Part Of The Problem - Feelings Don't Care About Your Facts

Episode Date: November 11, 2025

Dave Smith brings you the latest in politics! On this episode of Part Of The Problem, Dave and Robbie "The Fire" Bernstein discuss Ben Shapiro's statements about Tucker Carlson on Megyn Kelly's show, Trump talking about stimulus checks and 50 year mortgages, and more.Preorder Lauren Smith’s book here: https://a.co/d/67djjBpSupport Our Sponsors:Visit http://www.twc.health/problem to get American Made Ivermectin at a price you can’t beat. Order your 6-month supply today and use code PROBLEM for $30 Off + FREE shippingKalshi - https://kalshi.com/daveHexclad - Find your forever cookware @hexclad and get10% off at hexclad.com/PROBLEM! #hexcladpartnerTuttle Twins - https://www.tuttletwins.com/problemPart 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.

what's up what's up everybody welcome to a brand new episode of part of the problem i am dave smith he is robby the fire burnstein i hope everybody's doing good out there how you doing rob coming to me from a hotel somewhere yeah i'm currently out in a charleston at the fine holiday and express let me say thus far this town is overrated everyone hikes charleston i will You do feel like a creepwalk around here. They got like a college for models or something. And you're just like, I think I got to stay in my hotel. No, that's a good.

Like getting, no, just getting older and being a dude. It is a more where like there's a point in your life where like it's like young hot girls are around. That's like every boy's dream. And then like you just hit an age where you just like, like if there's young hot girls, you're like, I think I'm just going to stay inside. I want to remove myself from this situation. But coming to the end of porches here, everybody.

buddy this was a fine run despite all the travel hassles which i warn everyone and i will let you know how bad it is but uh this wednesday i'm outside of new orleans then i got two last gigs out in denver colorado and that's it for the year so uh throughout in the new orleans area i got this cool bar outside of town music venue go to porch store dot com come hang out hell yeah and then of course me and rob i know the first show sold out last i had heard there's some tickets for the second show one night only november 22nd piccy new york comic david smith dot com for those links now tell me so as people who listen and follow our schedule may know i've pretty much bit after torn the whole year i've been off for these last few weeks and uh that happens to be while there's the

government shutdown i've been here and a lot of stuff i'm supposed to get on a plane this thursday to go to new orleans i mean i'm assuming i'm going to find a way to get down there somehow how bad was the airport situation for you well i'm here to let you know that we are just hostages in the government's game of trying to make the other team look worse and you know it's one thing when you want to take away people's health care or food stamps, but when you start delaying my flights, then I really take issue with it and say to government, figure it out. But Friday, just every single time I walked up to the gate, I got the text from them that they were delaying my flight another two hours. And they just kept doing that. And then yesterday, the flights that we had got

canceled. I booked a new flight for Menin who's opening up for me. And they kept delaying his flight finally canceled it and he went on the line and he said he'd never seen so many angry white people since january six well we had a lot to be angry about that day a lot and a lot to be angry about today as well he just he just retreated and let the the everyone else get angry he said people were slamming on the desk he was getting out of hand yeah well all right well i guess i'll be one of these guys i'm going to end up being on a viral video somewhere on a Thursday. Here's the probably the airlines will take any excuse to not do their jobs and they kind of they're not gracious about it. I paid a premium on a ticket that day on a flight that wasn't going to

fly. But what they do is they just sell every single possible ticket that they can. And then at the last minute, they just decide what flights weren't going to make them money and they go, oh, it's because we don't have enough air traffic controllers. I'm sure 90% of the cancellations don't even have anything to do with that. Not to mention, I don't understand why air traffic control is a government job. Just let the airlines do that and we won't have all this chaos. But the airlines are not gracious. They won't let you know when they're canceling your flights. They'll book you on the flight. They'll have you show up to the airport. And then they'll tell you at the last minute that it's the government's fault and you can't fly. Yeah. No, it's pretty infuriating. Yeah,

that's good. You got to just hate everybody involved in that situation. Hitch like to Skankfest. That's my recommendation. There you do. Come hell or high water. We'll make sure we get there. Okay. So I want to talk about a few things on today's show. I got to start just with their, you know, there's this the same kind of theme of what we've been talking about for a bit on the show now, which is this really, I don't know, it's being dubbed the Civil War on the right. I don't exactly think that's right. I think it's much more, it's much closer to like the Donald Trump phenomenon in 2016, where, Donald Trump, if you turned on the news, you would think everybody just hates Donald Trump. And I'm talking about the Republican primary here. I'm not, people kind of forget about this stuff because Donald Trump conquered the Republican Party and then he took over. But if you actually remember the primary process in 2016, there was National Review, which was the most prestigious, you know, publication in conservatism, Inc. in the second half of the 20th century in America.

It was like the, you know, the home of William F. Buckley and all these people, right? The National Review came out with a front page cover that said never Trump, that had like all the staff members of National Review going, we will support any other nominee except him. Mark Levin said, I will never support Donald Trump. I'll support anybody else but him. Ben Shapiro, never support Donald Trump. All these guys who now are the biggest Trump dick riders,

you know, who will now turn around and criticize like me for being like, oh, you're critical of Donald Trump. They were all never Trumpers. In fact, Reince Prebus, who was the chair of the RNC at the time, floated out the idea of changing the rules at the convention, essentially requiring that you get a crazy higher number of delegates that no one could possibly get, and then just saying the convention can pick who the nominee is.

He openly floated out just stealing the thing from Donald Trump, even though he won it. And if you remember famously, the next day, Donald Trump said, try it, and there'll be riots in the streets, riots in the streets. And anyway, I bring up this dynamic because when you, if you were, and even though 2016 isn't that long ago, it is, a lot has changed since then. But if you were reading National Review or you were watching CNN, now believe it or not, I know you're listening in 2025, people used to do those two things. I know it's, like you say that in 2025, you go, imagine you're reading National Review or watching CNN. and people go, who's this joke or talking about?

No, that doesn't describe anybody. It did use to describe people. And if you were reading those or watching those things, you, it would be easy to go, oh, wait, Mitt Romney, the previous nominee just gave a speech saying anyone but Donald Trump can be the nominee. Like this whole thing. Now, it might appear, oh, there's a civil war. There's a civil war amongst the Republicans.

But that's not exactly right. And even as you would watch all of these guys tell. you this one Donald Trump is the most radioactive candidate he's the one you can't possibly have you know it would dawn on people but he's number one in the polls you know like and not by a little bit you know by a lot like Jeb Bush the favorite is now at 2% and Donald Trump's at 60% you know what I mean like he's dominating the polls what actually ended up happening was that it was it wasn't exactly a civil war it was the elite party establishment and their mouthpieces versus Donald Trump and 80% of the base.

That's really what the dynamic was. And you might notice this again, just during this whole last week, Tucker Carlson being made out to be the act, Candace Owens being made out to be, oh, these are the people who need to be canceled. But then you might also notice that they're number one, number one and number two, however exactly you want to measure it. And so it's like, no, this isn't exactly a civil war. this is very similar to 2016 and again for the same reasons it's the war party versus the people it's a

much more accurate way to characterize it than a civil war this isn't like divided it's not like if you just talk to random republicans and go hey should we be sending a bunch of money overseas right now no no we shouldn't like any more than the republicans were divided on immigration they're not divided on Tucker Carlson or Donald Trump, for that matter. So anyway, that's one thing. And I would just say that I guess it's obviously this is very, it's very in our wheelhouse. Like this is the world that we exist in. And also on this show, I've kind of had like all of the people involved in this, you know, well, at least all of the ones on a certain side of it.

Happy to have the other ones on. Ben Shapiro, Mark Levin, open invite. Come on. Let's talk about it. But anyway, it's just so there's been more going. on with that and it's hard not to talk about because it does seem to be so relevant like much like with Donald Trump while it's not a civil war there is kind of like you know to use the phrase that me and you maybe don't love the most but like a battle for the soul of the right wing in America it

does seem like something like that is going on all right guys let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show which is the wellness company now some of you may know about this a pill called Ivermectum, it became very popular during the pandemic, and about 58% of the world's Ivermectin supply comes from China and 75% from Asia overall, but not the wellness companies. Introducing American-made Ivermectin, safe, trusted, and produced right here in the United States, Ivermectin has been prescribed globally for more than 30 years and has even earned the Nobel Prize in medicine for its proven ability to eliminate Paris. parasites and support overall health.

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That's TWC.com.com. Promocode problem for $30 off and free shipping. All right. Let's get back into the show. It certainly just feels like censorship in the name of special interest. And I hadn't thought about it, but you're so right that it's early Donald Trump. It's the same thing as COVID. You're crazy for not getting the vaccine. They're trying to shame Republicans go all these people that you prefer listening to are not actually conservative and they're dangerous to the party it's the same it's just the new form of censorship that's all it is well and and you see that right rob yeah exactly but you also see that when like well look it's like even if they'll say like okay here's our beef with nick fuentes is that he's said thing you know anti-semitic things and then you go

like okay but tucker carlson doesn't have any of that baggage right and you're just as mad as him So, like, it seems like that's really not what it's about. I'll be like, Candace, you know, digs into too many conspiracies that are unfounded. And you'll go, like, okay, but then, like, me and you don't really do that. Now, do we? Does anyone want to argue with us about any of our conspiracy? Like, what are our conspiracies, Rob, over the last 10 years together? Or that Trump wasn't a Russian spy?

Like, what conspiracy is that we buy into? That the vaccine wouldn't stop you from getting COVID and might actually, like injure you? Is that a conspiracy? Like literally go through. And so even the people and oh, but they hate us just as much as they hate them too. So after a while it is kind of hard to not go, it really seems to be that the issue here is like

these are the people against the war party. Seems to be the only thing that really explains all of it. And okay, so the latest chapter in this was that Megan Kelly, who I got to say, I really do like Megan Kelly. And I thought she was

very reasonable in this. But so she had she was doing some event i forget exactly who was it connected to turning point or something or maybe it was just her own event um but she was doing an event so she interviewed tucker carlson and then the next day she uh or later than that day she interviewed ben shapiro and you know the tucker carlson we obviously already had him on the show and he said some of the same things but it was you know just just obviously being correct it's just not even i don't know just undeniably right about all this stuff but there was this this this part with Ben Shapiro. So then Ben Shapiro comes on to essentially like struggle session

Megan Kelly for why she should be calling out the bigotry of all these other people. And there was this moment that happened. Now, full disclosure, I did, I did Liam McCollum show the other day. I love Liam. I think he's great. Me and you, we hung out with them last time we were out in Montana. And he's great. You guys should follow Liam McCullough really, really sharp. young guy, one of the best young guys in our space. And so we did, we talked about this clip on there. I just, I had to do this with you, Rob, and I had to do this on our show. So apologies to all you guys who saw that show, but we're going to go over the same one again because it's just too wild. So let's play that. And then me and Rob will respond. But here is Ben Shapiro. Try to keep up

with this here. Here's Ben Shapiro trying to get Megan Kelly to condemn Tucker Carlson and wait for it, Rob, here's why. My point is that that's not his point. And again, none of this blew into, well, we disagree on the interpretation of what Tucker has been doing for the past two years. And it's very difficult for me to believe that Tucker is merely anti-Israel when, for example, today, in his newsletter, I mean, I can directly quote it, if you'd like, in his newsletter today, he claimed that Zorn Mamdani is not anti-Semitic. This was his newsletter today, this morning.

I mean, I'm happy to read the text. It's pretty, it's, it's a little extraordinary because, again, it is, it is, it is kind of shocking. Yeah. I'll let you, I'll let you go first if you want to comment on this, but it's already just such a flaw in logic. Dude, it's, I just, the reason why I just love this is, this is Ben Shapiro. Ben Shapiro. Facts don't care about your feelings. Accusations of bigotry can't shut down debates.

I remember this one time he was, uh, he was, uh, he was, uh, he was. was arguing with some crazy leftist college chick and she was talking about implicit bias and this idea of like you have some implicit bias or implicit racism or something like that and he was like yeah but like i don't know like you don't even know what your motivations are yourself sometimes you don't even know those and now you're saying what the motivations that you don't even know are your motivations are your motivations he goes this is just ghost hunting man like and it was like it was such a good point just to tear apart their argument This same guy is now.

Yes, if you didn't quite catch this, okay? This is literally what Ben Shapiro is doing. Ben Shapiro is saying, Megan Kelly, you ought to be condemning Tucker Carlson for being an anti-Semite. He's not just anti-Israel. He's anti-Semitic. How is he anti-Semitic?

Well, he's anti-Semitic because he said another guy wasn't anti-Semitic. Just think about the leap of that already, okay? But, like, obviously, you could, like, if there is someone who really hates Jews, me saying he doesn't hate Jews, doesn't make me hate Jews. It might make me incorrect about this guy, but that does not, like, it doesn't even follow from that. But here's that, look, let's just finish the rest of the clip, Rob, because it's just more

fun to trash when you actually hear what, here's the evidence of why Tucker Carlson's anti-semitic. Here's what Tucker Carlson wrote in his newsletter today, or what his newsletter says under his name. He said, is the incoming mayor a fan of Israel? Does he want America to fight its wars? Not particularly, but a Jew hater. That's a different conversation. We've never seen anything to suggest he falls into that ugly camp. If we're talking about fighting the left, defending his arm Amdani, who literally said that Hamas, he has no opinion

whether Hamas should disarm, who posed alongside the 1993 World Trade Center unindicted co-conspirator, who wouldn't have to sound globalize the intifada, who suggested that whenever there's in a New York police department boot on somebody's neck, it's an IDF lacing the strings, to suggest that that's not anti-Semitic in any way, no way. Okay, but listen. Or when he, I'm going to give you a defense of Tucker here. And I don't need to defend Tucker, because I'm not Tucker. Tucker can perfectly well defend himself.

But I'll just say, I think in general, because I know him, and I listen to him, and I understand generally where he's coming from, he would say his problems are with Israel. And he would say that that shot that Mamdani laid against the IDF is a shot against the IDF and Israel and how he thinks they're pro-war, not against Jews. And I think, and I think- All I can say is when Tucker Carlson finds himself. complete alignment with Zorn Mammani. It is very difficult for me to believe that he does not agree with Zorn Mandani. I think Tucker is in a place right now of the same place that Charlie was getting to toward the end of his life, the same place that some people had tried to drive me,

which is you're under withering, nonstop accusations of being something you know you're not. But from some people who you love. I just love Megan Kelly going, and we could end the clip there, but it's like Megan Kelly's basically going, yeah, I think Tucker's in the same place. Charlie found himself in that I find myself in where it's like, you guys are just such like, I don't know what, it's like, dude, honestly, how, I'm sorry, I'm not putting words in Megan Kelly's mouth and she handled this better than I would have probably, but like the idea that you go, Tucker is, I think about this, Rob, Tucker's an anti-Semite because he says this guy

is not an anti-Semite and the proof that this guy's an anti-Semite is that he refuses to condemn the phrase globalized the intifada. Like, by the way, you know, You know, the IDF has been involved in training American police. It's not that crazy to make a point. There's nothing anti-Jewish about talking about a foreign military that has a relationship with American domestic police. And there's nothing, his opinion about whether Hamas should disarm or should not disarm. I mean, that's a pretty contra.

I don't know. There's lots of opinions on that that don't mean you hate Jews. And then, again, himself, like, anyway, this is just so pathetic, Rob. What can you say about this? You're, he's a big, well, then, honestly, if, just by extending this logic, then Megan Kelly is an anti-Semite, too, right? Because Megan Kelly is sitting here saying Tucker's not an anti-Semite, and Tucker's an anti-Semite for saying someone else isn't an anti-Semite.

So she's guilty of the same thing. By transfer, you know, like she's guilty of the exact same thing. So why don't you call her out to her face? Would it just start to sound too retarded at that point? Like how many guilt by association levels can we get to here? All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, The Tuttle Twins, you know, we've had some great sponsors over the years, but this one is really near and dear to my heart. You know, you've heard me talk about Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard

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with my kids that I just normally wouldn't have. So please go to Tuttle Twins.com slash problem and get a deal on the magazine subscription. It's like 50 bucks. It's the price of a couple pizzas for a full year of mind-molding learning for a little one in your life. And they've got all types of stuff. I had my kids on their, like they have the hard cover books that are great for toddlers and even pre-toddlers. They've got a great range of everything all the way up to like older kids. So go check them out. Tuttle twins.com slash problem. That's Tuttle, T-U-T-T-T-L-E-T-T-L-E-T-T-L-E-T-T-L-E-T-L-L-E-T-L-L-ROM. All right, let's get back into the show. it's such a wild claim because firstly he goes my evidence that uh Tucker Carlson isn't

anti-Israel but is actually an anti-Semite is that he defended that Mamdami is not uh is not an anti-Semite and then his proof that Mamdami is an anti-Semite is all rhetoric that is criticizing Israel and is not criticizing the Jewish people and so you got double folded you haven't proved that Mamdami is actually an anti-Semite and now you're labeling that Tucker is definitely an anti-Semite just because he's saying that Mamdami is not. That is not proof of anti-Semitism in any capacity. And Ben Shapiro knows it, which is why he doesn't even want to have this conversation or get the pushback for Megan and just go, well, he can defend himself because he knows

the game of, I'm just going to give a reason, and then let's just move on from this, and I've stated a reason. Yeah, no, that's right. And then just everything is all so pathetic, too. Like, look, even the thing, and I, look, I'm speaking about this. not knowing too much about it because who the hell cares. But their thing is that Mom Donnie took a picture. First of all, taking a picture, when you're running for mayor,

taking a picture means nothing, dude. It means absolutely nothing. It's, listen, I'm not running for mayor. And I've taken pictures with all types of people, dude. People ask for a picture. It's just part of being a public person, dude. Sometimes people see you and they go, mind if I get a quick picture? And you go, sure, because what the hell?

Why not? You know? And like, it just means nothing. He's a mayor. He's going around the city. He's running for office. He can literally, you cannot say no if anyone ever asks you for a picture when you're running for mayor. So literally that means nothing. But then they also go, he took a picture with the unindicted conspirator of the 93, which I know is a legal term. And I know they really love it. They've said that term every single day, all day long since this picture came out because, and obviously it didn't really move the needle too much with voters now did it. Because like, even when you're trying to make sound bad you know there is something about that first word there rob you know that just really undercuts it like oh unindicted oh okay right meaning there were never charges brought against him let alone a conviction of anything meaning he's innocent or presumed innocent right like that isn't that the whole like so again there's just nothing there saying globalized the intifada look in intifada means

in Arabic, okay? And, like, there was what's known as the first Intifada and the second Antifada. And there was violence in both, but the first Intifada was largely nonviolent. The second one was very violent. But so, like, the whole point of anyone going like, well, when they say globalized the antifada, there are, now look, there might be people who mean violence by that. But, like, there are also people who just mean, like, oh, no, the whole world should be sticking up for the Palestinians to, like, not get treated this way.

it's not that crazy that he didn't want to condemn that and also like why i don't know it like why the hell would he want to when that's his base he's a leftist where the hell should he condemn what his entire base views and and you know again to ben shapiro all this is is just pathetic like if you're against israel therefore you hate the jews you know what critic of israel is ben shabir not calling an anti-semi it's just really just so pathetically weak you know this rice eating socialist might turn out to be anti-Semitic, but there's no reason to say at the moment that he is anti-Semitic. It's the same game of every time someone makes anti-Israel comment, you go, well, he's anti-Semitic, which is actually the same charge that you just have against Tucker Carlson is, oh, he's not just anti-Israel, he's anti-Semitic,

and my proof is, is because he defended this other guy who also only made statements that were, like, if Zoran was up there and saying, we don't have a problem with, uh, with well, We've got a problem with Jewish landlords in this city. And we need to take back wealth from Jewish landlords. But any other wealthy landlord, that's not a problem. Sure, sure. That would be anti-Semite. Yes, yes.

No, that's right. But the thing is they can't point to one thing like that. Like, there's not one thing like that where he's, it's even been. I mean, look, I'm again, I have no dog in this race. He's a commie. I don't care. Make him a Jew hater too. He's already a commie.

That's so much worse. Like, who cares? But I'm just saying, like, I don't see the Jew hatred. it. Maybe it is there. And like you said, maybe he turns out to be one. But it's with Tucker Carlson's email, I'm on Tucker Carlson's email. I read this one. You know, the whole spirit of the thing was like, yeah, he's a comedy, but like, I don't know. There's a Jew hater. That doesn't seem, like, that doesn't seem apparent at all. And then, of course, Ben Shapiro there, it's like, he goes, I think when you're in lockstep with Mom Donnie, like, then you, and you're like, it's just so bad faith. It's so disingenuous. Yeah, you just said, I don't see the evidence. Is Tucker talking about free buses and rents? you know, freezes? No. So he's not in lockstep. And this game is not helping. I think we all saw it that in, I mean, listen, terrible candidates ran against Mamdami. But when they tried to turn the New York mayorship into some sort of conversation about Israel and he just goes, well, I'm not really all that concerned about that is the New York City mayor. I want to make things

more affordable. That resonates. And then when you turn around and you go, well, this other thing is more important because that the root of that is actually anti-Semitism, you're not courting any favor. That's not, firstly, it's not anti-Semitism. And even if that was, I'm just saying it's a theoretical if it was a true, if the guy believes in, you know, if he's not looking to harm anybody, but he's like, I'm just not as focused on racial issues, when did the left become the people of no, economic prosperity needs to be second to us propping up the, you know, the harmed classes and we need to put racial issues first. I don't care what your economic policy is,

but I care about is that you say that you're going to stand with the plight of the black man and women in this country. Yeah, that's, well, there's a thing who's like Ben Shapiro also, you know, he does this other thing in there where he's kind of like, well, I haven't seen, you know, Tucker's not attacking the left. He's not attacking Mom Donnie or something like that.

And it's like there's two things on that. Number one, well, Ben Shapiro, we're attacking you and you're acting like the left. So same thing to me, man. Like, yeah, we're attacking the dude who can't take on anyone's arguments and instead shouts accusations of bigotry. And then when he's asked to back them up has the most pathetic take ever. Like, so, yeah, we're criticizing you. And like, number two, what can I say?

You guys made it kind of hard. I mean, look, obviously, we've talked quite a bit about how we don't like Mom Dani's economic ideas. But when you run a lockdown governor who's quite literally a murderer, the most disgraced human being in America, you run him. And then the whole attack campaign about Mom Dunny is like, eke, he's a racist because he won't visit a foreign country and kiss their wall. It's like, yeah, you make it pretty goddamn hard to get on board with that. Yes.

No, in other words, you guys, people like Ben Shapiro attacked this guy in the dumbest possible way. You found the one thing that isn't actually something to criticize him about, that is a losing issue, and you ran on that, and now you're mad that more of us didn't pile on to your ridiculous losing issue, which is that you, if you have a problem, you know, like, dude, there's been, I mean, multiple reports, multiple reports of babies being used as target practice by IDF soldiers from doctors in Gaza. It's been like at least six or seven doctors who have said that they've consistently seen

babies shot in little kids i'm talking one through five year olds shot in the groin shot in the head shot in the body and at first that one of the doctors said you know at first we thought there must be some like sociopath sniper like some rogue agent here and then they started finding it like in all different parts of gaza like the similar thing okay there's been reports of um again this isn't even reports the Israeli government said that when hamas is slow rolling the dead remains they're going to half the aid that's coming into the civilian population. Okay. If you got a problem with any of that, Rob, you hate Jews.

Like, what, I mean, what is this? This is, it's actually more ridiculous than any accusation of racism I ever saw leveled at Ben Shapiro. You know, he would say things sometimes like, he'd be like, you know, whatever. Black, you would say black kids are like seven or eight times, whatever the numbers are. more likely to be raised without a father, and that's a real problem. And then people would go, you're a racist. You hate black people. And you'd be like, yeah, that's stupid.

What Ben Shapiro is doing here is dumber. It's a worse version than that. And that's it. So like, yeah, dude, I don't know. You're the whole woke right battle. You guys are just the woke left. You're the same thing as them, just only about Israel and Jews. Everything else.

That's Ben Shapiro. The gloves should be off for everyone else except my group. Max don't care about your feelings. um all right uh i do want to move on okay i want to talk about a couple things here um that or specifically you know kind of interesting things that have have been put out there um economic proposals that donald trump has has made i guess since our last show and one of them is the uh two thousand dollar tariff stimulus checks and uh the other one is um the 50-year mortgage thing that he's talking about here.

And I thought they were kind of interesting topics for us to get into. I don't know. I guess I'll just start by it. I'm real curious to get your thoughts on both of these so we could go through them one at a time. But I would just, I guess, start by saying, like, man, the Trump administration is just getting more and more pathetic by the day. I just find all of this shit to be just absolutely like desperation hail marries that

you know like this is something that you do when your coalition has fallen apart which i think is kind of the message here you know and i've been one of the people saying because i've seen republicans you know who i've been like oh this last week's election didn't really mean that much these were just democratic strongholds or whatever and i'm like no i don't think that's true at all this is a big wake-up call to republicans and it seems almost like maybe trump feels the same way but oh my god talk about the worst way to handle it to just throw the most pathetic i'll send you all money. This is like on the level of like a kid in school who's like, I'll pay you all to come to my house type shit. Like, sure. I mean, that that might work. It might get some more people over

to your house, but it is the worst most long-term destructive and just and just pathetic way to appeal to voters. And then the 50-year mortgage thing just seems like a crazy scheme to me. But anyway, we could take these one at a time, whichever one you want to do first. All right. So let's start with the tariffs. And I think what Donald Trump, is trying to do here is he's got a Supreme Court case going on at the moment having to do the tariffs. And it appears as though he will not be allowed to implement his current tariff policy because it should be under the purview of both revenue and taxes, which are under Congress. Now, there's two elements of gigantic stupidity. And these are things that I've

talked about in the past. First and foremost, the fact that you're able to enact a policy and then it takes a year before it gets to the Supreme Court to find out you couldn't do it is a dumb system it's unbelievable secondary supreme court you want to do something you find out am i allowed to do it and then you go and do it now here's the dumber part not only is the government not necessarily responsible when they get things wrong there's already a conversation now about whether or not it's feasible to unwind a policy that shouldn't have been implemented because it might be too sloppy to give refunds back to people that have already business american businesses that have already had to pay tariffs. Now just think about how disgusting that is that there can be government overreach that

costs your business money. And then the Supreme Court goes, yes, that was illegal and they shouldn't have done that. But it's too sloppy for us to return the money that we shouldn't have taken from you. And so what Donald Trump is trying to do, in my opinion, I don't know that I've seen anyone else say this, is he wants to send direct checks out to make it even sloppier to recoup the money from the government that had been collected by tariffs. Because if the money was collected by the government and then sent out to taxpayers, it's even sloppier to clean up. So for one, I think that's part of his Hail Mary play. And the whole Supreme Court system is stupid in regards to the fact that you can enact a bad

policy and then they are hesitant to punish government for the bad policy because it's messy, stupid across the board. Now, driving up prices because there are tariffs and then handing more money to individuals to go pay on those goods is also not great economic policy if what you're dealing with is people that are upset about prices going up. And if you want to see how sending direct stimulus checks played out, go look at terror, I mean, go look at the inflation that took place after COVID when he sent checks directly to people's homes. Yeah, the thing is that people are still, there are people who are still stupid enough to go to look back and go like, well, it was a tough time,

but Trump did send me that check. And he knows that. that and he knows that there are people like that and there's a reason why he made sure to put his name on that check in 2020 you know and like that's what they called it trump bucks and he knows and like you know there's so many things that are crazy about that you had you had a lot of the good ones you know um but i would just say too that the idea even if you were going to sell the idea that like tariffs raise revenue okay right like there is some revenue that's raised from tariffs, but you're like, dude, we're $38 trillion in debt and going further into debt every minute. Like, what position are we in to say, oh, we have, we have this surplus? Now we're

going to pretend it's a surplus that's just extra sitting around there. Might as well send some checks out. It's just, it's ridiculous. I did listen to, um, I saw there was the, uh, I heard the audio of Gorsuch at the Supreme Court. And it did not sound like he was buying it at all. um just like their ridiculous argument this is uh trump stupidity as he keeps talking about how it raises revenue and you know or uh it's uh but now they're trying to pretend that it's not revenue or taxes which they can't explain well who who bears the cost of this and they go well ideally down the line will create american jobs and so prices well explain to me when these factories are coming and when all this stuff is being made in america but between now and then it sounds like the president's

talking a lot about raising revenue from it. So you kind of can't pretend that this is just a, you know, a presidential policy for job increasing, which even if it was, I mean, that's central planning. Yeah. No, that's right. And it will look. I mean, the idea that that the, the idea that the president of the United States having the unilateral ability to just tax trade is the key to prosperity is just so ridiculous. And again, like, you know, we've been saying this whole time it's all just been it's been goofy economics this whole time and you can never even it seems like you can't even pin donald trump or his supporters down on what they're even saying tariffs do you know like it's like what are you saying are you saying tariffs make us rich because they

protect industry are you saying tariffs are leveraged to get good deals out of other countries or are you saying their renter revenue generated you know like which like and it almost seems like i don't i guess theoretically you could argue they're all three right but it's not a very good argument there's a lot of flaws in it um but like you could make that argument but it does seem like they justify it with one and then when you knock that one down they move to the other one and then you knock that one down they move to the other one then you knock that one down and they move back to the first one you knock down like it's just that it's all over the place and like even if like look for each one of the arguments like the only argument that

actually stands is that yes you could put some pressure on another government to maybe get some concessions out of them. Okay. That that is reasonable. But in terms of tariffs generating revenue, well, first of all, the problem isn't that the U.S. federal government doesn't generate enough revenue. Generate trillions of dollars every year in revenue. The problem is that they not only spend that, they spend another couple trillion dollars on top of it. That's the major problem. Okay. So it's obviously a spending issue, not a revenue issue. And we like, I mean, I don't know. But I would venture to guess that if you just look at the tax revenue where we got to be over three trillion dollars, I'm sure, probably between three and four trillion dollars that the federal government brings in in tax revenue every year, that is bigger than any government in the history of the world. You have the biggest most powerful government in the history of the world just based off the revenue that the federal government collects. The fact that they want to be that much bigger so they borrow and then print the money doesn't really suggest that it's a revenue problem. And then in terms of the stuff, as we've talked about before, in terms of like protecting business, if that were really the case, if that really made us, well, then again, just reduct to absurdum this shit, then why not higher tariffs? Why not 5,000% tariffs on everyone? Or how about this? Just write a law that says it's illegal to trade with the rest of the world. Why not get the most protection if you believe in protectionism?

And then right away, you'll start figuring out, oh, yeah, that would make us rastically poorer. So anyway, it's all just been goofy economic policy. And after a while, as Donald Trump is failing across the board at so many of the other things, it's just like, I don't know, there's, it's harder and harder to let any of this stuff go. People just have to learn free money is a devil's deal. And the last time they sent you a check, it was because they could keep you in your home. homes and you wouldn't criticize them doing another financial bailout for the big banks. And every single time they offer you free money, it just means you're going to be more in debt

and whatever thing you were going to use that free money on is going to be more expensive, which turns us to the 50-year mortgage plan, which, by the way, I'm a big fan of freedom. If you want to walk into a bank tomorrow and the bank wants to give you a 50-year mortgage and you think that suits your needs, go for it. People love homeownership. And the idea, what's nice about home ownership is that you think, okay, I'll never be homeless because I'm going to own this thing. The problem is you also still have property taxes. You're never not paying rent. You're renting what you own from the government once you paid for it. And you've got the problem that people can move to your area and all of a sudden your area can get more expensive and that

tax can go up on you or your insurance rates can claim. And all of a sudden, you can find that the thing that you've been paying into your entire life is actually not that affordable or that you can't even continue to live there. And the problem with the 50 year mortgages, firstly, it's going to put more people into the housing market, which means prices are going to go up. But not only that, if you're paying off your home for a full 50 years, I mean, the amount of interest you're paying on your home, the idea that you're going to make money on the thing, I mean, even if you're at like a 7% interest rate, I mean, you're really, let's say you buy a home. I guess you're putting down $50,000, maybe buy like a $400,000 home or something. Maybe that's the best case scenario.

and you're going to be paying that off over 50 years. I mean, just the idea that you wouldn't have made more money in the stock market or that that $50,000 that you put down that's going to end up being homes at a higher evaluation, I don't know, it seems like a real suckers game. It just feels like a lot of people are going to be sitting in more debt for longer and stuck in homes that they didn't actually want. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show,

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All right. Let's get back into the show. I think so I think one of the things that is in common with both of these policies, with the tariff dividend and the 50-year mortgage, is that both of them are acts of desperation. They're, you know, look, trying to give people a $2,000 check is going, shit, I know I'm tanking in the polls, and I know I'm losing popularity,

but at least I could come, I could get some more people to vote for the Republicans in the midterm if we just send him a check. Now, obviously, this will lead to disaster. It will make the country worse off. Right, right. It will make the country worse off as it always does, but in the short term, I might be able to get through the midterms. And then this scheme with the 50-year mortgage is essentially going, well, look, we've got a real problem here. It's like the game of musical

chairs is running out. There's less and less chairs. When the music stops, we might be, you know, the prices are going up and up and the interest rates have been going up, and monthly payments are getting more and more unaffordable. And so what happens is that if you spread the money you're borrowing over 50 years rather than 30 years, you save you. a couple hundred bucks a month on, on, you know, your mortgage payments. And so in the shortest of short runs, that is better for somebody, right? Now, in the long run, you're paying like almost twice as much interest to the bank. So, like, if you run the numbers, like if you take out like a $500,000 loan and you could look at like what you end up paying the 30 year life of a

mortgage or you look at what you'd end up paying on the 50 year life, it's like hundreds of thousands of dollars extra that are going to the bank. So obviously, pretty good deal. for the big banks, which is so weird because that always seems to be the case. Every government policy always seems to be really good for the big banks, which is always a real puzzle to put together. But so now look, it is true that like you can make creative arguments with all this stuff. So you could say that even though somebody is going to, let's say somebody is going to pay more money in interest to the big banks over this thing. Okay, they're saving money every month. And so you could argue like if they took that money they were saving every month and they invested that money

then maybe they could make up the difference or something like that by the way still a pretty good deal for the banks you got to go gamble your money to see if you can make back they're guaranteed that they get way more money or they can come foreclose on your house still seems like a pretty good deal for them not such a great deal for you but then i guess the bigger point of all of this Rob, is that it's just got a feel of like student loan forgiveness type thing. I mean, you're not even kind of addressing the core of the problem here. And the core of the problem here is that everything's getting too expensive. The currency debasement is catching up.

You know, the essence of the problem here really is, Rob, that we, simple as it is, right? we have a government that is so big we can't afford it we can't afford the size of government that we have this is not overly complicated it's for pretty obvious reasons you know you you can only tax so much um there's there's you know even if you raise tax rates to 90% you know you're not going to get that much different revenue it just it affects behavior people don't produce that much more when they're at you're getting taxed at 90%. So you can only tax so much, and then you can actually only borrow so much. And then you start printing the money.

And that's the only way to have a government this big is to have constant currency debasement. They can call these fancy words like monetary policy or quantitative easing. But it is no different. It is really no different than like ancient Rome diluting their gold coins, just making your money worth less. And as that happens, the money doesn't. go as far. So things become more and more expensive. And that's what's destroying the middle class. It's what's destroying the young. What is it that's so big about this government? Well, it's basically

two categories. Well, I mean, interest on the debt now is becoming a really big category itself. But it is the military and the entitlements. We're dead set on being a world empire, which is illegal. It is not what we're supposed to be. And it's not what the American people have ever decided to be. And then we have these giant entitlement programs that are huge transfers of wealth from the young to the old, from a poorer group to a wealthier group. And both of them are indefensible and inexcusable. But the problem is no one, including President Trump, has the fucking balls to even mention that that's the problem. None of them have the fucking balls to say it. because you know what if you say hey we might have to look at some social security cuts old people

don't like that and you know old people rob they tend to vote republican and they tend to vote in real high numbers you say you're going to get rid of their medicare old people don't really like that and they vote in high numbers and they vote for republicans so it's not politically expedient for don't trump to ever mention anything about entitlements and also he you know there's a whole bunch of weapons contractors and the whole establishment is the war party so he goes no we'll have a trillion dollar budget. That's what I call for a trillion dollar pentagon budget and we'll never touch the entitlements. And then you're left in a position where all you have are these hairbrain schemes like this because you can't get to the fundamental problem, which is that the prices are getting

crazy expensive. It's just like college. You know, I talked to, I talked to my father-in-law about this. He, he bought his first house in the 70s. And it was like, I think it was like around two years income you know like he was he was uh he started having kids young so i think he bought his first house around 22 23 years old uh this in the 1970s it's not you know ancient history although it feels like it um i think he was making like 16 grand a year and he bought a house for like 30 grand um now he did take out a mortgage he didn't buy it in cash but uh but you know when you're talking about a mortgage that's a few thousand dollars you know what i mean like it's not like that much that big of a thing and it's just like to but he could buy a house young

in his life um you know i heard it was interesting today i saw on the ron paul liberty report shout out to the goat ron paul and and dan macadams uh ron paul was talking about how his father uh bought a house for cash in the middle of the great depression and it goes you know not like it was it was it wasn't like a mansion but he goes it's nice house a nice long nice little property he bought it in the middle of the great depression for cash you know it's like we We take it, much like with college, you just take it as a given that this thing costs $200,000 a year. But like, why the hell does it? Why should it?

Why do we have to go into a 30, let alone a 50-year mortgage to purchase a house? Like, it wasn't written in the stars that that's the way this has to be. It's all over this monetary policy and other government interventions. And so, like, the thing is that there's no reason. But right now, Rob, the average age of a first-time home buyer is 40. 40 years old. Now, there's no reason why it has to be like that, especially when you think about how much richer we are right now

than in the Great Depression. Again, on every level, how much easier we can build homes, how much better we can build homes? How much better we do everything now compared to the Great Depression? But you could buy it for cash then, and now you've got to be a debt slave to the bank for life. That is crazy, okay? And there's no reason why it has to be like that.

It simply doesn't. This is all just a government policy, but they're unwilling to address the root cause here. And so instead, all they can do is try to come up with these schemes that will obviously make the problem worse long term, but might get you through a midterm election. It's really pathetic. You're 100% right that it's all a product of government spending and inflation that got us into this mess. So making more funds and capital available to people doesn't sound like a win. but in terms of uh and i might have to give this more thought but in terms of like you as an individual uh considering taking on a 50 year mortgage it's such like it's just an inflation bet

where i guess if you can have the capital and inflation goes to the wazoo or me like it just kind of puts more people into the game of uh owning assets versus uh having holding onto cash and being in the game of rooting for inflation because then you know what you owe on your house is actually going down relative to what the what you took on but right if over the course of this 50 years you actually see some sort of a credit crunch or you actually see i mean do you really want to take a bet that in the next 50 years the check is not going to come due for the united states of america and that the fed has endless ability to keep flooding the market every time asset prices are coming down because otherwise what's going to end up happening is the capital that

you put into the house which is probably 20 percent and then every year that you're paying off your mortgage, which is essentially rent, you're just going to, you're going to get wiped out on the little bit of capital that you have. Yeah. Yeah, no, that's, that's a concern for sure. And it's, you know, it's just look like, like I was saying before, like we've, because of the monetary policy and because of the prices of everything going up, you've created a situation now where, like I said, first time homebuyers are 40. And And that, I just think, like, it's very, it's very hard to measure exactly how destructive that is for a society, you know? Like, it's really destructive for a society to say that, like, you know, in my, in my grandfather's day, in my father-in-law's day, like, a 23-year-old could get a house.

And, oh, by the way, to just be clear here about my father-in-law's situation, he had, I think he had two kids at the time. He's 23 years old. He was a truck driver, and his wife didn't work. He just bought a house. He was 23. Now, I just say this because it is, that is like inconceivable in today's America. The idea of like a 23-year-old guy who has a, you know, a job, like just a blue-collar working class job. And his chick doesn't have to work, and he can just buy a home and take care of his family.

she can raise his kids and he can do the working. I mean, that does not exist. Nobody listening to this knows anyone like that, or very few people do. Maybe it's certain parts of the country, but it's really rare these days. But what happens is, and look, even if you're not going to, well, look, if you're going to have kids,

which is, you know, just saying objectively, pretty important for the next generation, but some of us have children. So if you want to have children, you know, because of course it's not just a matter of owning or renting it's like the reason why people don't own until their 40s because the prices are so high it's so unachievable and it's like that means that stability is very unachievable you know and obviously that makes it much more difficult to start a family it's a difficult thing to start a family when you don't have any stability in your

life and waiting till 40 is a real problem because you know that's that's pretty late in the game to do that but then even if you're not even at people who don't have kids just there's something for the tranquility, for the stability of being able to own property. Like, there's, there's, there's something really important about that being achievable for like the average person in society. Because when you own, um, property, and this isn't only, this isn't only the case if you own property. I mean, this is also the case if you just like, you know, if you own stuff or if you are, you know, have meaningful relationships in your life or or meaningful work in your life.

But the more that you have all of those things, the more invested in your society you are. The more you care about it, you know? Like it's just, you just, when you, when you, the more you own, the more skin in the game you have, the more of a stake you have, the more stability you have. All of those things are enormously positive forces for the cohesion of a society.

And it really tears. I mean, we see this right now. It really tears things apart. And particularly, particularly when young men, okay, and I mean, like, it's got to be the average man. Because today we kind of live in a situation where, like, if you're, I think, whatever, like, if you're, like, elite level, like, if you're, like, the best looking, like, most athletic, like, coolest guy, there's wide open paths for you, I guess, as there always are. And then that's true for women, too, if you're, like, the hottest girl, you know, you could. But for average people, just like the regular person, and particularly for young men, if the average 22-year-old young man sees no reasonable path to where he could ever theoretically

be able to provide that type of stability for a woman, be able to provide that type of life for himself, and they don't have a good job, and they don't have status, and they don't have anything like meaningful in their life, that is dangerous. That's when young men become radical and become violent. and become destructive. And so it's like, you know, it's like these, these government policies, even something like that just seems removed from all of this, like, oh, we're just talking about monetary policy here.

But like, you know, you're talking about a lot more than that. You're talking about the health of your civilization. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Kalshi. I've been telling you about them for quite a while now. CalShe is a prediction market where you can bet on just about anything that has a clear outcome. And you can see where the markets are trending on any of these things. So you can see what people are betting on where inflation's going to be or who's going to be the next mayor or governor

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That just doesn't sound like a win to me. Yeah, especially when, like, so many of the answers are just so obvious. Like, you're like, oh, like, you're going to go ahead. Maybe if we give you some of the capital for free up front and we give you a little. lower interest rate for the first couple years. And then it goes up later and maybe you make more money later. But, you know, if interest rates really skyrocket, oh, great, you got the 2008 financial mortgage crisis again. Yeah, right, right. Again, it's like, well, I might not go with Kamala Harris's plan. Just give people $30,000 up front so that they have most of what they need for

the initial down payment and pretend like that's not just going to increase all the cost of owning a home and indebting people for longer. Yeah. The college is the perfect example. They made loans available if you wanted to go to school and colleges went great we can charge these people more money and then you had more people leaving colleges more in debt and you want to know why people don't own homes yep that's pretty much it right and and like it's it's unbelievable and and there's you know no matter how much you see it like it's it's weird because once you see it i guess like if you're just not thinking about it you maybe you don't but like with college with health care with child care, and with housing, isn't the fundamental question is like, why are these prices so

high? It's just crazy that it seems like people could have a whole conversation about the topic, and that never comes up. That it's like, wait, but why did these prices get so out of reach? And, you know, it just seems obvious that, like, you should ask that question because that's the problem you want to solve. So you might want to know what caused it. And like in the case, you know, in the case of college, it's obviously the loans. And then in the case of housing, it's not much different. And, you know, there is something also like, you know, as you said, Rob, and I totally agree with you, right?

As long as you have property taxes and in some ways you could argue that property taxes are like the most evil tax, I'm not saying I agree, there's arguments, but like there is something about it where it really does, it essentially means communism, right? because like is if you have property taxes well what you're really saying is that the government owns all of the land i mean what essentially even if you pay off your mortgage you're renting you're renting from the government if you don't make your payment they come and take it from you that's what a landlord does right that means it's theirs like what what what you know if i own a house and i don't live in it what meaningfully makes it mine

Well, it's mine because I get to set with the prices, and if you don't pay it, I'll take it back from you. It's the same thing with the government. And so once you have this, you have a situation essentially where the government owns all of your homes. But then you look at like the big banks that give you, well, like, what loans are they giving you, Rob? None of these banks have any money. They don't have anything. They have a fraction of what people have put into. the banks, right? Like, in other words, they don't even have the deposits that all of us see on our

statements. You know how you like to think that, like, if you see in your checking account that there's $5,000, you're like, they have five, no, they don't have it, you know? Now, you could take the whole $5,000 out and they'll give it to you, but if everybody tried to take their balance out, they don't have nearly enough. So they don't have this money. The Fed prints the money and loans it to them at basically zero percent interest or very, very low interest. And then they loan it out. It's essentially like, you know, it's just, it's a double whammy of, in essence, the government or the banking apparatus, which is a, you know, a subset of the government always just owns the home. And like there's, I don't know, it screws over regular Americans. And also it's just bad.

It's bad for the soul of the nation. It's bad for the spirit of supposedly free people that you, everybody's got to sit here and rent from the government. This is essentially what it comes down to. screw that final word to you rob what do you got hail mary's from trump he's losing his shit so i'll send i'll send you a check and i'll figure out how to get you a home it's uh not good all right we'll catch you guys tomorrow with a brand new episode see you then peace Thank you.