Part Of The Problem - A Response to Sam Harris

Episode Date: November 13, 2024

Dave Smith brings you the latest in politics! On this episode of Part Of The Problem, Dave is joined by co-host Robbie "The Fire" Bernstein to discuss Sam Harris calling out Dave, Donald Trump potentially appointing Marco Rubio in his cabinet, and so much more.Support Our SponsorsGo to https://ground.news/davesmith to critically analyze how the hidden agendas behind election coverage are shaping your vote. Subscribe through this link for 50% off unlimited access to Ground News.Upgrade your wardrobe instantly and save20% off with the code [PROBLEM] at https://www.publicrec.com/PROBLEM #publicrecpodMonetary Metals - https://bit.ly/4eoich3 YoKratom - https://yokratom.com/ No promo code needed!Part Of The Problem is available for early pre-release at https://partoftheproblem.com as well as an exclusive episode on Thursday!Get your tickets to Porch Tour Herehttps://porchtour.comFind 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#libertarianSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey guys today's show is brought to you by yo Kratom if you are over the age of 21 and you enjoy Kratom make sure to get your Kratom from yo Kratom Dot-com long time sponsor of this show and they have the best price in the business $60 for a kilo you can't beat that yo Kratom comm that's where you got to go for the $60 kilos All right, let's start today's show What's up, what's up welcome to a brand new episode of part of the problem. I'm Dave Smith. He's Robbie the fire Bernstein How you feeling brother doing good? How are you Davey Smith? Very good, very good. I had a great time with you out in Philadelphia. It's good to be back. It's, I have, I'm coming off one of the just craziest

stretches of big shows and a ton of travel. And I have a stretch of not traveling for work now and being home, so I'm very big fan of travel. Um It just ruins you for the outside world. Like even when you're doing the coolest shit and you're traveling around, I'm just like homesick the whole time. So anyway, I'm excited to have a nice break and going on a little family vacation in a couple weeks. But yeah, so I'm good.

And the world is pretty interesting these days, is it not? I spend one day at home and I'm like, all right, it's time to start putting together the next thing. I used to be the same way, man. I remember when I first started stand-up comedy, I just loved doing the road so much. It was just like the best. I loved living out of a hotel.

I loved all of it. I was like, I would just do this. If there was enough work in it for me, I would do this always. I would just always be on the road and then As I got older and I you know, I started making a few bucks I met my beautiful wife We ended up getting together having kids all this stuff and then I realized it wasn't that I loved

hotels as much as I just hated my home and Then when I started liking my home, I was like, oh, this is awful. Like I could kill myself. I'm in the same goddamn room, in the same goddamn hotel, even though it's a different hotel in a different town and it's all the time. No, I mean, I love, listen, I love my job very much.

I love doing shows. I love meeting the fans. I love doing live podcasts. I love it. But I do not love traveling. I do not love being on an airport and being in a hotel room. So anyway, I don't know, I didn't plan on spending the first three minutes of the show

just ranting about my life. You don't know how hard I have it, people. I have to talk into a microphone. Anyway, but yeah, it's nice to be home with the family and have a little stretch there. Okay, so let's jump in to some things. Oh, first off, before we do that, I should mention if anybody has not already,

make sure to go watch Rob's debut comedy special. It's hilarious. It's getting an unbelievably great response. Make sure to go check that out. We have like a little shortened version of it on our YouTube channel here, but the full thing is over at Rob's YouTube channel. What's your channel handle? Robbythefirealloneword and it's called Live from the Denver Comedy Garage.

It's phenomenal. Make sure to go check it out. Support RobbythefireBernstein for all of his years of great work that he's put in. Okay and then aside from that I'm not traveling for for the month of December or the remainder of November for for work. But our 2025 calendar is starting to get filled up comic Dave Smith calm will be back on the road in January and coming all over the country. So go come check us out live. I apologize my bald head is blinding into the audience today. It's this new aroma light therapy I'm doing where I don't have the window fully blocked. I'm just hoping to regrow the follicles

Make sure you get it even Rob get every spot All right, so By it's like a yarmulke. I'm on team Jew again. There it is and Genocide. No, you're cool doing genocide Okay, so I did I I tweeted yesterday About Sam Harris and I said is it even is he even worth responding to anymore? You know, this is just so garbage

but I Gotta say it's just a weakness of mine, so I'm going to do it anyway. I know, I know you could accuse me of kicking a man while he's down, but sometimes it is appropriate to kick a man who's down. He seems unaware. As Sam, there are some clues. The concrete pressed against your face. That's a clue. And I know you're sitting there and trying to convince yourself that in fact I'm not down and the entire earth has shifted to move the concrete up to my face, but I'm telling you dude you're down

It was at least dignified enough to state your name unlike the Wall Street Journal or Ben Shapiro Yes, he did not go the Ben Shapiro Wall Street Journal route He actually uttered my name into the ether and that, and, and in a way, I respect that he did that, but also in a way, now I have to eviscerate you. It's, I mean, you said, you said my name, that's the rules. And it is funny because I have such a weakness for this. Um, but I just don't, I it's, it's my own brand of libertarian autism or whatever. I'm only a daywalker after all I'm half one of them. And so I

just I can't stand bad arguments. And it just I want to tear apart bad arguments when I see them, especially when they're directed at me. And it's funny though, because I tweeted like, I don't even have to waste my time on this right? It's Sam Harris He's been totally discredited like nobody everybody knows this at this point And then a bunch of people were like yeah, don't even waste your time And then I saw one person tweeted you go nah tear him apart, and I was like the people have spoken The people have spoken that one guy he represents the will of the people and so yeah, let's do it alright

Let's uh let's just jump in and here we can we can play the clip this is what Sam Harris had to say about me on a show the other day. Who have some professional scruples and reputations to protect among people who actually know something about medical science. RFK Jr. has none of that. He's just a cowboy taking shots at the establishment. The Joe Rogan podcast is not a substitute for the Wall Street Journal or the Kennedy School at Harvard. It is simply not progress to have a comedian like Dave Smith, who's apparently done his own research, interviewed about the history of the Middle East or the war in Ukraine like he's the next Henry Kissinger

All of this free access to information is making us dumber Now all right, so hold on let me give this let me give this a shot because there's really only one way to respond to Sam Harris, so let me just hold on let me get in my zone for a second here. Okay There's really only one way to respond to Sam Harris. So let me just, hold on. Let me get in my zone for a second here, okay? You see, emotional thinking can lead to errors. And so we must only rely on rational thought where we look at objective reality and do our best to deduce what is true objectively. You see, only when a critical thinker examines

an issue can we understand on a deeper level what's really going on here, and that is our responsibility. And only then, when you start to look at the world rationally, will you recognize that Sam Harris's entire argument is what we would classify as a logical fallacy. It's known as an appeal to authority, literally a logical fallacy. You'll notice Sam has said nothing about any of the content of my arguments about Ukraine or Israel. He is not pointing out a flaw in my logic He is simply saying that I am not the wall street journal or henry kissinger And therefore we're dumber for listening to me

Does that get through? Does that get through to you sam harris? No, i'm not henry kissinger the fucking war criminal Okay, that was yes that was his appeal to authority was henry kissinger He's like, I don't even know where he pulled that one out. Listen nobody Myself or Joe Rogan included is claiming that we are a substitute for the Wall Street Journal We're certainly not claiming to be responsible for the slaughter of millions of Vietnamese people like Henry Kissinger The point is this, Sam Harris, here's the reality, okay? I understand, even though it is a logical fallacy, it's a blatant just appeal to authority, blatantly, I understand the appeal, no pun intended, of this argument.

Yes, it is kind, we could use a Wall Street Journal that was really good. We should have some expert who's great But the thing is this Despite the fact that we're not any of those things If me and you sam harris debate ukraine or israel or how about covet? How about your track record on covet versus my track record on COVID? We debated any of those topics. I will eviscerate you, like tear you to pieces, dude. So what do you want me to say here?

Yes, it would be great if we had not corrupt, honest institutions with experts who gave great information. We don't, unfortunately. We don't, unfortunately. Okay? We don't have those. And so now we're actually left in a situation where like a jerk-off comedian who reads books will tear all of you guys apart on the most important issues. Now I understand that's like more of an assertion than an argument, but you're not giving me an argument to counter There's no argument here. Listen, here's the truth, right? The reason why all these people on Twitter were telling me not even to waste my time on responding to Sam Harris

And you know your point about him not realizing he's down the reason why you refuse to to the reason why you won't take me up on my offer and prove me wrong. Let's debate it. You pick the topic you pick the topic that I'm wrong about and will will have a debate about that and we'll see how that goes.

But the reason why you won't do that the reason why you won't debate your your former friend Brent Weinstein the reason why you wouldn't have a conversation with him throughout covid is because Brett Weinstein will rip you to shreds. He will he will humiliate you worse than you've humiliated yourself through these years. Here's the reality, Sam Harris. When the biggest challenge came, when the moment to fight came, when you can't overstate it, totalitarianism swept not only this country, but the civilized world, because

there was a nasty cold going around. And when that happened, you failed, you fail. And you can sit here and make all your arguments of like, well, just change a few factors. Imagine the vaccine did work and imagine COVID killed kids. Well, then I'd be right. You know, like that's what you're reduced to at this point. When the biggest moment came where we needed real intellectual bravery and you were build yourself as that as the embodiment of that you failed

Okay, that's it and now Your opinion is discarded Nobody cares. No one is moved by you saying Joe Rogan isn't as good as all that because the problem is that we just had the biggest test of our lifetime Which was the kovat insanity? Okay, by the, go read a diary of a psychosis by Tom Woods. He graduated from Harvard and got a Ph.D. from Columbia. So is he allowed to have an opinion now? Could he go on the Joe Rogan experience

and explain how you were completely wrong about everything? Read his book. It was all there. There is no argument anymore. If you actually want to pour through the data, if you go through the areas that locked down versus the areas that didn't lock down, if you look at the areas that had mask mandates versus the ones that didn't have masks mandates, if you look at the areas where there was high mass compliance versus the areas where there was very little mass compliance, go through

whatever test you want to vaccine passports versus the areas that didn't have vaccine passports. Large gatherings versus the areas that didn't have large gatherings. Go through all the data. There is no trend. There's none. You cannot point... None of the areas that did all of these things ended up having lower infection rates or lower death rates or none

of it. It didn't make a difference. This is data. This isn't even like an opinion. You can look at it. Tom Woods made the thing. It was so great. Did you ever take a look at that? But it's the, I forget what it was called, like COVID quiz or something like that. But he put up, he would put up charts and you were supposed to figure out like, is this the chart of a state that had mask mandates, or one that didn't? Is this a chart of a state? And the joke of the quiz is that nobody can pass the quiz,

because there's nothing. There's no trend that you can look at and be like, oh, things were better when they had lockdowns. I mean, the best you could do is what Donald Trump very foolishly tried to do through the primary with when he was running against Ron DeSantis is you just look at it in the aggregate and go like oh look more people died here But as soon as you control for age that all goes away It all it doesn't matter. It's just that Florida had an older population and obviously if you're talking about kovat deaths

That's the whole game old Old people die from COVID. Or only old people die from COVID, essentially. So in other words, all this totalitarianism didn't even help. You got it completely wrong. And now you're too much of a moral coward to admit that you got it wrong. And so you're just furious that all these other people

who got it right are reaping the rewards of that. Look, yeah, it's crazy. I know. It's crazy to think we don't have a CNN news desk. We have the Joe Rogan experience, right? But the thing is, when totalitarianism swept our nation, people were so much better off listening to Joe Rogan than listening to CNN. people were so much better off listening to Joe Rogan than listening to CNN. You know, like if you had taken Rogan's advice, which was what? Be healthy, exercise, get vitamin D. You would have been better off taking his advice than taking Fauci's advice. And so you could sit there and say, well Fauci, which he said before this clip, but Fauci has a reputation to hold and he knows science and even if he's a little bit corrupt he's a lot better than Joe Rogan. No, he wasn't on the most

important thing. He was much, much worse. So where is that? Where those forces of his scientific knowledge or him having a reputation that he must uphold didn't stop him from getting it catastrophically wrong at every single turn and by the way intentionally intentionally go look through his private emails which we have I'm not suggesting you break into his computer but go look at through the the way he was talking to his scientist buddies and the message he was given to the American people were not the same he knew what was up he was on record saying it would be years before we would even know if any vaccine, if any vaccine for one of these coronaviruses would work at all. It

would take three to five years, he said. This is after the COVID pandemic had started, but it was in the lockdown regime before the vaccines were out. Then he said, oh, it'll be three to five years at least before we could even know whether the vaccine for this would Do more harm than good That was until he was you know what I mean until the vaccine regime rolled out and then there were big pharma profits to go around And um, you know Then he changed his tune So no sam harris. I'm sorry. You're wrong

You're wrong. And yes, it's true. I'm I don't have credentials. I'm not an expert. But by the way, I just claim on almost every single appearance I do on Joe Rogan. It's like the thing is this, right? I'm not the expert. I just know enough. And what I know is narrative shattering.

Does that make sense? It's like I know enough to know that you are full of shit and your entire argument is wrong and all of the things you're saying are not sound. You don't have to be an expert turns out to know that. But I'll also tell you this. Look, I'm where I'm at for a reason. Joe Rogan's where he's at for a reason. And I'm not like you, Sam Harris. Like, my mom didn't make the Golden Girls or whatever his background is.

I wasn't born into, like, this unbelievable wealth and privilege that you were born into. I'm where I'm at, wherever that is, 600,000 Twitter followers or whatever. I'm not the biggest, but I'm where I'm at because I built this. OK, and the reason I built this up is because I make excellent arguments. I don't know what to say. Come find out. With all this bullshit that you do with your dumb like NPR voice

where you try to like hypnotize people into thinking you're being a rational thinker or something like that, that shit won't work on me, dude. Like come debate me on any of these topics. You brought up Ukraine and Israel. Either one. You pick. Let's do it.

Let's see how that goes for you. Hey guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Ground News. It's no secret that the corporate media is not exactly known for being unbiased and giving you accurate information. And now that Donald Trump's back in, it's more of a concern than ever before. They're an independent nonpartisan app and website we're working with because they're designed to expose the hidden agenda influencing the news that you

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but the truth is that this is always a bullshit argument right because and I like when Bobby Kennedy makes this point a lot too like someone up there was just another clip of him that was going viral making this argument but they go to him they go they're like hey you know you stay say all this stuff but you're not a scientist you're not a doctor and he was like listen in every case that I ever brought, that, you know, what he was going after, whatever, people dumping in a lake or whatever, you know, he goes, there'd be some giant corporation, we were suing them.

He goes, they'd have experts who testify, we'd have experts who testify. The experts would say the exact opposite thing. You know what I mean? So it's not as if like, that in itself proves anything. And so you're going to me and just being like, oh, this jerk off comedian, like he's he's the guy. But there are experts who agree with me too. But then you just dismiss them. You know what I'm saying? Like it's never there was never a moment for for people like Sam Harris when like say the Balfour Declaration got Israel on the brain. When the Great Barrington Declaration happened, it's not like Sam

Harris went whoa we got to change everything here. The experts just told us that actually lockdowns are evil and stupid and counterproductive. Was there anyone, I mean, I shouldn't say that I'm sure there were some people in the world, but was there anyone, Rob, of these public figures who after the Great Barrington Declaration changed their mind? Can you think of any? I can't think of a single one. Certainly wasn't Sam Harris.

So they use this appeal to authority until someone has that authority and makes the argument and then they just ignore that. Just pretend it's not real. I mean, okay, you disagree with me on Ukraine and on Israel. Well, you know who agrees with me? John Mearsheimer. Is he not an expert? The world renowned political thinker who's got all your fancy degrees. I don't even remember where he went to school, but he's got all the fancy degrees and all that. Jeffrey Sachs, you know, like is that guy not is that guy not enough of an expert for

you? Harvard doesn't do it anymore. So as I just mentioned, Tom Woods, you know, like it's like, and this is I'm just rattling off a few names. There's there's experts and experts and experts all over the place who take the same position that we take on this So like you just see how this falls apart immediately and again, I mean look Jimmy Dore has the goddamn best bet on On this this so funny. Do you know the bit I'm talking about about the do your own research stuff?

Dude, I'll send it to you After the show, you know what Natalie could you just look that up use if you just put it into Twitter get Jimmy Dore Do your own research? There's an excellent joke. God. I love it but this this idea of like oh you're a comedian who does your own research and you're like You say that as if it's a pejorative like that's an insult to do research like what did you get it Natalie because I do want to play this if we if we have it it's so funny I don't I'm I feel like I can't even talk about this because I'm just going to end up giving away the joke

of it. But it is like one of my, I think maybe the best bit about COVID that I saw during COVID. I'm really surprised I haven't shown this to you before, Rob. Oh, here we go. All right. I love this. Around COVID, I'd never noticed this before in any other time in my life. But you weren't allowed to ask questions at any point during this.

You just had to, you had to do what the man on the TV said, right? You had to do what the man on the TV said without questions, and then you're a good person. But if you question it, then you're a white supremacist, Trump or not. They're like, whoa, no, no. No, I didn't vote for Trump. I just have questions. Jimmy, only dumb people ask questions.

Isn't that weird? It was the weirdest thing I've ever seen. Even comedians would get on stage and they would shame people for trying to get informed about a medical treatment that was experimental that they had to take or they would lose their jobs and they wouldn't be able to travel and when people tried to get informed about that other people shamed them they would say please tell me you're not going to do your own research you've heard people say that please don't do your own research

you know before covid doing your own research used to be called reading. Now you're shaming me for reading? At the behest of Big Pharma? It's like I woke up in the middle of a Bill Hicks bit. Well looks like we got ourselves a reader! That's how much people internalize the propaganda for Big Pharma was that they would shape, they would be anti-intellectual enough to shame people for reading while they're wagging their finger at them for doing it. You would never shame people for trying to get informed no matter what other subject it was,

no matter how unimportant. Like if I say, hey, I'm gonna go buy a car. Don't look into it. Well, how will I know which car to get? Ask the salesman, he's the expert. That's it. What are you, Henry Ford? Like isn't that just perfectly it? It's like, this guy who does his own,

yeah, I read books about stuff What are you even talking about? What how is that an insult? How is that like, you know, whatever but it is it really does let you know when mr. You know intellectual over here Doesn't even have a doesn't even Go attack any of my arguments doesn't even attempt to be like, oh look he said this and this is just wrong. Like you notice how that's what I do

when I'm talking about Sam Harris. I'm constantly like, you said this and this is wrong. No, we don't get that same courtesy on the way back. Anyway, I don't know. Any thoughts Rob? I'm done kicking a man who's down. It's almost remarkable to just do the appeal to authority. I would think you'd have to go

Hey, it's dangerous to have non experts pretending like they're experts And here's what this guy got wrong and here's why that's dangerous But to not even try and take on the ideas and go here's what this person got wrong You know, what's the then? What are you saying? You're not really bringing anything to the table Yeah, man, and and that I think kind of perfectly sums up Sam Harris. And by the way, for people, I just have to say- Throwing down the gauntlet to debate him, I like it. Maybe it'll take debate.

The thing is, he's just, he's so bad on everything that matters, and he's been so bad forever, and he always was. There's a lot of people think he like fell off or something like that It's just nah, you were just under a spell dude The new atheism thing was always stupid his support for torture and the war on terrors was always stupid And then it was the same thing he used to do the same and like I don't know I remember like reading his articles and just like

Being like that. this is what passes for intellectual thought you know and like and and by the way again that's the whole thing that he refuses to address is that it's like yeah there's a reason there's a reason why you lost your audience there's a reason why cnn lost their audience there's a reason why nobody trusts the institutions anymore because they're liars. They get everything wrong. And I remember reading back he he had like like these back and forth articles with Glenn Greenwald back in the day. And Glenn Greenwald just tore him tore him apart. But he was and the thing is his argument for defending torture was

was almost identical to his argument defending his position during COVID, which essentially were like, imagine a hypothetical where I was right and you were wrong. And it was so, so his whole case for defending torture. Was it the national security experts have said that this is an important tool and who are we to question the experts? Well, it was like, essentially that was the, you know, the underlying implicit point, but he would do, he would say, it was, it would be like, you know, imagine a scenario where we know that a terrorist has vital information that could thwart a terrorist attack.

And we knew that the only way to get that information was to torture it out of him. Is it so obvious in that case that we should be against torture? Or we, you know what I mean? It's like that. And it was so easy to just like look at that and be like, oh, okay, anyone could paint a hypothetical where some awful policy might be good, you know? It's like if you're like, hey, we're gonna legalize

stabbing four-year-olds in the stomach or something like that. You'd be like, what? That's horrible, that should be against the law. That's not gonna... he goes, well imagine a scenario where inside of that four-year-old there's a key that can open a cage where there's a hundred four-year-olds. It's like, all right. But yeah, that's not an argument for why this should be legal. How about this? In that scenario where you've got this guy and you know he has this information and you know

tortures the only way that you're gonna save all of these people's lives, so torture him and then get arrested for it and then explain it to a judge. Problem solved. We still don't have to legalize torture because that will go very very bad. Problem solved. In that one crazy crazy example do what needs to be done to save all those people's lives and then you're guilty of a crime and you have to try to explain that to a jury of your peers I know I did it but here was the scenario the onus is on you then to have to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you did this for a legitimate reason because the starting point is

torture is illegal. Like this isn't smart. I don't know what to say. I've always seen through this stuff with Sam Harris and it's only because COVID was so insane and so horrific that all of the people around him woke up to it and he just refused to and then they started recognizing how terrible all his arguments were. But they always were. He was always bad. And for whatever reason, you know, on every single issue that matters, he's always on the CIA side. I'm sure that's just a coincidence, but every single time, every single time. I'm sorry. Just looked at the chat and saw Adam wrote Dave buried chase Oliver yesterday. Today Sam Harris. That made me

chuckle. Yeah, well, they both deserve it. So what can I say? All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show. Brand new sponsor. We're thrilled to have on board and that is public wreck. If you're tired of

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public rec.com. All right, let's get back into the show. All right, let's move on to burying someone else. How about the Wall Street Journal? They the Wall Street Journal? The Wall Street Journal, and maybe I'll go through a little bit, not just them, but some other stuff people have been criticizing me for. But the Wall Street Journal went the Ben Shapiro route. They had an opinion piece about um, the the topic was like about uh, Donald trump jr and the influence that he's having in the you know, the the appointment selections and Then they you know, they brought up the me because he had responded to my tweet if you guys didn't see that I said a whole thing about keeping the war hawks out of the trump administration and the president's son

Responded i'm on it agree 100% something like that So this is the the Wall Street Journal. They said quote one online MAGA acolyte Tweeted Sunday that the stop pimp the stop Pompeo movement is great, but it's not enough right now We need maximum pressure to keep all neocons and war hawks out of the Trump administration Donald Trump jr. Retweeted it and said agree 100% I'm on it. So I do always find this bizarre and I think it's a

You know like when when Ben Shapiro did it too, I I do think it's it shows kind of this weird lack of integrity to just intentionally omit my name. Like if I'm not relevant or important enough to talk about then don't talk about me. But it's just very it's especially in this one to call me a MAGA acolyte, which is, I think fairly ridiculous ridiculous, but Whatever it's like you're almost you're working harder like Dave Smith is shorter than Maga acolyte You know what? I mean? Like why not just say so it's this very like conscious decision that we want to go after this guy

But we don't want to boost his signal at all, you know, and you don't want to like act Actually send anyone to him because they're there, you know, and you don't want to like actually send anyone to him because they're there, you know, they know, they know that showing you're showing your hand right away. Firstly, if you say if you call your mega acolyte, you're saying, hey, this is not truthful reporting for one. And then the fact that they don't want to actually say who you are shows their next hand, which is we're looking to protect our industry and

we don't want people necessarily to be able to consume all information or know what other arguments or information are available. So we'll just let you know that some random Trump supporters said this and you don't need any additional context. You know what I mean? You're kind of showing your hand of what business you're really in. Exactly. That's exactly right.

It's a mix of dishonesty and really insecurity. And I remember, over the years, I've had people upset with me because I've, what they say, that platformed people. Remember that old dumb woke argument that like you're platforming this bad person if you have them on your show or whatever. But I always said, my response always to it was like,

okay, I'm not, like, I think I'm right. So if I'm right in what I'm saying, then I should have the more compelling argument and I'm not scared of people being exposed to the other side of the argument. And the reason why Ben Shapiro and the Wall Street Journal want to talk about me without mentioning my name is because they do know on some level that if someone went and just listened to what I had to say, some people might find it compelling. They might be convinced. And so they don't want you to even be exposed to the other side, but they want to control

the narrative. So they do this game where they try to insult you and then like not mention you. It's a very strange thing. Again, it just feels like I don't know, maybe it's my own personality or whatever, but I would just I would feel like such a bitch if I did that you know what I'm saying like if I if I was Trying to take apart someone's argument, but I wouldn't mention their name And so I just smear them and then I would just be like I'm like

I'm such a bitch. I can't do that and it's weird when people don't have that feeling about themselves Bitch, I can't do that. And it's weird when people don't have that feeling about themselves. But yeah, I mean, I'm certainly not a MAGA acolyte. I think that I've been an anti-war guy for many years at this point. And that's right. I'm trying to use whatever little bit of influence I have to keep the Warhawks out of Trump's administration.

I don't have any pie in the sky. Like I don't have any illusions that like, yeah, this is a lock. I got the president's son on my side and we're going to do this. I listen. There's a lot of forces at play here. I only have so much influence, but it's not nothing. And so might as well use it. Might as well try to. I've seen, it's been very, it's been kind of a surreal few years for me.

And this year really was the biggest by far. And one of the things that happens as like you, when you get bigger, and you get more successful in this world, there's, you get a lot more, you get more followers, you get more fans, you get more people agreeing with you, and you get more people disagreeing with you, you get more people, you know, criticizing you. And for me, luckily, I'm just kind of built for this. And I kind of enjoy it. And it doesn't bother me.

It has been interesting to watch. And I will say this. Someone asked me recently, and it was a fan. And I was having a conversation with them at it was at the Patrick Bette David event in the green room there. And he asked me after saying a lot of nice stuff like he loves the show and enjoys both of us.

He asked me at one point, he he said, like, do you ever like do you ever question yourself? Like you ever question like if you're getting this wrong or if you because like I'm totally like everything everything you say makes sense to me but I'm always like questioning myself like am I getting this right am I getting this wrong and I was like yeah I do and I have for many many years and but the truth is that I I question myself much less than I used to and part of that is because as I'm, you know, like even now, it's like all the criticism I'm getting. And I was looking through my daughters at school and my wife took my son out. So I was just like alone in the house before we started the show. And I'm looking through social media and look at it. And all of the criticisms are so weak. And it just like makes me more convinced that I've got this thing right now. I know that's not there might be a Fallacy in there somewhere but it is like

Everybody who's coming out. It's all just so weak. So Okay What i'm getting weirdly? uh That one of the things people are coming at me for is like, uh, they'll be finding old tweets where I've criticized Trump and they're like, well, look at you. You're contradicting yourself because you used to say this and now you're saying this. And it's like, there's no contradiction.

I don't know what to say. People are like, you called them a war criminal. Like, yeah, and I'll probably do it again. I don't know. I guess I kind of just did Yeah, that's right There's died. I've I criticized donald trump for everything. He was bad on in his first term I will criticize him for everything. He's bad on in the second term and also I

Recognize that he has like this unprecedented Opportunity right now. There's really never been anything like this. Donald Trump is not coming into this. Donald Trump is coming into this now as a guy who has been burned by the system in a way that no other political figure, perhaps in American history, certainly in my lifetime. I mean, I guess, you know,

that Jack Kennedy got it pretty bad, but he's been burned by the system. He's got some very good people around him He won a landslide victory and has the house and the Senate and the Supreme Court Tell me when that happened before Tell me when there was anything like this before and so in this moment I'll try to use whatever influence I have to influence this administration in the right direction. I have no illusions about this.

What are the odds that he's going to disappoint? Yes. Is it true that he did all of these horrible things in his first term? Yes. Is it also true that I threw my support behind him at the end because Harris was just that awful and there were some opportunities for some positive things to happen with him and none with her? Also, yes, there is no contradiction here.

And to all the, you know, to the MAGA people who want to see Rubio get the State Department or whatever, who are going like, oh, you weren't loyal. You only threw your support behind him in the fourth quarter. You weren't loyal to him the whole time. Yeah, that's right. That's right. I'm not loyal to anyone other than my wife and kids and a little bit to Rob.

But it's not like I'm loyal to my friends and to my family. Not loyal to any politician, any ruler. Like, of course not this is like what you think it's a badge of honor that you were just loyal to a guy that you were loyal what so therefore if you supported Trump you support Fauci being on the job through all of 2020 okay so if you support Fauci being on the job through all of 2020, I'm not the one with the issue here You know you are it's your problem. Not mine and

Yeah, I don't know. It's just a lot a lot of other just ridiculous stuff being thrown at me, but I do I Do kind of look at it and just feel like what this is what you guys have This is what you're criticizing me for. Yeah, it's not really making me question myself whether I got this one wrong, if that's what you're coming at me with. Go ahead, Rob, you can criticize me now. I don't like the shirt you're wearing today. I think it's a little Mr. Rogers-esque,

but it's not fully committed. It's like, are you gonna wear a shirt? If you can't make up your minds about such simple things should we be listening to you on? Such topics such as the war in the Middle East or whether or not silly Harris is an actual intellectual But I feel I feel like we're in light sweater weather You know I don't want to go full sweater It's like in the 50s outside you know but then at the same time I won't be going outdoors today well I thought I might be a little chilly in a t-shirt and so I don't know get off my back although I will say Rob it Wall Street

Journal Sam Harris the people I've been seeing on Twitter that was the best criticism of me that I've heard yet that was that there was a point there it's at least debatable, I'm not sure how I feel about this shirt to be honest. And so, alright, I'll give you that one. Rob Bernstein, guys, he eeked out a win. Okay, I'll pop into the chat in a minute and see if anyone has any questions that they want to ask. Oh, Eomar says Rob likes the shirt and he felt gay and that's why he's attacking it. Now we got a fucking conspiracy theory on our hands. Okay, you know what? I like that. I like that one much better.

Ryan says, I like the sweater Dave Wow, well look at Rob losing the popular support And this is what this was Rob Sam Harris moment when all the people turned on him and realized you know what? I think this guy's been full of shit for years Being able to do a part of the problem sweater episode of being able to do a part of the problem sweater episode. All right, hold on here, I got a question here. Dave, what are your thoughts on if Dems will manage to learn from this election?

Will they properly go further from the center or will the fringe left keep them on the extreme, trans and kids, anti-free speech, racial divisions, DEI, versus uniting, etc. Well, I don't know, what do you think about that, Rob? I think the Dems are going to be in a weird position over the next four years where they're upset about the lack of rape in this country and that they don't have a reason to complain

about their kids not having the abortion access that they still have. I genuinely thought that the media machine was going to be forced to have cooler heads and stop the temper tantrum. And I have seen some moments of that. I saw Jim Jordan and he had an interview on MSNBC the other day. And it seems like there are some cooler heads, but there still is a lot of the traditional insanity that we've seen over the last couple years that hasn't quite died down. My guess is in the next election cycle, they'll have to duke it out, which means that you'll have your Elizabeth Warrens, who I don't think Elizabeth Warren's

running the next time around, but what I mean is you'll have like an AOC who will represent the extreme left of the party, and then I think you'll have someone that is a little bit more center, almost a Joe Biden type character to go, hey, I can actually win this thing, and let's not be the ultra woke party,

that's what cost us the last time around. And if I had to guess, that center person will beat out and I don't think they're going to take as many licks as they did the last time where they all had to swear allegiance. All your children will be able to get their dicks swapped and we need more migrants coming over the border. I think a lot of the stuff that became very unpopular because it's so incredibly stupid is gonna have to fall to the wayside at least for a little bit. I don't think you're gonna see that the next time

around. Yeah you know I so I agree with with what you're saying completely. I think it has been interesting to see the dynamic, right? Like within the corporate media world, where there are some people who, as you said, are at least attempting, they're at least kind of attempting to grapple with what just happened, which is, by the way, it's so crazy. You know, Tucker Carlson had the example, which I always really loved. But he's like, you know, Donald Trump getting elected. He was talking about 2016 But it applies equally to 2024 if not even more so but he was like, you know You wake up one day and you find out that your wife has left you and the guy that she's left you for

for is like He's uglier than you and shorter than you and fatter than you and makes less money than you and so like okay I like at first your reaction might be like, you know screw her. She's terrible for doing this to me But then you would think like at some point You might go like I better reflect on myself Like how exactly did I let this how awful was I? That she would leave me for somebody who's you know, uglier than fatter and makes less money than me or whatever.

And you see like glimpses of that in a few people in the corporate media who are at least trying to go like, maybe the trans and the kids stuff isn't something we should run on, you know, maybe this actually hurt us. Maybe we got to do that. Maybe it can't just be, you know, we can't just shriek Nazi and try to win an election. And then you see the other people who outnumber them, who are just like, Nope, stay in here. Staying at Nope. The thing that happened is that actually the country is just a bunch of Nazis. That's the lesson that we take away from this, you know, they voted for racism and sexism So it's interesting to see that dynamic. I do think that

it I'm not saying it was the overwhelming issue in this election. I don't believe that it was I I believe that You know the inflation and the immigration crisis are really what got Donald Trump the the win Um, and kamala er is just being so overwhelmingly stupid that people like I can't have that Yes, I I think that's right that that was a big part of it. And I think that the the way the regime Went after donald trump is what got him the nomination so easily. And ultimately what, you know, moved a lot of people to his side.

I will say though, that I think there's really no question that not just in this election, but over the last few years and in the trajectory of, you know, very influential people, Elon Musk being the one that comes to mind, but the transing the kids thing was just a step too far for a lot of people, a lot of people, and a lot of people were kind of like willing to play the woke game up until that point and I think it you know I think that makes a lot of sense um I mean not playing the woke game but it makes a lot of sense that that would be the let there's just something like you really look the the trans issue in general if we're talking about like transgender adults, you

know, most Americans will, if they're pushed on this, be fairly libertarian on the issue. You know, if you say you have a right to call yourself what you want and live your life the way you want to and that's, you know what I mean? Like that's your choice. Now they, they pushed it a little bit far when they would make certain demands that were kind of ridiculous. You know, it's you can live your life however you want to, but you don't exactly get to demand that all of society now caters to the way you want to live your life.

And the, the kind of uh incessant demand that you Acknowledge like the trans women are women's stuff was you know Kind of ridiculous and the you know But even then you gotta not they got most people to do it. They got most people to just go like even though Nobody literally nobody people to just go like even though nobody literally nobody actually believes that even though nobody actually thinks you can change your gender we everybody knows that there are biological realities and you can know a lot you can't like you could pretend you can live your life that way but you can't like I can't make myself a girl any more than I can make myself a tree

We just all know that that is true. That is an objective Factually correct statement, but most people were willing to just kind of go along with that I don't really want to get in a fight over that. I'll just call you a woman Okay, but it was when they started pushing it on kids that an enormous percentage of the country just went, whoa, what? That's a whole different level. Look, it's very blatant. It's clear.

It's child abuse. It's grotesque child abuse to put these ideas into kids' heads and then to... Look, even just socially transitioning a kid is abusive. They're not in a position to make that decision. And children, I don't know if you've spent any time around children, but they are malleable. That's an understatement. Ideas get put into their heads. They are constantly just mimicking the world.

That's how kids are. And so, you know, it's never at the very least, you would never be able to actually know that this idea is originating organically from the child and not being put in their head by an adult. Or perhaps it's a phase that they will grow out of, as the data seems to suggest that between 80 and 90 percent of them do. Rob has a great bit about that. But so going after and then like dude doing like the puberty blockers or the hormone treatment which is has happened to tens of thousands of kids and like young kids. I mean, it's, it's crazy. It's, it's one of the things about getting old is you,

you realize how young young people are. I don't know if that, if that makes sense. You know, like when you see like an 18 year old today, Rob, and you're like, Oh my God, like eight, I thought you were seven. That kid's 18, like 18, just looks so young. I don't remember it feeling that young, but it looks really young when you see it. And dude, you're talking about prepubescent kids. Are these are babies?

You're chemically castrating babies? I mean, this making permanent life decisions, we won't let them get a tattoo. Like this is crazy. And I do think that it's within reason that that issue will be one thing that the Democrats walk away from. That they're just like, yeah, this is too... They all think it's crazy too, and they now at least have a little bit of permission to say it, and they recognize that it's a loser politically, and really what these people are motivated by is political power.

So I think it's possible. What you're not going to see is them walk away from the corrupt institutions, because that's what they're in the business of serving. But you might actually see some movement on some issues like that. I think Rob is essentially right that they're going to the challenge for Democrats now is that they have to try to find a way to present themselves as somewhat reasonable. Then they recognize this already. Again, the problem like we were getting into on the other show on the show the other day

is that the Democrats as they are currently, do not have the ability to do any of that. They don't have the ability to go on Joe Rogan. They just don't. They can't go talk for three hours. It won't go good for them. And so that to me seems to be the real the real issue that they have going forward. And I you know, they've they've lost voting blocks, that it's unclear that they'll ever be able to get them back. You know, there's something about like cracking Pandora's box in a sense of like going over and voting for Trump. They, you know, they, they want

less inflation and a secure border. And I don't know how Democrats are going to become the party of that. Seems like a tough, a tough thing to pull off. We will say. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is monetary metals I love this company. They are revolutionizing the precious metals industry if you own gold You've probably been happy to see prices hitting new all-time highs this year But your gold can do more than just sit there waiting for the price to go up It can generate passive income for you with monetary metals You can earn up to 5% interest

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it and put it to work with monetary metals check them out at monetary dash metals comm to learn more about growing your wealth in ounces today alright let's get back into the show I guess we should just briefly talk about before we left that That it is being widely reported that Marco Rubio is going to be the Secretary of State This has not been officially announced yet, but it is being reported and man That is a disaster

That is really, really bad. It's also not completely shocking. He was appearing at more speeches at the end of the campaign. My guess is when they sat down and he finally cut a deal with them and they floated the list of names they'd like to see, Marco Rubio is less objectionable

than Mike Pompeo or Nikki Haley because he hasn't been as in the limelight. But he's essentially the same thing. Yeah and and on top of all that I think you had said that he was at one point a front-runner for the VP slot so if he was in that good graces with Donald Trump I'm sure behind the scene, that means he's actually probably been an advocate for Donald Trump amongst the Republican Party. I'm sure he's actually, you know what I mean?

Like there's some political dynamics here. That means that he's been kissing Donald Trump's ass and that he's the preferred or on the list of regime players of war hawks that they like to see at least getting their representation. So I guess the fact that he's not vice president is a win, but the fact that these people still have a seat within the administration is not great. The one thing that's nice about Marco Rubio though is he kind of stinks.

And I don't really see him being a person who can very well sell the agenda of the deep state, nor do I know that he really has Donald Trump's ear if he's getting the Consolation prize of not getting the VP slot. So While it certainly is channeling. Hey, there's gonna be some establishment Deep state kooks as a part of this administration Marco Rubio might not be the most threatening amongst those characters. Yeah the the You, the thing, Secretary of State

is a much more consequential important job than Vice President, right? But Vice President sets you up to be the next guy in a different way. I mean, Hillary Clinton tried to go from the State Department to running for President, didn't work out for but she she almost Did but typically the vice president is kind of the one you look to to run and and with Donald Trump only having one term

That's only a few years away Unfortunately, if the effort was to get him out of the VP slot and then he ends up at the State Department For the time he's there. he has a much more powerful position than he would as Vice President. Look, I mean, look, we always knew. We knew what Donald Trump was the last four years he was in there, and we know that he has a lot of these people around him. What can you say? Let's let's hope that some good people get in there

and that something positive can come from this. But much like we found out in 2016, you know, the hope that a lot of us, you know, maybe had that this really would be like a drain the swamp. This really would be like a major break from the establishment U.S. policy. It's not looking great. Well, with all that said, this might look a lot different than what the Joe Biden and Kamala Harris run look like. However, you might see a war with than what the Joe Biden and Kamala Harris run looked like. However, you might see a war with Iran, or at least a much stronger stance towards Iran,

a longer free pass for Israel to continue whatever the hell it's doing, and a tougher China policy, which as to how the leverage of tariffs actually work out is anyone's game. But I would venture to guess an end to the Russia-Ukraine problem, which is in part, I think if you wanna go after Iran, you'd prefer to make peace with Russia first. Yeah, that's a good point.

And that might be how it goes down. You know, I will say, I guess one of the other criticisms that I'm getting from people is now that Rubio is being floated around, they're like, see, good job, Dave. You picked him and now he's going to do this and now you own it. People are saying, you sold him as the anti-war candidate and then blah and it's like listen guys I I never said anything like that and I don't know it's like no my calculation was that it was better for the nation for Her to lose and him to win There are some possibilities of some good things coming out of his administration and there were none about hers So yeah, that's the that's the reality and And let's, you know, like, let's

hope for the best, but there will be disappointments. And this certainly would be one. And Rubio might not last in Rex Tillerson basically make it two or three weeks and then said I can't work with this guy. Yeah, which, well, I did see some people who are trying to say I never buy into any of these four D chess arguments, but they were like, nah, dude He's gonna remove him from the Senate and then fire him from I don't think I don't think he's gonna fire him but I do think if If Rubio does something dumb or tries to push something that Donald Trump doesn't actually want

I think Donald Trump is already showing he's willing to wield power a little bit more this time around and he's not gonna let the administration get away from him even just in what I've been seeing from him thus far of, what do you say, removing the education or the federal board of education or something. And then, and he said he's going to start going after school grants, I forgot for what they're doing, but I also know he for sure said that he was gonna make making changes to little kids and puberty and all that stuff. He was gonna make that illegal. And he also said that he was gonna make it illegal for the government to talk to social media companies.

He's already stepping in with a little bit and also right away, he hired his old staff, including that ICE director who's like, officer hard ass, I don't know that I agree with his morality but if you want a disciplined soldier who's gonna Go round up illegal immigrants. That's that's the face you're looking for of a guy who's like yeah, I will Listen, I will say about that because I just wanted to make this point Quickly, but there's you can already see it, the writing on the wall here that it's like

the mass deportations are going to be very, very difficult to implement. And I'm not even saying like, however you feel about them, I'm, I'm not even making an argument about like whether it's moral or immoral or anything like that. Just the logistics of it, it's going to be very difficult to do that, and not be handing, like, low hanging fruit to all of your political enemies, because it's just gonna be messy and ugly. And people are going to be able to make a humanitarian issue out of that. If I were Donald Trump, if I were in the administration, I would say like

First things first plug the hole Like cut off the flow of illegal immigration cut off the flow of asylum seekers That's because that job should be easy and you have a mandate to do it like get the wall built get this thing shut down then date to do it. Like get the wall built, get this thing shut down. Then you can start looking into this question, but I think it's going to be very tough to do that without giving every corporate media outlet the thing to be like, here, look what he's doing. It's so terrible. I don't think they're going to do it. I think what they're going to do is their best job to go after criminals. Once they're done going after criminals, the next low-hanging fruit is in certain

protected industries where you can make the argument that they're undercutting jobs that you think you can actually win over the demographic of workers. That's the next one to go after. And then the one after that, which is politically less viable, but it kind of goes along the lines of what I was saying with some sort of a political amnesty but you're not allowed

to become a citizen you're not allowed to have benefits. Yeah I like that idea a lot. Is that there is an argument for unless the Democrats are willing to come to the table and change the laws about congressional representation and that let's say, you know, three million illegal came over and now they're in California, we're changing the census law where you guys aren't getting more representation in Congress. There is some leverage to actually starting to go into those liberal areas and go, yeah, we also don't want to deport these people, but fair is fair. And you guys can't get more funding because you've immigrated illegals here I don't know how that actually plays out though

I would I wouldn't put my money on I don't think they're gonna actually get there because I think all of the press will be so bad about deporting you know just typical hard-working people that have actually integrated into society yeah yeah I think you're probably right all All right, listen, we gotta go ahead. To finish the point I was making before. Sure, sure. Donald Trump seems more willing to me to actually be in boss mode and wield political power.

I think the last time around, because there was so much bad press, including the fake Russia collusion story, he was a little bit of a bitch, he didn't get the wall built. I think for the country, he didn't quite shut it down for COVID, but even there he kind of got suckered by all the screaming and yelling of, hey, everyone's gonna die. I think this time

around he already seems a little bit more willing to be like, no, I'm gonna challenge everyone and we're gonna get some of this agenda done. So with all that said, we've just channeled that yes, he is gonna take some deep state picks. I do seem to think that they are going to be quite hawkish against Iran and China to start out, but I do think there's a possibility that if Rubio is doing some stupid shit that he's not all that into, he'll throw them out pretty quickly. Yep. Well, hopefully he never ends up getting in there, but maybe you're right.

We will see. All right. That's our show for today. Thanks for watching. Catch you next right. We will see. All right, that's our show for today. Thanks for watching. Catch you next time. Peace.