The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Martyr Made, Hostages in Gaza, Far Right Anti-semitism

Episode Date: September 6, 2024

Noam Dworman is joined by Dan Naturman and Periel Aschenbrand and discusses Martyr Made, the hostages in Gaza and far right anti-semitism.

This is Live from the Table, the official podcast of the world-famous comedy seller coming at you on SiriusXM 99 Raw Comedy. Also available as a podcast, available on YouTube for a multimedia experience. Dan Natterman coming at you from Las Vegas, Nevada. The hotel room is good because it's unlike my apartment. It's the sad is not there's no echo that it's cut fully carpeted. And so you don't have an echo as we did on a previous episode when I was zooming from my apartment. In any case, I'm in Vegas doing the Comedy Cellar Las Vegas. Comedy Cellar has a location in Vegas. We didn't know at the Rio hotel, newly renovated Rio, I'm here with Noam Dorman.

He's in studio back from Japan and Perry L. Ashen brand is here also in studio and Max Marcus is doing the sound. Max, can I ask you how you're, you were on it last week. You were about to go on a second date from Coffee Meets Bagel. Yes. From Coffee Meets Bag's bagel yeah it went well she uh she spent the night over at my place oh well that's about as well as uh as one can expect yeah um is that a euphemism she spent the night or yeah we slept together how many times? Twice. Okay. Well, I knew it was going well because you got a second date once.

Yeah. It's really the second date that's the tricky part. What would you say the combined estimated time of lovemaking was? I'm not sure. I'm not sure about that. It was a decent amount of time, though. Did you sleep with her on the first date, too? No. No, only the second date.

Did you make out on the first date? No, we didn't kiss on the first date. Wow. Yeah. So you guys went, like, from zero to 100 all on the second date. Yeah. So are you a fetish of hers? What was it? So are you a fetish of hers? Like what?

I mean, maybe. Okay. What kind of fetish would that be? No, I don't know. She's an Asian girl. So now it makes sense. What do you mean? They like our type. First of all, I walked in here today and looked at Max and I looked at him like 10 times because I was looking at the screens to make sure everything looked OK.

And I was like, it's so true. He looks so much like a young Bob Dylan. People said that it's really quite striking at this point. I don't know if you got a haircut or something. So what do I talk about? You want to talk about Japan? Well, a few things. No, I don't. if you got a haircut or something. So what do you want to talk about? Do you want to talk about Japan? Well, a few things, Nomad. Number one,

I'm here in Vegas. This is the view out of my hotel room. I'm performing for... Dan showed us the view. Go ahead. Well, this is your club in Vegas. So far, it's a tough gig. I'm not going to lie to you.

Because, you know, first of all, the club, the, the hotel's not on the strip. So you're kind of isolated and. Five dollars for a cab to the strip. I think it's not the same. No, come on. It's just not the same as walking out of your door and strolling. I mean, yes, you can, but it's, it's, it's not the same but yeah you can absolutely yeah but there must be a tough gig go to the fucking strip it's it's a it's it's no but it's a it's a 10 minute walk well that's that's only one of the reasons is a tough game it's just it's a lot of

time uh you know spent you know i mean mean, Nate McIntosh is here. He's a comic from. He's fun. Can't you? Yeah. Today I could, well, he rented a car. So maybe perhaps tomorrow I'll go with him. I don't, he hasn't invited me, but I guess it will be okay to invite myself. He's going to go to like Mount Zion or something tomorrow. You could rent a car too. All right. Let's get to something interesting. What's next?

Well, first of all, I am get to something interesting. What's next? Well, first of all- I am fit to be tied. Go ahead. Well, then don't be here because you're restraining me in terms of what I feel free to say. Take your time. Why are you fit to be tied?

If you're fit to be tied, then that's interesting. No, no. Go ahead. Why are you fit to be tied? Nathan McIntosh has a car. Yeah, you know, you poo-poo the topics. I could very well poo-poo when you talk about the IPSA,

the whatever, the Pfizer. I don't know what you're talking about half the time. What? When you delve into the politics and the minutia of these. You mean the episodes that get hundreds of thousands of views? Yeah, the episodes that get hundreds of thousands of views? The episodes that get hundreds of thousands of views have big names attached to them, yes. But, you know, it's in spite of, I think,

your delving deeply into the weeds, not because of it. But if you don't like what I do, then don't be on the episode. Anyway, as far as the Vegas gig, you don't have to be here. You know, I originally pitched this to Barry Ellis as a comedy-based episode. You were apprised of that. Oh, no, I wasn't apprised of that.

One thing about the Vegas gig that's difficult is psychologically coming to the grips with the fact that I'm not sufficiently important to not do the Vegas gig. Because as you know, most comics don't want to come out. Not most comics, but the comics that have a certain status. There's a certain level after which you no longer do this gig is that fair to say i i actually don't know i imagine yeah like i don't think sam morel is doing the right sam i'm just looking at the list i often do this i'm taking out the list here yeah jim norton wouldn't do it um ryan hamilton wouldn't do it sam morrow wouldn't do it ryan might ryan might todd um todd might lenny lenny marcus would not he would what do you know i mean it depends like he's got

a family maybe there's a want to but i would you know dan's been on a kick of um what quote unquote successful comics do and don't do. One of them. Well, it's not a kick. It's facts. You know, because I was saying last week, Noam, that I was asked to emcee on a night that Rich Aronovich wasn't here. Wasn't at the cellar. So I was asked to emcee. And I just made the point, a very, very true point,

that there are certain comics that Liz would never ask to emcee. And I'm a comic that Liz felt comfortable asking to emcee. I don't blame her for it, but it's just a fact. Dan? Yeah, what? I mean, what you're saying is that there are levels in life, and you're lamenting that you're not at a higher level where you'd like to be. Yeah, okay. As much as I'd like to tell you that's incorrect,

it would be obviously just, you know, trying to soothe you. Well, but I wouldn't believe you if you told me it was incorrect. Right, as I said, those comedians that can sell out. No, I'm just saying, yeah, I'm not a- The theater at Madison Square Garden. Well, that's not the minimum level necessary to not be asked to mc but sure

um you know jim norton chancell at a theater at madison's where i mean you wouldn't ask him to mc so there's a level i mean you're also a good mc but um you know uh it's a business i mean i mean i don't know what i don't want to tell. But I'm not asking for your sympathy. I'm telling you how it is. And Perrielle is arguing. How would you like it if the alternative were, we need an emcee. And it says, well, you know, we're not going to ask Sam Rell. What about the ones who we could ask? And we decided not to ask you because you were the worst.

I'm not, no, I'm not, I'm not complaining. I am complaining, but I'm not complaining to you. I'm complaining to me that I have not, for whatever reason, done what I have to do through lack of ability or lack of effort to not be at a level where I'm asked to emcee. So Perrielle was arguing with me last week saying that this is not true. They asked you because you're a good emcee. I'm just, you know, she... You're used to emcee. So Perrielle was arguing with me last week saying that this is not true. They asked you because you're a good emcee. I'm just, you know, she- You're used to emcee. That's not the only- Yeah, I used to emcee, but I can't stand it. So I stopped doing it.

That's not the only thing I said. I said that maybe you should also take it as they were in a pinch and they felt comfortable to ask you because they knew you'd be good at it and you were here anyway that was what i said well yeah but i said all those things could be true at the same time that i could be did you mc yeah i am saved yeah um how'd it go well great i'm fine you know i don't know i don't know uh you know what does it mean mean to do a good job as an emcee?

That's a question that comes up over and over again. Does it mean you were killing while you were on stage or does it mean you were you were doing however you were doing? But the other acts were killing and then maybe you somehow contributed. I'm a little skeptical of, you know, a lot of people say, well, so-and-so is a good MC, and so-and-so sets the room up right. I think there's something to that, but I think it's exaggerated. I think by and large, the MC doesn't much matter in terms of how the other comics do. I haven't studied this, and it would be hard to do an experiment under controlled circumstances, but I tend to be an MC skeptic. I don't think it makes that big. If the MC is halfway competent, a comedian, I don't think it makes a huge difference in terms of how the other

comics do, but you say what? I would say that I agree with you definitely in between the acts. I believe that the first 10 minutes where the MC warms up the room uh yes that you know that that the foreplay as it were definitely affects the intercourse to follow i think if if the if the if the audience is not you know i don't want to get too graphic but if the audience is not ready uh then the first act is not going to go well but or or tougher on the first act after that yeah i think the first act is more important than the mc and i think that's our sometimes we when we do our lineups i worry about the undervaluing the first act like like a lot of people worry about the closer but i actually think the opener is maybe more important than the closer well by the way i'm very frequently

the opener so yeah well that's what that's why I started the hedge. I don't know if you're throwing me a bone or if you really believe it. I wasn't thinking about you. No, I think it's very important to have a good opener because I think a lot of places put on a mediocre act first. And then the same thing, this should be my argument with my band years ago where they would want to start like with kind of warm-up material and i was i'd always want to start with a banger as they say like like a really strong song and i used to tell them you want to save everything for the end of the show by the end of the show it's too late like it once the audience has sat through a half an

hour of like mediocre music it's very difficult to say okay now we're gonna do the real stuff you know it's like i always feel like start with a big opening number and i mean a good movie a good broadway show a good book they value that first opening scene they understand look at a james bond movie right the first opening scene but somehow uh in some other mediums um people lose sight of the fact how important it is to open strong. Well, there's also comics that say that combat... I'm sorry to say, but like James Bond, you can remember James Bond openings usually better than James Bond endings. Yeah, I mean, I think both are important, which you would agree with, I'm sure.

But there's a lot of comics that... And there may be some that do this, there there may not be that feel that if the opening if the mc opens the show with 10 minutes of crowd work then the um crowd is not in joke mode and so the the first comic if they're doing jokes will have a tougher time i don't know if you've observed that where you feel crowd work what's that i love it i love a good mc doing crowd work as an audience member not as some comedy expert as an audience i enjoy that you know but do you feel that's going to hamper the first act of the first acts doing jokes and the audience isn't quite ready for jokes no we're in that mode no i don't think so all right what else do i talk about well you know

it's all fine and good to change topics but when you when you would when you say all right what else do you want to talk about in an abrupt way you're you're you're evidencing um your impatience and your uh lack of interest which is fine but i have a lack of interest i said i felt like we came to a natural close to that i know you have other stuff you say it in a very abrupt way all right we don't want to you you know, it's like, you know, I could stay at home with my wife if I wanted to. Yeah, you, well, you know, you drew first blood, you know, as far as I'm concerned. Well, tell us about your trip to Japan.

I was going to tell about my, my new joke, but that's too comedy centric for, for your taste. So, so you tell us about your trip to Japan. If you have any, I think somebody had said to you before you went to Japan that, I forgot who said this to you, but that you're going to be, you're going to come back to America

disgusted with our infrastructure, with our subways and, you know, our public works when you see what's going on in Japan. I don't know if that happened or not. I don't think I want to talk about Japan either. I mean, Japan's a pretty, as I understand it. Japan is remarkable.

I didn't take, I took the bullet train, which, I mean, anybody who knows Einstein's third relativity would have known this, but you don't really get the feeling of uh i expected like to be this exhilarating bullet train but it's really just a train it's going really fucking fast but you don't really perceive it that way when you're on the train but it's it's really cool and and um uh clean everything is clean in japan there's no crime there's no police there's no graffiti there's no uh there's thousand you know those thousand000 total toilets that you see in rich people's houses. They have them everywhere, including like at the zoo because there's zero vandalism. They have vending machines from everything from vibrators to obviously candy and refreshments to a pound of chopped meat and frozen. And of course they have them everywhere because in a country where people

behave themselves, you don't have to worry about everything being vandalized. It's a remarkable people self-regulating. They seem happy. I studied employees very, very closely and lamented, you know, that our employees are not similarly on top of things. Somehow they managed to motivate ordinary employees to care about things as if they were actually the owners. I mean, my daughter expressed a little, no, my wife expressed a little, no, my wife expressed a little bit of, no, which one was first?

I think it was Mila, expressed a little bit of coldness in a restaurant. Immediately an employee runs over with a shawl. Are you cold? Like, you know, and I always- Did you love that? Yeah, because I get mad at my staff. I'm like, I get complaints.

Somebody says they were cold. I'm like, well, and I've said to the staff, did anybody notice they were cold? Like people, usually they try to, you know. What are they supposed to do? Wrap them in paper towel? Well, you see, they'd send you right back from Japan. You're supposed to try to figure out,

turn down the air conditioner, turn the vent off, or them a different seat. I don't know. Really? Show that you care. Is that really, that's a real you really want your wait staff to go over to somebody and anticipate that they were a little bit cold and move their table anticipate observe yes yes of course why not i don't know that seems

like insane in a busy having waited tables for many years and i was a damn good waitress um that seems like a lot in like a restaurant as busy as the olive tree i'm talking about the comedy cellar the point is that they're constantly focused on the customer and what they can do i i videotaped syrup these aren't necessarily the owners these are people that work for the restaurant oh we had another thing we went into a We went into a restaurant, a small like gyoza joint, dumpling joint, and my daughter asked the

waitress if they had fried rice and you flick. No, my daughter asked me, you know that joke, that old racist joke. No, what's that joke? I can't even tell. Somebody got fired for that joke. Well, you can't get fired because you own the club. Anyway, I asked the waitress if they had fried rice.

And my daughter asked the waitress if they had fried rice. And the waitress says, no, I'm sorry. We don't have fried rice. Because she had had it the previous day somewhere. No, I'm sorry. We don't have fried rice. And from the kitchen, we hear, I don't know. The chef screams out, yeah, I can make it for him.

It's like the chef overhears that the customer wants fried rice. And nobody knows, like, it's not like he was trying to save face. Nobody had any idea the chef heard. The chef could have just kept quiet about it, you know. He's like, no, no, no, I can make that for her. So he yells out. And she's like, yeah, the chef will make you the fried rice. As opposed to in the altry where if

somebody wants, you know, the hummus to the left of the baba ghanoush is to the right the way we usually serve it. The chef's like, I'm not fucking doing that. You know, we have to explain to them. They just want it reversed, you know? So things like that. So what do you attribute? And I started to she videot like seven uh flight attendants or flight crew people work at the airline in the airport before like the shift they send a circle and

they're just so attentively listening to each other and about hi hi and they're looking at each other then they all bow together and and for like six or seven minutes not a single person takes out the phone looks the other way makes a face they're just totally listening to what the whoever is in a leader is saying and then they kind of they all bow and they break and then they go to their positions and there's no pause immediately to work and they're looking at it's just it's just amazing how they work what are you saying i'm saying that they are a remarkable people. And. Do you think that if you fired everyone and hired an entirely Japanese staff, that would happen at the Olive Tree, too?

Absolutely. But you think it wouldn't? But it does bring to mind, you know, the question that we've dealt with on this podcast is this whole question of immigration. And, you know, how far are people ready to go with the idea that it doesn't matter at all where people come from. It'll all turn out, the country will turn out the same no matter what.

Now, I'm not suggesting that there's not dark side to, or negative sides to Japan. And I'm not saying we should only have Asian immigrants, God forbid. But there is some magic recipe that we might have hit on accidentally in this country for many years that allowed us to become what we were. So I just don't know how far we're ready to go to pretend that it really doesn't matter whether we have 5 million Japanese or 5 million Hasidic Jews, and either way, America will turn out the same. Or Israel could have – okay, we had a couple million Jews that populated Israel, but it could have just as well been a couple million Venezuelans or Somalis. It's just out of a hat pick a nation i'm not trying to make a point about any other nation and it still would have been that country that we see with all this remarkable achievement and all the technology and all the

impacts on the world and medical science it would have happened anywhere because it's magic soil no it's not magic soil it's it's it is it is a it is a common it is an equation of the system, the particular situational reality of the country, and the people. And the people are a combination of their culture and in some way their genetics. And, I mean, if you think about Japan being totally destroyed in 1945, and like when I was a kid in 1962, I'm sure it was pretty much still mostly destroyed. And you go there now, and I took train through the countryside, and I saw wasn't and they built this and they didn't build it on the back of slaves right and they built it quickly and um and they did it and in that same period of time i've heard people in new york city about the same problem since i was old enough to remember people about problems and no dent in any of the problems and they have a million reasons why they couldn't make a dent in these problems but they never faced anything like what the japanese were facing you know and they and they

and they built this amazing country so is there anything we can learn from the japanese or we're just we're just impossible to implement anything uh that they have there here it's just because well we just well we can learn you know i don't know if we can learn these things we we definitely could stand to try to uh learn from them but i think that what what the country represents in a certain unpleasant way is is it's a control group to at least undercut basically every argument that we have about any social problem that we have. They have poor people there. They don't have crime like we have. You know, they have.

Why not? Why? What is it? Because they don't commit crime. I'm not sure they have some crime. I'm saying because. They have the Yakuza. I was ready. I'm not sure they have some crime, but I'm saying that because like, I was ready. I was made in movies.

I was ready to let my, my daughter, like she wanted to do. I said, just go, go, leave the hotel. Just go.

We'll, we'll, we'll find you. Like if you, she'd be pretty easy to find. If you can't, if you can't find your way back, you know,

call it whatever. But like, it was zero worry that I, that I had 48 hours after being there, sending my 12 year old daughter into Tokyo, like, just go like, you know, explore whatever it is. Like, would you do that? Like, how many cities in the world would you do that? Um, and, uh, I think the other thing that's impressive,

and by the way, Israel is similar to that. Yeah. That is true. I was thinking that I wasn't going to say because I didn't want to derail to Israel. But yes, that that is true. Israel is very similar to that. I would imagine they go ahead, Dan. I would imagine they take care of their poor there. I would assume I mean, we have social programs here, obviously, as well, but I would assume that in Japan, there's a sense that we're all one people and that we're going to take care of- I'm happy you said that, because one of the knocks on Israel quite often, even though it's actually not true, is that it's an ethnostate. An ethnostate has all these horrible connotations. By the way, we should get to talk about Daryl and the Nazis and all that stuff. And the, you know, the,

the, the, the, you know, what ethno state implies, but Japan is absolutely an ethno state. And, you know,

and Dan might be right there. There might be a certain unity that comes from that, but even without that landmine, they definitely are very, very respect and family oriented. So they respect their elders. They respect the hierarchy. And also, I don't know the divorce rate, but I imagine it's very, very low. And even with the divorce rate, there's an obligation to take care of their family. So I just think that that goes a long way this I'm just assuming is true, but the notion that you

would have a family member living on the street is so humiliating. You just don't do that, you know? Now, I've also heard they have a lot of people in mental institutions there. And what else have you heard? I don't want to be like Tucker Carlson coming home and seeing a Russian supermarket. And what else have you heard about the mental health there? I don't want to be like Tucker Carlson coming home and seeing a Russian supermarket. What else have you heard about the mental health there? And apparently there's a higher suicide rate. That's part of their culture, the suicide.

I mean, at least. Harry Caray, yeah. You know, dishonor, death before dishonor. I don't know how ingrained that is into modern Japanese culture. I mean, it was part of the samurai code, I guess. You know, that's just a you know, there's a very, very famous world famous Japanese artist named Yayoi Kusama, who you're just showing your ignorance when you do that. Who has just trying to show off?

No, I'm not. I'm making a fucking point, which is that she famously. Oh, my God. yayoi kusama um seinfeld she has famously goes back she's in her late 80s now i believe goes back and forth from her art studio across the street to the mental institution that she has lived in for decades so there can't be that much shame in mental... She's not on the street. I didn't say there was shame. No, no, no. I'm saying that I was offering an example to... But, Noam, did you find yourself missing any aspects of America while you were over there?

Could you see yourself staying there indefinite? Could I see myself? I don't speak the language. I couldn't... Well, assuming you could speak the language and you had a source of income you know or they're just yeah yeah i could totally be happy there yeah absolutely um are there comedy clubs there but i'd have to get my wife to you know to rein it in a little bit they're not fans of well they probably enjoyed her you know your wife it's something they don't see every day um and then she'd have to find a uh a uh fashion store that suits her body type in in the in the bottom end but um uh other than that yeah i think uh uh you know what your wife's

biggest problem is? Her husband. She's not. Puerto Ricans and Japanese just don't have the same body types. But listen, for somebody who didn't want to talk about Japan, you sure that that was. I knew I, you know, it just seemed odd to me when Noam said he didn't want to talk about Japan because Japan touches on so much of what Noam loves to talk about japan because japan touches on so much of what norm loves to talk about which is immigration and which is e pluribus unum and and and these

sorts of notions that i knew that going to japan would make you think about which is why i was surprised when you say you want to talk about maybe that's why you don't want to talk about japan because you don't want to say things that are controversial but look there's no question that America is the engine, even of Japan in a certain way. And I guess I should make it very clear that I actually do believe that diversity of cultures and types and behaviors and even rulebreaking as a mentality, which is very much, I think, what Israel has. It's kind of like, I can do this better. I can show the boss. This is really what moves the world forward, and America is still, I think, the center of the universe.

And I think the Japanese, despite it all, you can see all the power of American culture there. I mean, how's their music? You're a musician, you know. I didn't get... Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. You know that song? No, is that a Japanese song?

Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. Yeah, that's like the... Wrongly. That's like the cult... In any odd couple episode when, is that a Japanese song? Yeah, that's like the cult. And any odd couple episode when they go to a Japanese restaurant. on, what's it called? Spotify? No, I'm trying to find the name of the song. Anyway, I'd find the name. It came to me in Japan. And I would just put it on the phone and we would eat dinner. We'd eat

breakfast to that song. Did you enjoy the food? They like Western music. The food is amazing. Everything is amazing. The pizza was some of the best pizza I've ever had. The Italian food, the Japanese food. You can't find bad food they don't do that's the thing they don't do anything bad right yeah that's that okay well but you said they don't do booty licious booty is very well there um at the at the at the train state the 7-elevens i took pictures of 7-elelevens. I took pictures of 7-Elevens. It looks like a fancy upscale Upper East Side,

like Zabar. It's not Jewish, but just like everything's beautiful. It's just, it's ridiculous. This is amazing. You know what it is though? It's because- Well, you sound pretty spellbound considering for somebody who didn't want to talk about Japan. Sorry, go ahead, Perry. No, I was just going perry no i was just gonna say i was just i think that when you're not praying to the god of capitalism and money oh god it's true you are able to achieve this level of beauty when you actually take pride in things that isn't just like faster and bigger and cheaper and more don't look at me like that it's true but that wasn't that the name of an album by four non-blondes

everything i'm explaining to you is done for profit no no no no i mean yeah yes and no i think there is pride of uh you know pride in a job job. But you take pride, Noam, in putting on a good show, irrespective of the fact that it does help business. But, you know, you also want to run a comedy club that you can take pride in over and above the profit. Nobody's building a 7-Eleven here being like, I hope this is architecturally beautiful and I hope that the packaging is gorgeous and high quality. Nobody in America is doing that. Because the customers don't demand it. Because the customers have been trained not to care. Well, our customers in America don't value that they and the business, like a 7-Eleven on the corner of West 3rd Street. If you were to open, if you were to transplant that 7-Eleven from Japan onto the corner of West 3rd Street and 6th Avenue, that store would be destroyed.

They'd be shoplifted. There'd be graffiti on it. It's not feasible to run that store. But if you go to the H Mart on Central Avenue in Westchester County, it's like Japan. It is beautiful. And that doesn't get destroyed. No, it doesn't.

I'm saying because it's serving a community which has a certain base there which would never go to the 7-Eleven. The stores exist because of the... I mean, there's a little bit of a chicken and egg to it. But in the end, if you go to Maine, you see a higher quality of things because that's what's necessary to make money there because the customer but no i think you're

you know perry's point is is a decent one there's more than just the profit motive sure the profit motive exists but you want to have I mean, you didn't respond to my point, but you want to have pride in the olive tree above and beyond its ability to generate revenue. Yes, but I haven't been to North Korea where there is no capitalism or any place on earth where there is no capitalism, but it's shitty. I mean, yeah, I'm sure there's some halfway. I mean, I've been to other countries that were not free countries or capitalist countries, and I never experienced anything like this. I'm sure there's some of everything. China is somewhere in between.

You know, I don't know enough. I don't want to sound like an idiot. I don't know. Did anybody get a vibrator out of the vending machine? I don't know what they were doing when I wasn't looking. I don't know. they were doing when I wasn't looking. I don't know. And yet, these same people that are so remarkable

during World War II, they really got a little nutty. And they were, by all accounts, more cruel toward their prisoners than the Germans think, at least toward the POWs. Absolutely.

I read a little bit of a book on the Japanese prison camps, and I'm very bad at remembering things. And this little piece I have to remember, he says, they beat us until we bled, and then they beat us for bleeding. That's the way he described uh uh life in the japanese prison camp so yeah there is and you know the japanese and the germans i mean this is one of these things they were the most brutal listen as as until i heard tucker carlson's

interview yesterday that's where i saw the nazis um and um and yet the german people and the japanese people seem to have done a legitimate 180 in terms of the way they live and express their themselves culturally so i you know that's that's beyond me to understand well maybe that's a good jumping off i wish my testosterone level had lowered um you know 30 years before it did because i i've only found in the last 10 years or so as it kind of hit a level i could deal with that i had any ability to to pursue anything in the way of knowledge or intellectual interests. And I just wasted so much of my really sharp, my mentally sharp years, just trying to get laid and thinking about getting laid and plotting to get laid and being upset about not getting laid. And I just, there's so much, I'm just so interested in things now. And I,

and I don't have the time or, or the, the mental sharpness that I was used to the memory really to, to learn about things. Well, you've got plenty of time is one resource. I don't think you're lacking. Especially compared to your thirties when you were working, you know, when you had to work, you don't have to work that hard. If you don't, I have to work and I have kids. I know. I'm just saying, you know, and you had to work. You don't have to work that hard if you don't want to. I have to work.

And I have kids. No, I'm just saying, you know, I can't retain things like I used to. What were we talking about? Well, anyway, that might be a good jumping off point. You mentioned Japanese prison camps we were talking about. So Daryl Cooper, who apparently is a friend of yours, at least by email, because I don't think you've ever met the guy. By DM on Twitter, yeah.

Is he an amateur historian? Well, he's a professional. I mean, I don't know what he is. He's a professional sub-stacker podcaster whose subject matter is history. I don't know. There's no license for historian. Yeah, usually a historian is somebody that is a professor at a college or something so or has written books he does lecture from time to time at colleges i think okay so anyway but he uh he uh he was on tucker carl's podcast talking about among other things i think he was talking about jim jones and he was talking about as well among other things, he was talking about Jim Jones and he was talking about certain other things, but he was talking about who the real

villain of World War II was. And his conclusion was that it's not that Hitler was a good guy, but that Churchill is the main villain of World War II. At one point he made that is irrefutable, and I think a good one, I can't imagine he's the first one to make it, is that World War II was sort of a sacred cow insofar as our view of it, that Churchill was a good guy and the Nazis were the bad guys,

the very bad guys, the worst guys, is something that you would, that you, at your peril you you would dispute that it is really at the level of religious doctrine doesn't mean it's false but it is it is uh you know it is sort of a a point of view that is is difficult that you know if you dispute it, you're going to really get a lot of flack for it. That is true. Well, I have a lot of thoughts. That doesn't mean that the conventional wisdom is wrong,

but it does mean that it is true that it is held sacred. I have a lot of thoughts. I've written some of them, and I'm taking a lot of heat behind the scenes for my straddling, as it were. And maybe speaking out of both sides of my mouth at times about Daryl. And again, I haven't met him, so I'm just just run it down. Benny Morris, who is now considered to be a very mainstream and perhaps the most reliable historian on Israeli matters ever, was at one time considered a heretical – is that the word? Yeah, a heretic. theoretical is that there were a word yeah yeah um historian who was attacking sacred cows as you

put it even more uh sacred in Israel and the myth you know the mythology around the creation of state of Israel and more important to them in terms of pub current events that were and policies that were built on a pillar of these recent stories of Israel's founding than anything about World War II is to us. So, you know, one

point of contemplation as I wade into this is to remember as you say that well before i just before i just rule this out let me remember that sometimes these guys who who uh if provoke these reactions turn out not only to be uh legitimate but turn out to win the arguments right so benny morris is a good example so, and I can think of other examples, not that he's acquitted himself well afterwards, like what Scott Ritter, who's now a total full-blown anti-semi-crazy, said there was no weapons of mass destruction. Like, you know, sometimes people, lone wolves, turn out to be

correct. Let's stick to Benny Morris, because Morris was always scholarly and Daryl is scholarly. So I first learned about Daryl when he wrote an article for Tablet Magazine where he was defending kind of the attitudes of the deplorables about Trump. I didn't realize

it was the same guy. But I remember noting, you can look it up, Tablet Magazine, his deep insight into human nature. He really has this. And then a couple years later, I forget how he came on my radar, and I began to listen to his, definitely leans anti-Israel, if not his outright anti-Israel series on the Israel-Palestine project. But I was moved by certain parts of it, certain descriptions of the ways to understand the Arabic mentality, honor cultures, how a culture which doesn't have a police force or an advanced judicial system regulates itself. I can't remember the details. I'm like, you know, this is actually really interesting stuff.

And I don't hear interesting stuff that often. And I'm a person who likes interesting stuff. And I'm also used to dealing with people who I don't hear interesting stuff that often. And I'm a person who likes interesting stuff. And I'm also used to dealing with people who I don't agree with. So I began to respect him, not for his conclusions, but for an obvious talent that he had. And then I struck up a little relationship with him on Twitter. We had some arguments on Twitter, which very much stayed within the guardrails of respect. From time to time, he would concede that I was right. One time on Twitter, he even said, I deleted it because of what Noam said. Noam's always right. He said something like that to me.

And behind the wall, DMing, he even complained about one prominent figure being anti-Semitic. So there is all this kind of stuff about him that I respected. I wasn't really aware of other views of his that began to come to light. And I'll just try to sum them up. Actually, I probably have a screenshot here or something. But without getting into the details of it, there is this thing that I have to say is hard to justify, which is that this far into the attention that he's gotten over the last couple of months for his opinions on Hitler, his opinions on fascism,

his opinion, opinions on various things, we still don't really understand where he's coming from on this stuff. And you would think that it's not hard to make clear how you feel about Hitler, right? So in some way, if you're having trouble explaining how you feel about Hitler, and he had some ambiguous tweets about Hitler and Genghis Khan, that someday people will realize they're ahead of the curve.

He didn't say that. Someday, I forget how he put it. I could find it. But definitely the implication was, maybe I think that there was something good about these guys, or they were good. And he said certain things about fascism. He deleted some stuff.

Well, then there was a post where he posts a picture of the Nazis in Paris, marching down the Champs-Élysées or wherever it was. And next to it, a picture of the nazis in paris marching down the chandeliers there wherever it was and next to it a picture of the the last supper of the gay last supper something like that and he said well which one is the better outcome and he said that the the nazis walking down walking through paris was better so that oh no he says i he's like i sound like i i totally think that i totally prefer that side to that side like totally like like but then that was actually that so i i wrote an essay to him on twitter and then he uh complaining about it and then he he he deleted that tweet actually i'm i'm the reason

he deleted that tweet and he he said to me offline says no no you were right i was essentially i was being a smart ass but i was uh you know insensitive but but nevertheless obviously he has some uh feeling that a more authoritarian system would be better he has some feeling like that way and then also he also is uh uh some sort of forgive me if i'm getting wrong some sort of fundamentalist christian but not of the branch of evangelicals who think israel is a great thing because somehow god favors the jews he's of the branch that thinks that no the jews had their chance they failed god they actually they actually spurned god and um you know uh he's said things to imply well i say here um the coming of the messiah fulfilled the the Jews special purpose in the world.

They were invited into the new covenant, but were jealous of their chosenness and too resentful over their historic defeat to accept equality under God with Gentiles. So they were cast out and the Israel. So, you know, that's, that's how he describes this stuff. So there's something in my – well, where is it? Let me see if I have it else. The idea that Paul is saying Jews don't need Christ is absurd and extreme.

What if one's DNA must be descended from the ancient Israelites to God to say, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the Father by me, doesn't apply to you. Meaning that, obviously, if Jesus said, I am the way to God, your DNA doesn't exclude you from that. So the Jews are not, you you know on the path to god um there is somewhere i have christians believe salvation is through jesus christ judaism resists judaim rests on the insistence that jesus was a liar a madman and a criminal who was justly executed. Are people seriously just realizing that these two perspectives might be intention? And there's one other here somewhere which seems to imply that there would be consequences to the Jews for this. Well, I think we get the idea.

I wish I could find that one. But anyway, so, but then he also has podcasts where he where his heart really seems to bleed for people who are scapegoated, including the Jews.

And I feel that he's in tension about this. And And I feel that he's in tension about this. And, of course, I am still – and it is a problem that I've had pleasant interactions with him. If I didn't know him, I would be full on board with the idea that he's a defending evil. I mean, I have to come back where I started. I really can't defend him. He needs to explain to us how he feels about the Hitler thing.

And he tried to imply, sounded like he implied, I think he did imply that the Holocaust was somehow as a result of the scarcity for food and caused by Hitler's invasion of Russia. And that was really Churchill's fault. You know, this is all very, very Rube Goldberg-ish. Well, but are you just immediately deciding that what he's saying is bunk or did you delve into it i mean it sounds like bunk i'd be highly skeptical of it but it's it's it's not i think it is bunk but i think that the notion that anybody can predict with any kind of certainty to to say say this is what would have happened if America had allowed, I'm sorry, if England had not stood up to Germany in Poland.

It's just fantasy. We can't predict two weeks from now. In modern history, who's been able to predict anything about the course of the world? You have the Nazis. Hitler was always talking about going after Russia. Papu Canin's

take on it is that Hitler would have invaded Russia no matter what, but somehow the British Empire would have survived it. But there might still have been a Holocaust. Obviously, Hitler was crazy about the Jews. The Nuremberg Laws were in effect. As I said, it's a parlor game to think that you can predict the course of world history from 1939 onward you know but you can articulate as as as as he did on substack i guess in a in a thread on twitter the things that churchill did which he characterizes as warmongering and he he that that

that churchill wanted this war no matter what well these are the things that that that daryl alleges on twitter i'm not a historian and i can't again, I'm skeptical, very skeptical, but I can't just say I can't I don't want to just say you're a Nazi lover based on, you know, a gut reaction. I'd like to see him debate somebody that really knows their stuff. You know, ideally, it can't be debated. We know the bullet points. They made a deal with Hitler. Neville Chamberlain did. Hitler broke the deal.

England had agreed to come to Poland's defense. Churchill had said this was going to happen all along. It is what happened. The Nazis were gobbling up territory right and left, and the world in various ways decided enough is enough.

You know, I mean, a staggering number of people died in World War II. 40, 50 million people, right? Is it anybody's position that Churchill knew or anybody conceived of that level of death? Did Stalin know that 20 million? This is not predictable, but this notion that it's Hitler. We understand who's to blame here.

And so much of revisionist history is based on the idea that these people who are forced, these world leaders who are forced into these impossible situations of having how to figure out how to respond to an aggressive evil. I have to say evil. I mean, mind conflict, evil force in the world. No, you got it wrong. But, you know, Israel's in this position all the time. Oh, you propped up Hamas. You shouldn't have propped up Hamas. You should have. You should have. You should have given in to Hamas. But you started off by saying... Hamas is the problem here. Hamas is the problem. And there may be no policy. Every policy vis-a-vis Hamas may end up in disaster. Every policy vis-a-vis Hitler might have ended up in disaster. Nobody frigging knows. But you started off by saying the conversation,

you started by saying, well, Benny Morris went against the conventional wisdom. And later on, people thought that he was correct. I mean, is there anything that Daryl is saying that has some value and that would make you think, oh, I should look into this a little. It's all interesting. I mean, it's all interesting.

I listen to it all. But no, I think that the Benny Morris example is just one that would encourage us to keep an open mind about I was referring to your idea that there's myths you can't challenge, but it's Hitler. I mean, you could... He wasn't saying Hitler wasn't a bad guy. He was basically saying that Churchill was also a bad guy.

No. Here's his tweet. As I get older, my moral opinions regarding Alexander, Caesar, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Pasha, Hitler, Stalin all begin to converge. The rest of the world will catch up in a century or two. And then there's a picture below it of the Joker from the Batman. And the subtitle is, I'm not a monster. I'm just ahead of the curve.

Wow. curve now now you know what is the most uh likely the most normal way to interpret that tweet so what game is he playing there i mean it's really it's it becomes it becomes very difficult to explain it. You know, one explanation with someone else could be, well, you know, he's manic depressive. Like there's something, there's a split in his personality that I've experienced. The same person who has said

absolutely compassionate things the likes of which you could never imagine the same human saying these other things the same person is saying these things on different days and then deleting the tweet in between. So this is complex. And he's gifted and maybe there is scholarly. I know people are people are now finding faults in his scholarship. Fair enough. But he is scholarly. I mean, he's not and he's not like one of these guys who obfuscates. And, you know, if you ask him a direct question about this factual matter, whatever it is, he will either put up or he will shut up, meaning he'll either back it up or say, no, no, you're right. I'll take that down. Like he doesn't play that game that most people play that that Finkelstein plays, which infuriates me.

You know, you can have a very satisfying to the point heart of the matter conversation with him. And I respect that an awful lot, but there is obviously something going on here. Is it, there's a, there's either a, there's something going on here. He's,

he's too smart. He understands. Obviously when you say my moral opinions about Hitlerler are beginning to blah blah blah the rest of the world will catch up with me meaning my moral opinions are that's kind of like the picture that he posted on twitter with you know with the with the nazis marching in paris i mean if you confronted him on that on on what you just read he might back down and say, you're right. I was insensitive, blah, blah, blah, blah. And by the way, and I can, I can be, I can give tremendous latitude to especially we're in the,

we're in the comedy world. We know how people make jokes. I can even understand extremely biting comparisons. Like I, like I I'm open to anything, anything that anybody, any point anybody wants to make. But what I'm faulting Daryl for here, and I wrote a post about this on Twitter today, is that he needs to come out of the shadows. As I started by saying, it can't be this hard to make yourself clear as to how you feel about Hitler. It just can't.

And if you have a high IQ of 135 or 140 or more, which he clearly does, and this late in the game, with a gun to my head, people or his followers said, they really can't tell you where he stands on Hitler, where do you stand on this stuff? Then that is in some way intentional. And then logically, one would imagine, well,

the reason he's being cagey about it is not because he hates Hitler more than you think is because he's more sympathetic to Hitler than he wants to admit. So listen, I hope he is because I like the idea that the most effective anti-Zionists, time and time again, expose deep-seated animosities, right? That's, you know. Anti-Semitism. Yeah, from a very, very, very parochial point of view, you know, as our relatives, is it good for the Jews or bad for the Jews?

Well, it's good for the Jews if the really effective anti-Israel guy is also a Nazi, right? Or a Nazi sympathizer. But that's a very shallow thing to say. And I am corrupted by the fact that I liked the guy. And he's coming- But you liked Norman Finkelstein too for a brief honeymoon period.

But this is different. Like I did like Norman Finkelstein, but this is different. And he's coming to town in October. And I still expect to meet with Daryl and to sit for a few hours with him and really talk to him. Why doesn't he come on the show? I was going to do a one-on-one interview with him,

and then he actually got a really bad sunburn, and then I never followed up. But I think he and I would both... Like, I'm not trying... I want to meet him in person. I want to understand what's going on here. I've taken a lot of grief. But it would be a good show. But there's there's something else, you know, and what's ironic is that.

So that's Daryl Cooper and Martyr Me. Right. And I've been soft on him in a way. Well, you always say the most corrupting things are personal relationships. Yes. So I've been soft on him in a criticizing him online, not just privately, online. I won't allow myself to be corrupted where I look the other way on something he writes that I find offensive because I know him. So I say, well, I come right at him. But I am corrupted to the extent that Luke Skywalker is like,

no, no, there's good in him yet. You know, like he's my Darth Vader. I feel like there's more to it than that. And I see it from time to time. This is a common theme with you. We've discussed this other thing, relationships where, you know, people say terrible things about Israel and or the jews and yet you have cordial relations with them um you know some of the people that work for you so yeah so let me

yeah and that's true too but let me just say that so although i've been soft on daryl i've been much harder than anybody else on that gathering storm. You know what the gathering storm is? Churchill's book? Yeah, Churchill's book about World War II, the first one, the gathering storm. As the world was turning in this way and people were not reacting. I have been for a year now complaining about this. Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones, Candace Owens, they go on Joe Rogan, Dave Smith. None of them will criticize each other.

They're at various degrees of reasonableness and flakiness, but they are powerful and they inhabit many of the top spots on Twitter. They have a certain cachet of hipness and coolness via their connection with Dave and Dave's connection with Joe Rogan. I'm not casting aspersions at him. I'm just saying this.

I've been really, really worried about this for more than a year now, seeing where this is going. When Tucker Carlson is seeing the whole world in terms of Jewish implications. By the way, the other thing that Daryl said is that Churchill was installed by Jewish financiers.

Then on Twitter, he backtracked from that, but that's what he said on Tucker. And then Tucker says that we have, and there's a lot of Christianity to this side, although not to Dave Smith's side, that the United States government has direct evidence of supernatural UFOs that are killing people on behalf of Satan.

This is what Tucker Carlson says. And then he says that Alex Jones is a supernatural prophet. And then Alex Jones says the Jews killed JFK. And then Joe Rogan says, well, yeah, Alex Jones is right about a lot of things. And then Candace Owens says, well, the Jews are basically a pedophile religion. And then Dave Smith will never say that Jews are basically a pedophile religion. And then Dave Smith will never say that, that the Jews are pedophile religion, but then Dave Smith said, yeah, Candace Owens and I can do it. Like they won't ever criticize each other. They won't ever draw lines.

They won't do what I do, which is like, yeah, listen, I like this guy and I find these following things about his character, you know, things that I admire, but these views are unacceptable. You know, like, like Dave Smith, I'm sorry to be coming at Dave Smith because I like Dave Smith. I mean, hopefully he's a kind of friend of the show, but I'm just not, like you said, I can't be corrupted this way. I'm just like, like, you know, I'm trying to be fair. And if he wants to come on to refute it is fine. But you know, I had him on here.

We talked about Nick Fuentes. Can you just say that Nick Fuentes is an anti-Semite? I don't need to account for everybody. Can you just say that Candace Owens, she's talking about the Jews being pedophiles. Like, can you just say that's fun? And then she also says that Macron's wife is an anti-Semite. And then people go on Joe Rogan's show,

and the first thing they say is, well, you know, Netanyahu was in on it and no conspiracy is too outlandish. And it just, it all blends into this entity. This like, you know, slimy Ghostbusters like blob entity of conspiracies and facts and various levels of reasonable and unreasonable people, some of them actual anti-Semites, some of them just, you know, I'm above the fray, kind of tolerant of it. And it's millions and millions and millions and millions of people

watching them. And then lo and behold, then J.D. Vance says that Alex Jones has been right a lot and Tucker Carlson shows up at the Republican convention. And where is this all going? Well, it's not going to put a stop to itself. It has a momentum. It has a momentum. And as a Jewish person, it's like I'm kind of speaking out both sides of my mouth. As a Jewish person, I have been screaming bloody murder about this behind the scenes to Jewish people.

It's like, guys, we need to make a statement about this stuff. And it's hard to get people to really rise up about this because this is a powerful entity. But I did put my head up and say, listen, well, this guy Daryl has been, you know, I've had constructive interactions with him. And so I kind of bring the heat down on me. But I think there is a way of being, which is to say that, you know,

I'm going to separate the art from the artist. And the artist from the art. But what I'm going to say is, like, say is, I'm not going to lie. This is how I see Daryl. I'm also not going to give him a pass on the fact that he seems to be soft on the Nazis.

Dave doesn't need to give Candace Owens a pass for the fact that she's saying all this outlandishly vile stuff about the Jews. Well, of course, you have the advantage that you don't make your living off of your podcast or you don't have a particular brand. You can say what you want.

Well, first of all, I don't think this is I know that argument and this is my feeling about it. There are certain professions where that kind of compromise cannot even be considered. Any profession that revolves around matters of intellect and ideas, there is an oath to the truth. Just like in medicine, there's a Hippocratic oath, do no harm. And you say, well, you know, you know, that, that doc,

those doctors who were paying Elvis for all that drugs or those doctors were paying Michael Jackson for all that plastic surgery. They were making a lot of fucking money from it. I was excusing and I was explaining. I'm making the argument. No, we all say, no, we don't give a shit how much money you're making from it. You're a fucking doctor. Nobody told you to be a doctor. Nobody told you to be a doctor, but if you want to be, nobody told you to be a public intellectual or whatever it is that you call

yourself. But if you want to step into that ring, then you take an oath. I don't give a shit about your fucking audience. I'm not going to allow that excuse. You're not a car salesman. And harm comes to the world from this stuff. Now, You're not a car salesman. And harm comes to the world from this stuff. Now, you know, I lost my train of thought, but that's the way I feel about that. Oh, I was going to say, but for many of these people, their careers have already reached escape velocity I mean you know they'll take some flack

there'll be some infighting when the audiences have to choose you know kind of in a mini civil war but no one's going to go broke because they took a stand against the Nazis.

I'm just not buying that. No one's going broke because they smacked Candace Owens on the nose for saying vile anti-Semitic shit. And this extended even to our friend. I don't know. I'm not going to get into it but this I'm not going to get into it because he's such a minor player but it needs to stop

and it's really bad and to see Tucker Carlson at the Republican convention scares the shit out of me and J.D. Vance talking about Alex Jones convention scares the shit out of me. You know, and J.D. Vance talking about Alex Jones being right about a lot of things.

They should not be within an inch of these guys. And by the way, just as a total aside, it's very interesting. Our former guest, Richard Hanania, who, you know, who had that history as a white supremacist and then reacted against it, he had a very interesting tweet in the flyover states, in his view, and he may be right, these kind of alternate views, less reasonable views, have much more currency, much more purchase in Republican politics. Meaning that if the votes of more cosmopolitan

republicans more cosmopolitan uh conservatives who live in california live in new york live in massachusetts millions and millions and millions of them who understand that because they're they're the republicans are not within you know eight points of the Democrats and never will be, don't even bother to vote. The Republican Party is forced to cater to the people who are more interested in this crazy shit, which can lead to the reason why it's Tucker Carlson at the Republican convention. There are probably more conservative Republican votes or very close to as many Republican conservative votes

in blue states that don't count in a presidential election as there are in the red states, right? Or at least it's a different calculation all the time. So that's actually interesting. But something is going wrong. Something is going wrong that a guy who claims that the United States government has evidence of Satan's soldiers in labs, a guy who says that we had weapons labs that infected ticks with Lyme disease. I mean, there's no limit to the crazy stuff that Tucker Carlson has said and Alex Jones

has said. That these people, that the Republican Party gets within a mile, 10 miles, these people should be shunned. They're crazy. I don't care what smart things Tucker Carlson said. I've agreed with things that Tucker Carlson said. This is corrupting of the very notion of integrity of intellect. If the only person who can say something worthwhile is fucking Tucker Carlson,

we are in big, big trouble. There must be another spokesman out there who can utter, you know, the certain correct truth that Tucker Carlson has uttered from time to time without buying into bat shit craziness. It's got to be somebody out there who could do it. It's got to be. So that's how I feel about that. And maybe we can get Daryl on the podcast sometime. He is an interesting guy. There's just so two ways about that. And maybe we can get Daryl on the podcast sometime. He is an

interesting guy. There's just so two ways about it. Well, where does he live? Idaho, I think. Oh, well, all right. Sounds like the kind of place a guy like that would live, you know, just isolated, you know. Have you ever listened to any of his fear and loathing? No, in New Jerusalem?

No, I haven't. I just read his tweets. I like to read your, you know, when you two go at each other on Twitter, I find it interesting. I would like to see somebody's writing a whole refutation of everything he said regarding Churchill, because, you know, I don't know anything about that. I mean, it could well be the Churchill, you know, there's some things about Churchill that I don't know that that aren't so terrific that I don't know about, but.

Listen, it's similar to something which you've toyed with the notion of, should we have gotten into the civil war or not getting gotten into the civil war? If we just not got into the Civil War and let the South secede and the slavery would have died on it. There's all these kind of what if, as I say, parlor games that people play. And that's all fine. And they could

be right. Nobody can tell you how something could turn out. If Churchill hadn't stood up to Hitler, maybe a German would have put a bullet in Hitler's head and the whole thing could have fizzled out. Nobody knows. But it's not just about the Churchill thing.

There's some sort of rehabilitation of Hitler. There's some sort of overt implication that the Holocaust wasn't actual the singularly evil event that we think it was that it was I mean Daryl said, Tucker says

well there was even a letter where a German warned that you know we're not going to have enough food to feed these people wouldn't it be more humane to kill them all? As if, perhaps, there was a humane motivation to kill. And this is, so this is, you know, this is a bridge too far there. This is not just a hypothetical consideration of what would have been the smartest, given everything we know now, all the people that died,

perhaps the best way to fight this fucking evil Hitler would have been to do it this way. Perhaps if we had done it that way, we could have avoided the Holocaust. You can do that without having to soft pedal how evil he was. You can reimagine the civil war without soft peddling slavery right but he's doing both and i think that's really where it it goes too far and then at other times he will you know uh uh uh put on try to keep an arm's distance from just that or he'll say i didn't mean it that way but it becomes as i said more and more difficult to understand because

you should be able to make yourself clear you should be able to but whether but but he's just a small piece of this much bigger, much bigger story, which involves kind of the just normalizing of through, I referred to it one time, innocence through association. You know, there's guilt by association. People are making these people innocent through association because you start with the most anodyne personality and he's friends with this one and he's friends with that one. this guy to Nick Fuentes. But along that whole chain, no one will utter a bad word about the other. So they all kind of sanitize each other, innocent through association. And then they wind up with the Republican convention. And then kids see that. To me, it scares you.

As everybody knows, I've poo-pooed right-wing antisemitism for a long time. Close friends of mine accused me of doing it for some sort of partisan reason, whatever it was, it was never the case. It was always calling it like I see it. I am now officially worried about right-wing antisemitism. Dan. I am now officially worried about right-wing anti-Semitism. Dan? Okay.

I'm not worried for whatever reason, but maybe because I am worried about other things. It's right there in front of us. Now you want to talk about the hostages before we go? Yes. I, for one, have been worried about right-wing anti-Semitism for a long time. Yes, I, for one, have been worried about right wing anti-Semitism for a long time. Yes, I know. You've been worried about whatever. Dan, do you think that Netanyahu, do you blame Netanyahu for the for the dead hostages who were executed.

Well, no. Why would I? I mean, I guess people are, but because he didn't try to get them out to negotiations? Or because he didn't capitulate. Yeah, he didn't agree to what was demanded. And his defense minister, Yoav Galant, I think one of, he was the only vote out of a cabinet debate or something had voted for them to to agree to the the terms i think the the main term was to withdraw from the philadelphia corridor which is on the border of egypt where

they found huge tunnels where almost certainly certainly, certainly, not even almost certainly, if Israel were to withdraw, then for two months, Hamas would have free hand to rearm, and Sinwar would probably be able even to escape. It's very difficult. You know, if I were obviously the parent of a hostage, a family member of a hostage, there's no agreement I wouldn't agree to. If Hamas said, well, we'll release the hostages if Israel disbands as a country,

if I were the mother of a hostage, I'd say, okay, we'll disband as a country. Obviously, a prime minister cannot operate on those terms. So, you know, a prime minister has to think of not just the good of the hostages, but the good of the country. And it's a very difficult position to be in. But, you know. It is so...

And again, maybe negotiating would have... It's hard to say, but because you were just saying, you don't really know what the outcomes are going to be if you make choice A versus choice B, but...

I mean, there's such a Netanyahu derangement syndrome. It's impossible for anybody who hates him. It reminds me of Trump to really judge what he's doing because there's such suspicion of him that only Nixon could go to China. Anybody but Netanyahu could refuse to pull out of the Philadelphia corridor. But on the one hand, if they pull out for two months,

they have this notion that they can just go back in. But will President Harris allow Israel to go back in and start killing people again when Hamas does everything it can to make sure that 10,000 Palestinians would have to die for Israel to go back in and regain the foothold that it now currently has. That seems to be silly to think it do they have other ways of preventing another October 7th I don't know enough but I think Netanyahu mind especially because he's the one carrying this burden of having fucked up to begin with, he wants to end this once and for all. He wants to eliminate Hamas.

He wants to choke them off and carry Sinwar out on a spear. And that's what he wants to do. And who could blame him? On the other hand, if I had to make the case on the other side, and I wrote something about this, on the other hand, if I had to make the case on the other side, and I wrote something about this, there is an intangible, like, is it worth losing a thousand people?

That's probably an exaggeration. Is it worth it to lose 200 soldiers to free, to have 30 hostages not killed? 200 soldiers to free, to have 30 hostages not killed. It's not just math because you are, they're dying for more than the hostages. They're dying for

the principle of life. these soldiers would die for the principle that that that valuing life is more important than anything and of course we do send our soldiers to die for principles and ideas. And for the country to sit back, let's say, and watch these hostages executed one by one. Let's just imagine that was that. They said, no, we have to do it. It's the right thing to do.

And then they get rid of Hamas. But they did that. They sat back and they let these hostages die one by one. This is going to change a people. would be worth dying to avoid that change, to avoid that psychological trauma to the Jewish people, one that will never be forgotten. I mean, you're going to have a holiday for it a thousand years from now, some sort of mournful holiday. There's not a darker story in Jewish history that one could imagine than that scenario where Israel had to sit back and watch its own people executed slowly because they had decided they couldn't give up

the Philadelphia corridor, right? So as I'm saying it that way, you'd think, no, no, give up the Philadelphia corridor, right? It's a powerful argument I think I'm making. We don't know if that's what it's going to come to. These things turn on a dime. Israel tried to save some other hostages and they were successful. And oh my God, they're heroes, you know? And now people are like, how dare they try to save the hostages? Well, you didn't

complain when they tried to save the hostages when it worked out. You know, they're not superhuman from time to time. These things go wrong. And if I had to guess, they will buckle. If I had to guess, they will buckle. And Hamas does have the upper hand.

Hamas has the upper hand. Doesn't executing these six hostages really indicate how little interest Hamas has in any sort of deal. I mean. Oh, no. Well, I mean, Hamas. I mean, this was like a major fuck you. Like, they could have done anything. These guys, I mean, especially Hirsch, right?

Like, he's, I think, I think there are going to be statues of Hirsch, Goldberg, Poland in 100 years, if not sooner, right? Like this, he's a symbol, he's become a symbol of this war and Hamas made a really calculated decision in executing him and executing all of them. Hamas is trying to break, is succeeding in breaking the spirit of the Israeli people. And it's also worth noting that the fuel it gave to anti-Israel protests, the fact that, not that I've been following it carefully, but it doesn't seem to me that any of the protesters who've been claiming all this time that they're not pro-Hamas,

that none of these protest movements could find the ability to take a day to more, you know, you could absolutely see a well-intentioned pro-Palestinian movement very powerfully and very, you know, also very smartly taking one day to protest Hamas's execution of the hostages. If you think about that cynically, even if they didn't really mean it, how much better would they look to the world if they could show that they could separate out their support for the Palestinian people from the notion of executing hostages? Because they always tell us, no, we're not pro-Hamas.

We're not pro-Hamas. I think it's clear that didn't even occur to them because they are pro-Hamas. And that's tragic as well. But I think

Israel will have to capitulate to this. I don't think... It may not be the – it's not the strategically – when I say strategically, I just mean like if you're trying to win, it's not the right thing to do. But I think the intangibles – it's just too excruciating. It's just – and the lasting consequences psychologically and you know i said i got october 8th where it's a it's a psychological war on the jewish people you remember i said that that this is this is what's going on i also think that executing them shows how little regard hamas has for the palestinian people because they knew what the ramifications of that is, right? What's the ramifications of housing people?

Well, I mean, more war, more horror, more everything. No, I think that in the bloody arithmetic, as the phrase goes, that Hamas uses, they are probably saying to themselves, why didn't we do this sooner? It's horrible. It really is. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, many people will be tempted to say, what about all the tens of thousands of Palestinian children that have died? And it is different, but not to the parents of those children.

So just in every conversation, it's worth mentioning that. Well, of course, of course it's worth mentioning that. But I also think that there are no winners in the competition of suffering, right? I'm not saying, but there is just something different about the cold-blooded execution of hostages, civilian hostages, to even the reckless deaths of people in war. It's just different. Anyway. So it's a

and this is happening at the same time people are perhaps reevaluating Hitler. So it's just all a very interesting time. The reevaluation of Hitler has been going on forever. I mean, Buchanan did it. I'm sure others were doing it

all along. No, no, no. I mean, in small groups somewhere, but we're seeing the number one podcast in America. We've never seen these podcasts doing numbers like that network TV shows used to do. We've never seen anything like this. Ever, ever, ever.

All right. But hopefully, I'm happy they're bringing the whole Hitler thing to a head because do you remember years ago I wanted to do a Holocaust debate and everybody told me I was crazy? Yeah, well, that was crazy. No, it wasn't.

We're finally going to have it now. And it's about time because the problem is, and this happened a little bit when Whoopi Goldberg made that remark about Hitler not being racist. It actually was salutary because people then for the first time started to learn the counter arguments. You can't just have a world where everybody gets to hear these crazy arguments and we're afraid to amplify it. So we just let it spread and spread and spread.

But don't debate them because you don't want to amplify it. It's amplifying on itself. But the thing about the Holocaust, some arguments are so ridiculous that anybody that believes it is not going to be influenced by counter-arguments. I mean, flat earthers are not going to be influenced by photos from outer space, by any evidence. I completely reject that. I don't understand that point of view at all. But you think people that think the Holocaust is a myth can be convinced otherwise?

I think people who are, yes, not some percentage can't be convinced otherwise, but yes, if you're a kid or an 18-year-old and on Twitter and Instagram and you listen to whatever and you see these facts and you don't hear anybody refute them. Now, myth is the most extreme example, but exaggerated. It's very easy to believe something is exaggerated. It's not that it's a myth, but it wasn't 6 million. It was more like 2 million. And it wasn't really that Hitler tended to exterminate all. It was really that the West gave them no choice.

And they were desperate. And they were starving and you know some rogue uh people who were in charge of the camp you know a lot of them just started killing people you know they and it took on a life of its own and hitler he barely even knew about it he was so worried about blah blah this is the kind of way it gets diluted and and after all you know and look at look at what the Jews are doing in Israel now. That's not that different. So that's what happens. That's the natural entropy of it or whatever. We have to, no, we have to stand up for ourselves. The ridiculous part is that we have the facts on our side. We should be able to punch twice our weight. But somehow we're obsessed with the fear of amplifying.

We're going to be afraid to amplify until we're the last people who know about this stuff. You're absolutely right. That's what I feel about it. I look forward to a debate between Darrell and some knowledgeable historian, but I don't know if that's going to happen. I look forward to a debate between Darrell and Noam. No, I don't know. I don't know who knows this stuff. I mean, it's like God put him on Earth to debate.

Coleman? It's Moynihan. Moynihan knows every fucking, that guy is a fucking genius he knows every detail so why don't we do that well they got to agree to it and they'd be doing you know i mean i mean darryl's i'm sure darryl's dance card is pretty full at this point yeah darryl's shy actually and i and i don't think he is dararyl two people maybe is there like um some something do you mean literally or i don't know i mean something sounds very off here yeah he is off the guy's off uh you know but but i the the ideas are very yeah the ideas are... The combination of the ideas

is very dangerous. I don't... Well, you know what? I'm going to say something, which is it's a good thing we have you. Oh, shut up. I'm serious. Cut that out. We're not going to cut it out. All right. We're going to go.

All right. See you back in New Yorkork i'm not going to vegas tomorrow day oh are you really yeah yeah okay see you tomorrow but i'm not but i'm staying at the win all right well the rooms are nicer here but okay as caesars all right i'll see you tomorrow i guess we will i mean are you gonna be here for lunch breakfast uh are you coming to the show uh i'm gonna come up but i like uh tomorrow strip club friday night that's fine okay but with steve are you serious i want to go to a strip club with you and steve come to vegas all right i'll see you guys soon okay bye bye good night everybody