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- [00:00]
Dave Smith
Foreign. What's up, everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I am Dave Smith. He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein. We are back from our adventures in Louisville and and Fort Wayne, Indiana. Real quick before we start the show, thank you to everybody who came out. It was. There were packed shows, great audiences, both first time that me and Rob have done those clubs together and it was just really great time. So I appreciate everybody for coming out next. We'll be in Key west this weekend. Ooh, Rob's gonna be in his Speedo drinking a drink out of a coconut. Really living life. How are you, sir?
- [00:44]
Robbie Bernstein
Yeah, come. Come party down with me in Fort Wayne. Wait, we were just in Fort Wayne. Shockingly good run. Still trying to relive those Fort Wayne days. But yeah, come party down with Key West. I'll be sitting out at the beach, titties hanging out, margarita drinking. Let's do it.
- [01:02]
Dave Smith
Let's do it. I was just telling Natalie before we started, so I. My heat here, well, you guys know this, but the heat is broken in my studio and I've got to have someone come fix it. But so I got a space heater running in here and I forgot to turn it on today. So I am freezing right now as I record by power throw. This is a very Jordan Game six with the flu type situation. Game five with the flow. I'll power throw. But just as we're talking about Key west has never sounded more appealing to me than right now in this moment. I'm like, yes, let's go down there. Let's go see what's up in Key West. Okay, so we got a lot, a lot of stuff that I wanted to talk about today. And then we have Nicole Shanahan should be joining us at 2pm so for the people watching on the website, we'll just stream the whole thing. Not exactly sure how we're going to put it out if we're going to do two separate episodes or all as one episode. But she'll be joining us for a few minutes later, obviously. Obviously. Very interesting time to talk to her about her running mate who is currently going through the confirmation process. So we'll get into that stuff at the top of the hour. Look at me. I sound like a real newsman. At the top of the hour. Bobby Kennedy. See, man, I really sometimes I wish I was like a bit like if I had. If I was born in like 1928 and I had like a present dad and I did my homework, I would have loved to be like an old Time newsman. You know, like when you, when you had to smoke cigarettes when it was like enforced, you had to smoke a cigarette during. You'd like sit over your typewriter with a cigarette and you'd be like, yeah, true men. More like a bunch of dames out there, if you ask me. Anyway, I think I would have been good for that. Unfortunately, I was born during these crazy times. And so now this is the, the answer there is. Okay, there's a few major stories that are going on. I thought maybe we'd start with this. Not even the, a lot of the stories are pretty important. So I'm not even ranking what's the biggest one. But I did find this very interesting. On the topic of tariffs, was Donald Trump pausing the tariffs, he said, for another month with Mexico after he was able to kind of extract this agreement from the Mexican government to put, I believe it was 10,000 troops on the border. This is an interesting area to me. Obviously we are free market libertarian types. We do not like tariffs. Tariffs are just another form of taxation and they are, they are destructive for the economy. They're destructive both for the country that's being tariffed, but they are more destructive for the country leveling the tariffs. And so anyway, it's just an interesting conversation because you have a dynamic here where tariffs were being threatened, are now being pulled back and you're getting something that I would see as a, as a pretty big positive out of the threat of tariffs. So again, it's, let me, let me read the Trump tweet and then, Rob, you could give your thoughts and I'll give my thoughts. Ok, so this is what Donald Trump posted. He said, I just spoke with President Claudia Shunbam of Mexico. I'm, I know I'm saying that all wrong. It was a very friendly conversation wherein she agreed to immediately supply 10,000 Mexican soldiers on the border separating Mexico and the United States. These soldiers will be specifically designated to stop the flow of fentanyl and illegal migrants into our country. We further agreed to immediately pause the anticipated tariffs for a one month period during which we will have negotiations headed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary Treasury Scott Besson, and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and high level representatives of Mexico. I look forward to participating in those negotiations with President Sheen Ball. That name just really doesn't sound Mexican to me, but I know I'm just saying it wrong. Anyway, that's not the important part. And as we attempt to achieve a quote, deal, I'm not sure why he put deal in quotation marks that you never do know with Donald Trump as we attempt to achieve a deal between our two countries. Again, I'm not sure why there's quotes around deal. It is my understanding that he really does want to make a deal. I don't know why Donald Trump would say, let's make a deal as if he anyway, that I don't think Donald Trump understands air quotes. That's not the point. The point is that this is kind of an interesting development. You know, it's in our model, which I think is correct, is when you understand economics, threatening tariffs is essentially threatening to punch yourself in the face. However, threatening to punch yourself in the face gets someone else to do what you want. And in this case, I think is a very good goal to have a secure southern border. It's hard. It makes it harder to argue against them. I don't know. What are your thoughts on this, Rob?
- [06:05]
Robbie Bernstein
I think if the strategy is working, I support it. It's not the move that I would play on the chessboard. It's not the way that I would like to play the game. But if it's working, I can't fight. You know, it's like when it comes to foreign policies, things, I judge them on two basis. One, is it moral? Like, you know, is it necessary?
- [06:23]
Dave Smith
And then two, does it murdering children? Then it might be a calculation, and.
- [06:28]
Robbie Bernstein
Then there's a secondary one which is, does it even serve our strategic interest? So almost in Every the last 20 years, I can't think of one of these skirmishes that even served our strategic interest and really just helped, you know, the war machine when it comes to tariffs. Yeah, it's not better for the economy, but it doesn't have the same cost of morality of war. So, like, goods will increase in price. So if Trump wants to play a tariff game and he's actually bullying smaller countries and he's getting his way, I can't really criticize the strategy if it's working.
- [06:59]
Dave Smith
Yeah. You know, I think that the thing I say is that it's almost like there's this weird thing, right? There's. There's different dynamics with all of this. And there are some of the pro Trump people are like, bragging about this and going like, see, this is proof that tariffs work or something like that. And I look, I'll even. I'm willing to concede, right, that because. Because there are things that are like, you know, theory is one thing and the real world is another thing. And that doesn't mean, like, what works in theory will work in the real world or it's bad theory. I'm not saying, like, something works in theory and doesn't work in the real world, but sometimes in the real world, you come up against obstacles that you didn't account for in your theory. And so, for example, I could sit here and argue all day long that tariffs are bad for the economy and free trade is good, but if you're going to say, like, again, I used this example the other day when we were talking about it, Trump at the G6 meeting back during his first term. If Trump threatens tariffs, and then as a response to that, everybody brings their tariffs down and we make some deal where there's far lower trade barriers, then, okay, I can't argue that the outcome of this, you know, the outcome of threatening a bad policy led to a much better policy. I think the thing that's important to point out, and maybe this is even like a question for some of the, the Trump supporters who disagree with libertarians on this policy. But just like, be clear, what is it that we're talking about here? Because so often the way that Donald Trump talks about tariffs and the way lots of people in MAGA talk about tariffs is as if they're a good in and of themselves like that. They help the country. Tariffs help us get rich. They don't allow the Chinese to rip us off. They, you know, bring manufacturing back to the United States of America. They do all these good things. Well, if that's the case, then why are we pausing them for a month? Right? Like if, if, if the truth is that this is just good policy that will help America. So what are you telling me is the claim now that we're sacrificing something in order to get the 10,000 troops at the border? Like, that's, that's, that's okay, if that's the argument you want to make. But like, I'm just saying, like, which one is it? Like, is that the case? If you're saying that tariffs make us rich, then why would we pause them for a month? We, you know what I mean? Unless you're just saying the 10,000 troops was of more value than the tariffs would have been to us. But you do get my point here. These are different claims to make. There's one claim to say they can be used as leverage in negotiation to get toward good policies. I'm not sure I completely agree with that. Although, you know, look, I am to some degree an empiricist and I will adjust to the facts on the ground, okay? If the threat of Tariffs is working to get good policy through, then I can't really argue with that. But if you're saying the tariffs themselves are good, then why are we messing around and why are we only doing like 10%? Like, why not? You know what I'm saying? Like, why not go for 50% tariffs or 100% tariffs or why not 300% tariffs? Like, if tariffs are so great and they are good in and of themselves, why don't we just tariff the whole world? I mean, like, no, I'm not saying that that in itself, that question proves anything, but I think you would, if you're being honest, have to admit, like, yeah, that's an important question to get at. It's, it's, it's a reducto absurdum, similar to, like when people go, you know, if people say, oh, you're a terrible person if you don't support a $20 an hour minimum wage. And you're like, well, why not? Are you that much better of a person if you support $1,000 an hour minimum wage? And so I'm just getting at the point of like, because it seems sometimes like it's a moving goal, like a moving target. Like, what, what exactly is the argument here? Because my argument is fairly simple, and that's that actually instituting tariffs are going to hurt Americans. It's going to hurt more Americans than it's going to help. It'll be good for a small group of people and then bad for a much bigger group of people. So if that's the case, if I'm right, then okay, it's fine to threaten them and pause them to get something you want. But if you were, but, but then essentially recognize that the threat still is that you're going to punch yourself in the face. And the problem with threatening to punch yourself in the face as a negotiation tactic is that what if someone calls your bluff? Like, what if they don't do what you want them to do? And then you're left with what, following through on your threat to hurt yourself? I mean, tariffs are going to raise prices, they're going to lead to higher prices of goods. I think we've gotten a little taste over the last four years of what that does to the average American. And, and again, in the example of price inflation, which, that was a, that was true inflation. It was a result of the increase in the money supply. But look, it was good for a small number of people. It was good for people who are speculators. It was good for people who own a lot of assets. But it was terrible for everyone else. For every regular person who just works a job. It's a nightmare for you if your grocery prices go up by 20%. And likewise, you know, like, look, just think about, if you just think about it in terms of like, economic laws. What, you know, like, nothing magically changes outside of our government borders. Like, obviously there is such a thing as a nation and you want to have control over who's allowed to come in and who's not allowed to come in. And you could even argue you want to preserve the uniqueness or the culture of that nation. But when you're talking about economic laws, none of that exists. That's just, you know what I mean? Those, those are other forces. If you're talking about economic laws. Okay, so there's a, there's a factory in Mexico producing something. We're going to tariff them. Okay, well, why wouldn't that work with the factory within the United States of America? I mean, like, why. Maybe there's just one factory and we could tariff the shit out of that factory, you know, and then like, oh, yes, that would help the factory that's competing with them. But I think you could recognize pretty quickly it would hurt everybody else. Well, likewise, you know, like, we've, we've talked about these examples a million times before. But if you're going to go down the road of believing that some, a foreign government producing something for cheaper is hurting us. This is what Bob Murphy said years ago, that I always really liked it. Then you'd have to argue that it would hurt us even more if a foreign government was to give us stuff for free. But now look at what you've been reduced to arguing. You're arguing that someone giving you something for free makes you poorer. And that's just a really, really tough argument to make. I mean, like, that is like, and we're not talking. It's not comparable to like welfare. We're not talking about the forced sub subsidy or forced, you know what I mean? Anything. You're just talking about trade. Now again, if you're going to go, if you're going to go down this line and argue that cheap Chinese goods are hurting the American economy, then you'd have to say that free Chinese goods would be devastating to the American economy. The worst thing in the world would be if other people produced stuff for us and gave it to us for free. But again, just think about what you're reduced to arguing there. Like, think about how. Because look, there are things that we get for free like, that we don't really think about. Frederick Bastiat gave examples of this. Right. But like, oxygen is essentially not an economic good because it's just everywhere. We just all have it. And believe me, if oxygen wasn't everywhere and we had to work really hard to produce oxygen, that would become a very important resource very quickly. Okay? And so we'd have to work to produce it. Are you arguing that that would be better? Would it be better if oxygen just wasn't free and available everywhere? Or like sunlight wasn't available during the day and we had to put in grueling, like, hours of labor in order to get those things? Because there'd be more jobs. Like, yes, there would be more jobs, there would be more production within America, but it would be people working towards something that we already have. And like, I, you know, I don't mean to be all Lobert about this, but I do think it's important to understand economic realities here, especially since this is such a major issue right now that, that Trump, again, I gotta say, kind of speaks out of both sides of his mouth on, like, I'm not sure what the argument is here. Are they a good negotiating tool or they are good in and of themselves? Because if they're good in and of themselves, then you're essentially embracing this crazy economic model where, you know, it's. There was this old story, I always forget the details on it, but I believe it was Milton Friedman. He was visiting some country, I think it was in the former Soviet bloc after the fall of the Soviet Union. And he's talking to the guys and they have this big shovel ready project and there's like a thousand workers outside and they're shoveling. And he goes, well, why are you, like, why don't you use an excavator? Why are you using a shovel? You know what I mean? And he goes, no, Mr. Friedman, you understand this is a jobs project. And Milton Friedman said, well, then why not use spoons? You know? And like, I think that alone, it just gets you thinking about economics the way you should think about them. Like, a jobs project isn't what you want. You want productive jobs that produce things that other people want to consume because they think it makes their lives better. That's what's important. Otherwise we could have jobs programs. Like, the Soviet Union had full employment before they went bankrupt because everyone had a government job. But that doesn't make you rich. That doesn't. I could, you know, I could hire somebody tomorrow and be like, hey, there's some big boulders in my yard, go Outside and pick them up and then put them down and then pick them up and then put them down. And that is really hard work. You're going to do that for eight straight hours. That's got a really grueling job. And look, I just created five jobs. But that's not success. All I've done is drain myself of resources to pay five people to do something that doesn't produce anything. No, it's good actually. Ashcolly. It's good when there are, when there's creative destruction. It's good when one person can do the job that a hundred people used to be able to do because those hundred people can now go do other things. You know, they can go produce other things. And this is, by the way, this is how economies grow. This is, there are lots of different jobs that are just out of service now that are not jobs anymore. There is no horse and buggy salesman. You know what I mean? Like, there is, I mean, okay, they're in small numbers because it's kind of like quaint to us and it's a novelty now. But like that industry got put out of business, but that's okay. We got better things that people like to ride in better, you know, and like, so I, I do just think that there is this look, I guess essentially what I would kind of conclude here is that, look, there is something that libertarians have to admit that is like, okay, look, you can use the threat of very non libertarian policies and it might even get a more libertarian outcome based on that threat. But I do think that the people who are supportive of these tariffs have to acknowledge this. Like this question is that when we said we're going to pause the 10% tariffs on Mexico, is that a sacrifice that we're making? Is it like, oh, we would be better off if we instituted this now, but we're sacrificing this to get the 10,000 Mexican troops on the border or is the benefit of the tariffs just to threaten them in order to get that extraction? And I don't think I've heard a good answer that because like it can't be both. It's got to be one or the other here. And anyway, my humble argument to you, not so humble, I'm right. But my argument would be that if Trump actually is serious about instituting these tariffs, some of them I think have already gone through, that's going to be bad for the U.S. economy. And this is right at the set. Like if you're rooting for Donald Trump to be successful right at the center of it is he's got to be great on the economy. He's got to deliver, right? Like it doesn't, all the other stuff kind of doesn't matter if people aren't happy with the economy because that's what people care about the most and, and rightfully so, that's their lives and their livelihood. It makes sense that they would care about that. But I do think that like I'd like to get a good answer on that question and I have not gotten one yet. Any, any thoughts on any of that, Rob?
- [19:56]
Robbie Bernstein
I think very well said on the economic development that is, that comes from free trade and being able to acquire things for cheaper. My general takeaway from Trump is that it is the, I don't think he inherently thinks tariffs are good or there might be select industries that he'd rather treat those industries well and give, you know, a payout to some, some loyal people or to, you know, some workers within the United States. I think more what he's going for is the threat of tariffs to hope to try and push his agenda. I don't think he, I don't think like you said, if Mexico is gonna cave in on stuff, I don't think he's gonna keep tariffs cuz he actually thinks that benefits us. So the framing here is almost more like I don't prefer not free markets and I don't prefer the president have to step in with central planning for how to grow the economy. But like look at it this way, if England were to say, hey, we're gonna start doing 20% tariffs on all American goods, would it be beneficial for the United States President to go find that we're gonna respond with 40% tariffs? I said threaten. So the answer is maybe it's worth saying the threat. And then if you know, England doesn't cave, then maybe you don't implement it, but it was worth the threat. Now then the next, the next question then becomes, and this is where it sounds like a bit of an endorsement for central planning, but it's almost like when you're playing poker and you're chasing a straight and then it becomes a question of risk and reward, of well, if I hit that straight, I might win really big. So if he's threatening everyone with tariffs and you have some wins and some losses, I don't know, a central planner has to actually sit down and tell you did the winds of other people getting rid of their tariffs or stop stealing our intellectual property, did that, did that benefit the economy more than the other couple countries that we ended up in trade wars in what I'm more saying is if, if Trump is enacting a policy of tariffs to try and get concessions from other countries and that strategy is working, it's hard to criticize while it's working.
- [21:56]
Dave Smith
Yeah, listen, I tend to agree with that. But again, I just. The. There's two problems that I say. Number one is that there are a significant amount of Trump supporters who aren't viewing it like that, who are viewing it like tariffs are actually great and will make us richer. And I think that it's just bad economic thinking is something that's worth pointing out. And the other thing is, just as I said before, the issue I see here, look, if it's working, it's working. I'm not arguing I want things to work. I want the country to get better more than anything else. But you're threatening something that if you ever have to follow through with, is going to hurt the country. You know, and that's the issue where.
- [22:42]
Robbie Bernstein
I agree with you is I guess, the bad education of the public and the public thinking tariffs are just a good policy, not realizing it's for the threat of it. Kind of, it's similar in nature. I was watching Leslie call, I think, General Wesley Clark, he was debating Scott Horton, and it wasn't really an honest conversation, or at least my takeaway was because it sounded like Wesley Clark was almost going with, I can't say that I agree with you on everything you're saying because it's bad for the negotiating table if the America, if America is saying, hey, we lost in Ukraine and we have to give up. And so you're not really having an honest conversation because you're just saying we can't admit to these defeats because it's bad for negotiating. But that kind of does filter down to the American people of, oh, we need a strong military and we need to be out there doing all these things that we have better leverage in negotiating, which just advocates for basically what the military is there to do. And potentially it's the same argument almost, we got to wipe a dictator off the, off the face of the map every once in a while to keep everyone in line. So, yeah, I guess if you want to, you know, you're better at the bigger picture. I guess the long term, even if Donald Trump's having win on tariffs now, it might educate the, the public to, hey, it's better if we have a strong United States that's just threatening people with bad economic motives because sometimes it wins. So maybe, maybe you're Maybe you are more right in the long term that this is.
- [24:01]
Dave Smith
Well, I just. Look, I'm just saying that's the concern. That's the concern. And then the way people interpret it is always like, oh, yeah, the tariffs are great. The tariffs are working. And it's like they're actually bad economic policy. But I suppose the threat of them does hurt the other guy a little bit. You know, my analogy of punching yourself is in the face isn't exactly right, because it does. It also does hurt the other country. So, like, there is some leverage point. Like they bear some of the response. I mean, in the sense that, like, you, if you make, say, Mexican goods much more expensive for Americans to purchase, they will purchase less of them. I'm not making that argument, you know, and so, yes, that does hurt the companies in Mexico, but of course it also hurts Americans who now don't have a cheap alternative to the. The goods that they already had the option to buy and were choosing not to buy them. You know, it's kind of like it's very easy for people, say, in, in a similar sense, to demonize what people will call usury sometimes or like high interest rates, you know, like loan sharks or something like that. And it's very easy to demonize a loan shark. You know, it's. A loan shark is essentially somebody who goes to somebody desperate and orders, offers to loan them money at a very high interest rate. And yeah, it's sad because people in desperate situations will take that money and now they owe a crazy amount of interest back. But the issue is like, getting rid of the loan shark doesn't actually solve the problem. That person was still that desperate to go to a loan shark. Now they just don't have the option of the loan shark. You know what I mean? It just takes away like, and so enough. It's a similar type thing with, with like these trade policies where it's like people already have the option to buy American overpriced products. They can't afford them. And so if you just leave them with that, you're not doing anything for them. You're just robbing them of the more affordable products that they preferred to buy anyway. We will see how this all works out. But I do think it's a, a conversation that's important, and I do think that sound economics is something that people should familiarize themselves with. Okay, I want to switch gears here because there is another topic that was pretty incredible that goes right to the heart of stuff that me and you have been talking about for quite A while. But there was a clip of Zelensky. I do. We're gonna play the clip for those, you know, that's obviously, there's subtitles on this here. So for those of you listening just by audio, we will explain what he was saying in it. But let's play the Zelinsky clip. They very casually just kind of dropped a pretty big bombshell about this war in Ukraine and what a farce the whole thing is. All right, here is the Ukrainian dictator Zelensky, David Yakula Chew Iran Institute America Show America. All right, we can, we can stop it there. As much as we love listening to the beautiful sounds of Eastern European accents, what Zelensky said there is that, you know, the U.S. claims that they gave us $177 billion in aid. This is what was approved by the Congress. And he claims that they've only received about $75 billion. Leaving around. For you, Mass math whiz is out there leaving around $100 billion unaccounted for. Man, war is just a glorious racket. I don't know. Rob, any thoughts on this admission?
- [28:37]
Robbie Bernstein
Okay, I agree with you that I mean, our Pentagon fails audits internally. So the idea that we're just sending money over to the Ukraine for war and massive sums of it aren't just disappearing to generals, we all know that it probably went straight into the Biden family fund for all I know. To be a little bit more specific about what he's describing there though is it's the accounting scam of that. He's not just receiving cash. He's receiving military goods that have an internal price tag on it, which means that the military industrial complex can charge the United States government, you know, let's say a billion dollars for munitions that China can actually produce or Russia can produce for 10 cents on the dollar. And so it's not like I'm receiving a billion dollars worth of weapons. I might be receiving rifles that, you know, I could have bought in the free market for $1,000, but the United States self charged itself $3,000 a piece for. So really he's. I mean, he's. Most of the money that he's saying we never received is really just lost the accounting scam of the United States government overpaying on. On items. And aside from just overpaying on items, you know, in Israel they're sending over the Patriot missiles now because they're basically. It sounds like they're bad technology at this point and they don't really do all that much. I hear that. I'M like, oh, it sounds like the United States government wants these items off their books because they're old technology. And so this is a way to essentially write it off or, you know, sell it to somebody, the Ukraine or whatever, and you get rid of it. I think a lot of the antiquated tank technology that finally went over there, I think a lot of this is just the military industrial complex, you know, cleaning up its books and, you know, overcharging the United States government for items that make it over there. And then there's a wash of some people just getting money. I'm sure Zelinsky walked away with a nice paycheck, I'm sure of that. Missing $100 billion. Some of it made it into to his personal fund as well.
- [30:36]
Dave Smith
Have you seen Tucker Carlson was saying this thing the other day, and I'm blanking a little bit on the details, but he was saying there's this part of Switzerland that's like the richest part of Switzerland and that he went there and it's like a bunch of Ukrainians, like, and they're all shopping, buying like hundred thousand dollar bags and shit like that. And you're just like, wait, what? Like, come on, dude, like you're in the middle of a war for your, like an existential war for the survival of your nation, and you guys are over here just blowing this money. It's like, yeah, like, I'm sure that account, I'm not saying, you know, I know what the percentage of that $100 billion that accounts for, but I'm sure it's from that, you know what I mean? Or it's like some fungible thing where they can spend all their money now because it's being replaced by this. But look, man, I mean, just like it's kind of hard to overstate how just disgusting and reckless this policy of the Biden administration was, especially given that it was during such a difficult period for the American people. They just looting the American people and just sending their money all over the place. And you're right. You're absolutely right, Rob. A lot of it is these weapon companies just doing what they always do, looting the American taxpayer. And then a lot of it is corruption in Ukraine, which, you know, oh, by the way, what a shock that Ukraine is corrupt. The most corrupt European country by far and have been for a long time. But it's just like, imagine getting just like in the middle, middle. I guess we're getting close to the end of the war, hopefully. But after years of fighting this war and you know, Ukrainian flags and everyone's Twitter bio and just all the lies, all the lies, whether it's the ghost of Kiev or Vladimir Putin blew up the, the Nord Stream pipeline or, you know, all these claims that have long been abandoned. By the way, they're not making these claims anymore because they're too obviously, you know, based in pure lies. But after all these claims, you know, Zielinski is a beacon of democracy and all these. They're winning the war, Rob. Remember when that was the big talking point? They're about to repel the Russians. If we just get this next package through, they're going to kick the Russians out. Nancy Pelosi, they're going to retake Crimea. Just lie after lie after lie. Starting with the most important lie of all, which is that it was unprovoked, you know, the biggest one. But after all of this, we just kind of casually hear from the guy that that $177 billion turned into about $75 billion. That is something, man.
- [33:21]
Robbie Bernstein
I mean, like I said, our own Pentagon can pass audits. When we did the PPE loans, I think half of them went to fraud, including a lot of the money that was just sent abroad. Made no sense. And then on top of all that, I believe it was Rand Paul, when they were first sending money over to the Ukraine, he said, we need some sort of a special inspector or other mechanism to actually see where these funds are going once we're sending it over, and that should be included in this aid package. I seem to recall this. Natalie, maybe you want to fact check me on the specifics. And no one cared to enact that, because if we're sending a whole bunch of money over somewhere to help out our military industrial complex and the Biden family, we don't want to keep tabs on this. That's not. That's not. That's not. What about all the payments we got to make to everybody who's going to look the other way and make sure everyone wants their piece of the pie? The generals want their piece of the pies. Linsky wants his piece of the pie. We can't be tracking this money.
- [34:14]
Dave Smith
Well, it's, you know, you brought up the, the PPE loans and, man, I mean, that was, that was so obviously a scam, even while it was happening. But, yeah, I have seen some, and I don't know, you know, exactly what the numbers are, but I've seen different estimates of what percentage of it was just straight up fraudulently stolen. And like. And then there was. There were a whole Bunch of scandals where, like, I think the LA Lakers actually returned some of their money after it came out. How crazy. It was like, I'll tell you, I remember my accountant telling me, and this must have been. It was, I, I want to say late 2020, maybe it was early 2021. But he told me, he was like, you know, you might be eligible for the, for one of these PPE loans. Like, if you want to apply for it, you could get like a big loan. And I remember even the way he was describing it, but I was like, yeah, but like, I didn't, I didn't like, like, I made more money this year than I made last year. I didn't lose any money off of the pandemic. You know, I'm very fortunate. It was a good time for podcasting, but. And I was like, well, I didn't like, why would I get this loan? Like, I didn't fire anybody. I don't need to keep hiring anybody. You know what I mean? And I was like, so wait a minute, it's a loan. Like, what, the government would give me money and then I got to pay it back. And he was like, you probably won't have to pay it back. I was like, wait, what, what is that where he goes, yeah, well, like most of the time, you know, And I was just like, no, no, no, no, I don't want any of this. It just felt wrong. Like, I don't. But it's just crazy. Imagine just that being presented to somebody is just so crazy. And then of course, it was always taken by a whole bunch of people who didn't really need it. And it was so disgusting because here you had a situation where the government was forcing people out of work. I mean, they, they made it a crime to work if you were deemed totally arbitrarily non essential.
- [36:06]
Robbie Bernstein
Right?
- [36:06]
Dave Smith
Like, which is a whole nother thing I know we've talked a lot about over the years, right? But churches are non essential. But liquor stores are essential. Like, okay, that seems a little bit arbitrary and perhaps there's a value judgment being made there anyway. But all of these people who were just like, were just, you know, like most people, just people who worked, people who had a job, they get forced out of their job and you get like a twelve hundred dollar check to hold you over for three months, whereas everybody who didn't need it gets these fucking loans that they never have to pay back. It was just like insane. There's just none of it made any sense at all. But anyway, yes, these are, it's this is how government programs work.
- [36:50]
Robbie Bernstein
And I also, I love Zelinsky changing his bunker. Look, all of a sudden, he's out of his bunker in normal clothes in the nicest room I've ever seen in my life, going, I don't know where the money went.
- [37:02]
Dave Smith
Yeah, well, also, it's. You can. You cannot tell me that it is not. It is a pure coincidence that we're only hearing this from him now that Trump is the president. You know what I mean? Like, he didn't say this during the Biden administration because it would have looked very bad for them, but now he doesn't care about throwing Biden under the bus, you know, and that's another thing that I think is kind of eye opening, you know, that, like, there are. There are all of these people who are just playing politics, but they pretend in the moment like it's a moral crusade or something like that, which is just, you know, whatever. All of this, the real point of all of this is that this war could have been avoided a million different ways. They intentionally chose to go down this path. And we have admissions from so many of the most powerful people in crude, including Strassel Berg, I always say his name wrong, but the head of NATO, including our own CIA director, you know, who have admitted all, like, over the years. I mean, when I say Burns admitted it, I mean his private memo was leaked, so he admitted it to Condoleezza Rice, not to the American people. But they all knew, like, if we take this series of action, there's a very good chance Vladimir Putin might invade Ukraine. The head of NATO himself boasted that Vladimir Putin said before he invaded, if you just put it in writing that you won't bring Zelensky, you won't bring Ukraine into NATO. I won't invade. And he bragged that they said, no, we will not do that. And so now you have this nearly $200 billion that we've poured into this conflict that never needed to happen, that we ensured wouldn't be negotiated away early in the war. Ukrainians have just been slaughtered over this, and for what? So $100 billion could be unaccounted for, and Ukraine can still lose. And then all those people who, with their bullshit virtue signaling, who bought into every one of those lies, you know, as the thing was going down now, they. They did what? Just destroyed the country they were claiming to be sticking up for just to rape the American treasury. You know, it's. It's just horrible. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for Today's show, which is Proton vpn. Proton created Proton VPN to further protect the journalists, activists and everyday citizens who use ProtonMail. ProtonVPN breaks down the barriers of Internet censorship, allowing you to access restricted online content. Proton Secure VPN sends your Internet traffic through an encrypted VPN tunnel to keep your browsing data safe, even over public or untrusted Internet connections. As a Swiss VPN provider, Proton does not log user activity or share data with third parties. Their anonymous VPN service provides keeps your browsing history private and enables an Internet without surveillance. ProtonVPN is available on all of your devices, including PCs, Macs, smartphones, even routers. A secure Internet connection you can trust is essential to maintaining your privacy on your laptop at home, your mobile device on the road, or your workstation at the office. And to check out an exclusive and limited time offer, go to protonvpn.com Dave Smith Again, this is a limited time offer, so go check it out today. ProtonVPN.com Dave Smith all right, let's get back into the show. All right, speaking of foreign policy, there, Marco Rubio was mentioned earlier in that Donald Trump tweet. I did find this to be a very interesting moment. Marco Rubio, of course, is the current secretary of state and he's, you know, it's a very important position. He recently sat down with Megan Kelly and he was discussing his views on foreign policy. Full disclosure, before we play this, I am not a fan of Marco Rubio. I think he was a terrible pick for secretary of state and I've been a critic of him for many years now. Of course, Donald Trump used to be as well. He was little Marco and was a total disaster before he was the pick for secretary of state. And it seemed much more like he was Mariam Adelson's pick than he was Donald Trump's pick. But whatever. Anyway, let's play from this clip of Marco Rubio discussing his views on foreign policy.
- [41:37]
Nicole Shanahan
As a Republican because you look at the Republican Party and it's fractured internally about where we should be on foreign policy. It's not like during the Bush years where it was, you know, we were much more Neo Connie on the right and now there's a real division within the right, within maga, even on how what should we do about Ukraine? There's most of the party, I think, wants nothing to do with that anymore. How, what kind of saber rattling should we be doing about Iran? You know, there's a large strain that believes none we should be focused on China and we should stop demonizing Iran and Russia and keep our eye on our biggest threat. I know you think they're our biggest threat as well.
- [42:13]
Bernie Sanders
So how.
- [42:14]
Nicole Shanahan
Just give me the 30,000 foot level view of how you're going to navigate.
- [42:19]
Dave Smith
Okay, so, and, and I will say I like Megyn Kelly a lot. I've done her show a few times and I, I think she's like, I think she's just very impressive and I, I really like her. I, I think she is asking an important question there and she's getting at something that is, I think, maybe the most important political divide in the country. Like within the MAGA base. There's no question there is a real divide amongst people who, like, you know, as she said, it's not like the George W. Bush days where we were all Neo Connie. And now there's a divide between people who think, like, we shouldn't be starting a war with Iran or we shouldn't be involved in a war with Russia or whatever. Of course, she didn't mention Israel, which you would think would be right at the center of that divide, but whatever. But I think that even Megyn Kelly's framing, it leaves a lot to be desired where, like, it's not, it's like almost if you put it out there, like, oh, you know, it's like, oh, the Republican base used to be all Neo Kani and now there's a divide. But there was a little in between there. And now the major thing was the terror wars was the 20 plus years of terror wars. Each one, as you alluded to before, Rob, a catastrophic disaster, you know, like, yeah, that will change people. Like, I, I don't know. It's like if me and you were trapped in a room and I have like a sledgehammer and I'm like, all right, I'm gonna try to break down this wall. And you go, okay, great move. And then I hit the wall once and a piece of the ceiling falls down and cracks on your head. And you go, that didn't work out at all. And I go, don't worry, I'm just gonna hit the wall again. And I hit it seven more times. And every single time a piece of the ceiling comes down and cracks on your head. And then the eighth time I go, all right, I'm gonna hit the wall. And you go, no, I don't want to hit the wall anymore with this sledgehammer. And then I were to just frame it as like, you know, there was a time when there was consensus about hitting the wall. With the sledgehammer. And now we seem all divided on this. It's like you're kind of leaving out the middle part, which is like the most important part of the whole thing. It's like that we tried this policy and it was a disaster, led to nothing but, you know, millions of deaths and trillions of dollars wasted, all with, as you pointed out earlier, Rob, it's not even as if, like we killed millions of people for this advantage. And now we're questioning, like, is it really worth killing all these people for this advantage? There is no advantage, purely disadvantage. This is what's turned people away from neoconservatism and Marco Rubio's long held views on foreign policy. So anyway, we just have to point out that the framing of that question leaves a little to be desired. Let's give Rubio a chance to respond that fraction.
- [45:01]
Marco Rubio
Well, I think we spent a lot of time in American politics debating tactics like what we're going to do, who we're going to sanction, what letter we're going to send, or whatever. I think it really has to start with strategy. What is the strategic objective? What's the purpose, the mission? And I think the mission of American foreign policy, and this may sound sort of obvious, but I think it's been lost. The interest of American foreign policy is to further the national interest of the United States of America. Right, America. Well, and that's the way the world has always worked. The way the world has always worked is that the Chinese will do what's in the best interest of China. The Russians will do what's in the best interest of Russia. You know, the Chileans are going to do what's in the best interest of Chile. And the United States needs to do what's in the best interest of the United States. Where our interests align, that's where you have partnerships and alliances, where our differences are not aligned. That is where the job of diplomacy.
- [45:47]
Dave Smith
Is to present conflict right here.
- [45:49]
Marco Rubio
While still.
- [45:50]
Dave Smith
Can I just.
- [45:50]
Robbie Bernstein
Hey, Lucy, he's really starting to look like Ricky Ricardo.
- [45:54]
Dave Smith
He does a little bit. Yes, you're right, he does. Well, he's. Isn't he Cuban? Right. This is why I just hate Marco Rubio. It's just like. It's okay. It's like Michael Malice always. It's, it's, it's factual kind of, but not truthful. You know, it's like, first of all, this is obviously, it's like America's policy ought to be in America's interest is. Okay, that's not really adding that Much. Oh, we should have a strategy like, okay, and what strategy? Like what the reason. First of all, when he says that this is the way it always works. China does what's, what's in the interest of China. Russia does what's in the interest of Russia. Chile does what's in the interest of the Chilean people. That's not true. First of all, that's not true. It is not true that governments always act in the interest of their people. Right. Does anybody deny that anymore? Who the hell could really argue that? And, and look like Vladimir Putin even invading Ukraine. Is that in the interest of those conscripted soldiers who have died in that war? Doesn't seem like it to me. Is it in the interest of their families? No, I don't think so. And certainly, you know, Chinese policy is not in the interest of the Chinese people. Who could actually make that argument? You think everything China does is in the interest of their people. I would, I would beg to differ. And I think actually the biggest oppressor of the Chinese people is the Chinese government. And. No, I'm sorry, this is basic public choice theory. People in power often act in the interests of the powerful and not in the interests of their people. And oftentimes people in power act in their own individual interest. Not even what's in the interest of the powerful. Like, straight up, like, like Joe Biden might act in what's in the interest of Joe Biden. It doesn't even have to be what's in the interest of the Democratic Party. Like, like even in the, in the upper echelons of the Democratic Party, it was not in their interest for Joe Biden to not just say he's a one term president. It was in Joe Biden's interest to try to get another, you know, term for his legacy or whatever. You know, like, again, like, it's just so, it's so observably false to say that politicians act in the interests of the people. And then, you know, you, you could say, like, this is what I hate. It's, it's. If you remember, Rob, this is exactly what Desantis would do in the campaign. And it's part of the reason why Trump destroyed him and why he literally just completely fell flat on his face is that he would. If you remember, Rob, we, we covered this on the show back during the Republican primary, but he'd be asked about the war in Ukraine or something like that, and he would just start giving this speech. Oh, we have to have a strategy. We have to do what's in America's interest. It's like, right, right. And in this case, what is that like, I'm sorry, that's not a good enough answer. You're the Secretary of State, dude. You just say something vague like, well, we have to do what's right. Look, here's the reality, okay? Here, here's the important question. Hey, Mr. Rubio, was the war in Iraq in America's interest? Was the war in Afghanistan in America's interest? Was the war in Libya or Syria or Somalia or Yemen in America's interest? Because you supported every one of them. So what's up, dude? What was the problem there? That there just wasn't a strategy? And please, if you have that argument, you tell me. What was the strategy that would have worked in Iraq or Libya or Syria or Somalia or Yemen or Pakistan or Afghanistan? Was there a different strategy that we could have pursued that would have made those things work? See, the thing is, he doesn't actually have any answers to that, so he'll just hide behind this vague, like, it's in our interest. All right, look, we have Nicole Shanahan here, so the. We're going to switch over to her. I'll see you next time. Rob, thank you very much for everything today. Let's bring Nicole in, because a very interesting time to talk to Nicole, who is one of my favorite people. So here we go. Nicole, how are you?
- [50:18]
Bernie Sanders
I'm good. How are you? Just running around. Big week last week, and here we are on Monday waiting for these confirmation votes. So very, very, very big week and excited. You know, all eyes are on Cassidy, but I think really all eyes are on this movement that coming together of Maha and Maga, really seeing how Maga has stepped up to protect this allegiance. So impressed and so grateful.
- [50:50]
Dave Smith
Well, it's been, it's really been incredible. You know, I've been thinking about this over the last few days, you know, watching the, the, the Senate confirmation hearings with Bobby Kennedy, which were fascinating and, and infuriating and just all types of emotions. But there really is something that, you know, you, you and Bobby and your presidential run did something that is really outside the box in American politics. And, you know, there's been, there's been third parties. There hasn't really been maybe since Ross Perot, like a third party presidential run that made noise the way you guys did this year. But there was something where, and, you know, obviously when it comes to politics, there's always different opinion views on strategy and what will work. But this strategy that, that you and Bobby, you know, embarked on where you kind of had this issue that was central to your campaign, which was like, it's so as I look back on it, it's just so amazing that nobody else made this the central issue of their campaign. Like, hey, we're the sickest country in the world. That never comes up. But so there's this issue that was really outside of, certainly outside of what the Democrats cared about at all, but was really even outside of anything Donald Trump was talking about in his first run. And then you, the MAGA and MAHA movements kind of come together and it actually delivered on getting Bobby Kennedy as the health secretary. Now, obviously, we're still waiting on the Senate confirmation, but it's like such an interesting dynamic that you could leverage a third party run that had real grassroots support, had millions of people supporting it to now and then also, I think, because, you know, the way politics, presidential politics work is during campaign season, if you're not on the side of the guy who someone's supporting as president, well, then you're the enemy. I hate you. It becomes this friend enemy distinction. But once you're supportive of that candidate, then everybody in the MAGA movement kind of looks and goes, oh, you know, they do really have a point. They do really have a point about how all our kids are sick. Hey, that's kind of an interesting issue. And so just that in itself has been so fascinating to watch. And for you being in the center of it, it must be really interesting.
- [53:09]
Bernie Sanders
Well, and I have to give a lot of credit, Dave, to the Libertarians in this, because let me tell you, there are a few steps that had to happen before many of the Kennedy folks felt even comfortable considering joining Team Trump. And it was there were, you know, I see it very clearly. The Libertarian annual meeting was one of those really big steps that happened. You guys invited over both Kennedy and Trump to give speeches, and many of the individuals who the Libertarians love and platform, including Massie, including Ron Paul, including Rand Paul, they were ones that were willing to talk to us and cross party lines. Those Liberty Republicans will cross party lines through the Libertarian Party to connect to other groups on issues. And that wouldn't have happened had the Libertarian Party not been such a collective of individuals who are piecing together these issues. And in such an incredible. Like the Libertarians have a moral high ground. I've realized through this past year that you don't see at all anywhere within the Democratic Party, and you kind of only see with the Liberty Republicans within the Republican sphere of influence. And that cannot be understated how Valuable what the Libertarians delivered for this coming together. I actually don't think that Maha and Maga would have come together had it not been for the Libertarian platform being open to exploring, supporting another candidate, which was huge. And I don't think anyone's called that out yet. And I wanted to do that now because we're on the precipice of such a big week of confirmations of Tulsi, who also benefited from the Libertarians platforming her, giving her a place to go, supporting her, you know, and the Libertarians are incredible in that they will find individuals not within the party to support and to just throw their love behind. It's huge. It can't be understated.
- [55:36]
Dave Smith
Well, I. Look, I really appreciate you saying that, and I think that, I think at least. And obviously, you know, whenever you're speaking about any group, are people within that group who agree or disagree. But I do think that, you know, the Libertarian Party was always, to us, a vehicle to try to get, you know, like, some of this government corruption as limited as possible. And, and most of us, I think at least the best libertarians, we don't really care if it's, you know, parties don't matter. You know, parties are just vehicles to try to get done what you can get done. If some great outsider was going to come end wars and end corruption and they were a Democrat, it'd be like, okay, I guess I got to switch my registration and go be a Democrat now. Like, I don't really. I'm not loyal to a party. I'm loyal to principles. And I, I do actually think, you know, there's, first of all, there's a lot of overlap between a lot of the Maha concerns and a lot of libertarian concerns. And then, you know, I, I was talking about this on my last podcast, but there was one point. I'm, I'm sure you, you saw it, but there was one point where Bobby, in his confirmation hearings, he specifically addressed the idea of, like, banning things. And he was like, look, President Donald Trump loves his Big Mac and Diet Cokes. I'm not trying to ban them, but I do think that, like, if these companies are knowingly poisoning people, they have to disclose that and they have to let people know what the effects of these are. And I was saying on the show, I go, that's actually just from pure libertarian theory. Like, that's a really interesting point. And like, you know, libertarians tend to not believe in government regulation and not believe in big government programs.
- [57:11]
Bernie Sanders
Yes, but you, but libertarians do believe in the power of the Department of Justice, which really does correct for many of these issues. If we have a, you know, unbiased, uncompromised doj, right now we have both a compromised and biased doj.
- [57:30]
Dave Smith
Yeah, well, it's also, it's interesting. Look, I mean, I think as, as you kind of mentioned here before, right. Like, I think Tulsi Gabbard and Bobby Kennedy are probably the two like most outsider most, the ones who have been calling out corruption the most. And then of course, Matt Gaetz was the one who was already eliminated. But isn't it interesting that the positions that you see the establishment freaking out the most were the Justice Department, the head of the deep State, the Director of National Intelligence, and then the Health Department. It's like these areas where there is just. And part of the, I think issue is that there have been such crimes committed against the American people from these power centers that now you have powerful people who are really, and I must say probably legitimately scared to death that somebody might open the books and expose what they've been doing to the American people. That's one of these things that's tough to brush aside.
- [58:32]
Bernie Sanders
Yeah. I mean, look at just the news today. Usaid, hey. Funded bioweapons research, Gain of function research, Links to Covid origins. You know, it is incredible that we now have the ability to data mine the government. They've been data mining us mercilessly for years and years and years against our very liberties. They've been mining us and we're flip. The tables are flipped. DOGE is, if you look at actually from an organizational standpoint, what is doge? It is a bunch of software engineers. It is a bunch of researchers and data mining capacity. That is exceptional stuff that you would see from the leading tech companies in Silicon Valley, engineers going in and just doing these massive data crawls, data dumps. They have the ability to use all kinds of different AI tools to read documents and compile all of this incredible metadata. And they're able to then query it in ways that we've never been able to do before. If the agencies wanted to accomplish this themselves, just internally, it would cost millions of dollars, it would cost years to do, and it would never get done, let's just face it.
- [60:07]
Dave Smith
No question. Yeah.
- [60:09]
Bernie Sanders
So what DOGE is, is it is a department department team allocated, this is what I've heard. And so HHS has its own DOGE team, predominantly software engineers, and they're raking through all of the budgets, the, you know, all of the activity that's happened over, you know, a good amount of time. All of the current positions that are being hired, what those positions are being paid, what those people are expected to do. I mean, we have information structure now about our government that and we, it's been accomplished in a matter of weeks, which is incredible. And the expense, I mean, let's talk about how Doge in and of itself is exemplary of efficiency. So it's just, it's saving us so much money to get to the answers that the American people so desperately want.
- [61:12]
Dave Smith
Yeah, no, that's, that's exactly right. And then of course also you, you mix in there. The, the, the kind of monopoly on information that the corporate media has been for so long and that's shattered now. And so not only can Doge get these, Elon Musk has, you know, like, whatever his Twitter following is, is the biggest in the world. And so now everybody can see it. It's not that now the American people can actually be aware of what their government is doing. And yet all these, these people who, you know, like, have been talking about threats to democracy for so long, you would think they would be really excited that the people can finally see what's going on in the government. And yet they're the ones who are very concerned about that. And that tells you quite a bit, you know. Okay, so you, I wanted to ask you a little bit about this and, and specifically about Bernie Sanders. And there's been, you know, you made this video that I, I reposted that I really loved where you were basically saying like, listen, like, you have no idea how big this Maha Maga movement is and how much Bobby Kennedy as health secretary means to all of us and like, we're not going to forget who the senators who were against this will and you pledged to like put your resources toward primary ing these people, I got to say. And part of this is this new, you know, vibe shift or this realignment of politics over the last, really, particularly over the last year, but I guess over the last few years, but I have seen like on social media, this isn't a scientific poll or anything, but I have really been struck by the number of people who claimed that they were die hard Bernie supporters who were appalled at the way he behaved in that Senate confirmation here. I mean it was just so the blowhard of the like putting up pictures of onesies and being like, do you denounce these onesies? Like, yes, thank you, Bernie. The real hard hitting issues of the world, some tongue in cheek onesies that said like, you know, I Think we're mocking, like, the vaccine passports and being like, no, no vaccine, no problem. Come on in. But him, like, blowing up these onesies. And it really is something to see this guy who people looked at as, like, a champion of the people, just totally exposed, as, like, you know, just. Just defending power, trying to smear the guy who's a threat to power. I was appalled by it. I'm curious, you know, what your feelings are.
- [63:32]
Bernie Sanders
Yeah, you know, it's. It's interesting. Many of our leading volunteers on the Kennedy campaign or former Bernie people, and the only thing they got burned by was Bernie. And. And people feel real burned by Bernie right now. I mean, I. I see him now out there just kind of throwing his hand around, spitting these, you know, statements that from a place of he believes virtue. And I see a guy who literally has no neck, and I ask myself, you know, did. Was he a psyop all along? Like, was he a plant? Was he a deep state plant? Because, you know, having those kind of sleeper cells are helpful.
- [64:20]
Dave Smith
You.
- [64:20]
Bernie Sanders
You get people around this thing that they all want, and you have them cornered, and then you take them along on this, you know, journey that goes nowhere. And the number one thing that will defeat America is defeating the American spirit. The American spirit that believes it has sovereignty and the ability to overcome hardship. If you beat that out of people, that hope out of people, you can do whatever you want. You know, corruption reigns with incredible freedom and lack of scrutiny. And was Bernie that. I have to ask myself that question today because his campaign was so convincing and so desperately wanted by so many millions of Americans. It was. We're still to this day, made to believe that it was all grassroots. But I've, you know, having made now some fancy political ads and looking at the ads he made, which are some of the best ads ever made in American elections history, I have to ask myself, like, I question whether the narrative around Bernie Sanders is accurate. That's a true grassroots movement.
- [65:36]
Dave Smith
Okay, so I know this happened back in. I want to say this was, like, around 2012. So it was before Bernie Sanders was running for president. So Ron Paul had introduced this audit, the Fed bill, in the Congress, and Ron Paul had these presidential runs which, you know, Bernie Sanders kind of mimicked in his own way. They didn't blow up the way Bernie Sanders did, but he had gotten a lot of interest over this audit, the Fed, because, you know, know, the Federal Reserve is like this shadow government that's quasi shadow bank, that's quasi government, quasi private. It's never been truly Audited, they print money out of thin air. Like, if you learn a little bit about it, you'd be like, yeah, we should be allowed to look at the books of that. And so Bernie Sanders said he was on board with it. He got, like, his own version of the audit, the Fed bill, to propose in the Senate. And before it could pass, he gutted the whole thing of all its auditing power. And I remember Ron Paul was like, wait, why would you do that? That was the whole teeth of the bill. And that's always just kind of struck me as like, oh, like, when it really comes down to it, Bernie Sanders will be on the side of power. And all I'm saying is that since then, at every single junction where it really matters, like, when it comes down to it, like, the. Are you going to endorse Hillary Clinton or are you going to try to draw some concessions out of her before you endorse her, or are you going to walk, you know, and like, like, nope, fall in line. Endorse Hillary Clinton. And. And this Bobby Kennedy hearing just seems to be one more example of that, that, like, when there's an actual threat to power, at the last minute, Bernie Sanders comes in and then tries to, like, take the pressure off and. And protect power. What's interesting is that this time it does not seem to be going over like it did in the other ones. And, you know, for him, I. I just saw him the other day on one of these news shows, and he's saying his problem with Bobby is that he. He wasn't supporting Medicare for all. And if you truly care about health, you have to support Medicare for all. And I just think that people who have been following you and Bobby's presidential campaign, it's just, like, not working on them because, like, you go, like, look, however you feel about Medicare for All, obviously I oppose it, and I oppose all these. These government health care, health insurance scams. But it's like. Like, if you're having the conversation of why we are so sick as a society, then whether you believe in Medicare for All or you believe in complete private insurance or anything in the middle, none of that addresses the heart of the issue. Like, if whatever's poisoning us isn't dealt with, then you could have government insurance or private insurance. You're still going to have sick people. And it's like, in the Bernie Sanders worldview, the only thing you're allowed to say about health is that the government should be paying for your medical treatment.
- [68:24]
Bernie Sanders
Yeah. Cheaper drugs, more drugs. Cheaper drugs.
- [68:27]
Robbie Bernstein
Yeah.
- [68:27]
Bernie Sanders
Government pays for Them.
- [68:29]
Dave Smith
Yeah. And like, I don't know. I. I don't actually think the answer is like, okay, so we have. I mean, if you just take any one of the, the answers, it's like, so every. You know, I got a little boy now, and he doesn't sit still for. I mean, he's young, he's only three, but he doesn't sit still. He's always all over the place. And like, you're telling me in three years, if he doesn't sit still, still, I should put them on methamphetamines? Like, no, I'm not going to do that. And I don't really care if you offer me cheaper meth. I still don't want to put them on that. Like, that's not. I don't really care if I had to pay out of pocket or if, like, the government's going to pay for it. That doesn't seem to be the issue to me. The issue seems to be like, how sick are we as a society that we're medicating little kids? This is madness. And that what we're never allowed to have this conversation is just even crazier.
- [69:14]
Bernie Sanders
Yeah. You know, Bernie did it again with RFK's confirmation. If you rewind, about four months ago, he starts coming on the scene as being this pro health, make America healthy again guy. And we even thought. I was like, oh, do we have. Is Bernie joining our team? And it's like, there's a part of us that wants to believe that Bernie is actually the guy that we held him out to be in 2016. And, and the reality is, I think this is the final straw that broke the Bernie back. I think if anyone had any bit of hope at all that he was the guy that we once thought he was, that hope is gone. He did it. He baited us again. He said, okay, well, yeah, we have this horrible health crisis in America. We've got to investigate it. And he baited us back in. He got the airtime, he got our community looking back at him and being like, are you going to step in and be a hero here? And then as he baited people in, he then holds that conference, the vaccine safety conference, where he only brings in, like, folks like offit and individuals who are maximalist vaccine, you know, toe the party line types. He doesn't bring in any of the. I mean, he could, at this point, you could throw a rock out your back door and hit someone who's been vaccine injured. I mean, that's how many people are affected. He could have brought in any one of those individuals to come and tell their story, but he doesn't. He's keeping that population silent. And we're giving up, I'm officially giving up hope that Bernie is nothing other than. Than just a big pharma shell. He will never be anything other than that, and his legacy will go down as that.
- [71:12]
Dave Smith
Yeah, well, look, I agree with you. And, and look, if nothing else, that's what he is in effect. I mean, we know that for sure, you know, like, wherever his motives might be. And I'm certainly not close to the possibility that it's intentional. But, like, even, even issues that I thought, you know, I think just now that there's been this major cultural realignment. Maybe some people who were Bernie supporters can kind of look back on this. But issues that, you know, Bernie Sanders is running for president in 2016. We are in, still in the middle of the terror wars at this point, right? The war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq, these. Right. The. We're drowning in debt, we're drowning in. In poison, as you and Bobby have pointed out, and in sickness and all of these problems. And, you know, to make like, raising the minimum wage the center of your campaign, it's like, it kind of sounds nice. It's not really a threat to power. It's not really like the major issue. The truth is that it's a small percentage of the workforce are on minimum wage. The overwhelming majority, like, I don't have the stats at the front of my head, but the overwhelming majority of people on minimum wage get a raise within the first year. It's almost always like an entry level job. And unfortunately, this might be a little, you know, sometimes it's kind of like, sometimes left wingers have an allergy to things that aren't sweet and might, like, hurt someone's feelings a little bit. But the truth is that for the most part, people who work minimum wage jobs and are stuck there and work minimum wage for 20 years typically tend to be fairly limited in their abilities. And I don't mean that as a knock against them. I think it's actually quite noble that people who are limited in their abilities continue to work and, like, do something productive. And I think that's good. I'm not against that. But, like, it's just like, this is your central issue. This is really the, the thing. Whereas, like, I think that sometimes, you know, like, sometimes, even when you don't know about anything, you could tell when someone's the real deal and when they're not the real deal. Like, if I don't know anything about boxing, I could see someone, like, hitting the heavy bag and be like, oh, they're a really good boxer. But then if I saw a professional boxer come hit the heavy bag, I'd be like, oh, no, no, that guy's a really good boxer. I thought that guy was good, but, like, that guy. And I think, think that's kind of what Bobby Kennedy versus Bernie Sanders was for a lot of people. It was like, oh, no, that guy's talking about some real right there. This was all just kind of like window dressing. Like, this guy's getting at the heart of, like, how corrupt this system is. And again, it's as we've talked about before, it's kind of one of these stars aligning things. After Covid, it was just so much more apparent to most Americans. Like, you know, like, I'm one of these people who. I never really thought much about vaccines until they lied through their teeth about the COVID vaccine. And then when I hear Bobby talking about how, oh, you know, they lied about a lot of these vaccines, I'm like, I am listening to you because I just. I just watched them do that. And then their response is like, oh, you're a kook if you think that. And you're like, but I just watched you do it. I know for a fact you just did it about this one. So why is it so kooky to think that maybe you did it about more than just this one?
- [74:21]
Bernie Sanders
And, yeah, and the peer review papers that are coming out about vaccine injury, I mean, they're coming. They were already coming out at an increased rate over the last year, and we're going to see a lot more. I just got sent this past week two studies from 2015 that couldn't get published for fear of all kinds of retribution. And really, these studies show conclusively that there are measurable differences in the blood of children before receiving the vaccine and after. And it is. These vaccines impact the immune systems of children in really significant ways. And I think for the first time, people that have been at this for decades have real hopes, and we're going to see some of the information that's been hidden from us. I mean, this is just. Honestly, it's truly just the tip of the iceberg of what we're going to learn. It's tough because I get sent this stuff, and people are like, is it time to publish it? And I'm like, we're close. We're really, really close. Bobbi's confirmation is going to be that moment, that signal that all of this stuff can start coming forward without fear.
- [75:56]
Dave Smith
Yeah, well, that's it. It is interesting too that Bobby's political position on this. Like, obviously he's talked a lot about and you know, people try to make it out like he's contradicting himself or that he's not admitting his full position. But I don't think that, look, there's a difference between like your personal position and what your political position might be. Right? So like I might, right? Like I, I believe in God, but if I was running for political office, I wouldn't be like, my position is that God ought to be at the center. You know what I mean? I'd be like, no, we should be a regular country. And that's like, people have a right to be atheists if they want to be atheists. And in the same sense, it's like Bobby's political position has always just been like, I want the studies done, I want to expose the corruption. I want to really look at this and get to the bottom. And it does strike me as like, like why exactly would you be opposed to that? I mean, like if these vaccines are, as every single senator seems to insist, if there is no chance that any of these vaccines are not perfect, okay, so then what would further study like that, okay, if anything from their perspective, then wouldn't you think, okay, if they think, okay, if your position is Bobby Kennedy and Nicole Shanahan are a bunch of kooks and this whole movement are all kooks and they're not following the science, then wouldn't more science just kind of expose that and then it would kind of take the air out of the sails of the Maha movement. And then they go, hey, look, we did our research and it turns out these vaccines aren't harming anybody.
- [77:27]
Bernie Sanders
Yeah, I mean, let us self combust if we're wrong. Let us self combust, right? Like, you know, it's, it's. I mean, I'd be happy to just move all of my efforts into farming right now. It's kind of equally split between medical freedom and farming. But you know, unfortunately, I think we're right. We keep, we're proven to be right over and over again. It's unfortunate. I would love to be proved wrong and to find some alternative explanation and find treatments that are non biomedical that work, but that's just not the case. These are biomedical injuries that are happening. There are doctors out there who are underground right now. They are underground treating vaccine injured people biomedically. And you know, I heard A story from Lynn Redwood. Lynn Redwood is this mom with a 30 year old vaccine injured child. And she's the one that brought Bobbi into this, all of it. She's the one that connected the mercury because Bobbi was working on getting mercury out of waterways and she was like, well, maybe he's interested in getting mercury out of the kids. And she's the one that brought them in. Incredible woman. I had the opportunity to talk to her and she told me one of the saddest stories I've ever heard in my life of a doctor who was helping these kids, treating them and was harassed so badly, almost lost his license. Many people have been, have lost their license trying to treat these kids and was driven into depression and eventually committed suicide. I mean this is like the tragedy of the last last 20 years. This is seriously dark stuff and we can't, we, we can't let another generation go by of this. Had had these 2015 studies come out, you know, I would have had that in my hand in 2019 when my daughter was, was getting her series of vaccinations. And I would have just had an opportunity to pause and be like, hey, is there any screening we can do? Right? Just, just some screening. Just a hair follicle, you know, hair sample can help screen for some of the mitochondrial issues that make certain children sensitive. So like we, we have to get this done. We really do. And I really hope folks like Cassidy can look past their, you know, medical degree indoctrination and really think about the, the basis of the Hippocratic oath and that, you know, it is time to do no harm first.
- [80:21]
Dave Smith
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's like, it's hard to kind of overstate it because it's like, you know, this, the idea that we've been poisoning our children and that the government has not only, you know, not only looked the other way, but has has to cover it up and keep it going. It's the biggest scandal in the history of the United States of America. And you know, there's nothing worse you could do. There's nothing that could be a higher priority than, than to stop that. And you know, I would almost settle for just stopping it. Like, okay, fine, if that was the deal, we could get, just stop doing it and everybody who did it can get away with that.
- [81:01]
Bernie Sanders
Stop doing it. Medical freedom. Right? Just.
- [81:04]
Dave Smith
But I think the truth is that, that you know, if people really find out the extent to which this has been done, they are going to be out for, for vengeance. And I don't know exactly how to control that or what? You know, because it's like these people did do that. And you know, as I, as I mentioned before, you know, I was talking about this on, on either the last or the like a couple podcasts ago. But you know, as Bobby had mentioned, the thing about like, look, they should have to disclose this. And I was saying, look, even from a libertarian perspective. Right, right. Even in a pure free market perspective, if somebody who owned a store was selling sugar, you know, like a thing marked sugar, but they didn't put sugar in it, they put rat poison in it instead. No libertarian would be like, well, that's free market economics. We'd be like, no, that's a crime. You're not allowed to do that. And we all kind of know like you go to the supermarket and there's like Froot Loops with a big colorful toucan that's advertised to children. They buy the shelf level that's at the kids eyes. Like they pay a premium to get it to sell to your children. And you just look at that and you go like, man, that's like. It's not just that. That's a crime. There's lots of crimes. It's just like, it's such a profoundly evil crime. I mean, you're trying to poison people's kids. And you know, I will say the.
- [82:24]
Bernie Sanders
Fruit loop scandal, just so that, you know, within the medical community, medical freedom community, the Fruit Lo handle like the hardcore medical freedom people were like, that's a red herring. So I just wanted to highlight the.
- [82:38]
Dave Smith
Okay, fine.
- [82:40]
Bernie Sanders
Kind of a trigger for some of us.
- [82:42]
Dave Smith
Okay, sorry, sorry. Well, maybe that's not the best example. I'm new, I'm newer to this game, but I did think it was really funny, maybe the funniest political moment of the year. And I couldn't. And I know how much like, you know, some of these corporate media outlets get wrong. But when they, when the New York Times fact checks Bobby Kennedy because he claimed that, what was it, Fruit loops were different in Canada than they were in America. And they go, they go, fact check. That is false. They are not different except for these seven ingredients. And then they list out the seven, you're like, wait, what? I'm sorry, that sentence makes absolutely no sense. So he's right, but you started by saying he's wrong and then you prove that he's right. It is just wild to watch. I will say, I know you, you got to go do another show. So if Bobby Kennedy is not confirmed today, and I'm expecting he will be. But if he's not confirmed today, I do think, and I know that you've made this commitment as well. I think the toothpaste is out of the tube on this. Either way, obviously, I'm very much hoping that he does get confirmed, but this is not, and I hope the people in the establishment understand that, like, this is going to be their truce offering. This is the best they have right now, is to confirm. If they don't confirm, Bobby, it is going to. We're all going to be aware of that. None of us are going to stop talking about this issue. And we're all going to know why they didn't confirm him. You know what I mean? Like, we're all going to know that the people wanted this and that the powerful went out of their way to protect their corrupt cronies, and we're not going to stop. So anything you want to say on that? You could have the final word, 100%.
- [84:14]
Bernie Sanders
No, we're, you know, we're going to have a people's primary. That's what I'm calling it right now. It's the People's primary. And we're going to take ownership of this primary for what its intended purpose was, was, is to put forward challengers that unseat these people that have no business and who clearly do not represent our interests.
- [84:39]
Dave Smith
Well, as I said, as I said before, I will do with my. My humble platform. I will do whatever I can to. To help you in that process, should it come to that. Hopefully, we'll just be celebrating Bobby Kennedy as the HHS secretary. Come later today. Nicole, I always enjoy talking to you. Thank you so much for taking the time.
- [84:57]
Bernie Sanders
Thanks for having me, Dave. Take care.
- [85:00]
Dave Smith
You too. And thanks, everybody, for listening. We will catch you next time. Peace.