Dave Smith and Robbie the Fire Bernstein recap his ZeroHedge debate against Dennis Prager, describing it as a futile exchange akin to punching an unlocked screen door. They analyze Smith's clash with Piers Morgan over Yemen, where Smith argues criticizing Houthis while ignoring US-backed Saudi warfare is hypocrisy, rejecting the "whataboutism" label. The discussion clarifies Smith never called rebels "heroes," exposing a fabricated accusation used to deflect from genuine humanitarian critiques. Ultimately, Smith promotes his upcoming St. Louis comedy show, asserting its success signals strong audience demand for his unfiltered political commentary. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Behind The Scenes Of Debates00:09:51
Fill her up.
You are listening to the cash human.
We need to roll back the state.
We spy on all of our own citizens.
Our prisons are flooded with nonviolent drug offenders.
If you want to know who America's next enemy is, look at who we're funding right now.
Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big.
You're listening to part of the problem on the Gas Digital Network.
Here's your host, James Smith.
What's up, guys?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
I am Dave Smith.
He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein.
What's up, dude?
How are you, sir?
Oh, I've not been as busy as you are, my friend.
You've been crushing everybody.
Oh, thank you.
Yeah, it's been a busy week.
And I know our schedule has been a little bit messed up, so I apologize for that.
But I have been, I've been everywhere, man.
You've been busy.
You've been putting out content.
Not here, but you've been, you know, you've been filling time.
That is true.
But we will be putting out some content.
I don't know if that's not the right way to say it, but we will be doing some live stand-up shows this weekend in St. Louis at the Funnybone, which I'm very excited to come back to.
That was one of our best weekends of last year.
And we're coming back out there April 26th and 27th for stand-up shows.
Me and Robbie the Fire Bernstein at the St. Louis Funnybone this weekend.
Looking forward to that.
And then, of course, we'll be in Tacoma and Spoken, Washington.
Is that actually the right way to pronounce it?
People have given us a lot of shit.
Is that people that we went from Spokane?
No, what I'm told is it's not Spokane.
It's Spoken.
Spokane.
I don't know.
I've just been telling people, fuck you and your shitty town.
We're there for one night.
We don't have to get it right.
I mean, how much effort am I realistically expected to put in to pronounce this town right?
Anyway, the point is, please, we have nothing but respect for your town.
Please come out and see us when we're there.
Stanford, Connecticut, Washington, D.C., the most evil town in the country, but I do pronounce it right.
Atlantic City, Las Vegas, Austin, Texas, at the Comedy Mothership, of course.
And then Nashville, Zaney's.
We got a lot of stuff coming up.
ComicDaveSmith.com for all of those tickets.
And then, of course, Rob, where can people find your headlining gigs?
So I have to actually get all the summer porch tour dates up.
They are mostly confirmed.
But the most immediate ones are Mother's Day if you're free, 6 p.m.
I'm doing a show in New York City at Old Man Hustle, putting up some friends.
That's going to be a good time.
Kick-starting Summer Porch Tour.
I think it's May 18th.
We're going to do a live pod.
Me and Clint out in Florida.
Oh, nice.
In St. Petersburg, I'm going to be doing some stand-up.
And then I'm going to be LPing with you on Thursday and then down in Saturday at Childerberg once again.
So if you can't make it to Washington and you want to do the other big libertarian event, I will be out in the woods at Childerberg on Saturday.
Childerberg, drawing energy away from the libertarian revolution, as always.
No, we're part of the movement.
We just got to do our ceremonies for the evil spirits so that you guys can do your thing in DC.
All right.
Sounds good.
Okay.
So obviously, as I mentioned, we've been a little messed up with the schedule.
I apologize for that.
But I've been doing a lot of big shows over the last week.
Of course, I did Piers Morgan.
I think that I'm becoming a regular on that show now.
I've been invited back.
I'm going on the day after tomorrow.
So I, it was really, really nice to do the show in studio with everyone together, almost everyone, except for the person I had an issue with, I guess.
But it was cool to do it all in the studio in New York, but I'll be back on, I think Pierce is back in London.
So it'll be remote this time.
I'll be doing it from here.
But that was fun.
I got a great response from that.
And then I went down to Washington, D.C., where I did a Zero Hedge debate.
I had kind of teased that I was going to be doing a debate that I thought would be the biggest debate that I've done so far.
And I think it was.
Aside from doing the Joe Rogan experience, I don't think I've ever gotten a response like I got from this from this debate.
So it was, that was pretty cool.
The debates were epic.
You did an incredible job.
But before, I got to hear about the behind the scenes.
I got to hear what it was like actually meeting the guy from the Young Turks, how you guys were able to coordinate, sitting on the same side, getting along.
What it was like afterwards with, wait, what was the guy at the radio?
Oh my, I Dennis Prager.
Yeah, what it was like with Prager after the debate, if he just walked off or if you guys shook hands.
I need to hear the details.
Okay, sure.
Happy to talk about all this stuff.
Okay.
So this is, I did, by the way, I also, if it makes sense, I was also interested in how all of that would go.
So I get why those are the questions you're asking.
Okay.
So let me say this.
Okay.
So when Zero Hedge first approached me with this debate, they look, I understand, I've said this before.
I hate the idea of doing two on two debates.
And there were lots of times within the debate where it was like, it was so obvious why two-on-two debates just debates should be one-on-one.
That's just how I feel.
However, I will say I get where Zero Hedge is totally incentivized to do two on two or even three on three debates because it's so much more beneficial to them.
And there's costs associated with doing these debates, right?
Like you have to fly people out and put them up and compensate them.
And there's studio costs and all of this stuff.
And when you have the more people you have, the more followings you have that are going to get involved in it, right?
So it's the more people, the more eyeballs you're going to have on it.
So I get it.
So when they first approached me, because the things kept changing, but they were trying to put together the team was me and Max Blumenthal.
And I don't really like doing two-on-two debates, but when they first told me Max Blumenthal was going to be my debate partner, I was like, hell yeah, dude.
Like send me into war with Max Blumenthal on covering my left flank.
And I am totally down to do that.
And let me just say, and I promise I'll answer your question, Rob, but let me just say, there's something about doing these debates.
I think I've mentioned this in the past, but they get me very excited.
I love it.
I just, it's so great.
It's like this thing where you put everything on the line.
It's the closest I'll ever get to feeling like a UFC fighter.
I feel like I put my entire career on the line.
I put the way that I support my children on the line.
If I go and just get totally like destroyed in one of these debates, then I'm sure there would be people who are hardcore fans of mine who would never look at me the same way.
Like, whoa, you just, you couldn't respond to what this guy said to you at all.
Maybe your whole thing's full of shit.
And then there's something about that that's kind of like, I don't know, it gets, it gets me amped up.
So anyway, stakes.
Yeah, I like that.
I like the stakes being high.
There's excitement in that.
And as someone who's like a stand-up comedian, and I'm sure you can relate to this, Rob, but there's something about how we enjoy doing something with our life where you feel a little bit of excitement right before you go do it.
And this could either go great and I could be awesome or this could go terrible and I could be a failure.
There's something about that that's cool.
So anyway, I'll get to challenge the ideas to other audiences.
Yeah, like, yeah, like how can I do with this?
Can I actually, I believe I have these ideas and I believe I'm correct about them.
How, let's put this to the test.
How can I actually, you know, how can I deal with another audience who's very hostile to my ideas and can I win some of them over?
And anyway, so by the way, I will say that the response to this debate has been unbelievable, as I alluded to before.
Just it's been pretty incredible.
And I do think that I think what happened speaks for itself.
So however you felt about the debate, I think I think it was pretty clear what happened.
Testing Ideas Against Hostile Audiences00:15:21
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Anyway, so when they told me when Max Bloomingthal fell through and I'm not sure why, but it didn't work out.
And maybe it was because he didn't want to do it with me, which I would totally understand.
But for whatever reason, then they were like, okay, how about doing it with Jank Huger?
And I will say it made me a little bit uncomfortable at first because I look, I honestly like, I wasn't, I wasn't sure how good he would be or how much he knew about this topic and any of that.
Uh, I got on the phone with him very briefly.
We had a brief phone conversation before the debate and I felt much better after the conversation.
Uh he, just he.
It was clear to me that he actually did know what he was talking about.
And you know he's we, we started talking a little bit about it and he just knew a lot of stuff.
He was, he was mentioning a lot of stuff about the history and and I was like okay he, actually he's done his homework he's, I think, going to be good and ultimately I thought he did a good job.
I thought he was a good debate partner.
He's uh he, he janked out a few times.
I don't know, I would have loved to have seen that huddle where he's like you, do you, i'll yell a bunch, break.
Well uh, you know I, if i'm being completely honest I, I get it and I don't love that as a debate tactic in general.
But I also do understand.
And I mean, I kind of look if I'm I kind of like I take the tack that I take because I want to persuade as many people as possible.
And I recognize that in a debate like this, there's going to be some people who are on the fence and those are the people you're kind of trying to reach.
And I'm probably going to be better at reaching them by making a very tight, logical argument.
But I also do understand why Jank, just you know, I mean, this whole thing makes me furious and, if i'm really being true to myself, what I want to do in these debates is like just yell at these people, like how can you possibly support this?
I want to pull up videos of babies suffocating to death under a building that's been turned into rubble and I want to grab the image of it and hold it in front of their face like they're a dog who, just you know shit on your floor and be like, what did you do?
What do you support here?
But all right, by the way, you shouldn't treat a dog that way, but you should treat someone supporting this war that way anyway.
Um yeah, I thought, I thought he did a very good job and I actually thought there were a few points where he added things that I wouldn't have thought of or that I couldn't have added, that were just great and um, he had one point where he said uh, something along the lines of, he goes, you know, you guys totally remind me of all of my relatives because he's uh, he's from Turkey or his,
his family's from Turkey.
And he was like you guys just sound like all the Turks talking about the Armenians and you're like well, we had to do it and this and that, making all these excuses and it's like it.
And it wasn't like it was perfect.
It wasn't like he was saying like I hate my family.
He was just saying like look, I love my family, but come on, you just can't excuse this and you're bending over backward too and and whatever, whatever.
I thought he did a very good job.
So, okay, to answer your question, we all went out to dinner afterward and awkward.
All of them were cool.
Let me say this.
I thought Dennis Prager wouldn't look me in the eye or shake my hand after the debate, but he did both and he was nothing but cool afterwards.
So I'll say that.
And we all, we went out to dinner and had a great conversation afterward, all of us.
So it wasn't at all whatever you might think would have happened.
Did he explain libertarianism to him and get a box of cigars?
He should have collected them.
Oh, dude, I completely forgot about that.
Dude, that's nuts.
Literally not until you just mentioned that did I even remember that.
But anyway, but no, but he was, he was totally cool.
And I'll give him credit for that.
He was a gentleman and we went out, we had some sushi and everything was cool.
Anyway, in terms of the debate, it was a kind of surreal experience.
I've had several of these in my career, but this definitely was up there with, you know, with the most surreal.
I literally, I watched Dennis Prager on Politically Incorrect when I was a teenager.
And I remember it very vividly.
I've, Dennis Prager has been doing, has been hosting a talk radio show since before I was born, or at least right around.
I think he's been doing it for 40 years.
I just turned 41.
So maybe not quite, but right around that.
It was a weird experience where I'm kind of like, you know, look, like, obviously I talk all the time on this show about how full of shit the corporate media is and how unimpressive all of these people are.
But there is still something where I'm getting ready to go debate a guy on his issue of expertise that he's been specializing in since before I was born.
And, you know, at the end of the day, I'm a stand-up comedian who reads books.
Like, I like to read, but who am I really to go debate this guy?
And I felt a pressure going into the debate.
Like, I really better be on point here, you know?
And particularly a debate about this topic where there's this like horrific, you know, humanitarian crisis that's going on.
And I'm kind of going on to argue on behalf of the people being victimized here.
And I'm like, man, I'm going on against someone who specializes in this and has been doing so since before I was born.
I better be on point.
I better really do what I got to do.
And then as I've, I've had this experience a few times.
It was in his opening statement, which before I spoke, well, not before I spoke.
I read an ad and messed it up, but before I spoke in the debate, his opening statement, as he was giving it, I'm sitting there and it was just obvious that I go, oh, he has nothing.
He's got nothing.
This is going to be a cakewalk, to borrow a neocon phrase.
It's just easy.
And he just gave the whole thing to me.
Like it was almost like, I don't know how to describe it.
I was thinking of describing it like, it's like, imagine you had to punch a brick wall as hard as you, as hard as you possibly could.
And you're gearing up to like punch this brick wall like, man, I'm about to shatter my hand, but I got to hit this thing so hard that I do some damage to it.
And then you throw the punch and as it connects, it's not a brick wall.
It's an unlocked screen door that just flaps.
And that's how the debate felt to me.
He opened up immediately by saying what I've mocked him for saying in that in that video that he had that went super viral, where he was like, one side wants peace and the other side wants them dead.
And I mean, like right away, from my opening statement, I was just like, oh, well, that's stupid.
That's not at all what's going on here.
And like, I don't know how to describe it.
It would be the equivalent of imagine I opened the debate by saying something like, no Palestinians want terrorism, but all of the Jews want war.
Like you'd just be like, oh, that's, that's so ridiculous.
That's who would, but of course, I would never say anything like that.
And so I don't know what else to say.
That was kind of how the debate went.
I almost felt like I felt a little bit pissed off at him because he didn't even give a fight.
It's almost like if you were a boxer and you're like, you're going into the biggest prize fight of your life.
And you go out there like, I've trained so hard.
Let me beat this guy.
And then the guy you're boxing just puts his hands down at his side and just lets you hit him a whole bunch of times.
And okay, on in one way, you feel kind of good about that because you're like, whoo, I got out of there without getting touched, you know, and I won.
And everyone's saying, oh, you did such a great job.
But you're also still almost a little bit resentful of the guy.
Like, come on, we were supposed to have a fight, man.
Like, what, what was this?
It reminded me, not that it's the same thing, but it reminded me of when Scott Horton debated Bill Crystal.
And you're just like, oh, we were all like so amped up for it.
And then it was almost so anticlimactic in a way where it's like, oh, you didn't even like show up to fight.
I thought you'd have something.
I thought, like, I thought the guy was like, look, dude, you've been studying this your whole life.
You've been studying this since before I was born.
You're going to throw something at me that's going to be a challenge to deal with.
And look, I'm not exaggerating.
There was just none of that.
There was nothing.
It was pure, just like empty, shallow talking points.
And again, I kind of feel bad saying this because the guy was a nice enough guy.
We went out to dinner afterward.
He didn't stay that long, but he was nice.
It wasn't any, he wasn't shitty off air, but geez, did they just have nothing?
They just had no argument.
And there were so many times throughout the debate where I actually couldn't even believe that they was like, wow, that's going to be your response or whatever.
And, you know, people sent me, I don't, I really don't typically read comments.
I, uh, for any of you guys who are commenting like very nice things or very not nice things, I'm sorry.
I just don't have enough time to read them.
But I do, when there's big debates, tend to look at them just to kind of see how did people receive this.
And I didn't even look until someone sent them to me, sent me like the screenshots, because the comments, it's streamed on a bunch of different channels.
And it streamed on the Young Turks channel, who are like lefties and obviously against Prager and Bachez's side.
And it streamed on breaking points.
They've been very critical of the war in Gaza.
And so I kind of saw like, oh, the comments are overwhelming.
And I see on my own social media, the comments were overwhelming in support of our side, particularly of me, which I appreciated.
But then some people said it's streamed on Dennis Prager's channel.
And even on his channel, the comments were like way in favor of me.
And so that was that was kind of an interesting thing that like even his, even his people were kind of like, yeah, he just, he had nothing.
So I don't know.
I mean, you could give me your thoughts, Rob, but that's what happened after the debate.
And that's kind of how I felt about it.
I didn't, I don't feel like there's this like, oh, yeah, I won this tough fight.
I kind of felt like I showed up and no one was there to fight me.
I thought the debate was terrific.
I'm a bit of a dummy.
So when Dennis Prager was talking at first, I was like, oh, I think he's got something here.
But then you had an angle every single time.
I said, I'm running your mouth.
It was a little bit like you're watching a volleyball game and you see it come up.
You're like, oh, I don't think they can handle that.
And you were just spiking it right back down.
So I think in terms of representing those talking points, Dennis did it as well as he could.
But I certainly think you handled everything he had to say.
Well, it was just kind of like, I guess I felt like that was the difference, that it was like these talking points versus actually engaging with the reality of the situation.
There were certain points of it that just I almost couldn't believe.
Like, I don't know.
Distinguishing Nazis From Hamas00:13:26
I was kind of flabbergasted a few times throughout the debate where he would make these claims or ask these questions or just kind of have this, you must be such a horrible person.
You know, there was one point and I've posted a couple of the clips online, but there was one point where he said he can see no differences between the Nazis and Hamas other than the fact that the Nazis tried to hide their atrocities and Hamas brags about them.
And I responded and I've posted this by saying, well, you know, if you can see no differences between the Nazis and Hamas, well, here's some differences.
You know, the Nazis had a government and a military and an army and an air force and they controlled most of Europe and Hamas has none of those things and they don't even control Gaza.
And then he kind of, he goes, well, you know, it's unbelievable that you would say that because the internet has a permanent memory and you're saying that there's no moral equivalence between the no, I didn't, I didn't say that.
And then he's like, well, obviously I'm saying morally there's no difference.
And it's all just so bizarre where you're like, well, what do you even mean by that?
Morally, there's no difference.
I think there is.
I mean, that's not what he said initially, but then when he says that, you're like, well, yes, I do think morally speaking, like there's a very big difference between killing whatever the numbers are exactly like 1200 people or 40 million people.
Yes, I see a difference between that, you know, I mean, whatever, however you want to measure the Nazi numbers of people killed, you know, it's, it's certainly they killed over 10 million people, I believe.
And double check me on this.
Double check me on this with your favorite neo-Nazi on Twitter.
But I'm saying the Nazis were responsible for many millions of deaths outside of the war.
But then if you want to hold them responsible for the entire war, or at least partially for the war, then there's tens of millions more people who died.
And so, yeah, there's a moral difference when it comes to numbers like that.
It would almost be like arguing like, you know, if there was any murderer, do you see any moral difference between them and the Nazis?
Well, yeah, I mean, they killed a lot more.
So yeah, I see a difference.
It was very bizarre.
And he seemed to kind of rely on this like emotional argument.
There were points in the debate where I could see, I'm looking at him and he's getting teary-eyed.
He's so emotional.
Like he's like, how dare you?
But he doesn't actually have a point.
And, you know, there, I mean, people can go and watch.
Please go watch the full thing.
I think we might put it up on our channel also.
But there were, there were points in the debate where I really, you know, insisted on bringing up the fact that Netanyahu and the Likud party embarked on this strategy of propping up Hamas so that the Palestinians could never get a state.
And I was not sure what the response to that was going to be.
And I was, I'll tell you, I was prepared, very prepared for the response to that being that they were going to argue that that didn't happen.
And so I was like ready with my whole case of how it's demonstrably true that, yes, it did happen.
But again, with the metaphor of trying to punch a brick wall that turned into an unlocked screen door, both of them conceded it.
Neither of them argued with me on it.
And in fact, Bacha, if I'm saying her name correctly, if I'm not, I really apologize.
She was very nice off.
The way she said Hamas the whole time, you're allowed to get her name wrong.
Hamas.
She was very, very nice off air.
But so she not only agreed, but she's like, yes, it was so much worse than you thought.
And then Dennis Prager also totally just agreed and was like, but their defense of it was so bad that so the first time I brought it up, Dennis Prager just pivoted to the Olympics in Germany when the Arabs killed a bunch of Jews, which was a horrific atrocity.
But like, what?
Like he just brought up an atrocity from decades earlier.
And then I went, like, which again, this is a weird thing about doing these debates.
Then sometimes you're kind of in this moment and in a split second, you have to decide what your tactics are.
So then I just went to Dair Yassin.
I just went, okay, so how about this?
How about this atrocity that was committed earlier?
Like, does that disprove your atrocity?
Like, let's get back to my thing.
And then we got kind of sidetracked on a whole thing.
By the way, if you don't know the story, it's like so goddamn horrific.
It's a village. outside of Jerusalem where in early 1948, before the other Arab countries got involved in the war, where the Zionists just went in and killed and raped and just slaughtered all these innocent people, literally just in a village who had nothing to do with anything.
And so I, so I was just like, well, if you can just bring up an atrocity, I can just bring up an atrocity.
What does that prove?
And then he was like, name another atrocity.
And it got into this weird thing.
But then I insisted later in the debate, I was like, wait, wait, but get back to the point I was making.
Like, doesn't this destroy the whole like Israeli pretense for this war or why it's okay to do what they're doing?
But like, you can't just say Hamas is so horrible that we have a right to do whatever we want when you propped up Hamas in order to make sure that we could never give the Palestinian people their freedom.
And he goes, he said at one point, he goes, it's really not that unusual.
People make strange bedfellows all the time, just like the same way we sided with Stalin to defeat the Nazis.
And this is one of the things where I wish there were several moments through the debate where I wish it had been a one-on-one debate between me and Dennis Prager.
Because if it was, I'd have been able to really drill down on every one of his points.
But when you have these two-on-two debates, the problem is, and again, I think Jenk did a good job, but the problem is that if you go back and forth with one guy, then at a certain point, the moderator, in this case, Sager and Jetty, rightfully is going to go, okay, well, now we got to go to you, and then we got to go to you, and then we'll come back to you.
So and then by the time it comes back to you, you're not on the same point.
But it was like the main thing there that's so, what's so wrong about what he was saying is that, look, if you think about us allying with the commies, with with Stalin to defeat Hitler, feel however you want about that.
And you certainly, it's very debatable whether that was the right move or not.
But at least you could argue that the thinking there is that we're allying with a horrible group to defeat a more horrible group.
But that's not what this was at all.
What this was, was explicitly, as they say, allying with the more horrible group to make sure that the more reasonable group doesn't come into power so that, you know what I mean, there isn't like a reasonable partner for peace or whatever they'll call it.
So I'm sorry, that's just totally different.
And you can't even compare those two things.
That destroys the argument.
So anyway, there was a lot of stuff like that.
I was, a lot of people said, you know, I've done many debates and I've done many debates on this subject.
I've been kind of overwhelmed by the amount of people who said that this was the best job, you know, the best debate performance I've had.
And I prepared for for it to be that, because I thought this would be the biggest one that i've ever done.
I think it was so.
Anyway I I, you know these.
These were my thoughts on the debate.
We, we will uh I, I think we're gonna post it on our channel.
It's up on Breaking Points and and the young Turks and and Preger University and all of that, and on twitter, on ZERO Hedges twitter.
Uh, it's got a ton of views on on all of these channels, so it was a cool experience.
Um and uh, I was happy with how it went.
Uh, aside from being a little bit annoyed and and disappointed that I felt like there wasn't really um, I didn't really have a sparring partner, I guess is how i'd put it, but I don't know any.
If you have any other thoughts, rob you can, you can?
Your problem with uh uh, Dennis Prager wasn't a worthwhile sparring partner is you leave the door open for all these dummies on twitter going well, why don't you debate me?
That's because you're not smarter, you're not better, you're not offering a bigger platform, and i've already done 25 of these in one, so why do I have to waste my time with another?
Why don't you just go summarize all the points I made and maybe come to me with an argument that actually needs to be addressed, because I just did.
You're absolutely dude.
There's some I know, I know and I know you're referring to.
I was just arguing with one today on on twitter, but it's like look, i've done um, so since this, since october 7th, and i'm trying um, I might be remembering okay, I debated Ben Dominic on FOX NEWS.
I debated, uh on Will Kane's show.
I debated, um Austin Peterson.
I debated Laura Loomer.
I debated, uh Will Chamberlain.
I've debated Noam from the Comedy Seller, if you consider that a debate.
I've uh, I debated Laura Loomer um, of course, just debated uh um uh, these guys a, Dennis Prager and Bacha um, I feel like i'm missing one.
Maybe i'm not.
There's been other ones yeah, I can't remember specifically, but but like, i've done at least like seven or eight or nine of these debates and I mean i'm not trying to be a dick here, but I don't, I I think they've been pretty one-sided every time.
Then i've also oh rfk right okay, so there's that.
Um, i've uh, I i've also just done a ton of podcasts about this and then right, you'll get like these random people on twitter, oh, you better debate me or you don't.
It's like and and then they'll go.
You're afraid to debate this real, like dude, i'm debating everybody I can on this and it's all going one way and okay, some of them have been more dominant than others, like I, I I do think that, like um, uh Will Chamberlain I, I i'll, i'll acknowledge fought me to a close fight.
You know, I also, I was sick, sick during that, whatever.
I'm not making excuses, but okay, that was a little bit close.
I still feel like I won that, but okay, fine.
It could be debatable who won.
And RFK, I will say, you know, he would, there should have been a moderator there for that because it was very tough that he just kind of like talked for, you know, he just kind of filibustered and then I was trying to get in and, you know, okay.
But I mean, almost all the other ones.
I mean, you can't tell me I didn't just fucking destroy everybody else in that.
I mean, Austin Peterson got wrecked and Laura Loomer got wrecked and Dennis Prager got wrecked and like all these other.
And then there'll just be random people on Twitter who are like, well, you didn't debate me.
It's like, okay, listen, I can't, I can't do everyone.
Interra Skincare Sponsorship Break00:03:17
So what do you have?
Yeah, like make a video that succinctly expresses what I'm wrong about and the other side was right about and then post that and then see maybe I could respond to that.
But it can't just be, I can't spend my entire life just debating everybody about this.
We've got to do episodes of this show.
Yeah, which I'm falling behind on, clearly.
But anyway, so, so that's, that's the weird situation I'm in now.
But I also do feel like, you know, and I do like the episode with that I responded to Coleman Hughes.
I feel like I tore apart every point he was making.
And there's been a bunch of episodes like that.
So I just feel like it's like, I don't know, how many of you guys can I fucking shred to pieces before like you got to actually present something before I'm going to invest the time in doing another one.
But by the way, I will do more.
I'm not done.
I'll debate this topic more.
It's the, it's one of the most important things going on in the world right now.
So, you know, that's, I'm fine with doing that.
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Explaining Whataboutism In Context00:05:39
All right, let's get back into the show.
All right.
So let's, why don't we move on to another debate that I had this week?
So what's her name?
Sorry, I'm pulling it up right now.
Okay, Alicia LeBon was on Piers Morgan with me.
And we had a bit of a back and forth.
I will say in defense of her.
So we did this episode of Piers Morgan.
Piers Morgan was in New York City.
So I went into the Fox News building, which I've been many times.
It's been a little bit, it's been a little while since I've been there, but this was kind of, I don't know, my home for a little bit.
This is where I used to do Red Eye and Kennedy and all that shit.
And it was actually in the old, I think it was in the old Red Eye studios that they've changed around a bit now.
But Piers Morgan was in town and the other women, they had me on a panel with a bunch of women, you know, which nothing against them, but it was there were, let's just say there were several times throughout the episode where I had to look at Piers Morgan and just be like, listen, as, okay, we're two logical creatures here.
We can have a conversation, right?
But anyway, so then there's this one person who's not in studio and she's remote.
And that is always, it's not the right way to have a conversation.
Like it's not the right way to have a conversation where a bunch of people are in a room and then one person's remote.
It's if you've never done any of these things before, it's a huge disadvantage to be the person who's remote.
But anyway, we had a back and forth.
And then she went on Just Asking Questions, which is a podcast that's produced by Reason Magazine with Zach and Liz.
I've been on it a couple times now, and I like both of those guys a lot.
But she went on and one of the segments was addressing, I guess it was the day after this had happened.
So one of the segments was addressing our back and forth the day before.
So let's play this video and I can respond a little bit to this.
One more clip I wanted to play here, which was a recent exchange that you had with Dave Smith, who we've had on the show before, and we've had both disagreements and agreement with him.
You've been personally victimized by Dave Smith.
Just kidding.
I deeply enjoy Dave.
Yes.
And you recently clashed with him on Piers Morgan's show.
Let's play a little bit of that and then talk about the root of that conflict in a little bit more relaxed format where you can explain the point you were trying to get to.
The Yemeni people who have been seizing these ships are sending a message that, you know, let in humanitarian aid and we'll let these ships pass through.
It's not about killing people.
You want to talk about the Houthis that are fighting to freedom.
How dare you?
How dare you not acknowledge what the Houthis are doing in Yemen?
Do you listen to Yemenis and their voices and what they have to say?
They are being terrorized.
They are being starved.
They are being killed.
A young Arabic woman is on death row right now in Yemen for criticizing the Houthis.
I just think we have to have one standard here.
And this is kind of the point I was getting to with national sovereignty.
Like, let's, if we're going to talk about things, let's have one standard.
If our concern is over what's been happening to the people in Yemen, as you said, what the Houthis are doing to them, do you know what's been happening to the people of Yemen over the last eight years?
It's been the number one humanitarian crisis in the world in the war that Saudi Arabia launched on them with full backing from the United States of America.
Okay, if you care about horrible things happening to the people of Yemen, then you better be criticizing Saudi Arabia and the United States of America.
This war just ended over in the last year, the eight years previous to that were devastating.
That's a whataboutism.
No, it's not what aboutism.
No, What aboutism is what?
Okay, hold on, hold on.
I'm not finished.
No, no, no, no.
You said you weren't finished.
No, you said you weren't finished before.
I'm not finished now.
Whataboutism is a word that people yell when you call them out on their hypocrisy?
I'm saying let's have one standard.
I'll explain to you why it's a whataboutism.
What about is it?
What do we teenagers?
What does this word even mean?
I'm putting this into historical context.
So that you understand, okay?
A whataboutism deflects from the issue that was presented.
The issue that I presented to you, okay, it's a logical fallacy.
What I presented to you was the fact that the Yemeni people do not support the Houthis.
And you know, you know what?
Let's pause it right here because I just want to, okay, I don't want to, I'm not trying to like be unfair and interrupt her point here, but I just want to kind of talk about this.
Because I know I've mentioned this on the show before, but this term whataboutism, and it's been thrown at me a few times when I was in like debates or, you know, exchanges like that, whatever you want to call this on a show arguing with someone.
And I kind of, first off, I will confess, I hate the term.
I just hate the term whataboutism.
It's like, it does just sound to me like something a 16-year-old girl would say to you if you were in an argument with her.
Defining Whataboutism Clearly00:09:59
I used to be like, you just totally totes apps.
What about?
As I'm like, I okay, but that's my own bias.
But I could understand where there could be such a thing as what about, you know, I'm trying to talk to you about this.
And you go, well, what about this?
And that has nothing to do with the thing I was trying to talk to you about.
So, so, like, you know, if I, if I, you know, if I grabbed you, Rob, and I pulled you aside, and I was like, uh, dude, like, you know, you got blackout drunk last night and came home and punched your girlfriend in the face.
Like, dude, that's you're that's wrong.
You shouldn't have done that.
And you go, Well, what about the time that you, you know, you didn't pay your parking tickets, you know, or something?
And I would go, okay, like, I should have paid that ticket, but we're talking about this right now.
You can't just go, what about that?
You know what I mean?
So I kind of understand this term could exist.
But in okay, I remember one time I was okay.
So I did a debate.
I don't even know if you call it a debate, but it was a podcast on it.
Sitch and Adam who are like, they have a podcast.
And I was on with Jimmy Dore and Kurt Metzger.
And we were arguing with those guys about the war in Ukraine.
And it devolved and turned into a complete shit show.
But I do remember at one point they asked me, they started by going, they go, hey, so you're a libertarian.
So how do you feel about the Russian annexation of Crimea?
Because you're a libertarian.
So how can you defend Putin taking Crimea?
And I was like, well, I mean, I'm not saying I defend it, but, you know, there were literally, I don't know the numbers, but I think there were like three people who were killed during this entire thing.
And there's been independent polling done afterward that's, you know, basically backed up the plebiscites that the majority of people there wanted to be a part of Russia, not Ukraine.
And it, you know, it had basically historically been controlled by Russia.
And I was like, well, look, for like all the people, like everyone in the corporate press in America who has been totally silent or supportive of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria and Libya and Somalia and Yemen to be so outraged by like the egregiousness of the moral atrocity that was Vladimir Putin taking Crimea.
I go, and they immediately go, that's a whataboutism.
That's a what aboutism to talk about these other things.
And it almost, it feels that quite often this term whataboutism gets used to say you're not allowed to put anything into historical context or call anyone out on their hypocrisy.
And that's what I object to.
So just for example, let's just say hypothetically that every like me and you are libertarians, Rob.
And let's say that every country on the planet earth had a 90% income tax.
Okay.
Like everyone, they taxed all their workers at 90%.
And then there was one country that had a 10% income tax.
Okay.
And someone were to say to you, well, you're a libertarian.
How do you feel about this country that has a 10% income tax?
Isn't that wrong?
They're stealing 10% of their people's money.
And don't you have to oppose them?
And then you were to respond by saying, well, yeah, but every other country has a 90% income tax.
And then someone went, that's whataboutism.
You get where that would be like, no, that's totally unfair to say that.
I'm putting things into perspective.
Yes, that doesn't mean that I'm defending the 10% income tax that that country has, but I'm also going to point out that like, why are we only criticizing the one who has 10% and ignoring that everybody else has 90%, which is much worse?
That's kind of the essence of the point that I'm making.
That if you're going to sit here and say, oh, the Houthis are so terrible to the people of Yemen.
Well, okay, but that's nothing compared to what's been going on over eight of the last nine years, where the number one humanitarian crisis in the world has been what the Saudis backed by the Americans have been doing to the people of Yemen.
And if your concern is the people of Yemen, how do you not mention that?
Like, I'm sorry, that's not the same thing as me going, hey, you got drunk and beat up your girlfriend last night.
And you go, well, what about your parking tickets?
It's just not the same thing.
It's me directly pointing out that if you actually view, like if you actually care about what you've stated you care about, you'd care about this thing more.
Does that make sense?
Or is there?
Firstly, I take issue that every example has to be me hitting some supposed girlfriend.
But I try to draw art from real life.
But anyway, go ahead, Rob.
What are you?
Putting that aside, you know, sometimes I, because I don't have a life, I'll listen to Supreme Court arguments.
And usually the question by the people in the Supreme Court asking the lawyers, they go, well, what about this case?
Or from what I remember of my Talmud study, you know, someone would come forward with some principle and they go, well, what about here?
And what about here?
And the argument would become, well, here's the difference and why you can't compare the two cases, which even in your example of the parking ticket, the response would be, I would argue, well, what about when you didn't have your parking ticket?
You go, listen, this size and scope of my parking ticket is not applicable to the fact that I'm trying to have a conversation with you, that you have a drinking problem.
And so we need to actually discuss that.
By the way, I'm jerking as we say this, but I've said, but I'm not going to go punch my wife in the face.
So go ahead.
The point I'm, I, I, I, I've, this is what aboutism is a term I heard one other time.
And it was because someone else mentioned it here and you were saying it's stupid on the show.
So I don't really, I'm not familiar with the term.
I don't know what you're trying to describe when you're using it, but it would seem to me the actual question of going, well, what about this other instance or what about this other case?
It's a natural argument.
And then the response is to go, here's why that, that's not relevant.
Yeah.
Like it's, it's insane that they, someone could just have a word that dismisses any time you go, but what about this?
You know, like, like if you were like, I'm appalled that you murdered this person.
And I go, well, what about the times you murdered 12 people?
And they go, what about is like, what?
Sometimes asking the question, what about is legitimate?
Like it's just so stupid.
I can't even imagine that.
But it took off.
And, you know, people really love to use it.
And again, I, as you pointed out, I'm not saying there's no example where you could go, what about this?
And someone couldn't go, yeah, that's unrelated to this.
That's different in size and scope.
But there's also lots of times, lots and lots of examples where you could say, what about this?
And it would be a really good point.
And, you know, people on all sides have used saying, what about this?
And it does make a good point.
I remember quite often people on the left when Republicans would be talking about, you know, Republicans would be criticizing Barack Obama for his reckless spending.
And people would say, well, what about George W. Bush's reckless spending?
Do you criticize that also?
And I thought that was reasonable.
I thought it was totally reasonable to say, well, hey, are you, because the essence of what they were asking there was like, are you really against reckless spending?
Or are you just against reckless spending when a Democrat does it?
Or when a black guy does it?
Or when, you know, like, what are we really asking here?
And if your response was, yeah, well, I was against that too, then great.
Then you've covered, then, okay, you've covered that what about question.
But if your answer is, no, I didn't have a problem with that, then hey, that's, that's really drilled down on something important now, because now it lets you know that your issue isn't really with reckless spending.
Your issue is really when a Democrat spends recklessly or when a black guy named Barack Hussein Obama spends whatever it is.
You know what I mean?
Condemning Reckless Spending Patterns00:13:32
But like it's a state it differently.
You don't care about the principle.
You're just looking for a point of something to criticize here.
Exactly.
And so that's the point I was getting at.
Like, is your principle really that you care about the people of Yemen suffering?
Or is your principle that you're a woman from Iran?
And so you hate that government and you want to side with whoever's against that government.
And which, by the way, I understand.
I understand being a female Iranian, like they're a pretty repressive regime.
And so, okay, you don't want to, you know, you want to be against them, but don't invoke a principle that you're not going to follow through.
Okay.
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All right, let's get back into the show.
Let's keep playing a little bit so we can get into what she said about me that I just thought was bonkers, but let's keep playing.
What about the fact that they don't support this and this?
I didn't constall until like showing you.
By the way, I didn't know this.
Hold on, listen.
No, let me explain so you understand.
I'm not saying that.
Let me finish my sentence.
Okay, go ahead.
What I told you is that the Yemeni people have been vocal.
If you would listen to their voices, you don't listen to their voices because the radical and extremist voices are the ones that are propped up, okay, by the algorithm, by the media.
And the people on the ground that are telling you they don't support the Houthis, that's the speech.
Listen, I'm not certainly, I don't know exactly.
I'm open to the idea that there are a lot of people in Yemen who do not support the Houthis.
I'm not defending the way the Houthis treat their people.
I'm not defending the way the Iranian government treats their people.
What I'm saying is that if we're going to not be hypocrites here and we're criticizing them because we're concerned about how the people of Yemen are treated, where is this criticism for the much bigger disaster that's been caused in that country over the last eight years?
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So I don't think you actually got a chance to reply to his last point there because of the format.
It's tough being remote when everyone else there is in person.
Is there anything else you'd like to add to that argument or expand on your argument about whataboutism?
Yeah, look, the Yemeni people, there's certain accounts that I've also kind of shared on my Instagram as well.
Those Yemeni people have always been critical of every form of oppression that they've experienced.
This isn't the first time that they've come out and criticized the Houthis and the Houthis only.
The reason that I explained that that was a deflection is because he had previously said, or many people had previously said that the Houthis were heroes and the Houthis were fighting the good fight.
And the point that I made was that you cannot support the Houthis when they are terrorizing the Yemeni people the same way that you can't support the Islamic Republic when they're terrorizing the Iranian people.
And his point was to turn around and say, well, what about the former Yemeni government?
Okay, if everything that you say about the former Yemeni government is true, blah, Does that mean that you now get to support the Houthis?
No, it doesn't.
And that's why it's a whataboutism because nothing that you say changes the fact that you have no right to support them right now.
Was Dave making an argument in favor or in support of the Houthis or calling them heroes?
Or is he merely making an argument that says, well, if we're going to be consistent critics, we have to be, you know, paying attention to the role that Saudi Arabia and the United States have played in destabilizing Yemen.
No, because this isn't a conversation about us being critics.
This isn't a conversation about us being critics of what's going on in Yemen.
This is a conversation where they are introducing this concept that the Houthis are doing something that we shouldn't.
All right, we can just pause it right here.
I don't know what's going to pause here.
Dude, I love, I just love, I don't know why, I just find it so funny because like Zach and Liz both know me, you know, to some degree at this point.
Like I've, Liz has been on our show and Zach, I've done his show and then I've done or I've had conversations with him on whatever his old show for a reason was.
And then, and we've messaged and stuff like that before.
And then I've done their show, this show twice in the last few months.
And so I just thought it was funny that like you could see Liz almost going like, did those words come out of Dave's mouth?
Because I'd have a tough time imagining that Dave said the Houthis were heroes and that they were fighting the good fight.
And she's like, did he say that?
Or did he just say what I just heard him say?
And so she's just totally making this up.
Just totally inventing the idea.
So now she's saying it's a whataboutism because I'm saying the Houthis are heroes or that they're so great or they're justified in their fight, which is like, I don't know.
Listen, there's no, again, this isn't, this is kind of like almost what I was saying with the Dennis Prager debate.
I guess the theme for this show has been me talking about the arguments I've had over the last week, but this is just objectively false.
I never said anything like that.
And I don't even, they had me on there with some Palestinian lady who you saw at the beginning, but I don't think she even said anything like that either.
The truth is that all I was pointing out was her hypocrisy.
I never said anything like that.
I said that like what you saw in the clip, I go, yeah, sure.
Sure, the Houthis aren't very good to their own people.
In fact, I think it's crazy that the Houthis would have gotten involved in this in this conflict with Israel and Palestine.
I just think, Jesus, after everything your people have been through over the last eight years, just like you're going to do this thing that's going to provoke, obviously the response is going to be a disaster for them and a danger of being more of a disaster than it's actually been.
I mean, it seems like the Saudis are so sick and tired of fighting this conflict that even they weren't going to like really respond to the Houthis, you know, making it difficult to whatever they did.
They hit a couple of American ships or anything like that or whatever they did.
So yeah, I'm not defending any of that.
I certainly don't think it's a wise strategic move.
And I certainly don't think they're great people, but I just, anyway, I found it funny that this was her, her entire argument relied when they, when they were just, and by the way, they were very gently pushing her.
It's not like they were even like proposing this conversation as if they're on my side and they're trying to grill her about what she said.
They're just like, hey, so expand on this.
What did you mean about whataboutism?
And her explanation is that, well, I said something that I never said.
They're just making it up.
And then even when she starts saying it, I don't know.
I just found it very entertaining to watch Liz's response almost like Liz almost a little bit confused and she's going, wait, did Dave say that?
Or did he just say what we just saw him saying?
Anyway, I don't know what else I should say about that.
It's also an odd moment because it's almost like she's yelling, why are you deflecting away from my side point, which is away from the, like, I don't even know how that came up in your, wasn't it an Israel-Gaza conversation?
I don't remember how you guys even got into this.
It was originally, yes.
Look, anybody can go the entire Piers Morgan episode is up on YouTube and anyone can go watch it and see if there's anywhere in there where I said that the Houthis are heroes or that they're justified in what they do or that I support them.
You show me where I said that, but it's spoiler alert.
You're not going to find it.
And in fact, I even at one point in the debate or the show called out the other woman who I thought was doing the same thing that I feel like a lot of people do on Piers Morgan's show for whatever reason, where they refuse to condemn Hamas or refuse to condemn October 7th or refuse to condemn so many of the pro-Palestinian protests.
And I said, I was like, this is crazy.
You guys are really like hurting the cause.
Like at one point, Pierce asked her if she would condemn the chance of death to America at the at the Palestinian protests.
And I was like, why are you doing this?
Like, just condemn it.
I don't understand why there's so many people.
I mean, I guess I do understand, but it's because they're all dumb and we're libertarians, you know?
And like, so even the ones who don't, who are on the right side of this issue, they don't really even have first principles to work off of.
And they don't even know what they're starting with.
So they're just like, well, I'm not going to condemn my side.
I want to condemn your side.
But it's all stupid.
I condemn the Iranian government and the Houthis and Hamas and people blocking highways and people chanting death to America and people rushing in hospitals and all of them.
I condemn all of that.
But what's much, much worse than that is what Israel's doing to Palestine.
That's my position.
So anyway, I would like this chick like blew up.
Like she was going super viral on social media out of nowhere.
I don't know how.
I don't know what's behind that.
But she's not arguing with me.
She's arguing with something she's pretending.
Well, she might be.
She's arguing with something she's pretending that I said.
So that's, I guess that's my final word on that matter.
All right.
Let's wrap up there.
Good show.
Thanks, Rob.
Thanks, everyone, for listening.
This weekend, very excited to be back in St. Louis at the funny bone.
This was one of our best weekends of last year.
So I really, please do not, I get nervous.
Like, okay, Chicago that we just did a few weeks ago, Rob, was one of our best weekends of 2023.
And then I get nervous where I'm like, oh, man, I hope this isn't worse than last year.
And then it was way better than last year.
So I'm feeling the same way about St. Louis this year.
So if you're listening and you're in the St. Louis area, come on out this weekend.
It's going to be a great time.
The St. Louis Funnybone, great, great comedy club.
And yes.
And I think if I remember correctly, we sold out that live podcast last year in addition to some of the prime shows.