Part Of The Problem - Trump vs. Massie

Episode Date: July 2, 2025

Dave Smith brings you the latest in politics! On this episode of Part Of The Problem, Dave is joined by co-host Robbie "The Fire" Bernstein to discuss Donald Trump's conflict with Thomas Massie, Elon's stance on Massie's side, Trump's interest in concluding the war in Gaza, and more.Support Our Sponsors:CrowdHealth - https://www.joincrowdhealth.com/promos/potpRidge - https://ridge.com/potp10Prolon - https://prolonlife.com/potpPart 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.comVegas: https://www.wiseguyscomedy.com/nevada/las-vegas/arts-district/e/robbie-bernsteinHouston Texas: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/robbie-the-fire-and-friends-tickets-1335225899609Find 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.

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Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. What's up? 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. We both appear to not be at home, but that's not going to stop us from getting together and bringing you guys an episode.

I'm on a little family vacation here. What are you up to, Rob? Traveling the country? Yeah, I'm hanging out on Myrtle Beach between porches with the Ukraine boys. We're having a good time. We played the Inlet Dispensary the other night. It was a wild show out on the porch and front lawn really

blasting my nonsense into the local neighborhood. And this weekend, I've got Oklahoma City then celebrating the 4th of July in Granbury, Texas. We've got some hot dogs., we got some fireworks going on. That sounds like a fun one. A 4th of July porch tour in Texas sounds awesome. And then Shreveport, Louisiana, all that's at PorchTour.com. And then the last gig of the weekend is in Houston, Texas,

back at the Secret Group. You can find those tickets on their website. And these are all gonna be great shows with my friend Andy, So come hang out. Yeah, guys, come on out if you're in the area. The Porch Tour is legendary at this point. And of course, me and you, Rob, got some gigs together coming up in July.

We got Denver Comedy Works. Selling out. This is a big one. Get on it, boys. Yeah, if you want to come see us in Denver, get the tickets now, because it is. I just got a ticket update, and I think every one of these shows is

going to sell out pretty soon. So please come on out. We'd be happy to see you there. And then we got Cleveland Hilarity is one of our favorite clubs in the country. And then I'll be back at the Comedy Mothership, another one. Or if you want to get tickets, make sure you go get them now, because those will sell out for sure.

Okay, let's jump into some stuff. I do, I apologize, we missed the episode yesterday. I was just doing family vacation stuff. So gotta do that sometimes, it's important. I like how we're now with the family. You're dressed like you're chopping wood and working on the truck and I like the Navy Smith vacation look.

Well, I was under the impression that we had rented a house. I found out I have to build a house for my family. So I thought you better get started. And so I started cutting down some trees and I built this nice log cabin that I find myself in now. It's been an interesting few days though in the news. The big thing that's popping off right now, really yesterday, it really got to like a fever pitch, but the Trump versus Thomas Massie feud that had been kind of bubbling up for

a while, enter Elon Musk, hardcore on the side of Thomas Massie. Now again, this isn't all completely new. We kind of talked about this a few weeks back. If you remember way back before the 12-day war, this was the big news that Elon Musk and Donald Trump had had a falling out. And as the war is kind of wrapped up, or at least seemingly so, and now Trump is pivoting back toward his domestic agenda, of course the big beautiful bill, as he retardedly calls it, just passed the Senate earlier today. But so anyway, the focus has been back to this spending bill. And there's just, I don't know, I find like, there's a lot that's interesting about this dynamic.

There's a lot of different kind of angles on it that I all think are fairly fascinating. But I guess, if I zoom out, just looking at it, you're like, all right, so this is the Donald Trump presidency, which was, I guess, supposed to be, I think, always in the minds of voters, was a repudiation of the status quo, a big middle finger to the Democrat and Republican establishment and CNN and the New York

Times and all of this. And what we're left with, as you hear, it's just so funny to me, this is like, all right, well listen, we're bombing around and spending ourselves into debt. It's like, this could have been John McCain's presidency. It's just, there's something so fascinating in the American political system

about how it always comes back to like meet the new boss, same as the old boss. It's always kind of like the will of the establishment just gets enforced and Donald Trump look I'll say this I I don't know there's a lot of people who speculate about like Elon Musk's motivations in all of this this has been true from the very beginning of course it Donald Trump himself is this entire time, even still today, I just saw he posted something on Truth Social that really what Elon Musk cares about

is the electric vehicle subsidies or whatever. And there's been a lot of speculation from the beginning of Doge that he was just trying to collect data or any of this. But as I said in the first episode, when we talked about their Trump and Elon Musk split, look, I can't read anybody's mind, but it just really seems like he's motivated by being against this crazy spending belt and really being concerned about government debt destroying the country. That just seems, because like he's out. He didn't need to come back in and repick up this fight.

It clearly does him no favors to be in a big public fight with Donald Trump. I'm just saying, perhaps I'm wrong and there's some other motivation here, but it sure does seem like the guy just believes in what he's saying. And he's undeniably correct about what he's saying about this bill So I don't know any thoughts you have Rob go for it Well, it's hard to disagree with Elon Musk when he's right I don't know that his business is more honorable than anyone of any other business that's tied him with the government he certainly has made money off of a

favorable government contracts and does seem to be playing that racket. And maybe, although Trump, when he was campaigning, part of his campaigning was against continuing with the EV movement. So Elon Musk kind of knew that even when he backed him. And maybe it was a different play for something favorable with Starlink or the other industries. But it didn't look like Elon Musk was backing Donald Trump for the corporate interests specifically of his electric vehicles.

And it does feel like that's low hanging fruit for Donald Trump to criticize him back and go, hey, it's because I'm screwing him over. Doge did seem like it was an honest effort or I don't know about an honest effort because they definitely overstated the savings that they were finding and what they ended up implementing. But buying Twitter to have free speech on the internet did seem like it does appear to be an honest effort and to have been very helpful for the American people. And Elon Musk is not doing himself any favors with the current regime by criticizing the spending bill.

When he did it the first time, Donald Trump went full guns a blazing, hey, I'm gonna ruin your business and this is gonna be a problem. It's a little bit interesting to see Elon Musk even wanting to revisit that and have the Donald Trump heat coming at him. But now he's flirting with attempting to primary

anybody who voted for this. It might be a good opportunity for the Libertarian Party or to maybe court this individual. But you know, the last time around, Donald Trump did not do great with his picks when it came to congressional seats or who he backed in the Senate. Obviously now he's got a lot more power and potential funding from donors, so it might look different. But particularly, I don't know what Donald Trump's trying to do with Thomas Massey other than to spend a lot of money in the district and to try

and prop up his candidate. And I'm not familiar enough with Kentucky politics to let you know how that will work. I definitely have a pro-Massey bias, and my feedback loop is that he's very popular, but that's because he's my personal favorite. And so most of what I see on Twitter is also people that like him. But it certainly is an interesting storyline of, does Elon Musk really want to hold to his guns of opposing government spending and sharing this story if that means the left already hates him and the current regime is also going to be going after his business,

which really could, you know, when the government, when it's you in your business against the government, it's a very hard fight to win. Now, you can pivot and decide to spend the billions of dollars that you have to try and make an impact on our political landscape. I wonder if he really has the stones to destroy his business in that endeavor. Yeah, just to be clear, because this really is, you know, there's something about like first, when Elon Musk was first opposing the big, beautiful bill, it was like, okay, you've stepped into an area now

where you are working against the president's legislative agenda. So this makes you political rivals in a sense, you know? And then that's, to some degree, I think that's legitimate. You know, like, I don't agree with this spending bill, but this is politics after all. And if the president is endorsing a bill and he wants to get that bill on his desk so he can sign it into law

and you're opposing the bill, you've now put yourself as a political rival. When he started, when it got to the level, and I did just to be clear, as I said in the last episode, I think the last episode about this topic, I said it was Donald Trump who really took it to the level of launching personal attacks. But then Elon Musk fired back with the Epstein stuff and all this. It's like, okay, now you're not just a political rival, you've made yourself an enemy of the president of the United States. But what Elon Musk is saying right now is like, this is in the realm of politics, a declaration of war. And so I think almost what you're getting at is like, whoa, is he really prepared to go to war like this?

Because what Elon Musk is now saying, so Donald Trump made a whole thing about how he's going to primary Thomas Massey, which we could get a little bit more into that. Elon Musk came out and said he will back Thomas Massey, which we could get a little bit more into that. Elon Musk came out and said he will back Thomas Massey now. This isn't just anybody saying he's going to back Thomas Massey. This is the richest guy in the world, or I don't know where. He might be the second richest guy in the world now. I don't know where his stock valuations are. But this is a guy with a whole lot of money and a guy who owns Twitter. I mean, this is, and then he posted that he,

he said something like, I will see that every Republican who votes for this bill will be primaried. And now I don't know how serious he is about all this, but this is really a political declaration of war. This is not just him saying, I oppose your legislative agenda. He's now saying, he's talking about forming another political party.

I think you want to call it the America Party, where it's all about, you know what I mean, fiscal sanity or something, and primaring all of the Republicans out. This is a, look, if he's, if he is serious about that, this might be the best shot at actually making meaningful progress in terms of these out-of-control government budgets that I've ever seen proposed, thinking about the richest and one of the most famous human beings in the world, one of if not the most influential human being in the world, throwing all their weight behind this. I mean, that's a big deal. I will say one of the reasons why I'm really glad that Elon's at least talking this way is because I do, I just, I've been

appalled at Donald Trump's treatment of Thomas Massey, where it's, and I really think it's been just, it's shown just the worst in Donald Trump. It's kind of his, his, his nature as a bully, his, his kind of fragile ego. But Thomas Massey, look, the thing with him and Elon Musk, okay, it, it escalated quickly. And yes, I think Donald Trump crossed that line first, but Elon Musk fired right back and did not try to de-escalate the situation, at least at first. Then he kind of did. Thomas Massie never made it personal. Thomas Massie is clearly, whether you agree with him or disagree with him, and obviously

we agree with him, but he's clearly standing on principle. Everybody knows that Thomas Massie would have been a no vote for this bill if Joe Biden had proposed it. He'd have been a no vote for this bill if a different Republican had gotten in. This is what he believes. He's against this stuff. He's voted against countless spending bills since he's been in Washington, DC.

And for Donald Trump to, like, the venom with which he's gone after Thomas Massey is just, it makes no sense at all given what the dispute is over. Like there's people have been so much shittier to him in DC and he's buried the hatch with them. He's got he's got never Trumpers all over the place. I mean, his his Secretary of state was a never Trumper. His vice president compared him to Hitler.

Like, he's got all these people around him who have committed far more egregious kind of like, I don't know, acts of disloyalty toward him than Thomas Massey, who's just voting his conscience as a member of the House of Representatives. Like, it's just, it makes no sense. And I guess, look, obviously, personally, because I just really love Thomas Massey,

and I've said this to somebody who's met the guy several times and just thinks he's a really great guy. He also just lost his wife last year, and it's like, there is something, and I find this to be a very interesting dynamic, but there is something where for Donald Trump, like the most famous human being in the world, the president of the United States of America,

like is Donald Trump, for him to zero in on Thomas Massey, who is like relatively speaking still, he's not, like, a household name, the way Donald Trump is. He doesn't have an army of support the way Donald Trump does. Thomas Massey is not, like, if you stop someone on the street who's not really following politics and you ask them who Thomas Massey is,

there's a good chance they don't know who you're talking about. Everybody knows who Donald Trump is. There's tribal warlords in Afghanistan who know who Donald Trump is. There's tribal warlords in Afghanistan who know who Donald Trump is, you know what I mean? And yet what's kind of interesting, to me at least, I see, is that you've got Donald Trump, as we just saw even over the last few weeks, I mean, the amount of support that Donald Trump has

that just simply will support him no matter what. It doesn't matter what he does. Like the cult following that Donald Trump has is enormous. There's tens of millions of people in that. And yet, as he attacks Thomas Massey, Massey almost seems like this immovable object. Like even though Thomas Massey isn't the household name that Donald Trump is, the people around him are just like not moving.

Like there is enough of us and clearly this is me and you, but like there is this thing where it's like, Trump, you really wanna go to war with Thomas Massey, okay. Team Massey all day. Like none of us are like, you know what I mean? Cause the thing is that the people who like Thomas Massey all day. Like, none of us are like, you know what I mean? Like, because the thing is that the people who like Thomas Massey, they like him because he's standing on principle. The people who like Thomas Massey, and this is a radical thought to some of the Trump cultists,

we actually have principles. We believe in something. And so that's what we like about that guy. So if you think you're just going to come in here and bully him and be like, oh, well, this is it's more popular to be against him than forums. Like, yeah, none of us care about that. None of us care. He's saying what's right. He's telling the truth. So we're on his side. And I do think and again, I'll offer kind of like the same disclaimer, I guess that you did, which is that it is true that we're all kind of influenced at this point by our algorithms on social media and stuff. And certainly, I'm sure I see a lot of the pro-Massie stuff.

But I have been, I mean, I've been watching this for a while now. And it does seem like there just is a solid foundational support for Thomas Massey that is like just unmoved by Donald Trump's attacks and that it's just not gonna like sorry dude, you're not gonna like convince me that big government and unsustainable debt is actually okay now just because clearly you're just clearly Thomas Massey in this case is motivated by what he thinks is right for the country and Donald Trump is motivated by what he thinks Is right for Donald Trump, which is kind of always what the story is All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Prolon forget everything You think you know about fasting Prolon by El Nutra is the only patented fasting mimicking diet that combines the

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prolonlife.com slash p o t p for 15% off their five day nutrition program. All right let's get back into the show. I think Donald Trump needs full compliance in on the LARP of that everything's the greatest, everything's the best. And so if anyone's pointing out even the slightest sliver of why it's not the greatest thing that's ever happened to everybody, he's gotta do everything he can to shut it down

and keep everybody in line. And speaking to what you just said, in my version of America first, I mean, Thomas Massey is the hero. Israel, hey, we shouldn't be spending our money over there. Wars, we shouldn't be doing it. And if we are, it needs to come through Congress. COVID, you all have to actually come back here

and do your job and vote on this bullshit and be on the record for voting for this bullshit. EV, hey, I'm the guy who actually understands the science to this and our electricity grid can't handle it. And all the while being living a personal lifestyle of being very carbon neutral and green efficient But also just realize and then when it comes to even like the more privatized stuff of hey You should be allowed to just buy beef directly from a guy who grows beef

You know, it's just every single issue that I see come across You know, it's just every single issue that I see come across, you know, any of these, the hearings or whatnot, he always seems to reflect an opinion closer to mine and freedom and American first values. And I think that that's, it's such a bad look for Donald Trump. If anyone wants to just shelve the Donald Trump absolutism and actually think about what you believe in with the agenda of America first and look at Thomas Massey's views over what Donald Trump is doing. And in this case, it's recklessly spending more money to support, you know, basically

not just growing the military industrial complex, growing socialized programs. Just think about what your actual values are as a conservative. And that's A, why Donald Trump needs to get rid of Thomas Massey is because it gives a voice to the thing that I think if most people gave an honest reflection to what they care about, Thomas Massey is going to be more in line with what Donald, then what Donald Trump is actually doing. Yeah, you know, I think that's right. And you know, I know that I got a lot of shit over the last couple weeks for which again, look, like I said before on the show, like I just, I don't think I was wrong about what

I was saying. And I think actually like the, you know, I think the more things have become clear about it's not over. Donald Trump's out there on the news saying that they don't even still have their refined enriched uranium. Like, I mean, he was certainly flirting with the war and we were definitely going, hey, this is a mistake. And now he's out there going, it's totally and definitely completely over because I took

care of it. And maybe that's true, but I don't think anybody knows that. And I definitely think Donald Trump's overplaying that they couldn't possibly still break it. Like, in my mind, they're almost more likely now than ever before, because seemingly before, they could have had it, but weren't really interested. They wanted to have the deterrent of we could have it. And now you kind of just took kind away as being a deterrent Well, there's look, there

has already said that the to follow through with th This whole justification of 60% enrichment they're like as it's just too crazy it's it's um you know I've mentioned this a few times that Scott Horton was making this point such a good point though he's like you know we've we knew that the Soviet unions were developing nuclear weapons and this was Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union, you know, like one of the most evil people who's ever lived and he's developing nuclear weapons. But no serious person ever said, hey, we should launch a war against the Soviet unions because they're researching

nuclear capabilities. No one ever said Mao Zedong we knew was developing nuclear weapons. No one ever, he's the worst human being who's ever lived, killed more people than anyone who's ever lived. The point is just like, we lived with it. It's not great when these bad regimes have nuclear weapons, but the world has made their peace with it. Currently today, Kim Jong-un has nuclear weapons. There's China and Russia,

they all have nuclear weapons. Okay, we're supposed to believe that this Iranian regime is such a threat. There's so much worse than Mao and Joseph Stalin that the world just cannot bear the threat of them having nuclear weapons. And then it's like, okay, also, Gaddafi could totally denuclearize, we'll still go overthrow him. Saddam was never making nuclear weapons, will still lie and say he is. And also 60% enrichment is a reason. Like, no matter what you do, it's a justification for a regime change war. So like, it's all, and I think, look, there's

just something so incredibly dishonorable about launching a war of aggression and choice while using negotiations to distract the enemy. It's literally, there is something wrong with launching a war in this most dishonorable way. Now look, all the credit in the world to Donald Trump for when the Iranians gave him the off ramp, taking it and trying to posture out of this. The point is that none of this, Iran was already negotiating. They were at the negotiating table. And what they were negotiating, what they were willing to do was bring down the level

of which they were enriching uranium. Like if 60% was your big deal, then you could have brought it. Now they're quite likely going to be kicking inspectors out. And we don't know, we won't know where they're at with this stuff. Anyway, all of that, forget all of that. I do just know that over the last, so when I came out strongly against Donald Trump for getting us into this war,

what a lot of people, and look, this will be, to some degree, this is just gonna be what it is, and it's fine, I can make my peace with this. I don't really care and my My my position is again. It's I don't There's no value in what I do unless i'm willing to do this unless i'm willing to like tell the truth Even when it's going to get people pissed off or whatever. Um, but I certainly will say that like there's no question that the like low iq narratives But I certainly will say that like there's no question that the

like low IQ narratives move a lot of people and That's that's just the truth. It's always the case It's I you know, I like to think that our audience is a little brighter than the average But it's always the case that these so the bottom line is that I was very loudly going this could be a catastrophe and it didn't end up being a catastrophe and therefore people can go look you were wrong. That's a very low IQ narrative but it's a powerful one and so hey if I got to eat that fine I'd rather it not be a catastrophe and have that. But the point is that as this is happening, right, you have, so Donald Trump can say, you know,

hey, look, it didn't turn into a catastrophe and I brought this back to where we were. Now, okay, when I say it's a low IQ narrative, I just mean that like, that doesn't actually indicate anything. If you're going out drunk driving and coming home in one piece doesn't prove that it wasn't a risky, terrible decision to go drive drunk.

I'm not speaking against driving drunk. You know what you can handle better than me, but you get my point. So, but while this was happening, right, I said, one of the things I said that got people pissed off was I said that Donald Trump betrayed MAGA. And then this got into the whole thing where like Ben Shapiro was responding to me, he's saying, oh, you get to decide what MAGA is.

That's not what MAGA is. MAGA is whatever Donald Trump says MAGA is. And then it just like, it spurred this really, really stupid debate about who's really MAGA or who's really betraying what, but I think the point I was getting at was what you were just saying about Thomas Massey, that it's like, look, all I'm saying is that if you really take the base of Donald Trump's voters and where they are on the issues, and we know this because we're in this world and we've been in this world for years. You ask a Trump supporter, was Dr. Fauci an honorable person who did

a good job through COVID? Did he tell the truth or was he like a criminal liar who made the entire thing worse than it had to be. What do you think the percentage would be? Think if I were to poll Donald Trump voters and give him like those two options, the overwhelming majority is gonna be opposed to him. And yet Thomas Massey was the guy who was critical of him the whole time. And Donald Trump kept him on as the face

of the pandemic response through all of 2020. If you talk about the debt and like crazy, the crazy climate agenda, like you could go down the list. Thomas Massey is that guy. So yes, it's true that the hero worship goes to Donald Trump, that he has the cult of personality around him. But when it comes to substance of where the average Trump voter actually is on the issues, Thomas Massey wins that battle every day, a hundred out of a hundred times. And so that's just, that's the point of all of this is just that it's like, you're going to have, when you pick on Thomas Massey now, when you go out of your way to, you know, which is really crazy because when you think about it,

Donald Trump, there is something that almost feels just like self-destructive about the whole thing where it's like you had this winning coalition and then I'm sorry, but you're the one who decided to crack the whole thing up. And now you're going at Thomas Massie, who is, he's going to be backed by the smartest, most principled MAGA supporters.

Those are the guys who are going to like Thomas Massey. And so that's who you're stripping out of your own political coalition when you go after him in this way. And again, it's not just going after him like saying like, Thomas Massey, this is a bad vote, or even calling him a loser, or even calling him some names and saying, he's, you know what I mean? He's trying to mess with my agenda.

He's wrong about all this stuff. But when you're really talking about primaring him and putting in millions of dollars for his primary opponent, like you're not primaring Lindsey Graham. You're not trying to primary, like you have some of the worst of the worst in DC and Thomas Massey is the guy you choose to go after. I just think I'm not saying he can't hurt Thomas Massey, but there's no way he doesn't

hurt himself in this fight too. So that's be my take. All right. Let's talk a little bit about because it it's been interesting, the developments since the 12th of October. Oh, yeah, go ahead. Just one more thing on that. It's interesting the fracturing of the winning coalition.

So Tulsi Gabbard decided to get back in line. But if she hadn't, which she did, she got back in line. But let's say she didn't. She said, no, I saw that intelligence, and Iran's not looking for a nuclear bomb, and this is a war for no reason to help the Israelis or to look for regime change, which is why I came here, was to not have wars like this.

Donald Trump promised to kind of be against these regime change wars, and now he conducted this strike in Iran. Who knows, maybe he'll come go down as the greatest hero ever, that he kept them from getting a nuke with targeted strikes, or maybe we're revisiting this exact same narrative in a year from now. But that narrative nearly fell apart on him, and he nearly lost Tulsi Gabbard, who was a part of the winning coalition, and selling him to the American people as going to being anti-war. Doge was part of the storylines that helped him win the election of that Elon Musk wanted to back him, and we were going to clean up government spending.

That's already fallen away. It'd be interesting. It seems like some of these other characters, I just keep hearing random stuff from R.F.K. Jr., and it seems like he's in his own lane, and Donald Trump doesn't really care about the health care issues, so he's just doing his own thing. But that was another part of the winning coalition. But we're only, what, six months into Donald Trump here. And so you're already kind of losing

some of the characters that helped push him over and win that he was actually going to enact some of these agendas. And one of the agendas that they keep floating like they're gonna look at is going after the deep state, finding out what was going on with Epstein, find out what was going on with January 6. And Thomas Massey has been one of the best voices

on that one also with bringing up the Raeups and the pipeline storyline. And that's just another big one that matters to the conservative voters, in which the Donald Trump administration, they keep floating the volleyballs in the air of that they're interested and they're looking into these things, but seemingly never are. Yeah, no, that's absolutely right. It's amazing to watch and very predictable.

I mean, there's nothing really surprising about this. But in fact, that was an old Scott Horton law of presidents that they always keep their bad promises and break their good promises. But all the stuff that we heard coming into this was like... And, look, obviously, with the baseline kind of Trump agenda. And, of course, look, I'm not saying, you know, Donald Trump, there's a way, you know, Donald Trump,

there's a way, you know, people, what was that book? I never read it, but there was the famous book that was like lies, lies and statistics or something like that. But it's like, you know, you'll see a lot of people in the media will say things like, they'll be like, you know, Donald Trump has always said Iran can't have a nuclear weapon,

and 82% of Americans say that they do not want Iran to have a nuclear weapon. And you're like, yeah, but that doesn't tell you anything. I'd be amongst those 82%. I don't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon. Who the hell wants the molas to have a nuclear weapon? That's not the question. The question is, do you want to launch a war over it?

Not do you like it? You know, like, I was on with that Lindy. We said the Asian lady who was like a big Democrat donor, who's now you know, I don't, I'll tell you there's a little thing I don't really trust that lady but I don't know enough about her really say anything but I was on the they have Jillian Michaels, like her her take, I think is the name of the show. I really love Jillian Michaels and Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics by Michael Wheeler. Yes, thank you, Natalie. I never read it so I'm talking about a book I didn't read just thinking of the title. But so I was on her take. I really, really like Jillian Michaels a lot. She's great and I like Anna Kasparian from The Young Torx was on there too. But anyways, arguing with this Lindy woman at some point, and she was one of these people who was like, she was a big democratic donor

who then walked away from the democratic party. But it was like, it was kind of like, felt like swimming off a sinking ship or something like that, you know what I mean? Like you're like, yeah, it's pretty easy to walk away from the Democrats now. Like now that everyone hates them, I'm not a part of that anymore. Like, all right.

But where were you when they were ruining everything? But she said to me at one point. That she goes, she said, you know, we are arguing about Iran. And she said, of course, the very predictable, she goes, but they chant death to America. And I was like, I was like, so you're advocating we launch wars over chance now? And she goes, oh, so you're saying it's just fine

that they chant death to America? And I was like, I think there's a little bit of room between it's fine and we should launch a war over it. No? Do you see any more gray in life? Is it all that black and white? Either you love something or we should, anyway. But if you really look at like where the Trump supporters are at, there are these overwhelmingly popular issues that Donald Trump has. And as many

people have pointed out, as what's his name on CNN always loves to say, I'm blanking on his name, but the conservative guy at CNN who's always owning everyone on the panels, but I think David Sachs has made this point too that Trump races to the 80 in a lot of 80-20 issues. It's like, should we unleash American energy? I mean, this is like a very big deal that there's actual policies about restricting how much energy we produce. And Trump's like, we should unleash American energy. Like, 80-20 issue.

Yes, people want to produce more energy and bring down the cost of gas and live a higher standard of living. Staying out of stupid foreign wars was a huge one that's overwhelmingly popular. Having some type of sane immigration controls overwhelmingly popular, probably more than an 80-20 issue. Getting rid of the insane woke stuff, not pushing crazy gender stuff on kids, overwhelming 80-20 issue. I mean, one to the bottom of the Jeffrey Epstein thing, getting to the bottom of the JFK thing, all these are enormously popular. What are we getting? What are we getting though? I mean I think

we already know, like you said, the Doge thing is already out. We're not getting that. Mass deportations are not happening. We're not getting that. Um staying out of stupid wars. Well, I mean, okay, he has not got us into another catastrophe but man, did he sure flirt with one and and the much safer bet of staying out of them would have been to not get into a 12-day war to begin with and so like one thing after the other after the other, it's like, oh yeah, all the all the good promises just like, oh yeah, all the

all the good promises just aren't coming true. And all the things that are enormously popular, very few of them are coming true. So that's kind of where I see it. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Ridge. We love the Ridge wallet here at Part of the Problem. It is the the coolest sleekest wallet you'll ever get. I have a couple of them. All of their designs are awesome. It's a minimalist wallet. You hold your cash, your cards, everything you need and nothing that you don't. I will say, I was an old school wallet guy for many years.

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you purchase, they will ask you where you heard about them. Please let them know that you heard about them here on the part of the problem podcast. That'll help out the show. Check them out. Ridge.com slash P O T P 10. All right, let's get back into the show. Anyway, on that one topic of mass deportations, you do have to give them credit, did a great job with the border. And apparently, I think there's a fair amount of people that are actually self-deporting. And then I guess it remains to be determined of how many people and at what level he actually deports. But in terms of at least, he's making some good fixes there, which includes possibly... Yeah, no, that's true.

One of the big problems with all the people that immigrated was congressional seats for districts that end up with a lot of illegal immigrants. And I think he's trying to change the law on the census to no longer count them, which is a pretty big fix. And then he's also trying to get rid of birthright citizenship, which so some of the major demographic changes that might have taken place because of the illegal immigration,

he might be solving for that. He certainly has closed the border and I think he's made the environment a little bit more hostile that some people seem to be self-deporting. I'd have to look up what the numbers are on that again but I guess it remains to be seen on how widespread his actual deportation efforts are. Yeah, no it's a fair fair point. And it is important to point out that, particularly in terms of the flow of migrants, he's really gotten like an A plus on that. He's done a remarkable job.

And I think so much of that seems to just be who the president is. It really does send a signal. But so yeah, that is a fair point. And one of the things that's been interesting over the last few days is that, so Benjamin Netanyahu, I guess, is coming to the US in the next few days. Trump said something like there'll be some brief celebration over how successful the mission was. Oh, by the way,

before even getting to the Netanyahu thing, I should say this is because it's just kind of funny to me. But so you've got in terms of the damage that was done to the Iranian nuclear capabilities. Now, again, as I've been clear on this the whole time, and again, this is what all the intelligence backs up. In fact, I'm going off of the intelligence assessment here. I'm going off of the IAEA and the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA and European intelligence and Israeli intelligence, which all were saying that Iran has not yet made the political decision, this is before the 12-day war, Iran had not made the political decision to attempt to acquire a nuclear weapon, let alone were acquiring it. They hadn't even decided to start going for it. And they were in negotiations to bring it. So

there was, it was a non-existent nuclear threat. So but now there were as I'm sure you saw, Rob, and I'm sure people listening saw, there were there were kind of like conflicting reports about how much damage has actually been done to the Iranian nuclear facilities. Now, I know I had a couple a couple military buddies of mine who I've talked to, and one, Daniel Cooper, has talked about this publicly, and he worked for the Department of Defense for a while, and he was a part of several damage assessments. And what he said, and I've heard this from a few other people who I know who have military experience, they're basically saying, anytime you're doing a damage assessment,

if you can't get verification on the ground, there's very little confidence in whatever you're assessing. You know, you go off satellite images and stuff like that, but it's very hard to know exactly how much damage you did. But so the New York Times and CNN, they basically got leaked a report that said that it hadn't been that damaged, and that it maybe only been set back by a few months or maybe a year, but that it really hadn't done major damage.

Now then the White House, they attacked CNN and the New York Times, but they also did acknowledge that the report was real, but that there was other information they didn't have. Then Tulsi Gabbard comes out like, no, no, no, we have intelligence that it actually was very effective. And it's that Trump's like totally obliterated. The Iranians are kind of playing coy in the middle, like not exact.

They're the ones who would know. They're not exactly saying what happened. And they've given a couple of statements indicating in different directions. But you have this situation now where, just to be completely clear here, I have no idea. I don't think a lot of them know for sure. I think the Iranians know and I think that's about it as of right now, but I don't know. I think it certainly is possible that you drop a whole

bunch of these bunker busters. It's gonna do a ton of damage, so I'm not, I'm open to the idea that they were obliterated, as Donald Trump said. But what's interesting about it is you have all of these different groups with their clear incentives to take the narrative they want to take, right? Like the New York Times and CNN wants to damage Donald Trump. As we've seen in the past, they're quite happy to use utilize lies in order to do that. They'll utilize the truth too, if that'll damage Donald Trump, but they're quite happy to make shit up too. So you can't really trust them. You know, they're trying to damage Donald Trump.

You know, they're also beholden to the war party. And so of course the war party would like the pretext for war to to remain, you know, and be like, oh, there's still a nuclear threat. We got to take care of maybe we got to bomb them more. You know and be like, oh, there's still a nuclear threat. We got to take care of maybe we got a bomb or more Donald Trump obviously is Incentivized to say what an overwhelming success this mission was because I'm such a great president You know and then the Iranians have their own interesting set of incentives where you know, they don't want to admit that We got hit really good

they also don't want to broadcast to the world that like the strikes didn't work. So the same issue is still here for you to come back and attack us on anyway, you know, I can't lie. So I have to just say I don't know but for my own propagandistic reasons, I do like the Trump line the best like I do. I do like the oh, yeah, there you go, no more reason, right, this nuclear threat that never existed to begin with,

but yes, it's been totally neutralized. So I guess we don't have to worry about this problem anymore going forward. Anyway, so now Donald Trump has been pivoting toward talking about trying to end the war in Gaza. And Donald Trump's got a problem on his hands here, which is that he's damaged his political coalition. There's no, now it's, believe me, I'm not downplaying this, it is, it was very much in peril.

It was rescued by the fact that Donald Trump, after the Iranians had their little, you know, restrained response and gave us advance notice. After that, Donald Trump pivoting to a ceasefire immediately and wrapping the thing up, that, you know, rescued his very, you know, damaged coalition. But you still can't undo the fact that you, you had just so many people, um, and, and people with big audiences who were like so opposed to the policy in Iran.

When you got Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon and Jack Posabiac and Charlie Kirk and all of these guys talking about how you're going to destroy your own political coalition, that doesn't just go away in a week. That does damage to the cohesion of your base. And now Donald Trump's looking at this reality where there's still, look, he's been unable to end the war in Ukraine, despite his efforts. And he's been unable to end this war. And they're both very unpopular.

And they're both kind of destabilizing. They both bring a lot of volatility over here. And like political volatility, I mean. And so now he's talking about wanting to end this war. So then he comes out with this post a few days ago about how Netanyahu's trial should be called off. Did you see this, Rob? And this is, I will say there's something about all of this. This is just kind of my read of the situation is that I think that Donald Trump's thinking on this is that Netanyahu doesn't want to end this war because he knows he's going on trial for corruption

charges when he ends it, and that if he can get rid of that trial, then maybe he can persuade Benjamin Netanyahu to end the war. That seems to be what he's thinking here, because he's also signaling that he wants to wrap up the, you know, Israel's campaign in Gaza. And there is just something, I feel like this is so, it's so ripe for conspiracy theories,

because it's almost impossible not to speculate about the level of control that Israel has over our politics. But it's really amazing, Rob, to witness that just days after Netanyahu, Donald Trump pushes for a ceasefire, and then Netanyahu just unloads attacking Iran after that. And Trump is so frustrated because he's like, my God, you know what I mean? He's working actively against your interests and then You're like he's trying to lure you into a war that you're trying to get out of and you're you're fresh right and then the next day you're out advocating that his charges are dropped because this is how you see you could maybe

Influence him him into ending this war that we are funding Like you want to end the war that you're funding? Stop funding the thing. It's just so bizarre. And with Donald Trump particularly, you just know him. We just know from his personality type that if anyone else disrespected and humiliated him this way, he would just be eviscerating them. The best you you know, the best you got is when he's at his

angriest on one clip, he like, there he goes, and he lumped Iran into, he goes, Iran and Israel don't know what the fuck they're doing. That's the most he could muster up. That was even like kind of critical of Israel was he was being critical of both Israel and Iran and yet Elon Musk, you know because people will say well, it's as simple as the you know The Adelsons gave him hundreds of millions of dollars. It's like how about Elon Musk?

Elon Musk gave him hundreds of millions of dollars He turned his back on him in a second Tucker Carlson gave the the keynote address at the Republican National Convention He threw him under the bus in a second. Anybody else he'll throw under the bus, including his former vice president. It doesn't matter who. Like, he'll throw his wife under the bus if she crosses him the wrong way.

But Benjamin Netanyahu, the way he's got to massage this guy is be like, well, maybe if we could get his trial canceled, then maybe he... Like, it's as if we're Israel Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu is the president of the United States of America. Like, it's as if he's the guy who runs the country with the most badass military that's funding us.

And then we got to go, man, we got to ask him real nicely if he would maybe do this thing. But this is the way Trump treats Benjamin Netanyahu. It's just, it's too much for regular people to not look at that and go like, what's going on here? Like what type of control do they have? And even for me, I gotta be honest, like it just, it makes me speculate in my mind,

like what do they have on you, dude? Cause no one else could get this type of treatment for Donald Trump. I mean, like you think about what he's uncorking on Thomas Massey for opposing a bloated spending bill and yet Benjamin Netanyahu can just spit in his mouth on the international stage and Trump just takes it. It's wild. All right guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show which is Crowd Health. I've been telling you about this company for years now because I just love what they're doing.

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This is how we win. Join crowdhealth.com, promo code POTP. All right, let's get back into the show. And just to add to that a little bit, I've been watching quite a bit of a Judge Knapp show because he has a Mearsheimer. So great. Yeah. And what's-his-name-on a lot.

The guy from MIT, Jeffrey Sachs. Jeffrey Sachs, Harvard. It's from Harvard. Yeah, yeah, Jeffrey Sachs. I just blunt the smart people to Boston or whatever. Close stuff. Same concept. And there seems to be a bit of chatter

that Radcliffe has a heavy massage tie in that as the head of the CIA is kind of either taking direct orders or regularly meeting with them beyond what sounds like the typical just intelligence sharing. Yep. Yep. No, look, I've heard those guys talk about that too, and it certainly seems like that's quite possible. But there, you know, there is something about this dynamic that's almost like

just too. It's too obvious and too absurd for people to not pick up on it. And, you know, I, I think there's something really, I think there's something really interesting about the Mamdani guy winning the primary in New York. Again, it's funny because as I was arguing with this Lindy chick too, we got into this topic and at one point, you know, she was like going to me about, you know, she's like, well you don't understand how bad his socialist policies are or something. I was like, listen, you guys are all a bunch of communists to me.

I'm so much more of a capitalist than anyone on this panel. You don't have to convince me. I can make the argument quite better than you can about why city-owned grocery stores or freezing rent stabilized apartments is a terrible idea. But that being said, there is, look, there's just no question with the Mamdani guy that there is a burning hatred for him that you don't have for a lot of these other democratic socialists.

You know, there's a lot of people who are these goofy progressive, I mean, they call themselves democratic socialists. None of them even seem to know what the term means. I think Mamdani actually is one, uh, unlike Bernie Sanders and people like that who use the term or AOC or whatever. Um, but it's just very obvious that it's like, no, his issue, his position on Israel is what you guys are so upset about that.

Now I'm, I'm happy to discuss how terrible the economic stuff is, but there's an interesting dynamic here where you know they're they're trying to get him for that they won't admit it so they have to pretend it's this other stuff then they have to jump on the like like he said globalize the Intifada or something like that even though nobody's really producing him saying that what they're producing is an interview where someone asks him to condemn the term globalize the intifada. And he's like, well, that means different things

to different people. And so I don't want to condemn everybody, but violence isn't acceptable. You know, it's like not, but the truth is that the reality is that as they're trying to get him on this issue, they're just helping him because the war is unpopular and it's particularly unpopular amongst his base. So it's like, oh, you're just helping him because the war is unpopular and it's particularly unpopular amongst his base. So it's like, oh, you're forcing everyone else to carry this baggage for you. You

know what I mean? And it's just like, it's too obvious that you have a New York City mayoral debate and you're asking about who's going to visit Israel, who supports their right to exist as a Jewish state. What the hell does this have to do with being the mayor of New York City? It's ridiculous. They don't even understand they're handing them this winning card. I mean, it is so like you go through that. We played it on the show, but you go through that clip where all the other candidates are pledging that they'll go visit Israel. And then his answer is, I'll stay in New York City. I'll talk to my Jewish constituents right here in New York City because my concern are the problems that face New York And you're just like wherever you fall in the political spectrum

Objectively, that's the correct answer. That's the winning answer when you're running to be mayor of New York City The winning answer is I care about New York. I don't care about is like I care about what's happening here and Then the other thing I guess is this um the Bob villain guy You've seen they're making this cute who I've never heard of I never heard of that festival I never heard of this guy the music is let's just say not for me But it's like this is it's just too wild that everybody's supposed we're supposed to act like saying death to the IDF is like, this is the catastrophe of the last two years. Really, you know, everything like the

thing that's happening to the children in Gaza. Yeah, sure. That's unpleasant. But this these chants at this concert here are really and then everybody's flipping out about it. Look, even it's so funny because it's like the, I want to say cognitive dissonance, but I guess that's not exactly the right term. It's like, it's the priors that people have that they are so dug into. And even when they open up a little bit of their mind, they're still kind of revert back to these faulty priors. But it's like, look, I'll just say this, okay?

And I think this is something people are waking up to. So there was just a pretty bombshell report in Haaretz. I don't know if you read this article, Rob, but this was about three days ago. They came out with this piece where they had, there's been, it's like, as I'm sure most people have heard, there's been several incidents now in Gaza where, like, some humanitarian aid has gotten in and then the people, like, basically, you know, like we've talked about, it's like old Black Friday at Walmart. They're just trampling over each other for food. And there's something so dark about seeing that.

Like it's, it really will like, it's horror movie shit to watch. Like human beings are so desperate for food that they're fighting over like crumbs. And then people have just started shooting into the crowds. This has happened several different times in Gaza over the last several months. And the IDF for a, was denying it and saying, oh, this was Hamas. Then there were reports on the ground. They're like, there were no Hamas militants there.

This doesn't make any sense. So Haaretz runs this major piece where they've got IDF soldiers admitting that they were given orders to shoot at the crowds. And saying, using language like it's a killing field, which Netanyahu got very upset about. Yes. Now, what I talked to the other day to a Heretz journalist, not the one who wrote that piece, he wrote a different piece, but I talked to him about it, and he corrected me that I said

something like shooting at the crowds. And he said, well, what the article said was shooting in the direction of the crowd. So but you know anyway so now this just out today the the Israeli government has acknowledged that they've admitted that there were IDF soldiers who shot in the direction of the crowd and they admitted that people were killed. They denied that they were given orders to do so and they admitted that people were killed. They denied that they were given orders to do so, and they said that the Gaza Health Ministry exaggerated the numbers that were dead. They put it between 60 to 70 people, and the Gaza Health Ministry, I think, was claiming it was a couple hundred. But holy moly, once you're into this territory already, it's like, Jesus,

I mean, first you denied the whole thing. Now you're admitting your soldiers did murder some people. Now you're denying that did your soldiers did murder some people Now you're denying that they were given orders even though they're on record saying or maybe not on record But they're saying to her rats that they were given orders anyway You just when you get to a certain point It's just kind of undeniable that the IDF commits acts of terrorism It's not only Hamas. Like, that is terrorism, you know?

Call it whatever you want to. You can call the bigger thing a genocide or not, whatever. But these are acts of terrorism. You're going to... You're at war with the civilian population. You're shooting at people who are desperate for food. So once you accept that, and then there'll be someone like, say, Piers Morgan,

who I love doing this show. Nothing not saying anything bad about Pierce Morgan. But he's been coming around to this over the last few months. Like, yeah, look, he won't even argue with me. If I said that on a show, I go look, is that not terrorism? It's absolutely terrorism, right? But then, when someone at a concert shout the chants death to the IDF, you go up, you're saying death to the Jews. You're saying death to the Israelis.

And it's like, well, wait a minute, we're not allowed to chant death to a terrorist organization now? Like just apply that same logic to Hamas. The whole argument has been that you can say, no, we wanna kill Hamas. We don't wanna go to war with the civilians, but we wanna go to war with Hamas.

Well, how is that any different than somebody over some Bob Villain guy saying death to the IDF? Whatever, I'm not chanting death to anybody, but it's just almost any honest observer of that would go, well, no, you kind of can't have this ridiculous double standard. If there's a group of people who are doing this to innocent people, then I'm sorry, the outrage isn't somebody chanted mean things about the group of people who are doing this to innocent people, then I'm sorry, the outrage isn't somebody chanted mean things about the group of people

who are committing terrorism. That's just not gonna work. So, anyway, final thought to you, and then we'll wrap up. Well, first is, you know, I haven't heard this talking for you in a while, but, you know, in that shooting incident, I at least saw a video online of people scattering and trying to duck for their lives. So it certainly doesn't look like this civilian base of Gaza is trying to martyr themselves

to appear as numbers to make Israel look worse. That just doesn't appear to be the situation in the videos. And then just very ADD, but on the, Mamdani, is that the guy's name? Mamdani. Mamdani. I'm very anti-socialism. You guys can go watch the episode that we did behind the paywall where I said perhaps people that are not originally from this country with these point of

view should not be allowed to run for public office. With all that said, and maybe I just don't have this right, but it was just a thought in my head was there's something funny about talking about seizing the means of production if you're in New York City, because what does New York City produce? There's no factories there, there's no farmland there. It's like, what are you gonna try and seize Wall Street? You're literally just gonna be the end of the city when they go, all right, I guess we can have our office space. We'll go trade somewhere else.

So there's just something very funny about a heavy socialist talking about seizing the means of production while running for mayor of New York City, which I don't know, what are going to take over offices and call centers. What production? I mean, I guess the grocery stores, that's not really production. Did you see the thing?

Dude, he made this video. I got to send it to you. But he made this video about how street food, like chicken over rice on the street from one of those halal stands is up like from $8 to $12 or something like that. The middleman on permits, which is funny because that's actually kind of the, yeah, I mean, firstly, I just have a bunch of thoughts on it, but like, yeah, I guess if someone else owns the permit, yeah, it's stupid that you now have to lease it from him.

But I guess that is what the market price is because government's limited street corner food. And does it actually benefit the because government's limited street corner food. And does it actually benefit the economy to have more street corner food? I mean, listen, I'm not for government permits, but they do compete with the restaurants who have to pay higher rent. They take up parking spots from everyone else. Yeah, it's, well, that's why it's funny. But it's funny that in his own video, it's like, the conclusion is like, oh, yes, this is the government imposing this on these people.

And then he tries to focus on the fact that it's like, yeah, yeah, but they're not paying the government. They're paying some crony who just owns this license. And it's like, yeah, but no matter how you get around that, that's still because they were given this license by fiat from the government. And so your point is a fair one. It's like now we're into the managing public property area where it's like, well, I don't know.

Are you advocating that it should be permitless and anyone can set up a truck stop anywhere they want to? And then what are the ramifications of that? But regardless of any of that, this isn't a limit imposed by the market. It's a limit imposed by the government. It's just such a- your enemy here isn't even capitalism. Your enemy here is how the government is managing public property.

And so if you wanna make an argument to say, we should drastically increase the number of permits, or maybe even say, there should be a rule that you're not allowed to middleman permits. You're only eligible for this permit if you're going to be selling the food there, you know, and running a fine. But none of it's a critique on capitalism.

It's just so it's like he doesn't even realize in the video, he never even like puts the dots together. By the way, it reminded me, I got to wrap here because I got to run. But it was just so funny when Joe Rogan asked Bernie Sanders, you know, Bernie Sanders brought up Black Rock at one point. And Joe goes to him, he goes, so how did these guys get so rich? And Bernie Sanders goes, well, they're very smart, they're very hard working.

Like he was trying to make it because in his mind, it's like that's as far as you ever got to take it. You never got to figure out, wait, what was going on with this system that they were, oh, well, you know, they just work very hard and they're very smart. And that's the problem. It's capitalism, right? You can't just allow people to be free to work hard and be smart. They'll collect all of the wealth. And you're like, oh, really? That's the extent to which you've thought about this. That's literally, it's the most, it's amazing. All of them, they have the most surface level understanding of the very problem that they

are critiquing. They'll put a video out about the problem that they are critiquing. They'll put a video out about the problem that they're critiquing and still don't even seem to realize what the problem is here. It's just wild. Anyway, thank you guys very much for listening. We'll be back tomorrow with a brand new episode. Catch you then. Peace. Thanks for watching!