Dave Smith and Robbie Bernstein dissect Dave Portnoy's clash with a Washington Post reporter who allegedly pre-judged his character to manipulate advertisers, exposing unethical media tactics that backfired after Portnoy's viral rebuttal. They then scrutinize Attorney General Merrick Garland's evasive testimony before Congress regarding the Hunter Biden probe and January 6th, contrasting his refusal to recall details with the DOJ's willingness to comment on Ray Epps' misdemeanor case. Ultimately, the hosts argue that disparate sentencing for Proud Boys versus Epps reveals a systemic double standard, suggesting Garland's non-committal stance implies hidden federal involvement while avoiding perjury charges. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Anti-Censorship and Corporate Freedom00:05:24
Fill her up!
You're listening to the gas human.
We need to roll back the state.
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If you want to know who America's next enemy is, look at who we're funding right now.
Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big.
You're listening to part of the problem on the gas digital network.
Here's your host, Dave Smith.
What's up, everybody?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
I am Dave Smith.
He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein.
What's up, my brother?
How you feeling today?
I'm doing good.
How about you, Davey Smith?
Doing good.
Doing good.
Can't complain.
I'm headed out.
We're both headed out separately, unfortunately, to do gigs this weekend.
I hate when we're gigging apart.
It just doesn't feel right.
Rob's going to be up in Ithaca, New York, and I'm going to be out at Governor's here in Long Island.
I got Chris Fega filling in for Rob Bernstein on those shows.
We're both in the same state, too.
It's just not some doesn't seem right.
Doesn't seem right.
Anyway, go check us all out.
ComicdaveSmith.com, RobbyTheFire.com.
And of course, go check out my brand new comedy special up for free on YouTube.
Yes.
Hope you guys enjoy it.
All right.
Let's jump into it today.
I wanted to open the show with this unbelievable video that Dave Portnoy of Barstool Sports, I believe that's the, he's the guy who runs Barstool, right?
I don't know that much about Dave Portnoy.
I know, like, I've seen like a couple of the couple of things that he does.
And I know he's a big sports guy.
He's like a sports guy.
He like reviews like pizzerias and stuff like that.
He's got a very like everyman kind of quality to him.
And he's blown up and become very successful.
And I also just, I remember that he was a bit, he was like doing, he did a lot for businesses during COVID, like businesses that had been screwed over by the lockdowns and stuff.
He was raising like a ton of money for them.
So anyway, I believe a very not political guy, like not, not a guy who really exists in that space.
It's kind of like sports and pizza and helping out businesses that were screwed over by the lockdowns.
Seems like fairly, I don't know.
What's the word to say?
Things that would not be a big deal.
I guess, oh, Brian, you're telling me he was a Trump supporter.
Okay.
Well, there you go.
So that's the problem.
He's also somewhat big in the anti-censorship space.
Okay.
I mean, because I believe, I think at one point in time, Barstool had a deal with ESPN that fell through.
And then, I mean, he just made a fortune buying back his own company for a dollar.
But I think that was in part because they were now part of a larger corporation, which comes with some restrictions.
And he ran into censorship campaigns in some form or another when, you know, there were some abusive sexual allegations towards him that I believe just fell apart.
Very loosely.
I'm not like a, I'm not like a, he's, he's very entertaining.
I watch his pizza reviews every once in a while and he's like great at kind of shit kicking, particularly against censorship or just non-common sense things that you'll see being pushed.
Like that's like a particularly strong suit of him.
But I guess even people who just want to be offensive or in the sports category can now get pulled into politics just by, hey, I'd like to just be free and run my company and, you know, do the content my fans like.
Well, this is, there's something interesting about it because it's like, it's the totalitarian worldview of woke progressives is almost that everything has to be political.
Right.
that all of life should be political.
And you see this, that it's like every corporation has to be political.
Every sport has to be political.
Every TV show has to be political.
You know, like it's like they're obsessed with whether you have enough diversity in the movie that you're making.
The movie now has to line up with their politics.
You know what I mean?
Like everything.
And so in that cultural dynamic, even just existing in one space and saying, I want this to be free is inherently like an attack on woke progressivism.
You know what I mean?
It's like, it's like, so it, and this is true across the board.
Even if I, if I just said something like, if I just said, oh, just cast the best actors for a movie, that's a political statement now.
That's me, you know, propping up white supremacy or something like that.
You know, like it's so, so this is the dynamic.
Anyway, so he, I guess they're getting ready to write a hit piece about him in the Washington Post.
And he managed to get the journalist who's who's writing this piece on the phone and he videotapes the phone call.
And I'll just say, I think it is incredibly revealing into the how the corporate press works.
Keep in mind, so we're going to play this video and kind of break it down a little bit.
Keep in mind, this is the Washington Post.
The Washington Post Hit Piece00:08:29
It's not just like some random newspaper.
This is one of the four or five biggest newspapers in the United States of America.
Okay, so here, let's play the video and we'll dissect it a bit.
This is Dave Portnoy calling.
I'm recording you right now, but I've noticed a bunch of people.
It seems like you're sending, we have this pizza fest happening on Saturday and you're reaching out to our advertisers and you're basically sending an email that says to the effect, Dave's a miscegenic racist.
Do you want to defend yourselves advertising at this event, right?
I'm sorry.
What's your name, Dave?
I'm sorry.
Who are you?
I'm the guy you're writing the article about, Dave Portnoy.
Oh, you're Dave Portnoy.
Oh, hey, how are you?
Good.
Good.
No, I'm not, I'm not.
I haven't said anything like that.
Well, I can read if you want.
If you want, I can read what you actually sent.
I have it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Read because I sent a bunch of notes.
So I want to make sure I know which one.
Okay.
We are planning to write about the festival and how and how some of the sponsors and participants have drawn criticism by seemingly to associate themselves with Dave Portnoy, who has a history of miscegenic comments and other problematic behavior.
I want to make sure that Blank had a chance to respond to this since the company is the most prominent of their partners of his festival.
Oh, that's the one I said to you, which was definitely the most pointed of them because I really did want them to respond and I was hoping to get something from them.
Do you think that's fair?
Yeah, let's pause it.
There's so many lawyers here that are fascinating to me.
As a person who's worked in aggressive sales calls, I can kind of see like the little pieces on the chessboard of the way things are being played.
And on both sides, there's just a lot of mechanics here that are quite fascinating.
But just to start with what this lady has done, that is really egregious because you're the Washington Post.
And if a sponsor is paying money to be affiliated with something, it's usually for a positive affiliation of, look, this person has a large audience.
So I'm going to pay so that I can be in front of their large audience.
Or look, I think this pizza thing is cool.
I'm going to have a positive affiliation because I'm going to spend money just to get some positivity my way that I can be affiliated with this thing that people like.
So when you have the credibility of a news organization such as the Washington Post and you go, hey, you know, you're affiliating yourself with something that's completely awful.
Well, that's not why I wanted to spend my, I'm literally just spending my money to be affiliated with something good.
And now I have a credible source reaching out to me to say that this is completely horrible.
You know what you instantly have to do?
One, you have to consider, do I want to spend my ad dollars here?
And as I've also worked in the ad space, we've had instances of people writing bad emails to sponsors and sponsors not wanting to do their homework and just walking away from deals because guess what?
Most of the campaigns they put together don't come with these headaches.
You have the name Washington Post that gives credibility.
If you email someone and you're not going, hey, we'd love to know why you're involved in this event.
That's an open-ended question.
Why are you involved in this event?
And they go, we love pizza.
We love Dave Portnoy.
We love this.
And then maybe you could go, isn't it odd that sponsors like this when there was also these stories about Dave Portnoy?
But when you reach out to a sponsor and you say the words, hey, I'm from this credible organization and here is the status of this person.
Why would you lend credibility to this?
That's a really, that's a, that, that's a slimy move.
And she knows what she's doing when she does that.
100%.
And look, it's, I mean, it's, it's, look, businesses operate based off their bottom line.
And that's just the, and it's the nature of what you have to do when you have a business.
And anybody listening to this who's ever run a business knows that this is true.
It's not like an option.
It's like you are forced into that situation.
And then, and it's beautiful in a way because capitalism is actually a really beautiful system in a sense where you have to go like, well, look, we need to make money in order to keep the lights on and meet payroll and meet all of our overhead and all these things.
We have to make money.
And making money is like this direct feedback of like whether people believe you're adding a valuable service.
So this is always kind of the game of like, okay, advertisers spend money, as you said, to get in front of bigger audiences because they anticipate more money will come back in.
It's a calculation on their part.
And that, right?
So like advertisers on this show, they pay us to advertise on this show, hope, because we have a big audience, hoping that our audience will then go check out their product and they'll make more money than what they paid us.
Right.
And so what they're, she's letting you know very clearly is she's like, oh, okay.
Well, now throw this into your calculation that the Washington Post, the fourth or maybe fifth biggest newspaper in America, is about to run a piece saying that you are associating with a racist misogynist.
So now you have to factor that in.
So the attempt is to move the equation to the point where you go, oh, this isn't worth it and to shut down this guy's festival or whatever, the pizza fest thing that he's doing because they don't like him.
Obviously.
I hadn't even thought that.
They literally changed the math of, hey, you thought that this was positive, but just let you know, we're looking to spin it negative.
And then you also create your own news because let's say you reach out to the biggest sponsor of an event and then they pull.
Well, now you get to reach out to Dave Portenoy and go, hey, we're running a piece because all your sponsor just pulled because of these previous claims against you.
And then you get to write an article of, look, Dave Portnoy tried to do an event that all of his sponsors had to pull out of because they realized he's a massage.
Well, that's not what happened.
You put it in their head that they couldn't be there because of these false claims and you created your own news that the sponsors pulled out or took a stand against him.
Like, you see what I'm saying?
She's building like her chess pieces before reaching out to him to go, look at all this information that I gather, but it's not honest information.
And it twisted someone's wrist into telling you the story you were looking for.
Yeah.
And it just, it's just one more example of the level of contempt that you should have for these people in the corporate press because it's such bullshit.
It's like they, under the guise of we're doing journalism, you're like, no, you're not.
You're not doing journalism.
You're attacking a guy who you don't like because you see him as outside of your political views.
That's what you're doing.
You're trying to ruin somebody because you see them as a political opponent.
And then it's not like this is not journalism.
And then just to, I would say this lady operates more like a prosecutor and she actually has some very good skills for putting people on the back foot and leading questions and getting the information that she wants.
This is a very intelligent individual.
And by the way, this requires very specific training to talk in the way that she talks, evade questions in the way that she evades them and to put forward these style questions.
This is not like, this is, this takes training, which means that the Washington Post actually trains people in how to do this.
And the worst thing she does is, and just showcases her skill is responding by saying that's the most pointed email because pointed is a positive way of referring to the fact that you send someone a threatening email, which is a more negative term.
Yep.
No, you're pointed email.
No, the comparison to a prosecutor is a great one.
If you've ever like actually been up front, like seen up close, like the way prosecutors work, or if unfortunately, you've ever been on the wrong side of one, you realize very quickly how sick the whole thing actually is.
Like it's not, you know, like they may sit there and say, you know, it's the people versus so-and-so in the beginning of a trial.
But the idea that prosecutors are just like, they're kind of representing the people and they're there to make a decision.
Like, do we really think this person is innocent or guilty or blah, blah, blah?
None of that's the case.
The case is that they're trying to get their conviction rate up as high as they can.
And they're never like just looking at the person and being like, okay, you know what?
Like this guy isn't a bad guy.
He didn't really do anything that bad.
Blah, blah, blah.
We shouldn't be pressing.
It's just like, oh, no, I have the chance for another conviction.
Let me get another conviction.
And then it's like, let me spin everything and do everything I can to try to get this guy convicted rather than the idea that they're like out for some pursuit of justice or something like that, you know?
Blind to Prosecutorial Evil00:15:01
And yes, you're right.
It's very, everything is very like the words she's using.
She's using them for a reason.
I mean, to describe what she's doing is smearing the guy, she's character assassinating him to his own advertisers.
And she'd refer to that as pointed.
Like pointed is like, if I'm like, Rob, we're leaving for this gig.
I need you to be over here, you know, at 3 p.m. to pick me up.
And you go, I got some stuff to do.
Can I, can I make it at four?
And I go, Rob, it has to be three.
That's pointed.
You know what I mean?
If I go, you're a racist, sexist, scumbag.
This is just being point.
I mean, it is, but it's a lot more than that.
Pointed also infers that it's accurate still by saying that, yeah, because I was cutting to, I was saying it in a sharp way, which makes it pointed.
It also diverts any blame for making an accurate statement.
Yeah.
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All right, let's get back into the show.
All right, let's play some more of the video.
Do you think that's fair?
Like, I totally disagree with the assertions of what you said that miscegenic and all that stuff.
like it kind of backs people into a corner so I'm happy to go over anything I mean you have that is pretty pointed you said you didn't do it then I have the exact evidence of you doing it so I didn't say I didn't do that I said I did that was the one that was the most well no you what before I before by the way we didn't even hit on that that she just opened by lying and now she's like oh I didn't say that goes it's lady this is on tape it's the first thing you say she's like no I didn't do that Then he read her the email.
That was the other element of it, which like it almost She just so had the air of like someone who's guilty and caught You know what I mean?
And you're just trying to kind of like you know like get your way out of it But when she goes like uh she's like he's like well I have the email right here and she's like okay Why don't you read me back the emails because she's trying to go all right.
What do you actually have on me?
What have you actually caught me with?
How bad do I have to admit this?
But yeah, she flat out denied it and then he had the email and then she admitted to it.
She lied.
Hey, Portnoy is a absolute winner and he's a beast in these situations.
That was a technical error of showcase showing her, even though he gets everything he needs in here and he wins this altercation and he showcases it from a technical standpoint.
Like she played it well going, hey, what are your cards here?
And he actually definitely should have drawn that out more.
He got her to lie once, but if it he should have drawn it out more.
She goes, he goes, like he should have made it like, he should have made her commit to that lie more.
Right.
So like the smart way to do it would have been when she, when he first called and he goes, are you going to my advertisers and telling him I'm a racist sexist or whatever?
And she goes, no, I'm not doing that.
She go, oh, okay.
All right.
So you're not doing that.
And like, let's let her repeat it one more time.
No, I'm not doing that.
Okay.
If, if that's the, uh, if that's the situation, then okay, something different than I thought because I had, I had heard that you were doing that.
So I'm very relieved to tell me you're not doing that.
Right.
Like he should have drawn this out for a few more sentences and then gone, oh, you know, because I have this email here where you are exactly doing that.
It's like he could have landed that with like a bigger blow.
That being said, it's all these things.
I'm not even saying like, oh, I would have done it better than him because there's a million things that I've been in where like I listen back to it later and I'm like, oh, I should have done it this way.
You know what I mean?
So like it's, it's just one of those things.
But yeah, he could have, he could have landed that home.
And listen, he's winning this one in his own style.
Yeah.
And also, God bless that he just hopped right on the offensive and said, well, let me just call the lady.
Yeah.
No, it's great.
All right.
Let's keep playing.
So I didn't say I didn't do that.
I said I did.
That was the one that was the most well.
No, before I, before I provided proof, you said you didn't really remember doing that.
And then I read it to you and you're like, oh, yeah, I did it that one time.
So you did do it.
I'm happy to talk about the comments because to me, it's kind of like torturous interference.
Like we're doing an event.
Everyone's happy about the event.
You know, I raided 50 million for small business.
I've held pizza.
None of that.
It's Dave's misgenic and problematic.
And I'm happy to talk about it because to me, nobody would like if someone's going around sending that email to their sponsors.
And again, you're not like questioning.
It's almost like a statement of fact.
This is what I am.
Yeah.
So I do want to talk to you about this.
And I just want you to know that the story I'm working on and working on with a colleague.
And I want to kind of loop him on this because we did want to talk to you.
When were you going to reach out?
We were planning to do it tomorrow morning.
So you're going to write the article and then give me like, I've had that a bunch.
People write a full article and then give me the points after.
No, we're doing a bunch of reporting and we wanted to make sure that what she's describing is that she wanted to get all of her chess pieces on the board of multiple sponsors disparaging him so that she could then pin him and come to him and go, oh, look, everyone's turning on you because of this horrible thing that I invented.
How do you want to respond to it?
And she's like, ah, shit, you just caught me before I built all the pieces on my chessboard.
I'm not prepared for this conversation at all.
Why don't we do it tomorrow once I can restructure how I'm going to try and leverage what I have against you with my partner?
That's what she's saying.
Yes, 100%.
And it's just so dishonest, so incredibly dishonest to sit here and say, well, we're, we're just doing reporting.
We're still just reporting.
Like you're not reporting.
You're creating the story.
That's a big difference.
Reporting is like if someone like stabbed someone and I tell, you know, like I go like, okay, at 7 p.m. last night, a single male was stabbed by an unidentified man.
Like that's reporting.
But if I stab someone and then go, oh, someone was stabbed, that's not reporting.
You're creating the story.
You're reporting is that he's having this pizza festival.
That's reporting.
Okay.
And you could even, you could even say reporting would be he's having these this pizza festival.
He has been accused of being racist or whatever in the past.
But you're going to the sponsors to pressure them to drop him.
So that's not reporting.
You're creating, you're trying to create a story that then you can report on.
So it's like this idea that you're just like, well, I'm just being an objective journalist here, just telling people what's happening is ridiculous.
All right, let's keep playing.
Like what?
Like, it sounds like you have your opinion made of me based on that email.
So then how, if you don't have your opinion made of me, how do you say in an intro email, Dave Portnoy has a history of miscegenic comments and other problematic behavior?
That's how you introduce the email.
Yeah.
So look, I just want you to know that this is, I want to talk to you about this, but don't you think you should talk to me before sending that email?
The talent of this lady, the fact that she still sits there and has the tonality, like she's 100% okay and in the right.
I'm just trying to do a job of a journalistic thing.
And so, yeah, I do have some questions for you, but it's too preliminary.
He has her dead to rights of, wait a second, if you're doing journalism, why is it that you've already established as fact that I'm a misogynist?
And that she says, she says she hasn't made his mind up about him.
Right.
And you're like, but so before you make up your mind about someone, you just go out there and call them every grotesque name in the book to their sponsors.
And then you'll come and reach out to them, supposedly, if they ever even were going to.
You'll reach out to them then.
And like, you know, it's also like I've had this happen before where, you know, there's, I've, I've had, you know, I've had a few hit pieces written about me and others.
And I've had on multiple occasions where they said in the thing that we reached out to Dave Smith for comment, but he didn't didn't respond, where they straight up have not.
They have not reached out to me.
Like I remember specifically on one of them going through, I was like, okay, I'm going to go through.
I didn't get anything from them.
Let me check everything.
You know what I mean?
And like, nothing.
There was no one to reach out.
But they just kind of like to put that in the piece because it makes it sound a little more powerful.
Like, and he's got nothing to say about all of these accusations, you know?
But one of the things, and I know this because I've been through this a little bit.
I'm not as famous as Dave Portnoy, so probably not to his degree.
But I also know other people have been through shit like this.
And this is something we talk about on the show.
It's very difficult for decent people to understand scumbags.
It's like, it's a hard thing to like put yourself in their position because you're so much different than they are.
And I'm not saying that none of us are perfect.
We all have our flaws.
But let's say, Rob, whenever you make a point on this show, you believe what you're saying.
That's just kind of a given.
I'm not saying you might be right, you might be wrong, whatever, but like you're saying it because this makes sense to you.
You're thinking about something, you're going, oh, this is how I feel about this.
And it's almost hard to wrap your head around that there's someone else out there who will just lie.
Like they know what they're saying is full of shit and they'll just lie to you.
And it's hard to understand for normal people who are not pieces of shit.
It's hard to understand that when a reporter comes to you in this tone, like this totally friendly demeanor that she has there, and they'll sit down and be like, hey, let me hear your side of the story.
And that they will interview you in a very polite way, be friends with you, maybe have a drink, joke around a little bit, and then write a piece to try to ruin your life.
Like these scumbags will do that.
And that is a very easy thing for someone who's not a scumbag to fall into that trap.
Because you'll go, well, obviously this person is coming with good intentions.
She just wants to know where I stand.
Okay, hey, let me tell you all about where I stand.
What they did, if you remember what the New York Times did to Walter Block, they came out to the Mises Institute because this is when Rand Paul was doing very well in the polls before he had announced he was running for president.
It looked like he might be one of the frontrunners, taking all the Ron Paul energy and stuff.
And so they went out to try to do a hit piece on the Mises Institute to be like, what is this libertarian fringe thing?
And so they started asking Walter Block.
And Walter Block is just like the kindest man in the world.
So he's a libertarian economist, brilliant libertarian economist for people who don't know over at the Mises Institute.
And so he's just like, oh, wonderful.
Let me explain this all to you.
And he goes, see, the key thing to libertarians here, you see, is the initiation of force.
And so like, why was slavery immoral?
Well, slavery was immoral because, you know, they were forced to be slaves.
If they weren't forced to be slaves, then slavery isn't really immoral.
If they were voluntarily there, then it's just picking crops and singing songs.
That's fine.
But if you're forced to be there, then it's immoral.
And they literally quoted him as saying, as going, slavery is just picking crops and singing songs.
Like they tried to make the kindest man in the world out to be like, that's what they're doing here.
They're telling you slavery ain't that bad.
Because that's what libertarianism is all about, right?
Like it's just, they're so incredibly dishonest.
It's like sickening.
Like you couldn't imagine that another person would be evil enough to do that to someone.
But like that's who's in there.
These like predatory people.
That's who makes up the corporate press.
Explain just the social psychology a little bit because I don't really think anyone's evil.
I just think that they create narratives for why what they're doing is good.
And I think there's one of two things that gets these people.
One, it's kind of when you're in debt, you do desperate things.
And they say like in war, it's your brother in arms, you're willing to kill because you're concerned with the guy on your side.
When you're on like teams and you guys need a piece that's going to be a win, you'll do things because you've already been paid for the year, your team's been paid for the year, and now you need some writings, you need some this.
And so you start justifying, oh, well, the whole team needs a win here.
And so you'll kind of start playing with morality.
I think that's one of it.
The other thing that happens sometimes is people go, well, the end justifies the means and the censorship that I'm doing is so important to get rid of people like Dave Portnoy from the world.
So even if I got to go through all these evil tactics and pretend like I'm a journalist while really I'm doing propaganda hit pieces to help censor individuals, well, it's so important to remove these individuals from the world based on my own judgment.
So therefore, all these other things are acceptable.
Yeah, look, I think that's true to some degree.
I think that It's very easy for people to develop highly incentivized blind spots.
So it's very easy when all of your incentives push you in that direction to just kind of compartmentalize things and to block some other things out.
I think that to the example, that prosecutor who we're talking about before, he's just kind of like, well, yeah, I get my conviction rate up and then everyone's like, oh, you're doing a great job.
And then there's this other guy who's got a higher conviction rate than me.
And man, if I could get mine up to him, then I'd be respected like that.
And he's just focused on being in his world.
And like, yeah, it's like a blind spot that it's like, oh, I just, I got a guy thrown in jail for 12 years for a gun possession charge.
Like, like blind to like how terrifyingly evil that is that you just like ruined somebody's life who never did anything to anyone.
You know what I mean?
And so it's easy for people to kind of be blind to that.
And then it's to rationalize some justifications like, well, a lot more people would die if we didn't have laws against guns.
And so it's okay that I did, you know, but this is just the way the system has to work.
And, you know, it's very easy for people to do that.
I agree that most people aren't like, I mean, there are some, I think, but most people aren't going, oh, I'm doing an evil thing.
And I love that I'm doing that evil thing.
They find other ways to think about it.
How Suspects Get Railroaded00:02:03
I'm more saying like the act itself is so evil.
But yeah, fair enough.
That is a very important and interesting point.
All right, let's keep playing a little bit.
That's not a full idea.
Like anybody who's rationally reading that email being sent to an advertiser would have to be like, this is a hit piece and you have your mind made up.
Why else would you put no, but you, you call me in the intro.
I'll say it again.
Dave Portner has a history of miscegenic comments and other problematic behavior.
You didn't say Dave Portner who raised 50 million for small business, Dave Portner, who saved thousands of pizza places.
You didn't mention, you said it in a way that is putting sponsors on the defensive.
So what I'm worried about when we contact you, I was worried that we would have sort of one shot to talk to you, right?
And so what I wanted to do is make everything we were gonna, that we wanted to talk to you about before I reached out to you.
That's why.
That's why I was waiting to call you.
Because you wanted to have it right there.
It is the ability of this bitch to be so goddamn like phony.
It is kind of there.
There is, I get your point.
There's something almost impressive about it where you're like, oh, goddamn, you just sat in the pocket right there and you'll just like bullshit.
Like just pure bullshit.
I mean, that he goes, the point he's making is such a slam dunk.
Like there's just no way around it.
He goes, okay, you're saying you haven't made up your mind yet.
You want to write, run a story about me and you wanted to have a conversation with me to see what I'm all about.
But first, it was necessary to go tell my advertisers that I'm a sexist racist or whatever problematic.
You know what I mean?
Like that, what anyone would take from that is that, and then she's like, well, the thing is that we, we thought maybe we'd only have one chance to talk with you.
And since we only had one chance, we really wanted to have all of our questions ready.
Reporting Tactics vs Truth00:07:34
And we really like, how does that address this at all?
That she's just like, let me try to like change the subject to something else and try to sound professional and friendly.
It's just so blatant.
Like, yo, it's just, it's bananas that this is actually how it works at one of the biggest newspapers in America.
Yeah, this is a prosecutor/slash interrogator saying, I didn't have all of the little admissions from everyone else lined up to try and pin you into a bad spot yet.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's, there is.
And it's the same, it's true with like with police too, interrogations and prosecutors.
This happens a lot.
This is how people get railroaded is that the say there's like a murder and there's a person of interest or a suspect.
And there's like a few pieces of evidence that have been found that this guy did it.
Once they start going like, okay, we're building a case against this guy.
If there are pieces of evidence that come in that put that in doubt, after they've already kind of made the decision, like we're getting this guy, like they're very quick to be like, yeah, like they're no longer in the game of going like, okay, let's find the truth.
They're in the game of like, we already decided we're getting this guy.
So let's go get this guy.
This is how people get wrongfully convicted all the time.
And then it's like everybody's kind of incentivized.
Like these, these, if there's like a murder in some small town, there's heavy incent incentives for them to be like, well, you better get the guy.
And then it's like, well, as long as we get a guy and say he's the guy, we can say we got the guy.
You know what I mean?
Because like we got to get the guy.
Otherwise, it looks really bad that people get murdered here and we didn't get the guy.
So once they have something, they're like, no, we have to get him.
So then we can say we got the guy.
It's all very sick and twisted.
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All right, let's get back into the show.
All right, let's keep playing.
Validates a hit piece.
I swear.
I have not written, I have not written the story, believe me.
Have you made your mind up about me?
We're in the reporting phase.
I didn't, you know, I can't for me to say.
And I'm also working with somebody else.
But that seems like a pretty straightforward question that have you made your mind up about me?
If you can't answer that, no.
I can say I have not made my mind up about you.
Then why would you include that in the email to sponsors?
Because I was hoping for a dialogue with them.
You know, and sometimes you have to say something like, this is like, you know, it's sort of a reporting tactic.
When you want someone to respond, you kind of have to indicate that there might be something negative and then you get them to engage.
That's all I was trying to do.
I really wanted to.
Yeah.
Just pause for a second.
That was, that to me was a stunning admission.
Yeah.
Well, firstly, she's telling you the training that exists here and like that they're prosecutors and integrity.
And firstly, it's also not true.
If I'm sponsoring an event, I'm looking for publicity.
If you reached out to me and were writing the article of, oh, wow, look at all this money that was raised for small businesses and you're affiliated.
Would love to hear about your interest in the event.
Why would a sponsor not?
They probably have a PR.
Rob, I'll go, I'll go a step further than what you're saying.
There is no sponsor in the world, in the world.
There is not one company.
We're talking about the Washington Post here.
If the Washington Post was like, we're writing a positive story and want to include you in it, there is no company in the world that won't respond to that.
Right.
You can bait them that way.
You clearly played a very specific chess piece to get a very specific reaction.
But even this is what's stunning about the admission.
And this is like, oh man, no matter how much contempt you have for the corporate press, it's just not enough.
It's never enough.
You cannot hate these people enough.
Okay.
Her admission on record right here from a reporter at the Washington Post, her admission is even from her perspective that she has not made up her mind about this guy, but she's going to email his advertisers and call him all sorts of horrible names as a tactic to get them to respond to her.
Any way you slice it, that's disgusting.
It's just like a despicable thing to do.
Like, and that's, that's her.
What's actually going on is quite a bit more disgusting than that.
But that's even by her explanation.
That's what's happening here.
That she doesn't really mean it.
She hasn't made up her mind.
She hasn't done her job or anything.
She hasn't talked to the guy.
She doesn't know if any of it's true, but she's going to tell your sponsor that all this stuff is true as a tactic to try to get them to respond.
And why would that be a tactic?
Why would that work to get now?
As we clearly just said, they'd respond either way.
It's the Washington Post.
But what is she saying there?
It's, in other words, what's the tactic?
It's a threat.
The tactic is, hey, look, we can ruin you.
So you better talk to us.
So this is how I force a conversation.
So by her, even like it, let's say what she's saying is true, that they wouldn't respond to her otherwise.
Still, how incredibly unethical is that to then get them to talk to you by like threatening them?
It's like if some chick was like messaging you and you wouldn't respond to her, and then she was like, I'm going to tell everybody you raped me.
And you're like, wait, what?
Why did you say that?
And she's like, oh, well, it's just kind of like a tactic to get you to respond.
You know, I just want to kind of like threaten that I could ruin your life.
So just like now you'll respond to me.
What?
And she just openly admit that was like, wow, like that's pretty incredible.
Dave Portnoy put a big W up on the board.
That was fucking really incredible that he did this.
By the way, we don't have to play any more of it because it kind of just goes on like that.
And at the end of it, they agree to have a conversation tomorrow.
So this happened yesterday.
And then they agreed to have a conversation tomorrow, which would be today at 10 a.m. with her and the other guy she's writing the story with.
And he agreed to it under the condition that he'll record the whole thing like this again.
And Dave Portney, Dave Portnoy just tweeted out today.
Just a reminder, the Washington Post said they wanted to talk to me at 10 a.m. today.
So it should be right now.
Then they canceled.
Of course.
So at least according to Portnoy, then this woman got off the phone with him and they just canceled the thing.
And my guess is this will be coming out.
Media Honesty and Corruption00:06:43
Or if it does, it'll have a positive spin.
But dead to rights.
Look at the way they operate.
Well, look, man, it's the one of the great things about this too.
And this is one of the great things.
Like Dave Portnoy did an amazing job here.
And one of the amazing things about the time we live in, the times we live in, is this video last I checked had like 6.5 million views on it.
So it's not only did he get her dead to rights, but then everybody can see it.
And this is one of the things that I know this has been a big, a big thing that Michael Malice has been pushing for years now.
I like to think we've been a part of that too, in really focusing kind of the liberty movement on being aware that the like you should have every bit as much contempt for the corporate press as you do for politicians.
Like every bit as much.
And that really it should properly be understood as just part of the regime, that you should, you should regard these guys the same way you would regard state media, that that is what they are in effect.
If not literally, then in effect, that's what they are.
These are like the tools of the regime.
And that the levels of dishonesty are just astounding.
And, you know, I actually, I go back and forth sometimes even thinking that they deserve more contempt than politicians, which I believe Michael Malice would say.
I'm not sure.
You'd have to ask him on that.
But just that it's like, because these guys really could, you know, I used to talk about this like years ago.
But like years ago, like when I first started part of the problem, when we had like no audience, but I used to talk about it a lot where like, cause this was like what was going on back then.
Back then, the war on terrorism was like still the huge thing.
Whereas now it's more like, you know, Russia stole our elections or something.
But the, I used to just look at the media and you'd go back when, back when terrorism was kind of a thing, you know, there'd be like an ISIS attack in Europe somewhere.
And it would just be like wall to wall coverage with how horrible it was, how many people died, what happened there.
I mean, if you remember after like the Boston Marathon bombing or something like that, it's like, you know, all the like stories about this guy who got his leg blown off and this and how horrible it is with the terrible music and the graphics and they'd show everything.
It's like, understandably, it was a terrible thing, you know, fair to report on that.
But they would never do that for like the drone strike victims in the Middle East.
They would never like show you that.
And you're like, you know, like if you did that, I bet you could get these wars to stop.
Like if you really showed what was going on, like if we had a corporate media that was like honest journalists, they would all day just be shining the light on the corruption in Washington, D.C. It'd be so easy to.
So just imagine, Rob, if me and you were gifted the Washington Post or the New York Times or whatever, one of these huge newspapers and me and you run it.
Okay.
And now we got a team of like reporters and journalists, all the resources we need, big reach, all of this stuff.
And they're like, kind of like, all right.
So what do you guys want to do with this?
But wouldn't it be like right away, you'd be like, um, okay.
Wow.
There's so many stories to go after here.
Hey, how the hell is Nancy Pelosi worth $100 million?
She's been a public servant her whole life.
Go look into that.
I want to know, you know what?
Let's start looking at you pick a senator or a congressman who's worth hundreds of millions of dollars, who's been a lifelong politician.
How the hell did they make their money?
Let's get into that.
That's the story today, right?
Like it'd be so easy.
This is just off the top of my head.
Like I didn't even thought of this thought experiment until I just laid it out.
Let's go into it, right?
Like there's just a million things like that.
Hey, oh, there's a think tank that's pushing for war that's funded by weapons companies.
Go like explore.
You know what I mean?
Go dive deep into that.
Who are all the players?
Who's involved?
Who's getting rich?
Who's getting killed?
There's just like a million things like this.
And none of that ever comes up.
It's just like it doesn't exist, but they'll go try to ruin Dave Portnoy for what?
Being a Trump supporter, if he is one?
Or what?
Being against censorship?
Maybe just kind of being a dude?
They don't seem to like that.
Like, he's just like a dude who's like, I like sports and pizza and I'm worth millions of dollars.
They don't really like that.
But so it's just like, man, these people, it's like, and you see that.
You see, this video does a great job of just displaying how this person who's talking so friendly and nice can be doing something so fucked up.
And that's the world.
That's the world that they operate in.
Go ahead.
I'd love to know.
I don't think, or maybe I'm wrong on this.
It was exposed who this particular writer is, but I'd love to maybe do a little deep dive into some other stories she's written.
I bet we can find out.
I don't know if it's come out yet.
I bet maybe Portnoy will tease out later in the week.
He's good at keeping these stories going and drumming up the attention.
And I'm sure he'll remain on the offensive against the Washington Post, who should rightfully have to answer for this.
And the fact that they bailed on the phone call would showcase zero credibility.
Oh, I mean, these people should be fired and never allowed to work in journalism again, you know?
But that's not the world we live in.
Brian Williams fucking got a show back after just blatantly making up stories, you know?
Okay.
Yeah.
Let's let's move on.
Let's talk a little bit about the Merrick Garland, the attorney general, was testified before Congress yesterday, which is fairly interesting.
There were some, there were several interesting exchanges.
I don't know.
How much of it did you watch, Rob?
I haven't watched all of them, but I think we're going to play the Thomas, the Thomas Massey one.
I will say there was one other exchange that I found pretty remarkable.
There were several.
I mean, he was very evasive about a lot of different topics, but there was one point where he got questioned about whether he knew what his level of awareness of the Hunter Biden investigation was.
And he said, he said, I do not recall.
And the guy's like, you don't recall what you knew about an investigation against the son of the president of the United States of America.
And it just kind of, it was just so obvious that he was lying.
Obvious Lies in Investigations00:12:34
There's just like, just no way this is true.
Like this is happening and you're not aware of what's going on.
It reminded me of when the Twitter guys, the old Twitter guys were on Rogan's podcast and they started asking him about Alex Jones and they were like, oh, I don't remember.
I don't remember what it was that led to that.
And it's like, you don't remember the biggest cancellation in history?
You don't remember that?
You know what I mean?
Like, it's just like a bizarre, like such a weird thing.
Like, obviously some details could slip your mind, but this one, I assume, you'd be all over.
Anyway, let's play.
Jordan had a skirmish with him on that exact same topic.
And his basic maneuver was to go, Weiss was in that guy, Weiss, whatever his name is, Weiss was in charge.
And it will all come out when he does his report.
And Jordan pressed him on it quite a bit.
And I wouldn't say it was until like the last minute.
It becomes pretty apparent that, yes, they purposely ran out the clock.
And yes, Merrick Garland was working to defend Joe Biden.
And I'm sure that we'll never get that story.
He'll never be perjured for it.
And the Weiss report will come out.
And then for whatever technical reason, we'll just move on.
Yep.
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All right, let's get back on the show.
All right, let's play our guy, Thomas Massey, giving Merrick Garland the biz.
To video here that we're going to play.
Obviously, that's a significant matter.
It is an ongoing criminal investigation, and so I'm not going to comment on an ongoing criminal investigation.
Were those pipe bombs operable?
Again, the ATF is the expert.
Again, it's an ongoing criminal investigation and under long-standing policy, I cannot comment.
We know this is a very active, ongoing investigation, and there are some restrictions on that, but we can handle classified information and we fund your department.
And so you need to provide that.
It's not, respectfully, it's not an issue of classification.
It's an issue of commenting on ongoing criminal investigations, which is something that by longstanding department policy, we are restricted in doing.
And in fact, the last administration actually strengthened those policies partly by the- That's not our policy, though, and we fund you.
So let's move on.
Do you know how the rule of law?
I'm not going to comment on an investigation that's ongoing.
Peter Navarro was indicted for contempt of Congress.
Aren't you, in fact, in contempt of Congress when you give us this answer?
This is an answer that's appropriate at a press conference.
It's not an answer that's appropriate when we are asking questions.
We are the committee that is responsible for your creation, for your existence of your department.
You cannot continue to give us these answers.
Aren't you, in fact, in contempt of Congress when you refuse to answer?
Congressman, I have the greatest respect for Congress.
I also have the greatest respect for the Constitution and laws of the United States.
The protection of pending investigations and ongoing investigations, as I briefly discussed in another dialogue a few moments ago, goes back to the separation of powers, which gives to the executive branch the sole authority to conduct prosecutions.
It's a requirement of due process and respect for those who are under investigation, the protection of their civil rights.
Well, with all due respect, with all due respect to that, Iran-Contra was an ongoing investigation, and that didn't stop Congress from getting the answers.
And you're getting in the way of our constitutional duty.
You're citing the Constitution.
I'm going to cite it.
It's our constitutional duty to do oversight.
Now, in that video, that was your answer to a question to me two years ago when I said how many agents or assets of the government were present on January 5th and January 6th and agitating in the because the second half does get into what's specifically January 6th stuff.
But they need to sit down and come up with better rules for your ability to go.
It's part of an ongoing investigation because that essentially allows you to not answer any question.
Anything that is investigated, which is oftentimes what the most important questions are to ask about.
It also, by the way, does seem, and we can just kind of leave it there because you get the point of the video.
But if you remember, what was the, we were talking about Brian Stelter, that tweet.
You sent it.
I think you were relative to Ray Epps, which is the second half of this video where Thomas Massey probably, I think it's kind of worth showing because Thomas Massey probably got Merrick Garland to perjure himself.
Yeah.
Okay.
You know what?
Actually, let's play.
Let's keep playing the video.
The crowd to go into the Capitol and how many went into the Capitol.
Can you answer that now?
I don't know the answer to that question.
Oh, last time you don't know how many there were or there were none.
I don't know the answer to either of those questions.
If there were any, I don't know how many.
I don't know whether there are any.
I think you may have just perjured yourself that you don't know that there were any.
You want to say that again, that you don't know that there were any?
I have no personal knowledge of this matter.
I think what I said the last time.
You've had two years to find out.
And today, by the way, that was in reference to Ray Epps.
And yesterday you indicted him.
Isn't that a wonderful coincidence on a misdemeanor?
Meanwhile, you're sending grandma's to prison.
You're putting people away for 20 years for merely filming.
Some people weren't even there yet.
You got the guy on video who's saying go into the Capitol.
He's directing people to the Capitol before the speech ends.
He's at the site of the first breach.
You've got all the goods on in 10 videos and it's an indictment for a misdemeanor.
The American public isn't buying it.
I yield the balance of my time to Chairman Jordan.
May I answer the question?
I'm going to ask one now.
We'll let the gentleman.
Yeah.
Go ahead.
In discovery, in the cases that were filed with respect to January 6, the Justice Department prosecutors provided whatever information they had about the question that you're asking.
With respect to Mr. Epps, the FBI has said that he was not an employee or informant of the FBI.
Mr. Epps has been charged and there's a proceeding, I believe, going on today.
By the way, this is another thing that you'll notice.
And they do this all the time, when they play this game where they go, we cannot comment on an ongoing investigation.
But that's not true.
They do it all the time.
He just did it.
They'll comment when it's in their favor.
So he just sat there.
He's commenting on an ongoing investigation, right?
The guy was just charged.
He just gave you his whole comment.
In fact, he insisted, he said, can I please respond to that and comment on this ongoing investigation?
So they can comment on it when it suits them.
I'm sorry, go ahead.
His language there is even specific where he goes he was not a employee or informant of the FBI.
So he could have been a employee of the CIA.
He could have been an employee of the government.
He could have been not an informant, but I guess an informant to an informant.
I'm sure there's a lot of people.
He could have been taking direction from somebody who was an employee.
Yeah, there's lots of other options there than to just say like, what do you mean?
He wasn't a W-2 employee of the IRS.
Like, okay, fine.
Look, this is just really, I mean, it's pretty incredible that point blank now, it's not the answer has changed, not drastically, or maybe fairly drastically, but the answer has changed to point blank now being asked, were there feds involved in January 6th?
So the answer used to be, we don't comment on ongoing investigations.
And now the answer is, I don't know.
That's just what he said.
I don't know.
I don't know if there were feds or not.
So by the way, for anyone to tell you that it's a wild conspiracy theory to say that January 6th was an inside job, the word from the head of the Justice Department is, I don't know.
You're going to have a hard time, I guess, proving that he had specific knowledge unless in 70 years from now we get the redacted emails that showcase that, you know, someone's like, yeah, we did have some people on the ground.
And then going, well, you knew that there were some people.
Usually they're a little bit more careful in their words there, but he did just say, I don't know if there was a single FBI person there that's most likely going to turn out to be false.
Yes, I think almost certainly.
There's so anyway, there's I'm trying to find that Brian Stelter tweet, but I can't find it.
I know you sent it to me, but I don't, I don't see it here.
Look, Brian Stelter talks about how in his new book, he covers how, you know, Ray Epps was, you know, believed the right-wing propaganda.
He trusted Fox News and then Fox News turned on him and all of that.
And then the way they'll try to spin this argument is like, well, look, no, they did.
They did charge him.
So look, he's been charged.
So this is, but if you actually look at it, everything points in the opposite direction.
Everything.
Everything points in the direction of Ray Epps being somewhat involved in some type of life.
They're shaming everyone.
All of a sudden, the New York Times comes out with an article.
Why is conservative going after, why are you defending the guy?
You thought you thought all these people were massive criminals that needed to be in jail.
They're literally saying, I mean, I'm not exaggerating.
And they're saying this was January 6th, this day was on the level of Pearl Harbor and 9-11, like that type of day for the country, that it was an insurrection, that it was an attempt to overthrow the government and install a dictator in the United States of America.
That is the claim.
No exaggeration.
That's what they're all saying.
And therefore, the people who did this are insurrectionists and they should go to jail.
They're domestic terrorists and they should go to jail for decades.
But this one guy who is literally inciting the thing, actually on tape inciting the thing, this guy's a victim.
This one guy's a victim.
Now, that in itself is bizarre.
But what's much more insane than that is that they charged him with a fucking misdemeanor for disorderly conduct.
Now, these guys, the Proud Boys the other day who one of them got sentenced to 17 years.
I think one got 15 years.
They were guys who knocked down barricades and broke windows.
So and for that, they're getting 15 to 17 years because what they basically said, they charged them like under, I think it was under the Sedition Act or something like that.
We're saying that like what they were doing when they knocked down those barricades and broke the windows was allowing an entry point for an act against the United States of America.
Like they spun breaking windows and knocking down gates as like, you should go to jail for 17 years for that.
Yet this guy, who's very clearly on camera, telling people to rush the building and is actually right there at the first point of entry when people rush in.
This guy gets disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor.
Disproportionate Sentencing for Proud Boys00:01:00
I mean, come on.
Like, how do you explain that?
How do you explain that they're throwing the book so hard at all these other guys?
Yet the entire corporate press feels bad for this guy while they demonize every other Trump supporter and every other insurrectionist.
And the Justice Department is taking it easy on one of the people clearly most guilty on January 6th.
Like, what explains this?
I'm all ears if anyone has an explanation.
That's legitimate.
I don't see one.
Seems pretty obvious something's going on here.
Whatever it is, smells a little bit fishy.
All right.
That's our show for today.
Thanks, everybody, for checking us out.
Come on out to governors tomorrow night and Saturday night and go watch my half hour special and go see Rob if you're in upstate New York this weekend or anywhere else where he's coming robbythefire.com comicdave smith.com.