Part Of The Problem - The Debate is Over

Episode Date: August 27, 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 the continuing atrocities in Gaza, Trump's new rule about flag burning, John Bolton's house being raided, and more.Support Our Sponsors:Kalshi - https://kalshi.com/daveBetter Help - https://Betterhelp.com/problem for 10% off your first monthMonetary Metals - https://www.monetary-metals.com/potp/Part Of The Problem is available for early pre-release at https://partoftheproblem.com as well as an exclusive episode on Thursday!PORCH TOUR DATES HERE:https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/porch-tour-2025-4222673Find Run Your Mouth here:YouTube - http://youtube.com/@RunYourMouthiTunes - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/run-your-mouth-podcast/id1211469807Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/4ka50RAKTxFTxbtyPP8AHmFollow the show on social media:X:http://x.com/ComicDaveSmithhttp://x.com/RobbieTheFireInstagram:http://instagram.com/theproblemdavesmithhttp://instagram.com/robbiethefire#libertarianSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

what's up what's up everybody welcome to a brand new episode of part of the problem i am dave smith and of course it is so good to see the face of robbie the fire bernstein how are you sir oh man i had the most amazing run of porches me and bk chris i think it was like 12 hours of driving four cities and uh we had a good time how was the mothership i was incredible just you know just in every time i've been there it was just like a perfect weekend god damn that club is so great if you're in the austin area or if you're going to be in austin at any time try to get tickets to the comedy mothership you do got to plan it a little bit in advance because they they fill up quick but it is just just the best comedy club man

it was a lot of fun i i am exhausted uh but it was um you know i it was about as doing in 2025 doing a weekend headlining the mothership and doing the Joe Rogan experience is like I don't know it kind of feels like you're like that's like the Super Bowl of comedy you know it's just like it's the best thing you could ask for to do as like a working comic and yeah it was it was all great I'm really excited they haven't at least as last I checked they haven't put the the episode out yet but I'm assuming today it's going to be out at noon or maybe noon Texas time whenever they put it out but uh but yeah i'm excited for you guys to see it i think it was a real good one the shows were great the hanging was great i had my

wife came out with me and so we we had a great time i love austin it's a great city some great food took her over to uh three forks next time next time we're in austin uh rob we're gonna go grab a steak at three forks god damn god damn is it a good steak uh highly recommend that too you're looking for a nice steakhouse austin texas three forks phenomenal or not notice the next steak dinner's mine yeah she can't cut she can come but she can't eat i can only afford two stakes rob there's fair you get dave on the home rights but yeah but so it's a lot of fun and it's good good to be back and stuff but uh and and a bit of a lack of sleep there but uh great great time so uh yeah and a lot's been going on so i'm i'm excited to i can

recommend that there's only one place better than Rogan's Club, and that's Pubka's the private bar owned by the original porch. This weekend Triple Show. Firstly, I got Philly Friday night. There's only 10 tickets left because I booked a 20-seater yard, so very limited capacity.

And then we're playing Pubka's stand-up live concert from the Shedcast Boys and then the bring back the smokeout bug out. So come hang, everybody. Beautiful, beautiful. And Rob, after this podcast, you're going to rest up that voice of yours. Sounds like you've been doing some work.

Blown dudes. It happens. You know, too many shots to back your throat, it fries it out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I hear you. I knew it. We all knew it was going to catch up with you eventually. You can't just live this lifestyle forever. So I have, all right, so there's a bunch of stuff I want to talk about.

I will say, you know, up front, look, man, my apologies about the podcast schedule being all types of nuts for, you know, I know I say this way too much. But it is, I am working here, man. And it's hard. It's just hard to do when you got so many things. going on. But we will be, we will get back to it. We got a bunch of shows for you this week. And obviously there'll be a whole lot to talk about, including today. However, uh, if you are like,

if you're a fan of the, the show, if you're a fan of kind of our, you know, broader world, got to say, this is about as literally Scott Horton's episode with Lex Friedman just came out 10 and a half hours of Scott Horton just breaking down everything. I'm about three hours into it, and it is so good, dude. It's just like you actually sit there and realize, and I'm somebody who's like, you know, I don't know how many hours of podcasting I've done with Scott Horton over the years, but 50 or something like hours or something, but you realize when you see him in a 10 and a half hour spot that you're like, oh yeah, you know how everybody else thinks three hours is long

form podcasting it's actually really just it's it's been shackles around scott horton this all time like he really at 10 and a half hours he can breathe a little bit um and there's still stuff he didn't talk about but it's just excellent and then of course me on on rogan should be coming out real soon too so you know sorry our schedule's been a little messed up but it's not a bad time to be like a fan of this type of podcasting that's there's a lot of good stuff going on um all right So I guess this isn't exactly the lead story of the show. I mean, I guess maybe it could be. But I did just think, you know, you had sent a bunch of stuff over topics and all of them

were stuff. I was like, yeah, we definitely want to talk about that. And then at the end, you were just kind of like, and there's some more, you know, Israel's doing some more horrible shit as always. And I don't have that much to say on it other than just it is, yeah, it's more of the same. Like, I don't know. I read anti-war.com every day. And every day Israel killed 70 people or something like that.

Every day there's some new horrific story. The last one is particularly horrible. But I would, you know, I said when I was on Rogan's show, and, you know, maybe this was a little above my bridges to just make this declaration, but I felt comfortable being the one who did it. But I just said, you know, as far as I'm concerned, this debate is over. like I'm not I'm not really I just kind of felt like the last few times I've been on Rogan I mean the last one before this was a debate obviously and then the few times before that it was like I kind of felt like I'm making this case like I'm trying to persuade you Joe Rogan and you the listener that what Israel's doing is wrong and we should not be you know funding it or supporting it in any way and then this time I almost just feel like the argument's already over we're not really debating anymore i know i don't have to convince

joe this shit and i know i don't have to convince anyone listening to this right now like it's just we're way past the point that there's even a debate we've whatever it means to have a national conversation or to have a debate the truth is there's there's just been no issue like this one it's just been debated i mean how many dude rub how many israel palestine debates have there been over the last two years like on just in general no no no i just mean in general not forget me like just in general how many israel palestan debates on huge platforms with millions of people which or hundreds of thousands of people watch like countless right no i've been in 25 of them or something like that but that's just me there's been a whole lot that don't involve me at all and it's like

after this entire like the debate's just been had as much as it could possibly be have been had and on as big shows as there are, on the biggest shows that there are, and the overwhelming reaction, I mean, right now, I don't know, by any metric, look at the polling on it, look at the comments in the comment section on every one of the debates, literally go, every one of them. I don't think you can find anywhere, any nook of the internet where the pro-Israel forces aren't just getting dragged and you know what can you say you just put two and two together you've had the debate the debate has been had more than any other topic on bigger platforms than any other topic and look at where the American people are dude everybody there is like almost no

demographic other than boomer republicans who still support Israel there's in fact now the poll I just saw some polling this morning where support for Palestine is higher than support for Israel. And then when you get into like the younger demographics, it's like starkly higher than support for Israel is. So the, you know, the war is unpopular. The government itself is unpopular. Our supporting them is enormously unpopular. And at this point, it is like, I don't know what to say, Rob. It does, you know, like, I've said this for a lot of years now but there was always like you know people get real hysterical about like holocaust denying you know or if anybody says anything about that you know like even someone like darrell cooper who never said

nothing about the actual holocaust but just said that maybe it was churchill's fault you know that this thing wasn't just a war in poland and instead turned into the giant catastrophe it was and that you see the reaction to that and i've always kind of had the attitude that like i don't know i just don't get that someone denying the holocaust doesn't get me like oh my god i'm so angry i think it's silly i think it did happen and uh you know it was horrible if you're telling me like i don't believe something that happened in the early 40s actually happened like i don't know why i'm supposed to be so exercised by that but watching this in real it does feel like the people who are still defending Israel at this point are you're actually watching it in real time like they're sitting here

writing out did you see this rob i swear to god i can't be you think i'm making this up did you see the free press uh barry weiss's publication are wonderful totally neutral on this issue they wrote a piece debunking the starvation in gaza and i'm not making this up one of the cases they go see they tried to tell you that this two-year-old was starving to death but actually she just had prior injuries when an Israeli shell cracked her skull open and so like yeah she wasn't eating after that and ultimately starved but like it was from the and you're just like reading this said you're like that's it that's the defense that's what you're going with well in that case we ought to support it's like it's it does feel like it's getting to a level literally what's going on right now

is that there's starvation there's reports of starvation all throughout Gaza and then The pro-Israel people debunking it are going, yeah, it's only the people who are already sick. It's the special needs kids that are starving, Rob. So like, don't get, don't get all emotional about this, which is, by the way, what always happens when there's starvation, the most vulnerable are the ones who die first. But anyway, once you just get into this realm, like, you're like, what is that? This does feel like you're, it's, Norman Finkelstein said it to Benny Morris, and which I think this does hold. particular weight when like two incredibly Jewy people are talking but when he just said at one point to him he goes you're nothing but a Holocaust denier and I do get what he meant by that like it does

seem like you're living you're making the excuse you're doing the exact same thing where you go oh no you know I know you see pictures of um you know starving corpses or whatever but that's not actually evidence of anything like okay all right anyway that's just how it feels to me like it feels and and obviously i'm not even trying to like lay out my case right now i've been laying out my case for two years and i've done it in long forms and many public debates i'm just saying like it's almost like in a sense i'm just talking about the PR the whole thing like it's over and israel lost the PR war rob you were and i mean this dude i think you were the first person i know who called it like immediately after it might have been october 9th when you were just like

there's no way Israel can do that. Like, as soon as their move was to turn off the electricity and the water for the whole strip, you were like, oh, dude, they're screwed. You can't do this in 4K. You can't do this, like, with this type of technology. People are going to watch what you're doing. And that just turned out to be completely the thing. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show.

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You must be 21 years or older. Nicotine is an addictive. chemical, Zipmore, smoke less, with Zippix, nicotine toothpicks. I love them. Go get some for yourself. All right, let's get back into the show. So anyway, if you want, Natalie, you could put that tweet up on the screen if you have it. If not, it doesn't matter.

I'll just read it. But it wasn't this way I sent to you because you had mentioned this latest hospital attack, Rob. So this was Benjamin Netanyahu's actual, after Israel bombed another hospital. I thought they had gotten all of them, but evidently there was one medical center that was left in the south of Gaza there, and Israel just bombed and killed a bunch of some journalists and civilians and just, you know, what they do every day, this time out of medical center. And Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted, Israel deeply regrets this tragic mishap.

Like, I just don't even know what to say about this. That's all I wanted to read of it. I don't even care about the rest of this nonsense. that he said, but he just called it a whoopsie do. Don't you find mishap to be such an insulting war? Like also this point in the war, Rob, with all the other context that you just go, oh, that was whoopsie? Sorry.

Like, okay, look, who the hell knows? In this one particular strike, I don't even know. Maybe it was a whoopsie, you know? Like, maybe they didn't mean to hit this exact area. This shit does happen all the time in wars. But in the context of this intentional war against the civilians. war against the civilian population, this destruction of a people for two years, you think just in terms of PR, you look at something like that and you go, oh my God, I mean, these guys are just

this. So this is anyway what I meant when I was just like the debates over. And I said on they're like, I'll do more debates if it makes sense or it's an interesting one. I'm not like saying I won't do it. I'm just saying in the broader sense, this debate is over and the American people have decided we reject this shit, just like open borders, just like trans and kids, just like any other topic that you could think about throughout like American history where there was just a point where this debate was just over. There was just a point where like like segregation versus integration was a debate. And then at a certain point it just wasn't anymore.

Like it just wasn't like it's like I'm not saying there's no one left who still believe that black should be segregated into a different part of town. But the debate is over. The broader conference. It's the American people have rejected that shit. And I think this is on that level at this point. Yeah, and on the topic of starvation, so, you know, just last week or maybe it was two weeks ago, but Netanyahu was basically trying to categorize that as anti-Jewish propaganda on the level of blood liables.

And then you had a big report that came out that basically said, no, there is a famine or starvation. I think they said famine conditions in the region. And then I went to fact check that. And apparently it's from a pretty credible source that also uses analytic tools to come to those conclusions that would not be fabricated. And then, you know, Netanyahu was saying, well, the pictures you're seeing from the journalists or these kids with diseases. And, you know, there could have been some bad journalism of like a child with leukemia. And I think there might have even been an example of that in the New York Times. But some of the kids have diseases because of the conditions that are there.

So that doesn't give you a pass. The kids got like rickets or something because of male nutrition. And now it's like more. No, that's what they said in the, they used brickets as an example in the Barry Weiss. I don't know if Barry Weiss wrote it, but it was for her publication for the free press there. They were like, oh, they said he was starving, but he had brickets, like, yeah, but doesn't that? Ricketts, I'm sorry. But you're like, Ricketts, but you get that from malnutrition.

So what the hell is your point about? This is two. And by the way, even that one that you're referring to, I know I read, because you're talking about the one, it was one of the pictures of the New York Times where they showed like a starving kid, but then they found that the kid's brother wasn't starving. And so they asked, and then they found out that like, yes, the kid had preexisting medical conditions. But the mother said that the doctors told her is because she was malnourished during her pregnancy. So like again, it's just all these things are like this is not this is your argument.

This is what you got left. I mean, come on. By the way, there was one one other piece of news since last we've done a podcast was that 972 magazine had a big piece and they've done some really great reporting throughout this war and they're a real like a legit fucking you know um publication and they uh they had this piece which i thought was kind of interesting because you know how i don't know if you've seen like through several of the debates that i've had i guess it was maybe it was just the josh hammer debates i don't remember but he would bring up that um at one point saying that like uh israel has a one-to-one civilian to militant uh ratio in this war which is really a great ratio and i've always i mean through these debates i don't know if i ever really got but i always just

laughed in the person's face when they say that and go this is all ridiculous just made that guy spears or whatever who i debated on pierce morgan who literally uh failed uh how would you feel if you didn't eat breakfast this morning like it was unbelievable to watch just like was literally incapable of dealing with what i was saying to him uh that guy he's the one who came up with some study that said it was one to one using all these bullshit numbers you know it's it's like the worst type of like activist data. Christina Hoffs Summers used to call the feminists that when they would come out with all their number, you know, one and four women on a college campus is raped or sexually assaulted

and you'd be like, this is like activist data. You wanted to get this number. You conducted a study intentionally in a way to get this number. Like if you, not to go into too much of an aside, but like the study that got you to like one and four college women are raped, like the way they did it was so horribly unscientific. Like they put out a thing like they didn't do a random sample. They put out like a bulletin like, do you want to take a survey on sexual assault? And so you already totally poisoned the well of who responded to that.

And then it turned out that they defined like someone leaning in for an unwanted kiss as sexual assault. And you're like, oh, well, okay, if that's what you're talking about, then yes. Anyway, but it's shit like that. But so anyway, so 972 magazine just obtained some, you know, I'm sorry, I was reading this the other day. but they obtained some document from like the Israeli defense from the government that had uh was basically saying that their number of 20,000 uh, combatants that they were bragging about. They had reassessed it to 8,000. So that take all those numbers and now totally change all those numbers around and it starts

looking like a lot more what the thing obviously is, which is that like, yeah, actually it's, it's just a destruction of the civilian population so anyway i'll maybe i'll see if i can find that article and i'll put it in the uh the show notes um for today but i gotta do a better job of just committing things 100% to memory but i think i saw last weekend that like 70% of the civilian infrastructure has been destroyed yeah yeah it was something like that yeah it's uh the yeah the entire place has been has been destroyed it's really quite horrific all right guys let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Kalshi. Kalshi is a prediction market, and it's the first one in the U.S. that's fully regulated, CFTC approved and available in all 50

states. You can basically bet on anything where there's a clear outcome. And I like looking at Kalshi just to see where the actual market is on what's going to happen in the future. So I literally was just on there and saw that they got Mom Dani at an 84% chance of winning. And that's what people are betting on with their money, which is always a better indication than just, you know, these polls and things that you can't really trust quite as well. So I really enjoy just seeing where the markets are. Maybe you want to lay down some money on whether you think Mom Dani's going to win or you think the Democrats will take back the Congress or whatever. Or maybe you're like me. You just want to check out where the money is and see what's going on. It's a lot of fun.

You can jump on Calshy, see what people are betting on. Take a look at it. So head on over to calci.com join the over 5 million users and trade on politics, culture, even the weather, or anything else you could think of, they probably have up there. Go check them out, calshy.com slash Dave. All right, let's get back on the show. Okay, so let's switch gears a little bit from that, because I really do want to spend some time talking about what I find to be a very, very interesting story that also has happened since the last time that we've done an episode together.

And this, of course, is John Bolton getting raided by the FBI, having his house rated, which evidently is in connection to some type of classified documents case. Although it was also reported that there was like an NDA violation involved in it too, which of course would not be as serious as leaking classified documents. But this is, you know, this is a pretty big deal. And it is one of those things where it feels like perhaps, you know, there's like an interesting broader story. Obviously, there's the trend of in some ways the Joe Biden administration really, even though the Obama administration had begun the process of framing Donald Trump. And even though the intelligence agencies kept this frame job going, you know, Russia

Gate for three and a half years. There was something about Russia Gate as much of a line step as it was. Nobody seemed to ever be floating out the idea that like Donald Trump was going to go to jail over it. It was the question was whether he was going to be impeached and removed. I shouldn't say that. Let me walk back. Let me make a correction to that immediately.

It is true. John Brennan, the head of the CIA was on TV saying he's going to be let out handcuffs. So maybe there were some people who had hopes of that. but they didn't actually do that. They didn't actually take it to that level. And ultimately, the investigation found, like, yeah, we don't have any evidence to charge him with anything. Joe Biden's administration really did take it to a next step

when they raided his house and when they really started putting them on trial for nonsense. I suppose you could say the Mueller investigation did, look, they did things. They did raid Roger Stone's house, and they did go after Paul Manafort or people like that. So I guess you could say that that's where it kind of started. But anyway, now I guess this isn't that crazy because it's not the first time, but there still is something pretty damn huge. I mean, this is not, it's not as if he's rating Barack Obama's house or even like John Podesta's house or something like that.

Donald Trump's FBI rated his own national security advisor's house. That is pretty wild. So I don't know, Rob, what are your, what are your thoughts on the John Bolton situation? All right. Well, you know, this is what drives me so nuts about Donald Trump is he does a very good job of walking the gray areas, which is Donald Trump did not kickstart the party of going after people for taking classified information. If anything, the last administration decided, hey, here's a good tool for going after people. So, you know, let's say Bolton's an enemy of Donald Trump. he's an enemy of this administration.

He's still constantly on the news saying that Donald Trump's an idiot. He's always advocating for more war. So if there's an individual that you would like to see get taken down, who probably should get taken down, it is Bolton. And the last administration kind of made it fair game to go after people for removing classified information. And if he did in fact have classified information in his house, he's probably not supposed to, blah, blah, blah.

Go after people for real crimes. I'm sure that at some point in time, Bolton, is in some capacity has been bribed by defense manufacturers. I'm sure that there's a scam that I can't prove to you with these major book publishers of that people get paid for what they did in administrations, their payouts are on giant book deals for books that never get read. I can just see that that's a very, because it's the playbook.

Everyone leaves and they get giant paychecks for books. There's some sort of a scam going on there of figuring out how to hand bribe money to politicians off of these books. those would be fascinating and great crimes to go after when you're just going at like to celebrate this it's no different than all the democrats who did not care what they were going after Donald Trump for they were just like I don't like the guy go after him and to me that just I mean listen maybe it's a net win for us because it cleans up corruption of government because now you never know if you're going to fall on the bad side of the administration you got to you know you got to be more careful

but for the most part it's just corruption when you're going after select individuals for things that everybody's doing and aren't like are i you know what i mean if he sold uh government information to the chinese yeah then that's treasonous if he's got folders in his house and it turns out that every government official mishandles classified information and everything has a classified on it and they're all doing it and we probably either have to change what's considered classified materials or be more careful in the way we handle it and it's just a i'm not saying don't Trump's 100% wrong because he didn't start this playbook, but it's just more of like not going after people for real things.

Yeah. Well, look, a few things I would say. I largely agree with you. But maybe I'd add a few things, like a few caveats to it. Like, look, as far as I'm concerned, the way I look at it is that Joe Biden, going after Donald Trump for, you know, mishandling of classified documents is... Yes, you're absolutely right. It became, look, this is the easy way to get someone in Washington, D.C.,

because it's like they're all guilty of this. And that, that, of course, became a big talking point from Trump supporters after that because they found him on Biden, too. Yeah, he did the exact same fit. It was too stupid to be prosecuted. Of course, Hillary Clinton had originally said that there was no classified material on her private email server. Even James Comey, when he decided not to press any charges against her, said, that's not

true. We found a bunch of instances of the information that was classified there. They just didn't charge her with it. So it is one of those crimes where they could always charge everybody with it. It's like, there's like something like, double check me on this. I think I read this one that there's over a billion documents that are classified. Like there's so much classified material and so many things that never even need to be classified, just get classified because that's the US government's MO. You know, we keep things secret. Why would we tell you about them? We're always air on the side of doing things in secrecy. And so, yes, you're right.

This becomes a thing that can be corruptly applied. But the thing is that we're already way past, look, the good guys always get prosecuted for this, right? I mean, this is, if you think about like Bradley Manning or Edward Snowden, I mean, that's what they're getting in trouble for, right? Is that they were leaking classified information. And even if that classified information in both cases was of crimes. You know what I mean?

Like it was information that the government was committing crimes. That doesn't matter. Those crimes don't get prosecuted, but the crime of leaking classified information does. And Bradley Manning was tortured until he became Chelsea. And sorry, I shouldn't. I don't mean to be disrespectful. But and Snowden still is basically forced to stay in Russia. So, you know, again, I guess I'm just saying that like,

If this is now, so like the major change really here, isn't that the good guys get, Chris. It's just that like, oh, now this can be used on, I thought it would for, forever the rule was this is only used on people who are threats to D.C.'s power, not to people who are there advocating the expansion of it. So there is a part of me where I also go like, listen, I've always said on the show before Warhawks aren't people. John Bolton doesn't have rights. I don't respect that at all. So it's not, I guess, My issue with this isn't even the slippery slope, although I do think you make a fair point. Like, it's not, it's not clear that this is an improvement that now, you know what I mean? Like, people can just go after their enemies whenever they want to on this nonsense. And I certainly don't care about John Bolton or something bad happening to him.

Like, that's just he's, the guy has inflicted so much evil on the world that whatever happens to him is too little. but the thing to me is that it does just feel like what's going on here is part of this bigger trend of trying to do cleanup from the Epstein fallout and trying to and you know it's like this is almost always what it's like things in DC they start with these great promises and then it always gets whittled down and by the time you get what you get you're like oh that was it you know and so I don't even think they're really going to go after John Bull I don't think John Bolton's going to end up doing time or anything like this. I think this was a move to, you know, kind of bully him, humiliate him, something like that.

And but it's also like, you know, as soon as the Epstein thing, there's this like this uproar from Trump's base who's furious about the Epstein thing and never getting all the stuff we were promised on that, they immediately pivot to Russiagate to be like, hey, look at all this stuff that Obama did. don't worry we're draining the swamp we're getting to the bottom of it and then we get this totally unrelated like a raid of john bolton's house for what what was his crime really rob i mean is the crime you know like mishandling classified information or is the crime talking shit to donald trump on the news you know what i mean like is that really the crime that he ended up okay so essentially i i it feels to me and maybe they'll prove me wrong with the rushagate stuff and actually start charging some people are exposing something but it feels to me it's like that's you know that's you know What's it, that meme where they go, best I can do, you know, like at the pawn shop, it's like, oh, you go, oh, you're going to expose the Epstein thing.

He goes, best I can do is embarrass someone who was critical of Donald Trump. And so to me, it's like that, and you know, it's like with all this stuff that we always say, I don't know, Donald Trump, did you see just as the goofiest shit that you can't even take seriously in the slightest. He said, he said he didn't know. That was what he said the morning that they rated him. He goes, I wasn't informed. I'm sure they'll brief me later. Like, I'm to sit here and believe, and to believe that Pam Bondi or Cash Patel, I guess it would be Cash Patel in this case, made the decision to raid Donald Trump's National Security Advisors House and didn't pick up the phone and run that by the boss before you did that. Really, Rob?

Like, anyone who works for Donald Trump wouldn't be like, I have to get his okay. before I take this move I just I I find it impossible to believe that he didn't at least okay with a wink and a nod before it happened you know what I mean that he didn't at least give him a you do whatever you have to do with Bolton

I don't know it just seems to Biden Biden pulled the same move on the Trump stuff he goes that's not me that's my that's the Justice Department you got to take that up with the Justice Department that that's just that's just kind of the move here and that's why I'm saying it's gray area Donald Trump did not, did not start this playbook.

And so the Democrats and these people, they do, they do deserve it. I would just, you know, it would be a lot cleaner and it would be a lot better if you went after Bolton for actually, like actual substantial crimes. Like, if you could prove that he was actually involved in Russiagate and he was still working in the administration, but he didn't have anything to do with Russia Gate. But that would be a real, that would actually be a crime. Or if you could show like, you know, the direct chorus. correspondence with, you know, the military, the military industrial complex while he's pushing

for more war, you know, that might be a juicy storyline and that could actually clean up the relationship between the military industrial complex and people working in government, but like, or the book deal thing, that would be substantial. Let's find out how people are getting bribed. This show is brought to you by BetterHelp. Better help has been a sponsor on this show for many years now and I really do love them. It's a great company. If you are out there thinking about maybe giving therapy a try, I can tell you that I personally, as well as many people I know, have benefited from therapy. And I can also tell you that there's no easier way to get started than better help. All you do is you fill out a brief questionnaire and they match you with a

licensed therapist. They have over 30,000 therapists. They're the world's largest online therapy platform and they've served over five million people globally. And part of that is because it's really designed for the modern world. You don't have to sit in a waiting room. You don't have to take time out of your schedule to travel. You can do it right from the comfort of your own home. And it's free to switch therapists at any time. If you want to, you can just switch any time you'd like.

Find the one with BetterHelp, and our listeners will get 10% off their first month when they go to BetterHelp.com slash problem. That's B-E-T-T-E-R-H-E-L-P dot com slash problem for 10% off your first month. All right. Let's get back into the show. Dude, if Donald Trump, forget even criminal charges, if Donald Trump just did an address to the nation where he had someone actually just do the deep dive and just laid it out, said like, this is an emergency address to the nation. Let me just like start breaking down how much money John Bolton's received from these weapons companies for all these years of service of always advocating that we send your sons to go fight and die in

another goddamn war so that they can rake in money like just gave a presentation and went through the list like deep dive of like all the goddamn warhawks all the neocons this is all who they're in bed with here's the think tank that cut them a check for 10 million dollars that they were funded by you know lockheed martin or they were but you know it would be more valuable than all of this nonsense all this bullshit it's just like this is why it's just you know Donald trump was elected on the promise to drain the swamp he was uh you know he really tapped in to the furor like just to the to the to the white hot anger that the american people have because we're sitting here watching these criminals in dc just destroy our country and spit in our face while they do it and

like look rob i mean we just talked about we this is the center the center point of our show that we've been doing for so many years together now me and you is just talking about all the crimes that these these uh politicians and the whole political class has committed against the american people there's no shortage if you actually wanted to prosecute crimes there's no shortage of like where to go where to start with and as your own director of national intelligence has said we have the proof okay so what are we doing here i mean like you know no but instead what are we getting Oh, flag burning is illegal now. Wonderful. That's great. You know, Cash Patel, actually, did you see this? This was like a few weeks ago, Rob. But you see on Twitter, Cash Patel tweeted about there was some dude. It was right around when they were like, you know, mobilizing the federal forces in D.C. And there was some dude who like threw a sandwich at some cops. I'm not making this up. Cash Patel tweeted this out. I know. It sounds like a ridiculous thing that I'm just saying to be funny. Was it like a sandwich?

Maybe the guy was hungry. It looked like it was a hoagy. He threw a nice hoagy at him, but he throws a pegs a cop in the chest with a hoagy and then sprints off. And then they sprint and catch him. And then Cash Patel tweets, he was prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law because we will no longer tolerate crime on the streets. Was that what Drain the Swamp was all about? Was that? I don't know.

Maybe I missed it. Is that what everyone was so excited at all those rallies about? was that there was just an epidemic of people throwing sandwiches at each other out there on the streets and we needed Donald Trump to really get to the bottom of this can't even walk with my wife and kids down the street anymore without having a you know sandwiches whiz by but cash Patel's getting that guy off because that's not what I remember cash Patel talking about like all those interviews that got us excited about cash Patel being the FBI director it was never about the sandwich crime on the streets but that's what he's bragging about now and it just seems to me like

there's we're way past the point where like don't don't trump like just again it's like people aren't stupid as a lot of these guys think they are and donald trump needs to hand like he has to hand the american people some major wins on this front like something big and this stuff it just i i think at least this is how it feels to me raiding bolton's house i'm just like i'm at the point with donald Trump and I think a lot of us are you're at the point where you're almost like it's like I'm not even outraged you know I saw there were some people like outraged about him you know saying the flag you know which does I understand why it's a topic that it brings out like philosophical debates in people the burning the flag thing it's almost like made like it's burning the flag is like a

question that you'd give to like your sixth grade you know class to like yeah let's talk about why it is or isn't okay to do this because there's the obvious like contradictions like built into it. It's like, you're that that flag stands for freedom. It's like, okay, well, if it stands for freedom, then really if you own the flag, it should be your decision whether you want to burn it or not or whatever. But I personally, where I am, I think where a lot of people are, is it's like I'm not even outraged. I'm yawning. I'm yawning as you deliver me the news that Bolton's house has been rated. I'm yawning as you tell me that it's illegal to burn the flag now. Like, what? This is like nonsense window dressing. You know what I mean? This is nothing to do with anything serious at all.

Like, of course, I believe flag burning should be legal. I think this is a ridiculous, like, debate even. But what? Like, I'm just like, who the fuck cares, dude? They're not going to stop burning the flag at any of these protests. If they did, that wouldn't stop the protests, that wouldn't solve any problems. It is like purely symbolic. It means absolutely nothing. This is the win that, I don't know.

Any thoughts you have, go ahead, Rob, but I'm just disgusted with the whole thing. All right. So I mostly agree with you when I saw it. I was just annoyed because I was like, man, I don't want to deal with six grade debate questions. And this feels like I got a joke in my act that, you know, Donald Trump just presses buttons to piss people off at the Oval Office because he likes having fights.

And this feels like one of those instances where he needs to be on top of the news cycle. He wants it to be on storylines that he enjoys. And so a whole lob crazy shit like this out there just to go, hey, why don't we talk about this for the next couple of days? And so I don't think Donald Trump really cares about flag burning. I don't think it's a very important national issue. I think he just solely decided, hey, I'm going to go make this the topic of conversation for a couple days. Now, firstly, they're also a little bit annoying about it because you got to do your homework. I forgot what the term was, but like something usage neutral and then in ways that aren't a

violation of the First Amendment, like they're trying to throw kickers on there, but Donald Trump's clear words where if you burn the flag, you're going to get a year in jail. So I think instead of like researching, I'll just go with Donald Trump at his word and go, he thinks that it should be illegal for you to burn your flag. And the problem with that is that if you want to say that it's because burning the flag is so offensive that you shouldn't be allowed to do it or that taking the action of burning a flag then incites other people to violence. And so that escalates protests. It's a slippery slope of censorship because then what do you determine as being the next thing that's too offensive to to have free speech about? Because that's what you're saying. You're saying that

this is so important that if you do it, then, well, then you just don't have free speech. That's a slippery slope of government being able to tell you that any action that you take is uh i it did because of symbolism what you're saying criticizes us on too big of a level that it's it's said that it erodes the value of government it's too symbolic to be able to question our relationship with israel or the way our currency works or the way the federal reserve works i'm just saying you're basically removing protections for free speech with all that said yeah it's a stupid nonsense topic that i think Trump is just throwing into the news cycle at the moment so that he could, you know, I don't even know what the game is because it's such a losing argument, but I guess it's just something along

the lines of law and order in America first and we have to hold the country sacred and look at all these idiots on the news who think it's okay to burn a flag. But it is, to me, it is a very dangerous perspective to say that a flag is so important. And so therefore you're not allowed to burn it because that's, I don't even, you know what I mean? It's like, then you just don't have free speech. That's it. Yeah, I mean, that's absolutely right. I mean, it's, that's if, if you are in a free society, if the flag stands for a free society, which is what we've all been told is the thing that you're burning. Well, if you, if you are a free society, then like, objectively, this just comes down to a property rights issue. It's all this is. Whose flag is it? Is it yours? You know what I mean? Like, if it's somebody else's, you don't have a right to burn their flag. You have a right to do what you want to do with your property on your property. You could get into a debate about what you have the right to do on public property or

something like that. But yes, of course, I completely agree with you. I also think that, you know, and I say this is somebody who I'm not a big fan of protesting in general. You just don't really like protests. I think that it is something that perhaps is like necessary at times and should be used for those times. Like I understand where like, if you're going to.

government's launching a war that you were lied into and you're like out on the streets over it i can't really argue with you for being out on the streets i really did like the trucker protests um i kind of felt like there was something necessary about them like when you know how crazy the covid restrictions were particularly up there in canada um but you know i just always think that like the the lens that i look at this stuff through and you know i think some people obviously like i'm a libertarian and I have some priors that I come into, you know, my, with my political, you know, outlook or worldview. But I think that they're correct.

And I think that even with the kind of like lawlessness that you saw in, let's say, the riots in the summer of 2020 or just like the crime in a lot of big cities, even that I don't really view as. the government just failing to do something about the problem or that the government should have more power to do something about it. I mean, first of all, the government has all the power in the world that it needs to crack down on crime. And we have the most militarized police that any nation has ever had. I mean, we, we, the United States of America makes Adolf Hitler's Germany or Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union pale in comparison to the sheer, amount of like power that we have like the amount of like militarism like i don't know you know the department of education has a swat team rob it's like the EPA has a swat team every goddamn local police

department just i used to joke about this when i lived before i moved to my current house in my own but uh if you remember you've been there a few times rob my old place that i was renting where's this little town you remember that little town just nothing going on in that little town there's no crime at all in it It was like one of this little town where you knew everyone who lived there, basically. And I remember this. The police department had a tank. They just had a tank. And they had nothing to do with it.

They literally, probably, I'm not exaggerating. This was a thing in this little town that I used to live in. There's little like, there's no crime. It's just, they had, the police department had this tank. And what they used to do with it, the only thing I ever saw them do with that was when there were birthdays, Like, there were so few people in the town. And this was weird to me because I grew up in New York City. This was my first place I moved from there.

But if you like, like if your eight year old had a birthday, they would do like a drive through the town. And the tank would come like drive, but you're the birthday boy around the town and like honk the horn. And everyone would come out on their on their balcony and be like, happy birthday. You know, and like because they had nothing to do with that. You could call the police department and be like, hey, it's my son's birthday. They'd be like, you guys want to whip out the tank? Like they'd all be excited. I don't know. What do we do with this thing? What do we do with the fucking is? And you know what I'm saying? Like it wasn't exactly like a, it was like an big armored vehicle. They definitely bought from the defense department on some type of like, you know, crony thing. But so like that's, so we have all the two. We have all the little local police departments are ready for stuff like this, let alone the NYPD, which is I forget what one of, it's one of the biggest armies in the world. It's like, I think in the top 20 or 30 biggest militaries in the world. Like,

the NYPD is bigger than, it's bigger than most countries, militaries. And so it's not as if, like, you needed some new thing, but the issue with all of these areas, the issue with the riots, the issue with the crime is that it's not just like, oh, the government isn't doing what their job is or needs more power. It's that the government in all of these cases is enforcing this. You know, even, I remember when I was talking to Charlie Kirk about the, And I couldn't, you know, we were kind of having the, like, right-winger talking to a libertarian. Like, well, what do you think about this?

What do you think about that? And I can't remember if it was him who said it or me who said it at first, but we both agreed. But I just went like, I go, hey, what percentage of the problem with riots and crime and all of this? What percentage of it is solved by just instituting the Second Amendment? You know, concealed carry. Castle doctor and stand your ground and just legalizing self-defense. Like what percentage of this problem is solved? And me and him is out there and he went between 80 to 90 percent?

I went, yeah, that's right. Okay, so if we already know the policy that solves 80 to 90 percent of this, what the fuck are we talking to? And now this, of course, I didn't have the chance, but I'd ask Charlie Kirk. What percentage does a flag burning ban solve of any of these problems? Oh, zero. Oh, that's right. 0%. So like what are we even talking about here? And I would just think that after, particularly after like all the COVID stuff, it's like who what, what self-respecting right winger or, you know, just person who was good on stuff over the last few years? What percentage of you are actually sitting here supporting giving the government more authority to crack down on what we're allowed to do when we're pissed off at that.

them. And not even what we're allowed to do, but essentially, Rob, as you pointed out here, what we're allowed to say. Because this really is like, this is what you're allowed to say. This is speech. You know, burning a flag, however you feel about it, it is speech in the same way that writing a book is speech. Like, writing a book technically is an action and technically is a object, you know what I mean? But it is speech, obviously. You write a book to say something. and you burn a flag to say something again that doesn't that's not a comment on how you feel about what's being said but that's what you're doing when you burn a flag you're saying something and so that's what you want that's after the last five years that's what we want more regulation on what

it is we're allowed to say have we not you know it's like I'm sorry dude and it's not even like again Donald Trump put between like like as we've said a million times right between the criminals in the war party and the criminals in the COVID regime, right? Well, we got Tulsi Gabbard and Cash Patel and Bobby Kennedy and J. Badacharya and all of these guys. And who's being held criminally responsible for any of it? So far, you know, but we're going to crack down on someone burning an American flag. Why? Because they're so goddamn disgusted that we're given Israel billions of dollars to kill babies or something like that, that's who we're going to crack down on, the 20-year-old who's burning an American flag in protest of his government

being, you know, hijacked by a foreign country to inflict a genocide. Well, good. Let's get to the bottom of that one, Rob. Like, what are we supposed to do here? We're supposed to pretend this is anything other than just like, I don't know. Like, I agree with what you said. I think the policy is wrong on the face of it. But, the thing that's more disgusting is just like what a slap in the face it is to even be going down this path. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is monetary metals.

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I don't know. Any other thoughts? Yeah. I mean, I just, I mostly agree with you that the second I saw was like, man, we got to talk about this for three days. This is so stupid. Well, yeah. And you know what? But that's Donald Trump's superpower.

Yes, we do. We do have to talk about it. Did you want to play that video you sent over, Rob? Do you think that that's worth playing or is it? Did we kind of cover it? That was on the flag burning. Uh-huh. I think you sent one on the flag burning.

Am I wrong about that? No. Yeah, I think you sent Trump signing executive order on flag burning. It's YouTube. Yeah, it's everything we just said. All right, so then we got a few minutes left. I guess we could talk Intel here a little bit.

So what's the, what's the start? I'm not well read on this, Rob, but so the U.S. took a 10% stake in Intel. Is that right? Yeah, this one really, this one really, yeah. that's me mad about Trump. So once again, it's another gray area story that we should not be giving money over to these companies. That's not the way capitalism works. I don't think that there's ever strategic assets in which we give money over to private companies. Then they actually pull through on those commitments because then, you know, they're not actually beholden to profits and

markets and actually creating goods and services. And I think you just end up with Biden and Obama's green energy scam of companies getting a bunch of money to go out and do these things, and then it never gets done. So anyways, Biden promises, I think it was like $10 billion for, you know, chip development in this country that a lot of people think is really important because we're so reliant on Taiwan and China might take Taiwan. And hey, it's really important for us to be making microchips within the United States of America. So Donald Trump has a closed door meeting with the head of Intel and somehow walks away with instead of America just giving all this money over to the company, we're going to be taking 10%, which is essentially, I think,

value to $10 billion, so it's even Stevens on Biden's investments. So in other words, Donald Trump is spending no money, just the United States government is clawing 10% from this company because of what Biden did. Now, here's why this is so problematic. There's really two big reasons. One, it speaks to what you've said a thousand times that Donald Trump has no coherent philosophy. And so do we actually think that these private institutions need to be partially owned by the government? If it's very important to us that we have more microchips, is government better at actually getting these things done? And then why are we going to partner with a private company? Why is just a 10% ownership stake? Why does that make the difference?

What exactly is it about the government owning 10% of this company that's better than just leaving things to the private market. Now, I get it, gray area kicker that we were handing them free money anyways, so maybe we should take a stake for it. Now, here's just the next part of this that I think makes it a little bit even more dangerous is that just last week, Donald Trump was criticizing that the CEO of Intel needs to step down because apparently they had made given over technology to China and made investments in China, and essentially he thinks he's not serving America first. He needs to step down. Comes to the Oval Office, then a week later, Donald Trump gets to go around to the American taxpayers, look, I got you guys 10% stake in this

company. So now, maybe you can make the argument that that's Donald Trump's brilliant negotiations. He said something that wasn't true a week ago and then got a concession or that they're no longer going to be at risk to the United States people because Donald Trump has a 10% interest in it. But you've also created a platform where Donald Trump can threaten any company with regulation or a bad light until they come into the Oval Office and then start making concessions the administration, which includes giving over a stake of the company. And then you also got to wonder so then what happens when Donald Trump leaves office if like a Democratic government now owns 25% of the stock market. Is that the country you want to live in? We're now what there's going to be another

department agency that's called the stock market. And then they're making decisions with all their voting interest in these companies of how every single private, like the government's not doing a good job of managing government. Do you want them owning large portions of corporations? I think their stake is 10% and BlackRock owns 13%. I'm not pro BlackRock, but I'm saying, do you want them having the same voting rights as corporations as large as that? I mean, you're just talking about socialism. The guy's, Donald Trump is a socialist and he wants to be able to turn around to the American people and go, look, I'm winning for you. I got a stake in the, I don't think the American government is better off with stakes in private companies. I don't think that helps our economy. I don't think

that this is a long-term win. And like I said, just to recap, it's, it's risky because Donald Trump said, we're going to do this to more companies. And so you're shaking down more companies to take an interest. And then two, what exactly is this government structure? Give me the pitch. How does this help the economy? If it's necessary for us to have more microchips,

do you think government should just make direct investment and start doing microchips? Do you think private companies should be doing it? Or can you explain to me why government having a 10% stake in it is what gets us more of the thing? And I don't think, obviously, you can't make that. pitch yeah oh yeah yeah i mean look it's always the thing i know this is the thing that like us lulberts just get autistically focused on and it doesn't move the needle with a lot of other people but sorry we just have an allergy to logically incoherent positions and again if somebody wants to try

to actually take this on and explain it to me it's like again just like with everything else rob if it's such a win like i understand donald trump's mentality i got you 10% it's all business shit right but the problem is that business actually isn't the same as every part of life and government is different than business just like um a marriage is different than business and friendships are different than business and so in business just going around being like i got 10% of this and we cut costs by this and we raise like that might make sense it doesn't make sense to you know have a friendship like that and it doesn't make sense to run a government like that if it is a win for Donald Trump to get 10% of this company,

okay, well then 20% would be a bigger win, right? 30% would be huge. Why doesn't he just nationalize it? We get 100% of it. Why should we stop at this one company? Why shouldn't we nationalize every company? You know, I could, you know, Rob, Donald Trump thinks he's good.

Joseph Stalin can get you 100% of every company. So isn't that a much bigger win? Like, again, this is where when you have no coherent worldview, just having a gut reaction for good business doesn't cut it. Because it's like, no, this just does not make sense. Look, as far as the more meta question of like, oh, there are these chips in, you know, which, and I always liked Vivek Ramoswamy, but he, you know, I never thought had a compelling answer on this and I talked to them on camera and off camera about this topic. But the meta

narrative is like, hey, we can't let China take Taiwan because they make these chips and the world needs these chips. And so we just simply can't allow China to take Taiwan. And that's why essentially whatever it is, right, Rob, the answer is always, that's why more government in this particular case, whether that's why building up militarism or doing some type of war games and the you know in the ocean next to china or do it you know some type of or we need a 10% stake in intel or we need some big government program to do it's always that's why more government except right away if you just start to think that through you know you might come you might just be like okay wait why did we put the chips in Taiwan like why are we put why are they in this area

that's so vulnerable and by the way they've run dude they run it's unbelievable it's unbelievable But they run like all types of war games. There's like a huge percentage of what our military does, just run war games or what happens in this scenario and that scenario. And what's really weird is they run, you almost would have thought, because I remember when I first started reading about this, it was actually, it was the great Colonel Douglas McGregor. He was the guy who had like drawn up the war plans for what a conventional war with Russia looks

like and I remember the first time I heard that I was like why do they even do that because like we have nuclear weapons now like who's even thinking about a conventional war with Russia like this but they do it they drop all these plans for like what if we fought a war with China and nukes weren't used like just how would our fleet do up against theirs above and every single time they've run this we can't stop them from taking Taiwan it's it's like they're the damage is in sane like every time they run these games you can go look this up every time it's uh it's always like we we lose airmen and seamen by the thousands you know i'm not i don't mean the thousands of soldiers i mean the thousands of ships and planes like we're taking crazy crazy losses and china

still keeps taiwan at the end just think about it like run a war game where we try to take mexico city and china tries to stop us by conventional military means don't you immediately in your mind just go yeah that's not going to work for them they're going to lose that like yeah it's the same thing over there and then that's and that's not taking into account you know the like that they they have a bunch of h bombs so like that's there's also a pretty big risk to just ending the world like they may not have as many as russia has but they got more than enough to blow up the world and that's really all you need rob is to be able to do that once um but so there's so first of all with the military stuff it's insane that we're even having this conversation there simply is no

option and then with the stuff here you're like you're like just take me through this you're telling me why is it they can produce these chips in taiwan but they cannot produce these chips in the united states of america is that because we don't have enough smart people who know how chips are made or is that because there are government rules that make it impossible to do it here so you don't need any of this socialism bullshit just get literally you know you know for a fact rob and i really i'm speaking a little bit out of turn here because i'm not well read on this subject enough to really know the details of this, but I know I'm right about this because this is the way it always works. If you just made it a more hospitable environment to make these microchips here,

we could make them here. It is not that the people in Taiwan are magical beings that are capable of making shit that we can't make here in America. And so this idea of that like any of this, taking, taking direct ownership, like the government taking direct ownership of of private companies is in in no way the answer to how to solve that problem. I'm sorry. It just doesn't make sense. They did the same thing on sand microchip where 15% of the profits are supposed to be going to the United States government.

If you want more of the microchips, how does it help to divert 15% of this money to the U.S. government? How does that get you more of it? Yeah, it's just, it's anti-economics. Like, it's anti-economics to think that that's the answer. all right let's wrap on that good to be back good to see you rob and talk with everybody we'll be back tomorrow with a brand new episode catch you then peace