Pam Bondi Strikes Again

Summary

Part Of The Problem – “Pam Bondi Strikes Again”

Host: Dave Smith
Co-host: Robbie “The Fire” Bernstein
Date: February 17, 2026

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EPISODE OVERVIEW

In this episode, Dave Smith and Robbie Bernstein dive deep into two major topics dominating headlines: the ongoing Jeffrey Epstein files saga and the U.S. administration's pivot toward new hostilities with Iran. They critique how the government, media figures, and prominent pundits have spun recent developments, and candidly analyze the state of libertarian and anti-establishment commentary in the Trump era. The episode’s tone is critical, irreverent, and heavily skeptical of official narratives.

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KEY DISCUSSION POINTS & INSIGHTS

1. Pam Bondi’s “Valentine’s Day Letter” and the Epstein Files

• Dave and Robbie dissect the fallout from AG Pam Bondi’s announcement that all Epstein files have now been released. They argue the administration is obfuscating by declaring transparency while refusing to provide millions of additional documents.
• Conservative commentators’ responses: Dave explicitly names Alex Jones and others who, he says, rushed to declare “vindication for Trump” and full transparency without verifying facts.
  • Quote:
    “Alex Jones…immediately posted… 'Kaboom. Just in AG Pam Bondi just unleashed…the full Epstein files… Powerful Dems like Bill Clinton mentioned 1193 times. And others busted while fake smears against Trump called out as BS. Vindication for Trump.' …now he falls in line just because the AG says something?” (06:21)
• Discrepancies in the official narrative:
  • The claim that all files have been released is false; Bondi’s statement merely indicates that no further files will be released, not that none remain.
  • There remain claims about 200,000 pages being “privileged,” in addition to extensive redactions.
  • Robbie calls it “political malpractice” and says the move will undermine trust for years, regardless of party.
    • Quote:
      “Just repeating the same thing...they all just went, that's it. All the files are out. All unredacted, all blah, blah, blah… No, none of it's real.” (09:38)

2. Media, Pundits, and the Trump Cult

• Criticism of Trump apologists and right-wing pundits: Dave accuses many high-profile commentators of acting out of tribal loyalty rather than skepticism.
  • Quote:
    “It is a fair critique of some people that you guys are in a cult... Why would you go down with it?” (05:59)
• Alex Jones’ retraction: Although Jones eventually corrected his claims, Dave argues that’s not sufficient and illustrates the echo-chamber problem plaguing alternative media.
• Political fallout: Nothing could “vindicate” Trump, Dave argues, because even with no direct criminal evidence, Trump tried to cover up the scandal. (08:49)

3. What’s Actually in the Files?

• Redactions and strategic take-downs: Documents were released and then removed; Robbie notes this means even Congress may now be blocked from seeing the unredacted versions.
  • Quote:
    “Congress is allowed to go and see unredacted files. Right? But now they can't see those files anymore.” (21:29)
• The enduring power of the story: They predict the files (like the WikiLeaks dumps) will provide endless fodder for journalism and speculation for years:
  • Quote:
    “This story will live on for…years. There are millions of documents. It’s going to be years of people reporting on this.” (25:40)

4. Discussion on Child Abuse and the Term ‘Pedophile’

• Debate with journalist Michael Tracey: Dave addresses criticisms by Tracey, arguing semantics (whether something is a “giant child sex trafficking ring” or simply “a scandal involving minors”) are irrelevant to the monstrous nature of the crimes.
  • Quote:
    “Sometimes you have a set of facts so crazy it's actually much more reasonable to speculate about what might be here than to go, ‘You can't prove one outlandish claim, therefore none of this matters.’” (34:31)
• Morality and legal lines: Both express disgust at attempts to downplay the severity of Epstein’s actions based on age distinctions.
  • Quote:
    “It's a pretty big deal to some of us. So we're gonna just lump that all in.” (49:47)

5. Epstein, Intelligence, and The Deep State

• Detailed breakdown of suspicious connections between Epstein, intelligence agencies, and U.S. government officials.
  • Clairvoyant retelling of how William Barr’s father gave Epstein his first teaching job, and decades later, William Barr (then Attorney General) oversaw key moments in the Epstein investigation.
  • Quote:
    “What are the odds of all of that happening and there not being something more to the story?” (31:31)

6. Iran: The Next War?

• Shifting justifications for war:
  • The administration’s narrative shifts from Iranian nuclear danger to missile programs to protest crackdowns, then back again, with little internal consistency.
    • Quote:
      “You’re talking about a sustained military campaign going on for weeks… over a nuclear threat that you told me you already took care of.” (52:43)
• The danger of regime change rhetoric:
  • Dave highlights the cyclical nature of U.S. interventions, warning this war will end catastrophically as others have in the region.
  • Quote:
    “There is really no good reason to think what comes next is going to be an improvement and every reason in the world to think it’s going to be a catastrophe.” (56:21)
• Satirical take on Netanyahu:
  • “As a man of his word, I am sure that if they successfully take out this regime will be better for the Iranians and Israel will openly engage with them, maybe even let them migrate to Israel.” (58:56)

7. Mocking Mainstream and Boomer “Wisdom”

• Clip analysis: Mark Levin and Newt Gingrich:
  • Dave and Robbie lampoon Levin’s invention of “diplomacy-mongers” as an insult, and Gingrich’s argument against talking to Iran.
  • Quote:
    “Just imagine if my position was, ‘Hey, Rob, I don’t think I should murder any of my neighbors.’ And you were like, so what, do you just want to stay inside all day?” (61:42)
• Consent and legitimacy:
  • Philosophical takedown of the notion that any government’s legitimacy is real.
  • Quote:
    “The legitimate government is an oxymoron. There's no such thing… All the explanations are contradictory and incoherent.” (64:35)

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MEMORABLE QUOTES & MOMENTS WITH TIMESTAMPS

• [06:21] Dave Smith (on Alex Jones):
  "Now he falls in line just because the AG says something?"
• [08:49] Dave Smith:
  "Even if all the files were released and there's no evidence that Donald Trump did anything... he still tried to cover it all up. So it kind of doesn't matter. He's not vindicated."
• [21:29] Robbie Bernstein:
  "Congress is allowed to go and see unredacted files. Right? But now they can't see those files anymore."
• [25:40] Dave Smith:
  "This story will live on for…years. There are millions of documents. It’s going to be years of people reporting on this."
• [34:31] Dave Smith:
  "Sometimes you have a set of facts so crazy it's actually much more reasonable to speculate about what might be here than to go, ‘You can't prove one outlandish claim, therefore none of this matters.’"
• [31:31] Dave Smith:
  "What are the odds of all of that happening and there not being something more to the story?"
• [52:43] Dave Smith:
  "You’re talking about a sustained military campaign going on for weeks… over a nuclear threat that you told me you already took care of."
• [56:21] Dave Smith:
  "There is really no good reason to think what comes next is going to be an improvement and every reason in the world to think it’s going to be a catastrophe."
• [61:42] Dave Smith:
  "Just imagine if my position was, ‘Hey, Rob, I don’t think I should murder any of my neighbors.’ And you were like, so what, do you just want to stay inside all day?"

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IMPORTANT SEGMENTS AND TIMESTAMPS

• [03:30] – Opening on Bondi’s letter / media reaction
• [06:20] – Reading of Alex Jones' tweets
• [08:49] – "Vindication for Trump" argument dissected
• [20:49] – Practical consequences of removing documents
• [25:40] – The enduring resonance of the story (comparison to WikiLeaks)
• [31:31] – Deep dive into intelligence community ties and the "coincidence pile"
• [46:13] – Ethics of sexual consent and legal boundaries
• [52:43] – Iran war rhetoric and critique of administration
• [61:42] – Satire of diplomacy and 'isolationism'
• [64:35] – Critique of government legitimacy and "consent"

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SUMMARY

This episode encapsulates Dave Smith’s signature blend of dark humor, paranoia, and moral outrage. He systematically breaks down the swirl of disinformation and self-delusion around the Epstein files and excoriates the right’s uncritical defense of the Trump administration. Robbie and Dave explore not just the practical realities (continued redactions, denied records, unaccountable government actors) but linger on the psychological and moral dimensions—why some refuse to probe further, why tribalism persists, and how societies process traumas that implicate their own ruling class.

The Epstein saga, they argue, is a lens onto the rot in American government and the failure of checks, balances, and honest media. And as the administration edges toward another Middle East war—now in Iran—Dave warns listeners that the cyclical justification for endless intervention remains, no matter who is in power.

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For listeners seeking an unfiltered, thoroughly skeptical, and darkly comic analysis of American power, this episode is essential listening.

Transcript

[Dave Smith]

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[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

I needed to take a pause and examine how I was feeling in the.

[Dave Smith]

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[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Today's show is brought to you by yom.com home of the $60 kilo and longtime sponsor of this show. What we do really wouldn't be possible without our great sponsors. So make sure you support them. If you're over the age of 21 and you enjoy Kratom, make sure to get [e-mail] delivered right to your door. And the best price you'll find anywhere. $60 for a kilo. Let's start the show. What's up? What's up everybo? It is Monday, February 16th. Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I am Dave Smith. He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein. How you doing today, Rob?

[Dave Smith]

I'm doing well. I had a blast up in New Hampshire. I did a presentation on FBI entrapment schemes and it killed. I think I got to bring back the props, bring back the projector. It was groovy.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

There you go, br. That's beautiful. I saw a bunch of people on Twitter talking about how it was a great show and you sold it out and stuff. So congratulations. And then me and you, this Saturday, one night only, will be in Perryville, Maryland. Low ticket warning on that one, guys. If you want to come, show's gonna sell out. So if you want to come, go grab tickets right now because it there, it's very close to sold out. Comicdavesmith.com you can get tickets there.

[Dave Smith]

And there's no DC date on the tour schedule this year. So for the DPC people, it's probably your best opportunity.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Sorry, we don't play that swamp. You got to come to, you got to come to Perryville if you want to see me and Rob this year. But then we will be out in a bunch of different places. We, a whole weekend out here in New Jersey, Pittsburgh, Boston, whole bunch of stuff coming up. Comicdavesmith.com for all of those ticket links. All right, let's get into some stuff that's happened over the weekend. By the way, happy Valentine's Day to everybody. I hope, I hope people had fun celebrating. And for those of you who aren't miserable, depressed, alone, people like Rob, who has to dull the pain by giving hilarious presentations in New Hampshire. For those of you who have someone in your life, I hope you had a good time. We got a, I mean, look, I think we won't do the whole show today on Epstein files related stuff. There's some other stuff going on that's important to talk about, but it's very hard to not open with this. So that on, I mean this is just, at this point, Rob, it almost feels like this administration is just punking us. Like they're going like, how, how much more can we with you people and just mishandle this thing right in front of your face? So Pam Bondi releases a Valentine's Day letter that says that all the Epstein, all the Epstein files have now been released. And here is a big list of, of people in Epstein list, the exact thing that they all swore didn't exist. And really, Rob, in some ways kind of doesn't exist. But so she makes this big announcement and I do, I gotta say, man, I, I just one of the, one of the points I think I've been hitting on the most during the, the since these Epstein files came out. And I think, I guess this has really been a thing that I've been saying for at least about seven or eight months at this point, really since last summer, since there were, you know, I, I, I, I often say there was the double, you know, the, the two punch combo. But really, to me at least it was like a three punch combo. But there was, if you remember, Rob, it was last summer. The first thing that happened was that Trump signed the new budget into law, which undid all of the Doge cuts. So it literally had spent this the whole time in his administration From January of 25 all the way into the summer with Doge having all this momentum and talking all this about the trillions of dollars they were going to cut, the fraud We've found here and the USAID and the fraud here and all this stuff, you know, is it. There was some excitement to it. Elon Musk is out there tweeting, hey, who should I audit next? And people are like, the Pentagon. And he's like, maybe, maybe that's the next one. And anyway, Donald Trump signs the spending bill into law. It has none of the Doge cuts in there and just raises spending. So not only did it not cut anything, but it increased from Joe Biden levels of spending. Then he launched the war on Iran. Then he did a 180 and said there's no such thing as the Epstein files. It's a Democratic hoax, all of that. And so one of the major themes from then till now for me has been like, dude, how can any of you guys still defend Donald Trump? And almost like in a sense like a plea to like other commentators, like, dude, save your soul and your reputation. Like, don't go down with it. Why would you? Especially, you know, you see guys who are in their, you know, some of these guys are in their 20s. Mostly it's guys in their like 40s and 50s or some guys in their 30s. But it's like, hey, you're going to be in this, like you're going to do this beyond Trump, right? So like in the same way Massie said that to the Republicans, like, guys, you know, Trump's not going to be here in a few years and you'll all still have this legacy to leave behind. But anyway, so I just got to call this out. First of all, Robin, I am very curious to get your thoughts on this, but I'm going to call out some, some names here because this is the reaction that people had. This is Alex Jones.

[Dave Smith]

I was hoping that was first on the list.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Alex Jones, of all people. Rob, the guy who's the conspiracy nut who always thinks the government is lying to him. This is a he immediately posted on Valentine's Day. So this is on the 14th. Two days ago. Kaboom. Just in Ag Pam Bondi just unleashed all caps, the full Epstein files under the Transparency Transparency Act. All 3.5 million pages dropped. All capitals again. Redactions, all capitals again justified only for victims. And all capitals again. High profile names exposed with zero cover ups for embarrassment or politics. Quote, no records withheld or redacted based on embarrassment, reputational harm or political sensitivity to any official public figure or foreign dignitary, unquote. This backfired bigly on the left. Powerful Dems like Bill Clinton mentioned 1193 times. And others busted while fake smears against Trump called out as bs. Vindication for Trump. This is what the conspiracy guy who, by the way, you know, and I like Alex Jones enough. He was very cool to me. Had me on a show like, it's not a personal thing, but like the conspiracy kook who's always made all of us anti government extremists look horrible because instead of just prosecuting the actual case of the crimes that the government commits, he insists that, like, it's intergalactic aliens who are hell bent on reducing the global population to 300,000, which, by the way, spoiler alert is not true. And so he makes. He. He's always made everyone just look like an. Because he takes the most ridiculous conspiracy, but now he falls in line just because the ag. Okay, there's. I also want to. Again, just repeating the same thing Gunther Eagleman is. I don't even really know this guy, but he's a huge account with like millions of followers. Used to retweet my stuff all the time way back last year when I was saying the same stuff I'm saying now, but probably won't be doing that anymore because they all stop believing. I get whatever just in AG Pambani just unleashed the full Epstein files under the Transparency Act. All 3.5 million pages drunk. Vindication for Trump. All right, so now, Rob, as you know, because you do your homework, there's a few problems with this narrative, a few tiny ones. I mean, number one, you would think, like, here's the thing that all these guys have. It's just so funny because they just can't. These guys really are. And it is a fair critique of some people that you guys are in a cult. You're just, you're in a cult for Donald Trump. And I mean, maybe, maybe you're a true believer in that cult, or maybe you've just assessed that that's the best thing to do to keep a big audience or something like that. But understand, Rob, nothing could vindicate Donald Trump in this. Even if, even if all the files were released and there's no evidence that Donald Trump did anything like it, like, you know, did anything with girls or young girls or anything like that, he still tried to cover it all up. So it kind of doesn't matter. He's not vindicated. This is just, this is insane. But then the other major problem, Rob, and this one's really going to be an issue for them, is that none of this happened. None of it happened. Pam Bondi just said it. She Just wrote a letter and said it. And they all just ran with it. They all just went, that's it. All the files are out now. All unredacted, all blah, blah, blah, blah. No, none of it's real. In fact, now Alex Jones, to be fair, Alex Jones did come back and correct the record. So he did, like a day later or whatever come back and go, oh, I got the story wrong, whatever. But, like, I don't know. That's not good enough, dude. It's crazy that your first response was to say Donald Trump is vindicated after he's spent, what, eight months just shamelessly trying to cover this whole thing up and pretend there's nothing there. So. But, so just to be clear, Rob, what Pam Bondi actually came out and said is that I'm not releasing anything else. You know, there was the. The three point whatever million files that were released. There was supposedly another 3 million that they still had. And she came out and said, all the files have been released, meaning that's all. No more is coming. You're not getting the other 3 million. And so they all took this in the. I mean, talk about just bending over backward to interpret something in the most charitable way. They just went, no, that means we. We have all of them. They're all out now. Hm. Did any of you guys wonder, any of you guys who were celebrating this, did you not notice that there were no more documents? Did that. Not with you, no. They released. I'm sorry, There was one more document, Rob. A letter from the Attorney General stating that all the documents will be released, and then an incoherent list of names that I believe includes Janis Joplin and, like, I think Woodrow Wilson is in the Epstein files now or something. I made that one up. But anyway, so that's the latest. And how could we not talk about that to open up the show? Any thoughts, Rob?

[Dave Smith]

I got a lot of thoughts, starting with, I think Alex Jones thinks presidential pardons includes cancellation of payments to Sandy Hook victims. Maybe there's really no other explanation. And the second I saw all files released, it might have even been first with Alex Jones's tweet or someone else's, who is also celebrating this as total vindication. I instantly went to go look up, did she Release the other 3 million files? The answer was no. Here's what I found out. They're now claiming there were 200,000 pages that they're considering privileged, which, by the way, that does not include, I guess, lines that were redacted in the other files as we Saw with I think was Goldman, that she claimed that that was privileged. I was wrong in the last episode cuz there's another category of privileged information which is preliminary government conversations about how they want to handle something that is considered privileged. Not sure how that applies to the Epstein files. You still have anything that could that has to do with an ongoing investigation has been redacted. They're now claiming that of the 3 million files a lot of it's not out cuz it's duplicates. I call bolt. Firstly, the supposed 6 million files are. After they went through it and told us that there are 6 million and at first it wasn't 6 million, they just said 200. I think it was 200,000 was the first release.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Yeah.

[Dave Smith]

So the idea that, that they're now trustworthy with the redactions that we saw on that these other 3 million don't need to come out because it's b, it's either privileged information or redundant information. I'm calling bullshit. And if you're Alex Jones and you're just running with oh, fully vindicated, they put it all out without just simply looking to see, wait, did they put out those other 3 million files that we know about? And then keep in mind just one last thing. It's not just about the files. They haven't even pretended like they're going to investigate the idea that you would have watched Pam Bondi's that, that hearing and one, think that she's honest and not covering up for it. Right. And two, that there's not enough information here that an honest government would actually want to run an investigation. Like even if she put out the other 3 million files, that shouldn't be the end of this. And if you're Alex Jones and you're watching the way that this unfolded and even if it was true that she put out the other 3 million files and go, oh, it's over now. Wait, so you don't wanna see what's in the rest of that information? You don't have any calls for a government investigation. You're not concerned with any of the things that we learned about so far. I mean it was unbelievable to me that people were trying to run with this ruse of oh look, Trump's totally vindicated, most transparent. They actually got the files out. Did you not watch that hearing? There were redactions of what we saw and they couldn't even get all the information because some of the stuff had been doubly redacted. It's ridiculous.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Yeah, no, absolutely. That's absolutely Right. And even, like, even to your point, though, it's like, look, just the way the administration look. They claimed that emails between Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were.

[Dave Smith]

I'm sure the thing about the privileged is it's going to be fought about for a while. Yeah, there's no way that. There's no way that this stuff should be privileged information, but I guess this buys them time, or at least they're trying to play the card of this isn't working for the administration. They played this in the worst possible way. They should have just never met. I'm just saying, politically, they never should have mentioned this. They never should have had the binders incident. They never should have teased that, like, it seems extremely obvious that Donald Trump found out his name was in it, or someone in the intelligence agency said, this is too important. And then Trump turned around, lied to our faces, and just said, this is a democratic hoax. There's nothing to see here. We're done with it.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

And no, there's. There's. That's right. That's right.

[Dave Smith]

There's two more interest.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

There's two different elements or two major elements to the handling here. It's like there's. There's the underlying, like, the scandal, which, again, is still not exactly clear. I mean, like, it's. It's hard. We know what we know, but it's hard to, like, connect all the dots and know, like, wait, what is the extent of all of this here? What is the extent of the code that these guys are speaking in? What does that code mean? Once again, much like with Pizzagate, one of the really interesting things about the Epstein files is that there seems to be no political will or journalistic will to like, hey, let's get to the bottom of that. What is this code? Look, we got enough people who we know are speaking in this pizza, grape soda, you know, what was the other one? Beef jerky. All this stuff, right? Like, we. We got the. We got enough people speaking in this. Why is it not every time they're out in public, there's a microphone in their face and someone is going, hey, no, explain yourself, sir, because clearly you're speaking in code, and a huge portion of the American population is assuming this is code for pedophilia, so. Or murder or whatever. So, like, I'm pretty sure you'd want to clear that up, right? Like, whatever the real code is couldn't be any worse than that. So why don't you. There's no will to even get to the bottom. But again, so Who. But the two elements here are. There's the scandal itself, which seems pretty goddamn dark and pretty connected all the way to the top. And then there's what you're talking about, which is just the political malpractice of all of it. The fact that, like this is, you know, because in a lot of ways, and this has been true about, about Donald Trump in both terms, you know, a lot of the knock on Donald Trump from the really establishment type people, the Hillary Clintons of the world, the, the, you know, the Mitt Romneys of the world, but one of the knocks that they'd always have on Donald Trump was that like, he's an amateur, he doesn't know what he's doing. This guy doesn't have a, A career in governance. He doesn't know how to be a statesman. He doesn't know how to staff a cabinet or blah, whatever. Now, most people, I would say, ourselves included, never gave a fuck about that because we're like, yeah, but you guys are all corrupt as shit. And he's at least calling you out on that. But the thing is, when Donald Trump gets in there and totally sells out, it is all you basically get is a more incompetent version of what we already had. And it is wild because, Rob, you're absolutely. Listen, even after running, even after running on, we're going to have Epstein transparency. If they just hadn't done that binders incident and hadn't hyped it up the way they did in the beginning and then hadn't done the pivot in the most ridiculous way, like if, if Cash, Patel or Bongino or whoever, any of these idiots had just had a press conference and gone. Look, it was our mission to get in here and get to the very bottom of the Epstein files. But what we found when we got in here is that this thing has been totally buried already and we really believe it stinks. But they just, I will say between the last six Justice Departments, they gave us no track evidence of anything. We'll release whatever we can get to you. We're going to go through all of it and see what actually is evidence. But let me tell you something. This thing still stinks. And it was the Clintons and the Obamas and the Deep State. And you can blame all them for that. If they had just done that, they probably would have been okay. You know, like they probably, they, they. The lore of Epstein wouldn't have died. People would still care about this story for many years to come, but it wouldn't have implicated them directly as much. But instead, Rob, as you said, they just did it in like the worst way. It was almost like they were figuring out that morning what they were going to go out and say and had five minutes to game plan it. And it just came up with like, I don't know, dude, tell them the Dow Jones is at 50,000, which by the way, Rob, I don't know if you saw the Dow had a bad, a bad couple of days and it's down to 49. So just saying. No, we can talk about this again now. We may have to shut up on the next episode, but this is all legitimate as of now. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is my Patriot Supply, an amazing company. And now I got to tell you about the Mount Rushmore of preparedness. 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Go take advantage of this [e-mail] that's prepare like Dave.com all right, let's get back into the show anyway. Any other thoughts, Rob?

[Dave Smith]

I mean, the storyline's not going away and I guess this is their latest way of trying to play it is, hey, we're done engaging with this. But my, and my guess is that they're going to slow down the pursuit by saying we're not engaging with this anymore. We're saying we're done with it. But there's, I think there's going to be a big time fight over what's been redacted, which is the, I guess from the administration standpoint, as they're trying to cover this up, not as bad as if all the information was available and then there was a push for like an investigation or action to be taken. So I guess they're kind of winning the fight in that regard that now it's going to be slowed down in a fight to, you know, step one, which is let's just get this information.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Yeah, I mean, look, there is, they're taking a huge loss on this politically. There is a percentage of people, you know, who will just defend this administration no matter what. And you see people say things like, well, hey, at least they got some documents out. That's more than Biden did or whatever. But look, I mean there's no question, Rob. Right. Like they're being, man, they're. The COVID up has continued even through the Epstein Transparency act going through and all of this. I mean, look, one of the things that, that people were complaining about a bunch, Rob, is I'm, I'm sure you read this, that they took down a bunch of documents that they had released. Like they released the 3.5 million pages and then they took down a whole bunch of the documents that they had already released. And then some people were like, they were going, yeah, but whatever, like they're already out there. You know how it is. You put something out on the Internet, doesn't matter if you take it down. It's already been duplicated millions of times. But what's the game there, Rob? It actually does matter because what happens is the Congress is allowed to go and see the unredacted files. Right? But now they can't see those files anymore. So they may be out there on the Internet, but the ones they took down, all we have is the redacted versions. And now even the congressman can't go see those. And it does kind of make you wonder why would they pick those. But look, we've already caught him red handed at least once redacting a co conspirator. And so this is just, they've essentially created a situation now where there is no way that they can ever convince people that you've gotten all the information that you've gotten. And of course, as you said, this story will live on for, for a few reasons. Number one, because there is, well, look, I mean, number one, because there's something about children being abused in this way and we know at least that there were several children that were abused. We don't know exactly the extent of it. I don't know. There's all types of weird emails where they're talking about 9 year olds and 10 year olds and there's one where Epstein's where He's telling a 14 year old you're going to be 22 tonight or something. So like how many children we don't know but as soon as you hear children's sexual abuse, human beings have a, an impulse about that. It's a, it's something that is, you know, as we've talked about before, it is, it really is crazy. It's that you, if you're a pedophile, you can't go to maximum security prison and be safe because even amongst fucking killers there's a moral code that, that is some evil shit. And like there's just, there is something about evokes like a very primal rage out of people. So that's one thing. Then you also have the element of it's this crazy spy thriller thing, you know what I mean? And then you also just have the story itself and how it. As soon as you know a few details about the Epstein thing you're just like dude, something is go. We're already now exist in a spectrum of some horrible scandal. You know, it's just unclear exactly what it is. And then of course the other factor Rob, is that there are millions of documents that are out there and it's going to be years of people reporting on this stuff. You know, there's still. Scott made this point. Scott Horton made this point on, on provoked. Great show by the way with Scott Horton and Daryl Cooper. He made this point the other day but he compared, I thought it was a good comparison is he compared it to like the, the WikiLeaks dumps and how it would still be years later that people would find a random little thing. Oh, I found this, you know, and this way. And. And then it almost like it almost became like one resource of information that's out there that people would use to make their case. So like when, when Scott's, you know, arguing about whatever Ukraine or something he can go back to sir, like certain things like, like the nyet means nyet memoir that Burns wrote to Condoleezza Rice that we only know of that because of the, of the Julian Assange dumps. Like it was the WikiLeaks dumps is how we found that email. So like there's things like this is going to be a thing that people are going to be reporting on and finding new emails and finding new interpretations of different connections and emails for years and years to come. It's nowhere. It's not going to be Over. And at this point, this administration is just kind of solidified that their legacy was the attempt to cover this up.

[Dave Smith]

And in the meantime, you can't read tweets while eating because it's all about human meat.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Yeah, that's true. Well, I mean, just like the story itself, the Epstein is just. It's really. It's just one of those things where it's like you just. I mean, like, if you. I think they even, like when. When Daryl was on with Tucker's show, they talked a little bit about this, and Tucker's for, like, Tucker said, like a couple times, he'd be like, what are the odds of that happening? And then Daryl would go, you want to put a few more zeros on that? Like, also add this in. Also add this. I mean, I was. One of the things I find that's really interesting, and it's how the. The Epstein story intersects with. With a lot of, like, much even bigger stories or also really huge stories. I mean, it's kind of hard to say how big exactly Epstein was. He's bigger than I realized before this, before these latest files came out. But, you know, so. So, you know, you have. What's his name, Bob Barr's father? I'm blanking on what his first name was, but Bar Senior is the guy who hires Epstein for his first job at Dalton. So this dude was an. An OSS agent. He was a CIA guy before the creation of the CIA. So Bar is a. Is an intelligence guy. Right. He. They throw him into running Dalton, which is like, you know, it's when. When somebody who used to be an intelligence agent then goes in to run, like, an elite, you know, like, prep school in New York City. You'd always assume like, oh, well, this must be like some type of recruiting sht or something like that, right? So he hires Jeffrey Epstein at 20 years old as a college dropout to teach math in. In Dalton. Right. And then his son, Bob Barr, and also works for the CIA for many years. He ends up being the guy who Trump puts in as the Attorney General who oversees the arrest and then is in charge while he gets. While Epstein gets murdered. So, like, already just there you'd go, like, what are the odds of that?

[Dave Smith]

This just seems like a really nothing to see.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Right, Right. So, like, what. So, like, that's what. Right. Wouldn't Alex Jones be interested in that? Doesn't that. Now just to. Here's one of the things that's. Okay, so Bob Barr. Is that who this guy was? Right. So he works for the CIA for years. Now he works for the CIA during the. The Church committee. So there was.

[Dave Smith]

For.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

For people who don't know, this was, like, the time period in the 70s when it was, like, the CIA's probably most threatened period since their existence. I mean, maybe you could argue, you know, a full. A few years earlier, when Kennedy had fired Dulles and was threatening to break up the whole CIA. But, you know, Rob, they dealt with that problem. So this is. This is now in the 70s. And I think it was like. I think it was a bunch of Seymour Hirsch reporting that got the church committees going. But there was, like, if you'd imagine, right after Kennedy got killed, there was, like, a whole different level of, like, awareness and distrust of the shadow government. And, like, what exactly was going on? A lot of Americans just did not buy that, like, their president got murdered in front of all of them, and none of the story added up. And so eventually they get these. The. The church committee. And then there was a. The church committee was in the Senate. Then the House had a version of it, too. And there. There was, like, actual pressure being put on. And you know who the head of the CIA was, Rob? George H.W. bush. And so George H. W. Bush hires Bar, son of the guy who hired Jeffrey Epstein. He brings Bar in to basically be, like, the conduit between the Central Intelligence Agency and Congress. His job is to go to Congress and say, like, look, we can declassify these in these files. This is all you really need. Let's give them this. Will that keep them off of the rest of the stuff that we want? So he does that. Then he becomes Attorney General for the first time under George H.W. bush. George H.W. bush brought him in there. Well, why would he be using the same guy who he used as the CIA's guy to cover this story? You know, cover up fucking, like, what's to be released in the Church committee. Why would he bring the same guy into the Justice Department? Like, how do you go from working for the intel? Well, this is immediately following Iran Contra. And so he brought in his CIA guy to what, do the exact same thing again. So then Donald Trump brings this same guy into his administration, and he goes and prosecutes Epstein, who then, you know, the cameras malfunction and the guards fall asleep and then winds up dead.

[Dave Smith]

Like, look, we're living in Tel Aviv.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Yeah, right? So, like, look, just knowing that, like, again, like I think I said on the. On. On one of the episodes here, some mathematician. You give me the odds of all of that happening. And they're not being, like, something more to the story. Like, just all of that's a coincidence. So again, by the way, this is. I just gave you, like, five minutes of this. There's hours and hours and hours more. And I didn't even get into girls or connections or Mossad or Russian oligarchs or any of the goddamn meetings that this guy was involved in, by the way. Also seem to be involved in Iran Contra. You not. And so there's just. It's like, once you know that, you're kind of at a place where. And this is why, where I think some of the guys like Michael, Tracy and them are being, like, particularly disingenuous when they kind of, like, nitpick on all the little things, you know, it'll go, Dave, you said it was a giant child sex trafficking ring. That's not true. We don't have proof of that. You're like, okay, fine. I really should have said it was a giant scandal involving a sex trafficking ring that involved children. Good one. You got me. Okay, so while you're focused on that, what the fuck explains what I just said? You know, what the fuck is your theory of what's happening here? You know, there's. There's. It's like, look, it's one thing when you go, hey, people, you're kind of speculating here about what you don't know, and we should stick to the facts or something like that. Like, okay, that's reasonable enough. But sometimes you have a set of facts that are so crazy that you go, it's actually much more reasonable to speculate about what might be here than to go, you can't prove one outlandish claim. Therefore, none of this matters. Like, I'm sorry, dude, what explains all that? And again, that's like five minutes of laying the shit out. You could sit here, as Daryl Cooper has done several times for three hours and lay out a ton of shit and just go, what is it that explains all of this? And it's something pretty bad. And this is why no one's letting this go. The administration's never going to win this fight. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Superpower. Look, it's the new year. People are thinking about their health. That's always one of the big things that people think about going into a new year. But you know what? It's 2026. It's not 1926. So if you're thinking about your health, you want to do it the smart way with all the technology we have. So check out Superpower. What they do is they send a licensed professional to your home or you can visit a nearby lab. It's one simple blood draw with over a hundred biomarkers, way more than what you would usually get, which unlocks so much about your own body. And then they have their app, which includes detailed information about your heart, your liver, your thyroid, hormones, metabol, vitamin and mineral levels, even environmental toxins. So from disease prevention to treating that annoying brain fog, or simply optimizing your gym game, Superpower is the most comprehensive and advanced system out there. So essentially, they're going to take your blood, they're going to look at all of these biomarkers, and then they're going to make recommendations about what you should do that's best for your health. Not just your health generally, but you specifically your health. It's a whole new way to level up your health game. Your blueprint activated with Superpower Plus. Not only did Superpower reduce the price to just 199, but for a limited time, our listeners can get an additional $20 off when they use the promo code problem. Just head over to superpower.com use the promo code PROBLEM at checkout for $20 off your membership. After you sign up the last guy you heard about them, please make sure to say that you heard at part of the problem. That helps us out. All right, let's get back into the show.

[Dave Smith]

You would think at a minimum there'd be an investigation of Wexner. I mean, he was named as a co conspirator. I think he's still alive, right?

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Yeah, yeah, he's old, but he's still alive.

[Dave Smith]

Bring him in front of Congress or something. No talks to the staff of the island, Nothing.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Yeah, no, that's right. Like all. And then also, like, there's just like these weird kind of conflicting things where, like, you know, again, not that you should trust anything the administration says for shit, but it's like, remember when Pam Bondi at one point went, it was thousands of hours of kiddie porn and that's why we can't release any of this. And you're like, okay, but then like, doesn't that kind of conflict with the idea that like, oh, no, like this guy was a womanizer and like, yeah, like a 15 or 16 year old slipped in there, but he wasn't like preying on. He's not a pedophile. Like, okay, but he has thousands of hours of kitty porn. Because, like the only people I know who have that are pedophiles.

[Dave Smith]

You know, pedophiles.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Okay. I don't actually know anyone who has that, but the only word I would use to describe people who have that is pedophiles. You know, that came out the wrong way, Rob. Thanks for catching me on that, though. No, but I mean, like, it's a. Like, I saw Tracy. It's. Honestly, it's just too stupid. I know he's, like, challenging me to debate, and you're like, I just don't even know what it is you want to debate here. But it's literally what he's doing. But. And the reason why it seems pointless is that it's just like, nobody's agreeing with him. He's just, like, destroying his reputation. Every goddamn response to him is like, fucking how ridiculous this is. But. So he. He played the clip from our show where I. And I did get it wrong. Like, fair enough. In this. In this moment. But he played the clip from our show where I said I go, and didn't you win the lottery twice? And then you immediately corrected me and you go, I don't think that one's right. As I looked into that, it doesn't seem like that's right. And I go, oh, okay, all right. I thought I read that. And then he plays that clip as if this is some huge own. And you're like, dude, it was. It was addressed on the show by my co host the moment after I said that. And yes, okay, fine, Tracy, you're right. It was. We got these files and we were looking through them, and yes, a company with the same name as his company had won the lottery. I guess it turns out it was not the same company. Okay, again, what's your theory? To explain the information that we know this is the one question he'll just run away from. I asked him on this, on Twitter, and he immediately just five paragraphs. Running away from. I don't have to give it a theory of totality or any of this. Well, yeah, you kind of do at a certain point. Like, we've got a lot of information here, and if you're going to make yourself the debunker. Well, obviously the question is, what would explain all of this? What is the story here? He's got nothing on that.

[Dave Smith]

And you don't just have to explain for what is the full story, but why is it that the government isn't even interested in looking into this? Like, based on what you've seen, you don't think that there's anything here that is suspicious enough that warrants an investigation or suspicious enough that the government shouldn't just be. And also, if there's absolutely nothing suspicious here, why was the government so shady in the way that it was willing to release the information if everything here does not create suspicion? And it's, as you're saying, there's no story to be told here at all. Why did they at first say, oh, my God, I've seen the most horrifying things and I've got the information here. Oh, I'm giving binders to these influencers. Oh, there's nothing to see here. Oh, you forced my hands. Fine, here's a bunch of files. But we had to redact the information. I mean, make that make sense that there's no scandal here whatever at all. On the topic, though, of the lottery ticket, I got to dig into this one. I heard it on a pod, just went to fact check. It didn't look right. And as I said, I was drunk at the airport when I looked into it, so I don't know all the details. I have a friend that said he dug in and that one of the winners was actually the groundskeeper of the estate. I don't know if that's true or not, but anyways, I think that one's still. I was just saying don't. We shouldn't say it as an absolute. But I don't know that it's entirely debunked.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Yeah, no, but I did see. I saw Tracy's, like, thing that he had put together on that, and it was like, okay, that's. That's fair enough. Like, it looks like we got that one wrong.

[Dave Smith]

That was single. It's not like that was. People said, hey, we got to investigate this Epstein guy. He won the lottery twice. And that doesn't make sense why this guy would have won the lottery twice. That was not the Epstein conversation.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Yeah, no, that's right. And then also, it's like Tracy's just gotten a ton wrong himself covering this. So he. He goes around like, being like, oh, if he finds one little detail that anyone. Even a detail where my co host fucking corrects me on the show, he still plays that as, like, some gotcha. Meanwhile, I don't know if you saw Daryl Cooper's letter that he wrote back to him, but Daryl Cooper did, which he really didn't have to because Tracy was being such a. Which he's really been the whole time. It. He just. He completely got a bunch of wrong when he was critiquing Daryl, that Daryl was Absolutely right about. And I'm not saying there's not a couple details Daryl's gotten wrong. I think he got the lottery thing wrong too. He admitted that himself. And like it's fine. Like the. These are complicated stories. It's hard to put everything together and not ever get a detail wrong. But there is something about the smug. And you know, Rob, I know you know this, but. And I'll just remind people I talked about this on the show before at the time, but I believe none of this shit's been taken down. You can still go look at it on Twitter yourself, yourself. That my fir. I always kind of. I didn't really know much about Michael Tracy, but I kind of liked. He was a journalist and I kind of largely agreed with him. I remember he was good on Ukraine. And that was at the time was like, I mean still is, but was like such a goddamn huge important issue. And so I appreciated that. And so if you remember Rob, this was like the first thing. This is where our, you know, relationship or whatever went source was that he put out a clip of Bobby Kennedy's speech where he announced he was running for president. And Bobby Kennedy essentially was talking about the war in Ukraine. And he gave like a disclaimer before he came out against the thing. So he started by. He had this thing. So he starts by going like, you know, the American people support, you know, they believe in freedom and liberty and they've been told that the Ukrainians are fighting for their freedom, which they are, and that's why the Americans support this war. But what I've come to learn is that this war is not about that this war is about blah, blah, blah. And then he gets into the Maidan revolution, how that was a US backed coup, how blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he has this whole thing about how like why it's really NATO in the West's fault that this conflict happened at all. Like really good stuff that I would have. He might have been sloppy with a detail or two, but something that I would have been like, hell yeah, that was really great. So then Tracy posts a clip of just the beginning part where he says the war is about freedom and this and goes, oh look, RFK comes out in support of the war in Ukraine. And so then I went, I went. So him and Jack Posebyak both posted that short. Like, I mean dude, it was a. Like, you know, people say you took me out of context when you didn't really take them out of context. This was like a textbook actually out of context, like blatantly by the way, Rob, I'm not like a RFK junior, Stan, I assume. I disagree with him on a ton of things. I had a very confrontational debate with him. I've been very critical about him at times, but this was clearly out of context and just misleading. So I go to Tracy on Twitter. I responded to him, and I go, dude, this is a completely misleading video. Like, this is not at all what he was saying. And Tracy goes, oh, so you're calling me a liar? And I go, no, I'm saying I think you got fooled. Go watch the whole thing. I'm saying, whoever made this clip is a liar. And then he goes, I'm the one who made this clip. And I go, oh, well, then, yes, I'm calling you a liar. Sorry, I didn't realize it, but, yes, I'm calling you a liar. Now, to his credit, Jack Posabiec immediately deleted the tweet, retweeted mine or quote, tweeted mine, and then went, hey, Dave's right. I just saw the full version. Like, this isn't at all what he was saying. But Tracy wouldn't back down. And it was like, when he was like, this wasn't even. Like, I wasn't even attacking him. Like, oh, you fucking liar. I was going like, hey, hey, hey, you got this wrong. So just, like, correct this, you know? And he wouldn't. He refused. He doubled down and tripled down when it was obvious. So, like, now he's coming around and trying to be the guy like, oh, you got this wrong. Like, look, dude, what are we even. I don't even know what he wanted to debate. It was like, he want. He wanted to debate. He was angry that I said at the Charlie Kirk event, at the famous one with Josh Hammer, that I said donald Trump just covered up a giant child rapist ring or something like that. So, like, all right, I guess I was a little over my skis to call it a giant child rapist. I guess we don't know exactly how many children were raped in all of it, but, like, he got caught with, like, three. There's a bunch of emails that indicate there's more. And, like, what do you think? What do you think? If he got caught with three, you think he never, ever did it except for those times that he got caught? So, like, okay, like, again, the point is that I'm not, like, trying to be married to a thing I said off the cuff in front of a live audience as a rebuttal to a guy who was attacking me or Whatever, Fine. I should have said a giant scandal involving sex trafficking of minors. There you go. Cleaned it up. So now what are we debating that? Like, I don't know, it's just, it's, it's the, the way people are bending over backwards to try to argue that there's nothing there is really weird. And then the other thing, Rob, is. And really why I don't want to do the debate at all, probably why I won't do it is just that. And I have very few lines with stuff like this, but there's some topics I just not going to debate. But I have heard whatever Tracy said on Glenn Greenwald. He said I'm not an age of consent guy or something like that. And then he starts getting into how having sex with a 15 year old isn't really pedophilia, because pedophilia is defined as pre pubescent. Like, and you're like, all right, well, I'm just going to keep calling him a pedophile and I don't ever want to talk to you again. I don't know. That's just like my, like, okay, so like it's pretty universally like colloquially used the term pedophile as like you have sex with children. And I'm just not interested in a debate about splitting hairs about when you call someone a pedophile and when you don't, it's just too bizarre to me. I don't know.

[Dave Smith]

I think the problem with this is that 15 is horrible and it just gets worse every year down. But that doesn't make 15 okay. Like, yeah, we'll all agree with you. Like in it's more horrific. If it's an 8 year old, it's even more horrific. It's a 7 year old every year down, it's like increasingly exponentially more horrific. But that doesn't make the 15 year old okay.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Yes. And in fact, if I was like, this is a, if I was gonna have like an age of consent conversation, I'm arguing in the other way that I'd go like, while I agree obviously with everything you said, it gets more horrific the younger the child is. Although I guess that stops at a certain point, right? Like a 6 year old isn't any better than a 7 year old or something like, or any worse or better. All. It's all satanic level. It's satanic levels of evil once you start getting to a young enough age. But also there's a, there's a conversation on the other side of this. Like, so look, it's somewhat Arbitrary, always where you draw the line of when you're a legal adult, should it be 18, should it be 19, should it be 20? You know, like there. I don't know and I don't. I certainly, the older I get, err on the side of making it older. But there is something to like, look, if a, if a 25 year old has sex with a 15 year old, we all look at that as a heinous crime. A heinous crime. That's a horrible thing. You should go to jail for that. That is a horrible thing to do. I don't know, we've all been 25 before and you might have, you know, hooked up with a girl younger than you, but 15, hell no. I mean, that is sick. Okay, but a 55 year old being with an 18 year old, in what world is that not worse? Like, I, I just don't like it's. Yes, I understand at a certain point you have to draw the line legally or whatever, but there's when you're talking. So now in the case of Jeffrey Epstein, just to be clear, even when you're saying the girl was 16 or the girl was 17, this isn't even the case of like a 40 year old met a 17 year old and ended up having sex with her, which is sick enough, you know, and, and criminal. And I mean, maybe not in every state. In fact, in a lot of states that's not criminal. But I, I would argue should be. I would argue should be criminal in every single state. But now you're talking about like trafficking these girls. You're talking about like hiring these girls, making them prostitutes, putting them in situations where they are to have sex with whoever that is so much worse. So much worse. And so like you just. It's at a level where it's like once someone's trying to split hairs. And I know Tracy kind of makes fun of how there's this, like when everyone's telling me they want to see my search history or that I must be a pedo too, or something like that. It's like, yeah, dude, because that's the appropriate reaction when someone starts going down that line. That is the appropriate reaction for most men to have. Like, most men's reaction is like, okay, we're gonna kill whoever did that. And then what, the guy splitting hairs about it? You know what? Just to be safe, we're gonna kill you too. Not saying anyone ought to kill someone for splitting hairs, but that is the instinct. And like, I don't know, dude. Like, I've had You know, I've, I've young kids but I got other, you know, I have like, they're a little bit older now, but I had like a niece who was a teenager not too like just a few years ago. And I have like if some, some 45 year old, some 50 year old guy ever tried something with my niece when she was 17, I'd be quite comfortable murdering him with like a ballpoint pen, you know, so call that whatever you want to call it, you know what I'm saying? I'm not going to sit here and argue like yeah, it's, it's a pretty big deal to some of us. So we're gonna just, we're gonna just lump that all in.

[Dave Smith]

And Dave means metaphorically of course because he would call the responsible authorities and let the actual system obviously the whole thing's a metaphor.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

None of this ever happened. You know what I'm saying? I'm saying that in the event that it did happen, I could see myself feeling comfortable with something like that. But anyway, yes, very good point. This is all. Obviously we're comedians and everything here is just satire, but anyway, yeah, so I'm just not, I don't know, I don't want to conversation. I'm interested in the conversation of like what were his ties to Israeli intelligence? What exactly is the story here? How many. You know, like I just want to get down to the bottom of this and understand it as best we can. Anyway, okay, let's, let's move on because again we ended up spending a lot of time on, on Epstein stuff. But let's talk a little bit about Iran because that is the other really big thing that is going on here and according to I believe was it. I think it was Axios. No, my mistake, it was Reuters. Reuters had a report out just the other day that they said because you know the, the military has been making major mobilization movements over the last week. I mean over weeks and, but really over the last week particularly. And uh, according to the Reuters uh, report the U. S. Military is preparing for the possibility of a sustained weeks long operation against Iran coming up here. And now Donald Trump did say the other day that something again about how there can be no enrichment and I. This is so, so now it's really something Rob. Right. Because they, they went to this absurd. What was it? I don't know, I haven't. It seems like they backed down on that. Like I haven't seen as much of the propaganda about how many protesters were killed because like it seems like the protests were quelled. And but for a little while there a few weeks ago, it was like a hundred thousand killed in, in an hour in Ukraine or in, excuse me, in Iran. And now it's now they're Trump is somehow back to the nuclear pretext again. This is not much better handled than the Epstein story. Like what but didn't you just tell me you obliterated their nuclear program like a few months ago? And so now you're telling me I got these reports that we're looking for so this time it's not going to be like last time. You're talking about a sustained military campaign going on for weeks and weeks over a nuclear threat that you told me you already took care of. I mean, man, they are not selling this war very well.

[Dave Smith]

Rob, I thought they changed their maybe I haven't seen the latest, but I thought they changed their position to Iran can't even have ballistic missiles.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Yes. No, they were saying that too. They were saying a demand of getting rid of the missiles.

[Dave Smith]

Do they shift it back to they they're trying to get a bomb or just that they're not allowed to have a nuclear program at all. They're throwing it track of it there.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

There'S all of this happened. Yes, it is hard to keep up with all of that happened. They're still saying the thing about the missiles. They've lightened up on the talk about the protesters, I guess because it's just not happening anymore. And I think honestly from what, what my read of it is that the timing just didn't work out and they didn't have the military hardware in place to be prepared for the Iranian response. And so when the protests were going on and they were making these claims they weren't ready, it took them a few weeks more. And now that's kind of old news. But yes, there's been claims that they have to disarm themselves completely of intercontinental ballistic missiles or they could only keep missiles that can't reach Israel, which, you know, obviously is something that is going to be something that the Ayatollah cannot agree to. But so it does. In much like with the first round of negotiations last summer, it seems like the goal here is to just say, you know, hey, you got to do these three things that I know you can't possibly do and that's, that's our pretext for war, that hey, we tried to negotiate, they wouldn't agree and so we're going to have to bomb them. But I mean if they're, I mean, look, Rob, there's Only if they really are preparing for like a weeks long extensive campaign here. What's, I mean, what's going to happen as a result of this? I mean, obviously the big question becomes what is Iran gonna do? You know, and I don't know. I'm not so sure about that anymore. I don't know. You know, they really are stuck between Iraq and a hard place. That country. Typically they're stuck between Iraq and Afghanistan, but now it's Iraq and a hard place. Sorry guys, I'll bring something better for you in Perryville. But, but so there's, you go look like, can they just take it again. Is it, is it really the case that they'll just, they'll, they'll call up the U. S. Embassy again and go, hey, please move your guys out of the southwest corner of this base because we're going to send some missiles at it. But we really don't want to kill any Americans because we don't want it. Is it true they're going to do that again? Then again, I don't know. A lot of people thought there's no way they could let us bomb Fordo or whatever, but they did. And so, you know, like, do they really want to go just bomb a few military bases and, and kill a few hundred Americans and then get their entire country lit up? Okay, well, if that happens, it's almost certain that there's going to be enormous casualties, you know, on all sides. If that were to happen, if Iran was to retaliate to a US Or Israeli first strike, if they don't do that and they just take it and there's a sustained bombing campaign for weeks, okay, we'll probably kill a few thousand people. And then there's a big question of whether that's enough to topple the regime or not. Maybe it is. And if it, and if we do topple the regime, well, then you're in a situation where the overwhelming likelihood is a catastrophic result as it has been in every other country in that region. So, you know, it's funny because I, when, when Venezuela first came up, you know, I was, I would, did a, a panel on Piers Morgan that Coleman Hughes was on. So we had done a debate. Well, or he had me on his show and we argued a bunch and then we were on a panel on Piers Morgan and when Venezuela comes up, you know, he makes the point. And, and I like Coleman. He's, he's always been a reasonably decent enough person to me, but he's, his argument is like, oh, everybody's comparing this to Iraq and Libya and Syria and all that. But like, this is a completely different region with a completely different culture with a completely different thing. So, like, you can't judge it based off that. So I was like, okay, fine, let's look at other catastrophes in South America, you know, but yet when it comes back to Iran, that same guy doesn't go, well, you know, we gotta judge this based off the two neighboring countries that we did this to. Like, literally, we've done this now to like four countries in that region and they've all been catastrophic. No, no, no, it doesn't. It only works one way, which is, seems to be convenient to me. But yeah, it's, there's just if, if the regime change were to be successful, there is really no good reason to see, think that what comes next is going to be an improvement and every reason in the world to think that it's going to be a catastrophe. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show. We're thrilled to have them on board. Ultra. Ultra pouches. The nicotine free pouches that people are raving about. This is the new thing now is that first the nicotine pouches got big, but not everybody loves nicotine. 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All right, let's get back into the show.

[Dave Smith]

I've heard Netanyahu say numerous times that he thinks that the Iranian people are great people and the only problem is the regime. And as a man of his word, I am sure that if they successfully take out this regime will be better for The Iranians and Israel will openly engage with them, maybe even let them migrate to Israel. I'm sure that's the way this is.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

You know, there is something, though, I will say that's weird about the way he says that, because it is like, you know, a lot of these guys, you know, like, as is one of the things that was revealed in the Epstein files, that there's like, this real level of, like, Jewish supremacy and, like, real deal, you know, supremacy. And what comes along with that whenever you have, like, real racial. Racial supremists is like, you know, a real crazy, racialist, reductionist view of the world of how you look at people. Like, you know, like, the way Hitler does. You've ever hear Hitler talk about race, where it's like, okay, there's these people, there's these people, there's these people. Here's the ranking. Here's was, you know, like. And look, a lot of people at the top upper echelon of Israel's government does have some of that in them. And, like, when you just hear Benjamin Netanyahu and, like, he'll talk about the Palestinians as, like, Amalek. But then, like, when he talks about the people of Iranian, he always talks about, like, the great Persian people and the, like, tradition that they have. And there is something, even by his standard, that's like a weird admission in there where he's like, listen, man, we understand, like, a lot of people think you're all durka, durka, durka people. But, like, we know that you're, like, Persian, you're not these dirty Arabs. You know what I mean? Like, you can talk reason to you, it's just like a very weird, like, kind of thing where you're like, oh, so that's why you can just level Gaza, because, like, yeah, fuck them. But, like, you guys know, come on, we could do a whole thing, like, you guys are capable of having a government that works for us. You know, like, anyway, it's. It's very bizarre. Let's play. Did you see this album? The Mark Levin quote here? I just loved this so much. Let's. Let's play that clip. Natalie. It was the. I think it was the first one that I. I sent today. If I'm remembering correctly, it's. It's Newt Gingrich. Because, you know, like, remember when Barry Weiss was talking about how the way we gotta take back the media is we gotta find these charismatic, centrist characters? Well, that's it. Here's. Here's one more for. Remember she mentioned Alan Dershowitz with his raw sex appeal. Well, Mark Levins found a young stud to come on here. And Newt Gingrich, let's hear what they have to say. I don't know why we would meet with them. Which makes them said look like they're a legitimate government. They're not. They're a dictatorship dedicated to destroying the United States.

[Dave Smith]

You know, the isolationists like to talk about warmongers.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

And I've coined a word called diplomacy monger. That is people who think that we can talk our way or they can talk their way into some kind of an arrangement. I don't know. All right, there you go, Rob. Mark Levin hits back at us isolationists. We want us to be so isolated. I love it. Just not wanting to drop bombs and ask questions later means you're isolated. Like, just imagine if my, my position here in my neighborhood was like, hey, Rob, I don't think I should murder any of my neighbors. And you were like, so what, do you just want to stay inside all day, dude? It's like they think the only option of what you can, how you can interact with the world is by killing them. But yes. Well, he turned it around on us. We call him a warmonger because he constantly wants to fight the next war, but he's going to call us diplomacy mongerers. As Newt can't figure out, why would we, anyone want to meet with Iran? Well, to avoid a fucking unnecessary war. That's the idea. Why is it, why is it, by the way, Rob, how is a diplomacy monger an isolationist? What is it? Why are you more isolated if we're talking to somebody, but you're not for being isolated if you're bombing somebody? What's the logic to any of that?

[Dave Smith]

What's the definition of the word monger?

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

I think, you know, I'm not going to be able to give you a definition of it, but somebody who does it a lot, I don't know. Monger. Don't make me look stupid by asking me questions.

[Dave Smith]

My bad. I, I, no, I, to me, it's got the, the word itself has a negative connotation, but I realize I don't actually know the strict definition of a.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Person who deals in trades or promotes a specific commodity. So it's like somebody who, I guess.

[Dave Smith]

You, I guess technically, technically you can be a diplomacy monger. Oh, I'll be expensive.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Yeah, why not? Let's, yeah, let's talk to people. Let's talk to them before we start dropping bombs like this. And also, like, I mean, Newt Gingrich just whatever. I mean, Obviously he's for 90 year olds, but it is amazing the efforts they go to just convince these fucking boomers to keep fucking supporting this shit. And. But he goes, you can't. And here's his argument again, right? You can't talk to them, because if you talk to them, that would be recognizing them as a legitimate government.

[Dave Smith]

They're there and they're the people on the other side. So you can either pretend they don't.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Exist, like it's not a matter of whether you think they're the legitimate government. They're the rat.

[Dave Smith]

Dave.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Yes, right. First of all, the. The legitimate government is an oxymoron. There's no such thing. There's no, by the way, there's no claim to legitimacy by any government on the face of the planet or any government that's ever existed. All the explanations of legitimacy are totally unscientific and contradictory and incoherent. You know, there's been a range of how governments claim to be legitimate through the years. And honestly, probably the strongest one is just Mike makes right, which I think is bullshit and illegitimate and undercuts any idea of morality. But, like, probably is their best argument to go with is just like, well, we're stronger than you, so fuck you. We run this shit. There's been all types of attempts to claim that kings were ordained by God, that the pharaoh was related to like the canoe God or something like that. I don't remember exactly how it goes, but we could look at all of those. And most modern people go, yeah, okay, well, that's not actually legitimate. But look, this whole idea of like, the government gets their rights are derived from the consent of the governed. Come on, what are you, in the third grade? None of that's really true. And by the way, that's not even how. That's not even how our government was formed. Wasn't formed from derision of consent of people. It was enforced on people. And that's.

[Dave Smith]

So we're not consent guys.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

No, we are consent guys. They're not consent guys. They just claim to be consent guys. We're for. We're very good at consent.

[Dave Smith]

I'm getting confused by all this technical talk.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

I mean, we're for consent. We wouldn't take it to the line that Michael Tracy would take it to necessarily. But we are for consent after a certain age.

[Dave Smith]

I don't know. I just found out I'm a monger.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

You are also a monger of many things. Sandwich monger. But anyway. But look, I mean, right they do exist. We want to avoid a war if possible. And who would not be for talking to them other than the people who just want to see regime change there? See, that's the thing, right, is that they don't. The reason why diplomacy scares guys like Mark Levin and. And Newt Gingrich is because actually he knows there's a good chance that a reasonable deal could be reached. You know, for all the people who shouted at me, 60% enriched uranium last summer over and over and over again after they had learned the term for the first time, they all acted like that was the issue. But the thing is, the mullahs were more than willing to come to the negotiating term table about that. In fact, they had already done that under Obama. And they came out and they had. They. They signed onto the jcpoa, they agreed to international inspections, and the inspectors confirmed they weren't enriching beyond. I think it was 3 to 5% at the time. It wasn't until Trump tore up the deal that they moved it up. And so then when Trump said we want to bring it back down, they said, okay, great, let's take. Let's talk another deal. He could have. Trump easily could have gotten a stronger JCPOA without sunset provisions or whatever. He clearly could have gotten that if he wanted it. And that's why these guys don't want diplomacy, because then they might negotiate away your pretext for war. And that's the whole game right there. Anyway, I mean, if Trump is going to go through with this, man, I mean, I think. I kind of think he's already cooked, but man is his admit is in. Is his entire administration just totally destroyed if he actually launches enough because number one, Rob, and we got to wrap up. But I'll say this is that another war in Iran is going to be a real disaster for Donald Trump, not just because they're going to kind of have to do something bigger than they did last time. They're already saying it's going to be weeks long, which by the way, is what many thought Iraq was going to be, is why Kiriakou says the. The old line is we'll be in Tehran by summer. They thought some people thought it would be months, some people thought it would be weeks. Ended up being two decades. So. But this is going to totally undercut the justification for the 12 Day War. Right? You kind of can no longer brag about that being so such a victory if you're right back at war with the country a few months later. But coming off the Epstein stuff, coming off the ICE debacle and backing off of mass deportations and, and backing off of Doge and just all these things, just disaster after disaster. Now we're going to see another war of choice, another war of aggression that, that's likely to get thousands of people killed. That is just. Man, this is just it. And look, it's, it's a big deal because these same fucking Democrats who just did all the shit they did over the last decade, they're coming back. They're coming back in a big way in these midterms. And Donald Trump has really just left this country in a horrible spot. All right, we gotta wrap up there, guys. See you in Perryville, Maryland this Saturday. Robbie Bernstein will be there. Who do? Well, do we have anyone else coming with us?

[Dave Smith]

Is BK Chris coming with?

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

You? Know what? I haven't talked to him. Let me. I'll shoot him a text after this, see if he wants to come down. Maybe BK Chris will be there with us. All right, guys. Comicdavesmith.com oh, yes, Natalie, good point. Members Only episode I did. We will do a double members only episode this week. It probably won't be Thursday, but we will make sure to get you a double one because we missed it last week. So apologies for that. Also, buy my wife's book, Healthy Hibernation on Amazon. Soft cover is now available. Thanks so much to all of you guys who have already purchased it and we'll catch you next time. Peace.

[Dave Smith]

Enhance your CTE programs of study with.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

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