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- [00:00]
Dave Smith
Foreign what's up? What's up, everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I am Dave Smith. He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein. How you doing today, sir?
- [00:15]
Robbie Bernstein
I'm excited for Boozman, Booze Bose. Everyone gets all mad.
- [00:20]
Dave Smith
I think it's Bozeman. Bozeman doesn't matter.
- [00:23]
Robbie Bernstein
We're playing theater to start the year and I'm doing some skiing, so things are coming together, my friend.
- [00:27]
Dave Smith
There you go. We are. It's a big theater. There are still are. The tickets are selling fast, but there still are some seats available. So go grab them now if you want to. Comic davesmith.com that is. What is it this Saturday the 18th, right? Yes, this Saturday, the 18th. One night only. Our first time out there in Bozeman or Boozman or Boseman. Well, the Rob will be a boozed man for sure while we're out there. Very, very excited for this one. I, I, we got a lot of hardcore fans out in Montana and it's, it's great to go out and see them. And then we got a lot of stuff coming up the following week. Fort Wayne, Indiana and Louisville, Kentucky. Comic Dave Smith.com for all of the ticket links, plus a whole bunch of ticket links for dates that we have later in the year. And yeah, well, there is a major news this morning. In fact, maybe not even this morning. I think it was this afternoon that it became official. I had earlier, a few hours ago, I had was we, you know, we're on a group text and we talk about different topics that we might be covering on the show. And I had sent over a Dave DeCamp article from yesterday about this very topic, but now it seems to have become official since then. By the way, shout out to Dave DeCamp who's just. His reporting is phenomenal. If you want to keep up with, with what's going on in all the wars, you got to be reading Dave Decamp and, and the guys over@antiwar.com I go there every day and it's, you know, people ask me a lot. How do you stay up on everything that's going on? That's a really, a really, really excellent tool for it. So anyway, it looks like there is a ceasefire agreement in place that has been agreed to by all parties. The, the piece that I was referring to, the Dave DeCamp wrote the other day, was that apparently Trump's envoy went over and put some real pressure on Netanyahu and got them to agree to this ceasefire. Hamas essentially has agreed to this deal for quite a while. Now, there's, There's a lot of moving pieces here, so I want to get into kind of talking about all of this. But let me start by. I'll just. On one second here. I have it here. Let's start. I'm just going to read a little bit. This is from the Los Angeles times. More than 15 months into Israel's. I'm sorry, the. The title is Ceasefire Deal reached between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. A ceasefire deal promises to end more than a year of conflict in Gaza strip. More than 15 months into Israel's devastating war with Hamas in the g. In the Gaza Strip, the two sides have agreed to a ceasefire deal that would pause fighting and free some Israeli host in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners. According to U.S. officials Wednesday, U.S. qatari and Egyptian negotiators spent months holding extensive rounds of talks with Israeli and Hamas leaders to broker what would bring a partial end to the conflict that has left 46,000 Palestinians dead, around half women and children, Palestinian officials estimate. For the record, I think these numbers are way off, but that's not really the point right now. The war, which destabilized the Middle east and unleashed protests across the US began on October 7th. Yada, yada, yada, Israeli. Israel immediately launched a relentless barrage of airstrikes. Stuff we all know anyway. That's. That's essentially what we need to read, I guess that is the deal. A ceasefire. Some, you know, of course, even the framing in the Los Angeles time is forget hostages versus prisoners and that whole debate. But this is, I think, a very positive step. Obviously, Donald Trump, again, I want to say I, I had a tweet about this, and it's all a big F. At this point. We don't know exactly what's going to happen. We don't know if this ceasefire is going to stick. The way these things work, this deal could fall through later today and we'll see what happens. And it's quite a leap from that, that this ceasefire will actually lead to an end to the war. And of course, there's also the possibility that after this pressure, that it will be followed up with a giant concession to the Israelis. Trump's got enough hardcore Zionists in his cabinet and inner circ that it's not impossible that that would happen. But I will say, like a big if. But if Donald Trump actually just pulled this off. And if Donald Trump does successfully end this war, he is starting his presidency as a hero. I mean, he's starting his second term as a straight up legitimate, heroic president. If he I said this on Twitter earlier, but if he is able to end this war, and let's say he negotiates an end to the war in Ukraine too, put him on Mount Rushmore. What can I say? No matter what else he does, those would be the two greatest accomplishments of his life. The close third is working out the deal to end the war in Afghanistan. But if he can accomplish both of those things, put him on Mount Rushmore. And I also did offer on Twitter he can take Lincoln's spot. Either that or Roosevelt. Do not come after my Thomas Jefferson. But either of those guys can go anyway. That's just a start. But it does seem to be an interesting development, particularly given how pro Israel Trump is and how pro Israel his appointments have been. It certainly does seem interesting that he would be the guy who was able to pressure Netanyahu to take this deal.
- [06:33]
Robbie Bernstein
Well, there's not much left to bomb in the region. Doesn't have any hospitals left. Seems like a bit of a Jew deal at this point. Hey, we'll stop bombing you for 40 days if we can get back the hostages and they go, all right. Yeah, I guess at this point that's all we're going to get is 40 days for us to move back north, move some bricks around, and then for you to potentially come back in.
- [06:52]
Dave Smith
Well, look, that, that certainly is possible. Again, we will see. It's very early in this thing to really know what this is going to do, but it's hard to not look at this, you know, as just a positive. I wanted to. It's also an interesting note. There was a piece, Dave de Camp again wrote a piece earlier that, and this is really something. Ben GVIR has threatened to quit the government. This is. Ben Gavir is the national Security Minister in Israel. He has threatened to quit the government and called on Finance Minister, Finance Minister Smotrich to join him because he's so opposed to any ceasefire deal. And he, he, he favors, you know, just ethnically cleansing the region. But anyway, there are some people in. What was his name close, very close, though I understand you could sometimes people mispronounce it. The, the reason I bring that up is not just to trash Gevir and Smotrich, who always deserve it, but it makes it seem like the case for optimism about this is a little bit stronger when you have high level people in the Israeli government pitching a fit like this. You know what I'm saying? Like, they're like, seem to be setting up almost as if like you are, you know what I mean, you're betraying us or something that seems to indicate that they believe there's a real chance here that there's actually peace talks going on. Listen, all of that is very unclear, obviously, that it's just being reported 20 minutes before we started recording that this deal is official, although it's been, you know, rumored for a couple days now. But, you know, another aspect to this that is almost just painful at this point, but what a humiliation for Biden, you know, and. And Biden is a guy who we are no fans of, but, man, it's like, how much humiliation can one person take? This is just a total humiliation to Biden and the entire Democratic Party in the middle of, you know, everything else between the election and the fires in Los Angeles and Mark Zuckerberg and like, all these other factors to come in here and, oh, to. Look, I'm not saying this is entirely true. There's lots of moving pieces with this, but the idea that Trump's first envoy that he sends over there could immediately get Israel to snap into. Fall into line, I mean, it's just like Joe Biden has just been, like, just impotently threatening, or not threatening, but like, impotently signaling that he really wants Israel to not do this or he really wants them to not do that while they laugh in his face and do it for the last year and a half. And for Trump to just come in and demonstrate that you can just put a little bit of pressure on them and get them right into ceasefire talks. I mean, again, I can't stress there's nothing new about this deal. This is the framework that's been on the table this whole time that Hamas has been repeatedly saying they agree to. And it's just the Israelis who won't agree to it, like, they're the impediment to peace here. If Donald Trump is able to just come in before he even takes office, he's able to get them to agree to that. It just shows how weak Joe Biden has been as a leader. And look, I mean, who. Who could really be that surprised by that, right? Like, if you just look at it, you'd go, oh, yeah, Joe Biden is old and weak. And Donald Trump, for any of his faults, is a boss and a. And a person. Like, he exists and he's not just the machine running things. Look, I don't know. I don't want to get too optimistic here. It's also quite possible that there is something more that we're not exactly seeing going on here, if that makes sense. Obviously, Donald Trump is very Pro Israel. A lot of people in Israel are very pro Donald Trump. It's quite possible that part of the calculation here is just that to make Joe Biden look really weak and make Trump look really strong. But either way, this is a positive development. And, and if nothing else, you know, it's funny because I'm, I'm on. I was just, just for a few minutes, but I'm just kind of watching the reaction. You know, I've been arguing with a lot of these, like, pro Israel guys on line, online, on Twitter for the last few days. And it's, you know, it's been somewhat entertaining and somewhat frustrating. But it's interesting to say, to see how many of these pro Israel people are furious about this. And they're all over Twitter just furious about the deal. Seth Dillon from the Babylon B wrote, how can there be a deal with terrorists that doesn't involve unconditional surrender? And which I'm a smart ass. So I responded back, it's going to be very difficult to get a complete unconditional surrender out of Netanyahu. But he's, but, you know, he's the Babylon B guy, so I figure you could take a little joke, right? But isn't it kind of interesting? And I, I just, I would say incredibly revealing that for all of the, and my God, I mean, I've really, particularly over the last few days, but really for the last, you know, since at least since October 7, the. How vicious people are coming at me. It's like, oh, you're a Jew hater. You love terrorists. You don't care about these Jewish children who were gunned down at a music festival and all of this stuff. And the meanwhile, my attitude about this is like, hey, look, even if this ceasefire deal doesn't hold, let's do, let's, let's get some of these hostages back, right? I mean, that seems like at least a good, at least if this ceasefire deal is going to go into effect, then it seems like the first step here will be that there's going to be some hostages freed. I thought that was your whole thing, right? This is what I've heard for over a year now, that this is Israel's real concern is that there's these hostages being held. Well, it looks like a deal's in place where you're going to get them back. Shouldn't that be a, like, can't everyone consider that a win? Or was it never really about that? And as Rob said, you just ran out of hospitals to bomb. Just saying, if it's really about the hostages, I think you would support this deal, but we'll see. We'll see what. What ultimately ends up coming of all of it. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Lumen. Lumen is the world's first handheld metabolic coach. It's a device that measures your metabolism through your breath. And then on the app, it lets you know if you're burning fat or carbs and gives you tailored guidance to improve your nutrition, workout, sleeps, even stress management. 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Thank you to Lumen for sponsoring today's episode. Let's get back into the show. It does. If. If you say, like, if. If at least your starting point is. Let's just say that you think this is a good. A good thing. It's better to have a ceasefire if. You know. Again, like I said, I've. I've listened to countless pro Israeli people tell me for well over a year now that their main concern is getting the hostages back and that they really do feel awful about the innocent Palestinians who are being killed. Okay, well, it seems like if you care about those two things, this deal would be pretty good. But let's just say the. The deal. Let's say even the prospects of the deal leading to an end to this war. And actually an end. Like if. If we could just start with the starting point, that that's a good thing. All right, If. If that is your starting point, that if the war were to end, if the hostages were returned and Palestinians stopped being slaughtered and the war ends. That would be a good thing. Like, let's just for the sake of being crazy, let's suggest that that's good. Well, then there's kind of something bigger that's revealed here, which is that this deal was on the table this whole time. And the only reason why it hasn't come to fruition yet is because nobody put any pressure on the Israelis, who, by the way, are objectively our fat welfare mom. Like, we're supporting them doing this. So, like, no one's able to put pressure on the regime who's conducting this brutal military offense of who is relying on our money and weapons and intelligence to do this. So if that's the case, like, if all of that is true, how can you even argue that Israel wasn't the impediment to peace this whole time? You know, if. If Hamas was willing to do this deal, and this deal is a good thing, and all it took was a little bit of pressure on Israel to get them to agree to the deal, and now it's going to happen. I think that pretty much answers the question about who stood in the way of peace this whole time. And that. Look, it's just. It's interesting. It's interesting to see how this will be, how this will be processed and how this will be understood, particularly given the fact that Donald Trump has rhetorically been so incredibly pro Israel and that so many of those really hardcore pro Israel people supported Donald Trump enthusiastically because of that. And so now, if he's the one to do this, it'll. It'll just be interesting to see how this. How everybody reacts to this. I don't know any. Any thoughts on any of that, Rob?
- [17:56]
Robbie Bernstein
I think the Israelis went on a nice regional bombing spree under the weak Biden regime because they were able to get away with it. Donald Trump was signaling in the election with his choices that he was going to be backing them even more than the Biden regime and that they were going to get more of a free pass. So it is interesting to see that, but it might be just like what you said. Donald Trump's good with the optics, and Israel might turn to bigger fights, such as even Iran. But at the moment, I guess no one in America likes seeing the images coming out of Gaza. So could be Trump was smart enough to squash that.
- [18:33]
Dave Smith
Yeah, I mean, I think that there's. There's no question, right, that it was. For the Democrats, it was a political nightmare that this was going on throughout the entire presidential election year. This was just an incredible thorn in the side of Joe Biden and then ultimately Kamala Harris. You know, I've talked about it a bunch on the show before, but there's, according to the most of the opinion polls that I've seen, and this is a few months ago since I've looked at them, but it's about 50% of Democratic voters consider what's happening, happening in Gaza to be a genocide.
- [19:10]
Robbie Bernstein
Probably tank Bobby Kennedy because he couldn't take the mantle of being the true Democrat while supporting it.
- [19:17]
Dave Smith
And 100% and right. It's like run the counterfactual like he, he was, he's the anti war candidate, except he couldn't be the anti war candidate anymore. So I absolutely think it really hurt him. But there's no question that this was like a huge problem for Kamala Harris and Joe Biden too. You know, if you've got 50% of your voting base views you as facilitating a genocide, that's not good. That's not good politics. And again, as I've made the case before, and I really do think this is, this is a, I'm not saying this is like the entirety of the dynamic, but it's a huge, huge component of it is that like, look, where are, where are the young leftists who are outraged about Donald Trump? They're silent. It's, I mean, compared to 2016, it's like night and day. There are no protests against this Donald Trump getting the presidency once again. And so much of that is because those young leftists have been protesting a genocide for over a year. And they, it's just much more difficult to get that energy out of them to turn around and protest on behalf of the regime facilitating the genocide. That just makes it much more difficult. And, and there's no question in my mind that really hurt them. And despite that, they were still unwilling or unable to put any pressure on Israel, not just to get Israel to like, stop the war, but to get Israel to stop like, you know, being so blatant about it and, and wagging, you know, I mean, again, you think back to the, the South African case that they brought to the International Court of Justice and it, you know, it was all just Israeli leaders in their own words saying the most outrageous, provocative and genocidal things. It's. Anyway, I guess my point is that although it's not exactly the same dynamic, it was still going to be politically damaging for Donald Trump to have this. One of the things I've been thinking about a lot more recently is like, okay, what exactly is Donald Trump going to do here? And how, you know, how exactly is he going to keep this coalition together? Or can he, you know, if Donald Trump does. Look, there are people like, like me who, as I said when I first supported Donald Trump, I supported Donald Trump because I thought he was better than Kamala Harris and it was necessary for her to lose. But he. Disappointed isn't even the right word, but he did a lot of terrible things that I hated in his first term. And as soon as he starts doing terrible things, I'm going to be criticizing him for those terrible things. But I'm a little bit of a special case. But even with groups like, I mean, I just don't see how, you know, if Donald Trump really wants to, like, govern as he campaigned. If Donald Trump is going to push us toward war with Iran or he is going to push toward allowing Israel to, like, annex the west bank or something crazy like that, if that is what ends up happening, he's going to lose huge portions of his base over that. You know, it's not just going to be me. There's going to be a lot of other people. I mean, I don't know. You know, I'm not even saying this from any private conversation or nothing like that. I'm just saying this the same way I would if I didn't know any of the people involved. I think Tucker Carlson's going to keep supporting a guy if he's pushing for war in Iran. I don't think so. I don't see how that possibly happens. And that's. You're talking about the most influential right winger besides Donald Trump in the country. I think you could lose that guy's support. And then, of course, he also has a lot of pro Israel supporter, you know what I mean? So it's like, however he plays this here, and Donald Trump does have an ability to kind of do something where he could sell it to every side, you know, like this. This could maybe be something where he, like, I could see this ultimately him being able to sell this as like the pro Israel move or something like that. You know, like, he could be like, look, that they did what they did. You know, they took out Hamas. They. Which isn't true, but, you know, you can say that they took out Hamas. I'm sure they killed a lot of Hamas militants. I'm sure in between those hospitals. Yeah, yeah. I'm sure in between those hospitals, there were some Hamas militants who got taken out. And they took out, no question, like a huge portion of the leadership of Hezbollah, they got Bashar al Assad out of power. They completely decimated Syria's military. They seized Syrian land. You know, they're. You could spin this like, hey, you guys got a lot of what you wanted. Now you have to stop. But that would be a way. If he can ultimately bring this war to an end and not have a major escalation with Iran or with, you know, the west bank or something like that, that kind of would be a way that maybe you could keep that whole group together. You know, everyone could kind of see what they want to see in it. I don't know. I'm kind of thinking out loud here, but it is possible. We'll see. We'll see if he's able to do that. It's. Nonetheless, it's. It does. It reminds me of the. The Iranian hostage crisis, where they. I mean, I think they had actually worked out a deal like the CIA had worked out a deal to not free the hostages until Ronald Reagan came into power. But it was one of those things where this was a huge scandal at the end of Jimmy Carter's presidency, and then Ronald Reagan comes in and the hostages are freed and whatever the. You know, there could be some, like, real shady backroom deals going on here. We don't know that. But just speaking on the optics of it, this looks so great for Donald Trump and so terrible for Joe Biden. It really is. Like, I've just never seen any election like this, including 2020 and even. Including, like, January 6th. If you want to extend the election in 2020 all the way into the first week in January where you had the Capitol riot. I don't. I can't think of another election where it's not just that the Democrats lost. It's that they got obliterated at every front. Every front. Their coalition evaporated. Their propaganda apparatus has been destroyed. Their. Their. Their number one city is on fire. At the moment. People like. The. People like Mark Zuckerberg are coming out, trying to suck up to the new cool kids. You know what I mean? Like, just being like, oh, yeah, those guys are old and lame and they suck. And now you have this war, which, by the way, had its most resistance from Democratic supporters, not from Republican voters. It was Democratic voters who were the biggest resistance to this war. And now your rival comes in and at least has the appearance. I'm not saying this is exactly what it is, but has the appearance of, like, ending it before he even sits in the Oval Office, you know? You know what I mean? Like, you're just like, when you look at this on paper, you're like, jesus Christ. I mean, the Democrats might be the New Whig Party. Like, they may never recover from this. I mean, I, I, I don't mean to, like, overstate the case here, but just looking at this, like, the optics of it are so bad for them. So bad, you know, for. If you imagine you're one of those, I think it was, it was over 70% of Democratic voters last I looked. Again, this is, this is a few months ago, and these opinion polls are never perfect, but it gives you a little bit of a gauge. It was over 70% of Democratic voters supported a ceasefire. Okay? So they wanted this, what Donald Trump just got without even having to step foot in the White House. Which means what? I mean, what, it means that Biden could have done this at any time. All it would have taken as a backbone and maybe being able to complete sentences without stuttering and needing someone to tell you where to exit from after you were done speaking. But that's, I mean, just imagine, like, like try to think of that. Imagine there's a policy that 70% of your voters want, and all you had to do was go and ask for it, and then your opposition leader just goes and asks for it before he's even sworn in and is able to get it. Pretty, pretty damn incredible. It's really hard. Again, I kind of feel like, as I felt when we were talking about the fires out in California last episode, it's kind of hard to overstate how bad these optics are and everything, for whatever reason. And, you know, maybe my spidey senses should be going off. Maybe we're getting set up for something bad here. But it is unbelievable how much everything seems to just be breaking in Donald Trump's favor, at least in terms of optics. Like, it's just like, oh, my God, the narrative just writes itself. I mean, I can't imagine, like, how much fun it would be right now to be like, okay, I guess I was going to say a Donald Trump speechwriter, but then as I thought that in my head, like, I don't know if anyone else is writing those speeches.
- [28:51]
Robbie Bernstein
Be great every time.
- [28:52]
Dave Smith
Donald Trump. Every time.
- [28:54]
Robbie Bernstein
Wonderful. Super wonderful. The most wonderful. Donald Trump has been reading a teleprompter the whole time.
- [29:02]
Dave Smith
There's a lot of tremendouses in here. Are you sure we need that many? And there's just like some short Jewish guy, like, now you need it. You need all the tremendouses. They got to hit them. But if you were like, if you were like a press Secretary for Donald Trump or something like that. What a fun time. You're like, oh, dude, this is perfect. Like, just sit down and spin some talking points out of this. Donald Trump delivered what Joe Biden couldn't while Joe Biden was still occupying the White House. And I mean, this is no, you know, look, again, let's just say it doesn't end the war, okay? But let's, let's say you just, let's say 50 hostages get back over this. How is that not already a gigantic win? Just saved 50 human beings lives. Right? I mean, that's like. And all it took was some pressure, was going, hey, the next guy needs you to clean this up. And I will say that, you know, there the comment that, that Donald Trump made several months back where he said, I forget exactly what he said, Rob, if you remember, but he said like, hurry up and finish the job to Netanyahu is like, finish the job, Got to get it done. I do think while, you know, that was not exactly a perfect statement, in my estimation, there was something there that kind of indicated that he's like, I can't have this nuisance once I'm president. Like, I got enough on my plate, enough I'm trying to do. I can't, like, this can't keep going on. Now, Joe Biden, of course, had also. Or it wasn't Biden, I think it was Blinkett who actually said to Netanyahu that you have weeks, not months back, nine months ago. And you could just tell clearly that if that is the case, those, those words were just, they were viewed as being empty by the Israelis. And because they were, if you don't.
- [31:04]
Robbie Bernstein
Start listening to us, we're going to send you bigger bombs.
- [31:07]
Dave Smith
Yeah, right. But ask you not to use them. Remember that they sent them there. Was that you? All these weapons, we'd ask you to not drop these on civilians, but here you go. I know you dropped the last ones we gave you on civilians. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Kalsha. Are you happy with who won the presidential election or how many seats the Democrats or Republicans took? Well, there's finally a legal way to bet on the outcome for the next elections. A platform called Calshi. Calshi is the first legal exchange where you can trade bet on any event, including, but not limited to elections. Kalshee went to court and won legal approval for election betting. For the first time in over a hundred years, they have markets on who will win the presidential election, who will control the House and the Senate, who will win swing states and more. Kelsey is already being used by hundreds of thousands of people and has facilitated close to a billion dollars worth of trades. Let's take an example. Right now, Trump making fun of Kamala at his inauguration is trading about 50 50, meaning if you place a bet on either, you could double your money if they end up winning. Pretty good odds. So put your money where your mouth is and give Cali a try. Sign up by using our link@cal.com Dave and the first 500 traders who deposit a hundred dollars will get a free twenty dollar credit. That's Cali. K A L S h-I.com Dave to get that $20 credit. We're proud to have Kalshi as a sponsor. Go check them out. All right, let's get back into the show. Oof. It really is. Is something. All right, let me. I will check in with the live chat here in a second. I apologize. I didn't have it up. By the way, guys, if you want to be a part of the live chat and interact with us live on the show, go sign up@partoftheproblem.com that's how you help support the show. And you also get lots of goodies. You get to join the live chat and you get our fourth episode every week, the members only episode. Only way you get that is if you guys go and sign up@partoftheproblem.com checking in on the live chat. How are you guys doing? Oh, what? Saw a comment here about the Wig party. Did I get something wrong? All right. The wig party was a political party active in the United states during the mid 19th century. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, no. I guess someone else had. Someone else said, yeah, the wig party was an old party that went extinct and then the Republicans came in and replaced them. But yeah, they were. What was it like in the. In the 1850s? They were. They were one of the major parties and now they're not.
- [33:54]
Robbie Bernstein
Do they wear wigs?
- [33:58]
Dave Smith
You know, I don't know where the name came from. Maybe. I think a lot of people did wear wigs back then. I'm not sure. But it's wig. No, I think it was. Is Whitney ig. So I don't know. I don't know the origin of the.
- [34:09]
Robbie Bernstein
Be cool if they wore the big judge ones, you know, like the curly ones, the white. And they all wore them.
- [34:14]
Dave Smith
Yeah.
- [34:14]
Robbie Bernstein
The colonial. The colonial wigs.
- [34:17]
Dave Smith
Well, whenever. I don't know if this is accurate or not, but whenever I Picture, like the founders having a discussion. I'm always picturing, like, half of them in those wigs, but I don't know if that's right.
- [34:28]
Robbie Bernstein
Teeth.
- [34:31]
Dave Smith
Listen, Rob, nobody's past is perfect, okay? But, like, come on.
- [34:34]
Robbie Bernstein
The only way I can think straight is with Colonial wig on enslaved in.
- [34:39]
Dave Smith
My mouth and slave teeth. I'm sorry. Listen, Rob requires what he requires, okay? So let's. Let's switch gears a little bit here, because I. I do want to make sure we talk about this a bit. One of the. The. The. Or the big story, I guess, from yesterday, which is a little bit overshadowed by this potential ceasefire deal being reached. But yesterday all day was Pete Hegseth's Senate confirmation hearing. He was the first one up. I believe Kristi Noem is next. And then I'm not sure about the schedule for the rest of them, but we are. Confirmation season has begun. I do not know that there's ever been a confirmation process that was quite as interesting as this. This one following this presidential election for only a few reasons or because of a few picks. But Pete Hegseth was up first. I'm sure you saw some of it. Rob, any thoughts on the. The Pete Hegseth confirmation here?
- [35:48]
Robbie Bernstein
Speaking of the Kristi Gnome one, because they always try and make people look as bad as possible, so I wonder how many people are going to ask. So did you own any pets that you didn't kill?
- [35:57]
Dave Smith
I wonder that. That might come up a bit.
- [36:00]
Robbie Bernstein
That's gonna come up a bunch.
- [36:02]
Dave Smith
I'm sure it will. I don't expect the Kristi Gnome one to be quite as contentious as some others. The Pete Hegseth one has been pretty contentious so far. What do you. What do you think of how contentious it's been? How's he doing in your opinion, Rob?
- [36:19]
Robbie Bernstein
Well, by all accounts, he. He's a smooth son of a gun. He's got the slick back hair, that little grin, just going, I'm too handsome for you guys to get anything on me. So it seems like he dodged and weaved and handled it just fine. The dumbest moment I saw. And I covered this on run your mouth. I can't remember the senator's name, but one guy went on this tirade of who amongst us was actually qualified for their jobs and hasn't shown up drunk for work, which I just thought was the dumbest argument for why this person should be left alone is that that none of us can live by this standard of being qualified and working sober. And then my other takeaway that I thought was hilarious, was he had all these women who were just absolutely yelling incoherent nonsense at him, including the Asian lady who might as well been yelling, you oughta now, you, Honor. Now. So you get all these women yelling about, what do you mean that. Do you really think that mothers shouldn't be serving in the military? And it's like they're kind of proving their own point of. I actually think after this conversation that women shouldn't have any jobs.
- [37:22]
Dave Smith
It. I mean, it really is unfortunate that if you're defending, you know, women in the military, this is who you have at your back. Further, I've been. I find the. Not that this is anything new, but the. The entire confirmation process is all just so childish and dishonest. You know, like, it's just so. First of all, his. Pete Hegseth's position on this, which I don't, you know, even find to be a particularly controversial position. This was the consensus up until five minutes ago. But his position is that women shouldn't be in combat roles. That's very different. And. And you watch every one of them twist that into being women shouldn't serve in the military. But he's been consistent on this, that.
- [38:13]
Robbie Bernstein
He'S like, no, women are great shopping jobs.
- [38:14]
Dave Smith
All right, yeah, there's tons of. There's tons of stuff to. But I don't. But, you know, I mean, look, women being in combat always, to me, felt wrong. And, you know, I. It's like, for some reason, we've gotten into this incredibly bizarre culture where that is somehow taken as being like. Like a sexist statement or something like that. Like, it's. Whereas, like, it's. It's very bizarre when you think about it, that it's like, so the pro woman position is to throw them into combat fighting. It just doesn't. I. I wouldn't see if you were suggesting that you throw any of my family members into combat fighting, and I was opposed to that. I would not think that you were taking the pro my family position. Like, I would think the pro my family position would be to keep them out of combat, not to put them into it. But. But there. There are these kind of, you know, I don't know. There's something. And this is one of the worst parts about political correctness is that it. It shuts down conversations that are often important conversations to have, and it. It trains people to kind of to. To hear dog whistles. It trains people to, like, hear something that they think is offensive, label you as the offensive person, and then shut down whatever Convers. But the truth is that almost everybody accepts that there are to some degree gender roles between men and women. And that is not that that has to apply in arbitrary ways, but to certainly. I mean, look, if I. If any of you, including you, Rob, or is one of my closest friends, including you, Natalie, including almost. Almost everybody I know. In fact, I think I would say everybody I know if. Let's just say someone's breaking into my house in the middle of the night and I turn over to my wife and I go, all right, you got to go deal with that. I'm scared. You got to go deal with it. Right? Everybody I know would never look at me the same like you, just like forever would never be able to respect me again as a man. Nor should you. You know, and you. I mean, like, I don't know exactly what, like, your reaction would be, but, like, if you try to imagine that that's real, that I was just a scaredy cat and sent my wife to go handle what could be a combat situation rather than going and doing it myself, instantly everyone loses all respect for you as a man as they should, because the. That. That's just your job that is on you as a man. That's part. And all men know this. They. They. This is something that's very baked into us from a. A pretty young, at least teenagers, that it's like, you got to be prepared to fight to defend the women and children around you. That's it. Now we live in a civilized society. You're like, hopefully, maybe it doesn't come to that. But if it does come to that, you have to be prepared to do that. And if you weren't, you would be totally shamed. You would lose all respect that you had from everybody. I mean, I'm talking about from your brother, from your father, from your best friend. Everybody would never look at you the same. It's like, okay, if that's the case, which it is, and I believe rightfully so, then we should be allowed to have a conversation about this. What exactly is the role of women in combat? And. And then, you know, it's a whole other door that people don't like to. To examine. But the. The rate of sexual abuse in the military is off the charts. It is a major, major problem, and it's very much covered up. Actually. Senator Al Franken, of all people, I believe, had actually done some. Some good work on this. And then, of course, he went down for posing as groping a sleeping woman's breasts with. It didn't really help with his whole fight against sexual assault in the military. But this is a, he was proven.
- [42:33]
Robbie Bernstein
The port of how much of a turn on military gear is and why men and women need to be separated when they're wearing that kind of gear.
- [42:39]
Dave Smith
Yeah. He's like, look at how distracted I am right now. But, you know, it really just, it is not, at least to me, it's not that controversial of a, of a position. And this doesn't, you, you, you don't have to or you can't extrapolate from that, that therefore there should be gender roles in society across the board in every role. We're talking specifically about combat. And I really don't think it's an unreasonable thing to say that, like, yeah, men should be doing our combat fighting, not women. That is I think his position and I think it's a pretty reasonable one. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Tax Network usa. Do you o back taxes? Are your tax returns still unfiled? Did you miss the deadline to file for an extension on October 15th? The IRS may be ramping up enforcement. You could face wage garnishment, frozen bank accounts, even property seizure if you haven't taken action yet. But there's still hope. Tax Network USA has helped taxpayers save over a billion dollars in tax debt and has filed over 10,000 tax returns. They specialize in helping people like you reduce their tax burden. And they can help you, too. Don't wait any longer. Visit t usa.comsmith or call 1-800-958-1000 for a free consultation. Their experts will walk you through a few simple questions to see how much you can save. Act now before the IRS takes more aggressive steps. Take control today. Visit tnusa.comsmith or call 1-800-958-1000. All right, let's get back into the show as it is.
- [44:25]
Robbie Bernstein
He walked that one back to say if they can pass the test. And even that I'm going to say is this caught my eye because even that's a bit of a weaselly move because on the same charts where they're complaining about that women have lower standards. It seemed like there were also lower standards based on what your age was. So if anything, it should just be there's one standard which means if you're 43 and you don't have the body of a 22 year old, so you can't be in the Navy SEALs, then you can't be in the Navy SEALS. So I, I Even thought that that was a little bit inconsistent, at least based off of the criticisms I was seeing, because on the same chart, it seemed like there were lower allowances if you were older.
- [45:07]
Dave Smith
Yeah, well, I. I mean, look, I. He totally walked it back. And I agree with you there. There's an inconsistency there. And it's like, you should be more clear with your position or don't walk back your position. But it also does seem like, you know, if you want to, like, is in an example like this. Like, even as the. You joked around at the beginning, you see all these, like, clucking hens around him, and you're like, really? You guys are supposed to be convincing us that women should, you know, should be in combat. But you would think if you actually wanted to stand up for women here, maybe you disagree with Pete Hagseth. You disagree with what I'm saying and you wanted to stand up, then you would think your response would be something about how actually women excel in combat. And it there. It doesn't. You know, everyone who's looked at this can see that it's not actually a problem and it's not holding us back. And it is. But none of them even, like, came with that. They all just come with this. Like, you hate women, which is just so boring and lame. Women.
- [46:05]
Robbie Bernstein
I've been married to 12 of them.
- [46:07]
Dave Smith
Yeah, well, they. Well, they're. I mean, I guess we could touch that a little bit too. I do think I'm just here with.
- [46:15]
Robbie Bernstein
My 14th loving wife who's here to support me.
- [46:18]
Dave Smith
Well, this isn't it. So gross though, the way they just bring up so much of the personal. I mean, I got to say, I really hate that. And I think. I think it's just wrong. And I don't. I. I think if we were like a better society, we wouldn't do this stuff. But, you know, I don't. Look, I'm not. I'm not trying to be, like, judgmental of other people because it's. It's easy to be judgmental, but I'm lucky that I found my wife. And, you know, I'm given different circumstances in life. I'm like, I don't think I'm any better than someone who, like, marries the wrong person, the marriage falls apart, marries another person, it fall. You know, this is just. A lot of this stuff is outside.
- [46:59]
Robbie Bernstein
Of our house, so handsome that women just walk up to him, go, here's my vagina. Would you like it that he is.
- [47:05]
Dave Smith
He is a real Ken doll looking motherfucker. That's for sure. But I do just think, you know, I don't. I don't believe in. In cheating in marriage. I have never cheated on my wife and will never cheat on my wife. I think it's wrong. I also don't think it should be brought up publicly. I just think that's. That's so gross. Like, it's not anyone's business. That's, like, private. Now, if you're alleging criminal activity, that's one thing. But if, you know, someone was investigated and cleared of criminal charges, the idea of just bringing it up just because it's gonna embarrass you and embarrass your family in front of the world. I guess I always go to, like, man, how about the woman? She's kind of innocent in all of this, and now she's got to be publicly humiliated. Are there kids involved? And it seems like so many of these people just don't care about that at all. And I don't, like, you know, again, I don't believe in cheating. I think cheating is wrong. I think that's what marriage is about, is committing to one person and. And being faithful to that commitment. I also do not think it's any of my business. I don't think who you hooked up with is, like, any of my business. You know, Like, I. I just don't like that. I would never in Even just in, like. Like, in a personal way or in a professional way. Like, if I. If I had found out that, like, Rob, like, you or Natalie, like, cheated on their last girlfriend or boyfriend or whatever. Girlfriend for Natalie, boyfriend for you. But if I found out that you guys cheated, I would. That would never, like, affect my thinking of, like, oh, well, then I don't think you're right to be on my show because you cheated. You know what I mean? Like, this is none of my business. That's. That has to do it. Like, I. I think the mature, correct thing is to compartmentalize these things and be like, that's your personal life. That was your relationship. I do not know what was going on in your relationship. I don't know all the details about it. I don't. Who knew what? I don't, you know, And I just. I. I find it, like, profoundly disgusting to bring up all of that stuff to score political points that just should never. That. That should not. In a debate. I would never bring that up in a debate with someone, like, in a debate with another, like, you know, political pundit. I wouldn't be like, well, your first marriage Fell apart. Jesus Christ. It's like a scumbag. Are you. That you'd even bring that up. Like, argue the point. Point. If you think the guy's not qualified, make that argument. If you think the guy got something wrong, make that argument. But also, just, like, you know, rumors that you were drunk at a Christmas party or something like that. This just all seems to me to be, like, way below the belt. Now. It's not quite as bad, at least so far as, like, Kavanaugh territory, but it does seem to me to just be way, like, below what any decent society should. Should tolerate. And, you know, know, as I mentioned before, you know, back in the. In the 60s, this is what the media used to do. They used to just not report on this stuff. Like it was. No, the whole press corps knew that JFK was cheating all over his wife. They knew Martin Luther King cheated on his wife. They knew all of this, and they didn't report it because it was seen as, like, beneath them. Like, they were supposed to be journalists. This was supposed to be a serious profession. We're asking you about troop movements in Southeast Asia. You know what I mean? We're not asking you about whether your wife is pissed off that you're seeing Marilyn Monroe. Like, that's just that that's tabloid crap. And I think that's how it should be viewed. That is tabloid junk. It has nothing to do for. It's to be even mentioned at a Senate confirmation hearing. It just shows, like, how. How unserious we are as a country.
- [51:05]
Robbie Bernstein
Alcoholism. But how he's able to function so well as a drunk.
- [51:10]
Dave Smith
There you go. I think it was. You may not have that quote exactly right, but it's pretty close. It's pretty close to being true.
- [51:16]
Robbie Bernstein
The story they had in the New York Times. I might not have this right. I covered it months ago and Run your mouth. But the big scandalous story to showcase his alcoholism was that he had to go home, like, early from a wedding, and they had to send a car team to pick him up for work the next morning. And I'm like, wait, so the guy still showed up to work? Like, it couldn't have been that bad. Just sounds like a guy at a wedding. Like, what is this.
- [51:37]
Dave Smith
How is that thing? That's the thing about it is that it leaves you no sense of, like, what exactly happened. You know, like, it's like. Because this could be. This could be a story that's like, yo, this guy was plastered and embarrassing himself and screaming, and he had to be restrained and had to be taken back. Or it could be a story of like he had three whiskeys and hadn't eaten yet and he went like, ah, dude, this like hit me a little too hard. I'm gonna have to get out of here. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, is it, we, we don't know. And either way it has nothing to do with whether he should be the Defense Secretary or not. And, and especially, especially given the state of the world where the, the are these, these two crazy volatile wars going on, one with a nuclear superpower, you know, like, and, and America is deeply involved in both of them, them. In fact, you could really argue that we are the other side, right? Because Ukraine is not fighting this war without our support for all this time and Israel is not fighting this war without our support. Like we are the deciding factors in this. I mean there might be, there are wars where other forces get involved, but it's not always so black and white that like this war would not be happening if it wasn't for this. So, so you know, France might be sending some weapons to you to Ukraine, but if France stops sending all the weapons they're sending or the money they're sending, Ukraine's still going to be fighting this war. But that's not true for the US like they would not be fighting it without us. And so like, anyway, my point is just like, I think there's enough just in terms of policy, maybe the confirmation hearing should just focus on that. Where are you on these issues? And maybe that should be what you judge a potential Defense Secretary off of. All right guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show which is Prolon by El Nutra, the only patented fasting mimicking diet that combines the benefits of prolonged fasting with a science backed nutrition plan so you can hit your health and weight loss goals without actually having to give up all food. Feeling sluggish, low energy, unfocused, your body might be telling you it needs deep clean. Prolon by El Nutra is a scientifically backed fasting mimicking diet designed to clean out the cobwebs. On a cellular level, just five days can make a meaningful difference in your overall health. A lot of people are talking about these fasting diets. It's all the rage these days. But Prolon is a revolutionary plant based nutrition program that nourishes the body while making cells believe they are fasting. So essentially you get all of the benefits of fasting without actually having to give up. Prolon's five day program comes with snacks, soups, beverages, all designed to keep your body in a fasting state. It's unlike anything you've ever experienced. And right now, Prolon is offering part of the problem listeners 15% off their five day nutrition program go to prolonlife.com p o t p that's P R O L O N l I f e.com potp for this special offer. Prolon life.com potp for 15 off the 5 day nutrition program. All right, let's get back into the show. Okay, let's. There was this one moment that the Internet is getting quite a kick out of with Elizabeth Warren, which actually was kind of an interesting moment. Let's, let's play that video clip real quick. You're quite sure that every general who serves should not go directly into the defense industry for 10 years. You're not willing to make that same pledge?
- [55:35]
Robbie Bernstein
I'm not a general, Senator.
- [55:39]
Dave Smith
You'll be the one. Let us just be clear. In charge of the generals. You're quite sure? All right, so that was the line. And Pete Hagseth supporters on Twitter are touting this as Pete Hegseth dunking on Elizabeth Warren and making her look foolish to the entire room. I don't know that I'm agreeing with that. You know, this is actually a, in my opinion, a pretty reasonable demand by Elizabeth Warren. And personally I'd like to see, I mean, I'd like to see legislation passed that would enforce this. But I, I certainly think like, I don't know why, why it's unreasonable to demand of all of our, our public servants that you shouldn't be able to get rich off of these positions. You know, I mean, there is no question. We talk about it all the time on this show. Rob, you, you always bring this up. But there is no question that like, we all know there's this huge revolving door game that goes on where, where people who do the bidding of the regime are made rich for doing the bidding of the regime. And I don't understand exactly why we shouldn't all oppose that. And I mean all oppose that. Like no matter what your politics are, I don't care if you're a left winger or a right winger or a libertarian or a classical liberal or anything else, a progressive, a socialist, Nazi, whatever, whatever you know, ideology you can think of, of, I don't see why anyone should believe that you can get rich off of essentially doing the bidding of powerful interests with taxpayer money. This is ridiculous. You know, it'd be Nikki Haley who's like an ambassador to the UN is worth next to nothing. And then all of a sudden she's on the boards of these weapons companies and she's making millions of dollars. Who can support that? And I don't think it's unreasonable for Elizabeth Warren to be like, hey, Pete, you said none of the generals should be able to go make money off of their, their military service. How about you, too? I don't know. What do you think, Rob?
- [57:58]
Robbie Bernstein
Works for me. I actually, I mean, Elizabeth, Elizabeth Warren is terrible on nearly every issue, but when it comes to the revolving door of government, particularly in the financial sector, and I guess here in the military industrial sector, she's spot on. But the same issue exists in the pharmaceutical sector. The, the old head of the FBA should not be the, on the board of Pfizer. Now it, it's, it's across the board. And I, I mean, the argument typically is that these people are the most qualified. So like, you know, if you've risen to be the head of, of Goldman Sachs, you understand the financial markets the best, and that's why it makes sense for you to maybe have the position at the Treasury. But they got to work out some sort of a mechanism where you don't get to also just make sure that the bailouts are going to your industry, that only your pharmaceutical companies are actually being, your products are being reviewed or pushed through or because you have the patent on them. You want to see legislation that ensures that every single person in America has to take it. So, yeah, this is a problem across the board. And that was a. I'm surprised that the room laughed and got Pete Hegseth's back on that because she was making a broader point of will you commit to not taking part in this revolving door and going from your post to then being in the military industrial complex? And he took a weaselly technical answer. Well, that's a general. I wouldn't be a general, but it's the same, it's the same question. And that was a Weasley answer.
- [59:31]
Dave Smith
Yeah, I mean, the, you know, to, to your point, it's like, look, I could totally see if there's an answer if there's a situation where somebody has been wildly successful in the private sector and so they've made a ton of money and then you're trying to get that person to do some role in government and someone was going like, well, I don't want a person who's made all this money in this sector, you know, being in charge of the government. Government, okay. There's a little bit of a point there, but I could certainly see a counter argument where somebody would be like, oh, it's because they're the best in this field. That's why they've been so successful. That's why they should come here. But we're not talking about that. We're talking about people who aren't rich and successful in their field leveraging a position within the government to then go get rich. And I don't think, you know, Pete Hegseth was a Fox News host for many years. I'm sure he made very good money off of that. But. But I don't think it's that unreasonable to go like, well, if your goal is to go make money in this industry, then you're free to go do that. But if you want to come be the Defense Secretary, then you have to, you know, you have to promise or you have to be forced potentially by law that you're not allowed to trade that power that you have for future personal profits. It's really that simple. Simple. I mean, it's like there's, you know, when you. It's a real problem that we have, the ultimate solution to. It should be that government shouldn't be so powerful. But while it is that powerful, when, when you're in a position, especially a position with a lot of power like Defense Secretary, you are now moving mountains economically, okay? And economics, and whether or not you want to think about that, that's just the fact. If you decide we're gonna, you know, if, if. Okay. Obviously only the president, you know, Congress is supposed to declare the laws, but in real life, the president does. But the, the Defense Secretary sure has a whole lot of influence and power. And you're going to be making decisions that are going to make certain companies filthy rich, make other nations dirt poor. You're making, you know, and whenever you have that much power, are the people who you're making filthy rich are going to be incentivized to want to make sure you do that. And this is one of the ways in which they do that. And there's just no question about it that, like, whether it's making huge speaking fees, whether it's being put on boards and making enormous salaries, whether it's getting book publishing deals where huge checks are cut. There are all types of ways of paying people off after the fact. And it's a major problem. It should stop. I have no problem with this. This question from Elizabeth Warren. All right, we gotta wrap up here. But I do want to say, you Know, Hagseth to me is really not the most interesting confirmation. He is an interesting one. But I am really, really interested to see Tulsi, Bobby Kennedy, Jay Bhattacharya.
- [62:44]
Robbie Bernstein
Did you hear the Tulsa story, her.
- [62:47]
Dave Smith
Flip flop on 702? Yeah, yeah. You know, I'm trying not to, I'm trying my best to kind of reserve judgment, at least for now on it, but there's no question that Tulsi is, you know, at least signaled that she's going to be flip flopping and on Fed spying. Look, I don't even know what to say. Look, D.C. has a way of changing people and not for the better. Right. You think about some of the stuff Mike Johnson had said about federal spying and also about the war in Ukraine before he was speaker, and then he becomes speaker and all of a sudden he's singing a different tune. And a big part of that is because, like, well, you're just not gonna be speaker if you're still saying that. And I think, think it's been stated, I think openly by at least one senator. But I could be wrong. It could be more than that. But it's been stated that they straight up will not vote for Tulsi Gabbard unless she changes her view on, you know, government spying, FISA court, stuff like that, if that's the case. Okay. And I'm, I'm trying to hedge my bets here because I'm really, I am waiting to reserve judgment if that's the case. I'm not so sure that, like, if I were Tulsi Gabbard's close personal confidant, I might be like, hey, just lie. Say what you need to say and get in there and then do what you were always trying to do. I'm not saying that's the case. It's much more likely that the case is that people, once they get in these positions of power, tend to be corrupted. But I'll, I'll reserve judgment on that, that until we hear more from her at her confirmation hearings and then ultimately, assuming she's confirmed, to see what she actually does when she's in there. But yeah, that's. Things like this are typically what end up happening. And that's why her confirmation hearing and Bobby's and Jay Batacharias are all going to be very, very interesting. All right, we got to wrap up on that comic Dave Smith dot com, come see us in Bozeman, Montana. That is just a few days away. And then of course, Louisville and Fort Wayne coming up the following week, comicdavesmith.com Rob where should people go cranking out?
- [65:04]
Robbie Bernstein
Run your mouths while I'm home. So. Robbie the Fire. All one word. Even if you don't, even though think you guys would like it, it comes out on the days that we don't do part of the problem cover topics that I don't do here. But even if you don't want to check out the whole thing, putting out all sorts of sketches and these wild news intros. So if you've never checked it out, go give it a watch. Robbie the Fire all one word?
- [65:24]
Dave Smith
Hell yeah. All right. Catch you guys next time. Peace.