Dave Smith and Rob Bernstein dissect Vivek Ramaswamy's debate performance, contrasting his anti-war Ukraine stance with his pro-Netanyahu Israel comments. They critique GOP candidates for ignoring intelligence failures regarding freelance journalists embedded with Hamas during October 7th, despite Mossad's reputation. The hosts question the lack of political will to investigate these discrepancies while pushing for war against Iran without evidence, suggesting a dangerous disconnect between moral consistency and electoral strategy in current Republican leadership. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Rolling Back The State00:12:51
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.
What's up, everybody?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
I am Dave Smith.
He is Roberto Elfiro, El Fuego Bernstein.
I don't know if any of that was legit Spanish.
He's Rob Bernstein.
What's up, brother?
How are you?
I'm excited to be in DC and give these people a little peace of my mind.
I'm going to fix this.
Well, we're not.
We're going to Arlington.
You got to pass through DC.
Oh, that's true.
So on our way down there, we'll scream out things about Biden being senile or something like that.
Maybe we'll stop by.
I was going to make a capital joke, but you know what?
Let's not.
Let's not.
We will be no part.
Try and take the free tour.
Yeah, we're going to be no part of any of that for the record.
We'll just be passing through.
We're going to do a stand-up comedy show at the Arlington Draft House in Arlington, Virginia.
Come on out if you guys are in the area.
It's going to be a fun time.
Looking forward to it.
If you're a Palestinian, you're allowed to climb the fence and you don't get in any trouble whatsoever.
And we've done enough content here supporting the Palestinian people.
So we're allowed to climb some fences.
If you're a Palestinian, go into the building.
If you're a Palestinian, you can break through the fence to the Capitol.
Don't break through the fence to Israel.
That will cause a lot of problems.
But our fences, no problem at all.
Anyway, okay, yeah, so come check us out at the Arlington draft house.
There are a few things that I want to talk about as we're recording this episode the night before we leave for Arlington.
We're headed out early in the morning to avoid that DC traffic.
There was a presidential debate last night.
Did you watch it, Rob?
Or did you see the clips?
Or did you actually sit through the whole thing?
I think I watched the first hour.
I enjoyed Vivek getting after him.
He had a nice performance.
Yes, it was, I don't know.
All of these debates so far have been kind of ridiculous.
It's not just like the frontrunner isn't there.
It's the frontrunner by the biggest margin that I remember a frontrunner in a primary.
I mean, I'm trying to go back and there was, you know, even when Hillary Clinton was off to her big lead in 2008, it was never like this, I don't think.
This is a unique situation.
I don't think since we've been alive, there certainly there hasn't been a one-term president who was coming back and running again.
Certainly not in the circumstance.
That hasn't happened at all.
But on top of that, the circumstances where he claims he never rightfully lost and a whole lot of his supporters believe him.
And here he is just the dominant, dominant frontrunner.
And in addition to that, he's like the most famous person in the world.
And no matter how you feel about the guy, you got to admit, the most entertaining politician in the world.
And so, and he's just not there.
So it's just the rest of the guys.
Last night's debate did actually have some interesting moments, as you kind of alluded to.
They were all because of Vivek Ramaswamy.
Every interesting moment was because of Vivek.
No matter where you stand on the issues, I just think it's impossible to deny that this was an overwhelming victory for Vivek Ramaswamy.
He was the only one who separated himself from the other candidates.
He did it both stylistically and in substance.
He had the biggest moments of the debate.
He was creating all of the like kind of interesting things.
And everybody else, it really was something.
It's like he, Vivek Ramaswamy seems like he was speaking to the Trump audience.
And it seems like everybody else was speaking to the donor base.
And something like what, I don't know, like the Republicans of 2012 or something like that.
It's just very bizarre.
But the other thing is that they just, and this is an issue.
They, like, they would knock each other a little bit.
A couple of times, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis went back and forth.
It'd be like, I was tougher on China.
No, you were tougher on, or, you know, I was tougher on China.
No, I was tougher on China.
No, you know, but there was no separation there.
They all had the exact same answers on every single topic.
Vivek was the only one who had something different to say.
And so I thought it was a clear victory for him.
I thought everybody else just, everybody else to me was just reminding you why there's no chance they're going to win this race.
DeSantis, whatever it is, he does not have it.
Just even, and by the way, this wasn't one of his worst debate performances.
He did somewhat better in this one and still just, it just doesn't work.
Just doesn't work for him.
Nikki Haley is a demon sent from hell.
The rest of them, Scott is just awful.
Yeah.
And Chris Christie is obviously just a, you know, a big fat buffoon.
Any other thoughts, Rob?
Well, Scott really feels like he's there to be the Republican token black guy and that they need one guy to be up there to go, no, no, no, there's some black people in the party.
They're here.
They're totally here.
Yeah.
Didn't have anything compelling to say.
Chris Christie, I can't even believe his commitment to war talking points in terms of whatever paycheck he gets and whoever he really works for.
The fact that he's still up there selling that the Ukraine war is noble just and needs to happen.
Yeah, yeah.
We need like it's over.
And he's still there in the fourth quarter giving a hoorah speech of no, we need to be backing and fighting this war.
You know what he reminds me of?
He reminds me of, do you ever see like there were these people who would swear there were weapons of mass destruction like three, four years after Bush and Cheney had given up on it?
They're still going for it.
Like nobody told me they're not even doing like, dude, they're not even spewing this propaganda anymore.
Even the guys themselves, and they're like, no, we did find weapons of mass destruction because we found this one stockpile.
And then if you actually look into the details of it, it's like, oh, yeah, no, we found the old weapons that we had sold Saddam Hussein in 1980 that were like defunct at this point.
You know what I mean?
And you're like, oh yeah, if they really found weapons of mass destruction, how come Bush isn't bringing this up?
How come Cheney's not bringing it up?
Like even they've abandoned this and yet you're still on this.
And so yeah, that was just, but sometimes it feels like in these presidential debates, there are people running who obviously know they can't win.
But then there are like, let's say there are, there are people who are running who they know can't, who they probably know can't win.
Look, I would put probably Ron Paul on, and maybe in 2012 thought he had an outside shot, but in 2008, certainly kind of knew he couldn't win.
The Libertarian Party in general always knows they can't win.
They may not admit that.
Maybe some of them are delusional enough to think they can, but they know they can't win.
But they're running for a different reason.
They're running to make a point.
They're running to raise, to raise the profile on certain issues that they think are important issues.
But people like Chris Christie, right?
He's not running to win.
He knows he can't win.
So what is he running to do?
He's also running to make a point.
But what's the point that he's running to make?
More war.
Well, he's just repeating everything that's already on the corporate press.
So it's not as if it's some unique.
The point Chris Christie is trying to make is like, hey, everyone in the establishment, this guy's here to play ball.
Just so you know, just keep me in mind.
You know, like, you got any openings?
You got anything?
Because like I'm here and I'll say whatever.
Like, that's the point.
The point is, I'll say whatever you would like me to say.
I will come out here and repeat it.
Even after your bullshit's been completely discredited, I'll continue repeating that shit.
So that's essentially where Chris Christie is.
All right.
So let's get into some of the clips here.
Like we said, it's all the whole interesting stuff is all Vivek.
He had some really excellent moments in the debate.
By the way, I saw some people on my Twitter saying that I must have coached him through this debate because he was just on the podcast the day before the debate.
That is not true.
I did not speak.
Me and Vivek did not speak at all this time off air.
So everything, every conversation we had, you heard.
He gets the credit for some of this.
He's a crafty fellow.
I love that he keeps coming on the podcast, been great episodes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, me, me too.
And hopefully we'll do it again.
Look, I mean, I said to, I said to RFK and I said to Vivek, and I said to Michael Rechtenwald, those are the three presidential candidates.
Obviously, I'm supporting Rechtenwald.
But those are the three presidential candidates who I've literally said to, I go, you have an open invite.
Anytime throughout the campaign, you want to come on the show, you let me know and you come on the show.
And Vivek actually, and I'm sure Rechtenwald will be back on, but Vivek has actually like taken me up on it several times.
So I was like, yeah, 100%.
Let's do it.
We wanted to, his people reached out.
They wanted to do another live one in the studio.
But I guess the timing of like when he was in New York, we were gone.
And then like the day we got back, he had to leave the city.
So we ended up doing it virtual.
But I hope to have him back on.
I find them to be interesting conversations.
I'd be happy to have RFK back on.
I'm not sure that one's going to happen.
Our last conversation on the phone, it didn't go bad or nothing like that, but it just we spoke on the phone a few weeks ago and I kind of told him what I thought about his Israel policy.
And he didn't, it didn't seem to go over that well.
But anyway, but open door to him.
I'd be happy.
I'd love, and obviously, like none of them are going to come do it, but like I'd have Trump on the podcast.
I've had Biden on the podcast.
I'd have any of these guys.
I'd have Nikki Haley.
I'd have any.
So any of the presidents.
That'd be great.
Oh my God.
Like kindergarten, throw it on a mat and we could just film me and Biden napping.
I love it.
Have some ice cream Sundays.
I don't even eat dairy.
If Biden comes in, I'll eat ice cream with him.
We could set it up so good too.
We could be like, now listen, Joe, you could either answer these hard-hitting questions coming from me or you go take a nap with Rob here on the Florida.
You tell me, you look inside yourself and you tell me which one you really want to do.
I'll wear a wig and let him sniff it.
I'll make him feel comfortable.
Oh, there you go.
But anyway, yeah, I find all of this kind of fascinating that we've, we're in this new fucking media landscape and that we have a big enough platform that presidential candidates see deem it worth their time to come on.
And I find all this stuff very interesting.
So I'm happy to have them on.
I'm more particularly interested to talk to the candidates who I think are more interesting.
But at the same time, I would really love to get like, man, Nikki Haley wanted to come on the show.
I'd be so down to do that.
It'd probably be a bit of a different tone than the Vivek podcasts.
So I love Vivek.
He doesn't play by the rules, which works, which he goes, he just shifts it and goes, I'm going to talk about this.
But I particularly love the Nikki Haley, Vivek dynamic.
Well, we're going to play some of that.
So yeah, it was very, there is something.
There's no question that they really don't like each other.
We'll get into some of the clips there too.
And I got to, look, I don't know.
You can never read into another man's soul.
And my baseline is I don't trust any of these politicians, but I don't see like Nikki Haley hates Vivek because of the way he's coming at her.
Why does Vivek hate Nikki Haley?
It seems to me just because he thinks she is that much of like a self-interested war hawk who's made herself rich off this shit.
It seems to me like that's the only reason why he would hate her, like he would hate her the way he does.
And he goes at her a lot.
Anyway, we'll get into some of that.
Why Vivek Hates Nikki Haley00:11:52
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All right, let's get back on the show.
Let's play the first clip.
Why should you be the nominee and not the former president?
I think there's something deeper going on in the Republican Party here, and I am upset about what happened last night.
We become a party of losers at the end of the day.
We're cancer in the Republican establishment.
Let's speak the truth.
I mean, since Rona McDaniel took over as chairwoman of the RMC in 2017, we have lost 2018, 2020, 2022, no red wave that never came.
We got trounced last night in 2023.
And I think that we have to have accountability in our party.
For that matter, Ron, if you want to come on stage tonight, you want to look the GOP voters in the eye and tell them you resign, I will turn over my yield my time to you.
And frankly, look, the people there cheering for losing in the Republican Party.
Think about who's moderating this debate.
This should be Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, and Elon Musk.
We'd have 10 times the viewership asking questions that GOP primary voters actually care about and bring in more people into our party.
You think the Democrats, and we've got Christy Walker here.
Do you think that Democrats would actually hire Greg Gutfeld to host a Democratic debate?
They wouldn't do it.
And so the fact of the matter is, I mean, Christy, I'm going to use this time because this is actually about you in the media and the corrupt media establishment asking the Trump-Russia collusion hoax that you pushed on this network for years.
Was that real or was that Hillary Clinton made up disinformation?
Answer the question.
Go.
Mr. Roberts.
This is how we get our country back.
We need accountability because this media rigged the 2016 election.
They rigged the 2020 election with a Hunter Biden laptop story.
And they're going to rig this election accountability.
Let me turn to Governor Christie.
Why are you...
Okay.
So that was powerful.
That's how you open a goddamn debate.
You know, I always wondered sometimes, you know, when they have these things in the debates where they'll start sometimes with like, okay, you have a two-minute opening.
Sometimes they'll give you a two-minute or a one-minute closing or something like that.
And they always kind of like just kind of fumble through it or have, you know, some whatever just generic thing.
Grandpa was harvesting corn.
Yes.
Grandma.
I mean, literally shit like that.
You know, I was out on the campaign trail and I met a woman named Jane and Jane's been struggling and blah, blah, blah.
And you're almost like, how do you have like, say, like a multi-million dollar operation and that operation has to come up with two minutes?
And it's not just the most powerful two minutes.
You know what I mean?
And so it's interesting.
Like, like, I appreciate this, but it almost makes you go like, how do they all not have something like this?
Anyway, there's a lot to unpack there in what he said.
And that's, that's what makes it such a great like opening statement is he hit on several things that were all hugely important points.
By the way, one thing that's not a hugely important point, but it's the first thing in my head that I just feel like I want to say is, you know, they used to have a thing in the debates.
They do it different ways where like there would be like a little like bell or something when your time's up, you know, a little like ding ding.
And then they let you kind of, you know, maybe go five seconds over and close out your point and then move on.
If you kept going and didn't stop, then they'd interrupt you.
But I just think the format, it's so dishonest and shitty that I'm just going to cut you off when it's time and then just talk over you so your last few words just don't like resonate as much.
Anyway, that just sucks.
So let's go through some of the things he said there because he's, he's absolutely right about all of it.
First off, there's the point about losing.
And this is something that Republicans really gotta got to deal with.
And it's really pretty incredible when you think about it that you have a situation where the Democrats are such a disaster.
And it's pretty undeniable.
I mean, if you look at the polling on are we on the right track or the wrong track, I think we're breaking records for the amount of people who think we're on the wrong track.
People have just been absolutely wiped out by COVID policies and inflation over the last few years, which were all like the Democrats, you know.
I mean, obviously a lot of Republicans were responsible for COVID stuff too, but the Democrats certainly were cheerleading it to a different degree.
The face of the Democratic Party is a senile, corrupt, old kid sniffer.
And yet you're still losing elections.
Like the fact that there wasn't a red wave, the fact that the Republicans took losses in this last election.
Like if you're battling that and losing, that's a big wake-up call.
You know what I mean?
Like, whoa, what is going on here?
And he is right that whoever has been the head of the RNC through 2020, 2022 and 2023, they should be gone.
If your job is to help the Republicans win elections and you've got the most fertile ground ever and you still can't get it together, you should be gone.
Now, I don't think this Rona chick, I don't think she's responsible for it.
I think it's much deeper things than that.
But I don't know exactly what the answer is to that.
Like, why are the Republicans doing so bad despite the Democrats being in charge and being so awful?
Now, people are speculating.
I hear the big talking point is that it's all because of abortion.
I'm not sure that that's right.
Maybe.
Maybe that is part of it.
But that is, it's pretty crazy that he opens with that where it's like, how you almost like, once he says it, you're like, yeah, how is that not the entire topic?
Now, I'm not a Republican.
I don't give a shit.
But I'm just saying, how is that not the entire topic of Republican discourse?
You know?
And I thought the point that he made of why are we doing this here?
Well, that's you hosting it really just puts it right into focus of, yeah, this kind of is a losing game.
Why wouldn't we be doing something that's more Republican focused?
We're supposed to be the Republican team.
He couldn't have picked a better example to just showcase the losing attitude.
Yeah.
Well, I think that was that's an interesting, you know, look, I've said for many, many years that essentially I think politics is professional wrestling and the Democrats are the good guys and Republicans are the bad guys.
What do they call it?
The Democrats are the babyface and Republicans are the heels.
And so the job is for Republicans to go out there and get pinned.
And they kind of, they play that role.
But you see where they're playing a losing game.
And I think that's the point he's getting at here, which, and it's totally true.
Like I love the example he gives where he goes like, he's like, hey, we could have all these independent people, you know, Rogan and Musk.
And now I don't know that Rogan would be down to do that.
Musk, I think probably would.
And yeah, it would be a much bigger thing.
There's just no question about that.
And it would be outside of this insane, you know, NBC news lens that NBC is going to insist on putting on it.
But the point that he makes where he's like, look, the Democrats would never just do a debate hosted by Greg Gutfeld.
So the fuck am I doing a debate hosted by Kristen Walker?
That was such a great point.
You know, I struggle to even, usually I'm able to like steel man the opposition's argument.
I struggle to even see what the argument against that is.
Why would you?
Why would you have a debate on those terms?
I mean, like what give me the comparison of who Democrats would ever allow to host a debate that's as that is as anti-Democrat as MSNBC is anti-Republican.
It's like letting Sean Hannity host the Democrats debate.
It's insane.
It would never happen.
Unless you're not playing, you're just trying to showcase more deep state propaganda.
And so you're trying to come up with the most professional setting to try and highlight those talking points.
Oh, that's right.
And you're not ready for a character like Vivek who's not supposed to be there.
Like if it's working properly, that guy's not there.
And then these guys get to look like, oh, these are the adults in the room.
Yes, I think that's, I think, I think that's kind of it.
However, then him pivoting toward just like the corruption of the media and how wrong they have been on such important things.
I mean, he just brought, he brought up some low-hanging fruit, obviously, but it's low-hanging fruit for a reason.
But for him to just say, oh, what about the Russia collusion thing?
Where are you guys on that?
Where are you guys on the Hunter Biden laptop?
And then like actually challenge her to answer.
Of course, he knows she won't answer.
But I got to say, it's kind of, it is rewarding for from the perspective that we have of people who were calling that bullshit out in real time and to kind of be, you know,
we live in this world where they could actually say that Donald Trump, they could actually sit there and report every single day that the sitting president of the United States of America is involved in a conspiracy with a hostile foreign power and was and was put into power by this hostile foreign power and say it every day for years and years and years.
And then it all comes out that it's not true.
And not just not true, but that it was an intentionally cooked up lie.
And none of them even have to address it.
Thanking Our Sponsor Prize Picks00:02:01
It was nice at least to hear someone blast them to their face about that.
So anyway, very strong opening for Vivek.
We're not going to play all of their openings or any of the other ones, but I'll just say all the other ones were just boring, generic, you know, Joe Biden's losing and I'm going to win.
We're going to bring back jobs.
We're going to get tough on China.
We're going to blah, And then he actually had this like really interesting opening statement.
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Okay, let's go to the next clip.
TikTok Bans And Orthodox Anger00:07:55
Swami, are you persuaded by President Zelensky's urgent new plea?
Where do you stand on more fun?
I'm absolutely unpersuaded.
And I'm actually enjoying watching the Ukraine Hawks quietly, delicately tiptoe back from their position as this thing has unwound into a disaster.
The first half of this race, I was the only person standing for it.
Now they're actually quietly coming around to being more cautious as they should.
Level with the American people here.
Ukraine is not a paragon of democracy.
This is a country that has banned 11 opposition parties.
It has consolidated all media into one state TV media arm.
That's not democratic.
It has threatened not to hold elections this year unless the U.S. forks over more money.
That is not democratic.
It has celebrated a Nazi in its ranks, the comedian in Cargo Pants, a man called Zelensky, doing it in their own ranks.
That is not democratic.
More facts for you that you won't hear from the mainstream in either party or the mainstream media.
The regions of Ukraine that are occupied by Russia right now in the Donbas, Luhansk, Donetsk, these are Russian-speaking regions that have not even been part of Ukraine since 2014, that other people probably couldn't name those provinces for you.
Those are the hard facts.
And so to frame this as some kind of battle between good versus evil, don't buy it.
And I'd like the likes of the sharpest of the Warhawks on Ukraine, Nikki Haley, to have some accountability and answer.
Do you want to use U.S. taxpayer money to fund the banning of Christians?
That is actually what's happening.
They're using the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
They have banned them.
The Ukrainian parliament just did this last week, supported by our dollars.
And I think you owe it to the American people, Nikki, to at least this.
Mr. Ramasami, thank you that's time.
At least they're banning of Christians.
Mr. Ramasami, thank you.
Mr. Ramaswamy, thank you.
We asked the question.
Ambassador Maley, what is your take on more funding for Ukraine?
So by the way, Nikki Haley goes on to just call them a democracy after that and doesn't address any of the points that Vivek made.
Look, that again, gotta say, just an excellent, an excellent answer.
And credit to Vivek, he's been good on this since before everyone was turning against this war.
So yeah, anyway, your thoughts, Rob.
Well, firstly, it's great just to hear these talking points and everyone's standing there going, ah shit, he's not supposed to be bringing this up right now.
We have no way to address this.
This is all true.
It's just not supposed to be said.
But what I really just, I love the Vivek dynamic with Nikki Haley, where it feels to me like in Kaddyshack with Rodney Dangerfield and she's looking at him like the rich people are also looking at Rodney Dangerfield of like, why is this guy here?
He's not supposed to be in the club.
And so she's standing up there.
She looks all pretty.
She looks like she's dolled up to go play tennis and he's getting after her and just saying, you're lying to everybody.
You're making money off the deep state.
You're working the Warhawk stuff.
And here's the actual real hard facts.
And she's just got to roll her eyes and go, who let this brown guy in here?
Why do I have to debate this?
This isn't supposed to be a part of the show.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, look, I mean, he's look, there's a lot of ways you could go about talking about the war on Ukraine.
There's a lot of different angles.
And I think I've probably taken all of them over the last few years.
But this was a powerful one to just be like the idea that these guys, that this government are just the good guys.
And we're supposed to just unquestionably accept that as an a priori given.
And then we'll figure out what we do from there is all just wrong.
And that in fact, it's an incredibly authoritarian country.
They are not democratic by any, in any real sense of the word.
I mean, they had their democratically elected governor in nine years ago was overthrown by a violent coup.
And they have, you know, said that they're not planning on holding elections.
They're not democratic.
They have a state-run media.
And his point about banning the East Orthodox Church is correct.
So, you know, like, I don't know what you can say to that.
What is anyone going to even argue back?
So then everybody else just goes, well, no, they're the good guys and Russia's the bad guys.
But anyway, another excellent, just an excellent point by Vivek.
Really, really did a great job on that on that answer.
Okay.
Let's go to the next, the next clip.
In the last debate, she made fun of me for actually joining TikTok while her own daughter was actually using the app for a long time.
So you might want to take care of your family first.
Leave my conversation.
The next generation of Americans are using it.
And that's actually the point.
You have her supporters cropping her up.
That's fine.
Here's the truth.
The easy answer is actually the last debate she made in fun of me.
So she says that's where it got the most heated where she called him scum after saying, keep my daughter out of your voice or something.
She didn't, I don't know.
She got too angry to actually say it the right way.
But look, the point, Vivek also earlier in it called her out for saying that she was, she was broke when she left the United Nations and that then she went to work for Boeing and one of these other companies.
And then she's a millionaire now, which is, you know, hey, he's not wrong.
But look, when she's the fact that she gets so angry there, it's like she, I think she kind of missed the point that he was making is that he, she was giving him shit for being on TikTok because, of course, and this is an issue that Vivek is not so great on is he's a China hawk, just like the rest of them.
But she's like, hey, we're all China hawks here.
And you're on this, you know, this app that's owned by the Chinese.
And that's not being very China hawkish, is it?
So what are you doing there?
You know, she was making fun of him.
And he wasn't, he wasn't like trashing her daughter.
He was making the point that he's like, no, even your daughter is on TikTok.
And that like, well, that's how I have to reach this next generation.
So you have to be on there to like talk to them, which I think is a totally reasonable, fair point to make.
It's like, yeah, well, how else?
That's, we want to talk to young people, right?
Well, this is where they are, like it or not.
So anyway, but her calling him scum really just let you know like how much he is getting under her skin, which I will confess I enjoy very much.
Well, she's, she's getting completely owned because he just actually went on the offensive of, hey, you are the deep state war machine.
You're exactly what we're complaining about of people pushing for these wars so that they can make money.
And this really does remind me of when Trump just took down the entire Republican field, where if Trump hadn't been there, you know, a guy like Jeb Bush probably could have made a decent run at it.
In a typical field, if it was just the three of them, Nikki Haley, she's got the female thing, which is a win.
She's very pretty.
She's very articulate.
She's got all the, hey, I've got the professional credentials.
She wins.
But all of a sudden, you throw an honest person up there that actually represents honesty and puts out real information and it just doesn't work.
It folds.
And she's up there and she's like, I'm not supposed to be playing this game.
I'm supposed to be playing a game where there's three options and I'm the best of the same three options because that guy's fat and this person's boring.
I just look better than the two of them.
And she knows it.
She's literally dealing with the reality, which is, oh, I was not supposed to be playing this game.
I was supposed to be playing a different game where it's only people like me who are on the stage who are all representing special interest.
Hiding Behind Non-Interventionism00:10:06
Yep.
Yep.
No, I think that's exactly right.
And look, like you're as you're alluding to, if Vivek wasn't on this stage here, that is the game.
That is the game.
And then it all of a sudden becomes, I don't know.
I mean, look, Tim Scott isn't a real candidate.
Chris Christie isn't a real candidate.
Really, it's Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis if Vivek isn't there.
And then exactly.
He's working your heels on her.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, they're probably about tied, but then you sit there and you go, oh, okay, we're both saying the same things.
But look, he's a little bit camera shy and he's not that good.
and I'm like better looking and I like deliver it better.
So me, pick me.
And that's kind of what it was.
Look, what was the choice really between, if you look back at, say, like, what was the choice between John McCain and Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee?
It was who delivers this better?
Who do you think is the best guy to say the same thing that we're all going to say to every single question?
That's what it always was.
And so like, I am, I'm grateful that Vivek was in these debates because at least then there's someone saying some of the things that we would like.
I will say that on the podcast and in these presidential debates, I just think Vivek's answers on the Israel, the Israel-Palestine war is just not good enough.
I think that he is, he's taking the non-interventionist position, which I do appreciate.
But it seems like when it came to the debate, he was almost trying to make an effort.
And this was the one area he was doing such a great job at separating himself on everything else, but it seems like he's just not willing to do it on this.
But if you actually listen to what he's saying, he is taking the non-interventionist position.
But in the debate, he did his best to make sure that he also sounded like everybody else while he took it, if that makes sense.
So let's play this next clip and I think you guys will see what I mean.
As president of the United States, what would you be urging Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to do at this moment?
I would be telling Bibi, finish the job once and for all with these butchers, Hamas.
They're terrorists.
They're massacring innocent people.
They would wipe every Jew off the globe if they could.
He cannot live with that threat right by his country.
That Hamas should release every hostage and they should unconditionally surrender.
The first thing I said to him when it happened was I said, finish them.
Finish them.
And the reason is I worked on this every day when I was at the United Nations.
And we have to remember that they have to, one, eliminate Hamas, two, support Israel with whatever they need whenever they need it.
And three, make sure we bring our hostages home.
The founding vision of Israel was based on the idea that they don't want to depend on anybody else's sympathy or direction in defending themselves.
So what I would tell Bibi is that Israel has the right and the responsibility to defend itself.
I would tell him to smoke those terrorists on his southern border.
And then I'll tell him as president of the United States, I'll be smoking the terrorists on our southern border.
You can kind of tell what he's doing is he's like, look, I'm technically taking the non-interventionist point.
I'm saying, you smoke those terrorists, I'll smoke these terrorists.
But he's also trying his best to sound like everybody else.
I would just say to Vivek, this would be my advice.
When people were speculating whether I gave him debate advice or not, I did not.
But this would be my advice to him that I'll make quite publicly.
I'll say, look, when you're this far out of the national security apparatus consensus, when you're already calling other people out for making money from the military-industrial complex, when you're already calling out what a sham the whole war in Ukraine was, let me break this to you.
You're not going to win back any of that support.
Those people who need you to toe the line of the military-industrial complex are not going to support you anyway.
So you might as well just tell the truth.
Okay.
You might as well, at a certain point, The principle in marketing, which is called product differentiation, is more valuable to you than this, like, I don't want to be opposed by, I don't know, by the Israeli lobby or something like that.
Guess what?
They're not going to support you.
You're not going to be their guy.
So it doesn't matter.
And you might as well just separate yourself from this insanity.
Because look, I mean, Jesus Christ, like you just think about what Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis there.
And then, of course, Tim Scott and Chris Christie, by the way, they both echoed the exact same statements.
Take them out.
Whatever needs to be done, we will give you whatever you need whenever you need it.
So we are all in on what?
What exactly?
No, they're not clear about that.
What actually needs to be done?
So in the last couple of weeks, how many people have died?
Reports say 10,000, maybe more than that.
Who knows?
How many of them?
How many of them do you need to kill?
We're all in.
Whatever you need, whenever you need it, whatever you want to do, Israel, that's our position.
That's what all of the Republican establishment types are saying.
And I'm sorry.
It is sickening.
It's sickening.
You're talking about actions that have killed as horrific as what happened on October 7th was.
You're talking about actions that have already eclipsed that in terms of innocent people dying.
And you're saying, clearly you're saying that's not enough.
We need more, right?
So how much more?
And it's amazing how like when the war fever first breaks out, when people are like talking like this, none of them need to be specific at all.
None of them need to say, like, well, like, you know, how many innocent people need to die before you would question this?
How much money do they get before we would question this?
What?
Just whatever.
Go do it all.
And I think, I think it's a real, it's, it's a, I think it's a big mistake, both morally and strategically for Vivek to just say, yeah, my, my advice to you would be to go smoke those terrorists.
By the way, none of us would have a problem.
None of us would have a problem if that's all Israel was doing was smoking terrorists.
That'd be fine.
I'm a little bit concerned about the smoking the children, you know?
Like that, that to me is a bit of a bit of a moral problem.
Yeah, his position is essentially, listen, I'll let you guys go bomb those buildings, just not with our money.
Yeah.
Where I think what you might be missing is perhaps this helps him in his auditioning for the VP role and that opposing all the other stuff is more in line with Donald Trump's policy, whereas to actually criticize and shed light on the grim reality of what Israel's doing right now might prohibit him from like, you know, being chose for a VP or cabinet position.
Yeah, I guess maybe I just don't understand why does Vivek even want the VP position?
I think that sets him up very, because Trump is only a one-term president.
Yeah, I guess you're right.
That makes him frontrunner in the next election.
It's a very good idea.
If he really wants to be president, that's a, firstly, he might feel that he can actually influence policy.
Take it or leave it.
I think that's more of a, that, I think that's just more of a VP puts you as the frontrunner.
So you can't possibly win it in this one.
Yeah.
I guess, I guess you're right.
I guess there's, there's a point to that.
But goddamn.
Yeah.
I just wish you would like just kind of tell the truth on this issue more.
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All right, let's get back into the show.
You know I pushed him on this a little bit when he was on the podcast um, but he does.
CNN Pictures From Gaza00:12:07
He in a sense, I think what Vivek is doing is hiding behind the non-interventionist kind of thing, because he'll go like i'll be like yeah, but can't we at least like say hey, it's pretty horrible that so many innocent people in Gaza are dying?
I mean, we have no problem saying it's horrible, that's that what Hamas did, right.
So can't we also say this is horrible?
And he's like, well, that's not my position, i'm the president of the United States, i'm running for president of the United States, not for president of Israel or not for president of Gaza or whatever.
And you're like yeah, but you have no problem saying it's horrible what Hamas did.
So why can't we also say this like, why can't?
Why is it that we have to avoid this topic?
But I think you're probably right is that his calculation is that this is just this will just piss too many people off.
Who I need?
And I guess the other thing is, it's not just like the Israeli lobby and stuff like that, it's also like the evangelical Christian voting block and things.
You know, i'm sure there's other considerations there too.
But you know me, i'm just a, i'm a stickler for what's right so uh, so that's, that's disappointing.
Um anyway, those were the highlights, mainly from the debate.
There is what, speaking of this topic of um, the war in uh, in Gaza that's going on right now and all of this stuff there is, and I want to kind of like uh, preface what i'm saying right now with there's when, whenever wars break out, there is this tremendous fog, and so I don't want to like um, I i'm, I.
I don't want to give anyone the impression that i'm claiming any degree of certainty about any of this stuff, because I try my best, especially when you're opposing.
I always feel this pressure, like when you're opposing the current thing, to make sure you do your absolute best to get it right.
And so you try to only, you know, you try to not like speculate about things that might later turn out to not be true.
But I got to say, there is a lot about October 7th that doesn't make any sense.
And there's a lot about it that are just still unanswered questions.
And it's becoming stranger and stranger.
And I think it's like, it's almost one of those things where it would be irresponsible to not talk about at all.
So just today, the Minister of National Security for Israel, they made this statement about how the journalists that were embedded with Hamas will be treated like terrorists and dealt with as terrorists.
And this was making big waves on social media.
And now it's kind of coming out a lot that, yes, in fact, there were these freelance journalists, some associated with the AP, some associated with CNN, who were with Hamas on October 7th as all of this stuff was going down.
What I find so shocking about, I hadn't heard about this until you mentioned it literally just before we recorded, but I saw on Twitter the pictures of the journalists with the terrorists.
And that was like, I don't know, that was some out there Twitter stuff right there.
We were like, that seems really crazy that CNN or the AP could have potentially have been in the know about this incident.
And then how is it possible that they're in the know and Israel's not in the know?
So I would have thought that if journalists were there to take pictures and cover this incident, that would have been really wild and created more of a problem for Israel intelligence in terms of how they missed this.
Yes.
Now, in terms of both CNN and the AP, I can also understand that I can see how they can walk it back and go, like it's not definitive that CNN knew beforehand as much as that they have.
And I'm just working off the pictures.
It's a brand new topic.
I can understand how you are looking to have coverage.
The same as like the way the CIA works with contacts on the ground or whatever.
You're going to need to work with someone, I guess, if you're trying to get coverage of this stuff.
And so there could be someone who, you know, you kind of have a distant relationship with who's kind of tied in with them.
And so you get your leads from.
I kind of understand that.
And that doesn't make you working with terrorists or supporting terrorists as much as you're trying to cover the story and you got a guy who will give you the scoop or give you some sort of coverage.
And I guess that works for Hamas because they actually want to have the coverage of it, but they want to know that you're not leaking your stuff.
So it's like there's enough incentives that align there to not necessarily suggest to me that like CNN or the AP are specifically supporting Hamas or actually knew about this ahead of time.
But the fact that Israel's actually, I guess, acknowledging that does seem to accentuate the either intelligence failures or the more nefarious willful desire to have had a large incident that would give them right to go in.
Well, look, right, exactly.
So it doesn't at all prove that any of the journalists were in on it.
The journalists could have had a scoop.
They could have been said, hey, come here at this time.
There's going to be a big newsworthy event.
It's not following those people.
That's the question.
That's the fucking question.
That's everything they do.
That is what really is hard to not understand.
So how is it that these journalists are tipped off to this, but Israeli intelligence, supposedly the best intelligence in the world, did not know about this.
And this has been a big question.
And I'm sorry.
I mean, like, I know this is kind of, I know in these moments, you're kind of not allowed in some loose sense of the word to ask these questions, but the question has to be asked.
And this is something that we've been talking about since it happened.
How the hell did this happen?
How the hell did the most surveilled area in the world, which is Gaza, against the most supposedly prepared country in the world, which is Israel, which is the most prepared specifically for this threat?
Not like there's a whole bunch of different threats going on, but this specific threat with supposedly the best intelligence in the world, the Mossad, right?
Who even has dirt on American politicians, who just figures everything out, can steal nuclear secrets when they need to, can do all of this shit.
How is it that there were these journalists embedded there and you weren't able to figure this out?
And now you're saying you're going to hunt them down?
Now, there have been a whole bunch of like, at this point, firsthand reporting.
The gray zone has done a bunch on this about like airstrikes that were called in by Israelis that they were like, there's reports that there was a lot of people were killed in the crossfire between the IDF and Hamas.
And I don't know.
I don't know if that's true or that's not true.
I don't actually think that would necessarily make it that different of a story, depending on the details, I suppose.
But there have also been these pictures that have been released and a lot of people on social media have been talking about this.
And I've seen a lot of people like with military experience and some level of expertise talking about this.
But there are these pictures of like the way that homes were burned up and destroyed and the way that big, you know, the cars and everything like that.
And the official story is that Hamas came in with guns and grenades.
And I'll just say that some of the damage looks like this was not done by either guns or grenades.
That's all I'll say.
So what like one of the things that what part of what's so crazy about these GOP candidates all like sitting here going, finish the job, do whatever you need to do, is that none of us even exactly know what the fuck happened here.
And there seems to be no effort to even figure it out, to even figure it out.
You had in other clips that we didn't play you, you had GOP candidates calling for war with Iran.
We don't even know what happened here on this day.
No evidence has been provided that Iran was involved in this.
But they're just calling for war.
Well, they support Hamas.
They support Hamas.
So we have to go to war with them.
Like, what?
What exactly happened here?
And there's no political will and nobody, even Vivek is certainly not willing.
None of them are willing to stand up there and go, hey, we need like a real investigation into what happened here.
We need to actually understand it.
And that seems to be, to me, if you cared about truth or justice or morality or or just what's best for the country or anything like that, you'd be like, that's the first thing you'd demand, right?
First off, let's figure out what the hell happened.
Because all of this stuff to me just seems pretty shady.
And so I don't know.
We'll see.
Don't hold your breath.
I don't think those, the calls for that investigation are coming anytime soon.
Any other thoughts on that, Rob?
That's the most recent conspiracy talk.
So, you know, we'll have to see how that all plays out.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I think that's fair enough.
Like, I'm not, I'm not taking like a firm position on any of this.
I'm just saying that like there are a lot of things here that seem seem to not add up.
We'll say that.
Yeah, I actually, I think the of the complaints of why did the response time take so long, that I can wrap my head around where, you know, maybe you go, we're not really sure what the risk is yet.
We have to make sure that we have one strategic, you know, comeback fight.
We don't want to just lose more troops, not knowing what's happening.
I can understand how if there is an incident, you need some time, maybe not that much time.
I don't understand.
It was a lot of time, but yeah.
I don't understand all, like, I don't.
I don't understand all that, but I can at least wrap my head around it.
I can wrap my head around that almost a little bit more than the, you seem to have a wall there and people like watching it and stuff.
How does it, how does the, how does the incident, you know, take place?
Yeah.
No, I agree.
All right.
Look, we're going to wrap up there.
Come check me and Rob out.
Lindsey Graham.
We'll get, we'll get to that on the next episode.
All right.
All right.
We'll record one in Virginia.
So we'll get, we'll get to that on the next one.
All right.
Me and Rob will be in the Arlington Draft House in Arlington, Virginia tomorrow and Saturday.
Come on out and see us there.
And then we'll be all over the place.
Poughkeepsie, New York is the next one, the day after Thanksgiving.
And I got a lot of cool shit coming up over the next couple of weeks.
Check out Run Your Mouth.
I've been home cranking out three episodes a week.
They're an hour long, running through tons of topics.
So if you never checked it out, most recent episodes are on YouTube because we're in between strikes right now, which is nice relief.
There you go.
So go check it out.
Hell yeah.
Make sure.
If you guys love this show, make sure you go support Rob and check out Run Your Mouth.
I took a firm stance against Pickleball in this last episode.
This is the type of shit you get over there on Run Your Mouth.
These are the type of bold stances that Vivek is unwilling to take.