The Tucker Carlson Show - Dave Smith: Mossad, WWII Myths, FBI Cover-Ups, and Trump’s Critical Next Move in Iran
Aired: 2026-04-01
Duration: 02:40:56


=== Independent Media Power (07:40) ===

[00:00:04]  So it does seem like, in addition to everything, first of all, Dave, thank you.
[00:00:08]  As always, we're late because we just had such a long breakfast, two and a half hour breakfast.
[00:00:12]  I hope this conversation could be as interesting as our breakfast just was.
[00:00:16]  But in addition to everything else changing, you made such a smart point a minute ago about the means of convincing the public.
[00:00:25]  The propaganda machine is completely broken.
[00:00:29]  And so, what does that mean?
[00:00:30]  You're in the middle of a war, you're in the middle of a Massive power shift globally.
[00:00:35]  Like everything is changing the economy, military strength, like everything.
[00:00:40]  And it's impossible to know who is telling the truth.
[00:00:45]  Like who comes out more credible in this in the media?
[00:00:48]  Like who are the people you listen to?
[00:00:50]  What's that look like?
[00:00:51]  Well, I think everybody who's being authentic, I think, is who's coming out ahead of this.
[00:00:57]  It seems like if you look at like the podcast numbers, you know what I mean?
[00:01:01]  Like it's the people who are being critical.
[00:01:04]  Of the regime's policies.
[00:01:07]  It's the people, you know, from my perspective, the people who are telling the truth.
[00:01:11]  And so in the media world, I think there's been this, you know, as you know, because you were in the old media world for so long.
[00:01:21]  Only 35 years.
[00:01:22]  There you go.
[00:01:22]  Okay, not that long.
[00:01:23]  A little bit.
[00:01:24]  You put a little bit of time in.
[00:01:25]  I'm implicated, yes.
[00:01:26]  Look, I always thought, and I mean this, I used to watch you back on your MSNBC show, and you were always.
[00:01:35]  One of the very few kind of authentic people.
[00:01:37]  Even when you were wrong about stuff and things that you look back on and you're like, oh, I've changed my mind about all that.
[00:01:42]  But it's an incredibly phony world.
[00:01:45]  Like news in general, there's something about it that's very, you know, it's very welcome back to the six o'clock news and, you know, like it's just like, what is that?
[00:01:53]  That's not how you talk.
[00:01:54]  Credibility doesn't derive from being right about everything.
[00:01:57]  Credibility derives from being honest.
[00:01:59]  Yes, yes.
[00:01:59]  But so I think after the first 20 years or so, first 15 years of the 21st century and You know, at this point, what we're 26 years into the 21st century now, it's the government, every single crisis that's happened, and we've had quite a few.
[00:02:20]  You know, we had 9 11 and we had the global war on terrorism, we had the huge financial crash in 2008, we had COVID, we had that.
[00:02:28]  Okay, so on every single crisis, the government and the media just lied through their teeth to the American people and got exposed.
[00:02:34]  Like, it's not like anyone now thinks, like, maybe Saddam really did have weapons of mass destruction.
[00:02:38]  Like, we all know.
[00:02:39]  We all know if you get the vaccine, you can get COVID.
[00:02:42]  Turns out you can get COVID even after having the vaccine, as everyone who got the vaccine also got COVID, or just about.
[00:02:49]  And so it was like all these phonies in media lying us on behalf of power, lying to us about these policies.
[00:02:58]  And at the same time as they were getting exposed for all of this, and I do think COVID did it almost more than anything, because the global war on terrorism was over there, but COVID was over here and affected everyone.
[00:03:09]  Also, obviously, the, you know, Covering for a clearly senile president was a pretty easy one for everyone to see through.
[00:03:19]  But so, while all that was happening, also the technology, you know, simultaneously got to a point where, you know, you can do this for a reasonable amount of money.
[00:03:32]  You know what I mean?
[00:03:32]  Like, it's not in 1980, if you wanted to set up your own TV studio, you needed a corporation to get behind you because who had the resources?
[00:03:41]  Whereas everyone now can open their computer.
[00:03:43]  If you have a phone, you can record yourself and put it out there.
[00:03:45]  So, The technology allowed for tremendous parody, and the lying us into all of these disasters resulted in people really craving authenticity.
[00:03:56]  And so, you know, it's just like the propaganda machine got broken.
[00:04:01]  Now, to your point, the policies are still going on, and that just creates a very interesting new time.
[00:04:08]  Like, there just never was.
[00:04:12]  I cannot imagine if while George W. Bush was trying to, you know, push the war in Iraq, let's say for all of 2002, they spent the full year building the case for what.
[00:04:23]  Well, imagine every day Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity were calling out George W. Bush for his lies.
[00:04:30]  Like, the people who George W. Bush voters trusted the most.
[00:04:35]  We're hearing their favorite newscaster calling it telling the truth, doing news.
[00:04:41]  Well, you can't even fathom what that would be like.
[00:04:42]  Well, that's what it's like now.
[00:04:44]  Now that's the situation.
[00:04:46]  And I don't know what that means exactly, but I know that governments all around the world have invested heavily in propaganda campaigns for a reason because they think that's really important.
[00:04:59]  They think it's important that they don't just go invade Iraq, but that they convince you first that he's got nuclear weapons and he's in bed with the terrorists.
[00:05:06]  They're, you know, whatever Condoleezza Rice, we don't want the warning to be in the form of a mushroom cloud from the bomb that doesn't exist.
[00:05:13]  His terrorist friends who he hates, who he's not friends with at all.
[00:05:17]  But so now we're in this new world, and it's very exciting as someone who's a part of it.
[00:05:24]  And it's an exciting moment to be alive, but it is certainly a dangerous one.
[00:05:29]  You know, they say the most dangerous time for a woman to leave, the most dangerous time for an abused woman is when she tries to leave, right?
[00:05:37]  Like that's when he might kill you.
[00:05:39]  And that's kind of how I feel about the government right now.
[00:05:41]  I think you're, I think that's so, first of all, so well put and also so true because it can't actually last that much longer because the disparity in power is too great.
[00:05:53]  So I think a lot of people who have podcasts, I've been in so many different kinds of media, it's hard to remember what this one's called.
[00:05:59]  It was podcasting, it's the same, you know.
[00:06:01]  Sure.
[00:06:01]  It's a kind of silly term that doesn't really make sense.
[00:06:03]  It doesn't.
[00:06:03]  We don't have iPods anymore.
[00:06:05]  I don't know why it just, if that one just stuck for whatever reason.
[00:06:07]  It's so true.
[00:06:08]  But people who have, you know, in independent media feel like they have a lot of power.
[00:06:12]  Oh, I've got so much power.
[00:06:14]  They have no power.
[00:06:15]  They don't control the medium, really.
[00:06:18]  They don't control YouTube.
[00:06:20]  They don't have the FBI at their disposal.
[00:06:24]  They don't have nuclear weapons.
[00:06:25]  So, actually, they are powerless.
[00:06:29]  And through a quirk of history, because we're in a change moment, that's not obvious, but it has to be obvious.
[00:06:34]  There's too much at stake, right?
[00:06:36]  Yeah.
[00:06:37]  There was a.
[00:06:38]  Don't they have to be crushed?
[00:06:39]  I think it was the CNN lady.
[00:06:41]  She used to work for Vice, I believe, but the girl who was known for interviewing the alt right.
[00:06:47]  Figures and she interviewed Tim Dillon last year, and it was right after Trump won his election andor shortly after.
[00:06:54]  And she said, You know, something like, 'You guys are the real power center now,' you know.
[00:07:00]  And she's like, 'Yeah, you podcasters, you guys are the ones with power.' Because I guess, well, okay, more people watch these shows than watch the traditional shows, and Trump came and did a bunch of them, and then he won reelection.
[00:07:10]  Kamala Harris was too scared for wisely.
[00:07:13]  People say that was a real mistake, she should have done Rogan.
[00:07:15]  No, it wasn't.
[00:07:16]  It was a really good call.
[00:07:17]  It was a really, really good call by her team to not do Rogan, actually.
[00:07:21]  It's like after 2016 when they were like, you know, Hillary Clinton's campaign is so stupid.
[00:07:26]  She didn't visit Wisconsin more.
[00:07:28]  And you're like, you really think they're that stupid?
[00:07:30]  No, her numbers went down every time she went.
[00:07:32]  So they were like, stop going.
[00:07:33]  They didn't like her.
[00:07:34]  That's why she didn't go.
[00:07:35]  It was actually her best chance, was that.
[00:07:38]  But anyway, but so they say, oh, you guys, you know, since you guys got President Trump elected, you're the real power center now.

=== The Harris Rogan Decision (03:27) ===

[00:07:45]  And it's like, pretty sure the CIA still has a little bit of power.
[00:07:48]  I think there's still like a little bit.
[00:07:50]  Hanging on in the Pentagon.
[00:07:51]  I'm not quite sure.
[00:07:52]  It's all in Theo Vaughn's hands at this point.
[00:07:55]  You know?
[00:07:57]  But yes, so that's the dynamic.
[00:07:58]  This can't continue.
[00:07:59]  I mean, let's be totally honest.
[00:08:01]  If you.
[00:08:02]  What everyone forgets about Tank Man in Tiananmen Square is like, we don't even know what happened to him.
[00:08:08]  We don't know his name.
[00:08:09]  Probably crushed by the tank, actually.
[00:08:11]  Almost certainly, yes.
[00:08:13]  I'm not laughing.
[00:08:14]  I am laughing because just the delusion that people have, I've got a voice.
[00:08:18]  It's like, no.
[00:08:20]  Well, but that's the weird thing.
[00:08:23]  It's very strange for both these things to be going on at the same time.
[00:08:25]  That's why I said to you at breakfast my analogy is the, you know, on the Roadrunner cartoons when you run off the side of the cliff.
[00:08:33]  But you're still in air for a moment, and then you look down and realize, oh, it's like we're there.
[00:08:38]  How can you keep doing this?
[00:08:39]  So, those people, I mean, and obviously for me personally, it's kind of fascinating because I've been in this world.
[00:08:49]  And over the last two and a half years or so, I've done, I mean, if you count all the debates and Piers Morgan debates or Oxford style debates, I've done like 35, 40 debates on just.
[00:09:05]  Israel or the warfare state or whatever it is, Ukraine, a lot of these things.
[00:09:10]  And I've never, it's like the side, broadly speaking, because there's a lot of differences amongst people who disagree with, say, the war in Iran or US support for Israel destroying Gaza.
[00:09:25]  But broadly speaking, it's not only like we've won the debate, we've like just crushed the, you know, and it's not just me, there's lots of people involved in this, you more so probably than anyone, but When you see, like, you look at the polls, there was this one poll I saw, and that this is just one poll, but there's a lot that back this up.
[00:09:47]  But that it was before October 7th, they'd ask, Who do you sympathize with more, the Israelis or the Palestinians?
[00:09:54]  And it was plus 48 for the Israelis.
[00:09:57]  Yeah.
[00:09:58]  It's now plus one for the Palestinians.
[00:10:01]  And in the U.S., in the U.S.
[00:10:03]  And to just think, so basically a 50 point shift in a little over two years.
[00:10:08]  And Tucker, I mean, I don't know, you've been, you were doing this for longer than me.
[00:10:14]  When does that ever happen?
[00:10:16]  When does any issue ever swing by 50 points in two years?
[00:10:20]  It would be like if I were to tell you in two years, this country would be 95% pro life.
[00:10:28]  It's like, whoa, what happened in those two years?
[00:10:31]  Well, I mean, the pro lifers most are really won the argument.
[00:10:34]  You know what I mean?
[00:10:35]  And so now that we've had for the first time ever a media environment where, say, Israel is not completely protected, like what were the debates about supporting Israel on MSNBC or CNN?
[00:10:46]  No, they don't exist, they never happen.
[00:10:48]  You're not allowed to have those debates there.
[00:10:50]  There's not, maybe like one kind of critical of Israel host will slip in here or there, but if he says too much, he's getting fired pretty quickly.
[00:10:57]  And so we essentially won the debate.
[00:11:00]  It's not close.
[00:11:01]  It's not, there's not a question of.
[00:11:03]  Yes, in a very short period of time, because there was actually a fair, open media system now where, you know, it was really democratized in a way.

=== Winning the Pro-Life Debate (03:11) ===

[00:11:12]  And so you can't look at it and go, does, you know, are you bigger than you've ever been before?
[00:11:19]  Candace Owens is bigger than she's ever been before.
[00:11:21]  I know I'm bigger than I've ever been before.
[00:11:23]  Ben Shapiro is weaker and more of a laughing stock than ever before.
[00:11:27]  You know, like it's just very up.
[00:11:29]  But then at the same time, who won the policy game?
[00:11:33]  Mark Levin.
[00:11:34]  You know, the president is tweeting, go watch Mark Levin's show today.
[00:11:38]  And his base, his voters are going, I think I'll check out Tucker Carlson.
[00:11:45]  You know, I think I'll.
[00:11:46]  And so, so anyway, there's just this very weird thing where like we won the argument, we had the national debate, we, and we won.
[00:11:54]  And yet, we're at war with Iran on behalf of Israel.
[00:11:58]  And I think what you're getting at is like that does just feel.
[00:12:02]  Totally unsustainable.
[00:12:03]  Like, there's either you got to clamp down on these guys like us, or you got to reverse the policy.
[00:12:11]  And I'm really hoping it's the latter.
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[00:12:21]  What should you put on the barbecue?
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[00:12:42]  So instead of choosing a predetermined list of meat choices, you can build your own box with the cuts that you want steaks for grilling, chicken for weeknight dinner, whatever you decide.
[00:12:52]  You start your plan, you get to choose a free meat that is included with every order at no additional cost.
[00:12:57]  Plus, with the code TUCKER, you get $25 off your first order.
[00:13:01]  That's free meat with every order and $25 off your first order.
[00:13:04]  Use the code TUCKER to get that.
[00:13:06]  GoodRanchers.com, American Meat Delivered, and it's excellent.
[00:13:10]  People don't like to be criticized for their mistakes.
[00:13:13]  And I know this from having a wife and children.
[00:13:15]  Totally fine to be, you know, criticized for something you feel confident is the right thing.
[00:13:20]  But if you screw something up and someone says, say, say, I told you, you want to shoot the person.
[00:13:25]  It's very hard for people to deal with that.
[00:13:27]  And so if you have a war like this, which is obviously, you know, it's one of the most profound moments of my lifetime, this is much more profound than 9 11, I think.
[00:13:38]  Thankfully, not as you know, very relatively few Americans have died, but you can see that this is the end of something.
[00:13:44]  Um, and the consequences are very, very serious.
[00:13:48]  In the middle of that, to criticize the decision to start the process that led to this, it feels like you're going to be punished for that.
[00:13:57]  Yeah.
[00:13:57]  Do you feel that?
[00:13:58]  Yes, I know exactly what you mean.
[00:14:00]  And I, you know, I almost, um, like on some, I don't know, in some way, I feel like I, like the political thing or the wise calculation here would almost be to be like, uh, Mr. President Trump, you did such a phenomenal job with this, and it's such a success that we should just stop right now and declare victory or something like that.
[00:14:19]  You know what I mean?
[00:14:20]  But I'm just no good at being a political operative.
[00:14:22]  I'm only good at telling the truth.

=== Speed of Political Response (06:22) ===

[00:14:24]  Like, it's all I, I only have one speed.
[00:14:27]  Ben Shapiro called me out recently and called me a bunch of names, and then said, I know I can hear Dave right now saying, debate me, bro.
[00:14:37]  If you believe this, why don't you debate me?
[00:14:38]  And he goes, No, no, I don't debate with it.
[00:14:40]  But he's kind of right in a way that that is my response.
[00:14:44]  I mean, I only have one speed.
[00:14:45]  It's all I know how to do.
[00:14:47]  Like, come podcast with me.
[00:14:49]  Like, I don't know anything else.
[00:14:50]  So, well, because you're rooted in kind of the old America where, you know, there was a free market, not just in the economy, but like intellectually, free market of ideas.
[00:14:59]  Yeah.
[00:14:59]  We're supposed to have it at least.
[00:15:01]  Yeah.
[00:15:02]  The whole country was built on that.
[00:15:03]  Yeah.
[00:15:03]  And so, but so that is Ben Shapiro and et cetera, they don't share that view at all.
[00:15:07]  Well, he knows the ideas can't hold up.
[00:15:09]  I mean, he'll debate a 19 year old gender confused kid because he knows he can win that debate.
[00:15:15]  You know, it's not that that kid's more serious than me.
[00:15:17]  You know, that's not really the issue.
[00:15:20]  But anyway, I guess so, just that, like, I only have one speed.
[00:15:24]  I only know how to just tell you what I think is really going on here.
[00:15:29]  And I think you're right.
[00:15:30]  I think it's such a disaster because Donald Trump, first of all, it'd be very difficult at this point, even if he wanted to just stop the thing, which I think he does at this point want to stop the thing.
[00:15:41]  I think he, it seems to me like he believed this could be quick and easy, like Venezuela, and we're way past that at this point.
[00:15:49]  But he can't just stop now.
[00:15:50]  Well, obviously, there's the Iranians and the Israelis are involved in this too.
[00:15:55]  And it doesn't seem like either of them want to stop right now.
[00:15:59]  So there you got a big problem.
[00:16:01]  But also,.
[00:16:02]  Look, this isn't Venezuela.
[00:16:04]  There's, I don't know what the latest CENTCOM numbers are.
[00:16:07]  I thought 13 dead Americans was the last I saw.
[00:16:11]  The 150 plus wounded number came out weeks ago.
[00:16:13]  I don't know what that's up to now.
[00:16:16]  Our bases and, you know, in the region have been very badly damaged.
[00:16:21]  The damage to the global economy is so it's not Venezuela.
[00:16:24]  You know, you can't just come out of this and then pretend something really great happened.
[00:16:29]  If he stops right now, then it's like, oh, you just.
[00:16:33]  Started a disaster for no reason on behalf of a foreign country.
[00:16:36]  Like, this is just awful.
[00:16:38]  And then there's a couple factors.
[00:16:41]  I've seen this play.
[00:16:41]  I know you've seen this over the years, certainly during the global war on terrorism, where there is, I guess, what you could call like the sunk cost fallacy of war, which is the worst of all sunk cost fallacies.
[00:16:53]  You know, but it's, you go, well, those boys died for nothing if we don't finish the job.
[00:17:01]  And it's like, oh man, is that a bad trap to get into?
[00:17:04]  Because the reality is that those boys died for nothing.
[00:17:08]  That's over.
[00:17:09]  And if you continue this, more boys will die for nothing.
[00:17:12]  That's correct.
[00:17:13]  And so, no one, you know, Piers Morgan had a panel once or a debate between Scott Horton, who is the, as you know, you've had him on the show, the most incredible foreign policy guy in the country.
[00:17:26]  Like, just unbelievable levels of brilliance.
[00:17:29]  And his books, Enough Already, Fool's Errand, which are about the global war on terrorism, are the best books written on the subject.
[00:17:36]  His book, Provoked, about the war in Ukraine, is the best book written on the subject.
[00:17:39]  They're literally exhaustive.
[00:17:40]  I only know Scott Horton because of you.
[00:17:42]  And what improvement to my life.
[00:17:44]  Yeah, I mean, he's been such an incredible resource.
[00:17:48]  Like, he's a great friend of mine, one of my closest friends, but he's also just been, he's like my mentor in the foreign policy stuff.
[00:17:54]  And he's just so great because he's like, he's such a tool because he's got a photographic memory.
[00:17:59]  So, like, I can literally just call him at any point and you'll just be like, when Iran invaded Iraq in 1980, in 1982, weren't they fighting here?
[00:18:07]  And then he'll just be like, yeah, they were fighting here and here.
[00:18:09]  And then this guy has all their names and everything.
[00:18:10]  It's really incredible.
[00:18:11]  But so he was.
[00:18:13]  Debating Wesley Clark on Piers Morgan's show.
[00:18:17]  Talk about the new media world that we live in and how crazy it is now that Scott Horton gets to square off with the four star general.
[00:18:23]  And Wesley Clark, who, you know, look, I have my issues with him, but he did give us that great admission about the seven countries in five years.
[00:18:32]  So I'll always kind of be grateful to him.
[00:18:33]  Now he tries to walk that back, but we all heard what you said.
[00:18:36]  But he goes at one point talking about, I believe it was Gaza, if I'm getting this correct.
[00:18:43]  And he said this was while it was still, you know, intensely going on.
[00:18:47]  And he goes, but if we just leave now, then Hamas gets to say they won.
[00:18:52]  And you're like, sir, general, that's your opinion on war?
[00:18:58]  But that's a recipe to be in forever war always.
[00:19:02]  We can't ever leave anywhere.
[00:19:04]  So what happens is you get this thing where it's like there's the sunk cost fallacy.
[00:19:08]  We can't leave now because we have to win.
[00:19:10]  And then Donald Trump is now, of course, he put his entire presidency on the line for this, which was really foolish.
[00:19:18]  And So now he's just, he's got to get a win.
[00:19:21]  Let me get a win and then I can get out, you know?
[00:19:24]  So let's do a big thing.
[00:19:25]  But then you do a big thing and they respond with a big thing.
[00:19:28]  And then you go, shoot, now we got to respond to that thing.
[00:19:31]  And this is the escalation trap, right?
[00:19:33]  Like that.
[00:19:34]  And this was what people like me and you have been talking about for years.
[00:19:38]  And all the war hawks in the country really enjoyed mocking me and you for the last seven months or whatever it's been from between the 12 day war and this latest war in Iran.
[00:19:49]  Going, oh, you guys were acting like this was going to be a disaster.
[00:19:53]  And look, it wasn't a disaster.
[00:19:55]  Okay, we're back in it now, and it's a disaster.
[00:19:57]  And precisely zero of those people are going, oh, I guess I was wrong about that.
[00:20:02]  No, no, they'll be clamoring for you to be.
[00:20:04]  Arrested and imprisoned.
[00:20:05]  Yeah.
[00:20:06]  Of course.
[00:20:06]  Right.
[00:20:07]  Because, you know, your existence is a mark of shame because you remember.
[00:20:13]  Right.
[00:20:13]  So anyone who remembers has to be taken off the board.
[00:20:16]  I'm just interested, not, I never think about, you know, those people, the Mark Levin.
[00:20:22]  I say a prayer for Mark Levin every day because it's my religion I'm supposed to.
[00:20:26]  But he's not, I mean, Mark Levin's an idiot.
[00:20:28]  He's not pulling any strings.
[00:20:29]  He's a tool of larger forces.
[00:20:31]  Yes.
[00:20:32]  What I'm fascinated by are the assumptions.
[00:20:35]  That, like ordinary non-Mark Levin Americans, have about the United States, the nature of power, history that allowed us to make the greatest mistake of my lifetime, which is this war.
[00:20:45]  What are those?

=== Lessons from World War II (09:10) ===

[00:20:46]  And a lot of this has to do with the Second World War.
[00:20:49]  Yeah.
[00:20:49]  Oh, yeah.
[00:20:50]  So we're reading the wrong lessons into that.
[00:20:54]  And I just want to say for the hundredth time, I'm the opposite of pro-Nazi.
[00:20:58]  I'm against authoritarianism in all its forms.
[00:21:00]  But why is it that we look at the Second World War and then make a bunch of false assumptions that get us into Engagements like this that hurt us.
[00:21:11]  Well, what is that?
[00:21:12]  What are the myths?
[00:21:13]  Well, I think the way I look at it, right?
[00:21:16]  And this is, you know, I've defended Daryl Cooper quite publicly, quite often for what he said on your show, which really, it was, by the way, it's so revealing and totally proves his point.
[00:21:30]  The response to that.
[00:21:31]  Because there's just no reason why that should have been such a huge thing, you know?
[00:21:35]  But like the thing is that.
[00:21:36]  Hey, Daryl Cooper, did Hitler kill a lot of Jews?
[00:21:38]  Yeah, he did.
[00:21:39]  He did like hours of podcasts on it.
[00:21:41]  Yes.
[00:21:41]  Of course, Hitler killed a lot of Jews.
[00:21:43]  I mean, what?
[00:21:43]  That's not even.
[00:21:44]  He just put out episode two of his new series on World War II, which I have not.
[00:21:49]  I heard the first one.
[00:21:50]  I've not gotten a chance to listen to the second one yet.
[00:21:52]  The first one's so good.
[00:21:53]  They're all so good.
[00:21:54]  It's not really about that.
[00:21:54]  I don't think any sane person.
[00:21:56]  I've never heard anybody in my life say Hitler didn't kill a ton of Jews or love the Jews.
[00:22:00]  No, Hitler hated the Jews, killed a ton of Jews.
[00:22:03]  That's bad.
[00:22:03]  Everyone agrees with that.
[00:22:05]  It's not really the Holocaust that they're mad about.
[00:22:08]  That's not.
[00:22:09]  Well, look, I mean, the threat.
[00:22:11]  Right.
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[00:23:25]  So, World War II was, objectively speaking, the worst thing that's ever happened in the world.
[00:23:31]  Yes.
[00:23:32]  Right?
[00:23:32]  It was the biggest bloodbath in human history.
[00:23:34]  Exactly.
[00:23:35]  And destroyed Europe.
[00:23:36]  And it's just so horrible you think about that.
[00:23:40]  That humanity reached such a height in the 19th century.
[00:23:45]  The 19th century, there's two things that happened that.
[00:23:48]  Could not have been predicted.
[00:23:50]  It would have seemed insane if you had predicted it beforehand.
[00:23:53]  Probably the two greatest achievements in human history are that, well, there's the Industrial Revolution, and for the first time ever, there's economic growth.
[00:24:03]  You know, like if you look at economic growth on a chart, it basically doesn't exist until the Industrial Revolution.
[00:24:09]  And then it's just different apportionments of wealth.
[00:24:10]  Yes, yes.
[00:24:11]  So for the first time ever, human beings escaped like the back brushing, back breaking poverty of nature.
[00:24:19]  You know what I mean?
[00:24:20]  Or they escaped zero sum economics.
[00:24:22]  Yes.
[00:24:23]  Well, right.
[00:24:23]  Zero sum economics, but just.
[00:24:25]  Where people got rich by looting.
[00:24:26]  Now you can get rich by creating things that didn't exist before.
[00:24:28]  And we could raise the standard of living in a meaningful way in very basic ways.
[00:24:33]  And also, there was the abolition of slavery.
[00:24:35]  Which just would have seemed like that was the way of the world for all of human history.
[00:24:40]  And I'm saying the abolition of slavery in the West.
[00:24:42]  Obviously, there were other parts of the world that still had it.
[00:24:44]  And the Industrial Revolution was in the West also.
[00:24:47]  But these amazing things happen.
[00:24:48]  And then in the 20th century, we take that industrial capacity to go to total war with each other.
[00:24:56]  And in the case of the First World War, just over nonsense, I mean, over a political assassination.
[00:25:01]  It's not even common.
[00:25:02]  Yeah, it's not like somehow this thing spins into this catastrophe.
[00:25:05]  But so after World War II, that's even bloodier than World War I, which was supposed to be the war to end all wars.
[00:25:11]  And it wasn't.
[00:25:11]  It was the war to create the conditions for the worst war in human history.
[00:25:16]  And of course, as you've talked about and gotten a lot of heat for, civilians were targeted on all sides.
[00:25:23]  Now, of course, we didn't go genocidal in the way that Adolf Hitler went, but we targeted cities when we knew the military was out, targeting women and children, dropping nuclear bombs on cities.
[00:25:36]  And so, and also, The kind of military industrial complex, the national security apparatus were truly created in the aftermath of World War II.
[00:25:51]  Like there were intelligence, but the CIA is created.
[00:25:53]  And the form of government that we actually live under was kind of erected during and after World War II.
[00:25:59]  And so you've got the most profoundly awful thing that's ever happened, and this new government plus a new government in Israel a couple years later that are created.
[00:26:10]  And so it.
[00:26:12]  When you have something like that, you really got to tell yourself a damn good story about why that is justified.
[00:26:19]  And that's not, when you say this, sometimes people go, Oh, so are you saying the Holocaust didn't really happen?
[00:26:23]  It's like, No, no, no.
[00:26:24]  It really happened.
[00:26:25]  It's not about the Holocaust.
[00:26:26]  The point is that, yes, the point is that the Holocaust happened in a context of 60 million people dying.
[00:26:32]  You know what I mean?
[00:26:33]  It's just so funny.
[00:26:34]  It's all reduced to the, okay, just to be totally clear, not denying the Holocaust.
[00:26:37]  Okay.
[00:26:39]  It's not about that.
[00:26:40]  The thing, the immediate post war changes that you just listed, the deindustrialization of the West, the Partition of India, the creation of the national security state, if I could say, an authoritarian national security state in the West, delivering half of Europe to the Soviets, the partition of Germany.
[00:27:02]  These are all the genocide of German civilians after the war.
[00:27:07]  Mass, mass ethnic cleansing, mass rapes and murders, all types of horrible stuff.
[00:27:14]  It's not a defense of Hitler.
[00:27:16]  Whom I oppose to say all of those are bad.
[00:27:19]  It's just kind of interesting that this war, which was supposedly so great, gave birth to things that are just objectively the worst things.
[00:27:27]  Yeah.
[00:27:27]  And what is that?
[00:27:28]  Well, look, I mean, it's a disaster of government, you know, total power.
[00:27:35]  And there, but look, even like if you say, like, if you're talking about the Revolutionary War, like let's just say, like, back in the 1980s or something like that, a school teacher is teaching kids about the Revolutionary War.
[00:27:45]  They don't go, like, well, You know, the king of England was taxing a little bit more than he should.
[00:27:52]  And then the framers kind of had these wild conspiracy theories about what he was going to come do.
[00:27:57]  None of that was really true.
[00:27:58]  And anyway, they got into the, you know, they tell you George Washington never told a lie.
[00:28:03]  And when he chopped down the apple tree, he said to his pa, I can't lie to you.
[00:28:07]  Because, like, human beings just need this narrative.
[00:28:10]  Of course.
[00:28:11]  And so, what ended up happening was that the very.
[00:28:15]  When you challenge World War II orthodoxies, you're challenging what Daryl calls the load bearing myths, you know, the load bearing pillars of the existence of the most powerful forces in the world.
[00:28:29]  And, you know, look, it's very clear.
[00:28:32]  Like, again, the reaction to Daryl is the proof.
[00:28:34]  Of the claim.
[00:28:36]  Like, what is this?
[00:28:37]  If somebody were to say, you know, this is how you find out what the national religion really is, you know, I could sit here and trash Thomas Jefferson for raping his slaves.
[00:28:47]  Doesn't matter where he's going to be.
[00:28:48]  It doesn't matter.
[00:28:48]  This isn't going to generate any outrage at all, you know?
[00:28:52]  In fact, it might generate some applause from different quarters.
[00:28:55]  And so, but you talk about this and it's very, very different.
[00:28:59]  And then, as you've seen, as we've all seen, it's used to justify everything.
[00:29:05]  Every subsequent war.
[00:29:07]  I mean, like everybody is Adolf Hitler.
[00:29:09]  To justify authoritarianism.
[00:29:10]  Yeah, that's right.
[00:29:11]  Everybody is Adolf Hitler.
[00:29:12]  I've lived through the, you know, it's Saddam Hussein was Adolf Hitler, Noriega was Adolf Hitler, Bashar al Assad is Adolf Hitler, Vladimir Putin's Adolf Hitler, you're Adolf Hitler, Nick Fuentes is Adolf Hitler.
[00:29:25]  Like every time they want to smear someone, that's the smear they go with.
[00:29:30]  Donald Trump got the same treatment.
[00:29:33]  And anytime you oppose a war, well, you're Neville Chamberlain.
[00:29:37]  You know, if I think like, hey, we should just put in writing that we'll never bring Ukraine into NATO, because man, this is causing all these problems.
[00:29:45]  Okay, Neville Chamberlain, you would have just given Czechoslovakia.
[00:29:49]  It's like, dude, that's not the only lesson in history.
[00:29:51]  The only lesson in history is not always go with aggression, never go with de escalation.

=== America's Hollow Victory (03:42) ===

[00:29:57]  But so that's kind of what this has been turned into.
[00:30:00]  And I do think.
[00:30:02]  But I would just say, big picture, if it was such a victory, why are all the winners falling apart?
[00:30:08]  Less than 100 years later.
[00:30:10]  Yeah.
[00:30:10]  Yeah.
[00:30:11]  That's a fair point.
[00:30:12]  I don't, again, shut up.
[00:30:14]  You're pro Hitler for the fifth time.
[00:30:16]  Not pro Hitler in any sense.
[00:30:18]  Well, to quote.
[00:30:19]  But what's the answer to that question?
[00:30:20]  Well, there's a brilliant philosopher named Rosie Perez.
[00:30:25]  And in the film White Men Can't Jump, she said, sometimes when you win, you really lose.
[00:30:32]  Yeah.
[00:30:33]  And that's such a simple but very, very true statement.
[00:30:36]  And there is something about, well, Isn't it kind of interesting that the United States of America started as the experiment in restrained government, right?
[00:30:48]  Like, there had really never been a government that was created that was so restrained.
[00:30:51]  And the whole idea of it was like, we're going to take the power of a king and then we're going to scatter that amongst three different branches in the federal government.
[00:31:00]  And the federal government really only oversees all these state governments that have their own autonomy.
[00:31:05]  And we are these United States of America.
[00:31:07]  And even as we became more centralized, obviously the Articles of Confederation got overthrown and the Constitution gets put in.
[00:31:15]  And then, you know, but even say, like, if you look after this from the end of the Civil War, this was always the best stuff about like Milton Friedman books and stuff.
[00:31:25]  But in this part, I really think those Chicago guys got it right.
[00:31:29]  That if you look from the end of the Civil War, so like 1865 to around, say, 1910, okay, in this period of time, try to imagine that this was our government, okay?
[00:31:42]  The U.S. government, the federal government spent like Maybe like one and a half or 2% of the national income, a tiny amount of sped.
[00:31:51]  There was no mass federal regulation or anything like that.
[00:31:54]  There was no central bank.
[00:31:56]  There was no income tax.
[00:31:57]  Just try to imagine this was truly the closest to a real experiment in free market capitalism.
[00:32:04]  That humanity had ever seen.
[00:32:06]  And the result of that was the biggest economic expansion in human history, the greatest raising of the lot and life of the average person, you know, like where the average person could actually have a pretty nice life and you could work at the factory and your wife didn't have to work and you owned a house and you sent your kids to college and you drove a couple cars, you played poker on the weekends with your buddy, like you had a good life.
[00:32:28]  And if you look at the United States of America today, it is the most powerful government in the history of the world.
[00:32:35]  Like, somehow, this thing that started as an experiment in the smallest government became the biggest government that the world's ever known.
[00:32:42]  And so, there's almost something where, well, what happens is these free markets create so much prosperity that there's so much more of a tax base.
[00:32:49]  And now the political class can tax you more and more and more.
[00:32:51]  And you're still living a pretty good life, even though they're getting fat off of you.
[00:32:55]  You know what I mean?
[00:32:55]  And so, similarly, sometimes something like after World War II, you see this with America.
[00:33:03]  And then you really see it after the collapse of the Soviet Union, where it's like, because you win, You get so much power.
[00:33:10]  But as Lord Atkins said, that power tends to corrupt.
[00:33:14]  And so you get all this power, but then it totally corrupts your own soul.
[00:33:19]  And I think that's kind of the story of America.
[00:33:22]  And I think it's the story of our lives.
[00:33:23]  I mean, the number of men I know who've gotten what they wanted, what they worked for, the job, the exit, you know, sale of whatever they built, all of a sudden they win and then they fall apart.
[00:33:36]  I've seen that so much.
[00:33:37]  I've felt it in my own life, by the way.

=== Victory as Worst Case Scenario (02:42) ===

[00:33:40]  For sure.
[00:33:41]  Easy success is not good for you at all.
[00:33:44]  Struggle is good for you.
[00:33:45]  And so I wonder if the United States was hollowed out by its own victory, this loss.
[00:33:51]  And unfortunately, I think we can say already it's hard to imagine getting out of this without being diminished.
[00:33:56]  Yeah.
[00:33:56]  I mean, what is a victory here?
[00:33:58]  I mean, it's also a terrible situation where victory might be the worst case scenario.
[00:34:06]  I mean, like, victory, like if the whole goal is to topple the regime.
[00:34:11]  You're like, okay, but every other time we've toppled a regime in this neck of the woods, it's led to migrant crises and death and terrorism.
[00:34:21]  You can't topple a regime in the Persian Gulf because the world's energy supply needs to move through it.
[00:34:26]  You have to extract it, refine it, make it into petrochemicals, do whatever you want in the Persian Gulf, and then you have to get it out of the Persian Gulf.
[00:34:33]  So that means you have to have a controlling authority.
[00:34:36]  You have to have strong governments there, or else some rebel group, Houthis with drones, We'll shut the whole thing down.
[00:34:44]  You have to have, you can't have chaos in Iran.
[00:34:47]  Yeah, they call it the Persian Gulf for a reason.
[00:34:50]  Exactly.
[00:34:50]  Even if you call it the Arabian Gulf, the other half is Persian.
[00:34:53]  It doesn't matter.
[00:34:53]  Chaos in the Persian Gulf means no energy or fertilizer from the Persian Gulf, period.
[00:34:57]  So you're going to have piracy there.
[00:34:59]  So I just, so the option to that is keeping an Iranian regime in place.
[00:35:04]  And that means that Iran is more powerful than it was when the war started.
[00:35:08]  This is also obvious, unless you nuke them, which is, I think, an option.
[00:35:14]  And then you set off a chain reaction that, You know, is the worst thing imaginable.
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=== Disgracing Military Sacrifice (09:49) ===

[00:36:22]  So, anyway, I think there's no way to see this as a win.
[00:36:26]  I pray it is, but I don't see it.
[00:36:28]  If it is a loss, maybe that is not all bad for the U.S.?
[00:36:34]  Well, there is a.
[00:36:36]  I think sometimes things need to get really bad before they get better.
[00:36:40]  You know, that things need to get bad so that people wake up even more.
[00:36:44]  There's no question people have woken up a lot, but maybe people just need to get angrier, you know.
[00:36:50]  And I don't know.
[00:36:52]  I don't know what I'm trying to see this in the fullness of history and God's plan, but I just because it feels like such a disaster, it's affecting my sleep.
[00:36:59]  I love America, I have kids, I don't want this to happen.
[00:37:02]  I'm not in control, obviously.
[00:37:04]  So, but I do think that like you're often surprised by the downstream results of things.
[00:37:09]  I think people who return from Normandy would be shocked by the condition of the United States.
[00:37:14]  And Great Britain 80 years later.
[00:37:16]  They are shocked.
[00:37:17]  Have you seen them interviewed some 100 year old guys?
[00:37:19]  Like, we died for this?
[00:37:21]  Yeah.
[00:37:21]  No, it's, and it's totally, I mean, like, talk about just disgracing their sacrifice.
[00:37:26]  Oh, it's the greatest disgrace.
[00:37:28]  Our self abasement is an insult to their sacrifice on our behalf.
[00:37:33]  But I wonder if the opposite isn't also true that maybe in your defeat, there are things that, I mean, I know this is true for me.
[00:37:41]  Every time I've gotten sick or gotten fired, like, I just, I understand the world better and I become more joyful and stronger.
[00:37:49]  Do you feel that?
[00:37:50]  Yeah, no, I know for sure.
[00:37:51]  I mean, many times in my life, and yeah, you lose, you learn a lot more from your losses.
[00:37:56]  Yeah, your defeats are actually your victories in that respect.
[00:37:59]  That's right.
[00:37:59]  And, but that, you know, the problem is just this is, man, we're just playing with fire with this thing because it's so dangerous.
[00:38:07]  You know, it's, um, what worries you most?
[00:38:10]  Well, I'm, I guess I'd say number one, um, I, What we're doing to those people over there, I mean, I think is just like horrible.
[00:38:21]  And I don't say this as like, I'm not trying to like virtue signal that I care so much more than other people.
[00:38:29]  But like when your government takes your money and just starts slaughtering people in poor countries compared to us, you know, it's just so profoundly wrong.
[00:38:38]  What you do to others will be done to you.
[00:38:40]  Yeah.
[00:38:41]  That's a physics principle.
[00:38:42]  You can't get away from that.
[00:38:43]  So that's just true.
[00:38:44]  Well, imagine, imagine like there was a guy who was like a convicted pedophile.
[00:38:50]  And he had molested a bunch of like Iraqi children or a bunch of Iranian children.
[00:38:55]  And then you were like, well, I'm going to have him babysit my kids.
[00:38:58]  He only does it over there.
[00:38:59]  You know what I mean?
[00:38:59]  Like, he only, he only, you're like, what?
[00:39:01]  No, dude.
[00:39:02]  He's hurt children.
[00:39:03]  You can't let him anywhere near your children.
[00:39:05]  Okay.
[00:39:05]  Well, these, these same monsters in government are the ones who are ruling over me and my family and my country.
[00:39:10]  And the idea that you just go kill, like, you know, I know I said this on, on Rogan's show the other day about the, the school that we hit where he killed like 165 or 170 little girls.
[00:39:23]  And then people, you know, Give me those numbers haven't been verified.
[00:39:26]  That's just the claim of the Iranian government.
[00:39:27]  He goes, Well, our government's not denying it.
[00:39:30]  And in fact, they did an investigation and concluded it was almost certainly us.
[00:39:33]  It was a Tomahawk missile.
[00:39:35]  What's the question here?
[00:39:36]  We know where this came from.
[00:39:37]  The only question left is like, Who gave it that coordinates or did it miss or was that intentional?
[00:39:42]  Whatever.
[00:39:43]  But like, kill a whole bunch of eight year old girls?
[00:39:47]  I mean, Jesus, man.
[00:39:48]  Is there anything more evil you could do than that?
[00:39:51]  So, just on a basic human level, you know, there's like this.
[00:39:55]  Anyone who would do that, I think it was clearly accidental.
[00:39:58]  But I also think having done a lot of accidental things, it's essential to apologize for it.
[00:40:03]  And anyone who doesn't apologize for it is a dangerous person.
[00:40:06]  Person.
[00:40:06]  Well, also, even if you do that to them, you'll do it to my kids.
[00:40:09]  Yes.
[00:40:09]  And it also stretches the definition of accidental a little bit because even if very specifically, like we were trying to hit this building, but instead we hit this building, and this is a point I've been making largely through Israel's destruction of Gaza, which was not that at all.
[00:40:25]  They were just leveling the place.
[00:40:26]  But you go, look, man, like you start dropping bombs on people, you start blowing things up, and you know innocent people are going to end up dying in that.
[00:40:36]  So, in that sense, it is intentional.
[00:40:38]  And maybe you didn't mean to hit that exact.
[00:40:40]  You know, target or kill that many people.
[00:40:42]  But like, if I'm just saying, if you, if you, you know, if you blew up a building, you know, that you suspected somebody else was in, but then it turned out that there were a bunch of little kids there, it's still a pretty profound crime.
[00:40:58]  But then, of course, on top of that, I really worry about getting trapped into a broader war, a wider war.
[00:41:07]  There is not, I don't, I'm not saying that I think this is going to be like Iraq or Afghanistan.
[00:41:13]  I think already this is very different.
[00:41:14]  Than Iraq and Afghanistan.
[00:41:16]  Iraq and Afghanistan did not have the ability to do what Iran is doing right now, for one.
[00:41:20]  Number two, I just don't think it's going to be that.
[00:41:25]  I don't think it would be more the Libya or Syria model than the Iraq or Afghanistan model, which did require a small amount of ground forces.
[00:41:34]  So we used head chopping bin Ladenites in both of those cases and put the bin Ladenites in power in Syria.
[00:41:43]  But just to be clear, Our country would not survive another Iraq or Afghanistan.
[00:41:50]  There's no United States of America coming out of that.
[00:41:52]  We don't have a 20 year catastrophic ground invasion in us.
[00:41:56]  Like it will bankrupt the country.
[00:41:58]  It will destroy the country culturally.
[00:42:01]  So that's a very scary thing.
[00:42:03]  We don't have, you know, in the launch of the global war on terrorism, we were coming out of the 1990s.
[00:42:10]  This was a different country in the 1990s, you know, and anyone who was alive then.
[00:42:15]  Different people lived here.
[00:42:16]  Yes, yes.
[00:42:17]  Different people, different culture.
[00:42:18]  Different economic realities, different military realities.
[00:42:22]  Now, then the other thing that I really, really worry about with all of this is that we've never really had, we've never dealt with a full like Shiite jihad war against the West.
[00:42:36]  Our beef was always with the Sunni radicals.
[00:42:39]  Those were the terrorists we had to worry about, the Al Qaeda and ISIS and stuff like that.
[00:42:43]  And that was quite a big problem.
[00:42:47]  We had a lot of terrorist attacks in America and in Europe.
[00:42:53]  Particularly ISIS inspired attacks, Al Qaeda as well.
[00:42:56]  And, you know, so I've kind of called out some of these people.
[00:43:01]  I'll do it again here because they're like some of the biggest frauds in the country.
[00:43:05]  These like pretend intellectuals like Sam Harris and Gad Sad and guys like this who have spent a career demonizing Muslims.
[00:43:15]  Their entire career has been talking about what irrational, violent people Muslims are, how awful the religion is.
[00:43:22]  And, you know, and look, there's been some points that I agree with them on.
[00:43:26]  You know, if someone.
[00:43:27]  You know, writes a cartoon about Muhammad, you don't have the right to kill them.
[00:43:31]  Sorry.
[00:43:32]  You want to be in the West.
[00:43:33]  These are our rules here.
[00:43:34]  Exactly.
[00:43:34]  We value free speech, and I can make a cartoon about whatever the hell I want to make a cartoon about.
[00:43:38]  Okay, but if you spent your whole career arguing how violent and irrational the Muslims are, what does killing an Ayatollah mean?
[00:43:48]  You know, that's not just a political figure.
[00:43:52]  You murder an Ayatollah and his entire family, and we've already had a couple terrorist attacks over here.
[00:43:58]  That at least seemed like there was the shooting in Austin, Texas, that came like the day after we launched the war, and the guy was wearing like an Allah Akbar t shirt.
[00:44:06]  I'm assuming that might be related.
[00:44:09]  And so, you know, then you have this real issue of like, there's, unfortunately, in the old, like, controlled American media and all the, you know, all the people like Mark Levin and all these guys, when they talk to their audience, whatever audience they got left, and they always love to talk about how Iran chants death to America, you know, which they do.
[00:44:32]  And I'd like it if they stopped doing that.
[00:44:34]  It's not the nicest chant.
[00:44:36]  But none of them ever even try to say, To even approach the question of why?
[00:44:44]  Why do they chant death to America?
[00:44:45]  Why do they hate us so much?
[00:44:47]  And this was a hate for our freedoms.
[00:44:50]  So, the older you get, you realize how fast everything can change.
[00:44:53]  One day everything is fine, it's great, and the next day things are not great at all.
[00:44:56]  That's just the nature of it.
[00:44:59]  But if you're realistic about that, you have to think about your family.
[00:45:03]  Something happened to you, what would happen to them?
[00:45:06]  The problem is getting life insurance is not only kind of depressing, it's a huge hassle.
[00:45:10]  Medical exams, paperwork, waiting weeks for approval.
[00:45:13]  A lot of people just don't want to deal with it, so they don't deal with it.
[00:45:15]  And it's not the right answer at all.
[00:45:16]  You have an obligation to think through what would happen if you're not here.
[00:45:20]  And so we're partnering with Ethos.
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[00:45:43]  Get a free quoted ethos.com slash Tucker.
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[00:45:53]  This was after.
[00:45:54]  This is so funny that it is so funny that that was funny in a dark way, but that that was actually the question I remember.
[00:46:01]  I was 18 when 9 11 happened.
[00:46:03]  I remember asking that question with all sincerity.
[00:46:06]  And that was actually the national conversation.
[00:46:08]  That was the first question before it got answered with they hate it.

=== Speaking Blowback Concerns (15:07) ===

[00:46:11]  When 9 11 happened, The average Joe Six Pack American went, Why do they hate us?
[00:46:17]  That's how ignorant we were of our own position in the world.
[00:46:21]  We didn't even know there was a beef.
[00:46:22]  You go, What are we talking about?
[00:46:23]  We thought Bill Clinton was the time of peace and prosperity.
[00:46:26]  That's what Americans considered that time, the time of peace.
[00:46:29]  Iraqis did not consider that a time of peace.
[00:46:31]  Hundreds of thousands of them were getting killed due to the blockade, Clinton's bombing campaign.
[00:46:36]  It wasn't peace in Serbia.
[00:46:37]  You know what I mean?
[00:46:38]  It wasn't like there, but to us, it was like, Oh, not as little wars.
[00:46:42]  They didn't really mean anything, you know?
[00:46:43]  But it wasn't.
[00:46:45]  Now, All you got to do is ask that question.
[00:46:47]  And I'm sure it's almost like implicit in the Mark Levin world that, well, why do they hate us?
[00:46:52]  Well, I don't know because they're crazy dirka dirka people and they hate us.
[00:46:54]  You know, they're Islamo fascists.
[00:46:56]  I don't know.
[00:46:57]  That's what they do.
[00:46:58]  They hate.
[00:47:00]  But if you ask Iranians and not the ones who are, you know, paid by Mossad to promote wars, but like if you, they'll tell you very quickly why they hate us.
[00:47:10]  And the whole beef, right, goes back to 1953.
[00:47:13]  We overthrew their government, we installed a dictator.
[00:47:16]  Who they did not like very much, who was not very kind to his political opponents, to put it mildly.
[00:47:22]  And then the other big thing that they point out all the time is in 1980, Saddam Hussein invaded Iraq.
[00:47:30]  Now, a lot of people from my generation remember this because this is actually what the neocons would, they would often like vaguely cite this when they were trying to push the war against Iraq.
[00:47:42]  They're like, he used chemical weapons against civilians.
[00:47:45]  Like, yeah.
[00:47:46]  What they leave out is that they were backing him when he did that.
[00:47:50]  They facilitated the sale of those chemical weapons to him.
[00:47:53]  And they backed and gave the green light for Saddam Hussein to invade the country.
[00:47:58]  And so, you know, Iranians remember that.
[00:48:02]  Like they remember that.
[00:48:03]  There was, I think, 500 or 600,000 Iranians died in that war.
[00:48:08]  Like they remember this very well.
[00:48:10]  By the way, another lesson from that war is they never surrendered, even after taking losses like that.
[00:48:16]  These Shiites are not playing around when it comes to matters like that.
[00:48:19]  They fought and fought and fought.
[00:48:21]  And so, anyway, I say all that just to say that it's like these things do inspire hatred, and they inspire hatred for generations and generations.
[00:48:31]  The reaction effect is real?
[00:48:32]  Yeah, it turns out.
[00:48:33]  In 2002, a letter emerged written by Osama bin Laden, who, of course, was then still alive.
[00:48:39]  That he had written right after 9 11 in Kandahar before he fled to Tora Bora, and it came out a year later in the Wall Street Journal.
[00:48:46]  I worked at CNN at the time and I read it on the air to answer that question What is this about?
[00:48:50]  Why did he do this?
[00:48:51]  And the letter, which briefly became famous before it was pulled off the internet, said, You know, I'm mad that you have troops in Saudi, where Mecca and Medina are, and I'm mad about your support for Israel.
[00:49:02]  And that's why I did this.
[00:49:04]  I wasn't trying to justify 9 11.
[00:49:06]  It can't be justified, in my opinion.
[00:49:08]  That's right.
[00:49:09]  But I think it's important to know why things happen because you don't want them to happen again.
[00:49:13]  Well, a group of rabbis got together and called me an anti Semite, which I wasn't then and I'm not now, and tried to get me fired from my job.
[00:49:22]  I'll never forget that.
[00:49:23]  And CNN called me, the corporate lawyer called me, you know, they're all mad at you.
[00:49:28]  And I'm like, I wasn't attacking anybody, of course.
[00:49:34]  I just think it's more than Americans don't know.
[00:49:37]  I think they've been prevented from knowing.
[00:49:40]  That's right.
[00:49:41]  That, you know, actions have reactions.
[00:49:44]  Well, that's why, you know, the term blowback that was coined by the CIA.
[00:49:48]  And what they described it as was it's not just like we do a thing and then there's a reaction to it.
[00:49:56]  It's that we do a covert thing and then there's a reaction to it.
[00:49:59]  And then the American people have no idea what this is even in response to.
[00:50:04]  It's just like, whoa, out of nowhere, these guys attacked us.
[00:50:08]  And, you know, when that.
[00:50:09]  But we're going to need a police state to protect ourselves from the blowback of this war.
[00:50:13]  I mean, that's a real concern.
[00:50:15]  That's the problem.
[00:50:15]  Yeah, that's a real concern.
[00:50:16]  We're so vulnerable.
[00:50:17]  I mean, this country's wide open.
[00:50:19]  And.
[00:50:19]  All of our infrastructure, our energy infrastructure, our food, our water, all of it's unguarded.
[00:50:26]  And the only way to protect ourselves from the inevitable blowback, the Shia terrorism that we're going to get, of course, after killing the Rayatollah, is going to be to turn this into a surveillance state, even more than it is.
[00:50:37]  Yeah.
[00:50:37]  And of course, also on top of that, coming off of the Biden years where we don't even know who's here.
[00:50:44]  We have no, like, I mean, it's just the mix of these policies, like the mix of, Of having forever wars and open borders is just got to be the worst.
[00:50:56]  And a welfare state?
[00:50:57]  Yeah.
[00:50:57]  I mean, like, just throw everything in.
[00:50:59]  And a drug war on top of that, too.
[00:51:00]  And a drug war so that drugs are illegal.
[00:51:02]  There's a black market.
[00:51:04]  The gangs want to smuggle the drugs in.
[00:51:06]  Like, every single policy on top of it just makes this situation so much worse.
[00:51:11]  But yeah, when Osama bin Laden's letter to America went viral on TikTok before it was.
[00:51:18]  Many, many, many years later.
[00:51:20]  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:51:20]  From a board attempt to bring it to the country.
[00:51:22]  Yes, to be clear, this is written in 2002.
[00:51:24]  It was like a couple years ago when it went super viral on TikTok, and all the young leftists were like sharing it.
[00:51:30]  And they were going, Oh my God, look at this.
[00:51:32]  Turns out, now, of course, they're leftists, so they always think too collectively, right?
[00:51:38]  And so I saw a bunch of people going, Turns out he was right, or he was the good guy.
[00:51:42]  And you're like, No, no, no, that is not the takeaway from this.
[00:51:46]  Like, you know, there was that one time the guy, Hassan Piker, Who's like a lefty, like a streamer, and he had said that America deserved 9 11, and that was like what got him in a lot of trouble for it.
[00:52:00]  And it's like, but no, stop speaking like a leftist.
[00:52:03]  We're not.
[00:52:04]  We're not collectively, we're individuals.
[00:52:06]  And the individuals who had nothing to do with these policies did not have it coming.
[00:52:10]  Having breakfast at Windows on the World and get killed?
[00:52:12]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:52:12]  You deserve it.
[00:52:13]  No, you don't do that.
[00:52:14]  The whole point.
[00:52:14]  Now, what Osama bin Laden said, I don't think this was in the letter to America.
[00:52:18]  I think it was in, it might have been, it was either that or in his declaration of war.
[00:52:21]  He had two declarations of war against America also.
[00:52:24]  But what he said is that civilians are fair game because you vote for, you know, you vote the Bill Clintons and the George Bushes in who slaughter all of our children.
[00:52:34]  And so you're fair game.
[00:52:36]  Now, that's the logic of Osama bin Laden.
[00:52:38]  The psychopathic terrorist.
[00:52:42]  And the whole point of why we're against all this shit is because we reject that.
[00:52:46]  We don't agree with that.
[00:52:47]  And you know who else used that same logic?
[00:52:50]  Every goddamn Zionist who said they elected Hamas in Gaza.
[00:52:54]  By the way, they don't even have regular elections in Gaza.
[00:52:56]  They had one election 20 years ago where Hamas won with pluralities.
[00:53:02]  But that was enough for them to say.
[00:53:04]  To kill their kids and get conscience.
[00:53:07]  And so, no, the whole point is that.
[00:53:09]  No, it does.
[00:53:10]  You don't have the right to take vengeance on innocent people.
[00:53:13]  That is the standard of civilization.
[00:53:16]  I have said that, you know, pretty consistently for the past couple of years.
[00:53:21]  And I thought that was like just a baseline understanding that everyone in America knew and believed.
[00:53:26]  I thought that was the whole point of America.
[00:53:28]  That's what civilization is.
[00:53:29]  You can't punish the innocent.
[00:53:30]  Right.
[00:53:31]  And that turns out to be incredibly anti Semitic.
[00:53:36]  I didn't know that.
[00:53:37]  By the way, I've never, up until recently, all the Jews I knew were.
[00:53:42]  100% on board with that.
[00:53:43]  I mean, I can just like hear a rabbi going, You can't kill the innocent.
[00:53:48]  Amen.
[00:53:48]  Brother.
[00:53:49]  Except in this one.
[00:53:50]  But now it's like all of a sudden these people, you know, I don't know.
[00:53:55]  I don't think it's about any specific group.
[00:53:57]  In fact, by definition, it's not.
[00:53:58]  It's a human standard to which we should all be held and do our best to hold others.
[00:54:02]  You can't kill the innocent.
[00:54:04]  Yeah.
[00:54:04]  And also, it's not, you know, it's not about one specific group because.
[00:54:08]  Well, by definition, it's not about one specific group.
[00:54:10]  Well, also, it's not.
[00:54:12]  It's also just not.
[00:54:13]  You know, and this is the problem where when people try to make it about the Jews, and it's so weird the dynamic because you, I watch you, you literally bend over backward to say that it's not about the Jews as much as possible.
[00:54:26]  Because it's just not.
[00:54:27]  To the point, and as someone who's like a Jewish fan of yours, I find myself going, You could stop making that.
[00:54:34]  But like, you've said it enough.
[00:54:35]  You know what I mean?
[00:54:36]  But you do every opportunity.
[00:54:37]  You go, I don't believe in the Jews.
[00:54:38]  It's not because I'm afraid of Jews at all.
[00:54:41]  No, you're not afraid of anybody.
[00:54:42]  It's because I think it's the standard that we have to uphold.
[00:54:45]  Well, also, everyone is insisting that that's what you're really saying.
[00:54:48]  And so you want to go, no, I'm not saying that.
[00:54:51]  That's why I've been defending Muslims.
[00:54:52]  It's not because I'm Muslim or taking money from Qatar.
[00:54:56]  Too late now.
[00:54:57]  We rent their economy.
[00:54:58]  But it's because I think these are human rights bestowed by God and they apply to every person because they're inherent in every person because every person is created in the image of God.
[00:55:08]  That's the point I'm trying to make.
[00:55:09]  Yeah, and I completely agree with you.
[00:55:11]  I also think it's just frankly inaccurate.
[00:55:15]  I mean, it's not.
[00:55:16]  Look, I saw one poll.
[00:55:18]  Today, that said 60% of American Jews support the war in Iran, which, hey, that's a lot higher than the general population, but that means 40% of them don't.
[00:55:29]  You know what I mean?
[00:55:29]  And so, like, that's a huge, huge percentage of them.
[00:55:32]  I think a third of Jews in New York voted for this Momdani guy.
[00:55:35]  Now, I'm annoyed with them for other reasons because he's a crazy socialist, but they're clearly not on board with the Israel lobby's plan here.
[00:55:43]  And then, of course, as you've done a better job of exposing than anyone I've ever seen, there is a lot of like, Ted Cruz's and Mike Huckabee's out there, who, as you, I think, correctly pointed out, are different animals, right?
[00:55:55]  Like Ted Cruz is a cynical, lying politician.
[00:55:58]  Mike Huckabee is like a true believer of sorts.
[00:56:00]  I'm not sure which is worse.
[00:56:02]  They're both pretty rough and both totally humiliated themselves when you interviewed them.
[00:56:08]  But there's also, like, the point is that the Israel lobby encompasses a lot of non Jews, and then there's a lot of Jews.
[00:56:17]  There's the Max Blumenthal's and Norman Finkelstein's and Glenn Greenwald's.
[00:56:22]  So it's just to just say it's like this group now you're missing the point entirely.
[00:56:26]  Well, I would say that the advocates for the war are primarily responsible for that.
[00:56:31]  And speaking of blowback, speaking of blowback, I mean, it's hardly my job to like defend Jewish Americans, but I want to defend all Americans.
[00:56:38]  And I definitely want to defend the principle that we should be judged.
[00:56:42]  On our own terms, not by people who look like us or we're related to.
[00:56:46]  Like, I think that's the most important thing.
[00:56:48]  But, I mean, I do think you often are, oh, anti Semitism is on the rise.
[00:56:53]  I agree with that.
[00:56:54]  Yeah.
[00:56:55]  And I wish it wasn't true.
[00:56:57]  But that is absolutely real.
[00:56:59]  And I know that I'm blamed for it.
[00:57:01]  Okay.
[00:57:02]  But I'm just against it.
[00:57:04]  I think you're one of the.
[00:57:06]  I'm really against it.
[00:57:07]  I know people will mock me for saying this, but I genuinely think it's true.
[00:57:11]  I think you are one of the leading fighters against anti Semitism.
[00:57:16]  In the country.
[00:57:17]  I think so.
[00:57:17]  And I think I do what I can to be that as well.
[00:57:22]  I think if you really want to see a decrease in Jew hatred, then I think maybe it would be good to have Jewish people saying, hey, I am totally against this.
[00:57:32]  I am not for this.
[00:57:33]  But also, it is, and I'm not defending collectivism of any stripe, but it is very predictable and it is just human nature.
[00:57:41]  You know, if you have.
[00:57:43]  That's why it's so scary because it is human nature.
[00:57:46]  That's exactly right.
[00:57:46]  Well, if you, if there, let's say you just have a neighborhood.
[00:57:49]  Okay, there's like a neighborhood, all things being equal or whatever, and a bunch of black teenagers, black young men are going around and mugging and beating up people.
[00:58:02]  Do you think anti black racism is going to go up, go down, or stay the same?
[00:58:08]  Crime causes racism.
[00:58:09]  This is right.
[00:58:09]  It says that for years now.
[00:58:11]  Shut up.
[00:58:11]  Yeah, well, now is it fair to the black guy who didn't mug or beat up anyone that there's racism?
[00:58:18]  No, it's not fair to him.
[00:58:19]  It's also a predictable and Frankly, at times, an understandable response from someone who was a victim of getting mugged and beat up.
[00:58:28]  And so, if you're, you know, if you're a black person who's like in the public eye, it might be reasonable at that point to go, Hey, guys, we got to stop mugging people and beating them up.
[00:58:39]  Otherwise, they're going to hate us.
[00:58:41]  And the way I always looked at it, this always just came very natural to me.
[00:58:45]  Like, this was so obvious.
[00:58:47]  I'm Jewish.
[00:58:48]  I love Jewish people.
[00:58:50]  I love Jewish culture.
[00:58:51]  It's, it's, Who I am.
[00:58:53]  It's a big part of me.
[00:58:55]  And I think some of the best things about me I got from Jewish culture valuing intellectual curiosity and family and hard work and humor and a lot of things that really define who I am are very much a part of Jewish culture.
[00:59:09]  Total refusal to go along with whatever I am.
[00:59:11]  Yeah, for sure.
[00:59:12]  For sure.
[00:59:13]  Also, just whining about things, complaining, fetching.
[00:59:16]  You know, this is all part of me.
[00:59:18]  It's what I do for a living.
[00:59:19]  It turned it into a pretty nice career.
[00:59:21]  But But that being said, it's like I just look at it.
[00:59:25]  I go, okay, so we're all the stories I've heard from my family and our history are how we were brutally oppressed here and killed here and kicked out of here and relocated here.
[00:59:35]  And then we came to America.
[00:59:37]  Now, I have grown up in the United States of America.
[00:59:40]  This is where my kids live.
[00:59:41]  It's where they're going to grow up, as you say all the time.
[00:59:44]  That's the only thing that matters to me is that my kids have the best life I can give them.
[00:59:47]  Literally, the only thing that matters to me.
[00:59:49]  Everything is a very distant second from that.
[00:59:52]  And I go, okay, so we're 2% of the population.
[00:59:56]  In America, we are, by all objective standards, thriving.
[01:00:01]  We're doing great.
[01:00:02]  Jews are not an oppressed minority in America.
[01:00:04]  We're doing better than the average American is doing substantially.
[01:00:09]  And I've never once, I mean, I don't know.
[01:00:14]  I've had people on Twitter say things to me or something like that, but there's never once been an obstacle put in my way because I was Jewish.
[01:00:20]  I never couldn't go to this school or couldn't get this job or couldn't do anything like that.
[01:00:25]  And I've had a really great life here.
[01:00:28]  In fact, probably the most anti Semitism I've ever dealt with is from the pro Israel people who call me a capo every day because I don't support another reckless war.
[01:00:41]  So.
[01:00:42]  Capos were the Jewish and Jewish collaborators with the Nazis.
[01:00:45]  In the ghettos.
[01:00:46]  Yeah, yeah, right.
[01:00:47]  So, which is a really nasty thing to call somebody, but whatever.
[01:00:51]  That's the game we're in.
[01:00:54]  So, my perspective is like, okay, so you're telling me the whole world treated us like crap.
[01:00:58]  We've come here to America where we've been just very successful and treated very well.
[01:01:05]  My default position is to love the country for that.
[01:01:08]  Like, oh, well, then we should be really grateful to this country.
[01:01:11]  That should be the attitude.
[01:01:13]  Not going around lecturing people about whether they've been to the museum about our suffering from decades ago.
[01:01:18]  Like, what is that?

=== Tribal Victimhood Trauma (04:06) ===

[01:01:19]  It just seems like such a.
[01:01:20]  And look, again, I'm not.
[01:01:22]  A lot of the critics of Israel are left wingers.
[01:01:25]  I'm not coming at this from a left wing perspective.
[01:01:27]  I'm a crotchety old right winger.
[01:01:29]  Like, I don't agree with any of that.
[01:01:30]  I'm sitting here and saying if we, if any self respecting conservative or self respecting right winger saw any other minority group complaining about their mistreatment in another continent, in another country, in another century, you'd go, hey, Shut up.
[01:01:48]  Get over it.
[01:01:49]  Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
[01:01:50]  That's like what I'm saying.
[01:01:51]  And then, by the way, with Jews, like, oh, you already did.
[01:01:53]  You pulled yourself up by your bootstraps.
[01:01:55]  So, like, what are we even talking about here?
[01:01:57]  Why?
[01:01:58]  And I don't think, I don't think like obsessing over past trauma is always the correct answer.
[01:02:07]  And certainly not insisting that everybody else suffer over or obsess over your past trauma.
[01:02:15]  So, I just always, it was always very natural to me that like I'm on Team America.
[01:02:20]  I'm rooting for this country to succeed.
[01:02:22]  The country that fought the Nazis.
[01:02:23]  Yeah, by the way.
[01:02:24]  Yeah, yeah.
[01:02:25]  I lost a lot of Americans fighting the Nazis.
[01:02:27]  Why are you lecturing me about the Nazis?
[01:02:29]  Yeah.
[01:02:29]  My country fought them.
[01:02:31]  And to almost anybody, like anybody at Fox News, now again, maybe I talk about like Mark Levin and Fox News and these guys like too much.
[01:02:39]  Like they really are irrelevant, but I guess it's just that I'm stuck in the old, you know, I'm the age I am.
[01:02:44]  And so to me, it's still like, hey, this is Fox.
[01:02:47]  But any one of them would completely agree with me on this if we were talking about any other group of people.
[01:02:54]  You know, if we were talking about any other group of people talking about victimhood or any of that, you know, if you were, if they were, if there was some black, you know, guy talking about how racist this country is because of slavery, they would have made your exact point.
[01:03:08]  They'd go, we fought a war to end slavery.
[01:03:11]  Hundreds of thousands of us died.
[01:03:13]  You know what I mean?
[01:03:14]  Like they would, they would write about it.
[01:03:15]  I wasn't even here, so back off.
[01:03:17]  Yeah, right.
[01:03:18]  Right.
[01:03:19]  Yeah, no, I couldn't agree more.
[01:03:21]  And underneath all of this, and the reason that I really do worry that the country is going to become like openly tribal.
[01:03:28]  And that leads to violence every time.
[01:03:30]  Is that a lot of the same people who are upset about the rise in anti Semitism, which again I think is real?
[01:03:37]  I mean, I can tell it's real, and I don't like it either, are the ones who abetted all the anti white hate for so long, which is still not being addressed.
[01:03:46]  The Trump administration sued Harvard over its anti Jewish discrimination, which is like it's deranged.
[01:03:53]  What a slap in the face to white people.
[01:03:54]  Well, it's unbelievable.
[01:03:55]  Oh, my God.
[01:03:56]  And of course, the anti white hate is still.
[01:03:59]  Totally embedded at every level of our government and in business, and most famously in schools.
[01:04:04]  So that's like an attempt to hurt people on the basis of their race, and no one.
[01:04:09]  Has said anything about it.
[01:04:10]  And my point is, these are either universal principles, they apply to every human being endowed with human rights by the Creator, or they're just preferences.
[01:04:18]  It's just your tribe against mine, and then I'm allowed to fight your tribe for the benefit of my tribe.
[01:04:22]  And it just devolves into Rwanda.
[01:04:24]  So I think we could diffuse a lot of this if the head of the ADL would be like, I'm every bit as opposed to anti white hate as I am to anti Jewish hate.
[01:04:34]  And we could all just agree that it's all wrong.
[01:04:37]  Then we decelerate.
[01:04:38]  But until then, how can I take you seriously?
[01:04:41]  Yeah.
[01:04:41]  And it's, and I think along with that is we just, we have to stop fighting wars on behalf of Israel and we have to have some type of separation.
[01:04:51]  I mean, I'm not saying that like, I'm not saying we should be enemies with Israel or that we should go to war with Israel or anything like that.
[01:05:00]  But the, it just, the relationship, the special relationship between the U.S. and Israel is so freaking weird.
[01:05:10]  And now, in this new media environment, it's been exposed.
[01:05:14]  I don't think you can put that toothpaste back in the tube.
[01:05:17]  It is something that I think a lot of people were kind of happy to look the other way about for years.

=== Breaking the Israel Bond (15:07) ===

[01:05:26]  You came on my show, you came to Maine a couple of years ago to do something on Ukraine, and Greenwald, too, who I love and I've known a long time.
[01:05:33]  And both of you had a moment where you're like, yeah, Israel's probably.
[01:05:36]  I'm like, ugh, I agree, but I just want to pretend this isn't happening.
[01:05:42]  It's not worth it.
[01:05:43]  I don't want to be denounced by Chabad or whatever.
[01:05:45]  I just don't want to have the fight.
[01:05:46]  Well, you let me or Glenn Greenwald in your door and that will not be happening.
[01:05:50]  I was.
[01:05:51]  Yes, I get it.
[01:05:52]  No, I get it.
[01:05:52]  I was part of that.
[01:05:53]  Like, it's just not worth it.
[01:05:56]  Well, look, even the great, in my opinion, the greatest living American hero, Ron Paul, used to, even he would kind of like try to say it in a gentle way.
[01:06:05]  Like, he would go, well, look, let's let them fight their own fights and we'll just kind of be over here being non interventionist.
[01:06:12]  Because, of course, on one hand, it's like, look, there's a lot of things.
[01:06:15]  First of all, In, I don't know if people who are listening to this show can appreciate this, but you know this much better than I do.
[01:06:24]  But there was a time, you know, Donald Trump will kind of say this out loud.
[01:06:28]  He'll say that, you know, APEC used to totally control Congress and now they don't control them anymore.
[01:06:32]  Like, he'll just say it, which is so wild.
[01:06:35]  They give me hundreds of millions of dollars and I do whatever they want.
[01:06:38]  Like, all right, dude, you're just saying that out loud.
[01:06:40]  I thought that was like an anti Semitic conspiracy theory, not just something the president said in the Knesset of all places.
[01:06:46]  Oh my God.
[01:06:47]  But The thing is, right, in the old order, before there were podcasts like this, and look, if you think about it, like I used to always point to the example because I thought it was so interesting about where the technology, where social media was, is when Bill O'Reilly was the number one show at Fox News, the number one show in cable news, and at the 8 p.m. hour.
[01:07:07]  You were also the number one show at Fox News, the number one show in cable news at the 8 p.m. hour.
[01:07:10]  When they fired Bill O'Reilly, Bill O'Reilly went from being like one of the biggest voices in the national conversation to being like, Relegated over to the sidelines, who's like, you know, he still has a show somewhere, but he's not like really moving the needle at all.
[01:07:25]  You got bigger than you were there.
[01:07:28]  And part of that was who you were, who your audience was.
[01:07:30]  That was technology.
[01:07:31]  But a big part of it was that you had another platform to go with it to.
[01:07:35]  Yeah, I would fly fishing full time if it weren't for the technology.
[01:07:38]  So maybe in that sense, maybe the technology ruined your life.
[01:07:41]  You could have just gone and had a happy life.
[01:07:43]  They pulled you back in.
[01:07:45]  But I don't know that people appreciate how much in the old order, in the old days when getting fired took you out of the conversation with.
[01:07:52]  Bill O'Reilly days or whatever before that, getting the Israel lobby on your back would ruin you.
[01:07:58]  It would absolutely ruin you.
[01:07:59]  It's one thing you couldn't do.
[01:08:00]  And it didn't matter who you were.
[01:08:01]  Absolutely, sleep with the makeup artist.
[01:08:03]  Yep.
[01:08:04]  You could not fight with the ADL.
[01:08:05]  That's right.
[01:08:06]  I mean, that was just it.
[01:08:07]  That was just it.
[01:08:07]  I mean, and there's so much, you know, I mean, whether it's.
[01:08:10]  The ADL or the Southern Poverty Law Center or AIPAC or whatever, the American Enterprise Institute or National Review or the Israel lobbyists, like this huge powerful thing.
[01:08:22]  And back then, I mean, it didn't matter.
[01:08:26]  If you were Pat Buchanan, you're like, dude, I'm Pat Buchanan.
[01:08:29]  I've been in four white people.
[01:08:30]  I won the New Hampshire primary.
[01:08:31]  I won the New Hampshire primary.
[01:08:32]  I've been in four different presidential administrations, three or four different presidential administrations, a New York Times bestseller, a fixture in America.
[01:08:40]  I mean, he hosted Crossfire when Crossfire first started.
[01:08:44]  Doesn't matter.
[01:08:45]  They could take you out.
[01:08:45]  They could take Ron Paulette.
[01:08:46]  They could take all it.
[01:08:47]  And so there was, for many years, almost, I feel like a leftover residue of like, you just don't want this fight because, man, is this going to get ugly and you're going to be smeared as every vicious name in the book.
[01:09:01]  But at a certain point, it was like, oh, well, you know, you kind of can talk about these things now.
[01:09:06]  And in fact, the people who do talk about them are being rewarded by their viewers because it's refreshing that someone's talking about the thing you weren't allowed to talk about.
[01:09:15]  But now that that has been exposed and the toothpaste can't be put back in the tube, it's just too much.
[01:09:21]  You cannot have, and I know you talk about this a lot.
[01:09:24]  You look at examples like, and these examples are countless.
[01:09:28]  You look at Ted Cruz saying to your face, as he said at other places, that the reason he ran for Senate was to be Israel's number one defender.
[01:09:37]  You got Tammy Bruce saying America's the second best country to Israel, kind of tongue in cheek, still a really weird thing for an official.
[01:09:48]  From the administration to say.
[01:09:49]  You got Donald Trump saying that Sheldon and now Miriam Adelson give him hundreds of millions of dollars and all they want, they come in every day asking for stuff on behalf of a foreign country and he gives it to them.
[01:10:02]  Which they love more than America, as you said.
[01:10:04]  Well, Sheldon was on tape.
[01:10:08]  Have you seen this?
[01:10:08]  Yes.
[01:10:09]  He was on tape.
[01:10:09]  He said his greatest regret in life is that he wore the U.S. military uniform rather than the IDF uniform.
[01:10:17]  Uniform.
[01:10:18]  Now, I'm sorry, that is intolerable from any just sane perspective.
[01:10:24]  This has nothing to do with hating Jews or even hating any other country.
[01:10:28]  If people were talking like this about Norway, we'd be like, yo, what are you doing?
[01:10:32]  This isn't Norway.
[01:10:33]  This is America.
[01:10:33]  I agree.
[01:10:34]  And like, there's move to Norway.
[01:10:35]  Yeah, like, fine, go ahead.
[01:10:37]  But no, you can't.
[01:10:38]  And then to have, you know, people like Mike Huckabee saying that God promised Lebanon and Saudi Arabia to Netanyahu, like, I'm sorry, but there's just no.
[01:10:51]  This is simply not how public policy makers, I guess not a policy maker, but a politician, an ambassador to this country.
[01:11:01]  You can't be talking this way.
[01:11:02]  This is insane.
[01:11:03]  Like, we don't let anybody just dictate their policy off, God told me to do this, and then a very weird, God told me something on behalf of a foreign country.
[01:11:13]  So I think we're at a point where, if, and this is kind of my rejoinder to a lot of those, you know, people who call me and you anti Semite.
[01:11:21]  I guess I'm a self hating Jew and you're an anti Semite.
[01:11:24]  Because listen, man.
[01:11:25]  There is a rise of Jew hatred.
[01:11:27]  And if you really do care about that, the only way to combat that is that we got to end this.
[01:11:34]  You know, like the same way we needed a separation of church and state so we don't fight religious wars anymore, we need a separation of the Israel lobby and the United States of America.
[01:11:43]  I think it's tough.
[01:11:44]  I think it's tough.
[01:11:45]  As a non Israel hater, I don't hate anyone.
[01:11:48]  I'm not going to allow myself to hate anyone, period.
[01:11:52]  But I'm just being as honest as I can be, you know, we're very enmeshed, like more than people understand.
[01:11:58]  Representatives.
[01:11:59]  Official and non official of the Israeli government throughout the US government at every single level, state and federal.
[01:12:04]  Okay, there's that in our institutions.
[01:12:06]  That would include the Pentagon and CIA, our biggest and most important.
[01:12:09]  And then there's the question of.
[01:12:11]  Like, what does that mean for Israel?
[01:12:13]  Like, do they just allow the United States to be like, you know, you're just like, whatever, France now or Spain?
[01:12:20]  We're going to treat you like, you know, an ally, but not a sibling.
[01:12:25]  I think that we get punished for that.
[01:12:28]  People are afraid of Israel.
[01:12:29]  That's the difference between Israel and Spain.
[01:12:32]  Everyone loves Spain.
[01:12:33]  It's great.
[01:12:34]  The Spanish, we can have bases there.
[01:12:35]  You can put missiles there.
[01:12:36]  It's all great.
[01:12:37]  But no one thinks if you pull back aid from Spain, they're going to hurt you.
[01:12:41]  But everyone is afraid of being physically hurt by Israel.
[01:12:44]  Maybe they're overstating it.
[01:12:45]  Maybe they're all anti Semitic and paranoid.
[01:12:47]  I don't know.
[01:12:48]  I can just tell you from living in D.C., there is a fear of them, real fear.
[01:12:53]  And anyone who says that's not true is freaking lying.
[01:12:55]  No, it's like saying there's a fear of the intelligence agencies.
[01:12:58]  Like, that's a fact.
[01:13:00]  It's a fact.
[01:13:00]  I think we're pretty out in the open about that now.
[01:13:02]  Yeah.
[01:13:03]  Well, that's right.
[01:13:04]  That's right.
[01:13:04]  And it's, you know, so if that's the case, that it's almost like our leaders are just too afraid to do something about this.
[01:13:14]  Well, of course, they're afraid.
[01:13:15]  And I don't know the genesis of that fear.
[01:13:18]  Like, maybe, again, maybe they're all just reading the protocols, the elders of Zion, and maybe they're all anti Semites and they're overstating the influence of Jews or whatever.
[01:13:26]  I mean, that's totally possible.
[01:13:27]  People do make crazy calculations.
[01:13:29]  Maybe there really is a physical threat, but it's not arguable that U.S. policymakers at every level are afraid.
[01:13:37]  This is not all voluntary at all.
[01:13:39]  Yeah.
[01:13:40]  Well, it's, there's something about like the, you know, I like Megyn Kelly, I think she was the one.
[01:13:48]  Who said this?
[01:13:49]  I don't know if she coined the term, but she was the first one I heard say it.
[01:13:52]  But she, I think it was with you, where she said the Israel firsters.
[01:13:56]  And that was how she described it.
[01:13:57]  I was like, oh, that's a good, that's a really good term for them.
[01:13:59]  Because, you know, the thing is that, you know, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, like they call it the Israel lobby.
[01:14:05]  But then when you say that, a lot of people just think you're talking about AIPAC.
[01:14:08]  But they're not just talking about AIPAC.
[01:14:10]  They're talking about this whole different, all these different organizations and individuals.
[01:14:13]  The Heritage Foundation, the Washington Post, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and, you know, all of these organizations and then all these individuals.
[01:14:22]  Who clearly are here to, that is their number one issue.
[01:14:26]  And the thing I almost resent most about him is like, it's like, just admit that.
[01:14:30]  Just admit that this is what you care about more than anything else, Barry Weiss.
[01:14:34]  Clearly you do, right?
[01:14:35]  Like this is so.
[01:14:35]  I agree.
[01:14:36]  Because then in effect, you are like a foreign spy.
[01:14:40]  You're kind of like an agent for a different government.
[01:14:42]  And the point is that, you know, because people will try to argue the technicalities of this, but the point is that all of the whole global war on terrorism was all a bunch of Israel firsters who pushed the administration into that at every level.
[01:14:54]  You know, this is, by the way, you'll like this just because.
[01:14:57]  Some people don't get this, but you'll.
[01:14:58]  So, David Wormser, who, you know, worked for Dick Cheney and was the author of the Clean Break memo.
[01:15:06]  So, I talk about this all the time, a lot of different podcasts on yours, on Rogan's.
[01:15:10]  I brought up the Clean Break and how that's what this whole real strategy is.
[01:15:12]  It's what the Clean Break morphed into.
[01:15:14]  Is essentially, and you could look at this David Wormser and Richard Pearl and Douglas Fife wrote the Clean Break memo to Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996, who first became prime minister for his first term.
[01:15:25]  And he had written a book, which is worth reading, called Fighting Terrorism.
[01:15:29]  Very easy read, by the way.
[01:15:30]  It's a little book that Benjamin Netanyahu had written the year before.
[01:15:33]  And essentially, the break was from Oslo, it was from the peace process.
[01:15:38]  The break was from Yitzhak Rabin, who had now been murdered by a Benjamin Netanyahu fan after Benjamin Netanyahu really pushed.
[01:15:47]  I mean, that's a whole other can of worms, by the way.
[01:15:49]  But I know, like, if Yitzhak Rabin's wife, I believe, still blames Benjamin Netanyahu for his death.
[01:15:54]  Many in Israel do.
[01:15:55]  And now there's a lobbying campaign to get the murderer out of prison.
[01:15:59]  Well, they, so I mean, they were, he was given anti Rabin like marches and they were holding coffins before he died.
[01:16:05]  Like, they were like implying like someone should kill this guy because he had said, not that he was really ever going to do this.
[01:16:10]  But he had said, we got to find a two state solution.
[01:16:13]  We got to give the Palestinians their own state, and we'll start working toward that.
[01:16:16]  Now, the clean break was the neoconservatives' brilliant idea, the Israel firsters here, that, well, no, no, no, see, you got this all wrong.
[01:16:22]  You think you need to make peace with the Palestinians because that's the only way that you'll normalize relations with the broader Arab world.
[01:16:29]  But no, We just got to go topple the broader Arab world and overthrow all those governments, and then you never have to make peace with the Palestinians.
[01:16:38]  Okay, so it's essentially a blueprint for greater Israel.
[01:16:42]  And this was their whole strategy pre 9 11.
[01:16:44]  And for regional hegemony.
[01:16:45]  It's not just about controlling the West Bank.
[01:16:47]  It's about controlling the Middle East.
[01:16:49]  That's right.
[01:16:50]  That's right.
[01:16:51]  And so now, because we live in this crazy world we live in now, David Wormser did a podcast where he responded to me.
[01:17:00]  Now, from my perspective, I'm little old me, some stand up comedian who just talks about all this stuff.
[01:17:08]  This is David Wormser.
[01:17:09]  This is the guy who's the author of the Clean Break Memo.
[01:17:11]  But to the new internet world, he has like 300 followers on Twitter.
[01:17:16]  Nobody saw this, nobody knows about it.
[01:17:18]  But so, David Worms, and he's there.
[01:17:20]  To debunk my interpretation of the clean break memo.
[01:17:24]  This is the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life.
[01:17:26]  And so the host brings him on to be like, oh, there's Dave Smith guys out here saying that all these wars were about Israel and blah, blah, blah.
[01:17:32]  And this is ridiculous, right?
[01:17:34]  So why don't you just tell them that this is all not true?
[01:17:36]  And his response was he just goes into like a monologue about how Israel is the cradle of civilization and that all of Western civilization is downstream from Israel and that we always must protect.
[01:17:52]  So, anyway, in the attempt to prove me wrong, He just totally exposes that, like, yeah, this is the mentality that all of these guys have.
[01:17:59]  So, if Mike Huckabee supports a war for Israel, in his mind, that's not selling out your country for another country.
[01:18:09]  This is God's plan.
[01:18:10]  You know what I mean?
[01:18:11]  So, they're all so.
[01:18:13]  It's like the fish doesn't know he's in water.
[01:18:16]  Like, they don't even realize they're the Israel lobby.
[01:18:18]  They go, what are you talking about?
[01:18:19]  See, this is what Jeff Sachs said to me.
[01:18:22]  Jeff Sachs, who's often attacked, is really smart.
[01:18:24]  And I think Jeff Sachs is a decent guy.
[01:18:26]  And we don't agree on everything, but like, he's a.
[01:18:28]  He's an honest guy.
[01:18:29]  Like he just says, So I say to him, You've been watching this all these years.
[01:18:33]  What do you think this is about?
[01:18:34]  Why does this tiny country have so much control over our giant continent sized country?
[01:18:38]  And he said, Well, you know, a lot of contributions.
[01:18:41]  There are threats or questions about the Kennedy assassination.
[01:18:44]  Like they're willing to use force and assassinations to get what they want.
[01:18:47]  He goes, But I don't think that explains it.
[01:18:49]  I don't think either one of those, bribery or threats, a character stick, I don't think that actually is the whole picture.
[01:18:54]  There's a spell of some kind, there's like a supernatural quality to this.
[01:18:59]  Good people, like I don't think Mike Huckabee is like in favor of genocide.
[01:19:03]  I just don't think that.
[01:19:04]  Pretty nice guy, very nice guy, actually.
[01:19:06]  But he believes with this fervor that suggests that he's not thinking clearly.
[01:19:10]  Like there's another quality here.
[01:19:14]  And do you know what I'm talking about?
[01:19:16]  Yeah, no, 100%.
[01:19:17]  And I think Jeff Sachs is a pretty secular guy, by the way.
[01:19:19]  I don't know, but I don't.
[01:19:20]  Jeff's not a religious extremist that I can say for sure.
[01:19:23]  Right, okay.
[01:19:23]  Yeah, but everyone recognizes, like I told you last time, there's no such thing as atheist.
[01:19:28]  They think they are atheists, but no one really recognizes.
[01:19:31]  You were an atheist.
[01:19:31]  No, but I wasn't.
[01:19:33]  But I thought I was.
[01:19:34]  But you never really are.
[01:19:35]  It's not like you can't.
[01:19:37]  Well, because I would just say, I don't really believe in any of that.
[01:19:39]  And I don't think that that's real.
[01:19:41]  But of course, like, as I told you the story last time I was here, then when my daughter is born and I'm worried about her life, I immediately find, and it's like, I always knew.
[01:19:48]  That was always in there on some level.
[01:19:50]  So I remember one time hearing this debate, and I wish I could remember who it was, but it was like a theist atheist debate.
[01:19:57]  And it might have been Christopher Hitchens or something like that.
[01:20:00]  Maybe not.
[01:20:01]  But it was one of those, like, does God exist debates.
[01:20:04]  And so the guy arguing that God does exist.
[01:20:08]  Said something about how there are spiritual forces in the world and blah, blah, blah.
[01:20:12]  And there are evil spirits, he said.
[01:20:14]  There are evil spirits.
[01:20:15]  And then the atheist guy goes, he goes, Look, like we all know that there is depression and there's this and there's this.
[01:20:23]  We all know that there's dark forces in the world, but you don't need a supernatural explanation.
[01:20:26]  I'm like, Did you just say dark forces?
[01:20:30]  Like dark forces?
[01:20:32]  I mean, what is that?

=== Fascism and Dark Forces (16:03) ===

[01:20:33]  You're saying the same thing in different language, man.
[01:20:35]  Like it's just like there's actually no gap here between.
[01:20:38]  Anyway, but so.
[01:20:40]  Yeah, I do think there's a spiritual component to all of this.
[01:20:42]  It feels that way because I don't want to be the kind of person who imputes the worst motives to my opponents.
[01:20:48]  Okay.
[01:20:49]  But I am because most people are like, why is this person doing something that's insane?
[01:20:54]  Doesn't make sense.
[01:20:55]  It's irrational.
[01:20:56]  Getting paid.
[01:20:57]  Like, that's always the first explanation that people come to.
[01:20:59]  And I have myself thought that.
[01:21:01]  But then if you know someone really well, I don't, I'm not intimate with Huckabee, but I've known him for so many, 30 years more than.
[01:21:09]  It's like, I don't think Huckabee is, you know, he's into money.
[01:21:12]  I get it.
[01:21:13]  But I don't think he's like, Totally motivated by greed.
[01:21:17]  I just don't believe that.
[01:21:18]  No, I think there's.
[01:21:19]  Well, look, I think.
[01:21:19]  And I don't think he's evil, but he's defending evil.
[01:21:22]  So what is that?
[01:21:23]  I think a few things can be true at the same time, right?
[01:21:26]  So it could be that you're under a spell, that there's a spiritual aspect to it.
[01:21:31]  And then it can also be that there's soft incentives for you to continue being under that spell, right?
[01:21:36]  And so the history of Jewish influence, Israeli influence, I mean, look.
[01:21:46]  Obviously, much of this goes back to the fact that Jews dominated finance for many years.
[01:21:54]  And part of this was because Christians weren't allowed to lend money with credit, right?
[01:21:59]  But there is now a form, obviously, of abusive usury, right?
[01:22:05]  There are loan sharks out there.
[01:22:07]  Some of them are even credit card companies that will charge you like 30% interest or 29.9, whatever they're allowed to do, which is like kind of a crazy interest rate.
[01:22:17]  They kind of prey on desperate people.
[01:22:19]  Now, they're not necessarily like even the loan shark or the credit card companies, they're just kind of benefiting off your desperation because it's not like if the credit card company wasn't there, it's not like, oh, now everything's okay.
[01:22:30]  The reason they're putting necessities on the credit card to begin with is because other conditions have, you know, led them to this desperate place.
[01:22:37]  Totally.
[01:22:38]  But the problem, so then you had for much of Christendom, right?
[01:22:41]  It's completely banned to lend money at any interest, which is that, you know, I do not think is abusive to have any interest rate on your money because that's actually.
[01:22:50]  A very necessary part of an economy.
[01:22:52]  There are people who have a very good idea, but don't have any capital.
[01:22:56]  And then there's people sitting with capital and they go, Well, look, I can't just give this to you because if you lose it, then I just lose my money.
[01:23:04]  And if you pay me back, all I've gotten is that I get my money later rather than having it right now.
[01:23:10]  But if you have my money, then I can't use it for whatever thing I want to build.
[01:23:13]  So there's a cost to me to lending you my money.
[01:23:15]  However, if I go, Hey, I'll lend this to you, but you pay me back a little bit of interest, this actually really facilitates economic growth because.
[01:23:23]  You know, or just good businesses being created because, like, oh, yeah, the guy with a good idea but with no capital now can do so.
[01:23:29]  Anyway, so so Jewish bankers ended up kind of filling this void, and then you had very powerful Jewish uh groups who became very, very wealthy in banking, and yada yada, a lot of things later.
[01:23:38]  Banking got very, very corrupt.
[01:23:40]  Um, but again, it's important to keep in mind this wasn't most Jews, most Jews were living in poverty.
[01:23:45]  This was so, but like, the Balfour Declaration is written to the Rothschilds, right?
[01:23:50]  Like, it's not the creation of Israel was at least part of.
[01:23:54]  They had international finance backing them.
[01:23:57]  And so that's also true in America that much of the largest banking institutions had some Jewish influence.
[01:24:05]  It's also the case that.
[01:24:07]  After the creation of the state of Israel, you have the Mossad, right?
[01:24:12]  Or you have Israeli intelligence.
[01:24:14]  And no, Jews are smart, not like that much smarter than everybody else, but they're a pretty smart group.
[01:24:20]  And then the Mossad had an advantage over every other intelligence organization that would really be a dream for any intelligence organization.
[01:24:30]  But the Mossad had a diaspora of people all spread out in the world that were Jewish, right?
[01:24:37]  And so, and also, there was this wide cultural belief amongst Jews that the Holocaust is what gave birth to the state of Israel and that the state of Israel is the guarantor of another Holocaust not happening.
[01:24:50]  And so, you could very, like, imagine the CIA had that.
[01:24:53]  Imagine you just had little Americans in every single country, you know, little groups of Americans, maybe not every single country, but you had pockets of them in lots of different places.
[01:25:01]  And they really passionately believed that the existence of the United States of America was the most important thing in the world.
[01:25:06]  What an advantage for them.
[01:25:07]  Go around, hey, find any American somewhere.
[01:25:09]  You want to serve your country?
[01:25:10]  You want to do this?
[01:25:11]  And so, I think between finance, between the Mossad, and then when the neoconservatives, who really were not old money when they first came into it, right?
[01:25:26]  Like if you know the first generation of neoconservatives, they were having their debates at City College, not at Harvard.
[01:25:32]  You know what I mean?
[01:25:32]  Literally, they were at City College.
[01:25:34]  Yes, these were middle class guys.
[01:25:37]  A working class.
[01:25:38]  They weren't the Rockefeller guys or the Morgan guys, they weren't at the Council on Foreign Relations.
[01:25:43]  But what they did was they went and they made their relationships with the military industrial complex themselves.
[01:25:49]  And a lot of this was, you know, the problem is that you create this empire, you create this military industrial complex, this big government scheme, and then it's right for someone to take it over.
[01:26:00]  And if you go look at like every last one of those Bill Crystal think tanks, Bill Crystal needs to have 16 think tanks.
[01:26:09]  He doesn't have a thought in his head, but he's got all of it, literally never.
[01:26:12]  He's got a New York Times column.
[01:26:13]  Like his dad was smart for all his problems, but Bill Crystal was never smart.
[01:26:17]  He was revered as the smart guy.
[01:26:19]  Never said anything about it.
[01:26:20]  Dan Quayle's brain.
[01:26:20]  Yeah, literally.
[01:26:22]  But every last one of those think tanks is funded by Lockheed Martin or Raytheon or whatever.
[01:26:29]  So it's like the thing is that a lot of times in government, it's a very different thing to swim with the current than to swim against the current.
[01:26:42]  There's no such thing as a Fabian libertarian.
[01:26:47]  You might have some hardcore communists.
[01:26:49]  And then you have like an AOC who's like, I want incrementally more government.
[01:26:53]  You can't get incrementally less government because there's no, that's asking the government to have less power.
[01:26:59]  Now, if you're the neoconservatives and you come around with like, hey, I've got a plan to fight forever wars, you know, I've got a plan to go topple all of these different countries, you're going to get some money from weapons companies.
[01:27:12]  And so, anyway, just saying aside from the spiritual fascism, I thought that's what fascism, I mean, leaving aside the anti Semitic component, um, Of the Nazis, which was a big component.
[01:27:23]  But the idea of fascism that the state, you know, merges with the industrial powers.
[01:27:30]  Yeah, this is what it is.
[01:27:32]  And also just swap out the Jew hatred and make it Muslim hatred or make it German hatred or Russian hatred or whatever it is.
[01:27:40]  You know, they always pick another thing, some ethnic hatred.
[01:27:42]  So, yeah, it's not, but that's exactly right.
[01:27:44]  Fascism won.
[01:27:45]  Man, it's so, it's so ironic.
[01:27:47]  The same when sometimes when you win, you really lose.
[01:27:49]  You know, you could, they could say on paper, and I'm sure there's some historian, professor who would say, no, like, Capitalism and communism won the Second World War and fascism was defeated.
[01:27:58]  Except what arose out of it was the fascist model for everybody, essentially, right?
[01:28:03]  Which is, and again, fascism is kind of ill defined.
[01:28:07]  But kind of ill defined.
[01:28:08]  Yeah.
[01:28:08]  Well, but broadly speaking, I mean, what are we talking about?
[01:28:11]  The FDR and the entire progressive movement, the original progressive movement, this is what they were advocating for, right?
[01:28:20]  It's like we got to get away from laissez faire free markets.
[01:28:24]  We're not going total communist, but we need a strong, powerful state powerful enough to regulate the economy and the country and then also fight wars abroad.
[01:28:34]  I mean, without majority support.
[01:28:37]  Yeah.
[01:28:37]  I just don't really see what, and we can cling to this idea of democracy, which is always really an illusion.
[01:28:45]  You know, it's never really true.
[01:28:47]  It doesn't really matter.
[01:28:48]  In fact, there was a study done, I want to say this was at Princeton, if I'm remembering correctly.
[01:28:53]  This was like maybe 15, 20 years ago.
[01:28:55]  But they did a study where they said they just concluded that we're an oligarchy, not a democracy.
[01:29:00]  And they literally just went through it empirically and were like, the American people's feeling has no impact on us.
[01:29:06]  No bearing whatsoever.
[01:29:07]  You could say we have elections.
[01:29:09]  And if you really don't like George W. Bush, you can vote for Barack Obama instead of John McCain.
[01:29:15]  But what'd you vote for him for?
[01:29:16]  Because he said he'd close Guantanamo Bay and end the wars.
[01:29:21]  Guantanamo Bay is still open today, and we're on the seventh war of Wesley Clark's seven wars in five countries.
[01:29:27]  None of that stopped.
[01:29:28]  What did we get during Obama?
[01:29:30]  We got a massive escalation in Afghanistan.
[01:29:32]  We got wars in Libya, in Syria, in Yemen, drone bombing campaigns in Pakistan.
[01:29:39]  Continued the war in Iraq, ended the war in Iraq, then reinvaded Iraq when his pet ISIS left over from the war in Syria.
[01:29:46]  So I think you're describing the upside of all of this.
[01:29:49]  Again, I haven't slept eight hours in a month.
[01:29:52]  I'm so distressed.
[01:29:53]  I'm in no sense for this.
[01:29:54]  I argued against it, obviously.
[01:29:56]  But it's happening.
[01:29:58]  And this is the end of the empire as we knew it.
[01:30:02]  Hopefully, it'll shrink back into something manageable that serves our interests.
[01:30:07]  But who knows what'll happen?
[01:30:08]  But we're definitely not going back to where we were a month ago.
[01:30:11]  We know that.
[01:30:12]  So, what are the upsides?
[01:30:13]  Well, one upside is you might wind up at some point with presidents who want to run the United States.
[01:30:19]  No president wants to run the United States because why would you want to run the US when you can run the world?
[01:30:24]  Yeah.
[01:30:24]  By the way, you don't know the people you manage when you run the world.
[01:30:27]  They don't like to come to your office and complain about your treatment of them.
[01:30:30]  It's like there's no cost, it's all upside.
[01:30:32]  You're just the king of the world.
[01:30:34]  I don't think future presidents will have that option.
[01:30:37]  And so, maybe we'll get people who are like, you know, LaGuardia Airport smells.
[01:30:40]  The Miami Airport is like an atrocity.
[01:30:43]  Maybe we should fix that.
[01:30:44]  Don't you think?
[01:30:45]  Yeah.
[01:30:45]  Well, maybe this will cause like a reorientation back to what matters, which is our country.
[01:30:51]  Yeah, quite possibly.
[01:30:52]  And, and that's the, yeah, that's really the best case scenario.
[01:30:55]  And, you know, like I try to, well, I look at models like, you know, when the Soviet Union collapsed, right?
[01:31:01]  There's, I remember there was a, so Murray Rothbard talked about this in a speech once.
[01:31:06]  Murray Rothbard, for people who don't know, is in my opinion, like the most brilliant political theorist of the 20th century.
[01:31:14]  He's a genius.
[01:31:16]  And he was a, um, You know, of course, he ended up supporting Pat Buchanan in 1992.
[01:31:21]  He was an economist and a historian and a philosopher.
[01:31:24]  And so he was talking about, I guess this was like a speech he gave shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
[01:31:29]  And he was talking about how he had seen like a video of a Chinese family under Chinese communism at the time.
[01:31:40]  I guess maybe this was back, he was talking about from like before Mao Zedong died.
[01:31:45]  And he said that the interviewer asked him questions.
[01:31:49]  They were just talking about how much they loved the regime and how he said, Would you rather your kids had a prosperous life or were loyal servants of the regime and had a very difficult life?
[01:32:01]  And he says, Loyal servants of the regime and a very difficult life, no problem.
[01:32:04]  And so Murray Rothbard said he watched this and he was like, My God, I mean, this is just so horrible.
[01:32:08]  Like, they've actually done it.
[01:32:09]  They've created the communist man and destroyed the human soul.
[01:32:12]  And then he's talking to his buddy, who's another genius who went to China a lot and was like a China expert.
[01:32:17]  And he goes, No, that's what they say when the cameras are there.
[01:32:21]  That's all that is.
[01:32:22]  It's like, that doesn't believe that.
[01:32:23]  You know what I mean?
[01:32:24]  They just know this is on tape.
[01:32:25]  You can't say anything else.
[01:32:26]  And so that's what you say.
[01:32:27]  And then they go about their day not really caring what the regime says.
[01:32:30]  And so, like, when the Soviet Union collapsed, From all I've read about it, that was essentially the state of the Soviet Union, no one believed the government anymore.
[01:32:41]  They just all knew they were liars.
[01:32:43]  They all knew this was bullshit.
[01:32:45]  We're in the Brezhnev era here.
[01:32:47]  Right.
[01:32:47]  And so now, of course, the war hawks and the neoconservatives always viewed us luring the Soviets into Afghanistan and getting them bogged down there fighting the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, including the foreign Arab Mujahideen and Osama bin Laden, who we were supporting.
[01:33:05]  But they always viewed this as a great success.
[01:33:07]  Because it brought down the Soviet Union.
[01:33:09]  And I don't know enough about what factor led to what.
[01:33:13]  I mean, communism is not an effective economic system, but I'm sure the war did hurt them a lot.
[01:33:18]  I know how costly wars can be and how much they can degrade our country.
[01:33:21]  I know wars in Afghanistan can degrade your country.
[01:33:24]  So I'm sure that was part of it.
[01:33:25]  But my point is that it wasn't like America went in and toppled the USSR, right?
[01:33:33]  Like they collapsed on their own, partly as a result of fighting foreign wars and partly as a result of.
[01:33:38]  You know, just government lying and terrible economic policies.
[01:33:42]  But at a certain point, like the soldiers just weren't willing to fire.
[01:33:46]  You know, like there were attempted counter coups.
[01:33:50]  Yeah.
[01:33:50]  Yes.
[01:33:51]  There were attempted coups in the past where they did fire and they were like, no, you're not leaving the Soviet Union.
[01:33:56]  But by this point in 89 or whatever it was, as the people started rising up, they were like, we're just not, we're not doing this anymore.
[01:34:04]  They themselves don't believe it anymore.
[01:34:05]  The government.
[01:34:06]  And so I guess, It's a long way to get to what I'm saying, but like at a certain point, we might just, we might hit a point where like the people just aren't believing this anymore.
[01:34:17]  The law enforcement, whether military or police, just aren't going to crack down on the American people in that way.
[01:34:23]  And that would maybe lead to a rise of a real president who actually ran the country.
[01:34:27]  And I don't know.
[01:34:28]  I think if I'm not mistaken, I believe in when there was like German reunification, they didn't, from what I understand, I don't think they didn't really punish like the people in the communist government.
[01:34:39]  They kept them on their pensions.
[01:34:40]  Absolutely.
[01:34:41]  They went kind of, and I feel like we almost need something like that.
[01:34:44]  I know Curtis Yarvin's talked about this a bit, but something where it's like, look, man, I think there are some people at the absolute top who need to be criminally prosecuted, but like, we got to find a transition from here to there.
[01:34:57]  Like, if we're buying off bureaucrats, that would be cheaper than continuing this system.
[01:35:03]  You know what I mean?
[01:35:03]  Like, there's almost something where if a president could come up and say, like, hey, all you guys working in the intelligence agencies who were working to undermine presidents, you all have amnesty.
[01:35:12]  But you got to pack up and go home right now.
[01:35:14]  Like, that's it.
[01:35:16]  In a weird way, we need, as you said, we need an actual president who's actually running the country.
[01:35:21]  And who can restore peace here.
[01:35:23]  I mean, I think older Americans believe their country is more united and cohesive than it really is.
[01:35:30]  You've got an entire generation of people who weren't born here, whose parents weren't born here, who came here on the promise that can't be fulfilled, which is that, you know, of a better life economically.
[01:35:42]  And I think it's going to be tough to make good on that promise, honestly.
[01:35:45]  And so, what do you do with that?
[01:35:47]  What do you do with dashed expectations at scale?
[01:35:50]  Millions of people who kind of thought they were getting something and didn't get it.
[01:35:54]  A country where half of all households get a government check, half of all households.
[01:36:00]  And the average age of the first time homeowner is 40.
[01:36:04]  Yeah.
[01:36:05]  Exactly.
[01:36:06]  So you've got a lot of issues here, and all of our attention is there.
[01:36:10]  It's in the Persian Gulf or China or Venezuela, wherever.
[01:36:14]  But once you readjust and start thinking about how this country deals with dashed expectations and remains coherent, how does it prevent the rise of a truly dangerous demagogue?
[01:36:26]  Yeah.
[01:36:26]  Yeah.
[01:36:27]  Well, also, it's not like the two, it's not just that we're focused over there, and so we're not taking care of what's going on here.
[01:36:33]  It's the focus over there is destroying over here.

=== Austrians and Currency Rigging (14:01) ===

[01:36:36]  A hundred percent, as it always does.
[01:36:38]  Okay.
[01:36:38]  So the angriest I've ever been at you.
[01:36:40]  Was when you said that you said Lindsey Graham's views are war everywhere and Austrian economics at home.
[01:36:48]  And I was like, no, no, you're right, you're right.
[01:36:50]  Austrian economics.
[01:36:51]  No, but look, I mean, because, and it's not just, I don't care about just like the term, but it's the idea is that essentially what's going on Monopoly capitalism.
[01:37:00]  Yes, yes.
[01:37:01]  But the opposite of Austrian economics.
[01:37:03]  I know.
[01:37:03]  Big government, central banking, record high government spending every single year.
[01:37:08]  And so what happens essentially is, and this is what also I'm so furious at this administration over.
[01:37:14]  Over this stuff.
[01:37:14]  And, you know, I don't know.
[01:37:16]  It's you're in more of a tougher position than I am, where you were the guy in Trump's ear trying to convince him not to do this, or one of the guys who got to meet with him and convince him not to do this.
[01:37:29]  I think the only one.
[01:37:30]  Yeah, I think so.
[01:37:31]  Well, the last one is no longer with us.
[01:37:34]  So, you know, there's that.
[01:37:36]  And yeah, yeah.
[01:37:40]  So, but, you know, so the thing is, like me, I'm no good at being a political strategist.
[01:37:45]  Like I said, I'm just good at being a podcast.
[01:37:46]  I'd say a flash of rage that was so.
[01:37:48]  I lost my vision.
[01:37:50]  No, I understand.
[01:37:52]  Well, it's worth it.
[01:37:52]  There's some things worth being that angry over.
[01:37:55]  But so, you know, I kind of go, I don't know political strategy stuff, but I go, I think you should just like, you know, try your best to stay being able to.
[01:38:04]  At least he has one person who's telling him to do this.
[01:38:07]  But the thing is that I'm just not capable of doing that.
[01:38:10]  And I'm not close to the administration.
[01:38:11]  So I'm just like red behind the eyes, furious.
[01:38:14]  But one of the big things I'm furious about is that they're handing this country right back over to the Democrats.
[01:38:19]  Who really are every bit the threat that we were making them out to be over the last decade?
[01:38:24]  And they're going to come in more authoritarian and more angry because they are furious that we disobeyed them and put Donald Trump back in the White House.
[01:38:33]  There's all time, and like all their plan.
[01:38:35]  I mean, look, we saw what they did through COVID, we saw what they did with tech censorship, and I don't want to find out what a central bank digital currency looks like and what carbon, you know, social credit scores look like.
[01:38:44]  And the thing is that what look at you watch the Democrats as they're winning now, right?
[01:38:49]  Like you could look at the races.
[01:38:50]  When Mamdani won in New York, when the new governor won in New Jersey, the new governor in Virginia, there have been a couple races in Texas where they were like outperforming what they should be performing in Texas.
[01:39:02]  Every last one of them is running on what they now call unaffordability.
[01:39:08]  It's like they just made up a new term because they, and literally none of them, I don't, I really don't think if I had one of them sitting where you're sitting right here and I was grilling them and I could go, what is unaffordability?
[01:39:20]  I don't think one of them has an answer.
[01:39:22]  I don't even think they know the term currency debasement.
[01:39:24]  I don't even think they know that that's what it is.
[01:39:26]  I don't think that's what it is.
[01:39:27]  They're not interested in human rights at all.
[01:39:28]  Oh, no, none.
[01:39:28]  So here in Virginia, which was conservative or normal 20 minutes ago, they bring in some guy, literally born in India, from another country to lead the effort to confiscate people's guns and no more self defense in the state.
[01:39:40]  This just happened.
[01:39:41]  I mean, it was like not long ago.
[01:39:44]  I mean, a year ago, they had a Republican governor.
[01:39:46]  So it's an evenly, not much of one, but still, it's an evenly divided state.
[01:39:50]  The second they take power, You can't defend yourself.
[01:39:52]  Right.
[01:39:53]  Well, but look, this is humiliating to bring some guy from another country to lecture you about your country where your family was born.
[01:39:59]  You don't have the right to have a gun?
[01:40:00]  Yep.
[01:40:00]  No, that's it.
[01:40:02]  It's such an outrage.
[01:40:03]  I mean, it's just like unbelievable.
[01:40:05]  But look, But the thing is that running on unaffordability is winning for them, obviously, because that is the issue right now.
[01:40:13]  They don't understand that unaffordability means price inflation.
[01:40:17]  It means that you've debased your currency, right?
[01:40:19]  And so the thing is now we're handing them this thing to run on.
[01:40:25]  While Donald Trump is talking about working with the Ayatollah about the Strait of Hormuz or whatever, your local Democrat is going, hey, why are your grocery prices so high?
[01:40:35]  By the way, all the price inflation.
[01:40:37]  From the Joe Biden, you know the way this stuff works.
[01:40:39]  It's cumulative.
[01:40:40]  So, Donald Trump, we live in an inflationary economy because of the central bank.
[01:40:43]  It doesn't matter what.
[01:40:45]  Because inflation means an inflation of the money supply.
[01:40:47]  Right.
[01:40:47]  Because they will, no matter what, print enough money so that we don't fall into a deflationary economy.
[01:40:53]  They're going to do that.
[01:40:54]  And they're not even printing the money, they're just typing into a computer these days.
[01:40:59]  So, they can get ahead of it.
[01:41:00]  And so, Donald Trump might brag that the CPI is only at 2% and not at 9%, where Joe Biden was.
[01:41:07]  But for every regular American, We lived through all of those price increases, and now it's just 2% more expensive than it was under Joe Biden.
[01:41:14]  So you haven't been helped any.
[01:41:16]  The prices aren't going down, they're just going up at a slower rate.
[01:41:19]  It's like, I think it was Michael Malice who had the phrase where he goes, When they go, we cut inflation in half, and they go, It's literally on the level of if you knew somebody who gained 100 pounds in a year, and then the next year they gained 50 pounds, and they go, I'm getting thinner.
[01:41:36]  And you're like, No, you are not.
[01:41:39]  You are getting fatter, sir.
[01:41:40]  Like, the goal is not to slow down how much weight you put on.
[01:41:44]  But it really does just come down to this, right?
[01:41:47]  Is that we have a government that we cannot afford.
[01:41:51]  We cannot even come close to affording the size of government we have because it's the biggest government in human history.
[01:41:56]  It's the biggest organization in human history, as you often point out.
[01:41:59]  And that organization is parasitical in nature.
[01:42:03]  It gets its money from taking that money, from expropriating that money from the American people.
[01:42:10]  But you can't tax them enough and you can't borrow enough.
[01:42:13]  And so we have to print the money.
[01:42:15]  And so we have to print the money because we can't afford this size of government.
[01:42:18]  And so then that makes the price of everything go up and up and up.
[01:42:22]  And so essentially, the point I'm getting at, and this is why I just point out that to say it's Austrian economics gets because what guys like Mimdani can come in and do now is say, hey, look, everything's so unaffordable.
[01:42:35]  And you know what the answer to that is?
[01:42:37]  A government program.
[01:42:38]  More control.
[01:42:40]  More free buses and government supermarkets.
[01:42:43]  And on the surface, that kind of probably sounds reasonable to some people.
[01:42:47]  But the thing is that we're here because government is too big.
[01:42:50]  That's what's got us to this place.
[01:42:52]  And so, like, I think it's important to just point that out to people that it's like, no, this is the thing.
[01:42:59]  The thing is that we cannot afford.
[01:43:01]  Here's the real hard, honest truth that Americans don't want to hear, or at least maybe the first part they want to hear.
[01:43:07]  People are okay with me saying this.
[01:43:09]  We can't afford the world empire.
[01:43:11]  We can't afford it.
[01:43:12]  We don't have the money for it.
[01:43:14]  We're pretending we have it.
[01:43:16]  We're just devaluing our currency and, therefore, by the way, destroying young people's lives.
[01:43:21]  Now, there's days I know a bunch of young people like in my family and friends who are literally like good people, go to work every day, make 70K a year.
[01:43:29]  And they're like, how am I going to settle down and start a family?
[01:43:32]  Dude, I mean, like the average house around me is going for 800 grand.
[01:43:35]  You make 70 grand a year.
[01:43:37]  That math simply does not work.
[01:43:38]  And this is not, I'm not saying the bum on welfare.
[01:43:41]  I'm saying like the young man who's getting up and going to work every day.
[01:43:45]  And so we cannot afford this empire.
[01:43:48]  And the other thing is, which no one, including Republicans, ever wants to say, we also can't afford the entitlement programs.
[01:43:55]  No way.
[01:43:55]  And they're insane.
[01:43:57]  They're the most indefensible thing in the world.
[01:43:58]  I mean, leaving aside Medicaid for a second.
[01:44:01]  But Social Security and Medicare are from a different time, from a different country that are totally indefensible.
[01:44:07]  They were indefensible then, but they're really indefensible now.
[01:44:10]  Yeah, you're telling me you have a wealth transfer program from a poorer group to a richer group?
[01:44:21]  I'm sorry, the seniors aren't the ones who need the help right now.
[01:44:23]  That's for sure.
[01:44:24]  It's the young people.
[01:44:25]  And I think that I would love if some politician, I think Ron Paul's the only one I've ever seen.
[01:44:31]  I'm sure Massey would agree with me if I said this to him, but I wish somebody would just run on that.
[01:44:37]  I'm like, yeah, they used to say that's the third rail of politics.
[01:44:42]  Why?
[01:44:43]  Because boomers just need to get everything.
[01:44:45]  Everything has to be rigged in favor of them.
[01:44:48]  I mean, I'm sorry.
[01:44:49]  The thing is, you kind of have these abstract political debates sometimes, which I'm a nerd for this stuff.
[01:44:55]  I really like them.
[01:44:56]  But so you'd have a Keynesian debate a Chicago school guy, or you'd have a socialist debate a A free market guy.
[01:45:04]  And like the free market guy would argue that, you know, there's a better allocation of resources in a free market.
[01:45:09]  And then the socialist would argue that some people fall behind.
[01:45:12]  And so you need redistributive policies to take from the wealthy, to give to the people who have fallen behind.
[01:45:17]  But who argues that you should have a redistributive policy from the poor to the rich?
[01:45:22]  That's the whole United States of America.
[01:45:24]  That's all of central banking, that's all of government spending.
[01:45:27]  All it is is they take money from the working people and they give it to millionaires.
[01:45:33]  Go look at any of the suburbs of Washington, D.C. None of them make anything.
[01:45:37]  They're all in $3 million houses because government spending is north of $7 trillion.
[01:45:43]  Of course.
[01:45:44]  Well, that unfortunately is getting to the point where that kind of is our economy.
[01:45:48]  Yeah.
[01:45:48]  Yeah.
[01:45:49]  So you'd really need to reorder things on the beginning with the foundations.
[01:45:54]  Yeah.
[01:45:54]  Well, but two good things are happening.
[01:45:56]  One, the empire is by necessity shrinking.
[01:46:00]  And so that's a cost savings.
[01:46:03]  And that's a reorientation back where the attention belongs, which is here.
[01:46:06]  And two, you have the baby boom going away.
[01:46:09]  Which is 1946, 1964.
[01:46:12]  So people born in the middle at 1956 are now 70.
[01:46:16]  Yeah.
[01:46:16]  So they'll be 80 in 10 years.
[01:46:18]  So that generation, clearly, I think everyone agrees, not everyone in it, but as a generation, destroyed the country.
[01:46:24]  Oh, yeah.
[01:46:25]  Just the worst.
[01:46:25]  And destroyed the country.
[01:46:26]  With some notable exceptions.
[01:46:27]  Of course.
[01:46:28]  My mom included.
[01:46:30]  She's cool.
[01:46:30]  But the rest of them.
[01:46:31]  Oh, many notable exceptions.
[01:46:33]  I know a million baby boomers that I like.
[01:46:35]  Not a million, but I've met baby boomers I like.
[01:46:37]  Well, I just couldn't.
[01:46:38]  I mean, the thing about it.
[01:46:39]  Not that many, though.
[01:46:40]  There's Jeff Deist.
[01:46:41]  Is a really, really brilliant guy.
[01:46:43]  He was the, he ran the Mises Institute for years.
[01:46:45]  He's over at Monetary Metals now, but he's a really, really brilliant guy.
[01:46:50]  He had this speech one time where he was talking about the boomers and like the evolution of the generation and what they believed at the time.
[01:46:57]  And it's so, it is just the most self absorbed, selfish generation ever.
[01:47:01]  I mean, they literally, their slogan was don't trust anyone over 30 until they turned 30.
[01:47:06]  Exactly.
[01:47:07]  And then he does like, Jeff Dice like went through the whole thing.
[01:47:09]  I don't remember all of it, but then by the end, they were the ones pushing COVID.
[01:47:14]  Like, they started out as the don't trust anyone over 30, and then they said, shut down the schools so that I don't get sick.
[01:47:20]  Like, take from my grandchildren's generation so that I'm protected.
[01:47:25]  And yeah, I mean, these are dumbest, too.
[01:47:27]  I mean, the thing about their narcissism is the core sin.
[01:47:30]  Like, that's their main problem, they're all about themselves.
[01:47:34]  The thing you notice about people who are all about themselves is how unwise and badly informed they are because they don't pay attention to other people.
[01:47:40]  Therefore, they never learn.
[01:47:42]  Therefore, and I've noticed this since I was a child because these were my teachers, the baby boom, they'll fall for anything.
[01:47:47]  They're the most easily manipulated people who've ever lived in this country.
[01:47:52]  They are the most dominated by the herd instinct.
[01:47:54]  All the kids are wearing masks.
[01:47:55]  All the kids are taking the shots.
[01:47:57]  All the kids are going into fights.
[01:47:58]  Whatever all the other people are doing, they will do.
[01:48:00]  They're the Mickey Mouse Club generation.
[01:48:01]  Yeah.
[01:48:02]  They are truly without creative impulse.
[01:48:07]  They're just not impressive.
[01:48:09]  In addition to being super annoying, one of the least attractive generations, like there's a lot about them that we can, the least attached to their own children.
[01:48:17]  You've got two houses, but your kids have no house?
[01:48:19]  How does that work?
[01:48:20]  Oh, yeah.
[01:48:20]  The generation of no fault divorce, the generation of I got to be me, I got to pursue my own happiness when you got little kids.
[01:48:26]  But you is not that interesting.
[01:48:28]  Yeah.
[01:48:29]  But the more you think about you, the dumber you get.
[01:48:32]  I think I've always noticed that.
[01:48:34]  It's like one of the most profound ironies in life, like this kind of counterintuitive thing where, if you're only concerned with yourself, yourself is going to suffer for that.
[01:48:45]  You know, it's really true.
[01:48:47]  And you watch this all the time with people who really have really bad depression and are just miserable and they're constantly talking about their mood today.
[01:48:58]  It's like, hey, step number one, stop thinking about your mood.
[01:49:02]  Your mood is not that important.
[01:49:03]  Here's step number one start thinking about other people.
[01:49:06]  How about this?
[01:49:07]  Try doing something productive for someone else other than yourself.
[01:49:10]  And don't think about your mood once while you're doing it.
[01:49:13]  You know, I'll tell you, I've been on this earth for about 43 years and I haven't learned that much.
[01:49:19]  I've got a few things.
[01:49:22]  I've never been anywhere near as happy since I got married and had kids.
[01:49:27]  Like, once my life became about a family and not just about me, you know what I mean?
[01:49:32]  And I think I was in this generation that was.
[01:49:34]  Did you expect that?
[01:49:36]  No, man.
[01:49:37]  I mean, I don't know.
[01:49:38]  I always thought before.
[01:49:39]  Before I met my wife, it was always to me like everything in my mind was like professional success.
[01:49:45]  Right.
[01:49:46]  You know, like that was what I wanted to be a successful comedian and I wanted to talk about politics and all of this stuff.
[01:49:52]  And I wanted, I always wanted that.
[01:49:54]  And, you know, it's weird now because I've kind of like, I've kind of gotten everything I really wanted in all those years.
[01:50:00]  And it's nice.
[01:50:01]  Don't get me wrong.
[01:50:01]  I really love my career.
[01:50:02]  I love what I do.
[01:50:03]  I love this.
[01:50:04]  I love doing shows with you and it's great.
[01:50:06]  But like, it's so unimportant.
[01:50:09]  Compared to family.
[01:50:10]  I mean, you know, like it's just not even, it's not the older you get, the more you realize it's like that's all that really matters.
[01:50:16]  All that really matters are your wife, your children, the close friends that you have around you, like the good people in your life, connection to other people, connection to God.
[01:50:26]  That's all that really matters in life.
[01:50:28]  All the rest of it is kind of just part of the journey and part of the thing.
[01:50:32]  But, um, yeah, you do your best knowing you're probably not going to move the ball that far.

=== Family Over Career Purpose (06:27) ===

[01:50:37]  Yeah.
[01:50:37]  Well, you know, I read this, um, There was this really great book by, I believe the author's name.
[01:50:43]  I don't know if I've ever actually heard it pronounced.
[01:50:46]  I've just read it, but it's like a gene twenge or twenge or something.
[01:50:51]  Now, I don't know about her.
[01:50:52]  I think she was on Bill Maher's show recently and she said one thing that I thought was really stupid and I turned it off because I was like, I really liked her book.
[01:50:59]  I just don't want to know.
[01:51:00]  You know how you feel sometimes?
[01:51:01]  You're like, I don't want to know.
[01:51:03]  But she wrote this book called, I think it was called The Me Generation, Generation Me, something like that.
[01:51:09]  It was really great.
[01:51:10]  I thought it was a really, really good book.
[01:51:11]  And it was kind of about my generation who was raised by the boomers.
[01:51:15]  And, you know, the way I was raised, and again, I'm not, I had a really great mother.
[01:51:18]  She was really great and instilled a lot of really good things in me.
[01:51:21]  This was bigger than her.
[01:51:22]  This was just the culture.
[01:51:23]  But we were raised, and I didn't think it was so unique at the time, but I was really kind of a child of the, you know, a child of the unipolar moment, I guess you could say.
[01:51:35]  And then a teenager, young adult.
[01:51:38]  Post Berlin Wall.
[01:51:38]  Yeah.
[01:51:39]  Yeah.
[01:51:39]  Well, I mean, I was, I remember watching it.
[01:51:41]  Watching the Berlin Wall come down, I was at my grandfather's house, and my grandfather, as I told you before, was from Germany.
[01:51:47]  And I just, my only memory of it was I was a little kid.
[01:51:50]  I was born in 83, so I guess I would have been six years old when this happened.
[01:51:53]  So I'm a little kid.
[01:51:54]  And I just remember I was being a little kid and probably being loud in the living room or something, or walked in front of the TV.
[01:52:00]  And I remember he snapped at me.
[01:52:02]  I went, shh.
[01:52:03]  And I just remember being like, oh, wow.
[01:52:05]  How old was your grandfather when he left Germany?
[01:52:07]  He would have been, I want to say, like 15, maybe?
[01:52:12]  Oh, wow.
[01:52:13]  So old enough to remember.
[01:52:14]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:52:14]  Oh, yeah, yeah.
[01:52:15]  Old enough to remember some really vicious things.
[01:52:17]  He got out in 1938.
[01:52:19]  But so, anyway, he, so, so I just remember, like, oh, this is really serious to grandpa, what's happening.
[01:52:25]  And it was the Berlin Wall being coming down.
[01:52:27]  Yeah, it was a big deal to him.
[01:52:29]  I'm not sure he liked it that much.
[01:52:30]  I think he was a little concerned about German reunification.
[01:52:34]  Many were.
[01:52:34]  You know, as you can imagine.
[01:52:36]  Um, but uh, turned out to be a good thing, uh, but anyway, so you know, I was I kind of grew up in that time in the 80s and the 90s, and there was we didn't have things that I think almost every other generation had, like, we weren't raised with like God, chivalry, nation, country, you know, there wasn't this, it was like you go to school and you know, get your homework done so no one's mad at you, and then you can go play basketball outside, or there's a new video game out,
[01:53:05]  it was let's let's hang out with our friends and have fun, there wasn't like this, this, this like purpose.
[01:53:11]  You know, like put into your life, which most people have in most of human history, even if it's just they call it culture, yeah, culture, your religious views, you know, like you know, important things.
[01:53:22]  And I think there were a lot of people in my generation who were like that.
[01:53:31]  That it was almost like again, like we said before, you can't take God out of the equation because something else just becomes God.
[01:53:39]  And in a way, like I know I've heard you say this before too, but it's so true.
[01:53:43]  It's like.
[01:53:44]  The desire to worship is so hardwired into the DNA of the human soul that you just can't.
[01:53:50]  You can say you're an atheist if you want to, but then, like, I'll find out what your religion is pretty quickly.
[01:53:55]  And oftentimes, it just becomes yourself.
[01:53:58]  You know, when you don't have other things, it becomes like, well, let me have fun.
[01:54:01]  Let me go get this.
[01:54:01]  But that is, like I said, 43 years, I haven't learned much in life.
[01:54:05]  One thing I have learned for certain is that if your highest goal in life is your own pleasure, you will be a miserable, miserable human being.
[01:54:15]  Yeah, well, I've learned that.
[01:54:17]  I've learned that too.
[01:54:18]  So, as you look around at 43, among people you know who are your age, grew up in the same world you grew up in, how many are thinking about the existence of God right now?
[01:54:26]  I think a lot more than ever were.
[01:54:29]  Did you ever know any religious people growing up?
[01:54:30]  Yeah, I mean, I knew some, but it was very few and far between.
[01:54:35]  Like, there were really like religious that were talked about it or what, you know, like I knew, you know, even like I went to like Hebrew school, but I went for like a year.
[01:54:46]  To like, my mom wanted me to be bar mitzvah, but it wasn't really like a deep religious conviction.
[01:54:50]  It was more like, yeah, this is what our people have always done, you know, and like out of respect to your father and your father's father and your father's father's father, you know, like, and like I could kind of understand that.
[01:54:59]  And so I went, but it was like a reformed, you know, temple where I went there.
[01:55:05]  And I remember even the rabbi, like, you know, like some of the kids would be like, well, do you believe in God?
[01:55:09]  And he's like, yeah, you know, everything that's good is God and everything, you know, like it was just total like, like Jewish, you know, essentially atheism.
[01:55:17]  And I grew up around so many people like that.
[01:55:20]  Yeah, so it was just, you know, there was just a lot of that.
[01:55:23]  And I don't, you know, I certainly think that one of the things I really focus on as a father, and I have little kids, so, but I will focus on this more over the years, is like instilling the idea of purpose, instilling the idea of like God and not just God, but like what that represents.
[01:55:41]  That, like, hey, you're, you know, you're here.
[01:55:45]  We're all here in this life together.
[01:55:47]  This life is a little bit of a mystery.
[01:55:49]  We don't know everything about it.
[01:55:50]  That's exactly right.
[01:55:51]  But we do know that.
[01:55:53]  Like we, other people exist too, as we exist.
[01:55:57]  And human beings can be, we have this amazing capacity to be demonic.
[01:56:04]  Or angelic.
[01:56:05]  You know, like you can really, one person, you know, there's little moments in life where, you know, whatever it is, like you're at the post office and it's 5 01 and you had to get this letter out today or you're getting fired and you're like, yo, my life is ruined.
[01:56:19]  If you're talking to some person on the other end, can you please just take this one package?
[01:56:22]  You know, I'm just coming up with a scenario.
[01:56:24]  And that person could go, all right, come here, give me the package.
[01:56:27]  And you're like, yo, you just saved my life.
[01:56:29]  You know what I mean?
[01:56:29]  Like you have no idea what you just did for me.
[01:56:31]  And like you can do that for other people.
[01:56:33]  You could try your best to throughout your day and your career and your life be like, yo, let me.
[01:56:38]  Help this guy and be that person.
[01:56:40]  Or, you know, you can be what Benjamin Netanyahu is to the Palestinians, you know, like just a monster, the guy who just like ruined their family's life.
[01:56:51]  And so, if we're kind of given this world and we don't have all of the answers to it, but we kind of know that we have like an ability to be either one of those things, hey, really focus on being the angel for people, really focus on trying to help others.

=== Jordan Peterson Political Misses (14:47) ===

[01:57:05]  And I think that makes you a much happier person the more you focus on that.
[01:57:08]  I agree with that completely.
[01:57:09]  And do you find that people you.
[01:57:12]  In the secular world growing up, or reaching similar conclusions?
[01:57:15]  Yeah, I think I know several people like that.
[01:57:18]  And I do.
[01:57:18]  I think that, you know, he had an amazing meteoric rise and a really tragic fall.
[01:57:25]  But I think this is why Jordan Peterson was such a phenomenon for years that it was like, you know, going around and telling young men that you should search out purpose and search out God in life.
[01:57:36]  It's amazing how, how like powerful that is.
[01:57:40]  I love that.
[01:57:41]  Yeah, me too.
[01:57:42]  He takes a lot of abuse and, um, You know, I think he's against me or whatever.
[01:57:46]  I don't even, I could care less.
[01:57:47]  But I will always appreciate that about Jordan Peterson.
[01:57:50]  Yeah, me too.
[01:57:50]  That he did that.
[01:57:51]  Yeah, you know, I like, I, in a way, he was a guy who I always really wanted to talk to and never did.
[01:57:59]  He was, you know, obviously, I mean, him joining the Daily Wire and going on that side was just a really, really tragic mistake.
[01:58:06]  And I think he threw away all of the credibility that he had with the younger generation when they really could have used his voice, you know.
[01:58:14]  I totally agree with you.
[01:58:15]  He was never much as a political actor.
[01:58:17]  He was always something else.
[01:58:18]  No, he's like a Canadian psychologist.
[01:58:20]  Yeah, like this, this wasn't, you know, sit that part out.
[01:58:23]  He missed the mark on a lot of his political points.
[01:58:25]  But I mean, you know, when you're on record telling Benjamin Netanyahu to give them hell, that's really hard to come back from.
[01:58:32]  But he came on, you know, he came on Joe Rogan's show the episode after I debated Douglas Murray.
[01:58:39]  I believe it was the next one, Jordan Peterson.
[01:58:42]  And I remember watching it and I did feel like, I was like, oh man, I think he's going to like say, you know what I mean?
[01:58:49]  Like, I think he's going to say something.
[01:58:50]  You know, nasty about me because he's Ben Shapiro and Netanyahu's guy now, and they just have this big debate.
[01:58:56]  And he didn't.
[01:58:58]  He kind of said, Oh, I thought, he didn't name me.
[01:59:01]  He mentioned Douglas and Joe, and he said, I thought everyone involved did a good job.
[01:59:05]  Good for him.
[01:59:05]  So I was like, Okay, that kind of, that was nice to me in a way that I was like, Oh, he had, you know, from someone at the Daily Wire, that's about as good as I can expect.
[01:59:12]  He was a pretty charitable guy.
[01:59:13]  I mean, you know, I thought he had flaws, but I was never, you know, I always said charitable and still do have charitable feelings toward him.
[01:59:19]  Douglas Murray, however.
[01:59:21]  That's a different one.
[01:59:22]  What happened to Douglas?
[01:59:23]  Is he still, or is he still living in this?
[01:59:24]  Country?
[01:59:25]  No, he's doing great.
[01:59:26]  I think he got a gig writing speeches for the Israeli government.
[01:59:28]  Oh, he did.
[01:59:29]  The last I heard.
[01:59:29]  Yeah, he did.
[01:59:30]  By the way, can I just, I don't know if I have said this on your show before.
[01:59:33]  I don't think so.
[01:59:35]  Because I think last time we spoke was right after that debate, or last time we spoke on the podcast, not spoke in life.
[01:59:40]  But last time we were doing the show was right after that debate, but before this came out.
[01:59:45]  And it was Ryan Grimm and the guys over at Dropsite who published this.
[01:59:49]  But so if you remember the famous, you've never been argument, well, I'm sorry.
[01:59:55]  I should not call that an argument.
[01:59:56]  It's not an argument.
[01:59:57]  It didn't arise to the level.
[01:59:59]  But what he said, what he was trying to say, which was really kind of silly.
[02:00:03]  But he was like, you know, he goes, Well, he said, I have the journalistic courtesy of visiting a place before I talk about that place.
[02:00:12]  He was lecturing me about journalistic ethics.
[02:00:17]  Now, I'm not a journalist, Tucker.
[02:00:18]  I'm a stand up comedian.
[02:00:19]  You've been a journalist for many years.
[02:00:21]  So maybe you can fill me in on this.
[02:00:22]  I'm not an expert in journalistic ethics.
[02:00:26]  What are the ethics of covering a country and not disclosing that you work for the government?
[02:00:33]  Is that up there?
[02:00:35]  I would have to consult a professor of ethics like Sam Bakeman Fried's parents.
[02:00:41]  Yes.
[02:00:41]  No, they're doing that for a living.
[02:00:43]  So we have a whole infrastructure designed to answer complex questions like that, Dave.
[02:00:48]  By the way, how about I have the courtesy of not advocating for wars that I'm not willing to fight in myself?
[02:00:56]  That's my professional courtesy.
[02:00:59]  That is a much better standard.
[02:01:01]  Well, who spends, I mean, what type of person?
[02:01:02]  And look, I.
[02:01:03]  But he kind of went away, didn't he?
[02:01:04]  I mean, Douglas Murray was like, I took him seriously.
[02:01:07]  By the way, I knew him well.
[02:01:08]  And I thought he had, you know, there were things about him that I felt sorry for him because of them.
[02:01:13]  But in general, it's smart and I never had a problem with him at all.
[02:01:17]  Had a couple fun dinners with him.
[02:01:19]  That debate, which you were proclaimed the loser of by a lot of people, I think that just destroyed his life.
[02:01:26]  Yeah.
[02:01:26]  Well, again, it was like no one except the people who already had made up their mind that Israel is the greatest country ever, no one except them thought that he won the debate.
[02:01:38]  A few of them seemed to celebrate that.
[02:01:41]  The comment section under the video was just torching him.
[02:01:45]  Like every regular person went, Oh, he just destroyed himself.
[02:01:48]  And then I will say, a lot of people, including some prominent people who you listener know, including Charlie Kirk, by the way, texted me after that debate and were like, Yo, dude, he just destroyed his credibility.
[02:02:05]  Or, like, that was crazy that he came at you like that.
[02:02:09]  I had people, you know, like this.
[02:02:11]  Whatever, I won't name all of them because I don't want to give out private information.
[02:02:14]  Maybe I shouldn't have.
[02:02:16]  I mentioned that about Charlie Kirk because Candace months back had called on me to release whatever private communications I have that might be relevant.
[02:02:24]  And I thought one of the things was relevant was that he said after the debate that he largely agreed with me after the Douglas Murray debate.
[02:02:30]  Well, which at least did.
[02:02:30]  I talked to him on this topic.
[02:02:32]  Yeah.
[02:02:33]  So I did think that was relevant into where his mind state was.
[02:02:36]  But other people, I think a lot of people kind of expected him to be like, okay, Dave, you've been blowing through these debates, but this is the best guy on the other side.
[02:02:44]  So.
[02:02:44]  He's going to come really give you a challenge.
[02:02:47]  So there was no chance that someone from Brooklyn was going to beat him.
[02:02:50]  Well, yeah, I guess that's the first advantage that he had.
[02:02:54]  But, you know, there's a weird thing where, again, kind of back to what I was saying before, you see this thing where, so after that debate happens, I have this huge, like, groundswell of support from people.
[02:03:07]  Then Donald Trump tweets out, you got to go get Douglas Murray's new book, like, two days after the debate or something like that.
[02:03:14]  And it just, I thought there was an interesting parallel between that and when.
[02:03:19]  Donald Trump just tweeted the other day about how great, not the one to watch the show, but he tweeted last week about how wonderful Mark Levin is and how everyone arguing with him is awful or something like that.
[02:03:29]  And if you look on Twitter, not saying Twitter is everything, but it's one little glimpse into things.
[02:03:35]  I mean, Mark Levin gets ratioed by random people.
[02:03:39]  Like, not even like you or Megyn Kelly or someone like that.
[02:03:42]  I'm saying like some random guy will just call Mark Levin an idiot and way more people like his tweet than like Mark Levin's tweet.
[02:03:50]  He's out there, he's feuding.
[02:03:52]  It with Megyn Kelly, and he's calling you and me every name in the book, and then the entire audience is just going with us.
[02:04:01]  And then Trump comes out and says, We're all in.
[02:04:04]  So I saw that when Trump tweeted that about you read, you know, Douglas Murray's dumb books.
[02:04:12]  And I kind of willfully ignored it because I was so focused.
[02:04:17]  Well, because I like Trump, but also because I was so focused on the Iran thing and just have to prevent a war with Iran.
[02:04:22]  That's more important.
[02:04:23]  Well, I don't know, though.
[02:04:24]  I mean, that was foreshadowing that actually there was a lot of control.
[02:04:28]  Why would the president of the United States be promoting Douglas Murray, who, you know, is not even American?
[02:04:33]  And he's like, Totally discredited.
[02:04:36]  Why would the president be promoting him?
[02:04:38]  Well, I mean, doing Mark Levin is much worse.
[02:04:41]  I mean, look, Douglas Murray, I do think he was ridiculous and he kind of made an ass out of himself in that debate.
[02:04:48]  But Mark Levin has gone to a level of retardation that I've never seen out of, you know, like, listen, I was never to, I was somewhat impressed by the first generation of neocons.
[02:05:00]  You know, I think I worked for them.
[02:05:01]  Yeah, well, I know.
[02:05:02]  Yeah, I was one.
[02:05:03]  But I think, well, sorry.
[02:05:05]  No, but I mean, like, I mean, like Leo Strauss and Irving Crystal and those guys, right?
[02:05:10]  But then I always thought, like, I always kind of went, you know, if you remember the Fox News, now he wasn't really on your show a lot, but if you remember the reverence people used to have for Charles Krauthammer, like they would all talk about him, like to his face, they'd be like, the genius is here.
[02:05:27]  And then I'd be like, I've never heard him say anything interesting ever.
[02:05:30]  You couldn't agree more.
[02:05:31]  I don't know what the, but all of those guys.
[02:05:33]  So I was always like, One thing I'll say about Charles, who I knew really well, he was a very nice man.
[02:05:38]  And he was a nice man because he had had to reckon with, you know, being paralyzed from the chest down from medical school.
[02:05:46]  And so he just had a perspective on life.
[02:05:48]  I spent hours talking to him and I knew his wife and I really liked him as a man, but his views were, you know, impossible to defend if you cared about the United States.
[02:05:57]  Yeah, that's right.
[02:05:58]  But anyway, I guess with all of them, I was never particularly intellectually impressed with any of them.
[02:06:04]  No, I don't know.
[02:06:05]  If you want to see, by the way, if you want to see, if you've never watched, man.
[02:06:08]  Scott Horton debating Bill Crystal at the Soho Forum.
[02:06:11]  That's fair.
[02:06:12]  It was, you really exposed just how much Bill Crystal has nothing.
[02:06:16]  No knowledge, no argument, nothing.
[02:06:18]  He literally, I've never seen it happen before.
[02:06:20]  He threw in the towel in the debate, essentially.
[02:06:23]  He literally, at one point, Scott makes some argument.
[02:06:25]  There was like a back and forth section, and Scott makes some argument, and he goes, Well, we just have fundamentally different worldviews.
[02:06:33]  And you're like, Yeah, that's why you're debating.
[02:06:35]  You have to make an argument.
[02:06:37]  And then he.
[02:06:37]  Bill will never explain what his worldview is.
[02:06:39]  And then in his closing, There were still like three minutes on the clock and he just stopped.
[02:06:43]  Anyway, I say all of this to say I've seen some dumb arguments from neocons over the years.
[02:06:50]  I have never seen anyone go full blown Mark Levin the way he goes.
[02:06:55]  Like, it is that he's literally just a ranting old man yelling insults, unattached to any argument at all.
[02:07:05]  Like, his whole show is just like, Yeah, this little punk wants to come and talk to me, you little fascist.
[02:07:10]  Like, it's like, what is this, dude?
[02:07:13]  Like, and so.
[02:07:14]  There is something about Donald Trump promoting that that is, that's like several levels worse than promoting Douglas.
[02:07:20]  No, but it's, so then you have to ask, like, well, what actually is it?
[02:07:24]  It's not designed to win people over, it's designed to increase hatred, anti Semitism, by the way.
[02:07:29]  Absolutely.
[02:07:30]  I mean, if you were, if you were, you know, whoever Mark thinks he's working for, the Israelis, I guess, you would look at this and say, this is not helping us.
[02:07:39]  Don't do this.
[02:07:40]  You know, get some articulate, decent, hot woman on there to make the case or whatever.
[02:07:44]  You do a marketing thing.
[02:07:45]  This is, This is designed to repel people.
[02:07:49]  So, why would you want that?
[02:07:50]  I don't know the answer, but it's clearly true.
[02:07:52]  Second, his relationship with the president is bizarre.
[02:07:57]  You think Trump likes that?
[02:08:00]  There was a moment at some Stop Antisemitism.
[02:08:03]  Event of some kind or Hanukkah celebration or some Jewish themed White House event where Trump is there with Mark Levine and Levine comes over and puts his arm around the president's neck and pulls him in.
[02:08:16]  Now, I know Trump well.
[02:08:19]  I mean, I wouldn't like that.
[02:08:20]  And I'm not even the president or a germaphobe.
[02:08:23]  Yeah.
[02:08:23]  What is that?
[02:08:25]  And under normal circumstances, Trump would never put up with that.
[02:08:27]  You just, what you're doing the dominance move over the president of the United States and over Donald Trump.
[02:08:33]  Are you not just the president?
[02:08:35]  But Donald Trump, the most dominant alpha male guy, does that to other people.
[02:08:41]  Exactly.
[02:08:41]  Yeah.
[02:08:42]  But even Trump, who is very much about dominance, obviously, most powerful men are, Trump would never throw his arm around someone and give him a headlock like that.
[02:08:51]  No, no, no.
[02:08:52]  He'll pull you in while he shakes your hand.
[02:08:54]  100%.
[02:08:54]  Or he'll do the thing, what did he do at one of the G7 meetings or whatever, where he cuts in front of some other world?
[02:08:59]  Literally.
[02:09:00]  But like there are, by the way, this is another thing that I am totally.
[02:09:02]  Breaking the rules, dude.
[02:09:04]  But I'm oblivious to this thing, but this is, as you said, powerful men are like this.
[02:09:08]  Yes, they are.
[02:09:08]  Where there's like alpha.
[02:09:09]  Move.
[02:09:10]  It's like taking your thing and just make it, you know, like whatever.
[02:09:13]  Like if you have a little thing of peanuts here that you're eating and I just reach in and tailor, you know what I mean?
[02:09:17]  But to do that to Donald Trump, I understand.
[02:09:20]  I'm not trying to make too much of a little thing.
[02:09:21]  It's not a little thing.
[02:09:22]  But there was something symbolic and then proclaims him the first Jewish president.
[02:09:28]  You got to think.
[02:09:29]  Very strange.
[02:09:30]  That Trump, he never said this to me, but just knowing him, you got to think he's filled with rage.
[02:09:36]  Someone doing that to him.
[02:09:37]  Well, look.
[02:09:37]  But he puts up with it anyway.
[02:09:39]  But why would you do that to him?
[02:09:41]  So if you want to exert influence over someone who's powerful, Like, there's a way to do it.
[02:09:45]  But the last way to do it is to be like, I'm in charge here.
[02:09:48]  Just so you know, I'm more powerful than the president of the United States.
[02:09:51]  That's what Levin is saying.
[02:09:52]  And Trump is putting up with it.
[02:09:54]  This is either a form of sadomasochism, but it also reveals the true architecture of power in a way that's like, what?
[02:10:04]  What is that?
[02:10:04]  Well, here, I'll say this.
[02:10:06]  And just to preface this, I'm not saying anything other than what I'm saying.
[02:10:11]  I'm not implying something that I don't know any more than this.
[02:10:14]  And maybe you know more than I do.
[02:10:16]  But I will say, here's.
[02:10:18]  You know, people used to say when Donald Trump was first rising to political, his political career in 2016, when he was running, when he was first president, I remember liberals used to always say that he's dog whistling bigotry.
[02:10:33]  And, you know, we always thought this was so always like a dog whistle.
[02:10:36]  But it's like a thing where you kind of, first of all, it's kind of weird because you're like, well, then wouldn't you not hear it if it's a dog whistle?
[02:10:43]  Because wouldn't only the bigots hear it?
[02:10:45]  Isn't that the idea?
[02:10:46]  Also, that seems like a very convenient way of saying, Even though there's nothing I can actually point to that you said, he's also raised.
[02:10:53]  But what I always thought was that what Donald Trump did was he would very often stoke or give a wink and a nod to conspiracies.
[02:11:03]  Oh, big deal.
[02:11:05]  Look, he went out there about Obama's birth certificate.
[02:11:08]  He obviously called out the whole Russiagate thing, which was a legit conspiracy to unseat the sitting president.
[02:11:15]  The Q thing.
[02:11:16]  The Q thing.
[02:11:18]  He'd float out that obviously the election being stolen.
[02:11:21]  But all the which, and of course, now with Epstein, when it's not really, well, it is a conspiracy, but it's a legitimate one.
[02:11:27]  But he's saying, oh, it's, you know, there's a Democratic hoax.
[02:11:31]  He is very quick to anytime it will help him look good to be like, it's a conspiracy against me.
[02:11:38]  Never once with Butler.
[02:11:41]  Never once.
[02:11:42]  And it's kind of crazy, man.
[02:11:44]  Like, we don't, we have like no information.
[02:11:48]  They haven't even attempted to give us a national story.

=== Butler Security Failure Shot (09:50) ===

[02:11:52]  That puts a little bow on top of like who this guy was or what happened, how there was such a security failure that could allow a sniper 130 yards away to get a clean shot at a president, a former president, and Current candidate's head.
[02:12:07]  What just kind of no internet history can't get into his phones.
[02:12:12]  He wanted to kill anyone he could.
[02:12:13]  That's all.
[02:12:13]  Nothing to see here.
[02:12:15]  And it's just a little bizarre to me that you would think like all other things making sense.
[02:12:20]  You would just think you would hear Donald Trump going, They tried to kill me.
[02:12:23]  They tried to do this.
[02:12:24]  They tried to do it.
[02:12:25]  But I mean, days afterward, he just thanked the Secret Service for what a great job they did.
[02:12:31]  And I don't know what any of that means.
[02:12:33]  Oh, I know a lot about it.
[02:12:35]  And I'll just say this, which we said publicly is I. You know, I got a call from somebody who said, I've got a lot of material from the gunman.
[02:12:44]  I'm not disputing he's the gunman, by the way, seems like the gunman.
[02:12:48]  The question is, like, was he working in concert with anyone else?
[02:12:51]  Were there other people involved?
[02:12:52]  Right.
[02:12:52]  It's the same with Charlie Kirk.
[02:12:53]  It's not a question of, you know, I don't know anything, but the question is never just did the guy pull the trigger?
[02:13:00]  Of course, yeah.
[02:13:01]  Prove or disprove that with the videotape that we don't have from the Charlie Kirk assassination for some reason, but whatever.
[02:13:08]  The point is, that's only one part of the story.
[02:13:11]  The question was, were there other people involved?
[02:13:12]  And in the case of Butler, I got this corpus of information from a guy almost off the street.
[02:13:19]  We showed that it was real.
[02:13:21]  Always skeptical of this stuff, very skeptical, but it turns out this was actually from Thomas Crooks' YouTube account.
[02:13:28]  And the FBI claimed that this didn't exist.
[02:13:31]  Well, of course, they knew it existed.
[02:13:32]  So then the question becomes, well, why are they, since the man is dead in this sole shooter crime, there's a lone gunman and a lone gunman's gone.
[02:13:43]  Why would we hold back anything, any evidence we have?
[02:13:46]  But they did.
[02:13:47]  And that would include video surveillance of the shooting range where he trained to shoot.
[02:13:52]  It's a pretty good shot over 100 yards with a 223.
[02:13:55]  I shoot a 223.
[02:13:55]  That's like everyone's all these seals, like, oh, that's nothing.
[02:13:58]  But like for a non seal, it's a decent shot.
[02:14:01]  So there's videotaped from the shooting range.
[02:14:05]  Did he train alone?
[02:14:06]  Who was with him?
[02:14:07]  Never been released.
[02:14:08]  And the investigation was shut down.
[02:14:11]  So what does that mean?
[02:14:12]  I don't know.
[02:14:13]  But.
[02:14:15]  I mean, like, what is going on?
[02:14:17]  Yeah.
[02:14:17]  And I got to say, why can't we know?
[02:14:20]  Well, hearing the heroic former director of counterterrorism come on your show and kind of say the same thing does just have a lot more weight to it when the guy was literally the director of counterterrorism and going, like, hey, what's going on here?
[02:14:35]  We have not gotten answers.
[02:14:38]  And he tied those facts, those are facts.
[02:14:40]  He stated facts.
[02:14:42]  By the way, when he, now we've just heard the FBI is not actually investigating him, that was all fake.
[02:14:47]  He retained his security clearance until the morning he left.
[02:14:50]  So, if he was under investigation for treason or something, he wouldn't have held his clearance and had access to the highest level intelligence, which he retained until the day he resigned.
[02:14:59]  So, okay, that was all a lie.
[02:15:01]  But he said point blank one of the most informed people in the United States with clearances higher, I think, even than Mark Levin's there's a connection between Trump's decision to go to war in Iran and these not fully explained acts of violence.
[02:15:18]  He said that.
[02:15:19]  So, okay, before we denounce him as crazy, which maybe he is, I don't know.
[02:15:24]  Doesn't seem to be, but I hold open any possibility.
[02:15:27]  What is he talking about?
[02:15:29]  And there has not only been zero interest from like the people in charge of ginning up interest, like the internet, the influencers.
[02:15:36]  Right.
[02:15:37]  There's been calculated discouragement and attacks on anyone who persists in asking the question.
[02:15:44]  Yeah.
[02:15:45]  Well, like.
[02:15:45]  And I haven't gotten involved because I know everybody and it's so emotional.
[02:15:50]  To me, but at a certain point, I'm gonna, you know, whatever.
[02:15:53]  I feel like I've got a pretty close vantage on all this stuff, and I'm getting a little sick of it because every American has a right to justice, not just for himself, but for any other American citizen.
[02:16:04]  Our whole system rests on the idea that there will be justice affected by the U.S. government.
[02:16:08]  And we have a right to know.
[02:16:10]  You have no right to keep that for me.
[02:16:11]  On what grounds are you keeping that for me?
[02:16:12]  You can't browbeat me into it by screaming Candace Owens again and again and again.
[02:16:16]  Yeah, that's right.
[02:16:16]  And look, like, for me, I've tried.
[02:16:19]  It's outrageous.
[02:16:20]  No, absolutely.
[02:16:21]  And listen, I'll say just personally, like, I, you know, and I knew Charlie and not super well.
[02:16:29]  We weren't like close friends, but like, I'd done a show a few times and we texted a few times.
[02:16:33]  He had me at that last, had me do the debate there and we hung out for a little bit while we were there.
[02:16:38]  And You know, it's, I wasn't as close with him as you were, but it's even just like being friends with someone like that.
[02:16:46]  It's, first off, it's like, it's very jarring to see that happen.
[02:16:50]  And then he's got a wife and little kids, really tragic, horrible situation.
[02:16:54]  And I'm like, my incentives on all of this is like, I just don't want to believe that this was anything more than like one crazy guy with a trans furry boyfriend or whatever.
[02:17:05]  Like that, that actually is much more comforting to me than it's some conspiracy.
[02:17:10]  Half of Twitter seemed to think, I was the one who got him killed, or something like that, or me and you and Megan, or something.
[02:17:16]  I very much vehemently want to believe that.
[02:17:18]  Yes, right.
[02:17:19]  So, like, we don't want that.
[02:17:20]  I will say, so, and I have not done like deep dives and watched all of Candace's shows on this or something, but like, there's little pieces of information just like it's been confirmed by a few different people that he was texting them, they're going to kill me.
[02:17:33]  Like, hey, man, that's got to be like totally exhausted and investigated.
[02:17:38]  I mean, what is this here?
[02:17:40]  This is a pretty big deal.
[02:17:41]  You really got to get to the bottom of stuff like that.
[02:17:44]  And, Look, as you're sitting here, and you know, it's almost like sometimes people will call you out for being a conspiracy theorist or something, or you know, they say the just asking questions.
[02:17:55]  You know what's worse than being a conspiracy theorist is having no curiosity about questions that have not been answered.
[02:18:00]  Well, also, it's there's just so.
[02:18:02]  And I'm not a conspiracy theorist, and I believe in curiosity and skepticism.
[02:18:06]  I've encouraged that in a lot of people, and some have been very resistant to be curious or skeptical.
[02:18:11]  And there are two sides to this.
[02:18:12]  There's not simply the people who are coming up with conspiracy theories, some of them obviously fantastical and wrong, I would think.
[02:18:18]  There's also the government side, which is telling you, shut up.
[02:18:21]  We have this solved.
[02:18:22]  And I think we should apply the same skepticism to their claims as well.
[02:18:25]  There's no reason that the FBI should get an automatic on the basis of what?
[02:18:29]  Well, also.
[02:18:30]  Their track record of always telling the truth to people?
[02:18:32]  Like, what are you even talking about?
[02:18:34]  And how dare you threaten me and call me names?
[02:18:38]  I mean, I'm not getting paid for this.
[02:18:40]  I've stayed out of it.
[02:18:42]  I'm just getting too mad watching this.
[02:18:44]  So, even before the Epstein files got released, back when the Podesta emails.
[02:18:50]  Were released and the original Pizzagate theory was born.
[02:18:55]  And, you know, if you look through some of those Podesta emails, look, they're clearly talking in code.
[02:19:01]  Now, what is the code?
[02:19:04]  I mean, people are speculating that it was about children.
[02:19:08]  Now, I have absolutely no reason to believe that, but they're not planning pizza parties.
[02:19:15]  You know what I mean?
[02:19:15]  Like, they're speaking in code.
[02:19:17]  Epstein's urologist, who's just prescribed him erect.
[02:19:22]  Dysfunction drugs say take the pills and then meet me for pizza and grape soda.
[02:19:28]  I that's in the Epstein files.
[02:19:31]  Maybe they're maybe it has nothing to do with sex.
[02:19:33]  Maybe they're actually you get wicked hungry after you take a boner pill.
[02:19:37]  I don't know, but the fact that nobody cares to find out or even interview the urologist just bring them in and say, Hey, what is this?
[02:19:44]  That's right.
[02:19:44]  And I felt the same way.
[02:19:45]  Who drinks grape soda?
[02:19:46]  What are you even talking?
[02:19:47]  There's no white person in America who drinks grape soda.
[02:19:49]  Stop.
[02:19:50]  I haven't had grapes.
[02:19:51]  I maybe had grape soda when I was a child once.
[02:19:53]  I'm just saying, like.
[02:19:54]  Talk to the urologist.
[02:19:55]  No, well, right, exactly.
[02:19:56]  So it's the thing about it is, right?
[02:19:58]  Like, even with the original Pizzagate thing, the position of like the corporate media was to sit there and go, you're an idiot.
[02:20:06]  If you think this code is about, oh, you're a conspiracy theorist.
[02:20:09]  If you think instead of putting a microphone in front of John Podesta and going, hey, you're clearly speaking in code here, people are assuming that that code is for raping children.
[02:20:20]  So clear this up because it can't be any worse than what people are speculating.
[02:20:24]  So what is it, sir?
[02:20:25]  And no one ever even thinks to do that in this in this all the hostility is aimed at people who are asking the questions and and that that's a tell right there.
[02:20:34]  Yes, there's people here, you have gunshots ringing out in my country, people getting.
[02:20:39]  Killed or an attempted murder, a couple of attempted murders.
[02:20:42]  There will be more, unfortunately.
[02:20:44]  And anyone who's interested in finding out or doesn't automatically trust the government, which we're supposed to be skeptical of, that person is the villain.
[02:20:53]  Yeah, that's right.
[02:20:55]  And in a similar thing, I don't know, maybe I'm going to struggle to word this the right way, but there's certain things that in a vacuum might be true, but aren't true in all circumstances.
[02:21:08]  So, in other words, if you Typically speaking, you'd go, Hey, before you want to start, you know, believing something, you got to see strong evidence for it or something like that.
[02:21:19]  Or you can't just start theorizing and speculating about things without like some indication or something pointing you in that direction.
[02:21:26]  But then, like, if me and you both just wake up together and we're blacked out for the last 10 hours and we're chained up in a prison somewhere or something like that, and you'd start going, We got to start speculating about how the hell we got here because this is so crazy.

=== Dan Bongino Campaign Outrage (15:12) ===

[02:21:42]  You know what I mean?
[02:21:43]  And then I'd be like, Hey, my neighbor said something this morning to me about how, like, I bet it's going to be a rough day, you know?
[02:21:49]  And I'm like, we got to think maybe my neighbor had something to do with this.
[02:21:52]  Now, then some skeptic could come along and go, your neighbor saying it's going to be a bad day doesn't act, isn't actually evidence.
[02:21:59]  And you're like, okay, but we're here.
[02:22:00]  Like, we got it.
[02:22:01]  And so, in a sense, there's like, okay, yes, you could be skeptical and it's good to be skeptical of some of these claims.
[02:22:10]  But at the same time, we're sitting here watching.
[02:22:15]  It's so crazy to watch, right?
[02:22:17]  But the never Trumpers are now the biggest hardcore Trump supporters as they're destroying the coalition that they were afraid of, right?
[02:22:26]  They're destroying Trump himself.
[02:22:28]  Right.
[02:22:28]  And so you've watched this happen.
[02:22:31]  And that does lead you to go, how exactly did they pull this off?
[02:22:36]  How is it that people like, you know, so I, you know, look, I'm a little bit more hotheaded than you at times.
[02:22:43]  And maybe this is because, you know, I'm a little, I'm a decade younger than you and I still, Drink big glasses of whiskey at night, and I still, and I'm just furious about a lot of things.
[02:22:52]  And I'm, I'm, uh, maybe I should, you know, let some of that go.
[02:22:55]  But, uh, you know, like I'm still furious at Ben Shapiro.
[02:22:59]  And the only reason I hate Ben Shapiro's guts is because he called Ron Paul a Jew hater, uh, back in the day when it was totally just ridiculous.
[02:23:05]  You read some of these tweets recently, I think.
[02:23:07]  Ron Paul is up there talking about how it's not wise to fight multiple wars.
[02:23:12]  This is what brings down nation.
[02:23:13]  And Ben Shapiro goes, Oh, I bet you just want to strangle a Jew.
[02:23:16]  You know, he's like, Fuck you, dude.
[02:23:18]  How dare you speak to a man so much better than you that way.
[02:23:21]  Anyway, but so I was furious over the 12 day war last summer.
[02:23:27]  I was too.
[02:23:28]  And I went on Breaking Points, great show with Crystal and Sager, who I love very much.
[02:23:35]  He's so smart, man.
[02:23:36]  Great.
[02:23:36]  Literally, I love Sager to death.
[02:23:38]  He's just great.
[02:23:39]  Someone I'm really happy to call a friend.
[02:23:41]  And so I went on their show right after it and I called for Trump's impeachment.
[02:23:47]  I said he should be impeached and removed for this.
[02:23:49]  He's launched a war of aggression.
[02:23:50]  It's illegal, it's for a foreign country, it's what he promised not to do.
[02:23:54]  You know, I was very angry.
[02:23:55]  I still stand by that, but I was angry.
[02:23:57]  And then, of course, all of them, all the guys, you know, Josh Hammer and Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin, they all just start talking shit about me.
[02:24:05]  Look!
[02:24:06]  This guy doesn't support Trump.
[02:24:07]  Oh, he voted for Trump last time, but he's calling for his impeachment now.
[02:24:11]  As if I don't remember where all you guys were in 2016 when National Review was running their never Trump edition, and Ben Shapiro promised for deeply held, principled reasons he could never support Donald Trump, and Mark Levin was never Trump.
[02:24:28]  All these guys were never Trump.
[02:24:29]  Now that he's become a war hawk, what he explicitly ran against being in every election, now that he's become that, they all love him to death.
[02:24:38]  And they're destroyed.
[02:24:39]  So, anyway, my point is sorry, sometimes you see facts like that and you go, that's worth speculating about.
[02:24:45]  I do have some questions I'd like to ask on how exactly these guys were able to infiltrate this movement, destroy it from within, and set our country on this trajectory toward another catastrophic war.
[02:24:59]  There's a lot that went into that.
[02:25:01]  I couldn't agree more.
[02:25:02]  I guess the only last thing I would say about it is you started by saying the legacy media.
[02:25:09]  Covered for the crimes of their masters, the ruling class.
[02:25:12]  Okay, got it.
[02:25:13]  I mean, that's what they exist to do.
[02:25:14]  That's why we have NBC News.
[02:25:16]  That's why CNN exists.
[02:25:18]  No, I totally, that's why Fox is here.
[02:25:21]  But to see people in independent media doing that, and I understand it's very easy to get sidetracked.
[02:25:26]  Like you're mad at one person.
[02:25:29]  And so anyone who is asking similar questions to that person, like, must be on that side or something.
[02:25:35]  But like, try to retain independence in your head.
[02:25:39]  Like, Don't get sidetracked.
[02:25:41]  Certain questions have to be answered no matter who's asking them, right?
[02:25:44]  Yeah.
[02:25:45]  One of the questions I still can't answer is why is it that all the neocons are the ones leading the screaming and anyone who asks questions about Charlie Kirk's death when Charlie Kirk was an enemy of the neocons, like open enemy of the neocons, invited you to TPUSA?
[02:26:04]  Like, you don't invite, and he didn't, it's not because the kids at TPUSA are like, oh, I grew up loving Dave Smith.
[02:26:09]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[02:26:10]  Well, I said that.
[02:26:11]  I've said this on other shows too, but I said this to you that it's like there was something about inviting you or Megyn Kelly.
[02:26:17]  Yeah, we're on Fox News.
[02:26:18]  It's fine.
[02:26:19]  And huge stars on Fox News.
[02:26:22]  It's not just like someone on Fox News, like two of the biggest.
[02:26:25]  There's no reason to invite you to a Turning Point event unless he wants the kids in the audience to hear your views.
[02:26:30]  Yeah.
[02:26:31]  Which he did because he substantially agreed with them.
[02:26:33]  And I would know because I talked to him about this a lot, like a lot, a lot over years.
[02:26:40]  He at best didn't trust and mostly really didn't like.
[02:26:44]  I never talk about what I think Charlie thought because it feels so weird because he's gone.
[02:26:48]  But I just have to say this they're the ones leading the charge and shut up, don't ask any questions.
[02:26:54]  Like, you tell me what this is.
[02:26:55]  Well, that's, and I'm not going to take orders from them.
[02:26:58]  Who are these people anyway?
[02:26:59]  This is the same reason why, this is the reason why I read that text message that he sent me.
[02:27:05]  And it was because, well, part of it was because Candace asked, and I'm friends with Candace, and she was very, she lost someone she was very close to.
[02:27:13]  But part of it was that, you know, because it's a weird thing to do.
[02:27:15]  It's a weird thing to share private text messages with anyone, especially someone who just died.
[02:27:20]  And I got some pushback for that.
[02:27:21]  And I understand why people, like, I get their point.
[02:27:23]  Maybe I shouldn't have done that.
[02:27:24]  I'm not sure.
[02:27:25]  But, you know, it was the thing where, like, Netanyahu immediately is trying to hijack his legacy.
[02:27:29]  Josh Hammer and all these guys are immediately trying to hijack his life.
[02:27:32]  And so it's kind of like.
[02:27:33]  And they're selling their books by the same time.
[02:27:35]  Right, right.
[02:27:35]  Literally, dude, it's the most disgusting thing I've ever seen in my life.
[02:27:38]  Josh Hammer did three interviews immediately after.
[02:27:40]  The only reason anyone's interviewing him is because he was friends with Charlie Parker.
[02:27:43]  He was close around his circle or whatever.
[02:27:45]  And.
[02:27:46]  Every single time he mentioned how much Charlie loved his book, it's like, Jesus, dude.
[02:27:51]  I mean, I just could never imagine getting a little stronger.
[02:27:54]  Charlie was friends with Josh Hammer.
[02:27:56]  Well, okay.
[02:27:56]  Well, he had him in his circles or whatever his handler or whatever it was.
[02:28:00]  But, you know, I remember, you know, right before Charlie died, he called me and he said, man, I just wish everyone would listen to your podcast.
[02:28:07]  It's like, this is so crazy of a thing to say.
[02:28:09]  Unbelievable.
[02:28:09]  But the reason I released that is because I'm like, look, I don't know exactly where Charlie was on his evolution on this topic.
[02:28:15]  Obviously, he had at one point been a diehard pro Israel guy, but a lot of people were that and then kind of woke up over the last couple of years.
[02:28:23]  But I know that he texted me after my debate with Douglas Murray that he said he thought I did a great job and he really did.
[02:28:29]  He said something like, I read it verbatim on my show, but he said something like, believe it or not, I really didn't disagree with almost anything you said.
[02:28:36]  And I'm just saying, Ben Shapiro wasn't sending me that text.
[02:28:39]  No.
[02:28:39]  So, For people to try to pretend there was no daylight between the two of them is just not true.
[02:28:45]  No, there was hostility, right?
[02:28:47]  Big time, and not just with you know those guys.
[02:28:52]  Yeah, hostility.
[02:28:53]  I mean, I don't want to overstate it, I'm not saying he hated them as people, but I mean, he did not agree at all.
[02:28:58]  And certainly didn't agree with war with Iran at all, and with also, honestly, some of the Christian Zionist leaders.
[02:29:07]  I mean, Charles was very he loved Israel as a country.
[02:29:09]  For sure.
[02:29:10]  And I think he had a complicated theology, which I did not fully understand and still don't fully understand.
[02:29:15]  But the idea that you would put another country before your own, like he just rejected that flat out.
[02:29:20]  And some of those, some of the Christian Zionist leaders, men are very aggressive and shark like and very money oriented and pushy.
[02:29:29]  And he started talking about that openly.
[02:29:31]  He talked about it with me a lot.
[02:29:32]  Yeah.
[02:29:32]  Well, he talked about it on Megyn Kelly's show.
[02:29:34]  I mean, he talked about the reaction he got from the evangelical leaders.
[02:29:37]  Well, maybe not from the evangelical leaders.
[02:29:39]  It wasn't.
[02:29:39]  It was a mixture.
[02:29:41]  Yeah, probably a mix of.
[02:29:42]  You know, Jewish Zionists like the guys you mentioned, but also the people he grew up with who were evangelical leaders.
[02:29:50]  And he was upset with them.
[02:29:53]  I mean, I talked to him about it at length.
[02:29:55]  I could name names with who he was upset.
[02:29:56]  I'm not going to, but because he's gone.
[02:29:58]  But yeah, that's just real.
[02:30:00]  And I don't know.
[02:30:02]  I don't even like talking about this, but I'm just offended by where this is going.
[02:30:06]  And the bottom line is every American has an interest in every murder getting solved.
[02:30:11]  And not just in getting solved, but fully solved.
[02:30:14]  Yeah.
[02:30:14]  And if you have a government agency that's shutting down a legitimate line of inquiry, at very least you have to answer the question, why are you doing that?
[02:30:23]  And Joe Kent has said in public multiple times, including to me, the FBI shut down any effort to look into international connections here within days of the killing.
[02:30:34]  So someone should ask the FBI, why'd you do that?
[02:30:38]  And no one seems willing to ask.
[02:30:41]  And look, we also know what we know about this FBI, who I just could not be more disgusted with.
[02:30:47]  And, you know, I know you saw when everyone's afraid of them.
[02:30:51]  Well, what Dan Bongino was talking all types of shit to me on Twitter or whatever, but it's like, look, man, you just, you, you know, there was a thing where people were saying they were trying to goat Dan Bongino into debating me because he was talking shit about me.
[02:31:07]  And, you know, as I was, I think I responded in kind.
[02:31:10]  But the thing is, like, he can't.
[02:31:13]  Dan Bongino, not only can he not come debate me, Dan Bongino can't.
[02:31:18]  Ever do a difficult interview ever again for the rest of his life because he's ended in one question.
[02:31:24]  Literally, one question ends it.
[02:31:25]  I just go, hey, okay, so you looked the American people in the eyes and you swore that you had seen the proof that Jeffrey Epstein killed himself.
[02:31:34]  Well, it's been declassified by an act of Congress now, so go ahead and tell us what you see.
[02:31:39]  What's the proof?
[02:31:40]  It's all declassified now.
[02:31:45]  What are the few exceptions in the rule?
[02:31:47]  If it's national security, Or if it harms the victims or something like that, how would it possibly be any of those for you to just tell me what you saw that made you comfortable enough to go out there and swear that you had seen proof that he killed himself?
[02:31:59]  Kash Patel, Dan Bongino, but these guys specifically, and this is one of the big things I think that made me.
[02:32:05]  I just want to interject.
[02:32:06]  I'm not aiming at anyone in particular, but.
[02:32:09]  You know, we say we know things, but I would always add the caveat to the extent you can know things.
[02:32:14]  Of course, yeah.
[02:32:15]  I thought I've known many things, I've turned out to be wrong, you know, so I could be wrong.
[02:32:19]  But this is sincere.
[02:32:21]  I believe I can say with certainty that Jeffrey Epstein was murdered.
[02:32:27]  So, I mean, but of course, I'm always open to countervailing evidence, always, because I'm mindful of my capacity for being wrong.
[02:32:33]  But I can say if you could x ray my heart, you would find that I believe with total certainty he was murdered and the people in the U.S. government.
[02:32:40]  Knew that he was murdered.
[02:32:43]  I don't want that to be true, but I believe it is true.
[02:32:45]  So, like, it's going to take a lot.
[02:32:46]  You're going to have to show me that that's false.
[02:32:48]  Well, the reason why I have so much contempt for Dan Bongino and Kash Patel, particularly, and Pam Bondi, too, but more so the other two, is that these guys went around and really Dan Bongino.
[02:33:04]  I mean, Cash did many podcasts and stuff, but Dan Bongino got rich doing his show, had a really big show.
[02:33:11]  And he flamed that Epstein stuff for so long.
[02:33:15]  He was like, don't let go of this one.
[02:33:17]  This is a huge scandal.
[02:33:19]  We're going to get in there and expose it.
[02:33:21]  And I got to say, every bit as much as the war in Iran, maybe not quite as much as this most recent one, but the covering up the Epstein scandal did so much to damage this administration.
[02:33:33]  Totally.
[02:33:33]  Because it went to something very fundamental.
[02:33:36]  The fundamental promise of Donald Trump and the reason why Donald Trump, I believe, The main reason that he rode to political success and won the presidency twice was that he said he was going to drain the swamp.
[02:33:51]  Drain the swamp was an incredibly effective campaign slogan.
[02:33:55]  It was essentially saying, look, man, on some level, almost all Americans know this.
[02:34:00]  This city in DC is filled with corruption, and the people in political power have committed profound crimes against the American people, and none of them have been held accountable for it.
[02:34:12]  And we're going to hold them accountable for this.
[02:34:14]  And for this Justice Department now to go in and put up zero deep state arrests.
[02:34:21]  I mean, dude, if you just think about the fact that the intelligence agencies framed the sitting president for treason for four years.
[02:34:30]  I mean, an obvious deep state coup to overthrow an attempted deep state coup to attempt to overthrow a democratically elected president.
[02:34:40]  Like it is, it was an outrage that they did it to him on the campaign, but it is a little bit different.
[02:34:45]  When he's a presidential candidate, than when he is the commander in chief, the president of the United States of America.
[02:34:51]  They framed him for being a Russian spy.
[02:34:53]  Donald Trump is a lot of things.
[02:34:55]  He is not a Russian spy.
[02:34:56]  Okay.
[02:34:56]  He has never been one.
[02:34:57]  It was the most ridiculous thing ever.
[02:34:59]  It was all complete phony evidence, and they knew it.
[02:35:02]  They knowingly went forward with that.
[02:35:05]  And Andrew McCabe admitted on 60 Minutes that he said their plan was to invoke the 25th Amendment, but they realized they couldn't get enough people to go along with that.
[02:35:15]  And so they settled for Robert Mueller.
[02:35:17]  They settled for a special investigation that would tie him down and not let him get his America First agenda through.
[02:35:24]  So there's that.
[02:35:26]  There's COVID.
[02:35:27]  There's, you know what I'm saying?
[02:35:28]  There's the Epstein stuff.
[02:35:29]  There's all types of crime.
[02:35:31]  I mean, COVID, you think about it.
[02:35:32]  They freaking locked down the country and didn't disclose that they made it.
[02:35:37]  They made the germ themselves.
[02:35:39]  Fauci was like the hero of the response for like a year and a half before it finally came out that it was him who made it.
[02:35:45]  I mean, just, and they have just at every turn protected power.
[02:35:50]  And again, like with the Epstein thing, man, like you don't have to, you only have to know, like, I don't know, you just know, like, if you know like five or six things about it, you're like, okay, this is some type of huge conspiracy.
[02:36:03]  You know, like, I don't know exactly what it is.
[02:36:05]  And by the way, the files being released.
[02:36:07]  Did shake up my interpretation of the whole thing.
[02:36:10]  I tweeted this once, but I kind of, I mean, I was saying it tongue in cheek, but I kind of meant it sincerely that I used to speculate that Jeffrey Epstein worked for Mossad.
[02:36:20]  And after the files came out, it's looking a lot more like the Mossad worked for Jeffrey Epstein.
[02:36:25]  I mean, I did not think he was the Rothschild's guy.
[02:36:29]  I didn't realize that, you know?
[02:36:30]  And so, like, this thing is a gigantic conspiracy.
[02:36:34]  It's an interesting, limited look into how power really works.
[02:36:40]  And you know what I mean?
[02:36:41]  Like, what's really going on?
[02:36:42]  It's like looking through a stained glass window.
[02:36:43]  You don't get a clear picture, but you see the shapes and you realize this is not what I thought it was.
[02:36:49]  I actually came away from reading a lot of the Epstein stuff with a view of Israel that was diminished.

=== Epstein View of Israel Diminished (03:13) ===

[02:36:55]  I thought Israel had less power.
[02:36:57]  Of course, he was working with Mossad.
[02:36:59]  I said that and got called a Jew hater or whatever.
[02:37:01]  It was just true.
[02:37:01]  So, we're also working with CIA and intelligence services from around the world.
[02:37:05]  But what he really was doing was acting as an employee of others.
[02:37:10]  As a kind of communications hub between the biggest stakeholders in the West.
[02:37:16]  And so, what you really saw was that governments aren't in charge.
[02:37:20]  There's no meaningful nation state with full sovereignty.
[02:37:23]  Like, that's just not a thing.
[02:37:24]  There's a supra structure whose outlines I can't fully see or even partly see, but it's clearly there.
[02:37:31]  And it's not all being run from the Levant by Netanyahu, who's probably got an IQ of 110.
[02:37:36]  He's not a genius.
[02:37:37]  So, like, do you know what I mean?
[02:37:39]  Yes, yes, 100%.
[02:37:40]  It's way bigger than Israel.
[02:37:42]  Israel is just like a place to, you know, hide out if you've been.
[02:37:44]  Accused of a crime, get a passport, do some money laundering, you know, whatever.
[02:37:48]  It's a lot of things, but it's not Israel's not running the world.
[02:37:51]  Yeah, no, there's something that you're absolutely right.
[02:37:55]  There are power structures that we do not fully know about that are way more important than us senators.
[02:38:01]  Of course, they bought the biggest lie of all, which is a competition between nation states.
[02:38:05]  And you know what I mean?
[02:38:06]  Yeah, that's right.
[02:38:07]  Ghana's got its own interests, but so does Singapore and China and India.
[02:38:11]  And it's like, yeah, to some extent, but that's not as soon as you have the free flow of capital, a globalized economy.
[02:38:18]  Then you have a globalized government.
[02:38:20]  It's just a fact.
[02:38:21]  And by government, I mean a governing body, which may be informal or have blurry edges, but it's still totally real.
[02:38:28]  It's way more real than countries.
[02:38:30]  Yeah.
[02:38:30]  Yeah.
[02:38:31]  How are countries like that's like almost a medieval view?
[02:38:34]  Well, even countries with kings and armies, it's like so dumb.
[02:38:38]  Yeah, no, that's right.
[02:38:40]  And maybe it was, you know, it's like it probably wasn't even true in medieval times.
[02:38:44]  You know what I mean?
[02:38:45]  It literally wasn't.
[02:38:46]  But like after 1848, like after you had like.
[02:38:51]  The creation of like real, the resemblance or the maybe the fiction of nation states.
[02:38:56]  I mean, I think it's more complicated than I'm making it sound, but it's clearly not as simple as everyone else assumes.
[02:39:01]  Yeah.
[02:39:02]  Well, I know countries actually in their own interests.
[02:39:04]  Come on.
[02:39:05]  There's this really great book written by Murray Rothbard, who I mentioned earlier, called The Progressive Era.
[02:39:11]  And it's about, you know, the, it's about, I think it goes from, it might like Theodore Roosevelt or Woodrow Wilson, FDR.
[02:39:21]  And one of the things that they talk about is that there was, And this really is true is that there were real people who really meant well and were kind of, in my opinion, got it wrong.
[02:39:33]  But the kind of moderate socialist types or the progressives who were like, hey, we're such a wealthy country.
[02:39:40]  We should have more of a managed economy so that we can make sure it's working for everybody.
[02:39:44]  But really, what ends up happening in the progressive era is then all the titans of industry, all the robber barons, as they call it, They all got on board with it and they went, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.
[02:39:58]  We should have a managed economy.
[02:39:59]  Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
[02:39:59]  We'll be doing the managing.
[02:40:01]  You know, it was all, it was like all the money interest that they supposedly wanted to rein in were the guys who ended up getting control of the government anyway.

=== Progressives Got It Wrong (00:46) ===

[02:40:09]  And so that's just Black Lives Matter as sponsored by Microsoft.
[02:40:13]  Yeah.
[02:40:13]  That's right.
[02:40:13]  That's right.
[02:40:14]  It's all the same.
[02:40:15]  The gay pride parade has like a Bank of America float coming through it.
[02:40:20]  And you're like, I mean, I know there is some leftist out there who really believes in the gay pride parade, but like something bigger is going on than what you're panning out.
[02:40:27]  Dave, no, really, it's liberation.
[02:40:28]  Just trust me.
[02:40:29]  This is going to be liberation.
[02:40:30]  Don't worry.
[02:40:31]  It's too ridiculous, man.
[02:40:32]  No.
[02:40:34]  Well, good.
[02:40:35]  Thank you for everything you're doing.
[02:40:36]  And I'm sorry if that got, I never get emotional, but I'm sorry to start yelling at you, but that's just stuff.
[02:40:41]  I enjoy it.
[02:40:42]  It's literally nothing makes me happier than to be held at in agreement.
[02:40:47]  Dave Smith, you're the best.
[02:40:49]  Thank you.
[02:40:49]  Thank you, sir.