Robbie Bernstein (3:52)

It's California, I think.

Dave Smith (3:54)

Oh, is that Florida?

Robbie Bernstein (3:55)

Let's just go with it.

Dave Smith (3:56)

We get, well, whatever it is wrong anyways, but it's, but California is like, it's like the most beautiful, you know, like naturally the most beautiful area. And so you come, you know, you're in San Diego and it's just like the, the city's beautiful, the water's beautiful. It's. You go in that downtown area, it's like great restaurants, a lot of cool culture. There's. It's an expensive area. It's, you know, people living there and eating. There are upper middle class people and it's like everything's very nice. And then you just have these entire blocks taken over by homeless people. And I just. It. There is something about that that is just profound. I don't know, it's just like you, you walk around there and you're like, there's something. It's a comment about like Western civilization, the United States of America, like just everything where you're like, how Is it that you have all of this and you, and yet while you have all of this, the one thing you don't have, the one thing you can't muster is the, the courage to protect it and say, like, no, we're not just going to let you come and ruin this. Like, what are you. And it's, anyway, it's just wild. And as we've talked about many times in the past, it's not an issue of, like, having a heart or not having a heart. It's not an issue of being like, cold and callous and just being like, you homeless people. You're on your own. It's like, it's a, it's weakness because it's not as if it's like helping the homeless people to allow them to live on the street. You're not like, you know what I'm saying? Like, it'd be, it'd be more humane to force them into some type of facility than to allow mentally ill drug addicts to just lay on the concrete. It's pure weakness and cowardice. And I don't know, there's just something really interesting to me about that. Like, it's like, come on, man, can't, like, the men in this town get together and be like, no, we're not taking this shit anyway, really looking forward to going back. But that is, that was my big takeaway from last time we were there. All right. So, you know, the thing I was thinking about a bit this morning that I thought we would open today's show talking about a little bit was that we are approaching, I think either tomorrow or the next day is Donald Trump's hundredth day in office, in the second term, that is. And I thought, you know, while, you know, there's been a lot going on in the news in those hundred days and there's been a lot going on for me personally in the last few weeks. That was kind of a good opportunity to kind of zoom out and assess the first hundred days. And then, of course, a big part of that story is what One of the things you sent me, Rob, for the topics for the show today is that in at least a couple of the more recent polls, Donald Trump's approval rating has pretty drastically declined. I think there was a, I think there was a CNN poll and maybe a Washington Post, one that both had him at like 40%. This, of course, is coming only a few weeks or a couple months after he was pretty consistently having his highest approval numbers. Now, again, I'm not trying to like, you know, you Take all these polls with a grain of salt. I don't know exactly how accurate they are. I mean, clearly, as we've mentioned many times on the show before, there was something revealing about this last election cycle where the pollsters were constantly telling us this was a toss up election. But yet all of the reporting since has indicated that the internal Democratic polls told you that Donald Trump was going to win every single swing state and the popular vote. So as I've said for a while, it's like, hey, how come we can't get polling that's as good as Kamala Harris's internal polling? Which is kind of bizarre. But regardless of that, I do think what they're measuring there is correct. Like, I'm not saying the numbers are exactly correct, but I do think that Donald Trump enjoyed his highest popularity when he first came in and now he is right back to where he was or perhaps even beneath where he was in his first term. So that's a kind of interesting, you know, that's an interesting development. 100 days into this. What do you think, Rob? Just kind of where you could take it wherever you want to. But we're 100 days into this thing and it does seem like the, at least kind of like the hope for the potential of what this administration could be has now met the reality of the direction the administration's going. What do you think?

Robbie Bernstein (8:59)

Well, firstly, I love his bravado because his last statement was, don't worry, the tariffs are going to cover every cost you've ever had and we're going to be bringing down prices because of all the money we're bringing in from the tariffs. To speak to what Donald Trump has actually accomplished in his first hundred days, I've observed a lot of noise and chaos and incredible bravado statements from the administration and then, you know, the left overplaying how bad it is or what exactly he's up to. So to give the quick snapshot, he did not end the Ukraine war in a single day. In fact, I don't know if he's walking away from it. I don't know if he's no longer engage in the peace process but is going to continue to send arms over to the Ukraine. I don't, as a person who regularly follows the news, I don't even know what the next is, what the next course of action or steps being taken is there in terms of border control, it sounds like they've actually gotten control of the border and that we do not have as many people coming into the country in terms of sending people out of the country, it's a bit of a mess. I don't think that they're deporting at higher rates and they seem to be having at least creating some news about mix ups. In the case of the Maryland man, that guy's from El Salvador and was returned to El Salvador. I think that there's more of a problem with the due process with the Venezuelans that were sent there. But anyways, I don't know that it's been the most fluid process in terms of actually engaging in the deportations. From an economic standpoint, the tariff policy, is he going for more tariffs? Is, does he. Is he actually even trying to create manufacturing jobs at this point? Is it just tariffs other than preferred American industries? Are other countries blinking once again, a lot of noise? I don't actually know what's happening there, but I think that's where he's actually losing the general public the most is in two, in two things. One is, I think, I think they wanted to see a bigger cleaning up of the deep state. Doge apparently, I guess did something with usaid, but they haven't really sold me on that storyline and it's apparently over and I haven't heard a new thing from the administration of what they're doing to clean up the fraud in government. So USAID storyline's over. There's no new plan for fraud in government. Pam Bondi, Cash Patel and all the rest, I haven't seen them actually go after Donald Trump's enemies or what the deep state apparatus was. We seem to be given all the support that Israel continues to need and everything else is a person who daily follows the news as a job and reads a lot. I don't know what they're doing. So that's my 100 day scorecard. People don't like the tariffs. They want to see the economy improved and they want to see some of the other things that Donald Trump said he was going to do actually get done.

Dave Smith (11:40)

Yeah. So, okay, I think that's a great, kind of a great assessment and just to add to that and maybe like discuss some of the specifics there, you know, I do look, there's always. I've noticed this a lot. I'm sure you have to rob. There's always a tendency that all of us have to guard against sometimes to, to act like or to act as if what you want to see means it's also going to be popular. You know, like it's like, oh, Donald Trump would be. I see this all the time. Amongst hardcore libertarians. You know, like, I, I remember I was, I was, you know, kind of gently making fun of Nick Gillespie once because he had some post about how, how if Donald Trump dropped all the culture war stuff and focused on the fiscal insanity of D.C. he'd have way higher approval. Yeah, it's like, yeah, like, don't get me wrong, I kind of agree with your point, but for us to just project this onto the world, like, you can't just pretend the world is the way you wish it was. And I said, I said to him, I go, I said, yeah, no, I, I agree. I said, matt Walsh, you know, did okay with what is a woman, but if he really wanted to sell some tickets, he should make a documentary about deficit spending because that's really what gets people moving. You know, it's like, okay. There is also real life, however. So while guarding against that, I'm still kind of going to do the same thing here. But I think I'm, I'm accurate that I think that in a strange way, there is this disconnect between where Donald Trump's base is and where the Donald Trump administration is, or I should even add there, there's a disconnect between where Donald Trump's base is, where Donald Trump's rhetoric is and they are, and then where the actual policies are. And I think where Donald Trump's base is is that they, they have a burning, very well deserved, white hot hatred for the ruling elite in the United States of America that they correctly blame the establishment for ruining everything, I mean, just ruining everything from getting everything wrong, getting fiscal policy wrong, monetary policy wrong, foreign policy wrong, all of COVID wrong, like, and lying, not even getting it wrong, but just lying about all of it. And there's also, I think, a very palatable recognition that severe crimes have been committed by the Biden and Obama administration and you. Now, Donald Trump also, with his rhetoric is pretty goddamn intense about this. You know, drain the swamp. Russiagate was a, was a witch hunt. You know, you know, everything Donald Trump says, like, goes along with this. And so that works really well on a campaign because your base hates the establishment and then you're feeding them lots of red meat about how you're going to be a revolutionary type figure. But then when it comes down to the details, there's really nothing revolutionary about anything in this administration. Now, it's, there are certainly areas where it is preferable to the alternative, where he's a little bit better than the other guys would be in some areas, not all, but there's Just something that. It's a recipe to be left not satisfied, because you know what I mean? Like, what the base really wants is something more radical than this. I would also. Okay, to get into a few specifics here. And again, this brings me no pleasure to say, but it does seem so, you know, full disclosure to everybody. I've told. I've said this before on the podcast, right? But, like, when Doge was first created, I was excited about it because I went, well, you know, if nothing else created, you know, on the campaign, when Donald Trump was like, we're gonna do this Doge thing and have Elon Musk be in charge of it, I was like, hey, if nothing else, this is gonna get the ideas out there. And I think there's something really valuable in that, and I think there has been something very valuable in that. I. But at the same time, what I. What I initially said was, was like, you know, this isn't a real government department. I don't know. It can't really do anything. It's, you know, the. The Congress is still going to appropriate the spending, and so that's what you got to deal with. And as I've said publicly, I try not to reveal too much about private conversations, but I had dinner with Vivek Ramaswamy. This is back several months ago when he was still a part of Doge, and I expressed that feeling to him, and I was like, yeah, this is really cool, but it sure is a shame it's not a real government department or nothing, and you guys can't actually do anything. And he was like, dude, just wait. Me and Elon got some stuff that we're working on, and it did give me pause and to go, hey, you know, have a little bit of humility. These are people who I think are much smarter and more successful than me, and, hey, maybe they got some plans. There's. There's a lot of brain power between Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk and a lot of money and a lot of influence and like, hey, maybe they got something. So I tried to be kind of open to it a hundred days in now. And it pains me to say this, but it seems overwhelmingly clear that Doge failed. It just. None of this is living. I. I hope. Oh, I pray to eat these words. I would. Nothing would make me happier than if I have to come back on the show at some point and go, I got that one wrong. It really did end up working out. But, like, what are we talking about here? $2 trillion in cuts? Where Those cuts, spending is going up, it's not going down. There's no cuts, there's negative cuts, there's growth, you know, and so, yes, a lot of hay was made about, mostly about unimportant things, if I'm being completely honest. You know, like the most amount of noise was like, they're funding transgender goat studies in Lebanon or whatever. And it's like none of that was really the, you know, like, okay, it's insane that we're funding all this shit. It's insane that we waste all of this money. But it's never like they even really mainstreamed the idea that like, no, we're, we're fomenting coups in countries against democratically elected governments or, you know what I mean? It was like never like really got in to like the, the true criminality of US Aid or the National Endowment for Democracy or whatever. And you know, there was a lot of talk, but when it came down to it, Congress passes a criminal that refunded like almost all the programs that Doge recommended cutting, and then Donald Trump is there to smear Thomas Massie for being against it. And so, like, I don't know. So they. So in terms of the Doge thing, kind of a complete failure, I do think that, like, you're absolutely right in what you said that, that Donald Trump has seemingly, almost single handedly, he has stopped the flow of migrants coming into the country. And that's a hu huge w. You can't take that one away from, from the Trump administration that they get an A plus on in terms of just the flow of people coming into the country. They get an A plus on. Going from the, the highest ever to the lowest ever is pretty goddamn impressive. And you know, okay, it was the highest ever a couple years ago, but still under the last administration. And so they get credit for that. But it is, the more you look at it, I do think there's just like a lot of things, a lot of things that Donald Trump is, is doing that just aren't really what the base was looking for. And I think that like, in terms of like deportations, I think the issue that most Trump supporters had was like, look, we don't even know how many illegal immigrants there are in the country. There's something in the ballpark of 30 to 50 million of them somewhere in there. I think we don't really know for sure. And it's kind of like, hey, they don't have a right to be here. They came here illegally and they should have to go. And then you have debates about, like, well, I guess we should start with the criminals, start with the gang members, start with this, and then, you know, figure out how exactly to do this. But, like, there was never really, like, a consensus that, like, yes, we should be deporting legal residents who oppose Israel or something like that. Like that. That just wasn't, like, really what they were all about. And I definitely think that, like, the, you know, that it was pretty clear while, don't get me wrong, while there's a lot of Trump's base who support Israel, I don't think. I think overwhelmingly the Trump base did not want any more of this military adventurism. And he's, look, he's conducted, like, a pretty serious bombing campaign in Yemen here. I think there's been. Last report I saw was there were around, I think, 100 people killed in the last days over this. And it's like, he never really sold this to the American people. Never really convinced. Had, like, a convincing argument of this is why we should go to war with Yemen. He's. Listen, as I've said before on the show, he does seem to have stood up to the Israelis to some degree about Iran. We could get into that a little bit more because there's some more updates on that. But it's constantly flirting with, with another war with Iran. And there's just, like, all of the craziness is back, you know, like all of the. Every day he says a crazy thing, this and that. It just doesn't seem like there's. Look, it doesn't seem like there's much of a payoff for what maybe, like, people's most optimistic hopes would have been. And then to your other point that you, you mentioned there, I mean, at this point, it seems overwhelmingly clear that there will be no punishment for any of the crimes that were committed at the highest levels of government. We're not getting anything. They're not, oh, well, we'll release the JFK files, minus all the redacted parts. We'll maybe release some of the Epstein stuff minus anything that you'd really want to say. There's just kind of like, at least this is very true from my perspective, but I do think this is a part of the reason why you're seeing his approval go down is that it's just kind of like people had their hopes up. Donald Trump stoked that. Like, really get your hopes up, because this is going to be something. And then it's just kind of like, nah, it's really more of the same in most of These areas. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, a brand new sponsor who we're very happy to have on board and that is American Financing. Prices for the last few years have been and continue to be high and most people unfortunately have to reach for credit cards to cover bills. Credit card debt has reached an all time high and it's trapping Americans. American Financing can help homeowners pay off high interest debt by using their home's equity. Their mortgage consultants are salary based so there's no incentive for them to put you in a loan. 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Robbie Bernstein (24:27)

I also think a lot of the bravado works really well in the election and there is a lot to be said for selling yourself to be in there. And even if you do not, let's say you do nothing as president but you just don't allow the Democrats to get back in office and continue to censor the Internet or the other shenanigans that they were pulling of bringing people across the border. That's a bit of a win. There's a win in just placeholding the office with the Republicans that the Democrats can't kind of do the worst of their agenda and enact and enact that upon us. When you're actually in office, bravado statements about what you're going to do when you can actually just be getting things done doesn't work anymore. So for example, when you start telling me, oh I'm running the next time again. What does that do? Why am I, why do I even need to be involved in a conversation about whether or not Donald Trump's going to be a good third term president? Why does that matter right now? You got at least two years to go accomplish incredible things, that all of a sudden there's a worthwhile conversation, is Donald Trump the grand saver of the American republic that we need to revisit third term presidents? There's no reason to have that conversation right now. In fact, it's just annoying to kind of throw out there. And even if it's just that you're trying to troll the Democrats into speaking about it, that's still just annoying because you're actually provoking the nonsense conversation. Or when you start telling me as you walk back all your tariffs that know the revenue coming in from tariffs, which as far as I understand don't really, they've mostly been walked back, except for China and even that critical industries he's starting to kind of cave on. So how exactly are tariffs going to start bringing down prices for people? Or what, what, what is the tax revenue that's coming or what is the tax savings that's going to exist for people? That sounds like nonsense. So I'm just saying once you're, once you're in office, nonsense, bravado statements. Firstly for me, just trying to decipher through the bullshit. If the bullshit's being initiated by Donald Trump and then the media is overreacting to it, I'm still kind of annoyed with Donald Trump because he's engaging in bullshit. You know what I mean? Like, it's still kind of the starting point of it. But my broader point is just bravado. It doesn't really work when you actually have the tools to implement your policy and you could just engage in good policy.

Dave Smith (26:50)

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, that's, it's, it's, man, there's so much bullshit around all of it because there's, there's so much bullshit that comes out of the Trump administration. And like you said, the media always has their overreaction to it, but it's kind of, but like, look, there was a, there was a bunch made about how the NASDAQ had like the worst April since the Great Depression, but then at the end of April, it recovered a bunch. And then there's all these Trump people being like, oh, look, you wrote all these articles about how it was so terrible, but I bet you're not writing any articles now or whatever and you're like, yeah, but what you guys are leaving out is that it was when he walked back the tariffs that it recovered. So, like, no, that's not really. I don't know. You don't get credit for that. You don't get credit for, like, driving your car toward a tree and then swerving at the last minute and not hitting it and being like, look, everyone was freaking out about us hitting the tree. It's like, yeah, because you were driving toward it. Like, that's why everybody was freaking out. And this isn't just the media freaking out. This is the markets freaking out. It's all like. Like, I don't know what to say again. Like, we've covered this whole time. Like, tariffs are bad economic policy. If you want to make some 40 chess argument about how you can use them as negotiating tools, like, okay, but that's not the argument Donald Trump's making. And it's like, oh, did you see. Did I mention this on the podcast or something? Because Bob, I mentioned this. I think I may have told you this in, like, when we were hanging out, but Bob Murphy just had the best take on this ever, because there was like, some. There was some, like, you know, free trade versus protectionist debate. And Bob Murphy was reviewing it, and the guy who was debating on the side of tariffs, he. He mentioned this Abraham Lincoln quote. Did I mention this to you on the podcast? I don't think so. He quoted Abraham Lincoln. Leave all your feelings about Abraham Lincoln aside. So he quotes Abraham Lincoln and he had some quote where it was like, he goes, when we trade with the world, we get the goods and another country gets the money, but when we trade with ourselves, we keep the goods and the money. And, like, you could see where the. Like, in a way, there's like, a nice ring to that statement, you know, like, you could see where, like, if you weren't thinking about it too hard, you'd be like, ah, that's right. We got the goods and the money, or whatever. And then Bob Murphy just goes, such a great Bob. This really is Bob Murphy at his best. He's a brilliant economist. He goes, oh, it's interesting. He goes, hey, you know, the first thing Abraham Lincoln did in the Civil War was put a full blockade around the South. I guess he was doing that just to get them richer, you know, I guess he was doing that just so that they would keep the goods and the money and they'd be even richer than being able to trade with the rest of the world. Or it's like. Or no, he recognized that actually, that makes you much poorer in order to do it. Right. Like, we put a full blockade around Germany in World War II, put a full blockade around Iraq in the 90s, full blockade around Yemen in the. After the Saudi invasion in 2015. There's a full blockade around Gaza right now. None of these blockades are put there because they just want to make these people richer. Right. Like, this is. It's just like. No, it's actually what everybody recognizes, including Abraham Lincoln in the civil war, is that they are trading with other countries who make certain products more efficiently, and therefore that makes them wealthier, too. So it's like, you know.

Robbie Bernstein (30:18)

But by the way, the statement's not even accurate. I had a phone call with the great Gene Epstein the other day. We spoke for about an hour on the phone on tariffs. I downloaded a whole bunch of information. And, Gene, I apologize if I don't relay this information with complete accuracy, but a lot of the money that we spend abroad then comes back into the United States of America when people buy our Treasuries, I guess in part hold our dollars, although he wasn't saying that. But a lot of it just comes back into our stock market. I understand that the stock market's not everything, and maybe it favors the elites that have those holdings, but the idea that we just hand. Like, even if you want to go with that, that is being true of, oh, we could just spend the money here, and then at least the money stays here. A lot of the money that goes abroad ends up coming back here by way of investment. So that the idea that we're just handing the other people the money and then it disappears from our economy, I don't even think that's accurate.

Dave Smith (31:13)

Right, right.

Robbie Bernstein (31:14)

Making any additional statement about, you know, the economics of tariffs or whatnot. I'm just saying, if you want. On that idea of we send the money out and then now that money's. Well, firstly, if they're just holding our dollars, then I guess that means we can rob them through our inflation, and that helps us. And then if they send the money back here because they're investing in our companies, they're not really keeping the money. Right?

Dave Smith (31:35)

No, that's a very.

Robbie Bernstein (31:36)

We can just continue to buy from them.

Dave Smith (31:38)

That's an important point. But I think that, you know, like, as you were making the distinction between, like, campaign rhetoric, verse, policy, there's on the campaign trail, Donald Trump would say things like, you know, it was always like, the narrative was kind of like, hey, the world is ripping us off. I know how to get them to not be ripping us off anymore. You threaten them with a tariff, you hit them with a this, and then they stop ripping us off, and then we prosper more. He talked a few times about, like, eliminating the income tax right now. Just this week, he said that they were talking about eliminating the income tax for everyone who made $200,000 a year or less. The thing is, that's not going to happen. And again, I hope to be wrong about this. I would. Nothing would make me happier than if income taxes were eliminated on everybody making 200 grand or less a year. And I would. Nothing would make me happier than having to eat my words on this. But, like, that simply is not going to happen. That's not on the table. And so what you end up getting is just the tariffs. Not the tariffs replacing the income tax, the income tax and the tariffs on top of that. So it was something that you could sell on the campaign, but once you're actually in there and what people, all people see is the market doing poorly and prices going up and things like that, that's not going to be very popular. And so, you know, look like, I think, Donald Trump, like, the way I viewed it. This is what I said on Rogan's podcast on the election, on the. I was gonna say the election night, but it was the day after the election. It's like Donald Trump had a mandate in three very key areas, like, a real genuine mandate. It was to deal with the illegal immigration crisis, to get the economy turned around, and to keep us out of foreign wars. Like, those were the areas where it was like, super majorities of the American people were behind that agenda. And he succeeded on one of them, you know, but he really has not succeeded at the other two. And I think that's pretty much what explains his approval numbers going down, by the way. I'm still rooting for the Trump administration. I still don't regret supporting them. I think it's clearly preferable to the alternative, at least as of now. Obviously, a major calamity could change that, but, you know, we got to be honest about these things, and I think that's about where we are.

Robbie Bernstein (34:21)

And big polls, they all love me more than they ever loved me. Canada is going to be the 51st state. We're going to own Greenland. No one's going to be richer. Sure. Just do something.

Dave Smith (34:31)

Yeah, yeah, well. Oh, and you also made just a very good point that there is something. There is just something about the optics of 100 days in talking about your third term and how we're gonna, like, you know, completely change all the rules to give you a third term when it's like, dude, you gotta succeed with term number two before. Like, look, let's just be real about this, okay? Donald Trump's first term ended in 2020, the worst year in modern American history, and he's 100 days into his second term. Like, dude, before. First of all, also, let's be brutally honest here. Donald Trump won all the swing states and won the popular vote against Kamala fucking Harris. He had Joe Biden at the beginning of the race and Kamala Harris at the end. These are, like, the two worst candidates, you know, if you. And I mean, the saying 2024, Joe Biden was a substantially worse candidate than 2020 Joe Biden, who wasn't great either. But 2024, Joe Biden was substantially worse. Kamala Harris was, like, the worst candidate the Democrats have ever fielded for president. I mean, like, just horrible. So he beat them. It's like, dude, like, it's not such a given that you'd win a third election. Let's see where we're at. But there is something very weird about, like. Like, the move is to do so great that your base starts going, hey, how the hell do we get a third term out of this guy? It's not to just you, as your approval numbers are falling, start leading with, like, I should do this again. And, you know, look, the other thing that you mentioned there that I do really think is worth me agreeing with is that. And this is part of. Not the only reason, but it is part of the reason why I still do not regret voting for Donald Trump is that, look, there is. There was a humongous cultural impact of Donald Trump winning this election that was very good for the country. And part of that was the fact that you're like, yeah, you. You didn't allow these Democrats to take power. And I really. I don't think it's unreasonable for people like me and you specifically Rob, to have been very concerned about the censorship that might have happened under a Kamala Harris presidency. I mean, there was unprecedented levels of censorship and attempted censorship in Joe Biden's four years. And if they came in and got kind of a mandate, like, yes, we saw these four years, and we're giving you another four years, which is essentially what keeping the vice president, you know, the vice president winning the presidency would have been. I don't know what that environment looks like for guys like me and you. You know, it's like, particularly also because we are not Flying under the radar nearly as much as we were during the last rounds of serious censorship. We're. We're a much bigger show and much more in, you know, in the public conversation. You know, I said this. I was talking about this on Saturday. We did our. We. I do like a. A monthly zoom call with the people, the top tier subscribers at part of the problem dot com. It's a great group of people that we have there. I really always enjoy it very much. If you want to get in on that, go sign up over@partoftheproblem.com. but. So I was. I was kind of talking to them about it because, you know, it's. We do it every month. So this was the first time we did it since all this stuff with my debate on Rogan and all this stuff has happened as we were talking about it. And like, one of the things I was saying, I've been thinking about this quite a bit because I remember, you know, if so, like, I got on. I got on Joe Rogan's podcast for the first time in 2016, and I think then I did it again in 2017. And like, this is kind of like when I started building a little bit of an audience. And I remember always being very concerned. And then through the years, you know, we. We've talked about. Both of us obviously are part of the problem. Inner circle Facebook group got booted, and you had major problems with your YouTube channel during COVID And there was always this kind of concern that it was like, well, listen, like, it's. It's like you're growing and you're trying to get bigger and bigger, but you're flying a little close to the sun here. And at a certain point, like, they'll come for you and they'll. They'll censor you. And this used to be the way it worked. And, you know, you could get the treatment that Alex Jones or Milo Yiannopoulos or Gavin McInnes or like all of these people just got shut down now. I mean, of course Alex Jones survived it and is still there. Gavin and Milo, I think, to a smaller extent, I think they were really impacted by their cancellation. And unfair. Very unfairly. Very unfairly. I mean, like, in the Milo example, it was like, do you remember they got him for the most ridiculous thing ever. They got him for opening up about being abused. I don't think he would have called it that, but, like, it was insane anyway, so that was always a major concern. And one of the things I've been thinking about over these last few days, while there has been this kind of. There's been, you know, you can call it whatever you want to. And I'm. I'm not trying to make myself out to be, like, a victim here or something like that, because I'm not. I don't feel like I'm a victim. I actually feel quite safe. I hope I'm not being naive in saying that, but I feel quite safe actually where I am right now. But there's been an attempt to, like, attack my reputation in a way that I've never experienced before with really, you know, big figures writing pieces and all of the. All going at me. And it's not like they're not overtly calling for me to be censored, but it does seem like the only logical conclusion is that they're calling for Joe Rogan to not have me on the show anymore or something like that. But the thing I've been thinking about a lot is just like, that I'm so lucky that this happened now. You know, Like, I'm so lucky that we're kind of in the situation we're in now where Elon bought Twitter, where Zuckerberg bitched out, where YouTube kind of decided they don't want to do this anymore, and that whole censorship regime has kind of receded. And now I'm in the environment where I'm like, you know, the. For the moment, I was the talk of the who's, you know, spreading misinformation or whatever they say. But, like, that is, you know, look, I think that's a big deal for the country. I don't mean to just make it about myself, but, like, for me personally, it's like, hey, I think Donald Trump winning was a huge part of this. And so, like, I'm. I'm not unappreciative of how important that is. The other thing it's also made me appreciate is, like, out how brutal it must have been for those people who were the victims of those cancellation mobs in those days, where they could really get you. Where they could just get you. And then it was like, oh, dude. Like, okay, yeah, you have the freedom of speech. You could keep saying whatever you want to, but you don't have a Twitter account, a YouTube account. You can't be on itunes, you can't be on Facebook, you can't be on Instagram. You know, it's like, oh, you're. You're pretty effectively removed from the conversation. And I. While I still am dealing with, like, the kind of, like, whoa, there's A lot of people, you know, talking about this, it doesn't have the teeth to it, at least it seems. Again, I could be wrong about this. I, I really hope I'm not wrong about that one. But it, but there is something kind of different there. And Donald Trump winning isn't the only aspect of that, but it certainly is a major one. And so I wouldn't want to, I wouldn't want to downplay that. And that's much more important than just me, obviously. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Brunt. Choosing work boots used to mean sacrificing comfort or durability. If they felt good, they didn't last, and if they lasted, they wrecked your feet. Brunt Workwear finally ended that trade off. Designing boots that withstand the toughest job sites while feeling as comfortable as your favorite sneakers. I will tell you, they just sent me a pair of these, and these might be the most comfortable work boots I've ever put on. And for a limited time, our listeners can get $10 off at Brunt when they use the promo code problem at checkout. Just head to bruntworkware.com and use the promo code problem, and you're all set. After you buy, make sure to let them know that you heard about them from the part of the problem podcast. Brun didn't just make a durable work boot, by the way. They've reinvented comfort for the hardest workers out there. For a limited time, our listeners can get $10 off@bruntworkware.com by using the promo code problem at checkout. Just go over to bruntworkware.com and use that promo code problem, and you're all set. So head over to bruntworkwear.com use the promo code problem and get $10 off. And of course, after your purchase, they will ask where you heard about them. Please support our show and let them know that you heard about them here. All right, let's get back into the show. All right, let's see. What should we. What do you want to go to here, Rob? Oh, do you want to. You know what? This is just as we're. We're talking about this stuff. What? There's also kind of. I've got a clip here of Rachel Maddow that I did think was pretty funny because it kind of demonstrates the whole thing that we're talking about. It's kind of on topic where it's like, you know, it's like there's the Trump craziness But then there's the reaction to Trump from the media, which is like 10 times more crazy, so it makes him seem less crazy somehow. But here was Rachel Maddow being interviewed about kind of her take on the first hundred days of Donald Trump's second administration. Let's play this clip.

Rachel Maddow (44:31)

Was there some profound failure of imagination on our part that we did not reasonably anticipate how effective Trump and his cabal of doers would. Would be? And the reason why I say that is they destroy. They wreak havoc.

Dave Smith (44:47)

Can you just pause it already? Wasn't already, dude. Rob, just think about the framing of this question. Is like, this is where MSNBC is, right? They're talking Trump's first hundred days, right? Here's Rachel Maddow on Trump's first hundred days. So we just did a whole topic on this, right? But imagine this is where MSNBC still is. There's still go. Did we just not fearmonger enough? Was that was the problem, that we just didn't realize how bad it would be? And isn't that amazing, Rob, that that's still their takeaway? Not that we overplayed our hand and therefore couldn't talk about the very real issues with Donald Trump, but maybe we didn't. Maybe we weren't alarmist enough. Is where MSNBC is. It's. Dude, it's so, like, reminiscent of 2017, 2018, where the dynamic is always like, you almost want to be pissed off at Donald Trump, but then you see the corporate media and you're like, no, you know what? Fuck you. I think I'm back with him. It's just too crazy.

Robbie Bernstein (45:52)

Imagination is a very funny word from a journalist. We have spun more outlandish stories.

Dave Smith (45:59)

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Right. All right, let's keep playing.

Rachel Maddow (46:03)

Caused so much damage. And then they're told that's illegal. They're told, you can't do that. They're told that that is wrong. And we see that. Right? But the damage has been done. And then you have people like US citizens that are now being held in prisons. I mean, it's these types of things that really make me wonder, did we again, have a failure of imagination?

Robbie Bernstein (46:23)

Can you just pause again?

E (46:25)

I actually look at it.

Robbie Bernstein (46:26)

I think, you know, we haven't played a mainstream, like, news clip on the show in a while, and I don't see as many of them in my Twitter feed. I haven't been consuming as much mainstream media as of late. It really lacks any specifics whatsoever as to what the havoc is. And if you're one single example is the El Salvadorian who has sent back to El Salvador. Not that I say that that was necessarily the right decision. I actually have mixed feelings on that one because he is El Salvadorian. It just lacks any specifics whatsoever of what exactly is the havoc. What exactly is the defiance of law. I mean, a lot of these lower courts will end up getting overturned that would try to. I don't think regional judges should be able to really hold back. You know, I think there needs to be like a secondary Supreme Court that almost. Or these cases need to get to the Supreme Court quicker. I don't really think liberal local judges should be allowed to, you know, counteract the president's. The president's policies, particularly if the matters seem to be more political than they are legal. But in this case, it's just such a nonsense claim where she doesn't give a single specific, other than one incident, which is one guy that's not wreaking havoc on a country.

Dave Smith (47:43)

Yeah, yeah. Well, it's also the way she said her actual words were that we have American citizens sitting in prison. And you're like, yeah, we have lots of American citizens sitting in prison. Like, what do you.

Robbie Bernstein (47:59)

No, I know who is living in Maryland, who's not an American citizen.

Dave Smith (48:03)

Right, right. But so it's like, no, there's a case of a non citizen who. And that is very debatable whether that was the right move or not. But like, that's not. But like, it's. She just an American citizen in prison. It's like, yeah, dude, we have the biggest prison population in the world. Like, yes, we have lots of American citizens in prison. What are you talking about here? Like, it's like you said, there's just no specificity. Excuse me, there's no specifics here. It's like, again, yes, it's not. The problem is like, it's always in a weird way and perhaps even intentionally, some conspiracy theorists might. Might speculate, but the, the media always, in their own weird way, cover for Donald Trump because there are these things to be critical about, about how he kind of like, really isn't doing so many of the things that he promised that he ran on, but instead, all they can do. It's like all they're capable of doing is shrieking catastrophe. That's it.

Robbie Bernstein (49:05)

This man wore a blue suit at a funeral.

Dave Smith (49:07)

Yeah, yeah. It's just everything's got to be. Yeah, something like that. Yeah, right. He wore a blue suit to the Pope's funeral. My God, that really is wreaking Havoc on the world. All right, let's keep playing.

E (49:22)

The other way around. I feel like the kind of pundit common wisdom heading into Trump's second term was that the comparison with the first term or the difference with the first term was going to be that he was going to be more efficient, he was going to be better at doing what he wanted to do, and that's what we should brace ourselves for. And I actually don't think that's the way it's worked out. I think that he is definitely more ambitious in terms of the kind of radical change he wants for the country. I do think we're in the middle of an attempted authoritarian overthrow of American democracy. I mean, I think everybody who predicted that was right, but I don't think he's any better at it. I mean, you just think about the litany of mistakes, things that they acknowledge.

Dave Smith (50:08)

Pause it already for a second. I mean, just. You really cannot overstate. It's unbelievable because, like, it's the same thing we used to say back in the day when we used to pay attention to this more, when we used to always play the clips of Brian Stelter, that you would just go like, yo, they could. They never even attempt to look in the mirror. They never even attempt to go, like, what? You know, like, look, dude. Like, even, you know, if you. Let's say you. Your marriage fails, you know, you get a divorce. Even if you want to sit there, like, let's say you were married to someone, they were shitty to you, they were awful, they did a lot of bad stuff, the marriage ends up failing. Like, at some point, you have to look in the mirror a little bit. Maybe not at first. Maybe it takes a little bit of time. You know, we're. Now, it's, it's, you know, we're going into nine years since 2016. You know what I mean? Like, it's been a while. It's almost a decade since their major, like, upheaval of Donald Trump winning when they all said he couldn't. But, like, even in the marriage example I was giving, like, even if it was, like, 90% on them, on the other person you were married to, like, at some point you'd be like, all right, well, like, 10% of it was on me. Like, I could have done this better and this better, you know, you just, like, on some level, they are just, like, incapable. Rachel Maddow looks back and goes, yeah, all the people who said end of democracy have been proven right. We're witnessing an attempted authoritarian takeover. It's like, you don't have to be. You could make a claim like that and then not have to be specific. I mean, like. Like, I remember as. As I've said many times when I. When I debated Chris Cuomo, there was one point where I. I referred to lockdowns as totalitarian. And then he went, yeah, that's just hyperbole to call them totalitarian. And then I responded by being like, no, listen, here's the situation that we're describing, okay? Americans were waking up every morning to watch their governor on tv, to find out what they were allowed to do that day, down to the most intimate details of, like, can I have a funeral for my father? Can I go to work? Can I go work out at the gym? Can I go to my place of worship and worship with my. My, you know, like, fellow, you know, Christians or Jews or whatever. It's like, I'm sorry, if we were looking at that on paper, that is clearly totalitarianism. Now, you could argue that the totalitarianism was justified, but if that's not totalitarianism, then the word has no meaning, you know, so it's like, okay, you could throw out, like, a provocative claim like that, but as we all know, at least all honest human beings, the more provocative the claim is, the more you have to be able to back it up with very specific details. You know, she just throws that. What the fuck is anyone even talking about? Like, I'm just like, you could be against some of the deportations, you could be against some of the policies, whatever, but, like, to just throw this out, like, all those people who completely lost the day. Like, I mean, think about this, right? You had everybody in the corporate media saying, if this guy wins, it's the end of democracy, and then he was democratically elected. So, like, the voters rejected your argument, and you're just going to say they won the day because we are witnessing it without backing it up in any way. Like, this is the perfect cover for Donald Trump is people like this. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Tax Network usa. Tax day may have passed, but for millions of Americans, the real trouble is just beginning. If you've missed the April 15 deadline or still owe back taxes, the IRS is ramping up enforcement. Every day you wait only makes things worse. With over 5,000 new tax liens filed daily and tools like property seizures, bank levies, and wage garnishments, the IRS is applying pressure at levels we haven't seen in years. Increased administrative scrutiny means collections are moving fast. The good news, there's still time for Tax Network USA to help self employed or a business owner. Even if your books are a mess, they've got it covered. Tax Network USA specializes in cleaning up financial chaos and getting you back on track fast. Even after the deadline, it's not too late to regain control. Your consultation is completely free. And acting now could stop penalties, threatening letters and surprise levies before they escalate. Call 1-800-958-1000 or visit them@tnusa.com Smith. You may have missed April 15, but you haven't run out of options. Let Tax Network USA help before the IRS makes the next move. All right, let's get back in our show. Any thoughts on that, Rob, or you want to jump back in?

Robbie Bernstein (55:05)

Let's jump back in.

Dave Smith (55:06)

All right.

E (55:09)

Right out of the gate, they tried to cut off all federal grants for everything and then within 48 hours had to take that back and say they didn't mean that. Remember Trump's big thing about like, I've turned on the water in California and immediately the Army Corps of Engineers was like, yeah, you just wasted all of the water that we had saved in reservoirs for the summer season. You know, accidentally firing the Ebola prevention workers, accidentally firing the nuclear weapons people, accidentally firing the bird flu people. All of this stuff that they have done and then undone, it does reflect their radicalism and their ability and willingness to just destroy. But they haven't done a lot of it on purpose. They've done a lot of it despite themselves. And their incompetence is not a blessing. It's, it's a lot of people glibly say, like, oh, you should have enemies that are this incompetent. They'll fall down. You don't have to trip them. But their failure has been a wreckage has created wreckage in the US Government. It just means that they're not that good at trying to do at doing what they're actually trying to do.

Dave Smith (56:16)

All right. Do you, do you want to take a stab at this nonsense, Rob?

Robbie Bernstein (56:22)

Well, I just want to start with the inaccuracy of her examples. From what I remember of the California water was that a lot of it gets dumped into the ocean to preserve some fish. And Donald Trump was criticizing that policy of dumping water into the ocean. And then on the avian flu, I don't remember Donald Trump specifically firing and then rehiring the avian flu team, but there was a storyline of that. There was massive culling of chickens, which is what drove up the egg prices and whether or not Biden's policy for culling chickens was. Was a good policy, the nuclear engineer ones, I believe is actually accurate. I think that in the Doge thing, they hired some staff and realized, oh, we actually need that staff.

Dave Smith (57:11)

Yeah, yeah.

Robbie Bernstein (57:12)

But I don't see a lot of. I don't see a lot of slashed government spending or programming that has resulted in a failed state now of chaos. And so, firstly, her list of examples sound, like, very small and specific. Two of the four that she listed there sounded inaccurate. Are you endorsing Biden's policy of culling the chickens and driving up egg prices? Do you think that water has been well managed in the state of California and that Trump's specific water policy has created a problem? And so, I mean, the other two examples, I just don't remember what she just said, but it doesn't seem like we're in a state of chaos because of. And by the way, I don't think Donald Trump's great at governance, and I think that's the issue that he's having right now. So I kind of agree with her theme. But the hyperbole of that Donald Trump has rolled back government programming and now we're in a state of chaos, I just don't think is very accurate of what's happening in the country.

Dave Smith (58:14)

Yes, also there is. Yeah, I 100% agree with you on that. It's also just. Her point is totally confused. Like, it's like they, they want to do all of this radical harm, but they're so incompetent that they can't do all of this radical harm. But that doesn't actually make it any better because it's their incompetence that is doing all of this radical harm. It's all just ridiculous. The other thing I got to say here, which is, you know, okay, I'm. I'm taking this back to Libertarianism 101, but, you know, that's a really good class that everybody really should have to take. It really should be a required class. I know there's a little contradiction there. It should be forced by violence for you to take libertarianism one on one. But there are. The idea that somebody is attempting an authoritarian takeover, and the means by which they want to do that is to cut the size of government is retarded. That is just absolutely ridiculous. This has never happened once in the history of the world. This is not the way authority and authoritarian takeovers work. Work. Nobody has an authoritarian takeover. And step one is to give themselves less power. It's just totally ridiculous. And the idea that it's like, now you could, you could make some argument, if you wanted to, that Donald Trump is attempting to cut government down to the bones or something like that, and that we think that will have a negative outcome. Now, I don't think that's a particularly good argument. And there's. There's lots of things that would jump right up at you as, as a big, you know, red flag that you've got that all wrong. Like, number one, like, if Donald Trump really was, I mean, rob me. And you wish that were actually the case, but, like, Donald Trump, there's a lot of power of things Donald Trump has to do that he's not doing. Donald Trump. Trump could have vetoed the continuing resolution. He didn't have to sign that into law. He could have vetoed that and say, no, get me. Send me a budget that has serious spending cuts in it. I mean, he's got a majority in both houses of Congress. You know, like, I'm just saying, like, like, if you want to put on. And this is part of the thing that'll actually make you furious with Donald Trump is you go, if you run, if you want to run the counterfactual and go, imagine Donald Trump was just a little bit better. There's a lot of areas where it's like, oh, yeah, he really could have done that. And what could. You know, especially when he was coming into that vote with record high approval ratings and he's coming off this huge win and he's become, you know, the cool kid and like, whatever, all of this stuff, and he's the most popular Republican by far in the country. It's. It would have just been. I mean, amongst Republicans at least, it would have just been like, there was a huge opportunity where he could have put so much pressure on the Congress to be like, well, what are they going to do? What are the Republicans going to not do that? And also, oh, it would have been so powerful because, man, he could have called their bluff because there's not a single Republican who hasn't ever said on record that they're for smaller government. So what would you, you know, it wouldn't have been on one of the divisive issues that some Republicans disagree with him on or something like that. It would have just been like, no, we're actually cutting government this time. This is the moment everyone's talked about it and not done it. I'm the best. I'm terrific. We're going to, you know, do it in your dumb Trumpy and way whatever he could, but he didn't do that. He. He in fact was. Was smearing the one congressman, Thomas Massie, who stood up against the insanity. So he's told. So it doesn't. You know that. But again, that wouldn't. Even if it were the case that Donald Trump was trying to cut government in drastic ways, which it's not. I wish it was. But even if that were the case, that wouldn't be an authoritarian takeover. That would be the opposite. That would be giving more power to the people and less power to the central government. That's not how authoritarian takeovers work. What the fuck are you talking about? This is so. It's so unbelievably stupid. All right, listen, we do got to. Got to wrap up there because I gotta run. Thank you guys very much, as always, for listening. Come see me and Rob out in San Diego. Looking forward to this one. All right, have a good one. Catch you later. Peace.