After Party with Emily Jashinsky - Podcast Wars and MAGA Discourse, Dr. Jesus Trump Post, and Eric Swalwell's Gross Exit, with Dave Smith

Episode Date: April 14, 2026

Emily Jashinsky is joined by Dave Smith, comedian and host of “Part Of The Problem” Podcast, to discuss the ongoing war with Iran, what he views as the trouble with America’s strategy, and thoughts on dissenting voices among podcasters who supported President Trump in 2024. Emily and Dave also discuss backlash over a controversial Truth Social post by President Trump that appeared to depict him as Jesus. The conversation then turns to Eric Swalwell dropping out of the California gubernatorial race, and Swalwell’s subsequent resignation from Congress. Then Emily and Dave discuss the cringeworthy appearance by Justin Trudeau and Katy Perry at Coachella, Dave compares it to his recent trip to Disney, and the talk about Sabrina Carpenter facing backlash for an onstage comment that critics labeled Islamophobic. Emily rounds out the show with a look at Lena Dunham’s new publicity tour as she reflects on fame and backlash during her “Girls” era.   Unplugged: Switching is simple, Visit https://Unplugged.com/EMILY and order your UP phone today!   Cozy Earth: Visit https://www.CozyEarth.com/EMILY & Use code EMILY for up to 20% off   PreBorn: Help save a baby go to https://PreBorn.com/Emily or call 855-601-2229. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to After Party, everyone, where we do the news a little bit later, a little bit lighter. Tonight we're going to be joined by Dave Smith. Make sure to support our independent journalism by clicking that subscribe button here on YouTube or wherever you get your podcast. It does help us so much. First, we're going to start with updates on the war. Vice President J.D. Vance was on Fox News just tonight, sharing a little bit of what he thinks happened, or his interpretation of what happened in Islamabad over the weekend. Also, Donald Trump does not see himself as.

as Jesus. We clarified that today. At least he says he didn't see himself as Jesus when he posted that like a boomer Facebook meme of himself healing a sick man last night. We're going to get to that in just a moment. If you haven't seen it yet, you must. Eric Swalwell also just resigned. So we have details on that. Sabrina Carpenter had to apologize for a strange moment during her Coachella set. And actually speaking of Coachella, Justin Trudeau and Katie Perry, decided to have a magical experience and attend the festival together as well. Lena Dunham's also out on a media tour, which I have some thoughts on. All that and so much more coming up in just one moment with Dave Smith. But first, we are going to take a quick break. Stay tuned. We will be right back.

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Vice President Vance stopped by Special Report with Brett Baer to spin what happened over the weekend in Islamabad as, what did he say? Well, let's just roll the tape. People should listen carefully because he says he also thinks some good came out of it. It wasn't all bad. Let's roll the tape. Oh, looks like we don't have the tape, so there's no tape to be rolled, Dave. This is really an after-party. All right. Well, yeah, exactly. That's a good point.

At what party do they have the tape ready to be rolled just like that? So a couple of headlines from Vice President Vance, he said of the Iranians, quote, they basically threaten any ship that's moving through the Strait of Hormuz, as the president showed two can play at that game as the Iranians are going to engage in economic terrorism, we're going to abide by a simple principle. No Iranian ships are getting out either, which some people have interpreted to be J.D. Vantz saying, oh, if they're going to engage in economic terrorism, we too will engage in economic terrorism. Well, let's stop right there then, Dave. Do you think that's what Vice President Vance said?

None of it makes any sense at all. The whole thing is so ridiculous. It's on the level of being like, hey, you better stop punching me in the face. And then being like, okay, well, if you keep punching me in the face, I'm going to punch myself in the face. And then we'll, like, on what level? First of all, if they're going to say, well, like, I don't know, Donald Trump went from saying that the straight isn't our problem. It's the rest of the world's problem.

And then it was like, it'll just naturally open up. Like, it'll just, that's obviously what's going to happen. Then it went to, we're going to close the whole thing. And so if you're saying we're just going to stop the Iranian ships, which there's a lot of mixed messaging on this, but if we're just going to stop the Iranian ships, okay, fine, that could hurt Iran. But that was never really the issue. The issue wasn't that, you know, whether Iran can get ships out of there. The issue was whether they can pick and choose who else from the world can.

Because that is a new reality that was not the case before this war and is the case now. And if that is true, you know, I've been talking about this. a lot on my show, but, you know, it's a weird thing. You see how the debate right now is like, are we losing the war or are we winning the war? You see all these people like, like Douglas Murray was on Bill Maher's show the other day and he's going, what do you mean? We're losing this war. We destroyed their Navy. Is that what he said? Did he say, what do you mean? Did he say just like that? Did he sound like he was from New Jersey or what did he say, Dave? Okay, he didn't say. By the way, you know, it's cool, though. I appreciate growth. I appreciate

growth where I can see it. And I thought it was cool that Douglas Murray had no problem doing a non-expert comedians show and didn't have to call him out for not being an expert. Because evidently it's cool if you support Israel. If you support Israel, you're allowed to be a comedian who comments on Israel. But if you don't, that's a real problem. But there'll be people I saw, you know, a bunch of the Trump kind of sick of fans are going like, well, no, look, we're winning, we're doing that. But, okay, what do we really mean when we say that we lost the war in Vietnam or what do we mean when we say we lost the war in Afghanistan or Iraq? Well like, well, look, obviously we killed a lot more of their people than they killed of our people. We destroyed a lot more of their stuff than they destroyed

of our stuff. But the reason people say we lost those wars is because like, well, I don't know, you fight a war in Vietnam with the explicit, you know, goal of not allowing communism to spread and you spend like hundreds of billions of dollars and kill millions of people and get hundreds of thousands of your own people killed and then communism spreads there anyway. Even if you blew up more stuff than they blew up, you go, yeah, but that's a loss.

Okay, but however you measure wins and losses, all I'm saying is we've never had a loss like this war. If Iran can control the Strait of Hermus, then we actually transformed them into a global power. You know, which is like such a crazy thing to think of. We took a third world relegated, sanctioned, isolated country and transformed them into a powerhouse, essentially. So anyway, the only issue here is that what Trump wants to stop is their ability

to dictate who can and can't go through this straight. But if you're only stopping Iranian ships, then that doesn't change anything. Then the other ones that can go through are still the ones that they, said were allowed to. The only way this play works is if you actually stop the ships that the Iranians gave permission to go through. But then your problem is you're in a direct confrontation with whatever ship that is. And as, you know, I know Breaking Points was talking about this just on the last show, but like, okay, when that's a Chinese ship, what does that mean? And China just sent out a message today like, yo, you can't stop any of our ships. Are you crazy? And

you see that we're already struggling with just like a little mid-sized country like around. You think we could just bully China around? Like they have no leverage on us. They're, you know, they've already flexed a few times and gotten Trump to back down. So anyway, the whole thing, like the entire war is completely incoherent. And it's like, I've never seen anything like this. I've never seen a government propaganda campaign where every sentence contradicts the previous sentence. Like everything they say makes the last thing they said make no sense whatsoever.

Well, it's actually on that point I was just going to mention, I keep hearing from some people in the MAGA camp, but the Iranian Navy has been decimated. And it's like, that does not make your argument any stronger for why they are still controlling us via the Strait of War moves. That's even more embarrassing, significantly more embarrassing. But J.D. Vance, the court I was looking for, said, I wouldn't just say things went wrong. I also think things went right in Islamabad as the talks over the weekend fizzled. Dave, is there any way you think this can end to your point about Iran becoming arguably a new global power? After all, this is said and done? Is there anyway right now, based on what we know about how the negotiations went over the weekend,

based on what we know about what the Iranians are asking for, what our government is asking for, that this can end positively. for the Trump presidency to claim, like he's going to claim a victory no matter what. He's already done like 20 times. But is there any way that that's actually going to be believable for the American public? I mean, I don't see it. And maybe I'm wrong. And, you know, I try to be really humble with predicting the future.

Like, you know, I've gotten some things right. I've gotten some things way wrong. And I think I'm pretty good. Like, I have a pretty good track record on issues, but on predictions. There's just always so many variables. and it's so hard to know everything that's going to happen. But, I mean, it just seems about as clear as could possibly be on any issue that the best case scenario is that it just stops here.

Like, if we could just stop it here somehow, and that would take a lot. And, like, we're really, we got ourselves into a position where, and this is true, It's part of the reason why George Washington's advice was don't get yourself an entangling alliances. You get into these things and all of a sudden you're outsourcing your sovereignty. That's the real problem with these entangling alliances, right? Like you give a war guarantee to another country. No, that might sound nice. Hey, we're going to protect you.

We're going to be the good guys. We'll protect you if you get attacked. But now you almost outsourced your war-making decision to this other country now. Because if they provoke some type of conflict, you're on the hook for what they did. So in order to get out of this, now we really got to rely on the Israelis and the Iranians because there's two other major players in this. They got to stop too. Because if they don't stop two, then we can't really stop.

But let's say hypothetically, we somehow get them to all stop. We're able to put pressure on the Israelis and go, you stop bombing Lebanon right now. Everyone stops. We're doing a ceasefire. And let's just say Iran is cool. And they go, okay, we'll open the straight of harm. You know, like, that's the best case scenario. And the prospect of anything beyond that, like we've recovered the enriched uranium or, like,

I'm not even saying anything that I value. I'm just saying what the official stated goals of the war were. They agree to not have intercontinental ballistic missiles and they agree to not enrich at all, not even for civilian energy usage. And they stop supporting Hezbollah and the odds of any of that happening seems so. So the best case scenario is it just ends and we somehow get back to the status quo that we were at right before this conflict. Donald Trump will say this was a tremendous success because we blew a lot of stuff up. But does anyone really believe that like at the end of this when it comes out just reasonably like assuming if it stopped right now, the toll ends up being 15-ish Americans dead and like 700 plus wounded and 10.

N,000 Iranians dead or whatever it'll end up being at the end of this. And who knows, a few hundred Israelis? I don't know. They won't report any numbers over there. Definitely, like, in the thousands of Lebanese. And maybe it cost $100 billion and it damaged the world. How do you spin that as a win? Look, nothing was accomplished in Venezuela so far.

But they could spin that as a win because, like, nothing really bad happened. And we say we run it now. But, you know, I just don't think you can do that with this one. I don't even think Trump, I mean, even the like most hardcore Trump supporters, you're going to peel people away trying to convince them that this was some, yeah, we did it. I don't see it. Well, yeah, and all the plausible exit ramps are just leaving him either worse than he is now or exactly where he is now. And the public isn't buying it at the moment, according to the polling, which is, I mean, not surprising at all. Let's, Dave, roll this tape.

We do have some tape to roll. It's not physical tape, but we'll take it. It's Benjamin Netanyahu, who did at least say that he was consulted by Vice President Vance during this weekend's negotiations. Let's go ahead and take a listen. I spoke yesterday with Vice President J.D. Vance. This is the translation. He called me from his plane on the way back from Washington. He reported to me in detail as the first.

the people of this administration do every day on the development of the negotiations. In this case, the explosion in the negotiations, the explosion came from the American side, which was not willing to tolerate the blatant violation of the agreement to enter negotiations by Iran. Essentially, the agreement was that there would be a ceasefire and Iran would immediately open the crossings. They didn't do that. The Americans were not willing to accept it. He also conveyed to me that the central issue on the the table from the perspective of President Trump and the United States is the removal of all enriched material and ensuring that there is no more enrichment in the coming years, and this could be

for decades. All right. It's enriched. It's all about enrichment. Should be no problem, Dave. We can wrap this up tomorrow. I mean, you know, it's been going viral. There's the clip of Steve Whitkoff like about a year ago. I think it was the spring of last year, where he straight up said that like, hey, look, you know, Iran was down to like three and a half percent enrichment. And then they went all the way up and like, that's all we're asking is that they come back down to that.

And it is so funny that it is so clearly the, it was the demand of Israel and the lobby, that it be zero enrichment. It was not the American demand. And it's just so crazy. to think about the fact that like all of this has happened off them being able to just slip in this simple little poison pill in the whole negotiations that if it wasn't for that switch we probably could have just had a deal last spring avoided the 12-day war avoided this war and all that but they won't even be public about their own nuclear weapons I mean yeah yeah it's like it's just the craziest thing well it's also like um I don't know there's there there's a weird thing like because sometimes I'll I'll I'll even I'll make arguments that I know even I you know on some level I still hear what I'm saying and I go all right look I know this sounds like it's a pretty crazy thing to say but like this I think is

what's going on you know I it was a big viral thing a couple weeks ago when I said that the U.S. government's the biggest terrorist organization in the world and like I think in in at least in my world that's not even really a crazy thing to say that's just an obvious like well yeah we all know that and then we operate within that framework but to other people that was like yo that's a crazy thing to state. But you just think like even if you just some of the stuff that Donald Trump has said, like if you if 10 years ago I had said something like, you know, the way the president acts is that, well, this member of the Israel lobby gave them hundreds of millions of dollars. And all they care about is Israel. They love Israel more than they love America.

And all day long, they come to the White House demanding another policy for Israel. and the president gives them whatever they want. Like, that would have been something out of, like, the first half of American History X. You know what I mean? Like, you'd be like, oh, that's the thing that, that's the thing that the bad guy in the movie thinks. And then obviously, by the end of the movie,

we've revealed that that's totally crazy because you're an evil Nazi. No one would think that way. But then it's like the president himself just says that. And, dude, I mean, that clip of Netanyahu is pretty incredible. But I have never seen anything in, me being me, I was shocked. When his tweet, literally, the meeting starts, this is maybe two hours into the 21-hour meeting

or whatever they had. And so the Americans and the Iranian team have touched down. They start meeting because they want to negotiate a ceasefire, hopefully. Benjamin Netanyahu tweets, under my leadership, Israel will continue the war against Iran and Lebanon. And Turkey, we got our eye on you too. And you're like, yo, what? That is just insane.

It is so insane. Like if you guys all want to kind of have your narrative, which is that people like me and the other podcasters, we're all crazy to make it out. Like there's some kind of thing here. It's like, you know, they always say, come on, America's the big brother. We're the little brother.

We're the client state. We're the welfare country. You're the one. call on the shots. But like, how is it possible that then the big brother goes, hey, we want to ceasefire and you just unilaterally veto it? And just go, no, we're not doing any of that. Oh, and by the way, also we got our eye on a NATO country. Also, by the way, when we get done with these wars, let me just let you know. I got another one on the horizon, which you, you are under an Article 5 obligation to protect theoretically if we were to attack them.

Like, I don't know, all of this is just too insane. It's too, it is unbelievable, like, that I, I feel bad at this point when I go on Pierce Morgan and someone has to argue against how crazy this is. Like, what are they even left with at this point? Emily, did you see, my last debate I had on Pierce Morgan was so I had, which I won't ever do again because he just interrupts the entire time. But I debated Ben Ferguson on Pierce Morgan, Ted Cruz's right-hand man. I've been thinking for days about just how hilarious the universe is.

And this has nothing to do with me. By the way, I am not a particularly good debater. I'm not very good at that. Now, there are people who are like very good at the sport, the skill of debating. I am not very good at it. I just take positions that are undeniably, you know, like the correct position. But you're not trying to build like a legal case, like a prosecutorial. I'm not very good at like, you know, Socratic questioning or like, I don't know, I'm not like a technically good debater.

But so the big controversy we had was that a couple weeks earlier, I had said that the United States of America's government is the biggest terrorist organization in the world. Then we have like this rematch one-on-one debate. And the morning before we have this debate, this is what the universe hands made. The president of the United States of America has tweeted that we are going to bring hell down on an entire civilization of people and ends the tweet by saying Allah Akbar. That's what the universe handed me. Praise be. Praise be. Okay, he gave the English translation.

But yes, he said Allah Akbar. That's what they. And then someone's got a debate. Nah, dude, this is nothing like that. This is total. It's just the whole thing is too ridiculous. And, you know, Donald Trump could come out here and trash the top 10 most popular shows in America or whatever. And, you know, people can pretend that that doesn't matter.

I just got a poll that says he's more popular than Tucker Carlson. But no, man, this whole thing is, this whole thing is tanking. fast. Well, I actually wanted to ask you about that. No, I wanted to ask you that because this is the last week. It's been the podcasters, the MAGA podcasters, which you and I both know is, it's a misnomer right from the beginning. It's a lot of people who, in a lesser of two evils, election in 2024 felt sympathetic for Trump, maybe like, you know, made that type of argument. It's not that everybody is like actually right-wing MAGA in the space that they're saying. And MAGA is like falling away from Trump.

It's just ridiculous. But the people that they're pegging as MAGA, this is the classic mistake. They're not MAGA. I don't think you've ever considered yourself MAGA, Dave. What this is actually the swing voter who has never considered themselves MAGA is generally independent and who pulled the lever for Trump in many cases because they didn't like Kamala Harris. They felt bad about what was happening with the Biden administration, immigration, et cetera. This isn't just to peg that to you, Dave.

in general. And so it's actually a really important demographic. And it's a huge misunderstanding to say that that is just MAGA. So what is your take on this discourse about how it's just a podcaster phenom? Don't listen to the podcasters. They're chasing clout. They're chasing clicks. Oh, I mean, I just, I, I struggle to believe that people are being sincere when they make this argument like I and and there's people like I I really like a Bacha she was on trigonometry recently and she was making this argument to them I was like fascinated watching it like how are you actually making this argument and what they all have to cite is is the you know the MAGA Republican polls or whatever which is already such a you know like what does that even mean

we've never heard anyone even describe a poll this way before are you are you a hope and change Democrat Oh, the hope and change Democrats still support Barack Obama. Like what? You just, you put their slogan and then sub-gat. But look, I mean, and I happen to know this. I think a lot of Americans actually are not aware of this, but because I'm a libertarian and I've been kind of involved in the libertarian party for,

you know, not so much anymore, but I was for a few years. And so they would make a big deal out of this. But as I'm sure you have seen this, that, you know, the amount of American voters who identify as independent has like exploded in the last few years. That is now the biggest voting demographic is independence. And so it's a record. Pew has those numbers. Right.

So like as soon as then you start going into this like, oh, well, MAGA Republicans, this is so misleading. You're talking about like actually at this point a sliver of the total voting population. And, you know, like it, I am not a person who. puts like tremendous faith in the polls. I think the polls often get it wrong. And it's something that I don't exactly understand. You know, like I remember when it got reported that internal polls had Joe Biden getting absolutely blown out

and he still wouldn't resign. And you're like, what do you mean internal polls? Because the external polls didn't have that as the situation. So why the hell do you have internal polls that are better, you know, whatever? But all I'm saying is that the people making that always point to these very specific MAGA Republican polls. If the polls, broadly speaking, tell us anything right now, they tell us that this is the most unpopular war in American history, that Donald Trump is at his lowest approval rating ever.

Donald Trump right now has an approval rating slightly higher than George W. Bush in 2008, after leading the country into lying the country into two disastrous wars and tanking the economy. And the longer this goes, and if there's no win at all to show for it, he might fall well below him. So it is like, look, again, it's true that most of the American people aren't watching podcasts or whatever. It's all, you know, like there is a big, you know, base of Americans who aren't tapped in the way some of us are. But you're my cronkite, Dave. Well, I try. I mean, you know, I think someone's got to fill that role.

And I'll take it if I have to. But, well, I'm just saying that all of the evidence would suggest that the podcasters have their thumb exactly on the pulse and that they're exactly where the American people are. And then, of course, you know, all of these. And there's a lot of differences between a lot of these different shows. But if you're going to, if you take, say, the four that Trump blasted, right, which was Tucker, Megan, Candice, and Alex Jones, those are big shows, right? But then if you take also the Joe Rogan, Theo Vaughn, Andrew Schultz, you know, whatever, all at Tim Dillon, all. Okay, you can say that, oh, they don't matter at all, but like, you seem to think they mattered back in 2024. Why exactly don't they matter?

Why does, you know, Mark Levine the other day said, you know, the internet isn't real life. And you're like, but what is radio and people news? What, but why? What do you mean? is your show real life, but a show on the internet isn't? Like, if breaking points is on YouTube and Spotify and whatever, but the Mark Levin show is on Fox News, like at this point, and I genuinely, Mark Levin may not know this.

Donald Trump and Mark Levin are 90. You know what I mean? Like they're all things that we just watch. Like they're all things. You know, we watch these shows, we watch them on our TV or our computer or our phone or our tablet. That's also how we watch TV. They're all equally real life.

The only thing that matters is who's watching what more? And then the obvious answer to that is, oh, they're watching these shows a lot more. So all of the evidence is like in the marketplace, these shows are the biggest shows. In terms of the polls, this is how the people feel. Where do you pull out of that, that the coalition is completely fine and everything's okay? Yeah, a lot of Republicans still support Donald Trump. A lot of Democrats would have voted for Joe Biden even after he shit his pounce on national television. You know, that means nothing.

That's such a good point. No, that's such a good point. It's because we're, yeah, we're trapped in lesser of two evil politics, which, you know, I think people like you and I recognize that for a long time. But to the normy average American, I think there's a record level of independence because the democratization of the media climate has opened up. Like even the fact that you said your point, which I would quibble with the like, maybe it's semantics about terrorism or violence about the United States. We don't have to open up that candle of words.

The fact that you said that on Peirzo's show. Let's fight about that. What would you possibly? What would you possibly quibble with, Emily? You've sat next to Ryan Grimm for far too long to have any problem with me saying. No. No. Yeah.

Well, that's for personal reason. He's a great American. People don't know. People don't know about that. That's private. Ryan is a terrorist in his personal life. but publicly he's against it. No, no, I think.

I'm just starting a rumor at this point. In what world are you going to really tell me that the level of like wars of aggression and choice and for whatever bullying reason we feel like? We are so, you know, like if you were to sit down and read like the just war theory of Christianity, how outside the realm of that, The American Warfare State has been, forget even just saying post-World War II.

I'm not even going to get into Dresden and nuclear bombs and all that shit. Yeah, absolutely. But post-World War II, where there's never even been a debatable self-defense conflict. You're going to say just lighting up innocent civilians like that. Is it really, well, we don't call it terrorism? If we don't, then it's just actually, you know, people accuse me of making like an emotional argument, But actually, the only way to deny that is to have a purely emotional, but it's America and it's us. And we can't really be the bad guys like that.

If anyone else did that, we'd call it out for exactly what it is. Pure terrorism. Forget, forget. Listen, just think about, no, Emily, stop it. I'm going to talk over you. And I insist we fight and I insist I win this fight. I don't think you've ever been to the straight of her moves. Not.

I've, fuck. God damn it. You got me. All right. I'm going to go. I was doing really good until that. And that is the checkmate point that you can never come back from. But literally, just think about what Ryan was telling you just the other day about going to Cuba.

I was talking about this on my show. I've been singing Ryan and Jeremy's praises for weeks because they're reporting over it drops. It's just been like phenomenal. But going down to Cuba and watching, you know, that watching NICU nurses tell you about how they have to rush over to the babies on ventilators and start hand pumping them. I mean, what is that? It's not an attack against a military target. It's not anything like that. No one in America is how sick our country is.

How God, like, oh my God, but we should all pray that the God of the Bible who judge nations collectively doesn't exist anymore. Or he grew up since then and like doesn't do that. The fact that our as a society, no one even ever attempted to even pretend to argue that Cuba posed some threat to us. or that like we had to do this to them because reasons. They just went, ah, this is Marco Rubio's bank shot. He wanted to hit Venezuela and then take out Cuba.

So we literally just starve the civilian population of energy. Well, this is terrorism. What is terrorism? This is too, like, how can you argue with that? No,

yeah. So what I was saying earlier is that it's, like I was saying, it might be semantic, but I think terrorism is a very particular form of warfare that is meant to, wage war by instilling abject terror in a civilian population. And we can argue that the consequence of American violence throughout the Cold War and all of these proxy conflicts had that. I think terrorism

is waged not for power, but is waged to specifically use terror, fear as a weapon of war. So it's a- Hold on, hold on. The stated goal of the entire American sanctions regime, and I mean this entirely, which is, you know, on its own, probably the biggest warfare state that's ever existed, if you consider sanctions an act of war, which we certainly would consider, if anyone ever applied them to us. The entire stated goal of it always has been

to put so much pressure on the civilian population that they overthrow the government. And so if you're going to split hairs between scaring the civilization or starving the civilization into being so desperate that they have to overthrow, I mean, I just think at this point, like, to me, a fair definition of terrorism is intentionally targeting civilians in order to achieve a political outcome. And if that's what you're talking about, you know, it brings me no joy to say this, but like, who's the worst at that? And that's just, I don't know, like, that is the entire thing with all of the.

these military campaigns. And that doesn't mean every war ever, but every war that we've been talking about in my lifetime in America is that. Yeah. No, I still think. So I still stand by the distinction of terrorism being waged to a particular, like, non-conventional form of warfare. But actually, I agree with everything that you just outlined.

And I think it goes back to what we're discussing with Iran, which is that Iran is downstream of Cold War post-nuclear conflicts. And the reason that the United States has just. justified in Chile with Allende making the economy scream. That's from a Nixon memo. The reason that's been, I just wrote about this last week, the reason that's been part of our accepted warfare for so long. And this is exactly what Tucker Carlson is now questioning like in his monologue last Monday.

This is what he's rightfully calling attention to. This is post-nuclear politics. And in the United States, we have just accepted that because Cuba might be a proxy of the Soviet Union and might obliterate Florida, the Southern United States, and maybe the entire country because the Russians get a foothold on this tiny island 90 miles off our coast, then it totally justifies starving civilians. It totally justifies making the economy in Chile scream because we want access to minerals and we don't want the Soviets to have access to those minerals.

And it's a sickness that has just been utterly corrosive to the Western Seoul over the last 100 years. So I don't disagree with that at all, David. I actually think Iran is a great example of the problem that we found. ourselves in because they remember 1953. You hear the boomers talk, oh, I remember 1979. I remember 1979. The Iranian boomers are saying, I remember 1953. And if you think this situation, however many civilians have already been killed, the girls' school is going to make this situation better in the long run for the safety and security of Israel, for the safety and

security of the United States, that to me seems completely insane. And like we're refusing to learn a lesson from the last 80 years of history. Yeah. Yeah. It's so, It's also, it's such a crazy situation to be in, at least me personally I feel this way, and I'm sure a lot of us do. But like, you're in a situation where, you know, I've been doing this for a while now and, you know, with more people listening lately, but I've been doing what I do for years and, you know, basically arguing against the entire, you know, the entire global war on terrorism and argue, I mean, I've been arguing against the war in Iran.

for 20 years. Like I've been, this was always, the entire time I've been obsessed with all this stuff. This has been the war that the neocons were flirting with and all of this.

And it's such a, you go through the whole thing where like the argument just becomes so overwhelming. And then you just win. And everyone kind of admits like, yes, okay, this is true. I mean, John McCain in his memoir

wrote like, we really shouldn't have done a rack. Like, even John McCain had to go, okay, this was a mistake. So it's like consensus. And you're like, okay, fine, we won. We got consensus.

And then we're just going to do another one. And it's right away. Because they just keep taking their mulligans. Yes, like, but and look, and people can say, oh, this is different in this way and that way. Look, this is different in a lot of different ways, a lot of bad ways up front. You know, there's never been an opponent in the global war on terrorism who could do what Iran's already done to us. Like, so there's many differences.

And if the hawks want to argue that one of the differences is also that there's a big liberal base inside Iran who loves freedom and okay maybe maybe I don't know I don't know enough to really know whether that's right or wrong but I do know that after winning the entire argument all of these people will just completely forget the lessons that were embedded in learning that entire argument which is like look like again just try for a second to be a human being and understand that the people on the other side are also human beings and go like okay so So think about it like this. Even in America, in our much more superior, much more, you know, Sam Harris, rational society other than these crazy Islamists or something like that.

Okay. Think about how right-wingers felt about Joe Biden in America. Right-wingers hated Joe. Like, I think this is fair to say that the, speaking for the average Republican voter in America, basically viewed Joe Biden as a, um, basically. essentially a criminal, someone who had been like incredibly corrupt and was paying off his son and doing all types of shady things, who was senile, who was a deep state puppet, and by the way, who was not legitimately elected, had stolen the presidency from the rightful president of the United States of America. Literally, the majority of Republicans viewed him as that. Now,

let's just say in the middle of Joe Biden's presidency, if China had invaded an attempt to to overthrow Joe Biden and install a Chinese sock puppet government here. That same right winger would have picked up his gun and fought to his death to protect Joe Biden. Because there's no way some foreigners going to come in here and tell us what our government is. That's just, that's the way America is. Why do we think we have a monopoly on that? You know what I mean? Like, why do we think that no other people are going to have that same?

You know, there was, as you know, I'm sure, Emily, there was in the, in the 19, in the late 1930s, there was a, and into the early 40s, there was the America First Committee. There's a huge non-interventionist anti-American involvement in World War II organization. They had like, I think like over 600,000 members in like 1939. Like, it was like a huge organization. And much of the country, agree. with them. And then Pearl Harbor happened. And it was over. They all just as bad. Half of them joined the military effort. Because once you got hit, the conversation was over. We got hit. We are now at war with you. And think about 9-11 and how crazy we went after that. Why do we think we have a monopoly on being the

people who like when you get hit would be like, well, no, screw you. Whatever internal problems we have, We're not. And so to me, I don't care. Any of these expats could say only 10% of people support the government. At this point, I bet 90% of them support us not being involved. And this is what Tucker was getting to is basically the only way that you can justify this is by saying it's power, that the United States is more powerful. Therefore, we can do this to the little guys because we are the power. And just before we go to break, I'll say, that's why I'm a no nuke person. I'm not 100% that this is a. the best solution. But it's the globe has shrunken to the point where because of the ballistic missile range and nuclear range, every single country in the world shares a border now with nuclear weapons. And so Iran looks at Israel, looks at the United States, looks at North Korea, looks at Saudi Arabia. And you're telling them, no, you can't have access to this powerful weapon. You know, you're, you can make the argument about the good guys versus the bad guys, but that's

contingent on explaining to them why they're the bad guys. So good luck. Good luck. All right, Dave, we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back with more. First, though, Cozy Earth. One of my favorite ways to relax at home lately has been with Cozy Earth. I talk about this a lot. It's hard to go to bed after having these conversations. They get you all hyped up and angry sometimes. But if you haven't tried the roads and the slippers over at Cozy Earth, you are missing out. Their robes are so soft. They're perfect for slow mornings after you take a shower or just relaxing at night. The fabric is breathable, lightweight, and incredibly comfortable. It's the kind of robe that you put on, and then you immediately feel more relaxed. It's not the best. And their slippers might be the best part, too. They slip on instantly, and they have this plush, shearling lining with actually supportive footbed. So they're warm, they're comfortable, and they're easy to wear around the house all day. Plus, Mother's Day is coming up. So be nice to your mom's. Cozy Earth makes a great gift to something that your mom will actually use and appreciate on the big day. Those are

the gifts that make a difference, right? Here's the best part. Cozy Earth backs everything with a 100 night sleep trial and a 10-year warranty so you or your mom can try it completely risk-free. Go to CozyEarth.com and use my code Emily for 20% off. That's cozyEarth.com promo code Emily for 20% off. And if you see the post-purch survey, please mention you heard about Cozy Earth from the show. All right, we're back now with Dave Smithy's comedian and host of Part of the Problem. Dave, I did want to get your on what do we have to call this like Jesus gate today Donald Trump he deleted the post he deleted the post about it we'll show it in just one moment but basically Donald Trump posted an image was like a boomer Facebook meme of him that sure looked like he had inserted himself as Jesus into

a painting of a sick person being healed there it is on the screen it looks he's in like robes he's got like beacons of light behind him, all kinds of good stuff happening in this picture. So there's all kinds of outrage, predictably so. Here's how Trump explains deleting it in front of the press today at the White House. Did you post that picture of yourself depicted as Jesus Christ? Well, it wasn't a picture. It was me. I did post it.

And I thought it was me as a doctor and had to do it Red Cross as a Red Cross worker there, which we support. And only the fake. news could come up with that one. So I had, I just heard about it. And I said, how do they come up with that? It's supposed to be me as a doctor, making people better. And I do make people better. I make people a lot better. Dave, how much did you cry about this post last night? Well, listen, man, I mean, it is just wild. Donald Trump, there is something so crazy that I don't know. Maybe I, I can't be.

the only one who's noticed this, right? But there has been this change, like, from Donald Trump at the very beginning, his first term, you know, there'd be this thing. I'm sure you saw this a bunch, Emily, where, like, there'd be a reporter asking Donald Trump, like, the dumbest, most bad faith, dishonest question about, like, Russia Gate or some stupid thing. And you'd be like, oh, this is totally, like, you're not even asking a question. You're, like, running an op against the president. It's such a weird thing. And then Donald Trump would just respond. with like, you're a fat pig and blah, blah, blah. And there'd be like a thing where you're kind of like, yeah, like just smet.

But then in the second term, it turned into this thing where like, journalists just ask the most reasonable question. And like, it's just constantly like, hey, you said yesterday you were going to release the Epstein files and you said today there's no such thing as the Epstein files. And he's like, your husband isn't attracted to you. You're disgusting. And you're like, wait, what? this isn't cool anymore because that was kind of reasonable.

And I don't know, it's just too, like, what, how is this supposed to even be the answer? How, I don't know, this, all of this is just, it's been a very surreal moment to live through. What are we, what are you asking about the specifics of what he said there? Well, I mean, I think, you know, to me, it's like amazing to see some, I'm a evangelical Christian. And it's amazing to see some of my fellow conservative Christians look at that post from Donald Trump and have, these are people who support Trump. Any sense of like moral surprise or shock because this is the guy. What did he say that he hates his opponents? He said that at Charlie Kirk's funeral.

One time he talked about his little wine and crackers, like this was back in 2015. He's done, he said he doesn't ask God for forgiveness. I mean, he's not a Christian beacon of morality. And so to be surprised by this, I can't, or shocked by it. I mean, I guess I think it's good. He took it down, but there's a 0% chance he thought it was a doctor. Yeah, I mean, that was a wild for him to go like, yeah, what? You got Jesus out of that?

That's crazy. Where did anyone think that? I don't know. There's a really sad thing. I remember watching through the rise of wokeism as that kind of swept through the like kind of liberal establishment. I remember always having this really, it was like kind of like a sad feeling

where I would watch all these people who I really admired, especially in the comedy world, because I've like been coming up as a comedian. And there were people like, I know that young people, this is gonna be the craziest thing to ever say to you, but like Stephen Colbert was funny ones. Oh, do strangers with candy?

Holy. Dude, he was an amazing talent, dude. The Colbert report was amazing. Dana Carvey show? Dude, Stephen Colbert on the Dana Carvey show. He was great on the daily show, on the Stephen Colbert show, on the Dana Carvey show. He was just like an incredible talent.

Like there were a lot of people like this who were really good, but like then, I don't know, some type of social force just kind of cast a spell on them. and they just had to conform to this weird religion that they had like become a part of. And in a lot of ways, I, you know, it was like it was sad. And I don't know. And I feel like a lot of those people, like you're saying,

like the Christians who will still support Donald Trump after this, I guess they've fallen into some spell where for so long they believe that he was their only savior. And obviously, you know, in terms of politically what Donald Trump represented, he was the greatest enemy of the very anti-Christian force in this country. And so I guess they feel like they have. But I don't know. At a certain point, at least I feel like if you're in the world that me and you are in,

where our job is largely talking about these things publicly for other people to watch, then come on, we got to just tell the truth about this. Like, what is this? This is so despicable. I mean, so like, just disgusting. The president just being so flippant that on Easter, he's threatening genocide, and then making these kind of comments about Allah and then these posts about Jesus. Like, you know, again, it's weird because I know like the, in a way, like, the knock on me is that I'm,

who the fuck am I? Which is a fair enough knock on me. Right? Like, that's the biggest knock on me is like, you're some comedian. Like, you're not an expert. Who the fuck are you? Like, you're some shit talking comedian in a hoodie. who wants to show up to like the biggest debate in politics and like, okay.

No hood today, though. No hood today. There you go. Well, I respect the after party. Right. You know. Business casual. But like, okay, fair enough.

That's the knock on me. But then, okay, but am I the only one who goes? But like the president of the United States of America, the commander in chief? Like, okay, even for me, I don't care about formalities. I'm not, you know, people I really, really admire. Like, I'm a real student of conservative thought. Like, I love all of that. I've read every Pat Buchanan book.

And, like, he would get real mad if you didn't have a big enough flag pin on. Or when Obama took his jacket off in the Oval Office, Papi Kano would be like, oh, it's not, you know. I don't have any of that in me. But could the president not, you know, be the most vulgar, just horrible human being in the planet? that seems to be a reasonable request. And it's sad. It's sad watching this happen.

Oh, totally unreasonable, actually. You mentioned. You are right. Well, actually, before me, there was a lot of chatter last week. We were talking about Alex Jones earlier among, there were some people, Alex was one of them, calling for potential 25th Amendment saying Trump is losing it. Dave, again, do I think there's something that seems to have asked? because we're now at war and maybe he's feeling extra defensive and desperate of his image,

probably. Do you think this is a 25th Amendment situation where he's like, his grasp on reality is slipping to me again. Like I look at this and I don't think it's not surprising to me. It doesn't shock me. It does seem like it's on another level. It doesn't seem to me like he's going insane. Um, you said it does or doesn't seem like he's going. It doesn't. I feel like he's always been on this level of crazy. No, I, I know. You know, look, I mean, I don't know this is total just speculation so i don't know exactly what's happened but it does feel like something is different a flip has been switched i i try i always try my best to like find the least conspiratorial kind of like answer to all like what is the simplest answer for why all of this is

happening and i guess i would say that i think there was um a big moment last summer when Donald Trump hit us with the one-two punch of the 12-day war and burying the Epstein files. And he, that really, it shed off a big part of his base. And they try not to admit this, but the truth is that at that point, a huge part of the Trump coalition went, yo, this is not what we signed up for. And perhaps, and maybe I'm guilty of some of this, but perhaps that changed the incentive structure for Donald Trump in a way that was not advantageous for any of us.

Like it was like, hey, I've already lost those guys. So I got to at least keep these guys. Now, I think there's also something about Washington, D.C. Like, you know, like, you know how like, I don't even know if this is true anymore because like politicians don't even pretend to have ever read. a book anymore. But if you, and you're young, Emily, this is your problem. You're very, very young. But if you were around earlier, you know, they used to like, like congressmen used to talk about like, like, like, uh, like Keynes. Like we like John Maynard Keynes and his school on economics or

something like that. But it's not like any of them ever really sat down and read F.A. Hayek and then read Keynes and then went, oh, I think Keynes, makes better arguments. The reason why he was a popular kind of like intellectual figure is because his arguments was that government should have a lot more power. And then so everyone in government went, oh, yeah, yeah, we really like that argument. In the same way that the fucking, you know, that all the weapons companies, you know, fucking fund all the neocom think tanks. It's not because they really believe in greater Israel. It's just because they're like, oh, you said we have to fight seven wars? Interesting opinion. Let me give you a little bit more money to, you know,

Like it's all business essentially. And so like in the same way, I think when you're in Washington, D.C., right? Like there's this dynamic where a president, so it's very strange because people go, is the president the most powerful position ever, or is it not a powerful position? And the truth is that if you're the president of the United States of America and you want to swim with the current, you're the most powerful human being who's ever existed in the history of the world. You can touch anywhere in the world.

You can launch, as we've seen, you can launch any war. The best thing Congress could do is write you an angry letter and go, within 90 days, you better report to us and tell us what you're doing. And if you don't, you don't, because it doesn't really matter. You launch any war. You could bomb a wedding in Yemen or a city in any part of the world, right? If you're a president who wants to roll back the military industrial complex, you have zero power.

Zero. You're not capable of doing it. So if you want to go with the warfare state, you're the biggest, baddest emperor of all time. If you want to go against it, you are just a failure in history. That's just, and I think at a certain point, Donald Trump, who is motivated by more than anything else, being the most tremendous person who's ever lived, when fuck it, I'm going to go with it rather than against it. And I think Venezuela was just, you know,

the greatest disaster of Venezuela is that it worked out well. And, you know, and then that just gave him the confidence to be ripe for Netanyahu to fucking convince him. Now, that being said, I'm not against anyone speculating about more than that because it still seems so hard to believe that he could possibly be fooled into thinking that this wouldn't happen. You know, I literally, oh, I didn't post it, but I'm going to post it. First thing tomorrow morning, I'm going to post. I found a Scott Horton article from 2005. Damn.

And Scott Horton, because at the time the Bush administration is talking about how we should invade Iran. And Scott Horton in 2005 goes, but they will close the strait of Hormuz and him. all of our military bases in the region and they have the missile capacity to do this and this and this and then it's just so amazing to watch like them today like so look that antsy war dot com scott horton yeah head over there just the absolute best best foreign policy guy in the goddamn country but so you know it makes you wonder really no one would have told him even in that new york times piece everyone's kind no one really tells him don't do this you know like don't And it is hard to believe.

I don't know. It's very hard to believe that that's the case. Yeah, it sucks. It's the best I can come up with. Let's move on to Eric Swalwell, who will not be governor of California, much to the disappointment of the Golden State. Here's Eric Swalwell. We're going to go through a little timeline here.

It'll be fun. So here's Eric Swalwell on Friday after this was a San Francisco Chronicle story had dropped. There was a CNN one, which had either just dropped or was on the cusp of dropping S3. These allegations of sexual assault are flat, false. They are absolutely false. They did not happen. It looks like a Duke lacrosse player. I will fight them with everything that I have.

They also come on the eve of an election where I have been the frontrunner candidate for governor in California. I do not suggest to you in any way that I'm perfect or that I'm a saint. I have certainly made mistakes in judgment in my life. past. But those mistakes are between me and my wife. And to her, I apologize deeply for putting her in this position. I also apologize to you if in any way you have doubted your support for me. But I think you know who I am. So he's battling obviously claims that range from outright rape to sexual assault and harassment. So there's, and there's a, I recommend Megan went through point by point on today's Megan Kelly show, all of the allegations and what we should make of the

them in the court of public opinion. Alvin Bragg did open an investigation into Eric's Wall because one of the, one of the allegations is in New York, and there was a House Ethics probe opened, which is interesting because on Sunday, Eric Swalwell, after doubling down in the video, you just saw F6, he suspended his gubernatorial campaign. Then, today, the House Ethics Committee opens this probe into Eric Swalwell. He announces F7. He's actually, leaving Congress all together. He resigned from Congress this evening. So, Dave, I think, in a way, this harkens back to simpler times when sex scandals destroyed people's congressional careers. That's kind of quaint. On the other hand, some of these allegations, like, it's very much

the depths of Me Too. He said, she said both people were really drunk. It sounds like there are allusions to maybe there being a date rape drug, but that's never said clearly. It's a tangled mess. Obviously, Eric Swalwell is adulterous and gross and was hitting on employees and making moves on employees, sleeping with employees. So I guess good riddance. Yeah. I mean, look, I don't know what actually happened here. And I haven't even looked into it enough to even like formulate an opinion on all of this. I do think that, You know, I don't know. I'm a real, you know, I'm much more chauvinistic than I let on in real life.

And I really do. I just, this is why only married men of good moral character should be involved in politics at all. And that there just shouldn't be any of this like, listen, I'm not saying, I'm a complete libertarian. People should be allowed to live whatever lifestyle they want to live. But keep that weird shit away from power. Like nobody in power should ever. I love the idea of you saying that at a. libertarian convention. Just I love the idea of you getting up in front of me.

I'm a libertarian, but I'm a day walker, you know, like I walk amongst the autistic libertarians and then I walk amongst the normies during the day and I try to bring the two together. It's not an easy job. Someone has to do it. But I will say there is something that, and I do think this is a big part of like the Epstein thing and just this this cultural toothpaste that has come out of the tube that can never be put back in, that people just can't ignore how weird some of the people, like the highest levels of power are. And you're like, wait, what is this story? What were you doing?

Even if it's not, you know, the worst allegation of it, you're like, but wait a minute. You're a guy who's like passing moral judgment on everyone else all day on cable news. But then this is your life. And you just have to apologize to your wife publicly, but we're not going to know what exactly that means. I think that, you know, there's something where we find out that a lot of these people are really just very bizarre people with a lot of things that could kind of be compromised, you know, or they're ripe to being compromised. Well, he was literally compromised by the Chinese. I mean, the Fang Fang allegation, like, he was, like, actually... Well, and also just...

I mean, it's just, like, on a very human level, like, do you remember... Okay, so I remember, like, not that long ago, I don't know, I guess this was 2019 or something like that, but you remember when, like, MSNBC was trying to convince you that Stormy Daniels lawyer had the it factor? Evanotti. And you're like, this guy is just... ooh he's prosecuting the case again and then remember uh what was the guy who rode the skateboard out in

texas who they tried to tell you yeah betto a rorick he's oh he's like in he's like the guy who people want and you just be like are you a real person or are you an alien impersonating a person who would possibly think these are two of the most like strange weird human beings ever and you're trying to convince me that they're charismatic or something like that i don't know it's just very strange this is not how normal people are with circular too because dems will say well you guys have donald trump to republicans and republicans will say yes well eric swalwell was mr believe all woman anti don't trump and you just go around and round and round until you realize that there's something so broken with the system that no fewer good people ever want to enter it because it takes such a disgusting person to be part of the system

yeah well that's true but you know could i just say on that and i'm not trying to i have i have I think of all the people who voted for Donald Trump, like people with public, you know, or podcasts or whatever, I think I was amongst the first to like straight up say, like, I apologized for that. I was wrong for voting for him. I called for his impeachment. I at least back in the, on breaking points,

when the 12-day war first launched, I think. And I think it was, if I'm remembering correctly, I think it was before we dropped the bunker busters. I think it was already just when Israel launched the war. I was like, You know, I was, I'm the angry teenager that I always am. I hate him now. But, you know, there's this thing where people would say forever that, that MAGA is a cult,

or Trump supporters are like a cult like following. And I also see right now a lot of people, you know, who have been like really calling people out who voted for Donald Trump. something like that. And, you know, so I say this again from the position, which I understand is a weak position to argue from, where I'm already admitting that like, yes, probably it was wrong to vote for Donald Trump. But also, I'll just say some names here, but I've gotten into some public arguments with Kyle Kulinski and Medi Hassan and others like that, who, by the way, I'm not trying to fight with either of those guys. I, you know, like, I don't agree with them

on everything, but we sure do agree on some really important stuff. and I'm not, but they're going around, like, constantly going like, hey, you voted for Donald Trump. Well, look at you, Joe Rogan. You're criticizing them now, but what do you think you voted for? And just like everyone who's, and this is just infuriating me. And I, you know, I publicly went back and forth with Medi a little bit, and then we messaged privately a little bit. And like, we're cool and everything.

But I just, there's something about this where, like, I said, I said this publicly, and I'll say this again, that, you know, when I remember, I was so anti-war, so hardcore anti-war, and I never voted for anyone. The only presidential candidate I ever voted for was Ron Paul. Like, I have complete clean hands in terms of voting before 2024. And I remember just mourning the death of the anti-war left forever. It was like, as soon as George W. Bush left and Obama came in. and the global war on terrorism just escalated and spread to multiple other theaters.

Escalated in the theaters they were already in. He surged like tens of thousands of troops to Afghanistan. Took Libya, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, like all of this. And they were just gone. And then when the destruction of Gaza started, they kind of all came back. And I was like, great, you know. And I never thought for one second that this would be the time to start lecturing every about how you voted for Joe Biden,

and you should have known that Joe Biden was a lifelong Zionist, and Joe Biden was obviously going to do this. And then, like, the people who voted for Joe Biden, who admit that he committed a genocide, are, like, shaming everybody else for voting for Donald Trump. Like, yo, let's just take a look at what actually happened here. The entire media apparatus that supported Donald Trump and got him his election victory,

turned on him over this war. So, hey, anti-war leftist, take the win, you know what I mean? Like, hey, that's awesome. That's awesome that they're not going along with this. You called us all, or you called them all cultists for so long. They're not cultists. They're turning on him over this.

Let it happen. Why are you taking this opportunity to go like, go like, I told you so. Yeah, no, I agree with that. I mean, I didn't vote for president in 2024, but that's because exactly of everything you were just saying. It's this, like, completely complicated mess of you're always evaluating the lesser of two evils. Like, none of those people were, you know, venerating Joe Biden. And people like, you weren't venerating Donald Trump.

It's just saying, no. People have kids and families that they love and they make decisions based on what they think is going to be the best. And nobody, I mean, there are some people who claim they're 100% right. And if you're not with me, you're evil. There are many people like that. But that's not you. And that's not a lot of people that's certainly not Andrew Schultz and Joe Rogan and Tim Dillon. They certainly weren't in that camp.

But also if you're, yes, I completely agree. And I'm just saying that if you're in the camp of really being against, like if you really care that like, oh shit, there's like innocent people dying and the world's going to be worse off because of this war, then if you look at people like Tim Dillon and Joe Rogan and Theo Vaughn and Andrew Schultz and. all these people you go wow wow they're really they're they're they're giving more than enough permission to their viewers to go hey we can all oppose this thing you don't have to just because we voted for this like still be on board with it even not all of their audience obviously voted for it but like they're just like so it's like oh that that's great like why would you be i don't know i just i find that to be such a crazy take that it's like yo when when the destruction of gaza was going on I wasn't thinking about lecturing anybody because it was like, no, we just need as many people to be good on this as we can possibly get.

Like, that's really important. And there's really important that, like, left-wingers are good on war again. And, you know, like, I just don't, I don't see what anyone wouldn't make the simple calculation that, like, that's more important than me, you know, being like, hey, you shouldn't have voted for this person or something. Which, again, maybe not. I mean, maybe we'd all be better off if Kamala Harris was in now. Or maybe not. We don't really know. But, you know, I'm still even after as, even as disgusted as I am with Trump right now,

I still look back and go, yeah, the Democrats gave everyone more than enough reason to vote against them. It is what it is. We're pinned in a situation where you got to pick one of two options. And the Democrats were pretty awful for a long time. No question about that. Well, there's some good news about the left, though. I want to put up this post.

This is F-16. The cool, hip, chic, radical left is back, Dave. This is Justin Trudeau and Katie Perry. They were at Coachella, experiencing some of the magic in the Coachella Valley. And this post is particularly wonderful because it actually puts it perfectly. I want to give credit to the person who posted this. I think their username is Ohio Jesus Twink. The caption of these two just like viving at Coachella is they're so perfect for each other.

It actually makes me emotional, both being failures of liberalism who peaked in 2013. Why weren't you there, Dave? Where were you? I don't know what this is. I don't go to places like this. Emily, I'm an old man, okay? I'm not in the game of going to concerts. I go, I play with my little kids and then go to work.

That's all. What a weird, what a weird thing. I just don't understand it. I don't. There's something about being, it's like a Disney adult thing. Yes. Oh, can I tell you?

I was at Disney a few weeks ago. You know, I brought my wife and my kids down there. That was a weird way to put it. We all went to Disney. I brought them. You were with Lindsay Graham. I was going. It was you and Lindsay Graham.

You got some bubble lawns. I had to have lunch with Lindsay. on the Mickey Mouse Express, but I got some time with the family in too. And we, so we were going to meet Mickey Mouse. Okay, you got to pay extra for this. We're going to meet Mickey Mouse. But this is the real one, you know, in Disney World. Like this isn't just like a Mickey Mouse.

This is, no, no, this is. The Midtown Mickey Mouse. This is the real Mickey Mouse. Now, that Midtown guy is some Mexican he just got here today, but this is the real Mickey Mouse. And there was just adults in front of us. us. And I'm just sitting there with my wife and my my four year old and my seven year old. And we're sitting there and waiting for two grownups to take pictures with Mickey Mass. And it is the weirdest

feeling ever. Like you really want to go up to them and be like, hey, he's not real. Like this is a minimum wage worker you're taking a picture with right now. What are you doing? Like my four year old is getting fussy. Like can you just leave? It's insane. Anyway, yeah, it's a very unsurial. We live in a very on serious time. And I do think I it's crazy to me. Again, I'm not like some cranky right wing, you know, crotchy old man. I mean, I am in spirit. I am. But I'm also like, I don't know. I'm a stand-up comedian. I got a lot of friends who live really wild, crazy lifestyles. I used to live a very non-traditional lifestyle. I got married and had kids and now I, I live a different, you know, now my life is different and it's much better.

But the fact that I'm not like too judgmental, I get it. One of my best friends in the world is Ari Shafir. I think he just disappeared into the fucking rain forest for three months and doing an acid trip and came back a different man. You know, like I'm not, but you're like, you know, we're gonna have our leaders are like people in their 50s who are going to music festivals and getting, taking pictures with them and this is too just like bizarre.

Like, no, that's not serious grown-ups shouldn't behave that way. That's all I'm saying. Okay, well, if you want to be judgey, Dave, this is, I want to know where they were during the Sabrina Carpenter set because Woke is back. Some good news depending on where you are, maybe bad news if you're on the other side of that, but Woke is back. Sabrina Carpenter during her set gets what she interpreted as a yodel. She ultimately has to apologize for the reaction you're all about to see here in S5. Is that what you're doing? I don't like it.

That's your culture, is yodeling? Is this burning man? What's going on? This is weird. So Dave, some people pointed out that if it had been yodeling that she was making fun of, like just the whitest of the white art forms, it would have been fine. But it was the fact that she was actually had some issue with an Arabic form of expression that was the problem.

This is F-12. She did apologize for her reactions. She says, my apologies, I didn't see this person with my eyes. I couldn't hear clearly. My reaction was pure confusion, sarcasm,

and ill-intended. So, yeah, woke is totally back. Don't you think, Dave? Yeah, well, I guess it probably never left that world, whatever that,

no, you know, world is. But, you know, woke is, not she was called Islamophobic I should say like this is it generated a write-up in the New York Times like this wasn't just random she she got called Islamophobic in mega viral posts and ended

apologizing because of it yeah look woke has receded but it's not gone and so there's still a whole lot of stuff like that like if you had again if she had been just making fun of some you know yodeling white Christian that would have been fine but this isn't Now that doesn't mean they're going to be pushing quite as crazy stuff as they were pushing five years ago or something like that. You know, like, okay, they've backed off of the like given your eight-year-old a lap downs from a dude in a dress or something. But they're, you know. That didn't happen, but if it did, it was good and it was a blessing of liberty. These, right, right.

Well, these things don't, you know, forces or norms that become so cold. culturally ingrained are never just vanquished, you know? Like, there's, there's people in Russia today who support Stalin, you know? Like, you can never just, like, vanquish a complete, there's, there's, you know, there's neo-Nazis in Germany. There's, you know, now there, some can be more vanquished than others, but, you know, it's like, You kind of, even if there's a certain percentage, and this is one of the things that was really weird about the 2024 election and Donald Trump winning again, is that a lot of people went like, you saw all the corporate shills just dropped the woke shit. They all went, oh, okay, this isn't a winning issue anymore.

Okay, we're done. It was the same way that if you remember in 2004, the neocons made gay marriage a big wedge issue. because it was like 55% of people were against gay marriage. And so they made one of the issues in the 2024 election was a constitutional amendment protecting the sanctity of marriage. It was stupid. They were never going to get a constitutional amendment. It was just like, let's throw like some red meat to the...

But then you watched all those neocons. As soon as it became a 55% issue being pro-gay marriage, they all went, yeah, okay, whatever. They weren't pro-game marriage. Like none of them actually cared about it. It was just, and you watched a lot of that with the wokeism stuff, where they all, you know, people like, who is it? AOC takes her pronouns out of her bio or whatever on Twitter.

Oh, all of a sudden, nah, forgot that. We weren't saying there's no such thing as gender. That was a different time. But, you know, you pump that message into so many people. You got millions of Americans who still believe in that stuff. And it's not as easy as it is for the corporate. snakes to just abandon an issue when real actual human beings made that a part of their identity that they believed in this and they kind of thought they had it on some authority because you,

an authoritative person, were telling them that. And so it's, I don't know, there's something so disgusting about the people who just like pushed these messages, but yeah, no, that's still, this is still a reality in the world is that a lot of people are going to go like, well, what do you mean? Oh, you're allowed to make fun of some person making a sound, but you got it wrong and they were browner than you thought. So whatever. It's just, it's so stupid, but it's really toxic and bad that there's people who still believe in that shit. Well, yeah, I mean, this is something new in the New York Times zoomer panel apparently agree on.

They did a recent like roundtable of Gen Z and here's a part of that. Quote, in some corners of the world, I think woke is more alive than ever. and it's getting more intense. And that's how they're transgressing, quote, another one adds, it's definitely coming back. And another one says, so it's sort of like these two completely different spheres than that you navigate between both when you're reporting on the MAGA right-wing youth movements and when you're moving through Brooklyn, it's two completely different worlds.

And Dave, just last question to you, makes me realize how social media, it doesn't matter if you're like hyper right-wing or hyper-left-wing. It's programming everyone to be totally manichaean. And I guess that's maybe not the worst definition of woke. Yeah, right. I think that's true. And it's it, in some ways, it makes it easier than ever to, you know, gauge the temperature of what's going on. But then in some ways, it really, you know, does kind of reinforce you into your own little world and your own little bubble.

And it's, you know, I think you have to like, you, you know, you. You have to really have a curiosity for what's really going on in order to force yourself to think about things like that and to think about like, hey, okay, like, but what am I not seeing? Because like what's actually going on? What is the, you know, I think about this all the time. And I try my, I'm kind of lucky in my life that like, I know, I know a lot of comedians and I'm from New York City.

And so I know a lot of people in New York. And then from being in this business, I know people in L.A. and I know people. So even though I'm not, you know, I can kind of, like, there's a lot of people I can ask, like, what's going on with this group? Like, how are they feeling? How are they? And because I do wonder, I'm like, hey, so in my mind, like, all the COVID lies just got

completely destroyed and disproven. And we all know that they all lied to us, right? And I do think that that's kind of like the majority view of the Americans. But then you go like, yeah, but what about that hipster in Brooklyn who totally bought in to all of it. How is he feeling about this now? You know, like, and, and I do think that the, the general trends of the country represent some of those people being peeled away. And I do think that, at least from the gauge I can get, that the younger people are a little bit more like, there is like an attitude, I think, amongst the like, the younger people now,

that the younger people five years ago were kind of gay. Like it was kind of, you know, like that seems to be the feeling. They were like, oh, dude, they were just like anything you said. Forget that. We want to be able to make jokes and we want to be able to go back to this. But I guess, look, I don't know if I'm completely right about this. But my feeling is that the left wing woke stuff has receded. it still infects a huge percentage of young leftists.

And what the other ones have come out is a more, a less socially woke, more radically economically leftist kind of version of that. And I think that's what's emerging right now is the Mom Donnie kind of effect. Like Mom Doni a few years ago might have been tweeting about how queer, Liberation means defunding the police today. Hell yeah. He will only, which is, which is true, but... They can fact check us.

They're not going to be successful. It's honestly, it's about time people woke up to the fact that if you want queer liberation, you have to defund the police. And so I'm not saying, I'm not saying queer liberation is the goal. I'm just saying defunding the police is the way to get there. Anyway, the point is that the affordability crisis is what they're going to be talking about now. now. Like I think they've they've kind of learned in some way from these years that like, okay, this social program kind of didn't work and also were in this error of fucking everything being way too expensive. And, you know, they call that unaffordability, which people who have

ever read a book about economics call currency debasement or, you know, price inflation. But they call it unaffordability and that's what they're going to run on now. But, you know, since Donald Trump has completely committed to fighting forever wars and, you know, government spending levels that are higher than the Democrats, we're going to be printing a lot of money and there'll be a lot more higher prices for the Democrats to run against in the next few years. Dave Smith hosts a part of the problem. It's so fun to have you on. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being here.

Oh, thank you so much, Emily. I always enjoy this. Yes, likewise. We'll see you again soon. Thanks, Dave. Absolutely. Have a good night. You tell. All right, we'll be back with more in just one moment. But first, over the years, I have been clear about this. I'm not just pro-birth. I'm pro-life. And being pro-life means standing with mothers not only before their baby is born, but long after. And that is exactly why I partner and partner very proudly with pre-born. Pre-born doesn't just save babies. They make motherhood abundantly possible. They provide free ultrasounds and share the truth of the gospel with women in crisis. And then they stay. with real practical help. This includes financial support for up to two years.

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Preyborn is trying to save 70,000 babies this year, you can be a part of that. So don't just say your pro-life, live it, help save babies, and support mothers today. Go to preborn.com slash Emily or call 855-601-229. That's pre-born. That's pre-born.com slash Emily. All right, everyone, we're rounding out the show with Lena Dunham's media tour. She was on The View earlier today. She's out with a new book that really, apparently I haven't read the book yet, but it apparently is a very raw revisiting of the girls' years and her entire journey through the public or journey in the public eye. It's called Fame Sick, which she explains is a little bit of how the fame made her sick and what it was like being sick with the fame. It's actually, if you even take the sort of political layer of Lena Dunham off of it, I think probably a worthwhile.

pursuit right now from somebody who's who's lived in the public eye in the 2010s and now beyond into the 2020s, millennial social media generation. This is transformed not just our daily lives, but also the way that we look outward into the world, the way that we look at celebrities, the way that celebrities look at everyone else, politicians as well, since they're basically the same as celebrities now. That's TMZ's intention in covering DC. They just got Lindsay Graham today. So, but really, I mean that this is all connected because celebrities and politicians now have a new experience relating to people. We were told it would be a great democratization. We can communicate all from the same flat level, and that's obviously not how it's turned out.

But Lena Dunham's grappling with a lot of what that meant for her. I think girls premiered in 2012. if I'm correct, and that it went from like 2012 to 2017, but around that time period. And so here's Lena Dunham talking about the particular experience of her own fame during that time period in a new long interview with The New York Times. I have annoyed people since I was so small. Like, I was an annoying kid. I was a tryhard. I was loud.

I didn't always know how to move through space with other kids in a way that wasn't a little bit. off or disruptive. That's coupled with there was like the intense rage about the female sexuality on the show. There was the intense rage about my body, which is so crazy to look back on now because I was this like little slip of a 26 year old and had I known my own powers, I would have behaved very differently. And then like I would be lying if I didn't say that my own way of moving, whether it was through media or how I served myself online or even in my writing, didn't quell it the way that I was spoken about. I mean, that's what so many women's bodies look like. That's not what my body looks like anymore. But it was, I was like full of light. And it's interesting,

as I looked at the photos over the course of the show, I could see, it's such a cliche, but it was like, the lights just went out. So I'm going to spoil girls. Actually, I usually try not to spoil it, but for the purposes of this discussion, if you haven't seen girls and you don't want it to be spoiled, I highly recommend everybody watches girls all the way through, finish the last season.

But it does end with Lena Dunham's character, Hanne Horvath, having a baby and finding joy in motherhood. And it wasn't intended to be a rebuke of radical feminism, the type of radical feminism that Hannah Horvath, the character, espoused and promoted throughout her young career and her young life. But it actually really did function as one. And this is what I think is so interesting about Lena Dunham's art. And she came of age, really at a time professionally when the culture, because of social media, was losing tolerance for artists because artists were using social media in their own platforms in ways that were more and more

what's the right word for this kind of cynical but at the same time more ephemeral right so we had to see lena dunham's awful 2012 Obama ad like comparing voting for the first time to losing your virginity it was really like disgusting um it sounds Some of it is, yes, it completely makes sense for an artist to behave that way. If you're a good artist, you're probably eccentric and you're probably wacky. And if you have so much contact with normal human beings through social media and interviews and Twitter posts and paparazzi figures, that weirdness is going to be projected. And other people are going to react in a way where it's like, that's weird, that's bad.

You know, your Brooklyn values are out of step with the values of this Iowa Obama voter. What do you think you're doing? But that's part of the challenge of social media is that it's erased borders and it's brought us all much closer together and in constant communication. And I think you're somebody like Lena Dunham who's if you knew nothing about her and you just watched girls in a vacuum, you never heard of Lena Dunham. You never saw anything from a public profile. I think actually a lot of people would have interpreted it as a pretty honest exploration of feminism and its effect on the millennial generation. You could probably do something similar for Gen Z. It clearly had one side that it thought it was promoting, but I think that's what makes it such a rich and interesting show is that because it was honest, you even saw these challenges.

to its own foundation. It was, it really was an excellent show. And not always consciously was it making those challenges to its own foundation. So Lena Dunham is constantly doing this. Every show she does, every interview she does, she's constantly doing this. And what's interesting is that when she says there was so much rage at her body and so much rage at women's sexuality being presented in girls, what they're, of course, of course, there's always bad actors, right? There's people who are actually just mean and hateful and social media brings those people to the forefront. But in terms of like political, cultural rage at her body and about female sexuality, yeah, there was immense discomfort from the public when Lena Dunham was genuinely normalizing. She was in the process of normalizing, as she talks about in this interview, in the process of attempting to normalize the radical feminism that had previously been relegated to faculty lounges. So, of course, there's going to be rage about that from people who don't want to see the normalization of faculty lounge feminism for their children, their grandchildren, and in their communities. And you can even see in Lena Dunham, who is now, by her own accord, happily married, has left fame, has moved to England, as far as I know, but has found in marriage what she describes as a rock.

And in monogamy, presumably at least, what she finds as comfort. And in this, like, quaint and quiet life, which is exactly what Hannah finds at the end of girls. I mean, it's almost eerie how prescient the end of girls is to looking ahead in Lena Dunham's life, where she talks constantly about wanting to just leave the public life and be in bed. with books and movies. It's basically in girls. How she ultimately finds what we're pointed at believing is peace and sort of harmony with nature. It's this very sort of naturalistic feminism.

It's almost a nod to earlier generations of feminism. Some of the shots are like that too. They're very humanist. And you hear that every time Lena Dunham opens her mouth, which is why I think she's one of the most interesting artists for generation. She said in the view interview she did today that the Hannah Horveth line, I think I might be the voice of my generation, very famous from the first episode of girls. That was taken seriously by many people.

She said, that was always supposed to be a joke. Of course it was supposed to be a joke. But it was a joke that came true. That's so wild and interesting about girls. And I think in Lena Dunham, you see somebody who is sure. struggling enormously still to be happy. She apparently in this book writes about sexual trauma. She's gone through.

Some of that has been public and some of it is very ugly. But here's Lena Dunham, who was by her own accord trying to normalize this promiscuity, this comfort with faculty lounge feminism. And here she is in 2026 all these years later, embracing limits, embracing the limits of her own body, embracing the limits of her own body, embracing the limits of life, of promiscuity. And she's found solace and monogamy and in a quiet life away from to, again, go back to the end of girls away from New York City, very intentionally away from New York City, which is, by the way, where she grew up, if I'm remembering correctly. So really, really interesting, sad, poignant recollections here from reflections, I should say, here from Lena Dunham, who.

always does this. She always just sort of dances in the direction of a really, and very cleverly and artfully dances in the direction of a point that's even more profound than the one she thinks she's making. And I think it's reflective of our generation, certainly. And Gen Z now foiling between trad and anti-trad and trying to figure out what's actually happening. And that's summarized so neatly in the end of girls. Like, it's not quite trad in the literal political definition of right now, but it's also definitely not feminist in the literal political definition of the left right now. So if you haven't watched it, I recommend watching it. Sad, sad, but in a way, sort of, what's the right word? It's, it's always sad to hear

from Lena Dunham because she seems like she'll probably always be a sad person, also common. of artists and people who've suffered trauma in their lives and her parents were artists and she talks about some weird stuff she saw as a kid because of that. But man, it's sad to hear her talk about this, but in a way it's also, I sense she's maybe getting closer to finding some peace in serenity in this life. So that'll do it for an extra long, maybe the longest ever edition of After Party. Thank you all so much for two back here Wednesday night with another edition of the show, so stay tuned for that. Please do like comments, pride. It helps us a lot. Have a great night, everyone.