Dave Smith and Robbie the Fire critique government overreach, including mass surveillance and the controversial prisoner swap exchanging Brittney Griner for Viktor Bout. They question U.S. motives in Ukraine, citing a 2008 CIA memo warning against NATO expansion, while condemning Zelensky's authoritarianism and neo-Nazi ties. The hosts defend Kanye West's refusal to apologize under mob pressure, contrasting it with demands to denounce figures like Nick Fuentes. Finally, they decry the FDA's authorization of coronavirus vaccines for infants as an unethical experiment, highlighting a deep ideological divide over child safety and patriotism. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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America's Prisoner Swap00:11:31
Fill her up.
You are listening to the Gash Digital Network.
We need to roll back the state.
We spy on all of our own citizens.
Our prisons are flooded with nonviolent drug offenders.
If you want to know who America's next enemy is, look at who we're funding right now.
Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big.
You're listening to part of the problem on the Gash Digital Network.
Here's your host, Dave Smith.
What's up, everybody?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
I'm Dave Smith.
He is, of course, the king of the caulks.
Robbie the Fire, Bernstein, COVID, Jesus.
How you doing, brother?
Coming to us from a very dark hotel room.
Yeah, well, dude, time zones are tricky.
You know, you think that it should be simple, but I seem to fuck them up a lot.
It does seem like it should be the same time everywhere.
Like we're all existing in the same, you know, at the same time.
I would certainly appreciate it if they just coordinated it and just did one flat time.
Just me.
I would also appreciate if the sun would go up and down everywhere at the same time.
If there's a way to work that out, where like the sun rises at the same time in California as it does in New York, makes life a lot easier when I'm on the West Coast and I'm trying to call my family back here on the East Coast.
It's just something to think about.
Whoever's in charge of the sun, I think, according to Kanye, me and you are, but I don't know how to exercise these powers, these weather-wielding powers yet.
But as soon as I get them under control, I'll let you guys know where the progress is.
All right.
So real quick before we get into the show, what do we got coming up?
Obviously, I'm going to be out in Los Angeles with Louis J. Gomez for New Year's Eve at the comedy store, December 31st, in case you didn't know when New Year's Eve is.
Few tickets, very few tickets still left for that.
If you want to come spend New Year's with me and Louis J. Gomez, go grab tickets now and come out to the comedy store.
Me and Rob got a bunch of stuff coming up in 2023.
We're going to be all over the place.
Comicdavesmith.com for all the ticket links.
What do you got, Rob?
Well, at this point, if you're hearing this, you missed St. Louis.
You should have came out.
I played this liberal bookstore, got into a huge fight, and I could have used your support.
So, you know, next time, show up for that one.
But you can still come.
Kansas City nearly sold out.
Omaha, Nebraska on Saturday, and then big New Year's party at the Shell.
Possibly more end-of-year dates coming soon.
All right.
Sounds good.
So big news that happened just yesterday.
I guess the deal was finalized.
There has been a prisoner swap.
The Biden administration pulled off negotiations with Vladimir Putin.
Negotiate with terrorists now.
I mean, I think Putin's a war criminal, so really changing policies here.
We negotiate with terrorists.
From what I understand, the negotiations were aided by the Saudis.
So really get some more terrorists in there.
It's a terrorist negotiation all the way around.
However, Brittany Grinner, if I'm saying her name correct, is coming home in exchange for Viktor Bout, who is evidently a Russian arms dealer.
They're in the middle of a war, so they're going to need whatever military personnel and merchants they can get on hand.
They sure can.
So there's a few, I had a few thoughts on this.
I do think my initial takeaway from this is much different than what I've been seeing on social media, which a bunch of people kind of like slamming Biden because like, whatever, this is a bad trade or something like that.
You know, you're giving this like this dangerous arms dealer up.
There are people criticizing him for not getting some other military guy out of Russia who's been charged with like spying on the government or something like that.
And, you know, it's always very hard to tell, like, in any of these countries, uh, who's actually guilty of anything.
Like, you know what I mean?
Whether, was this person actually spying?
Were they not?
Who the hell knows?
Uh, it's kind of hard for me to gauge.
Um, and there certainly are some like absurdities to all of this.
It is, it is really something bizarre.
I'm far from the first person to make this point, but it is really funny that, you know, this chick was basically imprisoned for, you know, drug possession and we're like doing all these things to negotiate her release.
Meanwhile, in every state of this country, you have even the ones where pot's legal, you have people in jail for drug possession.
And, and it's just, I don't know, it's, it's, I, you know, I know people could argue with me.
It's like, well, the numbers that are in there for drug possession are very small.
There's much more in there for drug dealing.
You know, it's okay, fine.
But still, just saying, it's pretty crazy that it's like, we'll go through these, you know, painstaking efforts to negotiate for some American, you know, imprisoned for things that we imprison people for here in this country.
And not like, wouldn't it be a lot easier for Joe Biden to like get on the horn with like a Democratic governor?
You know, and just like be like, hey, could you release these Americans that you have in jail?
I don't know.
It's hard to avoid that obvious point.
A lot of those Americans, they don't play female basketball.
So we can't return them to a job that no one cares them about.
Yeah, that's true.
They do much more important things for society, Rob.
That's my point.
Anyway, okay, so I will say this.
I like that this deal got done.
And a lot of people are disagreeing with me and saying this was a bad deal, or I guess I'm disagreeing with them.
I haven't made this point anywhere yet.
But I'll tell you, this is why I like, well, first off, I suppose I could just say, I do think that if the U.S. government is to exist, then one of the things that they could do is like try to get Americans who are imprisoned by other authoritarian governments out of that situation.
Like, I do think that that should be a priority that like, if our government does exist, then it's, and it's supposed to like work for us in some way.
Um, that would be a not bad use of people being paid with taxpayer salaries.
Only we get to lock up our citizens.
You get your own people to lock up.
That's for us to do.
Yes.
I mean, I'd like to not do that also, but if we're doing something, I'm okay with that.
But much, much more importantly to me, the reason why I'm happy to see this happen is just because I, as I've been saying for almost a year now, I think that the absolute biggest threat in the world is some type of nuclear conflict with Russia, which we seem to be recklessly moving toward.
And the fact that there was some negotiation, even if they're saying it was completely removed from the war negotiations, just makes me like, I think of that as a positive sign overall.
Some type of like, okay, there is still like a phone conversation between Blinkett and Sergei Lavrov of some sort.
Okay.
By the way, I mean, it is being reported that this is the only, the only contact that they've had since February of 2022.
They have only had this conversation, or maybe there were two conversations, two conversations, both in regards to this situation with like working out the prisoner swaps, which is just like, holy shit, the biggest fucking scandal.
I mean, it's like, it's unbelievable that you're like, are you telling me that like, at the very least, when the stakes are at the level of human extinction, that there's not like daily conversations going on.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, that there wouldn't just be like, okay, we can't just like lock the like the top American and Russian diplomats in a room and insist that they work something out here.
You know what I mean?
Because the stakes are just too high.
Not only is that not happening at all, it's it seems that, yeah, it's being reported that Blinkett's first call with Lavrov since February didn't discuss a ceasefire or anything like that.
They were literally talking about this prisoner swap.
And I guess there was one more phone call after that.
So there's been two phone calls.
They're saying neither of which had to do with the war.
Maybe we like this war and we wanted to give him this guy back, get a player back in the game.
Well, it does seem there was a report.
Putin said something the other day about how the war in Ukraine was going to be a long project.
And it does seem more and more like, if you, if you look at the actions of the US government over say, like the last uh, let's say, eight years, it does seem like they certainly weren't not trying to get Russia to invade, and all along the way,
you have people discussing the possibility that this could happen.
You know, I was just.
I was reading this quote the other day um, when I was I was doing a debate on this topic uh, but it's, this is like fairly interesting, right.
So so so um, uh Burns, who is currently the uh CIA director uh, he was in uh 2008.
He was the uh ambassador to Russia uh so, the top diplomat, you know, and he in 2008 there's you guys probably heard Scott Horton brings this up all the time when he was on uh, he he's on the show, he's.
He's talking about this many, many times, many times before this war uh, in Ukraine uh, before Russia invaded Ukraine um, but so uh he um he, uh in 2008 this is the background to it is that uh, the that NATO had this meeting and they announced that Ukraine would be joining NATO.
Um, they announced that Ukraine and Georgia would both be joining NATO, and he wrote uh Burns, at the time, the ambassador to Russia wrote a memo um to uh Condoleeze Rice at the time as the secretary of state um, and this memo was released by uh WIKI leaks.
So we have it, thanks to Julian Assange um, but this was.
This is a quote from the memo, and he says, Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all red lines for the Russian elite, not just Putin, in the more than two and a half years of conversations with With key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the darkest recesses of the Kremlin to Putin's sharpest liberal critics.
I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russia's interests.
He wrote, it would be, quote, hard to overstate the strategic consequences of bringing Ukraine into NATO, and it will quote, create fertile soil for Russian meddling in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.
RexMD Viagra Deals00:02:21
So, just to be clear here, it's not as if there wasn't, and there's this is just one quote.
I can find tons of other, dozens of other quotes from the highest levels of our government of people being like, basically, like, this will provoke Russia to invade Ukraine.
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Putin's Must-Win War00:13:08
All right, let's get back into the show.
So after this, then we go in and back the coup in 2014 that overthrows the democratically elected, more pro-Russia government.
And then we install the more pro-Western government, send in since the coup in 2014, billions of dollars in aid to the new Ukrainian government, which is more hostile to Russia, huge weapons deals, send in billions of dollars of weapons.
And then as recently, as early as January of this year, you have Joe Biden and Kamala Harris both announcing that Ukraine will be joining NATO, that that plan is still on and encouraging them to apply and all of these things.
I mean, the possibility scale ranges on the either they knew this could provoke this and just didn't care to the they were intentionally trying to provoke this.
There's just a lot of comments from very powerful people in the administration and in previous administrations, like Hillary Clinton, you know, that saying that, like, yeah, basically the goal here is to prolong the war to bleed Russia dry.
That they're like, it's almost like the foreign policy establishment is like, okay, well, look, we want to hurt the Russians.
And, you know, we're like, we're really good at toppling governments, but it's always a disaster.
We're really bad at fighting insurgencies, but we're pretty damn good at backing them.
Like, we're really good at backing insurgencies.
And so basically, what, look, we can do what we did in Afghanistan.
We can give them their own Vietnam and draw them into a long, drawn-out war.
We know something about big powers being drawn into long wars that really hurt them.
And so it does seem like that's kind of the plan here.
It's not to try to negotiate a peace to this or anything like that.
It's to try to prolong the thing.
I mean, look, if you were trying to end the thing, what would you do?
You would negotiate.
If you were trying to prolong the thing, what would you do?
Well, you'd pour weapons into the smaller side, right?
And keep them fighting.
You'd keep supporting them, keep letting them know that we have your back and all this stuff.
And then you might even like discourage negotiations from happening, which at least according to Fiona Hill's reporting, that's what Boris Johnson did, that when they had basically agreed to a deal back much earlier this year.
So anyway, my take on this deal is that what's much more important is at least that a deal is being made between these two parties.
And God willing, fucking cooler heads could prevail and they could end up working out some type of deal for a ceasefire.
So I think I derailed you a little bit, but your overall theory is that this is good just because it gets Biden talking with Putin?
Basically, basically, that I think that the fact is you have these two parties here, two governments that control 90% of the nuclear arms in the world.
They're in a serious conflict, you know, like on opposite sides of a war.
And that, yeah, as long as the fact that they're making a deal of any kind is like a good sign.
And the other thing is like, yeah, look, I mean, this, this, look, I don't really care about women's basketball or nothing, but she shouldn't be in a Russian prison for having a little bit of weed on her.
That's insane.
So there's that aspect too.
I also don't quite, you know, I understand the guy that we gave up was like a real bad guy, not even like arguing any of that.
I just don't quite understand, you know, you know, they're like, oh, he was, he was a big weapons dealer, right?
And he was like dealing a bunch of weapons into like a bunch of African wars and stuff, from what I understand.
But I just, I go like, is there something like unique about him that like Putin couldn't possibly find these weapons trading abilities from anyone else?
Like what, what does it really mean that he gets him back?
It's like, if you're just saying like, oh, a bad person who should be punished isn't being punished now.
It's like, I'm okay with the deal being that bad person doesn't get punished, but an innocent person who doesn't deserve to be punished doesn't get punished anymore, right?
Like the old better, you know, 100 guilty men go free than one innocent person be locked up type thing.
I don't know.
That's that's kind of how I feel about it.
But like what I'm more concerned about is the bigger picture of all this, that at least there's like some type of channel of communication going on here.
You know, this is very important.
Like, you know, there, there are, you know, there are like scenarios here where like if If nukes begin to fly, or if, God forbid, like, you know, the thing that would be the line for either side to be like, that's it.
I'm going to fucking nuke someone.
You know what I mean?
What exactly happens?
You know, what happens if Putin just nukes Ukraine?
You know, like, let's just say, hypothetically, Vladimir Putin drops a nuke on Ukraine.
You know, there's so many of these people out there, and it's really shocking, like, how juvenile some of the thinking is.
Like, there's so many of the people with Ukraine flags in their bio that you'd be like, well, if Vladimir Putin nukes Ukraine, what do we do?
And they'd be like, well, we have to nuke him back, you know, of course.
And you're just like, okay.
But you know what that is then?
That's, that's the world.
Because you said, and I'm just saying, in one of these situations, and this has happened a few times in the Cold War, where there have been these crazy situations.
What you just want is for those two to jump on the phone.
You know what I mean?
Like you want a phone call at least between Blinken and Lavrov.
You know what I mean?
At least that high of a level, like the, you know, the main diplomats for each guy.
That that's when you need someone to jump on the phone and be like, okay, okay, okay.
Like, don't, don't fire off all your nukes yet.
We'll work something at something.
So the fact that there's any line of communication there, I think is like an overwhelmingly positive thing.
You know, I see people all the time, these guys who are like the, you know, on the, you know, establishment side of this war, as being like, yeah, look, Russia's losing the war and they're going to be humiliated.
And I'll just be like, okay.
First off, that's not true.
But okay, let's say that was true.
You sure that's what you're rooting for?
You sure what you're rooting for is Russia to be humiliated in a war that they see as an absolute must-win?
You know, it's like, that's like this whole game here.
It's like, Vladimir Putin is, to him, this is a must-win.
Like, you cannot lose a war on your border, right?
Like, this is, which is somewhat understandable in the realm of, okay, governments exist.
We're not in libertarian paradise here.
Governments exist.
That's not that crazy of a thought.
And then Joe Biden is pretending that this is a must-win, but like, it's not at all.
You know what I mean?
It's like, I don't know, if Vladimir Putin wins the war in Ukraine, what does that really mean for like the security of the American state?
You think DC, do you think like DC might collapse if Ukraine loses the war?
Like, of course not.
Do you think Moscow might?
Yeah, that's a little bit more of a real threat.
And so the idea of people even rooting for Vladimir Putin to be like humiliated.
It's like, okay, be careful what you wish for.
It's like, were you really, you know, were you, were you rooting for Germany to be humiliated after World War I?
It's like, okay, you got your wish.
Total surrender, absolute humiliation.
Oh, it didn't turn out so good.
You know, like, it's, there's, these things can get, they can really go sideways on you.
And anyway, it's just, it's really just, it's sickening in a way that there's no just kind of like, you know, these people, oh, yeah, you root for Vladimir Putin to just be humiliated.
It's like, how about root for what I root for is a stop to the violence as soon as possible?
And I think the best case scenario is probably something where Vladimir Putin can save face.
You know what I mean?
Like he could, he can still go back to his people and be like, we accomplished what we wanted to.
You know, as it reminds me of when you remember Rand Paul was making the argument, this is back a few years ago.
This might be like three, four years ago, but when he was making the argument that we should declare victory in Afghanistan and withdraw.
And you know, remember this, but it's great.
But he was just like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, declare victory.
You guys totally did it.
You won.
You did a great job.
Now let's leave.
Now, obviously, he knows we didn't win the fucking war, but it's just like, I don't know, here, here's a narrative for you to like save a face.
We did it.
Yay, we're the best.
Okay.
Can you stop now?
Like, I'd almost rather something like that, uh, because I think that's better for the prospects of peace long term.
Yeah, I guess it also doesn't help Biden if uh Russia wins and they don't continue expanding.
Um, but part of this really just seems to be uh, we really don't want that Nord Stream thing, which the giant threat was that I guess the energy price in Europe could have been cheaper and that there would have been more of an incentive for collaboration between Russia and Europe without being able to go, hey, there's a boogeyman enemy over there.
Yeah, well, you know, so George Friedman, um, he's he's the guy who like founded Stratford.
He wrote an interesting piece about this, and his theory, um, is like in terms of like what the motivation of that is, uh, is that basically America, the U.S. foreign policy revolves around not letting anyone get too powerful.
And that that's kind of like basically what we're we've always he says basically for the whole 20th century, that was America's foreign policy.
So you always kind of like, if anyone's getting a little bit too powerful, you try to check them, you try to hurt them, you try to bring them down.
Um, and he says that the biggest fear of the like military, you know, highest levels of the fucking American military machine is a Germany united with Russia.
So that they're basically their thing is like, well, if you combined kind of like German innovation and German like industry with Russia's like human and natural resources, that you have a power that could rival the United States of America.
And they just can't have that happen.
So they'll, they'll try to undermine.
Now, there's other answers, like, I don't know.
That's his kind of take on it.
There might be something to that.
There's other answers, which is just kind of like, we want to sell them the shit instead of letting Russia sell them the shit.
You know what I mean?
That might be simpler.
There is no question that from the origin, from the inception of Nordstream, the U.S. has been completely against it.
You know, and this is something that now a lot of Trumpsters were like, uh, were like cheering Donald Trump.
If you remember at the UN, he blasted Germany for being dependent on Russian natural gas and how this was such a bad move.
And then they're all like, ha ha, see, now look at that.
Look, see, he was right.
Trump was right.
You guys are stupid or whatever.
I don't really see things like that.
I'm more like, well, yeah, I mean, yes, then we continued to provoke Russia into fucking this war.
And now, oh, yeah, look at it, whatever.
Then you decided to cut it off.
And then it was mysteriously bombed.
No one seems to really care to look into that.
But that anyway, my take on the whole thing is like completely different.
And I think that like I look at it like this, and I go, look, Germany and Russia fought in, fought each other in wars twice in the 20th century.
And it was the worst thing that's ever happened ever.
Just the worst thing.
I mean, just in the German-Russian conflict, like in the Eastern part of the war there in Eastern Europe, I don't have the numbers offhand, but something like 25 million people died.
It was the bloodiest part of World War II, the bloodiest war in world history.
It's like the worst thing ever.
And like them being close, oh, them having like close interdependence is like, oh, wonderful.
Like great.
That's like, there's, it almost takes the idea of them ever being at war off the table.
Like, what, what a, what an amazing thing.
Um, so I just don't like, you know, I don't think any of that's right at all.
Uh, but yeah, anyway, I forget exactly why.
Why did you bring up the Nord Stream pipeline, but it's an interesting point.
Quitting Smoking with Fume00:03:36
I was talking to Scott the other day on the phone and he was saying something along those lines that world leaders, they got this dumb like mercantile mercantilism perspective, as opposed to if you just understand capitalism, it's like, that's great.
Now these two countries are going to trade.
People are going to be able to get energy for cheaper.
And like, we'll move on to the next thing.
It's like we understand through the lens of capitalism that the mutual collaboration and trade between countries benefits the citizens.
And that's kind of how we have world peace and move forward and have technological developments.
But these fucking world powers, including ours, the U.S., were fucking stupid where we think, oh, no, these two countries can't get along.
We can't just let them trade.
Well, the thing is that it's not necessarily that they're stupid because it may not be in their interest.
You know what I mean?
Like it's in humanity's interest.
But yeah, that's the, you know, it's like the old saying, whatever, however it goes, when goods cross borders, soldiers don't or something like that.
But there's real truth to that.
I mean, when you're trading with another country and you're both kind of dependent on each other and you're in this kind of win-win relationship, which is what trade, voluntary trade is, yeah, you're less likely to fight war.
So that's what, that's what free trade and capitalism offers you.
It goes, hey, everyone gets richer and we don't just slaughter each other.
But it's not great for weapons companies.
You know what is great for weapons companies?
The war in Ukraine.
That's been really, really good for them.
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All right, let's get back into the show.
By the way, you see Time magazine making Zelensky their man of the year.
It's just, I mean, the propaganda is just enough to make you puke.
Like, go ahead.
It's just become so transparent.
You've got Sports Illustrated has what, fat trannies as being the most beautiful people.
New York Times is still trying to celebrate the Blankenstein kid that he was just out there trying to, you know, be charitable.
Republican Voter Base00:15:52
And you got Time magazine going, the guy who nearly started World War III by going, look, this missile that we fired at your country clearly was the Russians and violated NATO.
I mean, can it become any more transparent that mainstream media is just nonsense?
Literally, fictional reality.
Yeah, there is something to that.
It's the thing that is the most like jarring to me about all of this is that they seem like with all of the things you're mentioning, they seem to not even be interested in like preserving the image.
Right.
It's almost like that's not their game.
Like their game is something different right now.
It's almost like it's testing you.
You know, like putting on Sports Illustrated, you know, swimsuit edition, like some, you know, gross, obese chick and being like, she's gorgeous, isn't she?
We're all saying she's gorgeous.
Don't you see a gorgeous woman there?
And then they almost figure out who will just be like, oh, yeah, totally.
Absolutely.
I think that's a gorgeous chick.
Yes.
And then figure out who will be like, wait, no, what are you talking about?
That's not.
They're like, okay, we got an independent thinker here.
You know, like crush that one, you know, like they're almost like trying to out who doesn't just go along with the program.
The stuff with Zelensky, though, what's so like sickening about it is like, right.
So to your point, which is probably the biggest one.
I mean, and by the way, that's not even the only time.
I mean, there's been several times that he's called.
He directly called for preemptive nuclear strikes against Russia in one speech, said something like, if Russia even thinks about using a nuke, the, you know, the nuclear armed countries should nuke them first or something.
You're like, really?
Just for thinking about it?
Like, you know, actually, no, thanks.
And then, right, like you said, when there were those missiles that hit Poland, he's right away calls out, calls for a NATO response to it.
In the most charitable interpretation of that, you'd be like, Jesus Christ, dude, you didn't even consider the possibility or do your own investigation to find out whether they were your fucking missiles.
And in the worst interpretation, he's just flat out lying, you know?
But I mean, the guy is like, you know, arrested political rivals and had the government seize television stations.
Just this week, they just banned a religion.
They just banned like the Orthodox Christian, some Orthodox Christian religion in Ukraine.
You know, they say, oh, it's because they're affiliated with Russia or something like that.
But like, it's not really no like solid, like, it's not like, oh, they found out that like Vladimir Putin was funding this church.
So they shut it down.
They just banned an entire religion.
And the country's got a lot of ethnic Russians.
So I'm not even like arguing like these religions don't have any ties, but it's kind of like, you know, arguing, you know, like the Japanese that we interned had some ties to Japan or something like that.
It's not exactly a solid argument for liberty.
I guess you got to look at it this way.
This is a world leader who just got rid of his opposition party.
So to them, that's the fucking man.
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
That's the man of the year.
And then also, how many times in world history did we see a Jewish leader working together so well with the Nazis?
Well, that is impressive.
It is.
It is actually really impressive.
There's a guy.
It's really something about diversity.
Diversity is a strength, you know, Rob.
And they got a lot of diversity in the Ukrainian military, evidently.
Yeah, it's there's it's quite a weird dynamic that they have over there.
And, you know, again, the thing, you know, people overplay, you know, I've seen people make kind of sloppy arguments on all sides around, but when people point out the Nazi element in Ukraine, you know, they'll be like, oh, yeah, they're a real Nazi country with their Jewish leader or something.
And it's like, well, yeah, I mean, no, they're not a Nazi country.
And yes, their president is Jewish, but that there is a strong fighting minority of people who fucking are like real deal neo-Nazis, the right sector and the C14 and these guys in the as of battalion.
These are real deal, like fucking Nazis.
And those Nazis were a huge, played a huge role in the in the coup in 2014 as one of the C14 guys.
And by the way, C14, the 14 is for the like 14 words or whatever, you know, from the 1488 shit, the most protective future for white children or whatever the fuck it is.
And one of the C14 guys is just basically saying, and he's bragging about like why the West support.
You guys can find this video is up on like on the internet.
You can find it out there.
But he's talking about why the West supports them.
And he's like, oh, they don't support us because they love us.
They support us because we fucking get results.
We fucking like we kill for fun, basically.
And he says in the thing, like that he, he even acknowledges that in the Madan protests in 2014 or late 2013, early 2014, he goes, we were only like 10% of the protesters.
He goes, but without us, it would have been a fucking gay pride parade.
You know, like, he's like, we were only like 10% of the protesters, but we're the reason why it toppled the government.
Like, we're the ones who are out there ready to kill people, you know?
So again, even something like that, where people say, like, you know, I do see people on our camp sometimes saying like, oh, that protest was like a Nazi protest, you know, and that's not exactly right either.
Cause it was like 90% of the people protesting there probably were not Nazi affiliated at all.
And the Yanukovych government was a very corrupt government.
So it really, really was.
I mean, they were democratically elected.
They were a very corrupt government.
As you could imagine, Rob.
Imagine that.
Even democratically elected governments can be very, very corrupt.
I know there's one story.
I think Yanukovych's son was like, man, I got to research this again, but he was like the fifth richest person in Ukraine.
And he was like a dentist.
Nice.
Like he didn't even have a job that could be a cover for how you're like the fifth richest person.
He wasn't even like in finance or oil or something like that.
He's just like, yeah, I got a lot of feelings this week.
So, you know, fucking, so it was a very corrupt government.
So there were probably a lot of people who were just protesting the corruption, you know, but that's not why the West was backing it.
And as the C14 guy even breaks down, like, that's not why it fucking toppled the government.
Okay.
Anyway, yeah, making him man of the year is just something.
It's just something.
So it's so like, it's so bizarre that like, once you're not, once you're kind of outside, like if you don't, if once you allow your mind to escape the very narrow, you know, worldview that you're kind of like supposed to be in, like, like where the, you know, the range of opinion ranges from CNN to Fox News.
You know what I mean?
Like that's, that's where it is.
Like you could have like a true crazy radical in AOC all the way to like a true crazy radical in, you know, whatever Ted Cruz or something like that.
Like that's basically the range of far left to far right.
And once you kind of like escape that world and you're dealing with like all these other kind of like, what are deemed radical or extremist positions?
Like when you look back at this thing, it's just, it's almost so obvious.
You're like, wait a minute, you're, you're really telling me that somehow we're arguing that this war 5,000 miles away from us is in our vital national security interests.
Like, really?
That's what that's what you're telling me.
And that this guy who bans opposition parties and fucking bans, you know, critical media and bans an entire religion, this guy is the guy on the side of freedom and democracy.
And we must support him.
He's Times Magazine's man of the year, person of the year, whatever they call it now.
I'm sorry.
It's very gendered.
It's just all so ridiculous.
And by the way, as Glenn Greenwald points out, he wrote about this in a piece the other day.
It's not for people who give him like the wartime excuse, like, well, he's just, you got to do all this stuff in wartime.
It's just not true.
He was doing this stuff in 2019 before Putin invaded in 2021, I think, not 2019.
I think it was 2020, 2021.
I guess he got elected in 19.
But he was doing this shit, you know, back way before Vladimir Putin invaded.
So it's not as if this is just like wartime shit.
It's like, no, he's just like a fucking authoritarian leader.
He's not the guy representing democracy or whatever.
Okay.
Let's move on.
This was a fun one from last week that we didn't get a chance to cover.
But speaking of authoritarian leaders or would-be authoritarian leaders, 2024, Rob, may have just heated up.
Let's roll the tape.
You've just made some news there.
You are essentially telling us that you would consider getting into the 2024 race.
Absolutely.
I think to be a presidential candidate, you can't simply say, I support the Constitution.
You have to say, I would oppose people who would undercut it.
You know, we used to have a thing in the House of Representatives called the House Un-American Affairs Committee.
I think when you challenge the Constitution itself the way Trump has done, that is un-American.
Let's stay here for a moment.
Just walk me through your thinking.
What does your timeline look like?
What would cause you to cross into saying what you're saying now and actually being a declared candidate for president?
Look, all of the potential candidates know what Trump has said.
This is no secret to anybody.
I don't see why they aren't saying it right now.
I think the voters, the Republican voters, people who choose the Republican nominee, nearly 95% disagree that Donald Trump is more important than the Constitution.
I'm afraid there are some who would stick with Trump on this.
What does a candidate have to lose by appealing to 95% of the base of the Republican Party?
I actually think most Republican elected officials in Washington disagree with Trump on this, but they're intimidated.
This is the time where there's strength in numbers.
The more people who tell the truth, the easier it is for everybody else.
So what do you have to say?
All right.
That's enough of that.
What can you say?
John Bolden Kanye is a far more serious candidate for president of the United States than you are.
I believe he will get more votes, has a better chance of being sworn into the Oval Office, and might even be less of a fascist.
So, like, what, dude?
He literally said, this is one thing you got to appreciate about John Bolden.
At least he just owns it.
Like, he's just like, hey, we used to have a house on un-American activities.
Whatever happened to that?
So if you don't love, if you don't praise the Constitution, we should probably just blackball you for thought crime in defense of the Constitution.
There's like most people consider that one of like, after like, all right, you got like slavery and Jim Crow and Japanese internment, but like right after that, most people consider the House on Un-American Activities, the House Committee on Un-American Activities to be like one of the major black eyes of like American history.
And he's just right out there like, why don't we bring that back?
I mean, what the heck?
Why don't we really just get down?
And then, oh, man, I mean, look, I'd love to see the guy run and just fall flat on his fucking face.
You'll make a great ticket.
Him and Liz Cheney.
Let's do that.
And then we can showcase what the American voters actually think of the deep state.
Let's put a number on it.
Let them run as a third party and let's put an actual number of how much the United States supports the views of these buffoons.
Yeah, I mean, look, Lindsey Graham ran, and I don't think he, I don't think he cracked 1%.
You know, I doubt these guys, I honestly doubt these guys could crack 1%.
It is pretty funny, though, when he just like pulls out of his ass.
It's ridiculous.
Like, there's something about these, like, the neocons and the John Bolton types, who's basically a neocon.
There's something about these types who like they're so removed from reality, but will still tell you about what the American people want and what they don't want, you know?
And he's like, well, I don't know.
I mean, I'd say 95% of Republicans, a number he pulls out of his ass, they prefer Donald Trump to, or they prefer the Constitution to Donald Trump.
Again, a very weird, like, as if this is really a battle between do you want the Constitution or Donald Trump because of a tweet or a social media post.
And then he goes, so why not go with what 95% of them want versus what 5% of them want?
It's, are you imagine how fucking out of your mind and removed from reality you'd have to believe be to believe that coming and throwing Trump under the bus right now is what 95% of the Republican base wants.
Like I could even understand saying like, look, this is the right thing to do.
Okay.
Making that argument.
I could even understand making the argument that like, you know, I think there are, you know, like there is some people in the Republican base who might support you doing this.
But to just say 95% of them want you to come trash Donald Trump, really.
That's why none of the Republicans are trashing Donald Trump.
You know, it's like, okay, no.
And there's many layers to that.
And that's not the way he put it to say that Republican voters, you know, prefer the Constitution to Donald Trump.
By the way, I'm not so sure that's true.
I don't know what evidence you have to suggest that 95% of them prefer the Constitution.
You know, the Republican voters don't really give a shit about the Constitution for the most part.
And some and those who do just like to invoke it in name only.
They don't really like fucking give a shit about any of the underlying principles.
They fucking Ron Paul lost in the primaries to John McCain and Mitt Romney.
This is how devoted to the Constitution the Republican electorate is.
But it's not just a choice between the Constitution or Donald Trump.
The truth is that when there's, and this is a thing that like, I don't know, it's a weird dynamic that's kind of hard to explain.
But when there is, when the wagons are circling to like, maybe I'm using that term wrong, wagon circling, but when there's a huge call to denounce someone and everybody from every powerful media apparatus is like targeting one guy and trashing him for a specific thing,
and then they call on you to denounce him to just to go, oh, yes, I also do denounce him is like there's something about that that's a really weak bitch move.
And people don't like that.
You know what I mean?
Like people just don't like when people like capitulate to the mob, particularly Republican voters, because what they feel like they're constantly up against is the woke mob.
And so it's like, oh, so the idea that this advice that he's giving, it would instantly cut the balls off of anyone if they went out there and said, hey, I'm the Republican candidate running for president.
And here's the thing I want to say.
I just want to say Trump bad.
Capitulating to the Mob00:02:29
The media was totally right about that.
Trump, Donald Trump, you're very, very bad because what you said was offensive.
That would be a death blow for any Republican candidate.
Period.
No one wants to see this bending the knee bullshit, you know?
And it's like, it's like I've had experiences like this myself where there were just like people.
When I had Nick Fuentes on the podcast a couple of years ago, he'd go, yeah, I had him on for some diversity.
But when I had him on, there'd be like calls.
So it'd be like libertarians or like the woke libertarians types who would be like calling me to denounce him.
It'd be like, oh, I bet you won't even denounce Nick Fuentes.
And I always, do my thing like, no, no, I won't.
And they'd go, they'd go, well, why won't, why do you refuse to denounce him?
And I go, because I don't denounce people on command.
Goodbye.
We're done talking.
Like, that's it.
I don't know.
I don't play that fucking game.
I hate that.
I hate anyone.
And the more of a mob there is to denounce tell you to denounce someone just makes me want to compliment that person.
You're like, the more people who are like, we demand you denounce him, I'm like, oh, I really like this about him.
You know?
Sorry.
Nope.
I guess that's the way Conley feels about Hitler.
Well, I, you know, I do, there is something about that.
I tell you, and we did mention that was the one thing that I kind of respect about what Kanye was doing was there was something, there is an element to it, even though I think a lot of the shit he's saying is like dumbass shit.
But like, there is an element to it of where he's like, a bunch of people got him around him and said, you must go and apologize for this.
And he went, fuck you.
I'm doubling down on it.
And I'll say the most unpopular fucking thing that might just get me completely ruined.
There is, whether you agree with the thing being said or not, there is something about that.
It's almost like an involuntary reaction.
If you're a man to appreciate bravery, like you're like, God damn, that is fucking, that is kind of courageous.
Whether, whether or not I agree with that.
But I just, in general, I hate the game of like, you know, demanding that other people denounce people.
I hate this shit.
It's like, how about this?
Like, particularly when I've gotten it before, where I'm just like, okay.
If there's anything you could say about me, I tell you what my views are.
You know what I mean?
Vaccine Trials on Babies00:08:25
There's nobody.
I speak to my audience for hours every single week.
We talk about every issue under the sun.
I think there's pretty much no issue that I've ever said is like off limits.
I won't talk about this.
We'll talk about whatever the most controversial shit is.
And so everyone who listens to me or who cares to know, they know where I stand on everything.
So why do I need to denounce someone else if they don't have the same views as me?
Like, how about I could just, if you want to ask me what I think about a topic, ask me that and I'll tell you.
There, you know, where I stand.
Now, now I have to go around denouncing everyone who doesn't have the same fucking views as me.
Shit's lame.
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All right, let's get back into the show.
Okay, what do we have here?
We got time for one more quick one.
All right.
I guess we got to say the FDA shit, huh?
It looks like the FDA has authorized vaccinating children as young as six months old.
I mean, Jesus Christ, how fucking sickening is that?
The move, according to the New York Times, the move broadens access to the reformulated shots.
Yeah, authorizes the updated coronavirus vaccine for children as young as six months old.
I don't know what to say.
Just fucking sickening.
What do you got, Rob?
Firstly, this picture is what we were talking about that they don't even seem to pretend anymore.
Like, even if you were into this and you were trying to sell it, doesn't that just look like a gruesome picture of like a kid being violated?
Like, why I almost, and that almost speaks to kind of the bitching out is that at this point, I guess the only people that are purchasing it are the people that were really buying in.
So now they're almost seeing like, how much do you really buy in?
Because you're going to give it to your six months.
You know what I mean?
It's almost like a further indoctrination of the people that are been like, you know what I mean?
It's like, these are your customers.
Why do you got to sucker them into still not spending time with their family while a chinsky's making new announcements about that you should be staying home and mass and all the bullshit?
It's like, why do you got to torture the people that will actually support you?
Yeah, it's really, it's a really weird dynamic, right?
Your, your own supporters get completely tortured by you.
So bizarre.
Yeah, dude, I got my, my, my youngest, my boy, is like 14 months old and he's a little baby.
You know what I mean?
I think of six months old, less than half of his age to give him this vaccine, which we're just like starting to kind of figure out like all of like the deep dives into the data, go, ah, shit, there really is an issue here with like excess health problems for people who have had the vaccine, at least like after a year and stuff like that.
There's not one study out there, not one that demonstrates that this helps six month olds who get COVID after like at all.
There's not none of it, none of it indicates that you're less likely to get the virus or that you're less likely to get sick from it.
Of course, at that age, it's incredibly unlikely to get sick from it.
The idea of vaccinating your six-month-old for the sub-variants of the Omicron, I just like, I don't even know what to say.
It's unbelievable that people are probably vaccinated anyways.
You've probably been breastfeeding it right into that little baby.
You're really going to give him more of the mRNA.
Yeah, really.
It's just unbelievable what people will do to like that people would experiment on their children.
I um so I remember uh talking.
Um so I messaged back and forth with uh this guy that I went to high school with.
So I was uh I was really good friends with him like in middle school.
And we we like kind of lost touch after that.
And, you know, we don't follow each other on Twitter.
And so I think he was messaging me after I did Rogan like a few times ago.
This was the time, whatever it was, maybe it was three times ago that I did Rogan, where he, the one where we got, Fauci got mad at Rogan for saying that he would, he would recommend young people just be really healthy.
And I said in that clip, I think I said, like, I go, there's like, I think it was before I had my son, but I said there's no chance I'd give my daughter.
who's like, I don't know, it was like two at the time or something like that, the vaccine.
I go, I would never, there's no chance I'd give my little kid this vaccine.
So, you know, there's, there's just not a big threat to them.
And he like, and we were messaging back and forth and talking for a little bit.
And he said something like, I think he's, he's very progressive, I think.
And he said, like, he was like, look, I understand where you're coming from.
It's a very difficult decision.
He goes, you know, when they were first doing the trials of the vaccines, you know, me and my wife were debating about like submitting our kids for the trials.
And like, you know, there was like to be part of like the, you know, whatever.
What's the, yeah, the, the trials on children.
And he goes, yeah, we had a lot of long talks around the dinner table about it, you know, blah, blah.
I remember like, I'm just like, holy shit, dude.
Like, man, me and you are just on like two completely different wavelengths in this fucking universe.
Like the idea of ever like using my kid as like, hey, let's see if this thing works.
Like, I don't know.
Let's use them as like the guinea pig or whatever for this.
To me, it was just like, so I just can't fathom it.
The idea that you really aren't a patriot.
Unwilling to sacrifice your children for Fauci's cause of getting mRNAs into everyone.
Really, it's selfish.
I mean, it's like, but even like the people who like, you know, send their kids off to die in these fucking stupid, pointless wars and are patriotic about that.
I mean, you're talking about 18 year olds.
Just a little different with a six month old baby.
God's sakes.
Anyway, I don't even know what else to say.
Truly sickening and disgusting.
Yeah.
Sorry to end the show on that note.
But there's other things going on in the world that aren't sickening and disgusting, like Rob Bernstein doing stand-up comedy.
That's pretty fun.
Go check him out.
Go check out Run Your Mouth if you guys don't.
Go follow Robbie on Twitter at Robbie the Fire.
Come see me and Robbie in 2023.
Just starting to fill up the calendar.
We're going to have a lot of fucking, we're doing a lot of shows together this year.
ComicdaveSmith.com.
I will have all of the ticket links posted there.
I know already we're going to be in Detroit.
We're going to be in Dallas.
We've got some Tampa gigs.
Got a bunch of gigs that we're starting to fill up over the next few months.
So we're coming all around.
Part of the problem is hitting the road.
So come look for us there.
Anything else you want to mention before we get out, Rob?