Part Of The Problem - 2025 Year End Recap

Episode Date: December 31, 2025

Dave Smith brings you the latest in politics! On this episode of Part Of The Problem, Dave and Robbie "The Fire" Bernstein talk about the biggest news stories of the year, biggest surprises of the Trump administration, rank Dave's debate opponents, and more.Support Our Sponsors:Sheath - https://sheathunderwear.com use promo code PROBLEM20Cowboy Colostrum - Get 25% Off Cowboy Colostrum with code DAVE at https://www.cowboycolostrum.com/DAVEVandy Crisps - https://vandycrisps.com/dave Use code "DAVE" for 25% offRugiet - Get 15% off your first order by going to http://rugiet.com/DAVE and using code DAVEPart Of The Problem is available for early pre-release at https://partoftheproblem.com as well as an exclusive episode on Thursday!PORCH TOUR DATES HERE:https://robbernsteincomedy.com/eventsFind Run Your Mouth here:YouTube - http://youtube.com/@RunYourMouthiTunes - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/run-your-mouth-podcast/id1211469807Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/4ka50RAKTxFTxbtyPP8AHmFollow the show on social media:X:http://x.com/ComicDaveSmithhttp://x.com/RobbieTheFireInstagram:http://instagram.com/theproblemdavesmithhttp://instagram.com/robbiethefire#libertarian See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

what's up what's up everybody welcome to a brand new episode of part of the problem i am dave smith he is robbie the fire burnstein this is our annual tradition the year and review episode where we say goodbye to 2025 go over all the biggest stories and the lessons try to have a nice laugh along the way um it's been it's been quite a year and so we uh we got a lot of stuff to jump into but before we get into all of that rob you got uh i mean we're recording this the day before new year's eve but you got a big show uh with sam tripley tomorrow at the comedy dojo yeah if you guys are out in jersey come hang out but uh if you're not go to youtube type the word robbie the fire all one word and check out i put out uh two episodes of porching i got some stand up in

there a lot of work went into it it's like a full tv pilot so uh you know go give it a click i am literally i feel like a bad friend slash um uh work partner but i am going to uh today tonight after this this is my last thing i'm done for the day after this and so i'm going to make sure i go watch that uh later i've heard great things uh about it really looking forward to it and then of course i'm looking forward um to getting back out on the road with you um and we will in january we got our first time we're doing a full weekend and healia and then our first time we're doing a full weekend in the Helium out in Portland,

Oregon. We did like a theater run there a couple years ago, but looking forward to getting back out there. That's going to be a lot of fun. Then we got a bunch more stuff coming up for the rest of the year, comicdavsmith.com for all of those ticket links. All right.

So we're going to go through the year that was 2025. If you are in the live chat, of course because the only way to get in the lot chat is to become a supporting listener of the show sign up over at part of the problem.com we love the people who sign up but if you've got anything that you think is either your biggest story of the think like deserves to be mentioned on this show make sure to put that in the chat I put out a tweet asking my my Twitter followers or X followers there what they thought the biggest story of the year was and it was basically i mean i didn't go through

and like tally up all the votes but there were three stories that were the overwhelming favorites for biggest story of 2025 rob can you guess all three stories biggest story of 2000 the ones that that were voted biggest story well i'm kind of cheating because i'm also on twitter did you see some of us I saw some of the responses but Charlie Kirk is definitely up there that's one

Epstein is definitely up there that's two and I'm going to guess that Gaza stuff's up there it was a Iran is what got what got number three and you know I

I kind of think in a weird way they you know Gaza and around at the risk of sounding like an anti-Muslim bigot they kind of feel like the same story you know what i mean like there's just because it's obviously it's israeli wars with u.s backing slash involvement and you know so it seems like those are

are together but essentially what i heard the most from people was charlie kirk epstein and iran and that to me i think is pretty hard to argue with like here's the good news sure For sure. Epstein was a hoax. So, and we've got a million, over a million documents proving that it was a hoax. Yes. And Donald Trump already totally took care of Iran. And if for some reason he didn't, he'll just retake care of it.

So really, two of the three shouldn't even be on the list. We're talking about non-issues here. I just got off the phone with the president, and he informed me that Gaza is a hoax. And I don't mean, I don't mean the war. I mean the place no such place doesn't exist never did exist no one's from there there's nothing next to there there's nothing in between uh egypt and israel it's just egypt and israel that's it where am i gonna get my rubble order from i put a nice order in and i'm kind of expecting shipment on that no you are you got scammed dude no place yeah it's um

look i mean there's you could be a little bit more specific with with some of these things like I think that the, you could say like the Trump administration's mish, mish, mish of the Epstein story is really the story. You know, like that's, and I think, honestly, and look, you can make an argument here. There are other things, but I think you could make a really strong argument that that is actually the biggest story of the year. Because in a lot of ways, the biggest story. of this year is the collapse of the Trump administration and the in every sense in the collapse of his

base the collapse of it like even if you if you view what we've been you know referring to as like the civil war or whatever on the right if you if you if you look at all that that's just one more that's just one more indication of like oh yeah the Trump coalition has fallen apart the Trump administration has fallen apart. The Trump media apparatus has fallen apart. Half of them have half the media figures who got Donald Trump elected don't like Donald Trump anymore and are totally fed up with this administration. And nothing, you know, the thing about the Epstein story is that it was like the biggest crack up in that. It was the thing that damaged Trump's aura and reputation the most.

And as I've mentioned many times on the show, I think in many ways, like if I had to pick, and it's almost cheating because I'm not saying like one specific topic, but if I had to say the biggest theme or meta story of 2025 has got to be that like Donald Trump came into the year, he assumed, was it 20 days into 2025, Donald Trump, assumed the presidency. He's, he comes in, we're 20 days into the year and Donald Trump is the greatest political comeback story in American history. It was, you know, it was the biggest story of 2024, right?

Was that he came back, put this campaign together and ultimately won, put a whole new coalition together, a whole new media apparatus together. And as I've mentioned before, probably the most impressed. part of all of it was that he was able to win over the culture and the youth. Two things that would have seemed completely impossible eight years earlier in 2016 when he first won or in 2020 when he ran for re-election. It would have seemed impossible that Donald Trump could have won over the culture and the youth. It would have seemed criminally insane to even believe that that could be possible. And yet he did that. That's how we came in. And man, like, did two,

two thousand twenty five for Donald Trump, Rob, it came in like a lion and is going out like a lamb. I mean, now after one year later, and Donald Trump is just left humiliated, um, he, you know, just in every sense. And to me, it's hard to say anything's a bigger story than that. Well, the one nice thing is that the, uh, Trump evangelicals have died out. And that is thanks to Donald Trump declaring Epstein a hoax and also declaring that we're living in a great economy. And I think both of those things and also the continuous support for Israel. I think those were three big ones that the people that were all on board with every Trump's lie all the time and we're going to fight people like me tooth and nail, even if you're like, I don't feel like having a conversation with you about tariffs and just non-stomp relent. he's bringing back factory jobs do you not want americans to have factory jobs what's wrong with

you are you anti-american do you not like americans having factory jobs and uh thanks to donald trump's disastrous year and declaring it a hoax and that the economy was great and then continuously sending support to israel uh at least those people have kind of mellowed out yeah yeah now you know i think that it's really it's got to be you know around i feel like things for tonyl trump it's almost like you could map out the year and go they were getting it got worse by the month like every month was worse than the previous month but if you if you can kind of remember back like around let's say like April or May of this year it was like well you know Donald Trump he he went to Saudi Arabia I can't remember what where it was was it the UAE or Saudi Arabia

where he gave that great speech where he was blasting the neocons. He had been attempting to negotiate in Ukraine, including chastising Zelensky when he was here in the Oval Office. He was still funding Gaza and he was still funding everything Israel did, but there was kind of this idea that Witkoff and the boys were trying to push a ceasefire and that maybe there'd be some pressure on them. And what really happened was like over the summer, it was like back to back.

was the war in Iran and the covering up of the Epstein files like they both hit like boom boom and it just it it really just enormously damaged Donald Trump and just it caused tremendous division within his base and and basically that's been the case ever since and it's just gotten worse and worse and more pathetically embarrassing ever since then and then of course you're absolutely right that What also really started damaging him is just that, you know, you get, and this is always the case with presidents, like when Barack Obama, so if you remember, the economy crashes in late 2008. So it's late in the year in 2008 when the economy crashes.

Barack Obama comes in January as the president. Now, by March or April or May. Nobody's blaming Obama for the economy because, like, obviously, we just had the worst financial crash in a hundred years. So, like, you got to give this guy some time to cook or whatever, you know. But, like, by the end of that year, by the next year, you know, you hit this thing where there's, you know, I remember, like, in the second year of Obama's first term, so two years into him being president, when they would still be trying to blame the Bush economy. and all of a sudden everyone was like, yeah, dude, you can't do that anymore. And so I think there's just something where Donald Trump, especially because he was claiming to be making all these bold moves, by the second half of this year is when people started

kind of holding him responsible for the economy. And yeah, I mean, his response was, as we've said, it was the exact same thing as Joe Biden. I mean, the identical, ridiculous propaganda that Joe Biden, just the previous year, Rob, in 2004 had been running on the entire year, which is just that why is the economy so bad? Because it's not. And you're stupid. And you haven't seen these charts and graphs that tell you it's actually really good. Just a horrible losing message.

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That'll also get you 20% off your entire order. Sheathunderware.com. Promocode problem 20 for 20% off let's get back in the show yeah certainly you just got to at least get out there and lie that uh your plans are about to start working and don't you worry that factory job is coming for you i understand that it's tough now but i'm working on that factory job for you but if someone's out there and they're not doing well and you just tell them no it's actually really great uh what do they have to look forward to you're telling them that their shit life is great yeah yeah that's right yeah it's just a it's it's a it's a it's a terrible i mean it's just just really really bad politics and um you know but the thing is that you

get to a point where there's just like what else can you do what else can you do you know tell him the truth is to admit that you've screwed over the the country and so he's not going to do that um one of the other things i guess some other uh i kind of felt like maybe this is uh i don't know i mean i'm i'm not sure this is exactly right but broad strokes i do think there's there's something to this because obviously the story of which is a major story but the story of kind of um israel uh tremendously damaging their reputation it was is a two is the last two years or i guess the last two plus years right so the last three months of 23 all the 24 and 25 but if you could break that up into um 2024 and 2025 and like this is an like part of some of this was

happening last year. But I almost feel that in a way, 2004 was the year that Israel got exposed and 2025 was the year that the Israeli lobby really got exposed. And obviously, there were some of us who were talking about the Israel lobby, you know, in 24 and 23 and 22. But there's a, it just seems to me like this year, what really got exposed, like, Like in 2024, people were like, oh, yeah, what Israel does to the Palestinians is fucking horrible. Like, you know, you see what they're doing right now.

Wow, this is real horrible. Then you look into it and you go, oh, they've been doing horrible shit to them for like a very, very long time. That short, like in 2024, Israel kind of lost the moral high ground. I was like, yeah, you can't sit here and talk to me about how terrible, you know, these terrorists are. Like, look at you guys. You guys are a bunch of terrorists. But this year what got more exposed was that like, oh, hey, there's this whole group of like this whole giant apparatus. And this is essentially what Mearsheimer and Walts are writing about in the book.

There's this whole apparatus that includes like organizations like, you know, APAC and the, you know, Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the American Enterprise Institute and the ADL and all the, you know, there's like all these like organizations like, you know, organizations. And then there's all these different like groups of people, neoconservatives and different think tanks and then different like commentators, the Ben Shapiro, Barry Weiss's, Alan Dershowitz's, you know, Mike Huckabees, Ted Cruz. There's all these people who are like, like a Pavlonian dog, or is that the right thing? But you know, it's almost like they can hear a whistle that nobody else can hear something, like a dog whistle where like they are, animated by this one issue, which is support for a foreign government. And I feel like that has been more exposed in 2025 than anything than I could have ever imagined it would have been

when I first read that book and started thinking about these things. But that to me seems like a major, major difference. You know, like I just saw someone was sharing on a, on, I saw on Twitter that they've, Ben Shapiro has lost an average of a thousand subscribers every day for the last like three months or something like that. Like that whole thing, you know, like a guy like Mark Levin, it was almost crazy to say, but like Rob, you remember, you do the great impression. You remember he was like respected on the right wing at one point. Ben Shapiro was respected on the right wing at one point.

Barry Weiss was even like respected in the middle kind of. And like that seems to me like it's just over. well i think uh there are certain things that you can't lie away and we hit that threshold with covid where things just stop making sense such as uh you can go into a restaurant wearing a mask but once you sit down you could take it off there were certain things that you're so defied common sense that nobody could just go oh yeah this all makes sense trust the science this makes sense and i think we've hit a threshold with uh what israel's been doing in gaza and with the images coming out that if people are seeing it most i think most individuals look at that and go no one

should be allowed to do that and then when you continuously say that israel's our most important ally and you make grand claims like the most moral or that ridiculous claim rfk junior said at one point that the gossens are the most pampered when you make these just oh yeah but when you just make things that so don't align with the reality people start wondering why are people so egregiously lying to me about this one topic and why are they censoring to this extent that I'm not even allowed to ask questions or I'm not allowed to say, hey, this doesn't look right. And then you get called anti-Semitic. And when they so overly play their hands, you know, for censorship or for a narrative, it just kind of channels to people, oh, something's up here. Yeah, 100%. That's

exactly right. And I guess it kind of, in a way that that kind of blends into another story that I would say is like one of the major stories of 2025 is that and not that this obviously this is something that had been building and developing for many years but it did feel like if you you remember we both talked a lot about what was very interesting I think from our perspective because we've followed particularly this this development very closely is that it was after the election in 2004 so after november 2004 the entire corporate media admitted it like they admitted that they weren't the mainstream anymore now that had been the case for a while but it was like it was very stark that after kamala harris lost like there was this huge you know um like it like test of like

okay the entire corporate media is going to get behind kamala harris and say she's joy and hope and Obama and she's this amazing candidate and she's going to get all this money and all this funny. And then the entire, you know, broadly speaking, the entire internet, you know, media got all behind Trump. And then when Trump wins in a blowout, it's like, okay, so now we know who the real mainstream is and who the real, you know, alternative is. And for years, obviously Joe Rogan had had a much bigger audience than CNN, but CNN would still pretend that they we're CNN. This is CNN. And that's just, you know, Joe Rogan. But after the election at 24, CNN was saying, we got to find our own Joe Rogan. You know, the Democrats need a Joe Rogan or

whatever. So it was kind of like they admit it. So in a way, 2025 was like the first full year where there's no illusions anymore that we are the captain now. You know, we are the media now, as Elon Musk said. And I think that's had a big impact on how all these things are viewed. And, you know, it's like that's just been a huge part of the story of this year. That every major, you know, event, every one of these stories that we're talking about, whether it's Epstein or Iran, whether it's Charlie Kirk or whatever, well, what's coloring the way the American people are having these conversations or

understanding the events that are going on around them? And it's not what the legacy media has to say about it. You know, like people are going, it's not like, you know, okay, so Donald Trump tries to cover up the Epstein scandal and the American people aren't going to listen to Dan Rathers talk about it. They're listening or Bill O'Reilly or something. They're listening to Tucker Carlson have Darrell Cooper on for a live three-hour event where he's going to go into all the details of what we know about Epstein. People are listening to Candice Owens and Nick Fuentes and you know what I mean?

And like it's just you could see in this new actually decentralized free media environment, who is ascendant and who is descendant. And you know what I'm saying? Like the news about Candace Owens ain't that she's losing a thousand subscribers every day. You know what I mean? I'm like, so it's all of these things. So you have a mix with what you said, Rob, right? Which is much like during COVID. You have a mix of the fact that there's the policy that just on a common sense level

is like becoming indefensible. Like, you know, like even so much of what broke the COVID narrative, which really happened during Omicron, it wasn't just podcasters like me and you. I mean, I think we played a role in kind of speaking of the remnant during the whole thing. but what broke people was just like dude like i don't know everyone i know went and got the vaccine then they all got covid two months later you know it's just that oh i didn't get the vaccine then i got covid and it was no big deal like it's just like shit like that just happened it's right in front of your face you can't convince me it's but then also you don't even have the propaganda

apparatus anymore you know like it's not like israel's doing some shit that just seems so indefensible and it's not it doesn't pass the common sense sniff test that this is right but then you're not sitting and listening to Zionist controlled media. You're listening to fucking Pierce Morgan or something. You know what I mean? Where there's tons of people calling this shit out. So that, all of that to me was like a real, you know, one of the biggest stories of my lifetime. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Vandy.

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about cnn n msnbc etc i'd love to see a chart on this because it feels like they've got to be at the stage of lowest influence i've ever seen uh and part part of what speaks that is the fact that we very rarely play a mainstream media clip now unless it's specifically highlighting a politician that was there and said something but when was the last time we played an anchor and criticize what the anchor at to say because A, who cares and B, it's not even really popping up in the algorithms. No one cares what was said on the morning Joe.

What was the last time we did a Joe Scarborough because guess what? Nobody's tuning into these people. Fox News seems to still probably have the most influence in the conservative marketplace. But even that's got to be at like 50% of where it was a year ago because they lost Tucker

Carlson. And so much that audience left with Tucker Carlson. Tucker Carlson's running with a mostly different narrative on a lot of these topics yeah so it really just seemed like the corporate press is like on its way out and its cultural influence has to be at the lowest of maybe all of american history yeah i mean there's like really or or at least since the media apparatus as we know it was created you know i really do think that like well i mean look you could go back where is there i think abraham lincoln had like quotes about how uh he was like it was like it was like

Was that, I think it was an Abraham Lincoln quote that was something like if you about reading the newspaper that if you, if you don't read the newspapers, you're uninformed. And if you read the newspapers, you're misinformed. So it's like, you know, there's like media, media biases back then. But like since the modern corporate, yeah, they've never had less influence. And it's a great point, even as you mentioned it, you know, it's like years ago. Like, I mean, look, look, over the course of 2025, corporate media, corporate media, what do you think we did 10 or something you know what I mean like not that many like really maybe a little more than that but not that many whereas in the past we used to do you remember rob the brian stelter clips and rachel mattow clips and you know all brian williams we used to always be playing these guys all and now almost looking back at that it almost like feels ridiculous but like at the time it really made sense at the time it really felt like it made sense to take on brian stelter but like could you imagine us even thinking to take on brian stelter right now because it's just like, I don't know,

it feels like doing a whole show about how transing five-year-olds is crazy. Like, everyone kind of agrees now. You know, I'm just, I'm just like, you're not putting that out into a world that, like, no one's arguing with that anymore. So it just seems silly. And so, yeah, that is, it is really, I don't know,

that's a good, it's a good personal way to measure it because that does seem like, oh, it feels like not that long ago, that that was almost like, and, you know, if I think back to when, um i first started the show and back that was like almost the entire mission of the thing was like you know it was like basically i want to convince all of you guys that the government and the media are completely full of shit like and that's what i uh that's what i always used to say

way back in the day was that like i was like look i believe in all this liberty stuff and i may not be able to convince you that i'm right about all of that i'm gonna try to i'm gonna try to to convince you that, like, a free society is the way to go. But if I can't convince you of that, I can definitely convince you that all these guys, the entire political and media class are fucking criminal liars. Like, that I can absolutely, I could win a court case on that. Like, I could be the lead prosecutor and get an easy conviction on that. And so now it almost feels like this case has kind of been successfully prosecuted.

And it's also just interesting to see. that I once, I really recommend it. It was a great show. They did a Showtime did like a limited series on Roger Ailes where they had Russell Crow playing Roger Ailes. It even just Russell Crow's acting and that is fantastic, but the show is great. But Roger Ales, at least from the way I understand it, mostly from that television show. But I get a lot of my information from television and then rehash it as fact or like I read a book and picked up important themes in life.

But Roger Ailes understood television. He understood how to pick anchors. He understood like there's this scene after 9-11 where he keeps, he just says keep, just keep showing it, just keep showing it. And then they're doing like the sports graphics, you know, keeping everyone super hyped and alarmed about like the point I'm trying to make is they just gave $130 million to Barry Weiss. And just from an entertainment perspective or knowing how to produce good television perspective, do you think she was worth that investment? Do you think that she's going to bring in $130 million worth of value in terms of that those news programs are going to turn around? Now, I read her letter to the editors on the 60 Minutes report about the, I think it's called the Epcot Center or Epscott, something like that, the prison in El Salvador. But this was big news like a week ago.

She basically canned reporting on that center. And people were giving her hell that it was complete in total censorship, that essentially, She had canned the report unless the administration would respond to it, which then allows the administration to engage in censorship by refusing to respond to it. And by refusing to sponsor it, they're basically just playing into Donald Trump's censorship that they don't want a story. And I read her letter to the editors, and it was a little bit more like, hey, guys, this is just missing a little bit too much context. And we need a little bit more from the other side and then we can put it out. And that's not even really being canned. It's just saying you have to do a little bit more of an even-handed report here and it can be put out.

all right so with all that said i think that would have done good ratings because people want to see oh my god there's this horrible thing particularly amongst the the and so the point i'm just trying to make is that lady does not understand just from a television standpoint does not understand ratings subscribers viewers and then with the advent of podcasting you watch these shows now who have all the budget in the world they don't do actual investigative journalism we just saw it you know with yesterday's episode of that kid who actually did good journalism journalism. Their shows don't look that much different from hours, which to this day, it's each of us at our computer with cameras in a frame. There's not that much going on here. And these guys have million dollar budgets. They don't look that much better. They don't sound that much better. And they're not running with the truth. So I just see them in a death spiral. Well, it's crazy, right? Because it's like they still just don't understand that there's the one thing that you can't. I don't know. It's it almost feels like some like, um, like a rich guy trying to, like, steal a chick and a happy marriage away from her husband.

And it's like, look, I have all these things. I have this fancy car. I have this fancy house. And she's like, yeah, but I love him. Like, you're just like totally missing this. That's the whole fucking thing that matters, dude. Like, I don't know. It's like, look, there are, there's no question that like, there are a bunch of shows,

Rob, right? Like, there's a lot of shows on cable news who we beat, who we get better ratings. then a lot of shows like daytime MSNBC and CNN shows we get more views across all platforms than they get on their television show right and they've got a fucking million dollar studio and the best camera equipment and the best everything and like okay but the thing is like we're just saying interesting shit and they're not and so like what do you you guys don't have anything compelling or interesting to talk about and most of your hosts are like really not bright it's unbelievable dude. It's like I used to, I always found it to be so fascinating because like, you know, I grew up like my, my mother is an academic and my sister is an academic and they're both, they're both a doctoral degrees and like, I just like, like I grew up around smart people. And, you know, like I just, I just knew a lot of really smart people and impressive people. And then and so it was always so interesting to me, like at the beginning of my career,

when I would go into like cable news spots and I would just like very easily just dominate everybody like it was always just like a bunch of people saying like low IQ nonsense and then me just tearing through all that shit and it's not that I'm that good it's just that no one else there was good no one else there was impressive so they have like they you know and even it's demonstrated I think Rob as you were as you were saying by even them spending all this money to do this stuff like what are you even buying you're about CBS news what is that other than a big hollow expensive shell like what did what did you buy you bought the name well what's the name the brand is the worst part of it man it's it's any one of those brands are like a terrible brand to

own you'd be better off starting a whole new thing than buying CBS or ABC or CNN or something like that. I mean, they're just, they're known as the enemy of the American people who lie us into wars and lockdowns. Like, who wants that? And also, like, I don't know. You know, one of the things that I think has really become apparent this year. And, you know, I guess, look, obviously, I'm not saying it's like the story of the year, but like the biggest story I was a part of over the last year was the you've never been probably like that was the biggest show I did and it was like that there was something that it felt you know a little bit to me like I don't know obviously I'm I'm seeing the world from behind you know my eyes but it did feel like it was almost

like this pivot to like some type of like soft censorship campaign where around it was like the Zionist took such big losses in the PR world in 2024, that in 2025, they had to pivot to this like, Joe Rogan really shouldn't be talking to these people or you shouldn't be platforming Nick Fuentes or you shouldn't be platforming Tucker Carlson. You must announce all of these people or whatever. But one of the things that's kind of interesting about that is that it just reveals an insecurity on their part. Because like, you know, if you think about it, like, there's never it never even dawns on us to behave like that you know what i mean like it never even dawns on us to be you know jo rogan regularly has mike baker on just to give the cia's

fucking talking points on every and none of us are ever like joe rog you shouldn't have mike baker on this is my why won't you denounce mike baker something like that like we're just like oh i could get on there too okay cool like i don't I don't give a shit about anyone having Nick Fuentes on or having Ben Shapiro on or having Barry Weiss on or having Candace Owens on or having anyone on. Like I want all of them on like, oh, I could get into. Great. Let me make my case as compelling as I can.

And so like there's just something like, like I guess anyway, I guess my point, my broader point here, Rob, is that what when someone like Bill Ackman will spend like hundreds of millions of dollars to try. to buy up, you know, whether it's TikTok or CBS or like any of these other things. Like, look, as long as we don't have, the only threat to us is the censorship regime. As long as Twitter is free and YouTube is free and Rumble is free and like all these. And like, and like Spotify and as long as we have places where we can get our thing, then we're good. We can keep going and we can keep being more and more successful. But so again, so my point is that when you buy up. all those things you don't really get anything for it you're not the people anybody who who still

is like influenced by cbs news was already the tiny percentage who you guys hadn't lost yet and and everybody else who's over here isn't going to be changed because now barry weiss is doing propaganda for them but there is a cost to it in the broader PR war because look at look at the appearance. Look at the optics of it. Oh, you guys are losing. So you start buying up media. Well, that kind of proves all of our point. Now, doesn't it? So it just seems like, again, just another example of them not being able to adjust to the new landscape. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Rouge. If you have ever found yourself in that awkward situation of waiting to pick up a prescription

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and your prescription shows up at your door in discrete packaging within a week. No insurance companies, no awkward pharmacy encounters and no runaround. And if you're ready to give Rojit a try, get 15% off your first order by going to rogujet.com slash Dave. That's RUG.com. That's RUG iet dot com slash dave and use the promo code dave for 15% off all right let's get back into the show and just speaking to the death spiral um i used to be as a kid i used to read mad magazine i love mad magazine probably my biggest humor influence i think the world's a worst place that it no longer exists uh they had some very libertarian yeah like i remember i i had a post on my wall for a long time i hear you thanks to unwarranted wiretapping that was like when i was

eighth grade i wouldn't have otherwise been aware that the bush administration was engaged in wiretapping or they had a spoof of the clone wars which was uh uh gulf war two with uh with bush or in their stupidest events of the years there was something making fun of oba uh you know Obama for soldier suicides like I'm just saying as a kid who did not follow the news they would turn humor into like really dark topics about how bad the United States government was which was great I can't prove this to you. I think partly why that magazine died was it came out once a month and with the advent

of the internet and a lot of like the jokes in there were kind of like almost like memes by the time the thing came out, every topic's been explored by the internet for an entire month. The news channels have that problem too, which is like if you just want to be loosely informed about what's going on, you will do better scrolling Twitter for 10 minutes

going to whichever AI you like to use and just being like, hey, what's the deal with this story? Give me the top 10 stories for today. And you can get that information in three minutes flat versus trying to turn on CNN. Okay, so these networks have lost the ability of, hey, I want to tune in just to be informed. The next game would be basically better analysis.

I never watched Glenn Beck ever, but I remember at least I've like seen the footage online, not that I ever watched, but I just know we used to do the style with like the chalkboard. It's almost remarkable like with the Epstein story coming out that like Fox News doesn't have the guy that you're like, oh, this is a team that's going to really put together the entire story for me. that if I don't want to actually sit down and do my own research

or read the internet, there's going to be one guy who's going to collect all the information that came out and put together a cohesive story on this. So they've both lost the game in terms of breaking news because all of their information gets put on the internet the second that they're doing it. I don't have to go to their sites. I don't have to go to their channels.

I'm going to get better information and analysis from random people in their tweets. And they're not doing a better job of the television of actually putting it together because mostly they're invested, their resources and propaganda pieces such as if you remember when they, when some of the best

TV producers came together to do that trial of Donald Trump for what happened on January 6th and nobody tuned in for it. They literally tried to turn it into prime time television. And so if you just think about like the stories that came out this past year and if we had a

team of people to put things together where you could do the tariff episode. You could do Somalia scandal episode. Why are there so many immigrants like all the topics that they could cover they're like firstly just engaging in propaganda but also like they're just not putting the stories together well that you have any reason to actually tune in to their network which is just to me that's like it's a death spiral yeah and i think that um just the a lot of people now have been exposed to people online who are doing

a pretty good job of some of that stuff who are actually like explaining things and putting them together and presenting both sides of an argument, you know, like, where I guess you just, it's like if you had like a fire department that just never comes and puts out a fire or something like that. You're like, you guys don't actually deliver on a service. That, as you said, is a needed service. Like people want to understand these things. They want to know about the news. They want to know what their government is doing like this. And you guys don't even pretend. Or if you do, it's, I mean, I guess you pretend, but it's just so obviously not it. And I do kind of think there's something like when people see the real shit and i'm not saying like obviously there's a lot

of bad stuff on the internet too there's a ton of garbage there's stuff that's that's as bad or worse than the corporate media on the internet but then there's also like really great shows and really great you know there are like there are guys like Glenn greenwald who are out there like really giving you good news and breaking things down in a really important way and you can see like Ryan Grimm interviewed Jeremy Skayhill about the latest on the ground in Lebanon or something like that. And they're really getting to the bottom of it or they're at least giving you valuable information. And when you see that, I think it's impossible. You know, it's like if there was some like, you know, like a young woman or something like that

who had come from a really shitty family where everybody was really awful to her. And then she met like a really good guy who treated her really well. And then all of a sudden she looks back at all the other men in her life and kind of sees them for what they are. Like, oh, shit, it didn't have to be that way. There are actually people who are nice and sweet to me. And, you know, it's like if you, how could you? You know, I remember watching, is one of my, you know, the points where I was the most disgusted with the Trump administration and the media in general was, you know, this summer during when we were bombing around. And like, I turned on Fox News a couple times there.

And I mean, my God, Rob, it is just like all day long, just military industrial complex slop. I mean, just, you know, just the dumbest, just everybody repeating 60% enriched uranium, just mindlessly. And like, you almost go like, how can any thinking person not look at this and go like, okay, but you're not like really giving me the story here? Like I don't even care. even if like you're going to say, oh, the right move was to bomb around at the end of or something, you're not like really going, okay, look, here's the facts on the ground, here's what this conflict is about. Here's, it's just like so obviously bullshit propaganda.

And it's just, I think it's just really, really hard to compete with that when there's real shit out there. And, you know, hopefully we play a role in bringing you guys some of that real shit of what's going on. There's, here, let me, I want to just peruse the chat real quick, see if there's some topics people had that we're not hitting. There's a few others that I thought were worth getting to. I suppose I have to say something about the Elon Musk, Donald Trump falling out and just

the collapse of Doge. I don't know. I mean, I just feel like that should be mentioned on the stories of the year, right, Rob? What can you say other than sucks? that storyline it's so promising because we're spending way too much money and this system's not going to work and if you're telling me that a substantial amount of money is going to fraud and abuse and we might be able to clean up our budget without having massive austerity measures that's the most promising story that could possibly exist and I got to solve you're ready for this solve you know

sometimes we don't come through with enough positive suggestions I get an easy one you ready for this you got to because the internet sleuths are good and there's a lot all right here i'll just lay it out five percent returns to any person who uncovers fraud you get five percent of the government savings and then five percent can go to the court system that actually uh processes all that stuff which uh and for the first year so like for example let's say you uncovered like an annual scheme that was like wasting a billion dollars you're getting five percent of the first year i promise you there's enough law firms and there's enough forensic accountants

and there's enough just internet sleuths that we could probably get rid of all the fraud within a year. And you could actually fund the court system to have to process all those court cases and those judges would actually be motivated to process the cases and hire the staff needed to see all those cases.

That's it. 5% of the court systems that see those cases and 5% of the people... 90% to the taxpayer. 90% back to the tax payer. taxpayers. And then the only thing you need is basically to make more of the information that you probably are going to need also some court system to make more information publicly available. So if people want to dig in and go, wait, what the hell is this thing? And then go travel out to

wherever the money is being spent to go, hey, look, there's nothing here. And then be able to bring a court case and collect a fat paycheck and save the, save the taxpayers, 90% of what is just going to nothing. 2026, the year we institute Robbie Doge, Roge. There you go. Roge coming in 2026. I like that. That was all great. Yeah, I mean, look, it's a, it was, I believe it was a noble effort.

You know what I mean? And it was important that they, Doge at least was attempted and talked about. But yeah, it is, it sure is, um, look, the, the real problem that we face is that it's just it's very very tough to go into washington dc and try to roll back power you know you become an enemy of any of if you go into washington dc and you're trying to increase the power of washington dc you can you can rise to the top very quickly when you're trying to roll it back you really do become an enemy um and uh it'll be interesting it'll be interesting to see if there's another attempt at something like this or or what can be done but it is it is hard i know you

said we're not positive enough or have a message and you gave a pretty good like constructive solved to all of this but it is tough to just it's it's a bitter pill that going into this year we had the greatest political comeback story the greatest political coalition Trump with record high approval ratings and the richest guy in the world backing this idea of cutting government spending like sure does feel like that was a pretty golden opportunity that has really yielded in nothing, which is, you know, a little bit of a shame. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Cowboy Colostrum. Cowboy Colostrum is 100% made in America from 100% American grass-fed cows. Unlike other Colostrum brands, Cowboy Colostrum is

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25% off their entire order. Just head over to cowboy colostrum.com slash Dave and use the promo code Dave. That's 25% off when you go to cowboy colostrum.com slash Dave and use the promo code Dave. All right, let's get back into the show. And we did say, oh yeah, we said on one of our listener questions on the last members only episode was to rank my gayest debate opponents of the year and we thought maybe we would save that for this but we could go through that that was another big theme 2025 for me I did a lot of debates and the fans if they want me to rank the gayest one I said this on that show but for me it's everyone thought I was going to say Douglas Murray but it was Alex Berenson has got to be the winner of that it's got to be the gayest debate

opponent and you know look i'll be i'll tell you what the other thing here i'll give just to balance it out and be fair another one of the biggest stories of the year that didn't get nearly enough attention was that kids got killed with the covid vax and at least the 10 and then the other one that alex barrensen broke the story on so i'll give him that he got he got one of the biggest stories of the year um but yeah man what a gay debate performance i don't know i i let's uh talk about some of the other uh honorable mentions honorable mentions i mean hammer was exceptionally gay because he didn't just have to debate him once but it was twice and sometimes you have to do something you know that sucks twice you know that that makes it worse

and he was a lot gay or the second time yeah he was a lot the first time he just came in and just basically i mean essentially he just took his beating you know what i mean like he just came in and debated the ideas and got fucked up the second time he thought he was going to be clever and go up there and just debate me but honestly like you know look i mean i it's not even when i say this like i'm not like sitting here saying look i i the reason why i wrecked josh in both those debates isn't because like i'm any smarter than him or anything like that um and it's not anything really about me or my talent as a debater it's just like i have like i have incredibly unfair advantages which is that like i'm arguing for the side that's obviously right

i have the truth and you have to be completely full of shit and lie but then also i do kind of have this advantage just from being a comedian for 20 years that like i kind of know how to perform better than you and he's just like a nerd and like you're like nerd you're not going to pounce me in front of this whole fucking room because like it's just not going to work that way you know and um but yeah he was pretty gay the second time and then another honorable mention is uh douglas murray didn't even debate you he just went i'm a gay man and i'm going to play gay tricks it didn't work on you so things like the never been you're not an expert hey let's not talk about this conversation at all i'm just going to try and pivot and shame you because i'm a self-proclaimed

expert in academic even though what are my credentials and so he literally played every gay trick that you could and none of them stuck so that definitely gets an honorable mention don't work on me bro a lot better gays than douglas murray have tried those gay tricks don't work on me so therefore so that's the top three uh you were in all of your your debate. So what would you get what would you put as the other two on the leaderboard? Um, well, look, I mean, obviously those have got to be the, the top three and, and Murray's was a particularly bad, well, just because it was the highest profile one. Like it was like Murray's was like, uh, the thing with, with Douglas Murray was that it was a there was something about it. It was

just like a moment that it arrived because like I had had, I had had like a pretty, I had a pretty monster year in 2023 and 2024. Like I had been like kind of like growing in in, you know, prominence or whatever. And I was doing all of these debates. And I was just like I was winning consistently, winning all the Israel debates. And then Douglas Murray was supposed to be like their best guy. So it was like this like, oh, okay, you've gotten up here and gotten up here and gotten up here. And like you've won over Joe Rogan and you've won over Tucker Carlson and you've won all these debates.

but now on the biggest show you got to debate their best guy you know so it was like it was this build up to be a thing and then as you said he just didn't want a debate he just wanted to do nothing but gay tricks very good way to put it um and so like there was something about that that just like it created this moment of like oh that's what you guys got and then there was this whole like kind a second, secondary effect where it then ended up exposing all the other people who tried to pretend that Douglas Murray did something there. You know what I mean? And then like, where's like the reaction to every, the reaction amongst the audience was just universally mocking Doug. Like it was just, it wasn't even like about the issue. It he, it could have been,

it's a shame in a way because that could have ended up being a thing that was really about the issue. And we really got into like the arguments on this huge stage. But, none of that because of the way he handled himself and because the ridiculous nature of the points he was making none of that became the story and the story just became like oh you actually thought you could just come in here and do that and get away from having a debate anything and like how and then then that kind of that had a big effect on kind of making people more crazy and it uh it definitely changed things for me you know it was a moment like just personally that my career it was like a some type of critical mass like thing for me where it just a lot of things in my life

changed and the amount of like hatred toward me from the other side really grew exponentially also the amount of listeners and the amount of tickets were selling and the amount like everything good grew also but it was there's just something really interesting about that moment so that like it was particularly gay because he you know just did that in that big of a moment but just on the pure gayness of it baronson wins and then so barrenson then douglas murray then josh hammer you're you're skating here man you're only number three i would also give honorable mentions to ben shapiro and glen rubin for refusing to debate you dave rubin which is also pretty gay yeah they you know weirdly like that's well okay so then here dave rubin really the gayest on that

because he was the one who started talking shit about me and then he accepted the challenge and then just ran from it, which is like the gayest way to handle that shit. Like you could ignore it and not accept the challenge, but he accepted it and then just refused even after, I mean like, I know like Patrick Bet David, Charlie Kirk, Pierce Morgan, all offered him the debate. Like he could he could have had his pick of any of the like, you know, they're up there with the biggest guys who were more than happy to platform this. thing and have it um and refused all of them and just won't respond to people about it now so

that one was pretty bad and then i'm trying to think like i don't know i think the single best moment uh and you live these moments so you might be able to refute this but uh when you called out that lady for being israel's lawyer and she said no i'm not and then peers morgan says what's the name of your law firm no she goes what's the name of your organization she goes UK lawyers for Israel. Yeah, dude, that one. Well, that was another one that was, you know, that was an interesting one because she, again, it was like she was the one who was billed as like, no, okay, now that, you know,

it's always like, no, now this one's going to come really wreck Dave. Now this one's going to come. And, and she's like the, you know, I guess they fancy her some expert in international law or something like that. and she's like i've listened to a couple of her like speeches before and she's good at weaving her bullshit but again it's like all of them like the thing just kind of falls apart with just like a little bit of resistance and so yeah that was definitely one and then she i think was like threatened and sue pierce morgan over it or something like that so then that became like a whole

spectacle because she just handled it like in such a ridiculous way um and i'm trying to think man I don't know. You know, there's so many other Pierce Morgan ones. Nothing's really jumping out. I mean, I don't know. It's like a really, you know, because we're talking about gay, which is a specific critique of a debate, not just like a poor debate performance or something like that.

But, yeah. No, and then I would say the, I would have to say probably the best, the best most honorable debate opponents that I had. were have got to be i guess constantin cassin and um and francis and uh um colman hughes where you know i mean i still disagree with those guys and there were certainly like points where i thought they were being a little obtuse or a little um pedantic or something like that but like they discussed the issues with me in a non you know like in a civilized and and honorable way i thought so

I give those guys credit for that. But yeah, yeah, it was a, it was, look, this was a, this was a crazy year for me, personally. I mean, unlike any year I've ever had before, the best year of my career by far. And, yeah, it's, I'm very grateful to everybody who listens for that, but just the best year. The best year for this show by far, like really, really by far, the most views and stuff we've ever, we've ever had. And me and you sold the most tickets on the road that we've ever sold and things like that was all great. So it was cool. I'm really very, very grateful to all the people who helped make that happen.

Obviously, first and foremost, has got to be Joe Rogan for setting up that amazing, you know, opportunity for me and several others and of course Tucker and Candace and you know the long list of people who have like had me on and um Nick Fuentes coming and doing the show was a huge that was a huge show um so yeah very grateful to everybody who who helped me uh in this year it was really crazy and for more than anyone else I guess just to the listeners because you guys are fucking awesome And I know, you know, we're, I'm just excited to like, I don't know, I'm excited to go into 2006 and to kind of like build off of that and to find a way to make this year even bigger than last year.

But anyway, I would say a very special thank you also, of course, to you, Rob, being the best goddamn co-host and comedy partner, I could imagine having. And also a big thank you to Natalie, who is the, our producer here, who is all. off camera. So she gets far too little of the credit when things go good and an unfair amount of the blame when things go bad. The audience does blame Natalie anytime anything's wrong. It's only like 10% of the time, her fault. But yeah, so thank you to both of you guys. Anyway, is there anything, is there anything we missed here, Rob, that needs to be mentioned before we wrap up? Well, you know, if you're going to be all nice, thanks for having us for the ride. Of course. I think the, the

one big topic that we just didn't talk much about on this episode was uh charlie kirk we had mentioned it at the beginning but yeah yeah we didn't really give it too much uh analysis well i mean what can you say it was um you know it was the the you know the most high profile political assassination of our lifetimes and it's certainly you know i guess it's in in some ways it seems a little bit too soon to really say what the effects of that are it's a big enough thing that you know it deserves to be one of the biggest stories of the year but it has well for sure at least so far we could say that um i think that in many ways the well in many ways right it resulted not solely because of of this, but it did seem to result in

Candice Owens and Nick Fuentes tremendous rise in popularity, like kind of filling a vacuum there or kind of, you know, I don't know exactly, but like that certainly was a factor. It really exposed a real kind of sickness amongst a sliver of the left in this country who were like celebrating it

or couldn't bring themselves to just say like, That was really bad and we're against that without any qualifiers. And it's thrust turning point USA as an organization into the public eye more than ever before. And it's probably led to more conspiracies than just about any other event. And I do think it also was another, it was a major factor in what I said was one of the biggest themes of the which was the exposing of the Israel lobby. And I think people just saw a lot of like, you know, much, much more was made than ever would have been of like what exactly the dynamics were of how much pressure Charlie Kirk was getting and what it really looks like on the inside when you, you know, run a big organization like this. And so that a huge impact, you know, on the culture already in those ways.

But I don't really know, you know, looking back 10 years from now, I'll probably have a whole bunch of things that I think were really affected by that, you know, that assassination. And if there's one thing we can hope for 2026 is that we get the full Epstein story. And hopefully it includes a scandal, which includes a sex tape of Bridget McCrone. And we can actually see your penis in action and put two stories to rest. Oh, you know what? I should say, um, don't sue me.

I make jokes, French government. Keep your assassins on other people. But don't. Don't assassinate anybody. Man, I really got to watch what I say. Why are we an hour into this episode?

I'm not supposed to talk anymore. Yeah, it's it's you go, you like, uh, like Cinderella, uh, basically just become,

um, the thing. Uh, so I, I will say that, um, um, I did love,

this was one of my favorite stories of the year that just happened. But if you, did you see David Wormser's meltdown on Twitter? I mean, it was the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life. So me and Scott did like a response to David Wormser, you know, responding to me. And David Wormser took to Twitter and he said, and I missed this by the way the first time. But I guess he basically said that he just dismissed it.

He was like, I couldn't even make it a few minutes into these guys. their hatred they're in a cult of hatred and blah blah blah like it just can it's amazing like the architect of the war in iraq he can't even imagine that people hate him over that um but he uh he threatened to sue and even at one point he kind of threatened to call the cops like he said i guess because we titled the episode horton destroys uh worms er and he goes uh he goes oh uh like I wonder if I'm like trying to get people to destroy me as grounds for a lawsuit or perhaps incitement to violence. And you're like, you think you can call the cops on me because we did a podcast and

you're like, go ahead, go ahead, David Worms or call him. Let's see how that goes. Like what? But I don't know why I just look, man, it's the author of the clean break threatening to call the cops because me and Scott hurt his feeling so much is a hell of a Christmas gift for me and i think our entire movement but is it funny could you just imagine um that uh um like imagine trying to fight the stereotype of like oh this jewish guy got us into a war for israel and then you go you come out and we go yeah he did and you go i'm gonna sue

like oh jesus dude you're really not helping your cause here are you oh man you know what by the way, as right there is a good time. Let me give a plug to the Scott Horton Academy. If you want to really understand what a goddamn criminal, David Wormser is, and also like a whole bunch of other really good stuff, go to Scott Horton Academy.com slash POTP. I got a link up there. Go check it out a ton of great, great information.

If you guys really want to take your game up, if you want to make that your New Year's resolutions, a really level your understanding of this shit up, go sign up over, over at Scott Horton's Academy. That's where you're going to learn lots of, lots of great information. Rob, another great year, my brother. Thank you, sir. Let's go have another one in 2006, man.

What do you say? I like it. Good plan. All right, man. Well, it's a crazy world, but it is a little bit less crazy when we all get to break it down together. Thank you guys for being a part of this. Catch you guys next time.

Peace. Thank you.