Will Cain Country - From the Vault: Don’t Get Dave Smith Started on Barack Obama And Jimmy Kimmel

Episode Date: December 29, 2025

In this “Best Of” edition of ‘Will Cain Country,’ Stand-up Comic and Host of 'Part Of The Problem,' Dave Smith joins Will to talk free speech, media bias, and the cultural fallout of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Smith calls out liberals who politicize tragedy and explains why Americans can’t trust legacy institutions. And don't get him started on former President Barack Obama. Subscribe to ‘Will Cain Country’ on YouTube here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Watch Will Cain Country!⁠⁠⁠ Follow ‘Will Cain Country’ on X (⁠⁠⁠@willcainshow⁠⁠⁠), Instagram (⁠⁠⁠@willcainshow⁠⁠⁠), TikTok (⁠⁠⁠@willcainshow⁠⁠⁠), and Facebook (⁠⁠⁠@willcainnews⁠⁠⁠) Follow Will on X: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WillCain⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Wilcane. Welcome to Wilcane Country. We're taking a little time away. But that doesn't mean the conversation stops. Today we pulled together a best-of show, moments that cut through the noise, sparked real debate, and made you reach out. It's a solid snapshot of what we've been doing on this program. Let's get to it. Dave Smith is a stand-up comic. You can also find him on all those same platforms with part of the problem and co-host of Legion of Skanks and also available on many other platforms as well. Today he joins us on our platform, Dave Smith. Great to see you, man. How are you, Will? Thanks for having me. I'm glad to have you.

What do you think, Dave, of the firing or the indefinite suspension of Jimmy Kimmel? Well, there's a lot, I guess, that I have to, a lot of thoughts that I have on. on it. Um, and I did, you know, I thought it was, um, like I thought it was pretty appalling what he said and so bizarre. Um, there is this weird thing. Well, I don't know if you've noticed it, but it's, because there's so many different groups here. So I just want to be specific. Like, I'm talking about liberals like neoliberal establishment type people, not the crazy left wingers who are making TikTok videos about how glad they are that Charlie Kirk got killed or something like that. But like I'm talking about like the people on CNN or the late night comedians,

Like the liberal, Democrat, Joe Biden supporters, where all of them, it seems like, or almost all of them, are like incapable of just saying like this was bad without trying in some way to politicize. I don't know if you saw Barack Obama's whole thing about all the awful views that Charlie Kirkill, of course, completely mangling and misrepresenting them. But it's just so bizarre to me that so many people have an issue in a situation like this with just being like, yeah, this was horrible. Like, I don't know, listen, I'm, I'm, you know, this is not a political statement. If AOC had gotten shot in the neck and executed in front of a bunch of people, I wouldn't start, I wouldn't lead with, I really disagreed with her on the Green New Deal. But, you know, because, even though I really do, because the only comment would be, oh, my God, this is horrific. Like, this is, she was an innocent person. She had a family.

This is horrible. Anyway, so Jimmy Kimmel, of course, did this weird thing where he tried to make the bit about how, It reflected poorly on MAGA trying to cover for one of their own. It didn't even make sense. There was no reason to suspect this was a MAGA guy who did this. All of it was dumb. I will say that I don't like the federal government or any government official to ever be talking about speech ever. I don't think any pressure should be put from the government on corporations.

This is just that is not what a professed free society does. And I think it's a truly like a betrayal of the lake. of Charlie Kirk, for anybody, the idea of talking about hate speech, saying the word hate speech from the attorney general, that's how we're remembering Charlie Kirk. That does not seem right to me. And I wasn't his closest friend, but I knew him and was pretty familiar with his work. And there is something profoundly wrong about that. However, I also get where, you know, it's pretty tough. And you see a lot of these liberals doing this now. Now all of a sudden, they're talking about free speech after 15 years of them trying to ruin.

any right of center person's life for saying the, a woman, I'm sure you remember this in 2020. There was a high profile story where a woman, some random lady, got fired for posting all lives matter on her private Facebook page. That like all lives matter will get your life ruined. And yet this kind of gleeful celebration of a husband and father for the crime of being a public Christian essentially gets. gets murdered and people, and then what, you're supposed to look a right winger in the face and say, we got to think about the principle of free speech here, we, and to have the people who cheered it on for years looking at them saying, oh, you guys are hypocrites because you want Jimmy Kimmel fired. So, look, I would say, I do think the government should stay out of it.

I don't really like comedians losing their job over a joke, no matter how bad the joke was. But at the same time, like, you know, like I am to some degree, you feel almost like you're like a, like there, you just caught like a pedophile and the mob wants to string him up and kill him. And you're like, hey, he gets a fair trial. Even the worst of the worst, you know, you still, it's like the idea of freedom. But that's not very satisfying to the mob. And especially when they've been as mistreated as right wing America has for the last 15 years. We'll take a quick break. More of this best of Will Kane country coming up.

This is Ainslie Earhart. Thank you for joining me for the 52 episode podcast series, The Life of Jesus. A listening experience that will provide hope, comfort, and understanding of the greatest story ever told. Listen and follow now at foxnewspodcasts.com or wherever you listen to podcasts. All right. You said a lot there that I want to respond to. First of all, I appreciate and echo your observation. I have taken to the self-torture at times of watching CNN sometimes. At night, I think Scott Jennings does an incredible job of debate. You like debate. enjoy debate and so I've taken to watching that mess of a program where I basically get to see Scott talked to as though he's in the hallways of middle school and the hall monitors caught him and

interrupt everything he has to say. But that's that's the torture I put myself through. But my observation is even the quote unquote respectables, as you point out, can't just condemn the murder of Charlie Kirk without the addendum of but, you know, there's always a but as you point out. if aOC were murdered we would say that's awful we wouldn't say but you know she was a socialist and they just have to always add the but to whatever it may be with charlie kirk and the tone over the two nights difference of the way they're talking about charlie kirk's murder which by the way is literally the suppression of free speech through you know if not government force through literal force and the way they were talking about jimmy kimmels firing last night is is unavoidable

You just can't avoid noticing the tonal hyperbolic difference in the two instances. You brought up Obama. I saw you post about Obama. I don't want Obama to get lost in the wash because he did speak yesterday and he did the thing. He just did Obama. Here he is doing Obama. When I was president in the aftermath of tragedies, When Dylan Roof went into a black church and, based on his own words, shot a group of folks who were engaged in Bible study and who had invited him in.

According to him, it was for racist reasons. As President of the United States, my response was not, who may have influenced this troubled young man to engage in that kind of violence and now let me go after? From New Rule, whenever we play a clip of President Barack Obama, and I don't know that we'll do so often, We must listen to him on two-time speed. It's getting insufferable.

It's like having a stitch pulled out inch or centimeter by centimeter. Just pull the nail, man, out of the wood. Say what you got to say. I can't listen to that speed of talk. But somebody put it well, Dave, he floated above it. He floated above everything, how he's better, telling lies about who he actually was. He politicized every school shooting. He politicized going after conservatives with the IRS.

He's not the man that floats above. that he's in the mud. Oh, man. I mean, dude, this is, it's tough for me to be objective here. Well, because I just hate Barack Obama so much, man. I hate him with such a passion. He did such a dis, I mean, so much damage to this country. Like, it'll take us decades to reverse what he did.

And I'm not just, you know, and I have all my stuff that I could go off. But even when I posted on it the other day, I can't not call him the butcher of Libya and Syria and Yemen and the guy who surged the war in Afghanistan by 60,000 troops, even when he knew we weren't going to win the war and just the amount of death and destruction. But this was one of his worst qualities. Droned, Anwar Alaki, an American. Yeah, killed, murdered American citizens with no charges against them. And Anwar Alaki's teenage child, who is also an American citizen.

But then there was also this element where he's so narcissistic and so divisive. And this stuff, yeah, I mean, like, he's sitting here, you know, as he's slowly in this professorial tone that you know makes the dumbest point which isn't even true and and also he's doing the thing that he's claiming not to do like what is your point what are you doing here you're doing i did a better job when i was president as opposed to donald trump so you're doing the exact same thing of like it's this side's fault this was the guy who said after trevon martin got got killed in self-defense he said if i had a son he would look like travon martin just just inserted that like the first thought he had was the racial similarities between him. So, like, imagine, imagine if that

were the case with a white president had just, that was the first thought you said about it that, you know, if I had a son, which you don't even have a son. But if I did, he'd have that skin color, not that skin color, which, by the way, also, Barack Obama's skin color is like, not clearly closer to Trayvon Martins than George Zimmerman's, by the way, but whatever, it's probably in between. But it's just, it was just always these like incredibly stupid and divisive points. And, you know, look, he politicized every incident. Even when was that thing up in Boston where the cop, the black professor flipped out on the cop, it was totally unclear who was in the wrong there. He immediately jumped into it and looked like this whole, you see it, man. He like

broke the left and he broke such a big thing in America. like the embrace of racialism and tribalism and all these political divides got so much worse through his presidency. And I'm, you know, we on another show with more time, I'll tell you, I'm convinced they did it intentionally too, just to distract from the fact that he was looting the country and starting so many new wars. But it's like a horrible message. And I will say, by the way, just to be like an equal opportunist here, even though I reject

all that stuff, you're like, I didn't think Donald Trump handled it well either. And I don't think it was necessary to even, you know, like some of the comments he made, I think were unnecessary. It should be pretty simple for us as a country, like especially a political leader in a moment like this to go, hey, you know what? A lot of things might divide us. But here's one thing that unites us. This is horrific and wrong. And we're against that. And if somebody wants to go onto a college campus and do a change my mind, let's debate, let's discuss ideas.

And then somebody else shoots them in the neck. like that's the bad guy and that's the good guy and we should all be together on that or what do we have? If we don't have that we don't have a nation at all and it seems like it's impossible for Obama to admit that and of course well and I'm sorry I'll throw back to you here

but of course also even just as Obama is above it all what's he doing when he brings up Dylan Roof like how is that even relevant to this conversation it's simply the fact that Barack Obama wants to remind you that like black people and left-wingers hold a monopoly on victimhood. And even though in this case that it's a white Christian straight man, like, still we should flip it around

and that you're not really somehow the victim in all of this. It's just disgusting. We'll take a quick break. More of this best of Will Cain country coming up. Okay. A lot of really good points. We'll have to book that hour where you expose your feelings and thoughts and evidence against Barack Obama.

I do agree, by the way, history. I don't know if history is going to be as clear-eyed and objective and honest enough to look back on that point in history with some revision, but I do think that that period of history is the beginning of the divisiveness in America. But I want to see if we can explore either some disagreement or we might end up on exactly the same page. Let's start with the free speech thing, and then we'll back into how Donald Trump handled the assassination of Charlie Kirk. On the free speech issue, so first of all, I don't care what anyone on the left has to. say about criticism of the right. You've already laid it out. I've laid it out today. They are not credible witnesses to the defense of free speech today that I care about any of their invocations of fascism. I do care about my own particular integrity and holding myself to the standards

that I have required in the past. I do remember, and I can't remember what year this might have been. Barack Obama was the President of the United States, and I can't remember the exact details. I'm sure that you can, Dave. There was like a filmmaker in America who, I mean, a low-remend, cheap film, I believe he was in Southern California, put something out, and many people said that his film led to the uprisings, I believe, of the Arab Spring. I can't remember the details of that. But I think that was the details of the story. And Obama and Biden, and a lot of people came down on that filmmaker. They rhetorically blamed him. And I remember being at that time a guest on Morning Joe going, the powers that be should not be going after private citizens in their free

speech. It's an improper use of the bully pulpit of the presidency. Now, I see two things that keep me from saying, will you hypocrite today when it comes to Jimmy Kimmel? One, the details of this, meaning the revolt from Next Star and Sinclair, two, the ratings of Jimmy Kimmel. Three, probably the cost-benefit analysis that Stephen Colbert was subjected to is applied to Jimmy Kimmel. I've seen this happen in corporate America. They're looking for an excuse to get rid of these lost leaders, you know, and he gave them their excuse. It was a business decision. I do recognize the words of the FCC chairman yesterday with Benny Johnson. The reason I don't apply the bully pulpit standard to either President Trump's Post on X or Brendan Carr is that

it's just different. You could argue that it's right or wrong, but it's just different because broadcast airwaves are regulated by the FCC. There is this standard of does it serve the public interest. And when you were putting out verifiable falsehood and lies, by the answer to your question, I actually think what Jimmy Kimmel did is fall into that liberal social media rabbit hole that was taking place over the weekend that tried to pin the assassin on the right. I think that's what probably exists within that bubble and thought that's a safe place to go back out on my mainstream platform. And I think because of those two things, ABC would have to answer real questions about to the FCC.

And only they wanted to. I mean, they're like, screw it. This guy ain't worth it. I'm tired of this bullshit. We're getting rid of Jimmy Kimmel. Yeah, so, okay, so I essentially, I think I agree with all of that. I think that's all right. And starting with up top, that it is absolutely true that they tried to, they tried to say

that the whole Arab Spring thing was kicked off over that trailer being put on YouTube. And it was just completely lies, and they knew it. And there's, you know, what was going on in Egypt at the time was that the dictator Mubarak, who we had propped up for 40 years was being overthrown by the people. And then, of course, they voted in the Muslim Brotherhood, and we didn't like that. So that got overthrown real quick, and we're still propping up the military dictatorship there today. The stuff, it had nothing to do with the attacks in Benghazi, which they tried to make it out like that's what it was. Just a bunch of Muslims going crazy on our CIA boys who happened to be in Benghazi.

Well, what were they doing in Benghazi? Oh, yeah, they had just overthrown the government, and then they were shipping a bunch of weapons from Libya into Syria, which was to be the next front in the war on terror. But really like the moral of the... But no, these Libyan saw YouTube video, and they're super pissed about what they saw on YouTube. I thought it had something to do with you toppling their government. I thought that might have been a little bit. But no, I guess it was the video. But like the lesson in all of that, right, is that powerful interests are always trying to manipulate things in their benefit, right?

And so, of course, a moment like this, you see even Charlie Kirk's death, I mean, immediately, Trump has his take Net and Yahoo has his take. Obama has us to. Everybody's trying to use this for their own benefit. And that probably applies to podcasters like myself and other people too. I mean, this is how human beings work. But the same, and so to your other point, I think that's exactly right. That also big corporations like ABC are, they got an opportunity here to get rid of a guy that all is probably a net cost to the network and they probably already weren't thrilled with. You know, these guys are getting humongous contracts still from back in the days when they warranted that and they just don't anymore. We live in a new world. And so, yeah, they got their excuse to get rid of them. I would say this, which I think, like I get your point about not

wanting to hear anything from the left about it because they've lost credibility on this subject, or at least most of them have. There might be individuals that that doesn't apply to if they had a good track record. But I would just say that, like, even in these moments, like if you could see the way it kind of energizes the liberals because they at least have a talking point now, which is that Jimmy Kimmel was shut down by a fascist government and who really believes in free speech.

And just for that reason alone, I would say, just let get the government out of it. Don't even have the FCC chairman making threats or anything like that because it's better, I think we are better off to let these people expose themselves, They are quite irrelevant at this point. Their ratings are plummeting and just getting worse. Let them expose what terrible people they are.

And then I will say, you know, look, I got no problem with like companies if they want to fire someone because they said something that's like outrageous and wrong. I mean, yeah, to some degree, we all live in that reality. Like, unless you completely work for yourself and even someone like me, like I completely work for myself. But there's still, I could say horrible enough things where you probably wouldn't. want to have me on your show anymore and you'd be like geez what's david davis saying this i don't think i want to talk to that guy anymore we all exist in that world and yeah i think that should also

apply to people like jimmy kimmel and like regular people like if you are a regular lady who just works at your school and you go on tic-tok and make a video about how happy you are that a husband and father just got murdered i yeah i don't think that's that crazy that the school would be like, you don't work here anymore. And so I would just root for it to happen like that absent any government pressure, because then if nothing else, that just hands a talking point to the other side to say, oh, you were cracking down on free speech. When the truth is like, no one, everybody who hates Jimmy Kimmel, like has already decided that he's not funny anymore and doesn't want to watch his show. None of us watch it. We only see it if there's like a clip like

this. Let's keep this conversation going with comedian Dave Smith. When we come back on Will Kane country, Welcome back to Will Kane Country. We're still hanging out with the host of Part of the Problem and Legion of Skanks comedian Dave Smith. You know, I was listening to you talk about that. And I was thinking about what you did on your show, I believe it was just last night. And, you know, you said a moment ago that you don't love the way that Donald Trump handled some of the stuff in the wake of Charlie Kirk's assassination. I don't feel the same. Let's be self-aware. Am I in the tank for Donald Trump? Am I too far down any type of partisan lens? I just think, I don't know what you're referring to, but Donald Trump is doing, I think, something that Charlie Kirk did often, which is tell a blunt truth. There is a rhetorical problem on the left. There is a rhetorical problem of calling all of your opponents, fascist, and Nazis, saying they're all bigots, it's homophobes, racist, and transphobes. And sooner or later, you're going to motivate a crazy person or you're going to create a crazy person to do what you've them to do if you constantly tell them these people are an existential threat to your your

identity or even your place on earth and so i think that donald trump pointing out the left has to really get a hold of itself here and there's got to be some real reform otherwise what we're seeing with charlie is just kind of the beginning it's just math it's just math that if you continue to talk like this you're going to get results like this but i was um watching you i say and and i like being honest, I think honesty is the basis of any friendship or relationship. When I saw that you said, I'm going to share my text with Charlie Kirk, I didn't love it. I'm like, I don't think you should do that with a man who has passed. It's your prerogative. It's your communication. It's your relationship with Charlie Kirk. And if I'm being honest, I think the other day, I shared

just kind of paraphrasing the last text that Charlie had sent me. And so, look, I'm not, I'm not mad. I just, I'm being honest about my initial reaction to hearing you do that, but I watched your show. And I watched you share the text. And it was interesting in that you stopped in this moment because Charlie was texting you about people blaming violent acts on rhetoric. And you sort of just stopped. And you were like, man, it's pretty applicable to kind of what we're going through now. So all of that is background, Dave. Do you disagree with me and or Donald Trump that the rhetoric of the left is creating what I think is mathematical outcomes? No, I mean, I guess like my only real quibble with it would be that I'd say, I think we, like when

we use the term the left, I think sometimes that's a little, that's not exactly right. Sorry, that's a weird way to say it, but not exactly correct. I mean, I really think it's like the liberal establishment that, you know, like, not like just, I mean, like, there's crazy left wingers out there in the country, but it's, it's really the fact that all of the formerly trusted institutions, like all went all in on this rhetoric. I mean, it's the New York Times in the Washington Post and NBC and CNN and ABC and you know the Reuters of the Associated Press like they all have some responsibility in this that it's it's as if because Donald Trump just upset everyone in Washington DC but that isn't reason enough to be hysterical you can't go he upset

all of us you know you can't like that's not going to be enough to which is really what it is had also, like, threatened their power structure. At least they perceived it that way. And so they just went to the craziest rhetoric they could find and called them a Nazi for eight straight years while they were doing all types of Nazi stuff. And so, you know, like, I do think, sure, I think there's a fair point that there has been,

they have heightened the, the tension and the level of rhetorical craziness to such a level that, yeah, it does seem like that could very likely lead to somebody who's on the edge mentally to do something really violent. And so I'm not saying there's no connection there. Now, just to say on the point about sharing the text with Charlie, I did, I get your point to, you know, I was a little bit conflicted on whether or not to do it. I guess part of my thinking on that was that at this point, it was almost like there was like this attempt where, okay, Benjamin Netanyahu is reading what, like, select passages of the letter

that Charlie Kirk wrote to him. Marjorie Taylor Green is releasing text messages. Josh Hammer is releasing text messages. Bill Ackman is releasing his text messages. Candice is doing a whole show about this. And she specifically called on me and Tucker to like release what we have on it. And so I just kind of felt like, all right, look, now that there is this big fight over, you know, what exactly was Charlie Kirk's state of mind. And I do think it's actually a very interesting story. Now, I've been very clear, and I've taken a lot of flack for this, but I've been very clear to tell people that I think there is no evidence that Israel was involved in this killing, even though these rumors are going wild online. I've seen you say that. Yeah, well, even though I've been kind of known now at this point as

one of the guys who's a critic of Israel. And so in the cognitive, you know, dissidents of the internet world, everyone's going, but you were just the guy who was blaming Israel. And now you're not. And you're like, yeah, well, I think they were wrong for that, and I don't see any evidence for this. So I made it very clear on the show. I'm not making any type of argument like that. But once Benjamin Netanyahu is selectively reading what Charlie said to him, and they're trying to spin this, I do think it is fair to point out that actually the situation was much more complicated than that. And that I'm not saying Charlie was about to flip on Israel or anything like that. That was just not going to happen. But the truth is that his young people were,

and he was caught in the middle of that. And I think he was having some questions himself, too. and there was a lot of pressure put on him for hosting Tucker Carlson and myself at his last event. And so, like, if they want to tell that story, it's like, okay, but then I think the whole story should be told. And it's not like I wasn't releasing anything like that I thought was like private or that Charlie wouldn't have like wanted out there or something like that. No, I get your point. No, and I don't want you to feel defensive. There'll be plenty of platforms for you to feel defensive or be attacked about that. My initial instinct was what I did watch it.

I did watch it, and I thought it was pretty harmless, everything you shared. And by the way, what I saw you reveal was the man I knew with Charlie, which I think that Charlie, honestly, I think Charlie's a deep thinker and a man of faith, and somebody was interested in nuance. And I saw him indulging nuance with you on this debate, which I think is incredibly warranted that level of nuance. We're talking about the debate over Israel, and then in particular about your debate with Douglas Murray. But that's the same guy I saw in what you read, is the guy that I think has presented. sent it himself not just privately, but publicly. Well, right. That's, I mean, look, that was Charlie.

Charlie, first of all, Charlie was a, he was a very kind person. He was a sweet heart. Everybody who knew him will say this. Charlie was the type of guy who like, like if he, if one of the first year volunteers at Turning Point USA, like some 18 year old kid, had a moment with Charlie Kirk where they're like, oh, I got to talk to Charlie Kirk for five minutes. I guarantee you every single one of those kids has the story that he was the nicest got. Like that's just, he was just like that.

very happy warrior and also look he was he he was a movement guy and he was a big tent guy like that that's by definition when you're doing turning points that's what you're trying to do you're trying to and so he had him he saw the major problem here that there was a huge fracture in the movement over this israel question and he wanted us to all have productive conversation about it now that's again i'm not saying i and i wasn't claiming anything with those text messages other than just kind of like hey I'll give you what I have so I'm there's no information that I'm holding that I haven't given out and um you know it was just the point that like look that's that to me is where Charlie was and I and I think that he probably in a unique way because if you think about any of the other

like pro-Israel commentators like Ben Shapiro or Jordan Peterson or Dave Rubin or like any what separated Charlie Kirk from those guys was that Charlie had to deal with the young people like they in a much more direct way he had to he had to his job was he had to keep young activists which are like the most true believers like he needed them to volunteer to get out the signatures and votes and all this stuff and he saw that they were really abandoning support for Israel and like something had to be done about this that that to me is a very interesting story I would just add one other I would just add one other element that among the people that I interact with it's hard to understand this because the videos you see about Charlie are when he's very like certain and aggressive and adamant but on complicated issues he was really pretty open as well minded and certainly as everyone knows enjoyed the conversation in the debate and got something out of it from all points of view and that's what I think I heard as well in what you shared

all right man I appreciate the conversation all of it enjoy having you on Dave we'll see you again I hope soon absolutely thanks well have a good one okay check Dave out as I mentioned Check about as part of the problem. Legion of Skanks, Rumble, YouTube, Spotify, Apple. Thank you to Dave Smith. That's going to do it for this best-of edition of Will Kane Country. Thanks for listening, and we'll be back soon. Listen to ad-free with a Fox News podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcast, and Amazon Prime members, you can listen to this show,

ad-free on the Amazon Music app. Thank you.