Dave Smith and Robbie the Fire Bernstein dissect the Trump administration's Iran strategy, criticizing empty threats and debating whether market incentives should replace military intervention. They pivot to the Southern Poverty Law Center's indictment, alleging the SPLC funded hate groups to manufacture narratives of white supremacy while censoring Smith via false 2022 accusations. Smith refutes claims of hosting extremists or joining racist circles, arguing the SPLC used its massive budget to intimidate a podcast with only 77,000 subscribers. Ultimately, the episode frames the SPLC's actions as corrupt censorship designed to ruin livelihoods rather than combat actual hate groups. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Cold Brew and Chest Pains00:02:21
What's up?
What is up, everybody?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
I am Dave Smith.
He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein.
How are you feeling today, sir?
I am well.
How are you, my friend?
I'm good.
I'm good.
I can't complain.
I have a little espresso drink that I probably shouldn't be drinking, but it's hitting the spot right now.
So, now that's a good time.
You don't have to feel guilty about an espresso shot.
Yeah.
Well, it's just that Starbucks makes these dumb little things and they put sugar and stuff in them.
And I typically don't drink sugar in my coffee.
I haven't drank sugar, had sugar in my coffee since I was a child.
You know what I mean?
Like a teenager or something like that.
And then, you know, my wife loads up the fridge to be nice and just buys these little things at the supermarket.
You've experienced this when you're here, Rob.
And then you just end up having them because they're here.
And so now I'm just chugging two cans of sugar that I don't need in a day.
That I other like if this wasn't in the refrigerator, I would just go upstairs and make a pot of coffee.
But because this is sitting here and I've already made two pots of coffee, I'm like, I'll have this.
So I think what I'm trying to say is that my wife is killing me slowly.
She's slowly killing me.
Those are dangerous.
I remember at one point I was keeping a concentrated cold brew in my fridge.
And there were two nights I'm pretty sure I had a heart attack.
I mean, I'm not lying.
I convinced myself I'd done too many abs that day.
And that's why I had chest tightening in an irregular heartbeat.
And I'm like, that happens all the time.
I don't usually do abs.
That's what that is.
You sure it wasn't the three-foot jug of cold brew that you just chugged?
I was like in an obnoxiously huge thing, too.
I'm like, I get chest pains.
That's normal.
Yeah, it's totally.
That's probably what it is.
Yeah, dude.
It's, well, you know, my wife is like, As you know, she's so into it, you know, she's a full time mom and it really suits her well.
And it always has.
Like, she's just, she loves it.
She loves taking care of the kids and all this.
And every holiday, everything is decorated in my house.
And I, you know, it's very sweet and nice.
But then she'll do this like, she just, for Easter or for Valentine's Day or whatever, she just puts like bowls of candy everywhere throughout the house.
And she doesn't eat any of it.
But she could have all the bowls of candy out and just not eat any of it.
And the kids are like allowed one piece after dinner.
But then that just leaves me just roaming my house all day long like a bear scooping up.
Trump's War Pause Deal00:11:10
I'm like, what am I doing?
I remember, I think it was your Upper West Side apartment.
You had a glass, like a big glass jar that Lauren had stacked Oreos around the circle of the jar with a lid on it.
And I walked in and I said, That's really sweet.
I would be dead.
I can't believe that this decorative display of Oreos just lasts.
I would one night get high and eat the entire barrel.
Yeah, yeah.
No, it's.
Yeah, look, there's been problems.
She's a good lady, but we have our problems.
She's got, it's in her blood too.
It's this like Italian thing where they just want everyone to eat as much as possible.
Like eat, eat more, keep pushing.
Anyway, all right, let's start getting into some stuff.
Well, I will say, Rob, there's a couple things on today's show there.
I think I'm actually going to compliment the Trump administration a little bit.
There's two things specifically.
Number one, I would like to genuinely thank Donald Trump for being a gigantic bitch and backing down once again.
I don't think that's what's actually happening here.
Well, we could get into that a little bit, at least momentarily, because, you know, look, I got to say, Rob, this is covering this war has been a challenge in a way that's different than other just topics that we would cover.
Like, usually the template pretty much is that.
The government is trying to, you know, get more power or crack down on liberty in some way more.
They're lying.
They have their propagandists lying for them.
They're doing it for nefarious reasons.
But typically it's like the lie is this.
And so then we attack that from different.
With this one, it's just like the target is just moving so fast and it's so hard to even, you know, but it is.
It's hard to express how crazy it is.
It's been like four days since Donald Trump said that we have a deal and the Iranians have completely surrendered and agreed to everything.
It's been six weeks or so since he demanded unconditional total surrender.
And then essentially he claimed he had it four days ago.
The US is coming in.
Our guys will take out the nuclear dust.
The Strait is open.
They'll get no sanctions relief.
They'll get no money for it.
This is all just made up.
You know, the Iranians.
Yesterday, the latest here is that the Iranians were, they're just like, yo, we're not showing up to the meetings.
They totally, you know, Donald Trump had set this artificial timeline.
The ceasefire would be over now.
And Donald Trump had once again, of course, this is back the day before yesterday, had said bridge and power plant day again if we don't have a deal.
So Donald Trump says this time, even more clearly than the last time, He said he had given them this two weeks since the last time he backed down.
But he said, if a deal's not reached in these two weeks, it's bridge and power plant day.
Not only was a deal not reached, the Iranians straight up said, We're not coming.
We're not coming to the negotiations.
We've already given you what our demands are.
And this is just unworkable.
So they're not even coming.
At this point, it was reported that JD Vance was getting on a plane today to go to these meetings.
The Iranians yesterday said, They're not going.
There is no meeting taking place.
And then Donald Trump came out and just announced an indefinite extension on the ceasefire.
So, Rob, whether, you know, and I'm curious to hear your take on this, but whether or not you're saying ultimately the plan here might be to hit them really hard and reengage in the war.
But at least in the moment, Donald Trump didn't go through with once again his empty threat of destroying the whole civilization and instead just said, let's keep the ceasefire going.
Pretty wild.
Well, all right.
This is wild speculations here because I don't think Donald Trump quite knows what he's doing.
And whatever he tells us today is not going to happen tomorrow.
So I'm working with what I got here.
But my read is we got a World War II Japan play going here, which is I think Donald Trump didn't like the optics of just very aggressively striking at Iran.
And so now he's blocking the Straits and we're kind of playing the economic warfare game.
And I think Iran's in a worse situation.
It's not good for the U.S., it's particularly not good for our Asian partners.
And it's a problem.
You are going to see less fertilizer and less oil in the world, and that is a problem.
But I think the problem is more immediate in Iran.
And I think Iran probably needs to be more in the warfare escalation game now to exact more immediate costs to try and have a quicker change in the situation.
And so I think in blocking the Straits, my guess is that even if we're not striking Iran, they might then move forward with some of their critical infrastructure strikes, which then gives a little bit more of a.
Opening for Donald Trump to act aggressively without just looking like a big old meanie pants.
Yeah.
You know, this was a treat of Parsi was saying something pretty similar to that, that essentially Donald Trump got what he wants, which is just a pause in the war right now because he was in a desperate situation.
So he got that.
And now he can frame any Iranian attack as aggression by the Iranians and kind of at least be in a stronger position with public support or something like that.
Quite possible.
It's a bit of speculation in there, but I don't think unreasonable speculation.
Look, I mean, the reality on the ground is just essentially what we've been saying this whole time that it's a real mess.
And that very clear this was my take on, I think, on the second day of the war and ever since that it's very clear that there was a major shift in incentives and in the decision making of the Iranian leadership from the 12 day war to this war.
And they've been very clear.
That they, even as Donald Trump announced that he was extending this ceasefire, that they've been saying, they're like, I don't know what ceasefire you're talking about.
Like, what they agreed to was a ceasefire that included Israel not attacking Lebanon anymore and the Strait being open.
What they're saying very clearly, and by the way, the Pakistanis are backing them up on this.
And what they're saying is that as long as Israel keeps hitting southern Lebanon, which they are, not as much, they've slowed down substantially.
But as long as they keep hitting southern Lebanon, and as long as there's the US naval blockade of the strait, then there's no ceasefire.
And so, like, they're saying the war is still going on.
Again, we will see where all of this goes.
I'm hopeful, you know, as you were saying, you never know what Donald Trump's going to do.
He's incredibly impulsive.
Evidently, even people within the administration, people within the Pentagon are a little concerned with how impulsive and emotional he is.
But it is possible that he will just walk away at some point.
And it's like, I did enough and we're leaving.
That would be the much better option.
I don't know if you saw this, Rob.
This just came out literally, I think, moments before we started recording the show.
But here, let me see if I can pull this up.
The source is the Washington Post.
And according to the Washington Post, the Pentagon tells Congress it could take six months to fully clear the Strait of Hormuz of mines deployed by Iran, and any such operation is unlikely to be carried out until the U.S. war with Iran ends.
So, translation, it takes six months for us to open up this strait.
And that's only if the Iranians let us, is the translation of that.
Like, they have to come to that agreement, too.
Because, as you can imagine, they're saying, we're not going to run this operation until the war's over.
Because if a war's still going on and you just send a whole bunch of your naval fleet out there, they're sitting ducks.
And so, we could park outside the Strait of Hermos and say, no one's coming through.
But to actually open the thing is a whole different game.
And so, You know, I guess maybe what makes me a little bit optimistic about hearing reports like that is that this is a type of thing that Donald Trump's, you look at that and you go, okay, so let's say it takes another three months for this war to end and then another six months after that to get the straight back open.
This is just a nightmare politically from Donald Trump.
And I guess this gets into what Joe Kent was saying, where it's like, look, dude, we could just walk away and, you know, say it's not our problem.
Now, it's, it's, It's a bad sign that Donald Trump went from a couple weeks ago, really signaling that we don't need the straight.
We don't care about the straight.
It's the rest of the world's problem.
It'll naturally open up.
You know, now he's more in the mode of promising that he's going to deliver the straight opening.
But the truth is that, and I think, Rob, right, tell me if you agree or disagree with this.
But I think this is a lot of where it's part of being like a free market guy is that you understand that like incentives are very powerful things.
And this is why cooperation and business usually end up working out.
This is why silly government arguments, when they'd always be like, who will build the roads?
And you're like, okay, dude, but you're telling me there's just going to be like a big business here and then like a residential area here.
And they're all just going to be scratching their heads and going like, pfft.
I don't know, man.
It sure would be nice if someone taxed us to lay down concrete so we could get to and fro.
Like, I'm pretty sure those businesses are heavily incentivized to make sure there's.
Anyway, the point I'm making is just there's always a lot made out of, like, you know, when they, whenever people justify the US being the world empire, they go, well, we keep commerce going and we guarantee open, you know, shipping lanes.
Now, of course, in this real life environment we have here, it's precisely the US war machine that is the reason why this major strait of commerce is closed.
But, like, if we were to just leave, you'd have to think that all of the incentives on all sides would be to get this thing open.
Like, even the Iranians, they want to be in control of it, but they want it to be open, right?
Like, they want to be, if they're charging fees to go through, they want to get a lot of fees.
And if they're dictating who goes through, they want, you know what I'm saying?
So, like, and then all the Asian partners you mentioned and the other countries in the region, they're all very heavily incentivized for this, too.
And it does seem like at this point, that would be the best move.
Just walk away and let everyone else negotiate opening this thing up.
And again, Rob, of course, the major impediment to all of that is Israel.
They are kind of the reason why we can't just walk away from this thing.
Proof in the Pudding Tactics00:08:47
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All right, let's get back into the show.
Yep, back to the square one.
The same problem you had from day one, which is also the problem that could have just kept you from getting into this mess altogether.
Yep.
Yeah, it sure does seem like that's the truth.
You know, I will say, I know I've mentioned this several times on the show before over the last few weeks, but the reporting over at Dropsite has been phenomenal.
And Jeremy Scahill has just been doing incredible work on this.
Ryan Grimm, too.
I believe Ryan, I believe he's going to try to get him on the show next week.
We were texting about doing it, but he was away this week.
But they're really talking to the Iranian leadership there.
And so you can read every day what they're actually saying, what's actually going on.
And it's been very helpful in this case because, look, it's not that the Iranians are honest, they're not.
You know, and they're not telling the truth.
But in the same way that, like, I don't know, if there was a couple who's like a friend of yours who are in a big fight and you're just listening to one of them, well, you're going to have a much better idea of what's going on if you listen to both of them.
And it doesn't mean either one of them is exactly telling the truth, but the US government, I mean, it's just lying through their teeth about every single turn of this war.
And so then it makes it much easier when you can also hear what the Iranians are saying.
And kind of start to get a gauge of like, wait, who's really bullshitting about this specific point?
But all of his reporting has been spot on this whole time.
And all of that, it's just been like, oh, they're agreeing to give up the enriched uranium.
No, they're not, dude.
Like, that's not happening.
In fact, I think I heard Ryan talking about this.
I didn't actually see the show, but evidently, Jesse Waters, who's got the number one cable news show now, which doesn't mean as much as it used to, because that's a lot less than what the number one show used to be, but he's still got, you know, 75 year olds watching him.
Um, but he just announced that there was a coup last night in Iran, just reported that it's just like not even kind of true, just like not even kind of true, like they're just but you know, whatever.
I don't know, good enough to run on Fox News if it somehow helps the war effort or something like that.
But yeah, I mean, those guys' reporting has been really like an invaluable resource for me trying to understand this stuff because it's just everything, everything you get from Pete Hegseth or Donald Trump or Marco Rubio is just total.
It's not even just lies.
It's like fantasy land stuff.
And, you know, one of the major themes we've been talking about for the last year is how hard Donald Trump has made JD Vance's job now.
But you even think about this, it does, I don't know, Rob, it does, it gives me feelings of like, do you remember when Joe Biden just like assigned the border to Kamala Harris and was like, you're the border czar?
And it did like seem like this thing where you're like, yo, what are you doing?
Dude, like you're, why are you sabotaging your own vice president?
You're just, you're handing her your biggest disaster that you know she's not going to fix.
And then literally that's all, like, now when she has to run in 2024, that was nothing but an albatross around her neck that he gave her this title of border czar.
And now, in some sense, she owned the border.
And likewise, I mean, Donald Trump is like sending JD Vance out to go fail at making peace agreements.
But of course, he can't make a peace agreement because Trump's already set the parameters to a level that will never be agreed upon.
So you're just sending this guy out there to essentially have to endorse the war more.
Because inevitably, when these peace talks fall apart, you're going to be like, well, now we have to go the other way with it.
And by the way, not only do these peace talks fall apart, think about how humiliating this is for JD Vance.
He's like on the way to an airplane to then be informed that there's no one on the other side of this.
Like, don't bother flying to Pakistan right now.
Well, from what I heard in the first apreece agreement, Donald Trump was sick of, you know, having to take orders from Netanyahu.
So he's like, I'm going to go to a UFC fight.
You go out to Pakistan to negotiate and you take Netanyahu's calls.
Yep, that was reported, which is wild.
Particularly when you think about the fact that even Jared Kushner and the fact that he's an old family friend with Benjamin Netanyahu, what are you really doing here?
And there's a long history of this with US-Palestinian-Israeli negotiations.
It's true with the Iranian negotiations too, that you're like, yo, we're just like, they're always like, dude, we're negotiating with Israel and Israel.
About the problem of Israel.
Like, just everyone here is representing the Israelis' interest.
But yeah, I mean, so it's, anyway, it's just, you know, reading Jeremy Scahill's stuff every day and then seeing the way Donald Trump talks about this, it does just, it just gives you a better perspective on everything and how it's actually going down.
And, you know, look, man, for all the people, I mean, and look, I guess, again, we mentioned this yesterday.
This was like the major theme of yesterday's show.
But I guess to some degree, If you're judging negotiation tactics, just purely art of the deal stuff, like if you're just judging how good someone is at making a deal, I guess it's like a proof is in the pudding type of situation, right?
Like the results are what say whether that was good negotiation or not.
You know, like you could have other arguments against this type of negotiation because, say, like you could, I don't know, you could find a principled reason, Rob, to maybe not support the president of the United States openly threatening horrific war crimes.
Like, But if you're just going to the art of the deal stuff, all right, well, at a certain point, I guess you'll have to acknowledge that nothing has been achieved here.
But it is crazy that the art of the deal, you got to admit, it's not supposed to drive them away from negotiating, right?
That doesn't seem like it's working.
And how on earth anyone who wrote a book called Art of the Deal could have ever thought that.
So, twice during negotiations, you just attack them in the middle of negotiations.
Then you just totally lie and say that they're a part of a deal.
Then you threaten the shit out of them again, one more time, threaten the bridge and power plant day.
And then they just won't show up and negotiate anymore.
It just, I know there's all those, he's playing chess, not checkers.
You're like, but really explain to me, like, what is the chess here?
Because it seems like that's really all the results seem to indicate that, in fact, This is not a 5D chess.
This is just retarded.
Obama's Military Support Stance00:12:35
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All right, let's get back into the show.
I don't know.
What do you think, Rob?
I think this is just retarded, is a great way to put it.
Yeah, that does seem to be a common theme here.
Here, let's play this clip because this is both me and you sent this clip in this morning because we both presumably thought it was kind of interesting.
But here is John Kerry.
Former Secretary of State and former presidential candidate, and like a lifelong career politician, he was a senator for many years.
He was on the Colbert Report.
Excuse me.
He was on, sorry, that's the old show that was good.
He was on the late show with Stephen Colbert, and he was asked about the war, thought this was very interesting.
Let's play that clip.
It was about two weeks ago, the New York Times reported.
That Netanyahu personally went into the Situation Room and presented the case why this was the right thing to do.
It was reported that he had attempted this with previous administrations.
During the Obama administration, where you were Secretary of State, did he make the same case?
Yes.
And what was the response at the time?
No.
And why was that the response?
I assume he's a persuasive individual.
I read the article that you're referring to, and the article made it clear that Prime Minister Netanyahu made his case.
And they went around the room, people talked a little, but their military was quoted as saying there weren't a lot of questions asked.
And at the end of the presentation by Prime Minister Nyat predicted we're going to have a rebellion, people will, you know, regime change, people take over the country.
That was all the prediction.
And of course, none of it happened.
But at the end of that conversation, according to the New York Times, there's a quote that Donald Trump said, okay by me.
And that was not what President Obama said.
No, Obama said no.
Bush said no.
President Biden said no.
I mean, I was part of those conversations.
I remember them well.
And we just felt that we have not exhausted all the remedies of peaceful process.
And speaking as a veteran of the Vietnam War, where decisions like that were so critical, we were lied to about what that war was about and the lesson of that war and of Iraq.
is don't lie to the American people and then ask them to send their sons and daughters to fight.
Don't do that.
Well, what can you say, Rob?
I mean, I guess there's a few things in here.
I guess one of the things I'm just blown away by is how, you know, as I said on the last show, how much the Overton window has been stretched that now it's like even Stephen Colbert talking to John Kerry.
The question is, so Israel got us into this war.
Wasn't Israel always trying to get you into this war?
Yes, that's right.
That's exactly how it works.
Some presidents were able to resist this one.
But they gave him other ones.
You know what I mean?
Like, it's just, this really is wild to me.
Like, we're just never going back from this, back into the old time that we used to be in.
Well, I think it's in part just because the left hates Trump so much that they'll actually pick up these storylines.
So Epstein's a blunder on Trump.
And so now they're willing to talk about Epstein.
Or in this case, they probably never would have criticized Israel.
But the fact that this is such a blunder on Trump and makes him look bad that he's doing something in foreign interest, they're willing to run with it.
Not as important, but John Kerry looks like if you turned Andrew Jackson into one of those Indian statues to sell you cigarettes.
That's somehow what he aged himself into.
I don't know how else to describe his look.
But for everyone that likes to say, oh, look, you know, every other president was able to oppose Netanyahu.
And so therefore they don't have that much influence.
I'm worried this is not everyone can just show up to the White House and have the open carpet to make these kind of pitches.
And the fact that this request was so insane that even.
Their best allies, who are usually willing to cave to them, wouldn't cave to them on this topic is not proof of, oh, look, Israel doesn't actually control our government.
Yeah, dude.
Well, I keep using the metaphor about saying my wife has no influence on me if there's one thing that I wouldn't do.
But it's like, maybe I could think of a better one.
But it's just such a pathetic argument.
Especially when it's kind of like, look, Netanyahu's got a long track record of the stuff he wanted, right?
Like, he wants military support from the United States of America.
He wants financial support from the United States of America.
He wants Diplomatic cover from the United States of America.
He wants to continue building settlements on the West Bank.
He testified under oath to Congress that he guaranteed if you overthrew Saddam Hussein, positive reverberations would sweep the region.
He encouraged them to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi and Bashar al Assad.
All of that happened.
He got all of that.
So the fact that former presidents, like, look, Barack Obama, There's just no question.
I mean, Barack Obama said this when he first came in, okay?
Barack Obama didn't want them building more settlements on the West Bank.
Barack Obama wanted a two state solution for the Palestinians based on 67 borders.
Barack Obama, you know, like, well, he didn't get any of that.
He gave a whole lot, like, the idea that if you remember, there was one, like, symbolic vote at the UN that Obama didn't veto on his way out.
And that was seen as being, like, a big middle finger to the Israelis.
But he was a lame duck and he was leaving, and it was a non binding resolution.
And he vetoed every other one his whole presidency for them.
He fought a war in Libya and Syria for them.
And so, the idea that, like, it's not that, oh, it's the point is that even these presidents who were so pressured by the Israelis always resisted this one because it was so clear that this one was going to be such a disaster.
And they didn't resist, like, Horton writes about this in Enough Already, but it wasn't like they just resisted purely.
They resisted for reasons like, The actual army telling them that we can't fight a war in Iran.
Thinking, like, yeah, we can't do this.
And if you think, you know, when they were first pushing for the war in Iran, right?
So, this is if you think about even during like Bush, the end of Bush's term, and then into Obama's term, what John Kerry is talking about when they were pushing them.
Okay, well, John Kerry, they had already surged the war in Afghanistan.
Obama sent like 70,000 more troops in there.
So, think about the realities on the ground.
Think about the escalation trap and all of that when you had like maybe 150,000 US troops in the region as well.
So, anyway, there were things like that that kept it from happening.
But I think for anybody to try to spin this as, oh, see, this is proof that the Israelis didn't always control everything.
It's really Donald Trump who's making the decision here.
It's like, dude, there's just essentially what happens is that they would all try to argue, even though they're wrong, they would all try to argue.
That all of those other wars weren't for the Israel lobby.
But the thing is that this one, they just can't even argue.
It's just like this one's so obviously like, there's just this is the story of this war.
Netanyahu persuaded, pressured Donald Trump into it against the will of the American people.
Now, I guess the other thing here is that I just don't like, you know, it's like the Democrats, they just, you know, they were substantially better on Iran than Donald Trump is.
There's no question about that.
But, you know, I don't like them kind of sweeping everything else under the rug as they blast him for this.
Like, it's like, look, man, the truth is that the Democrats hold a tremendous amount of responsibility.
For all of this stuff.
And even Obama's foreign policy holds a tremendous amount of responsibility for all of this stuff.
And the fact is that it was, listen, George W. Bush got us into Iraq and Afghanistan.
But in terms of the precedent for nuclear proliferation, nothing was worse for that than Libya.
And that is 100% on Barack Obama and John Kerry.
And well, I guess Libya, I guess he wasn't in there yet for Libya.
So Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
The catastrophe in Syria was started by them.
And look, the Iran deal was good.
But at the same time, if Democrats are coming around, you know, Donald Trump tore the deal up, but the Iranians were still in the JCPOA all through Joe Biden's four years.
And there's just, and people say there's been some reporting on this like Joe Biden tried or whatever, but there's no excuse for why they didn't get back into that deal.
Like, absolutely no reason.
They had four years where they're doing everything else wrong, just wrecking the country and wrecking the world and supporting this proxy war on Russia's border.
And they just simply did not make it a priority to get back into a deal with the Iranians and get a stronger deal.
So it would be that much harder for Trump to come in and tear it up again.
Like, they had their chance and did nothing, got nothing positive in that direction.
So I don't know.
Kind of hard for them to come around now and, you know.
Act like, oh, we always resisted the Israelis.
Only Donald Trump was pressured by them.
That is not exactly right.
It was shocking, though, because you had mentioned Hillary Clinton basically said the same thing yesterday, which I hadn't seen.
But now the Democrats are just totally jumping on, hey, Israel's dictating our foreign policy, which, as you said, was basically a complete conspiracy just six months ago.
But I mean, it's incredible that A, it's come to this point, and that also, you know, the Democrats are seeing enough of an opening in this storyline, they're going to run with it.
I mean, you see two officials.
On big platforms with the same talking point, that means that's political strategy.
Oh, and it's not just, it's not, you know, just to be clear, it's not just like a couple of Democrats said this.
It's not even like a couple of high ranking Democrats said this.
It's like both of them were the presidential nominees and the Secretary of State under Barack Obama.
These are about, with the exception of Barack Obama, there's really no higher ranking, you know, kind of, I understand they don't have an official position anymore, but there's no like kind of more.
Um, like they are the standard bearers of the democratic establishment, both saying Israel got us into this war.
Secure Firearm Responsibility00:02:23
I mean, yeah, that's uh, it's gonna be an eye opener to the American public, yeah.
I mean, for sure, for sure.
And that's it's not the last you're gonna hear of the storyline, they're taking a victory lap of uh, look at the mess Trump got us into, and we were smart enough not to be in this mess.
That's not the last you're gonna hear of this, which is look, I mean, again, I could point out how terrible Obama and Biden's foreign policy was, but like.
They got a fairly strong pitch there that it is like all the other things were constants.
Netanyahu's always wanted this war.
Both Bush, Obama, and Biden didn't launch it.
Only Trump did because he thinks he's so much smarter than everybody else.
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FBI Allegations Against Event00:16:01
All right, let's get, let's move, let's switch gears here.
Let's talk about the other thing that I kind of got to give this administration a little bit of credit for.
The last one I was being sarcastic, this one's actually real.
There's, look, I've been very critical of the administration, particularly the Justice Department and the FBI, but not exclusively.
And I will tell you, I've, you know, look, I know people like give me shit because they'll be like, oh, Dave, you just trashed Trump every single episode now.
And it's like, well, Here's the thing.
Here's the thing about calling balls and strikes.
If you're only throwing balls, I'm only going to call balls.
But you throw one down the middle, I'll give you credit.
So I will give him credit for this.
Dude, this indictment on the Southern Poverty Law Center is excellent.
This is the type of stuff that you'd like to see the Trump Justice Department, the Trump FBI doing, because it's actually important.
And what is being alleged here is pretty wild.
For people who don't know, the Southern Poverty Law Center is, they're like in the business of monitoring hate groups, as they call them, and trying to bring them down, supposedly.
From my understanding of the Southern Poverty Law Center, it's like, They did kind of start with some noble intention.
Like, they were the ones who would, like, they were basically like, if the Ku Klux Klan was violent toward someone, they would go and try to sue people on their behalf.
And kind of like, they would monitor like real deal Klan meetings and stuff like that.
And then, of course, over the years, you know, they're a bunch of lawyers and they're in the business of finding racism, and there's less and less racism to find.
And so they just get.
Into inventing racism where it doesn't really exist.
Now, they have written several pieces about me personally attacking me in pretty vicious ways.
Thought it'd be fun to go over some of that actually today.
But evidently, so Kash Patel just announced this kind of stunning indictment where there's all types of allegations of fraud.
But also, evidently, Rob, the allegations are that they were funding.
To the tune of, I think, maybe in the millions, was certainly like high six figures.
Hate groups, the very hate groups that they were trying to put out of business, that were kind of keeping them in business.
I got to say, and this is now purely conspiratorial, but it sounds to me like the new FBI is going after the old FBI because this sounds like a very FBI like activity to fund activities that you're looking to police and to justify your own existence and to pay informants so that there are new stories that validate exactly what you're doing.
It sounds to me like the Southern Poverty Law Center is working the exact grip that the FBI is working.
And I wouldn't be surprised to find out if it was.
Someone at the FBI that taught them how to do it, or someone who left the FBI and went private with the exact same fraud scheme, or if this directly tied into the FBI under the Biden administration or previous FBI that was looking for these racist storylines.
They're literally describing exactly what the FBI did with the entrapment schemes.
Come see me on the road.
I'm doing a whole presentation on this with some comedy.
But it's literally what they did.
They created their own marketing grift, they spent $500 million.
Mainly on informants that they had dirt on, so that they could go convince people to commit crimes that they never could have pulled off.
And then they could have a storyline the next day in the New York Post oh, look, someone was going to blow up the Sears Tower.
And then they go, oh, wow, look, the FBI is keeping me safe from terrorism.
And they're keeping you safe from things that never would have happened to justify their own existence and making their own news.
And I haven't dug into the Southern Poverty Law Center, but as I was reading the articles today and the description of the scheme, I'm like, oh, I guess the FBI is shutting down the Democratic division of the FBI.
Well, whatever.
Let's, okay, I'll celebrate that if that's what's happening.
Okay, good.
At least shut that down.
And, you know, it'll be interesting to see what comes of this.
I mean, obviously, there's a grand jury has indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center.
They'll get a trial and we'll see what comes of all of this.
But, I mean, well, one of the things that I thought was so interesting about it is that one of the allegations is that they gave, I think it was like somewhere in the neighborhood of a quarter million dollars to this organization.
That is credited with organizing the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017.
And, you know, it's in the same way, Rob, because you're speculating here that this sounds a lot like an op.
Like this sounds a lot like the same way that ops work in general.
And, you know, if you think about the fact, like, if you remember when I was arguing with people about the war in Ukraine, that I would point out that, like, the Maidan revolution was not an organic revolution, it was a US backed street putsch that.
Overthrew a democratically elected government.
And then people would say, Oh, you're denying all those people agency who were out in the street.
And you're like, Well, look, no, dude, all people have agency.
You know, granted, maybe there's some, I don't know, maybe there's people with an IQ of 70, and you could argue whether they really have agency or something like that.
Children, maybe you could argue.
But like, generally speaking, yes, human beings have agency.
But like, if the National Endowment for Democracy and the USAID pour $100 million into a street protest that was started and organized by NGOs that they've been pouring.
Billions of dollars into for three decades.
Yeah, that's a little bit different.
I don't know.
And so, like, you know, if you come to like, you know, Unite the Right, and look, I don't know.
I'll be interested to read up on this trial and see how much of this is actually proven.
But like the Unite the Right rally, Rob, right?
For example, this is.
This was a very small event, right?
This was an event with like a couple hundred people and then like a few hundred more counter protesters.
But all in all, like at the Unite the Right rally, there might have been, I don't know, 700 people there or something like that.
Like it's half of as many people come see us any given weekend at a comedy club.
We're at the Unite the Right, right?
Like we have, it's more of a non event than every show we do.
That's hugely different if you're talking about like the shows online.
But, dude, Rob, think about how much this dominated the American cultural and political landscape for all those years, right?
And when you're talking about something, you know, when you're talking about something on the level of organizing a few hundred people, because of course they're not really organizing the counter protest, right?
They were just organizing the few hundred people who were there.
And you're talking about something like that.
Like, think about that, Rob, right?
Like, in real life, organizing an event.
Where a few hundred people are there.
That is something you've had experience with.
You've done that many times in your life.
Yeah, that's right.
Okay.
So you know this.
Someone giving you a quarter million dollars to go organize that.
Do you know how many courses I can do?
Yes.
That will really change your ability at that level of organization.
Because this is what matters with these ops.
It's you're putting your finger on the scale.
And you only want to put your finger on the scale as much as you have to.
You don't want to put any more than you have to.
You just want to put enough on to get the outcome that you desire.
And anyway, I guess my point of this is it's conceivable that like none of that even happens without their support.
And so, if that is the case, that is a question like we absolutely have to get to the bottom of because it just makes you realize, like, oh, how much of all of this is fake?
You know, like I want to know what organizations, what individuals, what was done with this money?
Because all the time, right?
You heard the FBI, the Biden, the old FBI that you're speculating is who the target is here.
They'd always say, you know, that, um, White supremacist, radical, right wing violence is the biggest terror threat, and all this.
And you're just like, man, I wonder how much of it was even real to begin with.
I don't think it's an unfair question when you find out that the group that's posing as the hater of them is actually funding these groups.
And because, of course, obviously, from the starting point, we all know that, like, look, the thing is that if you're in the business of fighting the Ku Klux Klan, well, then you got a real problem in America in 2017.
Which is that there's no such thing.
It's just not a thing.
There was never, there was never, it was always seemed like the left was so animated by anti racism, but clearly the supply did not match the demand.
There just wasn't enough.
We weren't a racist enough country.
And they've been in the business of creating that one way or the other for many years now.
And that is a really profound crime against a society to do something like that.
Like, yeah, what are you doing?
You're stoking up the worst elements in humanity and just making everything worse.
And, you know, I will say, of course, I have my own personal bias here because this is an organization that attempted to ruin me personally.
That was their goal.
Anyway, here, I think I pulled up, I believe I had this here from before.
Here, this is what they wrote about me back in 2022.
So this is four years ago.
This is from the Southern Poverty Law Centers.
It's still up on their website.
Smith, who is Jewish, has long invited extremists and hard right and fringe figures, including Hotep Jesus, on his podcast, Part of the Problem.
Smith has also appeared on podcasts hosted by extremists.
Smith posts Part of the Problem episodes on his YouTube channel, which has over 77,000 subscriptions.
Recent videos receive roughly 25,000 views as of early April 2022.
Smith fans frequently post racist and anti Semitic thoughts online.
A source gave Hate Watch a screenshot of part of the problem's inner circle, a group dedicated to the podcast hosted on MeWe, an alternative to Facebook popular among libertarians.
The posts include racist, anti Semitic, and homophobic slurs.
They also shared links to articles supportive of Trump.
Oh no.
Supportive of Trump's Stop the Steal conspiracy theory.
And that That claimed Democrats stole the 2020 election.
The conspiracy theory culminated in the January 6th, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Smith is active in the group, though screenshots of Smith's activity.
Oh, hold on, wait a minute.
Sorry, I took a shot of this, but then it cut off there.
Here, I got it here.
Smith is active in the group.
Those screenshots of Smith's activity that Hate Watch reviewed were taken after the slur filled post.
Kudak, a former member of the group, said members post racist and anti Semitic posts all the time.
He knows his fans are like this.
Smith did not respond to Hate Watch's request for comment sent through his personal website.
So, first of all, It is true, Rob.
I did not respond to an inquiry from Hate Watch about me.
Like, what are you?
We're running a piece on what a hateful person you are.
Do you have a comment on this?
Like, yeah, no, I don't.
By the way, I just want to make this clear, okay?
Because this is four years ago, this is written.
As they mentioned there, I had 77,000 subscribers on our YouTube channel at the time.
And they're literally, this is an organization with a budget.
In the hundreds of millions of dollars, that is known, and they're saying this about me in 2021 with obviously the express goal if you can remember what the culture was like back then of getting me kicked off of YouTube, kicked off of Twitter, kicked off of iTunes, kicked off of all this.
The goal here is to smear me so that they can censor me.
And I gotta say, it's an odd position being in when you're like, hey, like I'm getting a little bit popular here, but like I got 77,000 subscribers on YouTube, I'm kind of a small show.
They have this major national organization that's known for going after the Klan, like sicked on you.
This is a weird, like, this is what these people would do like, bully and attempt to intimidate American citizens for the crime of speaking their mind.
And I'm sorry, this, like, oh, he's Rob.
I mean, just how pathetic is all of this?
Like, even when you read the details, they'd say they're going after Smith's fans frequently post racist and anti Semitic thoughts online.
Now, it's not even anything I've ever said.
It's the people I've talked to.
And then the fact that some people who listen to me, they may also say offensive things.
By the way, I just want to, for a little bit of these details here, just because it's crazy.
It's a really weird thing.
Like when, you know, you find out there's no such thing as grownups, like there's just none of that, like there's just zero integrity.
You know, people can, you know, give me, oh, he's just a comedian, he wears a hoodie or something like that.
Dude, this is a, An organization that's been praised by members of Congress and people in the corporate media that has a war cabinet of hundreds of millions of dollars, like a huge, I mean, I think they're just, they're not quite in the billions, but I think they have like $700 million or something like that.
So they go, okay, so they're talking about the posts in our group.
Now, Rob, you may remember this, right?
So they're saying.
What did Boris say?
So part, well, hold on one second.
Just, I want you to hear this out, Rob.
Part of the problem inner circle, a group dedicated to the podcast hosted on MeWay.
That wasn't where we were.
I've never been to a group.
It's not our group.
It's not our group.
No, what happened is we had a group called Part of the Problem Inner Circle on Facebook.
We got kicked off Facebook for being correct on COVID.
That's literally what happened.
Our group got taken down.
Sorry, go ahead.
I just want to clarify how egregious our takedown was.
We had a private group on Facebook that was sharing information that turned out to be more than accurate.
And this was not a public forum.
This was a private group for only subscribers of our podcast.
And because of things that were being posted, such as the lab leak theory or otherwise, not only was our Facebook group banned, but I know that I personally, as an administrator of the group, permanently banned from advertising on Facebook or Instagram.
I don't even think they've reversed that since.
And those are the little things that they do to create their own little track record of how bad you are they do something that's completely done on false pretenses, and then they get to turn around and go, look, they were even, these people are so egregious, they were even banned from Facebook.
Private Group Ban Fallout00:08:16
Yep.
But now, so anyway, so if you just remember what happened, okay?
So then a group of people who used to be in that group, they went and formed their own group on MeWe.
We had nothing to do with that.
It wasn't our official group.
But like, why should they bother to know any of this stuff before they write about it?
But just to be clear here, when they say here, they go, Smith is active in the group.
Those screenshots of Smith's activity that Hate Watch reviewed were taken after the slur filled posts.
No, I never was in the MeWe group.
I never posted in the MeWe group.
They're literally just lying.
Like they just got this all wrong.
They don't have screenshots, which by the way, they don't include.
They claim to have screenshots, but don't include it in the article.
No, they don't have any other stuff in the MeWe group.
You do a show for four hours a week, you state what your actual opinion is.
So the idea is once again not contending with the argument.
It's like a diversion tactic to not actually take on what you say on the podcast.
Dave Smith, who allocates for less wars and freedom in our country.
Who doesn't advocate hate against a single group?
I mean, dude, like, first of all, I believe in liberty.
You're allowed to hate groups of people.
You're allowed to be against one group or the other.
But, like, just objectively speaking, that's not us.
We're not out here saying it's any, in terms of any immutable characteristic, like, group of regular people.
We're saying we're pointing at people with power and talking about how we disagree with their policies.
It's like, so, but anyway, then they say, okay, so then this part where they go, Smith is active in the group, just a lie.
They said Hudak, a former member of the group, said members post racist anti Semitic posts all the time, and he knows about this.
Now, this guy, he was like a gay dude in the Libertarian Party who, you know, was like anointed himself hall monitor of all racist things.
But he wasn't in this group.
He was never in my group.
We never would have had him in our private group.
We knew he hated us.
No, he used to be in the Mises Caucus Facebook group.
And left that, but like, okay, like I understand this might be a little bit inside baseball to people who don't know this stuff, but like he was in a different organization's group on Facebook.
He was not in the part of the problem group on MeWe.
And like you would just think, yo, you're trying to ruin someone's life.
Like that's the goal of this article.
And you don't even feel like you kind of got to get these facts right.
You even kind of got to get it right.
Just fucking smear them.
Just and like, again, this would be the equivalent.
And I mean this, them going after me in 2021.
You know, where I was, or they say 77,000 subscribers on YouTube, this would be like on the level of us going after somebody who gets like 5,000 views an episode and just trying to do everything we could to ruin their life for having different views than us.
Truly a reprehensible thing to do.
And then they, okay, so here, continuing to the article, Smith has appeared alongside white nationalist Nick Fuentes three times.
Most recently in December 2021, on hard right podcaster Ethan Ralph's Kill Stream, Ralph was convicted earlier this year of disseminating revenge porn.
They're like, okay, well, first of all, I debated Nick Fuentes.
This is the guy who moderated the debate.
We debated for it was like a two and a half hour debate.
And you know what the debate was, Rob?
It was over state authoritarianism.
Nick supported it.
I opposed it.
That was the debate.
I mean, that's three levels removed.
That's Dave Smith, who has a father, a grandfather who went to fight Hitler, had a relationship with Hitler by fighting him, meaning he had a personal intertwine showcasing that this man is actually engaging with Hitler or whatever.
I don't know.
It's just, I mean, the levels of nonsense to that is just ridiculous.
Also, am I supposed to run a criminal background check on the moderator of the debate?
Like, what is even the point of view?
So they don't mention that it was a debate, but they do mention that the moderator caught a charge.
Afterward, like it's just so dirty.
Just like this is it's like real unscrupulous lawyers just trying to smear someone.
Um, uh, again, then it goes uh, Smith, uh, also had Fuentes appear on part of the problem.
Fuentes uses anti Semitic tropes, engages in Holocaust denial, and openly uses racial epithets to refer to black people.
Um, you know, it's just all this stuff is.
Whatever, it's just so dirty.
It's all just so they start getting into more Rothbard and paleo conservatives and stuff like that.
But I don't know.
I mean, I guess I would just say it was funny that at one point they said that I had uh fringe figures on my podcast.
And well, I don't know, in some way it's like, well, yeah, you say my podcast had 77,000 subscribers, so I guess I would have fringe people on there, you know what I mean?
I don't know, it was a smaller show.
Hey.
Listen, it's four years later, and now my YouTube channel has 500,000 subscribers, so not so fringe anymore.
And you are under federal indictment, Southern Poverty Law Center.
So you just got fucked in the butt.
Can I tell you?
Sorry.
I know there's good people who listen to this show.
I apologize.
But you can see, like, look, don't get me wrong.
I've always been outraged when they do this to other people as well.
But there is a thing, like, when it actually comes to you and you're like, dude, you're like, you know, I'm a father.
I have children.
You're actively trying to ruin my life.
Like, that is the goal of this to destroy someone's livelihood with the most vicious smears.
You know, if you are an organization, That's dedicated to fighting the Ku Klux Klan, fighting violence based on racial hatred.
Like, okay, that's look, if we're talking about violence against innocent people of any kind, whether based on racial hatred or not, then that is a noble thing to oppose.
And if you want to say that we specialize in fighting the violence that is based on racial hatred, well, like, okay, I'm right there with you on that.
But that's a kind of sacred responsibility you hold now.
If you're going to say that this thing is so evil that it warrants us creating a $100 million, like a nine figure organization to attack it, like, okay, fine.
But if that force is that evil that it warrants that, then that comes with a responsibility to not smear good Americans as being something when they're not that at all.
And I'm sorry, but there is just no way you can get around the fact that the essence of my political worldview is that you should not ever bring violence toward peaceful people.
And if you want to try and spin that as a message of hate, like, then anything could be spun as a message of hate.
Gandhi was an anti British racist or something like that, right?
Like, I mean, I don't know.
This is too crazy.
And they take, there was one point later in the article.
I also say, this could have been four years of Trump dismantling the left censorship apparatus and getting all these evil forces out of our government.
Instead, though, he completely embraced warfare spending, centralized economy, tariffs, and other nonsense.
But this is what we voted for.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I mean, that's right.
Seeing stuff like this is actually important.
That's why I'll give the Trump administration credit, even though they're fucking up on every other single thing.
But this is important to disarm this whole apparatus because it's just like, listen, literally, as we used to say back in all those years, although I don't think we ever actually had an indictment that they were funding hate groups, but like they're the hate group.
They're the hate group.
Buchanan Debate Focus Shift00:07:27
They're terrorizing American citizens and trying to create a culture of intimidation and censorship that runs.
Completely counter to the spirit of a free society and the First Amendment that people ought to be allowed to say what they want in an unguarded way amongst consenting adults.
Like, again, it's not like me or Fuentes or any of these guys.
We were never on a network, we were never happening to you.
You have to come click on our show to see our shows.
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All right, let's get back into the show.
So, anyway, but then they made this point, which I always love how they try to do stuff like this.
Okay.
So, during their first debate, this is from the article.
During their first debate, Smith argued for limited immigration, freedom of association, quote, that would allow workplace and housing discrimination.
And limiting migration to combat demographic change.
Okay, like, yeah, I believe in freedom.
Smith, so it says Smith pushed back on the idea of a white ethnostate.
However, he has learned, he has leaned, I'm sorry, on the history of Mises figures like Murray Rothbard working with paleoconservatives such as Pat Buchanan, whom Fuentes and his followers admire.
So, you just see the levels of like, I've leaned on Pat Buchanan's work, who is someone that Fuentes and his fans admire.
So, in some way, we just connected you to Nazis, or something like this is the implication.
Meanwhile, Pat Buchanan served in four presidential administrations, was the host of CNN's Crossfire, and I think has written 13 New York Times bestselling books.
Like, so, like, again, you don't have to make the connection through a Nick Fuentes fan.
You could just go right from me to CNN, or me to the Reagan administration, or the Nixon administration.
Like, it's just.
So, again, as you can see with it, like the tactic is just so obvious.
It's that you're not allowed to even have a conversation about these topics.
I'm not allowed to even go, hey, I learned a lot from Pat Buchanan's books.
They're really excellent books.
I highly recommend people read them.
I don't agree with everything Pat Buchanan agrees with, but sure do think he's got some key insight.
Like, you're not even allowed to have this conversation.
And as far as all the stuff that they try to spin, like, When saying things like, oh, Dave believes in something like, you know, Dave objects to a white ethnostate, but says it would be okay if it was done voluntarily or something like that.
It's like, but how are you making that sound like it's hateful?
Like, what even could be the controversy in that?
I've always said it's like, hey, if a bunch of white people want to go buy up some plots of land in, you know, in Montana and only live there amongst each other, then like, hey, go do that.
Same for black people.
Same for the Amish or the Pennsylvania Dutch or the, are those different things or are those the same thing?
I couldn't tell you.
Same for any group of people.
I just don't, who does object to that?
Only, what type of communist would you have to be to be like, no, the government should break that up, seize their property and make sure it is racially egalitarian?
Like, I, okay, that is not the same thing as endorsing any violence against any group or any hatred of any group.
And there is not, literally, there is not one thing I've ever said in my career.
That you could spin as endorsing violence or hatred against any group of regular people, period.
Then everyone who listens to me knows that.
There's never a time when you could find either of those things.
And yet, that is not like just being a pro peace person who's against the warfare state and against racial hatred and against violence against all innocent people.
That's still not enough for organizations like this to not try to ruin your life.
In conclusion, I would just say I really hope every one of them gets their life ruined.
That's what should happen here.
People, there should be fines and jail time and just absolutely shut down this corrupt organization.
We cannot have organizations like this.
And I guess I will say, you know, you kind of took the point from me.
I mean, I don't mean like, you know, you just made a good point first, but I'll frame it as you stole.
I'll do Southern Poverty Law Center stuff.
You are a thief of a good point.
But really, like the most, the most, listen, I'm happy to give Trump credit for this.
I'm happy to give the Trump administration credit for this.
But Rob, as you said, it's just so hard.
It's so hard to not see the counterfactual here and not go, like, look, first off, you had your first four years, you know, but then even just the year and a half or so that Donald Trump's had since he's been back in.
Just imagine you weren't Israel's bitch and you were doing shit like this.
Like, just imagine this.
Look, I'm not even saying we get every policy that I agree with.
I'm sure, you know, even Donald Trump would still be bad on some issues here or there.
But if he wasn't like, Burying the Epstein files and launching wars of aggression.
And, you know, just like, oh, imagine it was just really this was the effort to dismantle this like progressive establishment censorship regime.
And then really at least go, hey, whoever comes in here next, whoever the next, at least they don't have this.
At least this mechanism has been, you know, destroyed.
Man, it could be so great if this was the focus.
Again, I will try to at least give credit where credit is due.
Any final thoughts, Rob?
Dismantling Censorship Regimes00:00:42
Check out Run Your Mouth, doing an episode later today.
And if you got a porch for me, sign up, submit it at thefireticks.com.
And of course, you and I, we got some shows coming up Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Comedy Works at some point, other things at other points.
But you can find it all at comicdavesmith.com.
Here, I got it here.
Bricktown Comedy Club, May 1st in Tulsa, and then May 2nd and 3rd in Oklahoma City.
And then the next up after that is Desert Ridge Improv in Phoenix, Arizona.
Toronto, Denver, yeah, bunch of stuff.
Houston, Huntsville, Alabama, comicdavesmith.com for all of those ticket links.