Robbie the Fire Bernstein (6:13)

Like, as always, I 100% agree with you. It's nice. You know, the Trump administration seems to. I mean, the fact that they're actually saying that what Obama did is treasonous is great. The fact that they actually want to go after ex CIA directors is great. They're also pulling in old Biden officials who all want to plead the fifth. Slash don't remember. Apparently dementia is contagious. None of them remember what happened. They all have to plead the fifth. These are great. If they started going after Fauci and wanted to unwind what happened there, that would also be great. The problem is this is at the moment just the B storyline to the Epstein scandal. And so it's nice. Listen, we should go after all these people for the crimes that they did and we should purge them out of the system. But if you're just going to shelve the Epstein story without explaining, you know, without having full transparency, so we all go, wow, we're a bunch of dummies for getting our information on Twitter. Wow, we're such idiots. The fact that we thought that that guy was a CIA Mossad spook and that there were kids involved, man, did we have that wrong. But until they put that information out and we're all slapping ourselves, like, man, we were really suckered I hate to break it to. As nice as these other things are, it's just the B storyline.

Dave Smith (7:24)

Yeah. Isn't this. It'd be like if they gave us something and we went, man, I was so naive to think that Ehud Barack, the former Prime Minister and head of intelligence for Israel, the fact that he was, like, staying at Jeffrey Epstein's house, I thought that was, like, a big deal. But turns out there's a totally legitimate reason for all of that. You know, like, I'd love to get that reason, but then the reason is like, shut up. Shut up and trust us. And you're like, well, that didn't really. That didn't really settle my concerns at all. Well, look, you know, we have particular interest in this story because me and you really did focus on this story for years of this show. This was the biggest story that we. You know, it's hard to. I'm going all the way back now to like, as. As is Tulsi Gabard in. In these documents that she's released. We're going back to, like, 2017. And I understand when you're living in 2025 that. That this is eight years ago, might as well be 80 years ago when it's eight years ago. But you have to. If you could try to understand where me and Rob were coming from, you have to go back to a world where this is before there were lockdowns. You know, this is before the government instituted totalitarianism and made it a crime to go to work or have a funeral for your dad because we had to fight the flu. And, you know, then after that, they forced an experimental, you know, vaccine on people. And then the President of the United States was senile and they were lying to you and telling you he wasn't. And then the current President of the United States was dodging bullets on national tv, and then he went and, look, there's just been a lot going on. So if you could try to understand that 80 years ago in the year 2017, when the intelligence community framed the sitting President of the United States of America for treason, that was a big deal back then. That was big news today. That's like a Tuesday. But back then, it seemed like a really big deal. And of course, you know, that is actually a pretty big deal. And the Russiagate, the whole. The whole scam was enormously consequential. Like, it's really hard to overstate how much that. No, it. It served, like, several purposes. Number one, it kept the corporate media afloat for, like, three more years. When they were on their deathbed, it was like a very effective chemotherapy for, for the corporate media. And they got huge ratings because, again, this is pre Covid and pre Biden Dement. Although a lot of people were waking up to how corrupt this system is. You know, those two, those two events really helped propel that. And at the time, the Russiagate was such a bold claim that it got huge ratings for CNN and msnbc because it was like back then, again, long, long time ago. But back then, people still, it seemed like the average person, if they heard that claim, they would go, well, they can't just be entirely making this up. You know, like they're. The claim from the corporate media was that the 2016 election, which, remember, had just happened. This was, this was the overthrowing of the US Government by a hostile foreign power. And the person currently occupying the Oval Office was in on the conspiracy that Vladimir Putin hacked our elections. Hillary Clinton was supposed to win, but he, he flipped the results to put Donald Trump in, who, by the way, was a willing participant in this conspiracy. This was the claim that was run across every major newspaper, every major news TV channel. I mean, it dominated for over three years. Trump, Russia collusion was the story. And then they. Down to when Mueller was, was getting ready to, to release his findings after, you know, three years or whatever it had been. And, and up, up until like the week that he testified before Congress and released the Mueller report, you had John Brennan, who's being criminally investigated now, is Obama's CIA director. He was on TV saying that Trump himself and his family members were going to be let off in handcuffs on national television. Like, the former head of the CIA was telling the American people that that's what we're about to witness. A report's going to come back and be like, yeah, this guy is not the legitimate president. He was in on a conspiracy. And then, of course, Mueller releases his report and testifies before Congress, and he has none of that. He has none of that. He's, he says there's no evidence that, that, that Donald Trump was involved in this conspiracy and he's not recommending any charges. And, and that, you know, essentially he gave, he threw them a bone in the report by saying, like, there were some instances where what he did could be considered obstruction of justice. Like, in other words, he was obstructing the investigation. But in terms of the actual investigation, like, we don't have anything. And that was already a big enough blow. Just, if you were just paying attention, that it really did destroy, I mean, this was a big part of what started to really destroy the credibility of the corporate media in the eyes of the American people. But then, of course, Rob, as you well know, the story, as we had been covering the whole time, is actually much, much worse than that. It's much worse than just, oh, we investigated it, but couldn't find anything there. And then it turns out, which again, we already knew a lot of this information, but this was really solidified in the Durham report, where you go, oh, no, no, no. It was actually much more than that. They knew this wasn't true the whole time. And the FBI and the CIA absolutely conspired to frame Donald Trump. There was never any confusion. And all of the stuff that they were doing was, you know, do you remember, Rob, you remember how long it went for the three years where they would even start reporting it and just listing the number of indictments that had come from the investigation and almost reporting it, as if that indicated that that meant anything. Because you know what happens? They're investigating the President and his whole campaign team. So they started finding like, oh, this guy didn't pay his taxes, this guy was involved in some financial. But it was all these things that had absolutely nothing to do with colluding with the Russians to overthrow an American election. So they would just go, we've already got 25 indictments out of this. And you'd be like, yeah, but you're saying Roger Stone cheated on his taxes in 1987. That has nothing to do with anything. Or you got a guy who lied to Congress. But the lie had absolutely nothing to do with Russia or the election or anything. So they did this over and then anyway, yes, it became, it became more and more apparent and there was just the evidence, just built and built and built that this was a total frame job and that's what it was. And there's already essentially enough evidence before Tulsi Gabbard released any of this for us to know it, but now she's released some more. So, look, we could get into what she's, what she's released here, but I guess I would just say that I do think this is a shameless attempt to distract from the Jeffrey Epstein debacle and the COVID up of that pedophilia ring. And I think that, look, I, I'll say this. I hope I'm wrong here. I will, I will gladly eat my words on this. I don't think anyone's going to be held accountable for this. I think this is going to be one more government investigation. They're making the claims, just like Cash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard and Dan Bongino and Donald Trump himself, they've made all these claims about all of these crimes that were committed by people in the intelligence agencies, by people in the permanent government. Nobody gets held accountable for it. And so right now, in a way, the gauntlet's been laid down. Tulsi Gabber just said, I've got evidence of treason. I mean, I think she's misusing the term treason, but maybe sedition, but whatever. Clearly, like serious crimes were committed if you want to look into treason. Obama and Brennan did commit treason in Syria. We get into that in a little bit. But she said she's sending it all over to the Justice Department. So. Okay, so here we go. Are you actually going to prosecute any of them? I mean, she specifically names Barack Obama, James Comey, James Clapper and John Brennan. So this is the Director of National Intelligence, the head of the FBI Director, the CIA Director and the President of the United States. That's pretty high level. So, okay, which one of them is getting prosecuted first? Like, I don't know about you, Rob, but like my patience is running kind of thin with this administration constantly dangling that where there's actually going to be some accountability for these elites and for their, you know, their, their instrument organizations and never getting any. Not like we're getting some, but not all of it. Getting none of it. None of it. I know there was an FBI. The one FBI lawyer got arrested or he got charged and convicted, but didn't do jail time. I believe he was the one who actually forged the. Not forged. What's the. What he misled the FISA courts. This was the guy who. Basically what happened was they were framing Carter Page, who was like a low level Trump advisor. They were framing him for being a Russian spy. This was the claim. And the CIA explicitly told him that he wasn't. And they omitted that from their. Or even. I think it was worse than omitted that. They actually said the CIA confirmed their information, which technically was true. But they confirmed like the FBI was like, we suspect that he was meeting with the Russians. And then the CIA told us, oh yeah, yeah, no, he's, he's an asset for us. He did meet with the Russians, but he came back and debriefed us on it. And then they, when they were promote, you know, when they were presenting their FISA application, they told the FISA court that we suspect he met with the Russians. And the CIA confirmed this is true. Which, like they did, but they Confirmed it to debunk the whole need for this FISA warrant to begin with. So that guy got arrested, didn't do jail time, but was convicted. Other than that, nobody's been held accountable. And I just don't buy it. I don't buy that this is going to happen. So if this is their, like, hey, you guys of the world, like, no, stick with us. We're still going to hold the deep state accountable. Like, okay, let's see. It's. You said you got, you said you got all the evidence you need. Okay, when, when are the indictments coming down? Let me know when the trial date's going to be for Barack Obama, because I don't think there's going to be one. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is the Ridge Wallet. I love the Ridge. I've been telling you about them for many years. I use it, it's, you know, I, I, for many years I had the big, bulky, traditional wallet that throws your spine out of alignment and holds like, I think it was made for a time when you had to keep all of your receipts to do your taxes. And we didn't use like debit cards. And I just had it for no reason. And then the Ridge came along and you realize that's really all you need. 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Robbie the Fire Bernstein (20:02)

I, I tend to agree with you. We all saw what happened with the Durham Report, which was basically a way of just getting rid of this. I think that this serves two other purposes for Trump is one, he is trying to pretend that the Epstein storyline is just another Democratic hoax. So if he can revisit that old Democratic hoax. And as you see all the chatter now about Epstein and criticizing for Epstein, it does feel in the way he's being criticized, in the way it's being portrayed in the media, similar to what happened with that fake Russia storyline. And so this does kind of allow him to revisit what happened there to maybe better sell, hey, this is just another Democratic hoax. And then you also just have this strange thing. And I'm going to guess that it was just that Donald Trump handled this one so poorly that he actually should have just let it sit on the back burner till the end in the administration. And now all of a sudden, the media realizes that they have a card to play against him, and so they're all broadcasting all this information. But I guess that does kind of push back at some of the old power structures, such as Obama and the other people that have gone after Trump in the past to be like, hey, guys, back off. I am in charge right now. And, you know, this is sitting on the table. So if you guys really want to, you really want to push that, I'll push on this.

Dave Smith (21:17)

Yeah. I mean, I think it kind of feels like when you see people like, like in the corporate media going after Trump for the, for the Epstein stuff, it is exactly as you said. It's like they just, they smell, they're sharks who smell blood in the water, and they go, oh, he's weak here. This is actually moving. You know, all the stuff that they wanted to be obsessed with, to tell you is why you have to hate Donald Trump. No one ever cared about that. Like, they'd be like, oh, he didn't accept the results of the election. And, like, just, no, no Trump supporter is moved by that. But this is moving people. So they're jumping on that now. You know, it's a very dishonest kind of cynical thing. But again, it is, I, I just think such a hard sell for him to go, therefore, this is one of those same Russiagate plots or something like that. But I just don't, you know, I, I think at least for me. And I don't think I'm alone in feeling this way. I'm sure there are others who disagree, but I've just like, I'm just not seeing anything. Like I'm not, I'm just not buying it. I'm not buying it anymore. I don't buy that you're actually going to hold Clapper or Comey or any of them accountable. And you know James Clapper, by the way, you know, for people who don't remember, this is probably what James Clapper is most famous for. But of course he was the Director of National Intelligence. So he oversaw the CIA and you know, the NSA day. And he was the one who testified. This is shortly before Snowden revealed the NSA spying apparatus. But he testified and straight up lied to Congress. I mean it, it's, he's guilty of lying to Congress. You can do jail time for that. People have done jail time for that. He just straight up bold faced lied. They, they were like, is the NSA involved in a mass bulk data collection of, of Americans? And he said, no, no we're not. And just straight up a lie. He was there as they were building up the biggest spying apparatus in human history. And okay, if, if there's this desire to hold him accountable, there you go, there's your crime right there. Lying to Congress, go prosecute it. People have been prosecuted and convicted for lying to Congress on way more vague lies than that one. Like, you know, like they, they really don't take I just got it wrong as an answer. Like if you go testify before Congress and they want to get you, you better say I can't remember or plead the Fifth if you're going to get it wrong. Like if you go, this wasn't that. I think that was what Michael Cohen got popped with, is that he got the month wrong when he was talking about a business deal. And I believe I could be wrong about this. I'd have to go, it's been a while since I read this, but I believe it was something like they were both j months. Like I think he said July when it was actually January. And he tried to use that as his defense. Like, no, I just got confused. And they're like, no, you said July and it was January. You lied to Congress, dude. Like you're getting convicted for that. And yet this Clapper lie is so much more open and shut than that. Like, obviously you knew you were doing that and just didn't want them to know it and so you said no. Okay, so again, just give me something, give me One of these deep stake, actually hold one of them accountable. And then I'll, maybe I'll start believing again, like, oh, look, they're actually here for justice, okay?

Robbie the Fire Bernstein (24:35)

Not a crime on the same level as lying to Congress or the data collection that took place from the nsa. But I seem to remember a clip of Clapper on the news defending why he had made his statement of the Biden laptop being having all the hallmarks of a Russian operation and once again just lying through his teeth going, no, we weren't interfering or saying that it was. We were just saying that it had the parallels to if anyone took that information and censored content. That's not, that wasn't what we were instructing them to do, nor was that our statement.

Dave Smith (25:07)

Dude. I remember it was like, even worse than that. Like he was, it was like a thing where they were like, oh, you wrote this had all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation. And he goes, yeah, I said it had all the hallmarks. You know, I wasn't saying, I wasn't saying it was Russian disinformation. He goes, no, I was saying, like, isn't this such a crazy coincidence that it's got all these hallmarks? And you're like, what were the hallmarks? And they're like, well, it was very politically charged. Like, you just said nothing. It's just so pathetic. But yeah, so again, like, right, blatant election interference, the, you know, lying to Congress and of course framing the sitting president for treason. I mean, it's like just such a high level of a crime. And these are legitimate, these are people who are you when you're at that point, you're, you're a traitor to your country. Now this is Benedict Arnold level stuff. And so again, it just seems to me like this is kind of like, you know, if you're tired of being a dupe, like you look at something like this, you go, yeah, you're just throwing red meat to the base. But like, what are you actually going to do about any of this? And there has been, you know, which is interesting because only under Donald Trump and particularly when it was like January 6th and the trumped up charges that they, they were thrown at Donald Trump during the, during the last election. Only then did this conversation, at least ever I heard come up in like, you know, amongst the political class and the media class where they would say, like, is the president above the law? This is something we ought to be debating and thinking about or the Supreme Court's going to rule on this and whether or not the president is above the law. Meanwhile, in reality, Donald Trump was really the only president who wasn't above the law. He was the only president who had the law weaponized against him and was actually convicted of nonsense crimes. But the status quo in Washington D.C. forever has been that like, oh yeah, the elites are above the law even when we know that laws were broken. I mean, there's many times throughout American history that it's just, it's kind of common knowledge that like, laws were broken. Like, does anyone really dispute that the U. S. Committed war crimes in Vietnam? Let's say, does anybody dispute that? It's like, yeah, you're like, well, who's, who got held accountable for that? You're like, ah, well, we don't really hold people accountable. You know what I mean? Like, you could lie us into war. We've been lied into so many wars since that no one gets held accountable for that. Presidents have had secret kill lists. Barack Obama killed American citizens without charges. Like, really, that's a pretty serious crime. It's called murder and no one's being held accountable for that. So, like, it was just always interesting when the argument would either ever come up like, is the president above the law? It's like, yeah, but we already know the answer to that's yes. Everybody knows that. Any, anybody, like, with the most basic understanding of how government actually works knows that, like, yeah, the CIA operates above the law. The NSA operates above the law. The president and his war cabinet operate above the law. It's constantly. There's not even an argument about that. There's what, what? Bill Clinton couldn't get a U.N. like, he couldn't get the U.N. security Council to, to support a war in, in what's it called? In against Milosevic in Serbia. And so we just used NATO to do it. You know, like, there's just no. I don't know. Remember there was a big thing made about when the Iraqi parliament voted to kick us out when we were still occupying the country. We just didn't leave. It's like, I don't know. So anyway, this has been the status quo forever. Donald Trump just doesn't really seem to me to actually be committed to breaking up the status quo. But this will be a good test. I'll be happy to say I'm wrong about this, but they've named the. Some of the most powerful people in the Obama administration who are absolutely guilty of these crimes. They have more than enough evidence before these new documents, they had more than enough evidence to prosecute for it. So let's go. Let's see it. Give me a timetable on this. How long you think you need to put the case together? Like, when am I actually going to see this happen? Is it going to be like maybe you could. Maybe Tulsi could have a bunch of right wing influencers to the White House and give them, like a bunch of binders and then we know we're. We're down. We only got a few more months before you tell us there's nothing to see here. Sorry. After the Epstein thing, this is my attitude on this one. So prove me wrong. I don't think you will. I don't think any of these men are going to be held accountable for the crimes that they committed. But that's just a guess. Maybe I'm wrong. Let me know in the chat if you agree. If you think I'm wrong and that we're gonna see justice, we'll know they're.

Robbie the Fire Bernstein (30:05)

Serious if they give out stage one binders.

Dave Smith (30:07)

Stage one, that's when you know. Yeah, you're getting.

Robbie the Fire Bernstein (30:10)

That's how you know there's gonna be a stage two.

Dave Smith (30:12)

Yes. You're getting much closer to the COVID up. When you start seeing the binders. That's. That's what, you know, Evie said, I like Salty Dave. Very good. All right, that's just a little bit. Okay. So anyway, getting into it, there was a, you know, the Post had a good piece on it. I sent it to you earlier, Rob, when. When this first came out. But yes, treasonous conspiracy was. Was Gabbard's exact words. I pull out a couple of the quotes that she had here.

Robbie the Fire Bernstein (30:45)

Well, I gotta ask you, because it doesn't seem like there's anything that's actually new information here. I mean, I thought maybe it's just because I spend too much time in the conspiracy space or, you know, so long ago. But from what I remember, basically Obama and Clinton sabotaged Trump on the way out and they fabricated this whole Russia collusion story. I guess the only thing that's new here is I get maybe direct evidence of the fact that they had a meeting and then instructed the intelligence agencies to revisit the reports and come to a different conclusion.

Dave Smith (31:15)

So this is. This is what is. So. Again, I'm not. I want to make sure I am clear about this. I'm not stating there was nothing that I've read through in this that was like a smoking gun or like a. Oh, this changes. This alters your understanding of how this thing actually went down. But there's no question like, if you were building a house, like a case, you were building a case with bricks. There were, like, a few more really good bricks in here. There were a few more things like, like, if you were conducting the trial, you'd be like, oh, this will make it in. This will be an exhibit. And really what it is is that she got a bunch of communications and even an official intelligence assessment right before and after the 2016 elections where they were all in agreement that there was no significant foreign interference selection. And that is a little bit of a new wrinkle into the whole case, because that I certainly, in the Durham report and in all of the other stuff that's come out, I had not seen that. And that is notable. I mean, that. That really is a. Like, again, not a smoking gun, but bricks in what is at this point, just like a very sturdy, very, very solid built case here. Those, Those are like, those are interesting factors because they totally misrepresented that after the fact and did not at all mention that, like, oh, all of the intelligence actually suggested that, like, there had been no significant interference in the 2016 attack. And then she points to this one intelligence assessment where, like, it all got flipped and then they ran with that narrative. So it would at least, like, give you one other thing to zero in on. But if you, you know, the big stuff like that we always relied on was other stuff. I mean, we. We made a lot out of which I still.

Robbie the Fire Bernstein (33:03)

The Warrens and the text with MCC.

Dave Smith (33:06)

And all that stuff. Well, it was the struck. The struck texts, the McCabe texts, and then Andrew McCabe's his 60 Minutes interview where he laid out the whole thing, which basically the way it went down. And this is how pathetic that even the obstruction of justice claims were at the end, which, by the way, Mueller didn't even have the balls to say Trump committed obstruction of justice. He was like, there are events that could be considered obstruction in their nature. But so essentially they get in, they have this steel dossier, which is total nonsense. The FBI had admitted. We knew this from the Nunes memo, which was another big one from the Nunes memo that he got declassified, that even Comey himself had had acknowledged before Donald Trump came into office, that the. That the Steele dossier was salacious and unverified. Those were his words about them. But yet he still used this to open an investigation against the President. He lied to the president about the fact that he was being investigated. Then when Donald Trump found out he was investigating him for this nonsense, he fired Comey and Andrew McCabe who was the number two at the FBI at that point, he was the deputy FBI director, and he became the acting FBI director after Comey got fired. And he said that they had a meeting at the Justice Department where they discussed what they were going to do about Donald Trump firing Comey, and that they were. They were planning on invoking the 25th Amendment to have Donald Trump removed. And then when. It was only then when they. They realized that they did not have enough of the votes, like, they didn't have enough of Donald Trump's cabinet to remove him under the 25th amendment, the amendment that was supposed to be used for Joe Biden, you know, the amendment that's designed to, like, if the president is, like, impaired or incapable of doing his job, he can be removed. They tried to remove him over him firing Comey because that they were worried would undermine the investigation that was supposed to hamper him. And they said they didn't think they could pull off the 25th Amendment. And therefore, in McCabe's words, they settled on a special prosecutor, which was, of course, Robert Mueller. And I mean, to me, that was the whole admission right there that the goal was to remove the president from office. You know, this. The pesky little democratic process had put Donald Trump in the Oval Office and they wanted to get rid of him. None of them were saying, because we think he's a Russian spy or because we think he over. It was because they wanted him out. And so this was it. It was a. An attempted coup by the intelligence agencies against the duly elected sitting President of the United States of America. But in this case. So again, my point would be the smoking guns already out there. We already had the smoking gun, like, clearly, however, to also have in their own personal communications and intelligence assessments that none of them even believed Russia had interfered in the election to begin with. So there was no. In other words, you take that away. Then there was nothing for Donald Trump to be conspiring with them about anyway. So, like, it does. I do think there's something substantial and significant about the documents she's released here. The question is, what are you going to do about it now? And, like, okay, so I guess you could. Tulsi covered her ass. She's saying, I sent these over to the Justice Department. So, okay, so what's Pam Bondi gonna do with these documents? Anyone think we're going to see the trial of John Brennan or the trial of Barack Obama or the trial of James Comey? Because I'm not buying that. I hope I'm wrong.

Robbie the Fire Bernstein (37:01)

Well, Obama will probably be off the hook anyways cuz he would have presidential immunity, which seems to be a very lax standard of what you can get away for even with crimes. Cuz he was still president at the time. But I have to assume Pam Bondi or Trump are fielding calls right now from Obama warning them that their family members shouldn't go swimming. And the Clintons are letting them know to be careful if they take any bads with toasters. And other than that, you really even just got to be careful around public buses these days.

Dave Smith (37:28)

Yeah, yeah, well, that is true. All of those. I mean, look, those are just in general just good pieces of advice. We all try to live like that. You never know. Last thing you want to be, what am I going to do, Rob? Get on a canoe and go out to the middle of the water and then I just look over and I see Michelle Obama furiously swimming at me. Can you imagine how terrifying that is? You know, no matter how fast you are on that canoe, you're not going to be faster than Michelle Obama.

Robbie the Fire Bernstein (37:51)

Those are big shoulder muscles. Oh, yeah, I can see her moving. Yeah.

Dave Smith (37:55)

Oh, they move. Michelle moves when she gets in there. And then you go, hey, what's that big thing floating behind her? Okay, okay. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Kalshee. This is not your grandpa's stock market. It's a prediction market. The the first one in the US that's fully regulated, CFTC approved and available in all 50 states. You can basically bet on anything that's got a clear outcome. Will inflation top 4% this month? Does Bitcoin hit 100k this year? Who's winning the next election? A lot of these questions that we're all very interested in. And now not only can you bet on the action, but you can see where the markets are and kind of get a better sense of what's going on in the world. You can jump on Kelsey, see what people are betting on. Some folks are trying to make a buck, others are hedging bets. And some just want to know what the world thinks without the mainstream spin. Plus, you can now get on Kalshi through Robinhood or Weball, which is the first time prediction markets have been on those platforms. So next time you're wondering what's really going down, check Kelsey, before you buy the narrative, make some bets, see what the markets are looking like on Cali. All right, let's get back into the show. All right, let's. I guess that's Enough on that subject. We'll see. We'll see where it goes. I will. Listen. I will. I will be the first to admit if I'm wrong about. I'll be so happy to admit I'm wrong about this. And you know what I would even say if I actually believed that Donald Trump and, And, you know, Pam Bondi were going to hold the people who did Russiagate responsible. I'm not saying that would make the Epstein cover up. Okay. But it would be some sugar to help the medicine go down. It would be like, all right, you know, we're not getting this group of elites. I guess that was just too high up there. But could we at least get, you know, the, the. I mean, I, you know, I do have like a. It is personal to me. Like, I would be like, oh, if we could get those guys, hey, at least we did get something. At least some of those criminals in government pay, because it really, like, it just can't be overstated. Like, however you feel about Donald Trump or however you feel about Barack Obama, however you feel about any of them, that is. It is. It is such a profound crime against the American people for any of these guys to say, you know, like, when, when the president, look, it's one thing if you're, if you're in the Congress or if you're in the Supreme Court, you know, if, if something that the president did comes to your desk and you're in the Supreme Court and you go, no, this is unconstitutional. Like, hey, that's your, that's your. The power vested in you. That's your right to say. That's your job to say that. If the Congress doesn't want to support the president's agenda, hey, they have the right to vote how they vote. But, like, excuse me, the intelligence community, like the military, when the president tells you to do something, you say, sir, yes, sir. Because that's the president. He's your boss. And if you don't want to do it, the option you have is that you can resign, you can leave. Like, you serve at the pleasure of the president. And the idea that, like, you didn't like that the president fired the FBI director who you didn't. Who you liked, so you were going to try to have him removed. Like, I don't know. I guess I'm not like a, you know, I'm not a big, like, on a Republican or Democrat or any of that, but that is, that is, I guess, where you get me, where I still, like, go. Like, you know, that's a crime against the Republic, dude, you're not allowed to do that. This, I'm not saying this system is perfect. I'm a big critic of it. There's lots of flaws with government existing at all. But the way it works is that the President of the United States is in charge of the executive branch. That's the way every American at least is. Because if it's not working that way, then you're. Which it of course never exactly does. But like, then you're a criminal in a much more basic sense then, then you're, you're defrauding the entire American nation by pretending that this is how the system works while you really try to operate it from within. So anyway, I would love if some of these people are actually held accountable. I am not convinced they are going to be. Okay, let's. Let's get into a little bit some stuff with Syria because this has been in the news lately and has been about. I, I know I was talking about this with, with you this weekend, Rob, but it has been kind of weird and surreal to see that essentially all. I shouldn't say all. Many of the Israel defenders on social media seem to be somehow taking this as like a big win that things are going so bad in Israel and that Israel had to bomb Syria on behalf of the Druze or something like that. And you know, I. So since, I guess this year it really happened since I did that debate with Douglas Murray on Joe Rogan. But I've got the, you know, what people call the Zio bots are out for me on Twitter now. I don't know if these are actually bots or not, or a mix of real people and bots. I'm not exactly sure. I certainly know there are some people who are real people who are like, you know, have become reply guys to me on Twitter, you know, always whatever. Anytime I post there's a bunch of Zio people in the comments saying oh, Dave sucks or whatever, but it does. I will say I have, I have no idea exactly. But I have. I do suspect that there are a lot of bots in my replies because it seems like over and over again I get replies that are almost. They're just kind of always the same and they don't exactly look like a person wrote them. They kind of seemed like they're like almost have like an AI generated feel to them and there's no profile picture. I get like a lot of these now all of a sudden seem like some type of bot farming. I, I don't know.

Robbie the Fire Bernstein (44:09)

I just had A weird one. Everyone go check it out. Zero Hedge. I do a podcast and I got, I just did one with David Stockman was a deep dive on economic stuff. I think you'd love it. But on that episode, I don't know, an hour after I Posted, there's a 12 point comment chain about following someone for bitcoin cryptocurrency. And I was like, that's a pretty sophisticated bot operation. That it's not just the single bot with some bot, but it's like a whole common thread is if there's a conversation of other people validating, following, whatever. It just looks like a scam to me.

Dave Smith (44:44)

Well, you know, I, someone told me this. I, I did not verify this for myself, but someone told me that after I debated Josh Hammer, when Charlie Kirk put it out on his YouTube page and they said, they went, dude, I went there and it was seven minutes after the video had been posted and there's already like all these comments talking about how you got destroyed in the debate. And they're all like the same format. And then you'd look, you'd be like, how could any of you even watch the debate? It's been on for, it's been up for a few minutes. And then I saw that like later and then when I went and looked in the comments, I was, it was all supportive of me. And so I think they just got drowned out or whatever. But anyway, who the hell knows? I'm just speculating, but there are things like that. Anyway, I've been flooded with many tweets of people being like, well, Dave won't talk about the Druze. Oh, it's only when the state of Israel defends itself that you have a problem. But you don't have a problem with innocent Druze and Christians being killed in Syria. And then there were some people who are like actual people who were saying like a similar thing. And it's. I don't know, it's just strange. It's like, wow. Oh, so you guys, you guys actually, I mean, maybe some of them are bots, but some of them are real people. And so the real people, you guys. So you guys actually just know so little about what's going on in Syria that somehow you thought this was a flex to be like, look, Syria is falling apart. How are you going to blame that on us Israeli foreign policy? And you're like, you're not familiar, so you just don't know at all. You have no idea what you're talking about, what the situation there is. Anyway. Yes, the US and Israel for years was trying to overthrow the regime in Syria and ultimately it was successful and they ended up doing it. And now we're left in this situation that all of us were warning about. It's literally, it's almost like they say it with like no connection to the fact that like Syria has been one of our major issues for like the last 10, 15 or 13 years. There's been like one of our, I mean they do. There must be something, right? Like, isn't there some part of people who are like, like, okay, the non interventionists, what do they have to say about Syria? And you'd be like, wasn't there a whole thing, Wasn't there a whole thing? The non interventionist did used to bring up Syria a lot, right? Didn't Tulsi Gabbard go there and meet with Bashar Al Assad and then she was smear trying to stop the regime change there by Hillary Clinton and the other Democrats. And then people like us were defending her. People like us were attacking Barry Weiss who attacked her for being an Assad toady. Like, is any of this ringing a bell anyway, the, you know, for people briefly, I mean, we've talked about this so many times on the show, but yeah, this was. Syria was one of the seven countries on Wesley Clark's list of seven countries in five years to topple. And they didn't get there in five years. It took quite a bit longer. But it was under the Barack Obama administration that they started the attempted overthrow of Bashar Al Assad. Even going up to Obama announcing that there would be another Iraq style war there. And then there was major resistance from the US military and it didn't happen. But Obama was pouring money in to all of the anti Assad rebel groups. And it became very clear very quickly that all of these, all the weapons were falling into the hands of Al Qaeda and isis and that these were the guy, these were the anti Assad fighters. And we would have given the country over to ISIS back then in 2012, 2013, when Obama wanted, if it wasn't for the fact that the military objected to it. And then ultimately Vladimir Putin came in to protect the Assad regime. And so they didn't get, they didn't get the, the regime change when they wanted it. It was also one of the reasons, one of the things that really escalated the, the tensions between the U.S. moscow or D.C. moscow relations. And it was not a coincidence that it was then a year or two later when they started framing Vladimir Putin for overthrowing our election. So these two stories are all kind of related. And Tulsi Gabbard obviously was a big figure throughout the whole, you know, the whole push for war in Syria. And so these ISIS and Al Qaeda guys, ultimately after Putin came in and after Donald Trump in 2017 cut off the CIA program to back the anti Assad rebels, and then he did some bombing campaigns on ISIS as well. But between Putin and Assad and Iran and even Donald Trump, ISIS basically receded their forces. They still controlled like some areas of Syria, but the civil war was put out and Assad remained in power. And then from those areas that they controlled, just, just this past year, they came in and were able to overthrow Bashar Al Assad. Now, it's not exactly clear because there was some reporting on it, but it's not exactly clear what role, if any, the US or Israel or Turkey or Saudi Arabia directly played when Assad was overthrown. However, if you go, if I like, let's just say there's a country and I start arming one side of the country in order to overthrow the government and they're unable to do it. But then a few years later they come back and they still have the arms that I gave them and they end up overthrowing the government. I think you could still look at that as a regime change operation that ultimately was successful. I mean, I, I, so the, the idea that like Israel or the United States of America has no responsibility for the current situation in Syria seems goofy. That doesn't mean that the people doing the killing directly also don't have the most responsibility for it. But yes, as we've talked about many times here, it's like one of the biggest outrages in modern American foreign policy. And that is really saying something because there's a lot of outrageous that the US has done in the realm of foreign policy in the last couple decades. But the fact is that the Amir of Al Qaeda, Jelani is currently the leader of Syria. That, and that we're, we're supposed to get over that. And then you had people like Ben Shapiro, right, celebrating. And don't get me wrong, I, he, he covered himself a little bit and threw in a word of caution about how this could go really bad for the Christians and the Drews there. But yes, but they were happy because, and, and this was really going back to the Clean Break strategy, going back to the seven countries in five years. This was a big part of why they wanted to get rid of Syria as they saw them as an integral ally to the Iranians and that they were these were the other states in the region that were thorn in Israel's side. And, and the big part, as Ben Shapiro himself laid out, and he was right about that, the big problem they had with Syria was that Iran was able to transport weapons through Syria to Hezbollah. But if you get rid of Bashar Al Assad and you put ISIS and Al Qaeda in charge, that's going to be tougher for him. And so that was the calculation. Now any, any normal person who's an American would look at this and right away go, well, I mean look, Bashar Al Assad has his problems, but you know, he's a secular dictator in a three piece suit who saves shaves his chin every morning. Like, obviously he is not. He's, he has historically protected the Christians and the Drew and the Dru and, and other minority groups. And that's a lot better for stability than having fucking Al Qaeda in there. And also, by the way, I'm an American, so Al Qaeda is my enemy, like a legitimate enemy of the American people. And if some weapons get through from Iran to Hezbollah, well, that sure smells like it's Israel's problem and not ours. But that's not the way US Foreign policy works. And so we picked this situation. And now tragically, but very predictably, it's like the Christians and the Druze are being horribly mistreated. It's terrible. So, you know, I, I don't know, I was reading about it, I don't know exactly what the extent was, but there was major clashes and there were, I saw one report that did have, it was something in the neighborhood of like 200 civilians were straight up, like just executed, like lined up executed. That's it. So it's a horrible situation there. But again, to all these people, like, I'm sorry, but it's just there is this weird thing where you get into debates with some of these Zionists and they start using points and you're like, no, that's my point. That's not your point. You don't get to use my point again. It's like, anyway. And of course, Rob, as you know, as we covered immediately when the regime in, in Syria fell, Israel immediately took a big chunk of it. Then they bombed a whole bunch of their military supplies and then they just did another bombing campaign today. And don't tell me for a second that Israel is bombing Syria out of some humanitarian desire to make sure that there's not more Druze who are killed. Like, that's, yes, that's what motivates Israel's war policy. They just can't. The, the people who have inflicted the destruction of Gaza for the last two years are like, we just can't watch these innocent people die in Syria. That's what motivated them. I mean, come on. No, they're trying. Their goal here is to keep Syria as weak as possible and, and make sure that it's not a problem for them in the future. Their number one priority was to stop the weapons going into Lebanon. Now that they got that taken care of, they also realize this is a pretty unstable situation. So anyway, they want to occupy more of Syria too. That's always been part of the Greater Israel project. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which are NASA Today. Chips. Everybody has been talking about these massive chips. All chips and fries used to be cooked in tallow up until the 1990s when big corporations switched to cheap processed seed oils. Today, seed oils make up to 20% of the average American's daily calories. And recent studies have linked seed oils to metabolic health issues and inflammation in the body. Masa decided to do something about it. They created a tasty and delicious tortilla chip with just three ingredients and no seed oils. Organic, nixtamalized corn, sea salt, and 100% grass fed beef tallow. These chips don't only avoid all the bad stuff, they taste incredible too. Masa is crunchier, tastier and sturdier than other chips. 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Robbie the Fire Bernstein (56:08)

I saw Times of, I saw Times of Israel article that was saying that the someone in the Donald Trump administration was criticizing Netanyahu over the bombing and saying this madman will bomb anything. And it's like, well then quit giving him the bombs. I mean, that, that, that's us. We're the guy handing the, the madman this stuff.

Dave Smith (56:28)

Yeah, it's. Well, it's kind of like much like with The Epstein thing. Or you're just kind of like, yeah, but if you want everyone to shut up about it, you at least gotta have something to say. Like, you gotta have a narrative. You gotta at least like, release some more documents and then say there's nothing jury.

Robbie the Fire Bernstein (56:45)

Sounds like such baloney. All right, fine. You guys are upset about this. I'll release the grand jury. Guys, that's not. That's not our biggest questions here.

Dave Smith (56:53)

Yeah, like, come on. But. But it is them recognizing we got to at least give you something. But the same with this. It's like people go like, oh, you like so many of these people, they're like, just stop talking about Israel all the time. Or stop. It's like, yeah, but when you see something like that, like, who knows if that's even true? You know? But like, you see something like that. What we know it is true is that this guy can't stop bombing everything. It's like, unbelievable. It is so crazy that Israel's image in the world has fallen off a cliff so much in the last couple years and that there's so much, like, you just see, look, however you feel about the situation, right, for both the Democrats and the Republicans. So let's say for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and for Donald Trump, politically speaking, Israel is such a pain in the ass for them. Like, it's. It really hurt. It. It totally. It was devastating to the Democratic Party and, And particularly for their prospects in the 2024 election that you had this, this catastrophe in Gaza going on the whole time. You know, you have massive. The entire left wing base in America, which the Democrats count on to be their attack dog, to be their pit bull, to be their strongest advocates. You know, that that's what they rely on. And that entire energy for the entire presidential election year was completely devoted to opposing Joe Biden's policy of backing Netanyahu's war. This was just devastating. It's part of the reason why you almost have to feel bad for Kamala Harris because, you know, on top of being the least charismatic person with like an 85 IQ, now you got to deal with that. I mean, it's just, look, that's a tough situation for anyone. It's like, try to. You could almost imagine a position like a Republican was. Let's just say a Republican was for open borders. They're the president and their borders are wide open. And the entire right wing base just opposes this. And then you're their vice president trying to run for re election. Like, you just look at that. You're like, I'm totally sabotaged before I go in there. That's why everyone knew, like, when, when they asked her on the View, what would you have done different than Biden? And she couldn't really think of anything. You're like, wow, you just blew it completely. You, you know, and so she was in a very tough situation. It totally cost them any chance of, of being competitive in this election. And now Donald Trump, again, as we pointed out when he's bombing Iran, he's got to deal with Bannon and Tucker and all, like, his guys being furious at the policy. And so it's a huge political thorn in the heel of both major parties, and yet they keep funding it. Like, what do we know about politicians? Typically speaking, if something's politically bad for them, they just won't do that. The politician could have told you he's your best friend in the world two days ago. And if he finds out, it'll cost him votes. If he talks to you anymore, he'll just never talk to you again because they don't have souls. They're politicians, but not when it comes to this. And again, as we've mentioned all over, you know, you just, you really can't even imagine that, like, Israel is. They're becoming. So they're seen as a pariah state because of their destruction of, of Gaza, and they won't even stop building settlements on the west bank during that time. They're like, no, screw it, we're going to do that, too. Also, we're going to bomb Yemen. Also, we're going to bomb Lebanon. Also, we're going to bomb Iran. Also, we're going to bomb Syria. Like, it's just, just attacking everyone and then sitting back and going, hey, we're just this tiny. We're this teeny little Jewish state surrounded by a sea of hostiles. And it's like, well, for somebody who claims to be so vulnerable, you sure act as if you just have impunity. And why do they have impunity? Because the US the most powerful government in the history of ever, will back them up no matter what. And so anyway, that, you know, Syria, look, what can you say at this point? I mean, I, I don't know. Like, you guys worked for years to overthrow the secular dictatorship there. Even after seeing so many examples of secular dictators being overthrown in this region and it becoming a catastrophe, you've now put the only group in the region who actually is a legitimate enemy of the American people. You've put them in power and now yeah, there's signs that it's a disaster or that it's going to turn into a disaster. So, like, I don't know, hopefully it doesn't turn into the disaster that it potentially could, but I don't really know what else to even say at this point. I mean, I don't think, you know, you feel horrible for any of the innocent people who are caught there. What are we, what are you going to do? You going to try to overthrow this government now and see what comes next? You know, it's a, it's a terrible, a terrible situation that was intentionally created by, ironically, a lot of the same people who are responsible for the Russiagate hoax. I mean, it was Barack Obama and John Brennan who consciously made the decision to arm Al Qaeda and isis. And that is, as I've been saying for many, many years now. But I just, it can never be overstated enough that, that because the word treason gets thrown around so much. But that is actually what treason means. Like, that's what the term means. Giving aid and comfort to the enemy in wartime. It's like one of the, you know, worst scandals I've ever seen in my life. Another one that I don't think anyone will be held responsible for. But yeah, so anyway, so that's the situation there. So I don't know, this is, it's just really, yet again, a pathetic attempt by these, these Israel defenders to one be like, first of all, it's just a dumb, like, irrelevant point. Oh, you care about all these people dying here? Well, what about over there? It's like, okay, even, even if it is a terrible thing that we're not talking about, there's still nothing wrong with focusing on one terrible thing. Like, okay, and it's not as if nearly as many people have died in the last couple weeks here as have died in, in Gaza in the last couple weeks or in the last couple years. There was horrible fighting in, in Syria and a lot, a lot more people died during the civil war. But that's been over for years now, and that was only started because Obama started it. But yeah, this is, this is, this is a disaster. And it's a disaster specifically because they were on the list of countries to overthrow that the Israeli government and the US Government agreed on. So, sorry, Israel defenders, try again next time, but this isn't going to be the example. Any final thoughts? Up to you, Rob, and then we'll wrap up.

Robbie the Fire Bernstein (64:04)

I think, I think we covered it. Back tomorrow, go check out the website, partoftheproblem.com for the live shows and portstore.com for all my live dates and Zero Hedge podcasts. You can hear me and David Stockman breaking down tariffs and all the economic stuff.

Dave Smith (64:17)

I'm, I'm going to listen to that this afternoon. I'm very excited to. David Stockman is one of the best economic minds of his time. And, of course, Robbie the Fire Bernstein is our guy and the man. So anyway, do that and. Yep. All right. Catch you guys next time. Peace.