Part Of The Problem - Did Iran Win the War?

Episode Date: June 9, 2026

Dave Smith brings you the latest in politics! On this episode of Part Of The Problem, Dave and Robbie "the fire" Bernstein discuss the blowout from Trump, Israel, and Iran over the weekend, Trump's NBC interview where he claims that he never promised no new wars, and more.Support Our Sponsors:Brunt Workwear - http://bruntworkwear.com/ Use code PROBLEMCrowdHealth - https://www.joincrowdhealth.com/promos/potpHexclad - Find your forever cookware @hexclad and get10% off at https://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://robbernsteincomedy.com/eventsFind Run Your Mouth here:YouTube - http://youtube.com/@RunYourMouthiTunes - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/run-your-mouth-podcast/id1211469807Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/4ka50RAKTxFTxbtyPP8AHmFollow the show on social media:X:http://x.com/ComicDaveSmithhttp://x.com/RobbieTheFireInstagram:http://instagram.com/theproblemdavesmithhttp://instagram.com/robbiethefire#libertarian See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dear Canadian exporters, our ambitions, our ideas, and our potential, were never meant to be boxed in. Nothing can contain us. With the support of Export Development Canada's market insights and financial solutions, you can turn obstacles into opportunities, discover new markets, and keep our nation front and center on the global stage. The world needs more Canada. Together, let's give it to them. Visit edc.ca to learn more. 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. We got a good one for you today. How are you feeling, Rob? Where are you?

I'm currently still on the road and by my buddy in Pittsburgh, and this was a fantastic weekend of porches. Got in and out of Canada without any problems, which was surprising. But that show was a blast. And I got upcoming porches this weekend in White Bear Lake, Minnesota. And I'm doing my FBI presentation after you're not. I run in Denver, Colorado. Then you got Raleigh, Hampstead, Myrtle Beach. You can go to Porch Store.com and see all the dates. Hell, yeah. That was a, we had a lot of fun up there in, in Toronto. I'm glad you've been having fun on the porches as well. And of course, the next big date for us is out in Denver. June 18th, one night only will be out in Grenwood Village. And then the 19th and the 20th of this month, June, we'll be out in Denver at the Comedy Works. This was you know, one of, if not the best weekends of comedy, me and you have ever done together last year, sold out every show.

So hoping to do the same this year. Please come out and see us in Denver, Colorado. Love that place. Let's go over what's happened this weekend for a little bit, Rob, because it has been quite an eventful weekend. You know, I almost don't even know where to start. The, you know, when this war first broke out, I think the first thing I said about it, was what a horrible way to be vindicated. You know, and that, like, that has been kind of a feeling

throughout this whole thing. And maybe that's, I don't know, maybe that's not what I should be focusing on, but it is a weird thing that just as this thing goes on and on, and I've experienced this a lot over the years with major issues where we were like staking out a position and the kind of mainstream institutions are calling us crazy for staking out this position.

And then little by little, it's like, you're like, yep, God damn it, of course. Of course that's what it was. Okay, a lot happened this weekend. And I think we've kind of entered a new phase of this ridiculous war. This was entirely predictable. And we've been talking about this for months at this point. But at least to me, Rob, Iran has emerged as more. of the winner, more clearly the winner of this war after this weekend than even at any point

throughout it, even though it's been pretty obvious so far that like Iran actually stands to win this asymmetric war. Let's go over it real quick and, you know, you can kind of interject at any point, Rob, or correct me if I get the timeline of anything wrong here. But essentially what happened this weekend is, as we've been talking about basically since the ceasefire, the ceasefire first broke out, Iran is insisting that Lebanon is a part. of it. The Pakistanis backed up the Iranians early on when the ceasefire was first tentatively reached. That yes, this was also part of it. Donald Trump weeks ago had made a big show of announcing that he is forbidding Israel from attacking Lebanon. And as we've been covering over

the last week and a half, Israel's response was to light Lebanon the fuck up. So Israel's been given an opening in a sense to sabotage these, the peace deal. Israel does not want peace. They want regime collapse in Iran, and they want to conquer southern Lebanon. So this is working out great for them. Again, we already knew who we were in bed with for many, many decades, let alone Donald Trump during the 12-day war. He experienced this attacking the same country with the same partner with the same dynamic.

Nothing new here. Over the weekend, a lot happened. So, number one, Israel attacked southern Lebanon again. Iran responded by attacking Israel. Donald Trump then said that Israel is forbidden from responding to attacking Iran. And Israel, shockingly, Rob, responded by attacking Iran. Donald Trump has now responded to that by saying, hey, you both got it out of your system. We're all done.

Everyone's ready for peace negotiations now. And interestingly, the Iranian government's official response was, Absolutely. Let's negotiate. You know, there's a lot to kind of break down here. And maybe this is a major theme of kind of what's going on that I could elaborate on more later. But it is amazing how much just in terms of just the optics, the public relations of this whole thing, the larger propaganda war, it is amazing how much Israel is caught with their pants down right now. it's clearer than ever that they dragged us into this war. It's clear than ever that they're the reason we can't get out of the war.

The other thing, Rob, that's really become crystal clear over this weekend is that Donald Trump is full of shit with his threats. I don't know. Listen, it was very clear. It was very clear as we covered in real time on this show. The day after promised bridge and power plant day, When Donald Trump, you know, when his bluff got called and he went, okay, instead I'll concede to all of your demands and then walk that back. It was obvious he was full of shit. But it really became clear this weekend.

I don't know that I've ever seen a president look weaker while prosecuting a war, including O Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan. I don't know if I've ever seen a president look weaker than Donald Trump over this weekend. The guy has been talking so much shit about the destruction that he will rain down on this country if they don't capitulate. For two straight months now, Rob, they have at every single turn wagged the middle finger in his face and gone, yo, we're not doing that. Including, by the way, this weekend, an unprecedented action of attacking Israel after they had attacked a different country, not attacking Iran, but responding to that. Iran is stepping up their attacks. They have over the last week decided that they have a new doctrine now, which is not that if you hit us, we're going to hit you back, but it's the 1.5 times, as they call it doctrine, which by the way, doesn't exactly mean 1.5 times. It means if you hit us, we're going to hit you harder. That's where they're at after all of these demands and threats from Donald Trump.

And at every turn this weekend, Donald Trump went, okay, fine, but please don't do anymore. Okay, fine, but please don't do anymore. Okay, fine. But please don't do any more. Okay, but please don't do it. anymore. Okay, fine, but please come and negotiate. It's very clear, Rob. Donald Trump don't want it no more. He just wants out. He knows that the only thing that can happen from more escalation is more escalation. Anyway, your thoughts on any of that stuff, feel free to jump in. You and I very rarely don't see things the same way, but I have a very different read on this. And I want to be clear, Donald Trump's very tricky to predict. So I say, I don't say any of this as absolutes. But the read I have on the moment is that the negotiations are coming down to one side has to actually admit defeat. Donald Trump is saying we're not sending them any money and we're not doing anything until they play ball with us.

And the Iranians are basically saying, we don't trust you at all. You got to release some money first. And so both sides are kind of saying to the other one, this does not move forward until you admit that we won and you play by our rules. Donald Trump is doubling down on really making a tripkey for him to send the many money as he continues to go off about the fact that Obama had sent the money and how bad of a deal that was and that was just used on nukes. Now, here's where I'm going to get a little bit more conspiratorial. I think that all of this Israel tension is theater as Donald Trump is trying to weasel re-striking Iran. I think that the supposed friction of him yelling at Netanyahu reported by Axios, which has done nothing but basically do fake coverage for Donald Trump in this war. I think that that's basically that was a theater story.

And I think that this New York Times thing was potentially a theater story as well, as Donald Trump wanted to take out the new, I guess, air support that Iran has. And so he got Israel to go ahead and do that. And I think Donald Trump's playing the same game. He's always been playing, which is hoping that there's some targeted strike that they can do that changes this and gives us some momentum and create some sort of, sort of an opening because I think Donald Trump is not actually prepared to walk away from this and make a deal because there's no good deal to be had at this time and he refuses to admit defeat.

So my read on this is, listen, you just don't know. And I don't know if Donald Trump will go back to the warfare route. But I actually think we're at the worst moment that we've been in thus far because Donald Trump's just not willing to actually be sending them money. Okay. So I do have a slightly different read on it than you. I agree with you that the Axio stuff is garbage. I don't buy it all that there are these tensions between Trump and Netanya.

Or I don't buy it all that the phone call was real or that this is the moment Trump's about to turn on Israel or something like that. I feel a little bit differently about the New York Times piece. We'll get into that in a second. But I will say that, look, I think part of what's going on here is that, you know, like if you remember, It was, um, uh, Breitbart, Andrew Breitbart's, uh, I believe it was his phrase that, uh, where he said, politics is downstream from culture. And I never liked that phrase particularly because I thought it was, uh, I don't know, I thought it was oversimplistic and not accurate.

Uh, I thought there's an important point to be made when you let people know that, like, culture really does affect politics. That is true. but it's not, it's not sufficient to say politics is downstream from culture. Because obviously, oftentimes, culture is downstream from politics. And politics has huge impacts on culture and vice versa. But there is some impact that culture has on politics. And perhaps this is the, you know, we've played a role in this.

But the fact is that the Israel issue, is just out in the open now in a way that it's never been before. And with this war in Iran, it's just, it's more clear than ever that the Israel lobby and the Israeli government have kind of dragged America to this point and are trying to keep them here. And I think part of that is why you see these phony stories. Okay?

Like, it's not real, but Donald Trump needs to kind of give the impression that he's not being bullied around by these other people. In fact, right, if you saw in his. interview yesterday with the financial times, he just straight up says, I'm in control. And Benjamin Netanyahu isn't, which is a really weird thing to have to say. You know, like there's just, there's never been, for example, how many times have you heard Donald Trump in an interview say, I'm the commander in chief, not Pete Hegseth. I'm running this. Not Marco Rubio.

I'm in charge of this operation, not, you know, London. You know, like, how many times has he had to make it clear that Brussels isn't calling the shots when it comes to European policy? Right, like, there's an admission in the denial in a weird sense. But so I think that, you know, I think like what's going on here, essentially, is that Donald Trump is trying to control the narrative. and change it and reassert his perceived dominance. That being said, what exactly, like, okay, Rob, when Donald Trump comes out and says,

Israel do not respond. And then Israel responds, okay, well, if what is the theater here? Is he trying to make himself look like? Like, there's essentially two options here. Either Donald Trump is really telling Israel not to do it. and they are doing it anyway. Or Donald Trump is pretending to tell Israel not to do it while really green lighting it. And then in some sense, agreeing to give the perception that he's having his balls chopped off.

I guess my read at the moment, listen, you just don't know with Donald Trump. And I'll say something to your credit in a second, but I think it's the second. I think Donald Trump thinks that he's gaming the Iranians right now. and wanted to take out the new infrastructure that they put in. And so he's pretending, hey, that's not me. That's Israel. And so to run cover for that this past weekend, they're pretending like there's tension between us and Israel,

and he's telling them not to do it. But he knows exactly what they're doing, and he greenlit it. Well, that is quite possible. That is possible. I mean, we will see. We will say. My read is that he wants out of this,

that he doesn't want to go back to escalation, but we'll say. There's one storyline that fits that. And I thought until there were the Israeli strikes on Iran, I thought that this was the case, is that Donald Trump has a new storyline, which is essentially Iran would have nuked the entire world if I didn't set them back. And at this point, I've set them back so far, it'll be 10 or 15 years before they can get a bomb. And so it's mission accomplished. I don't have to actually get the nuclear dust because we can monitor that 24-7. And it's mission accomplished. I said they can't get a bomb. I've already created a new situation, unlike the Obama deal, where they can't get a bomb. bomb. So that's kind of his pathway out to lie that there's a victory here. And he, you know, he, this is the first last week on Thursday or Friday when he said that. That was the first time he kind of laid that card where I was like, oh, maybe he finally figured out how we can walk away from this and pitch the win. But my gut reaction to the Israel strikes is they did not do that

without our permission, because I don't think they're looking to that nakedly make it clear that they are working against American interest and force our hand to be involved in this. I just think I think that's too reckless even from them. Yeah. Well, you know, perhaps you're right about that. I mean, that one I'm certainly I'm more inclined to agree with you that it's quite possible that like I have a tough time believing that Trump is ever actually standing up to the Israelis. And again, you know, with all of these things. And of course, Axios and specifically this reporter whose name I'm blanking on right now, but he's essentially Trump's mouthpiece.

And they've run stories like this before. The reason why, and I think this will be an area where we agree, the reason why it's just so hard, or one of the reasons why it's so hard to believe any of these stories, it's not just Axios' track record of getting everything wrong and always being Trump's mouthpiece throughout this war. It's that, look, dude, if Donald Trump wanted to put pressure on Netanyahu, if there really was a split between Donald Trump and Netanyahu

and Donald Trump had the autonomy that he's purported to have. And if Donald Trump, like, you wouldn't need it to be this cursing out phone call. You wouldn't need it to be a tweet where you start. It'd be one phone call with Netanyahu before you get him to do everything you want him to do. Like, I don't know, the country's survival depends on us. They have no ability to conduct these military operations without us. that they are conducting are getting these missiles shot at them that they need us to help them protect themselves from so the we have all the leverage in the world there's no need you know what i'm

saying like if this was real we wouldn't even need to hear about it Israel just wouldn't be attacking lebanon right now he wouldn't be doing these weird things where he's going like there'll be no boots on the ground in Beirut you're like yeah but that wasn't really the sticking point now was it I did just want to mention because you brought it up before. This might be an area where we disagree. The New York Times piece, I completely believe. I think that's totally real. And the New York Times also isn't, you know, look, they're the New York Times.

I'm not saying they're not mouthpieces for the intelligence agencies. Obviously, they are. But they're not axios, if you know what I mean. Like, it's not exactly the same thing. And I think this is a real security level being raised by people in our intelligence community. You know, it's been an open secret for many decades that anyone who pays attention to this shit has read about, including the ones who support Israel and they just pretend they don't. But it's like an open secret that Israel spies on us like crazy. Like, they're just known for doing this.

Israel, like, it's one of the big things that 9-11 conspiracy theorists hang on to is that there were like a bunch of Mossad agents spying throughout America, you know, leading up to 9-11. But, you know, not taking a position one way or the other on that, just saying that for the sake of argument right now that they also do that outside of 9-11. Like, they're just constantly spying on us. In fact, John Curiaaku has a bunch of really interesting stories about like the way the CIA is trained to make sure the Israelis aren't spying on you. And how every single gift, he would say the Israelis constantly come to Langley Falls and they give them a gift. And every single time there's a listening device in it and they're just constantly always trying to spy. Now, this doesn't get a lot of, this doesn't get heavily publicized because if it did, you know, it'd be quite an outrage if the American people are like, wait, there's a country who we give aid to who's completely dependent on us and then they turn around and spy on us. Like, we can't even get them to knock that off.

But so anyway, it does make sense to me that during these very important negotiations, they'd be ramping up their spying efforts because they're really trying to get the inside scoop, even though essentially all. of the people involved in the negotiations seem to be Israeli agents, Rob. It's just never enough for them. It doesn't matter. They still need more. Something tells me they could figure out what Jared Kushner knows. The timing is suspicious because clearly

Israel's been spying on us forever. I think there were even talks that during the last round of negotiations, they were calling Netanyahu instead of Trump. I mean, I seem to recall that. There were reports of them calling both. There were reports of them stepping out of the room to call both of Netanyahu on

and Trump. Yeah, but Trump was at a UFC event. So I guess Rubio was stepping out to take those calls. Yeah. Yeah. But listen, with the timing of it, you've got one or two storylines being built. Because I just treat the media like it's all bullshit and they're pitching me a storyline. That's the tea leaves is the timing on these stories. And so either Donald Trump is actually laying the foundations to finally break up with Israel and go, no, like I ran, I worked out a deal. You can trust them. Israel knock it off or he was running cover this past weekend to pretend like there's more friction than there is and that Israel is acting independently. Based on what I've seen, I just see B is the more likely scenario, but God bless if it's A, that would be fantastic because that means we could actually

end the war. Well, that would certainly be preferable. Listen, I don't think Donald Trump is going to be the one to break up with Israel. And I don't think there's, you know, there's pretty strong evidence that it's, you know, the exact opposite of that is the case that he's bringing us closer together than we've ever been. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Crowd Health, a longtime sponsor of the show. I absolutely love this company. I've been telling people for a while about their Black Swan membership.

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Visit join crowdhealth.com and use the promo code POTP today. All right. Let's get back into the show. I do want to mention, though, that they're real. And Trita Parsi had a great piece on this. Yesterday? Today? Yesterday? I don't remember when I read it. But Trita Parsi's great. I don't know if you've been reading his stuff, Rob, but he's like incredible. He's a real, you know, Iran expert. He wrote the book, Treacherous Alliance, which was phenomenal. Really, really great. Highly recommend it. But he's over at the Quincy Institute. And, you know, he was making a big deal. I think he's spot on right about this. But he was making a big deal out of the fact that Iran attacked Israel over attacking a different country. And he was like even if, like even if the, you know, the line had been crossed that Iran had demanded Lebanon was part of the ceasefire. You know, that was like, oh, we're not going to open the straight until Israel stops attacking Lebanon.

There's a big difference between that and just attacking Israel on behalf of another country. And of course, like, you know, the reason, treated Parsley is a real Mideast expert. And the reason why he saw this is such a big deal is because, like, dude, this just does. really set a precedent now that Iran has attacked Israel over their treatment of another country. And obviously, like, you know, the big sticking point in the region, you know, Donald Trump's trying to get everyone to sign the Abraham Accords. Well, why do we even need Abraham Accords? Like, why are there countries that don't recognize Israel or normalized relations with Israel? Well, the big beef throughout the whole region, people who haven't been paying attention,

is that Israel occupies these areas where other... Arab Muslims and Christians live, and Israel has no legal jurisdiction there, but they've claimed jurisdiction there for almost 60 years. And, like, I don't know, it just does kind of open up these possibilities about, like, what exactly the new normal is in the region. The reason why I said, you know, in coming out of this weekend, I think Iran is looking more victorious and Donald Trump is looking worse off than ever before is just because, look, obviously, as we've been saying before, look, this is really, I mean, look, obviously the major test

came when Donald Trump said tomorrow is bridge and power plant day and the Iranian people chained themselves to the bridges and the Iranian government said, fuck you, we're going forward anyway, you know, evacuate Saudi Arabia if you're going to destroy our civilization. Okay, that was a big one. But after this weekend, it is just really clear that Iran is not backing the, you know, down and Donald Trump has essentially been selling this entire time that they're going to capitulate like they're going to as soon as we get to a certain threshold and I think it's more clear than ever that that is just not happening and all Donald Trump has is to just keep bullshitting.

You know, he has no end of that so he'll continue to go. I don't think any I think less and less people are listening at this point. Yeah. Well, I agree with that last point 100%. I was thinking the other day when I was driving the car, to what extent I have a being here bias. And so I see all the pressures that exist on Donald Trump to walk away from this, which include there was a storyline this past week that a lot of the world is actually running out of food and that there's going to actually be a major problem because of the lack of fertilizer that's come out. Obviously, you've got the midterms coming up. You've got that Donald Trump's even making statements. I don't care about the midterms. Donald Trump has a big problem on his plate. And so we're seeing that all.

our side, I have no concept for the actual situation in Iran of how long they can hold on for. I just don't actually know, you know, like I was just thinking about that the other day that it seems to, it seems to me, listen, I think Donald Trump needs to walk away from this. And I don't think he has any out unless he feels like nuking or, you know, just bombing that the, the shit out of that country said it's a failed state. And I don't think he wants to do that. And I don't think there's any easy military way to do this without having a massive war that's going to require a draft.

I don't think Donald Trump wants to do that. So I think he's pretty stuck. But I do wonder how much pressure actually exists on Iran because I just don't know. I'm not there. Yeah. Well, I don't think a military draft in the United States of America is an option. I don't even think boots on the ground is an option.

I think, but like, I think a military draft in America for this war right now, I think the result of it would be like millions of people protesting in the streets. and no one going, like a massive just like movement of just like, we're not doing this. I mean, I don't know, you know, for sure, but I just don't think there's any way you could draft this generation into this war. I think logistically it's impossible. It really came to me while I was watching the most recent Donald Trump interview, which we're going to play in a minute.

But we had said it at the beginning of the war was that they just haven't sold this and they don't have the support for it. And Donald Trump's still trying to preach, hey, listen, these guys are absolutely crazy. They were going to nuke everybody if it wasn't for what I'd already done. You guys all should be thanking me because this is an existential crisis for planet Earth. And nobody's buying the storyline. They just didn't sell it. Nobody believes it.

Everyone thinks that the risk factors and the price is going up and everything else is a worse problem and a more immediate problem. And so he just doesn't have the support to actually go through and have a bigger war. Yeah. No, that's exactly right. No, look, it's like we said weeks ago that in a sense, Mark Levin is right, you know, which is a weird sentence to say out loud. But in a sense, you know, when Mark Levin says, he goes, look, the problem isn't our ability. The problem is our will.

And the reason we can't win this war is because enough people back home don't support this war. Well, like, yes and no. I mean, obviously there's some bullshit to that because it's not, you know, if you're talking specifics, Like, if we could take Karg Island, take Karg Island. Do you know what I mean? Like, you can't do it. It has nothing to do with whether me and you podcast about this that Donald Trump can't militarily open the strait of our moose.

Like he said, he what? You know what I'm saying? Like so that, but in a, in a different sense, the spirit of what Lavin is saying there is kind of true. Like, look, if we had what Mark Lavin has, I mean, not to, he doesn't have the will to personally do anything. But Mark Levin has the political will to treat this like it's World War II. To treat this like the most important thing that the United States of America has ever done in the history of this country is to overthrow this regime.

And if that were the case, then I guess in theory we could do it. You know, like if we were going to send in the 82nd Airborne, if we were going to do like a D-Day style invasion of Iran, and I don't know exactly, exactly the logistics of how you get the troops over those mountains. I guess we're helicoptering a lot of people in. But yes, if America was willing to actually pay the cost, we could invade and topple and militarily occupy Iran. Now, we quite likely would end up in a situation like Afghanistan 20 years later. Shit, man, there's nothing we can do here.

We got to go and we don't get to pick who controls the government. But we could pick for as long as we're there. The thing about Iran is it would just cost a lot more. more than Iraq or Afghanistan. So you'd probably, you know, you'd certainly be looking at casualties in the high tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, trillions of dollars this would cost, you know, like, so like, okay, we could do that. But yes, what stops us is that no one in their right mind wants to. Because why would they? Why would they? Like, you just, I'm sorry, this just is not, you cannot create in people's minds that this is a World War II type of scenario.

where Nazi Germany is taking over all of Europe or something like that. However you feel about World War II. It's just nothing like that. Well, he's 100% right that our country doesn't have the will. What he leaves out is the why, and that's because we've gotten smarter after being lied to about all these wars for the last 30, 40 years. Yep, no, that's right.

And so at this point, people just kind of see through the fact that this is bullshit. And look, it just obviously is. You know, like, it's bullshit when... This was something that my grandfather's generation loved to say. They loved to say, we'd all be speaking German. You remember that old thing? That was like a thing people used to say. We'd all be speaking German, as if somehow Germany was coming here, which is, okay,

which is ridiculous. It makes absolutely no sense. Now, even if, you know, even if you had some alternative scenario where, like, you have Germany conquering Russia. Okay, so maybe you have Germany not invading Russia. They didn't invade Russia, but they did take Britain. And okay, but then you have them sailing across the Atlantic Ocean to invade America too and then enforce their language on it.

Like, okay, it's ridiculous. It was never going to happen. But at the same time, you could go, hey, I mean, you know, look, they did conquer a lot areas, right? Like Germany did, you know, conquer France and, you know, Austria and Czechoslovakia and Poland and they did invade Russia and they did, you know, I think they were winning the fighting in Russia at the very beginning of it. So like, okay, you could at least build a narrative there that like, well, they're taking over. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating that everyone would be speaking German, but maybe more people would be. Donald Trump, Trump,

trying to convince you that Iran was about to nuke the entire world when not only do they not have a deliverable bomb, they didn't have a bomb. This is just the idea that you're going to fool people, as you said, Rob, people have woken up to the fact that we've been lied into all these wars. Now they're at least looking through a lens of like, are you lying to me about this? And all you've got is the biggest pile of bullshit in the world. It's just absolutely no one who, it's just too ridiculous. Um, anyway, let's, yeah, let's get into this. So Donald Trump did meet the press on Sunday. That was another thing that happened in the middle of this crazy, uh, weekend. Uh, it was a bizarre, uh, interview.

It made me feel so much better about myself that NBC can't figure out how to do a podcast on the road. They couldn't figure out how to put some soundproofing in so that you wouldn't hear the rain. And then the microphone failed. Yeah. It sounds. I think they put the microphone. at the end of a gutter. That's what it sounds like, that they just laid it right down, like right where the water hits a puddle at the bottom of the gutter. They couldn't figure out the post-production to pull out some of that noise.

It just made me feel so much better about this janky microphone I'm holding in my friend's shitty house. Yeah, no, listen, you're doing, you're not doing great, Rob, but you're doing just as good as meet the press. That's where you're at as the longest-running news show on television.

But anyway, okay, let's go to the interview Let's start the first clip at 19 minutes and 51 seconds, Natalie. Let's get into this because there is something very interesting here where Donald Trump is being interviewed by Kristen Welker, who poses as a journalist. And she did ask the most basic of questions, but hasn't been put to Donald Trump that many times. But it was like, hey, didn't you say a whole thing about not doing this?

Let's watch the exchange. I'd like to talk big picture now, Mr. President. One of your consistent campaign promises was no new wars, going all the way back to 2015. Did you break that promise to the American people? I had to stop a country, very powerful, very dangerous country, from having a nuclear weapon because they'd use it. They'd blow up the world. They'd blow up the Middle East.

They'd blow up Israel. They'd come here. They'd blow up Europe. They'd nuts. Okay, they're crazy people. I deal with them. And very high-strung people, a little crazy. And get along with them.

I like them. You don't want to let them have a nuclear weapon. Just pause it already. Just pause it already. I mean, dude, it's just how anyone defends this guy still. It's just such a clown. So they'd blow up the Middle East, they'd blow up Israel, they'd come here, blow up America, they'd take out Europe.

I mean, these people are just fucking insane. I got to be honest, I like them. I like them. They're cool. Like, I like them. I can deal with them. They're totally cool people. But they would kill the entire world.

This, how do you start there? The question was, sir, your campaign, promise of no new wars. And then you just started going into how they're these guys who would kill every baby in the world, but you really like them. They seem like really good dudes. Well, this is the insane pivot. And I think really crystal clear proof of the fact that he's lying is that according to Trump,

nothing about the Iran situation changed since Obama. And they were going to get a nuclear warhead and they were going to kill the entire world. You should have campaigned then on somebody has to get Iran. And the fact that you didn't is because you went out there and lied and you knew that the American people wanted to hear you're not going to get us into another war. So you didn't campaign on the idea of,

guys, no one else has the guts to stand up to Iran. Iran is going to nuke all of us into oblivion. That's why you have to put me into office because I'm the one person that will stop them. He specifically while campaign, well, he specifically said Obama's going to get us into a war with Iran. He said Marco Rubio will be the Adelson's little puppet and then I'm pretty sure he said Kamala Harris is going to get us into a war with a

round like that not only was he not saying that when he was campaigning it was his knock on the other guys that they were going to go fight this dude yes rob your point it's the same as the 47 we've been at war for 47 years okay great but then how come you didn't say that then and same as this now if that's right if it is the case that you criticize this is an excellent point rob You criticized Obama's Iran deal, the JCPOA, because you said it put them on the fast track to making a nuke. And now you're saying if they had a nuke, they'd destroy the entire world. Does Donald Trump understand that developing one nuclear bomb will not give you the ability to destroy the entire world? Probably not.

But regardless, that's what he thought. Okay. So then you should have been able to explain this to the American people and win the election based on that argument. instead you promised the exact opposite yeah i actually this might be way later that we won't get to it but the confidence of trump because he pivots to they voted for me because they like my decision making oh yeah yeah well let's see if we voted for you because of campaign promises such as you're the guy who's not going to get us into wars we wanted that we didn't want you to then make a we weren't empowering you to go make a different decision we thought we were you were standing by this

decision to not get us into wars i don't vote for him, but even so. I hear you. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is hexclad. Listen, guys, whether you're trying to cook healthier or maybe just stop eating microwavable burritos, maybe you're trying to save money from the delivery fees over at DoorDash, and you don't want to be cooking with your old scratched up frying pan that you've had since college. Go check out Hexclad. This is how you level up your kitchen game. I personally have these products in my kitchen. My wife loves them. They're pots and pans. We have their demand. steel knives. They're great tools. They're designed to make your time in the kitchen effortless.

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revolutionary cookware, hexclad.com slash problem for 10% off. All right, let's get back into the show. All right, here, let's keep playing. I'm doing our country of service. It's America first. I'm doing our country a service. Nice rain. It is raining hard. But the answer is good.

Let's just keep going. Let's just power through it, right? Here, we paused nearly five minutes for the rain to pass and then picked up our conversation. So you're saying you didn't break your promise. And yet, Mr. President, in your first. term you held to that promise. And it was so fundamental to who you were as a candidate to a first term president. What changed? Because you insisted no new wars. Well, I didn't guarantee no war. Why would I have built the strongest military in the world?

I built our military. I inherited a terrible military. We had no equipment. We had nothing. I built a tremendous military. Biden gave a lot of it away, but it's still a relatively small portion compared to what I built. But you said it over and over again. Why would I build a military? Now, I didn't want to use this, but I'm doing you and everybody else a big favor in the midst of the greatest stock market in history, in the midst of the most successful country, because as you know, in the last time, we were dead country, Kristen.

I know you, you're a big liberal, a big progressive. No, I'm just a journalist. We were a dead country. A year ago, a couple of years ago, we were a dead country. Now we have the hottest country anywhere in the world. Please pause for one second. At this point, which is probably now. Okay, this to me right here is why he also can't sell the war is because even if you're a Donald Trump loyalist, you know that it's not true that we were a dead country two years ago or that things are suddenly phenomenal now.

And so you're watching him lie through his teeth, portray a world that doesn't exist. And then when he pivots to Iran was going to nuke all of us, well, even if you're the biggest Donald Trump loyalist. And maybe you want to say that this is just, you know, him selling and using the most favorable language, you still know he's not being honest right now. He is lying through his teeth. This is not reality. Yeah, you know, that's right, Rob. And, and, you know, look, even when you said before, you know, you kind of said, well, Donald Trump's like, people voted for me because they trust my judgment. And you're like, no, people voted for you because you said, you know, like you were on the right side of these issues that they cared about.

Well, in a way, you're both right. You're just talking about different groups of people. And we're kind of running that experiment right now. We're running the experiment of like, how many people does this work on? Like, how many people did what Donald Trump ran on in 2024 work on? Oh, tens of millions of Americans, a winning coalition, enough to win the popular vote in every single swing state. Okay? How many people does this work on?

Not nearly as many. So yes, there are diehard Trump supporters who will still go with this. But I think, like, you're hitting on a big part of the issue here. Another part of it is just that, like, you know, there are these techniques that work in certain situations that don't work in others. So, like, there might be something like, like, funny, like an inside joke you have with your wife. And if she's mad at you because she asked you to do the dishes and you didn't, and then you do

the inside joke, it might make her laugh and then the fight falls ever. But if she catches you in bed with another woman, that inside joke probably isn't going to be enough to make you go like, you're kind of cute. That's funny. You know? And so Donald Trump does, he used to do these tactics all the time. But they would be in the context of like a journal, like back in 2017, Donald Trump would be given a spiel about a boat is wide open. We don't have a country. We don't win anymore.

We're in debt. We're in stupid wars or whatever. And then a journalist would be like, but you said something offensive on a bus or something. something like that. And he'd go, nobody even thinks that. You don't think that you're dumb and you're gay. Are borders wide open? Or this is that or that. And there'd be something where people would go like, okay, but like, look, he is transitioning from a stupid thing back to like actually an important policy. You know, someone would be asking him about Russia gate. And he would go, do you know that Obama destroyed our country? You know, and like, there would just be something where you'd be like,

okay, people get on board with that. But at this point, you're like, dude, people are asking you about a war that you launched, you know, even going into, and you essentially just have no answer. And so, you know, like, Rob, we're running that experiment. We're finding out who does this work on. And the numbers are very clear. Less and less people, you know? I mean, Rob, we made a big deal about this when Donald Trump first came in to office on the podcast.

We made a big deal about how he had his highest approval ratings that he had ever had. That's still not that high. He's still Donald Trump, but he, I think, got up to like 55% at one point, maybe 53% or something. Like, he was doing good. He's like almost 20 points down from that at this point. And so, kind of there's your answer, you know? How many people does this work? It's like, dude, you are so clearly full of shit.

You're being asked a direct question. You're pivoting to these things that don't even make sense. No new wars. Why would I say it? No new wars. Why would I have rebuilt the military? It's like, yeah, dude. I mean, that would kind of work if this wasn't clearly a war of choice, an elective war.

You weren't, hey, I built up the military. I don't know so that if we get attacked, we can defend ourselves. But that's not the situation here. And you clearly said no new wars, meaning I'm not just going to start wars, but I'm building up the military to be prepared in case we absolutely have to fight one. But everyone knows we absolutely didn't have to fight this one. And for then to you to just, again, Rob, like you said, we were a dead country. You know, you could maybe get away with that.

I get your point. People will realize, no, we weren't literally a dead country. But, you know, people are good about not, you know, Trump supporters are good about not taking them too literally. Because you can't. You can't defend them if you do that. But you could even say, hey, things were so bad under Biden. Things were so bad under Obama.

The real problem Donald Trump is in is the same exact problem that we called all of the year of 2024 that Joe Biden had. You can't say now's great. You just can't say. that because you run up against the reality of the fact that absolutely nothing of substance has changed for the average American. And that's just the fact. I shouldn't even say that. I'm understanding it. It's gotten worse. Maybe not as drastically worse as it did in some of the worst Biden years, but things have gotten worse. Things are just more expensive than they were last year.

And so, you know, to just look around at, to say to people in America today, they're like, no, things are good. Things aren't way too expensive and no one can afford to live. It's just impossible to work. It's not going to happen. All right, let's see what he says next. Let's go. I'll believe it or not, we just had all brand new stock market records today. But at the hottest point in the history of our country, I took Scott, Howard, I took Pete, I took everybody into a room, I said, I have to do this country, this world,

the Middle East, Israel, everybody in favor. You have Iran. They're going to have a nuclear weapon. Barack Hussein Obama signed the JCPOA. It was a horrible deal. Horrible deal. Listen to me. It was a horrible deal. It was a path to them getting a nuclear weapon.

They were very close to having a nuclear weapon. I terminated the deal. Wait. Then I sent the B-2 bombers in about nine, ten months ago, and they obliterated, totally obliterated. It totally obliterated this site, and I saved it. We had a choice. We could let them have a nuclear weapon,

or we could go along and have some beautiful days, but they would have, you know, it's a judgment. They would have used a nuclear weapon. And you know what? When people hear that whole scenario, when they hear me say, Iran was going to have a nuclear weapon, and they're crazy, they say, you're doing the right thing. I don't think it's an un-pileged.

I mean, you'll do polls because they're all fake. polls anyway, especially yours. But you do polls. I just won a big election. And the reason I want an election is people of confidence and have good judgment. I have to make a judgment. Do I want to go along and have a country that's doing really well, but somebody is going to try and kill us? Or do I want to put out that horrible threat? And I did. I put it out. I put it out for many, many years now i'm going to put it out permanently right so let's just pause it right here i mean i don't know and then i guess we can probably skip ahead to the next segment i guess what's just so ridiculous about all of this right rob i mean and you kind of nailed the point earlier it's like

all right but if everything you're saying right now is true then you should have run on this in 2004 because all of that was the reality going into it right and so he's going to say iran was about to get a nuclear weapon because of the jCPOA Therefore, I had to tear up the JCPOA. Therefore, we were still in a position where they were about to get nuclear weapons. Had he not done the 12-day war, they would have gotten nuclear weapons and destroyed the whole world. Okay, but, dude, then why didn't you run on that? Why didn't you ever mention that, literally ever mentioned that,

that Iran was going to blow up the entire world and we'd have to go to war with them to stop them from obtaining nuclear weapons? Never said that. He said, Iran can't have nuclear weapons, but you didn't campaign on this. You said no new wars. So, like, right away, again, that falls apart. It's not even a defense of this war. He's making a defense of the 12-day war still, which is defeated by the fact that he had to go fight this war.

But then also, I mean, just think about how weak the logic is here, where she's going, hey, you ran on no new wars, and you've delivered a big, fat, new war. What about the promises? And he goes, well, I think the war is very popular, even though every poll says it's the most unpopular war in American history, because those are fake polls. And you know how I know?

Because I won an election where I promise no new wars. That's how I know the war is popular, is that I couldn't run on it. Like, don't get it twisted. If Donald Trump had run on this, he would have lost. No one, no, you know, like he can say they just love my judgment so much. Look, there are people, obviously. I mean, look, okay, whatever Donald is. Trump has right now, he's got a 34% approval rating.

Okay, 34% of the voting population are absolutely an occult of personality, right? Like, anyone who's still supporting Donald Trump is just, is that, essentially. But there is this fundamental miscalculation, which happens a lot. This is what hubris does to men, even great men. You sit there and go, people voted for me because they just love me. They just trust me. They know that I'm so fucking great that I'll do all this. The truth is that Donald Trump got social conservatives to vote for him in this country.

None of them just loved Donald Trump so much. You know, it's not that they just went, dude, let me tell you who my ideal conservative candidate is. A billionaire playboy from New York City who's cheated on all of his wives, certainly had multiple abortions paid for. was a longtime donor of Bill and Hillary Clinton and his friends with everyone in Hollywood. That was not the idea. The point is that you positioned yourself as being the guy standing up to the machine and really infuriating all of its, you know, biggest public faces. And that's part of the reason why.

That's the major reason why people developed this kind of like love for you. So to just say that it's like, oh, it had nothing to do with no new wars. Like, it had nothing to do with secure borders. It had nothing to do with putting America first. That's going to be a real... Like, listen, again, there will be some percentage of people who stick by them, but as we're finding out, not nearly enough to be a winning coalition. So, you know, like, no, there were enough people who liked your message because of the message

and not because they were just so in love with the messenger. This is Trump. He's getting high in his own supply. It's like a comic who convinces himself. The audience just likes them for them and then has no jokes. And then you slowly discover, oh, no, they liked me because I had all those jokes, which is what they paid for. And that's why they think I'm funny, you know?

You got to actually do the thing. And so he campaigned on promises. And now he's convincing himself, it has nothing to do with those promises. It's just because they liked me. Rob, going at Dave Chappelle today. Ooh, is that clear that I wasn't going to say it? And that's 100% who I was thinking of. I thought I was just joking.

I genuinely didn't even think you were thinking of him. I thought I was just joking. But, you know, it applies. I was like, how do I not take any shot? Shots fired here. Greatest ever when he came with jokes. When he came with jokes, he was, there's no one better. But, yeah, so by the way, let's just go play Natalie.

If you could play the one that I texted to you, which was, I believe, the second clip that I texted to you, because this is kind of funny as a juxtaposition to what you just heard Donald Trump say. But this is the one from the bulwark. Let's play this clip. Just to refresh ourselves on what was and wasn't said. You insisted no new wars. I didn't guarantee no war.

I'm not going to start a war. I'm going to stop wars. No more wars, no more disruptions. We will have prosperity and we will have peace. Under Trump, we will have no more wars, no more disruptions, and we will have prosperity and peace. for all. I am the candidate of peace. I am peace. We will turn the page forever. One of those foolish, stupid days of never-ending wars. They never ended. You insisted no new war.

Yeah. So, you know, look, there's just no question. And of course, because it's Donald Trump, he could never, you know, he'd never just go, like, you know, all things equal. I try my best to keep us out of wars. You know, he has to go, I never once would ever do it. I'll be the most anti-war? I am peace. Of course, he has to go. So, like, no, there's just no question that Donald Trump made, look, in Donald Trump's

first term, that was kind of a talking point that Trump supporters used. Hey, no new wars. Now, it was kind of misleading because he continued a lot of wars. He was fighting wars every day of his first term. But it is true that he didn't start a new disastrous one. And he

even resisted getting pulled into this very war that we find ourselves in today. although, as, you know, has been mentioned with pulling out of the JCPOA, he did certainly set the table for this war that he's in now. So, but man, 2004, Rob, they made that a huge part of the campaign. No new wars. It's not just that Trump himself bragged about it and promised it in his next term, but every last one of Trump's surrogates all just constantly bragged about no new wars and how Kamala Harris, So they were against the neocons and the deep state and the whole warfare machine.

And, you know, there's just, it's going to be very, very tricky to walk away from that now. And, you know, in fact, impossible to a large enough percentage of the population. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Brunt Workwear. I love these boots. They sent me a pair when they first came on as a sponsor. As I've told you guys before, I got a big property up here. I live on the top of a mountain. We get a lot of snow.

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Let's go, hold on. What was the other clip that I wanted to say? Do you want to do, Rob, what do you think is the bribing farmers? I personally like, he has an argument, but I really like the influence. Clifation clip. The inflation, let's do that. At 30 minutes, Natalie, the next one. The inflation topic comes up.

And here's how Donald Trump, here's how he addresses it. You have a new Fed chair, Kevin Warsh. His first meeting in the role is later this month. After this month's jobs report, economists now say it's possible the Fed may have to raise rates. Do you think that's possible? And what would your reaction be, sir? So I'm of a different feeling. I think Kevin is so.

Kevin's fantastic, and I want him to do it. I don't want to have a big influence on them. But we had a great report. We're doing great. And it's unfair that whenever you do great, they want to raise interest rates. It should be the opposite way. You know, if you go back 15 or 20 years, when you had good reports, the market went up. Nowadays, when you have good reports, the market goes down because they think they're going to raise interest rates.

the country becomes great. We built the country by doing great and having rates low. What they do is when they raise interest rates, they try and kill success. I don't want to kill success. We should actually lower interest rates. Now, if inflation comes, and you know, people live with inflation. But if inflation comes, what happens is you stamp it out. But success can kill inflation just like higher interest rates. What they do now is like we had great chop numbers. You agree, right? They beat expectations. Not expectations, like three times.

Okay. But you ready? What do they do? They say, oh, let's raise interest rates. It's the wrong thing to do. I would like to see rates get lower because we could build this into the greatest machine. Pause it for a second. Because there's just so much there.

Oh, my God. You know, it's funny because I haven't watched the entire thing. I had missed this part of it, but Jesus. Okay. So Donald Trump doesn't seem to understand interest rates. He seems to say, he's suggesting that, oh, when things are going good, that's when they're going to raise the rates. And so then the market reacts negatively to things going good.

And why would that be? Why, you know, like, and it's like, okay, well, there's an answer there, right? Like, why is it that the threat of raising rights? rates freaks out the market so much, even when things are going good. And it's like, oh, yeah, because you run an entire society on debt. And so the entire society is now run on what their rates are. If you could imagine, like, anyone who has a mortgage, you know, right, that, like, that rate makes all the difference in the world. In your let, you know, if rates are at 3%, you can afford a whole different house than you can if rates are at 9%. Because, geez, man, like the difference

is like insane on what the monthly payments are. It might be the difference between. you paying like $2,000 a month or $6,000 a month, and, you know, one of those is unaffordable. In other words, when you have a huge debt, like a mortgage, that interest rate going up makes a big difference. And the more you run a society, government, the federal, state, local, corporate, everything's in debt, then, yeah, the interest rates going up are going to mess everything up. But what would you have us do?

lower the interest rate every time things are going good. You know, it's so funny that so much of the, you know, from, of course, the reaction to the Great Recession in 2008 was to lower interest rates to the lowest rate they had ever been and keep them there for a decade. This is really what led to the Trump populist movement. And he still, to this day, doesn't even realize that, that there's any connection between the two. And then he seems to just say, if inflation comes, then you deal with that.

But how would you deal with that? Well, I mean, traditionally, you would deal with that by raising rates. I don't know. It's just the economic illiteracy here is off the charts. Any thoughts, Rob? Well, on that last point, his argument is essentially, let's cook the books, let's juice the numbers, let's have a good economy, and then when the inflation comes, let's deal with it then.

But let's wait until the inflation comes. The problem is, if things are going too good, the inflation is inevitable, because it's based off of the cheap money that's being printed or that's available. And so to your other point of why is the stock market doing well if the interest rate's going down? Or if the market, if things are going well, so we got to bring it's because it's all fictional gains. It's just based off of that interest rate and that people are piling into these assets with returns because there's nowhere else that they can. I mean, there's a direct correlation between what the bond market interest rate that you can get, you know, if the government, And if I can get a government bond at 10%, why do I want to be in the stock market at all?

And then everyone pours out of the stock market. But, yeah, I mean, what he's arguing, let's cook the books. I want to have a good economy. And we can get this thing going with lower rates. But the problem is we know that there will be inflation. And that's why we don't do it because it's not actually helpful. And in this case, I don't even know if dropping interest rates to zero gets things moving. Well, it's just, I mean, it's such a backward understanding.

of the fundamentals of the economy. You know, like I said, like, why is it that raising interest rates is so crippling to the economy? In the same sense that, like, if you don't have a mortgage and you're just renting, then the interest rates going up maybe doesn't affect you nearly as much. But if you have a mortgage, let's say it's an adjustable rate mortgage just for the sake of argument here, then, like, that would affect you quite a lot. The reason why rates going up are harmful to the economy is because our economy is such a

debt-based economy. But what is lowering rates? What is that? It's encouraging more debt. That's the whole idea. The whole idea of lowering rates, right, is that you lower the price of borrowing money, so more people will borrow money. And there are a lot of, you know, if you could just think about a business, right? Like, this is a, it's a, this is a mathematical equation. There, you might have a new business venture that is profitable if you can borrow a million bucks at three percent interest, but it's not profitable if you have to borrow a million bucks at, 9% interest, right? Like this just makes the difference to the bottom line.

And so if you bring rates down, there are some people who will borrow who otherwise wouldn't have borrowed. But are you telling me that the problem in the U.S. economy is we don't have enough debt? Does anyone get to, like with a straight face, make that argument? That the problem is we just don't have quite enough debt. We're almost there. I know what you're thinking. We have more debt than every other debtor nation in the history of the world combined,

but we just need a little bit more debt. Because that's what this is encouraging. Just borrow more. Put more on the credit card. Like you said, it's like essentially all Donald Trump is left with is gimmicks. That's all of this. Lowering interest rates is a gimmick. Switching from a 30 year to a 50 year mortgage is a gimmick.

This whole tariff regime is a gimmick. None of this shit is really, these are all like little band-aids to try to stop a little bit of bleeding from one little area when your economy has been stabbed 70 times with a machete. This is not going to solve any of the problems. It's also another just, not that I want Donald Trump to keep to this, nor was it a campaign promise. But six months ago, he was talking about how the president should be involved

in the discussion about interest rates. Yeah, yeah. I have more common sense, you know, that was his whole pitch. Oh, and throughout his first term and this term, just constant pressure on the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates, which they have not always listened to or necessarily been influenced by, but he's certainly been trying to influence them. All right, look, we got to wrap up there.

Around seems to be winning the war. No end in sight still, but we'll keep covering it with you guys. So thanks for watching. Catch next time. See you guys out in Denver,comcdavsmith.com, porchtor.com. Peace.