Part Of The Problem - Dave Smith - Pam Bondi Strikes Again Aired: 2026-02-17 Duration: 01:09:16 === Epstein Files Conspiracy (14:20) === [00:00:00] Hey, what's up, guys? [00:00:00] Today's show is brought to you by yokratom.com, home of the $60 kilo and longtime sponsor of this show. [00:00:07] What we do really wouldn't be possible without our great sponsors. [00:00:10] So make sure you support them. [00:00:11] If you're over the age of 21 and you enjoy Kratom, make sure to get it at yokratom.com, delivered right to your door. [00:00:17] And the best price you'll find anywhere, $60 for a kilo. [00:00:21] Let's start the show. [00:00:29] What's up? [00:00:29] What's up, everybody? [00:00:31] It is Monday, February 16th. [00:00:34] Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. [00:00:36] I am Dave Smith. [00:00:37] He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein. [00:00:39] How you doing today, Rob? [00:00:40] I'm doing well. [00:00:41] I had a blast up in New Hampshire. [00:00:42] I did a presentation on FBI entrapment schemes and it killed. [00:00:47] I think I got to bring back the props, bring back the projector. [00:00:50] It was groovy. [00:00:50] There you go. [00:00:52] That's beautiful. [00:00:53] I saw a bunch of people on Twitter talking about how it was a great show and you sold it out and stuff. [00:00:58] So congratulations. [00:00:59] And then me and you this Saturday, one night only, will be in Perryville, Maryland. [00:01:05] Low ticket warning on that one, guys. [00:01:07] If you want to come, the show's going to sell out. [00:01:09] So if you want to come, go grab tickets right now because it's very close to sold out. [00:01:14] ComicdaveSmith.com and you can get tickets there. [00:01:16] And there's no DC date on the tour schedule this year. [00:01:20] So for the DC people, this is probably your best opportunity. [00:01:23] Sorry, we don't play that swamp. [00:01:26] You got to come to Perryville if you want to see me and Rob this year. [00:01:30] But then we will be out in a bunch of different places. [00:01:32] We got a whole weekend out here in New Jersey, Pittsburgh, Boston, a whole bunch of stuff coming up. [00:01:38] Comicdavesmith.com for all of those ticket links. [00:01:43] All right, let's get into some stuff that's happened over the weekend. [00:01:46] By the way, happy Valentine's Day to everybody. [00:01:49] I hope people had fun celebrating. [00:01:51] And there are those of you who aren't miserable, depressed, alone people like Rob, who has to dull the pain by giving hilarious presentations in New Hampshire. [00:02:00] For those of you who have someone in your life, I hope you had a good time. [00:02:03] We got a, I mean, look, I think we won't do the whole show today on Epstein files related stuff. [00:02:10] There's some other stuff going on that's important to talk about, but it's very hard to not open with this. [00:02:16] So that on, I mean, this is just at this point, Rob, it almost feels like this administration is just punking us. [00:02:22] Like they're going like, how, how much more can we fuck with you people and just mishandle this thing right in front of your face? [00:02:30] And so Pam Bondi releases a Valentine's Day letter that says that all the F all the Epstein files have now been released. [00:02:44] And here is a big list of people in Epstein list, the exact thing that they all swore didn't exist. [00:02:52] And really, Rob, in some ways, kind of doesn't exist. [00:02:56] But so she makes this big announcement. [00:02:58] And I do, I got to say, man, I just one of the one of the points I think I've been hitting on the most during the since these Epstein files came out. [00:03:09] And I think, I guess this has really been a thing that I've been saying for at least about seven or eight months at this point, really since last summer. [00:03:17] Since there were, you know, I often say there was the double, you know, the two punch combo, but really to me, at least it was like a three punch combo. [00:03:27] But there was, if you remember, Rob, it was last summer. [00:03:30] The first thing that happened was that Trump signed the new budget into law, which undid all of the Doge cuts. [00:03:39] So it literally had spent this the whole time in his administration from January of 25 all the way into the summer with Doge having all this momentum and talking all this shit about the trillions of dollars they were going to cut, the fraud we've found here and the USAID and the fraud here and all this stuff. [00:03:56] You know, there was some excitement to it. [00:03:59] Elon Musk is out there tweeting, hey, who should I audit next? [00:04:02] And people are like, the Pentagon. [00:04:03] And he's like, maybe, maybe that's the next one. [00:04:05] And anyway, Donald Trump signs the spending bill into law. [00:04:10] It has none of the Doge cuts in there and just raises spending. [00:04:13] So not only did it not cut anything, but it increased from Joe Biden levels of spending. [00:04:18] Then he launched the war on Iran. [00:04:20] Then he did a 180 and said there's no such thing as the Epstein files. [00:04:24] It's a Democratic coax, all of that. [00:04:26] And so one of the major themes from then till now for me has been like, dude, how can any of you guys still defend Donald Trump? [00:04:35] And almost like, in a sense, like a plea to like other commentators, like, dude, save your soul and your reputation. [00:04:43] Like, don't go down with it. [00:04:44] Why would you? [00:04:45] Especially, you know, you see guys who are in their, you know, some of these guys are in their 20s. [00:04:50] Mostly it's guys in their like 40s and 50s or some guys in their 30s. [00:04:54] But it's like, hey, you're going to be in this, like, you're going to do this beyond Trump, right? [00:05:01] So like, in the same way, Massey said that to the Republicans, like, guys, you know, Trump's not going to be here in a few years, and you'll all still have this legacy to leave behind. [00:05:10] But anyway, so I just got to call this out first of all, Rob. [00:05:12] And I am very curious to get your thoughts on this, but I'm going to call out some names here because this is the reaction that people had. [00:05:19] This is Alex Jones. [00:05:21] I was hoping that was Jones. [00:05:23] Alex Jones, of all people, Rob. [00:05:26] The guy who's the conspiracy nut who always thinks the government is lying to him. [00:05:31] This is he immediately posted on Valentine's Day. [00:05:35] So this is on the 14th, two days ago. [00:05:38] Kaboom, just in AG Pam Bondi just unleashed all caps, the full Epstein files under the Transparency Act. [00:05:48] All 3.5 million pages dropped, all capitals again. [00:05:54] Redactions, all capitals again, justified only for victims and all capitals again, high profile names exposed with zero cover-ups for embarrassment or politics. [00:06:08] Quote, no records withheld or redacted based on embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity to any official public figure or foreign dignitary. [00:06:18] Unquote. [00:06:19] This backfired bigly on the left. [00:06:22] Powerful Dems like Bill Clinton mentioned 1,193 times and others busted while fake smears against Trump called out as BS. [00:06:32] Vindication for Trump. [00:06:36] This is what the conspiracy guy, who, by the way, you know, and I like Alex Jones enough, who's very cool to me, had me on his shows. [00:06:43] Like, it's not a personal thing, but like the conspiracy kook who's always made all of us anti-government extremists look horrible because instead of just prosecuting the actual case of the crimes that the government commits, he insists that like it's intergalactic aliens who are hell-bent on reducing the global population to 300,000, which, by the way, spoiler alert, is not true. [00:07:08] And so he makes he's always made everyone just look like an asshole because he takes the most ridiculous conspiracy. [00:07:14] But now he falls in line just because the AG, okay. [00:07:18] There's, I also want to, um, again, just repeating the same thing. [00:07:22] Gunther Eagleman, he's, I don't even really know this guy, but he's a huge account with like millions of followers. [00:07:28] He used to retweet my stuff all the time way back last year when I was saying the same stuff I'm saying now, but probably won't be doing that anymore because we, they all stop believing. [00:07:37] I get whatever. [00:07:38] Just in AG Pambonnie just unleashed the full Epstein files under the Transparency Act. [00:07:44] All 3.5 million pages drunk. [00:07:47] Vindication for Trump. [00:07:50] All right. [00:07:50] So Now, Rob, as you know, because you do your homework, there's a few problems with this narrative, a few tiny ones. [00:07:58] I mean, number one, you would think, like, here's the thing that all these guys have. [00:08:02] It's just so funny because they just can't, these guys really are. [00:08:06] And it is a fair critique of some people that you guys are in a cult. [00:08:12] You're just, you're in a cult for Donald Trump. [00:08:15] And I mean, maybe, maybe you're a true believer in that cult, or maybe you've just assessed that that's the best thing to do to keep a big audience or something like that. [00:08:24] But understand, Rob, nothing could vindicate Donald Trump in this. [00:08:30] Even if, even if all the files were released and there's no evidence that Donald Trump did anything, like, you know, did anything with girls or young girls or anything like that? [00:08:40] He still tried to cover it all up. [00:08:42] So it kind of doesn't matter. [00:08:43] He's not vindicated. [00:08:45] This is just, this is insane. [00:08:46] But then the other major problem, Rob, and this one's really going to be an issue for them, is that none of this happened. [00:08:56] None of it happened. [00:08:57] Pam Bondi just said it. [00:08:59] She just wrote a letter and said it. [00:09:01] And they all just ran with it. [00:09:02] They all just went, that's it. [00:09:03] All the files are out now. [00:09:05] All unredacted. [00:09:06] All blah, No, none of it's in fact now. [00:09:09] Alex Jones, to be fair, Alex Jones did come back and correct the record. [00:09:13] So he did like a day later or whatever, come back and go, oh, I got the story wrong, whatever. [00:09:18] But like, I don't know. [00:09:18] That's not good enough, dude. [00:09:20] It's crazy that your first response was to say, Donald Trump is vindicated after he's spent, what, eight months just shamelessly trying to cover this whole thing up and pretend there's nothing there. [00:09:33] So just to be clear, Rob, what Pam Bondi actually came out and said is that I'm not releasing anything else. [00:09:40] You know, there was the 3. [00:09:42] Whatever million files that were released, there was supposedly another 3 million that they still had. [00:09:48] And she came out and said, all the files have been released, meaning that's all. [00:09:54] No more is coming. [00:09:55] You're not getting the other 3 million. [00:09:57] And so they all took this in the, I mean, talk about just bending over backward to interpret something in the most charitable way. [00:10:06] They just went, no, that means we have all of them. [00:10:09] They're all out now. [00:10:10] Hmm. [00:10:11] Did any of you guys wonder? [00:10:12] Any of you guys who were celebrating this, did you not notice that there were no more documents? [00:10:18] Did that not fuck with you? [00:10:19] No, they released. [00:10:20] I'm sorry, there was one more document, Rob, a letter from the Attorney General stating that all the documents will be released. [00:10:27] And then an incoherent list of names that I believe includes Janice Joplin. [00:10:35] And like, I think Woodrow Wilson is in the Epstein files now or something. [00:10:38] I made that one up. [00:10:40] But anyway, so that's the latest. [00:10:42] And how could we not talk about that to open up the show? [00:10:44] Any thoughts, Rob? [00:10:45] Oh, I got a lot of thoughts starting with, I think Alex Jones thinks presidential pardons includes cancellation of payments to Sandy Hook victims. [00:10:55] Maybe. [00:10:56] There's really no other explanation. [00:10:58] And the second I saw all files released, it might have even been first with Alex Jones' tweet or someone else's who was also celebrating this as total vindication. [00:11:08] I instantly went to go look up, did she release the other 3 million files? [00:11:12] The answer was no. [00:11:14] Here's what I found out. [00:11:16] They're now claiming there were 200,000 pages that they're considering privileged, which, by the way, that does not include, I guess, lines that were redacted in the other files as we saw with, I think it was Goldman, that she claimed that that was privileged. [00:11:32] I was wrong in the last episode because there's another category of privileged information, which is preliminary government conversations about how they want to handle something that is considered privileged. [00:11:43] Not sure how that applies to the Epstein files. [00:11:46] You still have anything that could that has to do with an ongoing investigation has been redacted. [00:11:51] They're now claiming that of the 3 million files, a lot of it's not out because it's duplicates. [00:11:56] I call bull firstly, the supposed 6 million files are after they went through it and told us that there are 6 million. [00:12:02] And at first, it wasn't 6 million. [00:12:03] They just said 200, I think it was 200,000 was the first release. [00:12:07] So the idea that they're now trustworthy with the redactions that we saw on that these other 3 million don't need to come out because it's BA, it's either privileged information or redundant information. [00:12:18] I'm calling bullshit. [00:12:19] And if you're Alex Jones and you're just running with, oh, fully vindicated, they put it all out without just simply looking to see, wait, did they put out those other 3 million files that we know about? [00:12:30] And then keep in mind, just one last thing. [00:12:33] It's not just about the files. [00:12:34] They haven't even pretended like they're going to investigate. [00:12:37] The idea that you would have watched Pam Bondi's hearing and one, think that she's honest and not covering up for it. [00:12:44] And two, that there's not enough information here that an honest government would actually want to run an investigation. [00:12:49] Like even if she put out the other 3 million files, that shouldn't be the end of this. [00:12:53] And if you're Alex Jones and you're watching the way that this unfolded, and even if it was true that she put out the other 3 million files and go, oh, it's over now, wait, so you don't want to see what's in the rest of that information? [00:13:03] You don't have any calls for a government investigation? [00:13:05] You're not concerned with any of the things that we learned about so far. [00:13:08] I mean, it was unbelievable to me that people were trying to run with this ruse of, oh, look, Trump's totally vindicated, most transparent. [00:13:16] They actually got the files out. [00:13:17] Did you not watch that hearing? [00:13:18] There were redactions of what we saw, and they couldn't even get all the information because some of the stuff had been doubly redacted. [00:13:24] It's ridiculous. [00:13:26] Yeah, no, absolutely. [00:13:27] That's absolutely right. [00:13:28] And even like, even to your point, though, it's like, what? [00:13:31] Look, just the way the administration, like, they claimed that emails between Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were privileged. [00:13:41] I'm sure the thing about the privileged is it's going to be fought about for a while. [00:13:45] Yes. [00:13:46] There's no way that there's no way that this stuff should be privileged information. [00:13:50] But I guess this buys them time, or at least they're trying to play the card of this isn't working for the administration. [00:13:56] They played this in the worst possible way. [00:13:58] They should have just never met. [00:14:00] I'm just saying politically, they never should have mentioned this. [00:14:02] They never should have had the binders incident. [00:14:04] They never should have teased it. [00:14:05] Like it seems extremely obvious that Donald Trump found out his name was in it or someone in the intelligence agency said this is too important. [00:14:13] And then Trump turned around, lied to our faces, and just said, this is a Democratic hoax. [00:14:17] There's nothing to see here. [00:14:18] We're done with it. [00:14:19] And no, there's, that's right. === Political Malpractice Explained (03:19) === [00:14:20] That's right. [00:14:20] There's created more interest. [00:14:23] There's two different elements or two major elements to the handling here. [00:14:28] It's like there's, there's the underlying like the scandal, which again is still not exactly clear. [00:14:35] I mean, like, it's, um, it's hard. [00:14:39] We know what we know, but it's hard to like connect all the dots and know, like, wait, what is the extent of all of this here? [00:14:44] What is the extent of the code that these guys are speaking? [00:14:47] And what does that code mean? [00:14:48] Once again, much like with Pizzagate, one of the really interesting things about the Epstein files is that there seems to be no political will or journalistic will to like, hey, let's get to the bottom of that. [00:15:03] What is this code? [00:15:04] Look, we got enough people who we know are speaking in this pizza, grape soda, you know, what was the other one? [00:15:13] Beef jerky, all this stuff. [00:15:14] Like we, we got the, we got enough people speaking in this. [00:15:17] Why is it not every time they're out in public, there's a microphone in their face and someone is going, hey, no, explain yourself, sir, because clearly you're speaking in code and a huge portion of the American population is assuming this is code for pedophilia or murder or whatever. [00:15:33] So like, I'm pretty sure you'd want to clear that up, right? [00:15:36] Like whatever the real code is, couldn't be any worse than that. [00:15:38] So why don't you, there's no will to even get to the bottom of it. [00:15:41] But again, so who, but the two elements here are there's the scandal itself, which seems pretty goddamn dark and pretty connected all the way to the top. [00:15:49] And then there's what you're talking about, which is just the political malpractice of all of it. [00:15:55] The fact that like this is, you know, because in a lot of ways, this has been true about Donald Trump in both terms. [00:16:03] You know, a lot of the knock on Donald Trump from the really establishment type people, the Hillary Clintons of the world, the, you know, the Mitt Romneys of the world. [00:16:16] One of the knocks that they'd always have on Donald Trump was that like he's an amateur. [00:16:21] He doesn't know what he's doing. [00:16:22] This guy doesn't have a career in governance. [00:16:25] He doesn't know how to be a statesman. [00:16:27] He doesn't know how to staff a cabinet or whatever. [00:16:31] Now, most people, I would say ourselves included, never gave a fuck about that because we're like, yeah, but you guys are all corrupt as shit. [00:16:39] And he's at least calling you out on that. [00:16:42] But the thing is, when Donald Trump gets in there and totally sells out, it is all you basically get is a more incompetent version of what we already had. [00:16:52] And it is wild because Rob, you're absolutely, listen, even after running, even after running on we're going to have Epstein transparency, if they just hadn't done that binders incident and hadn't hyped it up the way they did in the beginning and then hadn't done the pivot in the most ridiculous way. [00:17:10] Like if Kash Patel or Bongino or whoever, any of these idiots, had just had a press conference and gone, look, it was our mission to get in here and get to the very bottom of the Epstein files. [00:17:23] But what we found when we got in here is that this thing has been totally buried already. [00:17:27] And we really believe it stinks. [00:17:28] But they just, I will say between the last six justice departments, they gave us no track of evidence of anything. [00:17:35] We'll release whatever we can get to you. [00:17:37] We're going to go through all of it and see what actually is evidence. === Redacted Documents Fight (02:22) === [00:17:40] But let me tell you something, this thing still stinks. [00:17:42] And it was the Clintons and the Obamas and the deep state. [00:17:45] And you can blame all them for that. [00:17:46] If they had just done that, they probably would have been okay. [00:17:50] You know, like they probably, the lore of Epstein wouldn't have died. [00:17:54] People would still care about this story for many years to come, but it wouldn't have implicated them directly as much. [00:18:01] But instead, Rob, as you said, they just did it in like the worst way. [00:18:04] It was almost like they were figuring out that morning what they were going to go out and say, and had five minutes to game plan it and then just came up with, like I don't know dude, tell them that Dow Jones is at 50,000 which, by the way Rob, I don't know if you saw, the Dow had a bad, a bad couple of days and it's down to 49. [00:18:24] So just saying no, we can talk about this again now. [00:18:27] We may have to shut up on the next episode, but this is all legitimate as of now. [00:18:31] All right guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is MY Patriot Supply, an amazing company. [00:18:37] And now I got to tell you about the Mount Rushmore of preparedness. [00:18:40] Last month, half the country got hit by one of the worst winter storms in decades. [00:18:45] Thousands of people lost power, some for just a few hours and some for a lot longer. 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[00:19:43] All right, let's get back into the show. [00:19:45] Anyway, any other thoughts, Rob? [00:19:48] I mean, the storyline's not going away. [00:19:51] And I guess this is their latest way of trying to play it: hey, we're done engaging with this. [00:19:55] But my, and my guess is that they're going to slow down the pursuit by saying, we're not engaging with this anymore. [00:20:01] We're saying we're done with it. === Iran Contra Connections (11:04) === [00:20:02] But I think there's going to be a big time fight over what's been redacted, which is the, I guess, from the administration standpoint, as they're trying to cover this up, not as bad as if all the information was available and then there was a push for like an investigation or action to be taken. [00:20:20] So I guess they're kind of winning the fight in that regard that now it's going to be slowed down in a fight to, you know, step one, which is let's just get this information. [00:20:29] Yeah, I mean, look, there is, they're taking a huge loss on this politically. [00:20:33] There is a percentage of people, you know, who will just defend this administration no matter what. [00:20:39] And you see people say things like, well, hey, at least they got some documents out. [00:20:43] That's more than Biden did or whatever. [00:20:46] But look, I mean, there's no question, Rob, right? [00:20:48] Like they're being, man, they're the cover-up has continued even through the Epstein Transparency Act going through and all of this. [00:20:58] I mean, look, one of the things that people were complaining about a bunch, Rob, is I'm sure you read this, that they took down a bunch of documents that they had released. [00:21:09] Like they released the 3.5 million pages and then they took down a whole bunch of the documents that they had already released. [00:21:16] And then some people were like, they were going, yeah, but whatever, like they're already out there. [00:21:20] You know how it is. [00:21:21] You put something out on the internet. [00:21:22] It doesn't matter if you take it down. [00:21:23] It's already been duplicated millions of times. [00:21:26] But what's the game there, Rob? [00:21:28] It actually does matter because what happens is the Congress is allowed to go and see the unredacted files, right? [00:21:36] But now they can't see those files anymore. [00:21:38] So they may be out there on the internet, but the ones they took down, all we have is the redacted versions. [00:21:43] And now even the congressmen can't go see those. [00:21:45] And it does kind of make you wonder, why would they pick those? [00:21:48] Look, we've already caught them red-handed at least once redacting a co-conspirator. [00:21:54] And so this is just, they've essentially created a situation now where there is no way that they can ever convince people that you've gotten all the information that you've gotten. [00:22:05] And of course, as you said, this story will live on for a few reasons. [00:22:11] Number one, because there is, well, look, I mean, number one, because there's something about children being abused in this way. [00:22:23] And we know at least that there were several children that were abused. [00:22:27] We don't know exactly the extent of it. [00:22:29] I don't know. [00:22:30] There's all types of weird emails where they're talking about nine-year-olds and 10-year-olds. [00:22:35] And there's one where Epstein's, he's telling a 14-year-old, you're going to be 22 tonight or something. [00:22:40] So like, how many children? [00:22:42] We don't know. [00:22:42] But as soon as you hear children's sexual abuse, human beings have a an impulse about that. [00:22:51] It's something that is, you know, as we've talked about before, it is, it really is crazy. [00:22:56] That you, if you're a pedophile, you can't go to maximum security prison and be safe. [00:23:04] Because even amongst fucking killers, there's a moral code that that is some evil shit. [00:23:11] And like, there's just, there is something about it, it evokes like a very primal rage out of people. [00:23:21] So that's one thing. [00:23:22] Then you also have the element of it's this crazy spy thriller thing, you know what I mean? [00:23:27] And then you also just have the story itself and how it, as soon as you know a few details about the Epstein thing, you're just like, dude, something is good. [00:23:37] We're already now exist in a spectrum of some horrible scandal. [00:23:42] You know, it's just unclear exactly what it is. [00:23:45] And then, of course, the other factor, Rob, is that there are millions of documents that are out there and it's going to be years of people reporting on this stuff. [00:23:53] You know, there's still, Scott made this point. [00:23:56] Scott Horton made this point on Provoked. [00:23:59] Great show, by the way, with Scott Horton and Daryl Cooper. [00:24:02] He made this point the other day, but he compared, I thought it was a good comparison, is he compared it to like the WikiLeaks dumps and how it would still be years later that people would find a random little thing. [00:24:13] Oh, I found this, you know, and this. [00:24:15] And then it almost like it almost became like one resource of information that's out there that people would use to make their case. [00:24:26] So like when Scott's, you know, arguing about whatever Ukraine or something, he can go back to like certain things like the NetMeans Net memo that Burns wrote to Condoleezza Rice. [00:24:40] That we only know of that because of the of the Julian Assange dumps. [00:24:45] Like it was the WikiLeaks dumps is that we found that email. [00:24:47] So like there's things like this is going to be a thing that people are going to be reporting on and finding new emails and finding new interpretations of different connections and emails for years and years to come. [00:24:58] It's nowhere, it's not going to be over. [00:25:01] And at this point, this administration has just kind of solidified that their legacy was the attempt to cover this up. [00:25:09] And in the meantime, you can't read tweets while eating because it's all about human meat. [00:25:15] Yeah, that's true. [00:25:17] I mean, just like the story itself, the Epstein is just, it's really, it's just one of those things where it's like, you just, I mean, like, if you, I think they, even like when, when Daryl was on with Tucker's show, they talked a little bit about this and Tucker's first, like Tucker said like a couple of times, he'd be like, what are the odds of that happening? [00:25:41] And then Daryl would go, you want to put a few more zeros on that? [00:25:44] Like, also add this in, also add this. [00:25:46] I mean, I was, one of the things I find that's really interesting, and it's how the Epstein story intersects with a lot of like much even bigger stories or also really huge stories. [00:25:59] I mean, it's kind of hard to say how big exactly Epstein was. [00:26:02] He's bigger than I realized before this, before these latest files came out. [00:26:06] But, you know, so, you know, you have a, what's his name? [00:26:12] Bob Barr's father. [00:26:13] I'm blanking on what his first name was, but Barr Sr. is the guy who hires Epstein for his first job at Dalton. [00:26:23] So this dude was an OSS agent. [00:26:27] He was a CIA guy before the creation of the CIA. [00:26:30] So Barr is an intelligence guy, right? [00:26:35] They throw him into running Dalton, which is like, you know, it's when somebody who used to be an intelligence agent then goes in to run like an elite, you know, like prep school in New York City, you'd always assume like, oh, well, this must be like some type of recruiting or something like that, right? [00:26:54] So he hires Jeffrey Epstein at 20 years old as a college dropout to teach math in Dalton, right? [00:27:03] And then his son, Bob Barr, and also works for the CIA for many years. [00:27:14] He ends up being the guy who Trump puts in as the attorney general who oversees the arrest and then is in charge while he gets, while Epstein gets murdered. [00:27:26] So like already just there, you'd go like, what are the odds of that? [00:27:33] This just seems like a pretty unlikely thing to see. [00:27:37] Right, right. [00:27:37] So like, what, so like, that's what, right, wouldn't Alex Jones be interested in that? [00:27:42] Doesn't that now, just to, so here's one of the things that's okay. [00:27:45] So Bob Barr, is it who this guy was, right? [00:27:50] So he works for the CIA for years. [00:27:52] Now, he works for the CIA during the church committee. [00:28:01] So there was, for, for people who don't know, this was like the time period in the 70s when it was like the CIA's probably most threatened period since their existence. [00:28:13] I mean, maybe you could argue, you know, a full, a few years earlier when Kennedy had fired Dulles and was threatening to break up the whole CIA. [00:28:22] But, you know, Rob, they dealt with that problem. [00:28:25] So this is a, this is now in the 70s. [00:28:28] And I think it was like, I think it was a bunch of Seymour Hirsch reporting that got the church committees going. [00:28:35] But there was like, if you'd imagine, right? [00:28:37] After Kennedy got killed, there was like a whole different level of like awareness and distrust of the shadow government and like what exactly was going on. [00:28:49] A lot of Americans just did not buy that. [00:28:51] Like their president got murdered in front of all of them and none of the story added up. [00:28:57] And so eventually they get these, the church committee. [00:29:00] And then there was a, the church committee was in the Senate and then the House had a version of it too. [00:29:04] And there was like actual pressure being put on. [00:29:07] And you know who the head of the CIA was, Rob? [00:29:10] George H.W. Bush. [00:29:12] And so George H.W. Bush hires Barr, son of the guy who hired Jeffrey Epstein. [00:29:20] He brings Barr in to basically be like the conduit between the Central Intelligence Agency and Congress. [00:29:27] His job is to go to Congress and say, like, look, we can declassify these and these files. [00:29:32] This is all you really need. [00:29:33] Let's give them this. [00:29:34] Will that keep him off of the rest of the stuff that we want? [00:29:37] So he does that. [00:29:38] Then he becomes attorney general for the first time under George H.W. Bush. [00:29:45] George H.W. Bush brought him in there. [00:29:48] Well, why would he be using the same guy who he used as the CIA's guy to cover this story, you know, cover up fucking like what's to be released in the church committee? [00:30:00] Why would he bring the same guy into the Justice Department? [00:30:03] Like, how do you go from working for the Intelli? [00:30:06] Well, this is immediately following Iran-Contra. [00:30:09] And so he brought in his CIA guy to what, do the exact same thing again. [00:30:14] So then Donald Trump brings this same guy into his administration and he goes and prosecutes Epstein, who then, you know, the cameras malfunction and the guards fall asleep and then winds up dead. [00:30:28] Like, look. [00:30:29] We're living in Tel Aviv. [00:30:31] Yeah, right. [00:30:32] So like, look, just knowing that, like, again, like I think I said on the, on, on one of the episodes here, some mathematician, you give me the odds of all of that happening and there not being like something more to the story. [00:30:45] Like just all of that's a coincidence. [00:30:47] So again, by the way, this is, I just gave you like five minutes of this. [00:30:52] There's hours and hours and hours more. [00:30:54] And I didn't even get into girls or connections or mosad or the Russian oligarchs or any of the goddamn meetings that this guy was involved in. [00:31:03] By the way, also seemed to be involved in Iran-Contra. === Unlikely Coincidence Facts (03:19) === [00:31:07] Shit, you not. [00:31:08] And so there's just, it's like, once you know that, you're kind of at a place where, and this is why, where I think some of the guys like Michael Tracy and them are being like particularly disingenuous when they kind of like nidpick on all the little things. [00:31:25] You know, it'll go, Dave, you said it was a giant child sex trafficking ring. [00:31:30] That's not true. [00:31:31] We don't have proof of that. [00:31:32] You're like, okay, fine. [00:31:34] I really should have said it was a giant scandal involving a sex trafficking ring that involved children. [00:31:42] Good one. [00:31:43] You got me. [00:31:43] Okay. [00:31:44] So while you're focused on that, what the fuck explains what I just said? [00:31:48] You know, what the fuck is your theory of what's happening here? [00:31:51] You know, there's, there's, it's like, look, it's one thing when you go, hey, people, you're kind of speculating here about what you don't know. [00:32:03] And we should stick to the facts or something like that. [00:32:05] Like, okay, that's reasonable enough. [00:32:07] But sometimes you have a set of facts that are so crazy that you go, it's actually much more reasonable to speculate about what might be here than to go, you can't prove one outlandish claim. [00:32:20] Therefore, none of this matters. [00:32:23] Like, I'm sorry, dude. [00:32:25] What explains all that? [00:32:27] And again, that's like five minutes of laying the shit out. [00:32:30] You could sit here, as Daryl Cooper has done several times for three hours and lay out a ton of shit and just go, what is it that explains all of this? [00:32:38] And it's something pretty bad. [00:32:42] And this is why no one's letting this go. [00:32:44] The administration's never going to win this fight. [00:32:46] All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Superpower. [00:32:51] Look, it's the new year. 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[00:34:12] After you sign up, the last guy you heard about them, please make sure to say that you heard at part of the problem. [00:34:18] That helps us out. [00:34:19] All right, let's get back into the show. [00:34:21] You would think at a minimum, there'd be an investigation of Wexner. === Age of Consent Debate (15:18) === [00:34:26] I mean, he was named as a co-conspirator. [00:34:28] I think he's still alive, right? [00:34:29] Yeah. [00:34:30] Yeah. [00:34:30] He's old, but he's still. [00:34:31] He's got to bring him in front of Congress or something. [00:34:34] No talks to the staff of the island. [00:34:36] Nothing. [00:34:37] Yeah. [00:34:37] No, that's right. [00:34:38] Like all. [00:34:39] And then also like, there's just like these weird kind of conflicting things where like, you know, again, not that you should trust anything the administration says for shit, but it's like, remember when Pam Bondi at one point went, it was thousands of hours of kiddie porn and that's why we can't release any of this. [00:34:59] And you're like, okay, but then like, doesn't that kind of conflict with the idea that like, oh, no, like this guy was a womanizer and like, yeah, like a 15 or 16 year old slipped in there, but he wasn't like praying on, he's not a pedophile. [00:35:13] Like, okay, but he has thousands of hours of kiddie porn. [00:35:19] Because like the only people I know who have that are pedophiles. [00:35:22] You know, pedophiles? [00:35:24] Okay. [00:35:24] I don't actually know anyone who has that, but the only word I would use to describe people who have that is pedophiles. [00:35:31] You know, that came out the wrong way, Rob. [00:35:33] Thanks for catching me on that, though. [00:35:35] No, but I mean, like, it's a, like I saw Tracy. [00:35:37] It's honestly, it's just too stupid. [00:35:39] I know he's like challenging me to debate. [00:35:41] And you're like, I just don't even know what it is you want to debate here, but it's literally what he's doing. [00:35:47] And the reason why it seems pointless is that it's just like nobody's agreeing with him. [00:35:54] He's just like destroying his reputation. [00:35:57] Every goddamn response to him is like, fucking how ridiculous this is. [00:36:00] But so he played the clip from our show where I and I did get it wrong, like fair enough in this, in this moment, but he played the clip from our show where I said, I go, and didn't you win the lottery twice? [00:36:12] And then you immediately corrected me. [00:36:14] And you go, I don't think that one's right. [00:36:17] As I looked into that, it doesn't seem like that's right. [00:36:19] And I go, oh, okay. [00:36:20] All right. [00:36:21] I thought I read that. [00:36:22] And then he plays that clip as if this is some huge own. [00:36:24] And you're like, dude, it was, it was addressed on the show by my co-host the moment after I said that. [00:36:30] And yes, okay, fine. [00:36:31] Tracy, you're right. [00:36:33] It was, we got these files and we were looking through them. [00:36:36] And yes, a company with the same name as his company had won the lottery. [00:36:40] I guess it turns out it was not the same company. [00:36:42] Okay. [00:36:43] Again, what's your theory to explain the information that we know? [00:36:49] This is the one question he'll just run away from. [00:36:51] I asked him on this on Twitter and he immediately just five paragraphs running away from, I don't have to give a theory of totality or any of this. [00:36:59] Well, yeah, you kind of do at a certain point. [00:37:01] Like we've got a lot of information here. [00:37:03] And if you're going to make yourself the debunker, well, obviously the question is, what would explain all of this? [00:37:10] What is the story here? [00:37:12] He's got nothing on that. [00:37:14] And you don't just have to explain for what is the full story, but why is it that the government isn't even interested in looking into this? [00:37:23] Like based on what you've seen, you don't think that there's anything here that is suspicious enough that warrants an investigation or suspicious enough that the government shouldn't just be. [00:37:34] And also, if there's absolutely nothing suspicious here, why was the government so shady in the way that it was willing to release the information? [00:37:42] If everything here does not create suspicion and it's, as you're saying, there's no story to be told here at all. [00:37:49] Why did they at first say, oh my God, I've seen the most horrifying things and I've got the information here. [00:37:56] Oh, I'm giving binders to these influencers. [00:37:58] Oh, there's nothing to see here. [00:38:00] Oh, you forced my hands. [00:38:01] Fine. [00:38:02] Here's a bunch of files, but we had to redact the information. [00:38:05] I mean, make that make sense that there's no scandal here whatever at all. [00:38:10] On the topic, though, of the lottery ticket, I got to dig into this one. [00:38:15] I heard it on a pod, just went to fact check it. [00:38:17] Didn't look right. [00:38:19] And as I said, I was, I was drunk at the airport when I looked into it. [00:38:22] So I don't know all the details. [00:38:25] I have a friend that said he dug in and that one of the winners was actually the groundskeeper of the estate. [00:38:30] I don't know if that's true or not. [00:38:32] But anyways, I think that one's still, I was just saying, don't, we shouldn't say it as an absolute, but I don't know that it's entirely debunked. [00:38:40] Yeah. [00:38:40] No, but I did see, I saw Tracy's like thing that he had put together on that. [00:38:44] And it was like, okay, that's, that's fair enough. [00:38:47] Like, it looks like we got that one. [00:38:48] That wasn't the single, it's not like that was people said, hey, we got to investigate this Epstein guy. [00:38:53] He won the lottery twice. [00:38:54] And that doesn't make sense why this guy would have won the lottery twice. [00:38:57] That was not the Epstein conversation. [00:38:59] Yeah. [00:38:59] No, that's right. [00:39:00] And then also, it's like Tracy's just gotten a ton wrong himself covering this. [00:39:05] So he goes around like being like, oh, if he finds one little detail that anyone, even a detail where my co-host fucking corrects me on the show, he still plays that as like some gotcha. [00:39:16] Meanwhile, I don't know if you saw Daryl Cooper's letter that he wrote back to him, but Daryl Cooper did, which he really didn't have to because Tracy was being such a cunt, which he's really been the whole time. [00:39:27] He just fucking, he completely got a bunch of shit wrong when he was critiquing Daryl that Daryl was absolutely right about. [00:39:33] And I'm not saying there's not a couple details Daryl's gotten wrong. [00:39:35] I think he got the lottery thing wrong too. [00:39:36] He admitted that himself. [00:39:37] And like, it's fine. [00:39:39] Like these are complicated stories. [00:39:42] It's hard to put everything together and not ever get a detail wrong. [00:39:45] But there is something about the smug shit. [00:39:47] And, you know, Rob, I know you know this, but and I'll just remind people, I've talked about this on the show before at the time, but I believe none of this shit's been taken down. [00:39:55] You can still go look at it on Twitter yourself. [00:39:58] My first, I was kind of, I didn't really know much about Michael Tracy, but I kind of liked, he was a journalist and I kind of largely agreed with him. [00:40:07] I remember he was good on Ukraine. [00:40:09] And that was at the time was like, I mean, still is, but was like such a goddamn huge, important issue. [00:40:15] And so I appreciated that. [00:40:17] And so if you remember, Rob, this was like the first thing. [00:40:20] This is where our, you know, relationship or whatever went sour was that he put out a clip of Bobby Kennedy's speech where he announced he was running for president. [00:40:31] And Bobby Kennedy essentially was talking about the war in Ukraine. [00:40:34] And he gave like a disclaimer before he came out against the thing. [00:40:39] So he started by, he had this thing. [00:40:42] So he starts by going like, you know, the American people support, you know, they believe in freedom and liberty and they've been told that the Ukrainians are fighting for their freedom, which they are. [00:40:51] And that's why the Americans support this war. [00:40:55] But what I've come to learn is that this war is not about that. [00:40:58] This war is about blah, blah, blah. [00:41:00] And then he gets into the Madan Revolution, how that was a U.S.-backed coup, how blah, And he has this whole thing about how like why it's really NATO and the West's fault that this conflict happened at all. [00:41:09] Like really good stuff that I would have, he might have been sloppy with a detail or two, but something that I would have been like, hell yeah, that was really great. [00:41:17] So then Tracy posts a clip of just the beginning part where he says the war is about freedom and this and goes, oh, look, RFK comes out in support of the war in Ukraine. [00:41:30] And so then I went, I went, so him and Jack Pasebiak both posted that short. [00:41:39] Like, I mean, dude, it was a like, you know, people say you took me out of context when you didn't really take them out of context. [00:41:46] This was like a textbook, actually out of context, like blatantly. [00:41:50] By the way, Rob, I'm not like a RFK Jr. Stan. [00:41:55] I disagree with him on a ton of things. [00:41:57] I had a very confrontational debate with him. [00:41:59] I've been very critical about him at times. [00:42:03] But this was clearly out of context and just misleading. [00:42:06] So I go to Tracy on Twitter. [00:42:08] I responded to him and I go, dude, this is a completely misleading video. [00:42:13] Like this is not at all what he was saying. [00:42:15] And Tracy goes, oh, so you're calling me a liar? [00:42:18] And I go, no, I'm saying I think you got fooled. [00:42:22] Go watch the whole thing. [00:42:24] I'm saying whoever made this clip is a liar. [00:42:27] And then he goes, I'm the one who made this clip. [00:42:29] And I go, oh, well, then yes, I'm calling you a liar. [00:42:32] Sorry, I didn't realize it, but yes, I'm calling you a liar. [00:42:34] Now, to his credit, Jack Pasebiak immediately deleted the tweet, retweeted mine or quote tweeted mine, and then went, hey, Dave's right. [00:42:44] I just saw the full version. [00:42:45] Like, this isn't at all what he was saying. [00:42:47] But Tracy wouldn't back down. [00:42:49] And it was like when he was, like, this wasn't even like, I wasn't even attacking him like, oh, you fucking liar. [00:42:55] I was going like, hey, hey, you got this wrong. [00:42:57] So just like, correct this, you know? [00:42:59] And he wouldn't, he refused. [00:43:01] He doubled down and tripled down when it was obvious. [00:43:03] So like now he's coming around and trying to be the guy like, ooh, you got this wrong. [00:43:08] Like, look, dude, what do we even, I don't even know what he wanted to debate. [00:43:12] It was like he want, he wanted to debate. [00:43:14] He was angry that I said at the Charlie Kirk event, the famous one with Josh Hammer, that I said Donald Trump just covered up a giant child rapist ring or something like that. [00:43:26] So like, all right, I guess I was a little over my skis to call it a giant child rapist. [00:43:31] I guess we don't know exactly how many children were raped and all of it, but like he got caught with like three. [00:43:37] There's a bunch of emails that indicate there's more. [00:43:40] And like, what do you think? [00:43:41] What do you think if he got caught with three? [00:43:43] You think he never ever did it except for those times that he got caught? [00:43:45] So like, okay, like, again, the point is that I'm not like trying to be married to a thing I said off the cuff in front of a live audience as a rebuttal to a guy who was attacking me or whatever. [00:43:56] Fine. [00:43:57] I should have said a giant scandal involving sex trafficking of minors. [00:44:03] There you go. [00:44:03] Cleaned it up. [00:44:05] So now, what are we debating that? [00:44:07] Like, I don't know. [00:44:08] It's just, it's, it's the way people are bending over backwards to try to argue that there's nothing there is really weird. [00:44:17] And then the other thing, Rob, is, and really why I don't want to do the debate at all, probably why I won't do it is just that. [00:44:22] And I have very few lines with stuff like this, but there's some topics I'm just not going to debate. [00:44:26] But I have heard whatever Tracy said on Glenn Greenwald, he said, I'm not an age of consent guy or something like that. [00:44:33] And then he starts getting into how having sex with a 15 year old isn't really pedophilia because pedophilia is defined as pre-pubescent. [00:44:41] Like, and you're like, all right. [00:44:44] Well, I'm just going to keep calling him a pedophile and I don't ever want to talk to you again. [00:44:49] I don't know. [00:44:49] That's just like my like, okay. [00:44:52] So like it's pretty universally like colloquially used the term pedophile as like you have sex with children and I'm just not interested in a debate about splitting hairs about when you call someone a pedophile and when you don't. [00:45:09] It's just too bizarre to me. [00:45:10] I don't know. [00:45:12] I think the problem with this is that 15 is horrible and it just gets worse every year down. [00:45:19] But that doesn't make 15 okay. [00:45:21] Like, yeah, we'll all agree with you. [00:45:23] Like in it's more horrific if it's an eight year old. [00:45:27] It's even more horrific. [00:45:28] It's a seven year old. [00:45:30] Every year down, it's like increasingly exponentially more horrific, but that doesn't make the 15 year old okay. [00:45:37] Yes. [00:45:37] And in fact, if I was like, this is a, if I was going to have like an age of consent conversation, I'm arguing in the other way that I'd go like, well, I agree, obviously, with everything you said, it gets more horrific the younger the child is. [00:45:52] Although I guess that stops at a certain point, right? [00:45:54] Like a six-year-old isn't any better than a seven-year-old or something like, or any worse or that they're all, it's all just three. [00:46:01] It's satanic levels of evil once you start getting to a young enough age. [00:46:05] But also there's a, there's a conversation on the other side of this. [00:46:10] Like, so look, it's somewhat arbitrary always where you draw the line of when you're a legal adult. [00:46:19] Should it be 18? [00:46:20] Should it be 19? [00:46:22] Should it be 20? [00:46:23] You know, like there, I don't know. [00:46:26] And I don't, I certainly, the older I get, air on the side of making it older. [00:46:30] But there is something to like, look, if a, if a 25-year-old has sex with a 15-year-old, we all look at that as a heinous crime, a heinous crime. [00:46:42] That's a horrible thing. [00:46:43] You should go to jail for that. [00:46:45] That is a horrible thing to do. [00:46:47] I don't know. [00:46:47] We've all been 25 before, and you might have, you know, hooked up with a girl younger than you, but 15, hell no. [00:46:55] I mean, that is sick. [00:46:56] Okay. [00:46:58] But a 55-year-old being with an 18-year-old, in what world is that not worse? [00:47:06] Like, I just don't like it's yes, I understand at a certain point you have to draw the line legally or whatever, but there's when you're talking. [00:47:13] So now in the case of Jeffrey Epstein, just to be clear, even when you're saying the girl was 16 or the girl was 17, this isn't even the case of like a 40-year-old met a 17-year-old and ended up having sex with her, which is sick enough, you know, and criminal. [00:47:32] And I mean, maybe not in every state. [00:47:34] In fact, in a lot of states, it's not criminal, but I would argue should be. [00:47:38] I would argue should be criminal in every single state. [00:47:41] But now you're talking about like trafficking these girls. [00:47:45] You're talking about like hiring these girls, making them prostitutes, putting them in situations where they are to have sex with whoever. [00:47:54] That is so much worse. [00:47:56] So much worse. [00:47:57] And so like, you just, it's at a level where it's like, once someone's trying to split hairs, and I know Tracy kind of makes fun of how there's this like, and everyone's telling me they want to see my search history or that I must be a pedo too or something like that. [00:48:11] It's like, yeah, dude, because that's the appropriate reaction when someone starts going down that line. [00:48:15] That is the appropriate reaction for most men to have. [00:48:19] Like most men's reaction is like, okay, we're going to kill whoever did that. [00:48:23] And then what the guy splitting hairs about it, you know what? [00:48:25] Just to be safe, we're going to kill you two. [00:48:27] Not saying anyone ought to kill someone for splitting hairs, but that is the instinct. [00:48:33] And like, I don't know, dude. [00:48:34] Like, I've had, you know, I've, I have young kids, but I got other, you know, I have like, um, they're a little bit older now, but I had like a niece who was a teenager not too, like just a few years ago. [00:48:48] And I have, like, if some, if some 45-year-old, some 50-year-old guy ever tried something with my niece when she was 17, I'd be quite comfortable murdering him with like a ballpoint pen. [00:49:04] You know, so call that whatever you want to call it. [00:49:09] You know what I'm saying? [00:49:09] I'm not going to sit here and argue like, yeah, it's a pretty big deal to some of us. [00:49:14] So we're going to just lump that all in. [00:49:17] And Dave means metaphorically, of course, because he would call the responsible authorities and let the actual system go with it. [00:49:24] Obviously, the whole thing's a metaphor. [00:49:26] None of this ever happened. [00:49:27] You know what I'm saying? [00:49:28] I'm saying that in the event that it did happen, I could see myself feeling comfortable with something like that. [00:49:34] But anyway, yes, very good point. [00:49:36] This is all obviously, we're comedians and everything here is just satire. [00:49:41] But anyway, yeah, so I'm just not, I don't know. [00:49:42] I don't want to have that conversation. === Regime Toppling Questions (05:55) === [00:49:44] I'm interested in the conversation of like what were his ties to Israeli intelligence? [00:49:50] What exactly is the story here? [00:49:51] How many people, you know, like, I just want to get down to the bottom of this and understand it as best we can. [00:49:57] Anyway, okay, let's move on because again, we ended up spending a lot of time on Epstein stuff, but let's talk a little bit about Iran, because that is the other really big thing that is going on here. [00:50:08] And according to, I believe, was it, I think it was Axios. [00:50:11] No, my mistake. [00:50:12] It was Reuters. [00:50:14] Reuters had a report out just the other day that they said, because the military has been making major mobilization movements over the last week, I mean, over weeks, but really over the last week, particularly. [00:50:30] And according to the Reuters report, the U.S. military is preparing for the possibility of a sustained weeks-long operation against Iran coming up here. [00:50:42] And now, Donald Trump did say the other day that something again about how there can be no enrichment. [00:50:47] And this is so, so now it's really something, Rob, right? [00:50:51] Because they went to this absurd, what was it? [00:50:56] I don't know. [00:50:56] I haven't, it seems like they backed down on that. [00:50:58] Like, I haven't seen as much of the propaganda about how many protesters were killed because, like, it seems like the protests were quelled. [00:51:06] But for a little while there, a few weeks ago, it was like 100,000 people were killed in an hour in Ukraine or in Iran. [00:51:16] And now it's now Trump is somehow back to the nuclear pretext. [00:51:21] Again, this is not much better handled than the Epstein story. [00:51:24] Like, what? [00:51:24] But didn't you just tell me you obliterated their nuclear program like a few months ago? [00:51:29] And so now you're telling me I got these reports that we're looking for. [00:51:33] So this time, it's not going to be like last time. [00:51:37] You're talking about a sustained military campaign going on for weeks and weeks over a nuclear threat that you told me you already took care of. [00:51:47] I mean, man, they are not selling this war very well, Rob. [00:51:50] I thought they changed their, maybe I haven't seen the latest, but I thought they changed their position to Iran can't even have ballistic missiles. [00:51:59] Yes. [00:52:00] No, they were saying that too. [00:52:01] They were saying a demand on getting rid of the missiles. [00:52:04] Did they shift it back to they're trying to get a bomb or just that they're not allowed to have a nuclear program at all? [00:52:11] They're throwing track of it. [00:52:13] There's all of this happened. [00:52:15] Yes, it is hard to keep up with. [00:52:17] All of that happened. [00:52:18] They're still saying the thing about the missiles. [00:52:20] They've lightened up on the talk about the protesters, I guess, because it's just not happening anymore. [00:52:24] And I think, honestly, from what my read of it is that the timing just didn't work out and they didn't have the military hardware in place to be prepared for the Iranian response. [00:52:35] And so when the protests were going on and they were making these claims, they weren't ready. [00:52:39] It took them a few weeks more. [00:52:41] And now that's kind of old news. [00:52:43] But yes, there's been claims that they have to disarm themselves completely of intercontinental ballistic missiles or they could only keep missiles that can't reach Israel, which, you know, obviously is something that is going to be something that the Ayatollah cannot agree to. [00:52:58] But so it does, in much like with the first round of negotiations last summer, it seems like the goal here is to just say, you know, hey, you got to do these three things that I know you can't possibly do. [00:53:11] And that's, that's our pretext for war that, hey, we tried to negotiate. [00:53:17] They wouldn't agree. [00:53:18] And so we're going to have to bomb them. [00:53:20] But I mean, if they're, I mean, look, Rob, there's only if they really are preparing for like a weeks long extensive campaign here. [00:53:30] What's, I mean, what's going to happen as a result of this? [00:53:34] I mean, obviously the big question becomes, what is Iran going to do? [00:53:39] You know, and I don't know. [00:53:40] I'm not so sure about that anymore. [00:53:43] I don't know. [00:53:44] You know, they really are stuck between Iraq and a hard place, that country. [00:53:50] Typically, they're stuck between Iraq and Afghanistan, but now it's Iraq and a hard place. [00:53:55] Sorry, guys, I'll bring something better for you in Perryville. [00:53:59] But so there, you go look like, can they just take it again? [00:54:05] Is it really the case that they'll just Up the U.S. Embassy again and go, hey, please move your guys out of the southwest corner of this base because we're going to send some missiles at it, but we really don't want to kill any Americans because we don't want it. [00:54:19] Is it true they're going to do that again? [00:54:21] Then again, I don't know. [00:54:23] A lot of people thought there's no way they could let us bomb Fordeau or whatever, but they did. [00:54:28] And so, you know, like, do they really want to go just bomb a few military bases and kill a few hundred Americans and then get their entire country lit up? [00:54:38] Okay, well, if that happens, it's almost certain that there's going to be enormous casualties, you know, on all sides. [00:54:47] If that were to happen, if Iran was to retaliate to a U.S. or Israeli first strike, if they don't do that and they just take it and there's a sustained bombing campaign for weeks, okay, we'll probably kill a few thousand people. [00:55:03] And then there's a big question of whether that's enough to topple the regime or not. [00:55:06] Maybe it is. [00:55:08] And if it does, and if we do topple the regime, well, then you're in a situation where the overwhelming likelihood is a catastrophic result as it has been in every other country in that region. [00:55:20] So, you know, it's funny because I, when, when Venezuela first came up, um, you know, I was, I did a, um, a panel on Piers Morgan that Coleman Hughes was on. [00:55:30] So we had done a debate, well, or he had me on his show and we argued a bunch. [00:55:34] And then we were on a panel on Piers Morgan. [00:55:36] And when Venezuela comes up, you know, he makes the point. === Catastrophic Regional Results (02:16) === [00:55:39] And I like Coleman. [00:55:40] He's, he's always been a reasonably decent enough person to me. [00:55:45] But he's, his argument is like, oh, everybody's comparing this to Iraq and Libya and Syria and all that. [00:55:52] But like, this is a completely different region with a completely different culture, which are completely different thing. [00:55:56] So like you can't judge it based off that. [00:55:58] So I was like, okay, fine. [00:55:59] Let's look at other catastrophes in South America, you know? [00:56:04] But yet when it comes back to Iran, that same guy doesn't go, well, you know, we got to judge this based off the two neighboring countries that we did this to. [00:56:13] Like literally, we've done this now to like four countries in that region, and they've all been catastrophic. [00:56:18] No, no, no. [00:56:19] It doesn't, it only works one way, which is seems to be convenient to me. [00:56:24] But yeah, it's, there's just, if, if the regime change were to be successful, there is really no good reason to see, think that what comes next is going to be an improvement. [00:56:35] And every reason in the world to think that it's going to be a catastrophe. [00:56:39] All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show. [00:56:42] We're thrilled to have them on board. [00:56:44] Ultra, ultra pouches, the nicotine-free pouches that people are raving about. 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[00:57:43] That's takeultra.com. [00:57:45] Promo code problem for 15% off. [00:57:47] And after your purchase, they will ask where you heard about them. [00:57:50] Please support our show and tell them that part of the problem sent you there. [00:57:53] All right, let's get back into the show. === Diplomatic Justification Undercut (11:20) === [00:57:55] I've heard Netanyahu say numerous times that he thinks that the Iranian people are great people and the only problem is the regime. [00:58:03] And as a man of his word, I am sure that if they successfully take out this regime, it will be better for the Iranians and Israel will openly engage with them. [00:58:13] Maybe even let them migrate to Israel. [00:58:15] I'm sure that's the way there is. [00:58:17] You know, there is something, though, I will say that's weird about the way he says that, because it is like, you know, a lot of these guys, you know, like, as is one of the things that was revealed in the Epstein files, that there's like this real level of like Jewish supremacy and like real deal, you know, supremacy. [00:58:33] And what comes along with that, whenever you have like real racial, racial supremacist, is like, you know, a real crazy racialist reductionist view of the world of how you look at people like, you know, like the way Hitler did. [00:58:50] You've ever hear Hitler talk about race where it's like, okay, there's these people, there's these people, there's these people. [00:58:55] Here's the ranking. [00:58:56] Here's who's, you know, like, and look, a lot of people at the top upper echelon of Israel's government does have some of that shit in them. [00:59:05] And like, when you just hear Benjamin Netanyahu and like he'll talk about the Palestinians as like Amalek, but then like when he talks about the people of Iranian, he always talks about like the great Persian people and the like tradition that they have. [00:59:17] And there is something even by his standard that's like a weird admission in there where he's like, listen, man, we understand. [00:59:24] Like a lot of people think you're all Durka, Durka, Durka people, but like we know that you're like Persia. [00:59:29] You're not these dirty Arabs. [00:59:30] You know what I mean? [00:59:30] Like you can talk reason to you. [00:59:32] It's just like a very weird like kind of thing where you're like, oh, so that's why you can just level Gaza because like, yeah, fuck them. [00:59:38] But like, you guys, no, come on, we could do a whole thing. [00:59:41] Like you guys are capable of having a government that works for us, you know? [00:59:44] Like, anyway, it's a, it's very bizarre. [00:59:47] Let's play. [00:59:48] Did you see this, the Mark Levin quote here? [00:59:51] I just loved this so much. [00:59:53] Let's let's play that clip, Natalie. [00:59:55] It was the, I think it was the first one that I sent today, if I'm remembering correctly. [01:00:02] It's a, it's Newt Gingrich. [01:00:05] Because, you know, like, remember when Barry Weiss was talking about how the way we got to take back the media is we got to find these charismatic centrist characters. [01:00:14] Well, that's it. [01:00:15] Here's, here's one more for you. [01:00:16] Remember, she mentioned Alan Dershwitz with his Raw sex appeal. [01:00:20] Well, Mark Levin's found a young stud to come on here and Newt Gingrich. [01:00:26] Let's hear what they have to say. [01:00:28] I don't know why we would meet with them, which makes them look like they're a legitimate government. [01:00:34] They're not. [01:00:35] They're a dictatorship dedicated to destroying the United States. [01:00:39] You know, the isolationists like to talk about warmongers, and I've coined a word called diplomacy mongers. [01:00:45] That is people who think that we can talk our way or they can talk their way into some kind of an arrangement. [01:00:54] I don't know why. [01:00:55] All right. [01:00:56] There you go, Rob. [01:00:57] Mark Levin hits back at us isolationists. [01:01:01] We're so, we want, we want us to be so isolated. [01:01:04] I love it. [01:01:04] Just not wanting to drop bombs and ask questions later means you're isolated. [01:01:10] Like, just imagine if my position here in my neighborhood was like, hey, Rob, I don't think I should murder any of my neighbors. [01:01:19] And you were like, so what do you just want to stay inside all day, dude? [01:01:23] It's like they think the only option of what you can, how you can interact with the world is by killing them. [01:01:29] But yes, well, he turned it around on us. [01:01:32] We call him a warmonger because he constantly wants to fight the next war, but he's going to call us diplomacy mongerers as Newt can't figure out why would we anyone want to meet with Iran? [01:01:47] Well, to avoid a fucking unnecessary war. [01:01:52] That's the idea. [01:01:54] Why is it? [01:01:55] Why is it, by the way, Rob, how is a diplomacy monger an isolationist? [01:02:01] What is it? [01:02:02] Why are you more isolated if we're talking to somebody, but you're not for being isolated if you're bombing somebody? [01:02:12] What's the logic to any of that? [01:02:15] What's the definition of the word monger? [01:02:19] I think, you know, I'm not going to be able to give you a definition of it, but somebody who does it a lot. [01:02:24] I don't know. [01:02:25] Monger. [01:02:25] Don't make me look stupid by asking me. [01:02:28] My bad. [01:02:29] No, to me, it's got the word itself has a negative connotation, but I realize I don't actually know the strict definition of. [01:02:36] A person who deals in trades or promotes a specific commodity. [01:02:41] So it's like somebody who. [01:02:42] Yeah, so I guess you, I guess technically you can be a diplomacy monger. [01:02:46] Oh, I don't even know what yeah, why not? [01:02:51] Let's, yeah, let's talk to people. [01:02:53] Let's talk to them before we start dropping bombs. [01:02:56] And also, like, I mean, Newt Gingrich's just whatever. [01:03:00] I mean, obviously he's for 90-year-olds, but it is amazing the efforts they go to just convince these fucking boomers to keep fucking supporting this shit. [01:03:11] And, but he goes, you can't, and here's his argument again, right? [01:03:14] You can't talk to them because if you talk to them, that would be recognizing them as a legitimate government. [01:03:23] They're there and they're people on the other side. [01:03:27] So you ought to pretend they don't exist. [01:03:29] Like, it's not a matter of whether you think they're the legitimate government. [01:03:33] They're the right way, Dave. [01:03:34] Yes, right. [01:03:35] First of all, the legitimate government is an oxymoron. [01:03:42] There's no such thing. [01:03:43] There's no, by the way, there's no claim to legitimacy by any government on the face of the planet or any government that's ever existed. [01:03:50] And all the explanations of legitimacy are totally unscientific and contradictory and incoherent. [01:03:57] You know, there's been a range of how governments claim to be legitimate through the years. [01:04:03] And honestly, probably the strongest one is just Mike Makes Right, which I think is bullshit and illegitimate and undercuts any idea of morality. [01:04:13] But like probably is their best argument to go with is just like, well, we're stronger than you. [01:04:18] So fuck you. [01:04:19] We run this shit. [01:04:21] There's been all types of attempts to claim that kings were ordained by God, that the pharaoh was related to like the canoe god or something like that. [01:04:30] I don't remember exactly how it goes, but we could look at all of those and most modern people go, yeah, okay, well, that's not actually legitimate. [01:04:37] But look, this whole idea of like the government gets that their rights are derived from the consent of the governed. [01:04:47] I mean, come on. [01:04:47] What are you in the third grade? [01:04:49] None of that's really true. [01:04:51] And by the way, that's not even how that's not even how our government was formed. [01:04:55] It wasn't formed from derision of consent of people. [01:05:01] It was enforced on people. [01:05:02] And that's not consent guys. [01:05:06] No, we are consent guys. [01:05:07] They're not consent guys. [01:05:09] They just claim to be consent guys. [01:05:10] We're for consent. [01:05:12] I'm getting confused by all this technical talk. [01:05:14] I mean, we're for consent. [01:05:16] We wouldn't take it to the line that Michael Tracy would take it to necessarily, but we are for consent after a certain age. [01:05:22] I don't know. [01:05:22] I just found out I'm a monger. [01:05:24] You are also a monger of many things, a sandwich monger. [01:05:28] But anyway, but look, I mean, right, they do exist. [01:05:32] We want to avoid a war if possible. [01:05:34] And who would not be for talking to them other than the people who just want to see regime change there? [01:05:41] See, that's the thing, right? [01:05:42] Is that they don't, the reason why diplomacy scares guys like Mark Levin and Newt Gingrich is because actually he knows there's a good chance that a reasonable deal could be reached. [01:05:55] You know, for all the people who shouted at me, 60% enriched uranium last summer over and over and over again, after they had learned the term for the first time, they all acted like that was the issue. [01:06:09] But the thing is, the Mullahs were more than willing to come to the negotiating table about that. [01:06:15] In fact, they had already done that under Obama. [01:06:19] And they came out and they signed on to the JCPOA. [01:06:23] They agreed to international inspections and the inspectors confirmed they weren't enriching beyond. [01:06:29] I think it was 3% to 5% at the time. [01:06:32] It wasn't until Trump tore up the deal that they moved it up. [01:06:36] And so then when Trump said, we want to bring it back down, they said, okay, great. [01:06:38] Let's take, let's talk another deal. [01:06:40] He could have, Trump easily could have gotten a stronger JCPOA without sunset provisions or whatever. [01:06:47] He clearly could have gotten that if he wanted it. [01:06:49] And that's why these guys don't want diplomacy because then they might negotiate away your pretext for war. [01:06:57] And that's the whole game right there. [01:06:59] Anyway, I mean, if Trump is going to go through with this, man, I mean, I think, I kind of think he's already cooked, but man, is his admitted, is in is his entire administration just totally destroyed. [01:07:11] If he actually launches another, because number one, Rob, and we got to wrap up, but I'll say this is that another war in Iran is going to be a real disaster for Donald Trump, not just because they're going to kind of have to do something bigger than they did last time. [01:07:23] They're already saying it's going to be weeks long, which by the way, is what many thought Iraq was going to be. [01:07:28] That is why Kiriaku says the old line is we'll be in Tehran by summer. [01:07:33] And they thought some people thought it would be months. [01:07:34] Some people thought it would be weeks. [01:07:35] Ended up being two decades. [01:07:38] So, but this is going to totally undercut the justification for the 12-day war, right? [01:07:45] You kind of can no longer brag about that being so, such a victory if you're right back at war with the country a few months later. [01:07:53] But coming off the Epstein stuff, coming off the ICE debacle and backing off of mass deportations and backing off of Doge and just all these things, just disaster after disaster. [01:08:06] Now we're going to see another war of choice, another war of aggression that's likely to get thousands of people killed. [01:08:14] That's just, man, this is just it. [01:08:16] And look, it's a big deal because these same fucking Democrats who just did all the shit they did over the last decade, they're coming back. [01:08:25] They're coming back in a big way in these midterms. [01:08:28] And Donald Trump has really just left this country in a horrible spot. [01:08:32] All right, we got to wrap up there. [01:08:35] Guys, see you in Perryville, Maryland this Saturday. [01:08:38] Robbie Bernstein will be there. [01:08:41] Do we have anyone else coming with us? [01:08:43] Is BK Chris coming with? [01:08:45] You know what? [01:08:46] I haven't talked to him. [01:08:46] Let me shoot him a text after this, see if he wants to come down. [01:08:50] Maybe BK Chris will be there with us. [01:08:52] All right, guys, comicdave Smith.com. [01:08:54] Ooh, yes, Natalie, good point. [01:08:56] Members only episode. [01:08:58] We will do a double members-only episode this week. [01:09:01] It probably won't be Thursday, but we will make sure to get you a double one because we missed it last week. [01:09:06] So apologies for that. [01:09:08] Also, buy my wife's book, Healthy Hibernation on Amazon. [01:09:10] Softcover is now available. [01:09:12] Thanks so much to all of you guys who have already purchased it. [01:09:15] And we'll catch you next time. [01:09:16] Peace.