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May 12, 2025 - The Tucker Carlson Show
02:19:11
Dave Smith: Debating Douglas Murray, the “Woke Right” Narrative, and the Moment He Found God
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dave smith
01:42:01
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tucker carlson
35:48
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Speaker Time Text
tucker carlson
Dave, I'm really glad to see you.
I know you've been here before.
But it's nice to have you back!
dave smith
I am an expert in all things Tucker Carlson.
tucker carlson
So, I know you've been asked this a million times, but I'm coming to this late.
How do you assess the debate that you had with Douglas Murray?
It's been a month.
How long has it been?
dave smith
Something like that.
tucker carlson
Something like a month, right?
Yep, a few weeks.
Looking back, what was that?
dave smith
It's an interesting question.
I mean, I think essentially it was what everyone saw.
It's like my first impression of it.
My impression during it, during the first half hour of the debate, I was like, well, Douglas just embarrassed himself in front of the world.
tucker carlson
You felt that in real time.
dave smith
Oh, yeah.
Well, I mean, it was, you know, look, he was ridiculous.
And it was...
It was kind of strange to witness as it was happening.
I go, so you decided to open the debate by just chastising everyone as not being as good as you?
That the expert class ought to be the ones consulted?
I mean, you could argue what exactly he was saying.
But he was clearly saying that you guys on podcasts are simply not qualified to talk about these subjects.
Now, you're saying this on the Joe Rogan experience.
Of all places to go and deliver this message, this is the place guaranteed to turn the entire audience against you.
And, of course, I just think that it's a ridiculous non-argument that never would have made sense.
But coming off of the COVID years, the idea that you're going to convince people that you ought to kind of, they ought to trust your opinions, that your class ought to be trusted, was a ridiculous attempt.
tucker carlson
But he's not even in that class.
No, he's not.
I know Douglas, and I think that I've always gotten along with him, and I think that he's clever.
But he's clever in a boarding school way.
He went to boarding school, as I did, and you instantly recognize it in the way that he debates, which is by dropping references that suggest deep air edition that doesn't actually exist.
I think he's clever.
He's got a kind of bullshitty boarding school vibe to him, again, that I recognize, that I have sometimes.
So I'm not trying to be holier than thou, but the idea that he's an expert is absurd.
He's a journalist like the rest of us who's been taken on PR tours in various countries by their governments trying to win his support.
Got it.
I've done that too.
But he's hardly an expert on anything.
What?
dave smith
Also, it doesn't...
Look, all of this...
The analogy that I've used about it is that if you had two UFC fighters that are going to fight...
They've signed the contract, they've done their training camps, they show up to Madison Square Garden, they both get in the octagon, and one of them puts up his hands, and then the other one puts his hands down and goes, you know, I'm such a better fighter than you.
And this is ridiculous that me and you are even fighting.
It's like, okay, but we are.
But we are.
tucker carlson
We signed up for it!
dave smith
We both accepted, we're both here, so if you are such a better fighter, if you have trained so much more, if you have all these advantages against me, Well, then you have to demonstrate that.
Take on the argument.
You should be able to then destroy me.
And so he weirdly opened with this thing where he was going to turn everybody off, turn everyone against it, because the style is bullshit.
And I've had lots of people who are pro-Israel reach out to me since then and be like, listen, I disagree with you on the issue, but that was ridiculous, the way he attempted to argue.
Because, weirdly, number one, you're turning everyone against you, and number two, you're just setting the bar so much higher for yourself.
Because now, once we start actually getting into the debate, you've already explained that you should be dominating me on every facet of this, and yet you're not.
And yet, actually, when it comes down to it, you have no answer for the points that I'm making.
And that was the theme of the entire— Yes, that's right.
But there was— There were two points in the debate that actually stuck out to me the most.
And it wasn't the, have you been, which was the funniest thing that everyone's making, that Douglas will be mocked for eternity for, but he made his own bed.
But the two points to me that really stuck out in the debate, because this is the way my mind works, is that I'm like...
Oh, if you, like, give me something.
Give me something to challenge me on.
That will actually keep me up at night, by the way.
If you were to be like, no, Dave, you got this completely wrong, and you need to read these three books to understand why you're missing all this information.
tucker carlson
Can I interrupt and say, knowing you pretty well, I think, I mean this, I believe, I would take a lie detector test and pass, I believe that if you read those books and found that you were wrong, that you would admit it.
dave smith
Oh, yeah, and I've done this lots of times before.
I've...
I have views from a decade ago that are quite embarrassing in hindsight.
I was an atheist at one point.
I was pro-life.
Excuse me, I was pro-choice at one point.
Oh, God.
I was up for open borders at one point.
tucker carlson
I've had all of those views.
dave smith
I've had some really bad views over the years, and I've changed my mind all because...
tucker carlson
Do you think Douglas would admit if he was wrong?
dave smith
Well, of course not.
I mean, that's obvious, right?
tucker carlson
No, but that's kind of the asset test, right?
dave smith
Well, look, if you can get Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Ukraine, and COVID wrong...
And then, with certainty, say you're right about the next one, and then also arguing that the other person should have some humility.
I mean, come on!
Like, what is this?
unidentified
It's so good!
dave smith
If I just scripted this for you and wrote it on a script, you'd be like, take it down.
This is too ridiculous.
No one would believe this.
But, regardless of that, so there were two moments that actually really stood out to me in the debate.
Okay, so number one, It was in the Ukraine portion.
Number two was in the Israel portion.
So in the Ukraine portion, at one point, I said to him, we were talking about the, you know, what led up to the war.
And so he said something like, he goes, you know, the real question is why all these countries wanted to join NATO.
I mean, we didn't incorporate them in NATO through force.
And I was like, well, yes, obviously, that's the argument, isn't that we force, the governments willingly wanted to join NATO.
I was like, that's pretty obvious why.
You'd want to have your defense subsidized and want to have the most powerful government in the history of the world guaranteeing your defense.
Sure.
And also because they're concerned about the former Soviet Union, which is still Russia.
Okay.
But I was like, but that wasn't the argument.
You know, the argument is, why would we do this?
And so I was like, let me just give you two bullet points, right?
Two quick arguments.
And the two quick points that I made were number one, the yet means yet memo, which, of course, as you know, well, you've talked about this a lot.
You talked about this back on your Fox News show was that Bill Burns later.
Yes, the CIA director through Joe Biden's four years.
unidentified
Yes.
dave smith
Trump took back over.
tucker carlson
But then the ambassador to Russia.
dave smith
Right.
In 2008, he was the ambassador to Russia.
He wrote a private cable to Condoleezza Rice.
This was not for the public.
This was a private cable that later the heroic Julian Assange released.
It's the only reason we know it exists.
And he lays out in there that all this talk about Ukrainian entry to NATO is going to lead to a war.
And he specifically says that this is the brightest of all red lines for the Russians.
And if we keep moving forward, they fear this could result in civil war and then they might have to intervene.
In his words, quote, a choice the Russians do not want to have to make.
So it's like, hey, there's a pretty compelling situation.
And then number two, I said, uh...
Stoltenberg, I always say this name wrong, but the head of NATO, he said that Vladimir Putin in late 2001 put in writing, sent a draft treaty to NATO and said, if you just put into writing that you will not bring Ukraine into NATO, I will not invade the country.
This is the head of NATO.
So I give him these two points, okay?
I could talk a lot more about this, but I was like, let's focus on these two.
Seems to me that all the powerful people involved are admitting that this war was about Ukrainian entry into NATO.
And his response was, the war was not about Ukrainian entry into NATO.
It was about Vladimir Putin's desires to reconstitute the Soviet Union.
And I was like, yeah, but what's the response?
Like, what's the response to my point?
Like, I made a point.
You made nothing.
You just made an assertion.
So there was this one where it's like...
Once you actually get down to it, once you remove all this, like, you're an expert, you're not an expert, you've never been, what are you watering, you've got no actual argument here.
tucker carlson
Because you're not an expert yourself.
unidentified
Right.
dave smith
But even that, it's like, that, again, just the way I work, that doesn't do anything for me.
Then you've got to have an actual argument, otherwise you're not going to persuade me, and I think for most of the viewers.
tucker carlson
And actual knowledge, too.
unidentified
Right.
tucker carlson
And I just refer back to the boarding school thing, it's like...
The whole point of that style in debating is to create the illusion of knowledge.
dave smith
Well, that's it.
tucker carlson
You have an Aeschylus quote, sort of, you know what I mean?
Or you can cite the titles of three D.H. Lawrence novels, but you haven't read the novels.
You haven't read Aeschylus.
dave smith
You don't have an original thought that's actually yours.
tucker carlson
But you don't even have the material.
You haven't even read the books.
It's a sleight of hand.
That's what they teach you in boarding school.
dave smith
Well, okay, so then the other one, which some people did pick up on this, but this to me was like actually the biggest moment of the debate, I thought.
And it was sad in a way, because Douglas Murray is someone who I have some degree of respect for as a smart person.
And it was kind of sad that he was reduced to this.
But so he made the argument.
He said...
First off, he was dishonest.
And I didn't call him, I know this, but I let it slide.
But he goes, you know, I was very iffy about the war in Libya.
And it's like, I've read your columns.
At the time.
No, you fucking warrants.
Okay.
Anyway, but he goes, I was very iffy about the war in Libya, but the war in Libya was fought because there was this tremendous fear that Gaddafi was about to go genocidal, and it was a humanitarian intervention.
And so then I said, okay.
tucker carlson
No, they have slave markets in Tripoli.
Right.
He's humanitarian.
dave smith
But forget even the point that, okay, maybe their argument is they thought he was going to go genocidal and they didn't realize it would be so much worse without him.
But I said, okay, Douglas, so riddle me this then.
If it was a humanitarian intervention, how come I have four-star General Wesley Clark telling me...
10 years prior that we had already made the plans to go overthrow Gaddafi.
Because he said this very clearly to Amy Goodman on Democracy Now.
And then I mentioned that he later, actually very recently on Pierce Morgan, he clarified.
This is really interesting.
If people go watch Scott Horton, who is amazing, by the way, his book Provoked is the best book on Russia-US post...
Collapse of the Soviet Union Relations.
His book, Enough Already, is the best book that's been written on the terror wars.
So Scott Horton is debating Wesley Clark on Piers Morgan.
And this gets brought up.
You know, the fact that you said in 2001, you had already seen in the Pentagon that we were going to overthrow seven countries in five years.
And, okay.
So he says, he goes, well, actually, the plans go back to 1991.
And I saw them first from Paul Wolfowitz's office.
And then, basically, the plans got killed, and then they were revived by Richard Perl and a study paid for by the Israelis.
This was four-star General Wesley Clark's comments on it.
So I brought that up.
And I go, well, look, you're going to say that this is a humanitarian intervention, but that seems strange because the plans to overthrow Gaddafi were already written many years earlier.
And then they had their opportunity, and they did it.
I think it was more than just a humanitarian intervention.
And then his response is this thing about how Paul Wolfowitz's name starts with an animal and ends Jewish.
And it was kind of funny the way he said it.
But then he just, he went, be careful what you're watering there.
Because you can't, you know, a lot of people are going to hate Jews if you just start bringing up Paul Wolfowitz's name.
And I just could not believe.
By the way, the end result of that is he had no response to what I was saying.
He didn't have a response to why this wasn't...
tucker carlson
But because Paul Wolfowitz has an identifiably Jewish name, you're abetting anti-Semitism by bringing it up, even though he's a government official who helped get us into this war that killed a million people?
dave smith
Yeah, he's also, in other places, talked about how Paul Wolfowitz is like a hero in the Kurds in Iraq.
Consider him a hero because he was the architect of the war that overthrew Saddam Hussein.
But, like, I'm not allowed to mention him because that...
Which is, first of all, it's just beside the point.
Like, forget what this will lead to.
What's the truth?
That's what matters.
tucker carlson
So he's, of course, a very pro-Kurdish, I would imagine.
dave smith
Right.
Yes, yes, I'm sure.
tucker carlson
Well, I actually have been there.
dave smith
Oh, have you?
tucker carlson
Yes, I have been there.
And I can say firsthand, the most brutal people I've ever met in my life were Kurds.
Like, actually, I saw it firsthand.
So I'm not against the Kurds or whatever, but it's just interesting.
Everyone in Washington, no one's ever met a Kurd.
I can't define what a Kurd is.
Everyone reflexively loves the Kurds.
And I've never had strong views about the Kurds.
But again, I just want to say I've seen it in action in Iraq.
And I was shocked by the Kurdish behavior personally.
dave smith
Yeah.
Well, also, you know, it's all the people who are, you know, were knocking Donald Trump in his first term when he wanted to pull out of Syria.
And they were like, what about the Kurds?
We can't betray the Kurds.
And then those same people will tell you what a great president George H.W. Bush was.
But we can't betray the Kurds, right?
The guy who...
Really betrayed the Kurds.
I mean, told them to rise up against Saddam Hussein and overthrow him and then decided, ah, we're going to back off of that and just allowed them to get slaughtered, you know.
But, look, I mean, it was just kind of blatant.
It's like, I'm presenting an argument and you're responding with a pure woke tactic.
A pure woke tactic to say, which I, as I mentioned to him, I go, but wouldn't this apply to everything you stand for?
I mean, everything you stand for about how we shouldn't have so much Muslim immigration into the UK.
Okay, well, someone could take that, and that might lead to a rise in hatred of Muslim people.
But that's not a counter-argument.
That's not an argument.
That's like, well, okay, well, then maybe you could say, you should also add in there, I don't mean all Jewish people are guilty of some conspiracy, but that, first of all, I'm Jewish, and he's not.
So, like, what the hell are you talking about?
tucker carlson
Well, I wouldn't say you're Jewish, and that gets me to...
I mean, I don't think you've convinced Douglas that you're Jewish.
unidentified
Well, that's true.
tucker carlson
I saw that and read the commentary after, and as someone who's always liked Douglas and known him for a while, my first instinct was, wow, he just destroyed his career like he's done.
No smart person will ever take Douglas seriously again.
And I don't know if he felt that way, but it was clear by a day or two after he realized he destroyed his career.
In response, rather than admitting that and admitting what he'd done wrong, he attacked you, really kind of doubled down in the New York Post.
I want to read this because I was offended by this.
He goes, the whole column's an attack on you, and I'm quoting, claiming some Jewish ancestry.
Smith has spent the last 18 months since October 7th being very unfunny.
Indeed!
Claiming some Jewish ancestry.
Now, I'm not really sure.
I don't know why that just...
Do you claim some Jewish ancestry?
dave smith
My mom and dad are probably the big ones.
I do.
I do claim some Jewish ancestry.
Well, first of all, I'm not even the first because everyone made this joke already about the art, but he says I haven't been funny and Douglas has never been to one of my comedy shows.
He should come and check it out, and then he could tell me what he thinks.
I think I'm pretty damn funny in my shows, and the audience seems to think so.
tucker carlson
But what is your Jewish ancestry?
First of all, he suggests that you're like a fake Jew.
dave smith
Yeah, yeah.
tucker carlson
Claiming some Jewish ancestry.
It's like you're hiding behind a cloak of ersatz Judaism.
dave smith
Which is, in a way, you know, one of the things I thought was so interesting about the piece was that, and I couldn't imagine, man, I hope I'm never...
This person.
Because even now, there's so many shots I could take at Douglas.
But even when you ask me about the debate, my first instinct is to go like, well, look, here are the points I made that he didn't have counters to.
Because I'm about the argument.
That's what actually matters.
And it's tough for all of us because there is, as you know well, you've talked a lot about this, right?
But it's like...
In this kind of show business news world, where we're talking about events and things that matter, but also there's a camera on us, and we're talking on a microphone, and we're public people, and so it's kind of impossible to completely remove your ego and your own narcissistic tendencies from that.
But you've got to keep reminding yourself, yeah, but there's a fucking war going on.
That's what actually matters.
All of this is much less important than the actual policy.
You try to focus on that, but I could not imagine writing an article about a debate that I had just been in where the reaction was so unfavorable toward me.
And in the piece, what you might notice is he does not take on a single one of my arguments.
He does not point out something that I got wrong.
He does not say, Dave argued this, but this is so clearly a reflection of his lack of knowledge on this subject because he didn't account for X, Y, and Z. It's just like the actual debate.
He would only debate me.
He wouldn't debate the topic.
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So why do you think he did it?
I mean, he was basically, it felt to me like he was sent on a kamikaze mission.
That's the way it looked.
Here, the guy just flies into your craft carrier, doesn't sink it, but it destroys his plane, his career.
Like, I don't get it.
dave smith
In a sense, I don't know.
I don't think Douglas Murray destroyed his career.
I think he destroyed his reputation.
And so his reputation amongst the people.
But his career is actually going to be fine.
Much like Kamala Harris's career is actually going to be fine.
And I don't know.
You know, I'm speculating a little bit with this because there was not almost any interaction off the podcast.
Like Douglas Murray showed up.
Five minutes later, we were recording.
He left immediately afterward and me and Rogan hung out.
So, like, there's nothing more that the viewer didn't see that I saw, really.
Hellos and goodbyes.
But I think, number one, one of my guesses, I'm speculating here, is that he just didn't, wasn't really prepared for me, and it was like, oh, a comedian will be on there, and maybe he came in kind of confident that, like, he'll be able to handle.
I've had that happen a few times in my career.
I think it's happening less.
I can't imagine he didn't look into me before the debate, but maybe that's possible.
But the feeling that I got as it was going on was kind of...
Okay, do you remember...
I'm sure you do.
You remember very well when Kamala Harris was running for president.
I know that seems like a long time ago, but that actually happened, which is really crazy.
tucker carlson
It's like a dream sequence.
dave smith
Now, it's not just that Dick Cheney and Liz Cheney endorsed her.
But she started bringing Liz Cheney out to campaign events and campaigning with Liz Cheney.
Now, if you were just looking at this on paper, you'd go, okay, what demographic of voters is this for?
And you'd very quickly realize that that demographic doesn't exist.
Are the leftists, they still remember her last name as Cheney.
And especially with the year that had preceded that, like...
They're kind of anti-war again, and they're not really into the idea of, we've got a Cheney on our side.
It's not going to win you.
It's not going to get out your base.
And then on the other side, I mean, she lost by like 50 points in her congressional run.
I mean, it's not like you're bringing Republicans in.
And so I think the only thing you could conclude is that, oh, this isn't actually for the voters.
There's somebody else who Kamala Harris is talking to here.
tucker carlson
Of course.
dave smith
There's a power source that may be a little concerned about her, and she's trying to let them know, don't worry, I'm good for business, I've got Liz Cheney right here.
That's kind of my assumption.
It seemed to me with the Douglas Murray thing, he wasn't playing in the audience, he certainly wasn't trying to persuade Joe.
He perhaps was talking to a different audience, which will make sure that his career is just fine.
Going forward.
That's the sense I got.
tucker carlson
If you want to make people paranoid and hateful, act like that.
dave smith
Well, again, look, there's two things that I really want to make sure I express.
Number one, with the thing where this claims some Jewish ancestry thing, which, by the way, would be, I think, if you were to ever do this, to say, like, A Jewish person who was on your side, you would be like, well, that's a pretty anti-Semitic thing to do, right?
To, like, challenge their Jewishness because they disagree with a policy.
tucker carlson
What does your Jewishness have to do with it anyway?
dave smith
Well, right?
That's the whole fucking point.
And, you know, I think it's basically like this.
I think that, particularly when it comes to the Israel stuff, a lot of these guys don't know what to do with me.
Because, typically...
As every American who's ever criticized Israel knows, you get labeled as being a Jew hater.
Oh, you must be anti-Semitic.
That's why you would say something like that.
Remember that horrible anti-Semite Pat Buchanan who said that the Israel lobby wanted a war in Iraq?
She just hates Jewish people.
We all know that's true.
When you say it, they go, you're an anti-Semite.
That's the game that they play.
That's much tougher to do when you're talking to someone who's Jewish.
And so, in a sense, that ends up being kind of a shield against the accusation, and so they want to remove that shield so that you don't have...
But the bottom line is that no one should have that shield.
And I am Jewish.
My mother and father are both Jewish.
I think I was 86% Ashkenazi Jew on my DNA test.
I think that's enough.
But the point is...
It shouldn't matter.
It shouldn't matter at all.
tucker carlson
We're talking about the behavior of nations, by the way.
Nations with militaries and parliaments, congresses.
These are countries.
What does this have to do?
dave smith
Well, first of all, and this isn't even the most important point, but the American taxpayer is forced to pay for this stuff.
But even if he wasn't, even if you didn't have to pay for it.
If you're a human being, forget even an American, if you're a human being, you have a right to have an opinion on any issue you want to have an opinion on.
tucker carlson
This is what the left did during COVID.
It was like, wait a second, it seems like this came, you're telling me it came from a pangolin in a wet market, a fish market, a mammal sold in a fish market, somehow, you know, was the genesis of this virus.
But there was this level 3 biolab, like a mile away, maybe that was a source that were like, ah, you hate Asians!
And they claimed racism, so you couldn't pursue that line of inquiry.
I see people like Douglas Murray, supposedly on the right, and there are a lot of others like Douglas Murray, saying the same thing.
Like, you can't express an opinion about where your tax dollars go or about people dying or else you're a bigot.
How is that different?
dave smith
Right.
No, it's not.
It's the same thing.
It's the same kind of pathetic tactic where if you can't...
Argue against someone's ideas.
You just say, oh, you're a bad person, and that's why you have these ideas to begin with.
It's a very low-grade social psychology attempt to shame someone out of having the views that they have.
It's what the woke did on everything, no matter what it was.
I can't remember who.
Coined the term, but a racist, is anybody winning an argument against a progressive?
tucker carlson
Exactly.
dave smith
You know, that's it.
And so he's doing the same thing.
But then the other thing, which is really separate and secondary from that, but the argument that Douglas Murray is making is that if I call out Paul Wolfowitz, or even, you know...
More broadly speaking, if I call out the neoconservatives and how they hijacked American foreign policy and how they very much had Israel's interest in mind, which I get from reading the neoconservatives.
I don't get this from reading critics of them.
It's in their own words.
He's saying me calling that out is fertile ground for Jew hatred to rise.
And it's like, no.
What you're doing is fertile ground.
I agree with that.
You telling me I'm not allowed to call out the deputy defense secretary because his last name is Jewish?
That's actually what leads to a rise in people not liking Jews.
tucker carlson
I couldn't agree more.
And I do think Douglass, though he's not an expert or a genius, is smart enough to understand that, but he did it anyway.
And I don't know his motive, but...
In the moment that I think made me actually turn it off, I had to stop watching, but it was most revealing of all, is when he was after Daryl Cooper, the historian, really one of the great historians in the United States, Daryl Cooper, and doesn't know his name.
Yeah.
But goes after him personally as like a Nazi or something.
And let me just parenthetically, and I'll shut up after this, but Daryl Cooper is one of the kindest, most reasonable, most fundamentally liberal.
I know.
Anti-Nazi people.
I know.
A guy who you could give your routing number to would never steal money.
dave smith
Yeah.
tucker carlson
A guy who, if he had absolute power, would kill nobody.
Like, a truly decent Christian man basically called him a monster and didn't even know his name.
And so that suggested to me that he was, like, briefed by somebody before.
So make sure you get in this Holocaust, which he's not.
Daryl Cooper.
Like, what is that?
dave smith
Well, it's also, you know, If you're smearing people, and Daryl wasn't the only one, but if you're smearing people whose names you don't know, and who you admit you've never listened to any of their work...
Maybe don't put that right in the middle of an appeal to expertise.
Maybe have that in a different section than in the section where you're going, you really have to know what you're talking about in order to have an opinion on these things.
unidentified
And so that didn't work out very well.
dave smith
Daryl is an amazing guy.
He is brilliant.
His work is phenomenal.
I know him personally, and he's genuinely a great person.
tucker carlson
He's a humane man.
dave smith
It is something, it's a comment on our time and on our society that the guy who, essentially, if you actually consume any of Daryl's work, because I have consumed a lot of it, basically, Daryl's whole kind of, his template, the way he operates, is he's, there's basically only, like, a couple rules.
And, like, number one is he has to read everything that's available on the subject.
So he reads everything.
The guy's a machine.
His depth of knowledge is like second to none.
He just knows everything.
And then number two is whenever you talk about history, basically his rule is that you have to understand that everyone involved is a human being.
Every one of them was a three-year-old at one point.
So like totally innocent, like good little boy, like my three-year-old that I have at home.
And that...
They grew up in real circumstances and real things happened to them.
And if you're going to do history, you have to constantly be doing your absolute best to put yourself in this person's shoes and then put yourself in this person's shoes.
And then put yourself on this side of the conflict and then put yourself on this side of the conflict.
That's basically it.
It's pure empathy.
And actually, as I've mentioned to you personally, and I've told Daryl this personally, he is...
Probably the best shot people have at de-radicalizing people in the worst form of being radicalized.
He's the guy, listen, for me personally, and I thought I was pretty well read on the history of Israel-Palestine, and he has this incredibly long series, like a 30-hour series, called Fear and Loathing in the New Jerusalem.
And the thing is, I knew most of what I knew, not all of it, but most of what I had read about with the Israeli-Palestine conflict, like most people, It starts in 1947, 1948, and then goes up to today.
His series is about, it's like from the 1890s until 1947.
So he's talking about the creation of the state, from Zionism being created to the state being created.
tucker carlson
From Herzl to Ben-Gurion.
dave smith
Right, right, exactly.
That's basically the whole, you know, he has a little bit where he's talking about the pogroms that preceded the Zionists, but that's really the story.
It actually made me much more sympathetic to the Zionists.
You know, as somebody who grew up kind of in that propaganda, in the pro-Israel propaganda, then ultimately turned on it and became a critic of Israel.
Listening to his series, you understand.
It just puts you in the position, and you do understand, like, oh, okay, these were real men who were reacting to the circumstances of their day.
You can kind of understand why a lot of them wanted to do this.
By the way, it's pretty amazing that they pulled it off, however you feel.
tucker carlson
I agree completely.
dave smith
However you feel about what the government of Israel is doing, it's amazing that they did this.
Yeah, look, and of course, for the one, this is why I say it's a comment on our time.
So there's one guy here who's going like, listen, you got to like really completely educate yourself on a subject and then you have to have empathy toward all sides.
And then everyone goes, Nazi!
That guy's a Nazi!
That's what it is to be a Nazi in 2025.
tucker carlson
It's just so funny.
I'm too old for a lot of this stuff.
And so I thought, you know, among the many lessons, great lessons of the Second World War that I grew up marinating in, dehumanizing people is bad.
Treating human beings like they're not human is bad.
And I still believe that.
I think it's the core of Christianity.
But it's also just the core of any civil society, any decent society.
And that's what Daryl is trying to do.
And I don't know that I've ever heard anybody try and take apart his...
Factual analysis, it always immediately goes to motive.
You're a Nazi.
Shut up.
You're a Holocaust denier.
dave smith
Or claiming he said something that isn't at all what he said.
He downplayed the atrocities.
tucker carlson
Why don't you just ask him?
dave smith
No, he didn't.
It's also...
tucker carlson
But why?
Why should Daryl Cooper...
And by the way, a number of my friends, people I really like, have been involved in this.
Their authority has been marshaled to destroy Daryl Cooper.
And I grieve to see it because they're paid to do it.
It's so degrading to them and dishonest and sad.
But why?
Daryl Cooper's like this one guy living in the Pacific Northwest.
Why spend all this time and energy to destroy him?
dave smith
Well, I love that you said this, I forget, a few years ago.
I can't remember what it was where you said this, but it was you.
And this really hit home with me.
And you weren't suggesting that this is like a proof.
This isn't like an irrefutable logical argument.
It's kind of like a guide.
But, you know, you said the thing about you could tell when something's infected because you touch it and you recoil.
And you go, ooh, something's going on there.
Now, what exactly is it?
No, that doesn't prove what's going on.
But, look, you can't.
The fact that Daryl's moment on your podcast sitting right here where I'm sitting got such a reaction really demonstrates something.
And you see that it's like, oh, you touched on like a third rail.
tucker carlson
Or hurt dog barks.
unidentified
Yes.
dave smith
Well, and in the same way when you had first questioned the morality of dropping nuclear weapons on cities.
And then there's this big freak out over that.
And now nobody here has said, hey, the Nazis were the good guys.
The Nazis didn't commit any atrocities.
tucker carlson
The Nazis were bad guys.
dave smith
No one's even downplaying.
No one even made the argument.
tucker carlson
I remain anti-Nazi for the record.
dave smith
But I'm saying like no one even made the argument.
that like it was 5.9 million, not six, you know, like there's nothing, this topic hasn't even been broached.
tucker carlson
No.
dave smith
But what you are attacking is really the underpinning of the origin story of the American empire.
And that's what you're not allowed to question.
And you see it the way every...
Every defender of every war, including the current one, if you can call it a war, going on in Gaza.
I'm not sure war is exactly the right term to describe it.
It's the destruction of a captive people.
But every single person who defends it will always invoke World War II at one point.
Not even arguing that, like not even making an argument that this is why it was justified in World War II, just like we did it in World War II.
We did it in World War II, and we're the good guys.
So, good guys are allowed to slaughter entire peoples.
You know, it's like, it is the, and look, even if you accept the official World War II story as being completely correct.
It's still something that's used to justify all of these other indefensible wars.
Every war of my lifetime, and I doubt too many people really want to defend the ones in between World War II and when I was born.
You know, I don't think anyone's going like, look at Vietnam.
It's such a good thing that we did that.
And those who are attempting to defend it are pathetic.
But, you know, Iraq and Libya and Syria and...
Afghanistan and even the ones when I was a little kid, you know, Serbia, every one of these guys, they always said was Adolf Hitler.
Milosevic is Adolf Hitler.
Saddam Hussein is Adolf Hitler.
Gaddafi is Adolf Hitler.
Noriega is Adolf Hitler.
Every bad guy has always been.
It's like they use this model to justify.
You're only ever allowed to learn the lesson in history.
That's like Chamberlain was an appeaser, appeasing bad, confrontation good.
As if that's as if.
The lessons of history are that aggression is always correct.
Trying to work out a deal is always wrong.
And that's why I think it's so important to attack that narrative.
tucker carlson
Yeah, and from my perspective, it's not even about principle as much as it is a fact.
If what we're doing was working, then I guess I wouldn't be interested in...
You know, analyzing it so critically, but it's not working.
It hasn't worked for the West, which I love.
It's where my ancestors are from.
It's where my children live.
So it's like, I don't know.
I think it's fair to ask, like, how did we get here?
It's all falling apart.
Why?
And maybe the assumptions were bad.
And what are those assumptions?
Well, they're rooted in that war, as you said.
It's just interesting that anyone would want to defend that.
Like, I don't really, I still don't get the motive.
Maybe I never will.
Like, why would you want to defend any of that?
Why would you want to defend Dresden or Gaza or any...
Things that America did.
By the way, it's not attacking Israel.
I'm attacking the U.S. government, which I pay for, which my ancestors helped build.
Why would you ever want to defend bad things?
dave smith
Well, there is a tendency by people who, if you're...
Pulling away the underpinnings in someone's entire worldview, they usually get very defensive about that.
tucker carlson
You're right.
You're totally right.
By the way, I've been there.
I have felt defensive.
When I first heard Alex Jones question 9-11, I was outraged by it.
I was totally outraged by it.
In a reflexive, stupid way.
dave smith
I remember, just because I was very...
I was very on board with the Ron Paul presidential campaigns.
This was my radicalizing moment, was Ron Paul running for president.
And I remember that you were hosting the event that he had.
I can't remember what it was called.
tucker carlson
Very well, it was the Rally for the Republic.
dave smith
The Rally for the Republic.
tucker carlson
I guess he went to it in 2008.
I was the emcee of that.
dave smith
So at the time, it was a really big deal for us that we had you emceeing it.
And because it was like Ron Paul was getting blacked out in all the...
Mainstream media, as we used to call it at the time.
But we had Tucker Carlson.
We had one of the big players in that world hosting the event.
And I remember when you- I walked out.
Well, I saw an interview with you where someone was like, hey, why'd you walk out of that event?
And you were like, I don't know, man.
Saying 9-11 wasn't inside job stuff was just a bridge too far for me.
And honestly, I totally understood that at the time.
I was just pissed off.
At Jesse Ventura.
Because I was like, come on, dude.
We actually got a chance here to make a mark.
And then you're going to go start spouting out with these conspiracies.
tucker carlson
But, you know, he believed it.
I mean, I think Jesse Ventura's a whole rabbit hole.
I won't even go down.
But I think Jesse Ventura is a very flawed guy.
For sure.
We're all flawed people.
I'm a little less judgmental than I used to be.
Now that I know the depth of my own shittiness.
Which I think is important.
Meditate every day on your death and your own flaws.
And you'll be a happy...
I shouldn't have done that.
I don't know why my views are so different.
But anyway, the point is, I understand what you're saying.
dave smith
Well, it's also that you, you know, it's not even necessarily that you would have to, like, all these years later, be convinced that he was right.
It's just, I think, after so many years of seeing how evil...
Our government actually can be.
That you go like, okay, I'm listening.
Alright, fine.
I dismissed that out of hand, but now I'm more open-minded to it.
tucker carlson
Or how about the only question that matters is whether or not something is true.
dave smith
Yeah.
tucker carlson
And another way to put it, a phrase that I've coined and made copyright, is facts don't care about your feelings.
dave smith
That's a good one.
tucker carlson
You like that?
dave smith
Someone should really run with that.
tucker carlson
I like that.
You could get a long way.
You could get a special deal with Facebook on the basis of that.
But I actually agree with that.
dave smith
Right.
tucker carlson
And I agree.
I don't think you should hurt people's feelings on purpose, but I think the core question, the only one that matters, is something true.
And I know that you share that, and that's why, and I hate to beat up on poor Douglas, who's like a sad character, but he had this line in here.
Oh, this isn't, sorry, I never go to my notes, but I'm, this is from a guy called Sam Harris?
dave smith
I'm loosely familiar.
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So Sam Harris, wow, he doesn't care for you at all, or it looks like me either, but whatever, I'll ignore the stuff about me.
I'm not exactly sure who Sam Harris is, but a sad atheist guy.
But he describes you as a pure misinformation artist who lies as freely as he breathes.
And I just thought as I read this, I could say, you know, Dave Smith, I don't know, whatever, but I feel like that's the opposite of the truth.
I feel like maybe you lie under duress, but in general, you are like very focused on what you think is true.
dave smith
Well, I mean, again, I just feel like I benefit in a way from us having this conversation like after COVID and after kind of all of these insane things.
Okay.
So, Sam Harris, what did I get wrong?
Like, I don't think...
If you're gonna smear me as being a misinformation artist, which, you know, I'll take that...
I should make t-shirts about misinformation artists.
I'll take that.
Pure misinformation.
Yes, pure misinformation.
tucker carlson
Everything you say is a lie.
It's like breathing to you.
dave smith
Dude, I got called that throughout all of COVID, and I was right about everything I was saying.
So...
Keep calling me this.
Okay, fine.
Make an argument.
tucker carlson
What have I said that's wrong?
Why is he so mad at you?
I thought he was a rationalist, right?
dave smith
Yeah.
He's the guy who defended the war in Iraq and torture and fell for the Russiagate bullshit, thought Trump was a Russian spy, fell for lockdowns and vaccine mandates and all this stuff.
So I'll put my misinformation track record up against Sam Harris's, you know...
Whatever.
I mean, I know he's got a meditation app or something like that.
tucker carlson
Did you see the Tim Dillon thing the other day?
dave smith
Oh, dude, it's so great.
tucker carlson
That was like, I texted him.
Tim Dillon, the brilliant comedian.
He's the best.
Sam Harris has a meditation app.
I didn't even know that.
So by day, he's a meditation guru.
And by night, he's encouraging like carpet bombing of children.
dave smith
I mean, it's just too ridiculous.
And, you know.
You know, all of these guys.
It's sad in a way because you can't contradict yourself on what your entire purpose was for your entire career without some people noticing.
And that's kind of what's going on with all these guys.
tucker carlson
Why the emotion?
So I notice it even now in our conversation.
There's a lightness to the way you describe things.
You obviously have passionate views.
But you don't seem emotionally overwrought.
Douglas seemed emotionally overwrought.
This guy, Harris, seems emotionally overwrought.
They seem very emotional.
What is that?
dave smith
Well, I mean, I would say that kind of ironically, although not really actually ironic, and this kind of goes to the conversation that you and Brett Weinstein were having the other day.
I really love Brett.
I think he's great.
I'm on your side of that.
But I think one of the fundamental flaws in atheism is that it doesn't really exist.
Yes.
They think that's the flaw in believing in God.
unidentified
No!
dave smith
See, they think the flaw in believing in God is that God really doesn't exist.
God does exist.
What doesn't exist are atheists.
There's no such thing.
tucker carlson
It is so true!
dave smith
And you could even get into, like, maybe if there was such thing as atheists, it would be a good thing to be one.
But there aren't.
They don't exist.
They all have their religion.
And it's almost by definition that whatever your highest thing is becomes your religion.
I don't know if it's quite by definition, and I suppose it is theoretically possible to be an atheist, but almost no one ever is.
And so what you're seeing is just that I'm attacking their religion.
And according to them, that makes me guilty of blasphemy.
tucker carlson
But it's just so interesting that they're so brittle about it.
You'd think if you're an atheist, you'd be like, does it really matter?
I mean, there's no right or wrong, obviously, because who's the authority on that?
Well, there is no authority, so it's all just a matter of preference, and in the end, you just cease to exist, and so the stakes are zero.
So what are you so mad about?
Like, why do you care?
You'd think everyone would be like...
dave smith
Well, I'll take it a step further.
Sam Harris does not believe in free will.
So what is he upset with me about?
I have no choice.
I have to be a misinformation artist.
I'm wired to be a misinformation artist, right?
So what are you upset with?
And he's not even making the choice to say that.
Listen, anytime, and this was one of, again, I really, really like Brett, but I think one of the areas where he failed kind of in that conversation with you, in that, you know, very friendly debate, is that...
He had to say several times throughout it, yes, yes, I live as if what you're saying is correct.
But I view things this way.
So, yes, I'd much rather live.
But if your thesis involves you having to engage in a performative contradiction, then something's not right with your theory.
And so Sam Harris will sit here and say, none of us have free will, but I'm still going to act as if all of us have free will.
You've got a major flaw in your theory.
This is just too much.
This is too far.
You can't do that.
That's not right.
And so, yes, again, with all of them.
The bottom line, I think, with a lot of these people, and some have adapted better than others.
I think Brett's one of the ones who's really adapted well from the old academia world to this new...
Podcast world that we're in now.
But I think the problem with a lot of them, like Sam Harris, and I think Douglas Murray, too, is that what they've worked their entire career on has been completely rejected.
And that's a tough position to be in.
tucker carlson
Not really.
I mean, I spent my whole life in cable news.
It, you know, obviously is in terminal decline.
I had all kinds of views they argued for passionately.
They were totally wrong.
I admitted it.
I gained perspective and humility in admitting it.
You're just a human being.
dave smith
Yeah, but that, listen, you, that may have happened kind of naturally for you.
I'm just saying, when you run it on scale, very few people are able to do that.
tucker carlson
It's not hard.
It's the only act of liberation that's really possible in this life is freeing yourself from, like, the lies.
And the number one lie is I'm God.
dave smith
Yeah.
tucker carlson
And, like, I'm omniscient or...
You know, it was a perfectly wise person.
It's like, you know, you make mistakes.
You're a ridiculous primate.
dave smith
Covered in fur.
tucker carlson
Like, just admit it.
dave smith
Look, you got some things wrong.
unidentified
Yeah!
dave smith
But there's a difference between that and your entire foundation being built on hypocrisy.
And that hypocrisy being shown.
You know, look, I mean, you can't make this stuff up, right?
Ben Shapiro built a career.
Opposing identity politics as a proud Zionist.
Yeah.
Listen, feel however you feel about Zionism.
It's identity politics.
That is the definition of identity.
You could not find a better example of a politics built on an identity.
And yet you're out here saying, facts don't care about your feelings.
Identity to politics is wrong.
And then while you're saying that, your number one priority is this manifestation of identity politics.
You can only keep that charade going for so long before someone sees through it.
tucker carlson
There's something in people that, the lowest part of people, that instinctively accuses others of doing what they're doing.
And I've never really, man, that's one thing I don't want to be as a guy who does that.
But I remember Bill Crustle, who I worked for for years and really liked and was grateful to, and he was a great boss in the 90s, and came out against me and called me a Nazi and all this stuff, like without calling me.
By the way, I called him and asked him to lunch.
He refused.
He wouldn't go to lunch with me.
End of our relationship.
But one of the criticisms against me, I'll never forget it when I realized this phenomenon was real, is when he accused me of advocating, and I'm quoting, for an ethnostate.
Now, I have a lot of flaws.
They're all on display.
I've never wanted an ethnostate.
And it's like, wait, one of us is for an ethnostate.
And it's not me.
But you just said that, like, of all the possible criticisms.
dave smith
It's just too unbelievable.
It's unbelievable.
unidentified
Bill Crystal accusing me of wanting an ethnostate.
dave smith
You almost, like, don't even, you can't even respond.
You just have to go, like...
tucker carlson
It's like, I didn't say anything.
I was like, okay.
dave smith
Right, yes.
tucker carlson
You know, people can't hear themselves.
I mean, you know some people get old?
You know, they tell the same stories.
And you just, you know, when you love them, you're indulgent.
But I...
I just hope that doesn't happen to me.
I hope I don't lose all self-awareness to the point where I've got lunch on my chin and accuse other people of doing exactly what I'm doing.
dave smith
Exactly what I'm doing.
While you're going, you have lunch on your chin.
You don't want to be there.
I don't want to be that guy.
And I think that there's like...
Look, obviously, like, we're living through something, you know, we're probably living through several things that are very profound, but one of the most profound things has been this revolution in information and the technology, and it's led to this, like, kind of mass decentralization of media, and where there's now, like, there's so many...
Really smart.
People should know about this.
tucker carlson
Really.
dave smith
How many followers?
Seven million.
Oh, he's got seven million.
Oh, he's huge.
Like, I just found some guy who is bigger than anyone on cable news, and I didn't even know he existed, you know?
And so now it's just because of this dynamic.
There aren't, you know, as you know, the the.
Corporate media apparatus, like big newspapers and big cable news shows and things, was very controlled.
Very controlled.
The range of allowable opinion was very narrow.
It's what my good friend and brilliant historian Tom Woods always called the 3x6 card of allowable opinion.
You get this little area of allowable opinion, and then that's where the conversation takes place.
That's been shattered into a million pieces.
And now there's voices from all over the place.
And some good and some great and some bad and really bad.
But it's just much harder for people to, you know, that control existed so that you don't get exposed.
So that you don't get exposed.
So that you could go like, look, even the right-winger, John McCain, agrees.
Or even the far-left activist Nancy Pelosi.
I mean, it's like, do you have to hear it?
Sean Hannity goes, the far-left Nancy Pelosi.
It's like, how many leftists have you actually talked to in your life?
How many leftists have you ever read?
You think Nancy Pelosi's a far-leftist?
Like, really?
tucker carlson
Living on her vineyard in Napa?
dave smith
All these different, you know, these different tools of corporations are left and right.
But so that's over now.
And now I think it's much tougher to keep this charade going.
tucker carlson
It seems to be collapsing so fast.
dave smith
Yes, yes.
And it's not, again, you could be honest about it and kind of maintain some of your respect.
But the truth is that, like, look, even when they'll say these things, like if you accuse Ben Shapiro of having dual loyalty, they go, oh, that's an anti-Semitic trope.
That means you hate the Jews.
But then he'll sit there in his own words and say, I forget his exact quote, but it was something like, my favorite thing about the United States of America is that it protects Israel.
And so you're already saying you have loyalty to both of these countries.
In fact, I'm not so sure about them.
One of the loyalties, but I'm very sure about the other one.
And that is not, I'm sorry, that's not a statement against Jewish people.
I'm Jewish.
I love Jewish people.
You know, it's like I get called a self-hating Jew on Twitter or whatever.
It could not be further from the truth.
I actually really love Jewish people.
There's many things about Jewish culture that have, you know, had a huge impact on me, made me the person I am, made me a better person for their impact on me.
But this is a foreign government.
Like, I'm sorry.
We're allowed to talk about that.
If you, you know, I saw Glenn Beck the other day had Douglas Murray on.
And he wasn't like, Glenn Beck wasn't like mean to me personally, which I appreciated.
But he was just going, I mean, it was just so ridiculous.
But it's like you were sitting here, we're having a conversation about a foreign government.
You started crying on your show talking about this foreign government.
That's fucking weird.
That's weird.
We should not be doing that.
What the hell is going on here?
I don't even think you should cry about our own government, but if you're going to cry about one, it should be ours.
tucker carlson
But no one would even think to cry about our own government.
unidentified
Right.
dave smith
I mean, come on.
Let's have a real conversation about this.
And if you don't, especially, and by the way, this is not my primary goal.
My primary goal is to tell the truth and to advocate for what's good for our country.
But...
If you're concerned about, like, the young men getting a little bit too radical and, you know, being too obsessed with the Jews or too against the Jews, which I do think is a legit concern.
tucker carlson
It definitely is.
dave smith
You know, that's not good for you.
And it's not good for you.
It's not good for the conflict.
It's not good for the country.
I just don't think any of...
Racial collectivism always leads to bad places.
tucker carlson
I totally agree.
dave smith
You don't want to embrace that stuff.
But if you're concerned about that...
Well, then the first thing you have to do is tell the truth.
You can't keep lying to people.
And you can't keep sitting here and going like, oh, no, the neoconservative.
You can't say neoconservative, right?
Isn't that Mark Levin?
Didn't he just say the neoconservative?
tucker carlson
Mark Levin, who I also know, I mean, I've been in right-wing world my whole life.
I know everybody.
I work with Mark.
I've always gotten along with Mark.
Always been nice to me.
But yeah, he just accused Trump, the Trump administration, of anti-Semitism.
For calling someone a neocon.
Well, what he did was he accused Steve Witkoff of anti-Semitism.
Right.
And I just want to say I think Steve Witkoff is, if there's anyone who is, you know, has the hand of God on him, it seems to me, I sort of overstate it, but I feel that way.
It's Witkoff who's a thoroughly decent man and who was running around the world trying to bring peace between nations.
dave smith
And also, by the way, who single-handedly saved...
20 Jewish hostages.
tucker carlson
Well, exactly.
dave smith
I mean, I don't know if they were all Jewish.
I think most of them were.
I think almost all of them were.
But I think they got 20 hostages released in the phase one of the ceasefire that he worked out.
Then Israel violated the ceasefire, and so they didn't get the other hostages back, although thankfully the American was just released.
But this guy, Witkoff, has actually done more to help those hostages.
tucker carlson
So here's what, I mean, here's what he said.
I actually wrote this down because I was really bothered by it.
This is Levin on...
Mark Levin, who works at Fox, which basically seems to have turned its programming over to advocating for a war with Iran.
Neocon is a pejorative for Jew.
Unbelievable.
And this is in response to Witkoff saying, quote, the Neocon element believes that war is the only way to solve things.
So you have Mark Levin calling Steve Witkoff an anti-Semite.
dave smith
Right.
Right.
And again...
tucker carlson
We've reached peak...
I mean, I think Lukoff is Jewish, right?
dave smith
Again, but it's...
I don't even know.
But again, it shouldn't matter.
It shouldn't really matter.
tucker carlson
It doesn't matter.
dave smith
He's American, and he's on the side of peace, and so I'm for that guy.
But, you know, the crazy thing...
So I also...
At one point in the debate with Douglas Murray, I said something about the neoconservatives, and he went, oh, the N-word.
You know, making a play on the N-word or whatever.
And it's interesting.
I mean...
Douglas Murray wrote the book called Neoconservatism, Why We Need It.
It was his book.
And so what happened was, for people who don't know a lot about this, there was a...
This was their term.
Neoconservative was not a pejorative term until the neoconservatives got control of our foreign policy and ruined everything.
And then it became a term that we'll call every war hawk.
We'll be like, oh, another neocon.
Now, a lot of times we will use the term when, strictly speaking, this person may not have been a self-identified neoconservative.
It's just become a pejorative for someone trying to get us in a stupid war.
But the neoconservatives themselves, the original group, this was their name.
tucker carlson
Oh, I know.
dave smith
For themselves.
I was there.
Right, you were there.
You worked alongside them.
tucker carlson
I worked for them.
I worked for Bill Kristol for five and a half years.
I was a neocon.
dave smith
Yes, it wasn't until...
tucker carlson
An Episcopalian neocon.
dave smith
But look, they had no problem using the term until everybody started to hate them.
And then they went, you can't call us this.
But it's like, no, you guys, like, this was your own...
Term that you used for yourself.
You can read their own documents in the Project for a New American Century.
You read the Clean Break memo.
They laid out what they wanted their foreign policy to be.
I mean, literally, wasn't it...
Oh, God, I can't remember whose quote it was.
I know that a bunch of them loved sharing it.
But what is it that every 10 years, we got to throw a small, puny little country up against the wall and show them who's boss?
This was their foreign policy.
We need multiple theaters of war in the Middle East in order to ensure the new century is an American century.
tucker carlson
So immoral and disgusting.
dave smith
Yes.
And also, look, as anybody can read, I think we talked about this last time I was on, but anybody can read for themselves the Clean Break Memo.
It was written by Richard Perle and David Wormser to Benjamin Netanyahu that was like, look, here is our plan.
And the break was from the peace process.
The break was from Oslo.
And they go, look, here's the plan.
You know how Yitzhak Rabin and all these liberal Jews are saying, We'll have to make peace with the Palestinians so that we can then make peace with the broader Arab world.
Well, no.
We got a new plan.
We're going to break with all of that.
We're not doing this land swap thing.
We're not giving the Palestinians a state.
What we'll do is we'll have America overthrow all of these other governments.
That way you never have to make peace with the Palestinians.
And you can just enjoy.
Domination over the region.
And from my reading of it, it does seem to me that a lot of them believed it.
I think a lot of them hubris.
Yeah, we overthrow Saddam Hussein.
Democracy will sweep the region.
Then we'll overthrow Gaddafi.
Then we'll overthrow the mullahs in Iran.
And then the region will be way better.
Except every time they actually did it, it resulted in nothing but disaster, which really could have been very easily predicted and was predicted by wiser people than the neocons.
All these years later, you either have to, like, apologize for your role in this catastrophe or defend your role in this catastrophe and talk about how you still really believe it was the right thing to do.
But you can't sit here and say, you're not an expert and you're a Jew hater if you say the word neoconservative.
That's not an appropriate response.
tucker carlson
But if Mark Levin is calling the Trump administration anti-Semitic Steve Wyckoff...
We're at the end of something and the beginning of something new.
That's right.
Right?
I mean, that's so...
I almost called Mark when I saw it because I really know him, but I really love Steve Wyckoff and I think his decency...
I don't agree with him on everything at all, but his decency is just palpable.
I mean, it just comes through.
His concern for people, his reasonableness is just so obvious.
And the effects of what he's done have been so great.
Great for America, great for the world.
I was so offended.
And then I thought, I'm not going to solve anything by calling Mark Levin and scolding him.
Don't be screaming at me!
But I did think, like, he's not stupid.
If you're calling Steve Wyckoff an anti-Semite on Twitter, like, you know you're losing, right?
Is that what that is?
dave smith
And it's such a, you know, what's weird is that at the same time, because I know all of these people, they'll be lecturing me.
About how I don't understand, like, the gravity of anti-Semitism.
And it's like, no, actually, I kind of do.
And I would never just throw the accusation around like that.
I'm very hesitant to ever call any person a bigot or a Jew hater or racist or any of these things.
Because it's like, you're...
We're intentionally trying to dehumanize them on the accusation that they're dehumanizing others.
tucker carlson
It's scaring the crap out of people.
I'm getting texts from people I really love personally who are very, very, you know, who aren't paying a lot of attention.
They just hear that there's anti-Semitism and I'm part of it and it hurts their feelings and they're confused and upset.
And it's like it has such a divisive effect.
Yeah.
Like for real.
dave smith
And it's...
tucker carlson
I'm a little bit concerned.
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dave smith
Yeah, I mean, I'm concerned about all of it.
None of it's particularly good.
tucker carlson
No, it's not good.
dave smith
But there's also something which is interesting to me as somebody who is, I am not a conservative.
I mean, I'm a bit of a right-winger, but I'm not a conservative.
I'm kind of a radical libertarian.
tucker carlson
Well, if Tom Tillis is what a conservative is, I'm not...
dave smith
Yeah, right.
I mean, there are some...
As a libertarian, there certainly are some things that I think ought to be conserved.
I think the Bill of Rights and our traditions and I think Christianity.
I think there's a lot of things that should be conserved.
unidentified
But...
dave smith
It's so bizarre to me that now that I'm at this level where I'm being lectured to by the leaders of Conservatism, Inc., and I have to explain to them that I don't believe in moral relativism.
As if this is a new thing for them to wrap their head around.
tucker carlson
Have you gotten calls from Con, Inc., trying to bring you into line?
dave smith
For the first time in my career, really, I've gotten a few of the calls.
But I mean, I'm too far gone for them.
You know, if you were going to get me to sell out, you would have had to get me a while ago.
You just shouldn't have let me.
tucker carlson
Too late!
dave smith
Well, it is.
I remember, so when I, this is like, I want to say like 2014, 2015.
It was somewhere in there where I said, the first time I ever got on television, the first person who ever put me on TV was Kennedy, who I just adore and will for the rest of my days.
tucker carlson
Sweet girl.
dave smith
I agree.
Just like...
One of the sweetest, kindest.
Really funny.
Really smart.
Weirdly smart.
But when I say weirdly smart, I mean weirdly smart.
Knows about stuff that no one should know about and then has a lot of information about it.
She's a wonderful person.
She put me on Fox Business and then Greg Gutfeld and Tom Shalhoub, who was hosting Red Eye at the time, they started using me on their Fox News shows.
And so it was the first time in my career I started getting on TV.
And I remember a few people at Fox had told me that they were like, hey, some people in management are interested in you.
They're taking some interest in you.
And then it was kind of explained to me, not like ever directly, but it was like, you know, you're a little out there for Fox News.
And I remember at the time, I was broke.
I mean...
tucker carlson
Dead broke.
Put a finer point in that.
What do they mean?
Not in your personal life.
Your personal life is more buttoned down than most people.
dave smith
Well, at the time it wasn't.
This is before I was married and had kids and stuff.
tucker carlson
Believe me, that's not what they care about.
dave smith
I found out pretty quickly by just doing shows at Fox News and then going to the bar afterward with some of the people there, you're like, oh, Conservatism Inc.
is not exactly what you thought.
They're actually pretty liberal when it comes down to the bar hang after the show.
tucker carlson
I would say.
dave smith
But it was, you know, I was a Ron Paul guy, and I was younger, so I was a more, you know...
You know, Ron Paul was a country doctor wearing a suit and tie.
I was like a kid from Brooklyn who was like, you're all a bunch of killers.
You know, like, this is all bullshit.
tucker carlson
It was the foreign policy stuff.
dave smith
It was all the foreign policy stuff, as it always is.
That's always what it's really all about.
And I don't say that because I want it to be the case.
It's just the fact that that's always really what it's all about.
tucker carlson
It took me 40 years to figure this out, but yes, you're right.
You're correct.
dave smith
By the way, all of these even debates today, the people on Twitter talking about the woke right, it just happens to be.
That everyone who's labeled woke right are the ones who are opposing American wars, and everybody who's throwing out the accusation all happen to support them.
tucker carlson
What's woke right?
dave smith
What a coincidence.
It's a nonsense term that they're trying to say.
It's totally ridiculous.
But let me just, on the Fox News thing, so I remember then, and this is time, I was broke.
I mean, like, broke like...
Where they're like, hey, let's go grab a beer after the show.
I'm like, all right, are you buying?
Because if not, let's go grab a six-pack at the store and go back to my apartment.
Because I just had no money.
And I would have, at the time, when they said, they were like, look, they're thinking about you for one of these contributorships.
Whatever it is, it may give you like 100 grand a year or something like that if you get one.
It would have been like life-changing for me.
Life-changing.
And I remember consciously at the time thinking, you know, at a time when I'm making 25 grand a year, thinking, man, Maybe I just don't talk about the foreign policy stuff.
Maybe I just do that.
And then even in the moment I thought about it, just being like, nah, Ron Paul's my hero.
My hero are the people who tell the truth.
So I'm just not going to...
But so if I didn't sell out then, the idea that I'm going to sell out now, when I'm doing really well, it's like, no, that's ridiculous.
You know what I'm saying?
It's like, that's insane.
tucker carlson
It was just funny that I think that...
That Murray thought he was administering the kill shot.
dave smith
I think that's what it was supposed to be.
tucker carlson
But the opposite happened.
It's like, and not to brag, I knew this as I was watching it.
I was like, Dave is about to become way more famous, but not just famous, more authoritative, more respected, more closely listened to than ever before.
Has that been your experience?
dave smith
Yeah, I mean, it's essentially just done nothing except make me bigger.
tucker carlson
Douglas to do that?
dave smith
I did not.
I don't have that type of money.
tucker carlson
Did he throw the fight on purpose?
dave smith
I'm doing okay.
I don't have money like that.
I don't have buy-off Douglas Murray money.
tucker carlson
I don't think it would take too much.
dave smith
Well, it's not just, you know, one of the things that was interesting is that it's not just, so there was the debate.
There was the reaction to the debate.
But then what was really interesting is that then there was the reaction to, just because it became such a big thing, it ended up coming up on Rogan's podcast with other guests later on.
And they're all just kind of making fun of Douglas and how ridiculous he was, because he was ridiculous.
And then it's almost like you see the realization set in with those people that, oh shit, Joe was, what essentially happened here, right?
And this is, I think, for almost everyone to see, is that I've been debating all these guys on Israel-Palestine, and I've been beating all these guys in these debates.
And I'm not saying I'm beating, I'm just saying, like, the reaction, the Oxford-style voting is that I win dominantly.
And then Douglas Murray was almost brought in as the king boss.
tucker carlson
Dad's here, yeah.
dave smith
I mean, Ben Shapiro's not going to do it.
He's not going to come debate me.
And so, who is it?
Who's the best guy to come to?
Well, here's Douglas Murray, the guy who's just known for his...
He's known for.
He couldn't land a blow.
He couldn't take on one argument.
He had to just be resorted to like, it was like you were debating an anti-racist college professor who's just going to tell you the whole time that I'm not even allowed to have this opinion.
Yes, it was just that.
And so then what do you think the response to that was?
Here you have Joe Rogan, who has got some of these guys on his show, who clearly are making a case where he goes, all right, yeah, this is a pretty good argument that this guy's making.
And he brought, you know, as much as...
Douglas was complaining in his op-eds after the fact that it's so unfair that I couldn't just go on alone.
I had to go on with this guy who doesn't know what he's talking about.
It's like, yeah, but this was your opportunity, man.
You could have blown me out of the water and then had Rogan being like, ah, shit, maybe I should have more experts on.
Maybe I've got this comedian guy who I think is making really good points, but then this guy just came in and totally took him on, but he was unwilling or unable to do that.
That was the next freakout, is they realized that, like, oh, Joe just got pushed more in my direction, as his whole audience did.
tucker carlson
I wonder, though, if there's not something a little more sinister underneath it.
I mean, you keep referring to this as a debate, but it wasn't, of course, it was not a debate.
It was Douglas trying to scold Joe into never having you or anyone like you on his show again.
It was basically, he was playing the heavy a little bit.
It was kind of threatening, I thought.
You know, you don't really know because you were a sitcom actor slash comedian slash bowhunter that actually you're playing with some pretty serious shit, Joe Rogan.
And we've been watching, and maybe you should stop having these people on.
That was definitely the vibe I got from it.
dave smith
Oh, no question.
They even used the word when he was talking to Barry Weiss, you know, that embodiment of expertise that is Barry Weiss.
They were talking.
And he used the word platforming.
Joe shouldn't be platforming all of these people.
It's like, okay, so you're...
This is just Animal Farm!
tucker carlson
We're at the end of Animal Farm where the pigs and the people are indistinguishable.
If you're a conservative, using the word platform as a verb?
How long before you call me a white supremacist, actually?
dave smith
Which, essentially, I guess white supremacist isn't the term, but anti-Semite is the term that they're going with.
It's the exact same playbook.
tucker carlson
And then they have the...
Balls to whip around and call you woke, right?
dave smith
Yes, that's right.
tucker carlson
It's Bill Kristol calling me, you know, calling for an ethnostate.
dave smith
Yes, it's all the same thing, right?
You're sitting here.
We have, in this country right now, we have speech laws being passed.
In the name of students feeling not safe on college campuses, and you get the accusation of bigotry used to shut down real dissent and real conversations, and then they're going to turn around and say the other side is woke.
tucker carlson
So that's when I stopped laughing.
That, I mean, that is shocking to me.
And the fact that the Congress had scheduled, it was, thanks to Marjorie Taylor Greene, it was pulled off the schedule, but...
God bless her.
dave smith
What a weird world we're in where she's the savior.
Marjorie Taylor Greene is who, that's where we're at.
tucker carlson
You know why?
Because Marjorie is totally sincere.
She's actually not a liar.
She's sincere.
That's why they hate her.
But there was a vote scheduled on a bill that would have made it a felony for Americans to participate in a boycott of Israel.
And as someone who has zero interest in participating in any kind of boycott, much less against Israel, I'm just not interested.
I'm happy.
Whatever.
Buy the hummus and use the software.
I don't care.
But I probably would have engaged in one just to make the point that I'm a free man in a free country.
How could you even consider voting on something like that?
dave smith
And isn't the most outrageous part of it, or at least to me, I mean, I guess it's all outrageous, but the crazy thing is that we've, and we've seen this in the last decade, where Hollywood types and big musicians would boycott red states?
Like if they tried to pass a six-week heartbeat bill for abortion?
Or the bathroom bill?
So you could boycott states in our own country, but you can't boycott a foreign country.
It's like the double standard there.
Again, this is why I said the thing about relativism.
Because in the same way that people will talk about...
And the same people who will harp on, you know, anti-Semitism on Twitter.
And like, I'm not denying it, something's going on there, clearly.
Big time.
Like, there's a real thing happening here.
tucker carlson
Big time.
dave smith
And it's not, as I've said, and again, this isn't necessarily the most important aspect to it, but...
Personally, one of the things that annoys me about that is like, it's not helping my argument.
It's an albatross around my neck.
And it's the reason why every goddamn debate that I'm in, the first thing they're going to bring up is, well, look at all these people on Twitter who are saying all this stuff.
So I wish those people would knock it off.
But you also, okay, we don't need two standards here.
One standard will do just fine.
Let's have one standard and apply this across the board.
Because the amount of anti-Muslim bigotry, anti-Palestinian bigotry, dehumanizing of the entire Palestinian people.
tucker carlson
Sam Harris is engaged in for 20 years.
dave smith
Yeah, that's right.
And then they're going to turn around and be like, oh my God, there's all this dehumanizing bigotry out there.
It's like, yeah, none of that is good.
None of that is good.
It's not good for you.
It's not good for the conversation.
It's just bad.
You don't want to dehumanize an entire group of people ever.
tucker carlson
You want to treat human beings like human beings?
unidentified
Yes.
dave smith
You know, and that should be fairly obvious.
But also, I will say that, you know, Donald Trump, who I voted for and supported in this last election, I think has done some really good things in his first 100 days or so, and some not so good things.
But, you know, I mean, he...
He would turn in the debate and call Joe Biden a Palestinian.
He said this about Chuck Schumer, too.
He's basically a Palestinian.
You're like, whoa.
And for all the people who have been screaming bigotry for the last decade, no one ever thought to be like, "Hey, you know, that's not like an insult." I know.
It's not an insult to call someone a Palestinian.
I've met lots of Palestinians who are really great people.
There's nothing wrong with them.
And again, like if anyone, if a presidential candidate ever like stood up in the debate and went, "Oh, this guy's a real Jew." We'd all be like, "Whoa, what the hell is that?" I know.
You don't get to say that in a political debate.
I know.
And so there's this, there's a ton of this.
You have, you know, Nikki Haley going over and signing bombs?
tucker carlson
It's hard to overstate how much I hate that, by the way.
dave smith
Yeah, well, right, and I mean...
tucker carlson
There are a lot of unreasonable Palestinians, of course.
There are also some wonderful, a lot of Christian, a lot of Christian Palestinians, a lot of wonderful Muslim Palestinians.
So I hate that.
dave smith
Yeah, it's terrible.
Yeah, it's terrible.
It's terrible on any side.
You don't dehumanize people like that.
And so...
What's his name?
I'm blanking.
What's the congressman in Florida?
Randy Fine?
Is Fine his last name?
I don't know, but did you see the stuff he's posted?
Oh my god.
So again, okay.
tucker carlson
He's the one who's like, we want to kill all their children or something?
dave smith
I think someone tweeted a picture of a dead Palestinian baby and he said, good, we need more or something like that.
It was something really close to that.
I don't want to get this wrong.
tucker carlson
Who could vote for someone like that?
dave smith
Trump endorsed him.
After that.
tucker carlson
After he said it was good that a baby was dead?
dave smith
I mean, you know, again...
tucker carlson
I would love to have him on and just ask him about that.
dave smith
Pull up the actual tweet on that, because I don't want to, like, misremember it, but it was something really egregious.
And he's, you know, there's just...
Look, there's a lot of this stuff.
It's how you get Nikki Haley signing bombs that are about to go get dropped on women and children.
You're like, I'm sorry, that's fucking sickening.
Like, what the hell is that?
Like, what are we, a part of some death cult or something?
I mean, this is, like, real...
And so, of course, then, you know...
Douglas Murray's book is like democracies and death cults or whatever, which is kind of funny in a way to be pro-democracies while you're also making the argument for expertise.
Because you would think, like, if you're for democracy, the whole point of this, the whole point of experts is to explain it to regular people who will ultimately have the authority of deciding which experts are in charge and which experts are not in charge.
You know, there's a little contradiction there.
But again, this is my issue.
And this is where I think, Tucker, in some way, we're really like kindred spirits.
tucker carlson
I love what a higher IQ you have than Douglas Murray.
dave smith
It just cracks me up!
He's got a very high verbal IQ.
He's more talented in a lot of ways than me.
I'm telling the truth.
tucker carlson
No, no, but I mean, that's such a deep contradiction that I doubt he's aware of.
dave smith
Probably not.
But I will say this, and this is where I think in some ways, this is why me and you always get along.
I think we're kindred spirits in this way in some sense.
tucker carlson
For sure.
dave smith
But I really do, I mean this.
I mean this so sincerely.
In my soul, in my heart of hearts, I'm a crotchety old right-winger.
That's who I want to be.
I try my best.
I'm not just a Western chauvinist or whatever.
I think Western society is better than everything else.
I'm a libertarian, and I think it's one of the goofiest things about libertarians in general, that they kind of try to run away from that and be egalitarian to some degree.
That's ridiculous.
What do you tell you?
You believe in individual liberty?
Well, then you don't get to say every civilization is equal, because only one of them respects individual liberty, and that's the better one, okay?
tucker carlson
By your own definition, it's the better one.
dave smith
That's right.
So, screw all this other...
Egalitarianism is a revolt against nature, as the great Murray Rothbard wrote.
I'm against all of that.
I don't believe in...
I don't believe in all cultures are equal.
I would like to sit here and look down on the Muslim world.
That's what I would like to do, because my society is so much better, and if anything, I'd be lecturing you.
You guys got to do liberty better.
You guys don't really even understand how a free society works.
I'd like to be there.
tucker carlson
Me too.
I once was.
dave smith
That's what confirms my bias, is stuff like that.
The problem is I just know too much about our government and what our government's done to these people.
And not just what we've done to them, but that we've been propping up the Islamists for 40 years.
unidentified
Literally.
dave smith
So, what are we talking about here?
You can't then turn around and go, look at them, they're a bunch of Islamists.
No, I know what you did.
You propped up the Islamists so you didn't have to deal with the commies.
Like, regardless of any of that.
Again, I insist on one standard for everything.
If you're going to say Hamas is a death cult, what the hell is the U.S. government?
What is the Israeli government?
You get to sit here as my government has, in the last 25 years, destroyed Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Ukraine, and now Gaza.
That's what my government's done.
I don't get to call someone else a death cult.
I'd like to.
I'd like to just look down at them as a death cult.
But sorry, we're the biggest purveyors of violence in the world.
Not Vladimir Putin.
And, like, again, it's just, if you look at these things, you just have to have one standard and apply them across the board.
This is what I've been arguing the whole time.
And if you're going to say, it's like, okay, October 7th was horrible.
It was absolutely horrible.
Why was it horrible?
Oh, yeah.
Because intentionally killing innocent civilians is, like, one of the most evil things you could ever do.
Okay, then.
tucker carlson
Because people are what matter.
unidentified
Yeah.
tucker carlson
In the end, right?
And all your theories are valid to the extent that they serve people.
And when they hurt people, then they're invalid, you know, I think.
dave smith
Yeah, I think so.
tucker carlson
So, you said that there's this brand new media landscape, information landscape.
Possibility of true free thinking and free speech.
I think it's all true because the old control system has shattered, as you said.
So we're living in this just incredible moment.
How long can it last?
dave smith
That's a good question.
It's very hard to make predictions because it's such a new model.
And it's like we really don't know much about this.
One of the things that I find...
You never want to get ahead of yourself, especially these days.
And there's so many things that could happen that it's kind of impossible to even know what 2028 looks like.
So I'm assuming right now J.D. Vance is probably going to be the guy.
tucker carlson
I hope so.
dave smith
Yeah, I hope so too.
And so you look at this dynamic where you go, okay, so part of...
So you look at Kamala Harris' campaign and say Joe Biden...
The same way.
And Joe Biden, specifically because he was senile.
You know, Joe Biden, younger Joe Biden, while he was never a very bright guy, maybe would have been a little bit different politically.
But Kamala Harris, so she kind of famously, infamously now, turned down the Joe Rogan experience.
She could have been on the show, but she didn't.
Now, a lot of people were saying, oh, what a stupid move.
Turning that down, I kind of disagree.
I go, eh, it probably was the right move.
For sure.
If you had no soul, and you're working for the Kamala Harris campaign, and your only objective in this world was to get her elected, and that invite came in, you're probably going, no, no, no, no, no, no.
You will be exposed.
You can't go do this.
The fact is that Kamala Harris, by the nature of who she is as a person, and by the nature of what she was running on, Is not built for a three-hour, unedited, unscripted conversation.
You can't do that.
Say whatever you will about Donald Trump.
The man's got a lot of flaws, but he is built for that.
He could do eight hours, I think.
Easily.
tucker carlson
Without going to the bathroom.
dave smith
Yeah, which is what I heard.
And Joe said he didn't go before or after.
tucker carlson
True.
dave smith
I've never done the Joe Rowan experience and not gone to the bathroom before or after.
tucker carlson
No, there's the mid-break leak always.
dave smith
Yeah, of course.
This is insane.
The guy's not human.
It's unbelievable.
Okay, so going just into 2028, think about what a change this is.
This is the new standard.
To be a presidential candidate, you have to be able to go and do a three-hour podcast, and actually probably several of them, right?
I mean, Trump did a whole bunch of them before he got elected, and she didn't and lost.
That's it.
And so that in itself just changes everything.
Now we have to actually see who you are as a person.
You know, because it doesn't even matter.
It doesn't even matter what you're talking about for three hours.
It doesn't even matter if you're getting grilled.
tucker carlson
So true.
dave smith
It's just, I get to see who you are.
tucker carlson
And it comes out.
dave smith
So, okay.
tucker carlson
No one can play a role for three hours.
dave smith
Right.
So that's the new normal.
You know, that in itself is a huge transformation.
tucker carlson
I think that has to be stopped.
I think that has to be stopped.
And, you know, I don't want to be, like, too paranoid.
But I think some of the anger and the hate online is organic, and it's rooted in frustration and facts in some cases.
It's not all bad, but some of it is so clearly inorganic, it just obviously is, that you sort of wonder, like, is this all a pretext for shutting it down?
I just can't escape that.
dave smith
I get your point.
And certainly, I never know what is a pretext or what is not, but it's certainly like, oh, this is going to be used that way.
So that's another thing.
It's very short-sighted.
For anyone, it's kind of like nobody ever...
Which, I get it, it's a little bit difficult to do because it's like second or third order thinking, but no one ever kind of thinks about what the reaction is going to be to what they're doing.
It's just whether they can get away with it in the moment, but it's not the fact that it's like, hey, there is going to be a correction for this, and almost certainly an overcorrection.
Because that's always the case.
You know, it doesn't seem like any of those leftists ever thought about when they were pushing, like, all the trans and the kids stuff.
They'd be like, what do you think the result of this is going to be?
You go, oh, here's the result.
Donald Trump winning every swing state.
That's the result.
tucker carlson
Oh, and a handmaid's tale, like, ultimately, we're going to have Sharia law.
dave smith
Well, it does, you know, it's totally right.
tucker carlson
People are always like, really, how did the Muslims take over Europe because Europe went tranny?
That's why?
dave smith
Right, right, right.
tucker carlson
You're going to see white girls begging for Sharia law.
dave smith
And of course, there's many factors involved, but there's no question that there are these cycles.
And I do think there's an onus on, say, people who were against the censorship regime.
And we're against or are against the U.S.-Israeli, you know, special relationship.
It's like, okay, but if you've got the freedom to actually speak about this now, understand a couple things.
Understand that, like, you're getting something that generations before you, they never had.
Generations before you, your career would have been ruined.
You never would have been allowed to say these things.
And there does, that carries with it a responsibility.
You know, it carries with it a responsibility to do this in a way that, like, number one, You're getting it right.
You're not being sloppy.
You're not leading people down a bad path.
You're not demonizing people who don't deserve to be demonized, who are not a part of this.
And ultimately, that you won't be handing the excuse to the other side who obviously, as you said, needs to rein this in.
These guys cannot compete in a free market, and so they have to rig the market in their favor.
Forever they had the market rigged in their favor.
For the first time now, they kind of don't.
They still do a little bit, but they don't in terms of the conversation.
They still certainly do in terms of the power of government, but they don't in terms of the conversation.
It's like, okay, what do you want to do with that now?
tucker carlson
The problem is that so much has been hidden either intentionally or just through kind of a veil.
Of misdirection.
That people are learning a lot of stuff at once.
dave smith
Yeah.
tucker carlson
And it's frying some circuits.
And I think the thing that I try to meditate on every single day is that I am commanded to and intend to treat each individual as an individual.
Period.
Period.
dave smith
Yeah.
tucker carlson
And when you do that, it keeps you from going totally insane.
And it also opens you up to the beauty of life, to the joy of life, which is being surprised by people and their complexity, good and bad.
And like the capacity of someone like Steve Wyckoff to like do stuff.
If you'd asked me, can Wyckoff do that?
I don't know.
I mean, I knew Wyckoff before, but like, look what Wyckoff is doing.
It's incredible.
I don't know.
It's just treat people as individuals.
You're commanded to do that.
And I do think it's harder to do that online.
dave smith
Yes, I agree.
And I also, you know, it was weird because...
It was an interesting experience for me this last month or so because I've never really...
I think this has helped me in my career is that I didn't blow up out of nowhere.
I know other people who have.
In comedy, I know people who just exploded.
They were in open mics with me and then they got an audition for Saturday Night Live and then they got it.
And now they're world famous.
You know, you go literally from being a complete unknown, not even an established comedian, a newer comedian who can't even work the clubs, to being, like, world famous.
I've seen people have that.
tucker carlson
How'd that work for Britney Spears?
dave smith
It's not good.
Especially bad when you're young.
tucker carlson
That's the worst time for it to happen.
It happened to me, actually.
dave smith
Right.
Yeah.
Well, that's right.
You had that experience.
tucker carlson
Luckily, I was humiliated along the way, so it'd be more normal.
dave smith
But that's the antidote for it in a weird way, right?
tucker carlson
I totally agree.
dave smith
Because it's all ego stuff.
So the antidote for...
Blowing up your ego is destroying your ego, which is very painful, but it's good.
Like a hangover, the hangover is actually getting you healthy.
It sucks, but the hangover is the cure.
Getting drunk was the problem.
tucker carlson
That's why it's hard to become addicted to cocaine.
People seem to pull it off anyway, but I never understood that.
How could you become addicted to this?
You feel horrible.
dave smith
I know.
It is.
Well, that's right.
tucker carlson
Sorry to say that.
dave smith
No, but that's exactly right.
Okay, so for me...
It was always like a logical progression, like one step more, one step more, my profile kind of rose.
But this thing was the biggest thing I've ever done in my career.
It was like the biggest reaction to any show or any debate that I've ever done, because it was on Rogan's podcast, and he doesn't usually do debates, and it was the most contentious issue of our day, so it became this big thing.
And now I'm at a place where, you know, I'm 42. I have a great wife.
I got two little kids that I play with every day.
I have a nice house.
My life is like set up.
I'm an adult.
But when the kind of hate attack, this coordinated attack, and everyone who's attacking me just happens to have their name written in Hebrew letters and a Jewish star in their bio, and they're all saying the most vicious stuff.
I've been sitting here, and I'm like, wow.
Dude, if I were 25 and I wasn't Jewish, I could very easily see my response to this just being like, man, screw these people.
Now, I'm not saying that would be correct, but it's just like you feel that because that's the impulse.
But what you just said, I think, is the key point, which is that believing in individualism...
It's like a grounding force.
It kind of inoculates you against collectivist nonsense.
And when I say that, one of the problems here now is that the left, which is what they do, is they attack terms and concepts.
And so whenever you think about something, you start thinking about the lefty version of it.
And it's like, no, no, no, not that at all.
So the left kind of made individualism.
They kind of mixed it together with this self-actualization type.
Of course.
That's not where you are.
That's the path to hell.
You don't want to go down that path.
No, it's not true that because you feel something, it therefore should be actualized, and that's terrible.
However, more old-school individualism, like in the classical liberal enlightenment tradition, is understanding that the individual is a unit of analysis, that individuals are how we exist.
We act as individuals.
We suffer as individuals.
We collectivize as individuals.
tucker carlson
We are born and die as individuals.
dave smith
Exactly.
And that collectivism, what collectivism used to mean, was the idea that the individual ought to be subservient to the larger group.
Not that groups don't exist.
Not that we shouldn't come together.
Of course, we create families, we create churches, communities.
All of these things are wonderful.
But when you do understand, like, true individualism, like that individuals ought to have rights, things like that, it does, it shields you from a lot of this nonsense.
tucker carlson
Well, the question is, does the human being have a soul?
dave smith
Yes, exactly.
tucker carlson
Something that is distinct from all others.
There are billions of human beings in this world.
You are fundamentally different, not just in your fingerprints and iris skin, but in your soul, this thing that we can't quite define, but that we know is real.
dave smith
Yes, and that's why you have a right.
That's why you have rights to anything.
tucker carlson
That's the only reason.
unidentified
Exactly.
tucker carlson
That's the only reason you have a right.
dave smith
I remember I was watching, as I mentioned earlier, I was watching you and Brett Weinstein.
Yes.
So I was just, yesterday, was watching this.
And there was one point where Brett said, and I think he was completely right about this, and you guys kind of agreed, but he said, he goes, you know, the claim that Israel has a right to exist has always seemed a little bit strange to me.
And he was like, I mean, they do exist, but do they have a right to exist?
tucker carlson
Does any country have a right to exist?
dave smith
Well, I think the point is almost this.
Countries don't have rights.
Individuals have rights.
You're using an individualist term and then attempting to apply it to a collective government.
That's not how it works.
Every single individual who has Israeli citizenship has a right to exist.
Every single individual who does not have Israeli citizenship has a right to exist.
Every Palestinian.
This is why people make these arguments.
There never was a country called Palestine.
Totally irrelevant.
It has nothing to do with anything.
It doesn't matter if there was a government or a country.
It doesn't matter where the lines on a map are drawn.
Now, again, I'm not making a lefty argument here.
I'm not saying, therefore, you can't have immigration restrictions.
Of course you can, because a group of people can own a plot of land, and they get to decide who can come and who can't come.
But the point is that if you're trying to apply rights to collectives, you're going to realize that it doesn't make sense.
And the same way they do this constantly.
Where they apply things like, they'll say, does Israel have a right to defend itself?
You go, no, individuals have a right to defend themselves.
And by the way, when I defend myself, I don't have the right to aggress upon other innocent people who happen to be in the general vicinity of the person who I want to defend myself against.
Exactly.
tucker carlson
That are distinct but equal to mine.
dave smith
Exactly.
And that's really all it takes to kind of cure you of a lot of this collectivist nonsense.
tucker carlson
Yes!
And there is something about the form, though.
I do think form matters in the same way reading a book on Kindle is a different experience from reading one in print.
It just is.
Wish it wasn't.
There's something about the form of social media that disaggregates people from their souls.
Or at least that's my experience of it.
Like, you can just get so pissed off.
That you forget that every person...
You were telling me this at breakfast this morning.
You're telling me about the preamble to Daryl Cooper's World War II series.
Oh, it's so good.
Will you say that?
dave smith
Yeah, so he hasn't put the series out yet.
I think he's working on it.
I hope it's out soon.
But so, Daryl, as he talked about on your show, is putting together this big World War II series.
And when Daryl Cooper does the series...
tucker carlson
We're having him back this summer.
dave smith
I can't wait.
I can't wait.
Also, I'm excited for the reaction.
But I actually think a lot of people are probably going to be disappointed because he's not going to give them...
He's not going full Nazi?
Well, that's the thing.
Of course not.
tucker carlson
Of course not.
dave smith
It's weirdly the only people...
By the way, it's so funny because it's this symbiotic relationship that you see all the time.
It's like the only people who want him...
It's like the Nazis and the Zionists are the ones who are like, please be a Nazi.
Please be a Nazi.
Everybody else is like, oh great.
tucker carlson
I wonder if they're getting paid from the same source.
I suspect some of them are.
In fact, I don't suspect I know.
dave smith
I'm sure a lot of them are.
And that's part of this new landscape.
So he does this.
He put out the prologue for the series.
And he had this wonderful partnet.
I hope I can kind of do it justice.
But it was so beautiful the way he said it.
But he was talking about, like, when you start to think about, you know, the people in Germany in World War II and how there were little three-year-old girls and eight-year-old boys and there were women and there were all that, you know.
And if you start to kind of humanize them, or if you start to dehumanize them, as many were making the attempt to do, he said, you...
You might find yourself having two competing voices in your head.
Like, on one level, you go, well, of course, there were innocent women and innocent children, and of course, these are people, just like anybody else.
And then you might have some other voice that goes, well, they were Germans, and it was World War II.
So what are you doing?
Trying to humanize anyone.
And he goes, okay, that second voice is not you.
That's not you.
That is a spirit outside of you acting on you.
And just so you know, it's the secret.
Exactly.
Dude, it's so funny for people trying to demonize this guy.
Like, this is who he actually is.
When he's talking to his audience and he's got a message to give them, this is the message he's giving them.
And man, he's just so right about that.
And it's the same thing as, like, when you see, like, some hardcore Israel supporter and then some hardcore, like, radical pro-Palestinian and, like, they're going, like, all the Jews.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And then they're going, all the Arabs, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And you're like, you're the same person.
Both of you are the same person.
And I'm not trying to completely equate it because obviously the Palestinians have lost in this conflict.
They're the ones who have been, you know, they've been fucked over in a way that the Israelis haven't.
Anytime that you're, like, dehumanizing an entire group of people, setting the stage to then justify some type of brutal aggression that could not be justified without dehumanizing them first, you are participating in the same exercise that is the reason throughout all of human history that we've had genocides and wars and ethnic cleansing campaigns and just horrible atrocities.
Don't do that.
Whatever you do, if you ever find yourself doing that, don't do it.
tucker carlson
We're not allowed to do that.
unidentified
Yeah.
tucker carlson
I mean, you play with fire when you do that.
And I've stayed silent a lot as I've seen it happen, and I feel shame thinking back on it.
When Osama bin Laden's wife was shot, I remember thinking, okay, she got shot and married to Osama bin Laden.
That's a pretty risky proposition, being married to Osama bin Laden and living in Pakistan got it.
So I guess, you know, there are risks and she knew what they were.
On the other hand, I'm not cheering an unarmed woman getting shot to death under any circumstances.
And I don't want anyone in my country doing that either because I love my country and I love the people who live here and they're my countrymen.
And I think it's bad to just stay silent.
Anybody who encourages you to take pleasure at the death of another person...
Is, you know, acting on behalf of forces that we should be rejecting.
dave smith
Yeah.
You know, I said this...
tucker carlson
I don't care who it is.
dave smith
I was on Lex Friedman's podcast pretty recently.
tucker carlson
That guy's a good interviewer, actually.
dave smith
He's great.
He's a great interviewer.
tucker carlson
Everyone makes fun of Lex Friedman.
I made fun of Lex Friedman, probably.
Or I heard other people do it.
I didn't say anything.
And then I was interviewed by Lex Friedman.
I was like, this guy's...
Weirdly good at this.
dave smith
Yeah, it's really good.
It's easy for people to look at it and think they could do it, too.
It's a skill to interview somebody, and he is excellent.
tucker carlson
Look what he gets!
Did he get good stuff?
I haven't seen it.
Did he get good stuff?
dave smith
Oh, it was great.
And he was asking me, like, he started really getting into the detail of, like, what I believe a just war is and what an immoral war is and why is that.
And the example I used, which I think, like, I know because I've heard you talk about this stuff, too.
I think you'll agree with me.
But I was like, Okay, let's take World War II and let's say that, like, not only is the official narrative right, let's tweak some things here.
It's so much more right than, you know, the Nazis are...
If it's possible, they're even worse than the real Nazis were.
And if it's possible, they actually were going to take over the world.
And actually, we would all be speaking German.
Like, let's say not only were they going to take over England, they were going to cross the Atlantic and come take over North America also.
And the entire world would have fallen into Nazi totalitarianism had they won the war.
And let's say in order to stop the Nazis, we had a way where we could do it, where no innocent civilians were killed except one.
You know, we could...
Literally, we could take out the Nazis, save the entire world from totalitarianism.
By the way, in this model, there's no Joseph Stalin.
Joseph Stalin's a great guy, and the Soviets are a free country.
There's no moral questions about who we're working with.
All we had to do was we could take out the Nazis by dropping this one super bomb, but one six-year-old girl would be killed.
So I've made it the most clear-cut war in human history.
In that scenario...
I guess you'd go, look, we have to do this.
We have no choice.
The whole world will fall to totalitarianism or the whole world can be saved and one six-year-old girl is going to get killed.
Okay.
I can understand being like, we're making an impossible decision.
We have to do this.
Every year on the anniversary of that war, we should all, like, weep to ourselves.
We should all feel horrible that we had to do that.
Because a six-year-old girl got killed.
Like, I have a six-year-old girl.
This is the most horrible thing in the world that you would ever, like, kill a six-year-old girl.
I mean, my God, I would set the whole world on fire to stop someone from doing anything to my little girl.
And, like, so if that were, in this very clear-cut scenario, not the complexity of real history, in this scenario that I'm laying out.
We should still all be nothing but pity and sorrow that it ever came to that.
And we should rack our brains every day thinking, was there any alternative to that?
Was there any way that we could have done that without this little girl getting killed?
And, like, people could say that's kind of like pie in the sky or hippie-ish or whatever, but...
At the very least, dude, when you're talking about inflicting this level of human suffering on people, the onus is always on the people who are advocating for it to absolutely prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that there's no other option, that we've exhausted everything else we could do.
It has to be this.
And if you come to the conclusion it has to be this, you should still be really sad and somber about it.
This spiking the football stuff, having a Bob Hope special after a war, this stuff that...
America got involved in after the Second World War.
It became kind of like this business of war.
We're spiking the football.
It's just like, it's disgusting.
And then you're telling me about how some other society is a death cult.
Let's examine our own.
tucker carlson
Well, it is disgusting.
And I think you don't have to know the right answer going forward to know what the wrong answer is.
unidentified
Right.
tucker carlson
And it's just, again, you want to approach life.
And statecraft and bureaucracy and everything in your life with humility.
I don't always know the outcome.
I'm not God.
I have limited power.
I think I know that murdering a six-year-old girl will bring world peace, but what if it doesn't?
dave smith
Right, right.
tucker carlson
Or whatever.
I think dropping an atomic bomb.
dave smith
On the off chance?
It doesn't work out?
unidentified
On the off chance, I think.
tucker carlson
You know, dropping the atom bomb will stop an invasion of Japan.
Okay, I think dimming the sun will stop global warming, but maybe I'm wrong.
You know, maybe I'm wrong because I'm a person.
And it's when people stop remembering the limits to their own wisdom and power that things like that you get genocides and stuff.
dave smith
Well, also, again, like I said before, because this is always just my, it's the way my neurotic brain works or whatever, but I just like can't.
I have this consistency obsession or whatever, but I was listening to your show with Matt Walsh the other day, and I did appreciate some of the things he said about me and the debate with Douglas.
For a Daily Wire employee, I think that's about as nice, about as good a reaction as I'm going to get.
But he was at one point saying that he was like, well, you know, so then the real important, the good point that he said that Douglas Murray made was when he asked me, Well, then, how do you get rid of Hamas?
Like, what's your plan?
So, number one, it's not a point.
It's a question.
But then Matt Walsh was saying, like, well, look, I can understand you saying you're against what Israel is doing, but then what should they do to get rid of Hamas?
And it's just interesting to me to see any conservative going, wait a minute, so you're against these babies being killed?
And it's like, yes, yes, let's call this, I don't know, let me think of a term for it, the pro-life position.
Let's call it that.
Remember?
Remember the foundational principle that you've been talking about for your entire career?
But wait, hold on.
So, first of all, before, which, by the way, there are lots of other ways to deal with Hamas, obviously, but no, actually, I don't have to solve that problem before I can object to killing innocent children.
Right?
Like, no, it is not incumbent on the pro-life person to work out a plan for, like, the adoption.
tucker carlson
Or the college tuition.
dave smith
No, actually, no, I'm allowed for my starting point to be, you can't murder babies.
unidentified
Right?
dave smith
I mean, come on.
tucker carlson
Yes.
dave smith
And, you know, the other thing, which I did want to say, is that I do think, and look, by the way, I...
As I'm saying, we're both here kind of coming out against the excesses on both sides.
I'm against racial collectivism.
I'm against collective guilt.
Against collective judgment even.
Yes, collective punishment for sure.
But, so like, I'm not saying, you have to like...
You shouldn't hate Jews, and you don't even have to hate Israelis.
I think you shouldn't hate Israel.
tucker carlson
No, there are lots of great Israelis.
I know some.
Yeah, there are awesome people.
dave smith
There's lots of really, really great people there.
And their government's just done a lot of messed up stuff, but so has ours, and so have lots of governments around the world, probably all of them.
Probably a direct correlation to how much power they have and how much evil stuff they can do.
tucker carlson
Exactly.
dave smith
But, you know, I do think it's a little bit of a cop-out.
For some people who I like very much, I like Matt Walsh.
I've never met him, but I think his documentaries are great.
I think he's been an important voice in the national conversation, like a very important voice.
I like Tim Poole very much.
I've done his shows lots of times.
I've met him lots of times.
I think he's a great guy.
But there are these guys who will basically say, like, I'm a non-interventionist.
I only care about America.
I don't care about these other countries, so I don't care.
I don't have an opinion on it.
And it just seems to me like that's a cop-out.
It's kind of like in 2006 saying, you don't have an opinion on Iraq.
I don't care about Iraq.
I only care about America.
It's like, well, we're in Iraq right now.
tucker carlson
Well, I agree with that.
That's right.
And that's why I felt from the beginning kind of like Shanghai'd into this.
I mean, I don't care on the level that I just want to focus on my own country.
But if we're deeply involved in it, then I have an obligation to care if it's my job to pay attention to what our country's doing, which it is.
dave smith
Right.
Well, listen, I have no argument to anybody who goes, I'm just not going to pay attention to politics.
My best friend in the world is Luis J. Gomez, who came on your show.
tucker carlson
What a good dude.
dave smith
And he's the best.
And literally, and this is, he is being completely sincere.
When you asked him on your show, you go like, so what are your politics?
And he goes, politics is gay.
And that's literally his only answer.
And I have in all of my years, I'm literally, I'm his best friend.
I don't have a counter to that.
I go, that is a pretty good point.
tucker carlson
I married you a woman like that, yes.
dave smith
Yeah, me too.
You know, and like, so it's like, I have no argument against that.
But if you're in this world where we're talking about these things, then you don't get to just say, well, look, taking this opinion, which is the obvious logical conclusion of my stated principles, but if I take them to their conclusion, that will cause me grief.
Therefore, I'm going to say I don't really care about that.
Because, look, here's the thing.
If you do care about being America first, and you care about America not getting into another stupid, catastrophic war in the Middle East, well, who's pushing us in that direction?
And this is not a conspiracy theory.
This is, like, totally out in the open, right?
I mean, the longest-serving prime minister in Israeli history is Benjamin Netanyahu, okay?
Right?
Benjamin Netanyahu came...
To the U.S. Congress in 2002 and testified as a regional expert that we should go overthrow Saddam Hussein in Iraq because democracy will sweep the region.
He then also said in front of a congressional testimony that we should overthrow Muammar Gaddafi in Libya and that we should overthrow the mullahs in Iran.
Okay?
He's been advocating.
He's been John McCain.
He's been Dick Cheney this whole time advocating that we fight this next war and this next war and this next war.
They're right now.
What was it?
Three, four weeks ago, they drew up war plans, including us, to go to war with Iran.
It's only because Donald Trump, who seems to be willing to help them ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip, but said, that's a bridge too far for me.
I'm not going to war here.
And so, thank God, now we're in negotiations with the Iranians.
But if you know this, then, like, for you to be a non-interventionist America first, it has to at least come with, and hey, we should cut Israel off.
And we should not listen to Benjamin Netanyahu.
Like, I'm sorry, that's just...
Totally reasonable.
tucker carlson
Or Keir Starmer or any of them.
dave smith
Yes, that's right.
So, okay, just take the position, which is the obvious one.
We should stop funding what Israel's doing.
We should stop propping them up.
It's been quite a while.
The country was created in 1948.
It is 2025.
You can either go with this alone or you can't.
Come on.
tucker carlson
And those are fair terms, by the way.
I mean, those are the terms that the rest of us live our lives on.
dave smith
Yeah, that's right.
tucker carlson
I mean, you make budget decisions in your home on the basis of what you can afford.
unidentified
Yeah.
tucker carlson
And there's some things you don't do, you know.
No, all of us mere mortals have those constrictions on our behavior.
Like, they're the things I want to do, and they're the things that I think I'm capable of doing.
There's a big difference.
dave smith
And if I was sitting here and giving, like, these bravado, you know, infused speeches about all of the things that I can do, but really it relied on me borrowing the money from you in order to do it, you'd be like, hey, maybe stop giving this speech.
Maybe Benjamin Netanyahu should stop going to the UN and going, there's nowhere that Israel can't touch.
Actually, there's lots of places Israel can't touch.
There's nowhere the US can't touch.
tucker carlson
I know.
I just think it's getting too out in the open and I do, I mean, I guess I fret too much in general, but I do worry now that it's like super obvious what's going on that things will just devolve into like...
Some are very ugly.
dave smith
Well, that's why if you have any sense about you and you don't want to see things devolve into something ugly, that's why you want to make sure we don't get into another war right now.
tucker carlson
I totally agree.
dave smith
It's unbelievable.
It's remarkable.
I'll tell you this, right?
And I'm somebody who has...
I've really, you know, been focused on this stuff for a long time.
You know, I mean, I host, I do a show four days a week, and I'm always reading about this stuff, and I've done all the background reading.
I mean, I know a lot about, like, the neoconservatives and what motivates them, what their worldview was.
I will tell you the first thing that really surprised me, and I was genuinely surprised, and I hate the neoconservatives, like, I'm not, it's not that I don't understand how evil what they believe is.
I was really surprised that the Ukraine thing, the Nazis in Ukraine, didn't mess with them at all.
tucker carlson
I was shocked.
dave smith
I was really surprised.
You know, I know why they support all the wars they have supported.
I thought that for the neoconservatives, real deal, not even neo-Nazis, Nazis, like the grandsons of the Nazis who perpetrated the Holocaust in Ukraine.
Proudly wearing swastikas, tattoos, and waving flags.
I mean, like, they threw their support behind the Azov battalion.
This was very strange.
Like, this was a line to me that I was like, oh, wow, they'll really go that far?
But I'll tell you, I am blown away by the fact that anybody who is out there shrieking about the rise in anti-Semitism is not wise enough.
To go, we cannot fight a war with Iran right now.
Because if we get into a war right now that's clearly on Israel's behalf, after 25 years of terror wars, which were pretty clearly, at least partially, on it.
I'm not going to go quite as far as Jeffrey Sachs, although he's an expert and I'm not, so I guess he's right and I'm not.
But I wouldn't quite say that we outsourced our foreign policy to Israel.
There's a lot of truth to that statement.
Was it Mearsheimer or Sachs who said, I view Benjamin Netanyahu as the worst U.S. president of the 21st century?
It's pretty hilarious.
And there's a lot of truth to that, but it's not like 100% true.
It's like, okay, but look, it's obviously, as I just said, Israel has been using its considerable influence to convince us to...
Go to war in Iraq, in Libya, in Syria, in all of these places.
I think Yemen was more for the Saudis.
Afghanistan was our own thing.
But those wars, particularly, Israel was really on board with.
And if we were to go get into a war with Iran right now, which will be a much bigger disaster than any of the previous terror wars, there's really no argument about that.
Iran is just not a pushover.
Yeah, that's right.
They can take out a lot of our guys.
And then what do we do after that?
tucker carlson
Well, they can also destroy Israel with conventional weapons.
dave smith
Yeah, there's a lot that they can do.
But if we actually go to this war on behalf of Israel, I mean, what do you think that does to the level of anti-Semitism?
Now, by the way, that's not the number one reason not to do it.
That's like the number six reason not to do it.
But for these people who are so concerned, they're so concerned about the existential threat to Israel.
Well, here's the thing, right?
Hamas, while they did pull off October 7th, which was by far the biggest attack Hamas has ever pulled off, Hamas was never an existential threat to Israel.
But this actually is what they're doing right now in some sick, self-fulfilling prophecy.
This actually is creating an existential threat to them.
tucker carlson
I completely agree.
If I live there, and I think enough of Jerusalem that I would like to live in Jerusalem, I think it's...
The most incredible city in the world.
I truly love it.
But I would leave because I think they're...
And I said this to an Israeli friend of mine recently.
I'm a little bit concerned.
Not that it's my job to be concerned for your country.
Lots of other people have that taken care of.
But just as a bystander, it's like, whoa.
This is not good.
And I didn't...
He had no sense of what I was talking about.
But I...
Yeah.
No, I think the one area where I agree with Mark Levin...
Is that Israel is really in danger, and I think it's people like Mark Levin who are putting Israel in danger, in my view.
dave smith
Yeah, I think that's right.
tucker carlson
Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel that way.
dave smith
No, I think that's right.
I think, just like I was saying, Douglas Murray, it's actually like, no, you're creating fertile ground for anti-Semitism by telling me I'm not allowed to criticize a guy with a Jewish last name.
In the same sense, this is...
tucker carlson
Saying that you claim some Jewish ancestry.
dave smith
Yeah, I mean, come on.
tucker carlson
But that's so low.
It's so low to debate like that.
dave smith
It's really...
tucker carlson
You're the famous debater?
dave smith
Yeah, and like in an op-ed, after you lose a debate, or not even lose, after you refuse to debate and kind of beclown yourself, and then you're writing an op-ed and you don't take on one argument I made, but you do attack whether I'm really Jewish.
By the way, as he'll criticize the just asking questions people.
Well, what the hell is that?
tucker carlson
That's me, by the way.
That's who they're talking about.
dave smith
I know, I know.
tucker carlson
It's so funny.
The first time I heard that, I was like, wait.
Are you actually mad that I asked a question?
Isn't anyone who's trying to shut down questions, isn't that person by definition on the wrong side?
dave smith
Yeah.
Well, you know, it's funny.
tucker carlson
Like, what world are we living in?
I live too long.
I should have died 10 years ago.
dave smith
Well, you know what's so funny about it, too, is that there's, because there's all these different techniques for control, and one of them is just framing.
Like, how you frame a conversation, really, like, with the Israel thing, it's obvious, right?
Like, look, I mean, however you feel about the conflict, the fact is that Israel has occupied Palestine since 1967.
You know, okay, I know, no, we disengaged in 2005.
No, you didn't.
But, like, whatever.
I'm not even, like, I've had this debate enough times.
I'm just saying, this is the fact, is that Israel has occupied Palestine since 1967.
That's the fact.
And then the conversation, they go, Does Israel have a right to defend itself?
And you're like, well, that's a hell of a way to start, you know?
Like, you're the ones doing the occupying, and you want to start every debate with whether you have a right to defend yourself?
Okay.
But with all these things, there's kind of, you know, like, this is what was interesting to me about the conversation with you and Brett Weinstein about the, you know, about God versus atheism and all this stuff, is that, like, so people, it's very easy to have the framing of going, like, Oh, you're telling me you believe there's an invisible man up in the sky who created all things?
That's pretty goofy, right?
It's like, yeah, if you just frame it like that, sure, it's pretty goofy.
I'm sorry, you believe everything used to fit on the top of a pen and then it exploded into everything?
Everything came from nothing and then exploded into...
This is just as ridiculous as anything anyone's ever believed.
So, like, as soon as you look at both sides and apply the same standard to both...
And, you know, there's been a...
One thing that's a very interesting dynamic to me, because I've seen this a lot when people will try to attack you, where what they'll do is they'll pull, like, kind of the five things you've said that seem like almost the goofiest of all the things.
Well, he said this thing about, like, a demon attacking him.
Okay, he said this thing about...
tucker carlson
That actually happened.
dave smith
Right, right.
tucker carlson
Sorry, I didn't want to have.
dave smith
But look, even, yes, in itself, like, okay, that sounds like an outlandish claim, like, I'm not denying it, but then it's almost like they're trying to ignore the totality.
I see this a lot with Bobby Kennedy.
This has been one of the most interesting things about Bobby, is that the people who attack him, they pick on the five, you know...
Goofiest things they can find that they think he said.
He blamed the Wi-Fi for this, or he said something about whatever, the COVID targeting certain genetics and not other genetics.
And it's like, look, even if I grant you there are these five claims, which I don't know if I...
You know, Bobby said some things that I'm like, I don't know if he's right about that or not.
But they're trying to remove the central thing that he said.
And the central...
This is Trump in a nutshell, too, right?
The central thing that Bobby Kennedy said is that...
We spend more money than any other country on healthcare, and we're the sickest.
tucker carlson
Exactly.
dave smith
Now, until you can take on that, you're never going to win by just trying to knock out these other good...
Because at least he's talking about the major thing.
And by the way, not only did he say that, none of you have ever mentioned that.
Ever.
I've watched every presidential campaign.
It's never once come up.
tucker carlson
Well, and in fact, everything they do mention is a way to avoid mentioning it.
dave smith
Exactly.
But we had a whole debate in this country about health insurance, and this never came up.
We had the Obamacare debate, and no one even ever mentioned.
tucker carlson
I didn't know it until Bobby came on my show.
dave smith
Yeah, me neither.
tucker carlson
Back when he was banned, yeah, no.
But I have to say, the thing that I have learned, really above all other things, is the only way to assess a claim is on the basis of whether or not it's true.
dave smith
Right, right.
tucker carlson
Not on whether or not I want to hear it.
on whether or not I've thought of it before, whether or not I'm shocked by the fact that you asked the question.
The only thing that matters is, is it true?
Now, can I know?
Most of the time, no.
I can't know.
But I want my orientation, the way I approach each question, to be the same every single time, which is, is that true?
And the second I stop caring about whether it's true, then I'm acting on behalf of evil.
unidentified
Right.
dave smith
It's that simple.
tucker carlson
Right?
dave smith
Yeah, no, I completely agree.
tucker carlson
So when Bobby Kennedy's like, oh, COVID's, you know, targeted on the basis of genes, I was like, really?
Is that true?
dave smith
Yeah.
Well, I kind of felt, I felt the same way.
And I think particularly what, I think it's very similar to talking about the 9-11 truth or stuff with Jesse Ventura.
It's like, what ends up happening is that after you're kind of red-pilled about so much.
The claims don't seem quite as outlandish.
That's not saying that they're right.
With the 9-11 conspiracy stuff, I've never been completely sold.
I think there are a lot of people who jump to conclusions.
Actually, the evidence isn't nearly as strong as you think it is.
You're doing what everyone does, where you start with a conclusion and then you work your way backward from there.
There's a lot of that.
But at the same time, it's like the people who go, well, our government would never.
You're like, no, that doesn't work anymore, dude.
Sorry.
So yeah, they totally would.
They actually totally would.
I'm not even saying they did in this case, but they totally would.
tucker carlson
Or it's so painful to re-examine the worldview I've built on what would be a fake assumption that I'm not going to do it.
I'm going to yell at you instead for challenging that worldview.
That doesn't work either because it's already happened.
You can only lose your virginity once.
dave smith
Right, right.
tucker carlson
And once you realize that the Warren Commission really was...
I mean, it just was.
And on the basis of evidence, I've concluded that.
Then it's like, okay, if the U.S. government will hide details about the murder of a democratically elected U.S. president, then there's really nothing that they wouldn't do, right?
dave smith
And then the Nixon one is a big one-two punch, you know, because you realize that, like, oh, the guy who became the villain, you know, like, the guy who was, like, supposed to be remembered as the most corrupt.
president was actually the most popular president ever who was totally set up was you know and you're like okay well then we're just not living in the country So I came to that independently, having known a lot of those people.
tucker carlson
I know Bob Woodward personally, and I lived in that world for my whole life.
And Nixon had the highest popular vote percentage of any president in American history.
I didn't in 72. I just didn't even know that.
And when I found out that Bob Woodward...
Was a naval intelligence officer detailed to the Nixon White House, and then the next year gets the biggest story in journalism history, handed to him.
dave smith
And how old was he?
tucker carlson
30, 28, something like that.
dave smith
That happens a lot.
That's totally normal, right?
tucker carlson
And Deep Throat was the deputy director of the FBI, and the guy they installed as president was on the Warren Commission?
dave smith
Yeah.
tucker carlson
Yeah, I never liked Gerald Ford because of the withdrawal from Saigon on April 30th, 1975.
I just thought that was late.
Everything about that was so ugly, but...
Anyway, whatever.
Yes, I agree.
So it's not enough to say I'm not allowed to think something.
dave smith
Right.
But once you recognize those things, it's just impossible to reconstruct the image of America that you once had.
You're like, oh, that's not at all what this government is.
tucker carlson
And that doesn't make you an anti-American bigot.
dave smith
No.
tucker carlson
Any more than saying, like, criticizing a government does not make you a bad person.
dave smith
No, this is...
Sorry!
This is Frederick Bastiat stuff.
This was already figured out a long time ago.
Society and the government are not interchangeable things.
They are different.
Criticizing Joe Biden is not criticizing America.
I'm not criticizing the hills and the lakes.
I'm criticizing this one senile criminal.
tucker carlson
Or my neighbors or my relatives.
dave smith
People I love.
tucker carlson
There's so many of them.
So last question.
You made reference to the Brett Weinstein Conversation we had last week about creationism versus Darwinism, etc., etc., the existence of God.
Do you find in your life, this is a quiz I give a lot of people, more people you know personally talking about God than you did, say, 10 years ago?
dave smith
Yes.
And I am that person.
I mean, I was an atheist 10 years ago.
tucker carlson
What happened?
dave smith
I had my daughter.
I found God the day my wife delivered our first child, which is a fairly common...
I know other people who have had the same thing were atheists until that moment.
tucker carlson
What changed in you?
dave smith
So, all right.
So it was basically, so I met my, so, It's a fairly normal story, but I met my wife and we got engaged and then we got married.
My wife's the most amazing chick.
She's just great.
It's always a thing to say.
It's like, my wife's better than your wife type.
But everybody who knows my wife, I don't mean you, I've never met your wife, but she is better.
And I'm just kidding.
tucker carlson
I don't hear people compliment their spouses enough, actually.
I don't think everyone always says that.
I wish people said that more often.
dave smith
Well, I do.
You know, it's not me.
She's really just the best.
Everyone who knows her would agree.
I mean, like, it's just like, she's like the most amazing woman.
She's just gorgeous and she's really super smart and she's really sweet and kind.
And she's just like, she...
She puts everyone above herself.
I really hit the lottery with her.
And I was habitually single.
I was never a relationship guy.
And I never really wanted to get married.
I kind of always had this view of women are trying to change you or trying to control you.
Every girl that I ever dated always wanted a relationship and then always wanted me to not do this or not do that.
My wife just had my back.
She just always wanted to make my life better.
And she did.
And I just, I fell in love with her.
unidentified
Wow.
dave smith
And I was like, I'm gonna spend the rest of my life with this woman.
And so then we, when she got pregnant, I was just very excited.
It was like, you know, I just got married.
I got a baby on the way.
I was just like, this is gonna be, this is the best.
Like, I'm really excited to do this.
And I was right.
It was the best thing I've ever done.
And so the day that was, well, she was over her due date.
So then they scheduled to come in to induce pregnancy because they don't let you go too long these days, which I guess is maybe they're right about that.
I don't know.
But anyway, so we go to the hospital.
tucker carlson
They get the Pitocin out.
dave smith
Yes, that's right.
So we're at Lenox Hill Hospital in the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
By the way, I should add, just leading into this story, I had been like a militant atheist when I was younger.
I had started to open up my mind a little bit to being like, I was seeing some of the holes in the atheist arguments, but I still was not like a believer in God.
And so we were at Lenox Hill Hospital, and this was the first one.
This is how it started, was the anesthesiologist came in to give my wife an epidural.
And at Lenox Hill, or at least this guy, They asked me to leave the room.
They said they ask the fathers to leave the room when they do it, you know, because they're putting a spinal thing in, and they have to be very, very precise.
unidentified
It's horrifying.
dave smith
Yeah, right.
And they don't want, I guess they don't want you there to react, because then she might react.
tucker carlson
Exactly right.
dave smith
And so they don't want to, so I go at...
tucker carlson
And she can't see what's happening.
dave smith
Right, right.
She can't see, but she could see you seeing, and so they want people with a straight poker face who have seen this a lot of times and are not watching it happen to their wife and baby, you know?
So it's a reasonable ask.
But so I go out and I'm in the hallway in the maternity ward at Lenox Hill Hospital.
And it just hit me.
It was like for the first time, I guess I had not really thought about this.
I was just so excited to get my family started.
But for the first time, it hit me that something could go wrong and that I could leave here alone.
Something could go wrong that I could lose my wife and it's totally out of my control.
And as this started hitting, I started really getting emotional.
And it's like, I'm out there, and I'm crying in the hallway of this maternity ward.
And immediately, I just started talking to God.
And I just started not just talking to God, but negotiating with God.
And I was just like, dear Lord, if you make sure that they're okay, I'm going to do...
Like, I'm going to be the best husband and the best father and I will do this.
And, you know, like all the different things in your life.
tucker carlson
Had you ever prayed before?
dave smith
No, never once in my life.
And it all, you know, like all the things that you know you're supposed to be doing that you're not doing that well.
You know, like I was like, okay, I'll clean this up.
You know, I'll call my mom more often.
I'll do this thing.
I'll do.
And so anyway, so I just started like praying to God and not just praying, but like negotiating.
So anyway, everything was fine with that.
But my wife, this was the first of many times.
She had a very, there were a bunch of complications in the pregnancy.
Everyone came out okay, thank God.
But, so I ended up talking to God a lot that day.
And then just like, as the days went on.
tucker carlson
It's so interesting, it's organic.
dave smith
Well, that's right.
tucker carlson
A lifetime of not believing and then.
dave smith
Yes.
And so this is almost like what intellectually, you know, converted me later, was I was like, hey, what the hell was that?
I mean, I can't look back and just ignore that.
And there was one, you know, like, again, I'm almost a little uncomfortable talking about these things because I like talking about things where I have like a real tight argument that I can prove is irrefutable.
tucker carlson
This is a more profound argument, actually.
dave smith
But it was something where I was like, look, so in the moment when it was really all on the line and out of my control, I wasn't thinking, Maybe God exists.
I knew for a 100% certainty, unlike nothing I've ever known in my life, that not only did I know that God existed, but I knew what He wanted from me.
Like, I knew what my negotiating power in this was.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, I could promise, I'll be a good person.
So not only did I know God existed, I knew that God wanted me to be a good person.
And look, this is something that people who have found God know, and people who don't believe in God maybe will not accept.
But there is something, too, when you open yourself up like that to God, you find out that he's real.
And it's not like he speaks to you or he hallucinates.
I don't see a fiery bush and the words of God started talking, but he...
It fills you.
Like, when you open yourself like that to it, you get filled by it, and there's no more debate in your mind over whether that's a real phenomenon or not.
You're like, any more than, like, if I were to leave here and someone were to be like, do you believe in Tucker Carlson?
And, like, I'd be like, no, I know for a certainty that Tucker Carlson exists.
I was just with him.
It's like that.
And so it was, and it's never, it's...
It changed my life, and ever since, I regularly pray to God.
It's something I'm conscious of every single day.
tucker carlson
No way!
dave smith
Every day.
Every day.
And always, I don't even pray exactly.
I don't ask for things, ever.
I ask for one thing ever from God, which is that my wife and my kids are healthy and safe.
It's the only thing I ever pray for.
I don't ask for anything.
The only other thing that I do is I express gratitude.
I just say thank you for everything I have.
So that's the extent of it.
But I cannot overstate how much I think that's made me a better person.
tucker carlson
Really?
dave smith
Yeah, it's very, very good for you to constantly remind yourself how lucky you are, that you have all the things that you have.
It's very easy to get away from that, and that's where you ruin your inner happiness, your inner joy, is if you start taking the things you have for granted.
Because once you, like, you know...
When you think you could lose everything you already have and then you don't, that's when you really appreciate it.
You really appreciate how lucky we all are.
tucker carlson
Well, not to be too blunt or too personal, but you're on the cusp of change in your life on the basis of what's happened in the last month in your life.
I've just seen this story so many times.
dave smith
Yeah.
tucker carlson
So, to be vulgar, your income in this year will be higher than last year.
I'm just telling you that because you're way more famous and you're also on the right side of...
dave smith
Yeah, I hope so.
tucker carlson
And certainly you're on the right side of popular opinion.
So, like, do you think, I mean, the danger in life is getting what you want and finding yourself unhappier.
Are you worried about that?
dave smith
No, I'm really not.
And I do just think that it's because, again, if this was happening to me at 25 or at 30, I would be very concerned about that danger.
Literally, what I just told you has kind of already happened in my life.
I know who I am as a person.
I kind of know what money actually means.
There's lots of nice things.
I'm not downplaying money.
It's very important, particularly in my position.
It's very important for me to be able to protect my wife and kids, that we have some money, you know what I mean, so that I can do that.
But, no, I'm really not worried about that at this point.
I think I've kind of, like, my wife herself is a very grounding force for me.
She's the person whose approval I seek.
She's the person whose opinion I really care about.
And she keeps me very grounded.
Also, just as you know, having these little kids just keeps you grounded because they just don't care.
tucker carlson
At all.
Like, literally at all.
dave smith
My six-year-old, the other day, we were out to dinner.
And so we're out to dinner.
We're sitting down.
My wife, my six-year-old girl, and my three-year-old boy.
And the owner of the restaurant is like a fan of mine.
So he comes over to the table.
He goes, oh, thank you guys so much for coming.
I just wanted to shake your hand.
I really appreciate everything you're doing.
And I was like, oh, thank you so much.
I appreciate that.
So he leaves.
And then my daughter, a six-year-old, who's kind of 17, but she's six, she turns over at me and she goes, why'd he come over and say hi to you, Dad?
Because you're famous.
And then just turned right back to her menu.
I mean, she could not have just undercut me more than that.
I was like, yeah, I guess I'm not really that cool.
All right.
But that stuff helps.
It's the best.
I'm really lucky that I didn't have this moment.
15 years ago that I had it now.
So I think I'll be good.
But then, you know, you cut back to me in a year.
I come back here, I got, like, the shades on or something.
It's totally ruined me.
tucker carlson
Pellegrino, not Perrier!
Dave, it's wonderful to see you.
No matter how many times you've been here, I hope you'll return.
dave smith
I hope to be in again.
And can I just say, by the way, just the last thing I'll say, and then we can end.
But I will say that, you know...
A big part of the reason why I'm able to do what I do and be kind of protected because I'm not vulnerable, at least I don't think, I hope I don't live to eat these words, but I don't think I'm going to be ruined or canceled or anything like that.
And a big part of it is that Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson have my back.
And you kind of can't really cancel someone in today's world as long as those guys have your back.
And so, no, but I'm saying you're providing a lot of cover for people to be able to tell the truth.
And know that, like, oh, you're not going to be able to, like, shut this person out of the conversation for the crime of telling the truth.
tucker carlson
Well, the money thing is important to that extent.
Money does not make you happy, but being dependent on other people's money can make you enslaved.
And not having debt, not having investors.
We don't have debt or investors.
That makes a huge difference in my life.
But you also have, like, actual skills.
You can just go do shows.
For the rest of your life.
Do you know what I mean?
dave smith
And I'm quite happy to do that.
tucker carlson
That's what I'm saying.
So actually, you were talking about Matt Walsh, who I really do like, and I thought to the extent that he said what he said, kind of impressive considering he works at the Daily Wire.
He still works at the Daily Wire, however.
And I know I'm not mocking him at all.
I worked at Fox News for 15 years, and you do have in the back of your mind, like, oh, can I say that?
Or you self-censor even.
When you're not aware that you do.
But if you're truly independent, then you can be independent.
dave smith
Yeah.
Which is the best.
tucker carlson
The best!
dave smith
It's really just so great.
tucker carlson
Well, I think you're funny, even if Douglas doesn't.
Dave, thank you.
dave smith
Thank you, Tucker.
tucker carlson
So it turns out that YouTube is suppressing this show.
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What can you do about it?
Well, we could whine about it.
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