Robbie the Fire Bernstein (1:57)

You just wake up after getting choked out by Eddie and you're like, the world is flat.

Dave Smith (2:02)

Oh, my God. That's all it took was one armo plata into me realizing he was making sense this whole time. So, Eddie. Well, yeah, that's great, dude. I love those guys. That should be fun. And then, I don't know, we, me and you will be Back. Back this fall. We'll be back on the road hard for the rest of the year, but I really don't have much. I got the comedy mothership as my only last date in August, and that one's all sold out already, boys.

Robbie the Fire Bernstein (2:27)

But get tickets early for side splitters. That's a great club out in Tampa that's gonna sell out. I don't even remember off the top of my head what else we got this year, but I know that that one's on the calendar. Oh, there's also Tacoma, Washington, and Spokane.

Dave Smith (2:43)

That's right. Tacoma spoken. What do we got? Vegas. We got doing. I think we're doing a weekend out there at the Wise Guys out there. Yeah. Comicdavesmith.com for all that stuff. And then I do have a couple big podcasts that I'll be doing this this month, so I will. You know, I'm doing another vacation with the family and trying to not travel quite as much while my. My kids are enjoying the summer. But I. I will have some. Some stuff for you guys, so don't. Don't you worry about that. And it looks like we've both agreed. I think we still have to figure out a time. But we both agreed tomorrow to debate. It looks like now I'm debating Alex Berenson, which is a twist I did not see coming. Not somebody who I saw being on my enemies list, but where are you debating him? Rob Arora is on his show. Who? I like Rob very much. He's a. He's a buddy of mine, and I did his podcast a little while back. I think he's just put that episode out, actually, that we did from some hotel room. I can't remember which one of our trips this was on. But he's. He's great. And he was like a. You know, he did that, uh, he did, like, regular podcast with Jay Batacharia during COVID This is Rob. And he was great on it. He had. We had. We had like. I don't think we've actually ever met, but we were like, started messaging back and forth. He was a young guy who used to wrote right. For the. The New York Post. And he had written a. You know, it was a bunch of articles. He was basically like a young guy who really kind of got radicalized against Wokeism and then also was very, very good through all of COVID And so he kind of naturally is a fan of both me and Alex Berenson because Covid was his kind of defining issue. Um, which I think is true for a Lot of people around his age. But so anyway, he was kind of, you know, trying to. He's, I guess, a good moderator for it. But he asked if I wanted to do it, and I was like, sure. I guess I, you know, I'm not even. I think maybe I shouldn't have said yes to this, but I said yes.

Robbie the Fire Bernstein (4:51)

So what is the. What is the debate topic?

Dave Smith (4:53)

I don't know. He called Alex Berenson out of nowhere, called me a Holocaust denier. That's the debate, I guess. Like, and I do. I will say I, you know, and maybe this is something I have to examine.

Robbie the Fire Bernstein (5:04)

Kind of say, that's a fun debate topic. Where it starts off with the debate prompt is, Dave Smith's a Holocaust Snyder. And you go, I do not deny the Holocaust.

Dave Smith (5:12)

Okay, so now that I won that debate, what's like, yeah, it's like, it's such a weird thing because you're like, well, here's the thing. I'm. I'm not an authority on too many things, but even Douglas Murray would concede that I'm an expert on me. So, like, I win this one. What do you got next? But I will say, and this is something maybe, maybe it does something I need to, like, think about more saying, but there is something where, and I don't know, this. This does make sense to me in my mind, and I've felt this way for many years, but there is something where, like, look, obviously I'm at this point, I'm very well known for being a pretty outspoken critic of the government of Israel, as well as, you know, the Israel lobby, broadly speaking, including the neoconservatives and AIPAC and the whole thing, you know, and so I'm, I'm known for that. And I'm also a Jew. And I also, like, my grandfather's whole portion of the family comes from Germany, and my grandfather escaped Nazi Germany and the rest of his whole family got killed there. And so I've gotten, over the years, I guess, just from being me. I. I get it from, you know, all sides. So I've. I've interacted with people who are like, you know, whatever you would call Holocaust deniers, who are like, oh, you're full of. That never happened to your family. And I've interacted with people who are claiming I'm a Holocaust denier. It's, It's. It's weird to get both. I will say what Alex Berenson does actually does piss me off substantially more than the people who even really deny the Holocaust or the People who really. Because there's something about, like, you know, arguing that you think a historic event didn't happen even if it happened. It always, to me seemed like, okay, you could. You could argue. It's like it's silly or it's ignorant and they're wrong. And certainly you could argue there's malice behind that. There's. It was. It was a. Christopher Cantwell in Michael Malice's book when he interviewed him, who said he asked him, like, if he denied the Holocaust. And he said, he goes, nah, you know, it probably happened. He goes, everyone I've ever met who. Who says they don't think the Holocaust happens, wish it. Wish it would happen. So, like, he's basically saying, like, everyone who doesn't think it happens sure does seem like they'd like it to happen again. Now, I don't know if that's exactly true. I think he was being kind of tongue. Tongue in cheek. But I do. There is something particularly about people who, like, level that accusation at me based on absolutely nothing. It's like, seems like a particularly fucked up thing to tell a Jewish guy whose family died, you know, from the Nazis to be like, you are downplaying how bad the Nazis were. And it does. I would say maybe I should grow out of this. But I did say this. Rob put me and Alex Berenson on a text message right after this all went down this morning. And I did just. Alex Berenson was like, well, do you want to debate this tomorrow? And started laying out, like, how he feels. And this is after he called me a Holocaust denier. And I literally just said. He said something like, I don't usually give up private text information, but this seems fairly harmless, and I just want to be tr. Like, honest about this. But he said, like, he goes, just so you know. You know, I've also been critical of the Israeli government, and I've also been getting some flack about it and blah. And this is after he just publicly called me a Holocaust denier. And I just went. I went, alex, I don't give a fuck what you say or what you've been called. If we were in person right now, I promise you, we wouldn't be having a debate, but I'm in. See you tomorrow. Just so you know, that's the energy I'm bringing. So, like, that was just what I said to it. But, like, am I crazy to just be like, dude, that's like, I don't know. It's like, I think I said this years ago, and some of The. Some of the groipers pulled this up and were giving me shit about it, but I said, look, dude, you don't call a Jew a Nazi or a Nazi a Jew. Those are always fighting words. That's the most offensive thing you could say to those two groups. You know, and there's something about someone like Alex Berenson, particularly someone who I've met. You know, I wouldn't say I know him well, but I've met him, we've messaged before, and I've gone out of my way to. To defend in situations where he was being unfairly smeared. And I defended him both on the Joe Rogan show and on the Tucker Carlson Show. Me and you have said on this show endless nice things about him and his. His coverage of COVID He really was great during COVID This doesn't change any of that. But just, I mean, Rob, honestly, I want your opinion here. And you can feel free to, you know, we disagree twice a year. You could feel free to make this one of those times. But, like, don't. Is this, like, a little bit crazy? So Alex Berenson and just so everybody sees this. So Sarah Fields, who I don't know and I don't follow. I don't know how this tweet ended up in my timeline, but I just saw it in response. She's a Republican state delegate, so she tweeted. This is how the conversation starts. She tweeted, you cannot be conservative and pro choice. That was her tweet, which I do, you know, is a debatable point, but it. It certainly is debatable that she's correct. I. I could see a strong argument for that. You know, it makes some argument that you're not really conservative if you believe in abortion. You could argue that, like the mean. I'm just coming up with an argument for her. I don't know exactly what her argument would be, but perhaps something that, like, the foundational value of conservatism is Christianity, and the foundational principle of Christianity is the sanctity of life. You know, you could make an argument that you can't really be a conservative in. Unless you're pro life. Or in her words, you can't be a conservative and pro choice. So I quote, tweeted that and said, and you cannot be pro life and pro war. They're just kind of building on what she's saying, but you really can't. You know, there's. There's a lot of things that. Now, look, I guess if you want to be really technical, Here, this is a tweet. Okay. You could, I suppose, be pro a purely just defensive war where innocent people aren't getting killed like you. You could support fighting back against the Red army as they invade the United States of America or something like that. But anyway, you know, my, A lot of people, you know, you could be, you could be pro life and pro death penalty without contradicting yourself. You could say that, like, everybody has the right to life and then you forfeit that right when you're convicted of a heinous crime or something like that. But you really can't like, support what Israel's doing to Gaza and claim you're pro life. It's just too ridiculous. If you're, if you're saying that, like everything that the pro life advocates, and by the way, I'm pro life, I'm not knocking it, but everything that they argue in every single debate, that every pro choice pro life debate ever is like, no, look, you just can't kill a baby. That's that that option has to be taken off the table. And there's a very strong argument for that. Now they, Then, you know, the pro choicers will try to go to these, like, rant, well, what if she's raped and it's incest and it's this and which is, you know, fair enough. Like the, there are extreme examples like this and then the pro lifer has to contend with that. But you can't support a policy where tens of thousands of babies are going to be killed because you say it's worth it to get Hamas in order to do that and still maintain it. Anyway, that's what this started off of. Now you might be wondering, Rob, how does that lead to Alex Baronson claiming I'm a Holocaust denier? Like, so, yes, this took just as much of a left turn for me as it seems like for you. So I, So then Alex Baronson quote, tweeted me and said, said the man who thinks Aitz was a spa and unit 731 was a cool sushi place. So he literally just comes out and just goes, says the guy who thinks Auschwitz was the spot. Says the guy who's a Holocaust denier. So then, you know, I, okay, it was literally, it must have been in the middle of the night. I woke up. I don't. One of my kids woke up and I, I went to the bathroom and then I saw this tweet and so I just responded and I said, hold on one second, let me just see what I said. I said, hey, Alex, thanks For being so great on Covid, it's okay that you're a retarded liberal on everything else. I thought that was a reasonable response. At two in the morning. What time was this that I got? 2:15am you know, I was out of a sleep. That was just what I came up with, which I did not, you know, think that much of. And then this morning, Alex Berenson starts tweeting more at me about this. And then it becomes clear that what he's saying is that the same old thing that I. He can justify calling me a Holocaust denier because I said Daryl Cooper wasn't denying the Holocaust in his comments. So therefore I'm also a Holocaust denier because I said that Daryl Cooper wasn't downplaying the Nazi atrocities when he, quote, unquote, was. So that's what that. But then this, I. I just thought this was crazy. This is actually what took it to the level of me being furious. Like, I'm glad I'm not going to see Alex Baronson today, because I'd probably do something immature. Alex Berenson, who has half a million fucking Twitter followers, tell me if you think this is crazy. Rob, I do want your opinion on this. He pins that tweet calling me a Holocaust denier. That is now his pinned tweet is, says the man who thinks Auschwitz was a spa. Is that not kind of crazy? Like, that's a. That's a wild line for somebody who, you know, who has, like, you know, has defended you. Like, we know each other. Like, he's messaged me to be like, hey, thanks for having my back on that show, or whatever. You know what I mean? Like, that type of shit. That's kind of crazy to say. I'm going to advertise to my half a million followers that this Jewish guy is a Holocaust denier. You know, and by the way, when I throw the Jewish thing in there, I'm not saying it'd be just as shitty to do that to somebody who's not Jewish. I'm not saying that. Like, it should be more off limits to say that about a Jew than a non Jew. Everybody should have a right to have whatever views they want to have and to not be smeared. And in this despicable way. It's just like, it is a particularly, like, offensive thing to claim. Like, you're. You're basically saying, like, oh, you. You are defending the people who slaughter your people. Like, downplaying that is a particularly, like, egregious thing to say, especially when you can't back it up with. So anyway, Rob, I'm curious your thoughts, and I'm also weird. I don't think I've ever gone into a debate like this before where I'm like, well, what the fuck are we even debating here? All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is ProtonMail. ProtonMail is an email service by Proton designed to replace your Gmail account for all of your important stuff so you can have a more secure emailing experience. ProtonMail is a great way to start all over again. Your, your Gmail is probably like mine, buried with thousands of messages from the past. And you can keep using your Gmail for garbage, but use ProtonMail for the important stuff. Proton always have a freemium version and you can later change to a paid product if you're convinced about the product. But for right now, you can go create an account for free. Check them out. ProtonMail. All right, let's get back into the show. What is this?

Robbie the Fire Bernstein (17:35)

Well, so I, I, I think you're all on Twitter and being a little bit hyperbolic. Now. I understand that, you know, you've got a reputation and it's easy to censor and dismiss people by pretending like they're holocaust niers or otherwise. And particularly from someone who's as smart and credentialed as, as Alex is. You know, you don't, you don't really want the smart people backing up the actual, the, the pure stupidity of the Internet and these censorship tactics of which he was a victim to. So I certainly understand wanting to fight back against it. However, he's a fascinating individual because his Covid was so sharp and it was so analytical and it was so factual based that sometimes it's surprising when there's topics that you can agree with someone so much on one thing and somehow see something else so differently. So I think it's really cool that the two of you are debating. I think he's being, he's playing the Twitter radio war game a little bit in that in a way it's good because he's so passionate about whatever point of view. I guess he actually wants to debate you on that. You know, he's, he's a Jewish autist too, and he's kind of playing all those cards of like, no, I'm going to get this guy. So I think it's fun that the two of you debating and I imagine that it's going to de escalate, but I think at the moment, all statements that were that you just mentioned are pretty hyperbolic.

Dave Smith (18:58)

Yeah, it's. Look, it'll be interesting to see how this goes, but I just don't, I mean, how. I don't even know what defense he can possibly.

Robbie the Fire Bernstein (19:08)

I think he's trying to debate you on something else and that essentially that the way that you're talking out against, I don't know, his stance on Israel, Gaza, but my guess is he just thinks that you're giving dangerous cover to real anti Semitism and he's afraid about that. And I'm sure that that's the. I'm sure that's the grounds that he's looking to have a debate with you on and that he's a little bit charged up about it. I don't think he actually thinks you're an anti Semite and you're fair to be like, hey, it's not fair to say that on the Internet.

Dave Smith (19:33)

You know, I, by the way, I, and I'm not, I'm not saying this to like, knock him. I mean, like, I don't give a shit about knocking him at this point, obviously, but he's. It might be because, you know, he was like, famously, like, kicked off Twitter and then won a lawsuit and got back on Twitter. I think that's how it happened. Right. They settled or something like that, and he got back on Twitter. I think his engagement is like, I think his accounts, like, not right. Because whatever the number, it's like, literally it has like 300 likes on it, that tweet, and it's his pinned tweet on his account with 500,000 people. Like, I'd like to think that that's just because the argument's so stupid and more people agree with me, but, like, it seems like maybe there's something more than that going on. Like, I, I know I've heard of that before, where accounts are reinstated and they still don't exactly work. Right. Like, you're kind of back, but you're not really back. But I, I guess the point I was trying to get at is like, it's kind of like, who the cares? Like, you know, it's only. I only care because it's Alex Baronson and it's a guy that I've, like, publicly defended several times. But there is, it's, it's a funny situation where you're almost like, just, just understanding the way debates work and the way that they're perceived. It's kind of like he, I don't get what he thinks is going to come of this because you kind of already Lose the debate when you start with that. Like, whatever other topic he would have wanted to debate me on, he has to start with defending. Calling me a Holocaust denier in his pin tweet when he's got nothing, you know what I mean, at all on that. It's. It's pretty wild. It's like, well, now you can't possibly win a debate because you start with such a fucking deficit that it's like, oh, you've already been exposed as being a liar who will smear someone in the most vicious way anyway. Sad. Sad. I mean, it did, by the way. I, you know, I'm saving some of. Got even nastier than that. I mean, I called them all types of names after that. So.

Robbie the Fire Bernstein (21:41)

On Twitter or in the text?

Dave Smith (21:44)

Both. Oh, all right.

Robbie the Fire Bernstein (21:46)

Juicy.

Dave Smith (21:46)

Yeah. Yeah, I'm looking forward to this.

Robbie the Fire Bernstein (21:48)

This sounds like a fun watch. Get the popcorn, folks.

Dave Smith (21:51)

Well, yeah, I am really. This one bugged me, so we'll see. We'll see. It's. I got, I guess, 24 hours until I do it, so maybe I'll have. Maybe I'll have calmed down a little bit by happens, but we'll see. But I don't. I'm not going to go easy on that. It's like a ridiculous thing to say. And it's particularly, by the way, and I know we've. We've discussed this so many times. Daryl has. I know at least like five or six different times in interviews, I've seen him explain what he was saying. Like, if anyone actually does have any, you know, like, genuine curiosity, like, hey, what you mean by that on Tucker? Because I kind of took it this way. Maybe you meant it this way. You know, he's explained it over and over again. And the, The. The kind of hilarious part of all of it to me is that the actual point that Daryl was making, which actually is pretty clear in the Tucker interview, is like. Like, technically speaking, objectively speaking, what Daryl Cooper's point was is the opposite of Holocaust denial. It's literally. It's the polar opposite. What, What Daryl's point actually was was that it does not matter the circumstance in which anyone in Nazi custody died. They were murdered by the Nazi regime. Like, his argument is that all the prisoners of war who died, all the people who died in death camps, all the people who died in concentration camps, all the people who died in any situation like that, it's murder. That was his whole point, was that it doesn't matter. Like, if you. The point he was making that was when the Nazis first invaded Poland. And then when they first invaded the Soviet Union, I think really it's talking about the one when they first invaded the Soviet Union that they. They, like, immediately rounded up, like, millions of. Of POWs. And then there's all these correspondence where they're talking about how they have no idea how they're going to feed all of them. They have no idea how they're going to clothe all of them and all this stuff. And he's going, well, hey, if you launch an aggressive war and you invade a country and millions of prisoners of.

Robbie the Fire Bernstein (23:57)

War.

Dave Smith (24:00)

Then you're responsible for having a plan on how to feed them. You can't just get there and then go whoopsie, like, you murdered those people. If you take them kind of like, in the same way, we would all say, you know, murder is a worse crime than kidnapping, right? Like, kidnapping will get you whatever amount of years, but murder is going to get you life. Like murder is. We all consider murder to be a worse crime than kidnapping, but if you kidnap someone and lock them in your basement and don't feed them and they starve to death, then you murdered that person. Like, you're getting charged with murder now, too. You don't. Like, it doesn't matter if you were like, oh, I was really late on food that month. It's like, whoa, no, once. Once you do this, you have an obligation to at least make sure that person's fed, or you're getting the murder charge, too, now. Anyway, no one can deny any of what Daryl said. No one really has an argument with. Against the logic. No one's arguing he didn't take millions of prisoners of war right after invading the Soviet Union. They just go, well, you're making it sound like the Holocaust was just an accident and they just didn't have the food. And over and over again, he's been like, no, I'm not saying that at all. So once you heard that, you'd go, oh, okay. Like, if you're being a somewhat honest person, you'd go, oh, you know what? I just. I assumed you meant this, but you're saying you didn't, so that's that issue solved. And like. But. But again, the point is that if you listen to the actual point Daryl's making, it's the opposite of denying Nazi responsibility for the Holocaust. He's claiming, like, it really doesn't matter which way anybody died. It's all murder. Seems pretty reasonable to me.

Robbie the Fire Bernstein (25:40)

I'm excited for it. You know, I fell off with him. It wasn't just post The COVID coverage. I used to be a subscriber to the substack, and I didn't love the way that the lawsuit was handled because he had promised not settling the information out. So I've just. I. But he's. He's a very sharp guy. His Covid coverage was really fantastic, and he was kind of at the front. The front lines and cutting edge of kind of debunking all that information. It was coming out, so I'll never.

Dave Smith (26:07)

Take that away from him. You're absolutely right.

Robbie the Fire Bernstein (26:09)

But also just, I think to my eye, he might be the sharpest guy that you're going up against yet. And I'm going to assume he's just going to pivot away from that original stance and was.

Dave Smith (26:19)

Yeah, but I don't care. I don't care how sharp he is. He's not pivoting away from that without. I mean, there's no way. There's no way. We're not doing 20 minutes on that before we get to anything else.

Robbie the Fire Bernstein (26:30)

Well, I'm. I'm. I'm. I'm excited to watch this one. I feel like it's a.

Dave Smith (26:33)

It's weird. It. You're right, though, in a sense. I hadn't really thought about it like that, but he might be, like, the sharpest, most formidable guy I've ever debated, but he's got. The debate is on a topic that is just impossible to win. There's just no way. You can't win that. It's just you. You can't require people to be that stupid and dishonest. Like. No, obviously, first of all, obviously, there's. There's a. Daryl Cooper didn't say what you're claiming. He said that's one level of the debate. Right. But then, like, there's a very, you know, like, there's the argument for. That is overwhelming. Then you got to make the argument that. Because I said that's not what he was saying, therefore, I'm also saying the thing that he's not saying. I mean, like, it doesn't. It doesn't matter how intelligent Alex Berenson is. You're not gonna win that argument. But any. But, hey, we'll see. Maybe I'm wrong. Let's see. Let's see that happen tomorrow. I'm sure it'll. Anyway, okay, let's. Let's move on to some other stuff. I'm sorry, I don't mean to make this all about, you know, a petty feud, but, you know, I will say it is. And. And maybe this is Just me post HWK justifying spending a half hour talking about this. But I will say that I do think this Alex Baron said, and this is probably, you know, like the only thing I could think of was like, what would I even want to talk about after this? Because it does seem like it should be a debate that's five minutes long. Me chastising him going, you know, you're going to take down that pin tweet now, you weirdo. Like, okay, and then walking off. But the only other thing that I think is kind of interesting about this is that it is like, you know, it's like that, you know, the way, the way woke ism, like became this thing that felt like a humiliation ritual. And it felt like as two guys who were comedians who were really, you know, young bucks, the, you know, up and comers, as they call them at the time, but during the rise of wokeism and me and you kind of felt like, man, why do so many of our favorite comedians just have to humiliate themselves in front of the world? Like, that just sucks. And you see it over and over again, you know, and like people like Stephen Colbert, who no one, now that he's in the news for being fired, even remembers was hilarious. Like, Stephen Colbert was so good and then he had to just like humiliate himself on the altar of this dumb, you know, TDS and wokeism and shit like that. Well, in the same way, it does seem to me that this fucking Israel Gaza shit has just led to so many people just destroying their own credibility. Has been very, like, interesting to watch. And you know, and I don't like, I don't take pleasure in, in any of that. At least I do take pleasure in it when it's people who really deserved it, but I don't take pleasure in it when it's people who have done really good work. When it's Jordan Peterson or it's, it's, you know, Alex Baronson or like someone like that, you're like, oh, this is actually like, I guess it's good, it's healthy overall because it's like, yes, you exposed something in the old system and now this same tend tendency is being exposed in you. Like really the same tendency of just like smearing people with like the exact same thing that happened to you when you started doing. You're now exposed for, for committing the same thing. And that is something that is just. It's a major theme of American politics over the last two years or so. Like, you know, really since October 7th. Anyway, speaking of all of that. Let's move into a little bit more of the, the political. So I, this is a dynamic that I think is very, very interesting. Rob and I want to play this, this CNN here. We'll play the, the clip here. It's another, I did this the other day. It's another CNN just reading the polls again, as I always say with these things, take polls with a grain of salt. Take CNN with a grain of salt. But I did find this to be kind of interesting. And it seems again, just like two.

Robbie the Fire Bernstein (30:52)

Grains of salt make one actual piece of salt.

Dave Smith (30:54)

Yeah, well there, that's, there you go.

Robbie the Fire Bernstein (30:57)

And it's a poll and it's not the information that they want to put out into the world. It might actually be true.

Dave Smith (31:02)

No, it's, you know, I don't think, I think you got your math wrong on that. I think if it's, I think it would be like the, the percentages like divided by each other, not added to each other. Like because you got both the untrustworthiness of CNN and the untrustworthiness of a pulse. So anyway, whatever. The point is this, both with the last CNN polls that I played and this one, I do think that while polls are often wrong, these trends are hard to fake. And so when you see things like Donald Trump having his highest approval rating ever when he first came back into office the second term and then his approval rating falling off and seeing that he's like 60 points underwater on the Epstein issue, you're like, I do think that that's getting at a trend here. Whether those numbers are exact or not. Like this is, and this I think might be an even more fascinating political trend. And let me tell you one that makes me very optimistic about the moment that we're living in and the future. But I'll get into that in a second. But let's play the CNN clip.

CNN Analyst (32:06)

This one was a surprising one to me given everything that's going on in Russia, what happened in Iran, what happened in Gaza. But the bottom line is Democrats in the American voters minds cannot hack it. What are we talking about? Party trust? More on foreign policy. Well, the GOP holds an average six point lead in the month of July. Look at this. Fox News came out last week, plus 3 points for Republicans on foreign policy over the Democrats. You think that number is not high enough for you? How about the Wall Street Journal GOP plus 8 points when they match congressional Democrats up against congressional Republicans. The bottom line is this, despite everything that's going on in the world right now, Republicans are More trusted on Democrats when it comes to foreign policy and the world at large.

Dave Smith (32:45)

How has this changed or how does this compare during the campaign?

CNN Analyst (32:48)

Yeah, again, this to me was a surprising number since Donald Trump said he'd come in and broker all these peace deals. And while he's brokered some, he hasn't obviously brokered one between Ukraine and Russia and obviously the situation in Gaza. But take a look here. Trust more in foreign policy. You go back to 2024, Trump had a six point advantage over Kamala Harris. Again, look at the average right now. It hasn't moved. Despite everything that's going on in the world. You see Republicans plus six points here. And this goes back to a larger issue that we have discussed over and over again here in the mornings. Despite any misgivings that the American public might have about Donald Trump, when you match up Republicans against Democrats, Donald Trump against Democrats, still at this particular point, they are doing significantly better than you might expect. And when it comes to the issue of foreign policy, again, what you see is in the American voters minds, Democrats, simply put, can't hack it. More voters trust Republicans on foreign policy very much like they did back during the 2024 campaign.

Dave Smith (33:49)

All right, so I guess the reason why I find this to be so fascinating and I could get into this and you might be seeing where I'm going with this, Rob, but there's something like this almost seems to indicate to me that the two party system itself might actually be in some real trouble. And when I say that that, that essentially means the way this regime operates, which is through a two party system. As somebody who has spent some time, I have dabbled in a third party politics. And you just, you cannot overstate how much the rules are rigged against third parties. And this is part of the reason why there's never a third party who wins. You know, the rules are just so rigged against third parties on behalf of the two parties, down to the, the fact that the, for many years. And this almost like seems like something that's like a little thing that's lost in time. Although obviously the debate was a big deal this last year. It was the moment Joe Biden had to drop out of the race or the moment that led to Joe Biden having to drop out of the race, being forced out of the race. But for many years, access to the debates was, that was the whole game before podcasts and the Internet were huge. It was like, dude, this is going to be the one thing where the entire country gets to see who's running for president. And what are they arguing about? And the debates, the debates themselves are just run by the two parties. Third parties are not allowed in. They set the rules and then if you hit the rule, they just change the rule. They did it to Gary Johnson. Like you have to have at least two major polls where you're polling at at least 10%. And then he's like, I have two polls where I'm polling at 10%. And then they go, we just made it four polls, you know, like, we just made it 15 or whatever. They just won't let you in. And so anyway, you have this two party system and the way this works, what's, what is been called the duopoly, the way this works is that you keep it so that essentially these two parties are the ones that you have a chance. Like, look, we live in a democracy, but you don't actually get to decide anything, but you do get to vote for who decides things. And you can vote for party A or party B. Party A and party B both agree on the 15 things that are most important to us, you know, but they really fight about these other things. So like the Republicans and Democrats might really feel different about abortion, but when it comes to like war or monetary policy or fiscal policy or, you know, the militarization of the police, the prison industrial complex, like any of these, just a number of issues that just don't really come up that much. They just, they completely agree. And so what happens is you have the illusion of having an option, but you just don't really have an option. About these 10 most important things, let's say probably more than 10. But so that's. And what always happens throughout my entire life is that this system has worked remarkably well to keep the American people docile and accepting of the regime that rules over them. I mean, like there's, there's been many times throughout history where, you know, a president ends his presidency in disaster, in disgrace, and the American people go, all right, then we're going to vote for the other party, you know, and this, this happened, this happened several times in my lifetime. This is what always happens, right? Like if, if you know, Jimmy Carter is like a failed president, well, then by God we will elect Ronald Reagan. You know, and Ronald Reagan wasn't viewed as a failed president. And so, you know, we kept George H.W. bush in there, but he didn't do too good. So then we elect Bill Clinton and you know, George W. Bush comes it, we hate his guts by the end of it. So we'll elect Barack Obama and Barack Obama fails. Well, we'll give you Donald Trump. And the way this works is that what always happens is one party fucks up and so then people start supporting the other party because that's the only weapon you have against the party that's fucking up. And this is really the first time that I can think of in my life. I mean, this is where if you go, you're starting the presidency where Donald Trump has his highest approval ratings and the Democrats as a party have their lowest approval ratings. And then Donald Trump just starts everything up and his approval ratings are coming down. Well, then what's supposed to happen here is that the Democrats approval rating comes up because people start supporting the Democrats who are out there going, hey, this guy's up. That's how the American political system has always worked. And I think now this is like the first time I've ever seen this where Donald Trump is up. Everybody agrees his approval's coming down. Not everybody, but his approval's coming down. He's embroiled in these scandals. None of the stuff as they're saying, none of the stuff he ran on is coming true. He couldn't end the war in Ukraine, he couldn't end the war in Gaza. He's the first president who bombed Iran, he's bombing the Houthis. The trade shit isn't really working at all. He's blowing up the debt, he's. The mass deportations aren't happening and the ones that are, are crazy, you know, politicized and not going over well. And yet the Democrats are still sitting on like a 25% approval rating with no increase in sight. And every time you put them up in a head to head poll like this, it's still the exact same thing. I just think that is a very interesting. I don't want to like overplay it because we'll see where all of this goes, but don't you think that's a pretty interesting development? I've never seen that happen before. 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Robbie the Fire Bernstein (40:46)

Well, currently, the Democratic bench, they just have zero talent. The country knows the extent by which they were lied to by the Democratic Party. We just got over the, oh, wow, the guy who was in office has dementia. I mean, there were just the amount of lies that the Democratic Party and the WOKE movement and all the other nonsense that they really shoved upon us for, you know, a pretty substantial amount of time. I mean, the two biggest ones would be, you know, keeping the COVID thing going, the Russia hoax, and then, hey, the president doesn't have dementia. And even if you want to shelve all of that, there's not a single stud on their team that can look like they can manage any problems talk. You know, there's nobody captivating that. You go, oh, I trust this person. They're just kind of embroiled in all these scandals and all these lies without a single person. If you go listen to Bernie Sanders, you go listen to Elizabeth Warren, you go listen to any of these people, you're like, I don't want that person running anything. And then you might look at Donald Trump and go, I hate this. But then you look at the other people and you're like, well, I think that's worse. So, yeah, it is an interesting dynamic that would seem to showcase that maybe there will be room for our third party or a growing interest in the third party. But it certainly is interesting that amidst all the chaos of the first six months of Donald Trump, there's zero talent on the Democratic side. And so there's still zero support for them either.

Dave Smith (42:07)

Yeah, I think. Yeah, I mean, I really think that's it. I think that's exactly right. And I guess maybe. Maybe there's a couple things even more than what you said. Although I do think that just essentially the essence of what you're saying is right is that it's just that the Democrats fucked up so bad on so many major things in a row while also having no talent to be able to sell it. So, like, it's not just that, like. And again, I just, you know, you can't overstate this. This is the stuff we. We talk about all the time. But I really do think we've been on these issues that are the main ones and. And been on the right side of them. But it's. It's between, like, let's say the first one is Russia Gate, such a huge one, this huge claim about how the President is involved in a conspiracy with the Russians to overthrow the government. Getting that wrong then. And the woke insanity. Covid just, you know, destroyed them. It aged so poorly. You know, it's really, really hard to kind of overstate how much the needle moved in a pair. It was, you know, again, I, you know, Covid probably even though, you know, like, people obviously, like, you know, I've become known for talking about the war stuff, but Covid is really what launched us. What launched this show was. It was just like. It was. We were like a little podcast who I think were, you know, doing a good job, but the. We were just so right and ahead of the curve on Covid. And when you started that way, it just like, it became like this thing that just catapulted you because the. The whole country moved so far in our direction so quickly. And then we had this street cred from like, being like, hey, we were here the whole time and. But it was like, you know, there was a point where something like 80% almost of adult Americans got the vaccines. There was a point where lockdowns were, like, supported and there were, you know, it's. It's that everybody turned on it and realized it was all bullshit. Thank God. But so anyway, so there was that and then the Biden being senile thing and then run. So now you have all of this. And who are your salesmen? Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and who do you got on the bench? Like you said, nobody. Even Bernie Sanders, who's is. You've been around this whole time, man. You have. You're too attached to all of this. You never stood up against any of it while it was happening. But then on top of that, and this is why I really do, the more I think about this at this point, I go, you know, and maybe this sounds convenient to say, but I really do think, I mean this, that it was the right thing to support Donald Trump and it's the right thing to not support him now. Like, I, I just think that the Donald Trump winning was necessary to break up this system. And now he's such a failure who actually, you know, isn't going to himself break up the system at all, that now he's got to be turned on too. I think that's kind of like the only hope we have. Because really, I think the other thing is that as we've been saying for, for months now, you know, the Democrats, they lost, they lost their propaganda apparatus. And I think that's really a huge part of all of this too, is that it's not 2017, it's not 2017 where CNN and MSNBC can report all day long about Trump's meeting, Trump' Tower meeting with the Russians and oh my God, you know, and we have, you know, if you remember, Rob, do you remember back to the beginnings of Russiagate is that these were the things they had, do you remember the things they had to sell Russiagate on? Like the, what they really harped on was the, the Podesta emails, right? Russia hacked the Podesta emails and I guess the DNC emails too, or whatever, the Trump Tower meeting. And that off the cuff comment where Donald Trump said, Russia, if you have any more of the emails, I'm sure you'd be handsomely rewarded in the media to release all of them. Right? And that was, but then at, at the time maybe it sounded kind of compelling, but once you looked into it, it was like, Russia didn't hack Podesta's emails. There's never been any evidence put forward of that at all. And even the thing they tried, like one thing they said like, oh, they had Russian IP addresses. But then like everybody who knows anything, and I don't, but everyone who knows anything about like cyber attacks was like, IP addresses are like a 15 year old can alter the IP address. That means absolutely nothing. No, no, real like hacking of official government documents would be done by somebody who would leave their own IP address essentially. But, and then the Tower meeting was just like, oh, someone said, some Russian lady said, some Russian lawyer said she had dirt on Hillary Clinton and they were like, okay, and they took a meeting and then she didn't and they were like, okay. And they. That was it. And then the, the Trump thing where he said it on TV was just like a dumb joke that Donald Trump made that they tried to make. And somehow they tried to argue that like, no, this was evidence of a conspiracy. And you were like, and that's their secret channel is that Donald Trump just openly says at press conferences, like, it was too ridiculous anyway. But back then they could get people watching and they could kind of still control the narrative a little bit, and now they just can't. And so nobody, like, it's amazing. Nobody is buying as much as they're all disgusted with Donald Trump. None of them are buying that the Democrats are the answer. And then I think the other thing, Rob, maybe just in addition to what you said too, is that the Democrats are specifically discredited on the issues that Donald Trump is struggling with right now. So, like, all of them, like, it's like, oh, he didn't end the war in Ukraine. It's like, yeah, but that the Democrats were, you know, this is their policy continued. So whatever, it doesn't help them any. And he's still supporting the, the destruction of Gaza. Okay, so was Joe Biden. We all know they would have kept doing that, too. And then with, specifically with the Epstein thing, it's like, you know, everybody, even the people, like, who are upset with Donald Trump's handling of this, it seems to be unanimously agreed on that. Like, yeah, well, we know the Democrats were going to cover it up too. I mean, they've been covering it. They were in for four years too. There was never even talk of releasing anything of Epstein. Like, obviously, we know if, if Joe Biden or Kamala Harris were, were president that, like, yeah, that would just continue as is so weirdly, without having their, their, their propaganda apparatus. And with this horrible track record, they don't get any good grace points from the Republicans up. Like, nothing really is very. That. That is a very interesting dynamic to me. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Hexclad. I love this company. They have the best kitchenware, pots and pans and knives. I got a bunch of their stuff. Me and my wife both love them. If you're looking to upgrade your cookware, definitely check out hexclad. You've probably heard of them. They've completely revolutionized pots and pans by combining the performance of stainless steel with the convenience and easy cleanup of non stick. But hexclad's innovations don't stop There. 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Robbie the Fire Bernstein (50:39)

Well, I also just find it fascinating that CNN will even take the time and let you know that the Democrats are losing. I find that interesting as well.

Dave Smith (50:48)

Yeah, well, you know, they have been like, we, if you remember, we covered back when they were covering Trump's record high approval ratings at a time too, I think, I think they've gotten the memo that, and this was one of the things, by the way, I think was one of the biggest, most important turning points of Trump winning the presidency again is that like they did stop pretending the MSNBC and CNN and the New York Times and the Washington Post and like all of them, they acknowledged starting then that the podcasts are the media now. Like, even, even their whole conversation was like, how do we find a Joe Rogan of the left? Like, how do we move into. Whereas before that there was like five or six years of them still pretending that like, nah, dude, that's the fringe over there. This is really where it's at. And they gave up on that. So I think they are like, yeah, we'll let you know that, like the Democrats are incredibly unpopular and Trump was at his highest popularity. I think you just kind couldn't deny it at a certain point. There's just two, once the approval ratings for the Democrats are in the 20s, you're like, yeah, I mean, you can't, can't pretend they're popular anymore.

Robbie the Fire Bernstein (52:00)

But yeah, anyway, they got, they got the memo that Kamala Harris was gonna lose and so they jumped ship and realized they didn't want to piss off Trump too much.

Dave Smith (52:09)

Yeah, right. It seems something like that, or at least a real, a real, a realization.

Robbie the Fire Bernstein (52:15)

That they weren't Gonna lie. They weren't gonna lie. You into. Everyone loves her. She's gonna win, support her. And not just take another L. Yeah, that's right.

Dave Smith (52:25)

That's right. That you just realize at a certain point that they're like, you can only. You know, you can only lie to your audience and have your audience shrink and shrink and shrink for so long before you're like, I. I will have no audience left. Like, I have to at least be able to come to grips with. With this. So it seems like that. Anyway, here was Donald Trump just this morning being asked once again about Jeffrey Epstein. It really is interesting to me how much this. This will not go away. Here is. Here is Donald Trump. Oh, hold on. Oh, Natalie doesn't have. Oh, you know what? Maybe. Okay, maybe I'll. You know what? That. That's fine. Honestly, the clip wasn't that important. I think I might have forgot to.

Robbie the Fire Bernstein (53:17)

I think I know which clip you're talking about. If you give me a second, I can send it.

Dave Smith (53:20)

No, you know what, Rob? Actually, just skip it, because I'd rather just do this, because this is. This. This, actually, I think is because I just realized we only have, like, 10 minutes left in the show. So I think this is something. This is something I really wanted to talk about because this happened late last week, but I did find this interesting. Did you see this Dan Bongino tweet?

Robbie the Fire Bernstein (53:41)

Yeah, of course.

Dave Smith (53:42)

Yeah. Okay, so let's. Let's pull up this tweet real quick. And I want to read this because I did want to make sure I said this on the show because we haven't exactly talked about this aspect of it. Okay, so here's Dan Bongino. He tweeted this out a few days ago. During my tenure here as the Deputy Director of the FBI, I have repeatedly relayed to you that things are happening that might not be immediately visible, but they are happening. The Director and I are committed to stamping out public corruption and the political weaponization of both law enforcement and intelligence operations. It is a priority for us. But what I have learned in the course of our properly predicated and necessary investigations into these aforementioned matters has shocked me down to my core. We cannot run a republic like this. I'll never be the same after. After learning what I've learned. We are going to conduct these righteous and proper investigations by the book and in accordance with the law. We are going to get the answers we all deserve. As with any investigation, I cannot predict where it will land. But I can promise you that an honest and Dignified effort at truth. Not my truth or your truth, but the truth. God bless America and all those who defend her. Respectfully down.

Robbie the Fire Bernstein (54:58)

What about there was the even worse comment where he said, what I just saw shook me to my core.

Dave Smith (55:04)

Yeah, that was in there. Yeah. Did you miss that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, he said that shook me to my core. We can't run a republic like this. I mean, look, I don't know. I think, I think I speak for a growing segment of people whose knee jerk response to this is, show me something. Show me something, man. Like, people want to believe. People really do want to believe in this. And, and what you see here is, and this is why. But, you know, forget even the clip of Trump today, but just all you really need to know is the point is that Donald Trump's still defending it today. And you, you know, the idea that they're like, look, we got. It just seems obvious. They're like, we gotta get some of that energy back, some of that, hey, we're getting to the bottom of this. You're so mad about the corruption. I know we've been in for a while and it doesn't seem like we're making moves, but we're making moves. We're gonna do this. But I will just say, you know, I think at this point, you know, it almost. Did you ever see, there's, there's an episode of Seinfeld, you ever see this where, where George Costanza gets caught in a lie with Susan's parents about having a home in East Hampton?

Robbie the Fire Bernstein (56:22)

I don't remember this one.

Dave Smith (56:24)

They, he, he lies about having a home in East Hampton and they're like, oh, yeah. And then like, he overhears that they think he doesn't really have a house in East Hampton. And so then he invites them out to the house in East Hampton and then they take him up on it. And then he can, it's this game of chicken where he drives them all the way out to East Hampton and then he gets out of the car and they're just like in the middle of these, like this tall grass. And he goes, got to go on foot from here. And then like, he's just, and he's just like constantly putting off, like, what this inevitable thing. Like, this is gonna have to come to a conclusion at some point and you're going to be found out for being a fraud if you don't have something there at the end of this. I, I will say this, that I think specifically with the Russia gate stuff, which seems to be what they are attempting to pivot to. And I don't see how I'm wrong about this, but tell me if you think I am. But I think that Donald Trump, Tulsi Gabbard, Dan Bongino, Cash Patel and Pam Bondi are now all in. In terms of their entire reputation. Like, not their positions of power, but their entire reputation. They are now all in on prosecuting Obama and Clapper and Brennan and Comey. Like, I just, I don't see how if you don't end up prosecuting these guys, you ever recover your credibility because you've now, in order to pivot off of the Epstein thing, you've now said publicly that Obama committed treason. We have the proof, and we've sent it to our Justice Department. So you now laid down the gauntlet. Dan Bongino, if you're sitting here like, this is just my point, if you're saying I'm forever changed by this, well, guess what, we better be forever changed by this, too, at some point. I mean, like, I don't know how long they have before this shatters, but, like, the. And I think not that long. Like, you got to be making moves towards this, exposing this, letting us know, hey, Dan, what changed? What is this information that changed your life? Do we ever get to know? Because I'm just saying, I think in a weird way, they are burying themselves with the. With doubling down on. We're going to drain the swamp. We're going to get to these real criminals in D.C. because, like, now, if you don't, you're like, by your own admission of failure, it's George W. Bush having to admit there were no weapons of mass destruction. Once you admit that there's no. I mean, dude, you launched a war on those grounds. So that's it. You're done. Now tell me where I'm wrong.

Robbie the Fire Bernstein (59:17)

I guess I have a slightly different take here. And firstly, you know, I was yelling about this on the Run your Mouth podcast a while ago, and I might try and bring back this joke, but these people are television people, and at times it feels like clickbait presidency. And they just don't realize, like, what worked for you in radio and television. You don't need to have good ratings. We don't need to be tuned in. You don't need to be the focus of our attention. You got to go govern. And so they keep teasing these storylines, and we're actually all angry because it's like, you guys aren't making television. You're actually there. And if you have something fucking show it to me. And if you don't, you don't have to tell me that you're working on something. I don't need to be tuned in for a cliffhanger after the commercial break. If you have something, show it to me. So I think Bongino's being in the world's biggest dumbass here. With that said, I also just think they're playing a different game. I think Trump. Listen, I don't think Trump's a pedophile. Maybe he is. I don't fucking know. I think in some capacity, his name appears enough times in the Epstein's file that it doesn't look good for him to be putting it out. And he doesn't want to put it out. And now he's making all sorts of claims of, listen, this thing's a hoax. They had the files, they could have put things into it. It seems like he's trying to sell the story of, oh, this is Russiagate again, and they're trying to make me look bad. I think for all of these people, you and I care about credibility. These people don't. Donald Trump wants to be able to retire from office, not go be gone after for crypto scams, for Mar A Lago memberships, for Saudi money in hotels. He doesn't actually want to go out of the after the deep state. Donald Trump's in this for. Donald Trump. He doesn't want the Epstein storyline. He wants to move on from it. Dan Bongino will never go back to just being an independent podcaster with an audience that thinks, hey, this is an honest guy, but he might get a great Fox News job, he might get the book deal. Pam Bondi will go back to whatever law firm she was working for, working for Cutter, whatever else as, oh, wow, this lady's a great liar. So while you and I are sitting over here being like, wow, these people are losing all credibility. They're now in the power circuit. Donald Trump wants to get through his presidency and not get buried on the way out. So it might be that his name's in there or he just doesn't want to actually take on the political structure. The people at the CIA said, hey, this blackmail is really important to us. We can't have you undermining the assets that we already have or our operation, and he doesn't want to take them on. It could be as simple as that. Dan Bongino, at this point, he goes, shit, I took this job. I'm riding this one through. And he won't go back to independent media, but he's not going to be without a job.

Dave Smith (61:39)

Yeah, you're not wrong. No, it's a fair. It's a fair point, but it's. You know, your point isn't. It's a very good point, but it's not necessarily in conflict with what I'm saying where I'm just going like, well, look, but when. If this all becomes clear that that's what it is, then, like, all the people who support them politically should not support them anymore. And I do think they will lose that. Now, that. That being said, as the point I've made before, and we'll have to wrap on this, but it's like the person I see who this actually hurts the most is J.D. vance and his presidential ambitions. You know, because he's. J.D. vance is kind of left as the only guy in the room who's like, hey, but I need the voters again, you know, like, No, I know. I know what you're saying. Like, Rob, like, yeah, Dan Bongito could go get a nice job and all this, and like, J.D. vance could get a nice job too. But J.D. vance wants to be President of the United States of America. And I think this is going to be very, very hard for him. He's kind of in an impossible situation. Can't really distance yourself from the administration when you're the vp. So you gotta say you defend it. And then when you say you defend it, you're on record, and that's where you were. And good luck convincing people that you're really gonna. What, you're gonna release the Epstein files this time anyway. All right, we gotta wrap on that one. Catch you guys tomorrow with a brand new episode. Thanks as always, for tuning in peace.