Tucker and Fuentes Break the Paradigm

Summary

Podcast Summary: Part Of The Problem

Episode: “Tucker & Fuentes Break The Paradigm”
Date: October 29, 2025
Host: Dave Smith, with co-host Robbie the Fire Bernstein
Theme:
A deep dive into Tucker Carlson’s interview with Nick Fuentes and the shifting landscape of right-wing discourse, censorship, platforming, and the collapse of neoconservative gatekeeping.

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Overview

This episode responds to the explosive Tucker Carlson/Nick Fuentes interview, exploring its cultural and political significance, the backlash from mainstream right-wing figures, and the broader implications for discourse on the American right. Dave Smith and Robbie the Fire Bernstein examine the failures of “deplatforming” as a strategy, challenges to the Overton Window, and the importance of honest, open debate on controversial topics.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Tucker Carlson Platforms Nick Fuentes (04:24)

• Context: Tucker Carlson hosted Nick Fuentes, a controversial far-right figure, for a lengthy, high-profile interview.
• Dave describes both Tucker and Fuentes as “elite level guys” and notes the mutual respect and palpable tension in the conversation.
• Smith predicts, “People are going to lose their minds about this…this is…one of those things where you’re like, there is, you know, Nick Fuentes…toxic boogeyman...” (05:32).
• Tucker is distinguished from other interviewers in that his platform is “just different…it is a different thing to have the number one right wing guy in America have him on his show.”

2. Collapse of Neoconservative Gatekeeping (07:12)

• Dave recalls history: “The right wing was always gatekept by neoconservatives…they would keep out what they called bigots…but really that always meant anti-war people…”
• “You don’t control the conversation anymore. Even if that means Nick Fuentes gets the thing…you guys don’t get to control the conversation anymore.” (08:55)
• Smith’s main point: Those most vocal about “platforming” are afraid their side can’t win a fair argument: “The only reason why people ever want to suppress speech is because they go, ‘We’ll lose if you can hear the other side…’” (10:50)
• He promotes dialogue and debates over censorship: “What you want to do is have…a release valve, hey, let’s have a conversation about this. That’s the path forward.” (10:35)

3. Reactions and Censorship Dynamics

• Smith contrasts reactions then and now: Censorship is “weaker than ever…leftists who are hysterical are more dismissed than ever…”
• Nick Fuentes has become unavoidable: “He’s a part of this national conversation. He gets to be here too. There’s no arguing that anymore.” (21:41)
• The attempt to cancel Tucker is depicted as a last gasp from an establishment losing its grip.

4. Charlie Kirk’s Legacy and Weaponization of the Dead (17:00–26:45)

• Discussion of Dinesh D’Souza releasing private texts from Charlie Kirk, demonstrating Kirk’s strong opposition to platforming Fuentes.
  • Notable quote (Charlie Kirk, via text): “This was a massive mistake…He’s vermin and you just gave him one of the biggest boosts of his career.” (18:12)
• Dave pushes back on this maneuver, saying, “There’s something really dirty about trying to speak for a friend of yours who just died. And you’re coming out with the opposite conclusion of what you know he said when he was alive…based on guessing how he would have felt about this interview.” (24:12)
• Kirk was, in practice, much more pro-free speech than some of his current defenders: “If there was one thing that [Charlie] was all about, it was like being anti censorship, pro free speech, pro conversations.” (27:18)

5. The Overton Window and “Who Sets the Limits?” (29:30–32:00)

• Smith challenges the logic of excluding Fuentes while including those with other extreme views: “I have a very different worldview than progressives… I will decide for myself where my hierarchy of moral outrages is and where my Overton Window is.”
• Highlights hypocrisy: “Why is it right that, let’s say, a lockdown governor can be debated, can be platformed… but Nick Fuentes is beyond the pale?”

6. Audience Interaction and Questions (33:44–41:00)

• Smith and Bernstein answer live listener questions, including about Fuentes’s stance on immigration (“enforce it with an iron fist”) and whether such radical actions are plausible or desirable policy.
• Smith’s skepticism: “Show me the plan of how you’re going to go find 30 to 50 million people and deport all of them without turning our country into like a goddamn North Korea style hellhole. Because that’s a worse problem…than having a bunch of illegal immigrants.” (38:26)
• On policy “tough talk”: “It’s easy to always have the most badass answer…that appeals particularly to young men… But I think the devil’s really in the details.” (39:38)

7. Mass Deportation Policy and Political Optics (41:00)

• Smith references classic civil rights movement tactics as analogous to public opinion on immigration enforcement: “It’s easy to support the policy [in] abstract… It’s a much different thing to see a mother…hauled out…who’s lived here her whole life.” (40:56)
• Even if mass deportation is initially popular, “if [they] get real violent, what happens to that number?”
• “It’s a complicated calculation…[it] requires people who actually play 4D chess, not people who their fans pretend that they do…”

8. Conservative Media Dynamics and ‘Trump Loyalty’ (49:50–53:25)

• Reflections on Smith’s appearance on Louder with Crowder, and the tendency for criticisms of Trump to be met with “So would you prefer a Democrat?”:
  • Bernstein: “When you criticize Trump…they go, ‘Oh, so would you prefer a Democrat?’ And you’re like, no, that’s not what I was saying…” (49:51)
• Smith insists on the need to honestly critique Trump and not suspend analysis for the sake of tribal unity.

9. 2028 and JD Vance, Trump’s Influence (52:20–58:35)

• Listener question about JD Vance and how Trump’s influence would shape his candidacy.
• Smith: “It’s tough to be the top alpha when you still gotta, like…not actually upset this guy.”
• On the danger of political calculation: “What’s the point of us doing what we do if I’m not going to criticize Donald Trump when he messes up?”
• “Someone’s got to just tell the truth. That’s got to be someone’s role.” (58:22)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “The only reason why people ever want to suppress speech is because they go, ‘We’ll lose if you can hear from the other side…’” — Dave Smith (10:53)
• On Charlie Kirk posthumous legacy: “There’s something really dirty about trying to speak for a friend of yours who just died… you come out with the opposite conclusion of what you know he said when he was alive, based on guessing how he would have felt about this interview.” — Dave Smith (24:12)
• “Show me the plan of how you’re going to…deport all [illegal immigrants] without turning our country into a goddamn North Korea style hellhole.” — Dave Smith (38:26)
• On media discourse: “If you’re just going to always say, ‘well, the other side’s worse,’ ... we shouldn’t do a show. Just hang a Trump sign up and that’s it.” — Dave Smith (50:41)
• “Someone’s got to just tell the truth. That’s got to be someone’s role. Other people can be the political operatives. That’s not what me and you do, Rob.” — Dave Smith (58:22)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 04:24 — Opening on the Tucker+Fuentes interview, reaction, and respect tension
• 07:12 — Neocon gatekeeping history, suppression of anti-war voices
• 17:00–26:45 — Charlie Kirk, Dinesh D’Souza text release, and the battle over legacy
• 29:30–32:00 — The Overton Window, who determines what’s “acceptable” to discuss
• 33:44–41:00 — Audience questions on immigration, legality vs. practicality of mass deportation
• 41:00–44:00 — Civil rights analogies and public backlash against hard-line enforcement
• 49:50–53:25 — Criticizing Trump, right-wing tribalism, and healthy dissent
• 52:20–58:35 — What would JD Vance’s campaign look like, Trump’s influence post-2028

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Tone & Style

Conversational, irreverent, and direct. Dave Smith appeals to reason and principle, frequently calls out tribalism on left and right, and is deeply skeptical of power and censorship. Robbie provides comic relief and pragmatic asks, with an occasional tangent on podcasting life and technical mishaps.

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Conclusion

This episode is a clear call for open, unafraid discourse—even on the most radioactive topics. Smith and Bernstein dissect the establishment’s failures to silence or contain “toxic” figures and argue for honest debate over censorship, reminding listeners that tough policy questions require careful, reality-based answers rather than slogan-based posturing. The discussion also critiques how media and political elites attempt to manipulate legacies and suppress rivals, championing individual discernment and integrity.

Transcript

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[Dave Smith]

Today's show is brought to you by Yom.com home of the $60 kilo, longtime sponsor of this podcast. And really everything that I've been a part of for the last decade, they have been supporting. So if you are over the age of 21 and you enjoy Kratom, you make sure to get your kratom from yom.com it's lab tested. It's sent right to your door. You don't have to go out and find a gas station. And it's the best price you're going to find anywhere. $60 for a kilo. Yom.com let's start the show. What is up? What is up? Some say that that's the long version. What's up is what the kids are saying these days. But I like to go old school. How are you? Welcome to the show. Thank you for tuning in. I'm Dave Smith. He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein. It is quite a date. Lot to talk about. I, I just got off of Louder with Crowder. How'd it go? That was fun. It was fun. You know, it was. Well, I don't know. I'll be interested to see the feedback that people have. I think I, it started, I think kind of contentious but ultimately it, it, I, I don't know. The debate portion was essentially came down to him saying you called for Trump to be impeached and you, you agree with Obama more than Trump when it comes to Iran and stuff like that. And then, you know, I think once we actually got into it, there wasn't much of a substantive debate. But then, and then we went on to like the Mug Club, which is like the subscriber thing, and we just, you know, talked a bit. It wasn't like that part wasn't really a debate. It was just more of like a conversation. But anyway, I appreciate Crowder and the guys for having me on. I hope you guys, yeah, go check it out and enjoy it. And. Yeah. How are you, Rob? What's new?

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

I need to spend some time at home and clean up this studio. I am tangled in chords right now. I tried swapping microphones. I got a fancy one like yours. Whatever. Improvements coming soon.

[Dave Smith]

All right, well, there you go.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

I keep going on the road and like unplugging St. And it's just, it's a, whatever, a train wreck in here. But anyways, we're coming to the end of Porch Tour, so come out, buy tickets.

[Dave Smith]

What do you got? What's coming up?

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[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Oh, man. The two wild runs left Bridgeport, Connecticut, tomorrow night, Thursday night in New York City at Pub Key, which is a bitcoin bar. Fans will like that.

[Dave Smith]

I love pup. Great spot.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Oh, yeah. I used to. At the previous bar, I used to drink there all the time. It was actually called Formley's Crow Bar. Whatever. We don't have to get into that. Walpole, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, big old mansion basement party. And then Providence, Rhode island, and the next week, Jacksonville, Savannah and Charleston. And then New Orleans, then Skank Fest and then winding down.

[Dave Smith]

There you go. And of course, me and Rob only have one gig left for the year, which is Poughkeepsie, New York, in November. Comicdavesmith.com for those ticket links, those. And they will sell out. We got two shows there. They're both going to sell out. So go grab tickets for those if you. If you would like to come out. And we got BK Chris, Chris Vega also on the show with us. So it should be a good time. Yeah, we did.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

We did almost no New York, New Jersey or Connecticut shows this year. So those are going to be filled up.

[Dave Smith]

That's maybe that's why these tickets are moving. Also, reminder to everybody to please and thank you so much to the people who already have. It really means so much to us. But my wife's children's book, Healthy Hibernation is available for pre sale on on Amazon and bookbaby.com she was up, up, up on a few of the charts on Amazon. She was number one in children's health and was, was like in the top 20 on, on new released children book. So that's just like really warms my heart. It means a lot to her. I really appreciate everybody who picks up a copy and I, I promise it's like the sweetest book. If you got little kids or someone, you know who you love has little kids, you'll really enjoy it. So yeah, make sure to go grab that. All right, let's, let's get into some stuff today. So last night, now I full disclosure, I knew this was happening, but did not know it was happening last night. But Tucker Carlson, whose producer is actually just texting me. Tucker Carlson hosted Nick Fuentes on his show last night. It was a, a huge show. I mean I don't know what the numbers on it are as of right now, but this thing is going to do unreal numbers. And it was, I don't know, it was. First of all, it was a very interesting show. I watched the whole thing. I really enjoyed it. I thought both of them did a really good job. It was a very interesting dynamic to me where just both from, from my assessment of, I think both Nick Fuentes and Tucker Carlson are, they're very, very good at what they do. They're both two kind of like elite level guys in this game, whatever exactly this game is. And there was just an interesting thing there. There was like a respect dynamic between the two of them. There was a little like, there was kind of this tension and it was interesting to see them kind of work it out together. And I, I overall really enjoyed the spirit of the thing. But so I'm watching it and it's kind of interesting. But then of course part of it is that you go, yo, people are going to lose their minds about this. Like, it's just one of those things where you're like, I mean this is, there is, you know, Nick Fuentes, of course, as, as you know, Rob has, you know, kind of occupied this space of being the toxic boogeyman, right wing figure. You know, I talked about this years ago, five, six years ago when I first had him on the show. I just never gotten so many people, so many people were demanding that I denounce Nick Fuentes and where it's like, how dare you platform him and all of this. And obviously like in the, the five years or six years since then, you know, the world's changed quite a bit. And we're just in a. There's a different dynamic now. And so now Fuentes is bigger than ever. The censorship regime is weaker than ever. The leftists who are hysterical are more dismissed than ever. And now Nick's been doing a lot of these big shows. He's. He did obviously Glenn Greenwald show, Patrick Bet, David's show, Russell Brand's show. Me and him did our show. Maybe not quite as big as those, but was a pretty big show when he was on it. But there was something about Tucker Carlson that. It's just different. And you knew this was going to drive them all crazy because it is a different, it is a different thing to have the number one right wing guy in America have him on his show. And so you just knew they were going to flip out about that. I don't know, Rob. I, I'll just say this. There, there is this. The right wing was always gate kept, and it was almost always gatekept by neoconservatives. And they would keep out what they called bigots out. But really that always meant anti war people like, like anybody who wasn't for the warfare state always got kicked out. And so, in fact, I'd, I'd encourage any of you to go read. There was a piece in National Review by David From. You guys remember the foreign spy who works for Israel? David from the guy who came up with the Axis of Evil, the speechwriter for George W. Bush. Well, he wrote a piece in national review in either 2002 or 2003 called unpatriotic Americans. And it was all. The whole piece was about all of our favorite guys, Rob. The whole piece was about Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul and Lou Rockwell and Justin Raimondo and how all of these guys, these were right wingers who hated America. They were truly unpatriotic. And why was that, Rob? Because they wouldn't get on board with the war. That's what made them so bad. That's how much they hate America. They side with the terrorists because they don't support us invading Iraq. And so I guess in like a larger sense, it, like the bigger symbol, the thing that I love about it is that you see all the neocons now freaking out and it's like, yeah, you, you don't control the conversation anymore. And even if that means, you know, that Nick Fuentes gets the thing and like, you know, whatever, I don't care. You guys don't get to control the conversation anymore. And you know what? Nick Fuentes makes a lot of really good points, okay? There's some things that we disagree on. But you know what, he makes some really good points on the other stuff. And I actually thought it was very interesting. Tucker got really into his story. Then I was kind of interesting to see Tuck go, oh, yeah, that's what they do to people who criticize Israel. They try to ruin you, and look, they ended up making you an actual Jew hater or something like that, and then they end up talking that through. And Nick was kind of similar to the way he was on my podcast, where he's just like, no, I'm not. He's like, no, I'm not saying it's all Jews, and I'm not preaching it, preaching racial hatred. And that's not what I'm saying. And so if nothing else, you get this guy on record saying that people get to hear both sides of it. I just always thought, like, and I think you agree with me, but I'll turn it over to you here, Rob. But, like, it was always. So if you want any type of positive outcome, the last thing you ever want to do is heighten up tensions and heighten up censorship and get everybody crazy. What you want to do is have, like, a release valve, hey, let's have a conversation about this. That's the path forward. Like, let's talk about these things. And it seems to me that the only people who freak out about clout platforming, much like the woke left used to do, now it's the ones calling others woke, right? But it's. It's the Zionist right doing it. The only reason why people ever want to suppress speech and to silence conversations is because they go, we'll lose if you can hear from the other side, because everybody will probably agree that we are the ones who are wrong here and need to be left behind. And that's why you want to shut down conversation. No other reason. But anyway, you go ahead, Rob, any thoughts you have.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

I always think it's fun when people are panicked about platforming, and I guess it's fun when Internet people are able to overcome all of that and have a big audience and, you know, climb their way onto the big platform. So haven't watched it yet. It'll definitely be on my weekend of travel activity. I did check out the Martyr made you recommended, and that was a really incredible lesson on World War I, but I'll have to reserve my comments till I actually listen to the episode.

[Dave Smith]

Yep, you did. You liked that? World War I. Oh, it was great. Yeah. Yeah. It's really. Who does he put you there you know, the, the thing about, I think I might have said this on the show before, but the thing about Daryl Cooper is I'm such a fan of his. Like, I've, I've listened to like almost not the entire thing, but I've listened to a lot of his, his long form series that he's put together. But every time I get ready to listen to one or like a new one comes out, I always, like, I get excited because I'm like a nerd for this stuff. I love a good history podcast, you know, and so I, Well, I should say I, I don't actually listen to a lot of history. He's really the only one I. But I like reading about history and I like the way he tells stories. I never really got into like Dan Carlin or some of those other guys, but so I get like, excited. It's almost like, oh, the, the movie you've been waiting to see is out today. Like, oh yeah, I get to go see this. And then I'm like, oh yeah, let's, let's turn this on. Let's listen to this for a. And then like 10 minutes in, Daryl's like, dragged you into the deepest waters of how dark human humanity can be. And you're like, oh, yeah. And it happens to me every time. And then I'm just like, oh, no. I wasn't prepared for any of this. I'm feeling things.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

And, and World War I, Hitler was a badass.

[Dave Smith]

World War I Hitler was a badass. And you kind of. It, it is. You, you realize, like, you really can't tell the story of the whole goddamn thing without starting with that, that it was just like this kid who was, you know, lived in a very tough time compared to today, was in search of like, an identity and found it in a way that he had never found it before. Being a part of a war that.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Was one of my takeaways was just the stupidity of putting your identity into the state or the kingdom in which you live. You know what I mean? Just hearing about all these people that were so passionate about defending the king of, of Germany and, or whatever his title was, and it's like, buddy, live your own life.

[Dave Smith]

Well, it is something. And, well, you also see how, how many people throughout history have, you know, been. Well, it's, it's an amazing thing to think about, especially when you talk about like the World War I meat grinder, like, and especially coming, you know, from a society like the United States of America in. Where we're just, we're so Rich and so comfortable compared to all of human history. And we're so individualistic compared to all of human history. That's like the idea that you would ever, like, gladly jump into a meat grinder on behalf of this abstraction, which is like, the king or the empire or the regime, and you go, I'll give up my life gladly. To maybe advance the interests of this other dude who will not lose one wink of sleep over me being dead. Like, my mother will be crying for the rest of the year. But it's just a very bizarre thing. It's very hard for us to understand, but it's important to try because a lot of people did that throughout human history. So, anyway, there's. The reaction to Nick Fuentes on Twitter has really been something. And one of the things I found interesting is that now there is this huge. So there's this big push. I don't know exactly what. To cancel Tucker Carlson. I don't know exactly what they mean by that, but again, well, so Dinesh d', Souza, who I reached out to today and invited him on the show because I'd actually. Dinesh, out of this whole group of, you know, what you could call, like, the old guard, pro Israel right wingers. Like, maybe not a neocon himself, but certainly neocon adjacent and was a neocon at one point, and then I guess says he broke away from them. But of that whole group of people, right? Like, of. I don't know, like, you know, I mean, Dave Rubin said he would debate me, but then a bunch of people tried to reach out and set it up, and he won't do it, and who I don't even really want to because he's so dumb, and it's just too easy. Like, what's the point? I just wanted to flex and let the world know that he was too scared to do it. But, like, David Rubin's a dumb, insane person. Laura Loomer, I debated. She's the. The dumbest person on the Internet. Mark Levin's never gonna do it. Ben Shapiro is never gonna do it. Right? I mean, like, correct me if I'm wrong, but I. But Dinesh seemed like the one guy who, like, maybe he would actually have the conversation. And on some level, I almost feel like, I bet I could convince you. Like. Like, I don't know, with. With the nesh. You almost feel like. Like, I'd be like, dude, if we talked, I think I could convince you, like, what's up with this? But so he posted. He decided to release some screen some. Some text messages. From Charlie Kirk. And I just thought this was interesting because, look, obviously after Charlie Kirk was, you know, horrifically assassinated there, there was a lot of talk about all of this stuff, including on our show. And I was one of the people who released some text messages. But at least to me, it was a little bit of a different thing. You know, there was an environment where every, like Netanyahu and Bill Amman and Josh Hammer and. And then on the other side, Candace Owens and all these people were. They were kind of like releasing the information that they had. And there was this big conversation about what was Charlie Kirk's state of mind before he died. And like, I had a little bit of information on that now. Nothing. I didn't have a smoking gun or anything major. But Candace called on me and Tucker to release. And I went, okay, if everyone's doing this, if we're all releasing text messages and, and private letters and private communications and all of this, fine. I'll give you what I have, just so I'm transparent. It's open now. However people feel about that, that's what ended up happening. This is a little bit different. So Dinesh posted today, and this is the tweet he said, I'm posting two text exchanges with Charlie Kirk where he calls Nick Fuentes vermin and insists even my debating him and defeating his arguments nevertheless amplified him. One, Imagine what Charlie would say about Tucker's butt licking interview with. With Fuentes, which, like, first of all, it wasn't even that they. They did like, argue, argue. But Tucker gave him pushback. Tucker pinned him down. Tucker said it's like unchristian to be collectivist in any way, that you can't hate an entire group of people or blame them. Now, Nick conceded that. So there wasn't anything more to argue about. But, like, it's not like Tucker didn't. And this is kind of what happened with me and Nick too. Like, I picked some points that I wanted to argue about, but then, like, he didn't really want to argue. It felt like any.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Or.

[Dave Smith]

Or he just didn't really disagree. But even when I brought up the Holocaust, he goes. He was like, I don't know. Some people say it didn't happen, but I think it happened. Maybe it's exaggerated. And I was like, yeah, I don't think it's exaggerated. I think that. But that was it. What else am I supposed to say? You know? And like, we talked about hating Jews, we talked about racial prejudice. I don't know. He said reasonable stuff on all of them anyway. So he releases this text thread, which, first of all, okay, I'll read it, and then we could discuss this. So if, for the background, Dinesh d' Souza debated Nick Fuentes the. A couple months before Charlie was killed. So he. Here's the text message from Charlie Kirk. And Charlie Kirk says, this was a massive mistake, that you did this. He's vermin, and you just gave him one of the biggest boosts of his career. And then the next thing that Charlie wrote was, you have no idea the damage you did by talking to him and complimenting him. You are making him even bigger. We've been fighting this guy for six years, and you are the first mainstream voice to debate and give him a compliment, which then makes him bigger and more powerful. And then it doesn't. Then it's. He responds, but he kind of cuts off his own response there. But anyway, so now a bunch of people are, you know, Josh Hammer, who I couldn't help but respond to today, Rob, because he's just.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

It's just too much plug in his book.

[Dave Smith]

Well, no, he wasn't in this one, so I guess I really should have given him some credit for that. But he said he, quote, tweeted, which, by the way, is a really stupid way to do it. But he, quote, tweeted the show like, you know. You know how, like, you put the. The video on YouTube. I mean, on Twitter, like Tucker does. It's got, by the way, 10 million views on Twitter right now. Holy Lord. So he. So he, quote, tweets that and goes, the great Charlie Kirk is rolling in his grave, grave right now. Simply despicable. And I said, what's despicable is to pretend like you speak for Charlie Kirk. And also, what's despicable is lying about him and promoting your book in the immediate aftermath of his death. But I just want to make something clear here, because I. I find this to be. And I do think there's a major difference. There is a major difference between Candace Owens showing a group chat of Charlie Kirk saying, I'm going to abandon supporting Israel right before his death, or me sharing a text message where he said, hey, I. I think you did a great job against Douglas Murray. I actually don't really disagree with you on much at all. Like, there was an argument about how Charlie Kirk felt. Okay. And the Israeli government, the prime Minister of Israel, is attempting to use how Charlie Kirk felt in this moment of a big national upheaval, and quote from the letter that he sent to him, which, by the way, when you look back at It. He just quoted the lines about how Charlie Kirk loves Israel so much. He didn't mention at the time that Charlie Quirk was like, we're getting killed out here. Your Hasbro bullshit is not working. You know, he conveniently omitt that part. But when they're trying to make this case, and then you're like, well, I actually do have some evidence that it's a little bit different than that his feelings were at least more complicated than that. And then Canis really had evidence of that. That's a little bit different than Dinesh now pointing out how he believes Charlie would have felt about Tucker having someone else on his podcast. Who gives a shit? Like, why does that matter? Why. Why is it relevant to say that he would have disagreed? Like, it's relevant where Charlie Kirk was before he died. If you're claiming this is where he was, then it's relevant to say, no, he wasn't there. He was here. Why is it relevant to go? Like. Like, if. If I wanted to have someone on the show, and you go, charlie Kirk wouldn't have liked you having him on the show. He'd be like, okay, that's fine. That has nothing to do with my decision. Never booked anyone based off what Charlie Kirk's feelings were before, and I'm not going to do that now. And so now they're attempting. What they're attempting to do is to say, well, look, if Charlie was annoyed when Dinesh debated Nick Fuentes, then he'd really be annoyed about Tucker hosting Nick Fuentes. Which, number one, that's already a leap because there's a lot of other factors involved there. Like, also, the fact is that Nick is really blown up recently, and it's kind of just undeniable at this point that he's. He's a part of this national conversation. He gets to be here, too. There's no arguing that anymore. And so I don't know what Charlie. But that's the thing. I don't know. And neither does Dinesh, and neither does Josh Hammer. We don't know what Charlie would have thought, but. So they're trying to use that to now say, obviously, Charlie would have hated this, and therefore, Tucker shouldn't be allowed at Turning Point events anymore. That's basically the line that they're going down when the only thing we actually know that Charlie said was, like, over my dead body will Tucker Carlson not be allowed at Turning Point events? That's one thing he was crystal clear on through a whole bunch of those messages. Like, and he was publicly very clear about this to Megyn Kelly in that focus group thing that he did with the young people talking about Jew hatred and Israel support and all that, he's over and over again was like, they're coming down on me for platforming Tucker Carlson. I will not budge on that. He will continue to be at Turning Point events. And in fact, he publicly booked him for the event that he just did. Tucker just didn't event at Turning Points, which is obviously Charlie after his death, but Charlie had booked him on that beforehand. And so anyway, I don't know, I just find there to be something. There's something really dirty about trying to speak for a friend of yours who just died. And you're coming out with the opposite conclusion of what, you know, he said when he was alive based on guessing how he would have felt about this interview. I just find that to be awful and in really bad taste. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Body Brain Coffee. I love this product. Of course, it was created by my brother, Louis J. Gomez, but it really is unbelievable. And I've been very concerned about low testosterone amongst men for many years. And so this is coffee that is delicious and is also designed to boost your testosterone. It's filled with healthy stuff. It tastes great. I've been feeling substantial, substantially better since I started drinking this. And we part of the problem. Listeners have been blowing this brand up. And as you know, it's all part of my master plan to make Lewis's product a big success. But always remind him that it was us who did that. So he'll be successful, but he won't have a sense of accomplishment. This is what I want to do for my friends. But in all seriousness, it's a really great product. Please go check it out. Bodybraincoffee.com that is the website. And right now you can get 20 off your order if you use the promo code Dave20. So go to body brain coffee.com use the promo code Dave20 to get 20 off, and you're going to get delicious coffee that makes you feel great and is healthy and naturally boost your testosterone. Bodybraincoffee.com all right, let's get back into the show.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

I bet if Kurt Cobain was still alive over Covid, he would have been doing piss. PSA is telling us all to get the vaccine. There's something about when you get taken out early where, you know, I guess you become a what would Jesus do? Type figure.

[Dave Smith]

Right?

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Right. Right now, everyone's trying to enact him for their agenda. And in this case, it's an agenda for censorship. And he's going, oh, well, you have so much respect for Charlie Kirk. You should know he would never, he would have hated you for doing this. But I, I agree with you that it's a stupid criticism.

[Dave Smith]

Well, especially. And guys, by the way, we're, you know, if you have any questions, put them in the chat. And Natalie, grab any, if you see any, because I'm happy to take questions from, from the listeners on this show. By the way, if you want to be in the live chat, sign up [e-mail] you get the show live ad free. You get the fourth episode of the week, which is a only episode. The only way to get it is to sign up at part of problem partoftheproblem.com or I suppose you could steal it, but please don't, please sign up. Steal it if you're not gonna sign up. But yeah, so I'll take questions on that. But I do, I, I've always thought particularly to me, like, there's something about, look, obviously there's a difference between, like, you know, hijacking someone's legacy or doing something that you think they might want. They would have, like, done, you know, like, if you, if, if I died and then like, you raised money to buy like a thousand copies of Ron Paul Revolution and put them in libraries around the country, you could, you could reasonably be like, I think this is a cool thing that Dave would have appreciated, you know, if we did or something. But like, if you hide, if you tried to argue for like a government policy or something like that, you'd be like, dude, what the. This is everything he was against. And I gotta say, with Charlie Kirk, it did seem like immediately in the aftermath of his death, there were a bunch of people who were trying to be like, oh, look at all these lefties celebrating it. We should have the attorney general crack down on that. And now there's a bunch of people talking about, like, deplatforming and stuff. And you're like, this was clearly the opposite of what Charlie Kirk was all about. Like, if there was one thing that he was all about, it was like being anti censorship, pro free speech, pro conversations. Wasn't that the whole thing? And like, look, I think one of the things that was like a takeaway to me from the, the, the Tucker Carlson Nick Fuentes episode episode last night was that, you know, you're like, hey, look, we, we tried this. Your way. And I don't really mean we, because I was never a part of that. I was having Nick Fuentes on the show six years ago. Like, I never bought into this platforming, censorship bullshit. But like Ben Shapiro and the Daily Wire, they tried to squash him when he was young. Charlie Kirk said here in his own text message, for six years, they've been trying to ice him out. Okay, guys, you had your shot. None of that worked. So now we're going to do it this way. Now we're going to do it the Tucker Carlson and the Dave Smith way, which is this radical idea that we sit down and we talk about it and we hash this out and we talk about the areas where we agree, we talk about the areas where we disagree. That's how we will be doing this moving forward. And for all of you guys who have your, your, like, you know, clutching your pearls over this, too bad. You had your way in the old order. That order failed, and now we are living here. I don't know what to say. It's just. This is just a reality. It's not even like, I don't care how you feel about it, but just, just watching all these guys flip out and it's like, hey, you know, you can believe, you know, there was one thing Charlie said, and I hate to ever speak ill of. Of the dead, you know, and like I said, I. Charlie was a friend. I was very grateful to him for the, the way he treated me over this last year, and particularly in the face of a lot of, you know, in the, in the face of a serious pressure campaign. He never, never threw me under the bus, never budged on, on, you know, that, that he was right to have that debate, right to have Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson there. But there was this one moment I remember, and that happened earlier in the year where, like, someone called in and asked if he would ever debate Nick Fuentes. And he was like, no. Like, I don't debate trolls and I don't debate neo Nazis or something like that. And he was like, that's too far beyond the pale. And I think that. And this has been a major, major theme of mine for like fucking 15 years or something like that. But it's a little bit crazy for any right winger to say I, that Nick Fuentes is a bridge too far because he's racist and sexist and anti Semitic or something like that. It's like, dude, Charlie Kirk debated Maoists. He debated abortionists. He debated communists, he debated. I mean, I said Maoist, but, you know, he he debated all types of people. And it's just not so clear to me. Like, and this is something that I think people on the right really have to think about, you know, the Dinesh d' Souzas of the world, or I guess not Dinesh in this case because Dinesh did debate Nick Fuentes, but the Ben Shapiro's of the world and the Josh Hammers of the world, they are saying this is the Overton Window here. Nick Fuentes is beyond the pale. I would say that the right wing in America has been taking the right wing in America for my entire lifetime, has outsourced the Overton Window to the left. We've allowed the left to decide where the Overton Window is. Why does that make sense from a right wing perspective? It simply doesn't. The left would never allow the right wing to dictate to them where the Overton Window is. Right there was. We were never able to do that through all the years of. But I'm just saying if you, for me, someone who has. I have a very different worldview than leftists. I have a very different worldview than progressive Democrats. And I will decide for myself where my hierarchy of moral outrages is and, and where my Overton Window is. I suppose we all have a line of someone we just wouldn't talk to because we think they're so terrible. But why is it right that let's say a lockdown governor can be debated, can be platformed, can have a, you can have a conversation with them. And Charlie Kirk had a conversation with Gavin Newsom. They sat down, had a respectful conversation, some debate, some agreement. You know, nobody is, is saying you shouldn't platform that person or something like that. You could have someone who was advocating transing five year olds that. There's been lots of conversations with people like that. There's lots of conversations with people who support the destruction of Gaza. They just support. I support killing tens of thousands of children. If that's what it takes to maybe degrade Hamas, then I support that. Explain to me, not by your worldview, but by my worldview why I'm supposed to find those positions more respectable, more acceptable or something like that. Because it makes no sense to me. And so going forward, I'm just going to make up my mind for myself. I mean, going backward too. I've been doing this the whole time, but now the country's caught up with me, Rob. So, so now I'm really doing it going forward. So by the way, I will also be happy to have a Maoist and an Abortionist on the show. I will be taking recommendations.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Both those at the same time.

[Dave Smith]

I mean, most Maoists are also. But that is a good point. Someone wrote what. What do you think about Nick's final comments about immigration and enforcing it with an iron fist? I just. Just remind me of what the final comment was, because I just. I was. I listened to the. The thing last night, and I think I was not, because it wasn't a great show. I think I was just fading toward the end just because it was late and I'm a weak week father. But if you remind me what the comments were at the end, I will. I will give you my thoughts on that. So Jonah wrote. Dave, are you a. What is that? A wang F? Do you know what that is, Rob? W A N, G, H, A F. Sorry, guys. I'm not cool.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Might have just got him punked right there. Got you to say something.

[Dave Smith]

Probably did to say, might have just.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Invited a demon into your home. You have no idea.

[Dave Smith]

Get. Get Finkelstein on the show. He's a Maoist once upon a time, I think. I mean, I think he still does identify as a communist, which is just. Come on, Norman. Like, jeez, you know, look, he's a, you know, he's a real deal expert on the Israel, Palestine, you know, history. And he's, you know, he's been really heroic, I think, in that department. And. But it. I. I love Norman Finkelstein. I. I always love figures that, like, shatter a paradigm. You know what I mean? Like, there's something about being the Jewiest guy of all time with the Jewiest name of all time, who's the son of two Holocaust survivors, who's totally pro Palestinian. Like, I just. Like, there's just something about that, that I was, you know, I'm a Ron Paul guy. I liked the. The Republican in Texas who's the most conservative man in the country, who says, legalize heroin. Like, there's just. There's just something about that that I've always found compelling. Not saying that proves you right right away, but there's something interesting about guys like that, and I love that. But, like, the fact that he still identifies as a communist is goddamn insane. I mean, who the hell. Who, who could be smart enough to make all of the arguments that he makes on all this other shit? And you haven't, like, you haven't just come across an argument debunking communism? Like, it's just. I don't know, it's like. It's like you go to, like, a heart surgeon who's like, just saved someone's life with open heart surgery. And you're like, I got a common cold. And he goes, have you tried leeches? And you're like, wait, you do open heart surgery but you're still on the leeches thing. You haven't. It's just very bizarre that you, you would figure just through general knowledge, you had come across someone going like, oh, yeah, there's a whole price calculation problem. It doesn't work at all. Like, it's just, I don't know. I find that very strange. But, hey, what can you say? Okay, so, okay, so here's the follow up. He was saying that Trump needs to arrest the governor of Illinois and go harder on the ICE protests and that he wants to use overwhelming force to get rid of it. I guess to get rid of illegal immigration. Yeah, I mean, I, I don't know. I don't know. You know, it's like things like that are very tricky. And I think that there is, you know, you always got to be like those, those type of moves actually really do require 4D chess. You know, not, not just the type of 4D chess where everybody claims he's doing it when he's not doing it at all. And, you know, a move like that, you got to really, like, calculate. Okay, but what's the response going to be to that? How do we, what is the actual goal? How do we do this? And when I think that the thing that is a bitter pill to swallow for many people, my, I would include myself on this, who are immigration restrictionists and who think it is, you know, it's, it's profoundly criminal what our government has done to our own people with immigration policy. And obviously the Joe Biden administration is the clearest example of that, but it's way beyond that. I mean, it's been, it's been done really for 50 years, but it was done. And I think even Nick would acknowledge this, at least to some degree, that, you know, we talked about this a bit when he was on my show. It was like, you know, we can't go back in time. You can't go back to. And so if you're actually talking about, like, like, let's just say what is the number of illegal people living in the country? Rob, what's your, you've read about it. What's your best guess on it? I think between 30 to 50 million.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

I was going to say 40.

[Dave Smith]

So, yeah, well, that is between, that is right. Between 30 to 50. You show me the plan of how you're going to go find 30 to 50 million people and deport all of them without turning our country into like a goddamn North Korea style hellhole. Because that's a worse problem, actually, than having a bunch of illegal immigrants. So I'm, I'm willing, I'm open to proposals and I would always err on the side of like the most humanitarian proposal you can come up with. I think people who are in the country illegally do not have a right to be here and we have a right to remove them. But the devil's in the details with stuff like that. And I think it's easy, it's easy to just say and look, I mean, I like, I like Nick and I thought we had a really interesting conversation. I thought this conversation with Tucker was great. I do think that what he is kind of maybe growing out of a little bit or just what it, what it is at the next level after. It's, it's easy to always have the most badass answer to every question. You know, that's easy. And it's very, that appeals particularly to young men. You know, just always the toughest, most badass thing. You know, what's the solution to immigration? Kick the goddamn doors in, arrest the governors, kick everybody out. Like that's. But I think the devil's really in the details in those plans. Like, okay, but what's really the plan here and what actually will be the response to this? And I would. So my first fear would be that like Trump actually trying to do something like that might just set off the chain of events that just ruins Trump's presidency and none of that even ends up happening. Like it gets struck down in the courts, the governor ends up winning and Donald Trump is just totally neutered for the rest of his presidency. And so it's not, you know, like the thing that's the most satisfying for like that like aggressive young man and you. Is not actually always the best strategy or policy that.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Yeah, I think if, I think if you were a strong man on that level of arresting governors and rounding everybody up at that level, you're going to get so much pushback, you're going to end up not actually, I don't think that's the way of optimizing deportations or correcting what Biden did. Also, if you wanted to arrest and haul off the governor in Illinois, you're going to need like an F150 or something.

[Dave Smith]

Yeah, you might be right about that. It's going to cost a lot of taxpayer money is what.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Maybe go for one of the smaller governors first and see what the reaction is.

[Dave Smith]

Let's go with Shapiro first. You can fit that guy. You can fit that guy in just about anything. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Monetary Metals, an amazing company run by amazing, liberty loving people. And they have really revolutionized the precious metal space. Many of us have owned precious metals for years. And we do that for various reasons because it's a hedge against inflation and it's a tangible asset. And, you know, but there's a better way to do it. And the better way is not just to own physical gold that just sits in your house collecting dust. It's not to have your gold professionally stored and pay exorbitant fees to have it stored. The best way is to own gold and silver. That works for you, generating more ounces of gold and silver. And the way to do that is to check out monetary metals. Check them [e-mail] they've been paying interest in gold and silver in additional ounces of gold and silver for years. And it's really changed the entire system. You can, you can actually opt out of the Federal Reserve system now. You can opt out of money entirely. You can opt out of fiat currency and into real money like gold and silver. Check them [e-mail]. all right, let's get back into the show. Okay, hold on, Rogan. There's another comment here. Rogan, in a podcast with Duncan Truck, Duncan Trussell even said that he was shocked at the videos of families and workers. And he said something along the lines of, I thought they were going for the criminals. Yeah, well, you know, this is a major thing that I was talking about after Trump won the election and right before. It's that it's, it's the old thing. It's like the civil rights movement, man. Like there were. And in fact, if you know the story, right, it was like the Martin Luther King and his guys, they picked Birmingham, Alabama specifically because they knew they would get that reaction. Like the, the thing was, it was an asymmetrical warfare move. Like they were trying to get the reaction. And this is part of the reason why they were, they all wore suits and they were all completely non violent, right? Because they weren't there to pick a fight with the cops. They were there to get on video what the cops would do to peaceful young black men in suits simply for practicing civil disobedience. And look, there were, these images were caught on camera. They're famous Images that you've probably still all seen today, the dogs and the fire hoses and all that stuff. And I'm telling you, there were tens of millions of Americans who supported segregation, but even the ones who supported segregation, it was real tough for them to look at that. You know, it's, it's easy then. This is always the case with government policies, right? It's easy to support the policy in, in abstract sense, you know, like in the same sense. It's like, you know, I don't want Iran to get a nuke. Well, that's easy to say. We won't let Iran get a nuke. That's easy to say. Do you want to launch a war to stop them from getting it? See, that's a little bit different. And government policy always relies on force. That's the law. The law. The law is not a list of suggest suggestions. It's a list of the you must do or there will be consequences. And it's easy to say, I support mass deportations. It's, it's a much different thing to like see a mother, you know, who's like a 55 year old who's got three kids, who's getting hauled out of here, who's lived here her whole life. So I'm not surprised that that started like turning some people off, because it is, you know, and that's another calculation that I think like in the, the point about Fuentes's comment, it's another calculation you have to, you have to make. I mean, what does that do, you know, even if you have like the polls I had seen earlier this year, there were polls where it was over 60% of people supported mass deportations. The most recent ones I looked at was down from that, but it was still north of 50%. It was still a majority support. But then you got to ask yourself, right, say let's say the mass deportations get real violent, what happens to that number probably goes down, you know, because it's not just hard once you've got over 50% support, it's not just hardcore right wingers now. It's a coalition. It's, by definition, it's. Centrists are in there too. Right? And so you, you're very susceptible to losing a lot of those people. So all I'm saying is like, it's a complicated calculation and it, I think it requires people who actually play 4D chess, not people who their fans pretend that they do, which is more the situation with Donald Trump. All right, let me see. We got some other questions here. Mower and me would be Crowder, and Dave basically wouldn't let him get a word in. Oh, I don't know. Was that. Was that me being on Crowder? If any of you guys saw it, let me know. Dave, are you disappointed in Crowder not including the console war to be one of the ones that Trump ended? Oh, yeah, he started. Well, it was a weird point where he started going off about all the wars that Donald Trump has ended. And I was like, what wars has Donald Trump ended? And he's like, you know, Vietnam. Yeah. Azerbaijan and all these others. India, Pakistan. And I was like, oh, oh, oh, oh. I'm not saying, like, he made a phone call and then he takes credit for a war. I think I'm saying, like, like, of the wars that Donald Trump was funding or fighting, which ones did he end? And then he goes, the Abraham Accords. And I was like, what wars did the Abraham Accords end? Like, I just kept asking. And then finally he goes, the Gaza ceasefire deal. I go, yeah, okay, we'll see. Like, we'll see. And then he goes, he ended the war in Iran. I go, he launched the war in Iran. Give someone credit for ending the war they launched. I mean, I. I guess you can, but you also got to add in that he started the whole thing. So. Yeah, I thought. I don't know. I thought, you know, look, like, I don't even want. I'm not trying to fight with Crowder. He was being nice to me by. By the end of it. You know, I've got some. Some weird feelings about him for. For some other reasons. And, you know, I didn't. I didn't bring any of that stuff up on the show because it just didn't seem appropriate. But, like, you know, I'm buddies with Dave Landau, and I don't like the way that whole thing went down, but, yeah, I just, you know, I'm not even trying to be in a fight with him. I just thought that was, like, kind of a silly. A silly point. Dave, did you see the bounty put out on Pam Bondi? Why bother? She's useless. Yeah, I don't know. I. I saw someone screaming. I haven't, like, looked into that at all. Don't really know enough about it to say, okay, what do you got here? Did you think Crowder was going to start. Did you think Crowder was going to start with. You said, impeach Trump. Trump's better than the Democrats. No, I didn't really expect that. But in hindsight, I guess, you know, that's it was kind of like the Josh Hammer thing. It's like they're. It's funny because. And I think I made this point a bit on the show, but, you know, I've made this point to you guys before, but right, like, like, like, if you remember, right, Ben Shapiro never said my name. For years, he never said my name. He did segments on me and never said my name. And what was the first time he said my name was after I called for Trump to be impeached. Because that's when all these guys go, oh, oh. See, they know Trump is enormously popular amongst the base, and they know that their is not like that. That is just so obvious, you know, right now. Like, the. The Israel first shit is not popular amongst the base of. Of America firsters, but Donald Trump still is very popular. So then they have me, and I'm carving through all these people in debates, and no one quite knows how to get. So then they saw that as their big moment. Like, oh, this. This is why Josh Hammer opened his second debate. I know I lost the first one, but the second one I'm gonna open up with, this guy talks trash about Donald Trump. And so that it seemed to me like that was where Crowder was trying to go. He even said at one point, he goes, oh, so you side with Obama on Iran, not Donald Trump? And I said, this is such a cheap trick, man. Like, because you're saying. I go, dude, no one's a bigger critic of Obama than me, and Obama was horrible on foreign policy. But, like, yes. Was the JCPOA better than tearing up the jcpoa? Yes, it sure was. Was negotiating with Iran better than bombing them? Yes, it absolutely was. But I thought I was like, just with the Josh Hammer thing, I thought I was kind of able to deal with that pretty easily because I just went, no, I'm not borrowing the foreign policy of Barack Obama. I'm borrowing the foreign policy of Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan and George Washington. No one's more conservative than my foreign policy.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

I hate that shit. So I have a joke about in my act, but it's just when you criticize Trump or you point out that he said two things that were contradictory, and they go, oh, so would you prefer a Democrat? And you're like, no, that's not what I was saying. Yeah, I'm criticizing Trump to try and have a better Trump, or I'm trying to make sense out of what he's doing. That's my job is I do political commentary, and the guy has a dumb policy. Here I'm not saying that I would have preferred Biden or Kamala Harris's policies. I'm criticizing what Trump did.

[Dave Smith]

And, you know, it's a weird thing because I heard, you know, you hear. I mean, I guess just when you get. When you get to a certain level, you just. You get a lot of feedback from all different, you know, areas. But, you know, I hear there were people who were like, Dave, you know, I sold out when I supported Donald Trump. Other people were thrilled that I supported Donald Trump. Then there were people who said, if you remember, there were people saying, now that Dave supported Donald Trump, he's going to have to justify everything he does. He's going to defend him if he, you know, bombs Iran. And then when you criticize him, then they all go, you voted for this. So, blah, blah, blah. And then the other side goes, would you like Kamala better? And it's all just too stupid. It. You know, like all of this is, look, what's the point of us doing what we do if I'm not going to criticize Donald Trump when he messes up? If you're just going to always say, well, the other side's worse, so you have to support him, then, okay, then I should just. We shouldn't do a show. Just hang a Trump sign up and that's it. Right? Doesn't make any sense. Too leaky, that one. Rob, why do they get leaky sometimes? What is that? All right, let me see what. Let's get to a couple more questions here before we wrap up. This dude flicking his zins? Well, no, but I do it because. Rob, you told me you flick them, right?

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Yes. Well, all right, I. I will explain. I don't.

[Dave Smith]

Listen, I don't like when they're leaky. I don't hate that taste.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

Sometimes, whatever it is, something breaks, like a different pouch breaks, and you end up with the chemicals that are on the inside on the outside of the pouch, which is what makes them too harsh. And so I'm teaching the kids about proper Zen usage. If you take the Zen and you give it two flicks on the outside, like it's a heroin needle, firstly, it's a nice little ritual. Not that I do it all the time, but it tends to get off all the dust that might have otherwise been in the container, and now you got a fresh Zen on your hands. So, you know, fan. Watch yourself if you're going to try and criticize proper Zen usage.

[Dave Smith]

By the way, it didn't work. I flicked it. It was still, whatever, leaky And I didn't like it, but I'll be flicking another one soon. Okay. All right, here we got another question here, Dave. Assuming neither Eric or Don Jr. Run, how much influence do you think Trump will have and how much do you think Vance would deviate from Trump's policies if he runs? Well, is a really good question. And I mean, the, you know, the answer is essentially, I don't know. I don't think any of us know. I really don't have a, a great feeling. You know, I get the sense that J.D. vance, J.D. vance has views that are in a direction, but I've never really gotten the impression that he has the conviction that he will stand by those views, even if that costs him something politically. And forget even, like, because you asked the question, which is actually a good way to ask it, you said.

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

How.

[Dave Smith]

Much will he deviate from Trump's policies if he runs? Which is a different question than if he wins. Right. And so I think the interesting dynamic here is this, and this is always an interesting dynamic in politics. This is one of the things that really hurt Kamala Harris is that when you're the vice president running for president, you are a candidate for president, but you're also still serving the current president. And so you're in a little bit of a pickle, right? Like, and this was Kamala Harris, I mean, because she's really, really stupid and really, really, really bad at politics. She real. I think what might be the biggest self inflicted wound of her brief campaign, Rob, as you remember. Well, on the. Was when she. The View. That's right. You remember exactly what I'm saying. She went on the View and they said, what would you have done different than Joe Biden? And she said, nothing comes to mind. And the fact that she wasn't prepared enough to know that that would be a really bad question. Like, you've got a really unpopular president here. Like inflation's through the roof, the border's wide open, the war in Ukraine is being lost and groceries are up, you know, 30%. You can't say nothing. You gotta. But she's in this tough position where she still wanted to say, look, what an amazing. You know, it's tough to be the vice president because you want to say, look what a great job we've done, let's keep this going. But you also don't want to be attached to any of the negative shit. But now think about how much tougher a situation JD Vance is going to be in where he is going to be campaigning. But the president of The United States of America is still. Listen, for those of you guys who love him or hate him, he is the pettiest human being in the history of the world. There has just never been anyone pettier than Donald Trump. Donald Trump, he's the guy who Marco Rubio once, when they were running against each other, made a crack on a stump speech about Donald Trump having little hands. And Donald Trump opened the next debate in front of like 100 million people and goes, he said I had little hands. Look at these things. Nothing wrong with these hands. Big old hands, right? Like, that's Donald Trump. You cannot insult him at all. Or it's a declaration of war. And so that's a real interesting dynamic. How the hell does J.D. vance run and ever have anything where he can criticize Donald Trump on? And I'm not sure how you, you walk that tightrope, but I think that's a real tough tightrope to walk. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is crowd health. I've been talking about crowd health for many years. I think it's a great company and it's a great alternative to the broken health insurance system. And they just recently launched the Black Swan membership. It's the healthcare alternative for people who want autonomy over their care, their costs and their lifestyle. They just need a little help with the Black Swan events that happen in life. Life. Well, now for just $95 a month, you get access to a team of health bill negotiators, low cost prescriptions, lab testing tools, and a database of low cost, high quality doctors vetted by crowd health. You stay in control without insurance and their networks dictating your care. And what if something major happens? You pay the first 15,000 and the crowd steps up to help fund the rest. It feels like the options that used to be available before Obamacare came in and deemed them all illegal to help you. Of course, it's illegal to get that care that you want. But now for just 95amonth, you can get the Black Swan membership. But it gets even better if you use the promo code POTP. It's only $80 for the first three months. Go check them out at JoinCrowdHealth.com and remember, the promo code is POTP. Crowd health is not insurance. Opt out. Take your power back. This is how we win. All right, let's get back into the show. Any thoughts, Rob?

[Robbie the Fire Bernstein]

I think a lot of it's going to come down to how some of Trump's policies play out and how favorable of a position Trump is in if there's Trump fever, that he's doing such a good job that people would like a third round of Donald Trump. You will have J.D. vance saying, I'm the legacy of America first and Donald Trump, and he will be 100% on the path. And then when he's actually president, he'll do a little bit more of a. What he actually would like to be doing. If Donald Trump is not polling that well and he's got to beat some other people out, he'll just be tactful and say, Donald Trump's the most brilliant person ever and he's an incredible deal maker and he did fantastic things. And I stand by all of the work that he did. And when I have the opportunity to be in these same spots, here's what I'll do differently. And that's it. I'll just, I'll give you the pitch for. For what, what he thinks he can do a little bit better and be nothing but praiseworthy for Donald Trump. And sometimes the easiest way to do that is Donald Trump is a force and a single individual, and he's able to win games with a skill set that I don't have. And so here's the policy that I would enact because I don't quite have Donald Trump's tactfulness in negotiations. And so I would have to approach it this way because I don't. I don't have what he has.

[Dave Smith]

Yeah, he's going to have to. He's going to have to find all types of answers like that. That, that still kind of kiss Donald Trump's ass. But I'll tell you, even that the issue with that is that that does come off like you're a. It's tough to. It's tough to be the top alpha when you still gotta, like, you know, be like, I can't actually upset this guy. Look, again, it'll be interesting. I mean, one of the things that, you know, I was. I was arguing with Crowder about today was that, you know, he. He was basically taking this line against me that, that, hey, if, if, you know, well, you're saying you wanted Trump impeached, what, that would leave us with Kamala Harris or something like that. And I did make the point. I go, well, no, that would leave us with J.D. vance. Actually, not. It wouldn't put the Democrats in power, but I go. I was like. And I said at one point, I go, all right. So, Stephen, four months ago, Tulsi Gabbard, the director of National Intelligence said Obama committed treason and we have the proof. And she sent it over to the Justice Department. I go, do you believe Obama's going to be tried for treason and convicted? Does anyone believe that? Does anybody actually believe that we're going to get the truth on. On Epstein or the truth on Russiagate or anybody's going to be held responsible for all of the crimes that they've committed? Okay, so since we're all together that, no, none of that's going to happen. The promise of this administration was to drain the swamp. And we all know they're not draining the swamp right now. And it seems like they're going to hand it up to what will probably be close to a 50, 50 shot whether we get a Democrat back in there or not. But we're supposed to stay quiet while all that's happening. We're supposed to not be criticizing this administration. No, it's not because of me that the Democrats might win in 2028. It's because Donald Trump is back in the Israelis and launching wars on their behalf and covering up the Epstein thing and continuing to spend us off a cliff and continuing, you know, like, that's the issue. That's what's going to make it. If Donald Trump actually fixed all those things, J.D. vance would be a shoo in. In 2028. So, no, I look at things a little bit differently. I don't think my job is to sit here and, you know, I, I don't think my job is to sit here and praise a politician. And I don't think my job is to sit here and, and, you know, think about, like, you know, 4D chess, for that matter. Think about what's the thing. I could say that would be the best strategy for this. Like, as I've always said for many years, someone's got to just tell the truth. That's got to be someone's role. Other people can be the political operatives. That's not what me and you do, Rob. We just talk to our audience and we tell them the way we think it is. That's what we've been doing. That's why we've grown, because we've been. And, you know, we've got a really good track record on getting it right on the big issues. So that's what we're going to continue doing. Someone has to, you know, anyway, go see Robbie on the road porch tour.com and you can see us. You got one more shot in Poughkeepsie. Comicdavesmith.com to see us this year, then next year you will have many more shots. Because we are traveling all over the place together. Thank you guys for. For listening. Catch you tomorrow with a brand new episode. Peace.