Part Of The Problem - Tucker is Done With Republicans

Episode Date: June 24, 2026

Dave Smith brings you the latest in politics! On this episode of Part Of The Problem, Dave and Robbie "the fire" Bernstein discuss Tucker announcing his end of support for the Republican party, Michael Knowles urging republicans that the party is not their enemy, the rocky start to negotiations with Iran, and more.Support Our Sponsors:Brunt Workwear - http://bruntworkwear.com/ Use code PROBLEMProlon - https://prolonlife.com/potpTroll Co - https://www.trollco.com/problem and use code DAVE25 for 25% off your first order.Part Of The Problem is available for early pre-release at https://partoftheproblem.com as well as an exclusive episode on Thursday!PORCH TOUR DATES HERE:https://robbernsteincomedy.com/eventsFind Run Your Mouth here:YouTube - http://youtube.com/@RunYourMouthiTunes - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/run-your-mouth-podcast/id1211469807Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/4ka50RAKTxFTxbtyPP8AHmFollow the show on social media:X:http://x.com/ComicDaveSmithhttp://x.com/RobbieTheFireInstagram:http://instagram.com/theproblemdavesmithhttp://instagram.com/robbiethefire#libertarian See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What's up? What's up, everybody. Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I am Dave Smith. He is Robbie the Fire, Bernstein. We were here yesterday, Rob. We sat right here in these seats and the world was crazy. But today, it's been all figured out. That moves quick.

That's what's nice about the Trump administration. There you go. He figured it out and he blew it again. What's happened in the last 24 hours? Oh, Rob, things are still. Things are still going pretty crazy. Luckily, that's what keeps this show in business. How are you doing today?

I'm doing well. And Porches this weekend, Raleigh, North Carolina, Hampstead, North Carolina, Myrtle Beach, and then a lot of dates. You can go to porch store.com. You can check them all out all over the country. And then you and I, we got some stuff coming up. Oh, yeah. We'll be in Houston, Texas.

That's our next stop. Houston, Texas. Looking forward to that here. I should, we got a few, many things coming up. Let me read the mafia. Yeah, Houston, Texas coming up July 9th, 10th, and 11th. Then Huntsville, Alabama, Nashville, Tennessee. I will be speaking at the Young Americans for Liberty event in Cincinnati, Ohio, by the way, this summer as well.

Me and Rob will be doing comedy in Fort Lauderdale, Appleton, Wisconsin, Austin, Texas, Louisville, Kentucky, Fort Worth, Texas, Dallas, Texas. Dallas, did I say it wrong event? Louville. All over the place. Comicadavismith.com. But Houston, Texas, that's our next date coming up. I've got to say my favorite barbecue spot in Texas is in Houston, so I'm always excited to go there. I don't know the name of it, but I know where it is.

I don't know the name of it, but I always know how to refine it. That's the way I clock information. I got an internal fat guy map. All right. I like that. There you go. You just go off the like the smells, the memory. It's very sense.

Okay. I respect that. All right, Rob. Well, Donald Trump is, look, you got to kind of give him, I guess, a little bit of a pass on this. But Donald Trump's trying to thread a needle of how to get this deal done, how to get through. I mean, it is, let's just say, Rob, we got the, there's, we have a memorandum of understanding, right? this is not it's not technically a peace deal of any sort

it lays the barest kind of structure in which negotiations can take place and it gave a very brief period of time of 60 days to negotiate some very complex things as we've talked about on the show it took two years to negotiate the JCPOA this is two months very challenging

although I suppose you could copy paste a lot But that being said, you have two months of negotiations. It's already off to, let's just call it an incredibly rocky start. The thing, almost the signing ceremony almost fell apart, according to a bunch of reporting. Things off to a very rocky start. Donald Trump is coming underneath enormous pressure from one very specific lobby, obviously. but also just in general that look I mean this is the position we find ourselves in here Rob which is a little bit tough is that we want to get this get through these 60 days we want to come

out with some type of agreement here we want to just result this to result in no more war and America getting out of this at the same time obviously Donald Trump has a lot of vulnerabilities here because he has talked mad shit for a hundred plus days and now is backing off of every last one of the things that he said. But so he's got to try to, you know, look tough. He's got to try to sell this as victory. We always said this is going to be very tough. Here is from Donald Trump this morning, Rob.

Despite the, sorry, one second, protestations and false statements to the contrary, coupled with the drumbeat of the fake news, which is doing everything possible, to make the U.S. victory as small and insignificant as possible, Iran has fully and completely agreed to highest-level nuclear inspections long into the future, parentheses, infinity, exclamation point. This will ensure, quote, nuclear honesty. If they did not agree to this, there would be no further negotiations. based on this and other major concessions being made by Iran,

I have agreed to allow the Hormuz Strait to remain open with no further naval blockade. However, all ships are remaining in place should it be necessary to re-institute the blockade, blah, blah, blah. This is a humanitarian crisis, he says, about sending money into Iran. So there you go, Rob.

I got to say, this if I was advising the the White House and give me your thoughts this to me just seems very ineffective I don't think this is good just keep talking about how devastating the economy is being hit and how much we need to open the straight I think this trying to sell this as some victory narrative is just too um it's it's a lie it's a lie that requires a lot of people to prop it up and then and not enough nearly enough people are willing to prop up this lie it seems like right now this lie that we won and the media is just they're just not reporting what an obvious american victory this is what do you think rob well on the uh trying to sell

this lie uh the amount the contingency of media support of people that were you got the people that were against the war and you had the people that were for the war and the people that were for the war not exactly for walking away and the people that were against the war think that this entire thing was a mistake and so they're not going to celebrate the victory of the mistake you made. So there's a very small contingency of people who can be getting on the media to try and sell this as a win. I'm seeing a little bit of a trend here. Firstly, at this point for Donald Trump to be yelling at the fake news for bad reporting,

you guys have lied every single day about this war and what's going on in this war. It's very hard to go, hey, trust me, they're the fake. news and the information you're seeing isn't true. And the writing of the agreement seems to indicate everything is being a complete and total capitulation and loss that Iran is getting money up front, that there is no nuclear agreement in place. And now it seems like Donald Trump is trying to change the terms of the deal, which I guess is very art of the deal of to just, you know, give people what they think they're getting and then just absolutely walk back the concessions. perhaps the pathway to victories that Iran can now sell its oil and they realize, you know what,

we're getting along with the rest of the world here. This is pretty good. And they actually do decide that they want to do nuclear inspections or they actually do decide, you know what, we do have to buy medical supplies and wheat. And so if it makes Donald Trump look better to take the funding to have to go purchase that, we'll do it. But I can't imagine that Iran was agreeing to that that's clearly not what what that's not what's in the terms that's not the way it's written out and so you got to wonder if this is a Donald trump negotiating trick or if he was actually buying himself some time to get the straight open and they're actively blowing up the deal um by clearly walking back which was hey yes we will admit that it came down to someone needed to admit that they

lost and the u.s basically did it when they said we'll give you your money up front and now they're changing it to no we never said it's the doll hair presidency which i've said a million times i never I give you a million dollars. I said, doll hairs. Oh, I never said I give you your money up front. I'll give you your funds, but paid for in wheat and American medical supplies and soybeans that no one will buy from us right now. We'll send that over to you instead. Oh, and then this line of, oh, clearly, I never would have done a deal with you guys if it didn't include nuclear inspections. So even though you guys came to the table and signed a deal that didn't agree that, obviously I was going to do that. So it's just common sense that that was included. Yeah, well, they didn't agree to it.

of sitting down and negotiate an agreement. Yeah, look, I mean, I think that much like, look, much like the way he's conducted the entire war, I think a lot of these are like very short-term lies, just designed to, like, get you off his back for five minutes so he can get his head above water. Oh, we're getting big concessions out of them. They're great. No, look, I would say that I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility that, you know, you could maybe get nuclear inspections as a result of some nuclear deal. I mean, it's somewhat

surprising that Iran has floated the idea of entering nuclear negotiations. Now, again, as you alluded to there, Rob, their red line has been that they get money up front. And then we'll talk about all that. So we'll see what ends up happening there. The idea that Iran could maybe at the end of this 60 days agree to some type of inspections regime is not that crazy. I mean, again, they've agreed to this in the past. So perhaps they could. What would you need to give them in order to get them to that place? Well, that's a really big question. And then of course, Rob, again, I mentioned this on yesterday's show. It's really worth repeating. Look, throughout this entire war, I've been saying, guys, you got to pay attention to what the Iranian

regime is saying here too. You got to read DropSight and Jeremy Scha Hill and Ryan Grimm and these guys. and you've got to see what that side is saying, and it gives you a big advantage in terms of understanding how this conflict is going. So not just hear from one side, but hear from both sides. Obviously, that has paid off and given a big advantage to people who have paid attention to that. Okay, again, as I said yesterday, right now,

there's huge internal splits within a round about why they should even be, whether they should even be negotiating. This is a controversial move. If you could imagine, like, you know, everything's got a left-right spectrum and even the Iranian government has a left-right spectrum. These are the liberals who are there having a negotiation right now. In fact, Rob, the Supreme Leader himself didn't even endorse this.

He was very careful with his wording. He said he'll allow these negotiations to go on, but like didn't exactly support it. So again, the fact that for Donald Trump to be selling already, that we've got this inspections regime. It's like, dude, this isn't on paper, this isn't agreed to, this isn't confirmed, let alone actually being implemented. It's way early in the process. And I think what you said, you know, there's a very good point.

There's your comment about how Donald Trump can't really call the media liars now because the last hundred days he's just completely torched any semblance of credibility that he has. What do you mean they are liars? This whole thing was sold off lies. And then you just lied every day throughout the whole thing, including right now. And yeah, it's true that a lot of the people in the media are criticizing him for making this deal because they want the war to continue. And he is right in a sense that, you know, a lot of them are liars. But hey, what position are you in to criticize them for that when you've been feeding us the bullshit you have for the last 100 plus days?

And on the food claim, because I saw that. Jady Vance going off on this as well, that, you know, all the news agencies are lying to you. We're not just giving them money. If you read the agreement, there's nothing in there that says the funds can only be used to purchase American humanitarian goods, which I guess is basically food and medical supplies. It's not in writing. Then J.D. Vance goes, how dare you guys say we're just giving them money? Well, buddy, that's what's written right here. And then, of course, the Iranians turn around and go, we never agreed to that. Give us our money. And, you Yet you still have J.D. Vance going, how dare you guys pretend that we're capitulating and just giving them the money?

It's like, well, that's what's written. You guys have repeatedly lied to us about what Iran has agreed to, and they're not saying that. So why exactly is your story more truthful? But I guess that's what makes this administration so infuriating. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Troll Co. Great company, thrilled to have them on board. troll co was built by two guys from the oil patch who were sick of clothing companies pretending blue collar workers don't exist. While most brands chase trends and influencers, Troll Co was made for people who work with their hands, solve real problems, and keep the world running. It's built on that simple dirty hands, clean money mindset. Show up, work hard, provide for your family, and earn everything you've got. No handouts, no shortcuts.

just respect for the overlooked guys doing physical, demanding essential work every single day. The podcasters, if you know what I mean. Trollco makes tough, comfortable hoodies, T's hats, and real workwear that actually holds up, and you don't need to be in the trades to wear it. Okay, well, there you go. If you value self-reliance responsibility and hard work, Trollco is for you. All right, they've got me back in. Go check them out right now at Trollco.com slash problem.

That's T-R-O-L-C-O-C-O-com slash problem. Make sure to use the promo code Dave 25 to get 25% off your first order. Trollco, dirty hands, clean money, support a brand that supports real people. All right, let's get back into the show. Listen, I'll tell you, man, they'd be better off, like in the same way with negotiations, say with the negotiations with the RAN, right? the reason why this is a good deal to make is because clearly there was a recognition, oh, okay, we're not in a place of strength.

We got to just throw money at them. It's good to be honest, to have an accurate self-appraisal and know where you're at. And I think for the Trump administration to even try to be making this argument that actually we're winning, we're getting all these concessions, I think it's almost like you got to accept that there's no saving this. There's no saving this presidency or defending this, this, this, war. Donald Trump would be better off if I was advising him to just point out how the media, the corporate media has such bloodlust, you know, to just go, man, I launched the war,

but look at these guys. I mean, they would just have you fight the war forever. Oh, look at the, oh, CNN's criticizing the deal. What's your position on what we should do? CNN? Oh, I guess they, like, he'd be better off to just point out how much they all love war than to sit here and try to argue that he's got some amazing concessions out of Iran. Again, this is, by the way, Rob, this is what you find yourself in a lot with this war, is you're getting into arguments over what the administration claimed versus what the reality is. So like Donald Trump is claiming, we've gotten around to agree to new on-the-ground nuclear inspections. Well, that's not exactly clear that we've gotten that agreement.

But Rob, really? Even if we did? Even if we did? I mean, so what? America's gotten this concession out of negotiations with a round before. Donald Trump had entered rounds of negotiations, specifically where this was offered before. This is no big, you know, the fact that this is even the thing he's lying about to try to spin this,

that I got a thing that I could have gotten before, that Obama got before, that the international community had up until, up until his 12-day war last year. What are you, what is there here to brag about? Yeah, well, not only are they bragging about winning, they're shaming everyone for even spinning, this is not a win and claiming us all liars while, you know, even if we have it wrong, the other versions in writing, and you're not really presenting your story. And that's just what really gets me. It's the bitchy shit of like, how dare you guys?

pretend that this is us just sending the money and it's like well where's the evidence of the other storyline yep yeah absolutely that's right um all right let's let's talk a bit here um about you know because there'll there'll be plenty to talk about i'm sure going forward about the very fragile state of this uh memorandum of understanding but the big uh the big i don't know news or the big viral clip that has really has all the commentator class chirping about it is what Tucker Carlson said in a recent interview. I did think, you know, this was really something worth talking about and discussing on the show. You know, obviously, full disclosure, Tucker Carlson's a good friend. I've been a guest on his show a lot of times he's been a guest on this show.

there is probably, you know, there's, me and me and Tucker have different world views in many ways. I'm sure there's issues, substantial issues that we disagree on, but we got a whole lot of overlap about how we see the world and what we think, you know, U.S. policy ought to be, particularly on foreign policy. And, well, I mean, look, for people like us, Rob, I mean, Tucker Carlson is the biggest and has been, you know, Tucker Carlson has, He had the number one show in cable news for years. The number one show on cable news through the pandemic. The number one show, you know, up until he gets fired in, what was that, 22 or 23. He goes to the internet and starts his podcast. It's become the biggest news podcast in America, substantially bigger than his show on Fox News was.

And he's a guy who's got almost. you know, like really, really represents the non-interventionist right-wing foreign policy. So it's been, it's pretty incredible for us that we've got a guy like that who represents our view. We kind of in a way get a seat at the table because Tucker Carlson is, you know, nobody else. And this is also why I get defensive about Tucker when he's, he's criticized by people. But the truth, because I think he's an American hero. I mean, and I think he's a very genuine person as well. nobody else who's in the game in Washington, D.C., was going to interview Mike Pence or Ted Cruz or Mike Huckabee,

and ask them the questions that we wish they would get asked. You know what I mean? Like only one guy was doing that, and that was Tucker Carlson. He's been relentlessly telling the truth and been great on the moment. most important issues for years now. I mean, for quite a long time, but at least for the last six years, Tucker Carlson has just been phenomenal. So anyway, this was, let's go to the clip. Here was Tucker Carlson giving his, you know, his thoughts on the state of where he is with the Republican Party. I would not support the Republican Party. There's no chance I would support the Republican

Party. Not going to support the Democratic Party. I don't know what I'm going to do. But at this point, you know, how could you support, how could I or any American voter support a political party that's not loyal to the United States that puts the interests of a foreign country above those of its own citizens? Like, that's, that's, you know, it's not possible to vote for people like that. And I'm not going to. And I think I voted Republican my entire life. I worked at Fox News. I'm CNN, MSNBC. I've been a consistent defender for 35 years of the Republican Party. I mean, very consistent defender, but there's no defending this because it's immoral, and it's exactly the opposite of what a political party in a democracy is charged with doing,

which is representing its own voters, its own citizens, its own nation, and they're not doing that. So, no, I'm out. And if I'm out, then I think a lot of other people are out. I would not support. All right, Rob. Well, I thought that was interesting. I thought it's particularly interesting that it's coming out now, that he's saying it now in this moment.

Obviously, I think all of us are rooting for Trump and Vance to be able to get this negotiation done and get out of this conflict. None of us are really confident that they're going to. But look, obviously, I mean, I guess everyone could kind of guess my take on this. I've been a bit younger and a bit more of a bit more. hothead than Tucker is. And so, of course, I've been for a year, you know, calling for Donald Trump's impeachment or whatever.

But I do think, obviously, when Tucker Carlson says this, this is a big deal. It's a very big deal. If the guy who's been the number one, you know, the number one right wing talk show host in the country for years now, the number one guy is saying he's so disgusted with this party, he won't vote for them anymore. And I think that's a really big deal. I think it's really good. And I'm curious to get your thoughts on this, Rob,

but I would say just first of all, there's a lot we could talk about here. But first of all, the whole thing of like voting, I think only works if there's a carrot and a stick, right? Like even the way, the way in 2024, the whole podcast circuit kind of got to the whole Libertarian Party and the podcast circuit and the Maham movement.

There were like all these different little like coalitions that all came together like, we're going to support Trump. And when you put them all together, it was like, that's enough to win the popular vote and all the swing states. All right. Well, that only works to actually get us what we want if we will also be willing to withhold that

vote when you don't give us what we want. You know, like that's, it's like, okay, so it can't just be, here's the thing, because otherwise, Rob, right? Let's just say, hypothetically, let's say the election comes up in 2008 and we all go, including me and you, we all go, you know what, we're throwing behind J.D. Vance. I mean, fuck it. You know, J.D. Vance, he did a good job negotiating the end of this. And, you know, he's running against AOC or

Gavin Newsom or whoever it is. And so certainly me or you could make an argument why he's better than them on a lot of different issues and blah, blah, blah. But the thing is that if we go, okay, you know what, one more time, the libertarians and Maha and, you know, whatever, all these different groups of people, the comedy podcast, bros, whoever, we're all going to get together and support JD Vance. Then essentially what we're just saying is just like, eh, you could lie us in a war to Israel, and there's no cost to you for that. You still get our support even though you did that.

well, why? Why would we be saying that? No, I think the message is this, even though we're supporting them getting out right now. It's like, yeah, how about no, you don't have our support. No, that's it. No one from this administration can be the person going forward. I mean, I wouldn't, again, like, and I'm sure Tucker would probably agree. I haven't talked to him about this. But I'm sure you would probably agree. Like, I mean, I don't really care if you're a Democrat or a Republican. It's like about the person. but like yeah why should we why should we support anybody who put some foreign governments like loyalty to them above loyalty to this country i'm not seeing it any thoughts rob i agree 100% it's good to have the red lines and to uh let a party know that if they cross them they won't have your support and uh it's true that there are consequences to if uh you know republicans by and large sit out the midterms or set out the next general election uh because

the liberals actually do have horrible policies that are overwhelmingly stupid and do influence our lives, the worst of which is, you know, potentially tech censorship and just more socialism for very stupid causes. But, you know, if you just constantly, if your vote is just constantly included in the base because you're just going to vote against the other team, you're never going to get representation. And it could be that, you know, let's just assume Massey's not running, but it could be that if enough Republicans just sat out the next election and said, F you, I understand that I'm going to get stuck with the Democrat, but F you, that becomes a cleansing mechanism of,

oh, we really can't go out and we can't get involved in these wars. And at the moment, we've got an election cycle, what it's literally best liar wins. That's the entire process here is that people get up. They pretend to represent basically libertarian values of freedom and anti-war. And then they get into office. they just represent the donor class. And I guess the one thing that could hopefully change is needing to have a track record

of not being that person, which is a massive route to victory, and that maybe people actually opening up that on the campaign trail, for example, if J.D. Vance comes around and pretends, hey, I was always anti-war, and I will have different foreign policy than Trump. I've learned my lesson about these foreign entanglements. I will make sure to represent you. I got an end to the war that people will. go, nope, you're a liar and actually dictate people who have been in a Congress, Senate,

governors, or otherwise that have a better track record on these issues so that, you know, have actually proved that they're against these things and aren't just lying because this is what people want to hear. Yeah, well, one of the things that was very interesting about Tucker saying this is that a lot of people have speculated that Tucker was going to be like a major force pushing J.D. Vance in 28. You know, obviously his son, I think, worked for J.D. Vance

for a bit there. I don't think he does anymore. But this, at least to me, seems to be a signal that that's not where his mind is. You know, and in fact, he's like, I'm disgusted by the whole thing. I think it embodies, it's a great thing for the American people

to hear from one of, if not the biggest American political comment is that he goes, oh, my God, I'm just so disgusted with the Republicans. I'll never vote for them again. Obviously, I can't vote for Democrats. You know, it's just like a given, like both these two political parties are just too beyond the pale. But look, when it comes to, look, it's not even just that Donald Trump launched this war.

It's that Donald Trump, you know, Rob, I don't know. I don't think I'm crazy in saying this. In the same sense that in any, in any. any relationship in life, in any friendship, business relationship, romantic relationship, you, any person with some self-respect has to have some boundaries, there have to be some lines you can't cross, or we can't continue this relationship, or you know what I mean? And in this case, it's not just that Donald Trump launched the war after promising not to,

it's that as he broke that promise, he he then also ridiculed all of us i mean dude he insulted tucker and megan and candace and alex jones in the most vicious language promoted mark levin and lindsay graham he said you know horrible things about joe kent remarrying after he had gotten his wife killed in syria i mean just like really like he really really crossed the line and then i mean was just completely unhinged was tweeting he's going to commit war crimes on Easter in the name of Allah i mean it got pretty wacky back there rob and so the idea that you would think you can do all that it almost should be a given that like oh yeah of course i mean i've been saying this for at least a year but it should

just in my opinion it should almost be a given they're like oh yeah obviously like no like jd vans Marco Ruby, no one from this administration can ever be supported again. That's that. Like, if there's a Republican who, well, obviously, I'm openly pushing for Thomas Massey to run, but if there's an outside, if he doesn't and there's an outside of Republican, if Tucker Carlson wanted to get in there, or if there was someone else who wanted to fill that lane, I'm open to that. Hey, if a Democrat outside around, I'd be open to that.

But no, you can't support anyone from this administration. we have to do that. Otherwise, there's no, otherwise, like, look, I can, Rob, I can respect almost like the agorist view against voting. I've made it myself before. If you want to argue that like voting is just a waste of time or you shouldn't vote at all, I understand there's an argument to that. But if you're arguing for voting or political action of any kind, then it makes, it, it makes. no sense to not when someone insults you this much crosses a line this one breaks promises this much that you wouldn't go okay well then i'm gonna i'm i'm gonna use the only piece of leverage that i have to now punish you for that so that's what we should do yeah and it is uh fascinating hearing this from tucker with the potential of a jd vans run the next time of uh hey i'm out and it's also fascinating to hear Tucker because this is uh this has basically been my stance on voting is i I don't want to feel responsible and I'm not going to empower the bastard. So I'm a willful dissenter,

you know, make them, make them earn your vote. And if everything's just voting against the other party, then, you know, you're never actually getting any representation. Well, I also do think that, look, from my perspective and obviously, I mean, look, you get into like kind of complicated questions here when you ask, when you ask about regrets or something like that, because, look, I made the decision to endorse Donald Trump with the information I have. at the time. So if you ask me, do I regret that? It's like, well, I don't exactly know if I regret that, but like, given the information I have now, that sure might change how I would feel about that. But like, I can't go back and change that. Anyway, the point is, I hope this

makes sense, Rob, but given the fact that I was a part of this effort, like, given the fact that that's in the past and I can't change that now, but let's say I was a part of this effort of like, you know, like I was on Patrick Bet David's Election Day Show and I was on Joe Rogan's day after Election Day show in 2024, like cheering on Donald Trump and talking about why we were coming together with this coalition. You know, I was a part of a whole bunch of people who supported Donald Trump who were like question marks who didn't typically come out and endorse either the Democrat or Republican. That ended up being a part of something that got him on.

elected. Why would I not want, now, given that that was the case now, wouldn't I want to even maximize the point of that? You'd want there to be a punishment now for not coming through on the anti-war part of it. Like, that just makes sense. It just makes it that much more of an effective thing to go, yeah, see, if you win these people over, you can win. If you don't win them over, it costs you. Hopefully cost them winning. I don't, you know. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Brunt Workwear. I've been telling you guys about Brunt Workwear for a while, the most comfortable pair of work boots you'll ever own. Let me tell you something crazy that they do. They let you actually wear their boots to work before deciding if you want to

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That's bruntworkware.com, promo code problem for $10 off. All right, let's get back into the show. Okay, so as Tucker Carlson is having this moment, there was also another clip that I saw going around from Michael Knowles, good friend of the show, good personal friends with Rob, they were bar mitzvah together. It was a co-bar mitzvah. Circumcised together too. Michael Knowles pretends to be Catholic, but he was a Jew.

He grew up with Rob Bernstein in Connecticut. They're Jewish. But so he is making almost the opposite plea of his audience. And so I kind of thought, just immediately seeing this, the kind of juxtaposition of the two arguments was interesting to me. So I wanted to go through it. Because I have seen this,

this seems to me to be and again i know i'm poisoning the well here but y'all let you hear michael's argument but this seems to me to be like kind of the desperate plea of the trump coalitionists um which at this point to me just seems to be like a lost a long lost battle like the idea of of even being in the game of like let's keep this coalition between tucker carlson and ben shapiro going he's like i'm I don't think that's going to happen. But anyway, here, let's go to Michael Knowles and here for the rebuttal to Tucker Carlson. So you got the never-Trumpers going after Vance.

You've got a bunch of podcasters going after Trump because they're complaining about Iran or whatever other policy. You've got all of, I'm not even saying these are minor issues, you know. The right always has factional disputes. I'm just pointing out, while the right is doing all of this in funding. And to some degree, a lot of naval gazing, settling, personal petty grudges in some cases. Well, that's going on. The left is waiting.

The left is waiting to bring this back. The left is waiting for the right to destroy itself so that they can bring back transing your kids. That's what this is about. This father's day. Just remember. All right. What can you say here, Rob?

This also to me just seems like this really isn't going to work. I mean, even the language, and I appreciate that he kind of stops himself and corrects. But even the language, he's like, what, you got podcasters picking a fight with the president over Iran. I understand it's an important issue. You're like, yeah, dude, with the commander in chief over. What is this petty issue? I keep picking on the commander in chief for lying us into an unwinnable war and then losing said war, just devastating the global economy, costing us. tens, if not hundreds of billions of dollars.

Americans dead, little kids dead, all for nothing just to be internationally humiliated. But what is that? It's kind of like a petty beef. It's kind of like a, what is this, Rob? Oh, God, it's he said, she said. Oh, there's the podcasters fighting with Donald Trump in the schoolyard over unconstitutional wars. Grow up. We got woke movies to worry about.

grow up, there's a black little mermaid, Rob. Please do culture war stuff with me. Not this. Yes, yes, the president, the commander-in-chief promised no new wars. He abandoned one of his core promises to his constituency, and then mocked said constituency as he launched a war on behalf of a foreign country, only to lose the war and be internationally humiliating. and degrade our entire country.

But the left still wants to trans the kids. Well, I don't know, Rob, you know, I mean, obviously, me and you are as against trans and the kids as anybody else's, but the answer here can't be, look, you just got to look the other way over this silly little, you know, unsustainable permanent militarism, war and crushing debt because there's some shit that's being pushed in the public schools. I don't know what to tell you. We've all been battling against this shit for many years now. This is the reason why none of us can send our kids to public schools or one of the reasons why none of us can send our kids to public schools. But yeah, I don't, sorry.

I mean, that's just that much more of a reason why we needed Donald Trump to be our defender and our protector, and we needed him to not get sucked into this bullshit adventurism. Any thoughts, Rob? Well, you know, it's an easy argument to make that the Democrats are actually worse until you launch a bad war. And then all of a sudden, it becomes a little bit of a conversation of, hey, maybe we've been better off with Kamala Harris. maybe Kamala Harris was trying to stick around for two terms and at least this was so risky,

she wouldn't have engaged in it. So you kind of did the one thing that makes it hard to convince people, hey, the Democrats are worse. And so we got to rally around the Republicans. Now, there's a lot of terrible things that come with the Democrats. I will never vote for a Democrat. They are horrible. I live through the Biden years.

I live through tech censorship. I've lived through, you know, being flirted with literally being a public enemy, a person who, what, I don't know, what were the health terms that they were throwing out, a detriment to public health or maybe even a violent domestic terrorist with, you know. Domestic terrorist, super spreader, you know, whatever the, what was the thing, the problem is you, the unvaccinated, yeah. Yeah, and then speaking out against global warming, DEI, ESG, you know, my entire worldview makes me a public enemy of the Democratic Party.

depending on how much power they have and how much they try and throw their agenda down our throats, the Democrats are terrible. But you guys are crossed the line where it's now a conversation, are they actually worse? And what are we going to do to clean up the Republican Party so that you guys don't lie us into more wars, get into office and just represent the donor class

and all the people that you pretended you were going to get out of Washington and clean up. So I don't know, in my opinion is if you vote, you're actually responsible. You're empowering the bastards. And so, you know, to sit this one out and let the Republicans pay the consequence of the Democrats coming back. Firstly, you're kind of assuming that the Democrats come back with so much power that they're actually able to pull all these things off. It could be that the Democrats have learned a little bit of their lesson that, you know, why force the trans issue this much?

It's very unpopular. And this is how we lose support. So, you know, you're kind of like assuming the worst version of the Democratic Party that they were just punished for. And it would almost be silly of them. The same is it was silly of Donald Trump to get into power. and launch a war, it'd be pretty silly of the Democratic Party to come back and instantly go, oh, we're making this legislation to make it easier to trans your kids. It would be silly of them. They might be that stupid, but it would be silly.

I agree. I mean, look, dude, if you want to fearmonger about what could happen if the Democrats come back into power, I'm not going to argue with you. They really pushed some crazy shit last time, and I wouldn't be surprised if they pushed some crazy shit this time. I do tend to agree with you about particularly leading with the trans kids stuff. But again, this is just, this is yada yadaing away what the issue is here. And there's just no amount of downplaying it that can start.

It's like, what are we talking about here? We're not, this is, again, this is all, I don't know, like, this is all a matter of applying logic within reason. you know, if the case was that we had some very minor beef with Donald Trump, but he was so much better on all the most important issues, it would make sense to go, dude, what do you do it? You know, like, for example, whatever, like, if there was some, a president who, like, generally you liked, but they were a little bit bad on tariff policy, a little bit bad on tax policy, and like Joseph Stalin was running against them,

and you're like, I'm sitting out the election. It would be fair to be like, dude, what are you doing? I mean, okay, you got your issues, but, But what are we talking about here, dude? We're talking about lying the country into war, a country that's on the verge of bankruptcy, that's on the verge of collapse that, as you say, is on the verge of letting these crazy Democrats come back in. Well, this guy just handed it to them.

So just take that anger out on the administration that launched this war, not on the supporters who don't like being lied to and mistreated. And you know what Democrats are going to be running on? It's going to be, hey, we got to not be in one. wars we got to actually be america first and be uh spending money here on our socialist agenda and not on military adventures hey donald trump uh uh they uh brushed away the epstein files and cover that up we need to clean up the deep state and uh not be covering for pedophiles in washington and they're also going to be going after donald trump for his personal uh corruption storylines now in some areas

they're going to be anti ice and you'll see those storylines but there will be democrat democrats running for as someone needs to oppose this president who is engaging in financial corruption and pulling our country into war. And for those Democrats that are running under that angle, I mean, I'm not going to be voting for them, but that's a better pitch than vote in the Republicans who will empower Donald Trump to do more crazy stupid shit. Well, maybe that's, listen, man, maybe this is part of what just gets me annoyed with Michael Knowles making this, this argument. And with lots of other people, it's not just him. And again, it's like, I like Michael Knowles despite the fact that he works at Daily Wire. I've always kind of liked that guy. I think he's

smart and he's well read. He's an interesting guy. And lots of people who I like take this position of like, well, we got to support the Republicans because they're better. I just like, I hate the idea of like putting the onus on the Republican voters to blindly support the Republicans, rather than ever putting the onus on the Republican politicians to ever support the Republican voters. Like, why don't they have to do what's right for us? And then, We support them for coming through rather than us always having the obligation to support them. And they flip it around in this weird way where it's like, what are you doing? Now we're going to lose to the people who want to trans their kids.

It's like, no, what's Donald Trump and Marco Rubio and Pete Heggseth doing? Now we're going to lose to the people who want to trans the kids. Like what do you? You know, Rob, even as you say it, you're like, oh, what are they? They're sitting here going like, oh, no, you have to be worried about their Democrats. the Democrats and their socialist agenda. You have to be worried about, you know, Mamdani and Mamdani's endorsed candidates winning.

They're democratic socialist agenda. And from me and your perspective, we're just sitting here and we're like, oh, no, wait, are you telling me, are you telling me their socialism for Americans policy was more popular than your socialism for the entire world policy? Okay, I can't believe you lost that one.

Are you telling me that their wokeism for the kids policy was more popular than your wokeism for Jewish students. You're all the same shit. You just, how about, why don't you oppose their woke socialism with individualism and liberty and being America first? And then, yeah, we could win that. We could win that with super majorities. But you don't want to actually be for any of those things because you're also a bunch of

woke socialists. You just do it on behalf of Lockheed Martin and Israel. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our. sponsor for today's show, which is prolon by El Neutra. Look, long work weeks and busy weekends can leave you feeling and looking depleted, but prolons five-day fasting, mimicking diet works at the cellular level to reset and rejuvenate you from the inside out, supporting sustained fat loss, lean muscle, metabolism, slower aging, and even glowing skin. And look, you can start just five days, guys. You basically, I've told you about this before, you basically get all the benefits of

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Just visit prolonlife.com slash POTP. That's prolonlif.com slash POTP to claim your 15% discount and your bonus gift. prolonlife.com slash p o'tp all right let's get back into the show and uh okay let's just say that the republicans ran a very successful campaign of hey we got to keep the democrats in check and so guys this is the democratic agenda you got to vote republicans and let's just imagine that the republicans win the midterms in a landslide Donald trump will get up the next day and go you see this is how great i am this is how much american support i have and he will go harder on uh the ego-driven, unresearched agendas such as tariffs, such as foreign interventionalisms, they will not turn around and go, oh, we fucked up in the first half of this.

We're going to get back to actually representing you guys. Thank you for support. It's probably, I'm not voting for Democrats. I'm not pitching anyone to vote for Democrats. Sit it out, I guess. But, you know, Democrats getting in, if anything, will just be a check on Donald Trump's power, which is being used for foreign interventional and his own profiteering. So, you know, for the government to be bogged down for the next two years and for Donald Trump to just be trapped in a democratic mess of everyone coming after him is probably a better two years for us than Donald Trump getting a landslide win and going, look, everybody loves me. Here's more of what I'm doing.

Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Here, let's keep playing Michael Mills. You want to trans your kids. So says the New York Times. It's just waiting to bring back all of the racial politics of 2020 is just waiting to bring back all of the racial politics of 2020. is just waiting to bring back all of the heavy-handed government suppression of 2020, 2021. Here just pause it real quick. We need to bring back all of it. I guess this is, again, just another point, like, as I was saying, like, from our perspective, you're every bit as socialist as they are. You're every bit as woke as they are. Like, bring back the racialist politics. When did they leave exactly, Rob? I mean, I would argue that, yes, there's been.

a shift from like the woke racialist politics of say like 2016 or maybe even Obama's second term say 2012, 2013 through 2023 or something like that, 2022. But then it's just become the Zionist Jewish identitarianism is just totally dominated since then. I just see it. I don't know. I mean, I know they like to call us the woke rike or whatever, but they're, they're just the woke left. The Zionists are just more the same. They just care about a different group,

I suppose. It's also pretty telling of where this administration is at. And we saw this with Stephen Crowder, where the pitch just boiled down to, okay, there's nothing to support here, but you still got to be on board because the other thing's terrible. So, I mean, this is quite an admission of, yeah, there's absolutely nothing good here for me to pitch to you guys, but just remember that the other side's really bad and is more your enemy. Okay. Well, we're fighting over, while we're fighting over what's bad about us, they're over here and they're so bad. All right.

Let's keep playing. I'm not saying the right needs to sit down and shut up. I'm just saying that as the right works out all of its problems in the lead up to the primary for 2028, what happens after Trump, as that happens, I am just, I am imploring the American right. Please keep some perspective. your enemy is not some podcaster that's not your chief threat your enemy is not jd vance or marco rubeo or ron d dsantis or ted cruz or ron paul or sorry rand paul or this guy or that guy or this guy

anyone who might run for president this is your enemy this is the threat these are the people who want to castrate your kids these are the people who want to fling open the border these are the people who want to take control of your life. That's the threat. Yeah, they're not the ones that want to take me to war with Iran. Yeah, I mean, like, what do you, it's like a weird thing. Like, first of all, right, trying to find this kind of middle ground to like, guys, it's not a podcaster.

But the thing that, like, what's carrying his entire argument here is just the tone. It's just, because it's not a podcaster. It's not the commander in chief launching an illegal war that he lied you into. It's not Pete Hague, Seth, and the board department. Why? Other than your tone, why is that not my enemy? Yes, the guys who just like bled hundreds of billions of dollars from the global economy because of the American taxpayer, I think, confirmed $60 billion.

I mean, way more than that when they add everything up. It was like 15 dead Americans, hundreds wounded, thousands of innocent people killed. why? Why is that not what I'm supposed to be against? Well, yes, okay, people pushing, like, if your argument is like, don't also, like, you should also be against people pushing trans, you know, ideology in schools, then okay. I think we're all sold on that. But number one, and again, I guess this really is what, it's just like, look, if your argument is, that, dude, we just can't be paying this much attention to what the fuck's going on with Iran,

then I, then that makes sense. Like if your argument was just like, dude, we're worried about like whether like the Shiite crescent is fully aligned or broken up and whether there's now a Sunni radical in charge of Syria and therefore the weapon shipments from Iran to southern Lebanon have been interrupted. And if Israel can annex us, it's like, what are you talking about? Dude, we got people trying to trans our kids right here. We got like lots of problems. Then, okay, fine, but why are we paying so much attention to Iran?

Because Donald Trump launched a war there. So what the hell, man? If this is your perspective, then obviously you should be the biggest critic of this administration for doing this because you launch a war somewhere. Yeah, we're going to talk about that. And my God, if you launch a war and get it completely wrong and lie and lose the war, that's going to really hurt your coalition. And if your coalition is the only one capable of defeating the people who want to push the trans stuff on kids,

then it's, and you recognize that as a big concern, then okay, you should be against this dude destroying his own coalition, as I've been since he's been doing it. And the other thing here, Rob, is just that, like, we're going to, Look, again, I like Michael Knowles. I like Matt Walsh. But they do oftentimes, it seems like, kind of comment on these things without touching the elephant in the room with the expectation that we're all supposed to not mention the elephant in the room. Which is that you work for Ben Shapiro. You work for Ben Shapiro at the Daily Wire.

I mean, you work for an organization that is a part of the Israel lobby, an integral part. And sitting at while JD, well, who's making it out like JD vans is the worst? By the way, hold on here. Let's just go. Let's play what Ben Shapiro was saying. We played him on yesterday's show. Let's play Ben Shapiro's latest, Rob, as you got his guy there at his company saying, we can't be acting like Republicans are the problem.

Here's Ben Shapiro. Here he was talking about how awesome Pakistan, they're just the best. They're a Chinese cutout gang. Pakistan is in the negotiations because the Chinese wanted them there. They're an Islamist dictatorship. This is ridiculous. Are you about the Pakistani role? Very good.

We love Pakistan. Thank you. We love Pakistan. He says he walked through him. We love Pakistan, do we? Do we love Pakistan? Just pose it already. Again, every time we play Ben,

Shapiro. You can just see what a dishonest tool this guy is. What's he doing here, Rob? What's he doing? It's complaining that J.D. Vance is being pleasant in the negotiations, but he's saying nice things about Pakistan and nice things about their leadership because that's what you do when negotiations. Dude, in fact, Pap Buchanan's talked about this before. It's very interesting. But Pap Buchanan was a speech writer for Richard Nixon. And when Nixon went to China, he talks about he had to write nice things to say about Mao-Saintong. And he talked about how it, like, drove him crazy because it's like, you know, the most murderous dictator ever.

But like, I don't know if that's what you do when you, now, I don't necessarily love that. We could get into a long conversation about it. But like, you're trying to end a war. Pakistan is the country that's mediating the negotiations. What's he supposed to do? Go there and punch the dude in the nose and say your wife's a whore or something. Like, what do you want, Rob? So this is literally Ben Shapiro sitting here, just trashing J.D. Vance just.

trying to undermine the negotiations. He's got no legitimate complaint. He's like, let's show a clip of him coming in and saying, we love Pakistan. Like, what? So he's just trying to undermine that. So anyway, Rob, do you see my point here? How are you going to be Michael Knowles? Work at the Daily Wire and go, guys, guys, we can't have all this right wing infighting. We got this clear threat that is the left trying to trans the kids. When your boss, the company you work at, the flagship show of this network is 100% dedicated to undermining the right so long as they're not fighting Israel's wars and everyone knows that. Like straight up, you're essentially what Michael Knowles is saying in a way does it. Could we stop fighting about Israel? Could we stop all having to constantly

fight about Israel? All right. I get that. But why is it that we're fighting? Oh, you work for an Israeli spy in effect. Right? Yeah. I'm like, okay, that's kind of the issue here, man. We could, because Rob, if it wasn't for that, guys like me and you and Michael Knowles could probably all be together and just go, yeah, dude, we're against the left trans and kids. Let's focus on that. And here's the pitch. Ben Shapiro didn't want a big tent. Remember, you can't have the crazies in the tent. Ben Shapiro wants a tent that specifically is Israel first. And so now your pitch is you back to us and you go, listen, the Republican Party's going to be Israel first, but the other guys are worse. So you got to get on board. And well, I don't know if it's the Israel first 10. Are you guys really

the better option for one? And for two, why do we get to remake the Republican party as your smaller Israel first 10? Oh, and by the way, you have to support us because the other guys are worse. Great. So it's like a hostage negotiation of that we're stuck with you. You got to give me a better pitch for, uh, for, you know, for for me to push support or that you guys are the better option. Yeah, and there's also, look, I mean, there's something where, look, let's just say, hypothetically, Rob, like you move into like a town or something like that. And let's say the town is like, you know, 80% socialist or something. All right, I don't know.

This isn't a great example. But let's just say you lived amongst a bunch of lefties or something like that. And there was like a vote coming up for stuff. And you kind of just like accept like, all right, I'm not going to like win the vote on all these things. So maybe like you support a group of people who like agree with you like 20% because the only people only agree with you 10%. So you're just like, all right, I'll get a little bit more. Like I understand being a junior partner in a coalition. This is by the way something that a lot of people have said to libertarians over the last year as we've been trashing Donald Trump.

And they go, hey, well, dude, you're a junior partner in a coalition. So like you don't get everything. You get a few things that you want. but the majority gets much more of what they want because they're the bigger portion of the coalition. Well, it's like, okay, well, first of all, okay, fine, but then I still get to voice my opinion because that's what that means. You wanted me when you wanted my support, but that also comes with me getting to say what I want. So whatever. But then also, you know, Rob, whatever position you may have had in this town that was 80% socialist, well, now let's say the town is 80% free market libertarian.

and someone comes to you with that same offer where you get 20% of what you want, you might go, no, I'm not taking that deal now because like, why should, no, like you're the junior partner actually in this coalition. Well, okay, what coalition are we talking about here? Now, listen, I'll be the first to admit that if you're talking about me and Rob's more hardcore libertarian views, if you're saying like, hey, we should abolish the central bank. something me and Rob both believe in. Does that have overwhelming super majority support?

No, not really. Most people probably don't even know what the implications of that even mean. Maybe people would be open to it. But like, no, Rob, is that an issue that's at the forefront of people's minds that they're really thinking about like abolishing the central bank and getting rid of fiat currency and instituting sound money? No, this is not an issue that people are thinking. By the way, take me and Rob's word for it. You should. You should think about that and you should do it. But regardless, what are we talking about here? Support for Israel. Support for endless wars. Support for the war in Iran. These are issues where super majorities of the American people are on our side.

Not just Donald Trump's coalition, but the American people. Rob, why should we be in the, like, it's not as if we're in a position where, look, the overwhelming percentage. of the American people support this war. So we're either with the people who like the war or we're with the people who like the woke shit. The point of view that we represent, me and you on this, Rob, is that we think preaching trans ideology to kids is insane and criminal.

We also think this war in Iran is insane and criminal. You know who that represents? The overwhelming majority, like 80% of the country or something like that. So why the hell should we not just, Like, you know what I'm saying, Rob? Like, sometimes this does just become like a negotiation in a sense. Why shouldn't we be asking for more here?

The market dictates that this is where the people are at. Why the hell should, why is Ben Shapiro the major partner in this coalition when the people are with Tucker Carlson, right? I agree. 100%. Here, let's just play the last little bit of Ben Shapiro here and then we'll wrap up. Well, I was praising the Pakistanis. to his field marshal in Pakistan, Assam Mnir.

I will say that since Field Marshal Mnir welcomed us with the Prime Minister in Islamabad, I have joked that I have two very, very important people in my life in Indian and a Pakistani. The Indian is my wife and the Pakistani is Field Marshal Maneer. And I've probably talked to Field Marshal Mnir more than I've talked to anybody else over the last three months. That's magical. Isn't that nice? Isn't that wonderful? No, it's weak and ridiculous. that field marshal has literally called for the destruction of the state of israel which is our ally in this war unless you forgot oh so that's the problem he's talking to somebody who called for the destruction of israel it's like again we're trying we the reality here dude is that like

we lost a war the global economy is on the brink the commander in chief who put all of his his entire reputation and on selling the war has admitted that the global economy was on the brink and that's why we had to end it. We're in this very delicate process of trying to negotiate an end to this thing. And so we're not living through a steep recession by this time next year. And Ben Shapiro's doing everything he can to undermine it. He's complaining about how the vice president has basic pleasantries, that he made a joke about how it's basically my wife and this guy. What's the joke? The joke is that he spent a lot of time with this guy. They've been working on the negotiations, right? What's the Ben Shapiro's issue is that he took a

picture? So like for all these people here, like I guess just look, man, we're with Tucker Carlson on this because it's obvious. Like the move here is to tell the truth and to stand up for what the vast majority of the people of this country believe in. Why, you know, just because we're in the world of like talking about the news doesn't require us to be sociopathic liars or political actors, as they call them, Rob. You know, we don't have to go around here and lie through our teeth and be like, okay, like because the lefties who want to trans, the kids are so crazy, I'm going to pretend that launching a mass murder campaign on behalf of Benjamin Netanyahu

in the Mossad in Iran is no big deal. nothing requires that of me and I don't feel like it all right that's it for us today come on out Houston, Texas

comicdavsmith.com come see us go follow Rob on the porch tour where are you going to be Rob one more time Raleigh, Hampstead

and Myrtle Beach something like that and check out Run Your Mouth podcast that's it thanks dudes all right sounds good

catch you guys tomorrow peace