Part Of The Problem - Conspiracy Theories

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

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 Israel taking new aggressive action against Qatar, CNN and Charlie Kirk's response to a recent stabbing, and more.Support Our Sponsors:Brunt Workwear - http://bruntworkwear.com/ Use code PROBLEMKalshi - https://kalshi.com/daveMASA Chips - https://www.masachips.com/DAVE Hexclad - Find your forever cookware @hexclad and get 10% off at hexclad.com/PROBLEM! #hexcladpartnerPart 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://www.eventbrite.com/cc/porch-tour-2025-4222673Find 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.

Your first great love story is free when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.ca slash Wondery. That's audible.combe slash Wondery. 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, Bernstein. How you feeling today, my friend? Yesterday was a pretty brutal travel day, but. I'm happy to be here with you now.

Dude, we're such a great time this weekend. Tacoma was great. Spokane was great. But man, getting from Spokane back to the East Coast is just there's no way to do it. That's not a pretty rough, pretty rough trip. I woke up at six in the morning and didn't get into my apartment until 3 a.m. Dude, I. That's got to be the longest single travel day I've had to date.

It is, but how did you manage to not get until 3 a.m.? Because, uh, just, it's just jfk man it's like you by the time you get your bag off your plane you got to take a tram to your car and then the van wick expressway true to seinfeld there's still fucking traffic on it and uh then you have a coffee before you leave the airport because you know you were drinking on the flight and you got to get home and then yours just it's been five days on the road and it's four in the morning you're like go to bed buddy i well i hear you on that but man what a fun weekend of shows and just a great time.

I'm really looking forward to the, you know, the rest of the year. We got a bunch of dates coming up. I know here I should read these off because I do like to make a point to do that. But while you find it, I'm back out of my house in all of 10 minutes, Birmingham, Alabama, Atlanta, and Anderson, South Carolina. Oh, yeah. Go to porch tour.com. And then I know what you and I have coming up working backwards later in the year. It's going to be Detroit.

Well, here, I got the list here. Well, let me do it in order, just because I got it up here. So it's not this weekend, I'm off, but the next weekend I'll be, me and Rob will be back out in Vegas at Wise Guys Comedy Club. Then it's Dallas and Fort Worth hyenas, always a great time out there. Then we go back to Detroit House of Comedy, another great club. And then, of course, one of the best in the country, side splitters in Tampa. And then my final show of the year will be in, in Picay. kipsy uh laugh it up uh which we we've has come to be a bit of a thanksgiving tradition

from me and you we've been doing that that club there uh for years now always a great time so comic dap smith.com for all those dates uh porch tour dot com for all of rob's headlining dates let's get into the show uh first up i guess i should mention this um this is i'm glad you're sitting down rob this is going to blow your mind um israel has been involved in a aggressive military action. All right, take a few minutes to recover. Try to put back the pieces to the world. I know you're having a moment now where you're like,

I have this idea of the world. Everything is in disarray now. How does this make sense? So, yeah, so Israel just launched an attack in Doha, Qatar, where they claim they were targeting Hamas leadership. Hamas has come out and said that none of their leadership were taken out. but that some one of their kids was or something like that. Who knows exactly?

We'll probably get more information as the dust literally, as the dust settles. But look, there's a few things about this. And I guess we, you know, you can give your thoughts as well. But I guess just the few things I would say about this, obviously we don't have a tremendous amount of details. There's a strike that just happened. All you kind of know at this point is what the, what the Israeli government is saying,

what Hamas is saying, what the Qataris are saying. But it seems to be confirmed on all end that this was an IDF attack inside of a sovereign country who Israel is not at war with, last I checked, who is also officially an ally of the United States of America, which is just, you know, in general, you know, you're just not allowed to do that. Like you can't just randomly attack countries

that you're not at war with, But in this case, it's Israel seems to be able to do what they want to do. I guess one thing I would say is that there's, so this comes right on the heels of Donald Trump floating out this very loose idea of a ceasefire agreement trying to move to something like that so they can ramp up for whatever the next phase of the, you know, cleansing of Gaza is going to look like. and it, let's just say there's a long pattern of like when any type of peace talks or ceasefire talks or negotiations are on the table, Israel then goes and does something to try to create a situation where that the other party is not going to be able to come

and agree to whatever the proposal was. So that's part of it. Of course, you know, negotiations with Qatar and with, you know, much of the Hamas leadership that is in Qatar have been, this has been how most of the hostage retrievals have been accomplished. There's also how other things like Benjamin Netanyahu propping up Hamas for many years were accomplished by negotiating with Qatar. and it just seems like one more clear example that if rescuing the hostages was the number one priority here, this would be the exact opposite of the way you would go about this. But really the biggest point, I think by far, out of all of this, is just like you have this situation, generally speaking, where the United States of America, and I mean this almost

like at every level, like overwhelming majority of the people of the United States of America, I think even a decent portion of even the political class, even the president of the United States himself, would say that like, look, we don't want another war in the Middle East right now. Donald Trump definitely feels that way on some level. and the American people overwhelmingly feel that way. Like, of course, like, it's pretty obvious to go, like, that, we could use another war like we could use a hole in the head. You know what I mean?

Like, that is not what we're not this far in debt and this many problems going on. Like, this would not be ideal, right? So maybe not quite as far as me and you, but they're more or less like, let's try to not get another stupid war here. That's kind of our goal. Donald Trump has been on record saying he hopes that's the end of the conflict with Iran. He hopes the killing in Gaza stop soon. He hopes

that everybody can get along, all this stuff. And yet, you now have Israel has now, in the last two years, where this country that, for whatever reason, we're married to the hip to, has now, in the last two

years, Israel has attacked, well, I mean, they've attacked as an understatement. They have erased Gaza. they have attacked the West Bank, they have bombed Syria, they have bombed Yemen, they have bombed Iran, they have bombed Lebanon, and now they have bombed Qatar. They've bombed seven of their neighbors.

They've had military actions slash war slash just destruction of a captive people with seven of their neighbors. Like that is just crazy. Like normal countries do not do this. I'm sorry. this is not like there's lots of problems in the world but you look around the world

it's actually pretty rare that you'll find a country that's just like attacked seven of its neighbors in the last two years and like it's just one more example like one more just

just clear example of like why do we want to be attached to all of this why does it constantly have to be done with our weapons and our money and our reputation and

And nobody seems to have a good answer for that. Like, why is that? Because we need, we need to see Qatar bombed. Does that help us at all? Anyway, your thoughts, Rob. Well, I guess the thing that most stood out to me about this is there's some debate online at the moment as to whether or not this was the Hamas negotiating team that was eliminated or if this was Hamas leadership. But what just stands out to me is at the beginning of this war, if I was running Israel and I was looking to get hostages back, I think my first move would have been, let's go assassinate the real Hamas leadership that lives out in Qatar and to cut off funding and figuring out how to exert leverage over people that actually have power and not flattening the buildings of innocent civilians. And so if this is true that they're now taking out Hamas leadership, then let's just go with the Israel explanation that it's Hamas leadership.

why is this now three years into the two years into the war this is now the time like if that option's been on the table for two full years why is it that after killing all these civilians and doing all the other things that you've done in Gaza now is when you're first taking out maybe they got an explanation that they didn't have intelligence on where they were otherwise but I'm just saying if you want to go with the explanation that this was not the negotiating team and essentially what you're saying which is Israel making sure that they got a pathway to just continue doing what they're doing if this is leadership why now why not two years ago why wasn't that the first action that you took in this war yep i mean that's a very good question and as you said a question

that maybe there could be an answer for but it certainly doesn't seem like we've gotten one or likely are going to get one and it doesn't seem like too many in the media will be asking hey it's important to go after the leadership but let's flatten all of the civilian buildings and take out the hospitals and kill a bunch of kids first. Yeah. Well, the thing is, though, Rob, right, is that this has always been kind of the dynamic that it, so while, while Israel was screaming through the first two years of this thing, that we're just, we're not fighting a war against the Palestinian people, we're just fighting a war against Hamas, and then, you know, calling them Amalek, you know, in other, out of the

other side of their mouth. But there is, the thing is that you do kind of have a difference. Like, there's what they'll call like the political faction of Hamas that's like the leadership that's in in Qatar and then you have like the militants who are in Gaza and the the truth is that the only way to get those hostages out was to negotiate with the political wing in in Qatar because that's and that is how they did successfully get some of the hostages out and so if that was your number one priority probably you wouldn't even go after attacking the Hamas and Qatar. You'd just simply have to negotiate with them. But I also do agree with you that if you were saying you're conducting this war,

because these were always the two justifications that they go back and forth from, even though they're not the same thing in many instances conflict with each other. But yes, something like this, if you were saying we are taking out Hamas, then certainly it was it is pretty crazy that you're saying only two years to not only it took a whole two years for you to like start targeting like the rich one like this has always been the talking point from the Israelis is like it's like oh there are these rich billionaires and they don't even live amongst their people they just party it up out in guitar or whatever it's like all right and you're only now now that we're done with the babies or not done

but now that we're continuing this, that is pretty wild. And you'd need like a really specific and good explanation for why you were only able to achieve this goal now after two years, which I have a tough time buying, is that there is an explanation for that. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Cal She. I've been telling you about Cal She for a little while now. Cal She is a site where you can see betting markets on just about anything.

So right now, what's very big is like the New York City mayoral race, and Mamdani is now the frontrunner with an 82% chance of winning according to Kelshi markets. And you can see stuff like that all over the place, like what are the betting odds about the Democrats retaking Congress or who the Democratic nominee is going to be? I found all that stuff to be very interesting. Plus, you can put down some money and have a chance to win. So head over to Kalshi.com and join the over 5 million users. You can trade on politics, culture, even the weather.

go check them out now at calshy.com all right let's get back into the show um i also maybe this every once in a while i call uh call up scott horden or kyle anselon and i'll get some good details on this stuff i guess i don't quite understand and this is just my dummy american brain but if hamas leadership lives in cutter but you tell me that that's not the same hamas then i feel like those guys just need to change their name yeah probably not a bad idea um Well, there's, you know, look, they're, they're affiliated for sure. I mean, they're all members of Hamas. They're different wings of the thing.

But anyway, I did, it's kind of on a similar topic. But so there was a Ben Shapiro, friend of the program, America's leading, you know, political expert. He was on, he was on Coleman Hughes podcast. Now, I should let our audience know that Coleman Hughes has reached out to me about doing his show. So we're going to try to set that up sometime soon, I think, which I actually think would be an, like, I appreciated that he reached out. I think it was coming off me doing some episode responding to his thing. And so I kind of appreciated that. And I actually thought, I was a little surprised that he reached out.

But I actually thought what he did. I was like, oh, you know what? That might actually be like a really good conversation. like i think you know we might have an interesting talk about this stuff um so i just figured i preface with that however he did just have ben shapiro on um and they uh they they started uh discussing um the woke right which i am quite certain according to them we would be members of uh and this is i don't know i just kind of thought this was interesting it's you know what can you say it's like where it's it's kind of wild like where the israel propaganda is at at this point and kind of how

um i don't know it just feels kind of desperate to me i don't want to be insulting to coleman ahead of us you know i want to be able to have like a good faith conversation with the guy and i have a feeling we will um but i did think this was worth playing and kind of responding to so let's let's check out a little bit of coleman hughes and our uh boy ben shapiro people on the what is called the woke right by some now that um like to blame everything on you know the military industrial complex or or global jury um this kind of thing these these are people that are have a fundamentally grievance based relationship to oh so that i just look bad isn't it hilarious that you go these people the so-called woke right as some people describe it

Now, these are people who have, you know, a fundamental beef with either the military industrial complex or global Jewry. Like, that's quite an or. Like, wait, what? Like, it just seems like, sorry, go ahead. How is that in the category of woke? When did wokeness become being anti-Jew? I mean, I'm just saying if you want to create a category of woke right and to pretend like it's like what we were describing as people being woke, and that that's anti-semitism.

Well, it just seems like it doesn't fall into the category of wokeness. I mean, look, I guess they can make some argument that, like, it's racialist. It's a different type of racialism, birds of a different feather or something. But I do think here, look, if you were going to say, which I've seen some people like point out and then try to like attack me, they're like, Dave, you, you say you think this whole woke right label is dumb. But then, and they had, it was like a reason magazine interview that I did in like 2017. And I had said something about how you do what you see now reactionaries kind of like picking up some of the same tools that the progressives are using. And I was talking about the rise of white nationalism and like men's rights groups that were kind of like mirroring feminist groups. And they're like, see, that's the same thing you're talking about.

and it's like dude look everybody's made that observation yes there are racialists on the left and there are racialists on the right and okay but the thing that they do that's so dirty every time because this seems to me to be the whole thing of the like the dumbass james lindsay woke right attack is that you use those people then you shoehorn in a whole other group of people who are not doing racialist stuff at all, lump them together with the vaguest possible umbrella so that you can just use a pejorative. I mean, that's a, it's, it's, oh, you know, Rob, people who blame the Jews for everyone, also people who blame the military industrial complex. Like, wait, what? But that one's a totally real thing. Was, so I guess Dwight D. Eisenhower was really

just a woke? Is that what woke means now? A five-star general president of the United States of America, right winger? Like, what? Yeah, he's just basically a pink-haired 20-year-old now because he's talking about, oh, the military industrial complex. Like, well, are you arguing that such an industrial complex doesn't exist? Are there not giant weapons companies that make billions of dollars off of war? Do they not fund think tanks who happen to put together policy papers that advocate for more wars? Do members of those think takes end up serving in our defense department and state department and executive branch? Hmm. Okay then. So what are you talking? And then at the end, you know, this thing Coleman does. This is what they all do. Whenever the, whenever the woke right term

comes up, they go, they go, you know, some people blame the Jews. Some people blame the military industrial complex. But it's all a very grievance based politics. Like, You see where he's like leading you down a path, but you're like, what the hell does grievance-based politics means? You know another way to describe grievance-based politics, Rob? Politics. No, no, you name me the political group. You name me, Rob, one political group where grievance isn't at the center of it. Left, right, libertarian, conservative, progressive, socialist, communist, fascist, name me one.

Oh, the one where grievance isn't at the center of it. Right now, Coleman Hughes and Ben Shapiro are stating their grievances with the woke right. Like, what does it? So you say something, so here you go, okay, there's the people who hate Jews, okay? By the way, also connect everybody who just doesn't like stupid wars, and it's grievance-based. Now, what does grievance-based sound like to you, Rob? Well, that sounds just like the woke left now, doesn't it? Remember how they had grievances?

and these guys also have grievances. Whoa, you blew my mind, dude. Like, what does this mean? Like, anyway, I just, it's just like he's just in the opening, like in the framing of this thing. You just already see how flawed the whole thing is. Like, yeah, we have grievances. The non-interventionist right has grievances with the interventions.

That's why we're non-intervention. interventionist all right anyway any anything else before we we get back to it rob or you keep playing no let's continue with this stupidity western society it's just that the enemies are are different than the enemies that's exactly right i mean on the right it manifests as a lot of conspiracy theorizing one of the things i talk about it manifests everywhere is a sort of conspiracy theory and traditional biblical religion is actually in many ways sort of the anti-conspiracy theory so if you think about paganism in its original form. It was the idea that, you know, as Gloucester says in King Lear, that the gods, you know, strike us down like flies for their sport. That is sort of the pagan ideology. And I

would say the post-God ideology is that things happen randomly, bad things happen to good people. You can't control any of that. And then that is then projected into a conspiratorial idea that there must be forces beyond your reckoning who are out to get you. And you can see that on both right and left. The biblical worldview is actually quite... I mean, you, just there's just like these examples in life we're like when people and some people are good at this by the way i for any talent or quality that i have i am not good at this at all i am like the anti this but you know people are really good at saying something that kind of sounds nice when they got nothing at all to say but they get you could almost like walk away from that and go huh

oh it's a kind of interesting profound thing and then like as you get a couple steps away you go hey he said nothing he just said nothing at all Like, what it's like, it's like, oh, yeah, well, what you're seeing there is conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theory. Again, just like, it's a term that means nothing. It means nothing. Like, look, there are people who put together sloppy theories, and there are people who put together airtight theories. The only, you know, the only thing that matters is whether you're being sloppy or whether you have a really good argument, whether you have a really good case.

But the idea that it's a conspiracy, but again, Ben Shapiro was on, if you remember, I was mocking him last year for this when Joe Biden was still in. And he said that Hamas was controlling the Biden administration. Is that not a conspiracy theory? Because everyone has conspiracy theories because, listen, it's just a fact of how society is organized that elites often conspire with each other. in an effort to enact an agenda this everybody conspires the dnc conspires and the rnc conspires and then sometimes they conspire with each other to keep out a third party and then sometimes you know weapons companies conspire with think tankers and sometimes like you know like there's all types of conspiracies the the question is are they real or not and then like you know ben

Shapiro, I mean, I guess it's a kind of, maybe a somewhat interesting, like, discussion, completely unrelated to anything they're talking about here and very sloppily applied, as if that it fits to the thinking of whatever people they're describing. But I'd say most people today reasonably do not have either the belief that the universe simply just rewards good and bad. if you're suffering, that's because you did something wrong against God. If you're doing well, that's because you did something good for God or something. Most people don't agree with that in absolute terms.

We all kind of think like, oh, sometimes bad things happen to good people and it was no fault of their own. I don't think any of us really think that like the kid who gets leukemia displeased God in some way. And yet I also don't really think any of us believe that what you do in life has absolutely no influence on how you end up, you know, succeeding or failing in life. So anyway, I don't think either of those two frameworks are particularly useful, but it's not that there's like an absence of this feeling that you have any agency or that you can control your own life that leads people to being conspiracy theorists. The much more likely answer here is that the reason why conspiracy theories are all the rage

these days is because our current government has been lying through their fucking teeth to us about the 50 most important crises that have just hit the American people. Like every goddamn one of them, every major crisis of the 21st century, the elites, both the political elites and the media elites, have lied through their teeth and gotten caught lying. So now people are wondering what else they were lying about. That seems like a more likely theory than Ben Shapes. hero's pagan versus Judeo-Christian worldview.

But I don't know, Rob. Maybe I'm missing something. Well, he's using some tricky language here. And like he said, I don't think he's actually saying anything. But if the idea that it's pagan to believe that there is evil forces in our world that are outside of God that we have to combat, if you want to say that that's not true, so then should have America not have fought Hitler during World War II? Because, hey, that's, I guess that's God's plan is to,

kill a bun to have a whole holocaust and hey to believe that we have influence or agency or free will or that we're supposed to combat evil and not just leave that to god i guess hitler should just uh should he can to because that's an evil force and hey belief in god and by the way i remember this uh stands out to me from uh from my uh more faith driven days but i like this because there there was a concept that sometimes lurked around of well you just have to have faith and there was this guy i think his name was the kazanish and they said well are you telling me that the kids that were put into ovens at Auschwitz just didn't have faith. And his idea was that that's not how God works.

Like, God does not just leave things up to if you have enough faith in him. You're going to have a good life. That's not what free will is. It's not to say that God, if you believe in him, can't interject in your life or that prayer doesn't work, but we're not just on earth to leave everything to God. And I don't think that Ben Shapiro believes that or that he believes that it's pagan influences to think that you having to do good, make your life better. or combat evil is somehow a rejection of God.

Yeah, no, I agree with you. I don't think anybody, I really haven't, I guess there are, I guess, some people who really will bite that bullet and, you know, like, just be like, yeah, that's right. The kids of the Holocaust made a bad decision or didn't please God or something like that. Very few people, I think, actually are willing to go there. So I don't really know what the point of this is. But I also just, you know, like, again, in a similar set, that's separate point from your point, but I did think that was all very well said.

But it's like in the same way that they go, oh, this is a grievance based politics, but then you realize that like you could apply that to what you say to it. It's the same way Ben Shapiro says he hates identity politics, but then is a proud Zionist. You're like, this is like you guys describe other people as this, but it could easily fit you as well. But also, wouldn't you like Ben Shapiro? I mean, I don't actually know. I, you know, to be fair enough, I don't consume. For somebody who shreds the guy constantly, I don't watch that much of his stuff. I have seen a lot of his stuff over the years.

But I'm sure Ben Shapiro at this point would admit that COVID was a conspiracy, right? Like, I know when it mattered, he was telling you to get the jab dopes and he was, you know, supporting lockdowns and was terrible on all the actual policies when it actually mattered, unlike us. as we got it all right uh but wouldn't he admit at this point that that was a conspiracy of some sort like so like what what isn't a conspiracy was was the media and the biden campaign um like or the biden administration they were conspiring to make him look good weren't they i mean wasn't like were the twitter files not a conspiracy theory like you know what i'm saying like there's like you'd even he'd have to admit how about the hunter biden laptop would ben shapiro tell me that that wasn't a like that wasn't deep state officials interfering in a domestic election tell me I'm wrong or like

would Ben Shapiro take issue with me saying that because there's no argument I mean there's just simply no argument against it so I'm sure he would have to concede that and also because he's Mr. conservative you know Trump loyalist now after being a never trumper but so he'd have to so then what are we even talking about anymore we live in a country where the deep state conspired against the people to try to overturn the will of the majority of the people and interfere in an election. Yet the people are suspicious of their government. They have some grievances against them. Like what are we saying here? All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is brunt, brunt workwear. Brunt workwear. You got to check them out.

I love the brunt boots. They sent me this amazing pair of boots. They're like, like serious, sturdy, great work boots, and the first time I put them on my feet, they were super comfortable, which is never the case with good work boots. You always have like, best case, you have a break-in period, and usually they're just never comfortable. If you need a good pair of work boots that you want to feel like a comfortable pair of sneakers, make sure to go check out brunt. You work too hard to be stuck in uncomfortable boots that don't hold up.

So they built something better, and that something is boots that are insanely comfortable. and built for any job site. And right now for a limited time, our listeners will get $10 off at Brunt when you use the promo code problem at checkout. Just head to bruntworkware.com and use the promo code problem for $10 off. And after your order,

they'll ask where you heard about Brunt and make sure you mention that you heard about them here. All right, let's get back into the show. All right, let's keep playing. Harsh. It basically says that if you fail, it's probably your fault. There's a God-centered ordered universe.

If you do the right things, good things will likely happen. If you do the wrong things, bad things will likely happen, right? It's the entire book of Deuteronomy. And so the movement away from kind of personal responsibility and duty, that results in this very conspiratorial view of society in which, again, shadowy forces are out there and they're manipulating you. And if you don't understand that, it's because you now have almost a Marxist false consciousness that has to be, that has to be, you know, opened up.

You need to be blackpilled. You need to be a woke. Pause it. I mean, like, again, dude, I just want really, it's just, it's so, even after all these years, even I've been through so many of these, it's stunning. Like the lack of self-reflection, the lack of kind of self-awareness. Like that, so that's the quality now that you feel like there's kind of forces out there who are trying to manipulate you.

but like of course there are people who are trying to manipulate you who is argued are is your guys position that you have not been arguing that others are trying to manipulate you Coleman hughes and ben Shapiro's rise to prominence was essentially off of condemning the entire university system that there's a bunch of propaganda being pushed into young people's heads is that not people being manipulated ben Shapiro's been against the liberal media and liberal entertainment and liberal Hollywood. This Ben Shapiro's been a huge critic of all of this. Is that not people trying to manipulate you?

Like, isn't it just a very human thing to know that, like, yeah, there are, like, again, this is what's interesting to me about it is that what's almost revealed, and this is why I put, like, on the members only show the other day, I was talking about this with Ben Shapiro, where he always finds a way to run to, like, Israel is really open to gay rights. And you're like, I thought you were an Orthodox. conservative like what gay rights is your deal now i mean i don't okay square that circle for me but they always become almost like fundamentally liberal and i mean this in the worst sense of the

word liberal the worst the worst sense of the word liberal like to me was almost um like a ridiculous a ridiculously like rose-colored glasses way of viewing society and reality. I remember there was this one guy. I can't, oh man, I can't remember who it was, but I remember we were having a good time making fun of them. But it was somebody who was saying like, I think it might have been like around the Durham report, but they said something like, they were like, look, like if there was any wrongdoing, or they said something up, the line was, no, the president isn't above the law. Now, if, if, anybody at the FBI did any wrongdoing, then they should be held, you know, legally accountable.

And I remember just making fun of it where it was like, hey, those sentences sure do sound nice, don't they? But here in real life, the president is above the law. He's always above the law. And no one at the FBI is ever held accountable. You know, like, it sounds nice what you're saying, but think about how goofy this actually is. And the idea that Ben Shapiro and Coleman Hughes are sitting here mocking the idea. It's like, who's being naive now, Kay? You're mocking the idea that what? In society, there are powerful people who try to manipulate the everyday citizen.

Rob, there has never been one society in the history of the world where that was not the case. It is always every time, 1,000% of the times, the way societies run is that there are elites, and those elites use propaganda to manipulate the opinions of their citizen rate. You think that's like a weird view or something? It's the most realist view you could have. It's simply how things work. And this is almost on the level of someone going like, oh, this guy is such a conspiracy theory. He thinks we don't live in a democracy, but rather the government is controlled by powerful.

people. What? Isn't this just 101 shit? Yeah, of course. Of course that's how it works. You should be embarrassed that you ever thought it didn't work that way. I don't know. Go ahead, Rob.

If you got anything? No, let's continue. All right. Let's keep playing. To the problems in society that you never spotted before. It turns out maybe America was on the wrong side of World War II. Maybe the moon landing never happened because the normal kind of response to this nonsense is to say, well, America seems like pretty awesome.

You have all these grievances against America, but, I mean, let's face it, America kind of kicks ass. I mean, we defeated the Nazis. We defeated the Soviets without firing an erect shot. We have created the single most prosperous era in the history of humanity with the broadest spread of wealth in the history. We're kind of great. And so the answer to that from both sides is, no, no, no, you're totally misapprehending history. For one side, it's the 1619 project. And then as some folks at Free Press have written, for others, it's the 1939 project. All right. All right. So here, what can I say about this? Okay. So first of all, I would say that what Ben Shapiro really is doing here is, like, so it was Frederick Bosteat, who really, truly one of the great minds of his time, a great man. And he was the one who wrote that, I forget exactly how he put it. Because he said it much more eloquently than I will. But he was basically talking about how the socialists intentionally conflate society with the state and society with government.

And so like, and look, you got to admit to a like a crazy degree. We all do this on some level. It's a mistaken thinking every time. But we all, you know, kind of do a thing where we'll be like, oh, did you hear India attacked Pakistan? You know, and in your mind, it's like you go like the country of India, attacked the country of Pakistan. But that's not really what happened, right? It's like this group of people in the government ordered this other group of people in the military to attack this other group. Like it's and there you could see a thing where you're like, if you say America, what is America?

Is America the people and their tradition and their culture and their religion? Is it the mountains and the like, you know, farmlands and the beach fronts or like, or is it like Joe Biden and Donald Trump in Washington, D.C. making decisions. So my point is just when he goes, you know, there's all these people who's like the problem is that America is actually pretty awesome. Like we're actually pretty great. Yeah, I don't think anyone's denying. there are really awesome things about America. You can believe that and still believe that our criminal government in Washington, D.C.,

as I said, has been lying about the last 50 crises that have wrecked this country. Those things aren't contradictory. And yes, it's true that, like, the market in America has produced all types of amazing things. And there's all types of amazing people, and we live at a time of, like, great technological wealth that was unimaginable to previous generations, but like, that doesn't mean that I can't point out

that like our government has bankrupted the country at the same time and has killed millions of people in unnecessary wars and is like, you know, propagandized a generation of young people to believe horrible things. So there's no contradiction in any of that. And then the final thing, and then I'll kick it to you. You could have the final word on this. But like, you know, way they try to spend this like oh they had their 1619 project and and these guys have their 1939 project or whatever that means exactly but isn't the point there that like well look the country drastically changed after world war two after world war two is really the creation of the military industrial complex the creation of the CIA and the truly the deep state as

we know it today. And yeah, you know, after a near century of that part of our government handing the American people nothing but catastrophe after catastrophe, yeah, I don't think it's so unreasonable that some people might start questioning that. Once again, it's like what's really sloppy about this whole woke right line of attack, like everything Coleman Hughes and Ben Shapiro just said there is that look there's a large swath of people who they're essentially throwing into this camp in their mind

I'm sure we would be in there too but if you just notice it's just what is this it's just a way to what not take on any of Tucker Carlson's arguments not not take on anything that he's actually saying and to instead have some other like

really they're doing the woken thing here which is to be like without responding to any of the very legitimate points that like people like us are making when we respond to a bit like right now on this show instead of responding to any of the legitimate points that we're making they can just say don't even listen to this person assume they have the worst like intentions and shut your brain off before you even deal with any of it because see what they are doing is really just another version of the woke thing like I don't know

pretty goddamn weak if you ask me all right guys let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Hexclad. If you're looking to level up your kitchen game, you got to check out Hexclad. They have completely revolutionized pots and pans by combining the performance of stainless steel with the convenience and easy cleanup of nonstick. But Hexclad's innovation doesn't stop there. Their Japanese Damascus steel knives are as sharp as they are tough, perfect for leveling up your meal prep. Their sleek pepper mills let you season like a pro with precision and style. Gordon Ramsey is known for being a pretty tough critic. He loves Hexclad. He uses it both at home and in his Michelin Star restaurants. Hexclad products also come with a lifetime warranty. These are

literally the last time you're going to have to buy these kitchen essentials. I can tell you personally that I have both a pot and a pan from Hexclad that my wife absolutely loves and we use them all the time. So definitely check them out. They have quality stuff. It's one of those things about getting your like together, really getting that kitchen gear that you need. And for a limited time only, our listeners will get 10% off their order with our exclusive link. Just head to hexclad.com slash problem. That's hexclad, h-E-X-C-L-A-D dot com slash problem.

Make sure to let them know that we sent you. Bon Appetit, let's eat with Hexclad's revolutionary cookware. All right, let's get back into the show. But anyway, final word to you, Rob. I rescind my God theology comments, because it sounds to me like he's just mudding the waters while engaging in censorship, as you described, which is anyone with a different opinion than mine, don't even listen to them. They're conspiracy theorists in America's great, and they're trying to undermine our greatness. And on the theory of just, hey, well, America's great in questioning the system undermines our greatness, Ben, do you love our government debt? Do you stand by the Federal Reserve?

Do you stand by the credit asset bubbles that we're going to continue to create? Do you stand by all the money that we're spending on these wars? Hey, listen, don't question anything. It's a great system. I don't know. Do you stand by our entire science-based medicine that exists in this country? Do you stand by what happened during the COVID regime? Don't question anything because America's great and leave it to the people like us.

And if you're listening to anybody else, it's just they got dumb conspiracy theories. Yeah. No, that's right. And, like, if you think about it, right, like how, when Ben Shapiro was going around on his college tours and just slamming, like, the state of liberal arts academia, did that mean he hates America? No, come on. You're criticizing American colleges. Do you hate America now? Or are you like, no, he was criticizing one very specific aspect of America.

You know what I mean? Like, why is he not allowed to do that? And you would obviously, if anyone ever said that, oh, you hate America because you criticize its colleges, you'd go, no, maybe he loves America and wants to improve it by changing American colleges. You know what I mean? Like even if you said, even making it more specific,

let's just say, oh, Ben Shapiro, you were criticizing American universities. Do you hate education? Like, even that's like so ridiculous, right? And so the same principle applies. Like, if I'm criticizing the war party, what that means I hate America? America? Like what? Like the grandmas? And like, you know what I'm saying? Like, what exactly does that mean? That means like I hate the doctor who's doing a hip surgery to help a 70 year old

lady because I hate stupid wars. Right? That's as intelligent as saying Ben Shapiro hates America because he criticizes American universities. It's all just, it all. And like, I don't know, I guess I'm always just kind of amazed by these moments where you just have, Look, Coleman Hughes and Ben Shapiro are both, like, reasonably intelligent people. And these are people who are, you know, between one and two standard deviations higher than the average IQ, at least. You know what I mean? And it is just interesting that you could have this conversation where you're kind of like you're presenting it as if you're saying something intelligent here. and just like with the

the slightest little bit of like dissection you go you said nothing literally nothing and it's again it's what I think it's why this woke right thing really has failed I mean it's just like has not taken off and all of the all of the people who have been accused of being woke right

I think myself included but all of those people have just moved on without being harmed by it at all is because it's just kind of obvious. It's obvious that, like, there's no, there's just no sound or developed argument. It's, they're grievance-based, they're conspiracy-based. Again, like I said, you could describe any political group this way, any one of them. You give me the group, and I'll easily demonstrate how there's a conspiracy, there's a grievance. That's always what it is.

But it's just clearly, like, a tactic used to dismiss people without taking on. any of what they have to say. I don't really know what else to say there. All right, in the remaining time that we got left, what do I think? Debate between, you know what, let's go with the CNN Van Jones going after Charlie Kirk stuff. So did you, I did kind of find this interesting.

I'm sure you saw Rob, but there was this horrible murder in Charlotte, I guess it was. on a train or it's a so what was the story exactly right about some black dude just like stabbed some white chick in the neck i think i didn't watch it yeah i i i saw the storyline i just didn't want to watch it so i'm not i don't have a first-hand account of what happened no i don't want to i didn't want to watch it either i don't think i saw the exact exact video you know as as you guys know and i'm not like you know i'm not saying i understand like people having reactions to such a horrific killing i completely understand and

It's only human to have reactions to these things. I try my best to just not like jump on stories like this and then give my hot take about it, especially when they're like, it's like a random act of violence. I just think it's very easy to manipulate people's emotions around topics like this. And I'd rather kind of like use, make a sound compelling logical case to you. if I'm going to make one. You know, it also just, I always, I'm not accusing anyone of anything. We're all human.

I'm sure I'm guilty of this, you know, in lots of areas. But it does seem, you know, to be kind of in poor taste to me when you come out. Like there's an event like this, like a horrible incident. And then you come out and your conclusion from it immediately is, hey, guess what? All of my prior beliefs are proven right by this event. It just seems a little convenient and maybe not the best thing to do. But it's something that people do all the time. It's something certainly that CNN would do in a heartbeat.

But anyway, this I did think was kind of interesting at a lot of levels here. Because so we could get into it every plate. But CNN is reacting to Charlie Kirk's reaction to this crime. And there's just, again, almost on a similar theme of Coleman Hughes and Ben Shapiro, kind of the lack of self-awareness the lack of self-reflection here was obviously like the major theme that i thought was interesting about this but let's start playing the clip and then we'll we'll give our thoughts a white ukrainian refugee was murdered just because she was white everybody knows that obviously if a random white person simply walked up to and stabbed a nice

law abiding black person for no reason it would be an apocalyptic huge national story used to impose national sweeping political changes on the whole country. Instead, Megan Basham, no one seems to care when a white woman gets stabbed to the dead. Wow. He said white a lot. Well, we are talking about it. So I guess I don't think that's fair. Look, being in the system, because I have represented people who are mentally ill, and here's the balance.

The balance is taking away people's freedom versus evaluating their mental illness. And New York City, there are a lot of programs. for people who are mentally ill, but they have to want to be there. And it's super difficult because when you are mentally ill, you have a hard time knowing that you are mentally ill. But also, I mean, people like Charlie Kirk fan,

they've been looking for opportunities to make this some sort of, like, reciprocal George Floyd situation. And that's the part that I think, he's almost giving away the game, and it's sad to see a lot of people going along with it. You know, I need to say a couple things. is, I mean, what happened to that young woman was horrible.

And it's everybody's nightmare if you're in any public space, a subway, whatever, that something bad is gonna happen to you or somebody you care about. So it does strike a chord. We don't know why that man did what he did. And for Charlie Kirk to say, we know he did it because she's white, when there's no evidence of that, it's just pure race mongering, hate mongering, it's wrong.

Then he says that if something like that had happened the other way, there would be sweeping changes, imposed on society. Where is the George Floyd Policing Act? It didn't pass. Even when you had a white police officer murder a black man on live television, the whole world saw there were no sweeping changes. In fact, not one law was passed at the federal level. So I think that's an important thing to point out. The other thing is you mentioned the thing about cashless bail. I think this is a big challenge that we have. Would you have felt better if there had been cash bail and the mom had come and put down $1,000 to let him out?

It's not about cashless bail or no cashless bail. It's about the fact that we don't know how to deal with people who are hurting in the way this man was hurting. Heard people, hurt people. What happened was horrible. But it becomes an opportunity for people to jump on bandwagons. And then for someone like Charlie Kirk, he should be ashamed of himself. No one mentioned the word race, white, black, or anything except him.

What people mention is the horror of what happened this young woman. I'll agree with you. Okay, let's pause it there. He'll agree with that, of course. I mean, I just thought that was fucking crazy. that Van Jones would have the nerve to say that. And I'll let you get in here because I just got too many thoughts

and I don't want to rant too long. But just on the most obvious point, which is like there's a lot there. But the most obvious one is that you go like, dude, look, okay, Charlie Kirk does say there that he killed this girl because she was white and everyone knows that. Like, I don't know exactly. I don't know that for sure.

does look like he picked a white girl to do this too, but like I don't know for sure. But like it's so crazy how they'll use this standard and go, that's just race hustling. You should be ashamed of yourself. There was no racial. No one was talking about race except you. So like the standard is the fact that this was a black guy and she was a white girl doesn't make it a racial incident. Like, okay, fair enough. I mean, that certainly could be the case.

What exactly was racial about George Floyd? I mean, look, dude, there's no, look, there was no point in the George Floyd tape where, like, the cops called him the N-word or said, get on the floor, you black, whatever. You know what I mean? Like, there was, there was nothing about it that was, the only thing was that it was a white officer and a black guy. There was an Asian guy there was an Asian guy. There was another black guy. There was another, the rest of the officers around him, many of whom also got charged. they were like it was the United Nations

of all different you know racial groups I literally think it was like an Asian guy a Hispanic guy and a black guy like it was there was it was very diverse the cast but he was white and the other guy was black this made the biggest racial issue of the decade right so like dude you can't turn around

and then just go oh that's a ridiculous standard to say because they were different right like okay this has been your model forever all right guys let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show which is massa chips massa decided to do something about the problem with chips and all the garbage that's in them and all the bad stuff it does to your body they created a tasty and delicious tortilla chip with just three ingredients and no seed oils organic nix tamalized corn sea salt and 100% grass fed

beef tallow that's all that's in them these chips don't only avoid all the bad stuff they taste great. Massa is crunchier, tastier, and sturdier than other chips. Snacking on Massa chips is nothing like eating regular chips. With Massa, you feel satisfied, light, and energetic with no crash, bloat, or gross sluggish feelings afterward. And as an added bonus, that beef tallow makes the chips much more satiating so you won't find yourself uncontrollably binging and still feeling hungry afterward. Massa chips are beloved by tens of thousands of customers and have been endorsed by industry-leading health and nutrition experts like Ben Greenfield and Gary Breka. And then if you're ready to give Massa a try, just go to Massachips.com slash Dave

and use the promo code Dave for 25% off your first order. That's M-A-Chips.com slash Dave, promo code Dave for 25% off your order. All right, let's get back on the show. Here, you go ahead, you give your thoughts. I got a few other things that I'll mention, but I have a feeling we might hit on some of the same thing. This is the primary thing that I'm picking up on. The hurt people, hurt people, well, then I guess the guy who killed George Floyd should be off the hook too because he engaged in violence and it must be because someone hurt him at some point in time. I think I read this

in a book, man, what was the name of it? It was a contrarian book and they had this piece on mental illness and basically the defense for crimes of, hey, the person's mentally ill. And I thought they made an interesting point, which was every other day of their lives, they didn't choose to engage in that crime. And so there was a choice there. And just as a thought experiment, I feel like if I, because this came up in my head when we were talking about homelessness recently and perhaps that were just too accepting of the behavior, I feel like if I walked up to the craziest person in New York City, literally the craziest person, just think of the craziest yelling homeless guy you've ever seen. And I walked up and said, hey, I'll give you $100 if you

walk to the end of the street, touch the street sign, and come back. Nine out of ten times, I'm going to guess that that homeless guy will do that. And the guy's crazy, but guess what? There's enough of incentive structure of that all he has to do is walk there, touch something and come back and make $100. He's capable of acting rationally in his rational self-interest. If there's an incentive structure. So the idea of, well, this person had mental illness and so that there should be any sort of a

pass, well, listen, if you're too mentally ill, that it leads you to violence then you need to be locked up and the conversation doesn't just need to be how do we more be more sympathetic towards people that have gone through hardship in their lives if the hardship in your life is leading you towards being violent towards other people there should be no sympathy for it you've still engaged in violence and you're a risk to the rest of society and i i don't hear them introducing this when there's crimes going the other way if anything to me they're just talking to charlie kirk's point of that and i'm not saying i agree i don't agree with anybody here but i'm just saying the inserting mental illness because it's a one-off occurrence of

a white person being killed by a black person going well what we need to look at is the hardship that people are going through no that's not how you fix crime 100% and and particularly dude when you when you hear about the thing i forget the exact number but the guy was arrested like 14 times before yeah well then that's a clear problem with our justice department if people can be people are going to like come on dude if somebody has committed crimes this much and they are this far gone, that they're the type of person who's capable of doing something like this, then, God damn, and our system should have a way of not letting that person back out on the street. So that's, like, that's one major factor.

But it's also like, you know, there, first of all, like I said before, like, you guys have already embraced the model that if it's a white cop on a black guy, or if it's a white person on a black guy, therefore that's a racial issue. So why exactly is it that you're not allowed to say that in, reverse. Now I obviously like when you made the point there you go I'm not agreeing with anyone here like because I'm saying there's an argument to be consistent on both and be like no it's not automatically a racial issue unless there's something racial about it in which case then then it is but like the the onus is on you to demonstrate that it's not just de facto assumed because like

in the same way that like if I just get in a fight with someone at a bar and then you go he had blue eyes well you don't just automatically assume that I hate blue eyed people and the reason for the conflict is his blue eyes, there could be a number of other things that were the reason, in fact, there probably are in this example. Okay, that being said, the impression, which I know, like, you know, there's been like a million, like, videos

of people being exposed like this, but do you ever see, they actually did one poll on it where they would ask liberals, like, in 2020, like, how many unarmed black people get killed by police every year in America? And they would, like, be like, I don't know, tens of thousands. And then they're like,

answer is nine. There were nine last year. And here are the stories of those nine. He was running at the cops and tried to beat him. He tackled the cop and reached for his gun, you know, because like that's technically an unarmed guy too. So like it's just however you feel about it, they were making it out like this is something that happens all the time when in fact, by the numbers, this is something that very, very rarely happens in a huge country of hundreds of millions of people. Now that, by the way, does not mean there's not a lot of problems with the way policing is done in this country. And that does not mean that the civil rights and natural rights of black people and just about every group of people are not systemically abused by police. But in terms of the narrative of like police shooting unarmed black person, that actually does not happen a lot in this country at all.

It's very, very, very rare. And they're usually very high profile situations when they happen. Black crime, on the other hand, is not like that. And this is not a thing that's like, oh, this isn't a real statistic or something like that. This is, oh, this happens like nine times a year. Black crime, like, dude, black men are like 6% of the population and they commit like 50% of the violent crime in the country. It's because society hurt them, Dave.

Well, look, dude, you know, it might be actually. But they're not responsible because society hurt them. Right, but there's a difference. And we're looking at the wrong thing when we look at punishing. The thing about it is is that the truth is that the black community used to be far less violently criminal than it is today. And so, yes, there are reasons, and some of those are from external factors that aren't black people's fault. Also, it should be pointed out that when you say, you know, 6% of the population commits 50% of the crimes, that's not really true. It's not the entire 6% that do that.

It's a tiny percentage within that, and there's lots of black people, the overwhelming majority, majority of them do not commit acts of violence like this. That being said, it's a real factor that this is where 50% of the violent crime in America is coming from. And that's like, so Charlie Kirk isn't allowed to bring that up and apply the same standards that CNN uses to the same dynamic. That's complete bullshit. And, you know, what happens is that events like these um they create you know it's it's terrorism in the sense that it terrorizes innocent people they're now and and what ends up happening which lefties have a tough time grappling with this because number one they don't like talking about black crime but the other they're supposed to be like

the champions of the working class but the working class people are the ones who get terrorized and are stuck in those conditions and the people who got a little bit of money you know like look, I'll just say this. No woman in my family is getting on the subway anymore. No woman in my family is going to be in these situations because I have that option to keep them out of there. Other people who don't have that option are the ones who get stuck in these situations

and terrorized by it. And the fact that police are letting people who are violent offenders who have been arrested multiple times, in some cases dozens and dozens of times, and they're still sent out on the street so that Van Jones can. and then come along and go, well, you know, this person was hurting. And we have to find out a way to how to reach these hurting people.

It's like, dude, you're talking about a guy who you just saw stab a woman in the neck, completely unprovoked, completely unprovoked, just senseless, horrific, violent crime. Forgive the rest of us, Van Jones. If our first thought isn't, we really have to find a way to reach that guy. And our thought is, we have to find a way to remove that monster from society. that's how sane people are going to think about this and like you could say it as nothing to do with like a racial issue but on some level Rob

you know Van Jones is saying it like this because we're talking about the black criminal attacking the white girl because if we were talking about like in Charlie Kirk's example there if this had been some white guy who just did this to like a little black girl I mean okay she was an adult but you know what I'm saying like shit's like a young girl that just did this to her I don't think Van Jones would be talking

like that about it i think he'd be talking about him like he's a fucking monster who needs to be like you know what i mean uh like just violently removed from society in whatever form and so like it's like dude you don't get to be tribal about this on your side and then blast tribalism on the other side especially when that tribalism has uh way more of a legitimate case on their side and the one other thing i'll say real quick rob and then i really do have to uh wrap up here is that you know he could say oh there was no national policy that was imposed i mean there were several local policies that really were disastrous in the wake of uh george floyd but like i don't know how about an entire summer long of the largest sustained riots in modern american history

with billions of dollars of property damage and like the the entire backing of the political and media class with while police are standing down i don't know that feels like a pretty big pretty big change for America. Like, that's what happened in the wake of George Floyd. And on some level, we all just know that won't happen in the wake of this. And so, at least the spirit of the point that Charlie Kirk is making is 100% right and just undeniable. Like, it's just undeniable that, like, if the races were reversed here, CNN's attitude,

the American people's attitude would be completely different about it. And I think a lot of people are really getting sick of that dynamic. yeah last last word to you quickly no no we can uh we can call it there port store dot com comic dave smith come out for live shows it was a great run of five shows last week and uh still a lot more comedy coming this year hell yeah all right talk to you guys soon peace