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- [00:00]
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- [00:45]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
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- [01:15]
Dave Smith
Hey, guys. Today's show is brought to you by yecratom.com home of the $60 kilo, longtime sponsor of the Part of the Problem podcast. If you are over the age of 21, you enjoy kratom. Make sure you get it from yom.com because, well, you'll be supporting the show and it's delivered right to your door. And it's the best price you're going to find anywhere. Only $60 for a kilo@yom.com. all right, let's start today's show. Oh, what's up, everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I am Dave Smith and he is Robbie the Fire Bernstein. Thank you, everybody for listening. How are you today, Roberto?
- [02:01]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Appleton, Wisconsin, my friend. Just a couple days away and I didn't realize this was the branch of comedy clubs that has the Good Whiskey.
- [02:09]
Dave Smith
Ooh, that's right. Yeah, I did know that, but I forgot. That's right. We're going to the Good Whiskey Comedy Club. That you know what that means. Watch out, ladies. Me and Rob are going to be puking all over Appleton, Wisconsin. Yeah, I'm excited to go there. It's our. Our first time. My first time, I think, ever going to Appleton. I don't know about you, but definitely the first time we've done comedy out there. So, yeah, come on out. There's still some tickets available. Go to comicdavidsmith.com to grab them. Looking forward to a nice weekend of comedy shows. And then you got a bunch of stuff going on, right, Rob?
- [02:43]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Oh, my God. So many porches. Lord. And VA. Virginia Beach, Morristown, NJ, and then Austin, TX, and San Antonio and one other Texas spot. Porch store.com. a lot of porches going on.
- [02:55]
Dave Smith
There you go. There you go. All right. So as, as you find people probably note, we did not have an episode yesterday. I do apologize for that. I will try my best to, to see if we can't make that one up. But of course, I was, I was up in Maine recording with Tucker Carlson the episode. We recorded it yesterday, and it came out late yesterday. Car. Great response so far. And it's just, I can't say enough good things about Tucker Carlson. I just love that guy. I could talk to him for. For 10 hours. Just such an interesting guy. And I, I really, you know, I've been, I've been a big Tucker fan for a long time, and I think I, I might be wrong about this. I believe I was the first guest that was on it. Like, that was my third time, and I think I'm the only one who's been on three times. So that was kind of a cool little thing. Unless I'm wrong about that. But don't correct me if I am. I want to live in the world where I'm. I'm right.
- [03:53]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Put it up, Tucker numbers. Just let Dave have this.
- [03:56]
Dave Smith
Yes. Yes, that's right. But anyway, it was just, it was really great, and I really appreciate the way he's had my back on, on so many of the, the more controversial opinions that I've, I've taken. But really enjoyed the time up there, and I'm glad so many of you enjoyed the episode. If you haven't seen it already, it's up on, on, on Twitter and on YouTube. And so you go find it if you want to. All right, let's jump into some stuff, because I did talk a little bit about some of this with Tucker, but I thought, like, me and you kind of got to discuss this a little bit. And it's. Again, it's one of these things. It's like, there's a lot of this with Donald Trump as president. Part of it is because Donald Trump is such an unorthodox president. And as we've discussed a million times, you know, you always got to kind of take everything he says with a grain of salt. You never know which way things are actually going you know, like, it's, it's, it's very. You know, when Obama first came in, right, and he ran on health care reform, and there was a little bit of a debate over, you know, like, at first, if you remember back to these days, Obama was very critical of the public option. Hillary Clinton actually ran on a public option, and Obama criticized her for it. Obama, actually, he. That one of his famous lines, which was a very good line in the debate, was he said to Hillary Clinton, he goes, mandating that uninsured people buy health care makes about as much sense as writing a law to mandate that homeless people buy homes. Which I thought was a great line. Like, yeah, that doesn't really solve the problem. Just forcing someone to purchase something, if they're not purchasing it, it's probably for a reason. Meaning, like, they can't afford it. Might be a good one. Anyway, my point is that, generally speaking, you knew Obama was going to attempt to pass some type of healthcare bill. Now it ended up having the public option in it. You didn't know whether that was gonna be the case. You didn't know if he was gonna go for universal healthcare or just settle for the Obamacare that he settled for. But you kind of knew the direction he was moving at. With Donald Trump, you never know. I mean, you don't. You just don't know. And we might get into this a little bit on the show too, but you don't know, like, if by the end of the year we're gonna. In a lower tariff environment or a higher tariff environment, you know, like, even though he's staking out this position as, like, I want to raise tariffs, you. You feel like there could be a reversal. You know, it's. Donald Trump, of course, in his first four years, had a tremendous turnover rate within the people around him. It hasn't been quite as crazy in the first hundred days, but he has already gotten rid of his national security advisor. And anyway, so. Which is related to all of this. But so taking all of that into account, taking all of this with a grain of salt, there does seem to be some real friction between the Israelis, the war party, and Donald Trump right now. And it seems things are looking much more promising than they were a month ago when things looked quite bad and it seemed like a strike on Iran was imminent. Now it does not seem that way. And it seems that there's been some pretty good reporting on this, that there really is. There. There's a fallout between Netanyahu and Donald Trump, which is just very interesting. And look, I Don't know for certain how true any of this is, but a lot of people on the inside are saying that this was also had, was a big part of why Mike Waltz got got fired and that he was basically going behind Trump's back to Netanyahu. Donald Trump found out about this and cut him loose. The reason why I'm tending to think this is real is just because of the way the neocons have been flipping out over the last few days. They are very upset about a few major developments. Obviously there was the big one which we talked about, that Trump flat out rejected Netanyahu's war plans for going to war with Iran and then started engaging in direct talks with them. However, what really sent them over the line was that then Trump started engaging directly in negotiations with Hamas without Israel being involved. This has led to a bunch of people freaking out on Witkoff, who of course Trump's envoy, who originally negotiated the ceasefire fire. He was the one doing the negotiations with Hamas. And now he is getting called all types of names by Mark Levin and Ben Shapiro. So that's always a good sign when Mark Levin and Ben Shapiro are attacking the Trump administration. Good rule of thumb is something, something positive is probably going on. Any thoughts on any of this, Rob?
- [09:00]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Oh, my God, I got a lot. Let's start with. You never know what the hell is going on with Donald Trump. Uh, he seems to have. He does two things and they work really well for him. One is he drops extreme anchors in negotiating, so he takes purposely unreasonable positions knowing that he's going to walk it back. And then the other thing he does is he never gives any specifics. He never actually lays out any, like, real intellectual theory behind his plan, how it's going to work. Instead, it's always, it's me, so I'll be great. And because he plays both those cards, he can always walk back from anything, or anything can work out and he can go, that's exactly what it was supposed to be. It worked out perfectly. So he does a very good job of kind of creating chaos and never having to own a position, which is what allows for people to say, oh, it's 4D chess, and he's always right.
- [09:51]
Dave Smith
And, well, isn't it just. Please, please don't forget your thought there. But is it part of that? And what's so interesting about that dynamic is that Donald Trump has no ideology. He has no, like, he's not, he's not a thing. He's not a conservative, he's not a libertarian, he's not A liberal, he's not anything. His only ideology is, like, winning. And so no matter what he does, he can always spin it as that. Yeah, no, I'm holding true to my stated principles, which is, I'm great and we're winning. Like, that's always it. I'm sorry. Keep going.
- [10:25]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Like, just take tariffs. If you really wanted a concerted plan for more factories within the United States of America and can. So can you outline to me how the tariffs are going to bring us more? And so if tariffs are going to bring us more, why would you walk it down with China to 30%? Are you now turning your back on the idea of tariffs, building more manufacturing with the United States of America? Is there some reason why 30% is actually the perfect number? The point is he's always flying off the seat of his pants and he's gotten out for declaring a victory and he changes his mind quite a bit. But seemingly with the Israel thing, I'm just going to take a wildly speculative guess here that something happened behind the scenes between Netanyahu and Trump, and Trump said, no, you are not going to be bossing me around. And the other thing that happened the other week was they negotiated a ceasefire with the Houthis that the Houthis will no longer be striking American ships, and. And we will no longer be attacking the Houthis. But we worked out no deal for Israel and that arrangement. And then speaking to the new plan or the new agreement which got the last American hostage home. I mean, talk about making Netanyahu look bad. We didn't have to bomb a single kid to do it, and we didn't have to get a single concession to do it. We just had to tease that we might back them for further ceasefires. As far as I understand, as long as there was a goodwill gesture from Hamas to showcase the fact that. That I guess they were willing to negotiate or willing to engage in a ceasefire. And I mean, you want to talk about a black guy to Netanyahu who's been bombing the hell out of kids, saying that he wants to get rid of Hamas. You've got just as many Hamas fighters at the start of the war, 80% of the tunnel network still intact. And the claims that they can't negotiate or deal with Hamas or I don't know why they couldn't get these hostages home. But the fact that the Trump administration, in one attempt of direct commute, not even direct communications through some back channels, was able to get it done, really leave some explanation to the Netanyahu team on why they've taken the strategy that they have and why they can't get the other ones home.
- [12:28]
Dave Smith
Well, right. I mean, look, it's. Any time. And this is something that's interesting. And I've tried, you know, because I've done a lot of debates on this subject, and I've tried my best to parse this out at times, because what will happen is people who are defending the Israeli assault on Gaza, there are two very separate. And at times, you know, in competition, there's two separate objectives that they always bring up. And one is retrieving the hostages and the other is taking out Hamas. Now, the people who support the war, Benjamin Netanyahu included, you know, and like, all the way down to everybody who's just supports what Israel's doing, they like to invoke the retrieving the hostages because, of course, you know, when you're defending the morally indefensible, that's the better one to bring up. It's much easier to be like, hey, we have to do what we have to do to get our people back, because our people are there. But, of course, these are two different goals. And what happens a lot in life when you have two different values, when they're in competition with each other, you find out which one you value more. This happens all the time, you know, whatever. To us in life, you know, you might, you might really want to go grab some food at your favorite restaurant, but, like, your brakes aren't working in your car and you go, yeah, I don't feel comfortable to drive this thing, so I'm not going to go to the restaurant. You know, it's like, yes, you, you did value going to the restaurant, but when it turned it, when it comes to it, you actually value your own safety quite a bit more than that. And so you're like, no, I'm not willing to risk my safety to go get this other thing. I want to. Now, as far as this has been pretty obvious, I think, from the beginning of the conflict, but you don't. If your number one priority is getting the hostages out, you don't start leveling the place. Obviously, no one would ever do that. If it was someone they loved in Gaza, you wouldn't. Oh, flat in Gaza. That'll get my, you know, father out safely. So another one of the things that's interesting here with all of this is that repeatedly, and there's been a lot of reporting on this, there's nothing that I figured out, but Hamas has on multiple occasions offered to release all of the hostages now, what they've demanded for that is a permanent ceasefire. So they're basically saying, we'll release all of the hostages on the deal, that the war's over, that you got to stop bombing Gaza. And Benjamin Netanyahu has been very clear that he's like, no, we're not going to do that. He said in his own words that he goes, the primary objective is still to eliminate Hamas. And so this is a perfect example of where these two goals are in conflict. And it's very clear what the Israeli government values more. They're like, no, we like, I think maybe they'd like the hostages out, but they are like, it's more important to us that we get to continue bombing Gaza. So, you know, one of the things that's been interesting here is that this has just been very revealed. And in fact, I think it's been very revealed how little your hardcore Israel supporting favorite influencer actually cares about getting the hostages out. And the reason I say this is because, look, Benjamin. Excuse me, Ben Shapiro, my mistake. Ben Shapiro just put a video out attacking Wyckoff, saying that he doesn't think he knows how to negotiate anything and he's making a mess of this whole situation. Witkoff is the envoy who went over and got the cease fire, the original cease fire negotiated. In phase one of that cease fire, something like 20 hostages were returned. And there were supposed to be more returned in phase two, but Israel violated the ceasefire. But, like 20 people's lives were saved over that. Who. Who sitting here could argue that that wasn't a good thing? Hey, guys. Today's show is sponsored by Better Help. If you have been considering starting therapy, let me just tell you that it's something I highly recommend. I've benefited from therapy in the past. I know lots of people who have benefited from it as well. If you're on the fence, consider Better Help. And the reason to consider BetterHelp is because it's the most convenient way to do it. It's designed to be suited to your lifestyle. And the best part, entirely online. All you do is you fill out a brief questionnaire and they match you with a licensed therapist. And you can also switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. Rediscover your curiosity with better help. Visit betterhelp.com problem to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp.com problem. B T T R H lp.com problem for 10% off your first month. All right, let's get back into the show.
- [17:34]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
It seems like a rich claim when you actually have success and you get a hostage home, and especially for America first and there's American hostage over there and you're able to retrieve the guy that sounds like a success. So I don't know how you possibly sell that as disastrous negotiating when it's one more hostage that's out. I mean, if I was outside of a bank with hostages and I got one out, that's one more.
- [17:57]
Dave Smith
One better. That's one better. Yeah, yeah.
- [18:00]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
I think what it points to is this constant narrative that the Jews would love to have, or Israel would love to have peace, but the other side won't engage in a conversation and we can't possibly. And so when you actually have a conversation with them and you get a hostage back, that undermines this message of, hey, we need to be in there and bombing kids. And that's what is actually complaining about.
- [18:25]
Dave Smith
Well, especially when you're trying, like, essentially what just happened now. Right. Like, again, look, let me say, because sometimes, often the rejoinder will be people go, oh, so you trust Hamas or something like that. It's like, dude, I don't trust anyone involved in this situation, by the way, including my government, including the Trump administration. I don't trust anyone involved here. But, like, you put a ceasefire into effect. Hamas did release 20 hostages in the first phase of it. There's kind of no reason to think, like, once they follow through with that, there's no reason to think they wouldn't have followed through with their deal to release all the hostages if for a ceasefire. Now, I don't know, maybe they wouldn't have, but it seems at least like it would be worth pursuing that. But so what happened here, which is just, I think, to your point, is like, what made it so clear is that. So first you have these. You have these rounds of negotiations with Israel, Hamas and the Trump administration. By the way, in order for Wyckoff to get that ceasefire, it was Israel who he had to put the pressure on, not Hamas. Hamas agreed. It was the same deal that Biden had been sitting on since last May. So it wasn't like they were the ones who need to be pressured. Then after whatever flare up between Netanyahu and Donald Trump, they cut Israel out and Witkoff just negotiates with Hamas and gets the American out. Now, there's a few things to say on this, but at least look, from everything that's being reported, Witkoff essentially said to Hamas that he was like, look, Donald Trump's coming to the Middle East. He's. He's in the Middle east right now. I believe he's still in Saudi Arabia. We got a clip from him over there that we're going to play in a little bit. It was very interesting comment he made, but he goes, look, Donald Trump's coming to the region. It would do a lot for goodwill if you'd release the American citizen who's being held. And they agreed. They got nothing in return. This is what's being reported everywhere, as you just alluded to, Rob. They didn't. The US didn't give up anything. They just basically asked them, pretty please, will you let the American go? And that will. That will buy you some good faith in the negotiations going forward. And they got him out. Now, it does seem, now when I see all of these neocons who are furious about this, it does seem to me that perhaps they preferred this American being in captivity over there. Now, when I say American, we can get into that in a second, because I do actually feel like this is almost necessary to state. But you can understand where they really did like the talking point that there's an American being held there, too, because that kind of makes that. That makes America more involved. That frames Hamas as America's enemy, not just Israel's enemy. And it does seem like they really do not like the fact that the Trump administration, through Wyckoff, was able to talk directly to Hamas and, and, you know, negotiate the release of this hostage. And obviously, like, you know, it's kind of common sense that if you're in a conflict with a group and then there's a third party who's backing you in this conflict, the last thing you want is that third party who's backing you having direct negotiations that are bearing fruit with the, the group that they're funding you to destroy. So, anyway, the whole thing is, is very interesting. I did think one thing that should be mentioned, because I do. Look, I understand, if nothing else, to remove that kind of pretense of, oh, look, Hamas has an American citizen. That's, that's a, you know, a hostage right now, I would, you know, the guy. First of all, the guy is a dual citizen. He's an Israeli citizen and an American citizen, and he was also serving in the idf. And I just, whatever, I'm glad he's free. I don't want anyone to be hostages, you know, even soldiers. But anyway, you get my point where I'm going with this, Rob, right? Like, it's, it's just a little bit different. I do think that, like, if the United States government is to exist and if it has any role, then like, yes, if there's a US Citizen who's held in some other country, we should be trying to negotiate back for them. The calculation on that does change a little bit when you put on a different country's military uniform. I'm sorry, I just don't view that in the same way.
- [22:56]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Again, if, if an American went to go serve and you, I mean, it's different because Russia's not really engaged in pure terrorist attacks. But if you, if the American citizen went over, let's say, to serve in Syria, he's serving in Syria and he gets hot and he get, and he got taken over by, you know, Al Qaeda or ISIS out there. You could say an American citizens being held by Al Qaeda or isis. But it's not like Al Qaeda or ISIS stormed an American compound, just went in and took his citizen. That's not, it's a long way to.
- [23:26]
Dave Smith
Describe it to your, you know, point. If an American were to say, hey, I'm going to go volunteer and join the Ukrainian armed forces and they throw on a Ukrainian army uniform and they go to war, and then like, Putin, you know, one of his soldiers kills that guy. It's not like Putin killed an American citizen. Like, yes, technically he did, but it's not as if they found some American citizen and just killed him and had no regard for the fact that he was one of ours. It's like, no, you put on an opposed using military uniform and, and likewise, you know, the situation, however you feel about it. Israel has been occupying. I know they say it's not an occupation, but it is. It's. Israel's been occupying Gaza this whole time. If you're an occupying force and you put on that, that military uniform, you are in a different category than an innocent civilian. And sorry. And this has always been accepted that there's a difference between military combatants and, and civilians. And like, no, you're, you got into a fight, you know, it' you can't. If you, if you jump into a bar fight and start throwing punches, you can't be, like, appalled when a punch comes back at your chin. Like, it's not the same thing as if you were just sitting at a bar and someone just hits you. It's just different. So, anyway, there is that little detail. Sorry, go ahead.
- [24:45]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
I think that, that it's just an aside to the fact that for a while we've been hearing Israel is the most strategic ally and that we need to have full support for them and that the Donald Trump administration seemed like it was going to be as bad as the Biden administration and blanket support for Israel. And, you know, there was a lot of chatter of he might walk back the Ukraine war, but it looks like the Iran war might be on. And I don't know what happened behind the scenes in the last two weeks, but this feels like when you're at a job and you've got a team that's been working on a project for two years, and then some other guy finally goes, no, I can close this deal, and just gets on a call and makes the whole team look bad. And so it seems like the Donald Trump administration, I don't know what happened behind the scenes. Maybe it was that Netanyahu got busted talking directly to. To that guy, or maybe he tried exerting pressure in another way that Donald Trump's like, no, you're not doing that. But it seems like, at least at the moment, the Donald Trump administration is putting pressure on the Israelis for, hey, you're not dictating American policy. And part of that was getting the American hostage out and saying, look, your whole, your whole thing about the only way of dealing with this situation and saving the hostages is by bombing the region is clearly not true.
- [25:57]
Dave Smith
Yeah, well, that's right. Yes. And there's, you know, it's interesting, again, this is, this is speculation, but one of the things that's interesting, a very interesting dynamic, is just who Donald Trump is and who Bibi Netanyahu is. And, you know, I guess the question has always been, you know, like, what level of control does Israel have over the Trump administration? I mean, obviously, Miriam Adelson gave Donald Trump $100 million or something in that ballpark. There is obviously, like, Pete Hagseth and Marco Rubio and Mike Huckabee, and there's people in his cabinet who are, like, deeply committed to Israel. And then, of course, there's always like, the wild card of, like, you know, what type of, you know, who was on what plane when and what dirt they have on anyone. But just in terms of personalities, you couldn't find more of, like an oil and water combination, because Benjamin Netanyahu is just so brash and so insistent on, on flaunting, like, on, on flouting. What's the word? I'm. But just unlike any time, if you remember, he would do this to Biden constantly, where Biden would publicly say, we've asked Israel not to do this, and then they'd go do that. And, like, they'd constantly be, like, almost publicly humiliating the. The US Government was something they like to do. And you're like, jesus, that is not going to fly with Donald Trump. I mean, how could it? And of course, you know, you add in the fact that Benjamin Netanyahu threw him under the bus after his first administration, congratulating Joe Biden before he was even declared the winner of the 2020 election, and you would just imagine that you're like, oh, this is the type of shit that's gonna piss off Donald Trump. I mean, you know, it's. This is the guy who flipped out on Zelensky. And we all were like, oh, yeah, dude, you can't talk to Donald Trump the way Zelensky tried to. But perhaps maybe we are kind of at that point now. It does seem like Donald Trump still is. I saw reporting earlier today that he does seem to want to go through with this plan for the US to take over Gaza. Netanyahu also just said recently that the Gazans have to go, that this is. The Israeli goal is to ethnically cleanse the entire strip. And Donald Trump seems willing to help with that. But it seems like war with Iran, continued war in Yemen was, was a bridge too far. And you were very. You were absolutely correct to point out that there was real significance when Donald Trump announced that he had reached the peace agreement with the Houthis, that he said they won't be attacking American ships, because really what happened was they were attacking a bunch of Israeli ships. We started bombing them because of that, and then they started attacking American ships. And then they made a deal that was like, hey, you stop attacking American ships, we'll stop bombing you. But there was never an agreement that they'll stop attacking Israeli ships. And so there is. There does just seem to be a little bit of daylight between where the regime in D.C. and where the regime in Tel Aviv are. And that, I think, is a very positive sign. So we'll see what happens. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Monetary Metals. This is an amazing company. They've really revolutionized the precious metals space, and they're run by great people. I highly recommend them. As many of you know, gold has hit all time highs in the last year. Now, a lot of people are interested in owning physical gold or physical silver. But typically what people do is they either store it in their house or they have it professionally stored and they're paying storage fees for it. But now with monetary metals, you can own precious metals and have the precious metals work for you, generating interest, paid in ounces of precious metal. So you can make interest on your gold paid in additional ounces of gold or interest on your silver paid in additional ounces of silver. This is really a game changing kind of revolutionary idea. Check it out. If you want to learn more, go to monetary-metals.com that's monetary-metals.com. all right, let's get back into the show. Anyway, the me and Tucker talked about this a little bit, but it was so Steve Witkoff was in an interview and he said this is the quote from him. He said the neocon element believes that war is the only way to solve things. And Trump believes that his force of personality, the way that he is going to respond to situations can bend people to do things in a much better way. I believe in that too. That was Steve Wyckoff's comment. Mark Levin quote tweeted this and said, by the way, neocon is a pejorative for Jew. Unbelievable.
- [31:08]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
It's not.
- [31:10]
Dave Smith
I mean it's. Yeah, of course it's not, but it's so you're like, this is.
- [31:16]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
But saying that's true when the framing of criticizing everything is, oh, it's just anti Semitism so we can't have a discussion about politics. Jealousy. That's real Jewy.
- [31:27]
Dave Smith
It's like the funny thing about it is, is that. So I was talking about this with, with Tucker a little bit. But the thing that's so funny is that like, for, for those of us who are like old enough to remember it is. It's interesting when you know, like there are these terms like, like woke is a good example of this. Where woke is a term that is almost in everyone's mind at this point. It's almost thought of as a pejorative. Like that's you're insulting someone when you call it woke. You're like, oh, this is woke. This is more woke insanity. People almost forget that woke started as, as a term. Like it was people self identified as woke. It actually started as like a black awareness thing and then it became more of like the social justice thing. The same thing with social justice warrior. These were terms that people used themselves. Then they kind of like embarrassed themselves and then people started using it as a pejorative and now that's what people remember. Now a similar thing is true with neoconservative. Now it's used almost exclusively by people like us who are criticizing neoconservatives. But like I'm old enough to remember when that was the name they chose for themselves. They were self identified neoconservatives. And it wasn't until they hijacked US Foreign policy and every single one of their policies was a complete, catastrophic disaster that they started running away from this. But it's really funny to see now them turn around and say that, you know, like, it's a racial slur to call someone a neocon. I mean, I'm not even. It would be on the level of if me and you got complete control of US Federal government policy. Everything was a complete disaster. And then someone went, these libertarians ruined everything. And we went, whoa, whoa, whoa. Libertarian. That's actually an anti Semitic slur to say libertarian. You were like, dude, that was your label for yourself. Go look at it. Go read any of the documents from the Project for a New American Century. They called themselves neoconservative conservatives. They were a bunch of. They were a bunch of leftists. They were all a bunch of Trotskyites who. Who left Trotsky and stopped following him and came over and started pretending to be conservatives. But they called themselves the neoconservatives. So don't give me this about how that's a slur. It's only a slur because they everything up and then we started calling them out for it. But also just the idea that this is somehow, you know, again, it's. I'll just say this. If you really do. If you really do hate Jews, then you've got to love this framing. Like, who is this a gift to other than Jew haters to say that, like, oh, if you, if you're America first, if you think it's better that we move away from a war of choice rather than toward a war of choice that means you hate Jews. Just think about that. Think about that narrative to hound someone. It's unbelievable that people like Mark Levin. It's like, oh, dude, you're doing more to promote Jew hatred than anyone I could think of. But isn't that something? Witkoff, the guy who just saved the life of a fucking IDF soldier who saved 20 Israelis before that, this guy somehow is a Jew hater for saying, yeah, we should be negotiating the release of these guys and not waiting for Israel to fuck the whole thing up. And by the way, Israel is actively trying to fuck the whole thing up as it's going on. It's truly unbelievable.
- [35:22]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Well, they gotta try and spin it however they can. And sometimes when nothing else fails, just declare them anti Semites.
- [35:29]
Dave Smith
Yep. It is also interesting to me how much, you know, I mean, it's just Twitter, but Mark Levin's just getting Wrecked on Twitter for posting this. Everyone's seeing through this bullshit.
- [35:43]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Wasn't Mark Levin in some sort of advisory role to the administration specific to Iran? Wasn't he?
- [35:49]
Dave Smith
Granted, maybe, you know, I don't remember. I'm not sure.
- [35:55]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Maybe we look that up. But anyways, we can move on.
- [35:58]
Dave Smith
Yeah, but there has. There does seem to have been some progress with the negotiations with Iran. And it does seem like Donald Trump's being fairly reasonable about it. It'd be interesting. We'll see where all of this goes. But I do, I want to play.
- [36:10]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
I'm gonna have to listen to the. How he sells this one because it's just so funny. And when you brought that guy home and removed him from the tunnels, you endangered our entire country. It's just, how do you even sell this one? And the anti Semites who were able to negotiate a deal.
- [36:27]
Dave Smith
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it'll be something like, I'm glad he's home. It's wonderful that he's home. But you cannot negotiate with Hamas. They're animals. You can't negotiate with animals. Like, okay, well, he just did it kind of saved the guy's life. This is all the. There was an old Dick Cheney line about. So essentially for people who don't know. So. And Scott does a really good job covering this. In, in enough already. Or maybe it was in Fool's Errand, actually, I can't remember now. But so you know, when 911 first happened and essentially the Taliban were the ruling regime in Afghanistan and they had given. They had let Al Qaeda stay. That was their crime. They were about as guilty. I, I always say as like a landlord is if one of his tenants murders somebody. Like, they didn't do anything. They weren't involved in 9 11. They just like gave him a place to stay. And the, and the Bush administration demanded that, that they extradite Osama bin Laden and his men directly to the US that they hand them over, no questions asked. And, and the Taliban said no. And this is ultimately why we invaded Afghanistan. And so the Taliban said no, but they, they offered to extradite them to like a third country. I forget what their, their thing was, but they were like, well, we'll send them to Egypt or whatever it was. And who clearly would have just sent them to us. Like, we could have just done that. And Dick Cheney said, you can't negotiate with evil is why he was. His argument was, you can't even talk to them because they're evil and all that stuff. This is like, this is the Bullshit that war hawks love to hide behind. You can't negotiate with evil. Meanwhile they negotiate with every evil regime on the planet. If you can't negotiate with evil, then you can never resolve any conflict because most governments in the world are pretty evil. So that's, whatever. It's all just. I do want to play. Natalie, I sent you the video. Let's play Donald Trump's comments today in Saudi Arabia. I thought this was, was very interesting, especially with all the stuff that we're talking about kind of going on in the background while he's saying this. So let's, let's play that cl. I'm not getting any volume on this. There we go. Yeah, let's just bring it from the beginning.
- [39:07]
Jake Tapper
And it's crucial for the wider world to note this great transformation has not come from Western interventionists or flying people in beautiful planes giving you lectures on how to live and how to govern your own affairs.
- [39:24]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
We boosted more. I can't really hear it.
- [39:25]
Jake Tapper
Marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so called nation builders, neocons or liberal nonprofits like those who spent trillions and trillions of dollars failing to develop cabal Baghdad, so many other cities. Instead, the birth of a modern Middle east has been brought by the people of the region themselves. The people that are right here, the people that have lived here all their lives. Developing your own sovereign countries, pursuing your own unique visions and charting your own destinies in your own way. It's really incredible what you've done. In the end, the so called nation builders wrecked far more nations than they built. And the interventionalists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves. They told you how to do it, but they had no idea how to do it themselves. Peace, prosperity and progress ultimately came not from a radical rejection of your heritage, but rather from embracing your national traditions and embracing that same heritage that you love so dearly.
- [40:41]
Dave Smith
Foreign. So interesting comment there. Donald Trump takes a shot at neo conservatives and interventionists. I mean, he called them interventionalists, but that's okay. We'll let that slide as long as you're trashing neocons. He talked about how the, the nation builders destroyed more nations than they ever built. Took, took a shot at the kind of liberal interventionism just, I don't know, you know, look, it's Donald Trump. You can only ever judge him so much by what he said today. But I would say number one, he's in Saudi Arabia. You know, a president's words. Even Donald Trump's words are a little bit more meaningful when you're delivering them to a foreign audience. He's not just riffing, like, this is what he wanted to say to them. And number two, it's just, just with all of the stuff that we just mentioned going on, it is interesting that that's where his mind is, that when he went there, he was like, ah, you guys can build this up better than we ever could and we shouldn't be involved.
- [41:45]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
I think what happened is some Jew told Donald Trump that terrorists were a good idea and he nearly trashed his presidency and now he's going the other way. Listen, like I said, I can't prove it. I think something happened behind the scenes between Netanyahu and Donald Trump takes extreme positions, particularly when he's trying to bully someone. And I don't know what happened over the last two weeks, and I don't know how that might change next week if you see another attempt on Donald Trump's life. But it does seem like at the moment, Donald Trump is really poking at Netanyahu and saying, you're not bossing us around. And that perhaps the cooler heads within the Donald Trump administration have had his ear last because he's a little bit ADD and it's who last spoke to him. We've seen incidents of that before. So it could be at the moment that some, some of the cooler heads have gotten his ear. And that's why, like, I don't know that this is going to be his position in two weeks from now. But at the moment, no, me neither. Beefing with Netanyahu, and he's going full Trump of, hey, you're not going to push me around. And we're going to start exerting some, some pressure on you guys to get what we're looking for.
- [42:53]
Dave Smith
Yeah, it does, right? It seems like that. Again, it's, look, these things are. It's Donald Trump. So you just never know. You never know who might, he might fire the, the awful person who he was listening to and then start listening to the good person. Might fire the good person. Start listening to the awful person. You just don't know. But it's hard to not look at this and go, all right, that's pretty good. He does seem to be moving in the right direction. And, you know, there's. It was Joe Biden who told Netanyahu early, early last year, if you remember, Rob, he said, you have days, not months, to get this done because the whole global opinion was turning so hard against what Israel is doing. The poor people of Gaza anyway, years later, nope. Turns out they're just like, nope, sorry. And the US has been backing them the whole time. And I do think that, that while this has always existed, it does seem like the hubris and the kind of uncompromising demands, unwillingness to even take the most modest steps to just not hurt US interests, even if that's just optics, you know what I mean? I think that probably is really catching up to Netanyahu. I agree with you. My read of this is that somewhere behind the scenes that got Trump just had enough of, of this guy, like kind of trying to alpha him in a lot of ways. All right, let's, let's switch gears here for a moment because I do we just, I think we haven't really talked about this and I do just think it's really, it's worth, it's worth mentioning because I find this to be fascinating. But. So Joe, Jake Tapper has written a book about Joe Biden's cognitive decline and the COVID up about it on both sides of it.
- [45:01]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Make money on selling the fact that he's completely sharp and then make money on how, how dare the administration lie to us. Because you're a journalist and you're supposed to do your own journalism, not just feed the information that the propaganda that the administration gives to you to the American people. And so you're really just outing yourself for not doing your job, which is looking at reality and going, hey, the information that you're giving me doesn't really align with what I'm seeing right in front of my face. Well, what a remarkable complaint to go, oh, the administration lied to me when they gave me propaganda talking points and the propaganda talking points turned out weren't true because I wasn't doing my job. That's what you're telling us?
- [45:43]
Dave Smith
Pretty much. Pretty much. You know, I've said for a while now and I got in an argument with some people ahead of time, but I really think I was pretty clearly have been proven right on this prediction that I said that Donald Trump winning again was going to just be the death of the corporate media. And people would point out that like, oh, they had very high ratings when Donald Trump won in 2016. And I was like, yeah, but so much of that relied on the fact that they were telling you that they had the biggest story in the history of the nation that Donald Trump was a Russian spy. All the evidence was about to come out, but you got to stay tuned in to find out what the latest evidence is. And so, but then when that flopped. And then Covid, it was like, dude, I don't think they can go back to this well again. But the truth is that probably just as big as those two, even as, as big as Covid, was the COVID up of Joe Biden being senile because it was just so. It was such a transparent lie. It's really an more it's a more unbelievable lie than even the COVID stuff or the Russiagate stuff because you could just see it. You could look right in front of you and be like, obviously, like it is like you. They'd have to make you think you're crazy to convince you you're not seeing what you're seeing. Anyway, here is. Let's go. Because it's, and it's pretty funny to watch these. Well, let's watch them in the order that I sent them to you, Natalie. So let's watch. The first one is the Geiger Capital tweet. Here's Jake Tapper on Biden's cognitive decline.
- [47:20]
Unnamed Interviewer
I'm just curious as to whether or not this kind of trying to hide what was happening with the president at the time had an impact on the press corps. Like, why didn't we hear some of these details from what they actually saw and were dealing with trying to get information. Well, Alex Thompson and I were on the case, as were lots of other reporters trying to figure out what was going on behind the scenes. But the bottom line is the White House was lying not only to the press, not only to the public, but they were lying to members of their own Cabinet, they were lying to White House staffers, they were lying to Democratic members of Congress, to donors about how bad things had gotten. And in fact, Alex and I started writing this book after the election of 2024, and we spoke with more than 200 people, most of whom, almost all of whom were Democrats and almost all of whom wouldn't be honest with us or wouldn't be candid with us until after the election. And then after the election, we found out all of these things that when you looked at what was going on with President Biden at the time, it probably doesn't surprise you the extent to which he was deteriorating. But now we have anecdotes and facts about what was really going on behind the scenes with details that Democrats wouldn't share with us until after Election Day.
- [48:41]
Dave Smith
All right, so this is what Jake Tapper is saying now. Again, Rob, I mean, I think you kind of hit the nail on the head before we even got into the clip. But this is already even if we didn't have the track record of what Jake Tapper was actually doing, which we're going to play a little clip of in a second. But this is just. It's so transparently pathetic. I mean, like, this is how you're going to attempt to shield yourself from criticism and place all of it on the Biden administration, which is very convenient because the Biden administration is gone now, so they can be the fall guy, right? I mean, they already fell in the worst way possible. He had to drop out of the race, couldn't even finish the his election. And then, of course, Kamala Harris got blown out. But, like, again, Rob, this is on the level of if you go like, oh, well, I had no way of reporting on the fact that Rob is bald because he told me he had big, beautiful hair. And all the people around him said he had very long hair. And you're like, yeah, but you could have just looked at it and told the truth like we did. This isn't rocket science. Like, we do this. Like, this is. It's very easy. How many times over the years did we play clips of Joe Biden and just be like, yeah, obviously he's going through severe mental decline. We were talking about this in 2019, in 2019, when he first announced he was running for president. We could all obviously see that, like, yo, this was a different guy than the guy who was vice president. And it got much worse between 2019 and 2024. But it was very clear already. It was very clear that the guy was losing it by the end. It was just impossible to deny. But for you to say this, oh, it turns out they were lying. Turns out they did know. Shocker. What a, What a shocking admission. Oh, they were aware. They were aware that this clearly senile man was not up to running for president. Again, it's. I'll tell you, too, the issue that they have is we kind of addressed this on the last show. Especially now when you see Joe Biden go out. And this is going to be something that, man, is it. It's devastating to the Democrats and the corporate media that Joe Biden could still go, is still an ex president and might go do some interviews like he just did with the View. Because you got to look at that and think to yourself, right, that this, where he is right now, would have been 100 days into his second term, that they were all trying to get him to run for it. You're telling me this dude still has over three and a half years left as president? I mean, what do you think Joe Biden's going to look like in three and a half years? And this is not with the as grueling of a schedule as he would have had if he was president, the answer is not good. It's not going to look good. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Entera Skin Care. Now you can unlock the secret to youthful and radiant skin with Entera Skin Care. Enjoying the peptide revolution. In the quest for youthful, radiant skin, Entera Skincare unveils the secret ingredient Peptides. Their scientifically formulated products are infused with powerful peptides, the building blocks of skin's natural resilience. Peptides dive deep into your skin, stimulating collagen production, reducing wrinkles and restoring firmness. Experience the transformative power of peptides. With Entera, you're not just nourishing your skin, you're unlocking its youthful potential. Join the peptide revolution. Embrace the future of skin care within Terra Skin Care, where science meets beauty. Discover more by visiting enterraskincare.com problem. And if you use the promo code problem, you will get a 10 discount on your next order. And terraskincare.com problem. Promo code problem for 10 off. All right, let's get back into the show. Anything else you want to add, Rob?
- [52:56]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Yeah, I would love maybe. Maybe I can speak to the people on the back end of the website, but there were for sure moments on this show where I had said that there should be accountability for those that covered for Joe Biden. In the same way, if you had a relative who was working as a lawyer or a doctor and they had dementia and you covered for them so that they could continue to make their paycheck and, you know, they messed up. They messed something up that cost a client or someone's life. There should be accountability for the family members or. And there was a whole squad of people that saw things that we did not see that showcased severe dementia, I'm sure behind the scenes. Oh, yeah, they should have to. They should be held accountable. And this is classic news where they'll tell you the truth, where it's no longer relevant.
- [53:43]
Dave Smith
And also while absolving themselves of any guilt of it, you know, like, well.
- [53:48]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
In four years from now, if the topic comes up again, they can go, no, we covered the fact that he was clearly. Yeah, when it was relevant, when things are no longer relevant, you're happy to comment on it.
- [53:58]
Dave Smith
It's exactly right. So that in two years from now, when you go, well, no one ever said anything About Joe, buddy, you can go. Jake Tapper wrote a whole book about this. What are you talking about? It's like. Right, right, right. Yeah, he did, but he didn't, you know. Anyway, let's play this next clip because it's just. It's. It's. It. There is something where it's like one of the most fascinating details about details, one of the most fast. Not details, but one of the more. More fascinating kind of overarching themes of where we are exactly in the state of our politics and news is that, like, it does seem like the corporate journalists just cannot adapt to the new world. They just cannot adapt to the new reality. And one of the. You know, I like using this example a lot, but it was the. With the Tony Hinchcliffe thing, when they were trying to go, you know, a speaker at a Trump rally made a comment and not, you know, a shock jock comedian was roasting everybody at a place, you know, which you could argue is inappropriate, but you can't pretend it's a person making a. But when you look at this thing and, like, the Trump rally is streamed live to YouTube, millions of people watch it. It's then chopped up. It's all over Twitter. I mean, by the time. If you could try to account for all of the clips, I mean, it's in the tens of millions of people have seen Tony Hinchcliffe do his thing. Tony Henchliffe also has one of the biggest shows in the world. Every week, he gets more views than pretty much anybody in cable cable news. And so, like, people know who Tony Hinchcliffe is, and they've seen the actual. And then you're trying to go on TV and go, it was a speaker at an event trashing Puerto Ricans. And you're like, dude, but like, so many more people have seen this already. It's also, like, they haven't figured out that there's like, that game that you were just alluding to where if in three years they go, no one in the media ever said this, and then you go, what are you talking about? Jake Tapper wrote a book on this subject that kind of would have worked at one time. But now we live in the era of Internet clips. And so of course, people have gone and found all this stuff. So let's play this next, this next clip just to give you a taste of how Jake Tapper is right now saying it was the administration, they lied to us, absolving the media of blame. Here's Jake Tapper himself. When it mattered.
- [56:34]
Unnamed Interviewer
How do you think it makes Little kids with stutters feel when they see you make a comment like that.
- [56:39]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
It's very clearly a cognitive decline. That's what I'm referring to. It makes me uncomfortable.
- [56:44]
Unnamed Interviewer
You. You are. No, I can't. That's so amazing. It's so amazing to me that.
- [56:49]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Try and figure out an answer.
- [56:51]
Unnamed Interviewer
A cognitive decline to Biden embraces his stutter, talking about it, while Trump mocks it, exaggerates it, belittles it. He's sharp physically. I mean, mentally. Yeah, I think the question is physically.
- [57:02]
Dave Smith
Right, Right.
- [57:02]
Unnamed Interviewer
Or so.
- [57:03]
Dave Smith
Right. Right.
- [57:03]
Unnamed Interviewer
And the guy who's his chief opponent is only three or four years younger than him. I mean, you have questioned President Biden's age, mental fitness, ability to lead. Of those supporting Biden, you said, quote, shame on all of you, pretending everything is okay. You're leading us and him into a disaster. Do you worry that you damaged him at all? I don't doubt that you got hugs and handshakes behind closed doors today, and maybe even publicly, some of them, because they like you personally. But I've heard a lot of really nasty stuff about you from your Democratic colleague. I mean, just like, what is he thinking, exercising narcissism. I mean, false claims to the Wall street journalism about President Biden's mental fitness and acuity. He's 81, and his memory, you know, it doesn't seem great. It's not horrible. But I don't understand the outrage. Quote, behind closed doors, Biden shows signs of slipping, unquote. The Wall Street Journal is owned by News Corps, which is run by the Murdochs. Beyond the headline, there is some critical nuance here. The article is mostly based on observations of Republicans, with former Speaker Kevin McCarthy the only one going on the record. They do note in the article that most of the criticism comes from Republicans. Have you heard any concerns from anyone who has met with President Biden about him seeming a little slower?
- [58:17]
Dave Smith
No.
- [58:17]
Unnamed Interviewer
The Russians are trying to do. To make us and the public not trust the. Our election. Integrity. Joe Biden has dementia and all this stuff.
- [58:28]
Dave Smith
All right, Rob, what can you say here?
- [58:32]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
He had his marching orders to sell a story, and so until the election, he was selling the story of. How dare you make someone with a stutter feel bad. Firstly, if you have extreme stutter, maybe the presidency is not the best job for you. But listen, you know, how dare you make someone with a stutter feel bad. That's not mental decline. That's a stutter. And that's the extent by which he was going to sell this story and not actually look at reality and be honest. The American people. So look at him. He's profiting on both sides. When he was told to go sell it, he went ahead and sold it. And then the second that, you know, he got different marching orders, now he's turning around and going, how dare they tell me to have sold that story?
- [59:17]
Dave Smith
It's. It's really unbelievable. It's like, look, dude, like, you. You can sit here and. And again, it's. I guess we've seen examples like this before. I guess it just never, you know, which really, I. I suppose I should get over. I mean, it's. It's kind of like a me issue or something like that. But you're like, it's. It reminds me of, like, Foushee saying he never recommended lockdowns. Like, you. You really think you can just come in here?
- [59:46]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
I. I'm sure when I was on television. But not me, that was the other organization.
- [59:51]
Dave Smith
And it's. It's like when, you know it's on video, you know, it reminds me of Chris Cuomo telling me that he. He never mocked Joe Rogan for taking Ivermectin. And then, like, they played the clip of him doing it. Like, it's right here, we have it on video. Like, what do you think you could get away with this? It's unbelievable. But, like, there it is. It's not like. It's not that the administration was lying, it's that you were lying. And not only that, but that you, you know, if you're going to say the administration was lying and they just didn't tell us, it's like, okay. But then anytime anyone tried to blow the whistle, you could count on Jake Tapper to be the attack dog who was going to put them in their place and say, oh, my God, what you're doing is terrible. You're mocking someone for having a stutter. There's no evidence. I mean, sure, there's some physical decline, but there's no mental decline or something like what? It's just. It's so absurd, and it's just a. It's fascinating to think that there's any chance that they can brush the stink of this off them. And there's just. I really think there's just no way they can. It's not there. The one, you know, as corrupt as Russiagate was as corrupt as Covid was. And don't get me wrong, I mean, Covid, there's nothing quite like it. It touched everybody's life in a way that really, no government policy in either of our lifetimes can even come close to right. But there is, on the surface, there's a certain, like, plausibility for people who have not done deep research into the topics where you could maybe plausibly say, oh, they got it wrong with Russiagate. You know, they thought there was a thing that didn't end up being a thing. And with COVID there certainly still are a number of people. I think almost everyone now will acknowledge that it was wrong, but you could think, oh, they got it wrong. You kind of got to look deep into it to really understand that they were lying, which they were in both of those examples, that they clearly knew a lot more than they were telling people, and they were lying about it. The Joe Biden being sharp as a tackle. There's. It's. There's something different about that one, where every person, like, you don't need to be informed on the subject at all. You don't need to read these three great books. You don't need to read the declassified documents or Fauci's emails or put together a timeline of what they were saying publicly versus what they knew privately. It's so much more simple and straightforward. It's so much. It's literally somebody telling you, chris Christie is thin behind closed doors. It's like, you. This is. You're obviously lying. You're obviously full of shit. Nobody thinks that Joe Biden's stutter got drastically worse as he entered his 80s. This is fucking ridiculous. Like, it's just. It's too insane. And so there is something beautiful about this one. Like, I actually love that Jake Tapper, in his attempt to absolve himself of blame, is bringing up this topic again with his book, because anyone with any, like, one inch of common sense could tell that they're just lying through their teeth. Okay, we're gonna wrap up there. Thank you, everybody, for listening. Come catch us in. In Appleton, Wisconsin, this weekend. Comicdavesmith.com for the Ticket links, and come on out to the Porch Tour. What's the porch tour website again, Rob?
- [63:29]
Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Porch store dot com. Nice and simple.
- [63:32]
Dave Smith
There you go. All right, thanks for listening, guys. Catch you next time. Peace.