Dave Smith and Robbie the Fire Bernstein dissect Bill Maher's claims regarding Iran's nuclear timeline and the Abraham Accords, arguing they ignore Western support for Hamas. They critique Chris Cuomo's journalistic malpractice in covering his brother Andrew during the pandemic, contrasting it with Vivek Ramaswamy's "America First" stance against Nikki Haley. The hosts assert that Trump united 78% of Republicans compared to Haley's 8%, exposing double standards where selling men to war is divisive but supporting Israel is not, ultimately framing Biden as incompetent and Maher's narratives as propaganda. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Wild Show on Israel Recognition00:12:15
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.
What's up, everybody?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
I am Dave Smith.
He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein, king of the caulks.
COVID Jesus.
What's up, brother?
How are you feeling today?
Oh, I'm great.
We had a fun weekend in D.C.
And I got some Norwalk, Connecticut gigs this weekend, Jersey gigs, and then the shell at the end of the end of December.
Go to my website.
Very nice.
Robbie returns to New Hampshire.
Yeah, dude.
Fun time out in not technically DC, Arlington, Virginia, but pretty damn close to DC.
We had some good food out there, dude.
What was that?
What was the name of that restaurant we went to?
Really making us look like assholes, and that guy hooked it up.
Wait a minute, I could tell you the green pig, I think.
Yes.
Yes, I believe that was it.
The green pig.
Great.
If you're ever in Arlington, Virginia, they got a great brunch.
And we only went for brunch, but I'd imagine their dinner is really good, too.
Green Pig Bistro.
Scott, that's the guy who owns it.
He's a very nice guy.
Delicious.
Delicious food.
Okay, so tomorrow, by the way, when you're listening to this, it might be today or even yesterday, but I'm headed down to Florida to go do a debate on the Israel-Palestine war with Laura Loomer.
This got quite a reaction when it was announced yesterday on Twitter.
So I'm looking forward to this.
Should be fun.
I've been warned on Twitter to be prepared for this.
This might be a bit of a wild show.
We'll see.
I have no idea.
But either way, I'll be ready.
So that should be a lot of fun.
Let me know.
Please go check that out and then let me know how you feel.
And then I got some big podcasts coming up here in the next week.
So look out for that.
And Might 180 when she just like chains herself to the entrance, builds some wall, and then you got to start playing her game right out from the beginning.
That's great.
It's like she didn't hit wait.
She's going to be like, what happened?
Be like, Dave, had the debate go?
You go, she beat me.
And you're like, really?
And you go, she chained herself to me in my opening statement.
And I just didn't, I don't know.
It threw me for a loop.
I've never had this happen before.
We'll see.
Anything is possible.
I'm going to bring a master key.
So if anything is chained to me, I'll be able to unlock it.
Even Elon Musk took notice.
Elon Musk did comment about it.
So the debate is Zero Hedge is throwing it, which I was, you know, they approached me to do it.
They're starting this new debate series, and this is going to be the first one.
They approached me.
They had originally approached me saying they wanted me to debate that Destiny guy on Ukraine.
And I agreed.
I was like, yeah, sure.
I'd love to do it.
And especially because I really like Zero Hedge as a publication.
I think they, you know, they're wild.
They go down the rabbit hole for sure, but they're kind of at least one of the publications that will talk about a lot of the things that others dare not.
And they've always kind of, they've always been supportive of me.
I mean, back in the day, like it must have been like 2016, 2017 or something like that.
They were like, when I was on SE Cup show, they would like run some of the viral clips that I had for there and then really get those clips viral.
So they were always kind of like supportive of me.
I like the publication.
They're launching this debate series.
They asked me to be a part of the first one.
And so I was like, yeah, okay, absolutely.
Let's do it.
And so they, this was months ago that they had, they had asked me to debate the Destiny guy on Ukraine.
And I was like, okay, let's do it.
And then just more recently, like a few weeks ago, they were like, hey, we'd really rather you do an Israel debate, which totally makes sense.
You know what I mean?
Like going and doing the Ukraine debate.
Now, I've done several of the Ukraine debates, but like to go do that now just seems a little, you know, kind of odd.
The war's over.
We moved on.
I mean, not that it's completely irrelevant because we haven't completely broken up with that war yet, but let's just say we're like America's sleeping on the couch while Ukraine's in the bed.
You know what I mean?
Things are pretty rocky between, and there's this new war out.
So that's, you know, and I've already been on so many big platforms talking about Ukraine that it's like, it's like, oh, I'd like to talk about this.
So anyway, they offered me Laura Loomer.
So I was like, okay, fine.
She's got like a big following.
So she'll bring a lot of eyeballs to it, I think.
So I was like, yeah, let's do it.
So we'll see.
We'll see how that one goes.
But yeah, I'm looking forward to it.
It should be a fun time.
All right.
So yeah.
And then the only other thing before we get into the meat of this show is me and Rob one night only.
I believe BK Chris will come with us as well to this.
Not sure about that, but definitely me and Rob.
One night only back in Poughkeepsie, November 25th, two stand-up comedy shows, I believe either two or three stand-up comedy shows, but these sold out last year.
They're going to sell out again.
They were really soon too.
They were really, really fun shows.
So make sure if you're in the Poughkeepsie area, if you want to come see us, go grab tickets right now, comicdavesmith.com.
All right.
Let's start today's show.
So Rob, while we've been traveling over the last couple of weeks, people have been saying dumb shit.
So let's check in with that.
Here's some people who I will say I do not, you know, these aren't people I despise.
They're actually kind of people who I somewhat enjoy when they're they're good.
But this was on real time with Bill Maher.
Jordan Peterson went on.
This was from last week's show.
And oof, man, are these guys both really bad when it comes to this stuff?
So here's what was said.
Let's play the clip.
That the reason they weren't pursued more assiduously, because it would have meant giving Trump some credit for something that happened during his term.
And I know that the Iranians are fomenting dissent in Palestine through Hamas to pressure the Jews into doing something so, you know, what would you call it, military, it'll split the Arab world.
And I think you can put a fair bit of that, of that, at the feet of the Democrats who didn't bring Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords when they could have two years ago.
And I do think that's because they wouldn't give Trump any credit for what he accomplished with the Abraham Accords.
All right, let's use that.
Let's pause it right here because there's already just so much wrong in what Jordan Peterson is saying here.
And I got to say, I'm a guy who I like Jordan Peterson.
I thought his old YouTube lectures on like biblical stories and things like that were fascinating.
I thought his entire message for young men about bearing their burden and moving forward in the world and taking on as much responsibility as they can and all of that thought it was just a great message.
I thought he was truly an incredibly positive cultural figure.
And it's just, it's a shame to see him like kind of dive into this area of foreign policy, just not knowing at all what he's talking about and getting it all wrong.
So this idea that, first of all, let's start with the idea that Iran is fomenting dissension against Israel in Gaza is, I mean, let's just say it doesn't take that much effort to get the Palestinians mad at the Israelis.
And in fact, that problem goes back to at least at least post-World War I, you know, like when the very beginning of the Zionist project started to actually take shape well before the creation of the state of Israel, although obviously it gets much worse after that, gets much worse after the war in 1948, much worse than after the war in 1967.
But the like, I'm not saying that Iran has absolutely no relationship with Hamas.
But then again, if we're going to get, if we're going to get furious at people for supporting Hamas, it would probably make more sense to be upset at the government of Israel for doing that explicitly for years.
This other point that he goes to about how the Abraham Accords were this great accomplishment by Donald Trump.
And the problem is that the Democrats just wouldn't, you know, they wouldn't continue with the Abraham Accords because that would itself be giving some credit to Donald Trump or something like this.
This is all just not, this is not right.
None of this is right.
I know Donald Trump liked to sell the Abraham Accords as peace deals.
If you ever talk to just like a plumbline Trump supporter, that'll be one of the things they rattle off.
You know how every presidential supporter, Democrat or Republican, they just have their things that they rattle off.
Like if, you know, if someone's like, well, why do you support Joe Biden?
They're like, Inflation Reduction Act, green new plan, blah, blah, blah, this, that, you know, they just run through a list of things.
It's true for every president.
And this is one of the ones they run through with Donald Trump.
But the problem is that these aren't peace deals.
It's not a peace deal to work out a deal between the United Arab Emirates and Israel or between Saudi Arabia and Israel, as he was saying they should have pushed toward, or any of the, and why are they not peace?
Because there was no war.
Trump didn't negotiate the end of a war.
So what were these deals?
What really was being done here with the Abraham Accords?
Well, what was happening was that there were these other Arab countries who would say they don't recognize the state of Israel.
They don't recognize it.
They weren't at war with Israel.
Israel hasn't been at war with surrounding Arab countries since the 70s.
But they would say they don't recognize them.
Now, why is that?
Why do they say they don't recognize Israel?
Well, it's because of their treatment of the Palestinian people.
Okay.
So in other words, if you ask the leaders in all of these Arab countries, and by the way, this is even true for Hamas, at least as of like 2006, 2007.
I'm not sure exactly where this is right now, full disclosure, but even Hamas for a while, what they would all say is we recognize Israel within 1967 borders, right?
So basically they're saying you have Israel has a right to exist as this, but they're already conceding that.
They're not saying like no state of Israel.
They're saying, yes, you have a right to exist, but you don't have a right to occupy the West Bank.
You don't have a right to control Gaza.
And then there's probably some disputes over parts of Jerusalem.
I'm not leave aside any moral judgment you have on that or whether you think those, I'm just saying that's what these leaders are saying.
So when they say, will you just recognize Israel?
What would be required there would to be recognizing that all of the territory that Israel has control of today, which includes the West Bank and Gaza, are all legitimate.
We recognize that this is your country.
So they were refusing to do that.
Now, mostly the reason they're refusing to do that is because amongst their populations, it's about 100% of them who don't recognize Israel in these current borders.
Okay.
So what the Abraham Accords did was not to make peace between two nations at war.
There were two nations already at peace with one of them saying, we don't really think you should get all that land.
And Donald Trump came in and said, well, what if I give you a bunch of U.S. taxpayer money for you to say, yeah, we recognize you?
The Babel Language Deal00:02:53
And he made that happen.
That's the great deal making that Donald Trump was able to come up with.
So we got through all of the Abraham Accords and basically we bribed these countries with U.S. taxpayer money to sell out the Palestinians, to stop even pretending like you cared about the plight of these people.
And then we were, at least it seems, moving forward with some type of deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Okay.
And then you had this Hamas attack.
So what Jordan Peterson is saying is like, if you had just moved through with the deal with Saudi Arabia quicker, then none of this would have happened.
But there's just no evidence for that whatsoever.
You could much more easily say it would have put even more pressure on them to do this immediately because it was a signal to them that you've been abandoned by everybody.
All any hope of pressure coming from these surrounding Arab countries, you can now abandon that hope.
And that's a dangerous position to put a group of people in, particularly a group of young radicals like Hamas.
So that's kind of the story here.
So anyway, this is just, it's a, it's, um, let's just say Jordan Peterson has been talking to Benjamin Netanyahu and it shows he's repeating back what the Israeli leadership says.
It's just completely divorced from reality.
This is not actually the situation at all.
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Guessing the Bomb Timeline00:15:25
All right, let's keep playing with this clip.
Why we're in the position we're in right now.
And, you know, Biden also alienated the Saudis the first time that he went to talk to them and pushed them into the arms of China.
And even despite that, the Saudis are still lurking in the background trying to ensure that the Abraham Accords won't fall.
And so that's not good.
That was a big mistake.
We had a chance there to make peace.
And the Saudis were behind the Abraham Accords.
So the Iranian people are not unsophisticated and not stupid and have a history of Western influence.
I mean, under the Shah, this was not like other countries in the region.
So I thought, okay, you know, they have a terrible regime, but that's not the people.
Maybe we can fix this.
Now, I mean, to your point about being puppets, if Iran gets a bomb.
Win, win, not if.
I think they're three months away chronically.
Well, I think they positioned themselves so if push came to shove, they could have a bomb in three months.
That's my understanding of the situation.
Okay, well, they were farther away from the bomb when we had that agreement.
When we had the agreement that Obama made, that Trump pulled out of.
They were quite far away from.
So let's not forget that.
But my point was, if Iran gets a bomb, Hamas gets a bomb.
Right?
That can't happen.
So I don't know what to do now about Iran, but I would say this, the axis of evil that George Bush used to talk about, where he just pulled three countries out of his ass that made no sense.
I feel like actually there is an axis of evil now, and it's Russia and China.
It cuts off there, but he said Iran, Russia, China, and Iran.
I just don't even know what to say here.
It's like, you know, what's so funny about the clip is that when he goes, remember when George W. Bush just pulled three countries out of his ass?
And everyone claps and laughs, like they rightfully all recognize, like, oh, yeah, yeah, remember?
Remember how that was stupid?
And how doing so just led to 20 years of catastrophic wars with nothing to show for it?
And now, then Bill Maher just does the same thing.
Just says the exact same thing, just pulls three countries out of his ass, none of which have no, just to be very clear here.
With this Hamas attack on October 7th, zero evidence has been provided at all.
Not a shred of evidence has been provided that links Russia, China, or even Iran to that attack.
None of it.
It's just Iran's going to get a bomb, remember?
And then Jordan Peterson, who literally, it seems like all he knows about this issue is what Netanyahu has told him.
He comes in and goes, they're three months away, chronically.
Always, they're always three months away.
Even though Netanyahu has been saying since back in the 90s that they were a few years away, and that never came true, but now they're just three months away.
Then Bill Maher gets it completely wrong, where he goes, well, they were further away from the bomb under the Obama deal, which isn't even technically true.
It's not that they were further from the bomb.
I mean, I guess maybe actually I should walk that back.
Maybe that is technically true because they did like pour concrete into one of their big centrifuges there and they did like destroy some, you know, like nuclear capability.
But the only real thing is that they were never close to a nuclear bomb.
That's just what was revealed in the Iran deal that Obama got through because people, inspectors came in and saw it.
We're like, yeah, they don't, they have no capacity to make a bomb.
And like, so anyway, anyway, all of this is ridiculous.
It's like, well, if Iran, it's literally just George W. Bush shit.
Iraq has a weapon that they're going to give the terrorists.
Iraq is about to give the weapon that they don't have to the terrorists that they're not friends with is what George W. Bush insisted we knew for a fact before we launched the fucking dumbest war in modern American history.
And now it's just Iran, if Iran gets this bomb that they don't have, then Hamas has this bomb that Iran doesn't have.
And that's so war, I guess.
So war.
So I guess we got to go to war with a country three times as big as Iraq that can hit our targets all over the region.
Really well thought out, guys.
I'm surprised North Korea didn't make his list of this axis of evil as North Korea is actually working with Russia on rearming them in Ukraine.
Sure.
Well, I largely do agree with your point.
I don't think I would leave the possibility on the table that Iran might be, I mean, I do think Iran arms Hamas in some capacity.
I don't think they're going to be able to do that.
Listen, I'm not saying that there's no, I'm not saying there's no chance that Iran was involved in October 7th.
I'm saying not a shred of evidence has been presented yet.
So what are we doing talking about a war with this country?
Right.
And then China and Russia, their only involvement seemingly thus far is taking the opportunity to go, hey, look, the U.S. is not that.
They are the evil empire because look at what they're doing with Israel and how Israel's treating Gaza.
They've basically been playing the same card.
We were doing the whole Russian war of look how evil Putin is.
They've kind of hopped on the narrative of what's been going on in Gaza to go, yeah, look how evil the U.S. is.
Yeah.
You know, there's, but one of the other things that a couple other things there that were mentioned in these clips that we didn't, we didn't address.
But so Bill Maher says at one point, you know, he mentions that, I'm sorry, or was it Jordan Peterson who mentioned that Jordan Peterson mentioned it, that Obama, excuse me, Joe Biden alienated the Saudis when he first went over there and that that's not helpful, you know, because now we kind of need them.
And that is, yeah, that's more or less right.
But how did he alienate them?
What is it that Joe Biden did that pissed off the Saudis?
Well, if you remember, he went over there and demanded that they rig the oil markets to hurt Russia and help America and that they hurt themselves in the process.
So he was basically, because this is what Joe Biden was having a lot of domestic problems as he first started this war, funding this war in Ukraine.
And the price of gas was shooting through the roof.
So he went over to the Saudis to try to get them to artificially lower the price of gas, the price of oil.
Prior to that, where he somewhat opposed what they were doing in Yemen, which is why...
He was a little bit, he was, he was a little bit critical of the Yemen thing too.
But really where he alienated them was specifically asking them to undercut their own interests to try to help America and hurt Russia.
Obviously, the Saudis would prefer a high price for oil than a low price for oil.
So it was because we wanted to go all in on this other disastrous, stupid, catastrophic war that we ended up alienating these people.
And then, yes, of course, there is some truth to what you're saying, that he was at least critical at first, although he totally backed down on that of the, at the time, what was still ongoing was the Saudi war against the Houthis in Yemen.
That horrific war.
So anyway, all of this is just like, even the parts that they're kind of right about, they draw the complete wrong lesson.
And the same thing when Jordan Peterson had initially made the point that like, well, you know, this is kind of what Iran is doing is to try to foment dissension against Israel and Gaza so that you can turn public opinion against Israel.
So take out the fact that he has no clue and doesn't even pretend to present any evidence that this has actually happened.
I'm not, again, to your point, I'm not saying it's impossible that this has happened.
And I wouldn't be like, I would not be shocked if tomorrow some evidence was presented that Iran was involved in this.
But I'm just saying we haven't seen any of this evidence yet.
So I'd like to see the evidence first.
But you're like, okay, so let's say that's true.
Doesn't it lead back to the conclusion that we've been saying now for weeks?
That like, oh, okay, if the whole game here was to goad Israel into this overreaction that will then turn the public opinion of the world against Israel, then wouldn't the wise move for Israel be to not fall into that trap?
How do you not come back to the same place?
And instead, what is the answer?
This incredibly unworkable situation of like, well, they still just have to do it.
And then I guess we got to go see about Iran.
And what exactly?
Yeah, it almost seems like Israel's got a bit of a strategic problem that it's hard to separate the wishes of the government or the people there from Netanyahu's own political interests, which it's seemingly like he's got a dead political career.
Now, it could be that Netanyahu realizes that and he's going out with his last aggressive bang.
And even though I don't think he's so noble to go, hey, I think that this is important and sure, I'll take the rap for it.
I don't think that's what he's doing.
It seems like maybe the same as in the U.S., sometimes when you're in a war, it's easier to stay in power.
So it could be that that's partly why he's being more plausible explanation.
Is that, yeah, it's there.
I think Netanyahu was in serious, serious political jeopardy before this latest round of the war started.
And now this gives him some cover.
But if the war is over, he might be back in that political jeopardy.
So now it's got to be him versus the world and him.
We're sorry, we're taking out, you know, every we're taking out all of Hamas, which is a totally unachievable, you know, um feat short of some truly horrific shit.
Um, and so you know, I think that's I think that's where we are right now, or at least that's the best guess.
Um, but it is just uh it's just sad, particularly, uh, I mean, for Jordan Peterson, um, because I do think he was a very positive figure at one point, but to just be totally swallowing the Israeli propaganda, seemingly adding no thought of his own to it as he just kind of spews these lines about how Iran is three months away from a bomb.
With no, it's not like he's really like, it's not as if he really went through, like, okay, well, here's what's going on with their nuclear capacity, and here's why I believe they're three months.
It's just that's my understanding.
That's what I was told by some Israelis.
So I guess that's true.
And meanwhile, still throws in the and that's bad.
Yeah, right.
He's still selling it.
I mean, like, just know it is like it is exactly what he used to accuse all these campus leftists of doing, just kind of like regurgitating the given propaganda without interacting with it in your own mind at all.
Um, and you know, to come to the conclusion that this is, I mean, it's really amazing how war propaganda works on people, but to come to this conclusion that like Israel's just right about everything.
There's just no, there's no moral question to be raised with how many kids they get to kill in Gaza.
Like, it is there a number?
Is there a number where if you hit that number, you'd go, oh, now I'm kind of rethinking whether this thing was worth it?
It's just, nope, that's it.
Iran did it.
They have, they're going to get a bomb.
No evidence of any of this.
Just kind of puts it out there.
It's just, I don't know.
It's wildly irresponsible as a public figure who has millions of followers to just be like delivering this war propaganda so mindlessly.
It's truly disappointing.
What happened to him?
He got addicted to the benzos and someone from the deep state finally said, Hey, listen, I can fix this for you.
Dude, your guess is as good as mine.
I do not know.
But somehow he became friends.
You know, he started working on Ben Shapiro's network.
He became friends with Netanyahu.
And all of a sudden, this stuff that was never really in his wheelhouse before was never really stuff he talked about.
Is now, you know, this, this is going to be what I guess what he pretends his area of expertise is in.
So yeah, kind of sad.
Bill Maher, on the other hand, has always been this way, has always been a total Israel supporter with no nuance at all.
And so I'm not sure.
How does that happen for like a left liberal?
Seems out like if I were to take a guess on his stance on topics, I wouldn't have guessed that Bill Maher was a firm Israel supporter.
No, I mean, that's it's not surprising to me because the guys who are, it's like Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris and those guys, the guys who are led first and foremost by their contempt for religion tend to look at the Islamists as always, you know what I mean, the solely responsible bad guys.
And it's not, again, it's not even that like it's, it's easy enough if you're looking at things on the surface to look at an Islamist as a bad guy because they are bad guys and they certainly are religious fundamentalists and they're quite comfortable with killing innocent people.
But it's just that that's like a very surface level examination of it.
And if you go even just like a couple centimeters deeper, you go, oh, right, but who's been funding the Islamists?
And in almost every case, you get the Americans and the Israelis, right?
And then you go, oh, this was like an intentional strategy to prop up these Islamists in order to serve their own interests.
And then you start to, you know, you go another centimeter deeper and you go, well, why is it that it's so easy for them to recruit?
And why is it that it's only in these certain areas where it's really easy for them to recruit?
You know, as we've talked about many times, you know, where's the biggest Muslim population in the world, I believe, is in Indonesia, but you don't see this problem there.
You see it in the countries where we prop up brutal dictators, where we bomb innocent civilians, all of these things.
So yeah, of course, like it's easy to point and say, oh, look, the Islamists are the bad guys.
Oh, look how bad Hamas is.
It's unbelievable to me, though, that you can, especially since it's so on record that Israel was intentionally propping up Hamas.
Like, this isn't like a wild, I mean, I understand where like, if you say that to someone and you, all they do is watch CNN or something like that, then like that might sound like, oh, this is a nutty conspiracy theory.
But it's like, it's in the pages of Horetz and the Times of Jerusalem in the last couple of weeks.
Like they're all talking.
They all know it.
It's, you can read the quotes that Netanyahu said where he's explicitly arguing for why we must support and fund Hamas.
And so how can you like, how can you compartmentalize that?
How can you be so appalled with Hamas and then also be appalled with the accusation, the evidence-free accusation that Iran is supporting Hamas and then not have a problem with the fact that Israel themselves are supporting Hamas?
I just don't understand how you can get away from that.
And it's, you know, a very similar dynamic to the United States of America's relationship with Al-Qaeda and ISIS.
And it's okay, fine.
Go on all day about how primitive and barbaric these Muslims are.
I mean, there's no question, like there are real problems in the Muslim world.
There's no question about that.
Backing Primitive Regimes00:02:18
They've got horrifically primitive practices.
They're incredibly barbaric and closed societies for the most part.
But at every step of the way, the American empire, which includes the Israelis and the Western Europeans, and most of Europeans, who have enormously more power than the Muslim world times 100.
Okay.
And so all of the most powerful organizations in the world have been constantly working to keep the Muslim world in this state of barbaric horrificness.
So, okay, like you can point at them and be like, oh, well, look, this is so like, you know, primitive.
But at every single turn, we've been working to keep them in that primitive state.
And we're so much more powerful than them that how do you just not hold some of the blame for that?
It's almost, you know what I mean?
Like it's, it's a, it's like a parent who's like horrifically abusing their child and won't let them read.
And, you know, then they get to a point where they're 15 and they go, well, look, this kid's illiterate.
You're like, yeah, but the parent who's got a hundred thousand times more power than them is literally intentionally keeping them in this state.
And this is true all throughout.
I mean, like, it's not just Israel funding and supporting Hamas.
It's America backing the Saudis, the biggest exporter of Wahhabism in the world.
It's us backing and training the Mujahideen to take out the Soviets in 1979 and 1980.
And then all the way up till the present, it's all of that.
When Saddam Hussein was doing the most evil shit that he was doing in the Iraq-Iran war, we were backing Saddam Hussein.
We were also backing Iran in that war because we funded both sides of it.
America took the side of al-Qaeda and ISIS in the war in Libya, in the war in Syria, in the war in Yemen.
We, in effect, served as their air force.
I mean, freaking ISIS are driving around in Toyota trucks, you know?
So I just don't understand how taking all of that in, you can look at it and go, my takeaway is that that culture is so primitive and my culture is so much better.
Mainstream Media Family Care00:15:19
How is that your takeaway?
Maybe in the mutual support of Hamas, that's a pathway to peace with Iran because, you know, we can both come together on our support of Hamas.
Can I ask a different question?
You know, with the vaccine policy and all that Israel did to get people vaccinated, couldn't they have gone into Gaza and have gifted them vaccines to keep them from procreating so much?
We could have avoided this whole thing.
I mean, if we're trying to look at dealing with these people for another 100 years, we control the water supply.
Give them some fluoride.
Give them some stuff to make some changes.
Just put the boosters right into the water.
There you go.
You guys know what to do.
And you get to say it was a humanitarian thing because otherwise they would have been overwhelmed by COVID.
Well, I mean, you can't socially distance in Gaza.
They're on top of each other.
So they need this vaccine, obviously.
Oh, I love you and your dark jokes, Rob.
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All right, let's move on.
Um, there was another interesting moment that uh um that happened a couple days ago, um, between uh Chris Cuomo, who has a show on uh, was it Newsmax now?
I think he's been watch News Network, yeah.
He's he's been demoted down to the minor leagues, but you know, it's still Chris Cuomo, but he has the uh dish network uh station of I Can't Find.
Yeah, right.
Well, he had Vivek Ramaswamy on, and they had a little bit of a heated exchange.
I wanted to watch this and kind of give our thoughts on it.
So, let's let's play that clip.
Ramaswamy, why do you keep going at Nikki Haley?
Why do you think this is going to be a Chris?
I don't know what you've been smoking, man.
You and the rest of the mainstream media, it's laughable.
Nikki Haley's been going after me the whole campaign.
First debate, second debate.
You know, she's been trailing me for much of the time, but I realize the establishment media has realized that there's a puppet they want to put up.
I'm not playing that game.
The grassroots of this country know they want a leader who isn't going to send us our sons and daughters to go die in foreign wars that racked up $7 trillion in debt.
Dick Cheney 2.0 is taking over the GOP.
The grassroots of this country know they want a leader who isn't going to send us our sons and daughters to go die in foreign wars that racked up $7 trillion in debt.
Dick Cheney 2.0 is taking over the GOP.
Problem is the Democratic establishment media is now rooting for war too.
I'm the only candidate speaking for a true America first agenda on that debate stage.
And I think we're going to be successful.
Vivek, how are you going to bring people together when you just put together a tapestry of conspiracies?
You know that I'm not pitching anything about what are you talking about?
There's no tapestry.
You don't even come on my show.
What are you talking about?
I'm sure she does.
Hold on a second.
I let you put it out there.
And now, you know, I get to finish smoking.
And now I get to answer, which is, oh, this is what the media is doing is putting up Nikki Haley.
Absolutely what the media is.
They know I'm the real deal.
Please.
She hasn't even been on my show.
I'm just watching you get laughed around.
Kristen Welcome to your strategy.
The fact of the matter is, Chris, my strategy is calling out the mainstream media like I did to Kristen Welker at the start of that debate.
I asked her about the Trump-Russia collusion hoax, told her to look the audience in the eye and apologize to them.
Just like I'll tell you, you're part of the mainstream media despite pretending like you're not.
Look the audience in the eye and tell them what for all that happened.
I'm part of the mainstream media.
Hey, listen.
And you play the same games that the rest of the mainstream media does.
Take care of yourself.
That's fine.
You have been covering for your brother.
You have been playing a game.
You have to get away from the game.
Of course, I'll cover for the course.
I helped my brother.
Yeah, of course I did.
And you know what?
That's been journalistic standards that have now been failed, not just by you, but by every member of the broken political media.
So, yes, it is going to take everybody.
Everyone in the media and you want to look responsible for covering for my brother.
See what I'm saying?
90%.
You missed 90% of the media are colluding one answer on the American public for the origin of COVID-19 to the Hunter Biden laptop story.
To now, which people they decide they want to put up as their puppets, any of that happens back to the map.
All right.
So I thought that was quite an interesting exchange.
Rob, you want to open up?
Because there's a lot to respond to there.
I have so much to say.
I don't want to overstep here, but it's fantastic how antagonizing Cuomo is being.
They keep trying to reframe it as if Vivek is losing in his skirmishes with Nikki Haley.
The New York Post tried to pull the same move.
And it might be one of the most glorious campaign things I've ever seen of someone actually just going, you are profiting off these wars and speaking that directly and taking the moral high ground, which is there.
It's like what you used to say with Donald Trump of that there's cards on the table and other people are just folding pocket rockets and he's actually going, oh, I'll play these cards.
It's literally, like, literally, it's because there's pocket aces here, and everyone else is like, we agreed we wouldn't play those cards.
You're like, I'll play these cards.
They're really good cards.
It's a brilliant tactic, and he's destroying her.
And it's humorous that all these people are trying to reframe it as if he's not because they all want to pretend like the topic is so off limits.
So that would be my first one.
I got more, but I'll hand it back to you.
Well, right.
And, you know, Vivek is, it's an interesting thing to call out Chris Cuomo here, who look, Chris Cuomo's immediate response, and it does show you, man, this is like the world that all these people are in.
And his initial response is, she won't even do my show.
I can't even get her on my show.
And it's like, yeah, now because CNN canned you.
And now you're on this small network and you don't have that big of a show.
But she would have been doing your show regularly when you were on CNN if she was right.
It's an easily antagonistic thing that he brings up the issue of her.
And then he goes, and then he diverts from the answer to go, well, why me?
I didn't, she won't even come on my show.
You just brought up the topic and I'm addressing the exact topic that you just brought up.
And actually, it reminds me, I have a friend who once decided he was going to bike to Washington, D.C.
He looked at a map and he's like, what's the most direct route to Washington, D.C.?
And he decided it was I-95.
Did I freeze up here?
No, you're still here.
No, no, no, still here.
He decides he's going to bike on I-95.
And so he's biking straight up on the highway of I-95.
He gets hold of him.
Oh, no.
It's the dumbest thing you could possibly do.
Cop pulls him over and goes, hey, what are you doing?
You're biking on the highway.
And my friend goes, I'm not biking on the highway.
I'm on the side of the road.
And the guy goes, you're not on the side of the road.
I just pulled you over.
You were literally in the right lane of the highway.
And he goes, well, I can't bike on the side of the road.
There's glass over there.
It's such a funny thing to say to a cop, but that's literally what Cuomo does here where he goes, why is it that you're getting into skirmishes with Nikki Haley?
And he answers the question.
And then he diverts it by going, well, Nikki Haley won't even come on my show.
You just brought her up, dude.
That's why I'm talking about it.
That's why I'm attacking her.
Yes.
And look, Vivek kind of says, she's been attacking me from the beginning.
I don't even remember who started taking jabs at each other first, but it's like, well, the reason he's attacking her is because, as you pointed out earlier, she is the embodiment of everything that's wrong with this system.
I mean, like the fact that she can make herself and her family millions of dollars by mindlessly advocating for every single war whenever it comes up is a huge issue that is plaguing this nation.
So like, of course, it makes complete.
And he's running against her and he's running as an America first, you know, like I don't, I want to avoid World War III candidate.
So why wouldn't he be going at the person who's actively trying to push us into World War III for her own personal profit?
So this makes no sense at all.
And it is pretty funny where, you know, Chris Cuomo, there's an interesting dynamic with him.
And I've actually, you know, full disclosure, he's messaged me a few times on Twitter.
Trying to take you out on a date?
Well, not at all.
I won't give out any information.
I don't give out any information that anyone sends me in a private message.
I just think that's poor form in general to do.
But I'll just say that, that he's messaged me.
And I'll say that what Vivek gets at with him there, where he goes, you're still the mainstream media, even if you're trying to rebrand as something else.
I think that hits something where, look, there are some people who can kind of get burned by the corporate press.
And then, you know, maybe they're in a position to be a little bit more honest about the system and what's really going on there.
For example, say Tucker Carlson, right?
He can go now on X and just kind of, he's a free agent now.
He doesn't have to watch what he says at all.
But Tucker Carlson was still Tucker Carlson when he was at Fox News.
He might just be like a slightly freer version of Tucker Carlson now.
But Chris Cuomo was Chris Cuomo.
There's just no coming back from that.
And so when Vivek starts hitting him with this stuff of like Russia collusion and the Hunter Biden laptop and the origins of COVID, it's like, yeah, dude, you were the guy.
Like I'm not going to forget you were the biggest guy at CNN, the biggest show at CNN through all of that.
You were the guy faking your emergence from your basement when you were pretending that was the first time you were reunited with your family in the early days of COVID when we had seen you on videotape outside with in a gathering with other people, you know, like, you know, you're Fredo, dude.
You're Fredo.
You can't, you can't come back from that.
Like, I'm sure you made enough money at your time in CNN.
You're set for life, but there's never going to be a rebranding of now you're like one of the journalists on the outside.
It's just not going to happen.
And when he brings up covering for his brother, I thought that was actually the most interesting part of this whole thing.
Because he goes, Yeah, I cover for my brother.
That's my brother.
And I'll tell you, and this is the truth.
There's part of that that I can relate to.
I have a brother.
I got a lot of very good friends.
There are people who I probably would cover for in some day.
And look, with let's say with the sexual harassment stuff, your brother gets accused of some kind of questionable sexual harassment stuff.
Maybe you talk to him.
He goes, I didn't do it.
And you go, you know what?
Good enough for me.
I got your back on this no matter what.
I can totally understand that.
I'm Italian too.
Yeah.
You can be accused of being Italian.
I can be accused of being good.
Are you kidding me?
I was there.
We were both grew up in that chick.
Whatever.
But I can understand loyalty to your brother.
But there's a much, much bigger issue that comes up to me when you're talking about I was covering for my brother.
And that's just the attitude you have.
Yeah.
What?
You don't take care of your family?
Well, I do.
Is that Robin?
I'm sure you remember this.
He had nightly interviews with his brother during the height of COVID while his brother had been introducing the craziest COVID policies when New York was the, whatever they, what was the term they used to call it?
New York was the, what's the word I'm looking for?
It was the center of the pandemic or whatever, the epicenter of the pandemic and all of that.
And while, and so I'm sorry, but if you have this attitude of like, I cover for my brother, I always make him look good, then it is such horrific journalistic malpractice in the first degree that in one of the most trying times in our country, you conducted nightly interviews with him.
That is, I mean, I can't tell you how bad that makes you look and the network CNN for allowing that to happen and not going like, yo, this is a gigantic conflict of interest.
This is, this is insane.
We cannot have if we're, if we're going to be here, you know, like interviewing the sitting governor as he launches into this totalitarian, dystopian nightmare of lockdowns, and we're not even going to be giving him any pushback or asking any tough questions.
We just can't have his brother being the one to do that.
And that his brother, Chris Cuomo, wouldn't go, I'm not comfortable doing this.
This just isn't right to me.
Like it's, it's on the level of being like you're a judge in a trial, you know, like some big oil company is being, you know, sued and you're the judge and your brother is the CEO and largest shareholder of the oil company.
If you have any integrity at all as a judge, there's only one option, which is to recuse yourself from that.
I can't be the one to preside over this case because I have too big of a conflict of interest.
And the fact that he didn't do that, and then we'll just have this, yeah, I take care of my family attitude.
It's like, oh, okay, fine.
You take care of your family, but you're not a journalist.
You're a propagandist.
That's all I can say there.
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Uniting Against Divisive Race00:06:44
Anything else in that in that clip that you thought was worth responding to?
No, I just, I appreciate how much he antagonizes him while just going, hey, I'm just here being mutual, trying to ask questions and trying to spin it like he's.
It's also uh, did you ever watch?
Uh, it was great when uh, Mike Lindell was being uh, was at that deposition, uh-huh.
And at one point he quite cleverly yells at the lawyer, listen, quit looking out for my best interest.
You've brought a frivolous lawsuit against me.
My lawyers are here for me, so quit pretending like you're doing anything to help me.
You're literally here to cause troubles for me.
He kind of Cuomo posed those same move where he goes.
Well, how are you going to be bringing people like, as if it's like the pretending like he's trying to help him, cop move, i'm trying to help you reach people.
How are you going to reach all these people if you're being divisive?
No, if it's the nonsense like that that is, you know it's that, it's that weasel trick.
That's just annoying.
Yes, and it's.
There's always like a double standard of where they apply it.
So you know, if somebody is up there saying uh, you either support Israel or you support Hamas, then that's like, just that won't get grilled.
But if you say hey, you made millions of dollars by selling young men into wars that they died in.
That you're.
Now you're being divisive.
You know?
Like what is this?
Like that's divisive?
Okay well, who?
Who is this?
Who are we supposed to be uniting with?
Yes, you're right, i'm sure the ceo of Raytheon isn't a fan of this line of attack, but whatever, who cares?
Um, it really is.
Uh, it really is just something to to watch, but anyway, I will say, uh, Vivek is playing this very smart politically to be the one who is, uh is.
He's positioned himself as the only other person in the race who can fill Trump shoes in terms of being, you know, like what people think of them as being the America first guy, being the guy who cares about this country.
Who's who's?
Uh doesn't want to get us involved in these stupid wars and um look, Donald Trump is up by like 50 points in the polls.
It's not as if there's a question, you know, when you talk about like uh, Chris Cuomo says dividing people, how are you going to unite people?
Well, Who's uniting the most Republicans right now?
It's Donald Trump, right?
That's where the most of them are united against.
I always had this, I've had this too, which is like with the Mises caucus in the Libertarian Party.
It would be like, well, when we were just like taking over the whole party and we're just like winning state by state by state by state, and then we won the entire national, you know, LNC.
And people would be like, but the Mises caucus is so divisive.
And you'd be like, what?
Okay.
Well, we're dividing it 80-20 in our favor and you're dividing it 20-80 in our favor.
So who's really more divisive?
I mean, like, what does this word even mean?
It's like, yeah, like, like, I don't know, we're uniting a lot more people than you guys are.
And I feel the same way.
It's like, they'll say that Trump is divisive, but Nikki Haley isn't.
Okay, well, Nikki Haley has united 8% of Republican voters and Donald Trump's united 78% of them.
So like, who's really being more divisive?
And so Vivek is doing this thing where while the whole Trump situation is kind of in limbo, he's positioned himself as the only other one who fills those shoes.
And that lane that he's attempting to occupy, and obviously, as long as Trump is there, Trump is still the gigantic favorite.
But as long as like he's occupying the only space that can actually unite the majority of the Republican voting block, all of this stuff with Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis is not.
The other interesting thing here of why he's going after her is that there does seem to be there does seem to be some movement from the establishment to supporting Nikki Haley.
I think that Ron DeSantis has been a dud.
And with all of the establishment support and all of the kind of, you know, like he had a big name, is the most popular Republican governor in the country, just won by a landslide in what was historically a purple state, but he's just absolutely fallen flat on his face.
And I think that the, I think the Trump, you know, Trump the destroyer kind of set his sights on DeSantis early.
I think that hurt.
I think DeSantis is just, when you look at the kind of cultural elements that Donald Trump took advantage of in 2016, where when he just kind of won the internet, all the meme warfare and stuff like that, the YouTube comments kind of got, when you look at DeSantis, it's all mocking him.
It's all, he wears high heels and he has that ridiculous smile.
You know what I'm talking about?
Where there's all these gifts of him like doing this like, like it's just really bad and it's just not working.
And then you have Nikki Haley, who is at least in the traditional politician-y sense of the word, kind of good at doing it.
She's kind of good at saying something very forcefully on the debate stage.
She is a woman.
And this is something that still the kind of the campaign advisor, campaign manager kind of establishment still sees that as a big plus.
She just announced a huge, you know, well, Tim Scott just dropped out of the race.
Mike Pence dropped out of the race.
Nikki Haley just announced, I think, like a $15 million TV ad purchase.
There's a lot of money coming into her campaign.
So I think there's no question that there are a lot of people in the establishment who now have their eyes on Nikki Haley.
And so for that reason, Vivek is even smarter to just be ruthlessly going at her.
And I don't know.
I see nothing wrong with this.
it's i think it's uh he's right on the substance of it she is absolutely you know like just horrible and criminal and uh and it's just smart politics so chris cuomo can be upset all he wants to but what the vacc's doing is smart and it's lunatic spin to try and pretend like he's losing these skirmishes oh yeah it's like if you looked at trump and biden and said look how much more energetic biden is there's other claims for biden that's not one of them which they will say by the way They will,
you know, they will say things like that.
Smart Politics Next Time00:00:59
Oh, but I don't know.
He seems really together.
Totally.
Just really intelligent.
I was really impressed.
There's people I met.
I was really impressed with how together he was.
He was so present when I was there with him.
I mean, like, we just all watched him shit his pants.
You're not convincing me this.
He's so much more relatable.
We've all been a kindergartner who was supposed to be in some play and missed their mark and a teacher had to redirect them and tell them to stand in another spot and already took away all the speaking lines because they couldn't handle them.
That's where Biden is now.
We've all been there.
We've all shit our pants before.
Yeah.
Just saying.
Like everyone's been there.
Yeah.
No, it is, it is really quite something.
Anyway, all right, listen, we're going to, I know it's a little bit of a shorter episode, but I do got to run, got to jump on a plane in a little bit and go do a debate.
See you guys next time.
And then, yeah, come see us in Poughkeepsie, New York.
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