Shameless War Propaganda

Summary

Podcast Summary: Part Of The Problem – "Shameless War Propaganda"

Host: Dave Smith (with Robbie "the Fire" Bernstein)
Date: March 20, 2026
Episode Overview:
This episode of Part of the Problem dives into recent escalations in the Middle East, focusing on U.S. and Israeli actions, war propaganda, the fracturing of the right-wing coalition, and the manipulation of narratives in media and politics. Dave and Robbie critically examine the official justifications for war, dissect mainstream and MAGA-aligned talking points, and discuss the implications for both foreign and domestic policy, highlighting the importance of intellectual honesty and skepticism in times of war.

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Main Themes and Purpose

• War Propaganda and Media Manipulation: The episode interrogates the use and dissemination of propaganda both by U.S. and allied governments and by popular media figures, calling out misleading or outright dishonest narratives justifying recent military interventions.
• Fracturing of Right-Wing and Populist Movements: Dave details the breakdown of the Trump coalition, especially around foreign policy, and predicts further splintering as the consequences of new wars unfold.
• Critical Assessment of Official Narratives: Both hosts lay out the need to question assertions from leaders and pundits, especially regarding claims about threats from Iran, casualties, and economic impacts.
• Integrity in Commentary: Emphasis on the ethical responsibility of public figures and commentators to reflect on and admit errors in their previous analyses.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Surreal Nature of Current Events & Predictability of War (00:56–03:30)

• Dave opens with a parallel to the lockdowns during COVID, evoking the surreal nature of empty New York streets, and compares that sense of disorientation to contemporary developments in the Middle East.
• Both hosts note that even as libertarian and anti-war commentators predicted the escalation, the reality remains shocking as it unfolds.
• Quote:

  "It's all going exactly the way we said it could, that Iran can touch all types of... and create havoc. We like – this is just different than any of the other terror wars." — Dave Smith (01:27)

2. Trump’s Role, MAGA Movement, and Foreign Policy Betrayal (03:34–06:52)

• Dave recounts how the anti-war sentiment was core to the original Trump movement and a threat to the political and media establishment, especially regarding foreign policy.
• He lays out how former "Never Trumpers" have since infiltrated the movement, becoming its standard-bearers as the coalition is systematically humiliated.
• The hosts emphasize the calculated effort to make figures like Bobby Kennedy, Tulsi Gabbard, and even Trump himself walk back their principles or embrace wild rationalizations.
• Quote:

  "What we're watching here, Rob, is the systematic humiliation and destruction of the coalition that they feared..." — Dave Smith (05:16)

3. Media Disinformation and War Hysteria (07:17–13:43)

• Dave discusses how, as hostilities with Iran ramp up, a flood of headlines and social media posts are crafted to win support for war—many being misleading.
• Example: Iranian wrestler executed, being framed as political repression when in fact the official (though untrustworthy) claim is conviction for killing police officers. Dave stresses skepticism and warns against such inflammatory framing, especially at key moments of escalation.
• Robbie mockingly distills the U.S. position:

  "We have to oppose all regimes that are violent towards their own people. And that's why the Iran war is so successful – because the Iran war is actually spilling into a Saudi Arabian war." — Robbie Bernstein (11:37)

4. The "12 Day War" and The Moving Goalposts (13:43–16:42)

• Dave notes that early supporters of limited strikes ("surgical" action, no regime change) are now shifting their rationales as the war escalates—moving the goalposts whenever justifications fall apart.
• Praises guests like Konstantin Kisin for at least expressing doubts about recent developments, even if not fully retracting earlier support.
• Quote:

  "That's what separates, like, who's just—who's playing fair by who's a liar." — Dave Smith (15:13)

5. The Shifting Right-Wing Coalition and Public Opinion (16:42–26:11)

• Predicts narrative will shift from “the coalition is strong” to “the coalition has been destroyed” as events unfold and costs become apparent.
• Analyzes polling data showing public concern over economic fallout from war and a collapse in confidence, particularly among independents.
• Discusses the lag time in public perception between the initiation of wars and their economic consequences—unlike in earlier interventions, this time the costs are immediate.

6. Economic Fallout and Political Calculations (24:32–26:53)

• Robbie and Dave discuss how the war has led to immediate spikes in gas prices, destruction of natural gas infrastructure, and requests for massive increases in the defense budget.
• Critique Trump's justification: that economic pain is worth it to stave off some largely invented, imminent nuclear threat.
• Quote:

  "The problem with that is, who believes that we were being nuked in a year? You're going to have to sell the American people..." — Robbie Bernstein (26:28)

7. Revisiting the "12 Day War" – Who Was Right? (26:53–32:42)

• Dave reflects on how antiwar predictions—once mocked—are now being vindicated.
• Observes lack of integrity among commentators who fail to admit their errors.
• Discusses the importance of calling out pundits who celebrated "surgical" strikes and are now quietly rationalizing further escalation.

8. Critique of Ben Shapiro and the Neocon Narrative (32:42–49:29)

• Play and breakdown of a Ben Shapiro segment attacking Joe Kent’s resignation letter (which alleges Israeli pressure for war).
• Dave and Robbie dissect Shapiro’s argumentation tactics, particularly the use of ad hominem, straw man, and shifting definitions.
• Dave debunks Shapiro's claim that there’s no evidence of Israeli influence on U.S. war decisions by listing public lobbying and coordination by Israeli leaders.
• Quote:

  "To say somebody's been manipulated into something isn't to say that they're really stupid or... don't have principles." — Dave Smith (39:59)

9. Tucker Carlson Interview with Joe Kent: Suppressed Investigations and Conspiracy Claims (50:18–58:28)

• Dave and Robbie highlight jaw-dropping claims made by former Director of Counterterrorism Joe Kent on Tucker Carlson’s show.
  • Kent claims his investigation into the assassination of Charlie Kirk (a key antiwar voice close to Trump) was suppressed.
  • Suggests vital intel contradicting administration war claims wasn’t shared with Trump, raising questions of internal betrayal or incompetence.
• Both emphasize that these are not “crazy conspiracy theories” but serious allegations coming from high-level insiders, warranting thorough investigation.

10. The Importance of Honest Debate and Intellectual Integrity (51:09–62:09)

• Urges caution, skepticism, and humility—even (especially) for those who believe they're right.
• Acknowledges that wishful thinking pervades all sides, but that the facts (and tragic outcomes) should be allowed to impact future positions and narratives.

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• "I don't know, maybe that's the goal, Rob, world's biggest eyebrows." — Dave Smith [33:18] (joking about Ben Shapiro's dramatic reaction)
• "Just believe in something. You have to believe in something. Not just, I'm on this team." — Dave Smith [15:26]
• "That is just so dishonest and so stupid. Total surrender as in, you know what total surrender means? It doesn't mean pulling out of a war of aggression that you launched." — Dave Smith [48:44]
• "I'm comfortable blaming the Jews." — Robbie Bernstein [45:43] (said sardonicly, followed by immediate clarification from Dave, "only particular ones...not all of us.")
• "Who believes that we were being nuked in a year?" — Robbie Bernstein [26:28]
• "If you, if you're...You have your politician...then they do a thing and then it's your job to rationalize why that thing was right, then like, you suck and you should go away." — Dave Smith [15:22]

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• Predicting and processing the current war's surrealism: [00:56–03:30]
• Breakdown of foreign policy betrayal in Trump/MAGA: [03:34–06:52]
• Examples of misleading war propaganda: [07:17–11:54]
• "12 Day War" and the shifting narratives: [13:43–16:42]
• Polls and coalition cracks: [16:42–26:11]
• Ben Shapiro segment, analyzed: [32:42–49:29]
• Discussion of Joe Kent’s suppressed investigation, Tucker’s coverage: [50:18–58:28]

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Tone & Style Note

The episode is deeply sardonic, mixing incisive political analysis with dark, often self-deprecating humor. Both hosts use satire to expose the hypocrisy and dishonesty of mainstream and alternative punditry, while maintaining their antiwar, libertarian ethos.

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Final Thoughts

If you’re looking for an episode that critically dismantles the propaganda and partisan posturing around another U.S. Middle Eastern conflict—while highlighting the collapse of the old "populist-right" consensus—this is a must-listen. Dave and Robbie don't pull punches in calling out bad faith arguments, and they make a forceful case for skepticism and integrity in public debate, especially in times of war.

Transcript

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[Dave Smith]

What's up? 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 haven't seen each other in a few hours. How's it been? How'd you sleep?

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

I think it was all right. I don't remember anything too exciting going on, but reminding the fans. We got Boston, Chicago, big shows coming

[Dave Smith]

up, Boston coming up soon. Boston is just in a few days or in one week. The 26th, 27th, 28th, up at Laugh Boston. Go grab tickets for those ones because those shows will sell out. It's a great weekend. Last year, sold out the whole weekend. Really awesome. Really looking forward to getting back there. And then Chicago, the. The Rosemont, Chicago. Zany's run is for what, four. Four years now? Three years now. Just. We've just had great weekends every. Every year there. So, yeah, looking forward to all that stuff. What is there to talk about, Rob? It's another. It's another one of these shows where there's just too much and I don't even know what to start with. It's. It is. It's. I don't know, bet for you, Rob. But this one is particularly surreal to me. And we've covered a lot of stuff. And, you know, during COVID when there were lockdowns, I remember that feeling, like, very surreal. I remember going. Being on the Upper west side of Manhattan, like, a week into lockdowns, and you could hear the birds chirping. And like, I had never just heard birds chirping in New York City. Like, it felt like you were like, in I Am Legend or something. There was no one on the streets. There's something about this war just feels, I don't know, as surreal to me as any of that. And it's more particularly bizarre because we've basically been predicting this, and yet even though we've been predicting it, it's like, as it happens, you're like, no, they didn't really just do that. It's not really going. Oh my God. Yeah, it's all going exactly the way we said it could, that Iran can touch all types of, and create all types of havoc. And we like this is just different than any other, the other terror wars.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Dave, unlike you, I don't suffer from Trump derangement syndrome. Oh, yes, I am fully aware that Trump always wanted to get rid of the Middle east natural gas. And yes, that was always the plan, of course. Rid of that infrastructure. I'm aware of this. Did you not remember him campaigning on that? Getting rid of natural gas in the Middle East, Rob?

[Dave Smith]

The humiliation that he has to come out today. So two weeks ago, Israel hit a whole bunch of the energy infrastructure. Trump asked him not to do it. Then Israel does it again. Now Trump has to put out a message saying that wasn't us, that had nothing to do with Qatar, that was only Israel and they're not going to do it again. And you just kind of know they're going to do it again at this point. You know what I mean? You just know it's like that's the game here, like just systematically. And I, I gotta say, you know, Rob, I'm no conspiracy guy, so I'm not saying there's any conspiracy here. I'm just saying, like in effect,

[Joe Kent]

that

[Dave Smith]

what we've been covering, me and you, Rob, on this show the entire time we've been doing this together, nearly a decade of us doing a show about the news together. And if you remember, you know, we always, we watched with our own eyes the Trump movement kind of from beginning till now. And there's just no question that, look, the Never Trumpers, right, all the guys who love Donald Trump right now, who were the Never Trumpers, they were terrified of this movement. They did everything in their power to speak up against it. And why was it, I mean, why was it that they were so terrified of that? Why, why was it that Mitt Romney came out and, and said any other. No. National Review ran a whole Never Trump issue, you know, the most influential conservative publication and guys like Ben Shapiro were never Trumpers, Mark Levin never Trumpers, all on principled reasons. Well, why was it that they objected to that? Because like, they did not like the idea of a populist right wing movement that was totally critical of our foreign policy and, you know, as well as other aspects of our government. But let's be real, the foreign policy is what motivated those guys the most. Right? That's what they didn't like about Donald Trump is that he stood up there and said, your brother lied us into war. And he said Obama created isis. And he said, why can't we just be friends with Russia? And, and you know what I mean, who cares if Assad is overthrown in Syria? Why can't we just be friends with Russia? We both don't like the terrorists. And by the way, we both don't like the Sunni radical terrorists, the ones who actually did 9 11. And you know, this is, to me and you, this might sound like obvious great common sense, but to an entire multi trillion dollar industry, this sounds like the biggest threat of all time. You're threatening them with murder. That destroys the whole thing if we're not in the business of forever wars. So they flipped out about all of that. And anyway, I just, I'm just saying, then all these guys infiltrated kind of the Trump now they're his biggest cheerleaders. And what we're watching here, Rob, is the systematic humiliation and destruction of the coalition that they feared with these guys at the front of it. And like, it does kind of feel intentional that like every goddamn member of this administration had to individually be humiliated. And yeah, it does all kind of tie back to a kind of group. You know, Bobby Kennedy has to come out and say the national health emergency is anti Semitism. Like what is that other than just making that guy humiliate himself and lose all credibility? Pam Bondi and Cash Patel and Dan Bongino each have to come out and say, I know for a fact that Jeffrey Epstein is nothing other than someone who never sex trafficked anyone or had any intelligence connections or had anything and he killed himself. They all have to come out and humiliate themselves. Of course, as we covered on the last show, Tulsi Gabbard has to come out and humiliate herself now and then Donald Trump doing it all along the way. It's just wild to watch. Any thoughts, Rob?

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Just that we're winning a war and we always wanted more chaos in the region and so everything's going to plan. No escalations. By the way, it was reported that apparently Trump knew about or even approved of the strike in Iran. But I guess he certainly didn't like that they struck back at Qatar and so instantly hopped on to go. Hey guys, we had nothing to do with that, please.

[Dave Smith]

Oh, I'm sure. No, no, no, I'm sure that's right. I mean, I was just kind of making the point that he'll tell them to stop and then they'll end up doing it. And it gives the impression that like he can't even rein them in now. I don't think Donald Trump is trying to rein them in at this point. And I don't believe any of the reporting saying that Donald Trump and Netanyahu are about to have some big SP split. That's like the type of, they always, they've put this out like 16 times already trying to get people to just like, no, no, no, stay on board. He's about to do something really cool. No, he's not. And, and, and even if it is the case that Israel got out of hand and, and he asked them not to do this and they did it again, which that I do, you know, I, I don't know. I guess there's a chance that's the case. I shouldn't have said it as a certainty before, but if that is the case, okay, it's still his fault. Yeah, it's still his fault. He brought us to this dance with this wild animal. And of course they're good. Of course we know they're trying to topple the regime. And if he did approve it, then just what is this? What a mess this whole thing is. And there's so much, it's amazing, you know, like when the war propaganda just starts flowing and people just start making all types of these claims that just aren't. I saw, I caught this one earlier today. It's just, just like one example of kind of like what's going on on like the other side of the, you know, this argument where, what, what, what are people being told to try to gin up support for this thing. So there's an account I wasn't familiar with, but this is a big account, is almost a million followers. Masi Alinajad, she's an Iranian journalist, an activist and the president of the World Liberty Congress, which is some like European organization. And they, so she posts about this, I don't know if you heard about this, the Iranian kid who was like a wrestling star or whatever, 19 year old. Today in Iran in the middle. This is our post which you know, has got 1.4 million impressions in it. So this is like, you know, I don't know, worth mentioning. Today in Iran, in the media of, in the middle of a war, the regime executed a 19 year old national wrestling champion for the crime of joining January protests. Look, this, this guy was executed. The crime was murdering two police officers that he was convicted of. Now I have absolutely no idea, Like, I don't, I, I'm anti government to the core. I have absolutely no trust in the Iranian judicial system or whatever. Perhaps none of that's. And perhaps, you know, they just made it up and it was just for the protest. But it's a pretty incredibly misleading thing to put out there, right? Like, specific, like, at this time, you know, the accusation of, oh, look, they're murdering another protester is just to try to get you to ramp up there. But, like, at least according to them, this is what he was convicted of, was murdering two police officers. That's kind of different because now you're in a realm where, like, look, I don't know that that conviction is true. I don't, you know, who the hell knows? I don't trust the Ayatollah mullah regime to have a fair criminal justice system. But it's just kind of like no way to do international policy to be like, anytime, you know what I'm saying? Like, if someone's murdered of being a cop killer, convicted of being a cop killer somewhere, that we'd go, I'm not buying what that regime said. Like, we've had countless, you know, convictions overturned through DNA evidence in this country. In other words, we get it wrong a lot because there's a lot more people than the ones who were able to prove that they were innocent after they had been convicted guilty, right? Like, there's a, there's a significant percentage of people sitting in jail in America who were not guilty of the crime that they were convicted of. But it would be weird for another foreign guy. Did you get my point there, Rob? It's just, it's a very misleading war propaganda type of thing to act like he, you know, they, like, they just charged him. As if the government is just saying, nakedly, you went to those protests, we fucking publicly execute you now. When in fact what they're saying is that there's these two dead cops. We're holding you responsible for it now. We're executing you.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

The way I see it is that we have to oppose all regimes that are violent towards their own people. And that's why the Iran war is so successful, because the Iran war is actually spilling into a Saudi Arabian war. And so look at us as we oppose all these evil dictatorships in the Middle east all at once.

[Dave Smith]

Yeah, look at that. We're taking down our allies along with our enemies. Now. I will say, I did see, and I saw this just shortly before I came on and I, I posted something about it, but I did see because this is, I, I, I, I don't know why I was, it stuck out to me because the first person I've seen and perhaps that's. That's on me. I have. As you guys know, I was away with the family for a few days here. I'm a little bit more behind than I typically am, although I was basically up all night reading and then I was up early again this morning. But Constantin Kassin, who, you know, I have, I think, I think we've debated twice and I did his show once, Trigonometry, and I really enjoyed. I mean, honestly, I enjoyed all of them, but I really particularly enjoyed the last conversation we had. But I saw he's the first person I saw and I saw he was an interview in the Free Press where he was the. He's the first person I've seen who is an adamant defender of the 12 Day War. Being like, yeah, I don't know about this one, guys. Like, I thought the whole. I mean, these are my words, not his. You can go listen to what he said. But he was kind of like, look, I was for the thing when it was like, oh, we dropped the bunker bustles. Bunker busters. No U.S. deaths, no regional catastrophe or disaster. You know, like, no, no huge price tag to it. And it accomplished a very specific goal of out their nukes. Like, okay, I was with that. But this I do not think is going to work out well. Now he was not opposing it, maybe in as strong a language as I wish he was. But, you know, you're always compared. You're always compared to what? Judging on a curve to some degree. And I give him a lot of credit. He was saying this on the Free Press and he's like the only person I've heard, maybe I'm missing someone was what I was getting at before. Please let me know if I am.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

He's only two more articles of reading away from going, what the hell is Israel doing?

[Dave Smith]

It does always feel like. It feels like everyone is two articles away from that. I. Well, I guess, I guess one of the reasons why I found it noteworthy was that as you, as you remember, Rob. I mean, by the way, I'll, I'll give this almost as like an assignment if there's somebody who is listening, who's good at video editing, who wants to go do this and put it together. I'll. If you do, I'll give you credit and I'll, I'll share far and wide. But I really think if you can just go back to some of like the debates I was in and the debates other people were in. Like, do you, you know, remember how the bad guys loved to make montages after the 12 Day War of me and Tucker and John Mearsheimer and all that, I'd be like, haha, you were predicting catastrophe. Let's go back and see how many of them were arguing explicitly under the guise that this isn't George W. Bush, it's Donald Trump. He's not going to get us into a disaster. He's just going to do a surgical strike and then walk away. He's not going to kill thousands of people and waste tens of billions of dollars or whatever. Like, there are so many great quotes in there of those people. And the reason why I appreciated what Constantine said is that so many people explicitly supported it on the condition that they were like, yeah, yeah, yeah, Dave. If we were talking about regime change, I wouldn't support that. If we were talking about a protract conflict, I wouldn't support that. But I'm only supporting it because it's surgical and no American deaths and no this. And for all of those people, they all just move the goalpost. It seems like as soon as Trump did the next thing, okay, well, now I'm going to support Trump. But I. Constantine seemed to be kind of sticking to that principle, so I really do appreciate that. It's rare

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

I'm going to get that montage made.

[Dave Smith]

Yeah, dude, I bet there's a bunch. It'd be, I think it'd be like, not that hard to find a bunch of just amazing. Like, oh, look at that. Look at that guy. Totally. Just literally, it's like, because you. That really is almost like the essence of the, like the difference between any, any of us who are in this world where we're like, talking about politics and policy to an audience who listens to us, whatever the hell you call this. Anyone who's in there, it's like, that's, that's what separates, like, who's just. Who's playing fair by who's a liar. Like, it's like if you, if you're, if your whole thing is just like, okay, you have your politician who you like and then they do a thing and then it's your job to rationalize why that thing was right, then like, you suck and you should go away. You just like, it's so evil what you're doing. Like, you're like poisoning people's minds. Like, if you don't even. It's such a, the lowest bar. I'm going. Just believe in something. You have to believe in something. Not just. I'm on this team and man, there is a lot of that A lot of it.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Did the free press throw him off and go, we're sorry, that was the wrong answer. And we were looking for there a terrorist threat to the region and needed

[Dave Smith]

to be taken out? Well, no, and I don't know the chick who was interviewing him, but it was no, I mean she, she was not, she was listening to him and he made, listen, he made the point in a delicate way and he made the point in a way where he was saying like, and look, they've killed it. Like he was going killed 30,000 people. And those would have been the 30,000 who could have overthrown the government. So, but, so you know, there were some parts in there that I really didn't agree with, but he presented it. But also, you know, it's, it's important to that like sometimes, like maybe that's the way to present it that could get the free press audience to hear it. So anyway, I think of those things as, as net positives. But I will say, you know, much like this hysteria about they killed 30,000 people, no, I mean it's amazing after the last 25 years that there is no, you know, people just don't go like, hey, hey, hey, let me really examine extraordinary claims that are being made at the beginning of a war. Okay? Like you're claiming one of the biggest massacres in human history took place like in a couple weeks. I mean the number of deaths you're talking about. I mean think about, you remember when the talking point, Rob, was they go, this is as many people as Israel killed in six months in Gaza. And you go right, right. So you're claiming that six months of Gaza, like six months of the Israel, Gaza treatment happened in a week and a half in Tehran. Ok, that is an extraordinary claim. Is there an aerial view of like just decimated square blocks in the middle of Tehran? You know what I'm saying? Like, did they carpet bomb Tehran? Literally, if you carpet bomb the place for a week and a half, you might get numbers like that. These are the numbers we're talking about. Like if people follow wars, it's just, it's an extraordinary. And then you're like, oh, what's the evidence for that? And it's like almost nothing. Come on. At the beginning of a war, you see something like that, you don't just repeat it, you have to, you have to be a little skeptical about these things. But the other propaganda we were talking about is, is the, the, the MAGA Republicans thing which we talked about on the last show. And I gotta say, let me Just here's, here's a prediction I'll make on the show. I'll put my neck out there. What's going to happen here is right now there's a divide. The divide on the Right. Right. That we all know. We all know exactly who I'm talking about on each side. Lindsey Graham, Mark Levin, Ben Shapiro, Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, Nick Fuente, you know, like whatever the, the big divide over essentially support for Israel and support for, for the war. Right now, if you'll pay attention, what we are saying on our side is that the coalition has been destroyed. What they're saying on their side is that, nope, it's just proven how irrelevant you are. The entire coalition is still with us. Right. Is that pretty fair to say that? That is the clear split right here is one side is saying the coalition is over, the other side is saying it's just proven how irrelevant you were to the coalition. This is very popular. This is going to be great. We're going strong. I guarantee and I don't think this is going to take long the conversation. The next goal post shift is going to be you destroyed the coalition. Watch them immediately shift to that and never acknowledge that they got it completely wrong when we were telling you the coalition was being destroyed. I guarantee it. Go watch that happen. That's what it's going to split to that. You know, I saw a poll today, Rob. I was looking through a few of them. Well, I saw CNN was reporting on one and then I went and I looked up a few more. But they're the, the cost of living, like who you, how you approve of the job on the cost of living, which was the number one issue of course through the entire election. And so Donald Trump was up like a few points total, you know, when he was running against Kamala Harris. But I was surprised he wasn't up by more at the time. And maybe he was in reality, but it was like, it went from like plus 3 to negative 40. Now amongst independencies, negative 60. And again, I'm just saying there's, they can try to give you these, these little polls all they want to do that Donald Trump is going to crater soon. It's coming up. He's, you know, the thing is that Donald Trump still has right now a little bit of a window where it's still kind of the beginning of the thing. And he's going, dude, we're crushing it. You have no idea how great this is going. You know, that's what he's saying right now. And he's saying, you know, listen, Rob, it's over. We won. We won on day one. We could go home now. It's over. They've been set back a decade. He says, I mean, it's over. We've totally won. They're totally decimated. I don't think we will go, though. I think today will be the biggest day of action. Yeah, today also is the biggest day of total destruction. If you look at the natural gas bombings and, you know, if you look at all this and all the Iranian responses, but, like, it's over. We won. It's great. What's about to happen is going to be just amazing for the region. It's going to be historic. We're two weeks into him saying that, which is enough to give some percentage of Trump voters. All right, well, let him cook. That's what he's got. Still. He's still. If you throw a ball up in the air, he's still at that point where it's hit its highest point and it's. It's no longer going up, but it's not going down yet. You know, it's like, to some degree with those Trump supporters. But if he just leaves today, which is the best case scenario, then as the weeks go by, as the months go by, people are going to examine, what was that? What happened, except death and destruction. And the more he keeps going, the worse it gets. And so this is. I'm just, I'm telling you, all those guys right now saying that, no, the coalition is stronger than ever. What we figured out is that Tucker Carlson doesn't matter. All them will switch immediately to Tucker Carlson ruined our whole coalition. Watch it happen. This episode is sponsored by Better Help. Guys. If you're out there and you're thinking about perhaps starting therapy, and this could be for a range of different issues. Everybody goes through different things in life. And let's get real. There's a lot of pressure and a lot of difficulties that come along with life. And sometimes it's really good to talk about those things, especially with somebody who's a trained therapist. So if you're on the fence, you got to give Better Help a try, because this is the way to do therapy today. It's entirely online. It's designed to be convenient and work with your lifestyle. They have quality therapists. Better Help Therapists work according to a strict code of conduct and are fully licensed in the US And Better Help makes it easy. You just fill out a short questionnaire. It helps identify your needs and preferences and their 12 plus years of experience and industry leading match fulfillment rate means they typically get it right the first time. But if you aren't happy with the therapist they match you with, you can switch to a different therapist at any time. 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[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

And I think what's different about this war? I didn't, I didn't send this clip over, but there was Peter, was Peter Dukey, that's what I call him.

[Dave Smith]

I don't know.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

He was in the White House and Trump was saying, you know, I thought that the stock market would go down more than this, and I predicted that gas prices were going up, but it's worth it. And usually when it comes to these wars, they're unbelievably expensive. And we don't actually see the consequences for 10 to 20 years. Like, you know, it's kind of hard to imagine where would the United States be if we hadn't spent all the money that we did on the terror wars for absolutely no results. But it's not like in the first month of the terror wars, at least from what I recall. I do remember gas being up under Bush, but it's not like it was made up.

[Dave Smith]

But that's, that was like 2007, 2008, or maybe even a little bit earlier than that. But maybe 2006, there was. The gas price went up, but yeah, it was years after the thing started.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

So now we're in an environment where you have no job growth in this country. You already have. People are in tune with the idea of inflation and they're concerned about inflation. You've got a military that's asking for $200 billion. You were, you know, going on and on about how great it is that you brought gas prices down. People are seeing gas prices going up. I don't know enough about the oil markets to tell you each day that their hermuz is closed, how much that means that your oil prices are going up. But a lot of natural gas infrastructure apparently was knocked off the face of planet Earth just yesterday.

[Dave Smith]

Yep.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

And then you just got to think about how fickle the actual financial markets are because they're completely built on fraud and what this is going to do for every economy if suddenly energy infrastructure is just being blown up and people can't get the oil that they need.

[Dave Smith]

And now Donald Trump. And if you heard Donald Trump again, his latest comments, he's in the position now of saying, yeah, it's going to hurt the economy, but, like, it's really no big deal. And, you know, let me tell you something. It would have hurt the economy a lot more if they had nuked us in a year.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Yeah. And the problem with that is, who believes that we were being nuked in a year? You're going to have to sell the American people that it was worth the economy stalling and gas prices going up and you living a harder lifestyle because you were going to get nuked in a year. And how many people are buying that we were being nuked in a year? Particularly when you weren't able to fabricate the intelligence apparatus to manufacture these phony reports prior to the war. You're never going to.

[Dave Smith]

And you just told us. And also you just told us you obliterated their nuclear program and you just sold us on how this was easy and that it was taken care of. You know, and it's like, then that's. I guess that's really the essence of what, like, why I give Constantine a little bit of credit. But again, even. Even with him, I'm. I don't know. But we did a whole debate on the 12 day war that might be where you want to go look for some of that stuff, because there were just so. It just seemed like after the 12 Day War and. And maybe particularly for me, I just kind of. I don't know. I don't mean to, like, you know, make it about me or be selfish. I am a little bit. But I really think this is important because it's about the whole thing. But, you know, I was kind of like, I had the biggest year of my career last year, and it really, like, a lot of things changed for me. And it was kind of like all of the things were going like I was kind of becoming the guy where it was like, oh, my takes always aged really well. The thing that I, like, stuck my neck out on and made myself like, oh, Dave's one of the big proponents of that. It all aged really well. It got more and more popular over time. Being against lockdowns was not popular when we were against lockdowns. I can tell you. I remember it very well. And in fact, Rob, I mean, you can remember where you were, like, especially where we lived. You were kind of like a pariah, like, for being a person that just was against this whole thing, you know what I mean? I remember you even when you were doing that show where you were destroying all Corinne Fisher's dumb friends, but it's like everyone in the room against you, you know what I mean? Like, it was like that a lot. And. But over time, that became very popular. And being against Ukraine and being against the, you know, all the restrictions and the, like, it just all those things kind of aged well and became more popular. And then it was like the one thing that all my critics really tried to get me on last year was like, yeah, but the 12 Day War, man, you made it out like it was going to be a whole thing and it wasn't a whole thing. And that was kind of like what they relied on. At the end of it, they were like, that wasn't a whole thing. See Panicans, you guys were so worried. And now like when we're proven and then we all go, yeah, but all the same dynamics are still in place. This is only halftime. This is what we've been saying. We've been saying this is halftime for six months while they said, no, you were just a Panican. And then it's like second half time to start. And you're like, okay, so who was right? The halftime people or this wasn't a thing people. And like, it is kind of an integrity test that none of those guys admit it, you know, like none of them. Even Constantin and his thing, he wasn't admitting that he was wrong about the thing. You know what I mean? He was still saying no, that was right. And this is, I'm skeptical of, which is, you know, I give them credit for that. But no, it's like you guys, very specifically your whole case, and then they spent six months or whatever it was being like, haha, you guys got it wrong while we were getting it right the whole time. And so, you know, it's not like to spend too much time. I really am not trying to collect I told you so's. I don't care about that. I want anyone who's against that. I hope if anyone who supported the 12 Day War is against this shit now, great, great, let's have more people who are against it. But it is kind of like a pretty basic integrity test for the people who really tried to hang this hold this over, you know, our head. Like, look, it is true. It is true that John Mearsheimer and Tucker Carlson and. And a few other people, Jeffrey Sachs, I believe, made some statements without caveats where they got a little out over their skis and they said, if you, if you bomb Iran's nuclear sites, you'll get this, what we're getting right now. You know, like, they all said with certainty that the nuclear sites would have triggered this, and it didn't. The nuclear sites, they still waved the white flag one more time, and then this next time, it triggered this. But, you know, again, in hindsight, you know, you could dunk on them as much as you want, but now that we're here, now, you're like, yeah, okay, but they did broadly get the whole thing right, other than that.

[Bleacher Report Announcer]

That.

[Dave Smith]

You know what I mean?

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Well, I remember saying at the time, wait six months for all you people who are celebrating being right. And Tom Elliott hooked us up with some gravian access. So I'm gonna have to go in there and we'll get some montage clips.

[Dave Smith]

Oh, what did he give you?

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

It's basically the software everyone uses to make those montages. So me and, me and Natalie are gonna have to do some homework and we'll get some good montage.

[Dave Smith]

Oh, he gave us the good stuff.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Oh, we got the good stuff.

[Dave Smith]

I like that. Love Tom Elliott. He was man that account. I actually, it. It is. It's funny because, you know, it's such a strange new world, but he really, I thought just had such an important account and still does. I didn't mean to put it in the past. He's not dead, guys. I wasn't bringing that news to you. But it's just, just, just like a big account on Twitter that essentially just holds up the corporate media right back up to the people and just reminds you, like, remember when they were saying this? And hey, remember when they were saying this? It's like, it's so amazing how you can use that technique to like, completely shatter them. Like, don't get me wrong, I've seen Tom, like, post and make good points and stuff like that too, but it's amazing how you could just like, like, you could just be like, here, remember what you were saying back then, huh? And how does this jive with this? And you've destroyed their argument without even making your own comment on it. It. And he was also.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Well, I think it's one of the worst things in our culture is that you can be repeatedly wrong and just keep going about your business. And in this, when the game is truth and being honest, when you can be celebrating the 12 day war on. Look, this was only a small little blip. We weren't actually doing anything. We can do this properly. While people like us were warning, hey, this could be a very risky endeavor and I wouldn't celebrate this being over. I do think it's important to showcase that those people are wrong.

[Dave Smith]

Wrong. Yeah, that's right. I, I agree with that. I mean it just. To me that seems, that seems obvious. Okay, let's. There again, there's so many topics. We got shows for weeks to come up here. Let's play. Let's play the Ben Shapiro celebrating this. Or. I'm sorry, this is Ben Shapiro giving his thoughts on, on Joe Kemp. It's, uh, the one that's neocon Ben Shapiro.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

And he should stop celebrating these wars because his eyebrows get bushier with each bomb that's dropped.

[Dave Smith]

It is true, but maybe that's the goal, Rob, is the world's biggest eyebrows. Yes.

[Joe Kent]

Well, this morning, Joe Kent quit his job at the National Counterterrorism center and issued a scathing letter designed to undermine President Trump. The letter is deeply, deeply conspiratorial. It states openly that, quote, iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lives.

[Dave Smith]

Okay, just pause it here. Pause it here already.

[Joe Kent]

Now that is conspiracy.

[Dave Smith]

Okay? I just love how Ben Shapiro. It's gotta be. Just think about. He goes. It's deeply, deeply conspiratorial. Deeply conspiratorial, Rob. I mean, this is like, this is like the world is flat and made of cheese stuff here. Okay? The conspiracy is part one, that Iran posed no imminent threat. Totally consistent with every threat assessment that we've gotten over the last 15 years. So that's the first deep part of the conspiracy is that that annual threat report that says that every single year it's. He thinks it's still. That this is crazy. And then the second, the, the second part of this deep, deep conspiracy is that that Israel and the Israel lobby have been pushing us into this war because, like, But Rob, if that were true, there'd be signs like a whistleblower.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Yeah. You do have to wonder at what point is it no longer conspiratorial to say that, well, what further evidence needs to exist?

[Dave Smith]

The standard, like, would the prime minister of that country visit us seven times in a week and fucking lobby for this war every single time? Would they go in jointly with us into the war, Would they viciously attack and smear all the opponents of the war? I mean, like, this is just. Anyway, okay, so here's. That's how Ben Shapiro sets this up. Wild conspiracy, obviously ridiculous on its face. Don't let the fact that you can see it in front of your eyes fuck with you here.

[Joe Kent]

Let's keep playing trash. It's also kind of strange since President Trump has said that it's conspiracy trash. So apparently Trump is so deeply, deeply enthralled.

[Dave Smith]

Pause. That's so Ben Shapiro's first piece of evidence that this is a conspiracy is that the guy in charge of it said so. That's his first. So, I mean, well, I don't know, man. Case closed. If Donald Trump said it's not a conspiracy, then, okay, that's true. If Donald Trump doesn't come out and say, I know this war is stupid, but I was pressured into it by Israel in the Israel lobby. Yeah. I can't. I wonder why he wouldn't say that publicly. Let's keep playing Powerful American lobbies.

[Joe Kent]

We're not gonna say it. We're not gonna say. We're not gonna say it. That he. He apparently has been so bamboozled by them that he's still under the impression that he's his own man. But here's the thing. President Trump is his own man. He makes his own decisions. And as per our usual arrangement, Trump's critics are cowards who are simply unwilling to acknowledge that Trump is the one making the call. But jokent continued, quote, early in this administration, high ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America first platform and sowed pre war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran. This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States and that should you strike now, there was a clear path to a swift victory. This was a lie and is the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq War. War that cost our nation the lives of thousands of our best men and women. Again, the idea here seems to be that President Trump is a moron misled into war by nefarious Israelis and unnamed influential members of the American media. Don't say it. Don't say it again. Apparently, President Trump has no agency and no thoughts. All right, Pence letter is replete.

[Dave Smith]

It's just like here. And you can make us big screen while we talk and then come back to it. Yeah. You know, this is an argument that the war hawks use over and over again. And I love how they present it as if this is like even a kind of intelligent, compelling argument. So you're saying Trump has no agency. This is what they always used to say. I called the Maidan Revolution, US backed coup. They'd be like, oh, so you're saying the protests on the street had no agency? I'd be like, no, I'm saying that the US poured $100 million into the protests. What do you mean? Like what? Okay, if I, if Joe Kent is making the claim here that the, that the Israeli government and the Israeli lobby pressured and manipulated Donald Trump into something, and your response is, oh, he doesn't have agency. Like those two things. That's not. Of, that's not. There's no contradiction there. There's no claim of a lack of agency. Can human beings be pressured and manipulated it. Do human beings have agency? The answer to both questions is obviously yes. Like, what are you. Like, Rob, I, I could pressure you into doing something. That doesn't mean you don't have agency. That also doesn't mean it couldn't be effective. And I could pressure you. I pressure. Robin's doing lots of stuff he doesn't want to do and he still has agency. Like what? They, they present this. It's almost like these, they're kind of like drive by arguments where it's like, hey, let me say this real fast and get someone who doesn't really think it through to go like, oh, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, no, Trump has agency. He can do it. Maybe if you want that conclusion already. But like, nobody is saying Trump doesn't have agency. This is what actually the letter was saying. Like, sir, you can still turn this around. He advocated the same thing on Tucker Carlson's show the other night. You know, he was like, sir, you can still do this. You. No one's saying you don't have agency. This is just silly. Non rebuttal. Sorry, go ahead.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Two things that I find interesting. One is, I believe it was during the 12 Day War, but I've heard Netanyahu say the exact same thing, that for those who think that Donald Trump was doing this on our behalf, no one's stronger than Donald Trump. Donald Trump cannot be persuade and blowing smoke up Donald Trump's ass so that you can't undermine him by trying to make it seem like he's being pushed by other people. But what's funny about this Ben Shapiro video to me is if you just took out the couple times, you can make this edit. If you Made the edit of the couple times, times he goes, this is ridiculous, this is outrageous. And just change the tone. You actually have very good political analysis here. He's actually nailing what's going on. He's just trying to pretend that anyone who would have these thoughts about the situation are, you know, stupid people. But if you just change the tone, you actually have perfect political analysis of the actual situation.

[Dave Smith]

Yeah, and again, just the idea, because I kind of took on the agency thing, but the idea that even, look, I do not think Donald Trump is strong or wise or principled. I don't think he's any of those things. But they try to make it out almost like, well, if you're saying Israel did this, then you're saying he's a big dumb, you know, whatever, you know, he's, he's not a strong leader or he's stupid or he's so. Well, that's not necessarily true either. To say somebody's been manipulated into something isn't to say that they're really stupid or that they don't have of principles or anything like that. Intelligent, principled people can be manipulated too. They can be misled, they can get things wrong, they can be pressured, they can be threatened, they can be blackmailed. Not saying that's happening here. Just saying, like there's a whole range of possibilities where you, you know what I'm saying? Like one doesn't imply the other. This is actually just like total fallacious argumentation by, by Ben Shapiro, which his whole thing was brand used to be calling that F out here.

[Joe Kent]

Let's keep going with this conspiratorial idiocy, including, as we just saw, the idea that it was Israel that forced the original Iraq war. An idea totally and utterly unsupportable by any evidence, given the fact that the actual prime minister of Israel at the time, Ariel Sharon, opposed the Iraq war.

[Dave Smith]

Okay, so pause it here. So pause it here. I mean, again, I know I've taken this on, on the show before. Again, you can make us big screen for a second sec. I know I've taken this on, on the show before, but this is when. So Ben Shapiro is going to say there's no evidence, no evidence to support the claim that Israel pulled us into the Iraq war. And you go, well, look, I mean, as everybody knows, Benjamin Netanyahu is the longest serving prime minister in Israeli history, including the current prime minister that's conducting this war we're talking about with us right now. Okay? And everybody knows that he testified before Congress a few weeks before the vote on the authorization of military force in Iraq that we should go overthrow Saddam Hussein and guaranteed positive reverberations would sweep the region. Like just that alone. You can't say there's no evidence that there was any Israeli connection just because you got him like you're saying he wasn't the Prime Minister at the time. He only had done one term and then went on to be the longest serving prime minister in Israeli history. That's still like, I don't know, Rob, kind of connected to the government of Israel. And as I've mentioned many times before, he also wrote an op ed in. It was in the Wall Street Journal that year, I believe is he wrote an op ed in the Wall Street Journal, Perez wrote an op ed in the Washington Post, and Ehud Barack wrote an op ed in the New York Times all saying the same exact thing. Overthrow Saddam hussein. Positive reverberations, WMDs, all of this shit. And then also the one point he has about Sharon, which you guys can go back and look this up. I got, I got to double check this note, but you can find it for me. I believe it was in the summer of 2002, but I might be off by a month or two. But go, go listen to Sharon's state speech in the Knesset because he had totally gotten on board with the war in Iraq. What happened was at the very beginning, after 9, 11, when they first started hearing rumors that we were going to go into Iraq, Sharon and his branch of then Likud, they later split from Lik Food, but his branch, they were like, no, no, no, you shouldn't overthrow Saddam Hussein. You should do the Ayatollah first. That was their thing. They're like, ah, you overthrow Saddam Hussein or you know, the Ayatollah is going to take over too much power now. It's, you got to do that first. And then he basically got assurances that Iran was coming next. And so he got on board and he supported the whole thing. But what Ben Shapiro will tell you, so all that is true, okay? All that I just said, it's true. And what Ben Shapiro tells you out of that is, is there's no evidence because Sharon was against it. Tell me if you think that's honest, is that, that, that's honest to say that that somehow is evidence against it. One Prime Minister being against it, that's proof. But then having three prime ministers who were for it and then having, including the guy who goes on to be wielding the most power throughout the entire global war on terrorism, leading up to right now. Like, that doesn't count as any evidence. That's zero evidence for it. Oh, and the fact that Sharon turned around and then supported the whole thing, that's also not evidence. Like, and by the way, this is not secretly. He didn't secretly turn around and support it. And that whole year leading up to it, Mossad and Sharon's government put out all types of fake intelligence about weapons of mass destruction and all that. So it's just. Just total lie, total dishonesty. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is. Is sheath underwear, the underwear of legends. I've been telling you about these guys for years now. Years. Just. I love having them on as a sponsor because they're such a great. A great quality product. The. The best pair of boxer briefs you will ever own. Dual pouch technology. They're a game changer. They're just really, really comfortable. You feel like a million bucks when you put them on. They make you look good. I just love them. Go get yourself a pair of sheath underwear. If you're anything like me, it's going to end up being the only underwear that you ever put on your body. Underwear.com promo code problem for 20 off. Sheathunderwear.com promo code problem for 20off. All right, let's get back into the show. I don't know. Anything you want to add on that?

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

That's more your expertise. But I'm comfortable blaming the Jews

[Dave Smith]

only, sir. Only particularly particular ones. Remember, people, that's our entire point here. Only particular ones. Not all of us. All right, let's keep playing.

[Joe Kent]

Opposed the Iraq war. This stuff is brain rot. Now, listen, we should all be thankful for Joe Kent's long and honorable military service. We can also be glad that he's leaving since his ideology is the same as that of Tucker Carlson, the guy who says that the war is disgusting and evil and who has been busy sexting with mullahs. Tucker Carlson calls Kent a personal friend and quote, the bravest man I know. Frankly, I think that it is a good thing that Kent is not in this position. We cannot have a director of counterterrorism who is somehow advocating preemptive surrender to the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism in the middle of a war.

[Dave Smith]

Oh, my God. I mean, just imagine. Imagine trying to say, just like, how disingenuous all of this is. This is why I really like. I mean, it's what gets me angry, and it's why I do think it's important that we're always doing battle with these people. Because just think about what Ben Shapiro is doing here, even when he says something like sexting with the mullahs. Meaning, like what? Like, Tucker's a journalist who was reaching out to people in Iran. And, like, that's the job, man. If you can't. That's the whole point. If you can't do that, then how do you ever know what's going on during a war? You need people who are reaching out to the Iranians for comment and things like that. What is anyone suggesting here that Tucker Carlson was reaching out with battle plans, working on behalf of the mullahs to defeat. No, it's just that. That guys like Ben Shapiro want to make sure you can never hear the other side of the story during a war. And this isn't to say anything good about the ayatollah or the mullahs. They're. They're a. They're a theocracy and an oppressive, you know, authoritarian government, and they do all types of bad things. But it's just like, there's been such a dereliction of duty by the media in. In the lead up to this war where, like, as we've talked about before, it almost. It never even gets explained that they had promised to never develop nuclear weapons and that they had a religious ban on developing nuclear weapons and that they were open to negotiations and that they were even willing to come back into a JCPOA like, deal and bring down their enrichment. Like, this just doesn't even get reported. And then guys like Ben Shapiro will go out of their way to demonize anyone who's talking to them so that. Try your best to never let that stop stuff come out. And then for him to say, you know, that, you know, we had a guy, you know, it's good that. That Joe Kent's out because he was advocating total surrender. Like, Rob. What? Total surrender is not what anyone's ever talking about with these wars. That is just so dishonest and so stupid. Total surrender as in, you know what total surrender means? It doesn't mean pulling out of a. Of a war of aggression that you launched. That's not surrender. Like, these words have meanings. These are military terms. Like, we're not surrendering to any foreign country. We have. We could destroy the world with, like, three of our submarines. What are you talking about? Who are we surrendering to? Saying, get out. Call it quits. End it now. Rather than in another week or another month or another year. Just end it now. And. And the, you know, the people who would frame, the people who would frame pulling out of a war as a total surrender are the people who would have you in forever wars. And that's what we've been hearing for the last 25 years. Right. Is that, oh, if anything, it's, it's surrender if you ever pull out.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

I think it's, it's like the steps of Loony World that you have to walk in to. So if you're willing to accept that Iran was on the path to get a nuclear bomb and that it had a desire to both have a nuclear bomb and nuke the United States of America and that it had the mechanism to nuke the United States of America, then you'd be foolish not to go to war with them because it's a preemptive surrender, which even in that case it wouldn't be because I don't think anyone thinks they wouldn't have had enough nukes to nuke our entire country without us nuking them back. You still wouldn't even have a surrender there. So it's, it's just, it's like the stages of Loony World that you have to walk into to try and larp with Ben Shapiro. Like this is an accurate or cohesive summary of what's taking place.

[Dave Smith]

Yeah. You know, we should talk about before we get out of here. And there's so much, much to talk about. I had like, I think like five more clips, none of which we got to, but whatever. I'll, we'll record it next time or I'll get it all out. I'll probably put a few more shows out in the next few days, but we should talk about. I don't know if you. Did you catch Tucker's show with.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

I watched the whole thing last night.

[Bleacher Report Announcer]

Night.

[Dave Smith]

It was very interesting. And it's funny as Ben Shapiro is picking on this as the deep, deep conspiracy. I would have, you know, maybe thought and maybe he did comment. I just watched the clips, but there was one portion of it where

[Joe Kent]

did

[Dave Smith]

get a little bit more conspiratorial. And I, I thought it was very interesting that the, the topic of Butler and Charlie Kirk both came up up in Joe Kent's you know, conversation about why he left. And now he, he did not claim that he had reason to believe, you know, he didn't claim that he had seen evidence of, you know, like Israeli involvement and Charlie Kirk's assassination or anything like that. They didn't say he had seen evidence of a conspiracy, but he did make a pretty major claim which was that he said that there were things like, essentially he's the director of Counterterrorism. And so he's, his role is if this has anything to do with foreign connections. If it doesn't, then this isn't for me. This is the Department of justice and the FBI's business. But if it has to do with foreign connections, then that's where I come in. And we get to the, you know, the bottom of that. And he basically said that there were things that should have been followed up on. Like, in other words, there was enough within a circle to be like, I should be investigating whether there are foreign connections to this. And, and it was suppressed and the investigation was shut down. You know, now that is a pretty bold claim. And he did go on to say a little bit more than just that. And again, this is, you know, it, it's, it's one guy saying this, but it was a guy at a very, very high level position. It's, it's not just like, it's a little bit different when you hear someone like Candace Owens talking about stuff like this, where she's coming at from the perspective of a dear friend of Charlie Kirk's who's trying to put pieces together, you know, of a puzzle based on, you know, what she can get off the Internet or whatever, or, or I shouldn't just say the Internet, but off, you know, the people who she knows who are around them and her sources. It's a different thing when you hear a guy at the absolute top of intelligence and he comes out and he starts talking about how, like, you know, Charlie Kirk was the most adamant opponent of the 12 Day War and really trying to persuade Donald Trump to not get into a war with Iran. And he was loudly saying this, and he was the only one who really had the President's ear, who was trying to stop that. And, you know, know, he goes, it is just, you look at the situation where, okay, the guy who is trying to stop this war, then they get into a situation where they need this war to be sold again, you know what I mean? And they know that it's coming in in a few months, they need to be sold again, and then this guy ends up publicly being executed and then our investigation is suppressed. Like, he was saying it in a way that's like, huh, look at all that. That's something to look at. Like, this is very important to look at. And, you know, that's a, that's a really big deal coming from the guy who was the director of counterterrorism. You Kind of can't just brush that off. And I saw, you know, I saw some people, like, I saw a clip of Fuentes, and he was saying something like. He was basically going. And I know he's had a history with Joe Ken. I think they don't like each other. So that might be coloring it a little bit, too. But he was like, hey, if you have some evidence, give us the evidence. I'm tired of all this. But I don't know, I looked at it and went, no, I think he's saying he doesn't have any other evidence. You know what I mean? I think he's saying that, like, this is what I've got, that I was shut down from finding that evidence. And so essentially, this is all he can tell you. But you got to admit, all I'm saying is that when you lay it out like that, that does seem like something that you would have to get to the bottom of and investigate to the absolute fullest. And then he mentions the Butler thing, too, which, look, I mean. Mean, this is all. And I'm not claiming some conspiracy. Like, that's not my thing. I'm not sitting here, like, putting dots together that I can't. I can. Can't really prove. I really don't think I ever do that. But I am saying, man, it's pretty goddamn weird that we just have no information on Butler still and who that guy was. And there's never even been an attempt to. Like, you would just think when something like that happens to a. A president like Donald Trump. Trump, you would have to at least come up with some national story so we could all wrap our heads around, like, okay, what was that? What radicalized him? Why did he do that? What was the story? Oh, he was on all these crazy meds, and his dad used to beat the. Out of him, and then he got radicalized by this. It's like they don't even try. They just go, no. Can't get into any of his phones. And if we could, there wouldn't be nothing there. That's. That. I don't know. It's all pretty shady.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

I thought there was another conspiratorial angle, which was whether or not some of the intelligence that we've been hearing about actually made its way to Trump. And it was somewhat insinuated that potentially, I guess, Trump's inner circle has kept him from some of that information, which is why the Tulsi Gabbard meeting yesterday was so important, because at some point we gotta find out, like, this is treasonous. Either Donald Trump has gotten this information and made the worst possible blunder ever, or someone has purposely misguided him and not given him important intelligence, and in which case those people need to be held accountable.

[Dave Smith]

You know, it's interesting to me because, and I will be the first to admit that I'm not like, the biggest expert in exactly how the chain of commands within the deep state intelligence apparatus works and who can block what information or what. But, like, just on the face of it, you know, like, essentially what he's claiming, that he was blocked from giving the President intelligence. The response to it has been, no, he was being iced out because he was a leaker. And so essentially, essentially, this is why he. This is what a bunch of them are saying. He was a leaker. He was being investigated. He's still being investigated. And that's why he was getting boxed out of all this stuff, because he's a leaker. And he only resigned because we knew he was a leaker. He was probably going to get fired soon anyway, or whatever, whatever. But the issue you have there is that you go, like, wait, but you're telling me that the active Director of counterterrorism cannot get information to the President that he deems vital information like that. There's not, there's ever a time where that's just blocked. You could be at the. You know what I'm saying? Like, could the Director of National Intelligence, if they have intelligence about the war that's about to be launched, Launched. There's ever a situation where someone can go, no, sorry, like, Susie Wiles can just go now. Sorry, that's not. Who can do that? Like, I just don't. I. It seemed to me that that would be. Wouldn't you always have a direct line of communication or, or even an indirect but, you know, line of communication that will work, like, you will be able to get this information to him. That was a really shocking claim. Same because again, what he's claiming, the information that was kept was that Iran isn't an imminent threat. And that would be. Well, Rob, Very pertinent to this situation if he's going to launch a war under the belief that they are an imminent threat. That was wild.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Yeah. Those were, Those were the two moments that really stood out to me while I was watching it.

[Dave Smith]

Yeah. You know, I don't know. Look, obviously, Joe, Ken is just one guy, but he's. He was a guy at this very senior position. And you at least gotta say, And I know, again, look, I, you know, I don't. I'm not, I don't really know the case exactly that Candace is like put together on her shows or like, I know Ian Carroll had been doing some deep dives on this stuff and that. Like, I don't know who's right. I haven't watched it. And I'm just, I'm just, you know, busy enough trying to keep up with what I'm doing for these shows and then having, you know, a family and being a touring comedian and stuff, it's just hard to, to keep up with everything. But it does seem to me like, in my humble opinion, broadly speaking, if you've got the people like, who are, are going, hey, I think there's a conspiracy or something involved with Charlie Kirk here, here. And then you've got all the people have been flipping out about them and being like how evil it is that you could say this. You're such a loon. You're such a kook. I don't know if you're calling balls and strikes here. I don't know how you couldn't say that. This is kind of at least pretty damn vindicating for people like Candace Owens to have like the, the, the, the director of counterterrorism come out and be like, yeah, no, I think there really is something we need to look into here. And by the way, the way I was trying to do that and they blocked me from doing it, like, that's kind of vindicating to at least the broad strokes idea that there's a conspiracy here.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

And unless you want to take Ben Shapiro's side of the story, that he went to Google and said biggest conspiracies about the Iran war in this administration and then just put that directly into his resignation letter.

[Dave Smith]

Yeah, well, yes, that's also that anything's possible. But look, I, like, as I've always said, said I have been from the very beginning, in the immediate aftermath of, of Charlie's death, I, I was the guy going like, hold your horses. Like, I'm not jumping on to any of these conspiracies. I don't see any evidence for anything. But people, I was calling people out for making wild claims and they had no evidence. And, and I genuinely, you know, believe that I'm, I'm not, I haven't seen anything like, like what could even be resembling a theory of what happened that I thought was compelling. But yeah, when I say compelling, not that what that was compelling and met with compelling evidence, I should say. But yeah, I'm also just heavily incentivized in many ways to not want that to be the case. Like, I would really much prefer that, as much of the Internet seems to think that me being at that debate and event was like, an integral part of what got this guy killed. And I'd really like that to not be the case. I'd much rather it be a transgender activist or something like that, for my own reasons and because it's just terror, you know, a terrifying thing if it's. If it's something else. But that's, you know, look, man, if there's just on balls and strikes, if a bunch of people have been saying, I think there's a conspiracy and this needs to be investigated, and then you get the director of counterterrorism to come out and say, yep, I completely agree. And also, my investigation was shut down. Down. That's one point for them. One point in their. In their category. All right, I guess that's. I guess we can wrap up there, Rob. We got a whole bunch more to keep talking about.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

And check out run your mouth, everybody. I'm cooking on episodes, usually Sundays and Wednesdays, the days I'm not here. So go check it out.

[Dave Smith]

Check out run your mouth. And of course, come see us in Boston next week. Comicdabesmith.com for ticket links to the that Boston. And then we got Chicago coming up after that. So two of my favorite cities in this country and two of my. Three of my favorite clubs that we'll be working at. So really excited for all these shows. See you guys soon. Peace.