Part Of The Problem - Trump-Putin Summit

Episode Date: August 12, 2025

Dave Smith brings you the latest in politics! On this episode of Part Of The Problem, Dave is joined by Scott Horton to discuss Trump's meeting with Putin regarding the Russia/Ukraine conflict, Mark Maron's comments about the state of comedy on Howie Mandell's show, and more.Support Our Sponsors:Brighten your SMILE with The Wellness Company. First-ever peptide toothpaste for whiter teeth and restored gums. Fluoride-free. Click http://www.twc.health/problem and use code PROBLEM for 10% off + FREE Shipping!Kalshi - https://www.kalshi.com/daveTuttle Twins - https://www.tuttletwins.com/problemHexclad - Find your forever cookware @hexclad and get10% off at hexclad.com/PROBLEM! #hexcladpartnerGo to BodyBrainCoffee.com, use code DAVE20 for 20% off your first orderPart Of The Problem is available for early pre-release at https://partoftheproblem.com as well as an exclusive episode on Thursday!ROB LIVE DATES HERE:PORCH Tour: www.porchtour.comFind Run Your Mouth here:YouTube - http://youtube.com/@RunYourMouthiTunes - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/run-your-mouth-podcast/id1211469807Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/4ka50RAKTxFTxbtyPP8AHmFollow the show on social media:X:http://x.com/ComicDaveSmithhttp://x.com/RobbieTheFireInstagram:http://instagram.com/theproblemdavesmithhttp://instagram.com/robbiethefire#libertarianSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

what is up everybody welcome to a brand new episode of part of the problem i am dave smith he is robbie the fire burnstein how are you feeling my friend i uh had a great weekend out of minnesota i'm excited to hear about ron paul's birthday which i was uh sad i had a porch lined up for but couldn't make it too but uh for everyone out there we've got this is the most dense stretch of porches. I got Tennessee this weekend, Memphis, Bonacqua, Chattanooga. Then I got a run of Baldwin, Missouri, pecking Indiana, outside Cincinnati, Cleveland, Ohio, and then closing out porch tour at Maxes at Pubca's the private bar for the smokeout bugout, a concert from the Shedcast guys. So come camp. We got porta-potties. You can shit in the port-a-body. Very nice. I like it. That's

what I like to hear. And then, of course, after that, me and you, starting in September, we'll be back out on the road together for the rest of the year. Yeah, we got Tampa side splinters, side splinters coming up, Tacoma, Spokane, Vegas, Poughkeepsie. We got a bunch of dates up there, Comicabsmith.com, go check that out. And I did also want to make sure to mention up top today because really I'm very proud of our boy, Louis J. Gomez, and his newest venture, which is body brain coffee. I should tell people who don't know, many of you know listening, but Lewis is one of my closest friends and has been for many years. Lewis really, Lewis was the guy who convinced me to do stand-up comedy and the guy who convinced me to start podcasting. So it's pretty, yeah, I mean, it's the only good things he's ever done in his life besides body brain coffee.

It was convincing me to do stand-up. Yeah, okay, fine, fair enough. There's like four things, but let's, you know, celebrate the four. But anyway, he's also, of course, always been, you know, the, you know, the guy who's really supported this show hosted it on his network. He's a partner with me on part of the problem.com. And he's, of course, as you guys know, a hilarious comedian and somebody who's really kind of like, you know, represents kind of like real edgy comedy and free speech and all the stuff that we love. And he just released body brain coffee, which is phenomenal. It's a coffee that also boost your testosterone levels, testosterone in men.

has plummeted down nearly 25% in the last 20 years. Very interesting. We could get into it some other time, but I believe government policy has been a big part of that. But now you could just drink body brain coffee. It's delicious. It's third party tested for purity and potency. No fillers. No fillers, no gimmicks.

It's really, really an amazing product. I just tried it the other day. But everybody is swearing by the stuff. You got to do it. So go to bodybraincoffee.com. Use the promo code Dave 20 for 20% off your first order. I really want to, guys, because first of all, this product is great. Lewis is a great guy, and he's been behind part of the problem from the very beginning.

So I really want to blow this thing up for him and let him know that it was our people who blew it up. That's the selfishness in it. I don't want him to think he succeeded on his own. So we want him to succeed, but you got to use the promo code Dave 20, and you get 20% off your first order, too. So that's pretty cool. Bodybraincoffee.com. All right. Let's get into the show today.

I should. There's no way I can't spend the first few minutes talking about what you just alluded to, which was Dr. Ron Paul's 90th birthday party bash the other day that I just got back from out in Lake Jackson, Texas, where he's still, Ron Paul's congressional district, where he still lives to this day. Yeah, you were sorely missed, Rob. A lot of people were asking about you. There were a bunch of fans out there and stuff.

I, you know, my speech and some of the podcast that I did are out, I know they're up on YouTube and stuff. And so I kind of talked about it a bit already. I won't, I'll make this short because we got a lot of stuff to get to. But it was just an amazing event. Just saw so many great people who I haven't seen in so many years and people I really love that I just don't see as much anymore. Like Kennedy was there and Spike Cohn was there. A whole bunch Clint Russell and a whole bunch of our Liberty crew people. And then I got to hang out with Ron

Paul and his son and his granddaughter for like a half hour. That was just amazing. It was just a guy who's really, you know, people say don't meet your heroes and that's because their heroes aren't as cool as Ron Paul. Meeting Ron Paul is just every time I've

gotten a chance to hang out with the man. It's just been like invigorating and inspiring. So it's just just an incredible human being and then he gets up there at the end it's his 90th birthday and he gets up at the end and I really thought he was just going to like say thank you to everybody for coming out to his birthday and how he appreciates it or something blah blah blah you gave a 45 minute speech about central banking and liberty and the error that we're in and all this stuff and it's just

like amazing it's amazing to watch um and the guy is just the guy's so incredible so you know nothing but um praise and love for dr ron paul happy 90th birthday um and a huge thank you to dan mcadams who also is just incredible um you know ron paul's best foreign policy guy and his co-host on the liberty report and as the the guy who runs the ron paul institute with him and all the young americans for liberty guys i love that organization to death and um yeah just thanks thanks to everybody and the paul family uh thank you to them too all right guys let's take a moment and thank sponsor for today's show, which is the wellness company. I don't know if you guys have been keeping up with the latest about the water supply and fluoride, but let's just say the future of oral care

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smile plus you can get 10% off and free shipping just by going to twc dot health slash problem and using the promo code problem that's tvc dot health slash problem promo code problem for 10% off plus free shipping all right let's get back into the show if i'm ever 90 and haven't made enough money that i still have to do porches and interact with people please put me down okay fair enough i will but he seemed to be having fun yeah no that's incredible to be years old and uh still want to engage with people like that i i can't imagine being 90 having a birthday and be like i will have the fans over to my house to celebrate and i will share a message about the fed that's uh i think that's just a testament to his character yes i i could not agree more when you said

ron paul's son are you referring to rand or is there no no no no no there's a different son different son rand rand was not there he sent like a video message and but rand wasn't there but no it was a different one of his other sons um yeah he's got like five kids uh but and then i think they got like 20 something grandkids you know that's how it works if you have a big family and then your kids have a big family by the time you get to grandkids you're like you're forgetting names and stuff it's stuff it's a it's a you got to get like i don't know some type of list going anyway um okay so there's we we should open with i guess there's two stories so if you haven't if you if you if you weren't aware rob america is involved in two proxy wars um and neither of them are going great so that's the

that's just to get you caught up if you're not up to speed but there's bring some pretty major developments in both uh the war in ukraine and israel's destruction of gaza and uh so let's let's do Ukraine first, just because that is kind of the bigger, well, I don't know, bigger story, but this week, a big thing is going down. So I was just, I will start by just saying this, because this was pretty weird to me. So I was just, I was on Pierce Morgan just now. That's what, right before I came onto the show, literally moments before this show started, I was on with them. And so I was on a panel. And the panel is, I haven't done one of the Pierce Morgan panels. And I haven't done one of the Pierce Morgan panels in a long time. I've been doing like one-on-one debates and then, you know,

one time Pierce just interviewed me. But there's, but so I was back on one of these panels and, you know, so I was struck by just first of all how, I don't know, I just can't do the panels because you've got to sit there. It's one thing if you've got other interesting people on the panel, but when there's just too many people who aren't saying anything interesting, you have to sit there through all this nonsense. Anyway, so I'm on this panel with a, there's the general, what's his name again? I'm like, I keep blanking on it. General Mark Kimet, who was, he was in the Bush administration. He was at some type of position in the State Department. I can't exactly remember. But anyway, so it's him. Then this one other guy who's some type of expert I lived in Russia and studied this stuff

thing. Then there's some girl from Ukraine and then there's some dude from Russia who's like a RT guy. So literally if you could picture this like the dude from Russia is like in his car, the general and the expert guy are like in suits and ties. I'm in a hoodie, you know, just like the normal dynamic of this. I'm wearing this. And, um, and you know, it's like all these guys have their fancy title. It's like the same dynamic also. It's like fancy titles for two guys. Then, you know, someone in Ukraine, someone in Russia. And then me, a comedian. here on the panel with it and so i'm sitting here and they literally start going into i mean it is it was like just i was disgusted by it's like first the you know the ukrainian is like

the people of ukraine are strong everybody thinks we're weak but we are strong we will fight and we will win then the russians like russia is strong you are all scared of russia this was a defensive war that we had to fight the the aggression was the west blah blah then the general and this expert guy start going like, oh, Russia's not strong. Your whole country is a gas station with nuclear weapons. You're weak. And they're going back. And then me, the comedian in the hoodie in the room, I'm like, guys, what are we doing?

I just had this moment where I'm just like, guys, there's a war going on. Hundreds of thousands of people are dying. Don't we want to stop that? Why are we just lobbing insults at each other? Like, okay, like there's a negotiation process that's going on right now. Like, can't wait. Anyway, it was just one more moment. That is just so, look, I don't mean to make it about me.

I just happen to find myself in the middle of this. But it's one more moment where it's like the people who are supposed to be the grownups in the room are actually the most childish people in the room. And then like you can't like, and then you have to, it's why in this weird world you have to come to a show like this to get like a serious conversation. It's just so freaking bizarre. Anyway, the news, the very major news that's happened just unfolded over the last few days is that Donald Trump in his. his 4D chess, art of the deal negotiating strategies, has now, which I would think of as just more incoherent than anything else, but has now pivoted away from last week, he was on Vladimir Putin better have a ceasefire by this deadline or they'll be hell to pay.

And by hell to pay, it means sanctions and money for weapons or whatever, the same old thing. He completely dropped that. He's now announced after Whitkoff went and met with. Vladimir Putin. It's now been announced that Donald Trump is meeting with Vladimir Putin in a couple of days in Alaska. As of now, No Zelensky, just the two of them. But now we are at least back to the posture of we're trying to make a deal here. And we're trying to end this war. And Trump even said a couple things today about how he thinks he's optimistic about that they can make a deal. So the tone of everything has completely changed. And for the,

the first time since this war is broken out, the president of the United States of America and Vladimir Putin are sitting down in a room together, which itself is just, um, is, is a great thing. Uh, and, and it's, it's criminally insane that that has not happened yet. Like, it's just so, it's so, it literally is like, I'm, I feel like as a father of little children, I'm so embarrassed that this is the adult world. Like, I'm so glad I don't, have to tell them about this yet because man it's going to it's going to hurt to let them know someday that like oh yeah i know you always thought the adults kind of had it together a little bit but now it turns out we don't at all but think about it two countries that are in possession

of 90 percent of the world stockpiles of nuclear weapons as russia and america are in a proxy war on russia's border and they're not communicating there has been no meeting between the two commanders in this war until now. So anyway, it's great that it's happening. It's great that Trump is reversed course here. Let's hope for the best. But anyway, take it away. Any thoughts you have on any of this stuff, Rob?

Yeah, well, I couldn't agree more that it's shocking that it took till now. It's, I wonder what Witkoff's conversation with Putin was that they're finally able to sit down. And it still seems to me like the big X factor here is if Zelensky is finally willing to go, all right, we'll let you guys keep what you conquered for peace here. And whether or not, I guess, Trump is finally willing to abandon Ukraine and say we're not sending anything else over unless you guys accept this deal. Yeah.

Well, there's a few interesting dynamics. Like, one of them is, which I think plays a role in this, but evidently, since Donald Trump's first kind of turn against Zelensky, and him, you know, like saying we're going to cut off the aid. And they really, even though he did ultimately reverse on that, it's not like aid packages that have been coming in the way they were under Joe Biden. And it seems that this has had, this mixed with other factors, I guess, like just like how prolonged and bloody the war's been.

But there has been a collapse in support for the war amongst the Ukrainian people. It's now, there was just a Gallup poll out about this, And there was a big piece written up by Gallup, that there is, it's like 68 or 69 percent. It's like super majorities of the Ukrainian people support a negotiated peace immediately. And that means land concessions. And so that is, I'm sure, is a big factor of this, too, that, you know, it's funny because throughout the whole thing, I didn't get to make this point on the panel today, but I should have. But it's like throughout this whole thing, we've heard, oh, the Ukrainian people.

people want to fight. The Ukrainian people want to fight. Well, now look at this, supermajorities of them don't want to fight anymore. And yet, the people advocating for the war, just keep advocating for it because this is how war propaganda works. One piece falls away, and you just keep advocating for it. Oh, yeah, there aren't weapons of mass destruction, but we were always here to bring democracy. You just, you move on to the next justification for the war. But from what I understand, it's at least I've seen it being reported. Now, who knows, I guess we'll find out more about this, but it's been reported that Putin is at least signaling that he's, which is a little bit of them stepping down from the position they were in before, that he's basically conceding

he'll, or I'm sorry, he's signaling that he might be willing to accept, we'll take Dinesk, Luhansk, and Crimea, and then a corridor, like from some of those territories they have on the south to Crimea, but that they'll accept that. And if that's the case, which is a huge if, but if that is the case, then like the, we'd be crazy to not take that deal at this point. That's like, that's pretty much best case scenario, you know, for, for how to unwind this thing. Now, I think where the issue comes in is that so I believe Ukraine still holds like a, Ukraine, I

think has like a third of Donetsk still. And then Russia has pretty, I think Russia has all of Lujansk and most of Donetsk, but there's like a third of Dunesk that Ukraine still has. So it would require a Ukrainian retreat from that area in order to get it done. And then at least what's been signaled and reported is that then Vladimir Putin would give up some of the territory he has in the south. And so, and this is what I think Donald Trump was indicating the other day. I don't know you saw the clip rob where he said there'll be some land swaps like he's he's already which is look i don't even mind that because it's like with all of these things you never want to paint leaders in wartime into a corner you always want to give them a path out and so if he wants to describe that as

land swaps so it doesn't sound like as big of a concession so like he can go oh we got them some land back they gave some land back fine i mean really what this is is vladimir putin carved up ukraine and took the parts that he wanted but whatever we don't got to say that out loud who cares but i think but that's what donald trump is referring to there and so he's at least signaling that he thinks that deal can be made now that you know we're a long way from from having the deal done but we're at a much better point now than we were just last week and certainly for the last few months so that i think is at least something to be optimistic about and um yeah it's it's uh it's you know it was interesting having this general there because at one point i said something like this and then the other guy on

the panel and this was the for most of the panel i was just calm and just made my points and it's just like everyone was having their turn and i was just like i'll say better shit when it's my turn um but then at one point i did snap on the other guy because i said something about that how we should all be rooting for and he goes what are you neville chamberlain and i just lost it on that because i just can't and i was like oh my god is the the dumbest argument in the goddamn world i think I called it the dumbest, most low IQ argument in the world. I went, that's right. Appeasement is always wrong. That's the lesson of history. Appeasement is always wrong and aggression is always right. And then he goes,

he goes, you don't have to respond with ad hominems. And it is, it really is funny just how stupid all these supposed experts are. And you're like, dude, that's not even an ad hominum. It's saying your argument is stupid isn't an ad hominem. An ad hominem is attacking the person rather than the argument. I'm attacking the argument. I'm name calling it. Sure, but it deserves all of those names. Like, anyway, but it's wild that now people have to somehow go, no, this is bad. We shouldn't be meeting to negotiate a peace. It really is just, it's like, as even the Ukrainian people don't want to fight anymore. And you're still what? Insisting that they do, insisting that they fight a war that they can't win when everybody already knows like there's not one mil at one point the guy said to me

and this was what was kind of great of having having this general there so at one point the guy goes to me and he goes uh he goes oh so that's what you are neville chamberlain you know after i told him he was an idiot and he goes well you are neville chamberlain you just want to give ukrainian territory to vladimir putin well i will not give ukrainian territory to vladimir putin and i went you're not giving anything he took it and you can't do anything about it I go, what do you want to do? You want to send in the 82nd Airborne? You want to fight like a World War II-style war against Russia with both of us having nuclear weapons

and we'll fight a World War two war that will turn to a nuclear war over whether Lujansk is ruled by Kiev or Moscow? That's worth a World War II war to you that will go nuclear. And then he goes, well, we don't have to do that. We can impose sanctions. And I just laughed. I was like sanctions. And then the general was there.

So this helped out because I just went, hey, general, just back me up. You're the military expert here. Sanctions can recover Ukrainian territory. Do you want, will you go on record and tell me if that's true or not true? And then he has to go, well, no, sanctions, like, anyway, it was just a, the war can't be won for Ukraine. They're not taking their territory back. The only question now is if you can get this deal or worse, if Vladimir Putin will

settle with the Donbass and Crimea or if he wants war or if he wants more more war and more territory that's the only debate here now so let's get this meeting going uh yeah just a a couple of things one is for all the people are like uh america's going to look weak and we can't walk away from this blah blah blah i don't know we've lost a lot of wars since uh world war two we had yeah really we had north and south korea we had whatever went on in iraq and afghanistan which i guess we won, but just went on forever and cost us a lot of money, and I'm not really sure what we won. So for all these people are like America, we can't, we can't, we can't look weak on the world stage. I don't know. It's happened four times. So I don't really know what's so scary

about a failed war. It's like, you guys made your money. You ran it for as long as you needed. And like, I don't even think winning it was really on the table or what the agenda was. So who cares? Just call it a quits. And then also, if this is the deal that he ends up with, I don't know why couldn't have actually have done it in week one as opposed to flirting with mineral deals and whatever else.

I don't really know why that, you know, in fact, I think Trump politically would have been better off just being like, yeah, this was Biden's mess. We're not supporting it

and we're going to force Olensky to call it a day. I think no matter what, maybe you needed to let it play out, but it seems like you're coming to the exact same place. But the last variable on the table here is that Trump was saying

he was going to, I think it was tariff an additional 25%, to anybody that was buying oil from Russia, which I think was, I mean, I've said this before on the show, but that was really just the whole war in a nutshell was week one when China and India decided that they weren't going to join us and bullying Russia. And once they decided they were going to continue to, you know, we bullied Germany in tobacco and us. We bullied a lot of people into backing us and having this war. But once China and India said, we're going to continue to trade with Russia,

I don't think this thing was economically catastrophic because they were still able to sell their natural gas. And so, you know, you could kind of then just game plan, oh, this is going to go on forever, a bunch of people are going to die and nothing's going to happen. I think what Biden was hoping would happen did not happen in week one, and you could have called it a war. But Trump is escalating that now because he wants to say that we're going to tariff India, additional 25%, which I think puts them up to 50%. And then you got to wonder, well, how does that play out? Like what is a 50% tariff on India looks like? or does Trump then look weak because he's got to back away from the 50% tariff on India? The point of saying is like Trump, you know, he started with the 50 days.

And then he 80D, he's like, why am I waiting 50 days? You guys are having a war. Let's just do it in 14 days. And then I think he's kind of up against his own deadline and whether or not he actually stick by tariffs and potentially, you know, just uniting India, Russia and China more. Yeah, I think that's right. And, of course, if you remember at the very beginning of the war in 22, Joe Biden was saying that we can win the war with sanctions alone, like that we never need to send weapons packages in. That was the first starting point.

And he was bragging about how these sanctions were going to destroy the rubble. And it was stronger by the end of the year. Joe Biden policies did end up destroying the dollar, but that's not at least what he said the goal was supposed to be. And yeah, I mean, look, to your other point, which I do think is a really important one, and I don't, like, when people say that, hey, when America, you know, withdraws from a war, we look weak on the global stage and therefore that empowers our enemies, I'm not, I'm open to the possibility that there's something to that. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know, I don't think it's necessarily entirely a coincidence. And I've seen some reporting on this, although I don't know how solid it is, but that the, the America retreating from Afghanistan in defeat and disgrace is part of what emboldened

Vladimir Putin to go do it. Like, now's the moment when I think I could do this thing. Obviously, there were several other motivations there, too. But I'm like open to the fact that there's probably some truth to that. When we look weak, other people might feel a little bit. more ballsy. But the point is that, like, yeah, that's why you don't get yourself into stupid wars that you can't win. Like, that's just a stronger argument for having Ron Paul's foreign policy all the time. And for anyone, like you think about this, this was the argument

that they made, even as, as the war was winding down in Afghanistan, when Joe Biden, under Donald Trump's framework, pulled out of the war in Afghanistan, they were saying, oh, well, look weak, we can't turn tail and run. And you're like, do, we've been here for 20 years like at a certain point you just and we've been there for 20 years and the military we were building up fell in a week so like what the hell how you know what did we need another 20 years to get them through a month or something like that like so obviously you you run into the realities of these unwinnable wars and then you have to get out of there um eventually the people won't stand for it anymore and so yeah the point is you don't want to get to that position because then yeah

it does look pretty bad and pretty weak okay you know like like you said i agree with your point i think it's a little overhyped like we've looked weak and bad and pulled out of losing wars in the past and doesn't result in calamity um but if there is some cost associated with that then it's just all the more reason why you shouldn't get in these things to begin with all right guys let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show who i'm just absolutely thrilled to have on board this is one that is very dear to my heart. You've heard me talk over the years about Mises and Rothbard. Well, all of their greatest works are now in children's book form from the Tuttle Twins. These books are made for kids, but honestly, an adult could spend a couple hours reading

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Tuttle Twins, T-U-T-T-L-E-T-T-L-E-T-T-L-E-T-T-L-E-T-L-ROM. All right, let's get back into the show. Okay, the other, let's switch over, I guess, and talk just a little bit about Israel, the latest, I guess, which I, you know, I don't have that much to say on because it's just a lot of stuff that I've already said, but it is worth talking about that. Benjamin Netanyahu

now officially has declared that Israel will be occupying Gaza, and they're taking it back. And so this is kind of in contrast with what Donald Trump said that the U.S. was going to take Gaza.

And, you know, at this point, I don't exactly no we've got some like competing ethnic cleansing plans there was trump's ethnic cleansing plan and there's smotech's you know who knows exactly what the next uh uh stage of it is going to be but it is it's a pretty bold move and it you know one of the things that's very interesting is that um and there's been some some you know a lot of very interesting articles on this uh particularly in the Israeli media over the last few days. But like there were Benjamin Netanyahu made this announcement over significant pushback from his own war cabinet and from his own government.

There were a lot of people who really, really were like, yeah, we can't do this now, man. And they're concerned. I mean, they had some logistical concerns about how long it would take to actually occupy Gaza and how much it would cost. Because, of course, like, you know, occupying the West Bank is very expensive. Occupying Gaza is expensive. And there were also concerns that they think that surely this will lead to the death of the remaining hostages, that if the IDF actually moves into Occupy the place, Hamas is going to kill all these people.

And that they're just worried about it. But one of the major concerns is that they go, dude, we just were already losing global opinion. And this just makes it look so much worse. like no matter how you try to spin this if you end up just annexing which is more likely than occupying at this point i think but if you just end up occupying or annexing this land then it just no matter how you try to spin it it makes it look like to everyone oh that's what the plan was all along and that's what you were always trying to do and there's certainly you know there were people who that was their plan all along i don't know if that was everybody in the israeli

government's plan but if you end up doing that it really doesn't matter at the end of the day you know it's like it's like sitting and debating whether was it was the final solution always hitler's plan or did he just you know enact that after the war had broken out it's like well it doesn't really matter at the end of the day now does it so you still did it doesn't matter whether or not it's like i don't know you threatened to do it at the very beginning then a war happened then you did it who cares you're guilty and that's going to be the the response to this stuff with Israel too. It's just too wild to imagine. But Benjamin Netanyahu has come out and announced that they're doing it. So it does seem like this is going to happen. Yeah, it certainly seemed, I mean,

they're going for it. And then I guess it's going to be a question of if world support so turns on them that US actually stops. It seems like he just has a blank check from Trump of that's not our plan. We don't agree with the plan, but it's his call. And once he makes the call, will continue to support them, but that's not what I want to do. I'd just like to see peace there. What's happening is terrible, but whatever Netanyahu says and whatever he needs to make whatever decision he wants to make, uh, that just seems to be the way the president, uh, that, that Trump's playing it is just, here's your check.

Don't like what's going on there. We need you to wrap it up. It's got to be better. Do you need another check? You know, that, that just seems to be what's happening. And, uh, I, I do wonder four and eight years down the line if, uh, Israel's really just completely lost U.S. support if there's actually a change of the guard

of someone who is less interested in supporting them after, especially once this war's over, I'm going to assume there's going to be more media coverage of what actually happened and some of the dust settles. I can't imagine this was going to be able to keep journalists out of the region forever.

Yeah, no, that's a, well, we'll see. They've kept them out for a while. I mean, there's some in there, but they do kill a lot of those ones. But, yeah, I remember, I know, I brought this up so many times over the years. It was a joke you made like, I don't know, like probably going on 10 years ago or something like that now. But I always loved it where you were, you know, you're saying this in, you know, his tongue in cheek, but like there's a point to it. But what you were saying like, can they just put one non-Jew as the chairman of the Federal Reserve, which I guess they did end up doing ultimately.

We got one. But there's a, but like your, the joke was you were just like, I mean, they keep making Jews the head of the central bank. And you were like, could you just put someone else there? So like my family. doesn't get killed in the backlash to you ripping off the entire guy. It is like a thing where you're like, could we just not have a Jew? Anyway, the point is just that it's some of these things are so it's like if you, if you were like long-term rooting for a rise in Jew hatred, you'd almost go like, oh, perfect. Yes, this is great. Did you see the other day, did we talk about this on the members only? I can't remember.

But they changed the language a little bit and walked it back because they were getting so much pushback. But do you see this thing where Trump actually wrote into the executive action that if you, that disaster relief could be withheld from states who supported boycotting Israel? And it does, I think the example, I don't know, was I saying this on the show? No, I don't think so. I think I was just, but this is the, no, so this is, no, I think I was just saying this in a conversation with someone. the other day but you know conversations with you and other people all bleed into my memory of this show um but it's like you remember you remember uh at the debate with joe biden um like at the very very beginning of the disastrous debate that was the end of joe biden's

political career the we all knew like maybe five minutes into the debate that joe biden was done like we all knew that it was like oh there's no coming back from this and part of the reason why we knew that was like it's not just because his opening to the debate was so bad but it was because you knew on some level that like the toothpaste was out of the tube now like now you just even before it cut back to the the corporate media you know who had just been saying he's sharp as attack and then it cut back to them and they're like we got to find a new candidate but you you knew before it cut back to them that like there's no way they can deny this now and now what's going to happen is that every senior moment is going to be under a microscope. You know what I mean?

So like, but, you know, if Joe Biden comes out for his next interview after that debate, if it was a month ago and he got a name or a date wrong, it wouldn't be that big of a deal. But now when he starts getting things wrong, you're really looking at it, you know? And in a similar way, I just think we've hit some type of critical mass here where examining the examining the U.S.-Israeli relationship is so in the consciousness now that all of these things are put up. And so now it's like, when you have something like that, it's like, wait, wait, there's just no way that people can't look at it and go, wait, what?

Wait, disaster relief? First of all, even if you consider opposing Israel being anti-Semitic or something like that, like who cares what bigotry anyone has when we're talking about disaster belief? like you wouldn't you wouldn't be like you know like if a nurse at a hospital was like oh that person's a racist so i'm not giving them medicine you should like any civilized person would be like well no no no you don't like you don't play around with that like that at whatever their politics or their views on life like that has nothing to do with whether you treat a sick person it's a human being and but then to add in that it's a foreign country that you're like you would withhold disaster relief against your fellow countrymen because they're not sufficiently loyal to a foreign country, it's just, you just look at stuff like this and you're like, dude, there's no way, you're never going to be able to convince people that they didn't see what they just saw. And it is, I don't know, it's unbelievable to me that they're still going forward with this. Even when it is so obvious, the writing is all over the wall

that this is going to turn everyone against you forever. Like, how is that cost, not greater than whatever benefit you think you get from reoccupying the Gaza Strip. It's just it's really wild to me. Yeah, I don't get the calculation because I was thinking that too, that it's starting to feel if you game playing it out

a little bit like what Scott Horton has described of what Osama bin Laden did to the United States basically with CIA training, which is a pulling empire into a war and put them dry. And this feels similar of pull Israel into a war and, you know, have them commit things that people, that, you know, people of general morality will stand against

and then, like, start looking into the general support for Israel and possibly turn against it. And it feels like they're losing a longer strategic game of having the United States as an ally because it just seems like the general support for Israel in this country is falling off a cliff. no that's exactly right because and and look this is like when when the CIA was training the the Arab Mujahideen as well as the the Afghan Mujahideen what is the whole thing that they're training them in right it's like it's it's it's asymmetrical warfare and in asymmetrical warfare the action is always in the reaction you're always trying to provoke that's like there's this great uh scene in that movie that I really

loved at the time. I haven't seen it in like many decades, but there was a movie, I think it was called Enemy of the State with Will Smith and Gene Hackman. Do you remember that at all rub? Sure, yeah. But so like basically Will Smith by some. He's just trying to buy bannies at the mall for his girl. Yeah, he was, that's right. And someone, you know, like put something on him. So now like the CIA is coming after him. He's just some guy in the CIA. And he ends up talking to Gene Hackman, who plays like this old spook who's like, you know, living off the grid or something. But there was this great scene where Gene Hackman starts breaking it down for him, which is basically, you know, the idea of asymmetrical warfare. He's like, okay, look, they're big and you're small,

but that means they're stagnant and you're mobile or they can reach everywhere. And, you know, he goes through like, there's just this great scene where he goes through the advantages of the little guy versus the big guy or whatever. But so, right, it's always, Ben Laden didn't think he could bankrupt America by knocking down the World Trade Center, but he did think that if he did that, he could get them to invade Afghanistan and that that could bankrupt America. That's always the game. And likewise, and by the way, the Israelis themselves and their advocates will admit this. They'll say it as an argument for why Hamas is the bad guy. No, this is what Hamas. Hamas loves dead Palestinians, you know? They love that so that they can use that as their propaganda. And it's

like to them and their mind, they think that sounds like a good point. But to the rest of us, sane people, we're like, yeah, we already knew Hamas was bad. not convinced yeah obviously like they're a terrorist organization yes they don't mind dead innocent people but the point is that like yeah why do something like october 7th like look say what you want you could just dismiss oh they're barbarians and you know they're evil doers or something like that but look they had a coordinated um land sea and air attack some level of sophistication there so what were they trying to do planning all of that out are they just trying to kill a bunch of Israelis and that's that it's like obviously they know any anyone who's why who's smart enough

to coordinate a land see and air attack is also smart enough to know what israel's response to this was going to be or at least somewhere in the route maybe people wouldn't know they'd go this far but you know they'll be and that's the whole game get israel to to respond and then get them to over extend and then expose them as the baby killers to the world and man they could not have fallen into this trap anymore than they have. And so, yeah, the whole point of that is not, because, you know, when people argue against it, they'll go, oh, so you're saying you're on the side of Hamas or you're on the side of al-Qaeda or something. It's like, no, I'm saying, like, don't fall into their trap. That seems like not the wise course of action. I don't know

what the plan from here is. It's either they think that they've got so much of a grip on propaganda that they're going to get this done and everyone's going to forget about it on a five and ten-year timeline and they've got enough resources in the U.S. to make sure that the lobbyists will continue the support and so nothing else really matters or I don't know, maybe and this wouldn't have been

on my prediction scorecard, but maybe they institute a new government and that new government actually works a lot better and so now they have good storylines from the new government and over time people forget about the atrocities that got to there and Israel's

almost able to justify it as yeah, but look at how much better it is for the Palestinians now. I don't imagine that's the way it's going to play out. But I guess, yeah, I, my, my, my, my, my honest guess of it, like my, my feel is that do you ever watch, you ever watch Chuck Liddell at the end of his career? Yeah. Chuck Liddell, Chuck Liddell was the UFC, uh, late heavyweight champion, you know, debatably the greatest UFC light heavyweight champion.

I mean, he was huge. And he, yeah, he, he had a huge part in blowing up the sport of the UFC. And then he got knocked out. and then he got knocked out again and then he got knocked out again and then his chin just went and and anytime anyone hit him he would go on cut he was unbeatable for a period of time i mean he lost a couple fights in there but he was dominant as a champion for a long time and um and then his chin went and at the end of his career you could see him he had a couple more fights than he should have had but you could see in his mind he was like nah dude i'm gonna get him back like i like he was chuck ladle because like in his mind he's like i'm chuck ladle dude i'm the guy you know he was that guy who was just devastating everyone and yeah i got knocked out a few times but you know in his mind's like no i'm gonna go and i do feel like it's almost like that we're like they just controlled the narrative and controlled the media apparatus and controlled the conversation and people's opinions for so long that they're like now we'll get it back let me go sit down with the knelt boys we'll get this

thing back you know what i mean like they really they i really think are drastically underestimating the reality which is that they're never getting it back that's over um we live we live in a post decentralized media destruction of gaza world now and we're not going back to the way it was i mean i really do think for the for the um for the foreseeable future the opinion of young people in america and this is true on the left and the right the it the range is like from left winger who thinks that israel is a colonizing genocidal state to, you know, us and Tucker Carlson and Scott Horton and like the non-interventionist more right-wing types to Nick Fuentes. Like that's the range of opinion. It, you know,

different people are at different stations along that continuum or whatever, but it's all people who see through like all this bullshit. Um, and, you know, I would, I would hope that I can have whatever influence I have to try to channel that toward a not crazy leftist or crazy Jew hater, but just common sense, you know, loving America and not wanting us to be unconditionally supporting a rogue foreign state, you know, like hopefully that's where it goes. But I do not think there's any chance it's going back into the like. We see Israel as our most important ally and these are just the victims of the Holocaust in World War II who are trying to be good little Jewish boys and defend themselves.

Like, I just don't think anyone's, anyone's buying that anymore. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Hexclad. I love this company. If you're looking to cook healthier, save money, or just stop eating microwavable burritos, Hexclad has got you covered. It's time to leave behind the delivery fees, as well as that scratched up pan you've been clinging to since college.

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restaurants. I can tell you guys, they sent me a couple of pounds when they first came on as a sponsor. These things are great. Me and my wife absolutely love them. So go check them out. For a limited time, our listeners can get 10% off their order with our exclusive link. Just head over to hexclad.com slash problem. That's hexclad.com slash problem. Level up your kitchen game right now at hexclad.com slash problem. All right. Let's get back on the show. Okay, in the time we have left, I do want to get to this, a slightly less serious topic, but I just, I found this really interesting and it's so, it's so right up our ally, it's just kind of right up our alley. It's just very, you know, we're uniquely kind of positioned to comment on this, but there was a clip of Mark Marin who was on with Howie Mendel and he was kind of talking about the state of comedy, post Donald Trump. being elected um so i i want to play this clip and and kind of respond to it a little bit i will just

say going in to this you know if people don't know mark marron's a stand-up comedian he his podcast was um i think it was enormous for a while um is what's it called what uh what the fuck was his podcast w t f mark marron that's right so that uh that was for a while there i remember it was like him and rogan were the two huge con it was like him rogan corolla there were a lot of that when podcasting it's not that they were the first generation of podcasters but they were like the first generation of like giant podcasts that became huge and ended up being much bigger than you know tv shows or anything in kind of like the corporate world um so anyway he was on and he was talking about uh the state of comedy and kind of anti-woke comedy i just honestly just to preface this

I will just say, I have no anti-Marron bias at all. Mark Marin, I always thought of as like, first of all, he's a funny comedian, and funny comedians are like, to me, always on-team funny comedians. Like, I just, I really enjoy good stand-up comedy, and I always, I don't really care what your political views are. I like people who are good at writing jokes. And then aside from that, he was really helpful to my good friend Nate Bargettsey when he was first coming up in his career and like had him opening for him when mark marron was huge and

Nate was just starting to get traction and that was a big deal for Nate at the time and so I'm always just grateful to people who help out people I love so like I don't come at this from a perspective of having any animosity toward Mark Marin I just thought that it was interesting to hear like the other side's perspective like a comedian who's kind of sad that the woke trend is over and the anti-woke trend has begun amongst comedians or whatever, and that to me was just kind of interesting to break this down. But anything you want to say before we play the clip, Rob, or should we go right into it? I think that's a fair enough introduction.

All right. Let's play Mark Maren here. At this point, it's lazy and sloppy and hackneyed. You know, to be in a fucking club where, you know, I'm walking down the hall at the comedy club, and, you know, in one room, someone's doing their bit about trans people, and then I get down the hall and there's someone on stage going, well, I guess I got to do my bit about trans people. like, no, you don't. You don't. It's, it's hack now. I mean, you know, you guys got the freedom

you wanted. You can now say whatever you want. They're defeated. The rights are been denied. The policies that you guys encouraged, which your stupid material, are now policy. And now, like, you know, half the people under the umbrella of anti-wo. For a second. I just, um, first of all, I can, look, I, I can understand kind of in a way, you know, being it's hard within the comedy world particularly and a lot of this just is because of the kind of the juggernauts of podcasting like the people who have just become the biggest in the podcasting space um which uh just happens to be the thing that's blowing up right now and that's where the biggest audiences are and that's what so those are the biggest comedians but the guys like rogan and

Tim Dillon and Andrew Schultz and Theo Vaughn and like a lot of these guys who are just so big, you know, were really kind of pushed back hard against the woke culture. And I would argue heroically and very importantly. But it is, it's a weird thing to be in a spot. Like the, it's hard to overstate woke comedy was so on top in like 2017, 2018, 2018, 2019 that you can, you can hear the frustration in him. be like, why are we, why are we so on the bottom now? Like, we literally went from being the dominant cultural view to being the punchline.

Everybody's just making fun of us. But the issue here is that, and look, I'm never defending hat comedy. There's a lot of lazy comedy out there, and people, you know, this is always the truth. There's a lot of comedians who do low-hanging fruit and do like kind of the easiest jokes, and it's not that original, it's not that funny. but it seems to me like Mark Marin isn't even listening to the jokes. He's just like, oh, I walked into a room and he's joking about trans and he's joking about trans. And as a brilliant comedian once told me, there's no hack premises, only hack punchlines.

And it doesn't matter if you could take a topic that's been done by 100,000 comedians and you could make it your own and make it hilarious. And so it's like, I don't know, what did they do with the joke, Mark, you know? And the other thing is like, I don't know, dude. transgenderism is inherently a kind of funny topic. And I don't see why you couldn't admit that even if you're trans yourself or someone you love is trans. It's kind of a funny topic. And so, yeah, people are free to make jokes about it. I don't know.

Any thoughts on this opening, Rob? Well, I would just, this is the autism in me, but I'd love to know what government policy he thinks was influenced by comedians and what rights he feels are lost by trans people that uh and that comedians are making worse i like what what exact is he defending that children should have more access to what he views is health care and we view as child abuse uh is he viewing that women should be in men's sports and that that that's their right is he saying that uh all of us should contribute more on our health care policies that there should be more life-altering surgeries for what other people might deem to be mental illness and not actually helpful to the individuals who are going through a trans dilemma.

Listen, I'm all for freedom. Go live your life. Go be as trans as you'd like to be. I don't not care. And I've made jokes about the topic, but most of my jokes about the topic were kind of from the angle of the women in sports that I think is unfair or the fact that we're bringing this to kids, I think is a disaster. And listen, I don't even think, you know, comedy needs to have a problem.

point of view or perspective it just needs to be funny but i'll just say that the jokes that i made were you know rooted in that in that point of view but like i don't know this to me and uh fighting where but it's like this bitchy thing of pretending like there's some sort of a tragic outcome because of or the people like what exactly is your perspective what are you advocating for here that you actually think comedians are taking away from somebody because yeah i don't think there's something there i don't actually think there's even a defensible position here but he's like lording it like, oh, I'm the nicest person in the room and I'm the guy with compassion and all these hacks out there who are making these easy jokes where why you've already had your victory

party of the meanness that you've projected on. And it's like, no, no one here I think is being mean. I think they thought it was psychotic that this was being brought to kids and that it was child abuse and we needed to push back about it. We thought that. Well, it's, look, this is, that's, that's exactly right. And it's always kind of like assumed on, on with, with these left wing types argue it's always just assumed that they're the good guy and you're the bad guy and they never actually have to argue why they're the good guy and you're the bad guy it's just like that's premise number one that we're starting with and then on top of that we can just sprinkle in claims about rights willy-nilly without ever having to explain like i'm sorry but like there's

you know every in every state in every town in america everybody has the right to be transgender you know like you you have the right to do that nobody's nobody's taken away like a uh human right from transgender people, there are issues that have very little to do with rights. Like, it's the idea that, like, you have, you don't have a right to compete on the women's team. Like, you don't, in the same way, I don't have a right to compete on the women's team. Like, I don't, when I, you know, when I was in high school, I played on the boys basketball

team. I didn't have a right to go play on the girls team. So, again, it's like you're building in an assumption there that transgender people, like should be a lot, but then you might ask the question, like, well, why don't I have the right? Why don't I have the right to play on the girls team when I was an 18 year old in high school? Well, because I'm, I'm a guy. And that's not because I identify as a guy. It's a biological fit because you are a met. So biology doesn't change what with your view. That's not a hateful or like, again, it's like they conflate that as if like we're just being a dick. Like I'm just

saying like, hey, everyone, go pick on and laugh at the transgender person. Make that person. person whose life is already difficult, more difficult. But, like, that's not what any of the comedians that he's talking about have ever said or anything close to that. And that's never the spirit of their jokes, you know? Like, and how about, like, in fact, I think a lot of, if you go look through the years of the woke shit, a lot of those transgender activists, maybe they were the mean ones. Maybe they were the ones who were, like, being a dick to other people.

So, again, it's just, he's not really making any argument. He's just asserting that you guys all like that. And it's just, it's such a, um, like, objectively it's such a false interpretation of what's going on like none of us are saying be dicks to trans people and take away their rights but anyway let's keep playing i mean just oh sorry go ahead to press on this if he was here i would love to know do you think that uh children should be taken away from parents who don't believe in gender affirming care and that the government should take them for their health and well-being yeah like what is the right and the state should

sponsor the gender the gender affirming care like is out is out is out what you believe? Do you also think that we should be teaching in schools or be more accepting of this, even though bottom surgery, I think, is mostly harmful to individuals? I mean, I haven't done all the research on adult gender affirming care, but it doesn't seem like the technology really supports it. And so, I mean, how much do you want to advocate for something that's a harder lifestyle? Yeah, before you say something like that, like what specifically are the rights that transgender people used to have that they no longer have since. Joe Rogan ruined the world or whatever because it does like I'm just saying and I'm not I'm not trying

to psychoanalyze Mark Meran but it does just come off that maybe you're like a little bit upset that and the market kind of dictated that you're not the guy anymore and and trans was kind of the pinnacle of a woke attitude that I I mean it was highly destructive to our country and our culture and so like that this is just kind of like the pinnacle and the most silly thing of the stupidity that we ignored in some sort of a socialist concept for fairness, which also included, you know, trying to expand green energy. And also, oh, you're not nice if you're not staying home and getting a COVID shot. You're going to go grandma. It was all just this sick lunacy of socialism and fairness that people like us identify as being destructive and have different ideals and push back

on. But no, he's just without making argument, any claims he's the nice guy here. And he wants to defend what we all rejected because it was destructive it's not that we're mean people we have a well also just when when you're talking about kind of like a socialist like uh cultural phenomenon it's like and and part of this is that it was um and and the through line through the COVID stuff and all of this was that it it for most people I think it was like when it actually came to the issue of people who are transgender we were all just like I don't know like yeah we were pretty libertarian about it We were like, oh, it's your life, man. Live your life the way you want to.

And I always, and still to this day, I always operate under the principle of like, don't be a dick to people. You know, I've met lots of trans people. I'm always, I don't know, I treat them like people like everybody else, you know? And we're not mean for not celebrating it. But what really, I think what really started to bother people was the demand for like conformity on it. And the demand that you can't even think, you can't tell the truth, what you think is the

truth so like it would start as being like hey there are people who are born a guy but identify as a woman or vice versa or whatever and you go okay well they have a right to live their life the way they want to they should be treated with decency just like everybody else you know let's not make anybody's life more hard let's have compassion for all people okay and then they go trans women are women and you're like well I mean I don't know if I'd exactly say that and they go big it you're a horrible person and you're like well wait a minute hold on like I'm not just You can't insist that I deny biological realities and then call me a Nazi if I refuse to. And then they started bringing it to children.

And then the reaction from that was more like, I will fucking kill you if you come near my children and fuck all this shit and fuck you. And by the way, you're not a woman. You're a man. And that's where that snapback came where it was just like the culture was like, no, no, no. We're not playing these games if you're talking about like confusing and abusing children. like that's just not that is a red line for decent people and so that anyway that's that's closer to the reality of the situation but let's let's hear the rest wanting an open border for uh not loving

biden's wars for not loving an inflation reduction act for not liking a green energy policy and uh for not all getting behind pretending like kamala harris was a coherent individual it's the meanness of comedians that we didn't rally behind kamala we didn't we didn't we didn't we we were weren't willing to go around with the larping of pretending like Joe Biden didn't have dementia. And then when they replaced her with the dumbest individual on probably in all of American politics, the fact that we weren't all just able to get behind her and go, you know what? It's more important for this woke thing, which is against my interest because it was actually a lot of just censorship for funny jokes.

There was a lot of just censorship for. Well, let's here. Let's get back to the clip because he's going to talk more specifically about that. But so save that thought. but here let's uh let's keep lying okay we've lost a tremendous amount of democratic leaning ideas and and movements so whether they knew it or not that's what they were spearheading so now it's reality and you want to still keep kicking them i don't know that the comedians have had that much power are you fucking out of your mind no i'm yeah joe ravely i'm not gonna

no go ahead go ahead you know you can't you can't separate like if the movement is like you know we're being censored. No, you're not. You're not. There's no constitutional censorship issue with your free speech. You say things and in a democratic shit. I was censored. I mean, that's just not true. My channel was censored multiple times. Well, here with my analysis for COVID, which was right. Yes, you're absolutely. Absolutely. Well, let's, well, let's, let's, let him finish his thought here, because I want, I want you to make this point, but I want to finish his thought because it actually is worse than just that. So, here let's keep playing and then we'll we'll get back to this show of an environment you know like

twitter whatever there's cultural pushback but that's a specific issue to frame it as some sort of free speech problem was was a misdirect it wasn't it wasn't a free speech problem it was that people were getting culture okay so it's he's saying oh you're confusing a free speech problem with getting cultural pushback um now again like i said i have no anti mark marron bias but Mark Maren doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about here. This just doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. Like, I'm sorry. No, that is not true.

That is absolutely not true. Like, you would not say if the, if there was a, um, uh, let's say there was a journalist writing for a newspaper who wanted to write some piece. And let's say the readers of the newspaper were like, oh, we hate this guy and we don't want this piece in the newspaper. So they didn't run it. You could say that's cultural pushback. That's not a violation of free speech.

that's not a constitutional issue. But if the government hold the head of that newspaper before Congress and threatened them for publishing this reporter's article and then the government had a back channel

with the newspaper where it was working on which a journalist should be published and which one shouldn't, that is a constitutional issue. That is a First Amendment issue. And that's exactly what was happening

with YouTube and Facebook and Twitter. And we've got this all confirmed. So that is just bullshit. I'm sorry. And by the way, you can watch for yourself the testimony when they called in all of the heads of the big tech companies and made them testify under oath and the Congress just threatened them up and down, threatened them about getting rid of what they deemed as misinformation and all this stuff. And then, of course, you could look at the Twitter files or the Facebook files. I mean, this stuff is not like this is out in the open. So it absolutely was. But then I also,

you know, separate from that, even if you want to say, you know, if you want to say that, even say like corporations just like firing you or shutting down speech, if you want to say that's not a constitutional issue, it's like fine. But it's not exactly just cultural pushback either. Like the irony here is that Mark Marin is actually, Mark Marin is actually suffering from cultural pushback, like genuine organic cultural pushback. And what he's doing on this show is genuine organic. cultural pushback. This is organic pushback. Pushback against what Joe Rogan and these guys are saying with Howie Mandel. The problem is everyone's just going to laugh at you and tune out.

You could say that Joe Rogan was spearheading this movement, but dude, you were right there with him. You were spearheading your own movement. You lost the argument. People stopped listening to you and kept listening to him and in fact started listening to him in much bigger numbers. And so that's the cultural pushback element. But don't tell me. that like the idea that a leftist is coming out here and saying that a giant corporation dictating who can speak and who can't speak is cultural like even if you wanted to say that wasn't a first amendment issue it's not cultural pushback and it's very strict like right rob don't you remember just not that many years ago when mitt romney made that dumbass comment

about how corporations are people and you remember when the left lost their mind like what do you mean rightfully the left lost their mind you're taking some legal term and then applying it like corporations are people no they're not they're legal entities you know what i mean this different than a human being but what is this other than a different way of claiming the same thing oh youtube censor like even if it wasn't done at the direction of the government youtube censoring you rob that's culture that's the people that's the people censoring you no it's not it's one corporate entity doing it and one that happens to be in bed with the government but even leaving that point aside like no come on dude what comedian could stand up for

that. Well, comedian could downplay that. You should, what if you, if what you say is offensive, you get silenced, Mark Marin, you want to play that game? I mean, okay. But then, of course, and now you're upset that the cultural wind is blowing another direction. But really, Mark Marin, you should be, you should be happy that we are all just better people than you. You know, because like none of us are sitting here and going, hey, I find what Mark Maron's saying offensive, you should have your life ruined. You should be silenced. Guys like me and you are going, you should keep putting your podcast out and see who listens to who. Like you know what I mean? Like so it's like, it's just, it's wild to me that like one thing that because there is really an asymmetry here in the two sides of this culture war where like Rogan and Theo and all the, none of these guys are calling for anyone else to get shut down or would be downplaying it if you did.

Like, if Mark Marin, if the Trump administration was putting pressure on whatever, you know, YouTube to not have Mark Marin or Howie Mandel on anymore, me and you would both be sitting here defending their right to free speech and saying that's an outrage and a violation of their free speech. We wouldn't be sitting here downplay and go, that's just cultural pushback when you got kicked off of every platform. Come on, give me a break. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's. show, which is Kalshi. I've been seeing them more and more on social media. I downloaded the app recently, and it's pretty, it's pretty interesting. You can really track a lot of things. Cali is America's first fully regulated prediction market. CFTC approved in all 50 states. You can bet on just about anything cash in or just see what the world is thinking without the

mainstream filter, see what people are betting on with their actual money rather than just saying lies into the air, which seems to be the model of the corporate media, calci.com slash Dave is where you got to go to sign up and trade in the truth. Calci, where your gut meets real money, that's calci.com slash Dave. All right, let's get back into the show. If Colombia quickly put down any anti-Israel perspectives tomorrow, would you say it's cultural perspective? Right. Or is it because of what the Donald Trump administration has done in terms of the way that they'll allocate funds to colleges and go after you if you're not aggressively enough

I guess policing violence on campus and how much money was in the system for ESG and whatever other nonsense that trickle down everywhere to engage in censorship. Sure, it's just, yeah, the entire the reason why the woke environment

what happened in the culture that the woke environment isn't that it's not still as favorable as it was. I mean, if it was just the culture that loved it and it had nothing to do with government money and influence, I mean, why isn't it still popular? What was it? It was boy bands in the 90s.

It was just a four-year thing that we all organically got into for a couple years, and that's it. So I guess this is now, he should end in anything. I guess he should celebrate that it's cultural pushback the other way now. Well, right. Yeah, right, exactly. Here, let's play the very end of it, and then we'll do one more round. True pushback. That is not a constitutional issue.

No one was being put in jail for saying anything. That's a free speech. tissue. But my problem is you're going to start talking about anti-woke and that's going to be your point of view. That's going to be your ideological, you know, grounding for what you do. Okay, that's fine. But why does it have to be the same four fucking things? You know, it's like they talk about the same shit. And I don't know a better definition of hack. I mean, after a certain point, it's like, you know, what, so what juices the word retard really had? How much shit do you have to give trans people? You know, what is your big problem with gay people? What's your big problem

with women. It's like, what is this, the fucking 80s again? Well, I guess maybe it's just, look, there is somewhat of a just perspective difference here. And I guess if I'm being really charitable, I could say that, look, I, it's not like, there's something to his point here. You know, I brought this up on, on Legion of Skanks, but like, for years we were making, like, kind of like the most offensive jokes when you really weren't allowed to make them. And I will say now that you're allowed to make them again, not quite as fun it's like my mind almost goes toward like all right well let's do something different then you know what i mean like let's just not say like i don't even care about saying

retarded anymore because you guys all said i mean i still use it and every day just because i grew up saying it and it's a great word but it's like i mean it really is just a phenomenal word um but so i get but like from my perspective so like yeah i'm sure it's always true that whatever the latest thing is there's some comedians who run it into the ground but like there's this fucking hack in every category. Yes, exactly. But you're going to say, I'm not currently, I got one trans joke in my act. Four years ago, I had a seven-minute chunk.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Four years ago, it was real interesting and other people weren't really making those jokes. Right, right. If you were a guy who was a liberal two years ago, and now all of a sudden, you're putting on a leather jacket, whatever, you're trying to be edgier, and now you're making all sorts of woke jokes because it's safe, your hack. But, you know, eight years ago, if you were telling bad one-liners and Mitch headwork for

voice you were hacked, too. It's really not like anyone. Well, also, just it's hard after the years of woke comedy. It's like, are we supposed to forget that? Or you're going to tell me, oh, what do you guys? Well, like, how many jokes were there about white men?

And how many jokes were there about racism? And how many jobs? I mean, literally, you're telling me after years of, and also, the other thing to ignore is that even though the podcast scene has become the biggest thing, now, it's, it's still hard to paint them as Goliath against you being David when you literally

up until five minutes ago had every major corporation in America agreeing with you. All of Comedy Central, all of HBO comedy, all of late night comedy, all in lockstep, making the exact same jokes about the same three topics. Orange Man Bad, White Man Bad, Racism, the unvaccinated. It was all, and so for you to turn around and make, like, come on, dude. And like, look, I don't know what to tell you. Like, no, it's not the 1980s again. The 1980s never stopped.

You never, listen, the issue, the word retarded and transgender's and women are funny. And I would, like, there's a million different hilarious things about all of this. What are we even talking about here? What you can't make jokes about gay, but the question would be, why should that be off limits? I'm never telling any female comedian. You can't make it. What are you making another joke about men? It's like, I don't know.

There's a lot to work with there. So yeah, make all your jokes about men. Hopefully it's a funny one. But like, what are you telling me that there isn't, that all those topics you just named aren't fertile ground for. But like, again, you could do this about anything in comedy. You could go like, oh, oh, the differences between black people and white people. You know how hacky of a topic that is?

You know how many different comics have had black people are like this, but white people. People are like this jokes, okay, but Chris Rock still has some of the greatest ones that you listen to one of his old, but you're like that, dude, that's the greatest joke I've ever heard in my life. So what are you going to tell him he can't do that topic? This is all just sour grapes. And I think it's sour grapes because it's like, ironically enough, it's like you actually are facing cultural pushback.

You lost. Your ideas were out there in the marketplace with every advantage, with advantages that the anti-woke crowd never enjoyed, like the government behind. you censoring your opposition and you lost even with all of that you'd lost the argument amongst the american people and so we'll joke about whatever the fuck we want to joke about but i encourage mark baron to do the same and and one last thing because you had said this on the last episode uh which might have been paywalled but one of the jokes he made in his special was attacking theo vaughan seemingly for having trump on and he made a joke which i i actually explored a similar premise on

run your mouth and I was like, I'm sure someone's doing this bit when Netanyahu was on with the Nelk boys, right, right, that there's something odd about just bringing people in and being comfortable with them. And I was trying to do a bit about like interviewing Trump and just kind, I'm sorry, interviewing Hitler and just casually talking about like his meth use before shows type deal, right? And he had a very funny joke where he was basically goofing on Theo Vaughn interviewing, uh, Hitler in a very casual fashion. And he's doing a pretty decent Theo Vaughan impression. It's a funny bit. But if you just, take a step back so fine you hate trump the ovan had trump on you had obama on when

obama was trying to sell um obamacare you literally took the phone call from the government and said yeah i'll help you guys with their propaganda piece for this interview and sure you might like socialized medicine or you might like what what what obama did with obamacare i personally don't think it at least for me it makes my health care a lot worse but that that's fine that that's your perspective but then to turn around and pretend like when i had a podcast and i was interviewing a politician, that was noble, but when someone does it for the other side, that's reprehensible behavior. Yeah, like how many?

While Joe Biden was in office to, I didn't listen to that interview. I haven't listened to Marin yours, but it was seemingly to just treat Hunter Biden like he's a person. That's kind of shilling for the current regime to go, oh, everyone's doing his crack addict a hard time. Look, he's just a human being. You've done this. And the funny thing, that's right.

And the funny thing about it is that I always remember when Maron had Obama on, I remember just going, this is so great because it's so great for podcasts. This makes podcasts look legitimate because it was such a big deal at the time that the president did a podcast. But like, no, I never. But yeah, how many, like, how many tough questions did you ask him, Mark Marin? I don't even remember if I ever listened to the interview or not. I think I heard clips from it. But like, did you ask him about the 500,000 people he got killed in Syria or the 500,000 people he got killed in Yemen? Did you ask him about the drone campaign in Pakistan or like his overthrowing of

Omar Gaddafi and Libya destroying the entire country. You know what I mean? Like did you? Or did you just give him a fluffy nice interview where you talked about how great he is and stuff, right? So like, yeah, don't sit here and turn it around if someone else also gave an interview that you think wasn't

hard hitting enough. It's all, it's just sad man. Just take it. Try to win it back. All you can never do in this game is go try to go try. So you go write the funniest joke taking all these guys down and then go make the best argument on a podcast. But this stuff of just whining. He did it from a liberal perspective.

Yeah, that's right. When he had a Cush podcast with someone from liberal politics, and that was moral and righteous. And when someone doesn't be conservative, how dare you? It all ends in the circular logic of like, yeah, but I'm on team good guy. And so it's good when I do it. Exactly. All right.

Got a wrap there. Love you guys. See you tomorrow. Peace. You know what I'm going to be.