Part Of The Problem - Dave Smith - Art of the Deal
Aired: 2026-04-22
Duration: 01:11:18


=== Fun Weekend in Chicago (02:55) ===

[00:00:07]  What's up?
[00:00:07]  What's up, everybody?
[00:00:09]  Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
[00:00:11]  I'm Dave Smith.
[00:00:12]  He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein.
[00:00:14]  It's good to be back with you.
[00:00:15]  How are you doing today, Rob?
[00:00:17]  Oh, fun weekend out in Chicago.
[00:00:20]  Rough Monday traveling back, but those were good shows.
[00:00:23]  I had the same exact experience.
[00:00:28]  Rough recovery, just traveling around.
[00:00:30]  It was a rough day of travel on Monday for me.
[00:00:33]  But man, that was up there with one of the best weekends of.
[00:00:37]  Comedy I've ever had.
[00:00:39]  I think one of the best weekends me and you have ever done together.
[00:00:41]  And we've done a lot of weekends at this point, but it's just really great.
[00:00:45]  The Zanies clubs in Rosemont and Chicago are just two of my favorite comedy clubs in the world.
[00:00:50]  I love Zanies in general.
[00:00:52]  The one in Nashville is great too.
[00:00:53]  I'm real excited to go down there and do that this summer.
[00:00:58]  But yeah, always just have a great time in Rose Pond, Chicago.
[00:01:01]  And we don't do a ton of live pods anymore, but the one we did on Sunday was fun.
[00:01:05]  And the only way to catch it is that will be the members only content this week.
[00:01:09]  So subscribe.
[00:01:10]  And what date?
[00:01:11]  We got dates coming up.
[00:01:12]  What do we got?
[00:01:12]  I don't know off the top of my head.
[00:01:13]  Oh, yeah, we do.
[00:01:14]  I know we got Tulsa and Oklahoma City coming up soon.
[00:01:17]  You're right.
[00:01:18]  I should be pimping all of this stuff, Rob.
[00:01:21]  This is why we do it.
[00:01:24]  May 1st, one night only, we're in Tulsa.
[00:01:29]  And then May 2nd and 3rd will be in Oklahoma City at the Bricktown Comedy Clubs, there, which we had a lot of fun last time we went.
[00:01:38]  Really looking forward to getting back.
[00:01:39]  Then, our next up after that, for the first time ever, I've never done stand up in Phoenix.
[00:01:44]  So, the first time ever, we're going to the desert.
[00:01:47]  It's been a porch tour staple.
[00:01:50]  I know you've told me that you do great out there.
[00:01:53]  And so, yeah, it should be fun.
[00:01:55]  Yeah, so we got five shows out there in Phoenix.
[00:02:00]  Then we just added one night only.
[00:02:04]  We're doing the Parkdale Hall Theater in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
[00:02:13]  So we'll be up there.
[00:02:14]  I do not think we did one night in Canada where we added what's that town right over the border from Buffalo.
[00:02:23]  But I haven't been to, yeah, well, we did it.
[00:02:26]  But I haven't been to Toronto, I think, since like 2017 or something like that.
[00:02:30]  Long time.
[00:02:31]  And I love, I always had fun out there.
[00:02:33]  And then we got Greenwood.
[00:02:36]  Oh, that's the Denver Comedy Works run after that.
[00:02:41]  Then Houston, Huntsville, Alabama, Nashville, Tennessee, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Appleton, Wisconsin, Austin, Texas, Louisville, Kentucky, Fort Worth, and Dallas, San Diego.
[00:02:53]  A lot of fun stuff coming up.
[00:02:54]  So comicdavesmith.com for all those ticket links.
[00:02:57]  Of course, me and Rob will be together on all those gigs.
[00:03:00]  But yeah, really, really fun weekend.

=== Pakistan Threats and Uranium (15:51) ===

[00:03:02]  And I guess.
[00:03:05]  If you're keeping up with the news, some stuff we'll get into today.
[00:03:09]  I don't even know what to say exactly right now, Rob.
[00:03:13]  Of course, there's another round of supposed negotiations that are going to happen in Islamabad and Pakistan.
[00:03:23]  Do you ever know?
[00:03:24]  I never know how to say Pakistan.
[00:03:25]  Like, that's how I always said it my whole life Pakistan.
[00:03:27]  It's not for me.
[00:03:29]  But anytime I hear professional people talk about it, they're always like, in Pakistan.
[00:03:34]  I don't know.
[00:03:34]  Anyway, it's like Iran is annoying.
[00:03:37]  It's Iran.
[00:03:37]  Who gives a shit?
[00:03:38]  Yeah, I'm a firm believer in pronouncing everything with a harsh American accent.
[00:03:46]  I think that's what is beautiful about us we have this language.
[00:03:51]  And look, I love English more than anything else because it's the only language I speak.
[00:03:57]  And I feel like it kind of won the language wars.
[00:04:00]  And so we're just chilling.
[00:04:03]  But I do like this, it sounds like an insult, but I'm saying it as a compliment.
[00:04:07]  One of the best things that English speaking Americans do is we take these fancy words.
[00:04:12]  And then we rob them of all their beauty.
[00:04:15]  And we're just like, nah, this is how it is, you know?
[00:04:19]  But anyway, so I remember just watching the kind of Trump supporters, the few that are left, defending him and all this.
[00:04:31]  So obviously, you know, it was a couple of weeks ago when Donald Trump had these series of crazy tweets where, you know, there was the Easter, we're going to bring you hell.
[00:04:47]  It's bridge and power plant day.
[00:04:49]  And then there was the wipe of civilization off of the map, never to be seen from before.
[00:04:53]  Now, some people, I was out there being fairly critical of the president of the United States just openly threatening horrific war crimes.
[00:05:02]  I thought that was a bit, but I was assured, Rob, that Donald Trump, no, you don't understand, Dave.
[00:05:09]  You know, this is art of the deal.
[00:05:12]  He's speaking the only language that these savages understand, and he knows what he's doing.
[00:05:17]  And It's just so funny to see it.
[00:05:20]  It's literally, this was a couple weeks ago.
[00:05:23]  And what did all of that do?
[00:05:26]  It got us right back to the same point where Donald Trump is again threatening Bridge and Power Plant Day.
[00:05:32]  So they were all talking about how brilliant it was to threaten this.
[00:05:35]  Okay.
[00:05:35]  Well, the brilliance has demonstrated that it achieved nothing.
[00:05:40]  And we're right back to where we were.
[00:05:43]  Donald Trump, of course, in really what was one of the most remarkable tweets, I mean, he's fired off like, 75 insane tweets or truth, truth socials or whatever since we've, uh, since our last show.
[00:05:58]  But in one of the most hilarious ones, uh, over the weekend, um, was it on Friday, I believe, he just announced that the there had been a deal and we get everything.
[00:06:09]  The straits open, they're giving up all the enriched uranium and they will get no money for it zero.
[00:06:16]  They get nothing, we get everything.
[00:06:18]  And the Iranians were like, we didn't even kind of agree to that.
[00:06:22]  None of that's happening.
[00:06:24]  And then Donald Trump essentially just, he goes, yeah, none of it's happening because they violated the ceasefire.
[00:06:30]  And it's just a whole weird mess.
[00:06:32]  But it's just, it is something, man.
[00:06:35]  Like, I know I keep bringing this up, but they keep giving, they keep like humiliating themselves even more that I just can't, I can't even imagine.
[00:06:42]  But it is the Trump supporters were out, all of them like posting at me.
[00:06:49]  Just sell it.
[00:06:50]  See, Dave, what an idiot you are.
[00:06:52]  He just announced we're getting all the enriched uranium and we're not going to give him a penny for it.
[00:06:57]  And they like gloat for a day.
[00:06:59]  Then they find out this is completely made up.
[00:07:02]  None of it is happening.
[00:07:03]  Donald Trump just said it.
[00:07:05]  It literally isn't even, it's not anything even more than, it's not like Donald Trump was going off a lead or going off a rumor or someone had given him the advice.
[00:07:13]  It's literally nothing other than Donald Trump just pulled this out of his ass, made it up because that's what he does.
[00:07:19]  And then the next day, they're bragging about how great it is.
[00:07:22]  The next day, it's revealed to be completely nonsense.
[00:07:26]  And they all just move on with their day and start defending the latest thing that he's done.
[00:07:30]  There's not, it could be one day to the next day.
[00:07:33]  They don't even go, I was completely wrong about everything I said yesterday.
[00:07:38]  Like, you know, Rob, like if we were completely wrong about everything we said on the last podcast and it had been demonstrated that we were wrong, like, I don't know, take a thing we said on the last podcast.
[00:07:49]  Let's just say, I don't know, a liberal government arose in Iran and the people were liberated, or we got all the enriched uranium out, or they made some grand new deal or something happened.
[00:08:00]  We would have to start the next show by being like, well, we got that one wrong.
[00:08:04]  Didn't think that was likely, but it ended up these people literally just, it's as if it never happened.
[00:08:10]  You just go out, and it's not just being wrong about something, it's attacking someone else with the thing you're wrong about.
[00:08:16]  Like, ha, you see, you dummy, you're wrong about this.
[00:08:19]  Oh, that was that my stuff was all completely wrong.
[00:08:22]  Okay.
[00:08:23]  Ha, you see, dummy, move on to the next thing.
[00:08:26]  It's unbelievable.
[00:08:28]  But yeah, Donald Trump did all of that for all of this.
[00:08:33]  We're right back in the same point, right back in the same place, headed right into negotiations in the same place that the last round of negotiations were.
[00:08:42]  Okay, so try to keep this in mind, right?
[00:08:44]  Last round of negotiations or the last 21 hour meeting.
[00:08:47]  Maybe this isn't a different round, consider this the same round, but like the last meetings were right after the ceasefire.
[00:08:54]  The previous negotiations before that were right before the war.
[00:08:58]  Okay?
[00:09:00]  Objectively speaking, we're right back at the table with the Iranians in a much worse position than we were before the war started.
[00:09:08]  Before the war started, the Strait of Hormuz wasn't even on the table.
[00:09:11]  This wasn't even an issue.
[00:09:13]  It was open.
[00:09:14]  That was the status quo.
[00:09:15]  We were just dealing with the enriched uranium.
[00:09:18]  Right now, the enriched uranium seems to be the least of it.
[00:09:21]  So I don't know.
[00:09:22]  That's where we are.
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[00:10:54]  All right, let's get back into the show.
[00:10:56]  Anything you want to add or correct on that timeline?
[00:10:59]  Apparently, they can't even agree as to whether or not the next round of peace talks are going to happen.
[00:11:05]  And Donald Trump both saying, but seemingly JD Vance is willing to go to Pakistan, might be going to Pakistan.
[00:11:12]  But at the same time, Trump is saying, we're done with this.
[00:11:14]  We're going to go back to bombing them into oblivion.
[00:11:17]  And the latest is that they seized an Iranian tanker, haven't formally released what was on board the tanker.
[00:11:23]  I've heard that it was a bunch of piping equipment.
[00:11:25]  So, you know, I guess we're back to who the hell knows what's going on.
[00:11:29]  But it seems like both sides are willing to continue to escalate this thing.
[00:11:33]  And so I guess we might just be seeing economic warfare of who wants to crack first.
[00:11:38]  Or one of the two sides is going to go back to bombing.
[00:11:42]  And then, you know, I guess we're going to obliterate infrastructure in Iran.
[00:11:47]  And then they're going to retaliate on infrastructure in its neighboring countries.
[00:11:51]  So it looks like we're probably back to war.
[00:11:54]  Yeah.
[00:11:54]  Well, they're talking, they're doing the same thing as the last round where Donald Trump's going back to threatening bridges and power plants.
[00:12:04]  And then Iran's like, okay.
[00:12:06]  And they had some official statement where they go, I'd tell every single civilian to evacuate Saudi Arabia if I were you or something.
[00:12:13]  Something like that.
[00:12:14]  Like they're just hinting at, like, okay, you think you can hit us like that?
[00:12:18]  We're going to hit someone like that.
[00:12:20]  Now, again, who knows with any of these things?
[00:12:24]  Like, who knows if Donald Trump did that?
[00:12:26]  Would the Iranians really respond in kind?
[00:12:28]  Are they capable?
[00:12:29]  It looks like they're capable of taking out some desalinization plants if they want to and causing real that.
[00:12:34]  Would they really do that?
[00:12:36]  Maybe, maybe not.
[00:12:39]  Will Donald Trump really do that?
[00:12:41]  I'd say at this point, probably not.
[00:12:43]  I don't think, you know, I was more, I found this is just purely my emotional reaction to it or whatever, but I found myself more worried that he meant it the first time than I do this time, which is probably wrong.
[00:12:57]  You know what I mean?
[00:12:58]  Like it's probably, it probably actually doesn't make sense because I mean, he was revealed to have been totally bluffing the first time.
[00:13:07]  But then, like in hindsight, now he's pushed to make the same bluff again.
[00:13:12]  So, in other words, He probably means it more this time than he did last time.
[00:13:17]  It's just he didn't mean it at all last time.
[00:13:19]  But I will say, it's concerning that he's back to the same bluff.
[00:13:25]  Because, like, he looked like an asshole for saying it and then it being a completely empty threat.
[00:13:31]  And keep in mind, again, there's a very important part of this timeline here, at least from everything that we have, everything that's been reported on this.
[00:13:39]  The best we know is that there is no indication last time that in this game of chicken that Iran swerved first.
[00:13:48]  All the indications are that Trump swerved.
[00:13:50]  Trump just swerved and announced we've agreed to the 10 point plan.
[00:13:53]  And that kind of kicked off a diplomatic chapter in this war.
[00:13:58]  But it's like you threaten something, you don't follow through.
[00:14:02]  Now you're threatening it again.
[00:14:05]  I just, this is supposed to be art of the deal to just, I don't know.
[00:14:11]  All this shit where people, you know, because of course this is Donald Trump, right?
[00:14:16]  He wrote the book Art of the Deal.
[00:14:17]  This was kind of a big part of what he always ran on, it's a big part of what his lore is.
[00:14:22]  That he's just the best at making deals.
[00:14:24]  And that's why forget NAFTA, rip NAFTA up and let me negotiate a new NAFTA.
[00:14:29]  It'll be way, way better.
[00:14:31]  By the way, that's essentially what they did, right?
[00:14:33]  You know what the new NAFTA is?
[00:14:35]  It's basically NAFTA.
[00:14:37]  It's like it's almost exactly the same.
[00:14:39]  So, like, the now I will say this I did hear once, what's that lady's name?
[00:14:44]  Barbara Cochran, I want to say, the one on Shark Tank.
[00:14:48]  Rob, you know what I'm talking about?
[00:14:49]  Real estate.
[00:14:50]  Barbara Cochran.
[00:14:51]  Okay.
[00:14:52]  So, I heard her one time say that Donald Trump is the best salesman she's ever met.
[00:14:57]  Like, he was better at like selling a room, at working out deals than anyone she's ever seen.
[00:15:02]  So, like, I'm not even saying it's quite possible that he is like, look, he's Donald Trump.
[00:15:07]  He'd be a phenomenal salesman, I'm sure.
[00:15:09]  Cause that's what it takes to be good at sales is to just be like totally shameless and moving straight forward, throwing haymakers.
[00:15:15]  Like, it's just he's got that style.
[00:15:18]  But in terms of like working out political, Which obviously is a very different beast than business deals.
[00:15:29]  There is no evidence at all that he's good at it.
[00:15:36]  Like, there's just, he never ends up getting anything.
[00:15:41]  He gets us out of deals that were good deals.
[00:15:44]  He doesn't get us into better deals.
[00:15:46]  He doesn't, none of the, and you're watching it right now where he just sits here and, like, he's just arguing like a drunk teenage woman or child.
[00:15:56]  I guess woman and teenager are kind of oxymoronic, contradictory.
[00:16:01]  But you know what I'm saying?
[00:16:02]  He's just arguing like literally, like, it reminds me of like getting into an argument with your 18 year old girlfriend when you're drunk.
[00:16:09]  This, by the way, I was 18 at the time.
[00:16:12]  Just to be clear, it's not like a current situation that's going on.
[00:16:14]  But, like, just like, wait, what?
[00:16:16]  This makes no sense.
[00:16:17]  Just threatening them up and down.
[00:16:19]  Another thing I'll say that's kind of been an interesting dynamic here is the Pakistan, is that they've kind of, in both instances, not that they're trying to do this, it seems what they're trying to do is to facilitate an end to the war.
[00:16:39]  They have their own interest in that.
[00:16:41]  They're in the region and they do not want this war to continue.
[00:16:44]  And I'm sure also they would like to be the ones who facilitated it because that elevates their status internationally.
[00:16:51]  But they've backed up the Iranians a couple of times without like, it's not like they're trying to make Trump look bad.
[00:16:58]  They're trying to get Trump to make a deal.
[00:17:00]  But it's been very revealing that.
[00:17:04]  So essentially, there were two disputes so far, two major disputes so far in the ceasefire.
[00:17:10]  The first one was that.
[00:17:13]  The Iranians were very clearly under the impression that this included Lebanon too.
[00:17:20]  Even Vice President JD Vance, if you remember, Rob, on his way to the meeting, he said about that, he goes, I think this is a good faith misunderstanding.
[00:17:29]  In other words, saying, Oh, no, the Iranians were under the impression that this was part of the ceasefire, but it's not.
[00:17:37]  But in that case, Pakistan came out and said, Oh, it absolutely was part of the ceasefire.
[00:17:41]  So they backed up that Iran was telling the truth about that.
[00:17:45]  And then, I don't know if you saw this, Rob, but they just Did the same thing on this other dispute.
[00:17:51]  And the second dispute has been over whether, like, Donald Trump is saying that the ceasefire included the strait opening.
[00:18:00]  And they're violating that because the strait isn't open and that they've already turned away and fired on a few ships.
[00:18:08]  But their response is that, well, no, the deal was we would both open the strait.
[00:18:13]  That was the ceasefire deal.
[00:18:15]  And you kept your naval blockade of it.
[00:18:18]  So we're keeping our blockade too.
[00:18:21]  That's the way it works.
[00:18:22]  And Pakistan backed them up.
[00:18:23]  Like they didn't exactly back them up, but they did say something like, the US naval blockade is a real impediment here or something like that.
[00:18:31]  So it seems like, once again, Donald Trump's, we're supposed to believe somehow, Rob, that somehow the next real level, we're limited by our low IQs, but the really smart people understand that the top level of the art of the deal, like the top level of political negotiations, is you just, you talk out of all sides of your mouth.

=== Global Power Shift Explained (11:33) ===

[00:18:54]  You say the thing's over and it's been won.
[00:18:56]  You talk about how crushed they are, but that we're going to hit them bigger than ever, even though it's over and we won.
[00:19:02]  Then you threaten ungodly war crimes that bring them to the table, that then gets this.
[00:19:09]  And then you just lie through your teeth about it.
[00:19:11]  You completely discredit yourself for being a good faith negotiator in the eyes of the world.
[00:19:15]  Like twice now during negotiations, you've attacked them.
[00:19:19]  Another time during negotiations, you just totally lie about what they say.
[00:19:22]  You violate your own agreement that you agreed to.
[00:19:24]  We're supposed to believe.
[00:19:26]  That this is like really brilliant.
[00:19:28]  This is really, this is actually what you're watching is really excellent negotiations.
[00:19:32]  And try not to get too caught up on the fact that we have absolutely nothing to show for this strategy.
[00:19:40]  That nothing has been produced as a result of this.
[00:19:43]  And then, even in the last round of negotiations, which ceasefires are odd because it's basically an intermission to war for both sides to restock and resupply.
[00:19:52]  And then, I guess, it's a game of who's got the better cornerman to patch you up.
[00:19:57]  But even in the last ceasefire, we took the opportunity to then escalate and go ahead and block, do the blockade in Iran.
[00:20:04]  It was almost surprising to me at the start of the war that we didn't do that from the outset, but apparently there was so much global need for the oil coming out of Iran that we actually wanted more of it.
[00:20:14]  China just reached out to Saudi Arabia to say it's very important that the Strait of Hormuz gets reopened, which is essentially the way I'm reading that Saudi Arabia had gone back to Trump and said Iran can't just be charging this toll.
[00:20:26]  And I guess now China's exerting some pressure to.
[00:20:29]  Hey, that's the best recourse here.
[00:20:31]  I got to dig into the Iranian financial situation because I know they're starting to do secondary sanctions.
[00:20:37]  And so, you know, maybe there's a possibility of more of an economic problem there before it hits everyone else.
[00:20:43]  But we're playing a real game here now the strait completely closed, oil prices continue to go up, and whether or not we're going to start bombing Iran and Iran's going to start taking out critical oil infrastructure again.
[00:20:55]  Yeah.
[00:20:55]  Yeah.
[00:20:56]  I mean, man, let's hope it doesn't go to that path because that's really the worst outcome, or at least the worst.
[00:21:03]  You know, foreseeable outcome.
[00:21:05]  But there's, yeah, I mean, look, we've been all over this for a few weeks now.
[00:21:11]  And it was, look, it's not that it was such a brilliant insight on our part or anything like that.
[00:21:16]  But if you remember, like a couple weeks ago, we kept, in fact, I think you were the one who really made this point first.
[00:21:21]  And then we, but that you go, well, look, I mean, the way things look right now, if Donald Trump, because he's talking like it's pretty much over, we're all done, you know, it's going to be, if anything, a couple weeks more or something, and then we're out.
[00:21:33]  But you're looking at it and you go, Oh, but then you're going to leave and you're going to leave them in control of the Strait of Hormuz.
[00:21:38]  So, like we've been talking about, you're going to transform them into a global power.
[00:21:42]  This is crazy.
[00:21:43]  How is that going to be acceptable when the goal was you start a war going, hey, this is a regime change war.
[00:21:49]  We're overthrowing the regime.
[00:21:51]  We're going to take it out.
[00:21:52]  The people are going to rise up and take back their government.
[00:21:54]  That's the plan here.
[00:21:55]  And then a few weeks later, it's just corpses and destruction.
[00:22:00]  And you go, all right, we're leaving with that regime in power now transformed into a global power.
[00:22:06]  Like, that's pretty tough to sell.
[00:22:08]  And then at the time, Donald Trump's response was, we don't care about the straight.
[00:22:12]  We don't need the straight.
[00:22:13]  That's the rest of the world's problem.
[00:22:14]  And by the way, it'd be real easy to open it up.
[00:22:17]  It'll naturally just open up.
[00:22:18]  Like this was his position.
[00:22:19]  And then it was kind of like, yeah, dude, but I don't know.
[00:22:22]  How are you going to be able to walk away?
[00:22:23]  And then essentially what's happened over the last few weeks is that that political reality, the admission has been that that is the political reality.
[00:22:31]  And of course, that's not acceptable.
[00:22:33]  Of course, they can't.
[00:22:34]  So now they got this major problem.
[00:22:36]  It's like the thing keeping us in the war that Donald Trump wants to get out of, the thing keeping us in it.
[00:22:42]  Is a thing that wasn't an issue before the war started, but that he really has recognized that.
[00:22:49]  Look, it's just, it's what we were saying.
[00:22:52]  How's that going to look for Donald Trump?
[00:22:55]  You know, Joe Kent, God bless him, was out there.
[00:23:00]  He had a tweet the other day where he was saying that Donald Trump should take the third way here because essentially we're looking at like there's these two ways we come up with a grand deal or we're back in this war.
[00:23:12]  And Joe Kent goes, dude, just take option three, which is just cut and run.
[00:23:18]  You know, I mean, he didn't say that because he has to say it in language that'll, you know, Proud right wing Americans would, you know, love or something like that.
[00:23:27]  But by the way, dude, it's what Ronald Reagan did after the attack on our Marines in Lebanon.
[00:23:33]  It was fascinating.
[00:23:34]  He wrote about this in his memoir, Ronald Reagan.
[00:23:37]  Ron Paul used to bring this up back in his presidential campaign days.
[00:23:41]  And so Ronald Reagan writes in his memoir and he goes, he says, the one thing I promised that I would never do is turn tail and run.
[00:23:50]  I would never be a cut and runner.
[00:23:52]  You know, that's like, if I commit to it, this is America.
[00:23:55]  We're going to see our things through.
[00:23:56]  He goes, And then they attacked our marines over there, and he goes, 'I did just that, I did, I just bailed.' And his line was, which was a great line, is he goes, 'He said it was something like there's a lot, it's like 20 years ago I read this, but it was something like, 'Uh, he said, 'Um, you know, I fundamentally underestimated the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics, you know,
[00:24:23]  and like that's almost like the strength that you need in a president, the strength.' Which is, you know, and this is like a lesson almost every grown man should have learned at one point, right?
[00:24:34]  But like strength isn't blowing shit up.
[00:24:38]  Strength isn't going out and trying to get in a fist fight every day.
[00:24:42]  You know, like strength is like restraining yourself from your worst impulses.
[00:24:47]  Strength is something like admitting, I really got this wrong.
[00:24:52]  I really got this wrong.
[00:24:53]  And I, this is going to look bad, but I got to go back on this now.
[00:24:56]  And Donald Trump just doesn't have that in him.
[00:24:59]  He's not that guy.
[00:25:00]  And so I, you know, I just really, You know, I understand what Joe Kent's saying, but fundamentally, the problem there is that then Iran controls this straight and really has been elevated in this region.
[00:25:11]  Like I said, is a global power now.
[00:25:13]  And he just can't, you know, like he can't stop at that.
[00:25:18]  The problem is that that might be the best case scenario here.
[00:25:24]  I don't know.
[00:25:25]  It might suck for the people who have to pay a fee to cross the strait now that didn't used to.
[00:25:30]  But all things being considered, you know, all things equal, that's a lot better than killing thousands more people and maybe still not having it open.
[00:25:40]  Like there's no guarantee that if you took out every power plant in Iran, the strait is open.
[00:25:45]  So I don't know.
[00:25:47]  It's the big situation.
[00:25:49]  The big cause for Trump on that is that you got to sell out Israel, which he just seems unwilling to do.
[00:25:55]  Yes.
[00:25:55]  Yes.
[00:25:57]  Yeah, no, the only way that that works is if you kind of just go, hey, Israel, you're on your own here.
[00:26:02]  Or knock it off.
[00:26:03]  It's time to knock it off.
[00:26:04]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:26:07]  Now, of course, the other thing I guess that was interesting that happened that we haven't addressed on the show, or maybe we talked about this on the live pod, but that's a members only, so we can bring this up here.
[00:26:19]  But, okay, so there was one tweet where Donald Trump actually said that Israel is forbidden.
[00:26:29]  From striking Lebanon anymore, which was another, again, he's not admitting this, but a total cave by Donald Trump.
[00:26:37]  Like it's all of this art of the deal shit is him talking with taking the most maximalist position and then completely backing down.
[00:26:48]  But so there was the whole fight over whether Lebanon was supposed to be included in the ceasefire.
[00:26:52]  And Donald Trump was like, no, it's not.
[00:26:54]  And the Iranians are proud.
[00:26:56]  Then he comes out and forbids Israel from striking Lebanon.
[00:26:59]  So basically, Essentially acknowledging that, like, yeah, this is an impediment to the thing.
[00:27:05]  And again, the day he comes out and says that Israel's forbidden, the moment he posts that, all the Trump sycophants are going, Oh, but what about all the podcasters who said Benjamin Netanyahu controls everything?
[00:27:18]  This is proof that really Donald Trump calls the shots.
[00:27:22]  Then Benjamin Netanyahu bombed Lebanon.
[00:27:27]  Like hours after Donald Trump said this.
[00:27:30]  And so, okay, so there's that.
[00:27:33]  Then I don't know, Robin, I just wanted to mention all of this.
[00:27:36]  You give whatever take you have.
[00:27:37]  Then Donald Trump comes out in a post and specifically says that Israel didn't trick him into the war, which I just, the fact that he even has to say that just shows how far this conversation has moved, how much the Overton window has been expanded, that he even has to go for the record.
[00:27:56]  I know everyone's saying this.
[00:27:59]  But it's not true.
[00:28:00]  I don't know.
[00:28:01]  Any thoughts on any of that, Rob?
[00:28:02]  That was my read itself the fact that he's tweeting it kind of proves it.
[00:28:06]  The fact that he needs to get on the record and be like, no.
[00:28:09]  And so that gives something for all of the people who go, it's conspiracy theory to say that this was Israel.
[00:28:14]  Look, Donald Trump, in his own words, is letting you know this has nothing to do with Israel.
[00:28:18]  This is because he wanted to do it and this is his agenda.
[00:28:21]  Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.
[00:28:23]  You know what I thought was really fascinating was there was one.
[00:28:26]  So there was Hillary Clinton talking about the war.
[00:28:30]  And of course, you know, look, Hillary Clinton is Hillary Clinton.
[00:28:33]  And she's a very evil person and has a terrible track record in the highest level of politics, being a very influential senator, a secretary of state, and a very influential first lady.
[00:28:53]  And of course, she's going to trash Donald Trump no matter what, because the entire point of her even appearing on a show is to go over how much better the country could have been.
[00:29:05]  Had she been elected president.
[00:29:06]  And you know what I mean?
[00:29:07]  Like, that's always the narrative is that it's so awful because of him and whatever.
[00:29:12]  But so she's opposing the war, which is not shocking, but it is, you know, it's interesting to see Hillary Clinton in that role.
[00:29:23]  But so she wants to criticize Donald Trump and she wants to make Donald Trump look bad for the war.
[00:29:28]  So she's saying things like, she's going, he said it was a shock that they closed the Strait of Hormuz.
[00:29:34]  Like, she goes, every war game that I've ever participated in and I've Participated in a whole lot of them.
[00:29:40]  Every one of them had Iran closing the Strait of Harmuz like phase one.
[00:29:43]  Like that was always, you know, so pretty low hanging fruit, obvious thing.
[00:29:47]  But I just found this real interesting is that then she says, she goes, you know, she goes, Netanyahu tried to get every president to attack Iran, but they were all just strong enough to resist him.
[00:30:03]  And so Donald Trump, so anyway, I guess my point is just that the Overton window has moved so far.
[00:30:10]  That even the establishment Democrat, you know, it doesn't get any more establishment Democrat than Hillary Clinton.
[00:30:20]  Even their official talking point for criticizing Donald Trump now is that, look, we all know you have to tell the Israelis no.

=== Cowboy Colostrum Benefits (02:18) ===

[00:30:28]  Like, we all know.
[00:30:29]  We all know that this country's trying to get us in wars all the time, and you got to only do some of their wars.
[00:30:34]  You can't do all of them.
[00:30:36]  Like, it's just that is, again, this is the type of thing that, like, Just five years ago.
[00:30:47]  Five years ago, if you had said something like that, you'd be like, oh, there's like, who said that?
[00:30:52]  Nick Fuentes on his show?
[00:30:54]  You're like, oh, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
[00:30:56]  That's who said that.
[00:30:57]  You know, like it's just so, it's just so been accepted at this point.
[00:31:02]  And really with this war, I mean, I thought with the 12 day war, but with this one, I think the mask has just really been blown off.
[00:31:08]  Like it's just everybody knows this to the point that Trump has to address it.
[00:31:14]  He has to say, no, no, it had nothing to do with them.
[00:31:18]  You know, like, but, But everyone, everyone acknowledges that is almost the starting point of what the conversation's about now, which is just really wild, really wild to say.
[00:31:30]  All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Cowboy Colostrum.
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=== Epstein Scandal Coverage (13:56) ===

[00:32:46]  All right, let's get back into the show.
[00:32:49]  And you sent me this, Rob.
[00:32:52]  I was, I did find this to be fascinating.
[00:32:55]  You sent me this clip of Dinesh D'Souza.
[00:32:59]  And of course, you know, as I've been talking about so much, I'm at this point, I'm almost just, I am fascinated.
[00:33:06]  I'm disgusted, but I'm also fascinated by the people trying to find a way to defend Donald Trump on this one, you know?
[00:33:14]  And that's what Dinesh D'Souza is tasked with doing here.
[00:33:18]  But man, his defense, I just couldn't even believe it was this naked.
[00:33:24]  Why don't we play that, the Dinesh D'Souza clip, and then we can give our thoughts.
[00:33:29]  Epstein files, about the Epstein files, about the Epstein files.
[00:33:34]  And I'm going to make the case that even though there are unanswered questions about Epstein, it is in fact time to move on.
[00:33:46]  Part of being on a political team is maintaining a certain amount of maturity, recognizing you can't win them all, recognizing there are some things that are important to you that are less important to the guy that you've put in charge who is.
[00:33:59]  Trying to focus on things right in front of him.
[00:34:02]  And so, having a sense of perspective, having a sense of balance, having a sense of maturity, I think is more important even than getting to the bottom of what really happened with Jeffrey Epstein.
[00:34:18]  Oh my God.
[00:34:19]  I mean, there's so much I have to say about this that I don't even know what order to go.
[00:34:29]  And here, you start, Rob.
[00:34:31]  You start, and I'll collect my thoughts as you go.
[00:34:36]  Gotta be on the team, bro.
[00:34:38]  Yeah.
[00:34:39]  That's my big takeaway is that to some people, the team sports of this is just more important than having values.
[00:34:44]  And so his pitch is yeah, listen, there are unanswered questions as to.
[00:34:49]  Pedophile networks and whether or not there's political blackmail and whether or not our entire system is fraudulent and whether or not there's no system of justice in America that there's an elite class that can get away with horrific crimes that none of us would agree to.
[00:35:02]  But team sports of politics is more important.
[00:35:05]  And if you're going to play for the Republican Party and your president wants to brush this under the rug and let all these people get away with this and not actually investigate it, it's important for you to get in line with the team sports of this.
[00:35:18]  And that's supposed to be our democracy, is that there's not a lot of choice of who we get to choose for president.
[00:35:22]  And even if they lie to us about What their agenda is and what they're going to do.
[00:35:25]  Once they're in there, you have to get on board with the team and not criticize and not push for important causes, even if the cause is as important as holding pedophiles to justice.
[00:35:34]  Team sports is the higher value.
[00:35:37]  Yeah, you know, and that's right.
[00:35:39]  And again, I'm trying because, you know, it's interesting the way he's talking about it.
[00:35:44]  Because you're immature.
[00:35:44]  Right, right, right.
[00:35:45]  The way I was literally what I was going to say the way he phrases this or the way he casts this is like, look, this is the maturity.
[00:35:54]  That you have to have in politics.
[00:35:55]  And, like, okay, granted, like, look, there is something to the broadly speaking, his point that if you're going to put a political coalition together, okay, not everybody's going to get what they want all the time.
[00:36:10]  You got, like, this is the way real politics works you got to sacrifice some things for some other things.
[00:36:16]  And then hopefully you can keep being a winning coalition and get some more that you're not going to get everything, but you get some of the things you want.
[00:36:22]  Like, all right, there's, there's, like, In a vacuum, there's some truth to that argument.
[00:36:29]  But then again, it also can't be really important things that you sacrifice because then, you know, you're in the business of doing really evil things.
[00:36:38]  And, you know, like, so, okay, yeah, there is some maturity in that in theory.
[00:36:45]  But then there's also some maturity in recognizing that once you accept this worldview, once you accept Dinesh's mature framework, you've really kind of handed the keys over to.
[00:36:58]  Evil big government institutions in a way that they can never possibly be hoped to be reined in.
[00:37:03]  Because, Rob, how easy is it to rig that game now?
[00:37:07]  So, all I got to do is make sure the Democrats are a little bit worse, and then you'll support the Republicans no matter what, no matter what they do.
[00:37:15]  You know, in this instance, it's like what we're talking about.
[00:37:20]  You might notice, Dinesh, this is why it's so pathetic.
[00:37:23]  It almost hurts me as a man.
[00:37:24]  It hurts me as someone who has some respect for Dinesh D'Souza to see this because he can't even.
[00:37:31]  Pretend to defend the actual policy, right?
[00:37:36]  He goes, Yeah, that sucks.
[00:37:39]  Like, sucks that we're not getting the rest of the Epstein files.
[00:37:43]  That is bullshit, you know?
[00:37:44]  But anyway, we got to support him because you're on the team.
[00:37:47]  So he's not even defending the thing.
[00:37:49]  He's telling you, you got to swallow some bullshit.
[00:37:51]  So, like, he's saying it's bullshit.
[00:37:53]  He's not saying this is, you're wrong to think there's anything there.
[00:37:57]  He's not saying it's a Democratic hoax or whatever, like the president is saying.
[00:38:01]  But if you just think about, like, so what is it that we're talking about with the Epstein files?
[00:38:08]  And what we're talking about.
[00:38:11]  At this point, it is a blatant illegal cover up.
[00:38:16]  Like, it's just known that there are 3 million more documents that they're not going to give to us.
[00:38:21]  And the ones that they did give to us were heavily redacted.
[00:38:24]  And, in fact, as we know, that even the redactions were redacted in the unredacted version that only congressmen were allowed to see.
[00:38:34]  Even those were still redacted.
[00:38:36]  And so, you're talking about an active giant government cover up of.
[00:38:45]  A case that involved sex trafficking and intelligence agencies and international diplomacy at the very highest levels.
[00:38:58]  And there is something about anyone in the world of talking about politics not being opposed to that cover up is just really wild.
[00:39:15]  Or excusing the cover up away.
[00:39:17]  Because, like, don't you want to know?
[00:39:22]  Isn't that the essence of this whole thing?
[00:39:24]  Like, this entire podcast, our entire interest in any of these topics, the reason why you ever read a book about economics or a book about history in your life, Rob, is because, like, you want to know.
[00:39:37]  Like, on some level, you want to know, right?
[00:39:39]  Like, what it's the reason we do philosophy, it's the reason human beings engage in philosophy at all, is because, like, we want to figure this out.
[00:39:51]  Now, we know we're never going to figure everything out, but like, Damn, I want to figure out as much as I can while we're here.
[00:39:56]  Like, don't you just want to know?
[00:39:58]  Don't you just want to know why they really framed Nixon and Watergate?
[00:40:03]  I'm like, I think I kind of know a little bit, but like, I don't really know.
[00:40:07]  And man, I would love to really know.
[00:40:09]  You just want, and so you're like, Dinesh D'Souza, you've been writing about and talking about and thinking about politics for 40 years.
[00:40:18]  Like, my entire life.
[00:40:20]  Dinesh, in fact, I think when we debated, we talked about this.
[00:40:22]  Like, he graduated from or he joined Conservatism Inc. the year I was born.
[00:40:28]  Like it was like he got his first thing in that, like my entire life, Dinesh's been, and you're not just like, yo, with these Epstein files, you just got a glimpse into a world that you had never gotten to see before.
[00:40:39]  You, Dinesh D'Souza, got to see how these things actually that you talk about for a living.
[00:40:43]  Like you got, it's like, oh, okay, I don't know.
[00:40:46]  All of us who talk about all this stuff for a living, were we ever really accounting for the fact that the Rothschilds representative was also a sex trafficker who partied with all these powerful men and then did networked deals like that and connected?
[00:41:00]  The head of Israeli intelligence to the Palantir guys.
[00:41:04]  And you know what I mean?
[00:41:05]  Like, okay, sweet.
[00:41:06]  And what you're saying, you don't want to know more of that?
[00:41:09]  Well, then what are we doing here, sir?
[00:41:12]  What is the point of any of us being in this business?
[00:41:16]  I don't know.
[00:41:17]  Well, it's to pitch the Donald Trump regime.
[00:41:20]  This is no different than what we heard from Steven Crowder last week.
[00:41:24]  I think we played the clip on the show.
[00:41:25]  I'm not sure if that was members only, but it was supporting the Republican Party is so valuable because the Democrats are evil and there's the socialist agenda.
[00:41:34]  So even if there's a war that you don't like, you still have to support Donald Trump.
[00:41:37]  And here it's even if he's covering up for Epstein, you still got to support Donald Trump.
[00:41:42]  Because to these guys, they just need to come up with some excuse for why you all got to fall in line and believe in the plan and the Donald Trump almighty.
[00:41:51]  The crazy thing about it, and I would argue that we are not the ones who are aiding and abetting the radical Democrats.
[00:42:03]  We would argue that, no, we're the ones who really still oppose them and don't want to see them back in power.
[00:42:08]  And that's maybe not half, but a third of the reason why we oppose all this stuff is because it's going to give power right back over to them.
[00:42:18]  But there is, it's funny because if you were doing like your worst.
[00:42:26]  You know, not your work, like if you were doing the best job of like fear mongering people about the Democrats and how big of a threat they are, right?
[00:42:37]  Like if you were doing that one year, two years ago, if you remember, Rob, from almost every Trump supporter to every Trump supporting talking head or whatever, what would the fear of the radical left Nancy Pelosi Democrats getting into power be?
[00:42:54]  What was the fear of that?
[00:42:56]  It was always, they were going to take us to war.
[00:42:58]  This is always what they said.
[00:42:59]  They're going to get us involved in a stupid war.
[00:43:01]  And then the other stuff, like, I mean, there was immigration, which is a legit one.
[00:43:06]  And then, but there was always all the stuff with, like, the kids, protect the kids.
[00:43:11]  You know, you got to worry about trans and the kids.
[00:43:15]  In the name of protecting the kids from pedophiles, we have to cover up the Jeffrey Epstein case.
[00:43:20]  Like, what?
[00:43:22]  Wait, huh?
[00:43:23]  I mean, look, you know, again, What Dinesh D'Souza is talking about, look, a lot of it is the reality of living in this kind of ridiculous two party system.
[00:43:37]  But there's, I think part of the reason why this is failing, like the people trying to defend Donald Trump right now is failing, is that again, it's just, you know, Dinesh, and like I think I tried to explain this to him in a way when we debated that Dinesh is just very much a product of his time.
[00:43:59]  It's not a personal shot at him.
[00:44:01]  We're all a product of our time.
[00:44:04]  Dinesh is just of a certain age from a certain time.
[00:44:08]  And people at that age don't, it's almost impossible for them to like really readjust and reimagine themselves and not be locked into the perspective of that time.
[00:44:20]  But this argument is an argument out of the 1980s.
[00:44:25]  You know, yeah, you don't like this one little thing, but we're the Republicans and we got to beat the Democrats.
[00:44:31]  And I think there is something.
[00:44:35]  A bit more compelling about this political argument in good times.
[00:44:40]  You know, if you're making this argument while the economy is booming and your kids are watching Hulk Hogan wrestling and you and your wife just bought a summer house and, you know, like things are going good, it's like, well, look, we're not going to get everything.
[00:44:56]  We want to get a little bit more.
[00:44:58]  You know, we want it to get a little bit better.
[00:45:00]  So let's go with a little bit better or something like that.
[00:45:03]  But, you know, when your country's spiraling out of control, And, you know, you're, you know, it's not like your kids are watching, you know, Hulkamania or something like that.
[00:45:14]  It's like, oh, no, well, actually, one of my kids is, he's just overdosed from opioids last week.
[00:45:21]  That's been real hard on the family.
[00:45:23]  And then my other kid's really good.
[00:45:24]  He works really hard.
[00:45:25]  He can't afford a house.
[00:45:26]  He still lives with us.
[00:45:27]  He's 38.
[00:45:28]  He's, you know what I'm saying?
[00:45:29]  And it's just like, we're $40 trillion in debt.
[00:45:32]  Like, we just have so many problems.
[00:45:34]  And you're like, you're going to spin me on this.
[00:45:37]  Well, we got to keep supporting the Republicans.
[00:45:39]  Even if they betray all of their foundational campaign promises, I think it's just we're much more at a time, at a moment where the feeling is obviously no, because that's doom, then.
[00:45:53]  Then we just concede this whole thing.
[00:45:55]  And so, no, I'm sorry.
[00:45:59]  We can't move on from the Jeffrey Epstein thing.
[00:46:02]  That's just one of those things that essentially we will never move on from that.
[00:46:06]  That's always baked into the political class and how we feel about them.
[00:46:13]  Until it's not until they release all the files unredacted until they get to the bottom of this, then why would any self respecting American citizen move on from this?
[00:46:26]  And it might be an active criminal cover up is still going on right now.
[00:46:31]  And it's one of our best opportunities to actually clean up the government that the general population is aware oh, are there criminal or private interests that are actually running our government?

=== Hexclad and Political Changes (10:47) ===

[00:46:42]  And that would have been purely conspiracy theory.
[00:46:45]  Even a year or two ago, and now the general mainstream public is open to the idea, and there's a demand to fix it.
[00:46:51]  And now, what you want it to continue just to have a DC criminal enterprise where you know specific individuals with money are able to run the show.
[00:46:59]  And this is coming from the guy who is debate with you as an age well because he's of the opinion that you can have casual relationships with war without them turning into full out wars, and that we could just do targeted strikes and kick people's ass and get out of there.
[00:47:11]  And hey, no concerns, this is this is a new and smarter uh government run by Donald Trump, and he knows how to conduct warfare.
[00:47:19]  Without them becoming ongoing escalations.
[00:47:21]  All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Hexclad.
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[00:48:27]  Once again, that's hexclad.comslash problem for 10% off.
[00:48:32]  All right, let's get back into the show.
[00:48:34]  Yeah, you know, age well, buddy.
[00:48:36]  Well, there's something about Dinesh, and I think I told him this to his face.
[00:48:41]  I think I said it in a nice way, but I was like, I said, you're like the coolest member of Conservatism Inc., but like that's not saying much.
[00:48:49]  But, you know, like, but Dinesh is one of the guys I always liked the most out of that group.
[00:48:56]  I also think part of that is that Dinesh's focus wasn't really foreign policy.
[00:49:03]  He was much more like, He was just a guy who was much more focused on like domestic cultural issues and domestic political issues.
[00:49:13]  And he's really good on some of those, you know?
[00:49:16]  And he did have, okay, I don't think he was ever like an Austrian, but he had like certainly some like Chicago school influence on him.
[00:49:24]  Like he's definitely read a few Thomas Sowell books and, you know, Milton Friedman books in his day.
[00:49:29]  And so, and he was always kind of culturally conservative.
[00:49:34]  And in many ways, that aged well and was correct at the time.
[00:49:40]  But he did always go along with the foreign policy.
[00:49:43]  He always went along with it.
[00:49:44]  He always supported it and he would write about it occasionally.
[00:49:48]  And it's not just for guys like him.
[00:49:51]  There's just so many.
[00:49:52]  I mean, I've been saying this over the years so many times.
[00:49:56]  You know, like I've, this has been a point that I've made since I've been podcasting.
[00:50:02]  Cause the point has always to me just been very valid.
[00:50:04]  But it's just with each subsequent war, the same point becomes stronger and stronger and stronger.
[00:50:11]  But when you sit there and you watch these people, You know, there's this whole kind of like political pundit class where there are, it's a whole industry.
[00:50:23]  It's a very lucrative industry for the people at the top of it.
[00:50:27]  It's very competitive and hard to get to the top, but people make a lot of money off of talking about politics.
[00:50:32]  And there's, so within that world, there are the hawks, and they have, many of them have been writing and doing shows and stuff for decades.
[00:50:45]  And so you got all these people who have a track record.
[00:50:48]  Of, like, they cheer led the war in Iraq, they cheer led the war in Afghanistan, you know, they supported toppling Gaddafi in Libya or toppling Assad in Syria, and they supported backing the Saudis in Yemen, and they supported backing Zelensky in Ukraine, and they supported backing Israel in Gaza.
[00:51:04]  And there's, and like, and then you zoom out and you're like, every last one of these things was just everything I just named was a just pure human catastrophe.
[00:51:17]  There's really no argument in hindsight.
[00:51:20]  And then they still find themselves supporting the next one with certainty, demonizing the people who are against the wars.
[00:51:26]  It's truly a fascinating thing to observe.
[00:51:29]  Like the nerve of you, you know?
[00:51:32]  And even half of them will admit that they got all the other ones wrong, you know?
[00:51:37]  But they still advocate.
[00:51:38]  And I just wonder, because I try to imagine, and with Dinesh D'Souza particularly, I try to imagine like, there's people like, I don't, look, I could be wrong.
[00:51:47]  I don't have a magic insight into anyone's heart and mind, but.
[00:51:52]  I just don't believe Ben Shapiro.
[00:51:54]  I don't believe Douglas Murray.
[00:51:55]  I don't think they really believe the things they're saying.
[00:51:57]  I think they will lie to your face.
[00:51:59]  You know what I mean?
[00:52:00]  Like, I don't think they are.
[00:52:02]  These are people who are lying on behalf of an agenda, which is not this country, by the way.
[00:52:09]  But with Dinesh, I kind of imagine that he's a sincere guy.
[00:52:14]  Maybe I've got this wrong.
[00:52:15]  Maybe I got it wrong about those guys.
[00:52:16]  Maybe I got it wrong about Dinesh.
[00:52:18]  I don't know.
[00:52:19]  That's just the vibe I get.
[00:52:20]  But so you just wonder.
[00:52:22]  As like, is Dinesh imagining in the world where Dinesh is a good faith actor, assuming I'm right about that?
[00:52:28]  You imagine, like, so you're like, look, dude, I know the last seven wars I supported were all disasters, but let me tell you something different guy, different country.
[00:52:37]  We're cooking this time, this time it's going to really work out.
[00:52:40]  And then just as you spend eight weeks watching it become a complete disaster again, is there no part of you like, is there no part of you that goes, ah, shit, like.
[00:52:53]  Damn, I got it wrong again.
[00:52:56]  Fuck, I'm going to have to be apologizing for this in a decade.
[00:52:59]  Like, is there no, and it's just, it's fascinating to me to see the absence of that.
[00:53:04]  Like, I would, if they weren't all just liars, wouldn't we expect to be seeing more of them just like defect and go, all right, you know what?
[00:53:14]  Actually, I was wrong.
[00:53:16]  I was wrong about this.
[00:53:17]  We're going over here now.
[00:53:18]  You think it would, but it seems to have almost no impact on anyone.
[00:53:22]  It's very strange to me, Rob.
[00:53:23]  I don't know.
[00:53:24]  What do you think?
[00:53:25]  Well, I guess the current climate has really shown who some of the slightly more honest voices are that, like, even in Alex Jones, who was trying to defend Donald Trump for the full first year, finally folded on the Iran war.
[00:53:39]  And kind of cop to the fact that he was holding out, I think, hope was his way of saying that he was still pitching the regime the whole way.
[00:53:48]  But, you know, I think anyone that's still just absolutely still a Trump loyalist has displayed that they have zero honesty or credibility.
[00:53:57]  Yeah.
[00:53:58]  You know, as somebody, I mean, I must be, and this is something that the MAGA people, you know, hit me for, but I don't really care.
[00:54:07]  But it's true.
[00:54:08]  I'm probably the furthest thing from a Trump loyalist.
[00:54:11]  Whoever voted for Trump.
[00:54:14]  I was like one of his sharpest critics in this first term.
[00:54:17]  And I got to say, I mean, I don't know if someone wants to put up an argument, but I think I was right about every single criticism I had back then.
[00:54:25]  And I think I was right in the stuff I defended him on back then.
[00:54:29]  But of the, you know, things changed and my audience grew over the years.
[00:54:34]  And like of the people who supported Donald Trump in 24, I think.
[00:54:43]  I don't know.
[00:54:44]  I don't know.
[00:54:44]  Maybe I'm wrong about this, Rob, but I think I was one of the first and hardest defectors.
[00:54:55]  Sorry.
[00:54:57]  I came out since last summer.
[00:54:59]  I've been on, he should be impeached and removed.
[00:55:01]  And I apologize for voting for him, has been my position since then.
[00:55:07]  And I got to say, it was a little bit.
[00:55:10]  I remember when I first.
[00:55:12]  Did it.
[00:55:14]  And I actually, me and you have talked about this off air.
[00:55:18]  I don't think I ever shared this information on air, but I did.
[00:55:23]  I told, so I was going on Breaking Points, and it was right after he had launched the 12 day war.
[00:55:29]  I can't remember exactly where we were into it.
[00:55:30]  It might have even been before we dropped the Bunker Busters, but it was when he had backed Israel launching the war.
[00:55:37]  And so, and I went and I knew like it was like two days before I had booked Breaking Points in the morning, and then they had launched the war.
[00:55:44]  And so I knew I was going to go really hard again.
[00:55:47]  So I texted both Tucker and Rogan just to like give them a heads up.
[00:55:53]  Like I wasn't asking, I was just letting them know.
[00:55:55]  You know what I mean?
[00:55:56]  But I was just like, I wanted to like tell them and kind of gauge their reaction.
[00:56:01]  But I was like, yo, I'm wiping my hands of this whole thing and I'm going as hard as I can against this administration now, you know?
[00:56:07]  And like, I think both of them were like just fine with it.
[00:56:11]  They didn't have a problem.
[00:56:12]  You know, it was like they understood where I was coming from and they know what I'm about and they knew that this was my red line.
[00:56:18]  So yeah, I'm not going to support launching wars of choice on behalf of foreign countries now because the orange guy does it.
[00:56:25]  Even if we all did vote for him this time, I'm still me.
[00:56:28]  And so.
[00:56:30]  Anyway, I was just thinking about that.
[00:56:31]  I haven't actually thought about this at all.
[00:56:33]  This is all just like thinking out loud, but like there was something about it, it was a weird feeling where it was kind of like me and a bunch of my friends, we were, we all did a thing together.
[00:56:43]  You know, we were all like, hey, we're supporting Trump this time.
[00:56:46]  And then I was the first one, like it felt like to be like, no, I'm going over here.
[00:56:50]  And then there was just this weird in between time where like I think as far as the issues go, there's no question that.
[00:57:00]  Look, Tucker or Alex Jones or Candace Owens or any of these guys, they would have agreed with me at the time.
[00:57:06]  They would have all been against the 12 day war, I'm sure.
[00:57:09]  But like, none of them were ready to go, but fuck Donald Trump and this entire administration.
[00:57:16]  And they're all, and we view them as criminals just like we did the Joe Biden administration, you know?
[00:57:22]  And then I got to say, in a weird way, there's some social psychology to this, but it's just been nice seeing so many of my friends join me on the island over here.

=== Fasting Nutrition Secrets (03:03) ===

[00:57:30]  You know, you're like, oh, okay, come on.
[00:57:31]  Welcome back, guys.
[00:57:32]  What's going on?
[00:57:33]  Let's do a new thing.
[00:57:34]  Here.
[00:57:36]  But it is amazing at this point.
[00:57:39]  You know, I was just, I haven't watched the whole episode yet, but I was just watching a little bit of Buckley and Tucker sitting down.
[00:57:45]  Buckley's Tucker's brother, who's a legendary Twitter follow, by the way, just excellent.
[00:57:52]  But he's great.
[00:57:53]  And so, and they're already talking like, you know, I just, I haven't seen the whole thing yet, but they're already like the conversation is over like, man, how much, you know, like how much blood is on our hands.
[00:58:07]  Like they're almost having the conversation of they're like, Jesus, man, you know, when we meet our maker, we are going to have to explain that we openly supported Donald Trump in 2024.
[00:58:16]  And it's just like, it's just crazy that it's gone this far.
[00:58:21]  And I've never, again, I know we've made this point before, I have never witnessed anything like it in my lifetime.
[00:58:26]  And I've been paying attention to politics for a couple decades now.
[00:58:30]  And I've been alive for a couple more than that.
[00:58:34]  And there's just never been anything, Rob.
[00:58:38]  You cannot find a comparison.
[00:58:39]  You name me the American president who all of his, or not all, I don't want to be hyperbolic, but literally an American president who so many of his most influential supporters have turned on him in a little over a year.
[00:58:57]  Like, That's just truly unprecedented.
[00:59:03]  All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Prolon by El Nutra.
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[00:59:30]  While making cells believe that they're fasting.
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=== Sam Harris Stakes Debate (10:44) ===

[01:00:33]  Well, you couldn't have done more to lie.
[01:00:36]  Yeah.
[01:00:37]  Yeah.
[01:00:37]  That really doesn't help.
[01:00:38]  Here, speaking of the podcast fear, let's play this Sam Harris clip.
[01:00:44]  You also sent this one over, Rob.
[01:00:47]  Let's take a look at that.
[01:00:50]  I mean, the image I got is just of two kind of pyromaniacs just lighting matches on a landscape that they had spent years soaking in gasoline.
[01:01:01]  The worst thing about all of this is there.
[01:01:04]  Addiction to a conspiratorial framing of everything.
[01:01:08]  If you can extract any lesson from what's happened to our politics in the last decade and the role that people like Rogan have played in the unraveling of everything and the way in which social media has weaponized all this and the rise of people like Tucker and Candace and Nick Fuentes and the fact that we've got Trump a second time around.
[01:01:34]  Central to all of it is this addiction to conspiracy thinking and contrarianism, and just this, you know, what I've called the pornography of doubt, right?
[01:01:45]  And Joe has been as addicted as anyone and has brought it to scale, perhaps more than anyone.
[01:01:53]  It's totally unprincipled.
[01:01:55]  It is genuinely confusing to millions of people.
[01:01:57]  I mean, you got young people getting raised on a diet of this bullshit.
[01:02:02]  It's divisive, it amplifies the worst in us.
[01:02:05]  What I'm talking about is a species of evil, right?
[01:02:08]  Given its consequences, it's a species of evil, right?
[01:02:12]  It is like at the top of the list of what ails us in our society.
[01:02:16]  It is the thing that is preventing us from solving real problems in this world.
[01:02:21]  There's no question it is getting people killed and will continue to get people killed.
[01:02:25]  It is absolutely toxic.
[01:02:27]  And yet, many of the people participating in this are just good guys who are just having fun and who are just entertaining.
[01:02:33]  They think there's no stakes.
[01:02:35]  They're just like athletes, right?
[01:02:37]  They're just having fun, they're just playing a game.
[01:02:39]  Joe's just playing a game.
[01:02:40]  People like Joe and Elon, and people who have audiences in the tens and even hundreds of millions, have a real responsibility to get their heads out of their asses.
[01:02:51]  So it is unbelievable, right?
[01:02:53]  That you just have this guy, Sam Harris, he's just still out doing this.
[01:02:59]  After getting so many of the most important issues wrong, it's still just a.
[01:03:06]  And look again, as I say with a lot of these guys, that's why there's kind of like a class of guys.
[01:03:14]  And when I say I would put, I don't know, like Ben Shapiro, Sam Harris, Gad Sad, what's his name?
[01:03:26]  Lindsay, James Lindsay.
[01:03:28]  There's like a few of these guys, right?
[01:03:29]  Who essentially their mission in life, you know, as much as, you know, like whatever, like our mission of this show for, say, like the last month has been to call out what bullshit this war in Iran is, right?
[01:03:44]  Or the last two months, right?
[01:03:46]  There's no denying that.
[01:03:46]  That's been the focus of the show.
[01:03:48]  We've been covering this most of the time and talking about how their number one thing, their driver, their calling in life is to call out the podcasters, you know, like to call it.
[01:03:59]  And they also refuse to ever engage in a debate or a discussion with any of them.
[01:04:04]  Like this group of people, that is their thing.
[01:04:07]  And they just, all they've got is just going around acting as if it's a conclusion that they've won the argument, that they're right and the other side is wrong, and then just disgusting the aftermath of it.
[01:04:21]  As their audience and influence dwindles and all the people that they call out all the time who are still willing to have conversations and debates and all of this stuff, as all of them grow to levels higher than they've ever been, they sit here and go, You're all just spreading misinformation and we're unwilling to come correct it.
[01:04:38]  To your face, because obviously, this stuff, Rob, relies on totally straw manning the other person's point of view at all.
[01:04:45]  You know, Rogan and Theo Vaughn or whatever, they just think there are no stakes.
[01:04:50]  Theo's like crying about a genocide on this podcast.
[01:04:53]  He's not saying there are no mistakes, there are no stakes here.
[01:04:56]  He's saying the stakes are as high as they could possibly be.
[01:04:59]  But could you imagine, Rob?
[01:05:00]  I mean, this is what I always, I don't know.
[01:05:02]  And maybe it's, I think about this about me because I, you know, I experience life from behind my eyeballs.
[01:05:11]  And I always think like when I see these guys who all of them have called me out, talk a lot of shit about me personally, and personally, not things about what issues I get wrong, but personal shots at me.
[01:05:27]  And they all refuse to step up and come do a show or have a conversation, make those arguments to my face, and let's see the counter arguments to it.
[01:05:36]  And then you see what they do.
[01:05:37]  And I'm like, I don't know.
[01:05:39]  I just, so my first reaction when I saw this clip and you sent it to me this morning.
[01:05:44]  As I see Sam Harris goes, look, I mean, like what they're doing is evil, and you know it's evil because of what it results in.
[01:05:51]  It results in people dying.
[01:05:53]  And the first thought I had was just like, oh, yeah.
[01:05:56]  Oh, yeah, you definitely shouldn't debate me.
[01:06:00]  You definitely shouldn't bring that to me.
[01:06:02]  Imagine bringing that to me as that's your standard.
[01:06:06]  The standard here is like, if the policy you're advocating for gets enacted and then people die as a result of it, that's evil.
[01:06:14]  Hmm, okay.
[01:06:16]  So, why are we even talking about Joe Rogan then, if that's the standard?
[01:06:20]  Wouldn't we be focusing on everyone who supported this war?
[01:06:25]  There's real people dying as a result of that.
[01:06:28]  No question.
[01:06:29]  But anyway, I don't know, Rob.
[01:06:30]  What can you say?
[01:06:31]  It's more like COVID nonsense, just same misinformation.
[01:06:34]  The pitch is we need full indoctrination and loyalty to the elitist class that I've anointed myself to be a part of.
[01:06:42]  And any questioning of what we dictate to you is dangerous.
[01:06:46]  And by the way, I'm going to pitch for experimental vaccines and more wars and no religion, but for some reason a support of Israel, which does not align with any of my other general theories.
[01:06:58]  And everyone's got to be fully indoctrinated in line and respect the fact that I am the intellectual is supposed to lord above you.
[01:07:05]  Yeah.
[01:07:06]  No, that's Sam Harris.
[01:07:07]  There is no such thing as God, but he did give the land to Netanyahu.
[01:07:10]  That's the Sam Harris view.
[01:07:12]  No.
[01:07:13]  So, by the way, I saw this.
[01:07:15]  And we wrap on this because I got to go.
[01:07:17]  I actually got to go record the Tom Woods show.
[01:07:20]  But so I saw this clip, which I think I had missed.
[01:07:24]  Somehow I just hadn't seen this.
[01:07:26]  But it was Ada Kasparian.
[01:07:29]  On the Young Turks, they did a segment about Sam Harris and they pulled out a clip of Sam Harris reacting to my debate with Douglas Murray from last April.
[01:07:43]  And so, okay, so this is like a year ago.
[01:07:47]  And, you know, I thought in my mind, I thought I had actually seen Sam Harris react to it.
[01:07:53]  And I think I had said something like maybe we covered it on one of the shows or something like that.
[01:07:57]  But I don't think I had ever seen this clip.
[01:08:00]  But so he's saying, maybe we did, maybe I'm just forgetting, maybe we covered this and you'll remember it.
[01:08:05]  But he's saying, she plays this clip.
[01:08:07]  So he's going, he's going, look, like Douglas Murray did phenomenal in that debate.
[01:08:11]  Like he was just, he was so spot on.
[01:08:13]  He did a better job than I could have done.
[01:08:14]  Like Douglas Murray just killed it.
[01:08:16]  And then he goes, he goes, and I go, I'm looking through the comment section.
[01:08:20]  And these were his words.
[01:08:21]  He goes, 100% of them were on Dave's side.
[01:08:27]  And he's literally just saying this, like essentially going like, so that's why it's pointless for me to even go on Rogan, right?
[01:08:34]  Cause like 100% of them will be against me anyway, even though I'm so obviously right.
[01:08:39]  And there is just something wild about like how elitist, how allergic to accountability that mind state is.
[01:08:49]  But he goes, look, Douglas Warrior did amazing in this debate and no one sees it.
[01:08:55]  No one, 0% of the comments are agreeing with me.
[01:08:58]  And then you actually look at what he did and you're like, Wait, but where's the part where he like tore apart my argument?
[01:09:03]  No, he didn't.
[01:09:04]  He just said, You're not an expert.
[01:09:05]  You've never been.
[01:09:06]  He just tried to obfuscate.
[01:09:07]  But it's like, that's all Sam Harris wants to do, too.
[01:09:10]  In all of these clips, like, the thing I've said before about him that I just could not imagine, he's done like five different segments on me.
[01:09:18]  Not one of them has taken on an argument.
[01:09:22]  So here's the thing, Sam.
[01:09:24]  If our arguments are so bad and your arguments are so superior, then you need to make them.
[01:09:31]  This isn't rocket science.
[01:09:33]  Then you need to have the balls to address.
[01:09:35]  Like, even I'll say this these guys, all of them, the guys we just talked about, right?
[01:09:41]  Who refuse to debate.
[01:09:42]  So, this is a thing that we'll do all the time, Rob, right?
[01:09:45]  You've seen me do this, I don't know, several dozen times, where we'll respond to a video, we'll respond to a thing people do, we'll go point by point, you know what I mean?
[01:09:55]  Like, rebut the thing.
[01:09:56]  And then at the end, I'd be like, hey, look, if you want to debate this, I'm happy to do it, right?
[01:10:02]  These guys won't even do the first part.
[01:10:05]  Like, forget it.
[01:10:06]  You won't go on Rogan.
[01:10:07]  You won't come on my show.
[01:10:08]  You won't go on this.
[01:10:09]  Respond to one of the segments, not shit you made up or just the way you cast them and then say it's all misinformation, not just like one little factoid that they got wrong here or there, but like take a five minute segment of one of us making our case against this war and then go through it and point out all the misinformation.
[01:10:29]  Like, they don't even offer you that.
[01:10:32]  Here, guys, that's why 100% of the room was shitting on Douglas Murray because he wasn't making arguments.
[01:10:41]  It's wild to watch them all go down.
[01:10:43]  The argument people all go down in flames because they're allergic to making arguments.
[01:10:47]  All right.
[01:10:48]  We got to wrap on that.
[01:10:49]  I'm sorry, Rob.
[01:10:50]  Go ahead, real quick.
[01:10:51]  Yeah.
[01:10:53]  I'm taking submissions for porches at thefireticks.com, T I X.com.
[01:10:57]  If you got a porch for me, lawn, you can fill out the form over there.
[01:11:01]  Going to start lining stuff up.
[01:11:03]  Confirm the first gig, which is going to be out at Grove 34 in Astoria.
[01:11:07]  It's in May.
[01:11:07]  You can find that date at robburnsandcommy.com.
[01:11:10]  Then, of course, check out.
[01:11:11]  The Run Your Mouth podcast, and I got some new sketches coming out.
[01:11:13]  So go check out my channel.
[01:11:15]  Hell yeah.
[01:11:16]  All right.
[01:11:16]  See you guys tomorrow.
[01:11:17]  Peace.