Comedian and Political Analyst Dave Smith on Uniparty Politics, Free Speech Since October 7th, and Libertarianism
TIMESTAMPS:
Intro (0:00)
Interview with Dave Smith (9:36)
Comedy & Politics (11:28 - 42:23)
Libertarianism (42:24 - 1:04:09)
Israel & Antisemitism (1:04:10 - 1:26:18)
Debate with Chris Cuomo (1:26:19 - 1:37:38)
Outro (1:37:39)
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Welcome to a new episode of System Update, our live nightly show that airs every Monday through Friday at 7 p.m.
Eastern, exclusively here on Rumble, the free speech alternative to YouTube.
Tonight, it has been said for decades that American comedians have become the country's bravest, most trusted, and most reliable political commentators and analysts, and that only they can be trusted to tell the real truth to the people about what is really going on.
Oftentimes this claim was most vocally promoted by the comedians themselves, who sometimes are strangely willing to proclaim themselves the new Walter Cronkite or even some sort of new philosopher king of the middle of the modern age.
Now, one can scoff at those claims if one wishes, and I suppose I just engage a little bit of subtle scoffing myself when I said that, It is true, undoubtedly, that many of the most beloved influential political voices in the United States right now are some of the country's most well-known comics.
This is not a brand new trend, Comedians in the decades of, say, the 1950s to the 1980s often made news as often for their controversial political expression as they did for their comedy.
People like Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, and even Richard Pryor often offered political observations that would have been seen as too offensive to taboo dogma to be heard anywhere outside of comedy.
Yet there were also views and insights whose impact was at least as great outside the comedic world, deep into the heart of political discourse itself.
But this view of comedians, or perhaps more accurately the self-professed political importance of comedians, began to have a lot more cachet and arguably became far more valid and defensible in the wake of the War on Terror, when the political climate that arose in the United States, and the corporate media in particular, was far more limited, repressive, homogenized, and constrained than almost any other time period in American history.
And out of that stifling climate, Emerged comedic voices like Jon Stewart, who became a very vocal and aggressive critic of the Bush-Cheney administration and the War on Terror, in a way few people on television were willing to do.
And he was followed by Stephen Colbert, who, believe it or not, actually offered some edgy, informative, and quite innovative, even uncomfortable, anti-establishment humor.
And then the crowning achievement of this trend, this modern day trend, was I think Joe Rogan, someone who had spent his entire career more or less in comedy, only to somehow become the most listened to and influential voice on a wide range of some of our society's most complex and polarizing political debates.
Now, there are many things to say about this trend, some good and some most decisively not good, but there's no denying the far-reaching impact of it, one that endures to this very day.
There's a large sector of the American public, including a lot of young people who do not turn at all to the New York Times or NBC or CNN or other corporate news outlets like that for their news, but rather listen to Joe Rogan, someone who is able to appeal to such a large and ideologically diverse audience by basically refusing to attach himself to one partisan or ideological camp, an increasingly rare declaration of independence in our media landscape.
And emerging from the behemoth that became The Joe Rogan Show, there is a whole new slew of comics who were, at best, mildly known, who have now become major names in the comedy world and beyond, in large part because of their frequent appearances on The Rogan Show.
Many of them frequently talk about politics, but in ways that very few people would suggest is insightful, inventive, or interesting.
It's often just a bunch of banalities.
But our guest tonight, Dave Smith, is one of those people whose career was not political journalism or analysis, but comedy.
And now, we always had a political bent to him, often appearing even a decade ago on political shows, largely on cable.
He was almost certainly more known for his successful career that he began building step-by-step in the world of comedy.
His political career in comedy was almost online, as is true for a majority of successful comedians these days, but he has recently become one of the most prominent and coveted and impactful political guests in the media landscape, including Mainstream media landscape as well.
He recently debated former New York Governor Chris Cuomo on the Patrick Bedavid show that produced many viral clips and a large audience largely because of how obviously disconnected from reality and from his own record Cuomo was, to put that mildly.
Now, since October 7th, Smith has become one of the most vocal and outspoken critics of the state of Israel and U.S. financing and arming of that country in that war, something which I think has surprised many people, including perhaps some of his fans or colleagues, due to the fact that, among other things, he himself is Jewish.
And I think this world of comedy that emerged from Joe Rogan and related cultures has been not necessarily a left-wing one at all, more of a sort of centrist, if not Senate right or right wing one.
But Smith has shown no inkling or backing down, quite the contrary.
His advocacy has only become louder and more definitive, and he continues to actively seek out venues where he can debate this specific topic.
I believe he was just on Candace Zoan's show yesterday or today, where he had a debate On this very topic, we wanted to have him on our show for many reasons, one of which is that we really talk about this comedy sector of culture that has become, we rarely talk about it, rather, even though it's become one of the most consequential subcultures to emerge over the last 10 years.
But it's also because Smith himself has demonstrated a very effective and, I think, very well-informed means of communicating these ideas, as has, in the process, gained a lot of new fans in the political world.
Now, before we get to all of that, a few program notes.
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For now, welcome to a new episode of System Update that will start right after this message from our new sponsor.
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I know I just spent a while talking about Dave Smith, but because we also do an introduction when we have guests on, I'm about to do it again.
Dave Smith has been building and pursuing a career in comedy for a decade or more.
He has become a prominent fixture in comedy clubs and comedy festivals, and then began his own podcast, as well as participating in a lot of other podcasts.
And many of his own podcasts, such as Part of the Problem and Legion of Skanks, have been finding a very large audience, especially during the COVID pandemic, when so many people turned to online content because they couldn't go out.
During that time, Dave Smith has also kept one foot very squarely in the world of politics, appearing on various political talk programs, and especially over the last couple years, has become a major fixture in our political discourse, appearing on some of the most popular online news shows, but also more establishment I'm glad that he has been doing that because I've been following Smith's work for some time and can say with certainty that his voice is a very productive addition to our often dreary political debates.
It's often a fresh and enlivened way of explaining things.
I was on his program a few months ago and therefore by the rules of online podcast etiquette, He is now forced to appear on mine.
But whatever his motive for coming, we are very happy to have him here.
And I want to say good evening to you, Dave.
Welcome to your debut episode on System Update.
I'm thrilled to have you.
Thank you so much, Glenn.
I'm really honored to be here.
And as I told you when you were on my show, I've been a huge fan of yours and your work has been enormously valuable to me.
So I appreciate those very kind words.
Thanks.
So we could obviously talk about a lot of the issues you and I have been talking about.
The war in Israel and Gaza, the U.S.
relationship to it, the war in Ukraine, and I think all of the ideas and arguments that you and I have, a lot of which we have in common, are very well heard.
People have heard you say them and I say them and a lot of other people say them a million times.
So rather than just kind of be that repetitious, I want to talk about some of these issues in a little bit of a different way if I can, especially because I am interested in this participation that you have in the world of comedy and the fact that you actually tried building your career and did build your career as a comic.
And I don't know if you heard the beginning, but, you know, I was talking about how there's sort of this long history now of comedians having a very politicized content.
A lot of famous comedians stayed far away from politics because they didn't want to anger people, but a lot of them didn't, like Lenny Bruce and George Carlin, two of the probably most brilliant and important comics of the 50s and 60s were very political, Richard Pryor was.
And then you had this kind of advent of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert in the Bush administration, and it's hard to remember that then given who they are now, but they were incredibly innovative in what they were doing.
I'm just like, in general, interested in your view on why comedy, people who go to try and entertain others by being comics, often have this kind of connection to the political world.
What is the relationship you see between the two?
Yes, I mean, it's an interesting question, and there's been lots of others, Mort Saul and all types of people, comedians who were always kind of like kind of groundbreaking in their political commentary.
I remember.
So when I was a kid, when I was around, I think 17, maybe 16, I got a So if you could imagine the time.
I was born in 1983, so this is in the late 90s.
I got a TV VCR in my room, which to the younger viewers of the show may not know what I'm talking about.
Like me.
I have no idea what a VCR is.
I was far too young.
You have no idea.
Please explain what that is for me and the others who I don't know.
So let me explain.
Okay.
So a TV used to be connected to this thing called a VCR, Glenn, and that would play videotapes.
I'll explain it to you later after the show, but there used to be one unit where you had both of them and I didn't have cable or anything like that, but I had an antenna and you could get basic television, which was like five or six networks at the time.
And I, uh, On ABC, Channel 7, in New York, where I was, was, at night, was Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher.
And I fell in love with that show.
And, you know, I was a kid, and it was a different time, this is pre-9-11 and stuff, but I just loved it.
And I remember watching George Carlin come on the show and just like school all of these people who were supposed to be experts in the field.
And I just thought it was like the coolest thing ever.
And, you know, what you're talking about in that time, if people don't remember, during the George W. Bush administration, I mean, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert were just like incredible.
And there is something I really agree with the point you made where there's kind of this positive and negative about it.
It's not the best sign for your society when comedians are the political commentators.
Like, in a much better world, I should be nowhere near any of these topics.
However, When the kind of ruling elite have become so corrupt and so embarrassing and so pathetic that even a regular comedian can just absolutely destroy them and see through all of their nonsense, I do think that role becomes more necessary and more important.
And there is something about, you know, like the jester can only be the one who speaks the voice of truth when the king has become that tyrannical and that incompetent.
And so I think that kind of speaks to the moment we're living in now and where we've been in America for quite a while.
You know, from my perspective, I'm just really fascinated with all of these ideas.
And I've become obsessed with politics and history and economics and stuff like this.
So I enjoy commentating on it, but it's a new world now where we have, all of us have these shows on the internet that have a lot more people than many of the kind of corporate shows have.
And so I really do enjoy these, this moment.
I enjoy these conversations and it's really cool for me that I get to, you know, do shows like yours.
Shows that I'm a, I'm a very big fan of.
Yeah, you know, I often wonder whether, at least in the past, I'm not so sure it's true now in mainstream comedy.
I want to get to the kind of devolution with these late-night hosts who still do, quote, political commentary, but in the most, like, banal and predictable and establishment-pleasing way.
But when it was done well, I often wondered whether that's because comedy or comedians is one job or one place where you're kind of permitted to transgress certain lines in the name of comedy, whereas especially now, and this is kind of the more recent emergence of the Rogan sphere and the like, as our political discourse has become more and more repressive The lines for what you can't transgress are becoming more suffocating and more constrictive.
Do you think that is a reason why there's so many times when these kind of political truths that so few people other than comics are willing to say find their way in comedy?
Well, OK, so let me say one thing on, you know, your comment about the mainstream.
I think so.
Michael Malice, who's a very good friend of mine, who's a just brilliant and hilarious, you know, author and podcaster, he basically convinced me to stop using the term mainstream media.
And I haven't used it since he made this argument.
I thought, I was just compelled that he was completely right.
And I refer to them exclusively as the corporate press now.
Because even as you addressed earlier, I mean, look, think about Joe Rogan.
Who's the mainstream?
Like who's is, you know, is Brian Stelter the mainstream or is Joe Rogan the mainstream?
It kind of makes no sense to even call them that now.
And so if you look at if you want to say mainstream at the biggest comedians right now, the biggest comedians in in the world and particularly in the United States of America are Joe Rogan and Shane Gillis and Bill Burr.
And, you know, like people who are very happy to mock and criticize kind of the establishment view.
And so I think that actually.
Actually, the late-night hosts like Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel, who, as you're absolutely right, are basically doing nothing but servicing power.
I think they've been greatly diminished in status, and these other voices have been elevated.
And so, you know, I think we're living in this kind of new world that we're all still figuring out now, but there's definitely something different.
You know, during, I think, as something you've talked about a lot, right, and something I'm really fascinated by, it was like the first thing I think I asked you about when I was interviewing you on my show, was like, hey, isn't it crazy that you are in this position where people view you as having gone through a transformation?
Like, ah, you used to be this guy on the far left, and now you're a guy on the far right, and really, your views haven't changed at all.
What's actually happening here is that there's been a transformation amongst other people, not really you.
And so what I think is that in the George W. Bush years, there was a lot of freedom for comedians for a number of reasons.
And a big part of that is that most comedians tend to exist in a liberal world.
And George W. Bush was a Republican, and it was very easy to kind of oppose him, not just because there weren't social ramifications for doing so, but also because he was so awful.
And so that was, you know, it was very easy to mock him as a comedian, mocking George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
It's like, well, that's an easy task.
Let's go do that.
And then there was kind of this one-two punch of Barack Obama and then Donald Trump.
And Barack Obama, because he—because left liberals in general tend to have as the most deep-rooted fundamental part of their identity that they're the not racist ones.
We're the ones who aren't bigots.
And I think, given the history of the United States of America, there's an understandable reason why that would be such a important kind of fundamental value for for liberals and leftists to have about themselves.
And because Barack Obama was just so incredibly eloquent and talented as a public speaker, and because his 2008 campaign was, you know, so beautiful in so many ways, I think, I think probably as much as me and you would probably think that Barack Obama should be locked up for war crimes and would not pull punches on how terrible of a president he was, but we could both kind of acknowledge that that campaign in 2008, there was something very beautiful about it.
And a lot of the things that he ran on, we probably would still agree with.
But for people on the left, and when I say the left, I mean like the left half of America, encompassing liberals and leftists, I think that was such a bitter pill to swallow, to ever accept that, like, oh, no, actually this guy is just a continuation of the George W. Bush administration.
It was almost like liberals would have to give up their cool black friend and give up their, like, their proof of how racist they're not.
Because look, I supported the first black president, you know, and like, there was something psychological there that made it very hard for people to criticize Donald Trump.
And, excuse me, to criticize Barack Obama.
And then Donald Trump Just by his very nature, triggered those people to such a level that there was no nuance to be had.
There was no conversation where you could say, yes, I think he's a bad guy.
Yes, I didn't love his comment about Mexicans.
But also, I don't just have to trust the CIA blindly.
That just wasn't going to happen.
And it was like, this guy has made me furious.
Whoever is against him, I'm on board with them.
And this affected As you know very well, Glenn, this affected a huge percentage of liberals and leftists, and comedians were not above that.
Comedians also fell into that, and then add on to that all of the financial incentives were for them to kind of go down this path.
It's been very sad, personally, for me to see.
I mean, guys like Stephen Colbert, if you could go back and watch the old Colbert report, it was so funny.
The guy is so talented.
And to see what he's been doing the last few years, it's like, you know, it's a very weird feeling to see somebody you had previously respected for their craft, a craft that you have dedicated your life to and care about very much, to see them just, like, so pathetic and just grasping for approval from the powerful.
So there's just, there's been a lot of that.
Yes, just to pick up on your first point, which I absolutely take fully.
In fact, I almost never will call the New York Times or NBC News or anything like that the mainstream media, which is the term previously applied to them.
Exactly for that reason, I will only call them the corporate media.
And in part, it's exactly what you said.
And I guess I should be a little more careful about doing this in other contexts as well, which is that, obviously, the number of people who watch Joe Rogan, or by the way, who listen to Tucker Carlson's podcast, is so much greater than the number of people who watch quote unquote the mainstream media that at some point there is nothing mainstream about them and you see the fact that how often they insist on certain ideas end up being rejected by the American people who actually don't see them as mainstream.
Let me just ask you another question about You know, I kind of was talking about this sort of what's called the glorified history.
One of the most, one of the things that Colbert did that I love the most is when he gave that 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner address.
And I mean, it was vicious, but also like incredibly subtle as extremely incisive parody.
And he was mocking the media to their face at their big event.
And they really didn't know what to do about it because it took them a while to understand that it wasn't George Bush, but they who were the targets of it.
And obviously, it would be impossible to imagine Colbert doing anything like that.
I think sometimes comedy is a little bit ...
It's not really timeless.
If you go back and try and watch Oliver and Hardy or the Marx Brothers or even Lenny Bruth, which I've tried doing, it's very difficult because of the cultural difference to really connect to a lot of the comedy.
But I think George Carlin is an exception where his clips often go viral because they resonate as much today.
So let me just play a quick clip of Carla, which I'm sure you've heard before, just to illustrate the point I want to make and then ask you about.
That clip is on its way.
No, this is not it.
It's two George Carlins.
So that was not the George Carlin clip.
Do we have the George Caron clip?
Okay, rather than spending a lot of time on that, let me, if we get it, we'll get it, and I'll actually show it after I make the point, which is, Was it the Vietnam War joke?
No, it was the one about it's a tiny little club and you're not in it.
And it was this massive denunciation of establishment dogma and establishment power and talking about politics, not as right versus left or democrat versus republican, but against a tiny number of elites who run the country constantly, not only indifferent to, but purposely at the expense of, essentially, everybody else.
You know, it used to be that late-night TV was one of the most watched things ever.
I mean, Johnny Carson was must-watch TV for everybody.
And if you look at the ratings now of these late-night hosts, including Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show or Jimmy Kimmel or Stephen Colbert, oftentimes Greg Gutfeld is the number one most-watched late-night comedy host on TV.
He's at Fox because the rest of them sound exactly alike and are constantly dividing the liberal audience.
Why has this happened?
I mean, I have a view that pretty much every institution and every sector of our culture got completely contaminated by this idea that every last thing should be about destroying Trump, and that once that infects journalism, once that infects comedy, it destroys it all.
But what is your view about why there's so many of those major comics that have a lot of freedom and yet are so lame in what they do?
Well, I agree with you.
First of all, I do think it was something about Donald Trump.
I think that whether for right or wrong, and there's probably a mix of both of those, the culture had been so primed to hate someone like Donald Trump.
And that's also part of the reason why Donald Trump took off in a way that I I mean, I don't know about you, but I certainly didn't think he ever was going to.
I mean, like, from my perspective, I'll fully admit I've gotten some predictions right.
But when Donald Trump first came down the escalators and when he started running for president, I did not think this was actually going to take off and he was actually going to win.
But part of the reason I think why he did win is because it was like, Just on a fundamental level, on something that Donald Trump couldn't have even himself planned, he was like the perfect antidote to wokeism, the perfect antidote to political correctness on every level.
I mean, here is a straight, white, rich guy who doesn't care at all about being insensitive.
And in fact, he kicked off his presidential campaign by saying, you know, ah, these Mexicans coming over here, they ain't so great, you know.
And so, in a sense, he appealed so much to everyone who was fed up with the cultural norms, but for everybody who was embedded in them, or perhaps even really benefiting from them, he was everything that they were programmed to hate.
You know, like, and it just like they all spazzed out.
And then, of course, that's just explaining how people felt about it.
But then on top of that, he was also saying things like, we're going to drain the swamp and we're going to end the wars.
And, you know, George W. Bush lied us into the war in Iraq and Obama created ISIS.
And, you know, like, as you know, Glenn, OK, George W. Bush did lie us into the war in Iraq.
Obama created ISIS might be a little bit of a stretch, but there's some truth to it, like maybe not create, but he certainly did arm and fund them intentionally.
And so there was just a lot of this this mixture where he totally triggered anyone with somewhat left wing sensibilities and then also scared the bejesus out of the powerful.
And so now you had this weird marriage of the very powerful being on a mission to destroy this guy.
And then a lot of these guys who we're talking about, they had found themselves in very cushy positions.
And one of the things that I've noticed, and I'm sure you have too, is that for most regular people, you kind of imagine that like, You know, most people can't even fathom what it would be like to get a contract where you get $10 million or something like that.
And you're just like, oh, wow, you're set for life.
And most people imagine, as I do, that if you were in that situation, one of the benefits would be, well, now you can just say whatever you want to.
I mean, you don't have to worry about anything.
You don't have to have bosses anymore.
You don't have to care about showing up to something you don't want to.
You don't have to care about someone not wanting you to say something you don't want to say.
Because come on, you're set for life now.
The reality, as I've observed, tends to be that human beings are social, psychological creatures.
And once they get into the cool club, Be transgressive!
Be transgressive!
club, they want to fight to maintain their status in that.
And you see this with Howard Stern and Jimmy Kimmel and like all these guys who used to be these guys who loved to like, you know, be transgressive, be transgressive, say things they weren't supposed to say that were offending, that were offensive to people.
Yes.
And now they're desperate to not do that.
In fact, they have far less freedom than they did when they had much less wealth and influence.
So I think that's a huge part of it too.
And it's, you know, I don't completely understand it, but I do find it fascinating to watch.
And there's no question that Whatever the, you know, the exactly what the psychological dynamic that created this, there's no question that this is where they went.
All of these guys totally sacrificed their artistic integrity and just their integrity period to try to stay in that club.
And they're still doing it every night.
Yeah, and the reward Jimmy Kimmel got and gets is evident by what he just did, which was he was the star host of this massive Democratic Party Hollywood fundraiser where Barack Obama and Joe Biden were jointly interviewed.
And the person who got to interview them was Jimmy Kimmel because they, of course, know that he is a hardcore partisan Democrat who will never criticize Joe Biden or Barack Obama and yet always says the thing you hear on every other Channel about Donald Trump.
Now, I'm glad you mentioned this whole idea of people who try to kind of cling to this kind of small group of elites because I think we lost the opportunity where I wanted to play the George Carlin clip where it was connected to my question.
But because of what you said, it actually is now the perfect place and time to play it because it relates so well to what it is that you were saying.
So let me at least justify now our showing it with that transition.
Go ahead.
But there's a reason.
There's a reason.
There's a reason for this.
There's a reason education sucks.
And it's the same reason that it will never, ever, ever be fixed.
It's never going to get any better.
Don't look for it.
Be happy with what you got.
Because the owners of this country don't want that.
I'm talking about the real owners now.
The real owners.
The big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions.
Forget the politicians.
The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice.
You don't.
You have no choice.
You have owners.
They own you.
They own everything.
They own all the important land.
They own and control the corporations.
They've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the State Houses, the City Halls.
They got the judges in their back pockets.
And they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear.
They got you by the balls!
They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying.
Lobbying.
To get what they want.
Well, we know what they want.
They want more for themselves and less for everybody else.
But I'll tell you what they don't want.
They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking.
They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking.
They're not interested in that.
That doesn't help them.
That's against their interest.
That's right.
They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago.
They don't want that.
You know what they want?
They want obedient workers.
Obedient workers.
People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, and just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime, And the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it.
And now they're coming for your social security money.
They want your fucking retirement money.
They want it back.
So they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street.
And you know something?
They'll get it.
They'll get it all from you sooner or later.
Because they own this fucking place.
It's a big club.
And you ain't in it.
You and I are not in the big club.
By the way, it's the same big club they used to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe.
All day long, beating you over the head in their media, telling you what to believe, what to think, and what to buy.
The table is tilted, folks.
The game is rigged.
And nobody seems to notice.
Nobody seems to care.
Good, honest, hard-working people.
White collar, blue collar, doesn't matter what color shirt you have on.
Good, honest, hard-working people.
Continue.
These are people of modest means.
Continue to elect these rich cocksuckers who don't give a fuck about them.
They don't give a fuck about you.
They don't give a fuck about you.
They don't care about you.
At all.
Yeah.
You know?
And nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care.
That's what the owners count on, the fact that Americans will probably-- All right, so first of all, anybody who hasn't seen that and other George Carver and clips should go watch it.
As I was listening to that, Dave, you know, it was such a scathing and obviously, you know, so convincing, not just critique, but Fundamental denunciation of the entire system of American elites and I wonder whether somebody like Jimmy Kimmel who's employed by ABC which in turn is owned by major conglomerates or Stephen Colbert who works for CBS or anyone who works for NBC
would be capable even of seeing these sorts of things because they don't want to believe that the system on which they're relying for everything important in their lives is fundamentally corrupt.
But certainly they wouldn't be capable.
I mean, imagine if Stephen Colbert or Jimmy Fallon went on the air and said something like that.
So do you is that something that you think has happened?
Yeah, I think one of the most important points in journalism is that because journalism has become so corporatized, big corporation controls almost every major media outlet, and therefore it imposes the corporate ethos on people that you have to conform, that you can't anger power centers.
I wonder if you think that explains what is happening in that level or that sector of comedy?
Well, I think that, first off, just hearing that, I mean, I believe that was George Carlin's final bit.
I believe that was his closing bit on the left.
Yeah, it was 2008, I think.
2008, I think, is when, right, he died 2009 or something, and this was maybe a year before.
Yeah, but I believe this was his last special.
Sorry, 2005, I apologize, 2005.
Sure.
So like, but that was the closer and it was also like, you know, as a comedian, I think George Carlin had kind of earned the moment to just have this scathing rant.
You know, he's had much funnier bits than that.
But that was like a I don't know.
I think that a lot of these guys, look, they got offered ginormous sums of money.
And so I'm sure that's a big part of why they have just gone along to get along.
I remember, so I don't know if you know this, Glenn, but for a year, In 2017, I worked technically for CNN, or technically for Turner.
And I was a contributor on Essie Cupp's show, which was called Unfiltered.
And they, I mean, they really brought me on board because, like, They were like, oh, Dave's like a comedian who does political jokes and he'll be funny.
And I think they had no idea what they were getting with me.
And then it was very cool for me at the time.
I got a lot of like viral clips of me and Se cup, like really battling at the time.
The topics were about like, you know, whether we should have a regime change war in Syria or it is Donald Trump, a Russian spy and stuff like this, you know, ridiculous things like that.
But, uh, At the time that I was around CNN, and I very briefly met, you know, like Brian Stelter and Don Lemon and even Chris Cuomo, before debating him, I met him there.
And one of the things that was really interesting to me, and maybe you've had some experience with this, I'm not sure, but one of the things I would kind of like observe these people, and they were very big on like, You know, you kind of like walk into the green room, and it'd be like Don Lemon would walk in there, and he'd kind of be like, just got off the phone with Dick Cheney's chief of staff, and he said blah-ba-da-blah about what's going on in Syria.
Just spoke to the number three guy at the Defense Department, and he said blah-ba-da-blah.
And they're kind of like, you can tell that they were very like enamored with being close to power.
And I get that.
I think there's something like deep rooted in human beings, you know, because we're tribal creatures.
Like there's something where it's like, hey, I just talked to like the third to highest ape in our little ape kingdom.
And he's told me I matter and I'm somebody who's actually important.
And, you know, I think there's something very intoxicating about getting close to the ring of power or being in these circles and going to the cocktail parties with people who are important.
And, and I think that it, it comes down to almost like, um, a personality quality, uh, a matter of how much integrity as a person you actually have, how far that could be tested.
And I'm not trying to say like, I'm better than anyone.
Maybe I've just never been tested in that way.
Maybe I would fail the test if, if, you know, put in that position.
But I do think that while I believe, and I'm not sure I'm right about this, but I believe when they were 20 or 25, I believe that if you played that clip of, of George Carlin for Stephen Colbert or for, you know what I mean?
Jimmy Kimmel or, or one of these guys, I think they would have gone.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
You know, like I think there was a time when they would have been like, man, that's so cool.
But as their lives progressed, they went, I guess I'll just take $50 million instead of being that guy.
That's my honest assessment of it.
Yeah, absolutely.
If someone asked me, what has been the most important part of your journalism career, I would say that I have not lived and chose not to live in that corridor between New York And Washington, as a result, my social standing, the people who are around me who perceive me, has never depended on entrance into that group.
And I would also say that, you know, when I entered journalism, my idea of journalism, this kind of iconic journalist, was somebody who was constitutionally composed to want to throw rocks at the places and the palaces where those kind of people gathered, not try and find their way into them.
And again, I think that the corporatization of media, which, you know, encourages and rewards people who integrate into power centers, is what has turned journalists that way.
But I think what you described is exactly, not only one of the main problems, but I would argue with the main problem, because what it ends up doing is, it takes the field of reporters and journalism, which as a core is supposed to be adversarial to those people who are running the country and all of that, and it
Fuses them so that our media has become spokesmen for those people because those are the friends and the people that they want to aggrandize exactly so that Don Lemon can come out when you're around and say, oh, guess who I just talked to, you know, the second ranking member of the Pentagon, but he won't be able to do that if he gets their secret documents and exposes them all over the world.
And I think that's a big part of what's happening.
Let me switch gears a little bit.
You were just at the Libertarian Conference in Washington.
I almost went to that.
I was in New York the whole week before and I almost went because Trump was there and R.F.K.
Jr.
was there, and of course the Libertarians were there, Vivek Ramaswamy was there.
It just didn't work out logistically, but you were there because you are actually a self-identified Libertarian.
And I have found over the years, because I've always had a lot of Libertarians in my audience, and there are a lot of people who try and figure out what label applies to me, and they often pick Libertarian, and sometimes they pick far left, and sometimes they pick far right, everyone, but Libertarian's one of them.
And I have come to see, for a long time ago, that That word means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, including people who claim the label.
What does it mean to you?
Well, to me, being a libertarian, I mean, fundamentally, it believes, like philosophically, in the belief that in self-ownership, that human beings own themselves, that you have a better claim to yourself than any other human ever will.
It believes, That we believe in the non-aggression principle, meaning that it is morally justified to defend yourself with violence, but it is never morally justified to initiate violence against peaceful people, and a belief in private property rights, which is in keeping with non-aggression.
So that's what it means to me.
Now, more broadly speaking, I think that the, you know, I became a libertarian from the Ron Paul presidential campaign in 2008.
So I was an anti-war leftist before that.
And then I just thought Ron Paul was like a better anti-war voice than any leftist I had ever heard.
And I was interested in the fact that he you know, was so passionately committed to like laissez-faire capitalism that seemed wrong to me.
But he sparked my interest enough that I was like, I want to read this guy's books and then read every book he recommends so I can kind of figure out what the flaw in this theory is.
And ultimately, as I fell down this rabbit hole of reading libertarian books, I was just converted.
I was convinced.
And so to me, libertarianism is the belief in like, uh, Laissez-faire, free markets, peace, non-interventionism, and the idea of free speech, free assembly, the right to be innocent until proven guilty, basic core principles like that.
That's what I would describe libertarianism as.
So there are a lot of countries, you could include the United States, but there are certainly countries where it's far worse, where the level of economic inequality is so great that not only is it causing immense amounts of human suffering from people who don't have access to clean water or sewage or health care or where the level of economic inequality is so great that not only is it causing immense amounts of human suffering from people who don't have access to clean
water or sewage or health care or basic education and all of that, that not only is it causing a huge amount of deprivation that not only is it causing a huge amount of deprivation for a significant portion of the country, if not all of it, but it's also doing what the founders warned about, who, of course, were not communists, but capitalists, namely that
And of course, you see that now in a lot of countries like the United States, where obviously the people who are extremely rich have maybe 90 percent of the influence in how the laws are enacted and who gets up, who ends up in office and the 10 percent of the people are or rather 10 percent of the riches do and the 90 percent of the people don't.
Are there circumstances where there is so much suffering in the country and where the level of economic inequality is so great that you would favor certain kinds of state intervention to alleviate them even in the short term? - Probably.
Probably not, but I just to be to be very specific here, right?
I just want to say and I don't I'm not like just being pedantic.
I just want to be like very clear.
I don't think that this is something I used to believe but that I was I was convinced out of in these days that I was mentioning but I I don't actually think inequality economic inequality is necessarily a problem.
So for example, if the, let's say if the poorest Americans today got 50% richer and the middle class got 50% richer, but that came with the rich getting 500% richer.
I would not think of that as a negative thing, even though it would increase inequality, or income inequality, because I'd go, oh, everybody's getting richer.
This is fine.
I think one of the dynamics that's very bizarre, and this is true beyond the United States of America, but particularly in America, is that While you'll have, you know, often we'll have these kind of like political theoretical debates between say like a right winger and a left winger.
They'll kind of be like a Ben Shapiro type against a Bernie Sanders type.
And the Ben Shapiro type, you know, will say that he believes in in free markets or something like that.
And then the Bernie Sanders type will say that he believes in redistribution from the rich to the poor.
And then there'll be an argument between them, whatever, about like, well, I think free markets actually help everybody.
And then he'll say, well, no, no, no, no.
There are these wealthy people.
We should take some of their money and then give it back to the people who don't have as much money.
But in reality, in the world that we actually live in, what we have is a system of redistribution from the poor and working and middle class to the politically connected elite class.
This is just like Undeniably, the case across the board, not even in the most blatant examples of like, say, you know, just like corporate welfare and handouts to corporations, you know, if you just want to look at like the over the last four plus years, there's been the biggest transfer of wealth in human history, and it's gone From the working and middle class to the politically connected billionaire class.
So, number one, we all should be together in opposing that.
But I mean, even in policies like, say, something like Social Security, where the group paying in are young new workers, and they're paying out retired people who are a much wealthier class than new workers.
Or if you just look at something like, say, artificially low interest rates that we've had for over the last decade, who does that benefit?
Well, it doesn't benefit people on a fixed income.
It doesn't benefit people who have been saving their money.
It benefits speculators and people on Wall Street.
Or if you look at, say, like just the way that we're printing money and then handing it off to the military industrial complex or the pharmaceutical industrial complex, and they kind of get the new money when it still has the same value.
And then we see prices soaring and everybody in the middle and lower classes loses their purchasing power.
So look, in theory, your question about would I ever support a government intervention?
I mean, I don't know.
I'd have to, like, see what the scenario is.
But what I see in the real world is that governments are essentially these power centers that are set up, that are, as George Carlin pointed out, that are essentially ruled over by private interests And this becomes the tool to extract money from the rest of us to make these private interests more wealthy.
And that is something that I think, whether you're a libertarian or a leftist or anywhere in between, really, we should all object to.
Yeah, no, I totally agree.
And I think even if you are a fan of capitalism, it's very hard to argue that we have in the United States is anything resembling capitalism since the government is constantly intervening in the free market, only usually to help the very people who are financing their campaigns, who are the richest people, who are most important to their political.
So it's kind of a crony capitalism at best.
I just want to just press you a little bit on this one more time, though, because I've talked to a lot of libertarians over my time, as I said.
I know a lot of libertarians.
And whenever I ask them this question, I get a sort of similar answer than the one that you just gave, which I think makes perfect sense, theoretically, abstractly, intellectually, which is namely that The reason there's so much suffering on the part of the poor and the people who are this deprived is because the system itself needs a reconstruction.
It needs to be kind of broken down and recreated so that there's more of a kind of pure free market where the government's not constantly involved in free market.
But I'll just give you this short anecdote, this little story that happened.
Here in Brazil, where as bad as poverty is in the United States, it's often in a different universe.
I mean, really, you go to neighborhoods and there is no clean drinking water, there's no education, it is a poverty.
But actually in the United States, people are now starting to face that kind of thing too.
They're sleeping on the streets in bigger numbers, large families, etc.
And I remember we started, my husband and I did, an NGO that was designed to kind of bring services to the poorest places in Rio de Janeiro that would give education systems, give support, things that the state isn't providing.
And when the left found out that a lot of this was funded, we got funders from very wealthy people, they started attacking us and saying, oh, this is a libertarian solution.
And this is something the state should be doing and what we need is to work for this kind of idealistic socialism or a deconstruction of society and eventually we'll have the right system in place that doesn't produce this level of poverty.
And my view of it was, well, That is wonderful.
And maybe in 30 years from now, we'll have either a libertarian nirvana or a socialist nirvana, where this doesn't happen anymore.
But in the meantime, there's extreme amounts of suffering that come from economic inequality.
And so is there some moral or even economic rationale that would justify the state saying, we're gonna create some programs, not to redistribute wealth, but that to provide the most deprived people in our society at least some elevation.
So they have some equal opportunity, they're not dying of treatable diseases, they're not malnourished, et cetera.
In the interim, while you're building whatever system you think will solve that. - Well, again though, I just think that first of all, those problems don't come from inequality.
Those problems come from extreme poverty.
And I do think that that's important to distinguish.
Like, again, if, you know, if I make $100,000 a year and someone else makes $100 million a year, that is more like inequality than if, you know, somebody makes $100 a year and the richest person makes $1,000 a year.
And that's, you know what I mean?
So, like, the problem isn't necessarily the gap.
The problem is how poor the poor are.
Now, look, I mean, in the example you just used, in the one that popped into my mind, and I don't remember this story precisely off the top of my head, but there was a guy in California, I believe, who was making, like, tiny homes for homeless people.
and found a way to produce a whole bunch of them so he could give homeless people these small homes.
And the government came in and shut it down 'cause they said they weren't up to code.
And so even in your example, it's like, look, I just believe that by its very nature, the government is an instrument of force.
And that the way it works is that they are a violent monopoly who is going to say that we have, you know what I mean?
Like, we have a monopoly on this service, and if you mess with that, we will kill you or throw you in prison.
That is the nature of government.
Everything about government has a gun pointed to your head, hidden right behind it.
Even just something like the income tax.
We all pay it, but we all kind of pay it because it's like you could go to jail.
Your life could be ruined by violence.
You could be enslaved if you don't pay this.
And I just fundamentally don't believe that that's the tool that's going to solve these problems.
And so, look, Again, if you're saying that, I think there's almost like a contradiction for people who advocate for government policies, where you're saying that like, look, well, if human beings aren't good enough to just help the least amongst us, don't you think that the government should come in and just force them to?
Which I kind of understand on one level, but the flaw in that thinking to me is that Well, who's the government made up of?
It's also made up of human beings.
I think oftentimes people think of state actors as if they're somehow above the rest of us, whereas in reality, we know that politicians and political cronies are like the worst human beings on the planet.
And so if human beings aren't good enough to help the least amongst us, then I don't think we can rely on the most corrupt human beings to force the rest of us, at the threat of violence, to help the least amongst us.
Essentially what I'm saying is that I think We'll be much better off for many of the goals that you value, which I also value, I think we'll be much better off allowing human beings to freely, voluntarily interact and come up with solutions for these things, which I think even your example was you and your late husband making an attempt to do so.
All right, yeah, just to be clear, those questions were not necessarily my views.
I wanted to hear you confront some of what I think are the strongest arguments against libertarianism.
Last question on this before we move to the much lighter and easier topic, which is Israel and Gaza and related questions.
Is there a country that you can point to in recent history where that kind of a model has been implemented and worked?
And do you think the possibility exists that Malay and Argentina will be a person who will strive to do that?
Well, to the first question, no.
And to your second, I mean, I guess I should give a little bit more than that.
I would say that I think to the degree that freedom has been tried, I think it's been overwhelmingly successful.
And I think that you know, there's never been a country that's as free as I'd like to see it.
I know there might be some libertarians or anarchists who will argue with me about like, like ancient Ireland was really an anarchist society or something like that.
But I would say that, you know, in the same way, like if I was advocating that nobody should murder anybody and nobody should rape anybody, you could say, well, give me an example of a society where there's been no murder or no rape.
And yeah, okay, I probably can't give you an example of that, but I am just arguing that it would be a better world if we could cut down on that as much as possible.
I would say that on the spectrum of freedom to totalitarianism, that Or, you know, whatever that would be, like pure freedom versus pure totalitarianism.
That, yeah, I think you could look at, say, a few examples where there was like a common culture and a common geographical location and a common tradition.
You know, West Germany versus East Germany during the Cold War, or North and South Korea, or Hong Kong and China, you know.
Even the United States of America, I think, became the most powerful country in the world because it had a greater degree of liberty than most other places.
But it's still at like a 71% tax rate at the time of like what people consider to be its heyday, like in the middle of the century.
Yeah, I mean, look, if you look at even I think there was a 90% tax rate on the top marginal rates before that.
But even then, if you go look at the effective tax rate, it's right around the same as it is now.
I mean, a lot of that was largely symbolic.
You know, if you go, I don't have the numbers in front of me now, but it would be like, yeah, Yeah, I'm sure people earning over $300,000 a year had to pay that, but no one was really earning that.
I was literally just talking to my father-in-law about an hour ago before I came down to do this show, and he was talking about how he was making $35,000 a year.
Or he was making $30,000 a year and bought his first home for $35,000 in the 70s.
So if you're talking about in the 1960s, you know, what the rate was for people making over $300,000 a year, it just, nobody was really making that except like the uber rich and they always have an army of accountants and tax lawyers who get them out of actually paying what they're supposed to pay.
But if you're talking about America, say, but In what built it's heyday, like when we became the industrial superpower of the world, we didn't have an income tax at all, we didn't have a central bank, we didn't have federal regulation.
Now I know I'm not trying to like pretend that this was like a libertarian society, it certainly wasn't, and certainly for different groups it was much less than it was for others.
I'm just making the point that I think to the extent that laissez-faire free markets, that That have been tried.
They've been very successful compared to other areas at the time.
Also, I think there are, you know, you can look at different experimentations that have happened, say, in Portugal with drug laws, things like this, where it's been much more successful to say not fight war on drugs, but to just say like, hey, we're going to allow people to do what they want to do.
So I do think there are there are examples where it's been successful to your.
What was your second question?
I'm sorry.
First, it was about Argentina and MLA.
Well, if you think that they are headed.
Yes.
So I I do not know nearly enough about Malay and Argentina to have an educated perspective on this.
I would say that he.
Some of his positions, particularly on Israel and Ukraine, like foreign policy stuff, I have really not liked.
I think that, from what I understand, there have been real drastic cuts in many areas of government, and I do tend to think that this is going to work out well.
I really just don't know enough.
I also do think that as much as, and you know me Glenn, I mean as much as some of the foreign policy stuff he's talking about just makes my skin crawl, I also, I go look, maybe the guy's like a CIA plant or something like that, or maybe if you're the president of Argentina, you gotta really make sure you don't piss off the United States of America.
Like, maybe you just gotta say whatever you gotta say when it comes to foreign policy because, look, he's not the commander-in-chief of the empire.
He's just the president of Argentina.
Right, although I think he's part of this far-right that has become very enamored of Israel, I mean, Bolsonaro, the first thing he did upon getting elected in Brazil was ran to Israel.
Geert Wilders in the Netherlands has a big, gigantic Israel flag, but they actually wrapped himself in the flag.
I think it's more a kind of culture war issue, but I get it.
I want to just move on to Israel, but I don't want to belabor the point because I think you did a great job of describing, maybe people haven't heard it before, under a little bit of questioning, exactly what the libertarian worldview is, but just on that Portugal example you mentioned, and the only reason why I mention it is because I actually went to Lisbon in 2008 to do the first study on the success of Portuguese decriminalization of all drugs, and it was an extraordinary success.
The reason it was an extraordinary success is because once they stopped using the money that they had been using to arrest and investigate and prosecute and imprison drug users, they shifted all that money instead to things like drug counseling programs and clean needles and the like.
And in the United States, there have been a couple of cities that had tried Portuguese decriminalization.
I think Portland was one of them, and it turned out to be a disaster.
And the reason is because they took away decriminalization, they did decriminalization, but they never put the resources into those kind of programs that help get addicts off the street.
But anyway, I think it's a super interesting question.
I wish there was a lot more inclusion of libertarian ideology, but as we're seeing with RFK not involved in this Bush-Trump debate, even though he's the most successful third party or independent candidate in decades, The system is designed to ensure that those views do not get heard.
All right, let me ask you about Israel.
Sort of just a first personal question.
I know you've been accredited for Israel for a while before October 7th, but with October 7th, I think a lot of things changed.
For one thing, it was the first time in years that Israel was really on the front burner of our politics, so people didn't really care if you were an Israel critic, because it wasn't really being discussed.
The second thing is, I think October 7th really radicalized a lot of people.
I have a ton of friends in my life who are Jewish, who never much cared about Israel.
They were kind of apathetic, maybe even a little critical, and it shocked me, actually.
And not just in the days, but weeks and months after October 7th, they became vehement Israel supporters, to the point where they were telling me they couldn't even watch my show, and obviously there are a lot of people who have such strong emotional sentiments about Israel who don't want to hear any Israel criticism.
We've lost, I don't know, 10 to 15 percent of our show, of our audience at the beginning.
You know, it's built back up, but you know, that's not, it's something we anticipated, but it did happen.
And I know that, you know, the very big following that you've built up is not really a big left-wing following.
You probably have some leftists in your following, but I know a lot of them are anything but leftists, and I've seen a lot of them kind of angry at you for the stance you've taken very vocally and continuously in your criticism of Israel.
Why was that a stance that you felt was so necessary for you not just to express, but to kind of continuously advocate, knowing the difficulties it would cause for you?
Well, OK, so that is true.
I've had a lot of people who were very upset about this.
I don't know, man.
I made a decision a long time ago that I'm just going to tell the truth.
And let the chips fall where they may.
And, you know, when I say the truth, the truth is I see it and I might be wrong.
I'm sure I am wrong about some things, but very few.
And I, uh, I just, that there was, I mean, there was a period of time.
I remember when I first started getting invited onto Fox News shows, um, which is like the first time I ever got on television is like in 2015 or something like that.
So like around 10 years ago.
And I remember, Look, I was never told this exactly, but when I first came on, I had some good appearances on a few different shows, and there were some producers at Fox News who were like, hey, there's people upstairs who are talking about you.
They want to have a meeting with you.
They would like if you weren't too crazy.
I just kind of knew, without anyone ever telling me this, that if I could just kind of compromise some of my more anti-war views or some of this, that I could maybe get a cushy job here.
And when I was dead broke, that was really tempting.
And in that moment, I just decided, I was like, listen, my heroes are like Ron Paul and people like that.
And what I love about them is that they said the thing that would get them booed out of the arena that they were in.
Including on Israel.
Including on Israel.
Ron Paul wasn't very outspoken critical of Israel and the U.S.
relationship to it.
And as a Texas Republican, you know, and so I just made a decision back then when I was dead broke, I made a decision that I would have integrity and just tell the truth.
So now, like I'm doing pretty well.
I mean, not as good as some people, but I'm doing brother.
I'm making way more than I should.
And so at this point, it's like, oh no, I don't know.
That's just what I'm going to do.
And I should, I think that I'm supposed to piss my audience off sometimes.
Like I remember I was in the summer of 2020.
So I had been very against the lockdowns and all of the COVID insanity, and then I was really critical of Black Lives Matter during the summer of 2020, and particularly of like the rioting and just how insane that was, and that after the country had been through like the most devastating three or four months in modern American history, that you had these bands of people going around and like destroying small businesses who were like desperate to keep their doors open.
And I was just so disgusted by like the looting and the rioting and stuff like that.
And then months later, when that guy Chauvin got convicted for murder in the first degree, and I was like, I remember tweeting about it and being like, good for him.
He deserves to go to jail.
But like, you know, I think that was the right decision.
And my audience was like, oh Dave, what, you're siding with CNN now?
I thought you were a critic of Black Lives Matter and all of this.
And I was like, yeah, but I'm...
What?
Just because I hate people rioting and looting doesn't mean I think a cop who had a handcuffed guy on the ground who was in the middle of a panic attack and just laid his knee on his neck for 10 minutes isn't like... You know what I mean?
Okay, fine.
My audience can be upset with me a little bit.
I think the bond I have with my audience is that I always say, I'm going to tell you the truth as I see it.
So, okay, I'm going to do that in every situation.
I just think that, you know, to your point where there were a lot of people who maybe weren't like super aware or super involved of what was going on in Israel, I do kind of understand that if you just looked at October 7th, you'd be like, you know, this is like the most brutal thing I've ever seen.
And so, of course, we should be against that.
But I've just been paying attention a while longer than that.
And I also know how brutal Israel's occupation of Palestine has been.
And that just gives you a totally different perspective on it.
And I'm aware, I've read a ton about this.
I just, I know a lot about the history.
I'm not saying like I'm an expert or anything.
There's people who know more than me, but I know a decent amount and I know enough to understand that it, look, the thing that, the moment that sparked my interest on libertarianism and what led me down this whole rabbit hole was the Ron the moment that sparked my interest on libertarianism and what led me down
And I know you've played this clip on your show fairly recently, but I know you've seen it way before then, where Ron Paul is just making the argument that he's like, look, the terrorists don't hate us because we're rich and we're free.
They hate us because we're over there killing so many innocent people and propping up dictators and supporting Israel and their ethnic cleansing and domination of the Palestinians and all of this.
And I thought that was like the most fascinating point ever.
and then I got obsessed with reading about it.
And in a very similar sense, I've just always been able to understand that while there are these voices that will say, well, you know, the real problem is that they hate us because of our freedom, or the real problem is that Islam is so evil and, you know, whatever, or these people are just so sick, or they're just so anti-Semitic, but if you actually look into
Like what's actually happening in any of these situations, one of the, I mean, it's very dark, but in a dark sense, one of the things that kind of unites all of us is that you actually realize how much these things unite us.
I mean, like, we're all kind of the same when it comes to this.
Like, after 9-11, we got hit.
And some innocent people got killed.
And we went, you know what?
You hit us.
We're gonna go get you.
Like, if you do that to us, we're gonna- Oh, you think you could just kill us?
We're gonna go kill a whole bunch of you.
And then you kind of realize it's like, yeah, that's exactly how those people who flew the buildings into the towers felt.
Exactly the same way you feel right now.
And I just think that as horrific and evil as Hamas is, and how inexcusable what they did on October 7th was, I think that almost any group of people, if put under the conditions that the Palestinians have been put under, Would end up in a very similar place that you know, I got I got I know you have kids Glenn.
I have I have kids and you know, I was just talking about this on Candace Owens show the other day when I did one of these debates.
It's like I it's not that hard for me to go like what how would I feel if someone did something like to one of my kids?
Then I just, I immediately just see red.
I'd immediately just go like, I'd probably join up with the worst, most barbaric group around who felt like we could get some revenge against those people.
And I think that's what's going on with the Israelis and with the people in Gaza right now.
Like, I think it's actually what kind of, in a weird way, unites us.
It's a human characteristic that we all have.
And I just don't...
I think I'm right about this, and I think I understand it, and I'm just not gonna stop talking about that, because, you know, like, I have a little boy and a little girl, and particularly because I have a little boy, maybe this is the sexism in me or something like that, but I just go like, what type of example would I be for him if I believed something passionately, but because there's some social pressure to not say it, I'll not say it?
No, I have to be a better example than that.
And the example I want to be for my son, and my daughter too, is that no, you tell the truth, even when it might cost you something.
Yeah, the amazing thing about it is, as you said, you can understand these tribal rages.
Even if there's reason for it, if your tribe is attacked and you see suffering in your tribe and all around you, of course you're going to feel rage to the outsiders who did it instead of thinking rationally about what you might have done to provoke it.
The problem is that we're supposed to have this kind of global order.
That's what the UN was about and other things, just responsible leaders who then come in and try and negotiate ways to avoid that tribal rage from exploding into something completely horrific.
And in the case of the United States, and therefore NATO and others who might have been able to do that, we've done the exact opposite and instead cheered Israel on and fed them the weapons and paid for the money that they need in order to destroy Gaza.
All right, just a few more questions, a couple more questions, actually.
And this might be a personal one.
But how many security officers and armed guards have you had to hire since October 7th to walk outside your house given this epidemic of anti-Semitism that has made it unsafe for Jewish people to walk on the streets?
Have you been okay?
Are you okay?
You know, I've managed to not hire any so far, and I'm sure this is only because, you know, honestly, I feel more concerned about the pro-Israeli protesters or something like that.
But I listen, I just hate and I don't particularly like whining from any minority group.
I mean, look, there are there are situations where it's totally appropriate if you're being victimized to complain about being victimized.
But I have always hated just, you know, as someone who's Jewish and this is what I grew up in way before October 7th.
I've always just hated passionately the kind of like victim complex in the Jewish community.
I do understand it to some degree, I think better than most.
I understand, you know, my grandfather was a Holocaust survivor.
My mother's the first generation after that.
I think in my parents' generation, and certainly in my grandparents' generation of Jewish people, there was always this kind of like, they came to get us once, this could happen again any moment, we're up against it, it was essentially all of Europe who condoned this, and that Jews always have to be concerned about this.
I've always just rejected that as divorced from reality.
And I think that my attitude has always been like, My grandfather grew up in Nazi Germany.
He had everything taken from him, including all of his family members, including his father's business, his school, like everything.
He barely escaped on a boat he wasn't supposed to be on and got out so he could come here and start a new life.
And here in this country, he was able to come with nothing, literally nothing except the clothes on his back and come here and start a great life.
And a couple generations later, I have never once in my life had a single obstacle put in my way because I'm Jewish.
Not one.
I may have had a few because I'm white, you know, or considered that, but like, there's definitely been some things in my life where, like, if you were, like, a minority, a different minority, it may have been helpful to get this position, but even that I don't care about.
But there's never been one opportunity denied to me because I was Jewish, and someone in a powerful position went, we're not giving this opportunity to a Jew.
That's just never happened.
And what am I supposed to do, pretend that's happened?
The truth is that Jewish people are around 2% of the United States of America.
They are exceptionally successful.
I do not at all I don't think there's anything wrong with that, like as I was saying to you before, I'm a libertarian.
I don't think there's a problem in inequality, and I don't think there's a problem in one group being very successful, as long as they're doing that through legitimate means and not, you know, like coercive means.
But I just hate, I hate the kind of victim ideology.
And, you know, since October 7th, I'm not saying there's been, there have been, there's some people who kind of like hate Jews.
I see the comments on Twitter and stuff like that.
There's been some chants at some of these protests that I'm like, I'm a little uncomfortable with that chant.
And I wish they would say something different.
But I just think like to pretend that the objection to what Israel's been doing over the last eight months must all be reduced down to people just secretly hate Jews, I think is ridiculous.
And particularly when the protests are being led by so many left wingers in America, where look to all of these people, the worst thing in the world you could be...
What's the worst name they could call you, Glenn?
What's the name they call Donald Trump, or they call all the people they hate?
Nazi!
Nazi's the worst thing you can be called.
I just don't believe that these people are animated by a hatred of Jews.
I think what they're animated by, and perhaps they're somewhat animated by a hatred of the more Western Civilization attacking a more, you know what I mean?
Like, like there might be some of that.
There's some oppressor versus oppressed kind of narrative in there.
But I think mostly it's just that they're seeing images of babies being pulled out of rubble every day.
Day after day.
Who wouldn't be ready to protest that?
I mean, just look for the simplest explanation, and that seems to be it.
And I wish, I'm sure you do too, I was heartbroken over the evaporation of the anti-war left during Barack Obama.
And I was heartbroken that it didn't return under Donald Trump.
And, you know, I wish the left-wing kids had been out, you know, protesting the war in Libya and Syria and Somalia and Yemen and the drone bombing campaign in Pakistan and, you know, Obama's surge in Afghanistan.
I wish all of that stuff had drawn the level of outrage that George W. Bush's war in Iraq and Afghanistan drew.
And so, yeah, they're kind of back now, which is a little bit of an awkward feeling, because you're kind of like, yeah, where have you guys been?
I've been waiting for you guys.
But at the same time, to say the reason they're back is just because they hate Jewish people so much, that just, there's no evidence for that.
It just doesn't seem right at all.
It seems more like this is just the most blatant example of something that is so horrifically wrong, and even they can see that.
Well, you know, I have to say on this, I mean, this has been something I have probably focused on almost more than anything else since October 7th.
It has been driving me genuinely mad, in both senses of the word mad, because I have a very similar trajectory to you.
I had a grandmother who fled Nazi Germany in the late 1930s with her younger sister, and both of them came to the United States, and the rest of their family stayed, and they were all killed in concentration camps.
I was steeped with the idea that Jews have been persecuted throughout history, which is true, including with the Holocaust.
But you know, I have to say, and there's a lot of things that have been raging me about the hypocrisy of sort of the pro-Israel right and this kind of anti-woke crowd about when it comes to free speech, they seem to not care about it that much anymore.
They find reasons to celebrate censorship.
They use this kind of safety narrative for colleges, et cetera, et cetera.
All the things they've been heaping scorn on.
But the thing that has made me the angriest about it is, You know, I've lived in the United States for 38 years.
I lived from the first 38 years of my life as a Jew.
Every member of my family is a Jew.
Almost every friend with whom I grew up is a Jew.
And not only can I say that in those 38 years, I have never once experienced an anti-Semitic attack or or assault or feeling like I was discriminated against or even an anti-Semitic comment, I don't know a single Jew that I know who are all around the United States who can say that they have either.
And that isn't to say, as you said, that there's not some anti-Semitism.
Of course there is, and there always has been.
But there's also a lot of anti-black racism That really is true.
There's anti-Muslim racism.
There's anti-immigrant hatred.
There is hatred against trans people of the type that can be dangerous.
And every single time those narratives were raised by other groups The consensus reaction of the American right and the pro-Israel right and the kind of anti-woke crowd that, you know, branded itself so lucratively was, oh, this is just whiny victimhood.
This is just people trying to claim that, you know, everyone is against them and everyone hates him.
And now to watch Those same people do exactly the same thing on behalf of a group that, as you say, is doing very, very, very well in the United States and always has been, and there's no evidence that they're unsafe in any way has really kind of sickened me.
All right, let me ask you just as a final question.
What's so crazy about it, right, is that at least for, say, like black Americans, Like, there is a real issue.
Now, we could debate forever what exactly is causing this and what exactly is the solution to this, but like, everybody in, say, I'm sure you've before in your life, you've taken the Amtrak from New York to DC.
I could just tell you, every powerful person on media or in the political class has taken that Amtrak ride before, from New York to DC.
If you go sit in the first class of Acela, you're gonna see like, Powerful people on that train ride.
And go look out your window when you pass the Baltimore station.
Just look out your window.
It is a nightmare that you look out at.
Like every other building is condemned.
There's little kids out with no shoes on.
It's just like a level of poverty.
It's like a third world culture.
A third world country right before you get to the Capitol.
And it is overwhelmingly black people who are living there.
So I'm not saying it's as simple as like you could blame that on systemic racism or just some term that is like ill-defined.
But there at least is a problem.
You'd go like, hey, what's going on here?
Like what's leading to this?
With Jews, there's just no such thing as that.
It just doesn't matter.
And then to see, like I was just watching the other day at that monk debate, Douglas Murray opening up with his whole lecture about how anti-Semitism is a shape-shifting virus.
And anyone who's criticizing Israel today, this is just a different version of supporting pogroms or supporting the Holocaust.
And you're like, dude, this is so much weaker than the dumbest woke argument.
About how basically, you know, like this is slavery and Jim Crow is the same thing as we have today.
It's the same argument, except much weaker.
Exactly.
Exactly.
And I mean, all you've heard from the right over the last 10 years is you call everybody racist as soon as you disagree with them.
What happens in a Israel debate?
They immediately call you an anti-Semite.
The idea that you scoff at claims of discrimination from groups that are obviously doing far less than Jews, as you said, like black people, like immigrants who are For legal immigrants, like Muslims, a whole range of people.
And the right's reaction has been, oh, stop whining, stop complaining.
And then the minute some Jewish student feels uncomfortable at Harvard, they literally convene congressional hearings after mocking this whole safetyism narrative to say, oh, here are a bunch of Harvard students who don't feel safe because people are chanting pro-Palestinian.
Quotes, I mean the hypocrisy of it, really it has been sickening to observe.
Let me just go to, unless you have something to say about that, let me ask you about this debate you did with Chris Cuomo.
And for those who didn't see it, a lot of people talked about it.
It was on Patrick Bet-David's show, if I'm not mistaken.
Is that correct?
Yep.
Yeah.
We have a clip, but I don't think we need to see it.
We can encourage people to go watch it, because I want to hear what Dave's impressions were.
But the thing that I think was so interesting about the debate, and I watched most of it, not all of it, but I will watch the rest, is that you have, on the one hand, someone like yourself who built your own platform pretty much You know, without the help of corporate platforms.
I mean, you talked about how early on you worked at like CNN and Fox, but that really isn't a big part of your success.
You kind of built your success in this independent way.
And then you have Chris Cuomo, who's kind of a classic establishment spawn that the establishment puked up.
I mean, his whole career is because his daddy was the governor of New York, and then he became a reporter at ABC News.
And then he had a whole show on CNN, and then he got fired because of an ethical conflict.
And now he's trying to kind of rebrand himself as this independent, nonpartisan media figure.
And the problem is, is that so embedded in him, because he was there for 30 years inside these institutions, is so many of the establishment assumptions that are completely unexamined.
And he's also engaged in a little bit of fraud, trying to claim that he never said certain things that are hated in that part of the world he's trying to succeed in, when in fact the record shows, the video shows, that he was saying exactly those things.
That was my impression of it, just this kind of juxtaposition.
What was yours from having engaged with him?
Because, by the way, I think Chris Cuomo is a nice guy, everyone says, interpersonally.
I don't have anything personal against him.
I'm just saying, he to me is kind of the living, breathing embodiment of establishment conventional wisdom.
Yeah, I think that's right.
And I also think that, you know, I also have nothing personal against him.
And in fact, even meeting him and being in that situation, there was this weird feeling.
The whole thing was totally surreal and bizarre because on one hand, it's like I'm this, you know, comedian podcaster.
And one of the things that I really like kind of built my audience off of, of course, there's been lots of things.
And probably more than anything else is that I'm just I'm good friends with Joe Rogan and he's had me on his show like 12 times.
And so I've built an audience off the biggest guy, you know, liking what I had to say.
And then I've done a lot of other, you know, shows and that.
But certainly, as you pointed out, much more than the corporate media stuff that I was on early in my career.
It's been from the big podcasts that I've kind of built my audience off of.
But one of the things that I'm kind of known for is that, you know, from in 2020 and in those years, I was like a a big critic of the COVID restrictions.
That's like an understatement.
But I'm probably more than anything else known for being anti-war and for being opposed to the COVID regime.
And so it was crazy that I get to sit here one-on-one in a debate for three hours with the guy who was the number one show on CNN.
Like, it's just so bizarre how, like, I've risen a little bit and he's fallen so much that somehow we were at the same event and I get to do this, you know, with him.
At the same time, there's a weird human feeling where I did kinda feel bad about it.
it was such a, like, it was such a slam dunk.
I mean, this wasn't like, you know, it wasn't like, look, I mean, I watched your debate at the Soho forum the other day.
And by the way, Gene Epstein's a good friend of mine.
I was so glad that you you went and did that.
And I thought you were phenomenal and you totally destroyed, you know, like it was just great.
Thank you.
But this wasn't like this was like there was no argument.
There was no argument to be made.
He's on ivermectin now.
I mean, like it.
This is out of a cartoon.
Like, it was just handed to me.
Like, here's the win.
It wasn't even like a competition.
They had the Patrick David Show.
They posted a poll of who you thought won the debate, and it was 30,000 people right around then voted for it.
And I took 96%.
I was surprised 4% went to him.
And so in this moment, and the crowd was totally on my side, and I did start kind of feeling bad.
Like, I was like, I'm like humiliating this guy.
I don't want to humiliate another grown man.
Like, I don't know.
I'm a grown man with kids.
He's a grown man with kids.
I would never want to humiliate someone else.
That's just like a kind of icky thing to be a part of.
But then the way he'd start debating, would start pissing me off, and then they would start playing clips of like what CNN was saying at the time, and that would start pissing me off.
And so then I just would get back into it.
And the thing, what really stuck out to me about the whole thing was that he used, he said this phrase, if you go watch the debate, he said several times during it, he said, we were told And then it would just be whatever.
You know, we were told that people were taking ivermectin and dying from it.
We were told that the vaccine was... And there was something about that that really stood out to me.
It was like, could you ever imagine, Glenn, like if someone were to say, hey, you said this thing on your show that was totally not true and hurt a lot of people.
And you went, we were told.
Like, what?
What type of excuse is that?
What do you mean you were told?
That's the job!
The job is for you to decide whether the people telling you this are corrupt liars or they're telling you the truth.
And what you kind of realize on a human level is that, just like you said, this guy's dad was the governor, his brother became the governor, he went and did a show on CNN because that's what they told him to do.
And then he said what they told him to say.
And so I kind of don't hate the guy for that but then you do hate the guy for the fact that you're like but dude you were demonizing all of us as you were like Unquestionably pushing all of the talking points of the power centers that you're supposed to be skeptical of.
And so, like, I don't know, there was something just infuriating about it to me.
I'm also I'm so still to this day, I'm so angry over all of the COVID stuff.
Like, I'm just so angry.
It's to me, it was just so appalling that, like, these government policies and these government Corrupt bureaucrats in bed with big pharmaceutical companies and stuff like that would just ruin the lives of millions of Americans on the basis of pseudoscience and never have to be held to account for it.
But there was this moment in the debate where, I think I said this at one point, where I was kind of like, I do.
For whatever weird reason, and it's not a meritocracy, it's not because I deserve to be the one, there's lots of other people who deserve this more than me, but I got Cuomo one-on-one for three hours.
And I don't think there's anyone else who was a real culprit in the COVID hysteria.
Like, I don't think anyone's ever going to get to debate Fauci for three hours.
I don't think anyone else is going to debate Andrew Cuomo for three hours.
Somehow, I think this is the only one that's happened, and I just happened to find myself in that position.
And I was kind of like, I felt an obligation to be like, sorry, dude, you know, It's almost like if you could imagine if a group of people tried to jump you and your friends and beat the crap out of you, and then they all ran, and one of them tripped and fell, and you just caught that one, and you're like, sorry, but you're gonna take this beating now for all of your friends.
You're the only one who I got my hands on, but I think you deserve this.
Yeah, but that's what was so interesting about it, and why I hope people will go watch it.
He ended up talking to you or going on Pat Patrick David's show because he's some sort of like noble figure who feels like he deserves to be held accountable.
It's because he got kicked out of that club.
And now he wants to be on his own in independent media.
And in order to do that, he's forced to go on those places.
And the problem for him is that he is a representative of all things rancid and corrupt and deceitful of independent media, of established media, because the only way you get to work there is if you say those things that everyone else is saying, and it's exactly what you were saying with that Don Lemon anecdote.
The reason he can say something like, look, the reason I said these things is because we were told them, is because this really is how all of corporate journalism works.
They go to these most powerful people inside Washington who they're so proud that they have a relationship with, they wanna continue that relationship, they wanna continue to be the people who are chosen to be the message carriers, and sometimes they even get little scoops, That they're petrified of doing anything to offend them.
And then at the same time, CNN has this very liberal audience who would not tolerate, and still does not tolerate, any questioning of Anthony Fauci.
And so had Andrew Cuomo been or Chris Cuomo been courageous enough to do any of that, as he's now trying to pretend he's doing now, he also would have alienated his own audience and lost his job.
This is what I'm saying about how corrupt These media institutions are.
So yes, while I understand you feel a little bit bad because you beat up on him even though he was just one of many thousands, if you're putting your head on the pillow at night and having trouble sleeping because you feel bad, just remember that he has spent the last 15 years making like $8 million a year reading a teleprompter full of DNC talking points and complete lies from the establishment, and that should help you sleep easier at night.
Yeah, no, I'll be okay, Glenn.
I do appreciate it.
But that is, it is a weird feeling.
I'm sure you've had that before because I've watched you in debates where you've just destroyed some of these clowns.
And like, it's like, there is a little part of you, I'm sure that's like, ah, you know, he's just a guy, but he's a part of this evil system and they deserve it.
Exactly.
The thing that makes you angry is the ideology, and then you have this person there who's advocating the ideology, so you need to attack them as well.
Well, Dave, I knew it was going to be a great conversation, and it did not disappoint.
I hope people will follow your work the way that I do.
I'm so glad to see you in so many places doing all these kinds of debates, because I really don't think there are a lot of people like you who are as capable of defending the perspectives you're defending.
I super appreciate seeing you tonight and taking the time to talk to us.
No, it was an absolute pleasure, Glenn.
And I hope me and you do a bunch more shows together in the future.
And I really do.
I don't just say this.
I love your show.
I watch it all the time.
And I've benefited so much from your work for a long time.
So it is very cool for me to get to do this.
All right, Dave.
Thanks.
Have a great evening.
You too.
Bye.
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