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- [00:00]
Jon Stewart
Foreign.
- [00:07]
Dave Smith
What'S up? What's up everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. Thank you for joining us. Of course I am Dave Smith and of course he is Robbie the Fire Bernstein. How are you feeling today, sir?
- [00:18]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
I'm doing well. How are you, my friend?
- [00:21]
Dave Smith
I'm doing well, very well. And in fact I'm, I'm very excited to make an announcement at the, at the top of the show today, a product. I want to tell you guys about this. Probably the most excited I've been to tell you about something because it has to do with my wife, who is my favorite person. Robbie the Fire Bernstein has always been a close second, but she's still up there as number one. My amazing wife who, you know, for we're, we're coming up on, on a wedding anniversary here and she's been, you know, just like the most incredible person I've ever met, has really made my life a million times better and has been very busy in the business of being a full time mom for many years. But now that my kids are a little bit older, she just ventured into her first project in a little while and I couldn't be more proud of it. My wife wrote a children's book which is amazing. It's called Healthy Hibernation. It's all about just like, it's basically just a story about kids eating, eating healthy and try to start conversations about being healthy with, with young families. It's very much, you know, when I had Nicole Shanahan on the show, one of the things we talked about was how parents of our generation are in many ways dealing with this battle. Like kind of the first generations of parents who are really aware about healthy eating and are aware of how much you kind of have to guard against and know every time you go to the supermarket, it's just kind of like a, a million different poisons and you know, bright colors all coming at you. So I, anyway, I just thought this was such a great idea. She teamed up with an incredible artist to do it. The story is, it's so sweet and cute and funny. It's just so great. It's available for pre sale now. Again, it's called Healthy Hibernation. You can get it at, it's available for pre sale at Amazon right now. And then of course you can also grab it at baby, excuse me, @bookbaby.com I will put a link for the pre sale in the episode description today. Really, really excited about this. If you have young kids or if you got nieces and Nephews or cousins or. Or maybe just a grownup who's really slow in your life. Any of those. Please go support it if you can. And if you order, you will have it. It'll be available with time for. For the holidays and all that. So very excited to announce that. Right up top.
- [02:45]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Is there a kid in the book that overeats and then feels like he's gonna die? So he decides to have another cup of coffee to see if that will even it out? And then he feels anxious. He goes back to eating.
- [02:53]
Dave Smith
Oh, Uncle Rob. He'll be in the sequel. Uncle Rob will be in the sequel for sure. We weren't able. We weren't able to work him into this one. And we tried and we tried.
- [03:02]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
That's a noble topic. I'm excited to pick that up. Give it to 1. Give it to one of my nieces and nephews.
- [03:07]
Dave Smith
Absolutely. You know what, Rob? I got the hookup. I think I can arrange a copy for Christmas shopping. There you go.
- [03:14]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
That's all even better. I suckered my way out of having to gifts.
- [03:18]
Dave Smith
Oh, there you go. Hey, you know, your mic just started doing the chopping thing again.
- [03:22]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Checking the mic. Is it still chop?
- [03:23]
Dave Smith
Sounds good now. Sounds good.
- [03:24]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Excellent. And if you want.
- [03:26]
Dave Smith
Oh, yes. And Rob's got gigs.
- [03:27]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
If you want less noble information. This weekend out in California, in Santa Monica and Agawanga, which is right outside of San Diego. And then next week, I'm doing a run in New York City at Pub Key, which is a cool bar. Then going up to Boston, New Hampshire, and Providence, Rhode Island. Go to portstore.com for all those dates.
- [03:46]
Dave Smith
Not that it's devastating, but I do still hear the clicking going. So let's just. Let's see how that goes.
- [03:52]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
I can swap microphones if it's continuing. I can hear you. Can you guys hear me?
- [03:58]
Dave Smith
Yep. Sound great. Seems to be all solved.
- [04:01]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
All right. Okay. All the mic. No biggie.
- [04:03]
Dave Smith
All right, let's edit back in on this. Actually, good timing because I just remembered something. Oh. And I should be promoting, which I have not been. And that's my fault. I'll make sure to blast this all over social media. But Natalie has been doing a great job with the part of the problem clips channel. It's at Part of the problem clips on YouTube. And I. I just saw the other. There's, like, a few of the videos who are getting, like, you know, going a little bit viral there. So that's good. So just so you know, there is a clips channel that is run by us and by us, I mean Natalie, but that's part of us. And so go make sure if you can. If you want to help out the show, subscribe, you know, share, like, comment, all that stuff on that one too, because just the more, you know, that's. It's just good to have more content out there. Plus, the clips channel, you know, will have some clips of the members only episodes, and that's like, the only way to get those clips if you're not a subscriber. So if you want to go help support the show, that's just one more way to do it. Go support our clips channel. All right, so I just got done. I just did another Pierce Morgan debate with this guy. I can't remember his name, but he's official. It was some type of. Worked for the Israeli government for so many years, Rob. I don't know why they keep doing it.
- [05:13]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
It's going on.
- [05:14]
Dave Smith
It's insane, dude. It's insane. Like, it's like the fit. I don't know, it's like the 50th millionth one of them. And he just comes to me with the same goddamn thing. I mean, dude, go watch this for yourself. I'm like, it's like, again, this is like no comment on me whatsoever. It's just how bad they are at it. But it. It just feels like almost like. You remember like when at the end, Neo just starts fighting him with one arm and he's just like, oh, yeah, this is. He was like, saying to me, like, other thing. Like, I don't know. He goes. He goes, the IDF is the most moral army in the world. And I was like, dude, they just said that Gaza. They just said that Hamas was slow rolling the remains of dead hostages, so they cut off aid to the entire civilian population over an accusation of dead remains. And he goes, we are the most moral army in the world. And I was like, what about the starving innocent civilians part? Like, it's just like that.
- [06:15]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Anyway, it's straight up. When I used to be in Israel in, like, those old gift shops, they'd be like, so you'll take it for $5? Like, I'll take it for one. They'll great. And they go, great, so you'll take it for five. And that's what they're doing to you. They just keep coming at you with the same thing until you finally like, all right, I guess you guys are great.
- [06:33]
Dave Smith
All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today, which is Monetary Metals, an amazing company run by great People, I've been telling you guys about them for a while, but they've really revolutionized the precious metal space. If you own gold or silver, as I know many people who listen to the show do, I think that's a great thing to own. However, there's a better way to do it. For the most part, people either own physical gold and they. They keep it in their. Their home, in which case it's just sitting there kind of collecting dust, or they have it professionally stored, in which case you're paying fees to have your precious metals stored. But now with monetary metals, you can put your precious metals to work for you, so you actually get paid interest. And the coolest part, you that you get the interest in additional ounces of metal. So if you're. If you're investing gold with them, you'll be paid in additional ounces of gold. Silver, Additional ounces of silver. So now your precious metals are not just a hedge against inflation or an investment, but they are actually working for you. Check them out to learn more@monical-metals.com that's monetary-metals.com. all right, let's get back into the show. It's doing it again. Whatever. We're just going to power through it on this one. Yeah, that was a good. That was a good point, though. Good analogy. No, anyway, it was just. It's, you know, I said at one point, like, he was just spewing this nonsense. And then at one point I was just like, pierce, like, this is what you were. You see that poll where before October 7th, Americans sympathized with Israel, plus 48, and today it's plus 1 Palestinians. When he ever seen a 50 point drop off in a poll like that, you know, and I was like, and this is why, because this is just nonsense. And then at one point he's just going back and he starts making his propaganda. And at one point Piers just goes, oh, but like, he just said something like, too ridiculous. And I was just like, 48 to 1, Pierce. 48 to 1. Like, this is why. I don't know. Anyway, it is. Look, in this fascinating political moment that we're living in where there's all types of massive realignments happening and all types of paradigms being shattered. I did. I saw this, a bit of this interview, which I bet some of you guys have seen, and there was a clip that really just. I don't know, it was just something that I thought me and you would have a lot of fun talking about. And the reason why I put this as our Number one story is because, you know, look, this is a conversation between Jon Stewart and Bernie Sanders. And as. As strange as this might sound, I really think that when you look at Jon Stewart and Bernie Sanders, as of right now, you're looking at the two most influential Democrats, essentially. Like, I don't. I don't think there is. There's really anyone else almost with the energy. I mean, like, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying either of them could run for president and win, but Bernie obviously did run for president and was a force to be reckoned with both times. And Jon Stewart is someone who a lot of people have at least been saying they would want to tag in or whatever. And it does just seem that, you know, with the. With the total discredit, you know, with. With the discrediting of the establishment Democrats, these are almost the two figures who remain standing. And so it's kind of interesting to. To see where they are. You know, you've got this. This party, the. The Democratic Party is like, in a very interesting situation right now. I mean, they absolutely and utterly blew every major crisis and every major pivot, pivotal moment in American history over the last, you know, 15 years or so. Just, they've got. They were so in control, Rob, as you remember, but were so cartoonishly stupid and evil that they just lost everything. And they are now sitting in just like, as a. Collectively, as a party in a pit of despair with, you know, their. Their approval ratings in the. In the basement. And so. But also, we're in this crazy, realigning political moment with a new decentralized media landscape and all of this. So you just wonder, like, what could rise out of these ashes. And it's. It seems to me to be an interesting kind of indication to see where Jon Stewart and Bernie Sanders are at, if that makes sense.
- [10:59]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
I love the clip, so I'm gonna reserve my comments.
- [11:02]
Dave Smith
Okay, so let's get it. So here is. God, this is just. I. I don't know why. This is like catnip to a couple of libertarian autists like me and you, but there's. This is them talking. And, like, it's so funny because it's almost like they're trying to deal with the new political paradigm by. In some way re. You know, I think it's reasonable to say, like, reevaluating what the Democratic political. And then they just come out with the same old tired, boring nonsense. But let's hear. Let's play the clip in its entirety. And then me and Rob are going to Respond.
- [11:36]
Jon Stewart
But again, this gets to the Democratic solutions have never been to directly provide. It's always been a subsidy.
- [11:47]
Bernie Sanders
Absolutely right.
- [11:49]
Jon Stewart
But what happens is when the government promises endless funds to insurance companies or private universities without any cost controls, and Trump seems to understand this, prices rise far beyond the rate of inflation. And we've seen it in tuition, and we've seen it in pharmaceutical and we've seen it in, in health care. So my question is, will Democrats recognize the poison pill that they've often placed into well intentioned policy?
- [12:25]
Bernie Sanders
What they end up doing is coming up with very complicated proposals. You make $48,964, you will get this thing, you make a dollar more, you're finished. And blah, blah, blah, blah. Look, we have got to make it simple. In the wealthiest country in the history of the world, should healthcare be a human right? Yes, it should be. Should we have the best quality education in the world, from childcare to graduate school? Yes, we should. Right, but these are, these are, how do you get.
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Jon Stewart
Let's get there.
- [12:55]
Bernie Sanders
All right, then the question is, all right, these are.
- [12:57]
Jon Stewart
I'm writing this, Sanders.
- [12:59]
Bernie Sanders
All right, the Republicans. You're getting violent here.
- [13:02]
Jon Stewart
You know, I get excited when you're around.
- [13:07]
Dave Smith
Man, that got Jewish. All right, I, I don't know why. I just find this so fascinating. And let's just, I, I guess, Rob, the first thing here, because there's a lot there, but is to just like Bernie Sanders. It's so funny to watch Jon Stewart. Like, it's like, oh, are liberals allowed to discuss this now? Hmm, good point. Jon Stewart. I've never noticed this phenomenon before, but now that you mention it, it does seem like health insurance and college and housing and energy are going up faster than the rate of inflation. And gee whiz, they seem to be all the areas that government hyper regulates. That is a really good point. I wish there had been some group of people out there who had pointed out that when the government floods more money into a sector, things get more expensive. When the government adds more of a regulatory burden, things get more expensive. Okay. I wish if only there had been a group of Americans who were pointing that out. For all of the years that you've made these things so much more expensive and supported all the policies that have made these things more expensive. You know, I thought anyway. But then what does Bernie Sanders take away from this, Rob? I mean, that's just got to be my first go to. And then we could break down kind of the Jon Stewart thing because I think there's a lot There. And I want to get your perspective on this, but, like, the thing at the end where you just go, well, here's the answer. Health care is a right. So what does it even mean when he says, it's right, everyone should have it? And then he goes, in the. The United States of America, we should have the best quality education. Oh, yeah, okay, I was. I was for the worst quality. But now that you said the best quality, you're like, that really is a much better plan than the worst quality. Like, who isn't for the best qual quality?
- [15:01]
Jon Stewart
The whole.
- [15:02]
Dave Smith
It's always like these. These socialists, like, act like that wins the debate. Everyone's for the best quality. The question is, why should we believe that your government provided anything is going to be the best quality? Like, and then. Oh, that's a much tougher conversation for you to have now, isn't it? But isn't it just. It's such an unbelievable, like, such an ignoramus thing to say that gets applause from a crowd to go, here's my position. Everyone should have it. It should be free, and it should be amazing. Wow, what a leader I am, Rob.
- [15:40]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
And we have to simplify it.
- [15:42]
Dave Smith
Oh, yeah, simple. Also simple and great. Did I mention it'll be great?
- [15:50]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
I mean, to boil it down, it's John going, hey, we got a problem that when government spends money on something, it seems to just get more expensive and it doesn't actually become free and more accessible for people. And then Bernie Sanders going, well, we have to make sure everyone has it and that we can simplify how they get it, which would equate to we'll spend more money on it, which would bring you to the exact same point of. Well, aren't the costs then going to go up? Every level of this is remarkably stupid.
- [16:19]
Dave Smith
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So the thing that, that jumps out at me is a few things there, right? Number one, you see that Jon Stewart and Bernie Sanders are both saying here that, well, look, the problem essentially is, or at least Jon Stewart's saying this and then Bernie Sanders is saying, yep, and that's why socialism is the answer. Well, so what they're saying is that when you have these government programs where government like subsidizes industries, it pumps a bunch of money into the industries, but you don't cap costs, then you end up just driving the price up. And so this ends up, you know, essentially not working and giving us what we have today. And he mentions a bunch of things like pharmaceutical drugs and health insurance and education and stuff like this. This is why the prices are so expensive. Now the first thing that jumps out at me here is that, well, then why have all of you guys always been supporting these policies as better than not, right? Because it was always like everybody in the socialist Bernie, Bernie Sanders world would always kind of say that Obamacare was, was good. Like Bernie Sanders would vote for Obamacare but then say he still wants Medicare for All. Like he still wants to take it a step further. But why even do the first, if the first step is you acknowledge is driving prices up. I mean, this is the whole issue, right? Like, this is what they kind of. Look, we don't really. In America, I mean, it kind of depends where you are, but we really don't have a major problem with, say, like, the quality of health care. Now, we do have a major problem with the quality of government education, but there's actually very good private education. It just costs a lot. Now, when I say we don't really have a problem with the health care, I just mean that, like, we have clean pharmaceutical drugs, we have clean equipment, we have doctors with knowledge. We have. It's not. Now, you may go to an urgent care or a hospital that's nicer or less nice than another one. But most of the times the mass problem in America with, say, health care isn't actually the health care itself. It's the prices of everything that's the major problem. The major problem in America is that if you don't have insurance, you can go bankrupt because you get hit by a car or because you get cancer. That's the major problem. And the major problem with health insurance is that the insurance is so expensive and it's not very good coverage. The major problem with getting your kids good private education is that it's very expensive. The major problem with pharmaceutical drugs is that they're expensive. Now, I'm not saying there's not other problems, but this is the major one and this is the one that they are talking about here. Okay? The major price, the major problem with college is that it's so goddamn expensive. And so. Well, once you acknowledge that kind of this government intervention is what it does lead to prices rising, then, you know, the next question might be, oh, has that created the whole problem in the first place? Because all of the industries that you're talking about are areas where the government has intervened quite a bit is like very, very involved. And even before Obamacare, the government was incredibly involved in health care in the country. Obviously we had Medicare and Medicaid for many, many years. There's been all types of different, you know, state health care plans and things like that. So there's been a lot of government intervention in health care. There was more under Obamacare. You know, there was a lot of intervention in the college. There was just more once the government started giving out the loans themselves. But. So if the problem is that the prices of all of these things are just too out of reach and that they bankrupt people, this is certainly the case with medical prices and with the price of college, then you might ask yourself like, oh, was it the intervention that caused that to begin with? Maybe if we weren't even intervening, this wouldn't even be an issue that we're discussing again when, when things are. If, if you take things like, you know, I use the example, like shoes or televisions or just, just lots of things that, that we have around us all, all the time. The government doesn't provide them, the government doesn't subsidize them and ever complain that there should be a government program to provide any of them, because they're just kind of reasonably priced, people aren't going bankrupt for them. And a lot of times I think there is this thing that, well, I, I think it's a little bit infantile, as I pointed out many times before. There's, there's something about socialism that's very infantile to feel like as an adult that you shouldn't have to pay your own way through the world now. It's easier to feel that way when, you know, if you go and I, I don't know the price. It's been a few years now since I've had. My wife's delivered a baby for me. I was gonna say since I've delivered a baby, but I guess technically I've never done that, but I've been a partner in them and. But it was like something like $30,000, I think, is what that the hospital bill came out to be. And it's about. So it's about 30 grand to have a kid. Now Insurance, you know, takes care of a lot of that. And then depending on your insurance, you owe what you owe, but it's probably, you know, the price. There's been a lot of inflation. It's probably more expensive than that these days. But. So like, just for example, right? If I think for the average person, like, just saying, I'm just pulling out numbers just to paint a picture. But like, if you were to say there's like a young couple and they're having their first kid and they're real excited and they, they said to them, like, okay, well, you're gonna be at the hospital for, you know, three days and you're gonna use all these services and it's gonna cost you like 300 bucks a night that you're here, I don't think anyone even, like left wing people who just aren't infantile would go, that's outrageous. It should be free because, like, just think about, like, nothing should be free. And this is the problem with Bernie Sanders saying things like, health care is a right, you should have the best quality. It's like, look, this is, oh, hey, how we doing?
- [24:23]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Well, we'll find out now.
- [24:25]
Dave Smith
It's still clicking. But you know what, let's just, let's just power through it. People said it wasn't that bad. Let's just power through it. So I'll just say. I was just saying that. Look, essentially one of the problems with saying that health care is a right or we should just have the best quality is it's, it's this infantile idea that resources ought to be provided for you when like, no, I mean, it takes work to provide those resources. A doctor had to go to years of medical school and he has to get up and work every day. A nurse had to go to years of nursing school, she has to get up and work every day. People had to make the medical machinery. Construction workers had to build the new wing on the hospital. There's all type, there's a janitor who's got to clean the floor. Like, all of those people aren't supposed to just work for you and then you don't contribute anything. But the issue is, if it were 300 bucks a night to go to the hospital, it'd be very easy to go, hey, you know, well, yeah, you got to pay. The thing is, when it's $30,000, it's very easy for people to go, this is crazy. This is unfair. This is just, we need to have some other system that works here, understandably, because the prices are out of whack. But if Jon Stewart has already admitted that, well, these Democratic interventionists, short of socialist, but interventionist policies cause the prices to rise. Maybe that's the whole problem in the first place. Maybe the first thing you should do is get rid of all those policies which both you and Bernie Sanders have been supporting. And you might say you always wanted to go further, but you both still supported Obamacare. So what did you support? You supported a program that made this exact problem worse. And so it's just, you know, to sit here and say, oh, well, the answer is that the government did all of this but then didn't have price controls also. Well, where, where are we getting that price controls are the solution? You know what I'm saying? Like, since when does any self respecting economist tell you that that's the way that you reign in inflation with price controls or essentially what Bernie Sanders is advocating for just pure socialism, the thing that always works out the worst. It's like, maybe I just, it seems to me that there seems to be an interesting admission there that while they're both still advocating for socialism with nothing other than just the assertion that that means it's a right and it's, it's the best quality, which maybe you should have to explain why Cuba and North Korea and the Soviet Union didn't have the best quality or go look at just any example of government provided anything and, and say why we must assume this is that. But it seems like there'd be an admission in there that you'd still be saying free market economics is preferable to democratic interventionism, which just drives up prices, which we all know is the main problem. That's the main problem is that these things are way too expensive for regular people to afford. So these are the two democratic stars and they can't even think through the issues that are their issues that are their signature issues.
- [27:31]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
I can as apologies for any clicking. I can put it in simple terms. If you create price controls, you will have less of it. If you make money available for it, it will only be more expensive. Now this one, I don't know with that as much certainty, but I believe to be true. If you make money available for something and then try and do price controls to offset the money that you made available for it, you're just going to create more profiting in the grips of, well, what can I. What is the thing that government gives me money for that has less price controls and you'll end up with more of that because that's what people want to do to make money and you're going to end up with less overall care. The only thing you can do is let the free market run its magic. And that's how you bring down prices, force competition, have innovation. That's how you fix the thing. Anything else, you're just getting more of this shenanigans.
- [28:21]
Dave Smith
Yeah, no, I mean, that's. That's right. And then I think at the, you know, at the core of all of this is that it's like you have this idea. So Bernie Sanders, like, look, you, you've come to the idea, like, I guess at least kind of has maybe not articulated it as well as you have, but Jon Stewart has kind of come to accept part of what the economic laws of reality that you just laid out. Like, he understands that this intervening without the price controls drives the prices of things up. But then, you know, it's like as they're saying that they're, you know. Well, the answer here is just socializing it. It's like it does. I do wonder how people in current day United States of America go, like, you're just like, how much bigger do you think this government can get? Like, forget, forget even like you want it to be. How much bigger than the current government do you think we can get? I mean we are, look, there's no getting around. Look, maybe Bernie Sanders would, would in some sense he would say he's for cuts in like the Pentagon budget. Although I don't know, I think he's got a pretty long career of like voting for every spending bill. He's not like Ron Paul or something who was like voting against all the spending bills. He's voting for him. And so what? How serious like has bearing senators ever proposed like major cuts in the Pentagon budget? I doubt they would be too drastic, but let's even say he was willing to cut like 3 or $400 billion in the Pentagon budget. I mean, he's talking about a Medicare for all plan. You're talking about we right now give Medicare to Americans 65 and older. You're going to extend that all the way. I mean Medicare I believe is the biggest, aside from I believe the interest on the debt, I believe it's the biggest bud budget item. But it's the entitlements. I mean Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid. So you're going to extend, instead of 65 and up, you're going to extend that to everyone. I mean, okay, this is going to mean a drastic increase in government spending total. There's no way to get around that. And then, you know, now that we live in this world, Rob, where interest on the debt is actually overtaking the budget, that that number is just going up now because we're spending way more. So our debt's just going to go up way more. Unless we just print all the money, in which case, you know, you have problems. And so in fact, the exact problem that Jon Stewart is talking about and rising prices. And so you go, okay, this is your plan now is to take the biggest government in the history of the world and drastically increase it. So what are you going to do in order to do that? You're either going to tax people, you're just going to blow up the debt even more, or you're going to print all of the money that you're right back into this situation where you have to punish those people you're trying to help. Whereas the other answer is just don't do the liberal interventionist thing that drives up the prices to begin with. You know, just let, just stop Distorting all of these prices and let markets work and let people find health care alternatives. That's just, you know, it's, it's such a shame that this is like seemingly all the fresh energy that the Democrats have. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is crowd health, a great company I've been telling you about for many years, a great alternative to the broken health insurance system. And now you can get health care for under a hundred dollars. You've heard me talk about crowd health before and I want to tell you about something. They've just introduced the Black swan membership. It's the healthcare alternative for people who want autonomy over their care, their costs and their lifestyle. They just need a little help with the pot potential Black swan events that can happen in life. Well, now for just 95amonth, you get access to a team of health bill negotiators, low cost prescriptions, lab testing tools and a database of low cost, high quality doctors vetted by crowd health. You stay in control without insurance and their networks dictating your care or what doctors you can see. And what if something major happens? Okay, well, you pay the first 15k and the crowd steps up to help fund the rest. It, it feels like the options that we used to have before Obamacare messed everything up. And if you use the promo code POTP, it's only $80 for the first three months. Just go to JoinCrowdHealth.com and use the promo code POTP for $80 a month for the first three months. Crowd health is not insurance. Opt out. Take your power back. This is how we win. All right, let's get back into the show anyway. Sorry, go ahead.
- [33:03]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Well, it's also just amazing how close Jon Stewart is to having a damning question and how easily he lets Bernie Sanders off the hook.
- [33:11]
Dave Smith
Yep, yep. No, that's absolutely right. All right, let's, let's switch gears here a little bit because I do, you know, this is going to end up being a little bit shorter of an episode, but I apologize, we'll go a little bit longer tomorrow. But so, but we really should talk about Venezuela a little bit because we really haven't been covering this and it does seem like while there's just been, you know, there's been so much news on the, the Israel Gaza front with the ceasefire, then the ceasefire breaking down. There's just so many other things going on that it does seem like it has not been getting the attention widely in the media that it deserves that, that we seem to be closer to a regime change war certainly than we've been since we were bombing Iran. But it seems that there are some real signals that we're closer to a regime change operation of some sorts in Venezuela than we've ever been. In the tensions leading up for the past few years with this government in Venezuela, Donald Trump has ordered like CIA strikes and military activity, or I should say he's green lit these activities. They've stepped up these, these things where they're blowing up boats and then just telling us that they got bad Venezuelan drug dealers. This is again, it all seems like complete madness and it, I don't know, what can you say? I mean, it's like the, the level of addiction to war that the US government has is, it is just crazy. Like, you know, we, for the last few years, right, like we, we ended the war in Afghanistan, the longest war in American history. A 20 year catastrophic failed regime change against the Taliban. Like just imagine the most powerful country in the history of the world with all the lessons from history about occupying Afghanistan available to them, decided to occupy Afghanistan for 20 years to overthrow the Taliban and failed to do it. We came out of it down a couple trillion dollars, a few hundred thousand innocent people's lives. And what we got to show for it was a, a better armed Taliban. Just an utter disgrace. And so we finally pull out of there after, after two decades and then like a month later we're back in the proxy war in Ukraine because you just gotta find another war to sink all these money and weapons into, right? And then like you finally, then we start back in Israel's destruction of Gaza. You finally have a ceasefire on the table. It looks like maybe, maybe if we're really lucky, this thing might be winding down. And it's like, hey, why not go over, throw this regime in Venezuela? Because something about. I, I don't understand, Rob. Narco terrorism, a made up term that just sounds like the two things that your Fox News watch and dad are most afraid of. Narco and terrorism. They're narco terrorists. How do you know? They were on a boat so by, by the way, like, I don't even know. Like, look, I'm not saying like, I know there's like MS.13, like some of those gangs, they're gangs and they do some vicious gang things. But like, what even are we talking about with narco terror? We don't like drug deal has been committing acts of terrorism. Like drug dealers are just blowing up buses to try to change the political system. Or something like that. It seems like they get into gang wars and turf wars and fight like. Anyway, there was a comment. I don't know if you saw this, Rob. I sent this video in there, but there was a clip from Donald Trump and this was, this was very interesting and I thought very disturbing about where his head is at with this whole thing. So let's, let's play this clip and then. Sorry, sorry. Go ahead. If you want.
- [37:13]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
On the topic of this narco terrorism, first is if you're in the business of just taking out one drug dealer and not the other drug dealers, then you're just in the drug business. I don't think that the Venezuelan drug business is larger than the Colombian or Mexican drug cartel business. So if we're concerned with drunks drugs. But just going after Venezuela doesn't even make sense. It's not a consistent policy. Also, from what I've researched to date, this idea that Maduro flooded out his prisons with rapists and murders into the United States of America, I believe that is yet to be validated. Nor have I seen a single news story of Venezuelan murderers on the loose in the United States. I know there was that incident out in Colorado where there were some Venezuelan, you know, gangs that were rounded up, up. But I don't think the Venezuelan drug cartel presence is larger than the Mexican drug cartel presence in the United States.
- [38:16]
Dave Smith
And I also, that's just like, there's an easy fix to that, which is like, so have a sane immigration policy. I don't know. So don't let them in. Just, it makes no sense that just like there's migrants coming from a country, therefore let's go to war with the country. But you think that's going to lead to less migrants coming from that country. Like, if there's migrants coming from a country and we don't want them here, then close the border and don't let them in. That's your job. And yet you're 100 right. It is not like they're. If you really were concerned about the drugs, you'd be going after Colombia or Mexico, which, you know, still doesn't make any sense to do, but you wouldn't be going after Venezuela then. It just happens to be this place that you're, you know, what's happening here is that Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, after that dummy waltz got fired, he's the national Security advisor too. He's been the National Security advisor and the Secretary of State. I believe I might be wrong about this. You could double check me But I believe the first one since Henry Kissinger to serve both of those roles as Secretary of State and National Security advisor. And this seems to be his pet project that he wants to go have a regime change in, in Venezuela. And it's just, it makes absolutely no sense from an American perspective.
- [39:29]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Also, when you just blow people up without trials, you do a bad job of presenting your case of those were definitely these narco terrorists. You leave a lot of room for the other countries to go. No, that was actually a boat that was turning around or that was a boat of fishermen or that actually was a boat from a different country. And so when you just blast people out of the open water and there seems to be evidence to suggest that they weren't actually doing the thing that you were doing, you don't do a great job of presenting the case of, look at all the fentanyl that's specifically coming from this area and that that's where the fentanyl is coming from. And they're the ones killing Americans.
- [40:04]
Dave Smith
Yep. No one 100%. And of course, you know these things. It's like if you haven't, it's amazing to me that people just haven't learned at least over the last 20 years that like, these things don't always go the way you plan them out, man. That's the thing about wars. Like, they don't always go exactly the way you think they're going to. And really negative things can come out of that. But let's, let's go to this clip of Donald Trump being asked about the situation. Being Donald Trump, the tough guy.
- [40:33]
Donald Trump
Maduro offered everything in, it's in his country, all the natural resources. He even recorded a message to you in English recently offering mediation.
- [40:43]
Dave Smith
What should we do?
- [40:44]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
He has, he has offered everything.
- [40:47]
Jon Stewart
He's offered everything. You're right.
- [40:48]
Dave Smith
You know why? Because he doesn't want to fuck around.
- [40:52]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
With the United States. Thank you, everybody.
- [40:55]
Donald Trump
Maduro?
- [40:57]
Dave Smith
I don't know, I just think there's something really strange about this clip because what people always kind of say, and I'm sorry, I mean, I just, you know, people always want to say, like Donald Trump, he's like this master negotiator or something like that. And that's why this is always his negotiating strategy. But at least in politics, I'm not going to say anything about the business world because obviously the guy's made billions of dollars. But at least in politics, it's like he's just not that good at it. So everyone always pointed to the Abraham Accords like, this was some, like, amazing success, like the Abraham Accords. The deal was all the other Arab states will drop the pretense that they're one day going to stand up for the Palestinians. That didn't work out too well. And you can't. You know, I. If you might remember, Robin, my first debate with the Josh Hammer. You remember him? Beacon of honesty on a book, I believe. Charlie Kirk's favorite. He'll be the first to tell you. Yes, I was. I was debating Josh Hammer the first time. Josh, of course, is, you know, Charlie Kirk's favorite person who ever existed, according to Josh Hammer. And he. He was bragging about the Abraham Accords at one point. I was like, dude, we're here to debate a catastrophic war in the Middle East. Like, we're literally sitting here talking about the worst humanitarian crisis in the world that's going on right now in Gaza, and you're sitting here and you're bragging about, like. And I said to him at one point, I was like, this would be, like, on the level if I was just like, dude, my marriage was on the rocks, but I found the best couples counselor you'll ever find. Let me recommend them. And you went, oh, well, that's great. How's your marriage doing? And I go, oh, we had a horrible divorce. And a horrible divorce after that. You go, well, then wouldn't you have to stop bragging about how great the counselor. I mean, I'm not saying it proves that the counselor is the reason, but it certainly would kind of hurt your case that this is. So anyway, like, I mean, he had. He tried to get a deal done in North Korea, ended up blowing that because he had John Bolton at the table there. And I don't. But anyway, explain this to me, Rob, because this is what doesn't add up to me about this one. I understand. Even. Even when there are things that are really stupid. Like, just. I think earlier today, he said a thing about how I've talked to these other Arab countries and they'll go in there and destroy Hamas if Hamas doesn't abide by the ceasefire. Like, okay, we see Jared Kushner and Witkoff's interview. It doesn't seem like Hamas are the ones who they had to pressure. Seems like Israel, by their own admission, were the ones they had to pressure, but whatever, at least you could plausibly say there's a ceasefire breaking down. Perhaps Hamas has violated it in some way, and perhaps a threat might get the like there. But if you're telling me that the Maduro offered you everything. And you go, yeah, that's right, he did offer us everything. Because he doesn't want to fuck around and find out, is this it? Why not take everything? Why not accept the offer of as, as you described it, everything. And if you're, you've already got everything offered to you, why is it that you're still trying to play hardball with this guy? Someone explain the genius negotiating prowess of all of that to me. Because that doesn't seem like negotiating. That just seems like needlessly flirting with yet another catastrophic regime change war. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, brand new sponsor, who we're very happy to have on the show, and that is bubs. 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- [46:36]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Rob, I agree with you 100%. And when I was listening to this, my thought was, I'll call that bluff. All right, great. Trump, if you just threatened Venezuela into giving us everything, might not have been my foreign policy, I might not think it's ethical, but if you pulled it off, then great. God bless. Let's not have a war with them and I guess let's take all their oil and.
- [46:58]
Dave Smith
But even if it was right, even if it's not like something like that, they're like, taking. It's like, I just, there's something so like. And again, this is the thing I was pointing out the other day because, you know, I was thinking about it when I was listening to Daryl Cooper's thing. But, you know, you think about World War I and how much like, parody, there wasn't even World War II where it's an army versus an army and it's not clear who's gonna win. And, and still, like, this is how wars are off. You know, if you think about, I don't know, the 1980 Iraq around war, there's like around 500,000 casualties on each side fought until a stalemate. Both regimes standing at the end of it. But like, both just, you know, like a very even fight where neither one was able to take the other one over. America is just like, you know, since the, really since the end of World War II, but particularly since like the unipolar moment, there's just like such a discrepancy between our power and the power of the governments we fight that we just kind of feel like it's almost like we've just accepted that we're these bullies. And, you know, you look at the, the 12 day war, as it's called in Iran, and like the official stories that they were at the negotiating table, like they were sitting down saying, let's do diplomacy. And then at least according to Donald Trump, he was just using that as a ruse to let Israel get a sneak attack on, off. Well, how dishonorable is that? I mean, like, I, like, this is, this is just not the way anyone with integrity or any nation with integrity ought to behave. They were at the negotiating tip. At least see that out. See if maybe you can negotiate a Peaceful resolution to this. It's, it's one thing. Look, I'm not saying it's justified still, but it's one thing if negotiations collapse, but it's a different thing if they're there negotiating. And so, like, in this scenario, you're telling me that, what, like, we, we could, hey, we'll do a lot of oil business with you, and then maybe we'll give you some sanctions relief, and then maybe you'll give us some stricter border control, and then maybe we'll, like, why is that not preferable to stoking the flames of a war? It just seems like, like if you're, Again, even if you're going to make the argument that Donald Trump, which I do not support this because I just think it's, it's gangster, gangsterization, and, and it's wrong. But even if you're going to say, hey, we get a, threaten the, out of these puny little countries to get them to capitulate and do whatever we want, okay, well, like, moral issues, aside from that, okay, fine. But then, like, if you're telling me they've capitulated and they're saying, give me everything, we still move to overthrow them, there's just something being said here. There's something truly sick and disturbing on a profound level about a country that's become so addicted to war, so addicted to permanent militarism that you would have the leader of a country that you have no need to overthrow. They pose no existential threat to your country. I mean, someone give me a break. Venezuela, you know, poses some real threat to the United States of America, but you're saying the leader is just waving the white flag and going, please, let's negotiate. And you're going, no, fuck you. I, I don't know, what about this is America first? What about this is even coherent or sane? Just seems pretty awful to me.
- [50:25]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
More than anything else, I think it's clear that Trump is just, just outright lying to us and that none of these stories are consistent. The drug part's not consistent. The wanting to continue with having a war if the guy's willing to give you all of your demands. Or it could be kind of like the Iran thing with the absolutely no, you're not allowed to do any nuclear technology at all or any nuclear enrichment. Maybe the Maduro deal goes beyond the demands that Maduro will possibly give into, which includes, hey, you got to give up and let us hang know you, you like. Which is also just speaks to what you're talking about, which is all right, well then it's not true when you say everything because you put a demand in here that you're clearly not going to get, but then also you will have done that just because you actually do want a war. And what's the point of that?
- [51:13]
Dave Smith
Yeah, that's right. And I mean, have we learned anything if not that what, you know, what comes after might be a lot worse? You know, you know, I was reading, I was reading this piece earlier today in Haaretz, which is, you know, of course, a, like a liberal, lefty Israeli newspaper. I think it's the, like the oldest Israeli newspaper that's in English and Hebrew, so people like me can read it, which is nice. And the piece was about how, you know, the, the Israelis are, are really frustrated with the fact that there is no real protest movement against Hamas and there is no rival gang, even as they call them, no rival gang that's really stepping up or that might be able to take over. And now. And, and I thought this is kind of interesting because you're like, oh wow. Like, you know, the whole justification for this entire, the entire destruction of Gaza has been, we, we can't have Hamas in power. And after this, you still haven't destroyed Hamas. And after all that, you still actually, it seems like it, it doesn't get people to hate Hamas. It seems like it gets people to hate Israel when you do that to them. And why we think that, like, if we just start dropping bombs on Venezuela, then what, Maduro steps down and like, you know, Jeffersonian Republican or something like that takes over? Some type of like venture capitalist takes over. And the key here is business and lowering tax rates and doing business with American corporations. Like, it seems far, far, far, far more likely that an even more rabid radical takes over and there's just that much more hatred of America in the country. Now, you know, you think about how, look after, after 9 11, right, George W. Bush had record high approval ratings. Georgia W. Bush, I believe, had something like a 90% approval rating at one point, which is pretty difficult to even fathom in today's America. And think about this. I just like, think about the logic of it. Okay, George W. Bush was on the job for, what is it, nine months before 9 11, or is it eight months? Eight months. He came in in January 20th. Okay, so eight months. George W. Bush was on the job before 9 11. Like he, and by all accounts this kind of came out later, but by all accounts he, you know, ignored intelligence and didn't take the threat of the bin Ladenites and Al Qaeda seriously enough and, and all of this stuff. So like George W. Bush had a massive failure. Like on any level, 911 is a massive failure. You know, you got this big gigantic government. Even at the time, even in the year 2001, we were spending tens of billions of dollars on intelligence every year. Hundreds of billions of dollars on our military every year, all designed with supposedly the same stated purpose of protecting the United States of America. And yet they failed to do so against a very predictable threat in the most predictable target. And you know, it's a pretty big failure. And for that we rewarded him with a 90% approval rating. In other words, isn't that an interesting thing about the human psyche right there? Even ourselves, us advanced Americans that are so much better than the dirty Muslims or the, you know, dirty people in Venezuela or whatever, like even the United States of America with our clear thinking Western minds, we. He didn't go down by a single point for what is objectively a giant failure. He goes way up, he gets a 90 approval rating. And why is that? Oh yeah, because we're human beings and we got attacked and we went, hey, we're at war. And we went, hey, this government may not be the perfect government, but it's the only one we got. And they're the ones with all the weapons who could maybe protect us and maybe go get some vengeance for us. Now let's go bomb a country that is the same complexion of whoever the hell was flying those planes. That's about where the regular Americans were. And yet we still can't figure out that like if you just start bombing another country, that might not be the moment where they go, well, you know what, let us crack open this country's constitution and Bill of Rights and see what it is that these people are all about. Ah, see, you see here they have freedom of speech enshrined. Maybe we ought to give that a shot. That's probably not going to be the way this thing goes. Call it a wild guess. So anyway, I don't know, you know, it's one of those things where, and I guess this will be my final thought and then you can get the last word. But it's one of those things where you kind of feel like, well look, there's no way we're really going to launch a regime change war against Iran right now. I mean, Donald Trump already escaped. You know, he's trying to not divide his base over all these other conflicts. The non intervention is half of his base is going to flip out if they try to do this. But then at the same time you just watch everything being mobilized and everything they're saying seems to be indicating they're going in this direction. And then at a certain point you got to go, maybe they're just going in this direction. And man, would that be crazy. Anyway, last thought of the show to you, Rob.
- [56:28]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Well, I guess we'll see how this Venezuela thing escalates because they're definitely channeling that. They're looking for some more war in action in the area.
- [56:37]
Dave Smith
Yeah, no question about that. All right, guys, go see Rob on the road porch tour.com and then we do me and Rob have a one nighter in Poughkeepsie coming up in a little bit. Comicdavesmith.com for ticket links to that one. All right. Alright, thanks for watching. Catch you next time. Peace.
- [57:05]
Donald Trump
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