Response to Dave Smith: NO! Conspiracy Theorists and Anti-Semites Must Be Called Out. (good footage on YouTube)

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Response to Dave Smith: NO! Conspiracy Theorists and Anti-Semites Must Be Called Out

Podcast: The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table
Date: March 14, 2025
Host: Comedy Cellar Network
Main Hosts & Contributors: Noam Dworman, Dan Benelli, Periel Aschenbrand, Sally Sattel, Aaron Berg, Rob

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Episode Overview

The episode dives deeply into a heated Twitter feud involving Noam Dworman and comedian/political commentator Dave Smith. The central thesis: public figures, especially within the comedy and political commentary space, have a moral obligation to denounce conspiracy theories and anti-Semitic rhetoric, even (or especially) from within their own circles. The show critiques the reluctance of notable personalities, specifically Dave Smith, to rebuke associates like Candace Owens and Jake Shields for anti-Semitic or conspiratorial statements, and explores the wider consequences of such silence.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Twitter Feud: Noam Dworman vs. Dave Smith

• The Spark: Noam criticized Dave Smith for being "a hostage to his followers," particularly his refusal to condemn anti-Semitic or conspiratorial statements from people like Candace Owens and Jake Shields.
  • Noam: "He's in a golden cage ... he doesn't condemn people, doesn't call them out for antisemitism or crazy shit." — [01:08]
• Dave Smith's Public Reaction: Dave retaliated harshly, attacking Noam’s career and standing.
  • Noam describes: "He said, you're a failure and I'm a success ... go do your $75 spots." — [01:56]

2. Calling Out Conspiracies and Anti-Semitism

• Pattern of Non-Criticism: Noam and Dan note that within right-wing/conspiratorial circles, public figures rarely rebuke each other, offering a form of “innocence by association.”
  • Dan: "It becomes like a chain ... and it winds up on the Joe Rogan show in one form or another." — [05:39]
• Examples Cited: From Candace Owens’ social media posts to Tucker Carlson’s segments, a litany of conspiracy narratives are recounted, many with anti-Semitic overtones.
• Sanitizing the Unacceptable: Noam likens the lack of pushback to glossing over dangerous patterns: “You're elevating and converting a notion that nobody took seriously ... [into] 'reasonable minds can differ.'”

3. Danger of Conspiratorial Thinking and the Jewish Connection

• Noam argues anti-Semitism is “the mother of all conspiracy theories,” and that, historically, many conspiracy theorists "wind up at anti-Semitism's door.”
  • Noam: "With very few exceptions, people who are into conspiracies wind up at anti-Semitism's door, even if they may not actually be anti-Semites." — [08:08]
• Escalating Claims: The episode skewers specific recent examples (all attributed to the "crew" around Joe Rogan/Dave Smith/Candace Owens):
  • LBJ and Stalin were Jewish
  • Kamala Harris is secretly Jewish
  • “The Holocaust is a gross exaggeration”
  • Israel did 9/11
  • The US is run by a Zionist mob
  • "It's just too crazy for words." — Dan, [22:32]

4. The ‘Magic Words’ Defense and Historical Echoes

• Critics say ‘I don’t mean all Jews’: Noam unpacks the rhetorical move (“I have no problem with the Jewish people—just a cabal...”), showing its deep roots in classic anti-Semitism.
  • “Almost all of them ... will have something in there saying, I have no problem with the Jewish people. It's just ... the bankers and the communists.” — Noam, [28:14]
• Historical Continuity: Comparing modern rhetoric to that of Father Coughlin, Henry Ford, Dostoyevsky
  • “You hear the echoes of Father Coughlin and Henry Ford, and Charles Lewis... and they say, ‘I don’t mean all the Jewish people.’” — Noam, [30:07]

5. Engagement vs. Elevation: How (and Whether) to Argue with Conspiracists

• Should we debate anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists? Noam once considered hosting a Holocaust denial debate, seeing value in factual engagement to counter ignorance—but warns of unintended side effects:
  • “When someone has a pattern of making absolutely outlandish, obviously false arguments ... it is also fair to engage with that pattern, that inability to change the subject.” — [25:53]
  • "Engagement is not without its risks ... you elevate and convert [nonsense] into ‘reasonable minds can differ’." — [25:53]
• Comparing Patterns: “With Dave, ... he is generally presents as a reasonable person ... it’s as if I had people who hate blacks ... and I just won’t ever ... say, ‘No, I don’t think he’s a racist.’” — Noam, [31:02]

6. Responsibility and Consistency: The Double Standards Debate

• Dave Smith’s Defense: "If you rebuke your own side, you’re punished; if you don’t, you’re complicit." Dave accuses Noam and others of failing to call out their “own team.”
  • Noam rebuts: “I've done shows ... really upsetting people on my team ... because I feel like I should engage with the fact.” — [45:24]
  • “If Dave Smith tweeted at me, did you let Aaron Berg say this on your show? ... I have zero use for a guy like that ... I am not in the same awkward bind that Dave is, 'cause I'm not surrounded by these crazy bigots and lunatics.” — [51:10]
• The Aaron Berg Incident: When Aaron Berg says on a past episode, “I get excited when people are being massacred,” the hosts reflect on whether they failed to challenge it in the moment. Noam clarifies after the fact, “I’m sorry I didn’t push back. There’s no evidence ever that I don’t push back on these things ... Balls in Dave’s court to do the same thing.” — [62:06]

7. Free Speech—Value and Limits

• Philosophical Foundations: The group debates whether the purpose of free speech is as a good in itself, or whether it depends on open debate to seek truth.
  • Noam: "The Bible on free speech is John Stuart Mill's On Liberty ... only through everybody being able to speak whatever their version of truth will we be able to have a clash of ideas and eventually determine what is or isn't true." — [56:47]
  • “If we don’t allow some latitude ... we will damage the debate necessary for a democratic society." — [58:40]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Candace Owens and Social Media Rhetoric

  • "He'll refer to her as the 'great Candace Owens'... She's incredibly smart and thoughtful and willing to search for the truth, no matter how controversial it might be." — Dan, [05:39]

• On the ‘Innocence by Association’ Effect

  • “It creates a kind of innocence by association as opposed to guilt by association ... the whole entity becomes sort of sanitized by ... the social clique of it all.” — Dan, [05:39]

• On the Urgency of Rebuke

  • “We're not asking him to hate her, just to rebuke ... crazy stuff within his ranks.” — Noam, [05:33]

• On the Consequences of Wild Claims

  • “Untruth is dangerous. Garbage in, garbage out... In a democratic society ... it’s essential that they’re making decisions and forming opinions based on what the best ascertainment we’re capable of, of what is true and what's not.” — Noam, [08:08]

• Christopher Hitchens on Anti-Semitism:

  • “A dead giveaway in distinguishing the obsessive or morbid anti-Semite from the garden variety is an inability to stay off the subject.” — quoted by Noam, [11:35]

• On Tucker Carlson

  • “He’s enamored with David Irving, the Holocaust denier. ... The Jews installed Winston Churchill to pursue Zionist interests ... the reason the worst thing in human history happened was because the Jews put Hitler in fair.” — Dan, [15:26]

• On the Dangers of False Equivalence

  • “To compare ... Dave is just ... it bothers me so much because I can't believe there's any good faith in this. All too clever avoidance of the obvious. These people are just spouting out one retread anti-Semitic, classic anti-Semitic theory after another.” — Dan, [62:06]

• On Being Called Out/Falling Short

  • “If you comb through them and you find, aha! Here’s an example ... pretend that’s the pattern, when actually, that’s a totally dishonest use of evidence. The pattern is exactly the opposite ... with Dave ... I can't even find one counterexample.” — Noam, [54:22]

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Segment Timestamps of Note

• [01:08] — Noam on Dave Smith's refusal to rebuke
• [05:33] — Rebuking crazy within your ranks
• [08:08] — The link from conspiracy to anti-Semitism
• [11:35] — Christopher Hitchens quote and the 'can't stay off the subject' test
• [22:32] — "It all becomes just too crazy for words."
• [25:53] — Engagement vs. Elevation: Risks of debating conspiracy theorists
• [31:02] — Noam on patterns and the responsibility to call out anti-Semitism
• [45:24] — Dealing with Aaron Berg's 'massacre' comment
• [54:22–56:47] — Free speech: Truth-seeking vs. autonomy
• [62:06] — The challenge to Dave’s consistency

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Conclusion & Takeaways

• The episode lays out a robust, nuanced argument for why public figures have a duty to overtly reject conspiracy theories and anti-Semitic rhetoric within their own communities.
• Noam and the crew refuse to allow sanitized associations to go unchallenged — “innocence by association” is described as an insidious force.
• The hosts distinguish between engaging in debate to educate and the risk of elevating fringe ideas to a “reasonable minds can differ” zone.
• Deep historical roots of contemporary anti-Semitic tropes are traced and explained, with nods to the rhetorical tricks (“I don’t mean all Jews”) that have persisted for a century.
• Questions about double standards, moral responsibility, and the limits of free speech are directly addressed, often with philosophical references and self-reflection.

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For listeners or readers wanting clarity in the noise of online debate: This episode is a trenchant, detailed exploration of why silence, ambiguity, or selective solidarity in the face of conspiratorial anti-Semitism is itself dangerous — and why everyone, but especially those with a platform, must draw the line clearly.

Transcript

[Noam Chomsky]

This is Live from the Table, the official podcast of the world famous comedy seller coming at you on wherever you get your podcast. I was gonna say on Sirius. We're not on Sirius anymore. We are available on demand on serious and as a podcast and primarily on YouTube because that's. Nowadays, people like the multimedia experience. Gnome is here, obviously. He's the owner of the joint. And by the way, the new room is scheduled to open late 2025, hopefully New Year's. We could have, you know, be nice to have like an opening night new year.

[Dan Benelli]

That'd be great. That would be great. What was the old cable network that said, if you don't get it, demand? It was. It was.

[Noam Chomsky]

I don't recall that.

[Dan Benelli]

Was it Fox News or something?

[Noam Chomsky]

I don't know, but you probably Google it. I'm a little out of breath because I was a bit late, so I ran a little bit. Anyway, Perry L. Is with us. Periel Aschenbrand, author of On My Knees and the Only Wish I Trust Is My Own, available on Amazon, wherever you get books and Noam. Take it away.

[Dan Benelli]

We had a big. Dave Smith and I had a big Twitter feud brawl. Actually, Dan was collateral damage of this Twitter brawl because Dave lashed out at Dave. Let's start with that one.

[Noam Chomsky]

Well, I didn't even think he would see it, to be honest with you. I certainly wasn't expecting the response. I basically said he's a hostage to his followers. Noem's point is he doesn't condemn certain people. Candace Owens, Jake Shields. He doesn't condemn them. He doesn't call them out for antisemitism or forget about anti Semitism, just for crazy shit. I said he's a hostage to his followers. Basically. He's in a golden cage, as I put it. It's not a metaphor I came up with, but it's one that I used. And I didn't think that was an unfair critique of somebody that's a public figure. And then he came at me rather harshly, and I didn't even think he would see the trouble tweet, to be honest. But he said, you're a failure and I'm a success. And that's basically what he said.

[Dan Benelli]

And then there was another to have Fun doing your $75 spots.

[Noam Chomsky]

Well, that was another tweet and I.

[Dan Benelli]

Had to correct him. Then it was 1:25, but.

[Noam Chomsky]

So it was nasty. And he feels that I called him a liar. I mean, called him a liar. The implication was he doesn't condemn people. Is that being a liar? Well, I Guess you could spin it that way. But in any case, my attitude is he's a public figure. And I thought that was a fair critique and he could certainly rebut that critique, but he went a little bit further anyway.

[Dan Benelli]

I thought it was quite cruel of him to come at you that way. A lot of comedians I've observed over the years can dish it out, but can't take it. And for someone who understands what it means to struggle as a standup comic and after all, who made it? You know, maybe I'm wrong about this, but it seems to me achieved his success more as a result of political commentary than his standup work. That our Internet is down, that he would be more kind to you and less likely to be cruel, to turn a knife in somebody, a fellow traveler, as it were. You disagree with that, Dan?

[Noam Chomsky]

Well, yes, I agree with it, but from his perspective, I put the knife in first by making the comment that I made.

[Dan Benelli]

Well, listen, you're allowed. You know, it's like in schoolyard, kids fight, right? But they don't normally punch in the face. You know, I'm saying, like there's a certain, in certain contexts we know, certain places we don't go, even if we're going to have disputes. And there's a certain type of person in the schoolyard who reaches for a two by four and bashes someone over the head with it and say, what the hell are you doing? I know you're having a fight, but you don't do that.

[Sally Sattel]

Right.

[Dan Benelli]

And I think that what he did to you verbally was the equivalent of hit you over the head with a two by four.

[Noam Chomsky]

Well, and also he quote, tweeted me, which means that his followers will see it. He's done that before to me, which I think is unnecessary. But when you quote, tweet somebody, all your followers see it. So all his followers then piled on. I mean, I didn't read them, but I read a few of them. So quote, tweeting is, you know, is a more aggressive way I guess, to do it.

[Dan Benelli]

I didn't like that Dave Smith turned the knife into you like that. Do you have any last things you want to say about that before I move on to the.

[Noam Chomsky]

No, I think we covered it.

[Dan Benelli]

All right, so we had a Twitter feud because Dave Smith and I, because these anti Semitic. And it's not just limited to anti Semitism, but these conspiracy theorists are just taking over right wing maga, Twittersphere. It's a tremendous problem. And one of the things that I've been harping on for more than a year now. Right. Is that these people, although they have various levels of craziness and various levels of, I would say, hatred, they never turn on each other. So Dave Smith, who would never say some of the crazy stuff that Candace Owens says, will never actually criticize Candace Owens.

[Noam Chomsky]

He doesn't have to turn on her either. He just has to. We're not asking him to hate her, just to rebuke.

[Dan Benelli]

Just to rebuke crazy stuff within his ranks. So it becomes like a chain from the most outrageous, like Dan Bilzerian to Jake Shields to. To Candace Owens to Alex Jones to Tucker Carlson to Dave Smith and all the way. And it all kind of winds up on the Joe Rogan show in one form or another. And as I've said, it creates a kind of innocence by association as opposed to guilt by association, that there's a kind of imprimatur that these people provide to each other so that the whole entity becomes sort of sanitized by the. By the social click of it all. So, for instance, he'll refer to her as the. The great Candace Owens. Or, I forget, after some crazy thing she tweeted, he writes, if you're trying to go after her for this, maybe it's because you can't actually take on anything she said. And he tweeted once. I'm truly impressed with Candace Owens. She's incredibly smart and thoughtful and willing to search for the truth, no matter how controversial it might be. We're gonna play Dave Smith's rebuttal to me, but I just wanna say that I was actually sounding this alarm before October 7th and before Israel and Jewish matters were the primary concern. I began to notice it early on when Tucker Carlson was still on Fox News. And Tucker Carlson was someone who, I have to admit, I often would say, oh, good for him for saying so certain things that no one else is saying. And then I began to see him. I would check into something he would say about immigrants, and I'm like, no, that's not true. There's no basis for that. And then during the Russiagate stuff, he would. And I was always a disbeliever of Russiagate. Oh, as you know, always, always, always. But then he would say something like, yeah, we have some source within John Podesta's organization and he's turning over big stuff. Then he claimed that he had a gold standard source, that Trump wasn't even the central figure of the Mueller investigation, that it was really the Podesta brothers or Manafort. And of course, it turned out to be completely untrue. I'd look into that and it would go nowhere. And then when Covid came, and again, I was, you know, I think, always reasonable on Covid. He would just like, you know, when it came to the vaccine, he'd wheel out some person in a wheelchair and he'd say, look, the vaccine, you know, and then he was all. And then he would say, there's bioweapons labs in Ukraine. And he began. And then these conspiracies, and then he was all into UFOs.

[Gnome Dwarfman]

The US government has physical evidence of crashed non human made aircraft as well as the bodies of the pilots who flew those aircraft. The Pentagon has spent decades studying these otherworldly remains in order to build more technologically advanced weapons systems.

[Dan Benelli]

And I began to really worry about all this conspiratorial stuff. And then October 7th happened, and then it became closer to home for me because of. Because Jews became in the crosshairs for the conspiracy stuff. But I have to say, I've always felt this way. Anybody who knew me 25 years ago would remember that when the movie JFK came out and everybody was lauding what a brilliant movie this was, I was furious. I'm like, no, this is bullshit. And by dressing up this bullshit in a beautiful package and glossiness with skill, this is going to become like an IV into the American bloodstream of what they think history actually is. And this is dangerous because untruth is dangerous. Garbage in, garbage out. In a democratic society which relies on its people and the wisdom of its people to make decisions, obviously it's essential that they're making decisions and forming opinions based on what the best ascertainment we're capable of, of what is true and what's not. And when you have a whole group of people who begin to make decisions on things which are batshit crazy, bad things are gonna happen. And unfortunately, antisemitism being the mother of all conspiracy theories, with very few exceptions, you find that people who are into conspiracies wind up at antisemitism's door, as it were, even though they may not actually be anti Semites. They might even be shocked. What? I don't care if my daughter marries somebody Jewish. I have Jewish friends. I don't have the least thing against Jews. But I have to say, this stuff I'm hearing about how the Jews are controlling that and the Jews are controlling that, and the protocols, Elders of Zion, this rings true to me. And by the way, if it is true, then you wouldn't be an Anti Semite. Right? Like, if it's actually true, then how can you call somebody anti Semite if it's true? So this is where I am with Dave Smith, who I regard as a reasonable person. So I have been hounding him as Candace Owens especially began to say more and more crazy things. And he was like, you know, big upping her on Twitter. Candace and I are buddies, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now, I'll read a very good quote here from Christopher Hitchens, which I would like to introduce as the context. So let me read the Christopher Hitchens quote. Antisemitism is a prejudice that may sometimes be, but usually is not lightly worn. It has great appeal to pseudo intellectuals and pseudo aesthetes. Is that how I say the word? Because it has a great gossipy power and can draw on history and mythology and concepts like blood and gold. It can seem to explain a lot. And it can form a bond between upper crust types and the plebeians. A bond of sturdy race and nation against the clever and the tricky and the hard to place. I hope you can take this all in as it goes by. Now this is the key sentence here. The last one, a dead giveaway in distinguishing the obsessive or morbid anti Semite from the garden variety is an inability to stay off the subject. An inability to stay off the subject. And what I'm describing here with these people is an inability to stay off the subject. You know, and I was. I have like a partial list of the. Of the crazy stuff which is being said, like just in his crew, as I called it. LBJ was Jewish people, I don't think knew this, that LBJ was Jewish, Stalin was Jewish.

[Periel Aschenbrand]

Which then kind of gets into the question of the media who for a very long time tried to convince. Convince us that Stalin and Vladimir Lenin were anti Semitic. And then I learned, yes, they were.

[Dan Benelli]

They were literally a part of the Jewish cabal that, you know, and, and.

[Periel Aschenbrand]

When I talk about crushing history, where if you even say that, which I'm saying it because I looked into it and I found a friend who, who understands Georgian. And they're like, everybody knows that Stalin was Jewish.

[Dan Benelli]

Theodore Herzl, the founder of Zionism, was not Jewish, but wanted Israel set up as a haven for pedophiles. I mean, just listen to how the incredibly brave and thoughtful and smart Candace Owens is ready to search for truth.

[Periel Aschenbrand]

Many moons ago, before they decided to establish Israel as a country, Catholics and Christians were going missing on Passover. And then they would find bodies, okay, across Europe. And they were able to trace them back to Jews. There weren't Jews, okay? These were frank. This Frankish cult which is masquerading behind Jews still participates in this shit to this day, okay? Why would you want, as a small nation that is the size of New Jersey, okay? Why would you want the pedophiles to flee there? Why would you want the pedophiles to be procreating unless. Unless the nation of Israel may have been established by some frankists as. Looking like Theodore Herzl's family was from the exact same area in Moravia and in Bohemia where the frankist cult was founded. Crazy. Crazy when you get into his family that like, maybe he was not actually a Torah worshiping Jew. Like, I don't know. I'm just throwing out some ideas here. And by throwing out some ideas, I mean, I've read a ton of books and I figured it out, okay?

[Dan Benelli]

Kamala Harris is Jewish.

[Periel Aschenbrand]

And the evidence is pointing to. And there's no question, it's not even evidence. Like, nobody can dispute this. Snopes can't dispute this. Kamala Harris is Jewish.

[Dan Benelli]

The claims about Dr. Mengele doing all these experiments are beyond, you know, anybody's. Nobody should believe them because they're too outlandish.

[Periel Aschenbrand]

They experimented on twins. I mean, some of the stories, by the way, sound completely absurd. Like the idea that they just like cut a human up and then sewed them back together. Why would you do that?

[Dan Benelli]

Literally?

[Periel Aschenbrand]

Even if you're the most evil person in the world, that's a tremendous waste of time and supplies. That just sounds like bizarre propaganda.

[Dan Benelli]

The Holocaust is a gross exaggeration.

[Aaron Berg]

Bullshit.

[Dan Benelli]

Like the Holocaust.

[Aaron Berg]

It's like, well, yeah, Jews were put in camps, but there wasn't. There wasn't 6 million Jews that died in the Holocaust.

[Dan Benelli]

Just.

[Aaron Berg]

Yeah, I guess since we're going here. I was just reading yesterday. I should have known this, but I was realizing the main guy. Was it Rudolph Hoss? He's the main guy. The whole narrative is based around they tortured him for three days, five Jews. And the guy admitted. I can't remember, unfortunately, I forget his name, but he admitted to torturing him for three days without sleep until finally he signed the paper saying he did the Holocaust. And they also threatened to torture and kill his kids. So he went along with it.

[Dan Benelli]

So they.

[Noam Chomsky]

The whole.

[Dan Benelli]

Yeah, that.

[Aaron Berg]

And that is the whole. Man, that is based off of.

[Dan Benelli]

That's.

[Aaron Berg]

The whole thing was written around him. I mean, there's obviously holes everywhere else, but it's like when you. When you see that and the whole thing's based around. It's like, come on, am I going to. Am I just going to keep pretending like I believe this bullshit? Is there going to be a time when I fucking. You got to be like this? This is fucking ridiculous.

[Dan Benelli]

And by the way, you get to Tucker Carlson, I know, became enamored with David Irving, the Holocaust denier. David Irving's theories. The Jews installed Winston Churchill to pursue Zionist interests. But the biggest audience you ever had was you telling people that the reason the worst thing in human history happened was because the Jews put Hitler in fair.

[Aaron Berg]

But, like, look, I've told you before, I didn't know we were gonna talk about World War II. I wasn't prepared to talk about that. I definitely know we're gonna talk about Churchill. And if you watched, and I know you watched it, if you watched the thing, and there are a couple instances like this, like, that you mentioned earlier when he was like, what about Japan? Why is Japan doing fine? And so forth, where I felt like he's. He was trying to draw me into, like, deep waters that I was not comfortable with. And you can. I think you could see it in the interview where, like, I start to get a little shifty in my seat and less articulate because I'm a rye smile.

[Dan Benelli]

Yeah, yeah.

[Aaron Berg]

And that rice smile, by the way, was like. You know, it was. It was sort of taken as, like, a knowing smile when, you know, really, what.

[Dan Benelli]

What.

[Aaron Berg]

It was a smile of like. Like, what are you trying to do to me here?

[Dan Benelli]

You know?

[Aaron Berg]

And so by the time I got to the David Irving argument, which is where that comes from, you know, the. The stuff about Churchill being bailed out by financiers in 38 and 40, which did happen. You know, he had already asked me, like, twice, like, well, why would Churchill do this if it didn't make any sense for the British Empire? And I kind of walked around and gave, like, a meandering answer. He said, well, why else? I did it again, kind of again off the top of my head, because I wasn't planning on talking about this. He's like, well, why else? And I'm like, well, you know, people have written about this.

[Dan Benelli]

So what you're talking is Tucker's baiting you to blame the Jews. You. You.

[Gnome Dwarfman]

You.

[Dan Benelli]

You realize he's setting the trap. He says, why else? Why else? And. And you could have said, tucker, I'm not going there if you're implying that it was the Jews. No, no.

[Aaron Berg]

Well, look, yeah, maybe there's a reason. I don't do interviews very often.

[Gnome Dwarfman]

Ukraine, as you may have heard, is led by a man called Zelensky. Sweaty and rat like a comedian turned oligarch, a persecutor of Christians, a friend of blackrock.

[Dan Benelli]

This is interesting.

[Rob]

My God, really?

[Dan Benelli]

Yeah. Bin Laden. Now you know, Dave will say and like the Ron Paul take, is that when neocons were saying that they hate us for our freedom? No, actually if you read Bin Laden's letter, he tells us exactly why he hates us is because of, you know, involvement in the Middle east and Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian issue. All right, fair enough. Now this guy, Ian Carroll, which kind of just responsible for this whole flare up this week on the Joe Rogan show, he's a RABID Israel's behind 911 guy. So here's his tweet. Israel did 9 11. Now this is fascinating if you stop for a second because just to think about the contradiction. Bin Laden took credit for 9 11. So that would imply that Bin Laden is now some sort of Israeli spy or Israeli asset. Right? Okay, well if Bin Laden is an Israeli asset, then what are we supposed to take from that Bin Laden letter that Dave and Ron Paul based their worldview on? Here's another of his tweets. Our country is controlled by an international criminal organization that grew out of the Jewish mob and now hides in modern Zionism behind cries of anti Semitism. But make no mistake, it is an international organized crime syndicate and has complete control over Washington. And then the subtweet is evidence of a Zionist mafia, how Israel controls the US and the global politics. The Jeffrey Epstein thing now is supposed to be like some descendant of the old Jewish mobsters are still kind of in control of America and somehow with association with Israel, they set Jeffrey upstairs. Seen it as a honey pot as a way of again designers controlling stuff. Out of all the information that's getting.

[Aaron Berg]

Disclosed, supposedly this administration, what do you.

[Noam Chomsky]

Have the least faith that we're going.

[Aaron Berg]

To come to Abstinence for sure, Epstein. And I think it's because of Israel. I think that, because I think, I mean when you really dig into Epstein, his entire network was Israel. It was clearly he like Ehud Barack was the ex prime minister and the ex head of Israeli intelligence. So I'm not saying it was all of Israel.

[Noam Chomsky]

It was all an intelligence gathering and.

[Aaron Berg]

And it was targeting Americans, it targeting American officials and the American president. And the CIA does have interest in those targets too. Elements in the CIA does. Certainly they had help from the CIA and certainly they had help from these other organized crime and Intelligence operations. But Israel's government is, is as vulnerable to the deep state effect as the American government. But I would argue that Israel's government is way more vulnerable to it because of the people that founded Israel and the way it was founded. It was founded in modern time much more recently by like, it was a revolutionary found. And, and I, I can totally sympathize with the Jewish desire to have that state. Like, I get it, but because of the way that happened, the people that founded Israel were a bunch of organized crime figures in America, the Jewish mob that were helping with money and with arms trafficking to get the guns there, because they had to have guns. And it was the Rothschild banking families sending a whole bunch of money and getting the declaration in the first place. I think that it has grown cancerous to the Jewish faith in general because Jeffrey Epstein is the perfect example of this. Jeffrey Epstein was the world's most prolific and evil sex trafficker that we know of so far ever. And he very clearly was a Jewish organization of Jewish people working on behalf of Israel and other groups. And so that's a dark stain on Israel and on the Jewish people if you own it.

[Dan Benelli]

I also went on the same show to say that Pizzagate was actually never debunked. This was a theory that the Democratic Party, including Hillary Clinton and her campaign chairman John Podesta, were involved in a child sex trafficking ring run out of a Washington D.C. pizzeria or something like that. I'm not an expert. Oh, I left this one out. Ian Carroll also claims that Monica Lewinsky was most likely part of Jeffrey Epstein's sexual blackmail operation. And both Ian Carroll and Candace Owens are convinced that Israel was behind the killing of John F. Kennedy and an ally.

[Periel Aschenbrand]

And we're not allowed to ask questions about JFK's shooting. Yeah, the Mossad there on the day that JFK was shot. The arguments that he was having in the days proceeding with their prime minister, the person who allegedly shot him, Le Oswald Harvey, said he didn't shoot him, didn't kill him. And then he was shot by a guy named Jacob Rubenstein, who Muammar Gaddafi alleges was also an Israeli national.

[Dan Benelli]

So, you know, it all becomes just too crazy for words. So the US is controlled by an international crime syndicate that pursues Jewish interests. The Jews framed Michael Jackson. Israel was behind October 7th.

[Rob]

Wait a second. The Jews framed Michael Jackson?

[Dan Benelli]

And then like this guy Dan Bilzerian, you know, sums it up nicely.

[Gnome Dwarfman]

I mean, do you not understand why Jewish people might feel a sense of victimhood given that 6 million of them were killed in World War II by a genocidal monster.

[Aaron Berg]

Yeah, I mean, that figure has been revised.

[Sally Sattel]

But, you know, I believe that Jewish.

[Aaron Berg]

Supremacy is the greatest threat to America, and I think it's the greatest threat.

[Dan Benelli]

To the world today. I truly believe that. So I'm like, dave, this is a crew of people that you will never criticize. So I'm like, okay. So he comes back, you need to engage with their facts. Don't call them names. And, you know, I have some respect for that argument. And this is why years ago, when I had wanted to do a debate with Holocaust deniers, because I felt it was getting a little squishy, that we just say, you're an anti Semite, you're an anti Semite, where generations of people were growing up, never really being introduced to the facts, like, how do you know it was 6 million? How do you know? Like, you know. And I said, you know, we shouldn't just ask ever people to take it on faith. So I said, we should have a debate. And everybody told me I was crazy and I wasn't allowed to do that. But it's just an illustration of how much I do agree that we should engage with facts. However, we also should engage with patterns. And when someone has a pattern of making absolutely outlandish, obviously false arguments that hearken to thousands of years of similar theories, it is also fair to engage with that pattern, that inability to change the subject. When somebody puts forth the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and you say, that's anti Semitic. No, engage with the facts. Engage with Hitler's facts. Engage with all the facts. But engagement is not without its risks. Because what you do is you elevate and convert a notion that nobody took seriously and everybody had clarity about and turn it into a kind of reasonable minds can differ proposition. I mean, I can make an analogy that even in the law, which is also based on the weighing of facts, we have the concept of a summary judgment. When a claimant fails to produce evidence sufficient to create, like, a genuine issue of fact, the case will be dismissed and we even have punishment for frivolous claims. You can't waste the court's time. It's a cowardly and utterly dishonest answer. Fine, yes, engage with the facts. But be a man and engage with the pattern, and don't hide behind it. So, and you know, there's virtually not a claim on that list that I think Dave would endorse, but what he will not do is say, you know what someone who says 15 of these things, I gotta admit, when you start making 15 claims about the Jews, not a single one of them, I can even give you the first factual to start creating the case that it's true. I gotta admit, there's something going on here that's more than meets the eye. And of course, this is dangerous to the world. It's particularly dangerous to Jews all over the world. It's not just confined to America, but it affects foreign policy. One of the things that Tucker Carlson is now on. Let me just, let me get to Tucker Carlson. I'll play today's video first. So I hope you guys can hear it because our Internet's not working in the room. So I'm going to play it tethered to my phone and then I'll just have to cut it in later. Okay, so here, tell me if you can hear it.

[Sally Sattel]

It is wild to see the supporters of Israel demand that you label other people as anti Semites, including people say, like Candace and Ian, who bend over backward constantly to say, I'm not talking about all Jewish people here. I love Jewish people. Most Jews are regular people and have nothing to do with this. I'm talking about this tiny cabal of people. And Gnome or other people like this will turn around and say, oh, you hate Jews because you blame 911 on the Jews. It's like, well, no, he didn't blame 911 on all Jews. He, he said Israel was involved in 911, by the way. Hey, here's a wild thought. All the times you've heard me on the biggest platforms ever talking about the terror wars and the Al Qaeda and the war in Iraq and Syria and Libya and Somalia and the war in Gaza and 911 and all these things. Have you ever heard me say that Israel did 9 11? No.

[Dan Benelli]

Okay.

[Sally Sattel]

That's because I don't believe that. I've seen the evidence that people have. I think it's actually that people really overplay it and it's really pretty weak. And there's just no conclusive claim. There's like, there's no conclusive case here that Israel was involved in 9 11. Now if it came out tomorrow that Israel was involved in 9 11, it wouldn't exactly blow my mind and destroy my worldview, but it's not something I believe. I don't think that's right. But I also don't think it makes you a Jew hater to say that, especially when you're going out of your way to be like, no, no, no, I don't have a problem with Jewish people. I think there's this cabal within Israel, within the Mossad who's working with elements in the CIA, who did this thing. That's not an anti Semitic statement. It's not and it's not.

[Dan Benelli]

All right, so this is. Let me stop there. So one of the things he does a lot, he gives an incredible amount of credence to somebody who says the magic words. I'm not talking about all Jewish people, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I spent some time today listening, reading Father Coughlin, the famous anti Semitic preacher from the early, from the late 30s and 40s and Henry Ford and reading Dostoyevsky and actually just sampling various classic anti Semitism. Almost all of them will have something in there saying, I have no problem with the Jewish people. It's just blah, blah, blah, the bankers and this and this and the communists. And it was, you know, Father Coughlin was saying in 38 when it became started to leak out that the Nazis were turning up, turning the screws on the Jews before it went off the rails. He was saying, well, yes, we should. Our heart should go out to these Jewish people, but, you know, they're not in such trouble in Germany. But our heart should also go out to what the communists are doing, the Soviets are doing to the people in Russia. And by the way, almost all the communists are Jews. And then he makes a list of Trotsky and saying, I'm not saying all the Jewish people. I'm just talking about the Bolsheviks. And by the way, if you look at Candace Owens, she repeats these same lines today. Zelensky is a Bolshevik.

[Periel Aschenbrand]

People think that the greatest mass murderer was Adolf Hitler. And no, actually, if you want to talk about genocide, the fact that people in America don't know about what the Bolsheviks did to Christians. Where did the idea of a concentration camp come from? The Bolsheviks? The reason why we're not allowed to learn about these people, we don't talk about Henrika Goda is because he's a Jew. I mean, locking down churches. And people tell me to go support Zelensky as he's shutting down churches. You want me to support this Bolshevik? I'm not doing it.

[Dan Benelli]

Father Coughlin used to turn up talk about how Jews were oppressing Christians. That's what the Russia thing was. The Jews are oppressing the Christians. The communists are oppressing the Christians in Russia. Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson now talk about how the Jews are oppressing Christians all over the world. Now, never mind that the Muslim world has slowly been eradicated almost of all its Christian populations. Somehow the Jews are responsible for persecuting the Christians. Coughlin also talked about the fact, quote, the present writer wishes to add that some of the authors are convinced that Lennon's mother was a Jewess. Precisely the same point that Candace Owens makes. It's quite a coincidence. Don't you hear the echoes of Father Coughlin and Henry Ford? Is there nothing going? And Charles, all of them. Charles Lewis.

[Noam Chomsky]

Well, he just said that he doesn't believe Israel did 9 11. Now, is that a new statement of his?

[Dan Benelli]

That's the first time. No, listen, if it is or it isn't, I would never say that he thinks Israel did 9 11. Obviously, I shamed him into. I believe I shamed him into saying just that because this tweet I wrote against him got like 300,000 views, which is a lot for me because I don't have many Twitter followers. But I've always said before he said that. I don't suspect he does think that's true. My complaint is that because he is generally presents as a reasonable person and is for the most part a reasonable person, he's sanitizing these other people. It's as if I had people who hate blacks, who think black, you know, whatever it is, and I just won't ever. And I had them on the show and I discuss their views, and then someone says, as he did about Nick Fuentes, no, I don't think he's a racist. It's like, what are you doing, Nolan? Why are you rehabilitating vile racism? What game are you playing here? You wouldn't tolerate this on any other view. You wouldn't tolerate this from the neocons. You correct their fucking punctuation. You know, if they get a fact a little bit wrong. But in this, they can say anything. And there's literally no limit to it. I mean, Tucker Carlson says UFOs are later. Okay, so let me continue. Let me continue playing this.

[Sally Sattel]

And in the same way, talking about black crime in Chicago doesn't make you someone who hates black people. Look known, by the way, called Tucker Carlson an anti Semite Tucker Carlson.

[Dan Benelli]

So let me. I've said a little about Tucker Carlson already, but let's remember that Tucker Carlson is enamored with David Irving that he's now blaming our support for Ukraine on. He says that Israel's interests are behind our support for Ukraine, if not for Israel, and that it's in Israel's interest we would not be supporting Ukraine. He said this in his conversation with Glenn Greenwald.

[Gnome Dwarfman]

I Do think that the Russia is.

[Dan Benelli]

Disliked by a lot of people in.

[Gnome Dwarfman]

Washington because of the perception that they are detrimental to our interests in the Middle east and especially to Israel's interest.

[Aaron Berg]

In the Middle east, including their support.

[Gnome Dwarfman]

For Bashar Al Assad in Syria.

[Aaron Berg]

The fact that they have a good.

[Gnome Dwarfman]

Relationship with Iran, it doesn't really always.

[Aaron Berg]

Have a lot to do with the.

[Gnome Dwarfman]

United States, but with the interests of.

[Aaron Berg]

Other countries as well.

[Gnome Dwarfman]

So you think that's the prime mover here? Yeah, The Russians operate in Syria, they protect Assad in Syria, and as a result, they end up being antagonistic to Israel, which ends up being defined as US Interests as well. Like, there's no but. But strictly speaking, this has kind of nothing to do with us whatsoever. I mean, I, I don't, I honestly.

[Dan Benelli]

Unless you see Israel as a part.

[Gnome Dwarfman]

Of the United States, you know, I'm not hostile toward Israel, but I think it's a separate country. It seems to me a separate country as well.

[Aaron Berg]

It's often not treated as that.

[Gnome Dwarfman]

I'm just saying. But don't. But don't pay taxes there. Wasn't born there.

[Dan Benelli]

So he also, you know, I can't help it. My mind works this way. We also found out in that Fox News case that Tucker Carlson came out. He tweeted, he texted to a friend. A couple of weeks ago, I was watching video of people fighting on the street in Washington. A group of Trump guys surrounded and antifa kid and started pounding the living shit out of him. It was three against one. At least jumping a guy like that is dishonorable. It's not how white men fight. It's not how white men fight. Now I'm making a circumstantial case because the man has never said anything particularly about the Jews. But you know what sophisticated people, sophisticated anti Semites or sophisticated people in the throes of mental illness, they know better than to say, you know, I hate these fucking Jews. They don't. It's very rare that you say that. Everybody I know who is a racist, I don't know many of them, but we all know one of them who became pretty prominent in the comedy community for a while. He would never admit he's a racist. He would never say. He would say, kind of like, no, there's plenty of good ones. I just hate the bad ones. So the label becomes in some way beside the point. It's the garbage of the garbage in and garbage out. Which is the point that in the end this stuff is untrue and it's ugly for The Jews, where it comes from within Tucker Carlson's heart. You know, I don't know. I don't know. But mental illness has to be considered maybe part of the equation.

[Sally Sattel]

Do you think the presence of evil is kick starting people to wonder about the good?

[Gnome Dwarfman]

That's what happened to me.

[Dan Benelli]

That's what happened to you?

[Gnome Dwarfman]

Oh, yeah. I had a direct experience with it.

[Dan Benelli]

In the milieu of journalism or just.

[Gnome Dwarfman]

Nope. In my bed at night and I got attacked while I was asleep with my wife and four dogs in the bed. And mauled, physically mauled.

[Sally Sattel]

In a spiritual attack by a demon?

[Gnome Dwarfman]

Yeah, by a demon. Claw marks on my sides, on my.

[Dan Benelli]

So it left physical marks.

[Gnome Dwarfman]

Oh, they're still there. Yeah, yeah. A year and a half ago on my rib cage and on my shoulder and I was just in my boxer shorts and I went and flipped on the light in the bathroom and I had four claw marks on either side, underneath my arms and on my left shoulder. And they're bleeding.

[Dan Benelli]

Wait, they were bleeding?

[Gnome Dwarfman]

They were bleeding? Yeah, they were actual claw marks. Well, the next morning I woke up and I thought that was the weirdest dream I've ever had. And then I saw blood on my sheets and I realized that was not a dream at all. But yeah, that happened.

[Dan Benelli]

God allowed the demon.

[Gnome Dwarfman]

I have no idea what happened. All I know is I was dead asleep with my wife and dogs and I woke up with claw marks on my rib cage underneath my arms and it didn't even make sense. My arms would.

[Aaron Berg]

Anyway, whatever.

[Gnome Dwarfman]

I'm not. No one has to believe me. I don't care.

[Dan Benelli]

I mean, normally if you show up at the hospital bleeding and they ask you what happened and you tell them you were mauled by demons, they'll say, that's very interesting. Sir, we'd like you to come right this way. We're going to hold you for observation because obviously you could be a threat to yourself or others. I mean, you weren't mauled by demons. Continue.

[Sally Sattel]

The guy who said the Jews precisely zero times ever, He's. Tucker Carlson is actually an anti. Anti Semite. He's not, he's. I've had multiple conversations with Tucker Carlson about this.

[Dan Benelli]

Like, okay, maybe he has said that to Dave Smith. It's funny he doesn't say it more publicly. Instead, right after October 7th, he had on some Palestinian priest or something. Palestinian Christian priest, not from Israel, but from the occupied territories who turned out to be a Hamas supporter. Later on complaining about how Israel is persecuting Christians. Now who thinks Israel's persecuting Christians never even heard this. This is what he focused on right after October 7th. He says, why should our money go to a country that persecutes Christians? Now that's, you know, anti Zionism, anti Israel, doesn't make you anti Semitic. It's such a soup. But I haven't seen much from Tucker Carlson's show in a long, long, long time, which would indicate the kind of neuralgic response of somebody who felt, oh, I should say something on behalf of the Jews because they are really getting it right and left right now. He seems to more be happy to add logs to that.

[Noam Chomsky]

By the way, have you called Tucker Carlson anti Semitic? Because that doesn't seem like how you would phrase it if you did.

[Dan Benelli]

I think that. I think you'd be more likely to.

[Noam Chomsky]

Say, well, this seems to be an indication.

[Dan Benelli]

He could likely listen when somebody starts quoting or becomes enamored with David Irving theories about World War II. I don't know, like, we don't have many labels available to us in the English language. What do you want to call it? It's something. What would you call it if it's not anti Semitism, like rabid anti Semitism? No, I mean, this is the thing, like, as I alluded to before, anti Semitism in. In this century or at this time is a little different because many of the people that we would call anti Semitic, they don't care about having Jews in their family. They don't care about, you know, their daughter marrying somebody Jewish, and they're not afraid of. Of socializing with Jews.

[Sally Sattel]

But this is the. The craziness to me of the blind spots. And I just have to play this clip. I can't help myself. But these are the blind spots of. Of gnome Dwarfman, as he is calling me.

[Dan Benelli]

And he calls me Dwarfman. It's Dwarman with an M. Is that anti Semitic?

[Noam Chomsky]

What did Norman Finkelstein call? He always gets names wrong.

[Dan Benelli]

No, he got me right. He got me right. He got destiny.

[Noam Chomsky]

Mr. Benelli.

[Dan Benelli]

Benelli.

[Sally Sattel]

Blind spots of gnome Dwarfman as he is calling me out for not taking on what he calls my team. Because you won't criticize your own people. Okay, this is something that happened while they were having a conversation about me, which, you know, truth be told, the only reason I was watching, but here was my buddy Aaron Berg was on the comedy seller podcast. And of course, the topic was about me and in anything I said, but about how bad I am because of what Candace Owens said or something like that. Here's the clip. And I Want to see if you guys can. I played this on one of the members Only episodes, but I want the whole audience to see it here. So here's the clip. See if you notice anything in here that. That rings any, you know, alarm bells. Now, just to be clear, the topic here is me and how I'm not condemning anti Semitism, how I'm not condemning the excesses of the anti Israel side. Play the clip.

[Dan Benelli]

It horrifies me. And they know very well that Dave's Jewish.

[Sally Sattel]

Yeah.

[Dan Benelli]

And don't fucking think for a minute that they don't realize that it's advantageous.

[Sally Sattel]

To them to have a Jew on.

[Dan Benelli]

To have a Jew on who gives them their kind of stamp of approval or acceptance.

[Sally Sattel]

Yeah. And he's not the only Jew that is on that side, I'm sure.

[Dan Benelli]

No, but. But he's the most prominent.

[Sally Sattel]

Right.

[Dan Benelli]

It's the. It's not about Israel.

[Sally Sattel]

People don't like the point.

[Rob]

It said it's not about Israel and there's a difference. And I didn't want to interrupt you, but I do think that this distinction is very important. There is a difference between being critical of the Israeli government and being anti Israel.

[Dan Benelli]

But what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to segregate the whole Israel issue. And the point is that they always tell us being anti. Being critical of Israel is not anti Semitism being critical. And they're right.

[Sally Sattel]

But there's also a huge overlap.

[Dan Benelli]

Yes, there's a lot. But I'm saying that fine, if you, if you want to be the champion of the cause being critical Israel is not anti Semitism, then at some point you have to be ready to identify anti Semitism. Right. Otherwise you're the one connecting them. So, so, so, so that point there is that they always want to say that being critical of Israel is not anti Semitism. And they're right. But then they will never admit that anything is anti Semitism. So in some way, they are refusing to ever acknowledge. They claim that they sort of will tacitly allow you to say there is this other thing, which is anti Semitism, which is not related to being anti Israel, but they will never identify anybody, anybody in that category. I've asked Dave on Twitter, can you name an anti Semite, Bilzerian or Shields.

[Noam Chomsky]

Or one of those.

[Dan Benelli]

Now Bilzerian will say, the Jews are the greatest threat to planet Earth. Jake Shields will tweet, you Jews are sick, disgusting and vile people. Now, how do I engage with those facts? You want to engage with that should we look up. Ask ChatGPT to list evidence of vileness in people. It's so dishonest, what he's saying. All right, let's continue.

[Sally Sattel]

Now, what it is, is when you call somebody an anti Semite, it's like what happened four years ago when you would do racial jokes or you would do satire, and people would be like, that's racist. And it got to the point where so many people said, that's racist. Racist just became a term where it's like, just stop with what you're doing. That's nearly what's happening with anti Semitism now. And it's been prevalent for so long, and now it's. It's rearing its ugly head way more than it ever had. I mean, the 40s, of course, but it's. It's a huge thing. That being said, he's probably thinking, and I don't know how Dave thinks, but I'm. I bet he's thinking, look, freedom of speech is at the base of all of this. These people are allowed to have their thoughts. Candace can have her thoughts. Jake can have his thoughts. The same way as when I go online and I see IDF videos where they're fucking massacre. And people. And I get excited about it because I'm like, oh, that's payback. And when the pager thing dropped, and I was like, I got excited about the pager thing.

[Dan Benelli]

Yeah, but. But the whole. Let me stop here. So this became a thing. So on Twitter, when Dave answered me, we're almost finished, Sally. On Twitter, when. When Dave answered me, he alluded to something like, why would I even bother with this with no one? He won't call out people on his own team. And I said, perel, when did I ever. And he alluded to something. Being excited about massacres or something like that. And I immediately called Periel. I said, what could he be referring to here? And Perry says, the only time I remember somebody being excited about massacres was when Norman Finkelstein Talked about how October 7th warmed every fiber of his soul. And I couldn't think. I couldn't think. I couldn't think. Because as everybody knows, I really don't tolerate talk like that, even privately. And I'm never afraid to push back on that stuff. And I've done shows, you know, really upsetting people on my team and say, why you? Why are you elevating that person? Why are you amplifying that person? Why? Because I feel like I should engage with the fact. So, okay, I couldn't remember. Periel said, she'd look into it. She didn't find it.

[Noam Chomsky]

So this is it.

[Dan Benelli]

So this is it. So I'm going to tell you honestly, I remember it now. When he said the first part, I immediately said, what the fuck? Bobble over my head. I said, what the fuck is he saying? And I was actually ready to have knowing I had to intervene and say something you don't mean. Like I said to Leo Leibovitz, you don't mean this. Or I said to Ann Coulter, you don't mean really deport everybody. I have to understand. But, and let me just say as an aside, I don't know. He's not on my team. I don't know. Aaron Berg. He's actually a guy who performs with Dave Smith for the last 15 years, the Skank Fest. I've not said five words to this guy in my whole lifetime. I met him one time at Robert Kelly's backyard party. I made small talk with him. And the next time I've ever sat in a room with him was right there at that podcast. I didn't even know his views on Israel. I was hearing it all for the first time. But anyway, he said that, and then in the next sentence, he said about the pagers. And I did a quick mental arithmetic in my mind that, oh, he must be using. It sounds to me like he's using the word massacre, which is something you wouldn't. Is a word you wouldn't use to describe kind of a military, A legal military action to describe kind of like, do you see that basketball game? It was a massacre, meaning, like somebody and I. And because the only example he gave was the pagers. And I was in the middle of making a point, and I just continued to plow through with my point. And you know what? In retrospect, I'm sorry, I did, because it is ambiguous what he said. And so I called him today and I asked him and I spoke very frankly with him. I said, listen, if that's what you mean. I said, I will. You know, I would have had no problem rebuking you, because it's not like I might. I was not even in the bind that Dave Smith is. He's not a friend of mine. He's like, like, in other words, it's not like if Dan says something. And I thought, oh, or you like this guy I basically just met minutes before. Now, if he's saying something half cocked about killing, God forbid, you know, Palestinian children, I have no reason in the world to hesitate to say, what the fuck's the matter with you. So he called me back. I didn't get the call and he left a voice message. I asked him to respond to it. So do you have it? Tiana? Yeah. Hey. No, Ms. Ehrenberg just wanted to clarify my remarks in case they weren't clear enough.

[Sally Sattel]

I do fully support the massacre of the Hamas army.

[Dan Benelli]

It does excite me as I watch what happened on October 7th. So it feels like payback.

[Gnome Dwarfman]

And I also got very excited when.

[Dan Benelli]

The pager incident went down. That took a lot of thought and foresight.

[Gnome Dwarfman]

Hope you're well.

[Dan Benelli]

Bye. All right. I don't know. Adam. Aaron Berg from Adam. Is that the expression? Yeah. He could be lying right now. He could be. I don't have it. I am not. I don't listen. It's a lot for any human being to say privately, but let alone publicly. I love it when I see the Palestinian children massacred. Except for Norman Finkelstein, who really. And even to be fair, Norman Finkelstein, he didn't say he loved the massacre. He said, I love the faces of the Palestinians, like their relations, seeing their arrogant Israeli like overlords, humbled. That's what he said. So maybe it's a distinction without a difference, I don't know. But just to be accurate, that's what he said. So on the face of it, it's tough for me to believe that Aaron really meant he wants to see Palestinian children mowed down.

[Rob]

But he didn't say that and I don't think he meant that. I think it was really.

[Noam Chomsky]

When I rehear. Heard it.

[Dan Benelli]

Yeah.

[Noam Chomsky]

When I re. Listen to it today. Cuz I don't remember it. Yes. The word massacre, I felt that Aaron was saying it certainly was ambiguous at a minimum. And could be interpreted as him saying that when innocent Palestinians are killed, it's exciting.

[Dan Benelli]

Of course it could be.

[Noam Chomsky]

Of course it could be minimum. It was ambiguous and I think that Noem was so wanting to. I thought that you were just kind of like just you were on such a tear that you kind of maybe didn't process it and you misunderstood it.

[Dan Benelli]

No, I can't lie. I do remember it because I've had this experience more than once when a guest says something and I have to make a quick. Because obviously if I can confront it at that moment, I can get drawn into a whole nother conversation and then have to forfeit the point I wanted to get to. And I would do that if I felt I had to. But just a few things. But just a few things. But he seemed to clean it up. I might have even wanted to get back to it, but I didn't get back to it. But the distinction is, I'm not covering for him. But also, nobody would ever think that I would cover him. If Dave Smith tweeted at me, did you let Aaron Berg say this on your show? I would have immediately answered, oh, yeah, no, I have no use if that's what he meant. I have zero use for a guy like that. You know, he says that's not what he meant and he has no history of it. But of course not. Why would I spend two seconds defending someone like that? It's like, not like I'm not, as I said to Dave, I'm not in the same awkward bind that Dave is, cuz I'm not surrounded by these crazy bigots and lunatics.

[Rob]

We have said numerous times on this show, you have said numerous times on this show that every civilian death is a tragedy, especially children and women. You have said that. I mean, I can't even count the number of times.

[Noam Chomsky]

But did you say especially women? I don't remember that part.

[Dan Benelli]

I didn't say especially women. No. You know, I appreciate what you're trying to do, but you're not, you're not putting it like I would have ever put it. I don't.

[Rob]

It might not be your language, but my point is that you have gone out of your way on many shows to clarify that you take no joy or no pleasure.

[Dan Benelli]

I'll tell you what I did say on the show. It's a better illustration of what you're saying. I criticized the rabbi at Trump's inauguration when he was talking about the terrible condition of the hostages. And I said, you think maybe you could say a word for the terrible Palestinian children dying? I remember saying that. And there was a. When I was in Auschwitz at the 80th anniversary, one of my criticisms of the speeches of Auschwitz is like, you're describing all the things that happened to the Jews in Auschwitz. And the elephant in the room, the bubble over his head was like, it kind of sounds like what's happening to poor Palestinian children. I felt like you need to address that, explain why it's different. But let's not pretend like every person in the room is not making that mental connection. The mental connection itself is bad. I'm always sensitive to anybody who seems to just either because they don't care or because it's. The cognitive dissonance is difficult for them to deal with, to just pretend like it's not happening. This has to weigh heavily on any Jewish person or anybody who defends Israel here, that there's tremendous people dying. These are people dying, children and women. And of course, Aaron goes on later, he might be selling this clip or someone did. I don't remember. It becomes more and more difficult as you hear that the hostages were kept in the homes of civilians, as you see video clips of the civilians in jubilation, you know, as a, you know, hostages on the back of a truck to determine who is Hamas, who's not Hamas, who's responsible, who's not responsible. These are very difficult things. But as a fundamental issue of humanity, that you can't lose sight of the fact that this policy that you're defending has to be justified in the light of the people being killed. And those could be your kids, my kids, their kids, and they're innocent. Innocent life is innocent life. I've said this many, many times, and it's not for show. I believe it. All right, whatever. And I support Israel.

[Noam Chomsky]

One thing, I think that. I mean, you alluded to it, but one big difference is, even if you. Even if somebody says something that for whatever reason, you don't condemn on the show, whether it's because you don't want to create an awkward situation or you lose your train of thought if confronted after the fact, you'll give your opinion, right?

[Dan Benelli]

Exactly. Daniel, Let me say that part of what's unfair is. Part of what is unfair here is that you take 1,000 hours of shows, or maybe that's an exaggeration, but, you know, hundreds of hours of shows, and you comb through them and you find, aha. Here's an example of something, you know, he didn't do it here. And pretend that that's the pattern, when actually, that's a totally dishonest use of evidence. The pattern is exactly the opposite, as opposed to Dave, where what I'm describing is the status quo. This is what he does. I can't even find one counterexample he didn't catch me with in hypocrisy, because there is no hypocrisy in me. I have no love lost with anybody who. Forget about just anti Semitism. I get furious at people who don't stick to facts. I don't want to hear your goddamn conspiracy. If somebody Israeli came in here and tried to tell me that actually, you know, Hamas gives a lot of money to the Bidens and they control the Biden administration and blah, blah, I say, get what shit. Can you. Can you back that up? No. You know, then go F yourself. We're not here to hear your dumb conspiracy theories. It sounds like anti Arab garbage to me. All right. Almost done at the pager thing. Kept it. But the whole theory of free speech. And I absolutely. I'm not asking any of these people to be censored. I even wanted to have a Holocaust denial debate at the, at the Underground years ago. And I remember people, people. That was crazy.

[Sally Sattel]

How would you cater that?

[Dan Benelli]

Kosher. It's, it's. It's that. That the principle of free speech is based on the presumption that you're going to have people battling things out in the marketplace of ideas. I'm not asking Dave.

[Sally Sattel]

All right, just stop it right there.

[Dan Benelli]

Sense. Stop it.

[Sally Sattel]

Mike, I appreciate it. We're done. We're done here. Okay? So if you could just get past the point at the end. That gnome gets completely wrong. The whole principle of free speech is not predicated on the idea that you're going to have debate. Free speech is a value in and of itself and that it. It's wrong to rob someone of their ability to speak. But regardless of any of that, that is one of the benefits of free speech. But it's not predicated on that.

[Dan Benelli]

This might be wrong. I'm gonna lose it on this guy. First of all, he is right that there is a theory of free speech that's like kind of the human right. No, no. That is like the fulfillment of the moral autonomy of the self. And maybe this is something like we learned. I'm gonna screw it up. Like Immanuel Kant or somebody would talk about free speech this way. But in most political contexts, specifically in like the libertarian world that he lives in, the heterodox world, Free speech. The Bible on free speech is On Liberty by John Stuart Mill. And if you read. I just pulled it up here now, so I was texting. If you read On Liberty by John Stuart Mill, it is all about the fact that we need free speech. Because without free speech, we never know what is true. And only through everybody being able to speak whatever their version of truth will we be able to have a clash of ideas and eventually determine what is or isn't true. That's what I meant by. That's the whole point of free speech. Now he can say, you know, nam is. You know, he's alluding to that. But there's also this. Instead he tries to make it sound like I'm stupid, like I'm not. Like I said something ridiculous. And he's laughing in his fucking arrow like I'm. I mean, and the thing is I'm presuming he has read John Stuart Mill, so I don't know where he's coming from on that, but I brought it up here. So at the very end of John Stuart Mill's essay, we have now recognized the necessity of the well being of mankind, blah, blah, blah. And the freedom, the freedom the expression of opinion on four distinct grounds. I'll try to edit them. I should have prepared this. First, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may or ought, we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility. Secondly, talking about the truth of it. Secondly, though the silenced opinion be an error, it may be, and very commonly does contain a portion of truth. And since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied. Thirdly, even if the received opinion be not only true, but the whole truth, unless it suffered to be and actually is vigorously and earnestly contested, it will by most of those who receive it be held in the manner of a prejudice with little comprehension or feeling of its rational grounds. This is why I was talking about the Holocaust. That's the danger of the Holocaust. You just always hear it's true. You always hear it's always true, but you never have it tested. It becomes just like a religious belief. And not only this, but fourthly, the meaning of the doctrine itself will be in danger of being lost or enfeebled and deprived of its vital effect on the character and conduct. The dogma becoming a mere formal profession, inefficacious for good, but cumbering the ground and preventing the growth of any real and heartfelt conviction from reason. This is what I intuited years ago about the Holocaust. It was just becoming a dogma. And this fucking guy has the nerve to laugh at me like I don't understand the importance of free speech. This is the importance of free speech. And yes, and I do have sympathy for it. We do are, we do. There is something fundamental about just liberty to be able to say what you want, express your blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But you know, if there was such a thing as absolute falsity. We do have laws, libel, slander, laws that do try to prevent you from saying things which are known to be untrue and damaging or unfair to other people. So, and the reason we hesitate on that is not because we feel people are exercising their personal moral autonomy by slandering someone. The reason we struggle with it is because we understand that if we don't allow some latitude for that, we will damage the debate that is necessary for a democratic society. It's not. We're not worried about damaging the personal moral autonomy of people who want to say untrue things about people. This is why the whole New York Times versus Sullivan. He makes me so fucking angry. I'm sorry. Because it's so. I don't know if it's dumb or it's mendacious or both treacherous. I don't know what's going on. What he said to you was so cruel. I'm no longer inclined to give him the benefit of good faith. Benefit the doubt of good faith.

[Rob]

Can I say something?

[Dan Benelli]

Let's listen to the most.

[Sally Sattel]

That is one of the benefits of free speech. But it's not predicated on that. But can you believe this, Rob? I mean, is this not like just the most insane thing ever? And by the way, to preface, I love Aaron Berg. I've known Aaron berg for like 20 years. He's a friend of mine. I'm not saying anything bad about him. But could you imagine being in the middle of a conversation where you're criticizing me for not calling out the bigotry on my side, and you're sitting there and you're making the point that the whole thing about free speech is that you gotta push back against bad ideas. Aaron Berg, in the middle of all of this, says that he gets excited when people are being massacred and no one even thinks to give it some pushback.

[Dan Benelli]

All right, we'll stop here. I address why we didn't push back. I'm sorry I didn't push back. And like I said, there's no evidence ever that I don't push back on these things. I said why I didn't push back. Now that I have pushed back balls in Dave's court to do the same thing, but to compare. I mean, Dave is just. I read the list. It bothers me so much because I can't believe there's any good faith in this. All too clever avoidance of the obvious. These people are just spouting out one retread. Anti Semitic, classic anti Semitic theory after another. The pile gets higher and higher. It is now on the Joe Rogan Show. He is the most important media figure in the world. It's not limited just to the borders of the United States of America. It's going out to the entire world. And as I once said to Dave, and he didn't like it, I believe many of these people are using him as a useful idiot because he's Jewish. Jake Shields will talk about my Jewish friends. My Jewish friends. Yeah, he does have Jewish friends. He's not lying. Go ahead.

[Rob]

Well, that's.

[Dan Benelli]

And then we get to Sally Sattel.

[Rob]

That's essentially what Dan said, which enraged Dave so much. Right. And I just wanted to call out because I think it's really interesting that after this whole performance of just engage with facts and don't call them names, the horrible things that he said to you, just.

[Dan Benelli]

I don't care about that.

[Rob]

Well, I mean, you might not care about that, but why would you predicate your entire position on this statement and then you do the exact opposite? Instead of engaging with what Dan said, which, whether you like it or not, it was a fair point. It was something that was a reasonable and legitimate thing to point out.

[Dan Benelli]

No, Dan took a personal swipe at him a little bit, but, but as I said, like, not like that before, before you came. Because he, he belittled Dan. He says you're a failure in your career and all kinds of cool stuff.

[Rob]

Well, he said shut the up, which was so rude.

[Dan Benelli]

And, and my, my analogy was that when kids fight in the schoolyard, you know, they'll, they'll have fisticuffs, but they won't punch each other in the face. Like it's like a certain context. And the kid who does actually take a two by four and hit somebody over the head, the other kids say, what are you doing? You're having a schoolyard fight. So Dan was still clearly to any ration to any sensitive personal area. Danny's kind of, he's addressing what's going on here. Like, I'm criticizing Dave for this. And Dan's saying, well, maybe it's because you're captured by your audience, Dave. And then Dave's talking about, you're a failure. Like, this is, you know, okay.