Part Of The Problem - The Israeli Terrorists

Episode Date: September 8, 2026

Dave Smith brings you the latest in politics! On this episode of Part Of The Problem, Dave and Robbie "the Fire" Bernstein discuss Mike Huckabee calling Israeli settlers "terrorists", Donald Trump saying that lowering interest rates is good for the economy, JD Vance's refusal to give a timeline for the war, and more.Support Our Sponsors:CrowdHealth - https://www.joincrowdhealth.com/promos/potpBodyBrain - Go to BodyBrainCoffee.com, use code DAVE20 for 20% off your first orderHexclad - Find your forever cookware @hexclad and get10% off at https://hexclad.com/PROBLEM! #hexcladpartnerPart 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, everybody. Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. And if it's a brand new episode, you know, I'm Dave Smith, and he is Roberto, El Flamo, Bernsteino. How are you, Sarah? I'm doing well, excited to get the hell out of my apartment. I'm back out porching basically all the way through November, upcoming porches in Cincinnati, Dallas, Sacramento, and Reno, and coming down to the wire. Someone can please come forward with the San Jose or San Francisco porch. I'm still in need of a porch. I'm going to be out there on a Friday night either way. Don't make me porch alone. The flight's already booked. The route's already been

scheduled. There's a fine line between doing like an artsy, cool, independent tour and Rob just getting trashed in San Diego alone. Come through San Diego and what was the other city? It's San Francisco or San Jose or something else that's in the area. San Francisco or San Jose, guys, come through.

Be a part of the legendary porch tour. porch store. And then you and I, we got Louisville this weekend. Oh, I'm excited to go back at the Louisville. Massey was trying to help me work on how to say it the right way. And his instructions didn't help at all. It only made me further from ever getting it right.

You know, instead of Trump putting in the name of America on everything, just why don't we work on getting city and state names to be phonetically accurate? Whof, man, I would support that. I might even look past a war, too, if you could get that. going. But yes, we will be in Louville this Friday and Saturday. Really looking forward to that great comedy town. Really looking forward to coming back out there. Comicavsmith.com. Tickets are available. Please go grab them. Looking forward to seeing some of you out there. So, okay, a couple things. Number one, I just want to say before we start today's show, because we, I have not publicly,

I suppose, commented on the debate with Alan Dershowitz. So I would just say for those members already, know, but we did an entire episode with me giving my thoughts on like a post-debate analysis and Rob weighing in and it was cool. We do the members-only episode. We do a fourth episode every single week. So that was the fourth episode of last week. You got to sign up to get the fourth episode at part of the problem.com. And then you also get all the shows live, ad-free, uncensored, and on-demand the entire library, the whole archived history of part of the problem, as well as a bunch you just join a cool community and you help support the show you love. Anyway, I will just say here publicly,

thanks for all the kind words after the debate. That was nice. Oh, and Natalie mentioned there is a clip of the show is available. If you want to check it out on the part of the Problem Clips channel, make sure to go subscribe to that channel as well. That's us over there. So part of the Problem Clips, go check them out. But anyway, yeah, it was what it was.

I'll do just like a quick recap. You know, maybe just the biggest takeaway was, you know, we were wondering for a long time, what are these guys even going to say? What's he even going to say to defend the war at this point? And it turns out what he had to say was, I can't defend it. And you're an anti-Semite. And yeah, so that was that. I did an episode of Pierce Morgan this morning, Rob.

Oh, on a panel I really didn't even want to do. I said no to it. got me to do it somehow anyway. And it was again, just the same. As I was just sitting there. Like I didn't even really argue with the guys that much. Just sitting there being like, this is actually the best you got.

This is actually the best you got defendant this thing. Who were the people trying to still push it? Well, so they told me, I forget what it was yesterday. They go, hey, can you do a panel? You know, it was like with Buckley Carlson, Tucker's brother, who I love and a couple other people who I didn't really kill. I was like, yeah, sure, okay, I'll come do that. And then this morning, they were like, ah, the whole thing kind of fell apart.

Now, this happens sometimes with Pierce because they do so many shows. And they were like, okay, the new panel is, uh, is what's his name? Ben Ferguson and Will Chamberlain and the, that Jojo lady, uh, who's like a Joe Biden Democrat type. And I'm just like, oh, God, no. And I just said no. I told my, my, uh, person to say, I go, no, no, no. No, no, just say no.

And then they were like, well, what should I tell them? And I go, here, quote me. And so I just had them send me a quote of me. And I go, no, I'm done. I go, listen, man, I debated Ben Ferguson one-on-one on Pierce Morgan. I've done a few panels with him already. I've already kind of wrecked this guy. He also, I mean, I don't mean to be a dick.

I'm actually even like personally dislike Ben. I used to know him from back in the SE Cup days. We used to do shows in studio together sometimes. He just doesn't have much to say. But so his thing, I don't know if you've seen this, right? His thing on the Pierce Morgan panels is he's just going to interrupt everything you said. Just ever. And it is kind of like the one tactic that you're like, well, wait, that's just no fair.

You know, like you can't. And he will do it relentlessly. Like literally it'll just be like, hey, I'll make this whole show. Every time you start making a point, I'm going to break you up by talking over you, repeating a question over and over through your whole rant. Like, and I was just like, dude, I don't want to do it with him anymore. And then they come back and they go, no, no, no, we assure you. We really need you to make this panel work and like blah, blah, blah.

And they go, Pierce has a mute button. He's going to mute them if they try to interrupt you or whatever. And I was like, oh, that's not really good either. But they've put me on so much over the last few years, Rob. I do feel bad saying no to them. So I was like, fine, I'll do it. And then you go, either you do it. And Pierce is like, I have a mute button if you guys started interrupting.

And then the whole thing became like people playing to Pierce to mute the other one. and you're just like, oh, I didn't mean to turn this into the gayest thing ever. That's not what I was trying to do. I was just trying to say, no, let me do something else. Also, I got like a sinus infection. So I'm on like steroids and antibiotics that I just feel a little bit crazy. But anyway, so I go on there and you're just listening to these guys. They've just got nothing.

There's no defense. They're just like, yeah, well, the war's not going good. But, you know, the jobs numbers were better than expected and blah, blah. And I'm just sitting there. And then, like, I don't know, at one point, you know, I got into it with them a little bit at certain points. But you, I guess I would just say it's, it's a lot like debating with somebody who's denying Joe Biden's senality at this point. You know, it's just like, okay, all right. No, I still think the midterms could work out real good.

And you're like, all right. Well, I guess we're living on different planets, but backed up by no compelling argument, just kind of. And I said, I called it out to Will. I go, Will you talk? He goes, you know, I think the midterms are going to be fine. I go, last time we talked, you said the Iranian regime would be collapsed in a month. Any update on that? But no response.

No response at all. Anyway, it was something. It was something else. Go watch it. It'll be out soon. Well, I hope his dignity is worth a paycheck. It is, you know, there's something about watching it all, it all go down. But, you know, I guess at one point.

Ben Ferguson said to me, this was actually his defense. And I, I, I, I'm so interesting. He goes, you know, most of the people who voted for Donald Trump are still quite happy that they did. And I went, most of, that's what you're down to. You're down to? It hasn't been more than a 49% collapse in his support. Like, is that what you're saying?

Like, imagine Donald Trump ran for president again tomorrow and got 30 million less votes. And you went, I still kept most of them. I mean, what a, that is winning. That is winning, if ever I've seen it. Anyway, who can, who can defend this war at this point, Rob? Perhaps is the question. I mean, you would think we're over six months into the thing. You'd think somebody could step up and sell it, really defend it.

Perhaps J.D. Vance? Can he, what do you think, Rob? I'm being, I'm being told, we have a clip. I'm excited to find out. All right, let's go. Let's go to our vice president. Given this administration has put timelines out there before, what you just said about no negotiations happening with Iran. Will this war be over by the time of the midterm elections? Well, Caitlin, again, I don't, I wouldn't call it a war.

Right now, there is no active shooting. I recognize there have been places where this is flared up. Major combat operations, again, major combat operations lasted for about six weeks. And since then, we destroyed, of course, their new. nuclear facilities with midnight hammer. With Epic Fury, we destroyed their defense industrial base for producing weapons and also a lot of their conventional military. And then we made it harder for them to rebuild that nuclear program. But when you ask, when will this end, you're asking me a question, like, when will the Iranians stop shooting at ships?

I think the reality is, I don't know the answer to that question. You'd have to ask the Iranians. When will the Iranians shooting at ships stop having an effect on world energy markets? And the answer is it has less effect day by day. So what we're going to do is not depend on the Iranians behaving responsibly or negotiating in good faith. What we're going to do is use the tools that we have at our disposal to ensure that the American people, one, never have to deal with a threat of an Iranian nuclear program, and two, that world energy markets are properly supplied.

But so it's up to the Iranians when this war ends? Well, if the Iranians keep on, but Caitlin, if the Iranians keep on shooting at commercial ships, Again, we have, I think, a responsibility, but certainly we're the only ones with the capability to ensure that the Iranians are not destroying world energy markets. And our attitude is we're not going to set an artificial timeline because, let's just say, hypothetically, let's say I told you three months. Let's say I told you three days, okay? And then the Iranians start blowing up oil and gas ships, and the United States is the only country with the capability to ensure that those oil and gas ships get to market. well, what I would say is it would be irresponsible for us to write out our strategy and our timeline for an Iranian nation that simply cannot honor its commitments and cannot stop shooting at commercial ships.

All right. Well, Rob, I don't know about you, but I feel a lot better. Wasn't that kind of reassuring? I mean, I really appreciated. You know what really reassured me was when she asked if the war would last through the midterms, and he quibbled with her referring to it as a war, even though every single member of this administration has referred to it as a war. I really liked that. And it's also just blatantly, obviously, a war. I liked how he started with that. That was really strong.

And then I like how he went to essentially, we don't know. There is no timetable. That was essentially the substance of the rest of his answer. Yeah, I don't know if I even consider this a war. Rob Zillel. You were, like, bombing them. I mean, yeah, last week. Like, but, you know, there's a war since when is a military blockade considered an act of war?

Like, oh, since navies were first raised. Okay. And then, you know, I mean, what else can you say? Sitting here denying how it's a war. And then, yeah, really nothing. I will say this, Rob. I'm curious to get your thoughts on all of it. You know, isn't it funny how once the war has dragged out to now being over six months long,

that's when we start here in this. Come on, guys, what's up with these timetables? Of course, everyone, everyone who had a problem with the war at the launch was immediately assured that it would be weeks, not months, it's ridiculous, the idea that Donald Trump would get us into a forever war, which, of course, as I've been formed is, yes, I guess this means if it doesn't last forever, Stephen Crowder's producer was arguing with me on Twitter. He said, Dave got the Iran war wrong.

And I said, how did I get it wrong? And he goes, he said it would be a forever war. And it hasn't been forever. It's like, it's an old Simpsons joke. You go, wait till you get the lawsuit of the never-ending story. You should really go after that movie for a bit. It's like, I don't even know what you're talking about. Did I use the term forever war?

Okay, anyway. But the point being, they sit there and mock you and tell you like, no, no, no, of course, this is going to be quick. It'll be weeks, not months. And then when you're like, hey, months has gone way by. And now we're basically, Rob, when we ask the question of through the midterms, we're almost at the point of asking, wait, is this going to be years? Right?

We're approaching a year at that point. And, well, come on now, timelines are awfully gay. That's what it all, that's what it always comes down to. Any thoughts, Rob? Yeah, there were a couple of things that I picked up on. First is he was saying the issue of like the straits being closed and oil, it gets it's only getting better as time goes on but the oil price keeps going up the diesel price is going up so it's just not really an accurate claim and then he goes on to however the only ones with the

capability of reopening it and we have the responsibility of the rest of the world to do so it's like well we're not doing that we don't seem to have the capability um and you not you the america does not seem to be honoring that responsibility or all that concerned about other markets that uh you know have to import more oil than we do and then And then lastly, as he goes, oh, there's no significant strikes. Well, we just had an accelerate. This was, you know, I think on Thursday or Friday, but over the weekend, we've kind of accelerated our action and that now we're attacking Iranian oil tankers as retribution before we weren't doing so, I guess. And now Iran has responded that they are going to be, I guess, further blockading the straits, that they're, you know, I guess opening up the area in which that they're going to be striking at things and that they're clamping down on.

who can cross so that even the limited of boats that i get or i guess are crossing on the oman side it will be more difficult for them but hey not a war we've got a responsibility to open the straits and make sure that oil prices are going down we're not honoring that responsibility we're the only ones that could take care of this problem we have yet to showcase a way to do that and where we doing it and it's not a war because there's just limited engagement and oh yeah that's accelerating at the moment right so let's uh just just to um further this is all very good points but just a drill down on the point you made about his framing because it's very similar to framing like inflation is coming down when the rate of inflation is coming down. And in a similar sense,

right, you know, he says that the situation in the straight is getting better, which I think is like technically true if you look at. So essentially, right, we're at the, at the height of the double blockade. There is more oil flow. through than there was at the height of that, but it's still way down from pre-war levels. And so pre-war levels are what you're going to compare this thing to, because that was the state of the global economy before it, right? Like basic economic laws, one of the basic laws of economics is that production dictates consumption that you can only produce or you can only consume as much as has been produced. And you can't consume more than that because it hasn't

been produced yet. So in other words, the global economy, the level of the global economy, was producing a level that it is still not producing now. So you're still down. You know, if someone started stabbing you near vital organs and then started stabbing you away from vital organs, it's it may be preferable to the way it was a few minutes ago, but it's still overall a net negative from them not stabbing you at all. And so for the argument, it is so absurd on its face to say that, well, the justification for continuing this war is the problem that was caused by the war. I mean, this is the place that they, look, and this was really, I mean, I guess to zoom out here,

right? Let's take a moment because we've been covering this thing like every day or what feels like it for months and months and months now. But if we really zoom out, this is the big story, Rob. This is the story of what's being revealed by all of this, okay? here are the big takeaways right now. And the vice president's telling you this. It's all about the straight and we have no timetable.

We essentially have no ability to really do it. I don't know. How do you get the Iranians to stop shooting? Well, we can make a deal, but then they can keep shooting after that deal. I can give you a timetable. Then they can keep shooting. Look, here's the thing. And this is, as we've moved away from this now,

this has been the significance, I think, of what I would call the MOU stint. of this war, right? How long did that last, Rob? A little over a week where Donald Trump snapped out of it and signed the MOU and then all this. And then J.D. Vance went on Rogan and they were arguing with the war hawks and the Israel lobby was melting down. We had about a week of that pressure before they caved and we went back to the war. But what was admitted during the MOU was that it's not about any of this other shit anymore,

Rob. We already signed an agreement that gave up all the war aims. and was just about opening the straight of Hormuz while kicking the can on all of that down the road. So that's the position we're in now is that we've admitted it's not about any of this other shit. All the reasons that we were told we had to fight the war now have been admitted we don't actually,

they're all bullshit. We don't actually need any of that. What we do need is this new problem that was caused by the war to be stopped. Oh my God, Rob. I mean, what type of, like think about a weaker position to be coming from in in justifying a war it's it's hard to imagine one yep well we're going to be staying out there and flirting with disaster through the midterms this will be the thing well you know the newest thing is

they want to mow the grass and keep it quiet till after the midterms yeah you know there was there was one part of the um the the uh the debate with alan dershowitz that i didn't get to expand upon you know there were a couple things that like if you know it didn't we only had 90 minutes. He changed that at the last minute, which whatever. But I would have loved to debunk some of the nuclear stuff more. I wanted to get into that, but we never really came back to it. But the thing I said, well, I got a good line in on him, but I didn't really nail the point home. But when he said, because, you know, he just left the Democrats because they're not pro-Israel anymore. And so now he's very much in the business of, you know, raging against these radical socialists. They hate Israel

and everything they stand for is bad. And he goes, he goes, socialism. I forget exactly what he said, but he said, like, socialism is on the ballot, and you're saying this and this. And I said, yeah, and they might win because Israel's on the ballot too. Like, it's like, no, dude, support for this shit is what's good.

Like, you even hear it. It's as they just think, Rob, about this whole year, like one of the major things that's categorized the way people have been talking about this shit, is that the attack from the regime puppets is you guys are going to hand the midterms to the Democrats if you keep criticizing the administration. And here you have the vice president saying, oh, yeah, this most unpopular of wars, yes, this will be looming in the background over the entire midterms. Yes, as we think about giving control of this country

back to the insane Democrats, that's right. This war will be right there the whole time for them to just simply oppose and collect millions and millions of votes just for saying, I'm not for this disaster. Good work. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Body Brain Coffee, a sponsor very close to my heart, the brainchild of Louis J. Gomez, and a delicious cup of coffee that I drink every day because it naturally boosts your testosterone levels. Now, I'm not the type of guy who's going to do injections or really get into supplements, but I could certainly have a delicious cup of premium freeze-dried Colombian coffee packed with functional ingredients that have been linked to testosterone support,

stress management, focus, and brain function. I'll tell you guys this. I drink it hot. I drink one cup every day. I've been feeling great. I've been drinking this stuff for months. It's real coffee. It's delicious. It naturally boost your testosterone and it's all good ingredients. Nothing bad for you in there, all good stuff. So make sure you go get some today at bodybraincoffee.com and use the promo code Dave 20 to save 20% off your entire order. That's bodybraincoffee.com, promo code Dave 20 for 20% off. Make sure you go get some. We got to support our guy, Louis J. Gomez.

The recent part of the problem exists to begin with. Bodybrain coffee.com, promo code Dave 20 for 20% off. All right, let's get back on the show. Hey, it's our fault for fracturing the party. Yeah, we really should have kept our mouth shut. That would have worked. Then we would have been winning this war. If only we hadn't have been critical of these guys.

Did you see, I don't know, I guess in some ways I thought there was, there was an interesting admission in that, that, that Jady Vance clip. There was also a very interesting admission by Mike Huckabee, the religious fanatic who pretends to be the American ambassador to Israel and is usually more of a spokesman for the Israeli government. Did you see this, Rob? Mike Huckabee came out, and I kind of, I must admit, I was surprised by this. He, evidently, after speaking to some Palestinians in the West Bank, came out and referred

to Israeli settlers as the T word. Let's play the clip here. It's been a very, very instructive morning. I have an opportunity to visit with the residents here at Tara Mesa. This is a beautiful community. Obviously, these homes are magnificent. All the people that I visited with this morning are Americans. What my message to them was that I worked for them. As the American ambassador, the job of the embassy is to represent American people and American policy. And in representing American people, if they have grievances, we want to hear them. And today we heard them. We heard about the challenges that they're.

they face living in their own homes on their own property, some of the intimidation that is being carried out by people that I have characterized as being terrorists. I know that's an uncomfortable word for some people, but when you try to create an atmosphere in which people feel uncomfortable, living in their own homes, their children playing in their own lawns and yards, and people feeling that they're not safe and that they're not secure because of the behavior, the actions, and then the intimidation of others. That's terrorism by any definition, whether it's law or whether it's the dictionary. I think that the people who do these acts of criminal activity and terror are incredibly small in relationship to the total number of people who live in Judea and Samaria.

Half a million Israelis, two million Palestinians live in this shared land. There may be a few hundred that are responsible, but that's a few hundred too many. And one of the messages that we have been sending and we will continue to send is that people in these communities have a right to live with a level of security and safety, and that the government has a responsibility to make sure that that happens. We're here today to hear their stories. I made it very clear that there are limitations in what a U.S. Embassy can do in another country. We cannot investigate. We don't have that power or authority. We cannot adjudicate. We don't have that power or authority. But we can't influence. and we can call attention to things that need to be corrected.

So have you changed your stance on the illegal sentiment on your opinion of the law? Well, what I've not done is change anything other than my view is that crime is crime and terror is terror and it ought to be a consequence to the full extent of the law. All right. Well, I mean, I don't know.

This is, it's a mess in so many ways for Mike Huckabee to even say something like this. and then get rightfully asked. So have you, like, changed your mind completely on everything? And it's like, I haven't changed anything. I mean, this guy's on record saying there's no such thing as a Palestinian and there's no such thing as a settlement because all of this land, as he just called it, is Judea and Samaria.

It's like even as you call it that, yeah, well, that kind of plays into the whole biblical claim on the land, which you've openly supported. And so, look, in a way, Rob, it's kind of nice that he's at least mentioning this. I think maybe it tells you something about where the temperature in the room, internationally is, that even Mike Huckabee would have to try to say this. Then my other thought is that it's like, okay, this is way too little, way too late. And, you know, that obviously Mike Huckabee just has absolutely no credibility on the issue. But, man, it sure does symbolize something.

You know, I'm curious to get your thoughts on this, Rob. I guess one of the things that kind of struck me about this clip is that it seems to me, if I could analyze what's going on here, is that, like, well, first of all, they're dealing with the fact that, like, global opinion for Israel has plummeted, American support for Israel has evaporated. Mike Huckabee is seen as a complete stooge there. There's this big, you know, controversy of the horrific treatment of Jewish settlers of Palestinians in the West Bank, which has been going on for, for, you know, 60 years, but has gotten much worse in the last few years. And, okay, so he's saying something against that.

He's at least maybe just purely for PR reasons, right? He's going to at least say one thing to be. And it just as you see them do that, it is shocking to me, shocking that over the last three years, the Israeli PR effort hasn't made more of an effort to just do this instead of lashing out and calling everybody who makes this point an anti-Semite. So, Rob, do you remember what a big debate I got in for using the terrorist work? to describe Israeli or U.S. military actions? I mean, okay, he's not exactly doing that,

but now we have the, Mike Huckabee of all people. Yeah, I guess it sure is terrorism. Now, isn't it? I don't know, there's something, something feels significant to me about him saying this, but I don't know. What are your thoughts? My takeaway was just that the,

what the settlers have been up to is so egregious. He's got no choice but to actually recognize it. Admit it. and admit it because like there's just there's no other way for him to put it and uh i guess if there was an incident where american citizens were terrorized i don't know the specific i saw a different clips i don't know the specific incident that happened here but as the american ambassador you know something can just happen that's so egregious he got no choice but to recognize it he does have a bit of a uh intellectual issue if he's going to go hey it's only a few hundred that are terrorists

um well then it kind of makes it hard to excuse what just happened in gaza because you didn't really give the same courtesy to all the non-terrorists that live there. But even so, it is an interesting turning of the tides because usually it's what you, what you were saying, which is, we're the most moral army and anything otherwise is just you being an anti-Semite. And usually they use like that extremely bold legal lawyer language to try and just create a case and censor anybody with a diverging opinion. And so it is, what happened just must have been so egregious that even Mike Huckabee has to call that terrorism.

Yeah. And look, man, I mean, look, this really does actually get down to the heart of the whole thing, right? And this is, you know, separate from obviously the question of the U.S. Israeli relationship and Israeli influence and all that stuff. But just in terms of like the Israel-Palestine conflict. And this is the real problem the Jews had. I did have a good rant about this, I think, on Pierce Morgan to close the show today. but because Will Chamberlain, of course, who just serves as the perfect foil to debate with. But he said something about how he goes, look, this is a problem, but it's an internal matter.

You know, he goes, it's an internal matter under Israeli sovereignty. And so this is like the game that the Israelis essentially play, right? I mean, when you really think about this, right, Rob, if you think, like, if you know the history of it in 1940, and again, none of this is even debatable. This is just what the history of the conflict is. In 1947, the UN had their partition recommendation. The UN General Assembly recommend dividing the land of historically known as Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state. And it was like, if I get the numbers right,

it was something like 56% of the land was going to be the Jewish state, and 44% of it was going to be the Arab state. And the Arabs really objected to this because they were like the majority of the population and the majority of the property owners. And it had only been recently that this major influx of Jewish people had come. Like even just a couple decades earlier, Arabs were like 80, 90% of the population. So like if this was like, whoa, what the fuck, they're taking over our whole shit. So they had a problem with that. I'm not saying, in hindsight, a lot of the Israelis argue they should have taken that deal.

Or I'm sorry, a lot of the Israelis argue that they should have taken that deal. And in hindsight, like maybe they should have, but then again, who knows? But anyway, so a civil war kicks off. Then the next year in 48, May of 48, I believe, the other Arab countries invaded. The whole war gets fought. The Israeli militias dominate and win the war. They've got, you know, these guys had funding and arms and international financing behind them. They destroy all these puny little armies.

And then they take a lot more than the 56%. You know, they won the war and they go, yeah, we're taking like essentially what was 78. percent of the whole thing, just leaving Gaza, which was occupied by the Egyptians for the next 20 years, and the West Bank, which was occupied by the Jordanians for the next 20 years. So essentially, the Jewish state got made in 78% of the territory rather than the 56% that they had accepted, by the way, the Jews had accepted that. So it was that. So then, you know, in 1967, Israel launches.

a preemptive war against Egypt. Jordan gets involved. They fight again. Israel wins on both sides of the war, and they take Gaza and the West Bank and East Jerusalem. And now this is all, you know, been controlled by Israel. So like, just to be clear, Gaza, fast forward, Gaza's been destroyed.

Gaza no longer exists. So whatever percentage of the 22% Gaza was, that's gone. This is like, you're like talking about what, Rob, like area A of the West Bank? Like, what are we even down to at this point? This isn't 22%, this isn't even like 15%. This isn't even like, you're like down to like a little kind of stuff. And even there, the settlements are expanding every year. And there's constant violence being launched against the Palestinian population.

But when they do that, right, when they, this terrorism that that Mike Huckabee is talking about, how is that treated, Rob? That's treated as a crime. You're an Israeli citizen and you committed a crime. if you're ever punished for this, meaning like you would get arrested, you would go to trial, you would, you know, like Will Chamberlain said, an internal dispute. And what do we do with internal criminal disputes in modern nation states? You get a lawyer with a suit and you face a judge in a robe and there's a jury of your peers

and you get a process by which to go through. However, Rob, okay, if say on October 7th, let's say some of the past, Palestinians commit a crime against the Israelis. Let's say, by the way, in the West Bank, let's say they beat up an IDF soldier or push an IDF soldier or getting a fight with a settler. Oh, Rob, they don't have any of those rights. Now this is an international dispute. Now this is terrorism and essentially has now unchecked.

And I said this on the show today. I go, and this, you know, this is the essence of the genocide claim. Right? This is why people say genocide, not just a war, not just an attack. It's not Ben Shapiro can say, well, the definition of genocide is destroying an entire group. But that's not the definition. It's like the intent to destroy in part or in whole a group. And to me, whether you like the word or not, the thing that starts to get what the Israelis are doing into like Mao, Stalin, Hitler territory, is that essentially, like, these are your people. Like, Will Chamberlain's right?

You've had control of them since 1967. Like, you can't do this thing where, like, your guy, even if Mike Huckabee is finally calling him a terrorist, the legal status quo, if that's true, is that the Israeli terrorist gets treated like a criminal. And the Arab criminal gets treated like a terrorist every single time. And that's just, it's just indefensible. Like in the same way that you might, some people might, and we could question this as much as you want to, but like some people might think that if Germany attacked America, that we have the right to like level Germany to the ground. Now, I'm not saying I would agree with that or you would agree with that, but many people would feel that way.

But no one thinks that like if the bloods break out of the south side of Chicago and go on a murder spree in a nice neighbor, in Chicago and kill a bunch of them, that the local police department can just, like, level the South Side indiscriminately caring about, like, what innocent black people that are in there who never attacked anyone. In Mike Huckabee's own words, it's just a few hundred of them. You know, like, it's not that many people who do that. Well, how many people committed October 7th? How many people committed October 7th?

Well, just a few hundred of them, man. Okay? But that didn't stop you from destroying the whole place. So anyway, with the example of Chicago, we recognize that as being totally different. And like, that's important. And in Israel, I don't see how you can avoid that distinction. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is hexclad. I don't know about you guys, but one of my favorite parts of the summer is grilling.

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our listeners can get 10% off your order with our exclusive link. Just head over to hexclad.com slash problem. Once again, that's hexclad.com slash problem for 10% off. All right, let's get back into the show. Yeah, there was also that wild incident last week where some settlers were caught on film, like beating up, you know, an American media person. I think, is it CBS or NBC, something like that. Yeah. And the Rocahanna thing, just a few weeks before that. You know, there's, and there's stories like this all the time. And like, you know, Pierce Morgan, this is one of the great services that that show does.

I mean, I should say like, dude, sometimes it's these ones that I didn't really enjoy like today. But so I've had some of my favorite, you know, like moments on that show. And then he's had some great ones. The one where he interviewed the, that famous settler lady from the West Bank. Just hear her talk about what it is to be a human or who actually has rights or what, you know, it's like there is um what you get and this has been true um from the beginning of israeli society uh but it's it's still very true today in the west bank um and i think it used to be more true in like the villages in the south that were close uh um that bordered gaza and and um maybe like in

east jerusalem and areas like that but now it's really it's the settlements um in the west bank because there are no more settlements in gaza um that you can you can't get the most fanatic, the most fanatical members of, of Israeli society move there. All the people who move there, move there believing what Mike Cuckabee believes, you know, that God has granted all of this land. And I'm sorry, dude, but like, Rob, we heard that come out of your mouth, that you believe that God, like, has a covenant with this human government that exists in Israel and that it's their right to take all of this land. Now, what would be included in that land, Rob, is obviously

what you call Judea and Samaria. And so, like, when you, if you're going to tell people that this is your land given to you by God, and then you move there and there's other people who weren't given it by God inhabiting the place, this is a very awkward situation for then Mike Huckabee to turn around and go, whoa, whoa, why you acting like that? Why are you acting like God chose you over these people? and you could do whatever you want to them and never have to face any punishment. You know, I don't know. It seems like for a Baptist preacher like Mike Huckabee, I would think, like, wouldn't, haven't you, isn't there some ultimate, like, spiritual incentive that you are somewhat guilty of taking

away from these people by essentially telling them that God's on your side in this fight? If God wants you to take this land and move people off of that land, it's, that's a very different message than saying telling you that you're going to have to answer to God for anything you ever do to one of these innocent Palestinians would seem to me what the Baptist preacher might think about saying, but who am I to lecture him on that? Anyway, any other thoughts, Rob? Or you want to move on to Trump? Trump's, dude, look, we, when Donald Trump wasn't so bad on everything, maybe we, we tried our best to look past how retarded he is on economics. But did you, well, I so, I sent this video, Rob, and then you sent a truth social post that Donald Trump posted,

and they kind of nicely compliment each other. Maybe we could go through both of these. Let's do the clip first. But here is Donald Trump. I think he's talking about trade deficits or tariffs or something. But here, let's play the clip and assess how bad this actually is. Explain. We could do tremendous good for ourselves, but just not trading.

with countries. We lose with the European Union $200 billion a year. If I didn't trade with them, we'd lose nothing. Just one swipe of the pen. But what does that mean? We lose with Mexico $195 billion a year. If I don't trade with Mexico, they have nothing that we have to have. I mean hot tamales, tomatoes, a couple of things, but basically they have nothing that we need. We have oil, we have everything. I don't want to do that because we get along very well with the president. We like the president, respect her a lot. I just pause it already for a second.

We didn't want to trade with back. This just isn't fair. I don't know. It's not fair. I have a sinus infection. I don't feel like what. This is just, Rob, I mean, to just think about this for a second, how scary is it? That is just like, dude, he, he doesn't know.

know anything. I mean, what is this worldview that he just espoused? If we just didn't trade with the rest of the world, we'd be way better off. Okay, well, first of all, sir, you're going to have to call off this blockade of the Strait of Hermos, because you are helping the Iranians very much by not letting them trade with the rest of the world. I mean, why would you ever? We should put a naval blockade on ourselves. We could make ourselves so much richer by just not trading with the rest of the world. And why is this Rob? Because we lose. We lose. And then he starts calling out trade deficits. It is, it seems almost certain at this point that he has no idea what a trade deficit is. Absolutely no idea. This is on the level of saying what a trade deficit refers to is not,

I know people are used to the term deficit and debt referring to government debt. Like they're taking your money and wasting it and now you owe all of that money like that's that's that's that's that's not what a trade deficit is dude a trade deficit is more like companies are buying things from other places that's what a trade deficit is a trade deficit is like you go to the supermarket every week you have a huge trade deficit with the supermarket you have a hundred percent trade deficit with me i do yeah oh no oh my god that's true that is totally true i have a 100% I just pay you money. And all you do is show up and do the work. This is ridiculous, dude. I'm getting ripped off. You, my supermarket, I should just not eat anymore. You know,

I should not eat. I should not have a podcast. I should not. I'd be so much better off if I just didn't trade with anybody else. I literally think of extrapolate it to the individual. That's what it's saying. You'd be so much wealthier if you just made everything yourself. Because so, because literally essentially, right, this is how most people interact with the world. I mean, don't get me wrong. The exceptions to this would be like if you invested, if you invest in a company or if you save money or stuff like that, which is great if you're able to do it. But for the most part, you work, people work, they make money and then they spend their

money on the things that they want. So when you're spending your money on the things that you want, that's a 100% trade deficit. You're just, you're giving them money and they're giving you stuff. So at the end of the year, I could sit here and go do. I have a $10,000, you know, trade deficit with the supermarket, which I don't know. These days, that might be a pretty good year. But I have a $10,000 trade deficit with the supermarket. So I would have been so much better off if I just didn't buy groceries all year long.

No, you would have starved to death if you didn't buy groceries all year long. This doesn't mean anything. And I'm sorry, like, people can have whatever feelings they have. There are some sophisticated arguments that have been made about economic trade policy. the idea that we'd be better off if we just didn't trade with the rest of the world is, Rob, no hyperbole here. That is as ass backward as any communist idea about economics. You're saying something that, what would be the effects, Rob, of literally, I try to think this through for a second, but what would be the effects of America tomorrow no longer trading with the rest of the world?

In economic cataclysm that would make the Great Depression look like nothing, I think is a fair. So to frame that as that would be really great is a starting point of like, if, you know, if my marriage were to end in a murder suicide, that would be the best case scenario. Like, no, no, no, no, this is, you have just laid out the nightmare worst case scenario. Not a good one. Bad place to start. Any thoughts on that before we throw it back, Rob? But, but hey, we'd save $200 billion by cutting off Europe and cutting off Mexico.

Yes, that's right. You know, no concerns for what that might do to good services and prices, but, you know, we'd save $200 billion. This, what comes to mind is, I mean, I used to take a lot of live comments on Run Your Mouth. I stopped doing that. And during the tariff times, when people were very upset if you were against the tariffs because they were really into getting their manufacturing jobs, I came across a lot of arguments which were, yeah, but let's say you live in a town and someone comes into the town and you hire them for something. And then they leave with your money, then the money left the town. and I was like, yeah, but all right, let's say you've got a tractor that doesn't work.

A guy comes into the town, he fixed your tractor and then he leaves. He didn't get nothing. You now boosted your productivity. Or let's say the guy comes into your town and he helps you plant your field for the next season. You don't have nothing. You got all the future of all the fruit that's going to come from your field or whatever the hell you grew. And then also, why is in your example just somebody's leaving the town and no one's ever coming to the town with money? Why is it just a one way out street?

And I don't know. people seem to have this weird idea when it comes to economies that money leaving the economy means that that's the end of the economy that you haven't gotten anything from it. That's what Trump seems to think here is there's $200 billion that are going abroad and that means it's lost. It's not lost. That means somebody that could, by the way, you could theoretically have a tech manufacturer that produces all of its equipment wherever brings it in here and then it sells it in this

country. That's not lost. That's all the profit that the company made here, all the jobs that it generates here, but there seems to be some just lost idea in economics that if the money is spent elsewhere, then that means it's lost and that there was nothing that was gained through what you purchased with it. It's not, you know what I mean? It's not flush down the toilet. You either purchase goods and services that improves your position or you purchase a good that you're going to use to build your next good or go sell. It's not lost. Right. Right. And right, like in a

scenario like that, I mean, it's, it is funny because you have someone literally sitting there like, like even in the scenario they laid out you're like wait so this guy what was it he fixed this guy fixed no i was saying i just i changed the equation the example that they like to use is someone comes into the town they get higher to do something and they leave with the money but i'm like you're only looking at one side of the equation that means that they performed something that you saw it came in but i just mean in the more abstract you could just look at this and be like that that guy came in here and did some work and then walked off with our pieces of paper like this is the great crime this is the great crime that's been

committed. This guy came in here and was productive and then left with paper, you know, and don't give me wrong because I understand people were saying, yes, the paper is worth value, right? But again, if you, to your example, you hire someone to fix your motorcycle or whatever, and then they leave town. It's like, look, you decided, if I pay you 50 bucks to fix my motorcycle, I decided in that moment that it was worth it to me to part with the $50 for to have my motorcycle fixed. Like, I valued that more than the 50 and you valued the 50 more. So you're just like, look, already on the trade, ahead. Now, if you want to tell me that somehow you think because he's not spending that $50, now I could kind of get an abstract, the argument that like, hey, look, if he spent that $50 down

at the local general store, well, I know Bob and I like Bob down at the general store and I Bob or whatever, and maybe there's a velocity effect of the money and then that gets spent a couple more times in our town and it helps some more people that I know. Like, okay, but then if you wanted to say that would be perhaps a reasonable argument for saying, so hire someone locally to fix it. If you don't want to hire the guy who's not for, if you want to go down to the mom and pop store in your town to kind of keep supporting your town, these are economic decisions, Rob, that we make every day. All the time, I've decided to buy pairs of shoes at the shoe store here in my little town, which are like 30% higher than if I were to go to the mall, but I like this little store.

I like them. So I buy that, like there are things like that, but just to be clear, there is no rip-off there. Like even going the other way, like, look, don't you want, if there was a guy, a local guy who would do it for cheaper, then maybe that does make economic sense to go find him. But presumably, if you really care about your town and you hired this guy who's leaving, maybe he was a little bit cheaper,

maybe he could do it a little bit quicker. So you still got some value out of this. And then, Rob, and I try to make this point a lot, but this one, I think, is the most important one. If somebody takes paper money, out of your town. They have not damaged you. Like, that is just not true.

They haven't, the fact that you traded something for them and they took money is not like, it's just not a, it's not a zero-sum game. It's not a fixed pie. Now, I talk about this a lot with, um, when people talk about the rich people hoarding their wealth. And you go, yeah, but what are they doing with it? What do you mean by this? Like, it's like almost this feeling that the rich people just get the wealth and then

hoard it. It's like, dude, they're either invest. their money, they're saving their money, or if they are just stuffing it under their mattress, then they're essentially making your money more valuable. Like it's just not true. The idea that if you trade with someone, there has to be something there where like someone's getting ripped off. In this scenario, but you're naming, you're better off because your motorcycle got fixed,

that guy's better off because he made the 50 bucks. You both made a trade that you valued. And then whoever he goes and does business with is also better off. It's literally just everyone being better off, which there are situations like that. Like, just like, like, imagine in life you're like in a gym. You're all working out in a gym and like no one really knows what they're doing. And then one trainer walks in and goes, hey, you guys want to watch me and just follow my form. Like, everyone's better off now.

There was no loser in this equation. And these guys, it's amazing how like, Rob, economic fallacies always come back to making you think someone's ripping you off. when they aren't. And then ignoring when they actually are ripping you off. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Superpower. You know, everybody always has a plan to get healthier and exercise more and eat better and things like that. But if you really want to take your health to the next level, you've got to check out Superpower. Superpower sends a licensed professional to your home or you can visit a nearby lab. It's one simple blood draw that has over 100 biomarkers, which is way more than what you

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Trump. It's, uh, great job number. Great job. Great. job numbers just announced. All right. Great job numbers just amount breaking all estimates except mine by double and triple. And you haven't seen anything yet. Employers added 162,000 jobs in August, lower the interest rates because the USA is a much stronger credit than it was just a short time ago. A strong country means a lower interest rate.

It's a better credit. Very simple. Jesus Christ, he just shouts sentence fragments at you. We should have the lowest rate of any country in the world, like the old days, without the United States agreeing to allow them their big surpluses. And we could stop that immediately. They would no longer be considered financially elite. Lower the rate or all stop trading with countries with which we have a deficit.

We stop there. Okay, yeah, go ahead. What? Listen, there's a lot in here to take on, but that last line is what really just stands out to me. Because so if you thought the policy, why are you threatening us with what you see as economic doom and gloom to try and force the hand of the Federal Reserve to lower the interest rate? Either you believe that not trading to lower a deficit actually helps, in which case, regardless of what the Fed does, you should engage in the policy that you think works. but in this case he seems to be lobbying it as a threat where he understands that it is bad economic policy, but he's stating that he will engage in bad economic policy and hurt our economy to force for a lower interest rate.

So, I mean, that was the biggest thing that stands out to me. The other thing is just if you've got inflation and more jobs, I think that would be more of a reason to raise interest rates. And then also, I mean, historically to say this country was great when they were at zero, they were at zero post-08 and I think historically more the average is 70% it's gone as high under Volker as 18%.

So I don't think it's historically accurate if you look at the 1950s or whatever timetable he thinks is incredible maybe the 20s which led to a crash but I don't think there's too many time periods where we were at zero percent interest rate in this country or lower than 4%. The only, it's Obama.

The only period he's talking about is the Obama years. That's quite something. That's the time period that is Make America great again, because I guess he never defined it. He's talking about the Obama years. The time period that was the lowest interest rate time period, the only time period where we flirted with like a Fed Fund zero percent rate or whatever. These are the Obama years, the quantitative easing years, and I guess a little bit of COVID and a little bit during COVID.

So these are the Obama years were so bad that we elected Donald Trump. That's what he thinks we should go back to because absolutely no. That's right, Rob. they were in the teens under Volker during the Reagan administration. He ain't talking about Reagan. And no, he's not talking about the 1950s or anything like that. Yeah, even in the 1920s, in the roaring 20s, we didn't have zero percent interest rates that they were very artificially low and there was a lot of money printing for sure.

And yeah, right, for obvious reasons, you maybe wouldn't want to go back to the roaring 20s as your golden economic policy. You'd be like, how'd they end? And I got more on this. Wait, I got just two more points. Okay. One is also the fact that the greatness of a country is relative to its low interest rate, I would think the greatness of a country is relative to the stability of the paper. And so a higher interest rate would mean that holding the paper is actually more valuable

and that you're robbing people of, you know, less of their wealth through inflation. So I don't really understand the equation there. And then lastly, if you want to get at the trade deficit, the nature of the trade deficit is that people lend us more money so that we can buy more of their shit that we otherwise couldn't afford. And so if you want less trade deficit, you'd actually want a higher interest rate. The two are kind of in tandem. Look, I think you might get into a little bit of a dicey water there.

I think, look, I would just say it, like, I would kind of reframe it as, look, again, like if you really try to reduce this again to like my, like Desert Island thing, or I say, like, you know, you're on a desert island where there's apple trees everywhere. It's as easy as walking over and picking one to get an apple. How much can anyone sell an apple for? Well, you could recognize the price is going to be incredibly low because you can just walk over there and pick one. So how much can I possibly charge you for something you just have the option of going and getting yourself? But now, if you make it, there's a desert island and there's this dangerous sharky water.

And then on an island over there, there's an apple. There's no apples here. Well, now someone has to risk their life to go get this apple. How much are they going to sell? It's going to be incredibly hot. So, like, prices are supposed to dictate economic realities. The interest rate is supposed to be a reflection of what? savings. It's the things are supposed, it's, it's the price of money. And so in any type of market system,

interest rates are going to be dictated by whether you have a whole lot of savings. So if Donald Trump wants to say a strong country would have low interest rates, I suppose, Rob, you could say, yes, a country that had a very, like a strong country might have a very high productive capacity, which means they're producing a lot. And then people might save a lot of money. And then because there's a lot of capital saved, there's a lot of capital investment. and therefore, you know, like it's cheaper to borrow money. But the point is to have a society where everyone's in debt, and not just everyone's in debt, like they're just crushing, you know,

when you go through like the derivative numbers, it's like hundreds of trillions of dollars. The unfunded liabilities and the entitlement programs are at least tens to hundreds of trillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities, depending on how you measure it, $40 trillion of national debt. To say that the interest rates should be low in a consumer-based debt-based society is like, I don't know. It's like saying that like being on heroin is the

sign of a healthy person. Like, no, having having low interest rates in this environment is absolute madness. So I think that's really where it gets. Let me say it a little bit differently. A lower interest rate would allow you to fund more of a trade deficit. Yes, that is true. That is a fair point. to run more of a trade deficit. And also, if you're interested in trying to have American jobs, the inflation that you're going to create is going to continue to price up your labor against other areas. You're going to end up losing more jobs. Yes.

No, I think there's no question about that. And your broader point overall that, like, if you want to brag that the economy is humming, then that's an argument for raising rates. It's not an argument for lowering them. So it's, yeah, there's a bunch of in here that's just crazy. But again, just kind of what, it's like all Donald Trump seems to know. And there's something really, I don't know, there's something dark about watching it. But it's like as Donald Trump is spinning more and more out of control, you know,

it's just more and more of these D-Day threat type shit, whether it's the Bessent D-Day thing, whether it's bridge and power plant day or wipe your civilization off the map or it says we'll cut off trade with all nations does anybody does anybody believe that donald trump has the authority the political will the anything to actually follow through on that threat no it's just just the most like and the more he goes to the well the less there do you remember rob with connor mcgregor they used to call him mystic Mac. This was like his name. Because he would call his own shots.

He'd be like, I'm going to fight Jose Aldo and I'm going to knock him out in the first round. He'll come at me with the overhand right. And I won't be there and I'll catch him with the left and he'd call it perfect every time. And then I just kept making predictions, predictions, predictions, and after a while he had made so many that just didn't come through that they're like, they're worthless. And now you've got the commander in chief as like completely boy who cried wolfed himself

out of just any of these threats, meaning anything. It's like it's like he's just spazzing out as he knows he's going down. It's rough. Yeah. And if you got more economic uncertainty about the president's trade policy that would actually drive up prices, the last thing you're going to do is lower rates. I mean, it's just hilarious to threaten ourselves to try and get an outcome. But the reason why Powell was reluctant to lower rates was because he said, there's too much

going on. And we don't have a clear picture. and that was essentially the tariff policies were driving up prices. So it's funny that like, first, see, it's hilarious to threaten bad policy. I guess that you recognize as bad policy against ourselves. I mean, that's just that that's cartoonish.

But then also the lever he's looking to push would just be more of a need to, to move up interest rates to combat prices. Price is going up. Yeah. No, that's right. That's right. And, and this is, of course, the real,

the tight spot. that the Fed has painted itself into over the last 15 years. Is that, yeah, you're kind of... Well, yes, that's right. Well, they can just kind of at this point either screw you going or coming. It's like, look, either we're going to really slow down the economy or we're going to kill you with more price inflation. I think the one of the important kind of takeaways from all this, too, is just that,

look, Donald Trump, he really doesn't. hurt the two guys on Pierce Morgan today and all of them, you know, of course, they're bragging about this jobs report. Look, it's better than maybe some had predicted it would be. But again, this is like, you know, it just reeks of Joe Biden talking about how hamburger buns are actually down during the worst inflation crisis or go and remember, whatever it was. Rob was like, well, if you just do, yeah, yeah, it was like, if you just do baked beans and hamburger buns, it's actually cheaper than last year's Fourth of July. Like, yeah, but people, really like meat, you know, and like it's just so you're just your heart, but look, the major problem,

like the major fundamental problems, whether it's like the corruption in D.C. or even the demographic change in America, the crushing debt, the warfare state that never runs out of a fight, and the fact that prices are just crushing everybody, that life is just so expensive, none of that's been addressed and every bit as much as the war is a disaster all this economic like tariff policy all of it has just been they got nothing man i mean they want to say vaguely the big beautiful bill did great things and it's just kicking in or whatever but they got like they got really going into these midterms rob nothing to look to this is just so obviously like yo this guy's crazy he doesn't have any theory he's all over the place he's threatening what would be a calamity and he's not going to follow

through and none of this is going to work. Just a really bad spot to be in going into the midterms. Here, let's just fill, let's finish the truth. Let's read the last. Okay, fine. We'll finish the truth social and then we'll call it a day. Sorry, let me read it off here.

Sorry, where was I? Which the U.S. Supreme Court. Which the U.S. Supreme Court in its ridiculous and very costly tariff decision strongly acknowledged the president has an absolute right to do. It's better than tariffs. The Fed board

with his great new leader must get smart. Be patriots for a change. High interest rates put the USA in a very unfair disadvantage and I won't allow that to happen. President Donald J. Trump. There you go. All you need to do, I guess, is have

Obama's monetary policy. And that should solve all these issues. You can make the country great again. Yeah, like, I mean, again, there's also something to be said for the fact that You know, there are market forces at work, even on, you know, in pretty statist environments. Like, you know, you could sit here and say all you want that America's debt is a great investment

and you say we're so great that the interest rate should be very low. But it's going to get harder and harder to find people who believe that and who want to buy it. So, you know, we'll see, dude. But the idea that after all, after decades of, again, objectively, these are objective standards. Over the last 20 years, interest rates have been lower than at any period of time in the history of American monetary policy. There's between the quantitative easings and all, I mean, the interest rates were put to zero and held there for damn near a decade. And then they went right back down there during COVID for a bit there before they, ended up raising them up.

If there was a problem that low interest rates were going to solve, we would have more than solved that problem by now. Of course, low interest rates are a big part of how this whole game gets rigged. You know, it's not just the inflation problem, Rob, but it's like when you lower interest rates, you know, you give a huge advantage to people who are borrowing. big amounts of money, you know? And you get and that is people, you know, it's is a tremendous advantage to the speculators because everybody needs to speculate to get a little bit of interest on something, you know, people can no longer just. I mean, you tell me, like what sounds like more of

a giveaway to the super rich, like having an old lady who can just put her money in a CD and get a reasonable rate of return on that or when she has to give it over to Wall Street. I mean, you know, you tell me. All right. That's our episode for today. Catch you guys tomorrow. Peace.