Part Of The Problem - No Taxes On Tips

Episode Date: June 11, 2024

Dave Smith and Robbie The Fire Bernstein bring you the latest in politics! On this episode of Part Of The Problem, Dave and Robbie take a look at Trumps latest claim that he will remove income tax from tip earning jobs, and then we hear about the settlement against Alex Jones, and we hear from the former head of the CDC about their reactions to Covid.Support Our Sponsors Proton VPN - go to http://protonvpn.com/davesmithbabbel - https://Babbel.com/problem Get 55% off at Babbel.com/problem PROBLEM.YO DELTA - https://yodelta.com/ Use Promo code GASFind Run Your Mouth here:Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@robbiethefire2577/streamsItunes - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/run-your-mouth-podcast/id1211469807Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/4ka50RAKTxFTxbtyPP8AHmPart Of The Problem is available for early pre release on GaS Digital Network every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Sign-up with code POTP to get access to the archives, bonus content and more! https://gasdigital.comFollow the show on social media:Twitter: https://twitter.com/ComicDaveSmithhttps://twitter.com/RobbieTheFirehttps://www.instagram.com/bmackayisrightInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/theproblemdavesmith/https://www.instagram.com/robbiethefire/https://www.instagram.com/bmackayisrightSubscribe On YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/DSmithcomicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You're listening to the Gas Digital Network. Look at who we're funding right now. Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big. You're listening to Part of the Problem on the Gas Digital Network. Here's your host, Dave Smith. What's up, everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I am Dave Smith. He is Robbie the Fire Be- He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein.

I think that might be the first time I've ever stumbled on that. How are you, brother? I'm great. Fun weekend. People showed up for porch tour. Thank you, porch tour people and more dates coming. Awesome. Very nice. And what's the website to go to get the porch tour tickets? I got Minnesota next week, then Bethlehem, Pittsburgh, Richmond, Virginia Beach, North Carolina, where we're going to be long hauling in my car that's going to die. Oh, dude, your car is hanging on. Your car is like an old dog that just walks in the room. They're like, oh, man, he just laid down.

He's not going anywhere for a while. Dude, that's awesome, man. I hear so much, so much great stuff about the porch tour. I really do. Generally, people who are like, dude, I saw Rob out here. It was phenomenal. So that's awesome. Go check out the porch tour, porch tour dot com. That's phenomenal. So that's awesome. Go check out the Porch Tour. PorchTour.com.

That's what you said? We got Vegas. We got Las Vegas. Coming up this weekend, me and Rob are going to go out there. We're going to gamble. We're going to, I don't know, maybe go to the owner of a hotel, take him in a penthouse room,

tell him, think of a number. That's what we want you to sell to us for we're gonna put an offer i get in his face about slapping my brother around i'm doing a i'm doing a godfather thing anyway uh yes las vegas this weekend very much looking forward to that wise guys four shows uh between friday and saturday night comic dave smith.com for all those tickets and a bunch more stuff. We just got, uh, some new dates up on, on the site. Me and Rob are coming around the country. So hope to see you guys out there. Oh, right. So I was thinking about something that I wanted to,

uh, to open today's show with, and I'll just tell, I'll tell you how I got there and, uh, how I got to this point where I was really just like thinking about this a lot over the last couple of days. And this is not just, by the way, before I get to the point, this is I'm not claiming any originality in this. I'm sure I'm not the first person who's kind of made this point, but it's just something I've been thinking about a lot lately. So I don't know, Rob, if you happen to see what informed this was there were two interviews that I saw. One was Trump with he was being interviewed by like the three journalists. You know, the I know at least one of the guys was a Fox News guy. But anyway, there's like three journalists sitting down interviewing Donald Trump.

journalists sitting down interviewing Donald Trump. And I don't know if you had, maybe you saw what one of his like highlight moments. And it was that he, he was kind of attacking everybody for not being pro Israel enough. Like all the Democrats are, you know, Joe Biden's weak on Israel, Chuck Schumer, Schumer, he's Jewish and he's pro Palestinian at this point. And this is Trump's take. Everybody else is too weak. I'll support Israel the most. And then he actually blurts out of his mouth because he's Donald Trump, you know, which is, look, even when he's saying something I don't like, one of the best things about Donald Trump is he's just totally incapable of not blurting out what he's actually thinking. He almost does. Like people point out the fact that Donald Trump is dishonest or something like the corporate media love to go after him for lies, oftentimes lies that are just, you know, just kind of braggadocious,

like saying he had the biggest crowd size when he didn't really have the biggest crowd size. And they'll repeat that over and over again because it's a lie. But while Donald Trump does lie, he also has this other quality that almost makes him more honest than any other politician, which is that he's totally unguarded and unguarded in this very bizarre way where it's like, it never even dawns on him that maybe you should be guarded. You know what I mean? Like everybody else is like, how did you even say that? And he's like, what? You just blurted out.

That's how you say things anyway. So Donald Trump blurts out at one point that Israel has really lost control and influence in our government. But as president, he'll make sure they get it back, which was just like an unbelievable thing to hear a president, no president, former president, a presidential candidate, no less the America first guy saying I will work to make sure that this foreign government has more influence over our Congress. You just you couldn't imagine this being said about any other country anyway. So there was that. And then I also saw and I don't know if you caught this, but Thomas Massey was on a Tucker Carlson show. So good. Just phenomenal. Absolutely. I mean, the two of my favorite guys to listen to, and they were phenomenal together. I don't know what it is about life. And I'm sure everyone could relate to this on some level, but you know, when there's two people you really like and they get along and that just makes you

happy or like they do something great together. And then it's just like, you know, and then if there's two people you really love and you're all hanging out and they just like our oil and vinegar, like they don't you're like, ah, shit, like these two people. And I love both of them and they just don't like each other. I've had both of those things happen. But there was something about Massey and and Tucker that really just made me like, oh, yes, I knew these guys would have a great conversation. Anyway, Massey, if you saw the portion about AIPAC and Israel was just it was incredible. And it was like so. By the way, as someone who I think studies this pretty closely,

I totally didn't know about a lot of that. I didn't know that every single member of Congress has an AIPAC guy and that they have to submit papers to them. And that this is why Thomas Massey is like hated by them, because he was the only one who went, no, not writing you a why I love the Jews paper. Like, why should I have to do that? Anyway, so I'm just watching both of these interviews. And I tweeted shortly after watching both of them, or maybe it was like when I was thinking back on them. But I tweeted Thomas Massey is more America first than Donald Trump, and it's not even close. So just objectively, he's taking the America first position. Anyway, kind of interesting that the most libertarian member of Congress is

outdoing the most popular Republican in the country at his own game. Anyway, I thought it was interesting. And the tweet went like super viral. It's got like 20,000 likes on it now. So, which is a lot for Twitter, at least for my Twitter. So just the amount of responses that I'm getting, this is what started making me think about this. And it's so many people who are like, you know, Trump supporters who are like, so, okay, but Thomas Massey isn't running for president. So why even say this? I got a lot of that. Why even say this? Why even take shots at Trump now? Like why even, you know, and it's funny because, and this comes up a lot that I think this has been kind of like a consistent theme through our podcast is that there are, and I think it's one of the reasons why people find value in this

show is that I'm just playing a different game than so many political commentators out there are. And so many of them pick their guy and they're like, this is my guy I'm getting behind this campaign. And then everything is like reasoned back from that. And that's not me. Like, I'm just not. So it's I'm just in the business of telling the truth. I'm not playing really any type of political game. I mean, like I'll every now and then, you know, like support a political strategy. And obviously, like I'm a member of the Libertarian Party and I was a big part of the Mises caucus effort over the last few years. But even that was always just in the in the attempt that maybe we could get some candidates who will just tell the truth.

You know what I mean? And then like wake people up like that. that maybe we could get some candidates who will just tell the truth. You know what I mean? And then like wake people up like that. It was always like, let's be in this realm of just telling the truth rather than in the realm of really like power politics. And so it's almost kind of baffling to me when people ask something like that. Like, why even tweet this? Why even say Thomas Massey's more, you know, America first than Donald Trump?

Why take shots at Donald Trump? And it's like, you know, America first than Donald Trump. Why take shots at Donald Trump? And it's like, oh, you're playing a different game. You're playing the game of we're trying to get Trump into power. And I'm playing the game of telling the truth. The reason I said it is because it's true. And so I just wanted to say it because it's true. And it's kind of interesting to me. And anyway, this kind of brought me to my broader point. That is what I've been thinking about. And I'm sure you've noticed some of this too, Rob, but there is this really awful dynamic in politics where when it's election season, everybody, or at least a whole lot of people feel this need to kind of like snap into place. You know, this is all that matters now is this

election. And it's very easy to justify that once you start playing that game. And it might even be justified. I'll say that it might even be justified. You know, if you were just like, hey, let's say one guy is 10 percent better than the other guy. And you mean that you go, that's going to make life tangibly better, 10 percent better for like a whole lot of people who desperately need it. Then maybe the move is to just, I'm not going to say anything negative about them. Cause that might hurt them. I'm only going to say positive things about them because I want to get them over the edge. You know, maybe that's the right thing to do. I just, my feeling in life is that like, that's not my calling to do that. And that at least somebody has to just try to tell the truth is to just try to plant a flag and say, no, I'm just going to tell you what I think is right.

And so that means even if it's in campaign season and even if I think Trump is a little bit better than Biden, I'm not going to shut up about what he's bad on. I'm not going to stop talking because like and by the way, I should say, Rob, this isn't even just like people on the dole. by the way, I should say, Rob, this isn't even just like people on the dole. I'm saying like people who are not getting money from the campaign, who are just like people on social media with followings, you know, commentators or influencers or whatever, who just get all in to the point that if they're asked any series of questions about Trump, they're going to defend them. And same with Biden. There's people like that. And the thing that really sucks about that is that when it's election time, so many people feel this need to just never say anything that could hurt their candidate, never criticize their candidate. But of course, the problem there, like this major fundamental problem there is that this is the time you should be the hardest on them. This is like the one time where they need something from you, your vote, your support,

your money. This is the one time where they actually like, like, like just for example, right now, the America first side of the Republican base could really put pressure on Donald Trump right now to like assure them that he's really going to govern as an America first president. Think about he came to the Libertarian Party to try to because he needs that demographic. Think about the America first. Right. You're talking about tens of millions of people. They could just say right now, like, no, dude, if you if you're talking about appointing any of these swamp creatures, we will sit this one out. We'll take another four years of Joe Biden if you don't do this. And he would have to at least lie. He'd have to at least pretend to move over in that

direction. It's like you have some leverage right now. The one time a politician needs something from you. They need your vote. They need your money. They need your support. Once they get in there, they don't need anything from you anymore. It doesn't matter how unpopular it is, what they want to do, especially someone like Donald Trump. He doesn't have to worry about reelection ever again. You know, OK, you could argue has to worry about the Congress or something. But, you know, really, he's never as incentivized to listen to what his supporters have to say than an election year. And so, of course, in this time, they're just doing nothing but kissing his ass. Anyway, that was my whole opening rant. I don't know if there's any you want to comment on it at all. I agree 100 percent slam him for Israel and slam him until he agrees

to go ahead and prosecute Fauci. Something, you know, and at least that he's going to put like true outsider America first type people in his cabinet. And don't get me wrong. He said he was going to put a libertarian in his cabinet, and I hope he does. Massey would be a great choice. I'd hate to lose him in the Congress, but Massey would be a great choice. There's lots, and there's lots of great people out there who he could put, um, you know, you name the position and I'll give you like a really good person for it, but that's, you know, okay, we're going to get one, but I understand he's not going to staff his entire cabinet full of libertarians. He's not a libertarian. Okay, fine. But like, at least

the pressure should be that they have to be like real deal outsider America first types, that these are not swamp creatures. Like, and there's no reason, there's no reason to have any of them forget any of those people who tell you like, oh, they're the ones who know the swamp or something like that. That's bullshit. That's just how they trick you into getting John Bolton as your national security advisor. You don't need there's plenty of people who are experts in the way things in D.C. work that aren't swamp creatures that you could get, you know, and Trump.

No, he appointed Colonel Douglas McGregor to be like an advisor at the Defense Department. Like that's no, that's that that's your guy, not just some guy you put as an advisor in the lame duck period. Like that's got to be your secretary of defense. I think that would be one of the most important interview questions to ask of Trump of, hey, last time around, you hired a bunch of establishment insiders and they worked against you and the positions that you were fighting for. What are your plans this time around? Well, you know, but the and the problem with Trump is that, you know, he gives an answer. I've seen him get asked. Maria Maria Bertramo at Fox, She asked him something along those lines. I think I might have mentioned this on the show,

but it was like one of the most human moments I've seen from Donald Trump. Like a moment where he actually admitted some fault, kind of. But then he was just so Trump about it. So he said, you know. We'll have the best people. Yes, yes. So she basically goes, you know,

you said you were going to drain the swamp. And look, the swamp isn't drained. And it's as swampy as ever in D.C. and which was a great question, because like. How can you deny that? How could Trump himself or any Trump supporter deny that? He'd be like, no, totally cleaned up. That's why I just got convicted of 34 felonies. You know what I mean? Like, yes, clearly the swamp still exists and was not drained. And he basically he was like, you know, I'd only been to DC like a few times before I was president.

I didn't really know people here. I didn't know all the guys. I didn't know who to put in all the positions. But then of course he's Trump. So then he goes, now I know all the guys. I probably know him better than anybody else has ever known him in the history of the world. I know who all the guys are. I know, you know, and, and that's just what you're going to get from him. Cause that he only has one speed,

but like, there's never been like a true. And even if you look at say like the, the VP shortlist and some of the people who have been floated out for positions, it's like, oh man, if there's, how is there even talk of Marco Rubio or, um, you know, um, Pompeo or any of these guys. And and there's just too much. There's I'll just say this. Politics, another thing politics does is it tends to have this effect on people because they inherently get desperate. And so they just want to believe their guy's the guy. They just want to make excuses away for all these guys. But if you're just trying to be really sober and analyze things, Donald Trump has sent many, many signals that he hasn't learned anything and very, very few

that he has. He's still talking about buying the FBI a brand new building or whatever. He's bragging about the vaccine still. He's talking about how Europe should kick in more money to Ukraine and then bragging that it was a loan and not a gift. He's, you know, all his only comment on Israel at this point seems to be that like the Democrats who are funding and arming this war aren't funding and arming the war quick enough. And they sent some food to some Palestinians one time. So, ha ha. What a bunch of wusses. It's like this is what we're getting from him. Just look, read the read what he's telling you.

You know, I don't see any reason to think he's like learned a lot. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is ProtonVPN to further protect the journalists, activists and everyday citizens who use ProtonMail, Proton created ProtonVPN. ProtonVPN breaks down the barriers of internet censorship, allowing you to access restricted online content. Proton's secure VPN sends your internet traffic through an encrypted VPN tunnel to keep your browsing data safe, even over public or untrusted internet connections. As a Swiss VPN provider, Proton does not log user activity or share data with third parties. Their anonymous VPN service keeps your browsing history private and enables an internet without surveillance. ProtonVPN is available on all your devices,

including PCs, Macs, smartphones, and even routers. A secure internet connection you can trust is essential to maintaining your privacy on your laptop at home, your mobile device on the road, or your workstation at the office. To check out an exclusive limited time offer, go to protonvpn.com slash Dave Smith. This is a limited time offer, so go check it out today, protonvpn.com slash Dave Smith. All right, let's get back into the show. I will say I did like the thing that he stumbled into the other day. We could transition to that.

This was an interesting campaign pledge from Donald Trump. Let's play that clip. This is the first time I've said this. And for those hotel workers and people that get tips, you're going to be very happy because when I get to office, we are going to not charge taxes on tips, people making tips. We're not going to do it, and we're going to do that right away, first thing in office, because it's been a point of contention for years and years and years. And you do a great job of service. You take care of people. And I think it's going to be something that really is deserved. More

importantly, popular or unpopular. I do some unpopular things, too, if it's right for the country. I do what's right. But so those people that have jobs in restaurants, whatever the job may be, a tipping job, we're not going after for taxes anymore. All right. So there is a Donald Trump. I found this obviously because of who we are. I think this was particularly interesting to us. But I did think this was a strange one. Like, I didn't think I would hear that campaign promise from Donald Trump. I don't even know. Is that even a federal law about what percentage of tips get taxed? I mean, I guess that for federal income taxes, that's a stupid question. But like, I don't know.

Is that he's going to like it's not really something a president could just do. I don't think. Wouldn't that take some type of law from Congress? Anyway, regardless, that's not really the point. Go ahead. Oh, no, I don that's not really the point. Go ahead. Oh, no, I don't want to steal your thunder on why this is so great. So I'll hand it back to you. Well, OK, so this is what I was thinking. I mean, I you know, I'm sorry, I'm in a particularly ranty mood today, so I don't want to go for too long because I do want to get your thoughts on

this. But, you know, Murray Rothbard, who really had more of a, an impact on me probably than any other thinker he, um, in the 1990s, well, I guess it was, yeah, I guess late eighties, nineties, he left the libertarian party and he joined the Republicans and he got, uh, way behind Pat Buchanan in 1992 when he ran for president. And he basically was advocating that libertarians embrace right wing populism. And he kind of drew up a plan for what the what the libertarian who wants to like be a part of this right wing populist movement should be about. And in a lot of ways, I mean, look, it didn't materialize for a number of reasons, but in a way, like there was something really beautiful about what he was trying to do because populism, when you think about it is like

populism is kind of devoid of any type of legal theory, just like, but by definition, it's, that's not what it is in the same way that libertarianism is devoid of any, you know, like comment on many different things, like just as a pure it's a legal theory. And so it's not going to tell you how to treat your wife or what church to go to or anything like that. So populism in the same way is populism is just like. Being fed up with the elites and recognizing that the elites are screwing over the common man and being on the side of the common man. But that doesn't tell you what, you know what I mean? Like whether you should be economically left or right or libertarian or whatever, like it's just, it's just, and so I don't know. I just, as I was watching Donald Trump make this pitch, it's like,

dude, I mean, it's such low hanging fruit for you. Like, yeah, of course, this is popular. Of course, it's popular to let people keep more of their own money. How is this not like a huge part of the the Republican pitch? You know, like how is it not like if you want to have this populist energy, it's like, yeah, OK, you don't want the money going to those elites. You want it staying in the working people's hands. And there's a huge thing that you can offer these guys. The progressives are always pretending that they're scrambling for a plan that's going to help the working class, when meanwhile, there's this huge thing that you can just do for them that's so tangible and immediate. Why not just give it to them?

Anyway, any thoughts on any of that, Rob? It's it's such a fascinating, slippery slope admission from Trump on behalf of the elites of, hey, we can actually let you keep more of your money and we are stealing your money and we're taking it from you. And so the way that the left likes to operate is everyone's got to pay their part and You got to file and you got to do all these things. And then we'll give you plenty of free stuff. You know, we'll cover your health care. Or, you know, if you pay your taxes and you file, if you needed that money more, we'll hand it back to you or we'll exempt you from it. And we'll send you this in the mail. But everyone's got to be in our system.

It comes from us. You all got to hand it over and then we'll decide whether or not you needed that money back in the way of some other social benefit. We'll cover your kids' schooling. We'll cover your this. But everyone's got to pay. This is such a, like, it's almost usually outside of the playbook because they don't want to give you back any control over your life and say, yeah, we are stealing from you. And you know what? You deserve to keep your money.

And this kind of does open up the door to the conversation of, well, why are the tips off the table? Why is that the thing that's not going to be taxed? You know, the same way that you start looking at student loans, you're like, why do these people get free money from the government? Is it just because it's part of your winning coalitions? You're just going to hand them free money? What about all the people that didn't go to school?

They didn't party. They didn't take on this debt. They don't have the opportunities for higher incomes. Why are you not going to give them just why? If you're telling me that the problem is that some people are crippled financially, then why don't we just make that the handout? Let's look at who's in the crippled financially category and help them. So this is usually not something that politicians would ever say.

But as a libertarian, you're like, wait a second. Did a mainstream politician just admit that taxation is theft that you're taking from people? Well, that's right. That way it's a win. And I guess part of it is is exactly what you just said. It's just all this stuff. You know, I think sometimes as libertarians, it's almost like taxation is That's kind of like what the layman knows about libertarians. And almost because of that, sometimes it becomes this kind of, well, that's basic. And we want to talk about something a little more interesting than that, like what's going on today, or there's some conflict or some, you know, dynamic in our culture. But you do kind of forget, or at least it's easy to kind of lose sight of how much that is just such a huge force in our economy and that it's so indefensible on its face. Like it's so, you know, Scott Horton used this like this metaphor, but I always just loved it so much. But his thing was,

if just imagine if the USSR was still a thing and the, the Soviet union invaded America and conquered America. And let's just say we had been a free country up to that point, like no income tax, no central bank or something like that. And they instituted for the first time, we had never had an income tax and they instituted the USS IRS. And this is, you know, we've just been conquered by the communists. And now they set up this new system where it's a crime to be productive and the penalty is a fee. And the more productive you are, the higher your fee is. So it's just like in that scenario, wouldn't we all just see what's going on? It's like,

oh yeah, we've been conquered by a communist enemy. And of course, they want to undermine capitalism. So this is what they're doing. They're making it a crime now to be a productive member of a free market society. And then the better a capitalist you are, the more we're going to fucking find you. But it makes no sense at all in like a professed free capitalist society. It's just ridiculous. And, you know, there's this just this crazy dynamic where politicians are walking around trying to tell people what they can do for them. And this one rarely comes up. Like we could stop enslaving you for a third of your year. Like, isn't that just so obvious that that's the thing to tell them? And so even when you just see it brought up once, it's like, oh, okay. Even if it's just in this one little sector, it's just kind of interesting to stumble into that. And I mean, the message could be enormously popular. I mean, and like this is something that could really carry a ton of votes. Like if you if you made it a real central point in your campaign that you were going to lower people's taxes drastically and they could believe it, you know, like if you were believable and could sell that to them. You can't tell me that wouldn't like carry a ton of voters behind it.

There's still a lot of people who like how would that not how would that not be more important to them? I'm giving you an immediate raise. That's my pitch. You immediately get a raise if I'm if I'm elected. get a raise if I'm elected? You know, like, and why wouldn't the kind of right-wing populist energy want to pick up on that, like, pocket aces that are just laying there that you could play? It's, there really was something in what Rothbard was saying about them needing libertarian theory and us needing, you know, kind of something that can appeal to a mass movement of people

for the right reasons. All right. So what are we? Let's see here. OK, so maybe you want to talk about Alex Jones a little bit, Rob. We're going to say, aj they're uh they're actually cracking down on him so i think there was a 1.2 billion dollar judgment it was for uh claims that he had made that uh sandy hook was a hoax and uh he lost uh lawsuits for you know i guess uh spreading misinformation and defamation i think is what he's yeah and it seemed very unlikely that uh i guess that was actually going to be collected upon or harm him but the uh latest news is i guess he's uh looking into selling off um uh the whatever it is whatever his network is called

uh info wars info wars that he can cover it um i think he was he was like crying on the podcast a few days ago saying they were going to shut him down and i guess um i think he was he was like crying on the podcast a few days ago saying they were going to shut him down and i guess is this what he was referring to on on that that because he like it came out that he has to sell like a few days later i'm not a fan so it's hard to tell with him but seemingly yes it seemed like some type of performance you know what i mean which is he's that kind of guy obviously he's a big performer. But yeah, I wasn't. It seems like this must have been what he was kind of getting at. But I don't know. Just in the context of harms that were put upon us by the covid regime and the misinformation that came from Fauci, the idea that people like you and I could make statements on a show that, you know, listen, he shouldn't have done what he did like it was terrible well that's that's right and if you're the 10 families that had to deal with people

coming into your town and harassing you because they heard something on alex jones show that's terrible but it's not nearly as terrible as people whose kids had learning loss lost their jobs lost family members to drug addiction or cancer because of what we were told over covid so just the idea that this is the worst thing that ever happened to us so that someone can be responsible. One point two billion dollars of damages for statements made on a radio show or podcast is just absurd. Well, right. Look, it's just this is just a matter of being able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Right. So the truth is that, look, Alex Jones has apologized for what he said about Sandy Hook.

And, you know, I think that was warranted. You know, one of the he he went in on and look, I don't know exactly. To be honest, I don't know exactly the extent of how far he went in. I've heard like some of the clips like come up, but he definitely like had guests on and alluded himself many times to it being, you know, an inside job. And it wasn't, it just did like none of it panned out. And ultimately he even had to back off of it and go, yeah, no, that was legit. Like it just, it was a real thing that happened. And Alex Jones has missed on a lot of conspiracy theories before he's hit on a lot of conspiracy theories before.

But one of the things that really separated this one, especially when you got it wrong, is that you weren't like pointing the the focus to the FBI as the bad guys or the CIA is the bad guys or someone in the Senate or someone at Bohemian Grove, like all of his things were always like the powerful were always the targets. But this. It was like, oh, this is just some parent who like lost their kid to this, like someone living the worst nightmare imaginable. And if you made their life a little bit harder, oh, man, that is just feels awful. That being said, there's a real problem from the perspective of anyone who believes in a free society. There's a real problem when defamation can be defined as claiming that something was a false flag by the government. You know what I mean? And like that, if you claim that this thing was a false flag, you are now on the hook for legal action. If you're wrong about that, listen, that again, you can walk and chew gum here. You can feel however you feel about Alex Jones, but you have to admit that's already, you know, that, that uh that doesn't sit well with anyone who believes

in any degree of a free society that you could question that the government was behind something and that could get you there could be legal action over that that's pretty concerning then you have as you pointed out rob the amount of money which was clearly designed not in any type of like. Here's the damages. Here's your compensation. Yes, exactly. This was to ruin a guy clearly. And ultimately, it's culminating in shutting down a voice who's very popular with millions of people. Now, no matter what you think about Alex Jones or what you think about that case,

you might disagree with me on my assessment of his coverage of Sandy Hook, or you might agree with me and then disagree with me on this part. But like either way, don't you kind of have to say if we could be honest enough to say the government targeted somebody that they did not like their message. This was a person speaking to millions of people. And now it seemingly they have effectively shut down his apparatus to do that. Is that not concerning? Is that not something that you just look at on paper and go, no, that's not a good sign for society when you do that? It seems like they found a new way to censor people. And just to speak to two of the things I saw just as most flagrant in the case was one.

They said that having this message being put into the world was harmful to these families as they couldn't heal and move past the incident. And I and I understand if you're grieving off a lost child and then you have people screaming, your child wasn't really dead. I understand why that is upsetting. I'm not downplaying that. But if the issue is that that's being proliferated in the media, so then what about the responsibility for any channel that then repeats that? So if you're CNN and you're getting coverage and call the exact same record going, hey, look, this person saying this horrible thing, and then you're putting the horrible. It's like almost if you and I in a

private conversation and I said something terrible about someone and then you go and tell them i get it i shouldn't have said the terrible thing but sometimes it's worse when you go and tell the guy they didn't even know that it happened yes so it's like it so firstly the idea that there's harm for this being put out into the world and then the people that amplify it they don't have any culpability i think that's bad and then the fact that the the prosecutors were saying or i guess it's not it was a civil case but they were really even talking about the fact like we gotta punish this guy to make sure he can't speak again and they weren't even talking about like speaking about falsehoods they were just talking about we've got to punish this person and censor him out of existence and they were saying

things not in that exact verbiage it's a a year ago, I don't remember, it was two years ago, but they were like saying statements that like that in court. Yeah, right. No, it was, they were very clear about it. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Yo Delta. This is for responsible adults over the age of 21 living in states where Delta 8 is legal. If you want to get some gummies or vapes that will get you high, go to YoDelta.com. This is lab tested quality stuff. It's delivered right to your door. And like I said, in many states, this is legal.

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All right, let's get back into the show. No, but to your, and to your first point there, because I think it's like stated differently. Or I think like this is in line with what you're saying is that, well, what's the standard here? Like, I think that's what you're getting at, too, when you say, well, CNN, if you're broadcasting this, what if to it goes and acts on that in a way that's harassing somebody that now you're responsible for that. Now, I do imagine that Alex Jones, if you took, let's say. Out of his entire audience, this huge audience, out of his entire audience, this huge audience, but you got it. You're thinking about 1% of the audience now say the 1% of Alex Jones audience that skews, that skews the most toward paranoid schizophrenia, the 1% of his audience. That's the most paranoid. You know what I mean? Like people,

that's a, that's a large number of people who, you know, are the type of people who might come up to you and say, like, there's a metal plate in their head that told them to come, you know, like talk to you like you. weird in real life. But we're asking what the standard is here, because if the standard is, if you say something like if I just said there's some person I don't like and then one of my listeners takes it upon themselves to go do something to that person, even again, even though that's not directly what the lawsuit was, that was definitely what was in kind of like the public consciousness about why we're supposed to hate Alex Jones or why it's kind of okay what they're doing to him. And that standard is just ridiculous. And I think your point was pointing out that like, okay, if we held CNN to that standard, they'd all be shut down tomorrow. And not just for the Alex Jones thing, but for a million different things like that, you know, like, and that's that, that just can't

possibly be the standard. Here's a here's a cartoonish example. There was that kid who at one point was going on that birds weren't real. And it was a pretty funny conspiracy theory. Someone interviewed him on the news. Now, imagine if that guy was screaming in an Alex Jones fashion that birds aren't real and their government surveillance tools. And then all of a sudden, CNN, because it caught on on Twitter, they were broadcasting it all day. Look at this ridiculous conspiracy.

These people are telling us that birds aren't real. And then some schizophrenic hears that on the news, finds out about some local guy who's raising pigeons or something else, and goes and harasses him because he goes, you're part of this government PSYOP. You're actually CIA. You're releasing their tools into the air to surveillance all of us and they're harassing him. You're telling me that the original kid that said some stupid shit on the internet's responsible,

like especially you could say something on a street corner to nobody, someone could film it and then it gets amplified and then other people are hearing the amplification and they're responding to that. I'm sure at no point in this lawsuit do they bring in the people that were actually harassing these families and actually validated the fact that it was because of what they heard from Alex Jones now might very well have been, but I'm just willing to bet that that wasn't actually even a part of the court case. Well, and again, though, and, and as you're saying, cause as you're saying it, it's just like, really, if you wanted to, even if they could trace it back to Alex Jones, it's just like what's what exactly is the line between something like that? And I don't know, maybe someone goes and watches Scarface and then goes and kills somebody.

Can you sue everybody involved in the movie? I mean, like what is you know what I mean? Like you can't have this standard that you can't put something out there if you're not explicitly calling for violence or not even implicitly calling for violence. You're not saying do anything to these people. You're just saying, you know, whatever your thoughts are on them. Anyway, it's a look, it's as you said, we all know what's really going on here. And there is something that I do find just kind of like sickening about the people who celebrate it. I think, um, celebrating people getting, uh, de-platformed, getting canceled, getting their voice like, uh,

diminished at all. There's always been something about that, that I've, that I've thought was deeply unsettling. You know what I mean? Like when you see people doing that, it's just like a little bit of like, oh, yeah, you are the type who would just cheer on an authoritarian regime as they did really fucked up shit. I just to me, the left is unprincipled and they don't realize that power mechanisms can be turned against them. So, for example, you know, a lot of them, you take down Trump for stupid horse shit like Stormy Daniels payments. They go, look, we finally got him. They don't care how they got him. They don't care how dirty you had to play to get him. They're like, you finally got him. Or in this case, some people, I guess they don't like that Alex Jones exists in the world. They don't really care how you get him. Yeah, like, good. You finally got him. It's not it's not a

winning strategy because it empowers power structures to, you know, just work against freedom. And you might have the upper hand now, but I mean, it's what the Democrats are screaming about now. I saw a headline just before we started the show of AOC being if Trump gets back in office, he's going to put me in jail. So, you know, like they kind of know, hey, why are we empowering power structures to be able to go after your political opponents? hey, why are we empowering power structures to be able to go after your political opponents? This is the same thing. Do we really want to live in a world where lawyers can make a ton of money going after people for things that they said on radio shows or on the internet or otherwise? You're going to create a bad vehicle for censorship. Yeah, no, 100%. And, you know, def Defamation laws are they're dangerous laws inherently, you know, that and look, I think from a pure libertarian standpoint, you'd say that they shouldn't exist at all, that, you know, people have a right to say what they want to say and if people want to believe them, they can. But even if you're going to argue that like there are certain types of defamation that should be illegal, you should acknowledge that that has to be kept so strict because it's

such a dangerous power to say you lied about me. You know what I mean? Like and therefore, you know, you I can take legal action against you. It's a very dangerous thing because, look, even the act of lying about somebody is, you know, there are certain cases where I suppose you could prove that it was a lie. But the act of lying, even if you're actually doing it, is, you know, like lying isn't illegal. And I think we could all admit that just if lying in general was illegal, that would be a very creepy world to live in. Right. I'll just take a like a softer stance, because I think part of what made the defamation suit so harsh was they're almost treating it like Alex Jones had killed these kids, which he certainly didn't. And these people

clearly had gone through a terrible tragedy. But in establishing the difficulties that they went through and the trauma that they went through, how do you differentiate between having your kid lost from the act of an atrocity of a school shooter versus, you know, statements made online that you are faking it? Clearly, that's not as bad. So I don't know if you have a factory and you're putting out soda and I got a big online presence and I say there's actually I know for a fact that there's poison in there and I ruin your business. There's very clear damages from false information that I put out into the world. And if I had no basis for making that claim other than I wanted to ruin your business, I I've never thought about defamation outside of this conversation, but I can understand why you

might want to police for that. But in the Alex Jones one, the damages are so far, like, how do you quantify that the damages were from what he said, not the actions that people took off of what he said and, and not just trauma related. It's not quantifiable essentially. Yeah. I said, no, that's a very good point. But I just do think in general, look, even, um, even in the examples where someone is really lying, it still is something to kind of criminalize lying. And so I get your point fair enough about like, you know. Really damaging someone's reputation or something where there's a very tangible cost to it. But even if you think that should be illegal, you should recognize that like, that's gotta have serious chains around it.

Like you have to be able to demonstrate the damages. You have to be able to do that. You know what I mean? Like there should be, and the truth is that in most states, defamation cases in the United States are pretty tough, much tougher than in some other countries. But again, this one, it just seemed like, I mean, to go the way it went and with the verdict,

with the judgment as high as it was, was just kind of bananas. Okay. Let's let's see here. Do we want to this video? Let's do the the American College of Pediatricians video. Because this was going quite viral. And we have serious concerns about the physical and mental health effects of the current protocols promoted for the care of children and adolescents in the United States who expressed discomfort with their biological sex. This declaration was authored by the American College of Pediatricians, but really it was developed from the expertise of hundreds of doctors, researchers, and other healthcare workers and leaders who, for years, have been sounding the alarm on the harmful protocols that continue to be promoted by the medical organizations in the United States. Despite recent revelations from the leaked WPATH files and the recent release of the final report

from the CAST review, these medical organizations have not changed course. So we are calling on these medical organizations of the United States, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Endocrine Society, the, the Endocrine Society, the Pediatric Endocrine Society, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry to follow the science

and their European colleagues and immediately stop the promotion of social affirmation, puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries for children and adolescents who experience distress over their biological sex. In our declaration, we affirm that sex is a dimorphic, innate trait defined in relation to an organism's biological role in reproduction, male and female. This genetic signature is present in every nucleated somatic cell in the body and is not altered by drugs or surgical interventions. All right, you can stop it there. We I think you pretty much get it. Anyway, this is it should be noted, as a lot of people were pointing out, that this group is they're known for being like a more conservative group

of doctors. There's a bunch of people out there on the left claiming that they're a hate group. I have not seen evidence of that. It does seem like they err on a more socially conservative side. That being said, it's an organization of pediatricians and and you know what I mean, scientists and people who have degrees in these things and what they're saying right here is, I don't know, purely scientific. And it's it's pretty amazing. First of all, it's just obviously basic morality or common sense could have gotten you to this place many years ago, as it did for many of us. But I don't know. It's just funny to listen to them say this and then hear, you know, people on the left online being like, this is just a hate group of doctors. They're hateful pediatricians in this group. Like, OK, seems pretty scientific to me. Yeah, there's a real problem with the trans stuff that and I don't think it's outside of government or lobbying influence.

But once it gets the stamp of approval from whatever government agency is being considered health care, then it then every time there's a lawsuit, they go, well, this is acknowledged health care. So I think it's very interesting that out in England, I think they recently banned this or said that they were no longer recommending it. Well, this is the point that she made, which I thought was a very good point, is that this what's it called? The Cass Review is this study that they did out in England that basically determined like that all this stuff is really bad for kids. And so they stopped. basically determined like that all this stuff is really bad for kids and so they stopped and the point she was making is that we can look at this cast review too but like they're not stopping here so like why are we like why if we have this same information they have and they're stopping why are we not stopping and that's why she was calling on the AMA and them to like come out and like, come on, like just acknowledge this is how do you even call yourself medicine?

And you're supporting this. But I don't know. Any other thoughts on this, Rob? I just think it's going to be long term tough to have government institutions that continue to endorse this. And my guess is that there will be some sort of liability down the line for a hardship done to kids that were transitioned at younger ages. That my guess is, unless the science gets better in terms of being able to transition people without harm down the road, I think for kids, this is going to actually fade away. Well, I hope you're right about that. It's still pretty sick that we experimented on a whole bunch of them. And you'd want to see it end as quickly as possible. But dear God, this I don't know what to say. It's just it's a weird thing to even hear scientists at this day and time come out and give like a scientific reason for why this just

doesn't make sense. Like, yeah, no kidding. Couldn't anybody just eyeball this and be like, I mean, at the very least, just go, no, no, no, no, no, no, not with young kids. Like what? Like how, you know, it's just, and I know that was a line for a lot of people. I know a lot of people did wake up to stuff at that line, but it's just crazy that that wasn't unanimous, that everyone wasn't just like, oh, no, no, no, no. Don't start talking to like eight year olds about gender. Not just not unanimous, but talk of taking parents away from parents. I mean, talk of taking kids away from parents that won't gender affirm them on the basis that perhaps that's child abuse. Yeah, that's child abuse, right. That you won't get them the necessary health care they need for their known medical condition.

It really is, really is something. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Babbel. This summer, you can start speaking a new language with Babbel. Why Babbel? Because it works. Instead of paying hundreds of dollars for a private tutor or fooling yourself with language apps that are little more than games, Babbel's quick 10-minute lessons are designed by over 150 language experts to help you start

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your Babbel subscription, but only for our listeners at babbel.com slash problem. That's B-A-B-B-E-L.com slash problem for 55% off your subscription. Rules and restrictions may apply. All right, let's get back into the show. All right, we got a few minutes left here. So why don't we, you know what, we'll do this and then we'll talk stuff about the wars on the next episode. But why don't we, just because we were planning on playing this the other day, but I still am getting a ton of heat off of this Chris Cuomo debate. I mean, I was upset with CDC when I left

because they stopped tracking people that were infected that were previously vaccinated. So if you didn't track it, well, because then you couldn't report that there were people vaccinated that got infected but no wait why did they stop tracking it but i think there was a decision not to do anything that made the vaccine sound like it didn't work you know i've always tried to be honest let's just pause it right there that really is is. I got it. I agree with you, Rob. It's a it's an endearing but unbelievably naive response from Cuomo.

as he sits there and goes imagine all these years later you haven't put the pieces of the puzzle together as the head of the cdc is telling you by the way it's a stunning admission that the whole biggest argument that they have that that's been thrown at you is bullshit because they stopped counting the vaccinated who were getting sick because they didn't want they didn't want the vaccine to look like it wasn't working they did everything they could to obscure the data set, including with covid dying from covid. Unknown vaccine status is considered not vaccinated the way that they within the first 14 days of you being vaccinated. You weren't considered vaccinated. So if you drop dead after getting the vaccine. Oh, well, you were you weren't vaccinated as far as the law is concerned. That's just another unvaccinated death on our hands.

And then what they pulled with the childhood vaccine study where they ended up doing like three shots, I think by the end of it, like there were 14 people left in the study group or something. It was something real screwy like that. Oh, and then they did that even with the initial batch of people that they got vaccinated. From what I remember, this is all so long ago. They got rid of the files that they wouldn't be tracking those individuals like the of people that they got vaccinated, from what I remember, this is all so long ago, they got rid of the files so that they wouldn't be tracking those individuals. Like the original ones that they vaccinated, they like, no, no, no, they vax, that's not what they did. I'm sorry. I now remember. They vaccinated the control group because they said it would be immoral to have them unvaccinated, which meant that there was

no longer an ongoing study. Right, right, right. I'm vaguely remembering this. Well, yeah, I mean, look, but just imagine, right? Imagine being here in 2024. And when the head of the CDC goes, oh, yeah, they were like cooking the books like so that they wouldn't count the people who were unvaccinated or the people who were vaccinated but were sick. And imagine being Cuomo. Imagine how preciously innocent you would have to go. But why? Why would they do that? You know what I mean? Like, what do you mean? Why? What do you mean? Why? Because they were trying to sell this vaccine because the entire propaganda apparatus was was solely laser focused on one thing in 2021 and 2022. And that was getting this needle

in as many people's arms as they could. And so, yeah, they cooked the books. And all of those people, by the way, even without this admission, we've been saying this the whole time, because as soon as you just know a few things like that they counted unverified people as unvaccinated. So if they didn't determine your vaccine status, which happens all the time, then that you were

automatically counted in the unvaccinated group. And right away you were like, oh, OK, well, then we don't have good data here. And then the two week thing, as you mentioned, and there were several other problems with the PCR test being screwy yeah even validating that someone you know the whole thing was messed up so but for all those people out there who you're sharing these graphs as so many people love to of the amount of people dying and it was the vaccinated who weren't or were all the way down here and the unvaccinated all the way up here all the all those numbers are bullshit like you're just not working with real data. You don't know. And as the former head of the CDC here admitted in, or you know what, actually we haven't come up to that part yet. Here, let's play the rest of it. There was some major mistakes in the vaccines. They should have

never been mandated. I also felt that people should have been more honest about the fact that there were side effects to those vaccines and some people were actually harmed. The other thing I thought there should be, you know, more honesty about the fact that the vaccines don't protect against infection. I remember Biden saying, you know, this is a epidemic of the unvaccinated. When I was Hogan's chief public health advisor in Maryland after I left CDC, I was saying, wait a minute, two thirds of the people that I'm seeing infected in Maryland have been vaccinated. I mean, the president of the United States said it. Biden said this was

an epidemic of the unvaccinated. Tony wasn't aggressive in putting this in perspective. The CDC didn't put it in perspective. The reality is this vaccine, listen, it's a short duration in which this vaccine provides some efficacy, maybe four to six months max. You know, if you came down and visited me and interviewed my patients, you know, you'd interview patient after patient after patient that did not have COVID. But are very sick, you would say very sick, long COVID patients, and it's all from from the vaccine. Now, what is it, Chris? Well, it's the spike protein is immunotoxic. All right. When you get infected, it's immunotoxic.

But when you give the vaccine, we make the spike protein. Now, this is my opinion. OK, when I give you an mRNA vaccine. Which I helped develop and I've given to a lot of patients and I've taken it myself multiple times. I don't know how much spike protein you make. Right. Because I give you mRNA and then your body goes, makes it. Right. So you may eat a little, you may make a lot. You may make it for a week.

You may make it for a month. I'm now more of the point of view, and I wish the country would switch more rapidly. I'm more of the point of view. And in my clinical practice, I use the protein vaccine. So I know exactly how much spike protein you get. Your body's not becoming a manufacturing plant, okay? I give you a certain amount of spike protein that's not able to replicate, not able to reproduce itself, and I know the decay curve in the human body. And that's the vaccine I use now. It's made by Novavax.

I think it's, in my view, it doesn't have all the nuances that we don't understand about those individuals that get, seems to get, looks like there's prolonged production or impact or negative consequence from spike protein in some people that get the mrna vaccine it's still rare but it's real all right so that is uh by the way i

forgot his name but it's direct uh former cdc director robert redfield um and look it's a it's it's years later and i think we all know a lot of this stuff, but it's a pretty stunning admission. And it is kind of still, even after my debate with him, it's still pretty great to see someone say this to Chris Cuomo's face, seeing as how he was the main guy in the media selling this stuff. But if you think about this admission here, that they cooked the books on the first part is that they cooked the books on the vaccine. And then the part is that people really are getting injured by this thing and they mandated it. It's just like how horrible that is and what a stunning image. It's crazy. An admission like this doesn't come with like shock waves throughout the entire system. You know what I mean? And again, he says at the end that

it's rare. And I think there's probably no doubt about that, that it's rare. There's billions of people I think have taken this jab. And so obviously it's rare, but when you're dealing in numbers that large, even rare is a whole lot of people who are going to get hurt. And then of course, as we've been saying, I don't know, Rob, but this is the thing we've been saying for years about it, right? Is that, look, even if it's a rare chance that you're going to get injured from the COVID vax, is depending on the demographic you're in, or I should say not depending on the demographic you're

in. It's also rare that if you get COVID, you're going to get very sick or die. That's also rare in every demographic. And then depending on which one, it might be very, very, very rare. And if you're in that demographic, now the question becomes, but wait a minute, I have a very, very very very rare chance of something really bad with covet happening and you're telling me i have a very rare chance of something with the vaccine happening well how rare is that chance compared to this chance and then oh by the way you're saying you're saying the vaccine maybe protects me for a couple of months so i'm taking this rare chance just to not get covet in the next couple months for a whole bunch of people. Your mic's out. But for a whole bunch of people, that is just

that tradeoff is not worth it. Yeah. And remember that people that got vaccinated were sick for two days. Right. Not even like you were free from getting sick. You were you were. No, you were going to get what might have been five days of illness and doing two days of illness. Yeah. Oh, that's right. And so anyway, just to have the former head of the CDC, like pretty blatantly admit all this stuff. I don't know. It's pretty interesting. And of course, you can kind of just I don't know, you can kind of just feel when someone's being honest and you're like, oh, yeah, he's telling us a little bit of the truth about this. And by the way, and if Cuomo had an honest job when he was back at cnn he could have

had this conversation three years ago he could have gone hey that's interesting why is the head of the cdc leaving in the middle of a health crisis and it's because he disagrees with this fauci fellow that seems like a real interesting news topic and it wasn't even like um you know there's so many uh like these these kind of like debate shows have really blown up and so there's so many of those and like probably pierce morgan is probably one of like the biggest one and however you feel about you know obviously a lot of the pierce morgan shows he puts on a show that's his thing that's kind of what he's an expert in is putting on the show that people want to see. But like, you'll see everybody on every side of the issue on that show. But all through the pandemic,

the corporate press, they never allowed these people to have like a real seat at the table or like really come in and like, we're going to have you debate someone defending Fauci here. And like, we're going to hash this out. And they just never even did it. Never through the entire pandemic did they ever once go like, oh, that would probably be worthwhile. Isn't it crazy how quickly the Internet figured out that that would be worthwhile to have people like sit down and debate these issues? And the corporate media just like never does. And if they do, you know, it's a five minute debate who can, you know, fit the best talking points into a little segment before, you know, the next Pfizer commercial or whatever. But it it's it's just. It's wild that none of them, even after like the Great Barrington Declaration, even after like things like that, it just didn't even ever it was never treated like, oh, okay, there are experts who

are against this whole thing. We should hear from them. We shouldn't all just be lockstep with these guys. That lets you know what the, what was really going on. But I will say after this clip, I kind of genuinely believe Chris Cuomo didn't know that it was really going on. So there's that. All right. We're going to wrap up there. Thank you everybody for listening. Of course, come on out and see us in Vegas next week, comicdavesmith.com for those tickets and go see Rob all over the country with a summer porch tour, porchtour.com. Check out Run Your Mouth, Rob's other podcast. It's excellent. All right. Peace.