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- [00:01]
Dave Smith
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- [00:31]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Hey, guys. Today's show is brought to you by YO Kratom, longtime sponsor of the Part of the Problem podcast. If you are over the age of 21 and you enjoy Kratom, make sure to get it from yocratum.com firstly, because they support our show. So support the people who support our show. But also, it's the best deal you're gonna find anywhere. $60 for a kilo. You can't beat that. Yecratum.com all right, let's start the show. Hello, Hello. What is up, everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I am Dave Smith. He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein. How are you today, sir?
- [01:14]
Natalie
I'm doing well. How are you, Mr. Smith? Ready for that debate tonight?
- [01:18]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Yep, getting ready. I hope I'm ready because I don't have too much time. I can't be like, I gotta crack a few books at this point. I know what I know.
- [01:28]
Natalie
Another head for the mantle. That's what you need. You need someone to make prosthetic heads that you can hang over your forest fireplace.
- [01:34]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Well, you know, one of the things that's interesting. So for people who don't know, I'm going after the show today, I'm headed over to Princeton University. I'm gonna be debating Josh Hammer, who is the. He's a senior editor at Newsweek. And I don't know too much about him. I read like a couple articles that he's written and I listened to speeches that he gave. He seems like a smart guy and like a worthy debate opponent. And so we'll see. And it's one of these things. The debate is over the US Israeli relationship and whether it's positive for America or not. And one of the things, by the way, for people I know Natalie had mentioned that someone had asked in the live chat and it will be streamed. It's going to be live on YouTube. I could find the. I'm blanking at the moment on the name of the group who's putting this on. Sorry, I probably should remember that. I'll remember them by the time I get there. Isn't that included in the description? Sure, sure, sure. Yeah, that perfect. By the way, Natalie just said if you didn't hear off mic, she will include the link in the episode description. But you know, this really is my. As you've come to know over the years, by the time this airs, it'll be. Yeah, that's a good point. Okay, anyway. Well, you know what? But it won't be the livestream then. But it'll be up on YouTube. But if you've worked with me for years, you know, I only learn names. Like, once I get there. It's always five minutes before we get there. I figure out how to say it.
- [02:57]
Natalie
Or after we say it on the podcast, a whole bunch and everyone gets mad at us.
- [03:01]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Yeah, but even then I keep saying it wrong. Yes, that is a part of my process. Sure, Rob, if you want to be on. But anyway, so it's Steamboat, I believe. Am I getting that right? Yes. Steamboat Institute are the ones they're putting on the event, and it's at Princeton University. One of the things that's weird about these debates, particularly over the topic of Israel, although I don't think it's quite as unique to Israel as some might make it out to be. You know, I've over the years, and I think this is really part of how me and you have built this show up and how I've kind of built my following, is that I'm just. Okay, obviously I'm biased when I say this, but I'm pretty consistently right about the most important thing when it really matters. So, like, you know, in the same. I was not right. You know, I don't even exactly remember. Like, I don't know if I had a strong feeling about it, but I wasn't like the war in Iraq. I was too young to, like, know what the hell I was talking about. And I didn't, like, have a show or anything. So I went. But just for an example of like, the war in Iraq, everybody's against it now, you know, but, like, what really mattered is whether you were for it or not at the time. And me and you have just kind of consistently been on the right side of all the. Like, being that all of our takes, not all of our takes, all of our takes on the most important issues aged very well, you know. But I remember, like, I was in the middle of, you know, I was on Joe Rogan's show arguing against lockdowns in 2020 and calling them totalitarian. And that was like, now if I say, oh, the lockdowns were totalitarian, it's like the emot is gone. So it's kind of hard to argue with that. Who could argue that a lockdown isn't totalitarian? Like by definition, isn't that what it is? You are locking people down and deciding whether or not they can do anything Anyway, the war in Ukraine was a big one. The COVID vaccine was a big one. Where there are just these issues that are like super emotionally charged. But Israel's up there. It might be the most, you know, but it certainly is one of them. And so when you go into these debates, it's a, especially with someone I don't know, like Josh, I really like, I'm going in just to argue the position and have like a civil exchange of ideas. But I'm not sure, you know, you go in, in the back of your mind where I'm like, I don't know, this guy might. I have to be prepared for the fact that like this guy might come at me, you know, on some like you're a self hating Jew, like, whatever. You know, I just don't know enough about him. From the little I've seen of him, I don't think he will. My guess is he's going to come in and debate the issue, but you never know with that. So it's a little bit of a weird like, you know, it's like, like I'm, I'm fine with it being like a vicious fight and I'm fine with it being a battle of ideas. It's a little weird not knowing which one you're going to go into.
- [06:03]
Natalie
If he starts calling you a self hating Jew. You should just whip it out and go, I love that I don't have foreskin. You see this college age women today for this debate.
- [06:13]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
That's your advice for me? Not even. All right, I will take that into consideration. And I'm re questioning whether you're the best advisor to have. But somehow Rob is my senior advisor.
- [06:27]
Natalie
Look at this and tell me you, you think I hate being Jewish.
- [06:30]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
It is. I also, I'm just kind of interested to see because I don't think Princeton was ever like really the, the hotbed of any of the kind of protests or anything like that. Like, I don't know, I'm smart enough not to protest.
- [06:46]
Natalie
Well, just like we'll go make money and not do stupid things.
- [06:49]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Well, I mean Columbia is a pretty prestigious school too, but they're dumber. I don't know why, but they are Princeton people. Smarter than Columbia.
- [06:56]
Natalie
More like the fruitcake smart kids. If you're a fruitcake smart kid, you go to Columbia. And if you're just, hey, I want to go make some money. Smart kid, you go to like Warden.
- [07:04]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Or Princeton, you should work for Princeton. Dude. That was the best sell ever. You know, I was just going to go there and tell them you all wasted your money on intuition. You're listening to me like engineers.
- [07:14]
Natalie
Mit. If you're a little more fruitcakey, you might try for Harvard or Brown. You see?
- [07:19]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Yeah. And if you just want to, like, drink other dudes piss, you go to Yale. Everybody knows that. Skull and Bones, baby.
- [07:26]
Natalie
It's the Ivy League fruitcake. Delicious.
- [07:30]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
But anyway, it's an interesting place to be. It's interesting to be in a debate about these kind of like polarizing white hot issues. And even, particularly with the, you know, the. I guess the thing is, like, I, when I went on, probably the most like, pushback I ever got was when I went on Rogan's podcast and, and talked about the war in Ukraine the first time. And because the war had like, it was going on for a few months already, but the war was like in the. It was still in the, like, at this point, you know, the propaganda about how Ukraine's gonna win is kind gone now. It's kind of like, what deal are we actually going to get? But back then it was like, no, we're taking back Crimea, we're doing the whole thing. I got so much. It was like, it was like kicking a hornet's nest, you know, like the swarm that came after me, which I find kind of interesting in its own way. The thing about Israel, I guess, is that Israel somehow always maintains that status. It's always the third rail. Like, it doesn't matter if it's, you know, obviously it's been more so over the last year and a half, but Israel at all times, it's like, if you even start talking about, say, like the Israel lobby people already kind of look at you like, oh, what are you saying? That the Jews run everything? And that there's this, you know, conspiracy? But you're like, yeah, but how would you not talk about that? Like, how does it, you know what I mean? It'd be like if you were like, talking about whatever. If you were talking about gun control and you brought up the nra, no one, like, looks at you like, what a crazy thing to introduce into this conversation. You're like, obviously, that plays a major role in how all of this works. No matter what side of the issue you're on, whether you're for gun control or against gun control, no one would like, deny that the NRA is a factor in there. And so it's just, there's just a lot of strange kind of dynamics to the debate. And it'll be interesting. I have no idea what the crowd makeup is going to be like or what side they're going to be on. It's an Oxford style debate, so you're kind of hoping the crowd isn't all on your side. It's more to your advantage if there's more people who are against you, because then you got more people you can pull over. So like, like with an Oxford debate, if 100% of the crowd agrees with you, you can't win. You know, it's literally, it's right, like it's impossible to win. There's no one that you can persuade and all the other guys to do is persuade one person and he gets the win. So it's, it's kind of like it works against you if the crowd is on board with you anyway, it'll be, it'll be interesting and I'm looking forward to that.
- [10:03]
Natalie
I'll be curious to see if there's any noisy protesters or any real elite college professors just standing on the side with. I should be in there. Why is this guy.
- [10:14]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
They do. The thing about it is snobbery. The, you know, I don't think there'll be protests, spider vests and just holding.
- [10:21]
Natalie
A vanilla folder for no reason.
- [10:23]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Well, there is a, there's an inherent kind of bias against people like me in colleges, understandably, you know, because it's like the fact that I've, like tonight will probably be the most time I've spent at college. And so they're like, it's, it's kind of in a way somewhat of an inherent critique on the institution for me to even be here in this debate. And, and so, you know, there's no question that like college professors, this is, I've, I've made a lot of enemies over this dynamic in, in my career. But there is something where, like, there are, there are people who are products of institutions tend to not like when somebody is not a product of an institution and rises to have more influence or, or has a seat at the table because they feel like, hey, I, this is why everyone at Cato hates me. You know what I mean? Like, Cato people don't know is like the biggest Libertarian think tank, and all of them hate me. And you would think inherently, you'd be like, well, here's a guy who's kind of popularizing your message. Maybe not exactly the same as your message, but pretty close. A lot closer than most other people. But when you're. When you've been at Cato for 15 years and you've, you know, moved up the ranks and played the game and kissed the asses and then finally got the approval, and now you are their senior immigration studies person. Yeah. You don't like that some talking comedian just gets to, you know what I mean, like, lap you in this game? And so I do. I do think with professors in general, there's just a dynamic like that. I mean, I don't know if you've ever seen, but, like, Charlie Kirk does a lot of those things where he goes to college campuses and, like, argues with the. The kids. And it's amazing how many times they'll bring up the fact that he dropped out of college and think that that's like an, oh, you didn't even go to college. You didn't even graduate. They're stuck in that mentality of, like, this is what matters. And then you're like, okay, fine. I mean, he didn't graduate college, but he's fucking running circles around you in this debate right now. So that's more of a comment on you than it is on him. You know, it's. Anyway, we'll see. We'll see how it goes. Should be fun. I always enjoy doing these things. Okay, let's get into some stuff here, and then we'll. A couple things that are going on that I wanted to talk about, and then I do. I had a bit of a message for the Libertarian Party that I thought I would do at one point in the show, and then maybe we'll check in if we have time and take some questions from the chat. So the big talking point today that's circulating around. I haven't seen a good compilation video of this yet, but I know it's only a matter of time until Tom Elliot has a good one. But it's constitutional crisis. We are in a constitutional crisis, Rob. So I don't know how. How are you holding up through this crisis? You doing all right?
- [13:41]
Natalie
Well, I'm just happy that people are talking about how, you know, presidents aren't supposed to do executive orders and not supposed to have wars in. Congress is supposed to allocate the budget, and no one else is supposed to do that, so.
- [13:52]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Oh, no, no, no, no. Rob, I'm sorry, you maybe didn't check the fine print. None of that is a constitutional crisis at all. Oh, turns out that's totally cool. The crisis is that Trump might defy a judge's order. That's literally what they're all freaking out about. It is. It's just hilarious. I don't know what to say. It's just like there, it's the, the Democrats and the, the corporate media, they, they always like, rely on taking things to DEFCON 10 with Donald Trump. It's like their only mechanism to deal with him. And so they just constantly, I don't know if you guys saw, but Jon Stewart actually had a really funny bit where he was talking about Trump. You know when, if you saw Trump fired like a few of the inspector generals, and he's going off and he's watching, playing this montage of everyone freaking out about it, blah, blah, blah, and he's like, oh my God, he can't do that, blah, blah, blah. And then they cut to someone at NBC I think was reading the law, and they were like, the president may fire inspector generals, but he is required to give written notice and 30 days notice or something like that. And John Stereo's like, oh, so that's the fight. The fight is just over whether he gave the notice he was supposed to give to or not. And you're like, you just can't, you can't make this 11. Like, it's just not that big of a thing. But this is what they're attempting to do. It does seem, I'm curious what Biden.
- [15:23]
Natalie
Did with the student loan debts.
- [15:25]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Oh, I was actually have a clip of that. It was so funny, man. It's like literally just the exact thing that Biden just did like two years ago.
- [15:32]
Natalie
What? You got to look me in. What is, what is Trump ignoring? I don't know how I missed.
- [15:37]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
You know, there's, I think there's a couple things that. But it was. I, you know, I actually have to double check this one. I think the one that they were flipping out about the most was had to do with a judge striking down the birthright citizenship thing, which does seem like it's like, yeah, you can't do that through executive order, but at the same time, it's like, you know, also like a president defying a court isn't actually unprecedented. And is it? I think the issue really comes down to the fact that, like, I know people will claim they love to use the term whataboutism when you say stuff like this. God if there is one word that I could strike from the English language, it would be whataboutism. It even overtakes anti Semitism and transphobia for me as words that I would just love to not to not ever hear again. But what about is. I don't even know where the word came from. I hate it. Linguistically, I think it's a terrible word. Like, it just sounds like a teenager. It sounds like a teenager like pulling gum out of their mouth and twirling their hair with the other finger. I'd be like, yeah, just did a whataboutism, you know, but it's also just like, it's like a way to dismiss putting anything into context or pointing out hypocrisy. You just have a magical word. You could say that. And I'm not saying, like, there is a scenario where, like, it would make sense to be like, you're distracting from the issue by being like, what about this unrelated thing? You know? If I'm like, you know, Rob, like, you got blackout drunk last night and came home and beat the shit out of your girlfriend, dude. Like, this is a real problem. And you went, yeah, well, you smoked weed last month. You'd be like, okay, but we're talking about this right now for that.
- [17:19]
Natalie
A red herring.
- [17:20]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Yes, right, right, exactly. But if I. This is not a what about ism where I go, look, over the last 20 years, okay, there have been, as you just alluded to, Rob, right? We've. We've had decades long wars that were undeclared by the Congress. If you read the Constitution, it is very clear. One of the nice things about the Constitution, by the way, it's not that long of a book. Pretty easy to read, pretty simple to kind of understand. I mean, you could argue over finer points, but it's more or less pretty easy to understand. It's not like it's really not actually that complicated. And they're very clear. Only Congress can declare wars. We have fought decades long wars without congressional declarations of war. Now that in Iraq and in Afghanistan they got like these authorizations of military force, which is like, that's not what the Constitution says. It says you have to declare war. And again, even those are like incredibly sketchy and have been pulled so like that we gave the Congress, gave the Bush authority to. Gave the Bush administration authority to use force against Saddam Hussein's government, right? Saddam Hussein's government fell like a few weeks after we invaded. So that was gone, you know, and then we just stayed there for 20 years. You know what I mean, so it's like, that's not, you didn't really have anyway, either way, you didn't have a declaration of war. The other wars besides Afghanistan and Iraq, the wars in Libya, in Syria, in Somalia, in Yemen, the drone bombing campaign in Pakistan, they never got anything. Just never even, like, went to. Right. So we have like, you had. Torture was instituted in the Bush administration, clearly a violation of the, of the Constitution. You've had. I mean, what could be a more clear violation of the Constitution than Barack Obama having U.S. citizens killed, assassinating U.S. citizens? I mean, just, just read through the Bill of Rights and you tell me if there's any way you could interpret that to mean that you can murder an American citizen who hasn't been charged with a crime. No, forget a trial.
- [19:42]
Natalie
Hey, George Washington didn't realize how cool drones were.
- [19:44]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Yeah, I guess that's, I guess that might be part of it. But anyway, so, but just. So the idea that we've lived through all of this and none of these people ever called any of that a constitutional crisis. None of them ever thought about, like, lockdowns. Just look at lockdowns. You're like, you know, I remember is my, one of my favorite moments through all of COVID It was very early on, it was my governor, Governor Murphy here in New Jersey. Tucker Carlson had him on and said, actually, Natalie, see if you could find this. Tucker carlson, Governor Murphy, First Amendment. Let's see if you could find that because it is almost worth playing as people talk about a constitutional crisis. See go on YouTube for it or whatever. Maybe you might have it right there. Well, here, yeah, let's, let's, let's play this.
- [20:41]
Tucker Carlson
To the state of New York. No state in the country has been hit harder by this virus than the state of New Jersey. As of today, New Jersey has more than 71. More than 3,100 people have died so far. Since 21 March, all residents in the state have been under a stay at home order. And that's had a big predictable economic effect. In the past month, 577,000 New Jerseyans have filed for unemployment. Phil Murphy is the governor of New Jersey. He says that for now, the shutdown will continue. He joins us tonight. Governor, we really appreciate your coming on tonight. Thank you very much. I know you've got a lot to deal with, and I want to say at the outset that I, and I mean this sincerely, I always presume good faith in the decisions that our leaders are making right now because I know it's complex, especially for you the most dense state in the country, second highest death toll. But there's a couple things that I find confusing and I'd love to hear them explained. The first is the rationale for the lockdown. Now, you said early on, the point was, and most governors said this was to flatten the curve to spread out the infection so our healthcare system didn't collapse. It didn't collapse. It came close, but it didn't. Now, today in your press conference, you gave a different rationale for the lockdown and you said that you can't foresee normal gatherings continuing. I think it's a quote. Until essentially there are no more cases. Why the change?
- [22:01]
Governor Phil Murphy
Again, it's good to be on with you. We believe completely that we don't get a economic recovery unless we've got a complete or near complete health care recovery. So flattening that curve reduces the amount of hospitalizations, reduces the amount of intensive care beds, ventilators, health care workers needed, et cetera. And so you want to get the line to cross between that and your capacity. If we had let this go, we think three plus million New Jerseyans would have been infected. The number, thank God, is going to be a lot less than that, Tucker, but we're still not out of the woods yet. My comments today were directed at things like high school graduations, religious gatherings that folks had asked me about for June. And I just, I can't say with confidence. I think April, the next couple of weeks is going to be our toughest period. May I hope, please God, assuming folks stay home, will be a little bit better. I can't predict with certainty into the summer. So my rationale is the same. I just got to make sure that I'm being straight with people about the timing and frankly, what we don't know yet.
- [23:10]
Tucker Carlson
But the standard that we're not going to have these large gatherings, including as you said, religious services or NFL games, which you have in your state, until we're basically at zero new infections. That's not a standard that we apply to any other infectious diseases, including diseases that kill, you know, as many people as this is projected to kill. So why the different standard in this case?
- [23:31]
Governor Phil Murphy
Yeah, I wouldn't say it's a different standard, and maybe it's the way I said it today, but here is, here is the reality. You get that economic recovery, that responsible reopening after you've cracked the back of this. I don't think any of us can expect that we can get this to zero, particularly in the absence of a vaccine and it sounds like that's a year, year and a half away. But I do think, and I did say this today, and we believe this strongly, that we need a much broader testing regime, and that will give us confidence if we can quickly test. Folks. Rutgers University, our state university, by the way, started this week with the.
- [24:06]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Sorry, this is the part I was thinking of, but it's just kind of interesting to me to just remember how crazy it was. Just pause for a second. I mean, it's just all so, like, he's got no rationale that makes sense. And then also just to know that they got it all wrong. That is just not the case, that the lockdowns were stopping the spread at all. And you can look at this like, you can look at the areas that did lock down and didn't lock down, and you. You don't see any reduction in the spread of COVID So it's just all so crazy. What a wild time this was. And by the way, I should also point out. I think the part I was looking for is coming up soon here, but I should also point out that, you know, this was. I believe this was in April that he's. He did this interview. So this is, you know, the lockdowns hit in March. This is the next month, April. This was the only time that any lockdown governor got a grilling. Like, all the other press conferences would just be like, you know, like, Andrew Cuomo, you're so hot. Like, it was just insane. It was insane. I remember listening to. Speaking of constitutional crisis, I remember Andrew Cuomo said in one of his first press conferences after the lockdowns, because, remember, he used to give them every day. He said in one of his first press conferences after the lockdowns that they were just suspending speedy trials because they were like, there's just no way, you know, the system's moving so slow that there's no way we can just give everybody a trial when they're supposed to. So we're pushing them back because we don't want to just let people go. They might be guilty. It's just being like, yo. And he said this in front of a room full of reporters. Not a single one of them followed up on that and just went, are we in a constitutional crisis now? Because the right to a speedy trial is enshrined in the Constitution, you know, and so you kind of have to do that. You don't have the option. Nope. Elizabeth Warren wasn't out on TV screeching about constitutional crisis, none of that. All right, guys. Let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Lucy. Everybody is all about the nicotine pouches these days. And Lucy is the best in the business. 100% pure nicotine, always tobacco free. And what makes Lucy different from a lot of the other nicotine pouch companies is that they're not owned by Big Tobacco. They're the mom and pop shop of pouches. So you can feel a little bit better about supporting them if you're not a pouch guy or gal. Lucy gum is available in 2mg, 4mg or 6mg. This is what everybody's doing these days. It's a great alternative, of course, to smoking and vaping. So right now, level up your nicotine routine with Lucy. Go to Lucy Co slash problem and use the promo code problem to get 20 off your first order. That's L, U, C Y, C O slash problem, promo code problem for 20 off your first order. Lucy also offers free shipping and has a 30 day refund policy if you change your mind. Lucy products are only for adults of legal age and every order is age verified. This product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical. I'm sure that is brand new information to you, but the law is the law. Go check them out. Lucy, dot co slash problem, promo code problem for 20% off your first order. All right, let's get back into the show. It's just, I guess the broader point here is just the idea that this represents a constitutional crisis, whereas all these other flagrant violations of the Constitution don't. That's not what about ism to point out, you know what I'm saying? Like, that's not something that should be dismissed. It's. It kind of proves that these people are not serious and they don't actually care about the Constitution at all. You get my point, Rob.
- [27:53]
Natalie
It makes sense to me and I don't understand the. Donald Trump has not, I would think, violated the law yet where he took someone who was born in America, declined their birthright citizenship and ejected them from the country. So it sounds very early if it. And I would assume the birthright citizenship. It seems like Donald Trump does have a bit of a claim there.
- [28:16]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Yeah.
- [28:16]
Natalie
So my guess is it's going to advance past the first court. So until he actually violates the like if he just wants to say, hey, I want to end birthright citizenship and a court comes along and says, well, you can't end birthright citizenship, that's not the end of that. Process. And he hasn't actually violated the Constitution, which seemed to me. Yeah, whereas in all of your examples, they actually did take away protected rights, such as going to a synagogue. And so I think that plays into what you're saying of he didn't really care about the Constitution there.
- [28:45]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Dude, anybody who's read the Constitution knows, knows Damn well that 90 plus percent of what the federal government does is not authorized in the Constitution. You read the Constitution and you look at it. The government that we have in no way, shape or form even resembles the government that they're laying out there, which was supposed to be, and was at one point the most. The experiment in the most limited of governments. That was the whole idea of the thing was to just put constant shackles on the government. The government can't do this, the government can't do that. We're going to take the powers of a government and we're going to divide them up into three co. Equal branches, which can all check each other. Then you have the 10th Amendment, which is another check on top of that, which express that it expressly says in the Constitution that any right that is not expressly granted to the federal government falls to the states and the people. So, like, it's not, it's not like, oh, if we didn't mention it here, you could interpret that. We also have this authority.
- [29:45]
Natalie
That's why we have a Federal Reserve.
- [29:46]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Yeah, there's no, There is no authorization for a Federal Reserve or a Department of Education or a Department of Energy or a CIA or a NSA or any of these things. It's very clear about that. None of this should exist if we're following the Constitution. So the idea that we have a constitutional crisis because Trump is defying a judge's order is just ridiculous. The Constitution was shredded over 100 years ago. We do not follow the thing anymore. And, you know, we could get into who exactly is the most responsible for shredding it, and we could have a whole long debate over whether it was Lincoln or Woodrow Wilson, but it was one of those two. But the thing is long dead. So it's just. It's a ridiculous, you know, assertion. Okay, we got to this point.
- [30:31]
Tucker Carlson
Now. The Bill of Rights, as you well know, protects Americans. Right. Enshrines their right to practice their religion as they see fit and to congregate together, to assemble peacefully. By what authority did you nullify the Bill of Rights in issuing this order? How do you have the power to do that?
- [30:52]
Governor Phil Murphy
That's above my pay grade, Tucker. So I wasn't I wasn't thinking of the Bill of Rights when we did this. We went to all. First of all, we looked at the data.
- [31:03]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
So essentially that's it, right? That he goes, it's above my pay grade. I wasn't thinking about the Bill of Rights when I did this. Are you? Tell me, how's that not a constitutional crisis? And the guy. It's very clear. Tucker's like, this is so clearly protected under the Constitution. And you're defying that by what right? Like, where do you get the authority to. I mean, if you. Like, if the constit is the supreme law of the land and you swear an oath to it, whatever, where do you get the right to. To violate it? And his response is, that's above my pay grade. Did you imagine it's like, no, that's exactly your pay grade. That is exactly what you specialize in doing. It'd be like if I told you that podcasting was above my pay grade, like, what? That's the job. And so you could have one of the lockdown governors. The only time, correct me if I'm wrong, I really do believe this was the only time that anyone ever think about what a pathetic media core we have, that this was the only time that a lockdown governor was ever asked directly, where do you get the authority to do this? And his answer is, I don't know. Not thinking about that. I don't know. So sorry, but hearing AOC and Elizabeth Warren shriek about a constitutional crisis is kind of laughable when all of them cheered this shit on. By the way, why don't you pull up that AOC clip that I sent you? This was a. This was a fun one. There were a bunch of clips of Joe Biden saying essentially the same thing. You already alluded to it, Rob, but you know, AOC is capable of speaking, so it just makes for a better video to play on the. On the podcast.
- [32:38]
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
There has been thought, I believe, given to this. Senator Ron Wyden has already issued statements, for example, advising what we should do in a situation like this, which I concur, which is that I believe that the Biden administration should ignore this ruling. I think that we, you know, the courts have the legitimacy, and they rely on the legitimacy of their rulings. And what they are currently doing is engaged in an unprecedented and dramatic erosion of the legitimacy of the courts. They. It is the justices themselves, through the deeply partisan and unfounded nature of these rulings, that are undermining their own enforcement.
- [33:22]
Tucker Carlson
So you're saying the Biden administration should Ignore this court.
- [33:25]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
But what does that look like? What does that actually mean?
- [33:27]
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
You know, I think the interesting thing when it comes to a ruling is that it relies on enforcement, and it is up to the Biden administration to enforce, to choose whether or not to enforce such a ruling.
- [33:41]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
What is that? Okay, so that was our, that was our last constitutional crisis. But see, that one was about the abortion pill, so that's okay.
- [33:51]
Natalie
It's such an odd thing to say in government. So can I just go commit crimes and then it's up to, I guess, whoever to decide whether they want to enforce.
- [33:59]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Yeah.
- [34:00]
Natalie
That I committed those crimes.
- [34:02]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
By the way, the same this. I think I actually did get that wrong. I don't think it's about, I think it's about the funding freeze, not about the. But so that's essentially. So now if Donald Trump, whether birthright citizenship or the funding freeze or whatever, it's like, like, so you're. So if he defies the courts on this one, somehow that's a constitutional crisis. Yet this isn't because it's an issue you like or something Like, I'm talking.
- [34:29]
Natalie
A little out of pocket here. But firstly, there's something different about executive powers that restrict the monster as opposed to, like, build the monster. And by monster, I mean government. But more specifically, there was that law last year that Congress couldn't just outsource, like, the, the regulation of businesses because they had been doing that. That was like a big hearing. And it sounds like some of this US Aid stuff. It's not like Congress specifically, it seems to me, delegated money, for example, to give it to Politico. They didn't specifically give. They were just giving money over to the agency.
- [35:01]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Right.
- [35:01]
Natalie
I don't know. Is Congress allowed to do that? Is that the proper use of congressional funds, that they can just fund an agency and then an agency can go spend it? However, I don't know enough about this, but it would seem to me like that almost sounds like the, the regulation thing where they're not actually doing the job, they're just handing it to someone else to do it.
- [35:21]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Well, it's, look, I mean, all of these things, right? Like, it's, it's the way this thing just grew and then they always find some rationalization. So, like, look, of course, if you read the Constitution and you go, congress is supposed to appropriate the money, and then you see that Congress then just appropriates it to. Or, or if you see, for example, that Congress writes the laws, right. They are the legislative branch. This is how the Constitution now then they create an agency that writes as many regulations as they want to, that is enforced by law. They call them regulations, not laws. But look, whether or not you want to say, I mean, this is the thing that, like, legal scholars will argue over these interpretations. But, like, like, if you could make an argument that, like, well, Congress did write the law and the law was to create the epa and then the EPA will write all of these regulations and that. But it's obviously so against the spirit of the thing, like, whatever. You know what I mean? Like, whatever. You know, this is like, even when people will say, when, you know, I've made the point, as many people have many times during this Ukraine, Russia war that that promises were made that NATO wouldn't expand 1 inch to the east, okay? And what people who counter that will say is they'll go, nuh, that doesn't count because they made those promises to the Soviet Union and the Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore. Now it's Russia, you know, or they'll say that, well, they were really talking about the unification of Germany. They weren't specifically talking about, you know, like, advancing NATO into Eastern Europe, which is not exactly true because there is, if you read through the notes from the meetings. No, there were a couple points where they specifically said, because we promised this, we also couldn't bring Poland in and stuff like that. But even getting lost in this debate, it's like, okay, fine. But it was clearly totally against the spirit of the thing. The whole spirit of the thing. If you look through the meeting and you can read the minutes of the meeting, the whole thing was like, the US And Germany and NATO and England and everybody going to the Soviet Union be like, hey, if you pull your forces back and allow the reunification of Germany, we won't take advantage of this moment. That was the whole thing over and over and over again. We won't take advantage of this. We won't be dicks to you. We won't put our military hardware closer and closer to your country. Like, this was the whole spare. I mean, why would you promise to not. Like if you were saying NATO is going to reunify. Excuse me, Germany is going to reunify. Well, why would you promise to not move NATO into Eastern Germany? Because it's closer to Russia. Right? Because it's coming closer into your sphere. So the whole spirit of the thing was. And like, it's kind of like that with the Constitution. Even if you can make some abstract argument that like, well, technically Congress, it's clearly against the spirit of what the thing was suggesting, but what was I. Oh sure, go ahead.
- [38:25]
Natalie
To state it a little bit differently. What do you call Congress circumventing our laws to go pay for bioweapons in China? What do you call that if not a constitutional crisis? What do you call having state funded media that then acts as an authority and tells you that a laptop that would have influenced an election isn't real? And so when all these people are just screaming about trying to protect the status quo and making sure that they can continue to fund things that obviously should not be funded, like the conversation here is not all right, Elon Musk should not be allowed to take away funds that have been appropriated by Congress. And clearly we need some other mechanism to clean this up. It seems like they're just shouting to go. We need to continue with what was the status quo because it was hiding us moving forward on our agenda or things that the American people didn't want since very rich to declare that a constitutional crisis. Because what is the return to the status quo if the status quo was money being funded so that one side could get more favorable, basically have state funded median propaganda or circumvent laws such as bioweapons? I mean gain of function research, which is essentially bioweapons. The whole thing partnering with China on that just makes zero sense.
- [39:38]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Especially by the way, especially with how hawkish so many of the political class are toward China and how they're always using them as the boogeyman and we should be afraid of them. But behind this is what we're actually doing, partnering with them on. Again, call it a bioweapon or don't call it a bioweapon. In effect, the thing got out and, and infected, you know, tens of millions or sorry, billions of people. So yeah, it is still that or.
- [40:04]
Natalie
Handouts with just a label of trans study, blank, trans this, trans that, that's just a handout to some guy and a way to get more money into, you know, studying gender studies in college and to try and keep the institution of bullshit alive so that there's some prestige and status in studying these things and being in that universe.
- [40:23]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Right, Well, I mean, I remember, you know, so I was, I was actually a constitutionalist for like a few years. Like when I first like Ron Paul basically converted me to being a constitutionalist and then very shortly after that that Murray Rothbard, you know, converted me to full Rothbardian ism. But I basically came to the, I came to agree with Spooner about the Constitution. Like the Constitution, he said it really beautifully. I'll probably butcher this up. But his line was the Constitution either authorized such a government as we have now or it was unable to stop it. Either way, it should be disregarded. You know, like, no matter what, this is where we are. But even for those brief. I mean, there were always parts of the Constitution that I thought were really bad. The interstate commerce clause I thought is terrible. But if you look at the way the thing grows, right? There's this famous. There was a famous case that went to the Supreme Court during the New Deal when FDR was president and it was a guy. So the interstate commerce clause basically says that the federal government has authority to regulate commerce between the states and I think between the states and foreign nations. And I think they also said like Native American tribes or something like that in there. So they have some authority to regulate, you know, the. Now during the New Deal they started going crazy with all of these rules about like how much crops you could grow. You know, this is insane New Deal stuff. That prolonged the Great Depression and it's why the crash happened in 29. And the great Depression lasted all the way up through World War II. Double digit unemployment rates the entire time. FDR's New Deal was an absolute disaster. But so there was this guy who basically got. He got prosecuted for growing crops in his own farm. He was not growing more than you're supposed to grow or something like that. And his defense was like, I'm not taking it across state lines. So the federal government has no right to regulate. Right? This is not interstate commerce. This is just me growing something on my property. You have no authority to. And the Supreme Court determined that because he was. Because that could affect the price of crops in general, that it was there for interstate commerce. Now I mean, I'm sure this is the way the world works. Smart people can rationalize almost anything, but come on, man. I just. Look at that. You go. It's totally against the spirit of the thing. This is not in any way interstate commerce. This is a man growing something on his own property. But they've interpreted the interstate commerce clause to give them license to regulate what you grow on your own property. So you want to argue that that's constitutional. It totally violates the spirit of the thing. So obviously. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Monetary Metals. I've been telling you about this company for a while. I love these guys. Are you tired of paying storage fees and exorbitant premiums for physical Gold. All while it just sits there collecting dust. There's a better way to own gold. With Monetary Metals, you can earn up to 5% annually on your gold paid in gold. For the last eight years, Monetary Metals has been paying clients between 2 to 5% on their physical gold and silver holdings, all while they enjoy free storage and insurance. Their team is full of passionate champions of liberty combined with decades of investment and banking experience. Imagine your total gold and silver ounces grow every month as you receive your interest payments from Monetary metals. Check out monetary-metals.com to learn more about putting your precious metals to work today. That's monetary-metals.com all right, let's get back into the show. So it's just. It's shit like that. You know what I mean? That's just what to ever have. It kind of reminds me when, you know, like, sometimes when leftists will, like, invoke Christianity to try to own a conservative or something like that. But it's like, yeah, dude, you don't care about Christianity at all. So, like, what are you doing? This is such a game. It's the same thing as when these leftists invoke the Constitution. You guys don't care about this shit at all. And you know that. All right, let me just. Because we're. We're. It's almost the top of the hour here, so maybe I'll get into this. The stuff I wanted to say to the Libertarian Party. So I was gonna. Yesterday I was writing out a long. I was gonna put out a long tweet that was like a message to the Libertarian Party. And I started going through and it was just getting way too long. And I was like, this just isn't good for Twitter. And also, I'm much better at speaking than writing, so. And I'm not that great at speaking, but that's how bad I am at writing. So I figured maybe I would just say this because I was thinking about this the other day, and it was after I had a phone call with Michael Heiss, and I kind of was thinking about some of this stuff. And, you know, there was just, you know, obviously Angela just stepped down as chair and kind of seems like the Libertarian Party is in a different place than I think it's ever been. Certainly at a drastically different place than it was when I joined. I joined the party in 2018, and I became very active in the party after the Joe Jorgensen Spike Cohen run in 2020 and been less active in the party more recently. But. But I was just thinking about kind of Some of the issues that when we first came into the Libertarian Party and you remember. Well Rob, because you were there, that we were kind of trying to insert. When I say we, I mean the Mises Caucus, you know, led by Michael Heiss and there were all of these issues that we were trying to insert that looking back at it now have aged so well. And I was just kind of. Now by the way, I'm not claiming that the Mises caucus did everything perfect. There were problems starting with me and me changing my mind about running. I think really pulled the rug out from underneath from the caucus and at that point the parties recruiting strategy, fundraising strategy, their plans going forward, and that's on me and it's kind of on all of us that we really did not have a viable backup plan and until Angela kind of figured one out. But there were, I would certainly say there were people the Mises Callgo supported who we should not have that turned out to not be worth our support. And perhaps we should have known that at the time. But part of this was that I had this phone call with Michael Heiss and then part of it was that Nicole Shanahan, I don't know if you saw this, but when she was on the podcast she said at one point that the whole Maha Maga coalition doesn't happen without the Libertarian Party and that the Libertarian Party was actually the vehicle that brought Bobby Kennedy and Nicole Shanahan and Trump's people together and turned into what is, you know, debatably the most powerful political coalition in the world right now. And I just was thinking back on this, like Rob, do you remember that really the Mises caucus guys, at least in the Libertarian Party were almost the sole faction who was arguing that wokeism is cancer and we need to get this the hell out of libertarians minds. And just like how well did that age? Like it's just also, we're also finding out now, even to a larger degree, although we've been saying this for years, that the whole thing was totally artificial, it was totally a government construct. Like this wasn't Wokeism was never something that just arose organically from the bottom up. It was always a top down government program in effect. And like it's just anyways, I mean remember like look, there were, when Joe Jorgensen ran for president, there were staffers who were tweeting things like it's not enough to be passively not racist. We must be actively anti racist or posting things about the trans genocide. Do you remember this? There just post about the trans genocide because like, 13 trans people had been killed this year, so they called it a trans genocide. It's just, like, these insane things. And then I do think that, like, man, the Mises Caucus really was the faction arguing against that. And just in hindsight, we were totally right, totally vindicated. Is that fair?
- [49:16]
Natalie
Yes.
- [49:19]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
That's what. That's what I like to hear. The other thing, which I thought was an interesting, Interesting one was immigration. I think the Mises caucus, and this was not the entirety of the Mises Caucus. There was division within the caucus, but I think it was guys in the Mises Caucus who are really like, hey, I think we need to rethink immigration here. And I think that this idea of supporting open borders is not the correct libertarian position, and it's also just politically unviable. Like, you can't. And now we're at a point where, like, super majorities of the American people support mass deportations. Now, I'm just saying, whether or not you're convinced by the libertarian argument on it, you got to kind of. Kind of admit that it is. It's a DOA position for a political party in 2025 to be running on open the border. Zero restrictions on who comes in. I mean, like, even, like, Chase, who ended up being the nominee. He wasn't running on any of the woke stuff. He wasn't running on open borders because even he knows it's a goddamn disaster.
- [50:23]
Natalie
He was running on trans horse shit a little bit.
- [50:26]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
But even I think he backed off like that. Then he would. He was on the record for. He had said before, and so he'd get asked about that, like, by Liz Wolf. And he didn't. But he didn't really want to talk about it. It's not like he was bringing that up, like, here's what I'm running on. You know what I mean? It's just when people would grill him about it, that he would have to admit, like, yeah, I am kind of a woke tart at heart. So that's it.
- [50:47]
Natalie
He said, it's part of liberty that a person should be able to make their own, blah, blah, blah. And he didn't own up to, hey, I'm an idiot with bad opinions, and no one should have fronted me.
- [50:55]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Yeah, okay, fair enough. But anyway, that I think h. And then the other thing that I was really thinking about was just that there's this thing that we really went all in on, and it's hard for people to remember that, like, you know, back in 2019, 2020, the fierce Mises Caucus opposition Was like, you guys are right. Win culture warriors. Because we wanted to abandon the WOKE shit. They said, you guys aren't real libertarians because we didn't support open borders. And they also said, I remember this. We always laid out the strategy that the strategy for libertarian candidates should be to utilize the new media podcasts, that we should be like, listen, they're gonna black us out of the corporate media, but we can totally dominate this new alternative media that's grown bigger than the corporate media. And we were mocked for this. And people said, oh yeah, podcast bros, that's the key to electoral success. Sure, Twitter's not real life and all these shit like that. And then you literally just watched as the Vivek Ramaswamy, Bobby Kennedy, and of course Donald Trump, these guys became superstars off of that scene. Okay, Donald Trump was a superstar before, but he won the election off of that scene. I just think, like for the Libertarian Party going forward, at least take those lessons that I think we were just objectively right about.
- [52:20]
Natalie
I think there's a lot to be said for that. Firstly, there was the cartoonishness of you coming in with the largest coalition and being called divisive.
- [52:29]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Yeah, right.
- [52:29]
Natalie
And the unity of the party and whatever that nonsense was. And then one of the things that was. Or the two most annoying things about the. Well, there's the autisms and lack of women. But once you move past that. But the most annoying things about the Libertarian Party, especially with Joe Jorgensen, is that they absolutely flaked on the COVID thing, which was, you know, I mean, talk about a libertarian issue.
- [52:50]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Oh, yeah.
- [52:51]
Natalie
And then there was this kind of underlining of the old guard that felt like they. That we needed to appeal to the liberal stupidity and the anti racist whatever that. I don't know even know what that means, but whatever that thing is, it felt like the Libertarian Party thought that that was the direction it needed to go in. And as the ESG scores and all this forced socialism starts washing out and what's actually popular can. Can rise up and no longer needs to be shamed away. I think it just showcases the stupidity of those libertarians that thought that that was as opposed to just being more macho and what Donald Trump is and just preaching, we've got the message that everyone wants and that's. That freedom's awesome.
- [53:31]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Yeah.
- [53:32]
Natalie
And we never should have shied away from it. And trying to pretend like we're left makes no sense. That shit was always gay. Listen, there's no better way to say it. And I think you're 100% right. That Trump winning and all these other conversations happening now kind of showcases just how wrong that old guard of the Libertarians were.
- [53:51]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Look, it's very hard for me to just say this in a more delicate way, but the old guard of the Libertarian Party and this was something. And I think this is part of what rubbed a lot of those guys the wrong way about the Mises Caucus was that the party was permeated by feminine men. And this is kind of an unfortunate thing. You know, Rogan had a great rant on this the other day. But there is. Look, obviously there are more masculine women and there are more feminine men, okay? I. They are not nearly as appealing to people. And that's just like. It's an unfortunate thing. Like, I don't know what to. If you imagine, like, imagine if you're a woman, if you're one of the three women listening to this show, okay? And imagine. And you're into. Let's say you're a straight woman. So we're down to one. All right? If you imagine, like, you were out and you saw a guy who you thought was just, like, incredibly good looking, like an incredibly good looking guy, like, everything you're looking for in a guy, you see this guy and you're just, like, immediately very attracted to him. And then, like, you go over to talk to him, or he comes over to talk to you and he's like, what's up, girlfriend? You're immediately gonna lose all attraction. Like, it's just gonna, like, that's just not okay. There might be exceptions to that rule, but generally speaking, that him being, like, super feminine is gonna turn you off immediately. Likewise, if there's a guy, you see some super hot chick, and you go over to approach her and she's like, sup, bro? And punches you in the shoulder and, like, belches in front of you, that's going to be like, now you're still a man, so you won't lose all attraction to her, but that's going to be, like, the biggest turn off you could have. There's. There's just something where, like. And what Rogan was saying the other day was he was talking about David Hogg, and he was like, good luck getting dudes. Good luck getting dudes back on board. Guys in general are not going to follow the lead of a super feminine man. That's just not going to work out. Like, if you're the guy who's like a guy barely brushes by your shoulder and you're like, oh, I was assaulted. Like, you're not the leader. You're not a leader of men. And I'm sorry, that's just, you know, it might be a harsh truth, but it's like, yeah, it's a truth. And so you can't. And there was something. And I think it goes hand in hand with that. But one of the most important things that the Mises Caucus was always pushing, and I remember getting in arguments with people about this, and it speaks to what you were talking about with the COVID stuff, is that, look, if we're gonna be a third party and we're gonna stand for this Libertarian philosophy, then we have to. We have to take on the controversial issues while they're happening. We have to grab the third rail with both hands. That's the only way to make noise. And you know that. That you have. And this is one of the things I'm not saying. The Mises Caucus messaging was always perfect. There was always. I always had critiques of messaging. I have critiques of almost every Libertarian messenger. Almost every one. There's like five that I think get it completely right. But one thing you could say about the Libertarian Party, after the Mises Caucus took over, it took over the thing. The war in Ukraine broke out. We were against it immediately. Loudly, when it costs something. Yeah, we got smeared as Russian assets or whatever. Who cares? They're gonna. They're gonna smear you if you're ever being successful, no matter what. The war in Gaza broke out against it immediately when it was a really white hot. You know, these. These things like you, You. You could just watch it happen. We know still to this day, right, me and you benefit so much from having been right about COVID when it happened. Like that people gain trust in you. And this would be this huge thing that the. The so insane that the Libertarian Party doesn't get to own that, that they don't get to say, hey, there is a party that was opposed to lockdowns when it happened. They can't really say that because they weren't. And like, that there is something about that that's connected to the masculine energy thing. There is something about that. That's like, no, that's what it is to be a man is like, to say, no, I'm gonna say what I believe. And if. Oh, if that means I gotta take some arrows, good, fuck you. I don't care. You know what I mean? And like, there's just. The party needs that anyway. I do just think. I just kind of wanted to share that. I do think that There were, you know, and then, of course, the other big one, the last one I'll mention before we go, is being will. Being willing to leverage the Libertarian Party. You know, that nobody else except people in the Mises Caucus were possibly ever going to consider that doing what Angela did. And, and you can sit here and have your gripes about it, and you can complain. Look, she saved Ross's life. Saved. Saved a guy's life who was wrongly imprisoned. It's more than the party's accomplished in its entire history, and that is a very real accomplishment. And then on top of that, where you see so much of the stuff that we're getting out of Doge and just the way the public conversation has changed, I mean, the Libertarian Party was an important part of. Part of this, and I think the Libertarian vote was an important part of it. Look, dude, you could just look at the numbers, right? Of. So there's like, you know, the Libertarian Party was finishing in third place in the presidential election every year. I think Gary Johnson got like four and a half million votes. I think Joe Jorgensen got like one and a half million votes. Chase finished, like, fifth. He lost to Jill Stein. He lost to Bobby Kennedy. He lost to the guy who told people not to vote for him. Okay, so, like, where did all those Libertarian votes go? Seems like they went to Trump. You know, like, it seems like that's kind of what happened here, is that these votes went to Donald Trump. And with the political makeup of the United States of America, if you're Talking about like 3 million votes, that's a huge deal. You know, and that's. So, look, I think these are all things that the Libertarian Party, in the next iteration of it, whatever that's going to look like, and to whatever extent I'm involved in that, this is the type of thing that I would be encouraging them is like, look, man, say what you will about the caucus. We were dead right on these most crucial issues, which really were the things that we led with that were like, look, this is what the party should be about. And I think it's really hard looking back at it to not at least admit that, like, if you're being fair, anybody who's following has been following the LP circles for all these years. You know, that all the things I just listed, there were major debates about this, this, and people were arguing against us on it. And they're, they're, you know, where. Where are they now? Any. Anybody really arguing, hey, if we want to really have some success, we gotta be social justice warriors. Social justice. Warriors for open borders. What a great political strategy that is. So, anyway, just something I was thinking about and I wanted to do. That little rant, uh. All right, we can wrap up on that. I gotta head over to Princeton University. Looking forward to it. Hope to see some of you guys out there. Catch you next time. Peace.