James Switzerland and Dave Smith dissect Israel's war with Hamas, rejecting the "unprovoked attack" narrative in favor of decades of occupation and settlement expansion. They critique American media double standards regarding Palestinian casualties versus Israeli losses, while mocking claims that foreign aid solely benefits U.S. jobs. The conversation pivots to U.S. politics, analyzing Republican primary polls where Trump leads Biden by ten points, challenging the credibility of those demanding voter "re-education." Finally, they scrutinize Joe Biden's physical frailty and potential dementia, suggesting his campaign relies on pre-recorded speeches, while questioning if Hillary Clinton remains a viable alternative in an election where democracy itself is under threat. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
|
Time
Text
Funding Our Own Enemies00:15:12
Fill her up!
You're listening to the gas digital move.
We need to roll back the state.
We spy on all of our own citizens.
Our prisons are flooded with nonviolent drug offenders.
If you want to know who America's next enemy is, look at who we're funding right now.
Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big.
You're listening to part of the problem on the gas digital network.
Here's your host, James Switzerland.
What's up, everybody?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem, another hotel podcast.
This has been our specialty lately.
Just podcasting in my hotel room of a casino on different ends of the country, but here we are.
It's a much calmer casino.
Yes.
Yes.
Fremont Street has a vibe that I would describe as AIDS.
Just the vibe of Fremont Street.
If someone had to model what AIDS looks like inside of your body, it's Fremont Street.
You had to personify AIDS.
It would be Fremont Street.
But now we're up here at Mohegan's Sun.
We've been doing shows at Comics Roadhouse.
And yeah, it is a very nice casino, Mohegan Sun.
It's kind of, you feel a little bit classy as a man next to you is putting his kids' college tuition on a roulette table, risking it all.
Have you gambled at all?
I haven't gambled at all.
I haven't gambled a dollar between being in Vegas and being here for the last couple weeks.
Not a dollar.
Have you?
I didn't gamble at all in Vegas, but yesterday morning I rolled some dice.
Okay.
How'd you do?
I'm up five whole dollars.
You're up five bucks.
I quit the show.
I've made it.
Took these Indians for all they were worth.
I'm going to, I went down and I was like, where can I lay heavy on Israel?
My money's on Israel.
I'm going on the kill count.
Israel's down right now, but I've never seen it.
If you were betting the wall wasn't going to hold up, you didn't realize they'd fly over it.
That I did not.
I think they cut through it.
No.
You didn't see what they did?
No.
Oh, it's pretty cool what they did.
I understand that they breached the wall.
Oh, no, no.
These guys got a business.
They could go down to the border and start running tours, getting you over.
Dude, they got, or at least this is the video I saw on Twitter.
You never know.
This could have been our special forces somewhere else.
They just played it.
But you ever see the, I'm sure you've seen people like Parachute or Paraglide.
So you ever see the ones where those are like on a motor?
So that's what they did?
They flew over on these motorized, it was like parachute on top, motorized, big fan in the back, and they flew right over the thing.
Guns ablazing.
And you're like, I wish you weren't the other team because this looks really fucking cool.
Well, look at you, the other team with your loyalties.
You know where you are.
Well, they are slaughtering people, so it's easy to, you know, usually I'm like, I don't want to comment because I got family out there.
I feel like a propagandist.
I don't know the history.
I know what you mean.
For anyone who doesn't know what we're talking about, it's this horrific coordinated Hamas attack on Israel.
They really, really some horrible footage.
I don't know if you saw the stuff, but they were like snatching up women and children and stuff.
And it was horrible.
A whole bunch of rockets went off.
They swarmed into Israel and just started committing random acts of violence.
Netanyahu, he didn't exactly declare war, but he declared something like war preparedness or something like that.
So not good.
Obviously, the attacks are horrible.
Seeing innocent women and children being killed is awful.
And so, you know, just horrific and so stupid because you know the result of this now.
Like if the complaint is that the Palestinians are being brutalized, it's like, well, you just sentenced yourself to a whole bunch of now Palestinians who are going to get brutalized over this.
There's also some weird dynamics in the internal politics of Israel because Netanyahu was in quite a bit of trouble.
I don't exactly understand Israel's politics.
Netanyahu is just always the prime minister, and then he's gone for like a week, and they're like, we got rid of that guy.
And then he's just back.
Guess who's back?
Yeah.
And Netanyahu's part of the money.
And then his wife gets in trouble every once in a while for just overspending on what's clearly government money.
Like wild corruption.
All types of Netanyahu's like a real like, you know, hardcore right-wing nationalist and always pushing for more war, usually pushing for more U.S. wars.
I mostly just know him from showing up with the big bomb and going, Iran will kill us tomorrow.
Yes.
Unless you go over there.
That was his famous thing where he showed up with a cartoon bomb.
I could only describe as a Daffy Duck bomb that you were like, oh my God, if Iran actually has this bomb, it's going to send Netanyahu's beak to the other side of his face to then have to be turned back like a big round black bomb.
I don't know when was the last time that bombs looked like that.
Is that built up?
Like, was there a real bomb that used to look like a big black ball with a string that you'd light?
Yeah, that's got to be a cannon bomb.
But he's been saying since the 90s that Iran is five years away from having a nuclear weapon.
Then when Obama signed the deal with Iran, he said that this just like expedited the process.
And here we are, you know, a decade later.
None of this is real.
But so this is just politically speaking, this is a godsend for Netanyahu because he was having these huge protests against him in Israel.
And now, of course, they're all going to rally behind him to go.
So it's just like, it's on every level, just the most heartbreaking thing.
You're like, here we are right back into the cycle, right back into the cycle of forever war between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
It's tough.
I know we're, you know, like we're both Jewish.
And so we're both in this situation where we have a lot of family, you know what I mean, who support Israel, a lot of family members who would like me to just condemn Hamas and, you know, which I certainly will do.
Like anytime people attack innocent people, it's horrible.
But there's just so much, there's such a lack of awareness from Americans about what's actually going on in the situation and the framing of it.
Like you see today, I've been on social media a little bit the last couple hours, and the framing is just so ridiculous.
Like it's always, the framing is always, it's as if there were normal relations.
And then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, one group of these savages just go and attack innocent people.
I'm like, whoa, where did that come from?
And then, of course, the questions that get asked, the question is always, but doesn't Israel have a right to defend itself?
And that's, and that's, you're just supposed to ask that question.
And then obviously that's leading to the answer.
Of course they have a right to defend themselves.
Doesn't wouldn't anyone have a right to defend themselves against this type of unprovoked violence?
And so if you're just looking at that, then yeah, it's you see where Joe Sixpack is just like, yeah, I'm on Israel's side.
I mean, everything was normal.
Then these savages attack them.
And don't they have a right to defend themselves?
But what no one ever seems to ask is like, well, okay, do the Palestinians have a right to defend themselves?
What rights do they have?
So I'm a dumb hippie and I just go nations, walls, people, like that's what divides us.
We're just people.
And it's interesting when you meet someone who's Palestinian in America and you're like, this is crazy to think about that if we were over there, you'd be on the other side of this wall, oppressed, and we would both be hating each other.
And now we're over here, you're a person and I'm a person.
I remember one time we were in Israel, we ended up in like some Palestinian village for some, like, we must have made like some wrong turn on the tour bus or whatever.
It was an awful wrong turn to make Israel.
That can get very scary, but I remember like looking out this window, just, you know, I was the dumbest 16-year-old and just being like, yo, the bitches in this town are hot.
Like, why do we got a wall here?
Like, these chicks are all hot.
But I do think from the problem is they're both Jews on both sides of that fence.
And I say that, like, the Palestinians are Jews and that the Palestinians have this hard line of we're being occupied, which gives us a right to violence.
I'm not saying all of them.
I'm saying I have heard this, that they go, as long as there's an occupation, we basically have a right to terrorist violence.
And then on the Jewish side, they go, well, as long as these people think they have a right to terrorist violence, we need a wall here and we need to oppress them because otherwise they're just trying to kill us.
That's where this doesn't necessarily serve the Palestinians well because this kind of proves the point of look at what happens when we're not engaged in maximum oppression.
And I'm not saying that as an endorsement or like I'm on the hippie side of, hey, there's a way for these two groups of people to get along, but it's like they're both very married to a very strict, like kind of non-negotiable point of view.
Yeah, I think there's, I think that's, there's a lot of truth to that.
I mean, and I also purposely don't research this issue because I feel like I, like, I'm very unbiased on most topics.
And on this one, I'm not.
Yeah, no, that's fair.
I mean, look, to your point, this is part of the reason why I hate government so much and why I hate war so much.
I mean, it's just, it's the worst thing that human beings do.
And there's so many situations like that where like, dude, there's just, it's even crazier when there are the wars that are so far away, like the U.S. wars.
Like there was just no need.
There was no scenario where 18-year-old Americans hate 18-year-old Iraqis so much that they want to murder them.
You know what I mean?
Like that just wasn't happening without governments like getting in the way and propagandizing and forcing them to do this.
It's just like so horrible.
But the truth is that when the American people are only getting the narrative, that everything is just normal over there.
And then these savages attack.
It's very, and doesn't Israel have a right to defend itself?
It's very easy to fall into that propaganda because the Palestinians are at such a primitive state and the Israelis are at such a more sophisticated state.
You know, like I've talked about this a lot with the, when people talk about what a corrupt country Ukraine is.
And this is true, you know, like before the 2014 coup and after the coup.
You know, the Zelensky government is corrupt.
The Yanukovych government was corrupt.
The Porschenko government was corrupt.
It's just a very corrupt country.
But when you really think about it, you're like, who the fuck are we to tell anyone else about corruption?
You know, the thing is just that corruption in, say, like these Eastern European countries is very primitive.
And our corruption is very sophisticated.
So like Eastern European corruption is blatant.
It's like a cop pulls you over on the side of the road and you give him money and he'll let you go.
Just very blatant primitive corruption.
Whereas our corruption is more like the prison guard union is lobbying to keep mandatory minimums in place.
Now, that's actually, it's more sophisticated, but it's like every bit as corrupt as just, you know, a politician's son is a multi-millionaire or something like that.
I guess we got a little bit of that here too.
But so the Palestinians, they're coming over in this kind of like their acts of terrorism are these like primitive barbaric acts of terrorism.
The Israeli acts of terrorism are like military operations, which is just a little bit easier to kind of remove yourself from the reality of that, which is still the same thing.
It's still just like innocent women and children are dying.
And they're dying in much bigger numbers on the Palestinian side than on the Israeli side.
Not today, but in general, but probably tomorrow, you know?
You could just as reasonably ask the question the way it's framed in the corporate press here about the Palestinians.
You could say like, you know, which I think is kind of the point you were getting at.
That is like, you could also be like, do they not have a right to defend themselves?
Do they, is it just, they just have to accept forever, theoretically, that they live in an occupied area.
There's two million of them in Gaza, in this tiny fucking area.
And Israel controls the amount of food, water, and medical supplies that get in.
They don't have the right to leave as they please.
They don't have any say in the government, in the Israeli government that essentially is really the ones that rule over them.
And they are routinely abused and humiliated by the Israeli military.
Now, how, again, how is it expected that there's this weird dynamic, right?
Which is what's so tragic about all of it, where it's like, at the same sense, you're like, okay, so the Palestinians are like, we're going to launch this like offensive against the Israeli people.
And you know, that now guarantees further subjugation of the Palestinian people, which guarantees further instances of these terrorist attacks.
And they're both so dug in that it's like they're both just guaranteeing this cycle continue.
And it's very hard to see a way out of it.
And I think the answer from the American perspective, the correct answer is that we should not be involved in this.
And in fact, America has been involved in funding both sides of this conflict.
And the reason Hamas even exists is because of the attempt of the Americans and the Israelis to sabotage the PLO.
So it's like, you know, like these things just, it's this constant intervention that constantly blows up in blowback.
And like, it's like at a certain point, you got to just like cut this cycle.
Like, I don't know.
I mean, if Israel cannot, Israel was created in 1947, I believe, by an act of the United Nations, which is probably a little bit weird from the Muslim perspective, where they're like, what does this European group just get to decide what the split of land here is?
And then, of course, the Israelis did not follow that split, and they took much more than that.
If you look at what they have today, it's much more than was guaranteed.
I just know all the propaganda I learned in school.
So it's like, I hear that, and I'm like, well, weren't they attacked?
And then they had to redraw the lines for security reasons, but I don't know if that's accurate.
Yeah, it's like, so they won a war in 1967 and they decided because we won a war in 1967, we get to occupy these people forever.
Right, but it's not like they left their lines to go conquer the other territory.
They were attacked first.
Yes, they were attacked.
That's true.
They were attacked.
Yes, but how often do you win a war and just go, here's your shit back?
Conceding No Two States Now00:14:55
Well, fairly all.
I mean, that happens.
You know what I mean?
No, look, but regardless of whether, like, what territory is controlled or isn't, the now last remaining territory that is in Gaza, and I guess in the West Bank, is still ruled over by Israel.
Right.
And this is just unsustainable, you know?
And so, look, I mean, believe me, I'm well versed in the propaganda too.
But what they say is they go like, and believe me, I've heard for some people on Twitter who are saying this today.
They go, this is the kind of the Dennis Prager line.
It's like one side wants peace and the other side wants war.
And if the Palestinians laid down their arms today, there'd be peace.
But if Israelis laid down their arms today, they'd be wiped off the face of the planet.
But this is just like anytime anyone's talking that way about two groups of people, you're like, there's more to it than that.
I think the Israelis, for sure, and I say this without much research, they're not too invested in the long-term viability or happiness of the Palestinian people.
So this game favors Israel, where if every once in a while, you know, if they're stuck and they're stuck and it's just miserable and then they have to go do something violent to, I guess, try and, you know, do something to change their position and that doesn't help them.
Right.
This kind of just favors Israel's game.
Well, I mean, sure, certainly like Israel, that's kind of been the game this whole time.
Israel is winning at this game.
So they're kind of like, they have no interest in that.
But the truth is that you lose all credibility with this argument.
There's a very weird dynamic where Israel's argument is like they want to genocide us while they're genociding them.
You know what I mean?
So it's like while they're actively doing that, they're like, well, we can't take the boot off this guy's neck because he put his boot on our neck.
And you're like, okay, but look, you know, for them to say, oh, the Palestinians, if the Palestinians laid down their arms, there'd be peace.
But if we lay down our arms, we'll be exterminated.
It's like, okay, but you're in the dominant position right now and you're just building more settlements and more settlements.
You know what I mean?
It's like, you can't, look, whenever you have a conflict like this, where one side has enormously more power than the other and you're looking for a resolution, the concessions have to be made by the side that has more power.
You know what I mean?
Like, that's the only way that this can ever move forward.
And unfortunately, there's just like no willingness to do that.
Again, I am Jewish, but I'm an American more than I am anything else.
And my thing here is always like, the American policy ought to be what's best for Americans.
And it's pretty clear here that like, there's just, we do not benefit from any of these entangling alliances.
What I hate about the Israel thing from an American perspective, because I agree with you.
I don't know what's going on over there, but just as an American, I don't understand really most of the foreign aid that we do.
Or you'd have to tell me about something that's going on.
And I don't know, maybe with the Panama Canal that guarantees that we're able to have access.
And I go, all right, I guess that's in our strategic interest.
But they never give us the story with Israel other than go, they're the first line of defense against what?
Is the eye of mortar over there?
And I'm not aware of it.
Is there some other dimension that's coming over the wall of Israel that if Israel, they don't ever quite explain to me, maybe it's that we need, if there is, you know, the war machine needs to be in the Middle East and we got bases in Israel and that's what makes it the most important place.
But they never tell me what is it about Israel other than, I guess, Jewish interest or Christian religious interests that have moved this to the front of the line as being the important thing.
But I'm just saying they never defend or explain what is the strategic interest of Israel.
And then they'll say things like, they'll be like, it's the only liberal democracy in the region and therefore we have to support it.
Right.
A liberal democracy that excludes all the other people that aren't of the right.
Religion.
I mean, so there's, there's a problem with this.
There's a few problems with this.
Like, number one, you're like, well, we have to support them because they're a liberal democracy.
The problem with that is that like, yeah, but we also support Egypt and Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and like all these other countries.
So it doesn't really seem like our support is based off democracy.
This is like the neocon doctrine that there must be democracy, you know, in these areas.
Like we must bring democracy to Iraq, but not Egypt.
Like when they pick the wrong leaders, then we have to overthrow that democracy, that democratic choice, you know?
So that makes no sense.
And then the other issue is, yeah, just like what you were saying.
It's like the official line is like, Israel is the only liberal democracy, and we support a theoretical two-state solution at some point in the future.
But if there's not two states now, like when you say you support two states in the future, you're conceding that there's not two states right now, which is like, okay, so if there's not two states, then this is all one state.
And if it's all one state, then you're not a liberal democracy anymore.
Now you're an apartheid regime, right?
Like if Gaza and the West Bank are part of Israel, which they can't officially say because then they'd have to acknowledge it's an apartheid state, right?
So they don't officially say that.
They say they support a second state, two states off in the, but you're like, so what is that right now then?
See, either there's two states right now and you are illegally occupying a sovereign state or it's all one state and you're an apartheid state.
I don't see how you get around that kind of thing unless they go to this gray area where it's like, well, which is this used to be the talking point back in the day.
I don't know if you're even like old enough to remember it, but the Jewish like propaganda used to be that the Palestinians aren't a people.
They're not really a people.
Like they're just kind of a group of Muslims over here, but there's no such thing as Palestine.
There's no such thing as the Palestinian people.
But I remember Pat Buchanan talked about that.
He wrote about it in one of his books.
I can't remember which one.
But he was just kind of like, yeah, but as soon as they're banding together and standing up and saying, we want our independence, they're a people now.
That's all it takes to be a people.
There's no other like technical definition before a group of people are a people.
It's like when they start waving Palestinian flags, they're people now.
That's it.
That's the way this works.
And that's, you know, that's kind of, I think that's kind of undeniable.
So anyway, it's a sad situation.
It's interesting to see.
Man, if you think, just when you think kind of like the right-wingers are becoming anti-war in this country, oh, man, all it takes is a group of Muslims attacking a group of Jews before they're all right back on board.
Well, it might be interesting if they go, it's time to pivot back to our strategic interests in the Middle East.
Yeah.
And I always thought the Jews over there were like, hey, this is supposed to be all our war money.
What the fuck is going on?
In the Ukraine?
Quit sending them all of our money.
All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Sheath Underwear, the underwear of legends.
Can't say enough good things about them.
These guys have been longtime sponsors of this show, and they are the best, most comfortable pair of boxer briefs you'll ever own.
I absolutely love them.
The only underwear I wear is sheath underwear.
Go get yourself a pair.
Support the company that's been supporting our show for so long and get the best pair of boxer briefs you will ever own.
Go over to sheathunderwear.com.
Make sure to use the promo code problem20.
That will get you 20% off your next order.
Sheathunderwear.com, promo code problem20 for 20% off your next order.
All right, let's get back into the show.
Okay, so here is what DeSantis had to say.
Israel is now under attack.
I stand with Israel.
America stands with Israel.
Not only do they have a right to defend themselves, they have a duty to defend themselves against these Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists.
Iran has helped fund this war against Israel, and Joe Biden's policies that have gone easy on Iran has helped to fill their coffers.
Israel is now paying the price for those policies.
We're going to stand with the state of Israel.
They need to root out Hamas, and we need to stand up to Iran.
So there you go, Ron DeSantis.
The quote, we are going to stand with Israel as they root out Hamas, and we need to stand up to Iran.
I thought, so I tweeted responding to him because I just think it's so funny that like, and we've talked about this before, but it's like the anti-woke Republicans who are the wokest on Israel.
You know what I mean?
Like, it's just whatever.
It's like they're totally against just silencing speech and labeling people as racists, but say something about Israel and they want to silence you and label you an anti-Semite.
DeSantis has gone out of his way to have no position on Ukraine for the last year, at least.
I shouldn't say that.
He has a position on Ukraine.
His position is that it's a border dispute, but it's more than a border dispute.
And we have to fund Ukraine, but we can't write them a blank check.
And the mission has to be defined because the problem with the war in Iraq was that it was an undefined mission.
And really the problem is that our military is too woke.
And he wants to define the mission in Ukraine.
He won't tell you exactly what he's going to define that mission as.
So that's his position on Ukraine.
No exaggeration.
That's literally, he's said all of that.
So he doesn't have a position on Ukraine running for president.
Yet, day one, he's all in on a war with Iran.
He's all in on a war against Hamas right away.
I can explain this to you.
Sure.
He doesn't have a position on Ukraine because he's a deep state war hawk and he will continue that war, but he knows it's so unpopular, he won't take that stance.
When it comes to the Israel thing, particularly now that he's out of the election, it's very easy to stand up and go, oh, I'm against Iran.
Biden messed up.
He's for both of those wars.
Yes.
Yeah.
No, I think that's exactly right.
What's interesting about the Iran situation is that this Russia-Ukraine thing hasn't helped us because you've got Russia buying...
What were they buying from Iran?
It was something to do with like drone technology.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, I don't know the specifics on it, but they're definitely trading partners.
Yeah, but we've really built up this North Korea-Russia-Iran access by going to war with Russia.
Yeah.
No, I think that's right.
And even before the war in Ukraine, I mean, you know, we've pushed Iran closer to Russia.
But it's the idea, it's funny too, that there's been no, like, I mean, this just happened.
There's been no like connection made to Iran, Iranian, Iranian involvement in these attacks.
It's just loosely that they do business with Hamas.
And so therefore, which is pretty funny in a way when you think about the implications of the war in Ukraine, where it's like, we're still claiming we're not directly at war with Russia.
But yet Iran, I guess, is directly at war with Israel because, you know what I mean?
It's not even.
That's a glorious double standard.
It's not even clear that it's not like Iran sold the weapons used in this attack.
It's not like that's been demonstrated at all.
But even if they did, wouldn't the standard of the war in Ukraine be like, well, that's not them being at war with you.
That's just them giving weapons to the people you're at war with or whatever.
So it's just, I mean, as if there wasn't enough already that just completely disqualifies Ron DeSantis from getting your support.
Like, this is a guy who's ready to commit to another war or a couple more wars, I guess.
And like for people saying anything else, I'm sorry, but that the language of, again, the quote is, we are going to stand with Israel as they root out Hamas and we need to stand up to Iran.
That is, if I translate DC talk, that's a war.
That's not just root out terrorists means what?
Drop bombs on civilians.
That's what he's saying.
I will also say, let me pull this up here so I have it in front of me.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had a pretty bad take on this as well.
So let me read Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s tweet.
He said, he said, this unprovoked and barbaric attack on Israel must be met with world condemnation and unequivocal support for the Jewish state's right to self-defense.
So right away, he's repeating the unprovoked line, which I just, I mean, it's really, it's actually, I've mentioned this point before, but it's the use of the term unprovoked is actually kind of revealing.
Right.
Like, why would that even need to be said?
You know what I mean?
Like, if it wasn't like, it's a...
Also, does provoked become a justification for violence?
Right.
Like, it's not even like that.
That isn't a justification to say something was provoked.
But when you just throw in the word unprovoked, it's just a very, like, I think the example I used was like, if you came up to, like, there were some kids who got bit by a dog and you were like, what happened?
And they were like, well, we weren't throwing rocks at the dog.
It started with us not throwing rocks at this dog.
And then he just bit it.
It's like, why did you even throw that in there?
Like, no one even said anything.
But unprovoked, look, man, I mean, it's stupid when they use it for the war in Ukraine because it was so obviously like provoked in so many different ways.
Even the head of NATO recently just came out and was like, yeah, like Vladimir Putin asked us to not expand NATO anymore.
And he said that he wanted all of the military weapons that were put into the countries where NATO expanded.
He wanted them brought back to the original.
And we were like, no, absolutely not.
And then he just invaded the country.
And you're like, oh, okay.
Well, yeah, that's what we've been saying this whole time and being called Russian propagandist for saying it.
And I guess the head of NATO is also a Russian propagandist.
But however you feel, and of course these attacks on innocent Israelis are not justified.
But to claim unprovoked when you're talking about Gaza, there's no provocation there at all?
It's just so ridiculous.
Action At The Heart Of The Problem00:05:19
Anyway, yeah, so he goes on to say, with world condemnation and the unequivocal support for the Jewish state's right to self-defense, we must provide Israel with whatever it needs to defend itself now.
As president, I'll make sure that our policy is unambiguous so that the enemies of Israel will think long and hard before attempting aggression of any kind.
I applaud the strong statements of support from the Biden White House for Israel in her hour of need.
However, the scale of these attacks means it is, oh man, this gets bad.
However, the scale of these attacks means it is likely that Israel will need to wage a sustained military campaign to protect its citizens.
Statements of support are fine, but we must follow through with unwavering, resolute, and practical action.
America must stand by our ally throughout this operation and beyond as it exercises its sovereign right to self-defense.
Yikes.
Yeah, it sounds like Gaza's going to end up like really just a permanent prison.
I mean, you're going to end up with a permanent military.
It used to be like they would monitor, but from the outside.
And then sometimes I think they would kind of go through as a show of force.
But my guess is you're going to have a more permanent military presence in those areas.
Well, look, I feel like I need to say something about this because we have on several podcasts really defended RFK Jr.
Right.
And so to just say, like, I really can't overstate how awful this is because he's not even just saying, like, he's not just giving the like the kind of standard, like, oh, this was wrong.
What happened?
And we support Israel, you know, which like that, that'd be okay, you know, just be like, hey, this is horrible.
These people died.
This was an awful thing.
We stand with Israel or something like that.
But he is very specifically saying, no, America needs to fund them.
America needs to be involved.
And they need to launch an offensive military action.
And what does that mean?
I mean, like, this is where the heart of the double standard comes in, right?
It's like, what does that mean?
By definition, that means innocent Palestinians are going to die.
There's never going to be any one of these military offensives where innocent Palestinians aren't going to die.
And so what, like, do their lives not matter?
Like, does that not matter at all?
It's just like, okay, innocent Israelis died.
That's horrible.
But it's totally acceptable that innocent Palestinians will die now.
Because that mentality is so fucked.
Like, I'm sorry.
And that is at the heart of the problem.
Look, this was at the heart of bin Laden's grievance with the United States of America.
He's like, why does it not matter when our women and children die?
You know, like 9-11 happens, and that's it.
It's like, that's a justification for 20 years of war.
Because when our people die, that's, but they're sitting there and saying, well, what, like, our people are dying.
So why don't we have a justification for a military offensive, right?
It's a, yeah.
Michael Rechtenwald for president.
I don't know what to say.
Wreck the regime.
Wreck the regime.
All these, because it's like all these other guys are just like, I don't know, man.
They might make some good points on a few things, but it's like, dude, this is right at the heart of it.
Like, can we just, this is my new thing.
I said this last time I was on Rogan.
I go, six months.
It's the American six-month challenge.
Can we go six months without a mass murder campaign?
Six months of no war.
Not starting a war, not funding a war, not provoking a war, just no war.
Like a mass murder rehab.
Let's start with six months.
And we'll give America a chip at the end of it.
We'll go get a nice chip you can show off to your buddies.
Here you go, dude.
And then inevitably, we'll relapse.
We always relapse.
Then we'll fall off the wagon.
Then you go.
But we could build off that six months.
But it's one day at a time.
One day at a time.
America has to follow, what is it, the 10-step program?
Yeah.
We have to accept that we are helpless with our compulsion to go on mass murder campaigns, turn to a higher power.
We got to go around and make amends.
We got to go around.
That's going to be a hard one.
Yeah, hey, Pakistan.
You probably don't even think about this anymore, but we had like a massive drone bomb campaign in 2009.
And we're sorry about that.
We're sorry.
We shouldn't have done that anyway.
And then we cross Palestine off a list or Pakistan off a list.
And then we go to, I got to swing by Somalia.
Hey, Somalia, what's going on?
And then we just do that.
We go through the 10-step program.
Let's just try to go six months sober, six months sober without war, as it's known, or more directly translated, mass murder fests.
Let's just try to stay away from them.
And it's just such a shame for, you know, and I don't know.
I don't know exactly what the pressure is on these guys or why they do what they do.
But for Bobby Kennedy, who's like, you're the anti-war candidate, man.
Like, that's kind of at the heart of your campaign here.
Also, when you're campaigning, you get to bullshit.
So if you're trying to bullshit, then you go, hey, what we need is a humanitarian response that can finally bring civility to the region so that both sides can be peaceful.
Overlooking The Military Industrial Complex00:05:18
You don't have to do anything, so you just get to lie and make things sound good.
When instead of doing that, you're going, hey, we need a show of force.
That kind of really shows where you stand.
Yeah, yeah.
Very, very, very disappointing.
But yeah, what else is new?
Politicians, if they didn't disappoint, they wouldn't be politicians.
Today's episode is brought to you by yokratom.com, home of the $60 kilo.
If you are a responsible adult over the age of 21 and you enjoy Kratom, make sure to go get your Kratom from yokratom.com, longtime sponsors of Everything Gas Digital Network, and they make the best Kratom out there.
It's lab-tested, quality stuff delivered right to your door, and the best price you'll find anywhere, 60 bucks for a kilo.
YoKratom.com, go check them out.
All right, let's get back into the show.
All right.
This is Erin Barnett, who was, she used to be over at MSNBC, and she's a CNN gal these days.
She had a great quote on her CNN show the other day here.
Let's play it.
I loved this.
This is her speaking on the war in Ukraine and talking about the GOP House hardliners who were trying to hold up the aid to Ukraine.
It's worthwhile with all of this gaining some steam and public perception to be clear in some facts.
First and foremost, the vast majority of this money is going to American companies and jobs, right?
Because those are the people who are making the Abrams tanks, the ammo and everything else.
And take Lockheed Martin, which makes behind ours that have been core to Ukraine's counteroffensive.
The company announced it's going to increase its workforce in Camden, Arkansas by 20% just because of this new demand.
That money's going to America.
There you go.
There's CNN just with their hard-hitting objective news.
That's why I love CNN.
What a great little segment as this war is losing popularity and a sliver of the Republicans are standing up to the idea that we should just be funding endlessly a proxy war on Russia's border.
But don't worry, because Aaron Burnett's here to tell you.
He said, no, His money isn't just going to Ukraine.
It's going to the military industrial complex.
So relax, American people.
I'm sure you'll get some of these crumbs back.
One of you guys is going to get hired to build these bombs.
Don't worry about it.
It's good.
Take Lockheed Martin, for example.
A mom and pop shop run out of the...
It started in their garage.
They just started making tomahawk missiles.
Next thing you know, it took off.
And now they're creating jobs right here in America.
You got to love when the war machine gets so desperate.
Their new propaganda is like, it's going to the military industrial complex.
Guys, it's not that bad.
It's going to Ukraine.
It's going to the military industrial complex.
You know, that thing that we always said didn't exist?
Well, guess what?
It does exist, but that money stays in America.
She doesn't have, I just love it being like, no, no, no.
See, I know you think of this as like your money is just going off to Ukraine somewhere.
But let me explain to you how this actually works, okay?
We're taxing.
Taxing you're elites.
Yeah, we're taxing you and giving that money to Lockheed Martin.
Okay?
So that doesn't sound so bad, does it?
And then they'll create some jobs.
Now, granted, we could have just not taxed you for the money.
You could have kept the money, but I think we can all agree it's better off that we have a company that makes, from government contracts, makes weapons of mass murder.
And then they're going to have to hire some people to make these weapons of mass murder.
That could be you.
Go online.
They're taking.
They're doing this job killing other people.
Just unbelievable.
Just unbelievable.
They don't even hear themselves.
I've heard this.
I think maybe I heard Mitch McConnell saying something like this as well.
But some research team sat down trying to figure out how to sell the war and they realized, oh, maybe we could start spinning this as it's not money being spent abroad.
It's money being spent here, just overlooking that you're talking about the military-industrial complex.
This is exactly what everyone complains about is that we don't actually care about the outcomes of these things.
We're just spending money with particular individuals who win no matter what.
And here you got CNN right out of their own mouths.
Don't worry, the money's going to select rich individuals here.
Yeah.
And then it's even better because then Lockheed Martin takes some of that money and they fund think tanks that come up with policy papers that suggest we need to keep fighting.
And they buy advertising on our very channel.
Because of Lockheed Martin and all the bombs that they get purchased from, we can bring you news like this.
It's literally like you couldn't even make that shit up, that that's an actual segment on CNN trying to justify.
It feels like parody.
Yeah, it feels like it should be parody.
It feels like if Saturday Live was still good, like that would be something that's on the level of if there was actual mass illness because of like the COVID vaccine, if they did a report.
But remember, people in hospital creates American jobs.
And look at how many nurses are now being staffed and all the money going to the other pharmaceutical companies.
Yeah, it's literally something like that, right?
Like a hilarious parody where CNN brags that the money is actually propping up the military-industrial complex.
Deprogramming Trump Supporters00:06:17
Yeah.
But that is totally real.
That is Aaron Burnett actually bragging about that.
Yeah, Rob, get your fucking Zen?
You want one?
No.
You know what I don't like about the Zen?
Oh, they're so good.
But you know what I don't like?
I know everybody swears by them, but when they get a little bit soggy and like the juice starts like running out, you know what I'm talking about?
That doesn't wig you out a little bit?
No, because by the time I get there, I'm like fainty because I'm not even a cigarette smoker.
And that's the thrill of this thing.
So how long do you pop one in for?
Until you start feeling like you're going to faint, and then you take it out and you're like, fuck yeah, this gave me a kick.
All right.
Which one do you use?
I'm a lightweight, three milligrams.
But what's the flavor?
No, this isn't winter green, but I mix it up.
I got one of the like coffee-flavored ones.
I thought that was really gross.
Yeah, yeah.
You want mint.
Okay.
Speaking of really gross, here is Hillary Clinton who is being interviewed.
I don't know why.
The woman who refused to go away.
Right.
What do we, I think America's herpes.
Hillary Clinton is herpes.
That's the best way to do it.
I don't know if that's from Hillary Clinton.
Did someone else come up with that?
I don't know.
I might be stealing this from someone else.
I might have heard it.
It's in the background.
I think over the next two months, you're going to see her rolled out a little bit as they maybe test the waters to see if she could be Biden's replacement.
This is how unlikable Kamala Harris is.
They're like, bring back Hillary.
Let's see if she can get over.
But this is Hillary Clinton's take.
I don't even want to add to just how creepy this is, but let's listen.
Very strong partisans in both parties in the past.
And we had very bitter battles over all kinds of things, gun control and climate change and the economy and taxes.
But there wasn't this little tale of extremism waving, you know, wagging the dog of the Republican Party as it is today.
And sadly, so many of those extremists, those mega extremists, take their marching orders from Donald Trump, who has no credibility left by any measure.
He's only in it for himself.
He's now defending himself in civil actions and criminal actions.
And when do they break with him?
You know, because at some point, you know, maybe there needs to be a formal deprogramming of the cult members, but something needs to happen.
Formal deprogramming, no informal deprogramming here.
We're going to have to have a formal deprogramming of the Trump supporters.
This is what's so bizarre about this stuff is where, like, these people are so insulated in their world.
And you can actually, you know, again, you can hear Hillary Clinton, in a sense, telling you the truth.
And this is what's interesting about these guys.
You can always, if you just kind of learn how to like interpret their language, you can actually hear what she's saying here, which is that like, look, we always had all types of debates on gun control or climate change, but this is, this is, you know, this one isn't allowed.
Like, we'll allow you to have debates over here within this region that we decide is allowable opinion.
Okay.
But you're outside of it here.
And Donald Trump, she says, has no credibility left by any standard.
It's like, okay, except this one little standard, which is that he's leading by 51 points in the polls.
He's leading by something like 50-something points I saw in the latest like Republican primary polls.
And there was one poll, a little bit of an outlier, that had him up 10 points on Joe Biden.
Now, you know, put whatever stock you put in a poll a year out from a presidential election.
But like, that's the source of credibility.
All these people who claim so much to believe in democracy, it's like that's the source.
The source is after, what is it, six, seven years of you guys telling us that this guy is absolutely unacceptable, he still is enjoying a massive amount of support from the American people.
So what is she talking about?
She's talking about half the voting base need to be re-educated.
I mean, what a creepy fucking statement.
I love the self-referencing where she goes, the fact that the country could still support a guy involved in eight criminal.
Yeah, because you started that.
The same as 40 intelligence agencies have reported.
She's so good at this self-referencing.
Yes.
Yes.
It's the thing where, right.
So he's Donald Trump.
The Justice Department is going to charge Donald Trump with all these crimes.
And then the proof that he's guilty is that he's been charged with all these crimes.
Right.
And look, it's not just the Justice Department that has to charge him with crimes.
He's so despicable.
The AG in New York and the Department of Whatever in Atlanta, you know?
Yeah, even district attorneys who ran on charging Donald Trump are charging Donald Trump with a crime.
It's not just the Justice Department.
It's also all of these Soros-backed DAs.
Now, why would they all be charging him right now unless he clearly committed all of these crimes and that they just happen to figure it out in all these different jurisdictions right now, a year out from the presidential election?
That's a fucking crazy thing.
You got to wonder, where's the follow-up question of what do you mean by deprogramming?
So how is it that we're going to re-educate the American public that still hasn't learned that Hillary Clinton's the greatest thing that ever happened to us?
That's really what she's saying that we need to be re-educated to learn that we should have voted for her.
After a full campaign that she ran and that Russia robbed her of, the American public is still so stupid to even consider this other person.
So what we need is someone to come in and I guess re-educate everybody.
You know what's interesting?
I think Hillary has more of a chance in a general election than Biden right now because she could still somewhat play the card of competent normalcy that this administration was incompetent, but we can still get back to normal.
Editing Out Biden's Moments00:08:06
You know, Joe Biden historically had some advantages over Hillary Clinton.
Right.
Joe Biden kind of had a likability thing, like a bumbling uncle kind of, you know.
She is just, she is piercing and sharp.
Right.
And like you, you feel like you could get a paper cut by touching her.
Right.
But at this point, what she has that Joe Biden doesn't have.
So the major problem that Joe Biden has is that any career politician who's running against Donald Trump, by definition, has to run on competence.
Right.
You know, like it's like, well, I'm the adult in the room.
He's this wild guy.
I've actually been doing this my whole life.
I'm the competent choice.
And it's hard to run on competence when you're shitting your pants.
Like when you're, yeah, when you're literally in the middle of like, when people are guessing what size depends you in.
It's hard to run on like, I'm the one who knows what I'm doing.
Facial expression and size at this point are an old man having an orgasm.
Dude, it's crazy.
It's crazy when you see, you ever see where they actually like a close-up of Joe Biden?
Like and you get like an HD close-up of him and you see like how like when it's on your television, you watch on a big screen, not just like on your phone, and you're like, oh, he is so old.
We've had so frail.
What literally looks like deathbed moments, which I sent you a video recently, but he honestly, what I remember of my grandfather towards the end, where he'd wake up and maybe get a sentence out, that's what it felt like.
Yeah.
So that, yeah, anybody's going to be a stronger candidate than him.
I mean, I don't know, you know, how, I don't know exactly what the excuse is going to be, but they are going to try their best to just not have Joe Biden in any unscripted moments throughout this campaign.
They're going to try to have him giving pre-recorded speeches that they can edit up, that they can, you know, if he has any of those moments, they can edit them out.
They're not going to want him to go to debates.
And look, I mean, they were very nervous about this last time, and there has been a significant decline in Joe Biden since 2020.
So I don't know how they think they're going to play this over the next year, but it's going to be very tough for them.
Yes, Hillary Clinton can at least still come and do her unlikable Hillary Clinton thing.
It doesn't look like she's lost a step at that.
I was saying this as a joke on Run Your Mouth, but isn't it almost surprising that with the resources that the United States government has, that they can't make him not look like, why doesn't he have bionic legs?
Or why don't they have some sort of a system to get him up a staircase with fake legs that you wouldn't know?
You know what I mean?
You would think the most technologically advanced country ever with all the resources in the world could at least make it seem like the guy in charge is still competent and can still walk.
You know what I mean?
You would think it would be a reality.
We can do a lot.
We can do a lot, Rob, but we're still not there.
You know what?
It's almost like they get him around with a third base coach system of a guy with like signals and shit off camera telling him where to go.
And you're like, you guys can't give him up with something a little bit more sophisticated.
Yeah, it is truly bizarre.
You would think.
You would think they'd be able to.
Honestly, you would think they just had someone better.
You would just think they have someone else who they could offer.
And it really seems like they don't.
All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is YoDelta.
Go check them out at yo delta.com, the official Delta 8 sponsor of the Gas Digital Network.
They have gummies and vapes for all your getting stoned needs.
I will tell you, everyone at Gas Digital swears by them.
Go check him out, yodelta.com and use the promo code gas.
That'll get you 25% off your entire order.
YoDelta.com, promo code GAS.
All right, let's get back into the show.
I think we got to play the ESPN video of the lady on Bill Maher.
Okay, sure.
And then I said, oh, oh, so you were a receiver?
And he started to explain it.
And here's the saddest thing.
His voice just trailed off.
He said, I was good.
And then he went.
Silent and he goes, oh, never mind.
No, you're laughing.
I thought it was so sad because I realized that's why he was in his basement during the whole election cycle.
Because even then, he couldn't finish his sentences.
He struggled.
So forget about politics.
I don't care.
I didn't vote for him.
However, that made me sad to vote for him.
So you didn't vote for Biden either?
No.
Wow.
No.
And that's okay.
I still love you.
Okay.
Thank you.
And also.
No, no, no.
Hell no.
I didn't vote for Biden.
And look, look, even with the choice being Trump.
Yes.
But see, that's A, B, C, D, E. That's just the E. You got to accept the E.
It's okay.
It is.
I will never really understand it or him or half the country.
But you know what?
I love people who have crazy E's.
So for the context here, she's talking about her interviewing Joe Biden or speaking with Joe Biden.
She had an interview with Biden during the last campaign.
And now that she's off camera, she's letting you know that it was very apparent.
I mean, she's literally doing your joke that, oh, I feel bad for him because it seems like he doesn't want a president today.
Yeah.
So that, yeah, that is something.
It's weird how it's weird how much Bill Maher, even when he has some common sense on some issues, is so just trapped in the thing that he's like just dealing with facing, it's a real emperor has no clothes type situation where you just can't admit to yourself that this is true when it's so obvious.
It's right in front of your face.
That Trump is so bad that the Democratic Party putting up a person who clearly has dementia to run the country is still better.
You're still not rooting for the bad team when they got the guy with dementia who's just representing the war state.
That's not, that's not the bad team.
That's still the better of the two teams.
Well, and the fact that, you know, there's this kind of tacit admission.
Like, okay, so you know the clip that we always love playing, the Chuck Schumer saying when you go up against the intelligence agencies, they have six way to Sunday to get back at you.
And you're like, so you just admitted we don't live in a democracy.
Right.
Like, that's what you just admitted.
And no one in the room heard that.
Like, you didn't hear yourself say that out loud.
And Rachel Maddow didn't hear you say that out loud.
You literally just said, we don't actually live in a democracy because even though this guy is the president-elect, he can't say whatever he wants to about his own intelligence agencies or they will get back at him.
Like, well, what's that?
It's not democracy, you know?
And like, there's something about this with the Biden admission, too.
It's like, it's more than just, and again, I'm talking about from your perspective, Bill Maher.
It's like, well, then that means, look, Joe Biden's not running the government.
So who's running the government?
And we really don't know.
I don't know.
I wonder sometimes.
Like, you know, is it the director of national intelligence?
Is it his chief of staff?
Is it his State Department?
You know, like, who is actually running?
You know, when Joe Biden will come out and say something stupid, like, he'll just be like, you know, he'll just be like, you know, Vladimir Putin needs to be overthrown.
And then later that day, there's like a memo from the White House put out and they're like, the White House's position has not changed on this.
And you're like, so who's the White House?
Who's the White House?
I thought Joe Biden was the White House, right?
You're like, well, it's clearly not him.
Somebody else is.
So you're like, but then when you're putting up dementia patients, the admission is that this is not a democracy because the person who the American people voted for is not running the government.
Who is?
None of us really know.
Somebody at the White House knows.
Who Is Actually Running The White House00:00:37
Be nice to meet that guy.
Sure would and be like, hey, you're terrible at your job.
It's nice to put a face to the name, but you're really bad at this.
Before we call in an episode, and I know we like to keep it classy on part of the problem.
We do.
But could we do a contest where you can get the best fart out of this couch?
Who can get us the best fart out of it?
Yeah, every time I've sat down again over the episode, it's gotten like a good.