Part Of The Problem - Their Arguments Haven't Been Weaker

Episode Date: April 15, 2026

Dave Smith brings you the latest in politics! On this episode of Part Of The Problem, Dave and Robbie "the fire" Bernstein discuss Ben Shapiro attempting to portray the war with Iran in a positive light, Douglas Murray on Bill Maher saying that we should finish the war because we should "start what we finish", and more.Support Our Sponsors:BodyBrain - Go to BodyBrainCoffee.com, use code DAVE20 for 20% off your first orderFast Growing Trees - Use code PROBLEM at http://www.fastgrowingtrees.com to save an additional 20% off your first order with Fast Growing Trees!CrowdHealth - https://www.joincrowdhealth.com/promos/potpPart 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 everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I am Dave Smith. He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein. How's it going today? Robert? I am doing well. How are you, my friend? Well, very good. I was just reading the news and it turns out we were wrong. The war's going great. It's all wrapped up and it's a win. I'm sorry. Wouldn't that be great though? I didn't even realize it. We're still currently cease firing. I mean, Israel's not with Lebanon. But I guess we pulled a sneaky sneaky and moved the ships. during the ceasefire to do the blockade. And now we're on the countdown to the end of the ceasefire. I didn't even realize that there was a ceasefire going on. Why didn't you realize there was a ceasefire? Was it all the firing that hadn't ceased?

Is that what made you think this wasn't a ceasefire? It was the Israel attacking Lebanon. And it was the escalation of us moving in a blockade while we were negotiating that I assumed that the ceasefire was also off. But you know, you can't make assumptions like that these days. So you felt like just because we were in the middle of executing a blockade that that that meant that it's not a ceasefire. Jesus, Rob, you really, like, this is getting

hard. I've fallen off. Well, it's getting hard to do a show with you, dude. It's like, you lay this out very clearly, and you seem to be having trouble following it. So, okay, just to go over this again, we've had a ceasefire. Well, okay, it was never a war.

But the non-war is at a ceasefire, but even though the fire hasn't ceased, but it is a ceasefire. And yes, There's a full, we have blockaded the straight of our moose with the stated goal of opening the straight of Hormuz. It is, dude, this is just out of, I mean, it's getting, you know, like, I guess maybe for

the last six years, say, since 2020, since the lockdowns, you know, we've all reasonably speculated at some moments that perhaps we're living through a simulation of sorts. it does seem like the simulation is breaking down into like the batteries are low or something. Like it's just getting goofy at this point. Like Trump is now feuding with the Pope. That's what's going on. Yeah, I was joking on running your mouth that the simulation basically feels like I'm living in AOL, uh, pump and dump emails.

Like you remember when he used to get the pump and dump emails in AOL, it feels like every news headline is what those pump and dump emails used. to be like, buy oil now. They're going to reopen the Hermuse. Sell it. They're about to close it. Like, it's just every day's a pump and dump email, but that's actually our lives. Yeah. Dude, it's so, you know, I was just thinking about this this morning as I kind of thinking

about what we should talk about on the show. I think, I don't think we've mentioned yet that Melania Trump came out and just brought up Epstein again. Like, I don't think that even ever came up because there were so many other just huge things that were going on. every last one of them is ridiculous. And how about that? And also, I just, I don't even think I have a comment on it.

I don't even know what to say about that. Like, what? There's out of nowhere in the middle of this. She just decides to come out and like, re-stoke the big, like, the second biggest failure of this administration and then restoke the idea that there are victims out there who haven't gotten justice yet and that remind everybody about how close. her relate even while denying it just reminding everybody that like she was friends with dislayen and Jeffrey Epstein and uh I don't know I mean I don't believe for a second that that wasn't

something that the White House approved of like I don't you know what I mean like I don't think I don't think the first lady would be able to just give a national televised address like that against the will of the administration but what could they possibly be hoping for with all of this is just, I don't know, it's too goofy. There were a couple possible angles there, but as we've discovered, you'll never understand Donald Trump or see what he's going for. I couldn't tell if maybe he was, well, actually, I was joking that maybe Iran got so bad. He's pivoting back to Epstein.

You got to distract from the war with the thing that you were distracting from the war. We're trying to distract from. Yeah. Yeah. Right. I wondered if in getting rid of Pam Bondi, they were trying to pivot and maybe throw Pam Boni under the bus and pretend like they were more interested in the storyline and this was the way of doing that. Or if Melani is now kind of working with Trump on, it was very interesting that it

wasn't, hey, let's investigate all the people and all the names that have been dropped or let's release all the information. Her call was that Congress should allow the victims to come forward and give testimony, which a lot of the victims aren't interested in doing. They've kind of already given their story. They've offered to call the Justice Department and no action has been taken. So, it almost put, it was almost a call to put it back on the victims to show up publicly and have to express what happened. And it came because, uh, the person who corroborates the story that Epstein did not introduce Melania to, I forget the guy's name and he's got some official position of like global diplomacy. It just sounds like, you know, he's out, he's out with the government position to make

money for Trump. That's what it sounds like. But basically he had, uh, supposedly groomed a lady when she was 17 and then got married when they were 18. He was like 34. And then he had the lady deported, essentially. And now that lady is saying that she's going to go scorched earth on Melania. And there were a couple bad articles that came out. And so it wasn't clear if maybe she was trying to get ahead of that news story. So those are kind of like the broad strokes of what might be happening there. But that was a full four days ago and nobody's talking about it anymore. You know the charge of a grooming? This was not something I had ever heard in my life until like, at least in the last 10 years.

I'd never heard of the, like, the crime of grooming or just the idea of that. And I was still, to some degree, have like a tough time. It's a weird concept, right? That if you, if you like met an underage girl and then had a relationship with it, like, if you didn't have sexual or till she was of age, but you were preparing her or something like that, Well, it's like, okay, but if you set a line and you go, you're of age after this line, then she was able to either consent or not consent at that time, right? And so, like, I don't know.

Just like, in my mind, it goes to like, well, what would, to me, the actual crime there would be like, wait, what were you doing while she was underage? Like, what were you saying to her? Were you saying, like, sexually lewd things or something like that? Because then, okay, I could see that being a cry. I don't know. It just seems like a weird thing to go. Like, it's almost like, okay, at this age, it's illegal to do something.

this age it's legal and what you did was you didn't do the thing at this age but then waited until it was legal to do it like but then wouldn't that not be criminal anyway whatever not defending any of it don't don't do any of that please if you're listening to this uh but yeah i don't know the whole thing is so freaking bizarre but yeah what i don't know i guess it's still it seems like a little bit of a mystery to me why she would do that but that that did happen uh if it if it was an attempt to distract from this war complete failure obviously. It was here and gone in the news cycle and everybody's right back to this thing.

That game doesn't really work anymore because the news cycle is just so constantly churning out new stuff that you're just not going to distract for that long. Anyway, again, as has been the theme for quite a while, or at least for what feels like quite a while, I am still just in awe of the fact that people are publicly defending any of this stuff. And it's amazing, you know, and the reason why I keep kind of harping on this is that it's just, it's amazing how much this moment is exposing people, exposing people for the frauds that they are. and I don't know, I just find it really entertaining and revealing,

and particularly when there's people who I've essentially been calling out as frauds for many years, and it's just really getting demonstrated now. I do enjoy that. And, well, I mean, let's start with Ben Shapiro, who, you know, has been, you know, essentially a punching bag for us for a long time. and he, man, does he, he plays the position very well from our perspective. He really makes for an excellent foil. But of course, you know, Ben Shapiro's launched a lot of attacks against me as well,

so I feel no need to hold back. But this is, here's Ben Shapiro trying his best to run cover for this regime and their choice to fight a war on behalf of Israel, because of course that's what his job is. That's his position here. But he is out here trying his best to make the argument that this did not hurt Donald Trump and his coalition. Let's check out Benny Boy. But the notion that Republicans in particular are abandoning the president continues to be a lie and a stupidity.

That same poll shows 81% of Republicans believe the president has a clear plan. Only 19% believe he does not have a clear plan. Right here already. Just pause it and keep this up on screen. I just like just look at it. Look at the poll. I just look at this. Of course,

we're only going to talk about that red part in the poll because, well, the blue part's not looking too good. And ooh, that yellow part is pretty damning. Now, isn't it, Rob? Does Donald Trump have a clear plan? That's the question here. Does Donald Trump have that? Now, as we've talked about a whole bunch, right?

independence have become the biggest voting block again this isn't us saying this is like gallop is the one saying making this claim um and of course if that's the case then what does that mean well that means how you do with independence is a really big deal and how did Donald Trump win the popular vote for the first time in 24 it's because he did well with independence and particularly if you break this down um and there's you can go read about this i can't remember it wasn't It wasn't Gallup. It was one of the other big ones, though, that had a good breakdown of all of it. But essentially in the swing states, Donald Trump crushed with independence. And that's how he won every swing state, right?

You're not winning every single swing state just getting Republicans. They're swing states. So you don't win all of them by just getting one group. He did very well with independence there. Look where he is with independence right now. And then, of course, the question isn't even like, do you? you support the war? It's do does he have a plan? Like, you can't even get good numbers with just the question of whether he has a plan. And why is that, Rob? Because what is his plan? What do you mean?

Does he have a plan? He's on his fifth plan right now. Yes, Donald Trump had a plan. The plan was that the Iranian people would rise up and overtake the government after he killed the Ayatollah. Well, okay, that plan, which he publicly announced the day that he announced the war, that plan didn't work out, right? And then there was a plan that we would just hit them enough that they'd capitulate. And that plan didn't work out. Then the plan was Donald Trump would threaten bridge and power plant day and that that would bring them to the negotiating table. But that didn't work out. And then the plan was, we'll have a ceasefire.

But that didn't work out. And then the plan was to send J.D. Vance down over. to Pakistan to negotiate with them. And that didn't work out. So now people aren't even sure if there is a plan at this point. That's what we're talking about. And the poll looks terrible for you. It's such a goofy question because I'd love to see the follow of question amongst

those 80% of Republicans that say yes. Now, follow the question, do you think Donald Trump's clear plan is going to work? And my guess is only 50% will say yes. And then if you want to throw on another kicker of, do you think that this war was a good idea at the outset? How many of the people who think he has a clear plan that might not even be a winning plan should have engaged in this to begin with? So it's a very goofy question and the fact that 20% of people who still identify as Republicans don't even think about what that question is. Does the president have a clear plan?

There's another way of saying, do you think that Donald Trump is completely bad shit crazy or a complete moron that he does not even have a plan of action here? And 20% of Republicans are going, people who still identify as Republicans are going, I do not. think that this person is coherent. Just imagine, dude, so like to take an example that I get Ben Shapiro would have to agree with, right? Because this is just kind of objective, but say Barack Obama, okay? We were all

critics of Barack Obama and for different reasons, but Ben Shapiro was a critic of his as well as we were. Barack Obama started his presidency being enormously popular. Like, I think he had approval ratings in the high 70s when he first came in. Like he was,

you know, he didn't have much of a political track record. He was young and handsome and an amazing speech giver and people really hated George W. Bush and really wanted things to get better, you know? And by the end of his presidency, he was not nearly as popular of a president. I just a lot more popular than Donald Trump is right now, but he was not nearly as popular. His approval rating had come way down, but at least 20 points, 25 points lower than when he first started. So, in other words, Barack Obama got a lot less popular over his presidency. And then in 2016, the Democrats lost. Like, and, you know, Hillary Clinton was the anointed one. She was supposed to be the next president,

but she lost to Donald Trump. So, like, imagine somewhere in there in, you know, 2015, 2016, I'm trying to argue that Barack Obama hasn't gotten any less popular and everything's fine. And I went, Rob, look at this one poll of hope and change Democrats. You know, Like if I just picked his slogan and then, you know, like, okay, he's not doing the MAGA thing here anyway. But it's the same nonsense. The relevant question is, has this war destroyed the coalition that won him the election in 24? Is he getting less popular? Go look at the polls.

Go look at the trends of his approval rating. It's just, it's unbelievable levels of, it's not even cope. It's just gaslighting. It's just lying to you. then trying to convince people that what you clearly see around you isn't happening, you know, what you clearly see around you happening isn't happening. I remember this was a thing that I said a lot on this show during the year 2024,

was I would just, I would always make the comment that I go, you know, dude, everybody in the corporate media world and amongst the political class is trying to convince you that we're in a coin flip election year. That's what the polling is saying, and that's what the people are telling you.

It's like, yeah, this is a flip of a coin. Could be Biden, could be Trump. Later, could be Kamala Harris, could be Trump. And then I would say, but look, dude, everything you can see around you tells you that we're in a landslide year. Like, every rally that Trump goes to draws these enormous crowds.

Every town you drive through, there's Trump yard signs all over the place. Every popular show is moving toward Donald Trump. The culture is moving toward Donald Trump, you know? But they tried to be like, no, all that stuff you're seeing isn't really happening. And that's exactly what Ben Shapiro is doing right here. You can just see it everywhere. Like, everyone's against this thing.

No. Outside of the Israel lobby and the few just like blind Trump cultists, everyone sees this thing for the disaster that it is. How are you going to convince us it's not real? All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is crowd health. Crowd Health is a company I've been telling you guys about for years. I love the company. I really believe in what they're doing. They have created an alternative to the broken health insurance model. So instead of getting health insurance, consider crowd health as an alternative to take care of your health care needs. For example, they just a few months ago introduced the

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By putting up phony stats on the screen. Yeah, there's one. And you're supposed to ignore the other two sections of the thing. Ben Shapiro always wanted a smaller Republican tent. Yeah, really. That's right. Once his tents, as small as his hats. But this is, but I mean, look at it.

Even for you, this doesn't look good on your screen. Anyway, here, let's keep playing. Hey, so, meanwhile, again, you have members of the grievance party who refuse to understand all of this, refuse. And you spend all of their time trying to trot out the propaganda of our enemies. Tucker Carlson did this on the BBC yesterday. He explained that President Trump is actually a slave to the Israelis, a slave. The President of the United States is a slave, which is psychotic. It's crazy. And the President has multiple times told the Israelis not to do things, like a lot. You'll already call. Let's pause it for a second.

Right before we go down this list of, again, just doing the dumb game of, well, Israel can't have too much influence because look at the one time when they got told no. Anyway, we'll get into that in a second. But, you know, I don't really think, you know, in one breath, Ben Shapiro is going to say that us, the grievance-based people, like, is it, Ben Shapiro doesn't have any grievances? of his own like okay what is that like it's always such a weird thing when they say that like the grievance every every political worldview every political ideology has some grievance in there that's what politics is essentially um and so what i don't know what that means like but anyway he's going to go they're just denying reality they're denying reality because they won't admit that MAGA Republicans still support Donald Trump or something like that.

And then he goes on to say, well, the idea that Tucker Carlson would have said Donald Trump's a slave is insane. Just obvious. And okay, if you want to talk about denying reality, denying reality would be believing that you can still just dismiss this as insane. And that's going to convince anybody. Donald Trump, okay, look, whether or not you take issue with the word slave, obviously what Tucker is saying there is that Donald Trump has so much pressure on him that he just does not have the option not to do this. Also, Tucker Carlson up until five minutes ago was a close friend of Donald Trump, was at the White House several times in the run up to this decision making. Ben Shapiro was not. Tucker Carlson has some insight here that Ben Shapiro doesn't.

Also, here, let's just throw a couple more things at you, Rob. Also, the director of counterterrorism resigned in disguise. and said that Israel pressured us into this war. Also, the New York Times just ran a major piece, the newspaper of record, just ran a major piece about how it was Benjamin Netanyahu and the Mossad who got Donald Trump into this war against the advice of several other members of his cabinet.

You can't just dismiss the idea that there was this Israeli pressure to get us into this thing as, that's crazy. You're nuts. Hey, the Israelis listen to us all the time. Just talk to the settlers. They're not taking more territory or making declarations when Jady Vance is there. They take, hey, in the middle of ceasefires, they're more than happy to not bomb Lebanon

because when we make requests, Israel listens to us. Oh, yeah. Okay, let's get into his examples. Let's see what he's got for us. That last year, during the 12-day war, the Iranians fired some missiles at the very end of the 12-day war. Israel had planes in the air to retaliate, and the president called them up and told them no. one of the reasons that Israel ramped down action Lebanon over the course of the last couple of days is because the president told them who wanted to ramp down yeah he can't even say ceased or stopped

ramped down which by the way I guess if you start from the biggest day of attacks in years on Lebanon which was after the ceasefire then they ramp down from that day it was a ramp up from previous days But just think about the logic here. Think about what Ben Shapiro, what facts don't care about your feelings, fast talking Ben Shapiro is reduced to here. The logic of you're going to act like Israel has all this undue influence. But look at the time. At the end of the 12-day war, Israel had already been bombing around

after Donald Trump requested a ceasefire. Then Donald Trump cursed him out on national television. Then they flew some planes. back. This is on the level of going, let's say, I don't know, Rob, like you start, you start dating some chick and you start just like spending all your money on her and then all of a sudden you're like, I don't know, whatever, you're putting money on the credit card because you bought her a new car and you're taking her to this nice vacation and you're doing all the stuff. And then so you take her to this like crazy like $20,000 vacation, okay? And then you take her back to another crazier,

like $100,000 vacation. And while you're on this $100,000, which you cannot afford. I'm like, Rob, you're like a slave to this chick, dude. You just can't afford to spend all this money on her. And then you go, really, Dave? Do you know how crazy that sounds? Because on the last $20,000 vacation,

at one point she asked for a $10,000 diamond ring, and I said no. And you're like, yeah, but you took her on the vacation and now you're back on another, like, yes, okay, fine. At one point, Donald Trump was able to get Israel to not do more bombing than they did in a war for Israel, but then six months later, he's back in the same war for the same country.

What does this prove here? Zoom out. Look at the bigger picture. I'm sorry, you're arguing exceptions that prove the rule, prove the rule isn't. Like this is, yes, okay, nobody is saying that there has never been an instance where Donald Trump has tried to reign in the Israelis.

But every time he ultimately doesn't get his way and then goes along with them anyway. This is the exact same logic of when they bring up the fact that, hey, if the Israel lobby is so powerful, how come the JCPOA got done? It's like, well, I don't know yet. It got done over their objections. And then ultimately their backed candidate came in and ripped it up. What does this prove, Rob? Not much. All right.

let's uh again and even with the lebanon situation it's like yeah they ramped it down after ramping it up that is one way to really bend over backward to look at it from your angle the other slightly more straight line would be after Donald trump tries to get a ceasefire the Israelis ruin it as i said on the show yesterday benjamin netanyahu tweets in the middle of the negotiations that the war is, that the war is continuing. And not just in Lebanon. They said in Iran and Lebanon and maybe in Turkey. All right.

Here, let's keep playing. Pursue negotiations. It was the president's deal to end the war in Gaza. And there are certain provisions of that deal that I am sure members of the Israeli government did not particularly like. Oh, wow. Yes. Well, actually, Ben, Ashgaly, Donald Trump,

wanted a ceasefire to start his presidency. Remember that? The first Whitkoff ceasefire came in the lame duck period of Joe Biden's presidency. After Donald Trump had won the election, but before he had been sworn into the White House, Donald Trump wanted a ceasefire back then, and he didn't get one for quite a while after that. And then once Israel finished destroying Gaza, yes, he got... a ceasefire that overwhelmingly favors the Israelis. And has also openly floated out plans of ethnically cleansing the strip on behalf of the Israelis.

So what is your point here? They're running a little thin. I mean, this is, yeah, dude. Talk about getting thin. Like, this is all you got left. It is like, uh, this, remember in like old-timey, like cop movies where there'd be of things like they had a shoot out and then like once you're out of bullets

you throw your gun you know what I mean like that just the last ditch effort is like Ben Shapiro was throwing his gun at this point like he is out of bullets he is out of arguments and he's going to have to start he's going to have to start reaching into that bag of feelings

pretty soon because Ben Shapiro is running low on facts these days like what I mean just what kind of argument is that again like if you were if I know I've used this analogy before, but if you were to find an example of one time that my, you know, my wife and I had a disagreement and I didn't take her advice, that would not prove that my wife doesn't have influence on me because there's lots of other things you could point to. Like you married her and devoted your life to her, you know, like so, no, in obviously in the big picture here, it's just so impossible.

to deny that you had, look, Donald Trump directionally from the entire start of his political career, right, from him running for president all the way up to today, the last decade or 11 years, directionally, what is Donald Trump's position on foreign wars, particularly in the Middle East, the global war on terrorism? We killed a whole lot of people. We wasted a whole lot of money. We got nothing to show for it. We don't want to be doing that anymore.

We want to do America first. Where directionally has Benjamin Netanyahu's entire political career been headed? We need to get the U.S. to overthrow the government of Iran. You just can't deny either one of those things. They are both on record. This is not something I'm alleging that they wrote in a secret letter that I've stumbled upon. I'm saying with cameras on them and microphones, their face for decades they have been talking about this.

Okay? So you had Trump going this way, Netanyahu going this way. What is the policy that we ultimately have? How would one not look at that and think, wow, this guy got his way? He won. And this guy did not get his way. Now, Tucker calls that being a slave to them doesn't seem, you know, maybe a slight bit of hyperbole in there.

but seems to be pretty spot on. And what does Ben Shapiro have as a response? Well, think about this, right? And this is why I make the analogy. Like, imagine, you know, my wife, whatever. She just really believed I should do my podcast at a different time of day or something. And I went, no, I need it to be at this time of day. And you go, that proves she has no influence on you.

Well, like, what Ben Shapiro is reduced to is to go, huh, okay, well, remember that one time when they fought a war at the behest of the Israelis, but then they didn't fight it for as long as the Israelis wanted? Yeah, okay. Hey, Rob, you remember that one time where after funding Israel's genocide of the Palestinians, Donald Trump pushed for a ceasefire? Okay. Yeah. It's like, hey, remember that one time you built a house for that guy, but you didn't add an addition onto it? Like, okay. The fact there is still that you built a house for somebody. Like, this is just pathetic, grasping, grasping at straws. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is

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let's all right you want to do I should mention this one we might as well just take out as many of these guys as we can in today's episode because I have not we didn't get to this right we didn't do Douglas Murray yet

no we didn't respond to that and I just you know listen me and Douglas are now forever linked this is what happens I didn't choose it he didn't choose it

I didn't think I was going to catch gay when I debated Douglas Murray, but that's the way it works, man. It sneaks up on you. It catches you when you least suspect it. But forever, whenever Douglas Murray does a show now, the entire reply is just

people tagging me. Like the entire, literally the entire thing is just a bunch of people. Dave, he's being, he's blah, blah, whatever, you know. So anyway, I do, it is, let me say one more time, by the way, that, because that debate will so just like live in infamy. But as I said at the time, it's true with the Adam Sussnick thing too.

Like, I didn't really do it to Douglas Murray. He did it to himself. He just came in and he did that. It wasn't like any, that, the, but anyway, it is amazing how much reputational damage he's taken since then. And how much, I just, just watching the reaction to this. Like, like a few people are still trying to trot him out. like, look, Douglas Murray destroys the case or whatever, destroys the narrative that we're losing this war.

And it is just, again, it's right up there with Ben Shapiro, just totally pathetic. Anyway, here, let's play Douglas Murray on with Bill Maher, a non-expert comedian. So I appreciate that Douglas is working on himself here. He's improving. He's now willing to have conversations with non-experts if they're pro-Israel. Here is his response to Bill Maher, who's kind of taking an interesting angle on this war now.

Let's listen to this exchange. And it didn't work. Now what? Do we cut and run or do we stay the course? I hope Donald Trump is the abandoner he's always been. I hope he is the guy who has never not abandoned anything his life except his love for tariffs. And I hope he does what America always done, these people who say, you know, we'll get a reputation for cut it. We always cut in Iraq.

We did it in Vietnam. We did it in Iraq. We did it to the Kurds. We did in Afghanistan. We did in Beirut. That's us. No lifeguard on duty. If you get in with us, we are going to fuck you.

Okay. And that's Donald Trump. He's a asshole, but he's our asshole. Douglas. Could we just pause it already there? It's kind of worth tearing apart Bill Maher here for a second. Okay. Now, Rob, far be it from me or you to ever say that anyone can't joke about anything, you know?

And I'll admit there's something amusing about what Bill Maher is saying there. But also on some level, that is enormously fucked up. It kind of is a real fucked up thing to just sit and chuckle about without like one moment. Because this is also a serious political show of being like, yeah, I mean, actually, we really shouldn't do that. Now, you know me, I am the last person who is ever going to be making the argument that like, oh, there's some oppressed group here and therefore we need military humanitarian intervention or whatever because the whole idea of military humanitarian intervention is the most ridiculous oxymoronic concept ever. And I've seen the way the U.S. Empire liberates people and you wouldn't wish on your worst nightmare, on your worst enemy that they be liberated like that. but that doesn't mean that it's not like an enormously fucked up thing to do to like give a wink and a nod to a group of people that you're about to liberate them if they just rise up now and then bail and then let them get slaughtered, which is what happened in almost all of those cases that Bill Maher just laid out there. You know, we appear, come on, we cut and run, we abandoned the Kurds. Yeah, we, George H.W. Bush told the Kurdish and Shiite a,

Iraqis to rise up and overthrow Saddam. And then they did. And we bailed. And he fucking slaughtered them. And that actually is kind of serious. Those are real people. And that's really messed up. And Bill Maher is advocating we do that now after he supported the war.

Like, no, how about the lesson there be that we should never listen to any of you people about foreign policy again? I don't like this thing where, like, don't get me wrong. rather Bill Maher get off board than stay on board. But if you supported this and then you're already admitting, oh, sorry, disaster, we got to go, that should come with like some, an ounce of humility. You know what I mean, Rob? Was, was Bill Maher out there pushing for Iran more? I think so. Yeah. No, I mean, I definitely heard him like, you know, he would kind of do this vague thing, at least I saw at least a few clips where he was doing this vague thing where he's like, you know,

this is why Trump's better than the fucking the Democrats on this issue because he gets that there's two civilizations, there's team good guy and there's team bad guy and us in Israel we are the good guys people hate to tell you young people who get their news from TikTok

we are the good ones in this and you're like Bill you should consume more TikTok dude like it's not so black and white but so he was certainly like making all the noises of someone who supports this thing and now he's going whoopsie, guess we should cut and run.

Well, it certainly doesn't sound like the good guys when you're laying out all the people that we've abandoned and that the most noble strategy at this point is cutting and running. Yes, that's right. The good guys. They're the good guys in the movie. They're always the ones dropping white phosphorus.

Right. Hey, listen, abandoning your partners. It's a dickhead move. But luckily, we voted for a dickhead, and hopefully he can use his dickhead powers. We're the good guys. Dude, and like, by what, again, it doesn't have to be this like black and white all or nothing.

You know, I remember when I, the first debate I did about Israel post, it was right after October 7th. And it was with Ben Dominic, Megan McCain's husband. And he was like one of the first things he said, because of course, you know, there's right after October 7th. So it's highly emotional. This first question was like, you know, are America the good guys or the bad guys? And I'm like, oh, I mean, she?

Like it's it literally is almost like this is the type of conversation I have with my four-year-old son. You know, like who are the good guys? Who are the bad guys? Like it's just such an oversimplified way of looking at things. And America isn't either good or bad. We are obviously both. There are tremendously great things about this country. And there's some really horrible things about this country.

And but like how do you even say like in your talk you're harkening back to like Vietnam? Were we not the bad ones in that conflict? Who could actually defend that we were the good guys for going and slaughtering millions, just millions of innocent people in the name of imposing a system of government on them that they did not want? They overwhelmingly did not side with us. How are you the good guys for that? All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is fast-growing trees.

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So that's an additional 20% off at fastgrowingtrees.com when you use the promo code problem at checkout. Now is the perfect time to plant. Let's grow together. Fastgrowingtrees.com promo code problem. Offer is valid for a limited time. Terms and conditions may apply fastgrowingtrees.com promo code problem. All right. Let's get back into the show. Anyway, it's just, yes, it's the whole thing is literally it's insane it's insane thinking and we haven't even got into douglas yet and now and now we get to douglas so here let's let's pull this up uh let's get to douglas murray's uh response here i disagree i i disagree because i think once started you have to finish this i don't agree that it's failed it's uh it's been an incredibly successful operation in lots of ways

Pause it already. Pause it already before he was. Pause it. Bring it back a few seconds here. Because, and so we can go through his list of why this is so clearly a success. But I just think already, right, that the framework that starts with this. And like, despite, you know, Douglas Murray always, you know, his old thing is that whatever, he's got this like posh accent and this flamboyant way of, you know, like this kind of rhetorical prowess. but his starting point, just go for the logic of it.

His starting point is, once you start, you have to finish. Is there a more caveman idiotic way to view? Any policy? Like, objectively, no matter how you feel about the war, no matter how you feel about health care or childcare or monetary policy or fiscal policy or whatever, objectively speaking, ever going, we started it, therefore we must continue,

is the dumbest concept in the world. Well, no, if you started the incorrect policy, you don't just continue it because you started it. What type of argument is that? What type of like, like, that's the frame we're going to start with is that whether right or wrong, we started doing it. You know, we're digging a tunnel. Is it going the right way or the wrong way? Well, we started it. So keep digging.

Like, no, no, no, no, no. Really make sure you're digging in the correct direction before you continue. That is like, this is just madness, utter madness. Hey, excuse me, doctor, I know you started amputating the right arm here, but this is the wrong chart. This man was in for a vasectomate. You go, well, we started. Gotta keep going.

Like, no, no, you don't. Anyway, now let's go through the list. Well, this is a win. Rob, this is clearly a win. In lots of ways. Supreme Leader dead. Iranian Air Force destroyed, nuclear sites attacked again, the Navy of the Iranian Revolutionary Government at the bottom of the ocean.

These are not small things. It's not the case that the Iranian Revolutionary Government has... Pause it. Here. Okay, so let's go through it. Okay, the Ayatollah is dead, right, but you can only really count that as a win if what replaces him is better. Any indication of that so far? Any indication that this is an improvement from the Ayatollahs?

who declared a fatwa on nuclear weapons? Do we have any indication at all? If the old Ayatollah, if the old Ayatollah is selected by the Mullah regime, and the new Ayatollah will be selected by that same regime, you have to demonstrate that there's an improvement there before you get to count that in your list of wins. Now, you could talk about destroying the Iranian Air Force and the Iranian Navy, But, Rob, as we know, you know, in, look, obviously for 20 plus years, but since, say, the 12-day war, there's been a whole case that's been made about Iran.

And this was never even on the list. No one ever even brought, they mentioned intercontinental ballistic missiles, they'd mention the nuclear program, they'd mention the proxies, they'd mention putting down protests or whatever. No one even ever tried. Ever once. There's not one hawk ever. Whoever went, this Iranian Air Force, let me tell you what they're capable of doing. No one ever said that, you know, Iran is going to come over to Europe and have air dominance. Nobody ever made this claim.

And nobody ever said their Navy is going to be a threat. So sorry, neither one of those are counted as in the W column here. And then we bomb some nuclear sites, is what he's claimed. I mean, Rob, then, well, then what? Well, then you were wrong about the 12-day war. Then you just got it completely wrong. Because from what we were told, their nuclear sites were totally obliterated seven months ago. And so what's the benefit of hitting these sites?

What are you saying? We'll only have to be back in seven months at war again. What does it mean to hit these sites? What is your word worth saying we've taken them down? But, Rob, he's got nothing. There's not a single W. in there. All right, let's continue the clip because I love this. This last line, I think, is the dumbest of all of them. Okay.

I'm out of this well. I know things. It's not the case that the Iranian revolutionary government has come out of this well. I know some people are wanting to say that after four, six weeks of war, this is some kind of loss for America. It isn't. It's been an amazing strategic success, but everyone wants to know what the out is. I just love the line of it's been an amazing strategic success. So if we stop today, are you declaring, are you putting up your hands in victory? You're saying it's already been an amazing strategic success. So we're done.

We're done. It's already an amazing strategic success. You must be happy with everything that's taken place so far that you could say that we're done today if you wanted to declare it an amazing strategic success. I mean, sure, the Hermews Strait is closed and all of our partners are real pissed off at us. And we've made it more likely for them to go get a nuclear bomb. we have no way of getting back, uh, retrieving the nuclear material that's currently inside of the country. And for all this talk about depleting 90% of their missiles, blah, blah, blah,

apparently they still contain, uh, have 50% of their capacity, between 30 and 50%. But according to him, it's been an amazing operational success. He would be happy today if it was over and he would declare this as victory for the United States of America because it was a amazing operational success. Yeah, good luck. But Joe Biden had an easy. easier time trying to convince you that the economy was actually really strong. It is a remarkable statement for Douglas Murray to say,

it's been an amazing strategic success, and now we just have to find a way out. Because if you can't find a way out, then by definition, it is not an amazing strategic success. A strategic success, there would be a way out of it. And you notice with all these things, right, these just these liars just, just sheer lead for war after war after war. None of it ever goes the way they say and they still come back with this air of expertise about their prediction for the next one.

If you remember, Rob, when this war started, right? All of them were out saying, weeks, not months. This will be a short war. Weeks, not much. Now, the exact same thing that Dick Cheney said on Meet the Press about the war in Iraq. This will be weeks.

not months. Okay, we're into months now. Now that the war has been months, not weeks, now they're going, oh, you're judging it after eight weeks? Well, eight weeks is pretty damn close to two months, meaning months, plural. Oh, now we're not allowed to judge it

on the small scale of an eight-week. military operation. Well, I mean, what the fuck, dude? This is the only reason, this is your two weeks to slow the spread. You get people in with this like, oh, it'll be real short. And then it's like, once you start something, you see, you have to finish it. Oh, and now we're all just being children for not wanting to continue the murder. Like, not wanting to continue the killing.

And again, this just, but like, look. All of these reasons were always bullshit pretext for war, right? But the reasons listed were given. Now, the Strait of Hormuz comes in after. It was open. So you go into the war with like, okay, we got to get the enriched uranium. They can't enrich uranium at all. We got to get their missiles.

They got to stop with the proxies. They got to stop killing protesters. they have all these clear goals, right? None of those have been achieved. This is an objective fact. People can say whatever they want. People can predict that those goals will be achieved. I don't think so, but we could argue about that.

But it is a fact that none of those goals have been achieved. And then the Strait of Hermuz has now come in as this other major problem, which is a clear glaring problem. So just very objectively here, Rob, right? There's really not much opinion to be put into this. If you start the war and you give these reasons, all of them bullshit reasons, but you give these reasons, they killed 34,000, 45,000, whatever number you want to make up. They killed all these protesters. They have enriched uranium.

They have intercontinental ballistic missiles and they support Hezbollah and whatever. Okay. You haven't achieved anything. All of those things still exist. You haven't helped the protesters. You haven't liberated the people. You haven't secured the enriched uranium. You haven't gotten them to stop supporting Hezbollah.

And now you've got an additional problem created by the war that you also haven't solved. That, Rob, is what you call a fucking L. That is a loss. And until you change any one of those dynamics, I mean, this is just the bottom line here. If you don't change any of those dynamics, there's no argument over whether, this is a win or a loss. It's clearly a loss. Okay. Now, if you achieve some of those dynamics, that doesn't win you the argument that the war has been won, but now you at least have an argument on your hands. It's going to be pretty tough because you're going to have to sit here

and look at all the costs and then look at whatever, you know, like what if we got the enriched uranium out somehow, which seems like a really far-fetched idea at this point, That doesn't just clearly mean it's a win because, I don't know, we could have made a deal. We could have done a million different things here. But then you could at least, then at least you'd be in a position where one of the stated war goals has been achieved. Right now, you've had zero, zero. I don't know. What do you say, Rob?

Well, the part that really makes me the most angry about this whole thing is when you go, now that we're here, we have to continue. Are you admitting that it was a mistake from the outset then? Yeah. Or is that not even your talking point? Do you just think that this needed to happen no matter what? And so the costs are worth it, in which case, just make that argument. Hey, listen, and you're lying. Iran was going to become a nuclear power, and they're attacking our allies in the region,

and we can't have this power vacuum, and now's the best opportunity to take them out, and we have to take them out. Or you're saying, hey, listen, this was a mistake, but we opened up a really bad mess here, and we have to see it through. But you've got to say, hey, this was a huge mistake. And that everything I said prior to this point was wrong. and if you're not doing one or the other, it just kind of, it drives me a little nuts.

Yes, understandably. And no, it drives me nuts too. But this is the life of torture that I've chosen. And so I must continue to drive myself nuts. But look, and yes, of course, you're completely right. To have an ounce of intellectual honesty here would be for all these people to go, okay, look, we did get it wrong after the 12-day war

when we said the threat was completely obliterated. But so now we got to. got to go take care of this threat. Or in Douglas Murray's case, yes, okay, it was a disaster launching this war. But now that we've done it. But the reason they won't say that, the reason they can't have that intellectual honesty is because the second they admit that, now they lose their air of superiority and of not, you know, like now, because now they'd have to go, like, oh, yeah, did we mock

all of the people who got it right while we were claiming we got it right with the 12-day war? Yes, sorry, we were wrong about all that. Did we get this crucial question of whether to start this war wrong? Yeah, we got that wrong. But listen to us now. Because once they admit that, it's just too easy to go, well, then no, no, we're not listening to you anymore.

You keep getting it wrong. And one of the things that's really infuriating to me, I'm sure to you two, about people like Douglas Murray saying, well, once you start it, you got to just keep going, aside from the idiocy of that, is that it's like, yeah, but you were selling it. the thing, dude. You spent 25 years selling this war. And so to go, well, once it started, now we got to finish it. It's like, it started because of you. It started because of people like you. So what do you mean? No, you don't get to just yada yada, yada over that and now get here. Yeah, there's a reason why people like us were screaming at the top of our lungs do not start this.

And we weren't saying, all right, start it, but then let's see where we are after that. And then we can make the decision whether we leave or not. It's like, no, the thing is you don't start these things because then propagandists like Douglas Murray will say dumb things like once you start it, you have to keep going. I think it really highlights the lack of integrity and not caring about humanity because if you could at least go, hey, listen, this was an absolute mistake. And I think we do need to learn that wars of aggression that are a choice are a mistake because they don't always go your way. And I was out there for, a long time pitching that this would be easy and I was wrong and this is why we shouldn't be

capturing leaders like Maduro and we shouldn't be thinking that going on voluntary missions are a good idea because they're very risky and they don't always go your way. Lesson learned, I will never be pitching another war. But we did open up a mess here and here's the problem that we're up against with the Petrodollar. And sadly we need to see this through, but I'm going to be the first one when this is over talking out against new wars because I was wrong and they're a mistake. but if you're not going to say that or you're not going to say, hey, listen, we needed to do this no matter what

and it's not about now that we're in the mess, we got to continue. You got to pick one of the two. Otherwise, you're just being completely dishonest and you don't care about humanity. Yeah, that's right. Listen, man, what anyone, if you want to, again, like I said, when we debated Douglas did it to himself.

It's not really, but if you really want to understand Douglas Murray, okay, if you, if you, go read the op-ed that he, wrote about the war in Ukraine at the very beginning of the thing. I think it was for the New York Post. But if you Google Douglas Murray, Ukraine will win, you'll find the piece. He straight up says Ukraine will win this war. They will drive the Russians back. If America funds this, they will win this war. They will recover all territory. And just look at how catastrophically wrong he got it.

You know, just got millions of people killed later. And now what's he talking about? Just selling you the next war. Just because that's really his job, just to help push public opinion to get you into the thing. And then once you're into the thing, all the waters get muddy and he can say, yeah, we're here. We got to keep doing that. Oh, you can't let those boys die for nothing.

And that, you know, like that. But, dude, I mean, like, yeah, Rob, as you said, you get it so catastrophically wrong every single time. and you're just completely unaffected by this and just move on to selling the next war. It is at a certain point, kind of hard to believe that you're not just a cheerleader for war who doesn't care about the death and destruction that it causes. And I will say, I think there is particularly, and I know I've made this point about Douglas Murray before, but for all of his thing with you've never been, you know, he's offended that I haven't gone on IDF embedded trips to Israel,

but yet I still talk about Israel a lot. But again, my counter to that is always like, hey, dude, okay, so that's your standard. You shouldn't talk about a country unless you've been there. Now, he makes exceptions to that standard, say, like, with Iran, he's never been to Iran, but that doesn't stop him from advocating a war there. So, okay, he's a hypocrite, whatever. But I don't know.

no, that's a kind of arbitrary standard. You have to go to a place in order to talk about it, or you should, if you're going to talk about it a lot, you should have the courtesy to go there. Like, okay, well, how about advocating for every single war while serving in none? What about the— Douglas Murray at this point, we're around the same age. I don't know exactly how old Douglas Murray is, but somewhere ballpark. Maybe he's a few years older than me, but I don't think he's—I don't think he's over 50. Douglas Murray has been championing wars longer than I've been opposing them, I think.

Like, I've been doing this. I've been an anti-war guy for like 20 years. He's been a pro-war guy for at least 25 years. In other words, Douglas Murray was a young man when he started supporting all of these wars. A military aged male, as they call them. Never once volunteered. Never once enlisted. never never even thought to do that he's writing books when he's the same age as the boys who are

going over there doing the fighting about how those boys should go over there and do all this fighting and like i i don't know man like i've you know i've said this before many times but i really do mean this and i'm i'm about to be 43 but like i don't know i could still like shoot a gun or run or punch someone in the face or whatever you know like i'm still a man i would never advocate for a war that I wasn't willing to go fight in. But just, like, as any man, that just seems like a crazy thing to me, to do. Natalie, maybe cut this next comment I'm about to make from the episode.

But I guess if you're gay and going to hell anyways, you might as well make some money selling wars. I mean, I guess if you have an eternal pit of fire to look forward to, yeah, what's the point at that point anyways? Well, oh my God. I mean, no, you don't have to cut that from the episode. No, I mean, you know, I remember there was one part. I was trying to play so nice with him when we debated because Rogan wanted us to have a respectful debate.

So I was like, I'm not going to, if that's what Joe wants, then that's what I'll deliver for him. But there was one point where he just goes, he goes, but you're like a comedian, but Joe, I was talking about politics. Isn't that a little bit weird? And I was like, I was like, yeah. Yeah, I'm kind of weird. I don't know. I mean, yeah, it's weird to be as obsessed with politics. as I am, but they're like,

we're all into some weird stuff, you know what I mean? I mean, like, that's kind of weird, but then at the end of the day, you know, I just like, I don't know, I like having sex with my wife. Anyway, this is like, you really want to get into like what's weird here. Being like a British gay dude who advocates for us to fight wars. I also do, and maybe I'm, I, there is something I also resent about, I don't mind foreigners commenting on American politics or something like that, and especially because we're the global empire.

So, you know, they kind of in some degree live under our rule also. But there is something about foreigners who don't serve in the military advocating that my government go to war. Like, at least stick to advocating that the UK government go do something about this. What are you doing over here? what I mean? Like, you don't, I don't know, like, never, never being is an argument, but like, okay, but you're not a citizen of this country. This government does not work for you. I mean, they don't work for us. They work for, you know, transnational banks. But the point is,

they certainly shouldn't be working for, for Douglas Murray. Anyway, I, you know, I don't know what to say really about all of this. It's, it's also tragic. But at the same time, man, it is it's unbelievable how much easier they're making my job like just being out here in this information war to they're making it real easy to win because what i mean i've and don't get me wrong i've i've spent a long time many years doing shows like this talking to all you find people about how full of shit guys like ben Shapiro and douglas murray are i don't think i've ever seen them at a place where their arguments are weaker than this Like the two things we just went through here today.

I mean, this is like, this is a, they have a weaker hand than the, the COVIDians who were arguing for lockdowns or the arguing for vaccine mandates. Like they, they have a weaker hand than those guys had in making this argument. And those are a pretty weak hand. I'm like, this is just utter coping nonsense. All right. I guess teasing the next one, but I'm, I'm, I'm. I'm disappointed. You know what?

We're going to have to save that for tomorrow because I'm just, we're over time at this point. I know, but that Glenn Beck was the most infuriating the batch. So stay tuned for tomorrow or Thursday. Check out the Running Your Mouth podcast. Chicago this weekend. Looking forward to the shows.

Yes, that's right. Chicago this weekend. Can't wait for that one. Comic-Davsmith.com. Go grab those tickets. They're moving fast. All right. Catch you guys next time.

Peace.