Dave Smith
Appearances
Candace
COMPROMISED: RFK Jr. And Hollywood Exposed | Candace Ep 173
I couldn't imagine whoever else the director of national intelligence was going to be being better than Tulsi Gabbard. I couldn't imagine whoever the head of the FBI being, being better than cash Patel or whoever the health secretary being better than Bobby Kennedy. But at the same time, you know, you got Tulsi, you know, cheering on leveling in apartment building and,
Candace
COMPROMISED: RFK Jr. And Hollywood Exposed | Candace Ep 173
literally as they're saying to him hey we traced this guy we traced missile guy back to his apartment building where his girlfriend lives so we leveled the building and she's sending like thumbs up emojis um and saying job well done team i got every time i hear from kash patel lately it's never about the criminals in government anymore this guy was on a goddamn media tour for two years everything he ever said was that all there's all these criminals in the fbi
Candace
COMPROMISED: RFK Jr. And Hollywood Exposed | Candace Ep 173
We got to get these people who committed all these heinous crimes against our republic. Not talking about that anymore today. Now he's talking about bringing down drug dealers and sex traffickers. It's like, okay, but that's not what you were saying before. Then Bobby Kennedy is out fighting the real health crisis, which is anti-Semitism.
Candace
COMPROMISED: RFK Jr. And Hollywood Exposed | Candace Ep 173
So I'm just saying, looking around the room, looking around the administration at this point, you know, I think we got the positives out of Donald Trump that we would get. But man, this all just points in such a bad direction. And it's disappointing. It's just really disappointing.
Candace
COMPROMISED: RFK Jr. And Hollywood Exposed | Candace Ep 173
It's a, I knew I would be disappointed, but it is the level of a Greek tragedy that these guys had this mandate and this opportunity, and they're just f***ed up.
Candace
Russell Brand Charged | Ryan Reynolds Caught | Candace Ep 172
There's no stopping Candace Owens at this point.
Candace
Russell Brand Charged | Ryan Reynolds Caught | Candace Ep 172
And the frontrunner, not just the number one opponent, the one who's winning.
Candace
Russell Brand Charged | Ryan Reynolds Caught | Candace Ep 172
We talked about Candace Owens before. That's part of what her freaking boot camp before pissing off all the Israeli supporters was that she's already been through the fire. She's been an outspoken black female conservative. And that's like they really hate that because they do kind of view you as like – which is fucked up in a way. But it really is kind of like –
Candace
Russell Brand Charged | Ryan Reynolds Caught | Candace Ep 172
They decided that they're the champion of women and black people. And therefore, if you're a black woman, it's your responsibility to support these liberal white women. And she used to.
Candace
Russell Brand Charged | Ryan Reynolds Caught | Candace Ep 172
When she was very young, she was liberal. And then she was also a hardcore Zionist at one point, like very big supporter of Israel and then changed her mind on that. But it is, you know, there is a viciousness with which those people get attacked
Candace
Who Is Controlling RFK Jr.? | Candace Ep 167
It is the worst humanitarian catastrophe in the world right now. And the idea that you, who are supposed to be the anti-Neocon, anti-war presidential candidate, are immediately, on October 7th, before we even had an investigation, before we even knew what happened there, you immediately say, basically you said everything they say about Ukraine. You said it was an unprovoked attack.
Candace
Who Is Controlling RFK Jr.? | Candace Ep 167
Which, like, come on, give me a break. An attack from Gaza against Israel is unprovoked. And then you said we have to support them in whatever it takes. Well, look, sir, we're watching it right now. This is whatever it takes. Just women and children...
Candace
Who Is Controlling RFK Jr.? | Candace Ep 167
dying under rubble every day you can't go on social media without seeing another video of some baby dying this is what we're supposed after the last 20 years of disastrous wars we gotta support the next one i mean sir this is this is like a biblical level of evil and and why why should we as americans have to fund this why should we have to give them a blank check i'm sorry it's been long enough
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
Hey guys, today's show is brought to you by YoKratom.com, home of the $60 Kilo, longtime sponsor of Part of the Problem, and a great company run by great guys. If you are over the age of 21 and you enjoy Kratom, make sure you go get your Kratom from YoKratom.com. All of their stuff is lab tested. It's delivered right to your door, so you don't got to go driving around looking for it.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
He goes, I'm out. Oh, shit. It, uh... Yeah, I guess. All right. You know what? Fine. Let's just let's get into that right now because you kind of touched on it. And it is in many ways to me the most interesting part of all of this. And of course, I do want to be clear.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
This guy is literally is a professional liar whose job it is, is to damage Donald Trump and who might also like to damage other people, too. So it is not I don't want to.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
Assume that it's quite possible that he took out other stuff, too Like maybe there would have been some message that made Tulsi Gabbard look really good Like she had some principled opposition to this or something and he didn't put that in doesn't seem like it though And it seems like cuz really if you remove yourself If you if you zoom out the real scandal here Which is so much bigger than this signal scandal or so much bigger than any of the other time the real scandal here is that
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
You have, after like 20 plus years of what have been dubbed forever wars, the longest wars in American history, the longer wars than most countries ever fight. Most countries don't ever fight a 20-year long war. We fought essentially two of them, three if you count Somalia, where there's the JSOC war the whole time there. And also had regime changes in Yemen and Libya and ultimately in Syria and
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
So after all this debt, all these wars, Donald Trump runs on this America first, we're not going to be involved in stupid wars anymore, down to specifically Yemen. And I'm not even talking about him objecting to, say, like Obama's drone bomb campaign in Yemen in 2009, or him objecting to the Saudis' invasion and Obama backing the Saudis' invasion in 2015. I'm saying...
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
There, there you go. We did it at comedy stop, and I believe it was me and Lewis co-headlining, and you and Tim Dillon were the special guests. Talk about three people being in the same place and one person being drastically further than them. Holy moly. All right, guys, Tim Dillon, special guest this weekend. All right, I can't back that up, but it will be a great show. I'm just kidding.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
During the 2024 election, it was on Tim Pool's show, Donald Trump was straight up asked about the issue of war and peace. And he brought up Joe Biden bombing Yemen over the shipping lanes and talking about how stupid it is. So, like, Donald Trump comes in now at his most popular, wins every swing state election. Has all of this energy behind him.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
And yet we're still within a month and a half bombing another country in the Middle East. And like that is the bigger scandal out of all of this. It's like the old Tom Woods had this old saying, and man, does it age well. No matter who you vote for, you get John McCain. Like that's just always what ends up happening. You vote for Barack Obama, sorry, all we can do is John McCain.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
Oh, you like Donald Trump? Sorry, you're getting John McCain. No matter who wins, we get John McCain's foreign policy. And so that's kind of the backdrop of this. And then of course, what is the most interesting thing politically in this is that at least from what's being reported, only one person in the room seems to even have a principled objection to this at all. And it is JD Vance. Now,
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
I gotta say, that in itself is an important piece of information that we should keep in our minds like going forward. If you were thinking about who you might support in 2028, let's say, I mean, JD, now to your point too, And, you know, like, I'll give him a little bit of credit for being the only one who stood up.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
But I got to say, it was like pathetically weak, pathetically weak, totally with the contingency of like, I'll go along. I mean, like, if you guys want to bomb them, I'll bomb them. But and the only objection he has is over the like. It's always the worst Trumpian objection is that Europe should pay for the bombing a little bit more. That's essentially what his objection is. I'll read it in a sec.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
They're alluding to Trump seems to be the loosest of directives. Like they're like, hey, Donald Trump, he kind of he gave the green light. He said open back up the shipping lanes and then it's kind of left up to us to figure out how. So like in your example, you're almost like we were like, oh, you know, I saw this monitor that looks cool and this one's on sale.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
We're not in the same place. We're fucking killing it, bro. Doing good. And then we got a bunch of stuff coming up after that. Nashville coming up pretty soon. ComicDaveSmith.com for all me and Rob's gigs together throughout the year. And then, of course, you've got some stuff coming up as well.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
And then you'd be like, well, the owner of the studio said make it look cool. You know, like, there's not even, like, a specific thing, like, you were tasked with getting this monitor, and I found it at a good price, and therefore... It was just a general, like, yeah, whatever you think looks good kind of thing.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
And so anyway, so this is the only real... Aside from this, it all seems to just be them agreeing. By the way, you know, again, there might be something here that wasn't reported. No principled objection from Tulsi Gabbard whatsoever. Look... And I'm just saying, I think we were saying this the whole time, right?
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
Like the whole time throughout Trump, before the election, after the election, during his selecting his cabinet, that you were just like, look, he put a lot of bad people in there and the foreign policy team isn't good. And even Tulsi Gabbard is not good when it comes to this type of like targeted strikes. Yeah. Anyway, OK, so I'm going to read from the article.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
At this point, a fascinating policy discussion commenced. The account labeled J.D. Vance responded at 816. Team, I am out for the day doing an economic event in Michigan, but I think we are making a mistake. He also was in Michigan.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
So this is part of the reason that part of what was confirming that He writes three percent of US trade runs through the Suez Forty percent of European trade does there is a real risk that the public doesn't understand this or why it's necessary The strongest reason to do this is as POTUS said to send a message now I Look, I give Vance some credit for at least being against this thing, kind of.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
I mean, he does say, I think we're making a mistake. But this idea that, like, well, it's a bigger percentage of Europe's trade, therefore it's kind of like we're bailing out their trade. I mean, this is the... Like, if there were a list of 15 reasons why you shouldn't do this, this is 15th. This is the last reason.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
You know, like, I'm not even saying it's not a reason at all, but it's not one of the major ones. It's not as if he's sitting there and saying something like, which I can't... You could call me, like, a hippie or something like that all you want to, but, like, is it really that unreasonable that when...
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
my political leaders are murdering people, they might consider whether the murder is absolutely necessary or not. Like, you know, we're dropping huge bombs on people here. There's going to be civilians who get killed. Do we really need to do this? I just don't think it's that crazy that that could maybe even enter the conversation. Of course.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
It is that crazy and it doesn't enter the conversation at all. Then you would think after that, the concern would be that like we could be getting dragged into a wider war, you know? If the whole argument is that Iran is arming them, well, okay, do we really want to move closer toward a conflict with Iran? Do we want to move closer toward a conflict in Yemen? Why are we doing this?
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
It's not in our national security interest. We're doing this on behalf of a foreign country. None of that comes up at all. It's just this vague, I think it's a mistake, argument.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
Vance goes on to say I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now there's a further risk that we see a moderate to severe spike in oil prices I'm willing to support the consensus of the team and keep these concerns to myself but there is a strong argument for delaying this a month doing the messaging work on why this matters seeing where the economy is etc
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
Um, then Joe Kent, I forgot Joe Kent was on this. Joe Kent then comes in and says, uh, there is nothing time sensitive during the timeline. We'll have the exact same options in a month. Um, Okay, Pete Hegseth comes in and says, VP, I understand your concerns and fully support you raising with POTUS. Important considerations, most of which are tough to know how they play out.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
Economy, Ukraine, peace, Gaza, et cetera. I think messaging is going to be tough no matter what. Nobody knows who the Houthis are, which is why we would need to stay focused on one, Biden failed, and two, Iran funded. Isn't that just disgusting? Like, you know, you're sitting here.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
By the way, I just cannot stress for like, I think for people, Americans like us, how unique this is about our country. And I know that there's sometimes like when things happen in your country, you just kind of think of them as normal. I'm saying like throughout the world and throughout human history, how abnormal it is. To be bombing a group of people who you have no idea who they are.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
Like for most of human history, if there was a war on the people of that nation would know who they were fighting a war against and understand why they were fighting a war against them. We're such a rich country and such a powerful empire that we're just bombing little third world shitholes. And you're like, yeah, the problem here is the American people don't even know. And you know what?
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
They're absolutely right. I mean, how many Americans, what percentage of Americans do you think could find Yemen on a map, let alone know the name of the group of people who are in charge? You know, like, I don't know. Like, I'll even give them a hint. I'll be like, here's a map. Find Yemen. Oh, it's right at the bottom of the Arabian Peninsula. Go.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
How many Americans do you think could turn and find that on a map? And so it's like, look, for him to be saying this, it's like, yeah, in other words, stated differently, there is absolutely zero political desire from your base for you to go bomb Yemen. There's no, it's not even, like, it's almost, it's said in plain English right there.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
Because, I mean, he's not saying it, but it's in the information he's giving out, right? Is that there is, this is a totally top-down move, not bottom-up. There is nobody, this isn't, mass deportations or, you know, eliminating waste in government or turning around the economy or bringing prices down. This isn't like, oh, there's this desire from the people and they elected you to do this.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
You're saying, how do we trick them into thinking this? And here's the answer. One and two, by the way. This is something that should be a useful tool for people. This is one of the positive things to come out of this signal chat. And it's one of the things that I kind of challenge people. Like I'm talking to you, listeners of our show right now. When you see the MAGA influencers out there, right?
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
Or not New York. Or it could be like New York 7. New New York. We could go a lot of different ways of this, but we can't learn how to pronounce all these goddamn names. Although I do always enjoy coming to your towns.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
When you're thinking about who to listen to. Oh, this guy makes a good point. But then I also think this guy makes a good point. But I like this lady's point there. I acted like women make points. Fine. I'm just saying for the sake of argument. Think about how many of them were just saying number one and number two right after this strike in Yemen.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
And I'm not like alleging that they're colluding with Pete Hegseth. I'm just saying they're repeating the same dumb fucking mindless propaganda. Keep in mind here, Pete Hegseth is not saying this is a very clear sentence. Pete Hegseth is not saying the reason we need to do this is because number one, Biden failed. And number two, they're backed by Iran.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
He's saying that's what you tell the fucking people. It's the only thing I could think of to tell people that they'll maybe resonate with them. Is there a real desire amongst the MAGA base for us to start bombing the shit out of the poorest country in the Middle East?
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
No, but they do think Joe Biden's awfully weak and they're pretty suspicious of Iran because we've been propagandizing them with a bunch of bullshit about them for years. So that's how he's saying you could sell this to people. It's a very revealing comment. And anyway, so that's what you were getting from Pete Hegseth. Okay.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
All right, Hagseth's message went on to state, waiting a few weeks or a month does not fundamentally change the calculus. Two, immediate risks on waiting. Number one, two immediate risks on waiting. One, this leaks and we look indecisive. Two, Israel takes a... Shit. Oh, man, did I not... Well, I may not have screen grabbed the right part there. Okay. To Israel. Sorry.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
You can accuse me of covering up for the Israelis now. I'm not sure what that was. I lost it. It's the Atlantic piece. I'm not sure what the title is. I just screen grabbed this part. Hold on one second. OK, there's I'll go on. But if you find it, that's that's fine. Oh, wait, hold on. Sorry. Israel takes in associated and levy them on the Europeans. Now, I don't think that's the right part. J.D.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
Vance goes on to say to Pete Hegseth, if you agree, we should do it. Let's go. I just hate bailing Europe out again. So again, JD Vance, who is, I suppose, the hero in the room here, judging on a curve. Did you turn that heat down a little bit, Rob? He literally goes, hey, you guys want to do it? Fine, let's do it. I just hate bailing out Europe. So there is simply in J.D.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
Vance no concern about killing innocent people, no concern about us getting drawn into a wider war, no concern about dropping bombs on people on behalf of other countries. This is clearly a result of Israel's beef, not ours. But he sure doesn't like those Europeans being welfare moms.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
Doesn't seem to have any issue with Israel being a fat welfare mom, but he really doesn't like the Europeans being on the dole. So that's what we got here so far. Hegseth responded to that, said, VP, I fully share your loathing of Europeans freeloading. It's pathetic, capital letters. But Mike is correct. We are the only ones on the planet on our side of the ledger who can do this.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
Nobody else even close. Question is timing. I feel like now is as good a time as any given POTUS directive to reopen shipping lanes. That's what I was referring to before. I think we should go. But POTUS still retains 24 hours of decision space.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
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Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
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Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
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Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
All right. Well. You heard it here first. When you're planning out the rest of the porch tour, maybe stay away from Signal. Maybe not the best. Or if you're going to do it, just add the right people to it.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
What can you say about this, Rob? I mean, it's just it's really just, you know, it's not to be unexpected, but man, it is disappointing. And it's just I will say it's there's already just signs of, you know. Look, like you kind of said before, this is what you get with Donald Trump. It's a mixed bag. I suppose a mixed bag is preferable to a bag of nothing but shit.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
But there is just this level of incompetence. That not just to be doing this whole signal chat and to, you know, forget it. I'm totally open to the possibility that the National Security Advisor like was setting them up, but no one else to notice. And that is a pretty high level of incompetence. Nobody else goes like. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
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Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
Well, you know, it's funny. The story broke... I want to say a half hour. It was less than an hour before we went live yesterday. So I saw this story, but let's just say it's from... a not very trustworthy source. And so I was like, well, I got to like actually dig into this before I just take this on air and give a thought on it.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
And it's the best price you will find anywhere. The only price I can think of over the last five years that has not gone up. YoCratom.com, home of the $60 kilo. All right, let's start today's show. What's up? What's up, everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. Live in studio. Live only to people watching at partoftheproblem.com.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
Cause I don't want to like come on here and then give a whole take on it and then be like, Oh, it turned out it wasn't true at all. Um, now that it's kind of 24 hours old, I mean, Jesus Christ, not only is this thing real, but it is, um, let's just say there's a lot of questions, um, Raised by it. So for for anybody who doesn't know, there is I hesitate to even use the word journalist.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
But there is a there's a hack propagandist named Jeffrey Goldberg. Could be from any ethnicity or background. No way to know for sure. Um, he was a bit, he he's the, I believe he's the, like the editor in chief now or senior editor.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
It's kind of cheap in a way. You know, that ends up being what defense secretaries always want to say. I've heard this so much. By the way, you know, it's meet the new boss.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
You know, like I've heard this so much over the last 25 years from all the different defense secretaries, whether it was Rumsfeld or Gates or Gates again under Obama or whoever, you know, they always like brag about the precision of with this latest flare up in the war and how great, you wouldn't believe what our boys can do, you know? And there's something, I guess this really started in Vietnam.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
Although it does seem like it's really in a whole different league in the war on terrorism. But, you know, if you go back to if you if you targeted firebombing in Cambodia. Well, look, I mean, this right. Well, the point I'm making is that if you you know, when you read about, say, World War One. OK, now, before American entry into World War One, World War One is like it.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
It's already the worst thing that's ever happened in the history of the world. You know, they don't know that there's a part two coming. But at the time, it's the worst thing in the history of the world. By the way, that just reminded me is one of my favorite Simpsons jokes. I don't know if you remember that. Goddamn, the Simpsons in their day were so great.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
It's a flashback to the grandpa, Abe Simpson, and he's fighting in World War I. And he goes, I can't believe I'm sitting here fighting in World War I. And all those platoon guys are like, why do you keep calling it that? And he goes, you'll see.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
He's one of the big shots at the, at the Atlantic, um, which is a pretty garbage publication, but he was known for, um, being one of the, like the Russiagate, you know, Like, you know, if you go find all his Russiagate takes that it'd be embarrassing how bad, you know, like promising we've got the dirt. Donald Trump is clearly in a conspiracy with Vladimir Putin.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
anyway but if you read about fighting right so they're fighting to like the bloodiest of stalemates it's essentially a big stalemate before america gets in because like you know i don't remember the details but like the germans are running out of shoes and the brits are running out of ammo but you're in like a foxhole and there's tremendous parity between these militaries like it's an even fight kind of
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
You got young boys shooting rifles on their side, and they got young boys shooting back at you on your side, you know? It's kind of an even fight. Even in World War II, obviously there's been technological advances, and of course by the end of the war we dropped the atom bombs.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
But certainly before American entry into the war, and I think even after American entry into the war, it's in doubt who's going to win. Like, losing a war back then... Was a possibility. And I don't mean losing the way we lose a war today. I don't mean meaning like, oh, we couldn't. The army that we built in Afghanistan couldn't stand and the Taliban took back over. We lost the war.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
I mean, losing the war like your fucking forces got annihilated and you had to surrender to the enemy there by Vietnam. You've got like these kind of sophisticated weapons that we're using against, like just like a poor peasant. you know, population.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
But in the terror wars, now it's like, it's almost like if you looked at the World War, like if you looked at World War I, World War II, and then you think America as an economic superpower just keeps advancing and advancing and advancing. And then we went to fight a war with a group of people who were less sophisticated than those countries, less sophisticated than Europe in the 40s.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
You know, our boys are going in there. We have night vision and they have monkey bars. We call in airstrikes and they have more monkey bars. We send it in the Navy. They have more monkey, but like, it's just, and so when you're bragging about like how fucking awesome it was, nobody doesn't get that. We're awesome at blowing shit up. Nobody doesn't get that.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
Nobody doesn't understand that our military and our level of technology and sophistication and shit. But so, but when you're doing that, you're essentially like it's, it's, I mean, it's like a grown man fighting a toddler. You know what I'm saying? No, I'm not trying to downplay the risks. I mean, people do get killed and things still happen.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
And like when someone's shooting a gun at you, that's still a gun being shot at you. But it's just a little bit in bad taste to like be bragging about the percent, especially when we're going on our third decade of these fucking wars in the Middle East that you're like, nah, dude, but you should have seen us, man. We blew up their shit. Our boys were so brave.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
They were so brave for having technology a hundred thousand times more powerful than the enemies and blowing up their shit. Like, I don't know. Can we just get to some real questions here? Like why exactly we had to do this? I mean, if you're saying in your own goddamn signal messages that like, yeah, the timeframe's not really important. We could do this in a month. We could do this now.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
No one's, could someone clearly articulate why it had to be done? What is it? What did they articulate in the message? The truth is a show of force. Let them know who's boss. Just let them know. We can do whatever the fuck we want. Even in your part of the world. We can do whatever the fuck we want. And you should cause no problems for us. You know? No type of thought of dealing in like.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
What's the strategic plan here? What's the best path to peace and prosperity? Do they have a legitimate grievance? What's going on? Is there a diplomatic solution to that? None of that. Blow shit up and then praise our boys for blowing shit up. I don't know. I just don't. I'll just never go along with that shit. I also don't... You know, it was Bill Maher. Bill Maher got fired.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
Yeah. It was like, you know, Bill Maher was right when he fucking said that. He was absolutely right. And, like, if that offends anybody, like, I don't give a shit. That's fine. This isn't fucking 2002, and I don't work for ABC, so I get to say whatever I want. But it's like, if you're just talking about bravery, like, there's...
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
He is one of not that this is that small of a list, but he's one of the journalists who Donald Trump really hates. He's like called him out by name many times. Trump does not like this guy. Okay. So evidently, Waltz, the national security advisor, who is one of Trump's worst picks. I know this from both his public persona and inside information that I've gotten.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
It's hard to argue that someone fighting with 19th century weapons against someone fighting with 21st century weapons doesn't automatically win the bravery competition. There's something braver about going after the U.S. military with nothing than it is to be like, oh, the bravery of our boys launching Tomahawk missiles on the poorest country in the Middle East. Okay.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
All right, let's go to some of the congressional testimony videos.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
Just one of the absolute worst picks that Trump made. Evidently, Waltz set up a signal private chat. This was weeks ago, right before the U.S. started bombing Yemen. Again, the most recent time. And apparently on this signal chat, it seems that it was, there were several people.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
All right. We can we can pause it here. I mean, look, this is I don't know. Look, obviously, this is, you know, you're making the worst people in the world look good.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
You know, it's just one of those things like it's almost I'm sure we've all had this just like in our personal lives, whether it's at work or with a friend or in a relationship or something where you just fuck up and they're just giving it to you. And you're just like, I just got to take this now. There's just really no like your your job here now is just to hear it is. You guys listen.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
Obviously, he's grandstanding. And obviously, he's trying to mischaracterize Ratcliffe's, you know, testimony to some degree. But damn, if that's not a punch that packs some weight to go, you're the director of the CIA. Yeah. You're the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, and you couldn't figure out that there was a freaking Atlantic reporter on your group chat?
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
And he's like, have you ever used Signal before? It's like, Jesus Christ.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
No, it's a good point. It's a very good point. And I really don't know what the answer to that is. Like, were they coming for something unrelated and then they just made it all about this? I mean, it's pretty crazy that they were there right away. I will say, though, also, I haven't ever really seen.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
like the national security state planning a military target on an app and then it's just in the news i mean this is pretty wild dude like it's it's hard to get over that i i don't know this is a pretty wild reporters are in secret government signal chats yeah what else do they know right um and then what was the other video i think we had the tulsi gabbard one just being chastised up there too did i send that or no
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
Okay. Maybe I thought I sent the third one too, but I guess not. Oh, Oh no. You know what? It was just the two. Okay. That's fine. Yeah. Tulsi had to take her, her medicine too. And she basically just wouldn't answer. She was like, I'm not going to comment on an ongoing thing. Oh yeah. Classic.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
Well, I got to say like in this case, that might be the best way to handle it at Ratcliffe seems to be like, no, I can explain it to these guys. And you're like, you're not having a real conversation here, dude. They're just making you take, you know, they're, they're making you accept your punishment. Um, Yeah. Look, I don't know what else to to say here.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
I mean, I would feel guys look like a bunch of assholes. Well, I would feel like a little bit more of I would feel a little bit more motivated to say, like, defend the administration. If you don't look like the same way we've defended Doge and Elon Musk a bunch. where people will say, hey, this isn't the correct process. He's doing this in a sloppy way.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
It seems it was obviously Waltz, Hegseth, the defense secretary, Tulsi Gabbard, the national security advisor, Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, J.D. Vance, the vice president, and Ratcliffe, the CIA director. And then Witkoff, I think, was on it as well. Anyway, so there's a big – and they add this guy and just some anti-Trump reporter. So some – so anyway, so this is the story.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
He's got these young tech guys who have all this information. Have we vetted that? We don't know. All these things you go, okay, even though some of that is legitimate criticism, I don't know, man, they're trying to do the right thing. It's vitally necessary for this to be done. And none of the proper channels have a 1% chance of working.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
It's a 0% chance that this is gonna happen through the appropriate channels. So you know what? You gotta try something new and there might be some mistakes made along the way, but at least they're trying something new. if that were the case, like if this was, if this was a meeting where they were trying to end a war and it got lit, it'd be like, yeah, let me defend them here. Okay.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
They're using signal, but you know what? This is a new team they're trying, but they're not, they're, they're just in the business of trying to defend yet another act of war in the middle East. And so what the fuck you guys, it's the worst of all worlds, the worst of all worlds. And I got to say, um, And, you know, I don't I take no pleasure in saying this.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
And I'll give her the slight caveat of I don't trust this journalist. And not everything has been released, but particularly for Tulsi Gabbard. I just think it's damning that like, look, you could say like she's the director of national intelligence. It's not exactly like she's at the Defense Department. But like when the vice president's weighing in.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
and saying i think we're making a mistake maybe tulsi should have caught his back there and been like yeah this is kind of a mistake i mean tulsi gabbard at least is supposed to be good on this type of stuff um you know that you know who the houthis are enemies of by the way Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. That's their big enemy in Yemen. Outside the Saudis, the Israelis, and Al Qaeda.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
That's their enemy. So you're saying we should team up with Al Qaeda? Work in Syria? Well, I'm saying we are teaming up with Al Qaeda and have been in Yemen as well as Syria and Libya. And you'd think that might be one thing that Tulsi's at least good on.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
There you go. Well, look, we could end the show on this note, but there's evidently is just as we're recording the show. It's the Washington Post is reporting right now that Russia and Ukraine agree to expand the partial ceasefire. So.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
It'd more like be like, look, this is still America and we're ending a war and you can't really end a war. So we just have to move the war over here.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
All right. But an absolute disaster. That's our show for today. All right. Peace.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
He has released the Signal chats but redacted, taken out some parts for national security, and then he just ran this big piece on it yesterday. Now they've got – I'd say at this point, as of right now, the evidence is overwhelming seems like an understatement. I'd say it's conclusively the case that these people were all on signal.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
They were talking about the bombing before it happened, then the bombing happened, then they were celebrating the bombing happening after that. There was some discussion about how people felt about it. We'll kind of get into all of that. But more importantly than any of that, At this point, what we have today that we didn't have yesterday is that Hegseth has been asked about this.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
Tulsi Gabbard and Ratcliffe both testified before Congress today, and they've all kind of admitted it in the sense that none of them are denying it. It ranges from I think Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard would be in the not denying it camp, and then Ratcliffe was just in the like, yeah, we did it, and there's nothing wrong with us doing that. So anyway, this pretty clearly happened.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
There's a few different angles we could go with this. Any thoughts you have, Rob, just about the story in general?
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
That's where you got to go to sign up to support the show, to get the episodes live, ad-free, uncensored, be part of our live chat. You get the bonus episode every week. But for everybody else, you just consume it wherever else you get podcasts. Of course, I'm joined by Robbie the Fire Bernstein. How are you, sir?
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
That is a good point. I think that there's also just – look, just to start the thing because there's no kind of getting around it. It is – Remarkable the level of incompetence to allow this to happen. Or perhaps this was intentional. But those are kind of the only two options right here.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
Well, there's... I do not think this is how it's supposed to go.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
I mean, so, like, I understand if you're— Well, this is why Hillary Clinton was using a private email server.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
Well, look, if you have... Hillary Clinton using a private email where she's talking about, say, like, whatever. Yoga. Yeah, well, you know, she's talking about some private... And then some very, you know, like, kind of shady public... That's one thing. This is not... There's nothing that... They're planning out a military strike, which is going to be made public.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
It's not like there was some secret scandal that happened here and you could see in there like, oh, this is why they wanted it on signal. It is wild to think that the again, you can't overstate it here. The absolute highest levels of our government, the highest levels of the foreign policy regime are. are communicating about an upcoming bombing campaign on Signal. That is just bizarre.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
Like, they're all in Washington, D.C. I guess the vice president wasn't. He mentioned that in the chat. But aside from that, the rest of them are all in D.C. Like, isn't there... I don't know. I always thought there was like a situation room type thing. I don't know. This is just very bizarre.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
And again, your point, which just cannot be overstated, and it really implicates all of them in terms of incompetence, not in terms of like necessarily being malicious. I think Walsh is the one who there's a question mark about. But yeah, that nobody noticed. Hey. Who's this other fella in here?
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
Yeah. Even Rob would have been like, hey, who's this JG right here? Who's that guy?
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
We are going up to Boston the day after tomorrow, which would be March 27th, 28th, and 29th. We'll be up there. I'm very much looking forward to going back to Boston. Been a while since we've been there. And been a while, I think... What's the spot we're playing at? Laugh Boston? I think it was the spot.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
It's unbelievable. By the way, Twight in the group chat that got me, he wrote Joseph Goebbels, which is pretty big. That's what they thought it was. That is funny. It is. Yeah, it's unbelievable that they wouldn't have seen that.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
Yep. No, well, it's look, I'm not sure which one it is. I will just say, okay, this is I might really be speaking out of turn here speculating. I just know that, you know, I've like I've sent the wrong text message before. You know what I mean? Like text the wrong person, like texted my buddy, like, I love you, baby. Be home soon or whatever.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
But it's always because that was the last guy I was texting. And my wife was the other last person. Like these were the last two people I was texting and I hit the wrong one or something like that. It seems very weird that Walls would add text. a Trump-hating Atlantic journo? How did that mistake get made? Now, he's claiming, by the way, that he has no relationship with Goldberg.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
He's like, I don't know this guy. I've never talked to him. I've never anything. It's like, that seems weird to me. I don't use Signal, but wouldn't you have to have his name saved in your thing to add him? Maybe not. Maybe I'm wrong about that. It seems like... A strange mistake to make. I'll just say that. It seems like a really strange mistake to make.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
I didn't think mine was paywalled. They may have had it behind the paywall and taken it off. Or maybe they had it off and then put it behind. I'm not sure. But I read it and did not subscribe. I do not subscribe to the Atlantic and I didn't go through like the archives or anything.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
But the one thing that stuck out to me that was like a head scratcher that was like something here doesn't add up is that he says he removed himself from the conversation. And he was like, oh, this is going to let him know that I'm leaving, but I've got what I need. I'm out of here. Who the hell removes that? What journalist would remove themselves from that conversation?
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
Like you just accidentally found yourself in a conversation between the national security advisor, the director of national intelligence, the defense secretary, the vice president and the secretary of state. And you're just sitting there and the CIA director and all that. And you're just sitting there like what they just accidentally left the press in. And then.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
That's right. So this is our first time at Laugh Boston. I'm trying to think if I've ever done it. Because I've done shows with you in Boston. Right. It was back at Nick's Comedy Stop. That's right.
Part Of The Problem
The Signal Disaster
Clearly, you've gotten deep enough into the thing where you're like, nobody's checking who's in this group, and then you just left? That seemed very strange to me.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
Hey guys, today's show is brought to you by YoKratom.com, home of the $60 kilo. If you are over the age of 21 and enjoy Kratom, make sure you get it from YoKratom.com, longtime supporters of the Part of the Problem podcast, and quite frankly, the best deal you're going to find anywhere in Kratom, $60 for a kilo at YoKratom.com. All right, let's start the show. Hello, hello! What's up, everybody?
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
There might be, maybe the European Union or something is competing, but he ran a pretty, the biggest private Ponzi scheme, I believe, of all time. And his, you know, they like straight up just forged the documents. They didn't invest. They would send people like packets of all their investments. It was just complete bullshit. Right. So it's just constantly getting new new investors to fund.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
I guess investors isn't the right term, but getting new people's money and new suckers to pay out, you know, the old suckers. And he was paying like outrageous interest rates. Like I think he was paying 20 percent at one point.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
I thought it was more than that. But regardless, so he's paying them out. And if everyone's getting paid out, like even 10% to 12%, you're getting a healthy pay, everyone's kind of happy with that, you know? And it wasn't until the economy went south.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
And when the economy went south, he all... I think it was only like... It's not like everyone asked for their money back, but enough big investors did. Yeah. that he didn't have nearly enough. And it's like, what's interesting about Ponzi schemes, House of Cards in general, is that they could take a very long time to build, but man, they will fall over very quickly.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
It's all good, but they're nice books. You got Scott Horton's book. I do have right here. I have, of course, Provoked. This is the early edition copy.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
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Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
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Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
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Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
All right, let's get back into the show. This, I will say, is one prediction that I really got right, at least as of now. I got a few predictions pretty wrong about this last year, but I was arguing with... I was arguing at one point with Michael Tracy, and I think it was Robbie Sov, who I was basically saying...
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
The best thing about Donald Trump, if he wins again, is that it's going to completely destroy the corporate media. And they were arguing with me somewhat reasonably. They were just like, well, no, actually, their ratings all went up the last time he was in. And my prediction on this, which I think has really come true, is just that, yeah, but they're not going to be able to do that again.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
The fan mail doesn't need to be here. This, by the way, is a fantastic book.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
Because it was all based off Russiagate, and that completely fell apart. And then the COVID thing got so blown up that I just think people were underestimating how much... So many people have woken up to like, oh, this is bullshit. They're liars. They lie to us. Anyway, it's always nice just to see people get a little bit of comeuppance. You know what I mean?
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
Like something because there's just all these people are so goddamn awful and it seems like nothing bad ever happens to them. So it's just nice. It's nice to see her cry. I don't know. Maybe that's kind of evil. I got to say I enjoyed this, too. Let's play the Rachel Maddow clip. So here was Rachel Maddow, by the way. I can't remember which one of her books it was, but Ann Coulter wrote this.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
fantastic book rise and kill first uh ronan bergman uh unbelievable really dark but really really good i this is the book that i was reading first i had heard uh i had heard you know the book recommended to me several times and then daryl cooper was like dude you gotta read rise and kill for i don't know maybe i mentioned it that it was like on my list of things to read and he was like dude you gotta read it's so good and you know daryl cooper tells you read a book you read a book
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
This has got to be over 10 years ago. But she wrote about this dynamic. And I used to watch MSNBC, and it was a real thing. If you watched it, you know what I'm talking about. But Rachel Maddow would always, like, go out of her way to be, like, extremely complimentary of Joy Reid. Like, every time Joy Reid was on her show, she would introduce her as, like, the brilliant godsend Joy Reid.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
And it was always obviously this, like, weird liberal white guilt thing. And, like, and then she'd be like, also, Chris Hayes. Yeah. Look, I don't like Chris Hayes, but he's way smarter than Joy Reid. You know what I mean? So anyway, here's Rachel Maddow responding to the news of Joy Reid being fired.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
By the way, she certainly did learn a thing or two from Joy Reid. Make everything a race issue and accuse everyone of being a bigot. But it is wild to me that, I mean, again, as I said before, her numbers weren't bad. They were atrocious. And for you to say, like, it's unnerving and this feels worse than bad. Somehow in these woke people's mind, you just get to call your boss a bigot.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
Completely unfounded. When there's obvious cause to cancel the show. That's what happens in shows. If nobody wants to watch it, the show gets canceled. This has been true from the beginning of shows. That's how it works. And yet she's going to...
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
As if you can't just in your own mind think of the obvious retort, which is that like, I don't know, in what worldview, even in like a left-winger's worldview, do you think if Joy Ann Reid's show was getting 10 million viewers a night, MSNBC would be like, damn it.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
just black is succeeding you know i just hate you know is that how big corporations are not unless they're showing january 6 footage yeah right exactly well you know you got a point there what you'd have to do to get those ratings might actually press them off but it's like it's just such a an obvious thing where it's like they're these decisions aren't being made who cares who the non-white hosts are what it's like what are the you're in a business
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
And nobody sees value in it. It's pretty funny, by the way, Joanne Reed being like, my show has value. And like, yes, it does. And the market has decided the value is zero. That is the value of your show. It went to zero. Like you said, Rob, if your show has so much value... Take it to the internet. Find out how much value it has.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
But anyway, so I took it with me. I bring books on the road usually. That's when I get my reading done. So I took it with me to Austin. And I'm reading this book. The book is about the history of targeted assassinations by the Mossad. And I'm reading it the day Donald Trump got shot. Which was really just...
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
It is – you know, it is – it's kind of a similar type of argument that we've made about Bernie Sanders before not giving away his third home or his million dollars or something like that. It's like – it's the same – you know, you've seen like people – who go to college campuses, conservatives would make that point a lot.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
They'd be like, okay, to white students, be like, why don't you give up your spot here for a minority? I don't know if you believe in this. I do think it's a very fair point and a very exposing one that it's like, yeah, you're saying you work for a bunch of racists, so like... Stop. Stop working for them. Stop cash. Oh, the checks are pretty good though, right?
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
So you're still going to take all that money, but don't let it be said that I didn't call them racist before I took all their money. I just, I don't know. I guess it's hard to even like come up with the words because it's just so it's so obvious in a way. But it's like it's Rachel Maddow in that clip couldn't have given you better evidence for why no one wants to watch MSNBC anymore.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
It's like, this is so incredibly stupid. It's like, this is your deep analysis on everything. It's not just Joy Reid being fired. It's everything. Just comes down to, like, your one dumb talking point about race or... Sex or sexual orientation or whatever. It's like this is just it's it's it requires you to turn your brain off to think this way.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
And then you also have to, like, pretend we're living in a world that we're not living in. Listen, it's so it's like I said before. Yeah. The example like, you know, you have this whole freakout over COVID. Meanwhile, the real health crisis is obesity. You know, you have this entire freakout over Doge. Meanwhile, the real crisis is the government, you know, debt spiral.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
And likewise, the fact that you could sit here and say that it's racist that Joy Ann Reid was fired. This country, Joy Reid went to Harvard. and was then an anchor of a news show for like 15 years. And she's fucking retarded. Okay. Like the story here is not that this country has been so horribly racist to her.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
The story is that it's insane that we bend over backward to pretend that someone like her has anything impressive to say. And, you know, it's just, it's, It's like this weird thing, this victim race ideology. It's like you got these people at the top who grift off of it and make millions of dollars, but the ideology that they're selling is so poisonous.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
like that'll start make you that'll have you connecting dots that maybe you shouldn't be connecting you know what i mean but it was just such a funny thing to be reading and then like look on twitter and be like oh yeah donald trump just got the show all right well okay anyway um okay a few points of order uh of uh bidness before we get into the show for today okay number one
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
And it is like it's like basically those are your only options. It's like you can grift off this somehow or you can let it ruin your life. And you think about like the generation of kids who came out of universities over the last 10 years and how much this stuff was pumped down their throats.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
It's just like it's a horrible thing to do, a horrible thing to do, especially to like young impressionable people. Thank God not too many people are watching this garbage because Jesus, is it awful? Just terrible. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Proton VPN.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
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Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
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Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
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Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
All right, let's get back into the show. And again, Rachel Maddow actually isn't an idiot. And I don't know. I don't I'm not going to psychoanalyze her, but she was a Rhodes Scholar. She's not a dummy. And she's like the fact that she's like bought into all this stuff is I don't know.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
Yeah, I guess so. But it is truly madness. Truly madness. All right. You want to... Let's see. What should we do next, Rob? Well, you want to talk about Dan Crenshaw. You want to talk about... We could do Ukraine or Mike Baker on Joe Rogan. What do you think?
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
All right. So Dan Crenshaw... I don't know if you guys saw this. Let's play the video. You can hear it from him, although I think the audio is not great.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
If you couldn't quite make that out, Dan Crenshaw in this hot mic thing here, he says if he ever meets Tucker Carlson, he will fucking kill him. He says he's the worst person. And at one point in there, he says, I'm not kidding, which is what a lot of people were jumping on. So I think you had a take on this that you expressed before the show, Rob. I think you're correct on this.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
Yes, I completely agree. I think it's like the people who are. First of all, I got to say, honestly, my opinion on this is that I don't I don't like leaked content.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
hot mics unless it's like with the exception of government officials talking about government policy that would be my exception to that like the John Kerry hot mic or the Netanyahu secret recording stuff like that I'm fine with if it's the prime minister of Israel talking about how he tricks the Americans into supporting his wars then okay sure leak that but when it's just stuff like this I just don't like it
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
So there's been a little bit of a change to our schedule. We are still coming to Buffalo. The Saturday shows got canceled. It was a booking error on the club. So March 6th and 7th, we will be in Buffalo, New York at Helium Comedy Club. March 8th, we're now doing some shows in St. Catharines, which is just on the other side.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
I feel the same way about like text messages. You know, there was like a there was some Angela McArdle, the former chair of the Libertarian Party. I remember they had some someone like had leaked some of her like a group chat or something like that. And it was like messages that came out right around the time when I pulled out and wasn't running. And she was saying some like.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
You know, not the nicest stuff about me. And people were like sending it to me like, oh, look what she said. And I'm like, stop sending this to me. Like she didn't say that to me. And she's saying it privately and then someone's going around. And you're also like, look, people are allowed to vent. They're allowed to have a moment like that. You know what I mean?
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
Like it's just – and people, I think, you know, sometimes like – I think about it like the example I would give is like if somebody let's say somebody like hacked into your text messages and let's say you're like let's say you're in a long term relationship or a marriage or something like that. And they they found the text messages from the worst fight you guys had.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
You know, and then we were like, look, look who he is behind closed doors. And you'd be like, that's not really a rep. You know, this was a thing in the moment. You kind of said it. This is to me something like that. And I don't like judging people off of that. I'd rather judge Dan Crenshaw off his terrible track record. So there's plenty more to say about that. And look.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
That's really where the meat of this is, is what is his beef with Tucker Carlson, really? Oh, Tucker Carlson doesn't want to fight forever wars. That's really his issue. And he's probably been, you know, he's been highly critical of Crenshaw. But Tucker Carlson's response was just amazing. Tucker Carlson responded, now this is the correct anti-woke way to deal with these things, okay?
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
You don't go like, oh my God, teacher, teacher, he's threatening me. No, he's not. He wasn't threatening Tucker Carlson. The people jumping on that, you're being silly. You're doing the old confirmation bias thing and you're on my team. So like, I'm not, I don't disagree with you. Crenshaw sucks. He's the worst. Tucker's awesome. But this was not a real threat, right? or a call to violence.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
Like, let's not be children about this. Let's not be Rachel Maddow about this situation here, okay? Let's grow up. That's not what it is. Tucker Carlson's response was perfect. He goes, why don't you come sit for a one-on-one interview? I'll send you my address. There you go. That's the perfect thing. Because first of all, Dan Crenshaw isn't doing anything to anybody.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
It's like you can play this Mr. Tough Guy bullshit or whatever. But the truth is that Dan Crenshaw just got invited on the biggest, second biggest show in the world to go sit down and make your... And if you're a Republican policymaker... probably the biggest show for your target demographic.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
This is, you know, these are the big, these aren't joy read numbers talking about millions and millions of people watching the show. And you're invited to come on and make your case. And he won't because he knows Tucker would humiliate him. Like absolutely body him the same way he did. You know, what's a, what's Mike Pence doing politically? Oh, nothing since Tucker fucking bodied him.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
So what do you want to do? Go on the Tucker show and then go the way of Mike Pence. He'll end your political career if you go on that show. So literally now you're out there, you know, like saying you're going to kill the guy and you just look like the biggest pussy in the world because you're scared to have a conversation with him.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
By the way, not the only person he's scared to have a conversation with. But that's another story for another day. Anyway, yeah, I don't know what... I guess we could transition from that into the Ukraine stuff because it does certainly seem like... Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
You sure? Well, we're going to find out. All right. We're going to push our luck. We're the good kind. The self-hating kind.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
Will you make an exception for a couple self-hating Jews? We will find out. Canada. I have not been to Canada since the Just for Laughs festival in 2017. It was the last time I was up there. And I think, I believe we had planned, I was planning to go up there during 2020. And then, you know, 2020 happened and Canada was not the place you wanted to be. So I have not been up there.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
And I do know, despite, you know, what a communist nightmare that country is, we do have some great fans up there in Canada. So looking forward to that one night only.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. ,,,,, being the pettiest human being who's ever lived is like what he does, what he always does. And he starts talking shit. Like that's how Donald Trump is. Now, listen, It's not the best quality in Donald Trump.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
Out of support, Rob's going to do all his shows in blackface going forward. Your legacy is not forgotten, Trudeau. Don't worry. And then, of course, later in the month, we got Boston coming up. I'm very excited to go back to Boston and laugh. Boston's a great club and Boston's just.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
like one of the best comedy towns in in the world so very excited to go back there uh the other thing which i do not believe i have mentioned this on the podcast yet although i did tweet about it but i am uh maybe i mentioned i can't remember i talk too much i am returning
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
One of the better qualities about Donald Trump is that he'll move on from that shit immediately if there's a deal to be made. It doesn't matter what he said to you or what you say to him. If you can do business after that, he's totally fine to do business. But he has the fragilest of egos. And yeah, if you talk shit about him, he's going to come up with a nickname for you.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
That's how Donald Trump works. Whether you like it or not, that just is the situation. So look, again, to your point, you know, when he says Zelensky started the war, that is kind of fucked up because it's like, really? Look, there's an argument. But the argument would be... Look, there's a very strong argument to just say Vladimir Putin started the war. Vladimir Putin invaded the country.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
And there's... I don't even... I've seen different figures about the wars and how many people have died and the ratio of Russians to Ukrainians. But I think it's pretty much... There's a consensus that it's in the hundreds of thousands of people and probably high hundreds of thousands at this point. And... Vladimir Putin did that. You know, he decided to take it to the level of invading.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
And in Scott's book, he has a chapter on, like, what the other options are that he could have done other than invade the country. And I do think that Scott's right about it. Like, it's not justified what he did. But you really could argue that the Obama administration started the war in 2014. I mean... I don't think there's an argument that Zelensky started the war.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
I mean, yes, you could say he didn't implement the Minsk agreements or whatever, and yes, you could blame him for the part of the civil war that he was responsible for, but... Look, like, I mean, I know I've said this before. I'm sure I'll say it again. But and I said this the other day on Pierce Morgan show, too.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
And also they had like a general who I was not familiar with because a general was on the show. He totally backed me up on this, which I was not. I was thinking, oh, I'm going to have to debate this general guy, which is always a little intimidating because, you know, they're just like. Yeah. You know, I'm a fucking podcaster and he's a goddamn general in the military.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
to the... Or we, I should say, are returning to the Soho Forum, the wonderful debate series run by the brilliant Gene Epstein. And Rob's going to do a comedy set, and then I am doing an Oxford-style debate. I will be debating Alex... I do not mean this as a slight on him, but I always get his last name wrong. Norwash... Norwatchter or something. It's not... Listen, I'll take 50% of the blame.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
But then he totally backed me up on it. And I was just like, look, what do you... And I just said the old thing. I go, look, just game this out. What would we do? What would America do if... China said they were going to bring Mexico into their military alliance. And then we were very concerned about that. And then the president of Mexico decided he wasn't going to do a deal.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
Like, as China's saying they're going to bring them into their military alliance, they're also floating out an economic partnership. And then the president of Mexico goes... Now, you know what? I'm not going to join this partnership, this economic partnership with China. I'm going to join an economic partnership with our neighbor, the United States of America.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
And then China pumped tens of millions of dollars into a protest movement against that president, democratically elected, and got him overthrown from power. And then the new guy joined that deal with them. What would we do? And if you don't think that Washington, D.C. would invade that country in a second, there is simply no way that we would ever tolerate that.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
And in fact, that's what got America into World War I. was that they said, it wasn't even ever going to happen, but they said Mexico was going to join in with their alliance. And we went, okay, well, then total war. Then that's our response to that. And what was Jack Kennedy's response to them putting nuclear weapons in Cuba?
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
He said, I'm treating that as a nuclear attack on the United States of America, meaning I will blow up the world. Like, and I'll tell you, I don't know too many people, even real non-interventionist libertarian types, which are the circles I swim in. I don't know too many people who think Jack Kennedy was wrong to say that.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
To say that, like, no, no, we cannot tolerate nuclear weapons in Cuba pointed at America. I mean, you know how fucking close Cuba is to us? Like, we were just down in Key West right there. Yeah, we're right there. Like, it's just right there. People raft over from Cuba. You can't have nuclear weapons pointed at you from there.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
It's a knife to your throat, which I think was a line Putin said about military hardware in Poland. He said, this is like a knife to our throat. And that's in Poland. Ukraine is closer, you know. So, again, I think the Donald Trump shit-talking Zelensky, I think, is personal and doesn't really add much to the negotiating.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
But I think saying nice things about Vladimir Putin is like, that's just a smart negotiating tactic right now. People can have a problem with it if they want to, but... I don't see what – you know, it's like in D.C., it's just forever wars never make you – that never turns you into a predator state.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
But yet as soon as somebody actually looks like they're going to end one, that's when all these people start attacking. It's the most upside-down, demonic-like thinking.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
Look, I mean, I can't say anything other than it's just gangster shit. I mean, you're right that that's how the Trump administration is trying to sell it to Ukraine. They're trying to sell like, well, hey, if we're very invested in you because you give us your minerals, then, well, then we'd have an interest in Vladimir Putin not coming in and invading.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
But at the same time, we're saying you can't join NATO. We can't give you security guarantees. So in other words, it's just like, give us your shit. And then we'll be incentivized to protect you. P.S. We're not going to protect you. Yeah. And look, I mean, I just I also do think this is this is my view of the situation is that I think that.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
Like the people of Ukraine, you know, forget their criminal government and forget the Russian criminal government and our criminal government for a minute. But the people of Ukraine have been real victims of all three of these criminal organizations. Like the worst victims of this whole thing have been the people of Ukraine have lost their fucking country. It's been destroyed.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
I always say things wrong, but 50% of this is also on he's got a difficult name to say. But anyway, we're doing a debate about immigration or like the libertarian perspective on immigration. Me and Alex have had some not so pleasant back and forths on Twitter over the years, and we've both been kind of critical of the other one. But this is a debate that was... long in the making.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
You know, many of the women and children fled at the very beginning and many of the men were not allowed to.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
uh there you know it's it's unbelievable too you know it reminds me of like the stuff with all these wars it's always like uh you know i bring this up now almost every time i'm on pierce morgan because that you know the topics he i almost always end up talking about either ukraine or gaza when i'm on there and i will i'll make a point to just bring up how you know all the talking points
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I am Dave Smith, and that lovely cupcake to my left is Robbie the Fire Bernstein. How are you, sir? I'm doing well. How are you, Mr. Smith? Very good, very good. I cannot complain. I mean, I always can, but I'm not going to.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
that I was arguing last year on this have all been abandoned. You know what I mean? Like, all the stuff I had to argue for, like, remember, Pierce, eight months ago, ten months ago, when I was doing this and this was the thing I had to argue? You know, the Gaza health ministry is inflating the numbers. You don't hear that too much anymore.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
Because all you got to do is look at the drone footage of Gaza and be like, no, I don't think they are. I don't think they are at all. And all this, like, oh, Hamas uses them as human shields or something like that. All of it? All of it. That's when you look at a picture of, of Southern Gaza and there's nothing and every single building has been destroyed. What are you telling me?
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
Hamas said that Israel estimated that Hamas had like, I think 40,000 fighters at the beginning of the war. So like how, just do the math here with me. There was a Hamas, you know, cell in every single one of these buildings. I don't think so. And so anyway, but with, um, um, In Ukraine, it's like the talking points, they've all just been abandoned.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
Like no one's even arguing the stuff that they were arguing a couple years ago. I've just totally brain farted. I had a specific one in mind. Maybe it'll come back to me. But it's just... It's like the way these things always go. It's the way they always go. And the whole time the cheerleaders are like, oh, it's you know, this is how it's going to go. They give you the picture.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
You know, how many times did Biden and his his surrogates tell us that Ukraine was going to win and that they were and it was all bullshit the entire time. Anyway, the point I was making was that, oh, yeah, here was the example. I got it back. Was that I just remember this was the most popular talking point at the beginning of the war that Ukrainians want to fight. They want to fight. Believe me.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
They want to fight this war. And I would always just, because it's the most basic libertarian insight of all, I'd be like, well, then why are they fighting with a conscripted army? You know, like if they want to fight so much, how come there's, I mean, it's just like very basic. Like if I put a gun to your head and I say like, come, come with me, we're going for a drive.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
And then I say to everybody else, no, he really wants to come for a drive with me. It's like, okay, well in that case, put the gun down and we'll figure out if he really wants to come or not. The Ukrainians there, I think they, um, was the number, I think there was over a hundred thousand people who were charged with desertion, you know? It's like, oh, they didn't seem to want to fight, you know?
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
And those are the ones who did it despite it being illegal. Make it legal. Tomorrow we'll find out how bad Ukrainians want to fight. You know, it's real. Isn't there something so goddamn hilarious about the West writing a blank check to Ukraine, pouring in hundreds of billions of dollars, and the country drafting them and forcing them to fight? And then you go, no, these people want to fight.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
And you're like, do they? Do they really? I don't know about that. Anyway, all these guys, they got hundreds of thousands of people killed and they have absolutely nothing to show for it. Nothing. It's really tragic. Hopefully, you know, peace can be worked out soon and at least the killing will stop, as Donald Trump said.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
Yep. No, that's right. And then always with, you know, references to World War II, as is always the case, you know. And then, by the way, that's where I lost the general. He was agreeing with me about the Russia shit. But then it came to Gaza, you know, and I was talking about how horrible it is. And he was like, well, I mean, after, you know, we killed a lot of people in World War II.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
And, you know, it's always sad when somebody dies, but it's nice that now Alex is allowed to talk to me. So there's the longtime guy at the Cato Institute, David Boaz, who recently passed away, rest in peace, had a firm rule about like people not talking to Mises Institute people. None of them were allowed to go on Tom Woods show or like anything like that. So now he's allowed to debate me again.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
It's always what they go to. But, yeah. It's, you know, all this stuff about how he's going to move on Poland and he's going to he's going to reconstitute the Soviet Union. It's just all total bullshit, just completely made up. And that's the other thing, which is, you know, Glenn Greenwald actually with Dan Crenshaw. I don't know if you saw that. They debated on Piers Morgan the other day.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
But, you know, he called him out on it was so great. And Crenshaw just had nothing to say to it. But he goes because Crenshaw does the thing that they always do. where they go, he says, the thing goes, Russia is a third rate country, you know, a gas station with nukes or whatever they always call them. And then Glenn Greenwald goes like, okay, well, I mean, which one is it?
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
You know, is he this puny little weak country or is he about to reconstitute the Soviet Union and take over half of Europe? Because it's I just don't know. Look, one of the major things that did come out of this war is if you remember back, there was it was in one of the Bill Burns memos. I don't think it was the yet means yet one. I think it was one of the other ones that got that got leaked.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
But Vladimir Putin had said his famous line was I could be in Kiev in a week. You know, like he was, and I think this was, and in fact, Scott's got it in the book. I can't remember it off the top of my head, but there were like colonels in the military who were already talking about an insurgency in the first month of the war when Vladimir Putin first invaded.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
So they were talking about us backing an insurgency. In other words, they expected Ukraine to fall and then it would just be an insurgency that was fighting against Vladimir Putin. That didn't end up happening. So Ukraine did much better in this war than I would have predicted they would have done.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
Now, of course, that is very related to the fact that they had a blank check from the entire Western world. I mean, that that Vladimir Putin quite possibly would have been right. Absent the hundreds of billions of dollars that poured in from the West, right, like if it was just a one on one fight, maybe he would have been in Kiev in a week. Right.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
Also, the fact that from 2014 to 2022, NATO was doing joint military exercises with the Ukrainian military, and perhaps that got them a little bit in better shape. But regardless of that, I just don't even know how anybody, like, how does this talking point even work anymore? He couldn't even, like...
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
He fought for years in Ukraine and was able to take some pieces of the thing, but not even control the entire country. Where do you get from that that then he's going to launch a war with Poland and take on all of NATO?
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
No, look, that's a fair point, too. It's not clear that the Russians wanted to take all of Ukraine. So that's a fair point to make as well. But regardless, they still have fought and lost a lot of people. And this has not been an easy war for them. The idea that they're reconstituting the Soviet Union is just this is a this is like a neocon wet dream of this being a real threat.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
So we're justified to fight this war. All bullshit. All right. We got to wrap up there. Thank you guys very much, as always, for listening. ComicDaveSmith.com. Go check out Run Your Mouth if you have not already. Rob's other fantastic podcast. Anything else you want to plug, Rob?
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
Shoot Rob an email, maybe even shoot him an Adderall. Okay, the other thing I wanted to mention, I forgot to mention before, is that Natalie just created the Part of the Problem clips channel, a brand new YouTube channel for shorter clips. So please, if you guys can, go subscribe to that YouTube channel. Help us out over there. That would be really great. What is it called again, Natalie?
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
And I am I'm very much looking forward to this. I think it's going to be I think it's going to be a great night and a really important topic, particularly in today's world, which is actually in the resolution. There's something it's something like particularly in modern day America, libertarians ought to support restraints on immigration or something like that.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
Part of the Problem. Part of the problem clips. What a great name. What a great name for the part of the problem clips channel. There you go. At part of the problem clips on YouTube. Go check that out. All right. Thank you, guys. See you tomorrow. Peace.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
So anyway, the Soho Forum dot org is the website. You can get tickets there. Last I heard, these are moving fast. The event is going to sell out. So if you'd like if you're in the New York City area and you'd like to come spend a night with me and Robbie the Fire Bernstein, come on out. Come on out. All right. So there's a lot of stuff going on. I'm not exactly sure. You know, let's just start.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
Let's start with the fun stuff. OK, because there really is. I got to say, it's it's probably a little bit evil how happy this made me. But Joy Reid has been canned at MSNBC. What can you say, Rob? MSNBC is it's amazing everywhere. I don't understand how anybody's, I don't understand how they haven't closed up shop. I was looking just earlier at the numbers. The ratings were so bad.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
I mean, she was, Joy Reid in the key demo was doing like, you want to just take a guess? 200,000 people? Right. Because that'd be really bad. Yeah. Right. 40,000 people. How's that possible? 40,000 in the key demo. That's a small podcast. I mean, it's literally like, it's insane how much the show was failing.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
And then, and by the way, then like the, you know, if they get a hundred thousand in the demo, that's like, oh, that's their number one show. That's like what Maddo does. Like she gets them like a hundred. That's why they had to bring her back. They have no one there. And then you just think about it. Like what?
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
You know, I remember it was an interesting thing like once podcasts first came out and became a thing, I remember just thinking about it. Really, the comparison that I would make was Sirius Radio because Sirius Radio had like, you know, some comedy shows there. But then as podcasts started getting big, you would just kind of look at it like on a – just the business model of it.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
You're like, okay, so – We, the three of us, we're kind of doing a radio show right now, right? Like what really is the meaningful difference? It's on the internet versus being on a thing that you have to have like in your car or whatever. I don't know. Okay. Ours is out of the garage of my house. That's our business model. I have a three car garage.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
I turned one of the car garages into a little studio. Okay. Cost a few bucks to make this room and get the equipment and build the walls, but like nothing that crazy. Your business model is we're launching satellites into outer space. I don't know what that runs you, but my guess is it's not cheap, you know? And so the same with MSNBC. Even you look, it's like these gigantic building in Midtown.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
You know, they're at the... I think they're at the 30 Rock building. It's just like the expenses that go into all of this. And then for the numbers to be this low. Anyway, how is it even shocking to anyone? Like, what is... MSNBC is like... Who's it for? It's like four leftists who love corporate America. How big did you think that audience was, you know?
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
And Joy Reid, I mean, for people who don't know, the woman is, I mean, she's gotta be the dumbest woman in cable news. And she's just like utterly retarded, knows nothing about anything, is a vicious racist. I mean, like, just point blank, she's an insane racist. She sees everything through the prism of race. That's always been her thing.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
And, yeah, it just turned out that after a while, no one wants to fucking watch that shit. Anyway, here she is. This is the fun part. Let's check in with, as Tucker used to call her, the crazy race lady over at MSNBC. And here she is.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
That's right. I think none of it is my responsibility. And if I'm being honest, I'm a little annoyed with you two that this place is such a mess.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
Why are there wires everywhere? Yeah, I know. I really am. It's unbelievable because I was always a slob. And I really do. My wife makes fun of me for this, but I really do have this feeling like I used to be a slob and I'm not a slob anymore. And then I realized that I, I just married my wife.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
In a way, you're kind of God, you know? All right, let's... Essentially, that's it.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
But there is something... And, you know, I remember saying this for years, Rob, but there is something about... You know, the... Look, I mean, there's really no other... The blatant racism that kind of, like, swept culture and universities and stuff like this, particularly over the last decade, probably goes back further than that. But I remember I always would say...
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
I would be pretty goddamn livid if my kids were ever going to a school and they were being taught that whiteness is evil or something like that. I would not send my kid to a school that believed in an ideology that was bigoted toward them. But I would be ready to kill someone
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
If I had like a black kid or if the ideology was that white people are victims and you are so wonderful and because I just think that's the most I think that's actually worse. Like it's worse what they're doing to black kids in colleges than what they're doing to white kids in college, because it is like the most poisonous thing.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
And you see people like Hartley just has it in her like it's it's racial superiority is what you're teaching. And it's and also with like a victim guilt complex that almost always accompanies racial superiority, by the way. And you just see all she can talk about is how great she was. That's why she got canceled because she was so great. Like, can you I just don't.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
I really can't imagine a scenario where, like, let's just say, you know, whatever the views that our podcast gets, let's say they just evaporated. And after a while, I just went it went down to like no one's watching the show anymore to the point that it's not economically sustainable, like just can't do it anymore. I could never imagine that.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
Not at least having some element of like, fuck, what did I do to lose my audience? You know, like, man, I guess I could have, you know, even if I didn't think I was wrong about the issue, I immediately, my mind would go to like, I guess I'm not saying this in the right way. You know, I guess I didn't like, there's something, something I did wrong. Not an inch of that.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
She's crying talking about how great she is and how she's of God and she's did everything right. That's her takeaway. the dumbest person on cable news. That's what she thinks of herself.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
It can't be that much less viewers. Yeah. I mean, I don't... Like... In a way, when you say it's got to be a higher profit margin for her to just go do a podcast at this point. But again, like, you know, you know, these people just don't prove your value.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
And she walks behind you with the, this is the only room of this gigantic house that I'm responsible for. And it's a goddamn mess. And then I go, every other room is really nice.
Part Of The Problem
Joy Reid is Fired
There is something you make a great point. And it does just it feels like a Ponzi scheme falling apart. You know, like it just has that feel, you know, the whole, you know, so Bernie Madoff, who ran the biggest, who ran the, excuse me, who ran the second biggest Ponzi scheme of all time next to the US government.
Part Of The Problem
The Dems Are Lost
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Part Of The Problem
The Dems Are Lost
Trump, in a way, the way I look at it is like I think Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were the best politicians of my life. Trump is like an anti-politician almost, which is I'm not saying there aren't similarities between the two, but it's like he's a whole different thing. He decided, like, I'm not going to do that thing that I'm not going to do the politician thing. I'm just Donald Trump.
Part Of The Problem
The Dems Are Lost
Now, Gavin Newsom is like he's a very talented traditional politician. I don't exactly know in this current market, in the current culture of the United States of America, is there a market for a traditional politician? I'm not so sure of that.
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You know, it's like much like you, you said with the, the idea that the cable news look has just been so degraded that people don't want to see that anymore. I think that that might be true for the traditional politician too. However, When you see Gavin Newsom, and especially when you contrast it with who else the Democrats have.
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it's hard you kind of got to take that guy seriously you're like okay no listen this guy is um both in just in terms of iq in terms of um just rhetorical abilities his levels above the rest of these guys there's like really no one else the democrats have who's like at that level and it was that's been clear the more we've seen of all these democrats
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And I will say that, you know, as I said at the beginning and as you you put quite well, there's no question this is the right move. Like from a political point of view, it's like, yeah, dude, you got to get on podcasts. You got to argue with people on the other side. You got to be talking about the current thing. You got to be trying to sell some type of compelling message. So.
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there's no question that that's there the the glaring issue you have is like as you said rob just the disaster the disaster that is california and the wildfires are almost the least of it at this point it's i mean it's a big thing but it's the the disaster that is the state of california
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Where people have under his under on his watch, people have been fleeing the state by the hundreds of thousands. And there's really, you know, when it comes to a situation with a country, you know, like ours, where you have these United States and there is freedom of movement between all of them. Uh, there's just no better indicator of your success or failure.
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Like people voting with their feet is the most powerful endorsement or vice versa of a state. You know, if you're doing a great job, people flood in. If you're doing a terrible job, people flood out and people are flooding out of California.
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Um, and for obvious reasons, I mean, like if, you know, um, all you have to do is go to a major city in California and you'd be like, oh, that's why people are leaving because of that. Um, anyway, the, the other issue that they have is that it does seem to me that the, the, there's a lack of substance issue with Gavin Newsom.
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And it, at least it seems to me from all the clips I've seen, the major problem that he has is that like, it's like, he's a very, he's a, a very nicely wrapped present. Um, But there is nothing inside.
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Yeah, it's a bad track record. And then he's really got no there doesn't seem to be any real argument that he's there to make. And so that's an issue, too. But anyway, so this is all fascinating to me. And of course, the conversation that is dominant in the Democratic Party right now, which is the kind of like, what do we do from here? Talk.
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It is true. It's just it's so much more... to hurt yourself during sex, if it makes sense, like the real thing. Okay. By the way, let's start off with just some quick plugs before we get into the meat of today's episode. We're going to be in Boston coming up very soon. Looking forward to that. Come on out, Boston.
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I also just find it very interesting how they're just they're at such a they have such an inability to grapple with what actually just happened and why it just happened. And I it's interesting to see them spin their wheels. So anyway, let's go. Let's go to this clip from the Gavin Newsom podcast. I believe it's called Meet Gavin Newsom. Am I right about that?
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Just pause it already here. Isn't it like— You get what I'm saying when I say it's like a beautifully wrapped present, but there's no gift inside? It's just already like, what is this? This is empty sloganeering. Like there's no actual comment being made here. We can't play defense. We got to play offense and we got to meet people where they're at. What? What does any of that mean?
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Like, I'm sorry. Maybe I'm the dumb one here. Speak slower so I can understand. What does any of that mean? What are you saying? Oh, it's identity that matters. And they weaponize it and they humiliate people. And they like, again, this is like it sounds like James Lindsay defining the woke right. And then you give a definition that applies to everybody.
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Well, they're awakening to an injustice and they want to put themselves in a position of power. Like, yeah, that's politics. Isn't it wild? I mean, by the way, you have two of – this conversation is happening between two of the most aggressive lockdown governors. And the two of the governors who were the biggest champions of Black Lives Matter.
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And you're you're talking about how they use identity and they demonize others and attempt to humiliate them. They use important issues to demonize others. OK, yeah, I have some mild memories of being unvaccinated in 2021 and 22, and I felt like the finger was pointed at us a little bit. But anyway, it's just this is the point I'm making. It's like one of the things it's like.
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The podcasting, the podcast world didn't just blow up because it was on the Internet instead of being on the TV. I mean, that is part of it about, you know, like people are on their phones and their computers more and they're on televisions less. But. it was also that there was just substantive conversations being had and, you know, people can, you, you can mock the bro podcast vibe or whatever.
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We always fill up the shows in Boston, so if you want to come, get them now because these shows will sell out. Comic Dave Smith dot com. And we're traveling all over the place for the rest of the year. So come come see us there. And then, Rob, you got some some gigs coming up, I believe.
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And, and there's like part of that's fair, you know, it is, there's no question. It's, it's kind of like, there's a, there's a bro energy to a lot of the popular podcasts, but, There's also just like organic, substantive conversations that are happening. And this is just it's too weird and nothing like you got to say something. I don't know. Any thoughts on this, Robert? You want to jump back in?
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Here, pause it one more time, because I do just want to make this point. There is, and I find this to be fascinating, particularly after the years of pushing the gender stuff. But there is a realization amongst Democrats that they are too beta. And that they need, I mean, literally, I think I want to say, who was it?
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It was Van Jones, I believe, I heard on CNN the other day explicitly say, we need alphas on our side. There's just... Even the Democrats eventually recognized that, oh, yeah, Donald Trump is out alphaing us. That's a big component to what's going on here, which I don't know how that wasn't obvious to everybody.
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It literally was like I had a huge chunk on it in my my first comedy hour special Libertas about how Donald Trump just out alphaed everybody. Like that was so obvious right away. But anyway, they finally realized this. It's very strange coming from. you know, like after they've pushed all the stuff they've pushed over the last 10, 15 years. But yeah,
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just a little piece of advice, maybe you don't project like alpha male energy or like dominant male energy by saying, I am now going to project dominant male energy. You have to just do it. You can't sit there and say, it's too like, I think I could kick their ass. Like now, see, now this just comes off as like, like you're a try-hard or something like that. It's like, no, that's not actually it.
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I mean, really, it's just going to be very difficult for Democrats to transition, no pun intended, from all of the stuff they've been talking about to this now. Like, we're going to be alpha men or something. I don't know. I just find this very... But it is interesting to me that they've at least recognized that.
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They realize, like, oh, there's a problem here, that we don't... It's not... And part of it is just looking at the numbers. I mean, they are just...
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hemorrhaging men you know and it's a lot more than the fact that it was kamala harris like was that it was a woman running for president this year it was true uh according to the polls under joe biden as well um and i think it would have been true if joe biden had run or just about any democrat had run it's like men across
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All age groups across all ethnicities and races and, you know, like men have just walked away from Democrats. And it's for such obvious reasons. I mean, it's just not – it's not a – an environment where any man is going to feel comfortable or at least any like traditionally masculine man is just not going to feel comfortable there. It's everything.
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Everything is about feelings and, uh, you know, about kind of, um, I don't know, like safety over adventurism, like everything is, there's just something like, even in the policies that I just like adamantly disagree with Donald Trump about, there's always something masculine to them.
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There's always something, you know, we're going to take Greenland or whatever, you know, it's like, there's something there. And they've, they've openly been talking about toxic masculinity for years and lecturing young boys and let, you know, it's just, it's, It's been a disaster for them. So they recognize that to some degree, like we got to win these men back over.
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But then just sitting here again, I don't have used this example before, but it's just like when I hear Tim Walz talking about how he could kick anyone's ass. It just to me, it sounds it's like that scene in the 40 year old virgin when he's describing what a boob feels like.
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like it's just like i know you're saying the thing that you think is the thing to say now but you clearly have no experience in this department at all um all right let's keep playing
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There you go. Also, I should remind her. I know I've told you guys I'm debating Alex Norway. I just still I will learn his name by the time we debate debating immigration at the Soho Forum. The Soho Forum dot org is the website to go to go if you want to come see it live. If you're in the New York City area. Also, little teaser for you. I've got some big ones coming up.
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When you talk to a guy like Steve Bannon, he talks about work. I mean, this is the part that was like actually most interesting to me is that the – because it just shows you it's such a – It's the mentality of the old order, you know, and that that's this is what Tim Walz's idea. But how do we push them back under a rock? How do we take them out?
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And this is the mentality that the Democrats have, you know, and this is the mentality that the Democrats. that the government has had for a very long time. It's like, that's it. Okay. They're a problem. So how do we eliminate them? What's the plan here? Censorship. So, you know what I mean? Like, what do we do? There's, that's the goal. How do we, they're bad people. How do we get rid of them?
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And it's like what Gavin Newsom is a few steps ahead of, of waltz on this is that he's like, at least he's recognizing like, oh, oh yeah, no, the answer is we can't. The answer is we can't push them back under a rock. We do not have that ability to do that. It's just it's not even an ideological question. It's a it's a reality based question. Can you do that or can you not? It'd be like, you know.
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Yeah, whatever. It's just it's there's just you're not in a position to do that. And then, you know, Gavin Newsom is kind of suggesting like, well, you have to kind of he's like it's like coming to the most obvious conclusion so many years too late. But he's like, I think maybe you'd have to address their arguments.
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I think maybe you'd have to deal with their grievances and maybe have a response to some of the points that they make. And and Tim Walz is like, but they're racist and sexist. It's like, wait, they're racist and sexist. They go under the rock. I mean, listen, that did work for a remarkably long period of time. I don't think it's working anymore.
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Not going to tell you what they are, but I've got a few big, big shows coming up that I'm very excited to do. It's interesting.
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You don't got to go in your car and go find some gas station. It comes right to you. YoKratom.com, home of the $60 kilo. Let's start today's show.
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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
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yes it's uh well one of them's the obvious one that's all i'll say and then uh and and then a couple one uh one of them i'm doing uh tomorrow doing a big show that i've never done before so very excited uh to go do that um not i'm not sure when it's coming out but we're recording it tomorrow so probably soon uh okay so There's a few things going on.
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One of the things that I wanted to talk about on the show that I don't, we may have briefly mentioned it, but I don't think we've really given it too much attention, but I do find this to be very interesting because it's such a comment on kind of the moment that we're living in. And obviously there's all these kind of major themes of 2025 so far.
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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We're we're different people in different positions and we have different styles. So anyway, I don't think that's going to happen. But man, I would do that in a second. Man, would I love to do that? OK, so the other thing, by the way, is speaking of. So what I will find for the shows now is like, OK, so like this, like again.
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And one of the major ones being the disastrous state of the Democratic Party. And obviously this has to do with many factors, but really the, you know, losing the
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propaganda apparatus of the corporate media is probably the biggest one it's not just that they lost an election it's that they lost the mechanism by which they win elections and so anyway so the topic that i'm i'm thinking about is uh which i'm curious if you've watched any of it but have you seen gavin newsom has started a podcast I've seen clips. Yeah, same with me. I've just seen clips.
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OK, so Joy Reid is gone. But like whoever the next stupid lady at MSNBC is, I'm finding it. I'm having a tougher and tougher time justifying like playing a clip of them because you're just like, no one watched this. No one takes this seriously. It's kind of low hanging fruit. But when Gavin Newsom is now starting a podcast and looks like the 2028 front runner, that's worth nothing.
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know what i mean like taking on likewise to set up this next clip when the most powerful democrat in the senate is going on the view i still think that's legitimate to a legitimate target because this is somebody with actual political power and he is kind of the de facto leader or the co-leader i guess it's him and nancy pelosi are still kind of the leaders of the democratic party um which is
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remarkable in a sense. It's really, and I know this is a point that you've made many times, Rob, but it's really something about DC where like, In almost any other area of life, you simply cannot fail as catastrophically as Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi have failed and just continue on. I mean, there's no company where there wouldn't be a shakeup, no matter how high up it is.
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I mean, this could be the CEO or the CFO of a company. If they failed this spectacular, we're looking for a new CEO. That's it.
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um in a marriage if you fail this spectacularly it ends in divorce like i mean there's just nothing in life where there aren't some repercussions except for in dc where you can just fail and fail and fail and fail and you know you could and then still be outraged if anyone suggests you who you leave and still be what do you mean you're gonna cut the department of education what like department of education what
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Like, we spend so much goddamn money on education and our kids can't read. And they're like, still, you can't cut us. Anyway. All right, guys, let's take a moment to thank our sponsor, Monetary Metals, an amazing company that I've been telling you guys about for a while now. You really got to check them out.
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I'm not going to sit down and watch an episode of Gavin Newsom. But it is... Look, it's just as somebody who was... I mean, I'm not like first generation of podcasters. Maybe I'd be like second generation. There were people who were at it before me. But for somebody who was... You know, I...
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Monetary-metals.com. That's the website where you can click the link in the episode description. monetary-metals.com. All right, let's get back into the show. Here is Chuck Schumer on The View giving his pitch to the American people.
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dude to just say i have a load of talent and then to rattle off the most pathetic list of names i i mean it's just like talk about not contending with reality oh yeah you've got we've so much talent i mean we could throw cory booker at him if we needed to cory booker dude what did that guy get when he ran for president Anything was he at one?
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Yeah. There's look, this is an element to it that it's like, he just, it's like, it's not as simple as like, we've got to be on social media. Cause it's like, you could go viral on social media in a bad way. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like there's a difference between going viral and something that's helpful and something that's disastrous.
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Trying to think like around when I first because I was doing part of the problem in my apartment in Brooklyn in 2012. I know that says before even we went to stand up New York labs and before. But I had done.
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You know, like Kamala Harris had a ton of things that went viral during the election when she said on The View that she couldn't think of anything that she would have done differently than Joe Biden. That went viral. It also destroyed any chance she had, if she had any chance of winning the election. And it just, it gives off, it's such a...
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it just gives off such imposter energy like it's it's like oh you're you know say what you will about donald trump but he was always being donald trump it wasn't like there was some other donald trump and he was trying to be just like that and you know there is it's like they're going and and doing things that are are like they'll be doing like an internet
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viral trend but it was like a trend three years ago and then they come out and do it and you're like I don't know that's all wrong like that's not how this works so yes anyway it is it is just delusional I mean maybe this is just what he has to say and he knows the truth but it is delusional to be like we have this strong bench and they're really connecting with social media and all this shit the truth is that even
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you know even amongst things like like okay there's that call her daddy podcast and i don't know exactly you know i literally i saw some of the episode of kamala harris i've never watched that podcast before i don't really think it's for me um but from what i understand it does get a lot of views um and so so it's like it's a big show but even amongst people who watch that show
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it's not necessarily moving the needle that kamala harris went on it you know and something like say for example like taylor swift is undeniably huge you know she's the biggest like uh musician i think ever i think she i think her last tour was like the biggest tour in history um But her telling people to vote for Kamala Harris didn't move the needle at all.
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And so it's like there's the truth is that the Democrats are just you kind of can't overstate it. They're getting annihilated in the podcast social media. Game just and just destroy. So for him to sit here and say, oh, we've gotten better and we got Corey books out there doing it's like, yeah, come on, dude. This is total bullshit. All right. Let's let's play some more.
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skanks and i had done hammer fisting originally so that that would have to have been around 2009 2010 um that first started speaking you know having conversations that we were recording and then putting on the internet and so it's just You know, at this point now, you know, back then it was like a few comedians had podcasts, but it wasn't it certainly wasn't like a thing that everybody had.
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It's so stupid. And yes, OK, he he did kind of tie it to like going after Trump. And then it almost seemed like he felt that he needed to say and how he's making the middle class pay for the tax cuts or something like that. But like. It is so stupid. I mean, it's so obvious, like.
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He the move is that we're all united to make life better for the working class, to make life better for middle class Americans, to make like that's what you're united in or even even united in something like to get free health care or to get, you know, whatever, something that makes people's lives materially better to be. We're all united like in opposing Donald Trump.
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what, first of all, yeah, we know that's not new. That's the thing that got you here. Like what, what is that? Obviously you all oppose Donald Trump, but like for your whole thing, it does just come off, which is the truth, which is like undeniably the truth. And this, again, as we, we mentioned was one of the most powerful and
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it was a rhetorical trick, but it was one of the most powerful moments of Donald Trump's State of the Union speech, which was very well received by the American people. But his most part where he goes, I could do anything and these guys are going to, you know, and when you take on, first of all, he's pointing that out.
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It's also undeniably true that people just hate Donald Trump so much that they're going to oppose him. The people who hate him are going to oppose him no matter what he does. But for Chuck Schumer to actually say that, it's like, oh, so now you're putting yourself in a position where we're playing politics and like you said, team sports.
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And so what we're just going to oppose Donald Trump, even if he does something that's good for the country. Yeah. Now, in terms of the substance, I mean, I guess he's about to get into it so we can, you know, I'll save that and then we can respond to this. But in terms of the argument here he's laying out is that the middle class are going to have to pay for the tax cuts for the rich.
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Again, just the same old message. I mean, it's unbelievable. Like, it's... Could you like tell me any scenario in life where you have a catastrophic failure, whether that would be professionally or personally, romantically, whatever. You have a catastrophic failure. And then as a result of that, you go, I think what we should do is continue doing all of the same things.
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Like, when does that ever make sense? And this message of like, you know. You want tax breaks for the rich and the middle class will have to pay that. The rich should pay their fair share type shit is like this is the same is the same exact thing you guys always say. This is the new thing. We're united in our opposition to Donald Trump and the rich should pay their fair share. All right.
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Way to deal with the situation you're facing. All right. Let's just play the next little bit and we'll break that down and then we'll wrap.
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And it was kind of a weird thing. It was a thing you'd almost have to explain to somebody. But to see now.
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OK, man, you know, sometimes I just wish I would just love to live in a world where the Democrats caricature of the Republicans was accurate. Man, I really wish they hated government and were trying to destroy it. But unfortunately, that's not the reality. Obviously, there's a lot that's just factually wrong.
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It's just kind of like garbage economics and just bad, inaccurate understanding of the way things work. But I just can't tell you, I just find it so profoundly evil to have somebody like Chuck Schumer who is worth like, I mean, I don't know his exact net worth off the top of my head, but he's worth an ungodly amount of money. He's made his money by being a quote unquote public servant.
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just as someone who's just been in this for a while, that the move for the darling of the Democratic Party, the guy who kind of all of the Democratic bigwigs wanted to run for president but couldn't either convince him to or couldn't maneuver around Kamala Harris, to see that as he's clearly, I mean, I don't think this is too much of a leap to say, clearly building toward a 28 potential run,
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And then he's sitting here and mocking people who built a successful business and how they feel like they did it themselves. And of course, it's also like a straw man argument. I mean, I don't think I've ever heard anyone who's built a business literally say, I did this all on my own with my bare hands. I had no help at all. Obviously, all of us...
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have help in one way or another down to very very basic things that we all take for granted like we're speaking a language right now that we didn't invent you know what i mean like there's always like we we always stand on the shoulders of like all of human history um but
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The idea that somebody in the parasitical government class is lecturing people who did build and create things about how they feel like it's rightfully theirs. First of all, it's it's evil. It's you are supposed to be a servant of the people who you're mocking right now. And then on top of that, it's also like. What in what way does this message resonate with anyone?
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You sit there at the end and say, hey, we're united now. Yeah, you're united with a 24 percent approval rating. Who's united? You're like you guys might be united. The American people are the most united I've ever seen them in rejecting you. So but yeah, you know, most people actually do think of their money as theirs.
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Most people, when they work for money and they get a paycheck, they think of that as their paycheck, not that it belongs to you. I don't know. Any other thoughts on this one, Rob?
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yeah well it's also the other thing too is that this this idea that you know and this has just been true for a long period of time it's uh it's When he you know, this this talk about tax cuts for billionaires, it's all just made up nonsense. It's all fucking nonsense. There's a billionaires don't pay income tax in a meaningful way.
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It's like and I mean, I'm not saying like they don't literally don't pay any taxes, but like billionaires, their salary is the least of any. I mean, I think there were. Many years where Warren Buffett didn't have a salary. I think a lot of the richest people on earth don't even pay themselves salaries.
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These people have, you know, you don't when anyone talks about Elon Musk, nobody goes, did you see what he made last year? Like in terms of a salary, they talk about his net worth, what his companies are worth.
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billionaires are paying capital gains taxes okay and so the idea that that this has anything to do with an income tax is just all red the people billionaires have um first of all they have the system rigged in their favor they have armies of accountants and tax lawyers to figure out every single loophole and then manage their wealth around that
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um who ends up getting banged out by by taxes by income taxes is um the upper middle class that's who ends up paying you know what i mean it's not it's it's like the doctor it's not the billionaire it's it's the the doctor who makes like 600 grand a year and then has to pay like half of that to the government, like that's who you end up like going after with these taxes.
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But this idea that the Democrats like to like, you know, because if you say it like that, like the way it really is, the way it works, then you're more likely to be like, oh, Oh, my doctor like got my kid better when he was sick. I don't really hate him. You know what I mean?
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It's like when you just say the billionaire, it's like, oh, you're picturing Scrooge McDuck and he's sitting on a pile of money. I share a little bit of that money. Come on. What? You know, but it's like, no, the people who actually get like like really bear the burden of these of raising income taxes is is people who are, you know.
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Just imagine, Rob, how crazy it is that like the move is, well, you're going to have to go start a podcast. And it is the correct move. I'm not even like criticizing him for that. Like that is the thing to go do now. And that in itself is just so wild to me. And I just like I love that. You know, I think it's great as awful as he is. How crazy is it that that's now what...
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the the ones who are essentially what's left of the middle class because you kind of have to be making six figures to be in the middle class these days um so anyway this is just all nonsense and uh yeah democrats are in trouble man this is uh they got to get this old they got to get this old fart out of the way because he is not going to be i mean listen i don't like it i don't like any of them but gavin newsom seems right now to be like the only one that is even
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in the conversation or at least dealing with the reality in front of them. All right. We got to wrap on that. Thank you guys very much for listening. Catch you next time. Peace.
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the the ruling class has to do in order to get somewhere is, you know, and obviously it's a different version, but it's like they have to do what me and Lewis did in 2010. Like, that's what they're there. But yes, that is the move. So anyway, that's just kind of interesting in my mind. But before we get into because I wanted to play a couple of clips from he had what's his name?
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Tim Walsh on his show, the vice presidential candidate in the last election. I think it's kind of interesting to me. But of the like, I'm just curious to you, like of the clips you've seen, what do you think of this move? Gavin Newsom getting out there on a podcast. What do you think about him being the Democratic, you know, potential nominee or any of that stuff?
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Then the next element. Can I just I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Just keep that thought in mind, because that's such a good point. And it does. It's like it's like in the 90s when billionaires started wearing T-shirts and jeans. Like it all of a sudden became a thing where Steve Jobs would give his his presentations just in a T-shirt and jeans.
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It's almost like, oh, you have to like assume the aesthetic of the regular guy in order to like talk to the regular guy. And there's just something that's a really interesting observation. There really is something to that, that they now have to almost like abandon the cable newsy looking background because our our monkey brains have just associated that with liar.
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much that you just come off as a liar if you're in that environment at all. Sorry, continue.
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That's all. It's really all it takes to change your mind. Yeah, it is a thing, dude. Getting old. I do think like for me, it was there was something around your age. It's like mid 30s is like when you start just like. you just like slowly start noticing like, Oh, like, you know, like something hurts and you're like, Oh yeah, well it'll get better. It'll go away.
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It's we could even talk about it a little bit today because it is interesting how much, you know, podcasting is I know I used when we were going back and forth with Jonah Goldberg. I use the the metaphor of like fighting and how the old school people found out they couldn't fight in the UFC. But there is something about it that is kind of similar in a way.
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Maybe it's just that I'm a fan of both the two things. So I see the parallels. But like there's there's something where it's like revealing of what you really got. Yeah, you could talk a tough game or something like that. But let me see you in a fight. Let me see you when you're hurt and you're tired. And then you really test character.
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And there is something about podcasting that like actually tests like it just it separates the wheat from the chip. Like you're like, what do you really have? What do you really have to say? Let me get let me get into your mind and see if you actually have something here. And for all the talk over these years of how somehow it was always so ridiculous.
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But Michelle Obama was like the dream scenario that she would come and run for president or something. Hey, you just watch her. And again, I've only seen some of the clips, but it is like she is boring. She is totally boring. She's nasty. She's got, like, a real kind of, like, bitter thing to her. And she's vapid. Like, there's just, like, I don't know. It was very interesting.
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And the other thing that's so interesting about that is the numbers have just been abysmal. When you see her, she's getting, like... I don't know. She had like a video that had like 40,000 downloads or views on YouTube or whatever or something. And you're like, what's this fucking Michelle Obama? Really? She can't put together a couple hundred thousand views on an episode. Anyway, sorry, continue.
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I'm doing the Frankenstein walk today of, and there's like things like that. Like if you fuck up your neck or fuck up your back or something like that, whereas like in your twenties, it'd be like, Oh, that was stupid that I did that. But then like, when you get in closer to 40, it's more like,
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Yeah, I look, I mean, I think that's exactly right. And there is look, you can't deny it. he's got he's he's incredibly talented and he's a talented politician. Now, I completely agree with you. And I think that kind of almost goes without saying, yes, obviously, his policies have been a disaster. I mean, he's he's been a truly a. He's been a uniquely terrible governor.
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Like what he's done with the state of California is as bad a job as I could think of any governor doing with any state. But like there is something, you know, he's he's an interesting figure because he is in a way he is like a traditional politician. And a very good one, like a very good traditional politician.
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I think the the way I look at it is kind of like in my lifetime, I think pretty undeniably the most talented politicians have been Bill Clinton and Barack Obama for people. Bill Clinton lost a step. I think he did too many drugs when he was young and it kind of fucked him up later in life. Like he doesn't he doesn't have it anymore. But
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For people who like are around my age, like if you remember the 90s, I mean, he was just like the guy. I mean, he he just charmed the pants off of everybody and rip some pants off of some people against their will. But that's another story for another day. But he was just incredibly smooth. And he had this like very like unique ability. You know, I mean, I wasn't alive for like Jack Kennedy or.
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And people would say similar things about him and maybe for his time, you know, like 1960 is just such a different culture and a different time that it may be. But it wasn't like what Bill Clinton, Bill Clinton could go on like at the time. Right. It's almost like if you think about the version of going on a podcast with the time, what Bill Clinton would do is like go on MTV. Right.
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and just get the kids into what he was doing. He was really just incredible and very good, not just good at giving a speech, but really good at interacting, really good at winning people over and being charming. And then Barack Obama was never quite as good at the interacting as Bill Clinton was. But his speech giving like blew him out of the water.
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ah dude i just up like the next few weeks like like this is gonna suck now for a while that's fun but you know you're smarter and stuff so that's cool
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I mean, he was just in he was truly like in his prime. Barack Obama was a master orator, like just on another level. Incredible. And wrote a lot of his own speeches, too. I mean, I know he had he had speechwriters, as they all do, but he wrote a lot of his own speeches and they were like excellent, excellent speeches.
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You're too good. Now, an average German citizen. OK, you know, what are we going to do? We can't punish everybody. But I got to say, and I had a long post on X about this the other day. But particularly now in this moment, because if we don't get it in this moment, I don't think we're ever going to get it. But there needs to be some prosecution for some of the crimes that were committed.
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And I particularly say this with Bobby Kennedy as the secretary of HHS and with Tulsi Gabbard now as the director of national intelligence. I mean, if you just think about the crimes that have been committed.
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Like, even just, I mean, I don't know exactly, but being in the position she was in, like, I don't know the legal statute, but being in the position that she was in and not saying anything about this, that is criminal. It's just like, it's like a horrific crime against humanity at that.
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When you think about the crimes committed, just broadly speaking, right, in the health world and in the intelligence world. Like, in the health world, you have... I mean, they freaking made the virus. They funded the lab that created the virus. Now, exactly how, you know, how far does that rabbit hole go? I don't know. You know, like, is it was it really for bioweapons purposes?
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Was it intentionally released out of the lab? I mean, these are just questions that we don't really have an answer to. But I'll work on the assumption that it's neither of those things. OK, work on the assumption that they were just they were funding gain of function research because they thought it could help them cure more viruses down the road or something like that. Right.
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Also, quick reminder, this Saturday is the last Saturday of the month, which means we will be having our monthly Zoom meeting this... For members who are subscribed to partoftheproblem.com in the top two tiers, they've been a lot of fun. So if you're in those groups, come join us. If not, you can sign up and come join us.
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Whatever the legitimate purpose of gain of function research would be. OK, so you funded this thing, created it, had such substandard conditions that the thing gets out. You then all lie through your teeth. as you're locking down the world in response to the thing that you made without ever admitting that you made it, okay?
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And then after all of that, you come up with this vaccine and lie through your fucking teeth to get people to inject something into their body that they can't un-inject.
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Knowing damn well that it doesn't work the way you're selling it as knowingly lying about that and getting people to take this thing after you've gotten the government to shield these pharmaceutical companies from liability so that they can rake in tens of billions of dollars in profits. I'm sorry, someone needs to be prosecuted for that.
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Like, there is a level where you're like, no, we can't just move on from this. You can't just come on Pierce Morgan's show and get to go, yeah, we did it all wrong. Like, what? And then on the intelligence side, I mean, look. What can I even say about this? We the country and everyone knows this is true, right? The country has been lied into wars. They have instituted torture.
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They've lied to the president of the United States. They've tried to frame the president of the United States for treason when they didn't like what he might potentially do. And they've blatantly interfered in U.S. presidential elections. Someone's got to go to jail for that. I don't think this is too unreasonable to go, okay, so what's this new Trump administration really made of?
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We got these guys, Bobby Kennedy, Tulsi Gabbard, people who are on record calling out these crimes for many years, who are now in charge of the health department and the intelligence agencies. I don't think it's too much to ask for that. I want these crimes to be exposed. And when these crimes are exposed, the people... These are like...
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amongst the gravest crimes ever committed by the US government against the American people. And the same government that I'm talking about here will throw you in a cage for decades If you were to bring a gun across state lines when you're not allowed to have it in the other state, they'll throw people in cages for decades over having the wrong plant or distributing the wrong plant.
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They'll throw people in jail for all types of minor infractions. This is why we have the biggest prison population in the world, both in terms of raw numbers and percentage of population. Our government will throw people in a cage. You break the law, you get thrown in jail. Like, okay.
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Well, if we're going to do that, why exactly should these people who have committed the gravest crimes against humanity, why should they not be prosecuted for this? I'm sorry, this shit is just infuriating to me. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show. Brand new sponsor we're thrilled to have on board, and that is Cornbread.
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Go check them out. Cornbreadhemp.com slash POTP. Promo code POTP for 30% off your first order. All right, let's get back into the show.
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We were totally wrong to do that, by the way, like that was crazy. And we really shouldn't have done it that way. You know, it's there's just not.
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That's right. And, and look like it's just so funny because it's always in some weird, weird way. This is always, and I remember people like Buck Sexton was one of the guys who I remember making this point. He was great. He's like a former CIA guy, but he was great on Russiagate the whole time. Like the whole time he was like, this is complete bullshit. And they're,
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Donald Trump's getting framed by the FBI and the CIA. And then I remember hearing him at one point where he goes, you know, the worst part of Russiagate is that now trust in the FBI and the CIA has been totally eroded for at least a generation. And I was like, no, that's the best part of it. That's the only good thing that came out of this. And likewise, it's just so bizarre to see.
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It's like, oh, and now vaccine hesitancy has doubled. And I think the takeaway of that is supposed to be that it's like, oh, and that's bad because vaccines save lives. But I'm just looking at it like, no, I think it's good. Yeah, when we found out you would lie through your teeth to us, we don't trust you anymore. Correct.
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Sign up at partoftheproblem.com. That's what I'm trying to get across here. Anyway. What's new with you, Rob? How's your day going so far?
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That is a that is a natural and healthy response to someone lying to you over and over again. That's the correct response is to not trust that person anymore. That is not like it is an if you and this is true just in your personal life. If there is somebody who lies to you over and over again and you still give them trust, that is your fucking up. That is not the correct response.
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And the correct response is to not trust them anymore. So, yes, the American people, we don't believe you. We don't believe you about any of it. And that doesn't mean that we're going to, you know, we want to jump to sloppy conclusions. But it does mean that, like, all of you guys need to go. You all need to go out of the way. You know, like, there's...
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I can't remember exactly the example, but I think there's just been so many examples like this. But you would think that if you wanted to maintain trust in the system, this kind of vague, abstract thing that a lot of people claim is really, really important. I don't agree with them, but let's say they're right. Okay, well then, when the Mueller report came out,
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and indicated that there was no evidence of a conspiracy between Donald Trump and the Russians. After this multi-year-long, tens of millions of dollars spent on this investigation, if we had seen the next day mass resignations at the FBI and in the corporate media, That would have done a lot to maintain trust in the system to go like, look, you guys got it spectacularly wrong.
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But when they did, so many of these journalists, you know, Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell and Joy Reid, they all went, well, we can't be newsmen anymore. You know, obviously we got we went all in on this big story and it was completely wrong. So we got to I got to go find some other career, you know, because I can't be trusted with this information anymore.
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anymore quarterback with an entire season of fumbles yeah and then you're like okay so i guess you're not going to start next year right like what i don't know this is just if you actually wanted to maintain uh trust in any of these institutions then you should be the one demanding at the very least i mean i'm talking about prosecution but at the very least mass resignations mass firings something like that it's just it's unbelievable it's unbelievable that these people are even able
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to it's also it's unbelievable that they're able to like she could say what she says on pierce morgan and not be like oh i'm i can't even say this out loud because i'm admitting what criminal and when i say criminal in this sense with her i don't even know maybe there's not a legal statute but i just mean criminal in the in the in the higher sense of the word. You know what I mean?
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Almost the season. And the season of porches, it's like elections. It gets longer every year. Like every year, the porch season goes a little. It used to just be a few weeks in summer. Now it's most of the year. Now it's if there's not ice on your porch.
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No, I agree with you. What I mean is more like if you and a group of people were on a desert island that had never been inhabited by people before, so there is no government, there is no law, there's nothing, and you murder somebody, there may not be courts or laws or anything, but on a moral level, you did something just as evil as if you murdered someone in Connecticut or New York City.
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You know what I mean? I'm just saying on a moral level, that is a It is fucking criminal what you did to people. So ruin people's lives. And then, by the way, you know, it's great that, you know, of course, I think she's not as attached to the vaccine regime as she was to the lockdown regime. So now she'll come out and blast them. But let's do the lockdowns next. Let's go through that again.
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You know what I mean? Like, let's go through what you actually were a part of. Was that a good idea? I mean, if we only should have vaccinated the people highly at risk, maybe we only should have quarantined the people highly at risk. Maybe quarantining children wasn't a good idea. Just like vaccinating them wasn't a good idea. God. And then on top of all of it, it's also that like.
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I'm like, this has dramatically, uh, changed, but also like, even do you, I mean, if you remember, I'm sure you do well, cause we played it on the show and it was a pretty, you know, like monumental cultural moment.
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But when Jon Stewart went on, uh, the Colbert report and had that whole thing about how obviously it came from the lab and it was just such an easy idea to mock that it didn't come from the lab. Um, At the time, I remember all of us were like, oh, well, okay, about time they started talking about this. But then we were also kind of like, oh, shit, he actually said it.
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Like someone actually said it on a network show, which is kind of crazy. And saying what she just said right now was the type of thing, as you pointed out, Rob, that me and you were saying all the time. And it came immediately. It came with such a price tag to say that like you were at risk of losing your channel, of being like viciously smeared.
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rob will come set up a comedy show there for you uh and by the way people just unbelievable the feedback of rob's porch tour people love it great shows um okay so there's uh there's a few things that i wanted to to talk about today and um i think we'll probably start with uh with bricks which was the um
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Like there were real costs associated with saying this. And now years later, you know, again, it's just the only thing I could think of is it's like Cuomo. It's like Cuomo where and I'm sitting there watching the whole thing. And it's like. So Joe Rogan was two years ago under the biggest cancellation attempt in cancel culture history for saying exactly what you're saying right now.
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And then you just get to say it with this casual air of like, I'm just throwing something out there with complete comfortability, knowing that nothing bad will happen to you for saying it. This is just, you know, if you really do care about like unifying the country or moving forward or regaining trust, I'll tell you, I think there's only really one way to do it.
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And that's that some of these people at the top have to be prosecuted. That is that is the answer. All right. Speaking of the corporate media dealing with or people from the old regime kind of dealing with the the latest developments. This was an amazing little moment. Every now and then you get these amazing moments. where establishment-type people kind of let the truth slip out.
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And on MSNBC, they had Mara Gay. Mara Gay, she's a writer for The New York Times. And she, this is the Tom Elliott tweet, Natalie. Tom Elliott, great follow on Twitter. If you don't follow him, make sure to do so. But I thought this was a great moment that just, you know, if you want to understand why we are where we are as a country, this one really kind of gives it away. Here is Ms.
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the clip that you sent Rob, um, this, you know, sometimes with the stuff we cover, like, you know, when you're, when you're covering the news and you're always covering what's going on lately, it does like, it's a weird thing.
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Oh, yes. Let me tell you something. I wish you were right. God, do I? Can you imagine, Rob? This isn't just an effort to make the government more efficient. Everybody supports that. We all support that. This is an effort to destroy the government. Ah, I wish. I wish. But isn't it? First of all, there's just so much here. The freak out about Doge is just like,
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It's got to be up there as one of the most revealing freakouts. Like this has always been in some weird, I think, unintended kind of inspector gadgety type of way. It's always been one of Donald Trump's superpowers is that he just like he gets the media class so furious that they reveal themselves. But the Doge thing has been his masterpiece. Yeah.
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I mean, the response to this for her to actually say, look, you could spin this in terms of like what she meant, but she actually says it's our job. It's our job to make people realize that cuts in government and tax cuts are really bad. And that big government is really good. Essentially, that's what she's saying. It's her job.
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It's our job to explain to the American people, Rob, because you see, the thing is, Doge is kind of popular with the American people. They kind of like this idea of draining the swamp and getting, yeah, because who doesn't like the idea of getting rid of fraud and abuse? You know what I mean? But so people kind of like that.
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So it's our job to explain to them that no, no, no, no, no, this is actually really terrible. It's really bad. Because if you cut down on the size of government, you might get oligarchy. That's because that's what the oligarchs want. Right. Isn't that always what every powerful person who really runs the government, which is, by the way, what an oligarch is.
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Like when you get lost in the day-to-day news, it's like, there's this new event, but then they all start forming into patterns and they could almost be categorized and like, okay, throw it into this column. And this column is, um, For me personally, one of the most infuriating, it's the column of people coming out way too late and telling the truth about COVID when it's like,
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But all those people, they really want the government to have no power at all. That's always what they've wanted. It's just fascinating to me. I don't know. Any thoughts, Rob?
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I'm sorry. I mean, it's such a good point, dude. It's just such a good point. And I just think it can't. I'm sorry. Keep in mind that where you were going with that. But it just can't be stressed how good a point that is, is that might be the best point that has been made on this show in several episodes. Think about the idea of anybody's complaint with Doge being a lack of transparency.
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And by the way, I'm all for Doge being as transparent as possible. I'd like to know every goddamn thing they find, every program they plan on recommending to cut. I'm all for transparency. But if you have an issue with a lack of transparency, OK, where have you been in the last 10, 20, however many years you've been doing this?
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Where have you been on the CIA, on the Federal Reserve, on the FBI, on just all of these government programs? Where have you been on that? Don't give me this bullshit about how you care about transparency. Half of our government, the part with teeth, operates in the shadows, in complete secrecy. Get the fuck out of here. Your issue is transparency. I'm sorry. Keep going.
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It's delivered right to your door, and it is the best price you will find anywhere. $60 for a kilo, only at YoKratom.com. All right, let's start the show. Ooh, what's up, everybody? We are live. Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. And if you caught the beginning there, you may have heard Rob complaining a little bit about his microphone problems. How are you, Mr. Bernstein?
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Yeah, 100%. And look, I mean, this says so much about how we got to where we are now. You know, like the idea that you're sitting... Look, if what journalism is... And there are still, by the way, some people who do it, none of them on MSNBC, but there are still some people who do journalism. But journalism would be like if you were to say our job is this.
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Our job is to inform you of what Doge is doing, inform you about what they've uncovered and present their argument for why this is fraud and should be cut. and then present the other argument for why it's dangerous to cut this stuff. Or you could say, hey, look, there are people who argue that it's illegal for Doge to have this information. Other people argue it is legal.
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That's journalism, to give you the information so that you can then decide what you think, whose side you're on, or what aspects you're on this side or that side. To say that our job is to make you decide
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come to a conclusion about that our job is to make it so that you understand that cutting the government is bad and growing the government is good and cutting taxes is bad and increasing taxes is good and also i'm going to do it with like the just ridiculous hyperbole that nobody could really argue is the case and then make you emotional you know say they're they're destroying government
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The goal isn't efficiency. It's the destruction of the government. Sorry, that's not journalism. That's propaganda and evil propaganda at that because, of course, tax cuts are great and shrinking the size of government is great. It's inherently in the individual's interest. It's in the American people's interest. Obviously, this is so obvious.
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It's just a priori true that it's all things being equal. It's in your interest to pay less in taxes, right? Like that's the money from taxes comes out of your paycheck. So obviously the starting point isn't neutral. The starting point would be, as everybody knows, like if you have no other information about, And the only piece of information you get is, hey, your taxes are going down.
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I don't know, it's just particularly infuriating to me, and I'm sure to you too, as somebody, Rob, who was telling the truth about COVID as it happened, and kind of taking all the arrows that come with that, it's a special type of enraging when you see people who had the biggest platform and all of the credibility come out now in 2025, which by my...
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Most workers reaction to that is great because that's the starting point is that's a good thing. So anyway, I'm sorry. Go ahead.
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No, it's funny. And by the way, this is perhaps to some degree showing our age because we do use these terms sometimes, even though it's even like I'll say, like I've referred for many years to DVR when you record something as taping it. It's like, oh, let's make sure we tape that. You know what I mean? It's just like this relic of the 90s. You know what I mean? Like tape.
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What does tape have to do with it? People still call these shows podcasts. No one's had an iPod in many years. But even as you said, like wiretapping, Tucker, you're just to be clear, you're just doing the same thing.
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you're using one of these old it's actually so much creepier than that because there's no wire involved you know what i mean it's not even like in the the olden days it'd be like oh they like plugged into your phone it's no they just take all of your life you take everything you have from your goddamn phone they just take all your fucking metadata and yes they 100 did that to tucker but look with all these things just like i said like oh like you care about um
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you care about transparency but you don't care that like well look elon musk um and here's okay sorry i just got a lot of thoughts in my head so let me try to get them out one at a time but so even to your point i completely agree with you and you go look we will see where this doge thing goes Like this is not exactly what would have been me or your first choice.
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Like our first choice probably would have just been drastic cuts in government spending. Like let Congress abolish all the departments that they created, abolish the EPA, abolish the Department of Education, abolish the NSA, abolish the ATF. Like all this shit can just go. It's all just garbage and all pure corruption. That's the fraud, waste and abuse, the whole thing. Um, okay.
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We didn't get that. And so we're getting this other thing and we're like, all right, well, let's see what they can do. And I'm with you. Let's see. Let's, let's see how all of this goes. But at the very least you go, they have in a way that you can, you know, they have inserted into the national conversation, this issue of how government wastes your money.
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Like nobody else, no one else in my life has ever made this as big of a cultural phenomenon as where everybody's focused and keenly aware of this. And there were people who tried, the great Ron Paul. I think there were people in the Tea Party movement who were trying to do this, but none of them ever succeeded to this level of public consciousness. So, OK, we'll see. But let me listen.
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If you you're telling me you you care about secrecy, but you didn't have an issue with. Anyway, so one of the things I don't know if you've seen this, but this is the new meme that they're talking about is Fort Knox. I retweeted someone who had it was really hilarious, but they did. They go when Doge shows up at Fort Knox and then they just cut to the scene from Dumb and Dumber.
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when he opens the briefcase. That's what everyone at Fort Knox is going to be saying. Very funny. But so like, I don't know, are you concerned with secrecy? Wouldn't you be like, how come we don't get to see what's in Fort Knox? Isn't this the people's gold? Don't the Americans own this? How do we not have a right to know? Whether there's anything even there anymore.
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mathematical reasoning is five years after we needed to hear this um but uh but when they come out now and then it's almost like they just try to blend into the crowd you know what i mean like it kind of feels like if you were like in a third world country and your dictator is horribly corrupt and you're outside and they're yelling like we want to end this corruption of this brutal dictator this regime is put and then you look next to you and it's the dictator
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How do we not have a right to see the books of the Federal Reserve? How do we not have a right? Think about the amount. There's like millions of classified documents. We still, I mean, Donald Trump approved the release, but like we still haven't gotten like the Kennedy papers out yet. You know what I mean? So like, don't give me this shit that you care about transparency.
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And then, you know, Rob, it's like you care about privacy. That's your big issue. Okay. Where were you on Snowden?
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Like, when you found out that the government, and by the way, not elected representatives, the NSA, okay, not anybody who anyone democratically voted for, but the career bureaucrats and spies at the NSA, when you found out that they were collecting all Americans' bulk data, all their metadata, I should say they were doing bulk collections of everyone's metadata. Where were you on that?
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Okay, so then stop lying. I don't know what else to say. But if you didn't care about that, don't tell me you care so much about, you know, it's like it's like the the war hawks who promote every single war, but then say they're appalled about Vladimir Putin because they don't want to see innocent people die. It's like, no, sorry.
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We already know innocent people dying isn't what's moving your policy positions. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Guys, as I told you many times, I have benefited personally from therapy in the past, and I know many people who have as well. So if you're thinking about maybe getting started, if you're on the fence, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online.
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Once again, that's B-E-T-T-E-R-H-E-L-P.com slash problem for 10% off your first month. Betterhelp.com slash problem. All right, let's get back into the show. You know what? Let's go to the Rachel Maddow one. There's more on the freak out from the corporate media about Doge. This one's great.
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All right, so here it is, right? This is how their brand of journalism works. That when you talk about the government, you're talking about competence and wonderful people who just do everything right. Like who on the left or the right actually thinks that this represents anything remotely resembling our current government? Or forget the current government. It was it was fine under Joe Biden.
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Joe Biden, just a legendary example of competence, Rob. Isn't that what you would what you would say? You know, here, let's go. Let's go to the next clip, too, because it just like give you a flavor of how everybody's reacting. Let's go to the it's it's another Tom Elliott tweet. The second to last one with an apple bomb. Yeah, there we go.
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And he's also yelling. And he's also like, yeah, down with this guy. And you're like, wait, no, you are the guy. You don't get to be on our side now. Anyway, it kind of gives me feelings like that. So that's one. It's an entire category. We've probably done, you know, a hundred different videos or different topics that have fallen into this category. But I'll just preface.
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Yeah, well, Rob, maybe we got to walk back some of the stuff we've been saying here. I never really took the time to appreciate how traumatized people, federal government employees must be. Nah, hold on. Let me take a second to think about that. Oh, yeah, I don't care. That's great.
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If this is traumatizing, if you are traumatized by the fact that you may not be able to be a parasite on the American taxpayer anymore, I am a-okay with that. Hey, okay. Not a problem at all. Now, this is another angle, Rob, that there's... It's really funny because, I mean, so much of this stuff is just like... It's so basic.
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But one of the other angles, which I'm sure you've heard that they're saying, is just that it's like, oh, these are jobs, right? You're cutting American jobs. Or these people are like, oh, now there's going to be all these people out of work.
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This will devastate communities if they all get fired from their jobs, as if you're supposed to think that government employees being fired is somehow a negative for the economy. It's just too ridiculous. Like it's literally on the level. Look, if you are being paid with taxpayer dollars, then you are in a parasitic relationship with the taxpayer. You are taking from them.
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You being fired means less has to be taken from them. That is not a negative. It is a positive. Likewise, so in other words, if you take a household, let's say, Okay. And let's say I work and my wife doesn't work and my kids don't work. So I'm the only one who's working in the house and I'm bringing in money. And you go, you know, we're really tight for money.
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Like we don't, our bills are too high. What I'm making is too little. Now, if my wife were to go outside the house and get a job, okay. Now we have two jobs. Okay. So we have more money coming in. But a taxpayer, a government job would be more like, okay. So I'm the only one who works and I'm not bringing in enough money. Okay. So what I'm doing is I'm going to hire my wife.
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She's going to work for me. And I'm also going to hire both of my kids. So they're going to work for me. So now Rob, instead of one job, we have four jobs in this house. Isn't that that much better? This is great, right? I just went from one job to four jobs. It doesn't take a genius to recognize that like, oh no, that's not better at all. In fact, it's worse because you have to pay them.
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You just added three more expenses coming out of your paycheck. You didn't make your paycheck any bigger. So no, it doesn't actually help to have more government jobs.
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it's all just nonsense and it's funny how that like one of the common themes through all of this shit and it's it's it's funny now that it's uh it's just really starting like this is a big one that's starting to come out and i really credit bobby kennedy is the one who deserves the credit for for mainstreaming this although it is something that maybe was not our uh
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our major focus during COVID, but it was definitely something we talked about a lot during COVID. But that, you know, again, and the numbers aren't as fresh in my head, but it was something like 78% of the people hospitalized with COVID were obese. And then there's a huge correlation between obesity or diabetes and COVID complications.
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And then there was a bunch of others too, where it's just like, now they're all admitting it. That's like, oh, you know, the reason why America lost more people to COVID than most other countries did was not because we didn't socially distance while we were outside. And it wasn't because we didn't mask up. It wasn't because teenagers went to the beach or because we, you know, whatever.
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It was because we're a sick country. That seems to be like really what led to it. So while the entire media class and the entire government class is having this huge freak out about health, They're missing the major story, which is that we're the sickest country in the world. And this happens over and over again. Like, while, you know, there's a freak out about, say, like, who is a foreign asset?
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Who's a Russian asset? Or who's a, you know, whatever, an Iranian asset or whatever it might be. It's like, oh, you're not looking at the real crisis, which is that we're in a permanent state of war. That's the real crisis that's actually threatening our republic.
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And like that, you know, if you listen to the corporate media, you would think that the crisis is that these guys are taking a shredder to government, right? Like what this pretend reporter lady just said. They're trying to destroy government. That's the real crisis here, Rob, right? Is that government is way too small, right?
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The real crisis is that government employees are scared they're not going to get their new their new paycheck. Well, here is what the real crisis is. The last year for fiscal year 2024 and double check me on this number, but I'm pretty damn close to it. It was the interest on the debt was one point two trillion dollars. Guys, that might be a little bit off. It was right around $1.2 trillion.
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That is just the interest on the national debt, okay? And that number is going up. It's going up no matter what anybody does. So we have now entered the stage of a debt spiral.
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where we are you're i don't know rob you're old enough to remember it used to be kind of a big deal when we first hit trillion dollar deficits and you're like wait a minute hold on our deficits have gone from the hundreds of billions into over a trillion like we had a year where it was over a trillion dollars where we're adding over a trillion dollars to the national debt every year well just to make this clear right now and going forward
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even if congress balanced their budget which is a pretty huge if we're still running a trillion dollars plus deficit even if they balanced everything else we're still in the hole in other words to truly have a balanced budget we would now need more than a trillion dollars of surplus just to break even
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And while that's going on, they're freaking out about the prospects of theoretical cuts to government spending. Let that sink in for a little bit. That's where we're at. It's truly unbelievable.
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there's no like ever like further explain explanation it's like oh you just make that claim and then you go like well here's what they're claiming was the payments but it didn't actually go to political it went to this but they don't have anything like that but i do think the broader point is just that it's like the idea that they'll try to somehow convince you that this is the crisis when you are like you're talking about like the interest
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The interest on your debt is bigger than the GDP of most nations.
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you know the the imagine you're at a point where uh so imagine somebody comes in even let's say let's even say she's right about the politico thing right now someone comes in you know you're horribly in debt you're you're so in debt that um you're the interest on your credit card payments are more than most of your neighbor's entire household income
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And not that me or you are high profile enough that this woman, by the way, the woman we're talking about is Dr. Bricks, Deborah Bricks, I believe.
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So you owe more than most of your neighbor's entire household income just on interest payments in the debt. And you're still racking up charges. You haven't even stopped using the damn credit card so you can pay it down. You're still racking up charges. Your debt is still increasing. So the interest payments is just gonna keep going through the roof.
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And then I come in and I go, Rob, here's what we're going to do. I want to see your credit card statements. I'm going to go through everything in your credit card statements. And we're going to find the stuff that you just absolutely don't need to be spending money on. OK.
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And then you go, well, the big scandal here, the thing that threatens my household is that I think this guy got it wrong when he said one of the line items was this or one of the line items was that. No, that's not the existential threat here. The existential threat is that you are in a debt crisis.
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OK, and you're not going to get out of it by spending your way out of it because that's not how that works. All right. We do got to wrap it up there. Me and Rob will be out in Houston. Come out and check us out there. Don't forget the members only monthly Zoom meeting will be this Saturday. Comic Dave Smith dot com. Robbie the fire dot com. Catch you guys tomorrow with a brand new episode. Peace.
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Deborah, okay. Yeah, whatever. God, even her name infuriates me. Just call it Deborah. Anyway, she was, her title, she was like the head of Donald Trump's coronavirus response. She was on that, the COVID task force. She was... And Berks, I'm sorry, maybe I'm saying it wrong.
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She was she was on TV every single day with Fauci and her and Trump and, you know, like they were the face of the covid response. And you just wonder, right, like I was saying, like, it's not that me and you are so high profile or something like that.
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but like when you were saying it's like the same thing with cuomo you know when he comes out and says like oh you know ivermectin's not horse dewormer it's it's medicine and i'm on it right now and blah blah and but but he says it with no acknowledgement that he was demonizing people who said this at the time and with no oh he says it almost as if he just figured it out like the rest of us have it like hey rob you know i just figured out we shouldn't have fought the war in iraq yeah i just came up with that my own like this you know what i mean like there's
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Anyway, what would this chick have said about you if just played a video clip of you saying this at the time when it really mattered? And you just know the answer. She would have demonized you in the most vicious way. Anyway, here is a clip she was on. You got to say it appears Morgan, man. And I do, you know, look up.
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I know I have called it the Jerry Springer of political commentators before, but. I got to say, and I said, this is someone who's a regular guest on the show. It is really amazing what he's built. It's very strict. It's just at a certain point, you're like, oh, you get like you get the head of the coronavirus response on your panel. And then they're just arguing it out with other people.
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Anyway, it's pretty wild that he's able to book some of the people he books. But let's let's go to the clip and then we can we can respond.
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And this is why we come to you, Rob, for these great philosophical tidbits that you give out. That is true. You know what? It is a lot like that. And it all works out okay in the end. Well, if you want more of these comedy stylings, come see us in Houston, Texas, Rob. We're leaving the day after tomorrow, I believe. Excited to be down there with the fine people, the Texans, the Houstonians.
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I mean, it's just amazing to watch, dude. It's amazing. It is the dictator getting out of his palace and joining the protesters and just being like, yeah, I know this is... Okay, I remember being on this little show called The Joe Rogan Experience where me and Joe literally said that... Well, I mean, really, he said it, which is what caused the storm, not me so much.
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But we were just talking about how like, yeah, we don't really think that young, healthy kids need to take this vaccine. And I said, like, there's no way I'd give my kids this vaccine. And then Joe was like, yeah, like if you're young and healthy, I would just recommend you be really healthy exercise.
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And literally the president of the United States of America ripped into us for having this conversation, said we were spreading dangerous misinformation, fabricated She said it was dangerous misinformation. And now, quietly, years later, four years later, the chick who was the face of the COVID response goes, oh, yeah, no, that's what following the science looks like.
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It's like, hey, well, where were you at the time? Like we could have used your backup. It would have really been nice to be able to point to the head of the coronavirus response and be like, look, even she is saying we're following the science here and you're not. And then it's just these years later.
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And by the way, Rob, one of the things that strikes me about that is there's nothing that she's saying here that's like new information has come out. She's saying at the time, this is what we all knew. Like we knew that the mRNA was not designed to prevent infection. Really? Well, you didn't think it was necessary to speak up while the that was the entire sales pitch of it.
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The entire sales pitch from Fauci and Biden and Rachel Maddow and the entire regime was that you will not get COVID if you get this, that right. Rachel matters. It stops with you. And now you can't transmit it to the next person. This was their whole pitch. This was the pitch Fauci made as he went door to door, trying to convince people in Baltimore to get the damn thing. It's just amazing to see.
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I'm sorry. This is like not good enough. And There should have been, and I'll confess, I haven't seen the whole episode, but is there a follow-up question to this, which is like, why didn't you say this at the time? Why wasn't, why, you know, like, how can anyone in the scientific community even complain about anything that's going on now?
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If you guys it wasn't incumbent on you to all stand up and say this at the time, if this was obviously what the science was that. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it might make sense to get like the very, you know, severely at risk population vaccinated. But it doesn't make any sense to give this to kids. Then why wasn't the entire scientific community saying that? Because what were they saying?
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The entire scientific community in lockstep was demonizing anybody who said that.
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Is that correct? Is that what you call people from Houston? I don't know.
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By the way, on your topic also, because I don't know, I'll add one to your point there, which is very true.
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But this is how slick this chick is, is that she doesn't just... Okay, so when she says, oh, well, we should have given it to the elderly first and not the young, she was responding to Pierce directly asking her if she shares the concerns of other doctors that there could be long-term negative health outcomes for people who took the thing.
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Well, that is... Now listen, we'll see when we get down there. Bobby Kennedy has been in for four days. There might not be... I think you're going to start seeing a lot less fatties out there. You watch, Rob. But yes, we will be out in Houston this week. And then after that, the next stop is Buffalo, New York. Comicdavesmith.com for those ticket links.
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And so she pivots to, well, you know, it's this limited hangout shit. Like, okay, well, let me give you a little bit. Let me give you like a few crumbs here to avoid giving you the really big piece of meat, which is that, yeah, actually, we insisted on something that has no positives and has very real negatives for an entire group of people.
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But then she'll just pivot to like, oh, well, we should have started with the old, you know, because it never really did anything for transmission. I'm just saying that's not. Yeah. No kidding. We're all past that conversation. As you said, Rob, we've had it a million times on this show. Some of us aren't starting five years late on it. So we've had this conversation quite a bit.
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We're way past that. And. You know, like there does I understand, by the way, that this is somewhat arbitrary, but there has to be kind of like some cutoff point of power of how much power you had and what you did with it. We're like under a certain level. All right. We're not going to imprison half the country for freaking out about covid. But like, I'm sorry. This is like how I felt.
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Look, if there's just like some liberal person who was really bad on COVID but came around and now sees that me and you were right about it, like, okay, you know, welcome to the team, I guess. But that's like Chris Cuomo? No. Sorry, dude. Like, I'm sorry. I remember who you are.
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You were the number one show on CNN, giving your brother puff piece interviews, faking your reemergence from your basement. I'm sorry. You can't like that's too far gone. Like, no, Joseph Goebbels can't come over after the Nazis fall and be like, yeah. Yeah, no, I've seen the light.
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Hey, guys. Today's show is brought to you by YoKratom.com, home of the $60 kilo. If you are over the age of 21 and you enjoy Kratom, make sure to get it from YoKratom.com. All of their stuff is lab tested, so you know it's quality. They've been a longtime sponsor of this show, so they're – You want to support them if you can.
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That's his idea of what should be done because he wants to kick the can and not feel the pain on his watch. He wants to be able to brag about how great the economy is doing or whatever. And I'm not even sure, by the way, I don't even think that calculation is correct. I mean, I actually think it would unleash the American economy to have serious cuts in government spending. But yeah.
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Yes, yes. Agreed. And we'll be traveling more soon. Going to Boston next, everybody. ComicDaveSmith.com for those ticket links. Boston, Massachusetts, one of our favorite comedy towns. We're coming back there. And you got some dates on your own. Is that right, Rob?
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Anyway, like you pretty much nailed it. I mean, when it comes to government spending and when it comes to Israel, we just got to accept that Trump's awful on that and we're going to oppose him on those issues. And it does seem like, you know...
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I'll just say that it does certainly seem, you know, look, maybe it's just, maybe it's not true at all, but it, you could understand why it has the appearance to people, especially when coupled with the other things that Trump's doing that it's like, Oh, you went after him because he's the guy who opposes this war in Gaza.
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And it does seem like that's one of the things that gets him on the outs with Trump's crew. Of course, a bunch of, you know, the, the, uh, the like pathetic, uh, right wing idiots like, you know, fucking John Podhoretz or Laura Loomer have been talking about how Congress, you know, Congressman Massey is an anti-Semite. I've been saying this for for months now.
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He's an anti-Semite because he doesn't want to fund Israel's war. That's depending on the moving definition of anti-Semite. We might get into this a little bit in a little bit. But that's you know, that's the That's the thing. If you don't want to fund Israel, you're an anti-Semite. If you don't think it's okay to slaughter the women and children in Gaza, you're an anti-Semite.
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So if you're tired of your gold and silver collecting dust at home or worse, racking up fees, having your metal professionally stored, check out monetary-metals.com to learn how you can start putting your metal to work today. That's monetary-metals.com. All right, let's get back into the show. Also, it's the same tactic that he's using to smear the protests as he would just crack down on this guy.
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I'm blanking on his name. But this, the guy who was... It looks like arrested and there's plans of deporting him or being in the anti-Semitic pro-Hamas protests at Columbia University. What do you think about this one, Rob? Because it kind of brings up an interesting, an interesting question. about when, you know, like when people can be deported and can they be deported like on speech grounds?
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I got to say, I'm very much opposed to this, but I'm curious to hear your thoughts.
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I think his wife's like eight months pregnant or something like that.
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You know, there's it's interesting because it's you know, I see there is something about this case that is it's kind of like catnip to like boomer cons. Like there's something about being like, hey. Here's this guy who's not a citizen who's out, you know, preaching anti-American things at a protest. And we're going to deport him for that.
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Oh, OK. Yeah, that's a good one. I love that guy. OK, so let's let's get into it. A major, very interesting kind of dynamic and divide that is developing on within, I guess, broadly speaking, the MAGA coalition.
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That just kind of is somewhat appealing to like some subset of right wingers. You know, I do think like what's there's a few things that are important to keep in mind here. Number one, it is even if it was a cause that I really agree with, I will say and I'm not like taking an opinion one way or another on this. But it's an interesting enough conversation that I'd be open to arguments.
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But if someone was in the country illegally and they're protesting against the government, I do understand where there could be an argument that it's like, yeah, dude, you're here illegally. So to start speaking up and speaking loud might be a privilege that you do not have because you broke our laws to get here and you're not allowed to be here right now.
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And I will certainly say that like when it's causes I don't agree with, I've been kind of appalled to see illegal immigrants protesting. I remember seeing protests in Washington, D.C. In fact, Tucker Carlson interviewed a woman who was an illegal alien who was like protesting about amnesty. And there is something about that that's a little bit like –
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I'm not so sure you actually do have the right to do that if you're not. But you know what I mean? Like if you're here illegally, then you can be removed at any time. And so if you start like speaking up and putting a spotlight on yourself, maybe that increases the likelihood that you get removed. I'm not completely against. I'm not sure I'm for it either.
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I'm just like saying I'm open to ideas here. Yeah. I do think there's the obvious reason for why they might be removed. But then there's also the counter argument of like you're getting government in the business of making these decisions based off of speech. And that may not be a good idea. But in this case, we're talking about somebody who wasn't here illegally.
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We're talking about someone who was legally here, not a citizen, but was legally in the country. And now we're going to revoke that based off of their speech. To me, those are like fundamentally different things. There's a very big difference between someone who's here illegally and someone who's here legally. Now, you know, you might want to take in less people legally or something like that.
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But then, OK, then you'd have to change what the rules are. On top of that, I just think it's like – like I don't know. I posted something about how awful I thought all of this was. I had a tweet earlier today, and I said something like, so let me get this straight. Donald Trump is cracking down on the only mass left-wing protest movement of the last decade that wasn't explicitly anti-Trump.
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Right. Like he's cracking down on the protests over the war in Gaza, which was, if anything, an anti Biden protest movement that started up. You would just I'm just saying just purely on the optics of politics of all of it or not just the optics, but like just on the politics of all of it. You would think that maybe like Donald Trump would want to crack down on the left wing anti Trump protests.
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But, you know. Just politically speaking, you wouldn't really be incentivized to crack down on the retroactively on the left wing protest that helped get you the election. You know, just saying. I mean, you know, Mary Madelson also gave him one hundred million dollars. So there's other factors in there as well. But just saying like that in itself.
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donald it it does seem to me to really be evidence of of an area where donald trump has not learned the lessons that he needs to learn but whatever we can get into that in a second of course i am talking about the the feud between donald trump and thomas massey
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So Donald Trump is cracking down on the one left wing protest that was actually anti Biden. And he's cracking down on the one America first congressman. And it's hard for people to not look and go like, hey, and there seems to be like a common thread between all of this. Common thread seems to be like who supports Israel and who doesn't. And
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You know, I will say I post so I posted this and Will Chamberlain responded to me and he said something about like, you know, he was like, like, cry me a river about these pro Hamas protests or something like that.
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That's it. Yes, that's right. That's right. And especially from all of these people who, while the left was in the driver's seat, have been free speech absolutists, at least that's what they say over the last decade or so. And it's interesting to see so many of them turn around. I will say, though, so I completely agree with you on that point. But I will also, in addition to that, say,
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And look, I don't know. Look, obviously, like we're we come at this from like a Ron Paulian right wing libertarian perspective of foreign policy and the role of government and all of these things. Right. We are not we do not have the same worldview as campus leftists. OK, so like I and I have seen and I've been critical of many different times on many different platforms, including very big ones.
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I've been very critical of some of the kind of. dumb and just wrong, you know, messaging or messages that have come out of some of the protests. Um, and I've taken flack from like my own, my side or whatever on, on this issue. Um, I, I will say, and I'm not the expert in this, I don't know, and I don't know much about this guy in particular. I know nothing about the guy.
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But I'm not so sure that you can just like accurately just describe the protesters as pro-Hamas. I'm not sure. I mean, I don't know. I remember seeing at last year, so almost a year ago, at Passover, at the Columbia protest. You remember this, Rob, they were having a Seder with all of the, like they invited the Jewish students who were protesting the war too.
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So Thomas Massey, of course, for a little bit of background on this, Thomas Massey and Donald Trump really had a pretty bad falling out in 2020 when Thomas Massey was the only member of Congress who was standing up to the fiscal insanity of the year 2020, which is, of course, terrible. By the way, he was totally vindicated on. But he was insisting that it was crazy to spend these.
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And they all sat down like Jewish and Muslim students together and all did like a Passover Seder together. I'm just saying, I don't know if they're pro Hamas. Like that doesn't give me like Islamist vibes. That seemed like maybe that's not actually – maybe actually that's not a representation of what this is.
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And while there has been all of this like unbelievable kind of panic over these protests, which by the way, again, I think we're kind of speaking in the past here. It doesn't seem like they're like –
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at their height right now maybe they'll come back i don't know um but out of all of the people kind of making this bit one of the things that i've found very interesting and i've seen this quite a bit now i know that when i'm talking about the protest last year that i'm going four years back to talk about the protest in 2020 and so i know that's a very long time in modern america to look in the rear view mirror
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But there are many of these people that I remember them and I remember what they were saying at the time when I was like adamantly, like very critical of the Summer of Love, George Floyd riots. A lot of these people were actually pretty soft on that. But now they're very, very hard about people taking over.
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parts of a college campus or how horribly anti-semitic they are you know look like i talked to uh i talked to a jewish student who was going to columbia last year it's just me talking to one person so i'm not saying this is like you know the totality of what the experience is but i was like what's it uh what's it like with the protests and stuff and he was like that's kind of annoying
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He was like, oh, there's a few buildings where we have to like enter from a different door now. And then there was a little period of time where they shut down classes and went virtual. And he was like, I was pissed off about that. It was real annoying to like, I have to go virtual now because these guys want to protest. And I was like, that's that's fairly reasonable.
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And I was like, well, as a Jewish person, like, how is it? Do you feel like threatened by them? And he was like, no, no, no, no one's like doing anything. You know, it's just it's annoying. I'm like, OK, by the way, I'm actually somebody who's very sympathetic to the idea that like, yeah, you don't get to protest in an area you're not allowed to be. You can remove those people.
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OK, if they're taking over some quad that isn't their quad, then they don't have a right to do that. So, OK, they could be removed or whatever. Certainly, if anybody broke any laws, they should be prosecuted. But. It just is interesting to me to see like the thing that I was appalled by in the George Floyd riots was like there was like a couple dozen murders.
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There were hundreds of people who were viciously assaulted. There were billions of dollars in property damage. And there were just –
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regular people were being terrorized in cities across the country they're storming into cafes and you know surrounding some white couple and demanding that they chant black lives matter with this very clear threat of like you're going to get the shit beaten out of you by this mob if you don't comply with us and that to me was now and then some of these people were kind of like well you know police brutality is a problem also yet these protests are totally demonized
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Like the same people or many of the same people who would have said if I just described those things as like violent riots, they'd be like, you're painting with a broad brush. But those same people will turn around and say, like, oh, it's all pro Hamas. OK, I'm not saying, by the way, there's been zero violence or zero vandalism at any of these protests. But in comparison, it's like nothing.
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It's nothing compared to that. And yet the freak out from some quarters is substantially worse than it was over that. You get my point on that, Rob? Just seems like an obvious kind of hypocrisy on display. The other thing I would say, and maybe this will lead into, we could talk about my recent Twitter feud. But
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It was like these $2 trillion spending bills in the middle of COVID. He was saying the whole thing is nuts. The lockdowns are nuts. These spending bills are nuts. It's going to destroy the dollar, result in inflation. Ended up looking pretty good in hindsight, pretty solid prediction. And for this, for being the best member of Congress, Donald Trump smeared him, sent his supporters to attack him.
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I will say I see this and look, there's been a lot, a lot made over the last year or so about the rise in antisemitism. And me and we did a podcast called the rise of antisemitism. If anybody wants to kind of listen to some more of my, my thoughts and Rob's thoughts on that, you can check out that episode. But again, I just can't help but notice this.
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And I think part of the reason why I find myself in the position that I'm in, in general, on this conversation, is that I just like, I have trouble not trying to be as consistent as I can be. I have trouble, if I see a hypocrisy, I kind of have to iron that out. I'm a little bit compulsive in that way. But I would say that to see...
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Many people, many, many of them Jewish, not not all, obviously, certainly Donald Trump isn't. But to see all of these people talking about the anti-Semitism on college campuses and how this needs to be cracked down. Recently, Donald Trump announced that he's going to be pulling all federal funds from colleges that have anti-Semitic protests. Now, to be clear.
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And it's delivered right to your door, so you don't have to go out to like a gas station to find them. Best of all, it's the best price you're ever going to find, $60 for a kilo, only at YoCratom.com. All right, let's start the show. What's up? What's up, everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I am Dave Smith. He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein. How are you today, sir?
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I very much support, and I know I speak for you too when I say this, Rob, I support pulling all federal funds for every college, period. So I'm not complaining about pulling federal funds from any college. I think college is essentially a government program and one of the most destructive government programs at that. So I'm all for pulling federal funds.
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I would also say that the federal government should get out of the game of issuing student loans. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
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Essentially, the same thing is happening again. The Congress is trying to jam through another insane spending bill that will increase the debt, increase the deficit. And Thomas Massey was one of the few voices saying no. And Donald Trump flipped out on him. I think that this is... But on so like on on the policy of it, Donald Trump is dead wrong. And this is he's just it's terrible.
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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
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And then I think on the politics of it, I think it's also terrible. So just just a really horrible move by Donald Trump. And he's splitting his own base. Maybe I'm not saying splitting right down the middle. Obviously, Donald Trump is the most popular Republican figure in the country.
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Thank you. So anyway, so the thing that really bugged me and this is what kind of got me like actually really. And it wasn't like one time he did this. He did this over and over again. But there was always every time he challenged me with something on Twitter. Now, this is he would always say something along the lines of like, I bet Dave won't even respond to this one.
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But he is picking a fight with someone in Thomas Massey who I think has a more a more loyal base of support than Donald Trump realizes. I don't know. What are your thoughts on the feud, Rob?
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Dave will probably go dark. Like he responds to me a couple of times and then stops responding as if I'm, I'm expected to just respond to gnome all day long, every single day. And then most recently he said, he said, Hey Dave, instead of hiding behind Twitter, why don't you come on the podcast? And there was just something about that where it's like, dude, I mean, I don't know, Rob. Am I crazy?
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I found that to just be insane. Like insane. I mean, look, Gnome's got like 10,000 followers on Twitter. It's a crude estimate, but I'm just saying it's like this would be the equivalent of And I'm not exaggerating at all.
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Like the gap between the audience I have in the audience he has would be kind of like it'd be like if I got Barack Obama to come do a three hour podcast with me in which I got to just throw all of my grievances at him. And I could throw everything I had in. I had video evidence ready.
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He does this thing that nobody else has ever done to me in the history of podcasting where he superimposed like text over my face while I'm talking on the show. Okay. And then I get three hours with Barack Obama. I get to grill him constantly. Then Barack Obama goes back and forth with me on Twitter like a ton of times. Okay. And then I call out Obama for ducking me.
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Like you just refuse to engage. I just could not imagine doing that. I could not imagine. Like this would just be insane to me. I'd be like, listen, I could accuse the guy of a lot of things, but I can't accuse him of ducking me. I wouldn't accuse Chris Cuomo of ducking me right now. No, the dude sat and did a three-hour debate with me.
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And I could say a lot of things about him, but I sure as fuck cannot say he's ducking me. I cannot say he's hiding behind Twitter. Because whatever you want to say about Chris Cuomo, he stepped up and faced me. And same with Noam. I'm sorry. This is just ridiculous. And there's just always this air with Noam that like – You know, say what you will, but you never question my integrity.
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And it's like, well, what? Like, you know, I said at one point, I said once to him that he was like acting in bad faith. And he was very like, how dare you? How dare you say that I'm acting in bad faith? It's like, I don't know. No, I mean, you're literally your whole thing is you want to grill me about what other people say that I don't agree with.
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And I've publicly said, I don't like a lot of that stuff. And then you're like, no, that's not enough. You have to call them anti-Semites. I'm like, no, I don't really denounce people on command like that. So actually, I don't have to do that. Anyway, I don't know, Robert, any thoughts on any of this? I think I'm being entirely reasonable here.
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He's got we're talking about him on the show. Yeah. So there you go.
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Yeah, I mean, I listen, I agree with that. And I think, you know, there's it's just I guess and maybe this is my weakness in a way, but I really do have a weakness for like somebody accusing me of not engaging on this topic.
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I mean, literally, I get that criticism, too. People are like, you talk about this way too much. And look, that's a more reasonable criticism. Although I think I think it's appropriate. It is that horrible what's going on. And it affects America that much that I think it's worth talking this much about. Otherwise, I wouldn't.
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But the criticism that I won't engage when I've done just countless debates on this, by the way, I'm trying my best to set up another big one. I've done countless debates on this, done, I'd say, quite well in the debates that I've been in. And and I've specifically done your podcast for several hours and talk specifically about this. So I find that to be just like outrageous.
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And then, of course, you know, Dan Natterman really got he got me angry about
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um just because he's somebody who i've known for a while um and i just thought it was crazy that he basically publicly called me a liar like he just went like oh dave uh he said dave is is a slave to his golden cage he can't go against what his fans want him to say and i just find that to be really interesting it's like look man like, don't get me wrong. I had a very good year in, um, in 2024.
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Uh, I was doing pretty good in 2023 too. And before this war kicked off, I was on the trajectory that I'm on now. Um, I don't, you know, I, I got invited on Tucker Carlson show twice, um, uh, in 2024, I was the one who wanted to talk about Israel, you know, like I would have gotten invited on that show and been there regardless of that.
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It's so infuriating, dude, because that's what they said to Thomas Massey in 2020. They said, hey, there's a pandemic, dude. We can't deal. I get your point, but there's a pandemic. We can't deal with that now. There's always an excuse for why now. This is like if Washington, D.C. had a tagline, it would be now is not the time. Now was never the time.
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Um, in fact, it was Ukraine is what I think Tucker took an interest in me over. Um, I did Candace Owens show twice and I will say that those shows were largely about Israel and the fact that she had just, you know, opened her eyes about the situation and was, had, you know, become critical of the war. Okay. So there's that. Maybe you could argue that like, uh,
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And talking about the thing that was the biggest thing right there helped me in some way. But I just felt like for Dan Natterman to act like, it's like, okay, look, dude, first of all, you're just psychoanalyzing me. So like, let's, let's compare here. You're saying I can't go against what? Candace Owens or Jake Shields?
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What would that tank my career if I were to distance myself from them or call them anti-Semites? No, I don't really think it would. I think I'd be in pretty much the exact same situation I'm in now. What would Dan Natterman's career look like if he pissed off Nome? Hmm. Who's really in a cage here? Only yours isn't a golden one. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know what to say.
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So I just responded with the only response possible. I was like, dude, you're like you're like in your 50s and you still need spot pay. You're telling me that I'm in a cage. Like, fuck you. So anyway, things got a little bit nastier than I would have liked them to get. But I do feel like I was responding in kind. I will say, look, man.
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as far as this demand, look, I I've said a million times, and this is like, no, I'm had this whole, I mean, in response to my latest thing, he wrote a 19 part thread. And I just was like, no, I will talk about this on my podcast. And then I'm going to leave it at that. Maybe I'll do his podcast again someday. Again, it will be if I feel like it.
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And I'm sorry, but like, this is just the reality of life. I'm very busy. I have a very busy career. I have two small children. I have a wife. There is a time commitment involved in me going into New York City and doing a podcast for three hours. And yeah, the size of your audience is a factor in that. Sorry, it is.
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Name the other podcast that I do for three plus hours that has as small an audience as now. There isn't one. So like, you're kind of asking me to do something here. And I don't know if I decide to, maybe I will.
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Yeah. It's an infuriating thing to accuse somebody of. It's incredibly insulting. You're basically saying, oh, you don't really. Yes. Yes. It's calling out. It's calling out someone's integrity. This is like, I don't know, dude, like I'm also from, you know, is that people sometimes they'll be like, oh, you're so this is what Noam said. Oh, you're so mean to him. I'm like, wait, what?
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You know, I remember right after 9-11 when heroes like Harry Brown and Ron Paul would point out why we have this fight with the terrorists to begin with and what the beef is. They'd say, now is not the time. Now is not the time. We were just hit. You know what I mean?
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Like, I don't know, dude. You call out a man's integrity. You're supposed to fight after that. Like, what do you mean? I was mean to him? Like, I just don't even know. What are you talking about? It's like, but also the thing that bugs me so much is that it is almost like, it's like there's some price to success or something like that.
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Like, it's like, oh, because you've done well, that's proof that you're bad, that you don't really mean what you say. And there is something to me. It was like Chris Cuomo. It's what drove me crazy. It's why I was so vicious to Chris Cuomo in that debate. Because he started sitting there and going like, yeah, this type of stuff is good for clicks on the internet.
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Like, dude, either take on my argument or don't. But don't fucking insult me like that. Like, this isn't really my argument, especially when I'm right. And then you're going to sit here. Mr. Collecting CNN checks is going to tell me I took the easy path for money. So it's like, no, Dan. And look, by the way, I don't fucking hate Dan Natterman. Dan's a funny comic. That's the truth.
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Dan's a very good joke writer. I don't. I'm not going to deny that just because he pissed me off the other day. He's very funny. But Dan, you were fucking literally he's a dinosaur. He's been doing stand up comedy for decades before I ever started. He was in all the clubs before I started stand up comedy and he's done nothing with it. Nothing. He's still running around for spot pay.
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He needs that spot pay. If no one gives him three spots this weekend instead of two, he's psyched. OK, so like don't sit here and tell me I'm wrong because I got an audience going. And sure, I developed my audience in the in the podcast scene. OK, so what? Like he said something the other he goes, we're not even in the same business. I'm a comic. And I was like, no, we're in the same business.
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Right. Like, what do you want me to say, dude? It's like, okay. You want to say, oh, I, I built my audience by talking about politics on podcasts. Like, okay, sure. I did. That's right. You know what? A lot of those people still come out to see me do standup and I'm really good at standup. So, okay. So I'm selling tickets. What do you want me to say?
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I mean, it's like, it's like when people say to me, like, you're only huge because of Joe Rogan. Like, yeah. Exactly. And Seinfeld was only huge because of Carson. Okay. What do you mean? Yes, that's right. The most important gatekeeper liked me. That's how it works. Okay. Anyway, I do want to just mention this because I do. I'll say this and then this could be the last thing we say on it.
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And after the 2008 crisis, when people would point out how the government's in collusion with the big bank built up this housing bubble, Well, now's not the time. We're in this great financial recession. Now's not the time. It was never... Okay, when Obama was being pressured to prosecute George W. Bush's administration for war crimes, now's not the time to look backward.
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I understand. Look, I think gnome and at the risk of psychoanalyzing my, you know, doing some of that myself, but I think this is fairly reasonable to say. I think that Noam's interest in this is largely identitarian driven. You know, like Noam is Jewish. And so he wants to support the Jewish state. And he is very concerned about the rise of people being hostile toward him and his group.
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And I get that. I'm not like, that's understandable. I am coming at this from the opposite point of view. I'm giving my feelings despite my own in-group feelings. preferences or in-group, you know, like identitarianism. I'm going like, yeah, I also don't like that it's the Jewish state that's in this position. I also don't like that there's a rise in hostility toward Jews.
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However, despite that, I got to call balls and strikes here. That's kind of like where I'm coming at this from. Is there a rise of people saying Jew-hating things on Twitter? Sure seems like it to me. Sure seems like it to me. I see it all the time much more openly than ever before, and I will admit that I don't like that. It's kind of a disturbing trend to see. I also see other disturbing trends.
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You know, if I'm being completely honest – Does it disturb me that so many people, even in my own mentions, are like trashing Jews? Yeah, it does. I do not like that. I do not think it's right. I do not think it's good. I do not think it's wise. I have lots of negative feelings about that.
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If I'm being completely honest, I'm far more disturbed by how many Jewish people I see coming at me with the most vicious smears. Like that to me is like far more concerning.
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Like it's like, wow, just because I have a principled problem with women and children being slaughtered with a group of people who have been occupied and dominated for 60 plus years now being slaughtered while they are helpless because I have an issue with that. You're going to call me a Nazi like a fucking a rabbi is going to call me a Nazi because I oppose Nazi like crimes.
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That, to me, I find actually substantially more disturbing than some jerk off 25 year old saying, fuck the Jews or something like that. But that's just my opinion, somewhat subjective. I also find the dehumanization of the Palestinians to be complacent. Completely. It's like, look, this is what happens when there's war. It's like there's these mass efforts to completely dehumanize the other side.
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And I think all of those are wrong. I take the Daryl Cooper approach on this. I love the way he said it in the prologue to the World War II episode. He was just like, listen, whenever you start feeling that way, that this entire group of people is evil, he's like, that's not you. That is some evil spirit acting on you.
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Now's the time to move forward. Now's not the time. Now's not the time. It's never the time. You know what I mean? It's never the time to do the right thing. Somehow, it's always the time to do the wrong thing. And like... Again, it's just – I don't know what else to say.
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And it's the same evil spirit that's responsible for the worst atrocities in human history. But I am sorry. It is wild to see the supporters of Israel demand that you label other people as anti-Semites, including people, say, like Candace and Ian, who bend over backward constantly to say, I'm not talking about all Jewish people here. I love Jewish people.
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Most Jews are regular people and have nothing to do with this. I'm talking about this tiny cabal of people. And then Noam or other people like this will turn around and say, oh, you hate Jews because you blame 9-11 on the Jews. It's like, well, no, he didn't blame 9-11 on all Jews. He said Israel was involved in 9-11. By the way, hey, here's a wild thought.
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All the times you've heard me on the biggest platforms ever talking about the terror wars and Al Qaeda and the war in Iraq and Syria and Libya and Somalia and the war in Gaza and 9-11 and all these things. Have you ever heard me say that Israel did 9-11? No. OK, that's because I don't believe that. I've seen the evidence that people have.
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I think it's actually that people really overplay it and it's really pretty weak. And there's just no conclusive point. There's like there's no conclusive case here that Israel was involved in 9-11. Now, if it came out tomorrow that Israel was involved in 9-11, it wouldn't exactly blow my mind and destroy my worldview. But it's not something I believe. I don't think that's right.
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But I also don't think it makes you a Jew hater to say that. Especially when you're going out of your way to be like, no, no, no, I don't have a problem with Jewish people. I think there's this cabal within Israel, within the Mossad, who's working with elements in the CIA, who did this thing. That's not an anti-Semitic statement. It's not.
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And in the same way, talking about black crime in Chicago doesn't make you someone who hates black people. Look, no one, by the way, called Tucker Carlson an anti-Semite. Tucker Carlson, the guy who said the Jews precisely zero times ever. Tucker Carlson is actually an anti-anti-Semite. I've had multiple conversations with Tucker Carlson about this. He's not just passively not anti-Semitic.
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He's actively anti-anti-Semitic, okay? But this is the craziness to me of the blind spots. And I just have to play this clip. I can't help myself. But these are the blind spots of Noam Dwarfman as he is calling me out for not taking on what he calls my team. He goes, you won't criticize your own people.
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I don't know in the world of politics when anything could ever be made more clear than it is made clear right now that the Republican Party is a big government socialist party. Like, you know, there's – as you pointed out, Rob, you have – that all the stuff with Doge, Doge is popular. The American people are looking at the swamp in a way they never have before.
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OK, this is something that happened while they were having a conversation about me, which, you know, truth be told, the only reason I was watching. But here was my buddy Aaron Berg was on the Comedy Cellar podcast. And of course, the topic was about me and not even anything I said, but about how bad I am because of what Candace Owens said or something like that. Here's the clip.
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And I want to see if you guys can. I play this on one of the members only episodes, but I want the whole audience to see it here. So here's a clip. See if you notice anything in here that that rings any alarm bells. Now, just to be clear, the topic here is me and how I'm not condemning anti-Semitism, how I'm not condemning the excesses of the anti-Israel side. Let's play the clip.
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Mike, I appreciate it. We're done. We're done here. Okay, so if you could just get past the... Right at the end, that no one gets completely wrong. The whole principle of free speech is not predicated on the idea that you're going to have debate. Free speech is a value in and of itself and that it's wrong to rob someone of their ability to speak.
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But regardless of any of that, that is one of the benefits of free speech, but it's not predicated on that. But can you believe this, Rob? I mean, is this not like just the most insane thing ever? And by the way, to preface, I love Aaron Berg. I've known Aaron Berg for like 20 years. He's a friend of mine. I'm not saying anything bad about him.
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But could you imagine being in the middle of a conversation where you're criticizing me for not calling out the bigotry on my side? And you're sitting there and you're making the point that the whole thing about free speech is that you got to push back against bad ideas. Ehrenberg, in the middle of all of this, says that he gets excited when people are being massacred.
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The corporate media that would be known for always in these moments, fear-mongering, you know, what a government shutdown will do, what will happen if these things are cut. No one's watching the corporate media anymore. They have no power to really fuck with Donald Trump or his agenda in any way.
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And no one even thinks to give it some pushback. No one even thinks like, wow, that's a fucked up thing that you just said, dude, in the middle of a war where women and children are just being fucking massacred. You're saying it gets you excited to see that? And no one at the table bats an eye.
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I mean, tell me how I'm supposed to take the calls for me to call out the excesses of the anti-Israel side seriously when this is what goes on there. It's such a blind spot that no one even sees that as like, what a fucked up thing. I mean, I'm sorry. There is nothing that Candace Owens or Jake Shields have said that is as fucked up as that.
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I don't know, but maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think so. This would be the equivalent of them saying, I watched October 7th and I just got so excited watching these people being massacred because I was like, yeah, payback. Like that is like Hamas level attitude. You know what I'm saying? And literally nobody even bats an eye.
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Gnome himself just launches into a thing about how the point of free speech is to battle down bad ideas and doesn't even think to himself, oh, maybe since I'm calling out this guy, it's incumbent on me right now to say, eh, I'm going to distance myself from that a little bit. Now, just for the record, and I just want to be clear about this, I am not condemning Aaron Berg.
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I am not calling on Noam to condemn Aaron Berg. If anybody ever came at me the way Noam comes at me about condemning Jake Shields and Candace Owens and said, you got to condemn Aaron Berg for what he just said, I'd say, fuck you, because I don't have to condemn anyone on demand. That's not how this works, okay? You don't own my time. I don't have to do that.
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It's just that the hypocrisy is so overwhelming. Like, come on, while you're calling on me, while you've been on a month's long crusade to the point that I'm a topic of discussion on your podcast and this is the topic, you just let that shit slide and don't even see the issue with it?
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This is what happens when people get bogged down into their own identitarian worldviews that they simply just have blind spots. They just don't even see that like they're totally contradicting their own stated goals. That's the last I'll say. I'll give you the final word, Rob, and then we can wrap up.
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All right. Maybe that's the best that could come out of this. All right. Thank you guys so much for listening. We'll catch you next time tomorrow. Tomorrow, I got Keith Knight coming on from the Libertarian Institute. Should be a fun podcast. All right. Catch you guys then. Peace.
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And so now when you have Donald Trump at his most popular, you have the idea of cutting government spending at its most popular. This is and you have Republican control of the House and the Senate and Donald Trump in the White House. Like if now is not the time, just someone please explain to me when is going to be the time.
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When is going to be the time to actually cut some spending if now is not the time? And you just it reveals it's like in this moment, who's actually serious about cutting spending? Thomas Massey and Rand Paul. And that's pretty much it. And the rest of them all just pretend. And I mean, like, if there is one lesson, I've been saying this for so many goddamn years at this point.
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But if there is one lesson that the MAGA Republicans need to learn that somehow they cannot learn, even it's not rocket science. But when you talk about draining the swamp, the swamp is the power that D.C. has. And the power that D.C. has is how much money they spent. Literally all of the money spent as as Elon Musk loves to share this video of Milton Friedman breaking it down perfectly. Right.
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I'm doing all right. How are you, Mr. Smith? Doing good. I've been enjoying this nice weather we've had yesterday and today. For people who don't live where there's seasons, if you live in one of these areas where it's warm year-round, sure.
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The real tax is government spending. Right. no matter what they're spending the money on, no matter how they raise the money. Government spending is the tax, right? It is because the only ways they can get the money are either to tax you for it, to borrow the money, which is just a promise to tax you in the future, or to print the money, which is just a tax in a different form.
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It's just taking your purchasing power and giving it to DC. So what government spends every year is how much The criminals in Washington, D.C. take from the rest of the American people and then hand out to their cronies. That's the swamp. That's the corruption. If you're serious about draining the swamp, the only way to do it is to have meaningful cuts in government spending.
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And of course, as the Doge guys have been kind of pointing out, there's all this stuff we spend money on that's just like insane and can't even be justified. No one even attempts to justify it. And yet in this moment, You have one congressman standing up and that's who Donald Trump is going to suggest primarying?
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Not the congressmen who are always pushing toward the next war, lying through their teeth to the American people. Not the congressmen like Dan Crenshaw, that retard out there bragging about dead Russians, saber rattling the next conflict as Donald Trump's trying to negotiate it away. Not them. Really, really.
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Someone explain to me from an America First perspective, someone explain to me how out of all of the congressmen that need to be primaried, The best one is the one that Trump has to go after. I mean, listen, it's it was all all of this was entirely predictable and there's nothing to be surprised about.
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And I know that people who disagreed with my decision to support Donald Trump in this election will jump on this as well. What did you expect? This is what you voted for. The truth is that. getting Donald Trump in there was still much better than getting Kamala Harris in there. I don't regret my decision to support him, but God damn, if this just isn't pathetic and predictable and awful.
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And look, by the way, I will just say, I'm sorry, Rob, I'll throw it back to you. But there's, to those people there, it's kind of like I can't win with this crowd because they'll go, first they'll go, oh,
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now that dave supports donald trump he won't criticize donald trump on all this then when i'm exactly the same and i criticize donald trump on all the same they go well what did you expect this is what you voted for it's two separate things man we had a binary choice unfortunately and this was just so much better there are many huge positives that came out of donald trump being the president there were nothing but negatives out of kamala harris
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But I'm not going to pretend. I'm not going to argue with you guys on this. I'm not going to pretend there aren't some glaring negatives. And this is just terrible.
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you don't have to suffer through the three months of brutal misery that we do, but there is something about when it cracks and you get those first nice days, that's just magical.
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Yeah, well, I could tell you, and again, this is obviously, this isn't scientific or anything like that, but I'm just saying from gauging social media today, it does seem like of the like bigger accounts and kind of the MAGA world, there is just like a huge, like now not Thomas Massey, dude, like, you're just not sorry.
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You know, like there's people who will go along with Donald Trump for a lot, but there is something Thomas Massey does have a really loyal base. And I just don't think that I don't think it's wise politics here. I'm just going to read the, uh, the post that Donald Trump put up. Um,
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He said, thank you to the House Freedom Caucus for just delivering a big blow to the radical left Democrats and their desire to raise taxes and shut our country down. They hate America and all it stands for. That's why they allow millions of criminals to invade our nation. Sometimes it takes great courage to do the right thing.
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Congressman Thomas Massey of beautiful Kentucky is an automatic no vote on just about everything, despite the fact that he has always voted for continuing resolutions in the past. He should be primaried, and I will lead the charge against him. He's just another grandstander who's too much trouble and not worth the fight. He reminds me of Liz Cheney before her historic record-breaking loss.
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The people of Kentucky won't stand for it. Just watch. Do I have any takers? Anyway, thank you again to the House Freedom Caucus for your very important vote. We need to buy some time in order to make America great again, greater than ever before. Unite and win. That is Donald Trump's post. Yeah, nothing. Nothing sticks it to the socialists quite like raising government spending.
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Like if this was, if it was 55 degrees in the middle of, of summer, you'd be like, Oh, it's freezing today, but man, when it's 55 degrees coming off, being cooped up inside and you're just outside in the sun, it's the best. That's myself.
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That's really what they oppose. You got them, Donald Trump, by signing another bloated spending bill. You've really bucked things in Washington, D.C. I mean, who could we get this from if we didn't get it from Donald Trump? I mean, besides Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and George Bush and Joe Biden, George H.W. Bush, I'm missing every president of my lifetime. Every single one of them. Like who?
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I don't know. And even to say, like, I know Thomas Massey did vote for one other CR. And I believe it was like because he was like, oh, this one actually cut a tiny bit of spending, even though it was like basically a continuation. And he's like, I don't know, is the first bill I've seen since I've been here that cut any spending. So I'll at least go with that. And maybe he shouldn't have.
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But if there's a criticism there, it's from the other direction. that he shouldn't have supported it because it didn't cut enough. Not because it was, well, again, it's just the thing, the same old line of like, we need to buy time right now. So like, we can't feel whatever pain government spending might cause right now. We got to kick the can a little bit further.
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This is sounding a lot more like a typical politician than than we'd like to hear from Donald Trump resolution.
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It's amazing the contrast between Doge and Congress. And this is something we've been talking a bit more about lately.
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Yeah. Yeah. Well, and, you know, it matters a lot who's sitting in the chair. And at this point, Trump is. And so his move is not to say, let's primary all these other guys, which, by the way, I mean, Trump could move mountains right now if he was really serious about this getting into the primary Republicans business. But it's not it's the primary the one guy who's being good on it.
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Constitutional Crisis
We already had a word for that. Right, right, exactly. But this is not a whataboutism where I go, look, over the last 20 years, okay, there have been, as you just alluded to, Rob, right, we've had decades-long wars that were undeclared by the Congress. If you read the Constitution, it is very clear.
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One of the nice things about the Constitution, by the way, it's not that long of a book, pretty easy to read, pretty simple to kind of understand. I mean, you could argue over finer points, but it's more or less pretty easy to understand. It's not like like it's really not actually that complicated. And they're very clear. Only Congress can declare wars.
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We have fought decades-long wars without congressional declarations of war. Now, in Iraq and in Afghanistan, they got, like, these authorizations of military force, which is, like, that's not what the Constitution says. It says you have to declare war. And, again, even those are, like, incredibly sketchy and have been pulled. So, like, we gave...
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The Congress gave the Bush authority to gave the Bush administration authority to use force against Saddam Hussein's government. Right. Saddam Hussein's government fell like a few weeks after we invaded. So that was gone, you know, and then we just stayed there for 20 years. You know what I mean? So it's like that's not you didn't really have. Anyway.
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It's going to be live on YouTube. I could find the, I'm blanking at the moment on the name of the group who's putting this on. Sorry, I probably should remember that. I'll remember them by the time I get there. I can include it in the description. Sure, sure, sure. Yeah, that, perfect. By the way, Natalie just said if you didn't hear off mic, she will include the link in the episode description.
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Either way, you didn't have a declaration of war. The other wars, besides Afghanistan and Iraq, the wars in Libya, in Syria, in Somalia, in Yemen, the drone bombing campaign in Pakistan, they never got anything. They just never even like went to court. Right. So we have like you had torture was instituted in the Bush administration, which is clearly a violation of the of the Constitution.
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You've had I mean, what could be a more clear violation of the Constitution than Barack Obama having U.S. citizens killed? assassinating US citizens. I mean, just read through the Bill of Rights and you tell me if there's any way you could interpret that to mean that you can murder an American citizen who hasn't been charged with a crime. No, forget a trial.
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Hey, George Washington didn't realize how cool drones were. Yeah, I guess that's I guess that might be part of it. But anyway, so but just so the idea that we've lived through all of this and none of these people ever called any of that a constitutional crisis. None of them ever thought about like lockdowns. Just look at lockdowns.
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You're like, you know, I remember one of my favorite moments through all of COVID. It was very early on. It was my governor, Governor Murphy, here in New Jersey. Tucker Carlson had him on. Actually, Natalie, see if you could find this. Tucker Carlson, Governor Murphy, First Amendment.
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Let's see if you could find that, because it is almost worth playing as people talk about a constitutional crisis here. See, go on YouTube for it or whatever. Maybe you might have it right there. Yeah, let's let's let's play this.
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But, you know, this really is my, as you've come to know over the years. By the time this airs, it'll be.
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yeah that's a good point okay anyway well you know what but it'll it won't be the live stream then but it'll be up on youtube but if you've worked with me for years you know i only learn names like once i get there it's always five minutes before we get there i figure out how to say or after we say it on the podcast a whole bunch everyone gets mad at us
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That would give us an enormous amount of confidence to be able to say, you know what?
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all so like he's got no rationale that makes sense and then also just to know that they got it all wrong that is just not the case that the lockdowns were stopping the spread at all and you can look at this like you can look at the areas that did lock down and didn't lock down and you don't see any reduction in the spread of COVID so it's just all so crazy what a wild time this was and by the way I should also point out I think the part I was looking for is coming up soon here but I should also point out that uh
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you know, this was, I believe this was in April that he's, he did this interview. So this is, you know, the lockdowns hit in March. This is the next month, April. This was the only time that any lockdown governor got a grilling. Like all the other press conferences would just be like, you know, like Andrew Cuomo, you're so hot. Like it was just insane. It was insane. I remember, um,
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Listening to speaking of constitutional crisis, I remember Andrew Cuomo said in one of his first press conferences after the lockdowns, because remember, he used to give them every day. He said in one of his first press conferences after the lockdowns that they were just suspending speedy trials.
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Yeah, but even then, I keep saying it wrong. Yes, that is a part of my process. Sure, Rob, if you want to be on. But anyway, so it's Steamboat, I believe. Am I getting that right? Yes, Steamboat Institute are the ones. They're putting on the event, and it's at Princeton University. One of the things that's weird about these debates, particularly –
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Because they were like, there's just no way, you know, the system's moving so slow that there's no way we can just give everybody a trial when they're supposed to. So we're pushing them back because we don't want to just let people go. They might be guilty. It's just being like, yo, and he said this in front of a room full of reporters.
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Not a single one of them followed up on that and just went, are we in a constitutional crisis now? Because the right to a speedy trial is enshrined in the Constitution, you know, and so you kind of have to do that. You don't have the option. Nope. Elizabeth Warren wasn't out on TV screeching about constitutional crisis. None of that.
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Part Of The Problem
Constitutional Crisis
I guess the broader point here is just the idea that this represents a constitutional crisis, whereas all these other flagrant violations of the Constitution don't. That's not whataboutism to point out. You know what I'm saying? That's not something that should be dismissed. It kind of proves that these people are not serious, and they don't actually care about the Constitution at all.
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Dude, anybody who's read the Constitution knows that. knows damn well that 90 plus percent of what the federal government does is not authorized in the Constitution. You read the Constitution and you look at it, the government that we have, in no way, shape, or form,
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even resembles the government that they're laying out there, which was supposed to be, and was at one point, the most, the experiment in the most limited of governments. That was the whole idea of the thing, was to just put constant shackles on the government. The government can't do this, the government can't do that.
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We're going to take the powers of a government and we're going to divide them up into three co-equal branches, which can all check each other. Then you have the 10th Amendment, which is another check on top of that. which expressly says in the Constitution that any right that is not expressly granted to the federal government falls to the states and the people.
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Over the topic of Israel, although I don't think it's quite as unique to Israel as some might make it out to be. You know, I've over the years. And I think this is really part of how me and you have built this show up and how I've kind of built my following is that I'm just I.
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So it's not like, oh, if we didn't mention it here, you could interpret that we also have this authority. Must be why we have a Federal Reserve. Yeah, there is no authorization for a Federal Reserve or a Department of Education or a Department of Energy or a CIA or a NSA or any of these things. It's very clear that none of this should exist if we're following the Constitution.
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So the idea that we have a constitutional crisis because Trump is defying a judge's order is just ridiculous. The Constitution was shredded over 100 years ago. We do not follow the thing anymore. And, you know, we could get into who exactly is the most responsible for shredding it. And we could have a whole long debate over whether it was Lincoln or Woodrow Wilson. But it was one of those two.
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But the thing is long dead. So it's just it's a ridiculous, you know, assertion. OK, are we we got to this point?
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so essentially that's it right that he goes uh it's above my pay grade i wasn't thinking about the bill of rights when i did this are you telling me how's that not a constitutional crisis i mean the guy it's very clear tucker's like this is so clearly protected uh under the constitution and you're defying that by what right like where do you get the authority to i mean if you like if the constitution is the supreme law of the land and you swear an oath to it whatever where do you get the right
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to, to violate it. And his response is that's above my pay grade. Did you imagine? It's like, no, that's exactly your pay grade. That is exactly what you specialize in doing. It'd be like if I told you that podcasting was above my pay grade. Like, what? That's the job.
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And so you could have one of the lockdown governors the only time, correct me if I'm wrong, I really do believe this was the only time that anyone ever, think about what a pathetic media core we have, that this was the only time that a lockdown governor was ever asked directly, where do you get the authority to do this? And his answer is, I don't know. I'm not thinking about that. I don't know.
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So, sorry, but hearing AOC and Elizabeth Warren shriek about a constitutional crisis is kind of laughable when all of them cheered this shit on. By the way, why don't you pull up that AOC clip that I sent you? This was a this was a fun one. There were a bunch of clips of Joe Biden saying essentially the same thing you already alluded to it, Rob. But, you know, AOC is capable of speaking.
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So it just makes for a better video to play on the on the podcast.
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Okay, obviously I'm biased when I say this, but I'm pretty consistently right about the most important thing when it really matters. So like, you know, in the same way, I was not right. You know, I don't even exactly remember. Like, I don't know if I had a strong feeling about it, but I wasn't like... The war in Iraq, I was too young to, like, know what the hell I was talking about.
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Okay, so that was our last constitutional crisis. But see, that one was about the abortion pill. So that's okay.
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By the way, I think I actually did get that wrong. I think it's about the funding freeze issue. Not about the – but so that's essentially – so now if Donald Trump – whether birthright citizenship or the funding freeze or whatever, it's like so you're – so if he defies the courts on this one, somehow that's a constitutional crisis. Yet this isn't because it's an issue you like or something like –
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Well, look, I mean, all of these things, right? Like, it's... Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
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And I didn't, like, have a show or anything. But just for an example of, like, the war in Iraq, everybody's against it now. You know? But, like, what really mattered is whether you were for it or not at the time. And me and you have just kind of consistently been on the right side of all this. Like, being... All of our takes... Not all of our takes.
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All of our takes on the most important issues aged very well. You know? But... I remember like I was in the middle of, you know, I was on Joe Rogan's show arguing against lockdowns in 2020 and calling them totalitarian. And that was like now if I say, oh, the lockdowns were totalitarian, it's like the emotion is gone. So it's kind of hard to argue with.
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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Just thinking back on this, like, Rob, do you remember that really the Mises caucus guys, at least in the Libertarian Party, were almost the sole faction who was arguing that wokeism is cancer and we need to get this the hell out of libertarians' minds?
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All right, let's start the show. Hello, hello. What is up, everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I am Dave Smith. He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein. How are you today, sir? I'm doing well. How are you, Mr. Smith? Ready for that debate tonight? Yep. Getting ready. I hope I'm ready because I don't have too much time.
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Who could argue that a lockdown isn't totalitarian? Like by definition, isn't that what it is? You are locking people down and deciding whether or not they can do anything. Anyway. The war in Ukraine was a big one. The COVID vax was a big one, where there are just these issues that are like super emotionally charged. But Israel's up there.
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It might be the most, you know, but it certainly is one of them. And so when you go into these debates, especially with someone I don't know, like Josh, I really, like I'm going in just to argue the position, right? and have, like, a civil exchange of ideas. But I'm not sure. You know, you go in in the back of your mind where I'm like, I don't know.
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And just, like, how well did that age? Like, it's just—we're also finding out now, even to a larger degree, although we've been saying this for years— That the whole thing was totally artificial. It was totally a government construct. Like, this wasn't... Wokeism was never something that just arose organically from the bottom up. It was always a top-down government program, in effect.
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And, like, it's just... Anyways, I mean, remember, like, look, there were when Joe Jorgensen ran for president, there were staffers who were tweeting things like it's not enough to be passively not racist. We must be actively anti-racist or posting things about the trans genocide. Do you remember this post about the trans genocide? Because like. 13 trans people had been killed this year.
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So they called it a trans genocide. It's just like these insane things. And then I do think that like, man, the Mises caucus really was the faction arguing against that. And just in hindsight, we were totally right. Totally vindicated. Is that fair?
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That's what I like to hear. The other thing I thought was an interesting one was immigration. I think the Mises caucus—and this was not the entirety of the Mises caucus. There was division within the caucus. But I think it was guys in the Mises caucus who were really like, hey, I think we need to rethink immigration here.
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And I think that this idea of supporting open borders is not the correct libertarian position. And it's also just politically unviable. And now we're at a point where like— Super majorities of the American people support mass deportations.
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Constitutional Crisis
Now, I'm just saying whether or not you're convinced by the libertarian argument on it, you got to kind of kind of admit that it is it's a DOA position for a political party in 2025 to be running on. Open the border. Zero restrictions on who comes in. I mean, like even like Chase, who ended up being the nominee, he wasn't running on any of the woke stuff.
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He wasn't running on open borders because even he knows it's a goddamn disaster. He was running on trans horse shit. A little bit. But even I think he backed off like that. Then he would he was on the record for shit he had said before. And so he'd get asked about that, like by Liz Wolf. And he didn't but he didn't really want to talk about it. It's not like he was bringing that up.
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Like, here's what I'm running on. You know what I mean? It's just when people would grill him about it, he would have to admit, like, yeah, I am kind of a woke tard at heart.
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Constitutional Crisis
This guy might—I have to be prepared for the fact that, like, this guy might come at me, you know, on some, like, you're a self-hating Jew, like, whatever. You know, I just don't know enough about him. From the little I've seen of him, I don't think he will. My guess is he's going to come in and debate the issue. But you never know with that. So it's a little bit of a weird, like—
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Yeah, okay, fair enough. But anyway, that, I think, and then the other thing that I was really thinking about was just that there's this thing that we really went all in on, and it's hard for people to remember that, like, you know, back in 2019, 2020, the fierce Mises Caucus opposition was like, you guys are right-wing culture warriors because we wanted to abandon the woke shit.
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They said, you guys aren't real libertarians because we didn't support open borders. And they also said, I remember this,
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We always laid out the strategy that the strategy for Libertarian candidates should be to utilize the new media podcasts that we should be like, listen, they're going to black us out of the corporate media, but we can totally dominate this new alternative media that's grown bigger than the corporate media. And we were mocked for this. People said, oh yeah, podcast bros.
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Constitutional Crisis
That's the key to electoral success. Sure. Twitter's not real life and all this shit like that. And then you literally just watched as Vivek Ramaswamy, Bobby Kennedy, and of course Donald Trump, these guys became superstars off of that scene. Okay, Donald Trump was a superstar before, but he won the election off of that scene. I just think like for the Libertarian Party going forward, like,
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At least take those lessons that I think we were like just objectively right about.
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Constitutional Crisis
Look, it's very hard for me to just say this in a more delicate way, but the old guard of the Libertarian Party, and this was something, and I think this is part of what rubbed a lot of those guys the wrong way about the Mises caucus, was that the party was permeated by feminine men. And this is kind of an unfortunate thing. You know, Rogan had a great rant on this the other day.
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You know, it's like I'm fine with it being like a vicious fight and I'm fine with it being a battle of ideas. It's a little weird not knowing which one you're going to go into.
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Constitutional Crisis
But there is look, obviously, there are more masculine women and there are more feminine men. OK. They are not nearly as appealing to people. And that's just like it's an unfortunate thing. Like, I don't know what to if you imagine like imagine if you're a woman, if you're one of the three women listening to this show. OK, imagine and you're into let's say you're a straight woman.
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Constitutional Crisis
So we're down to one. All right. If you if you imagine like you saw you were out and you saw a guy who you thought was just like incredibly good looking, like an incredibly good looking guy, like everything you're looking for in a guy, you see this guy and you're just like immediately very attracted to him.
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Constitutional Crisis
And then like you go over to talk to him or he comes over to talk to you and he's like, what's up, girlfriend? You're immediately going to lose all attraction. Like it's just going to like that's just not good. OK, there might be exceptions to that rule, but generally speaking, that him being like super feminine is going to turn you off immediately.
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Constitutional Crisis
Likewise, if there's a guy, you see some super hot chick and you go over to approach her and she's like, bro, and punches you in the shoulder and like belches in front of you. That's going to be like now you're still a man, so you won't lose all attraction to her. But that's going to be like the biggest turn off you could have. There's there's just something where like.
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Constitutional Crisis
And what Rogan was saying the other day was he was talking about David Hogg and he was like, good luck getting dudes. Good luck getting dudes back on board. Guys in general are not going to follow the lead of a super feminine man. That's just not going to work out. Like if you're the guy who's like a guy barely brushes by your shoulder and you're like. Oh, I was assaulted. You're not the leader.
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Constitutional Crisis
You're not a leader of men. And I'm sorry. That's just, you know, it might be a harsh truth, but it's like, yeah, it's a truth. And so you can, and there was something, and I think it goes hand in hand with that. But one of the most important things that the Mises caucus was always pushing.
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Constitutional Crisis
And I remember getting in arguments with people about this and it speaks to what you were talking about with the COVID stuff is that look, if we're going to be a third party, and we're gonna stand for this libertarian philosophy, then we have to, we have to take on the controversial issues while they're happening. We have to grab the third rail with both hands. That's the only way to make noise.
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Constitutional Crisis
And, you know, that you have, and this is one of the things, I'm not saying the Mises caucus messaging was always perfect. There was always, I always had critiques of messaging. I have critiques of almost every libertarian messenger, almost every one. There's like five that I think get it completely right.
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Constitutional Crisis
But one thing you could say about the Libertarian Party after the Mises caucus took over it, took over the thing. The war in Ukraine broke out. We were against it immediately, loudly, when it cost something. Yeah, we got smeared as Russian assets or whatever. Who cares? They're going to smear you if you're ever being successful, no matter what.
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Constitutional Crisis
The war in Gaza broke out against it immediately when it was a really white hot, you know, These these things like you, you, you could just watch it happen. We know still to this day, right? Me and you benefit so much from having been right about COVID when it happened, like people gain trust in you.
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Constitutional Crisis
That's your advice for me. All right, I will take that into consideration. And I'm re-questioning whether you're the best advisor to have, but somehow Rob is my senior advisor in life. Look at this and tell me you think I hate being Jewish. Well, it is.
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Constitutional Crisis
And this would be this huge thing that the liberals, it's so insane that the Libertarian Party doesn't get to own that. That they don't get to say, hey, there is a party that was opposed to lockdowns when it happened. They can't really say that because they weren't. And like that, there is something about that that's connected to the masculine energy thing.
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Constitutional Crisis
There is something about that that's like, no, that's what it is to be a man. It's like, no, I'm going to say what I fucking believe. And if, oh, that means I got to take some arrows. Good. Fuck you. I don't care. You know what I mean? Like, there's just the party needs that. Anyway, I do just think I just kind of wanted to share that.
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Constitutional Crisis
I do think that there were, you know, and then, of course, the other big one, the last one I'll mention before we go is being well, being willing to leverage the Libertarian Party. You know that nobody else except people in the Mises caucus were possibly ever going to consider that doing what Angela did. And you can sit here and have your gripes about it and you could complain. Look.
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Constitutional Crisis
She saved Ross's life. Saved a guy's life who was wrongly imprisoned. It's more than the party's accomplished in its entire history. And that is a very real accomplishment. And then on top of that, where you see so much of the stuff that we're getting out of Doge and just the way the public conversation has changed. I mean, the Libertarian Party was an important part of this.
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Constitutional Crisis
And I think the Libertarian vote was an important part of it. Look, dude, you could just look at the numbers, right? So there's like... You know, the Libertarian Party was finishing in third place in the presidential election every year. I think Gary Johnson got like four and a half million votes. I think Joe Jorgensen got like one and a half million votes. Chase finished like fifth.
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Constitutional Crisis
He lost to Jill Stein. He lost to Bobby Kennedy. He lost to the guy who told people not to vote for him. OK, so like where did all those Libertarian votes go? Seems like they went to Trump. You know, like it seems like that's kind of what happened here is that these votes went to Donald Trump.
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Constitutional Crisis
And with the political makeup of the United States of America, if you're talking about like 3 million votes, that's a huge deal, you know? And that's... So... Look, I think these are all things that the Libertarian Party in the next iteration of it, whatever that's going to look like.
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Constitutional Crisis
And to whatever extent I'm involved in that, this is the type of thing that I would be encouraging them is like, look, man, say what you will about the caucus. We were dead right on these most crucial issues, which really were the things that we led with. That were like, look, this is what the party should be about. And I think it's really hard, looking back at it, to not at least admit that.
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Constitutional Crisis
I also I'm just kind of interested to see because I don't think Princeton was ever like really the the hotbed of any of the kind of protests or anything like that. Like, I don't know.
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Constitutional Crisis
Like, if you're being fair, anybody who's following, has been following the LP circles for all these years, you know that all the things I just listed, there were major debates about this. And people were arguing against us on it. And they're, you know, where are they now? Anybody really arguing?
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Constitutional Crisis
Hey, if we want to really have some success, we got to be social justice warriors, social justice warriors for open borders. What a great political strategy that is. So anyway, just something I was thinking about and I wanted to do that little rant. All right, we can wrap up on that. I got to head over to Princeton University. Looking forward to it. Hope to see some of you guys out there.
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Constitutional Crisis
Well, I mean, Columbia is a pretty prestigious school, too.
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Constitutional Crisis
Everybody knows that. Skull and bones, baby. It's the Ivy League fruitcake delinquent. But anyway, it's an interesting place to be. It's interesting to be in a debate about these kind of like polarizing white hot issues. And even particularly with the...
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Constitutional Crisis
You know, I guess the thing is, like I when I went on probably the most like pushback I ever got was when I went on Rogan's podcast and and talked about the war in Ukraine the first time. And because the war had like.
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Constitutional Crisis
It was going on for a few months already, but the war was like in the... It was still in the... Like at this point, you know, the propaganda about how Ukraine's going to win is kind of gone. Now it's kind of like, what deal are we actually going to get? But back then it was like, no, we're taking back Crimea. We're doing the whole thing. I got so much.
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Constitutional Crisis
It was like kicking a hornet's nest, you know, like the swarm that came after me, which I find kind of interesting in its own way. The thing about Israel, I guess, is that Israel... somehow always maintains that status. It's always the third rail.
Part Of The Problem
Constitutional Crisis
Like, it doesn't matter if it's, you know, obviously it's been more so over the last year and a half, but Israel, at all times, it's like, if you even start talking about, say, like, the Israel lobby, people already kind of look at you like, oh, you're saying that the Jews run everything and that there's this, you know, conspiracy, but you're like, yeah, but how would you not talk about that?
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Constitutional Crisis
Like, how does it, you know what I mean? It'd be like if you were, like, talking about Whatever, if you were talking about gun control and you brought up the NRA, no one looks at you like, what a crazy thing to introduce into this conversation. You're like, obviously, that plays a major role in how all of this works.
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Constitutional Crisis
I can't be like, I got to crack a few books at this point. I know what I know.
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Constitutional Crisis
No matter what side of the issue you're on, whether you're for gun control or against gun control, no one would deny that the NRA is a factor in there. And so there's just a lot of strange... kind of dynamics to the debate. And it'll be interesting. I have no idea what the crowd makeup is going to be like or what side they're going to be on.
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Constitutional Crisis
It's an Oxford-style debate, so you're kind of hoping the crowd isn't all on your side. It's more to your advantage if there's more people who are against you, because then you've got more people you can pull over. So like with an Oxford debate, if 100% of the crowd agrees with you, you can't win. Right. Like it's impossible to win. There's no one that you can persuade.
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Constitutional Crisis
And all the other guys to do is persuade one person and he gets the win. So it's kind of like it works against you if the crowd is on board with you. Anyway, it'll be it'll be interesting. And I'm looking forward to that.
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Constitutional Crisis
They do. The thing about it is... It's real snobbery. You know, I don't think there'll be protests. Sweater vests and just holding a vanilla folder for no reason. Well, there is an inherent kind of bias against people like me in colleges, understandably, you know, because it's like... The fact that I've like tonight will probably be the most time I've spent at college.
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Constitutional Crisis
And so they're like it's it's kind of in a way somewhat of an inherent critique on the institution for me to even be here in this debate. And so, you know, there's no question that like. college professors this is i've i've made a lot of enemies over this dynamic in in my career but there is something where like there are there are uh
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Constitutional Crisis
Well, you know, one of the things that's interesting. So for people who don't know, I'm going. After the show today, I'm headed over to Princeton University. I'm going to be debating Josh Hammer, who is the he's a senior editor at Newsweek. And I don't know too much about him. I've I read like a couple articles that he's written and I listened to two speeches that he gave.
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Constitutional Crisis
People who are products of institutions tend to not like when somebody is not a product of an institution and rises to have more influence or has a seat at the table because they feel like, hey, this is why everyone at Cato hates me. You know what I mean? Like Cato, people don't know, is like the biggest libertarian think tank. And all of them hate me.
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Constitutional Crisis
And you would think inherently, you'd be like, well, here's a guy who's kind of popularizing your message, maybe not exactly the same as your message, but pretty close, a lot closer than most other people. But when you've been at Cato for 15 years And you've, you know, moved up the ranks and played the game and kissed the asses and then finally got the approval.
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Constitutional Crisis
And now you are their senior immigration studies person. Yeah, you don't like that some shit-talking comedian just gets to, you know what I mean, like lap you in this game. And so I do think with professors in general... there's just a dynamic like that.
Part Of The Problem
Constitutional Crisis
I mean, I don't know if you've ever seen, but like Charlie Kirk does a lot of those things where he goes to college campuses and like argues with the kids. And it's, it's amazing how many times they'll bring up the fact that he does, that he dropped out of college and like think that that's like, Oh, you didn't even go to college. You didn't even graduate.
Part Of The Problem
Constitutional Crisis
Like, they're stuck in that mentality of like, this is what matters. And then you're like, okay, fine. I mean, he didn't graduate college, but he's fucking running circles around you in this debate right now. So that's more of a comment on you than it is on him, you know? Anyway, we'll see. We'll see how it goes. It should be fun. I always enjoy doing these things. Okay.
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Constitutional Crisis
Let's get into some stuff here and then we'll – a couple things that are going on that I wanted to talk about. And then I do – I had a bit of a message for the Libertarian Party that I thought I would do at one point in the show. And then maybe we'll check in if we have time and take some questions from the chat. So the big talking point today – that's circulating around.
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Constitutional Crisis
I haven't seen a good compilation video of this yet, but I know it's only a matter of time until Tom Elliott has a good one. But it's constitutional crisis. We are in a constitutional crisis, Rob. So I don't know how you're holding up through this crisis. You doing all right?
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Constitutional Crisis
Oh, no, no, no, Rob. I'm sorry. You maybe didn't check the fine print. None of that is a constitutional crisis at all. Oh. Turns out that's totally cool. The crisis is that Trump might defy a judge's order. That's literally what they're all freaking out about. It is—it's just hilarious. I don't know what to say.
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Constitutional Crisis
It's just like—it's—the Democrats and the corporate media, they always, like, rely on taking things to DEFCON 10 with Donald Trump. It's like their only—
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Constitutional Crisis
mechanism to deal with him and so they just constantly I don't know if you guys saw but Jon Stewart actually had a really funny bit where he was talking about Trump you know when if you saw Trump fired like a few of the inspector generals and he's going off and he's playing this montage of everyone freaking out about it blah blah blah And he's like, oh, my God, he can't do that, blah, blah, blah.
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Constitutional Crisis
He seems like a smart guy, like, you know, and like a worthy debate opponent. Yeah. And so, you know, we'll see. And it's one of these things. The debate is over the U.S.-Israeli relationship and whether it's positive for America or not. One of the things, by the way, for people I know, Natalie, I'd mentioned that someone had asked in the live chat, and it will be streamed.
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Constitutional Crisis
And then they cut to someone at NBC, I think, was reading the law. And they were like, the president may fire inspector generals, but he is required to give written notice and 30 days notice or something like that. And Robert Johnson was like, oh, so that's the fight? The fight is just over whether he gave the notice he was supposed to give to or not. And you're like, you just can't make this 11.
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Constitutional Crisis
Like, it's just not that big of a thing. Yeah. But this is what they're attempting to do. It does seem, I'm curious. It's like what Biden did with the student loan debts. Oh, I actually have a clip of that. It was so funny, man. It's like literally just the exact thing that Biden just did like two years ago.
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Constitutional Crisis
You know, I think there's a couple things. But it was, you know, I actually have to double check this one. I think the one that they were flipping out about the most had to do with a judge striking down the birthright citizen.
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Constitutional Crisis
ship thing which does seem like it's like yeah you can't do that through executive order but at the same time it's like you know also like a president defying a court isn't actually unprecedented and is it I think the issue really comes down to the fact that like I know people will claim they love to use the term whataboutism when you say stuff like this.
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Constitutional Crisis
God, if there is one word that I could strike from the English language, it would be whataboutism. It even overtakes antisemitism and transphobia for me as words that I would just love to not ever hear again. But... What about is I don't even know where the word came from. I hate it linguistically. I think it's a terrible word. Like, it just sounds like a teenager.
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Constitutional Crisis
It sounds like a teenager, like pulling gum out of their mouth and twirling their hair with the other finger. I'd be like, yeah, just did a what about is, you know, but it's also just like it's like a way to dismiss words. putting anything into context or pointing out hypocrisy. You just have a magical word you could say that.
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Constitutional Crisis
And I'm not saying like there is a scenario where like it would make sense to be like you're distracting from the issue by being like, what about this unrelated thing? You know, if I'm like, you know, Rob, like you got blackout drunk last night and came home and beat the shit out of your girlfriend, dude, like this is a real problem. And you went, yeah, well, you smoked weed last month. You did.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
hey guys today's show is brought to you by yo kratom.com home of the 60 kilo long time sponsors of this show and we are very grateful to them for being uh such solid sponsors and supporters of our show if you are over the age of 21 and you enjoy kratom make sure to get your kratom from yo kratom.com it's lab tested so you know the stuff is quality it's delivered right to your door and it is the best price you will find anywhere
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
We got back on today's show, the legend Scott Horton, Antiwar.com, the Libertarian Institute, and of course, the author of this phenomenal book, Provoked, which is really the book you need to read to understand war. build up to the current catastrophe in Ukraine and really a whole history of U.S.-Russia post-Soviet relations. And it's really a wild story.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
well i guess we will see what happens i mean i gotta say i was um i was really blown away by the level of disrespect that zielinski showed trump and and vance and i you know i was i was talking about this today on the uh i was recording with uh tom earlier today and i think i mentioned this on the last podcast as well but there is like
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
Look, I'm not, you know, I'm not like a conservative, you know, I'm a I'm a right wing liberal like Murray Rothbard or something like that. But I'm not like a conservative. There are things that do you remember? Like, I remember Pat Buchanan, who I have tremendous respect for. But I remember.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
Do you remember there was something where Obama I think he took a picture in the Oval Office with like his suit jacket off. And he just had like a shirt and tie. And I remember Pat Buchanan being furious about this. It was like, it's disrespectful to the Oval Office or something like that. You know, like, I'm not that. You know, I don't really care. I'm not a suit and tie guy.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
I never wear a suit and tie. Almost never. But I got to say... it was very strange to me that he comes dressed like that. Like you don't put on a suit and tie when, and you know, Trump cares about that. That's the type of thing Trump really cares about, like looking TV ready or whatever. But I was, I was blown away that he referred to the vice president as JD. Yeah.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
Like that to me was like, you know, when Rogan floated out the idea of, of having the podcast with me and, and Trump and Joe Rogan, which I, you know, probably won't happen, but would be cool if it ever did. But like, I would refer to him as Mr. President. I would never sit there and say, Donald, the thing is, you know what I mean?
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
And it's I'm sure it's kind of been cool for you, Scott, that you know so okay so you wrote this phenomenal book uh years ago called fool's errand and it was about the war in afghanistan and then you wrote uh enough enough already which was about the all of the terror wars but it did feel like those books It was a recent history.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
So it seems to me that coming out of of this, you know, this altercation in the Oval Office. Well, I mean, look, the big Donald Trump did announce he's halting all weapon sales to Ukraine. It does seem like and why don't we you kind of alluded to maybe we could talk about this again. Yeah, well, I mean, it really is something. I mean, there's nothing more dangerous you can do in D.C.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
than end a war. I mean, that is a grave crime to them. So that really is high crimes and misdemeanors. I mean, that's the worst crime you can commit is ending a war. So he might have to get impeached.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
Well, they'd all, they all called it a quid pro quo, but it wasn't, there was nothing. It was in a, an attempted quid pro quo. That wasn't even clearly like even. Yeah. Well, it's because the truth is that for Donald Trump, Like if Donald Trump had asked them to manipulate evidence or had asked them to frame Joe Biden, then you'd have a real, you know, like you'd have something there.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
You'd have like a case on your hands. But to ask them to investigate behavior that is. questionably criminal is just like, and then he never got the investigation and they got the weapons. I mean, that was, I remember arguing about this at the time. I go, here's where your case really falls apart. Okay. None of this ever happened. And so like, what are you really arguing?
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
His own government did it to him. It's unbelievable. And literally, I mean, this is like, I mean, you have every piece of evidence. I mean, because it sounds crazy to say this, but this is really what they did. And that even when Rogan asked Zuckerberg
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
I mean, okay, Afghanistan, I think was still going on as you wrote the book, but it was, it had totally been accepted that like, yes, this war was a disaster. It was kind of, everyone had agreed, you know, the same with the terror wars too. This thing is like, your book is coming out. You're still in the middle of your book tour and it's become like the biggest issue that everybody's talking about.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
about the hunter biden story his first response was well the fbi came and told us that this big russian dump was coming and so that was obviously that and then they came out and said that was the russian disinformation right when they signed that famous or infamous uh letter
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
So it seems to me, let's get in a little bit to like this. I mean, you touched a little bit on the mineral stuff and the mineral deal, but I think it seems to me that possibly the best thing to come out of this fiasco in the Oval Office, is that maybe Donald Trump does just walk away from this silly idea.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
And, you know, there is, you know, as you know, me and you have talked about this a lot over the years, and I will like, you know, I'll kind of preface this by saying that I am... I'm quite happy with some of the things coming out of this administration. I mean, it's been a mixed bag. There's been some really positives and there's been some negatives.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
But that already, from our perspective, is like, oh, my God, we never get positives. Like, this is amazing. At least something's happening. I love that the...
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
even just the way that elon musk and donald trump have kind of mainstreamed the idea of how corrupt and wasteful the government is with our money is great and the stuff on ukraine really has been the best part probably of all of it there the problem with donald trump seems to be that now i i know i'm repeating myself from the last show but i want to get your thoughts on this but it's like
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
everything good about Donald Trump is always instinctual. It's always like his gut tells him, you know, this doesn't make sense. Eh, 20 years of war, and we're spending $8 trillion, and what do we have to show for it? That's bad business, you know? But none of it ever comes from like, a philosophical grounding or a deep knowledge of the story of the history.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
And so he's very susceptible to getting distracted by shiny objects. You know, it's very like this. This war is bad business. It doesn't make any sense. And somebody like we could take the oil. He goes, Well, now we're talking business, you know, and like you get this. And it does seem to me that he constantly was he was going back and forth for the whole the whole campaign for 24.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
He would go back and forth between saying like perfect stuff and then saying like Europe should pay more, you know, like as if like, oh, OK, it would be OK to keep the war going as long as Europe was paying more. But then sometimes he'd say like the right. And it does seem to me that he was at least the way he was presenting it publicly was that he was selling this to Zelensky as like,
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
Look, this is kind of the best security guarantee that you can get from us. Like if we're in business together, then if Putin comes and messes with you, he's kind of messing with us, too. But it just it can't be stated enough that that's the whole point is that we don't want to do that. And that's what this whole war started over to begin with.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
And, you know, I know it's like it's easy to get look like you're. You wrote a very big book on this subject. There's a lot of very interesting details in there, and I know people argue about all of this stuff, but it's almost like to zoom out and just look at how insane this policy is, that even when the Soviet Union existed—
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
When there actually was the Soviet Union, we only gave the security guarantees to Western Europe. Not even the eastern part of Germany had a security guarantee. And now we're like, what are we talking about? A security guarantee for Luhansk? Like, what is going on that we would think that it's just such madness? And to even it's like Donald Trump, while he's correct in wanting to end the thing,
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
So that right away has got to be kind of interesting from your perspective.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
He just doesn't even get that part of it, that the whole lesson here should be like, no, the last thing we want. To me, it was appalling to have Zelensky demanding security guarantees from us. Like, what? You're entitled to us? I mean, what is the security guarantee? You're saying we have to be ready to fight a war on behalf of your country? Sorry. Like, screw you. No, we don't.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
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Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
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Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
so if you're tired of your gold and silver collecting dust at home or worse racking up fees having your metal professionally stored check out monetary-metals.com to learn how you can start putting your metal to work today that's monetary-metals.com all right let's get back into the show yeah you know kyle anslone um has a great show uh on youtube and he had um
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
Stoltenberg was bragging about it. He was bragging that like, see, and now Vladimir Putin just got more NATO expansion. So, ha ha, look at that. You know, so like, but the thing that he gave away, which is, sure, go ahead.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
You know, like as John Mearsheimer's now famous line back in 2014 was that the U.S. is leading Ukraine down the primrose path. And it is – I mean it's one of the great ironies of all of this is that all of the people who like changed their – Flags to their Twitter bios to Ukrainian flags and all the hawks on this. It's like they're the worst enemies of the Ukrainian people.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
And it certainly seems that so, you know, another lie or at least quasi lie that was told, you know, throughout this whole thing is how much the Ukrainians just want to fight and they just want to fight and want to fight. Except, like, then you start seeing the stories of how, like, violently conscripted this army is.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
I think there were over 100,000 people were charged with desertion or something like that. It's like, oh, it doesn't sound like those people wanted to fight that much. I'm sure there are some others who did. But it is... you know, it's obviously the best thing for the Ukrainian people would be to end this conflict. And, you know, I guess one of the things that people will come back at us with
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
you hear on like uh you know on the pierce morgan show or something like that when we're debating some of these guys they'll they'll say like well look at uh you know it's not right that vladimir putin gets to invade this country and then keep parts of their territory and it's just like it you know that can't be rewarded or something like that but as you pointed out
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
which is, I didn't watch the full of your episode, but I did see one of the clips on Twitter of your latest appearance, where you at one point ask, and I'm guessing no one gave you a good answer on this, but you asked like, okay, so what's the plan here, guys? Like, what do you want to do about it?
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
You know, the way I put it, as I've put this, I've used this example like several times, because I think there is this kind of like,
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
empire mentality that americans are plagued with um but when you say things like that i think to a lot of americans that does kind of ring true like yeah can't just let people do that you know and what well if they do that then china is going to go take taiwan which is the another assertion of what will happen which without much evidence to demonstrate that it's going to.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
But I had said this on Piers Morgan the other day, and it seemed to hit home with some of the panel. But I was like, look, let's just say we decided we were going to take Mexico City. For whatever reason, let's just say that the American people wanted to do it. The political class wanted to do it. We had the political will. We're going to take Mexico City. What could Russia do about that?
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
What could China do about that? Did they allow us? Isn't it just an absurd question already? Because you go, as soon as you go, should China allow us? You go, allow? What do you mean allow? You have no say in this. And so like, it is, I guess, a little bit of a weird question. like thing for libertarians like us to be saying. It's not our ideal scenario in the world.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
It's just accepting the world as it is. But like, yeah, I guess it kind of sucks to be a little state next to a big, more powerful state. You know, just as Kamala Harris explained, Russia's a great big country. Ukraine's a small country. But like, that is kind of the way of the world. And the idea that we can just undo that is not living in reality.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
That's good people were reading that book. It's not a bad book for people to read. I've never read it, but I'm familiar with the thesis of Jimmy Carter's book.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
Right, exactly. Okay, so let's jump right into this, the latest, because this really is, and it's, you know, we've been living through such a crazy few years in this country. And as someone who does a show, I talk about this a lot, but when you do a show about the news, it's almost like there's something crazy every single day to talk about. And there's always like a new thing.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
$60 for a kilo only at YoKratom.com. All right, let's start the show.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
As you remember, was it over there? Do you do you remember? I'm sure you'll remember because you're Scott Horton. Do you remember? I think it was Wolf Blitzer who asked Rand Paul a few years back about Yemen. And he seemed kind of confused. And he went like, so to you, this is a moral issue.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
I had my version of this moment when I was debating Josh Hammer at Princeton a few weeks ago, and he turned to me at one of his questions to me was, he was like, so do you make moral considerations when considering foreign policy? And I was like, almost taken back by the question. I was like, well... Like, yeah, yeah, that's a big, that's a big part of it. Sure.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
And it, I just say that just to make the point that like, you kind of can't overstate how fucking evil these goddamn people's like worldview is like where they, they can totally just accept the idea that it's like, yeah, like this is, I'm pushing a policy that will lead to slaughter.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
But I think that all things being considered, you know, it's Madeline Albright just like, yeah, that price is worth it. Was it 500,000 dead kids? Okay, worth it. That's the mentality.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
yep all right do you remember um it was like uh i guess a couple years oh well it must have been it was the 20th anniversary of the the war in iraq so two years ago uh so that brett stevens wrote a piece in the new york times called like 20 years later why i was still right so it's like the la it's like the last guy defending the iraq war like yeah i think it's him and cheney Yeah. John Bolton.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
And sometimes it's a challenge to kind of like zoom out and see things from, you know, like a transcendent position and like 10,000 feet above looking down. This meeting with Zelensky and Trump in the Oval Office was, was one of those things where it's like, this is, this was really truly remarkable. I've never seen anything quite like it in my life.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
They're the last three in America. Those are the last, like, it's like, uh, even John McCain, you know, admitted on his deathbed that it was bad, you know, it's, uh, but there's, so he writes this piece about like 20 years later, I was right to cheerlead the war in Iraq. You know, I think he was writing for an Israeli. I think he was writing for the Jerusalem post at the time.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
Isn't that convenient? See how that works. Um, but yeah, And he writes this whole piece, and there was not one mention of the deaths from the war. It was just like a piece like, hey, Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator, and, you know, now they're having some elections, and they're an imperfect democracy, but they're coming up. It's definitely better than it was back then.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
And so as if you could take a snapshot of, like, forget even the argument, which I think there's a pretty strong argument that for the average Iraqi life was actually better under Saddam Hussein, but regardless of that, the idea that, like,
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
you could take a snapshot of iraq under saddam hussein and then take a snapshot of iraq today and if today is better than saddam hussein then policy justified but like you're missing the part where you killed a million people in the middle of that like i don't know life ain't better for them it's over for them i remember when bill clinton left office he goes well at the end of the day i'd like to think that we did a little bit more good than harm
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
you know like that's the yeah but there is and it's almost like you know this is it is some like um collective like sociopathy like there's something about when you when you get when you have a mentality that like People can be crushed and that, you know what I mean? People are essentially pawns on a chessboard.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
And as long as you're moving in the right direction, then it doesn't, that's like an irrelevant factor. It is unbelievable the levels of evil that that can lead to. And then you end up supporting something like, you know, all these people getting slaughtered in Ukraine for nothing, all for nothing. Yeah.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
Well, it's it's it's an important point to make because you're essentially calling their bluff. And, you know, it's like I've made this point a lot just during during the last eight years of Donald Trump being the biggest political figure where it's like and it was really never more apparent than when he got shot.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
And it's just, I was, I want to get your thoughts on it and then we could get into the kind of what's come after. But I, you know, I, my first thought on it was just that this was, it's gotta be like the greatest political strategic blunder I've ever seen. And I, I don't, you know, I've, I've read a lot about this conflict.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
And really, I think this is a huge part of what won him the election is that it immediately just called all of their bluffs because like you can't. you can't wish Hitler a speedy recovery, man. Like if you do, then you didn't really believe he was Hitler. Like one of the, you know what I'm saying?
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
Like, it's like, if you're gonna talk the way MSNBC talks every day, then stay consistent, celebrate when a dude takes a shot at him. Man, it's a shame he missed, right? I mean, if you're really telling me that a Hitlerian figure has risen and is the end of our democracy, then why exactly shouldn't I be rooting for that guy to get shot? And in a similar sense, you know, all these guys,
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
They're making the argument that we don't have to be worried about nuclear war. Putin's bluffing. He would never actually do that. But he is reconstituting the Soviet Union, and it's the most important fight for democracy ever that we maintain Ukrainian – I don't know what, what was Ukraine a democracy for five minutes?
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
I mean, like, I don't know what, like, I guess in 2014, they overthrew the democratically elected leader. And then I guess they had a couple elections in between there. And then they suspended elections. Absolutely. Right, right.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
Yeah, no, that's exactly right. And it's always been corrupt under every under the Yanukovych government, Poroshenko's government, Zelensky's government. There's always just been like rampant corruption in in Ukraine. But what was it? Yanukovych's son, I think, was like the fifth richest man in Ukraine. And he was like a dentist. Like it just didn't even make sense at all. You're like, what?
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
Yeah, it's like some crazy stat like that. Look, I know you had an out that was five minutes ago. So let me let you go get to your next show. Oh, the Libertarian Institute has their fun drive going on. Let's mention that before we get out of here.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
Absolutely. Could not recommend it higher. There's no better organization to donate to. So thank you for taking the time, Scott. We'll talk again soon. And I'm sure there's going to be a lot more in the coming weeks and months of developments to talk about. Thank you very much, everybody, for listening. Catch you next time. Peace.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
I don't necessarily have like a, a good understanding of who Zelensky is, but I don't know, like what your thoughts on that, like who was in his ear? Why did he think this would be a good move? And what, when you're in a position where you're totally dependent on Donald Trump and
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
The idea that you would come in and try to like out alpha him on live television and in a language that you don't really speak. And to think that was going to go well for you. I mean, like, what were you thinking when you first saw it?
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
all right what's up everybody welcome to a brand new episode of part of the problem i am dave smith very excited uh for today's episode okay a couple quick uh things let me get them out of the way and then we'll get right into it number one uh tomorrow i'm headed up to buffalo new york i'll be there with robbie the fire bernstein or no i'm sorry friday and saturday no no
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
Thursday and Friday in Buffalo, and then Saturday night in St. Catharines. Two shows up there. The first one is already sold out. The second one is going to sell out. If you want to come, grab tickets now, comicdavesmith.com. And then the other, and you get all the ticket links for my calendar for the rest of the year there.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
Yeah, really. I mean, it's wild to think about. And I guess this is just, I'm like, I don't know. I guess I'm old enough now that I've lived through like nine wars or whatever it's been. And it is amazing how they just all follow this pattern where it's like, okay, first of all, everybody hyperventilates about this imagined worst case scenario.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
And the other thing is, of course, remember, I am returning to the Soho Forum in May, debating Alex Norwestash. I still don't know how to say his last name, from the Cato Institute. We'll be debating immigration. Tickets for that are moving quickly. So if you are in the New York City area and you want to come out, go to thesohoforum.org to get tickets there.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
There never really seems to be an onus on you to demonstrate that it's a likelihood or anything like that. But, you know, whatever Saddam Hussein is about to give the weapons he doesn't have off to the terrorists that he's not friends with. And then Kansas gets nuked. And, you know, with this war, it's been constantly, you know, Vladimir Putin is going to reconstitute the Soviet Union.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
He's going to move on Poland. He's going to do all these things. Then there's just lie after lie after lie. You know, in this war, there was I mean. the ghost of Kiev and, you know, Vladimir Putin blew up the Nord Stream pipeline and just all these things that serious people in suits and ties say into cameras that are just all completely wrong. Yeah, time is on Ukraine's side.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
That was the big one, right? Ukraine is winning. Ukraine is winning was constantly being said and then throughout the whole thing that Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden and Blink at all in this said that even Crimea has to be retaken by the Ukrainians as if that was like it. even a kind of achievable goal. And then as the dust starts to settle, You start to look back at the thing. I don't know.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
I've seen different estimates of the numbers of dead, but it seems to be a consensus that it's in the high hundreds of thousands at this point, at least. Well, I guess we'll find out more over the years. And then you look back and you think about Stoltenberg. I always butcher that name. But the head of NATO said himself that in late 21...
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
Vladimir Putin actually sent a draft to NATO to just be like, listen, here is the deal. I will not invade if you just put in writing that you won't bring Ukraine into NATO. And to think about that, that that like how much better that deal would have been for Zelensky than what he's like. NATO's already off the table. He's not they're not getting in NATO anyway.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
And to think that literally they could have kept everything except Crimea or they weren't getting Crimea back.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
that point but whatever they could would have lost crimea kept the integrity of the rest of ukraine just agreed to not join nato and all these people i mean the country wouldn't have had to be destroyed all these conscripted troops on both sides wouldn't have had to die it's just it really is like maddening when you when you look at it in totality
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Tax Network USA. If you owe back taxes or your tax returns are still unfiled, maybe you missed the deadline to file for an extension. The IRS may be ramping up enforcement. You could face wage garnishment, frozen bank accounts, even property seizures if you haven't taken action yet. But there's still hope.
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
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Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
Their experts will walk you through a few simple questions to see how much you can save Act now before the IRS takes more aggressive steps. Take control today. Visit TNUSA.com slash Smith or call them at 1-800-958-1000. All right, let's get back into the show. Yeah, well, and...
Part Of The Problem
Scott Horton
And also, if you're in the New York City area, go check out one of Gene Epstein's debate series there. Sohoforum.org is a great, great organization, great debate series. Gene Epstein is one of our best guys, and I always enjoy everything he does. Okay.
Part Of The Problem
The New Trump
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Part Of The Problem
The New Trump
And if you're telling me that you could hide that our government was funding the creation of the thing, how the hell is a voter supposed to make an informed decision? If they're not even allowed to know the biggest fucking thing, which, by the way, Rob, I don't, you know, explain to me what their rationale could possibly be. Is it a national security threat that we know this?
Part Of The Problem
The New Trump
So we're going to hang out in Key West and just relax and enjoy the beautiful weather, which if you're in the Northeast, it's a good time. It's a good time of year to go get some warm weather. So yes, very much looking forward to that. And of course the shows for you people, that's a little bit more relevant. There's also shows going on and there's still some tickets available.
Part Of The Problem
The New Trump
Are there sources and methods that were compromised by us knowing where the USAID budget was allocating money? I don't think so. It just makes them look really bad.
Part Of The Problem
The New Trump
Yeah, I mean, I really agree with everything. I co-sign that entirely. I think that in a lot of ways, what it comes down to for us is almost like the way I'm looking at it is almost like, I know, I'm sorry, I'm going into a metaphor. That's all I'm really good for.
Part Of The Problem
The New Trump
Well, I try, I like to do them because they, you know, it's a good way to, you know, stretch your brain and like, be like how, how to think about these things.
Part Of The Problem
The New Trump
But I'm looking at Trump and Elon Musk and all these guys more and more like if someone's breaking in to your house and you just look around and it's like, they're about to bust through the door and you look around and you know, whatever, you grab something, you grab a kitchen knife or a frying pan or something, you know, something to use as a weapon and,
Part Of The Problem
The New Trump
And then somebody could be like, you know, that's really not the ideal weapon. The ideal weapon is like this thing that you don't have. You know, the ideal weapon is an AR-15, but you don't have one. And you're like, yeah, okay. It may not be the ideal weapon. It seems to be a weapon. And that's better than nothing.
Part Of The Problem
The New Trump
So go on over to comicdavesmith.com. And then we got like a bunch of other gigs that are all coming up. Houston's coming up. Yeah, that's right. We'll be back in Houston. Always love doing stand-up in Houston. We'll be at the Punchline February 20th, 21st, and 22nd. Then our return to Boston, which is like one of my favorite places in the country to do stand-up.
Part Of The Problem
The New Trump
And I think that with a lot of this stuff with the Trump administration, we're going to get into some more specifics on this. But it's like, OK, there is at least some positive motion in some areas. And that is so much better than what we've had for quite a while, including Trump's first term. You know, including his first four years.
Part Of The Problem
The New Trump
And in some ways it does seem I know this is early in the administration to say something like this, but it does seem to me that it's like, OK, Trump maybe needed those first four years to figure this shit out.
Part Of The Problem
The New Trump
He may have needed those years, and then he may have needed to be that burned by the system in the four years he was out to come in now with at least a little bit of a game plan, a little bit of a sense of how to wield this power of the presidency. Again, still big question marks. The guy's only been president for, you know, what is it, three weeks or something like that.
Part Of The Problem
The New Trump
So, okay, let's not make, you know, jump to conclusions here. But it does seem like... It just seems like it's a different Trump in a lot of ways this time.
Part Of The Problem
The New Trump
And it's not, again, you know, the issue with the USAID is not even that it's not so much that there's fraud and abuse. It's not like there's like, oh, there's this waste. You know what I mean? It's the CIA front.
Part Of The Problem
The New Trump
it's like that's the whole game yes that's it's the whole game it's for it's for development you know what i mean well it's like the national endowment for democracy right we're just democracy promoting aka overthrowing regimes that we don't like and the usa id i know they were big you know like the the thing i know about them the most is that they were the ones who pumped five billion dollars into ukraine between 1991 and 2014.
Part Of The Problem
The New Trump
and they were pumping in and what were they doing with the money that they were pumping in there well they're establishing independent media rob that's what they call it independent media right and helping these ngos and all this the same organs that ended up fomenting the the maidan revolution
Part Of The Problem
The New Trump
and so it's like it which by the way overthrew a democratically elected government didn't stop the national endowment for democracy from pouring money into that protest that the that yanukovych was democratically elected as i've mentioned many times by the way elections verified by the eu and it's so it's not as if it's not even like the west is claiming that the elections weren't legitimate you know what i mean like it's just that's the way this game works and so what they do constantly you know mike benz was just talking about this the other day
Part Of The Problem
The New Trump
Or he was like, there's nothing that the USAID does that isn't a CIA op. Like, even if they're just doing something that might seem kind of like aid, like, oh, they're just helping to irrigate these crops in this country somewhere. It's like, yeah, because we want other resources that they have. What it is, they have a $50
Part Of The Problem
The New Trump
And we haven't been there, I believe, was it 22? I think it was early in 2022. Because if you remember our last show at Boston, what a different world, by the way. Three years later, our last show in Boston, we did a show the night before the vaccine passports went into effect. You remember that, Rob? And it was just so it was so funny, too.
Part Of The Problem
The New Trump
billion budget i believe double check me on that number but i believe it's a 50 billion dollar budget that the usaid has and they're just in the game of empire that's what it's about it's not about this idea of like oh helping people here and there like that's all it's about controlling the world there's always strings attached there's always a goal in mind and it's never you know like i mean like it really doesn't take too much to to notice this stuff but you know
Part Of The Problem
The New Trump
When you are, let's say, when you are as deeply connected with, say, Saudi Arabia and Israel, don't tell me you're overthrowing some other government over human rights abuses. Get the fuck out of here. You know what I'm saying? Like, don't tell me you were overthrowing Muammar Gaddafi because you were very concerned about the human rights abuses.
Part Of The Problem
The New Trump
And that's why we support the Israeli war cabinet and the House of Saud. Like, get out of here. This is too ridiculous. It's like, how stupid would you have to be to not see through that immediately? Oh, that's our, you know, our real problem with this is why we had to overthrow Milosevic. Because he was ethnically cleansing people.
Part Of The Problem
The New Trump
Yet we have to support Israel in their effort to ethnically cleanse people. Come on. Well, I'm going to venture to say I don't think the real issue there is ethnic cleansing. I think it's something else. Right. Like, I think it's about, oh, oh, Milosevic was aligned with Russia. OK, now it's making a little bit more sense. So this isn't about democracy promotion. It's not about human rights.
Part Of The Problem
The New Trump
It's about empire. It's about ruling the world. This is, you know, like it's like in the same way that every company wants to make more money. Every company wants to expand. Every government wants to expand. Every government wants to get bigger and bigger. And America is the most powerful government in the history of the world. And that's not enough for them. They would like more.
Part Of The Problem
The New Trump
That's all that it's about. So the real freak out is that that could be revealed. And then people have a whole different look. This is the essence of why the Kennedy files have been sealed for this long. And by the way, I should get ahead of this on record because I'm just, you know, because when this comes out.
Part Of The Problem
The New Trump
I'm sure there'll be people who look back and go like, ah, see, there was nothing to it. I don't think anything's going to be major is going to be revealed by these declassified documents.
Part Of The Problem
The New Trump
Right. But listen, for anybody out there, it's not like there's a document out there going, the CIA killed Kennedy, and then they just left this document in there for all these decades. And then they're like, we sure do hope a president never gets elected who decides to declassify these things. But the reason why there's been so much secrecy over the Kennedy assassination is like,
Part Of The Problem
The New Trump
And look, I mean, there's people who have done much deeper dives on this than me. And it's, aside from World War II, there's probably been more books and more research done on the Kennedy assassination than like any other topic. But all you have to do is know some very basic things about it. And it's so obviously a coverup. It's just so ridiculously obvious.
Part Of The Problem
The New Trump
Like if you just know like a few key pieces of information, like, you know that like, okay, like, Dude, I mean, first off, just looking at it on paper, how the hell anybody believed the story where you go, it was a lone gunman who then happened to be assassinated by another lone gunman. You know, it's just like that happens. That happens a lot. Right. Like what? I mean, that's insane.
Part Of The Problem
The New Trump
And then, oh, by the way, the first lone gunman was also working for the CIA. Don't let that fuck with you too much. Don't like don't even overthink that. He also, by the way, at the height of the Cold War, just went and popped into Russia for a little bit and then bopped back here. Like it's just and then.
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You know, if you just know that Jack Kennedy had fired the head of the CIA shortly before his assassination and that that fired head of the CIA was put on the Warren Commission to investigate what happened in his assassination. I mean, I think I think just having those points down would be like, OK, my working assumption now is this is a conspiracy.
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For those of you guys, of course, I'm sure most of you remember. But during the covid insanity, this was at one point.
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Like, now the onus is on you to prove that this wasn't a conspiracy. But the reason why this has to be kept secret for all of these years isn't because anyone's, like, protecting their own ass. Nobody's alive anymore. I mean, and if they are, they're ancient. You know what I mean? It's because... Like the similar thing I was saying with the USAID.
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It's because like if you figure that out, that's just such a juicy secret that you can't let the American people all know that. Because once you know that the CIA murdered the sitting president of the United States of America, well, then this whole country isn't what you thought it was anymore. That's the only next conclusion.
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You're like, oh, every normie out there is like, oh, OK, well, now I have to totally reevaluate what I what I think about everything. And then one of the next logical questions might be like, hey, so what year did it stop being like that? You know, and then you realize pretty quickly, oh. That is some year in the future, maybe. But that year has not come yet.
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Well after, well after it was clear that the vaccine wasn't preventing you from getting COVID or transmitting COVID, they did this thing in major cities across the country where they said you can only come into a comedy club, whether that was one of the places, you could only come in if you showed proof of vaccination, which doesn't work too well for me and Rob's audience. And we just...
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So anyway, that is just very, very, very interesting time for people like us who have cared about these issues for quite a long while. And kind of just a lot of the things that are happening right now. And again, I'm not trying to oversell it. You know, there's there's bad that comes with Donald Trump.
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And I guarantee he's going to disappoint at some point in the next four years, probably at multiple points. And I'm not at all claiming that the establishment has been overthrown or that permanent Washington isn't still running the show. But there are so many of these things. just seemed impossible, not very long ago. Like, it just seemed like so much of this was never going to happen.
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And so much of it is happening now. And that's, that's very encouraging and exciting. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, one of our newest sponsors who we're thrilled to have on board, and that is Native Hydrate, a zero-sugar electrolyte and amino acid drink mix that supports hydration, energy, and muscle health.
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I should... Okay, a couple things that we should address. Actually, I'm just going to real quickly... double-check the news on this, but Bobby Kennedy did pass the Senate committee vote. So he passed the Senate committee, the finance committee vote. So he was confirmed by them. And now I guess it kicks it over to the Senate vote. So that should be in later today.
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From the reports that I'm seeing, it's looking like he's going to be confirmed by a very small margin. You never know until the time comes. You never know. What you know, when you're dealing with these small margins, all you need is a couple of senators to kind of do the wrong thing. Tulsi is in a similar situation.
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I'm hearing that she's probably going to be confirmed, but that it's a razor thin margin. And again, these are like, you know, if you remember John McCain famously voting down the repeal of Obamacare. All it takes is like one or two of the Republican senators to fall in line and just go, no, we're not going to do this.
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I'm not counting any chickens before they're hatched on this one, but that's the latest of where we are. And, you know, for the rest of the show, I'll check a couple more times and let you know if there's an update there. Okay, let's see. What should we go to next year? Because I had a few. So I'm just kind of debating on which one. What did we have here?
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We had the this is OK, let's go to the Elizabeth Warren video because that's on the topic of Bobby Kennedy. And I believe this was her reacting to him passing the Senate Finance Committee. So this is Elizabeth Warren reacting to Bobby Kennedy passing the initial Senate Finance Committee vote. Here she is.
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you know we we weren't gonna play places that had that rule in effect like that just seemed i don't know just seemed so wrong you know what i mean like i'm not gonna go somewhere where first off i uh have to lie i have to me and rob have to lie in order to get in there or maybe there's some artist exception or something like that but like regardless it's like then
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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
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All my fellow purebloods are not allowed into the show that I'm doing. That just doesn't seem right. It's everything I'm against. So I was like, well, I can't do that. I stopped even doing gigs at Fox News at the time. I was like, well, fuck that, dude. Like, what am I going to do?
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You know, I remember during COVID when they first like reopened shit, I would go into Fox News and I did Kennedy show live. I did Greg Gutfeld show. I did a bunch of them. And because they were doing the rapid tests, they'd make you sit there and get tested and then you could go in. So I was like, whatever, I'll do that. You know, I don't care.
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YoKratom.com, home of the $60 kilo. All right, let's start the show. What's up? What's up, everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I am Dave Smith. He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein. How are you feeling today, Rob?
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But then once they were like, you have to show proof of vaccination, it was like, wait, so.
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now I gotta show you my fake vaccine card and like I could do that but it just seemed to almost be and I don't know I'm not really arguing like that this is the case but it I'm not saying like you're wrong if you went and did that I'm not but it felt to me like that was kind of like a tacit endorsement of it in some way or a capitulation to it and I just wasn't willing to do that anyway
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The long of the short is that was the last time we were in Boston. That's always one of our favorite cities to play. So I'm really looking forward to getting back there. And what a difference. I remember like it was such a weird thing.
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Because the market takes care of it. As with everything, the market provides a better quality product at a cheaper price that is more tailored to what the consumer actually wants. Yet somehow, when it comes to education,
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There is this idea that the government must do it because and look, I can understand on some level where people feel like, well, look, we want to make sure that every kid is provided with education. But again, you could make the same argument with shoes and say, well, we have to make sure that everyone is provided shoes. And the truth is like.
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once you take an example like shoes you realize that you're like okay yeah but even if our concern is that everyone is provided with these or that if somebody's so poor that they can't get shoes they can't afford them we want to make sure someone gives that to them that you can't jump from that to therefore it must be centralized in washington dc you just be like
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Yeah, we could have charities do that. We could raise money for that. You know what I mean? Like we could have, you know, the companies themselves can do things like ask you if you want to pay a dollar more when you get your shoes, because that goes toward the shoes of less fortunate people. Like there's just lots of other options.
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And likewise, with education, when you think about it, you think about public education, government schools. Yeah. The idea that you're going, hey, there are these like there are the there's poor people and they can't afford school. So the government comes in and gives it to them. That is just not what happens. That's not actually true.
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The truth is that when in all of these even in like poor communities and poor neighborhoods and poor towns. They the people there are paying taxes. They're paying for the schools. And you could say, like, maybe these people are maybe they're they're unemployed or maybe they make so little money that they don't really pay any federal income taxes.
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I mean, thinking about it now, especially just after the first few weeks of Trump's presidency and the vibe shift, as it's being called in the country, like the idea that I remember sitting there and being like, that's it for like doing standup in all these major cities. Where the hell are we going to go? We're going to have to, you know what I mean?
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But what's paying for the schools is the property taxes. And all of them are paying that either directly or indirectly. You know, like if you even if you rent an apartment. you are paying for the property tax because that has to be factored in to the rent price.
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If somebody is paying $500 a month, a landlord, let's say, just to keep the numbers easy, or say they're paying $1,000 a month for their mortgage and then another $200 a month for the property tax, Well, they've got to charge you at least $1,201 to make a profit off that. It's not a business otherwise. It's a charity. And so you're paying for the property tax.
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So really what the government is doing is stealing your money from you and then coming in, paying a whole bunch of bureaucrats six-figure salaries, and then with the crumbs that are remaining, giving you these government schools. And again, if your argument was that... You know, like, well, the you know, there are some people who just can't afford to educate their children.
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We must have the government come in and do this. Ask yourself a follow up question. How's the government doing at that? You know, is it like is that could you say right now that like, you know, in America, we have some poor neighborhoods, we have some high crime areas, but at least they they're all getting a great education in their government schools. No, they can't even read grade level.
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They're graduating illiterate kids. It's just the wildest failure. It's every bit as much of a failure as that shitty Soviet car that everyone makes fun of. I can't remember the name of it. And so it's just, you know, the whole thing, when you really think about it, it's like the... The task is so doable. Like, what are we really talking about when you talk about school? You're talking about what?
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Teaching kids, reading, writing, and arithmetic. Maybe as they get older, a little bit of English and history. You know what I mean? Like, what? This is totally doable. Communities can come together and do this. This does not need to come from Washington, D.C. and have orders barked at, you know, like from bureaucrats in D.C. And we've had an experiment in this.
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It's been the Department of Education has not been around that long. I mean, you know. I say that maybe that's my age speaking, but it's been, I think it was under Jimmy Carter. I want to say it's in the seventies. I think the late seventies is when the department of education was created. And so we've been running an experiment. We've done this for about 50 years. Does anybody here think,
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does anyone think the country's gotten smarter over these 50 years does anyone think the country is better educated now than they were back then i mean i you know i you ever see like where they'll have like those old like um high school tests from like 1920 and you're like whoa this is what they were asking the kids back then we were a much smarter country before we went to this socialist indoctrination model and so this is a great step
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in that direction and again just another signal that donald trump might actually mean business this time and kind of want to do some big bold things and again between doge and this move and the usa id stuff and like it's like It's not just that he wants to do big legacy building things, but it's like he wants to do big legacy building things.
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Like I, the concern at the time was like, they're never gonna, they're never going to stop doing this. This is just going to be the policy from now on proof of vaccination, proof of updated boosters, you know, forever. Luckily there was enough pushback that they ended up pulling the thing back. But now it's like, God, I don't know.
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And he sees the way to do that as like draining the swamp, cutting the government, exposing the corruption. Everybody, every president always wants to do big legacy building things. That's why George W. Bush wanted in 2008 at the Bucharest summit. That's why he wanted to give Ukraine a full map, a full member action program. Um, then he didn't end up getting that.
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They just made the promise that they'd bring them in. But they said that was it. Scott details it in his book provoked very well, but that's, he was just like, well, this is for my legacy. The war in Iraq didn't work out. So I got to do something big. And there was Angela Merkel who was like, you know, this really might piss off the Russians. You maybe don't want to do this.
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But anyway, so this is a very I don't know what else to say, but it's a very positive move. Oh, I could say the other thing, by the way, which is to me is the compromise position. But like Corey DeAngelis has been the guy who's really pushed this for many, many years now and had some real success in it. Now, my my position would just be abolish government schools. Let people do it.
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You know, like people can the unbelievable task of like teaching a kid how to read is something that human beings are actually capable of figuring out and did figure out for thousands of years before it was done in Washington, D.C.
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But the you know, his whole like school choice thing is it's almost impossible to argue against like the and essentially what what the school choice idea is, is that you basically just look at so you could look at. how much money, say, given in a state, there's a certain amount of money that they spend to educate the kids. So there's a certain number like per student per year.
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It's outrageously high. I think in New York City, I think it was 20 grand per student per year was the cost of educating kids. And so Corey DeAngelis and other school choice advocates just say, OK, so you're spending 20 grand per student per year. Here's what we're going to do. You're just going to give that as a voucher to the parents, okay?
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They get this voucher that's worth $20,000 a year, and they can choose which school to use it at. And now you'd have a situation where you empower the parents rather than empowering the teachers union, rather than empowering D.C., and you let the parents –
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have the chips and the schools have to compete now over getting the parents to give them their voucher because they get 20 grand for each parent who gives them their voucher. And so you immediately would just introduce market forces back into school. And now at least the schools would have to...
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demonstrate some value now the school goes hey everyone in our school is reading at grade level and there's very little bullying or there's very little violence and there's very you know what i mean like they have the same the same thing that private schools do right now right which is why wealthy people send their kids to private schools when they have the option to um
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it just introduced those market forces into school for everybody. And like, there's no reason why if you know, it's so disgusting when you think about it, that it's like the people who, you know, OK, like me, you know, the people who are able to send their kids to like the elite schools that are very expensive, they're able to do that. And yet these people are forced.
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It's just it's a very strange thing to think that like three years ago versus today, you're we are living in a completely different country, a completely different country than we were then. And thank God, because that was not good.
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They don't have the resources that that some others have. And yet they're forced to pay this and that they don't even get control of it.
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you know it's like the fact that new york city is spending 20 grand per student per year um why shouldn't you let the pa now the parent has like real money that they can go and be in the same position they can be as privileged as the people who get to send their kids to private school where they have the chips they're the one with the money and you have to work for them and you have to work to to keep their uh to keep their business
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It's such a better model than what we have right now. So there's just a lot of different things that can be done in education, even short of the ideal, which would just be to abolish government schools. But anyway, long, long story short, this is a very good move. Anything you want to add, Rob? We'll wrap up on that.
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uh prosecutor prosecutor there we go that was a nice we really bookended uh this episode i like that all right guys thank you guys very much for uh for listening i am the schedule might be a little wonky over the next couple days i gotta figure it out i'll i'll bring equipment with me or rob i should say i'll bring rob with me and count on him to bring equipment with him
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But we'll get some episodes. I know we still owe a members only for last week. I'll make sure to make that up for you, you subscribers. Thank you to everybody who subscribes at partoftheproblem.com. If you love the show, please consider going over there and subscribing as well. Catch you soon. Look out for a big one coming soon. Peace.
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prosecute Fauci. There we go. Uh, okay. Anyway, after Boston, um, then we'll be, uh, I will be in Nashville. Uh, I'm not sure if you're on that one with me, Rob, but then Chicago, uh, Rosemont, San Diego, Appleton, Wisconsin, Salt Lake city, again, Denver, Cleveland, Tacoma, Spokane, Tampa, bunch of dates coming up comic Dave smith.com for all of those dates. Um, yeah. Prosecuting Fauci.
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The New Trump
That always sounds like a good idea. It's pretty crazy. Elon Musk tweeted that out again, something about prosecuting Fauci. And it is wild just to even think about how much steam that idea is getting. And obviously, he's gotten a presidential pardon now from Joe Biden. But You know, and I don't know, Rob, you tell me.
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I'd imagine you probably agree with me on this, but I will say that, okay, like I'm old enough to remember that after when Barack Obama first got elected in 2008, and he assumed the presidency in January of 2009, there were some left-wing activists who wanted to prosecute Bush and top cabinet-level people for the blatant war crimes that they had committed.
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There was enough pressure that Barack Obama had to give a speech about it and say he's not going to do it. It's one of my favorite things always. I love mentioning when Obama goes off.
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he goes i i hear you know i hear your concerns and and yes there were some crimes committed and we tortured some folks that was how he said it we tortured some folks and then he goes but now is the time to look forward not backward and i remember always thinking like well that's here's the thing about prosecuting crime you really have to look backward it's really the only way it works anyway but that even then it was not
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It never felt like it was like a small enough contained group of left-wing activists who believed that. I mean, I completely agree with them, but it wasn't that big. When Donald Trump ran in 2016 and there were like the lock her up chants, that always felt to me like it was a novelty.
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it was like a fun thing to put on a t-shirt but it never seemed like that like did you ever hear any of trump supporters you know being like man he really didn't come through on that promise to prosecute hillary clinton like you know what i mean it just wasn't even taken as like a serious thing but it does seem like today there is a palpable um
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very serious desire by a lot of Americans to prosecute some of the people who were, you know what I mean, guilty of these heinous crimes against humanity over the last few years. And there's just something interesting about that. And the fact that like that feeling was taken so seriously that whoever was making decisions for Joe Biden decided he better issue these pardons.
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That in itself is just kind of wild. I was talking about this with Nicole after you hopped off yesterday, but I do think that so much of the hysteria that we're seeing right now from the establishment, which again, one of the most fascinating developments of the current moment is that we're not seeing this level of hysteria from the shock troops.
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I think I'm going to really enjoy hanging out in Key West for a few days. I was just bitching and complaining to our producer, Natalie, before we started, which is, you know, You should never bitch and complain about your job when you do what I do for a living because, you know, I don't work. But I've just been on a stretch of getting no sleep for quite a while. And I got a big one.
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The New Trump
Like the young, useful, idiot, leftist activists, we don't see a level of hysteria from them like we did in 2017. But the hysteria that we are seeing from the corporate media and from the Senate and things like this, when it's about Tulsi Gabbard or it's about Bobby Kennedy or it's about the USAID stuff or any of that, it's like the dynamic here is that
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It's not just that like, oh no, an outsider's coming in and they may get the policies that they want rather than the policies that we want. There's something much deeper than that. And I think it's much more like, oh shit, serious crimes have been committed. And if these outsiders come in and have access to these books, oh my God, are we going to be in trouble here?
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The New Trump
You know, it's like, it's not, if you think about in the post terror war and post COVID world, and you think about the picks that people are freaking out about the most and it's, well, they got Matt Gaetz out. Tulsi and Bobby have yet to be confirmed, but are still in play.
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But you think about the fact that it's the Director of National Intelligence, the person who oversees the CIA and the NSA, it's the health department and it's the justice department. Like, I don't think it's a coincidence that there's a freak out over like, Hey, you know what I mean?
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Like these people might have access to all the crimes that were committed by the deep state, all the crimes that were committed by the, the health institutions. And they also have the justice department. Like they also have somewhere that they could send these complaints to. And you know, It's just an interesting dynamic.
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The New Trump
It's hard to say exactly where all of this goes, or even if Trump really has the political will to go through with some stuff like that.
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But it certainly is interesting to watch the freakout about all of that, because the truth is that the level of crimes that have been committed are so heinous that if they were to be exposed, I mean, look, when you think about even just what already has come out, right? I mean, this thing, which, by the way, was news to me.
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I don't know if you had heard of this, Rob, but I knew that the NIH subsidiaries had funded the Wuhan lab. I didn't know that USAID had. But even just thinking about that, you're like, oh, look at it. We made COVID. Our government made COVID. This is like the biggest freaking scandal in the world.
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The New Trump
Like this, this virus that not only you think about the fact that it's not only the virus itself, which, you know, obviously the people who died of COVID were sick and old people, 99.9% of the time. But still, I mean, you know, that's a lot of people died of this thing and got, you know, in many cases, maybe it only robbed a year of their life or two years of their life.
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But, dude, that's a big deal to rob somebody of the last two years of their lives. But it's not so it's not just the virus that killed millions of people worldwide. But then it's also all of the cost of the government.
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response to the virus which was also done by the government so like they made the virus and then locked down in response to it they just the amount of human suffering that they caused because they wanted to have these you know i don't know Is it too far to classify it as bioweapons?
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The New Trump
I mean, whatever the hell you want to call it, they decided they wanted to do this gain of function research in a shoddy Chinese lab with like substandard protocols. They decided that they wanted to do this and then just did this to the entire world. I mean, how do you look at that and not go like, wait, you're telling me if I bring my gun that I legally own
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in my car and drive to Philly, I could be arrested and be looking at 10 years in prison, but no one should go to prison for that. You know what I'm saying? Like, how could you possibly believe both of those things? It's just, you know, it's pretty wild.
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The New Trump
I know people like when I do these big shows. I've got a big one that I'm recording tomorrow. So I've got to go do that. I'm not going to sleep tomorrow. I'm going to be up first thing in the morning. I can't sleep that night either. I've got to be up in the morning. And then we get to Key West. And then my wife's flying in to meet me down there.
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The New Trump
Well, it's amazing, too, because it kind of demonstrates in a way like the mentality that so many of these people have. We're like so you have, you know, for in the backdrop, you have all of these people shrieking about democracy.
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for the last four years, you know, January 6th, and Donald Trump, election denier, and this is, democracy's on the ballot, says the former president of the United States of America before having tea with Adolf Hitler. You know, this is the end of democracy if Donald Trump wins.
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The New Trump
and then you have the you know so there's this hyperbole this insane hyperbole and then you have the reality of the situation which is like hey donald trump comes in and you know he's running on hey we're gonna go over like the entire federal budget we're gonna look at the whole thing and see where there's waste and i'm putting this elon musk guy in charge of this new
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The New Trump
you know imaginary department where he's going to go over all of this stuff and then like elon musk's like okay let's take a look at this usaid you know thing and then their attitude is like excuse me sorry unelected bureaucrats over here who the hell are you to tell us about our budget and you're like well he was picked by the guy who was just democratically elected like that's What do you mean?
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The New Trump
Nobody at USAID was elected by the people. You know what I mean? And it's like, you just see this dynamic where you're like, wait, I thought you guys were so concerned with democracy. And yet the way this thing actually works is that you are completely outside of any democratic force.
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You're just this permanent governing structure, and you're supposed to just be able to do what you want to do and then fund things. Think about how crazy it is that we're just finding out that they were funding the lab. This is the most major story over the last five years, and the American people have no way of even knowing this. How can you believe in democracy without...
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some degree of the most basic degree of transparency, right? Because if you could hide the biggest story in the last five years, by far, there's nothing even compares to what COVID was. It was the biggest thing that happened to this country in the last five years.
Part Of The Problem
Game Over For The Dems?
Would it be, let's just say hypothetically, there were a way to enforce it that wasn't discriminatory and wasn't unfair. But it was just like, hey, like if you can't read a chapter, like if you can't read at third grade level, then you don't get to vote. Is that in itself, in principle, draconian or awful or something like that? Because I gotta say, I don't think it is.
Part Of The Problem
Game Over For The Dems?
I actually think it's kind of crazy, the idea that illiterate people get to vote. Now, again, I'm not saying I would necessarily support that restriction because it can be abused. But I do think that, like, it's interesting when you have a situation where there is nobody today. I mean, this guy, I guess, would make that argument.
Part Of The Problem
Game Over For The Dems?
But I don't think any serious person can really say that voter registration is done to target black people or to target a certain group of people or keep them out. And I do just find something interesting about the question of, like, is the minimum requirement. Like, let's just say, I said, you have to put pants on and go outside. You know what I mean?
Part Of The Problem
Game Over For The Dems?
And you were like, we got to get rid of this requirement. You're kind of like, wait, wait, who is it you're trying to get to vote? Why is it you're trying to, you're telling me that the person who can't figure out registering to vote or doesn't care enough to figure it out and go do it, that it's that important to make sure that guy's voice counts too?
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Game Over For The Dems?
I just find this to be a very strange... Again, I'm with you, Rob. I'm not saying I'm not married to the idea of voter registration. Should you automatically be registered? Perhaps. I guess maybe my issue in it is in the same sense of like, you know...
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how like you might have a job interview like at eight in the morning and like half the test of that interview is just like, hey, can you show up on time at eight in the morning looking presentable? Like just the lowest form of like, prove to me that you're participating in society here. And just for that reason alone, I tend to go like, I'm not sure I want to make it easier to vote.
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I wonder, like, at a point right now, I think, I don't know if this is true, but I think probably of all the times that I've been in this podcasting game, which has been a decent amount of time at this point, there's probably never been a period of time where I've felt like there was more, that was more interesting.
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I think before you vote in the popularity contest of who rules over me, maybe there should be some minimum requirement that you meet. Does that make sense?
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Well, it just seems like they are trying to stick up for the person who can't do any of that. They're like, man, if we could get those people, maybe we could. You know what I mean? It's the same reason, like, who the hell wants 16-year-olds voting? Like, I don't know, this just already shows something about you. 16 years old? He's like, oh, look, we got to set the age somewhere.
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It's like, okay, granted, and we all agree it's not eight, because I might say 16, you say 18. I mean, think about the fact that, like, you'd... Listen, dude, if somebody, if an adult... had consensual sex with a 16-year-old, we all think they should go to fucking jail for a long, long time. And why is that? Because, like, a 16-year-old can't really consent to an adult.
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It doesn't matter if they said it. You're just so... psychologically and mentally more powerful than them, that you are just totally like, it's just taking advantage of like prey in order for you to like extract some form of consent out of them. So who the hell are these people who it's like, that's where you want to go for your voting base?
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Like, you got to look at the people who are fucking 16 and then the people who couldn't figure out how to register for a vote. And that's who you want to be. You know what I mean? To be your reinforcements. Like, I just I find it disturbing.
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there's more just kind of like incredible things going on where you're like oh this is like truly historic uh there's also um there's kind of never been a time where there were more options of what to talk about and more distractions than right now i just found it kind of interesting as i'm like preparing for the show and i'm kind of like all right well yeah this this seems like a lot of
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Yeah, I mean, that's right. That's what it seems like to me. And there's like I said before, there's such an admission that you feel like you can't win with the electorate as it is and look like. I don't know. I just the Democrats, you're like. If you look around, you'd be like, hey, look, I mean, obviously you lost pretty bad in this election, but.
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You know, Donald Trump's approval rating, from what I've seen, has been hovering between 47 and 53 percent. That's not like, oh, my God, it's insurmountable. You know what I mean? Like, there's a good chunk of the country who's opposed to Donald Trump, maybe not a majority, but very close to half of the electorate is opposed to him. Yeah. And like you ran the most God awful candidate ever.
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So you would sit there and be like, okay, all we got to do is like figure out a good candidate, figure out a good message, actually stand for something, actually do something for the American people. Instead, this like going to, well, let's see if we can't win over the people who are totally not engaged. And then of course the other major flaw in this strategy is that like, look, this is,
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Okay, so I don't know if I've ever told you this story before, but I always love this. Now, this is something I've never done in my life in stand-up comedy. I don't think it's something you've ever done, but it is an old thing that you've probably heard of been done before. But I remember this one time I was watching this comic and he was bombing, having a real rough one.
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And it's just the crowd hated him. Nothing's going over. He's now, now he's getting heckled and he hasn't gotten any laughs, the whole set. And then at one point he goes, he goes, so one of the guys was heckling him and he goes, oh yeah, dude, you think this is so easy. You want to try to do my job? And he offers him the microphone. to come on stage and come do it.
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Now, I don't know if you've ever heard of this old, you know what I'm saying? You ever heard that? But I remember thinking to myself, I was a young comic at the time too, but I was like, oh man, this guy's instincts are so bad that he doesn't even get what that old game is. Like, okay, I've never done this and I would never do, I would never give up the microphone at a standup comedy show.
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I feel like that's yours. You're the comedian. You get the microphone. You don't give that up. But the way that old dealing with a heckler thing works is that You're killing with the crowd. The crowd loves you. One guy starts heckling and you go, oh, you think this is so easy? Come up here, do that. This guy's totally unprepared to be a comedian. He gets on stage with a microphone.
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The whole crowd is rooting for this guy to lose. And so the cards are totally stacked against him. You're going to win this thing because you came as a professional comedian with jokes and he has nothing. You don't do that move again.
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when you're dying when the crowd doesn't like because god forbid this guy grabs the microphone and says one funny thing that like gets some laughs and now not only did you bob your ass off in this set but then this guy came and got laughs and it's the worst moment in the history of the world so anyway the comic goes given like the manager of the club came in and broke it up said you can't have the microphone and brought the next comedian on stage it was a whole nightmare uh situation anyway the point i'm making is
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This move has a prerequisite to it, okay? Well, we're going to abolish voting registration. Well, that would have to be done with federal legislation, which you do not control. You have to get power back first. So this is all like the prerequisite to all of this is that you have to win back power first, meaning you can't telegraph this strategy.
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but a lot to do about nothing. This kind of seems like a distraction. And then I'm like trying to more and more focus on like, what are the major things going on right now?
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You can't sit there and go, hey, listen, voting electorate, I know you've rejected us, but If you elect us again, we are going to dilute down your votes with bodies who we think we can manipulate more easily. This was a good strategy for when Joe Biden was in and the Democrats had Congress. Be like, do this now. Hush, hush, we say quietly at a boardroom meeting somewhere.
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And then we won't have to worry about this next time. It does not work as the underdog strategy to announce this as your plan to regain
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power if you get what i'm saying there so i just find this funny that this is the music like on msnbc as the ratings are collapsing they're going i know what we're gonna do use all this power we have in the federal government to overhaul voting um anyway as no matter how much you can try to spin this and try to play this as like you know we're we're
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It's all these disenfranchised people or something that we're trying to give a voice. The bottom line is that when you've taken a shellacking and you're on a network whose ratings are collapsing, when you come out here and go, we need to be able to get a whole different electorate, I don't see how that doesn't come off as weak and desperate. That'd kind of be my final thought.
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And to some, in some ways, I was like a little bit torn because as I've mentioned, you know, to you, Rob, several times, and to all of you listeners, one of the things, you know, it's almost easy at this point to like ignore the Democrats, right? Like right now, you could almost find yourself just being like, well, they're down and out. They're losers. They're irrelevant.
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I mean, we can only pray. We can only pray. All right, let's... There was another... I'm actually maybe a little bit embarrassed to admit this, but I wanted to go to this next clip because this was from Bill Maher's show, kind of more or less on the same theme. And I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I did not actually know this. So Bill Maher opened talking about kind of like the...
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the future of gerrymandering and results of the great migration ships within the United States of America over the last few years. Anyway, let's go to this clip because I did find this really fascinating. Here is Bill Maher from this Friday.
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I thought that was a really powerful rant from Bill Maher, and it's very interesting. I didn't realize how soon it was coming and how many seats were going to be going from blue states to red states, but he's not wrong. I mean, that's a really big deal.
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I think he rattled off 10 or 11 seats, and in a closely divided Congress, I mean, that's a really big deal to take 10 or 11 seats and give them to the other side, which theoretically is where that's going. And
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It was interesting to me to see kind of like a group of three liberals who are all at that table having to kind of grapple with this fact that taxes and regulations, like big government, is unpopular. And of course it is. It wouldn't be government if it wasn't. You know what I mean? Like it would be done voluntarily if it were popular.
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the no i i think that probably there's a bit more to it than that um i i don't think it's as simple as taxes and regulation but undeniably that is a huge component to this and it is You know, when you have, and again, I don't want to do the thing that a lot of Democrats are doing right now where they're going like, they're acting like Donald Trump and Elon Musk were me and you, like we took over.
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You know, Crystal Ball said anarcho-capitalism is the driving ideology behind all these guys. And, you know, their mission is to destroy government or something like that. But when you kind of broadly, at least in the American people's minds,
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You know, the corporate media is irrelevant, all of this. So let's just focus on this. But I can't help but feeling that, number one, it's a really interesting story where the Democrats go from here. and that it's actually something important to talk about.
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have the idea that, okay, the Republican Party is like, if I had a loose sketch of this, they're talking about how there's fraud and abuse in government, how there's a swamp, how there's a deep state, and we have to kind of like roll that back. And then you have the Democrats over here who are like the party of government, the party of we need rules and regulations and all of these things.
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It's very challenging to be the party of government when all of your major cities where you guys are the government are a disaster, are all like the poster boy for inept, corrupt government. That is a tricky position to be in. And that's really, I think, what's going on in a lot of these big cities. What are your thoughts, Rob?
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Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think that, um, the, you know, there's the, basically been i think since um really since 2000 uh 20 late 2020 early 2021 the the exodus out of california and new york has really just not stopped i mean i think it's had higher and lower moments i think hollywood's over
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When you see one of the major two political parties more defeated than at any point in my life, it's like, are they going the way of the Whigs? Are they gonna make some giant comeback? You know what I mean? Like, and what exactly is what is going to be changed about the Democrats going forward? Because it's got to be something. And anyway, that's just something that's been on my mind.
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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
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And it's kind of what the first two clips that I have on today's show are about that topic. Just to be clear, I don't mean to suggest that, like, we should prioritize focus on this over focus on what the current administration is doing. I think we could try to do do both over the next coming weeks and months. But I do.
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I find it very interesting when there is when the recent events have been so devastating for the Democrats. And then you see all of these different kind of competing forces and these competing ideas, if you want to call them that, of what we do going forward. I do find that interesting.
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um okay so uh why don't we we could jump right into this i'd say let's let's start with um with the the first video that i i i sent you alex which is um ellie mistel um i i don't think i ever had that name memorized, but I know he is the fat black guy with white hair on MSNBC. I know that much about him. I've seen him many times and he's an unforgettable figure to see.
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All right. Yeah. Let's let's play the video. That was a good setup.
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But I do have to say, now I know this is a little bit unfair because this is MSNBC and no one watches, but I did find this to be really interesting because with all of the kind of different, you know, the dynamic is that
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Yeah. And I must say that I really just cannot, I cannot stand the kind of ridiculous, like kind of circular argument that'll just be like, well, look, we're concerned that you're not getting the worst of the worst here. And it's like, well, we're going to keep getting the worst of the worst. That's why we're targeting them because they're the worst of the worst.
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Yeah. No, look, if somebody is here illegally, then I think you have a right to force them to leave. But yeah, when you're talking about sending them to a brutal prison in El Salvador, you're going to have to give me at least a little something like we know this is a bad person because of X. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Paint Your Life.
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essentially i think democrats were denying reality for a very long time um denying reality in any area of life i think most people who are let's say adult age people maybe say 25 and over have probably at least once in their life, if not a few times, learned what is an invaluable life lesson.
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Ooh, that was quite a good, a good promo. I like that. You've got me excited. And of course then this weekend, me and you are going back up to Baston. very excited uh for that i haven't been to boston in too long uh and it's only a few days away now the 27th 28th and 29th we will be up at laugh boston uh comicdavesmith.com for those tickets and then i'm off to the races doing a lot of traveling
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at paint your life all right let's get back into the show anyway let's uh let's keep going
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But how do you, I mean, what we've heard from these lawyers representing some of them. Yeah, let's just pause it there. I mean, the obvious problem here is that it also doesn't mean they are a member of a gang. And there is a presumption of innocence, even for people who are here illegally in the country.
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It applies to all areas of life, but that denying reality is a dangerous game and reality has a way of slapping you in the face when you ignore it. You know, you can ignore reality, but the fact is it's still reality. And that eventually, you know, like if you're ignoring gravity and you jump off a balcony, reality is going to slap you in the face. In this case, it would be the ground.
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Maybe not a presumption that they ought to be allowed to stay in the country, but in the same sense that we couldn't just throw them in an American prison, right? The idea that we could just throw them in a foreign prison does, you know, it seems. And let me just say, well, this guy is good at being kind of like, like you said, officer hard ass.
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And if he's going to be like on a debate against somebody who's arguing for Joe Biden's loose immigration policy, he's probably going to say all the hardcore right things that people want to hear.
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there's there's major problems with this and it's not just look there's the the first and foremost it's like yeah but like what if you get the wrong person here at like you said rob earlier it's almost a guarantee that at some point you will and that is the idea of like throwing somebody who doesn't deserve it into one of these prisons on its own is really horrible
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And then I would just say, sorry, and then you can go ahead, but then just number two, why I think even like hardcore border restrictionists who support Donald Trump, you should be a little bit concerned about this because you got to think here, man, like as much as everybody always tells me, Donald Trump is playing 4D chess. This is an area where you actually have to play 4D chess to some degree.
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And look, God forbid that, there is one or maybe a few of these cases becomes of a high profile example of where you really fucked up. Like, let's say you actually got an American citizen here. You know what I mean? And like they, whatever, didn't have their papers or fucking they're all tatted up or whatever.
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Oh, my God, the nightmare that that's going to be toward the whole project of like deporting illegals and getting border security and all the things that we kind of all want to see.
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You got to be really careful with this one here, man, because if you got like I mean, the nightmare of the PR, if you like got an American citizen and had them tortured in one of these jails somewhere, that is really not going to be good. So. Yeah, this is this makes me a bit uncomfortable.
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I think it's something that Trump supporters would be wise to consider the risks associated with a policy like this.
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are you the DJ there do you should do you deliver the what is that at the beginning of this he said affiliated with the grouper uh ties to the group so what does that mean you were the accountant for them like or your brothers in the gang or something like that I mean like what yeah it's just very look it's very vague I do we got to wrap up here in a second but I do think like this type of like um
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look, we, we've been saying this from before the election results came in. It's like, this is where things are going to get dicey. And this is going to be a real test for Donald Trump. And in the same way that look, Again, I'll end on this, but I know I've made this point before, but, you know, Martin Luther King, OK, in the Civil Rights Act, the entire thing was performative.
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And I don't mean this is a knock necessarily. It's just a fact of history. But like they chose Birmingham, Alabama.
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they decided to go there because they knew what the reaction was going to be and they knew they were going to get it on television and there were millions of white americans including many who harbored prejudice of their own like many people who still believed in segregation many people who did not believe in the goals of the civil rights activists
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And what Democrats are dealing with, by and large, is that they, you know, they staked out very unpopular positions for many years. They... They denied the unpopularity of those opinions. They denied the mental state of the former president of the United States of America. They denied a lot. And that reality came and slapped them in the face. And now they can't deny it anymore.
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But when they looked on TV and saw, you know, black men in suits and ties getting chased down by like police dogs and fire hoses turned on them, they were just like, no, we can't support that. Like, we just can't support this level of violence against people. Now, it's much easier when you see people tatted up, you know, from head to toe. You don't even want to know.
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Like, in the same way that Martin Luther King would have his guys wear suits and ties, there's a reason for that. And there's a reason why when you see a guy with face tattoos, you go, he's a criminal of some sort. Fucking throw him in jail. Whatever. You know? But...
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Look, in 2017, even though it was all bullshit and the facilities were built by Obama and half of the pictures were taken under Obama, the kids in cages thing really did...
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radicalize and mobilize a lot of trump's detractors and it's just something that number one whenever you're using violence and even when it's state violence you always want to be careful about it because you don't want to you know use it on people who don't deserve it because that's a bad in and of itself but it would also you know it's like you gotta really pay attention to like
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how this is going to be perceived and how this could end up backfiring and the truth is that as as furious as americans were under uh about joe biden's immigration policies there is there is a level of violence that the american people will not tolerate um and you want to be really careful about flirting with that all right i do have to wrap up there uh
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Oh, and he says, what did Larkin Rose, what due process did she have? And you're like, wait, what? That's not what due process is. And by the way, I believe her killers were convicted of murder. They did have due process and they did. It's like, yes, no murder victims don't get due process. It's the reason why we oppose murder. just so we're all on the same page, right?
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Whether you're for the death penalty or not, right? There's good reasons on both sides of that issue. Forget where you stand on that. We all recognize there's a difference between
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between that and the state just killing somebody right like there's a difference between those two things and we insist that there is due process that you get a conviction of this person before you do that that's why it's a crime if you don't do that you know what i'm saying like if again so like if larkin rose am i saying that name right that's her name right like lincoln whatever um so i don't mean to be disrespectful i'm just bad with names but like
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had that person, had she been convicted of murder in the first degree and then killed, it would be a different story than when she's just some innocent girl and gets killed. That's the whole point. So anyway, like, yes, to your point, it's just a non-answer. He essentially just had no answer for that. And essentially the answer is that they don't get due process. That is an issue. All right.
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Got to wrap up there. Catch you guys next time. See you in Boston this weekend, comicdavesmith.com for those tickets. Catch that. Peace.
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So they're all making different attempts to grapple with it and different attempts to strategize. Here is the latest that I've seen on MSNBC.
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all right now i think it might be fairly obvious why this caught my eye um i just think it's look there's there's a lot that was just like kind of packed in there and we can get into it i'd like to kind of parse all this out rob i don't know if you're for voter registration but if you are you're racist that's the takeaway um but is it there there seems to me to be something of an interesting admission
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kind of buried within this strategy, which is essentially that we've kind of given up on the electorate. You know, it's like, look, I don't think we can win with this electorate. So what if we get all these other people who aren't voting?
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You know, it's funny to me, like what the mentality of this would be, because you're saying 90 million people sat out the last election between democracy and fascism. And yet those are the people you're counting on? The people who saw, you know, democracy versus fascism on the ballot and couldn't even be bothered to, you know, it's a pretty minimal effort what it takes to vote.
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Like I've never talked to any voter Maybe I'm just talking to the wrong groups of people, but I've never talked to any voter who was like, it is just insane what they make you go through in order to vote. There's lots of other things where that would be my complaint. Like it's insane what it takes for me to build a fence in my backyard. That is genuinely insane.
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what's up everybody welcome to a brand new episode of part of the problem robert bernstein you were talking you got caught haha you look stupid how are you sir i'm doing well filmed some uh real stupid over the weekend excited to get it out the nice part about being home That's what I like to hear. I like to know that when we're not on the road, you're, you're filming stupid shit.
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Um, and a bunch for a standup and then some other big podcasts coming up, uh, comic Dave smith.com. There's also Nashville is next. I think there's still some tickets, uh, for those shows. Um, and then yay, it will be on the road for the rest of the year. I know you got some other, uh, headline gigs coming up, Rob. Isn't that right?
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It's insane that I have to go down and wait in a line and pay a fee and then come back months later, just to put a goddamn garden in my fucking backyard. But I've never heard anyone say that about voting. But now you have these people who would not, step over the tiniest hurdle in the world in order to save democracy, and your plan is to eliminate that hurdle.
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It just doesn't seem like the best strategy ever. I don't know. Any thoughts on any of this, Rob?
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The point is, we don't believe you. We don't believe that this was the end of our democracy.
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Yeah, listen, I'll be honest. I don't particularly care either. I just find this line of argument to be so flawed and just inaccurate. I mean, look, when he says at the beginning, he goes, look at the founding of the country. You didn't have to register to vote. It's like, okay, that is true. But you're also invoking a time when only white male landowners could vote.
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And so if you're framing voter registration as some type of restriction on voting rights, right? I mean, that's how he framed it. We're expanding voter rights. It's like, well, then I don't really think that this would be the...
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um the example to look to and i i do think that there's something you know because there is something about the the modern woke historian that will essentially insist that the entire you know all of history can be understood as it used to be racist right That's, you know, it used to be racist or maybe it used to be sexist.
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And if we want to go really far, it used to be homophobic or something like that. But that's basically all of history. But it's just what I don't know. It's it's an interesting, you know, additional piece of information that it was also restricted to landowners. And that white, free white men still could not vote if they didn't own land. And there was a concept behind that.
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And you can agree or disagree with that. But the idea was that if we're voting over land, how to spend the, the treasury, you know, which of course was a much smaller pot at the time. But if we were voting over like how to spend public money, you couldn't allow people with nothing to have a say in that too, because there's no incentive there for them to not vote all the stuff for themselves.
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And then we're all poured together and that you actually had to be somewhat, um,
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you had to be in the owner class in society in order to make decisions now again you can disagree with that i i'm there's flaws in that way of looking at things but it you know there also is an argument to the fact that like yeah owners get to make decisions about what's done with things that people who don't own it don't get to make and that is to some degree important um
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now his his point about how the these voter registration laws um were put into effect after the civil war or during periods of of mass immigration you know i certainly would not argue uh in fact i don't think anyone could really argue that there haven't been voter restrictions in the past that were intentionally designed to keep some people out or that were um just
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all right sounds good um all right well let's let's get into it for today there's a um a lot going on in the world there are a few things that uh we specifically wanted to uh to talk about and i guess you know i i sometimes
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abused in practice thinking literacy tests or things like that now that being said it does not necessarily follow from that that you ought to have the view that there should be absolutely no standard or absolutely no minimal you know like test before you get to vote. Like, for example, let's just say that it wasn't abused, right? Like, let's just say, yeah, it's just a hypothetical.
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And if your answer to this would be like, well, I don't support it because it can be abused in practice, that's a totally reasonable answer. I'm just saying, in theory, a hypothetical, would a literacy test necessarily be wrong? Like, Should, you know, we're voting over who gets to rule the most powerful government in the history of the world here.
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I'm curious if you have a strong opinion on that, but I'm actually genuinely torn on it.
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Well, there you go. I mean, that's listen, there's a, there's benefits to the single life. That's all I'm saying. There's one of them. I do not have the opportunity to do that. Um, Anyway, though, it was a lot of fun and we had a particularly great time. A lot of our people were out there in Houston, so it was great to see Tom Woods and all those guys. So, that was a lot of fun.
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Yeah, I mean, the thing is, what I try to remind myself all the time is that government employees aren't people. And so you can't feel emotion for them the way you would for normal people. I do get your point about the dickhead boss. I guess I just think even for me, when it started coming to like classified information business, you know, at the CIA or the NSA or something like that.
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I guess that is where I was just like, this really kind of has to be done by putting a good director of national intelligence in there and having them make the decisions. And it seems like perhaps we just got that. I could understand why Tulsi is going to resist this kind of,
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Right, right, right. I see what you're saying. Yeah, okay. So they could respond in a way that doesn't actually give up anything that's classified, which I guess technically they can't. Legally, they can't just give him classified information.
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yeah well it does seem like look and and there is especially with with cash and tulsi and and and this is why by the way i mean if it wasn't them there and say donald trump had just picked terrible people for that position i think there's no way i'd even i'd just be like yeah i'm with doge screw them but it's just like there is something where it's like look you we just put the heads of these departments as people who have been
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And then our next stop is in Buffalo, New York. And it looks like, I don't know if I have the go-ahead to promote it yet, but it looks like we're going to attach a Canada show to that as well. But comic Dave Smith dot com for the ticket links there will be up at Helium Buffalo and then doing a show in Canada. It looks like after that. So please come out and see us there. Comic Dave Smith dot com.
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not just critics of the institutions, but have specifically called out these specific crimes that these organizations have committed. And so that is a little bit different than, you know, like it's not me sitting here and saying,
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um no uh usaid if we want to cut that it should be done by congress and not by doge because it's like yeah well congress is never going to do that and this is we we've tried this for decades and decades and decades it just leads to this mess so screw that doge is the only tool we got let's use that when i see tulsi and cash in there i think this kind of relates to the the opening point that i was making now my expectation is like we're going to get to the bottom of this right
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I mean, even say regardless of like whether some of these criminals are prosecuted, they're going to be fired. Right. That's going to be revealed the crimes that were committed. So if that's the plan, then I'm kind of like, well, actually, we don't need an act of Congress to do this because we already put the people at the heads of these organizations. You know what I'm saying?
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Like it's like if we if we had just put Ron Paul in charge of USAID and then Elon Musk was coming and going over his head, I'd be like, hey, back off. let them cook. You know what I mean? And so that, I guess that's just a little bit how I feel in this area, but I don't, I'm, I'm humble and open on this one where I'd go, maybe someone can, you know, maybe I could be persuaded either way.
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Yeah, I know what you mean. And it also, well, it also is the type of thing where like, if anyone in a private company did that, we would be like, yeah, that's a totally reasonable ask. You have to come to work. If you want to have your job, you have to come to work before the pandemic. That was something we all just took as a given. That was the bat was what having a job entailed.
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I bet it's more than zero. I bet the answer is a positive number. He might have set it up to trap you for that. You know, speaking of Elon Musk, and I guess this is kind of, I wanted to play this clip from Breaking Points and kind of respond a little bit to it because it's kind of, it's a little bit on a similar topic, but it gets into kind of broader conversations about
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about theory and philosophy on what government is and different kind of political views. And let me just preface by saying, because I am playing this clip, I really disagree with much of what Crystal Ball said here. I just do want to state up front that I like Crystal Ball very much, and I'm a huge fan of Breaking Points. I think it's an excellent show.
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Sagar and Crystal, I think, have done an incredible job. Crystal herself has been like... just downright heroic in her coverage of the, the Israel Gaza war over the last year and a half. And I just, I watched the show regularly. I've been on the show, I think a couple of times and I very much enjoy it.
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So just to say that she, now she has been a fierce critic of Elon Musk and, and kind of the the, the kind of tech bro billionaire class that's been around Donald Trump and, And even within that, even though I've been kind of on the other side of that and I've been cheering on the efforts of Doge, I think it's reasonable that like there should be left wing journalists who are like,
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trying to hold his feet to the fire and trying to keep him accountable. As you've said many times on the show before, Rob, and I've agreed with you, that, look, none of us are arguing that there isn't a potential conflict of interest or something like that, or that having powerful billionaires being in charge to some degree of policy is something that you'd have to be, you know, have some
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OK, so there's a few things that I was thinking about talking about on today's show. I guess we could start with the fact that since our last episode, Kash Patel has been confirmed as the FBI director. Dan Bongino has been added as the deputy director, which was that I had not heard floated out before, so kind of interesting. And so, yeah, this is... a big development at this point.
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realistic concerns about, uh, of course, Elon Musk is, does have contracts with the defense department and stuff like that. And so it's like, okay, like, I mean, I think certainly if we were now, by the way, those Rachel Maddow reported this the other day, but he got them under Joe Biden. So it's not as if whatever it's at, uh,
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the truth is that if you actually examine it and you go oh he got government contracts under joe biden and still came out against joe biden and supported somebody else i don't think it exactly plays into the narrative that that's his
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end goal here right is like to manipulate government policy for his own benefit but it is possible and i certainly think if we were to see let's say in the next few months we were to see like a massive increase in like government contracts going to elon musk we might be like ah that's a little funky you know what i mean like you can't have a situation where you just give 100 million dollars to the president and then you get all of this money in return
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Anyway, that's my kind of my preface going into it. The reason why I actually wanted to respond to this clip is because she invokes anarcho-capitalism at one point, which I just... There is like... There's some type of rule of thumb that any time like a mainstream person. And when I say mainstream, I just mean like a person with like a huge following or a huge show.
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Anytime a person with a huge audience mentions anarcho capitalism, they always get it completely wrong. I don't know why that's a law of physics, but somehow it is. But anyway, let's play this clip and we can talk through some of these ideas because there actually are a few things in here that I found very interesting that I very much disagree with Crystal on.
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So let's play the breaking points clip and then we could break some of this down.
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How then does he justify his goal? So I just go before we even get into this more, I guess, because I don't think me and you have actually really talked about this on the show. And part of that might just be because I don't really understand it. And I've always I just look, I don't know what is good.
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I get, by the way, like messages all the time, constantly now about people wanting to collab on a meme coin. And I don't know what that means, but my answer is always no, because that's insane. And it does, I'm, again, I'm just full disclosure here. I'm speaking from a place of true ignorance, okay?
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But it all seems like a scam to me, but it seems like one of those scams that's almost such a scam that I just, it's hard for me to work up a lot of sympathy for people if they lose money in it. Maybe that's fucked up or wrong. And it does seem to me like my first thought when Trump and Melania were doing the coin thing was I was like, oh, why are you doing this?
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I mean, if nothing else, like now you're just looking like you're trying to scam your own people. At least it has that appearance. So what's the benefit of doing? I guess the benefit is making money. But like it just it's like somebody.
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Look, if you went and you took your money to one of the major financial institutions that has an FDIC label attached to it, and even though their investment side isn't guaranteed by the government, but their banking side is guaranteed by the government, and it was your job to realize that that FDIC label only meant the banking side and not the investing side, and then you went in there and then they went, hey, we're going to put you in a very low-risk account with all of these things that have been rated AAA by the government.
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excellent mortgage loans or something like that. And then the whole thing goes belly up because it was all like a pyramid scheme. And you're someone's like some old ladies like crying because she lost her entire life savings over that. I have enormous sympathy for that woman who was totally ripped off. But if I went up to an old lady and she was crying and I was like, what's wrong?
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And she was like, I lost my life savings. And I was like, oh, my God, would you invest it in? And she went, oh, I bought the Haktua girls meme coin. Am I crazy that I'm just like, well, what would you think? I mean, yeah, of course you can't do. So anyway, I don't know enough about this.
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I don't know if you know more than me or you have an opinion, but going into it, I'm totally open to the idea that this is a scam and these guys shouldn't be doing it. I don't know. What do you think, Rob?
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I think it's kind of safe to say that basically Donald Trump got all of his controversial appointments through minus Matt Gates. And by the way, when I say controversial appointments, I don't mean that at all as a slight, these were the only guys that I liked were the ones who were controversial. But I, but so he did get cash Patel and he's got Bongino there at the FBI. Now, I don't know.
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seems to me like you shouldn't do that if you're the leader of a country so i'll agree with crystal on on that much and with you all right from here there's nothing to agree on it gets so flagrantly bad yes yes yes that's right all right so let's let's keep playing all in massive repeated scans of people using this quote-unquote dog shit take a listen what he had to say i'm very pro uh
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I'm kind of curious what your thoughts on this are, Rob. Certainly, at least, it seems that Donald Trump 2.0, compared to the first four years of Donald Trump's term, has certainly done a better job protecting himself, if nothing else, that he's got some guys who do seem to be
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on people on the left. I see this all the time. In fact, I was just talking with a friend of mine who's a very smart guy about this, but there's, there was, we were talking about this leftist who basically was arguing that IQ science is junk science. And it's just the interviewer is according to the chat. Oh, my, my mistake there. Okay.
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OK, well, there you go. So there but anyway, so as I said, there is this tendency. So as like IQ science is like very sound, like it's just like IQ is actually like I think the best psychological predictor of future results. Like it's just it's very sound. And so you wonder, like, why is it that this leftist is denying this?
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And it's just very like people on the left have this tendency to straight up deny something. if they get cognitive dissonance over it like if it challenges their world view they're just like nope that's not real and that you can see why they want to deny iq science because it's just it's a it's a nightmare for the egalitarian worldview. You know what I mean?
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Like if your worldview is essentially that like all people, it's just circumstance and just their opportunity and just the amount of wealth that's been redistributed to them, the IQ science just tears this all apart. And like you could find, you know, if you drop somebody into the worst situation, but they have 160 IQ, they're still gonna be way better off.
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You know, like you're just way better off than someone in that exact same situation with a 90 IQ. And that's, you know, it's anyway. it's like trying to explain this to a leftist and they're just unwilling to adjust their worldview around the obvious fact.
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And so he'll say like, oh no, granted, yeah, it's true that like the regulators have been rigged and all of this and like, yes, we can demonstrate this. But if you're arguing that, then that's not the dunk you think it is. You would just be arguing for more regulation. No, you're still stuck in this mindset that the government are the referees in the game.
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And so you'd want more rules, more referees. The point being made is that government is the referee who's working for one of the teams, who's tripping other players on the other team, who's only calling fouls on one side and not calling fouls on the other. And in that case, the last thing you'd want to do is give that referee more power. That just makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
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And so, no, it is actually a very fair point for him to be like, look, all of these markets are rigged. And if you're just complaining about these markets, you're kind of demonstrating something about yourself because the truth is they're all rigged. And the...
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government getting involved further rigs the markets to an extraordinary level that you could never get without the government rigging the markets. I mean, listen, like anybody who's just like, if you make a little bit of money, I don't even mean like you have real money.
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I just mean like if you have a decent salary or something like that, you already know, look, dude, you pay enormously high taxes, right? And then Why is it that everybody, you know, contributes to like their 401k or their IRA accounts or whatever like that?
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Because it's the only way, like the government forces you through taxation to put your money into the stock market, like to gamble in Wall Street. You're forced into that unless you just want to get robbed blind.
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And then they'll be like, hey, if you gamble it all on Wall Street, if you give your money to Wall Street for 40 years, we'll let you pay much less taxes on them when you need it to retire. Think about how much that's just rigging the game for regular people to give their wealth to Wall Street.
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Now, I'm sorry, you could refer to those regulations as rules, and somehow I'm against rules now, but I am sorry. The only reason, the only reason why Wall Street is a multi-trillion dollar industry is because the government has rigged the game in their favor. By the way, at the behest of big bankers.
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Loyalists who were outside of the cabal of people who were weaponizing the government against him, you know, keep in mind how integral the FBI was to shutting down Donald Trump's agenda in his first four years. So it's a whole different situation, at least currently. What do you think about cash getting in there, Bongino or any of this stuff?
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Like, it's not like a coincidence that the big financial companies have given so much money to politicians. And it's not a coincidence that the Treasury Secretary always comes from Goldman Sachs or Bear Stearns or whatever. You know what I mean? Like, this is it's obviously a rigged game. So it is not true that pointing that out leads to the conclusion that the government should have more power.
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That just there's you can't get there logically unless you're just denying the reality of that claim. So this guy gets it all wrong and does not understand what the guy he's interviewing is saying. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, a brand new sponsor who we're thrilled to have on board. And that is cornbread. Cornbread and their wonderful CBD products.
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All right, let's get back into the show. And now it's Crystal's turn. Let's go back to that.
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And there are great notes to your to your example, though, right? Like if the brakes don't work and let's say the brakes were intentionally put in as they're not even brakes, they're just pretend brakes that don't actually work. Yes, you're actually a lot better off with a big sign that says this car has no brakes than a big sign that says brakes guaranteed by the U.S. government.
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Uncle Sam's got your back, dude. Right. So like, yes, I think that's a good a good way to put it. Let's keep playing.
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So this is, I'm sorry, but this is just like a blatant straw man of what was just said. Nobody's saying like, since, first of all, I guess I should address first anarcho-capitalist. None of them have an anarcho-capitalist philosophy. I don't think any of them know what anarcho-capitalism is. And what we are seeing today is nothing even remotely close to anarcho-capitalism.
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Again, there is just this thing where it's like, I understand people have, and look, I've experienced this too in my day. Sometimes you have like a preconceived notion, you have your prior and you find something that challenges it. And there is always kind of the instinct to fit it back into what your preconceived notion was.
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It's something we all have to be careful about because it's a natural human tendency, confirmation bias and whatnot. But it is wild to see that like we're literally the United States of America is the biggest, most powerful government in the history of the world. And you're now talking about the people who are presiding over that government.
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And while it might be fair to say that Malay actually knows what anarcho-capitalism is and has read some of their theorists, the idea that like. What's going on here, for anybody who doesn't know, by the way, anarcho-capitalism, which I'm quite fond of, is the theory is essentially like no government with a capitalist society.
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So the argument would be that you can have a capitalist society without a government whatsoever because really by its very nature, a government violates the rules of capitalism like private property, the non-aggression principle, things like that. The idea that we are abolishing government here is just nutty. That is not what anybody is proposing.
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I wish it were true, but it is not even close to true. But what I think Crystal is getting wrong is that it's not, I don't think it's as simple as saying, well, because the big banks are imperfect, therefore we should embrace outright scams. Or because we've been hypocritical about international law, we just shouldn't even listen to it at all. It's more, I think, something like
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The big banks are a bigger scam than any meme coin could ever be. They are the biggest scam ever inflicted on mankind. And they're only that way because they have the power of the government behind them. Therefore, the last thing you want to advocate for is more government power. I think that's a better representation of what they're saying.
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And as far as the international law goes, and, you know, I was just arguing briefly with Cenk Uygur, who I also like from the Young Turks. We were on Piers Morgan together. And it's just funny to me how, like, he's an anti-war lefty. And then when I started trashing NATO, he starts disagreeing with me. And he's like, no, NATO is a good alliance and it's important. And I'm like, Cenk,
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Come on, you're an anti-war guy. What are you defending NATO for? It's the European wing of the American empire. What are you talking about? You know what I mean? And there is something interesting where it's like you find the lefties defending, whether they mean to or not, but in some way defending NATO.
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The big banks or the Federal Reserve System as somehow like, oh, it's imperfect, like a meme coin. That's just a scheme. What is the Federal Reserve? Like, it's not I'm not dismissing. I'm not trying to play whataboutism or whatever they'd say. I'm not dismissing your concern over the meme coins. I'm saying that, like, if you care about a big financial scheme, well, guess what?
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There's a way bigger one that's backed up with your tax dollars. And maybe that's what we should focus on. And in terms of international law, I mean, look, like the thing is, it doesn't exist. It's not a question of whether you think it should or shouldn't or whether you think it should be abandoned. There's nothing to abandon. That's the whole point. Think about international law.
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I never thought about it like that. That's a good point. All right. You have finally, it's like people when Kamala Harris is running, they're like, think of the little girls who will think they can be president. But this is, you're saying for you, this is like shattering a glass ceiling.
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Is international law stopping what Israel's doing to Gaza? Did international law stop the U.S. backing the Saudis in their war of genocide against the people of Yemen? No. Because international law, when you get to the highest levels of power, there's no such thing as law. That's the whole point. The whole thing was always just a euphemism for empire. The U.S.
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has violated international law constantly throughout my entire life in egregious and blatant ways. But you never even start hearing anything about international law until Vladimir Putin does it. Because then they think, oh, it's a tool we could use against our enemies. Essentially, they all have to follow these rules, but we don't. Which, by the way, is identical to the financial markets.
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You know, like you force the rules on everybody else and you yourself don't have to follow them. So I just think Crystal is misrepresenting what the argument is here and is certainly incorrect about what anarcho-capitalism is. Is there anything you want to add to that, Rob, or do you want to keep playing?
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And if if somebody if an advocate of government intervention is coming around and telling you how awful casinos are and how terrible it is that people lose their money there, it's not unreasonable for me to point out that they have a state lottery, which way more people lose money in. You know what I mean? Like, it's not crazy for me to be like, wait a minute.
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I don't think you guys actually really care about gambling because you literally have a state lottery that sucks all of these people into, which is a way bigger scam than casinos. And at least like with the breaks example, at least the casino is kind of like, it's a little more obvious that it's just a scam. You know what I mean?
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Whereas like with the government, you give people this illusion of like, it's not a scam. It's not a scam to open a 401k, Rob. That's a responsible investment tool. You know what I mean? And so it's like, no, but you're doing the same thing. In fact, to a much worse degree. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Tax Network USA. Do you owe back taxes?
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Now that I thought about it out loud, I can complain a little bit. No, I'm just... You know, Mondays, after a long weekend, for whatever reason, it's always like... You know, I have a long weekend and a lot of travel. And then Monday, I have to go in to the city for Legion of Skanks. I have art podcasts. And it's always like clockwork.
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Visit them at tnusa.com slash smith or call them at 1-800-958-1000. All right, let's get back into the show.
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Let's pause it here a little bit. Because, again, I think Crystal just she just gets this wrong. And I don't think she's familiar with the argument that's being made here by Andresen. I always say his name wrong. But so he's specifically referring to a book called The Machiavellians, which is a phenomenal book, by the way. I highly recommend everyone read it.
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And I am not Burnham, who's the author of the book. It was not an anarcho capitalist. He was like a neoconservative, essentially. But so I would disagree with a lot of his political conclusions. But the point that's being made here, the way Crystal says it's like so it's almost like you see their democracy is fake and therefore we should give up on anybody having any say in anything.
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And that's not the point he's trying to make. It's more like what Burnham is saying is that people have this idea that they're going to live forever, but you're not going to. You're going to die. The truth of the matter is that everybody's going to die one day. And so you want to do what you can to extend the life as long as possible. You want to be healthy, blah, blah.
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It's not saying, oh, because this isn't real, we give up on it or something like that. The point is, as is being made, which I don't actually think there's a counter to, is that he goes, society is always run by elites. And if you're convincing yourself that you live in a democracy, you're just fooling yourself. Like that's not real. There's no such thing as the rule of the many.
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Like that just isn't a real thing. And like, I don't even know how anyone could deny that. It's just obviously the case. You give me the example of what governing structure does not have powerful elites that have more influence than the regular person. And so then his conclusion from this is that that's why the founders knew this.
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They limited democracy and they wanted to at least like, okay, we're going to have an oligarchy, but it'll be at least a little bit more of like, okay, here's where we're putting the power. And if we do that, we can kind of still maximize freedom. And rather than just... fooling ourselves into thinking that any organization, any structure is truly run by the people there.
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he's always had that he's always had this obsession with like central casting and like you know the people having the right look what was his first press secretary sean spicer was that his first he got canned immediately for some hot blondes yeah at first it was the heavy set uh huckabee
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Like this just does not happen at all. In fact, there was, I forget where, what was it? But there was one of these real like commie like unions where somebody did a study of it and they even went into the like the most like just all socialists in a union together. And then they figured out that even that had a ruling elite in it.
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You know, there was like a couple dozen people who had risen to the top and were making all of the decisions. It's just any company you're talking about, any country that you're talking about, any group, there are always people at the top of it who are decision makers. And you can tell yourself that they're decision makers on behalf of the people.
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But this is like telling yourself that Joseph Stalin or Mao Zedong were representatives of the people. Like, no, they weren't. They were rulers. You know what I mean? And this is true in our society. It's true in every society. And how could you even look at the United States of America and think that that's not the case? And forget any of the Elon Musk or any of these new class of elites.
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Obviously, this has always been the case in America. and everywhere. So again, it's not like an endorsement of that style of government. It's an argument that this is just a recognition of reality. And I think that's correct. I mean, I think Burnham is absolutely right about this. Now, I think it's not that you can't take that understanding and then have very bad policy prescriptions.
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I think Burnham himself is guilty of that, but it's just not true that the argument here is like what she's trying to frame both of these arguments as is like, Hey, you know, I got, I got a cut on my leg, so I might as well break my leg. You know what I mean? But that's not the argument. That's not the argument that they're making.
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They're not saying like, eh, this is problematic, so we might as well just go all the way. What they're saying is like, there is no leg. They're pretending that there's a leg. The leg doesn't exist. You've been lied to. And so stop listening to the person who's pretending reality is something other than what it is.
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That's much closer to the argument than like, oh, things are bad, so they might as well be worse, which I think is how Crystal's taking this. Anything you want to add there? You want to keep, uh, let's keep rocking. Okay. We'll do, we'll do a little bit more and then we'll wrap it up.
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Right. And then he went to the blondes, but it was, but literally him and Sean Spicer, like, like this was their big thing that he'd be like, you don't look good in that suit. You got to wear this suit. You don't look good on TV and this, but you know, it's, he's got an interesting mind that Donald Trump, I do think you make a very good point.
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We could pause it. You know what? We could be done with the clip here. Because I just, listen, and I like Crystal, but she's just getting like hyperbolic and a little bit, I think, ridiculous on this part. Look, again, this is something that I think the left is very uncomfortable with. but it's a fact of reality, is that great men, and when I say great men, I do not mean that morally speaking.
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I mean great men, like men who move history. And so, but in this category would be, you know, like, I don't know, whoever, every president of the United States, people who achieve an enormous amount and including like really evil people, Hitler or Stalin or whoever. The world is moved by these people. This is just a fact of nature.
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It's one that makes people uncomfortable, but it's like Pareto distribution type stuff. What are the exact numbers on the Pareto distribution? Do you know, Rob? But it's something like- Yeah, it's essentially something like a 10th of any group produces 50% of the output or something like that. And the crazy thing about the Pareto distribution is that then it applies on every level too.
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So I might have the numbers a little bit wrong, but it's something like that. But so then like if 10% of people produce 50% of the production, then within that 10%, 10% of them produce 50% of that. And then within that 10%, it's just, it is kind of the way the world works. And look, if you just think about it like this, right? There are things all around us that none of us understand, right?
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None of us understand if Nate Bargetti has a great a great stand up bit about this. But like if me and you, Rob, were got in a time machine and went 400 years ago and had to explain to somebody the technology that we use to do our job. You think about how, how ridiculous it is that we could not even do it.
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Like you realize you're like one or two levels from where you're like, I might as well just say it's magic. I mean, I don't know. I like, I really, I don't even know. And this is, and I'm, I'm known by people who listen to my show is like, Oh, Dave's a fairly bright guy who understands a thing or two about a thing or two.
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If I had to explain to you any of the, like, I don't even know what my best, like what is electricity, Rob? Explain it. You're gonna put me on the spot for this one? No, I mean, I'll try. Like, honestly, if I'm trying, I'd be like, I'd go, okay, you know lightning? You know lightning in the sky? You know that? Okay.
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We harness that, and then we run it through wires, and it can transmit a signal that,
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There's something to me that, I mean, I mean, particularly like in a self-serving kind of way, maybe I find it a little bit fascinating because like we are in,
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And, uh, well, right. I mean, but even, even that I would have known protons, neutrons and electrons, uh, there's, you know, and like, I don't know, man, I'm really tapped out. Like I really could not explain about, but yet there is, there are people who do understand it. What percentage of us understand that? a tiny, tiny fraction. We all use it all the time, but a tiny, tiny percent.
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Now look, when she's talking about Elon Musk, having this like narcissism and believing he it's true. She's right about that. Like he does see himself as like, I'm going to solve the problem of interplanetary living. And like, but like, I don't know. They're all like this. They're all like this again. It's the same Burnham recognition. It's, It's not an endorsement or a criticism of it.
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It's just a recognition that, yes, Joe Biden also said he was going to save the soul of America, right? Barack Obama was on record saying about his election that this was the moment when the sea levels stopped rising. It was this whole speech, but it was the most grandiose thing you've ever heard. Hillary Clinton, happy birthday to this future president.
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They all have these incredibly narcissistic, grandiose visions of themselves, but also part of it is because you don't get to that level unless you have that attitude. Most of us, most of us, if you ever said like, hey, do you think you should run the world or you should save humanity? We'd be like, what? No. That's crazy. I'm not that guy. And that's why we're not that guy.
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whatever this world of shows on the internet talking about politics whatever that world is and that there's been so many people who are like fixtures in that world now coming into these positions now don't get me wrong um you know like pete hegseth for example wasn't just a fox news show host he had other things on his resume and and dan bongino was in the secret service before he was a fox news host and then a tv and then a an internet personality or whatever and
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That's why we don't end up going down as the great movers and shakers of history. So I think a lot of this stuff, sometimes to me, I think it comes down to almost like an immaturity in one's worldview. And that's why when you're presented with someone going like, hey, your whole worldview is fake. It doesn't exist. And here's what really exists.
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Then they just respond to being like, oh, you're a bad person. You're you're advocating for this thing. It's like that's not exactly right. That's not exactly right. I do agree with Crystal, but like it's important that we have some journalists like her who are like watchdog in these guys. There's nothing wrong with that. Obviously, everybody is motivated by their own self-interest.
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But I think that like no matter what you however you feel about it. The world is moved by powerful, highly intelligent, highly motivated people, and democracy doesn't exist. Those are just facts. I think that's just the reality of the situation we live in. And in the same way that if I were to say to you, like, human beings cannot fly like birds,
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That's not me saying human beings ought not be able to fly like birds. Or it's not saying we should chop people's legs off because they can't fly and they can only walk. It's simply a recognition of objective reality. And I think so is all of this. All right. Got to wrap up there. Thank you guys very much for listening. Catch you tomorrow with a brand new show.
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Run Your Mouth. Go check out Run Your Mouth. Make sure, guys, if you haven't already, if you love this show and you've just never gotten over to check out Run Your Mouth, give it a shot. It's really, really funny and very informative, too. All right. Catch you guys next time. Peace.
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Kash Patel was a regular guest on a lot of podcasts and stuff. So it's just, I guess one of the things that I'm thinking about is, is we've got these guys, particularly with, say, Bongino and Kash Patel, who have, as you started alluding to, then you're absolutely right about Bongino. In fact, I've never been... I know who Dan Bongino is. I don't think I've ever met him.
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But I know him, and I knew who he was when he was on Fox News and stuff. But I never watch his podcast, except for after... The the assassination attempt, because I did just find it interesting because he was a Secret Service agent for many years. So it's kind of interesting to have his perspective on it. And he was. Look, I'm not trying to overplay what he said.
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Like, he wasn't like, this is a conspiracy and they did that. But he was pretty leaning on that side of like, there's something missing to this story here. There's no way they failed this blatantly. And like, something's going on here. Both of them wildly outspoken about Russiagate and how, I mean, they would...
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At least what they've been saying over the last years, they'd be right where me and you are. Not just saying that the story was wrong, but saying that this was an intentional attempted coup by the deep state using known lies to try to frame the president of the United States for treason. And...
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I got to say, from my perspective, you know, I had a rant about this a few episodes ago that ended up going viral. And, you know, I appreciate everybody who shares the content. I will say... In some way, I think putting these guys in there, at least in my mind, it almost kind of sets a higher bar now. And I don't think, you know, like, I think this is fairly reasonable of me.
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That Monday coming off of a weekend of travel is always when Pierce Morgan calls or whoever wants to add a show. And always, for whatever reason, that Sunday night, my kids won't sleep. So I'm just up all night. And then after being up all night, because you know the way, so like we'll be, I got back to the hotel at like one in the morning on Saturday night.
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I'm somebody who was a fierce critic of Donald Trump. uh, through his first four years and then through the four years of Joe Biden's administration, while people were defending what he did. Um, and I could, you know, I I've gotten into that many times over the years. We could get into that if people want to, um,
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I was willing to come on board and throw my support behind him in this last election because, you know, I adjusted to the facts on the ground. And it seemed to be like a lot of things had changed. Kamala Harris was a uniquely horrible and terrifying candidate. And Donald Trump was all of a sudden in a unique position where it looked like, oh, he might actually mean it this time.
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And he might actually be trying to do some positive things. And I will say so far, I feel pretty justified in that decision, even though there are some things I don't like. in the new administration, but there are massive positives. And this is like a first for me that I've ever felt this way about the sitting president of the United States.
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And so, okay, I'm willing to like kind of get on board and I'm willing to even accept that, okay, some stuff I don't like is gonna happen, but maybe we'll get some positives out of this. But once you're giving the FBI to Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, it just seems like it's kind of a reasonable expectation now that you're gonna prosecute some of these criminals. I mean, you guys have the FBI now.
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You've talked about the crimes that have been committed and these are not minor infractions. This is not Donald Trump paid off a hooker, but he had his lawyer do it. And I guess if we use this novel concept, we could say it was a campaign event and then it wasn't disclosed on his business record. I'm not talking bullshit like that.
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I'm talking like, oh, the CIA and the FBI framed the sitting president of the United States for treason and then interfered in the 2020 election. It's like, OK, well, you're in charge of the FBI now. How is it not? This isn't even like it seems like this is the moderate position to take. You know what I mean? Like I'm taking the very reasonable position of like, OK, you said it.
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You have the FBI now. You got Tulsi over there as the director of national intelligence. If you need any more of the information. You know what you guys are in charge of? You know, I mean, people might forget it, but the FBI is technically supposed to be in charge of investigating crimes. So is it too crazy for me to expect that to happen?
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what's up what's up everybody welcome to a brand new episode of part of the problem it's good to be back home we are live back from houston thank you to everybody who came out we had a great time out there and of course i'm joined by robbie the fire bernstein as i was in houston how are you sir i'm doing well how are you mr smith Very, very good. I cannot complain. Well, you know I can.
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And then I had to leave for the airport at three in the morning. So there's no sleep that night. And then I come back and I got a packed day on Monday. And I'm like, all I need is a good night's sleep on Sunday. And my three-year-old just somewhere in his soul, he hears that. And he was like, all right, let's wake up 15 times tonight. How about that?
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Yes. OK, look, there's a fair point there. But I think that point only works if you actually permanently get rid of all of these people. And there's almost like because the baked in assumption there is that in four years, a Democrat doesn't come in and then just put all those same people back. in the deep state apparatus.
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Cause if that's the case, if that ends up happening, then it's like, no, you blew it by not prosecuting when you actually had the opportunity to. So I get your point. Like there is something to that. Look, I am, I gotta say I'm somewhat, um, I'm a little bit torn sometimes on some of these issues.
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I'll tell you this one by the, it's pretty rare that there's an issue of the day that comes up and I'm like, I do not actually know how I feel about this. Like I really got to think about this. I mean, I just like you typically at this point, I have an opinion on what's going on, but I was reading about this apparent friction between Tulsi Gabbard and Elon Musk and That's been going on.
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And so if people aren't familiar, evidently Doge sent emails out to like everybody in the intelligence community asking them to report on what they've been doing. And Tulsi has instructed everybody not to respond.
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this doge email and so i'm i'm sitting here i'm reading about this and i'm like okay on the one hand i love what doge is doing i love the idea of government secrecy being you know exposed and man i going after the intelligence community you're like yeah that's like that's the mother load of of the evil secrets on the other hand
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can totally understand where tulsi gabbard is coming from but she's just like whoa hold on wait a minute i just got this job and now you are in effect asking all of my underlings to give out classified information to people who do not have the security clearance and you would think like she might be in a situation like like i'm open enough to the possibility that you would go like okay look like
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Even though all of this evil stuff has probably gone on and there's a whole bunch of secret stuff that never needed to be classified to begin with, you might need somebody there to decide what we're going to declassify and in what order and who's, you know what I mean? Like there's just...
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I could understand where Tulsi Gabbard is going to have to be like, oh, no, but then you're totally like just like usurping my authority to actually look at this as a patriotic veteran and go like, OK, what is in the national interest? Let's expose this. Maybe this, you know, like needs to wait or something like that. I don't know.
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But I mean, it was every I think it was even worse because like I think the total number of people who died was even worse. And I think just the fact that it was Saudi Arabia conducting the war. Just there just wasn't the type of pressure on them that there is on a first world country to be like, yeah, you can't get away with that.
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You know, like even Israel, you know, has to slow down on shooting the aid workers after a few weeks of bad press. But the Saudis. Again, with the help of the U.S. Army, I mean, for years, we were like refueling their fighter jets mid path because they can't do it themselves. And they had help from our Navy to put a full blockade around the country. And people died by the
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Hundreds of thousands in the most brutal way. And the Saudis were also caught several times, like, barming farms, barming sewage plants, barming irrigation sites. Like, just a war on the civilian population. And... So in this whole thing, I mean, like I know you read a bit about this during the time, Rob, because we talk about this all the time.
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There were like outbreaks of cholera where they're just hundreds of thousands of people got them. Of course, cholera particularly ends up killing babies and old people and can be cured with like. Like I, I'm not sure. I don't even think you need antibiotics. I think like you, you need like, like Gatorade or whatever. But so there's just babies like vomiting themselves to death.
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It just, it was the worst humanitarian crisis in the world for many years. I think at least from like 2015 through 2021, it was the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. And through all of this, The Houthis remained in power. And I think they even just took over more control of the country. And they simply outlasted the Saudis in one. And they'd be able to hit back a little bit.
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Like they had like some drones that could strike some oil sites in Saudi Arabia. And eventually, like the Saudis just tired of it. And they were like, we can't beat them. And they threw in the towel. And it was early in the Biden administration that the Saudis just kind of quit doing it. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Small Batch Cigar.
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And then Nashville, Chicago, San Diego, Appleton, Wisconsin, Salt Lake City, Denver, Cleveland. Providence, Tacoma, Spokane, Detroit, Tampa, whole lot of stuff coming up. Comic Dave Smith dot com for all of those ticket links. And of course, if you want to support this show and get the episodes live and uncensored and ad free and get the bonus episode that we do weekly. I know I missed last week.
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And if you go to smallbatchcigar.com and use the promo code PROBLEM, you're also going to get 10% off your order. Smallbatchcigar.com, promo code PROBLEM for 10% off plus 5% reward points. All right, let's get back into the show. And so just to keep in mind here, and part of the reason why I say this is like, I think it's,
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almost everybody talking about the story today, like kind of leaves out all that. It's just like, you're supposed to, in the same sense that like October 7th is supposed to be viewed in a vacuum. Like here was the nice little Jewish boys just in there.
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We were just trying to have a rave outside your concentration camp, you know, and then out of nowhere this happened, but like, no, there's actually a history and there's these things happen in context. And yeah, Okay, so all of that happened.
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But I also say it not just to understand that there's the history of all of this, but I say it just to make the point that, like, the Houthis went through all of that and are still in control and are still trying to fight back. Now... Many people, myself included, might say, Jesus, why the hell are you guys doing this?
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Like, haven't your people been through enough that you're going to bring more of this on them? But that's not really the point. The point is that an entire blockade and a brutal bombing campaign for eight years wasn't enough to take these guys out of power or to slow them down. And what we think dropping a couple tomahawks is going to do it. No, it's going to do nothing except kill people.
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We're just like unless we were actually committed. Don't get me wrong. If the U.S. military, if we wanted to invade Yemen the way we invaded Iraq, OK, we could probably overthrow the Houthis. But if we're not talking about doing that, we're just talking about murdering some people so we can feel good about ourselves. So that's kind of like the.
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Now, after October 7th, they did start like attacking ships, you know, and they were like, hey, we're on behalf of these poor Palestinians. We're going to not let Israeli ships go through here and also some American ships. And, you know, You can feel about that however you feel about that. But I would just point out that during the ceasefire, there were no Houthi attacks.
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And it wasn't until the ceasefire broke down that they started doing it again. And so to me, it does kind of lead to some of these questions. You know, I know a lot of the like.
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pro-israel conservative types while they love to lecture you about moral relativism on every other front when it comes to this you're never allowed to say like okay i mean look it's probably not great that the houthis are attacking ships but at the same time why does no one have a right to stand up for the palestinians at all
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You know, I mean, Israel gets attacked on October 7th and they get to do this. And yet the Palestinians have to endure all of this. And no one has a right to like close down some shipping lanes or something. Again, I wouldn't say no one has a right to do it, but it's just like. Look, I guess it's just very clear.
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We will make that up. I'm a few behind. We'll make them all up. Join us over at part of the problem dot com. Also, you get to be a part of the live chat, which I'll check in with in a little bit.
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It's like, oh, so this is another cost associated with supporting Israel's slaughter of Palestinians. So that we now also have to write, which is like the whole story of U.S. foreign policy. Always. We now have to once again, we have to take on Israel's problems and make them our own.
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Now, we're in this beef, which is so clearly has nothing to do with us and has to do with what Israel is doing to the Palestinian people, which is objectively horrific. But now, because we're the ones funding that and arming that and giving it diplomatic cover, we now find ourselves in yet another conflict, the last thing that this country needs.
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And one of the things that Donald Trump ran and won on twice is Was the idea that we don't need more conflicts like this. And then, of course, we're right back in another one. So I guess that would be I mean, I know it's just a bit of a rant, but I think it's kind of like it's worth it to get that out there.
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But I just can't I can't overstate how horrible a decision this is by Donald Trump and how. How much it's like the you know, it's like people would say for a while they'd be like, oh, stop bitching about all his bad appointments. You know what I mean? Like focus on the good ones or something.
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It's like now this is what happens when you surround yourself with a bunch of war hawks who are giving you bad information. So I don't know. Any thoughts on any of that, Rob? Feel free to jump in.
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Or is there ever a point where we don't have to just kill innocent people to make this? Is there ever a point where we've killed enough innocent people that it's like, I think they got the message? I think they realize that we're willing to do this? It's always just this like, no, we got to show toughness. We got to let them know.
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But again, to my major point here, look, the idea, again, Yemen, which was had started as the poorest country in the Middle East at the beginning of this before going through the worst humanitarian crisis in the world for many years. They went through all of that and then still stuck up for the Palestinians when Israel started its assault on Gaza.
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And you think like a couple Tomahawk missiles are going to change that calculation? I mean, I don't think there's any serious person, even in D.C., who believes that like, all right, they got the message. Like they needed to be smacked around and now they won't mess with our ships anymore. And I think I just read just earlier today that they vowed to continue or something like that.
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It's like, yeah, of course. Of course they did. Like this isn't going to stop them. So what on earth is the point? Why would we be doing this?
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And again, it's like with all of these scenarios, every single war, they can never – whether we're talking about Iraq, Afghanistan, whether we're talking about Libya or Syria, whether we're talking about Yemen, whether we're talking about Somalia, if you're talking about Ukraine, if you're talking about Israel's war in Gaza –
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Nobody can ever clearly articulate why we're taking this action, what the end game is and what our strategy is to go pursue that end game and like where it's like a reasonable end game. Whenever they give you an answer to that, Rob, it's something like we're going to drive Putin out of Crimea.
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OK, yeah, but that can't ever happen or democracy is going to sweep the region or like it's always these goals that are just like on their face. You're like, yeah, but that's completely unachievable. There is no chance there is a zero percent chance that you will achieve that goal. But it's never just kind of like, OK, so we drop this. OK, so we killed whatever.
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I think it was 53 people we killed in this last strike. OK, and we had to do that because why? What's the next step after this? Well, I guess the next step is that Trump threatens around and says that they're going to they'll be devastating consequences and that they are responsible for what the Houthis do. Which is like just doesn't even make any sense at all.
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I mean, you would only I mean, don't get me wrong. I understand why it makes sense to the insane neoconservatives and the insane Likudniks and the insane evangelical Christians who think that protecting the Jews in Israel is what's going to bring Jesus Christ back, or the insane Jewish supremacists who think that everything should be run around the state of Israel.
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Oh, yeah. Skiing and doing libertarian conventions with Rob Bernstein. That's not a fun time. I don't know what is. All right. So let's open with talking about kind of what's going on in Yemen and Donald Trump's recent threats to Iran. I guess I would start by saying this, okay? If you look at the position that Donald Trump is in right now, and I'm not trying to overplay it.
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Okay, I get there, because they just want to topple the government in Iran. That's why they all support it, because they just want to move closer to the regime change that they've always really wanted, which is the one in Tehran. Okay, so that's why they support it. But short of that, if you weren't trying to get us into another catastrophic war in the Middle East, like if you didn't
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hate the United States of America and want to see this country's destruction, then why would it make any sense to start saying that Iran is responsible for anything the Houthis do? Nobody really believes that the Iranians have complete puppet-like control over the Houthis and they can decide what they're going to do or what they're not going to do.
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I mean, imagine if you were to take that line with the United States of America ever. You were to say, OK, well, you guys, you know, we we our government props up the Saudis and the the Jordanians and the Egyptians and the Israelis and the Ukrainians and all the all the governments that we fund and contribute to.
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If we were to say we're now responsible, you know, when the Saudis, you know, murdered that Khashoggi, murdered that that journalist guy and cut him up or whatever that you say, I hold Joe Biden responsible for that. That's not like why?
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The only reason why you would even start thinking like that is if you were trying to bring America into a wider war, which has always been the huge risk since October 7th and since the decision to start backing Israel's assault on Gaza. This has always been the biggest risk. And now it's like Donald Trump is just – he's walking into this trap and seems to be willingly doing it. So, you know –
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There's been there certainly has been some positives of the Trump administration so far. But man, is he flirting with throwing all of that away, all of that away right now? And then even just aside from, you know, the aside from the kind of potential disasters that could come out of this. Yeah. You know, just this in itself. Just killing a bunch of innocent people.
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I mean, I know this is the United States of America and we've gotten so used to that, like that's just part of what our government does. But isn't it something that the government can just like take an action that's going to kill, including several children reportedly were killed in these strikes. And like we're it's just I don't know. It's so crazy to me that.
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That murdering children wouldn't be something that collectively as a society we go like, well, man, I mean, if you ever have to do that, then there's a serious process that we go through. And that process involves laying out the case of why you absolutely have no other choice but to do this. But now Donald Trump just decides. Then isn't it interesting? You know, Daryl Cooper had a great story.
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a great post about this the other day, but isn't it interesting, right? That there's no judge. There's no Congressman. There's no cable news show host that will ever even dream of like making this the issue. You know, like, whoa, the president is just like committing an act of war. He doesn't have to consult anybody but like his donors or something like that.
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He doesn't even have to talk to anybody in Congress. He doesn't, you know, when you hear all this stuff about like, Elon Musk is auditing USAID. This is outside, you know, this is anti-democratic. He doesn't have the authority to do that. But yet when it comes to making war,
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Just crickets, you know, even like the Democrats who are always talking about Trump is Hitler and he's this and that and he's an authoritarian end of democracy. No one really cares when it's just murdering kids. And there's something so profoundly sick and backward about all of that. And I don't no matter how much it happens, that will never be normal to me.
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I'll never get used to that and just go like, yeah, well, I did, you know.
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were little brown kids in a third world country i mean who cares you know like yeah i don't know sorry i still think that's profoundly horrible just an awful thing to do especially when you're doing it like with no no clear-cut reason as to why this absolutely had to be done then to your point that you made before i mean just like i'm sorry there's just there there are
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It was, well, you know, it wasn't too much of a battle this time. Although I was on the panel with three ladies, which I specifically request to never do. but yet they still put me on there with a bunch... I was like, talking politics with women? It's just ridiculous. No, but so I think it was mostly...
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There are other ways to protect shipping lanes other than just constantly being in a state of slaughtering innocent people. I just don't believe otherwise. By the way, just the money we spend on the bombs, you know, we could we could probably just pay off people to be able to ship for for less money. So it's all just terrible.
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And, you know, again, it's not it's nothing that any of us should really be shocked by. I mean, this is Donald Trump. You know, Donald Trump, he backed the the Saudi war against the people of Yemen for every single day of his first term. So I don't think he's going to be moved over like some innocent people in Yemen got killed. I mean, he seems to be quite comfortable doing it.
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And yeah, anyway, we will see. We will see where all of this goes. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is CrowdHealth, a company I've been telling you about for years. They are amazing. They are a decentralized healthcare payment system that frees you from the tyranny of health insurance. If I
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Look, Donald Trump has put up his best approval numbers that he's had in both of his terms pretty consistently in polling in the last few weeks since he's been president for the second time. But we're still talking about... just above 50%. I think 53, 54% is about the highest that he's had. Still, it's not a president with 75% approval ratings, which I actually have lived through a couple of.
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If I were to ask, if I were to survey a hundred people and ask a hundred of them, Hey, on a scale of one to 10, how much do you love your health insurance company? I highly doubt I would get a single 10 because nobody is happy with health insurance. The system is broken. The companies are broken. There's a lot of problems with them, largely the government intervention. Thank you. Thank you.
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I don't know if in the current divided landscape in America, any president is going to get to be above 70% anytime soon. But- Donald Trump is doing better than he was before. I'm not trying to overplay it, but he's he's roughly popular with the American voting base. Really more of the unique opportunity in the moment that Donald Trump's in is how destroyed the Democrats are.
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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. . . . . . .. a en P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P. P,實, not. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , a in support a small business, smell good and feel good.
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I mean, the approval ratings of the Democrats are in the toilet. They've also what I think is the most devastating aspect is that they've lost their propaganda apparatus and the corporate media is just dead and And dead in a way, I mean, we may have said that years ago, but they're dead in a different type of way than they were back then. In this moment, you have a lot of possibilities.
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Go to FG soap.com and make sure you use the promo code problem for 10% off your entire order. That's FG soap.com promo code problem for 10% off. All right, let's get back into the show.
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Donald Trump seems to, although he may himself only be slightly popular, he has a few issues that are enormously popular that where he's really got a mandate, you know, things like lowering inflation, lowering illegal immigration, turning the economy around. I mean, these are issues that he really has a lot of support behind his prescribed policies.
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Yeah, well, that's right. And I don't know even that they can be prosecuted. I agree with you. That should be a crime, you know, but at least they could be made to pay a serious, you know, social cost for it. And no, you're absolutely right.
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I mean, this was the thing that was so laughably absurd about the sharpest attack line, which is what everybody went with up until that debate, like literally just a few days before that debate, when it became them, when they stopped pretending. But that you would go and anybody who's ever been around an older family member who's gone senile, a very sad thing to watch. It's truly tragic.
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I know you've been around it, Rob. I've been around it with family members. But to see Joe Biden.
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and to see him uh lose his train of thought and get confused and not know where to exit every time he exited a stage and to not know what state he was in and to not know you know like when you watch all this and then to have everybody go no behind closed doors he's sharp as a tack it's like yeah that's not how dementia works I'm sorry.
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Dementia does not just come about when you're in front of the cameras every single time and then go away and show no signs. And my God, the things that people must have witnessed behind the scenes. I mean, yes, this was an open secret. And really, one of the people who was very much implicated in that was Kamala Harris.
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who was out there saying that she was having weekly meetings with Joe Biden and that she was involved in all the most important decisions and that she was the last one to leave and that she spent all this time with him. And it's just I'm sorry, it's just it's beyond
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it's beyond anything that anyone could plausibly believe for her to claim that she never saw any signs of of this guy's you know mental decline it's just nobody believes that um and she doesn't believe it none of her supporters believed it her chief of staff doesn't believe it nobody buys that and so there should be some type of price to pay for that because my god
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What a crazy thing to do, you know, to just not have a president and then be lying to everyone. Anyway, you know, we've talked about it a lot, but it's I think it's always good when this topic comes back up. All right. Let's because we got a little bit of time left. Let's play a little bit. By the way, I did find this really fascinating. But so there were there were a few clips that were great.
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I've not watched the whole thing because I don't hate myself that much. But Don Lemon was on Bill Maher's podcast. um and and had a few just like incredible moments of just seeing into the a window into the dumb soul that is don lemon uh these things are so one of the things that's really fascinating is that people now that the corporate media has collapsed and then you've kind of seen this um
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You've seen some people who were able to either reinvent themselves or were just good enough at what they did so they could keep doing it. Like Tucker Carlson could just keep going and doing what he was doing. Pierce Morgan, I think, kind of reinvented himself in a way to have a very relevant show.
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Now he was smart enough to figure out what this new media landscape was, what people wanted, what type of show he could put on that they'd be good. And then you've got,
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And now he's got a thing that he never had in his first term, which is that he got this kind of class of big tech billionaires who are totally behind him. He really just never had anything like that before. If you could think about Donald Trump's first administration, Twitter was like his enemy. Now he's got the guy who owns Twitter in the White House.
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the Chris Cuomo's and Don Lemon's of the world who like tried their hand at coming over into this world and it's almost like they're still playing the old game and it's just really funny to watch it just collapse and not work so anyway on that note let's go let's first let's go to the one that I sent first and then if we got time we'll play some of the other ones as well because there were a few good ones there but let's check in on old Don Lemon
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So, by the way, I do not think he's right about that. I think CNN had higher ratings periods before that. But regardless of that, Rob, isn't that something? Isn't that such an admission? What are your thoughts?
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Which he definitely does. He definitely knows the answer to that.
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Yeah, well, that's the thing, right? You know, when I was on Piers Morgan today, I started arguing with that Julie Roginski chick a little bit.
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at one point she said um she said something i mean she just doesn't know me we did some shows together back in the day at fox news but i don't think she really knows anything about me but i said something about uh fauci and how he should go to prison and she was like oh you want to you want to re-litigate 2020 now but what you don't want to talk about is january 6th what you don't want to talk about is ukraine what you don't want to talk and i was just like yeah julie that's uh
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you're barking up the wrong tree with that one. Like, I don't know, people could accuse me of a lot, but not wanting to talk about Ukraine isn't one of them, you know? And then I said to her at one point, I go, well, you know what I think Julie probably doesn't want to talk about is where were you in the summer of 2020? What were you saying back then?
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Let's argue whether you were right or wrong about that. And I'll argue with what I was saying back then. What were you saying when the vaccine was first rolled out? What were you saying? You know, it's like, it's so funny that Don Lemon would say, oh, we had the highest ratings at this time. It was such a fun time to be around.
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And the counter is you almost want to go like, okay, what were you pushing back then? And how much of it can you stand by now? Because like, I'll tell you, man, you go, you go look at and look, I'm not saying like I've done this recently. I'm pretty confident. And I think people have been listening to this show for a while. Be pretty confident.
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If you were to ask yourself, as many people do. What could possibly bring this down? What could possibly lead to the Democrats making a comeback? What could, you know, what could lose Donald Trump all of these gains that he's made so far? The answer... It is so obviously another catastrophic war, like just getting into another war that we absolutely don't need to be at.
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Like you could pluck an episode out from, you know, August of 2020. Me and Rob could sit down and watch it. And we'd be pretty happy with where we were. And be like, yeah, we were pretty much right about the biggest issues. I'll stand by that. I'll still go argue that lockdowns are wrong and stupid and that they did way more damage than anything positive that came out of them.
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I'll still argue that the nationwide riots were horrific and shouldn't have been defended. I'll still like all of this stuff. I remember later in the year, but I remember the week of the week of the Hunter Biden laptop coming out. I remember me and you sitting down and being like, this is obviously his laptop.
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And the claim that this is Russian disinformation is just clearly a lie to distract people. And it's like, oh, yeah, yeah. You're like, oh, yeah, the ratings were good when the country was locked down. Can you still defend lockdowns? Cause you were defending them at the time. Can you still defend that? Okay.
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The ratings were good when you were defending black lives matter and calling them fiery, but mostly peaceful protest. You still want to defend that? Are the ratings were good when you were claiming Trump was a Russian spy? Do you still want, it's like, Oh yeah. So you got ratings off a bunch of fucking lies, right? And people woke up to them eventually.
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Anyway, and then there's just the dishonesty of, I don't even know what are the YouTube numbers. Like, as if anyone in this game has no concept of whether their ratings are higher or lower than they were a few years ago. It's all just kind of ridiculous. Here, let's go to the one that I texted to the group, Natalie. Let's play the...
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The one that because it's so funny how like it's just it's just amazing how much. And this is a huge part of the reason why the podcast world took off and the corporate media world died. But just there are so many shows like this now. And just like the level of conversation is, I don't know, it's at least 30 IQ points higher than whatever the hell is happening on CNN. Yeah.
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And to look at Don Lemon here again, what's interesting about Don Lemon is kind of like Chris Cuomo is that he wasn't this isn't just like a guy who happened to be at CNN. These were the biggest shows. These were their marquee names. It was Cuomo and Don Lemon, their shows, and then their back and forth in between the shows.
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This was the highest rated thing that CNN had during these days that he's claiming were, you know, the great ratings days for CNN. So it's just interesting to see like their level of analysis. And here is Don Lemon giving you what essentially it's like the Joy Reid level of political analysis. It's all they have to offer. So here here's Don Lemon.
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Yes, it is true that the truth is often insulting. Also, just idiotic statements can be insulting sometimes. Isn't it, like, it's just so pathetic. And this is the game that really, in the era of the Don Lemons, in the era of Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon and Joy Reid, kind of in the time that these people became, like, the anchors, this was the type of just...
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I don't know how to put it, profoundly stupid poison that they would just pump into America. And it really just can't be stated how destructive this was to always just whittle everything down to a race issue. constant insinuations of bigotry against anybody who disagreed with them. It's just the Joe Biden, you ain't black comment, essentially, is what Don Lemon has there.
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Then he tries to attach it to a point, but he's Don Lemon, so he's just really stupid and he doesn't really understand the point even he's making. Yes, there is some truth to the fact that you cut the line if you were like... The if there's less of you, you know, like if you fall into some category where there's like, oh, that's more unique to see. It is true that you're more likely to get booked.
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This is also true. It has nothing to do with race. I mean, like, for example, like like Dave Rubin has a huge YouTube show. And one of the reasons why Dave Rubin has a huge YouTube show is because he was the young Turks guy and then became a conservative conservative. He left the left. And so now that becomes like a story. Also, Liz Cheney. What do you think Liz Cheney would have been?
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And yet, despite this reality, Donald Trump and whoever the hell is in his administration, who he's listening to, seem to be getting him to push in that direction. then it is something it just like makes you want to pull your hair out watching it the the idea that we would even start flat i'm not saying he's done that yet you know donald trump is capable of doing these strikes here and there just
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How many media appearances do you think she would have had if she hadn't been going after Donald Trump in the way she was? There's lots of different angles. But for him to sit there and say, you cannot be a sense like no black person could support Donald Trump. There is no issue. You could possibly you couldn't just be, let's say, a black dude who was against illegal immigration.
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or who was against fighting forever wars or who was against the inflation of the Biden administration. Why somehow as a white guy, you can legitimately have those opinions, but a black guy couldn't. I just, again, it's like, it's a profoundly racist statement to make, which has always been the case. It's like these guys, they're like, um, there's something out of, uh, like, uh,
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Like a movie that would just like caricature racism in the past and they would just make some character that's just like a foaming at the mouth bigot. It's like, oh, that's you. That's you. You're just like a vicious racist. It's the only lens that you see the world through. Is that like, oh, black people are supposed to be over here on this plantation only thinking one way.
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And if you dare cross over there to the other side, then you're some type of fucking sellout. And who the fuck is Don Lemon to speak for black people for the least black black man in America? Like, really, a multimillionaire gay dude who's banging a white dude living in a white neighborhood like what you get to decide you're the arbiter to say, like, well, you can support Mitt Romney.
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I'll allow a black guy to support Mitt Romney, but you can't support Donald Trump. Like, why? Why do you get to choose that? Like, fuck off, Don Lemon. I don't know. I'll give you the final word, Rob, and then we got to wrap up.
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All right. Well, listen, thank you guys very much for listening. What's your new site again, Rob?
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All right. Yeah, I'm definitely going to go check that out. He's a very interesting guy. All right, guys. Comic Dave Smith dot com for our ticket links. Boston coming up. Come on out. We'll see. We'll see you out there in Boston. Thank you guys for listening. Catch you tomorrow. Peace.
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killing some people so we can all feel better or something like that with really no strategic point. Do you think about his bombing campaigns in Syria in his first term? But to attack Yemen and then to start using this provocative language toward Iran, making more threats toward them, it just seems like there is...
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No positive that comes out of it, again, other than maybe he gets to say, I'm the big tough guy who murdered some people. And the downside is just an endless pit of catastrophe that could ruin everything, every positive that he's already been able to implement. So I guess that's just like the first point I would make on this recent insane move to attack Yemen.
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It was mostly kind of like a three-on-one with Julie Rogowski, I think I'm saying her name right, being the one Democrat there. So I was on with Batya and Riley Gaines, who was the female, the swimmer, yes, who became famous for opposing trans women. uh men competing with women or i'm sorry trans women competing with what she's she opposed
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Sorry, I don't know if that was me or you, but you cut out there for a second. Could you just say that line again? We're out in the world is where I lost you.
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Yeah, well, I mean, the distinction seems to be like, well, do you have a military? All right, if you have a military, then it's not terrorism. Or, like, if you're an ally of America, then it's not terrorism, you know?
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Yeah, just to give, like, a little bit of, like, a quick background on this stuff, because it's a little interesting that, you know, as you know well, Rob, because you've been with me for years at this point, The Yemen was an issue that really our camp was amongst the only groups caring about or talking about this for many years. It was from the end of the Obama administration
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Through the entire Trump administration into the beginning of the Joe Biden administration. And in fact, when the Mises caucus took over the Libertarian Party, this was like the first big initiative that we launched was this like calling your congressman campaign to get an end to the war in Yemen.
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And it wasn't really until after October 7th – by the way, I shouldn't say it's not just the anti-war libertarians. There were like some small groups of good anti-war leftists or like the Code Pink and the Quakers for Peace and people like that who talked a lot about the just – humanitarian nightmare that was in Ukraine for many years.
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But anyway, it wasn't really until after October 7th when the Houthis started kind of fighting back and sticking up for the Palestinians that the world started talking a lot about the Houthis in Yemen and how horrible they are and, oh my God, they're attacking American cargo ships or whatever. But just so people know, This really goes back to the beginning of the Obama administration.
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And in 2009, when Obama first became president, he launched like a CIA drone war in Yemen. And it was pretty much – it was essentially I think one of the only – um, theaters in the war on terrorism, where the actual goal seemed to be a war on terrorism. You know, like at this point in Afghanistan, we were fighting against the Taliban and working on a regime change war there.
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We had already driven Al Qaeda out. Like we weren't like fighting Al Qaeda really much anymore in Afghanistan. And, um,
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while there may have been some al-qaeda guys in the insurgency in iraq we were really there you know fighting to prop up the shiite democracy that we had installed and you know in in libya well which i guess was came a year later or two years later um we were there to overthrow the qaddafi regime had absolutely nothing to do with the war on terrorism.
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And in fact, we were on the side of the bin Ladenites when we were doing that. In Syria, we were on the side of the bin Ladenites when we were trying to overthrow Bashar al-Assad. But in Yemen, at least in 2009, Really, I think up until around 2015, that was the mission. We were drone bombing AQIP in Syria.
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Now, throughout that time, and it's pretty well documented, AQIP being Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, they grew. And, you know, for the same typical reasons that this always happens, it's General McChrystal's insurgent math, right? This was his famous 10 minus 2 equals 20. You know, you have some targeted strike, which is we like to think of them as like these targeted strikes.
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What's up? What's up, everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I am Dave Smith. He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein. How are you, good sir?
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You know, when you're on the ground, these are strikes that end up killing. You know, I think there was at one point there had been a major study on Obama's drone war specifically where the number they came out with was 96 percent of the people killed in the strikes were innocent people.
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And when you say innocent people, meaning they weren't the target of the person who was on the list, sometimes also the person on the list was wrong because it's not like, oh, you've had a fair trial for all these people and you figured out who are the terrorists and who are not the terrorists.
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But even by their own list, just assuming everyone on the list is guilty, if you want to, something like 95, 96% of the people killed weren't that. And so every time you have one of these strikes, You know, you kill three little girls and then all of their brothers and uncles and fathers and all of these guys join up with Al Qaeda because now they are radicalized to want to fight against America.
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Human beings with penises competing with human beings with vaginas. I'm sorry. It's hard to remember all the terminology. But anyway, it was an interesting panel. We talked about a few of the things that we will probably get into on today's show. But yeah, that should be out. That should be out. So anyway, that's the reason we're starting a few minutes late.
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So it's a completely counterproductive and evil, fucked up, you know, drone bombing campaign for most of Obama's presidency. Just to keep in mind here, Yemen at that point already was the poorest country in the Middle East. They're just murdering innocent people in the poorest country in a poor area. It's just, you know, whatever.
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Not to offend my debate competitor, Josh Hammer, but you do tend to get caught up in the morality of that a little bit. Like, Jesus, just murdering poor people in the poorest country in the Middle East sounds pretty fucked up. But where it really got bad was after that. And essentially, like...
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The the Obama administration was propping up the dictator in Yemen at the time and using him for all types of like like secret torture and shit like that. And eventually then he even though he was a Shiite, he was at odds with the Houthis at one point.
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And then they later on, they ended up like joining up and kind of being on the same side when the Saudis and the Americans tried to get his second in command to take over for him. And the Houthis ended up gaining more and more strength. And they started taking over more and more territory in the area. And the Saudis did not like this at all. The Saudis are enemies with the Houthis.
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And the Saudis were really upset at America. And they were upset at America at this point. This is we're getting into like late 2014, early 2015. They were upset at the Americans because, number one, they were furious about the war in Iraq still. You know, if you remember, the Saudis were really our allies in the region who opposed the war in Iraq the whole time. But, you know.
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The neocons wanted it and Israel wanted it. And so they won out and they got this regime change. The Saudis were furious because, of course, the Saudis, who are Sunni sock puppet state in the region, their big enemy is Iran, the Shiites. And so they didn't care much for the idea that we would take out Saddam Hussein and then hand this majority Shiite country their influence over to Iran like this.
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This hurt them in the region. So they were very upset about it. And so they were up. So and again, you can Google these words and the several really good articles will come up if you just Google Obama placate the Saudis, because this is what Obama officials said was the reason that Barack Obama backed the Saudi invasion in 2015. Now, the
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Before we get into the show quickly, do want to remind you that we're coming up on, I think, what is it? Less than two weeks until we're out in Boston. Boston. Bast in Massachusetts. Very excited to get back out there to Laugh Boston. I just love doing comedy in the city of Boston. It's one of the best comedy towns out there.
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Just to be clear, if you Google that, the articles that are going to pop up, I'm not sending you to read Dave DeCamp over at antiwar.com or to read Scott Horton or to read Ron Paul. I'm saying there's articles from the Council on Foreign Relations, the New York Times, Reuters, the Associated Press. This placate the Saudis.
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This was the official justification for why Barack Obama launched what turned into a war of genocide. Because we had to placate the Saudis, like the worst violators of human rights in the region, which is really saying something. We had to placate them because like, sorry, we did that other war you didn't like. And then we made a nuclear inspections deal that you didn't like.
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So we'll help you launch a war against the poorest country in the Middle East for no reason. or no discernible reason that helps Americans. And just to be clear, I mean, what the Saudis did in Yemen was every bit as brutal, if not more, than what Israel's doing in Gaza right now. I mean, maybe there's a smarter person than me who's really done like some academic papers on this to sit down.
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things in in england came up and and it's one of those topics like i just don't know that much about it i've read a few articles about it but i don't like to like read three articles about something and then start speaking like i'm an authority on that topic that's my career but you know you're actually pretty good about it believe me there's a lot of people who are quite comfortable doing that um but i try to have you know if i'm
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If I'm like really passionately talking about something, it's something I've at least read a couple books about. I've at least spent like a few dozen hours thinking about this and, you know, whatever. I try to at least do that.
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And there's, particularly of the very viral stories at the moment, a lot of them seem to revolve around the topic of free speech and Europe more broadly. And you know, Rob, I've been on the record for many years now, unapologetically, that I do not care about Europe. I just don't really care that much. I mean, look, I care once it starts affecting America.
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but so i didn't really have two like you know i was talking about a couple of the other things i don't really have like a hot take on it but i remember tim poole said at one point i really actually quite liked this is that um so pierce morgan said something about you know how tommy robinson isn't a good guy he's a bad guy he's doing all these things and like all this stuff was reported in the british media and and tim poole just goes look pierce he goes you got to understand my starting point here is that i don't believe any of you
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And I understand that that's not like the most educated argument you could make. But I kind of get what Tim was saying. And I was like, yeah, that's actually not. And he's like, look, man, your government was covering up pedophile rings. And the one guy who was exposing it ends up being prosecuted on all these different charges. I don't buy it.
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I think you were just going at, you know, it's like there is a certain point where it is reasonable to just be like, you've lost all trust. You saying it means nothing to me. It just it doesn't. It's like, you know, if you're like.
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Like in in if you were in a relationship and like your boyfriend cheated on you like a hundred times and you caught him a hundred times and then you suspect him one more time and you're and he's like, no, I swear I'm not cheating. You're like, yeah, but that doesn't mean anything anymore.
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And so I will say that when people like this lady say like, oh, there's some far right wing political group in Germany, I just don't believe you. Like, I don't know. Maybe they are. Maybe they are a really extreme far right wing group. But I don't believe you that they are because you would consider literally if...
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You could have been the most hardcore lefty who just five years ago went like, oh, I don't really believe like little boys can become little girls. And you would have called them far right. You know what I mean? Like if you have one opinion that strays from the narrative, you call them far right. So this means nothing.
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And then my other thought is like, hey, so when JD Vance met with those far right wingers, did they agree with his message about free speech? Because if they did, then OK, great. then he's actually arguing for liberal values. I'm sorry. There is no way to get away from the fact that free speech is a liberal value. If it's not, then these words mean nothing.
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So what you're saying is that this guy who's the vice president of the United States of America, who is, you know, Trump's number two, somebody that say like your right wing parties might actually listen to is going out there and arguing that they should embrace free speech. How do you make that sound bad? I guess the only way is to say that free speech is what led to the Holocaust. What?
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Here, let's just play the end of this clip because it is actually Marco Rubio, who I'd never like to agree with, but it is pretty funny what his response was.
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So, I mean, look, Do you know how perfect you got to throw a lob in order to get Marco Rubio to dunk on you like that? Do you know how fucking Gary Payton perfect, John Stockton just perfect lob you got to throw in order to set him up? You could almost see the little glimmer in Marco Rubio's eyes where it's like at the end of White Men Can't Jump where he's like, oh, I could dunk that one.
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That's pretty easy. I don't see how I could. Am I being baited into a trap here? It's like, I'm going to take issue with your...
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claim that in excess of free speech is what led to the genocide of the jews of the second world war that is not that's not how i remember it that's not how i was taught all right guys let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show which is small batch cigar if you are a cigar lover or if anyone you know is a cigar lover you gotta check out small batch
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Look, I mean, like, Rob, you kind of gave away the answer at the beginning, as I'm sure, you know, most people listening know. But right there, it's just the game is that.
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You know, I certainly care a lot about the war there in Eastern Europe that's been going on for the last few years. But in general, like I'm not and this is kind of how I feel about it. Like, I think it almost is the correct default strategy. position like I don't I care.
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their the the establishment's rule relies on censoring speech and that's really as simple as it is and so they actually do it's it's you know every accusation is a confession type thing they're confessing here that actually yeah they do see this as a threat to the world the the global world order that the vice president would be going over and advocating for free speech in Europe.
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Let that sink in for a little bit. They actually see that as like an alarming, controversial view. You should go over and argue in Europe that they ought to allow their citizens to dissent from the government, which is, by the way, all that free speech is all about. is ever about, really, when you think about it.
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You know, it's all just about like, are you allowed to dissent from the people with the guns? Like, are you are you allowed? You know, there's this group of people that are at the center of society that call themselves the government. And essentially what a government is, is a group of people who have a monopoly on the aggressive use of violence. Right.
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This is like of all the different ways that people think of governments. And if I were to go into, say, democracy. If I were to go into like a high school or a college class or something like that, I would ask somebody for a definition of the government. Say, what is the government? You know, there'd be a lot of different answers that people would give me.
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None of them would be an accurate description. The only accurate description of a government is a group of people who maintain a monopoly on the initiation of violence or threats thereof. That really describes the government if you think about it, okay? Because you could say like, oh, the government are the ones who write the laws or something like that. But I could go, I don't know.
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I write the laws for my house. Am I the government of my house? And it's like, no, not really. Even though you can make the rules. You can make the rules. You could make the rules whatever you want to in your house if you own it. I could make the rules that you have to wear green pants and hop on one leg when you come in my house. But why am I not a government?
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And the reason is because all I can really do to enforce that is kick you out of my house. All I can do is take a legit, I can't like initiate violence against you. Otherwise, the government will come in and arrest me because I'm a criminal now. You're not allowed to do that. There's only one group of people who are allowed to do that, and that's the government. They have the military.
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They have the cops. They have more guns than everybody else. And so they decide what they're allowed to do and what you're allowed to do. Now, they can tax you and call it taxation. If anybody else were to do that, you'd be... you'd be guilty of extortion or robbery or whatever. They can start a war. Nobody else can do that. They can throw you in prison. Nobody else can do that.
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Obviously, if there's like horrific things going on, if there's horrible human rights, human rights abuses, we'd all rather that not happen. I hope everybody's free and prosperous. And I root for everyone. You know, I mean, I hope I hope the North Koreans are free. Their prospects for that don't look so great at the moment. But like, I hope they're free.
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They have a monopoly in the truest sense of the term. They are the only ones who are allowed to initiate violence without consequences.
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at least in theoretically like you could get away with killing somebody but you're at least risking that you would go to jail for it whereas the government isn't even risking that and so this whole free speech conversation really what it's about is about whether you're free to dissent from the government or not other than that like even even in the height of say like tech censorship right which what would you say 2020 was probably the worst year of tech censorship
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There were people arguing for like flat earthers and stuff on there. There were people doing all that. You know what I'm saying? Like you could, you could have conspiracy theories. You could be wrong about stuff. You could always criticize people who it's popular to criticize, but you couldn't really criticize the lockdowns or the COVID facts. Like you can't, you can't criticize them.
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And so this is what it always comes down to. It's the, the question is why, Should Europeans be allowed to criticize their governments? And JD Vance is taking the radical and dangerous position that they ought to be allowed to. That's really what it all comes down to.
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cartoonishly stupid. But one of them is that, like, no, no, no, this isn't the appropriate... way to do this and that we already have things in position for that.
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I root for prosperity and freedom across the board. But I really care much more when it actually affects America or when America is involved or, as is the case far too often, America is doing the killing or backing the killers or whatever. But it is... Perhaps the case that, you know, one ought to care a little bit. It's not a good state of affairs if Europe is falling.
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It's also like, look, I mean, this is... Look, this is kind of harsh to say... Um, and just to be clear, because I, obviously I've talked about this for years and years now, but Ukraine really is a victim in all of this. And like that, that's certainly like, that's something that should be appreciated.
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Like, and, and basically all the people in our camp who have been arguing against this war from the very beginning, I've all been saying that the whole time it was John Mearsheimer's quote in, I But it was where he said the U.S. is leading Ukraine down the primrose path, which evidently I did not know at the time when I heard it.
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I remember hearing the speech and being like, oh, that's a that's a real beautiful way to say that. And like I like it kind of made sense, even. But anyway, it comes from Shakespeare. And the idea is like that you're leading someone down a beautiful path that ultimately leads to their demise. So like we're saying all this nice stuff to them.
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oh you're going to be in nato we're going to do joint nato military training with the ukrainian military we're going to give you weapons we're going to give you aid you stand up to russia and don't worry you're going to be a part of the western world but really what we were encouraging them to do was pick a fight with russia that we were not truly going to have their back in and so you know what i mean it's like it so in a lot of ways and then of course um it does at least seem i mean look i'm not pretending i can get inside zielinski's head but it does at least seem like
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Zelensky was interested in that initial peace agreement after Vladimir Putin had invaded and that it was Boris Johnson as an agent of the West, you know, who who basically forced his hand out of it and made him. And so Ukraine kind of is a victim in all of this. But at the same time. The reality is that Ukraine doesn't really have a seat at the table here. I know people don't like to hear that.
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They like to go, why doesn't Ukraine get to decide about Ukraine's future? It's like, because the world doesn't work that way. And what's going on in Ukraine is not a war between Ukraine and Russia. What's going on in Ukraine is a proxy war between the United States of America and Russia. And the last administration at that. Yes. And right. And not even the current administration.
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So sorry to negotiate here actually really just requires the U S and Russia. Look, The the the whole Burisma scandal that that that Joe Biden found himself in because the Burisma was, if you guys remember, the Ukrainian natural gas company that was put Hunter Biden on the board was paying him like one hundred fifty grand a month to be on a board of a Ukrainian energy company.
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He has no experience in the energy sector and doesn't speak Ukrainian. But they needed his valuable insight on this poor. So, OK, so obviously what happened was they were a company. They were very in bed with the Yanukovych government. Barack Obama and Joe Biden was vice president and kind of in charge of Ukraine policy. They the Obama government backed Yanukovych.
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the coup against Yanukovych and overthrew him, okay? So then this government, this company, Burisma, is freaked out because they were in bed with a government who was just overthrown, okay? And so they wanted to ingratiate themselves to the new government. And so what did they do? Instead of bribing one of the, you know, officials in the Poroshenko government, they just went right to the source.
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We'll just we'll we'll pay off the vice president of the United States of America's kid. So essentially, my point is that was even a recognition then of who was really in charge. Forget the Poroshenko government. Go go bribe off a Biden. That's what will really get you security. OK, so like they knew what they needed to do to really get security. And no, the truth is that there's.
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But between the there's first, I guess we could start with J.D. Vance's speech that he gave in Germany. And then there was the 60 Minutes piece that's been going super viral. We're going to play a clip from that in a second.
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The Ukrainians don't really need to be involved in these negotiations.
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Well, it's kind of like – It'd be like if... Let's just say, like, you're out with a girl, Rob. And she said, you're out at a bar with a girl. And she goes, you know, this guy is like being a creep. He said something creepy to me. And then she goes to him. She goes, well, this guy Rob I'm with is going to kick your ass or something. And then you start talking to him and you guys are talking shit.
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And then it's like, hey, guys, we don't want to have a bar fight here. So, Rob, why don't you and this guy just talk this out? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
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ukraine and all of them are kind of there there's some overlap between all of them but let's just start um with jd vance's speech uh because i did find it to be a truly remarkable uh political speech that seemed almost it seemed more like the type of thing you might hear on like a podcast that we do rob or somewhere in our world and it seemed it
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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
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the thing to me that was really striking was that the guy who's a heartbeat away from the presidency and probably right now the favorite to be the republican nominee in in 28 i mean i'd assume it would have to be jd bounce i'm not sure i'm sure there are betting markets on on that type of stuff but i'd imagine he's the overwhelming favorite right now it was just kind of interesting to hear him say uh some of the things he said so did you did you watch the speech rob this i saw that it made the headlines and i did not watch this speech
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Well, one of the things to me that I thought was very interesting is that he he's giving the speech. He gave it in kind of a friendly like he presented it as like he said us us a lot when he was talking about Europe, like he presented as like, look, this is like. Friendly advice. But one of the major points, I think, in fact, the major theme of the speech was... Was it take it, bitch?
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yeah it's like i don't know it didn't really land but at the same time you're like i could see what they were going for was to be funny kind of there look i guess like what people i think the thing that people are objecting to But I don't think it's anything like, look, I really just don't, despite the arguments about the woke right stuff over the last couple months, which has been fairly silly.
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I really just don't have a woke bone in my body. Like, I just don't. You're like, they're trying to be funny from their own lens or whatever, you know? Now, I understand you could say that, like, look, they'll never take the gloves off with, like, a Kamala supporter or something like that. Or they'll never be like, hey, let's do a caricature of, like, you know, a hood black guy.
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The thing about it is, right, is that it's in a way, you know, they're in a they're in a
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in a pickle i mean the people at you know the people at saturday night live and hollywood and and you know obviously the people in the corporate media but like the the late night hosts and saturday night live and people in hollywood you know they went all in on this kind of like demonization of donald trump and of trump supporters and the the problem of course was that this blinded them to everything else
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And particularly blinded them to why people supported Donald Trump, because they didn't just see Donald Trump. They saw the other actors in the room, too. But when you hate Donald Trump with such a singular focus, you blind yourself to all this other stuff. And then, of course, that's what led them to support Joe Biden.
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Well, I think it was essentially that Europe has lost its way and that we hear at these elite gatherings, we hear so much about national defense and national security risks. And meanwhile, the greatest risk to Europe is really coming from inside the house. And it is that Europe has rejected...
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And that's what led them to pretend Joe Biden wasn't senile for all these years. But after four years of Joe Biden, they wake up in this new world where like for the first time, you know, we watched on CNN as they explain those numbers to us. Remember, they kept underlining them so that we could see the difference between the numbers.
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But like really, aside from a few days in his first term, but for the first time, Donald Trump is popular. Donald Trump has a net positive approval rating. And so most Americans, or at least most voting Americans, support Donald Trump.
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So it's just, you know, what they're struggling with is like, well, while you're trying to caricature the Trump supporter, the Trump supporter in reality is most of us. That's just the new political reality that we're in. And so now if they're if their game is going to be demonizing most Americans, you don't need to be the woke outrage police. The market's going to take care of this on its own.
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And of course it has been, you know, it has been, it's like all of these people have been losing viewers for years now. And so, you know, in a way to me, you know, I saw a little bit, I didn't watch the whole thing, but I saw a little bit of the event and it was kind of sad to me because I grew up such a huge Saturday Night Live fan.
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Yeah, it's to me, it's just kind of like, look, The last 10 years really have the mainstream, which is no longer the mainstream, has just been so broken that it's like not capable of producing anything.
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greatness anymore it's kind of unfortunate but that's just kind of where we are like it's just these guys are just not they're so just not tuned in to the new moment I mean talk about by the way an example of this right is I know we played it on the clip and we ruthlessly mocked him, but he deserves it.
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But when Chris Cuomo said that now that the podcast space has become the place, you're going to see all the A-list talent going there. And it won't be me and Joe Rogan anymore because it'll be Louis C.K. and Stephen A. Smith are going to come in and take over the podcasting world. And it's just like...
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man talk about not having your finger on the pulse you know like just by the way you know louis ck is one of the greatest comedians ever i am not at all arguing his talent but the idea that he's gonna go replace rogan as like the podcast guy like you just don't know i don't know it's it's
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so many of the principles that made western civilization great and again this is just like something to me it's like that you know i'm it's like when i was getting in an argument with that um that kara swisher lady on uh on on Piers Morgan the other day, and she was talking about how like the government needs to regulate social media because Iran and China wanna spread misinformation.
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No, that's exactly right. And then just to take it a step further, like when you're talking about in this kind of, you know, space of political commentary or whatever, it's like, oh no, there's like, there's a huge current thing going on that Joe Rogan taps into. And to think that you could just take anybody and put them in that role of that, they'll tap into that too.
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Again, it is, it's the old school mentality of like, oh, well, if the CNN 8 p.m. hour leaves, you plug someone else in there and then they get that audience. But it's like, that's not how this new game works, dude. It's just a different thing.
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Hell yeah. Well, there's something to be excited about. And, of course, we are only a few days away from Houston, Texas, which is going to be a lot of fun. Looking forward to going down there. I believe the tickets are moving fast, but there still are some available. So if you'd like to come hang with me and Rob in Houston, go to ComicDaveSmith.com. You can get the ticket link there.
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And that was one of the things to me that was just very, it was very apparent watching the Saturday Night Live thing, just for the little bit that I did, that it's like, oh, you guys just aren't, you're not tapped into what's going on now. You just don't get, and it's a shame in a way because there would be a lot of really funny shit you could do with it.
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Um, but you just not, you're not able to, cause you don't even get it. You don't even really understand, like in the same way that like during, during the cultural revolution of the sixties, there was just no way that like your grandma was going to produce great comedy about it.
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she didn't really get it she doesn't even really know what in her mind what she's thinking of that is a weird caricature of what's actually going on whereas like somebody in you know like george carlin might be able to make it really hilarious because he got it he was of it you know and like that that's the thing is that these guys particularly in the podcast scene they are of this new world like they they know it because they are it and these other guys are dinosaurs they just don't understand what they're even commenting on
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um it's like like listening to uh what was elon's uh guy's uh troll name or whatever big balls giant balls little balls tiny nuts it's it's listening to cnn talk about big balls and it's like oh you don't even understand the you don't even understand the kind of troll culture the like you just don't even get what it is you couldn't possibly analyze it there's just so many
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Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
And then, you know, I was making kind of fairly obvious counterpoint to that, which is that like, Yeah, but look, our own government has spread so much misinformation and much more devastating misinformation. You can't give me examples of Iranian disinformation or Chinese disinformation that has had the horrific, catastrophic results that disinformation from our own government has had.
Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
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Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
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Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
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Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
This is an amazing company run by amazing people. You can click the link in the episode description or go to their site, monetary-metals.com. That's monetary-metals.com. All right, let's get back into the show. Yeah, that's right here. Before we before we wrap up, I also did want to play this just because I thought this really was was great. But it's on kind of the similar topic.
Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
But here was Ben Stiller being interviewed by another guy who I was arguing on Pierce Morgan with. I can't remember his name, but another guy who I just talk about didn't get it. But here is Ben Stiller and having a conversation about, you know, how he feels about going forward in Trump's second term.
Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
It is... I don't know. It's hard to even come up with the words for just how... Like it's flabbergasting, I guess, to hear like rich Hollywood A-listers talk about the fear that they have to live with now that there might actually be retribution from the government for what they say.
Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
you know it's like it's to be in a position as as me and you have both been for years and again elon musk just bought twitter not that long ago the kind of like this pendulum swing is very very new but we were for years in a situation where like we're guys who are like hustling to to keep this show going and keep our careers going, and you're under real threat of being shut down.
Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
There was a time there where people were being just plucked and removed from the conversation, shut down with all of the big companies colluding. shutting people like Alex Jones say, shutting him down off everything.
Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
And like, it is a real, you know, like, when in this game, when there was the real threat of like, you could lose access to iTunes, YouTube, you know, Spotify, Twitter, Facebook, everything, and just be unpersoned, essentially. And Nobody stood up for, like, the guy who's making a salary. You know what I mean? Doing this, losing everything.
Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
So why would we put them in charge of it? And then she basically just called me naive and said, you have no idea what Iran and China want to do to us. And it's like, anyway, I just, one of the things, it's such an interesting, like obvious point is that look,
Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
But now I'm supposed to feel for the real victims, which are what? Hollywood actors worth hundreds of millions of dollars who, in some theory, think that there could be retribution from the government. This is a very bizarre, like... It's a very bizarre thing.
Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
It's like if you like if some country got liberated, you know, like if, you know, whatever the the commies after the collapse of the Soviet Union or something, we're like, you know, you just like now we're worried that they might crack down on us. And hey, you know, citizens of Russia, you have no idea what that's like to be worried about a government that might crack down on you. Like what? What?
Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
How did those words come out of your mouth? You guys were the ones cracking down. And like, I don't know, maybe it's maybe it's me, but it's like, yeah, Ben Stiller, if you do, if you have fear about this, like sit with that for a little bit and maybe think about it. Think about actual fear, you know, like. I don't know. Any thoughts on that, Rob?
Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
Here, let's just play the rest of this clip and then we'll wrap up.
Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
It's true in the United States of America, and obviously it's true in Europe as well, that with the exception of like maybe I'd say with the exception of, say, like some Eastern European states who might be concerned about Russia. OK, like there's a legit concern of the outsider there. But in general, it's like anything aside from Russia.
Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
You can pause it there, and I'm done with this clip. But, you know, the truth is that it's just so funny to watch this question get asked. Leaving aside what Ben Stiller says about the country is divided, that's what it's about this time. It's like, no, the country's been divided this whole time. In fact, I think the country is less divided than it's been over the last 10 years.
Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
That's at least what the numbers seem to indicate. But the question is, like, well, why didn't we see the great art The first time Donald Trump was in like we didn't see like, you know, during the civil rights movement or the Vietnam War or something like that. It's kind of known for like the great music and comedy and movies and all of these things that came out of that time.
Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
But why didn't we see that in the first Trump administration? And the answer is obviously twofold. Number one. Because this was not a crisis like that at all. And I know you want it to be. I know that your entire identity is that this was like the civil rights movement all over again, but it wasn't. It wasn't like the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement. It was nothing like that.
Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
It was like a guy who you didn't like the way he tweeted won the White House. That was what the first four years were. And then number two, as Rob kind of indicated before, it's because your side put an ungodly amount of arbitrary restraints in so that you couldn't make art. You couldn't make great art anymore because everything was a landmine that you weren't allowed to step on. So there it is.
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This isn't a great mystery. There's your answer. All right, look, we got to wrap up on that one. Thank you guys for tuning in. Catch you next time. Peace.
Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
non-nato eastern european countries for the rest of them it's like well vladimir putin couldn't even take kiev So what threat is he to take any of the rest of Europe? And if that's the case, you know, look, like as the example in the United States of America, we've had lots of enemies, some pretty serious enemies.
Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
And if you want to go back before our lifetime, you know, but from the very beginning of America, who are the great enemies of America? Well, there was the British Empire. There's, I guess... I mean, even to any of the monarchs in Europe in the First World War even really count as great enemy. Like to the Barbary pirates count as great enemies. And it's kind of like you had the British Empire.
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You had the Nazis, the Imperial Japanese, Native Americans.
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They didn't put up too much of a fight. I guess they put up a little bit of a fight. Fine. But even the Native Americans, if you want to count them, the Soviet Union, Al Qaeda, ISIS, right? There's been some serious enemies and some of them are pretty goddamn evil and some more powerful than others. But Were any of them a threat to destroy the United States of America? I really don't think so.
Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
None of them even came close. However, is the $36 trillion of debt, is that a threat to destroy America? Yeah, it is. Is the permanent warfare state a threat to destroy America? Yeah, it sure is. So I think it's just kind of almost obvious when you look at it on its face that like, look, I mean...
Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
I'm sure that if Osama bin Laden or Adolf Hitler or Stalin could have, they would have shut down the U.S. economy. I'm sure they would have if they could have. But none of them could. But you know who could shut down the U.S. economy? Our own politicians.
Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
you know and so now anyway uh uh jd vance was talking about europe not america but i think a lot of the stuff still applies but anyway it's just very interesting to um to hear him talk about this stuff and then one of the the things that seemed to get like the people uh got like such a hysterical reaction was um him talking about how many european states have kind of abandoned the concept of free speech and that people ought to be allowed to say what they want to say and this
Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
We'll be at the Punchline. I believe this is our first time doing the Punchline. We've done Houston before, and it's a great, great comedy town. But anyway, then right after that, we will be in Buffalo, New York. Going forward, maybe we're going to try to book that one in the summer. But we're going to Buffalo in the middle of winter to do Helium Comedy Club, which I have heard.
Part Of The Problem
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has been really something to behold. I don't know. Any thoughts on any of this, Rob?
Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
It really, it's, it's also just so it, One of the things that's been so bizarre over the last decade, and of course, obviously, things have changed quite a bit. There's been like a major pendulum swing or something since this last year. And of course, Trump winning the presidency again. But it is just so bizarre.
Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
I know this is kind of like a basic thing to say, not like this isn't my unique hot take or anything, but the idea of being... for free speech as as even the idea that that's even something that isn't just like a starting place for all of us You know what I mean? It's like so strange.
Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
what's up what's up everybody welcome to a brand new episode of part of the problem i am dave smith he is robbie the fire bernstein how you living brother i am doing well my friend how was your weekend uh it was good it was good weekend weekend with the family uh it's very nice went down to my in-law's house and uh hung out with the kids a bunch how about you what'd you do uh not a whole lot filmed some stuff yesterday check out run your mouth on wednesday new sketches coming out this week
Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
While the kind of progressive establishment has been hysterical about the threats to democracy, whatever exactly that means, they've also decided that free speech is a right wing value. It's just all so utterly bizarre.
Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
well this one clip uh has been going super viral i actually i will say that there aren't you know i um For a living, you know, like we tear apart the corporate media constantly. And I'm you know, I've I've come to be known and at least probably one of, if not the most like signature things in my career is the debate with Chris Cuomo. I've I've gone viral.
Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
more times than I could count that me and you have just torn apart some piece by the corporate media. And in general, I kind of know their game and nothing they say really shocks me anymore. This one actually got me. I mean, like, this one, I don't even want to like poison the well here. Let's play the clip and then we can respond to it.
Part Of The Problem
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This was on Face the Nation this past Sunday, I should say yesterday, with Marco Rubio, the current Secretary of State. Hey, Lucy! Yeah, we're not the biggest Rubio fans here, but he's you know, but there is something I love. Lucy really did warm you up to a nice looking Cuban. But this was I mean, to the point that I was like trying to figure out what the hell she really meant.
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Like, I couldn't even believe these words came out of her mouth. But again, this is the woman I'm blaming on her name right now. But this is a woman who moderated, I believe, the vice presidential debates.
Part Of The Problem
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I love Helium in Philly, but I've never done the one in Buffalo before. I've heard it's a great, great club. So very much looking forward to that. So Houston and Buffalo are the next two coming up. ComicDaveSmith.com for those ticket links. All right. Well, there's been a lot going on. in the world.
Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
Well, but but her claim that I mean, this is truly like I when I first heard this, I was almost like I re-listened to it. And I was like, wait, what was she trying to say there? Because like, I don't want to jump on someone if they just like misspoke or something like that happens to all of us. You know what I mean? Like you just oh, no. Yeah, I said that. But I didn't mean that. I meant this.
Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
But she goes. But as I listened to it the second time, you go, no, there's really no mistaking it. Her complaint is that J.D. Vance went to Germany and talked about how Europe is abandoning free speech. And so it makes no sense that she'd be saying anything else.
Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
She's saying it's offensive to go to Germany, of all places, and argue for free speech when free speech being weaponized is what led to the genocide of the Jews. Who, like the funny thing about this is that it's not even just like, who even learned it that way in government school? Like what historical revisionism school of thought is this? That it was excessive free speech in Nazi Germany?
Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
That's what happened? That's your understanding of the story? It's like Adolf Hitler got in there and then he just started letting everybody say what they wanted to say. And obviously, yada, yada, yada, 6 million dead Jews. That's how it went down. Like, what? What are you talking about? Like, the Nazis pretty famously cracked down on speech.
Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
If you wanted to look throughout, say, the 20th century at a regime that cracked down on free speech the most, they'd be up there in the running for it. I'm not saying they lead the way. There's definitely some competition.
Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
Free speech. But you're totally right. I mean, it's like she's starting backward from the, like, how can I say this makes you a Nazi? And then it's like, okay, well, it was in Germany, and you're arguing for free speech, and free speech is what led to the Nazis, and then he met with a far right-wing group.
Part Of The Problem
The Dangers of Free Speech
Like, okay, so even this far right-wing group, which, again, I don't know enough about the internal politics of European nations, but, like, I think we are past... You know, I was on... I was on Piers Morgan's show like maybe a month or so ago, and I was on with Tim Pool and the topic of Tommy Robinson and the the Muslim like gang rape.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
You know, you're exactly right, dude. And I think really the key is that you have to recognize that it's not... The way the issue is put out is like, well, what can the Democrats do to get the voters back on their side? Or what can they do to get the working class back on their side or minorities back on their side or something like that? But you realize if that was just the case.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
then the Democrats would have been operating in a different manner for many years now. Like if the idea was getting enthusiasm and fundraising and votes and getting back, well, then they would have been embracing Bernie Sanders back in 2016. If the goal was to stay relevant and dynamic and win voters in this ever-changing culture, well, they had figures like Bobby Kennedy Jr.
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How Can the Dems Come Back?
or Tulsi Gabbard or people like this. They ran all of them out, with the exception of Bernie Sanders. They attempted to run Bernie Sanders out. They just didn't realize that Bernie Sanders is such a pathetic, loyal dog that he was like, I'll just wait. That's cool. I'll just wait here in the yard and wait till you give me some scraps. I don't care.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
But the real key there is like what you said about the deep state. The goal isn't How do we get everybody back? How do we become popular again? That's actually fairly straightforward. The goal is how do we maintain CIA control over this party and get the agenda of the CIA while winning people back?
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
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How Can the Dems Come Back?
It's always sold as like, but don't you just want to be a decent person? You know? I mean, come on. Like that's the be, be good. I mean, I was, um, I don't know, by the way, I don't know if you've seen this, Rob, and I haven't been like I am. I don't pay very close attention to like local politics in general, even when I'm talking about like New York City.
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How Can the Dems Come Back?
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Their experts will walk you through a few simple questions to see how much you can save. Act now before the IRS takes more aggressive steps. Take control today. Visit TNUSA.com slash Smith or call them at 1-800-958-1000. All right, let's get back into the show. And look, I'm not, I mean, that might sound a little kooky. or whatever. But like, did you see Rob, by the way, I don't know.
Part Of The Problem
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We didn't talk about this on the show at all. Did you see who the Democrats have give their official response to the state of the union speech?
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
No, Bernie Sanders gave one, but that wasn't their official one. No, Bernie Sanders just basically – Bernie Sanders did it just like in the same way me or you could do it. Like he just made one and put it up, and yes, that was – it's so funny because, yes, you think of that as the response because, yeah, like that's actually to some degree what would represent Democratic voters.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
oh damn i'm blanking on her name but she was a cia officer she was literally a cia employee i mean you know rob she's a former cia employee which is you know doesn't really exist by the way if anyone that this is what a lot of cia insiders have said too it's there's no such thing as former cia agent um no but she uh she goes and gives the uh the speech i'm trying to hold on um
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
Yeah, it's the official Democratic response. She's from Michigan.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
Thank you. So she's a senator in Michigan. Now she did. You could say she did. She won her Senate seat, I think, by a very thin margin. But it was in a state that Trump won. So I guess that, you know, that that at least says, like, well, she must. Typically, I'm not saying this.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
I'm not sure that I'm not sure. I don't think I saw that. But typically the the kind of the the traditional wisdom would be that if you on a presidential election day where one candidate wins, if you're from the other party and you won, that would indicate that you must have carried some of their votes. because that's who came to show up.
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How Can the Dems Come Back?
So like if Donald Trump wins, you know, 52% of the vote or whatever, well, that means 52% of the people coming out there voted for Donald Trump. If you won, you must have at least won some of his votes. That's not technically necessarily true because people could not vote for president and just vote for their Senator, but it's generally probably true.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
But the woman literally worked for the CIA and she comes out and it gave like a Cold War speech. Literally in the speech, she goes, Donald Trump is cozying up to Vladimir Putin. Ronald Reagan was president when we won the Cold War. If Donald Trump was president back then, we probably would have lost the Cold War. So like that is the CIA's conception of how to win back Democratic voters is to go.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
But I have kind of been paying attention a little bit to the New York City mayor race just because Cuomo announced that he was running again and that, you know. obviously for obvious reasons, right?
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
We're Reaganites now. It's just as if that's like that's where the Democrats, the voters are at. But so that's just to your point. This is literally what they're attempting to do. Well, let's put our CIA woman out there. Maybe she'll want him back over. And it shows you that it's not, again, in the same sense that it's not like, hey, how could MSNBC get higher ratings?
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How Can the Dems Come Back?
How could CNN get higher ratings? Well, we all know lots of things they could do to get higher ratings. That's not really their issue. Their issue is how do we keep pushing this agenda and get higher ratings? Now, that's much trickier because the agenda has been rejected. But like we've said before, there's a million ways that you could figure out
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
how to get the number one show in cable news if you were unencumbered by what topics you're allowed to talk about. I mean, come on. Here, I got a new show for you, MSNBC. It's called The Epstein Files. And every single day, this show is dedicated to one news story and one news story only. And that is getting to the bottom of the Epstein story.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
We are going to, hey, there was a pedophile ring that was, you know, with American girls being molested and systematically abused. And this involves so many of the most powerful people in our media, in our culture. She had shady. This guy, Epstein, had ties to some country in the Middle East. As Dan Bongino would say, we have no idea which one. But so, OK, do that.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
We're going to interview victims. We're going to interview. We're going to get all the people who were around him and grill. Then we're going to put all the best reporting together. And every night we're going to give you more information about the Jeffrey Epstein case. You tell me there's a chance that wouldn't be the number one rated show at MSNBC.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
I mean, like the video clips would be getting fucking 20 million hits online every single day. Everyone would be driven to. OK, they could do that. But why can't they do that? Because they're not just in it for the ratings that would defeat their entire purpose. They're there to prop up the regime and, you know, through like the deep state or what, you know, like that's what they're there to do.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
Like he was such a major figure in the whole COVID insanity, but there's like of the I'm blanking on his name, but of the like progressive candidates, the guy who's leading is like a democratic socialist. And I was, I saw he had like an ad for his, his candidacy for mayor. And it's all just like, yeah, It's all, you know, it's like, hey, you know, you guys think it's expensive here, right?
Part Of The Problem
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So they can't correct. So anyway, what's really interesting about the Democratic situation is that like there will be occasionally you will see some some people like real left wingers who will kind of point stuff like this out. They'd be like, I mean, we could be opposed to the military industrial complex.
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That's very popular, you know, and they're like, yeah, but the whole point is we're trying to figure out how we can support the military industrial complex. So that one doesn't exactly work. Yeah. Anyway, in this absurd vacuum, some of the more colorful figures in the Democratic Party have have been out there kind of giving a lesson on, in my opinion, what not to do.
Part Of The Problem
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But we've got a few of those today. Let's start with let's do the Elon Omar one first. Rob, I think you haven't seen this yet, but I did find this to be just pretty, pretty damn entertaining.
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Is there something, Rob, that's it, we're done with the video, but isn't there something amazing? I know I like to point this out all the time because I do think it's like a subtle thing that sometimes people don't even notice. But it's now again, of course, most people do or they at least like know it on some level. But when I say they don't notice, they may not notice the tactic.
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They notice overall that CNN is completely like corrupt and on one side of the issue. But like, you know how we we've talked about this a lot before. Whenever they're like if they're interviewing Donald Trump, they'll or J.D. Vance or someone like that. They'll do this thing where like you say something. I ask you your opinion. You give you give the answer to the question.
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And then before I start the next question, I just go. We already know that that's not true. Moving on. Do you know what I mean? Like they don't even give you a chance to get back. They're just like, I'll be. But then what does Wolf Blitzer do when she's got he's got Ilan Omar here? She just says her piece. And then he's supposed to be playing neutral journalist.
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But then he just turns over and goes and she was elected by her constituents. As if that ever needs to be pointed out about a Congress person. Yes, that is. Isn't that the default assumption of anybody who's in the member is a member of Congress that they won an election to get there? But yet he just turns over to go. She got and she got votes.
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saying that like what anyway that's just interesting but so here's a strategy that maybe the democrats could pursue how about this anybody who's who uh objects to her in her words giving resources to illegal immigrants so that they can evade ice must be a racist There's one strategy. It's like, what?
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
By the way, as I've gone through the polls, you know, before, it's not it is it was a 50 50 issue amongst Democratic voters, whether they support mass deportations, super majorities of the American people support it. So she's talking about 50 percent of Democratic voters, like 50 percent of the people of the minority of the American voters who even still voted Kamala Harris.
Part Of The Problem
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Why don't we just make it free? Why don't we say, hey, you know, we got all these slow buses. I say we make them faster and free.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
50% of them, I guess, are xenophobic racists, according to Ilhan Omar. So, like, just saying, of all the strategies, this one doesn't seem to be the best. But maybe I'm missing something, Rob. What do you think? Maybe I'm just racist.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
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daycare that's one of the biggest costs you know what no cost for daycare you're like oh all right like it really is like it's wild to watch it where you're like what a what a huge advantage it is just in terms of like selling to normies your policies when you get to just i mean look i'm not saying like he he act but it's like when you just he just says it'll be no cost The buses will be free.
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That will get you 10% off, plus you get those 5% reward points that I mentioned before. SmallBatchCigar.com, promo code PROBLEM for 10% off. All right, let's get back into the show. Well, isn't it isn't it wild, too, that it's like if you're if you are making this argument and like, you know, I'm doing a debate on immigration at the Soho Forum, as I mentioned, coming up soon.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
And maybe some of this stuff will come up there. But it does seem to me that unless you're arguing for open borders, like unless you're taking a pure like a pure position. There should be absolutely zero restrictions on anyone in the world if they want to come here. If you're not, which is, look, there are some people who take that position. I, you know, vehemently disagree with it.
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How Can the Dems Come Back?
It is wildly unpopular. I don't know. You know, again, like I haven't seen, I've tried to find numbers on like what percentage of the American people support open borders. And the truth is that it is so unpopular that no one even ever asks the question. And I look at all these immigration polls and it's very hard. I found one ever that I think it got like 4%. And this was from many years ago.
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How Can the Dems Come Back?
The truth, they never even asked that question. They asked like, would you like higher levels of immigration or lower levels of immigration? Do you support mass deportations or only deportations of violent criminals? Do you like, these are the questions asked because I, I,
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
At this point, when super majorities, you know, support mass deportations, I really doubt you could get 2% of people to say that they support zero restrictions. But if you want to make that argument, whether people support it or not, you could make the argument. Again, I don't agree with that, but you could make the argument. But short of that,
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
short of arguing that there should be zero restrictions. I don't see how you get to go on your moral high horse here of like, you're a racist, xenophobic, if you think that people who came here illegally should be forced to leave. It's like, well, then that's the whole thing.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
It's like, if you believe in any immigration restrictions, well, then obviously at some point you got to restrict people, right? Even if you were to say, that Americans, we take in more immigrants than anywhere in the world, both legally and illegally, but I think we should take in a lot more.
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How Can the Dems Come Back?
You know, like whatever the exact numbers were under Joe Biden, we're taking in like a million legal immigrants a year. And then they were having hundreds of thousands, you know, to millions pour in every month. We don't exactly know the numbers. But let's just say you were like, I think the number should be way higher. I think we should take in 10 million immigrants legally every year.
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How Can the Dems Come Back?
It's like, OK, well, then those 10 million come. And what happens when more come on top of that? I mean, unless you're just for open borders, you'd have to believe in restrictions at some point. OK, then they have to be restricted. And then but then to turn around and say that makes you racist or xenophobic or something. It's like, is your argument. Thank you. Thank you.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
Childcare will be no cost. And if that's the world you're playing in, like if the world, the game we're playing is that I get to pretend that I just have like a magic wand that can like poof, make things free. And then you're just like, why wouldn't we do it? Oh, you're saying we shouldn't do it?
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How Can the Dems Come Back?
It almost like without saying this extra step, it's just kind of implied, but it's almost like going like, hey, Rob, you have a magic wand and you won't even waive it to make everything free. On some level, it just plays on like, I'm a nice guy. And you're like a bad, mean person who just doesn't care. Of course, that's, you know, I don't know.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
I guess it's a little frustrating because you're like, wouldn't wouldn't almost every person like immediately go to the question of like, wait a minute, but we can we can do that. That's an option. We can just make things not cost anything.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
Thank you. Once it happens, it's like, OK, the demographic makeup of our nation has been changed by the last administration, and we cannot change that. We have to accept that going forward. And that's going to be a tough sell. That's going to be a very tough thing to convince anyone of because it'd just be like, well, no, we don't. I mean, we have the legal tools to deal with this.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
is that guy still around is he in the race I mean he he made it bring down a shockingly long amount of time and then like people would it very weird with that guy I don't know much about him but he did it almost everyone knows who that guy is I feel like And like people like quote the line, like when you said it, it didn't take me a second to be like, wait, who are you talking?
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How Can the Dems Come Back?
So why is it that you're just asserting it's incumbent amongst us to just accept that now? I don't that that just doesn't make sense to me in the same way that it never made sense to me that if there is a giant caravan of people coming from South America that are just uninvited people that are not coming in through the legal process of our immigration system, but they're just coming here.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
Why is it that America has to accept them? That just doesn't make sense to me. It's like it's not it's like what under what obligation is the principle that America belongs to everybody in the world equally? Because if that's your principle and yet only American citizens can vote in elections for the most part.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
It seems that you're going to lose elections to anybody who says, I think America belongs to the American people, not the world equally, which is, by the way. essentially the core of Trump's message since 2016. That's the reason why he's been president twice. He's won two out of three elections, three out of three if you ask Trump. I'm not sure I'm with him on that.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
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I mean, in any other context, if you were talking about like the guy who perennial perennially came in seventh place in a mayor race, I would have no idea who you're talking about with that guy. You're like, oh, right. It's too damn high.
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Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
All right, Rob. Well, I started the show saying that Democrats are searching for their way to get out of this hole. And I think they found it. So there we go. That's good. That's going to turn people around, right?
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How Can the Dems Come Back?
Branding for the win. What can I say? Jimmy, what is it?
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
Yeah, it's also like, isn't it funny? Because look, 2016 is a bigger nerd than us. You really should have waited like at least 30 seconds. So it seems like you Googled that. There's there's something funny because like, OK, it's eight years, a little over eight years since Donald Trump won the his first presidential election in 2016.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
And OK, eight years, especially in our current political environment, is a fairly long period of time, you know, in the 24 hour news cycle or whatever. And a lot of stuff's happened since then. But it's kind of wild when you zoom out that so much of the criticism of Donald Trump when he first came on the scene was that he lacks decorum. He's not serious. This is kind of immature.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
Jimmy McMillan. All right. Well, I don't know. I don't know if he's still out there, but this guy is also complaining about the rent being too damn high. Anyway, I always just found it, and this is true in general. It's not just with socialists. I mean, it's true with Democrats in general to the extent that they borrow a little bit from socialism.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
This isn't presidential. This isn't how important people are supposed to speak. And then it's like, you just get so quickly to a point where it's like, well, what are you guys doing? Like this does, it seems like it's like an imitation of what 20 year olds do on TikTok or something like that. Like this is our, and it's also on top of that, just so unappealing. This kind of like,
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
Serious women in pantsuits doing cringy fucking like what? What world are you living in? Like, it's amazing that somehow the Democrats managed to hand Donald Trump, the adult in the room. You know what I mean? Like somehow he actually does. And this was the case.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
It was one of the things that was so startling about this last election was that Donald Trump, when compared to senile Joe Biden or cackling Kamala Harris, seemed like the serious alternative. Like, at least this guy is here and he means business and he's got a little bit of an agenda and he's got some thoughts of his own.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
Listen, Rob hasn't been to Canada that much. And where we went in St. Catharines is not necessarily representative of the full of Canada. Nice people out there, though. We did have a very nice time. I like it. We had a great time in Buffalo. Great time in St. Catharines. It does. When when when we go to Canada, it does feel like the audience that we draw to our show are the best people in Canada.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
And it's not just whatever some big corporate donor told them to say or whatever the popular thing at the moment is like. He's got some ideas that just seems more serious than anything that the Democrats are putting up against him. But my God, I just, it's hard. It's generally hard to even put into words how unappealing that video is.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
There's just like a disgust impulse that comes from watching that, that you're like, what the fuck are you ladies doing? Like, what drugs are you on that you thought this might resonate with anyone? It seems like something that you'd like, Like you're like adult children would be like digging through their parents stuff and find a video from college when they did something like that.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
And you go like the whole family laughs at it. And they're like, yeah, it's pretty embarrassing in hindsight. But we were 20, you know, and it seemed cool at the time. They're sitting members of Congress are doing this. I don't know, Rob.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
It's like the thing. It's like the thing, like when you're a third grader and you have no real power, but it's like the thing that one of the like moms would suggest where you'd be like, I will run away. Listen, I will run away. Like, if you make me do this, I swear I will run away. I will go on hunger strike. I will run away and I will never go to school again. I cannot be seen doing this.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
But there is like an interesting thing, and it's such a – it's such a, like a comment on either the intelligence of the people who are pushing these policies or their perceived intelligence of the people, of the voters who are listening to them push these policies.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
And they're like, no, come on, it's cute. And you're like, you don't get it. You don't get it. I cannot be seen doing this. Like, it's genuinely that. That's where the Democrats are at. It's look like the interesting thing here, right, is that In order really in order for the Democrats to survive, in order for them to have political success in the future. And this is boring.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
You know, it's hard to predict the future. And and the truth is that nobody Donald Trump is not going to run again as scared as the Democrats are. This is this is his last term. So there is nobody in line who has what Donald Trump has. Now, we'll see what happens over the next few years. J.D. Vance has obviously risen tremendously in prominence.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
He is the sitting vice president now, and he's doing a good job in moments like the moment with Zelensky and moments like with Dana Bash, where he's like showing that he can kind of I can go to war with the people who you think of as the other side. But he's not Donald Trump. He has never demonstrated that he has a cult of personality following the way Donald Trump does.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
He's never demonstrated that he has tens of millions of people who will go to war for him the way Donald Trump has. OK, so there's that someone else has to rise up on the Republican side as well. But it seems to me that almost what the Democrats need is to some degree their own version of Trump. And what I mean by that is not that they have to be anything like Donald Trump.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
In fact, that is the complete wrong mentality. I think that's the mentality that a lot of Democrats are almost like going with here. We got to find someone like that. You know, it's like the day after the election, they go, we need our own Joe Rogan. We need our own Donald Trump. That's not how it works. Joe Rogan didn't become Joe Rogan by trying to be anyone else's thing. You know what I mean?
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
Like, it wasn't like he was going, hey, we need the podcast version of Dan Rathers. You know what I'm saying? Like, that's not how these things happen. And in fact, you know, like one of the things I was thinking of earlier is Something you said that just reminded me of that.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
But do you remember when Elizabeth Warren was doing that video in her living room and she's drinking the beer, but she drinks it in such a weird way that you can tell she does not usually have a bottle of beer, but like she's trying to do the like...
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
But the idea of being like, look, if we're going to, let's just say there's a thing that that's got to get funded or whatever, you know, for, for example, childcare, just because that was the comment in this, in this ad that I saw. So like,
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
Well, it's it's that it's not just that the grill was off, but it's that there was there was cheese over the raw patties. And you're like, who's no one who's ever made a burger ever put a slice of cheese over a raw patty? Like, that's just not how it's done. It's a little intricacy. I guess if you've never made a burger, it might take you a minute to be like, oh, OK, yeah, that makes sense.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
But like, that's just not how it you know. And so there's little. But the whole thing is that it's like their mentality is so off because they're so phony. So they're like, even Elizabeth Warren drinking the beer, right? She's like, hey, well, I'm trying to talk to like workers. You know what workers like is to have a cold beer after work. And that is true, right?
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
Like it is true that beer is popular amongst the working class. But look, Donald Trump just carried the working class vote and he's never had a beer. And in fact, he'll openly say, I've never had a drink in my life. That is not most Americans' experience. but it really is Donald Trump's experience. And so when he says that, it just comes off as authentic.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
It's like, yeah, dude, my older brother who I looked up to killed himself with alcohol. And I was just like, I'm never going to drink alcohol. And then all of a sudden, you're not just like trying to do the thing that is what they do, but you were just, and then it's kind of like, oh shit, that's an interesting part of Donald Trump. Now, it doesn't mean that that
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
That, you know, working class guy who enjoys a cold beer after work is going to stop having a beer. But it also it was completely unnecessary for that. So so anyway, the point is just that.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
There could theoretically be an argument where you go like, OK, so there is this service that is child care and there's this one model where like people do it privately. Basically, the model is that you have to voluntarily come to an agreement with the person who's going to be charging you for is going to be providing you the child care.
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How Can the Dems Come Back?
right so if someone wants to watch your kids then you have to ask them how much do they charge if they say they charge x you can say i can't do x but i could do x minus 10. they go i can't do x minus 10 i could do x minus five and you come you know what i mean like that's the model like a free market in child care the other model
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
is that we all, we the government force you at the threat of imprisonment to send us money. We then take that money, we hire the childcare and you don't have to pay for it at that point because you've already paid for it through us. Okay, now these are two different models and you could have an argument about those models of which one you think is better.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
Now, when you just describe it the way it is, I will admit that the free market model already sounds more attractive because like already you're like, well, I don't know if I like the group with a monopoly on aggressive violence threatening to imprison me if I don't fund the thing.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
That seems like a worse model, but like, okay, those are the two models that I'm describing the way they actually work. But like when is it just something like what a mind fuck it is that the people who support the forced monopoly model get to just describe it as free. You just get it. You know, there's stuff you want. You just get it.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
Is it like as if I mean, I know this is like the most basic observation, but it's like I'm still saying it because they're still making this claim that it's like, OK, if the people doing the child care are getting paid at all, then it's not free. It's just a question of who's paying it and where is the funding coming from?
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
No one gets to say no cost unless then unless we get to a point where you can like either through slavery or I mean, I guess there'd still be costs associated, right? Like that person still has to live and eat in order to show up for work the next day. But either you could enslave them and they just work for free or you get into the realm of magic.
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How Can the Dems Come Back?
Those are the only ways that things don't have a cost.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
I'm saying they're really, really friendly dumb people. Yeah, they're gullible.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
I like to consider us experts. We went a good 20 minutes deep into Canada. We went far enough into Canada where we could still touch America. We were still on base the whole time. Anyway, it was a lot of fun. Oh, and then I should mention that our next stop is Boston, which I'm very excited for. Me and you always have a lot of fun up in Boston. We always draw great crowds up there.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
It's one of the best comedy towns in the world. So very much looking forward to going up to Boston. That'll be on March 27th and 20... I'm sorry, March 27th through 29th. We'll be up at Laugh Boston. ComicDaveSmith.com for those tickets. Also, reminder... It's coming up sooner than later. In May, I will be back at the Soho Forum debating immigration in a live Oxford-style debate in New York City.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
I'll go a step further. It seems like the only good people in Canada come out to our show. So we support those people. We'll get them out of there before the massive bombing campaign. That's inevitable.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
Make sure you come on out to that or go to one of the other Soho Forum debates because they're all excellent. The Soho Forum.org is the website for that.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
All right. Well, that's awesome. Make sure to go see Rob there. Make sure to go check out Run Your Mouth. There's a couple things on my mind for today's show. And I guess broadly speaking, there's a couple things going on in foreign policy related that I thought were pretty newsworthy events. And then there's also just kind of one of the things domestically, I guess that is...
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
perhaps the most interesting dynamic right now. I mean, maybe it's number two behind the stuff Trump's doing, but it is really interesting to, watching the Democrats trying to grapple with the position that they're in. This is kind of the topic of discussion amongst almost every person who's either left of center, liberal, leftist, everybody kind of in the left half of America.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
Whenever you see these days, if you see a show, whether it's like... bill maher or the uh pod save america guys or just any anyone kind of nominally on the left
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
this is the talk it's like what do the democrats have to do to come out of this and it's it's appropriate i mean i've i've seen different times in in my life now that i've been around for a little while i've seen times where one party was up big and the other party was down and out um you know there's a few that come to mind um
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
There was, well, when Barack Obama first won and won a pretty dominant victory, people were saying, well, the Republicans have really been defeated. At the time, George W. Bush was going out with the lowest approval ratings for an incumbent president. Dick Cheney had the lowest approval ratings for any vice president.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
Then here comes in this extremely popular Barack Obama, had some of the highest approval ratings in polling history in America. OK, it seemed like that party had been pretty soundly defeated when when Donald Trump won the first time people were saying the Democrats were down. It does seem to me that this is different in scale and kind than any other situation like that.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
I've just never I've never really lived through something quaintly. Quite like with one of the major two parties being as devastated as the Democrats are right now, as I said before on the show, it's to lose your voter base and your propaganda apparatus all in one election is quite a loss. And they've also just lost a.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
a kind of cultural factor that's hard to put into words, but I guess to say it, the, in the simplest terms, it's like they, they made the Republicans, the cool kids and the Democrats kind of like the nagging Karen's, which is really like, it is, For someone my age, I'm going to be 42 next month. For someone my age who was born in 1983, it's hard to overstate how impossible that would have seemed.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
what's up what's up everybody welcome to a brand new episode of part of the problem i am dave smith he is robbie the fire bernstein we are back from up north how you how you feeling rob being back in the free country of america hi uh it's nice being back here you don't realize how much we have until you have to see canada an entire country designed to look like newark new jersey It's all right.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
Like the idea that the Republicans could ever be the cool ones amongst 17-year-olds or something like that just seems like un... I mean, that would have been like unthinkable. As like... As unthinkable as like if you were like, OK, like if you had a bet with someone in like the 11th grade or something and you were like, I got to turn someone into the coolest kid in school.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
And I was like, all right, you got to turn the principal into the coolest kid in school and be like, OK, well, that's impossible. That cannot be done. That was making the Republicans the cool guys is like on that level. So anyway. All of this is going on.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
And while this is happening, it's interesting to see everybody kind of give their own thoughts on what exactly it is that the Democrats could do. Some say you got to, like, go harder against Trump. Some people say you got to abandon the woke stuff. Some people say you got to... you know, get the working class vote again.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
It's, you know, it's interesting, even though nobody seems to have an actual plan to put into action. And so anyway, this is kind of just one of the things that I've been thinking about. And while everyone is talking about this, you see like These these different wings of the Democratic Party and, you know, like what their vision for how you're supposed to do this is.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
This, I guess, is leading to some of the stuff that we're talking about now in this kind of vacuum. It does seem like there's some there's different Democrats who are kind of like. starting to make some noise. I still have not seen anything yet that I think has a chance of being successful.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
I know what you mean. I know what you mean. Well, there is something, I mean, there's gotta be a connection. I don't have like a fully worked out thesis or anything on this, but there's gotta be some connection between like socialist, the way socialism is sold and taking advantage of like people's kindness. Cause it is always sold that way.
Part Of The Problem
How Can the Dems Come Back?
I don't know what you do, Rob, if you think there's one wing or another or one strategy or another that could rise back to be successful, but I'm not seeing it.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
So if he can avoid that, then we can continue with this positive agenda where things that again, I can't really stress this enough. Things that would have seemed like libertarian pipe dreams. two years ago, are now being discussed by people with enormous influence and power. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is My Patriot Supply.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
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Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
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Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
All right, let's get back into the show. I don't know. Did you see this? Our very own Liam McCollum. Did you see what Elon Musk said to him? Let's let's pull that tweet up, Natalie, so people can just look at this. This is what I'm talking about. As as there are libertarians who want to fight about the latest drama on the LNC or like whatever, some ridiculous factionalism.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
Our own Liam McCollum, guest on this show, great, one of the most talented young libertarians out there in the country, he tweets out, Doge and Elon Musk should let Ron Paul lead a Federal Reserve audit team, to which Elon Musk replies, good idea.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
So let me try to do this as quickly as I can. Tomorrow night. Tomorrow night, I'm assuming it's happening as planned. I know there's some bad weather forecasts out here in New Jersey. But tomorrow night, I will be debating Josh Hammer at Princeton University on the U.S.-Israeli relationship. Very much looking forward to that.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
Elon Musk also recently shared like an entire episode of the Ron Paul's Liberty Report, his show, and to his 130 million Twitter followers or whatever it is he has. You have... The richest man in the world, one of the most influential men in the world, who's in charge of this, you know, kind of imaginary department, but seems to be turning it into some real things. He's in charge.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
He is sharing the message of Ron Paul. He just tweeted out this phenomenal Milton Friedman video where he's talking about how the only issue that matters is government spending and that that ultimately is the tax. And it doesn't really matter whether they tax you for it. or print the money to make it up, they're still taxing you for it.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
Even if they borrow the money, they're just promising to tax you in the future for it. So the only thing that matters is cutting government spending. Like, I'm sorry, but as somebody who's been in this libertarian world for... What is it? 2007 is when I got into it. So what is this? 18 years I've been in this libertarian world. And this is like...
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
This is a wet dream, man, that our ideas would ever be shared on this like large of a platform. The whole thing back then was that Ron Paul got into the presidential debates and they would never give him much time. They'd give him like seven minutes total. But in those seven minutes, he could say some awesome shit that would just be like, yo, that stole the debate.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
And that and then the Internet was the only way you could spread because the corporate media would black him out. This was the Jon Stewart joke, if you remember the why are they pretending Ron Paul is the 13th floor of a hotel? Because they would literally Jon Stewart literally plays this clip from CNN where they go. They go. They go. Mitt Romney is now in the polls.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
Mitt Romney is now the favorite to be the Republican nominee, knocking Michelle Bachman down to third. And then Jon Stewart's like, who's number two? They would just not tell you. Like they would literally report on one and three and leave out two. They just wanted to make sure no one heard this guy's message.
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Trump's Delivering on His Promises
And now people are hearing this guy's message from like this huge, being amplified on the biggest platform. Like that alone is so valuable. But also Elon Musk has like found this team of like, tech geniuses to really like go over the numbers. And he's openly talking about auditing the Federal Reserve. I just can't explain how great that is.
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And, you know, that's part of these things are all related. Like Donald Trump's approval ratings being high is like a necessary component to be able to do anything positive with this shit, because you have to have somewhat of a popular mandate. That's at least part of it. You know, like we've always said for years, right, that you would need these different
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Aspects to come together in order to ever have anything positive happen in DC like one you would need popular will behind the ideas like you would need people who were Who had been broken out of the government? Propaganda and we're kind of like aware of how corrupt and criminal it was and then you would also need like
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You know, elites, you would need like some billionaire who's like gets on board and is like, yes, I'm going to fund this thing. I'm going to get behind it. I'm going to put resources into this. And we just kind of seem to see at least possibly a lot of these things coming together right now. Like, oh, we have that component now. Oh, we have that component. It's a pretty exciting time.
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I believe there are—it's pretty filled up, but I think there are a few seats available if you want to go. I just posted it on my Twitter. There's the link there. And then— In a couple weeks, we will be in Houston, Texas at the Punchline. And then after that at Helium Comedy Club in Buffalo, New York. Me and Robbie the Fire Bernstein are both really looking forward to those gigs. All right. So.
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Also, and I know, Rob, you got to love this. The reaction to Doge in many ways says it all. Like the fact that everyone's freaking out so much about the fact that what like... These books might be opened. We might actually be able to look and see what you're spending our money on and then maybe even roll some of it back. And you see the freak out from people.
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There's the other video that I sent you, Natalie, I think that I didn't put in the order for today, but it's the one with Kara Swisher, who I was just arguing with on Piers Morgan. We don't have to go to it right now, but if you want to just pull that one up.
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But isn't it interesting, Rob, as somebody who you've been talking about this stuff for a long time, to see people actually talking in a serious way about government spending and then to see – it's the first one I sent you. No, not that one. It's up on the text thread. It was the one that I had sent you earlier. Right at 8.14 a.m. this morning, right after I told you that I've decided to move.
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Yes, that's the one. Right after I told you that I was staying in Key West forever and I quit everything. That was my next text after that. But hold on one second on that. But any thoughts on what we were saying, Rob? Uh, what about the, uh, and the freak out or any of it?
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Dude, it's such a great point. I mean, I don't even remember the numbers offhand, but somebody please correct me if I'm wrong about this. And I'm sure Bernie Sanders said something vague about the transfer of wealth during COVID. You know what I mean?
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Like, I'm sure he had some comment about like, oh, we're creating more billionaires and that's why we need to tax them or that's why we need more government programs. But did he ever once like say like, hey, well, I think it was like 40 new pharma billionaires were created during COVID. Sorry, I said it like Bernie Sanders during COVID. But you know what I'm saying? It was something like that.
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Dozens of new pharmaceutical billionaires were created during COVID. Did Bernie Sanders ever have a problem with that? It's like he never seems to really highlight the billionaires that are created by government and make that argument. Because at the very least, if that was your concern, you'd think you should have been against all the COVID policies, right?
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It's the largest transfer of wealth in human history from the working and middle class to the elite. Yet you have no issue with that. They just think look and I think this kind of says it all right here but if you just really zoom out and Think about doge and the reaction to it. Okay, we this these are just like some objective facts, right?
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We the US federal government is the biggest organization in the history of the world Okay by any measurement We spend about $7 trillion a year and we are something like $36 trillion in debt right now, maybe approaching $37 trillion in debt, okay?
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Biggest organization in the history of the world spends more money than anybody else in the history of the world and has accumulated more debt than any other organization in the history of the world. And as soon as anybody even suggests modest cuts or even just opening the books, everyone in this town loses their freaking mind and says it's going to be the end of the world.
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Obviously, we were off for the second half of last week, and so a lot's happened, and there's a few things that I really wanted to make sure we talked about. Okay, let's start with this, which I just find very fascinating, and it has to do with Donald Trump's approval numbers. Look, I want to let you listen to CNN Explain this because well for a lot of reasons number one.
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And that, in fact, this is the corruption. The corruption is opening the books. The corruption is cutting any government spending. Think about for a second how fucking ass backward that is. You know, it's like, look, the whole thing here, the whole game is that This is big government. I mean, this is what it is.
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And people can sit here and they can say, as some kind of like right-wing reactionary types will argue at times, they'll say that like, well, it doesn't really matter how big or small the government is. It matters how corrupt they are. It matters how good they are. But libertarians always had the answer to that. Like from way back, that was always the point.
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It was like, yeah, but that's why you don't want the thing to be giant. Because if it goes corrupt, then you're screwed. And so they're like, no, no, no. The problem isn't that it was so big. The problem is that it went corrupt. No, the problem is that it was so big and it went corrupt. If it was if it wasn't a gigantic organization, it wouldn't matter that much that it went corrupt.
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This is the whole game. The whole game is that they operate in secrecy and they have enormous power. That's it. All this wealth is extracted from the American people and given to this corrupt organization. And so for that issue to finally, finally, so long overdue, for that issue to finally be in the forefront is just amazing to watch.
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And I got to say, I really enjoy watching the people spaz out over it. Because just look at like what they're reduced to arguing. Here, look at this. Let's play that clip. I forget the other guy's name, but Kara Swisher is the one I was just arguing with on Piers Morgan. She was saying dumb shit to me. And here they are saying more dumb shit to other people.
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All right. We can pause it here. Of course, we're now conflating Gaza and Greenland with Doge or something like that. It's a coup, Rob. It's another insurrection. This time, the coup is when a president is democratically elected and does what he ran on doing. That's a coup, you understand.
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It's a coup when the guy who's democratically elected wants to open the books on the shadow government of non-democratically elected bureaucrats and spies. You see, that's what a coup is, right? See, I'm over that. The same people who will say that I'm overplaying my hand when I call the Maidan Revolution a coup because the U.S. pumped...
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tens of millions of dollars into a protest movement to overthrow a democratically elected president. That's not a coup. A coup, you understand, Rob, is when you go against the good men and women of the CIA who just want to protect Americans. This is like—it's so pathetic, the game here, too, because the other aspect, which he kind of touched on there, is that they go—
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like you're getting rid of charity, essentially. If you wanna bring down USAID or something like that, then you are, you know, they'll point to like one thing where they bought some kids some meals and be like, oh look, you didn't want these kids to starve. But this is on the level of if, you know, the mafia would buy like, you know, as they always did, right?
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They'd buy like a waste management plant or something like that. And then you go, oh, we're shutting down the mafia, you know, because they're like killing all these people and robbing from all these people and doing all this organized crime that they're kind of known for. And you went, oh, so you just want everyone's toilets to overflow. You just want everyone to be shitting in buckets.
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And you're like, no, no, maybe we could do that part without the murder. You know what I mean? Like, maybe that's really what we want to shut down. But that's what they're trying to convince you of now. That in fact, right, that look, even when you think about the the most. drastic cuts that have been proposed, right?
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Let's get some eyeballs on them Not too many people watching we can up those numbers a little bit We'll probably double it just by playing this clip on the show But also it's just it's interesting to watch even them admit this and then maybe let's talk about what this means exactly So let's let's go to the CNN clip. Let's let them say it first and then we can we can respond and
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Like I think when Vivek Ramaswamy was still with Doge, I think they had proposed $2 trillion in cuts. $2 trillion in cuts would take us to like 2017 levels of government. It would just be going back to pre-pandemic, which, by the way, this is how it always works. The ratchet effect of big government.
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There's some emergency and they go, look, we need record high government spending for that emergency. And then that becomes the new baseline. And then we increase from there. Right. So like if we had to like say we had to turn government spending way up in 2020 during COVID, that was the justification. Well, why can't we go back to 2019 now? Isn't COVID over?
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Oh, no, that's just normal forever now. Same with George W. Bush's spending levels after 9-11. It's an emergency. There's 9-11. We have to increase government spending. And by the way, we're never going back down. We've never seen pre-9-11 levels of spending since then. Obama, the 2008 fiscal crash, the answer to that was the stimulus package. Again, the same thing.
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Just a different word for the same thing. Increase government spendings. Do we ever go back to the George W. Bush level spending? Nope. And by the way, Just to be clear, when Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy proposed a $2 trillion cut, they're not proposing we go back to the pre-911 levels. They're not proposing we go back to the pre-2008 crash levels.
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They're proposing we go back to the pre-COVID levels. And we're supposed to act. Like in 2017, when the biggest, most powerful organization to ever exist was the U.S. federal government, that somehow if we go back to that now, that is the wild, wild west. You know what I mean? That is like that is cutting government to the bone and we could never survive on that. It's all bullshit.
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It's all an illusion. The truth is we could go we could go way smaller than that and we would just be better off for it.
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There's so many great bald leaders out there. You, Larry David, that's all I can think of. But I'm sure there's others too.
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The message of true baldness was always one of limited government and peace and prosperity. I agree with you completely.
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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You know, like they don't necessarily die because a bomb dropped right on top of them and killed them. They might die because they couldn't get medical treatment because all the medical resources have been exhausted due to the war. You know what I mean? Like there's you blow up hospitals. People die for unrelated reasons.
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And so anyway, it's an interesting window into what the real numbers are there. But Donald Trump makes the point that, oh, these other countries will take them and then we can go in there and build up. But look, here's the bottom line. How are you gonna make them leave? I mean, they've stayed through all of this.
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They've stayed through decades and decades and decades of brutal occupation, of brutal blockades. How are you gonna make them leave? And if the US owns it, as Donald Trump said, we're taking it over, the assumption would be that we have to make them leave? So you're saying what we're going to send the U.S.
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military in to now fight a war with Hamas, something that Israel has been unable to eliminate Hamas by all intelligence reporting. So what we're going to take that on now? And also, is there any thought at all to like understanding that this has been at the center of the Muslim world's beef with America?
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Like this is the reason why we've had to deal with the Al Qaeda problem, why we had to have this this terrorism issue to begin with. Do you have any idea like how much that will increase if we were to actually go in and just just transparently, nakedly finish the ethnic cleansing for Israel? It is just it's a disastrous proposal. And I truly hope it ends soon. Like even entertaining this.
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I don't know if there's anything you want to add to this, Rob.
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Yeah. Well, listen, here's a let's play here. Donald Trump did elaborate more on this for some people who were arguing with me that he wasn't saying that the Palestinians would get kicked out.
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You're sitting next to him and going, the place has been destroyed. It's unlivable. It's horrible that people have to live like that. And he's like, yeah, no, I agree. You totally should kick him out for us now. And then, of course, Donald Trump, you know, he speaks in kind of coded language. But at the same time, I know who this guy has always been, what his position on Israel has always been.
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I know the people that he has around him in his cabinet. And I know that Miriam Adelson, our Palestinian friend, gave him $100 million. Okay? So it's like... People are like, oh, he's not really saying this. He's saying this. It seems much more likely this is actually what he's saying. He said Gaza would be for the people of the region, but that the Palestinians would have to go. Yeah.
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So if it's not for the Palestinians, who are these people of the region that it's for? Sounds like Israelis would be the answer to that. OK. And here a bunch of people were arguing with me on Twitter. No, no, no, no, no. He's just saying relocate them while we clean up all the mines and then they can go back in.
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Well, here is Donald Trump addressing that on his Super Bowl interview with Brett Baier.
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Just to be clear, this is what he's saying. We'll build them big, beautiful refugee camps. And they'll love them so much. They'll love the refugee camps in Egypt so much that they will, I don't know, whatever. And I got to tell you, I also do think, you know, for people who argue with me about this and they're like, no, no, no, this is art of the deal stuff.
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Well, first of all, it doesn't make any sense. He's not putting pressure on the people you'd need to put pressure on to actually get to the right deal at the end of this. And number two, I do not think there's any practical way that this can be pulled off. You know, he can sit here and say, oh, we give foreign aid to Egypt and Jordan. That is true.
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You know, and people will point out, like, they'll go, uh... They'll go, oh, well, look, Dave, he was able to threaten tariffs on Mexico and Canada and get them to send 10,000 troops each, you know, to the border. And so, look, he's going to get these concessions out of them. Look, I understand why people feel that way.
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All you're really saying is that you don't understand the region at all and you don't understand the history and you don't understand the issues here. And that's fine. Not everybody has to. But it is... Such a wildly different ask to ask Egypt and Jordan to take in nearly 2 million people than it is to ask Mexico to send 10,000 troops to their border.
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That is not a regime-threatening request that you're asking of Mexico. Like, the Mexican government does not believe that they will fall if they put 10,000 troops on the border. But... In Egypt, last time you had elections, the Muslim Brotherhood won. And then there was a military coup, and now there's a military dictatorship where they're holding that Muslim Brotherhood down.
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You think they're just going to take in a bunch of people from Hamas and change around those numbers? In Jordan, you have a, I don't know the exact percentage split right now, but it's close to 50% of the population is Palestinian. OK, you think the Hashemites are going to bring in another 500000 Palestinians to give a majority or like that much more of a majority to the past?
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I just want to get this next number out there. But it is funny how they talk to you like you're a fucking retard.
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It's like these are very difficult questions to ask, but there are very, I should say, very difficult things to actually achieve. But the idea that look. But first of all, in theory, if the people of Gaza, if we got them, like if we gave them the option to relocate somewhere while Gaza is rebuilt and then they could move back in and they voluntarily wanted to do that.
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I'm not like necessarily opposed to that. Like if you got Egypt on board to be like, hey, we have these facilities. They can stay here until this thing is rebuilt and then they can move back. That's one thing. But if you're actually talking about. This is just blatant ethnic cleansing.
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If you're saying that we're just going to, against the will, we're going to force nearly 2 million people, whatever's left of that 2 million people, we're going to force them out and then make it something for Israelis to come and live in. That is just, that's just so wrong and so not our responsibility to do. It's just a disastrous proposal.
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Really hope that Donald Trump changes his mind on that one. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Moink. I love this company so much, especially in this current moment where I think people are waking up to what's really in our food and how you kind of can't really just trust the supermarket. You got to check out Moink, okay?
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I could not agree more. All right. Listen, I just let's let's move over because I just do want to make sure I get this in today. So evidently there's the the no agenda podcast with Adam Curry. is the host of it. I'm not familiar with it. I've heard of the show before, but I'm not super familiar with it. I know Adam Curry was a MTV VJ, like way back in the day. But anyway, he's a podcaster now.
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Down in Key West. Getting a little bit of R&R over the weekend and doing some shows. Thanks to everybody who came out to the shows. Man, it is fun to go down to Key West in the middle of the winter when you live in the Northeast. I told you it was fun down there. I wasn't lying. It's a good drinking town. Oh, my God. I can't even describe how good a drinking town it is.
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I guess he's been in the podcast game for a long time. And they recently, I just saw this earlier today, that they were attacking Scott Horton on the show. And then I listened to it and it was from our show. It's it's the I think the last time I interviewed Scott. And so I just look nothing personal against these guys. But Scott Horton's my guy.
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And I'm simply not going to allow him to be criticized in this manner without responding. So I do want to play this. I think we can probably get through it pretty quickly. I listened to I think most of it and seemed like it wasn't.
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anything too challenging to smack down but so i just but i wanted to be on record responding to this because if people are going to play clips from our podcast and go after our best foreign policy guy i think there should be a response and honestly if i just being completely honest i think the work scott horton does is too important for him to need to waste his time with this so let me just handle it and um then we can move on back to uh fixing the world okay
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So here is the No Agenda podcast with Adam Curry as they start discussing the great Scott Horton.
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wrong and wrong scott is not a lefty he did not vote for donald trump so you start this you go oh this is actually really interesting i just never quite understand these people who like they they launch into a topic on a podcast and they have not familiarized themselves with the most big like one google search of scott horton and you'd be like oh he started the libertarian institute
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So like, OK, that you would probably find that out. In fact, I think one of them is Googling as the other one's talking because they come to this in a second. But just so you guys know, no, Scott is not a lefty. No, Scott did not vote for Donald Trump. Like both. So you're just starting with you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Not the best start. Let's keep playing.
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Oh, OK. So the trolls are saying he's a libertarian is the next line. That's really funny that. So someone corrects them there. They didn't even Google it to find themselves. Just one of their own listeners is like, ah, the guy's a libertarian. Okay, first of all, just think about how Brain did that.
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So he goes, he's a lefty, but he voted for Trump because he says the left never stops lying to him. Well, that doesn't really sound like the way lefties usually talk. And no, he didn't vote for Donald Trump. So you're because he voted for Donald Trump because you're already wrong. Because you just don't know what the fuck you're talking about.
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There were some of us libertarians who broke and voted for Donald Trump. I was one of them. Scott was not. So, you know... Just know something before you come at someone, especially before you come at someone as fucking brilliant as Scott Horton. Know the first goddamn thing.
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Literally right now, I don't know anything about Adam Curry, but I'm not like coming out going like, here's the problem with Adam Curry. He's a Buchananite paleo conservative who voted for Bill Clinton because like none of that's true. And why would I just say that?
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Yeah, you're right. Not even the humility to go like, like, I think the guy's a leftist. I believe he voted for Donald Trump. You're just saying it like these are the facts and you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. It's so goddamn embarrassing. All right. Let's keep playing.
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By the way, this is just just true in general and political commentary. Whenever you say, you know, I have no idea. I don't even know what I really even have no idea. That's not the brag you think it is. That's not really—you're just saying you have no idea what the fuck you're talking about.
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And so you're reduced to the most pathetic of strawmans of, oh, a libertarian's a Republican who doesn't want to admit that he's a Republican. Oh, a libertarian—what did he say? A libertarian—they just want to legalize drugs and say you should be free to have sex with who you want to? Well, like— Yes, we do believe in legalizing drugs.
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That's not something Scott Horton has ever specialized or talked about too much, I don't think. But that is true. That's the libertarian position. We also have arguments for why we believe that's the case. What is this comment about you should be free to have sex with whoever you want? First of all, are you arguing people shouldn't be free to have sex with whoever they want?
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I mean, assuming we're not talking underage children here, obviously none of us agree with that. But are you arguing that like... Should orgies be illegal or should homosexuality be illegal? Like what's the counter argument to that? Actually, that's not just a libertarian position. That is just every American doesn't really believe.
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By the way, it is almost before you even get to the substance of these polls, which is very interesting. But before you even get to that, it is hard to not just be like, what does CNN think of the intelligence of their viewer that they actually they it's. The way I'd explain this to my six-year-old is like how they talk to you about it. It's like very, yeah, no, I get plus minus.
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I mean, okay, outside the tiniest sliver of fringes, it's pretty much the consensus in America that voluntary sexual acts between consenting adults should be legal.
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whether they should be praised or should be promoted might be more of a contentious issue but should be like what are you differentiating yourself no no all you're trying to do here is poison the well because you know nothing you don't know who you just found out the guy's a libertarian because one of your listeners told you that you didn't know who he voted for you know nothing so you'll just poison the well by being like he's one of these sex freaks
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You know, he's one of... Whereas, I challenge you, find me one example ever in the... I think Scott Horton... I think the Scott Horton show is up to 6,000 episodes. Like, they've been doing... He's been doing the show for a very long time. And then all his interviews on all the other shows, Scott Horton has done, like... 100,000 hours of podcasting. He's written three incredible books.
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Then he had a couple other books that were like transcribed of podcast interviews. In all of his work, find me one time where he talks about weird sex stuff. That's your challenge. He like there's just never a topic that's got he's a foreign policy specialist. Occasionally he'll do an interview about like other libertarian issues that he cares about.
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There's a few domestic issues that he's kind of known for. Like he's known for being a real critic of Waco. You know, he was against burning babies alive. Ruby Ridge. And he's talked about OKC a bit. But like. This sex, this is just nothing but like, let me just get you let me get you to have a preconceived bias about who this guy is. And here we're racing up against time.
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Scott Horton is on CNN all the time. Were you guys were you guys unaware of Scott's numerous CNN appearances? Scott's never been on CNN. He's not a leftist. He didn't vote for Trump. He's never been on CNN.
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Trump's Delivering on His Promises
Like at what point, by the way, if you're the other guys, if you're Adam Curry and you're listening to me respond to you right here, wouldn't this just be the point where you go, all right, I was kind of speaking out of my ass. You know what I mean? Like when you start with that, what was it? You're just just objective claims. Every single one of them wrong.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
How about you don't know what the fuck you're talking about? You brought up a guy who you know nothing about and you're pretending that you know anything about him. Let's keep playing.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
I know the difference. You don't have to. And why does it help for him to underline it? Like as if I couldn't see. There's two numbers on the screen. And then he has to go, no, let me underline. Now you see the first number? Okay, now here's the second number. The second number is higher. And so you understand. It's like, yeah, no, I get it.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
Hold on a second. They almost got our sponsor.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
God, man, no agenda. I mean, listen, I don't know about your podcast. I've never listened to your podcast. I'm not saying you have a bad podcast. Maybe it's a good podcast. I don't know. This is so goddamn cringy and embarrassing. Okay, Rob, this is how bad it is, okay? Because literally all the stuff I just said to you about how much they get it wrong, and I didn't even really know.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
So I'm listening to this clip first, and then when I hear me start reading the ad, I'm like, oh, yeah, this was on our show. I forgot. I didn't even realize they were playing an episode from our show. So now he responds, and he goes, look, dude, this is what happens. Trump has Netanyahu over. He pulls the chair, puts it back in.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
He says, hey, maybe we take over Gaza, floats out this idea, and now everyone's losing their mind about how he's an Israeli spy. Wrong answer. I haven't had Trump on since that. I haven't had Scott Horton on since Trump floated out that proposal. That's not what we were talking about, dude. You're wrong on everything. This isn't an opinion. It isn't like, I think you got this wrong.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
Objectively, you've gotten it all wrong so far. All wrong. Now, if you wanted to pick apart one thing that Scott Horton said there, you know, he's being hyperbolic, not literal. So when he says he's his godson, Jews don't have godsons. But you can read in The New York Times about how Jared Kushner got kicked out of his own bed when Bibi Netanyahu came to stay at his house. He's right about this.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
So after you guys getting everything objectively wrong, you just sit there and giggle. It's another Jonah Goldberg. They're reduced to being a 16-year-old girl. They just giggle through what he's saying. They're not arguing with anything he said. They're arguing that he's just reacting to Donald Trump's Gaza proposal. Well, he's reacting to it three weeks before he made the proposal.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
So how do you not just feel stupid? I'm sorry. Maybe there's some people out there who like this show. Maybe they make some good points on some other things. I have absolutely no idea. I have nothing but respect for all former MTV VJs. Long live the great Kennedy. But this is embarrassing, dude. You've got this all wrong objectively.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
Let's just play the end of it and then I'm going to have to wrap up here.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
If you know Modi, the stand-up comedian, it's a solid reference. There's five people out there who really enjoyed that. But it is, okay, so there's that part, which is just kind of funny. But there is something to watching these poll numbers to watching Donald Trump, and by the way, they were comparing it to his poll numbers at the very beginning of his first term.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
Meanwhile, what I thought was interesting, just pause it real quick. His only argument here is that he's not arguing with anything. Scott actually said, he's not really making an argument when he's saying the tails wagging the dog. No, actually the dog's wagging the tail. He's just saying that like, America is controlling Israel. Israel isn't controlling America.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
Again, you can't really debate with any of the specifics that Scott's arguing with here. And there are lots of examples where America is actually, you know, to some degree controlling Israel or exuding influence on Israel. The elections, I think, in Gaza in 2005 was not. a neocon Zionist project. I think that was much more of a Condoleezza Rice spreading democracy to the world type project.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
There are examples where, but there's clearly a million examples too of where, no, actually Israel has, the tail has been wagging the dog. And where there are presidents of the United States of America, multiple presidents who want a certain policy done and cannot get their way because actually Israel's influence is stronger than the president's in some ways.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
So again, all just not after getting everything wrong and not knowing what you're talking about. Now they're just making an assertion. That's not even really a 100% correct assertion. When he said Scott was just making the points of all the things they've talked about on the show and they've talked about made on it's like, okay.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
So Scott's also been making those points for many years before he wrote the book about it. I don't, again, that's just not a point. Then I guess you would say you agree on this. Anyway, let's keep playing.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
He was given the biggest story in the world as a young 20 something year old, right out of Naval Intelligence. Is it that crazy to refer to him as a spook or a spy? I don't know. Again, they never have an argument. It's always just a mocking tone of voice. Okay, I don't know any of the facts. I don't have an argument. But I'm just going to kind of laugh through everything you say.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
Repeat back to you. The name of the book is provoked. Is that supposed to substitute for an intelligent thought? Because it's not doing it for me. All right, let's keep playing.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
I think they had April 2017 in there, so a little bit further than where he is this time. But that doesn't even count his poll numbers that fell dramatically lower over the next years of his administration. So Donald Trump, according to these polls, is starting from a much stronger place than essentially he's ever been. That is very interesting.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
I thought you just mocked the idea of calling him a spook or a spy. Am I missing? So that's your criticism? After all of that, Scott Worden is sitting here on our show. By the way, yeah, you should subscribe to the show. You could learn something. I know you don't like when people are ranting or something like that.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
I'm sorry we're not just making bullshit up and claiming we know stuff about people and are objectively wrong. Scott's going. Literally what he's saying here is just talking about what a meticulous like writer he is and how he's an honest enough actor that he goes, look, there was this Bob Woodward book that had all these great quotes that was like proving my case.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
He goes, but then I found this one Sergey Lavrov quote and he's totally lying about it. And so here's the real one. Here's the one. And then he goes, once he does that, I can't use any of these because I can't trust you're not a liar. And their big critique at the end of that is just we've been saying he was a liar for a long time.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
I also will say this, and look, I'm speculating a little bit when I talk about this. So I'm throwing this out there more as something to think about than I have a definitive take on this. But one of the major themes that we talked about on the show quite a bit throughout the election, which really was an election unlike any other that I've lived through.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
Okay, fine, so you've been saying it for a long time and now someone far smarter than you who's a far better researcher is saying it to more people. Seems like a win. Listen, I'll say this. You don't have to subscribe to the podcast, but no agenda, guys. Open invite.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
If you want to come on the show, we can argue about Scott Horton or any of this stuff if you want to, but just do a little bit of research first. Get a few facts down because otherwise you're going to get embarrassed. Anyway, sorry. I just can't have people coming at my guy Scott Horton like that, especially when they have nothing.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
It's amazing, Rob, that people will do a segment about stuff like this and have nothing. All right. We're way over time. I got to wrap. We're back. Thank you guys all for watching, listening, and we'll catch you tomorrow with a brand new episode. Peace.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
And one of the things that I would just notice a lot was that Every sign around you, you know, everything you could observe or touch or taste or feel just told you that this was Trump's year. Like that Donald Trump was running away with this thing.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
Whether you were looking at crowd sizes or, you know, crowd reactions to Donald Trump, anything you could feel in the popular culture throughout the entire campaign, it just felt like it was all going in Donald Trump's direction. And yet the entire time,
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
The major pollsters, the ones being cited here, the, you know, whatever, CBS was the poll they started with there and then they mentioned Gallup and I think ABC and CNN and a few others. All of these polls told us all election long, this was a coin flip. It was a coin flip.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
It's such a good drinking town. It's a dangerous town. You just sit there. My wife came down, and we hung out at this resort the whole weekend. And I'm like floating in the pool, and I'm like, all right, let's have our first drink. What is it? And then it's like 9.15 in the morning. All right. That might be a little bit early. Might be a little bit early to start.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
I mean, he was up a little bit against Joe Biden, but then once Kamala Harris came in, she went up for a little bit, and then it came back to just being a coin flip of a race, according to them. Everything you could observe was telling you this is all Donald Trump. All the pollsters were telling you this is a coin flip.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
And then on election day, you have Donald Trump winning the popular vote in every single swing state. Reality was much closer to what we could observe than it was to what these pollsters are telling you. And I gotta say, I know none of this is scientific. This is why I said I'm just speculating about this stuff. But you see Donald Trump go to UFC events. You see him go to the Super Bowl.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
You see him go to all these things. Again, not a random sample. It's a particular slice of America that's going to UFC events or going to the Super Bowl. But he is just, he's met like a king. Like people are just so thrilled. They're so on board with him. And, you know, I think about, again, this is not nothing scientific about this, but there was that.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
There was right after inauguration, you saw there was that video clip of Tucker Carlson walking through the streets of Washington, D.C., and he's getting like a hero's welcome. Like, I would have a couple years ago thought it would be dangerous for Tucker Carlson to walk the streets of Washington, D.C. And now that people are chanting as he walks by, we love you, Tucker, you know?
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
And there is just, I'm just saying, it makes me wonder what's really going on here. You know, it seems like the polls always very consistently from the beginning have like Donald Trump's always outperforms what the polls are saying he does. And when even the polls now are admitting that he is in the positive in his job approval ratings or that 70%.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
70% of Americans think he's coming through on the things that he ran on. It makes me wonder what the real number is and if it's possible that the real number is actually much, much higher than this. Just something I'm thinking about.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
Right, but that's what makes you wonder if it's a limited hangout of sorts, where it's like, well, we have to at least admit this. to cover up the much bigger story, you know, which is something is a technique that they use. You know what I mean? Like they will admit to 10% of the scandal so that we say, okay, yes, this did get a little out of our hands.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
We're rolling that back to kind of let the wind out of the, the, you know, let the air out of the, the movement that's furious about the other 90%. So if even that's, that's what makes me think that if they're even admitting that this guy is in, in the positive in his job approval rating, then perhaps, uh, it's them covering up the story that he's way in the positive.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
Again, as we've said for a while now, you know, when this guy says we live in a different world, I did enjoy that show, by the way, when he says we live in a different world, it's like, well, why are we in a different world? And really the obvious answer here is that we lived under four years of Joe Biden. And it's impossible to not contrast Donald Trump with the last administration.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
Like with all administrations, it's impossible to not to some degree contrast them with the last one. And by any objective measure, Donald Trump, by just existing, is so much better than Joe Biden.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
Why? Look, I guess I'll start with this, right? Because what you said there, even about the Gaza thing, and we'll get into the specifics of that in a second. But it does let you know, like, look, Donald Trump is in there right now. And he's got, let's just say a lot of certainly from our perspective, a lot of good things that he wants to do. He wants the economy to be booming.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
He wants to get illegal immigration under control. He wants, I think on some level, for there to not be foreign wars like this. He wants to end the war in Ukraine. The stuff in the Middle East is a little bit more... Not great, but having Doge, I mean, wanting, you know, to kind of audit the federal government and cut spending and reveal corruption within government.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
There's all of these great things. And right now he's got a strong approval rating. He's got this kind of mandate behind him. He's got the energy and the vibe shift behind him. And. It feels like, look, there's going to be a moment of coming back down to reality. There will be some point. Trump will mess something up. There will be something unpopular that he does.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
what's up what's up ladies and gentlemen welcome to a brand new episode of part of the problem i am dave smith he is robbie the fire bernstein we are back i do apologize for uh the the mess up in the schedule i'm gonna make episodes up to you guys this week i know i'm two members only in the can uh we will get those to you me and rob were down in fort lauderdale getting i'm sorry
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
This is kind of the way it always goes with presidents, no matter who they are. But you can't overstate how much you need to not fall into one of these potential disasters, because that's what could really ruin all of this. If you can keep this up, where you're somewhat popular, and the...
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
It's dangerous. It's a dangerous game to play. But man, was it a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to that. I want to go back. I want to make that like a regular winter thing. Go down during the winter to Key West. Get out of this for a little bit. Anyway, it was a lot of fun. We got a lot of stuff coming up and also just a lot to talk about on today's episode.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
the corporate media and the old regime, the shadow government, they seem to kind of be out of bullets in their chamber. It seems like they just don't have another thing to go to. I mean, like, you know, like, as you mentioned, Robin, you're absolutely right. What were they doing last time around? Well, they were smearing him as a Russian spy. That was their game for the first Trump term.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
But after Russiagate completely fell apart and after COVID was just exposed for all the lies that were told, it seems like they don't have another big one of those to go to. Like, what are they going to say? He's a Russian spy again? You know, like, it just doesn't seem possible. And...
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
In that environment, when I say that there's never been an opportunity to actually see a positive agenda moved forward for the country like we have right now, there's never been anything even remotely close. There's just never been anything like this before, particularly with some of the stuff that's going on at Doge, which I want to get into a little bit more.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Delivering on His Promises
But that's part of the reason why it's so important that Trump doesn't fall into one of these disasters. And what would the disasters be? Well, the pretty obvious ones right now would be getting into another catastrophic war in the Middle East or getting into an escalated confrontation with Russia. These seem to be the real dangers that are right in front of Donald Trump right now.
Part Of The Problem
Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
yeah oh that's no nobody can no i was on with a general on pierce morgan today they've nothing they have no like and and again and they all do this thing which it just like reminds me of the um the during the the vaccine passport debate over the uh the covid jab i don't know i people give me shit for calling it a vaccine i understand uh but um
Part Of The Problem
Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
The biggest political strategic blunder by Zelensky that I've ever seen. I've just never seen anything like that. And I don't, you know, I'm not going to get into like too much psychoanalysis. I like to try to stay away from that stuff. I don't know Zelensky personally. I don't know. who was in his ear or why he thought that would be a good move.
Part Of The Problem
Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
And they would be like, well, we can't have the unvaccinated in the same room as the vaccinated because then that's a risk to the vaccinated. And you'd be like, wait, I'm sorry. This logic just falls apart right on its own.
Part Of The Problem
Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
If the vaccine is so effective that we need to force people to get it, then shouldn't the vaccinated people in the restaurant be safe from the unvaccinated people coming and sitting in the restaurant? But it's like the same thing with this war. And this has been true the whole time where they're like, we're winning. We're beating Vladimir Putin. Look, he's so weak.
Part Of The Problem
Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
Also, he's a threat to take over all of Europe. You're like, well, which one is it? Which one is it? Is he the guy who's so weak that he can't take Ukraine? Or is he the guy who's going to take Poland next? Which one? It can't be both of those. It's got to be one or the other. And then he's such an evil madman that he doesn't care. He wasn't provoked.
Part Of The Problem
Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
He did it just for nothing, but he'll never use nukes. We don't have to be worried about the threat of nuclear war. It's just all of this makes no sense. It's been true from the beginning of this war. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is ProtonVPN.
Part Of The Problem
Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
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Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
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Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
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Part Of The Problem
Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
All right, let's get back into the show. And so anyway, yeah, just just while here, let's play Donald Trump's response to Zelensky.
Part Of The Problem
Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
Perhaps it comes from being on the cover of Time and Vogue and just everybody kissing your ass and being treated as this hero internationally for the last three years. Perhaps there were other American fans politicians who were in his ear encouraging him to do this.
Part Of The Problem
Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
That's enough of this clip. So there's, there's just so much to break down here. And I mean, look, I, this is part of the thing too, is like, you're like, dude, I mean, to go at Trump in this manner, he's interrupting every sentence. Like, I'm sorry, dude, but there is just a scenario where like, What Trump says, you don't have the cards. He's right.
Part Of The Problem
Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
You do not have the you're not in a position to be able to be trying to interrupt Donald Trump and show him up. You got to be gracious here. Like, you're just not I don't know. You're not in a situation to do this. And for him to be like making these arguments that they were at it alone and that, you know, like it's just it's bonkers. This is this makes no sense.
Part Of The Problem
Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
He's even arguing with him where Donald Trump says the last stupid president and he goes, you voted for him. Like, what are you doing here, dude? First of all, Donald Trump didn't vote for him. Second of all, I don't know how much you keep up. Zelensky, Donald Trump is not exactly a big believer in what happened in 2020 in terms of the election.
Part Of The Problem
Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
But the idea that he would that his move when he is completely dependent on Donald Trump to the point that his life might be on the line, but certainly his nation is. And when you're completely dependent on Donald Trump for your move to be. I'm going to try to alpha Donald Trump on national television in a language I don't really speak very well.
Part Of The Problem
Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
But regardless of any of that, what are you trying to do? Like win the moment here? What's the best case scenario? You dunk on this guy and then...
Part Of The Problem
Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
like what then he's gonna want to help you because you embarrassed him just crazy it was just like crazy like i don't know dude like i said on twitter cocaine's a hell of a drug i don't know what the hell this guy was thinking but man it's the thing is that it kind of does work out great ultimately we can get into that but i don't know rob any any other thoughts on this uh this interaction here
Part Of The Problem
Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
And I mean, but Rob, just to the point, because I think that's a great analogy and that's exact. But I'm saying like little things, even look, you're not here for a confrontation. You're here to beg for more help. And in that situation, even if you don't like it and you're losing and J.D. Vance goes, have you even said thank you? Like one time, your response can't be. I said it lots of times.
Part Of The Problem
Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
Like, what are you doing here? You're trying to battle. You're trying to win. The response to that should be it should be, you know, something like I have said thank you many times. But if that has not been clear, then sincerely to you, Mr. Vice President and to you, Mr. President, thank you for what you know what I'm saying.
Part Of The Problem
Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
Like you your goal here is to win them back over, not battle them at every single turn. It's just crazy. But yes, I'm sorry. Continue.
Part Of The Problem
Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
Yeah, hopefully, hopefully you're right. I mean, it is like this is like, again, I think what so much of the corporate media and the people who hate Donald Trump are almost overlooking here. But it's like, again, you're in no right. Like you said, you're just asking for more free stuff. And what is it you don't like?
Part Of The Problem
Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
He goes like, well, I'd like a ceasefire, but we can't do ceasefire without security guarantees. And ask the Ukrainian people. They want security guarantees. Who cares? Right. Of course they do. All people want a security guarantee. I don't know, but none of us actually have one.
Part Of The Problem
Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
It's all like, you know, I was arguing on Pierce Morgan's show today with the general about this, where it's like, well, we can't end the war because how do we know Putin won't start the war again? Then you're back in the same place. Yeah, right. That is not just logically. That doesn't follow.
Part Of The Problem
Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
I mean, I've never seen anyone go into anything with a worse game plan than On anything. I mean, everybody knows, no matter who it is, that is the one way you cannot come at Donald Trump. And he attempted it. It went exactly as you would have predicted. And it really does seem like this was a... A huge fork in the road where things just went in a different direction.
Part Of The Problem
Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
It's like, well, then I guess there's never justification for ever ending a war ever because, hey, who knows? We could be back at war. But if the worst case scenario is we're back where we are now, that's not a good reason to stay where we are now. So but also like, you know, like when you really like what is a security guarantee exactly? Like, what does that mean?
Part Of The Problem
Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
I mean, like a security guarantee. All that that really means is that we're willing to fight. That we're you know what I mean? Like we're willing, you know, if I if I like I do my best to guarantee the safety of my my wife and kids. But that just means that if there's a threat, I will do everything in my power to fight it. And that doesn't mean I'll win.
Part Of The Problem
Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
There's no guarantee might be more force than I can defensively muster up. So then shit, you know, I mean, like and so for him to say that you're you're demanding a security guarantee. Well, what exactly do you mean by that?
Part Of The Problem
Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
I mean, look, we could I'm pretty sure we could guarantee Ukrainian security, not guarantee, but like we could if we send in the 82nd Airborne, we could repel the Russians out of Ukraine. We are not willing to do that. And that's the truth.
Part Of The Problem
Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
And, you know, there's a funny thing here because I wanted to make this point on Piers Morgan today. I didn't get a chance to do it. But there's a funny thing here where nobody is taking that position. Nobody is saying, oh, we could just do this. We could go in.
Part Of The Problem
Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
Nobody is actually willing to look at the American people and say, you have to send your sons over to fight and die in a direct, a direct war with the biggest nuclear superpower in the history of the world. to protect the Donbass region. You know, like, I'm sorry, we do not want to do that.
Part Of The Problem
Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
And Vlad, after getting hundreds of billions of dollars, you're going to sit here and demand, essentially, not demand that right now, but demand the threat of that. Demand that we, which is the only way that America can effectively give a security guarantee, is to say, we'll go to war. We'll go to war over this. Like, what else are we doing? Saying, hey, we really don't want you to do that.
Part Of The Problem
Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
That's what we did. That was what we did for Ukraine already. Through the whole lead up to the war in Ukraine. And I like to bring this up a lot because I think it's pretty relevant. And, you know, look, again, I know I'm probably guilty of patting myself on the back a little bit too much, but I don't know. Me and you, Rob, we are just right about all the most important issues.
Part Of The Problem
Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
And so I can't help but point this out. I've been now for the entirety of the war, I have been one of the guys on the biggest platforms talking about the history of it, the conflict, what led to it, all of this stuff. And... We were all like and I'm not even close to like the the best, you know, John Mearsheimer and Jeffrey Sachs and Scott Horton.
Part Of The Problem
Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
And there's a lot of great guys who have been kind of talking about this from before the invasion in 22. But Stoltenberg, the the chancellor of NATO, he said that in late 2021. Vladimir Putin sent a he actually put a treaty. He drafted a treaty and sent it to NATO and said straight up, I will not invade Ukraine if you just put in writing that you guarantee you won't bring Ukraine into NATO.
Part Of The Problem
Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
And like, that's the deal that was on the table. Ukraine would have kept everything, no invasion, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people's lives would have been saved. They would have had to give up Crimea and they would have kept everything else. And all we would have had to do was say, we're not going to bring Ukraine into NATO, which, by the way, we're still not going to end up doing.
Part Of The Problem
Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. I'll be. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Part Of The Problem
Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
I will say overall, I think it's great. And I think it's better for the prospects for peace that Donald Trump is like, screw this guy. But I just I kind of can't get over like what was Zelensky thinking?
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.. the, P P P P P P P P P P 100實 , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , a and a and a and a and a and a and a and a and a and a and a a en la P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P Like if you're creating a totalitarian bureaucracy in order to prevent a totalitarian bureaucracy from taking you over, then you you've already lost by definition. Right.
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Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
So anyway, the argument made no sense. Bill Buckley is a very smart guy. He was not that stupid. He was just working for the CIA and his job was to convince conservatives to support big military. So anyway, but. But so from this is just my point to you about I'm getting to my point about the NATO propaganda.
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But so so essentially, just so people understand the Cold War propaganda was that we're only doing this because of the Soviet Union. We would not be. We're with you libertarians. We want to just love liberty and prosperity and be a peaceful, normal country. But there's the Soviet Union. So we have to do all of this. And then in 1989. The Berlin Wall comes down. There's reunification in Germany.
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The Cold War ends. And so then all of those neoconservatives were like, okay, no more military industrial complex. No more going around the world searching for monsters to destroy. Now we can once again embrace liberty and small government. Oh, no, that's right. They were like, hey, we got to go see about Saddam Hussein. He's in a slant drilling conflict with his neighbor, Kuwait.
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You know, we had to go protect the democracy of Kuwait. So we had, and this is when they ramped up the first war under George H.W. Bush, the first war in Iraq, the first war, American war of my lifetime. I was a little kid. I was like seven or eight or something like that. What was it? It was in 91. I was born in 83. So I was eight. I do. I remember George H.W.
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Bush announcing that we were invading on TV, but it interrupted like the Simpsons or whatever. It's like, come on, let me get back to the Simpsons. Anyway, my point is, if you likewise, if you had listened to the propaganda, the official propaganda for 40 years during the Cold War, they would have told you that if the Soviet Union went away, NATO would also disband.
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The official propaganda, there was never any justification for why we would have NATO if there wasn't a Soviet Union. The whole point of NATO...
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was to be an anti-soviet military alliance and essentially what happened right was that after world war ii all of europe was destroyed and the big victors who came out of it was america and russia and the soviet union at the time and now okay you could say england also won the war but england was fucking wrecked um uh The Soviet satellites were all destroyed.
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Russia itself had taken heavy fighting. America was kind of the only country who fought in World War II, but did all the fighting abroad. The fighting wasn't here. I mean, with Pearl Harbor, you know, out there, which really still isn't mainland the United States of America. But aside from the attack on Pearl Harbor, there were no attacks here.
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And so the thinking was, I'm not even saying this is justified, but the thinking was, OK, Europe is destroyed. The Soviet Union is this big superpower right here next to Europe. And so we have to like, OK, we'll accept that they get the eastern half of Europe, but we're going to guarantee for the western half that if you guys move on this side, you're picking a fight with America.
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OK, well, that's all over after 1991 that the Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore. And all those Eastern European countries got their independence. What's the justification for NATO now? If you ask anyone, and I've asked several people, you just get a bunch of googly gock.
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Like, it'll just be like the global community and working together and ensuring peace, keeping the peace and promoting, you know, whatever. It's like they have nothing. There is no reason for us to be a part of NATO whatsoever that we're not under post-World War II conditions. Europe has not been destroyed by a war and they're poor and we're the only rich country. Europe is rich.
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There's a bunch of rich countries in Europe. They can pay for their own defense. Vladimir Putin, as of right now, the latest estimate I saw is that Russia has about a two trillion dollar GDP. Understand that's how big and scary Russia is. Their entire GDP is less than a third of what our government spends every year. Forget our entire economy.
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There is no reason why Europe can't just have their own security plans that don't involve us. And by the way, we're $36 trillion in debt. We can't really afford to pick up everybody's security anymore. And the idea that we're going to... not only pick up their security, but the security of the most further, like we're not even talking about the original NATO plan.
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This is never guaranteeing security for Poland, let alone Ukraine. They were talking about, we didn't even guarantee security for East Germany. It was from the Elbe River West was what we guaranteed when the Soviet Union existed. And you're telling me now, when there is no communism, there is no Soviet threat, that we got to guarantee security for the Donbass region?
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This is just like, it's so insane. There is never, there is no one who has ever put forward a...
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Yep. Yeah, no, I agree with that. And I will say, because this seems to be now where... uh, the divide is on how, and we're going to play the clip in a second and kind of go through it. Cause there's some interesting, just like kind of analyzing what's actually being said and argued over.
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coherent defense for that position because it's just pure madness all right guys let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show brand new sponsor we're thrilled to have on board and that is hexclad if you're looking to level up your cookware game you gotta check out hexclad gordon ramsey as you may know is one of the toughest critics in the entire world
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Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
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Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
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Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
But I just, I know there are people who do not like Donald Trump and no matter what he does, they are going to oppose what Donald Trump just did. I think, you know, whatever my own bias opinion, I think me and you have been pretty good about like, praising Donald Trump when he does good, criticizing Donald Trump when he does bad.
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Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
Yeah, well, it is an interesting kind of way to look at it. And there's no, you know, I mean, I guess I would disagree that it's like it's not that austerity is guaranteed in the future, but it's there's limited choices. So it's I think there's essentially three. There is austerity. That is the moderate position. Then there are there is default. And hyperinflation. Those are your other options.
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I don't think you... Well, I think technically it's not... I think technically that wouldn't be austerity, but I get your point. It would, in effect, be the same thing. So you, in effect, have to have drastic cuts in spending. I just mean that it's like you wouldn't necessarily... You wouldn't have to like...
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You know, it wouldn't be a situation of like we owe this debt and therefore we have to cut down on these programs to pay off this debt. It would more just be like, oh, we don't have any debt anymore because we just defaulted on all of that debt. And, oh, we can't borrow money at the same rate anymore because no one's going to lend us money after we just defaulted on the debt.
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And so, yeah, there's no money for these programs. It's in effect, basically, I think the same thing. But I did want to read this before we wrap up today. And then I guess, you know, we could even save some of the media reaction to all of this for next time, because I don't think we're really going to have time to enjoy it as much as it deserves to be enjoyed.
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tucker carlson posted this um and i found this to be very interesting and to be clear you know there's all of the stuff that i kind of specialize in when it comes to like uh foreign policy stuff um it's never And even someone like, say, Scott Horton, who he does have, and I guess this just comes from being in the game for a long time.
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I mean, I know I've gotten like a little bit of this now from being in this world for a while, where you actually do have like some insiders, right? You know, you have people who are like like close to the president who you'll have a phone call with and they'll be like, hey, this just happened or this just happened. And you start getting like some more.
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But none of what I ever if you look at any of my clips on Rogan or on Tucker or any of that, that's never what I'm saying. I'm never going like, look, I know people at the Pentagon and they're telling me this. I know someone who's there. That's not I'm always just talking about what. is just the official record. You know what I mean?
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It's just like, oh, look, even the New York Times and the Washington Post admitted this, and even the four-star general, Wesley Clark, admitted this, and even these guys, and then we all know we did this, but they wrote this policy paper that said this is really the reason they're doing it.
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What Tucker's talking about here is a little bit more of, you know, because he's an insider in a different type of way. The guy lived in Washington, D.C. for, I think, 30 years or something like that, was, you know, a journalist, a TV host, and, you know, ran an online publication. You know, he was in D.C., like, mixed in with these people.
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I think it's like it's been a unique challenge in the Trump years where it feels at times like about 90 percent of people are either going to love everything Donald Trump does or hate everything Donald Trump does. And it seems very hard for the people who love Donald Trump to ever admit when he's doing something wrong.
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Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
But anyway, so this was the post that I wanted to just read real quick. This was from Tucker Carlson. Tucker says one of the most striking things about yesterday's Zelensky press conference was Lindsey Graham's reaction to it. The two are old friends, but Graham disavowed him within the hour. This was more than just transactional disloyalty. It was scapegoating.
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Lindsey Graham knows what's coming over the past three years with the tacit support of its Western patrons patrons. The Ukrainian government has committed a remarkable number of serious crimes. The Ukrainians sold huge quantities of American weapons on the international black market at 20 cents on the dollar.
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These weapons are now in the hands of armed groups around the world, including Hamas, the Mexican drug cartels, and the forces now controlling Syria. God knows what the Ukrainians have done with the pathogens in American bio labs in their country. Even U.S. intel agencies aren't sure.
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The Ukrainians have also murdered a number of people in various countries in political assassinations and tried to murder others, including American journalists and a European head of state. This is all true, and it's all going to come out at some point. Better to start blaming it on Zelensky now. So that's what Tucker's saying.
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And I will say that I know Tucker well enough that like I'll say with like 100 percent certainty that Tucker isn't just saying this. Now, I'm not I'm not saying with 100 percent certainty that he's right about every claim in there. I just don't know. But I do know.
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Like I know him and I know that he's not just saying he's saying this because this is what he's hearing from people who are in the know. And that is just a whole nother very interesting wrinkle into all of this, that it is quite possible because it was a little bit strange that. to hearing Lindsey Graham throw Zelensky under the bus right away.
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Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
Now, you could argue that this is just that Lindsey Graham's like, look, I want to keep this war going. And now that this guy pissed off Donald Trump so far, he cannot be the guy to keep the war going. So we need a new guy to come in who flatters Donald Trump and then can keep the war going. But it is also quite possible that like, look.
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I mean, I'm I'm sure like you too, Rob, like I've heard the rumors about a lot of this stuff. I don't know exactly how true some of it is or any of it.
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Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
But it is interesting that I mean, look, when you just know the nature of governments and then particularly, you know, the nature of wartime governments and then, you know, the amount of money that's being flooded over there, there are I say there's almost no question that there are serious crimes and huge scandals that have been committed that just haven't come out yet.
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Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
And for the people who hate Donald Trump, it's like impossible for them to ever admit he did something right. But I will just say. And obviously, I'm not exactly neutral on this topic. I've been talking about this war for years now on some big platforms. And so I have a view going in. But I just could not believe that Zelensky would try. I found him to be totally disrespectful.
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And that is another interesting wrinkle into all of this to see like what we might learn now. And now that Trump has given, you know, the majority of Americans who support Donald Trump kind of given them license to be like, no, fuck this guy.
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Now it might be open season on revealing some of this stuff and then being able to blame it on Zelensky, even though there's probably a lot more people who are guilty than just Voldemir. All right. Any any other thoughts, Rob, or you want to call it a show?
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Oh, my God. It's so painful. All right. We'll get into all of that on tomorrow's episode. All right. Check out the Run Your Mouth podcast. Rob's other fantastic show. Comic Dave Smith dot com. Come see us on the road. Buffalo, Canada, Boston coming up real soon. All right. Thanks for listening, guys. Catch you next time. Peace.
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Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
I mean, it is. Yeah, you really can't kind of overstate how wild it is. Let me just real quick before we get into this, because there's a lot to talk about. A couple orders of business. I should mention that me and Rob will be in Buffalo, New York. on the 6th and the 7th, and then one night only in St. Catharines, Ontario on March 8th.
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And it was like to an appalling level. Listen, I'm never somebody who like, first of all, I'm not a suit and tie guy. I don't know, Robin, all of the years that we've known each other, if you've ever seen me in a suit and tie the the I put on not even a suit, but I put on a button down and a tie when I was at at the Reno convention, when I was speaking and then introducing Ron Paul.
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because I just felt like, okay, I got to put on a tie. I'm introducing Ron Paul here. And then when I've gone to weddings, I'll put on a suit for weddings. That's about the only time you'll ever catch me in a suit and tie. But if I was invited to meet- This is me dressing down for work.
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Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
Well, if I was if I was invited to go meet the president in the Oval Office, I would put on a suit and a tie because that just seems like the most. And then I will say this, too, man. And again, I'm really not, as you know, Rob, like I'm not some conservative in this sense.
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Like, I don't really care about like, you know, like conservatives used to freak out about Obama because like he had his tie loosened in the Oval Office. And you're like, this is disrespectful. I've never been that guy. But I do. I will tell you that.
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when, I mean, he said this publicly on the podcast, but when Rogan said on the last podcast that we got to do a podcast with Trump and me, and we floated out the idea privately a few times, and I never, it was never like, oh, this is definitely going to happen, but it was always like, oh, that would be awfully cool if that ended up working out.
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But there is, I mean, a 0% chance that I would ever refer to him as Donald. You know what I mean? Like if I was podcasting with Donald Trump, I would never be like, and Donald, you know, like that would be crazy. You know what I mean? Like I would call him Mr. President because that's just like that's the most basic level of respect that that is expected, I think, reasonably.
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Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
And so for first of all, for Zelensky to show up in that outfit and then repeatedly refer to the vice president as J.D. as he's arguing with him in the Oval Office, I did find is like I thought that was like a blatant like challenge and and and like just a show of disrespect that was. But then on top of that, it's like, look, you do just have to understand. And I'll say this.
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Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
And we'll play the clip in a second, but I do not completely agree with the narrative that J.D. Vance and Donald Trump were spinning. I definitely do not agree with the narrative that Zelensky was spinning. But the fact of the matter is, is that when you have...
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um the president of ukraine and the president of the united states and the vice president of the united states and the secretary of state of the united states in the oval office with tv cameras on you that event is by definition political This is a political event. And whatever narrative it is that Donald Trump and J.D.
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Vance want to present, this is not when you are our fat welfare mom relying on our money and weapons for your fight. You don't get to come in there.
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and just start like going like no no actually your narrative's all wrong and let me tell you what the real narrative is over here i mean on top of that his narrative was more than theirs was but the idea that you think it would be on the level of like if he came in to like Because, you know, essentially what J.D. Vance and Donald Trump were saying here was like J.D.
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Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
Vance was saying like, you know, the Biden administration didn't even try diplomacy. They just tried to be strong. We're actually coming in with diplomacy. We're going to solve this problem now. OK, that may not be like 100 percent accurate. There's some there's a lot of truth to it. But what? But that's the narrative that they're spinning. They're a new administration.
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Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
They got record high approval ratings for Donald Trump. The old administration is very unpopular and they're trying to sell it like this. And you don't get in the middle of that to just cut it off and go, no, no, no, no, no. That's not the narrative at all. This is a failure of Obama. Trump won Biden. And now and it's like, no, dude, you don't get to do that. I'm sorry. You're not.
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Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
And then coming up a couple weeks after that, we are back at Laugh Boston in the great city of Boston, Massachusetts. Very much looking forward to all of that. ComicDaveSmith.com for all of those ticket links. And of course, I will be returning to the Soho Forum to debate Alex Norwash on immigration. thesohoforum.org for those tickets. If you want to come, it'll be a live debate in New York City.
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Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
And Donald Trump's right when he says you don't have the cars. You're not in a position to be able to do this. It's like it would be like if I was like if I everything fell apart for me. And I'm just sleeping on your couch, Rob. And I'm literally like, I'm broke and I'm just borrowing money from you to eat. And you're giving me a place to sleep.
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And then like, I go with you to your parents' house or something like that. And I just start talking about what the problem with Rob is. Like, you just be like, what dude? No, like you're not in a position to do this right now. And so I did think it was, I thought it was like wildly disrespectful and just stupid from Zelinsky. And I mean, unfortunately for him, uh, You know, J.D.
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Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
Vance and Donald Trump are they're a mean combo, dude. Like these guys are good at what they do. And even if you don't think they're good at governing, they're really good at that. Whatever that is, you know, which is something that I kind of like have respect and I feel like some understanding of, like the battle of in front of cameras arguing about stuff. Man, they are formidable at that.
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Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
What's up? What's up, everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I am Dave Smith. He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein. And man, we got a good one to break down today. How are you, Rob?
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Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
And then again, to be in a language that you don't even really speak. So now you're just messing everything up. I don't know. It was just wild. I do want to play the clip. Anything else you want to add before we play a clip from this altercation? Let's go to the clip. Now, again, this is the shortened version of it, just because it's a little bit too long to play the whole thing.
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But let's start getting into a little bit of this and picking it apart. You have the full one. Well, how long is the full one, Natalie? All right, let's start playing it. Okay, sounds good.
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Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
All right, so let's pause it right here. Just to be clear, this was, yes, this was after the, you know, it's fine. This is actually a good place to play it from. It starts with Zelinsky giving a long lecture to J.D. Vance, which J.D. responded like this. But this is the moment, and I will say, man, one thing about Donald Trump, again, this
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Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
However you feel about Donald Trump in any other environment, this is his true talent. I mean, this is just when the cameras are on and it comes to who's going to be the biggest alpha in the room and who's going to like sell himself. There is just no one on Donald Trump's level. And so he sits there and he does it just right. He lets his pit bull argue with this guy for a while.
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Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
And then he's sitting there the whole time. You can tell. And I remember watching that. Like, I watched this as it was happening. And you just know you're like, oh, like this ends with Donald Trump being the dominant one in the room. He's sitting there letting them fight and picking his spot.
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Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
And that was the spot he picked because for Zelensky to come over here and start saying this utter like, first of all, you know, there's something so condescending about, you know, we all have problems. You have your big oceans and that's nice. And it's like.
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Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
But then for him to say, which essentially, by the way, what he's saying in kind of broken English has essentially been the war cry from the very beginning about this, just like all these wars always have their bullshit propaganda, is that if we don't stop Vladimir Putin now, you're going to feel it too. But what he's essentially saying here is what?
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Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
Looking forward to that very much. Okay. So, yeah, that was this. It was a pretty incredible moment. And you just like like you said, we do not see things like that ever. I would there's there's so many different angles here to kind of break all of this down. But I guess I would have to say the starting point is that that has got to be.
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Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
that Donald Trump, your plan right now is going to end in disaster for America. You're going to be feeling this soon. And that's, first of all, I'm sorry. This is just fucking ridiculous. You know, I was just on, I was just on with a Pierce Morgan show before we started recording too, and arguing with a couple of these dummies. And they always, it's like the same thing.
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Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
Every goddamn time, every war. I've just, I'm old enough. I've lived through so much of these now. It's always, if you don't fight this war, then... this disaster comes, you know, like if we don't fight the war in Iraq, then he's going to hand the weapons that he doesn't have off to the terrorists that he hates. It's just fucking ridiculous, but that's how they sold it.
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Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
And this one has always been that then he's going to invade Poland and then he's going to take on NATO countries. And then America is going to have to be in a direct war with Putin, but just none of it logically follows. There's no reason to think that if Vladimir Zelensky loses control of Luhansk. Therefore, America will feel pain. Like what? How does that even?
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Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
I mean, like, I'm not saying it's impossible, but why would we take that as a given? It makes no sense at all. And again, the argument of being like it is literally like, Rob, if you don't buy my groceries and give me a place to live, then you're going to feel a lot of pain is just not a compelling argument for why we should give somebody welfare. I thought it was crazy that he said that.
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Zelenskyy's Strategic Blunder
And then you could tell as soon as he said that you were like, oh, you just activated Trump. You're in trouble now. All right. So, yeah, let's play. Let's play Donald Trump's response. Go ahead, Rob.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Otherwise, we could have jobs programs like the Soviet Union had full employment before they went bankrupt. Because everyone had a government job, but that doesn't make you rich. I could hire somebody tomorrow and be like, hey, there's some big boulders in my yard. Go outside and pick them up and then put them down and then pick them up and then put them down. And that is really hard work.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
You're going to do that for eight straight hours. That's a really grueling job. And look, I just created five jobs. But that's not success. All I've done is drain myself of resources to pay five people to do something that doesn't produce anything. No, it's good, actually, actually, it's good when there's creative destruction.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
It's good when one person can do the job that 100 people used to be able to do, because those 100 people can now go do other things. You know, they can go produce other things. And this is, by the way, this is... how economies grow. This is, there are lots of different jobs that are just out of service now that are not jobs anymore. There is no horse and buggy salesmen. You know what I mean?
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Like there is, I mean, okay, they're in small numbers because it's kind of like quaint to us and it's a novelty now, but like that industry got put out of business, but that's okay. We got better things that people like to ride in better, you know? And like, so I do just think that there is this,
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
look i guess essentially what i would kind of conclude here is that look there is something that libertarians have to admit that is like okay look you can use the threat of very non-libertarian policies and it might even get a more libertarian outcome based on that threat but i do think that the people who are supportive of these tariffs have to acknowledge this like this question is that when we said we're going to pause the 10 tariffs on mexico is that a sacrifice that we're making
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Not exactly sure how we're going to put it out, if we're going to do two separate episodes or all as one episode, but she'll be joining us for a few minutes later. Obviously, very interesting time to talk to her about her running mate who is currently going through the confirmation process. So we'll get into that stuff at the top of the hour. Look at me.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Is it like, oh, we would be better off if we instituted this now, but we're sacrificing this to get the 10,000 Mexican troops on the border? Or is the benefit of the tariffs just to threaten them in order to get that extraction? And I don't think I've heard a good answer to that, because it can't be both. It's got to be one or the other here.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
And anyway, my humble argument to you, not so humble, I'm right, but... My argument would be that if Trump actually is serious about instituting these tariffs, some of them, I think, have already gone through, that's going to be bad for the U.S. economy.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
And this is right at the like if you're rooting for Donald Trump to be successful, right at the center of it is he's got to be great on the economy. He's got to deliver. Right. Like it doesn't all the other stuff kind of doesn't matter if people aren't happy with the economy, because that's what people care about the most. And rightfully so. That's their lives and their livelihood.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
It makes sense that they would care about that. But I do think that, like, I'd like to get a good answer on that question, and I have not gotten one yet. Any thoughts on any of that, Rob?
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
I sound like a real newsman at the top of the hour. Bobby Kennedy. See, man, I really sometimes I wish I was like a bit like if I had if I was born in like 1928 and I had like a present dad and I did my homework, I would have loved to be like an old time newsman.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Yeah, listen, I tend to agree with that. But again, there's two problems that I see. Number one is that there are a significant amount of Trump supporters who aren't viewing it like that, who are viewing it like tariffs are actually great and will make us richer. And I think that it's just bad economic thinking is something that's worth pointing out.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
And the other thing is just, as I said before, the issue I see here is Look, if it's working, it's working. I'm not arguing. I want things to work. I want the country to get better more than anything else. But you're threatening something that if you ever have to follow through with is going to hurt the country. And that's the issue.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Look, I'm just saying that's the concern. That's the concern. And then the way people interpret it is always like, oh, yeah, the tariffs are great. The tariffs are working. And it's like, they're actually bad economic policy. But I suppose the threat of them does hurt the other guy a little bit. You know, my analogy of punching yourself in the face isn't exactly right because it does.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
It also does hurt the other countries. So like there is some leverage point, like they bear some of the response. I mean, in the sense that like you, if you make, say Mexican goods, much more expensive for Americans to purchase, they will purchase less of them. I'm not making that argument, you know?
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
And so, yes, that does hurt the companies in Mexico, but of course it also hurts Americans who now don't have a cheap alternative to the goods that they already had the option to buy and were choosing not to buy them. You know, it's kind of like, it's very easy for people say in a similar sense to demonize, um,
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
what people will call usury sometimes, or like high interest rates, like loan sharks or something like that. And it's very easy to demonize a loan shark. A loan shark is essentially somebody who goes to somebody desperate and offers to loan them money at a very high interest rate.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
you know like when you when you had to smoke cigarettes when it was like enforced you had to smoke a cigarette dirt you'd like sit over your typewriter with a cigarette and you'd be like yeah truman more like a bunch of dames out there anyway i think i would have been good for that Unfortunately, I was born during these crazy times, and so now this is the answer.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
And yeah, it's sad because people in desperate situations will take that money and now they owe a crazy amount of interest back. But the issue is getting rid of the loan shark doesn't actually solve the problem. That person was still that desperate to go to a loan shark. Now they just don't have the option of the loan shark. You know what I mean? It just takes away.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
And so it's a similar type thing with like these trade policies where it's like people already have the option to buy American overpriced products. They can't afford them. And so if you just leave them with that, you're not doing anything for them. You're just robbing them of the more affordable products that they preferred to buy.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Anyway, we will see how this all works out, but I do think it's a conversation that's important, and I do think that sound economics is something that people should familiarize themselves with.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Okay, I want to switch gears here because there is another topic that was pretty incredible that goes right to the heart of stuff that me and you have been talking about for quite a while, but there was a clip of Zelinsky I do. We're going to play the clip for those, you know, that's obviously there's subtitles on this here.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
So for those of you listening just by audio, we will explain what he was saying in it. But let's play the Zelensky clip. They very casually just kind of dropped a pretty big bombshell about this war in Ukraine. And what a farce the whole thing is. All right. Here is the Ukrainian dictator Zelensky.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
as much as we love listening to the beautiful sounds of Eastern European accents. What Zelensky said there is that, you know, the U.S. claims that they gave us $177 billion in aid. This is what was approved by the Congress. And he claims that they've only received about $75 billion, leaving around, for you math ways out there, leaving around $100 billion unaccounted for.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Okay, there's a few major stories that are going on. I thought maybe we'd start with this. A lot of the stories are pretty important, so I'm not even ranking what's the biggest one, but I did find this very interesting on the topic of tariffs. Was Donald Trump pausing the tariffs, he said, for another month with Mexico after he was able to kind of extract,
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Man, war is just a glorious racket. I don't know, Rob, any thoughts on this admission?
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
have you seen uh Tucker Carlson was saying this thing the other day and I'm blanking a little bit on the details but he was saying there's this part of Switzerland that's like the richest part of Switzerland and that um he went there and it's like a bunch of Ukrainians like and they're all shopping buying like hundred thousand dollar bags and shit like that and you're just like wait what
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
like come on dude like you're in the middle of a war for your like an existential war for the survival of your nation and you guys are over here just blowing this money and it's like yeah like i'm sure that account i'm not saying you know i know what the percentage of that hundred billion dollars that accounts for but i'm sure it's from that you know what i mean or it's like some fungible thing where they can spend all their money now because it's being replaced by this um but look man i mean just like
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
It's kind of hard to overstate how just disgusting and reckless this policy of the Biden administration was, especially given that it was during such a difficult period for the American people. They just looting the American people and just sending their money all over the place. And you're right. You're absolutely right, Rob.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
A lot of it is these weapon companies just doing what they always do, looting the American taxpayer. And then a lot of it is corruption in Ukraine, which, you know, oh, by the way, what a shock.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
that ukraine is corrupt the most corrupt that ukraine is corrupt the most corrupt european country by far european country by far european country by far and have been for a long time um but and have been for a long time um but and have been for a long time um but it's just like imagine getting just it's just like imagine getting just it's just like imagine getting just like in the middle like in the middle like in the middle middle i guess we're getting close to middle i guess we're getting close to middle i guess we're getting close to the end of the war hopefully um
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
But after years of fighting this war and, you know, Ukrainian flags and everyone's Twitter bio and just all the lies, all the lies, whether it's the ghost of Kiev or Vladimir Putin blew up the Nord Stream pipeline or, you know, all these claims that have long been abandoned, by the way, they're not making these claims anymore because they're too. obviously, you know, based in pure lies.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
this agreement from the Mexican government to put, I believe it was 10,000 troops on the border. This is an interesting area to me. Obviously, we are free market libertarian types. We do not like tariffs. Tariffs are just another form of taxation, and they are
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
But after all these claims, you know, Zelensky is a beacon of democracy and all these, they're winning the war, Rob. Remember when that was the big talking point? They're about to repel the Russians. If we just get this next package through, they're going to kick the Russians out. Nancy Pelosi, they're going to retake Crimea.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Just lie after lie after lie, starting with the most important lie of all, which is that it was unprovoked. And she's, you know, the biggest one. But after all of this, we just kind of casually hear from the guy that that hundred and seventy seven billion dollars turned into about seventy five billion dollars. It is something, man.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Well, you brought up the PPE loans. And man, I mean, that was so obviously a scam even while it was happening. But yeah, I have seen some. And I don't know exactly what the numbers are, but I've seen different estimates of what percentage of it was just straight up fraudulently stolen.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
And then there were a whole bunch of scandals where I think the LA Lakers actually returned some of their money after it came out, how crazy it was. I'll tell you, I remember
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
my accountant telling me and then this must have been it was i i want to say late 2020 maybe it was early 2021 um but he told me he was like you know you might be eligible for the for one of these ppe loans like if you want to apply for it you could get like a big loan and i remember even the way he was describing it but i was like yeah but like i didn't i didn't like
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
I made more money this year than I made last year. I didn't lose any money off of the pandemic. I'm very fortunate. It was a good time for podcasting. And I was like, well, why would I get this loan? I didn't fire anybody. I don't need to keep hiring anybody. You know what I mean? And I was like, so wait a minute. It's a loan? What, the government would give me money and then I got to pay it back?
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
And he was like, you probably won't have to pay it back. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
they are destructive for the economy um they're destructive both for the country that's being tariffed but they are more destructive for the country leveling the tariffs um and so anyway it's just an interesting conversation because you have a dynamic here where
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
tariffs were being threatened are now being pulled back and you're getting something that I would see as a pretty big positive out of the threat of tariffs. So again, let me read the Trump tweet and then Rob, you could give your thoughts and I'll give my thoughts. Okay, so this is what Donald Trump posted. He said, I just spoke with President Claudia Schoenbaum of Mexico.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
It was packed shows, great audiences, both first time that me and Rob have done those clubs together, and it was just really great time. So I appreciate everybody for coming out. Next, we'll be in Key West.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
I know I'm saying that all wrong. It was a very friendly conversation wherein she agreed to immediately supply 10,000 Mexican soldiers on the border separating Mexico and the United States. These soldiers will be specifically designated to stop the flow of fentanyl and illegal migrants into our country.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
We further agreed to immediately pause the anticipated tariffs for a one-month period during which we will have negotiations headed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Treasury Scott Besant, and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick. and high-level representatives of Mexico. I look forward to participating in those negotiations with President Shinbal.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
And why he literally just completely fell flat on his face is that he would if you remember, Rob, we covered this on the show back during the Republican primary. But he'd be asked about the war in Ukraine or something like that. And he would just start giving this speech. Oh, we have to have a strategy. We have to do what's in America's interest. It's like, right. And in this case, what is that?
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Like, I'm sorry, that's not a good enough answer. You're the fucking Secretary of State, dude. You just say something vague like, well, we have to do what's right. Look, here's the reality, okay? Here's the important question. Hey, Mr. Rubio, was the war in Iraq in America's interest? Was the war in Afghanistan in America's interest?
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Was the war in Libya or Syria or Somalia or Yemen in America's interest? Because you supported every one of them. So what's up, dude? What was the problem there? That there just wasn't a strategy? And please, if you have that argument, you tell me, what was the strategy that would have worked in Iraq or Libya or Syria or Somalia or Yemen or Pakistan or Afghanistan?
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
That name just really doesn't sound Mexican to me, but I know I'm just saying it wrong. Anyway, that's not the important part. And as we attempt to achieve a quote deal, I'm not sure why he put deal in quotation marks, but you never do know with Donald Trump. As we attempt to achieve a deal between our two countries. Again, I'm not sure why there's quotes around deal.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Was there a different strategy that we could have pursued that would have made those things work? See, the thing is, he doesn't actually have any answers to that. So he'll just hide behind this vague, like, it's in our interest. All right, look, we have Nicole Shanahan here. So we're going to switch over to her. I'll see you next time, Rob. Thank you very much for everything today.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Let's bring Nicole in because a very interesting time to talk to Nicole, who is one of my favorite people. So here we go. Nicole, how are you?
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Well, it's been it's really been incredible. You know, I've been thinking about this over the last few days, you know, watching the Senate confirmation hearings with Bobby Kennedy, which were fascinating and and infuriating and just all types of emotions. But there really is something that.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
You know, you and Bobby and your presidential run did something that is really outside the box in American politics. And, you know, there's been... There's been third parties. There hasn't really been, maybe since Ross Perot, like a third party presidential run that made noise the way you guys did this year.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
But there was something where, and, you know, obviously when it comes to politics, there's always different views on strategy and what will work. But this strategy that you and Bobby, you know, embarked on, where you kind of had this issue that was central to your campaign, which was like, it's so...
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
As I look back on it, it's just so amazing that nobody else made this the central issue of their campaign. Like, hey, we're the sickest country in the world. That never comes up. But so there's this issue that was really outside of – certainly outside of what the Democrats cared about at all, but was really even outside of anything Donald Trump was talking about in his first run. And then –
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
You the MAGA and MAHA movements kind of come together and it actually delivered on getting Bobby Kennedy as the health secretary. Now, obviously, we're still waiting on the Senate confirmation, but it's like such an interesting dynamic that you could leverage.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
a third party run that had real grassroots support had millions of people supporting it to now and and then also i think because you know the way politics presidential politics work is during campaign season if you're not on the side of the guy who someone's supporting as president well then you're the enemy i hate you it becomes this friend enemy distinction but once you're supportive of that candidate then everybody in the mega movement kind of looks and goes oh you know they do really have a point
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
They do really have a point about how all our kids are sick. Hey, that's kind of an interesting issue. And so just that in itself has been so fascinating to watch and for you being in the center of it, it must be really interesting.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
It is my understanding that he really does want to make a deal with I don't know why Donald Trump would say, let's make a deal. Anyway, I don't think Donald Trump understands air quotes. That's not the point. The point is that this is kind of an interesting development.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Well, I look, I really appreciate you saying that. And I think that I think at least and obviously, you know, whenever you're speaking about any group, there are people within that group who agree or disagree. But I do think that, you know, the Libertarian Party was always to us a vehicle to try to get, you know, like some of this government corruption as limited as possible.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
You know, it's in our model, which is correct, is when you understand economics, threatening tariffs is essentially threatening to punch yourself in the face with However, if threatening to punch yourself in the face gets someone else to do what you want, and in this case, I think is a very good goal to have a secure southern border, it makes it harder to argue against them. I don't know.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
And most of us, I think at least the best libertarians, we don't really care if it's Parties don't matter. Parties are just vehicles to try to get done what you can get done. If some great outsider was gonna come end wars and end corruption and they were a Democrat, it'd be like, okay, I guess I gotta switch my registration and go be a Democrat now. Like, I don't really I'm not loyal to a party.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
I'm loyal to principles. And I do actually think, you know, there's first of all, there's a lot of overlap between a lot of the Maha concerns and a lot of libertarian concerns. And then, you know, I was talking about this on my last podcast, but there was one point I'm sure you you saw it.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
But there was one point where Bobby in his confirmation hearings, he specifically addressed the idea of like banning things. And he was like, look, President Donald Trump loves his Big Mac and Diet Cokes. I'm not trying to ban them, but I do think that if these companies are knowingly poisoning people, they have to disclose that and they have to let people know what the effects of these are.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
And I was saying on the show, I go, that's actually just from pure libertarian theory. That's a really interesting point. And libertarians tend to not believe in government regulation and not believe in big government programs.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
yeah well it's also it's interesting look i mean i think as as you kind of mentioned here before right like i think tulsi gabbard and bobby kennedy are probably the two like most outsider most uh um the ones who have been calling out corruption the most and then of course matt gates was the one who was already eliminated but isn't it interesting that the positions that you see the establishment freaking out the most were the justice department
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
the head of the deep state, the director of national intelligence, and then the health department. It's like these areas where there is just... And part of the, I think, issue is that there have been such crimes committed against the American people from these power centers that now you have powerful people who are really...
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
and I must say, probably legitimately scared to death that somebody might open the books and expose what they've been doing to the American people. That's one of these things that's tough to to brush aside.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Yeah, no, that's exactly right. And then, of course, also you mix in there the kind of monopoly on information that the corporate media has been for so long, and that's shattered now. And so not only can Doge get this information, but Elon Musk has, you know, like... whatever his Twitter following is, is the biggest in the world. And so now everybody can see it.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
It's not that now the American people can actually be aware of what their government is doing. And yet all these people who, you know, like have been talking about threats to democracy for so long, you would think they would be really excited that the people can finally see what's going on in the government. And yet they're the ones who are very concerned about that. And that
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
tells you quite a bit. Okay, so you, I wanted to ask you a little bit about this and specifically about Bernie Sanders. And there's been, you know, you made this video that I reposted that I really loved
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
where you were basically saying like listen like you have no idea how big this maha maga movement is and how much bobby kennedy as health secretary means to all of us and like we're not gonna forget who the senators who were against this will and you pledged to like put your resources toward primarying these people i gotta say and part of this is this new
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
you know vibe shift or this realignment of politics over the last really particularly over the last year but i guess over the last few years but i have seen like on social media this isn't a scientific poll or anything but i have really been struck by the number of people who claimed that they were die hard bernie supporters who were appalled at the way he behaved in that senate confirmation here i mean it was just so the blow hard of the like
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Putting up pictures of onesies and being like, do you denounce these onesies? Like, yes, thank you, Bernie. The real hard hitting issues of the world, some tongue in cheek onesies that said like, you know, I think we're mocking like the vaccine passports and being like, no, no vaccine, no problem. Come on in. But him like blowing up these onesies.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
And it really is something to see this guy who people looked at as like a champion of the people just totally exposed as like, you know, just defending power, trying to smear the guy who's a threat to power. I was appalled by it. I'm curious, you know, what your feelings are.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
And then two, does it even murdering children? Then it might be a calculation.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Okay, so I know this happened back in, I want to say this was like around 2012. This was before Bernie Sanders was running for president. So Ron Paul had introduced this audit the Fed bill in the Congress. And Ron Paul had these presidential runs, which you know, Bernie Sanders kind of mimicked in his own way.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
They didn't blow up the way Bernie Sanders did, but he had gotten a lot of interest over this audit, the Fed, because, you know, the Federal Reserve is like this shadow government that's quasi, a shadow bank that's quasi government, quasi private. It's never been truly audited. They print money out of thin air.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Like if you learn a little bit about it, you'd be like, yeah, we should be allowed to look at the books of that. And so Bernie Sanders said he was on board with it. He got like his own version of the audit, the Fed bill to propose in the Senate. And before it could pass, he gutted the whole thing of all its auditing power. And I remember Ron Paul was like, wait, why would you do that?
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
That was the whole teeth of the bill. And. That's always just kind of struck me as like, oh, like when it really comes down to it, Bernie Sanders will be on the side of power. And all I'm saying is that since then, at every single junction where it really matters, like when it comes down to it, like the, are you going to endorse Hillary Clinton?
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Or are you going to try to draw some concessions out of her before you endorse her? Or are you going to walk, you know, and like... Nope. Fall in line. Endorse Hillary Clinton.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
And and this Bobby Kennedy hearing just seems to be one more example of that, that like when there's an actual threat to power at the last minute, Bernie Sanders comes in and then tries to, like, take the pressure off and protect power. What's interesting is that this time it does not seem to be going over. like it did in the other ones.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
And for him, I just saw him the other day on one of these news shows, and he's saying his problem with Bobby is that he wasn't supporting Medicare for all. And if you truly care about health, you have to support Medicare for all. And I just think that people who have been following you and Bobby's presidential campaign
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
It's just like not working on them because like you go like, look, however you feel about Medicare for all. Obviously, I oppose it and I oppose all these these government health care health insurance schemes. But it's like if you're having the conversation of why we are so sick as a society, then whether you believe in Medicare for all or you believe in complete private medicine.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
insurance or anything in the middle, none of that addresses the heart of the issue. Like if whatever's poisoning us isn't dealt with, then you could have government insurance or private insurance. You're still going to have sick people.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
And it's like in the Bernie Sanders worldview, the only thing you're allowed to say about health is that the government should be paying for your medical treatment.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Government pays for them. Yeah. Yeah. And like, I don't know. I don't actually think the answer is like, okay, so we have, I mean, if you just take any one of the answers, it's like, so every, you know, I got a little boy now and he doesn't sit still for, I mean, he's young, he's only three, but he doesn't sit still. He's always all over the place.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
And you're telling me in three years, if he doesn't sit still, I should put him on methamphetamines? No, I'm not going to do that. And I don't really care if you offer me cheaper meth. I still don't want to put him on that. I don't really care if I had to pay out of pocket or if the government's going to pay for it. That doesn't seem to be the issue to me.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
The issue seems to be how sick are we as a society that we're medicating little kids? This is madness. And that we're never allowed to have this conversation is just even crazier.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Yeah. You know, I think that the thing I say is that it. It's almost like there's this weird thing, right? There's different dynamics with all of this. And there are some of the pro-Trump people are like bragging about this and going like, see, this is proof that tariffs... work or something like that.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
yeah well look i agree with you and and look if nothing else that's what he is in effect i mean we know that for sure you know like whatever his motives might be and i'm certainly not close to the possibility that it's intentional but like even even issues that i thought you know i think just now that there's been this major cultural realignment maybe some people who were bernie supporters can kind of look back on this but even like the issues that you know
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Bernie Sanders is running for president in 2016. We are still in the middle of the terror wars at this point, right? The war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq. We're drowning in debt. We're drowning in poison, as you and Bobby have pointed out, and in sickness and all of these problems. And, you know, to make like...
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Raising the minimum wage, the center of your campaign, it's like it kind of sounds nice. It's not really a threat to power. It's not really like the major issue. The truth is that it's a small percentage of the workforce are on minimum wage.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
The overwhelming majority, like I don't have the stats at the front of my head, but the overwhelming majority of people on minimum wage get a raise within the first year. It's almost always like an entry level job. And unfortunately, this might be a little, you know,
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Sometimes it's kind of like sometimes left wingers have an allergy to things that aren't sweet and might like hurt someone's feelings a little bit. But the truth is that for the most part, people who work minimum wage jobs and are stuck there and work minimum wage for 20 years don't. typically tend to be fairly limited in their abilities. And I don't mean that as a knock against them.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
I think it's actually quite noble that people who are limited in their abilities continue to work and like do something productive. And I think that's good. I'm not against that, but like,
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
it's just like this is your central issue this is really the the thing whereas like i think that sometimes you know like um sometimes even when you don't know about anything you could tell when someone's the real deal and when they're not the real deal like if i don't know anything about boxing i could see someone like hitting the heavy bag and be like oh they're a really good boxer but then if i saw a professional boxer come hit the heavy bag i'd be like oh no no that guy's a really good boxer
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
I thought that guy was good, but like that guy. And I think that's kind of what Bobby Kennedy versus Bernie Sanders was for a lot of people. It was like, oh, no, that guy's talking about some real shit right there. This was all just kind of like window dressing, like this guy's getting at the heart of like how corrupt this system is.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
And I look, I'll even I'm willing to concede, right, that because because there are things that are like, you know, theory is one thing and the real world is another thing. And that doesn't mean like what works in theory will work in the real world or it's bad theory. I'm not saying like something works in theory and doesn't work in the real world.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
And again, it's as we've talked about before, it's kind of one of these stars aligning things after covid. It was just so much more apparent to most Americans. Like, you know, like I'm one of these people who I never really thought much about vaccines until they lied through their teeth about the COVID vaccine.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
And then when I hear Bobby talking about how, oh, you know, they lied about a lot of these vaccines. I'm like, I am listening to you because I just I just watched them do that. And then their response is like, oh, you're a kook if you think that. And you're like, but I just watched you do it. I know for a fact you just did it about this one.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
So why is it so kooky to think that maybe you did it about more than just this one?
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Yeah, well, that's it is interesting to that Bobby's political position on this. Like, obviously, he's talked a lot about and, you know, people try to make it out like he's contradicting himself or that he's not admitting his full position. But I don't think that look, there's a difference between like your personal position and what your political position might be. Right. So like,
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
I might like, I believe in God, but if I was running for political office, I wouldn't be like, my position is that God ought to be at the center. You know what I mean? I'd be like, no, we should be a secular country. And that's like, people have a right to be atheists if they want to be atheists.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
And in the same sense, it's like Bobby's political position has always just been like, I want the studies done. I want to expose the corruption. I want to really look at this and get to the bottom. And it does strike me as like, why exactly would you be opposed to that?
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
I mean, like if these vaccines are, as every single Senator seems to insist, if there is no chance that any of these vaccines are not perfect. Okay. So then what would further study like that? Okay. If anything, from their perspective, then wouldn't you think, okay, if they think,
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
But sometimes in the real world, you come up against obstacles that you didn't account for in your theory. And so, for example, I could sit here and argue all day long that tariffs are bad for the economy and free trade is good. But if you're going to say, like, again, I used this example the other day when we were talking about Trump at the G6 meeting back during his first term.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
okay if your position is bobby kennedy and nicole shanahan are a bunch of and this whole movement are all and they're not following the science then wouldn't more science just kind of expose that and then it would kind of take the air out of the the sails of the the maha movement and then they go hey look we did our research and it turns out these vaccines aren't harming anybody
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's like, it's hard to kind of overstate it because it's like, you know, this, the idea that we've been poisoning our children, And that the government has not only, you know, not only looked the other way, but has worked to cover it up and keep it going. It's the biggest scandal in the history of the United States of America.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
If Trump threatens tariffs and then as a response to that, everybody brings their tariffs down and we make some deal where there's far lower trade barriers, then, OK, I can't argue that the outcome of this you know, the outcome of threatening a bad policy led to a much better policy.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
And, you know, there's nothing worse you could do. There's nothing that could be a higher priority than to stop that. And, you know, I would almost settle for just stopping it. Like, okay, fine. If that was the deal we could get, just stop doing it. And everybody who did it can get away with it.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
But I think the truth is that, you know, if people really find out the extent to which this has been done, they are going to be out for vengeance. And I don't know exactly how to control that or what, you know, because it's like these people did do that. And, you know, as I mentioned before, you know, I was talking about this on either the last or like a couple podcasts ago.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
But, you know, as Bobby had mentioned the thing about like, look, they should have to disclose this. And I was saying, look, even from a libertarian perspective, right, even in a pure free market perspective, if somebody who owned a store was selling sugar, you know, like a thing marked sugar, but they didn't put sugar in it, they put rat poison in it instead.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
No libertarian would be like, well, that's free market economics. We'd be like, no, that's a crime. You're not allowed to do that. And we all kind of know, like you go to the supermarket. And there's like Froot Loops with a big colorful toucan that's advertised to children. They buy the shelf level that's at the kids' eyes. Like they pay a premium to get it to sell to your children.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
And you just look at that and you go like, man, that's like... It's not just that that's a crime. There's lots of crimes. It's just like it's such a profoundly evil crime. I mean, you're trying to poison people's kids. And, you know, I will say this.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Okay, sorry, sorry. Well, maybe that's not the best example. I'm new. I'm newer to this game. But I did think it was really funny, maybe the funniest political moment of the year. And I couldn't and I know how much like, you know, some of these corporate media outlets get wrong. But when they when the New York Times fact checked Thank you.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
I think the thing that's important to point out, and maybe this is even like a question for some of the Trump supporters who disagree with libertarians on this policy, but just like be clear, what is it that we're talking about here?
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Because so often the way that Donald Trump talks about tariffs and the way lots of people in MAGA talk about tariffs is as if they're a good in and of themselves, like that they help the country. Tariffs help us get rich. They don't allow the Chinese to rip us off. They bring manufacturing back to the United States of America. They do all these good things.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Well, if that's the case, then why are we pausing them for a month? Right. Like if the truth is that this is just good policy that will help America. So what are you telling me? Is the claim now that we're sacrificing something in order to get the 10,000 troops at the border? Like that's that's OK if that's the argument you want to make. But like I'm just saying, like, which one is it?
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
but uh yeah come party down with key west i'll be sitting out at the beach titties hanging out margarita drinking let's do it let's do it i was just telling natalie before we started so i what my heat here as well you guys know this but the heat is broken in my studio
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Like, is that the case? If you're saying that tariffs make us rich, then why would we pause them for a month? You know what I mean? Unless you're just saying the 10,000 troops was of more value than the tariffs would have been to us. But you do get my point here. These are different claims to make. There's one claim to say they can be used as leverage in negotiation to get toward good policies.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
I'm not sure I completely agree with that, although, you know, look, I am to some degree an empiricist and I will adjust to the facts on the ground. OK, if the threat of tariffs is working to get good policy through, then I can't really argue with that. But if you're saying the tariffs themselves are good, then why are we messing around and why are we only doing like 10 percent? Like, why not?
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
You know what I'm saying? Like, why not go for 50% tariffs or 100% tariffs? Or why not 300% tariffs? Like, if tariffs are so great and they are a good in and of themselves, why don't we just tariff the whole world? I mean, like, no, I'm not saying that that in itself, that question proves anything.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
But I think you would, if you're being honest, have to admit, like, yeah, that's an important question to get at. It's a reducto absurdum, similar to, like, when people go... If people say, oh, you're a terrible person if you don't support a $20 an hour minimum wage, and you're like, well, why not? Are you that much better of a person if you support $1,000 an hour minimum wage?
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
And so I'm just getting at the point of like, because it seems sometimes like it's a moving goal. Like a moving target? Like what exactly is the argument here? Because my argument is fairly simple. And that's that actually instituting tariffs are going to hurt Americans. It's going to hurt more Americans than it's going to help.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
It'll be good for a small group of people and then bad for a much bigger group of people. So if that's the case, if I'm right, then okay, it's fine to threaten them and pause them to get something you want. But then essentially recognize that the threat still is that you're gonna punch yourself in the face. And the problem with threatening to punch yourself in the face as a negotiation tactic
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
is that what if someone calls your bluff like what if they don't do what you want them to do and then you're left with what following through on your threat to hurt yourself i mean tariffs are going to raise prices they're going to lead to higher prices of goods i think we've gotten a little taste over the last four years of what that does to the average american
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
What's up, everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I am Dave Smith. He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein. We are back from our adventures in Louisville and Fort Wayne, Indiana. Real quick, before we start the show, thank you to everybody who came out.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
and i've got to have someone come fix it but so i got a space heater running in here and i forgot to turn it on today so i am freezing right now as i record that by power through this is very jordan game six with the flu type situation game five with the flow uh i'll power through but just as we're talking about key west has never sounded more appealing to me than right now in this moment i'm like yes
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
And again, in the example of price inflation, which that was true inflation, it was a result of the increase in the money supply. But look, it was good for a small number of people. It was good for people who are speculators. It was good for people who own a lot of assets. But it was terrible for everyone else, for every regular person who just works a job.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
It's a nightmare for you if your grocery prices go up by 20%. And likewise, you know, like, look, just think about if you just think about it in terms of like economic laws. What you know, like nothing magically changes outside of our government borders. Like obviously there is such a thing as a nation and you want to have control over who's allowed to come in and who's not allowed to come in.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
And you could even argue you want to preserve the uniqueness or the culture of that nation. But when you're talking about economic laws, None of that exists. That's just, you know what I mean? Those are other forces. If you're talking about economic laws, okay, so there's a factory in Mexico producing something. We're going to tariff them.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Okay, well, why wouldn't that work with the factory within the United States of America? I mean, like why, maybe there's just one factory and we could tariff the shit out of that factory, you know? And then like, oh yes, that would help the factory that's competing with them. But I think you could recognize pretty quickly it would hurt everybody else.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Well, likewise, you know, like we've talked about these examples a million times before, but if you're going to go down the road of believing that a foreign government producing something for cheaper is hurting us, this is what Bob Murphy said years ago that I always really liked it, then you'd have to argue that it would hurt us even more if a foreign government was to give us stuff for free.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
But now look at what you've been reduced to arguing. You're arguing that someone giving you something for free makes you poorer. And that's just a really, really tough argument to make. I mean, like that is like and we're not talking it's not comparable to like welfare. We're not talking about a forced subsidy or a forced, you know what I mean? Anything. You're just talking about trade.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Now, again, if you're going to go if you're going to go down this line and argue that. cheap Chinese goods are hurting the American economy, then you'd have to say that free Chinese goods would be devastating to the American economy. The worst thing in the world would be if other people produced stuff for us and gave it to us for free.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
But again, just think about what you're reduced to arguing there. Like think about how, because look, there are things that we get for free, like that we don't really think about.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
frederick bastia gave examples of this right but like oxygen is essentially not an economic good because it's just everywhere we just all have it and believe me if oxygen wasn't everywhere and we had to work really hard to produce oxygen that would become a very important resource very quickly okay and so we'd have to work to produce it are you arguing that that would be better
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Would it be better if oxygen just wasn't free and available everywhere or like sunlight wasn't available during the day and we had to put in grueling like hours of labor in order to get those things because there'd be more jobs? Yes, there would be more jobs. There would be more production within America, but it would be people working towards something that we already have.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Let's go down there. Let's go see what's up in Key West. Okay, so we got a lot of stuff that I wanted to talk about today. And then we have Nicole Shanahan should be joining us at 2 p.m. So for the people watching on the website, we'll just stream the whole thing.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
And like I, you know, I don't mean to be all Lulbert about this, but I do think it's important to understand economic realities here, especially since this is such a major issue right now that that Trump. Again, I got to say, kind of speaks out of both sides of his mouth on like, I'm not sure what the argument is here. Are they a good negotiating tool or they are good in and of themselves?
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
Because if there are good in and of themselves, then. You're essentially embracing this crazy economic model where, you know, there was this old story, and I always forget the details on it, but I believe it was Milton Friedman. He was visiting some country. I think it was in the former Soviet bloc after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
And he's talking to the guys and they have this big shovel ready project. And there's like a thousand workers outside and they're shoveling. And he goes, well, why are you like, why don't you use an excavator? Why are you using a shovel? You know what I mean? And he goes, no, Mr. Friedman, you understand this is a jobs project. And Milton Friedman said, well, then why not use spoons?
Part Of The Problem
Nicole Shanahan
You know, and like I think that alone, it just gets you thinking about economics the way you should think about them. Like a jobs project isn't what you want. You want productive jobs that produce things that other people want to consume because they think it makes their lives better. That's what's important.
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Trump Flirts With Disaster
and okay it's just like a comment on twitter but i was just like blown away and i'm not blown away by much but i was like does any anybody actually thinks i would just because i'm like well i did support this guy so i'll rationalize and and like defend getting in another war in the middle east is that but just for anyone who may have that i will say this if donald trump
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Trump Flirts With Disaster
actually does launch a war in a round not only will i not support it i i will apologize for the rest of my life for voting for the guy that undoes any positive that might have come out of this so just to be clear on that is it would be the most disastrous policy and i just can't even believe maybe like i didn't even mean it but i can't believe anyone would think like
Part Of The Problem
Trump Flirts With Disaster
you know that somehow we're we're now in the business of just sucking up to donald trump that i was i was his sharpest goddamn critic in his first four years it was a pretty sharp critic for the next four years after that and i supported him this time because it just seemed like in the moment we had two options and one was clearly preferable but i have no loyalty toward trump or anyone in his cabinet or or
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Trump Flirts With Disaster
anything about the administration. I have loyalty to my principles and my country and my family, but none of that leads towards supporting a war in Iran. Okay, go ahead, Rob. Anything you want to weigh in with?
Part Of The Problem
Trump Flirts With Disaster
I guess I should be able to go somewhere by myself. Anyway, so a lot of stuff coming up. What's your website again, Rob? RobBernsteinComedy.com. RobBernsteinComedy.com and, of course, ComicDaveSmith.com for the rest of our, you know, for the year. We got a whole bunch of ticket links up there to see me and Rob, evidently.
Part Of The Problem
Trump Flirts With Disaster
yeah which by the way is even in isolated iran is a large project i mean again this is not you know and there's there's military experts who understand this a lot better than me but it is not it is not comparable to the war in iraq it's not comparable to any of the terror wars iran can touch thousands of our soldiers over there we have military bases all throughout the region that they can hit
Part Of The Problem
Trump Flirts With Disaster
And the idea that we're just going to go in there and like bomb their nuclear sites, which again, they don't have nuclear weapons, but Bob, their nuclear energy sites or whatever. And they're not going to respond is just that not living in reality.
Part Of The Problem
Trump Flirts With Disaster
Yeah, well, look, I mean, that'd be pretty bad too, but I guess perhaps better than the alternative. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Prolon.
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Trump Flirts With Disaster
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Part Of The Problem
Trump Flirts With Disaster
together in nashville but everywhere else uh we will be together all right so um let me just preface the beginning of the show by saying i did i mentioned this on the uh the members only podcast that we recorded this week i did say at a certain point i was like i i apologize i'm gonna have to repeat some of this stuff on monday's episode um because it's just like i i need to i need to say this
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Trump Flirts With Disaster
but you don't actually have to fast, which is, you know, for me would be a deal breaker. So make sure to check them out. And for a limited time, you can be first in line to experience the next gen at special savings. Prolon is offering part of the problem listeners 15% off site-wide plus a $40 bonus gift when you subscribe to their five-day program.
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Trump Flirts With Disaster
All you got to do is visit ProlonLife.com slash POTP. That's ProLonLife.com slash P-O-T-P to claim your 15% discount and your bonus gift. All right, let's get back into the show. Anyway, it's interesting because there's a real split between
Part Of The Problem
Trump Flirts With Disaster
um amongst trump's base over this issue and there's um you know obviously like on the left there's there's a lot of people who oppose this stuff too but forget that i'm just talking about donald trump's base here it's it's it's interesting that it's like there is essentially no way to actually launch this war without completely dividing Donald Trump's base.
Part Of The Problem
Trump Flirts With Disaster
And you can just read the room in terms of like, not just social media, but like in terms of like high profile Trump supporters, he will lose a ton. over launching these wars. He's already lost support over just continuing to back Israel and bombing the Houthis. But if he really steps this up and starts bombing Iran, I mean, I just it's going to be a political nightmare for him.
Part Of The Problem
Trump Flirts With Disaster
So we will see what he chooses to do. I mean, there's obviously, you know, there are things that
Part Of The Problem
Trump Flirts With Disaster
um particularly when it comes to foreign policy it's true with government policy in general but particularly when it comes to foreign policy there are we've watched a lot of wars get started when there is absolutely no popular support for them on the ground you know but it's just like well this is what some powerful people who really control our foreign policy want and so that's what they're gonna get um all right anyway uh you know what let's uh let's go i thought this was um
Part Of The Problem
Trump Flirts With Disaster
this was quite entertaining to me, but let's, let's go to the, uh, um, the rabbi Senate testimony, uh, which was, uh, anti anti-Semitism. This, this clip is going super viral. It kind of is on the theme of, uh, um, it's on the theme of what we were talking about with this big divide for, uh, about, uh,
Part Of The Problem
Trump Flirts With Disaster
you know, kind of the non-interventionist streak, the America first people who support Donald Trump and then the neocons and the neocon like supporters of Donald Trump. I will say, I must say that even I have seen this video is going super viral. It also has a lot to do with the whole woke right debate.
Part Of The Problem
Trump Flirts With Disaster
that i've kind of publicly been in with uh constantin cassin and uh james uh lindsey although i haven't actually had a formal debate on the subject i don't know that anybody has and i've offered many times but anyway whatever but i've seen people like uh like i saw will chamberlain and i saw um
Part Of The Problem
Trump Flirts With Disaster
um, Matt Walsh and like people who were like, I wouldn't have thought would have jumped on this, that, that were at least this, this was too far for even them. And they were like, yeah, no, this is woke bullshit. Like we don't, this isn't how this is everything we've been against. Like it's always interesting to me.
Part Of The Problem
Trump Flirts With Disaster
And I, I find it endearing and I appreciate it in people, but where you just see, sometimes you just see people, even when it's against their interest, go like, yeah, I, I'm not comfortable being this big of a hypocrite. You know, like just like I'm not comfortable preaching against something every single day for 15 straight years and then embracing that exact thing the next day.
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Trump Flirts With Disaster
I'm not going to do that. And so I do appreciate those people who are saying that. By the way, it should also be mentioned that this was this witness. Hold on. Sorry. One second. Let me. because I saw, okay, so this witness was introduced by Republican Senator Bill Cassidy. I'm getting this from Sagar and Jetty, excellent journalist.
Part Of The Problem
Trump Flirts With Disaster
in front of the entire audience and not just those dedicated uh subscribers but by the way this is kind of part of the cool thing about subscribing and getting the members only episode like you got to hear me as i was flushing out these ideas and i've thought a little bit more about them since then also there's been some other uh developments uh since we recorded our our members only show by the way if you want the members only shows you got to go sign up at partoftheproblem.com
Part Of The Problem
Trump Flirts With Disaster
Make sure you go follow him and follow Breaking Points, great show. This witness was introduced by Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, who has openly decried critical race theory. So just to be clear, these are the anti-woke Republicans who call on this rabbi to explain what we must do. Here, let's play the clip.
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Trump Flirts With Disaster
All right. That was Rabbi Joe Jorgensen, everybody, bringing you the latest. And I will give this rabbi the exact same response, literally verbatim, the exact same response I gave to Joe Jorgensen when she said it's not enough to be passively not racist. We must be actively anti-racist. I will say when this rabbi says it's not enough to be not anti-Semitic, we must be actively anti-anti-Semitic.
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Trump Flirts With Disaster
No, we fucking mustn't. That's how freedom works. Actually, there is no must here. There is no we and there is no must. People do not have to go out fighting against anybody having an impure thought in their heart or head. That is actually not the role of government. It's certainly not the role of religious leaders. It's not like this is just bullshit. And then, of course, first of all,
Part Of The Problem
Trump Flirts With Disaster
It is, this is the identical creed to the woke left. Exactly, exactly the same thing that they say. And of course, it's a tactic used in exactly the same manner. Because, okay, first of all, you might just go like, well, okay, we have to be actively anti-racist or actively anti-anti-Semitic.
Part Of The Problem
Trump Flirts With Disaster
It's like, okay, so now, well, what exactly do we have to do to these people who have committed thought crimes? What is it that we have to do? Do we have to assault them? Do we just have to ruin their lives? Do we have to get them fired? Should they be censored off the internet? What exactly do you mean by being against this thing? Oh, and then also, who gets to define what the thing is?
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Trump Flirts With Disaster
Who gets to define what racism is or what anti-Semitism is? What is racism? Is it racist if I point out that we have a major problem with black crime in Chicago? Is that racist? okay, is it racist to make an argument about disproportionate numbers? This is what the woke left rely on for all their claims of racism. Oh, there's a disparate outcome.
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Trump Flirts With Disaster
Is it racist to point out that the percentage of Jews in the population versus those in, say, the corporate media? Oh, no, you don't ever have to define that. You just say we're going to go to war against that. Oh, and by the way,
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Trump Flirts With Disaster
Every single American, every American, including the Jewish ones, I know from firsthand experience, every American who opposes the foreign nation that is Israel's government is labeled anti-Semitic. All of us, 100%. There is nobody who is a public figure in the United States of America who opposes Israel's action, let's just say in Gaza. Let's just leave it at that.
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Trump Flirts With Disaster
Then you can also watch the shows live, ad-free, uncensored. Only way to do that, though, is to sign up at partoftheproblem.com. So the latest is that yesterday, Donald Trump, of course, because he's Donald Trump, he threatened to bomb Iran. This was, I think, in many ways, kind of the most serious sounding of his constant need to flirt with yet another disastrous war in the Middle East.
Part Of The Problem
Trump Flirts With Disaster
It was just against this war who has not been called anti-Semitic. So what, oh, okay. So now what are we doing here? We're shutting down an argument By calling the other person a bigot and then implying that we must censor that bigotry. Who does that sound like? Who does that sound like? And it's amazing to me to see, you know, the guys like like, you know, I haven't seen any of them comment.
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Trump Flirts With Disaster
I saw James Lindsay retweeted somebody saying that, like, no, this is totally different than the woke left. It was just so ridiculous. But I saw Eric Weinstein like jumped in on agreeing with James Lindsay about the woke right. Tell me one of them, Constantine. Eric Weinstein. OK, James is gone. He's that guy's lost his mind. But you two, you're looking at this.
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You don't see any parallels, really. You don't see anything in there that sounds a little bit like the identical argument that the woke left has been making for the last 15 years, that your your opposition to a policy can be given the least charitable interpretation of Called just just assuming that your motivations are bigotry and therefore we must be in a in a war against you.
Part Of The Problem
Trump Flirts With Disaster
Doesn't ring any bells because it's given me a lot of a lot of deja vu over here. What do you think, Rob?
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No, that's absolutely right. And then, like... And maybe this is, like, in addition to all of that stuff, but I just go, like... I just feel... Like, why would Jewish people want to do this? It's so short-sighted. It's so, like, you're sitting here and you're going, look, by the way, like, I'm not denying that there has been a rise in anti-Semitic, tweets on Twitter. And I don't know exactly.
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I mean, you know, when you talk about like, like, obviously, a lot of the protests, as we've been talking about now for a year and a half, a lot of the protests against Israel, They are they're they're a different type of people than me and you, Rob. You know what I mean? These are not exactly like, you know, libertarian gold bugs who are out protesting the war in Gaza.
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Trump Flirts With Disaster
And they are I've certainly seen some slogans and chants and behavior, frankly, that I really don't like. Yeah. I also, you know, it's like it's the same thing like as the woke left, though, when they just start characterizing it as if like Jewish students in college campuses in 2025 in a first world country at elite universities, you're looking for victims. It's like. okay, fine.
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But like, you're going to have to really explain this to me, like really explain it to me so that it makes sense. Like you got to really have an argument for how exactly these people are oppressed. Like, look, I'll say, And this was never, you know, I as far as like the trans issue was concerned, I was always my biggest thing was always pushing it on children.
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I thought was fucking insane and like just horrible. I thought there was on top of that kind of like a more interesting discussion about kind of the woke demands that other people recognize your identity. quite frankly, delusion. That I thought was crazy. I never cared about the female sports stuff. You know, like I'd agree. I'd be like, yeah, that's crazy. But like, I don't know.
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Trump Flirts With Disaster
Who the fuck cares about women's sports? You know what I mean? That was always my attitude. Sorry. I don't mean to be a dick, but honestly. And then that Riley Gaines chick, when she told her story about how she's like, look, man, like we're on this like swimming team. And there's like a dude with full dick and balls in our locker room. And we're all changing.
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We're forced to change in front of this guy. She's like, that's really weird. And I'm like, I'm Christian and married and I don't want to do this. And you're like, Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
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And coincidentally, the only war... that hasn't been checked off of the clean break foreign policy, of what has become the famous seven wars in five years, that four-star General Wesley Clark, the supreme leader of the NATO allies, that he himself said that he saw the plans for, that we were going to have seven wars in five years.
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It obviously didn't happen in the five years, although there's actually quite a bit of evidence that they – thought they would get this war quite a while ago um but they um of those seven countries six of the wars have happened this is the seventh iran happens to be the same now of course There is absolutely no political appetite for another catastrophic, disastrous war in the Middle East.
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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Like just be be a podcast or be a radio show or be whatever. But if you're telling me there's not enough of a market for it, we can't make it on our own. Like, OK, well, it's the most oversaturated market in the goddamn country right now. So if you can't make it, there's plenty of other people. There's there are plenty of left wing people.
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Donald Trump won the presidency twice explicitly on distancing himself from that type of foreign policy. And yet Donald Trump continues to saber rattle toward this policy, which would be, again, as we both mentioned before, Rob, it would almost seem like, you know,
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podcasts and news shows and all of this and there's plenty of right-wing podcasts and news shows and there's plenty of centrist ones and there's socialist ones and libertarian one i mean there's just everything and and so of course right away you'd be like why should the government be funding one of them and then particularly if you are in the government and don't share the ideological foundations of that what why should you be funding somebody whose ideological foundations are in opposition to yours and then on top of that we've also just
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I think we're just way past the point where you can even have these things in America because we're so divided culturally and we're so like... you know, just living in different realities right now that to have tax dollars funding either any side is going to be like seen as by a huge portion of the American people as like, oh, this is insane.
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You're funding like propaganda that is filled with lies. I mean, like, I don't know, like, like, I think our side is right. You know, like, I think we're correct on the issues. But I will tell you the story of the last five years is that
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Our government was funding a virus in a Chinese lab with substandard regulatory safety procedures and then allowed the virus to get out, knew that, conspired to lie through their teeth about it, then locked the entire Western world down on the basis of pseudoscience, then lied through their teeth about that.
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With Donald Trump just humiliating the Democrats and public opinion completely turning on the Democrats to the point that the brand of the party is toxic in a way like neither of the major two parties have ever been in my lifetime. And at that moment, you go, OK, there's probably only one thing. that could totally ruin this and usher back in the Democratic establishment.
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then tried to demonize everybody who questioned the lockdowns of being these evil people while telling you it was racist to tell the truth that the virus came from this lab that our government was funding, then denied it, then lied under oath, talking about Fauci here, saying that they never did gain a function and that they didn't fund that lab when they clearly did.
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Then they pivoted to a vaccine that they knew wouldn't do what they were selling it as. So I could tell you the whole story.
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npr will have a completely npr would think that's nuts what i just told you and they'll go no this is what happened instead and now i think they're wrong and i'm right but like we are just experiencing two different realities here you know what i mean and like i don't mean that literally obviously there's only one reality and we're living in that and they're delusional but i'm just saying it's true the gap is so wide that you just kind of can't have this anymore
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already. Look, this is what I mean. There's a real old school journalist thing where this is how you're supposed to talk about your news coverage. I don't know how we ever lived in a time where people would accept hearing this. What does that mean to say your coverage is not biased? First of all, it's a joke because NPR is, as everybody knows, and I'm not like, I don't even hate NPR.
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I mean, I kind of do, but like, it's something that like, I'd like if me and you were in a car ride together and you were like, you want to throw on NPR for a minute, I'd be like, all right, let's hate listen to NPR for a fucking minute. You know what I mean? Like it's, it's, But to say that they're not biased, everybody, including the people who like NPR, of course know that it's bias.
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But well beyond that, there is no such thing as non-bias news coverage. It just doesn't exist. You always have biases in some area. And maybe you could argue that my biases are correct. But there's always bias. There's always nobody. If you think about it, it's like it's like the type of thing where you go like you'd have to be so open minded that your brain falls out of your head.
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Like, what does that mean? If you were covering a story about slavery, do you do you cover that by by going like, no, I'm not taking a position pro or against. I'm just telling you that there was this one group for slavery and this one group against slavery. And I will treat them both equally. No, nobody does that. Everybody has.
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It was, it was a, I always, I said it like before we went, but Boston's just, Boston's such a goddamn great comedy town. I love, and I love Boston. It's a great city. Although I do, I know Rob, Rob, Rob drove up there and you were mentioning it's the worst city to drive through. And then I came home and I saw my father-in-law and he was like, how was Boston? I was like, oh, it was a great time.
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Look, there's even just when you say when you have the entire media saying that Donald Trump represented the end of democracy. OK, now, right away, the first thing that jumps out of you there is that that's kind of a hysterical claim and there's no real evidence to suggest that. And this is right. But forget that.
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In order to truly claim that you had no bias in your reporting, you would have to treat that as a completely debatable subject, whether it's good or bad. Like, in other words, and maybe the end of democracy would be a good thing. Because if you're pro-democracy, that's a bias. Now, you could argue that is a completely justifiable bias.
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And that would be another catastrophic war in the Middle East. And so, of course, that's what we've got to move closer and closer toward. It's really, it's astounding to say. Anyway, so Donald Trump, I have his quote here. He said, speaking to NBC News in a phone interview yesterday, Donald Trump said, if they don't make a deal, there will be bombing.
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But the idea of arguing that any to sit here with a straight face and say our programming has no bias. What world are you living in? No programming, no programming. There is never once in the history of the world been a news program that didn't have a bias attached to it. It's that simple.
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Your bias might be that you're pro-free speech, that you're pro-democracy, that you're pro-West, that you're pro-America, that you're pro-women, that you're pro-LGBT. It might be that you're pro-white people. It might be, you know, whatever it is. There's lots of different ones you could have, but there's always a bias.
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And so this, I think just eradicating this mentality, pretending is a positive thing. I think it's one of the best things about like the new media landscape is that nobody's really pretending that anymore. Nobody's like, there's no one out there who's really pretending, oh, this show is completely unbiased. Imagine Rob. It's on the level of us saying that about this show.
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Imagine we were to say we're completely unbiased on this show. Of course, we have tons of biases on this show. We're pro-market. We're pro-peace. We're pro-America. The whole thing is biased. That doesn't mean I still don't think we're telling the truth, but it does mean that like, oh, yeah, no, we have a perspective here that we are giving you.
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Who would deny that and think anyone could believe them? All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Moinkbox. I love this company. Did you know that four companies control over 80% of the U.S. meat industry? By the way, that's the way it is in a lot of industries due to overregulation. Usually about four companies control 80% of the market.
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This is the best offer they've ever given us. They're the best wings you will ever taste for free, but for a limited time only. Go check them out at moinkbox.com slash POTP. That's moinkbox.com slash POTP. All Let's get back into the show.
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Well, that's why I said it would be on the level of us claiming we're not a libertarian podcast. You're just being like, no, there's no, we're just being objective. And if that makes libertarianism look good, then it does. But like, that's no, oh, no, I'm not libertarian. We're every bit as socialist as we are libertarian, Rob. Right? Like, what are you talking about?
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And you don't have to pretend that in order to argue that, like, no, I think I'm right about this. All right. Anyway, let's keep playing. Sorry, go ahead.
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It will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before. Donald Trump is saying that they need now to make a nuclear deal or Donald Trump will bomb Iran like they've never seen before. This comes after, and I'm quoting here from Dave DeCamp's article over at antiwar.com. Go follow antiwar.com. Go follow Dave DeCamp. They are the best. This is after the U.S.
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npr is a definite example of that i thought one of the things that was interesting about that congressional hearing was that they really brought the receipts over the way that uh npr has covered these topics and hunter biden's story might be one of the best examples yeah well that's coming up in this book in a second so let's uh get but yes you're absolutely right no um it's 100 and by the way just to what you're saying news hour um on uh pbs i oh i used to think like in the pre-trump days i used to say i'd be like oh that's probably the best
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like TV news show on the, aside from like, you know, I loved Stossel and Judge Napolitano and Kennedy, but like, I'd go, that's probably the best, like, no, just, and it was always liberal, but just because it was like, it was like higher IQ. It was like, oh, they're actually like diving into a little bit of like, hey, what's going on in Somalia right now?
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Let's actually talk to some experts about that. And it wasn't just like, you know, whatever, like dumb cable news shows or something like that. Anyway, let's, let's keep playing with this clip.
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And then look, she does this kind of moving the goalpost thing a little bit subtly there. But when she says... quite correctly. She goes, look, I'm not part of the editorial team. And I wasn't at NPR at the time. It's like, okay, fine, fair enough. But your claim was not that you are not biased. Your claim was that the programming at NPR was not biased.
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And so, OK, fine, you weren't there, but we're talking about them. That's who we're talking about, the organization that you now run. And so to actually with a straight face be like, hey, and we regret not reporting on the Hunter Biden story, to your point, when it mattered at all. It only matters now to point out how biased these guys are. But but. Okay, but why didn't you guys report on that?
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I mean, come on. You're really going to argue that that wasn't because of a pre-existing bias that you guys already had? Do you think if there was a scandal about Donald Trump in October of 2020, they would have buried that story and only be talking about it now five years later? I don't think so, okay?
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Like, it's like, oh, it's very coincidental that all your regrets happen to go in one direction and one direction only. And that happens to be in the direction that coincides with your obvious bias that you're denying. I mean, get out of here. Now, let's just play the very end of it and then we'll wrap up.
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intelligence agencies in their annual threat assessment said that there is no evidence that Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon. It seems that the 2003 ban that the Ayatollah put on weapons of mass destruction is still in place. Of course, we've heard endless propaganda over the years about how Iran is on the verge of building a nuclear weapon.
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By the way, that's it. But you know what's a really great way to turn to the public is to not take government money. Just saying that way you could really find out what the market thinks of your news. But look for her thing here to be. And you notice at the end there, by the way, she really slivers away from the central argument because then he just has the obvious follow up question.
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And this is not exactly a hostile interview, but the obvious follow up question is like, OK, but people are going to say you didn't report on the Hunter Biden thing because of your bias. And then she goes, well, look, I wasn't there and I don't know the conversation, so I can't say for sure. It's like, but you started out saying for sure.
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You started out claiming very authoritatively that NPR is not biased. And here's a great indication that they are. But again, she's still slithering away from the point here because it doesn't even... Okay, you don't know the conversations. Yeah, I guess it's true. If you knew all the conversations, you could know definitively that there was bias if they were saying something. But nobody...
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People don't have to communicate. Look, me and you, Rob, this show, for anyone who watches the show, as you should have figured out already, we are very biased. Now, me and Rob have the same bias. We don't have to have a conversation about that before the show. There doesn't have to be either me or you sitting down and going, hey, dude,
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We're going to try to make the government look bad and make the market look good on this show today, because that is already where both of us are. You know, ideologically or theoretically, like that's where we already are. We don't believe in, you know, like big government and we do believe in laissez faire free markets. So that's going to happen in our coverage.
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Whether me or you communicate about that specifically is irrelevant. And so if you have a bunch of liberals around who all hate Donald Trump, they don't have to be having a conversation about how we're liberals who don't like Donald Trump. It doesn't matter whether they're communicating that with each other or not. That's going to be reflected in the news coverage. And of course it is.
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Like, who's gonna deny? At MSNBC, you got a whole bunch of progressives. And at Fox News, you got a whole bunch of conservatives. And so obviously, their coverage of the day's news is going to reflect that. And this old school model, this is, in large essence, this is why the corporate media is dead. It's also why people have such contempt for the corporate media. It's exactly why, by the way,
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Even though MSNBC was more progressive than CNN, Trump supporters always hated CNN the most. You know, it was fuck CNN chants at Trump rallies, not fuck MSNBC. I mean, I'm not saying one of those couldn't have broken out, but they always hated CNN more. And this is why. Because at least with MSNBC, there was a feeling like they admit that they're the antidote to Fox News.
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They admit that they're the progressive news. But CNN pretends that we just play it right down the middle. And that's what's infuriating because it's it's. The real problem with it is that the whole game of journalism is telling the truth. The whole game is being honest. And how do you do that when your whole self-identity is predicated on a lie, on a blatant lie, which is that I am not biased?
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I am, no, you know who's biased? Every goddamn human being. Every human being is biased, including these hacks. So anyway, that's my last, Rob, you could have the last word and then we got to wrap up.
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All right. Thank you, Rob. Thank you, Natalie. Thank you, everybody listening. Got a lot of big stuff coming up this week. I think you guys are going to enjoy it. And our schedule will be a little bit messed up for warning here, but I'll make sure to get the episodes in. All right. Catch you guys soon. Peace.
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And Benjamin Netanyahu was decent enough to give us a timetable on when they were. Building that that bomb, they should have it in five years from 1992. But also they should have it in five years from 2003. And then also they should have it in five years from 2015. And then also they should have it in five years from 2018.
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My guess is they're still five years away, according to Benjamin Netanyahu. But we're really getting there. We're getting really close now to this war, to fighting a war against a third world country that does not have nuclear weapons, does not have an air force capable of reaching the United States of America. In other words, poses zero threat to our country. But.
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is an enemy of Israel in the region. And therefore we, I guess, got to flirt with this war. I, you know, this is not just an isolated statement and I'm not, I'm really not doing the thing where people just flip out over Donald Trump saying something provocative. This is much more than that. I mean, this is, he is already continuing Joe Biden's policy of, of,
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backing unconditionally Israel, doing whatever they want to do to the Palestinian people, even when they're violating the ceasefire that the Trump administration pressured them to put in place. We still have to back them. He's talking, he's now openly, of course, put out the idea of ethnically cleansing Gaza on behalf of the Israelis.
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He has started bombing the Houthis for standing up to the Israelis. And now even though Israel On that signal thread, as was pointed out by his own people, this is completely in opposition to everything Donald Trump stood for. I mean, down to the detail of on Tim Pool's show, he said Joe Biden was an idiot for bombing Yemen for the exact same reason that he's bombing them.
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And they can say what they want on that signal chat about the way to sell this thing is to be like Biden was weak and we have to be strong. But the reality is that Biden was bombing the same group of people for the same reason. And Trump said it was stupid. Trump said, why are they always trying to bomb everything? Pick up a phone, do some diplomacy. Anyway, he's back in there now.
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So that's changed. And. You know, it's just at a certain point, you do have to be honest about kind of the broader picture. I think there was a lot of excitement about Donald Trump's presidency. I think that this is the way I said it on the members only show the other day.
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and he's a professional driver so i was like you know rob was just saying the same thing so figure that out boston make it easier to drive aside from that no complaints um and then we're uh what do we got well i'm i'm getting on a plane to go do some traveling tomorrow but the next comedy gigs are in nashville um then i know we got chicago and rosemary uh your solo in nashville
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right and i and i think i pretty much still feel this way but i basically said if imagine you could pick like three baskets okay for donald trump's second term and in one basket you would be like uh these are the good things that will get out of it and in one basket you'd be like these are the bad things that will get out of it and then in another basket there were like the question marks maybe this could go good maybe this could you know and
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Hello. Hello. What's up everybody. Welcome to a brand new episode of part of the problem. I'm joined of course, by Robbie, the fire Bernstein. I'm Dave Smith. We are both in our respective homes. What feels like for a very temporary period, but it is good to be back. We had a lot of fun up in Boston. You have a good time up there, Rob, man.
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In we've gotten, I think we kind of knew, like, I think we, I talked about this, the episode that I, I said, I was gonna support him. Uh, we knew what a lot of the bad things were. We knew he's terrible on Israel. He really doesn't get it on foreign policy. He really, you know what I mean? Like is just awful on that stuff.
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um on the positive sides you were like he's much better on ukraine he's much better like a real improvement from the biden administration and then of course in the positives was that he dealt a just enormous blow to the uh corporate media it i the way i said it was i think in 2016 he destroyed the republican establishment and in 2024 he destroyed the democratic establishment he was a reset in a lot of ways
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um in american politics or maybe not a reset but like a a massive you know like if it was a snow globe you just grabbed it and shook it up everything's different now um it also would just culturally i think there was something very important about the trump victory But then there were these baskets of question marks.
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And, you know, as Donald Trump was actually putting Kash Patel to head the FBI, at least attempting to put Matt Gaetz at the Justice Department, was putting Tulsi in charge of the intelligence community, there was this question mark that started to get raised that was like, hey, maybe.
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Maybe the guy learned something and maybe, maybe because he's been so burned by this system, he's actually in a different mindset now. Maybe he's actually like going to be doing some really good things that we, that are better than what we could have hoped for. I got to say at this point, I think those question marks have been answered and all in the negative, just all, all bad.
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You know, like, you got a guy out here who is telling his people to primary Thomas Massey and telling them to support Lindsey Graham. Tell me that. I mean, that just tells you the guy, the man has learned nothing. He's learned fucking nothing. He is no better than he was the first time, you know?
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And like, obviously in some ways it'd be easier for me if he, if, if he had, but it's, you just, I'm sorry. I can't. I can't bullshit about this. Like, come on, you're flirting with another war for, for Iran. You're completely unwilling to stand up to these Israelis on anything. You're, you're now even sabotaging your own legacy and your own administration just to do their bidding.
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What can you say about this? You know, as I mentioned, and for those of you who did watch the members only show, I won't be on the same rant for too much longer, but there's, you know, When you finally have a real mandate from the people for mass deportations, it is now overwhelmingly popular with the American people to have mass deportations. That's how much Joe Biden overstepped.
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That's how much he fucked up that now it's actually popular to have mass deportations. And so what do you do? Well, let's wade into the most controversial issue and deport people who are here legally for the crime of writing an op-ed against the Israeli government. Like, what? Like, if you wanted to sabotage the deportation process, I couldn't think of a better way to do that.
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Hey, okay, what do we got? 30 to 50 million illegals in the country? Let's send 200 to the most brutal jail in El Salvador with zero due process. What's that going to do? Lead to mass deportations or sabotage the public interest in them? Which, by the way, are not happening. There aren't mass deportations. And I do... Look, I think... I think I'm trying to be fair to myself here, but fair.
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I don't want to go easy on myself here or be overly hard on myself here. Like, I... I think I did lay this out as I was saying I'm going to support Donald Trump. Like, I was like, look, he's going to disappoint. He's going to be bad on this. But at least we get some positives that we don't get if Kamala Harris wins. But at the same time, I also did champion a lot of the people he picked.
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And because they seemed better than the alternatives. I mean, I just, I couldn't imagine...
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whoever else the director of national intelligence was going to be being better than tulsi gabbard i couldn't imagine whoever the head of the fbi being being better than kash patel or whoever the health secretary being better than bobby kennedy but at the same time you know you got tulsi um king you know cheering on leveling an apartment building
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I think I did. I think I did know this at one point, but now it is weird. I really am like, I'm like a special person to some degree where it's just like, as it hits me, it's like Rob's not going to be there. But I'm like, then who will walk me to the club? But who will be next to me? Who will pat my head if I have anxiety? Okay, I guess I can do it on my own. I'm going to be 42.
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uh literally as they're saying to him hey we traced this guy we traced missile guy back to his apartment building where his girlfriend lives so we leveled the building and she's sending like thumbs up emojis um and saying job well done team i got every time i hear from cash patel lately it's never about the criminals in government anymore this guy was on a goddamn media tour for two years everything he ever said was that all there's all these criminals in the fbi
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We got to get these people who committed all these heinous crimes against our republic. Not talking about that anymore today. Now he's talking about bringing down drug dealers and sex traffickers. It's like, OK, but that's not what you were saying before. Then Bobby Kennedy is out fighting the real health crisis, which is anti-Semitism.
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So I'm just saying, looking around the room, looking around the administration at this point, you know, I think we got the positives out of Donald Trump that we would get. But man, this all just points in such a bad direction. And it's disappointing. It's just really disappointing.
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I knew I would be disappointed, but it is the level of a Greek tragedy that these guys had this mandate and this opportunity, and they're just fucking it all up. So anyway, just wanted to get that out on record, uh, in front of the whole audience, because I think, especially after, you know, throwing my support behind the guy, I do feel an obligation to do that.
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I will say my final caveat to this, um, and then you can weigh in on whatever you'd like to Rob, but I will say that I saw, you know, one, I saw one person today say on, on Twitter that, um,
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They said that – well, somebody who I respect very much had posted a thing about how some of the libertarians who have supported Donald Trump have just become Trumpsters at this point, and they'll defend him no matter what he does. And they were like, they'll probably cheer him on if he launches a war in Iran. And then I saw one guy underneath that said – he goes, I know Dave Smith sure well.
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real trial by fire, and then had another four-year period with nothing else that he had to do, except fight legal cases. but getting ready for his for running again. And I don't think it's too much to expect that by the time you get there, this is eight years later from when you already were running for president, that you know who to pick as your national security advisor.
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And I it's just I can't tell you how many good people there are. um i'm certainly not like the one there's a lot uh who would have known that mike waltz is a terrible pick for national security advisor now of course we did say that on this show as he was picking him um but that's you know we're far from the only ones who knew this the guy's just a terrible guy to pick and look
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if you know by the way um donald trump did just order all of the the fbi to declassify all of the documents um uh dealing with the investigation into trump the russiagate investigation in the first four years we'll see what comes out over that but if you know that donald trump not only was i mean look i'm not overstating it not only was he framed for treason by his own intelligence agencies in his first administration
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But there were undeniably countless people within Donald Trump's administration who were working against him. This is objective fact at this point. And not just like not just I'm not just talking about the like how every single week in The New York Times there would be, you know, unnamed sources from the executive branch who were saying something to damage Donald Trump.
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But I mean, like at the top levels of his cabinet, he had his own people working against him, not just his own intelligence agencies, but the people he put around him. So, number one, I don't think it's unreasonable to speculate that maybe that's the case again. And number two, it's Donald Trump's fault if that's the case again. Just want to be very clear on that.
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The other thing to mention here is that Mike Waltz, first of all, and I know a little bit of this stuff because I've heard stories behind the scenes. I mean, I just know enough about the guy to know he was terrible from the beginning. But he is like... totally just the worst on foreign policy, doesn't know what he's talking about.
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He's the type of guy who would say something like, if Vladimir Putin succeeds in Ukraine, he's going to move on Poland next. Like, that's who you're dealing with here. Also, he worked for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. I mean, I'm just saying, I don't think it's unreasonable at this point to be suspicious of people like that.
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These are the guys who have been consistently undermining Donald Trump the whole time. In fact, what was his hold on? I'll pull it up right here. I have he was. Yeah, so he was a he was a special forces guy. Again, not saying that. Alone, you know, this credits you, but it raises an eyebrow.
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He served the Bush administration as a defense policy director in the Pentagon and as the counterterrorism advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney. Okay. Now, so anyway, I just think essentially my point is here to suspect that the counterterrorism advisor to Dick Cheney is going to be loyal to Donald Trump is perhaps an unreasonable expectation.
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It's perhaps reasonable to speculate that maybe that guy wouldn't be loyal to Donald Trump. And then my more important point, that's on Donald Trump. That's not, I have never been one, although I did support Donald Trump in this last election, I have never been one to make the bullshit excuses for him that I see so many of the Trump supporters making. Like, oh, he was tricked by his guy.
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Like, oh, okay. Donald Trump got to choose who his national security advisor were. And there's plenty of great people he could have picked from. And he chose Dick Cheney's counterterrorism guy. I'm sorry. But that first of all, that already, even if none of this is true, even if Walsh just fucked up and he's not trying to sabotage the whole thing, like and there's no conspiracy here whatsoever.
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It still really says something about Donald Trump's profound lack of judgment to have picked this guy. And it says something about all the people around Donald Trump.
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I mean, you would just think, after everything, after everything the country's been through, everything Donald Trump's been through, all the time he's had to learn this, you would just think that, like, if somebody ever suggested, hey, you know, we're thinking about, you know, your next national security advisor, and we have all these great options.
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that I think like I was ripping on Father's Day. Father's Day is pointless. It shouldn't exist. Holidays are not for men. I don't think men should even celebrate their birthdays past a certain age. Like I think you like I did a thing. I had a thing for my 40th birthday and my wife kind of insisted she twisted my arm into doing it. But I had a party for my 40th birthday.
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I'm thinking Dick Cheney's counterterrorism advisor. You would think number one, Donald Trump would probably fire you for suggesting that. And number two, that it would never even get to Donald Trump because every single person around him would be like, what? No, we're not doing that anymore. That's that's not what we're doing. We're not doing that. We're doing an America first thing here.
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And so it tells you something that none of that happened. It tells you, not only did none of that happen, the guy ends up getting the job, not just getting considered for it. He gets the job. Okay.
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So in the wake of everything that we talked about on the last episode and the stuff I've been alluding to here last night, um, Mike Waltz, the national security advisor who is responsible for this, um, humiliating debacle.
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he went on the laura ingram show to defend himself now it should be mentioned before uh we we play this that donald trump has also gone out of his way to defend him too and say that their team's doing a great job and you know i think i my my feel of the situation is that essentially donald trump's in a position where He's riding pretty high politically right now.
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If you go... Again, if you look at his approval rating, it's been about the highest he's ever had, pretty consistently in that range. It's been about from 47% to 53%, kind of depending on what poll you look at. That in itself wouldn't seem so great. I mean, it's pretty good for... America today with how divided politically we are. That's about as popular as a president can get.
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And obviously he's more popular than he ever was in his first term. So in that sense, it's a win. But really, it's when you kind of look at more numbers and you, you know, you dive into the context a little bit more. Like the right track, wrong track number is like, I think it's like right around 50% of Americans right now say we're on the right track. And it was in the 20s.
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when Joe Biden was president. So again, just this 47 to 53% may not sound so good, but when you're comparing it to that, so the right track number may not be so great, but compared to where it was under Biden, it's great. Donald Trump's approval rating may not be so great until you find out that the Democrats have a 24% approval rating.
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You know, the thing that seems to be uniting the American people right now is recognizing that the government's doing a pretty shitty job That's whether you're left or right. That's pretty universally recognized. But so Donald Trump's in a situation where I think he feels pretty politically strong. Obviously, he won every swing state, won the popular vote.
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The things like Doge are popular with the American people. And so I think he doesn't want to admit. to a scandal. You know, if he were to fire the national security advisor, that's kind of an admission that like, oh, there was a big fuck up. And I think he'd rather pretend that no, there wasn't.
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And I think they think because this reporter Goldberg has been so discredited and is such a liar, they can get away from this by just being like, screw that guy. You can't trust anything he says. Again, the problem is just like the signal chat was real. And this story appears to be real.
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um i don't trust this goldberg guy at all but i'm also just looking at this story and it's like no you guys were you were conspiring about bombing yemen you ended up bombing yemen and everyone here is admitting it so what can you say here um anyway let's jump into this here is mike walds on laura ingram show on fox news
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I think that may be as appropriate for men. you're like every decade you're 40th you're 50th you're 60th okay fine you could have a little party but like father's day first off father's day is never a thing it's never no dad has ever enjoyed father's day we don't care you're just buying us crap with our money
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okay so first of all i thought this was really bizarre that walls opened up by being like hey look man i'm sorry but when you see something like this you gotta jump to conspiracies like oh okay yeah i don't completely disagree with you how the hell did this guy of all guys end up on that chat the problem here is that the answer is you it's you Like, what conspiracy are you alleging?
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And then you can go off on like... all this, you know, this is the guy who was pushing this Russiagate stuff. Yeah, the entire establishment was pushing the Russiagate stuff, literally the entire establishment. It was like Devin Nunes and Stephen Miller, like a couple guys within the establishment resisted it.
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The rest of it was like, you know, Donald Trump himself, his family, and a bunch of podcasters and real journalists out there on the internet. But you know who else was pushing it was like your former bosses george w bush and dick cheney so like yeah you're their guy and now you're here and you're just evoking that like yeah i mean this seems like a conspiracy uh okay
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let's let's put these pieces of the puzzle together here national security advisor you tell me about this because now of course laura ingram when he goes oh it's a conspiracy she starts going like okay so is someone on your team compromised is how did this end up happening let's hear his answer
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I mean, I don't know why this is just it's so pathetic and he's not even good at delivering this. I mean, he seems visibly nervous like the whole time that he's saying this. But this just like pathetic attempt to pivot back to the successes of the administration, which, you know, some of those being legit, some of them not so much. But, you know.
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uh which is not that doesn't make sense it also doesn't it doesn't make sense to give a gift if you're spending it in the other person's money just let them get what they want for themselves also dads like when you're a grown man you don't I appreciate every day that I get to spend with my family, but I don't need it to be a day of celebration about me. Because just think about that.
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He's sitting there and he starts with like, oh, like this is a there's some type of conspiracy here. I mean, of all the people out there, this guy gets added to this group chat. And then Laura Ingram reasonably is like, yeah. So like someone on your team.
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right that's the only way this would be a conspiracy someone here is working against the president and then he goes no no my team's perfect my team's perfect i mean look at all the success and what they don't want to talk about is how successful this strike which again just saved me the on how successful the strike was like what do they even mean by that there's are the houthis not a problem anymore
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Are no more ships gonna be fired upon now? Or what do you mean? You mean when we dropped the bombs, it blew shit up? Like, yeah, okay. But everyone's distracting from what a success this was. Well, first of all, this story was out in, this was out for weeks before the Signal scandal dropped.
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And yeah, like no one's really talking about what an amazing success it was because it's just not apparent that anything was achieved. Other than, you know, killing some kids. That seems to have been achieved. But, you know, like, OK, what else was it? But so now you're sitting here saying, well, what exactly is the conspiracy that you're alleging here?
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Like somehow this journalist hacked his way into your signal chat. Clearly he was added to the chat. I don't think any like right. He's not claiming anything else. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Stash brand new sponsor. We're thrilled to have them on board. Saving and investing can feel impossible, but with Stash, it's not just a reality.
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terms and conditions. All right, guys, let's get back into the show. So, okay. Anyway, let's keep playing.
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A day of celebration. That's not for men. A day of celebration is for women and children. So anyway, I'm not backing off of my emoji position, and I will double down on this. I will die on this hill. I'll go all the way. Someone told me on Twitter I shouldn't die on this hill. You don't get to pick what hills I die on. I do. And it's this.
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anti emoji it's not good for society when men are communicating with emojis that someone else said to me uh they go well how else are you supposed to convey emotion in a tweet Does that just prove my point right there? Yeah, you're not supposed to convey emotion. That's the whole point. Okay. Anyway, enough silliness. So for today's episode, I got it.
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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
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We're just going to talk more about the signal stuff because more has come out about it. And it's fascinating. And I just find it interesting to cover the fallout of all of this. Now, I'm not... As I said yesterday on the show, I'm not presenting this with like any type of like unified theory of, OK, here's what happened.
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If you want to come out, we got a show tomorrow night, then two shows Friday, two shows Saturday at laugh Boston comic Dave Smith.com. That is the website where you can grab all the ticket links and, and plus everything. I think we got dates on there like going through the rest of the year. So me and Rob are traveling quite a bit doing stand-up shows this year.
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This isn't something like like Russiagate, where, you know, after, you know, covering it for a long period of time and then a lot of information came out and there's just been there's been. declassified information. There was the Mueller report. There was the Durham report that investigated the investigation.
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OK, sorry. It's just like this is just and look. I mean, if you were trying... Like, I must be your target demo if you're sitting here going like, yeah, but the Democrats are so bad, you know, and the corporate media is so bad. It's like, yeah, I know, dude. And, you know, part of the reason why...
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People aren't talking about what an amazing success this strike on Yemen was because it's all bullshit. Like there was no success. You can't point to any success. Oh, I guess they're just fine with the shipping lanes being closed and this terrorist organization, you know, terrorist organization, whatever the hell that even means anymore. How exactly we get to call the Houthis terrorists, but...
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what we're doing to Yemen isn't terrorism or what Israel's doing to Gaza isn't terrorism or what the Saudis did to Yemen isn't terrorism. Like, but you, you find me a consistent definition for terrorism that says the Houthis are terrorists, but the U S military, the Israeli military and the Saudi military aren't.
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And essentially, as we always say on the show, right, it's the old Noam Chomsky line, but I love that. Um, it's one of Noam Chomsky's best ever, but when someone asked him, uh, she goes well what differentiates terrorism from these military actions and he goes oh it's very simple if they do it it's terrorism if we do it it's counter-terrorism and that's pretty much the case but
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Look, it's just not true. Just none of this is true. This is such bullshit. You're as big a liar as the Democrats and the corporate media right now. First of all, Joe Biden bombed the Houthis and for the exact same reason. He did this. You could go watch. There's tape of Donald Trump when he was on Tim Pool's show last summer.
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So there's a lot there where you could be like, okay, here's the cohesive narrative, okay? Hillary Clinton went to this British spy who went to this Russian spy who compiled this dossier of pure lies and garbage. They knew it was pure lies and garbage. Then, you know what I mean? After Donald Trump wins the election, the FBI and the CIA use it to launch this big investigation into Donald Trump.
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specifically talking about this and how stupid he thought it was that Joe Biden's bombing Yemen. And he goes, man, these guys just always want to drop bombs. It's like their answer to everything. What about diplomacy? Why can't we talk to people? You could pick up a phone and do more good than you can just dropping bombs on all your problems.
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That's what Donald Trump was saying last summer when Joe Biden was bombing the Houthis and for the same reason, because they were shooting at ships going by in protest over what Israel's doing to Gaza. Okay, so this whole thing is just bullshit. It's all bullshit. And to say like, why? Like, it's so ridiculous to sit here and go, well, why is it?
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that people are talking about this signal thing instead of talking about what an overwhelming success this bombing campaign was. Well, there's two major reasons. Number one, the bombing campaign wasn't a success. Number two, because the national security advisor added the fucking senior editor at the Atlantic to the goddamn group chat planning a future military attack.
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That's why we're talking about it. Sorry, that's a scandal. There's no universe in which that's not a scandal. I mean, it's crazy that there's a universe in which bombing a poor third-world country isn't a scandal. It's crazy.
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What's really crazy is that we actually live in a universe where the scandal isn't the fact that there seems to be consensus within the group that this wasn't time-sensitive, that it didn't need to happen when it happened, meaning... In other words, there was plenty of time to go to Congress and get authorization for this strike.
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If you remember in that dusty old book called The Constitution, Congress is the one who's supposed to have the war powers, not a group of people on Signal. That wasn't exactly the founder's intention for the country. That's a scandal.
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But I'm sorry, even in our crazy universe where those things somehow are not considered scandals, it's a goddamn scandal when the National Security Advisor, who used to be Dick Cheney's counterterrorism advisor, is adding... the most Trump-hating, lying corporate journalist to their Signal account, and that his explanation for this just makes zero sense at all.
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He's sitting there saying, I take full responsibility, except none of the responsibility is on me. Right? I mean, isn't that essentially what he's saying? He's sitting here and saying, I take full responsibility. I'm the one who created the group chat. How did this guy get added to the group chat? Well, it's certainly not my fault. What's your plausible alternative explanation? Don't have one.
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You know, contact names and numbers. You know how it goes. Everyone's had that. Except everyone hasn't had that. None of this makes any sense. You're totally skirting responsibility, but while claiming that you're taking responsibility for the whole thing, and really all you've got to say is, our best, we got great people on it. Top guys on the job. We'll get to the bottom of this.
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This is horrible, dude. Like, this is just awful. All right, let's keep playing.
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Okay. We don't have anything like that here yet. What we do have is, okay, you have a scandal. As I said yesterday on the show, the major scandal here is not what's being covered. You know, I was thinking about this last night, but there were two examples that just pop into my head that kind of remind me of this signal thing. And the two examples were, number one was Benghazi,
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You can't just sit here and call everybody else a liar while you're clearly lying about this. Like, what do you want me to say here? I mean, look, dude, it takes a lot to get me to trust one of these lying hacks from the Atlantic. But as of right now, when he... His story makes way more sense than Mike Waltz's story. I think that I think Waltz does have a relationship with this guy.
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I think he had his contact info on signal. Now it is whether or not he accidentally added him to this list, or this was some type of intentional thing that kind of remains to be seen. I don't know about that, but yeah, I think he's fucking lying right now about this. I think he is in contact with that journalist.
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And this pivoting to he lies about everything just doesn't work when you're so clearly lying through your teeth about the current scandal at hand right now. All right, let's play a little bit more.
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Jesus. So isn't it funny? And what I thought was so remarkable about this interview, right, is you got to remember here, this guy could have gone on any show he wanted to. He picked Laura Ingram's show to go on because she's a cheerleader of this administration. And she is actively trying to help him in this coverup.
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Like she's trying her best and there's just, but none of the outs that she's giving him, he's willing to take. So she keeps going like, oh yeah, probably a staffer, right? So you could kind of say someone else under me fucked up. We're going to figure out who that is. It's, this is how, um, This is how scandals in D.C. are typically swept under the rug.
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You find somebody who's known as the fall guy. That's the term that they use for it. Right. And then you end up blaming them. So you find out, oh, it was a staffer who did this. You know, behind closed doors, you tell them you're going to have to take the fall for this. The staffer is fired. And then you go, we did an investigation. We got to the bottom of it. He won't take that bait.
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because he recognizes that's admitting too much. So then she's trying her best. And then at the end, she's like, you know, hey, let me throw this journalist under the bus a little bit. You know what he's saying? He won't release the whole chat because there's, you know, there's classified material in there. Well, I'd say Tulsi Gabbard was adamant in saying there's no classified material.
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So release the whole chat then. How come he won't? What does he have to hide? Right, National Security Advisor? And then he turns around and goes, no, I don't want the whole thing released. She goes, yeah, no, I don't want that out there. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Tax Network USA.
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and number two was the uh f the eu victoria newland phone call that leaked so real quickly for anybody who doesn't know uh the story benghazi if you were paying attention to the news back then um this was in in barack obama's first term this was like one of his scandals um Fox News talked about it all the time. Mitt Romney brought it up a lot when he was running against Obama in 2012.
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All right, let's get back into the show. Look, I don't even know. I'm speaking a little bit above my pay grade here. And I suppose there could be a gap in the two, but wouldn't, Wouldn't future bombing plans, by their very nature, have to be classified?
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I mean, I don't – maybe it's not technically, but wouldn't – if you're talking about a military action that's coming up, that detailed battle plans – battle maybe is not exactly the right word to use in these type of – but plans to bomb an apartment building, which is what they ended up bombing, by the way, in Yemen – How is that not secret? Like, by definition, isn't that secret?
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You're talking about plans of bombing something. You can't have that out there or the guy you're trying to get will leave or won't be there or whatever. This just makes absolutely no sense. Absolutely no sense. And of course, not a shot. He doesn't want it out there. He doesn't want. Anyway, the full chat is out. It's on the Internet. Um, I know they published it over at, uh, antiwar.com.
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If anyone wants to go check it out. One of the things that's one of the ugliest, uh, things about it, um, is that they essentially in here, I'll read from it. And this is more that came out that wasn't in the, uh,
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Um, that wasn't in the original piece, but it's clearly, uh, the top guy who they're trying to get, uh, the signal chat reveals that they waited for, they call them the top missile guy, the Houthis top missile guy in the chat. Uh, they waited for him to walk into a residential building where his girlfriend lived before launching the airstrike that collapsed the building. Um, J.D.
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Vance referred to that as excellent in the group chat. It seems that Tulsi Gabbard also celebrated it afterward. And, you know... It's just as Dave DeCamp, as the great Dave DeCamp wrote on Twitter, I'll read this real quickly. We could wrap on that. But he said, imagine a foreign country flattening an apartment building in the U.S. because an American general entered it.
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Never in a million years would Americans think that was acceptable and not regarded as terrorism. A short tweet, very well said. I'll just retweet that now. Okay. Yeah, it's kind of like what I was saying before about what distinguishes terrorism from what we do. And it's not much. It's essentially just the fact that we do it.
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Anyway, this scandal is... Look, it's not a scandal for the reasons that I would... I think of it as a scandal, or at least that's not how it's being portrayed in the media. But like the biggest thing here is just like how terrible it is that Donald Trump is bombing the poorest country in Yemen on behalf of Israel. I'm sorry, the poorest country in the Middle East on behalf of Israel.
Part Of The Problem
Waltz is Lying
It's it's appalling that. All of these guys in this new administration were just cheering it on. You know, meet the new boss. All right. We're going to wrap on that. Oh, I should. OK, before we leave, a couple of quick announcements. Number one, since I am flying out to Boston tomorrow, I'll be flying. I think we're not in the hotel yet during our normal recording time.
Part Of The Problem
Waltz is Lying
So instead of tomorrow, we're going to do the members only episode on Friday. It'll be another extra long one because we're still making up the ones that we missed a couple of weeks ago. And then this Saturday, for the people in the top tier, there's our monthly Zoom meeting. That'll also be an extra long one. So some fun stuff coming up this weekend.
Part Of The Problem
Waltz is Lying
And then I'm sure I'll see a bunch of you guys out in Boston. Looking forward to it. All right. Catch you next time. Peace.
Part Of The Problem
Waltz is Lying
And essentially what was amazing about it for anybody who followed it was that they made the whole scandal that this U.S. embassy in Benghazi was overrun. And I mean, Hillary Clinton testified for hours. I think she did like a six hour congressional testimony on this. And it was just constant. You know, the parameters of the conversation were like so narrowed.
Part Of The Problem
Waltz is Lying
It was, you know, this is really back when, you know, CNN and MSNBC and Fox News really controlled a lot more of the narrative. In fact, this is again, I might be dating myself here, but Fox News was so big at one point.
Part Of The Problem
Waltz is Lying
and so like involved in this conversation that if you i'm somebody who certainly experienced this and people around my age with around my politics probably did too but if you back in the obama days were like critical of liberals at all The first things people would say back to you was like, oh, what are you watching too much Fox News? That was always just like the assumption.
Part Of The Problem
Waltz is Lying
It was like, oh, if you're if you're not a liberal, well, then obviously you watch Fox News. And then I would tell people like, no, I hate Fox News, too. And that would they would not understand that. And it was in this in a similar sense to like, if you, you know, if you were saying 9-11 was an inside job or something like that, people would have been like, oh, what are you watching Alex Jones?
Part Of The Problem
Waltz is Lying
It was just like thought of as the way Alex Jones owned the conspiracy world. Fox News owned the I'm not a liberal world. And today that's totally different. That's just today. If you were critical of liberals, people are probably assuming that you're listening to podcasts or that you're, there's an influencer, you know, like maybe they'd, they'd assume you're like, I don't know.
Part Of The Problem
Waltz is Lying
I will be, I'm about to enter a tornado of travel over the next few weeks, a few big podcasts and some stand-up shows. Stand-up, I'll be doing stand-up in Boston and Nashville. And then in between that, I got some other traveling too. So again, comicdavismith.com. Hope to see some of you guys out there on the road. Really looking forward to Boston
Part Of The Problem
Waltz is Lying
I don't even know who the person would be, but because it could be so many people, it could be, anyone from Ben Shapiro to Andrew Tate to whoever. It's a different world, much more decentralized. Back then, they really controlled the narrative. And so the whole conversation was over how Obama was so weak that he couldn't protect this ambassador.
Part Of The Problem
Waltz is Lying
Obama was so weak that he couldn't protect this embassy. And the Republicans were tough and strong, and they were going to get to the bottom of what happened. And through this whole thing, almost nobody raises the question, Why was our CIA embedded in Libya? What was going on here? And the actual story was that Obama had decided, along with NATO,
Part Of The Problem
Waltz is Lying
to overthrow the qaddafi regime in libya which that in itself would you would have thought even by this time i mean what are we talking like 2011 here even by this time this is you know eight years after we overthrew saddam hussein in in iraq and eight years after or nine i'm sorry not ten years
Part Of The Problem
Waltz is Lying
after um we began the regime change war in afghanistan and these wars were already disasters so the idea of doing like another regime change would have been probably a bit of a scandal but they were really somewhat remarkably able to get you to like not focus on that story and just focus on this very narrow area of like who could have protected the embassy better
Part Of The Problem
Waltz is Lying
The other example is the Victoria Newland F the EU phone call. So for people who don't know about this, this was, I believe, maybe just, you know, we don't know exactly when the phone call took place, but it was the phone call was leaked. like I believe a couple weeks before the Yanukovych government was overthrown in Ukraine. And it was presumably leaked by the Russians.
Part Of The Problem
Waltz is Lying
I don't know that that's ever actually been proven for sure. But there was a conversation between Jeffrey Pyatt and Victoria Newland. And it was essentially as this... as this coup that the U.S. is backing was overthrowing the Yanukovych government, or I should say, as the street protest that the U.S.
Part Of The Problem
Waltz is Lying
government was backing was gaining more and more traction, there's this phone call of the ambassador and Victoria Nuland at the State Department talking about who is to be in the new government and who's not to be in the new government. By the way, very coincidentally, They got all of their picks. That's exactly how the new government ended up being made up.
Part Of The Problem
Waltz is Lying
And so here you have, you know, Victoria Nuland, who is the wife of Robert Kagan. These are like real deal, like true neocons, okay? Orchestrating a regime change, deciding who's going to go in the new government and who's not going to go in the new government. And also... Pretty clearly alluding to the whole operation that's going on. I mean, they open it up.
Part Of The Problem
Waltz is Lying
The terminology that they use is very spy-like stuff. You know, they're like, we got to glue this thing. We got to stick it. We got to, she goes, we need a midwife this thing at one point, they say. Anyway, so through this whole thing, she even at one point says, because this is under the Obama administration, at one point she even says that she goes, I talked to Joe Biden, to the vice president.
Part Of The Problem
Waltz is Lying
What's up? What's up, everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I am Dave Smith. I am rolling solo for this episode. And Rob and me, tomorrow morning, I'm jumping on a plane to Boston. So come on out. There are still limited tickets available. They're selling very quick.
Part Of The Problem
Waltz is Lying
the show today i do i did notice i was the show today i do i did notice i was just looking at twitter uh as i was just looking at twitter uh as i was just looking at twitter uh as i was preparing for the show and I seem to have struck a nerve with some people based on some comments I made on the last podcast about emojis, and people are upset.
Part Of The Problem
Waltz is Lying
He's going to get on the phone to give him an attaboy, like the vice president will get on the phone to tell him we got your back. Good job. And then at one point she's bitching about the EU.
Part Of The Problem
Waltz is Lying
and how um the eu is just moving too slowly to you know whatever force yanukovych out and so at one point in her frustration she goes uh she was basically like you know what we'll do it without him we'll do this thing without the eu and you know what f the eu we'll do it ourselves And then somehow this gets leaked.
Part Of The Problem
Waltz is Lying
And then in the entire media, through the entire coverage of this, was that we had a diplomat on the phone with a representative in the State Department, and they said, F the EU. And that's really undiplomatic when you think about it. That became the whole conversation. But bury the context of any of it. The actual really interesting scandal there is that
Part Of The Problem
Waltz is Lying
There's some clear evidence here that the U.S. is involved in this overthrow of a democratically elected government in Ukraine, you know, which, okay, at the time, like the war hadn't broken out yet, but you could still see where that would be kind of scandalous, you know, but that does not.
Part Of The Problem
Waltz is Lying
And it's just, I just couldn't help but see these parallels as I'm reading the news coverage of this signal leak and what is it that they're jumping on? Like, it's so funny because I never would have even thought of this as being the thing, We read it yesterday on the show and it didn't even jump out to me as like even a scam.
Part Of The Problem
Waltz is Lying
But the thing is that this is what they're running with at CNN and stuff like that is that I guess Pete Hegseth and J.D. Vance were trash in Europe. And that Pete Hegseth called Europe pathetic. That really is some way to speak about our allies. So now you see what they're doing here, right? Like they always try to focus on one salacious detail so that you can drive all the outrage about that.
Part Of The Problem
Waltz is Lying
You can signal to all the Trump haters, hey, if you want to find a scandal here, we'll hear it. This is your thing to focus on. The thing to focus on is that the defense secretary called our European allies pathetic. Rather than the obvious scandal that's right in front of you, which is that America could never not be fighting a fucking war.
Part Of The Problem
Waltz is Lying
No matter what, even when you vote for the Nobel Peace Prize winning Barack Obama, he's in wars immediately. When you vote for the America first, we want to get out of all these wars. Donald Trump immediately were bombing the poorest country in the Middle East. Just like that is so obviously the scandal here. But everyone's finding everything else that they can to focus on.
Part Of The Problem
Waltz is Lying
Now, I will say, and again, as I alluded to earlier, I'm not claiming to have like a flushed out, worked out version of what the bigger picture is here. I'm not claiming that. I will say that having that flushed out bigger picture of what happened in the first four years of Donald Trump's administration, I do think it's reasonable that to kind of speculate.
Part Of The Problem
Waltz is Lying
People who love their emojis really, really love them, but I'm sorry. They're for women and children, and I stand by it. I'm pretty old school. Or maybe I'm just old. But things that were not done in my time make me uncomfortable. And I don't care to adjust. And I don't think that's the role. I don't think that's what men are supposed to do. We're not supposed to adjust to the new time.
Part Of The Problem
Waltz is Lying
I mean, I think it's reasonable when you know, like if Donald Trump's, if we didn't know everything we knew about Donald Trump's first administration, it would probably be a little bit more of a leap to think this way. But knowing what we knew then, I think it's very reasonable to ask ourselves whether Donald Trump is being sabotaged here or not. Now, But I'm just throwing that out there.
Part Of The Problem
Waltz is Lying
And I'm I'm this is one of the possibilities that I'm considering, because what we have here is an official story that makes absolutely no sense. And we'll get into this in a little bit. But I just want to be clear. I am not.
Part Of The Problem
Waltz is Lying
If I'm if the claim is that Donald Trump has people around him who are sabotaging the Trump administration, I just want to be very clear that that is in no way letting Donald Trump off the hook. Like, he's still responsible. Like, this is his job. Listen, I mean, he was the president of the United States for four years. I mean, he decided to run for president in 2016.
Part Of The Problem
Waltz is Lying
I think the reasonable expectation is that by the time you decide to run for president, you know a thing or two about a thing or two. Otherwise, why the hell would you even be running for president? You must have some ideas and some knowledge and some reason to believe that you can execute these ideas. But then he had four years in there.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
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Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
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Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
I say that in the, you know, not as an insult. No, it's like, I mean, look, and she's gotten on me to be healthier over the years. And I should, I do better because of her. She doesn't leave me too much choice. But I will say that one of the things that was really interesting to me is that,
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
It is unbelievable how much this message resonates with mothers, because I think mothers are like, particularly today, like 2025 moms in this generation are dealing with something that I just don't think previous generations ever had to deal with. I mean, I think that my parents' generation, okay, there was a lot of, poison in the supermarket, but none of them really knew. You know what I mean?
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
Like they all just kind of like, they didn't have the information. They were just like, what's bread made out of? It's bread. You know, like they thought it was still bread, just like it was bread for their grandma. It's still bread for them. And like, I don't really think they understood that it's like, no, the bread your grandmother made was bread. Wonder bread is poison.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
You're giving your kids poison, you know? And there is, they all talk about, every time I'm like, I see that we're like the moms of the kids are together, they're always talking about the fact that like when you go to the supermarket, you are like surrounded by big red and blue poison everywhere.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
And you have to navigate out, like what am I, and I gotta say, this is something that I, I don't really have like a firm political view on this. I'm kind of thinking it through myself, but there really is something about,
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
about, like, on the rare occasion that I end up at the supermarket with my wife, where you, like, sit there and, you know, like, the fact that they, like, they rent out the aisles that are at kid-level aisles with, like, the cereal that's got, like, a big cartoon character on it that is, like, pure garbage, that we know, like, we know for a scientific fact, this is, like, the worst thing to do to your kid.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
And, like, if somebody were trying to sell drugs to kids in this way. We would like, we'd throw this person in jail for 300 years if they ever tried to do something like that, you know? And yet these giant corporations who have bought off our government have completely captured all the regulatory industries. They are sitting here selling what we now scientifically know is a drug for kids.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
It is literally poison that's going to get them hooked on it and make their body desire more and more of it. And it does just seem to me that it's like, this is just... It's an unspeakable outrage. Like, how have we allowed this to happen?
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
Right. For my brother, Joe Rogan doing it is really cool. For my wife, she's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever, but tell me more about Jillian Michaels. This is incredible.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
So I wanted to ask you, because I'm very curious about this, and I thought one of the, I mean, there were many, but one of the really fascinating things to me during COVID times, it started pretty early in the lockdowns, was it was just this very bizarre thing where we have like what is a health emergency. Right.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
Yeah. Well, I just think it's like there's there is something about, you know, I mean, I'm not saying it's not true for fathers, too, but there is something about the connection between mothers and their kids and how they really just kind of like they're so invested in their kids safety and protection and health. And so, yes, I think that it does make sense.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
It's also like there's you know, I think like, you know, when I because because I talk about this a lot of times, like I'll talk with my mother or with my my my in-laws. And it's like, sometimes I think we lose appreciation for, like my mother-in-law was telling me about how strict her parents were about her cleaning the plate.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
Like you did not, I mean, you could not leave the table without finishing your food. And when you zoom out and you think about it, you're like, oh, they were only, I mean, they were first generation American. They were only one generation away from people who were legit at food insecurity. You know what I mean? And so of course, it's like, this all kind of crept up on us pretty quickly.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
where we went just in a few generations from being like, my God, if you have a piece of food in front of you and you don't eat that thing, what an insult that is to all these people who don't have food. And you know what I mean? Like your parent remembers being hungry as a kid themselves. So of course it was just like eat, eat, eat.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
And then all of a sudden in a very short period of time to transition to not just tremendous abundance of food, but tremendous abundance of very unhealthy food where it's like, Hey, no, we actually need to pump the brakes and think about what you're eating.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
And all of these things are, we're all so brand new that I think, you know, like I, it obviously was going to take people a little bit of time to catch up. I think it's wonderful. They are catching up. I do.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
One of the things I always find fascinating, even as you kind of discuss this and, and how you were very liberal, you know, for many years is that it is interesting to me that this just so inherently seems to be I mean, I guess it's a human issue that we should all care about. But there's no way you could ever convince me that this isn't something left wingers or liberals should care about.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
This is more of a left wing liberal issue than it is a right wing issue. I mean, like you're talking about big corporations stacking the deck against ordinary people. And by the way, there's also a huge class issue that comes into this equation. where, you know, it's really, you know, like people who are doing pretty well.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
And then immediately the first response is like, shut down the gyms and keep open the liquor stores. And then there were a lot of people in kind of the health world who understandably sort of objected to that. They were like, yeah, this, and I'm curious, was this kind of like part of your story too? Or what were your like politics before the COVID era? How did they change through that?
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
It's not that big of a deal for me if I got to spend more money for my kids to have the healthy food. But for people living on a very fixed income or a very, very tight, you know, living paycheck to paycheck, that's a huge issue for them that like they would have to like triple their grocery bill in order to get grass fed meat and, you know, whole foods and all of this stuff.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
And it seems like that's just... It's like an issue that's right there for the left to care about. This is your issue, guys. Like this is a completely unfair system rigged against the working class and the poor.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
Yeah. So I, I'll say a couple things on this that just literally just come to my mind. So I remember I, um, but I went to, uh, briefly, I went to college in Oneonta, uh, New York. It was like way upstate, halfway to Canada, uh, upstate New York. And, uh, oh man, I hated it. It was just, boring and cold. There's nothing to do except drink up there. That was the only part I liked.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
That part was cool, but the rest of it sucked. But I remember it was like this, I'd always lived in New York City my entire life. And so it was like the first time I was ever like living in like a small town. And I remember just being blown away by how fat all the locals were. And then the fact that there was like, there was nothing in this town. But there was every fast food place.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
I mean, there was a KFC, a Burger King, a Wendy's, a McDonald's, like every single fast food. There was an Arby's. That's all they had. It was like bars and fast food was all they had. And every day you would just see like these incredibly overweight families eating this fast food. And even at the time, this is like 2003 or something like that. I was like, man, this is just seems bad.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
And, you know, not knowing that much about it, but I was like, this sure ain't good. And and then I remember. So when I lived in in New York City, this was like about probably around like 10 years ago is before I had kids. But my my my very good friend, Louis J. Gomez, is also very, very talented comedian. He so I lived in the Upper West Side and he lived in Harlem.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
And so it was like, you know, like a 15, 20 minute walk. And I used to do the walk all the time. I'd always go over and visit him and his kid up at their house. And, you know, like if people know New York City, like the Upper West Side is a very white neighborhood. Harlem is historically a black neighborhood, which is changing a bit now. But I remember like as you'd make the walk.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
you could just see the food stores changing like it goes from like on the upper west side everything was kind of health oriented and then as soon as you started getting into the convenience stores in harlem it's all gushers and can't and so like while people like kind of go like okay restricting snap programs are racist it's like yeah but what about this Like, isn't this kind of messed up?
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
And I'm not saying like, look, part of that is, is a cultural issue. Part of it's an education issue.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
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Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
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Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
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Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
And it's just it's it's just wild to me that like that doesn't seem it's almost like out of and like as the point I made, like it was it was poor people in Oneonta who were white people. And then it was the poorer people in Harlem who happen to be black people. But it's like there there does seem to be a weird thing to me where I'd watch like in this dynamic, like Upper West Side versus Harlem.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
And it's almost like the the the kind of liberal right. Um, the, the, the weird racialism that kind of took over over the last 10 years where there was, it's almost like a white guilt type thing that you don't feel like you guys don't live this way, but you don't want to tell them, Hey, there's a better way to live or like try to move toward that.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
Cause then you feel like that would be bigoted of you to like impose something out there, but it's like, actually,
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
You know, I've felt for a while, like, you know, I think there's like there's there's inherently, I think, benefits to like like kind of a left wing worldview and there's benefits to a right wing worldview. And I mean, kind of like abstract. And then there's weaknesses. And I think that like I always felt that like.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
after 9-11 in the George W. Bush terror war days, they kind of like it's almost like they short circuited right wingers, like they tapped into what their weakness was and their weakness was just having this kind of this base of like patriotism and good versus evil. And this and once you tapped into that, it was like, we got to go see about Saddam Hussein. He did 9-11 or something like that.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
And like if you tried back then, if you tried to talk to a right winger like logically and you were like, no, no, no, listen, Saddam Hussein's Baathist party hates the radical Sunni terrorists. There's no way they were working together like these guys are mortal enemies. It was just like, oh, so you're saying you're on Durka Durka side and you're not on USA side.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
And it was just shut down the conversation. And then likewise, over the last decade, I feel like there's something which which probably much like with the right wingers, it probably originates from like a good place. I'm not talking about the people rigging the system. I'm Where there's this desire from liberals to be like, we're not the bigoted ones. We're not the racists.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
We're not the people who are mean. We're the people. We're not the religious superstitious people. We follow the science. But then the problem is when they... tap into that and they go, okay, well, if you say that this fat person is fat, you're a bigot. And if you say what the CDC says, you're following the science. It's like they, they short wire people.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
They got them to turn their brains off and start going like, look, I'm not, nobody here is saying like, be a dick to fat people. I'm not saying like make fun or make some, don't be a bad person. Don't be shitty to anyone. But, come on, let's get real. Like, no, big is not beautiful. Big is unhealthy.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
And the correct move is not, you know, if you have somebody who you love, who's a heroin addict, you don't say like heroin is beautiful. And, but you know what I mean? Like you try to help them get help and get better. Cause that's how you live. And it's just, it's been wild to see that this actually took off.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
Yeah, you know, I think that's exactly right. I think that's exactly right. And the, you know, the latter part that you're talking about, they're both really important elements to it. But the part of that kind of... uh, the, the kind of ego boost that you get off of that virtue signaling stuff. It is such a, it is such a poison. It's something all human beings are somewhat vulnerable to.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
And if you want to be a decent person, you have to actually fight that impulse. But anytime you're just feeling really good about yourself when you haven't actually done anything, like it's great to feel really good about yourself when you've done something that's wonderful. But
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
But when it comes more and then there is and I will say I've always found that it's a particularly with with women, not 100 percent, but particularly with women. There will be this kind of like you just see you see like young girls with like like bikini bodies talking about how awesome Lizzo is for being overweight. And you're like, I think I see what you're doing here.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
And I don't think there's anything positive about it. I think this is this is a weird tactic, you know.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
and you've got this real thin white girl talking about like let them eat cake like you piece of shit yeah because it's like she knows dave like yes you bastard yeah come on like you're doing and there is something some comedian god i can't remember i should credit them but it was such a funny joke i can't remember whose joke it was but someone had the joke where like uh
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
There's like girls, girls keep saying Lizzo looks great. And he goes, okay, well, why are you so offended when I tell you, you look like Lizzo?
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
And let's just like, kind of says it all right there where it's like, look, if you are, especially like if you're working hard, cause like particularly when we're talking about younger women, like sometimes people just have good genes and they look great, you know?
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
But some people, particularly the people who work really hard at it, it's like if you work really hard to look great and then you feel good about yourself because you look great, which is totally like noble and that's wonderful. But then you're turning around and like complimenting some other girl instead of encouraging her to follow your path. It's like, no, I actually think that's evil.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
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Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
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Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
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Part Of The Problem
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Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
yeah and on and right and i'm sure there's there's a lot of that and then there's also as you mentioned before there's just kind of like um well look there's even for people who won't be sued like you gave the examples where you with your your app and at t and all this where you okay there's going to be an enormous headache for you and the truth is that human beings by and large do tend to respond to incentives if something's going to be enormously difficult then fewer people are going to do it because of course who wants to go through difficulties if you don't need to
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
And there's also there's a social pressure. And this is one of the things that's very interesting about the current moment that we're in. It's like you see that once there's not as much of a social price tag to pay for, say, like supporting Donald Trump, all of a sudden he's got the best poll numbers he's ever had because like, OK, people when people feel.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
And I do think that it's something I've come to appreciate in my life because I am a bit of a. You know, I'm my personality type and I can tell yours, too, is like you're willing to kind of take the arrows. You're willing to be outspoken. And that's kind of a it's a personality trait, but it is a minority position. Most people aren't like that.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
And I think we've evolved to be this way for because we're pack animals and you don't want to get too far outside of the pack. That's where predators get you, you know, and like there's I remember I was a. I was at my sister's house once and there was this guy who's a friend of my sister's and he's like very, very smart guy. He's a college professor.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
And I remember at one point we were in our living room and he kind of leans into me and he goes, you know, I actually agree with a lot of your politics. And I remember being like, why are you whispering? We're in my sister's living room. Like, what's going to happen to you here, man? Just say it. Put your shoulders back and just say it. You know what I mean?
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
But then also I was like, well, maybe I shouldn't be so judgmental. It's like a lot of people like just don't want to deal with a headache. And it's enormous. It's something that kind of like the the dominant. you know, progressive insanity of the last few years, like they really figured that out.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
They figured out that like, if you can really have a mass shaming campaign, you know, while they're saying, don't shame fat people, don't slut shame, don't shit, you know, all the attacks on shaming, but they know exactly how powerful shaming is, you know? And so it's like, oh, okay.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
Well, like, you know, again, even with like some of these topics, like I'm not saying, I'm not advocating to be mean or to be overly, but they're, you know, Like with this slut shaming thing, I don't mean this for women or men. I mean, for both men and women, there should be some degree. There should be some degree of shame. Like, I don't know.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
Yeah, no, I mean, I remember I used to joke around about this. So when I first started doing it, because at first they just the comedy clubs were closed. But then once I was allowed to get back out and do stand up, they'd have like, you know, capacity restrictions sometimes. But they did the same thing at comedy clubs where you had to wear your mask as you walked.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
Like, yeah, if you're like, just like, I don't know if someone came to me and it was just like man or woman, they were like, I just had sex with five people in the bathroom. I'd be like, yeah. What are you doing? You know, Jesus, Jesus Christ, like get your life together. What's going on?
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
Yeah, 100 percent. It's like removing a necessary component of what keeps a society functioning, you know, is that there's like antisocial behavior or destructive behavior. And then there's positive and social behavior. And it's like you want to encourage one and discourage the other.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
And anyway, it does it does seem to me and like I will say, you know, like I'm with you when you said earlier that like you just couldn't have imagined that like
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
even just like what we're seeing now and and again to your point i'm not saying anything's been done yet like bobby getting in there getting in there this is just the beginning and now we start we start the battle yeah but it is but even just to be where we are today and the way the pendulum has swung and how it's again i don't think it's not i don't think it's as simple as to say that it's like oh the left lost and the pendulum is swinging back right it's like a whole realignment
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
and i am just very encouraged by it i'm very encouraged by that all of that stuff where you're talking about like the fat shaming and the covid stuff it just seems like in terms of the popular support it almost feels like it went from an 80 20 issue to an 80 20 issue the other direction like just nobody's buying into it anymore that i find very encouraging
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
But then once you sat down, you could drink and eat and laugh. This is what everyone's doing. There's there to laugh. And this was the most bizarre thing of it to me. So like, I'd be on stage looking at a crowd. So that my perspective is like, I'm watching everyone.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
Has kind of been in the health world for a long time. and has recently become, I think, pretty outspoken with support of Bobby Kennedy and criticisms of COVID insanity. And I think a very interesting part of this kind of massive political realignment, this crazy moment that we're all living through. And so I really was very excited to talk to you.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think that's perfectly, perfectly said. And it's, it's unfortunate where, you know, I was talking about this during both Bobby and Tulsi's confirmation hearings, where I was just kind of like, listen, guys, I know everyone wants them to just dunk on these senators.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
And I know, but everybody wants Bobby when he asked him a question to go like, please, you're the most corrupt human being in the world. What's wrong? I go, but he needs their votes. So this process actually, if I was in Bobby's ear right now, I'd be just kind of like, well, say what you got to say to get in there. You know what I mean? Let's get confirmed.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
And sometimes you would see someone like get up to go to the bathroom and not put their mask, like forget, you know, like they, they get up and other people would start looking at them like, Whoa, like, Hey, you're up there. You're up there where there's COVID, you know? And it's like, it was something about just like the ability of people to To to follow rules that made no sense at all.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
I mean, as it is, they got confirmed by razor thin margins. And so it was like there just wasn't. And again, there's a whole different battle to actually like the mechanism of government and entrenched interest and peeling those interests away. But
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
a prerequisite to even getting to this point was having this giant cultural awakening and and now you know you see where it's like a necessary component to this is that bobby and tulsi and and trump for that matter they gotta know if they're going to war with the swamp that like the masses of the american people have their back and so like that's got to be known and then also i would you know
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
agree with your your point about like complacence but also patience like also understanding that like this thing was built up over many many decades and it's not going to be solved in a day or a year or in four years but look we have the potential to actually see some positive change right now which feels very new from my perspective
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
Yeah, listen, I could not agree more. Well, Jillian, I knew I was going to really enjoy this, and I really did. I'd love to do it again, and we could talk about how this all unfolds, and I'm sure there'll be lots more news coming out that we'll enjoy talking about. Tell people, if people are interested in learning more about you or following your stuff, where can they find you?
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
It was some like real time Milgram experiment thing, like just an expert said this. So we're all going to pretend this makes sense, even though it's so obvious, like the guy was just sitting next to you and I could see you getting nervous as he stood up. It's just totally bizarre.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
Okay. Awesome. Jillian, thank you so much. I really, really appreciate it.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
I will. I will make sure to do that. Okay. Thanks everybody for listening. Catch you tomorrow with a brand new episode. Peace.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
Yeah, yeah, no, it really does. And I'd imagine, you know, there was a one of the, you know, there were so many different little dramas and within COVID. But one of the things that I read this, I was thinking about this earlier today, in anticipation of you coming on. But I know there was this one, there's this, this Dr. Hotez. Right.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
So he this is the guy who refused to debate Bobby Kennedy on Joe Rogan's podcast. And Joe brought him up recently the other day. And he was just kind of making the case about how the guy's like overweight and eats junk food and doesn't exercise. But his life's work is making sure everybody takes vaccines.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
And he was all about demonizing all of the people who were skeptical about the COVID vaccine, if that's even what you can call it. And I did.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
I mean, it's not it's not a vaccine in the sense of what everybody always meant by the term vaccine. But I guess, you know, updated definitions, very conveniently updated definitions. But I did think there was something. And this isn't like, OK, there. I'm not saying it's a law of logic or something like that. You could smoke two packs a day and say cigarettes are bad for you.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
And you're right, even though you're kind of being a hypocrite. The argument you're making isn't necessarily wrong. But there is something kind of fascinating. And in a way, this is part of, to me, what Bobby Kennedy represents. There is something fascinating about really unhealthy people. lecturing everybody else about their health.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
And then you look at somebody like Bobby Kennedy, who is, however, whatever you think of the guy, clearly personally very committed to health. Like, I don't know, he's like in his 60s and doing like 15 pull ups and then hitting like the band. It's just like, OK, that's to me kind of impressive and something we ought to like. That's a good example for for people.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
And there's just something where it's almost like There's this weird dynamic where it seemed to me like the, so Candace Owens said this once, and it really hit home with me. She said something, she goes, you know, after October 7th, a lot of people demanded that we pay attention to what's going on in Israel. And then a lot of us started paying attention to it.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
And people got upset that we didn't have, and it almost seems like there was this demand to have a national conversation about health. And then a lot of people were like, okay, let's have that conversation about health. And now it seems like, oh, you guys don't like where the conversation is going. But as somebody who's been in, like, this has been your world, this is your life's work.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
It's gotta be kind of an interesting position to listen to like these people who clearly do not take health seriously, pretend that they're the champions of it now.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
So thank you so much, Jillian, for taking some time out for us.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
Yeah, and it's really, I'll say, I've never seen a presidential campaign, and I've talked to both Bobby and Nicole Shanahan about this several times, but I've never really seen anything quite like his presidential campaign, which obviously, like, he didn't end up winning the presidency, but he ended up kind of leveraging the millions of people who supported him into getting the health department in this very interesting, you know, maha-maga coalition.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
But where he essentially... took an issue that no one in politics was really talking about. And he said, I'm going to make this the centerpiece of my campaign. And it has now become one of, if not the most dominant, like political issues of our time. This is, if it wasn't for Bobby Kennedy, nobody else is talking about the health crisis in this country, at least in a political level.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
Hey, what's up, everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I'm very excited for this one. Thrilled to be joined by Jillian Michaels, who is... There's a lot of titles you have, so I'm not quite sure what I should give for an introduction. She's a fitness guru known for her television shows and her many books. Several New York Times bestsellers.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
I'm not saying there's not like any sociologists. Right. Yeah, like there's a nutritionist out there who's talking about it. But I mean, like somebody running for president who's talking about the fact that like we lead the world in chronic illness. Like, how does that not come up all the time? It just seems so wild.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
yes yes and it's all because of this i mean i remember you know um years ago reading about like back when it was like the obamacare debate in like 2009 2010 i remember reading about how like the cdc estimates that 70 of our medical costs are from preventable illnesses and you're like wow that should that should probably be at the center of this conversation because like if you have i think essentially the point is that
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
Oh, well, thank you so much. That's very kind of you. And well, I appreciate that. And as you know, I've told you this personally before, but my wife is like a huge, huge fan of you. She was so excited when we were on a Pierce Morgan together. And then I ended up getting triggered by Joe Walsh, I think, and just yelling at him the whole time. But you like said something nice about me.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
whether you have a completely free market privatized health insurance or a completely socialized health insurance system, if you have obesity rates through the roof, if you lead the world in chronic illness, it doesn't matter. It doesn't really matter who's floating the bill. The problem is the health. I mean, like the problem is the health of our country. And it's just wild.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
I've just never seen anything like this before, where like one guy made this issue into an issue now that has to be addressed. I don't know that anyone will be able to run for president in the future without having an opinion on this stuff.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
And she's like, do you have any idea what this means? Jillian Michaels likes your show. And I was like, yeah, no, I know. It's cool. But anyway, thank you very much. It's very kind of you to say.
Part Of The Problem
Jillian Michaels
all right guys let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show which is my patriot supply real peace of mind comes from knowing your family is prepared for anything my patriot supply america's most trusted name in emergency preparedness is offering a limited time discount on their best-selling three-month emergency food kit each kit provides over 2 000 calories and 100 of the recommended value of 12 essential vitamins and minerals
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
All right. So let's... So this was... Okay, just a short little clip, but there's so much in there that I find so fascinating. And so almost to begin to break some of this down, because there's a few different layers, right? So he's going, look...
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
So I'm looking forward to that. We should be able to announce all the details of it. I'm hoping within the next week or two, we'll, we'll have all of those details, but the Soho forum.org is the website. You should... Regardless of me debating there, you should go check them out. They're a monthly debate series in New York City and they get like.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
Donald Trump's Treasury Secretary, like basically is trying to shake down the Ukrainians, you know, like they owe us their like resources because of all the money we've given them. And OK, this isn't how it works. I mean, we were supporting them because they're a democracy against this invasion by Russia. That's why we were doing this. You don't go and try to shake down your friends.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
I mean, just imagine if FDR was trying to shake down the British during World War II. You know, this is essentially the point that he's making. So there's a few things. Number one, it's just... Like, I swear to God, there's... And I guess this is really... kind of the definition of the red pill. But there are some things in life.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
It's like these lessons about the nature of reality where once you learn them, you just can't unsee them. You know, like you you just can't. It's like that's why the red pill is such a good analogy. It's like that you already made your choice to take that pill.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
You don't get you know, it's like when Morpheus offers Neo the choice because you could take this red pill or you could take this blue pill. You take the blue pill, you go back to sleep. You'll never remember any of this and you'll go live your life. You take this red pill. You're going to see how shit really works. It's like that's your point of choice.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
After that, you don't have a choice anymore. Like once you've taken the red pill, you can't unsee it. You don't get to go back to sleep now. But one of the things is like, oh, my God, it's this fixation on World War Two. It's like once you see it, you can't unsee it. This example has to be brought up over and over. And every single war has to be viewed through the lens of World War Two.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
You know, my friend Daryl Cooper, who's been on the show, he's going to come up again in a second. If you guys remember, he stirred up this huge controversy last year. And, oh, my God, it's almost like I've never seen anything like it before in a few different ways. But one of the things that was great is, like, the controversy proved his point correctly.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
Like it's just as everybody is getting outraged, they're proving him right in what his central claim is, which is that this is like World War II has become this, as he called it, this load-bearing myth. And he doesn't say that meaning myth like it didn't happen, just the fact that like it's taken on like a life of its own where now it is like it's – the entire justification for the entire regime.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
And that's why if you ever go at that, because it's a load bearing myth, if you ever go at that, everyone freaks out because they know you take that one out and everything else crumbles with it. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Lucy. Everybody loves a nice tobacco-free nicotine pouch, and Lucy is the place to get them.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
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Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
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Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
just really they get like great people a lot of really uh like great thinkers and very relevant um smart people have uh have debated there before and they've all their debates are online if you can check out their entire catalog and it's really fun uh to go to them live it's always a great time so i used to for years ago when i was less busy than i am now and had less children than i have now and um
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
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Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
lucy products are only for adults of legal age and every order is age verified this product contains nicotine and nicotine is an addictive chemical once again l-u-c-y dot c-o slash problem promo code problem for 20 off all right let's get back into the show and so no matter what like even if let's just say hypothetically speaking that even if the um
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
Let's say that the correct lesson from World War II... I don't agree with this, but let's just say that the standard lesson is the correct lesson to learn. The problem was that... you know, we shouldn't have appeased Hitler. And this was this was the Neville Chamberlain appeased Hitler when he gave him Yugoslavia. And that was the problem. The issue wasn't the war guarantee with Poland.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
The issue was that we should have gone to war with Nazi Germany sooner. Like appeasement didn't work and only aggression would work. Let's just say, like, hypothetically, that was true. It doesn't follow from that, that therefore aggression is always the answer. Therefore, appeasement is always wrong.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
Because, like, you could pick a million different examples from history where aggression ended up being wrong, and perhaps appeasement would have been much better, or at least some type of, like, de-escalation, you know, call it whatever you want to. Appeasement's kind of a loaded term. But it's constantly, like always, they have to go back to this.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
So you have Daryl Cooper goes on Tucker Carlson's podcast and he says, he goes, he goes, ah, you know, my buddy Jocko is like, you know, he's got Anglo-Saxon, you know, family members or whatever. So I like to kind of tease him and kind of like, provoke him a little bit. And I'm probably being a little hyperbolic when I say this, but I say that, you know, Winston Churchill was the true villain.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
And it's not that Winston Churchill killed the most people or committed the most atrocities, but I see him as like the real villain of this war. So he makes that statement and everybody loses their fucking shit. I mean, every goddamn notable historian and cable news host and everybody's talking about Daryl Cooper. They're flipping out on him.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
They all pretend he didn't say, hey, I'm being hyperbolic here. They all pretend he didn't say, obviously, he didn't commit the most atrocities. But the idea that some guy would even say this out loud gets this giant freak out. Like, don't get me wrong. Daryl Cooper is phenomenal. He's an incredible historian. His... his series are like some of the best work out there.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
I've been recommending him forever and I love him. And I, I wish he was like 10 times bigger than he is, you know, and, and hopefully he will be. But the re the, the actual set for a guy who's got like a few hundred thousand, you know, like, like Twitter followers, the, how outsized the response was to that. He could be talking about any other historical event.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
Like, again, I don't think he got it wrong. I think he's right. But let's say he got it wrong. If he had talked about any other historical event and got it slightly wrong, he just never would have generated that type of response. Because this is what World War II is. It's not just the story of, you know, a war that happened in the 1930s and 40s. America's part in the 40s.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
But it's not just like a war that we fought in the 40s. It is the justification for the continuation and the beginning of every single war since then. Every one of them.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
and and there's there is not one war in the world but believe me as someone who argues about israel palestine all the time every single defender of israel will bring up world war ii at some point just always has to happen because that's just got to be thought of as that was just good and therefore why can't we do good again it's just like it just it's this myth that gets people to turn their brains off and that's why it's so valuable to them that's why it's been so effective for so long um
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
lived in new york city there were several factors involved but i used to um i i've debated at the soho forum before and i used to regularly do stand up uh like at the the debate series before the debates and um i love all of the the people involved with it um and so anyways i'm excited to to go back so it's probably long overdue but we did um i i did firmly agree to return to the soho forum so uh very much looking forward to that and i think
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
Anyway, speaking of Daryl Cooper, so Daryl Cooper did respond to this and I did just, you know, I kind of had like a somewhat similar thought in my mind. But, you know, so I'll say what my the thought that I had in my mind was just that, you know,
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
know like yeah we did kind of shake down the british in world war ii and and i didn't even you know like daryl knows more details about this i mean he's a real historian i'm just a comedian who's talking but um it's but i was kind of like in my mind my first thought was uh was like well you know we did take over the british empire
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
I mean, they were the most powerful empire in the world at the beginning of the war, and at the end of the war, their empire collapsed, and America became the most powerful empire in the world. So, yeah, in a sense, we did shake them down. I mean, even if you don't want to say, like, directly or literally, we'd tip it anyway.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
So Terrell Cooper responds to this clip we just played, and he says, FDR took U.S. bases in the West Hemisphere in exchange for...
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
uh decrepit world war one destroyers demanded full payment in gold and cash for supplies until the uk was dead broke then mockingly uh designated lend lease as hr 1776 just to twist the knife the uk didn't finish paying us back until 2006. so it's funny when you get a good historian who's uh not part of the regime it does help for these things too so like first of all the guy's completely wrong
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
like by his own logic of this but that that was only kind of one of my major takeaways from this there's something that's actually much deeper and more fascinating to me and i swear that i i just i don't believe a u.s senator doesn't get this so i think this is just like this is the propaganda this is what they say when they're on a news show about it but it does certainly
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
I think this hits, it strikes a chord with the blue pelt. Now, luckily for us, I think there's a lot more red pelt people than there used to be, um, to one degree or another, you know, there's, there's layers of being red pelt. Like you could understand this, but then you kind of understand the next level and the next level, but unlike the movie, right? It's not just one red pill or one blue pill.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
The analogy is not perfect, but I think between, um, Russiagate and really COVID, COVID probably being the biggest one. I think Biden's, them covering up Biden's senility. I think there's just been a mass awakening of people recognizing some basic truths, like everything in the corporate media is lies. When you turn on CNN, you're watching propaganda. This is state propaganda, period.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
The fact that the kind of scientific institutions can't be trusted, the foreign policy institutions can't be trusted. I just think there's a lot more people who have woken up to this. And so we're kind of in a different spot. But generally speaking, I think with blue-pilled people, I think when you say things like,
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
know you don't go and shake down your allies we're funding this war because we love democracy you know because we love the good guys and we're the good guys and they're the bad guys and we're like that's how this really works i just don't believe that any u.s senator really believes that you know uh one of the the greatest movie lines of all time um in fact i might rank it as my favorite
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
maybe the best movie line ever and the best like there's a real libertarian you know comment to it but of course this is I'm talking about in The Godfather when Michael Corleone so if you don't I assume most of you know the Godfather, but the story starts out with Michael Corleone is like the, he's the straight edge son and he goes to the military and his role is he's going to be legit.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
He's not going to be like in the crime family. And then when he comes back, ultimately his father gets shot and his brother ends up getting killed. I can't remember exactly, but ultimately he decides that he's going to take over the family business and he becomes the heir to the Godfather. So he's talking to his wife,
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
Um, at one point when, when he's decided to take over the business and his wife is, uh, K right. I haven't seen the movie in a few years, but if you guys remember, it's more or less, she goes, uh, she's like, what are you doing? You can't be working for your father. And he goes, listen, my father's a powerful man, like a Senator or a president. And this is how powerful men are.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
I think you guys are going to enjoy it. Hopefully you enjoy it. Okay. So let's get into the topic of today's show. And I've got an idea of some stuff that I want to talk about, and then I will do my best to get to some questions in the live chat as well, if possible. But as I always mention, sign up at partoftheproblem.com if you want to be a part of the live chat.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
And she goes, listen to yourself, Michael, do you have any idea how naive you sound? Senators and presidents don't have people killed.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
and his retort is now who's being naive k and it's just like the perfect line it's the perfect line because it's it's the perfect like red pill blue pill distinction like that is the normie blue pilled attitude what do you mean he's like a politician he kills people but of course the red build attitude is like yeah that's what makes him like a politician
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
And so anyway, there is just this there's a feeling that you get here where it's like, why, you know, why is our government doing gangster shit? And make no mistake about it. What Trump's doing is gangster shit, you know, and.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
look i'll tell you i just to be very clear here i don't support this this is not something that i think is a good idea i mean i think we should end the war um and the the war never should have been started it should be negotiated away but i got to be honest as somebody who has
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
okay, there are certainly experts who have studied this issue more than me, but compared to a regular person, I have studied this issue pretty deeply. The war in Ukraine has been one of my major focuses for many years now. The new Cold War between the U.S. and Russia was one of my major focuses for many years before this war. So just from...
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all the years of interviewing scott horton and reading all his books and all the years of covering russiagate and all the you know this is just something i've been focusing on for a very long time um and for anybody who has been focusing on it you know As I said in the last episode, Ukraine, the Ukrainian people, really are true victims in all of this.
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This was a war that America led Ukraine into, as John Mearsheimer said, led Ukraine down the primrose path. And he said this back in 2014. And so it is... Essentially, we convinced the Ukrainians against the will of the Ukrainian people and against the will of the Ukrainian elected officials. We convinced... And when I say convinced, I mean...
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we backed a coup against the democratically elected leader of ukraine who had decided to make a deal with vladimir putin i mean he he ultimately decided that that was in i mean say his people's interest or his interest or whatever but he ultimately decided to calm things down with russia and make an economic deal i mean think about this this is what kicked off the maidan protests was that
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Yanukovych, the democratically elected... Give me this. We're all in the business of democracy promotion. Well, the democratically elected president of Ukraine with elections verified by the EU... So this was... As legit as elections get, even the West claims this was a legit election.
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So their democratically elected president, he decided when he was, and I think he was conflicted himself, but when he was deciding between signing this partnership with the European Union or signing an economic deal with Vladimir Putin, he ultimately decided he was going to go with Putin. That was the course that this country was on. was to have decent enough relations with Russia.
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And then the West comes in and pours tens, maybe even over $100 million into this protest effort against Yanukovych, which ultimately leads to ousting him and him fleeing for his life. OK, and then under the new government, they push them into the civil war. I think something like 15000 people died in the fighting in those years between Maidan and when Vladimir Putin invaded.
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And so I'm just saying that. ukraine look ukraine is a is a pawn on the chessboard and there is you know i i do think that it's kind of up even though we spent all this money it's kind of up for us to then go extort resources away from ukraine when really the rightful owners are the ukrainian people
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If you want to get the members-only episode and a bunch of other goodies, that's how you can help support the show. Go sign up over at partoftheproblem.com. All right, so Donald Trump is president of the United States of America. I don't know if you guys heard. Won a second term. Pretty impressive victory. He's... In a very interesting situation.
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And by the way, when I say this, I do not – when I say rightful owners, I don't mean in any commie sense of the word. I'm not – that is not my conception of property rights. I'm not saying that like all of the people or the workers own – I'm saying like from a real hardcore Lockean libertarian perspective. Like I don't know the people who homesteaded it or something like that.
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Like they have a better claim on their resources than we do. And so I – look, I am – Because I recognize that governments are gangs and governments are essentially just the most successful gang. Like, this is basic Rothbard anatomy of the state shit. But a government is basically the most successful gang who took over the entire area and decided that they were just going to set up shop there.
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They didn't have to leave. We just rule these people. Well, because I recognize that, I believe in very limited government. Very limited. Like, picture the most limited government. Much more limited than that. Limit the entire thing. So... Okay, I want there to be less gangster shit. I'm not on board with government doing gangster shit.
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I also do recognize to the extent that government exists, that's what they do. That's what they're in the business of doing. Every inch of it is gangster shit. And so when people come out here and they go, oh my God, Donald Trump's doing gangster shit.
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why we're that's not why we're supported that we're supporting you know ukraine because they're a democracy okay yeah that's right we're supporting ukraine because they're the country who's democratic uh first of all they the us back to coup in 2004 in ukraine and then in 2014. so their democracy
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is less than 10 years old, if you could even call it a democracy or 11 years old now, but you can't really call it that anymore because they're not holding elections. And Vladimir Putin has, excuse me, Zelensky is a very low approval rating. So yeah, anyway, it's a pure fantasy to act like we weren't always doing gangster shit. It was always gangster shit.
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The difference is that, and I think this is essentially why so many people support Donald Trump. The difference is that he's proposing doing gangster shit that's at least conceivably in the nation's interest.
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he's he's at least going like hey we're gangsters here we do gangster shit why don't we get something for all this money we've put out now again i don't agree with that because i think i'm not saying like the american people are responsible for everything their government does but you know i i don't know we have to some degree allowed our government to do this and i don't think that the ukrainian people who have had their country destroyed and are going to lose part of it they should have to pay us back i'm a little uneasy with that i don't agree with that
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But to hear a senator sit there and try to like have this like, oh, my God, he's going over and shaking them down like he's a gangster. But that's such bullshit because that's not what America is all about. America is just about supporting democracy. I mean, it's just it's it's all so laughable. There's no way a sitting senator actually sees things this way.
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And I think as we've already kind of, everybody knows at this point that Donald Trump 2.0 is quite a bit different than the first Donald Trump who came in. And part of this might be the people he has around him. Part of this might be that he has learned some lessons and has a little bit of wisdom from having been in there for four years already.
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If you order by 3 p.m., they'll ship your order within the same day so you have peace of mind right away. Go check them out at my website, preparewithsmith.com. All right, let's get back into the show. We just had, we had to fight a war against Russia because of the threat to democracy.
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I mean, like, if we have to fight a war if a democracy is threatened, yet we can prop up the government of Saudi Arabia? We could prop up the government of Israel. Israel has had control of 5 million people since 1967 who have no rights whatsoever. That includes voting rights.
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but we can prop them up, and yet we have to go to war to defend democracy here, but it's also okay to prop up all of these countries that are antithetical to democracy. It doesn't even make any sense. It doesn't pass the basic smell test. That's just not what's going on here. What's going on is that the government's always doing gangster shit.
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Finally, Donald Trump comes out and is just like, I'm going to do gangster shit on behalf of the country, and then all these people are outraged. And they pretend that this is the first time gangster shit has ever happened. Go listen. If you want to see on the topic of Ukraine, go listen to the tape of Joe Biden. In fact, Natalie, why don't you pull that up? Joe Biden, Ukrainian prosecutor.
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Just put that into YouTube, and it should spit out the video pretty quickly here. But it's just so funny to me to be like, oh, all we were ever doing over there was protecting democracy, and then Donald Trump wants to do all this gangster shit with the government. Yeah, okay. Did you find it?
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this is where you could see how like what i'm talking about when i say gangster is all that they do all that they do we'll have that up in a second and then i will i will go through natalie's got some questions pulled up here and then i will go through the chat and maybe we'll answer a few more questions in the second half of the show all right you can pull that video up whenever we have it natalie
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right here we go yeah here we go this is uh 2006 um oh sorry this is biden's comments later but uh you could just skip right to the comments yeah
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Part of it might be that he had a near-death experience and maybe it's changed him in some ways. I don't exactly know. Maybe a little bit of all of those. But Donald Trump, in his first four years, really made enemies in Washington, D.C. with a lot of his rhetoric. And I think the fact that he was so uncontrollable, there's something inherent about Donald Trump that is uncontrollable.
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There you go. By the way, Matt Taibbi has done great reporting on this. The prosecutor he's talking about was investigating Burisma, the company that his son was making $100,000 a month on the board of. So that's it. You fire a prosecutor and put in a guy who he says is solid, in other words, our guy, or you won't get this money. Now tell me that's not gangster shit.
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This is what governments do, okay? This is the nature of governments. They do gangster shit. What do you think? You know, like for all these people who love to bring up World War II, what do you think World War II was? Do you think that was a love fest? It was all about democracy promotion? Yeah, that's why we partnered with Joseph Stalin for his love of democracy.
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you know the whole thing is just so fun but it's just so it's it's interesting to see people try to kind of spin this when i think so many people are waking up to what is i think like in many ways the most important red pill which is just that governments are gangs that's what they are they're gangs with a monopoly on aggressive violence um Anyway, I just thought that was too great.
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All right, let's dive into some questions here, and we'll go through a few of these, and then I got to pack and get on a plane tomorrow morning. All right. Dave, the State Department just declared eight drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. These cartels are not only smuggling drugs, but people as well. What are your thoughts?
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not good not good and and really so much of that is just because of all of the um in the post 9 11 world like all of the legal you know, factors that come in with declaring a group terrorists. And, you know, it's unclear exactly what the Trump administration is going to do now that they've branded these cartels as terrorists, but certainly the possibilities are very close to some type of war.
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And I mean, that's, that's the last thing we want to do. Look, It's already if you the bottom line, right, with immigration, if you're kind of zooming out from the truth is that. The immigration.
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crisis there's a few different things that are going on right so number one you had like the insane flow of um of of migrants coming in asylum seekers some of them will claim to be but you have a huge flow of migrants coming in during joe biden this has already been drastically cracked down
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uh what's his name the borders our guy was just uh um posting about these numbers the other day but already this look when joe biden came in the signal was sent that it's wide open so they came in record high numbers donald trump's in the signal has been sent it's not wide open the numbers have greatly been reduced so that's number one okay uh you don't in terms of that problem
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What we had was the worst of both worlds under Joe Biden, which is that you have de facto open borders and the war on drugs going on, okay? So you have drugs are heavily criminalized in America, and yet there's a market for them. There's demand. There's a lot of people who want drugs.
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And so then you have these cartels that will bring the drugs over the market, and they make a ton of money off doing this. To me, legalizing drugs is the best solution to all of this. I know there's some right-wingers who don't like that, but the truth is that it's the exact same logic as prohibition of alcohol.
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It is not at all clear to me that even Donald Trump can control what Donald Trump might blurt out. And certainly... The more you kind of examine the American system of government, you realize that most of the, let's say, the most powerful people in our society, certainly in terms of political power, were quite fine with Joe Biden being president. Think about that.
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When you had prohibition of alcohol, you had a huge rise in the homicide rate because it was a black market now, and the only people in the black market are, by definition, criminals, right? And so criminals end up thriving in these black markets. And also, you have a big problem. For anybody who's just like...
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you've ever like known anyone who sold drugs like on any level maybe i'm more of a maybe i was more of a fucked up kid than some of you guys are but i knew a lot of people who sold drugs and um One of the things that happens when you're in an illegal market is that you have no security.
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texas comicdavesmith.com for the ticket links there we got shows thursday friday and saturday night i believe five total shows um and there's still a few tickets for some of them remaining so if you want to come see me and robbie the fire bernstein out in houston comicdavesmith.com is the place to go and then our next stop after that will be buffalo new york and uh then i i we got a whole bunch of dates for the rest of the year so if you want to come see us live go to comicdavesmith.com
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You know, when you're in a legal market, if someone steals from you, you can call the cops or you can hire your own security or whatever. You have options, like you have legal recourse. And so if someone like what I'm doing right now, being a podcaster, this is a legal market, at least for now.
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maybe not in germany according to our uh our most recent episode but at least in the united states of america for right now this is legal now if someone were to break into my house and steal a bunch of equipment i can have i can have it insured i can call the cops i there i have other you know i i have other paths but like if you know anyone who ever sold drugs you know if you have
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If you have a bunch of drugs, you can't get insurance on it and you can't call the cops. If someone steals it from you, you gotta be prepared to defend it yourself. And this is where the guns come in and this is where the gang culture, right? So there's like, when, when you have a black market, you create all of these problems.
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And if you were to legalize drugs, just in the same way, when prohibition ended, the homicide rate drastically fell. Um, and same thing would happen. In the same way that Al Capone took over the cities during Prohibition, well, now you got these Mexican gangs and then some other South American gangs who are dominating in the Prohibition of drugs.
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And so that would be the best, you know, this would be the best solution that would lead to less bloodshed, not more. And I just, I see nothing but very dangerous red flags by designating the cartels as terrorists. I do not think that is a... a good plan. Okay, next question.
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Dave, if Trump ends up cutting a ton of spending and cuts taxes, how would we be able to combat the inflation to follow with more Americans having disposable income? I know it will balance out in the future because the cost of production would go down as well, but I'm worried about the short-term effects.
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Well, you're going to be looking at deflation if you have big cuts in government spending, if there's less money printing. And yeah, I think you kind of answered your own question there. This is going to make the cost of things go down. So this is ultimately, I mean, this is what has to be done.
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And so I get your point if you're saying like in the tax cuts are like stimulative if you're like directly giving Americans tax cuts. But you got to keep in mind too that it's not the government spending all that money too. It's not as if the government is taxing people and just holding that money.
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so i i don't think that you're going to see any increase in inflation from the tax cuts and the spending cuts are going to be deflationary in nature so this is it's it's going to be cutting the size of government is going to be an overwhelming positive believe me we're we're still a long way away from seeing a ton of spending cuts and tax cuts but hopefully you're right
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Okay, Dave, are you nervous about Doge auditing our gold reserves at Fort Knox? What should we expect when it comes out that the gold reserve is significantly less than reported or completely depleted? It's a really good question. My guess is yes. I mean, I'd say closer to completely depleted if I had to guess. I mean, I don't know. I don't know any better than you do.
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But it's like, why the hell have... Why have they been so secretive about what's at Fort Knox? Why have we never had an audit on this? My guess is, yeah, that it's been completely depleted. Now, what would... what should we expect i mean look it's it's like one of these things it's it's you know the short term might be a little bit ugly
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but i think that's necessary for a positive result in the long term and it's kind of like you know if you're if you're married to someone who's treating you really badly and is lying to you and cheating on you looking through their phone
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you know this might be upsetting and it might not be good for the marriage in the short term but if you want to know what's really going on i i just i always err on the side that we're better to know than to all be being fooled um so i would i would still air yeah they'll be people would be upset it would probably have a negative effect on markets but at the same time it's like this whole thing is built on a house of cards and so it's it's kind of the only way to ever move to a better
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And it wasn't even it was all the talking heads in the corporate media, all the big donors, all of them. They were fine with Joe Biden up until that debate performance. And why were they why did they have a problem with Joe Biden after that debate performance? Well, it was because it was too obvious that he couldn't win if he was this senile.
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more sane place. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Sheath Underwear. As you guys know by now, I've been telling you about this company for a long time. Sheath uses moisture wicking technology to create underwear that keeps everything breathable and incredibly comfortable for you downstairs.
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To someone who holds the opinion that the, quote, gangster shit is a good thing when somebody like Trump is doing it, that it's only a problem when it's not in the interest of the people of the country? Okay, well, I mean...
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guess there's there's a couple responses that i would have to that so number one um it's wrong you know and and maybe that won't move you at all but i still i'll lead with what i you know
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think i mean like the gangster essentially means stealing from people killing people injuring people or threatening to do all of that and i do just reject that as morally wrong in the same way we would think it was morally wrong if individuals were doing that But even if you forget about that to just totally table the morality discussion, because I understand that that doesn't always move people.
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And it's easy, even though I don't think it's fair, it's easy for people to dismiss that and be like, oh, you know, and anytime you're especially right wingers, like anytime you're talking about morality, it's kind of just like dismissed as naive. That's not really the way the world works or something. I don't agree with any of that. It's like, yeah, actually, I think.
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You know, when I was debating Josh Hammer, he asked me at one point during the debate if morality is a consideration for me when it comes to U.S. foreign policy. And I was like, yeah, it is. And I would also just say that, you know, two kind of more right winger types that I think I don't know. I hate when people who make appeals to Christianity or religion when they're not religious.
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And so they had to get someone who could beat Donald Trump in there. That's ultimately what got Joe Biden out. But as we all know, Joe Biden was senile for four years of his presidency. I look, this is obvious. Everybody knows this. Anyone who is being honest with themselves or paying attention knew this at the time.
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I'm not trying to be that guy. I'm not exactly religious. I have a personal relationship with God, but I don't really subscribe to a religion or a particular holy book or something like that. I would just say, I say this as somebody who's not an expert on theology, but I do think it's just, it seems to me it's completely incompatible with Christianity to separate morality from government policy.
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I don't know. I must have missed that lesson from Jesus. At some point, there's these rules of morality don't apply if they're good for your country or something like that.
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But look, more importantly than any of that, the flaw in this is like, look, gangster shit is good for the gangs, but it's never going to be, you know, like I'm not saying like in any isolated incident, it couldn't be good for the country as well.
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But the idea that you're going to have like an empowered gangster class that rules you and that's going to end up being good for you is just, again, it's like, It was the wisdom of all of the founders that that's exactly what you don't want to do. And they were right. And this is part of the reason why America has been such a successful country because it was at least started on this premise.
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But the, the idea that like, you're going to have this gangster class and you're going to continue to empower them and that's going to be good for you. Like, I don't, I'm not saying like in, in, in isolated incident or in crazy extenuating circumstances that, Perhaps there could be, for a short time frame, a benefit to that.
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But the idea of like, do you think any neighborhood is going to be better because they're ruled by gangs? Is that good for you in your household, in your personal life? I don't really think so. And even in the business world, I don't think it's like the gangster shit that I'm talking about. And we're not talking about threats of violence.
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That's not really how most businessmen succeed in free market or civilized Western societies. It's actually from providing value. And so I think it's very... It's a very dangerous and short-sighted game to get to play. Okay, hold on one second. All right. Here's the last one I have up here, and then we'll wrap on this.
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Do you see Trump throwing any Republicans under the bus in 2026 running for re-election? It's an interesting question.
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But what's the really interesting insight from that is that, oh, all of these powerful people are actually quite fine with not having a president. Why would that be? Why would they be OK with that? And it's because they they know that they won't get any resistance from the man in the chair.
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you know because i'm thinking about it now right is mcconnell i think is the only one who really didn't vote for his appointees and mcconnell i don't think is is running again so there's no opportunity there a lot of this i think probably depends on what happens between now and 2026 uh I sure hope so. You know, I sure hope he does it to some of the ones who deserve it.
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But again, this is the problem with Donald Trump is it's just, you know, again, I'm trying to be cautiously optimistic. I mean, this is a different Trump than we saw in his first term.
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But the problem with Trump in his first term is that what some he ended up throwing the best congressman in the country under the bus, Thomas Massey, because Thomas Massey objected to the giant spending bills in 2020. Donald Trump didn't want to hear that in 2020 because he was trying to get reelected. And that, you know. So he was trying to brag about the spending bills.
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And I understand, you know, it was COVID. It was a crazy year. He was trying to get reelected. But at the same time, Thomas Massey was 100% right about that. Thomas Massey accurately predicted that this would result in terrible price inflation for the American people. And so...
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You know, Donald Trump is the type of guy who is petty enough that if you cross him in some way, he might really try to get back at you, even if it doesn't matter to him because he's only got two more years in there and it doesn't even matter whether you get reelected or not. So that's an interesting question. I really don't know. As of right now, I don't know.
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Is there any like Republican in Congress who's actually like You know, it's not as if we have like what Mitt Romney was doing in the first term or like Liz Cheney or there's not like a Republican who's out there like being the opposition right now. If there was, I think probably he would do that in 2026. But.
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At the same time, I look at it like if I had to guess, yeah, there'll be some Republicans who stab them in the back between now and 2026. And I would not be surprised at all if that results in Donald Trump trying to throw them under the bus and get them primaried or something like that. And, you know, Donald Trump doesn't have...
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None of these endorsements and all of this stuff, it's never like you can just give 100% of your energy to someone else. But in the world of republicanism right now, Donald Trump's the last guy you want to have as an enemy. And so I do think he should be using that. You know, I do think he should be he you know, my advice to Donald Trump during the campaign, which he ended up somewhat following.
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I'm not saying he followed it from me, but he ended up ultimately kind of following my my advice to him was like, you should be threatening the shit out of these social media companies, you know, and that and ultimately look what he did with Zuckerberg. Now, if you want to call me out, I guess that is some gangster shit I support. So there you go.
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You know, like you didn't have to worry about Joe Biden changing his mind and, you know, like taking some drastic new course of action. Whereas with Donald Trump, he's just much more difficult to control.
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There are some limited examples where I will support some gangster shit being done, but only in the goal of rolling back gangster shit. So there you go. All right, listen, we're going to wrap up on that one. I will catch you guys out in Houston, Texas tomorrow night, Friday night, Saturday night. See you there. Thank you guys for listening. Catch you next time. Peace.
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you know donald trump even from 2016 2017 donald trump he always you know they may get their man in the position that they want but donald trump might fire that guy and bring in a different guy who's not their guy you just don't know what he might do you know and and part of that is
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like to donald trump's credit part of that is that he actually has some things that he believes in he actually thinks of himself as a boss because that's what he's been for his entire life and part of it is maybe not as much to donald trump's credit that someone might just rub his ego the wrong way and he might just fire that guy because that's how donald trump operates
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Either way, that's kind of what spooked them the first time. If you're talking about ending wars and draining the swamp, you're going to make some enemies in Washington, D.C., especially if they think you might actually mean it. But this time around, Donald Trump is doing a little bit more than just saying that.
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And so obviously we've been covering for a few weeks on the show the reaction to Doge. If you wanna make some enemies in Washington, D.C., you should talk about forcing government agencies to open their books and floating out the idea of trillions in spending cuts. That'll make you some enemies in D.C. But this time around, Donald Trump has really done it.
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And he has really he appears to be gearing up to commit what is the cardinal sin in Washington, D.C. And what Donald Trump seems to be about to do is end a war. And that is not something that you're supposed to do in Washington, D.C. Let me tell you, they do not like that much. Look, think about it like this.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
What was undeniably the thing that got OK, aside from aside from his debate performance where he was a vegetable? What got Joe Biden the most heat in the the legacy media? in the dinosaur media, perhaps we should call it. What is the thing that he got the most heat for? What was the biggest controversy of his, right? It's the Afghanistan pullout, right? Now, don't get me wrong.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
Joe Biden certainly botched that withdrawal, but, you know, the level, well, just put it like this, okay? Think about how big a scandal Biden's botched withdrawal from Afghanistan was. And again, he clearly botched it.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
But if you really think about it, think about how big a scandal his mismanagement of the pullout of Afghanistan was, and then compare that to how big a scandal it was, say, when Obama launched the war in Libya or in Syria, or when he backed the Saudis in their war in Yemen. This is like not considered a scandal at all.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
In fact, the entire corporate media, and I still see people make this claim to this day, claim that Obama's administration was, quote, scandal free. They don't even consider this a potential scandal that a president just launches a war without congressional approval, an aggressive war, right? Like nobody's even making the claim that anyone in Libya ever attacked America.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
The other piece of exciting news, which I cannot give you all the details on, but I I did have a great phone call with Gene Epstein this morning, who, as many of you hardcore listeners to the show will will know, is just one of my favorite people in the world. And so it was great. It was great catching up with him.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
No one's making the claim that Bashar al-Assad attacked America. No one's making the claim that the Houthis attacked America. And nobody's making the claim that Congress gave approval for these wars. So Obama's literally launching illegal, aggressive wars. And it's not even considered a scandal. But Biden ends a war, which everybody acknowledges was a disaster, a 20-year catastrophe.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
That's the huge scandal. And by the way, I mean, if you look up the numbers, I think there was, I think, 17 people
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
what's up what's up everybody welcome to a brand new episode of part of the problem i am dave smith i am riding solo for this episode thank you to all of you guys for uh for joining uh before we get into it i got a lot i want to talk to you guys about today before we before we get into that uh tomorrow i am heading out to houston
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
um u.s soldiers died in the pullout of uh of afghanistan and then between like some of the with the drone strikes and a few like if you take it in totality i think it's like between 150 and 200 people died um in joe biden's pullout of afghanistan now don't get me wrong that's really bad i'm not saying that's good and it is a scandal um and there's you know we've gotten into this in the past we could get into the details of why that
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
withdrawal was so poorly managed, but just to keep is we're talking about less than 200 people dying. I mean, you're talking about the war in Yemen. It's it's in the hundreds of thousands of people died. The war in Syria is somewhere in the ballpark of 500,000 people died. Um, in, in Libya, I don't think we have any good numbers on it, but I mean, it's been a failed state since then.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
And there were like open air slave trade markets going on. And I believe still are. So it's, the lowest in the tens of thousands probably in the hundreds of thousands so just think about that right like it's pretty crazy that you could start a war in a legal aggressive war and and kill hundreds of thousands of people and somehow this isn't as big a scandal as ending the war well
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
Donald Trump now seems to be serious about ending the war in Ukraine. And some of the statements that he's made and that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have made have made it pretty clear that they're on the path to doing this. And look, all it really took was America deciding it was time to... And the war.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
And it seems like you got the commander in chief and the defense secretary saying, oh, we've decided to end it. Well, if that's true, then the war is going to end. As anybody paying attention knows, this is this is a war that could have been negotiated away before it started and at many different points during the war. So it is it what the the obstacle to peace was Joe Biden.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
And that's that's just the reality of the situation. So. Keeping all of that in mind, I want to go through, there's a clip here that I saw yesterday that really, it's rare that this happens, but every now and then I'll see a clip where I'm just like, oh, there's so much here. There's so much here to unpack. We're going to have to go through all of this.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
And it's a clip from Senator, what's his freaking name? Sorry, my apologies. I constantly forget. Van Hollen, Senator Van Hollen. So we're going to play the clip in a minute. Let me just say, by the way, first of all, before we even get to Senator Van Hollen's remarks, because, you know, this is a senator talking about the current situation. And it did just kind of. I don't know. I mean, it.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
It kind of made me think about Congress in a way. Now, Van Halen, I think, is a Democrat. But regardless of that, isn't it kind of interesting in this moment, in this really... almost miraculous seeming moment. And when I say miraculous, I don't mean that everything's perfect.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
I will be returning to the Soho Forum, which is an amazing debate series to do another Oxford style debate. We're still locking down the date. Um, the opponent has been selected, but I'm not at liberty to announce that yet. Uh, although my understanding is that he's agreed to it too. Um, so it's going to be a debate on immigration. Um, and I think it'll be one that, that people will really enjoy.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
I just mean that we're living in a political reality that would have seemed impossible just a couple of years ago, sure would have still seemed very unlikely a year ago. Even if you thought Donald Trump was going to win, it would have seemed unlikely that so many of the things that are happening would be happening. And the kind of the cultural shift has been really quite amazing.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
In this moment, isn't it starting almost to become apparent how just irrelevant and incompetent Congress is in general? I mean, it's like Donald Trump. You have this huge cultural shift. Donald Trump, who, you know, just a couple years ago, Donald Trump was the guy who was, you know, an insurrectionist, a traitor to his country.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
He was, you know, a convicted felon or he was about to be a convicted felon and he was going to go to jail and he had all these charges. He was going to be removed from ballots. And now you're in a moment where. Somehow, he got hold of the cool kid energy, and he's all over podcasts, and you got NFL players and UFC fighters doing the Trump dance.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
The cultural shift has been phenomenal that ultimately culminates in this guy winning every single swing state and the popular vote for the first time in his three tries. Okay.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
you would think in this moment where he's signing executive orders like crazy and where um you know the uh you know the you have doge going through all these different you know departments and government quietly what happened here is that the republicans also have the house and the senate and the supreme court but just focusing on the congress you have all these republicans right
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
who for years have claimed, you know, to believe in the Constitution and to oppose big government. If you go back through all the old, you know, Republican, all the old Republicans in Congress, they have all said things about Obama's reckless spending, about how Barack Obama and Joe Biden were gutting the Constitution. And, you know, they want to balance the budget. They want to repeal Obamacare.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
They want like all these things that they claim they want to do. How many of these bills have been put on Donald Trump's desk so far? What are you waiting for? You got the numbers. So do it. Send them something. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's right. Find out maybe they were always full of shit. So this is the big problem that America has.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
It's like you got these Democrats, we're about to hear from one, in the Senate and in the House. You got these goddamn Democrats who are ruining America. And then you have the Republicans. And the major problem with Republicans is that they're all a bunch of Democrats, too. That kind of sums up the problem with politics. Anyway, let's hear from from one of them.
Part Of The Problem
Trump the Gangster
Let's play this clip and and we'll try our best to break this down right now.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
yeah no 100 and of course it does seem that we've in the moment we're living in now it does seem uh like a lot of this stuff is being rejected and i don't know you know it i'm very pleased with that um development uh it's it's really hard to overstate how much just a few years ago It seemed like this was just the dominant trend and we were never going to get away from this.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
You know, I remember thinking I was very wrong. This is one of the predictions I was very mistaken about. But I remember thinking when COVID first hit, I was like, this is going to be the end of wokeism. because now we got like real shit that we got to deal with. Like people aren't going to, you know what I mean? Like all this, like me too stuff that dominated the previous two years.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
I go, that's not, we're in the middle of lockdowns. Now people are scared of the virus. The government's going totally totalitarian, all of this. I was wrong. The woke ism continued somehow past that. It does seem like now people, There's just and I don't know exactly. I mean, I think part of this is like exhaustion on the woke left itself. It is it is hard to maintain.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
yeah dude i mean i've i've been saying this at this point because me and you both like we've we've known each other for years now and i've known scott for years and i knew i remember when scott was first starting up the libertarian institute when it was just an idea and then kind of watching it get bigger over the years and at this point it really is like people will ask me like oh what's a good reading list to get started
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
We're living in the early 30s rise of the Nazis forever when there's just nothing to back that up around you. I also do think it's a it's part of the dynamic, at least, is that.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
the anti-woke crusaders be those kind of right-wingers libertarians the people like us who have been you know talking about this stuff for a long time they just came with such better arguments over and over again that eventually the woke were just destroyed i mean look it's kind of it's a joke when matt walsh can just can destroy your entire world view by asking you what a woman is
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
You know, how long can you keep going? And in some sense, there is something encouraging about that where I'm not saying it's the entire the entire reason that we're where we are. But there is something, I think, to the fact that logic still has some power. The truth still has some power. And this group of people who were just armed with zero arguments just could not survive.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
and i've been more and more finding myself going just go look at the books the libertarian institute has published i mean they really are like like i i your book domestic imperialism was phenomenal the um the best book on ukraine the best book on covid that i mean like literally like i'm not exaggerating if there's one book to read about the ukraine war it's provoked
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
Yeah, there's still there's some of them out there who are still trying. And, you know, one of the things to me when I always I remember it's interesting to think about how much like different a mood the country's in right now. Like your point is well taken. You never know what's going to happen in the future. And there are the foundation has been laid for this stuff. It could make a comeback.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
But I just remember like even in our kind of like libertarian world, first of all, If you take, like, say, Chase Oliver or someone like that, or Kamala Harris is the same way, but you just know, like, if they were running in 2017, their message would have been so much woker than it was in 2024. It was almost like they were walking away from that stuff.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
Like, they didn't exactly want to throw it under the bus because they don't want to piss off their own base either, but they're not, like, running on this stuff as aggressively as they would have. I remember...
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
getting a lot of flack from libertarians in the summer of 2020 because i was so uh outspoken against the the riots uh which i just you know again it was like stunning to me it was like we're libertarians because we believe in private property rights and voluntary peaceful interactions and i see a mob destroying private property And what about that is supposed to at all jive with my worldview?
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
But I remember making the point and really taking some heat for this, that I was like, look, of all of these, the Black Lives Matters kind of like poster boys, all of their cases that they love to talk about, many of which I'm proud of. pretty much on the side of this was messed up.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
If there was one book to read about the COVID crisis, it's Diary of a Psychosis by the great Tom Woods. And those are just three of the list of books. What is that? It's got to be 20 books, something like that at this point that the institutes put out. And they're just every last one of them is phenomenal.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
Like it doesn't give you permission to go burn down the Wendy's, but like I do, you know, like I do, I don't think that cop should have sat on George Floyd's neck for nine minutes. And I certainly think the Brianna Taylor case was an outrage, but yeah, there was just not one shred of evidence that either of them were racial issues. There was never nothing.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
There was never even like a case presented as to why we think this happened because the officer was white. I mean, even though all the guys around Derek Chauvin were like an Asian and a black guy and all that, but it's not as if he said some, it's not like while he was doing it, he was like, yeah, you take that, you black motherfucker. You know what I mean?
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
Like, it wasn't like there was like a racial aspect to it. It was just like, Oh, well, the victims are black and therefore this must be a racial issue. And that just doesn't make any sense. It's just like on a very simple common sense test.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
Like if you if there was a bar fight down the street and it was a white guy got in a fight with a black guy, you wouldn't just immediately go, well, it must have been racism. It's like, well, maybe they were fighting over a girl. Maybe one of them bumped into the other one. There's a million different reasons why.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
And it's something, it was crazy that the official movement, it seemed like, never even had to present an argument as to like, well, this is why it's a racial issue. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is sheath underwear. I've been telling you guys about them for years now. And I also like sheath underwear came on.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
It was almost four years ago when they came on as a sponsor and they sent me a couple pairs of their boxer briefs and I put them on and I was like, man, these are like the best pair of underwear I've ever owned. So I got rid of the rest of my boxer briefs. I ordered a bunch more sheath underwear. And I will tell you, I still have those pairs that they sent me when they first came on.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
I still wear them all the time. They still feel like new. If you love this show, support our longtime sponsor, Sheath Underwear. And while you're at it, get yourself the most comfortable pair of boxer briefs you will ever put on your body. Go check them out right now at sheathunderwear.com and make sure to use the promo code PROBLEM for 20% off your order. They ship anywhere in the world.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
sheathunderwear.com, promo code PROBLEM for 20% off. All right, let's get back into the show.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
So the best organization you can support if you are in a position to do it, please go help those guys out so we can keep doing all this cool stuff. All right. So me and you had talked the other day about doing this show and we were talking about like maybe doing an episode on kind of the woke left and then this argument now over the woke right.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
Yeah, and of course, because it really is, well, first of all, it's incoherent, obviously, as you've kind of very beautifully laid it out. But it's also, as you mentioned, as Lou Rockwell was getting at, it's an attack on liberty. It's an attack on a free society. Because even though the government doesn't actually bring any more equality to
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
In fact, you could argue that they bring a more drastic inequality because they have a higher authority than anybody else. They have more power. So inherently, it's more unequal, at least the balance of power is. But the solution is always more government intervention. The solution is always some type of government problem. And as we know, with any degree of freedom, it brings inequality.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
disparate outcomes. Like that's the that's the very nature of freedom is that we can choose different paths, and then we're going to end up in different places. And there's no like why we would ever have the expectation of equality in outcomes makes absolutely no sense or equality of opportunity for that matter. It just makes no sense. It's like the truth is that, you know, you we have lots of
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
And it just weirdly, we plan this, I promise you have to take my word for it, but we were planning this before I got in a little bit of a Twitter back and forth with Constantine Kassin last night. And it was just maybe part that kind of informed me because that was in my mind too, but it really was, we'll get back to that part, but it really was just like,
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
Irish people go into being firefighters and lots of Asian people go into engineering and lots of Jewish people go into like the literary works or or banking or whatever. It's like these are just that we see all around us that there are these different groups of people that tend to go into different areas. And it just seems like why would we?
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
There's something really anti-human about all of it because it's like, oh, so you want to extinguish our differences? But that's the beauty of life is indifferences. The beauty of life is that you are not just a carbon copy of me.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
Like even two guys like me and you who have very similar political views, what would the point of me having you on my show be if you didn't have a different mind than me and kind to add something else and have some other information in your head that i didn't have in mind and then we like it's to try it's so anti-human to oppose it's essentially a war on uniqueness
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
It was one of those moments where I just found myself being like, but how can you, the same guy who said this, now be saying this and not have any type of like, you're not feeling like that cognitive dissonance vibe in your mind? Like it's not vibrating right now and you're going, huh, well, I can't really say this because my entire identity was that. And so anyway, this is wild to me.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
It's been an interesting kind of online debate. I'm not sure if the term woke right can be revitalized or if it can be appropriately applied, but I think it's an interesting conversation to have nonetheless. So you want to start with the woke left maybe, and then we'll get into the woke right divide, or how do you want to do it?
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
And then, of course, a reminder, there are still some seats left. I will be debating Alex Norwatesh. at the Soho Forum, thesohoforum.org is the website. That's the debate series run by the great Gene Epstein. If you're in the New York City area, make sure you come by. It's going to be a lot of fun. All right. Always a good day when I'm joined by the great Keith Knight.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
that the World Trade Center would have been a terrorist target before 9-11. The problem is that the same guys had tried to knock down the Trade Center in 93. It was the most high-profile target for terrorism in the world. It wasn't that crazy of a thought
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
By the way, we could argue this in a second, but I'm not sure they're the OGs, but yes, what everyone thinks of as the OG wokeists.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
to mention the twin towers coming down when it had already been attempted and i'm just saying i look at it and i objectively go i don't i don't actually think you have as strong okay certainly not a strong enough case that i would be comfortable like i am with other competing like this is what happened here okay like we can say this definitively i just don't feel that way about it
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
Okay, but that being said, so I could disagree with this take, and someone else could have a theory that they think Israel was behind 9-11. I could disagree with them. But to conclude from that that you must hate Jewish people, it's like, well, wait a minute. There's all these other possible reasons why you might think that.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
Number one, maybe you were just more persuaded by the evidence than I was. Maybe you've seen some evidence that I haven't seen yet. Maybe you've seen the same evidence and you just weren't quite as scrupulous as I was at being like, no, I have a higher bar of what meets the I believe this actually happened test.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
Maybe the reason why so many people are interested in conspiracy theories these days is because there's been so many real ones and the government lies to you about everything. We just lived through the country being shut down over a bullshit conspiracy. So maybe people are more open to them.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
And maybe the reason why people are suspicious of Israel is because, well, I don't know, we're currently, you know, funding and arming a war for them that is not at all in our national interest. We've fought, you know, like all of these wars in this region of the world clearly taking out one enemy of Israel after the other.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
And people start to get, it's just, there are so many other explanations that are so much more likely. And then when you couple that with the fact that this Ian Carroll guy goes on Rogan and like 12 times disclaims, I'm not saying it's the Jews. I got nothing against Jews. Jews are regular people just like me and you, man. And I'm cool with you. I got no problem.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
I'm saying it's this small group of people. I think like when you couple it all together, it's the same. It's literally the same thing as going like, well, why do you think Asian Americans are more successful than Puerto Ricans? It must be racism. It's like, no, there's like all these other like possible.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
And by the way, I'm not saying it's impossible that someone could say they're not bigoted against Jews, but they really are. I'm just saying, why are we jumping to that conclusion and pretending that you have a certainty that this person is a bigot? Hey guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is My Patriot Supply. Such an important sponsor.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
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Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
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Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
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Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
Yeah. Well, this is... I mean, it's part of the reason why I found Pat Buchanan's book so compelling, Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War. And what's interesting about it is when there is the response of like, oh, so what are you saying? The Holocaust didn't happen? And... I'm sure there are people out there who are saying that. I think they're wrong.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
But the whole point that Pat Buchanan's making is like, no, I'm saying it did happen. I'm saying it happened in the middle of this war. And it's just hard. I think just like on almost the most common sense litmus test to go, OK, so the results of the war were, first of all, as you mentioned, British entry into the war. The official justification was to protect the independence of Poland.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
The results of the war were the biggest bloodbath in human history, the Holocaust, and Joseph Stalin taking over half of Europe. And I mean, when those are the results, it's just pretty easy for someone to go like, maybe an alternative scenario would have been better. Like maybe playing things a little bit differently could have led to a preferable outcome.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
Now, I understand to some degree, and this is partially because of how evil the Nazis were and partially because of years of indoctrination. But I understand people immediately going like, well, if the Nazis had survived, it would have been a worse outcome. You know, like if the Nazi regime was still standing and Adolf Hitler was still alive, then that's a worse outcome.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
It's just like, that's not so self-evidently clear. And I'm not saying it's a great outcome for Adolf Hitler to still be alive and the Nazi regime to have continued. But like, let's say hypothetically, the 60 million people didn't die who died in that war. Let's say hypothetically, a deal could have been worked out to get the Jews out of there.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
Let's say hypothetically, the Soviet Union didn't take over all of Eastern Europe. It's not so obvious, you know, it's not it's not so obvious that there isn't a path that could have been or there isn't policies that could have been pursued that would have led to a better path. Now, by the way, so with the Constantine thing, because I want to just do this before we wrap up like.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
The thing I was arguing with him about was Daryl Cooper also. You know, it started with that. What's his name? Niall, the guy Scott Horton debated. Niall Ferguson called Daryl Cooper a Nazi apologist. I took issue with that and insulted him a little bit. I feel like, you know, I'm sticking up for a friend who's unfairly being smeared. And then Constantine was like, no, he is a Nazi apologist.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
and so me and him started arguing and i was like yeah but dude like come on i mean he's just not like i i don't know look look at the guy's work he's not a nazi apologist and so what constantin's throwing at me again it reminded me of kind of you know that a lot of this stuff we've been talking about with the woke on the left and the right assuming the the motivations must be this one thing this is the only motivation that could lead you to this place
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
And it was really amazing to me, especially because I think Constantine is still, well, Trigonometry is a pretty big podcast, but at least at a point, what he was most known for was this speech that he gave eviscerating wokeism, left wokeism. And it was beautiful. I mean, it was like one of the most eloquent and devastating speeches against wokeism you'll ever see.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
If you Google Constantine Oxford woke, you'll find it real quick. It's got millions and millions of views. Great speech. And I'm like, hey, so how are you that guy? And then we're still at it. And his argument to me is he's like, well, look, Daryl Cooper posted a picture with a mug.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
uh you know like with with nazi imagery on it and he posted the thing about a nazi you know hitler marching on paris being preferable to like fat trans men in dresses or whatever and uh that you know he's got and then and and so and then he brings up the fact that he goes uh he goes also he said churchill was the true villain of of the war and i was like arguing with him and i'm like okay well first of all on your first point what he said was
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
okay, so I say this to kind of rib my friends, and I'm saying this in, I'm being hyperbolic, but I like to say to him that Churchill was the real villain of World War II. And he goes, now, I'm not saying he committed the most atrocities or he had the most blood on his hand necessarily, but here's why I think he's really the real villain. And it's like, okay, well then,
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
look, if we're being fair here and we're not being woke zealots about this, instead of just like, Ooh, I got red meat. Like, here's my conclusion. Let me work backward from that. I was like, why can't you guys ever include that in your retelling of the story? And then he responded to me and you could go look this up. This is on Twitter.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
He goes, dude, you're telling me that he said that on Tucker Carlson in order to rib a friend and that he was being hyperbolic. Well, he still said it. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. I'm saying that on Tucker Carlson, he said, like, I'm not saying he did this to rib a friend being hyperbolic and then just said this thing.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
I was like, no, that's what he said on Tucker Carlson, that to rib my friend, I use hyperbole and I say this. And so we're going back and forth on this. And then I'm just talking about like, I'm like, wait, he shit posted like a time or two.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
Like, this is, this just sounds like, like, first of all, why do you have to, as I put it on Twitter, I go, why do you have to very fine people on both sides, him? Why do you have to? 10, this thing that's on tape that anyone can go back and watch. Like it really does is strikingly similar to me to them saying, Trump said, there's very fine people on both sides. And it's like, dude, it's on tape.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
You can go back and listen to what he said. Same with Daryl Cooper on Tucker Carlson show. And I was like, okay, so on in your corner, you have that. He made some off color jokes that he shit posted a time or two. And then I ultimately said to Constantine, and this is where we stopped the interaction. is that I went, fine, look, you're not convinced by me. Take my non-woke challenge, okay?
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
And here's my non-woke challenge. Listen to the first 30 minutes of Fear and Loathing in the New Jerusalem, and then listen to the 30 minutes that he did in the addendum piece after it about the suffering of Jews during World War II. Just listen to it's an hour combined. Listen to those two half hours. And you tell me, is it possible?
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
Like, is it conceivably possible that a Jew hating Nazi apologist could have possibly ever made that content? Like, how can you square that circle together? How is it possible? That is the one thing that you could always count on.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
Any Jew-hating Nazi apologist would never tell you about the individual suffering of Jewish people who had nothing to do with this bigger cabal and were just totally fucked over. And this is Daryl's superpower, really, is that he's just like...
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
the most intensely empathetic person so this is what people love about his work it's all just like oh my god put yourself in that guy's shoes imagine you're here as this mob of people is ripping your kids and your wife apart and beating you to death and you just got to watch it all and you're powerless and it's just and then he just responded with like uh i've seen it i've listened to it and i still convinced and once he said that i was like well i mean if you're
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
If you could listen to that and not just be shaken of any feeling that this is... Okay, so on my corner I have, here is this guy's work that he put out by his own free will, where he's deeply empathetic to the suffering of Jews during the Second World War. And in your corner you have, he posted something provocative on Twitter once. What are we even...
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
Like, it's like arguing with a woke leftist who's like, that guy's a racist because he told a joke. And I was like, well, you know, he's got a black wife and three black kids, right? And you're like, no, told a joke. He's racist. Like, what are you even saying here?
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
Yeah, 100 percent. Couldn't agree more. Keith, it is it is really just always a pleasure. Always a pleasure talking to you. Let our listeners and viewers know where they can find your stuff if they want to hear more from you.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
All right. Well, Keith, thank you so much. And thanks to everybody listening. Go support the Libertarian Institute if you can, people. No better cause that you could possibly help out. All right. Catch you guys next time. Peace.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
Exactly right. So it strikes me to get a little bit psychological with this in a way, because there is something that I think it's kind of hard if you look at, like, say, the young generation today. This is true of my generation when we were young, too. But it's hard not to see, at least compared to previous generations, how strikingly immature young people are.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
I'm just saying objectively, when you look at it, in my grandfather's day, by the time you turned 18, you had already been considered a man for quite a bit. And you were going to, I mean, go fight in a war. You were certainly, if you had finished high school, or even if you hadn't finished high school, you were going to move out of your parents' house. You were going to buy a house.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
He is the managing director of the Libertarian Institute. Also, he is the author of Domestic Imperialism, phenomenal book. I highly, highly recommend it. And of course, you guys over at the Libertarian Institute, we mentioned this when Scott was on last week, but you guys are in the middle of your fund drive.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
You were going to start a family. You were going to do what are considered adult things to do. Today, we see, and I'm guilty of this too. I mean, I'm about to be 42. I'm in a hoodie right now. It's just kind of ridiculous. We all are very young. We're very slow to mature. And it does strike me, now being a father,
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
that even as you say this the only thing that comes into my mind is it's such a childish way of looking at the world and and not just like child like young for a child i mean small children like a 12 year old should be above but the idea that i like i have a three year old and a six year old and if
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
you know, one of them gets a bigger cookie than the other one, they have an instinct in them to be like, not fair. It's not fair that someone gets more than the other. It is the, and reasonably so, it is the expectation for little children that things will be provided to them in a fair manner. And it does seem to me that this is almost what you see with like woke leftist college students.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
Like the idea is that everybody should get an equal amount, but this just doesn't jive with
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
adulthood, because the truth is that, as we all know, in the same way that everyone shouldn't get the same grades at school, it's like, well, someone worked harder, someone was smarter, someone was better at memorizing information, maybe not even smarter, but just better at memorizing information out of a textbook.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
And so, of course, first of all, when it comes to wealth creation, no one is the grownup in this equation. No, you're the grownup. No one is just giving you the wealth. It's not as if it was just, it is created by us adults. And so, of course, the expectation that it would fall into completely evenly divided categories just makes no sense. And so it's just very interesting to me.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
Hey, what's up, everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. Very quickly, before we get started, just a reminder, I will be in Boston, Massachusetts, at Laugh Boston with Robbie the Fire Bernstein. That's coming up in a couple weeks. ComicDaveSmith.com for ticket links. Very excited to get back to Boston, one of my favorite comedy towns in the world.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
I think it says something about how immature we are as a society that these ideas would ever even gain traction amongst adults.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
So why don't you real quickly, before we get into the show, tell people about the Institute and the fundraiser and how they can help.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
Yeah, it does. It just seems like a lot of this stuff is not even it's not even like the true divide ought to be left and right. It's just fiction versus reality. It's just this is what, you know, I remember there was this article, I believe it was in the New York Times magazine. This is like a few years ago, maybe like five or six years ago.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
But there was this woman from like a feminist and she wrote some article. It was like, like, can we really have it all? And the title was something like that. And she was actually being somewhat reasonable in the article. Like she was basically like, look, feminists made this promise of we can have it all. You can be a working mom and have all the benefits of being a full time mom and blah, blah.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
And she's like, you know, we have to kind of re question that. So like the article wasn't even unreasonable. It's just like. how are we even having a conversation amongst adults about whether or not you can have it all? Like what, who gets past the point of like 10 and doesn't realize that like, yeah, no, that's not life. And that as, as the great Thomas Sowell put it like, right.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
All of life is trade-offs. You know, I say this as somebody who's like a big believer in marriage and having kids, but they are trade-offs. You are like by listen,
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
Kids give you a lot of joy and a lot of meaning, and you get to feel like you have the next generation to pass things down to, but you're going to have less disposable income, you're going to have less free time, you're going to have more responsibility. There's nothing in life where there isn't some degree of a trade-off, and a lot of that is because we...
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
The number one scarce resource, as you pointed out, is time. You can't do everything. You can't, you know, you only have one life that you can live. And in that life, you could either, you know, if we had infinite lives, I guess we could have it all. But we don't. And it does seem there's there again, there's a striking immaturity about this view.
Part Of The Problem
Keith Knight
And it does when you really think about it, I think a lot of times. When people see the woke left, they just focus on the kind of crazy social stuff, understandably. But there are these kind of deeper priors that they have, which is why they get everything wrong. This is why their conclusions are so ridiculous.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
And then once they got assurances from the neoconservatives and the Bush administration and Netanyahu that, don't worry, we're going to do the war in Iran after Iran, Like, we're going to overthrow Saddam Hussein and then we'll go overthrow the mullahs in Iran. Then they got completely on board with that.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
And they, in fact, started manufacturing a bunch of the most outrageous propaganda about how Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction under the Sharon government. So, again, he's... He was like trying to, but there's just not really an argument there.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
And perhaps if somebody hadn't, you know, like if I hadn't read John Mearsheimer or something like that, maybe I wouldn't know all of that, but I've done my homework and I'm just on the right side of the debate. And so it's just, I don't know. It's like, if you... If we were doing a debate that was like, and the resolution was like slavery is immoral.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
And I was on the affirmative and someone else took the negative and I just won the debate. I don't think you'd be like, oh my God, David's just such an amazing debater. You'd just be like, no, he's clearly just right about this. Like this isn't, it's not a comment really on who's better at this or worse at this. It's just a comment on, there's just, the argument is so irrefutable.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
The rest of you love it dearly. All right, so... Last night, I did an Oxford-style debate at Princeton University. It was a lot of fun. It was a very interesting experience. I figured I like to kind of talk about these debates sometimes after the fact, but I thought it went very well. I won pretty dominantly on the Oxford voting.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
At least that's my perspective on it. Obviously, everybody's allowed to have their own perspective. You can go watch the debate and tell me what you thought. I'm curious to hear. I'll check in the chat if anybody had any comments on that. Dave is spitting facts right now, and you guys are goofing in the chat.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
there you go thank you i i appreciate that um but anyway it was it was interesting you know i i think that you know and like like i said i've i've been very critical of say people like ben shapiro um who i think you know, he's made supporting Israel the center of his entire identity and his entire political worldview, and he's never debated a competent critic of Israel.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
I just find that to be, like, outrageous. Like, I'm not saying... Obviously, there's, like... the expectation isn't that you're going to debate everyone. And believe me, I get that all the time with, you know, somebody with like 200 Twitter followers who I've never heard of, who's like, you're afraid to debate me on this. And you're like, yeah, okay.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
Well, you know, time is a scarce resource and I can't devote it to everybody. So I got to, you know, choose a more high profile debate at this point in my career. Um, but yeah,
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
think it's very reasonable for me to say there's a responsibility on you to debate someone i mean the the list of like capable critics of israel is is you know maybe we could use some more people but there's a lot and and like pick one of them
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
None of us would, you know, like it's not like if if if Ben Shapiro announced that he was debating Norman Finkelstein, it's not like you would hear me or Scott Horton being like, no, you have to debate me. We'd be like, great. OK, yes, go do that. It's I just think it's like I do think there's something cowardly about. Like. only debating 17 year olds or 19 year olds at college universities.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
Like even if you're going to do that, if you're going to kind of make your name of going to a college campus and slapping down the kids in the audience, which I just don't really like, I don't like any of that. I don't, my, my beef with it. And like, look, I know Charlie Kirk does a lot of that stuff. And I like Charlie. I've been on his show a few times and he's always been cool to me.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
I appreciate that. I don't even mind being, at least my, my view on it is like, if I were going to do that, like, let's say I was going into a college campus and I was trying to, you know, I had a group of college kids who disagreed with me on something and we were like arguing about it. I just feel like my attitude would always be much more like, uh,
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
Let me let me throw my arm around you and be like, hey, did you ever consider this? You know, did you ever think about it like this? Look, I when I was your age, I felt this way. But then I started thinking about, you know, like I would just always kind of be like, you know, that's to me when I say throw my arm around him. I don't mean physically, by the way. I mean, you know.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
Like metaphorically, I'm not touching college kids. The point is I would have more of an attitude that it's like, well, hey, let me try to give you a little nugget of information or something like that. I don't think it's appropriate to ever have the attitude with college kids that like the way I debated Chris Cuomo or something like that. Like I'm here to destroy you. Like, come on.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
That's not like I'll have that attitude with Chris Cuomo. I'll have that attitude with the guy who was the number one show at CNN who sold the whole COVID agenda. Like, sure, that to me makes sense. It doesn't make sense for me to, you know, and that's what Ben Shapiro like got famous off that.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
They got famous off, you know, debating some 20 year old chick who thinks she's a dude and being like, oh, are you really a guy? Well, then why aren't you a tree? And everyone's like that. oh man, you destroyed her. Like, but yet on this most crucial of issues, which clearly is like right at the center of your entire identity.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
I mean, the guys on record said that the reason he supports the United States of America is because we support Israel. And so like, that just seems, that seems to me to be weak. Like you should, there should be an obligation for him to like debate someone competent on this issue. And that's, you know,
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
What I've been trying to do, it's part of the reason why I challenged Ben Shapiro and Douglas Murray. Neither of those guys, you know, responded or accepted or anything. But I do feel like, you know, debating like I debated Dennis Prager. I mean, it was, again, totally one-sided blowout.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
And I debated Josh Hammer, who's, I mean, the senior editor at Newsweek and has just wrote a book about Israel that's coming out soon. And so I'm kind of like, I'm kind of looking here like, okay, is this the best guys you got? Like, who's the best guy you got? Who's willing to do this? Because I just, at this point, after doing so many of them, it just seems like,
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
they just really don't have much they they really don't have much all right guys let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show which is sheath underwear the best underwear you will ever own and long time sponsor of the part of the problem podcast i love this product so much i cannot recommend it highly enough it is the best the best pair of boxer briefs i've ever had my entire life i was getting like just whatever
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
And I mean, look, I'm not trying to be a dick or anything like this to Josh, but it was also just, I think it was a pretty one-sided debate. I mean, he's...
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
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Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
And now it's all I wear. I'm telling you, go get a pair of them. They're just great. They're high quality. They just you feel good. You feel better when you're in a nice pair of boxer briefs. And of course, they've been a longtime sponsor of the show. So that's reason enough to go support them.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
Go check them out at sheath underwear dot com and make sure you use the promo code problem 20 because that'll get you 20 percent off your entire order. sheathunderwear.com, promo code PROBLEM20 for 20% off. All right, let's get back into the show. What is it here in the comment? Kurt calling the Liberty attack a conspiracy theory is ridiculous. Even Israel admits it happened.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
They just lie and say it's an accident. Yeah, I mean, you know... Maybe like if there's no other takeaway from the last few years of American politics, it's like even more so, you know, like if someone calls you like you're a bigot or you're a transphobe or you're a racist or whatever, it's just like, okay, that's not an argument. It's just not an argument. And that should just be dismissed. Okay.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
a nice enough guy and i do appreciate that he was like um respectful and he was very cool after the debate and stuff like that but there i don't know i just thought there were a few things about it that i i kind of found interesting and it's just a little bit
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
What else you got? You know? And same with conspiracy theorists. You know, just just I mean, by the way, if it was if the USS Liberty is a conspiracy theory, like, yeah, it is a conspiracy theory, I guess. It was one that was shared by the secretary of state at the time. It's one that's shared by a whole bunch of eyewitnesses to the event. So what does that mean?
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
Yes, it's been a conspiracy to keep this a secret. OK, I mean, like, I just don't I find it bizarre. that anybody, especially someone as intelligent as Charlie Kirk, to just, like, after the last few years, to say, well, that's a conspiracy. Like, okay, the question is what happened, not whether it's a conspiracy or not. And there are lots of conspiracies that are real.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
And I think Charlie would, like, acknowledge that, but I don't know. Okay, let me see. Douglas Murray. Good name, dude. it was Murray. It's crazy how he bragged about the one-to-one civilian to combat and ratio that can't be proven. Even if I could, that's a lot of civilians to be comfortable killing. Yeah.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
That was, you know, there were a few moments in the debate and that, you know, it's like it's always the case with these debates where it's something I made my peace with. I think Gene Epstein actually helped me understand this because so like I mentioned, Gene Epstein runs the Soho Forum debate. So Gene Epstein has done a ton of debates himself. He's one of the best debaters.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
he's like really one of the absolute best debaters. If you've never seen Gene Epstein, there was a Bhaskar Sankaria or something like that. He's like a democratic socialist guy and they debated like free market capitalism versus democratic socialism or something like that. I forget the exact resolution, but I mean, it is to this day, one of the best debate performances I've ever seen.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
Gene was just spectacular. He gets, he gets a little worked up and angry in the debate, but I actually, I love that type of stuff, but it was just like phenomenal. So good. Um, and then he had, um, I'm blanking on the professor's name. Wolf, I think is his last name. He's like one of the more famous Richard. Well, he's, he's one of the more like famous, um, like Marxist professors.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
And again, Gene just tore him to shreds. So Gene's like a very experienced debater. And he's also a brilliant economist who's just, you know, very smart and well-read and really has his arguments down. And he also, he runs a debate series. So he's just like immersed in that world. And I remember he told me after my first debate, that was the one where I debated Nick Sarwak at a Soho forum.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
it's a little bit surreal um as a lot of things that i do in my career are uh it's it's all kind of strange to me still uh but you know like going i'm literally a college dropout going to an ivy league school to debate the senior editor of newsweek about like one of the most important issues in the world and it's i don't know i mean maybe this is just
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
And then I won the debate pretty handily. But I remember after it, being like, oh, I should have said this. And when he said that, I should have said this. I go, oh, I'm like kicking myself because I could have made this point. And he said to me, he goes something, I forget exactly how he said it, but he goes, he goes, look, That's always going to be the case.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
There's you're never going to do a debate where you don't later think of one other thing you could have said or one other thing you should have said. You know, it's just you just you do the best you can in the moment. And then you kind of learn from that. So next time you make sure you say the point that you you wish you had said this time if it comes up again.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
That for this debate, that was one where I thought maybe I could have like really, really had a better response to. I mean, I think I just kind of scoffed at him and was like, you don't know that this is ridiculous. I mean, it's such a ridiculous claim when you really think about it, that they've killed one militant for every question.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
civilian that they've killed, how would you even make those numbers add up? Like, it's just, it's ridiculous. How would you even, and I could have just either, I could have easily followed up and really grilled down. I'm like, tell me exactly how your methodology works here that you've figured that out. But again, you know, it's tough sometimes in these debates, it's a little bit tricky.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
You have to make a split second decision about what angle you want to go with this. And you always want it. Like my focus on the debate was that I just wanted to make sure I won the resolution. Like the resolution was about the U S Israeli relationship. And so it wasn't, I didn't want to get too sidetracked into how, you know,
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
uh horrible what israel's doing is or something like that because i've done that in a lot of other debates and that wasn't the topic of this debate um and also he was making the argument essentially that he doesn't care about morality he cares about what's good for our country and so once you're making that argument it's like
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
I'm not going to go down the whole path of convincing you that you should care about morality. I'm just going to argue that like, well, it's not good for the country either. So you lose by your own, you know, stated worldview.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
And, you know, another people, the other thing that people jumped on a lot, there was the one thing I thought he did that was somewhat bad faith and disingenuous was when he asked me that question about who I, who I trust more, Benjamin Netanyahu or Osama bin Laden, which I did think,
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
I, you know, I don't, I just thought that was kind of ridiculous, but also I thought it was, it was, it was the only time that I really thought maybe there's something else I didn't exactly miss. It was the only time I thought during the debate where he was kind of being bad faith. He wasn't before or after the debate, like a shitty to me at all.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
And, and honestly, my, my takeaway from it, I'm curious what, what you guys thought, but i thought it actually backfired on him and just hurt him a lot because it was so transparently like this just doesn't make any sense i mean it's a it's it's a you know he was um he basically said he goes well who do you trust more benjamin netanyahu or osama bin laden i was like what
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
I was like, I don't trust either of them. What does that mean? And I think and he was like, well, that says something right there that you can't just easily say you trust Netanyahu more than Osama bin Laden. I was like, I don't really I think most people are intelligent enough to know that.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
Creating a false binary and then insisting you pick one of them and then saying that says something about you doesn't really win you too many debate points. Adam says, yeah, that was dumb. Just say now that you trust Bin Laden more. Well, the thing is, look, it's not about...
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
rusting bin laden more than netanyahu i don't think that's exactly right um i think the way to think about it which is a little bit difficult to explain in the middle of a debate i think the way to think about it is um a terrorist who's trying, who's openly saying, I declare war on you and I'm trying to kill and I'm targeting your civilians.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
You know, this was the Osama bin Laden logic, which is, you know, every bit as insane as Netanyahu's logic or George W. Bush's logic. But he said, basically, because you have free elections in America and because you vote for the people who are at war with the Muslims, you're fair game now too. Now, okay, that's insane, but
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
It felt to me like just being there, but then also winning by such a landslide was such an indictment of college in general. What are you people doing here? You're all wasting your time. I don't mean to attack all of the people who just hosted me and were very nice to me the other day, but it really is something where you're just like, I mean, I know college makes sense for some people,
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
Again, by the way, I mean, just on Piers Morgan today, somebody kind of made that argument to me about the Palestinians. So it's you know, this is this is insane no matter who makes the argument. But the point is that if a terrorist is making that argument, they don't they're not incentivized to lie to you in the same type of way. Right. So it's not that like I think.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
Osama bin Laden is like a more honest person by nature. And sure, once you're a mass murderer, so this would apply to both of them. Once you're a mass murderer, yeah, you were way past the point of liar. You know, I don't think you have like a moral code that won't allow you to lie. The point is that there's no reason for Osama bin Laden to be lying to us. He's already declared war against us.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
Netanyahu, on the other hand, is trying to lobby us into a next war. So there's a lot more reason for him to lie to us, you know? So it's not, again, it's just such a clunky, weird question. I don't even really know what the answer is other than what I said, which is that I don't trust either of them.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
uh what is it uh the part i'm sorry adam says oh man the part where he said saudi civilians lives don't matter was wild you know well yeah he said uh well it wasn't exactly that but anyway he said something about how like he doesn't care about the morality at all of what they do to their own people and i was like yeah well i kind of do anyway
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
um it was uh it was a fun it was a fun time it's always it's always fun to win these things you know is that's kind of maybe silly and just uh um maybe somewhat immature on me but i uh but i also do think that like it's it's kind of important to demonstrate that it's like listen i think that my camp is correct about this stuff and i'm not again like i said before i'm not taking any like
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
any credit for it it's i've just read all the right people and and like i've done my homework i'll say i've done my homework i know my stuff uh so i can do well in these debates because you're not going to catch me in like some huge blind spot where i'm like oh should i never thought about that i don't have an answer to that i don't know the reference he's making so i've like done my reading um
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
And the guys that I've been persuaded by are just... I was persuaded by them for a reason, because they have way better arguments. So anyway, I don't know who's next. But maybe you guys tell me. Who's the guy? Who's the best they got to come argue this? I mean... I'm taking on guys who have resumes that say they should be able to handle me. So I don't know who the next one is.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
But Douglas Murray, Ben Shapiro, I'd still be down to do either of those. I will say I give Josh a lot of credit because I do think it's a risk on his part. It's a big risk to have a resume like he has and then come to bait – a comedian, you know, like that's like, there's a, you're taking, you're taking a big risk there. And so I do think that was, uh, I give him credit for that. Um, Thank you.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
And certainly there are some professions, you know, if you're going to be a surgeon, you're going to need to go to college for quite a long time. And it's a very important thing to have surgeons. So I'm not suggesting we don't have that. But it's just kind of like you're like anything in this area of just like.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
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Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
you know anything about like educating yourself on a topic it's just totally it's very strange because i'm going to princeton i've never been to princeton university before and you know it's it's a beautiful campus and they have these very old buildings like the building we were in uh i mean it i don't know when it was built but it was pre pre-war is understating it it was an old old building and a beautiful building um but it's just like i'm in this really old building
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I want the war to end. I want the killing to end. I want people to stop dying. It's funny because when he said this on CNN, I think it was almost two years ago now that he said this, this was considered a very controversial statement.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
And you're sitting there going like, yeah, isn't this whole thing just so outdated? Like when colleges, when universities were first being built, I'm curious, and Natalie, could you look up what year was Princeton University built? So I'm just kind of curious about that. But around the time when this university is being built, right, you'd have to think that a huge part
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
And by the way, doesn't that say everything about the United States of America's government as it currently stands, that that is considered a controversial statement? I mean, what more can I even add to that? Anyway, I want to play this video from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. So yeah, let's play the Pete Hegseth video because he just said this and then I'll read Donald Trump's tweet about it.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
I mean, it is, it's hard to stress how great it is to hear something like that from the defense secretary of the United States of America. And, you know, Pete Hegseth has, he's been kind of one of the question marks for me. I, you know, there were Donald Trump had some picks that I hated. He had some picks that I loved.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
So like in the hated category is like Marco Rubio and Ratcliffe, um, in the love category is like Tulsi and Bobby Kennedy and, um, cash Patel. And, um, um, what was the other one I'm blanking on? Oh, I bought a chariot. Um,
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
of the attraction would be that like oh well we have uh so 1746 wow that's actually much older than i thought that's why these buildings are so old it's all making sense now um so so princeton was built before the united states of america i did not know that okay so we were colonies when princeton was built okay um
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
pete hexeth was always kind of a question to me because he was like when i knew pete um which you know i like i didn't know him super well but like i've done a few like fox news shows with him and i've we went out for beers like after uh one of our shows once and so from what i've known of him he was like really a neocon the beat hexeth that i knew was like had awful foreign policy and so that that was concerning to me because i literally i mean i had private conversations with the guy where he said some
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
things that I was not happy about. But the word was that he's really changed his mind on a lot of this stuff. And he's really kind of opened up to the idea that these wars were all a big mistake. And look, there's a weird thing that happens with this dynamic because you kind of don't know. I mean, look, I talked to a lot of military guys. There's a lot of military guys who listen to the show.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
Sorry, we're starting just a few minutes late here, but I was just recording, uh, Pierce Morgan. So that the, that show ended up starting a little bit late and then I was on that. So we ended up starting a little bit late here. That should be out later. Uh, today, usually they put them out later the same day that we record them. So probably look for that later today.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
And I talked to many of them, like, you know, after shows and at different, you know, events and stuff like that. And there's a ton of people like that. I mean, there's a ton of people who were like all gung ho on the wars and then woke up. You know, again, this was this was true by 2008. It was true by 2012, as you guys, I always like to bring this statistic up because it's very interesting.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
But in 2008 and 2012, the presidential candidate who got more money from active duty military than every other candidate combined, not just the most money from active duty military, but more money than every other candidate put together, including Barack Obama, was Ron Paul. The active duty military guys were going for the most hardcore anti-war pro-peace candidate.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
And that's because they're the ones who actually have to pay the cost. You know what I mean? These are the guys whose lives are ruined, who watched their buddy bleed out in their lap screaming for his mom. These are the ones who are having nightmares about the shit they did over there. So it makes sense that there are a lot of people who really changed their minds on this.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
However, at the same time, when you got a guy who's a Fox News host and the sentiment of the Republican Party totally went from gung-ho for war to totally skeptical of this type of permanent war. You wonder, like, did he really have a change of heart? Or is he just saying the thing that's very popular for his viewers right now? So this is a great start. Let's just say that.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
Very, very good start for Pete Hegseth. And it's just, I don't know, it's hard to say, but it's just fantastic. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Prolon by El Nutra. Prolon by El Nutra is the only patented fasting mimicking diet that combines the benefits of prolonged fasting with a science backed nutrition plan.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
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Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
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Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
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Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
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Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
So, but just, I mean, look, I'm not like an expert in this or anything, but obviously, as you just found out, I didn't even know when the university was created. But you would think that a big part of like why you would have a university would be like, okay, well, look, we have all the great books here.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
Okay, I want to read this because this was Donald Trump's tweet on the same subject. He tweeted this after that comment by Pete Hegseth. This is from Donald Trump. He says, I just had a lengthy and highly productive phone call with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. We discussed Ukraine, the Middle East, energy, artificial intelligence, the power of the dollar, and various other subjects.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
We both reflected on the great history of our nations and the fact that we fought so successfully together in World War II, remembering that Russia lost tens of millions of people and we likewise lost so many. We each talked about the strengths of our respective nations and and the great benefit that we will someday have in working together.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
But first, as we both agreed, we want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in the war with Russia and Ukraine. President Putin even used my very strong campaign motto of common sense. We both believe very strongly in it. We agreed to work together very closely, including visiting each other's nations. We have also agreed to have our respective teams start negotiating immediately.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
And we will begin by calling President Zelensky of Ukraine to inform him of the conversation, something which I will be doing right now. I have asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of the CIA John Ratcliffe, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, another terrible one, and Ambassador and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, a good one, to read the negotiations, which I feel strongly about.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
to lead the negotiations, which I feel strongly will be successful. Millions of people have died in a war that would not have happened if I were president, but it did happen, so it must end. No more lives should be lost.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
I want to thank President Putin for his time and effort with respect to this call and for the release yesterday of Mark Fogel, a wonderful man that I personally greeted last night at the White House. I believe this effort will lead to a successful conclusion hopefully soon. I mean, I don't know. I just can't overstate how great this is. And I understand the war hasn't ended yet.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
You know, this is rhetoric, but it is such an improvement from where we were. It's really, you know, even just a year ago, but especially a couple of years ago, it is. Yeah. I mean, it's time. It's time for this catastrophe to end. And I got to say, you know, it's like.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
you know, as I was kind of talking about on the show yesterday, it, it almost, it seems like I'm just in the business about, uh, like I'm just in the business of being right about stuff. And, um,
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
it's look it's just i i mean i'm i don't mean just to like pat my own back here i realize i'm doing a little too much of that this episode so i apologize but it's like so many of us who were pushing in real time for to to take a deal i mean there the deal that um zielinski was essentially forced out of accepting by boris johnson and joe biden or whoever was really making the decisions you know anthony blanket whatever
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
right like we have like a library with all of these great books like good luck finding this collection somewhere else and then you'd be like okay and we have these professors who have read all the books and written a bunch of books and these people who really understand these issues and they can help teach you so now you have like all the great you know all the great uh literary works and then you have really smart people who can teach them to you and stuff like that and so like at the time that made sense but like if at the time like in in 1746
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
Um, They had a much better deal on the table. And we were saying, just take this deal and end the war now. And all of the hawks said, no, that would be too big of a concession. And we have to drive Vladimir Putin completely out of Ukraine, something that everybody involved who knows anything about it knows. The only way to actually do that would be to deploy the full U.S.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
military and have a direct hot war with the biggest nuclear power in the world. We're not going to do that. Even Joe Biden wasn't ever prepared to do that. And so now what we got as a result of not taking this deal, like once again, one more war that the hawks got completely wrong. So now instead of doing what we all suggested at the time, we listened to the hawks.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
And so hundreds of thousands more people died and Ukraine's going to end up with a worse deal. This is a goddamn like of all of the wars over the last 25 years. This is probably got to take first place as being the one that was the easiest to negotiate away. I mean, literally, the head of NATO, Stoltenberg, I know I'm butchering his name. I'm sorry.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
I should at one point learn how to say his name, but I just don't really have that much respect for him. Anyway, but Stoltenberg himself admitted, right, that before Vladimir Putin invaded, he said to NATO, he goes, if you just put it in writing that you won't bring Ukraine into NATO, I won't invade. But if you don't give me that in writing, I'm going to invade the country.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
And Stoltenberg bragged about how he said we refused because we're not going to be bullied by Vladimir Putin or something like that. This was the simple ask that Vladimir Putin had. And what a reasonable ask. That doesn't mean like he's still wrong for invading and he killed a whole lot of people. And that's just totally unjustified.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
And he's, he's a war criminal, just like all the US presidents are war criminals, too. And I have no love for Vladimir Putin. But I'm sorry, the starting point of just
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
asking like just saying you cannot bring our biggest neighboring country into your military alliance is totally reasonable we would have the exact same demand there is no way the united states of america would allow mexico or canada or cuba to join a military alliance with china or russia there's just no way no conceivable way we could allow that to happen because no regime can allow that um
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
And so you just look at this, and now, I mean, Trump's saying millions. I don't know if the number's actually in millions, but it's certainly in the hundreds of thousands. Hundreds of thousands of people have died. Vladimir Putin is going home with chunks of Ukraine. He's going to keep part of it. And we got our defense secretary up there saying, yeah, and NATO's not going to be a part of this.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
So essentially, we're giving... Not only did all these people die and all this territory was lost, but he's getting the thing he wanted anyway. We could have just given him that and avoided this whole thing. This will go down in history as one of, like, the most easily avoidable catastrophes in, you know... post-World War II European history. Just a goddamn tragedy.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
But anyway, really, really good, the message that Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth are sending here. So that is something to be really happy about, such a huge improvement from where we were. All right, I got to wrap up the show there. Thank you guys for listening. Catch you guys tomorrow for the members-only episode. I love you all. Goodbye.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
If you had been like, oh, well, everybody has access to all of these books. You can just, you can push a little button on a machine that fits in your pocket and it'll be right in your door in 24 hours. Or, you know, you can just use that machine in your pocket to go read the book or whatever.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
And in terms of like great professors, it goes like, oh yeah, there's every single great lecture that you could ever have thought of is right here on your phone. And like, like if that existed, it just seems like you'd be like, oh, well then we don't need to build Princeton. You know, like or at least you would have needed a much smaller version of it or something like that.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
And so anyway, it's just a weird there's something about Something about winning a debate at an Ivy League school when you're a college dropout is just, I don't know. I mean, you guys could draw your own conclusions from that, but it did just, I don't know.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
It just felt bizarre and kind of almost like the very act of that could break so many people of the spell that you should even be spending this money. And then on top of that, you know, the money that it costs to go to Princeton is insane, right? It's just unbelievable how expensive it is. And so it's like you're charging people for this thing.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
And then I got students here and a whole bunch of them like after the debate telling me they learned so much from the debate. And you're like, it's I don't know, just just kind of bizarre to me. The debates are always interesting. I like doing them for several reasons. But I think that I always feel like I have an obligation.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
to do debates um at least like like i don't know exactly what the number is that i'm supposed to do every year but i think i i have to at least do like five or six of these a year um and but i think i probably do more than that but it i guess because it just seems to me
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
That's always, uh, it's always a fun show to do. And, uh, well, Okay, it's usually a fun show to do. And this was a good one. So yeah, I think it was a good one. You never know until you watch these things back. Anyway, there's a few things I wanted to talk about on today's show. And then I will try to take some questions from the chat. So if you guys are in there...
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
like if i i in in my strange career you know i go on like some of the biggest shows in the world so if i'm on joe rogan's show or i'm on tucker carlson's show or or uh patrick bett david or you know candace owens or you know whoever like the really big shows are these are shows that are much, much, much bigger than anything on television in these spaces.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
And so I go on all these shows and I'm always like, well, look, it's like this. And then I lay out my case, you know, and it's like, oh, okay. So, but if I'm going to go on those big shows and say, hey, look, this is the way it is, then I feel like there's a little bit of an obligation on me to present these ideas against somebody who's going like, no, it's not like that at all.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
And see where the ideas, you know, whose ideas come out on top. So I've always kind of felt like a little bit of an obligation to do this. And I get, you know, at the end of these things, I tend to get like a lot of...
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
Uh, you know, like a lot of nice stuff is said about me and I've, you know, then, you know, people on social media and in the comment section and stuff like that, which by the way, is one of the only, I am not big on reading comment sections except for debates. The debates, I always go through the comment section.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
Cause I just, uh, I, you know, I kind of, I'm interested, the whole point of a debate
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
is really to persuade the audience i mean you you hope with the person you're debating that obviously you're never gonna like completely change someone's mind like a debate like it's not like if a if a libertarian and a leftist debate never once in the history of the world has one side been like you know what i am no longer a leftist because you just made such compelling arguments that i like that's not gonna happen but i think if you have an honest debate uh opponent
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
you'd hope that you could at least like get a little nugget in there that might stick with them. And then they're like, okay, I do have to think about that a little bit more. But really the point is to persuade the audience. And so I am always kind of interested. to be like, OK, when I'm battling somebody who's taking like a diametrically opposed view to me, what did the audience like?
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
Did the audience think that I made a more compelling argument than this guy did? Or if they didn't, what was the thing that they didn't think? And then that kind of helps me to think of like, oh, well, maybe there's a better way I could put this or maybe I have to rethink that.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
but you know aside from complaints about the audio issues which unfortunately there were some issues with the mic feeds uh like cutting in and out i did i one of them they told me you know we did have backup mics uh on as well so i think i one of the people from the event told me like we can try to fix some of that in post so hopefully uh that that's a little bit better if you haven't watched the debate yet by the time you you go to watch it but
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
I mean, the comments were just, you know, it was very one-sided that, you know, again, I'm not like trying to, you know, spike the football or anything like that, but I want to talk about this, and there's kind of no way to avoid talking about that aspect of it. I've done now, I think... I've got, since October 7th, I think I've done like nine or ten Israel debates, and again...
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
maybe I'm not the one who should be saying this, but I've won all of them. And it's kind of just been a question of like how much of a blowout it was, like how dominant the victory was. And I do, you know, I get like a lot of people saying to me, like, you know, like, Dave's just unbeatable in these debates and, like, I did such a good job or something like that.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
What's up? What's up, everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I am Dave Smith. I am rolling solo for this episode. But thank you all for joining us. Rob will be back tomorrow for the members only. And I know we still owe you a couple members only. We will make those up to you later this week. Just got to figure out some times to do that.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
Feel free to put some questions and I will try my best to get to as many of them as I can. And by the way, if you want to participate in the live chat, make sure you go over to partoftheproblem.com and become a supporting listener of this show. You get a bunch of...
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
And I just really do think it's important for people to understand that that's not really the story. It's not that I'm so good at debating or I'm so smart or anything like that. I mean, I don't think, I don't, you know, like, Josh Hammer was... a very competent opponent. Um, and he's clearly a smart guy and he's clearly read a lot of stuff. Um, I've just read better stuff.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
That's really what this comes down to. And it's just like that. I've, I've just read, like I've read the people he's read and I'm also reading a lot of people who just have a way better argument than he does. And that's, that's kind of really it. Like really that is the takeaway is that the, uh, the libertarians are just right about this issue.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
And if you at, you know, like in, in, in like debate club or whatever, I mean, I didn't do that, but it's actually, by the way, actually, I shouldn't say that I did join a debate club in, in high school. And I think I did one debate and then it just, it conflicted with basketball practice. And I was like, oh yeah, there's no, that's an easy choice. And I just dropped it. But yeah,
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
they would you know like it's a thing they do for like high schoolers and debate clubs they'll they'll make you switch sides and argue the other side you know like you have to argue the pro and then you have to argue the con of any issue so that's like really just testing your debating ability and i don't think i could have done any better of a job if i had to take josh's side of the argument you know what i'm saying it's not like oh my debating ability is so great it's just my side's right you know and and i think it was like overwhelming the the
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
overwhelmingly obvious i mean essentially my i i stuck we it was a very short um time format like i did the soho forum oxford style debate which i believe i'm going to be i'm supposed to give gene i've seen a call later i think i'm going to set up another one through soho forum uh which because i just love those guys so much soho forum.org free plug for uh for gene and the guys um
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
But I think his thing was like you get a 15-minute opening statement and then you get a five-minute... So it's like 15-minute opening statement, 15-minute opening statement, then a five-minute rebuttal, then a five-minute rebuttal. And then at the end, you get like a 10-minute closing statement. This was a five-minute opening statement and a five-minute closing statement with no rebuttals.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
So it was... You had to be really condensed in what your opening thoughts were. And then the whole...
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
debate was just questions and interacting with each other which i do like you know i but i it makes it a little bit challenging to like kind of lay out your view in five minutes and so i really just stuck to like two major points then i was like well look here's the here's the costs of the u.s relationship with israel and number one is the war on terrorism which israel used its in its
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
There's a bunch of different tiers and different benefits that you get, but you get access to the members-only show, the fourth show every week, and you can be in the live chat, and there's a bunch of other cool stuff. So please, if you can, go over and support the show, which I am assuming you love dearly. You better. I know a few of you guys are hate-watching, but that's okay.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
not insignificant influence, let's just say, to lobby America into. And the cost of this is in like $8 trillion and 4 million dead innocent people and tens of thousands of dead American soldiers. If you count the ones who committed suicide in the wake of the wars, it's like 36,000 or something like that. And I was kind of like, hey, right away, that's the cost of the relationship.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
What benefit is larger than that? And then my my secondary point was just that we inherit all this hatred around the world because we back Israel. And, you know, like and it was just like there was just no argument like Josh. He tried to kind of, you know, like nitpick around the edges of this. But I just you know, I know my stuff.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
So he just wasn't like he tried to argue that, like, actually, the Sharon's guys didn't support the war in Iraq. But then I just know my stuff. I've just I've read all this stuff. So I just know the truth. And the truth is just not it's not true. It's like the truth is that. Okay.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
There was one of Sharon's actually, I think it was two of Sharon's guys who Ariel Sharon was the prime minister at the time when we invaded Iraq, not Benjamin Netanyahu. He had Benjamin Netanyahu was in from like 96 to 2000. Then Sharon came in and then, and then Netanyahu came back in later.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
Um, but so the, you know, he was like, oh, the Sharon's guys didn't want to fight the war in Iraq, but that's not actually true. What happened is that Sharon's guys wanted America to topple Saddam Hussein. They were all for it, but they wanted America to overthrow the government in Iran first.
Part Of The Problem
Tulsi is Confirmed
So they came to George W. Bush when they heard he had plans of invading Iraq, and they were like, no, no, no, dude, do Iran first, then come back and get Saddam Hussein. So he tried to position that as like they were against the war in Iraq, but that's not exactly right.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
And this is why he was able to be as successful as he was with the speech, which I really do think there's no I mean, look, man, like people in the corporate media and people in, you know, the the You know, liberals and leftists who hate Donald Trump, and there's still plenty of them, they can try to spin this any way they want to, but this was just a huge win for Donald Trump.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
I mean, in terms of, again, leaving aside the substance, in terms of the effectiveness, it was an A-plus for him. Let me ask you something, guys. How well do you sleep at night? Over the last few years, we've seen how wild things can get, and we've seen how quickly the shelves can go bare when a crisis hits. That's why I protect my family with my Patriot Supply.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
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Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
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Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
Check them out at my site, preparewithsmith.com. All right, let's get back into the show. He was... You know, there's some areas for critique. I think he went a little too long. I think you could shorten these speeches. But...
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
And also, I will do my best to get to some listener questions in today's episode. If you guys are in the live chat, go ahead and throw some questions in there, and I will do my best to get to some of them. Okay. Let me just say this to start. Generally speaking, I don't like State of the Union addresses. I think that they're boring and lame. They're just never good. They're never entertaining.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
he had he had some great lines and we got a couple of the clips uh played there but there were some lines that were just killer that were just like very like really hit home i don't want to give them away because we're going to play a couple of the clips but i'm sure you guys have seen a lot of them um but i did think the uh when he was going through the social security um and uh talking about the amount of people who are aged you know like he said like
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Trump's State of the Union Address
We had this many thousands of people who are between the age of 150 and 159. And he goes, he goes, it's a healthier country than I thought. Bobby is just great. Great line. The Pocahontas thing will play in a second. Great. He was just Donald Trump has found a way. I think David Sachs said something to this effect. But Donald Trump just throughout the speech, it's like he's figured out.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
And this was always something about Donald Trump that was this was true. It's been true. It's why he's been president twice. He's always able. The analogy that I used to give is that it was it would almost be like you were at a poker hand. or you were at a poker game and like the, imagine almost like you could pick your hand and then there there's like pocket aces and no one wants to play them.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
And Donald Trump just comes along and he's like, I'll play pocket aces. Those are really good cards. I'm quite happy to play those. And for whatever reason, all of the establishment politicians, many of this is because of the pressure from donors, the pressure, like their own constraints, and there's several of them, and not just the pressure from donors, but like the pressure...
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Trump's State of the Union Address
to be able to go through the revolving door and get some cushy job after you're out of politics or any of that stuff. But they have these constraints. And one of the rules is you're not allowed to play pocket aces. And Donald Trump just didn't have those constraints. So he was just like, I'll play them. You know, like securing the border. It was like a wildly popular issue.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
You know, what David Sacks said is that it was something along the lines of like Donald Trump was able to race to the 80 on every 80-20 issue. You know, like it was like all of these issues that are like 80 percent agree with this, 20 percent disagree. Donald Trump would just consistently put himself in the 80 percent. You know, it's like whatever, like.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
Dudes shouldn't be competing against high school girls in sports like that, just like the most common sense thing that somehow in this crazy last decade in America has become an issue that for whatever reason, most Democrats, almost all of them are constrained from agreeing with. Like, they cannot do that.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
But he can come out and just say it, and then, like, most Americans can go, oh, yeah, right, obviously, we agree with that. You guys take the 20 percent who don't agree with this and we'll take the 80 percent is the game that Donald Trump was able to play all night long. He also I mean, he was sharp. He was on point. He delivered the speech.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
Well, Donald Trump usually is not the best at reading a teleprompter, but he he really got it done. And then it was like.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
such a huge contrast where not only does he, did he have an a plus in terms of effectiveness, but like the Democrats, they had an F minus in, in, I mean, it was just like, if I couldn't believe it, you know, first of all, I've, I've been watching state of the union speeches for a long time. Uh, there has never been one quite like this, uh, in terms of how, uh,
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Trump's State of the Union Address
wildly disrespectful and childish the opposition party was. I remember back, I can't remember which one it was, but it was one of Obama's State of the Unions when the Republican congressman screamed out, you lie. And Obama was saying something about how Obamacare would not give health insurance to illegal immigrants. And one of the Republicans screamed out, you lie.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
And this was like a huge controversy in the media. It was like, hey, man, like, you know, the norm is that you can clap or you could not clap.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
um you could even maybe boo at certain points but you don't scream out and heckle and call the president of the united states a liar like the entire corporate media was like that is just that is bad decorum and that's just not right this was like a controversy donald trump went in there he was getting heckled immediately one guy had to be removed others walked out they're typically in a state of the union the way it would almost always be is that like
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Trump's State of the Union Address
On controversial partisan issues, the opposition party wouldn't stand and clap for you. But then if you just said something that was just like generic, like everyone could get behind that, you know, then like everyone would clap. Republicans would clap for Obama. Democrats would clap for George W. Bush. Like that was just part of the state of the union.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
They're never honest. It's always spin. And I never like the special interest stories and all of that. I'm just not a fan of the State of the Union in general. So...
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Trump's State of the Union Address
If you said something that they were like, yeah, even we agree with that. The Democrats wouldn't clap at all. They did not clap at all for Donald Trump the entire time. In fact, it's very interesting what they did clap for, which was continuing the war in Ukraine. Anyway, we'll play that clip in a second. But I mean, like they wouldn't even clap.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
They wouldn't even clap for like he's like, hey, here's like a little kid with a life threatening illness. And he always wanted to be a cop. So today we're going to make him a deputy secret service, blah, blah, blah. And we're going to give him a little badge. And his dad picks him up and like,
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Trump's State of the Union Address
the democrats wouldn't clap for that they wouldn't clap for anything they wouldn't clap for the american who was returned from russia who had been imprisoned by russia like literally and and Look, on top of that, and look, again, I don't really these these I don't care about these stories. I think it's kind of I always find it kind of in poor taste.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
Every politician does it, but I don't like it when they kind of like use someone who's going through a tragedy or something like that and then try to score political points off of them. Not a big fan of that. But they all do it. And man, it makes you look bad when you just don't clap for something that like is just everybody should agree. That's a positive thing. They the Democrats.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
Just I mean, the word was like is impotence. I don't know. Their whole thing was like you're going to you're going to hold up false signs while the president's giving his speech. You know, you've got like you've got.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
a popular president who's got his his highest approval ratings that he's ever had and you're just sitting there being the grumpy losers who won't even give him credit for anything good he does and it's just terrible optics terrible it's also i gotta say and this is maybe me personally i don't know you know how much everybody agrees with this um and this might just be my own temperament but i just hate the idea of like
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Trump's State of the Union Address
that's my bias coming into this and certainly um you know look i'm i'm a radical libertarian and so anytime we're talking about a president there's always going to be things that i disagree with them on and there's several things that i think trump said that i don't agree with him on and we could get into a few of those
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Trump's State of the Union Address
tickling and hissing and booing. And it's just very childish. It's a very, it's a, it, an extremely infantile response. You know, I hated when the libertarian party did that. There were people in the libertarian party who did it when Donald Trump came. Like, I totally understand if he says something you disagree with and you want to boo or what I could get that.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
But this like, what are you like a fucking triggered college kid? Like I just, I, I don't know. Not my style. I don't like it. And I really don't think it played well, especially when you have Donald Trump out there. And this really is, look, again, this is still Donald Trump's best quality, right?
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Trump's State of the Union Address
If you look at Donald Trump through his entire life, the thing that's most impressive about him is he's the best marketer, the best self-promoter in history. There's just nobody like him. Became world famous from being a real estate developer. What? What? Who the fuck becomes world famous from being a real estate developer? Real quick, think of famous real estate developers.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
Okay, you got Donald Trump. Give me five more. Donald Trump is the most famous man who's ever lived. His silhouette is more recognizable than Jesus's. You know, I mean, like he's just X and he's great. So what you have here is, and the reason he's great is he knows how to create the optics. He knows how to put on a show. And so here you have Donald Trump
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Trump's State of the Union Address
At the height of his popularity, at least so far. And here he is getting on the 80 side of every 80-20 issue. And here are the Democrats being children, helpless to stop him anyway. And just what? We're going to scream until we get kicked out? And then a bunch of us are going to walk out of the room? That's your ace in the hole? I was just it was terrible.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
And it's almost look, there's one thing like I've talked about this quite a bit. I'm sure because it was really one of the major stories of the election. But look, I used to say this when the Mises caucus was taken over the Libertarian Party was one of the reasons why we were successful. This stuff, social psychology is a huge part of this stuff. And people could dismiss like vibes or whatever.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
But this is This is how politics actually works, whether you like it or not. And believe me, I'm one of the ones who doesn't really like it. I really wish that the way American elections and American like politics worked was that it was issues driven.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
And like the merit of people's arguments about policy positions is what should determine who votes for who, you know, and that should determine who the American people support, you know, who has the best argument about how monetary policy is going to lead toward prosperity or who has the best argument for what foreign intervention we should be a part of or not a part of or what, you know, like I wish that was the way it worked.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
I'm kind of a dork about this shit. But look, that's just not the reality. It's just not true. And everybody knows that. Everybody knows that. There are people all throughout this country. I mean, there are people... by the tens of millions who vote in elections, passionately prefer one candidate to the other, like might hate that candidate's guts and love this candidate.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
great grading on a curve of that, you know, all that being, you know, considered in the background. Let me, let me just start. I'll start by saying that in terms of effectiveness, like just in terms of the politics, which is what a state of the union is all about anyway. Um,
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Trump's State of the Union Address
And they don't know anything about policy. They've never read a book about policy in their entire lives. Probably not even read like too many articles about it. Maybe seen a few shows on something once. There are people, that's just the reality of the situation. So people get emotionally invested. There's cultural forces, right? Why do you think red states stay red and blue states stay blue?
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Trump's State of the Union Address
People vote the way their daddy voted, the way their grandfather voted, the way, you know, like that's just, this is the reality. And when you understand that, What Donald Trump was able to do throughout the entire campaign is that he made the Donald Trump campaign a party. It was a fucking party. That was Donald Trump. That was his campaign. There's going to be drinks.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
There's going to be dancing. Kid Rock's going to be there. Hulk Hogan's doing a thing from the 80s. Tony Hinchcliffe's telling jokes. Rogan and Theo Vaughn are there. It was just like, oh, this is cool. This is fun. Every speech, every campaign rally that Donald Trump gives, it was a night of entertainment for the people who went there.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
On the other hand, you could have a screaming old man in Joe Biden. He was going to take away democracy. Or you could have Kamala Harris, you know, warning you about the dangers of that. Like it was just like that. That sucks. And here again, he's able to do it. Here again, Donald Trump's up there. He's being funny. He's taking popular issues. He's talking about how great America is going to be.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
He's selling you on how everything is going to be so wonderful. And then here's a bunch of grumpy children in the crowd. Which would you rather go to?
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
you know like if i if i told you there's a there's there's two rooms in an office building i go one of them is like the company christmas party and the other one is full of hr people getting everyone in trouble do you think you might have a preference on which one of those rooms you walk into This is the magic that Trump's able to create.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
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Trump's State of the Union Address
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Trump's State of the Union Address
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Trump's State of the Union Address
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Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
So not saying like how I personally felt about the speech, like how much I agree with what Donald Trump is saying or don't agree with him. Just talking in terms of like how effective he was politically in this speech. I would give Donald Trump an A+. I think it was his best State of the Union speech out of the five that he's given by far. I think it was his most effective by far. And he...
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Trump's State of the Union Address
it's it's amazing that like you have the democrat the democratic party is i mean what a multi-billion dollar operation you know i mean it's an operation that when in power controls trillions of dollars but as an organization itself is a multi-billion dollar organization
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Trump's State of the Union Address
um uh kamala harris um raised an insane amount of money uh joe biden and i mean he started losing some when he went senile but he raised a ton of money in 2020 um they're they're a huge and they've had one focus i mean one focus since at least november probably if we've
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Trump's State of the Union Address
uh believe some of the reporting about the internal polling they've known for quite a while that they were going down in this election um and their one focus is like okay how do we get back we're down and out and trump's higher than ever how do we deal with that and then to look at it and you're like and this is what you came up with you'll have an old man wave his cane you'll you'll have a bunch of miserable like ladies heckling okay all right
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Trump's State of the Union Address
All right, anyway, let's play a couple of the clips. I think I got two clips lined up. In either order, Natalie, let's go to one and get a little feel for it.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
that Donald Trump has given and obviously the first of his uh his new um his new administration uh let me just real quick before we start I just a couple quick plugs uh there are still limited seats available for uh Buffalo this weekend I'm I'm headed out there tomorrow tomorrow and Friday night I'll be out in Buffalo with Robbie the Fire Bernstein um and then uh
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
Do you see what I'm saying here with how brilliant Donald Trump is at this? I'm not even saying you got to support him as president or you don't like his latest policies. There's plenty that I don't like. But this is just brilliant framing. I mean, you ever been in an argument? It could be with your husband or your wife or boyfriend, girlfriend, or just a friend or something.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
You ever have anyone call you defensive? in an argument i'd be like you're being very defensive right now and it kind of immediately like it just puts you on the back foot like all of a sudden you're on your heels not the balls of your feet because when you get called defensive you like if that bothers you you're kind of proving that you're defensive
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Trump's State of the Union Address
then if you're if you don't think you're defense you're being defensive you'd be like i'm not being defensive it's a very defensive thing to say it's like just like a weird little like kind of like framing tactic that could kind of like make you go like ah you almost have to like force yourself to calm down and like very like phonally be like i don't think i am being defensive but if that's how you feel like it's just a difficult thing to deal with i mean that's donald trump he look think about this right you have a president
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Trump's State of the Union Address
who's popular. Okay. Just won a very big election, took every single swing state and won the popular vote. Then he's up here. Almost everybody. Oh, I mean, if you say again, make it 80, 20, take out the 20 percent of people who hate Donald Trump the most, like, you know, the ones who passionately hate Donald Trump. And just think about the other 80 percent of the electorate.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
Almost any of them would at least have something they like about. Donald Trump. They're like, eh, you know, I do think there's a lot of wasted fraud in the government. That'd be kind of cool if we could cut some of that. Or, yeah, illegal immigration. I mean, it's super majorities of the American people support mass deportations, okay? So it's not the...
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
Donald Trump has really, you know, part of the reason, of course, why this is was his most effective state of the union. It's not just that Trump got better. I do think he's gotten a little bit better in some ways, but it's not just that. It's that he is more enabled to be successful by the moment that he's living in.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
the joe biden immigration policy is wildly unpopular nobody almost nobody supports that when we remove that 20 you're down to nobody is supporting that say at least kind of like that you know you might at least kind of like yeah maybe we should negotiate a peace in ukraine that's a popular policy a lot of people like that and so even people who don't support donald trump probably have like a few things that they like about him
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Trump's State of the Union Address
And think about how powerful it is for Donald Trump to get up there and say, listen, no matter what I do, these people are going to have the same reaction. And then the camera pans to these people having that reaction. Also looking miserable, looking miserable. Again, who wants to join that? This is just such bad politics. Who wants to be a part of the miserable group? Do you want to come up?
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Trump's State of the Union Address
Do you want to come over here? Like if there are two people and one person is inviting you to a party and the other person is inviting you to come be miserable with them, who do you think might be more successful in that scenario? This is what Donald Trump was able to do. And the visual just works so well with what he's saying.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
And the fact is that anybody being honest about the situation, anybody being honest, knows however you feel about Donald Trump, he's right about what he just said. He's right about that. The Democrats are going to treat him like a unique evil no matter what he does, no matter how successful it is.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
They're going to call him Hitler and they're going to boo and they're going to pretend that everything's falling apart no matter what. And that just... It's like perfect framing and it's also true. And so it gets that nice ring of truth. All right, let's go to the next clip and discuss this a little bit.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
I just like the image of this angry woman with purple hair. Like, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I'm not trying to like, you know, Hey man, dye your hair, whatever color you want to live your life, however you want to. But like in the game of politics, we are playing a popularity contest here. That's what democracy is.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
It's about like who represents more people or something, who at least can get more people to think that they represent, you know, What percentage do you think that represents? The party of angry, purpled-haired woman. Anyway, I thought the line was great. I thought that was actually probably his most effective line of the entire speech. To say, like, it turns out we didn't need new legislation.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
We just needed a new president really was powerful and kind of undeniably true. Right. I mean, this is what was the Biden administration's campaign campaign. They campaigned on the idea that they wanted three and a half years into his administration after years of record high illegal entry into our country that three and a half years in, they wanted to solve the problem. And they got this bill.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
And this really is, if you kind of zoom out, one of the very interesting kind of big picture meta analysis of the current moment, which is that in a very weird way, Donald Trump, and I think America as a country, We are better off that Trump lost in 2020. We got four years of Joe Biden, and then Donald Trump comes back in in the second term.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
And, you know, they said it was a terrible bill, but whatever, they're pretending it wasn't. And, you know, Donald Trump told the Republicans not to vote for it. So that's why it was Donald Trump who, you know, he's the reason why we couldn't. So we really wanted to solve this problem, but we couldn't. The problem is that Donald Trump hasn't gotten any immigration bill passed yet.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
Everything he's done has been through executive fiat and border crossings are at all time lows. Border crossings under Biden were at all time highs and they're now at all time lows. So my God, the argument that the reason you couldn't solve the problem was because Donald Trump told some congressmen not to vote for it. That that just is not going to fly.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
And, you know, this is something that I've talked about for years, but there is there's just no question that there's this is at least a huge part of the equation is that a lot of it's just about the signal you send.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
You know, like when Donald Trump is up there talking all this shit about immigration, people tend to stop coming because they feel like, oh, we're not going to be allowed in, even if he hasn't even done anything to ramp up immigration enforcement. And he's done some things, but I'm saying even absent that. that just word gets out.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
And then when the Democrats are saying, oh, you're such a Nazi for wanting immigration controls, and then they get the presidency, everyone goes, okay, it's open. They're going to take us now. So they come in larger numbers. Now, there's other factors, too. Don't get me wrong, but that's a huge one. And anyway, just a very effective, very effective line.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
Yeah, I... Look, I mean, there are things I could criticize, obviously, policy-wise. You know... In terms of substance of the speech, I got to say, and I guess this kind of crosses over, but as I mentioned before, I thought I sent the Elizabeth Warren clip, but it's not even necessary. But at one point, I mean, he was so great on the war in Ukraine and just how the killing has to stop.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
And at one point, this is like the only moment or one of the only moments when the Democrats clapped at anything he said. Think about how fucking stupid these people are.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
they they applaud when he said we've spent um uh possibly up to 350 billion dollars on this war the democrats started clapping they started clapping about how we've spent a war that's ending in a loss they were clapping that we spent so much money on it and then when he said oh you know he kind of addressed that and was like oh you guys are clapping i know i'm sure some of you want it to go on for another five years
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Trump's State of the Union Address
bunch of democrats clap for that and elizabeth warren clapped for it and then donald trump of course because he's trump he hilariously called her out and goes that pocahontas is clapping for that and it's just laughter throughout the chamber again first of all he's right on the policy he's right on the issue it not only just right on the issue think about how insane it is or god damn elizabeth warren to be clapping over this i also like i gotta you know
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Trump's State of the Union Address
don't get me wrong because i feel this way about all politicians uh and i feel this way about all politicians when they're cheering on wars i just always find it to be the the most disgusting thing that a politician can do and particularly it's disgusting because like none of them are ever gonna go fight in any of these wars
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Trump's State of the Union Address
And almost none of their kids are ever going, hey, Joe Biden, one exception to that, actually did have a kid go to the go to the war. But very, very rarely to any of these people. You know, they cheer on the wars because it's some other poor guy who's got to go die in it, not them.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
And I just I personally feel like I mean, look, I know I'm not a I might be a little bit old for to see combat, not in Ukraine. But in America, in the American military, I'd be on the older side. But I feel like I'm still an able-bodied man. And I just I could never imagine myself supporting a war that I wasn't also willing to go fight it.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
Now, I'm not trying to downplay any of the very real pain that was caused by those four years of Joe Biden, although if I'm being completely honest, A lot of that was baked into the cake already, like the price inflation that Joe Biden, you know, that we dealt with under Joe Biden. That was coming. Joe Biden certainly made it worse. But a lot of that was the result of 2020.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
like if there if there was a war like that you know if an army invaded america i'd be willing to go and fight them like that i'm not letting a foreign military come take over my country and so i'd be fine advocating for that war but i'll be there with you you just could never imagine it like advocating for a war that you're not willing to yourself go fight it
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Trump's State of the Union Address
And I will say I feel this way in general about politicians that I just think it's disgusting. They cheer on wars that they know they're not going to go fight. And, you know, you've got these guys like like like Newt Gingrich or whatever. And there's a whole bunch of them who like they got like a bunch of, you know, what do you call it?
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Trump's State of the Union Address
A deferments when when they were trying to when they were drafting in Vietnam, like they dodged the draft, but then they cheer for every other war. I just think I think it's quite possibly like debatably the worst thing a human being can do. Uh, I will say at the risk of coming off as a bit of a chauvinist, but that's never been a risk that I'm too concerned with.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
I find it particularly appalling when women do it. I just do, you know, maybe that's my version of like, uh, uh, my body, my choice or something like that. But you know, like there'll be all these women. I'm sure Elizabeth Warren would make the argument herself, right? That like men should shut up about abortion because it's not your body. Right.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
Like a man's never going to have to have a pregnancy. So you should shut up about abortion. Now, that's a pretty dumb argument because the pro-life argument for abortion is that it's on behalf of the baby. And so, you know, I can have an opinion on killing babies. But however you feel about that, isn't there? It's like, you know.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
ukrainian women aren't being conscripted they're not being forced to join this it's the young ukrainian men i shouldn't even say young it's it's ukrainian men who are being conscripted into this war forced at gunpoint to go be in this meat grinder to get killed over nothing to go get killed by the hundreds of thousands so that you can negotiate an end to the war in a worse position than before all of these guys got killed
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Trump's State of the Union Address
It's like, and then for Elizabeth Warren to be sitting there cheering this on, yeah, let's keep it going for another five years. It's just, I mean, I don't know. It's appalling. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is sheath underwear. I've been telling you about them for years because they've been sponsoring the show for years.
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Trump's State of the Union Address
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Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
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Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
Promo code PROBLEM for 20% off. Just horrible. Yeah. So anyway, I thought I don't know how else to say it. And then at least as of the only poll that I saw, I'm sure there'll be more to come out. But there was a CBS News poll on your views of Trump's speech. People who watched 76 percent approved, 23 percent disapproved. Seems to say it all right there.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
know like this was just it it's a it's an interesting time that we are living through and a combination of i think a lot of the things that i've been talking about and then some other things uh have just created the conditions where donald trump is is back he's stronger than ever and the democrats are completely lost on how to even attempt to start dealing with him like how do we even attempt
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
to start forming an opposition to this uh it's remarkable how different it is from the first time that he was in okay let's uh here i'll go um if you have some questions put them in the chat i'll try to get to a few of them now uh let's see what we got i see natalie picked a few up here okay um Okay, this is a little off topic, but we'll do it.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
You know, you lock down the entire economy and print trillions of dollars and start handing out direct payments.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
Dave, Cuomo seems to be really serious about going from the worst governor to the worst New York City mayor. Does he even have a chance, or are the people so blind that they would vote for him anyway? It's an interesting question. I don't know. I couldn't believe it when I saw that he was actually running.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
quote this andrew cromwell he's gonna he's gonna make me end up supporting corinne fisher isn't he i don't know who's uh you know i don't know enough um i i just you know i grew up in new york city i have not been following this closely so i don't know exactly where the polls are or who he's even running against uh it's
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
It's a huge advantage to come into a mayor, like running for mayor of New York City, it's a huge advantage to have the level of name recognition that he has.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
And I'd imagine his fundraising ability, although I don't exactly know after he was on the outs with the Democratic establishment where he is with that, but I'd still imagine he's going to have a huge advantage in terms of recognition and fundraising. So that, I guess...
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
that prices tend up end up rising and this is this is not rocket science it's actually fairly straightforward um however there were really bad things that joe biden did um obviously the war in ukraine which we'll get into was a you know a disaster that was really joe biden's you know i mean not saying nobody else held responsibility but the body administration held by far the most of it um and you know the very you know we were flirting with world war iii and nuclear war that's a pretty big cost
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
is is something on on his record you know again i guess you would hope i mean he has such an awful track record as governor it's not just like that it's like you said the worst ever um i mean the dude the dude forced covid positive patients into nursing homes and then covered it up
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
He killed a bunch of old people while he was locking the state down and lecturing everybody else about how they're going to kill old people. Literally, he was robbing Americans of their basic liberties on the pretense of you will kill old people while he was killing old people. You can't write this shit.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
And so, and just, I mean, I just, you know, listen, you guys know how I feel about that family. Just a... Just awful. It's just awful. By the way, I did say this publicly. I don't know what the path to making this happen is, but Andrew Cuomo, that's my next debate. That's who I want to be about. I took out Chris. I took out Fredo. Now I want Michael. Let's get that going.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
Oh, my God, I would love that. That would really be the achievement of my career. But anyway, that's right. Don't hold your breath on that. I don't think Andrew's going to agree anytime soon. I guess your answer is I really I don't know. I really hope that. Oh, my God. My fellow New Yorkers. I mean, I'm not I don't live in New York anymore, but, you know, I'm born and raised in that city.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
Guys, we cannot be this fucking pathetic. Dear Lord. Maybe one of the positives is that he did make some enemies in the establishment, so perhaps that'll come back to bite him. Okay, next question. I would like to hear your opinion on all the videos that are coming out from Ukraine showing what he is doing to his own people with conscription of civilians.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
And why is none of this ever mentioned or shown on literally none of the world's Western media news? Mentally ill people with Down syndrome put on the front to me is crimes against humanity.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
oh yeah well okay so first of all i mean i completely agree with you and this is you know as i've said for a very very long time many decades now i've or at least okay maybe not many but it's going on two decades now um i've been saying listen man the the draft uh conscription is slavery
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
that's what we're talking about here and in fact i think it's you could argue it's like the worst form of slavery uh you know if i if i were to force you against your will to do my yard work and not pay you for that and you know and not allow you to leave then i have enslaved you um that's a hell of a lot better than forcing you to go kill or be killed Like, why is it?
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
Why is it just like it's just like all these, you know, there's like basic libertarianism 101 stuff. But it's like when somehow when the government does it, we're supposed to have some completely different moral calculation about it. But like the conscription is not only slavery, it is the worst form of slavery, enslaving somebody and then giving them the job of would be murderer or murder victim.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
It's just like enslaving you to the most traumatic job. It's fucking horrible. And then God and the idea that a professed free society like America would ever, you know, fund a conscripted army is beyond unconscionable. It's yes, it is a crime against humanity in the most basic sense. And and and look, you're the other point that you make is a very important one.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
Well, why is it that where do we see these images? You know, you see them on Twitter.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
you're not you're not seeing them on nbc news i'm not seeing them on cnn you know i mean this is just like this is you know as as much as all those people in the corporate media can talk about misinformation and all this stuff it's all a joke you only get the real information once you go outside of them and yeah i mean it's it's you know
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
Again, also, the funny thing is that the propaganda for so long was that the Ukrainians want to fight. And then it's like, yeah, okay, do they? The ones I'm seeing getting a gun put to their head and dragged off to the front lines don't seem to want to. I don't think that those, you know,
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
what is it i don't i don't think people with down syndrome want to fight or at least not meaningfully i don't think they meaningfully consent to that it really is something though like especially when you think about the fact that like you know some of these arguments that i've been in over the last few years as so much of the like woke progressive where they'd say things like
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
So all that being said, you know, if Donald Trump wins in 2020, and forget any of you guys who may have whatever feelings you have about the 2020 election, leaving that aside, I'm just saying if Donald Trump had officially won and had, you know, got a second term, there's just no conceivable way that we'd have any of the positives that we have right now. None of them.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
You know, like if a if a if a chick is drunk and hooks up with a guy, then she didn't meaningfully consent. So that was rape. If she regrets it later, it's rape because she didn't meaningfully consent. It's somehow it's like it was the guy with Down syndrome consenting to go join the army or any of like, do we care about these issues? It's even slight.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
Believe me, getting sent to the front lines to go take on the Russians is slightly worse than a hookup you regret.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
i don't know is that too politically incorrect to say uh but yeah so anyway i i completely agree with you excellent excellent question um okay if you guys want we got time for like one maybe two more questions and then uh i i will have to wrap up gotta uh gotta head out to uh to buffalo um
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
okay dave trump has done a lot both positive and negative so far what are you looking for him to do over the next few years as your highest priority um okay well i agree with that that general assessment i mean i think that there's okay there's a lot of good things that could be done There's a lot of things that even need to be done, I would say.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
And I'm not holding my breath for Donald Trump to do all of them. I think that if Donald Trump, you know, if I were to use an analogy, it's we are in a car doing 100 miles per hour headed off a cliff. And so if Donald Trump can slow that down.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
At least that gives us some more time to where you get more possibilities and maybe we can wake up more people and maybe something positive can come out of that. Um, the, you know, Donald Trump, if you really wanted to solve the problems in this country, you're going to have to have drastic cuts in government spending.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
You're going to have to roll back the big banks and their grip over our federal government, starting with abolishing the federal reserve. you're going to have to abolish three-letter agencies you know i mean there's there's a lot that would have to be done i'm not expecting anything like that to come of donald trump's second term this is not it's not a realistic expectation
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
What I can realistically hope for Donald Trump is at least he's gotten the conversation started about cutting in spending. He's gotten the conversation started about what the government is actually doing with our money, how criminal it actually is. We've already gotten kind of like a complete rejection of the corporate media.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
And if he can end the war in Ukraine and not step on one of these tripwires, which really would be like you know, another disastrous war or something like that. Um, and, and if he can be reasonably not too bad on other issues, then I think it will have been a tremendous success.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
And I mean, that might be a low bar, but you know, I'm grading on a curve here compared to every other president and it's already better than any president of my lifetime by far. This is really not even, there's no comparison. And so, um, You know, that's what I would say. But the real dangers are somehow him not following through with this Ukraine thing and escalating the war with Russia.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
And then the other real danger, I think the more likely... disaster is some type of war with Iran or some major action on behalf of Israel allowing them to annex the West Bank, going through with the ethnic cleansing in Gaza, something like that. This could be a real disaster and really have the power to undo all the positive gains that he's had so far.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
I mean, literally none of them. We would not have had Bobby Kennedy at the health department. We wouldn't have had Tulsi Gabbard leading the intelligence department. We wouldn't have had, you know, there's no chance that we'd have Jay Bhattacharya at the National Institute of Health. There's really no conceivable way we'd have Kash Patel running the FBI or Dan Bongino as the deputy FBI director.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
So as long as he could just stay America first, not get sucked into any of these stupid wars, I think we'll probably be... We'll probably be able to say that this was a successful administration, at least compared to what realistically could happen. There, I see Natalie. Oh, you must have – it's funny. I read it out of the chat, and then you grabbed that same question. Okay.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
I'm going to have to wrap on that one, guys. We will catch you next time. Listen, I will get the members-only episode out this week. It will not be at the normal time tomorrow, but as soon as me and Rob get up to Buffalo, we will record one and get one out to you. Do not worry. We won't miss that. I still owe you a couple members-only episodes. I will make good on those.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
Also, this Saturday, we are doing our Zoom meeting for the top-tier subscribers. Really looking forward to that. They're always a lot of fun. So I'll see you guys at that. All right. Catch you next time. Peace.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
There's no way we'd have Doge. Elon Musk wasn't on board with Donald Trump in 2020. So anyway, this number one it got trump you know going through those years it got i think essentially what happened and this is also part of why donald trump has record high approval ratings right now is that
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
Okay, so in 2016, when Donald Trump ran for president the first time, Donald Trump had this quality about him that was very appealing to a lot of people, but also it was a double-edged sword. And it allowed... It allowed a lot of fear mongering about Donald Trump to seem reasonably plausible. Donald Trump was the first president in the history of the United States of America.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
This had never happened before. Donald Trump was the first president who had zero political or military experience. That had never happened before. OK, like we had we had Dwight Eisenhower was president of the United States and he had no political experience, but he was a five star general who had led the allies to victory in World War Two.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
It'd be pretty hard for someone to look at him and make the argument, you don't have experience, sir. You know what I mean? So for the first time in our nation's history – and imagine, you know, this is the United States of America. It's the most successful, most powerful country that's ever existed. And we tried something in 2016 we had never tried in our hundreds-year-long history.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
And Saturday night, we'll be up in St. Catharines, my first time back in Canada in many, many years. The early show is sold out. I believe there are some tickets available for the late show. It's going to sell out quickly. If you want to come, make sure you go over to ComicDaveSmith.com right away and get them. And then, of course, Boston, just a couple weeks away at Laugh Boston there.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
And now, OK, there was something appealing about that because he could Donald Trump. There was certainly one aspect of it that was very advantageous to him. And this is why he was able back in 2016 to be able to stand up on on stage and say, you know. Hillary Clinton says she's going to fix this thing. She's been here for 30 years. She can't fix it. How come she hasn't done it yet?
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
Oh, I'm outside of all of this corruption. You see the big money? I don't need any of their money. He could blame all of the failures of government on the people who were involved and take responsibility for none of them, very reasonably, because he wasn't. And he was on the right side, just as a citizen, he was on the right side of some of these issues, and so he could play that.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
Now, on the other hand, the flip side to that was that they could play the card of, you know, you can't trust Donald Trump with his finger on the button. This guy's going to launch nukes. The market's going to crash. This guy has no idea what he's doing. So they could kind of play on the fear of the unknown.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
Then once Donald Trump was president, and especially because Donald Trump is he is not presidential in the sense that he's not like every other president, like every other president has this thing in common that Donald Trump doesn't. Donald Trump doesn't care about, you know, politeness or like he just he doesn't play that whole game that almost every other politician was playing.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
And so during Donald Trump, now during the first term also, you have these huge protests all around the country. I mean really, really dumb ones and some very violent ones later in his first term. But there's – like if you remember like the –
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
the woman's march uh happened in early 2017. it was like right after he was sworn in as when the women were wearing the vagina hats it was very bizarre um but i mean there were like hundreds of thousands of people out on the streets uh donald trump was getting and college campuses if you can try to put yourself back in 2017 i mean it was like just a wild environment so there was all this kind of like
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
what's up everybody welcome to a brand new episode of part of the problem i am dave smith rolling solo for this episode and uh of course we're going to be talking about last night's state of the union address um the fifth
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
upheaval there was all of this uh it was like by its very nature there was this departure from normalcy
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
and into this new thing you know into the whatever this is donald trump's pissing everybody off the media is freaking out you got the russiagate story that that really started getting traction so now people are watching cnn and msnbc i know it's crazy to think about now but people were watching cnn and msnbc um because they were alleging that like the biggest scandal in u.s history was going on right now russia had hacked our democracy and installed donald trump and so there's just like it's almost like if you could describe
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
Look, even 2017, 2018, 2019, at the time, we would have described this as like we're at 11. The level of hysteria was just crazy. And then came 2020. And you're like, oh, my God, if you thought we thought we were at 11, turns out we were at two. Now we're in this whole new world. And OK, so you've just got. all of this hysteria.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
The ticket links are all available at ComicDaveSmith.com. And of course, as I've mentioned a couple times, the tickets are moving fast. I will be back at the Soho Forum in May debating immigration against the Cato Institute's Alex Norwash. Looking forward to that very much.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
Then 2020 comes, you have lockdowns, you have the George Floyd riots, you have all of this. And by the end of 2020, and for all four years, essentially the corporate media and the Democrats were arguing that like, look, this is Trump. Like we were kind of a normal country. We had our problems. And now this guy just destroyed all of that, you know? And
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
even if you were somebody who was let's say like center right and you you probably maybe you voted for donald trump in 2016 and maybe you you liked him you you were more you preferred him being president to hillary clinton um maybe you even preferred him being president to joe biden but there was a feeling
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
and this was palpable at the end of of 2020 where there was just like a feeling of enough already enough and like the even i think a lot of people who recognize that like okay at least 50 maybe even a lot more than 50 of the problem is that these leftists are just hysterical when donald trump does anything still we just don't want any more of this.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
And so let's at least get somebody who doesn't make this part of the country hysterical. And there was just this, there was a feeling, and this was not just a feeling, this was explicitly the pitch of the Democrats, particularly when Joe Biden won the nomination, that it was like, let's get back to normal. And Joe Biden was kind of uniquely positioned to be able to sell that message in 2020.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
Look, he was already on his way to being senile, but it wasn't nearly as bad as it got over the last couple years. But Joe Biden could just be like, hey, I am a dinosaur. I've been in the Senate for 40 years. Like, you know what you're getting with me. I was the vice president for four years. I was a senator for many, many decades.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
Like, he in many ways represented the American establishment for the last, you know, 35 years. So...
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
a lot of ways the promise was a return to normalcy and joe biden and surrogates explicitly said this over and over again in many different ways but they were very clear this is what they meant we can let's just okay enough of this crazy new experiment in trump let's get back to normal and there was nothing more devastating to that argument than joe biden's four years as president because
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
Should be a good old libertarian scrap about where exactly libertarians should fall on immigration with me being more of the restrictionist and Alex being closer to the open borders side of things. Okay, so... Donald Trump's State of the Union last night. Let's get into this. I got a couple clips lined up, and there's a few things that I kind of wanted to talk about it.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
what i think every now look i'm not to be a little self-serving here but i was one of the people far from the only one but i was one of the people um arguing for the first four years of donald trump's administration that like actually that wasn't the case as as uh i think it was michael malice who had the uh um coined the term that donald trump was not the river he was the dam you know people thought that donald trump
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
was like the corporate media's analysis was almost like Donald Trump had ushered in this new age of craziness, whereas our understanding, which was fairly obvious to me, but has kind of been proven true over the years, was that, no, no, no, Donald Trump didn't usher in this craziness. We went crazy, and the result of that is Donald Trump.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
It's not that Donald Trump came and changed the political landscape to the point that there's this huge populist movement. It's that the establishment failed so bad for so many years that the American people were so furious at the establishment that they were ready to just pick Donald Trump because he was the biggest middle finger they could find.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
So in this scenario, it's like Donald Trump isn't the fire. Donald Trump was the spark. But the issue was that the floor was covered in gasoline. Donald Trump happened to be the spark who came along. But like when you have this situation, any spark could have set this thing off. So anyway, the four years of Joe Biden really just disproved the idea that if you remove Donald Trump, we return to.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
1985 or something like that if you get rid of donald trump we go right back to whatever you think normal america is the fact is that joe biden became the president for four years and nothing went back to normal in fact it got even crazier than it had been under donald trump and so there was something it's like
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
The American people were so furious with the establishment that they were willing to vote for Donald Trump and make him the president in 2016. And then the American people were so frustrated with the craziness that they were willing to give the establishment one more shot. And then Joe Biden blew that hand.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's State of the Union Address
And so now it was like now by the end of four years of Joe Biden, Donald Trump actually felt like more of a return to normalcy than another four years of this insanity would be. And so anyway, I say all of that to say this is why Donald Trump has his highest approval ratings. And this is why he was able to give that speech that he gave last night.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
unbelievable the amount of knowledge that is all around us now the great uh old example i think murray rothbard had one where he did this with a ham sandwich but the most famous one came from well it it came from leonard reed's eye pencil essay but then i think probably the most famous version of it was milton friedman's uh like thing that he did on the pencil and this is it really is like
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
If you haven't been to Zanies, go by there. It's one of the best comedy clubs out there. April 6th. I believe there are still some tickets available, but this show is going to sell out. So make sure you grab those tickets now if you want to come by and see me on Sunday night, April 6th, right? Yep. I think, yes, Sunday night. Okay.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
It's a simple thing. It's kind of something that we all know on some level, but it's really worth thinking about if you want to like attempt to understand economics. And so the pencil thing is basically that he, Milton Friedman, I think he made this back in the 70s. It might have been the 80s. I think it was the 70s. Or he basically holds up a pencil and he's like, OK, this is a pencil.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
what is actually takes to be a pencil because the truth is that there is no human being alive and there's never been a human being that can make a pencil there's no one person who can do it now you might uh think to yourself i think tom wood said this once when he was describing it he goes well you might think to yourself well that's not true you know my uncle works at the pencil factory and he can make lots of pencils but the point is that if you you know if uh um
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
when Milton Friedman's talking about it and he goes, okay, so this is a pencil. Okay, so here's the point, which is a lot of people think it's lead, but it's actually made of graphite. Graphite is in the ground. In order to get graphite out of the ground, you need this machinery.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
In order to have this machinery, there are so many steps when you actually think about it that you need to figure out how to mine for these things. You need to build the machinery that's going to go into it. You need a bit like there's so much knowledge. And this is only we are only dealing with the graphite.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
We haven't even gotten to like the wood in order to produce the wood in order to produce the little rubber eraser at the end. OK, you needed this whole process to make rubber. And the more you get into it, the more you realize that there is no there has never existed a human being who has the knowledge to make a pencil.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
Like the simplest thing we think of, it's like all of these different, like thousands and thousands of different areas of expertise all have to come together in order to create a pencil. And if you were to just say it like that, you might think to yourself, you'd be like, so what does a pencil go for? Like a million dollars? Like this is incredible. This is a marvel.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
It's like, it's all these different people's knowledge and work and labor and wisdom all coming together to make this little thing. This must be crazy expensive. And you'd be like, no, it costs like five cents. And if you saw one broken on the street, you wouldn't think twice before you just walked over it. And like, okay, that in itself is, is fucking amazing.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
I understand that this is something we all take for granted and we probably should, but when you're really trying to think about these things, I think it's worth it to kind of appreciate that. It is amazing. These are miracles of human creation.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
that we all throughout our day take and this is just the pencil by the way and the reason you use the pencil as the example is because this is the simplest thing i mean if you think if you think that's impressive about a pencil wait until you get into like you know a furnace or whatever you know like things that are way more complicated that take way more expertise and way more knowledge and you know joe rogan used to have a joke uh back in the day
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
That was a great bit on talking monkeys in space where he was just talking about how we all, we all feel smart because we use smart people stuff, you know, and there's, there's a real illusion that you can create for yourself there. And his joke was just how we use smartphones and computers and we all, but none of us have any idea what, how they work or how to create.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
And he goes, uh, I think the punchline of the joke was if I left you in the woods with an ax, how long before you could send an email, uh,
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
you know but like it's a really funny joke but it's it's very it's a very intelligent comment because you start to realize just like the answer to that is it's about you could i could give you a hundred thousand years with an axe in the woods and how long before you can send an email the answer is you'll never get there it's just impossible for one person to get there but when you got
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
Was there one more thing that I wanted to mention before we get into the show? Okay, no, let's jump into it. Okay, so the only criticism that I saw, and I haven't seen everything. I'm sure there's other criticism out there. But one of the things that I saw that people were upset that me and Rogan didn't talk about on this last podcast was the Trump tariffs.
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Trump's Tariffs
you know, millions and millions and millions of people, in this case, billions of people all trading together. These miracles are possible. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is My Patriot Supply. Look, we've seen it before. When a crisis hits, grocery store shelves are the first to go bare. And we've also seen that that can happen pretty quickly.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
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Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
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Trump's Tariffs
This is just a description of how the world works. And so when you have this dynamic where through trade, it's this crazy multiplier effect where we're able to level up and level up and level up. And even every person who has crazy expertise in some area that you have no knowledge of they still only have one of those areas down.
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And of course, as an economy grows more and more and more, what you have is more and more specialization
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less and less general knowledge, but more and more specialization because the more people specialize, like if they're much better at their very narrow little area, and then they can trade with other people who are really good at very narrow areas, now we can all have the benefits of everybody's narrow area of expertise. And you just have to look around your house.
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You are surrounded right now by thousands of examples of this that are truly amazing. They're miracles. And it's like, this is something that we take for granted. It's kind of good in a way that we take it for granted because then it allows us to focus on other things so we can keep leveling up. But this is like a very basically...
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how economies start and grow and how you know what i'm saying like how they how they start at a very um primitive level and then grow into what is a modern economy it's from different people having their different levels of expertise and everybody trading with each other now of course back to my primitive example right
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And this is where like, I think everybody kind of knows this on some level, but this is where currency comes in is like, okay, it's one thing when you're trading, like my example of where you're trading with your neighbor, you know, log cabins for cattle or whatever. And you can make these any example you want. One guy's really good at building chairs.
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You know, the other guy is really good at fixing roofs or whatever. Now that works really well. if your neighbor needs a chair and you need your roof fixed, but sometimes your neighbor needs a chair and you need something to eat. And he's like, well, I can't fix it. And then you would have to go find someone who has food and needs a chair.
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And I would have loved to get into them, but it's the Joe Rogan experience. And we ended up talking a bunch about war stuff, which
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Whereas if you have currency, you don't need to worry about that because you can just give that person currency, which represents kind of like a unit of your value. They can take that and go get what they need. So you can build them a chair, get money for it, and then go buy food from someone who has food. So that's another kind of multiplier effect that facilitates trade.
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So you have this store of value now. That's the idea of money. You have a store of value and that you can trade your labor for this value and then trade that value for whatever you want. I guess it should also be, since we're getting into the basics of this, talking about trade here, and now that money has come in, right? If you are trading money for goods,
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you now have what is known today as a trade deficit. There's an imbalance in trade, they'll call it sometimes. But again, that's all kind of an artificial concept. If you were, you know, like, for example, like I have a huge trade deficit with my supermarket. Like, I go there. Okay, fine. My wife goes there. But me as a family, we go there.
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Some member of our family goes there and gives them money for food. Every week we're doing this. And they never give us money for anything. They've never bought anything from our family. We always just buy from them. But you could see like in that example, it would be silly to think that because there's a trade deficit, that somehow they're ripping me off.
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Like that's just not, it's a voluntary trade. It's just like the two guys trading where it's a win-win relationship. It's the same thing when you go there. This is, by the way, why you have that moment. John Stossel used to talk about this all the time when he says the double thank you moment.
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has i guess become you know what i uh kind of specialize in and what i talk about the most and i there's good reason for that i think that we are um actually right now closer to a war with iran than we've probably been since the end of the bush administration and that's really really bad and i'd like to avoid that and i mean it's like it's it will be such a catastrophe
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But, you know, whenever you go to a store and you buy something and once you get the thing, you give them the money and you go, thank you. And they go, thank you. And then you leave. Which is like an interesting little thing, right? You're both thanking each other. Like typically in life. When you thank someone, the response is you're welcome, not thank you.
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If I'm like, oh, could you pass me a tissue? And you pass me a tissue, I go, thank you. And you go, you're welcome. You don't thank me back. But with economic transactions, we both thank each other. And the obvious reason for that is that my supermarket wants the money more than they want the food. They have an abundance of food. And they're trying to trade it for money.
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I have money and I want something to eat. So I'm happy to trade my money for food. We both expect to be better off. Now, I'm not saying this. It's not that 100% of the time you both will be better off. But 100% of the time, you both have the expectation that you'll be better off. So that's... how trade works, right?
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Now, if I were to look at that and say, oh, I'm running up this huge trade deficit with my supermarket because they're not buying anything from me, but I'm buying a lot of stuff from them, you can already see where that just doesn't make any sense. That's not a real... And there isn't, in fact, a deficit because I've been trading with them for something that I wanted more than the money.
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It was a voluntary transaction. And so this would not... Now, if you were... Let's go through another scenario here. Maybe even back to the more primitive economic transaction. Let's say... you know, you've got some chickens and you're trading eggs and your neighbor has some berries and your neighbor's like, you know, you're like, look, me and my family have all the eggs we need.
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We have all the eggs we can eat and then some, but we'd really love some berries with our eggs. And the neighbor is like, we have all the berries we could eat. Maybe then some, we'd really love some eggs that obviously you could see you guys could come together and make a win-win trade where you're both better off for making this trade. Okay.
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Now, let's say your neighbor, he's trading you eggs and you're giving him berries. And you were like, hey, I'll give you whatever the number is. I'll give you 50 berries for 10 eggs. And he goes, no, you know what? Just give me 30. Don't even worry about the 50. Give me 30. Like, let's say he lowers his prices, okay? Is there any conceivable way where you could say, oh, he's ripping me off.
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He's ripping me off by charging less. No. Right. You'd have to acknowledge that that is he's only helping you by charging less. Like even if you don't want the extra berries, even if you threw them in the trash, you're it's still the same thing for you as if he charged you the full thing. Charging less is not ripping you off.
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In the same way, if my supermarket were to say, hey, we're lowering the price of groceries, there's no conceivable way that you would say like, oh, this is a dirty game you're playing, ripping me off here. That's just not correct. And I always thought this was, you know, it was interesting because there's in so many different ways, the way that like now moving back toward kind of like
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real life, which is, again, all this stuff is real life, but I'm saying just a more sophisticated version of where we find ourselves today in 2025. It's just interesting, and I'm not... Obviously, there are many other factors. I'll try to get into some of them.
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that it's hard to overstate it will be worse than any of the terror wars um so far and it given the x factor of what russia might do what china might do just a truly a um
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It is far more complicated than just that simple model, but all of the stuff in that simple model is still true in this more complicated version.
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I've heard it, and I remember Bob Murphy said this years ago when he was doing a debate on free trade versus protectionism, that there's so much of the way people frame this conversation for years now has been that China is ripping us off because they sell cheap goods. And the way it's been referred to is dumping that they dump their cheap goods on us.
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Now, I'm just saying, if you could reduce this back to the individual level of trade, you could see how at least the starting point here is like, that does sound kind of ridiculous. Like, you know, back to my simple trade example, if you were like, hey, I'll trade you 50 berries for 10 eggs. And they go, he goes, dude, let me tell you something. Give me 10 berries.
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I'll give you all the eggs you want. You can just take as many. And you're like, oh, in that case, I'll take a bunch. Like, I'll take 100 eggs. And he goes, no problem. Here's your 100 eggs. Could you then turn around and say, hey, you know, this neighbor guy of mine is dumping cheap eggs on me. You'd be like, wait, what? You voluntarily made this deal? You asked for this much?
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Okay, that is what's going on with our trade with China. This is not that China is coming in from the sky and dumping cheap Chinese goods on us. These are American businesses purchasing goods from China.
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The way Bob Murphy said it in that debate was he goes, if you think selling us cheap goods is ripping us off and that that's making us poorer, if your argument is that another country selling us cheap goods is making us poorer, then by that logic, you'd have to argue that if they really wanted to screw us over, they would give us stuff for free. But now think about what you're reduced to arguing.
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you're arguing that someone giving you something for free makes you poorer. Now, that is quite a pretzel to tie yourself into. Now, I've mentioned this before, and what people come back at me with is they'll be like, oh, but Dave, you know, welfare keeps people in poverty. So isn't that an example of giving someone something for free and that actually makes them poorer?
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And no, that is not a correct understanding of why wealth... Listen, welfare... is a government program. And so there's a few important differences here. So welfare, number one, governments don't have anything, so they can't give anything. All governments can do is tax one group of people and then give it out to another group of people.
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a wildly reckless and dangerous uh idea so i did think that was important to talk about however i want to spend the episode today talking about the tariff stuff um and kind of in in what i'm going to do which is a little bit different on this episode it's kind of a throwback to what i used to do a lot but i want to almost talk about this because i don't see enough people
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I mean, technically speaking, they can also borrow the money, which is just a promise to tax you in the future, or they could print the money, which is in effect just a tax in the present, taking the value of your money and giving it to someone else. But it doesn't matter.
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No matter what, in any of those three options, all government's doing is taking from one group of its domestic population and giving it to another group. So first of all, the welfare benefit isn't just giving someone something free, it's taking that much from someone else and then giving it to them for free. And if you really wanna get technical about it, it's taking a larger amount
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paying a bunch of bureaucrats and government employees and politicians along the way and then giving what's left to somebody else so that's a difference between just giving someone something for free and welfare but the other thing the more major thing is that the way that welfare keeps people poor is that there'll be a system where it says okay it says if you're out of work you get a check but then you lose that check
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if you start working so welfare is subsidizing you to not be productive okay so you're subsidizing a bad thing a very basic law of economics is that if you subsidize something you get more of it than you otherwise would and if you tax something you get less of it than you otherwise would so with welfare you're subsidizing a bad thing now
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The other hand of that is when you're taxing – and look, by the way, everyone knows this is true in economics, including liberals. This is why they support taxes on cigarettes and subsidizing green energy. It's because they want less cigarette smoking and more green energy, which makes it – like that is a policy to get less of that and more of that.
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And as people may know, I mean, like I was a kid and a smoker when the taxes really started going into effect and it drastically got less people smoking in this country. You make something more expensive, less people are going to buy it. And of course, there's a lot more green energy than there would be without the subsidies. This is like very basic economics. And so now.
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What we have with welfare, where the money is collected from taxes, you're going to tax working, you're going to tax a good thing so you get less of it, and you're going to subsidize not working so you get more of that. So that's what keeps people poor. Not the fact that they got free stuff. The fact that you're subsidizing a bad behavior and taxing a good behavior.
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Now, by the way, the income tax is a tax on working. Think about it, like, by the way, just like in anything, it's a punishment. Think about how insane that is, okay? It's a fee, a fine, okay? This is what we do with low-level crimes, you know, speeding. You get a fee that you get a ticket. Your punishment is a fine, okay? We do that with working, okay? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
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on big shows doing this, I want to kind of talk about the very basics of economics, of trade, and of tariffs, and then kind of get into Trump's specific proposal. And while war and peace might kind of be the thing that I am...
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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Alright, let's get back into the show. Alright.
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i'm most known for talking about at this point uh economics is something i've always been very fascinated and interested in um and is also a big part of the reason why i care so much about the warfare machine because it is you know that that's a big component of it that's here's something like eight trillion dollars we've spent over the last 20 years on on foreign wars and that is a when it comes to economics that's also the biggest issue so anyway um
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Let's, to start this, let me try to take it back to almost like square one, start from the very beginning. And I think there are, I know this might sound like a little bit oversimplified or like even child, like it's made for like a fifth grader or something, but I do think it's important to just kind of go over some of this stuff
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So once again, thank you very much to Joe Rogan, who has obviously been the... the biggest booster of mine by far. It was a great time. I thought, I thought it was a really great episode. I, I always have a great time hanging out there and there in, in Austin. And this one, I thought, I thought it was really great. And I've gotten an unbelievable,
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so because it's important to kind of have this basic framework in mind to even know about how to think about these things and to me um to me in my very amateur uh understanding of economics i do think almost the most important thing like if you had a an economics professor you were in a college class the most important thing for that professor to do is is to get you in to the mentality of like how to think about economics
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So what Donald Trump just announced, which I believe is going into effect in a few days here, is the most sweeping tariff policy in, I believe, over 100 years. He's done it through executive order. We will see what comes as a result of this. Rand Paul has been challenging this in the Senate and saying that the president doesn't have the authority to put these sweeping taxes in.
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Um, Rand Paul is 100% correct in his opposition to this. Um, I, Donald Trump is really has lost the plot if you ask me on this and several other important issues. Um, but let's hear, uh, I, I want to play Donald Trump. So Donald Trump gave a big speech announcing this. I believe he spoke for, for an hour and a half or something like that. Um,
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I couldn't find this clip anywhere else, but I did find it on Breaking Points. So thank you to Crystal and Sagar for playing this clip. We'll borrow that from you now. But I did want to play this and kind of address what Donald Trump is saying here as he announces these sweeping tariffs. Let's check in with the president.
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This is this is just where I'm sorry, man. I mean, this is just totally wrong and or just a totally wrong. But it's really missing, like the very key detail here. OK, so it is true that let's say there were points in America he's talking about in the 1800s going into the early 20th century. Yes, it's true that we had tariffs.
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And then in 1913, the worst president in the history of the union, Woodrow Wilson, introduced the income tax. The following year, he introduced the central bank. And there is... There is certainly an argument, probably one I'd agree with, although I'm a little bit open to having my mind changed on this.
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But there is an argument that we're way better off in a situation where we didn't have the income tax and we had tariff policy. Certainly way better off with no central bank and no income tax and we had tariffs. But this is missing of just a huge part of the picture here.
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So as I've mentioned many times on the show before, and it's worth repeating, but so from say the end of the Civil War until 1913, okay? So you're saying 1865 to 1913. It is hard for people to understand how much of an experiment in free market capitalist economics the United States of America was. It was the greatest experiment in free markets in human history.
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And it was also the time period when America became the richest, most powerful country in the world. Donald Trump is right about that. But it's not just like, oh, we had tariffs. They are for tariff policy good. Like, that's not the takeaway from it. In this time period... America had no income tax, no central bank. So we had sound money and no income taxes, okay?
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There's Bob Murphy, who, by the way, I should say, my economic views are influenced primarily by the Misesian school of economics, Austrian economics. And I highly recommend people read like Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard. As I was just about to mention, Bob Murphy, if you're looking for someone who's alive, you can't go wrong with Bob Murphy or Gene Epstein.
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We also had no regulatory state, no welfare state. Federal spending was like 2% of the national income or something like that. I mean, it was the size and scope of the government was tiny, tiny. And yes, In this period, the way the government raised money was having some taxes on trade. Okay. That, yes, it is true that that was enormously preferable to what has followed after it.
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But Donald Trump is not recreating any of those conditions. I mean, I'm sorry, give me a break, but there may have been some talk at Doge about cutting $2 trillion in spending, which, by the way, is nothing in the grand scheme of things. You're talking about maybe bringing the talk of the drastic spending cuts.
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And by the way, I should look into the specifics of this because I'm not even sure it's this drastic. But if you were to cut $2 trillion out of the federal budget this year, like if you're not planning on doing this over 5 or 10 or 15 years, if you cut this year $2 trillion in the budget, you would be bringing the size of the U.S. federal government back to 2019 levels.
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2019 that's how far back you'd be winding the clock not 1818 not 1918 2019 okay so like this is the idea that you're donald trump has these tariffs going into effect in three days We still have an income tax. We still have a federal reserve. We still have the biggest federal government in the history of the world. We're still going to be spending close to $7 trillion a year.
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We still have a giant regulatory state. None of the conditions of what he's talking about where this tariff policy worked are – coming into effect.
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And this would almost be a reasonable claim if Donald Trump was somehow, of course, he can't do this through executive action, but if somehow he was announcing that we're abolishing income taxes, we're abolishing the Federal Reserve, we're going back on a gold standard, we're abolishing the welfare state, we're abolishing the regulatory state, but we're going to have these tariffs.
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Then what he's saying right here is a conversation to have. He's saying none of that. None of that. He's saying keep all that stuff we have plus enormous taxes on trade on top of it. I'm sorry, this argument makes no fucking sense. This is just he's completely wrong about this. All right, let's let's keep playing.
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And that chart, ladies and gentlemen. Sorry, Sager. I don't mean to cut you off there. They're great, by the way. Go watch Breaking Points. Love that show. I think I'm going back on there soon. So... Look, I mean, with the grocery stuff and Donald Trump just being hilarious, by the way, he is. It only comes out sometimes because he's such a like every man billionaire.
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But every now and then you do remember, oh, yeah, Donald Trump's like a billionaire. Like I don't even groceries is a pretty common word. I'd still use it. I don't know. I didn't think this was like some antiquated thing. Anyway, I just also I love I'm sorry, this is off the point. And we I don't have much time left.
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But there is something there's something about Donald Trump that he does that is the most hilarious and somehow endearing, even though it's so retarded, but it's just the thing where he'll go off teleprompter, because like he said a word, and then he feels like he needs a little, you know, like, like he says, groceries. Groceries, big bag of different things.
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Like, you know, that wasn't on the teleprompter, but whatever. Anyway, this is, it should also be pointed out because people have like, because he just announced this crazy high tariffs on all these different countries at all these different rates. And he's calling them reciprocal taxes, but they're reciprocal tariffs, but they're not. These aren't reciprocal.
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who i'm almost certain uh i will get an email from after this episode explaining something that i got wrong but i'll try my best for gene here i'll try my best to to be on point with this um by the way i should also say that uh bob murphy and gene epstein have both really um been they've been kind of mentors to me over the last you know 15 years or so 20 years whatever it's been and
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They based it, the formula has been cracked now. They based it just on trade deficits. So if we have a big trade deficit with you, that's how they judge whether we're going to implement tariffs on you. And that, again, like I said before, this is goofy. This is like there's just no debate here. This is goofy, goofy economics.
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If you want to make the argument for reciprocal tariffs, then the only sound economic argument you could make for that would be that Again, they're charging us 15% on our cars, and that's making our auto manufacturers hurt. That's making them hurt.
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So we're going to charge that and make their auto companies hurt, even though it's going to make our consumers hurt too, in an attempt to bring all of these down, to get them to go, okay, fine, we'll stop charging you tariffs, and then everybody is better off when there's none. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is sheath underwear.
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It should also be pointed out that Donald Trump did flirt with this idea. It was back in his first term. It was at the G20 or at the G6, G7, whatever. I'm sorry, I can't keep up with all this stuff. But it was at one of these G meetings. And Donald Trump, I think it was in 2018 or 19, he threw it out to the room. He goes, well, how about this? How about we all just eliminate tariffs?
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And then I'll agree to do that too. So it's like, His mind is there sometimes, but then it's often this other place where he's judged. Like, OK, there is an argument to that. I don't exactly agree with it, but OK, you can make an argument.
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And then there's an argument to things like whatever, like when he threatens Canada or Mexico with tariffs and then they put troops on the border and then he pulls back and doesn't do the tariffs. That's hard to argue that it's not like, OK, that was a win. Like, he just got a good policy out of a threat of a bad policy.
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So I'm not arguing that, like, there are things that are more complicated than just my, you know, desert island, you know, 101 economics example of trading between two people, you know, but. But that's not what we're talking about. What you're talking about here is basing your tariff policy off of a trade imbalance.
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Again, this is back to saying the supermarket's ripping me off because I spend all my money there and they don't spend any other money at my house.
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this is goofy economics it doesn't make any sense at all this is not reciprocal tariffs this is not it just doesn't make any sense and i'll be honest i mean i don't know if this is going to get shut down or not but i've been shocked so far that markets haven't been reacting more to this i think it's almost that they're dumbfounded and they can't believe this is actually going to happen but this is
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They're both really just phenomenal economists. I am not. I'm just a comedian who's read some books about this stuff and likes talking about it. So forgive my lack of expertise, but those guys both are legit and just great on this subject. And anyway, so one of the things that I heard Bob Murphy say once in a lecture many years ago was talking about this idea of...
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you know whatever i we didn't talk about it on on rogan's podcast so i thought i would do the episode on it today but i i gotta say this is just uh this is an indefensibly bad policy and it really could be quite devastating um you know talking about putting these huge tariffs look the last thing i'll say about this okay is that I understand why people have nationalistic tendencies.
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I agree with a lot of those tendencies. I think that in the era of... transnational corporations and globalist politicians it is almost as if this lack of national cohesiveness or this it's an attack on national cohesiveness and national unity and that is something that i think people rightfully resist
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I understand why people have this feeling that like the world is ripping us off and we want to do what's best for our country. I am an America first person to the extent that we have a government. It ought to be servicing the American people who fund it. However, if you have something like.
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some other country let's just say is producing steel and they're producing it very affordably and very uh in in large quantity now it is true that that might put that might be bad for our steel plants here because now you can get really cheap really good steel from another country it's way cheaper than it is buying it here so that would be bad for our producers
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but it would be great for the customers. Right. Like it's good for the customers if they can get a better, cheaper good. And so you can just see where it's not it's not just the national interest. And in fact, it might even be much more in the national interest that it puts those steel plants out of business.
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But all of the American people get their steel cheaper, you know, just in theory, like if that was the example. And the other final thing I'll say, and then we could wrap up on this, is that. when Donald Trump is talking about this era where there was no regulation, there was no taxes.
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I mean, I'm not saying, by the way, I'm not saying there's zero, strictly speaking, zero regulation or zero taxes, but like there was no income tax and the federal register. I mean, it was just nothing compared to today. It's statistically zero. It's essentially zero taxes and zero regulation. And there were tariffs and he goes, oh, okay. Back then, we had all this production here.
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We had all, well, a huge part of the rise of the tax, overtaxing and overregulation, like a rise in big government, and then what big government does is they overtax and overregulate everything. That's also a huge part of what's made it impossible to produce here. And so if you really did have this national instinct, like if you want, because maybe you could make an argument that like, okay, Dave,
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
Your point about cheap steel makes sense in abstract economics. But in real life, you know, if a war broke out, we can't be dependent on that country for steel because we got to be able to produce our own steel here. Like, OK, I could see in some sense there might be an argument to that.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
But then in that case, what Donald Trump should be doing here is attacking the regulatory state and the taxation. Make it much cheaper and much easier to produce here. And then we could build up our productive capacity and have the American consumer able to buy from all of these different producers.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
of how to think about economics and that if you were to... So the example he gave was like geometry, if you were teaching geometry, something I was never very good at and I don't have an interest in and don't know a lot about, but...
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
So again, I just think this is backward and wrong, and it demonstrates a real lack of understanding of basic economics from the president and much of his base. Okay, I'm going to wrap up on that. Thank you guys very much for all the kind words on the internet. And thanks for listening to the show as always. Appreciate you guys. Catch you next time. Peace.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
i do remember like a few things like uh like a squared plus b squared equals c squared or something like that like this is how you measure the angles on a on a triangle and if a student of yours like if you were if you taught them a squared plus b squared equals c squared and they went okay great i'm gonna go out and find a bunch of triangles to measure
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
whether A squared plus B squared equals C squared or not, you'd be like, okay, no, I think you're missing it. You're not exactly understanding it. You don't actually have to go out and test this. This is something you can think about logically, and then you know it's going to apply to every single triangle.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
In the same sense, when it comes to economics, there's almost like the correct way to be thinking about this stuff. So, okay, taken to its very core, what economics is, is I would say like essentially, I'm not saying this is like a literal definition, but what economics is, is the study of human action with regard to improving life when scarcity is involved.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
And that's essentially what economics is. It's like it's human beings acting for a desired end, for an outcome that they wish to pursue when there is scarcity involved. Now, the scarcity component is important because if you don't have that, it's really outside of the realm of economics. The example I like to use is like oxygen.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
positive response from it so thank you to everybody for that uh i really still do appreciate that very much i had a good time down as i mentioned on the show i got to have a dinner with scott horton and daryl cooper the night before i did the episode which was a great time um so it was great to see my bros down there great to hang out at the mothership and see rogan and all of that um yeah so anyway great time and i've got a lot more traveling coming up
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
is oxygen is just not an economic good because there's no scarcity in it. And I mean, maybe technically speaking, there might be a limit to the amount of oxygen that's available on earth, but in effect, in practical uses, we all have plenty of it and we just don't need it. And so it's just not an economic good. It's not anything you have to worry about.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
Now, if there was scarcity, like real scarcity in oxygen, if it required production to produce oxygen, it would become an economic good very, very quickly. And one that we were all very concerned about. There's, you know, in the same way that food is something we need to survive. And so it's very, it's an important economic good. Oxygen is something we need a lot more.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
You can go a lot longer without eating than you can without breathing. And so that would, but there's no scarcity involved. And so it's kind of outside the realm of economics. You don't need
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
policy about it you don't need to trade to get it you don't need to turn natural goods into economic goods it's just there in abundance for us and this would also be true if goods in general weren't scarce like if there just was all the goods we could possibly need if you could snap your fingers and have a hamburger in front of you well then it wouldn't be an economic good anymore there would be no need to have a hamburger store or anything there wouldn't be a price that's charged for it you wouldn't need trade
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
Now, the most basic scarcity that almost always exists in economics is time and energy. And when I say energy, I mean like human, like the energy that you have in a day. Like there's only 24 hours in a day. You're gonna need to be sleeping for at least several of those hours in order to function. And there's only so much you can do.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
What's up, everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I am Dave Smith. I am rolling solo for this episode. And I will start by saying I apologize. I know our schedule's been messed up. I do try my best, as many of you may have seen. I was just in Austin, Texas, just did another episode of the Joe Rogan Experience.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
There's only so much you can do before you work yourself to the point of exhaustion and you're limited in time. So like today, if I have, you know, let's just say I have 12 hours of work that I have to do today and then maybe I need an hour to unwind and then the rest of the time I'm going to be sleeping or something like that or whatever the exact equation is.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
Maybe that's a little too much sleep. but I could do 12 hours of work then if that's what I have the energy and time to do in a day. But I have to pick what I'm gonna work at. I can't keep running this experiment over and over again and doing different things. Like I get one opportunity today to work for it. So let's say you take the most basic,
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
economic model it's just you like let's say it's it's you and um and you have a plot of land or something like that and so you wanna um you wanna build a house i think of this in the most primitive sense you're you're gonna cut down trees to build a log cabin okay that is an economic activity That is, you're transforming natural goods into an economic good.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
You're cutting down trees that just naturally grow and are just there. That's what man is born into, like a world with nature and trees. You're going to chop these trees down. You're going to build a log cabin, as many people used to do, crazy as it sounds. What you're going to do now is you're going to essentially invest your labor into transforming this natural good into a house.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
Now, the trees served you, you know, no real purpose before. I mean, maybe you could pick fruit from them or whatever, but the trees themselves were just there. And now you have a house that provides you and your family shelter. OK, so you are you you. went into, you worked for a desired outcome that you achieved by your work.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
So now you have, you know, whatever, when animals can't get to you, you're a little bit warmer, when it rains, you don't get as wet. Okay. So that is like, basically, that's almost the start of an economy, you could say. Picking fruit,
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
uh is is an economic activity building a chair or a table raising animals like all of this stuff is like now you're you're working in order to achieve a desired outcome with scarcity in the mix so The next step, right, like the next most basic step in economics after this kind of low level, you turning natural goods into economic goods is trade. And trade explodes economic possibilities.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
I will do my best to keep to the schedule, but just bear with me. The next week is going to be another busy one, but you guys will be happy with the reason why. Okay. So in between that, I do have a show down in Nashville at the Zanies in Nashville, which is one of my favorite comedy clubs in the world. If you guys, if you're in the Nashville area, forget my show.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
And so, by the way, I should just like aside for a second. I'm not. In any way, if you're like getting ahead of me and going, yeah, but this gets much more complicated once governments and nations and all these things come in to play. I'm not arguing with that. That is the case. I'm just saying this is still the underlying basics of it and it's worth understanding.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
So yes, it gets much more complicated when you have a government and there's a foreign nation and they have a government. There's more components to it. But just to understand the basics so we kind of know what we're talking about when we're talking about the more complicated shit.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
Trade is like a multiplier effect because if you, we're all, number one, we're all limited by the scarcity of time and energy. We're also limited by the scarcity of our own abilities and different people have different abilities and different people have chose to do different things with their scarce time. And so as we all kind of note on some level, right,
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
So let's just say you are now, you built yourself a log cabin and you were very good at that. You built yourself a good log cabin. And then there's another guy who doesn't know how to build log cabins, but he is really good at raising cattle or whatever. And so he's got food and you know how to build a house. Now you are in desperate need of food and he is in desperate need of shelter.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
When you guys trade, what you're able to do is saying, rather than you having to learn a whole new skill of cattle raising and him having to learn a whole new skill of building a house, you go, okay, here, let's make a trade. I'll build you a house. I'll do the thing I know I'm really good at if you feed me and my family for a year.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
You make a voluntary trade where you both benefit from the expertise of the other person. And you both get something out of it. Now, it's important to keep in mind that if the trade is voluntary, right, like if you're not being forced to make this deal, but you're voluntarily making the deal, then by definition, at least your expectation is that this is beneficial for you.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
So it's not as if the guy, the cattle raiser and the, it's not as if there's a loser in this deal. The expectation from both people is that they'll both be better off. And if you could think as you kind of scale this up and get closer and closer to what's like a full economy, you could understand like how, how profound that impact of trade is.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
And that in fact, it is impossible to have anything even approaching what we might consider prosperity without that.
Part Of The Problem
Trump's Tariffs
there's no um there's no conceivable way to actually prosper without a lot of different people's expertise and knowledge and their own unique situations all kind of being fused together in this voluntary exchange um you know as i sit here in my studio and just look around i mean it's like
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
And I do tend to like, you know, I tried my best to not like live in the YouTube comments, but on a show like this, it's kind of impossible for me to not, you know, when you do this on, it's not like if I do a show in front of my audience where I kind of, you know, I know my audience knows me very well and I know them very well.
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Thoughts on the JRE Debate
And at this point, the Joe Rogan audience knows me, but it's not the same. And it's such a huge show. that you're like, oh, I'm kind of interested how people responded to this.
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Thoughts on the JRE Debate
And it was, I mean, the second I looked through the comments, it was like exactly what I said after the show, exactly what everyone there, because he left right after, and I asked a bunch of the people who were there and watched it, like, hey, what did you guys think? Brutally honest, what did you think? And they were all like, oh, he just killed himself right away.
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Thoughts on the JRE Debate
And I was like, yeah, and then that's what every single comment was. Every comment was just like...
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
torching him for this shit he couldn't even figure out what he was saying it felt like for the first like 40 and he took 40 minutes he took like 40 minutes of the thing and just dragged it into this struggle session it was so wild to sit there watching i'd love to take on some of the logic of the arguments he was putting forward so the first one is uh we're not experts
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
Well, okay. So then let's get to it. Then the thing that I did, well, it just came out today. And we did it yesterday. So I figured we'd do an episode kind of giving my thoughts on this debate. I'm exhausted. I've been doing a lot of traveling and I've been getting not so much sleep. So this might be a little bit of a shorter one. But I did think maybe we would just talk about it a little bit.
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Thoughts on the JRE Debate
Yeah. But also like, you know, it's right. And he made, he would make some arguments or like that were things that, yeah, neither me nor Joe would have disagreed with. Like what he was saying, the thing where he was like, okay, I understand the experts have discredited themselves, but that doesn't mean we need to turn over every single stone or just have everything. And you're like, yeah, sure.
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Thoughts on the JRE Debate
Okay. That's why you have to be judicious about it. But like, now let's be judicious. We're here to talk about the issue. Let's see if you have an actual argument. Like it was enough. Like it almost felt like that whole thing. Like what I was saying before, when I was like, it would kind of make sense if, uh, if he had refused the debate and then was saying why he refused the debate.
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Thoughts on the JRE Debate
And it was like, Oh, this guy's beneath me. He's not an expert, which by the way, I thought is, I saw Sager and Jetty who I love. He posted today and he's like, he has a bachelor's in like English or something, which I didn't even know. He's like totally just not an expert on anything. It's the weirdest argument to be making. Um, but you know, I've been drinking more tea than you, Dave. Yeah.
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Thoughts on the JRE Debate
So, so, you know, well he's, uh, but like, he's making this, this argument and there is something about it that, um, and I, and I'm not saying like, again, it's like he's coming into a fight. It's like we've agreed to fight.
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Thoughts on the JRE Debate
And then before, like, it's just like when the bell rings, he's like, well, let's just do like, I just want to tell you for 40 minutes, like I'm such a better fighter than you. I mean, it's crazy that I'm even fighting you. Like, this is just kind of ridiculous. Like, why would I fight someone like you? And I'm like standing here with my gloves up like, yeah, okay. But like, are we,
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Thoughts on the JRE Debate
Come on, I think we're going to fight now. And you can show me if you're better than me at this. And then once it comes to that, it's like he has nothing. It's always so shocking. Like, they just have nothing. The same way I felt after the Dennis Pregnancy. He didn't have one, like, real argument.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
There wasn't anything that I said that it was like, oh, shit, he took that on and really knew better than me. They'd be like, okay, you know, the World Bank said that the embargo in 96, which wasn't as severe as the full blockade that's been around it since 2007, they said just for the one year of it, they said it caused a 40% retraction in the economy of Gaza.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
You know, the Great Depression was a 30% contraction. So we gave them a great depression one year. Now you've had this blockade on them since 2007. What do you think that's done to the economy? And his response is, oh, so you trust the World Bank now. Very convenient. Like, is that really taking on the argument? Okay, maybe their estimate isn't perfect or whatever.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
Right, exactly. I mean, it's just totally ridiculous. Like, just complete non-arguments. You'd only embrace these tactics if you had nothing. But I do think there's also... And I think part of the reason why, like, that part that... That clip.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
I could give my thoughts, my recap of it. And I know you watched it, so you could give me your thoughts on it as well. It was...
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
Actually, Suarez, you want to see you could if you want to bring that up, maybe we could play that clip, because I think this one was I saw was getting shared a lot. And I think it was one of the moments it's, you know, I kind of felt like, you know, in a weird way, it was a little bit similar to the Cuomo debate dynamic where.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
Like when I debated Chris Cuomo, I had like this huge it's, um, by the way, uh, um, Suarez, if you go to my Twitter, it's a chief nerd posted it.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
So it's, I retweeted it somewhere, but if you want to grab that, um, but, uh, you know, I had this huge advantage when I debated, uh, Chris Cuomo, because it's like the entire audience that we're talking to already decided they agree with me, not you on this.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
know what i mean like it's we're talking about the iraq war now it's everybody agrees this thing was a mistake there's no like you know it's just it's you as unanimous as an issue can get and even though somewhat ironically even though like donald trump was the president through 2020 and was the you know the buck stops with him he was the guy who made a lot of the terrible calls yet in our very interesting political climate
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
only five years later, Donald Trump's entire base is with Bobby Kennedy on the health stuff, not with, you know what I mean? Any of that shit, like everybody's rejected the COVID stuff as being bullshit. And so in the wake of that, the biggest, like the biggest thing that we've ever like collectively lived through.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
And there's this huge unanimous consent or damn near close that the unanimous agreement that, Okay, yeah, all the experts got this wrong. All of this was bullshit. And all the mantra of trust the science and only listen to the experts was all just bullshit so that they could propagandize us with lies. For him to even be attempting to make that argument,
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
i just have this entire i have this huge advantage just because like the entire rogan base is just like oh yeah but that's everything we just rejected you're making the exact argument that we all just saw was complete bullshit so i don't know i think it was just again it was kind of handed to me um okay yeah let's uh let's play the clip and then we could we could discuss a little i guess
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
I do also think that one of the bigger picture dynamics to all of this is that we have, at least since 9-11, been in a state of perpetual war. And all of these wars have been disasters. There have been so many lies involved in selling all of them. The whole Iraq war, the whole war in Afghanistan, just lying the whole way through.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
I mean, I remember literally having conversations with Green Berets in the middle of the war in Afghanistan. And they're like, George W. Bush is telling you that the army we're building up there is really successful. This thing's going to fall in a week without us. And then all through the Obama administration, it's just like lie after lie after lie with disastrous wars.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
And so this does create a fertile ground for people to say, I wonder if they were lying about all these wars. Sure.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
again i'm not really trying to argue about it hold on pause it for one second i'll go i'll be uh i i'm sorry i just gotta run and open a door i'll be right back anyway okay so uh sorry um where were we here okay so i was talking about how we um they they lied us into all these wars it's created fertile ground for for uh people to believe they're lying about other things
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
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Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
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Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
Yeah, you shouldn't really talk about it. And I'm not arguing that you shouldn't talk about it. That's not my point. My point isn't that you shouldn't talk about it, but you shouldn't talk about it, and probably there should be experts who talk about it, and that's not... Okay, anyway...
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
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Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
All right, let's get back into the show. Okay, let's keep playing.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
You're taking him out of context. Pause it for a second. Just to be clear here, what Douglas is arguing about... So it had started on Daryl Cooper, whose name Douglas says he doesn't know. He literally goes Darren Cooper, Daryl Cooper, and then something like that. And then Joe asked him at one point if he had ever consumed any of his work. He says, no, I don't need to.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
I don't know anything about him. He's talking about one line he said on Tucker Carlson's podcast. Then he's saying the problem with Daryl Cooper... is that he takes a guy in Winston Churchill and judges him off one thing and doesn't look at his full body of work. That's what he's arguing. Does anybody see a problem there?
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
$10 to the first person who can point out the logical contradiction in that argument. Anyway, it's just unreal. Let's keep playing.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
You know, I kind of I my assumption is I know it's sometimes it almost seems a little, you know, douchey to do these recap episodes. But I don't know. It's just I think this is probably going to end up being the biggest thing that I've ever done. I just have the feeling that this debate, I think me and Douglas debating would have been a big numbers show anywhere.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
For a second, like what a stupid point. Like if I if I let's say I read a book on tape, which is really kind of what Daryl does with these things. If I if I sit down like with the effort to script out like a book, that is a different thing than like what me and you are doing right now. And just count the hours that we've done this and then compare it to that.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
That's like a written presentation, an oral presentation for 30 hours. Do you know, like, do you not see the difference between a 30 hour oral presentation going deep in depth on a topic and all of the players and all of the histories and what started every war and how the people suffered and what both sides, you know what I'm saying? Like that book. Yes, it's a giant book.
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Thoughts on the JRE Debate
It's not having a conversation with people, which is a challenge as well, but it's a totally different thing. All right. Anyway, let's keep playing.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
Pause it. Pause it for a second. Exactly, Joe. But why doesn't he have a problem with Dan Carlin? Oh, because Dan Carlin isn't telling the truth about Israel. That's all it is. It's just, it's nothing but a tactic to get the guy who's arguing the point you don't like rather than fucking addressing any arguments. Let's keep playing.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
No, I'm a free American. I can talk about what I like to. You can talk about what you want.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
What am I pushing? Liberty, free markets, peace, prosperity, not getting in another stupid catastrophic war, which we're on the precipice of right now. That's what I'm pushing.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
Well, I think you weren't you just talking about it the other day. Everyone I hear on the inside says we're about to attack around. I think you just said something about that the other day. Am I wrong about that? I thought I saw in one of your interviews that you did. Possibly. No.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
But then you put that on Rogan and it's like, holy shit, this is going to be a big, you know, a big episode. And people love debates like that. So it was, you know, going into it. It was like, okay, this is going to be a big thing. I was very much looking forward to it. I'm a bit... I was fairly confident about how it would go. I'm happy with how it went. I think it's great.
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Thoughts on the JRE Debate
Yes, that's true. We haven't had a war on our shores. We've been picking on third world countries halfway around the world.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
Like, dude, it's just, this was the whole thing. It's every point. He's, it's just garbage. Like everything he's, it's just, I don't know. Do I even need to like point this out, Rob? It's just crazy. It's like the, uh, look, by the way, there's another, the contradictions are wild, but there's enough, how pedantic to stop over. We've been at war.
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Thoughts on the JRE Debate
And I go, you go, I go, yeah, no, I'm not suggesting the homeland's been attacked. I'm saying we've been picking on these third world countries. And he goes, you haven't been randomly. I didn't say it was random. Obviously. What, what is this? All right. Keep playing. Watch out for this next contribution.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
Yeah, but that's a total mischaracterization of the war in Afghanistan. It's one thing to say that might be an accurate characterization of the special operations mission in late 2001, but then we thought a 20-year regime change war against the Taliban.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
Pause it. Okay, fine. Pause it. He starts the thing by objecting to me saying we've been at war and ends it by saying, because you got sucked into the quicksand of war. Oh, so you just use the term you in the same way that I use the term we and then use the term war in the same way that I use the term war after that was your objection.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
He literally starts and then just completely contradicts it at the end. I didn't even I'll tell you, I didn't even notice that one live. It wasn't until I saw Chief Nerd posted this that I noticed that. But I was like, oh, you literally ended it by saying you got sucked into war. So what the fuck are we talking about here?
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Thoughts on the JRE Debate
I thought it wasn't a war. So I'm saying he says he's objecting to me saying we've been at war because it's like, no, that's not really we. But I was like, yeah, but that's the way people use the term we, you know, like referring to your government's actions. OK, fine. But then at the end, he goes, you've been at war. So it's like, oh, you also implied you like talking. You know what I'm saying?
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Thoughts on the JRE Debate
You're using you implied and I'm using we imply whatever. Let's keep playing.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
Douglas, if I went back and corrected you on every time you've used the term we to refer to your government or something like that, like if I were to say, oh, we just imposed tariffs on China, would you point out that I didn't and it was the Trump administration?
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Thoughts on the JRE Debate
What do you think I'm taking personally? Just that, the American wars. Sure, yeah. I think they've killed hundreds of thousands of people and cost my country $8 trillion and degraded my country very much.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
I've never claimed to be an expert on anything. Can you just pause again?
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Thoughts on the JRE Debate
Why don't you want to do it then? So what's the other side of it? Give it to me.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
present the argument that's just so wild it's so well it's just i i don't know why any again it's and and the reason look like i said like the comments have overwhelmingly just been like yeah and again as you can see here it's really not anything i'm doing i mean i'm there and i'm me and i'm arguing my points but it's just it's all the stuff he's doing that's just like this is too easy to see through this is garbage and i did notice it's like
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
I'm a bit shocked at how crazy it was. And in the way... I'll say this, right? This is an interesting...
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
i i got a lot of comments great point but why do i have to hear it from a peasant and why do i even have to address it i'll say this and this is kind of how you you measure these things in a way because there's always a certain percentage of people who have like their feet dug in who aren't going to move like i said before when you have guys with a big enough audience Thank you. Thank you.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
Me and Douglas both, whatever side you're on, one of the really interesting dynamics, I thought, of the debate that stuck out to me was that, and I think even if you're like a Douglas Murray fan and you think, oh, he smoked me or whatever, which most people seem to not think is the case, but some of his, you know, he's got a big fan base and I have a big fan base.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
And so in those debates, there's always some people who are just firm on one side. The interesting thing that we could all acknowledge is that me and him debating would have been way more vicious on both ends on any other platform
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
It was only because it was on Rogan that we're both... So the whole time, both of us want to be going more vicious than we are, but we're both kind of holding back, which just made for a strange and kind of funny dynamic to the debate. I know that what Rogan wanted was to have a civil exchange of ideas and not have it turn into a vicious food fight. And so I was not going to disrespect that.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
And I understand why on that platform it... it should be a little bit different than it is on pierce morgan or something like this this is for long-form conversations so i i go into it with that attitude and i also think that's kind of why i didn't you know there were areas i probably could have gone a little bit harder on him but i also look
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
Dude, that the fucking pandemic that the entire corporate media and the entire media class used to install totalitarian lockdowns was a fucking lie. That they had made the goddamn virus and then lied to cover it up and then instituted totalitarianism and then gave giant banker bailouts and corporate bailouts and then forced a bullshit jab on billions of people. I mean, like the fucking...
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
The current president of the United States of America, who is I think the most popular political figure in America today, was framed for treason by his own deep state. They tried to smear him as a traitor to his country. Then they tried to throw him in jail. And then coincidentally, nothing to do with that at all.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
but the sniper did get a clean shot at his head from 130 yards away and um you know whatever it's just that that has nothing to do with anything and sure he had been in a couple blackrock commercials and there's no data on any of his phones or whatever but yeah his place had been professionally swiped but whatever that i'm saying that part's unrelated completely but anyway is it and so in this environment where there is this just like you know also like there was a freaking pedophile ring that can't must be uh
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
There's a pedophile ring that involves all the most powerful cultural and political figures in the United States of America, and the details of it have to be redacted for national security purposes. You know, like, and then your response to that is to come in and just counter signal against anybody who's a conspiracy theorist.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
Anybody out there who might be a little sloppy the way they're putting dots together. Rather, you know what I'm saying? Like, there's just something about that that's like, and then not just that, but then to like try to shame other people for not also counter signaling them. Like, hey, motherfucker, it's totally reasonable for me to say, all right, you know what?
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
I don't agree with a lot of the conspiracy. As I say on my show, sometimes if a conspiracy comes up, I go, yeah, I think people are jumping to conclusions there. I don't think that's right. People know what I say. I say what my views are. But no, I don't have to spend all my time countersignaling when other people who hate the government. class, like get it wrong maybe, or go a little bit too far.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
Cause like I could just, it's totally reasonable for me to say, no, I'm going to focus on this criminal regime and my outrage for them. And then especially when like, you know, the policy again, the policy that Douglas is advocating is so much more evil than, than pushing like one of these conspiracy theories. And of course, that's why he doesn't want to actually defend that.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
I'll say this and then I'll shut up and let you talk for a little bit and you can tell me what you think. But I really I left there with the feeling I would say even a half hour in to the show. I just. I think the reaction that we're getting. You know, I've had a lot of debates where the reaction is overwhelmingly that I won the debate in this particular case. It's just that he lost it.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is MyPatriotSupply. You've heard me talk about them before because I trust them when it comes to my family's well-being. And I just got word they're doing something they've never done before. Right now, you can get the best-selling Mega 3-Month Emergency Food Kit Supply for the same price as the standard kit.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
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Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
Look, this is something that, for me personally, After the COVID insanity, I will always make sure I have a supply of food. I get it from my Patriot Supply. It's a great company. Go check out my website, preparewithsmith.com, and claim your mega kit while this offer lasts. That's preparewithsmith.com. All right, let's get back into the show. That's why he'd like to.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
And look, I will say, I think he, in a way, made an effort. And to the extent that he was successful, it's that we only really talked about the war for a pretty short period of time, considering how long the podcast was. But When we were talking about that, he didn't land one blow. He didn't take on one point. It was always just this stuff.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
And then the problem is just that his tactics were so transparent that it just seems like people saw through it. It's just, you know, it's just you can't. If you watch this at all with an open mind, you're going to be. And that's why, look, the reality is that I'm getting, like I said, I've been flooded with people saying like, you know, either like, I actually used to really like Douglas Murray.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
I lost a lot of respect for him on this. I came in neutral, but yeah, he just didn't put up a fight. I got a lot of people who are saying, I still disagree with you on the issue, but like, yeah, he really didn't argue, you know, he lost the debate on his bullshit arguments. Um,
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
And I'm sure I'm sure there are some people who are like have their feet planted are fans of his and think he won the debate. I saw a couple of people posting that. Yeah, he he exposed Dave when he showed that he's never been there or whatever. It's just too dumb. But. you're not going to see anybody who was like, oh, I was a huge Dave Smith fan, and then this debate changed my mind about that.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
So that's kind of how you measure these things. You try to move the people in the middle. I guess I was able to do a decent job of that. Again, like I said, I think he lost a lot more than I won. But I think that's all. Any other thoughts, Rob?
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
Nice. Awesome. Make sure you guys, if you're in the area where porch tour comes, go out and see one of the shows. This has become legendary at this point. People tell me, I hear all the time I'm on the road. Oh, I went to the porch tour. It was crazy. You brought me in the middle of the woods and did a ceremony of some sorts. And then it's not the best show of my life.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
Like, it wasn't even that I beat him in the debate. He started out with a 40-minute... struggle session for Joe Rogan that just contained probably the longest stretched logical fallacy I've ever seen anyone open a debate with. Just a naked appeal to authority, completely unclear with what he was saying. He literally he came in. So in this struggle session with Joe Rogan, I couldn't make this up.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
But I think there's also at the very least, if you if you arm and back a group, And they try to overthrow the government and it fails. And then years later, they try to throw the government and it succeeds. Even if we don't have the proof yet, which we might well get in the future, we'll say that there was direct American involvement in the second time.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
You still backed the group the first time, like it was still your intervention that ultimately led to this outcome. And of course, this is the game that they play a lot. But like the whole point It's like everybody who studies this shit knows, right? The whole game of CIA backed coups is always to like move the needle enough with as little a footprint as necessary, right?
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
So like maybe there's an uprising, but the government is stronger and could put it down. But like if you send some weapons in, that'll be the difference, right? between them taking over the government or not. And then you could sit back and go, oh, it was just a little bit of weapons that we sent in. And it's like, yeah, but the point of sending it in is to make the difference.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
I don't know if that's true or not, but I've certainly just seen the Israeli government lie about, oh, it was a it was a Haaretz piece where they spoke to a couple different IDF soldiers. So, you know, again, like you never know for sure with these things, but it seems like a pretty like.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
Yeah, it's you know, look, the argument obviously is ridiculous, but it's essentially he just tried to bring the Sam Harris argument there to scoff and say, no, we're above you. We're smarter than you. We're better than you will be the ones who decide. And it's just like, you know, look. This is obviously the the argument is elitist and I think wrong. It's also just been widely rejected.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
This is barely before I presented any thought or argument or opinion. I think I think it was before that he comes in with this long that is an appeal to authority, an appeal to expertise. You're having these non-experts talk about issues that experts should talk about.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
And it's a you know, to take that that ridiculous argument to like the Joe Rogan podcast audience just seemed so crazy to me.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
feeling such a good it's almost like you know we disagree on so much like if you take the broader like uh um say joe rogan's entire audience you're talking you know millions and millions and millions of people there are different points of view on a lot of different things you know there's a lot of different people who are democrats and republicans there are there are people who are liberals and conservatives there are people who actually have probably like wildly left-wing views and wildly right-wing views who listen to joe rogan's podcast but
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
like if there's one thing i feel like that there's just like consensus on is that we don't believe that you know we're not here because like oh only the expert class gets to talk about issues that's the whole like concept of the show is like people interesting people having interesting conversations so uh yeah anyway it was uh quite an exhausting uh trip um it's been a while i'm Uh, quite a run.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
Yeah. And a fun weekend in, uh, in Boston right before that too. So I got, I think I got a week off now. Um, but I'm going to enjoy it. So I'm going to go, uh, get some rest. Thank you guys very much for tuning in. And, uh, we will, we'll be back to normal schedule coming next week. Sorry about the schedule has been a little inconsistent with the podcast, but you know, I've been all over the place.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
So it's. There's only one May. All right. Thanks, guys. Catch you next time.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
And I'm not saying they should be censored and I'm not saying they shouldn't talk about it, but they're talking about it and they're acting like they're experts. How are they acting like they're experts? Because they're talking about it. And when they're talking, it was just the most ridiculous thing.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
argument the most pompous elitist but essentially telling the the host of the show and the entire audience your opinion doesn't matter like it was just a strategy to me that was like you want to make everyone think you're a pompous asshole it was wild in there sandwiched in this appeal to expertise he trashes Daryl Cooper and Ian Carroll whose names he doesn't even know and admits that he's never consumed any of their material before
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
Yet he's trashing them and then claiming that you can only talk about these issues if you have expertise. Then when he's asked, does he have expertise? He goes, well, in some things, do you talk about things you don't have expertise in? Yeah, all the time I talk about things I don't have expertise in. Okay, well, why can you do that? You're not even understanding my point.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
You know, it was just like the most wild thing. And it just became clear as the show went on that Douglas Murray came to do anything but debate me. Like that was the theme of the entire show. He was there to do every single thing except have an exchange of ideas with me. It was either, I'm going to go on this long appeal to authority, or I'm going to play ridiculous semantics games with you.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
Like when I say, we are at war, you'll say, we are we at war, and you're not at war. Your military is having an action, and you're not. And just contradicting himself constantly. The things... Instead of ever taking on my argument, he would think it was a big blow to be like, you haven't been there. You haven't been there. You don't have expertise. It's so bizarre because it's like,
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
And then I passed out and woke up, you know, blood coming out of my ass.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
This would be – look, I'm not saying I would agree with it, but at least it would make sense if Douglas Murray refused to debate me and then made a video about why he wouldn't debate me. And in the video he said because he doesn't have expertise and because he hasn't been there and because – okay. But once you agree to the debate, you can't just say I have expertise and you don't have expertise.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
You can't spend 40 minutes on that. It's like demonstrate it, motherfucker. If you've been there and that gives you some greater insight, then demonstrate that and win the argument and counter what I'm saying. He would never, I mean, the entire thing, it was straw man. He would argue against what other people are saying.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
You know, if I said, oh, the NED and the USAID poured $100 million into the Maidan protests in 2014, he'd go, you know, sometimes libertarians speak as if everything that happens in the world is done by America. And really, there are no other actors and nobody else has agency. And I'm like, what? No, all the people there have agency. Also, the U.S.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
poured $100 million into a street punch that overthrew a democratically elected government. Like what? No matter who I said, dude, his big like blows that he tried to land were, I'm not an expert, but I present myself as an expert. And then I said, I don't claim to be an expert. And he said, see, that's the problem. I haven't been there. I haven't been to Israel. So therefore, well, I don't know.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
Can't comment on it. And then at the end, I literally cited that the supreme commander of the NATO forces and the four-star general, Wesley Clark, said that the plans to overthrow seven different governments came from Paul Wolfowitz. And he said, I shouldn't say Paul Wolfowitz because that'll make people hate Jews or something like that. I can't mention the deputy defense secretary.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
What's up? What's up, everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. Kind of a special episode, a late night episode. Of course, I'm Dave Smith and he is Robbie the Fire Bernstein. How are you, sir?
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
Anyway, I don't know. You could tell me what you thought of it, but it was a, it was, I don't really think I particularly won the debate. I think he just showed up trying to do anything he could not to debate. It was transparent. People could see through it. It was smug and condescending. And that's why the reaction is what it is. That's kind of my thoughts.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
This might be the last one. Anyway, so I just got home today, spent the day with the family. It was very nice. I've been on a crazy stretch of just traveling nonstop. And of course, the last thing that I did was, well, I was out, you know, we were in Boston. Then I went down to Austin, did a solo episode with Rogan. Then I went and did the Nashville Comedy Festival, hung out with Kid Rock.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
It's all just like when you say, and I know, look, there are a few people out there I did see who are like the hard, you know, look, I mean, with all of these things, the hardcore Israel supporters are, some of them are just locked in and they're think somehow that was a really great point when he told me I haven't been to Israel or something, you know, like, but which is ridiculous.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
Dude, all of them, listen, all of it, it's objectively, they're non-arguments. They're just non-arguments. You get in a debate, in the spirit of a debate, you get zero points for that. You haven't been there. Okay, fine. So what's the point? Grapple with my argument. I'm sitting there the whole time like, let's debate this. He's like,
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
let's debate Daryl Cooper and Ian Carroll, two people I know nothing about, admittedly, don't even know their names, admittedly have never consumed their content. That's what he starts with. And oh, by the way, you have to be an expertise in the subject matter that you talk about, you know, while demonstrating none of it. But the idea, look, number one, um,
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
The appeal to authority obviously is a logical fallacy. On top of that, Joe has had many experts on many different subjects. Douglas' issue – his issue isn't the proportionality, like he said, or that Joe Rogan doesn't have enough experts on. I mean, listen, like he – He didn't complain. I brought up he was like, who have you had on who's on this side?
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
And I brought up Coleman Hughes and like some other Coleman Hughes is not an expert on the Israeli Palestinian conflict, but he doesn't seem to have a problem with what he said on the show. He's not he's going, oh, you've had more. You've had way more people who are critical of the war in Ukraine and critical of the war in Palestine than those who support it on. What does that mean?
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
Joe Rogan is an obligation to be a 50-50. What type of equity bullshit is this? Do you think Douglas Murray is upset that Joe Rogan had more pro-Trump people than pro-Kamala people on? Because he did. Is he upset about that? No, because he agrees with that. He agrees with it. So if he agrees with it, he wouldn't have a problem. He just wants more people spouting his shit on there.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
But it's just such a weird thing to start the show complaining about. But then also, look, there are Look, the fact is there are an unlimited number of experts, not an unlimited number, but a large, large number of experts on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Many of them are on the pro-Israel side. Many of them are critical of Israel.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
Like, it's not the case that you can—and many people who have been to Israel, you know—
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
agree with me many people have been there agree with with uh uh douglas it's just a non-point it's nothing you get zero points for that and then of course every time i would make i mean he was just evasive about everything so if i go like um if i were to say you know like um uh whatever the one point i said to him uh he was like the you know the war wasn't over uh ukraine entry into nato
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
Did he get a word in? Great guy. Great guy. He talked about tariffs? Dude, he couldn't have been cooler. Awesome guy. And no, we didn't talk tariffs. I was just trying to angle for, you know, you try, you don't, you talk to Kid Rock to get a meeting with Donald Trump.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
and um and i was like okay well you got to admit they said forever that that was their brightest red line and then there's all these people at the top level of our intelligence who said you know when they say this is the red line i think they really mean it i think we better not flirt with crossing this red line and then we kept flirting with crossing the red line and he'd be like oh so now you trust the head of the cia
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
As if like there's some contradiction, like, yeah, now I love the organization that is the CIA. I'm just saying even the CIA head himself admitted they all say this is the brightest of red lines. And I think they mean it. And I think this might lead to war. Like, you're not taking on the argument at all.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
And then he'd go, well, it wasn't about NATO expansion and say something else about how Putin wants to constitute the Soviet Union. And I'd say, OK, well, the head of NATO literally said that Vladimir Putin sent him a draft treaty saying just put into writing that you won't bring Ukraine into NATO and then I won't invade right before he invaded. And he'll go, the war was never about that.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
And then there's always this feeling that it's about the Americans and it's always about what we're doing. And it's not, it's like, you didn't counter the art, you know, like he's just not, he was there to do anything he could do except grapple with any of the arguments because, you know, on some level he knows the shit is indefensible. I mean, I don't know what to say. And so I think, uh,
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
In a weird way, I think I ended up just collecting kind of an easy win on that. I mean, I'm glad people are telling me I did a good job. I'm glad people feel that way. But it just seemed almost like, oh, he's just kind of hanging himself. I mean, think about it. He came in and picked a fight with the moderator and then essentially the entire audience. It was like, Jesus Christ.
Part Of The Problem
Thoughts on the JRE Debate
And I just think that... whatever, at least from what I've seen of the reaction.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2274 - Mike Baker
pictures of Gaza? Are you telling me there was Hamas, there were Hamas missiles in every single one of those buildings, that that's the entirety of the story, is that Israel just had to blow up this building? Which, by the way, still I don't think would be morally justified. But, like, come on, man.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2274 - Mike Baker
Look, like, it's just, again, even to Dean's point, I always find this fascinating because somehow Americans could say this about the people in Hamas and go, like, you know, like you said, yeah, I wouldn't like to be kicked out of my neighborhood, but if my government had done October 7th, I'd accept it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2274 - Mike Baker
Your government, Dean, destroyed Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, the drone bombing campaign in Pakistan. So can you get kicked out of your house now? Is it not ethnic cleansing if we were to kick you out of your neighborhood? This is so ridiculous that we impose these standards on these poor people. that we would never dream of holding ourselves to that standard.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2274 - Mike Baker
It's just it logically makes absolutely no sense. And it doesn't really matter what Hamas's approval rating is in the same way that it doesn't matter that George W. Bush had record high approval ratings. That doesn't mean that the innocent civilians of the United States of America are fair game. And neither should any other group of civilians. Perfectly said.
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
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The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
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The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
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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
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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
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The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
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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
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The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
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The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
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The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
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The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
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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
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The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
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The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
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The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
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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
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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
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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
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The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
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#2261 - Warren Smith
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The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
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The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
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The Joe Rogan Experience
#2261 - Warren Smith
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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.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
I thought she was supposed to be the one who was gonna stand up in that signal group and say something and not just leave it to JD. And I think Donald Trump's messing up in a lot of ways. But I really, at least at this point, like if he invades Iran and we have another war there, then I will apologize for voting for him. I think I made a mistake and I shouldn't have done that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
But short of that, I do think it was the right thing to do. And part of it was like that that had to be exposed because this Kamala Harris ticket, it was the most astroturfed ticket ever. You know, like it's one thing. Look, Obama had a lot of institutional support. It wasn't as organic as they made it out to be, you know, like. But there was a lot of But he had real support.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Like he did have real grassroots support. She was just she never won. She didn't win a primary. She didn't win a delegate when she ran for president. She didn't even make it to Iowa. It was all fake. It was all phony. And it was like that had to be exposed.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And the frontrunner, not just the number one opponent, the one who's winning. Yeah. Winning. Yeah. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And the and look, even, you know, you could say whatever that Joe Biden just feared that Donald Trump would abuse the Justice Department, which is, you know, a little ironic to accuse him of the thing you're actually guilty of doing. But to go out and to pardon your family and forget the family even because that's a little less relevant, but to pardon Fauci and go back to 2014.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
yeah why'd you pick that year yeah you know joe i mean obviously joe biden didn't pick anything but what who's the person who picked that we got to go back and give this guy blanket immunity going all the way back like come on dude what the it's crazy that's i mean it's too much it's crazy and who who really signed that that's the other thing the thing about using auto pen for writing all those pardons
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, they were able to take it further. Yeah. And then we'll see if there is the backlash the same way there was when they tried to do that to Trump. And it's just so it's like the the. There's some propaganda that's almost too... It can't be successful propaganda.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Well, when you're the level of senile that Joe Biden was... it leads to the question, how easy was it for everybody to manipulate you? Because you could just tell him he did or didn't do something and he may not, we don't know. There was this one thing, one of the things on October 7th, and I try almost to avoid this topic sometimes because I don't want it to come off
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
I'm downplaying the horrors of October 7th. Hamas invaded Israel. They did some really fucked up shit. They indiscriminately killed a bunch of civilians and they had grenades and rifles. It was horrible. They took a bunch of hostages. Everyone else. However, there were some claims that were made that turned out not to be true.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
The 40 beheaded babies and some of the claims of mass rapes and stuff like that just turned out not to be true. They were set in the fog of this thing. Whatever.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
I'll give the benefit of the doubt of like, you know, maybe it was, you know, I think they were kind of abused by some politicians in order to get you to turn your brain off and be very emotional and not pay attention to what this response is going to be. But Joe Biden claimed that he had seen the videos. of the beheaded babies. And then it turned out to just like, that never happened.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And then you're almost wondering, you're like, was he lying? Does he not remember? Did someone just tell him that you've seen that? Because he's a senile man, you know? He's also a liar. Like his whole life he's been a liar. Well, that's right. So it's like impossible to know because he's also been a liar his whole life.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
He's also the guy who's like, I was first in my class, graduated with multiple degrees and blah, blah, blah. And you're like, none of this is even kind of true. None of it's even kind of true.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Well, look, on its own, of course not, but on its own... And there were things that come above that to me, like COVID and the war in Ukraine and a whole bunch of other shit. But that alone is like Kamala Harris and the corporate media and the Democrats, they had to lose. You can't do that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
You can't emperor's new clothes the entire American public and like fucking just lie through your teeth pretending this guy's not a vegetable.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Oh, part of the problem is my podcast where I talk about all this political news stuff. And then Legion of Skanks is where I'm a degenerate with my comedian friends. Check both of those out. Skank Fest is in New Orleans this year. If anyone wants to go, that's going to be a lot of fun. I believe it's September. of this year.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Saying Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction and is in bed with terrorists, that's good propaganda right there. Right after 9-11, you could totally convince the average American that, okay, well, we can't let that stand. In a post-9-11 world, we can't allow some Arab dictator to have nuclear weapons and he's friends with the terrorists and he's in on 9-11. Okay, we got... But to say...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And then, you know, comicdavesmith.com if you want to come see me on the road. Beautiful. All right. Bye, everybody.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
The propaganda is democracy is on the ballot while you're trying to arrest your opponent because he's winning in the polls. It's too ridiculous. It's too on its face. It's not only that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And nobody's ever been tried on this chart. This is a novel, like a charge where it would be a misdemeanor, but you've ramped it up to a felony. And there's no victim. And there's no victim involved. The banks themselves are telling you, we were happy to do business with Donald Trump.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Yeah. I mean, it was so obvious that they were just weaponizing the legal system to go after them.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
You thought you had some uncomfortable summers here. You do a lot of golfing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
A lot of golfing. I like some parts of Florida. Florida's fun. Well, I don't think Trump's selling, and I don't think you're getting it for $18 million. I'd like to live around alligators again.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
It wasn't exactly that, but it was like basically went through the real conspiracy of 2020. And they're writing it from the pro-conspiracy point of view. But they're – Forget anything about like ballots or any of that stuff, which I don't, you know, even when you interviewed Trump, he didn't really have a good answer for that. You know, it's like it was stolen.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Yeah, don't leave your kids unattended, but yeah, sure. No, no, no, no, no. Give your kids a gun. So let me tell you, because I forgot what I was saying. So, okay, so Piers Morgan hosts a debate between Scott Horton and Wesley Clark. Oh, interesting. And so in this debate, one of the most interesting things, Wesley Clark just very casually said this. It's like breaking news.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
But he said, so everybody, I assume we played it like a bunch of times on the show before, but Wesley Clark's four-star general, he was the head of NATO, and he told Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! that he saw in late 2001 what has become known as the seven wars in five years.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
that the plan from the neocons in the government was that we were going to overthrow all these governments in the region in the next five years. Now, this plan obviously didn't end up happening in five years, but it's literally he names seven countries and there's one to go. And that one, by the way, happens to be the one that Donald Trump is flirting with a war with right now, Iran.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Did you see that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, there's, I mean, it's... We're very clearly moving toward this war, yet another catastrophic war. But so Wesley Clark gets asked about this in the debate and he goes, oh, it actually goes back much further than that. He goes, I first saw the plans in 1991 and it came from Paul Wolfowitz.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
OK, so he goes, Paul Wolfowitz had these plans in 1991 and he took them to Brent Scowcroft, who was George H.W. Bush's national security advisor. So he takes them to them. And according to Wesley Clark, again, my source on this is a four star general. He says that Scowcroft went, well, look at this after the election. Ninety two is the election year. They lose.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Bill Clinton comes in and he goes and the plan kind of got killed. And then he said it was revived later in a study paid for by the Israelis. And that this was done, that Richard Perle was really the one who brought it back to life. And that it was explicitly done because this is what they thought was necessary to protect Israel.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And like, as I've mentioned to you before, now, I don't know exactly what study he's referring to, but that's what he said. But I do know, as I've mentioned before in this, that anybody can go read The Clean Break. You could Google it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And you're like, well, how do you know it was stolen? It was like it was stolen, you know, the information. Yeah. But the but what we do know, like the real conspiracy in broad daylight that they just totally like tanked the economy overhaul. Yeah, that's it. The secret history of the shadow campaign that saved the 2020 election. Saved.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
It's a clean break, a new strategy for securing the realm, which was a letter written by the guy he mentioned, Richard Pearl and David Worms are to Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996 was his first year when he came in as prime minister. And the whole thing is basically the clean break is a break from the peace process, a break from Oslo.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Good to see you again, sir. Good to see you too, man. Good to see you again. These times of trouble and chaos.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Because essentially Bill Clinton had gotten Yitzhak Rabin and Arafat to agree to like start this two-state solution process that should be loosely based around 67 borders. You got to finally give these Palestinians a state. You've been occupying them since 1967. You got to finally take your boot off their neck. And the clean break strategy was to go, listen, we got to get away from this.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
whole idea of a Palestinian state and giving them land. And basically the thinking, the Yitzhak Rabin old school thinking on this, loosely speaking, it's a little more complicated, but basically they were like, look, we've been occupying the Palestinians for decades and decades now. The broader Arab world hates us over our treatment of the Palestinians.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And so what you got to do is you have to make peace with the Palestinians so that you can get along with all these Arab states around you. That was kind of the thinking. And the clean break strategy was like, no, no, no, no. We're going to reverse that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Instead of making peace with the Palestinians so that we get along with the Arab states surrounding us, what we're going to do is we're going to overthrow all of those states. So we never have to make peace with the Palestinians. So we never have to have a two-state solution. What we'll just do is we'll go overthrow all of these governments.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Of course, Israel can't go overthrow all of these governments, but the U.S. can. And so after – they had these plans in – according to Wesley Clark in 91. We know about the clean break memo in 96. But after 9-11, that's when – by a terrible twist of fate and all this shit, the neocons are in power.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
They're in George W. Bush's, but there is no Brent Scowcroft, there is no H.W., there's nobody with a little bit of wisdom at the top. It's Dick Cheney at the top, and then his sidekick, George W. Bush. And they go, so now we're gonna move to get this. Do you remember when Dick Cheney was in the bunker and W. wasn't?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And look, man, and then just, and you could see now where there's like so much, There's such a rise in people being so fed up with this stuff. But the idea that we're now... I mean, look, just even with this whole Signalgate shit that just happened. And it's like the real scandal there isn't even... I mean, I do think that Mike Waltz should be fired over this.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
I mean, it's a crazy screw up and it's totally embarrassing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And they go deep into like admitting so much about like the censorship on social media, the support of the riots and the protests. And what's amazing about it. is it really is incredible their ability to turn on and turn off the protest machine. Well, it's just money.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
They would claim it's not classified, but it was information about an imminent attack that's about to take place. Seems like that would have to be. How is that not classified?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Like, what's going on? And also, like... How do you accidentally include someone? And the chat is... I mean, this is... You can't overstate it. Short of the President of the United States, it's the most senior positions. How do you not have someone going over the list before you go live? It's unbelievable. But I will say that, like... That, and perhaps there's another element.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
I mean, I don't know, you know, I don't exactly know. I know in Trump's first term, the efforts from his own government to sabotage him were profound. They were recording him. Yeah, I mean, they were framing him for being a Russian spy, his own intelligence agencies.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And so when you have a conversation like this, get leaked to the most anti-Trump, you know, propagandist at the Atlantic, it does raise some questions.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
It was done intentionally, was it not? Whoopsies. Yeah, and I don't know if you saw, but Waltz was, he did Laura Ingraham's show a couple days after it came out, and I mean, his answers were just ridiculous.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
It was like, She was like, so was this a staffer who messed up? And he goes, no, no, no, you know, I take full responsibility. But it was, you know, I'm sure a lot of people have a contact with the wrong number saved in the contact or something like that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And he was claiming the idea of, which I'm sure has happened to all of us before, where maybe you're taking down someone's number and you enter it wrong. But you wouldn't happen to hit the Atlantic journalist guy's number.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Well, he claims he's never been in contact with him. He's never met him. never had a conversation so how did he include him in the chat by the way then they found pictures of him together at like different events so he's already lying yeah he's already lying it's not but I will say like that it's like with a lot of these things it you know there was like which I've
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
We've talked about before on the show, but there's the leaked Victoria Nuland phone call where she's deciding who the new government in Ukraine will be. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
OK. And then at one point, she's furious at the European Union for not like moving in faster. And she goes at one point, she goes, you know, fuck the European Union. We'll just do it ourselves. We should play that recording. Sure. Because it's so crazy. But people should hear it. But the point is that the... the scandal became that she said, fuck the EU.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And you're like, no, no, no, dude, that's not the scandal here. They're like, isn't this undiplomatic of her saying, fuck the European Union? That's the least of what's interesting about this.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Well, it's like they lost. They were trying to play that like Donald Trump's like down here. And then that didn't work. So they were like, I guess we'll just try to be like him too now.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
They're they're adopting podcast language is what it is Yes But it's um I don't think it's gonna be successful for them because what they're not adopting is the authenticity of it And it comes off as kind of like because oh now you're doing this like after all these years
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
years of pretending you were all formal and everything was about decorum and how Donald Trump wasn't, he wasn't presidential enough. And now you're like, oh, so you never really believed any of that shit. It's like, it's like them trying to turn on the woke stuff. It's like, it just doesn't, it's too long.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Yes, it's like Chris Cuomo. It's Elizabeth Warren drinking the beer, but not doing it right, putting her whole mouth over a bottle of beer.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Yes, but people can read that, man. They can tell the difference.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Oh, but so. So anyway, just on the signal thing, though, again, like the real scandal here is not that they whatever, either intentionally or were just so incompetent that they they added this journalist to it and it got leaked. Like the real scandal is like when you look through the chat and that it's like, what are we because what are we doing here?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
We're bombing another country in the Middle East. We're bombing the poorest country in the Middle East. Yeah. By the way, which has been bombed forever. Oh, my God. On behalf of Israel, because they're standing up against this fucking brutal war in Gaza right now. And so we're going to bomb these guys again.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And then you have like I got to say, man, like I was disgusted by Tulsi Gabbard's response. There's someone who I've said a lot of nice things about over the years and who I really supported as being the DNI. But like this. Literally only J.D. Vance is the only one who offers the mildest pushback and goes like, hey, guys, this is kind of a mistake.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
I heard you get $1,000 to go protest for Tesla. Can I sneak in both of those? Can we do one? Yeah, $1,400 in a day, dude. Nice.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And it's kind of everything against what Donald Trump ran on. And by the way, like it's like such an insignificant amount of our trade that even goes through this area. It's really Europe's problem, not ours. And but I'll go along with it if you guys want to, if you guys say. And then they literally say on the thing they go, we've. We've tracked the missile guy, as they call him.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
This is the target they're trying to take out. They go, we've tracked him to his girlfriend's apartment building. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Yeah, I was I mean I was thrilled when I was 25 to make like 75 bucks at the comic strip or something like that So yeah, but also it's a you know It's like and this that's kind of like the whole CIA deep state game is it's always moving around the margins You know like if you if there's um, because like when I you know on the show I've talked about a bunch like that made on revolution in Ukraine.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And when I'd say this was a US-backed coup against a democratically elected president, the response I'd get from people who disagreed with it would always be like, oh, you're denying the agency of the Ukrainian people? Because look at these pictures. There's all these Ukrainian people in the streets. And you're like, well, yeah. but the US poured $100 million into that street protest.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So back in 2009, first of all, it was secret. The drone program wasn't, everyone knew it. There had been good reporting on it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
You think that made a difference a little bit? And so it's not that there weren't real people there, but man, you wanna keep a protest going through the Ukrainian winter, And then all of a sudden you get a hundred million dollars and now you got heat lamps and celebrities and concerts.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And then you keep the whole thing going until the democratically elected president has to flee for his fucking life. And then what are you supposed to look at that? Oh, that was just an organic revolution. No, it fucking wasn't. You know, this is D.C. overthrowing Putin's neighbor. And, you know, they don't. Like that detail because then it fucks up the whole unprovoked.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And that's the calmest they've been in years. This is actually, for them, probably the best.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
But the way they got the good reporting was like people found the drones in Yemen, you know, and they'd take like little, you know, grainy cell phone pictures and be like, look, this is a US drone. So there's clearly, but actually the Obama's press secretary, it's not, God damn it, not I'm blanking on his name. But he admitted this on NBC News.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
It was like a really amazing, but he was talking about how the drone program, this is years later, like 2012. He's at NBC News now. And he was talking about how when he used to get questions about the drone program, he wasn't allowed to even acknowledge that it was real. So he would just sit there. Yeah, Robert Gibbs. I apologize. I should have remembered that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
So now think about, okay, by the way, there is video of this. It wasn't, you know, I don't know if it's in this article or not, but I mean, that was essentially the point. But the thing in the video, it's so funny. It's like, they all are laughing about it. Like they're talking about like what kind of, what a funny thing it is.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Like imagine being in the position where you can't admit that a real thing's real and journalists are asking you questions. And he said, cause it is kind of funny in a weird way, but that's like, you'd think a newsman would, that wouldn't be the number one thing. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. This is it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
That's really that's the major problem with murdering people in the poorest country in the Middle East. You know, it might undermine people's trust in you and therefore your ability to murder more people in the poorest country in the Middle East. So just like by the way.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Whenever you see anyone over the last, like, say, eight years on MSNBC or CNN talking about a threat to democracy and the free press and all this, shut the fuck up. You hired that guy, the guy who's sitting there telling you. Like, when it comes to the issue, forget whether you're for the war or against the war. It's a secret war. Forget democracy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
The people aren't even allowed to have an opinion on this.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And why not? I mean, it's not as if they were like, well, if Al-Qaeda knows that we're coming for them, then something is compromised. It's just like, oh, yeah, Obama ran as the peace candidate. He collected a Nobel Peace Prize before he had done anything.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And he didn't particularly want to tell people that he had just started this new campaign of just murdering whoever he wanted to for whatever reason he wanted to. And, you know, one of the things that's interesting about the technology of it, and I remember people much smarter than me predicting this at the time, I guess I never really appreciated like exactly... The timetable of all of it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
But it went in 2009, which he's talking about 2009, a few years later there. It went from like, oh, the U.S. has this new technology where we can use drones in war to all of a sudden now in 2025, you're sitting around and everybody, like this is just part of war now. You know, literally even the Houthis, I mean, they don't have the capabilities we have, but they have drone bombs.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And that's part of how they were able to get the Saudis to finally back out is like they could hit some of their oil fields with their drone bombs. And it was enough of a pain in the ass for the Saudis to be like, all right, like call it quits. And so they ended that war in 21. But now these Houthis have been in charge of Yemen the whole time since, you know, in the same way that it was like,
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
We fought this whole war to get the Taliban out of Afghanistan. We just lost. They just still run the whole place. And so these guys are still there. They have gone through what was the worst humanitarian crisis in the world from 2015 to 2021. They survived all of that and they're still there and now they see the same goddamn thing happening in Gaza Then they're the one again.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
I'm not like this is their stated thing I'm not saying like they're all great people or something, but they're going like no fuck that We're standing up for the people in Gaza and so they were like as long as all of you guys are supporting Israel just slaughtering all these people
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And by the way, I love, I know your podcast with Mike Benz was phenomenal. That dude's great. He's phenomenal. I've done a few of them now. Yeah, he's great. But I'll tell you, I knew all that. He's right about all that USAID stuff. And I'll tell you, that was the whole thing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
then we're going to start trying to shut down these shipping lines, which they don't really have the capacity to do, but they can hit some cargo ships and hit some military ships.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Well... It looks really bad at the moment right now, you know, and like what I always like to say, which I, you know, is like 50 percent just me telling myself something to feel better about the situation. But then 50 percent like it is kind of, you know, like you look, you could go around the world right now and like England is right next to is right next to Ireland.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And everybody's just cool there right now. And that would have seemed like impossible, you know? And like France and Germany and, you know what I mean? Like there are all these countries where like there was a time where it just seemed impossible. And you know, that was Egypt and Israel.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
So Egypt and Israel went to war four times in the first 20 something years of the existence of the state of Israel. They just kept going to war and war and war against each other. And then in the late 70s, they made a deal. And it was like a land for peace deal.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Yeah. So Israel took control of what are known as the occupied territories. They took control of Gaza and the West Bank in 1967. It's one thing, I'm not saying it's ever justified, but it's one thing to occupy an area for a few months after a war as you're going through the process of turning it over to themselves, or maybe even a few years.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
But we're going into 60 years of complete Israeli control over these people. And under Israeli control, they have zero rights. Zero rights whatsoever. I mean, like, they don't have the freedom of movement. They don't have freedom to trade with the outside world. They don't have voting rights. They don't have the right of due process.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
They get if literally to this day, like in the West Bank, where there's like all these big Israeli settlements because the Israelis are just constantly slowly stealing more of the Palestinians land. They if like an Israeli settler in the West Bank, in the same jurisdiction, gets in a dispute with a Palestinian there. The Israeli citizen... He's a citizen of Israel. He has rights.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
He goes to a trial. The fucking... The Palestinian goes in front of a military trial if he's lucky enough to get that. They have something like a 99% conviction rate. You're just totally fucked. Like, and this... And then, look, a lot of people will point to, like... Look, there's been terrorism on the Arab side toward the Israelis going back many years. But I think you're essentially right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
It's Scott Horton's book, Provoked, which is like the best book that's been written on the history of the buildup to the war in Ukraine. And it's all in there, dude, if you want. It's all footnoted. But it's like, yeah, they're the ones pumping all this money in. And then they make it out. Like when you try to cut it, they're like...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
You can't expect a group of people to just be subjugated for eternity and nobody's going to try to violently fight back. And of course, when they nonviolently try to fight back, that gets squashed too. That gets met with violence.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
I really just I say, listen, I know like the last time I was on was on election night. And I look, I supported Donald Trump in this last election. I think Donald Trump was like a necessary force. Donald Trump is a once in a century type of figure. Yeah. I mean, there was just nobody was positioned to do the things that Donald Trump did.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And there were like enormous positives that came out of him winning this election. Donald Trump.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
landed a devastating blow on the Republican establishment in 2016 when he won the primary and he landed a devastating blow against the Democratic establishment by winning the presidency this year and He like destroyed the corporate media like in a way that nobody else could have done and all of those things are like Incredible achievements, you know
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
But there is this kind of tragedy with Donald Trump too, where it's like, he's the one guy who was able to do all of this. And I will say, there were hopes that it was like, hey, he may be, this time around, oh man, he's got Bobby Kennedy there, he's got Tulsi Gabbard there, he's got like all, okay, this is like a whole different thing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Yes, right, he's here to end the wars. Also, he had been burned by the system now. It's not just that they called him a Russian traitor or whatever, it's like they tried to throw him in jail.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
tried to murder him okay this is maybe oh yeah no no i'm sorry that was totally totally he had five phones a lot of times as we all know professionally script department yes that happens all the time joe many times presidential candidates the front runner to be president once again former presidents a sniper gets a clean shot 130 yards away from them that's a very common thing a guy who was in a black rock commercial just a couple years and that's and a lot of those guys were in black lock
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
rock commercials once, Joe. These are normal things that happen to normal people. It's part of everyday politics. But so a lot of this made people think like, oh, maybe, but I will say already into Trump's presidency, it's just a lot, it's like, ah, shit. Shit.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Now, I guess I got to be happy with the things that he did, but the idea that he's really figured this out or he's really on to something or he's learned a lot. The guy is out there. He's saying we should primary Thomas Massey and throwing his support behind Lindsey Graham. I mean, come on. What is Thomas Massey doing that's pissing him off? No, he didn't vote for the freaking spending bill.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
We were just helping some kids get on a school bus over here and overthrowing the democratically elected government in Ukraine. We did all of that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
He voted against the CR because it increased spending and was increasing the debt, and it was refunding all of the programs that Doge had recommended be cut. So he was like, no, I'm not voting for this. And Trump was like, well, I'm going to need you to vote for it. And he was like, no. And that's it. That's his crime.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
The same reason Trump hated him in 2020, because he wouldn't vote for the $2 trillion COVID spending bill. Because he was like, what, you're telling me because the country's locked down, that means we have to bail out every giant corporation around the country? Like, no, I'm not supporting this. And then Trump sent all his people to go, you know, he's betraying America first or whatever.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And once Trump gets in it, he just wants, like, you know, the next win. But... The real problem here is like – look, the idea that we are going to go and ethnically cleanse – like finish the job of ethnically cleansing the Palestinians out of Gaza on behalf of Israel. It's like what – first of all, what do you think the reaction to that is going to be?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
What do you think that's going to do to our country here? It's like I feel – It's like I see a lot of people who get very upset about what they they call the rise of anti-Semitism, which certainly, you know, according to my Twitter feed is is real. There's a lot of people.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
I don't know. Maybe both. You know, I have a tough time kind of figuring out exactly what it is. It's also there's a troll aspect to it. You know, there's when you make one thing, the thing that you're not allowed to say and the thing that's going to get a rise out of everybody. This has been true and it's been building for many years. Kind of the alt-right thing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Back in the day was kind of the first version of this, but where you could be some guy just on your computer. You could be a 15-year-old on your phone or whatever, and you could get the New York Times senior editor to be like, oh, look at this outrage. And just the ability to provoke that reaction out of somebody is – that's fun. Shit-posting. Yes, that's – and for –
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
You're handing this person who has no power, like some real kind of power. I also think that young, for young men today, particularly like young, straight, white men, I think it's kind of hard, like for me and you, to even understand the world they grew up in. It's very different than the world we grew up, like they grew up in this woke era.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And okay, now it's kind of like that's receded and wokeism has been defeated, but they grew up in a time where was accepted by every powerful institution, just against them. It was totally fine to demonize straight white men at your high school, at your college, in your movies, in your TV shows, your politicians, celebrities, everybody.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And that does, it unlocks a certain thing that we kind of all had a gentleman's agreement to not unlock. Like, we're just not really going to do that. You know, we don't want to be like racialists. And so that's I think that's a component to it, too. But there's also no question that it's, you know, it's exploded since Israel's launched this war on Gaza.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Yeah. Well, and so they can have plausible deniability too. Because like, what are you talking about?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Yeah. And there was that divide goes back like there were leftist divides over the Israel-Palestine question going back really to like 1967, where most of the kind of like the black power movement.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Movement people like the Black Panthers, the Nation of Islam, those guys, they all sided with the Palestinians because they all saw it as like an extension of like, yeah, that's the whole, you know, we're against this kind of like racist colonizing, you know, like force. And then, of course, there were a lot of influential Jewish people on the left who were like, no, not in this case.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Not us. Yeah, exactly. It's like in the name. They might as well call it, they're like, we're not the CIA. The good guys. We're just George Soros' NGO, not the CIA at all. Totally removed. But also, the thing is that, you know, when you look at like the actual money, because sometimes they'll kind of point out that They're like, oh, this is a very small percentage of the budget.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
We're OK with it. But you guys sure are right about all that civil rights stuff, but like let's not look at it. Let's not look over there But so a lot of that is kind of reemerged now I do also, you know, I don't know like I've talked to I talked to one kid who was like a grad student in at Columbia which was really like the center of so many of these protests and he's Jewish and I was like
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
I was like, so what's it like? And he was like, yeah, they're annoying. And they're Latin. Like some of their chants are like real kind of weird. I don't really know what they mean by it. And I was like, well, do you ever feel like threatened? And he's like, no, no, it's not. Like, it's fine. They'll just chant as you walk by.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And then I do know also that they had at least one time they had like a Seder service or Because they got like Jewish people in those protest movements too. And so they – over last Passover, it was a year ago, they had like a Seder service with the Jews like in there too.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
So I also don't – I don't know like what percentage of them are like just against the war and seeing pictures of dead babies and stuff like that. What percentage of them are actually like harbor resentment toward Jewish people. Like it's kind of hard to measure. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
But I would just say that like it almost in a very similar way to like what I was talking about with the drone war against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. It just made him stronger. You know, it's like, hey, if you want to see less Al Qaeda, maybe stop having the American military attack. kill innocent civilians in their land, because that seems to be fueling them.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And at the same time, for the people who are so concerned about the rise of anti-Semitism, you're like, OK, well, it has exploded since Israel's been doing this to Gaza. Right. So like maybe the U.S. shouldn't be funding and arming the whole goddamn conflict, because that does seem to like at least give those people a giant talking point to latch on to.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Maybe we shouldn't have a system where like our political class is not allowed to criticize a foreign government. And a foreign government that's gotten us into like seven wars. At least played a large role in getting us into those wars explicitly. I'm not like alleging some secret conspiracy. I'm saying like Benjamin Netanyahu is John McCain. He's been telling us Iran has a nuke.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
He's been telling us they're five years away from a nuke since I was seven. Literally, he's been saying Iran is five years away from a nuke the entire time. And he came over here. He testified before Congress in 2002 that we, as a regional expert, that if we were to overthrow Saddam Hussein, democracy would sweep the region and there'd be all these positive reverberations.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And then he goes, and you also got to overthrow the regime in Iran. And you also got to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi. And like every single one of these things, not Iran yet, still pushing for that. But we went and overthrew Saddam Hussein. We went and overthrew Muammar Gaddafi. And I don't know what swept the region, but it wasn't democracy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Yeah. I remember learning it too, right around the same time. I was like, wait a minute.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
I mean, I know that they're different sects of Islam, but in terms of the religion itself.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And it's like, yeah. It's a tiny amount of money. Well, right. It's a small percentage of our budget. But our budget, I mean, the entire GDP of Russia is like $2 trillion. The entire economy. And I don't know what Ukraine is, but smaller than that. And we spend like between six and seven trillion dollars a year, just our government.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Yeah, I think it's something like that. It's always the people with the most minor interpretations of their holy book differences who go to war the most aggressively. Right. You know what I mean? Like the Catholics and the Protestants.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Especially when you could like read about Jesus and you'd be like, this doesn't seem to be what he's saying at all, man. Who's at the helm of this fucking battleship?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
It's unbelievable to me that any, and I'm not claiming to be any type of religious expert and I'm not a Christian, but it is unbelievable to me that anybody could be a Christian and could then like somehow do the mental gymnastics and rationalization to be like, and that's why you got to support every war. That's why we got to fight every single one of these wars.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Because, you know, just like that guy Jesus told us, slaughter women and babies. Seems like the opposite of his message from my humble understanding of it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Yeah. I mean, that's the argument. Right. Like we have to go to war with Iran, a country that doesn't have nuclear weapons or an air force capable of delivering them here.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Well, it's also like, you know, there's evil shit going on all over the world. Oh, yeah. And it's terrible that there is. But isn't it interesting how like the next war, you know, like I was in, I did a debate at Princeton University a few months back against Josh Hammer, who's an editor at Newsweek. And we did like an Oxford style debate on whether the U.S. should support Israel again.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And one of the things he said to me, so I was talking about like all this stuff, like the clean break strategy in the seven countries in five years. And he was like, oh, the war in Libya, that was a totally separate thing. Like that was that was like a liberal interventionist war. And I was like, well, it sure is a coincidence that it was one of the seven countries. You know what I mean?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Like, what a wild coincidence. Kind of crazy. The government we decided to overthrow was the exact government that four-star General Wesley Clark told me we were planning on overthrowing way before any of these claims about how Gaddafi, all these bullshit claims.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
I think it was one of the richest countries in Africa, which is, you know, grading on a curve.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Is doing better than it was. But also, and the other part of this is that this was a huge contributing factor to the migrant crisis in Europe. You know, like all these things do have like these domino effects. So then Gaddafi also was kind of like not allowing that to happen. And then you had these huge numbers of refugees pouring into Europe.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
So when you're talking about flooding in one hundred million dollars, flooding in a few billion, I think like it's like five or six billion dollars since 91 we put into Ukraine. That may not sound like that much money in the context of America, the biggest economy or the second biggest economy in the world. Politically, in a small country like Ukraine, that moves mountains.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And it's the most, I mean, look, it's not like as much chaos as say like the Black Lives Matter protest in 2020 or something, but the one about the test, it's like you're destroying electric cars. Which are mostly owned by liberals. Yeah, but I thought you've been telling me for so long that this is gonna save the world.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
I think it was 60 Minutes did a piece where they had like three lawyers arrested. they were sitting there and kind of like asking them like, so would this post be okay? Would this be okay? Could I say something? And they're like, well, posting it is actually much worse than just saying it. And I mean, like, it is really creepy. It's really creepy. But you're so right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
You're so spot on about this kind of like this one-two punch of destabilization and then government coming in with the solution. It's Harry Brown, he's deceased now, but he's a brilliant guy. He ran for president on the Libertarian Party in 96 and 2000, but he used to say the government breaks your leg and then offers you a crutch. And then they convince you to be thankful for the crutch.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And you're like, man, if this government wasn't here, I wouldn't have a crutch. I'd be walking around on broken legs. But you see it where, look, even if you just watch, I remember during 2020, when the George Floyd thing first happened, And forget whatever the autopsy, there was the one autopsy that said it was fentanyl that killed him.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Leaving all of that aside, just when the video of Derek Chauvin kneeling on this guy's neck, who's on the ground and crying in pain, and he's kind of smiling, and then the guy dies. Everybody I know, I mean, it was so unified. I knew hardcore right-wingers. My Fox News watching father-in-law. I was at his house the day it happened.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
That changes the entire landscape when the world empire is pumping that type of money.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And he goes, every one of those cops should be put in handcuffs on national television. And he goes, they should all be charged with murder. That was like, you cannot do this. And then... after the riots started in the summer, all those same people were like, send in the military. You know what?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Like you just see how like someone could so quickly go from like, you know, we really need some police reform here. Like there is too much state power of policing. So then after you see some riots, what are you asking for? Well, who's going to stop that? Martial law? Yeah. We need the government to come in and crack down more police power than ever before.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
So you could see like, and that's just like a little scale, but you could see how much that demand... And sometimes... Very understandably so. Like in that example, very understandably so. Because you're like, well, I don't know. Like I'm totally against like the over militarization of the police.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
But when you have these huge riots across every major city in the country, you're like, well, I guess that's this is the one time we have a reason to have that. And then, by the way, of course, they don't do anything to stop it. Yeah, let it go.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Right, and you can't say it was the smoking that killed him if it was that. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Yeah. Oh, yeah. You could put someone to sleep. I've watched UFC fighters get put to sleep. Professional fighters get put to sleep with one arm.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And Luke Rockhold got Michael Bisping the same way. One-arm guillotine.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
If anybody who knows what they're doing was grappling anyone who doesn't know what they're doing, they could all one-arm choke you out.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
There's also seven cops around him. And he wasn't, I mean, I've watched the whole body cam footage. He was clearly fucked up and he was clearly having like a massive panic attack. Yeah. But he wasn't like... being like violent with the cops.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Security somewhere? Yeah, they were doing some security gig together. They knew each other? I think so.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
It's also one of those things where it is... Look, most of the time someone won't die if you do that. You know what I mean? Yeah, exactly.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Yes, also true. And if the body cam footage comes out, it's usually much later. So it's not kind of like as a media thing. Also, usually every single media outlet in the entire United States of America in the middle of a lockdown doesn't play the video on repeat all day, every single day.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Because there was no reason... The thing about George Floyd that was crazy is that there was no reason for it to be a national story, and there was no reason for it to be a racial story. Wait a minute, really?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Okay, I'm not saying there's no like story there. I'm saying there wasn't, we're a country of 330 million people. There are a number of these incidents that happen every year. Not like a crazy high number, but like there's a few hundred of these every year. This one kind of seemed to get picked as like we're all gonna run with this right now. Because we got the full video.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Yeah, I guess, okay, that is a fair point. The Rodney King one was a, A bit different. I mean, number one, the video element then was way crazier because it was... Nobody had ever seen a video before. There's a guy with a giant thing who happens to be on his balcony at the right time. And also, they beat the ever-loving shit out of him.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Yeah, I mean, they were... Just after he was down and taken, they just kept going and kept going. But the other thing that I always thought was like... The George Floyd thing, it's not like there was any element in there where they were calling him the N-word or there was some type of racial thing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
It didn't ever seem to me that there was any reason to believe that had he been a giant white dude tweaking out on drugs, doing the exact same thing, it wouldn't have gone the exact same way. Right, but he wasn't.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
That's a fair point. That is a fair point. Didn't they get prosecuted? He got convicted of murder. I do not remember.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Dude, it is so fucked. The level of evil that this shit is. I know you've seen it, but you see the drone videos, like the aerial footage of Gaza? Gaza's gone. It's gone. They fucking destroyed the whole goddamn place. It's hard to believe. I saw one estimate said that it was 90%. of the population has been, what's the word I'm looking for? That they've been- Displaced? Displaced, yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
90% of them are- Who's the 10% gangster that's still there?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
I think you're a cop. You kind of have a responsibility to stop that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
It's almost... Almost always the Warhawks rely on an unfalsifiable counterfactual, you know, so it's like, oh, but if we didn't do this and we ran the counterfactual, it would be this crazy other scenario that's somehow even worse than this. Now, the problem with that, from my perspective, is number one.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
The factual scenario is something like four to five million dead civilians over the last 25 years, entire nations destroyed, $8 trillion depleted from the US Treasury, tens of thousands of our bravest young men blowing their brains out. So if you're relying on this unfalsifiable counterfactual, but it would have been worse if we hadn't
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Fought a war in Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria and Libya and Somalia and Yemen and all these places over the last years. Okay. I'd say the onus is on you to really have to demonstrate that and not just assert that it would be worse if we hadn't done this. But also, like... You know, we are going broke doing it. We're $36 trillion in debt. We can't even afford it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
For some speeding thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, or something like that. Oh, dude.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And the idea that if we were to get out of the game of being the world empire, then like China would go, okay, great. Now we get to destroy ourselves. And it just seems completely – it seems extremely unlikely that that would be the case. And also – You know, it's like people act like, okay, if we weren't doing this in Ukraine, then Vladimir Putin could do whatever he wanted to.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Well, by definition, these people aren't making the wisest decisions, probably.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
It's not. And you can't just put a Craigslist ad up or whatever. I'm sure you got to go through some sketchy channels to get there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
It is funny. I get where he's kind of like the guy you'd want if you're like, we need a hard ass in here to do this. But when you do start getting these concerns about due process, I mean, his response, it was in some interview where they were asking him about due process for the people he's deporting. And he's like... What's the girl? Where was the good due process for Lake and Riley?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Where was the due process for her? And you're like, yeah, but dude, that's not what due process means.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Like, obviously murder victims don't get due process. That's why it's illegal to murder somebody. And even, by the way, in that case, Her killer got due process and then got convicted of murder. You know what I mean? Like, that's the whole point. And there's just again, like I was saying, it seems there's a few moves that the Trump administration has made so far.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And I don't know who is in his ear and who has convinced him to pursue this policy. But like, again, if you wanted to pursue like mass deportations, which I understand, I think there's a strong case. I mean, look, he's done a great job. of stopping the flow, which was job number one.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
That was his best line at his State of the Union, where it was like the Democrats kept saying we needed legislation to close the border. Turns out we just needed a new president, which is shockingly true. It is unbelievable how it went from record high border crossings under Biden to record low border crossings over Donald Trump. And I do think that so much of that is just that...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
It's a real difficult journey, and if people feel like, oh, Trump's in there, obviously we're not gonna be allowed in, then they just won't go through it. I also do think that Donald Trump is fundamentally correct with his idea that you don't have a nation if you don't have borders.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
You can't, listen, the idea at least, I'm not saying this is really how it works, but the idea is that we're a free country because we have self-government, and in other words, the American people get to decide how many people we bring in here and how many we don't.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And that it's at this point, nobody actually knows the number for sure, but it is north of 30 million illegal immigrants in the country. But my God, if you wanted to wait to start deporting people who are legal residents, who are not violent criminals because they wrote a pro-Palestinian op ed, you're diving into the most contentious issue and then picking one side of that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Like the importance on going green was that we're all gonna die unless we do it. And now you're taking the most successful electric car company and trying to destroy them. Because for the crime of pointing out that maybe the seven trillion dollars that our federal government spending has a wee bit of corruption in it, you know, like maybe we could cut some of that. It's so I don't know.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And then like this just seems like it's almost as if you're trying to. To poison the possibility to ever really have mass deportations. It just seems so counterproductive by his own stated goals.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Or if we weren't doing this, then China could do whatever they wanted to. But they've got adversaries all around them, too, who are richer than them. Maybe not in China's case, but certainly in Putin's case, richer than them, are opposed to them. All of Western Europe is not just a pushover. China has Japan and South Korea, and they've got their own...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Yeah, and look, I'll say, I know this, because I'm like, I guess one of the benefits of getting older and paying attention to this shit is I can remember shit from 15, 20 years ago. I was paying attention then. And I remember all of them admitting this was their plan. Like literally all of the Joy Reid and Rachel Maddow and all they used to call it the browning of America.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And they used to openly brag about how the Democrat will have super permanent majorities forever because look like, hey, you old dying white Republicans like, sorry, that's it for you because the Latinos vote overwhelmingly for Democrat. And we're going to be a majority minority country and then a majority Hispanic country. And then the Democrats rule the day forever. So this is just.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
You know, Mitt Romney or whoever's running for president right now, this is the dying throes of the end of a. But then when people started objecting to that policy and they they called it the browning of America. And then when people objected to it, they would call it the great replacement or whatever. And then they'd go, you're not allowed to say that. That means you're a Nazi.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And you're like, but I just heard you saying it like five years ago. I heard you say you can't use the term replacement. Yeah, it was.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
So there was this weird – and then there was also the – one of the other big tells of this was the way they attempted, which really failed, but the way they attempted to make voter ID like a toxic racist policy, which was so – I mean the logic of it just collapses on itself because if it's – first of all, it seems like some bigotry of low expectations to imply that black people are like –
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
You know, the truth is that nobody has the power that the U.S. government has to do this shit. It's only like we're the ones who can do this. And it would just be a better world if we just didn't. Like, you just can't convince me that like if we just hadn't have fought the terror wars, like which was totally a possibility.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Dude, what was the black dude who made that video? It was the funniest guy. I think you sent it to me, but he was like, there was like a computer and he comes in just like dancing around it. And He's like trying to bite it and stuff too. It was so goddamn funny where you're like, that's literally what you're saying. Like, I don't know.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And it's like spliced like on the left side of it is her explaining that black people don't know.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Well, but then, I mean like just, you know, just like using the most basic logic, you'd be like, okay, wait a minute. But like. So if requiring ID is racist, then like we got some other really big problems in this country that we should be looking at like that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Right, right. Yeah. And then that was fine. And when that, by the way, disproportionately affected minorities. Yeah. No one seemed, no progressive seemed to care about that. No one cared. That it was overwhelmingly black people, wildly disproportionately black people and immigrants who just refused the vaccine. By the way, let the record show, they were smarter than everybody else for doing it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is an interesting detail, isn't it? Overwhelmingly. Look at that. Overwhelmingly skeptical about this new vaccine. And here, me. and you got called out by Anthony Fauci and Joe Biden for fucking being right, for being absolutely right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
It's so wild too that that was only three years ago or four years ago when you said that your advice to young people was to just be really healthy. And that was like a national controversy. I mean, just think about how upside down everything is.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And it was also way past, way, way, way past the point where we had already figured out that if you weren't very old and very sick, this was, you statistically had almost no chance of a serious negative outcome.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
We could we had the whole war on terrorism could have been over by Christmas of 2001 with the special ops taken out the Al Qaeda cells. They could have trapped Osama bin Laden and Tora Bora when they had him there. And they let him escape into Pakistan. Why do you think they did that? Because they already had their eye on Baghdad. And if Osama bin Laden is caught, you don't get your bonus war.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
You're not allowed to show I.D. So, like, come on. I mean, listen, obviously this is like there's a reason for all of this. It's not they didn't just pick showing your I.D. voting and decide to make this the issue that they harped on and tried to pretend you were somehow racist or you were somehow infringing on voting rights by requiring an I.D. And so look like there this did happen.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
A couple of things happened. Number one, it totally turned public opinion against this level of crazy immigration. And number two, I mean, Donald Trump ended up winning a bigger percentage of the Latino vote than I believe any Republican in my life, which is really, I mean. Especially after Tony Inchcliffe. That's pretty wild. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
It is. By the way, there is something really funny about that where, and this has been a theme for years in the country, but really, Tony was a great example of that, but where like- You know, for all their talk about diversity and anti-racism and all of this, what they always seem to do is try to impose white lady values on minorities. You know what I mean? Like, just imagine...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
That's a great way to put it. White lady values. It's always white lady values. You know who's really offended by a joke? As we both know, Joe, as professional comedians for many years, black people just get very offended by jokes. No, they fucking don't. That's white women. That's white women shit. That's not Latinos or African Americans. They're the ones who take a joke the best.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But also like the more offensive, the better.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Yep. So it's like you're trying to, you know, there's something about it that was always like it's always the liberal push for diversity is always like. We want different shades of people in our culture. You know what I mean? There was never a thing where it's like, oh, we're going to go into the hood and we're going to adopt your culture. That's not what we're talking about.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Oh, in some cases, much more viciously. Yeah. I mean, and I think by, you know, we talked about Candace Owens before. That's part of what her freaking, you know, boot camp before pissing off all the Israeli supporters was that she's already been through the fire. She's been an outspoken black female conservative.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And that's like they really hate that because they do kind of view you as like, which is fucked up in a way. But it really is kind of like you. They decided that they're the champion of women and black people. And therefore, if you're a black woman, it's your responsibility to support these liberal white women.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
That's the thing about Candace. When she was very young, she was liberal. And then she was also a hardcore Zionist at one point, like very big supporter of Israel and then changed her mind on that. But it is, you know, there is a viciousness with which those people get attacked.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
I do think, and I still, I think I said this the last time we were on, the last time I was on, but I still do think that in many ways that's the best part of Donald Trump winning again is just the cultural phenomenon of it where it does seem like there's been a big rejection of all of that shit. You know, I had dinner with Daryl last night. Daryl Cooper. Daryl Cooper and Scott Horton.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
You know what I mean? The whole war propaganda for invading Afghanistan, everyone remembers WMDs, but it wasn't just that claim. It was the claim which Dick Cheney and George W. Bush and all the neocons pushed real hard, was that he was in on 9-11. Now, this totally fell apart because it was never true and they knew it wasn't true.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And we were talking a little bit about this. But, like, what happened... First of all, I led the record show for both good and bad. I was promoting Daryl Cooper before everybody else was. I was the first guy. Maybe not the first, but I was like, yo, this guy's podcast is amazing. And it really, really is. But there was something so interesting about, like...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
His Tucker appearance, the backlash against it, the fact that it did absolutely nothing to harm him and his podcast just shot up on all the charts and now more people than ever are listening to his stuff. There is like – and I do – I've seen a lot of this and I've gotten into some arguments with some – like Constantine Kassin. I've argued with him about this. I respect him very much.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
I like him a lot. I think he's very smart. But there are like – There are these woke tactics now that are being used by many people who have been opposing wokeism for a very long time. And I think it's interesting how much people have woken up to that. No pun intended, but how much people like kind of recognize that now. And that stuff has just been rejected.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And even like on the most basic level, the thing. First of all, the fact that there was such an outrage for what Daryl Cooper said on Tucker Carlson's podcast already proves the point. It already proves the point that you're like, yeah, this is insane. This is insane that this like you're not even you can't even like have a conversation about these things without this massive pile on this.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And none of them. I mean, he's got this big I'm very excited for it, but he's he's putting together this big piece on World War Two. And like none of them are going to come back and go, oh, yeah, I got it wrong. I apologize. No, they're totally not doing that at all.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Well, I said this to I said this to Constantine when we were arguing about it on Twitter. And I go, listen, dude, I go, listen, just take I called it my non woke challenge. I could take my non woke challenge. OK, all it takes is an hour of your time.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Listen to the first 30 minutes of fear and loathing in the New Jerusalem and then listen to the 30 minutes in the like he put out another piece after it. I forget the title of it, but it took from the history where fear and loathing left off up to like the 80s. And there was a it started like around or maybe it was part of fear and loathing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
But anyway, he had a half hour chunk that was on the Jews suffering in World War Two. And I was like, so listen to these two half hours and you tell me if it is conceivably possible that a Jew hating Nazi sympathizer could have ever put this out because it's impossible. And he goes, I have listened to it. And I was like, oh, well, then we can't talk anymore, Matt.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Not in general, but I was like, we can't talk about this anymore. I think there's something almost more simple that was like, look, if you listen to what Daryl said on Tucker's podcast, he essentially goes, he goes, you know, I say this sometimes to get a rise out of my buddy. It was like an Anglo-Saxon. And I'm kind of being hyperbolic when I say it, but I kind of say it to prod.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
But in some ways, I think Churchill was the real villain of the war. Now, he didn't commit the most atrocities. I'm not saying he was the worst person there, but I think he's primarily responsible for this not being maybe like a little conflict in Poland and turning into like the big bloodbath that it did. Okay, say whatever you will about that. There's a fair argument to be there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
But the claim was he's got these weapons and he could hand them off to the terrorists. And then, you know, what was the Condoleezza Rice line was like, we don't want the warning to be in the form of a mushroom cloud or something like that. The fear was they're going to nuke Kansas or whatever as soon as.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
I tend to think Daryl's right, but maybe he's not. But every single person who repeated that would go, he said Churchill was the real villain. And you're like, you know what, dude, we're not doing that anymore. Like we're just, we're not very fine people on both sides in this whole thing. Like, come on dude, no, that's not what he fucking said.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And you could take out all that other content, but any honest person looking at that just goes like, no, that's not what he said. And you know, and, I was on Piers Morgan's show, one more shout out to Piers, but even when he played the clip, he cut out all that context and just played the part where he says the real villain was Churchill.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And you're like, I think people have, after so many years of this being the constant tactic, it's like there's a giant rejection of that. And I think that's really good. I think a lot of that has to do with Trump winning again. I mean, there's other factors involved, too.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
But I do just think it's like these woke tactics of like where you call everyone who disagrees with you a racist or a bigot or this is just not like we're not playing that game anymore. Or at least it seems like most people aren't playing that game anymore.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
As soon as Saddam Hussein gives the weapons he doesn't have to the terrorists he's not friends with. But if they caught Osama bin Laden, I think that would have destroyed the whole seven wars in five years strategy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Which is essentially his only, like, demand through all of his work. Yeah. His only demand is like, listen, you have to, if you're going to listen to my word, you have to do your absolute best to put yourself in these Persian shoes and then put yourself in the other side's shoes.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And you don't, it's cool the way he, I mean, I don't spoil or alert or whatever. It's just the beginning, but it's so good. But like, you almost don't know what he's talking about at first. You're like, is this a Palestinian getting fucked over? Is this, because the story's about, you know, going in, this is going to be about the creation of the state of Israel or whatever.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
But then you realize like, oh no, this is a Jew in Eastern Europe going through a pogrom. And I will say this, right? As somebody who is a, Fairly well read on the subject compared to like the layman not compared to Daryl Cooper.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
There's levels to this shit It's like I used to think rich Franklin was the best striker in the world and then Anderson Silva fought him and you're like, okay He is not but Franklin was great. But Anderson Silva was amazing but Listening to that series, it made me much more sympathetic to the Israelis, if I'm being honest. And I know I've heard that from other people, too.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
But it does because Daryl insists on doing that. Like, look, it's real. It's easy. Now, I'm not saying I'm not saying this is an excuse for anything like the Nakba in 1947, 1948 is horrible. It's a giant ethnic cleansing campaign, you know. OK. But if you do put this into context, you know, like the year's 1947.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Okay, first of all, just think about like even the attitudes of 1947 that you know of, like, you know, just in terms of racism and things like that, like very different attitudes in 1947. Also, you're two years removed from the end of World War II, where the quote, good guys, in the story or the winners in the story are like,
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
like Truman, who just firebombed Tokyo, dropped two nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the bombing of Dresden, the bombing of Berlin. Joseph Stalin is in the process, as this is happening, of ethnically cleansing millions of ethnic Germans all throughout Eastern Europe. This is only a couple years after Stalin's army raped their way through Europe, you know what I mean?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
You want to hear something else on the Wesley Clark thing? This is new. So, Piers Morgan... say what you will about him, he hosted a debate between, which I love doing the show, but it's a circus. It is a circus. Yes. I think he's very smart. Oh, he's a genius, dude. That circus is fucking a lot of people lining up.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And then, of course, there's the atrocities of the Nazis, and you're the Jewish people who just went through this Holocaust And all of this is in the background. And you're going to say, you tell me we can't move a few hundred thousand people off their land to create our new state. Like who's going to fucking morally lecture us about doing this little thing here?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
You know, I'm like, I'm not saying any of that excuses it. And it wasn't the Palestinians fault that any of that happened. And so like you. But it is worthwhile. That's what doing history should be, right? It should be understanding that these were real human beings. These aren't cartoon monsters. Now, they may have done monstrous shit, but there was something going on there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And there was kind of like... I think it's just beneficial to understand all of that stuff. And, you know, Menachem Begin... who is like the worst. I mean, like was a straight up terrorist. And in that series, if you remember, he talks a lot about like the evil shit that Menachem Begin and the Ergon and the Stern Gang and the Haganah, all the shit they did.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And they were just straight up terrorists. That's what they were doing. Terrorism in order to drive out an occupying force. You can't make this shit up is what led to the creation of Israel. And now they're like, you know. Kind of universally regarded as terrorist groups. Oh, you just self-admitted terrorist groups. Like, we're committing acts of terrorism.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
There were debates about whether we should embrace terrorism or not. And the side saying we should embrace terrorism won the day. This is how Chaim Weizmann... He was supposed to be the David Ben-Gurion. He was the number one ranked Zionist at the time. And he stood up and was like, yo, we can't do this. We can't embrace terrorism. Like, his thing was like...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
We can't achieve a Jewish state by un-Jewish means, which he considered terrorism to be. Like this violates our religion. We can't do this. But even him, there was this one point, which I had never heard before, but I learned it from Daryl Cooper's series. I think it was probably one of the things that stuck with me the most. was that, if you remember, it's right toward the end.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
It's when they're doing the King David Hotel bombing and they're doing all this terrorism to try to drive the British out. And at one point, the British caught a few of the, I can't remember if it was from the Ergon or the Lehigh, but it was from one of those two militias, and they caught a few of their guys and they publicly flogged them or something like that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And then Menachem Begin and his terrorist boys, they got a few... Of like the British soldiers. And they fucking flogged the shit out of them and then killed them and then booby trapped the bodies so that it fucking blew up more people when they came to try to get it back. And now he's a wanted man at this time, Menachem Begin. So he's like living underground.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And so he then he did like a radio address. And in his radio address, he was like he said something like he was like, hey, just so you know, Jews don't get flogged anymore. We do the flogging now. And look, this guy was a bad guy. He was a fucking terrorist. But there is something so badass about that that there is a part of you that's just like, whew.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
You can kind of understand a people going through this fucking collective struggle and then getting to a point where they're like, we will be the ones inflicting struggle from now on, not the ones receiving it. And I – look, I still come out on the side that I think Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is horrible and inexcusable and I favor a two-state solution.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
I think America should stop funding Israel. But I think it's nothing but beneficial to kind of like understand that perspective a little bit more. And even though I kind of grew up on the pro-Israel propaganda and then ultimately rejected it … That was Daryl's effect on me was being like, ah, you know, there is like I'm seeing the humanity in the Israeli side a little bit more. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Dude, he figured out, and you got to give him so much credit because he's probably the only one from like the old guard of corporate media who figured it out. He went, okay, I see where we are. I see what's going on, and I know what people want to see happen.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
So give me a fucking break about these people saying like he's some fucking neo-Nazi drumming up Jew hatred.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
I 100% agree. And then I also think that it's it's almost like it's very obvious. I think if you're looking at it with clear eyes that it's like, look, like, OK, look, look, I'm Jewish and I don't wish to see a rise in people hating Jewish people like that. Obviously, I'd be opposed to that. But you're going to you're if you're going to say.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
that anybody who criticizes the government of Israel or anybody who criticizes the Israeli lobby and the unbelievable influence that that has over our government, and you're going to label all of them as anti-Semites.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Like, all right, I would think that it would be wiser to at least be thankful that there are people who are not Jew haters who are pointing this out rather than just leaving it to all the Jew haters to be the only ones who are pointing this out. Like, you know, it's like you think Daryl Cooper is like, OK, like, what's your goal here to shut him down? Who do you think is going to replace him?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
You better hope that they're going to be as thoughtful and responsible as he is. And they probably won't be. Not too many people are.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Yeah. Well, there's also, you know, like to think literally this is my origin story of being the guy that I am now being obsessed with all this stuff was seeing Ron Paul versus Rudy Giuliani in 2007 at the Republican primary debate. And Rudy Giuliani is arguing about how the terrorists hate us for our freedom.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And then Ron Paul, who I'd never heard of, just like this country doctor from Texas with an R next to his name.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
starts going like you know they don't hate us for our freedom they hate us because we're over there like how would we feel if somebody else was doing to us what we're doing to them and then Rudy Giuliani is like yeah that's a pretty absurd explanation that the reason they did 9-11 is because we were bombing Iraq and he goes I've heard a lot of absurd explanations for 9-11 and I've never heard anything that ridiculous which by the way
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
was in Osama bin Laden's declaration of war on America. So to be like, I've never heard of this, is not quite the brag or flex that you think it is. And then Ron Paul just fucking schooled him. He was like, you know who came up with the term blowback? The CIA, because it's a real thing. There is blowback.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And if we think we can go around the world and do whatever we want to people, and that's not gonna incite hatred, we do that at our own peril. But for whatever reason for me, It was always kind of just easy to connect that. You remember there was the scene in Good Will Hunting where at the end when he breaks him and he's like, it's not your fault, it's not your fault, and he starts crying.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
He finally gets him to start talking about the abuse he went through in his childhood, and Matt Damon's character is talking about it, and he's like... He's like, oh, he used to lay a stick, a belt, and a wrench on the table and tell me to pick. And Robin Williams was like, I'd have to go with the stick on that one. And he goes, I used to pick the wrench.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And he was like, why would you pick the wrench? And he goes, because fuck him, that's why. And like, okay, there's something about that that was always very easy for me to understand. Like, you just get to a point where it's like, yeah, because fuck you.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
It's like, why would some Palestinian who's, let's say there's an Israeli who kicks him out of his house that his grandfather built, that his family's been living in for a hundred years. And now that Israeli guy is living in his house. And you're watching from like a refugee camp. This guy live in your house. And as Daryl says in the series, he goes, now you have no means by which,
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Yeah, really amazing people. Maybe 10% of the coverage is about who sucked Obama's dick.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
to give that house back to your grandmother. But you could burn that house to the fucking ground. And it's easy to look there and go, but why would you do that? That's irrational. And it's like, no, not really. It's really not. It's picking the wrench. It's going, because fuck you. You know what I mean? And all of these things. There's always reactionary movements.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And so again, it's like, okay, yes, you're going to sit here and for fucking 15 years tell young white men that they're toxic and they're the problem and their masculinity is inherently wrong. What do you think is going to come out of that? And then the same people are like, where did this Andrew Tate guy pop up from? And you're like, you made it. You made him. You made him.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
If you wanted to make him, you couldn't have done a better job. Look, that's the whole fucking story of the Nazis to begin with, that we imposed the Treaty of Versailles and insisted on internationally humiliating these people and crushing them. And then, fuck, where did these Nazis come from? As a reaction to that, obviously.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Yeah. I didn't watch the whole thing, but I saw a few clips from it. It's very interesting.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
I think there's, I'm, uh, I'm incredibly like, um, on a long time period. I think that, like exactly what you just said, I mean, it's the propaganda apparatus has been completely destroyed. Like it's just not, you know, and there's been this, I really do think a massive awakening. There's several factors to this. I think COVID is the biggest single one.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
You know, I think that there was something about imposing such draconian measures on the domestic population.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Like, look, we start a lot of wars over bullshit, but the truth is, for most Americans, that's kind of over there somewhere, and we're living our lives, and you might be against it, but it's a different thing than instituting totalitarianism in the United States of America, which lockdowns were, objectively. And Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
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The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Well, I mean, they used to call type 2 diabetes adult onset diabetes. Because it was like, the kids don't get it. It was like unheard of. And now it's like all over the place. I saw that thing, I saw it because you posted it, but the Kaylee Means. Yeah, it's so great.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Well, there's like no argument. And like I'm far from, I don't really understand the shit that well. But you go, okay. It's crazy that Bobby Kennedy is overhauling this whole thing and cutting all this, and you're like, okay, we spend more on health than any other nation in the world by far, and we're the sickest.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
You're telling me there shouldn't, and your position here, it just exposes that the entire media, it's like your position here is to get in between the regime and any threat to the regime.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
I'm not going to change. It's the same show. But the thing, it's such a funny thing because it is almost like, it's like somebody in a marriage. You know, like the corporate media, I'd say they're like in a marriage and they're just lying through their teeth to their spouse. They're constantly cheating on them. They're getting caught left and right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Then they're saying, no, no, no, it wasn't that it was you and you're the bad person and all this. And they're just like the worst, most dishonest fucking obvious liars. And then they're like looking over at like someone in a healthy marriage and they're like, so what's that guy's trick? Yeah. Like, how does he do it? And you're like, he just doesn't lie to her. He's nice to her.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And like, I don't know. Like, it's just like, the thing is, the big secret is that you're authentic and just say what you mean and invite the people on who you're interested in talking to. And that... That was like the antidote to your insane tyrannical bullshit.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Yeah, that was it. No, it's funny. Sometimes you look back at those old episodes and you're like, holy shit, that's great. I don't remember it being that grainy, but it was.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm glad you didn't make that decision.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
To do what you like to do. Tucker Carlson said about me once, and I thought it was like one of the best compliments I've ever gotten, and it really meant a lot to Tucker. He's someone I really admire a lot. But it was, I think, Patrick Bet-David, if I'm remembering correctly. He was on his, and it was before, like the debate with Cuomo had been announced, but it was before it happened.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And Patrick was like, how do you think that's gonna go? And Tucker was like, look, man. He's like, the thing about Dave is is he is just totally unencumbered by any restraints. You know, like there's no, I mean, I think what he meant was just like, there's no one who's like cutting his check. There's no one who's like, there's nothing that holds him back.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Like I get to do the biggest show in the world a lot because you like what I have to say. And so then that's it. It's not like there's no, I feel no like, man, I wish I could say this, but I really can't say that. And there's something about that, that is like, that's the new thing. And I'll say, I think you are, And look, this is what's really crazy, right?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Well, but you could also get huge ratings by covering the controversy that is we spend more money and have the worst outcomes.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Like the impact of what you did during this election going forward is going to be, and I know you don't like when I like suck your dick too much, but I'm just saying there's the fact that Trump did the show got such a great response from it. Kamala Harris refused and then tried to get you to change what the show was.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And then obviously in hindsight, like, oh, you know, the conventional wisdom is you really should have done that. The new normal now going forward for presidential elections is going to be that the expectation is that you can – and not just your show. I'm not saying like you have to have the candidates on every single four years. I think you should, but that's your choice obviously.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
But the new expectation – the expectation used to be – That two or three times a presidential candidate is going to have to go do one of these CNN debates where they will be asked these like very narrow questions. They'll have 90 seconds to respond. You know, it'll be Obama. You know, how do you feel we do this in the war on terrorism? Well, first of all, thank you. And thank you for coming out.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And we appreciate this. That's pretty good. Fluff and bullshit and blah, blah, blah. And then hopefully. Can I get a glass of water? Yeah, but nothing, just emptiness, nothing happens. And now the expectation is that you gotta go have an organic, unscripted, three-hour conversation, and probably do it a few different times with a few of the big shows.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And you get to kind of see that person in a whole different way than we've ever gotten to see presidential candidates before. And the truth is that a candidate like Kamala Harris will never be a major party nominee again. A candidate who is – what was her running mate? Tim Waltz. Tim Waltz. These guys are not – because they're not built for that. The future is going to be guys like J.D.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Vance, guys like Vivek Ramaswamy, guys like Bobby Kennedy, Tulsi Gabbard. And by the way, maybe the Democrats will find somebody in there. You wouldn't have predicted Donald Trump in 2012.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Pointed that out. Right. And I mean, look, if the media was just driven by ratings, they'd be doing shows on Jeffrey Epstein every day.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Hey, Gavin, invite me on. We'll have a nice chat. He probably would. I'll do it. He had Steve Bannon on. Gavin, Mr. Newsom, Governor Newsom, I would love, I would be honored to be on your show. We can have a nice civil conversation about the issues. He'll probably have you on right now. He'll probably hear that and reach out. I will give him credit for this.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
He is at least smart enough that like that is the move is to go do a podcast and start interacting and try to figure out. I think the issue that Gavin Newsom has is he is he's a very talented old school politician. And I think that that archetype has been rejected.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And that's going to be very tough. I think that going forward, like, you know, you saw, I don't know if you saw recently, it was a few weeks ago, Bernie Sanders and AOC had like a few big rallies and they're drawn like, you know, tens of thousands of people to these rallies. Now, I don't think either of them are going to be the nominee. I don't think they're really drawn those people.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
That also is probably true. Do you know they got the cell phone data? Yes. Yes. No, I know. And I've seen that and they are probably pretty artificial. But still, there is no way like... no one's reading Chuck Schumer's new book. No one cares about Nancy Pelosi. The establishment wing is not gonna be what the future is. It's gonna have to be some populist. It's gonna be Jasmine Crockett.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
I mean, because you'd be the number one show in cable news. You could go, I'm going to talk about no other topic. Give me the 8 p.m. hour on MSNBC or CNN or Fox News or whatever, and I'll say, I'm just going to make my show about Jeffrey Epstein. Every single day, that's all we're doing. I guarantee you I have the number one show in cable news. Right. More people would want to watch that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Let's go. Dude, that's your old bit from Talking Monkeys in Space. You're just like, we could go dumber. Just keep getting it dumber and dumber. So this is the level now. It's fucking idiocracy. Maybe you really predicted the future.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Men have tampons. Yeah, you got to lose because we got to break this cycle. We're getting way too dumb. You need to regroup.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Glenn Greenwald, who is debatably the greatest journalist of the 21st century, and maybe I'd give it to Julian Assange, but he's up there. He had to leave... the publication that he was a founder of, The Intercept. He had to leave them because they were going the route of propaganda and not letting him tell the truth about Joe Biden.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And it's a testament to Glenn Greenwald that he was just like, okay, cool, bye. And I'll go be just as big without you guys. And that's another thing that's really interesting about this, which is very recent though, that there was a time where Like cancel culture was so effective.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And I remember thinking this was something that really kind of scared me like a few years ago because it was like, you know, you'd have these people, like some of the people who kind of started getting like big, like before me, I mean, I was, I was doing what I do, but I had a slower like progression, but like some of these people who shot up to the top, you know, Milo or like people like that got totally removed from the conversation.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Like it was like, they were just taken out. He's the best example. Yeah, this guy was going to be the guy. He was on Bill Marshall. Yeah, and did great on Bill Marshall.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Yeah, I remember. Like a gay Christopher Hitchens or something like that. And now it just seems all over the place. There's lots of examples of it. where it's like they tried, I mean, you went through, I think, the biggest cancellation attempt where they were just like, you could see it was like, I remember in those few weeks, it was like a decision had been made. We're going after Joe Rogan.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
The Candace Owens show that's on YouTube. Yeah, that's right. And it's doing better numbers than any of the shows on cable news.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And they just emptied every bullet they had, and it all just bounced off you. And then you see this with a lot of other people like Alex Jones, Andrew Tate, however you feel about these guys. I'm not even making a comment on- You just make them bigger.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
I'm just saying that them getting kicked off every platform has not worked at all and doesn't work anymore And that's great and Daryl's another example of that you know where they tried to go after him And it's just like not having just made him bigger.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
It's not even just that they're lying, but that they're lying in such a brazen, such a 180 degree from reality. The way they've tried to make this threat of doge You know, like where they're just kind of like, you know, what right does he have to go through all these bureaucratics email bureaucrats emails and what? And when you zoom out, it reminds me a lot.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
There's this weird parallel between like what Bobby Kennedy was able to insert with the Maha movement where you had this thing where we had like what they'd call a national health crisis, you know, a pandemic like the all of our focus has to be on this health issue. And then Bobby Kennedy just kind of came along and was like, can I point out that?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
like there's a real health crisis that we have that's not the one you're talking about at all. Like you're claiming to care about health so much and it's like, okay, look at autism and diabetes and obesity and we lead the world in chronic illness.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Heart disease, like all these things. And then it was just, the Doge thing, it was like, okay, so we have... The U.S. federal government is the biggest organization in the history of the world. We spend more than any other government in the history of the world has ever spent.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Yeah. Oh, no, no, no. There's no stopping Candace Owens at this point.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
We are so far in debt now that the interest on the debt is now – I believe last year it was $1.2 trillion and it's going up. And the interest on the debt is now overtaking the entire budget. Like I remember when trillion-dollar deficits were crazy. Yeah. If we balanced our budget tomorrow, we still run a trillion dollar deficit every year just because we owe it on the interest on the debt.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Yeah. It makes you wonder how controlled the whole thing is. And I don't know. I don't know. But there is a – do you remember – I think I sent it to you at the time. But there was – like four years ago, there was a Time magazine piece about the 2020 election. It was like a real long article about – like the title was something like How the Shadow Government Stole.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
This is so obviously a crisis. And then they're trying to convince you that the real crisis is that Elon Musk and a few of his genius nerd buddies want to open the books? Like, how the fuck can you convince anyone of that?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Yeah, which does work to kind of shockingly well, but again, it is like you can watch it. It's like this thing that's getting diminishing returns and diminishing returns and it's like, oh, it's not the same old thing isn't working anymore.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Yeah, and there's, you know, look, there's some pretty spooky implications of all of that. I mean, you know, I've read a decent amount about the way, like, the IDF was using artificial intelligence to, like, track, you know, like suspects and stuff like this. And you're like, oh, like the military using AI is kind of creepy. But then at the same time, you know, what...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
What might that do to, like, people's ability to keep secrets and keep corruption going? And, you know, it's kind of like who gets in charge of that is going to be a – that's going to be, like, the fate of mankind.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Yeah, I think you're probably right about that. And it's going to be very interesting. I remember you said like a long time ago – I think it was like at the very beginning of the podcast, but you had said one thing where like, you were like, it's going to be harder and harder to lie. That's just going to be the future where it's just harder and harder to lie.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And you're talking about just like, even how much right now, like, you know, you know, like I was, I was born in 1983. So I grew up in like the eighties and the nineties. And like, You could lie back then. You could just tell lies.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
You could make up whatever. I used to do this. I was the head of this. I worked at this company. Yeah, just say that. Have a narrative and say it. It was just totally like, and you were just like, I don't know. I mean, he says it. There's no way to really check that. And now it's like, you just say like, oh, I used to do this. It's like, no, you didn't. You know what I mean?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Like that's a crazy shift that, you know, it happens slow enough that you don't run. But the more that that goes on and on and the more technology there is and the more with like singularity type shit or the more like it's going to become increasingly more and more difficult to deceive people.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Because I just happen to be really good at picking stocks.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Is Dick Cheney still alive? Dick Cheney is alive. Is he? Yeah, no, somebody. I think somebody else. I'm trying to think of who you, who is the guy who died? One of the big ones died.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, someone real evil did die, but that guy's. What's that?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Yeah, yeah, no, there's definitely something to it. A guy responsible for a million innocent people dying who doesn't have a pulse. And can you imagine, it's just crazy. And I don't know how much he was acting on his own. No, no. Oh, McCain's dead. John McCain is dead.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
He's dead. Why did I think that Cheney was dead? I feel like there's somebody else who I, but maybe not. But you know what's crazy? Did Rumsfeld just die? I'm not sure.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
They got me. They got you with a scam. They got me to fake it. But isn't it crazy that there's a million examples of this, but just like how tone deaf the Kamala Harris campaign was. Now, I don't know how much Dick Cheney, but Liz Cheney, they started bringing on the trail.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
He came out to endorse her and say that Donald Trump is the most dangerous threat to America. And then she started campaigning with Liz Cheney, like as if... I mean it's just – forget even like the fact that obviously like I'm the anti-war guy and I think all these people are blood-soaked monsters who should burn in hell for eternity. But leave all that aside. Just the politics of it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Liz Cheney lost her congressional race by like 50 points. What market is that? Like what margin on the edges did they think like, I know what will move this – OK, we're down but we're not out. Bring in the Cheneys and then we're going to tell them about how much we love fucking the war in Iraq or something like that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
And it was I think it was just a signal to like military contractors to be like, hey, we're cool. You know, like send us some more money. Internally, apparently they knew they were losing. Yeah. They said the from which makes the spending even weirder. Yeah. Well, evidently. The internal polling, there's a few really interesting questions about this.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
So it's been reported that the internal polling of Biden before he dropped out was like a crazy landslide, way, way more than what Trump ended up winning by. Like they had him winning like 500, I forget what it was, but it was like a crazy fucking blowout. And then similarly, when Kamala Harris took over, like they knew. But then there's also something interesting where it's like, hey, so like,
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
pollsters, could we ever get the real polls? How come like they can figure out the real polls? But then you, cause there was something like, there's only been a few elections in my life that I remember where like, it was just obvious who was, who was going to win, like Obama in 2008. It was obvious. You could not have convinced anyone, like, looks like John McCain's the front runner.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
No, it fucking does not. Like, this black Jesus has drawn 80,000 people, and then John McCain's over here, like, I don't think we can do it. You know, it's like, clearly, this guy's losing, and this guy's going to win. But the polls reflected that. It was like, oh, yeah, Obama's up big in the polls. But this year...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Everything you could see, taste, touch, like it was just, oh, obviously Donald Trump. Everywhere Donald Trump went, he's getting like a king's greeting. He's like with all the culture has totally shifted in his direction.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
Look, it would have been – imagine like, right, it wasn't people coming to see Beyonce and they just had to come see Kamala Harris. It was – this campaign was the Kamala Harris – and this is part of the reason why even though I am – really upset with Donald Trump. And I'm upset with a lot of the cabinet people too.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2299 - Dave Smith
I mean, look, Bobby, I will say, does seem to at least be doing some real structural, like he's talking about really, you know, changing some things at the health department. I think maybe he could take a break from tweeting about the virus of anti-Semitism, but whatever. Tulsi, I'm really upset with over her cheering on these strikes.
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,