Part Of The Problem - Dave Smith - The Justice Dept Indicts Trump
Aired: 2023-06-11
Duration: 01:01:47


=== Controlling Your News Sources (15:08) ===

[00:00:00]  Fill her up.
[00:00:02]  You're listening to the Gas Digital Network.
[00:00:09]  We need to roll back the state.
[00:00:11]  We spy on all of our own citizens.
[00:00:13]  Our prisons are flooded with nonviolent drug offenders.
[00:00:17]  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.
[00:00:27]  You're listening to part of the problem on the Gas Digital Network.
[00:00:31]  Steer your host.
[00:00:34]  What's up, everybody?
[00:00:34]  Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
[00:00:37]  I'm Dave Smith.
[00:00:38]  He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein, the king of the caulks.
[00:00:41]  How you feeling today, brother?
[00:00:44]  I got something important.
[00:00:45]  I got to get out.
[00:00:46]  Usually I don't jump in with important stuff, but you don't.
[00:00:49]  We got to wrap up this Ukraine thing so we can go fight Canada because this is out of control.
[00:00:55]  We can't just let them get away with this.
[00:00:57]  They might be the one regime change where I'd go, fine.
[00:01:00]  You got me.
[00:01:01]  Dude, I can't be living a life where I'm deciding if I want the fumes outside or the ones in my apartment.
[00:01:06]  I can't be living that way.
[00:01:08]  I need windows open in here.
[00:01:09]  This place is not clean.
[00:01:11]  I don't want to be addressing my own filth.
[00:01:13]  I can't be living like this.
[00:01:14]  Yes.
[00:01:14]  So if for anyone who's not aware, maybe you're not living in the Northeast like me and Rob are, but we are in the asshole of the Canadian wildfires right now.
[00:01:27]  And Canada is just farting smoke all over us.
[00:01:30]  It is so bizarre.
[00:01:31]  It's the weirdest thing.
[00:01:33]  Sometimes it just really feels like we're living in biblical times.
[00:01:37]  Like even as I was like explaining it to my wife, and because I was like looking it up, like, what the fuck's going on?
[00:01:44]  And then it's like, oh, yeah, well, evidently they've had a record number of wildfires in Canada and the air patterns have like pulled it down here.
[00:01:50]  And so now it's that, but it's just such, even as I'm explaining it, I almost feel like I'm going like, no, no, no.
[00:01:56]  Like the locusts migrated from Northern Africa and now they're all attacking us because of that.
[00:02:00]  There's a scientific explanation for all of that.
[00:02:02]  You know what I'm saying?
[00:02:03]  Like, it's just like, wait, what?
[00:02:04]  What is happening?
[00:02:05]  How does this make any sense?
[00:02:07]  This just never happens.
[00:02:08]  All of a sudden, all of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut is just covered in like something.
[00:02:15]  And no one's talking about attacking Canada.
[00:02:17]  This is insanity.
[00:02:19]  Well, they've done more to us than Russia ever did, you know, already.
[00:02:24]  There's more of a justification.
[00:02:27]  I'm not actually advocating for regime change.
[00:02:29]  Maybe if private forces want to do it, I could find a way to support that if it was voluntary.
[00:02:34]  But anyway, yeah, it's been pretty nuts.
[00:02:36]  Out here, it's gotten a lot better today, though.
[00:02:38]  You can kind of see the sky.
[00:02:39]  It's very weird.
[00:02:40]  It's just filled with smoke.
[00:02:42]  Like all of New York and the sky was covered in smoke.
[00:02:46]  God is angry at us.
[00:02:47]  That's all I'm saying.
[00:02:48]  He's definitely not happy.
[00:02:50]  Anyway, I'm glad it's better today because I got to take off.
[00:02:54]  I'm headed out to Austin tomorrow morning.
[00:02:58]  Looking forward to that.
[00:02:59]  See a lot of you good people out there at the Comedy Mothership this weekend.
[00:03:06]  And then we got a bunch of stuff coming up.
[00:03:07]  ComicdaveSmith.com for all our dates together.
[00:03:10]  RobbieTheFire.com for all of Rob's solo dates.
[00:03:13]  First porch store date is next weekend in Jacksonville.
[00:03:16]  So if you live out in the Jacksonville area, going to be doing stand-up and a live pod from lawn, come hang out.
[00:03:21]  That's good.
[00:03:22]  Go hit Jacksonville now.
[00:03:23]  You don't want to wait till too deep in the summer to hit Jacksonville.
[00:03:26]  That is swampy weather down there.
[00:03:30]  All right.
[00:03:30]  So there's several topics that caught our interest that we want to talk about on today's show.
[00:03:36]  The first one, and I just, I think something really monumental happened yesterday.
[00:03:45]  And what happened was that Tucker Carlson launched his Twitter show.
[00:03:52]  Now, this just happened.
[00:03:54]  So it's hard to, you know, with complete confidence say, but I have a feeling like that this was something very big in the landscape of corporate media.
[00:04:08]  And it's hard to exactly like I, it, it's hard to overstate what a big thing just happened.
[00:04:15]  Now, for the point I'm making here is, is completely separate from however you feel about Tucker Carlson, whether you're a fan or not, whether you like him or not.
[00:04:23]  I am a fan.
[00:04:25]  Don't agree with him on everything, but I think he is absolutely correct on several of the most important issues of our time.
[00:04:35]  The show was about, he basically opened with a whole rant about how evil the people who are supporting the war in Ukraine are and how quick they were to jump to blame this damn explosion on the Russians, even though they've been blaming everything on the Russians.
[00:04:51]  And even though there's a lot of question marks there about why this would make sense for the Russians to do it, he played a video of Lindsey Graham and Zelensky talking and he was mocking how they're the good guys and then play this conversation where they're talking about how many Russians are dying.
[00:05:03]  And they're like, that's what the good guys do.
[00:05:04]  Good guys chuckle about people dying.
[00:05:07]  So anyway, I really liked the show.
[00:05:10]  But that's neither here nor there almost for what I thought was so monumental about this.
[00:05:15]  What's monumental about this is that the number one cable news host by far, the biggest cable news host in America gets his show canceled, says, okay, I'm moving to Twitter.
[00:05:31]  And on his first episode, as of right now, the video has 23.3 million views.
[00:05:40]  The tweet has 105 million views, but the video itself has 23.3 million.
[00:05:47]  Now, just to be clear, Tucker was doing around 3 million in change on Fox News.
[00:05:55]  And this made him the biggest cable news show in the country.
[00:06:00]  He goes over to Twitter and he goes from, it was like 4 million would be like a huge night for Tucker when he was on Fox News.
[00:06:09]  And these were the ratings that like CNN and MSNBC were just like, oh, we kill for this.
[00:06:14]  23 million on Twitter.
[00:06:19]  And that's just what it's at right now.
[00:06:20]  This is only within 24 hours.
[00:06:23]  This thing is probably going to climb substantially higher than that.
[00:06:28]  It's hard to not look at that and go like, wait a minute.
[00:06:33]  This might really be cracking the whole matrix here.
[00:06:36]  That the number one guy can now leave.
[00:06:40]  The network comes in and says what they've always been able to do.
[00:06:45]  We're canceling your show for whatever reason, whether we still don't know exactly yet.
[00:06:50]  Perhaps Tucker will get into this at some point, but we still don't know exactly yet.
[00:06:54]  But maybe it's that the lawsuits, he was too much of a liability.
[00:06:58]  Maybe it's that he was pushing too hard against the Ukraine war, which the Democrat, the Republican establishment is actually very much behind.
[00:07:05]  Who knows?
[00:07:06]  Maybe something else.
[00:07:07]  But the fact that when a network comes in and goes, sorry, bud, you're canceled.
[00:07:13]  You can just go, okay, I'll put it on Twitter and get an audience that is, what, I mean, almost 10 times bigger than what he had than the biggest show.
[00:07:29]  This might really be the beginning of the end of cable news.
[00:07:36]  I mean, like, I just don't know how that's such a huge thing.
[00:07:40]  That's such a profound thing.
[00:07:42]  The number one guy gets canned at cable news and is now almost 10 times bigger simply because he went to Twitter.
[00:07:51]  What does that mean?
[00:07:53]  I don't know exactly, but I love it.
[00:07:56]  I love it.
[00:07:59]  Yeah, it's hard for them to win without full control.
[00:08:01]  Like there wasn't a time period where if they took you off the airwaves, that was it.
[00:08:04]  You weren't going anywhere else.
[00:08:05]  Or maybe you're getting a radio show, but the audience for that is limited to whoever's watching that radio show live in the morning.
[00:08:13]  So it's nice that we live.
[00:08:16]  They need full control.
[00:08:17]  Like even last year when Musk wasn't on Twitter, there's a good chance that he wouldn't have been able to do his show on Twitter because they would have said, well, that's dangerous misinformation.
[00:08:26]  And that's why Fox had to remove this dangerous figurehead from our airwaves.
[00:08:30]  And he's a January 6th apologist and it's going to lead to domestic terrorism.
[00:08:35]  But you just need a little bit of freedom and then you get actual competition where better goods can reach the marketplace and it's going to win every time.
[00:08:44]  Yeah, it was really something.
[00:08:47]  I saw when he first put it out, there was that Taylor Lorenz woman.
[00:08:53]  Oh, yeah, what?
[00:08:54]  A fucking buffoon going, oh, look, no one's interested in this.
[00:08:57]  Look at the number.
[00:08:58]  The number is right there.
[00:08:59]  She goes literally public information.
[00:09:01]  She owned herself so hard.
[00:09:06]  It's actually unbelievable how much they don't even get it.
[00:09:09]  She goes, because she made a point where she was like, look, no more of the graphics, no more of the tricks, no more of the fast cuts.
[00:09:16]  It's just Tucker Carlson sitting there.
[00:09:18]  How's he going to stack up against the other online influencers?
[00:09:22]  Meanwhile, 25 times bigger than he already was as the biggest guy in cable news.
[00:09:28]  That's how he stacks up.
[00:09:29]  Now, look, there are some fair questions in that.
[00:09:33]  By the way, my point is she owned herself because she just revealed that's like, oh, it doesn't matter.
[00:09:37]  What people are interested in is hearing what this guy has to say.
[00:09:41]  None of that other stuff matters.
[00:09:44]  Now, there is a fair, some people will give some pushback and they'll go like, well, how exactly is a Twitter view counted versus how is like a Nielsen view and cable news counted?
[00:09:55]  There might be a little bit of a discrepancy there.
[00:09:57]  Like, I don't know if you just watch 30 seconds of it.
[00:09:59]  Does that count as a view or what?
[00:10:01]  But it's 25 times bigger.
[00:10:04]  You know what I mean?
[00:10:05]  Like maybe that's maybe that number is not exactly accurate and it's only 10 times bigger or something like that, you know, but like still the point kind of stands.
[00:10:13]  The other question that people had, which is a fair question is, well, will he maintain that?
[00:10:17]  Or was there some big like kind of moment of his first show on Twitter?
[00:10:23]  Also a fair question.
[00:10:24]  But again, if we're starting from 20 25 times as big, maybe he goes down to, you know, even a drastic cutoff from that.
[00:10:31]  He's only five times as big as he was on cable news.
[00:10:33]  This is still like a game-changing event.
[00:10:37]  And I don't know.
[00:10:38]  Maybe it grows from here.
[00:10:39]  Who's to say that's what it was that it was the first one?
[00:10:42]  Perhaps it just gets more and more popular.
[00:10:45]  Either way, you start to have, you know, a lot of people.
[00:10:50]  And this is one of the things that's been very interesting about this changing dynamic for the last several years.
[00:10:55]  And I'll, like, as someone who's in this world, it's exciting.
[00:11:00]  It makes it an exciting industry that when I, like, even when I first kind of started getting into the realm of like political commentary and when I first started this podcast and I first started getting like cable news gigs, it still at that time seemed almost like, I was like, ah, shit, I wonder if like one day I could get a show on TV doing what I want to do.
[00:11:28]  Like, would there, was there any network that would actually let me do what I really want to do?
[00:11:32]  What would I be able to say?
[00:11:34]  Maybe if kind of like the culture changes in a certain direction, then I'd be able to like talk about some of these things.
[00:11:40]  You know, there were people like Judge Napolitano had a show at one point where he was like going hardcore libertarian message.
[00:11:47]  There was Kennedy's show.
[00:11:48]  There was Stossel's show.
[00:11:49]  There were like some libertarian shows out there.
[00:11:51]  It's like, maybe I could do that.
[00:11:52]  Maybe you know like, maybe there'd be a way.
[00:11:54]  And then there was like, as the years went on, it was, there was just like a point where there was such an explosion in this that you were like oh, i'd never want to do that that, why would I ever want to do that?
[00:12:07]  Why would I want to do that when I can just make my own show and do whatever I want to do, you know?
[00:12:13]  And then it was like, oh, the goal became like, not and this was true in stand-up comedy too um, where the goal used to be like, when I first started stand-up comedy, it was like over 15 years ago now it was all about like oh, maybe I could get a late night show, maybe I could get a spot on Comedy Central, and then hopefully, you know, you could get like a special, like an HBO special or something like this.
[00:12:37]  But it was all about like, will some gatekeeper give you something like?
[00:12:41]  That was kind of the goal.
[00:12:43]  And then at a certain point it was just like, oh, I don't care about that, like I just want to.
[00:12:49]  I just want to get fans, you know, and I can, I can put my stuff right out to them.
[00:12:54]  I don't need to go through a network, um and so with the political commentary stuff you're, at a certain point you were like, oh well, like my goal isn't.
[00:13:02]  Like let me host a show on FOX NEWS my, the goal is like, let's get this podcast as big as it can be.
[00:13:09]  Let's get this podcast as big as a show on FOX NEWS, which is not that far off at this point, and like that there's just like a real interesting thing, so kind of living through the way that whole landscape changed.
[00:13:22]  But now this, I mean this has got to wake up.
[00:13:26]  Like what for?
[00:13:27]  For all of the first, for all of the people in Cable NEWS, you must be paying attention to this right, you must be noticing right away that it's like oh, this guy could go and get way bigger.
[00:13:38]  Then the.
[00:13:39]  The other aspect is that that's not necessarily true for everyone in Cable NEWS.
[00:13:43]  You know, there's a lot of them.
[00:13:44]  A lot of them really are there.
[00:13:46]  There's a big difference between say, like Don Lemon, who got fired the same day, Tucker Carlson did.
[00:13:52]  He could not go and do this.
[00:13:54]  There's not like the, he just couldn't.
[00:13:56]  So the network was adding value to Don Lemon.
[00:13:59]  The network was adding value to Brian Stelter, but Tucker was adding value to the network clearly, as they've been crumbling since he's left, and so anyway, it's just like it's this tremendous shift from big corporate um, in effect, state mouthpiece media to the people, to like the people actually getting some like, actually being able to say like, oh no,
[00:14:28]  this is the person who people want to hear from, rather than like kind of CNN dictating that this is who you will get your news from.
[00:14:37]  And I think for people who listen to this show and and are aware of like the stuff that we talk about, like I said, you can't overstate how huge that is, because this is like the whole game is that they get to control how you hear your news and who you hear your news from.
[00:14:54]  When they get to control the narrative, it's almost impossible for for us to win, it's almost impossible for the propaganda to be struck down when the entire narrative is controlled by the corporate press.

=== The Death of Cable News (05:28) ===

[00:15:09]  And if that's cracked open, then then we have a real shot to like change this whole thing.
[00:15:16]  Now you see it, with so many topics, it's like like, uh, Israel is a great example where the to like your average boomer over the last, you know, 30 years or whatever the conversation has all been around, like, what's the conversation on Israel?
[00:15:31]  It's like, well, doesn't it?
[00:15:32]  Israel has a right to exist.
[00:15:35]  And like, don't, don't you have a right to live without rockets being like launched into your area?
[00:15:40]  Like, and if that's the parameters of the conversation, then of course any reasonable person looks at that and they go, well, what do I think about whether Israel has a right to exist or not?
[00:15:49]  I say yes, I say yes, they do, and I say yes, it's wrong to launch rockets at people.
[00:15:55]  But if you can shatter that narrative and then go okay look, but there's like another side to this too.
[00:16:00]  There's also like this other group of people who are like totally fucking subjugated by this group because they won a war in the 70s, like that's not just.
[00:16:07]  You know what I mean.
[00:16:08]  Like as soon as you widen the parameters out, you go oh, there's actually much more to this.
[00:16:12]  And now a reasonable person can come along and say like well okay, I do think Israel has a right to exist, but I also think Palestine has a right to exist, and I think there's.
[00:16:19]  You know what I mean.
[00:16:20]  It's just like, and there's so many, that's just one example.
[00:16:22]  There's so many examples like that, and so this is really interesting.
[00:16:26]  It's going to be really interesting to see how Tucker's numbers do going forward.
[00:16:30]  It is possible i'm not saying the corporate press is dead tomorrow but if the corporate press dies in five years or 10 years, I think we might look back at this as like one of the great battles that really began to sink them.
[00:16:43]  There's just something so powerful about the number one guy in cable news getting canned, going to Twitter and being 25 times as big.
[00:16:52]  That's insane.
[00:16:54]  I think it will be uh particularly interesting if the uh cable news channels are somewhat irrelevant in the election cycle, because if they don't pull through during this election cycle, then I like I don't see where, two years down the line, they're going to be any more relevant.
[00:17:08]  So if more of the coverage.
[00:17:10]  Like even Kennedy, I haven't seen him on too many news shows.
[00:17:13]  I've seen him do a lot of podcasts.
[00:17:14]  He seems to understand new media.
[00:17:16]  Donald Trump got elected the first time around by using twitter.
[00:17:20]  Uh Obama before that leveraged Facebook really well, but it does seem like a lot more of the uh news and internet meeting like is online, and here's where the biggest x factor is going to be, what's going to happen if brands start advertising with Tucker and making a serious dent because the advertising with Tucker is actually much cheaper on an impression basis, right?
[00:17:40]  And then all of a sudden like imagine, I mean, if CNN, UH AND UH FOX lost let's just say you know 70 of the current audience, you think they're even going to be able to sell a vaccine like the last one.
[00:17:52]  Like, I understand that it's mostly Boeing and pharmaceutical companies over there that don't really have to deal with competitors.
[00:17:57]  You know purchasing airtime on because there's no competing businesses.
[00:18:02]  But what happens when you're like I have to go talk to Tucker Carlson and he's not interested in promoting your business, no matter what those, those brands are going to lose some leverage too.
[00:18:12]  So to me there's a big x factor in the advertising game Of if those impressions become basically overpriced and useless, and then you start seeing bigger money pouring into the alternative media, because that's actually the only way to reach your audience.
[00:18:28]  Yeah, it's all very interesting stuff.
[00:18:31]  Like, what, you know, it's just like, what exactly does this all mean?
[00:18:34]  It's kind of hard to say, but that's a really important angle that you brought up too.
[00:18:39]  So we'll see.
[00:18:39]  We'll see what happens with all of that.
[00:18:41]  Anyway, and I'm glad you mentioned it because I was thinking the same thing is that this is this RFK presidential run is an interesting gauge for all of that.
[00:18:50]  And particularly because it's within the Democratic Party, which is the party that still more believes in the corporate press.
[00:18:57]  They're more, you know what I mean?
[00:18:59]  Like they're more likely to trust them.
[00:19:00]  And here you have this guy who's polling extremely well, who the entire corporate press is telling you either doesn't exist or he's a kook.
[00:19:08]  And yet he's still able to leverage this alternative media, which really is a very smart strategy by his, by his campaign.
[00:19:16]  It will also be interesting because I bet there's still a whole world of Tucker fans that aren't on Twitter.
[00:19:22]  Like I'm sure that there's going to be some kids who go, oh yeah, you know, he's back on Twitter.
[00:19:26]  Here, I'll sign you up.
[00:19:28]  There could be an entire world of people who are like, oh, yeah, I'll go check out Twitter.
[00:19:31]  I mean, it's not in the world of having to get a cable provider and have Fox in your house versus having to just sign up to Twitter and then going to his feed once a day and watching what he said on your own schedule, being able to fast forward.
[00:19:44]  Also, the last episode was a 10-minute thing.
[00:19:46]  So you get a more condensed, here's my opinion.
[00:19:49]  So you might even see the Fox, your typical Fox person who for their entire life enjoyed just being able to turn on Fox News might actually switch over.
[00:19:59]  Yep.
[00:19:59]  That's going to be that's going to be interesting too.
[00:20:01]  What type of business does that now drive to Twitter?
[00:20:05]  How much does this change the landscape?
[00:20:06]  We really don't know.
[00:20:08]  We will find out, though.
[00:20:09]  There's a lot of potential.
[00:20:10]  So that's, to me, pretty damn interesting.
[00:20:14]  Okay.
[00:20:15]  So let's speaking kind of somewhat on topic there of this whole thing, but this dynamic with the 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump, since DeSantis and some others who we might get into later have announced, has only gotten stronger in the polls and really seems to be the inevitable nominee at this point.

=== Revolutionizing the Cigar Experience (02:32) ===

[00:20:38]  That doesn't mean he will be the nominee.
[00:20:39]  Other people have seemed like the inevitable nominee around this point in the election cycle.
[00:20:45]  Thinking of Hillary Clinton in 2008, Jeb Bush, perhaps in 2016.
[00:20:50]  Howard Dean.
[00:20:51]  Yeah, that's right.
[00:20:52]  Howard Dean till much later.
[00:20:53]  I mean, Howard Dean was, it was, it wasn't until primaries were really going on when he screamed like a gay rancher.
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[00:23:08]  All right, let's get back into the show.

=== Espionage Act Prosecutions (12:16) ===

[00:23:11]  But so there's been an interesting development here with the Donald Trump stuff.
[00:23:17]  Let's go to the Comey video and then we can discuss some of the other things that are going on with him.
[00:23:24]  You said that Trump poses a near existential threat to the rule of law.
[00:23:29]  And this is something similar language that I hear privately from national security officials, some people you and I both know who will say this privately about what a second term could mean.
[00:23:41]  But tell me a little bit about the specifics of what he could try to do.
[00:23:45]  What do you mean by that?
[00:23:46]  Well, think about what four years of a retribution presidency might look like.
[00:23:53]  He could order the investigation and prosecution of individuals who he sees as enemies.
[00:23:59]  I'm sure I'm on the enemies list.
[00:24:02]  Because the president constitutionally does oversee the executive branch entirely, which includes the Department of Justice, prosecutors and investigators.
[00:24:10]  And so he could commission direct that individuals be pursued.
[00:24:14]  He could also direct all kinds of other conduct that people would maybe take to court to try to stop.
[00:24:21]  But who enforces court orders?
[00:24:24]  Mostly the United States Marshals Service, which is in part of the executive branch and reports to the president.
[00:24:31]  And so President Trump could say, I don't care what the Supreme Court says or these district judges say.
[00:24:37]  I'm telling the Marshal Service, don't enforce the court order.
[00:24:40]  And so our Constitution really does give a rogue president, which is what this would be, tremendous power to destroy.
[00:24:48]  And so that's why I'm trying to warn people.
[00:24:50]  Given the way he said he intends to operate if he's reelected, this will be something we could never have imagined.
[00:24:56]  Again, it seems like science fiction in a way, but it's what another four years of Donald Trump really promises, which is why people criticize CNN for their town hall.
[00:25:08]  I want the American people to stare at the threat that we're facing and understand that they cannot take the next election off.
[00:25:17]  There is James Comey in a fascinating, almost Freudian slip of a rant.
[00:25:26]  One of the first things that I found so interesting about it is that he's kind of like, he's basically condemning our system of government more than he has Donald Trump.
[00:25:34]  But he's like, look at the power that the president has.
[00:25:37]  The president can just do all of this stuff if he wants to.
[00:25:39]  And you're like, ooh, that seems like not a great way to design a government then, sir.
[00:25:46]  This idea that it's only just the nobility of the man who is elected that restrains himself from just being a dictator because otherwise he can just do this.
[00:25:54]  He can just throw whoever he wants in jail.
[00:25:55]  But of course, if you scratch the surface there a little bit further, it's quite ironic that the guy who opened the investigation into Donald Trump for reasons that have proved to be felonious is going to sit here and say, well, the big fear is that Trump could come back in and push bullshit investigations.
[00:26:14]  Oh, all right.
[00:26:15]  That's the worst thing we could end up with.
[00:26:17]  And of course, he's very self-interested as he says, I'm probably on the enemies list.
[00:26:21]  I could be investigated if Trump comes back in.
[00:26:25]  Now, all I can think is we could only get so lucky.
[00:26:28]  And even if Donald Trump does become president again, I do not expect to see people locked in jail any more than we saw Hillary Clinton locked up after the 2016 win.
[00:26:38]  But it was a pretty interesting revealing little soundbite there.
[00:26:42]  Any thoughts, Rob?
[00:26:43]  Yeah, well, I can't believe Comey is even allowed on television or amongst polite company.
[00:26:48]  This guy should be a disgraced ex-FBI official who misused his office to help the Clinton campaign.
[00:26:55]  And so for him to just decide to still get to go, hey, I'm the moral authority here.
[00:27:00]  And let me tell you, Trump would be a rogue based on nothing other than my moral authority.
[00:27:06]  Trump would be, who cares?
[00:27:08]  You're literally a disgraced ex-FBI official.
[00:27:11]  And then, as you already pointed out, for him to go, the worst thing he can do is use his office to run investigations of other people.
[00:27:16]  In other words, the exact thing that you did.
[00:27:19]  So the worst case scenario is he did what you did.
[00:27:23]  I just don't even understand why mainstream media thinks that these are people that we should even be listening to their opinions.
[00:27:31]  These people should be hiding in a hole.
[00:27:33]  They're disgraced.
[00:27:34]  Yeah, and there's also, of course, a tremendous amount of projection going on here because he's saying Donald Trump could do what I did, you know, and what actually is currently happening with Donald Trump.
[00:27:46]  He could just start investigating people and trying to lock them up.
[00:27:50]  Well, yes, that's kind of what the only person that that's happened to is Trump, both then and now.
[00:27:57]  And there's been some updates in this area.
[00:27:59]  It looks like the Justice Department just sent a letter to Donald Trump informing him that he is the target of an investigation involving the Espionage Act and some type of like mishandling of classified information.
[00:28:15]  The Espionage Act seems like some real weasel shit.
[00:28:19]  Sure does.
[00:28:20]  Yeah.
[00:28:21]  Yeah.
[00:28:21]  No, it sure does.
[00:28:22]  And look, this is, to be clear here, this is coming from Washington, D.C., which is what the jurisdiction would be.
[00:28:31]  And Donald Trump would face trial if he were to be brought to court in Washington, D.C., where I believe something like 90% of the people hate Donald Trump's guts.
[00:28:45]  So that's something to keep in mind.
[00:28:47]  Well, that's just the lunacy of the whole thing is that if you were to prosecute him in a red state, he's probably being found innocent.
[00:28:54]  If you prosecute him in a blue state, he's going to be found guilty.
[00:28:57]  Or I guess if you want to be technical, D.C. is not a state, but you get the point, which is why this should just be left to the voting public.
[00:29:03]  Because, in fact, it's an indictment on our court system and what this process is of seeing a jury of your peers.
[00:29:10]  If it's just a prosecutional game of what state you're going to actually bring charges in, then that's not a legal system.
[00:29:18]  And if that's the case, you might as well just turn it to the voters.
[00:29:21]  Well, look, it's hard to imagine.
[00:29:24]  I think I said this on one of our recent episodes, but it's hard to imagine a person, you know, that Donald Trump, a person who is less likely to get a fair trial than Donald Trump.
[00:29:37]  I mean, there is such a small percentage of our population who are indifferent or disinterested in Donald Trump.
[00:29:46]  You know, people, the people who hate this guy hate him with a passion.
[00:29:50]  There is no, it'd be like trying to give a Jew a fair trial and a bunch of Nazis are the jury.
[00:29:59]  Like they, the people who hate Donald Trump hate him that much that it is foundational to their belief system that they would say he's guilty no matter what.
[00:30:08]  Even if the court proved he was innocent, you'd feel like whatever.
[00:30:11]  This is my chance to get him and I'd be a horrible person if I did not take this opportunity, you know?
[00:30:18]  And then there are people who are so blindly loyal to him that they're going to vote not guilty no matter what.
[00:30:22]  Now, when you go in Washington, D.C., a place where 90% of the people fall into they hate him like he's Satan category, he's going to get convicted almost certainly of any charge that's brought.
[00:30:37]  Now, so now you wonder, essentially what it's going to come down to is, are they really prepared to do this?
[00:30:45]  I mean, could you imagine if they actually are like, we're going to get Donald Trump on the Espionage Act and give him some crazy sentence, sentence him to the rest of his life in prison?
[00:30:59]  I mean, it's not unthinkable to me that they'd actually do it.
[00:31:03]  From what I'm seeing with the Espionage Act, and this is today's news, so I don't have like a thorough research opinion on this, but I guess even if Donald Trump declassified the documents, he could still be found guilty of the Espionage Act because with the Espionage Act, even declassify documents that were like missed, but then it just, those are two laws that I don't think could exist together.
[00:31:25]  If as president, you get to decide that something's declassified.
[00:31:28]  To me, the action of declassified it means that you're then allowed to treat the material as being declassified, which means that even if you were to call up someone else and go, hey, here's this folder, I mean, it sounds like you've allowed for that.
[00:31:41]  You know what I mean?
[00:31:41]  It's like either or there's some different system that essentially you can't declassify or even if you declassify something, you can't send it to a foreign adversary.
[00:31:51]  But the like negligent handling of something that you declassified, I guess being in violation of the Espionage Act, seems like a nefarious application of the law.
[00:32:03]  Yeah, well, the Espionage Act was, I want to double check me on this, but I'm pretty sure it was Woodrow Wilson who signed it into law during World War I.
[00:32:15]  So just to keep in mind, this is Woodrow Wilson during World War I, the president who gave us the Federal Reserve and the income tax and the First World War, the worst president in the history of the United States of America also gave us this law.
[00:32:31]  And it was all about like in the same way he was like arresting anti-war activists at the time.
[00:32:36]  It was all under these like these horrific tyrannical draconian rules about like anything that could be considered betraying the nation.
[00:32:45]  And of course, saying something like, I think we shouldn't fight a world war in Europe over European wars.
[00:32:51]  You know, that was betraying the nation also.
[00:32:54]  Yeah, 1917, Woodrow Wilson.
[00:32:56]  Thank you, Brian.
[00:32:57]  Yeah.
[00:32:57]  So it's like the, it's like the worst, one of the worst laws on the books.
[00:33:04]  And it's just a pathetic thing to try to get him for, but that doesn't mean they can't do it.
[00:33:07]  It is a law on the books, you know, they could do this.
[00:33:10]  Other thing, uh, there was some signals that they were going to go after uh Trump for the Georgia um election interference type stuff, where the that's where he had that phone call to the um, the state secretary of state uh, where he was kind of, you know, he seemed to be in some mafioso way kind of bullying him to uh go.
[00:33:32]  You know, come on, I need you to find me some votes now.
[00:33:36]  It does seem like a little bit of a stretch to uh try to prosecute him on this, because it's not as if he asked the guy to do anything illegal.
[00:33:46]  I do understand the argument there that it was a little bit of a uh, you know, it was some mob type shit where he was kind of like I need you to find me these votes now, go find me these votes.
[00:33:59]  The question, like uh is open, like how much are they going to come at him with these prosecutions?
[00:34:05]  Are they just trying to do the thing that you've kind of alluded to before on the show Rob, where you're like well, they just go.
[00:34:10]  Oh okay, you were charged of this, you were convicted of this blah blah, blah.
[00:34:13]  There's 13 open and then they just kind of have a talking point like I mean, the man's got 13 open investigations on him right now.
[00:34:20]  How can he be president?
[00:34:22]  Or are they actually going to move toward trying to like convict and imprison this guy?
[00:34:28]  Because man, that would just, I mean that's going to pop this whole thing wide open.
[00:34:33]  If they do well, I think uh, sometimes they don't know.
[00:34:37]  You know, they got to test the waters themselves, see if they think they can get away with it.
[00:34:41]  If they think he's going to win and like, this is the only move that they can do to try and prevent him from winning, can he still win the election even if he doesn't run and then pardon himself?
[00:34:50]  I think that's in play.
[00:34:52]  So I I think probably level one is just try and bog him down with all this crap and get talking points out there to go, look at this criminal that the Republicans are supporting and maybe even refuse to debate him.
[00:35:05]  We can't even share a stage with this criminal and then maybe, you know, leverage that with the tech companies to go, you can't allow this man on your platform.
[00:35:13]  That's a, that's a criminal.
[00:35:15]  You know what I mean.
[00:35:15]  So it would seem to me like that's the softer touch is to just try and label him as a criminal and bully everyone into basically going, you're not allowed to repeat his claims uh he's, he shouldn't be allowed to run for aught.

=== Chris Christie's Criminal Record (13:05) ===

[00:35:27]  You know what I mean?
[00:35:27]  That seems to me to be the softer play.
[00:35:30]  But I, I mean we, we heard the terms of Comy and the way the deep state feels about him getting back in and uh, we are going to segue shortly to the way the uh, other Republican party.
[00:35:40]  Uh, you know, people are feel about other big topics in the world and so it certainly seems like the deep state of the machine.
[00:35:48]  They want everyone to be like, hey, these are the opinion, like you can pick.
[00:35:51]  But once we take the following off the table, once we're all in agreement on this thing, then you can pick amongst us all, once we're in agreement on this, but that has to be on the table.
[00:36:01]  Yeah, it's always something that the entire general, like the general public, wouldn't agree with.
[00:36:06]  Yeah, and this is kind of the way the game works.
[00:36:09]  It's like you can choose between Democrat or Republican and they have a difference of opinion on a few issues that we allow them to have a difference of opinion on.
[00:36:19]  You know, it's like you can.
[00:36:20]  This is the way American politics, my entire life has worked.
[00:36:23]  You're like, look, you get to choose between a Democrat or a Republican.
[00:36:26]  And they really disagree on whatever the issue of the time was, like gay marriage, flag burning, whether the income tax should be 39% or 35%.
[00:36:36]  They really disagree on whether we should have Obamacare or not have Obamacare.
[00:36:41]  Like there are some disagreements.
[00:36:42]  Some of them actually matter.
[00:36:45]  However, when it comes to monetary policy, they both endorse the same system.
[00:36:51]  When it comes to foreign policy, they both support all the same wars.
[00:36:54]  When it comes to fiscal policy, they both support, you know what I mean?
[00:36:57]  Like there's no, all of the things that matter the most to the most powerful people are they're all together on.
[00:37:04]  All right, guys, let's take a moment to thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Yo Kratom.
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[00:37:43]  All right, let's get back into the show.
[00:37:45]  So you had used the term big topic.
[00:37:49]  So let's transition to what can only be described as a big topic.
[00:37:53]  Chris Christie is in the race.
[00:37:55]  Anywhere he goes, he is the biggest topic in the room.
[00:37:58]  Chris Christie has announced that he's running for president for apparently some reason.
[00:38:04]  And here was what he had to say on the failing cable news just yesterday.
[00:38:11]  I don't know what President Trump is thinking about this, except that he's been a puppet of Putin from the time he was president.
[00:38:20]  And it always was disturbing.
[00:38:22]  We would argue regularly about Vladimir Putin during the time that he was president.
[00:38:27]  And I think it's very clear what we need to do.
[00:38:30]  He needs every piece of military hardware they need to protect themselves against this aggression.
[00:38:36]  It's almost as if Chris Christie is auditioning for the deep state.
[00:38:40]  You know what I mean?
[00:38:41]  Like he's almost going, just tell me, I'll say your thing that you want to be said.
[00:38:45]  He's a Russian puppet and you guys get unlimited budget for your fun little war in Ukraine.
[00:38:52]  That's what a ridiculous, just laughing stock.
[00:38:57]  Just a laughing stop in every way, physically, intellectually, the way his tie falls down over his fupa.
[00:39:05]  It's just all just ridiculous.
[00:39:07]  He's a Russian puppet.
[00:39:09]  That's what he is.
[00:39:10]  Vladimir Putin is just pulling the strings and Donald Trump's dances.
[00:39:14]  That's why Donald Trump armed the Ukrainians.
[00:39:18]  It's exactly what Vladimir Putin wanted, was him to send in the weapons that are currently being used in the war against Russia.
[00:39:28]  Hmm, that's a little inconvenient fact to this narrative.
[00:39:33]  And then, of course, pledging, I'll get them all the weapons they need right away.
[00:39:38]  And why were you working for a guy who you knew was a puppet of Putin?
[00:39:42]  Well, it was one of the things we used to argue about, Rob.
[00:39:45]  Yeah, why would that be a debate?
[00:39:47]  I would think that's something that you would have to take immediate action for or resign or talk to.
[00:39:52]  Mr. President, you still have my full support, but I would like to, when I have to argue with you about this one point, could you stop being the puppet of a foreign hostile power?
[00:40:03]  Would you mind that?
[00:40:04]  You still have my full support, but I'll tell you, this is a sticking point for me, that you are in fact guilty of treason and working on behalf of a hostile foreign power.
[00:40:13]  That is, stop that.
[00:40:15]  Bad president.
[00:40:16]  Brian, can you pull up the picture of Chris Christie on the beach?
[00:40:19]  Because if I was Donald Trump and for some reason I had to, like they actually did a Republican primary debate.
[00:40:24]  Oh, my God.
[00:40:25]  I would dress as Chris Christie on the beach.
[00:40:27]  I would bring out the lawn chair and I would just sit there.
[00:40:30]  You know he will give it to him too.
[00:40:32]  And I would go, there's nothing more to be said.
[00:40:34]  And by the way, I got stuck in that George Washington bridge.
[00:40:38]  Oh, doing your thing, really?
[00:40:40]  Yeah.
[00:40:40]  Yeah.
[00:40:40]  It was a pretty horrible day.
[00:40:42]  Let me tell you.
[00:40:43]  So this was, I even forget the, what did he close the beaches during COVID?
[00:40:47]  No, no, no, no.
[00:40:48]  This is way before COVID.
[00:40:49]  It was a different thing where he closed the beach and then his family went to the beach.
[00:40:55]  It was like insane.
[00:40:56]  And he went looking like this.
[00:40:59]  Oh, my God.
[00:41:00]  I mean, look, I will say that if they have primary debates and Trump is on the same stage as Chris Christie, that is, it is almost worth it.
[00:41:11]  It's just worth it for everything.
[00:41:13]  Whatever else comes of it, just the entertainment value of that is going to be incredible.
[00:41:18]  But yeah, Chris Christie announcing his run.
[00:41:21]  It's interesting how some of these guys, some of these guys run, why they run, why there is financial backing for them running.
[00:41:33]  And you start to see right away, it's like, okay, that's what it is.
[00:41:35]  It's just like one more guy up there who's saying like, oh, you're a Russian puppet.
[00:41:40]  You're a Russian puppet.
[00:41:41]  And then it's like, look, even the people in his own party are calling him that.
[00:41:45]  Let's also play a clip from another person who's running for absolutely no reason, Mike Pence.
[00:41:50]  Pro-Share.
[00:41:51]  Now, I want to say President Joe Biden has been slow in providing military resources to Ukraine.
[00:41:58]  I mean, they promised 33 Abram Stanks back in January.
[00:42:01]  They're still waiting on him.
[00:42:02]  We're still, we're waiting on F-16s to be transferred from somewhere.
[00:42:05]  Pro-Schair.
[00:42:06]  Now, I want to say.
[00:42:07]  So there you go.
[00:42:09]  That's how you criticize Joe Biden.
[00:42:11]  He hasn't been supporting Ukraine enough, fast enough.
[00:42:15]  It is worth remembering, you know, when you think about Mitch McConnell and the fact that he wears a Ukraine flag lapel pin every day to the Senate and that he said that the number one priority of the U.S. Senate is supporting Ukraine.
[00:42:33]  Like that's the number one priority of our elected officials.
[00:42:38]  It is just important to remember how god-awful the Republican establishment is on this war.
[00:42:44]  They're just horrible.
[00:42:46]  These are the people.
[00:42:47]  And isn't it so funny that it's like all of the people who are like, you know, the whole media will freak out for being like so dangerous are the people who dare to maybe question this war.
[00:42:59]  And yet all of the people who just want to just arm them to the teeth, those are all the people who the establishment of both the Republican and Democratic parties greatly prefer.
[00:43:09]  We'd be much happier having in power.
[00:43:11]  I hadn't sent this clip, but I saw it a couple of days ago.
[00:43:13]  Nikki Haley, I think, also had a CNN town hall, and she went off that the most important thing is making sure that we finish our work in Ukraine and that Russia doesn't see a victory.
[00:43:24]  But you could see that the narrative is essentially, we're all in agreement that this Ukraine thing needs to keep going.
[00:43:31]  And so the machine just does not want Donald Trump back up there because they can't have a Republican with outside views.
[00:43:39]  Yep.
[00:43:40]  And most particularly on this one.
[00:43:42]  And that was all.
[00:43:43]  By the way, it's probably the most popular opinion.
[00:43:46]  I bet anyone who actually, let's just say that Donald Trump didn't win the primary.
[00:43:50]  Let's just imagine for a second he didn't.
[00:43:52]  And even Chris Christie did or DeSantis did.
[00:43:56]  If the Republican running is pro-Ukraine war and they end up butting against a Democrat that's actually running as being against the war, whoever I think takes a strong line of being against the war is going to win this election.
[00:44:07]  And that's why the machine kind of knows that and has to make sure that that's not on the table.
[00:44:12]  Yeah.
[00:44:12]  Yeah.
[00:44:13]  Well, it's not a coincidence, man, that all of the people and not just, not just today, but this has always been the case since my, for my whole life and before, that all of the people who are kind of like demonized and kicked out of the respectable circles are the ones who question the military industrial complex.
[00:44:33]  Those are always been the people who are like, get that type of treatment.
[00:44:38]  And no matter how horrible the people are, it's like the ones who are support the wars are fine.
[00:44:44]  And like, and you'll see this where there'll be like this double standard where even someone, say like, um, like David Duke or something like that, who was like, who was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, I believe in like his teens and early 20s and was certainly a bigot for much of his life.
[00:45:07]  Although I think when he was running for governor, he tried to kind of clean that up a little bit and was like, oh, I don't have those views anymore.
[00:45:13]  But then after he lost, he like went kind of right back to them.
[00:45:17]  But even someone like that, who he became, like he became like the face of bigotry.
[00:45:24]  Like he's in the same way that before he was president, Donald Trump was the face of rich guy.
[00:45:30]  You know what I mean?
[00:45:30]  Like if someone was like, hey, you want to go, let's get front row tickets to the next game.
[00:45:34]  And you'd be like, what am I, Donald Trump?
[00:45:36]  Like that used to be just like, what am I, a rich guy?
[00:45:39]  Insert Donald Trump name here.
[00:45:41]  David Duke became the face of racial hatred in America.
[00:45:46]  That's, there's people in today's generation who don't even know who the guy is, but just know that he's the guy you'd say.
[00:45:52]  Like, you know, there's goes, what do you want?
[00:45:54]  He goes, what do you hate black people?
[00:45:56]  He go, what am I?
[00:45:56]  David Duke?
[00:45:57]  Like, that's just the guy, you know?
[00:46:00]  But then like Robert Byrd was also a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
[00:46:05]  And he was just allowed to be an establishment figure.
[00:46:08]  Hillary Clinton could go to his funeral and people, they're all fine.
[00:46:12]  And then you realize it's like, oh, I don't actually think the defining characteristic here was his racism or the fact that he was in the Ku Klux Klan because clearly there's other vicious bigots.
[00:46:23]  Strom Thurman wasn't given that treatment.
[00:46:26]  He was a segregationist.
[00:46:27]  You know, he was like Joe Biden was a vicious racist for most of his career until that turned out to not be so popular.
[00:46:36]  And then he switched sides.
[00:46:39]  But so it's not that, right?
[00:46:43]  Like clearly that's not actually the reason why he's such an outsider.
[00:46:46]  And then you realize like, oh, he opposed all of the wars.
[00:46:49]  Now, he may have not opposed them for the same reasons we do.
[00:46:51]  He might have opposed them because he's like, it's the shifty Jews who are behind all the wars or something like that.
[00:46:56]  But it's still like, yeah, I don't think the actual issue there was was the bigotry for them at least.
[00:47:03]  Not saying that can't be the issue for you, but for them, that wasn't the issue.
[00:47:07]  And then you also realize there's lots of other people who were completely demonized in different ways and drummed out of polite circles.
[00:47:14]  And this is on the left and the right.
[00:47:17]  This is like Phil Donahue got fired from his show on MSNBC because he was too hardcore against the war in Iraq.
[00:47:23]  Noam Chomsky got drummed out of respectable left-wing circles because he was too hard on all of the wars.
[00:47:28]  Pat Buchanan gets drummed out.
[00:47:30]  All the people who get drummed out, it always seems to be the common thing.
[00:47:34]  There's vastly different views that they have on the economy, on all types of different domestic policies, on trade, on racial relations, on all types of different things.
[00:47:45]  They have wildly different views.
[00:47:47]  But the one common thread for all of these people who get kicked out of the respectable circles is that they're the ones who oppose the American war machine.
[00:47:58]  That's the common thread that always gets you kicked out.
[00:48:01]  Oh, you're not supporting these wars?
[00:48:02]  Then you're out.
[00:48:03]  You are supporting these wars.
[00:48:04]  You could basically have any of those other views and still be allowed in.
[00:48:09]  You can have whatever view you want to have in theory about, you know, whatever, free trade, health care, all these things.
[00:48:17]  But you oppose the wars, all of a sudden, you're going to be viciously attacked, viciously attacked.
[00:48:24]  In some cases, maybe some of those people deserve it.
[00:48:28]  But the ones who deserve it, who support the wars, never seem to get it.

=== Supporting Wars and Cutting Aid (02:51) ===

[00:48:32]  It's just kind of the way it works.
[00:48:33]  It's the way the system's worked for a long, long time.
[00:48:36]  All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show.
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[00:49:29]  All right, let's get back into the show.
[00:49:31]  Okay, before we wrap up, we do have a video from our president.
[00:49:40]  In these troubling times, at least we can always look to the shaky, frail hand of Joe Biden.
[00:49:49]  Here he is.
[00:49:51]  Folks, Republicans of Congress led an effort to pass a bill blocking my administration's plan to provide up to $10,000 in student debt relief and up to $20,000 for bars that receive the Pell Grant.
[00:50:02]  Nearly 90% of those relief dollars go to people making less than $75,000 a year.
[00:50:08]  I'm not going to back down in my efforts to help tens of millions of working families.
[00:50:13]  That's why I'm going to veto this bill.
[00:50:15]  And don't forget, some of the same members of Congress who want to cut student aid personally received loans to keep their small businesses loaded during the pandemic.
[00:50:24]  Some of the same members of Congress who supported this bill voted through huge tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy as well.
[00:50:31]  When it comes to hardworking Americans trying to get ahead, dealing with a student debt relief, that's where they drew the line.
[00:50:38]  I think it's wrong.
[00:50:40]  Last summer, I spoke with a woman named Daria who told me that due to certain health issues, she couldn't work during the pandemic.
[00:50:48]  Our plan would provide her family with a needed breathing room.
[00:50:51]  For Daria and people like Daria, I'm going to keep fighting to make sure college is cheap, make student loan system more manageable for borrowers.
[00:50:59]  And over the last two years, I've been working to make college more affordable for all students.
[00:51:05]  And my Department of Education has proposed the most generous repayment program ever, which are going to cut undergraduate loan payments in half.
[00:51:13]  Let me make something really clear.
[00:51:15]  I'm never going to apologize for helping working and middle-class Americans as they recover from this pandemic.
[00:51:21]  Never.

=== Fighting for Affordable College (03:13) ===

[00:51:23]  What is going on with this dude?
[00:51:28]  Like, it's hard to even comment on his goofy position that he's taking here.
[00:51:36]  It's hard to even just like break down how stupid all of this is because you're just like, whoa, how old are you?
[00:51:44]  Like, he sounds like he is speaking drunkly through loose dentures.
[00:51:52]  Right?
[00:51:52]  Like, he's the video is these fast cut edits where he's clearly just reading a script and he still can't pull that off.
[00:52:00]  Like, he still can't pull that off and not be slurring his words.
[00:52:04]  And just he literally sounds like you're like not even like what you'd think of like your grandfather when you were a kid, like your grandfather when you were older in life, like your old, very old grandfather got hammered at Thanksgiving and needs his dentures refitted.
[00:52:20]  And this is what he would sound like giving a speech.
[00:52:24]  It's just his eyes barely open.
[00:52:29]  I don't even know what to say.
[00:52:30]  The optics of it are insane.
[00:52:31]  Yes, that Brian just wrote, and there's a perk where he said he said he sounds like a cartoon of an old man.
[00:52:37]  I watch it and it looks like it's Sesame Street, but the puppet's broken and doesn't have its eyes.
[00:52:41]  And they're like, we'll fix it tomorrow.
[00:52:43]  We'll get new eyes tomorrow.
[00:52:44]  Don't worry.
[00:52:44]  We got to put on an episode.
[00:52:46]  Just run with it.
[00:52:47]  I mean, that's supposed to be the most favorable look at Joe Biden as he's in his office.
[00:52:54]  It's well lit.
[00:52:56]  They need him to get two minutes.
[00:52:58]  That's it.
[00:52:58]  They need two minutes of focus from the guy to read a pre-written statement that I'm sure they have on the biggest screen you've ever seen in your entire life right in front of him.
[00:53:08]  And they need to edit it just to make that palpatable.
[00:53:11]  And it still isn't coherent or good.
[00:53:13]  This guy's not.
[00:53:14]  You know what?
[00:53:15]  It took them 30 hours to get that together.
[00:53:18]  I mean, it just was, you can't, can you imagine the cuts in between?
[00:53:22]  Yeah.
[00:53:22]  It's how?
[00:53:24]  I mean, look, we all wondered in 2020 how Joe Biden was going to do standing on a debate stage.
[00:53:31]  You know, like, how is he going to pull this off?
[00:53:33]  And he had some very bad moments both in 2019 in the Democratic primaries and he had some bad moments in the debate with Donald Trump.
[00:53:40]  But he does seem like substantially older here than he was there.
[00:53:47]  How is he going to do this in 2024?
[00:53:50]  It seems like there's no possibility that they can allow that to happen.
[00:53:54]  One way or the other.
[00:53:56]  Whether that means he just refuses to debate, they find some type of like excuse.
[00:54:01]  I suppose if it's Donald Trump, they can go with something like, we won't even legitimize him by having a debate with him.
[00:54:09]  But or whether that means they pull him out and find somebody else to run.
[00:54:14]  But I don't, it just doesn't seem possible that they can possibly let this guy go debate.
[00:54:20]  I mean, I'm certainly not going to let him go debate RFK in the primary.
[00:54:24]  There's no way.
[00:54:24]  I mean, there's just, there's no chance they could do that.
[00:54:27]  It's just unbelievable.
[00:54:30]  All right.
[00:54:30]  You want to talk about some of the substance of what he was saying?
[00:54:33]  It's hard to get past the optics.
[00:54:35]  But anyway, what do you think, Rob?

=== Punishing Borrowers, Bailing Banks (06:28) ===

[00:54:37]  He's just trying to help.
[00:54:38]  He'll never apologize for helping working class people.
[00:54:42]  There is something a little bit funny, which is if you take a step back in relations to the free money that we give to Wall Street and the free money that we give to our military, by comparison, anything that you do to actually help poor people or just people that aren't in the privileged class.
[00:54:59]  Yes, by comparison, it makes sense.
[00:55:02]  And so there is some merit to the fact of, hey, I did the largest ever bailout for those big banks.
[00:55:07]  And surely the big banks don't need the money as much as your fellow person.
[00:55:11]  So are you saying that I shouldn't give this check to your fellow person?
[00:55:14]  But guess what?
[00:55:15]  Most of us aren't in the big banks and they at least get to pretend that if the big banks don't get it, the entire system's failing.
[00:55:22]  This is not popular because everyone agrees it's not fair.
[00:55:25]  It's not fair that some people decided that they weren't going to go to college and instead they entered the workforce and they make lower wages now because they started in the workforce and now you're going to remove the debt of the people who decided to go to college or the parents that spent their entire lives actually saving up and doing the right thing so that their kids wouldn't be in debt versus the other parents who recklessly spent their money.
[00:55:47]  It's just for the people, the people themselves who paid back their own college loan.
[00:55:52]  And also it just, and it doesn't address the actual injustice of the entire system, which is that government made money available to colleges and colleges said, okay, we'll put students in debt.
[00:56:04]  I mean, like there shouldn't be any debt forgiveness here unless people are actually prosecuted for fraud.
[00:56:09]  Who sold the kids on loans that they would not be able to pay off?
[00:56:13]  Why was this bad investment perpetrated onto people?
[00:56:16]  And why did the government put together a loan that could not be gotten rid of through bankruptcy?
[00:56:21]  Like this is entirely a government-made program that fraudulently indebted an entire generation of kids.
[00:56:29]  100%.
[00:56:30]  And even if you're not going to go as far as say that someone should be prosecuted for fraud or the people who wronged all these kids should be brought to justice, at least that we're not going to continue doing this.
[00:56:41]  We're not going to continue this system for the next generation.
[00:56:43]  I mean, it's almost like if you had this policy that was like, we're going to give out loans to people who want to start a business, whatever the business is.
[00:56:56]  We're going to give out loans to people who want to open a hot dog cart and sell hot dogs on the street of New York City.
[00:57:05]  And you go, the entire last generation can't pay back their loans because you just can't make enough money selling hot dogs to pay back these loans.
[00:57:16]  And so we're going to forgive their loans.
[00:57:18]  But if you want a loan to go start a hot dog cart in New York City, we'll give you one.
[00:57:23]  Like, what?
[00:57:24]  Why are we using hot dog carts?
[00:57:26]  Yeah, like, right, exactly.
[00:57:28]  It would, in some ways, make more sense.
[00:57:30]  Like, well, what are you doing here?
[00:57:31]  So you're still setting up the next generation for this?
[00:57:34]  The whole, the whole thing is just utterly ridiculous.
[00:57:36]  And like, yes, there is an argument.
[00:57:39]  Like, I think you nailed that perfectly.
[00:57:41]  They just can't even hide behind the bullshit of like, well, the whole financial system will collapse if we don't do this.
[00:57:46]  It's like, no, it won't.
[00:57:47]  You're choosing now who you're going to bail out and you're choosing the wrong people.
[00:57:52]  Now, I'm not saying any people should get a bailout.
[00:57:54]  I think you should just stop robbing from them.
[00:57:56]  I think you should just let them keep their money and stop bailing out all of these giant corporations and big banks and such.
[00:58:02]  But the idea of like, you know, the like imagine being in a situation, this is, again, as you touched on, this is why people are so upset about this because it's so profoundly unfair.
[00:58:14]  I mean, imagine, imagine you worked and paid back your student loans.
[00:58:19]  Imagine you just made your last payment.
[00:58:21]  You're like, man, I really had to sacrifice, but I made sure they're all paid off so I don't have debt moving forward.
[00:58:26]  And then they come out and they're like, oh, we're forgiving the debt.
[00:58:29]  Then all it is, you're like, oh, what a sucker I am for paying it back.
[00:58:33]  You're punishing the person who paid it back and rewarding the person who didn't pay it back.
[00:58:38]  How does that make sense?
[00:58:40]  I went to a boring ass commuter school instead of partying.
[00:58:42]  Like, can I go back in age to being 22 and having fun in college?
[00:58:46]  I didn't have any fun.
[00:58:47]  Well, I think this is one of the really defining aspects of why people are so furious at the establishment and why there's so much anti-establishment kind of, I don't know, feelings amongst the population.
[00:59:06]  Now, I think this is something that libertarians have to really do a good job of connecting with this feeling that people have, because I think that libertarian theory does a better job of like explaining this than just about anything else.
[00:59:23]  But I think there's a very strong feeling amongst a large percentage of the American people that the people who do the right things are constantly being punished.
[00:59:33]  And the people who do the wrong things are being rewarded.
[00:59:35]  And this is just true in so many different aspects of life, whether it's like the people who like save their money are punished, you know, because their money is worth less now than it was.
[00:59:49]  Even with interest rates going up a little bit, the inflation is wiping away all those gains and more.
[00:59:54]  The people who spend their money frivolously are rewarded because the value of assets goes up or whatever, you know?
[01:00:01]  So it's like you have these people who, whatever, who go into debt for a degree that's worthless, they get rewarded.
[01:00:12]  While the people like you say, who like maybe went to a community college or the ones who paid off their debt, they get punished.
[01:00:19]  This is true throughout so many different aspects of our society, where it seems that like, you know, if you work hard and you're successful, you're demonized for that.
[01:00:29]  If you do the opposite, you're kind of praised as some type of victim.
[01:00:34]  And this is true in so many different areas.
[01:00:36]  And I think people are really aware of this, that like you, we live in a society where so often you get demonized and punished for doing the right things, for doing the things that you're supposed to do.
[01:00:47]  And I think libertarians have a unique angle to explain that, where it's like, okay, well, here's what it is.
[01:00:53]  It's because we have this system or this policy or this institution.
[01:00:59]  And that's why we've fucked up all of our incentives.
[01:01:03]  Something we really got to grapple with.

=== Fixing Broken Incentives (00:42) ===

[01:01:05]  All right.
[01:01:06]  Let's wrap up the show there.
[01:01:08]  Good hanging out with all you guys.
[01:01:10]  I will see some of you out in Austin, Texas.
[01:01:12]  And then me and Rob, we're coming all over the place.
[01:01:15]  What do we got?
[01:01:16]  Kansas City?
[01:01:17]  Kansas City coming up soon.
[01:01:19]  Cleveland Hilarities, which is a great comedy club.
[01:01:23]  I've heard it's my first time working it.
[01:01:25]  So I'm looking forward to that.
[01:01:26]  A bunch more stuff.
[01:01:27]  Me and Rob will also both be at the Sugarloaf Comedy Festival on June 24th.
[01:01:34]  Said Kansas City, Cleveland, Dania, Florida, Dayton Beach, Florida.
[01:01:40]  We're coming all around comicdave Smith.com for all of those dates and more.
[01:01:45]  All right.
[01:01:46]  That's it.
[01:01:47]  Peace.