J.D. Vance on Rogan

Summary

Part of the Problem Podcast: "J.D. Vance on Rogan" – Episode Summary

Date: July 19, 2026
Hosts: Dave Smith, Rob Bernstein
Episode Theme:
Dave Smith and Rob Bernstein critically recap and analyze Vice President J.D. Vance’s recent three-hour appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience. They dissect Vance’s positions on the Iran war, media narratives, Trump’s foreign policy, the Israel lobby’s influence, and the Epstein controversy. The podcast maintains a candid, irreverent libertarian tone, often calling out perceived hypocrisy, corruption, and lack of conviction among political actors.

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Episode Overview

• Main Focus: Deep-dive reaction to J.D. Vance's Rogan interview—critiquing his messaging, the implications for the new media and political landscape, analysis of administration policy, and the shifting Overton Window.
• Broader Theme: The changing nature of media power from traditional outlets to podcasts (especially Rogan) and its effect on politics, public discourse, and accountability.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Rise of the New Media Order

• Dave Smith starts by celebrating the shift from corporate news to podcasts:

  • “It’s so great that this is the new media structure, man.” [04:12]
  • Joe Rogan’s platform is now so central that candidates and sitting politicians must take its audience seriously, especially when it’s at odds with the establishment.

• Media Change as Justification:
  Smith half-jokingly retroactively justifies voting for Trump, saying the collapse of old media and rise of Rogan is a worthy outcome—even as he’s highly critical of Trump’s policies.

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2. J.D. Vance's Performance on Rogan

• Disaster for Vance:
  Dave’s main thesis: Vance’s Rogan appearance backfires. He tries to “split the difference” politically—alienating both pro-war hawks and the anti-war Rogan audience without standing for anything boldly.

  • “This was an absolute disaster for J.D. Vance.” [06:34]

• Lack of Conviction:
  Smith argues that Vance’s highest priority is personal ambition (“he really, really wants to be president...that’s his highest value.” [09:03]), so he refuses to take meaningful stands.

  • “This isn’t someone who believes in anything.” [11:23]

• Political Calculus and Weakness:
  Rob: “He doesn’t have the balls to do that. He just doesn’t have the courage in his convictions.” [08:52]

  • Vance wants to sound anti-war, but not actually oppose the war—leading to “everyone, Ben Shapiro and Dave Smith hating your guts.” [18:19]

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3. The Iran War, the MOU, and Trump’s Role

• Smith and Bernstein dig into the details of the Iran war and the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU):

  • Accuse Vance of misrepresenting what was in the MOU and its negotiation details.
  • Trump’s campaign promise of “no more stupid wars” is contrasted with his administration’s actions, which the hosts see as capitulation and warmongering.
  • Smith: “All of the [administration’s] original war aims...we gave up on all of that. It was just about opening the strait. And...Donald Trump admitted in his own mouth [that] we can’t say zero percent enrichment.” [34:03]

• The Unpopularity of the War:
  Smith: “There’s goddamn consensus, super majority consensus amongst the American people that the last thing we wanted was another stupid, unwinnable war.” [19:14]

  • The war is overwhelmingly unpopular and not what Trump’s populist/anti-establishment coalition supported.

• Vance’s “Monday morning quarterback” excuse:

  • Vance’s unwillingness to criticize the administration’s war moves is derided as “Obama levels” of weakness (“Now is not the time to look backward, but to look forward.”) [15:46]
  • Rob: “Your job kind of is to Monday morning quarterback it.” [18:42]

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4. The Israel Lobby and Foreign Influence

• Vance seeks to walk a tightrope:
  • Admits the Israel lobby is furious (“all the Israeli spies in effect are out just trashing him”) but won’t actually side with anti-war forces or denounce the lobby’s outsized influence. [08:28–11:23]
  • Rogan presses Vance about the motivations of pro-war hawks: defense contractors, Israeli influence, ideological zeal. Vance equivocates: “I think with any big group of people, you have...a diversity of opinions...” [62:15]
  • Smith and Bernstein emphasize that the public is sick of endless wars fought for foreign interests, and that Vance’s attempts at moderation are futile given the moment.

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5. Accountability, Lying, and the Epstein Files

• Epstein Controversy:
  • Vance claims the Trump administration did everything possible to release Epstein files, but the hosts call this a blatant lie. [71:13]
  • Rob: “You try and claim we put out all the files. No, you didn’t. I, it’s 3 million, I think, of 6 million. And then one of the biggest lies he tells is...sometimes it’s hard to tell the victims from the actual co-conspirators.” [72:10–72:51]
  • Dave blames Trump and team for covering up rather than seeking the truth, suggesting deep establishment protection, possibly for Trump himself: “It seems like it’s him, if you ask me.” [74:54]

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6. The Polarization of American Politics

• Moderation is Impossible:
  Smith argues, referencing the antiwar/civil rights moments of the past, that “no one is looking for a moderate on this issue. You can’t do it. You gotta pick a side.” [67:34]

  • Vance’s “split-the-baby” approach (“I’m trying to be the moderate...”) simply can’t satisfy either camp in this era of strong opinions.

• Public Backlash:
  Smith points out that every time someone from the establishment is given time on Rogan to make their case, the audience universally rejects their arguments (contrasting this to mainstream media’s insulation from criticism). [77:00]

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• On Media Change:

  • “It’s so great that this is the new media structure, man.” – Dave [04:12]
  • “One of the things...amazing about the Joe Rogan Experience now being the biggest show...is that...a guy like J.D. Vance...has to go back and do three hours and sit down.” – Dave [04:11]

• On Vance’s Weakness:

  • “This was an absolute disaster for J.D. Vance...nobody is buying what J.D. Vance is laying down.” – Dave [07:03]
  • “He doesn’t have the balls to do that. He just doesn’t have the courage in his convictions.” – Rob [08:52]

• On the MOU and Iran War:

  • “The Memorandum of Understanding was very accurately reported...All the war aims...we gave up on all of that...It was just about opening the strait.” – Dave [34:03]
  • “The MOU fell apart because we did not honor our side of it...Iran and Oman have full control over the straits...” – Rob [35:40, 39:54]

• On Vance’s “Monday Morning Quarterback” Approach:

  • “Monday morning quarterbacking is like the dumbest goddamn slogan. Do you know what NFL teams do on Monday? They watch tape of the game.” – Dave [19:00]
  • "You're the Vice President...Your job is to oppose it and to try to reverse it." – Dave [15:46]

• On the Israel Lobby:

  • “He’s describing...the Israel lobby is trying to undermine our peace deal...trying to goad us into war...” – Dave [64:30]
  • "You're not even allowed to have that...You're not our guy." – Dave [65:57, 69:30]

• On the Epstein Files:

  • “You try and claim we put out all the files. No, you didn’t. I think it’s 3 million, I think, of the 6 million. And then one of the biggest lies he tells is...sometimes it’s hard to tell the victims from the actual co-conspirators.” – Rob [72:10–72:51]
  • “Donald Trump...can declassify anything he wants with the stroke of a pen. So he could do all of this. He’s doing none of it. This is. He clearly pivoted and tried to cover the whole thing up.” – Dave [74:01]

• On Political Reality:

  • “J.D. Vance’s presidential campaign is going to be a fucking embarrassment, dude.” – Dave [50:36]
  • “No one’s looking for a moderate on this issue. You got to pick a side.” – Dave [67:34]

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Important Segment Timestamps

• [04:12] – Smith celebrates new media, Rogan’s importance
• [06:34] – Declares Vance’s appearance a disaster
• [08:52] – Vance’s ambition and cowardice
• [15:46–19:14] – "Monday morning quarterback" critique
• [34:03] – Deep dive into the MOU and administration’s war aims
• [50:36] – J.D. Vance’s political peril
• [62:15] – Rogan presses Vance on foreign influence
• [72:10–72:51] – Epstein files controversy
• [74:01] – Accusing Trump of coverup
• [77:00+] – Joe Rogan audience uniformly rejects establishment answers

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Tone & Style

Smith and Bernstein employ a conversational, irreverent, and sometimes profane tone. They repeatedly stress their opposition to establishment narratives, their skepticism of political ambition, and their preference for candor and principle over triangulation and self-interest.

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Takeaways for Listeners

• The episode serves as both a critique of J.D. Vance’s (and by extension, Trump’s) approach to war, truth, and power, and a celebration of the shifting balance of media power exemplified by Rogan’s platform.
• The hosts emphasize that the American public, especially the new, alternative media audiences, demand authenticity and clear stances—especially on war and foreign influence.
• Vance’s attempt to appease everyone leaves him alienated from all, a lesson in the dangers of ambition without conviction.
• The Epstein files remain unresolved, and the hosts believe recent administrations have actively protected secrets, not pursued justice.

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Summary for the Uninitiated

If you haven’t listened, this episode is a fiery post-game analysis of J.D. Vance’s high-profile podcast appearance. Smith and Bernstein chart the disconnect between elite ambition (and its attempts to survive the new media gauntlet) and the populist, anti-establishment skepticism that now dominates the Rogan-era internet. They lambast Vance for his hedging, for defending Trump’s unpopular war, for equivocating on Israel, and for failing to provide real answers on the Epstein files. Expect unsparing, unfiltered commentary from a fiercely libertarian point of view.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Potential savings will vary.

[A]

Not available in all states. Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. We're in my hotel room. I'm Dave Smith, this is Rob Bernstein.

[B]

I don't like that they can really see how much taller you are than I am.

[A]

It's no, it's all an optical illusion, dude. It's all distance plus space.

[B]

Why do we look so much better on your stupid computer camera than both of our nice studios?

[A]

It's really ridiculous, dude. I've spent so much money putting my studio together in my house and just none of it looks good. I'm not happy with any of it. I have to redo completely the entire thing. But that's never been what we're about. Rob, this show is about the content, okay? If you want fancy, you know, graphics and lighting that makes sense and a color scheme that looks nice, you know, then you go somewhere else when you need the hard hitting content. You come over here to part of the problem with Dave and Rob. We'll let you know what's up.

[B]

Listen, if someone's production is that good and a dude's wearing makeup, you're listening to propaganda. Yeah, that is how to kind of pick.

[A]

You never, never.

[B]

You never get both together. You never get good news without dude and makeup.

[A]

You never follow a beautiful man. That's never supposed to be your leader. That's how. That's why do you think Israel is so successful? You know who their, their original leader was? David Ben Gurion. Okay. No, do you remember David Ben Gurion?

[B]

What's your thing? You're saying he was.

[A]

Dude, David Ben Gori. He was a little. He was like a little fat Jew with like this like white hair, but he was a maniac. But anyway, okay, that's neither here nor there, by the way. We are out in, in Nashville right now. Unbelievable. God damn. I love Nashville. Zany's Nashville. This is one of the best clubs out there. Show last night was so much fun. Sold out show, amazing Nashville crowds. Thanks for everyone coming out. We got shows tonight and tomorrow too,

[B]

so we're having on Sunday. I am porching even if you're coming out to the Nashville shows. Doing my whole comedy FBI entrapment scheme. It's killing and then I've got Chickamauga or something like that. Sunday night, Lebanon, Chickamauga. Wednesday, Atlanta, Thursday, Friday, Sandpoint Sunday, Seattle, Red Eye, home. And then back out next weekend for more Porches. Porch tour dot com.

[A]

Hell yeah, dude. Go to Porch store dot com and that comic Dave Smith dot com. We got a bunch more gigs coming up. Your Rob is just living on the road these days, but good. Good for you. Stay busy.

[B]

So just trying to not eat lettuce and avoid the explosive diarrhea. That's.

[A]

That's all any man can hope for, really.

[B]

Let's be honest. I might have it right. There you go.

[A]

This episode might take a turn. All right, look, we want to talk about. So J.D. vance went on Joe Rogan Experience. This. You know, it's funny because. So in our last. Or you went on. But the last episode, I was talking about how J.D. vance had, like, been all over this big media tour, you know, defending the memorandum of understanding and promoting his book. And then we hadn't heard from him since the thing fell apart. But then, right. You know, right on Duke, he goes out and does the biggest show in the world. Three hours. Let me say this because I want to go kind of go through the show.

[B]

I.

[A]

It's a big deal. You know, this is the vice president, and he's a potential candidate in 28. And I guess. Well, I guess there's two thoughts I have. Like, as I've been thinking about this, so me and you listened yesterday together. So we were out in. In. In Alabama, and we drove to Nashville from Huntsville, Alabama. So we drove a couple hours. We listened to, like, I don't know, an hour and a half of it. And then I listened to the rest of it today. And the.

[B]

What.

[A]

The first thing, there were two major thoughts that I had on the episode, and then we could get into the specifics. Number one, dude, I. It's so great that this is the new media structure, man. I. I mean, I really can't overstate that. And this. I was real. God damn. I knew this. I was right about this. I believe it's. It almost makes me feel justified in voting for Donald Trump. Almost. I still apologize for it. He's the worst. I'm wrong. Whatever. But if you remember, I said this at the time, one of the biggest reasons that I supported Donald Trump in 24 was for Rogan. And just in the sense that, like, I thought when Kamala Harris refused to do Rogan and then Donald Trump did it, I thought that being the story was going to destroy the corporate media. And it kind of did in a way. Like, it really worked. And one of the things that's so amazing about the Joe Rogan experience now being, like, the biggest show and the center of all this is that, look, a guy like J.D. vance, he. He's got to go back on Joe Rogan. He's got to go back and do three hours and sit down. And I thought Joe handled it just right, you know, like, just let him talk, let him make his case. And. Okay, so then my number one takeaway is just, like, it's amazing where we are, like, compared to 10 years ago, where the state of media is. Is so much better than the media that. That sold us. Covid and. And, you know, all these wars and all this shit. Don't get me wrong. Bad policies still persist, but they're not being sold. The people are against them.

[B]

All right, I agree with everything you just said. J.D. vance has made a terrific tactical error, which is everyone in government, you need a side hustle. Donald Trump knows how to grift off the markets, sell early access to his tweets, and he's insider trading. That's too sophisticated for J.D.

[A]

vance.

[B]

But J.D. vance, he can write a book while he's supposed to be in office, and then you got to use that platform so you can go out and promote the book. This is the wrong time to be promoting a book, because now you got to go on Joe Rogan and talk about the Iran war and be the face of trying to actually be the individual who's going to explain it.

[A]

Well, he's taken his shot, man. Look, I mean, J.D. vance is the vice president, and he wants to be president very clearly. And so he's got to try. Well, he's got to try to find a way to carve out a lane that could possibly be a lane that he can now run in. And so the only. The only thing that he's trying. The only thing he has is to almost sound like me, you know, to, like, half sound like, nah, dude, I'm with you. You know, I hear you guys who are saying that while still not taking that actual position, because that makes him DOA in D.C. now. So let me just say my second big takeaway from this whole thing is that this was an absolute disaster for J.D. vance. And, dude, I mean, again, these things aren't rocket science. Like, you want to figure this out?

[C]

Go.

[A]

Go thumb through the comment section. Go look through the comment section of Joe Rogan's. It's not that. Again, as Sam Harris. Sam Harris said, when he did in that one clip, he said when he was describing my episode with, with Douglas Murray, and he goes, douglas Murray. Sam Harris goes, douglas Murray just destroyed Dave Smith on every single point. Every single point. Just absolutely done. He goes, I couldn't have done as good of a job. He did it better than everyone. He just absolutely destroyed him. He goes. And then I go, look at the comments. And it's not that 90% of the people think he lost. It's that 100% of the people think he lost. This was his actual. And you're like, wow, Again, I'm not saying that can't possibly be true. Like, logically, it's not impossible. But you would think even as you make the statement, you'd be like, did he dominate? Anyway, nobody's buying it. That's just the thing. Nobody is buying what J.D. vance is laying down. And for very obvious reasons.

[B]

Well, he's in a tough spot because he's trying to pretend like he's against wars and that he's the voice within this administration for cutting a deal and not accelerating the war. The problem is you cannot criticize Donald Trump, and you have to be 100% loyal. And he already was a little bit of. He was kind of throwing a little bit of shade at Trump of. I'm trying not to go in that direction. I'm trying to advocate. But I'm a team player, and this is the job. So if that's the direction Trump's going in, I'm standing with him.

[A]

What a weak message.

[B]

You know what I'm saying? That's going to piss off Trump. At the same time, if you wanted to actually win back the real. In my opinion, America first, that Trump ran on, you have to leave this job and go, these people are out of their mind. We've been taken over by Israel. I've seen it firsthand. Here's the problem. I want nothing to do with this.

[A]

Oh, he could win if you did that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But he doesn't have the balls to do that. He just doesn't have. He doesn't have the courage in his convictions. He doesn't actually. The problem is, this has always been the problem with J.D. vance. J.D. vance really, really wants to be president. And that's actually his highest, like, value.

[B]

Right.

[A]

There's nothing actually higher than that. And so that means he's useless because that, you know, he doesn't actually have any convictions stronger than that. And so if you just want to be president, then, of course, he's never. But yes, to Your, you're exactly right. This is why this thing's a disaster. What? Like, again, this isn't even just my opinion. I'll give you my opinion. We're about to play some clips. I will not hold back from telling you exactly how I feel about everything he's saying. But I'm just saying, politically, forget like he's being a political actor here, right? And so what happened as a result of this is that the Israel lobby is furious at him. Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin, all the people who, all the Israeli spies in effect are out just trashing him for doing what? Because this is the impossible position they're in. He's just trying to meet in the middle. He's just trying to. Somehow he knows he has to look at the Joe Rogan experience audience, this huge podcast audience who is just not where the administration is. They're totally against the war and he's going to look at them. He's got no argument to make to them, so he's got to go, okay, look, I get your point and I'm kind of with you and between me and you, yeah, these Israelis really are kind of assholes. But you know, also everyone does this and it's no big deal. And if we got to fight wars for them, then we do. And the war is not really for that anyway. Essentially what you did is you infuriated the entire Israel lobby and you didn't impress us one inch. You know, that's all you're left with. We're sitting there and going, you're still defending the bullshit war. You're going to look me in my fucking eyes. J.D. vance, you fucking liar. I don't know how am I supposed to respond to a man looking. I mean, listen, for me personally, he's not just looking me in the eyes in the sense that like all as the viewer, he's the vice President. We're talking to him, but I'm also watching him talk to my friend and fucking lie to him and lie to his fucking face. Really. Trump wanted the Epstein files released. Oh, he didn't fight that dude. Shut the fuck up. Shut up, you liar. Donald Trump didn't get his yes because they had a veto proof majority. He finally signed the bill. He dragged Bobar into the fucking. Into the Situation Room, or was it the Oval Office?

[B]

And called up Marjorie.

[A]

He was threatening people, getting them to Mike Johnson. He had Mike Johnson whip everyone to vote against that thing. Like, shut up. You're fucking lying to me. Oh, we would have fought this war even if it hadn't been from Israel. Dude, shut the fuck up. You're a liar. Like, so what? I don't know. At the end of the day, this is just a moment in history where people are looking for real leaders. We're looking for men who speak the truth. And J.D. vance is just to me, I just look at this, I go, this is a weak man. This is not a truth teller. This isn't someone who believes in anything. I don't know, it's just. And by the way, I also should mention if I'm being completely fair, it's not that he's bad at this. He's pretty good at it. He's pretty good at going on a podcast and talking about things. A very bright guy is a bright guy with a high verbal IQ who is interested in ideas, but he just, at the end of the day, doesn't believe in anything except I want to be president. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Quince. It is summertime. One of the things you need during summer is good comfortable. Go anywhere close. Clothing stuff that's good for the summer. That's why I love Quince. In fact, I just got a bunch of stuff from them. Quince's 100 European linen pants and shirts are breathable, easy to throw on, and the summer upgrade your rotation needs. They're starting at just $34. Their tees are soft enough to live in all day, and the lightweight cotton sweaters are exactly what you want when summer nights cool down. They got great stuff there. This is my type of clothing brand. They've got stuff that looks really nice, casual, yet nice to wear out. And for prices that are very reasonable, which people know, quite hard to find these days. And it's not just clothing. Quince has become a trusted favorite from everything from home travel to everyday essentials. So make your summer wardrobe easier by going to quince.compotp for free shipping on your orders and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. Quints.compotp that's Q U I N C E.compotp for free shipping and 365 day returns. All right, let's get back on the show.

[B]

Well, here's what I would say to that. Here's my argument. It's funny, when you were saying Mike Johnson as the whip, I was like, it really is Trump's little jockey boy.

[A]

Well, that's what he's. That's what he was doing. I mean, he's not Technically, the whip. Right. He's the speaker, but that's what he's doing is whipping votes.

[C]

He was.

[A]

He literally said, the poll. Our political order will be destroyed if we pass it. And then the other thing is that he just sits there and Sundays, we found 6 million documents and we only held on to, like, a few dozen of them to blah, blah, blah. No, no, you're just lying. Maybe, you know, and then, like, I hate the way he positions himself as he goes, listen, I'm the Epstein conspiracy, that I'm the guy who's done the deep dive here and then is either lying or doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. Through the whole thing. You've done no deep dive. You have not done deep research into any of this. And in fact, even when he's talking about the war in Iran, there were major parts of it. Maybe we'll play a few of these clips where you're like, I'm not sure he has any idea what he's talking about here. Like, he isn't the guy who's done the deep dive or he's. Or he's just lying. All right, let's. Let's get into some of the clips. Let's. Let's go to. To the first one. I can't remember if this is Epstein or. Or Iran.

[B]

I think it started with Iran and then it went to Epstein because the Epstein pivot was about whether or not Trump.

[A]

Right, right, right, right, right. Which, by the way, already even isn't. Is it just crazy that this is the conversation already, just where the Overton window is, where the new media is? It is crazy that this is you, but that it's excellent in my opinion. So, yeah, here, let's.

[C]

I try to make it as successful as possible. And I've got friends, of course, I think, you know, you've expressed some skepticism of this. I've got a lot of friends, both in private and public, who've expressed skepticism of this, who say, well, this is terrible, we disagree with the decision, etc. Etc. I'm not a public commentator. My approach to this is not to Monday morning quarterback a decision that was made three months ago. My approach to it is to try to make it as successful as possible, which is why I poured my heart and soul into these negotiations, which is why I've tried to make that goal, Iran not having a nuclear weapon, something that's not true. Both. Not just now, but it's true in the long term. And that's the way that I try to Approach it.

[A]

So what is going on with the pause already? Holy, dude, you want to be the President? That's the weakest I've ever heard in my life. What is? I mean, what a pathetic. It's Obama levels of. I remember when Obama, when they were. There was all this pressure on Obama to prosecute because, you know, Obama had really leaned into a lot of that left wing Energy in 2008 and leaned into the fact that like, yo, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney erected this completely illegal torture program. Blatantly illegal. Illegal under our own laws, illegal under the Geneva Convention, which has been ratified by Congress. I mean, this is shit you go to jail for the rest of your life for. You're not allowed to do this. So there was a lot of pressure for him to prosecute, you know, Bush and Cheney and his defense was he goes, now is the time to look forward, not backward. And you know, it was always like, well, here's the thing about prosecuting crime. You have to look backward. Like, it's always a look backward. You don't look forward like that. What does that mean? I'm not going to. Monday morning quarterback. So we're talking about a war of aggression. Where do you stand on this? And yes, by the way, this war is also illegal under our own law. And under international law, people should go to jail for this fucking shit. And like thousands of people have been killed, hundreds of billions of dollars have been blown. Monday morning quarterback, where do you stand on this? Sir, take a position. Well, I'm just. My job here is just to come along and try to fix the thing at the end. Now that's actually not right. If it's, if it was a bad policy, your job is to oppose it and to try to reverse it.

[B]

He's transparently, although this sounds friendly and this sounds nice, he presents it as reasonable. What he's really saying is, hey, this is a really dirty and scummy job and I've chosen to have this job. And so the position is I support the President. And so if the president's going to do something illegal or bad for the country, I've chosen to do this job. And so I will get his back and I will represent him. That's not really what the job is. The job is supposed to be represent the American people. And if everyone's lying and stealing and cheating from us, then you actually be an honest person and you call that out. And by the way, that would be better for your political career if you actually did that. But he's just in the Nicest possible way. He's telling you, hey, we're all thieves and scoundrels. And I've taken the job of being the second most important thief and scoundrel. So I will continue doing my position of a thief and a scoundrel. And what the President wants to do is this disastrous war on behalf of the Israelis. So I'm here to represent that. That's a good idea. Yeah.

[A]

It's just. No, I mean, the idea that this is going to. Again, who the fuck does this appeal to? It don't appeal. I mean, dude, if you come out of it, you come out of an interview and you got Ben Shapiro and Dave Smith hating your guts. You had a bad performance. You know what I'm saying, dude?

[B]

Like.

[A]

Like, you just. There's no. Every end of the spectrum pissed off by that.

[B]

Can I just tell you, your job kind of is to Monday morning quarterback it. Because imagine if your team just lost a game and now you're doing the press conference near the assistant coach or the defensive whatever. Your job kind of is to be like, yeah, this play scheme didn't work. This play scheme didn't work. This didn't work. Like, it's good. I don't even know.

[A]

Monday morning quarterbacking is like the dumbest goddamn slogan. Do you know what NFL teams do on Monday? They watch tape of the game. They go over what happened on Sunday. Yeah, that's the point of Monday.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You get ready for the next game by going over what you did and trying to improve on it. Yeah. Dude, you're. You're the vice President. That's right. And the President of the United States of America launched a war of aggression, a war of choice. Then he lost the war. Then he pivoted to a blockade. A blockade, an economic war, and he lost that war. And now he's pivoting back to the war again. By the way, another major thing. I can't believe I didn't mention this in my big takeaways of the episode. He's totally out of sync with the administration. He's still on last week's Talking Points, while this week the administration's back to the war. We're not mad at the Israelis anymore. We're mad at the Iranians for violating the agreement. He's still trying to sell the memorandum of understanding. The president announced the memorandum was dead. Quote, it's over according to the President of the United States. So that was very bizarre, too. But I just can't. I actually can't imagine that he goes, now, listen, I'm not. It's not my job to take a position on the issue of war and peace. My job is just to try to make it work. Like, okay, is that satisfactory to you, to anybody, if I, hey, I'm not gonna take a position on lockdowns. My job is just to make them work. You know, I'm not gonna take a position on vaccine mandates. My job is just to make them work. Why do you get to do this on war? Like, no, fuck you, the entire goddamn American public. And I'm sorry, I take this personally because I really care about this issue. And I've done more than my fair share to try to move public opinion in a certain way. But there is goddamn consensus, super majority consensus amongst the American people that the last thing we wanted was another stupid, unwinnable war. And that is a big part of what swept Donald Trump into. Into, you know, sweeping all the swing states and winning the popular vote for the first time. So, like, no, we all took a position on this. You don't get to just say no Monday morning, hey, we launched a war for Israel. What are you going to Monday morning, quarterback, bet the whole time? Yeah, actually, in fact, I am. In fact, that's all I do.

[B]

It's not what happened here, but it's conceptually funny to me that I think Rogan sometimes does, like, record on a Monday to put it out on a Tuesday type deal. And it's funny if you're trying to get Donald Trump's back on something that Donald Trump could potentially completely reverse course by the time everything you just said is no longer. Like, you're like, imagine if you're on there going like, oh, yeah, the Iranians are definitely getting a bomb. We have to get rid of them. The day before they announce the mou. And then that comes out and you're just like, oh, yeah, I was working with 24 hours ago, Donald Trump.

[A]

Look, I do. I gotta say, man, it's.

[B]

That.

[A]

That is a very good point. But I, I will also say, look, it was. We called it the moment it happened. In fact, I remember doing a show about it either the day or the day after that. Kamala Harris went on the View and we went, man, that's going to be a black eye on her campaign the whole time. That. The very simple question of what would you have done different than Joe Biden? And she goes, I can't think of anything. And you got this, you got this very unpopular president. You got a really bad economy. You got the, you know, the inflation and the immigration True crises that were going on. One of is still going on. And you sit there and just completely tie yourself like, I'm not my own person. I am not different in any way. I do not represent change. I represent the status quo. That's devastating when people aren't happy with the status quo. J.D. vance coming here and saying, I'm not going to Monday morning quarterback this, I'm not going to take a position is in effect the same statement. I do not, I will not separate myself at all from the administration. Like, okay, but if you want to be the president, that's a, that's a albatross around your neck.

[B]

And it's funny for Kamala Harris, the golden lie is right there and she just didn't pick it up, which is. Well, there were a couple important issues to the American people that we didn't handle quickly enough, such as the border. But we've addressed it and now border crossings are down and we have the experience of the policy that we implemented. So from day one, I'm in a better place. That's. It just, it wasn't quick enough.

[A]

We have something.

[B]

You got to have some also.

[A]

You should be prepared for that. And much like J.D. vance, I mean, this is, you go in the whole time knowing this is what you're preparing for. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Prolon. If you want to be your most radiant this summer, check out Prolon's five day fasting mimicking diet. It makes it easy to target fat loss, support lean muscle and reset your metabolism so you look and feel your best all summer long in just five days. Prolon works at the cellular level to rejuvenate you from the inside out and help you hit your summer goals. Prolon, as I've been telling you about for a while now, guys, it's a plant based nutrition program. They have soups, snacks, beverages, and they're all designed to nourish your body while keeping it in a fasting state. So you trick your cells into thinking that you're fasting and it triggers cellular rejuvenation and renewal. It was developed over decades at USC's Longevity Institute. This is backed by top US medical centers. Prolon has been shown to support biological age reduction, metabolic health, skin appearance, fat loss with muscle protection, energy and a healthier relationship with food. So if you're ready for your own reset for a limited time, Prolon is offering our listeners 15% off site wide plus a $40 bonus gift when you subscribe to their 5 day program, just visit prolonlife.com potp that's P R O L O N l I f e.com potp to claim your 15 discount and your $40 bonus gift. Prolong life.com/potp. All right, let's get back into the show here. Let's go. Let's go back to the clip. Like the President keeps saying that a deal has been reached, negotiations have been successful, and then it all falls apart and we start bombing them again.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

So how long do we have here?

[A]

Because it's as much time as you need.

[C]

So, so, so I have to explain things.

[B]

Such an interrogator, you know what I mean?

[A]

Like, dude, he's the best. Yeah.

[B]

This isn't Fox. So you have more than 30 seconds. You're gonna have to come up with a longer answer. Dude.

[A]

I mean, I. Listen, obviously I'm like the most biased human being in the world. So, you know, I couldn't, like, if there was ever a trial or anything, I guess I'd have to recuse myself because I love Joe to death. And he, the man changed my life and has helped me more than anybody else. And he's just the fucking greatest. But there's a reason he's been number one all this time, man. He is so good at what he does and that is. And what he's able to do. You know, I thought this was like, it's. It's truly genuinely a skill. You know, it's one of those things. It looks easy. People think being an interviewer and it's like. But it's a real skill. And it's a skill I do not have. And maybe that's kind of why I admire it. But like, what Joe is able to do, and I think it comes from a lot of. It's because he's very genuine. He's genuine. Good dude. Everyone who knows him would tell you this. And so he has this real good faith that he is asking in good faith. He's not. He's not pretending to ask in good faith. And so even like when the GAD said. I think that was the last one where we did an episode on the interview. Like, he's able to get these guys on the record in a way that's so. Because look what he's doing. He's already got him going. Look, he just in the most, not even kind of disrespectful way, but he asks a really good question, which is like, look, the cycle here is that Donald Trump keeps promising we have this amazing deal, it falls to shit and then he comes back to bombing him and then JD's got to go, how much time do we have? But it's the Joe Rogan experience, dude. And Joe gives all the time in the world. And then JD Vance has a real problem on his hands, which is that you got all the time in the world to sell this, man. But how can you.

[B]

I was prepared for a 30 second sound bite that we move on from.

[A]

Yeah, he wants to signal. He wants to signal that he's one of us. That's the whole thing. This is why Ben Shapiro and them are so furious. Because he's obviously going out of his way to signal that he's one of us. But he won't actually say he's one of us. He won't actually be one of us. He won't actually take the easy position. Stop doing this. Whatever here. Let's keep going.

[C]

Appreciate people, fully appreciate what's going on here. So number one, it's a bit of a simplification, but you have two elements within the Iranian system. You have, and you sometimes hear hawkish Americans say this, that they're all crazy people. They want to bring about, you know, the, the 12th Imam and the apocalypse and all that stuff. There are people in Iran who believe that they're also pragmatists. You've got the crazy people, you've got the pragmatists. Okay, so when we struck this MoU, and really what the MOU says and I've, it was misrepresented more than almost anything that I've ever worked on in public life. What it says is Iran is going to open the Strait of Hormuz, the violence is going to stop, and then we're going to negotiate to see if we can come to a broader deal on the long term nuclear issue. That's what we wanted. And what the Iranians wanted, of course was long term economic and sanctions relief.

[A]

Now here's, here's, Go ahead.

[B]

That's not what.

[A]

I'm just so angry. I don't do. The students are confused. I just can't stand being lied to. You. I'm sorry. Go ahead, brother, go ahead.

[B]

The mou. Firstly, he's kind of pretending like the sanctions relief was coming later. That was from day one. There was also the fact that Iran was going to control the straits with seemingly the ability to feed down the line, but as a courtesy gesture, not imposing fees up front. And the fees were going to be protection or whatever environmental, so that it wouldn't Seem like they were just tolling the straits, but that seemed to be that it was conceded that Iran was going to be in control of the straits. There was also clearly money going to them at the beginning, which included the US money that we've taken from them given back, which is exactly what they consider criticized Obama for. And then 300 billion investment, which was not going to come from us, but obviously was going to get filled, but

[A]

that we were guaranteeing and that we were facilitating. So whatever, who cares who it comes from?

[B]

Lebanon Ceasefire, which was actually the first. I believe it was the first line of the mou. Yes. And then unlike the Obama deal, it was, all right, we're going to give you all this upfront and concede that we lost and then we will get to the negotiations about nuclear later on because that's how weak of a position we were in. That Donald Trump had to change from nuclear has to be worked out with all of this.

[A]

Literally all. All. Exactly right. Exactly right. I think more, yeah, let me just say like even more meta than that. But you're, you're 100% right on all the points. When J.D. van says that like he goes, oh, dude, there was so much misinformation about this memorandum of understanding. Well, no, like we goes, listen, I've probably never. What does he say? I've never seen something more misrepresented that I've worked on than this. That is just a lie. Like, he's just lying. It's not true. I'm sorry. Dude, I've been around this game a long time, man, 20 years. And, and I could, I could describe my relationship with politics and as nothing other than an obsession, probably an unhealthy one. For the last 20 years that I've just been obsessed with all this shit. Memorandum of understanding was very accurately reported, dude. They sat there, you guys, you guys, because you were fucking humiliated by it, intentionally didn't release it until like, what was it like 24 to 48 hours before the thing was, was to be signed after it had been like virtually signed, but before the official signing ceremony or whatever. They didn't want to release it because they. It looks so bad for them because. Yes, yes, it did say that. Oh, in the next 60 days we'll have broad nuclear negotiations with no specifics. Yes, that's right. They left 60 days for what took two years to negotiate. The JCPOA, by the way, this has been but heavily reported all over the place. And this is something that is a really big deal to the Iranians that Obama however you feel about Obama, I personally think the man's a monster who should probably be publicly executed after a trial where he's convicted for war crimes. But Obama sent nuclear experts to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran that took two years and ended up being a very reasonable deal, all things considered. Donald Trump, on the other hand, sent a couple of Zionist real estate agents. Dude, like, I don't know what else to say. It's insane. He sent Bibi Netanyahu's close family friend to go fucking negotiate. The guy who does real estate deals, he doesn't know a thing about fucking nuclear weapons, okay? Anyway, the Memorandum of Understanding, you guys wouldn't release it. It then got leaked. And I'm sorry, Rob, objectively speaking, what got leaked was about 99% accurate. It was almost exactly what ended up being in the Memorandum of Understanding, by the way. The biggest things that were being leaked and they were like, dude, don't believe any of this all ended up being in there, every last one of them. There was not one major thing that was in the leaks that didn't end up being in the memorandum. It was little details that were a little bit off in a couple of the leaks. But the big things were all accurate. It was accurately represented. All of the war aims, all of the original war aims were like, when you say they admitted defeat, ok, technically they didn't actually say we lost, but all of the war aims that originally were zero enrichment of uranium, no ballistic missiles, zero ballistic missile program, no funding, terrorist proxies, recovering the enriched uranium. We gave up on all of that. It was just about opening the strait. And as we said, not only. And look, here's the proof of it, right? Because obviously we're giving up on, on the, the funding terrorist proxies if the first line of the memorandum is that we got to stop attacking Hezbollah in Lebanon, right? So we gave up on that. And then why do you think over that week, Donald Trump admitted in his own, out of his own mouth, he said, it doesn't really matter if we get the nuclear dust. He goes, guys, we can't say zero percent enrichment. They're allowed to have a nuclear energy program. Everyone's got nuclear energy.

[B]

Our stock market's going to collapse. We have no choice.

[A]

He said, they got to have some missiles. Everyone's got missiles. Saudi Arabia's got some. He walked away from all of it. So I am sorry, but for you to sit here and go, oh, everyone misrepresented the memorandum, dude, misrepresented. Donald Trump said, we get everything. We Want? He said we're going to recover the dust. He said the regime's going to be overthrown. He said the strait's going to naturally open up. Come on. He might as well have said we'll be greeted as liberators and the thing will be paid for in oil. He said WMDs, right? He said they're making nuclear weapons. Your president, who J.D. vance is defending, said that if he didn't launch the 12 Day War, they were going to be a couple months away from having a deliverable nuke that they would use, that they would have nuked Israel. You want to defend that, J.D. bounds? No, you don't. Could you imagine, could you just imagine a one on one where JD Vance had to defend that against me? And I'm sorry to make it about me against anybody, but like, I just, I'm narcissist. So against me. Okay, but I'm just saying he can, he knows this is all. Don't sit here and tell me they misrepresented the MoU when, honestly. Look, dude, I'll tell you who loves dunking on Ben Shapiro more than me. Is there anyone out there who does. Ben Shapiro got it right, kind of. When Ben Shapiro said, hey, this is what's in the memorandum, he was right. That's what ended up being in there. Mark Levin and all of them, look, they were wrong to oppose it, but at the same time they were going based off everything Donald Trump had told him the week before. So really, Trump's the biggest liar of them all.

[B]

And the MOU fell apart because we did not honor our side of it. Firstly, I don't think there ever really was that ceasefire in Lebanon which was the, you know, the condition to start out.

[A]

Oh, and Israel started bombing the shit out of him right away.

[B]

And then you had. You're not allowed to make. Iran and America can't make threats towards each other. Donald Trump instantly started making threats. I don't think we actually sent them any of their money up front. And then the biggest one was that Iran controls the straits. And then Donald Trump was telling, boats just go through, it's open now. And then Iran was telling people, hey, you guys have to coordinate with us. And then ships did not.

[A]

Well, the thing. Well, part of the issue. That's right, that's right. And look, part of the issue here is that because the memorandum of understanding was agreed to in panic in a panicked way. And this is essentially what's happened. I mean, look, we, we covered this for people who have, if you watch the show We've really broken this down quite a bit. But the first time Donald Trump caved, if you guys can remember, right, they fought the month, it was a kinetic war for about a month. Then at the end of the month, Donald Trump started panicking. This is when he's tweeting, allah Akbar, I'm going to blow up your entire civilization. All this. Then he pivots off that and says, I've agreed to the ten point plan, right? This was the first time he's desperate. So he goes, I agree to the template, which by the way, the ten point plan was even more than the Memorandum of understanding. So he says that. Then the whole base, the Israel lobby starts freaking out because he says he's agreed to their ten point plan. He goes, no, not at ten point. Completely different. Ten point. This is such bullshit. There was no other.

[B]

I agree that there should be a 10 point plan.

[A]

Then he made this claim, this ridiculous claim that or it wasn't him, it was Levitt. His press secretary said, no, no, no, they sent us that 10 point plan. We threw that 10 point plan in the garbage. Then they sent us this new ten point plan. Nobody before or since has ever seen the new one. They completely made it up. The Iran minister went on television, he goes, there is no other 10 point plan. They're just lying. They made this up. It's never been a thing. What they did is they signaled to the Iranians we're completely capitulating because that went them go, okay, deal. So they, they tried to do it again with the mou. They tried to keep it vague, get them to agree, and then we'll implement it in a way. And the Iranians call. They went, no, we're not doing that. Dude, either you surrender or you don't. We're going to keep doing this. Now, I wish they hadn't because I want this war to end. But here's the thing, right? Should have negotiated more clear language then. That's the whole thing. This is what diplomacy is about. You know, the MOU essentially says that. Okay, look, Rob, you've read the thing. It says for 60 days, Iran can't charge at all. After those 60 days, it's Iran and Oman. They got to figure out the Strait of Hormuz, right? So theoretically, if it says they can't charge a toll for 60 days, then after that them and Oman figured out it doesn't actually say they can charge a toll after the 60 days. But hey, if you say specifically you can't for these 60 days and then you don't specifically say after those that there's a clear implication that they can. So what are we even going off here? There's an implication in the deal that this strait is going to be controlled by the Iranians going forward. And the implication is there because how the fuck do we stop them? We can't. Okay. That being said, Iran took that to mean that, okay, we won't charge a toll for these 60 days, and we'll facilitate some ships going through, but they have to coordinate with us and they have to go through the lanes that we designed them to. And there's logistics because we got water mines out there. We got to tell them where they can go and where they can't go. The Americans took that as the strait is completely open for the next 60 days with absolutely no regulation. Now, that's not spelled out in the agreement. So it's. What you essentially have is like the Iranian interpretation of this versus the American interpretation. I don't know. Is it technically. Listen, it was technically a violation of the MOU for Donald Trump to start threatening them. It says in the MoU that he can't threaten them anymore, so he already violated that. Was it a violation to coordinate with Oman to try to get these ships to go through that? You know, the lane that's closer to Oman, the Iranians say it was. I don't know. But either way, you should have negotiated clearer language then.

[B]

Natalie, if you could just pull up the agreement. I think there's a line in there that Iran and Oman have full control over the straits, or full, say, or something like that. Maybe we could just reference it. But while you're looking that up, I mean, as we pivot back to war. I was dealing with the rental car this morning, so I just saw the headline. I wasn't able to totally dig in, but I think we blew up a desalination plan in Iran that services like, 10,000 people. Yeah. No. Which means. Yes, the amplification now of the war environment that we're in, that we're targeting civilian infrastructure.

[A]

Yeah, there's a whole bunch. There's like several. Several towns. I was reading about this this morning that they're drinking water came from these desalination flights. And this is the first time we've hit one. And Iran has been threatening to hit.

[B]

The big talking point is that Iran. There's neighboring countries that rely on the desalination plants far more than Iran. And that's been one of the big risks of if Iran chooses to take out desalination infrastructure, for example, in Saudi Arabia, which thus far they haven't done. But this is like a. I mean, that's a significant risk on the table now. America just did that.

[A]

Unbelievable, dude. When I was. I was on a debate with. On Piers Morgan with Will Chamberlain guy, he was. This was the same debate that he told me, this is about two and a half months ago now that he told me he'd be shocked if the Iranian regime hadn't fallen in a month. And I told him, I literally said, this is on Piers Morgan. You can go back and watch this is two and a half months ago or something like that.

[B]

It.

[A]

And I go, in a month, when this regime is still standing, you will move the goalpost to something else and keep supporting this war. And I go, this is how forever wars happen. Now, I'm not saying. But okay, in the same debate, he goes, at one point, he goes, dude, doesn't matter if we're, you know, we're a net oil exporter. It doesn't matter. Doesn't hurt us any. If 20% of the world's oil is held up. That's just good for us. Makes our oil more expensive. I go, dude, you really have, like, the arrogance to just go, yeah, dude, choke off 20% of the global oil supply. And that just won't affect us at all. I go, dude, I want everybody who's got a 401k or has a retirement account of anything, go start looking down the list, all the companies you own, see how many of them are based in other countries. Are you fucking crazy? You know how intertwined the global economy is? You think you could just start, okay, that's just what we've done so far. But just the arrogance of these people. Dude, did you not watch? You didn't watch Iraq or Afghanistan or Libya or Syria or Ukraine or Gaza or any of this, Or Yemen or any of this shit? Just the idea that this can't spiral into a catastrophe. I watched the Vice President of the United States of America, same person who held J.D. vance's job. I watched him go on Meet the Press. This old, young people probably don't know what I'm talking about. Meet the Press was think of the Joe Rogan experience of its time. Big show. And he went on and he said, and I quote, that the war in Iraq will be weeks, not months. That was what Dick Cheney said about the war in Iraq. And a million people died, man. It spun into a catastrophe. And yeah, dude, right now, right, a desalination plant just got hit. Who knows if the Iranians respond back and hit one. And the fact that the, the, the lack of a healthy fear of like the seventh, you know, theater in the global war on terrorism going exactly like the previous six went, the lack of fear of that is just astounding. Astounding. Here, let's keep playing more data bounds. This is getting me too angry through enough of it.

[C]

The problem with where we are right now, and I guess my summary view, Joe, is that I of course can't predict the future. I don't know exactly where this is going to go, but I think fundamentally we are on the right trajectory. It's just going to be really messy and there's going to be a lot of stops and starts. So what happens the first week after we sign the MOU? We get 20 million barrels a day of oil out of the Strait of Hormuz. That's what it was before the war. The price of oil comes way down. And there are elements. The hardliners in the Iranian system kind of freak out a little bit. They're like, oh shit, did we just give away our major leverage point? Screw nuclear weapons, we just gave away the. So in this MoU. And so there was this kind of freak out in their system. So they shot at a couple ships, we responded. I think that's entirely appropriate. Of course, if they're going to shoot at ships, we are going to shoot at the people who are shooting at the ships or we're going to destroy the facilities that they're using to shoot at ships. So that happens. Okay. And then the Iranians like, oh, no, no, fine, that, you're right, we shouldn't have been shooting at ships. So then they come back to the table and there's a few more days of negotiation. And then the phase they're in right now is the hardliners have really, really reacted strongly

[A]

and we can just go to the next clip. I don't know if it. Is it sufficient for me to just say all of that is made up? Literally none of that happened. Just J.D. vance telling a story. Like you're just sometimes, sometimes I'll like tell my kids a bedtime story and you just make up a story. They like that. It's kind of like that, that. It's kind of like when I just tell my kids a story. This is what this is not. The Iranian hardliners started freaking out that they had given away the straight. No, they didn't. They didn't give away the straight. In fact, you codified their control of the strait in perpetuity in the Memorandum of Understanding that wasn't the issue. Now, there were hardliners in Iran who didn't think they should be negotiating with the Americans at all. They've been very emboldened. And that's why they're shooting at ships going through. Right. Like they're not. This just isn't true. The Iranians, again, I've been covering this the entire time. Say what you want to. The Iranian government has been clear and consistent, man, however you feel about them. And this is not what they're saying. This is what JD Vance is making up. This isn't what happened. Okay, let's go to the next, to the next clip. Let's try to get through some more of this, if we can.

[B]

Before we do, just the actual quote is more in line with.

[A]

Okay, I'm sorry. So this is the text from the Memorandum of Understanding. The Islamic Republic of Iran will conduct dialogue with the Sultan of Oman to define the future administration and maritime service and Strait of Hormuz in discussions with other Persian Gulf literal states in line with the applicable international law and the sovereign rights of coastal states of the Strait of Hormuz. Yeah, as like I said, very vague, very vague language. They'll. They'll communicate and figure something out and making sure you don't, you know, whatever. Anyway, let's go to the next clip. Billion dollars in concessions to Iran rebuild.

[C]

And yeah, so this is another just argument that the critics made against the deal. And again, like I just to back up a little bit, this is my own little hobby horse. But look, we, the coalition that Donald Trump piloted to the 2024 election campaign, it was a landslide. We won seven states. It was historic. Nobody, certainly no Republican had actually led a coalition like that at least since the days of Ronald Reagan. So, like, literally before I was alive, okay, so Donald Trump wins this great coalition. And look, it's got, man, it's got hawks and it's got people who hate foreign wars, okay? It's got people like you and people like Tucker. It's also got people like Mark Levin and others, okay? I just accept that as a reality. That's part of the coalition. I don't say that anybody is welcome or unwelcome. I say that if you're willing to sort of help us, you're going to get a lot what you want. You don't get everything that you want. What has really annoyed me about.

[A]

All right, let's pause it right here. Let's just pause it right there. Because, man, the framing of this just drives me crazy. You know, it's like, even as he says it, he goes, look, we in this coalition that got Donald Trump the popular vote for the first time, really unthinkable. You know, every swing state and the popular vote, we had people like Joe Rogan, people like Tucker Carlson. We also had people like Mark Levin. Ah, yes, the three major power players in the Trump coalition, you know, just the most popular, influential guys. You got Joe Rogan, biggest podcast in the world for most of the last decade. You got Tucker Carlson, the biggest right wing news commentator, biggest show in cable news, and then got even bigger after he got fired and goes to the Internet. Oh, yeah, and Mark Levin, who gets consistently ratioed by Liam McCollum on Twitter. That was not a shot at liam. Love Liam McCollum. I'm just saying, like, what world are you talking about here? Like, this is. Yes, okay, again, it's not just like, hey, this was a coalition that had some anti war people and some pro war people. Yes, you had the Israel lobby and then you had the American people. This war is. 80% of people oppose this war. This is not a. Hey, we had some people on this side and some people on this side. No, you only won that coalition. Listen, dude, Lindsey Graham, God rest his soul, he's looking up at all of us right now. Lindsey Graham ran for president. He did not get 1%. Nikki Haley ran for president. She did not get 1%. Jeb Bush ran for president. Marco Rubio ran for president. Ted Cruz ran for president. All of these people ran. All of them lost in historic fashion. The Israel lobby loved every last one of them. Mark Levin loved every last one of them. He'll still have every one of them on his show anytime they want to. Come on. Where was the coalition? No, you won because you got us and you promised no new wars. That's why you fucking won. Want. That's why you got Joe Rogan to support you. That's why you got Theo Vaughn and Tucker Carlson and, you know, Andrew Schultz and all the cool kids you got. You carried all of them because you promised no new wars. Don't turn around and go, oh, you get some of what you want. Listen, you're all going to get some of what you want. None of you are going to get all of what you want. We get none of what we want. What do we get? What have I gotten? I've gotten zero, dude, nothing from this administration. And so. And by the way, him sitting here going, I'm not going to say anyone's not welcome, motherfucker. We excused ourselves. We are not interested. I don't care if you say I'm not welcome. Donald Trump already said, fuck Tucker Carlson, fuck Megan Kelly, fuck Alex Jones, fuck Candace Owens. We are the party of Mark Levant. So have fun. J.D. vance, that's the guy you're defending. You're going down, brother. You're not going to be the nominee. You're going to. J.D. vance is. His presidential campaign is going to be a fucking embarrassment, dude.

[B]

And listen, the people that wanted to get us involved in foreign wars shouldn't have been welcome. And not only did we not get what we want, we got the one thing that we were so opposed to. We would have sat out the election or maybe voted for column. If Donald Trump ran on I am going to war with Iran. It's the most important thing in this country. They cannot have a nuclear bomb. Israel is our number one partner and this will be a horrible planet unless we take care of this now. And if he made that his number one issue, which, by the way, what do you do within his first six months or first year? That's like the first thing he hopped onto other than, you know, blowing up his deportation policy.

[A]

No. And look, there's no reason, there's no reason and there's no reason why he shouldn't have run on this. I mean, guys, after all, we've been at War for 47 years. He's been completely consistent on this. If Donald Trump had just run in 2024 on, look, look, I'm launching a war immediately against Iran because if I don't, they're going to have a nuclear weapon and then they'll nuke Israel. So that's the new thing here. We're continuing the global war on terrorism and we're going for the neocons final prize. You know, we're going for the seventh country in the list of seven. If he had just run on that, Kamala Harris wins every swing state and the popular vote guaranteed, guaranteed, all she would have had to say is, I won't do that. That, and she wins. And you know what? If they had been clear on that, and hear me right now when I say this, if Donald Trump had just said, told the truth, he's going to do this, and Kamala Harris had just said, I won't do that, we would have voted for Kamala Harris. We would have been right to do it if that was the choice. If we knew going in, we don't get a war with her and we do with him, we probably would have voted for her. Certainly she would have won there's no way. There's no way he has any of this. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Body Brain Coffee. I love Body Brain Coffee. As I've been telling you, I've been drinking the stuff for months now. I feel great. I have a cup every single day. For those of you guys who don't know, Body Brain Coffee was the creation of the great Louis J. Gomez, hilarious comedian, dear friend of mine, the reason why I'm a podcaster always encouraged me to, to start this show. And he, he made this great, delicious coffee that naturally boosts your testosterone. I've been drinking it for months now. I feel great. They have the creamer. The Body Brain creamer is finally here as well. It was specifically designed to stack pack perfectly with Body Brain Coffee. It's not some sugary gross creamer you get at the the grocery store. It's packed with MCT oil for clean energy, collagen peptides, cordycet mushrooms for endurance and stamina. Basically, it's just all good stuff in there that makes you feel great. You put one thing of that in the coffee once a day. It's delicious. It naturally boosts your testosterone and you feel better. So make sure you go get yourself some bodybraincoffee.com that is the website it Dave20 is the promo code that will get you 20% off your entire order. So bodybraincoffee.com promo code, Dave20 for 20% off your entire order. All right, let's get back on the show. So. Yeah, dude, sorry. You could sit here and say that's a real, that's a real nice story to go. Yeah, look, sometimes you're going to get what you want and then sometimes we're going to launch a war on behalf of Israel for Mark Levin. Like.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

All right, well, that's a deal breaker for some of us.

[B]

To be clear, I could not have brought myself to vote for.

[A]

Yeah, I probably couldn't. You know, even. I swear to God, even as I'm saying that, I'm sitting back. Okay. Probably couldn't have done that. No, but she would have won. She would have won. No question. And we certainly would. Would have stayed home in protest. I probably after the border stuff and the woke and the COVID Yeah, I probably couldn't have voted for a Democrat. Okay, let's, let's play a little bit more because we're gonna get caught. Running out of time here.

[B]

We got to jump to the, the Israeli, the Israel influence. And then we still got Epstein Left.

[A]

Oh, from J.D.

[B]

bounds.

[A]

Yeah. Well, do you want. What do you want to do you want to continue it on the members only?

[B]

Well, let's just see what we cover. Let's play a little more of this, and then let's go to the Israel lobby thing and maybe we can just give our roundup of the Epstein conversation.

[A]

Maybe we'll just keep this. We'll extend this one a little bit and cut short the other one or something. All right, let's keep. Let's keep playing.

[C]

Is they attack any effort to negotiate. They attack the president. They attack me personally. Donald Trump is betraying me. Wait a second. If you want to have like a hawkish policy towards Iran, the idea that Donald Trump has betrayed you because he's also trying to negotiate to get a good outcome for the American people is crazy. And so you've seen a lot of these people completely flip on him. And that brings me to the $300 billion point.

[B]

Point.

[C]

What we did with the MOU is we actually worked not just with the Iranians, but with the Gulf Arab states.

[A]

What is the term mou?

[C]

What does it start? Memorandum of Understanding. It's the basic structure that we set up for the negotiation. So what would happen here is. Okay, so people sort of think of the Middle east as like Iran versus Israel. I think a lot of people do. There's also a massive number of Gulf states that are really important, good allies to the United States. They and Israel don't always see to eye, but we're obviously very close to both Israel and to the Gulf states. Yeah, the Gulf states actually came.

[A]

I'm sorry, I don't mean to be a dick. You just pause it for a second. I don't mean to be a dick, but is this his. Kamala Harris, Russia is a big country and Ukraine is a small country moment. You tell me it's not just Israel and Iran. There's a bunch of other countries in there. In the middle of all that stand. What do you got? Arabs? I don't know. I just find this to just be. What?

[C]

What?

[A]

What? Why did we just take this to kindergarten for a second? What are you even talking about? And by the way, all of this is what, to just dodge around the point. Yes, there is. Read the Memorandum of Understanding. It guarantees a 300 billion dollar fund. And yes, it's to be paid by the other Gulf app. By our sock puppets rather than from us. Okay, sorry, Go back to the. I just. This thought infuriates me here. Go Back to the show.

[C]

Iranians are willing, really willing to change their behavior. We'd like to invest in rebuilding their country. Now, whether they change their behavior is something that's going to be determined over the long term.

[B]

Right.

[C]

We want to see real changes. We want to see them to stop funding terrorists.

[A]

All right, let's pause it here and then. Okay, hold on. Yeah, take, get rid of this. Let's go to the next timestamp. But let me just say about this one here. I mean, it's like, no, dude, it's not. We're giving them money. I mean, yeah, we've talked to other countries about investing in rebuilding their economy if they change their behavior. Like, okay, by the way, investing in their economy is. That means give them money. That's the same thing. That's that. Yeah, I'm not giving you $100,000. I'm investing $100,000 into your economy. Okay, that's a really important distinction. But so then this is the interesting little game that they play. Here they go, they get the money if they change their behavior. Well, Rob, the thing about the statement change their behavior is that that's fucking vague. What does change their behavior mean? And again, when we get down to the details, during the Memorandum of understanding, before it became over and fell apart and we're back to war again, as I said, Donald Trump walked away from zero enrichment uranium. Zero enrichment. He walked away from ballistic missiles and he walked away from funding Hezbollah. So what has changed the behavior? Mean, don't develop nuclear weapons. They've been doing that for 47 years. Like what, what is it? What say that they won't develop nuclear weapons. They've been doing that for at least the last 20 years. So what, what do you mean change their behavior? That none of that is ever laid out. The, the standard for what their behavior has to be. The reason we went to war, the reason we went to war in the 12 Day War and in this war was that the standard was that they had to have, have zero enriched uranium, zero ballistic missiles, and zero support for Hezbollah. They're not changing their behavior on any of that. And Donald Trump conceded they don't have to. So what the fuck are you talking about? What do they have to do? Notice how none of them ever spell that out? And so, like, you know, JD Vance can attack the hawks and what's his line that he's got here, Rob? He says, wait, you want to be hawkish on Iran and you're mad at Donald Trump? Trump, the most hawkish president on Iran. Okay. You know what, that's a little bit of an argument, I guess, for him and Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin to have, like, hey, I gave you a war on behalf of Israel. I'm not giving you a regime change on behalf of Israel. Is that enough for you? That it sounds like a great conversation for you and Jeb Bush and Ben Shapiro to go have with each other, but leave us the fuck out of it, you know what I mean? Like, okay, okay, yeah, you're right. If you're hawkish on Iran, maybe Donald Trump's the best you could get. But if you're over here on Team America and you think the last thing we needed was another stupid unwinnable war that's gonna cost us hundreds of billions of dollars and get thousands of people slaughtered, in the best case scenario, we're already there. Let's see how much worse this could get. That's enough for us to be off the team. So you're right. People who are hawkish against Iran should still support Donald Trump. He's the best you got, Israel. But we here are Americans. All right, so let's. Oh, no, I'm sorry. Let's move to the next timestamp. Natalie, whatever the next one was after that. Thank you. Sorry, I didn't see that note.

[C]

Extraordinarily well funded efforts to tank the negotiation to prevent us from reaching a deal to change American public opinion, which by the way, if you look at the public opinion, people love the idea of actually getting to a final resolution on this thing. Americans do not. They're not game for long term, you know, open ended regime change wars in the Middle east, they're okay with us using the military to accomplish discrete objectives. They're not okay with open ended obligations.

[A]

Dude, pause. What do you think the motivation of the hawk, like, shut the fuck up, dude, what are you saying? Like, this is the most pathetic propaganda ever. AKA you launched the most unpopular war in American history. You know what I'm taking away, Rob, from 80% of the American people opposing this war from the start is that they're okay with military action, but they just don't want an open ended war. Dude, if polls have ever told us anything, they tell us that the American people are against this war. This is the most insane thing ever. Like to the, your takeaway from that being like, you know, hey, what did the polls say? 80% of people oppose this strongly. You go, so my takeaway from that is that they want a little. Is that what you're telling me? They want a little bit of it? Just not like the whole thing. No, the, you know, the American people are actually okay with us making this deal.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because they hate the fucking war. So they're okay with it ending. Like, what, what does this mean? No, American is thrilled with the mou. It's just. They hate this. Stop. Anything's better than this. Pathetic. All right, let's keep playing.

[C]

They're not okay with open ended obligations.

[A]

What do you think the motivation of the hawks is? Do you think this is? Are they influenced by defense contractors? Are they influenced? What's the reason why they're so keen on continuing to bomb?

[C]

I think with any big group of people, you have, you know, you have a diversity of opinions. So, so sure, I'm sure that, you know, you have people who are influenced by defense contractors. You know, there's a lot of talk about how, how much is the Israeli government influencing American politics? And there are certainly certain people within the Israeli government who hate the deal. And we, we see exact evidence. There was a time story that came out yesterday that basically there are certain influencers in America who are being paid in order to attack the deal. I think some of it, it's just pure political ideology. Right. It's foreign policy perspectives that is, that are much different from mine. They think that America should just. That we can basically, you can wave a magic wand with the military and accomplish whatever you want. And, you know, it's not that simple. You actually have to have a very clear objective. Military power can accomplish a clear objective, but you've got to have that clear objective. You can't just say, we're going to bomb until something good happens. That never works. The United States has tried that before. So I think it's a combination of things.

[A]

All right.

[C]

But I definitely think.

[A]

Pause it there. I mean, it's exactly what Donald Trump is doing. It's exactly what he's doing. We literally said this, right? I think this is what you said in the car. I think you screamed this as we were listening to this car. You go, that's what he's doing. Well, the military, you can't just wave a magic wand with the military and make anything happen. Happen. What, like taking out the Iranian regime and having the people rise up and having a democratic government? You mean like literally the stated goal of this war when your president launched it? Yeah, no, that's a good, that's a good point.

[B]

That's what he's doing right now. Bombing and hoping something just changes. That's literally the strategy right now. And they've yet to come Forward and go, hey, well, we're doing troops on the ground or we're actually taking Carg Island. And here's those. It's just, hey, let's bomb and hope some sort of a pathway to victory opens up. That's literally been the strategy for the last three months. We just restarted that strategy.

[A]

I know. You just. Look, man, and I mean, part of the reason why this thing is such a disaster for J.D. vance is just obviously, like, on its face, if you. I don't know, man. It's like trying to.

[B]

It's.

[A]

You're trying to carry the pro life vote while supporting an abortion clinic or something. You know, like even his own logic here, when you think about it, he is sitting here because he's trying again, as I said before, he's trying to signal that he's one of us. It's why it's pissing them off so much. But he's, in his own words here, he's telling you that fucking. The Israel lobby is trying to undermine our peace deal, that they're trying to goad us into war and then they're trying to keep us in this war. And it's quite literally what Israel does. It's why we say they drag us into war. It's literally the way you watch it happen. It's not just like they push us into war. It's a continuous draft. And he's describing it. He's describing the people who would undermine a peace deal that's in the interest of the American people. And then out of the other side of his mouth, he's also gonna say to those people, and you should support Trump because we've done so much for you. Well, why the fuck should we do so much for people like that?

[B]

The other side of this, though, that is fascinating, is that the Israeli propaganda is supposed to be there. Our number one partner in the region and anyone who even flirts with, hey, do they have outsized control or anti Semites, and now you've got the Vice President who is presenting himself as, hey, I'm kind of the moderate, I'm not totally against war, and I've got Trump's back. But yeah, even though they're not more of a problem than other people, I acknowledge that there is influence here. And like, that's. It is like an interesting crack in the arm.

[A]

It is.

[B]

Why the Shapiro's and the other.

[A]

Yeah, no, you're not even allowed to have that. Well, you know, I gotta say, in some way it reminds me of the dynamic with Charlie Kirk and this Was, you know, Charlie Kirk was in this impossible situation, you know, and I saw it. You know, I had found. I shared this on Twitter the other day, but I played it for you. I found the thing where Charlie Kirk was talking about the debate with me and John, and it was on a call. So it's on a call with like, a Turning Point member, chapter organizer, and some girl, and she asks his thoughts about the debate between me and Josh Hammer. So this is probably. I mean, it's gotta be, you know, short. Shortly before he died, a couple months before he got killed and whatever, he was just talking about the dynamic we talked about a lot on the show, where he goes, look, dude, like, Dave won over the audience and he had home court advantage, but like, 10 years ago, this would have been the most hostile environment. And that shows you how much the thing's changing. But anyway, so from Charlie Kirk's position, right, you got Turning Point usa, and it's basically made up of grassroots, like your members, which are young people, young activists, and your donors, which are billionaires, you know, and, man, the young activists hate Israel's guts. The donors love Israel with religious fervor. Man, that's a rock and a hard place. And so what he tried to do was go, well, how about I host the debate? So I'll be the guy here at Turning Point. We're having this debate happen. We'll have Dave Smith versus Josh Hammer in the clash. But that was way too far. That made the donors were like, fuck you. You're basically me, like, you're a Nazi now for having. And he talked about this a lot at the end of his life. And of course, a lot of people speculate about whether this had something to do with his death, which I certainly don't know, you know, if that. If it does. But there's no question, and you can watch the last Megyn Kelly interview that he was going through this dynamic. And In a way, J.D. vance and J.D. vance explicitly says on the interview, and this is one of the interesting things he says, look, I'm the moderate here. I'm trying to be the moderate. I'm going, look, look, there's people who hate Israel's fucking guts, and then there's the people who want to fight every war on their behalf. I'm going, hey, look, we'll fight some of your wars. We'll do some of it. The thing is that no one. And I just mean in this political moment that we live in, no one's looking for a moderate on this issue. You can't do it. You got to pick a side. And it's just, listen, dude, in fucking 1968, was somebody going to walk out in 1968 and go, look, man, there are some people who want to continue carpet bombing Vietnam, and there are some people who think this whole thing has been a disaster. But I'm gonna say, like, let's just do a little bit of carpet bombing. You know, let's, like, let's. Let's not extend the draft. Let's keep the draft. Get out of here. That is not the moment we're living in. No one in 1963 was rising up and saying, I'm neutral on the Civil Rights Act. Some things about it are good, some things about it are bad. You know, like, it's just. That is not the moment we're living in right now. We are sick and tired of this goddamn corrupt regime in D.C. fighting endless wars on behalf of a foreign country. We are against that. We oppose this senseless bloodshed and this senseless bankrupting of our country. We're against that. If you're not willing to say that, then fuck you. You're not our guy. And, you know, we always had a lot of problems with Donald Trump. Trump. But he said that, you know, he said, we're not fighting any more of these wars. That's why he won this big coalition. And you're not. You're not prepared to say that. We're not prepared to even consider supporting you.

[B]

And then. All right, I say we comment on the Epstein thing, and then we go to the paywall stuff, which will be on Donald Trump's supposed election interference from China.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

Which, by the way, for anyone who has not subscribed to the show. I think I did this math before. I don't quite. I think it's 60 seconds, 60 cents an episode. You never have to hear an ad read ever. You get the episodes earlier, and you get an entire free extra episode. Or for the. You know, you get an extra free. You get an extra bonus episode. So you're getting four episodes a week. Never have to hear a single ad, and you can support the show directly and get the content earlier and not exist on any of these platforms where you never know when the censorship's coming.

[A]

That's right. That's right. It.

[B]

No.

[A]

YouTube's been messing with us. That's why we've been putting the episodes on Twitter lately. So literally, if you can't partoftheproblem.com subscribe there, you get the bonus episodes. Like Rob said, Everything ad free. And you got our entire archive. Every episode of the show that's ever been recorded that we. At least the ones that we still have. There's some from back in like, 2012, I think, that have been lost forever.

[B]

If you listen to four episodes of US a week, and then you're going down the archive. You're psychotic.

[A]

Yeah, you are. This is way more.

[B]

You don't need.

[A]

You don't need this much, man. You don't need these thoughts that are in my head running around in your head. Okay, so do you want. All right, so let's just jump into the next clip, which was like 1:30, I think Rob said it was around an hour, 30 minutes in play. A little bit of. And then. Yeah, I think this is the Epstein stuff because he also lies, like, just lies about that.

[B]

His basic position on the Epstein storyline is there's certainly something here. He had relationships with certain individuals now, intelligence and a certain wing of Israeli intelligence, but they dropped the ball when they didn't investigate it when he was first prosecuted in Florida. And then the Donald Trump administration did everything that it could to actually release these files.

[A]

Yeah, everything from Pam Bondi was just a whoopsie and she kind of oversold what she had and she got. And it's like, look, with first of all, the Pam Bondi thing, you mean she directly lied? I mean, she claimed that she had videotapes of Epstein raping children. She said there were videotapes. Some of it was child porn and some of it was him with kids. Like, this is what she claimed. The Attorney General claimed this. I don't even know if we could get into all the statements that Cash Patel and Dan Bongino made. Dan Bongino, of course, said that he had it on good authority that he worked for Middle east intelligence. Middle east intelligence. The Epstein, a Saudi if ever I've seen one. So he's, you know, there's. Whatever there's. But the idea that the most important, the most consequential lie that he told to Joe is the idea that Donald Trump was trying to get this done.

[B]

And. Well, I'll also say to me, there's an even bigger lie, which is he tries to frame the story as the ball was already dropped. So we can't unwind this. I just don't believe that to be true. If you guys were actually interested in this, you could hit every single understretch staffer with the man act and get them to tell tale. And there's so many leads and ways to investigate this, you guys are not interested. And to prove that you're not interested, you try and claim we put out all the files. No, you didn't. I, it's 3 million, I think of the 6 million. And then one of the biggest lies he tells is. Well, the reason why we were redacting so much is sometimes it's hard to tell the victims from the actual co conspirators. And it's like, dude, every time that you redacted some old, some wealthy old dude, you're telling me Epstein was raping dudes too?

[A]

Yeah, Les Wexner. We were concerned. He was a victim. We were concerned. That's why he was redacted so much. There's a lot of. It's an honest mistake. 16 year old girl, 80 year old Jew, very hard to tell the difference.

[B]

Put his egg shaped penis in anything. That's the intelligence I got, dude.

[A]

I mean there's. Look, it's such an absurd lie on its face. Okay, like we said this at the beginning of the episode, right, that Donald Trump was calling people in and threatening them and all of that shit. But look, the law from Congress was to compel the Justice Department to declassify information that the President can do on a whim. So if the President wanted to do it, there was no point in the legislation existing. The whole point of the legislation was to force the executive branch to declassify this information, which they did not do. They are still to this day in violation of the law. Blatantly. The Epstein. The bill that Massey and Ro Khanna got passed says that you can only declassify. What is it? It's to protect the victims identities and national security. There's 3 million documents they haven't released yet.

[B]

And I.

[A]

It's in violation of the law. Clearly they're that.

[B]

So.

[A]

No, and by the way, they could if they wanted to. Donald Trump. This is the Epstein bill. Only applies to the Justice Department. These are all Justice Department files. So that would be. That's everything the Attorney General has reign over, including the FBI. So it's, it's the whole Justice Department and the FBI, those files. But there's CIA files, NSA files, all of this. They've made no effort to try to go get those. And they could, the President could just insist that they're all. He can declassify anything he wants with the stroke of a pen. So he could do all of this. He's doing none of it. This is. He clearly pivoted and tried to cover the whole thing up. And it's Very obviously because he's implicated in something and it's not clear exactly what that is. I'm not, I don't. I'm not like implying it's pedophilia or something like that, but clearly he's implicated in something. Maybe the death. Maybe the death of Jeffrey Epstein that happened on his watch.

[B]

It might not be that he's implicated, but power structures that he doesn't want to actually be at odds with.

[A]

Well, it seems like it's him, if you ask me.

[B]

Old claim. All right, Maybe we could play a little bit for flavor.

[A]

Okay. Yes, go ahead.

[C]

American politics. I just think you have to be self aware about it. I mean, why wouldn't you? It's a country of 9 million people. We have 330 million people.

[B]

And so Israel influence.

[A]

Sorry, what timestamp were you at here? Natalie, I apologize. We may not have given her the right one. This is at 1 hour, 29 minutes here. Keep for a little bit. I think this might be where he leads into the Epstein thing.

[C]

Of course they're going to try to persuade Americans, they're going to try to move Americans in one direction or another. I think that's just the nature of the beast.

[A]

But it's more than that. The concern is that they're spying on American politicians, that they're. There's concerns about funding, there's concerns about influence, there's concerns about whether or not politicians are. Whether they're aligned with Israel or whether they're aligned with the United States first.

[C]

Well, there's certainly, like. I definitely get those concerns, but my sense is that the way that all foreign influence works in the United States is people try to manipulate American public opinion, and then from manipulating a public opinion, they try to get the outcomes that they want. I mean, this thing is a very good example of this.

[A]

So, yeah, we know. Yeah. You know, we can wrap up by just kind of discussing the rest of it. But yeah, I mean, it's just, it, it's. He's again, trying to position himself still as signaling that he's one of us. I'm kind of with you. I believe in the Epstein conspiracy, but then defending the administration that blatantly tries to. To cover it up. And I don't know. And look, I mean, again, I think there's been maybe this. I'll say this in conclusion. There's been three episodes of the Joe Rogan experience where there's been. And again, I know I've made this point before, but I do think it's worth noting that there's something that is a marked asymmetry between, broadly speaking, us and the other side. Side is something that. And I think this is something that people notice. I think it's part of the reason why we've kind of been winning this bigger argument. But, like, if you think about how many people freaked out when. Well, first of all, myself, obviously, a lot of people don't like that. Joe has had me on so many times over the years. There's been a lot written about that hit pieces and stuff. When he had Daryl Cooper on, people flipped out about Ian Carroll. He had on people Flipped out about that. Obviously, he had gotten a lot of over the years for having Alex Jones on and other guests that were controversial. Notice we don't flip. We don't flip out when he has the guy. Like, I love this. There's been three episodes of the Joe Rogan Experience since Donald Trump's been elected that I thought were just invaluable. And it was the Cash Patel episode, the Gad Sad episode, and this one with J.D. vance, all of them. Rogan has been incredibly fair to the guests. He's been his normal, you know, just kind of friendly, kind self and just allowed them the opportunity to make their case. And, dude, the reaction from the audience is, like, universal again. But again, to be clear, one of those episodes was Kash Patel. And Kash Patel came on and told Joe Rogan and told all his listeners that he knows for a fact that Jeffrey Epstein killed himself. Dan Bongino has said the same thing. Your administration had these people who made a lot of money, worked up a lot of people, got a lot of support by engaging in these conspiracies, and then they turned around and promised, said, take my word, I know for a fact he's killed himself. Not a shred of evidence has been shown for this. Why don't we get to see it? If you're like, why can't this be the most obvious challenge to JD Vance, Cash Patel, Dan Bongino, just tell me, what did you see? What did you see that made you so confident that you could come out and guarantee that he had killed himself? This would do a lot to put at least a big portion of this to bed. You guys said this was the thing. Dan Bongino told me he worked for Mossad. Okay, he said Middle Eastern intelligence, but he said he worked for Middle Eastern intelligence. Now you're telling me he killed himself. Show me the evidence.

[B]

And Donald Trump loves getting the Epstein story out as much as anyone, which is why Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie are still, you know, big parts of the Republican contingency.

[A]

Yeah, that's so interesting. He wanted to get this stuff out. And his two, two of MAGA's favorite congressmen. One of them got their family threatened and the other had the Israel lobby poor. $30 million to unseat them. That's interesting. Just for going along with the administration. That's what they get. All right, we're gonna wrap up here. We're gonna go record a members only episode. For those of you guys who are members, jump on over and enjoy. All right, thank you guys. See you guys at Zany's tonight. Comic Dave Smith, porchdoor.com Catch you next time.

[B]

Peace.

[A]

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