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Feb. 10, 2022 - The Joe Rogan Experience
02:53:53
Joe Rogan Experience #1775 - Dave Smith
Participants
Main voices
d
dave smith
01:36:55
j
joe rogan
01:12:32
Appearances
Clips
b
brian stelter
00:06
j
jamie vernon
00:30
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Speaker Time Text
unidentified
the joe rogan experience train by day joe rogan podcast by night all day all right david smith how the fuck are you Very good, sir.
dave smith
Thank you for having me back.
unidentified
Cheers, sir.
joe rogan
Always good to see you.
Fuck.
dave smith
You too.
joe rogan
Last night was fun.
dave smith
Yeah, it was great.
joe rogan
Good times.
And tonight should be fun too.
dave smith
Hell yeah.
joe rogan
Hell yeah.
dave smith
Doing gigs out in Texas with Joe Rogan, right when things are all calm for you and relaxed.
joe rogan
Everything's great.
Normal.
dave smith
Did you see yourself becoming the most important man in the universe?
joe rogan
That's not real.
It's just attention.
No.
Of course not.
Who the fuck would ever see that?
dave smith
Yeah, that's pretty unbelievable.
You took the logical progression from being, you know, a stand-up comedian, an MMA analyst, to bringing down the entire regime in the United States of America.
joe rogan
I'm not bringing down any regimes.
dave smith
Well, I can wish.
joe rogan
Yeah, well, that's you, though.
You're that libertarian cynicist who...
dave smith
I don't think of it as...
I think I was being an optimist when I said bringing down the regime.
joe rogan
Well, what the fuck replaces it?
All those, like, all the crazy Antifa people that want to burn it all down, like, we've got to destroy democracy, like, and replace it with what?
dave smith
Well, that's a...
Yeah, I think for them, like, the Chaz or something.
joe rogan
Yes, remember that?
dave smith
Yeah, I don't think that's going to be much better.
But I'd be okay with maybe, like, something crazy, like, Like the Bill of Rights.
That'd be cool.
I'd be okay taking a step back toward that.
joe rogan
But it's that attitude about bringing it all down.
One of my favorite ones, I know I sent you this before, Jamie.
It's this woman who said, to stop fatphobia, we have to destroy Western civilization.
unidentified
That seems a little extreme.
joe rogan
But that's my point, is that that is the attitude.
That it's so silly.
They're saying something like, you haven't thought this through at all.
You don't have a real plan, but you just don't want people to make fun of you being fat.
So you think that the best way to handle this is to destroy Western civilization.
I'm trying to find it.
dave smith
It's going to be really disappointing when she destroys Western civilization and then finds out people still make fun of her for being fat.
joe rogan
Look at this.
To end fatphobia, we need to dismantle Western civilization, says Philly therapist.
unidentified
Whew.
dave smith
Can you imagine someone who really needs a therapist and that's who you get as your therapist?
I feel like she would definitely force that into therapy.
You're like, I don't know, I never really communicated with my father.
And she's like, do you think we need to destroy Western civilization?
joe rogan
But it's like if you just tell her, like, ma'am, if you just lost weight, you'd be feeling better.
You'd be better.
It'd be better forever.
You would have less...
Disease, you'd have less problems, your joints wouldn't hurt, you'd have more energy.
dave smith
Yes, it would be objectively better.
joe rogan
For everything about your life, all aspects of your life, you'd be happier, your hormones would work better, your whole endocrine system would function more fluidly, your heart would work better, you'd feel better.
dave smith
Somewhere along the line in this country, we became allergic to harsh truths.
Anything that just is like, look, this is the truth, but it's probably not going to make you feel warm and mushy to hear this.
joe rogan
Yeah, I got another one.
I got to send Jamie this right now because it's so fucking stupid.
unidentified
It is Adele got in trouble last night.
This is like, what is happening?
joe rogan
This literally makes no sense.
So Adele did this...
I mean, I don't even know what you would call it.
They were calling it gender neutral.
Some gender neutral thing.
And she talked about how much she loved being a woman.
And they were mad at her.
dave smith
That's very offensive.
joe rogan
They slammed her.
She was slammed for telling a gender neutral award show that she loves being a woman.
Like, you can't love being a woman!
dave smith
It's horrible.
joe rogan
You have to be gender neutral.
Like us.
Be like us!
We're so tolerant!
dave smith
I'm appalled.
She loves being a woman.
joe rogan
That's so intolerant.
dave smith
Yeah, really.
joe rogan
She should be tolerant and just be like them only.
And only think like them.
All the they-them people, she should only be like them.
dave smith
Yeah.
It's a very insane request.
You know what I mean?
I think it's a reasonable request to say, hey listen, I don't fit into these norms, and I would like to not be mistreated for that.
That is a reasonable request.
To say that I demand that everybody else also does not fit into the norms, which the vast majority of human beings, like the vast, vast, vast majority, consider themselves to be one of these two genders.
joe rogan
Yeah.
dave smith
So to demand that they stop doing that so that you're more comfortable, that's a...
It's like if someone is in a wheelchair and they're like, hey, I'd really appreciate it if you built a ramp.
Or I'd appreciate it if you don't like, you know, I don't know, something.
But if they go, I'd like everybody else to sit in a wheelchair and wheel around also.
joe rogan
That's the only way you can get around.
dave smith
That seems a bit unrealistic.
joe rogan
Well, this is apparently a gender-neutral award show, which I don't understand.
And I don't understand why she said yes going to it.
jamie vernon
I'm looking at the response to it.
It says the audience gave support, and then all of the slams are coming from Twitter.
joe rogan
Of course!
jamie vernon
And I looked at some of the tweets, and they're already protected, so I can't see it.
joe rogan
Ah, they're already protected!
dave smith
People panicked.
The audience at the time didn't realize that they had just heard such a horrific thing said to them.
joe rogan
Yeah, they weren't aware.
They had to get online and find out how they should think.
dave smith
Yeah, man.
All this stuff, though, it does...
It's, you know, it's like the reason, though, why all of this, like, woke insanity is so pushed by all of the big corporations and by the media and, like, all this stuff is because doesn't it just serve as the perfect distraction?
Like, while everything's crumbling and there's so many real things, like, the 20th century for the United States of America has been a disaster thus far.
Like, coming from being the most powerful country in the world, coming out of, say, like, the 90s to...
What is it?
2001 starts with 9-11, then like seven disastrous wars, the worst recession in 100 years or something like that.
Donald Trump gets elected.
There's COVID. There's the shutdowns, this whole thing.
It's like a disaster.
And they're like, what we really need to talk about, what we need to focus on, is that this woman said she loves being a woman the other day, and I find that very problematic.
If you're like one of these big corporations or some hedge fund manager or something, I'm just saying it's awfully convenient.
joe rogan
It's a very good distraction.
It does keep you from concentrating on it.
And one of the things that I was talking about last night.
dave smith
And the thing is that to actually think about that, number one, it requires you to actually think.
It requires you actually, you know, watch something or read something and know what's going on.
Then it also might require that you reflect on yourself and what role you play in all of this.
You're like, I'm quite happy to ignore that and just have my new cool phone.
Whereas just being outraged about someone saying a word you don't think they're supposed to say, that's easy.
It takes no sacrifice, no introspection, nothing.
People just focus on that, but we have an unbelievable problem in this culture with our hierarchy of outrage.
It's not that even some things maybe aren't wrong or you shouldn't be upset about them, but where does this rank in terms of other outrages?
I mean, there could just be like a...
It's like, oh, the Biden administration had a drone bomb, you know, killed like six innocent people.
And that's like the 1037th thing that people are outraged about today.
And the number one thing is just always something that's like, this should not even be in competition with that.
Like, what are we talking about here?
joe rogan
Like, The Rock pretended to be a Chinese guy 13 years ago.
We need to go after him now.
dave smith
But man, that video of you commentating while he does it is hilarious.
God bless the internet.
God bless the geniuses on the internet.
joe rogan
Well, when you step out and you say something silly and he said something silly.
dave smith
Well, that's the thing, though, is that it's like...
It's an interesting thing also because you have so much support, so many people love you, that now you have all these people out there and it's like, so what do you guys want to do here?
You really want to go to war?
You want to bring up everything everyone's ever said that was not the right thing to say?
joe rogan
When they got the Young Turks.
I wonder if they had started talking about it first and then they got them with that video or if they just went right for them.
dave smith
I don't know.
joe rogan
I don't know because I don't watch them.
dave smith
Yeah, I haven't watched them in a long long time.
joe rogan
I used to.
dave smith
Yeah, I did too.
It got unbearable.
joe rogan
What happened?
Something happened and I don't know if it's attention.
There's something that happens to people.
It's very difficult to stay the course and be who you are.
And I say this as a person who gets about as much attention as anybody gets.
Like, alive.
It's hard.
Because so many people are looking at you.
And also, I have, like, managers and shit.
And they're like, should you really do this?
And should you really do that?
And they talk to me on the phone.
I go, hey, hey, hey.
Gotta go.
I'm high.
dave smith
Click.
joe rogan
I'm like, wait.
I'm not changing.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
Like, I'm not changing anything about what I do.
I'm a good person.
I'm a nice guy.
But if you're asking me to, like, become something different because people are paying attention, like, well, I'm out.
Because that's not what I signed up for.
I signed up to just be myself.
But something happens to a lot of people when they get a lot of attention where they start to lean towards the things that get them the most attention or lean towards the things they feel like get them the most support or they start to react to the reactions of other people.
And then they become reactionaries.
They become different than who they really are.
And one of the things is they lose their ability to have a charitable take on things.
They lose their ability to be compassionate for other people, and they start looking at things very ideologically, very dogmatically, and they start falling into these traps.
And you'll see it with right-wing people, you see it with left-wing people, and they get Somehow or another, they feel like their emotions and outrage and yelling and being insulting, it enhances what they're saying.
It enhances their take on things.
And it doesn't.
It doesn't work.
You should be maturing.
It's okay to be outraged.
It's okay to insult people.
But it should have weight to it.
It should make sense.
And when you're doing it and it doesn't make sense, come on.
Do you not have a filter?
Are you having too many other people influence you?
Do you not have any meditation time?
Like, why are you changing?
Like, what are you becoming?
dave smith
Or is it something more sinister than that?
Which I think it is for some people, where it's like, you know exactly what you're doing.
You don't even really believe in this, you know, that's outrage.
But this is a convenient way for you to kind of pile on and kind of take out your enemies, so to speak.
joe rogan
There's a lot of people like that.
Yeah, there's a lot of people like that.
The instancy, that's dark.
It's so sad like it's like people are looking But that's also why it doesn't it's not very effective and it's not very popular like it's kind of popular with some casuals But it loses support because if people don't feel you're sincere if they don't you can be wrong But you have to be honest like you who are you like who I don't I want to know who you are I don't mind flawed people every fucking person I love dearly is flawed all of them I like flawed people I don't mind flaws, but I want to know what you're thinking.
Like, why are you thinking what you're thinking?
Are you thinking what you're thinking because you've thought it out?
Is it your opinion today and tomorrow you might come along and go, you know what?
I thought about what I said, and now I think differently because this, that, and the other.
And okay, good.
Now I like even more, because now I know I can trust you to course correct.
I can trust you to be honest about your missteps or why you're thinking a way that upon further consideration you revised your opinion.
But if I think you're bullshitting me, if I think you're doing something because you're just trying to get attention, Fuck all the way off.
I'm not interested now.
dave smith
So I think you just hit on like exactly really the essence of why you're so big and the essence of why the corporate press hates you so much is that you have this connection with your audience where they know it's not like your audience Thinks you're right about everything.
They know you're not lying to them.
And that's a really important distinction.
It's not necessarily, like, you might be wrong about some stuff, and you often will admit, like, I got this wrong, or whatever.
You'll correct yourself in real time.
But they know you're not lying to them.
And people can smell that, like, on an instinctual level.
You watch CNN, and you know they're lying to you.
They're not even attempting to have an honest conversation.
This isn't...
joe rogan
Have you seen Russell Brand do Brian's Delta?
unidentified
Oh, have I seen it?
dave smith
I've seen it.
I've climaxed to it.
It's the greatest thing ever.
joe rogan
It's the perfect example.
It's so fake.
dave smith
Dude, did you see that thing?
I can't even remember if this was the segment he was doing, but there was this one.
You talk about having some self-reflection, some introspection.
There's this segment where Brian Stelter is literally on air complaining about how people trust you and don't trust the media.
And he's like, but Joe Rogan just gets up there and wings it.
And he's got this huge audience and everyone trusts him.
And then we have journalists and newsrooms and fact checkers and they don't trust us.
And you're like, dude, can you?
You are really going to talk about this and not have an ounce of self-reflection and go, hey, why is that?
Why is it that people don't trust CNN? Why is it that you can't go to half the country without them chanting, CNN sucks?
Why is that?
joe rogan
Well, a New York Times reporter actually wrote about this.
And he said, instead of demonizing Rogan, let's find out why people trust him.
dave smith
Isn't that so obvious?
joe rogan
And people started attacking him.
dave smith
Yeah.
joe rogan
Why do they trust him over us?
And people are like, fuck you!
dave smith
Play this.
unidentified
Play this.
brian stelter
Sounds great, but not all opinions are created equal.
joe rogan
Who just wing it.
unidentified
Who make it up as they go along.
brian stelter
And because figures like Rogan are trusted by people that don't trust real newsrooms.
unidentified
They're like, why don't people trust me?
They trust Rogan, but I'm perfectly trusted.
Look how loose my tie knot is.
He took horse maggot medicine the other day.
Now tell me, sir, and don't tell me anything other than this.
Should there be a war?
Yes, there should be a war.
Interview's done.
joe rogan
I'd like to see you do that, Joan Rogan.
unidentified
Which sounds great, but not all opinions are created equal.
dave smith
What, yours are?
joe rogan
Look, they have a fully vaccinated chart.
What is that chart?
What's that thing to the right?
New death, seven-day average?
Jesus Christ, what are you selling?
What is that?
But by the way, you want to talk about processed information?
How processed is that?
New deaths, seven-day average.
Like, okay, show me the comorbidities.
dave smith
They're not going to show you any of the data that is actually relevant.
They're not going to break it down in a meaningful way.
But I just think that somewhere along the lines in this country, now that we have the opportunity to, because of the internet and podcasts and things like this, and because Guys like Brian Stelter at CNN, these guys have been so, in the 21st century alone, so catastrophically wrong about so many important things, like so many, that nobody trusts them anymore.
They smell that this is phony, and they don't want that.
And I think what you...
I don't think intentionally, but I think just because it's your nature, what you kind of figured out is that people were really craving just an authentic conversation.
joe rogan
Yes.
dave smith
Where people can be flawed and people can just talk about, you know, things that matter and talk about them from a real perspective and just have a conversation.
I'm not putting on a show for you here.
I'm not going, hello everybody and welcome to the Joe Rogan podcast today and this blah blah blah.
Like, none of that.
Let's be human beings here and that Was really attractive to a lot of people.
And I mean, look, man, these guys, you know, listen, the amount of contempt I have for the corporate press, I cannot, like, overstate.
I mean, these are, in my opinion, and I think an opinion that's, like he said, not all opinions are equal.
Like, I think this opinion is better than his.
They are, objectively, the mouthpieces for war criminals.
That's what they do.
And the idea that they would have the nerve The nerve to accuse you of spreading disinformation.
As they've been pushing this war propaganda between Russia and Ukraine, what's so weird that I haven't seen come up is that Vladimir Putin had bounties On the heads of US soldiers in Afghanistan.
Oh, no, you know what?
They don't bring that up because that was a lie.
joe rogan
That didn't happen.
dave smith
Oh, that's right.
You guys just pushed war propaganda between the two countries which own 90% of the world's nuclear arsenal.
You pushed that based off a lie.
And you also said that the last president was installed by Vladimir Putin on some Russian conspiracy.
But why don't we hear about that that much?
Why is that?
Oh yeah, because that was a big fat lie.
Not to mention, you know, Assad is still in power in Syria, but whatever happened to the fact that he was gassing his own people?
Oh yeah, that was a big fat lie.
And we know that now because there's been like five whistleblowers from the OPCW. That have come out and explained that all of the evidence pointed toward that it wasn't Assad who gassed his own people.
And I mean, Libya, they said Gaddafi was about to go genocidal against his own people.
A study in the...
They did an investigation in the British Parliament determined that was a complete lie.
I mean, like, one after...
Obviously, everyone knows weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was a big, fat lie.
And these are lies where...
Hundreds of thousands of people have died as a result of the lies.
So not just spreading misinformation, misinformation with catastrophic consequences where like real human beings have had their lives ruined and then you would be behind that whole apparatus and have the nerve to accuse somebody else of spreading misinformation when they spread misinformation about you.
joe rogan
Specifically about me and they sent their doctor in here and all he could say when you confronted him on that was like Yeah, no, I guess they shouldn't have said that and then turns around goes back on CNN and goes yeah No, we never lied about that like people see that totally say that he that's actually kind of a Confusing thing you could look at that out of context and I think Sanjay Gupta is a good man what happened was He was talking to Don Lemon,
and Don Lemon said that it is true that these drugs are used in whatever, I'm paraphrasing, in a veterinary application.
And then he said, yes it is, and then he wanted to keep talking, so it's not a lie, but Don Lemon would talk over him.
He's doing the thing remotely, and if you've never experienced this before, what happens is you put an ear thing in, and it's like if Dave and I were in another city and we were doing a show remotely like on CNN, he would talk to me and there would be a slight delay, and then I would hear him and I would talk to him.
That slight delay ruins all flow.
dave smith
I've done those things several times.
You're right about that.
It is a very weird thing.
Oftentimes you don't see the person you're talking to.
Sometimes they have them up on a monitor, but a lot of times you don't.
joe rogan
Usually you're just looking right into a camera.
dave smith
It's very awkward.
However, he could have.
You're right.
He didn't really do it.
It was Don Lemon who was kind of using him as a prop to do it.
joe rogan
Actually, it's really true that it is a veterinary medicine.
It is a horse dewormer.
dave smith
But you know what he didn't do?
What Gupta didn't do?
And I don't know him.
You say he's a good guy.
Like, okay.
But what he didn't do, which he could have, is said, no, we shouldn't have said that about him.
That shouldn't have been said.
Which would be very easy to do.
That takes the minimum amount of integrity to just go, no, you know what?
It was really misleading to say that the guy was taking horse medicine.
That is not true.
joe rogan
He's an academic and he's a neurosurgeon.
Like, he's a practicing neurosurgeon.
I mean, we're talking about a guy who's working like 100 hours a week, like no bullshit.
He's a legit doctor and a good person.
Like, I've talked to him off-air.
He's a good person.
Not everybody has that kind of ability to confront things, especially when you're dealing with an enormous structure like CNN that is overbearing.
And you're talking to a guy like Don Lemon, who's a big personality, who's like the...
Now he's the head guy.
He's the head guy there.
Like Brian Stelters...
Don Lemon is probably the most trusted guy.
dave smith
Now that Cuomo's gone.
joe rogan
It's really Jake Tapper is the only guy that I think is a legit journalist.
When I listen to Jake Tapper, I don't ever see him say things that I think are just fucking ridiculous and disingenuous.
I think he's as legit as they get over there.
But it's like, how legit can you be over there?
dave smith
And also, I guess, maybe in defense.
Half in defense of Dr. Gupta would be that there would be consequences to pay if he did that.
Even just something as simple as that.
He'd be in real trouble, but...
joe rogan
They bring in that Lena Wenchik for all his gigs.
dave smith
But we need more...
Yeah, right, exactly.
joe rogan
She's willing to fucking...
We need three masks.
If we don't have three masks, 85% of us are going to die.
dave smith
Well, not anymore, Joe.
The science has changed.
joe rogan
Oh, the science has changed.
Now the science has changed.
dave smith
She said the other day that we need like a third group now who recognizes that the science has changed.
So basically it's like we recognize that we did everything right, but the science changed now.
And so now that would be wrong to keep doing everything.
And so now let's stop doing all the crazy stuff.
joe rogan
Go to James Lindsay's Twitter page.
He had something about her, I didn't even know that she had said, that's so outrageous.
And he said, don't forget that this is the same woman that said this just a couple months ago about unvaccinated people.
Like some ridiculous quote about unvaccinated people.
By the way, which many of them have had COVID. Many of these unvaccinated people like myself and like my friend Dave Smith, we've had COVID. And the CDC has finally come out and said that if you have had COVID, You have better protection from Delta by something like 6X. Which usually when the CDC comes out and says this, it's what anyone paying attention has known for a very long time.
dave smith
But yes, they are finally admitting now that what all of the studies have indicated, that natural immunity is substantially stronger.
Not like a little bit stronger, much stronger, much longer lasting.
It's just in every way the best protection you can have.
joe rogan
Yeah, I mean, I wish that wasn't controversial.
Did you find it?
unidentified
Well, he tweets all day, so I don't know.
joe rogan
He tweets all day!
He's active.
unidentified
What?
joe rogan
There's a lot of tweets in the last hour.
He tweeted an hour, 30 times in an hour?
Two hours ago, there's like five, ten more.
Can you imagine being his wife?
James, get off the goddamn phone.
The fuck is wrong with you?
It's further down.
I know.
I assume so.
Keep going.
unidentified
Hold on.
joe rogan
I love him.
But goddamn, he's a Twitter warrior.
dave smith
Oh, yeah.
No, and he's ready.
He gets into it with people.
He goes back and forth with them.
joe rogan
He's out there.
He's swinging.
Would it have been yesterday?
It could have been yesterday.
Twitter's curated in a weird way.
I only open it like two or three times a day because there was a time, like yesterday or the day before, where every time I would open Twitter, and I don't look at my mentions at all, but it was all about me.
I was like, Jesus Christ.
dave smith
My mentions were all about you, so I can imagine yours would be...
joe rogan
I'm looking for something that's escape.
I'm trying to find out about Ukraine.
jamie vernon
You gotta change the little thing in the top corner to change the timeline so it's in chronological order.
They reset it every so often.
joe rogan
Oh, okay.
I think one of the things that's happened over this most recent cancellation, I've spent substantially less time online, and it made me feel better.
Not just because I'm not reading about me, like mean things people say about me, or supportive things people say about me, which is a lot of it.
It's been very nice.
I really do thank all the people that have been very supporting, very loving.
I really appreciate it.
But I just don't think it's good to even read stuff that's not about you.
I think what I should be reading is like fucking AP articles, like news articles.
I should be reading like real news.
That's what I should be reading.
That's kind of it.
Like all these hot takes, I mean, maybe I should dip my fucking toes in that pool every couple days or so, but the reality is, like, that's not good for your health.
Because these perspectives, they accelerate the culture war.
Because you see, like, this ridiculous perspective, like, people getting mad at Adele for saying she loves being a woman, and you get angry, like, for no reason, and you're like, what the fuck?!
And then you chime in and...
dave smith
Well, it's unbelievable how much it creates this...
joe rogan
Here it is.
dave smith
Oh, there we go.
unidentified
I think.
Is this the stuff?
joe rogan
Nope.
unidentified
Okay.
joe rogan
Well, that's one of them.
That's pretty funny, though.
She said it's easier for people to get vaccinated when they don't have their freedoms.
We have four posts here that are all stuff that are from her.
unidentified
That's it.
joe rogan
That's the one.
Unvaccinated people should not be allowed to leave their homes.
dave smith
There you go.
joe rogan
Look at that!
This is fucking September!
In September, unvaccinated people should not be allowed to leave their homes.
Honey.
dave smith
I mean...
joe rogan
That's crazy!
What about an unvaccinated person that's recovered from the...
Aren't you a doctor?
dave smith
Yeah, well, what drives me crazy about this also is that it's not just like the...
Right, like, there's the...
It's not even as if she's following the science, right?
Because the science would tell you that their favorite term, follow the science.
The science would tell you that actually, you know, someone with natural immunity is safer leaving their home than a vaccinated person.
And also that there could be a million other metrics.
But what about someone who has a negative COVID test?
joe rogan
Yeah, exactly.
dave smith
But regardless of all of that, the thing that drives me crazy about the, you know, like when Dana White got confronted by that reporter who said, are you a doctor?
You know, are you a doctor?
It's like, look, Some people...
There's a fair argument to be made to say that, like, a virologist has an expertise in viruses that the rest of us don't have.
And that's fine.
It's a less strong argument when you're censoring all of the virologists who disagree with you.
But once you're talking about public policy...
Then everybody gets to be a part of this conversation.
You can't just – because you're now talking about – you may have a little expertise, but your expertise might be in viruses or if you're like an epidemiologist in the spread of viruses or an immunologist in the immune system or something like that.
But if you're talking about, okay, this policy will contain this virus, it's like, yeah, but are you also taking into account what effect that would have on the economy?
What effect that would have on the psychology of the people?
Are you all of these experts?
And now you're talking about, how about just the belief in liberty?
I mean, like, you're telling people because they didn't consume a pharmaceutical product, they're not allowed to leave their home?
I'm sorry.
Being a doctor does not give you, like, some expertise in that that I, as a regular free person, am not allowed to also have a say in.
And, like, my counter to that is, like, over, like...
Over my dead body?
Are you going to lock me in my house?
Like, give me liberty or give me death?
Am I not allowed to feel that way?
Wasn't that supposedly the spirit of this country?
So that stuff just like, this is a really evil authoritarian mindset that's on display there.
Not just that like, hey, I think it would be best if we did this, but that I believe I have this medical expertise that now gives me license To strip other people of their most basic freedoms.
The most basic freedom.
The freedom to leave your house.
joe rogan
Do you think it's enforced on a corporate level?
Do you think there's conversations about this?
Or do you think it's encouraged?
Do you think it's like what we were talking about earlier, when it comes to different podcasters and YouTubers and the like, that once they start getting attention for a certain thing, they lean into it?
And so that warps their perspective?
Do you think that's what's going on?
dave smith
I don't think it's just one or the other.
So I think there's multiple factors going on with a lot of different people.
So part of it is that, and I've experienced this a little bit when I've kind of been in little bits and pieces in the corporate press world, it's a very insulated bubble.
joe rogan
Well, you should talk about the time you used to work with C.E. Cup, and you did a thing with Brian Stelter.
dave smith
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, I met all these guys.
I did panels with them.
joe rogan
Why did they stop calling you?
dave smith
Well, so basically what happened was I got hired by S.E. Cup to be a contributor.
I like her a lot, by the way.
She is, I will say, very different politics than her.
She was nothing but great to me.
And gave me an opportunity on her show, and I'm very grateful for that.
joe rogan
She holds herself up with dignity.
She always does.
She conducts herself very well.
dave smith
I don't know her super well.
We did the show together a lot.
I was doing it several times a week, and we would do the show together and work together.
We never hung out or anything like that.
But she was always nothing but very nice to me, and I really liked working for her.
She was very nice.
I think she's wrong about a lot.
But so they hired me at her, she had a show called Unfiltered.
And I was one of the contributors on it.
And I think they had no idea what they were getting with me.
I think they were like, they were like, oh, Dave's like a stand-up comic and he makes jokes about politics.
So perfect.
He'll come in here and be funny.
And they, dude, I mean, they had, when it first started, they had a segment at the end of the show where every contributor got to bring their own topic.
You know, like, here's the topic I want to talk about, and this is what's going on in the news.
And they literally called me at one point, because, like, four days in a row, I had talked about the war in Yemen.
That was, like, all I wanted to talk about every single time.
I was like, this is the worst thing in the world, it's the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world, hundreds of thousands of people are dying, babies are, like, vomiting themselves to death, and it's all because America's supporting the Saudi-led war over there.
We could end this in a day with a phone call.
And then it'd be like, tomorrow, what do you want to talk about?
It'd be like, Well, the war in Yemen's still going on, and babies are dying, and we could end this with a phone call.
And they're like, the fourth day, they were like, you have to talk about something else.
You have to pick a different story.
And then the fifth day, I went in and I was like, the war in Syria is all America's fault, and babies are dying, and we could end this in a day.
And then, like, they stopped doing that segment where the contributors got to pick their story at the end.
I don't know if it was because of me.
I think it was because of me.
But I had some fun moments on there where I'd get to argue with all of them.
And then as it went on and on, I think it just wasn't helping her.
They started using me less and less.
And they did renew my contract.
I had a six-month contract, then they renewed me for another six months.
But then by the end, they just stopped letting me talk about war.
Like if war came up, I just wouldn't be on the panel anymore.
unidentified
Oh.
dave smith
They'd bring in one person and kick the panel off and little things like that.
So I kind of got the hint.
And then by like the last two months, I was just like, listen, I could just walk away.
We don't have to do this.
joe rogan
You had an interaction with Brian Stelter.
dave smith
Yeah.
So I was on a panel with Brian Stelter once.
2017. And the topic was, what Brian Stelter's favorite topic is, was, you know, misinformation on the internet.
Because he's the guy, his job is to basically be the guy who covers the press.
So he's the beat reporter on, you know, the media.
And every week he comes in with, you know, his assessment on the corporate press and he goes, A-plus, doing great work, except Fox News.
Everyone else is doing great, but the real problem is there's this misinformation out there.
And there was a video at the time, and I believe it was like the number one watched video on YouTube of the week.
And it was a stupid video.
It was about how the Parkland shooting, that shooting in Florida at the high school there, was an inside job.
It didn't really happen.
It was all crisis actors and all this stuff.
It was stupid, just dumb conspiracy that's not true at all.
The shooting happened.
People died.
But he was going off and off about how dangerous this was and why people, you know, how do people believe this stuff?
And I was basically saying to him, like, the thing I'm trying to say now, like, it's like, well, have a little bit of self-reflection.
Ask yourself, why is it that people don't believe you guys?
And I was arguing with him.
I was like, look, there's so many real conspiracies that you guys won't cover that are really interesting, but you won't cover it at all here.
So then you leave, you seed that ground.
To somebody else.
And this was all fair, but I was talking to him about, like, why I used to listen to Alex Jones back in the day.
Like, what I found so interesting about him.
And I was like, well, back in the day, I found Alex Jones, and he's talking about all these things, like, you know, Operation Northwood and stuff like that.
And I was like, there's no way that's true.
That couldn't be real.
And then you go research it, and you're like, oh, it is real.
joe rogan
Explain that to people who don't know what you're talking about.
dave smith
Operation Northwood was this plan.
It was during the Kennedy administration, so in the early 60s.
JFK was president, I don't know, 62, maybe?
And basically, they had this plan, which was signed off by the Joint Chiefs, to have a false flag attack to shoot down an American plane and blame it on the Cubans as a pretext for war, to go to war with Cuba.
And John F. Kennedy heroically...
Uh, said, no!
Like, what are you guys insane?
joe rogan
Like, no, I'm not doing this!
Imagine coming into office, when you're president, you don't really know how they run things, and you get in there and the Joint Chiefs of Staff pushes that onto your desk.
dave smith
Yeah.
joe rogan
They want to arm Cuban friendlies and attack Guantanamo Bay, and you're like, what?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Wait a minute, wait a minute, there's no real, like a fake war?
You're making a fake war?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Like you're faking an attack.
dave smith
And you're like, but how are we going to convince people that they actually killed people?
I go, because we're actually going to kill people.
And then we're gonna blame it on the Cubans.
You're gonna kill Americans?
Wait a minute.
So, you're gonna commit an act of war on America.
Now, to any normal person, I'm sorry, you look at that, you go, that's fucking interesting, man.
Like, that's crazy that our government was willing to do it then.
And then, doesn't it lead to a series of next questions?
I'm not saying a series of next beliefs, but questions.
If they would do it then, would they do it now?
Were they so dirty then, but they've cleaned everything up now?
What evidence is there of that?
joe rogan
No one was punished.
That's the thing.
There was no one jailed for that.
dave smith
Well, one guy was punished.
joe rogan
Well, one guy.
A few times.
Yeah, but other than that, no one did time.
So everything evolves.
And you've got to think that if this is the attitude of the Joint Chiefs and various people behind the scenes in 1962, why are we supposed to assume that that somehow or another is better today?
dave smith
And all of that, all of the kind of like deep state entrenched powers have only gotten more powerful and out of control since then.
I mean like this was very new.
Like the CIA was created in the 40s.
So you got to think at this point in time, this is a fairly new Yeah, like we didn't really like this.
This was new.
This was supposed the CIA when it was created was supposed to be basically like a newspaper for the president Like the idea was like they're gonna gather information and give it to the president So he has good information good intelligence about what's going on.
It wasn't gonna be like some paramilitary organization that goes and launches covert wars all around the world and This grew into this monstrosity that it is today and has been for decades.
But anyway, so I was making this point to Brian Stelter that it's like – and then I said on air at one point – I used the example.
I go, Obama signed into law in the National Defense Authorization Act of whatever year it was.
I think it was 2011. I might be wrong about the year.
But it was one of the NDAA acts that Obama signed into law had the provision that you could detain American citizens without charges and hold them indefinitely.
And Obama noticed that provision himself because he added a signing statement to it that said, my administration does not plan on doing this.
joe rogan
We would never use that.
dave smith
We wouldn't use it.
But I'm signing it into law still.
And I go, that is dangerous.
And at one point I said, this was on air, at one point I said to Brian Stelter, I go, now listen, the fact that people don't trust the media and that there's all these conspiracies in plain sight that aren't reported on, this manifests itself in silly things, sometimes like some video saying the Parkland...
You know, school shooting was crisis actors and didn't happen.
And he corrected me, quite outraged, and said, it's not just silly.
It's not just silly.
It's dangerous.
And I said to him, I go, what's much more dangerous is the president of the United States signing into law the right to detain American citizens without charges and hold them indefinitely and a media who doesn't cover it.
And, you know, it's much more dangerous as weapons of mass destruction are being created by Saddam Hussein that leads us into war with Iraq.
And I just don't understand.
It's almost like I don't know if those guys are, like, being intentionally dishonest, but I don't understand how you couldn't think that through and realize it.
joe rogan
I think they are.
I think there's a bridge they won't cross.
dave smith
Yeah.
joe rogan
There's a bridge they won't cross where certain things they won't discuss.
They're too problematic and they just leave them alone.
And then they'll focus instead on things that are easy to digest and that a lot of people will agree with.
dave smith
Yeah, but the result of that has been What?
That the trust in media has completely collapsed, their viewership has completely collapsed, and now they're furious that you, you know, they're like on some show on CNN, talking about how dangerous you are, and this show on CNN, you probably have Easily 20 times more people listening to your show than theirs.
So that's the result of all of this.
joe rogan
We have news groups.
We have a lot of people working behind us.
We have reporters.
We have people who study.
I've got Jamie.
dave smith
Yeah, that's right.
joe rogan
I've got Jamie and Google.
He's one-handed Google.
He's not even using two hands.
dave smith
And he's better, and he's beating all of those guys.
He's getting you real-time information much quicker than those guys have.
joe rogan
Sometimes it's confusing, like Google's confusing.
I prefer he uses DuckDuckGo, but that fuck, he's sticking with the Google.
dave smith
For people who don't know, Jamie really runs the show here.
joe rogan
What's that?
I know how to use it.
It's not hard to use DuckDuckGo.
dave smith
Jamie doesn't have time to figure out DuckDuckGo.
He's a busy man.
joe rogan
It's my default search engine, sir.
dave smith
Well, you do get stuff on there that you can't find on Google.
unidentified
Oh, yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah, you want to look up some nefarious stuff?
That's the place to look.
dave smith
Yeah.
I can find that, too.
But it's unbelievable.
And so my guess, even back to what you were saying before, my suspicion is that it's part that people are very insulated in their world, and they kind of have this thing where it's like, Well, everyone agrees with this, because everyone they talk to agrees with this.
joe rogan
That's an issue with New York and L.A. in particular.
dave smith
Yes, that's very true.
And then within those circles, within New York and L.A., they're not even getting out there and talking to firefighters in Staten Island.
You know what I mean?
They're in the Upper West Side or something.
And so there's that.
And then I think there's also a lot of these...
Like these games, the corporate press game, the politics game, like all of these, the bureaucrat game, they tend to be a magnet and then they tend to be an area where very dishonest, narcissistic people, like they're drawn in and they rise up.
Those are the people who are like drawn in and those are the people who are rewarded by those systems.
So you get a lot of those people.
And then on top of that, I think there is some blatant, flat out, lying, corrupt people who are straight up in bed with big corporate interests who are there to do their bidding and know exactly what they're doing.
Like they might be maybe working with intelligence agencies or they might be working with whatever, pharmaceutical companies or things like that and they have an agenda and they are just lying.
Now I'm not saying that's everybody, but I'm saying those people exist as well.
That people like It's—there are people there—I mean, you see these think tanks that, like, are funded by weapons companies that push for every single military—like, every single military intervention.
Now, I refuse to believe that this is all just the fact that, like, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin really believe it's a noble cause to fund a think tank that wants to push for military intervention.
I think there's corruption there.
I mean, I don't think that's too, you know, crazy of a reach.
joe rogan
If you want to be a part of that system, there's rules.
Like if you want to be a part of the CNN system or the MSNBC system, there's rules.
There's rules in the way you communicate.
You don't have free reign.
And it's a problem.
That's why people like Crystal Ball and Saga and Jetty are thriving.
That's why their Breaking Points show is killing it.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
That's why Kyle Kalinske is killing it.
It's like Jimmy Dore is killing it.
Because people believe them.
And they'll give you uncensored, unfiltered, honest information.
And their real opinions on Well, that's it, though.
dave smith
It's like people have the perception, much like with you, all those guys you just named, that they're not lying to them.
And the reason is because they are not lying to them.
That doesn't mean they get everything right, but it means that they're not intentionally deceiving you.
joe rogan
And there's no one behind them pulling their strings.
When Crystal and Sagar went live, that was a very important moment.
Because it wasn't like The Hill was holding them back.
And I think Rising on the Hill, the show they do now, is excellent.
It's still very good.
I love it a lot.
I still watch it.
I think they do a really good job.
The Hill is a really...
As far as structures, I mean, it's kind of a corporate structure that disseminates the news.
It's very good.
It's probably the best one.
Outside of these independents.
But to be an independent in today's day, it's hard.
It's a sneaky thing.
You have to find your way through the Salmon River and climb up the net.
You've got to get through somehow.
You've got to climb up the ladder.
It's hard.
It's not an easy thing to do, and that's one of the reasons why I try to boost their signal, like Matt Taibbi or Glenn Greenwald or anybody that's a legitimate, independent journalist that I think is doing really good work.
You've got to highlight these people.
This is what we need to be paying attention to.
And guys who work for big companies, like Josh Rogan, who's legit as fuck, who works for The Washington Post.
These people are out there.
They're real.
They're out there, and you can trust them.
dave smith
Yeah, there's still a few people out there who are doing really incredible work.
unidentified
They're so valuable.
dave smith
They are, but they're few and far between.
But there are those people out there, and I think Glenn Greenwald is a great example.
Matt Taibbi is a great example.
joe rogan
They're two of the best examples.
dave smith
Aaron Matei is a great example, an excellent journalist.
And those are and I would say everybody at antiwar.com.
That's really if you want to know what's going on with foreign policy in this country, antiwar.com.
I go there every single day.
It's like the best news coverage of what's going on everywhere in the world.
Scott Horton, the great Scott Horton, who's an Austinite.
Oh, is he?
He lives here?
Yeah, I gave you his book on Afghanistan back in the day.
He just wrote a new book called Enough Already, which is like a history of all the terror wars.
If you want to read one book and understand what's going on with all the wars, read Enough Already.
It's incredible.
Scott Horton is a genius.
joe rogan
Did you give me it back in LA? Huh?
Did you give me the book back in LA? Yeah, it was back in LA. Studio library.
dave smith
It's still in LA. Yeah.
joe rogan
Well, we're going back to get it.
We're going back to scoop up most of the studio, bring it back to here, because the gym is moving next door.
dave smith
Oh, yeah.
joe rogan
Have you been?
Been next door?
dave smith
No, I don't think so.
joe rogan
Oh, boy.
dave smith
Oh, you're expanding this into...
joe rogan
It's fucking wild, dude.
unidentified
Yeah.
dave smith
Oh, here we go.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Yeah, we got...
A lot of wild shit.
We got a yoga room.
dave smith
Oh, jeez.
So you're turning this into more what the L.A. thing was?
joe rogan
Bigger.
Way bigger.
Twice as big.
dave smith
Oh, okay.
There you go.
joe rogan
We got a lot of wild shit here.
dave smith
Throughout the years, it always gets like crazier and crazier.
I remember the first time I ever did the show.
It was before the Crazy Huge one in L.A. It was like the original studio out there.
And it was real like...
You know, you didn't know exactly.
It wasn't clear where the studio was.
And I was looking it up and trying to find it from the address.
And I walk in and I knock on the door and no one's out in that first room.
And then I just push and the doors open, you know, and I'm like, I'm nervous.
I'm coming to do Joe Rogan experience for the first time ever.
And I just walk in and I was unsure if I was in the right place or just walking in.
I'm like...
Hello?
And then I look over and just see the big Wolverine.
unidentified
Werewolf.
dave smith
The werewolf.
I think I'm in the right place.
joe rogan
We got a new werewolf coming too.
dave smith
Look at you.
joe rogan
Pat McGee made a new one with all hair.
The other one was like fake hair, some of it, and some of it's real hair.
The new one's all hair.
It uses yak hair.
dave smith
You've done something really incredible here, Joe.
I don't know.
I don't exactly understand it, but it is incredible.
joe rogan
Just do what you like.
dave smith
Yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah.
dave smith
There's something just really like a...
One of the things I find really interesting right is like in the push to I guess the push is to Shut you up is more or less that from the Surgeon General to Brian Stelter to all of the people who are like, you know Whatever the all the the artists and all this stuff who are like, you know, whatever want you de-platformed or something like that It's like okay, so even theoretically let's say they got you and Which they're not going to.
But even theoretically, if they did, it's like, is that really the problem?
What do you do with your audience?
Do they think if you just stopped doing this, if you just quit tomorrow, then everybody who listens to you would just go, okay, I guess we'll just listen to Brian Stelter now.
I guess we'll walk right back into that world.
joe rogan
Well, the thing is, they've been able to silence some people.
They were able to silence Milo.
Like Milo doesn't exist anymore.
dave smith
He was removed from the public conversation.
joe rogan
Which is wild because if you go back to like 2016, was it?
Like what was the year where Milo was everywhere?
dave smith
I think 16 was really the year and then maybe 2017. He was a phenomenon.
joe rogan
And he had a crazy in that he was a gay guy who was...
Like, really right-wing, but also really fuckin' smart.
Like, he was on Bill Maher, right?
Remember when he was on Bill Maher and Bill Maher was comparing him with Christopher Hitchens?
dave smith
He went on...
That was a...
It was shortly after that that he got taken down.
Because he went on Bill Maher and he killed it.
On Bill Maher.
And I think that was almost like the moment where it was like, oof, we better do something.
joe rogan
Well, I think there was a lot of things happening, but it was the Leslie Jones thing.
It was the Leslie Jones things because she was in Ghostbusters and he had said some mean shit about her and called her ugly or something like that and maybe some racial stuff.
And then there was a bunch of people who also tweeted at her.
And then apparently the accusation for removing him from Twitter, the accusation was that there was a bunch of other accounts that either him or the same IP address was using.
My perspective on that was like he was...
What organization was he working?
dave smith
Was it Daily Wire?
No, he was originally with Breitbart, I believe.
And then I think he left them at some point.
joe rogan
That's right, it was Breitbart.
Daily Wire is...
Sorry, Ben.
Ben Shapiro.
dave smith
In fact, I think Ben Shapiro and him had a real beef, I believe.
joe rogan
Well, Ben Shapiro was the subject...
One of the people who want to say that Ben Shapiro's a fucking Nazi or he's alt, right?
He was the subject of the most anti-Semitic attacks.
dave smith
No, he's a Nazi.
That little hat's a Nazi.
That's what the Nazis were, Joe.
joe rogan
It was like for a whole year.
dave smith
All right, Whoopi.
Actually, this is...
joe rogan
The Whoopi thing, first of all, I 100% support Whoopi's ability to express incorrect opinions.
dave smith
Yeah.
joe rogan
I don't think she should have been removed from that show at all.
Even though those ladies try to de-platform me all the time, I don't think they should be de-platformed.
I think the best way to counter bad opinions is with good opinions.
And I don't think there's anything wrong with someone expressing...
And I don't think what she said was so ridiculously outrageous.
I understand her perspective.
I don't agree with it at all.
And also, historically, it's incorrect.
Literally, Hitler was trying to create the ultimate race.
Saying that it's not about race, that is everything it was about.
dave smith
Right, so it certainly was from the Nazis' perspective, and it certainly was from the Jews' perspective.
Both groups considered themselves a separate race.
Look, I'm Jewish, and my grandfather escaped Nazi Germany, and the rest of my family was all slaughtered there.
So on behalf of Jews, I forgive Whoopi Kohlberg.
joe rogan
Ari's dad is tattooed.
dave smith
But it also wasn't...
The thing is...
Yeah, I know.
It's not...
The problem here is that there's no, like, sanity or nuance.
So it's almost like if she said the wrong thing, then we have to treat that...
Like, as if there's no difference between if you said...
I don't think it was a racial issue, I just think it was an issue about humanity and how evil men can be, is what she said.
So if you said that, or if you said, I don't think the Holocaust ever happened, or if you said, I believe the Holocaust happened and I wish it would happen again.
As if there's no difference.
Between those three things.
You know what I mean?
joe rogan
Exactly.
dave smith
We treat all of them, it's like, well, you misstepped when speaking about the Holocaust, therefore go away.
So what she said was inaccurate, but it wasn't malicious, and it wasn't like an I hate Jewish people type thing.
And then the next day she goes, eh, I got that wrong.
I was wrong about that.
I apologize.
Any sane world would go, thank you.
joe rogan
Yeah.
dave smith
I appreciate that.
joe rogan
And that's how we work things out.
When a prominent person like Whoopi Goldberg has a misstep and then corrects herself and apologizes, then we all get to understand things.
The correct way to handle that is to leave her on the air and have more discussions about it.
Maybe have Barry Weiss come on, or maybe have another Jewish scholar come on.
Have someone come on and say, well, this is why this was offensive to other people, and I'm sure she would be apologetic.
She's not a bad person.
She's not a bad person by any stretch of the imagination.
She's trying to express herself, but her perspective, which was, it's personally oriented on being a woman who's experienced racism towards black people.
So she's looking at it like these are white people, and then the Germans are white people too.
dave smith
Which is understandable.
You could understand where, from a black woman's perspective, who doesn't know what she's talking about.
Now, she shouldn't have acted like she knew what she was talking about, but whatever.
joe rogan
But that's what they do.
That's their business model.
dave smith
90% of people do, as you know.
But where you would look at them and go, but they're all white, so how could this be a racial issue?
The other thing that's interesting is that it's like, do you consider Jewish people to be a separate race?
Because if not, if you say Jews are white, then technically...
You could argue that Whoopi Goldberg was correct, even though the Nazis believed they were a different race and the Jews believed they were a different race.
If you think they're all white, you go, they were both wrong.
So it wasn't technically a race issue.
But again, this is...
To me, I go, if the Nazis' ideology was completely motivated by genetic racialism...
So, yeah, I would say the answer there is that yes, at least the perpetrators of the Holocaust were saying that they were doing this, you know, to clean out and create the Aryan nation descendants from Atlas or whatever their weird ideology was.
But I do think that, you know, even talking about like the Milo thing and with a lot of these other guys, One of the things that I really hate and I wish we could fix in America, and I think to be successful, to be a thriving country going forward, we almost need to grapple with this.
And this isn't like laws or policy.
This is just kind of a spirit of liberty and tolerance that we need in this country where...
For me personally, if there's a person, you know, sometimes you have these people who are, like, very contrarian kind of provocateurs, and they might, let's say they say four things, and one of them is, like, kind of interesting, and one of them is, like, blows your mind, and you're like, that is such a good point, like, such a phenomenally good point, and I never thought about things that way.
And then they say one thing that you think is dead wrong, and then they say one thing that is wildly offensive and wrong.
Now, what the woke police and the cancel mobs will focus on is the one thing that they said that was wildly offensive and wrong, and therefore they should be canceled for that.
But to me, I'm like, I like that guy.
He says every now and then he'll say something that's really thoughtful and makes me think about things in a different way.
And then when he gets something wrong, I can disagree with him.
I don't want to cancel people because they occasionally get things wrong.
I think that a lot of times those types Are the ones who will hit on a really important truth.
joe rogan
Yeah.
dave smith
And that we need them.
We need them around.
We can't constantly silence them.
joe rogan
And you see, even what you were talking about before when you were talking about- Don't you think there's value also in correcting them and finding out what their mistakes were?
And also then we get to see how they react.
unidentified
Yes.
joe rogan
Because if they have said something that's wildly incorrect and then someone comes along and says, hey, this is why you're wrong, like with the Whoopi Goldberg thing, this is literally about race.
They were trying to create a master race.
That was their plan.
It had been so stated.
Read Mein Kampf.
Listen to Hitler's speeches.
He was trying to create a master race.
It was race.
Just because we're talking about melanin, We're talking about origins of original ancestries.
You can't just say it's not about race.
But the way to deal with that is not to suspend Whippy Goldberg.
Whippy Goldberg shouldn't be suspended.
She's not a bad person.
She's like anybody that's on TV spitting out hot takes with four people talking over each other.
You're going to say some dumb shit.
They're all talking over each other.
First of all, there's a reason why I have headphones on, so the people know.
Because when Dave and I are talking, especially if there's a third person here, it's very easy to talk over each other.
You don't want to.
And when I hear your voice and my voice at the exact same level, it makes you aware of it, it locks you into the conversation, and you don't talk over each other as much.
They don't have that, so they talk over each other constantly.
So that creates like a kind of, there's an anxiety to express yourself and like you're under the gun and it's like they also have a time constraint because each segment is only, you know, whatever minutes long because they have to go to commercial.
It's not a great place to discuss things that are nuanced.
And they don't give each other the room and the space to talk about things.
They don't have the time.
They need more time.
There's a reason also why this show is three fucking hours long.
Because I feel like there's some things that every now and then you'll run into a subject that needs an hour and a half on its own.
And it needs no interruptions and we need to work things out and talk things through.
And even then I might have to revisit it a week from now.
Or I might have to talk about it a month from now.
dave smith
And you find out more about people that way.
You find out how much they have to say about something.
Anyone can come up with a soundbite or repeat a soundbite.
And a lot of times in those shows, people aren't even interested in having a discussion like that.
They're just trying to get their talking point off.
And then, you know, kind of...
Drown out anybody else.
But I do, to the point you were making, like, yeah, I think there's real value in those people then being confronted and then seeing how they respond to the thing.
But also, it's not...
What's important to know is that you don't know necessarily beforehand whether they're right or wrong about that point.
Because maybe they're confronted and then they have a really good counter-argument.
And then you go, oh, shit.
Actually, maybe you're right about that.
And so it's just like...
This whole thing is going to go in such a bad authoritarian direction, which we're already going in, if you want to say, we decide what the official narrative is, and anybody who goes against that is crushed or silenced or mocked or ridiculed or whatever, and then that's that.
Then we just go with what the official, you know, like what the regime decides the talking points of today are.
I mean, unless the regime is always right That is a disastrous path.
joe rogan
Well, even then, it's not enough information.
You need more people communicating.
The regime by itself should not be the only people that get to discuss very important, nuanced, complex issues.
You need other people.
You need different perspectives.
You need scholars.
You need people that are psychologists.
You need people that are, you know, whatever, philosophers.
Different perspectives help Give you a mandala of ideas that you can kind of look over the great landscape of thoughts and say, oh, okay.
And then find out where you sit into these things.
There's people that are very pacifist, very peaceful, very non-confrontational.
They look at things very differently than a person who's aggressive, who's maybe too confrontational.
dave smith
Yes, and you need both.
Yeah, you need them all.
Me and my wife were...
This was a couple years ago.
This was right before all the COVID stuff.
Me and my wife were at a family friend's house having dinner.
And she's a college professor.
And she had a few of her friends over who were all college professors.
And we were in her living room having drinks after dinner.
And this one guy, who's a college professor, he leans into me.
And kind of like, in a low voice, he goes, you know, I actually agree with a lot of your politics.
And I remember just having this moment of being like, why are you whispering, motherfucker?
Like, we're in our mutual friend's house!
Like, is this a dangerous thing to admit?
joe rogan
Yeah, he wants to pay for his Volvo.
dave smith
This guy, by the way, this guy is super smart.
Way smarter than me.
He's like a really, really smart guy.
Like, teaches at a very, like, good university.
But there's a personality trait there that's very, like, a little passive.
Like, I don't want to rock the boat.
And if there is a time when, say, the establishment, let's just say is all pumping the same narrative about, I don't know, for the sake of argument, MRNA vaccines.
Who knows what it might be?
But if everyone's pumping the same narrative, there's a certain personality type who's going to be willing to stand up and say, I think you guys got this wrong.
I think there actually might be something much more to this.
And that's not always necessarily just like the smartest person there.
It's...
Oftentimes someone who has some intelligence but also has the personality to be a little bit confrontational, to be willing to say something outside the box.
joe rogan
That's Alex Barenson.
dave smith
Yes.
Yes, exactly.
And that's also the same type of personality often that will say, like if they get it wrong, We'll say a kind of fucked up thing and get it wrong.
But we need those people.
We need those people.
And like you said, you want them to be corrected when they get stuff wrong, but you don't want them to be silenced because when they get stuff right, it's often the most important thing ever that they got right.
joe rogan
Yeah, and if you have a business model, like The View, where it's just people giving their opinions, and you punish people for the opinions that you find to be wrong, you're fucking up your own business.
That's not the way to handle things.
I'm 100% in support of Whoopi Goldberg keeping her job and not being suspended and letting her express herself.
And she's obviously thought through, like, who the fuck is 100%?
Like, there's very few things that you can talk to me about where my opinion is rigid.
Impossible to move.
There's a few things.
dave smith
Sure.
joe rogan
I mean, really, moral things.
dave smith
Right, right.
joe rogan
Murder and rape and torture.
dave smith
I'm not going to convince you any of those are okay.
joe rogan
Yeah, there's things like genocide and infanticide.
Yeah, of course.
Of course.
But then when it comes to conversations where people are giving their opinions about things, I feel like you've got to allow people, I'm not the fucking producer of The View, but you've got to allow those women to express themselves, even when they talk shit about me.
Like, express yourself.
It's okay.
Like, I'm in support of that.
I'm in support of you criticizing me.
I don't think you should be silenced.
I don't think you should be suspended for saying that something incorrect about, like, the Holocaust.
I think someone should come along and correct you, and then you should correct yourself, and then we're good.
dave smith
And then let's keep moving.
Okay, so if you had Dr. Gupta on your show and you had Dr. Malone on your show, both making completely contradictory arguments.
They see things in a completely different way.
If anybody who was a big fan of the episode with Dr. Malone was saying, I think you should have that episode with Dr. Gupta pulled off, I'd be like, that's insane.
Even if you agree with this side, that's insane that you shouldn't be able to hear from the other side and what their perspective is.
All it takes is a minimal amount of humility and a minimal belief in the free expression of ideas to say, no, what we want to do is have both of them.
What would be really awesome is if they were both there together.
joe rogan
But the thing is, there's this opinion today where you have to have this thought process that's accepted by a group of people that have deemed this to be the most appropriate or the only opinion that you can have.
And anything that varies from that, even if it turns out to be incorrect, there's never a course correction.
Like, for instance.
The idea of the lab leak, and this is the thing that I brought up in that video where I was talking about misinformation.
If you brought up the lab leak eight months ago, eight months ago you'd be removed from social media.
They'd be like, you're a piece of shit.
You wouldn't be able to post on Facebook.
Now, it's on the cover of Newsweek.
These things that used to be deemed incorrect are now discussed openly and often.
dave smith
Well, the science changed.
joe rogan
Yeah, all the science changed.
dave smith
No, but that's right.
I thought that was a great point, and I thought that was a great video that you made.
I would have opened it with, you know, dear blood-soaked monsters of the corporate press.
joe rogan
Well, I was talking to my friends.
I was talking to the regular people out there.
dave smith
No, you're right, and that's, like, a really crucially important point that you made.
And, you know, we've had, over the last, what is it, almost two years now, right, of COVID, since March of 2020, this, it's really hard I think for any of us to really express or understand what a profound change has happened to our society.
I mean, this is, you know, it's like a friend of mine, someone I really admire very much, Jeff Deist, who's the president of the Mises Institute, which is the greatest institute in the world.
Can I spell that?
M-I-S-E-S. What is that?
Ludwig von Mises, the greatest economist who ever lived.
Great classical liberal economist who revolutionized, like, the way people think about economics.
And they're, like, this great institution.
They really, like, kept his work and the work of Murray Rothbard, who's...
Like probably the greatest, the greatest libertarian philosopher in history.
They're basically what taught me everything I know is the Mises Institute and I love all those guys.
So Jeff Dice is the president of it and he said, he was on my podcast, Part of the Problem, available wherever you get podcasts.
And he said, which I really liked, he was like, you know, This really stuck with me.
He goes, when you're living through a revolution, you don't necessarily know, oh, the revolution started today.
And now I'm in the revolution.
And this is five days into the revolution.
You know, it's not till like years later that you look back at it and go, oh, I guess that was a revolution.
Now, I don't know if that's exactly how you would describe the COVID regime.
But in many ways, I think it's changed life more than A traditional revolution would.
You know, like if a regime was overthrown by a coup and someone else took power, it certainly wouldn't necessarily upend every single social norm down to like showing your face in public or shaking hands or what you're allowed to do or what the rise of COVID has done has been...
It's really, like, unbelievably profound.
It's changed everything about our society.
And the idea that while this is all happening, you're not allowed to, like, question it, to think about, like, I'm not sure this is the right decision, I think maybe this is wrong, I think maybe we should do this, that all throughout it, these voices have been silenced off of social media, and they've been really demonized in a very aggressive way.
And so many of them have turned out to be right.
Not all of them were, but the official narrative coming from the regime has been wrong so much.
I mean, you know, they talk about spreading COVID disinformation.
The entire establishment talking points have been disinformation from the beginning.
Down to the biggest one.
I mean, lockdowns.
They just had this.
I'm sure you saw this huge Johns Hopkins study that basically their conclusion was that lockdowns did next to nothing to mitigate COVID deaths and caused far more deaths.
joe rogan
And if you talk to objective virologists, like people that understand respiratory viruses, and if you got them alone, like, you got that professor alone, he could say, I really agree with you.
They would say the same thing.
They would tell you the same thing, like, this is going to spread.
You're not going to be able to stop this.
This is not something that you can mitigate that easily.
dave smith
And so while the lockdowns were not mitigating the virus, which again, it's not just this one study.
I mean, you can see this by looking at the places that had lockdowns versus didn't have lockdowns and the effects.
And while they're not doing anything to mitigate the virus, they were destroying people's lives.
joe rogan
You look at the suicide numbers.
dave smith
Yeah, well, there's certain deaths of despair numbers that were really high up.
But I mean, look, when you look at the, there were, I think it was something like 400,000 small businesses that were closed that will never reopen.
joe rogan
75% of LA restaurants at one point were gone.
dave smith
It's every one of those is like somebody's life dream being crushed and the ripple effects from that.
Decades of work.
Childhood obesity rates have gone up 50% since the beginning of this.
unidentified
Really?
dave smith
I mean, double check me maybe on that number, Jamie, but I believe it was 50% childhood obesity has gone up.
Now, this is going to be four generations before you fix the damage that's caused by that.
And at the time, when you were opposed to lockdowns, as someone who was opposed to it, at the time, I remember hearing this, you were selfish, you didn't care if grandma died, you just wanted to get a haircut, like all these things, the way people would just be like, completely demonized.
When, at the time, we were just making the argument that you're like, first off, you're ushering in totalitarianism, and you're destroying the lives of tens of millions of Americans.
joe rogan
I don't think people saw that part, the ushering in totalitarianism.
I don't think they equated that because they didn't equate the government being able to mandate your behavior in terms of like whether your business could be open or what have you.
They didn't equate that with totalitarianism.
They thought it was like a temporary restriction upon your freedoms that is for the greater good of everyone and that's how it was kind of sold.
dave smith
Well, 15 days to flatten the curve was the, you know, the weapons of mass destruction.
joe rogan
Obesity in U.S. children increased at an unprecedented rate during the pandemic.
unprecedented.
Look at this.
Among a cohort of 432,300 people, age 2 to 19, the rate of body mass index increased roughly double during the pandemic compared to the period preceding it.
The greatest increases were seen in children aged 6 to 11 and in those already overweight before the pandemic.
The national weight gain will surprise Few pediatricians who have been warning since the pandemic began of the likely effects of reduced physical activity and the increased screen time.
But the rate of change is striking.
The monthly rate of BMI increase nearly doubled to 1.93 times during its pre-pandemic rate.
The proportion of U.S. children who are obese was rising at 0.07% a month before the pandemic, but 0.37% a month, five times faster after the virus appeared.
Wow.
dave smith
Yeah.
joe rogan
Look at this.
An estimated 22% of US children and teens were obese last August, up from 19% a year earlier.
That's awful.
dave smith
Yes, it's horrific.
What exactly is the cost of that?
I mean, how do you even measure that?
joe rogan
Well, the problem is it's very hard to lose weight.
Gaining weight is very easy.
dave smith
And once you become obese as a child, you've put yourself so behind the eight ball now for the rest of life.
So, you know, it's almost like it's, you know, the only way to have a perfect study on all of these things would be almost like if you could run the counterfactual, like if you had a time machine, you could run back in time and not do the lockdowns and stuff and then see what happens.
And, of course, we can't do that.
But the point is just that, like, look, they were wrong.
It's almost objectively wrong about the lockdowns.
It's so understood that they were wrong now that, let's just put it this way, the Biden administration is blaming the Trump administration for the lockdowns at this point.
That's what Jen Psaki said when she was questioned about this study.
Oh, well, look, the lockdowns were long.
She's like, well, the lockdowns haven't been in the previous administration.
It's like, yeah, but it was your guy, Dr. Fauci, who was in there, you know, like pushing them the whole time.
But no, they just went, no, no, no, that was the previous administration.
Even though Joe Biden was praising Cuomo and praising Newsom and all of the governors who were doing it at the time, they wiped their hands of that.
We have nothing to do with that.
That's Trump stuff.
Okay.
So everyone admits they were wrong about that.
joe rogan
White House blames Trump for COVID lockdowns.
Oh my God, five days ago.
Yeah.
White House...
unidentified
Jeez, that poor lady can't catch a break.
joe rogan
I bet she would be normal without that job.
That is just not her job.
dave smith
How do they call you spreading misinformation?
They have a professional liar who just goes out and bullshits and spreads misinformation.
That's what the job is.
joe rogan
It's a weird gig, too, because why does she speak for the president?
dave smith
He picked her?
He goes, I think you'd make a good face for a liar?
joe rogan
Well, it's also like when Trump was in office.
The lady that I really liked at the end, what's her name?
Kylie?
No, Kaylee McKinnon.
dave smith
Yes, yes.
joe rogan
She was the best at it.
She brought receipts.
dave smith
I've met her.
She's very nice.
She's a savage.
She's razor sharp.
joe rogan
That lady, she brought receipts.
When they would say something, like Trump said this, she'd be like, interesting.
Because on CNN, you said this, and then you said that, and you said this.
Good day, sir.
dave smith
You just see her lick her thumb.
joe rogan
And then she would leave the podium, like, drop the mic.
dave smith
Yeah.
joe rogan
She was very good at it.
dave smith
She was.
So look, they got the lockdowns completely wrong.
They had segments on the news about how to wipe down your groceries.
joe rogan
Well, at the time, they thought that was a thing to do, though.
That's really where the science changed.
dave smith
No, I'm just saying what they got wrong.
joe rogan
Yes, they got that wrong.
But I don't think that is categorized as misinformation because it's not like there's contrary information that's better.
At that time, they were dealing with the stuff that was coming off of those cruise ships.
And one of the things off those cruise ships, they were finding evidence that COVID lived on surfaces for up to 14 days, which is terrifying to people.
So that is where the spray things down came from.
dave smith
I completely agree.
I do not think that that was a lie.
I think that that was something they got wrong.
I'm just making the point that it's not as if the official talking points are getting everything right.
They're getting a lot of this wrong.
And it's hard to know.
Not with that.
I mean, I trust that that was just they got it wrong.
But with a lot of the other things, you never know for sure exactly what they were lying about or what they got wrong with this.
But the point is that you can't silence anybody who's saying, I don't think the official, like...
The answer to this is correct because you don't know that you're correct.
They were wrong about outdoor masking.
Turns out they were wrong about indoor masking, at least with the cloth masks, it seems now.
That's much more accepted today than ever before.
joe rogan
It's on CNN. That was the Lena Wynn thing.
She said it over and over again.
dave smith
Yeah.
joe rogan
Cloth masks are nothing more than facial decorations.
dave smith
Everybody's like, eh!
joe rogan
What?
dave smith
They've also, by the way, Fauci himself has admitted to kind of this noble lie thing.
That he would say things that he knew were lies, but because these lies would get the best, you know, response out of them.
And in that case, how do you trust anything that the guy has to say?
joe rogan
You don't.
dave smith
Right.
joe rogan
You don't.
But one thing that masks do do is they let people know that you're not an asshole.
dave smith
Yeah, you didn't vote for Trump.
joe rogan
No, it's like not even that.
It's like you want people to be safe.
Like if you walked into a restaurant, I'm not saying now.
Like now it's kind of preposterous, but it's still enforced.
There was a guy who just got pulled out of some school council meeting.
He was a father that was in the audience and he didn't have a mask on.
They physically assaulted him and pulled him out of the meeting because he didn't have a mask on.
Like, folks, you're looking around at all these people with cloth masks on.
This is nonsense.
It's been proven to be nonsense.
We know it's nonsense now.
But at one point in time, we didn't know it was nonsense.
And when you go to a restaurant and you wear a mask, people know you were an asshole.
And I think that was a good thing.
It was like a way of like signaling to everybody that you care.
I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
But I think the problem, we're dealing with these news sources.
It's the same kind of problem we're talking about the view and the same kind of problem when they're talking about me is that the answer to like if people more people believe me or trust me or want to listen to me talk the answer is not to silence me the answer is to you to do better the answer is for you to have better arguments when you're on television talking about how I'm taking horse paste and You know that's not true.
I'm taking horse dewormer instead of saying which you should have said How did Joe Rogan get better so quick?
How come he got COVID that's killing everybody and he was better in five days?
Negative in five days, working out in six days.
How come?
That's never discussed.
It's always like, he's taking ivermectin.
I think ivermectin was one of the things that I took that did something, but I think really monoclonal antibodies was the big one.
And that's the stuff that got Trump better in four days.
He wasn't taking ivermectin.
I think there's something legitimately really beneficial about monoclonal antibodies that's been proven, but yet they just pulled them.
They pulled the authorization for them, which I don't understand that at all.
Why don't they discuss that?
Why don't they have an expert on explains why, even though there is still a prevalence of Delta cases, they still exist, and monoclonal antibodies are very effective against Delta.
dave smith
Right.
So, I mean, all of this is kind of like predicated on the assumption that they're being honest and trying to...
Why wouldn't they talk about this?
unidentified
But they should.
dave smith
I agree.
joe rogan
This is my perspective.
If you're in business, and your business is the news, and you want to get more people to pay attention, you should be honest.
And my thoughts for CNN, my advice to them, I don't hate CNN. I used to go to them every day for the news until they started fucking hating on me.
If you want to do better, just fucking change your model.
Change the way you do it.
Stop this editorial perspective with guys like Brian Stelter and Don Lemon that nobody listens to.
Nobody is like chiming in saying, oh yeah, finally we get the voice of reason.
Nobody thinks that.
Have people that give out effective news, objective news rather, and I'll support you.
I will turn around 100% and I'll be one of the people that tells people, I saw this on CNN, watch this on CNN. CNN has a different business model.
They're just being objective news now.
I'm with you.
dave smith
I said this once to Essie Cup and Don Lemon when I was working over there at Turner.
And I said to them, and I wasn't even really trying.
I don't want to help them.
But sometimes you just can't help, like just give your, like, and I said, and this was in 2017, if you can remember the environment back then, and I said, look, if you guys really, you know what you guys could do that would really help?
And hear me out, because I know you're not going to like this.
Give Trump credit for something.
Pick something you like.
One thing you've liked.
Maybe it was the First Step Act, that criminal justice reform, you know?
That way he let some people who were doing life for pot or whatever out of jail.
Pick one thing you like and really praise him for it.
And then the next time you criticize him, it'll hit much harder.
joe rogan
Yes.
dave smith
Because people will be like, well, yeah, look, they give him credit when they think he did something right, and they'll hit him hard when they think he did something wrong.
Because what you're doing right now is it's just all day, every day, Trump did the worst thing ever, Trump did, and now people are like, you're just in the business of trying to make him look stupid.
So even if your goal is to make him look stupid, it doesn't have any weight to it.
You know, like, it's not gonna, it's not gonna work.
joe rogan
But it's that thing, it's like they're confined by their format.
They're confined by their environment.
They're confined by these small segments that last for seven minutes or whatever it is in between commercials.
They have producers that are overlooking everything they say.
You don't get a real, like an honest perspective.
You get a corporate perspective.
dave smith
Yeah, that's right.
joe rogan
There's a mandate.
Or rather, there's a format that they're trying to...
Make sure that everybody abides by, and then there's a narrative that you have to follow.
dave smith
Well, the thing that's crazy, too, is that, you know, and you were saying if they were going to tell the truth or be honest, is that...
So the last time I was on the show, Becca...
It was in April, I think, of 2021. We had that clip that went viral that Fauci called you out for.
And I was re-watching it the other day, watching the clip and then watching his response to it.
And it's funny, and it's funny thinking about this with the childhood obesity numbers that we were just looking at and all this stuff.
And basically what you said was you go, you know, if you're a 20-year-old healthy person, what I'd advise you to do with COVID is make sure you're still really healthy.
unidentified
Right?
dave smith
Make sure you're getting a lot of exercise in the sunlight.
Now, you said, I don't know if you need the vaccine.
It's like, what's really important is you being really healthy.
This was the spirit of what you said.
And Fauci's response to this, which I was literally just listening to the other day, does not age well.
It's really, first off, he said, he goes, he's like, no, Joe Rogan, what you don't understand is that you get the vaccine to protect other people.
Because if you get it, you can't spread it.
You know, and you're like, well, hmm, that didn't age so well.
And then he says at one point, he goes, if you don't get the vaccine, and this is almost word for word, what he said.
You could pull up this clip, Fauci responds to Joe Rogan and see it.
it, but it was almost word for word what he said was, he goes, if you're a healthy 20 year old and you get COVID, you may not experience any symptoms, but you will likely spread it to a bunch of other people.
And his claim was that an asymptomatic person will likely spread it.
And I'm like, I'm sorry, but if you're looking at what is misinformation, or let's just say incorrect information, I do not think the science backs up the idea that someone with no symptoms will likely spread it to other people.
joe rogan
I don't think that's correct.
I think you're incorrect.
This is what I think happens.
I think what is asymptomatic, like categorized as asymptomatic, is you don't feel that bad.
And if you don't feel that bad, you can spread it.
There's a lot of people with very healthy immune systems, especially young people, that can spread it and they give it to their parents.
Their parents get really fucking sick.
dave smith
Certainly that does happen.
joe rogan
Or their grandparents get really fucking sick.
And their case is technically asymptomatic because all they have is like a headache.
That's real.
dave smith
Sure.
No, listen.
Now, that might happen, and I guess those would be mild symptoms, technically, right?
If you have, like, some symptoms.
joe rogan
But people think of it as asymptomatic because you don't have COVID symptoms.
Like, you don't have fevers, you're not in the hospital, you're not coughing, you don't have respiratory issues.
You can easily give it to someone and have the most mild of symptoms.
Like, here's something that I need to correct, okay?
Or I need to express myself on this.
Because a lot of people think that I think COVID's not a big deal.
That's not the case at all.
I think it's a very big deal to a lot of people.
But it's not a big deal for everybody.
It depends entirely upon the individual.
And one of my problems with all this whole thing is this enforcement of this one-size-fits-all approach to health.
And I just, I don't buy that.
dave smith
Oh, so, by the way, just to be clear, I completely agree with you on that.
I mean, COVID is a really nasty virus, and it has killed a lot of people.
And if you are sick and have a weakened immune system, if you have comorbidities, you do not want to get this thing.
It is very dangerous.
Less so with Omicron.
But still, it's still dangerous.
And so that's, I completely agree with you on that.
I'm just saying that, look, first of all, the claim was, if you want to talk about bad information that may have led to real damage in COVID, Joe Biden, the President of the United States, straight up said, if you get the vaccines, you will not get or spread COVID. How about Rachel Maddow?
unidentified
You remember?
dave smith
Rachel Maddow said, we know for a fact, this is it now.
You get the vaccine, it stops with you.
It doesn't go on.
Now, think about this, and I don't know exactly, I don't know if anyone can measure these numbers.
How many people got these vaccines, like, when they first came out, and then thought to themselves, well, I can't get COVID now, maybe had, what you're saying, the sniffles, had mild symptoms, and went, well, it can't possibly be COVID, because I'm vaccinated, and went and spread that to a whole bunch of people.
So, I'm not saying, like, I've been talking about COVID and the COVID regime for, like, basically two years on my podcast.
I'm sure I've gotten some things wrong.
You know, I'm not saying you haven't gotten some things wrong and, like, maybe, like, that's true.
But for anyone to be pointing the finger like you got things wrong and this is dangerous and led to all of this, like the most catastrophically wrong things that have really led to real world catastrophes have all been coming out of CNN and MSNBC and the White House and Dr. Fauci like the most catastrophically wrong things that have really led to real world catastrophes That's all I'm saying.
I completely agree with you.
COVID is nasty.
A lot of people have lost people.
Even if it's somebody who's like – if you're 91 and you have several health problems but you would have lived till say 95 and you get COVID and die at 91, I mean that's awful.
That's awful.
That person might have had four more years with their grandchildren and their children and all of that.
It's a horrible thing.
And it's terrible.
Anyway, just to make that clear, I agree with you.
It's a nasty virus.
I'm just more concerned with the totalitarian regimes that are sweeping the entire Western world.
joe rogan
That's the problem, right?
The real problem is that once you give governments power, they don't give it back.
They don't want to give it back.
What's fascinating to me is watching what's going on in Canada right now, because the truckers have taken over Ottawa, right?
They've just overwhelmed Ottawa with thousands and thousands of trucks.
And so now they have these laws where you're not allowed to refuel them, you're not allowed to give them food.
GoFundMe tried to steal the money.
dave smith
Yeah.
joe rogan
Which is wild.
They got 10 million dollars in donations for the truckers and GoFundMe thought it would be great if they gave that money to the charities of their choice.
You fucking imagine the gall The gall of that, after they, listen, I'm not saying they shouldn't have supported Black Lives Matter.
I think you should support, I think GoFundMe should be available to anyone who wants to use it for anything where people can argue that it's a good cause.
And the Ottawa truckers, a lot of people think that's a good cause.
Black Lives Matter, a lot of people thought that was a good cause.
The fact that you can make a distinction between one and the other, if they had taken all the money that was donated to Black Lives Matter and they said, you know what?
We don't agree with this.
We're going to give it away to the charities that we choose.
You'd be like, fuck you, you are!
People would go goddamn crazy.
dave smith
And a charity that's kind of like, even though they shouldn't be opposed to each other, but that's just on the other side of the political aisle.
If you went, oh, Black Lives Matter, we're actually going to give that money to some pro-life charity or something like that.
joe rogan
In Quebec, you can't buy groceries unless you're vaccinated.
We need to look at this and make sure this is true.
But when you get to that...
dave smith
I know someone was telling us this last night.
He is a Canadian, so he might be right about that, but that is...
Yeah, see, make sure that's true.
joe rogan
Yeah, let's make sure that's true.
It's wild.
And the way Trudeau talks about people who are unvaccinated, the way he said that they're misogynists and rapists, or racists, he said they were misogynists and racists and You're in the demonized class all of a sudden.
You're taking people that have a perspective on a medical intervention and you're deciding that you're gonna demonize them in the worst possible ways with no evidence.
dave smith
And isn't it something that so many of these people, like say the nurses who are unvaccinated, the truck drivers who don't like the mandates, that they were the heroes.
These were the essential workers.
The healthcare workers.
These were the people in New York City, they were clapping at 6pm every day for these workers.
And those same...
They'll be nurses who worked through a year and a half of the pandemic.
joe rogan
And they didn't want to get the shot?
dave smith
And didn't want to get the shot.
And now all of a sudden, these are the...
You're out of there.
joe rogan
Not only that, the CDC has shown that these nurses, which most of them got COVID. I'll say this.
dave smith
If you were working through the pandemic the whole time, 100% of them either got COVID or learned how to protect themselves from getting COVID. There's no other option there, right?
It has to be one.
joe rogan
Literally around COVID-positive patients all day long.
But we're learning from this, from this whole pandemic, is not just about authoritarianism and a lot of the issues that we're dealing with about ideologies and how rigid people are, but also about how fragile our civilization truly is when confronted with any kind of adversity.
dave smith
Yeah, that's exactly right.
joe rogan
People are so fragile, and most people, they rely upon existing structures, whether it's the office they work at, whether it's the neighborhood they're in.
They rely on these sort of structures in order to have any semblance of normalcy in life.
And when forced upon themselves to be confronted with The unknown, to be confronted with open-ended possibilities and having to make moral and ethical decisions based on your values and how you feel about people, not based on whether people want you to condemn someone for their choices or attack people for choices.
I know a lot of people that hate people that have been vaccinated.
Do you know how crazy that...
I don't know him personally, but I mean people online, I've seen them.
Like attacking people.
Like they attack Trump.
They boo Trump.
Because he talks about how you should get vaccinated.
I got it.
You should get it.
I think you should get it.
It's a good thing.
And they're like...
dave smith
I thought that was so interesting though.
Just like the politics of it.
It was so interesting to see Trump losing...
His base and then like how he handles that and then he's caught between this thing where like Donald Trump's like like he's got the narrative in his head figured out he's like well I did the vaccines and I'm the greatest so that's the greatest and I get all the credit but then he's losing his people.
joe rogan
Unvaccinated to be accommodated at all times in Canadian Walmarts, Costcos to ensure they're buying pharmacy products only.
dave smith
What?
joe rogan
Accompanied, excuse me.
Unvaccinated to be accompanied at all times.
dave smith
So to make sure they're not getting food?
joe rogan
Yes.
They have to buy pharmacy products only.
dave smith
So how do they eat?
joe rogan
Well, I don't know.
But in Quebec, that's what this guy was saying.
In Quebec, you can't go to a grocery store unless you're vaccinated.
Vaccine passports to enter the vicinity went into effect on Monday.
This mandate includes all businesses with surfaces.
But here today...
Today, in Alberta, I think they dropped their vaccine mandates.
And I think this is in response to the truckers.
dave smith
That's interesting.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Truckers are...
dave smith
You don't want to fuck with truckers, man.
joe rogan
You need them to get your stuff.
dave smith
We really all are...
We like to be very remote.
Yeah.
My father-in-law is a trucker, so I know a little bit about the trucking world.
He's a great guy, by the way.
One of the smartest people I know, too.
And he's a trucker, and all his friends are truckers and stuff.
So I kind of, just from marrying my wife, and he's my father-in-law, I kind of know about that world a little bit.
But it's unbelievable how easy it is to not even kind of think about it.
Not even think about how vital this is.
Like, I don't know what you're talking about.
I go on my computer, I order a thing, and it's here.
There were no trucks involved.
joe rogan
Someone drives it, bro.
dave smith
But then you get out on the highway and you're like, what are all these big cars everywhere?
You're like, no, that's the whole thing.
As much technology as we have, this entire economy is all still built off shit being trucked from one place to another.
That's how your gasoline gets to the gas station.
That's how your food gets to the grocery store.
It's a big deal.
joe rogan
Yeah, this is a different thing, though, Jamie.
I want you to pull up Alberta drops vaccine mandate or mask mandate.
unidentified
It's not.
joe rogan
It's harder to find that.
Because you're on Google, bitch.
Get on DuckDuckGo.
You'll find it right away.
dave smith
DuckDuckGo was on this weeks ago.
unidentified
You want me to Google it on DuckDuckGo?
DuckDuckGo it?
dave smith
Well, Jamie, you can't Google it on DuckDuckGo.
You have to DuckDuckGo your way there.
joe rogan
He's so Googled.
He's so corporate.
I think Jamie's been secretly sponsored by Google.
You know DuckDuckGo is also compromised.
Oh!
I'm just saying.
unidentified
I'm not the first person to...
dave smith
You're going to throw that accusation?
You're going to besmirch the good name of DuckDuckGo right here?
joe rogan
Um, Alberta.
Canada.
unidentified
Truckers.
joe rogan
Same stores pop up.
Canadian provinces begin backing off vaccine mandates.
dave smith
Hmm.
joe rogan
Jamie.
dave smith
Begin?
What does that mean?
joe rogan
Alberta caves to trucker protest ends vaccine.
Click on that one.
Washington Times.
Alberta caves to Canada trucker protest ends vaccine passports.
That's what I said.
Get off of Google!
jamie vernon
The Washington Times, I don't know that that's the number one source of my first choice.
joe rogan
Is CNN better?
I wouldn't have picked that either.
What is the Washington Times?
unidentified
Exactly.
joe rogan
Is that even a real newspaper?
That's all my point was.
dave smith
I mean, it sounds like a real one.
joe rogan
You know how I judge newspapers based on how much you're trying to sell me at the bottom?
Like, when it gets to the bottom, do you want to live forever?
unidentified
I look at the sponsored stories and look at the sponsored stories.
Yeah, there they go.
joe rogan
Okay, look at the sponsored stories.
Never Trump, Jonah Goldberg, picked up by CNN after resigning from Fox News.
jamie vernon
No, it's Biden who's a real SOB. Nancy Pelosi.
Look at the stories they're trying to push, and then you go, all right, what is the headline you're pushing?
unidentified
Well, hold on.
joe rogan
These are real stories.
Nancy Pelosi's son allegedly tied to fraud and bribery scream.
I believe that.
dave smith
Sounds legit.
joe rogan
Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez staying off Twitter due to backlash.
Is she staying off Twitter?
How the fuck do you know?
How do you know?
You have her phone?
The fuck are you talking about?
I know she's off Twitter because I got her phone.
unidentified
Fuck.
joe rogan
I'm so tired of talking about this.
I'm so tired of talking about COVID. I'm so tired of talking about the pandemic.
One of the things that I really loved about coming here to Texas is they didn't treat it the same way in California.
My friends in California are still living in hell.
dave smith
Yeah.
I think a lot of people are tired of all of this.
You know, like you were saying before, when you're, like, if you're on social media, you have this perspective of the world.
joe rogan
Yeah.
dave smith
And then, like, if you remove yourself from that, it's almost like you remind yourself that there's still...
unidentified
There's a regular world.
dave smith
There's real life.
joe rogan
There's a real life.
dave smith
You know, it's like when you get on, like...
And a lot of people, I think, are really tired of the COVID regime.
Like, they just want to go back to normal life.
A lot of people are really tired of the culture war bullshit because so much of it is manufactured and they just want to go back to real life.
You just don't see this as...
I mean, I'm not saying it doesn't exist at all.
And I've noticed it in stand-up comedy.
That things have changed, particularly in liberal cities.
There's certain things, if you talk about trigger audience members more and things like that.
But in general in life...
You just kind of like you go, you know, you could watch like, you know, social justice warrior type, you know, college campus activists on online and, you know, the fat phobic person we were saying before, and they're all this like white privilege and this and that and all of this.
And you're like, oh, my God, there's like all racism is everywhere.
And then you like go to the supermarket, you know, like it.
Hey, hi, how you doing?
Some black guy steps in front of you and he's like, oh, excuse me.
And you're like, no, you're good, sir.
joe rogan
Can I get a pound of roast beef?
Everybody's normal.
dave smith
Where's the peaches?
I used to use this example a lot as what I just said, what the free market does to people.
Just because I'm Jewish and I lived in New York City, I can literally walk outside.
This is before Uber.
I used to say this all the time.
But you can put your hand up and up.
A yellow cab stops with a Muslim driving.
And I'm a Jew.
I just put my hand up.
And I get in.
And he drives me to where I want to go.
And then he goes, thank you, sir.
God bless.
And I go, thank you, sir.
Have a good day.
And it's just because, like, well, he wants some money.
And I want a ride.
And we're all kind of working together.
And we might have wildly different views.
But we get past it.
joe rogan
I like different people.
I like talking to a guy who's a Sikh.
I like talking to a guy who comes from Scotland.
I want different people.
It's fun.
That's one of the beautiful things about New York City is that it's so filled with...
So many different folks, and everybody has to interact with each other.
The thing about LA that fucks everybody up, one of the things, is that everyone's in their goddamn car.
So you're in this isolated environment, and you go to where you're going to go, and you don't ever just melt with everybody.
And New York City, when you're on the street, man, everybody's walking.
It's just filled with all kinds of people from all parts of the world.
dave smith
Yeah, it's a crazy thing, but it was a real interesting place to grow up.
And I loved New York City.
I hope it gets back to being kind of the vibrant city that it once was.
joe rogan
How is this Eric Adams guy doing?
dave smith
I think he's terrible so far.
joe rogan
Really?
dave smith
Real disappointment.
joe rogan
I like the fact that he hired his brother.
Gave him a fat job.
dave smith
Yeah, whatever.
I think that's fine.
joe rogan
His brother's last job was parking cars for like 20 bucks an hour.
Now he makes a quarter million a year.
unidentified
What's up?
dave smith
Yeah.
Well, there you go.
He's taking care of his family.
joe rogan
I like that.
dave smith
Now, he doubled down on all the COVID stuff right away, and I think he's just been terrible.
joe rogan
Do you think that that wasn't, like, his plan getting into office allegedly, right?
Didn't he have, like, a different...
dave smith
I mean, I think he said things that were almost vague enough to not turn the voters who might not have liked that off, but it was, like, right away.
joe rogan
That's what he did.
unidentified
But isn't he, like...
joe rogan
His thing is he's a former cop.
So his thing is to be more tough on crime.
And people are very excited about that, right?
dave smith
Well, I think that was one of the big appeals of him because crime has really risen quite a bit over the last couple years in New York.
And this is coming off of, you know, New York.
You know, like New York, when I... I grew up, you know, I was born in 83, so I grew up in New York in like the 80s and 90s, and New York crime was like a major problem, and it got way, way better.
Like my whole life, the crime rate was going down and down and down and down, and then all of a sudden it started coming back, and people were very upset.
So I think that was a big part of his appeal, was the kind of like, we're going to take care of street crime.
And understandably, people were attracted to that message.
But I think it was very, very a bad sign to me that immediately getting in there, the first thing he did was like continue the emergency power acts and the vaccine passport and all that stuff.
joe rogan
So I think they're dropping the mask mandates, though.
I think that's the new thing in New York City.
dave smith
Oh, I saw that in New Jersey, they're saying they're gonna drop the mask mandates for schools, which is really great news.
And I think that's incredible.
And it's one of those things that like, you know, I know you just said you're tired of talking about this, but one of the worst things is, you know, masking up kids.
I think it's just horrible.
joe rogan
It is horrible.
I'm wondering what the world's gonna look like in two years from now.
I wonder what's gonna change and whether or not we're gonna get out of this better.
Like, you know, that's one of the things that does happen whenever human beings are confronted with any sort of an adverse situation where it requires adjustment.
It's like there's a possibility and an opportunity for growth.
And it's not completely outside the realm of possibility that we do figure out how to grow and get better.
dave smith
100%.
I'm optimistic.
I think that...
First off, I just think there's no option.
So you might as well be optimistic.
And I think that there is, you know, even if like from my perspective where I'm like, well, you know, talking about everything I've been talking about since we've been here and how the regime is so corrupt and they're liars and they've read.
But I look around at this and I see the fact that I think the collapsing trust in all of these institutions is a great thing.
I think the fact that people are like waking up to this stuff is incredible.
joe rogan
It is because we have options.
unidentified
Yes.
joe rogan
Because we have the Glenn Greenwalds and the Matt Taibis and the Crystals and Saugers and the Jimmy Dores.
Because they exist, yes, I agree with you.
dave smith
Yeah, and also just that I think that we can, like, we have the capabilities to have a more prosperous, a freer, a better, a kinder society than ever before.
We just haven't put it all together yet, and that's like a growing process.
joe rogan
We just gotta shun the voices that disagree with that.
We have to, like, re-educate people to the fact that, like, the most important thing is getting along.
Compassion.
Being kind.
Being a part of a community.
Being nice to each other.
dave smith
What I hope people learn from everything over, say, like, the last, you know...
I don't know, five years or so, even before the COVID stuff.
And I think this is what I was saying, like, people are tired of the culture wars and all this stuff.
This is a big part of the reason why I'm a libertarian, and I believe in drastically reducing government, is that politics is so poisonous.
And this is one of the major problems with the COVID stuff in general is that now politics became everything.
Politics became finding out, you know, whether you're allowed to go to work or whether you're allowed to visit your father or whether you're allowed, you know, everything was dictated by a governor and political differences.
Are like wars even when they're mini wars or cold wars It's like it's a war when you have a political difference with somebody you're now Fighting over who is going to rule over the other person like this is why once every four years Tensions rise so high over is it gonna be Hillary or Trump or Biden or Trump because one of you is gonna lose And have to be ruled over by the other one Do you remember when Biden won and then they started putting out lists of people that supported
joe rogan
Trump?
Yeah.
Legitimate politicians like AOC, we shouldn't compile a list.
What the fuck are you saying?
dave smith
But here's what's so fascinating.
I was at this event called Freedom Fest in South Dakota this summer.
A really cool event.
joe rogan
That sounds like the last place I'd ever want to go.
Freedom Fest in South Dakota.
dave smith
You would have loved it.
joe rogan
How was the food?
dave smith
Okay, not the strong point, the food.
But it was some really great people there, and South Dakota also, by the way, has zero restrictions.
No steakhouse?
joe rogan
Oh, that's right.
But North Dakota did, and North Dakota suffered greatly.
dave smith
Yes, that's right.
joe rogan
Where South Dakota thrived, right?
dave smith
Yes.
The only state in the union that never had a lockdown for one day, never had a mask mandate, never had any mandates by the state.
They were great on COVID. Who's the mayor?
Noam.
joe rogan
Right.
Christy Noam.
dave smith
Christy Noam.
She didn't do so great.
She should have legalized pot.
She had a real opportunity to do that and didn't.
But she was great on COVID. Eh, you win some, you lose some.
Anyway, so I was talking there to the crowd about this stuff.
The idea of political differences versus differences.
And I was like, look, if you look in the crowd somewhere here, there is a Christian sitting next to an atheist.
It was like a big crowd.
It was like 1,000 people there.
So it was like somewhere – this is true in the crowd.
There's a Christian sitting next to an atheist.
You guys have the most profound differences in the way you view the world.
I mean like literally one of you believes the other one is going to burn in a pit of fire for eternity and the other one believes that you are delusional basically, that you believe you have this personal relationship with something that doesn't exist.
And you're just sitting next to each other.
And everything's fine.
And maybe you'll have a beer later.
No one cares.
But we're going to war over whether you're a Democrat or a Republican.
It's only when the differences are political that this becomes this crazy culture war.
joe rogan
Because it interferes with your life.
If this guy doesn't eat bacon because it's in the Quran, that doesn't fuck with you.
dave smith
But if it becomes political, let's say that the school that your kids go to, the public school, is now going to teach Muslim prayer in the school.
You go, wait a minute.
I don't want my kids being indoctrinated with stuff I don't believe in.
So my point is just that when you reduce government When you reduce government intervention, when you reduce the size and scope of government, what you end up getting is more peace.
You end up getting things where it's like people can have disagreements.
We can have different cultural preferences.
We can have different feelings about gender or whatever.
We can have COVID, whatever it is.
And we don't have to go to war with each other.
And I really do think...
I believe that...
In order for this country to survive and to thrive, we need liberty.
It's the answer to all of this.
We need the government to stop doing all of the evil stuff that it's doing, and we need a spirit of liberty where it's like, look, we can disagree with each other and not have to go to war with each other.
joe rogan
Well, let me ask you this.
Being a libertarian and reducing government is what you're really interested in.
So, if that's the case, what are the things that get drastically reduced?
Besides the obvious ones like military, what are the things that you feel there's egregious misspending or overspending on?
dave smith
I mean, okay, so, right.
I mean, I know you've said besides that, but I'm still going to just react.
Number one is ending all of the wars.
I mean, it's just been one disaster after another.
Millions of innocent people have been killed as a result of the wars in the last 20 years.
We have nothing to show for them.
Nothing.
And so we should end every last one of them.
And the biggest one, the biggest one right now is what's going on in Yemen.
And there's talks that they're going to escalate that.
joe rogan
Are you talking about Yemen again?
dave smith
Yes!
joe rogan
But you were on CE Cup five years ago.
dave smith
And literally, no one listened to me then.
And unfortunately, no one has yet.
And now they're talking about escalating it.
But it's the worst thing in the world.
joe rogan
Explain what's going on.
dave smith
So, basically, Obama started a war in Yemen.
I mean, it's...
It was Obama's government working with the Saudis to launch a war against the Houthis in Yemen.
And basically the back story to it is that Obama had really...
The Saudis were pissed off at our government and they're a big trading partner in ours.
But number one, they were against the war in Iraq that George W. Bush started because they kind of were the only ones who saw obviously how this was going to go.
And they were like, you know, their big enemy is Iran.
And you were like, well, if you overthrow the Sunni minority government in Iraq, obviously the Shiites are going to take power.
And then Iran's going to have all of this influence in the region.
So you're just empowering our worst enemy.
So don't do this.
But America wanted to do it.
Israel wanted to do it.
All of the neocons wanted to do it.
And so the war ended up happening.
And so the war happens.
It went exactly that way.
It was a gift to Iran.
And then Obama came in and he, you know, made the deal with Iran that also really pissed off the Saudis.
So Obama said, and you can Google this and you can find it.
He said in order to placate the Saudis, he supported their war against the Houthis in Yemen.
So we got involved in a war which has turned into a genocide to placate one of the most evil governments in the world, the Saudis.
So that's what Obama, the man who won the Nobel Peace Prize, gave us.
Besides for funding bin Ladenite Islamists in Libya and Syria and committing literal treason, he should be tried for war crimes and literally spend the rest of his life in a cage for what he did in Yemen.
Literally launched a war of genocide to placate The Saudis.
joe rogan
Is that really the only motivation for us getting involved?
unidentified
It's...
dave smith
I mean, yeah, basically, they're a big business partner of ours, and we were pissed off and we were worried about losing that relationship.
joe rogan
In this war, the United States is...
Part is what?
dave smith
So, basically...
Well, okay, so it's really...
It's the Saudis and the UAE are really launching the war.
But it's always...
I mean, it's the Saudis doing it, but with American weapons.
For the first, like, several years of the war, we were literally refueling their fighter pilots as they were doing it.
And they're conducting the war in the most brutal, egregious way.
I mean, they're bombing, like...
They're bombing farms, and they're bombing...
You know, and they put a full blockade around the country.
So...
There's there was something at one point there was in the ballpark of a million cases of cholera.
I'm not sure if they were actually all cholera or there were some other similar like infections that were but it's been hundreds of thousands of people who have died in in this war.
The UN said it was the number one humanitarian crisis in the world and it's it's these are you know Infectious diseases that are targeting, that disproportionately hit babies.
I mean, there's babies dying.
And Yemen, by the way, before all of this was the poorest country in the Middle East.
And they put a full blockade around the country.
And this has been going on forever.
Obama started it, Trump continued it through his entire presidency, funded the Saudis even more than Obama had, gave them even more weapons.
And Biden said he was going to end it.
And he said he was going to end the war.
And there were some people, I will say, Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul were both really great on this in the Senate, trying to bring awareness to this, that we've got to end this.
This is a genocide at this point.
And Biden said he was going to end it, and he didn't.
He backed off of that promise.
And now, I guess the Houthis launched a few attacks that hit the UAE. And so now they're talking about escalating the war.
Anyway, so that's the biggest thing.
What government should stop doing, that's like the biggest one to me, is like cut the military budget drastically.
Stop fighting stupid wars.
Anyway, on top of that, I would say that we need to end all corporate welfare.
joe rogan
Can we stop before you move on to that?
dave smith
Sure, sure, sure.
joe rogan
The motivations that they have for getting involved in wars that benefit Saudi Arabia, is it negotiations in terms of oil access?
Is it negotiations in terms of control of the region?
Is it, like, compromises in terms of, like, they make these compromises in terms of, like, we want to do this, and you want to do that, so we'll allow you to do this, we do that, and then we'll work together?
dave smith
So there's several really big, like, financial incentives behind it.
The number one, Saudi Arabia buys a tremendous amount of weapons.
So this is worth a lot of money for weapons manufacturers.
There's also the whole petrodollar thing, where it has been this agreement for a long time that Saudi Arabia will peg their oil to U.S. dollars and only trade in dollars.
And this does a lot to keep our currency afloat.
joe rogan
That was part of the reason why the war with Iraq happened, right?
Didn't that have something to do with them taking their money, like they weren't going to put their oil on the US dollar anymore?
dave smith
Supposedly, Saddam Hussein, around the year 2000, had a plan to start trading oil in gold and other assets and not using dollars anymore.
I've also seen people say that Gaddafi had plans to be in on this.
I don't know if that's true or not.
I do think it's interesting.
I do know that very shortly after we got off the gold standard, after Richard Nixon put us on the gold stand, took us off the gold standard, that we made this deal with Saudi Arabia in the 70s where they would only trade oil for dollars, which in some ways kind of replaced the gold standard.
Like, look, dollars aren't redeemable for gold anymore, but they are redeemable for oil.
And so you got some commodity kind of behind the money.
And that allows us to print as much money as we want to without suffering the consequences of it quite as drastically because there's still some value to the money for other people.
We can export our dollar around the world.
I'm sure there's other motivations that I don't know about.
I don't know for sure what they are.
But I do know that hundreds of thousands of innocent people are being slaughtered over these wars.
So whatever exactly the motivation is, it ain't worth it.
And it's also one more crazy addition to all of this is that we're fighting on the side of Al-Qaeda.
Over there.
Like Al Qaeda is fighting the Houthis.
There's still a pretty sizable Al Qaeda presence in the Arabian Peninsula, and particularly in Yemen.
And they're the enemies of the Houthis.
We're fighting on the side of Saudi Arabia and Al Qaeda against the Houthis because Iran kind of likes them.
It's nuts.
And we need to just stop doing it.
And it's insane.
While our country's falling apart, we're still trying to remake the world.
It's just bananas.
joe rogan
Is the idea, though, that the reason why they're making these concessions to these other foreign countries is that it ultimately does help America in some sort of way?
dave smith
Well, I mean, I'm sure they would argue that...
joe rogan
Have you ever talked to, like, a CIA guy or someone who's, like, involved in this sort of international politics...
dave smith
Yes.
joe rogan
...and they could kind of explain...
Not saying that you would agree with them, but explain to you the motivation or why it's beneficial to be involved with these countries, rather?
dave smith
Well, yeah.
I mean, I've heard...
I have talked to several of them, and I've heard a lot of their arguments.
By the way, there's also a lot of those guys who...
Would agree with me on this, or I would agree with them, I should probably say more accurately.
I'd highly recommend anybody who wants to know what's really going on to listen to Colonel Douglas McGregor, who is as smart and as decorated as you could possibly be, and he's the guy who really makes the argument the best that we should be completely out of all of these wars.
joe rogan
Is he retired?
dave smith
Yeah, I believe he is at this point.
Yeah, I believe he is.
But he was actually, I believe he was McMaster's boss at one point.
But McMaster's, you know, rose up.
I guess the political stuff with it did a little bit better than him.
And he ultimately became, you know, the guy.
And he didn't.
But also might be because of what their views are on this stuff.
But yeah, there are people who will make these arguments.
But really, usually the arguments, you know, they come down to like, well...
I mean, it's like the way the wars were sold.
It's like, well, we had to go into Iraq because of whatever, weapons of mass destruction, or we had to go into Syria because Assad was killing all of his own people, or we had to go into Libya because he was about to go genocidal, or we had to go into blah, blah.
Yemen, they don't really try to make this argument as much for.
It's just kind of like- Well, you don't hear about it.
joe rogan
It's never discussed.
dave smith
It's just, there's just no, there's no real strong defense of it.
joe rogan
And it's been going on, so how many years now?
dave smith
It's like, we're, you were talking about- Eight years, seven years maybe now?
unidentified
Yeah.
dave smith
And now they're talking about ramping it up after Biden promised to end it.
joe rogan
You know, MBS purchased the most expensive painting of all time.
Do you know about that?
dave smith
No.
joe rogan
I just watched a documentary about it last night, actually.
I just finished it last night.
It is a crazy documentary.
And I think it's called The Last Da Vinci.
See, you can find that.
But it's about this very controversial painting that I've been obsessed with.
dave smith
Okay.
joe rogan
I'm obsessed with...
I get obsessed with people that believe things that don't necessarily make sense.
And I get obsessed with hustles.
And this seems to be like both of those things connected together.
There's this painting called Salvador Mundi.
And there's these people that find sleepers in the art world.
And what they do is they go through collections and they...
Is that what it's called?
What is the name of it?
The documentary?
Is it The Last Da Vinci?
unidentified
This is an article about it, but...
joe rogan
Right.
But there is a documentary.
unidentified
Correct.
joe rogan
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
So this painting...
dave smith
So what's a sleeper?
joe rogan
It's a painting that they look at, and someone's auctioning it off for a relatively low amount of money.
But it might be very valuable.
They find these occasionally.
Someone found a drawing recently.
That someone bought at a yard sale that was worth millions of dollars.
And I think they bought it for like 50 bucks.
And someone recognized the handiwork and they're like, oh my god, I think this is...
And they bought it and it turned out to be like hyper valuable.
Well, this one is weird.
Because this one, this guy found it and it's in this thing, in this, you know, where they're looking at these paintings that are going to go up for auction.
And he purchased it for like a little over $1,000.
And he ships it to New York.
And these art experts start going over it, and they think it's the lost Leonardo da Vinci.
And so they have to, it's been over-painted, which means somebody painted over the original painting.
So they have to strip it down.
This is where it's squirrely.
So go to the Salvador Mundi and then find what it looked like before restoration.
Because this is what I didn't understand.
This is wild.
It was way worse than that.
Because he painted it, but hold on.
He painted it on wood.
Da Vinci would paint things on wood and so he painted on wood and there was a lot of evidence that he prepared for this.
Like there were sketches, if you scroll back up you can see that.
These are sketches that he had drawn of like the way the cloth would fold on, because it's a painting of Jesus.
It's the way the cloth would fold on Jesus' arms, and there's evidence that he was working on this painting.
There's also copies of this painting, and one of them got displayed in the Louvre in Paris because The MBS, the owner of this painting, wouldn't allow them to put it unless they put it right next to the Mona Lisa.
He wanted them to call it the male Mona Lisa.
See, that's a copy right there, that one down there.
But I want you to see if you can find, Google what the original image looked like.
After stripping away the overpaint.
And it's so damaged.
Like there's so much missing from the painting.
So this painting, that's what it looks like.
So this painting that's sold for, like in the, see in the bottom, that circle, that's actually a knot in the wood.
And so a lot of the painting was missing.
So the painting that sold for $450 million, the most expensive painting ever, was painted over by a woman in New York City.
That's what it looked like before she started restoring it.
dave smith
So she just filled in the gaps, basically?
She filled in the gaps.
joe rogan
She filled it in an amazing way.
Like, what she did is amazing.
That's like, that's before cleaning.
That's what it looked like.
So these crazy cracks and gaps, this woman worked at it for five years straight.
All she did was paint this thing.
And at the end of it, like, see those, like it shows you, scroll back up where you just were.
Scroll back up, please.
Right there.
So that's what it looked like on the left, and that's what it looks like after her work.
So all those white spots where the painting was missing, she did all that.
All the shading had to be consistent with the time period, and it had to look like a painting that was old.
Like the hair, everything, like look how much...
They said some egregious amount.
I think it's like 90% of this painting was really painted contemporarily by this woman.
Who painted over the painting, which I did not know they did.
She did not sell it.
She did not say it.
She was hired to restore.
So she's a legitimate, bonafide art expert who was hired to restore this painting.
dave smith
So she thought she was just doing a job.
joe rogan
She was doing a job.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
But she also is convinced that this is a Leonardo da Vinci.
However, other people...
Who are art experts that have nothing to do with it say bull fucking shit.
They call bullshit every step of the way.
They mock it.
They're like, this isn't a terrible painting.
No fucking way.
But Sotheby's had this amazing video.
dave smith
I know so little about art that when you go like, oh, this is a Da Vinci, I go, oh my god, he's just so amazing.
He's so talented.
And then someone goes, that's not a Da Vinci.
That sucks.
I go, Yeah, that's pretty bad.
I don't know.
I don't really know.
joe rogan
Is it good?
dave smith
Is it not?
You tell me.
joe rogan
The documentary is incredible.
Because the documentary is not just about the painting itself, but it's also about the psychology of selling it.
And one of the ways that this thing was selling, one of the reasons why it became an issue...
It's because there was this French guy who was selling these paintings to this Russian oligarch.
So this Russian guy was this billionaire, was spending all this money on paintings, and he found out because of an article that he got ripped off by this French guy.
He thought that the painting cost 130, I think it was 135 million dollars.
That's what he paid for it.
But the French guy got it for 75 million.
So this French guy was marking up all the paintings he sold to this guy, but like as much as 100%.
So this guy got fucked.
And so he realized this by this, and then he made him auction off everything he ever bought from him.
And so one of the things they did is they brought it to Sotheby's.
And Sotheby's made this incredible promotion, this really elaborate promotion, selling this painting.
And one of the ways they sold it was videotaping people's response, because people thought it was a Da Vinci.
They videotaped people, including Leonardo DiCaprio.
So Leonardo DiCaprio is in this video staring at this.
So they took it from the perspective of people looking at the painting.
People were crying and weeping, and this is part of what Sotheby's did to sell this.
dave smith
That's brilliant psychology, yeah.
joe rogan
Oh my god, it's amazing!
And then they put it on display, and no one knew who was buying it.
It turned out to be MBS. He was buying it, and he has it in a yacht.
That's where it's displayed, which costs the exact amount of his painting.
The yacht is like a half billion dollars, too.
And so he's got this painting that's probably not Leonardo da Vinci, but it's definitely, whatever it is, it's mostly painted by this lady.
dave smith
Whatever it is, it's the most overpriced piece of art ever.
unidentified
Maybe.
dave smith
Even if it is da Vinci, it's half not him.
Best case scenario.
joe rogan
Yes.
See, the thing is, if it is Da Vinci, wouldn't you rather have the one that's not fucked with, that's just cleaned, that looks like shit, rather than someone comes along and paints over it?
Go back to the original one after cleaning.
dave smith
I'd rather have the one with all the pieces missing that was just the da Vinci.
joe rogan
Yeah.
dave smith
Because once someone else fills in the gaps, it's no longer like his painting.
joe rogan
Right.
Like, this is the original one.
Like, if that was up there, like, yeah, man, if you go to Italy, and I've been to Italy many times, and one of the more amazing things about Italy is the art.
There's incredible art all over the place.
Like, so many different churches, and a lot of it is really worn out and old.
But through that, it's amazing because you get to look at this art that's been weathered by time.
dave smith
Yeah, that's kind of part of the appeal of it.
joe rogan
Like that by itself, right there.
If they could actually attribute that to Da Vinci, that should be worth way more than the lady painting over it.
But I don't know if they knew the lady painted over it.
This is the thing.
It's not clear.
When they show the painting, and they say this is like a lost Leonardo, and it goes for $450 million, I don't think they said, hmm, by the way, this is what it used to look like before this broad in New York City who really knows how to paint.
And she's an amazing fucking artist.
It's really crazy her perspective, too.
She's like...
They're saying that I did this, but I could never have created this masterpiece.
I'm like, ma'am, I kind of disagree.
You're pretty fucking incredible.
dave smith
I mean, if you could fill that in, I feel like you could just paint that.
joe rogan
I feel like she could paint it, too.
I mean, this idea that...
I mean, maybe it's like a wine taster.
But then there's a great documentary about that too.
There's a great documentary called Sour Grapes.
Have you ever seen that documentary?
dave smith
No.
joe rogan
It's the same kind of documentary.
It's one of the reasons why I love it.
It's a hustle.
Sour Grapes is about this guy, this gentleman who is a wine expert who was selling, he was buying at auction very expensive wine.
Like really old, very valuable, very rare wines.
dave smith
Like hundreds of years old?
joe rogan
Yes, some of it hundreds of years old, some of it just decades old.
But the point is he was selling this wine to all these wealthy buyers.
So he would curate this collection of these incredible wines and then he would sell them to people.
Well then someone figured out that some of the wines that he was selling were counterfeit.
And then they started doing an examination.
And where he fucked up was he sold the wine to the Koch brothers.
So one of the Koch brothers who had bought like millions of dollars in wine from this guy got fucked because one of the gentlemen who worked for the original company, the original vineyard, was like, we've never made a magnum in that year.
We didn't make it with that label.
This is misspelled.
This is incorrect.
And then they start doing a deep dive and then they go to this guy's house.
They fucking raid his house.
They find out he's got, like, these aged labels.
He's got, like, things that are...
Yeah, like, this is...
Stashes of old corks and labels were discovered.
And, um...
How do you say his name?
What is his full name?
He's, like...
What is his...
Rudy.
That's right.
So, what's really funny is my friend Matt is in this documentary.
And I didn't know it until I was watching it.
My friend Matt is a legitimate wine connoisseur.
And Matt loves wine.
Like, he has a giant warehouse and it's like a wine room in his house filled with wine.
And one of his birthday parties, I went to his birthday party.
And on his birthday party, it was all of his wine friends.
They had a wine tasting.
So we went to this amazing restaurant, and they would bring you over a small plate of food and then a flight of wines.
And so they would all taste it.
They would all swirl it around and like...
I don't know much about wine, right?
But the wine was incredible.
And Rudy, that guy, was at the wine tasting.
And I recognized him.
So this guy went to jail for this for a long fucking time.
He went to a serious fucking prison in Colorado.
dave smith
That's a fraud, right?
joe rogan
Oh, yeah!
They don't even know how many bottles of this fake shit are out there circulating.
They don't know how many people were involved with him.
dave smith
Don't rip off billionaires, man.
They got a lot of resources to spend if they figure out you did that.
joe rogan
They certainly did, but the point is it's the same thing.
It's like people that want to have this very exclusive, very rare thing, and so they get They're romanced by the auction, by the idea that they're going to be the one that has it.
You know, oh, Ed's got it in his basement.
dave smith
So that's what's so interesting about it is that we're such weird animals.
That's what it's to be.
It's like the psychological, like, appeal of something.
Because the truth is that you could just get, look, you could get someone who's a good artist to paint you a picture that's real nice that you like looking at.
You could get a good bottle of wine that you enjoy drinking, but you are so interested in having this thing that confers with it status or something like that.
I don't know exactly what it is.
joe rogan
Collectors.
dave smith
You're a collector.
Right, and there's something that you get off on that, like, I've got the...
That's very interesting.
joe rogan
It's so interesting.
dave smith
And then if you have that mentality and then you find out that you've been ripped off, how furious you must be.
joe rogan
Especially if you're a billionaire and you fancy yourself to be an intelligent person who's an expert at this one thing that you're obsessed with, which is wine.
They show this coke brother going through his basement or his you know his what would you call it his wine cellar and it's incredible his collections massive collection of all these wines he's so proud of it and then it turns out it's bullshit and then he's furious and he's like well I have 40 bucks Billion dollars to spend on getting even with you, sir.
dave smith
So also the Koch brothers are like probably the worst or up there with the worst billionaires to piss off because they're also like politically connected.
So they're like, well, let me just call the DA who is my good friend and the senator who I funded.
joe rogan
And in this documentary, what's really interesting is this one guy like the thing about wine is like I don't know how many real experts there are and how many people are just pretending they can taste the differences in these wines.
dave smith
I feel like I could fake it.
joe rogan
I don't think I can.
dave smith
Nah, I don't know anything.
joe rogan
They swirl it around, they take smells.
And they put it in their mouth.
And a lot of times when they're tasting it, they have a bucket and they spit into the bucket because they don't drink it.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
They just swirl it around their mouth and they spit it out.
It's wild.
Because if they tasted and drank it all, they'd be hammered.
So to avoid being hammered, they spit it out.
So they put it in their mouth, they get the flavor of the wine, and they spit it into like a bucket.
It's wild shit.
So in one scene, there's this one guy who's like a pseudo-expert, right?
I don't know if he's an expert or not.
And he's like, this is one of the wines that Rudy sold me that's real.
And you can taste it.
It's absolutely real.
It's got hints of oak and citrus and whatever.
And then another guy tastes it.
He goes, he smells it.
He goes, how long ago did you open this?
And he goes, you know, like two hours ago or something like this.
This is bullshit.
He goes, this is fake.
This is flat.
It doesn't have nearly the complexity of the Chavez-Voix-Wool or whatever the fuck it is.
I've had Chavez-Voix-Wool before and it's so much richer and denser.
This is skunk piss.
And he's like, what?
And you see the other guy who's like, not sure, he's probably like a fucking stockbroker or something, like doesn't really know.
And this guy is like a real wine expert.
He's like a pseudo wine expert.
He's like, what?
And you see him confronted, like his ego shattered because this guy is actually the guy who knows about this thing.
It's like, boy, have you guys missed the mark?
Wine's supposed to fucking taste good.
It's supposed to be, oh, this is delicious.
That's not what it's supposed to be.
It's supposed to be, this is a good tasting wine.
We'll have a nice conversation over dinner with a good tasting wine.
You guys are missing the mark.
dave smith
You've taken a thing that's supposed to be a drink that people enjoy that makes you feel good and put all of this psychological importance on top of it to create this entire structure that is absurd.
joe rogan
It's absurd.
dave smith
It just makes no sense.
joe rogan
Have you ever had a really expensive bottle of wine?
dave smith
I really don't like wine.
Oh, you don't?
I never like wine.
joe rogan
I love red wine.
I was in Florida once, and me and my friend Mark Delagrate, shout out to my homie Mark.
We were eating at a restaurant with a bunch of UFC employees, and Mark and I like a red wine, and we were going through the menu.
What do you have?
What are you going to do?
You want to get some wine?
And he goes, yeah.
I go, let's get a good bottle of wine.
And so they brought over Sommelier.
Yeah.
And I go, you know what?
I've never had like a real good bottle of wine.
Like, what's a real good bottle of wine?
He's like, well, how much do you want to spend?
And so he goes through his list and he brought about $1,200 bottle of wine.
I'm like, wow!
Okay, fuck it.
Like, let's see.
I've never had it.
It wasn't that good, man.
It was kind of like weak.
It was almost like watered down.
It was like vinegary or something.
Or maybe it was like too old.
It was like from 1972. Dude, you got fucking rooted.
Here's the thing.
dave smith
They gave you some $6 wine.
joe rogan
There was like, you know, 10 staff.
That we were all going to dinner with, all the production staff.
And then after we had that bottle of wine, I go, let's get a 2018 bottle of wine.
Let's get a regular bottle of wine.
It was way better.
It was way better.
I enjoyed it more.
It was like $40.
I'm like, this is a better Like, this is so crazy that, like, this $1,200...
But what is it?
What are they looking for?
Like, what is it about it?
That's what I'm obsessed with.
That's what I'm obsessed with about the Salvador Mundi.
That's what I'm obsessed with the sour grapes documentary.
I'm obsessed with this obsession that people have with, like, these, like, very subtle differences and things that only someone who's, like, deeply studied can understand.
dave smith
But it's also...
I mean, like, what's interesting to me is just the psychological, like...
There's a factor in it, and I think it's got to be at least a lot like a status thing.
unidentified
Oh, 100%.
dave smith
That people are just like, look, this is what lets you know that I'm up here, and we're hardwired to really care about status.
That's just the thing, because that's just the way it is.
joe rogan
When that guy was drinking and saying it's skunk piss, and the other guy was shattered, you could see the look in his face.
He just got punked.
dave smith
Yeah, well you just went from being I am Mr. Wine Expert to being exposed.
Like your whole life is now taken down.
joe rogan
Hmm.
Yeah.
Nonsense.
It's a bunch of nonsense.
But there's a thing about humans where we get obsessed with these little minute details about specific things.
It's fascinating to me.
dave smith
Well, it's also one of the reasons why it's what fucking really holds back.
I mean, I'm sure in some ways it propels human advancement.
Otherwise, we probably wouldn't have it.
But...
It's like what holds back a lot of these things is that it's very hard for people to admit when they're wrong and they'd rather just double down because it's a very difficult thing to do.
joe rogan
Very difficult.
dave smith
To admit, you know, you've been wrong, especially about something major.
joe rogan
Yeah.
dave smith
I mean, in the political world, I see this all the time.
Even when people say they're wrong about stuff, they tend to try and like, well, we don't really believe that anymore, but here's why we're pissed off at this guy now.
And you're like, okay, but you should really probably spend some time on this.
Like I do.
I mean, just shoehorn politics back into everything.
But that is one of my beefs with all the right-wingers who now kind of admit the war in Iraq was a big mistake.
But they don't really spend a lot of time on that.
You know, it's just kind of like, I guess we were wrong about that whole thing.
joe rogan
But back in the time, the day after 9-11, the mentality was, obviously, we got attacked.
This was horrible.
We have to make sure this doesn't happen again.
The way to do this is to be proactive.
Because the time has come when we need to act.
Because we've been sitting back and obviously this is not a good strategy because we just lost the World Trade Center.
dave smith
That's like I think in many ways the most tragic misunderstanding of what America got wrong after 9-11.
This is why Ron Paul to me is the greatest living American and he was completely right about what he said.
His whole point was that no we weren't attacked because we were sitting back and doing nothing.
We were attacked because we've been intervening in this part of the world for decades.
And we built up so much anger over there that people were willing to be recruited to come be suicide bombers just to get us back.
And that was the huge mistake.
And so if he's right about that, which I believe he is, then the response of like, now we really need to do something, is the worst possible response.
And I think we fell right into what bin Laden's trap was.
Which was like Bin Laden explicitly said.
I mean, this was his goal.
His goal, he didn't think toppling the World Trade Center was going to bring down the United States of America.
He thought that he could lure us into wars that would bankrupt our country and that that could bring down the United States of America.
And so that was kind of the whole plan.
joe rogan
What do you think happened with Bin Laden?
It's very strange that they never showed his body.
And it's very strange that, like...
I wonder, you know, there's one Navy SEAL that's credited with shooting him, right?
Or at least, if not credited, he's publicly stated, this is the man who shot Bin Laden and he sold books.
And then a lot of people either disagreed with him or disagreed with his choice to go public with him.
dave smith
Yeah, I've met that guy before.
But, you know, I don't know.
It certainly seemed really shady that they did it the way they did it.
That you wouldn't feel like just – and it's surprising that you would think just for political reasons, just for like to bring closure to the American people, you'd want to like demonstrate in some way.
joe rogan
And they got rid of his body at sea, right?
Which is wild too.
dave smith
And they had some excuse that didn't really make sense over that.
What was the excuse?
Something like – Yeah, we had to do it consistent with like a Muslim burial or something.
Yeah.
Anyway, I mean, I don't know.
I mean, I do tend to think that, you know, I think Ben Laden's dead, and he was once alive.
I don't know exactly what happened there.
But to me, the bigger thing that's just like so crazy is that, so we got him in, what was it, 2012?
And here we are in 2022. We just ended the war in Afghanistan, you know, a few months ago.
And then we still have wars going on all throughout the Middle East that no one really seems to care about anymore.
joe rogan
Isn't bin Laden's son an artist or something?
dave smith
I think one of them was.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He's got a very...
I mean, his whole family is a very rich, connected Saudi family.
A lot of them weren't, like, with his terrorist thing, either.
Like, he was kind of like, that's crazy Uncle Osama.
joe rogan
Well, his terrorist thing was fueled by the fact that the United States funded the Mujahideen to fight off the Soviets.
dave smith
Well, right, so there were several kind of like layers to it.
It's like that number one, right, so in 1979 to 1980, we funded the Mujahideen, which was his group, and funded, armed, and trained them on how to lure a superpower into an unwinnable war and beat them through guerrilla warfare to bankrupt their country.
unidentified
Yeah, yeah.
dave smith
That one kind of came back to bite us.
But then ultimately what happened is that we – so we used these guys and then we ultimately radicalized them against us.
And so we – the Americans basically propped up the governments in Egypt and in Saudi Arabia.
And these were the governments that they were really like opposed to.
And particularly it was the – George H.W. Bush's war in Iraq.
Do you remember the not as popular war in Iraq?
That everyone said was just a cakewalk.
That it was like, oh, we won that easy.
And they were celebrating it, and they were doing these specials on TVs, and this just showed how great it was that America can go to war now.
It's like, the Soviet Union collapsed, we're the superpower in the world, and look how easy war is.
We can just go right in there, topple these countries and win.
We don't even have to take the guy out of power.
You know?
Easy peasy.
Except...
30 years more of war with that country.
And one of the little side effects of that war was that it really pissed off Osama bin Laden.
And we put these bases in Saudi Arabia to launch the war, you know, in Iraq.
And that really pissed off the bin Ladenites because this is like, you know, their holy land.
And now there's this foreign military with bases in their land.
So this was infuriating to them.
And then the blockade against Iraq, the sanctions and the continued bombing campaigns by Clinton, where like hundreds of thousands of people died.
They were really furious about that.
And there was so much like provocative.
Have you ever seen the thing?
Where Madeleine Albright was asked about the 500,000 children dying in Iraq.
unidentified
No.
dave smith
You ever seen this?
No.
Jamie, can you find that?
Madeleine Albright, 500,000 children dead in Iraq.
Just to keep this in mind, they're not talking about the George H.W. Bush's war.
They're not talking about George W. Bush's war.
They're talking about Bill Clinton's sanctions on Iraq, the blockade that they had around the country in between those two wars.
And they ask her, this is the type of stuff that really – I'm not saying – I know there's people out there who will argue.
It's like, no, it's because they're crazy terrorists and it's all of this.
I'm saying this is the type of stuff that turned young, angry Muslim people to be willing to join up with Osama bin Laden's cause.
And it's – do you have it?
unidentified
I found a recent article about the protest about her coming out.
I'm looking now.
dave smith
YouTube, Madeline Albright, 500,000 kids.
It should come up quick.
It's a pretty famous fucking thing.
Yeah, that's it.
The second one right there.
unidentified
Well, it's not linked to YouTube.
dave smith
Oh, oh, oh.
joe rogan
It's linked to a website where they're hosting it.
unidentified
Hold on.
dave smith
All right, all right.
But yeah, it's just a pretty crazy little moment of what the mentality was for...
unidentified
We have heard that a half a million children have died.
I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima.
And, you know, is the price worth it?
I think this is a very hard choice, but the price, we think the price is worth it.
dave smith
So, yeah, 500,000 children starving to death is just an acceptable price to make sure that we keep our foreign policy going.
joe rogan
That's a crazy statement, but it's also a crazy question.
Is the price worth it?
Nobody wanted 500,000 kids to die, right?
So saying, is the price worth it?
And then asking her, and then she has to answer.
All of it's nuts.
dave smith
Well, yes, I agree with you, but it's like...
And by the way, I've heard people who dispute the number.
It was like a UN study that found that.
Maybe it wasn't 500,000.
It might have only been a couple hundred thousand children.
But this type of shit was going on.
And this is what bin Laden wrote about in his declaration of war against America.
Basically, the complaint was that we...
Prop up brutal dictators in the Muslim world.
We prop up Israel, who's oppressing the Palestinians, and that our military interventions in Iraq and in other Muslim countries have killed a whole bunch of innocent people.
And this was the shtick he used to recruit people.
Whether he believed it or not, I don't know, but this is what he used to recruit people.
And so the lesson of 9-11 should have been That if you do these things in the Middle East, if you have these military interventions, if you kill all these people, if you have your Secretary of State on television saying the price of 500,000 dead children over there is worth it, there's a cost to that.
And in this case, the cost turned out to be 9-11.
And the cost turned out to be that people are going to hate you so much that they're willing to try to come kill people over here.
And in response to that, We decided, well, the lesson is that we gotta go fight more wars over there.
And it's been 20 years of fighting wars since then.
21 years of fighting wars since then.
And there's only more Bin Ladenite terrorists than there were before.
And trillions of dollars and, you know, millions of lives.
I mean, like millions.
joe rogan
I agree with it.
I'm not disputing it.
Is there any argument...
That people make that is even remotely compelling that if we didn't do that There would have been a superpower with you know nuclear capabilities That is run by a brutal dictator that would have had substantially more control and more ability to enforce their I haven't heard anyone make that argument.
dave smith
I think it's almost impossible for anyone to argue that, as bad as they were, that Saddam Hussein still being here, Gaddafi still being here, would not be a better situation than what we've had.
Can I say this to answer that question?
Because I think this is very relevant to what you're asking.
Bill Kristol.
Do you know who he is?
So he was the editor for Weekly Standard.
In many ways, he was the leading intellectual neocon.
So the Cheney-ite kind of intellectual who was all about all of these wars.
So he had a debate.
So it was an Oxford style debate at the Soho Forum, which is the debate thing in New York City run by Gene Epstein.
It's a brilliant economist.
He puts together these debates.
He debated Scott Horton, the guy I was just telling about, who's my guy on foreign policy.
It's really great.
I highly recommend people check it out.
It's on YouTube.
So there's Bill Kristol and they're debating about regime change wars and whether they're good for America or not.
And one person asked Bill Kristol, and this is Bill Kristol.
He is the, you know, Bush Cheney.
We have to, you know, we have to go fight all this war on terror.
He's the biggest cheerleader of all of it.
And they asked him, what can you look at to one intervention, one military intervention that was successful?
Like, what is one military intervention that you could look at and say this was a success?
And he said the Balkans in the 90s.
Which I don't agree with, but leaving that aside, he did not even try to point to one of the...
He would not even try to say, Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Somalia, or Libya, or Syria, or Niger, or Yemen.
He would not even dare, because no one, even he, could not possibly come up with an argument to say that this would have been worse.
joe rogan
What did these guys say went wrong?
Like, when they say, like, what we would have done differently to be successful in these places, where we would have mitigated all these lives of innocent civilians.
dave smith
Well, there will be some people who, some of those right-wing hawk types, who would have, at the time, at least blamed Obama for not being hawkish enough.
You know, he just shouldn't have, he shouldn't have drawed down, he should have surged more, and if only that, we could have won it.
But the problem with that is that, I mean, he sent in like 70,000 troops to Afghanistan.
joe rogan
Right.
dave smith
Didn't do anything.
Just extended the war longer.
Look at what happened as we left.
It was the same thing as would have happened in the beginning.
joe rogan
McMaster thinks that we should have left 10,000 people in Afghanistan to keep the Taliban from coming in and taking over, and then if they wanted to get out their equipment, they should have done it slowly.
They shouldn't have just left everything behind.
dave smith
I think the problem with that, and I don't know, I'd be interested to hear how he would respond to this, but this is a big thing that people like.
So we had a very small footprint in Afghanistan toward the end, right?
And there wasn't that much violence.
And so then a lot of people tend to have this attitude of like, well, then why do we pull them out?
We could have just kept them in there.
But that's not exactly true.
The thing is that we had a deal with the Taliban that we were leaving.
And the deal was kind of a ceasefire until we leave.
But we're leaving.
And the Taliban was keeping to that deal.
But if we now Joe Biden came in, the deal was we leave in May and he pushed it back to September.
And the Taliban was kind of like, all right.
And they kind of kept there still wasn't a lot of violence going on.
But if we hadn't have left, there's no guarantee at all that they would have kept that ceasefire.
They might have got right back to war, in which case we would have needed a hell of a lot more than 10,000 people there to do it.
So I really don't think there was any way to do this.
The best way to do it would have been to not fight the war to begin with.
We never needed to go to war with the Taliban.
I mean, even if you wanted to go to war to take out al-Qaeda, we did that very quickly after 9-11.
And they had bin Laden cornered at one point.
And a whole bunch of the military people there were asking for backup, and they didn't give it to him.
And they let him escape into Pakistan and then decided the mission was regime change against the Taliban, which was never necessary.
It was all stupid from the beginning.
But I don't think it's so evident that – and I think Biden, which I don't give him credit for a lot of things, but I think he was right about this, that he realized that he was going to be – He was gonna be caught between two decisions, which was either to pull out or surge.
I don't think there was an option to just keep the troop levels there.
And I think he just wasn't gonna double down on it.
joe rogan
Have you seen the latest Kyle Dunnigan, Biden impression?
dave smith
No, I don't think I have.
joe rogan
Kyle Dunnigan and Kurt Metzger created a new Biden one.
unidentified
They've got it so down.
joe rogan
His Biden is fucking amazing.
dave smith
Oh, it's excellent.
joe rogan
It's so good.
It's so good, but here, play it, because it's on the Instagram.
I put it on my Instagram, too.
It's so fucking good.
Here we go.
unidentified
go give me some volume United States My fellow Jamaicans, the nation is in a crisis.
The Decepticon variant Hobo-19 is still killing fat people.
Inflation is destroying our fart jars and now that Ukraine is being sexually raped.
That is why I've asked Congress to order a full-scale attack on Joe Rogan.
Not Joe Rogan.
The Russian guy.
The guy with the shirt.
Pootie Tang, man.
Bad dude.
We've got to come together, man.
He's got our cranes.
He's got all the cranes.
We need him for the better Build Back.
The Build Back Better.
The better Build Back Better plan, man.
You say it three times fast, pal.
You say it.
I've got a piece of shit over here.
Anyway, let's start the show.
I shoot my shot.
dave smith
Goddamn, that is perfect.
joe rogan
It's so good, but it's so crazy that like if you did that with Obama people would go but that doesn't make any sense Well, yeah doesn't make any sense if you do that with Clinton, but he's but that's that's not how he is But you do that with Biden and people go oh god, that's so close like there's so many times where he just says a non-word his vision And you're like, what?
How did you just do that?
You didn't even correct yourself?
You just plowed over this non-word that you said?
dave smith
It's unbelievable.
It's like a real emperor-has-no-clothes type situation where it's like even like most people in the corporate press, like Fox News aside, but like CNN, the New York Times, Washington Post, MSNBC types, they hated Trump so much.
And I understand why they hated Trump.
They wanted him out, thought it was an embarrassment, incompetent, he pissed them off.
So they went in with Biden.
But now they're in this position where they have to pretend that they don't see what we all see.
joe rogan
Yeah.
dave smith
Like, you just have to pretend.
You're not seeing them.
Like, they're like, oh, he's a totally competent leader.
He's got all his thoughts together totally.
Too young.
I'd say too young for the job, probably.
joe rogan
Nobody's saying that, but they are.
dave smith
But they have to pretend that you don't see a guy who's clearly too old, has clearly lost a step, is, like, completely out of it, and it's...
I gotta say, I enjoy it, and I like him being the face.
joe rogan
Well, Joe, dude, he's only a year in.
dave smith
Yeah, it's going to go bad.
joe rogan
He's a year in.
He's a year in.
He's aged 40 years in a year.
dave smith
I mean, if you just go look at a speech, I think Joe Biden was, I think he always thought he was smarter than he was, even back in the day.
But if you listen to a clip of Joe Biden five years ago, seven years ago, listen to the way he talked, he is clearly...
Lost a couple steps since then.
And not even before he got into the White House.
And now since being in, it's bad.
Yeah, I don't know how this whole thing's gonna go.
joe rogan
It's not gonna go with him.
He's not gonna make it into a second term.
Unless they fucking have that dude in a hyperbaric chamber every day for 90 minutes and they fill him up with steroids and antioxidants.
dave smith
And then they got Kamala Harris, who almost will have to be their next pick.
joe rogan
No, I don't think so.
dave smith
Well, the problem they're going to have is like I understand why you'd say you don't think so and part of that's because like people don't like her and she's not good at this.
But the problem is the Democrat kind of woke establishment.
How can they really argue that the vice president, who oh just so happens to be a woman of color, that she should be skipped over?
joe rogan
For who?
She has the lowest approval ratings in history.
dave smith
Well, why do you think that is, Joe?
Because we live in a racist society.
No, I'm saying she can make this argument.
joe rogan
No, she can't.
Not her.
The problem is she's so bad.
dave smith
She really is.
joe rogan
She's the worst.
You know, do you think it's time?
I think it's time to do what we're always doing where it's always the time.
The time is now to be doing the things that we've always been doing.
Like, what?
dave smith
She is incredibly bad at this.
She is incredibly bad at this.
joe rogan
She's so bad!
dave smith
But the problem is, if they do go with her, I mean, man, is she beatable.
joe rogan
They're not gonna go with her.
She couldn't make it past the primaries of Tulsi Gabbard.
Remember that?
Tulsi Gabbard nuked her.
dave smith
It was glorious.
joe rogan
She didn't have a goddamn thing to say because it was all true.
Everything she said was accurate.
dave smith
And it was a great thing that she took her out on.
It's like this idea that I think one of the things that is the most infuriating to regular people is that it's like, and this is one of the things through COVID that's been infuriating to people.
You see these videos of the other day with Stacey Abrams in a classroom.
joe rogan
Oh my god, isn't that crazy?
dave smith
All the kids have masks on, but you don't.
And she's obese.
Right, and you're fine imposing these draconian rules on everybody else, knowing That you're going to live above them.
And in Kamala Harris' case, it was the most despicable hypocrisy.
That you yourself laugh about how you smoked weed, and yet you, as a prosecutor, threw other human beings in cages for lengthy prison sentences for the same thing that you laugh about when admitting you do it.
Like, how despicable.
joe rogan
It's despicable.
dave smith
Yeah.
joe rogan
And then when Stacey Abrams got confronted about that photo, she cried racism.
unidentified
Yeah.
dave smith
This is how disgusting my opposition is, that they would use this event on Black History Month.
joe rogan
Oh my God.
It's so crazy.
dave smith
Isn't it?
It's one of the things I hate the most about COVID, or I shouldn't say hate the most, but one of the things that makes me real uncomfortable, and I noticed this even here today, like in the hotel that I'm staying at, where it's like, it's here in Texas, so like, Most people aren't wearing masks.
Like, I'm not wearing a mask in the hotel and stuff.
They don't say anything to you about it.
unidentified
There's no mandate anymore.
dave smith
There's no mandate.
Now, the staff is, which is a little weird.
And some people there are.
And it's like, fine, if you want to, go ahead.
But most people aren't.
But then it's like, you see the maids coming, and they're all masked up.
And I'm not.
And they come in to clean your room, and they have to wear a mask.
And I just hate this feel.
There's already this thing where it's kind of like, hey, you're cleaning my room for me.
It's already a little bit of a weird feeling like I'm just relaxing and you're cleaning everything up and then you have to I've been at clubs like around the country where like the bus boys have masks on and you're in this environment like you're on stage you're having a lot of fun you're telling jokes everyone's in the audience they're having a lot of fun they're drinking they're laughing everyone's having fun the one person here who's working and doing you know kind of a this isn't really fun I'm bussing tables and that's the guy who's got to wear the mask I guess it's for appearances Well,
he's being told he has to, I'd imagine.
joe rogan
It's much worse for me when I see these gala events where all the participants are maskless and all the staff have masks on.
That's awful.
And they're standing there with their hands behind their back.
dave smith
Like your servant class?
They can't even breathe out of their mouth and nose?
joe rogan
Yeah.
It's fucking weird, man.
It's weird.
I was watching Bellator the other day, and the Bellator fighters, I don't know if it's like a commission thing, they were in Arizona, they had to put their masks on as they got out of the cage.
So here they are.
Having fucking wars in a cage and then like safety first and they get off they gotta put this fucking cloth mask on they were waiting for them at the gate so as soon as they open maybe it was like a Showtime rule cuz they're on Showtime?
dave smith
MMA it's like you're like the guy's like in your guard and you cut him open with an elbow and he's just bleeding directly into your face but then when you leave they're like don't forget a cloth mask yeah you gotta put that mask on when you walk outside this fucking fenced-in environment of doom Safety first.
joe rogan
I'm so looking forward to this weekend.
Israel Adesanya and Robert Whittaker.
Fuck.
dave smith
That's an incredible fight.
joe rogan
That's the fight, man.
At 185, that's the fight.
Bobby Knuckles versus the King.
dave smith
Can Whittaker close the gap between what happened that first time and now?
I mean, he's a really, really tough, talented fighter.
But...
Goddamn, Izzy really starched him that first time.
joe rogan
Stylebender is so good.
His striking is so elite.
The problem with what everybody does compared to what he does is, man, you see an Apollo Costa fight.
Where Paulo Costa...
I mean, you're talking about a guy who walked down Yoel Romero, right?
Paulo Costa smashes people.
He just puts it on people.
He comes forward like this juggernaut.
And Stylebender just picked him apart.
Just picked him apart.
Found those openings and just kept chopping at him.
And then you see a look on his face towards the end of the first round.
He's realizing, I'm fucked here.
Like, I can't even touch this guy.
I'm getting lit up.
unidentified
Yeah.
dave smith
Like, he was trying to walk him down, and then Adesanya's footwork's so good that he just, like, couldn't, like, walk him down.
And he keeps, like, stepping off to the side and hitting him with different shit.
And then he's hitting him with these leg kicks, and he can't get the timing.
And then you kind of see it starting to settle in where it's like, oh, now his leg's really compromised.
So now he really can't walk him down because he's just dancing around him.
And then he's, like, looking low and coming with high kicks and stuff.
And you're like, ah.
Oh shit.
You just see it start to settle into his mind.
It's like you're in quicksand falling deeper and deeper into it.
You're like, I'm fucked.
And then I'm more fucked and more fucked.
unidentified
And then he's going to hump dance on top of you, too.
joe rogan
That sucks.
Once they stop, he humps you.
The people who really appreciate Stylebender, if you talk to really high-level Muay Thai people, Really high level strikers.
They're the ones who are like, dude, what he's doing is art.
It's art.
Like the first fight with Whitaker, like towards the end of the first round, he had him fucked.
And then when he KOs him, he's like leaning back, avoiding a shot and cracks him.
dave smith
He's so good.
joe rogan
He's so good.
But I want to see what adjustments Whitaker's made.
I mean, obviously, I think he's had at least three victories.
Pull up Robert Whitaker's...
dave smith
Well, he beat Cannoneer, he beat Gaslam, and I think there was another one in there.
joe rogan
I think they were all decisions.
dave smith
But they were pretty one-sided decisions.
joe rogan
Super tough guys.
dave smith
And very tough guys and very dominant performances.
joe rogan
Yeah.
I mean, and you know, remember Gastelum had a war with Stylebender.
Yeah.
dave smith
Oh, Darren Till.
Yeah, that's right.
That's another big one.
That's another big one.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
So those are three, like, elite fighters.
dave smith
And I believe...
joe rogan
Three very good strikers.
dave smith
And I believe he had takedowns in all of those fights, which was not typically the way he had fought.
I mean, like, I'm sure he's always had some wrestling, but he wasn't really using his wrestling.
I don't remember any fights where he took guys down before then.
He was always just knocking guys out and stuffing takedowns and knocking guys out.
And so it kind of adds an interesting element to it that he's now been, like, using his offensive wrestling a little bit more because for the Israel Adesanya fight, Whether or not he can take him down, I think he really needs to at least make Israel Adesanya think that he might be trying to take him down.
joe rogan
Well, Marvin Vittori got him down a little bit in the first round, but then Israel stopped all that shit, and he fucked him up.
And Vittori's another one.
Vittori's a fucking gorilla.
That is a big guy.
When I stand next to Vittori, I can't imagine how he makes 185 pounds.
I mean, he's so big.
He looks like a heavyweight.
dave smith
Whitaker is not that type of big.
No, he's not that type of big.
joe rogan
But Jan Blachowicz, on the other hand, is a really big guy.
And he was able to control Israel, take him down, and really the ground game was where he scored probably the most points and had the most dominance in that fight without a sign yet.
So a lot of people look at that performance and say, well, if Jan can do it, maybe this is the way that someone can beat him.
dave smith
I don't think Whitaker is obviously not as big and as strong, but what he could maybe do is I think at least if he can land a takedown or two and at least be able to mix up the threat of a takedown with his very good striking.
He's probably not as good as Israel Adesanya's striking, but still very good.
I mean, you don't want to get hit by that dude.
Maybe that's his way to have a shot.
I wouldn't bet on Whittaker in this fight, but I'm interested to see it.
joe rogan
It's very interesting.
Because Whittaker is so smart and he's really young still.
I think Whittaker just turned 30. Let's see, how old is Whittaker?
I feel like he's 30. I feel like he's a couple years younger.
dave smith
Yeah, that sounds about right.
joe rogan
Just turned 31. Okay.
So he's just turned 31, and Israel is 32 or 33.
So this is 32.
So the most interesting fight right now is that fight.
But that's only because Alex Pereira doesn't have a lot of UFC fights.
dave smith
There's still a lot of questions about whether he'll be able to deal with wrestlers.
If he can go through the ranks and get enough wins where now he justifies a title shot.
But if he does, that would set up the biggest middleweight fight ever.
joe rogan
That could be set up after this fight.
If Pereira gets one big victory, I mean, think about Yuri Prochaska, right?
Yuri's going to fight for the light heavyweight title.
Yuri starches Volkan Ozdemir and then he starches Dominic Reyes and they're like, get him in there.
Title fight.
dave smith
That's enough.
joe rogan
Yeah.
I think that's the same with Pereira.
I mean, Pereira, the first guy he beat was, you know, not an elite fighter or a top contender, a very good fighter, but he knocked that guy out with that flying knee.
dave smith
But he did, am I getting this right?
I think he got taken down in the first round, right?
Yes.
So I think he got taken down and held down for a little while.
Then they reset and round two knocks him out.
So it still leaves you with this question in your mind of like, obviously we know the guy's striking is insane.
His knockout power is insane.
But if a guy at this level already, you know, took you down and held you down, what if Derek Brunson...
Exactly.
And that guy gets you down.
Exactly.
joe rogan
Maybe that would be a good fight because isn't Brunson fighting Cannoneer right now?
dave smith
Brunson's fighting Cannoneer.
joe rogan
That's a big fight too.
So whoever wins that fight, if Brunson wins that fight, which is big because Brunson is a very good wrestler.
Then you see Brunson versus Pereira.
That actually, if Brunson would sign up for that, that makes sense.
It doesn't make sense for Brunson, though, because Brunson's so high in the rankings.
dave smith
No, he probably wants a title shot, or he wants to fight Sean Strickland, and then Winner gets a title fight or something like that.
But maybe they're not going to do it that way, and they'd rather build this story and put him in there with someone more likely to strike with him.
joe rogan
Sean Strickland.
dave smith
I mean, Sean Strickland might grapple with him, though.
I mean, Sean Strickland's boxing is excellent, but I don't know, if you're Sean Strickland and you're fighting that fight, if you were in Sean Strickland's corner, wouldn't you be like, maybe try to take this guy down?
joe rogan
Strickland's an unusual character, because Strickland stands so straight up.
He stands completely straight up, but guys can't take him down.
dave smith
His boxing's very good there, and that jab is incredible.
joe rogan
His distance, his ability to understand distance is so good.
And they attribute that to all the rounds that he spars.
He apparently spars a lot.
He just gets to the gym and he goes to war with everybody.
He just does a shitload of rounds.
And because of all that sparring, he has this amazing sense of timing and distance.
And that guy, Jacker Manson's no joke.
He's very good.
And he had no chance in taking him down.
He never came close to taking it down.
dave smith
Hermansen's an excellent fighter, but whoever the judge is who gave him that fight should not judge fights anymore.
unidentified
Crazy.
joe rogan
Never again.
dave smith
I mean, that's insane.
joe rogan
Insane.
dave smith
He didn't win a round.
joe rogan
He definitely didn't win the fight.
dave smith
You gave him the fight?
joe rogan
You gave him the whole fight?
dave smith
Who looks at that fight and feels like, please, take me through it.
Explain to me which three rounds you think he won.
joe rogan
I don't know who the judge was.
We don't even have to call that person out, but whoever it was, don't do that again.
Stop!
You don't know what you're doing.
Not only that, this isn't even a complicated fight to judge, right?
This is not like a jiu-jitsu match where, you know, like, look if a guy takes a guy down and if it turns into more of a jiu-jitsu type situation where he comes really close to finishing with a triangle, really close to finishing with an arm bar, but he gets out of it, and then he hits him with a punch.
Like, who wins that exchange?
Complicated.
Right?
There's various factions that would think that the jiu-jitsu guy scored.
Other people say, hey, he didn't submit them, so it didn't count.
He didn't take any damage.
I see those two different arguments, but in this case, it's a stand-up fight.
dave smith
Or even in a stand-up fight, like, let's say, Nate Diaz-Conor McGregor 2, Where you had this round in the second round where Conor McGregor drops Nate Diaz a couple times, but he drops him with one punch, Nate falls to his guard and he's like, come on in, come on in, and he backs up.
And then at the end of the round, Nate Diaz puts him against the cage and just unloads with these combinations, hits him with a ton.
Now what do you value more?
There's a debate there.
This isn't boxing.
This isn't like an automatic, I have to score it because you drop down.
He's telling you, come down with me, and you're backing off.
And then he hits.
But this wasn't even anything like that.
They're just standing.
One guy's trying to take the other guy down and can't, and he's getting punched in the head more than he's punching this guy in the head.
joe rogan
Clearly, his whole face was swollen up.
I mean, it's a really bad decision.
And the fact that it was a split decision, I see that it's heartbreaking.
That drives me crazy because if you don't know the way it works, folks that are listening, the way the UFC's pay structure works, say if you're Sean Strickland.
I don't know what he got per that fight.
Let's say he gets $250,000.
He might get $250,000 to fight and $250,000 to win.
He might get an additional X amount, whatever his paycheck is, to win.
So when they have that kind of a pay structure, you're literally getting robbed of half your pay because a judge sucks, or two judges suck.
All he takes is two judges that suck.
One other guy like that guy, and you're fucked out of your money.
dave smith
Yeah, it's like you have someone's...
Big John McCarthy used to say this, where he goes, that judges have someone's livelihood in their hands, and refs have someone's health.
In their hands.
And there's a lot of pressure on that.
It's a very important thing.
And most of us, I mean, some people are a little bit crazy, but there are fights out there where it really is close.
And it's like, look, I understand where someone might see it this way, someone sees it the other way.
I understand.
So I rewatched recently the Dominic Cruz versus TJ Dillashaw.
And that fight is so close, man.
And there's so much action, and it's like, I don't really know.
I mean, this is...
Cruz ended up winning it.
I have no problem with that.
I'm sure someone in TJ's camp would be like, no way, we won that.
I get that, too.
It was great.
I mean, Dominic was landing these takedowns, but then TJ would pop back up, and then you're like, well, how much does that count for?
I mean, he got him down, but he pops right back up.
I mean, I don't know.
It's like all this stuff is very hard.
unidentified
I forgot that Dominic beat TJ. Yeah, he took his title.
dave smith
Took back his title.
joe rogan
Wow.
dave smith
And then he went and lost to Cody.
joe rogan
Cody Nola.
dave smith
Yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah.
dave smith
Dominick Cruz's last fight was incredible.
joe rogan
Incredible.
dave smith
That was one of my favorite fights I've ever watched.
joe rogan
It was a Dominick Cruz fight.
Like, he's 37 years old, I think, now.
dave smith
And not just that.
joe rogan
Turned back the time.
dave smith
But he got caught.
joe rogan
Mm-hmm.
dave smith
Bad.
joe rogan
First round.
dave smith
In the first round.
And then...
Fought a dominant Cruz fight after that.
joe rogan
And he got caught by Munoz, the guy who knocked out Cody Nolove.
Munoz can crack.
dave smith
It was like it answered every question about him.
It almost made you go like, ooh, this guy hasn't lost anything.
He was moving as good as he's ever moved.
He was striking as good as he's ever struck.
And his chin held up too.
So you're like, well, that's a problem.
joe rogan
Well, that's a good argument for him not getting some fights stopped that were stopped like the Henry Cejudo fight where he felt like it was stopped too soon.
Like he's like, yeah, I get hurt.
Give me a chance.
I'll get out of it.
dave smith
That was a little bit quick that stoppage with Cejudo.
He did get hurt.
joe rogan
He got hurt a little bit quick.
I mean, but I'm in his corner in that regard.
Like I feel like a referee has to take into account the resiliency of the fighter and guys like Dominick Cruz his mind is so strong.
I was so happy to interview him.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Because I love the guy.
So watching him win like that after like...
I mean, no one has had their resolve tested more than Dominick Cruz.
He's had so many surgeries.
He's had so many fucking catastrophic injuries.
dave smith
He missed years of his prime.
joe rogan
Yeah.
dave smith
Missed years of his prime.
Like when he was the absolute best guy in the division, no question.
Came back, got the title back...
Then lost it.
Then had more injuries after that.
Came back and just sort of watched that.
It was like, at that point, it's like, I don't even care how you feel about him.
You have to be rooting for this dude at this point.
joe rogan
You have to be.
Yeah, I mean, or not.
I mean, whatever.
dave smith
He's an I guess you don't have to, but I think you should.
joe rogan
Amazing commentator, too.
He's one of my favorite commentators.
He's so technical.
He's very good at breaking down scenarios and what's happening because he's not just an MMA fighter and not just an analyst, but he also coaches people.
He has a website now.
I believe he has a website dedicated to tutorials specifically on his footwork, which is amazing.
Dominic Cruz is a real innovator in terms of footwork and movement.
When he came along, it took Alpha Male, many fighters, to fight him before they kind of cracked the code.
And they cracked it with Cody, but I attribute a lot of that to Cody's skills lined up well with Dominic's skills.
Cody was a very good wrestler who is wicked boxing, knockout power, and he's fast as Fuck.
dave smith
The speed was a big factor in that too.
joe rogan
Big factor.
And it was also the team at Alpha Male had prepared Uriah Faber or TJ. They had prepared for Dominic so many times.
They knew what to expect.
They had a lot of his patterns sort of in their head.
dave smith
Yeah, for sure.
joe rogan
Who else is on this weekend?
Oh, Tai Tuivasa and Derek Lewis.
dave smith
For who gets to be that guy in the division?
joe rogan
That's a good fight, too.
Derek Lewis and Tai Tuivasa is a great fight.
You know, they're talking about Jon Jones and Stipe for an interim title because Francis has to get his knee reconstructed.
dave smith
Well, I saw Jon Jones tweeted calling him out.
joe rogan
I hope that happens.
What else is going on in this card?
Anything else?
dave smith
The Pete Bull!
joe rogan
Yeah, how about Andre Olowski?
dave smith
Still doing it.
joe rogan
Fucking swinging.
Keep swinging.
dave smith
Well, it's the cannoneer Derek Brunson.
joe rogan
That's a big fight.
dave smith
That's the one we were talking about.
It's a very big fight.
joe rogan
Ever since Derek Brunson dyed his hair blonde, he's undefeated.
dave smith
You don't want to see blonde Derek Brunson in the octagon.
joe rogan
Blonde Brunson's the wrong guy.
dave smith
Well, he does seem to have really turned a corner, where he kind of went from being this guy who was almost falling into a gatekeeper type status, like we start thinking you're a real contender if you can beat Derrick Brunson, to going on this streak now where you're like, ooh, Derrick Brunson is actually really looking like he's putting it all together now.
That's pretty interesting.
joe rogan
That's another example of how goddamn good Stylebender is.
Stylebender lit him up like a Christmas tree.
dave smith
Yeah.
Yeah, he did.
unidentified
That was...
dave smith
That was the one...
That's almost what I meant by that, is that was the fight where we all, like, kind of started realizing how good he was putting it together for MMA. Yeah.
You know, like, where you're like, oh, wow, and he can really deal...
And with a wrestler, too.
And he was really able to deal with that.
joe rogan
Such a great sport.
dave smith
Yeah, it's the best.
joe rogan
I never get tired of watching fights.
I never, never get tired of it.
dave smith
It's the only, uh, it's the only spot.
I mean, I grew up loving, like, I loved basketball and I loved, I used to, I used to play basketball.
I used to love watching baseball and football and all this.
I don't watch any sport anymore, but I watch all the UFCs.
joe rogan
Yeah.
dave smith
Because I just can't.
It's like, I got two kids now, and I got a career, and got all this stuff, so you're like, look, I can only justify so much time that I'm spending on this, you know?
And it's like, but there's one, I'm going to pick one, and if I have to pick one, that's like, I'm not going to miss the UFC. Exactly.
joe rogan
I don't care.
Dave Smith, you're the fucking man.
Thanks for coming.
I appreciate you.
dave smith
Dude, thank you so much, brother.
I always enjoy it.
You're a fucking, I'm just, in awe of you, dude, it's incredible what you've built here, man.
joe rogan
It's an accident.
dave smith
Well, it's a glorious accident.
And whether you want it or not, now you have it.
joe rogan
Okay.
I'll take it.
dave smith
Oh, can I just say that?
By the way, my podcast is part of the problem, but me and Lewis just started doing an MMA podcast.
joe rogan
Oh, nice.
dave smith
Yo MMA Rap.
Every week we wrap up the last week in MMA. And we're just idiots about it.
joe rogan
Is your logo like Yo MTV Raps?
dave smith
You know it is, Joe Rogan.
You know it is.
But we're just literally, it's just being like silly and funny and having fun with it.
But yeah, check that out.
joe rogan
Beautiful.
All right.
And Instagram, Twitter, it's all Dave Smith?
dave smith
At Comic Dave Smith on Twitter, at The Problem Dave Smith on Instagram.
joe rogan
Okay.
unidentified
Beautiful.
joe rogan
Thank you, brother.
dave smith
Thank you.
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