Dave Smith and Robbie the Fire Bernstein dissect Israel's PR crisis following Tom Alexandrovich's sting operation, condemning Laura Loomer's visa blockade for wounded Gazan children and skepticism toward Netanyahu's interview. They analyze Axios reports suggesting Trump agreed to Article 5-like guarantees for Ukraine, arguing this strategy prolongs conflict by incentivizing Putin while blocking NATO membership. Ultimately, the episode critiques intelligence agencies potentially feeding controlled narratives to derail peace talks, framing current geopolitical maneuvers as deliberate efforts to sustain war rather than resolve it. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
|
Time
Text
Fighting Tickets in Broome County00:08:00
What's up?
What's up, everybody?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
I am Dave Smith.
He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein.
How's it going today, my friend?
Well, you know, dealing with this, dealing with that, got computer problems, gonna trying to fight a ticket in Broome County.
It's amazing when you have to interact with the government and you realize just how oppressive they are.
I mean, whatever.
We got too much to talk about for me to start unloading on my bullshit.
But anyways, I'm so excited with you.
What?
Fighting the tickets a pain in the ass, right?
You wouldn't believe, firstly, I don't think the guy busted me for the speed he said he busted me for.
Then he lied about on the ticket with what he had said to me in the car.
It doesn't actually tell me what the fine would be if I pleaded guilty.
And then they gave me a court date, which is when you and I are in Tacoma.
So I reached out to say, can I have a different date?
And they keep just sending me different forms to fill out to say I'm guilty.
And I keep saying, well, I'd like to fight this guy, get a new date.
And then after going, it's like phone sales.
I went nine times with them and they're like, finally, well, you have to reach this.
You keep, you keep going through the whole dance with them to let you know that there's another.
Well, why didn't we start with that?
Yeah.
No, that is frustrating.
Yep.
Yeah.
Yep.
They're, they really suck at everything.
Anyways, come to porch store so I can afford a lawyer.
Peck in Indiana, St. Louis.
Where else did I say I was going, Dave?
Outside of Ohio, Cincinnati.
Cincinnati, and then Maryland for the bug out and stand-up comedy show and backyard bar hangout.
Hell yeah, dude.
Hell yeah.
I'm getting excited to head out to Austin here in a couple days and go do a weekend at the mothership.
And then, yeah, like you said, Tacoma, Spokane, Vegas, a bunch of dates coming up.
ComicDaveSmith.com.
Yeah.
Okay.
So there's a few.
I got to say, there's two.
I'm almost debating on which one to open with.
All right.
Let's go with this story, which I just, again, both of these first two stories are particularly like disturbing, but we haven't talked about it yet.
And there is just a lot.
It's just so fascinating about it.
But I don't know how closely you've been following.
Rob, I can't say this guy's.
I'm not sure how you say this guy's name, but the case of this Tom Alexandrovich, Alexandrovich, who is evidently an Israeli government official, worked in some type of like cybersecurity thing or something like that.
He was caught up in like a sting operation, like a dateline NBC type sting operation.
He showed up to meet what he believed was a 15-year-old girl with condoms and like some other things.
I forget what else it was.
Just reading about this yesterday.
It's always iced tea and cookies.
Yeah, that what is that?
Oh, I'm sorry.
Something on my phone on.
It was the Israeli government letting you know that we're not allowed to comment on this one.
Yeah, really.
What is going on?
Getting upset with what's going on in Gaza is one thing, but them allowing pedophiles to flee into their country is another.
Well, it's really just an incredible story for many different reasons.
But yeah, so evidently the guy is so right.
Yeah, he's some type of government official.
He gets busted, is then somehow released and allowed to fly back to Israel.
Now, the Israeli government has come out and said that they didn't request that, you know, this is the case, but there's a whole bunch of it that just doesn't add up.
And Sagar and Jetty from Breaking Points just put out some documents that he got that seemed to prove that the guy actually was saying to everybody that he wanted to call home.
He was inquiring about his trip to Israel, that he demanded to speak to the Israeli embassy.
Like it, it sure does look like what it is.
Like, it sure does look like Israel was like, no, we, he wanted to get out and not show up to court.
And Israel, the Israeli government allowed this.
Now, he's got a court.
They're still denying he was arrested.
They're saying he was just questioned and then came home as scheduled.
Yes, which like none of this, none of this is right.
And so he's got a court date evidently for like in a week and a half.
So we will see what happens with this.
But I got to say, you know, this has been, I know this has been my theme lately, like a thing that I've been repeating a little bit, but it really, like my whole thing about like Joe Biden the day after the debate, all of a sudden there's a, there's a magnifying glass, there's a microscope on every move now, and you just can't, it's like that with the relationship with Israel the way it is right now.
It's just, I guess what's so unbelievable to me, I was saying this to Natalie before we started the show, but what's just so unbelievable to me is that you would think at this point the Israeli government would at least have enough awareness to just be like, all right, well, we got to cut this pedophile loose.
Like, sorry, dude, you can't like, we, we can't get you out of this if you went to America.
But instead, they're like, oh, no, no, no, we can and we will.
Yes, that's, that's the position.
You're allowed to go rape American girls.
Like, what?
Anyway, it's just, I don't know.
It just seems like one more drop in the bucket of like, it's just in this tide turning of it just being, it's just too undeniable how bizarre the relationship between Israel and the United States of America's governments are.
And something like this, well, look, this is a story of, you know, we don't typically, you know, on the show cover like random crimes.
There are, you know, you could turn on the nightly news in any town in America and like, there's a crime that happened that day.
And we tend to cover like bigger issues and things like war and government policies and things that like really affect much larger numbers of people.
But like, you know, the reason this one's so interesting is because it's when you have this dynamic where like our foreign policy is largely tied to this foreign government, the relationship is incredibly shady.
There's there's a mass awakening and a mass turning against Israel.
And you have things like, you know, like the Epstein thing in the background where like, okay, we don't have definitive proof.
We have circumstantial evidence, but man, is there a lot of circumstantial evidence that this was a big, shady conspiracy that seems to have Israel right at the center of it.
And then like in that dynamic, when you have a story like this, there is something.
And I don't know.
I mean, I'm sure like a priest or a rabbi or, you know, an imam could give you a good answer on this.
I'm sure like, you know, someone who specializes in like evolutionary biology or something could have a good answer for this.
But there is something about pedophilia that it triggers this disgust response from people, you know, and appropriately so, but in a very visceral way.
There's something about like, like, look, even abusing kids triggers a response, but something about sexually abusing kids just really gets people like on a visceral level.
Like, this is this is the type of thing that leads to like normally civilized, decent men grabbing pitchforks and taking to the street.
Parasites and Visceral Disgust00:02:10
And like, we're going to get somebody and rip them piece from piece.
Like, that's that, you know, like, I don't know.
I mean, I'm, you know, relatively speaking these days, a pretty civilized person, but like, that's the type of thing that could get me, you know, like that.
It's, there's just something.
And so to have the dynamic, like the story read that here, you have a would-be pedophile and is then protected by this foreign government who is completely dependent on us, who we support in every imaginable way.
I mean, I don't know, Rob, like, could you, could you script a bigger PR disaster?
I, it's just, it's wild.
All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is the wellness company and specifically their parasite cleanse.
If you've been feeling brain fog, even when you're exercising and eating clean, it might not be burnout.
It could be parasites.
Now, groundbreaking research from Dr. Alan McDonald revealed a direct link between chronic parasite infections and neurological diseases like multiple sclerosis.
Parasites can cause inflammation, nerve damage, and long-term cognitive decline.
More reasons to do a full body cleanse at least once a year.
The wellness company has a solution for you.
It's ivermectin and mabendazole, the gold standard parasite solution now combined in one cleanse combo designed to eliminate harmful invaders and support your immune system naturally.
Medical grade, not some trendy herbal gimmick.
Fill out their quick intake form and get a three-month supply shipped straight to your door.
Maha is officially here, and the wellness company is making hard-to-get medications digitally accessible so you can live your best life.
Head over to TWC.health/slash problem and use the promo code problem to save $60 off plus free shipping on all orders.
Once again, that's TWC.health slash problem and use the promo code problem for $60 off plus free shipping.
Cleanse your body today.
All right, let's get back into the show.
Arrested Pedophile Returns to Israel00:12:47
I think there's a couple of things that make this rather damning.
For one, apparently this guy worked under or directly for Netanyahu and I believe it's some form of cybersecurity.
But for one, with the lurking story of Epstein and Epstein's potential ties to Israel and involvement in, you know, the sexual blackmail of underage girls, the fact that Israel's involved in another storyline that includes someone in government and kids that, I mean, that just could not look worse.
And the fact, and then, and then just conceptually, the right of return.
So I understand that if you're in a world landscape that has a lot of anti-Semitism, I understand why Israel would go if you're a Jewish person and you're accused of a crime in another country.
We'll take you in because the assumption is that the crime is not actually something you committed.
It's just a charge.
That's not the world that we live in now.
And I would think that if you're Israel and you're actually a civil society, you would have some sort of a responsibility to actually review a charge before you just give someone a clean slate to flee.
Because otherwise, what you want criminals or pedophiles in your country, you want to be a safe haven for pedophiles that if they committed these crimes somewhere else, like you're openly embracing pedophiles into your society that you're going to let them know if they commit these crimes in other locations, as long as you can get here, you have a free pass.
I mean, why wouldn't you want to review that and have criminals held responsible for one, like allow justice to be served in the countries that the crime was committed?
And two, why would you want those people in your country?
So I think it's a dumb policy.
I don't understand why it exists.
The fact that there's an old NBC article about 60 pedophiles from America or other locations that made their way to Israel because of the right to return.
Yeah, I think that's, I think that, I think that just looks terrible for the country in general.
But the fact that there was the Epstein storyline and there's just so much in the news about why are we giving so much money to Israel that this crime could make the papers and you could just be on a flight the next day with Israel going, well, no, no, no, there was no crime.
And it's just over.
And like, I would just think the Israeli government would be like, wait, what the hell did you do over there?
Yeah.
For themselves.
No, and I got to say, you know, we'll see how this goes.
But look, again, not a lawyer.
Maybe there's people who are more qualified to speak on this than me.
But the guys got a hearing scheduled for, I believe it's the 27th or the 28th.
It was like nine or 10 days from now.
And again, the same, not a lawyer, but like you showed up to a sting operation with condoms thinking the girl was 15.
That is like a very open and shut case.
I mean, there's like, what is your defense there?
I think that's, that means you're, you got got.
Like, they don't, you know, they, you know, the FBI and law enforcement in general, like they do sometimes blur the line on like what is a sting operation and what is an entrapment operation, but they've long since won out in the courts, but they're just allowed to do that.
You know, like there's whether whether that should be right or not, they run these entrapment operations all the time.
It's like 90% of like the foiled terrorist plots that they report are just there was never going to be a thing anyway until you convinced some kid to go do it.
And then, you know, and the bomb was fake the whole time anyway.
So it was like a thing that never existed.
And I don't see how you're not, how you're not going to be found.
Like I'm saying, a regular person, you get caught in that situation, not a regular person, but the type of person who gets caught in that, you're fucked.
You're done.
You're getting convicted.
And so what's he going to do now?
And if he doesn't show up to try, I mean, this story is not going to die.
This story is going to be because it's just too, it's too perfect of an example.
I will say, although I agree with your point, the entrapment for terrorism is worse because it seems like it was individuals that otherwise wouldn't have been involved in those activities that were then convinced to go and do those activities.
It has a greater level of entrapment, whereas the sexual pedophiles that they trap, it seems like they were otherwise looking.
And there still is an aspect of like pre-crime because if they just showed up to a location, I guess you don't know what they were actually going to do once they met with a 15 or 16 year old.
And then I guess also in this case, I mean, there's the possibility that it wasn't published correctly, or they, you know, we were there.
I haven't read the conversations.
They could have represented it as an 18-year-old.
So I guess there's still like some ambiguity, but nevertheless, the whole thing doesn't look good until Israel comes out and proves that like the police department just that the incident never happened or it wasn't a 14 or 15 year old.
This one just looks as bad as it is.
If it makes sense, I always remember I saw, um, like I saw a few episodes of uh Dateline NBC to catch a predator thing back in the day when that was really popular.
And then they've got like all those like pedophile hunt things online.
I know Jay got real into them for a while.
And like, I, uh, I can't watch them.
Like, I saw a couple of the to catch a predator back in the day, and it just makes me feel so uncomfortable.
I like can't watch that shit.
Um, but there's no question that, like, I always thought there was an element of it that was like a bit weird, where there would be these, like, the guys who they caught were almost always, you know, these weren't like who you'd picture a villain to be.
This would be like literally like the saddest, weirdest, lowest IQ people.
You know, they're getting a guy who has like a 76 IQ, who's like, you know, this is a guy who's like not capable of learning how to read and write, you know?
And then oftentimes they'd be kind of approaching him.
Like he's just hanging out in these chat sites or whatever.
And then they, and you wonder, you're almost like, hey, if you guys weren't doing this, does this guy even leave his house that night?
Like, did, did you create this whole situation?
In other words, this guy wasn't actually going to do anything violent or sexual to any kid.
And then you created it and kind of lured this very sad guy into this very, you know, awful state.
The thing is, though, that that's always canceled out by the fact that he did get in his car and come over, you know, like, so even when you feel, there is just something about it.
It's like, dude, that is such a, that is such a line, cross to like actually go to meet what you believe is a child is just so that the thing with the, with the, the terrorist entrapment things, is that there was just such a like, a higher degree of certainty that you're like, oh there, like there's no indication anything was gonna happen ever.
This guy, never.
You know what I mean.
Like it's like, and even when they do cross lines, it's like yeah, after months of you coaxing him, I mean you know, just for for one exact, you know the in that Gretchett Whitmore uh, entrapment thing there's, the guys were like fighting with him for a while, like no, we shouldn't do that and this so so, like you know, that's the thing where, just ethically speaking, it's clearly so over the line, that like, even if you're running a sting operation and then the person who you're trying to get is going I don't want to commit this crime.
Like, I really don't think and you have to work to pursue them to do it, that should, if there was any justice in the world, that should be where you go like, oh okay, this is thrown out of court, like that's, you can't do that anyway.
Um, I think your point was those cases aren't even thrown out of court.
So that's why yes yes no, that's right yes no, that.
That was essentially the point that I was starting at, which is like the, however we feel about any of it that doesn't get thrown out of court, that stuff is totally.
There's people in jail for for this shit, for decades, long sentences.
Um so anyway yeah, it's just, it's again.
It's like just one more.
It's one more example where what I don't, I guess, what's truly truly still stunning and shocking to me is that, so like I just uh sent by the way, we could watch the, the trailer for it if you want to, but I just sent.
So Netanyahu just sat sat down with uh, the trigonometry guys, With Constantin Kassin and his co-host there, whose name eludes me.
I apologize.
But it's like sharp questions.
Well, you know, at least from the trailer, it did seem like they were at least asking.
You know, I think they're doing the thing that I always accuse the corporate press of doing.
You know, like they're doing kind of, they have to at least pretend like they asked him some tough questions.
But I'm quite confident that they won't ask the right ones and there won't be the right follow-ups and they won't call him out on his bullshit, but whatever.
But the point is just that this is what's shocking and really still to me to this day is that so clearly, look, Netanyahu's rolling up his sleeves and he's going on the podcasts, right?
He knows what's up.
He knows that like we need to try to get back into this narrative war because we are losing the messaging battle very badly.
So he's trying, you know, to present, you know, whatever.
He's trying to pull people back into supporting him.
And it's like, what's shocking to me is that Israel, you know, it's like when we do those, those like exercises where we're, we're advisors to the bad guys.
You know, like if you were an advisor, you'd be like, okay, well, here's what has to happen.
Netanyahu, you got to get on camera and go, we will get to the bottom of this.
We are going to look into this.
We will coordinate with American law enforcement.
If this guy did try to go rape a child, he will be held to justice.
I can promise you that.
You know, like, just say it, even if you don't mean it, you're not going to do it.
Like, what are you doing?
Like, you're in that, you're trying to win this messaging battle back.
Like, what is the message that you're sending out here?
It's actually like, oh, no, I'm sorry.
Did I not mention that by the way?
Yes, we're allowed to rape your children.
Yeah.
When we come over there, we're allowed to listen.
Say whatever you want.
This guy was, as you said, Rob, and I forget the exact title, but he was like a department head at cybersecurity division.
You know, like he's not like nobody is a government official.
You got to have something to say about that.
Your government official just got busted for trying to have sex with a 15-year-old.
Like, dear Lord, how do you not just come out and then just kill, you know, kill the momentum of this story being weaponized against you?
It's shocking to me that they don't even seem to feel the urgency to do that.
Yeah, it's the same.
And by the way, just in case my comments earlier weren't crystal clear, pedophiles should all be in jail and prosecuted.
Just in case we're against that.
Just in case any of my nuance got lost, I'm 100% against pedophilia.
Yeah, it is remarkable that Israel is playing the same card of, oh, we're Israel, we're above the law.
So it's like the Jedi mind trick of like, no, wasn't arrested, was just, was just questioned.
We didn't intervene and he returned home as scheduled, which is a very legal way of saying, oh, just that was his schedule was to take a flight four days later or whatever it was.
So he just took his scheduled flight.
Nothing to see here.
Let's move on.
It's like, no, we all just saw the news story that a guy was arrested for potentially being a pedophile and now he just gets to go back to Israel and you guys are pretending like it didn't happen.
I did want to also mention this because I just kind of, I don't know, I feel weirdly like obligated to just say a little something about this because I just, this, this truly to me was one of, it was like one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen.
And I sent you, Rob, the breaking points video about it because it's just not that there's even that much on the topic to say, but I was just so appalled by it.
And I live in this world of really awful, you know, things happening, but this one really got me.
But so, yeah, so evidently Laura Loomer, who, by the way, I mean, I look, what can you say about this?
What can you say about what it says about Donald Trump that he keeps this chick like that, like around the administration?
Crossing Lines of Responsibility00:08:55
Laura Loomer, for people who don't know, you know, I debated her.
What was it?
Almost the first debate they did.
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
Was it that was the first one?
Yeah, that's right.
That was before, that was before I did the Dennis Prager one.
Yeah, it was around two years ago, a little less than two years ago.
And I don't know, dude, it was like, you saw it, Rob.
It's like, it was like I was debating with a screen door blowing in the wind.
Like there was just not, I mean, literally just nothing there.
Like it was, it was actually, it was surprising to me that she took a debate.
She took a debate on the topic that she doesn't know anything about.
And it's just, it was ridiculous.
But anyway, so she does actually have some degree of influence with the administration.
And I guess she decided to make a big stink out of these the children who were getting medical treatment, the Gazan children who were getting medical treatment here in America and actually got their visas paused or whatever.
There's essentially these are one of the things that I found so disgusting about this is that then she starts like she takes to Twitter to launch this effort to not let I mean I'm not being hyperbolic here to not let children who have had their arms and legs blown off get flown into America to like a special facility for some procedure that they need for like 60 days and then go back.
That's like what these are like B2 visas.
I think that's what they're called where they're like essentially I think they're like 30 or 60 days long.
You can't work.
You're not a permanent resident.
You can't go to school.
You have to, you have to, if you want it extended, you have to go back and demonstrate that you're still getting the medical treatment.
Like, and she was using all this America first stuff, like, why don't they come here?
You know, why do they come here?
There's other Arab countries.
We've taken in enough people.
You know, America doesn't need this crazy immigration policy.
Like all this, you're like, listen, this is nothing to do with the immigration crisis that America is facing.
This is, it was a small number of children wounded in a genocide that the United States of America is funding and facilitating.
Like we actually do kind of have like a direct obligation, if ever there is one, to like maybe give these kids the medical treatment they deserve, they need.
Not, but they deserved a lot better.
And they actually successfully got that shut down.
And so now they won't be able to come here to get medical treatment.
And yes, that's like, this is nothing to do with like mass migration or demographic changes or even like immigration policy.
These weren't asylum seekers.
These weren't people who are coming here and seeking permanent residency or citizenship or anything like that.
In fact, these are people who are going to be ethnically cleansed out of Gaza in the next coming months, probably.
And they're like just little kids, little kids who have been like severely wounded in this war.
And we shut down giving them, like, I just, Jesus, man, it's like what, like what I was saying before, like, it really is what I'm, what I'm left with after all these years of making all these arguments and having all these debates is like, you just, just like, what do you say to that?
Other than just like, you're like, so you really like, you're so, you're not even a little bit afraid of God.
You're not like, there's not even like a little part of you.
There's not 5% of you that goes, maybe there's more to life or there's some type of thing where like I did.
You froze up pretty bad there.
I think you're going to have to take that again.
Yeah.
Am I back?
Maybe give it a second.
It seems like you're coming back.
Yeah.
Okay.
Cut off just as you were trying to say, isn't there more to life?
And aren't you afraid of God?
Right.
I mean, just the tiny percent chance that maybe you're going to be judged in some way based off what you did, or that maybe like doing something horrifically immoral is like, I don't know, you just can't do that.
You can't like, it's just, it's wild to me.
I could never imagine like, you know, you're like, like being an activist for an issue that you know that's the result of.
Like, it's just like really, I don't know, dark, evil stuff.
I don't know.
What else can you say about it, Rob?
Well, I mean, based off what you're saying, it seems to cross a line of personal responsibility that even if you, I've, I have zero support for the actions Israel's taking in Gaza, but as a theoretical, I can understand why you're bought into that and like support someone else doing that.
This is you've actually directly taken an action that sounds like it's going to result in a child not getting health care that they otherwise would have gotten.
Like that, that's very, that's a very direct action of you preventing someone from getting necessary health care.
That's a, that, that seems to be a different line or a different psychoticness of how much you believe in whatever you want to claim your cause to be.
But that, that, that does sound pretty horrific.
And you're like, dude, like they, even the thing they said was something Marco Rubio, because it was the State Department who shut it down.
And he said something like, um, he goes, well, the organization that was working on getting the kids here has ties to Hamas, you know, like that's always just ties to Hamas.
The Hamas is exactly right.
I mean, not really, you know, Israel's the government, but then Israel keeps Hamas in power intentionally so that they can then say shit like this.
So that they could go, oh, but you're Hamas by that standard.
Yeah, exactly.
Right.
Hamas is, that's the whole game there, right?
Is Hamas is Israel's pet, and they're on record fucking admitting it.
That's why this shit just drives me crazy.
They're all on record admitting it.
There's just another video that just resurfaced of Benjamin Netanyahu saying the same damn thing.
And he was saying it to law enforcement.
He's saying the same damn thing.
We control the height of the flame.
You see, this is such a brilliant policy of me to prop up Hamas.
And in a way, it is because it allows them to do this all the time.
Like, it's not much, Rob, but it's enough of a talking point for someone to walk in to Piers Morgan's show with and go, oh, well, the Gaza Health Ministry is under Hamas.
And so, hey, you know, can't trust these numbers or this or that.
But like, you're like, what even are you claiming here?
This was some type of terrorist op to get sick kids medical care in America.
I mean, like, come on.
What are we talking about here?
You, we could just treat these kids and then fly them back over.
It's the goddamn least we can do.
We owe them so much more than that.
I mean, we owe them Tel Aviv at this point.
You know what I mean?
Like, that's where they should be getting the medical treatment is in Israel.
If they got to be relocated, like, like Netanyahu's saying, okay, move them into Israel.
It's your responsibility, dude.
You're the one who did this.
They're your people, whether you like it or not.
Those are your people.
You know, in the same way that like, you know, we historically, there's a particular level of evilness that we ascribe to governments that killed their own people.
And that kind of makes sense in a way.
I mean, in a way, it doesn't.
In a way, it does, you know, like there is, I'm not saying it's any Like, morally speaking, I'm not saying it's exactly objectively worse to kill people within your own country than to kill people in a foreign country.
But there is something subjectively that sure does feel a little bit different to human beings, you know, and there's something psychological about that.
I mean, you know, if you find out someone killed a kid, that is insane, and they are an evil person.
You find out that he killed their own kid, there is a different level of insanity and depravity to that.
You know what I mean?
Like, there's just something a little bit different about killing your own family than even killing someone else.
Not, you know, obviously they're both the same crime, but there's a difference there.
And when we talk about, you know, Mao Cetong or Joseph Stalin or Adolf Hitler or, you know, the great villains of the 20th century and what they did to their own people, we don't allow them to say, like, we wouldn't go, well, Hitler didn't kill his own people because the Jews and the Slavs weren't his people.
He didn't view them as his people.
We go, yeah, but that doesn't matter, dude.
They were living under the jurisdiction of the government that you controlled.
That means they're your people.
That's what we mean by that.
We don't, we wouldn't accept it as like, oh, you know, the American government didn't enslave its own people.
Enslaved People Are Your Own00:07:27
They just enslaved these Africans.
Like, no, they became your people.
Like, once you took them back to your country by force, and once they had kids and it went on for generations, and there were generations of people who just grew up there under your rule, that's your people.
That's doing it to your own people.
And likewise, that's what Netanyahu, the people of Gaza are their people.
They're their responsibility.
They took control of their territory in 1967.
Those are your people now.
And like, you just don't get to, you know, I don't know.
You don't get to not take responsibility for that in a moral sense.
Anyway, yeah, I guess both of those stories are both, I thought, very disturbing.
And disturbing just for how horrible they are on its face.
But then also just like secondary to that, you're like, my God, it just couldn't be like the in terms of like the narrative war, in terms of the PR battle.
My God, I mean, this is just like it's such, it's all such like evil shit.
You know, it's like, you just can't believe people can be this fucked up.
Anyway, any other thoughts on the matter, Rob?
Don't be a pedophile and don't remove healthcare from small children.
Two rules to live by.
I've always signed up to those.
I've been pretty consistent on this for a while.
All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Monetary Metals.
I love this company.
Been telling you about them for a long time.
A great company run by great people.
As you may well be aware, gold prices have been breaking all-time highs in 2024 and in 2025.
And now you can get your gold to work for you, generating interest income every month, paid in additional ounces of physical gold.
You can earn up to 5% on your gold and silver in their lease offerings, and accredited investors can even earn double-digit returns in their bond offerings.
Again, all the interest is paid in ounces, which are stored for free on your behalf.
So if you're tired of your gold and silver collecting dust at home, or worse, racking up fees, having your metal professionally stored, check out monetary-metals.com to learn how you can start putting your metal to work today.
One more time, that's monetary-metals.com.
All right, let's get back into the show.
Okay, let's, you know, what I did, I sent you over, Natalie, the teaser.
Let's take a look at this because this is evidently coming out.
I think, I think it's like released for subscribers now will be released tomorrow for the general public.
I will, it'll be interesting to see if there are some good nuggets or interesting moments that come out of that.
Maybe we'll talk about it tomorrow.
But here, let's play the trigonometry with BB trailer.
When you were asked whether Israel is winning the PR war, you said, we're definitely not.
We Jews have been fighting and losing the propaganda war for about 2,500 years.
This is the fraud.
It's not merely the starvation fraud.
It's a genocide fraud.
If we wanted to commit genocide, we would have done it in one afternoon.
When you have ministers like Smotrick making incendiary or inflammatory comments, and there doesn't seem to be any particular pushback from your government to this, they go, well, what does the prime minister really believe?
Prime Minister, forgive me, but these aren't parliamentarians.
These are people who are part of your government.
He said that the UK would recognize a Palestinian state.
What is your response to that?
This is downright dangerous because you're really rewarding these monstrous terrorists with the greatest prize, and that's because of weakness.
You should ask your starmer.
Here's a suggestion, Maskin.
Okay.
What do these protesters say about Britain?
I know what they say about Israel.
Israel has to be destroyed from the river to the sea.
Well, Britain should go down.
What do they say about the UK?
And the same for the protesters in the US.
They burn Israeli flags.
They burn American flags.
We have nowhere to flee.
We're in our ancestral homeland and we're not going anywhere.
So we fight them, but we're not fighting them only on our behalf.
We're fighting them on your behalf too.
Look, man, I will just say, I saw Constantin, he tweeted this trailer out and he said something.
Hold on.
He said, let the meltdowns begin.
As he tweeted, which is a little bit of like clickbait and stuff like that.
But I don't know, a few things like that.
Number one, I will just say, I think this is great.
I said it last time with the Nelk boys.
I just think it's great.
Like, yep, have him on.
Have him on.
And look, this is the trailer I saw that I was commenting on before you had seen it, Rob.
Like, they're at least asking him about Smotrich.
They're at least asking him about a Palestinian state.
I mean, like, there's some real questions there.
Now, I don't expect that they're really going to do a great job of like grilling him and exposing him, but I'm open to the fact that I could be pleasantly surprised.
But even just that, I like it.
I like more platforming, more conversations, more of these things.
Because even as I watch that, I don't know, dude, that's the trailer.
And essentially, what is it?
You're like, oh, that's the best he's got.
That's the best he can come with with the same, the same old tired, hey, we could kill more people.
So, you know, we're fighting them.
So for you, we're not even just doing it for us.
We're doing it for you.
It's like, great, keep it up.
Let's see if that, you know what I mean?
Like, I'm just, I don't know.
I guess just like after the years of like tech censorship and the years of like kind of corporate control and woke insanity and all of this, and especially now that like my, you know, just personally, that my like stature has been rising in this world.
I'm like, oh, dude, I'm fine with a level playing field.
Like, let us all have a shot.
Okay.
You go say that shit, Netanyahu.
I'm going to go get on a big platform and rip that shit to shreds.
You know what I mean?
Like, we'll see.
We'll see who wins on that front.
So I think it's great that they had him on.
I'm excited to watch it.
Yeah.
I mean, at least this is more pushback than what we saw from the Nelk boys right off the bat.
So I, too, am excited to see how that goes down and see if they actually had any critical follow-up questions at any point in the interview.
Yeah, well, at least, at least like they know, you know, like they, these guys aren't dummies, you know, you know, obviously I disagree with Constantin on several very important things.
And I think he's very wrong about a lot of issues, but he's not a dummy.
They're not, and they're not like, like, I don't think the Nelk boys know who Smotrich is or know that a Palestinian state has anything to do with what everyone's fighting about.
You know what I mean?
Like, they just, they simply wouldn't even know to ask those questions.
Whereas like, at least these guys are going to be like, well, we couldn't have them here and not ask that.
We'd look pretty silly.
So, um, anyway, it's uh it's yeah, I just think it's good that it's happening.
I do think it's a, it's a funny bit of like, um, there was something about uh Constantin tweeting, let the meltdowns begin that I found amusing too.
NATO Guarantees and Nuclear Options00:15:37
There's just uh, yeah, there's this weird thing.
I feel like like it was uh, you know, like people, so there was around the time that uh snowflake became a big term.
You remember when people started using that as a like, oh, you're a snowflake.
And it really, at least from my memory of it, it started as a response to the word gay.
Yeah, well, that's right.
We, there, we were out there in the, in the cold for a lot of years, just wanting to say retarded and you couldn't say it, you know?
And then finally, we came, you know, you, there's a, there's a very Jewish message in there, you know, 40 years of wandering and then we came back home to be able to say retard again.
Uh, but there was, well, there was the craziest of the excesses of wokeism on college campuses was really something out of a cartoon.
But if you remember, this got this became very widely reported around like 2000, somewhere in the like from 2015, 2018, like in those years, where they actually had safe spaces in college on college campuses.
And this was not just like one or two.
This was done on college campuses across the country at major colleges.
Like I know NYU had a bunch of like major colleges where they got into this whole thing of it was trigger warnings and safe spaces.
This actually was a thing adults, college students, I mean young adults, but adults, college students at institutions of higher learning would say like, before we read Huckleberry Finn, we have to put a trigger warning out and let everyone know that you might be triggered by this book.
And if you want to go to a safe space, you can.
And they set up safe spaces.
Jonathan Haidt did a lot of great work on this.
Christina Hoff Summers, a bunch of like academics who were like, did not get sucked into that craziness.
They would set up rooms with like coloring books and balloons and stuff.
And like 19, 20 year old people at institutions of higher learning would go there if they felt triggered by like reading about.
By the way, it was always weird, the things they felt.
It was always perfectly progressive and woke.
Like it would be like, they'd be like, oh, yeah, Huckleberry Finn, they use the N-word.
And so that's very triggering for a lot of our students of color.
And you'd be like, how about reading about World War II?
Like, I just, I never heard about like a history class.
It's like, I don't know, that one, that didn't get you.
Like, just, well, I don't know.
Vietnam that we have that, no, it was never that.
It was always like, you know, Aunt Jemima or something.
Anyway, but so the term snowflake became a term of derision for like those kids.
They'd be like, yeah, go to your safe space, snowflake.
Like here, we're having a real debate.
But then, of course, the left started trying to use it back, but it would just never quite hit the same way.
And I don't know what I feel like a similar thing with this, like, oh, let the meltdowns begin.
Like as if like the people who are objecting to this, it's like, oh, what are you triggered?
And you're like, I mean, you know, you're interviewing a guy who's conducting a genocide.
Like, it's not, it's not just like a meltdown.
It's not like people are just like, you said a no-no word.
I'm upset.
Like, I don't know.
It's there's a reason to be upset here.
Like, it's not that crazy.
It's not.
Look, I mean, okay, if you object, which I'm sure, Constantin would, if he was here, you object to my use of the word genocide.
Like, okay.
But like Ehud Barak and Olmar, two former prime ministers of Israel, have both come out and said that Netanyahu is committing war crimes in Gaza.
I think there's like, well, there's hundreds of thousands of Israelis are protesting in the streets over the last few days over this shit.
There's so look, what is the debate really?
The debate is between war crimes and genocide.
Like that's the scale of it.
So like, it just, I don't know, to me, it just rings very hollow to be like, oh, have your meltdown now.
You know, everyone, everyone always, it's like a weird Twitter tactic.
Everyone always likes to frame the other side as having a meltdown, you know, but like personally, I'm celebrating the fact that you had Netanyahu on.
But like, if people are upset by it, I just don't think it's like it's a, you know, it's like when they would call like white women Karen, you know, when that became a thing.
And like, there'd be like some videos of it where it'd be like a Karen was like, you know, during COVID, they'd be like, hey, you don't have your mask on.
I'm going to report you if you don't have your mask on.
And you're like, fuck that.
But then like, there'd be other ones where there's just like, you know, it's like three thugs are like beating up an old lady and one chick's like, call the cops.
And they're like, look at this Karen.
And you're like, wait, no, that actually, like, that one made sense.
That was a really good time to be a Karen.
Like, yeah, this is this.
It's like when something's a big deal, it's just hard for you to go like, oh, you're having a meltdown.
And then on the other side, it's like, okay, what did what did all you guys do when Daryl Cooper went on Tucker Carlson?
Does that not count as a meltdown?
Or is it only when you get pushback?
It's a meltdown.
By the way, Daryl Cooper, a guy who has no political power and is responsible for zero murders.
Well, he was in the military recently.
I don't know.
I don't know what he's got at his track record, but he's not, you know what I'm saying?
Like, this is just a guy with a history podcast giving his thoughts on something.
You guys all had an epic meltdown for fucking years over it.
It's like, I don't know.
People are upset because you're sitting down and having a conversation with the dude who's starving babies to death.
If anything's worth getting upset about, that's probably one of them.
So anyway.
All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is CrowdHealth.
I've been telling you guys about CrowdHealth for years.
I love this company.
It is a true alternative to the broken health insurance system.
And now they have the Black Swan membership.
It's the healthcare alternative for people who want autonomy over their care, their costs, and their lifestyle.
They just need a little help with the Black Swan events that happen in life.
This is kind of like the options that we used to have before Obamacare messed everything up.
And I got to say, I think this type of option makes a lot of sense for a lot of people.
Well, now for just $95 a month, you get access to a team of health bill negotiators, low-cost prescriptions, and lab testing tools, plus the database of low-cost, high-quality doctors vetted by CrowdHealth.
You stay in control.
You don't have an insurance network that's telling you which doctor you can see and can't see.
And if something major happens, you pay the first $15,000 and then the crowd steps in to help fund the rest.
And this is even better if you're a part of the problem listener.
If you use the promo code P-O-T-P, it's only $80 for the first three months.
Check them out at joincrowdhealth.com.
And remember that promo code is P-O-T-P.
Crowd health is not insurance.
Opt out, take your power back.
This is how we win.
Let's get back into the show.
In the political podcast sphere, this placement makes sense.
I kind of understand the Nelt boys.
They're not in the political world.
So to just give a favorable platform for Netanyahu to hang out, even though go ahead, free speech.
You know, I'm not saying that they're going to do it, but I get where there's more of an angle of like, this is a little bit irresponsible that people can just hang out and come off, however, without any real conversation or political pushback.
These guys are pro-Israel.
They've been defending it forever.
It's like, I don't know, if I was the, I love the, I love the Democrats and I had Nancy Pelosi on for a hangout or whatever.
That's what you do.
So like this actually, I'm just saying from like a news programming standpoint, it makes sense that they would be having Netanyahu on.
It's not like, it's not the offensive side, not that I'm offended by it, but it's not like, I don't know, if Legion of Skanks had whatever politician on just to hang out and shoot the shit.
Yes, yes.
No, you're right.
It's a different, it's a different animal.
It's a different kind of proposition for sure.
All right.
Let's, I guess let's, we should spend the rest of the show talking a little bit about Ukraine.
You know, there's a, you sent the Trump called into Fox News the other day.
Let's take a look at that in a second.
But the, you know, the latest on it, at least to me, seems to not be very good.
And it seems to be that Zelensky and the Europeans have found their way, as always happens with Donald Trump.
It's like he just doesn't, he doesn't even see the poison pills coming or he's happy to go along with them.
But they really now have snuck in this security assurance as being a big part of the negotiations.
And I got to say, you know, I was reading, I sent you before just the simple, the simple headline, which here, let me pull it up so I get it exactly.
But it was Axios just in Trump agrees with European leaders to collaborate on Article 5-like security guarantees for Ukraine, but provided no details.
So that's according to Axios.
And it just, it reads to me like that is that is designed to keep the war going, not to bring it to a close.
It just seems very obvious to me to even say, to frame it as Article 5-like security guarantees.
So what are you saying there?
You know, look, this is what the whole war was about, right?
Because, you know, essentially, we never did bring Ukraine into NATO, right?
We just kept pushing and kept pushing.
And so in 2008 at the Bucharest summit, they announced that Ukraine will be joining NATO, but they didn't lay out a whole, what do they call it, a map, a member.
I forget what it stands for, but it's like they didn't actually begin the process of bringing them into NATO.
They stopped short of that.
It was actually the Germans who persuaded George W. Bush to not go all the way with it.
And they have leverage there because you need unanimous consent for new members of NATO.
Everyone in NATO has to agree to a new member coming on board.
So anyone can stop it, stated differently.
But so they didn't bring Ukraine into NATO, but they announced that they were going to.
And then they kept asserting that year after year after year.
They kept asserting that it's going to happen.
It's just a matter of time.
And this was like Putin was the whole time was like, no, you do that.
I'll go to war with the place.
So this was always the game.
And then they just moved more and more to it, where they started really doing like joint military exercises with NATO forces and the Ukrainian military.
This is after we backed the coup that overthrew Yanukovych.
And so like at a certain point, Vladimir Putin was like, well, you're just doing it, dude.
You're doing it without doing it.
You're making them a de facto member of NATO.
And now you're literally saying, well, we're going to give them Article 5 protection.
It's like, okay, but that's just, that's just once again saying we're going to essentially make them a de facto member of NATO.
And if you are saying that to Vladimir Putin, who's been saying consistently the entire time that this is what the whole war is about, that.
it's the strongest possible incentive you could give him to not stop the war and to continue taking more and more territory.
Because look, even if Vladimir Putin, the whole issue has always been about a buffer zone to military hardware.
That's the issue with NATO membership.
The issue with NATO membership isn't that, well, I can't, you know, I can't invade that country now.
Like that's, that's not Vladimir Putin's issue.
You know, invading countries costs a lot of money.
Russia's already the biggest landmass in the world.
They're not like trying to, they're not like, oh my God, we can't incorporate Estonia into Russia.
That's not their issue.
The issue is that, and Vladimir Putin's been very clear about this, is that, you know, this is where the not one inch to the east promise comes from, right?
Like, why are you saying not one inch to the east?
Because every inch to the east that you bring your military hardware cuts down on the amount of minutes before you, your fucking nukes land in Moscow.
You know, like in these events of in this whole nuclear, mutually assured destruction world, it changes everything if you, if it takes 20 minutes to destroy all of Russia versus if it takes four minutes to destroy all of Russia.
This is like the window of time that they get to decide whether they were going to launch nukes back or whatever.
This has always been their issue and or a major part of it.
And so if you're saying, hey, Vladimir Putin, whatever you can't take here in Ukraine, the rest of it is going to be NATO.
The rest of it is going to be the West.
Well, what's the incentive then, Rob, to take as much of it as you possibly can?
If that's what you're, again, keep in mind, there isn't a ceasefire in place here.
There's a hot war still going on right now.
So if you're, if you're telegraphing in the middle of this war, like Vladimir Putin, whatever you do not claim here, like what you claim is going to be part of Russia, the rest of it is going to be part of America's military alliance, then you're just incentivizing him to take as much of it as he can, keep the war going.
So that seems to me to be what this is, is that it's still an effort on the part of Zelensky and the Europeans to keep the war going.
And it's Donald Trump, as always, stumbling right into their trap.
But I don't know.
You could give your thoughts, Rob, or your thoughts about the Fox News call.
We can play that after you're done.
My intuition and it's problem, it's just the problem with reporting on Trump is that it's always a bit of a guessing game because they don't really outline their plans or give you the specific details.
And it's actually what's made this job more difficult over the last six months than I think any time I've done this or my nine years of being on the show is that it is just a bit of a guessing game.
And you never know if, anyways, so just my basic intuition is it does seem like this has a lot of forward momentum of them actually looking for a peace plan.
It doesn't look like they're just flirting with it.
It actually looks like they're pushing forward.
Now, the biggest detail that hasn't been resolved in any capacity is, I guess, what does a security guarantee actually look like?
In my estimation, from what I'm reading, I'm going to assume that maybe it's some sort of a United Nations or NATO kind of defensive peace force.
And so I think what you might see is some sort of a, with maybe even Russia being involved in the security guarantee because it's like it's a UN involvement.
But what I'm wondering is if maybe if Putin's able to keep the territories.
Maybe there's some sort of an understanding of a defensive only peace agreement and not like an actual expansionary agreement.
But to your point, it seems like very loose terms of that we're back to our initial place of if there's going to be a NATO guarantee for defense for Ukraine, wasn't that the red line from the beginning?
And so if a security guarantee is still being flirted with, isn't that still just Americans having to pay for this?
And isn't that just still back to square one of what started the war?
So in my estimation, I'm just thinking that there's got to be something else that they actually have in mind.
Warhawks, Putin, and Peace Deals00:03:56
And the fact that they're stating it as a Article 5, is that what it's called?
Article 5 type guarantee is that that's more to sell it to like kind of the Warhawks and the Europeans as something that it's not actually going to be.
Because otherwise, it's just, I don't understand what this whole show of forward momentum is if you've got something that Putin won't possibly agree to.
Well, I mean, I think what happens here, right?
Like, I think this is my read on it.
And it's again, not exactly the point you were making, but in a similar sense, it's a little bit of guesswork, you know, but it seems to me like the way it works is like, so you have the Warhawks who want the war.
They're constantly putting pressure on Donald Trump and they're constantly filtering the information that he gets.
Because you got to remember, like with all of these guys, this is where I think it was Daniel Ellsberg who wrote about this.
God, I wish I had a better memory.
I'm pretty sure it was Daniel Ellsberg, but he was writing about how like one of the major problems in government is that all of them are reading their security briefs, you know, but they're not reading the newspaper.
They're not reading books.
They're not read, like they're not really educating themselves on like the history of a conflict or like what's going on right now.
Like what, you know what I'm saying?
Like they're not doing what I do.
Like they're not like I'm on antiwar.com every day.
I'm reading books by the best historians about the history of Israel-Palestine every day.
Like that's the world I live in.
When you I remember talking about this when our buddy Liam did that guerrilla journalism thing where he's asking all the congressmen about how do you feel about Benjamin Netanyahu propping up Hamas for all these years.
And all of them to a man, they go, I'm not familiar with that report.
Which report are you talking about?
And it's just interesting that that's even what happens.
And I'm almost 99% sure this was Ellsberg who wrote about this.
But he goes, what happens is when you're like a congressman or a president or like, you know, a high-level politician, maybe you're on like the Senate Arms Committee or you're on the intelligence committee.
Now you get these classified briefings.
And so you kind of feel, you have this sense of like, I'm getting the real shit here that nobody else is getting.
I'm getting secret information.
Yeah, I don't need to read the Washington Post.
I know what's really going on.
Those guys are just guessing.
I know the real shit.
And there's some degree of truth to that.
But then you could also see where that totally puts you in a position where you are totally controlled by the intelligence agencies.
Because first of all, it's not always the real shit.
A lot of times it's bad intelligence or lies or there's huge omissions of things like Benjamin Netanyahu's policy of propping up Hamas for many years.
And so anyway, there's this tremendous like kind of controlled feed of information to Donald Trump and then even to the Warhawks around Donald Trump.
And what ends up happening is like when they don't win the round, they have a contingency plan.
So if Donald Trump says, hey, you know what?
I want to negotiate with Iran.
I don't want to fight a war with them.
Israel's saying we got to fight a war, but I want to negotiate.
They lose that round.
They go, okay, he wants to negotiate.
We want him to just start dropping bombs.
But then they go into the negotiations and they go, hey, you know, Mr. President, if you're really tough, you'll say that they can't enrich uranium at all.
Because, you know, these pussies like Obama and Biden let them enrich uranium.
But Mr. Donald Trump, you're the biggest, bravest, toughest guy in the world.
And they got him to go.
No enrichment of uranium.
And then the Iranians were like, yeah, but then there's nothing to negotiate.
Like, obviously, we can't do that.
We're not getting rid of our civilian nuclear program that we have every right in the world to have.
But what we will negotiate about like bringing the 60% uranium back down to the 5% that we used to do.
Blaming Obama for Crimea00:10:57
You know what I mean?
So like they put a poison pill in so that the negotiations can't go forward.
And then they can credibly say, not credibly, but with some degree of plausibility, say, hey, you know, we tried, no one tried more than us to come to the negotiating table and offer them this.
We even offered Vladimir Putin the territory that he's already taken, but he just wouldn't do it because he wouldn't, you know, the security guarantees because he wants to take all of Ukraine or something.
So that's more or less my read, but I'm very open to the possibility that it also could be, you know, what you were saying.
Perhaps this is a way to signal to the Hawks, you can save some face here or something like that.
We'll have to, we'll have to see what comes from it.
Do you want to play, Rob?
Did you think this was worth, you gave a timestamp for this Fox News Colin, right?
Well, there were a couple of things I sent the timestamp of.
The first one was from the actual Zelensky and Trump meeting in which Trump was joking about how great it is to not have to have to run for elections during wartime.
I don't know if you caught that.
Oh, yeah.
Zelensky just kind of played it off with a laugh.
Yeah, no, we don't have to play that clip, but that was, because that's essentially, I think you just kind of gave the moment there.
But yeah, it was interesting that Donald Trump just kind of, in a weird way, seemed almost like he was mocking it, but then was also kind of or unaware or like intrigued.
It was like a weird, it was almost like the same way he asked Theo about what cocaine is like.
Like it was like he was just asking Zelensky like, man, what's that like?
Huh?
So you just like don't even have to worry about winning an election.
That's pretty cool.
Like it's, I don't know, it was bizarre.
All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Ridge.
I love the Ridge wallet.
I made the Switch a while back.
I used to be a traditional, you know, bulky leather wallet guy, but the Ridge is just cooler.
And also you realize you don't need all that stuff.
It's like a minimalist, sleek metal wallet.
It looks really awesome.
It's a conversation starter.
They have a bunch of different designs.
All of them are cool.
And it just holds what you need, your cash, your cards, anything you need to stick in there.
You know, when I had a big fat leather wallet, I'm keeping like receipts from the year 2006 in there.
It's just a, you end up keeping a bunch of stuff you don't need.
You're throwing your spine out of alignment and it's not cool.
So go to ridge.com and be cooler.
And for a limited time, our listeners will get 10% off at Ridge when they use the promo code POTP10 at checkout.
Just head to ridge.com, use the promo code P-O-T-P-10, and you're all set.
After you purchase, they will ask you where you heard about them.
You know, make sure to let them know that you heard about them here.
Support the show.
Go check them out.
They have over 100,000 five-star reviews for a reason.
Ridge.com promo code POTP10 for 10% off.
All right, let's get back into the show.
But I want to play, let's go to the one on the Fox News call.
You gave a timestamp for that one, I think.
Yeah, there were a couple of moments.
One was Trump talking about that he'd like to save these lives so they can get into heaven.
And he was like, it's 7,000 people dying a day.
And that was an interesting moment.
The moment you might be more intrigued by is when he places the blame for the current situation on Obama and basically says the idea that Russia needs to give up Crimea is ridiculous because Obama basically gave it to him.
Yeah, let's go.
Let's do it.
Let's do that one.
Because I did think I agreed.
Yes, you're right.
That was the one I liked.
And that also was ridiculous.
Did you send Natalie the time stamp for that one?
Yeah, I think it's in the email.
Okay.
Okay, great.
From a baby.
And it was really Obama's, that really, I mean, that was pure and simple.
Obama's fault.
What a terrible thing he did to that country.
And so they lost their heart.
They lost the heart and soul of Ukraine 14 years ago, whatever it might be.
And it was so unnecessary to do that.
And that's when it really began, when Obama gave it away.
And then you had a lot of other events, but you have, you know, tremendous hostility.
The people of Ukraine were mortified when that took place.
That really began a lot of hatred when they gave it.
And they didn't have to.
Not a shot was fired.
They just took over the most valuable piece and the biggest piece in a sense of, but and surrounded on four sides by ocean, just a little passage to get you back onto the mainland.
The most beautiful piece of property you've ever seen as a real estate developer.
I look at it.
I said, why the heck did he do that to them?
And so there's great hostility, and maybe rightfully so.
But one thing was NATO.
They went in, they said, we want you, you know, we want to get Crimea back.
This was at the beginning.
Now, Putin didn't offer this to him.
He made a good deal.
He got it from Obama.
But they said, we want it back.
And that was not exactly well received because it was like 12 years before.
That's where Russia has its submarine base.
And, you know, that's been there long before Putin.
You know, they've been there for a long time.
But long before Putin.
And the other thing they said is we want to be a member of NATO.
Well, both of those things are impossible because, again, long before Putin, it was a no-no by Russia or the Soviet Union or anything you want to call it.
Sort of a similar thing as it gets larger.
We could just pause it here.
I guess I was.
I really honestly, you know, the more time that goes on in Trump's second administration, it's almost which I, you know, look, this is an obvious insight that anybody probably should have been able to see when Donald Trump came down the escalator.
And I think it's only because like the country is so desperate and so betrayed by the ruling class and so righteously indignant at them that people almost, you know, are like, well, he's the only game in town.
He's the only one challenging them.
But he's just so fundamentally unserious.
And, you know, listening to this, like Donald Trump kind of like reciting the history that I don't know, Rob, what someone told him.
He certainly didn't read any of this in a book.
He's got a couple of details that are kind of right there, but really just doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about.
Like, did he, as he's talking about Crimea being the heart and soul of Ukraine, like, what are you talking about?
Is that Crimea was always more Russian than Ukrainian, ethnically speaking, linguistically.
Like, I like the reason why not a shot was fired, no one died, or whatever.
I think maybe a couple people died.
But the reason why it wasn't like a bloody takeover of Crimea was because they already had their goddamn, their, their, their whole military there.
They already had the overwhelming majority of the population was like, there was independent polling that backed this up.
They wanted to be a part of Russia.
They identified with Russia, not Ukraine.
It was the heart and soul of Ukraine.
And like, does he even know that there was a coup that year in Ukraine?
Does he even know that the government in Kiev was overthrown?
Because that never seems to come up.
He's mentioning how he's saying Obama's mess up was that he gave it to Putin.
He gave the heart and soul of Ukraine to Putin.
It totally just has this wrong.
No, it's Obama's fuck up wasn't that he gave Ukraine to Putin.
It was that he took it from him.
That was the whole thing.
The fight, Gideon Rose, right?
Rob, I've played, I just posted this video again the other day.
Gideon Rose literally said it himself as it was going down.
This is the editor of Foreign Affairs Magazine, the, what is it called, the journal of the Council on Foreign Relations, right?
The most consequential foreign policy establishment newspaper, the editor of the magazine, is on record going, yeah, no, what we're doing, he just said it at the time because it was, you know, this is years before they had to make up all the propaganda and lies.
He was just, remember, he's explaining it to Stephen Colbert, and Stephen Colbert's in character.
And he's like, wait, so what's going on here?
What's going on in Ukraine?
And Gideon Rose doesn't hesitate to explain what's going on.
Okay, you see, Russia is Batman.
Ukraine is their Robin.
What we're doing is we're stealing away Robin from Batman so that Robin comes and joins us and plays on our side.
And now, you know, we could distract Putin with the Olympics and all these other things while we just take a country from him.
Like that's, he was just explaining it.
That was the mess up, not giving it to him, trying to take it.
And when he tried to take it, Vladimir Putin's response to that was saying, I'm going to go break off a little chunk and keep it for myself because that chunk was very valuable to me.
Anyway, Donald Trump is just, I don't know, man.
He's just so fundamentally unserious.
He's unserious to a point where it's just who can even, you know, like who could even take anything he says seriously?
It's like you even said before, Rob.
It's like, yeah, that's what makes the job hard.
Is this guy's just so full of shit 99% of the time when he talks that I can't even just look?
I was even thinking this as I was listening to the other part today, and we'll wrap on this because I got to wrap.
But you think about the fact that Donald Trump, we all just let him get away with this because he's Donald Trump.
And we go 99% of the time, you just can't listen to a word this fucking idiot says.
But he literally, dude, he's didn't he claim that they stole the election from him in 2020?
Did right?
Did I, do am I remembering that correctly?
They stole the election from Donald Trump.
You know, I was thinking about this because he was going off on the whole thing about how this war never should have happened.
And it's only because Biden was president.
And even if we had just had a normal president, it wouldn't have happened.
We didn't even need a great president.
We just needed it not to be Joe Biden, the worst president we've ever had.
And that's why the war started.
Now, again, it's bad history.
It's stupid.
It totally demonstrates no real understanding of the conflict.
But you're like, oh, yeah.
And why was Joe Biden president?
Because according to Donald Trump, they stole the election, right?
So in other words, I'm not putting too much together here.
What Donald Trump is arguing is that they stole the election and that got hundreds of thousands of people killed.
So, hey, Donald Trump, are we looking into that?
Is anyone going to be prosecuted for that?
Who's the they who stole the election?
You ever going to tell?
No, because that's how unserious he is as a president of the United States of America.
He'll just sit here and claim that he's making the same claim that the liberals were making about Russia, that the democracy was overthrown in America.
But no one even expects him to make a move on that because we just know he's fundamentally unserious.
He doesn't mean the things he says.
He doesn't have convictions.
I don't know.
I just find it all pathetic.
All right.
Got to wrap up the show on that.
Come on, come see Rob on the road, porchtour.com.
Come see us together on the road, comicdave Smith.com for all those ticket links.