Dave Smith and Robbie Bernstein critique Jon Stewart's bizarre Putin interview alongside Tucker Carlson, arguing his jokes ignore Carlson's valid points on Russian economic leverage and election interference. They condemn Nancy Pelosi and Joe Scarborough for spreading unsubstantiated blackmail theories against Donald Trump and relying on unfalsifiable Cold War logic to justify Ukraine aid. Ultimately, the hosts assert that sober libertarian analysis reveals these narratives as baseless propaganda designed to manipulate public opinion rather than reflect geopolitical reality. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Jon Stewart vs Tucker Carlson00:12:47
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So we were just talking on the last episode about Jon Stewart returning to the Daily Show.
And he, as I was saying on the last episode, it's so bizarre to me to watch.
It's just, it reminds me so like, so in it.
Just it reminds you how much the world has changed in such a small period of time and that, just like when I started this show, Jon Stewart was, if you were a comedian talking about politics, it was like he was the, the thing that people would just.
I remember dude, when I remembered when I was doing stand-up um, and this is like even this is before me and you met, but I remember everyone used to always say to me, be like dude, they should hire you at the Daily SHOW because you just write all these political jokes dude, like you'd be so perfect for that show.
And that was always like.
That was the thing it was.
The Daily SHOW was, what did Jon Stewart have to say?
You know how did he take everybody down?
And it's just, there's something about seeing him back there.
That's just like the way I put it on the last show.
It's like you're trying to fit a 2006 shaped object into a 2024 shaped hole and it's just so bizarre.
The whole thing the, the model is so bizarre.
Like he's doing a tv show.
You know who does tv shows.
It's just like it's all so strange.
He does dude, he's doing it's with commercials.
It's a half hour show show, so with commercials he's doing around 20 minutes.
You know, like we give you nine times the amount of content every week.
You know it's, it's just like, even just that is so bizarre um, but anyway.
So Jon Stewart and uh Tucker Carlson have a long beef.
He's always clearly really not liked the guy and, very famously, it was one of the first, like one of the first crazy viral clips on the internet that I remember this kind of around a time like before there were viral videos that wasn't really a thing was if, do you remember this rob?
It was when he went on Crossfire, young Jon Stewart, young Tucker Carlson, when he still wore the bow tie yeah yeah, and it's funny because at the time I will say, at the time I was one of those people who's like oh, Jon Stewart just owned this guy, but like, when you look back at it, you're like he didn't really say anything, he was just kind of came on and was a dick, you know what I mean.
Like it's like you, he didn't really make any points, but he was kind of entertaining with it, but whatever um, but anyway, they just remember, uh Tuck was uh pitching the Iraq war, though?
Right yes, this is.
This was different Tucker.
I'm pretty sure this was.
I don't remember the exact year, but i'm pretty sure this was before Tucker got good on stuff.
You know, like he's Tucker's gotten a lot better over the years um, although i'm sure I mean i'm sure he was good on some things even back then.
Um, but anyway, they've always just not liked each other, and Jon Stewart did a lengthy piece on Tucker Carlson and the responding is it look, is just kind of interesting to me because they they were things that we've covered on the show um, or at least most of it was not all of it.
We didn't talk about the supermarket thing, which we could get into at some point.
We'll get into when he talks about it, but it's things like you know.
We pretty extensively covered um, the video about the subway station, and one of our clips from that kind of went viral uh about you know just like which I you know.
So it's just interesting to see how Jon Stewart takes this like completely different angle, and it was interesting to see his, his angle on the Putin interview uh, itself.
So anyway, let's get into this and let's dissect it a little bit.
Here is Jon Stewart at his second UM show, back at the Daily SHOW.
Where do I go to study the particulars of unquestioning propaganda?
I would need mentorship.
We're in Moscow tonight.
We're here to interview the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin.
Saints be praised for professor Tucker, Aloysius Mayflower, Kenny Bumpstep, Backdammon Carlson Ii has arrived.
Professor, tell me what is step one in delivering world-class fealty to power?
Here's why we're doing it first, because it's our job.
We're in journalism.
Lie about what your job is, all right, we could.
We could pause it uh, for a second here.
So I do look man, I. There is something kind of funny about Jon Stewart accusing Tucker Carlson of fealty to power and I mean, look I, I get the point rob, that like Vladimir Putin, Vladimir Putin has power, you know.
But he has power in Russia, Vladimir Putin, despite what everyone on cable news is.
What i'm taking from this oh sorry, I got roused there for a second.
What's taking from this Vladimir Putin, despite what everyone on cable news and everyone in the Democratic and Republican establishment pretends, does not have any power over us.
You know what I'm saying?
So like Vladimir Putin does not exercise power over Tucker Carlson, for example.
If you want to talk about the power that is exercised over us, they are unanimous in demonizing Vladimir Putin.
And you can feel that he should be demonized and he should be for lots of things, but they're demonizing him with the ends of certain policies.
Like they didn't just tell you Vladimir Putin stole the election in 2016 just to tell you it.
They told you it so that then they could crack down on free speech on social media and then they could frame Donald Trump, right?
And they're not just telling you he's a bad guy for invading Ukraine and just telling you that.
They're telling you he's a bad guy for invading Ukraine.
And then they want this policy of we are going to fund this war and let's say try to kill potential ceasefire peace agreements.
So, you know, it's not really fair to say, oh, Tucker Carlson is just sucking up to power.
If you think about the power, that's actually the power over us.
Jon Stewart mocking Tucker for interviewing Vladimir Putin is actually demonstrating much more of a fealty to power.
Does that make sense, Rob?
Like the power that is relevant in our lives.
Okay.
Checks out.
All right.
Let's keep playing.
People.
Lie about what your duty is.
Americans have a right to know all they can about a war they're implicated in.
Freedom of speech is our birthright.
We were born with the right to say what we believe.
Oh, shit.
Kudos, Sensei.
That was deep.
I have much to learn.
Disguise your deception and capitulation to power as noble and moral and based in freedom.
Yes, master.
So will you just pause for a second?
It's like, I just don't.
It's like, aside from just not being a very funny joke, it's like, what do you actually disagree with with what Tucker Carlson just said?
He said, freedom of speech is our birthright and Americans have a right to know.
We're implicated in this war.
It's a worthy exercise in journalism to hear what the other guy has to say.
It's like, and you're mocking that?
With what?
Just this ridiculous like voice?
Like, I just, it's like, dude, who are you serving right now?
If you're going to talk about how he's serving Vladimir Putin, well, what the hell is this serving?
And like, by the way, this was outside.
And this is another thing that's weird is that it's like, Jon Stewart, you are a throwback.
And so it's weird to see throwbacks who are operating on under these rules that were invented five minutes ago.
You know what I mean?
It's like the same thing as like when you hear like Joe Biden talk about transgender people and you're just like, Joe Biden, I know your age.
No one your age feels this way about transgender people.
You could maybe get someone your age who feels this way about gay people because they've really worked on themselves or something like that.
Remember, do you remember the clip where Joe Biden was talking about gay people and he was trying to sound nice about them, but he just still sounded like the oldest bigot ever?
Because you can't, you just like can't.
He said he told a story about how him and his dad saw two gay men kiss each other.
And then he goes, and then they just walked into the buildings and they were going to work.
Like they were just like even as he's saying it, you're just sitting there and you're like, yeah, dude, they're people.
Like we didn't, was it, this is surprising to you that like they had jobs?
It reminded me of the time Bill O'Reilly one time went to dinner with, it was either Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson.
I can't remember because I'm racist.
But and he was talking about, he went to dinner with him up in Harlem and he was talking about how everyone was so civilized.
And it was like, it was low-key, like the most racist thing ever.
Cause you're just like, wait, what?
What did you think?
Like, black people hadn't figured out restaurants yet?
Like, what do you, you're like, they ate with a fork and a knife.
They weren't even shoveling it in their mouth with the face.
You wouldn't believe it.
They could read the menu.
Yeah, it's like, it's just like you're trying.
He's trying to say something not racist, but it's coming off so like, ah, dude.
Anyway, this is an older person thing.
I'm not like hating on anybody for it.
It's just, yeah, look, you're a product of your time.
We all are.
But there's something about Jon Stewart.
Like, look, this, the point I'm making in regards to Jon Stewart is that this whole like, you can't hear from the other side because there's a war, this is all the last five minutes.
This isn't old.
You remember how the Guardian scrubbed Osama bin Laden's letter to America a few months back?
Oh, that's because it was turning on all the Gen Z. Right.
Go out to Afghanistan and find themselves some husbands.
Yeah, right.
But the point is, they just scrubbed it last year, late last year.
But it had been published up there since 2002, I think.
It was maybe even 2001.
I think maybe 2002.
But it had been up on the Guardian because that was the way news was always done back then.
It was like, oh, we're at war with this guy.
Scrubbing Bin Laden Letters00:04:06
Here's what he says.
There's an interview that was just going viral the other day, an interview with Saddam Hussein as American troops were amassing, about to invade the country.
I think it was like a week and a half before the war kicked off.
Like it had already been said that we're invading.
We're coming here to invade you.
And yeah, journalists sit down with microphones and talk to him.
And like that, that's always the way it's been done.
And so to sit here and act like this is some crazy thing to think that, and by the way, we're not technically, I mean, according to that, we are not at war with Russia, right?
I mean, we're backing the other side of the war, but there's something, there's nothing, it, it makes no sense by any of the reasonable standards that we all had up until five minutes ago to be like, oh, the American people shouldn't hear Putin's side of the story.
All right, let's keep playing.
Just out of curiosity, as a student, when you're sitting there interviewing Putin and you don't plan to challenge his utter bullshit, but you don't want to really be that obvious, what do you do with your face?
Oh, I see.
Okay, so it's not really a straight face as much as you try to convey a mixture of what appears to be shame, arousal, and I'm going to say irregularity.
For instance, like you're constipated while jerking off to a Sears catalog.
Been there, haven't you?
The guy up there saying like, well, the lingerie ads were planning.
Now, obviously.
Tucker strategy strategy is going to work when there's some ambiguity in what Putin says.
But what if Putin starts saying shit like, World War II was Poland's fault because they forced Hitler to invade them?
I mean, what do you do with something like that?
That's going to be hard.
Well, this territory was transferred to Poland and instead of Danzig, a city of Dansk emerged.
Hitler asked them to give it amicably, but they refused.
Of course.
Just pause it for a second.
Like, it's amazing how much people rely on the ignorance of their audience.
Because everything Putin just said there is a fact.
It's just a historical fact.
And it's not, Putin didn't say, assuming his translators tell him this thing.
You know what I mean?
Like, Putin didn't say that's why Germany was forced to invade or that's why Poland was in the wrong for not giving Danzig back, but it's just a fact that after World War I, Poland took control of this city that had historically been German and that Hitler wanted it back and they wouldn't give it.
And then he invaded.
Literally all.
So when Tucker Carlson says, of course, he's going, yeah, of course that happened.
Like there's nothing controversial about the statement.
It literally be like, it's on the level of like Japan bombed the United States of America, attacked the United States of America at Pearl Harbor, and then America declared war.
There's no moral, like, I'm not even saying like Japan was right or wrong or America was right or wrong.
It's just there's nothing to debate about there.
All of that happened.
It's just very bizarre.
So so far, this entire thing, it's like Jon Stewart is not, he's not making any points.
He's not making any jokes that make a point.
He's made fun of Tucker's face and did an okay job, I guess.
Like, and then he's making fun of the fact that he's interviewing Putin, which is just insane.
Intera Skincare Joke00:06:21
So like, okay, where's the like smart commentary that he's supposed to have with these jokes?
I just don't like, this isn't political humor.
This is just stupid.
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All right, let's get back into the show.
Anyway, let's keep playing.
Of course.
You know, it's so hard to do when your face says, what the f and your mouth says, of course.
So hard to pull.
How do you, all right, how do you do that?
By the way, Poland started World War II.
Why would a country whose navy has submarines with screen doors want to instigate a war?
Okay, hold on.
So pause it right here again.
It's just Vladimir Putin.
Look, said the guy invaded Ukraine.
He's done a lot of bad shit.
He's killed a whole lot of people.
There's a war where hundreds of thousands of people, it seems, have died.
There's lots of, he's a bad guy.
But he didn't say Poland started World War II.
He said Germany asked for Danzig back and Poland wouldn't give it.
Now, Britain gave Poland a war guarantee.
And then, you know, Hitler invaded Poland.
This is what led to the war.
But again, it's not, there's not even like, look, you can make the argument.
I highly recommend people read.
If you're interested in this subject, Pat Buchanan's book, Hitler, Churchill, and the Unnecessary War, is such a good book.
And whether or not you completely agree with his thesis in the book or not, it's really worth reading.
And I love how like it's interesting that World War II, which is like objectively speaking, the worst thing that ever happened in the world.
It's the worst thing that ever happened in history, the biggest mass murder campaign in world history.
And you're not even allowed to like ever like, I don't know, go, hey, were there any off-ramps to this thing?
Was there ever a possibility that we could have done anything other than this?
It's always just like, the only thing you're allowed to say is that, oh, the problem is that Chamberlain gave him Yugoslavia and that's he tried to appease Hitler.
And so the lesson is, I guess, we should have started World War II earlier.
That's the only possibility.
You're never allowed to.
And it is worth at least considering, like maybe it wasn't such a great idea to give Poland a war guarantee.
Maybe it wasn't worth fighting a world war over whether Danzig belonged to Germany, which had been a historic German city, or whether it was controlled by Poland.
And by the way, if your attitude is like, oh, well, we can't just let Poland get invaded by the Nazis.
We can't just let Poland become part of the Nazis.
It's like, well, the end result was them being dominated by the Soviet Union for many decades after that.
So we gave him to Stalin instead.
Okay.
Was that worth fighting a world war and losing tens of millions of people?
It's a fair question.
Anyway, Vladimir Putin didn't ask any of those questions.
He didn't say anything like that.
He just talked about what objectively, historically happened.
That's all.
Now, is Putin, was there like a little bit of a wink and a nod suggesting that like you kind of have the right to invade a place that was historically yours?
Is he thinking of Crimea when he says that?
Is he thinking, okay, maybe.
And that's that you could argue that that's not legitimate, but he didn't say that.
He didn't say that.
And Tucker Carlson went, of course.
He just said historically, what happened in World War II?
And Tucker said, of course, all John Stewart has is just making fun of his face.
Whatever.
Okay, let's keep playing.
Quick history lesson.
Years ago, for reasons nobody is really sure of, a stereotype emerged that Polish people were inept in various ways, including obviously submarine manufacturing and even something as simple as the changing of a light bulb.
I don't know actually how many Polish people you think it takes to change a light bulb, but it's certainly less than the conventional wisdom at that time would tell you.
Now we know that Polish people are as smart as anyone and certainly did not deserve to be invaded by the Germans, who of course accomplished that by marching in backwards.
So the Poles thought they were leaving.
I will say, I love a good joke joke.
Love a good like joke book joke.
That's pretty solid.
So I'll give Jon Stewart that.
Did he write that one or is that actually a joke book joke?
I don't know.
Cheap Groceries in Russia00:14:43
Oh.
I don't know if he wrote it.
I've never heard that before.
I don't know if he wrote it or one of his writers wrote it or whoever, or if it's just a joke book joke that they're repeating.
But I just mean when I say jokebook joke, I mean even if you wrote it in that style of joke book joke, you know.
Okay, let's keep playing.
I like to give you a little bit of dumb.
Well, this has been an incredible primer into the delicate dance of speaking, of course, to power.
Tell me, Tucker, does this masterclass include field trips?
How does Russia have a subway station that normal people use to get to work and home every single day that's nicer than anything in our country?
There's no graffiti, there's no filth, but no foul smells.
That's a nice subway.
That's a very although, to be fair to the New York City system, it was constructed in 1904 out of urinal cakes by the great engineer Giuseppe Pissa everywhere.
But point taken, it's a very nice subway.
But the subway, that's only one thing.
So we thought it would be interesting to take a look at a contemporary modern-day 2024 Russian grocery store.
Go on.
All right.
There we go.
So I guess you put in 10 rubles here and you get it back when you put the cart back.
So it's free, but there's an incentive to return it and not just bring it to your homeless encampment.
I know I've said this before.
You're such a dick.
Now I didn't realize.
Really, truly, like a dick.
I didn't realize America's homeless problem is caused entirely by easy access to grocery carts.
I had all my stuff in my house, but I didn't argue you put it on wheels and so much.
Let's just pause a second there.
First of all, we have those here.
I mean, I don't know how, I'll be honest, I don't do much of the grocery shopping, but I've been with my wife to the supermarket a few times, and we have those out in New Jersey.
Well, yeah, okay, maybe.
Maybe they are pretty rare.
But in Jersey, they do have them.
Anyway, I don't think Tucker was making the point that the shopping carts are what caused the homeless encampments as much as he was making the point that they don't have those there.
I think was more the point.
But anyway, I'm not sure.
I actually laughed at that joke.
Yeah, I thought it was, I thought it was funnier than anything Stewart said so far, to be honest.
The Polish thing was pretty good.
But I don't exactly get it's like, why was that?
Why is he such a dick?
Like, I just don't, I don't get it.
I don't get what's a are you like not allowed to mention that there's homeless encampments in America?
Like all over the place in lots of major cities?
We can't mention that.
All right.
You're not allowed to joke about it.
Is that your rule, Jon Stewart?
I don't get it.
Okay, let's keep playing.
Grocery cart escalator.
This is designed, I'm figuring this out now, where the wheels don't move.
They lock on the grocery cart escalator.
Look, Ma, no hands.
Oh, okay.
Okay, Forrest.
An escalator for the grocery cart and the doors open automatically.
Oh, mother Russia.
Russia is famous for its bread.
There's one thing I could assess pretty well.
Look at that.
It's fresh, too.
Look at that.
Oh, come on.
Yeah.
The guy really likes bread.
I hate to think what would have happened if he had found a bagel.
All right, we can pause it again here.
Just to point out here, man, that it's like, the thing that's really cheap about what Jon Stewart's doing, and there's just a lot like cheap to this, is that, so he kind of plays that, he plays the clip at the beginning of Tucker Carlson being like, look, and he's very serious.
He's like, look, we're doing this and here's why we're doing it.
It's because I'm a journalist.
I have a right to free speech.
That's my birthright.
And Americans have a right to know what's going on in a war that they're implicated in.
It's a very clear statement, right?
And then he plays one segment, the smallest, not even like plays a segment, plays one line that Vladimir Putin said, which is a historic fact.
And Tucker Carlson agrees with him.
And then he's right to this.
And he's kind of like putting it all together to give you this illusion that like, oh, Jon Stewart's saying he's a serious journalist.
But look, here he is.
This is serious journalism, sniffing the bread and telling everyone how cool the shopping cart thing is.
But what actually happened was that Jon Stewart said that thing about being a journalist and us being implicated in this war, then gave the only interview broadcast in America with Vladimir Putin since the wars began.
And then this was kind of like a lighter thing, like a lighter puffy type thing that he did in addition to it.
But you get what I'm saying?
He's like giving you the impression that like, oh, this was the journalism where obviously this is all lighthearted.
Tucker wasn't doing this like this is hard-hitting news.
He was like, yeah, this will be kind of interesting to like take a little trip around a supermarket and just see how it's different to American supermarkets and like what it's like, give you a little bit of an idea of like what it's like to be a person in Russia today.
And like, I don't know, I don't get what's so wrong with that.
Anyway, that's kind of my take on it.
It's also somewhat relevant because I believe at the beginning of the war, there were reports that the Russian supermarkets were going to be empty.
Yes, that's right.
Where they were saying they were going to destroy the ruble and all that stuff.
That's right.
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All right, let's get back into the show.
All right, let's keep playing.
But hey, if being a free speech warrior means you have to bang the occasional sourdough.
You get my point, though, on that, right?
But our time is limited.
Could you drive home the purpose of your deception on this trip in the most cynical way possible, please?
We didn't pay any attention to the cost as we were just putting in the cart.
We would actually eat over a week.
And we all came out around 400 bucks, about 400 bucks.
It was $104 U.S. here.
And coming to a Russian grocery store, the heart of evil, and seeing what things cost and how people live, it will radicalize you against our leaders.
That's how I feel anyway.
Radicalized.
Radicalized.
And it will radicalize you unless you understand basic economics.
See, $104 for groceries sounds like a great bargain unless you realize Russians earn less than $200 a week.
But that's the kind of context that a, what did you call yourself earlier?
A journalist would have provided.
But here's the reality.
You f ⁇ ing know all this because you aren't as dumb as your face would have us believe.
Perhaps if your handlers had allowed, you would have seen there is a hidden fee to your cheap groceries and orderly streets.
Ask Alexei Navalny or any of his supporters.
Then Vladimir Putin's Russia, political repression is everywhere.
Okay, so let's pause it here and kind of dissect this a little bit.
So I will grant Jon Stewart that there is like, there's something off about Tucker Carlson's argument there that it's like, oh, the groceries are cheaper.
Because the way he presented it, there's a point that could be made there, right?
So there's a point to say, hey, look, why is it that Russia, this country who's much poorer than us, is able to produce groceries that are cheaper than our groceries in this country?
There's a question you could ask there, but there would also probably be like questions about like, well, if we're a wealthier country and people make higher wages here, it may cost more to produce these groceries.
But the way Tucker presented it as being like, you should see how people live here is implying that his point is that groceries only cost $104 for people in Russia, whereas that's not really true.
They cost $104 American dollars, but you'd have to look at, as Jon Stewart does fairly point out, you'd have to look at what the Russians make.
You know what I mean?
Otherwise, you're not getting like a good gauge.
I'm a little confused by this because those aren't lower quality or seemingly lower quality groceries.
If a country was destitute, so you might spend $104 and get much lower quality food.
Right.
But it would seem to me that that's just indicative of inflation.
That essentially, if they're making $200 a week over there, but $100 buys you that much food, then why is it that $100 doesn't buy you that much food over here?
Well, that's probably either inflation or some sort of a price control mechanism in the market that is artificially making groceries cost a higher.
So to me, Tucker's point stands.
Okay.
All right.
Fair enough.
Yeah.
I mean, look, like I was saying, I think there is a point if you're going to go like, why can't we produce it as cheap as they do?
The point of saying how people live here is what I'm taking an issue with a little bit more because you'd have to look at...
Grocery costs are not indicative of the fact that Russians have a higher standard of living.
Right.
Right.
You'd have to look at their wealth compared to grocery costs.
That would mean that 25.
No, my math is wrong.
Whatever.
I guess half of one week's paycheck is going to one week's groceries.
Which is not great.
But regardless of that, this is, I think, the problem that Jon Stewart is moving to next is that, well, okay, you're saying that, but there's a small price that comes along with your cheap groceries and your beautiful train stations.
And that price is this authoritarianism that you live under.
And the issue with this is what we discussed when we first responded to the Tucker Carlson clip about the train station is that, yeah, but that this old line used to kind of work more or less on Americans where they go, yeah, look, Stalin made the trains run on time, but that's under this authoritarian model where you give up your liberty.
And so you get the train running on time because everyone's scared to death they're going to die if the train isn't there right at the right time.
You know, Hitler built the Audubon or whatever, but yeah, but then look what you get, what the price tag of that is.
The problem with Jon Stewart saying that now is that like after the fucking COVID years, it's just a harder sell.
It's like, oh, we don't really have that much liberty here.
Now, do we?
And so there's just this problem where you're like, when we have the biggest, most powerful government in the history of the world, it doesn't like you're going to have to draw a line for me here, not just kind of vaguely say the price tag of this is authoritarianism.
Why?
Why can't we have a nice train station and affordable groceries?
Why would that necessarily have to come with this authoritarianism?
And if it doesn't necessarily have to come with it, then it's totally reasonable for Tucker Carlson to say, point out that like, well, look, they have these things and not necessarily be endorsing the other parts of what they have.
But wait, it gets worse than this.
Let's keep playing.
And hundreds have been arrested for daring to honor Navalny so publicly.
Right.
Because the difference between our urinal caked, chaotic subways and your candelabrad, beautiful subways is the literal price of freedom.
But the goal that Carlson and his ilk are pushing is that there's really no difference between our systems.
In fact, theirs might be a little bit better.
The question is, why?
Why is Tucker doing this?
Here's why.
It's because the old civilizational battle was communism versus capitalism.
That's what drove the world since World War II.
Russia was the enemy then.
But now they think the battle is woke versus unwoke.
And in that fight, Putin is an ally to the right.
He's their friend.
Unfortunately, he is also a brutal and ruthless dictator.
Okay, so let's pause it here because now Jon Stewart wants to, after, I got to say, the subpar comedy with no intelligent like points attached to it, he now wants to stop and be serious after doing all these like kind of cheap tactics to get Tucker and go, okay, so here's what's really going on.
Woke Versus Unwoke Battle00:15:49
The problem is that Tucker has never said anything remotely close to this.
Like this is all just Jon Stewart projecting, let me tell you what the right-wingers really believe, even though that's not at all what Tucker Carlson is saying or has ever said or ever implied.
So this whole thing about how the global order used to be capitalism versus communism, but now it's, you know, whatever, woke versus non-woke.
Well, I mean, first of all, you might point out a lot of those woke people are pretty sympathetic to communism for the record.
It's not that drastically different of a thing.
But that's never been, I've never heard Tucker Carlson even hint at saying that like, well, the thing is, Vladimir Putin sure is against these gays.
I'm like, you know, we're definitely not getting any of this LGBTQ stuff over there in Russia.
And so he's kind of an ally to us in that sense because we're trying to fight these woke people.
What Tucker Carlson has repeatedly over and over again said is that this war is hurting America.
We're risking losing the dollar as the reserve currency of the world, and that is going to result in pain for our country.
Feel however you feel about that.
So I'm saying this is what Tucker Carlson has said over and over again.
And that it's like horribly wrong that we've prolonged this war when there could have been negotiation.
In fact, there were negotiations and there could have been a peace deal worked out.
That's what Tucker Carlson's been saying.
And also that, you know, like all the worst people in the world, the neoconservatives, who Tucker is every bit as much opposed to as the woke, that they've been lying to the American people through every aspect of this war.
That's his point.
So then Jon Stewart like uses these cheap tricks to like make fun of him and then comes out and says, no, this is his point.
This is what, but that's never what Tucker said.
It's just like, I don't know.
Me and you have been as opposed to this war from the very beginning as anyone in the country.
I mean, like, we're maybe we're tied with other people, but we're as against this war as anyone.
And it's never been because we see Vladimir Putin as an ally in the fight against wokeism.
Not a fan of wokeism, but that's never been the thing.
What?
No, I don't see Vladimir Putin as an ally.
I also don't see Vladimir Putin as a threat.
He's not a threat to America.
And we have no need to go to war with him.
And in fact, the only threat that Vladimir Putin poses is if we go to war with him, then there's a threat to the species being exterminated.
But so it's just, you know, it's just, again, such a cheap and unfair tactic to go when a guy like Tucker Carlson has been on record giving you his thoughts about this war forever to just go, no, Let me tell you all that stuff he says, that's not what he thinks.
Here's what he really thinks.
It's bullshit.
So I don't know.
Anything, any thoughts on any of this, Rob?
Are you persuaded by Jon Stewart's brilliant comedy?
No, definitely, definitely not.
It's, you know, I guess I was somewhat suckered by his woke, non-woke points, because I guess there's been moments where I've watched Putin and, you know, like they, he kind of has like some no nonsense on that stuff.
And some of the woke stuff is more dangerous than what Tucker's, I'm sorry, what Jon Stewart's letting on because it's also unwinding use of like things like fossil fuels and things that are necessary for our survival.
It's the central back digital currencies.
It's like really just a front for kind of total control over people and sending us back towards poverty.
But as you were kind of arguing that no one's actually said that that's why we're agreeing with Putin, and now I'm agreeing with you that, yeah, I've never heard Tucker say that that's, so I was initially suckered by that talking point, but as you're arguing and debunking that, I go, oh, no, you're right on that.
Yeah, I mean, it's just not like, how's Vladimir Putin going to help us in the fight against wokeism anyway?
It's just like, it's not really the thing.
And there's nothing wrong with like, I don't see why you can't look at certain societies and go like, you know, okay, well, they really do get this right.
This they get really wrong.
And, right.
And so like, there's nothing about that.
But look, again, I want to just like try to picture, like think about the framing of and what Jon Stewart is doing here, where he kind of goes through this whole thing, then tells you what Tucker Carlson really believes.
And then just keep that in mind while we watch this next one.
Well, and also, I guess that was part of Putin's pitch in that interview was almost saying, hey, we've continuously tried to work with the U.S. and you guys did, we were trying to join NATO.
I mean, I already listened to that a week ago, but it seemed like part of his talking point was we're Christians over here and we share similar values to you and we're trying to fight against these other forces.
But I would say that was that was Putin's pitch.
That's never been what you or I have said for, hey, we need to work with Putin because we share similar Christian values.
To me, anytime world leaders who are engaged in violence are talking about Christian values, they're hiding behind a religion for propaganda.
Our point has just been, why are we using U.S. resources and funds that we could be using over here that we probably have better agendas for, even though you and I are not, hey, government's got to spend money.
So we should spend it on the poor.
That's not really our thing.
But more than anything else, what we've been saying is, hey, this is dumb and just leading to death.
And if anything, you're putting risk on the table of further escalations.
This doesn't make sense.
Yeah.
And there's certainly, dude, I do not in any way, like I'm a radical libertarian.
I do not in any way admire the Russian model.
And I don't admire Vladimir Putin.
And I treat him as I treat all heads of state, in my mind, as the leader of a criminal organization.
I don't trust anything he says.
I don't think he's a good guy.
He's done horrific things.
But you can also soberly assess a moment when like, and again, we're radical libertarians.
We're not statist globalists.
So it's not that when Vladimir Putin goes, hey, you know, I wanted to join NATO.
He's like, hey, we're Christian Europeans.
We have so much in common with you.
And you guys are like, you guys are backing the jihadists in Chechnya.
Like, what the hell's up with that?
I'm sitting here saying, like, let's be friends.
After 9-11, Vladimir Putin said, hey, what can I do for you?
They warned us about the Boston bombers.
There's like all these things.
So my takeaway from that isn't like, oh, yeah, we really should have let Vladimir Putin in NATO.
My takeaway is like, this is proof that we don't need NATO.
We don't need to be a part of it.
Like, whatever, there's no, there's no issue here.
And let's stop backing the jihadists in Chechnya.
Like, why the hell are we doing that?
That doesn't make any sense.
You know what I mean?
So it's like, you can listen to what they say and then have like a reasonable takeaway for how that benefits your country and the model that you want to live under.
That doesn't mean you're saying we should live under the Russian model.
By the way, and of course, Jon Stewart won't include this in here to give you context, but Tucker Carlson did an interview only days later where the interviewer specifically asked him, said, oh, so are you saying you support the Russian model because it results in these good train stations or nice supermarkets or whatever?
And he was like, no.
He goes, I'm supporting the American model.
And we used to have all this nice stuff and we don't anymore.
He was very explicit about it.
But if that's not enough, let's keep watching Jon Stewart.
Have to make Americans a little more comfortable with that.
I mean, liberty is nice, but have you seen Russia's shopping carts?
And Tucker would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling assassins.
In a statement to the New York Times, Carlson said, quote, it is horrifying what happened to Navalny.
The whole thing is barbaric and awful.
No decent person would defend it.
Correct.
No decent person would.
For more on this right there.
Do you see how fucking full of shit that is?
Like, what a dishonest way to respond to someone.
Yeah.
And no decent person would defend it.
Yeah, that's what he just said.
He's not defending it.
He's like, this is insane.
You can point out while every one of our train stations are toilets and they have this big beautiful one.
You're going to, that is a cool thing that Russia has this.
This is what their supermarkets are like.
Oh, what about the brutal dictator who runs the country?
He goes, oh, well, yeah, it's awful that he does that stuff.
No one decent person should defend that.
And then to the, no, if you remove, and this is what's so dishonest about it, is he has the segment where he tells you how Tucker Carlson feels and why they got, oh, what's freedom?
I mean, you know, they got those nice shopping carts there.
He's got to support Putin because he sees this as woke versus unwoke, which is this nonsense that Tucker's never said.
And then he gets back to what Tucker actually says, which is something no one can argue with.
Yeah, that's horrible.
It's horrible that he assassinated this guy.
It's horrible that he locks up dissidents.
We're all against that.
We like the freedom model.
This just is so devout of any substance.
And it's just not that funny either.
You know what I mean?
Like, it's just like what, and this is the thing that John Stewart, this is what John Stewart does at his worst.
And when John Stewart's at his best, he's very good.
But what he does at his worst is where you're like, ah, dude, you're almost like you're using your like snark and sarcasm as kind of like a propaganda tool to discredit someone without even kind of grappling with what they actually believe.
And then the other thing about it is that it's like, you know, he starts by accusing Tucker of like doing propaganda for the Russians.
But what are you doing?
You're just trying to mock and dismiss the one guy who's standing up to the propaganda here.
The propaganda here has been that Vladimir Putin stole the 2016 election.
He was involved in a conspiracy with Donald Trump.
He, you know, he, there were a million things.
I can't even run through all of them.
He was putting bounties on U.S. soldiers' heads in Afghanistan.
Remember that one, Rob?
They don't bring that up anymore.
Why is that?
It was fucking a complete lie.
A complete lie.
He's about to invade Poland.
He's like all these things.
It's all these lies about Vladimir Putin.
And like the one guy who was consistently pointing out that all of those were lies.
I mean, the one guy, I guess, were two more of them, but a guy with the biggest megaphone who was pointing that out.
Now you're just trying to demonize him.
And let's, by the way, just to make it clear that I'm not like even exaggerating, let's go to that Nancy Pelosi video.
This is just from the other day.
Nancy Pelosi was being interviewed on the cable news there.
And this is what she had to say.
Simpsaki.
That's right.
Have him nameless saying he doesn't support NATO and encouraging Russia to invade NATO countries.
He who shall not be named.
I know Voldemort well.
So there's another guy kind of like him.
What do you think?
We're all wondering this question, Speaker Bullsy.
What do you think Putin has on him?
I mean, it sure seems like something, as you've said a few times, given that he refuses to criticize him, that he seems to be a fanboy of him.
Are you worried about during the Mueller?
Go ahead.
Sorry.
Go ahead.
First of all, first of all, we must be sure that he does not step one foot into the White House, not as president or not as anything.
He has brought disgrace to the White House to these presidents.
I talked about George Washington.
It's also President's Week for Abraham Lincoln.
When Abraham Lincoln died, it was embroidered in his coat that night at that theater.
One country, one destiny.
And he gave his life to unify our country.
And now we have someone who had the honor of serving in the White House, didn't consider it an honor, didn't consider his oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution.
And on this week, speaking out the way he did about Navali shows you that he is a person without values.
He looks like he's going to be a person without dollars either.
But the values are what concern us.
Yes, the dollars, I don't know what he has on them, but I think it's probably financial.
I think it's probably financial, either something financial he has on or something on the come.
Let me ask you, something financial or something on the come.
What don't you understand, Rob?
Here you have, and that's it.
That's the end of the interview.
But so here you have the, I mean, they're still going with this.
Imagine how insane is.
First off, Gensaki.
Is she also like just checking to make sure she still has her tits?
It was with her hand.
Dude, it was so bizarre.
Like it was out of a, was that Will Farrell movie?
It's like, I don't know what to do with my hands.
But it's, so here you have Gensaki, the former White House press secretary and Nancy Pelosi, the longtime Speaker of the House.
And they start with, well, I mean, what does Vladimir Putin have on Trump?
Because he doesn't criticize him enough.
That's the evidence that he has some type of blackmail on him.
And even after a special prosecutor investigation that went on for years, cost tens of millions of dollars, found nothing like this, presented no evidence that Vladimir Putin has anything on Donald Trump.
Nancy Pelosi will just throw it out there like, I bet it's financial or something on the come.
They're just still trying to tell you, oh yeah, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are, they're totally in a conspiracy with zero evidence, zero evidence to back that up.
I'm sorry, answer the question.
What evidence do you have, Nancy Pelosi, that Vladimir Putin has something financial on Donald Trump?
She has nothing, nothing.
And they're still just presenting it that way.
So like, don't give me this shit about like, you know, and this is then their tactic that like, if you ever talk like this, it's like, oh, what do you love, Vladimir Putin?
Oh, you're a Putin propagandist.
Believe me, I've the amount of times I've heard that on Twitter over the last couple of years.
Yeah.
But whatever.
It's so stupid.
It's like, I don't have to like Vladimir Putin to point out that you guys are lying about him constantly.
Maybe Nancy Pelosi has evidence that Russia has all of Donald Trump's cum and he can't currently use his penis at all.
And so he has to work with Putin to try and get his come back.
We got to end the war.
We got to get my cum.
We got to go in there and get my cum and we can't do that with the war.
Yeah, dude, it's just so goddamn ridiculous.
Cold War Propaganda00:09:17
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All right, let's get back into the show.
Speaking of the propaganda, let's go to our old pal, Joe Scarborough, friend of the show, had a Twitter exchange with me and knows who I am.
I'm a traitor to the country, according to Joe Scarborough.
But let's go to this.
Speaking of propaganda, this was a great little nugget from Morning Joe the other day.
And the signals that we send are Friday.
At the beginning of our support for Ukraine, Mika, there were people on the far, far left that would mock and ridicule the argument that China was watching.
That if we didn't support Russia, if we didn't push back on Russia, if we didn't support Ukraine, that not only would Putin get that message and keep going into Ukraine and going to the Balkan states, but she would get the message and he would go into Taiwan.
He wants to go into Taiwan.
Can we just pause it for a second?
Don't you love it?
So first of all, I don't necessarily have my finger on the pulse of all these far, far left people who Joe Scarborough is talking about who were mocking the idea that China is watching.
But I don't think anyone was ever saying China isn't watching.
Like I think we're all pretty aware that China knows there's a war going on in Ukraine.
I bet the news has made it there.
That's why it's but you but he's mocking this idea that he's like, oh, everybody was mocking this idea that China is watching.
And if Putin goes into Ukraine, then he's going to go into the Baltics.
And if Putin goes into Ukraine and then China's going to go into Taiwan, you're like, yeah, but none of that happened.
What idea are you mocking?
He didn't go into the Baltic states.
He didn't go into, did you say Balkans or Baltics?
Either way, it didn't go into him.
He didn't go into China has not invaded Taiwan.
What point are you making?
Taiwan, he wants to go into Taiwan.
And if America lost its will to support people fighting for their own freedom.
Yeah.
The message would be sent.
The message that she is getting right now from little Mike Johnson and Donald Trump, it's just devastating.
And the message is this.
By the way, I didn't catch this the first time, but isn't it funny how he's trying to do Trump?
The message he's getting from little Mike Johnson.
It's just such a Trumpian thing to try to do, but it just doesn't really work for Joe Scarborough.
The first Trumping thing he did was he didn't finish the sentence, realized he had no point and just said it's devastating.
Trump usually goes with the positive.
It'll be great.
He just kind of cuts himself short and gives no reasons.
Chuck went the other way where he realized he had nothing.
So he goes like, just condemns it.
Dude, it's always the Warhawks always, 100% of the time, rely on an unfalsifiable, unprovable, counterfactual and just argue from that.
They never argue like, hey, listen, I supported these last six interventions and five of them went really good.
Five of them really worked out.
They never argue about how what we're doing is actually helping the situation.
They always argue, yeah, but if we didn't do this, something even worse would happen until the dust settles and it's almost impossible to make that argument anymore.
It's pretty impossible to make the argument that if we don't, if we didn't, if we hadn't had invaded Iraq, things would be worse than they are now, right?
But at the time it was, well, we don't want to, what was the line?
We don't want the next warning to be a mushroom cloud or whatever.
Right.
It was the time.
Well, we don't do this, then there's going to be a nuke going off.
Now, how the thing is, they present no evidence for this.
They just assert that this will happen if we don't do this.
So if we don't fight this war, then China will invade Taiwan.
Why?
Because they say so.
You know, they'll see that one country invaded its neighbor, so they'll invade its neighbor.
Okay.
So there's this war, hundreds of thousands of people are dying all because you claim that if we don't do this, then something else bad will happen.
It's 100% of the time their argument, and it's totally bullshit.
And the message is this.
Republicans, who for the past 50 years have been the main force to push back hard on communism, they've surrendered to the communists.
They've surrendered.
Mike Johnson surrendered to the communists, to the ex-communists, to the want to be communists.
Mike Johnson surrendered.
Donald Trump surrendered a long time ago to Vladimir Putin, surrendered to Xi a long time ago.
He has nothing but praise for Xi, for Kim Jong-un, these communist leaders, Mika.
And that is a message that Xi is receiving loud and clear that it's not just Donald Trump now.
Yeah, we could end it here, but this is Donald Trump refuses to criticize China?
Is that really what that's what we're going with now?
Okay.
Seems like a weird, we're the communists.
And then you see, you got it.
By the way, what we're talking about here is the latest round of $60 billion that they want to give Ukraine.
So the debate is over whether we should have given them the 110 or 170.
That's where we're at.
We've already given them over $100 billion for this war.
But he says, and you're going to, you're giving in to the communists, Russia?
And then, of course, he catches himself and says, the former communists.
Well, Joe Scarborough, there's a little bit of a problem with using the metric of former communists because you know who else is former communists would be Ukraine.
So you're actually arguing to give money to the former communists.
The would-be communists was his next category.
I don't know what the hell that means.
Would-be?
If given the opportunity, they'd be communists.
Okay.
But the point is, the whole issue with communism, of course, and if you want to consider China a communist country, fine.
I don't think it's exactly right.
They do call their political party that.
They're more fascist than communists, but whatever.
If you want to consider North Korea communist, okay.
No argument with you there.
But the issue is that, and I'm, again, not a Cold Warrior.
I don't think we ever should have fought the Cold War.
And I think all the wars during that time period were stupid and destructive and evil.
But there's at least you could say, well, the thing about communism under the Soviet Union was that it was expansionist in its goals.
It had stated that it wanted the whole world to become communist and more and more countries were becoming communist and joining with the Soviet Union.
And that's just not the case with Russia or China or North Korea.
They're doing what they do in their country.
Now, yes, Vladimir Putin is fighting a war in Ukraine, but there's no goal of world domination or reconstituting the Soviet Union.
It just doesn't exist.
And so this idea that we have to keep funding the war against them or you're giving into communism, it's the stupidest shit from the Cold War.
And it doesn't even apply to today at all.
All right, we got to wrap up there.
Thank you guys very much for listening.
Come check us out in Utah, comicdave Smith.com, RobbyTheFire.com.
Check out Run Your Mouth, Rob's other awesome podcast.