Part Of The Problem - Dave Smith - The Pentagon Drops The Ball
Aired: 2023-02-18
Duration: 58:21


=== America's Next Enemy (01:38) ===

[00:00:00]  Fill her up.
[00:00:02]  You are listening to the Gas Digital Network.
[00:00:09]  We need to roll back the state.
[00:00:10]  We spy on all of our own citizens.
[00:00:12]  Our prisons are flooded with nonviolent drug offenders.
[00:00:16]  If you want to know who America's next enemy is, look at who we're funding right now.
[00:00:22]  Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big.
[00:00:34]  What's up, everybody?
[00:00:35]  Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
[00:00:37]  I'm Dave Smith.
[00:00:38]  He's Rob Bernstein.
[00:00:40]  We are on our way to Detroit for work.
[00:00:45]  The only reason why anyone should ever go to Detroit.
[00:00:47]  Just kidding.
[00:00:48]  Looking forward to seeing you guys out there.
[00:00:50]  Come see us.
[00:00:50]  Tickets still available this weekend.
[00:00:52]  Bunch of stand-up comedy shows and a live part of the problem podcast all going down at the House of Comedy in Detroit.
[00:00:59]  You can go grab tickets over at comicdave Smith.com.
[00:01:02]  And then, of course, we got a bunch more stuff.
[00:01:04]  Me and Rob are coming all over the road this year.
[00:01:07]  So look for us in a town near you.
[00:01:10]  How you doing this morning, Rob?
[00:01:12]  I'm doing well.
[00:01:13]  Excited for Detroit.
[00:01:14]  Also, letting everyone know, New York Wednesday nights.
[00:01:17]  Come hang out.
[00:01:17]  I got a show down in the West Village.
[00:01:18]  It's a fun little spot.
[00:01:20]  Hell to the yeah.
[00:01:22]  Okay, so there's a few things that I wanted to talk about on this podcast before me and you get out of town.
[00:01:29]  A few things that really caught my eye that are, I think, pretty damn important that are going on in the world.
[00:01:34]  So there was Alex Berenson.

=== Heart Attack Risk Spikes (13:22) ===

[00:01:38]  He was the one who I initially heard this from.
[00:01:41]  By the way, I will say, I really highly recommend Alex Berenson's Substack.
[00:01:45]  He has been invaluable throughout the entire pandemic nonsense.
[00:01:51]  And he's really been one of the leading voices criticizing the COVID regime and the past, the vaccine regime from a science-based perspective and really brought a lot of very important information up.
[00:02:07]  I know me and you both have benefited a lot from reading this.
[00:02:10]  I'm going to give that guy some time.
[00:02:11]  Take some Advil, complain about our backs.
[00:02:13]  He's in New York, right?
[00:02:15]  He's, yeah, I don't know if he's in New York.
[00:02:17]  Yeah, I know he, the only one time I met him was in New York.
[00:02:21]  Get really easy before lunch just to piss him off.
[00:02:24]  Yeah, really.
[00:02:25]  Get out of him.
[00:02:25]  Yeah, well, I met him at the Soho Forum.
[00:02:28]  It was debating about pot, which, you know, I got to say, I ultimately, it's just getting sidetracked here, but I ultimately, he even wrote really interesting stuff about that.
[00:02:39]  And I disagreed with his, I think his conclusion was that pot should not be decriminalized.
[00:02:44]  But he, I think, was, I think he's wrong about that conclusion.
[00:02:50]  However, I do think there was a sound argument that he was making, which was that people kind of act as if pot is harmless and there are no negative like, you know, like outcomes associated with it.
[00:03:03]  And he's like, hey, that's really not true.
[00:03:05]  And let's like look at all this data.
[00:03:06]  And then in his very Alex Berenson way, pours over all the data.
[00:03:09]  And, you know, and he, I had never really, was never really aware of this before, but he had a lot of evidence to suggest this.
[00:03:18]  And this is something I just never was aware of.
[00:03:21]  But evidently for people who are have some tendency toward like a psychotic break or maybe kind of teetering on the edge, heavy marijuana use can like be very bad for them.
[00:03:35]  Now, again, this is just something I never would have known.
[00:03:37]  I still don't find that to be a justification to criminalize it, of course, but that is like that.
[00:03:42]  That's something that's worth knowing and should be a part of the conversation.
[00:03:45]  Whereas for many years, it was kind of like there was a very like, whatever boomer attitude.
[00:03:51]  There's nothing wrong with pot.
[00:03:52]  That's all, what's it called?
[00:03:54]  What was that old propaganda movie?
[00:03:57]  The real dumb one.
[00:03:58]  Where they're like, if you smoke reefer, you will have killed those guys on that.
[00:04:02]  Reefer madness.
[00:04:02]  Yes, yes.
[00:04:03]  It's all like, it was all kind of like, if you had any issue with pot, you were just the reefer madness people, basically.
[00:04:07]  It's like, well, no, there's, it's actually a little more complicated.
[00:04:10]  Anyway, there's a, this is Alex Varonson recently wrote about this.
[00:04:14]  You can go look it up and verify it for yourself as I did.
[00:04:17]  There was a recent study on the risk of COVID death for people under 50 years old.
[00:04:24]  So 50 and under.
[00:04:26]  It included people with severe comorbidities.
[00:04:31]  So it was just the total population, 50 and under, what your total risk for COVID was.
[00:04:37]  Basically, what these Dutch researchers did was they used data from a national registry to show what the risk was.
[00:04:47]  So they basically measured the data from the registry versus the excess death rate for 2020 and 2021 nationwide in the Netherlands.
[00:04:58]  And they assumed all of the excess deaths were COVID.
[00:05:02]  So they just, even if there were other causes, there were suicides.
[00:05:05]  There were certainly other things other than COVID, but they just put it all as COVID.
[00:05:08]  So these numbers are by their very nature going to be a little bit higher than it actually was.
[00:05:14]  But they're like, whatever, we'll give you that.
[00:05:15]  We're really looking at all of this.
[00:05:17]  And the number they came out with is pretty goddamn staggering.
[00:05:20]  It was one in 45,000.
[00:05:23]  Now, we knew, let's say, from the very, very beginning of COVID.
[00:05:29]  I think if you go back and look at it, I'm not sure.
[00:05:33]  Go to Gas Digital Network, subscribe, use the promo code POTP.
[00:05:36]  That way you get access to all of our episodes because only like the last seven or some so are up online.
[00:05:42]  But if you go back, it was either, I'm almost positive, either the last week in March or the first week in April, where we had basically been like, okay, guys, we're looking at all the data from the death numbers and it's all old people.
[00:05:54]  And it seems like most of them are like very sick.
[00:05:56]  So we knew very early on that like this wasn't a particularly high risk thing to healthy young people.
[00:06:04]  But this is this number is something much more beyond what we thought.
[00:06:10]  I do have to ask on that because it actually sounds a little bit high to me because that basically was that like 2.2 per 100,000, which is usually the way the stat is like reported as per 100,000.
[00:06:21]  And I also seem to recall that like murder rates over one over like every 100,000 are like considered astronomical.
[00:06:31]  So I don't know how this compared like how that would compare to the flu, but like in a typical flu season, you definitely don't have two deaths per 100,000 people under the age of 50.
[00:06:40]  No, well, no, no, no.
[00:06:41]  This isn't, yeah, okay.
[00:06:44]  Let me think about that for a second.
[00:06:45]  Well, they're saying that the COVID death risk was one in 45,000.
[00:06:52]  So I was wrong about what I said before the podcast.
[00:06:56]  This isn't the general population.
[00:06:58]  This is your risk of dying if you get COVID.
[00:07:00]  This is the death rate.
[00:07:01]  I was mistaken about that before.
[00:07:03]  That's what they're saying.
[00:07:04]  So this isn't.
[00:07:05]  No, no, no.
[00:07:06]  What you would be thinking of is just the general population, one out of every 100,000 people dying.
[00:07:13]  Anyway, is it fair to assume that everyone was going to get COVID?
[00:07:18]  Well, I mean, there are people who have avoided getting COVID.
[00:07:20]  I don't know.
[00:07:21]  That's an interesting question.
[00:07:22]  I don't know.
[00:07:23]  But the researchers estimated it was estimated for the numbers explain a different way.
[00:07:30]  1.06 million infections in people under 50 at that time period.
[00:07:36]  And the excess death rate was there were 24 extra deaths.
[00:07:40]  So assuming all of them were COVID related, the infection fatality rate for people under 50 would have been 0.002%, about one in 45,000, give or take.
[00:07:52]  So no, I don't think 0.002%, I don't think is, you know, look up the flu fatality rate, but I don't think it's going to be like higher.
[00:08:03]  Again, so the researchers didn't try to figure out who in that under 50 group had, you know, health issues.
[00:08:11]  They didn't even look at that.
[00:08:13]  But if you just logically deducing from this, if you were to then say you don't have, you know, like, I don't know, they don't have the data on this exactly, but what percentage of those people had like, say, diabetes and cancer or something like that.
[00:08:28]  So if you were going to then control for, you say, didn't have diabetes or cancer, didn't have some serious like, you know, comorbidity, I mean, your rate is going to be basically you won't even be able to measure what your rate of actually dying is.
[00:08:44]  And it's, as you look at this data, it just kind of puts back into perspective the bigger picture of all of this, which is that it was just completely ridiculous to shut down the whole world over this.
[00:08:58]  It was ridiculous to have the lockdowns, ridiculous to even talk about all these vaccine mandates.
[00:09:03]  And even this conversation about like, if you're 50 and under and you don't have these serious, any of these serious health issues, you can't even measure your risk for COVID.
[00:09:14]  So why are we even discussing this?
[00:09:17]  Meanwhile, we, of course, didn't have any of these conversations that people like me and you and Alex Berenson and others urge people to have.
[00:09:26]  Instead, we went with the lockdown regime and the vaccine mandates.
[00:09:30]  And now this is what we're dealing with.
[00:09:32]  Let's play this clip from CBS News.
[00:09:35]  Heart attack deaths have become more common across all age groups since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
[00:09:42]  But a recent study found that young people are actually most at risk in this case.
[00:09:46]  According to Cedars Sinai Hospital, the number of heart attack deaths among 25 to 44 year olds in the U.S. over the first two years of the pandemic was 30% higher than predicted.
[00:09:57]  Dr. Selene Gowner.
[00:09:59]  Let me just pause it for a second.
[00:10:00]  I just don't, I don't want to give the wrong impression here.
[00:10:04]  I'm not saying what we probably wouldn't be allowed to say on YouTube anyway.
[00:10:11]  I'm just, my starting point here is just that you have now a 30% increase in heart attacks or deaths from heart attacks in young people.
[00:10:23]  The same demographic who was at statistically zero risk of death from COVID.
[00:10:29]  And whatever is causing this is clearly related to COVID.
[00:10:34]  Just saying.
[00:10:35]  That's kind of my starting point with this.
[00:10:37]  But let's just take a look because I know probably everyone listening is thinking the same thing when you first hear that of what could be causing that.
[00:10:44]  But let's just take a look at the way these people at CBS News will discuss this issue.
[00:10:49]  I'm not claiming I know exactly what's causing this, but just, you know, I have suspicions, but let's take a look at this.
[00:10:58]  With us to talk more about it.
[00:10:59]  She's editor-at-large for public health at Kaiser Health News, and she is also an infectious disease specialist and epidemiologist and a CBS News medical contributor, Dr. Gander.
[00:11:09]  Thank you for being here.
[00:11:10]  What stood out to you in this study?
[00:11:12]  I think the fact that you're seeing such a big increase specifically in the youngest age group, so the 25 to 44 year olds, you saw this 30% increase in the risk of death from heart attack.
[00:11:22]  And that really is quite striking.
[00:11:24]  That's not a group, an age group in which you normally see heart attacks, much less dying from a heart attack.
[00:11:30]  So to do a study like this, you look at the years prior to the pandemic and the typical rate of heart attack death in that age group, and then you see it increase and you wonder what's the new variable.
[00:11:41]  And so the pandemic is that new variable?
[00:11:43]  That's right.
[00:11:43]  So these researchers looked at 10 years of data across the U.S., all the death certificates that get filed with the CDC.
[00:11:51]  That data, and so what they saw is, prior to the pandemic, heart attack deaths were actually dropping.
[00:11:57]  And then that trend reverses and you see those deaths go up, especially among that youngest age group, during the pandemic.
[00:12:04]  And do we know why the young, why younger people might be more at risk?
[00:12:08]  Or let's pause it for a second.
[00:12:10]  So the question then comes up, okay, so just to be clear, here she's like, yes look, we look, we're looking at 10 years of data.
[00:12:16]  The risk of death from heart attack is dropping amongst this group, where it's very low risk anyway.
[00:12:23]  Um, and then all of a sudden, in 2020, it's it spikes up and continues for 2020 2021 2022, it's it's drastically increasing.
[00:12:31]  So obviously, what happened?
[00:12:32]  Well okay, there were a bunch of huge things that happened that year um, but then, let's he, she gets asked point blank the question now, what could be causing this?
[00:12:40]  And here is the CBS, um, you know uh epidemiologist, here's her, her response, sure, and in fact, these death certificates are probably not even capturing the fact that they might have had Covid.
[00:12:52]  Uh, they're really just saying, did you die from a heart attack or not?
[00:12:56]  Um, what we do know however, is that younger people were less likely to protect themselves against covid than older people, less likely to mask, less likely to take other mitigation measures, and they were also farther back in line to get vaccinated.
[00:13:09]  So they were not protected with vaccination until later in the pandemic.
[00:13:13]  Those might have been a factor here.
[00:13:15]  So basically, I mean you could have had perhaps a mild infection and of course, this is all, pause it.
[00:13:20]  Yeah, all right, just the hilariousness of if you're going to say things that might have been a factor, if the extent of your research is just what might have been a factor, then I mean the vaccine might have been a factor.
[00:13:32]  Well, we're not allowed, we're not allowed to say no no no, we're not allowed to say that we can opine about what might have been a factor, and then even to the level of something like, well, you know it's amongst young people and um, you know they're uh, they were unlikely to mask and and you know they, they were less likely to mask and have these other mitigation to uh uh, like that's fine to speculate about, even though all of the evidence suggests that masking wouldn't have done anything anyway.
[00:13:59]  Like that, that can't even possibly be what's causing a 30 increase in deaths from heart attacks.
[00:14:06]  Now, by the way there's that and and here the, the uh guy here on the panel at the, the anchor here at least gives a little bit of like pushback here.
[00:14:13]  But there are other reasons.
[00:14:15]  I'm not insisting that this 100 is because of of the jabs.
[00:14:20]  I'm saying, look there, there was uh, and i've seen this borne out in in several uh um, in several like uh stats that there's a a huge increase in obesity, there's a huge increase in unhealthy lifestyles uh, uh in during the lockdowns as a result of the lockdowns.
[00:14:39]  So I would sus, I I would suspect, that that at least has something to do with what's going on here.
[00:14:46]  Like you, you had a child uh, I know, childhood obesity like skyrocketed during the pandemic.
[00:14:52]  I know um, alcohol consumption skyrocketed during the pandemic, so it's but to jump to.
[00:14:59]  They weren't wearing their masks.

=== Ignoring The Elephant In Room (10:24) ===

[00:15:01]  You're like, if you're gonna speculate, at least Least speculate about something plausible.
[00:15:05]  And then, of course, to your point, I mean, just to ignore the elephant in the room here.
[00:15:11]  You know what I mean?
[00:15:12]  Just seems like insane.
[00:15:14]  I mean, I've joked that they were just going to, if there actually was data and excess mortality or otherwise, they would go, well, the X factor was not the vaccine.
[00:15:23]  It was the fact that we're living now with COVID and COVID's made perfect, made changes.
[00:15:28]  And guess what?
[00:15:29]  Now that there's a giant pillar of chemicals in the sky, they might be able to point to that too.
[00:15:34]  There's going to be all sorts of variables.
[00:15:35]  None of them will be that thing that people just recently started taking and they're still recommending for kids.
[00:15:42]  And just to how you can tell how dishonest they are, and I think I hope this is the difference between what we're doing and what they're doing.
[00:15:49]  Neither me or you are claiming that that is clearly what's causing all this.
[00:15:53]  We're just saying it's insane to not consider that.
[00:15:57]  Like there's there's signs pointing to the fact that that might be it and that, yeah, maybe that should at least be considered.
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[00:17:28]  All right, let's get back into the show.
[00:17:29]  I don't know the actual numbers here, but it is wild for them to acknowledge that there is an increase.
[00:17:34]  Like, in other words, it's obvious enough that they can't police that story.
[00:17:38]  And so they have to, because they would rather just not report on that story altogether.
[00:17:42]  Like, I mean, you look at how many stories they ignore.
[00:17:45]  So there must be enough people that know people that are actually dealing with this that they're like, oh, we have to address this.
[00:17:52]  And so they're getting ahead of it to go, oh, this is because of permanent changes because of the group that wasn't.
[00:17:57]  I mean, her argument is that this might be a result of COVID, but it's in the group of people that weren't dying or getting hospitalized from COVID, but they are dying of heart attacks from the COVID that wasn't otherwise.
[00:18:09]  Like, does that usually, is there usually a correlation like that?
[00:18:12]  So COVID specifically gives kids secret heart attacks.
[00:18:16]  And now she's also making the opposite argument of what people were saying throughout COVID was that a lot of people died from COVID and that and they, I mean, with COVID, and they were saying it's from COVID.
[00:18:26]  Now she's actually saying that people are dying with heart attacks, not from heart attack.
[00:18:31]  It's actually COVID caused.
[00:18:33]  This was just the person was dying with a heart attack.
[00:18:36]  Which, just to be clear, and she's purely speculating about that.
[00:18:41]  She has no, so that's, and that's interesting as I play the rest of the clip.
[00:18:44]  Hypothetical, but then there might have been a lingering heart situation, heart disease.
[00:18:49]  Right.
[00:18:50]  So COVID causes inflammation of the blood vessels as well as other parts of the body and also blood clots.
[00:18:56]  And what we think is that a COVID infection may have actually accelerated the process of developing heart disease, what we call coronary artery disease.
[00:19:05]  And so therefore accelerated when somebody might have had a heart attack and died from a heart attack.
[00:19:11]  You know, COVID also changes how much you can get out to an exercise class, how often you see friends, maybe your level of activity overall, your stress, you see your doctor.
[00:19:21]  How are they ruling out?
[00:19:22]  COVID doesn't.
[00:19:23]  The government does.
[00:19:25]  COVID doesn't do any of those things.
[00:19:26]  The government tell it like that.
[00:19:28]  I can't stand that.
[00:19:29]  That's the biggest, slickest maneuver that they've pulled is that they had a terrible response.
[00:19:33]  And as opposed to going, oh, this is why government shouldn't be involved because look at all the negative externalities.
[00:19:39]  Well, COVID, COVID causes your gym to be closed down.
[00:19:42]  Right.
[00:19:42]  Does it really?
[00:19:43]  Because by the way, we still have COVID, but the gyms are open now.
[00:19:47]  You know what I'm saying?
[00:19:48]  It's like, no, I think it was the government-mandated lockdowns that caused that actually.
[00:19:52]  And yes, and then look, I at least give the guy credit, though, that he's at least going with something that's more plausible where he's like, oh, well, you know, we did like shut down exercise and scare the hell out of everybody.
[00:20:04]  Like, I don't know.
[00:20:05]  By the way, I'm actually very open to the idea that that could be a factor in all of this.
[00:20:10]  Like it's not exactly clear, but anyway, but listen to her response here because it's very interesting.
[00:20:17]  Outer accounting for these other lifestyle changes.
[00:20:20]  We don't know.
[00:20:21]  So you can't really assess that just from looking at death certificates.
[00:20:24]  Again, all we can say is how old were they?
[00:20:27]  Did they die from a heart attack?
[00:20:29]  But, you know, some of the factors you're mentioning could certainly have played a role.
[00:20:32]  We also know healthcare facilities were really overwhelmed during the pandemic.
[00:20:36]  So was it that somebody had a heart attack and then was less likely to survive because the healthcare facility was overwhelmed?
[00:20:42]  I didn't get there on time.
[00:20:44]  Well, thank you so much.
[00:20:46]  Okay.
[00:20:48]  So her response to him is, well, we really don't know.
[00:20:50]  You know, we just, we can't speculate about that because we really don't know.
[00:20:54]  Yet it was fine for her to speculate about mask compliance being the reason.
[00:21:00]  It's fine to speculate about COVID itself because, well, you know, COVID causes inflammation and blood clots.
[00:21:06]  Therefore, we can speculate that these heart attacks are a result of COVID.
[00:21:11]  But you know what else causes those things?
[00:21:14]  That which can't be speculated about.
[00:21:16]  Just all I'm saying is just imagine trying to have this conversation.
[00:21:22]  I'm not saying I know why there is a 30% increase in deaths from heart attacks amongst young people.
[00:21:29]  I'm not saying I know why that is, but imagine having this conversation and you're going to speculate about whether it was masks, whether it was COVID, whether it was closing gyms, whether it was people being stressed and not speculating about the other obvious factor there.
[00:21:50]  Like, my God, we had a mass medical experiment run on billions of people.
[00:21:58]  You're honestly telling me since even the doctor herself is going to admit she doesn't know why this is.
[00:22:03]  Yeah, we're kind of guessing here, but we're just not allowed to consider this one possibility.
[00:22:08]  And it's so obvious why.
[00:22:10]  It's so obvious why.
[00:22:11]  Because man, if this is a result of that, Jesus Christ, what did these people do?
[00:22:18]  Like, what did these people do?
[00:22:20]  You've had this campaign of forcing, coercing, and ritualistically shaming everybody who would not take this damn thing.
[00:22:31]  And for you to have to even admit that, which as you said, Rob, they never will, even no matter how bad it is, they never will admit that.
[00:22:37]  They'll always blame it on something else.
[00:22:39]  But my God, it would just be too, you could never come back from admitting that.
[00:22:44]  You know what I mean?
[00:22:45]  As bad as some of the other lies that have come out are, I don't think they could ever come back from that.
[00:22:51]  I think it's just such a tragedy that global warming's causing all these kids to have heart attacks.
[00:22:56]  It really is.
[00:22:57]  If only we could take this planet more seriously.
[00:23:00]  It's a good thing that we got giant smoke clouds to keep the sun from coming in.
[00:23:04]  Little plastic particles to reflect it black because it gives a nice richy smoky feel to your air.
[00:23:11]  That's just quite, that's that's just good for you.
[00:23:13]  No problem there.
[00:23:15]  Yeah, it really was.
[00:23:17]  I don't know, just watching that.
[00:23:19]  And look, I mean, there's been kind of these there's been these stories, these kind of one-off stories where, okay, this guy collapsed or something happened here or whatever.
[00:23:31]  And, you know, fair enough, there have been people like, say, on the, broadly speaking, the anti-vac side who have jumped on some of these cases in a silly way where you're like, like, you don't actually know what happened in this one case.
[00:23:44]  But when you start seeing data like this come out, a 30% increase in deaths from heart attacks amongst young people.
[00:23:54]  I just think it's like it's like criminally negligent to not consider that possibility.
[00:24:01]  That's really all I'm saying.
[00:24:02]  And to watch these people consider every other possibility except this one is just something.
[00:24:09]  And like, look, if there was, I'm completely open to the idea that, well, it was like alcoholism shot through the roof and people weren't working out and people were eating like crap.
[00:24:21]  And this is, yeah, it was so bad that it like, I don't know.
[00:24:23]  I don't know if that can explain a 30% increase in deaths from heart attacks, but maybe, maybe it can.
[00:24:29]  Even if there was some actual evidence other than just speculating that was like, oh, yeah, look, we've figured out how this is what, how, how COVID can do this and lead to this outcome.
[00:24:38]  That would suck.
[00:24:39]  But hey, if that's the case, I'm fine with it.
[00:24:42]  I mean, like, if I was actually presented with some evidence of it, okay.
[00:24:46]  I mean, I still don't think, I think the overwhelming evidence suggests that them not masking up wasn't going to change anything.
[00:24:52]  This is probably just what it was as soon as this virus was created and unleashed on people, then fine.
[00:25:00]  This is what was going to happen.
[00:25:01]  It's horrible.
[00:25:03]  But if you're just speculating about all of those things, and sorry, no, you don't get to do that.
[00:25:07]  And then just there's this one thing that thou dare not even consider.
[00:25:12]  It's really unbelievable that they can like, like, I don't understand how anyone could be watching that and not be like, but how about like you're not even going to address and go like, well, this is why we know it couldn't be this.
[00:25:20]  We're just going to pretend that factor doesn't exist.
[00:25:23]  It's such bullshit.

=== NATO And Russian Borders (14:56) ===

[00:25:26]  Okay.
[00:25:26]  Anyway, there was another very satisfying moment in the news this week, which was a journalist named Matt Lee, who is really one of the very few solid guys out there.
[00:25:48]  He's usually in the press core for the Pentagon press conferences, and he gives him a hard time quite often, which is great.
[00:25:58]  He's one of the few.
[00:25:59]  I wish we had more like him.
[00:26:01]  But anyway, this hack Kirby was up there talking about Ukraine versus Russia.
[00:26:07]  And he repeated what was a favorite Hillary Clinton line where she used to say that she used to say, Vladimir Putin has amassed his troops right on NATO's doorstep.
[00:26:21]  And this was, he basically repeated this line and Lee really got after him about it.
[00:26:26]  It was pretty great.
[00:26:26]  So let's watch this clip.
[00:26:28]  To look at this and say the reason that the Russian army is on NATO, the Russian army is at NATO's doorstep is because NATO has expanded rather than the Russians expanding.
[00:26:39]  In other words, NATO has moved closer to Russia rather than Russia moving closer to NATO.
[00:26:44]  Is that not an accurate way to look at this?
[00:26:47]  I think that's the way President Putin probably looks at it.
[00:26:50]  Certainly not the way that we look at it.
[00:26:52]  You don't think that NATO has expanded eastward toward Russia?
[00:26:55]  NATO has expanded.
[00:26:56]  And the expansion has been a good thing for...
[00:26:58]  So the reason that the Russian army is at NATO's doorstep is not the fault of the Russian army.
[00:27:03]  It's not the Russian army that's done it.
[00:27:05]  It's NATO has moved closer to moving.
[00:27:08]  I'm pretty sure it wasn't NATO who was ordering upwards of 15 battalion tactical groups to within 10 kilometers of the border with Ukraine.
[00:27:15]  And I'm pretty sure it wasn't NATO who put little green men inside Ukraine to destabilize Eastern.
[00:27:20]  I'm pretty sure that Ukraine is not a member of NATO.
[00:27:23]  So unless that's changed.
[00:27:25]  It's not changed.
[00:27:26]  But I'm pretty sure the movement by Russia is not.
[00:27:29]  If NATO is moved east, the reason that the Russian army is closer or on NATO's doorstep is because NATO moved not NATO is not an anti-Russia alliance.
[00:27:38]  NATO is a security.
[00:27:41]  For 50 years, it was an anti-Soviet alliance.
[00:27:44]  So do you not understand it?
[00:27:46]  So do you not understand how or can you not even see how the Russians would perceive it as a threat?
[00:27:52]  And the fact that it keeps getting closer to their border while their troops, I mean, the places where their troops are, you say their troops are, and they may have been in Ukraine and Georgia are not NATO.
[00:28:03]  I don't have, I'm not going to pretend to know what goes in President Putin's mind or Russian military commanders.
[00:28:07]  I mean, I barely got a history degree at the University of South Florida.
[00:28:11]  What I can tell you is that NATO is a defensive alliance.
[00:28:15]  It remains a defensive alliance.
[00:28:17]  But it has moved east.
[00:28:18]  Correct?
[00:28:20]  Let me pause.
[00:28:21]  Sure.
[00:28:22]  I mean, the layers of stupidity here are that first he starts off by saying, well, that's what Putin would think.
[00:28:29]  So in other words, he admits it right off the bat where he goes, that's what Putin would think.
[00:28:32]  Well, that was true.
[00:28:33]  That's a good question.
[00:28:34]  That's what I was saying to you was, wouldn't Putin think that you guys are expanding more than he's expanding?
[00:28:39]  Well, that's what he would say.
[00:28:40]  Well, it's even worse than that because he starts by saying, what he's responding to is him saying, I mean, Putin is, you know, they've got Russian troops right on NATO's doorstep.
[00:28:49]  And he goes, yeah, but you're saying that as if they did something when really all that's happened is that you've moved NATO all the way to Russia's borders.
[00:28:57]  So that's not the Russian army moving, encroaching on NATO.
[00:29:01]  And he goes, yeah, well, that's how Putin would put it.
[00:29:03]  And he's like, well, but it's true, right?
[00:29:06]  And he goes like, so right away when you just call out that your obvious statement is bullshit.
[00:29:11]  Like it's clearly like, okay, yeah, it is true that Russian, the Russian army is on NATO's doorstep because NATO moved onto Russia's doorstep, right?
[00:29:19]  So once you call that out, it's like, oh, yeah, well, that's, you're basically talking like Putin talks now.
[00:29:24]  Okay.
[00:29:24]  So then he pushes him on that and he's like, well, didn't NATO expand?
[00:29:27]  And he's like, yeah.
[00:29:28]  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:29:28]  No, NATO did expand.
[00:29:30]  And then this gets into this whole like ridiculous argument where, and then at the end, he plays just the like, he's like, look, I don't pretend to know what's in Putin's mind.
[00:29:38]  I mean, I'm a dummy, basically.
[00:29:40]  I didn't even do good in college, but you're like, dude, you're leading the Pentagon briefing right now about what the most powerful military in the history of the world is doing, confronting the military with the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons.
[00:29:54]  Like, are you fucking kidding me?
[00:29:55]  You cop out after that bullshit, you just keep moving the goalposts and then go like, I'm just kind of a dummy.
[00:30:00]  You cop out the way like me or you would.
[00:30:04]  Like, I don't know.
[00:30:05]  This is just like fucking unbelievable to see.
[00:30:08]  And then this, and then, of course, it's always, they always move the goalposts, never acknowledging the first thing.
[00:30:14]  It's always like, oh, well, you just basically like insinuated that Putin is encroaching on NATO, but really it's NATO encroaching on Putin.
[00:30:21]  And he's like, well, that's the way Putin sees it.
[00:30:23]  It's like, well, has NATO expanded?
[00:30:25]  Oh, yeah, no, NATO has expanded.
[00:30:27]  And then it comes up.
[00:30:27]  And then the next thing they're going is like, it's not like a correction of that, like, oh, yeah, I did make it seem like Putin has expanded, but really NATO's expanded.
[00:30:35]  It's like, well, it's a defensive alliance.
[00:30:37]  And it's like, okay, it's not anti-Russia.
[00:30:40]  You go, well, it was explicitly anti-Russia for 50 years, and they still feel like it's pretty anti-Russia.
[00:30:45]  And then it's like, well, I'm not going to try to get into the mind of Putin.
[00:30:48]  I mean, I'm just Mr. Big Dumb Guy here.
[00:30:50]  It's like, yeah, we'll spend some time trying.
[00:30:52]  It's not that hard.
[00:30:53]  Resign.
[00:30:54]  Really?
[00:30:54]  If you honestly feel like it's not your job to get in the minds of Putin and you're in this position where you're making strategic decisions, then resign.
[00:31:03]  I mean, you're not educated enough to reasonably consider what he might think about you moving right there.
[00:31:09]  Resign.
[00:31:10]  You shouldn't do that.
[00:31:12]  And then this stuff where they say, it goes like, and it's so infuriating because it's such bullshit.
[00:31:17]  Again, it's such it's as much bullshit as claiming that Putin moved his troops up to NATO's doorstep.
[00:31:23]  It's like when he says NATO's a defensive alliance, like that, that's the idea.
[00:31:27]  It's a defensive alliance.
[00:31:29]  We're just defensive.
[00:31:31]  Okay.
[00:31:32]  It's like, well, so what does that mean?
[00:31:36]  You would only, you know, use a military response against someone who invaded a NATO country.
[00:31:45]  So who did Libya invade a NATO country?
[00:31:48]  Did Afghanistan invade a NATO country?
[00:31:51]  Did Serbia invade a NATO country?
[00:31:53]  No, none of those are the case.
[00:31:56]  In the case of Serbia, they had a civil war and NATO, that's not defensive.
[00:32:00]  In the case of Afghanistan, we were launching a regime change war against the Taliban.
[00:32:04]  That's not defensive.
[00:32:05]  In the case of Libya, they just wanted to overthrow Moamar Gaddafi.
[00:32:09]  None of these are defense.
[00:32:10]  So you can't just say, oh, we're a defensive alliance.
[00:32:13]  Like you're literally by your own track record, you're not.
[00:32:16]  But beyond that, I mean, it's like, look, the biggest force for war over the last 20 years is the government of the United States of America.
[00:32:27]  There's just no arguing that.
[00:32:28]  It's the started more wars, killed more people, invaded more countries, sent special ops into more countries by any metric you want to use.
[00:32:38]  They're the biggest force for war.
[00:32:40]  And NATO is their European military alliance.
[00:32:45]  So you can say it's defensive all day long if you want to, but at the helm of it is the country that starts more aggressive wars than anyone else.
[00:32:54]  And that alliance itself has fought in several of those aggressive wars.
[00:32:58]  So as that force is encroaching upon someone's border, you're like, I don't know why this is even pissing them off.
[00:33:04]  We keep saying defensive alliance.
[00:33:07]  Like, really?
[00:33:07]  You can't wrap your head around why that might be perceived as a threat.
[00:33:11]  It's like all these simple games that we always keep saying, but just like play, like just a thought experiment.
[00:33:16]  Like, what if the Soviet Union hadn't collapsed and the Warsaw Pact was like moving over and taking over all these countries?
[00:33:23]  It took over France and England.
[00:33:25]  It comes across the Atlantic and takes over Canada and Mexico.
[00:33:29]  And they're starting aggressive wars left and right all over the world.
[00:33:32]  But every time America's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, you're encroaching on us.
[00:33:35]  They go, no, dude, we're defensive.
[00:33:37]  You're like, well, what do you mean defensive?
[00:33:39]  You just launched this aggressive war over there.
[00:33:40]  They go, are you not hearing me?
[00:33:42]  Clean your ears out.
[00:33:43]  I said defensive.
[00:33:45]  This is all just so ridiculous.
[00:33:47]  All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Yo Kratom.
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[00:34:17]  All right, let's get back into the show.
[00:34:19]  Let's play the last few seconds of this.
[00:34:22]  Expanded.
[00:34:23]  Right, exactly.
[00:34:24]  There's no reason for anybody to think the expansion is a hostile or threatening move.
[00:34:28]  And we've been saying that throughout the last 15 years, man.
[00:34:32]  You're moving closer to Russia.
[00:34:33]  You're blaming the Russians for being close to NATO.
[00:34:36]  That's exactly what Haggles is.
[00:34:38]  We're blaming the Russians for violating the territorial integrity of Ukraine and destabilizing the security.
[00:34:43]  Which is not a NATO.
[00:34:44]  Which is not a NATO.
[00:34:46]  I see other countries feel threatened.
[00:34:50]  Yeah.
[00:34:50]  So there's other, you know, so they're, they're like, I don't even know why you'd feel threatened.
[00:34:55]  I don't know what it is, why you possibly would.
[00:34:58]  I mean, sure, our president has talked about how you need to be overthrown three or four times, but whatever.
[00:35:02]  Like, what do you even feel threatened by, bro?
[00:35:04]  We're just coming closer to you.
[00:35:05]  We're just a military alliance that wants to come touch up in every single country next to you.
[00:35:10]  And then he goes, no, listen, it's just like we're blaming Russia for violating the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
[00:35:20]  Like, it's unbelievable that after the last 20 years, anyone from the Pentagon can still say, well, it's just violating the territorial integrity, territorial integrity.
[00:35:30]  That's what we're all about in the Pentagon.
[00:35:34]  You know, it's like, okay, we, we were for even after overthrowing Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi parliament voted us out and we stayed anyway.
[00:35:45]  We violated the territorial integrity of Syria, of Pakistan, obviously of Yemen and Somalia and, you know, Libya, all these countries.
[00:35:54]  We've violated, but, oh, but Vladimir Putin does it to his neighboring country.
[00:35:59]  And this is supposed to be so much more egregious.
[00:36:02]  Like, I'm not even saying, also, by the way, of course, like, you know, there was like a civil war raging there for since 2014.
[00:36:11]  There's tens of thousands of people were killed.
[00:36:13]  I don't know the exact number.
[00:36:14]  It might be less than tens, might be under 20, but thousands of people were killed in those like civil wars.
[00:36:22]  This is what the Minsk Accords were all about, trying to bring an end to the fighting between the East and West within Ukraine.
[00:36:28]  Now, you can argue that Russia didn't have legitimate security concerns in Ukraine.
[00:36:35]  Okay, you could make that argument.
[00:36:37]  But we went to Iraq over the claim of security concerns.
[00:36:40]  You know what I mean?
[00:36:42]  It's at least more plausible, you'd have to say that if there's a civil war on your border where ethnic Russians are being killed, that you could at least claim, like, so that's what he's talking about.
[00:36:52]  He goes, oh, he sent little green men in.
[00:36:53]  It's like, yes, Vladimir Putin sent essentially special ops in during the civil war to kind of like back up the ethnic Russian side of it.
[00:37:02]  Okay, feel about that however you will.
[00:37:04]  But to like, for the Pentagon spokesman to be up there yapping about territorial integrity is just like it you almost have to admire the stones on him.
[00:37:18]  But I but I do appreciate what look, you don't see it that much, but that is at least in the ballpark of what like a journalist at a press conference is supposed supposed to look like.
[00:37:30]  Like just like asking these obvious follow-up questions to the point that where it's like, you just reveal this Kirby guy is just so full of shit.
[00:37:39]  Like so full.
[00:37:40]  It just has to keep moving the goalpost and moving it to another bullshit point.
[00:37:44]  That's like all they have to back this up is these stupid like talking points that are not even close to accurate.
[00:37:52]  Well, we're defensive.
[00:37:54]  We're a defensive alliance.
[00:37:56]  And you're fucking not.
[00:37:58]  No, you're not.
[00:37:59]  Your alliance itself has been involved in aggressive wars.
[00:38:03]  And you're the alliance of the United States of America, the most aggressive military in the world.
[00:38:09]  Can't just say you're defensive.
[00:38:12]  It's a pretty cartoonish argument.
[00:38:13]  It's like if you took your front door and you put it on your neighbor's lawn and then you called the cops when he goes to take the dog for a walk and going, the dog is coming right up to my doorstep.
[00:38:22]  Yeah.
[00:38:22]  That's literally what we're doing here.
[00:38:24]  Yeah.
[00:38:25]  Sir, did you move your doorstep onto your neighbor's door?
[00:38:29]  I did.
[00:38:30]  And then he came right up to it.
[00:38:31]  So what are you doing?
[00:38:32]  And in a way, this is it's it's kind of like this is the it's it's also like Putin's kind of borrowed this tactic where if you recall, what did Putin do the day before or two days before he invaded Ukraine?
[00:38:46]  He declared Donbass independent.
[00:38:50]  He just declared that they're not part of Ukraine anymore.
[00:38:52]  And then he went in.
[00:38:53]  He's like, see, I didn't invade.
[00:38:54]  And he said that he was going to take care of the Nazi problem, which we're supposed to be against Nazis here.
[00:38:59]  So he's doing us a favor.
[00:39:01]  It really is something pretty funny that we sided with Joseph Stalin to beat the Nazis in World War II.
[00:39:08]  And yet in 2014, we sided with the Nazis to deal with Vladimir Putin.
[00:39:14]  Like, it's just, anyway, it's pretty goddamn hilarious.
[00:39:18]  If it wasn't so awful and terrifying.
[00:39:20]  But yeah, it's just it's it's really something this is how it's just it's the most reckless foreign policy ever in my lifetime at least.
[00:39:31]  And we've had a whole lot of reckless foreign policy.
[00:39:33]  So it really says something that this takes the cake.
[00:39:36]  And you see how even the Pentagon spokesman with the most minimal pressure applied to them just collapse and can't defend it.
[00:39:44]  And of course, this is happening under Joe Biden's discretion.
[00:39:49]  And so the Democrats are all wearing their Ukraine flag pins or whatever.
[00:39:55]  And then here you have, and this is really, I think, probably the essence of why I'm a member of the Libertarian Party.
[00:40:02]  Here you have the most powerful Republican in Washington, D.C. Here's here's his take on the situation.
[00:40:09]  Here's old Mitch McConnell.
[00:40:11]  Ukrainians saying they don't have enough ammo.
[00:40:13]  And even our Defense Department is saying we might have to figure out a way to get more funding so that we have enough ammo for ourselves and to give to allies like Ukraine.

=== Money Over Military Aid (09:13) ===

[00:40:22]  What is Biden's responsibility in trying to make sure that people in America whose support for Ukraine is softening will want to continue to try to help them?
[00:40:34]  Well, I'm going to try to help explain to the American people that defeating the Russians in Ukraine is the single most important event going on in the world right now.
[00:40:45]  It will save us an enormous amount of money down the road if the Ukrainians can succeed.
[00:40:51]  All right.
[00:40:51]  So let's pause it right here already.
[00:40:53]  So this is Dana Perino has Mitch McConnell on to discuss a story that support for this insane policy is plummeting and that more and more Americans are like, whoa, what the hell are we doing here?
[00:41:08]  This is like, what do you mean?
[00:41:10]  They just have a blank check for as much of our money forever to prolong the war.
[00:41:14]  Like this is crazy, right?
[00:41:15]  So more people are waking up to this.
[00:41:17]  And Mitch McConnell, who's the leader of the Republican Party, his position is that, well, what I'm going to do is I'm going to explain to the American people that they're wrong.
[00:41:26]  They're wrong for not supporting them.
[00:41:29]  Not that I have a, you know, like my job is to, you know, be the representative of these people who now don't want this policy.
[00:41:37]  I'll just tell them that they're dummies for not wanting this policy.
[00:41:40]  Not that I'm going to be the opposition to Joe Biden and this insane, reckless policy.
[00:41:46]  No, I'm going to insist that he expand this crazy, reckless policy.
[00:41:50]  That's what we've got in the opposition party of the Republicans at the highest level.
[00:41:55]  That's, I'm not trying to like be binary here.
[00:41:58]  There are a sliver of Republicans that are decent, but don't get it twisted.
[00:42:02]  It's a sliver of them who are decent.
[00:42:04]  And all of the people with the most power in the party are just as bad as the worst of the Democrats.
[00:42:11]  Every bit as bad as the absolute worst of them.
[00:42:14]  It's just like, so, and then, you know, okay, so here, you know, and this is, by the way, you know, like, is it, you know, if you talk about how there wasn't really like a giant red wave in the midterms and all this stuff, it's like the Republicans just don't deserve to win.
[00:42:30]  They don't deserve it.
[00:42:31]  I'm sorry.
[00:42:31]  It's just so disgusting that he actually comes out and says the number one priority is that Russia is defeated.
[00:42:40]  That's the number one priority.
[00:42:41]  Not the mushroom cloud of chemical smoke in the sky that you notice out your window.
[00:42:46]  Not the inflation.
[00:42:48]  We just got a pretty bad inflation report the other day, didn't we, Rob?
[00:42:50]  Right?
[00:42:51]  Inflation's still pretty bad.
[00:42:52]  Still, not that that's destroying you, that people are like drowning with this inflation.
[00:42:57]  Not that we, you know, holding people accountable who lied to you, who forced you to get jabbed, who, you know, forced you out of work for no reason over the last few years.
[00:43:06]  Not your kids being, you know, propagandized to hate you and everything decent in the world.
[00:43:11]  None of that.
[00:43:12]  The number one priority you see is that Kiev is in control of Ukraine and not Moscow.
[00:43:21]  That's the number one priority.
[00:43:23]  And yes, yes, don't let it fuck with you that a bunch of weapons companies are going to be enriched in the process.
[00:43:29]  Sure.
[00:43:30]  Don't like, yes, that is just an unfortunate, you know, that's just an unfortunate, you know, aspect of all of this.
[00:43:39]  But this is the number one priority.
[00:43:42]  And also, he has to explain to you that it's going to save us so much money in the long run.
[00:43:46]  Spending tens of billions of dollars on this is really going to save us a ton of money.
[00:43:51]  How exactly?
[00:43:52]  Well, because it won't cost us money later.
[00:43:56]  It's just going to save us money.
[00:43:58]  Now, of course, if this does provoke a world war, then actually it might cost us a whole bunch of money.
[00:44:03]  But it's okay.
[00:44:03]  Mitch McConnell has assured you that this is the number one priority because it will actually save us money.
[00:44:08]  Really, we're investing in Ukraine.
[00:44:10]  The dividend on this thing is going to be nuts.
[00:44:13]  You're going to be set.
[00:44:13]  This is basically, look at it like an annuity.
[00:44:15]  You're going to be set for the rest of your life, Rob.
[00:44:17]  Just give Ukraine a few more billions.
[00:44:19]  It's coming right back to you.
[00:44:21]  Well, if you clean up, kill off enough of the population, you can clean up the books.
[00:44:25]  So he's not totally wrong.
[00:44:26]  You escalate this thing into a nuclear war.
[00:44:28]  You're not going to have to pay Medicaid, Social Security.
[00:44:31]  Clean those books right up.
[00:44:32]  Go in underground bunkers for a little bit.
[00:44:34]  The elites come back up and boom, they don't have to have any of these vermin around that they don't like dealing with.
[00:44:39]  They're paying for.
[00:44:39]  Yeah.
[00:44:40]  Yeah, there you go.
[00:44:41]  All right here.
[00:44:41]  Let's keep playing.
[00:44:42]  They're not asking for any of our personnel.
[00:44:45]  They're asking us for financial help.
[00:44:47]  The Europeans are stepping up.
[00:44:49]  They've done an awful lot that seems not to be recognized.
[00:44:53]  For example, handling enormous numbers of refugees.
[00:44:58]  In terms of the cost of it, Dana, it's about 0.02% of our gross domestic product.
[00:45:07]  We are also monitoring very carefully the money that's being spent.
[00:45:11]  There should be a bipartisan support for this.
[00:45:14]  My biggest criticism of the president is he seems not to have done enough soon enough.
[00:45:18]  Had he moved more rapidly, we might have been able to help the Ukrainians have even more success than they've already had.
[00:45:27]  But it seems like these weapons systems tend to get there a little too late on every occasion.
[00:45:34]  Exactly.
[00:45:35]  I'm sorry public opinion is sliding, but I want to reassure the American people that this is enormously important.
[00:45:42]  We need to stay together on a bipartisan basis in our country and defend these people who are bravely fighting for freedom and for democracy in Ukraine.
[00:45:52]  So all right.
[00:45:54]  I guess this is the end of McConnell's career because this won't age well.
[00:45:58]  And I think he realizes, all right, this is the last push, the last payday.
[00:46:03]  Yeah.
[00:46:03]  Well, I just want, yeah, I want to reassure the American people that I will not do what you increasingly want me to do.
[00:46:10]  And right there, look, he says it.
[00:46:12]  His criticism of Joe Biden is that he was not more aggressive in this war.
[00:46:18]  He wants more of Joe Biden's policy.
[00:46:21]  That's what the opposition here is.
[00:46:23]  When it really comes down to it, that's what Mitch McConnell stands for.
[00:46:28]  That man, we just didn't send them enough weapons.
[00:46:30]  I mean, sure, this ridiculous number he goes, it's really not a big percentage of our total GDP.
[00:46:34]  You're measuring what we're giving them by our total GDP.
[00:46:37]  How about compare it to any foreign aid that we give any other country?
[00:46:41]  Oh, yeah, it's the most.
[00:46:44]  And just the idea that he would sit there and say, oh, it's really, it's just so important.
[00:46:49]  And then just what there's no argument attached to any of it.
[00:46:52]  Hey, here's why you guys are wrong and why we really need to support them.
[00:46:56]  What's his assertion?
[00:46:58]  Well, because they're fighting for they're brave.
[00:47:00]  We have to support them because they're brave.
[00:47:02]  They're fighting for freedom and democracy, Rob.
[00:47:04]  I mean, sure, they're neither of those.
[00:47:06]  They're not a free country or a democratic country, but they're fighting for freedom and democracy.
[00:47:10]  So give them a bunch of money.
[00:47:14]  And his allocation's not accurate because it might be currently 0.02%, but it's like every month we send them more.
[00:47:19]  And compare that to how much money we sent in, we're spending on train derailments.
[00:47:24]  You see that cost comparison.
[00:47:26]  Yeah, really.
[00:47:28]  And I mean, you know, it's just after everything our country's been through over the last few years, it's just like, how could anyone buy this house?
[00:47:37]  And you're not helping the Ukrainians.
[00:47:38]  Let's just acknowledge that.
[00:47:39]  You're keeping them in an unwinnable fight so that more of them can die.
[00:47:43]  And I guess whatever your Russia bleed them dry, blow up pipeline agendas might be met.
[00:47:49]  You're not helping anyone.
[00:47:50]  So let's not ever forget that they're lying about any care for the Ukrainian people.
[00:47:55]  If anything, you're specifically harming the Ukrainian people.
[00:47:58]  Oh, and look, it was, again, I've mentioned this many times on the show before, but it was Fiona Hill, not some libertarian dove, fucking Fiona Hill, a hawk, who did the reporting about how they were basically close to working out a deal.
[00:48:13]  They essentially had a deal.
[00:48:15]  You know, the broad terms had been agreed to.
[00:48:19]  So basically hasn't been signed in ink yet, but both sides are tentatively agreeing to a deal.
[00:48:26]  And Boris Johnson came over and urged Zelensky not to sign the deal, not to sign it.
[00:48:32]  And then we sent them in a ton more money and weapons.
[00:48:35]  So he was in a position of being ready to negotiate so his country wasn't destroyed.
[00:48:40]  And we pushed him not to.
[00:48:42]  They've kept the fight going for another fucking year.
[00:48:45]  So all these people dying is like now, you know, in large part, the blood is on the Joe Biden administration's hands.
[00:48:54]  I mean, for the role that they played in provoking the thing to begin with and the role they've played in prolonging it.
[00:48:59]  Now, that's not to, you know, alleviate any of the blame from Vladimir Putin, but there's a ton of blame on all these guys in this specific policy that Mitch McConnell is advocating we expand.
[00:49:12]  And of course, none of that, not to mention the risks associated with this, you know, turning into a larger war and possibly even a nuclear conflict.
[00:49:22]  It's just like the most insane thing in the world.
[00:49:25]  Yeah.
[00:49:26]  Wow.
[00:49:27]  Anyway, so there's that.
[00:49:29]  If you, you know, Republicans really still have a neocon problem.
[00:49:35]  Okay.

=== Putting 80 Year Olds In Charge (07:49) ===

[00:49:36]  So before we get out of here, one more story that just a kind of fun one that I thought would be leave leave on a note of humor, perhaps.
[00:49:47]  Don, Don Lemon, who we do from CNN over there, he has been, he's, he's been demoted from, he doesn't have like a, he's not an anchor of like the 8 p.m. show or whatever it used to be.
[00:50:01]  Now they got him like early in the day, sandwiched in between a couple of chicks, but he's as dumb as ever.
[00:50:07]  Don't worry about it.
[00:50:08]  And Don Lemon has this unbelievable combination.
[00:50:11]  I can't believe he hasn't been let go from CNN.
[00:50:14]  Well, I think he needs women.
[00:50:16]  Well, I don't know.
[00:50:17]  He's a gay dude.
[00:50:18]  So what does he need him for?
[00:50:20]  You know, I get it.
[00:50:22]  You know, if you weren't like, if you, if you weren't attracted to women, let me tell you something, Rob.
[00:50:27]  If I could get into making love to you, I don't know.
[00:50:31]  What do I need my wife for anymore?
[00:50:33]  She's a good guy.
[00:50:33]  I'm waiting for you to say that, Dave.
[00:50:36]  I know you have.
[00:50:38]  So Don Lemon, by the way, for people who don't know, you know, Don Lemon has famously, he's got this amazing combination where he's got kind of like seniority over at CNN.
[00:50:49]  So he's really comfortable.
[00:50:51]  He's like, I'll go off script for a little bit.
[00:50:53]  I'll just fucking vamp.
[00:50:54]  And he's very, very dumb, but he's very, very confident that he's bright.
[00:50:59]  So he'll just start talking about shit.
[00:51:00]  Like he once speculated that a missing airplane could have been sucked up by a black hole.
[00:51:07]  I don't know if you remember this clip and there was an actual scientist on the panel with him.
[00:51:11]  And he was like, now what are the chances that say a black hole suck this thing up?
[00:51:15]  And the scientist had to be like, zero.
[00:51:18]  There's a gay guy.
[00:51:19]  That's just what is on his mind.
[00:51:23]  There you go.
[00:51:25]  But he got drunk on New Year's Eve once on the thing.
[00:51:28]  Like, this is just kind of the type of shit that he does.
[00:51:30]  Anyway, this was pretty funny.
[00:51:32]  Nikki Haley made a comment about, I think the comment was about Joe Biden being past his prime.
[00:51:40]  And this was Don Lemon's response.
[00:51:43]  Yeah.
[00:51:43]  It's a delicate conversation, to say the least.
[00:51:45]  Isaac DeVeragrate reporting.
[00:51:47]  Thank you.
[00:51:47]  Thank you.
[00:51:49]  And notice Nikki Haley when she said that yesterday.
[00:51:51]  Obviously, a digit Biden, but she said 75 and up.
[00:51:54]  So that would include Trump.
[00:51:59]  Elder statesman here.
[00:52:00]  This whole talk about age makes me uncomfortable.
[00:52:03]  I think that I think it's the wrong road to go down.
[00:52:05]  She says people, you know, politicians or something are not in their prime.
[00:52:08]  Nikki Haley isn't in her prime.
[00:52:10]  Sorry.
[00:52:11]  A woman is considered to be in her prime in her 20s and 30s and maybe 40s.
[00:52:14]  What do you talk about?
[00:52:15]  That's not according to me.
[00:52:17]  Prime for what?
[00:52:18]  It depends.
[00:52:19]  It's just like prime.
[00:52:20]  If you look it up, if you Google when is a woman in her prime, it'll say 20s, 30s, and 40s.
[00:52:25]  I don't miss that.
[00:52:26]  Oh, I got it.
[00:52:27]  I'm not saying I agree with that.
[00:52:28]  So I think she has to be careful about saying that, you know, politicians aren't in their prime.
[00:52:32]  You need to qualify.
[00:52:33]  Are you talking about prime for like child boring?
[00:52:36]  Or are you talking about the message I'm just saying?
[00:52:39]  The facts are Google at everybody at home.
[00:52:41]  When is a woman in her prime?
[00:52:42]  It says 20s, 30s, and 40s.
[00:52:44]  And I'm just saying Nikki Haley should be careful about saying that politicians are not in their prime and they need to be in their prime when they serve because she wouldn't be in her prime according to Google.
[00:52:54]  Google or whatever it is.
[00:52:55]  Look, and you have to be careful because older people vote.
[00:53:00]  Older people watch linear television, right?
[00:53:04]  And so she has to be careful about turning off a certain constituency who may be her strongest set of supporters by saying people vote than younger people.
[00:53:12]  Yes.
[00:53:12]  But it wasn't age is a fair question.
[00:53:14]  Remember we talked about how young Pete Buttigiege was, though?
[00:53:16]  Like everyone said maybe he's not experienced enough.
[00:53:19]  They end up kind of like changing the topic, which is so funny sitting between these two chicks and be like, look, this bitch is old.
[00:53:25]  You two are old.
[00:53:27]  You're all out of your prime.
[00:53:28]  I think he has no idea what he's even saying.
[00:53:30]  Like they're like, prime for what?
[00:53:32]  And he's like, I don't know.
[00:53:33]  Prime.
[00:53:34]  Google it.
[00:53:35]  It's a Google, like, what is it?
[00:53:36]  What are you talking about?
[00:53:37]  That was, he was being a caddy gay guy and that being like, bitch, you ain't in your prime either.
[00:53:43]  And then he realized I'm sitting between two women.
[00:53:45]  And what I just said was that women are objects.
[00:53:48]  And so when they're not beautiful 25-year-olds, they're irrelevant.
[00:53:51]  And as a political commentator on the left network, I can't be dismissive of women that anything other than their sexual value has.
[00:54:00]  I thought women were supposed to.
[00:54:02]  He goes, just don't shoot the messenger.
[00:54:04]  I'm just bringing the facts.
[00:54:05]  You're like, what fact?
[00:54:06]  What does prime even mean objectively?
[00:54:09]  Like what?
[00:54:10]  Like professionally in your prime?
[00:54:13]  Like, what are you talking about?
[00:54:14]  From a, from a professional standpoint, what's Nikki Haley?
[00:54:17]  65?
[00:54:18]  And pretty healthy looking?
[00:54:20]  Maybe she's 50s.
[00:54:21]  I don't know.
[00:54:21]  I'm just saying, like, if you're hiring, if you were looking to hire a CEO, she's probably the ideal age.
[00:54:28]  Now, personally, I agree with him.
[00:54:29]  I don't like women, so I wouldn't hire her.
[00:54:31]  Like, that's not, I'm not trying to come out as the hire women argument, but I'm saying if you were, if you were running a company that liked hiring women, she's probably in the ideal age range for leadership positions.
[00:54:43]  Almost certainly.
[00:54:44]  I mean, 51 to me.
[00:54:46]  Like, if you were talking about a high stress, really important like leadership position, I think 51 would be right around the ideal age.
[00:54:54]  That'd be my guess.
[00:54:56]  I think your 40s or 50s probably is probably like the point where you've like, if you're talking prime in this capacity, not like you're prime for like having kids or playing in the NBA, but you're prime where you're like, you have the benefit of like experience and wisdom and you haven't like mentally slowed down at all.
[00:55:14]  I'd say like 40s, 50s, and for some people, maybe even into their, into their 60s.
[00:55:20]  But you know what I'm saying?
[00:55:22]  Like most of the time, like a CEO, you wouldn't want to be 25.
[00:55:27]  Dude, D-Dog.
[00:55:28]  You could use more experience.
[00:55:30]  He's left black Ron Burgundy.
[00:55:32]  You can't let him say anything that's not directly on the teleprompter.
[00:55:36]  It is exactly what it is.
[00:55:38]  And it's so funny, like that you, and he does this a lot.
[00:55:40]  Like every time he has these gaffes, you can kind of see that he's about to do it.
[00:55:44]  Like he's kind of like, he'll kind of do this thing.
[00:55:46]  He's like, he's like, you know what?
[00:55:48]  I'm just going to rip.
[00:55:50]  I'm just going to, I'm not, I'm not reading this one.
[00:55:52]  I'm just going to vamp.
[00:55:53]  And you're like, oh, dude, this is going to be so bad.
[00:55:55]  So bad.
[00:55:57]  But anyway, yeah, I don't know.
[00:55:58]  It was, it was an entertaining moment at least.
[00:56:00]  So there you go.
[00:56:01]  Women in your 50s.
[00:56:03]  So lucky that those two women let him off on that.
[00:56:06]  That could have been a career ender easily.
[00:56:08]  Yes.
[00:56:08]  And they even have the moment where you're the elder statesman here.
[00:56:12]  What do you have to say?
[00:56:13]  And then he just says the dumbest thing you could possibly say.
[00:56:17]  I'm almost surprised he's like that.
[00:56:18]  That seems like a career ender for being on a left-wing network.
[00:56:22]  Well, he has been getting some shit online for it, but I have a feeling it won't be enough to take him down.
[00:56:27]  But I honestly, I don't want him off the air.
[00:56:29]  I just want more moments like this.
[00:56:32]  This is all the corporate press is good for anyway.
[00:56:34]  Just give me some hilarious moments.
[00:56:35]  That would be great.
[00:56:36]  Every time like a new Hillary Clinton or whoever comes, it would be great if the press referred to, or as D-Dog refers to it, not her prime.
[00:56:44]  Yeah.
[00:56:44]  Yeah, really.
[00:56:45]  Yeah.
[00:56:47]  Now, look, by the way, I will say it's, it is a fair conversation to have with guys like Biden and Trump.
[00:56:54]  I think there's nothing wrong with that to say that like, look, like the idea that we're putting 80-year-olds in here is fucking insane.
[00:57:01]  And very clearly with Biden, I mean, it's just so obvious.
[00:57:06]  Like, if you, if you go watch, Biden also, much like Don Lemon, was always not very bright and convinced he was very bright.
[00:57:14]  Like, he always believed he was a lot more clever than he was.
[00:57:17]  But if you go watch videos of Biden speaking from like 20 years ago, 30 years ago, and compare it to now, just go do it.

=== Biden's Severe Decline (00:55) ===

[00:57:25]  That's your homework for tonight, listeners.
[00:57:28]  Go do that.
[00:57:28]  Go watch any video clip of Joe Biden speaking 30 years ago and then watch him speaking 30 days ago and just look at it.
[00:57:36]  You're like, oh, yeah, the guy is in very obvious, severe decline.
[00:57:42]  You know, it just is what it is.
[00:57:44]  Everybody knows that shit.
[00:57:46]  All right.
[00:57:46]  We're going to wrap up the show there.
[00:57:48]  Come catch us this weekend in Detroit.
[00:57:51]  Me and Rob will be out there doing some stand-up comedy, maybe doing some eight-mile battle rapping.
[00:57:58]  Maybe, I don't know, buying a General Motors car.
[00:58:02]  I don't know.
[00:58:02]  I have to go on stereotypes.
[00:58:03]  I don't know that much about Detroit, but we'll be out there having some fun.
[00:58:06]  Come hang with us.
[00:58:08]  Thanks for listening.
[00:58:09]  And robbythefire.com.
[00:58:11]  I'll get all my tour dates up there.
[00:58:12]  I also got a March date up in Steamboat.
[00:58:14]  You can come ski with me.
[00:58:14]  Of course, check out Run Your Mouth podcast and every Wednesday night in the West Village.
[00:58:19]  Come hang.
[00:58:20]  Hell yeah.
[00:58:21]  Peace.