Part Of The Problem - The Delusional War Hawks

Episode Date: June 23, 2026

Dave Smith brings you the latest in politics! On this episode of Part Of The Problem, Dave and Robbie "the fire" Bernstein discuss the pivot in negotiations with Iran, Ben Shapiro giving advice on combat strategy on his show, the silver lining of this war, and more.Support Our Sponsors:CrowdHealth - https://www.joincrowdhealth.com/promos/potpRidge - https://ridge.com/potp10Hexclad - Find your forever cookware @hexclad and get10% off at https://hexclad.com/PROBLEM! #hexcladpartnerUltra - Don’t sleep on Ultra Pouches. New customers get 15% Off with code PROBLEM at https://takeultra.com!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://robbernsteincomedy.com/eventsFind Run Your Mouth here:YouTube - http://youtube.com/@RunYourMouthiTunes - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/run-your-mouth-podcast/id1211469807Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/4ka50RAKTxFTxbtyPP8AHmFollow the show on social media:X:http://x.com/ComicDaveSmithhttp://x.com/RobbieTheFireInstagram:http://instagram.com/theproblemdavesmithhttp://instagram.com/robbiethefire#libertarian See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What's up? What's up, everyone. Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of The Problem. I am Dave Smith. He is Robbie the Fire, Bernstein. We are back from a wonderful weekend in Denver, Colorado. And next up is another one I'm looking forward to. Rob Houston, Texas. We'll be at the Houston Punchline July 9th, 10th, and 11th. So come see us out there, ComicDab Smith.com for tickets. How are you, Rob? How was the rest of your weekend? How was your other show out there in Denver? I had a great time out in Denver. I'm having a lot of fun running my FBI thing.

It's cooking. And upcoming gigs is this weekend, Raleigh, North Carolina, Hampstead, North Carolina, and Myrtle Beach. And then after that, I got Galveston, Texas, Lebanon, 10, and a sea, Chickamauga, Atlanta, a whole bunch of stuff. Find it all at porch store.com. All right. Very good.

All right. Well, let's get into it, man. So we, so me and you have a, it's always a weird situation we get into, but me and you have really not talked that much on air about all the latest dynamics in the last week. We were hollering out of green rooms. We spent the whole weekend together, so me and you have talked it to death, but we haven't, we almost have an obligation now to go over some of this stuff for the audience here. But so let's kind of talk about the latest news,

and then we'll get into a bunch of stuff from over the weekend and really over the last week, this crazy pivot, which is, look, been really, really great. One of the things, I think we've been pretty accurate in our coverage of this war so far, one of the things that I got wrong, which we talked about this weekend, was that Donald Trump, I did not think Donald Trump

was ready to eat this much crow already. Like, I didn't think he was there yet. And it seems, we can get into this, it seems as if he got, you know, like some, some adults in the room sat him down and explained to him just how dire these consequences were and how much we had been licked in this war and that's that's a theme we're going to get into for the whole show and probably for the whole next year um but it's really great that he was ready to turn around this early so we're in the situation where there's actually a lot of positives here that are potentially could come

of this at the same time we have whatever you want to call this right right now, Rob, the loosest of frameworks for a ceasefire that have been agreed upon for a two-month negotiation period. This is hanging on by a thread. I mean, the latest on this, Rob, is that the Iranians essentially did. They walked away at the negotiations. They announced the closure of the Strait of Hermus. They then came back, and there were some negotiations that took place, and J.D. Vance was trying to at least spin it in a positive way that, no, it's pretty good. We're getting somewhere. But the obvious issues are Israel continuing the war in Lebanon.

This is what's threatening the whole thing right now. And the other issue, Rob, I don't know if you were following this, is just Donald Trump's ability to eat crow on this. And of course, because everybody is recognizing this for what it is, as an American surrender of sorts of recognition that we lost the war and we have no other option. Donald Trump, of course, in Trumpian fashion, responded by talking a lot of shit and even threatening the negotiators. And reportedly, this was a major problem that almost blew up the entire thing. So I don't know.

Any thoughts on the latest? Let's do the latest. And then we can zoom out and do more about the big flip. Yeah. Well, I'm a little lost on what I've said where or what was green room. But I mean, it seems like Donald Trump's biggest concern is a stock market crash while he's president. And I guess people gave him the dynamics. And he was like, all right, this is come to a close.

I've got no pathway to victory. He is so unaided that he's made statements such as, listen, everyone has a right to nuclear enrichment. People have a right to defend themselves. a willingness to accept a deal that did not have the exact framework for the nuclear agreement up front. That was a big one, was whether or not there would be a ceasefire. It looks like they're going to allow them to enrich. And obviously, the Iranians have stuck it to Trump that if Israel continues to attack Lebanon, we don't have a deal here. And what you were talking to of Donald Trump threatening him, I believe there's a line in the MOU that neither side is allowed to.

threaten each other. But Donald Trump has made it clear, hey, this is only an MOU. I know I made a big stink out of signing this thing, but at the end of the day, it's not an actual formalized agreement. And, you know, it seems like he might actually need to restrain the Israelis to get this thing pushed through and done, which is the promising thing. But the line that you have to walk back from 40 chess, we're winning, trust the plan to where we are now, I think it is important to recognize the failure of this. A lot of people, have been arguing to celebrate it because otherwise Donald Trump might walk away. But in my opinion, it's Donald Trump's hubris,

is awareness of his own common sense that got us into these messes and to just pretend like this is an outstanding American victory. I don't care to lie on his behalf. Yeah, well, look, I would take it even a step further than that. I mean, I agree with everything you're saying. Well, I don't know. Maybe I should catch you up because I did the last episode was solo and I had a conversation with MAGA. That was when you were out, my guest was MAGA. And so we had a whole conversation. We worked it out by the end of the show.

So the deal is that we're going to tag in kind of like as mercenaries for them. We're going to help them fight this battle against the Israel lobby who's trying to spoil this deal for the good of the country. and then in return they're all going to support Thomas Massey for president. So that's the deal. Because we're not like getting back together, but we'll reform the coalition under our leadership and they can support us. But anyway, in exchange for that, we'll give them some services,

which we really don't owe them. You know what I mean? Like, I mean, they betrayed us in every way possible publicly, you know, told us Mark Levinn was MAGA. Anyway, okay. So the thing about it is that it's actually in this role as mercenaries, one of the advantages we have is that, yeah, we don't have to lie. We can just tell the truth.

It actually strengthens our position to just tell the truth, which is that, no, we fought your stupid war and we lost. Because we listened to you, we're now here where we have to give them everything. By the way, this is going to become one of the major themes of this show and of discussing this war going forward, is that, and we'll see this as we go through, all of the opposition to this deal relies on delusion, on a refusal to accept what just happened in this war, which is that we lost.

And anyway, this is a very interesting dynamic because now Donald Trump, who again was with them a few days ago, was in fact the most maximalist of all the Trumpians, as he always is, he was refusing to admit this to, but now he's very much admitting this, that like, yeah, we can't keep going. It's going to destroy the economy. And it is worth noting, Rob, that immediately,

as you pointed out, Trump did violate the memorandum of understanding already by threatening Iran and by threatening the negotiators, and they immediately threatened to close the straight again. Like, they know what this is. all about and they're going right back to that threat if Donald Trump doesn't make good on his word and it's kind of an interesting situation now because even if they want to say hey the 300 billion dollars hasn't been given to them it's like yeah that's true but it is in there that you made a commitment so maybe they want to close the strait of her moose it where who knows how every different you know

if you're if you are the Iranians and look let's get real as I've been saying through this entire war Through our coverage of this entire thing, I've been saying, hey, everyone should be reading DropSite every day if you really want to understand this because you got to hear what the Iranians are saying too. You got to look at this from their perspective as well. And obviously, I would say at this point, Rob, yeah, you had a much better understanding of this entire war and why we're at the point we're at now. By the way, it's very funny that Ben Shapiro and Bacha and all these commentators, they have to almost be like dumbfounded. about how we got to the point we are right now. Like we were winning, we were winning, everything was great. Out of nowhere, this crazy deal that's so bad for us,

whereas like the people like us who have been paying attention to this can be like, oh, no, this makes perfect sense that this is where we're at right now. It's not out of nowhere. So for people who are, you know, like, or if you get to the point where you can acknowledge what was just happening here, you would also recognize from, you knew we were going to get here by paying attention to the Iranian perspective. And if you are still paying attention to the Iranian perspective, it's worth noting, Rob, that this is very controversial in Iran right now. It's very controversial that they're even doing this deal for obvious reasons. First of all,

they're also aware that they won. They're not, they don't have to be Ben Shapiro and pretend to be delusional. They know that they won. They know they're in the driver's seat. They know there's a reason why the country that just came to them with the threat of complete annihilation and the demand of total surrender, they know that the country in Israel, who is hell bent on their destruction, and the country America who's hell bent on doing Israel's bidding, they know that they came to destroy them. They killed their holy leader as well as his family, as well as a bunch of Iranian girls and civilians and all this. They've also attacked them twice now in the middle of negotiations. So for them to enter into negotiations again, they almost have to take on a like

immediate we are not playing posture. Right. So like that's that's where they have to go to threatening the straight closed again immediately to let it be known that like this isn't like other negotiations, which I think there's good reason to believe that this is not. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Ridge. I love the Ridge wallet. I've been been using it for years. It's great. It's unique. It's slim. It's got. a modern design it holds up to 12 cards plus cash which is all you really need a lot of people still use the old school traditional leather wallet you look like a grandpa get yourself a ridge wallet they're very cool uh you never have to worry about losing your wallet again they have the ridge

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border. All right, let's get back into the show. Anyway, the point there is just that there's if you acknowledge that we lost this thing, you recognize why we're at the point that we're at right now and that

how easily this all could be sabotaged. Any thoughts on any of that? Feel free to jump in, Rob. Yeah, well, on how easily it can be sabotaged. You got Israel has absolutely no interest in this agreement. And would like to continue bombing Lebanon. You had for an entire week, they were telling us that what we've heard about the MOU

is not actually in the MOU. There is no $300 billion that's going to them. We are not returning the seized funds that we have. They won't be able to toll the straits in the future. That's a big one. Yeah, well, it looks like there might, you know, either the Trump administration gave this to them or they've gotten good at American marketing that there will probably be a transit fee and not a toll.

and so it won't actually be a toll, but it brings you back to the exact same place. But now you've got the, you know, in these negotiations, it seems like the administration's trying to whittle away at everything it conceded to kind of change the terms on it. Israel and Lebanon instantly went to firing at each other. So as to whether or not this thing holds, I guess, you know, it's still kind of in limbo. And the administration continuously lies to, we had a whole week of that's not in the deal. deal comes out. It's everything everyone was talking about. And now J.D. Vance still on the news telling you, well, it's not what you think's in there. And the Iranians have agreed to terms that nobody has heard.

So, you know, the administration is still lying through their teeth on everything. Oh, it's unbelievable. And it's unbelievable how they've done the almost like revolving door of like first, it's Marco Rubio selling the war. And then J.D. Vance comes in and Marker Rubio leaves. I mean, we haven't heard from Marco Rubio. He is just like not been in front of the camera. this whole time. J.D. Vance has done 85 different interview. He's done after J.D. Vance was hardly seen from at the beginning of this war, you know, like he's the guy to sell getting out of it. Rubia, but of course, Rubio, when he was in before he popped around the other side of the revolving door, he was telling us that absolutely what's unacceptable is that they'll ever be

charging a fee, even if they want to call it something else. And he already even had that caveat in there. Even if they want to call it an environmental toll, that's still a fee. And we can't have them doing that. Well, that turned into for 60 days, Rob, for 60 days, they can't do that. And then they can do it for all of time. Yeah, look, there's a, in terms of where we are right now, you got to be, look, I'll say this. I think I said when I had Ryan Grimm on the show, this is, what was this, three or four weeks ago. And I've kind of said versions of this at other points, I think.

But I said, as I'm watching this, this whole war has felt like it feels like watching the Berlin Wall fall. Like, you're like, whoa, this is a big deal. This is a real realignment of global powers.

And not just, and there's a lot of questions that haven't been answered yet. There's a lot of questions. You know, like what this really means for America's military presence in the Middle East going forward. That's a really big open question right now. That's a really big deal, whether the U.S. Empire has a physical military presence in the Middle East. That's a very big deal.

They're very big questions that are going to shake out over the next year and years. And so we've talked a lot about, well, how this could be a major jolt to the global economy, how this could be a major shake-up to like the GEOPLE. geopolitical military world order. As this is ending, you know, as we've said before, the war in Iran as of right now, and let's assume that this does stick. And we are kind of approaching an end to this, which is an assumption. Who knows?

But yeah, again, it wasn't the humanitarian catastrophe that all the other theaters of the global war on terrorism were. But my God, did this shift things? This is a huge American loss in a manner of which we've never suffered before. We've never really been in this situation where we're essentially bribing an end to a war out of an actual standing government. And in many ways, look, Rob, like me and you have speculated a lot about how Israel has the control and the influence that it has over the U.S. government. But if it really is the case that Donald Trump is being told that the, like, and it's clicked with him, which it seems to have, that the physical realities on the ground are that we cannot do this anymore. Meaning things like Rob, we're burning through missiles quicker than they are.

We will be out if we keep doing this for another three months. The estimates are another two months of the Strait of Hormuz being closed is absolute global depression. and oil at $130 a barrel and absolutely debt. Like if it is that bad, that that just outweighs whatever influence Israel has over us. Well, first of all, that is possible. It is possible that there's a thing that just outweighs that, whatever that is exactly. And if that is the case, then I don't know. I'm quite open right now, very cautiously, Rob, to the possibility that, like,

we have the opportunity for there to be a really meaningful silver lining that comes out of this disastrous war that we never should have launched, you know, which is that if ever we were going to requestion the relationship with Israel now would really kind of be the time. Obviously, the U.S. shouldn't be engaged in this part of the world. And so there's a huge opportunity for us to pull back right now, which would just be better for the region and for the American people. And perhaps in a way, Rob, we are, you know, I think I heard Darrell Cooper was making a point, something similar to this point. Maybe it was on provoked. Or, oh, no, maybe it was on, he was on Tom Woods show recently. But he was saying something like, maybe we could have learned a lesson here in a way that like, hey, this could have been a lot worse. At least the thing didn't have to go on for another few months before Donald Trump backed out.

And maybe, maybe in some way, Rob, in the same way that a Venice, Wales. going very easy ends up leading to Iran even though I mean even though guys like me and you might question like what actually was accomplished by Venezuela but the fact being that it didn't lead to a protracted like disastrous

conflict so in the same way that that maybe leads to Venezuela this going so bad in Iran might be what prevents some type of conflict with Russia or China down the road or whatever you know and maybe maybe in some ways it could be

in some tragic way, kind of good that you picked on a kind of small, you know, country and still got your clock cleaned, that at least lets you know, hey, now you know where you really are in terms of readiness, preparedness to go get into some other conflict. So I don't know, there's a lot of potential possibilities that could come out of this. Of course, Donald Trump also could just snap back into doing the bidding of the Israel lobby at any moment. What do you think, Rob? Yeah, well, I have a loose thought of my. head. I'm going to speculate really big right now. All right. But I've been seeing these pieces that essentially, you know, it's kind of like the Fed put in the markets that you never want to short

the market. And I think in part the reason why oil prices haven't gone up as drastically is because every time Donald Trump was coming out with good news, the shorts were getting cleaned, you know, people who were shorting oil or no, I guess betting on oil prices going up. But anyways, I almost wonder if Donald Trump is just trying to buy some time right now of getting, uh, avoiding the cliff of basically the depleted stockpiles and oil and what was happening in the markets. And then, you know, maybe if this is all just a ruse so that he can actually get back to some military action, uh, and avert the, uh, you know, the impeding supposed global depression and, uh, major uptick and oil prices. Uh, but I do, I, look, I got to say, and I, I say this with a,

healthy respect for the possibility that I could be wrong. And of course, because Donald Trump is so erratic and can has a unique ability to contradict himself and talk out of both sides of his mouth and take really in a way that we've never seen a political figure do before, he can take maximalist contradictory positions within a matter of minutes. and also he is very temperamental and, you know, whatever. So he, this could not be the case. I don't think this is a setup to attack them while we're negotiating or to escalate the war or anything.

I think Donald Trump is desperate to get out of this thing. I do think that's real. And there are, look, I mean, it's a little bit hard to judge because, of course, as I said, Donald Trump always takes the maximalist position. And there's almost kind of like a reason. Well, look, I mean, once Donald Trump, when Donald Trump's in the war, right, he's taking the most maximalist Trumpian position. We've totally destroyed them. I want total surrender.

We'll give him total annihilation unless we get total surrender. Like, it's just that's the speed he always plays on. But then as soon as he crosses over, and this is kind of, in a way, this is kind of the interesting dynamic right now. So Donald Trump crosses over now. he realizes he's got to get out of this thing and then as you start okay but so they want to lie about the deal they want to say oh this is all leaks and bullshit it all turns out to be real they're just trying to buy themselves a few days before the the donor base and the power base in dc is furious about this which you see all types of moves to block this in congress and all you know the all the

usual characters are furious about this and so now he's come back over where he's got to fight that he's got to fight on this side. And in a weird way, of course, it's Donald Trump, so he wants to be as maximalist as he can now. What are you guys insane? You want to fight this war forever. But also, when you're back over on this side, one of the, the big weapon that you have is the PR game, is that, oh, yeah, this war is crazy unpopular. Everyone hates the Israelis. Everyone hates that they just blow up buildings and kill a bunch of innocent people. So there's all these obvious cards to play. But man, those are some extreme cards to play. Like, it's really hard.

Look, when Donald Trump, once Donald Trump crosses back over and he's fighting for this deal, he sends in J.D. Vance. J.D. Vance, you get out there. You go on Megan Kelly. You go on Meet the Press. You go on all these shows. And you defend getting out of this war right now. Which J.D. Vance is happy to, like, pick up the cards and do.

Because, God damn, I mean, of all the jobs, this administration's been handing out for the last hundred days. That one's probably the easiest one for J.D. Vans to actually do. Sell the idea that we shouldn't do this anymore. But in order to do that, he has to use these talking points. He's got to bring this stuff up. Otherwise, you know what I mean? I mean, he's getting viciously attacked right now. The only way he can fight in that fight is to go, hey, you guys are a bunch of baby killers. Right? He's got it. And that's also, it's this pair of pocket aces just sitting on the ground. Why wouldn't you play that card? That's also the card that everyone in the audience wants to hear.

So he's a guy playing the most popular card, but anyway, Rob, I guess you could see the point I'm getting to here, is that it's also a really devastating card to play. And it's a really difficult card to play that and then be appearing on the Ben Shapiro show next week. You know what I mean? Like as soon as you start saying stuff like that, you're really going to war with the lobby. And I don't look, say what you will about J.D. Vance. I know it's like rumored or whatever that he essentially has our foreign policy. And that's something that like we're almost supposed to take as an article of faith that we just operate under that view.

I don't really think he has our foreign policy because me and you would have fucking, you know, resign from this administration a long time ago. Or if we had stayed on it, we would have been saying a lot of things that would have pissed off the boss. but regardless of that, what I see from actions that J.D. Vance is not someone who wants a fight with the Israel lobby. He's not someone who really wants to be a vocal critic of them instead, but this is the position he finds himself in now. And anyway, so I say all of this to say, I don't, my first point was I don't think Donald Trump is trying to set up war. I think he's desperate to get out of this because he recognizes how costly this has already been and how costly it could be. And number two is that the lane that they are, the lane that that therefore forces them down is a lane where it's going to be very difficult to like get back on board with the war party. I mean, they'll take them back if the bombs start dropping, but it's going to be very tough.

Donald Trump, as tough as it was for him to walk out of the corner he painted himself into and do this, it's going to be tough now to walk out of this corner to go back. to the war. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is crowd health, longtime sponsor of the show. An amazing company. They created a real alternative to the broken health insurance model in our country. So if you're looking to escape the bureaucratic nightmare of the American health insurance system, check out crowd health health health insurance. And of course they have, as I've been telling you about for a while, they're Black Swan membership, which people really love. It's the health care alternative for people autonomy over their care, their costs, and their lifestyle. They just need a little help with those

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And that is like a little fun threat of like, hey, here's a jab. Do you want me talking about this every day? But the deal still does boil down to is Israel actually going to, I mean, is America really going to actually restrain? Israel. And then also, how much of these terms is the Trump administration just looking to walk back and basically turn into, you know, we're not actually sending you money, whether or not the straits are going to reopen, whether or not it's going to be contingent on, you know, a JCPOA type framework to actually monitor nuclear enrichment. There's still, there's still a lot of

variables from what's basically an oversold MOU and now them trying to seemingly whittle back all the points with Iran. Yep, yep. No, you're right about that. All right. Well, let's go to, let's do, let's go to the Ben Shapiro clip first. I want to, you know, listen, we are, we've agreed to come back as hired mercenaries for the MAGA movement. You know, in exchange just for all of their support for Thomas Massey for president. So he's got MAGA behind him now, but we have a job to do. So let's get to it. Here is, this is Ben Shapiro. obviously doing everything he can. He's all these guys essentially, you know, it's funny because we joke around. And I know, listen, behind the scenes, Rob, me, you, Ben Shapiro, Mark Levin, we're all great friends. This is a ruse that we keep up for, you know, it's entertainment value. We all act like we don't like it, but we all hang out.

We get dinner all the time. And I know that it does, they've expressed to both of us behind the scenes at our, at our two dinners, that they do think when I call them in Israel, Israeli spies, they think that's a little bit too far. But as you can also see, over just like the last week, they've also been activated. They're just literally, they're literally, they're like they're they're in effect Israeli spies. There is absolutely no difference between them and if they actually were like, you know, working for Mossad and we're given fake names and everything like that.

But they've been activated. They're doing everything they can to break up this deal. we are going to try to defend the administration, obviously Rob, as a couple of, because, well, what? Because we're, unlike Ben Shapiro, we have some loyalty to Donald Trump. I trust him, okay? He's the most courageous president in modern history, and we should trust the plan. So anyway, let's check in with Ben Shapiro here. J.D. Vance appears on Megan Kelly's podcast.

Remember, as we'll get to, Megan Kelly is a person who has said that the Israelis manipulated the administration into war, who has laughed along to the proposition that the Republican Party is a bunch of Israel-loving pedophiles. This is where the Vice President chose. You retail the argument. Was it already? It's just unbelievable to me. And I'm sorry, but it's still just, I know, I know that the last couple years have shaken up the conservative movement. And obviously the attitudes and awareness about Israel and the dynamics between the Israeli-Palestinians.

conflict and the dynamics between the, you know, the U.S. Israeli relationship and all these things have just like exploded. But just think about the fact here that Ben Shapiro and really just like kind of zoom out. Catch the vibes of all this, Rob. Ben Shapiro, Mr. Fax, don't care about your feelings. The guy who'll go into a college campus and I'm going to say the thing that makes everybody's feelings hurt, but you know what? You can't argue with the merits of it. He now has morphed into this character who does this like, he might as well be like a soccer mom with an apron on, like fanning herself going, oh my, oh my. Now, first of all, J.D. Vance sat down with Megan Kelly.

Like, it's not even, he's not doing this routine about Nick Fuentes. She sat down with Megan Kelly. You mean staple of American conservatism, Inc. Megan Kelly. By the way, Rob, this is just how crazy all of this is. This is on the level. Maybe there's a little bit more time, but this is me in

10 years going, let's say I wanted to trash someone, somebody I don't like, whoever it was. And I go, they recently sat down with Joe Rogan? Who would ever? Oh yeah, yeah. That's right. I would.

Oh, yeah. By the way, Rob, Megan Kelly, like, launched Ben Shapiro's career. It was a huge, huge part of Ben Shapiro's early career was that he was a regular guest on the Megan Kelly files or whatever her show on Fox News was. It was like the biggest or second biggest Fox News show at the time. And Ben Shapiro was a regular guest on it. And you'd get millions and millions of views, millions of hits on his things. So he's like, but like even just starting this, that Megan Kelly is somehow outside

of the bounds of who you can have a conversation with. And then the evidence that he summons is that Megan Kelly, who has said that Israel tricked us into the war, as if that's some crazy fringe, but that is the mainstream accepted position on this. I mean, what do we, Rob, if you just read just the New York Times piece on the start of the war, you're just arguing semantics.

this point if you have a problem. Like, okay, yeah, they persuaded Donald Trump that it would go this way if they did it. There was no reason to suspect it would go that way, and it didn't. That's it. And then his second piece of it, like this is already before he's even gotten into anything, he's appalled that the vice president is appearing with Megan Kelly of all people. And his second piece that he summons is that she laughed at a joke that someone made. That's what he's down to. The anti-woke facts don't care about your feelings guy is mad that she chuckled when somebody made a joke. Let's continue.

Yeah. Yeah. President says that actually the only reason that people would oppose the deal is because they want endless conflict. Well, let's hear already has to say. I think that fundamentally, if you look at what they're proposing, they're proposing an endless conflict. They want this to go on until every bomb has been dropped or until every Iranian is dead. That is not what the president of the United States wants. What he said is I said about this to end their nuclear program, to eliminate their ability to threaten their neighbors and project power,

and to fundamentally make sure that no future child would have to deal with a terrorist regime with an atomic bomb. That's why the president set out to do this. He feels, and he's right, that he's accomplished that goal. and now we can get to the negotiation to see what are the other benefits that we can get from this? And frankly, what are the benefits the Iranians could get from this if they behave? I just don't think that people who are criticizing this, one, they're not actually dealing with the reality of what's in it. And number two, they don't have an alternative. If your alternative is just to drop bombs without any clear goal or any clear American interest implicated,

then you're not making wise decisions on behalf of the American people. right so let's pose it right there well in entire rob let's pose it here and let's let's try our best to look give jd vans some credit um as i said to you rob i think in fact we both independently came up with like a similar analogy about you know the the guy who's robin the bank and and he's killed a few people already but you're still negotiating with him because he's still got more hostages and you know you know almost if you could picture like one of those cop shows if you had like a serious killer who killed a whole bunch of girls or something like that. And you're trying to negotiate with him about just giving you the location of the remains

of the people he killed. And you're negotiating whatever you can. Like we can make some condition a little more comfortable for you in prison if you just get, you know, like, you're already way past the point of like, look, obviously you're an evil person. Obviously, you're doing 75 life sentences, obviously we're, you know. But, hey, it would still be a really great thing to do to give the location of the the remains so they can have a funeral or whatever.

It's like that with the, kind of like that is how I feel about this administration at this point. It is great despite everything else that they're trying to get this deal done and that J.D. Vance is trying to sell it. And I do think, Rob, that right there is about as good as you can do if you're J.D. Vance. The advantage, MAGA, and this is why we have such a great deal here and all you got to do is vote for Thomas Massey for president, every single last one of you, is that, that,

we can do this in a much more effective way than J.D. Vance can because we don't have to be tied to all his bullshit. So we don't have to pretend that this was always about nuclear or something like that. It's like, no, no, no. This was stupid. It never should have been launched. And unfortunately, our idiot president listened to people like Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin. It's great, Rob. It actually, we don't even have to pretend this isn't true. It helps our case to just admit this, because now we can live in reality. We listened to you guys. We launched a stupid war. We lost. We are in trouble. We are now desperate to get the war to end. That's the case. But what J.D. Vance is, which I think you'd agree, Rob, what he is circling in on here, which is very important is what is your

alternative. And that is, even if you notice there, when Ben Shapiro characterized what he said, he misrepresented it, then he goes to the clip. He didn't say anyone who disagrees with this could only disagree with this because they want forever war. He said if you're arguing we shouldn't make a deal effectively what you're arguing for is forever war because what else they're not going to give in. And so what else happens other than forever war if they won't give in? We got to fight him. That's why he made the point. Until every last Iranian's dead. What do you want to do here? That's what it's going to take to end this thing. And so that's the challenge here. What is your alternative. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is

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All right. Let's get back into the show. It's such a damning indictment of the Mark Levins, the Ben Shapirs, the other ones, the Lindsey Grams, even though I guess he's changed a little bit. But Ted Cruz, all these people that are still pushing for more war, when he got J.D. Vance and Donald Trump going, hey, guys, we tried it. And we don't have a path. We're all for this war.

We've been selling it for two full months. We started it. We engaged in it. We've been telling everyone we're winning. We've been drumming up support. We have tried this and we're here to tell you we do not have a pathway to victory. We can only make this worse. Do you guys have any ideas for us?

Because we're all for war. Just four days ago, we were selling this the American people. We are down for it. We just don't actually have a way to win it. And now you've got to have Ben Shapiro and others. We're going to see the lunacy that he pitches of there actually is a pathway to victory. But it's like, how do you contend with Donald Trump and J.D. Vance letting you know, we have the military intelligence.

We wanted to do this. We love the war. And we're letting you know that there's no pathway to victory. And now you've got other people saying no, they're absolutely. Which it's a pretty tough way. It's a pretty tough argument. You're trying to pretend that like the Donald Trump and J.D. Vance administration just decided they don't like war, that you could win this and they don't want to do it. It's such a good point, Rob.

I mean, the fact you got Donald Trump. Okay. Donald Trump put all of his chips in. on his entire legacy, his entire presidency on this war. He bet it all. He bet the whole political house on this war. He put his whole nut sack on the table with a guy with a big spike bat stand there like loser gets smashed.

He went all in on this war. If there were any way, and as you can see already, it's costing him dearly in order to have to leave with nothing to show for this. in order for he would do anything he could if there were a path to just bomb some victory out of this. And it's ridiculous to think he wouldn't. And this is one of the things that's so, well, look, I'll say it like this, right? There's, this is why telling the truth is an advantage. And this is why we made this wonderful deal that we did with MAGA.

it's why they needed us to tag in. We specialize. Listen, man, they need someone to take down the Israel lobby, and that's what we specialize in. Rob, we've been, you know, practicing, cutting our teeth for years here. So, but part of the reason we're good at this is because we're guided by the truth. And so because we're guided by the truth, we've been trashed in Donald Trump relentlessly for the last year. And so we're not tied to any of this stuff. And so we can just tell the truth.

Like, yeah, we lost the war. We got killed. We can't prevent them from closing the strait of her. moose and touching the region, and this is too much. They can, you know, put up devastation if they want to. Anyway, so the thing is that I noticed this with the war in Afghanistan, right? And, you know, there used to be Jordan Peterson back before his tragic kind of collapse. I'm talking about him joining the Daily Wire.

Then he also had some health issues. But back, he used to say this thing. I don't know if you ever heard it, Rob, where he talked about like when you're lying, it's like grabbing reality and twisting it. And it's like, hey, who the hell do you think you are to twist reality? And that's why so many times when you lie, reality like snaps back and it comes back to get you. Because like, you know, and then you can think about this. I don't know.

I think it's like a really beautiful and brilliant kind of metaphor. But if you think about like, you know, I'm sure all of us have experienced where like you were lying to someone you were friends with or someone you were in a relationship with. And even if it's just a little like that it comes back and causes all these other problems. And with the war in Afghanistan, I remember Rob for 20 years, they just lied, that was the official position, was just lying about how great the Afghan army that we were building up was doing. And this became over the course of the 20 years, this became a more and more open secret. Everybody involved, you just kind of couldn't keep the secret. Everybody involved

knew like, dude, this is a complete like paper tiger. this thing will collapse within a day. I talked to several different guys who served over there, who themselves told me, like, dude, this is insane. When you see the president saying, we've built up this government, it's very strong, they got a very capable military. But they kept lying about that.

And then Joe Biden had to lie about that all the way up until the withdrawal until they collapsed. And that was much like with Joe Biden himself, they kept saying he's strong until he physically collapsed. himself same thing with the afghan army and one of the the results of that was that the taliban got all the stockpiles of weaponry that had been left behind because we didn't move that stuff out when we still had a uh u.s military presence there now if we had been telling the truth and we had been saying hey listen this we tried for 20 years but this thing's going to collapse as soon as we leave

rob what would the next obvious question be oh shoot well what are we going to do about all the stockpiles ammunition. We got like hundreds of millions of dollars of stuff that we're leaving behind there. So we would have gotten that out. But because we were committed to the lie, we did. So anyway, similarly in this war, it's because Donald Trump and J.D. Vance and all these guys lied for like a hundred straight days. Now a lot of other people can call them on that and be like, hey, but we're committed to that lie. We were winning. We were crushing them. So the truth is that in order to, it's as simple as this is you just have to give up on the lie. and just tell the truth.

We were never that close. We weren't crushing them. And this had come out, Rob, this had come out, like, early. If the war went, like, around 100 days, within the first, I don't know, it was certainly the first month of the thing when it was the Pentagon report, it was either in the Washington Post or the New York Times where they came out, I think it was the Washington Post, where they admitted, like, oh, you know, that figure where they said 70 to 80 percent of their weapon, their stockpile of medium rains missiles had been destroyed.

It's more like 20%. It's like they hadn't been destroyed. As we'd seen in the last week, they're still fully capable of reaching out and touching the region. It's just not true. They're still fully capable of closing the straight. None of this was true. So it's all a big lie.

You got to give up on it. The key is the truth. The truth shall set you free, Rob. Any thoughts? No, let's continue. Because now we get the Ben Shapiro pitch that apparently the administration is just not familiar with this idea. Yeah, here we go.

The field of straw man is now burning because this is what we colloquially call a lie. This is a lie. An endless conflict would be, say, a 47-year conflict with an intransigent, radical Islamist enemy that wants to destroy America. Some of us have been calling for the president to end this war quickly.

Like from the beginning, I've been saying, and instead of... But it's, it really is rich, though. I'm sorry, Rob, because I know you want to get to the meat of this. I'll keep this short. But it really is rich for Ben Shapiro to go, like, that's a lie. You're a liar.

This isn't an endless war. An endless war is the 47-year conflict we've had with, like, what is this? How stupid does Ben Shapiro think people are? This is always like, I know Ben Shapiro, he's always like talks fast and he's smug. But how stupid does he think we are? The Euler sit here and go, oh, he's going to say you're being misleading for using the term endless war, which is a term that's come up, you know, over the history of the global war on terrorism over the last 25 years.

Now, Rob, I guess if he wants to, I don't know, it was an old joke in the Simpsons, Ben Shapiro will be the lawyer who sues the movie, the never-ending story. Okay, you're right. It technically does end at one point. Like, yeah, Rob, you call it an endless war. Well, Afghanistan was an endless, Rob. It was only 20 years. It was only the longest war in American history, but it wasn't endless.

Yeah, okay, so like, what are you even doing here? You're getting into the definition of what an endless war means. Okay, yes, technically, we haven't been at war with Iran for an endless amount of time. The point is that your prescription keeps it going and going and going, and this is how wars like Iraq and Afghanistan turned into wars that were also supposed to be very quick and short. They said Iraq was going to be a cakewalk, and it ended up being like eight years of like intense bloody civil war, 10 years of military war, and then many more years of that than of military occupation. Afghanistan ended up being 20 years. It could have been like a four-month special ops campaign. So anyway, so but so he picks on that, that's kind of vague the way you call it an endless war. And then goes, it's an endless conflict because this government's been in power, as if that's what any of.

of us are talking about. Like, this is just, this is, this is low IQ slop propaganda. Oh, you mean like any Ayatollah or any Mullah being in power in Iran equals were at war. Okay. And I, I guess, you know what we're talking about, Rob? Remember, like, remember two years ago when we weren't at war with Iran? Remember a year and a half ago when we weren't at war with Iran? Verse now when we are?

Yeah, by this definition, I guess we've been at war with Russia, even past the Soviet Union, because, you know, we got a war with them going on right now in Ukraine through proxies and we're constantly trying to check their power. So, you know, don't think of war as actually you fighting another country and engaging in battle. It's any time that two countries have divergent interests and you see someone as an enemy, even if you're not actively engaged in a war, according to Ben Shapiro, that is a war. And it is. I'm sorry, dude. it's fucking woke deconstructionist bullshit it's like this is like on the level of what is a woman type of fucking deflection but we all know what we're talking about dude yeah like again yeah if we were to just like start launching we were to just start bombing Russia right now and I went oh shit they launched

a war in Russia and you go we've always been at war with Russia we've been at war with Russia since like what okay well I'm talking about the thing that they're doing right now we all know what I'm describing. So are we allowed to use words to describe things anymore? This is this is your argument some type of fucking well who's to say what a woman is two plus two could equal five. That's all he's doing. Just really dumb. Like what do you think the rest of us are as stupid as people who fall for this shit? All right. Let's keep playing. Of signing on to a useless ceasefire that we ought to take or bomb Harga Island open the straight with operations like Project Freedom which the president announced and then unannounced, and then leave

overwatch to our allies like Israel and the UAE. That is not an endless war. Okay, that's not an endless war. We've got, but by the way, again, every, first of all, I should say, it's not like with any of the wars. If you think about what is an endless war? Is Afghanistan?

Is that good enough? Is that a good enough example of an endless war? Was Iraq good enough? Was Vietnam good enough? Okay, all of those started as things that were supposed to be much shorter. And everyone had all the war, Hawks had their little smirky plans just like you have now.

All you got to do is bomb Kirk Island, send a boot in here, send a bud in here, bomb this here, use our allies to help here. You know, it's funny, Rob, because about 99% of the reason why Ben Shapiro and, you know, so many like him, they'll always kind of like attack me, but never be willing to have a conversation or a debate or do a show or anything like that. And they'll kind of be like, well, Dave's just fundamentally unsurious. He's not a serious person. Or he said he talked to this hateful person or he spreads misinformation or something like that.

And then when this war first started, all these guys were openly saying, I think Donald Trump knows a little bit better than you. This was their entire knock, if you remember, Rob, for like six weeks. I think Donald Trump and all the military intelligence knows a little bit better than this random comedian over here who thinks he knows better. And yet, think about the arrogance, Rob, in making the argument that he's making, which is something I myself would never feel comfortable doing. But he's literally Ben Shapiro, the guy who does a show on the internet, thinks he's figured out some plan that's fairly easy to impose here. Just be bombing car guy. You know how you guys have dropped like a record number of bombs in the first month of this thing? Just a little bit more round of bombings, a little bit of working with our.

allies and we could have all this shit we wanted and we're to believe that the administration could have had all of that and what just they just got weak at the end and decided instead to give them hundreds of billions of dollars this is the argument rob this just bomb them a little bit more this is supposed to be serious war commentary all right guys let's take a moment and thank our sponsors for today's show which is ultra pouches i've been telling you about these guys for a while now. They're great. I'm a big pouch guy. So if you like pouches, but you want the guilt-free pouch, you got to go check out Ultra. They make the pouches, but they're just made with new tropics, things that are good for you. They're just good for

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All right, let's get back into the show. I think what he's saying is actually worse because he's saying take Carg Island. He's not saying Bomb Carg Island. I think bombing Carg Island is an easy feat. You can bomb it to ship, but then you've just destroyed the infrastructure. It's taking Carg Island, but the problem of taking Carg Island is then keeping Carg Island. And the problem with taking the straits is forcibly keeping it open when it doesn't take all that much to shut down the maritime traffic because every insurance company goes, we're not insuring you and you guys can't go through. And then so the plan is we take it by force.

We don't actually invade Iran. We don't overthrow this. regime, but we take the straits by force. I don't even know how many troops you would need. I don't know the war planning on that. But then you take Carg Island, you hold Carg Island, and then it's not an endless conflict. We actually leave and leave that to the Israel and UAE. And do they have the capabilities of keeping the straits forcibly open against a still existing Iran? And that's not, and that's not a warfare environment anymore. You're telling me that Iran just accepts that the straight was taken and that we can stop there?

Even Donald Trump, if you remember, we played like a week and a half ago, the thing where he said, he said, this is back when he was still a war hawk, back before he became us, he said, you know, I like the idea of taking Carg Island, but the American people don't have the stomach for it. That was his phrase. It's like, yeah, okay, so take Carg Island. And now you, Ben Shapiro, by the way, I know this part never even crosses their mind. And how many U.S. casualties are you projecting as a result of that?

Ben Shapiro just real quickly says, take Carg Island. Okay, there is, I don't think there would be any military expert in the world who would say that will result in zero U.S. casualties. Okay? I think the argument would be how many. And I think that if you, or the question would be, how many? And I think that if you're talking about putting a sizable force onto the ground in Karg Island, I mean, God damn, man, Iran has demonstrated they can touch the region. They can certainly touch up Karg Island and they'll be sitting ducks.

And I think, you know, depending on how many people you put in, you could be looking at thousands of U.S. casualties. Is Ben Shapiro going to spell out whether he's comfortable with that, whether that's an acceptable price for other people's, you know, kids to pay? because I know he's not sending his own. You know, and then to your point, the idea of militarily opening the Strait of Hormousa, again, this is just, this is fantasy, absolute fantasy land. And if there was a military option, and it goes, Donald Trump, you know, announced Project Freedom

and then immediately canceled it. Yeah, AKA what? It was working great. Again, Rob, this is what they just have to count on is this delusion. But here, listen, this is why we're going to be useful in this fight. This is why there's a good deal, MAGA, that we worked out on the last episode. This is why we're going to be useful in the fight is because in some way, and this is why

MAGA needs us right now, Rob, and we're, you know, we're inclined to support them because, you know, we still got this country that we care about. But the reason why MAGA needs us is that MAGA is still married to the big lie in a way, right, Rob? And so they kind of can't really give the dagger to this argument to Ben Shapiro the way we can. And the big lie is what? That we ever should have fought this war at all, that this wasn't just stupid from the beginning. This was an absolute disastrous idea.

It was so predictable. And that's why everybody with an ounce of wisdom did predict this. It's not like there was some, I don't know. It's not like there's been other issues that we were good on. at the time, Rob, lots of them. This one was an easy one. This was really, really low-hanging fruit. And so anyway, we don't have to pretend. We were never crushing them. This was never a good idea. And yeah, this is what's necessary because you don't have a plan. Let's continue with his nonsense. You know what an endless war looks like? It looks like a bad deal. You know how I know that?

Because Barack Obama did it. And that war didn't end. And now J.D. Vance is pushing one. And the war ain't. You want to make sure that you have an endless war? An endless war looks like pouring hundreds of billions of dollars in unfrozen funds into a terror supporting a nuclear weapons seeking sworn enemy of the United States in an attempt to get them to open up a straight that was open before the war started. Let's just pause it. I mean, again, this is why you got to understand also something from my perspective, right? Think about how many years there were where when I was first coming up in the game and Ben Shapiro was like this guy who was put forward with like he was to be respected. It was so frustrating for so long. I was like, the guy's genuinely just not impressive.

Anyway, it's nice. It's very rewarding to now live through this time. Anyway, look at that. What is this, Rob? What is? I just, it's so intellectually dishonest. And like, Ben Shapiro's not stupid. He knows what he's doing here. Rob, think about how dishonest an argument it is and really very fundamentally leftist in nature, deconstructionist. It's. nature to start going, oh, you guys are going to call this an endless war. And so what I'm going to jump on there is like the technicality of the term endless. Okay, fine, whatever argument you're making. And then he's going to go, oh, you think that's an endless war? No, you know what endless war looks like? Endless war looks like giving money to Iranians. Like when Obama gave money to them,

like a deal that gives money to them. And like, Rob, what is that? What is that line of argument? Okay, but that's not what any of us are talking about when we say war. You know? Oh, you're against war. Let me tell you what war is. War is going to work every day and paying 40% of your money to the government. That's war. Okay, but that's not what any of us mean by the term.

This is pure like concept creep. It's like saying your words are violence. Like, wait, what? No, that's a different thing. That means a separate thing. These are separate concepts. No. Okay.

Feel however you feel about the J.E. JCPOA objectively here, Rob. I mean, I would do a three-hour debate with Ben Shapiro on the JCPOA only. We could talk a lot about it. But one thing we should get out of the way, Rob, is it's objectively not a war. That's not what that deal was. It's not a war, let alone a war that drags on and doesn't end and costs a lot. That's not what it is.

It's a deal. You might think it's a bad deal. But for your response, I just like how intensely intellectually dishonest and dumb as this, Rob. If your response is, well, we got to wrap this war up. We don't want it to be an endless war. I'll tell you what's an endless war. The JCPOA.

Okay. Well, that's not what we're talking about. So can we come up with a different term that we call when you're dropping bombs on another country? We're comfortable with the term war. What term is that is okay for you? Okay, so that term then. What is this, Rob?

It's arguing. It's unbelievable. is it Ben Shapiro just becomes the blue-haired leftist he was debating with every time. All right, you got anything to add or you want to play the rest of this? Let's play the rest. All right. Well, there you go. That was the whole thing.

There you go. There you go. Okay, we did. He has nothing. I mean, isn't it just a, and look, you'll see this, Rob, throughout, we obviously, we just played one and we have, you know, you can only, we only have so much time. But you'll see this is prevalent through. Mark Levin, Bacha Sargon, we played her clip the other day.

Essentially all of the hawks who are coming down on Donald Trump were trying to kill this deal, trying to get him to go back to the bombing. The major flaw in all of their arguments is that they're living through this delusion, that they can't recognize what just happened happened. And this is why this is such an interesting moment, I think, in history. Like if I'm right and Donald Trump really does want to get out of this. And it really is the case that some gray beard grabbed him. You know what I mean?

That someone with a little bit of wisdom in the Pentagon or somewhere grabbed him and was like, look, you have to wrap this up. That was your window. Your window's done. You know, we don't get this straight. And Rob, you got to acknowledge, particularly in the deal. look, almost everything else, almost everything else had been floated. You know, around being able to keep tolls in the Strait of Hermose, they had been pretty clear. Sanctions relief, they had been pretty clear.

A promise of an end to hostilities, some version of leaving the region or the area. There were all these things. But the $300 billion fund, that kind of came out of nowhere. That came out last minute. And that, I think, is the thing that, I mean, Donald Trump capitulation. to all of that plus the 300 billion, hey, man, that was enough to bring the Iranians to the table. The reason that was offered is because they need this straight to be open.

Okay, so if this is the case that they desperately need that, then Donald Trump can't back down on this. This is going to be a thing where I think essentially he's going to have to force Israel to go, all right, we got what we could in this moment, but we can't get anymore. Isn't amazing if they had listened to this show. They could have dodged even engaging in this war. And once they started it, they could have broke up with Israel a lot sooner and had a better deal.

Oh, Rob, I have a big sack of I Told Justo's. And I'm not quite sure when I'm going to dump them all over this desk and we're going to start or going through them. But we will go through them at some point. Right now it seems like I just sprinkled a couple out, but we'll get deeper into this sack over the next few weeks. But I will say this, look, man, the basic dynamic is that, that the, Here's where we are. I think Donald Trump's desperate to get out of this. I think this creates a showdown between him and the Israel lobby, between him and the Netanyahu government. And the thing that does make this spicy, Rob, is that Benjamin Netanyahu has an election coming up. He's going to jail, evidently, if he doesn't win this election. And this has been, it's not only his entire legacy. I mean, it's his legacy, his liberty, the future of his life. And also the fact that, he's had to make these right-wing partnerships to maintain his government. And the fact that all of them, you know, Smotrich and Ben-Gavir and Bebe and

Bibi Netanyahu and all of them, they're all well aware that the world hates Israel, that the country of America hates Israel at this point, and that they have to live in a very new reality going forward and that future generations are never going to support politicians who at least openly support Israel in the way they have in the past. And they know that they've got this administration right now. And so they want to get everything they can. We'll see. We're going to find out a lot about what level of control the Israelis actually have.

It's, you know, I've always been a guy who, you know, every time it seems like Rob, I go into a debate, essentially the way to counter me is to like straw man to go like, well, you're saying Israel has complete and total, utter control over the U.S. government. You know, well, what about this one time? they didn't get their way. We've pointed this out before on the show. And I've always been the one to go, well, no, I'm not claiming they have complete and utter

total control. I'm saying they have an undue amount of influence. But man, we're really going to, we're going to zoom in on that a little bit now and really find out how much influence they have and what happens when you really attempt to go against them on a very big issue, on their biggest issue, very publicly. All right. come see us in uh houston texas that's our next up uh stop comic david smith dot com for those tickets porch tour dot com to follow rob around the country what remind me rob what do you got coming up next

um raleigh north carolina hamstead myrtle beach check out the run your mouth podcast find all the dates of porch store dot com very good all right catch you guys tomorrow peace