Part Of The Problem - The Best the Dems Have

Episode Date: October 22, 2025

Dave Smith brings you the latest in politics! On this episode of Part Of The Problem, Dave is joined by co-host Robbie "The Fire" Bernstein to discuss Jon Stewart's discussion with Bernie Sanders about the issues with the healthcare system, Trump's conflict with "narcoterrorism" in Venezuela, and more.Preorder Lauren’s book here: https://a.co/d/67djjBpSupport Our Sponsors:Live Better Longer with BUBS Naturals. For A limited time get 20% Off your entire order with code PROBLEM at Bubsnaturals.comMonetary Metals - https://www.monetary-metals.com/potp/CrowdHealth - https://www.joincrowdhealth.com/promos/potpRidge - https://ridge.com/potp10Part 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 thank you for joining us of course i'm dave smith and of course he is robbie the fire bernstein how are you feeling today sir i'm doing well how are you my friend i'm doing well very well and in fact i'm i'm very excited uh to make an announcement at the at the top of the show today a product I want to tell you guys about that's probably the most excited I've been to tell you about something because it has to do with my wife

who is my favorite person Robbie the Fire Bernstein has always been a close second but she's still up there as number one my amazing wife who you know for we're coming up on a wedding anniversary here and she's been

just like the most incredible person I've ever met has really made my life a million times better and has been very busy in the business of being a full-time mom for many years. But now that my kids are a little bit older, she just ventured into her first project in a little while. And I couldn't be more proud of it. My wife wrote a children's book, which is amazing.

It's called Healthy Hibernation. It's all about just like, it's basically just a story about kids eating healthy and try to start conversations about being healthy with young families. It's very much, you know, when I had Nicole Shanahan on the show, one of the things we talked about was how parents of our generation are in many ways dealing with this battle, like kind of the first generations of parents who are really aware about healthy eating and are aware of how much you kind of have to guard against. And, you know, every time you go to the supermarket, it's just kind of like a million different poisons and, you know, bright color. all coming at you. So, anyway, I just thought this was such a great idea. She teamed up with an incredible artist to do it.

The story is, it's so sweet and cute and funny. It's just so great. It's available for pre-sale now. Again, it's called Healthy Hibernation. You can get it at, it's available for presale at Amazon right now. And then, of course, you can also grab it at baby, excuse me, at bookbaby.com. I will put a link for the pre-sale in the episode description today. Really, really excited about this.

young kids or if you got nieces and nephews or cousins or maybe just a grown up who's really slow in your life any of those please go supported if you can and if you order you will have it it'll be available with time for for the holidays and all that so very excited to announce that right up top is there a kid in the book that uh overeats and then feels like he's going to die so he decides to have another cup of coffee to see if that will even it out and then he feels anxious so he goes back to eating oh uncle rob he'll be in the sequel Uncle Rob will be in the sequel for sure. We weren't able to work him into this one.

And we tried and we tried. That's a noble topic. I'm excited to pick that up. Give it to one of my nieces and nephews. Absolutely. You know what, Rob? I got the hookup. I think I can arrange a copy for your niece and nephews.

There you go. Even better. I just suckered my way out of having to buy gifts. Oh, there you go. Hey, you know, your mic just started doing the chopping thing again. Checking the mic. Is it still chops in the app? Sounds good now.

Excellent. And if you want less noble... And Rob's got gigs. If you want less noble information this weekend out in California in Santa Monica and Aguanga, which is right outside of San Diego, and then next week I'm doing a run in New York City at Pub Key, which is a cool bar, then going up to Boston, New Hampshire, and Providence, Rhode Island. Go to port store.com for all those dates. Not that it's devastating, but I do still hear the clicking going.

So let's just, eh, let's see how that goes. I can swap microphones if it's continuing. I can hear you. Can you guys hear me? Yep. Sounds great. Seems to be all solved. All right.

I'll just follow the mic. No biggie. All right. Let's edit back in on this, actually. Good timing because I just remembered something. Oh, and I should be promoting, which I have not been. And that's my fault. I'll make sure to blast this all over social media.

But Natalie has been doing a great job with the part of the problem clips channel. It's at part of the problem clips on YouTube. and I just saw the other there's like a few of the videos who are getting like you know going a little bit viral there so that's good so you know there is a clips channel that is run by us and by us I mean Natalie but that's part of us and so go make sure if you can if you want to help out the show subscribe you know share like comment all that stuff on that one too because just the more you know that's it's just good to have more content out there plus the clips channel you know we'll have some clips of the members only episodes and that's like the only way to get those clips if you're not a subscriber so if you want to go uh help support the show that's just one more way to do it uh go support our clips channel all right so i just got done um i just did another pierce morgan debate with this guy i can't remember his name but he's official uh it was some type of work for the israeli government for so many years rub i don't know why they keep doing it oh going on it's insane dude it's insane like it's like the fit i don't know

it's like the 50th millionth one of them and it just comes to me with the same Same goddamn thing. I mean, dude, go watch this for yourself. I'm not like, it's like, again, this is like no comment on me whatsoever. It's just how bad they are at it. But it just feels like almost like, you remember like when at the end, Neo just starts fighting him with one arm and he's just like, oh, yeah, this is. He was like saying shit to be like all the thing like, I don't know.

He goes, he goes, the IDF is the most moral army in the world. And I was like, dude, they just said that. They just said that Hamas was slow rolling the remains of dead hostages, so they cut off aid to the entire civilian population over an accusation of dead remains. And he goes, we are the most moral army in the world. And I was like, what about the starving innocent civilians part? Like, they're just like that. Anyway, it's straight up when I, that used to be in Israel in like those old gift shops,

and be like, see, you'll take it for $5. And like, I'll take it for one. And they go, great. So you'll take it for five. And that's what they're doing to you. They just keep coming at you with this same thing until you finally like, all right. I guess you guys are great. All right, guys.

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No, anyway, it was just, you know, I said at one point, like, he was just spewing this nonsense. And then at one point, I was just like, Pierce, like, this is what? You see that poll where before October 7th, American sympathized with Israel plus 48, and today, it's plus one Palestinians. When he ever seen a 50-point drop-off in a poll like that, you know? And I was like, and this is why? Because this is just nonsense. And then at one point, he's just going back and he starts making his propaganda. And at one point, Pierce just goes, oh, but like, he.

just said something like too ridiculous and i was just like 48 to one pierce 48 to what like this is why i don't know anyway it is look in this fascinating political moment that we're living in where there's all types of massive realignments happening and all types of paradigms being shattered i did um i saw this a bit of this interview which i i bet some of you guys have seen and there was a that really just, I don't know, it was just something that I thought me and you would have a lot of fun talking about. And the reason why I put this as our number one story is because, you know, look, this is a conversation between John Stewart and Bernie Sanders. And as strange as this might sound, I really think that when you look at John Stewart and Bernie Sanders, as of right now,

you're looking at the two most influential Democrats, essentially. Like, I don't, I don't think there is, there's really anyone else almost with the energy. I mean, like, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying either of them could run for president and win, but Bernie obviously did run for president and was a force to be reckoned with both times. And John Stewart is someone who a lot of people have at least been saying they would want to tag in or whatever. And it does just seem that, you know, with the, with the total discredit, you know,

you know, with the discrediting of the establishment Democrats, these are almost the two figures who remain standing. And so it's kind of interesting to see where they are. You know, you've got this party, the Democratic Party is like in a very interesting situation right now. I mean, they absolutely and utterly blew every major crises and every major pivotal moment in American history over the last, you know, 15, years or so, just, they've got, they were so in control, Rob, as you remember, but were so cartoonishly stupid and evil that they just lost everything. And they are now sitting in just like, as a,

collectively as a party in a pit of despair with, you know, their approval ratings in the, in the basement. And so, but also we're in this crazy real lining political moment with a new decentralized media landscape and all of this so you just wonder like what could rise out of these ashes and it's it seems to me to be an interesting kind of indication to see where john stewart and bernie sanders are at if that makes sense uh i love the clip so i'm going to reserve my comments okay so let's get it so here is god this is just i don't know why this is like um catnip to a couple of libertarian autists like me and you but there's this is them talking and like It's so funny because it's almost like they're trying to deal with the new political paradigm by in some way, you know, I think it's reasonable to say like re-evaluating what the Democratic political, and then they just come out with the same old tired, boring nonsense.

But let's, here, let's play the clip in its entire day. And then me and Rob are going to respond. But again, this gets to the Democratic solutions have never been to directly provides. It's always been a subsidy to a middleman. But what happens is when the government promises endless funds to insurance companies or private universities without any cost controls. And Trump seems to understand this. prices rise far beyond the rate of inflation and we've seen it in tuition and we've seen it in pharmaceutical and we've seen it in in health care so my question

is will Democrats recognize the poison pill that they've often placed into well-intentioned policy right right what they end up doing is coming up with very complicated proposals you make forty eight thousand nine hundred and sixty four dollars Yes. You will get this thing. You make a dollar more. You're finished and blah, blah, blah, blah. Look, we have got to make it simple. In the wealthiest country in the history of the world, should health care be a human right?

Yes, it should be. Should we have the best quality education in the world from child care to graduate school? Yes, we should. Right, but these are... How do you... Let's get there. All right, then the question is...

All right, these are... I'm writing this down, Sanders. All right. The Republicans... Well, you're getting violent here, you know. I get excited when you're around. Man, that got Jewish. All right, I don't know why I just find this so fascinating. And let's just, I guess, Rob, the first thing here, because there's a lot there, but is to just, like, Bernie Sanders.

It's so funny to watch John Stewart, like, it's like, oh, are liberals allowed to discuss this now? Hmm. Good point, John Stewart. I've never noticed this phenomenon before, but now that you mention it, it does seem like health insurance and college and housing and energy are going up faster than the rate of inflation. And gee whiz, they seem to be all the areas that government hyperregulates. That is a really good point. I wish there had been some group of people out there who had pointed out that when the government floods more, money into a sector, things get more expensive. When the government adds more of a regulatory burden, things get more expensive. Okay, I wish if only there had been a group of Americans who were pointing that out for all of the years that you've made these things so much more expensive

and supported all the policies that have made these things more expensive. You know, I thought, anyway. But then what does Bernie Sanders take away from this, Rob? I mean, that's just got to be my first go-to. And then we could break down kind of the John Stewart thing, because I think there's a lot there. And I want to get your perspective on that. But like the thing at the end where you just go, well, here's the answer.

Health care is a right. So what does it even mean when he says it's right? Everyone should have it. And then he goes, in the United States of America, we should have the best quality education. Oh, okay. I was for the worst quality. But now that you said the best quality, you're like, that really is a much better plan than the worst quality. Like, who isn't for the best quality?

The whole, it's always like these socialists, like, act like that wins the debate. Everyone's for the best quality. The question is, why should we believe that your government provided anything is going to be the best quality? Like, and then, oh, that's a much tougher conversation for you to have now, isn't it? But isn't it just, it's such an unbelievable, like, such an ignoramus thing to say that gets applaud? from a crowd to go, here's my position. Everyone should have it. It should be free, and it should be amazing.

Wow. What a leader I am, Rob. And we have to simplify it. Oh, yeah. Simple. Also simple. And great. Did I mention it will be great?

I mean, to boil it down, it's John going, hey, we got a problem that when government spends money on something, it seems to just get more expensive. and it doesn't actually become free and more accessible for people. And then Bernie Sanders going, well, we have to make sure everyone has it and that we can simplify how they get it, which would equate to we'll spend more money on it, which would bring you to the exact same point of, well, aren't the cost then going to go up? Every level of this is remarkably stupid.

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can get 10% off at Ridge by using the promo code P-O-T-P-10 at checkout. Just head to ridge.com, and remember the promo code is P-O-T-P-10 for 10% off. After your purchase, they will ask where you heard about them. Please make sure to support the show and let them know that you heard of them at part of the problem.com. Ridge.com promo code POTP 10 for 10% off. All right, let's get back into the show. All right. We had a little bit of technical problems there and Rob will try to jump back on. But let's get back into the topic here. So the thing that that jumps out at me is a few things there, right? Number one, you see that John Stewart and Bernie Sanders are both saying here that, well, look, the problem essentially is, or at least John Stewart's saying

this, and then Bernie Sanders is saying, yep, and that's why socialism is the answer. Well, so what they're saying is that when you have these government programs where government like subsidizes industries, it pumps a bunch of money into the industries, but you don't cap costs, then you end up just driving the price up. And so this ends up, you know, essentially not working and giving us what we have today. And he mentions a bunch of things like pharmaceutical drugs and health insurance and education and stuff like this. And this is why the prices are so expensive.

Now, the first thing that jumps out at me here is that, well, why have all of you guys always been supporting these policies as better than not? Right? Because it was always like everybody in the socialist Bernie Sanders world would always kind of say that Obamacare was good, like Bernie Sanders would vote for Obamacare, but then say he still wants Medicare for all, like he still wants to take it a step further. But why even do the first step if the first step

is, you acknowledge, is driving prices up? I mean, this is the whole issue, right? Like, this is what they kind of, look, we don't really, in America, I mean, it kind of depends where you are, but we really don't have a major problem with, say, like, the quality of health care. Now, we do have a major problem with the quality of government education, but there's actually very good private education. It just costs a lot. Now, when I say we don't really have a problem with the health care, I just mean that, like, we have clean pharmaceutical drugs,

we have clean equipment, we have doctors with knowledge, we have, it's not, now you may go to an urgent care or a hospital that's nicer or less nice than another one, but most of the times, the mass problem in America with, say, health care isn't actually the health care itself. It's the prices of everything. That's the major problem. The major problem in America is that if you don't have insurance, you can go bankrupt because you get hit by a car or because you get cancer. That's the major problem. And the major problem with health insurance is that the insurance is so expensive and it's not very good coverage. The major problem with getting your kids good private education is that it's very expensive. The major problem with pharmaceutical

drugs is that they're expensive. Now, I'm not saying there's not other problems. But this is the major one, and this is the one that they're talking about here, okay? The major problem with college is that it's so goddamn expensive. And so, well, once you acknowledge that kind of this government intervention is what does lead to prices rising, then, you know, the next question might be, oh, has that created the whole problem in the first place? because all of the industries that you're talking about are areas where the government has intervened quite a bit. It's like very, very involved. And even before Obamacare,

the government was incredibly involved in health care in the country. Obviously, we had Medicare and Medicaid for many, many years. There has been all types of different, you know, state health care plans and things like that. So there's been a lot of government intervention in health care. There was more under Obamacare that, you know, there was a lot of intervention in the college, there was just more once the government started giving out the loans themselves. But so if the problem is that the prices of all of these things

are just too out of reach and that they bankrupt people, as is certainly the case with the price and with the price of college, then you might ask yourself like, oh, was it the intervention that caused that to begin with? Maybe if we weren't even intervening, this wouldn't even be an issue that we're discussing. Again, when things are, if you, if you, if you, take things like, you know, I use the example, like shoes or televisions or just lots of things that we have around us all the time. The government doesn't provide them. The government doesn't subsidize them and never ever complain that there should be a government program to provide any of them because they're just kind of reasonably priced. People aren't going bankrupt for them. And a lot of

times I think there is this thing that, well, I think it's a little bit infantile, as I pointed out many times before. There's something about socialism that's very infantile to feel like as an adult that you shouldn't have to pay your own way through the world. Now, it's easier to feel that way when, you know, if you go, and I don't know the price, it's been a few years now since I've had my wife's delivered a baby for me. I was going to say since I've delivered a baby, but I guess technically I've never done that, but I've been a partner in them. But it was like something like $30,000, I think, is what the hospital bill came out to be. And it's about, so it's about 30 grand to have a kid. Now insurance, you know, it takes care a lot of that and then depending

on your insurance, you owe what you owe. But it's probably, you know, the prices, there's been a lot of inflation. It's probably more expensive than that these days. But so like, just for example, right, if I think for the average person, like just saying, I don't, I don't, I'm just pulling out numbers just to paint a picture. But like if you were to say there's like a young couple and they're having their first kid and they're real excited and they said to them like, okay, well, you're going to be in hospital for, you know, three days and you're going to use all these services and it's going to cost you like 300 bucks a night that you're here.

I don't think anyone, even like left wing people who just aren't infantile, would go, that's outrageous. It should be free. Because, like, just thinking about, like, nothing should be free. And this is the problem with Bernie Sanders saying things like health care is a right. You should have the best quality. It's like, look, this is, oh, hey, how we doing? Well, we'll find out.

Oh, it's still clicking. But you know what, let's just, let's just power through it. People said it wasn't that bad. Let's just power through it. So I'll just say, I was just saying that, look, essentially one of the problems with saying that health care is a right or we should just have the best quality. it's this infantile idea that resources ought to be provided for you when like no i mean it takes work to provide those resources a doctor had to go to years of medical school and he has to get up and work every day a nurse had to go to years of nursing school she has to get up and work every day

people had to make the medical machinery uh construction workers had to build the new wing on the hospital there's all there's a janitor who's got to clean the floor like all of those people aren't supposed to just work for you and then you don't contribute anything. But the issue is, if it were 300 bucks a night to go to the hospital, it'd be very easy to go, hey, you know, well, yeah, you got to pay. The thing is when it's $30,000, it's very easy for people to go, this is crazy, this is unfair. This is just we need to have some other system that works here, understandably, because the prices are out of whack. But if John Stewart has already admitted that, well, these democratic interventionists, short of socialist but interventionist policies cause the prices to rise, maybe that's the whole

problem in the first place. Maybe the first thing you should do is get rid of all those policies which both you and Bernie Sanders have been supporting. And you might say you always wanted to go further, but you both still supported Obamacare. So what did you support? You supported a program that made this exact problem worse. And so it's just, you know, to sit here and say, say, oh, well, the answer is that the government did all of this, but then didn't have price controls also, well, where, where are we getting that price controls are the solution? You know what I'm saying? Like, since when does any self-respecting economist tell you that that's the way that you

reign in inflation with price controls or essentially what Bernie Sanders is advocating for, just pure socialism, the thing that always works out the worst? It's like maybe I just, it seems to me that there seems to be an interesting admission there that while they're both still advocating for socialism, with nothing other than just the assertion that that means it's a right and it's free and it's the best quality, which maybe you should have to explain why Cuba and North Korea and the Soviet Union didn't have the best quality or go look at just any example of government provided anything and say why we must assume this is that. But it seems like there'd be an admission in there that you'd still be saying

free market economics is preferable to democratic interventionism, which just drives up prices, which we all know is the main problem. That's the main problem, is that these things are way too expensive for regular people to afford. So these are the two democratic stars and they can't even think through the issues that are their issues that are their signature issues i can as apologies for any clicking i can put it in simple terms if you create price controls you will have less of it if you make money available for it it will only be more expensive yeah now this one i don't know with that as much certainty but i believe to be true if you make money available for something and then trying to do price controls to offset the money that you made available for it

you're just going to create more profiting in the grifts of well what cannot what is the thing that government gives me money for that has less price controls and you'll end up with more of that because that's what people want to do to make money and you're going to end up with less overall care the only thing you can do is let the free market run its magic and that's how you bring down prices uh force competition have innovation that's how you fix the thing anything else you're just getting more of this shenanigans yeah no i mean that's that's right and then I think at the, you know, at the core of all of this is that it's like, you have this idea. So Bernie Sanders, like, look, you've come to the idea, like, I guess at least kind of has

maybe not articulated it as well as you have, but John Stewart has kind of come to accept part of what the economic laws of reality that you just laid out. Like, he understands that this intervening without the price controls drives the prices of things up. But then, you know, it's like as they're saying that they're, you know, well, the answer here is just socializing it. It's like, it does, I do wonder how people in current day United States of America go like, you're just like, how much bigger do you think this government can get? Like, forget, forget even like you want it to be. How much bigger than the current government do you think we can get?

I mean, we are, look, there's no. getting around look maybe bernie sanders would would in some sense he would say he's for cuts in like the pentagon budget although i don't know i think he's got a pretty long career of like voting for every spending bill he's not like ron paul or something who was like voting against all the spending bills he's voting for him and so what how serious like has bernan senators ever proposed like major cuts in the pentagon budget i doubt they would be too drastic but let's even say he was willing to cut like three or four hundred billion dollars in the pentagon budget i mean he's talking about a medicare for all plan you're talking about we right now give medicare to americans 65 and

older you're going to extend that all the way i mean medicare i believe is the biggest aside from i believe the interest on the debt i believe it's the biggest budget uh item but it's the entitlements i mean medicare social security medicaid so you're going to extent instead of 65 and up, you're going to extend that to everyone. I mean, okay, this is going to mean a drastic increase in government spending total. There's no way to get around that. And then, you know, now that we live in this world, Rob, where interest on the debt is actually overtaking the budget, that that number is just going up now because we're spending way more, so our debt's just going to go up way more, unless we just print all the money, in which case,

you know, you have problems. And so, in fact, the exact problem that John Stewart is talking about in rising prices. And so you go, okay, this is your plan now is to take the biggest government in the history of the world and drastically increase it. So what are you going to do in order to do that? You're either going to tax people, you're just going to blow up the debt even more, or you're going to print all of the money. You're right back into this situation where you have to punish those people you're trying to help. Whereas the other answer is just don't do the liberal interventionist thing that drives up the prices. to begin with, you know, just let, just stop distorting all of these prices and let markets work

and let people find health care alternatives. That's just, you know, it's, it's such a shame that this is like seemingly all the fresh energy that the Democrats have. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is crowd health, a great company. I've been telling you about for many years, a great alternative to the broken health insurance system. Now, you can get healthcare for under $100. You've heard me talk about crowd health before, and I want to tell you about something they've just introduced, the Black Swan membership. It's the healthcare alternative for people who want autonomy over their care, their costs,

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three months. Just go to join crowdhealth.com and use the promo code POTP for $80 a month for the first three months. Crowd health is not insurance. Opt out. Take your power back. This is how we win. All right. Let's get back into the show. Anyway, sorry, go ahead. Well, it's also just amazing how close John Stewart is to having a damning question and how easily he lets Bernie Sanders off the hook. Yep. Yep. No, that's absolutely right. All right. Let's Let's switch gears here a little bit because I do, you know, this is going to end up being a little bit shorter of an episode, but I apologize. We'll go a little bit longer tomorrow. But so we really should talk about Venezuela a little bit because we really haven't been covering this.

And it does seem like while there's just been, you know, there's been so much news on the Israel-Gaza front with the ceasefire. then the ceasefire breaking down. There's just so many other things going on that it does seem like it has not been getting the attention widely in the media that it deserves, that we seem to be closer to a regime-change war, certainly than we've been since we were bombing around, but it seems that there are some real signals

that we're closer to a regime-change operation of some sorts in Venezuela than we've ever been in you know in the tensions leading up you know for the past few years with this government in Venezuela uh Donald Trump has ordered um like CIA strikes and military activity uh or i should say he's green lit these activities uh they've stepped up these these um things where they're blowing up uh boats and then just telling us that they got bad Venezuelan drug dealers um this is again it all seems like complete madness and it i don't know what can you say i mean it's like the the level of addiction to war that the u.s government has is it is just crazy like you know we

for the last few years right like we we ended the war in afghanistan the longest war in american history a 20 year catastrophic failed regime change against the taliban Like, just imagine the most powerful country in the history of the world. With all the lessons from history about occupying Afghanistan available to them, decided to occupy Afghanistan for 20 years to overthrow the Taliban and failed to do it. We came out of it down a couple trillion dollars, a few hundred thousand innocent people's lives, and what we got to show for it was a better armed Taliban. Just an utter disgrace.

And so we finally pull out of there after two decades. And then like a month later, we're back in the proxy war in Ukraine. Because you just got to find another war to sink all these money and weapons into, right? And then like you finally, then we start back in Israel's destruction of Gaza. You finally have a ceasefire on the table. It looks like maybe, maybe if we're really lucky, this thing might be winding down. And it's like, hey, why not go over, throw this regime in Venezuela? because something about, I don't understand,

Rob, narco terrorism, a made-up term that just sounds like the two things that your Fox News watching dad are most afraid of. Narco and terrorism. They're narco-terrorists. How do you know? They were on a boat. So, by the way, like, I don't even know. Like, look, I'm not saying, like, I know there's like MS-13, like some of those gangs.

They're gangs and they do some vicious gang things. But, like, what even are we talking about with narco-terrorism? What have, like, drug dealers been committing acts of terrorism? Like, drug dealers are just blowing up buses to try to change the political system or something like that. It seems like they get into gang wars and turf wars and fight, like, anyway, there was a comment. I don't know if you saw this, Rob. I sent this video in there, but there was a clip from Donald Trump. And this was, this was very interesting, and I thought very disturbing about where he

his head is at with this whole thing. So let's play this clip and then, sorry, sorry, go ahead if you want. On the topic of this narco-terrorism, first is if you're in the business of just taking out one drug dealer and not the other drug dealers, then you're just in the drug business. I don't think that the Venezuelan drug business

is larger than the Colombian or Mexican drug cartel business. So if we're concerned with drugs but just going after Venezuela, it doesn't make sense. It's not a consistent policy. Also, from what I've researched to date, this idea that Morduro flooded out his prisons with rapist and murders into the United States of America, I believe that is yet to be validated. Nor have I seen a single news story of Venezuelan murders on the loose in the United States. I know there was that incident out in Colorado where there were some Venezuelan, you know, gangs that were rounded up. But I don't think the Venezuelan drug cartel presence is larger than the Mexican drug cartel presence

in the United States. And I also that's just like there's an easy fix to that, which is like, so have a sane immigration policy. I don't know. So don't let them in. It just, it makes no sense that just like there's migrants coming from a country, therefore let's go to war with the country. But you think that's going to lead to less migrants coming from that country?

Like, if there's migrants coming from a country and we don't want them here, then close the border and don't let them in that's your job and yet you're 100% right it is not like they're if you really were concerned about the drugs you'd be going after columbia or mexico which you know still doesn't make any sense to do but you wouldn't be going after venezuela and then it just happens to be this place that you're you know what's happening here is that marco rubio the secretary of state after that dummy waltz got fired he's the national security advisor too he's been the national security advisor and the secretary of state I believe, I might be wrong about this, you could double check me, but I believe the first one since Henry Kissinger to serve both of those roles as Secretary of State and National Security Advisor.

And this seems to be his pet project that he wants to go have a regime change in Venezuela. And it's just, it makes absolutely no sense from an American perspective. And then also when you just blow people up without trials, you do a bad job of presenting your case. of those were definitely these narco terrorists. You leave a lot of room for the other countries to go, no, that was actually a boat that was turning around, or that was a boat of fishermen, or that actually was a boat from a different country.

And so when you just blast people out of the open water, and there seems to be evidence to suggest that they weren't actually doing the thing that you were doing, you don't do a great job or presenting the case of, look at all the fentanyl that's specifically coming from this area, and that that's where the fentanyl is coming from, and they're the ones killing Americans. Yeah. No, 100%. And of course, you know, these things, it's like if you haven't, it's amazing to me

that people just haven't learned at least over the last 20 years that like these things don't always go the way you plan them out, man. That's the thing about wars. Like, they don't always go exactly the way you think they're going to and really negative things can come out of that. But let's go to this clip of Donald Trump being asked about the situation being Donald Trump the tough guy. Maduro offered everything in his country, all the natural resources. He even recorded a message to you in English recently, offering mediation. What should we do? He has offered everything. He's offered everything. You're right. You know why? Because he doesn't want to fuck around with the United States. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Maduro. I don't know. I just think there's something really strange about this

clip because what people always kind of say, and I'm sorry, I mean, I just, you know, people always want to say like Donald Trump, he's like this master negotiator or something like that. And that's why this is always his negotiating strategy, but at least in politics. I'm not going to say anything about the business world, because obviously the guys made billions of dollars, but at least in politics, it's like, he's just not that good at it. Everyone always pointed to the Abraham Accords, like this was some like amazing success. Like the Abraham Accords, the deal was all the other Arab states will drop the pretense that they're one day going to stand up for the Palestinians. That didn't work out too well.

Now, you can't, you know, I, if you might remember Robin, my first debate with the Josh Hammer, you remember him, Beacon of Honestate. He's selling a book, I believe. Charlie Girk's favorite. He'll be the first to tell you. Yes, I was debating Josh Hammer the first time. Josh, of course, is Charlie Kirk's favorite person, whoever existed according to Josh Hammer. And he was bragging about the Abraham Accords at one point.

And I was like, dude, we're here to debate a catastrophic war in the Middle East. Like, we're literally sitting here talking about the worst humanitarian crisis in the world that's going on right now in Gaza. And you're sitting here and you're bragging about, like, and I said to at one point, I was like, this would be like on the level. if I was just like, dude, my marriage was on the rocks, but I found the best couples counselor you'll ever find. Let me recommend them. And you went, oh, well, that's great. How's your marriage doing? And I go, oh, we had a horrible divorce. And a horrible divorce after that. You go, well, then

wouldn't you have to stop bragging about how great the counselor? I mean, I'm not saying it proves that the counselor is the reason, but it certainly would kind of hurt your case that this is. So anyway, like, I mean, he had, he tried to get a deal done in North Korea, ended up blowing that. because he had John Bolton at the table there. But anyway, explain this to me, Rob, because this is what doesn't add up to me about this one. I understand even when there are things that are really stupid, like just I think earlier today,

he said a thing about how I've talked to these other Arab countries and they'll go in there and destroy Hamas if Hamas doesn't abide by the ceasefire. Like, okay, we see Jared Kushner and Whitkoff's interview. It doesn't seem like Hamas are the ones who they had to pressure. Seems like Israel, by their own admission, were the ones they had to pressure. But whatever, at least you could plausibly say there's a ceasefire breaking down, perhaps Hamas has violated it in some way, and perhaps a threat might get the, like there, but if you're telling me that the Maduro offered you everything and you go, yeah, that's right.

He did offer us everything because he doesn't want to fuck around and find out. is this crazy why not take everything what why not accept the offer of as as you described it everything and if you're you've already got everything offered to you why is it that you're still trying to play hardball with this guy someone explain the genius negotiating prowess of all of that to me because that doesn't seem like negotiating. That just seems like needlessly flirting with yet another catastrophic regime change war. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, brand new sponsor who we're very happy to have on the show, and that is Bubbs. Guys, I can tell you, unfortunately, from experience, but getting older is

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Bubbsnaturels.com promo code problem for 20% off. All right, let's get back into the show. What am I missing, Rob? I agree with you 100%. and when I was listening to this, my thought was I'll call that bluff. All right. Great. Trump, if you just threaten Venezuela into giving us everything

might not have been my foreign policy. I might not think it's ethical. But if you pulled it off, then great. God bless. Let's not have a war with them. And I guess let's take all their oil and enact whatever your plan was. Right. Even if it's not like something like that, they're like taking it's like, I just,

there's something so like, and again, this thing I was pointing out the other day because, you know, I was thinking about it when I was listening to Daryl Cooper's thing, but, you know, you think about World War I and how much, like, parody there wasn't even World War II, where it's an army versus an army, and it's not clear who's going to win. And still, like, this is how wars are off. You know, if you think about, I don't know, the 1980 Iraq around war,

there's like around 500,000 casualties on each side, fought until a stalemate, both regimes standing at the end of it, but, like, both just, you know, like a very even fight where neither one was eight. to take the other one over. America is just like, you know, since the, um, really since the end of World War II, but particularly since like the unipolar moment, there's just like such a discrepancy between our power and the power of the governments we fight that we just kind of feel like, it's almost like we've just accepted that we're these bullies. And you know, you look at the, the 12-day war, as it's called in Iran, and like the official stories that they were at the negotiating

table. Like they were sitting down saying, let's do diplomacy. And then, at least according to Donald Trump, he was just using that as a ruse to let Israel get a sneak attack off. Well, how dishonorable is that? I mean, like, this is just not the way anyone with integrity or any nation with integrity ought to behave. They were at the negotiating table. At least see that out. See if maybe you can negotiate a peaceful resolution to this. It's one thing, look, I'm not saying it's justified still, but it's one thing if negotiations collapse.

But it's a different thing if they're there negotiating. And so, like, in this scenario, you're telling me that what? Like, we could, hey, we'll do a lot of oil business with you. And then maybe we'll give you some sanctions relief. And then maybe you'll give us some stricter border control. And then maybe we'll, like, why is that not preferable to stoking the flames of a war? It just seems like if you're, again, even if you're going to make the argument that Donald Trump, which I do not support this,

because I just think it's gangsterization and it's wrong. But even if you're going to say, hey, we get to threaten the shit out of these puny little countries to get them to capitulate and do whatever we want. Okay, well, like moral issues aside from that, okay, fine. But then like, if you're telling me they've capitulated and they're saying, give me everything, we still move to overthrow them. There's just something being said here. There's something truly sick and disturbing on a profound level about a country that's

become so addicted to war, so addicted to permanent militarism that you would have the leader of a country that you have no need to overthrow. They pose no existential threat to your country. I mean, give me a break. Venezuela, you know, poses some real threat to the United States of America. But you're saying the leader is just waving the way. white flag and going please let's negotiate and you're going no fuck you i i don't know what about this is america first what about this is even coherent or sane just seems pretty awful to me more than

anything else i i think it's clear that trump is just outright lying to us and that none of these stories are consistent the drug part's not consistent the wanting to continue with having a war if the guy's willing to give you all of your demands. Or it could be kind of like the Iran thing with the absolutely no, you're not allowed to do any nuclear technology at all or any nuclear enrichment. Maybe the Maduro deal goes beyond the demands that Maduro will possibly give into, which includes, hey, you got to give up and let us hang you. Which is also just speaks to what you're talking about, which is, all right, well, then it's not true when you say everything

because you put a demand in here that you're clearly not going to get. but then also you will have done that just because you actually do want a war and what's the point of that yeah that's right and i mean have we learned anything if not that what you know what comes after might be a lot worse you know now i was reading um i was reading this piece uh earlier today in herettes um which is uh you know of course a like a liberal uh lefty uh israel newspaper. I think it's the oldest Israeli newspaper that's in English and Hebrew.

So people like me can read it, which is nice. And the piece was about how the Israelis are really frustrated with the fact that there is no real protest movement against Hamas

and there is no rival gang even as they call them no rival gang that's really stepping up or that might be able to take over. Now, and I thought this was kind of interesting because you're like, oh, wow, like, you know, the whole justification for this entire, the entire destruction of Gaza has been, we can't have Hamas and power. And after this, you still haven't destroyed Hamas.

And after all that, you still, actually, it seems like it doesn't get people to hate Hamas. It seems like it gets people to hate Israel when you do that to them. And why we think that, like, if we just start dropping bombs on Venezuela, then what? Maduro steps down and like, you know, a Jeffersonian Republican or something like that takes over, some type of like venture capitalists takes over and says the key here is business and lowering tax rates and doing business with American corporations. Like, it seems far, far, far, far more likely that an even more rabid radical takes over and

there's just that much more hatred of America in the country now. You know, you think about how, look, after 9-11, right, George W. Bush had record high approval ratings. George W. Bush, I believe, had something like a 90% approval rating at one point, which is pretty difficult to even fathom in today's America. And think about this. I just like think about the logic of it, okay? George W. Bush was on the job for, what is it, nine months before 9-11? or is it eight months, eight months? He came in in January 20th, okay?

So eight months, George W. Bush was on the job before 9-11. Like, he, and by all accounts, this kind of came out later, but by all accounts, he ignored intelligence and didn't take the threat of the bin Ladenites and al-Qaeda seriously enough

and all of this stuff. So, like, George W. Bush had a massive failure. Like on any level, 9-11 is a massive failure. You know, you got this big, gigantic government, even at the time, even in the year 2001, we were spending tens of billions of dollars on intelligence every year, hundreds of billions of dollars on our military every year, all designed with supposedly the same stated purpose of protecting the United States of America, and yet they failed to do so against a very predictable threat in the most predictable target, and, you know,

it's a pretty big failure. And for that, we rewarded him with a 90% approval rating. In other words, Isn't that an interesting thing about the human psyche right there? Even ourselves, us advanced Americans that are so much better than the dirty Muslims or the, you know, dirty people in Venezuela or whatever. Like, even the United States of America with our clear thinking Western minds, we, he didn't go down by a single point for what is objectively a giant failure. He goes way up. He gets a 90% approval rating. And why is that? Oh, yeah, because we're human beings.

and we got attacked and we went hey we're at war and we went hey this government may not be the perfect government but it's the only one we got and they're the ones with all the weapons who could maybe protect us and maybe go get some vengeance for us now let's go bomb a country that is the same complexion of whoever the hell was flying those planes that's about where the regular Americans were and yet we still can't figure out that like if you just start bombing another country that might not be the moment where they go well you know what Let us crack open this country's constitution and bill of rights and see what it is that these people are all about. Ah, you see here they have freedom of speech enshrined.

Maybe we ought to give that a shot. That's probably not going to be the way this thing goes. Call it a wild guess. So anyway, I don't know. You know, it's one of those things where, and I guess this will be my final thought, and then you can get the last word. But it's one of those things where you kind of feel like, well, look, there's no way we're really going to launch a regime change. war against Iran right now. I mean, Donald Trump already escaped. He's trying to not divide his base over all these other conflicts. The non-interventionist half of his base is going to flip out if they

try to do this. But then at the same time, you just watch everything being mobilized and everything they're saying seems to be indicating they're going in this direction. And then at a certain point, you got to go, maybe they're just going in this direction. Man, would that be crazy? Anyway, last thought of the show to you, Rob. Well, I guess we'll see how this van is well thing escalates because they're definitely a channeling that they're looking for some more war in action in the area yeah no question about that all right guys go see rob on the road porch door dot com and then we do me and rob have a one-nighter in pekipsy uh coming up in a little bit comic davesmith.com for ticket links to that one all right thanks for watching catch you next time

peace Thank you.