that like, hey, you've done it. But – OK, if that's your feeling, then fine. But then you don't get to cry these tears about, oh, October 7th was so horrible and they did this to us because, hey, you're just playing the game of might makes right.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
So, OK, when I say this, I'm not just like pulling this out of my ass like there was like one. It might have been the head of the ADL, but it was someone real high up in the in the ADL who said this. And what is ADL? The Anti-Defamation League. And then there was a Anti-Defamation League. So there it's like graffiti or whatever. Well, not exactly. They're not.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And whoever can kill the other side can kill the other side. And then also, OK, even if you're playing by those rules, I'll respect gangster like I respect gangsters. Sure. I just want to know what the rules are. Right. But then at the same time, the. You also got to understand that we live in a new world now.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And like all the stuff we were talking about before, like people can talk about this stuff now and people can communicate. And I'm sorry, but if that's the case, then what I'm rooting for is what's best for my country. And none of these wars made my country better. You know, in fact, they made it much, much worse.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
You know, all we got to show for the war in Iraq is, you know, thousands of our bravest young boys dead, tens of thousands of them killing themselves in the wake of it. Tens of thousands more injured and horribly just a shell of themselves.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I've heard a lot of combat vets say the same thing. Yeah. So I don't think that's messed up at all. I think that's right at the core of why they had, you know, there were wars, um, you know, like world war two was, was much more bloody and vicious than any of the fighting in the terror wars. And we didn't have suicide rates the way we do now.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And I do think a huge part of that is because like those guys felt like, hey, we were liberating Europe. Like there was – they didn't come back and feel like, oh, what the fuck did I even do that for? And a lot of these guys, they come back and they're like, oh, I was straight up lied to. Like I was – oh, I was just a pawn in your – in some rich guy's game.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And that included me like doing all types of shit to people that is very hard for any civilized person to do.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Well, you immediately – you put yourself in a crazy situation.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
So like look, if I'm going to – if I'm going to break into your house with a gun, like once I've already made that decision that I'm going to break into your house with a gun, whatever justified me to getting to that point, there's now – there's a whole different dynamic where now like, OK, I could say, hey, I'm just trying to break into your house with a gun. I'm going to be the good guy here.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
But if I break into your house with a gun and you run up at me with a gun, I got to shoot at you now. Yeah. And then once that's over, when I'm back home, you go like, I mean, from this guy's perspective, I broke into his house. Who was really the aggressor here? I mean, sure, I shot him because he raised his gun at me. But really, I was the one who went.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
The name doesn't exactly describe what they do, but they're one of these people. Yes. In fact, it was him. It was Greenblatt, CEO of Anti-Defamation League. They're a league that was started by Jewish people and it was kind of – at least at the beginning I think was to be whatever, fighting anti-Semitism or exposing this stuff.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And it's also like there's something to be said for the – even if you – like if you fought a guy, let's say like back in your drinking days or something like that, you got into a bar fight or something like that and you fight a guy who's around your size and you go – and you end up like winning the fight even.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
It's like there's still something different about that than if you just went and beat up a dude who was like a third of your size. You know, like at least when we fought in World War II, the Nazis were very powerful. It was early in the war. It wasn't clear exactly who was going to win. But Iraq – you know, for the US military to go fight. It's like, come on, dude, this is a joke.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
But yeah, it's still like, yeah, that was the monkey bars or whatever. It's all just so ridiculous. There's no way you're going to go fuck those people up and not be left with a little bit of a feeling like, fuck, we beat up the weak kid.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I know – I'm blanking on his name. I know his national security advisor I really didn't like, and I heard some statements from him that I didn't like. Pete Hegseth was an interesting one. I don't really know enough about him.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Is he from Montana? I'm not sure. I know he was a Fox News guy for a long time.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Yeah, no, he was – so I met him back in I want to say like 2016 or something like that. And he was like – I think he had pretty standard like Republican politics. I think he – from what I've heard, he's kind of changed a bit over the years and has become much more skeptical about a lot of the wars.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I do remember – there's one moment I always thought was really interesting that I saw him on one show on Fox News. Yeah. And this was such a not Fox News type thing for him to talk about. But he brought up and went into pretty graphic detail the epidemic of warlords raping little boys in Afghanistan. And. This was a major thing that a lot of the guys who served in Afghanistan talk about.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
But so when we were – we were against the Taliban. We were trying to overthrow the Taliban and a lot has been made in America and rightfully so about how the Taliban are really brutal on women's rights. They don't let girls go to school. They don't let women have any type of freedom. However, on the other side were these tribal warlords who we were propping up.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And it is true that they would let the little girls go to school, but they would also rape the little boys. There's like an epidemic of it. And so the dynamic was that our soldiers over there weren't allowed to say anything about that. Because they'd be like, well, listen, this is their customs and their way of life.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
They've come to be an organization that will really try to go after and ruin anybody who's critical of Israel.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And so they would talk about how they could hear the screams from the little boys like in their rooms and stuff. And he talked about it on Fox News, which just kind of gave me the impression that I was like, oh, maybe this guy is willing to kind of like tell the truth in a thing where it's a little uncomfortable in an audience that isn't typically used to hearing that. So we'll see.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I don't know, though. He used to really support the wars. I'm not sure where he is now. Interesting.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Tell me what the rules are. I understand that impulse. I think that – I think the best part of Trump winning is that it's been the cultural effect of all of it I think has been amazing. Like I really think everything like from November to now has just been great. It's been great. There's been this big reset that we needed in America. It's like the corporate media is crumbling. Wokeism is receding.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Like the insane kind of political correctness of the last few years seems to be like largely defeated. I think all of that is great. I don't think the deep state is going anywhere in the next few years. But – I'm very optimistic long term. I think that it's easy to say like, we're never gonna beat this thing and it's always gonna be this way. They have so much power, we have so little.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
But the truth is like, you know, Communism fell. Slavery was abolished. America declared independence from the British monarchy. You know, these things all would have seemed impossible and you could have easily said, oh, this is just going to be here forever. It's just the way of the world. But it wasn't. Those things are gone now. And
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I think there's no reason why America can't have like a great kind of a great reformation, a great return to the best things about America, a huge increase in liberty and decrease in awful state corruption. Like I don't see any reason why that can't happen, especially when they don't have the propaganda machine anymore. Yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Yeah, it's possible. But so they – one of the things that they were real upset about was that from October 7th, 23, up until now, TikTok has just been dominated by anti-Israel kind of critical of this war. That's where a lot of the young people are seeing all the images of like the Palestinian babies dying and stuff.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Yeah, there was something – was it to you? I can't remember. There was something Jordan Peterson said about that, that it was like how you can't get away with lying, how you can't twist the fabric of reality and it not snap back at you. There is something to that. I don't know if it's exactly perfect, but there is something to like where no matter what –
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
You know, it's like – it's true like in a relationship. Like, you know, if you think like, oh, maybe you're like, oh, I could get away with treating my wife shitty. And maybe you even can because she'll take it for a while. But like ultimately there's going to be a price to pay for that. You kind of can't get away from it.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
You can't, well, it's the same way you could stay up. You could stay up for three days in a row and not sleep. But then like on that fourth day, you're going to just fall out and be in deep. Cause like you owe REM sleep, right? You owe it. Like you, sorry, we got to, the universe has a receipt for you of REM sleep that you owe for the last invoice.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And there's, there's something about how, like, you know, it's like, okay, I could like, I could go on my treadmill right now and like go run for 20 minutes and that will suck. I hate those 20 minutes when I go run on my treadmill. Or I could eat a big piece of cheesecake and just love the next 20 minutes and feel so good. But there's going to be a price to pay for that. You know what I mean?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Like I'm going to feel better about myself. I'm going to be in better health if I do the running. There's just this weird thing with the universe where it's like, You kind of can't cheat the system. And if you try to cheat the system, there's always a price associated with it. And now you owe that price. It may come later in life.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
It may, whatever, you know, like if I, if I want to like, whatever it is, if I want to be really shitty to my wife now, it's like, maybe I think that gets me some advantage in the short term. But then when my son's older and he remembers that and he hates me, it's like, oh, okay. There's the price for me not being good to his mom.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
So you always like – in life in general, you're always better off if you err on the side of like doing the right thing so that you don't owe these prices later in life. I see it all the time. You see it with like old men who were like shitty drunk dads and now they're alone and they're old alcoholics and they're like – oh man, the ultimate loser here is you.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Like you got like a grandkid you never met, you know? And you got, it's like, there's, you can't cheat this game. So you're better off just doing the right thing and not accruing all these debts.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Yeah, so it's – it's ridiculous, but it's also really interesting. And yeah, Donald Trump just gave them a made up department that they're in charge of. So they're not technically a government department, department of government efficiency department, but it's not a real government department of government efficiency does.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Well, right. It's so instead of the game, cause, cause what it is is that in most people's minds, they have kind of roughly at least the idea of like capitalism versus socialism. And I understand I'm speaking like, like with a broad brush here, but like, They're like, OK, so like on one hand, you have like the government isn't involved and it's all like competition in private companies.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And then on the other hand, you have like the government's much more involved and the government takes over these services. But really what we have isn't either of those. What we have is gigantic multinational corporations that long ago bought off the government. So you have this huge government that's involved, but it's just working for these private interests. It's just wrapping paper. Exactly.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Well, that's the crazy thing. And it has really it's been one of the things that I think turned Americans against Hollywood. But there's something about like kind of the like elite progressive, you know, like. The people who lecture everybody else about guns and support gun control, but they have armed security.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
The people who are offended that Donald Trump talks about building a wall, but they live in a gated community. The people who- Talk about climate change, but then take private planes everywhere. Dude, you could go endless, endless examples of this. They talk about you. If you're upset about what they're teaching in your local public school, they say you're a bad person.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And if you remember, it was really interesting to me, but I don't know, what is it, like a year ago around now? Osama bin Laden's letter to America went viral on TikTok. It was so fascinating for me. I'm 41 now. And so I was 18 when 9-11 happened. Wow. You know, and then it's interesting to watch this whole new generation of 18-year-olds like discover this for the first time.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Meanwhile, their kids go to private school. They don't have to deal with what's going on. You know what I mean? It's like at every – they're totally insulated from the effects of the policies that they support. And so anyway, to go back to the Doge thing, what I think – so I had dinner with Vivek like a couple months ago. People say he's a neat man. I never met him. He's – I like him a lot.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I've gotten to know him pretty good over the last year. Is he Bangladeshi or Indian guy? He's Indian. But he's American. He was born here. Yeah, yeah. But he's – first of all, he's brilliant. He's very, very successful. And I will say – I won't – divulge too much stuff that we said in private, but he is really big on this Doge thing.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And he's like, listen, man, me and Elon got some tricks up our sleeves and we're going to be very effective with this. Essentially, what they're going to do is make policy recommendations. And their recommendations already are going to be massive cuts in government spending, which is... I think the absolute correct answer.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And so I'm at least excited to see that like that's being interjected into the public and him and Elon are both. I mean, these are brilliant guys, so maybe they could really come up with something here.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Or the whole thing has to like crash. And then we're, we're setting ourselves up for failure. And, and, And even just now, right?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
But even just now, it's like forgetting like the debt is a major problem and we're going off like the fiscal cliff and we're not going to be able to keep this up. But even just right now, the reason we're racking up so much debt is because the government spends so much money every year. And this is that is the corruption. It's not like a symptom of the corruption.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
It's like you got an organization in Washington, D.C., that by force extracts six trillion dollars of wealth away from the American people every year. and then give it out to their connected friends. It's like the most – It's fucking – it's laundering. Yeah. It's the most criminal shit in the world you could imagine.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
The only reason why we don't think of it as criminal is because it's so big and successful. But if anyone did it on a small level, you'd be like, oh, I know what that is. That's a gang. That's a crime. And even – and like I said before, the other big thing is that in order to have such a big government –
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
What you need is – because you can never tax people enough to pay for all this shit and they can't even borrow enough money to pay for all of it. So they have to just constantly be printing money. And that sends us into living in an inflationary world where everything is constantly getting more expensive and the value of your dollar is constantly going down. And again, this is –
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
if you're rich it's fine if you own stuff you can kind of protect yourself from it because the value of your your assets goes up too but for middle class and working class and people on a fixed income this just destroys them absolutely destroys them i mean the price inflation over the last few years has just like I don't even know.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
You know, the Federal Reserve keeps numbers on this stuff, but I don't know if they've done it over the recent wave of price inflation. But how many marriages get destroyed by this? You know, like people commit suicide over stuff like this.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
It's like, oh, yeah, there was a whole thing went down. And they're actually reading Osama bin Laden's own letter about why he did it. Now, of course, they're young lefties. So a lot of times, I mean, you know, they were like, Osama was right. And, you know, I'm not saying they took like the best message from it, but it was interesting to watch them kind of like engaging.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Yeah, OK, fine. But like at the same time, that doesn't mean – But we should have better. Yes, that's right. Look, I mean so there's lessons to take from all of that stuff, right? Like there are people – in the 20th century, we had two world wars, you know? Like tens of millions of people just got caught up in this for no fault of their own at all.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And I'm not even talking about just like the standard textbook – Like there were people who just happened to be Germans. You know what I mean? They weren't – they didn't necessarily even support the Nazis or anything like that. There were ethnic Germans. Daryl Cooper just put out the prologue for his new World War II series and the first one is so good.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
But all talking about like – and this is like a forgotten chapter of history. But after World War II, ethnic Germans, not even living in Germany, weren't even living under the Third Reich, just in Eastern Europe, just got – totally like slaughtered by the millions, raped and beaten and ethnically cleansed. Like there were so, and this is obvious.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I only lead with that because it's like the one that people don't know as much about, but like, obviously there were Jews who just happened to live in Germany or in Eastern Europe. There were Russians and Poles and just all types of people who just got destroyed. So no, okay.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
People have had it much worse, but at the same time, I do think it's your point being, you know, especially when you see like the corporate media, uh, And you see the way they freak out over January 6th, the way they freak out over, you know, whatever it would be. And the latest thing Donald Trump says.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And then you sit there and you go, yeah, you know, a hundred thousand people die of overdoses in this country every year. And by the way, calling them overdoses is not entirely accurate.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Poisoning is more, I mean, when you're talking about the fentanyl thing, I mean, at least for me, when my whole life, when I thought of what the word overdose meant, what overdose meant to me was essentially like you become such a drug addict that you build up such a tolerance that you got to take so much drugs in order to get high that eventually you have to take so much that it kills you before you even get to like feel good.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
But that's not the same thing as someone thinking they're taking a Percocet And it actually has fentanyl in it, and then they just kill themselves. That's not exactly an overdose, right?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
People care, but they can't do anything. Right. What I just say is, like, it's just, like, say, like, okay, I understand that, like, some people broke some windows of the Capitol building on January 6th, and I understand that AOC was real scared for 20 minutes or whatever. Okay. But, like...
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
That the amount of coverage and outrage that that gets compared to 100,000 of your fellow Americans being poisoned to death every year. And it's not like it's a one to one. It's a 100 to zero. Like this just doesn't even come up.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I'll say this, dude. And this is like I'm mildly embarrassed to admit this. But as somebody who's like obsessed with this shit and talks about politics all the time, it wasn't until Bobby Kennedy ran for president and he goes, he goes, you know, America leads the world in chronic illness. And I remember being like, is that right?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Do we lead the – like I didn't even know that we led the world in chronic illness. And it took Bobby Kennedy – why has no one else who's run for president ever brought this up? How is this not a thing that we all talk about all the time? Well, Bernie Sanders talks about a good bit of it a lot. Well, he talks about – Bernie Sanders talks about the health insurance stuff.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And he talks about the Medicare for all stuff. But I never really heard anyone talking about what Bobby's talking about in terms of like, why are we so sick? Like, forget whether you think we need universal health care or private health care or whatever, like whatever health insurance you're talking about. I'm saying like, why do why are we so sick as a people to begin with?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And that's more about like what we're eating, what you know, like what what we're consuming.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Really. It is control. A lot of it must be control. So much of it is business. You know what I mean? So much of it is just like, oh, there are these companies that make tons of money off this shit. But I do think that there's a mentality that gets developed when you get to a certain level of power
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
where like, you know, the same thing like with, you know, like if there's companies, like if there's a little mom and pop store, they kind of know everyone in the area and they kind of care a little bit more. They're more connected to the community. When you're talking about like a giant corporation, you're just kind of like a cog in a machine to them.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
But when you get to like the top, top level of power, and I think they've been pretty explicit about this. I mean, Henry Kissinger pretty much like admitted this in his own words, that people are pawns on a chessboard. And that's the way they look at it. It's not, they don't believe that they are like, they're almost above what me and you would consider morality. You know what I mean?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
It's like they're, they're at this super high level where it's like, listen, we're, we're moving these pawns over here so that the Soviet union collapses. And, oh yeah, it sure does suck if you happen to be a Vietnamese person, but we're at war with the Soviet union. And so you're just pawns on a chessboard and that, And that's what they're doing with Ukraine right now.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
What they're doing with Ukraine right now is just using them as cannon fodder to hurt Russia. And they pose as the ones who care about Ukrainians so much. But really, they just led them down, as John Mearsheimer said, the primrose path. They went, go ahead, fight this big bully who could totally fuck you up. Go ahead, fight him. We got your back. To Ukraine? Yeah, to Ukraine.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And by we got your back, not like the military is going to come in and actually like back you up. But we'll just give you weapons so you can keep going out there and dying. But it will hurt the Russians also. And that's the goal. And you're like – it's a real sickness if you start looking at human beings that way.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I knew he had some quotes about that, but that one even surprised me. I was like, oh, jeez. Where was he from, Kissinger? Where was he originally from? Eastern Europe?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Bring him up. Get to there. Of course, the Secretary of State under Richard Nixon.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I mean, I'm sure that had a profound influence on who he was, yeah. Man, it's heartbreaking. Then at Harvard university, very smart guy. Yeah. Oh, he was a genius. Super, super genius.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
But look, I mean, I think a lot of that, even, you know, when you talk about the Nazi connection for his views, but a lot of that, a lot of that is true with the Israel stuff too, that it's like, you know, a lot of this, it's like people who like,
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Went through a lot of the shit that they went through, got it in their minds that like you do whatever you have to do to make sure you're the one in power to survive.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Well, imagine it was just like a personal thing. If I told you I was in an argument with someone, like a mutual friend of ours, and I was like, me and this guy just got in a huge fight, and you were like, what happened? And I was like, well, he's a monster. He's evil. He hates everything good. He's made of pure venom. And I think you might be like, okay, but... like what's really going on here.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
But that's life, right? Life is that there's constantly tragedy all around us, but then there's beauty all around us also. And then if you can kind of reconcile yourself with the tragedy and accept that, you can really enjoy the beauty in life. Yeah. You know, that's the best we could try to do. But yes, you're right.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
We speak from a position, as the lefties would say, from a position of privilege and we're able to. But at the same point, like my thing is kind of like if you are in that position and we're fortunate enough to like be in a heated studio and in a comfortable environment or whatever, then like, OK, so then.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
We should try our best to kind of rise up above – like what I was saying before, we're like, hey, if you're an Israeli Jew and one of your family members were killed on October 7th, of course you're going to be like, go get those guys. And if you're a Palestinian who saw one of your kids get killed by an IDF mission, of course you're going to be like, let's go get those guys.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
But from our position of not being in either of those positions, we should at least be able to go like, OK – Let's try to calm things down. Let's try to like push for peace. Let's try to go like, we understand how both of you could feel that way, but understand where the other one feels the same way you do.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
So like at least sometimes there's an advantage to be like on a perch in a little bit of a better situation where you can kind of see things and go, okay, let me at least call balls and strikes on this and not just kind of flame more conflict, which is what people on the ground are doing. Yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Yeah, well, I think that's one of the things that is... been a big catalyst for Donald Trump rising, the whole America first thing, like this idea that, Hey, like we should be for our country. I think that there was particularly after world war two, which is really when you had the rise of like the, the current world order.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
I mean, obviously the Soviet unions were part of it and then they fell, but the, the kind of American dominance started really after World War II. I mean, we won and we dropped the nukes. And the situation was that all of the industrialized world had been destroyed except for us. And the war touched everyone, basically every power except us.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And we lost some men there, but we still came out like with the homeland. We had a big headstart. Yes. We got in late and we developed the nukes. And so just, and we used nukes. And so it was like, oh, they have this new weapon that nobody else has. And so after that, Which was sick, by the way, too. Horrific. Oh, just like – I mean totally inexcusable and disgusting.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Not us. We didn't do it. Well, you would hope. You would hope that the universe can pick out who was involved at least to some degree and who wasn't. But in some ways, there's this great old John Quincy Adams quote. Which I'll probably butcher, but maybe you'll pull up.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
But it's like – it was something like if we go around the world looking for monsters to destroy, we will become the Dicatress of the world, but we will lose our own soul. And that was – which is pretty profound that he said this back in the early 1800s, I believe. What does the Dicatress mean? Like Dictator, the female version of Dictator.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
Cause like, it's not a matter of taking sides to just be like, he probably has a side too.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
So like we'll rule the world, but you'll lose your own soul or something like that. I might be butchering this quote, but that's essentially the gist of it. The point was that you're like, oh, you go dominate the world, but you lose your own soul. Like you take over everything else, but you lose the essence of who you are.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
And there's a weird like, you know, like there's a weird equation to that. But after World War II, America kind of took on the mantle of being like, OK, well, we're going to rebuild Europe. And there were arguments for why we should. We're going to we're going to be the defense of Europe.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E555 Dave Smith
We formed NATO so that we could protect Western Europe because they weren't in a position to do it for themselves. And it's almost like we became then the country that was always in the business of welfare for other countries. And I think what happened with Donald Trump, where a lot of people were, is that, particularly after the years of the terror wars that were such disasters,