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Dave Smith
Foreign what's up? What's up everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I am Dave Smith. I am rolling solo for this episode. But thank you all for joining us. Rob will be back tomorrow for the members only and I know we still owe you a couple members only. We will make those up to you later this week. Just got to figure out some times to do that. I do also, sorry we're starting just a few minutes late here, but I was just recording Piers Morgan so that the, that show ended up starting a little bit late and then I was on that, so we ended up starting a little bit late here. That should be out later today. Usually they put them out later the same day that we record them, so probably look for that later today. That's always, it's always a fun show to do and. Well, okay. It's usually a fun show to do and this was a good one. So. Yeah, I think, I think it was a good one. You never know until you watch these things back. Anyway, there's a few things I wanted to talk about on today's show and then I will try to take some, some questions from the chat. So if you guys are in there, feel free to, to, to put some questions and I will try my best to get to as many of them as I can. And by the way, if you want to participate in the live chat, make sure you go over to partoftheproblem.com and become a supporting listene show. You get a bunch of, there's a bunch of different tiers and different benefits that you get, but you get access to the members only show, the fourth show every week and you can be in the live chat and there's a bunch of other cool stuff. So please, if you can go over and support the show, which I am assuming you love dearly, you better. I know, I know a few of you guys are hate watching, but that's okay. The rest of you love it dearly. All right, so last night I did an Oxford style debate at Princeton. It was a lot of fun. It was a very interesting experience. I figured, I like to kind of talk about these debates sometimes after the fact, but I thought it went very well. I won pretty dominantly on the Oxford voting. And I mean, look, I'm not, I'm not trying to be a dick or anything like this to, to Josh, but it was also just, I think it was a pretty one sided debate. I mean he's a, a nice enough guy and I do appreciate that he was like Respectful, and he was very cool after the debate and stuff like that. But there, I don't know, I just thought there were a few things about it that I. I kind of found interesting. And it's just a little bit. It's a little bit surreal as a lot of things that I do in my career are. It's. It's all kind of strange to me still. But, you know, like, going. I'm literally a college dropout going to an Ivy League school to debate, the senior editor of Newsweek about, like, one of the most important issues in the world. And it's. I don't know, I mean, maybe this is just it. It felt to me like just. Just being there, but then also winning by, you know, like such a landslide. It's like, was such an indictment of college in general. Like, what. What are you people doing here? You're all wasting your time. You know, I don't mean to. I don't mean to attack all of the people who just hosted me and were very nice to me the other day, but it really is something where you're just like. I mean, I know college makes sense for some people, and certainly there are some professions. You know, if you're going to be a surgeon, you're going to need to go to college for quite a long time. And it's a very important thing to have surgeons. So I'm not suggesting we don't have that, but it just kind of like, you're like, anything in this area of just like, you know, anything about, like, educating yourself on a topic. It's just totally. It's very strange because I'm going to Princeton. I've never been to Princeton University before. And, you know, it's a beautiful campus and they have these very old buildings, like the building we were in. I mean, I don't know when it was built, but it was pre. Pre war is understating it. It was an old, old building and a beautiful building, but it's just like I'm in this really old building and you're sitting there going like, yeah, isn't this whole thing just so outdated? Like when, when colleges, when, when universities were first being built. I'm curious and Natalie, could you look up, what year was Princeton University built? So I'm just kind of curious about that. But around the time when this university is being built, right. You'd have to think that a huge part of the attraction would be that, like, oh, well, we have. So 1746. Wow. That's actually much older than I thought. That's why these buildings are so old. It's all making sense now. So. So Princeton was built before the United States of America. I did not know that. Okay, so we were colonies when Princeton was built. Okay, so. But. But just, I mean, you know, look, I'm not like an expert in this or anything, but obviously, as you just found out, I didn't even know when the. The university was created. But you would think that a big part of, like, why you would have a university would be like, okay, well, look, we have all the great books here, right? Like, we. We have, like, a library with all of these great books. Like, good luck finding this collection somewhere else. And then you'd be like, okay. And we have these professors who have read all the books and written a bunch of books, and these people who really understand these issues and they can help teach you. So now you have, like, all the great, you know, all the great literary works, and then you have really smart people who can teach them to you and stuff like that. So, like, at the time, that means. But like, if the. At the time, like in. In 1746, if you had been like, oh, well, everybody has access to all of these books. You can just. You can push a little button on a machine that fits in your pocket and it'll be right in your door in 24 hours. Or, you know, you can just use that machine in your pocket to go read the book or whatever, or you. And in terms of, like, great professors, it goes like, oh, yeah, there's every single great lecture that you could ever have thought of is right here on your phone. And like, like, if that existed, it just seems like you'd be like, oh, well, then we don't need to build Princeton, you know, like, or. Or at least you would have needed a much smaller version of it or something like that. And so anyway, it's just a weird. There's something about. Something about winning a debate at an Ivy League school when you're a college dropout is just. I don't know. I mean, you guys could draw your own conclusions from that, but it did just. I don't know, it just felt bizarre and kind of almost like the very act of that could break so many people of the spell that you should even be spending this money. And then on top of that, you know, the money that it costs to go to Princeton is insane. It's just unbelievable how expensive it is. And so it's like you're charging people for this thing. And then I got students here and a whole bunch of them, like, after the debate telling me they learned so much from the debate and you're like, it's, I don't know, just, just kind of bizarre to me. Anyway, these, the debates are, are always interesting. I, I like doing them for several reasons, but I, I think that I, I always feel like I, I, I have an obligation to do debates at least. Like, like, I don't know exactly what the number is that I'm supposed to do every year, but I think I, I have to at least do like five or six of these a year. And, but I, I think I probably do more than that. But it, I guess because it just seems to me like if I, I, in, in my strange career, you know, I go on like some of the biggest shows in the world. So if I'm on Joe Rogan show or I'm on Tucker Car or, or Patrick Bet David or, you know, Candace Owens or, you know, whoever like the really big shows are. These are shows that are much, much, much bigger than, than anything on television in these spaces. And so I go on all these shows and I'm always like, well, look, it's like this. And then I lay out my case, you know, and it's like, oh, okay. So if, but if I'm going to go on those big shows and, and say, hey, look, this is the way it is, then I feel like there's a little bit of an obligation on me to mat, you know, to, to present these ideas against somebody who's going like, no, it's not like that at all, and see where the ideas, you know, whose ideas come out on top. So I've always kind of felt like a little bit of an obligation to do this. And I get, you know, at, at the end of these things, I, I tend to get like a lot of, you know, like a lot of nice stuff is said about me and I've, you know, then, you know, people on social media and in the comments section and stuff like that, which by the way, is one of the only. I am not big on reading comment sections except for debates. The debates. I always go through the comment section because I just, I, you know, I kind of, I'm interested. The whole point of a debate is really to persuade the audience. I mean, you, you hope with the person you're debating that obviously you're never going to like, completely change someone's mind. Like a debate. Like, it's not like if a, if a libertarian and a leftist debate, never once in the history of the world has one side been like, you know what I am no longer a leftist because you just made such compelling arguments that I like that's not going to happen. But I think if you have an honest debate opponent, you'd hope that you could at least like get a little nugget in there that might stick with them. And then they're like, okay, I do have to think about that a little bit more. But really the point is to persuade the audience. And so I am always kind of interested to be like, okay, when I'm battling somebody who's taking like a diametrically opposed view to me, what did the audience like? Did the audience think that I made a more compelling argument than this guy did? Or if they didn't, what was the thing that they didn't think? And then that kind of helps me to, to think of like, oh, well, maybe there's a better way I could put this or maybe I have to rethink that. But you know, aside from complaints about the audio issues, which unfortunately there were some issues with the mic feeds like cutting in and out. I did, I. One of them, they told me, you know, we did have backup mics on as well. So I think I, one of the people from the event told me like we can try to fix some of that in post. So hopefully that, that's a little bit better if you haven't watched the, the debate yet by the time you, you go to watch it. But I mean the comments were just, you know, it was, it was very one sided that, you know, it again, I'm not like trying to know spike the football or anything like that, but I want to talk about this and there's kind of no way to avoid talking about that aspect of it. I've done now I think I've got since October 7th, I think I've done like nine or ten Israel debates. And again, maybe I'm not the one who should be saying this, but it's, I've won all of them and it's kind of just been a question of like how much of a blowout it was, like how dominant the victory was. And I do, you know, I get like a lot of people saying to me like you're, you know, like David, Dave's just unbeatable in these debates and that like I did such a good job or something like that. And I just really do think it's an, it's important for people to understand that that's not really the story. It's, it's not that I'm so good at debating or I'm so smart or Anything like that. I mean, I don't think, I don't, you know, like, Josh Hammer was a very competent opponent and he's clearly a smart guy and he's clearly read a lot of stuff. I've just read better stuff. That's really what this comes down to. It's just like that I've, I've just read like, I've read the people he's read and I'm also reading a lot of people who just have a way better argument than he does. And that's, that's kind of really it. Like really. That is the takeaway is that the, the libertarians are just right about this issue. And if you. At, you know, like in, in, in like debate club or whatever. I mean, I didn't do that, but it's, I actually, by the way, actually I shouldn't say that. I did join a debate club in, in high school and I think I did one debate and then it just, it conflicted with basketball practice and I was like, oh yeah, there's no, that's an easy choice. And I just dropped it. But they would, you know, like, it's a thing they do for like high schoolers and debate clubs. They'll, they'll make you switch sides and argue the other side. You know, like you have to argue the pro and then you have to argue the con of any issue. So that's like really just testing your debating ability. And I don't think I could have done any better of a job if I had to take Josh's side of the argument. You know what I'm saying? It's not like, oh, my debating ability is so great. It's just my side's right, you know, and, and I think it, it was like overwhelming the, the overwhelmingly obvious. I mean, essentially my, I, I stuck. We. It was a very short time format. Like I did the soho Forum Oxford style debate, which I believe I'm going to be. I'm supposed to give Gene Epstein a call later. I think I'm going to set up another one through soho Forum, which, because I just love those guys so much. Soho forum.org free plug for, for Gene and the guys. But I think his, his thing was like you get a 15 minute opening statement and then you get a five minute. So it's like 15 minute opening statement. 15 minute opening statement, then a five minute rebuttal, then a five minute rebuttal and then at the end you get like a 10 minute closing statement. This was a 5 minute opening statement and a 5 minute closing statement with no rebuttals. So it was, you had to be really, you know, like condensed in what your opening thoughts were. And then the whole debate was just questions and interacting with each other, which I do like, you know, I, but I, it makes it a little bit challenging to like kind of lay out your view in five minutes. And so I really just stuck to like two major points. Then I was like, well, look, here's the, here's the costs of the US relationship with Israel, and number one is the war on terrorism, which Israel used its, its not insignificant influence, let's just say, to lobby America into. And you know, the cost of this is in like $8 trillion and 4 million dead innocent people and, you know, tens of thousands of dead American soldiers. If you count the, if you count the ones who committed suicide in the wake of the wars, it's like 36,000 or something like that. And I was kind of like, hey, right away, that's the cost of the relationship. What benefit is larger than that? And then my, my secondary point was just that we inherit all this hatred around the world because we back Israel. And you know, like, and it was just like, there was just no argument. Like, Josh, he tried to kind of, you know, like nid, pick around the edges of this, but I just, you know, I know my stuff. So he just wasn't like, he tried to argue that like, actually the Sharon's guys didn't support the war in Iraq. But then I just know my stuff. I've just, I've read all this stuff. So I just know the truth. And the truth is just not. It's not true. It's like, the truth is that, okay, there was one of Sharon's. Actually, I think it was two of Sharon's guys who. Ariel Sharon was the prime minister at the time when we invaded Iraq, not Benjamin Netanyahu. He had. Benjamin Netanyahu was in from like 96 to 2000. Then Sharon came in and then, and then Netanyahu came back and later. But so the, you know, he was like, oh, the Sharon's guys didn't want to fight the war in Iraq, but that's not actually true. What happened is that Sharon's guys wanted America to topple Saddam Hussein. They were all for it, but they wanted America to overthrow the government in Iran first. So they came to George W. Bush when they heard he had plans of invading Iraq and they were like, no, no, no, dude, do a ram first, then come back and get Saddam Hussein. So he tried to position that as like they were against the war in Iraq, but that's not exactly right. And then once they got assurances from the neoconservatives and the Bush administration and Netanyahu that, don't worry, we're going to do the war in Iran after, like, we're going to overthrow Saddam Hussein and then we'll go overthrow the mullahs in, in Iran, then they got completely on board with it and in fact started manufacturing a bunch of the most outrageous propaganda about how Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction under the Sharon government. So again, he's, he was, like, trying to. But there's just not really an argument there. And, and perhaps if, if somebody hadn't, you know, like, if I hadn't read John Mearsheimer or something like that, maybe I wouldn't know all of that, but I've done my homework and I'm just on the right side of the debate. And so it's just. I don't know, it's like, if you, if we were doing a debate that was like. And the resolution was like, slavery is immoral, and I was on the affirmative and someone else took the negative, and I just won the debate, I don't think you'd be like, oh, my God, Dave's just such an amazing debater. You just be like, no, he's clearly just right about this. Like, this isn't. It's not a comment really, on who's better at this or worse at this. It's just a comment on. There's just the argument is so irrefutable. At least that's my, my perspective on it. Obviously, everybody's allowed to have their own perspective. You can go watch the debate and tell me what you thought. I'm curious to hear. I'll, I'll check in the, in the chat if anybody had any comments on that. Dave is spitting facts right now, and you guys are goofing in the chat. Well, there you go. Thank you. I, I appreciate that. But anyway, it was, it was interesting, you know, I, I think that, you know, and like, like I said, I've, I've been very critical of, say, people like Ben Shapiro, who I think, you know, he's, he's made supporting Israel the center of his entire identity and his entire political worldview. And he's never debated a competent critic of Israel. I just find that to be, like, outrageous. Like, I'm not saying, obviously, there's, like, the expectation isn't that you're going to debate everyone. Believe me, I get that all the time with, you know, somebody with like 200 Twitter followers who I've never heard of, who's like, you're afraid to debate me on this? And you're like, yeah, okay, well, you know, time is a scarce resource and I can't devote it to everybody, so I gotta, you know, choose a more high profile debate at this point in my career. But I think it's very reasonable for me to say there's a responsibility on you to debate someone. I mean, the list of like capable critics of Israel is, is, you know, maybe we could use some more people, but there's a lot. And like, pick one of them. None of us would, you know, like, it's not like if, if, if Ben Shapiro announced that he was debating Norman Finkelstein. It's not like you would hear me or Scott Horton being like, no, you have to debate me. We'd, okay, yes, go do that. It's, I, I just think it's like, I do think there's something cowardly about like only debating 17 year olds or 19 year olds at college universities. Like, even if you're going to do that, if you're going to kind of make your name of going to a college campus and slapping down the kids in the audience, which I just don't really like, I don't like any of that. I don't my, my beef with it. And like, look, I know Charlie Kirk does a lot of that stuff and I like Charlie. I've been on his show a few times and he's always been cool to me. I appreciate that. I don't even mind. At least my, my view on it is like, if I were going to do that, like, let's say I was going into a college campus and I was trying to, you know, I had a group of college kids who disagreed with me on something and we were like arguing about it. I just feel like my attitude would always be much more like, let me, let me throw my arm around you and be like, hey, did you ever consider this? You know, did you ever think about it like this? Look, I, I, when I was your age, I felt this way, but then I started thinking about, you know, like, I would just always kind of be like, you know, that's. To me, when I say throw my arm around him, I don't mean physically, by the way. I mean, you know, like metaphorically. I'm not touching college kids. The point is I would have more of an attitude that it's like, well, hey, let me try to give you a little nugget of information or something like that. I, I don't think it's appro. To ever have the attitude with college kids that, like, the way I debated Chris Cuomo or something like that, like, I'm here to destroy you. Like, come on, that's not. Like, I'll, I'll have that attitude with Chris Cuomo. I'll have that attitude with the guy who was the number one show at CNN who sold the whole Covid agenda. Like, sure, that to me makes sense. It doesn't make sense for me to, you know, and that's what Ben Shapiro, like, got famous off, that they got famous off, you know, debating some 20 year old chick who thinks she's a dude and being like, oh, are you really a guy? Well, then why aren't you a tree? And everyone's like, oh man, you destroyed her. Like, and. But yet on this most crucial of issues, which clearly is like right at the center of your entire identity, I mean, the guys on record said that the reason he supports the United States of America is because we support Israel. And so like, that just seems, that seems to me to be weak, like you should, There should be an obligation for him to like, debate someone competent on this issue. And that's, you know, what I've been trying to do. It's part of the reason why I challenged Ben Shapiro and Douglas Murray. Neither of those guys, you know, responded or accepted or anything. But I do feel like, you know, debating, like, I debated Dennis Prager. I mean, it was again, totally one sided blowout. And I debated Josh Hammer, who's, I mean, the senior editor at Newsweek and has just wrote a book about Israel that's coming out soon. And so I'm kind of like, I'm kind of looking here like, okay, is this the best guys you got? Like, who's the best guy you got? Who's, who's willing to do this? Because I just, at this point, after doing so many of them, it just seems like they just really don't have much. They, they really don't have much. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Sheath Underwear, the best underwear you will ever own. And longtime sponsor of the Part of the Problem podcast. I love this product so much, I cannot recommend it highly enough. It is the best, the best pair of boxer briefs I've ever had. My entire life I was getting like, just whatever name brand, six pack of boxer briefs. And I never really thought anything of it until Sheath came on as a sponsor and they sent me a couple pairs they Were like, try them on so you can talk about it when you read the ad. Read. And then I was like, these are the most comfortable pair of boxer briefs I've ever owned. And I threw out the rest of my underwear and just ordered sheath, and now it's all I wear. I'm telling you, go get a pair of them. They're just great. They're high quality. They just. You feel good. You feel better when you're in a nice pair of boxer briefs. And of course, they've been a longtime sponsor of the show, so that's reason enough to go support them. Go check them out@sheath underwear.com and make sure you use the promo code problem20, because that'll get you 20% off your entire order. Sheathunderwear.com promo code problem20 for 20% off. All right, let's get back into the show. What is it here in the comment, Kurt calling the Liberty attack a conspiracy theory is ridiculous. Is ridiculous. Even Israel admits it happened. They just lie and say it's an accident. Yeah, I mean, you know, maybe, like, if there's no other takeaway from the last, the last few years of American politics, it's like, even more so, you know, like if someone calls you, like, you're a bigot or you're a transphobe or you're a racist or whatever, it's just like, okay, that's not an argument. It's just not an argument, and that should just be dismissed. Okay, what else you got? You know, and same with conspiracy theorists. You know, just, just. I mean, by the way, if it was a cons, if the USS Liberty is a conspiracy theory. Well, like, yeah, it is a conspiracy theory. I guess it was one that was shared by the Secretary of State time. It's one that's shared by a whole bunch of eyewitnesses to the event. So what does that mean? Yes, it's been a conspiracy to keep this a secret. Okay. I mean, like, I, I just don't, I, I, I find it bizarre that anybody, especially someone as, as intelligent as Charlie Kirk to just like, over the, after the last few years to say, well, that's a conspiracy. Like, okay, the question is whether the question is what happened, not whether it's a conspiracy or not. And there are lots of conspiracies that are real. And I think Charlie would, like, acknowledge that, but I, I don't know. Okay, let me see. Douglas Murray. Good name, dude. Douglas Murray. It's crazy how he bragged about the onetoone civilian to combatant ratio that can't be proven. Even if I could. That's a lot of civilians to be comfortable killing. Yeah, that was, you know, there were a few moments in the debate and that, you know, it's like, it's always the case with these debates where it's something I made my piece with. I think Gene Epstein actually helped me understand this because. So, like I mentioned, Gene Epstein runs the SoHo forum debate. So Gene Epstein's done a ton of debates himself. He's one of the best. He's. He's like really one of the absolute best debaters. If you've, if you've never seen Gene Epstein, there was a Bhaskar Sankaria or something like that. He's like a democratic socialist guy. And they, they debated like free market capitalism versus democratic socialism or something like that. I forget the exact resolution, but I mean, it is to this day one of the best debate performances I've ever seen. Gene was just spectacular. He gets, he gets a little worked up and angry in the debate, but I actually, I love that type of stuff. But it was just like phenomenal. So good. And then he had. I'm blanking on the professor's name. Wolf, I think, is his last name. He's like one of the more famous. Richard. Well, he's, he's one of the more like famous, like, Marxist professors. And again, Gene just torn to shreds. So Gene's like a very experienced debater. He's also a brilliant economist who's just, you know, very smart and well read and really has his arguments down. And he also, he runs a debate series, so he's just like, immersed in that world. And I remember he told me after my first debate, that was the one where I debated Nick Sarwalk at a soho forum. And then I won the debate pretty handily. But I remember after it being like, oh, I should have said this. And when he said that I should have said this, I go, oh, I'm like kicking myself because I could have made this point. And he, and he said to me, he goes, something. I forget exactly how he said it, but he goes, he goes, look, that's always going to be the case. There's. You're never going to do a debate where you don't later think of one other thing you could have said or one other thing you should have said. You know, it's just you, you just, you do the best you can in the moment and then you kind of learn from that. So next time you make sure you say the point that you, you wish you had said this time, if it comes up again, that for this debate, that was one where I thought maybe I could have like, really, really had a better response to. I mean, I think I just kind of scoffed at him and was like, you don't know that this is ridiculous. I mean, it's such a ridiculous claim when you really think about it, that, that they've killed one militant for every civilian that they've killed. How would you even make those numbers add up? Like, it's just, it's ridiculous. How would you even. And I could have just either I could have easily followed up and really grilled down on, like, tell me exactly how your methodology works here, that you've figured that out. But again, you know, it's tough sometimes in these debates. It's a little bit tricky. You have to make a split second decision about what angle you want to go with this. And you always want it. Like, my focus on the debate was that I just wanted to make sure I won the resolution. Like, the resolution was about the US Israeli relationship. And so it wasn't. I didn't want to get too sidetracked into how, you know, horrible what Israel's doing is or something like that, because I've done that in a lot of other debates and that wasn't the topic of this debate. And also he was making the argument essentially that he doesn't care about morality, he cares about what's good for our country. And so once you're making that argument, it's like, I'm not going to go down the whole path of convincing you that you should care about morality. I'm just going to argue that like, well, it's not good for the country either. So you lose by your own, you know, stated worldview and, you know, another people. The other thing that people jumped on a lot. There was the one thing I thought he did that was somewhat bad faith and disingenuous was when he asked me that question about who I, who I trust more, Benjamin Netanyahu or Osama bin Laden, which I did think. I, you know, I don't, I just thought that was kind of ridiculous. But also I thought it was, it was, it was the only time that I really thought maybe there's something else I didn't exactly miss. It was the only time I, I thought during the debate where he was kind of being bad faith. He wasn't before or after the debate, like shitty to me at all. And, and honestly, my, my takeaway from it, I'm curious what, what you guys thought, but I thought it actually backfired on him and just hurt him a lot because it was so transparently like, this just doesn't make any sense. I mean, it's a. It's. It's a. You know, he was. He basically said. He goes, well, who do you trust more, Benjamin Netanyahu or Osama bin Laden? I was like, what? It's like, I don't trust either of them. What does that mean? And I, I think. And he was like, well, that says something right there, that you can't just easily say you trust Netanyahu more than Osama bin Laden. I was like, I don't really. I think most people are intelligent enough to know that creating a false binary and then insisting you pick one of them and then saying that says something about you doesn't really win you too many debate points. Adam says, yeah, that was dumb. Just say now that you trust bin Laden more. Well, the thing is, look, it's not about trusting bin Laden more than Netanyahu. I don't think that's exactly right. I think the way to think about it, which is a little bit difficult to explain in the middle of a debate, I think the way to think about it is a terrorist who's trying. Who's openly saying, I declare war on you and I'm trying to kill and I'm targeting your civilians. You know, this was the Osama bin Laden logic, which is, you know, every bit as insane as Netanyahu's logic or George W. Bush's logic. But he said, basically, because you have free elections in America and because you vote for the people who are at war with the Muslims, you're fair game now, too. Now, okay, that's insane. But again, by the way, I mean, just on Piers Morgan today, somebody kind of made that argument to me about the Palestinians. So it's, you know, this is. This is insane no matter who makes the argument. But the point is that if a terrorist is making that argument, they don't. They're not incentivized to lie to you in the same type of way. Right. So it's not that, like, I think Osama bin Laden is, like, a more honest person by nature. And sure, once you're a mass murderer. So this would apply to both of them. Once you're a mass murderer. Yeah, you were way past the point of liar. You know, I don't think you have, like, a moral code that won't allow you to lie. The point is that there's no reason for Osama bin Laden to be lying to us. He's already declared war against us. Netanyahu, on the other hand, is trying to lobby us into a next war. So there's a lot more reason for him to lie to us, you know, so it's not. Again, it's just such a clunky, weird question. I don't even really know what the answer is, other than what I said, which is that I don't trust either of them. What is it? The part, I'm sorry, Adam says, oh, man. The part where he said saudi civilians lives don't matter was wild, you know? Well, yeah, he said, well, it wasn't exactly that, but anyway, he said something about how, like, he doesn't care about the morality at all of what they do to their own people. And I was like, yeah, well, I kind of do. Anyway, it was. It was a fun. It was a fun time. It's always. It's always fun to win these things, you know, is. That's kind of maybe silly and just maybe somewhat immature on me. But I. But I also do think that, like, it's. It's kind of important to demonstrate that. It's like, listen, I think that my camp is correct about this stuff, and I'm not. Again, like I said before, I'm not taking any, like, any credit for it. It's. I've just read all the right people and. And, like, I've done my homework. I'll say I've done my homework. I know my stuff. So I can do well in these debates because you're not going to catch me in, like, some huge blind spot where I'm like, oh, I never thought about that. I don't have an answer to that. I don't know the reference he's making. So I've, like, done my reading, and these. The guys that I've been persuaded by are just. I was persuaded by them for a reason because they have way better arguments. So, anyway, I don't know who's next, but maybe you guys tell me, who's the guy who's the best they got to come argue this. I mean, you know, I'm taking on guys who have resumes that say they should be able to handle me. So I don't. I. I don't know who the next one is, but Douglas Murray, Ben Shapiro, I'd still be down to do either of those. I do. I will say I give Josh a lot of credit because I do think, like, it's a risk on his part. It's a big risk to have, like, a resume like he has, and Then come debate a comedian. You know, like, that's like, there's a. You're taking. You're taking a big risk there. And so I do. I think that was. I give him credit for that. Okay. Shapiro is the only one who will move the needle. Yep, that's true, but. Or maybe that's not true. I don't know. I think the Douglas Murray one would be good. Constantine Cassin would be embarrassing. Well, maybe. I mean, I'd be down to do that. We had talked about doing an Israel debate and kind of agreed to it, but we never made it work with the schedules. Maybe I'll reach back out and try to see if that. If that would happen. But I, you know, I'd be happy to do that one. We already debated about Ukraine. We're going to talk about Ukraine here in a second. Okay. Okay. So this is. Natalie pulled up this question. This is a good one. And it transitions into something I wanted to talk about from the chat. Dave, what do you think Tulsi's priorities will be in the first year? That is. That's an interesting question. I really don't know Tulsi Gabbard, of course, if you guys don't, if you haven't seen. She just a couple hours ago got confirmed. So that's a huge, huge deal. One of the things that's very interesting about Tulsi Gabbard, and this is. I know I've talked about this before on the show, but it's kind of, now that it's a reality and she's in there, it's. First of all, it just cannot be overstated how crazy it is that Tulsi is the head of the Deep State now. I mean, that is the position of being Director of National Intelligence. She is the boss of the entire intelligence community. And the. The interesting thing about Tulsi Gabbard, right, is like, Tulsi Gabbard is not where I am on foreign policy. She's like, maybe. Maybe halfway, like, in between. Like, you know, an establishment, you know, you know, whatever, the Obama, Joe Biden, you know, their foreign policy is over here and my foreign policy is over here. She's like, halfway, which is still a lot better than we ever had before. But for people who don't know this, just to go over it quickly, right, there was basically the. The war on terrorism, right, started in 2001. So in 2001, after 9 11, immediately in the weeks following 9 11. It started with, like, special Ops in Afghanistan taking out the al Qaeda cells that were there then. Of course, there was the full invasion of Afghanistan. Then under false pretenses, we, we said that Saddam Hussein was involved in, in 9, 11, and that he had nuclear weapons. And so then we launched that war. And so now we're, we're. We're fighting the war in Iraq. Now Tulsi goes and serves in this war, and she's embedded in a medical unit. So she's like, she's seeing firsthand the unbelievable consequences of that war. And so she's, you know, I mean, like, I don't know the exact details of it, but imagine being embedded in a medical unit at the height of the fighting in Iraq. You're going to see some stuff. And so she really turned against that war and the fact that we were lied into it. Now she joined, she voluntarily enlisted to go fight in that war because she was with the war on terrorism. She's like, these terrorists attacked us. We're here to go kill these terrorists. You know. But then what Tulsi really objected to was what's. What. What Cy Hersh called the redirection. And this is around 2006, 2006, 2007, somewhere in there. So it started at the end of George W. Bush's term and continued through Obama's entire term. And essentially what happened was. So if you remember what I said earlier, right, There were those Sharon guys who were concerned that we're going to overthrow Iraq first, we should overthrow Iran first. Well, why did they say that? Okay, because Iraq was, you know, Saddam Hussein was the dictator of Iraq, but the super majority of the country were shiites. Okay, like 60% of the country were Shiites. And so Saddam is sitting on this, this dictatorship which is holding down a majority of the people. And so the idea that you're going to overthrow Saddam Hussein and then, you know, whatever, we'll have elections. Okay, well, who's going to win those elections? The Shiites are going to win that because they have the numbers. And Iran is also a Shiite country. So their thing was that, oh, no, you're going to hand this country to Iran. Iran's going to have total influence over this entire region. And so, essentially, right, they got persuaded by the neoconservatives and the kudniks and the George W. Bush administration that. Don't worry about that, because just like General Wesley Clark said, we're going to topple seven countries in five years, ending with Iran. Iran. So you don't have to worry about Iran having influence in the region, because we're going to overthrow them, too. And it does seem to me that they. Part of the reason why they went for this plan is because they actually believed what they were saying, which is that a rant in their own words they said was going to be a cakewalk and we were going to be greeted. This is what they used to say back then. We were going to be greeted as liberators and the war would be paid for in oil, and it was going to be a cakewalk. Like, real quick, we'll just do this. So we'll get this one done and then do the next one. But it didn't end up being that. It ended up being a goddamn catastrophe. And so the. Essentially they never got the war in Iran, so they just handed influence to. To the Shiites. Now, once Barack Obama came in and toward the end of the George W. Bush administration. By the way, there's an interesting footnote about this, is that Dick Cheney really tried to convince George W. Bush to go to war with Iran in 2007. I believe it was 2007. And just by this point, Bush was done listening to Dick Cheney. You know, like at this point, he had already been like, you know, he had convinced him to go in these two wars, they were both disasters. He was just, he went from having record high job approval numbers after 9, 11 to being completely in the toilet. And he just wasn't listening to Dick Cheney anymore. And then I think also the military told him, like, we are just, we cannot do this is too much. So they couldn't do that. But what they settled for to now correct this balance of power was to flip sides instead of, instead of fighting the Sunnis who were our enemies, I mean, radical Sunnis were the bin Ladenites. You know, instead of attacking them, we were now going to switch and start attacking the Shiites to undo the mistake that George W. Bush made by giving them the entire country. But we couldn't just go in and, you know, we couldn't just invade Iraq again and then overthrow the government that we had just put into power. That one would be a little bit too transparent. And so this is where you get the Obama foreign policy. And in the Obama foreign policy, what are we trying to do? We're trying to overthrow Bashar Al Assad, who's aligned with Iran. So if Iran had influence in Iran, Syria and Iraq, well, at least we could take out Syria from them. And this began now in what happened here. And Tulsi just knows enough to know, like as Scott Horn always says, who the shirts and the skins are, you know, to most people in America, when they say, you know, Iran is the number one sponsor of terrorism, they just think, al Qaeda, isis, Muslim terrorists, you know, isn't that what they are? But no, those are the Sunni terrorists. Iran isn't sponsoring them. Iran is sponsoring, you know, Hezbollah and Hamas and, you know, Israel's enemies, the Shiites. And so Israel was like, really, like, yeah, they did not like the idea that their real enemies, the Shiites, because those are the only ones who stand up for the poor Palestinians. They. They were all about, you know, this. This new tactic. And so what Tulsi objected to was not the war on terrorism. She supported that and still does to this day, which is not great. You know, I oppose the entire war on terrorism. But Tulsi is really adamantly against the war for terrorism. She was really adamantly against Libya and Syria and Yemen because we were fighting on the same side as Al Qaeda. And that was the whole reason why she. I mean, imagine from her perspective, you voluntarily enlisted because this group, Al Qaeda, attacked us. And then you're sitting there and you're fighting in Iraq, and the entire Iraqi insurgency was Sunnis, right? These were the ones who. Who. Who Saddam Hussein had, was allied with. And so these were the ones who were fighting back against us. And of course, after we invaded Iraq, it drew in all of the Al Qaeda. This is what created Al Qaeda in Iraq. They went, okay, it's hard to cross the Atlantic Ocean and get to America to do another 9, 11, but we could get over to Iraq and start, you know, trying to shoot it and put some, you know, roadside bombs down to kill some Americans there. And so Tulsi's fighting against these people and then watching all these wars on behalf of them. This is why she went and met with Bashar al Assad, because she knew the opposition was Al Qaeda, was isis. And so, you know, when they tell you in the mainstream media. Sorry, I don't like to use that term. They tell you in the. The dead legacy media for all those years, right? Or like when someone like Barry Weiss goes, she's an Assad toady. She went to meet with Bashar al Assad. Like, as if, you know, if you look at that in a vacuum, you go, oh, there's this dictator, and she wanted to go meet with him. Oh, that seems a little bit shady. But if you know what's going on, it's not shady at all. She did not like the fact that we were committing treason. I'm not being hyperbolic. It's treason. You can't side with the enemy. Of your people during wartime. There's a punishment for that, and it's pretty severe. And so anyway, I guess, I don't know, a long way. To answer your question, I don't know what Tulsi's agenda is going to be. I do know that Tulsi's well aware of the treason that was committed by the previous U.S. presidents. That already just makes it very interesting because now going in, already knowing that she's in, in charge of the entire intelligence apparatus, now, she's going to learn a lot more. She also might choose what she wants to share with the American people. So anyway, all of that is very, very exciting. I think it also bodes well for, for Bobby Kennedy, it'll probably be a similar split. Also worth noting that Bernie Sanders voted against Tulsi Gabbard. So that's one of the great things coming out of all of this is just everybody learning what a fraud that guy always was. So a lot of positives, a lot of positives happening here. Okay, I do. Before I, we wrap up the show, I have to talk about some of these developments, which are very, very pos developments as it relates to the war in Ukraine. This was one of, if not probably the strongest, most compelling reason to support Donald Trump is that he was just so much better than the previous administration on this issue. He had some great rhetoric around it on the campaign. And it really does seem like it always kind of seemed like he really does mean it when he says he wants the war to end. You have a very, like, the, like a very big contrast between what Joe Biden or Kamala Harris would say about the war and have been saying about it for years. They would be saying, we can't give Vladimir Putin an inch. We will fund Ukraine all the way. We're not stopping until Russia is completely driven out. This is a ridiculous, unrealistic expectation. Donald Trump always said, which was really just the correct thing. I want the war to end. I want the killing to end. I want people to stop dying. That just, it's, it's funny because when he said this on cnn, I think this was almost two years ago now that he said this. This was like a, considered a very controversial statement. And by the way, doesn't that say everything about the United States of America's government as it currently stands, that that is considered a controversial statement? I mean, what more can I even add to that? Anyway, I want to play this video from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. So, yeah, let's, let's play the Pete Hagseth video because he just said this. And then I'll read Donald Trump's tweet about it.
- [47:59]
Pete Hegseth
The United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement. Instead, any security guarantee must be backed by capable European and non European troops. If these troops are deployed as peacekeepers to Ukraine at any point, they should be deployed as part of a non NATO mission, and they should not be covered under Article 5. There also must be robust international oversight of the line of contact. To be clear, as part of any security guarantee, there will not be US Troops deployed to Ukraine.
- [48:44]
Dave Smith
I mean, it is, it's hard to stress how great it is to hear something like that from the Defense Secretary of the United States of America. And, you know, Pete Hegseth has, he's been kind of one of the question marks for me. I, you know, there were Donald Trump had some picks that I hated. He had some picks that I loved. So, like, in the hated category is like Marco Rubio and Ratcliffe. In the love category is like, Tulsi and Bobby Kennedy and Cash Patel. And what was the other one? I'm blanking under. Oh, I'm Bhattacharya. Pete Hegseth was always kind of a question to me because he was like, when I knew Pete, which, you know, I like, I didn't know him super well, but like, I've done a few, like, Fox News shows with him and I've, we went out for beers, like, after one of our shows once. And so from what I've known of him, he was like, really a neocon. The beat hagset that I knew was like, had awful foreign policy. And so that, that was concerning to me because I literally, I mean, I had private conversations with the guy where he said some things that I was not happy about. But the word was that he's really changed his mind on a lot of this stuff. And he's really kind of opened up to the idea that these wars were all a big mistake. And, and, and look, there's, there's a weird thing that happens with this dynamic because you kind of don't know. I mean, look, I talk to a lot of military guys. There's a lot of military guys who listen to the show, and I talked to many of them like, you know, after shows and at different, you know, events and stuff like that. And there's a ton of people like that. I mean, there's a ton of people who were like, all gung ho on the wars and then woke up, you know, the, the again this was, this was true by 2008, it was true by 2012. As you guys, I, I always like to bring this statistic up because it's very interesting. But in 2008 and 2012, the presidential candidate who got more money from active duty military than every other candidate combined, not just the most money from active duty military, but more money than every other candidate put together, including Barack Obama, was Ron Paul. The active duty military guys were going for the, the most hardcore anti war, pro peace candidate. And that's because they have to, they're the ones who actually have to pay the cost. You know what I mean? These are the guys whose lives are ruined, who watched their, you know, their buddy bleed out in their lap screaming for his mom. These are the ones who are having nightmares about the shit they did over there, you know, so it makes sense that there are a lot of people who really change their minds on this. However, at the same time, when you got a guy who's a Fox News host and the sentiment of the Republican party totally went from gung ho for war to totally skeptical of this type of a permanent war, you wonder, like, did he really have a change of heart or is he just saying the thing that's very popular for his viewers right now? So this is a great start, let's just say that very, very good start for, for Pete Hegseth and, and it's just, I don't know, it's, it's hard to say, but it's, it's just fantastic. All right guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Prolon by El Nutra. Prolon by El Nutra is the only patented fasting mimicking diet that combines the benefits of prolonged fasting with a science backed nutrition plan so you can hit your health and weight loss goals without actually having to give up all that food. If you're feeling sluggish or low energy or unfocused, you really should consider this. 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So right now, Prolon is offering part of The Problem listeners 15 off their five day nutrition program. Just go to prolonlife.com p o t p that's p r O-L-O-N L-I-F e.com potp for this special offer. Prolonlife.com for 15 off. All right, let's get back into the show. Okay, I want to read this because this was Donald Trump's tweet on the same subject. He tweeted this after that comment by Pete Hegseth. This is from Donald Trump. He says, I just had a lengthy and highly productive phone call with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. We discussed Ukraine, the Middle east, energy, artificial intelligence, the power of the dollar, and various other subjects. We both reflected on the great history of our nation and the fact that we fought so successfully together in World War II. Remembering that Russia lost tens of millions of people and we like, and we likewise lost so many, we each talked about the strengths of our respective nations and the great benefit that we will someday have in working together. But first, as we both agreed, we want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in the war with Russia and Ukraine. President Putin even used my very strong campaign motto of common sense. We both believe very strongly in it. We agreed to work together very closely, including visiting each other's nations. We have also agreed to have our respective teams start negotiating immediately. And we will begin by calling President Zelensky of Ukraine to inform him of the conversation, something which I will be doing right now. I have asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of the CIA, John Ratcliffe, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, another terrible one. An ambassador and special envoy, Steve Witkoff, a good one, to read the negotiations which I feel strongly, to lead the negotiations which I feel strongly will be successful. Millions of people have died in a war that would not have happened if I were president. But it did. But it did happen. So it must end. No more lives should be lost. I want to thank President Putin for his time and effort with respect to this call and for the release yesterday of Mark Fogel, a wonderful man that I personally greeted last night at the White House. I believe this effort will lead to a successful conclusion, hopefully soon. I mean, I don't know. I just can't overstate how great this is. And I understand the war hasn't ended yet. You know, this is rhetoric, but it is such an improvement from where we were. It's really, you know, even just a year ago, but especially a couple years ago, it is, Yeah. I mean, it's time, it's time for this catastrophe to end. And I gotta say, you know, it's like, you know, as I was kind of talking about on the show yesterday, it, it almost, it seems like I'm just in the business about, like I'm just in the business of being right about stuff. And it's. Look, it's just. I mean, I'm, I don't mean just to like pat my own back here. I realize I'm doing a little too much of that, this episode, so I apologize. But it's like so many of us who were pushing in real time for to, to take a deal. I mean, they're the deal that Zielinski was essentially forced out of accepting by Boris Johnson and Joe Biden or whoever was really making the decisions, you know, Anthony Blinkett, whatever, they had a much better deal on the table. And we were saying just take this deal and end the war now. And all of the hawks said no, that would be too big of a concession. And we, we have to drive Vladimir Putin completely out of Ukraine. Something that everybody involved who knows anything about it knows. The only way to actually do that would be to deploy the full US Military and have a direct hot war with the biggest nuclear power in the world. So we're not going to do that. Even Joe Biden wasn't ever prepared to do that. And so now what we got as a result of not taking this deal, like once again, one more war that the hawks got completely wrong. So now instead of doing what we all suggested at the time, we listened to the hawks and so hundreds of thousands more people died and Ukraine's going to end up with a worse deal. This is a goddamn like of all of the wars over the last 25 years, this is probably got to take first place as being the one that was the easiest to negotiate away. The easy. I mean literally the, the head of NATO, Stroltenberg. I know I'm butchering his name. I'm sorry, I should at one point learn how to say his name, but I just don't really have that much for him anyway. But Stoltenberg himself admitted, right, that before Vladimir Putin invaded, he said to NATO, he goes, if you just put it in writing that you won't bring Ukraine into NATO, I won't invade, but if you don't give me that in writing, I'm going to invade the country. And Stoltenberg bragged about how, he said, we refused because we're not going to be bullied by Vladimir Putin or something like that. This was the simple ask that Vladimir Putin had. And what a reasonable ask. That doesn't mean, like, he's still wrong for invading and he killed a whole lot of people. And that's just totally unjustified. And he's. He's a war criminal, just like all the US Presidents are war criminals, too. And I have no love for Vladimir Putin. But I'm sorry, the starting point of just asking, like, just saying, you cannot bring our biggest neighboring country into your military alliance is totally reasonable. We would have the exact same demand. There is no way the United States of America would allow Mexico or Canada or Cuba to join a military alliance with China or Russia. It's just no way, no conceivable way we could allow that to happen, because no regime can allow that. And so you just look at this, and now, I mean, Trump's saying millions. I don't know if the number's actually in millions, but it's certainly in the hundreds of thousands. Hundreds of thousands of people have died. Vladimir Putin is going home with chunks of Ukraine. He's going to keep part of it. And we got our defense secretary up there saying, yeah, and we. NATO's not going to be a part of this. So essentially, we're giving. Not only did all these people die and all this territory was lost, but he's getting the thing he. He wanted anyway. We could have just given him that and avoided this whole thing. This is gonna. This will go down in history as one of, like, the most easily avoidable catastrophes in, in, you know, post World War II European history. Just a goddamn tragedy. But anyway, really, really good. The, the message that Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth are, are sending here. So it's. That is something to be really happy about. Such a huge improvement from where we were. All right, I gotta wrap up the show there. Thank you guys for listening. Catch you guys tomorrow for the Members Only episode. I love you all. Goodbye, Sa.